Kairi opened her eyes slowly, still tired. Rolling over, she was surprised to see that the room was entirely empty. How late could it be, she thought. Shouldn't Sora and Riku be here, at least?

She stood up and walked into the other room, expecting that maybe the others had moved out of the room she had been in to let her sleep. But no one was there, either. Sora's room was empty, Riku's room was empty, and the square outside was inhabited only by local residents—no Sora, no Riku. Where could they have gone…? Relief swept through Kairi's mind when she noticed Yuffie and Leon walking up towards the house. She met them at the door, smiling.

"Good morning."

"Um…hi." Leon said quietly, glancing at Yuffie nervously. Kairi noticed their uncertain attitude—and the relief left almost instantly.

"Where are Sora and Riku…?"

"They…" Yuffie began. She stepped into the house and walked to the other side of the room, Leon following behind. Kairi turned around, dread in her gaze. "They left, Kairi. They're gone."

Silence settled into the room. Kairi stared at the floor disbelievingly, shocked beyond words. "No…" she muttered, tears forming in her eyes and sliding slowly down her face. "They can't have, it's not….it's not…."

"They have to find out about the people who attacked them. We believe they could have the same intentions of the original Organization, and we can't allow them to continue whatever it is they're trying to do. So Sora and Riku left." Yuffie explained gently, putting her arm around Kairi consolingly. "It's for the best, Kairi."

"So in other words…" Kairi whispered, sobbing. "…in other words, Sora left to go save the world again?"

"If you want to put it like that, yes." Leon said bitterly.

Kairi sobbed harder and threw herself onto the bed, hysterically crying. Yuffie gave Leon a "nice going" glare and sat in a chair next to the table.

"It's not fair…" Kairi cried, shaking with each sob. "He's gone, and I couldn't even say goodbye…what if I never see him again—I can never tell him…tell him that…"

"He said goodbye, Kairi, we promise." Yuffie handed her a piece of paper that had been lying on the tabletop. "He left this."

The young girl took the piece of paper and held it in her quivering hands. Opening it slowly, the tears fell faster as she saw what it said. Crying uncontrollably now, she nodded to herself and dropped to the floor in anguish.

"I love you too, Sora." she whispered, clutching the scrap of paper tightly. "I love you too. Just please—come back to me."

Sora stared at the boy with utter confusion. "And you are…?"

"My name's Hyakutaro! It's a great pleasure to meet you all!"

"Oh. Well, hi, we're Sora, Riku, and Cloud." the Keyblade master replied, gesturing towards his two friends.

"Hello." Riku mumbled unhappily. Cloud only nodded. Beaming, Hyakutaro stepped forward and shook all three of their hands.

"Welcome to Memory Isle! What brings you here?" he asked happily, beaming. Sora stared at him for a moment, taking in the boy's appearance. He was about Sora's height, most likely Sora's age, with short auburn hair that had more brown than red. His intense brown eyes matched his hair perfectly.

"Uh, we're here on business." he mumbled. The boy's smile faded very slowly.

"Business? What kind of business?" There was a long pause. "Oh crud, not this Heartless business again, right? Or Nobodies either? Organization XIII?"

Sora jumped in surprise. "You know about them?"

"More importantly," Cloud added, "what do you know about them?"

Hyakutaro looked at the three cautiously. "Well, I can trust telling you. Things would get completely out of hand if word got out. Keep it quiet, all right? We'll go back to my place and talk about it." He turned and walked down the dirt path, along which were many houses on each side, all looking pretty much the same. There weren't many people near here, but the sounds of the ocean nearby mixed with countless voices—no doubt everyone had left the dusty streets to go to the beach. It was an island, in a way, after all.

"So what's it like, living here?" Sora asked suddenly, trying to start a conversation amid the silence.

"A prison." Riku and Hyakutaro said at once. They both turned to look at each other.

"We grew up on an island." Riku muttered, pointing to Sora. "I know…what it's like, I guess you could say."

"No kidding." the other boy grumbled. "I can't stand it here, sometimes. I could be doing bigger and better things, but here I am, on this stupid hunk of land."

"That's what I used to think." Riku said quietly, looking away. "Just don't do anything you'll regret." Even quieter, so only Sora, who was next to him, could hear, he whispered, "Like I did."

