hoo-rah, chapter 1.

And now we return to Kairi and Riku in Yen Sid's tower (if you haven't seen the DreamDropDistance secret ending yet, Riku has brought along Kairi from destiny islands to train to be a keyblade bearer.)

btw, did you guess who the girl in the prologue was yet?

abtw, I've done some reading since, and i'm 80% sure that "smirk" is this community's favorite word.

aabtw, quick question: what on earth is sweatdropping?

Skip, hop.

The sound of sneakers squeaking on marble tiles bounced along the twisting, physics-defying corridors of Master Yen Sid's tower.

It still gawked Riku that seemingly hundreds of corridors would fit into the narrow tower - yet they did, probably by some freak combination of Magnega and Graviga that only Yen Sid would understand.

He had long since given up on trying to create a mental map of the place; doing so had only gotten him hopelessly lost countless times, several of in which the Master himself had had to go fetch him.

He found it easier on the mind (and the heart) if he simply pretended he wasn't bending the laws of all physics and gravity just by walking these godforsaken halls. He felt like fighting Xemnas had been easier than finding his way around here.

So it slightly peeved him that Kairi, walking ahead of him with a bounce in her step, seemed to walk through the maze as if she had done it all her life, striding confidently and purposefully, leaving Riku to follow rather sheepishly in her wake.

The walk to the training rooms proceeded in silence. There was an awkward tension in the air; Riku had stopped trying to make conversation with Kairi, and she was doing the same, skipping to preoccupy herself.

It wasn't that he was glad to see her, but she was so strange and unfamiliar all of a sudden. She had grown taller and her face had changed since he'd last seen her from the other side of the door to darkness, and Riku sheepishly admitted to himself that she had also grown a great deal in the way of looks.

There had been that one day of joy when Sora and he and Kairi had all met at the restored islands, but there had hardly been time for rebonding; Sora and Riku had been called to again, leaving Kairi all alone on the islands for a second time.

After finally seeing her again, he thought that he'd be bursting with questions and things he wanted to tell her, but instead was met with this awkward silence. She had become a stranger, an alien - not separated by distance, but by time. A daunting wall of differences had built itself between them over their separation; the roots that had grown deep, under the wall, still connected them by a thread of distant childhood, but breaking down the wall would take time.

Riku felt a small pulsating guilt that he tried to push down. The last he had properly seen her was in a coma brought on by his own hand, and now he couldn't even strike up a conversation with her.

Presently, they came to an abrupt stop at a menacing set of double doors that cut off the hallway neatly. Kairi stepped forward and tugged at the ornate curved handles to no avail. The doors gave no sign of giving, still as rock. Kairi, already committed to the task, tried again, and promptly fell backwards on her rear. She gasped a little and, scrambling clumsily to her feet, awkwardly stood staring at the door, not eager to risk embarrassing herself again.

The doors smugly stood there.

After the more fiery colors had left her face, Kairi turned helplessly to Riku for an explanation.

Mildly amused, Riku explained, "The doors have Gravira cast on them. Whenever somebody tries to open the doors, they get pushed back."

"Then how do we-"

Riku's keyblade materialized in his open hand as an answer, and he aimed it at the doors. A cloaked keyhole sparked into existence, and light leapt forward from the tip of the weapon, connecting with the lock.

With a deep rumble, the "double doors" slid upward into the ceiling.

Riku gave Kairi a look of finality and led her through.

As the "double doors" slid back down into place behind them, Riku saw the girl flinch; the room before them was eerily familiar. Unlike the deep blues of the corridors, pure white colored the training room's walls. Ornate marble tiles formed the floor, and marble pillars and ornaments were set into the walls.

He glanced sympathetically at Kairi, who tried to look bored, but she couldn't mask the fear dancing in her eyes.

"Master Yen Sid modeled this room after the Castle That Never Was," Riku explained. "He says it keeps us from forgetting." Forgetting what, he felt, didn't have to be spoken.

Kairi just stared at the empty-looking walls, the cold, uninviting atmosphere flowing around them. The room seemed to push them away.

Trying to distract her from the unpleasant memories he was sure were flashing before her, he reached into the torrent of darkness held at bay in the back of his mind, and focused, channeling it until his Keyblade materialized in his hand.

The Way to Dawn was as beautiful and horrible as ever; Riku tried not to look at his blade's twisted appearance. The glowing, glinting angel's wings on the tooth and part of the guard abruptly gave way to black twists and spikes.

The hybrid keyblade was a beacon of guilt and isolation for him; it gave him part of the light that was always just out of his reach, and taunted him of the darkness that he had once embraced. It was a painful reminder of his unbelonging, of his strange place, torn in the twilight. At least when he wielded Soul Eater, he had had a definite grasp on the darkness he belonged to.

He shook his head. No, don't think that way. That was an easy way back into the darkness.

Riku forced himself out of his train of thought and realized Kairi had taken the weapon gingerly in her hands, running her fingers over the savage blade and the angelic guard.

She finally spoke. "It's a lot different than Sora's."

Riku winced. It always came back to Sora, not him. He was the one inevitably connected to all things; Riku was simply another strand among dozens of bonds that Sora had maintained. And even though he knew that Kairi had every reason to choose Sora over Riku, it still hurt.

He tried to hide his grimace, but Kairi still saw it and quickly tried to recover from her mistake. "I mean, it's different from all the keyblades I've seen, ever." She had just made it worse. "I... I mean.." She became increasingly flustered, but Riku waved her off.

"You didn't offend me, don't worry. It's true, after all." He lied. "Now."

Way to The Dawn flashed gently out of existence as Riku crossed his arms faced Kairi squarely. "About your Keyblade."

Yeah the chapter's short but I wanted to make clear that I wasn't one of those people that write one chapter and say they're going to do all this grand stuff but end up never doing anything else.

Feedback is appreciated :D

and also llamas :D

and also go watch the new fairy tail episode.