"I guess that you aren't just everyday people." Sora blinked in surprise and looked at the boy, who only laughed. "Well I knew you weren't everyday, I mean, c'mon, you're the Keyblade Master! I meant more them than you." He stared at Cloud. "What about you? Where are you from?"

Cloud looked at him for a very long time, silence stretching on and on. "Midgar."

"Really? I've never heard of it. You fight much?"

"Yes." the swordsman growled, gripping his sword tighter. "I do."

"So are you a bodyguard?"

"You know what…" Sora said nervously as Cloud fumed angrily, "...no one's here. We can have our conversation now and continue when we get to the house."

"Don't have to." Hyakutaro answered, walking over to a small building and crossing the porch to the front door. "We're here."

The house was smaller than the rest, but quaint. The spacious front porch had a few chairs and a table set up on it, but the four walked right past them and into the house, which, as far as Sora could tell, had only four rooms—a kitchen to their left, a living room to their right, and a bedroom/bathroom off of the living room. Hyakutaro led them into the kitchen, nodding towards a table with three chairs arranged around it. He himself sat on the counter, opening the fridge and grabbing himself a soda.

"You guys want anything?"

"No thanks." Cloud and Sora said, shaking their heads. Riku stared at them like they were nuts and nodded instead.

"Yeah, I'll have one of those sodas and some chips or something. We haven't eaten all morning and I'm dying."

"Sure thing," the boy answered, tossing a can of soda to him and opening a cabinet to look for snacks.

"So, um, anyway…Hyaku…?

"Oh, call me Taro. The whole thing's too long to remember, I've come to learn."

Sora nodded, glaring at Riku as he slurped the soda. "How did word about the Heartless and stuff reach here? I never came here before, so...how did you know?"

"Simple," was the answer. "We were attacked. About a year and a half ago, before Organization XIII was even on the map. For a while there was nothing we could do to fight back, and our only hope, really, was to leave as fast as possible. I think we would have been done for if you hadn't defeated Ansem—er, Xehanort, when you did. So thanks for that."

"No…no problem." Sora replied awkwardly. "But you know about Xehanort, too? And Organization XIII? Did they attack?"

Taro nodded sadly, pain entering his expression. "They sure did. Killed about half our population. With so few people living here, it doesn't seem like much, but with a community as close as ours…it was like losing half of your family."

"That's terrible."

"No doubt about that, but I gets worse. I looked them up in our archives, to find out where they were coming from…we have all the navigational data from everywhere—and we'd been deleted from the entire map! So our world, to outsiders, just didn't exist. Not to mention wherever they were coming from was unknown. We were completely helpless."

"But why would they delete a world from the archives? They attacked plenty of places, but never tried to make it so it didn't exist." Riku said with confusion, sticking his hand into the bag of potato chips. Cloud glared demonically.

"It's because…" Taro looked up at them. "Promise me, you have to keep this a secret. We could all die if this gets out, okay?" Completely surprised and taken aback, the three nodded. Taro inhaled deeply and looked at them all seriously. "I'm a failed member of SOLDIER."

"Huh?" Sora and Riku said together, not understanding. Taro blinked.

"You don't know SOLDIER? Eh, well, it wouldn't matter if you did." Slowly, he turned to Cloud, who looked like he had just seen a ghost—or, rather, was seeing a ghost. "Have you ever heard of it…uh, Cloud, was it?"

Cloud sat in complete silence, hardly even breathing. "I might have." he lied, practically panting. Taro stared at him for a moment, and then continued.

"Anyway, that's why they came here. To destroy our world and take me with it. You see, they didn't really understand SOLDIER, either—they thought it meant I had some special hold over the darkness. Depending on what they were referring to, they could have been close, but no. All they knew was that Sephiroth, who I'm cloned from, is powerful—and they expected me to be even better. So, well…" he stopped. "The rest is kind of hard to talk about…bear with me, okay?"

Sora nodded apologetically. "Yeah, go ahead, we're listening."

"After I found out we'd been deleted from the archives, I tried to add us back in. Somehow they found out that new data had been entered, and caught me. All in all, they wanted the data deleted so no one would know where I came from and try to take what they thought was theirs."

"They hid it from Maleficent." Riku said, gritting his teeth at the name. "She was controlling the Heartless against them, trying to steal the hearts the Nobodies wanted, so when they found you…"

"I was a secret weapon, and everything about the secret weapon was to be kept quiet."

"Because they thought there were more SOLDIER members?"

"Something like that. I was taken away from here, to a place called Castle Oblivion. Their leader—Xemnas, obviously—wanted nothing to do with me at the time. By now, Xehanort had been defeated by you and they were focused on finishing what he started. Marluxia, head of the castle, was busy planning how to properly do away with you, so I was kind of a side project. For a while, I just sat in the room they had locked me in and wondered when…or if…I'd ever see daylight again. An eternity later, I finally realized that I'd probably just die here. And I would have, too, if the new Organization XIII hadn't started up."

"The new one?" Sora said, leaning forward in his seat. This was what they were really interested in—the people who had attacked them. "So it is true. That there's a new Organization XIII?"

"Yeah. It seems that when the original thirteen were killed, a new set stepped forward, more Nobodies taking the place of the strong-willed people who had become Heartless." Sora and Riku exchanged glances, thinking. So the people we fought, they really were Organization XIII. "Their new leader found me, knowing I was with SOLDIER, and instantly…" Taro paused, grimacing at the painful memory. "…he started conducting experiments on me, using darkness as a variable."

"How could he do that?!" Sora shouted, sensing the injustice.

"I don't know, he just…did. He really didn't understand what SOLDIER was, and thought that shocking me with darkness on a daily basis, with different types of darkness and darkness that was more or less powerful…it was pure, untouched darkness. Nothing had ever come in contact with it—not people, not Heartless, so it was concentrated, five or ten times the power of normal darkness, and it wasn't fun. Eventually he realized that I was useless, and his experiments weren't helping. Took him long enough, I'll tell you that. His solution was for me to be target practice for the rest of Organization XIII, because I had become sturdier and could withstand certain types of darkness—the weakest ones. That plan got rejected, so they mainly waited for me to die."

"That's just…how could they…?" Sora was outraged. Here was this boy, who simply loved life and didn't want anything in return—and he had been unfairly used as a lab rat in Organization XIII's experiment. It just wasn't right.

"Sora, don't worry about it. Just let me tell the story. I didn't die, okay? It was because of the condition I had developed that I escaped."

"Condition?" Riku asked through a mouthful of chips and soda. Cloud finally let his frustration get the best of him and took the bag of chips away, tossing them over his shoulder. "Hey…"

"It happened during the experiments, apparently. Enough darkness had infected me that eventually, small amounts had been grouping together and forming something similar to clots. When certain extreme emotions are triggered—anger, frustration, hatred, envy—the darkness builds up more and shuts me off from…myself, really…and I go into something like a Berserker state."

"Like Saix?" Sora questioned.

"Only worse. I have absolutely no control over what I do…so if I'm fighting, I could very well end up attacking someone on my side, and I won't be able to stop on my own. Plus, each time it happens to me, I get a little weaker as the darkness overflows. The spill-over from each attack basically, very, very slowly, starts consuming me. So really, I know I'm going to die soon. I just don't know how soon."

There was complete silence. Sora was thinking to himself, about what Yuffie had said before they left.

"But judging by our research, a vast amount of dark energy has been gathering there, lately. So we think it's a good place to start."

Taro probably had something to do with this. His darkness, inside of him, slowly ending his life, was what they had discovered. It was as good a find as any—if they stopped Organization XIII, they might be able to save him. He stood up and walked over to Taro.

"I promise you, we're going to get back at Organization XIII. That's why we're here."

"You mean…?" Taro asked, his eyes brimming with fear.

"Yeah. They're back, and worse than ever."

"No…way." Xaice whispered. "We're going to do what?!"

"We're going on a trip!" Lenexa cheered, dancing in a circle. Rarext glared with her intense, frightening eyes and tripped him mid-skip, sending him careening into the floor. Texal suppressed a laugh, shuffling his deck of cards as always.

"A trip?! This is no time for a trip!" Xarik protested, stabbing her knives into the floor forcefully, scraping and cracking the glass-like surface. "We have to focus on our mission." Several of the members present rolled their eyes.

"But this is just a part of our mission, Xar!" Xaice replied, the thought still dawning on him slowly. "We have to travel away from here, so we can look for our enemy! Don't you see?"

"No, I don't." she answered bitterly, grinding another knife into the ground. "I say we stay here, find where he is, and then go there, so we can all attack at once."

Zaix rose out of his chair and walked over, his black boots clicking quietly on the floor as he crossed the room. "That could work, but it's unlikely we'll find him very quickly, or at all, from here. We have to go out and track him down."

Suddenly, there was a crash from the hallway outside. Xaice, Zaix, and Texal exchanged glances, and Rarext swore angrily.

"It's him, innit?" Lenexa asked innocently, looking from one person to the next as he twirled his shooter around on one finger. Every one of them nodded slowly, if not disappointedly. The door swung open, and they were greeted by a whirlwind of shattered glass and paper as it drifted into the room.

"Wassup, everybody? Being good little puppets, just like you think you should be?"

"Nexhayd!" Xarik snapped, hurling a knife at him. "Go away, you'll only ruin all our plans! You're a complete nuisance!"

The boy stopped the knife in mind air, telepathically, and let it clatter to the floor a few feet away from him. "Ugh, Xar, you know not to call me that, girl. I hate that."

"What, call you by your actual name?"

"Well DUH." the boy answered apathetically, playing with a lock of his purple-ish hair. "So seriously, what is it that you're all sitting here doing? It's in your best interest to tell me, so cough it up." Still, there was silence. Sighing, Xaice walked over and clapped a hand on his shoulder, grinning sarcastically.

"Nex, look. Walk away while you still can."

"Eh, why should I, huh?" he asked, looking at Xaice with a slightly confused and questioning expression.

"Because, smart one, Rare is about a half a second away from slitting your throat."

Nexhayd glanced over at the positively irate girl, who was visibly seething, glaring at him as angrily and hatefully as she had ever glared at anyone. He nodded.

"Hmph. Well, I guess you don't care about the news flash then, I'll just go…" he turned to leave, walking slowly as if he expected them to stop him.

"What news flash?!" all the others asked in unison, gathering in front of their fellow Nobody with hopeful and curious looks. Nexhayd grinned and shrugged.

"You say you're going to look for Sora, no? And just where do you suggest we start?" The room became so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. "Right. Bet you didn't consider that. Well it just so happens that I remember a small tidbit of information from a few years ago. Because I pay attention."

"What?" Xarik demanded impatiently, stomping her foot. Rarext slapped her, annoyed beyond self-control by the actions of the others.

"You don't remember the SOLDIER boy?" he said, astonished. "Seriously?" There was a long pause, and then Lenexa gasped.

"Oh yeah! That kid that the Superior found on Memory Isle, when we tried to take it down! I remember him, uh….what was him name…?"

"Hyakutaro." Nexhayd said quietly, smirking. "SOLDIER, First Class."

"So you're saying that he's where Sora is right now?" Xaice questioned, staring at his colleague with an apprehensive form of agreement.

"It's as good a guess as any, am I right? He probably rendezvoused with him right off the bat, so he could get back at us. Just like all our enemies do."

"And since he's SOLDIER, he already would have teamed up with him so they could try and combine efforts to take us down. And he's been inside here long enough to help Sora infiltrate the castle using inside information." Rarext interjected unexpectedly, causing everyone to turn and stare at her. "We have to take him out as soon as possible. He's a threat."

"Good call, dearest!!" Xaice cheered, leaning over to hug Rarext. In the blink of an eye, she grabbed his arm, flipped him over, and pinned him to the floor. Xaice merely chuckled and whispered, "It's her obstinate way of expressing affection, that's all. She loves me. Really."

"Then let's go already!" Xarik cried, pulling her knives out of the ground and stuffing them into her cloak pockets. "We can't waste any time with this."

"She's right, but we need a plan." Texal mumbled, jadedly arranging his cards onto the glass table solitaire-style. The impatient girl pulled her knives back out slowly and angrily went back to carving the floor apart.

"You and your stupid plans, Texal…"