Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. To bad, cause I would really work it.

Author's Note: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so glad to have gotten so many wonderful reviews. I tried to respond to all of them and I think I succeeded, so that's a good thing.

Brief Edit: It has come to my attention that Seifer's hair is blond. Oops. Sorry Seif. Didn't mean to go all Sephiroth on you.

So. Yes, Seifer's hair will be blond from this day forward. Thank you to everyone who corrected me!

Chapter 3: The Train Knows the Way

Kairi glared at him. "The mountains are a vacation. A theme parks's a vacation. Maybe even taking a walk down to the beach is a vacation. This is not a vacation!"

Axel was laughing, holding up his hands against her tirade. "Okay, okay. Not a vacation. I can deal with that. I'm not overly concerned with how comfortable you are. I just need to get you to Sai'ix."

"Sai'ix?" Kairi asked, ears perking up. "Who's Sai'ix?"

Axel looked like he could have punched himself in the face. Or her. Or the wall. Obviously, that name was not something he was supposed to mention. He was fighting to keep his game-face on.

"Doesn't matter," he muttered to himself. "I just gotta…"

"I am not coming back with you," Kairi said resolutely.

Axel folded his arms in exasperation. "Jesus, you are stubborn."

Kairi didn't bother to ask what 'Jesus' meant. Probably some old cuss word from Axel's home world. "Stubborn? What, you just expected me to come with you quietly?"

"Girls usually do."

"Just think of me as a boy, then," Kairi answered testily.

"That would be…kinda difficult," Axel said quietly, eyes darting up and down. Kairi suddenly wished she was wearing something more substantial than a pink sundress. She shifted uncomfortably. Axel's eyes went back to her face.

"Well, I'll be see'in ya." He raised an arm, making the gesture that opened the portal of darkness. It rose up, unfurling like smoke in the enclosed space. Just having it close made Kairi feel slightly sick.

"What, you're just leaving?" she asked, shocked. She hadn't been expecting this.

Axel shrugged. "Hey, you saw what happened earlier. Seems like ya got an aptitude for opening up the gates. I can't bring you anywhere while you can just run away like that. But don't get too lonely." He grinned slyly. "I'll be back." Kairi watched as the darkness consumed him, until even his vibrant hair had been diluted.

"What am I supposed to do now?" she asked the room in general. The room wasn't quick to answer, so she made her way out through the curtain. Evening had crept up on the town while she had been inside. Lights had glimmered into life, turning windows into glowing postage stamps decorating the sides of the buildings.

Everything seemed so peaceful, but at the same time, rather lonely, as though this town was the only town in the entire world. Did the people here even know that anything beyond them existed? Kairi doubted it. No one in her world did either, and neither had she until a few months ago. It was just so easy, forgetting the extraneous things and focusing just on life as you knew it. But it didn't seem like a good idea to her. Ignoring the disquiet in the worlds was no doubt what had enabled the heartless to take so much control.

Or was it simply human being's weakness?

Kairi's thoughts were interrupted by someone shouting her name. She turned to see Olette at the top of the hill, waving her hands. "Come on, Kairi!" she was yelling, "The ice cream's gonna melt!"

Kairi smiled and trudged back to her new friend. "There's ice cream?" she asked, suddenly interested.

"Pence brought it. We were planning on roasting marshmallows tonight, but it's too hot." She supported these words by fanning herself with her hand. "It's bizarre weather for September."

"Yeah," Kairi mused, not mentioning that it was barely May back at home.

The two girls returned to the Usual Spot to find Pence and Hayner already there. Sitting down, Kairi was handed a bright blue ice cream bar. She eyed it critically. She had never seen dessert this color before.

"It's good," Hayner assured her. "We eat it all the time."

Kairi took a tentative lick. It was salty and sweet at the same time, like taking a bite out of the early morning ocean air. She ate it all very quickly, only then realizing how hungry she was. Pence watched her licking her fingers, then pointed to the fridge.

"We have more food if you want it."

Kairi didn't need telling twice. She emerged with a pint of orange juice and bowl full of trail mix. An odd combination but suitable nonetheless. While she ate she listened to her new friends converse.

"So…I got our grade back for the summer project," Olette began.

"Really?" Hayner asked, pausing in his devouring of the ice cream. "What'd we get?"

"A ninety-one percent."

"What?" Pence protested. "But it was an awesome project. We should'a got one hundred!"

"Yeah, I said the same thing to our teacher," Olette explained. "He said 'unsolved mysteries of Twilight Town' was a really good topic. We got marked down because Hayner can't spell."

"Hey!" Hayner piped up defensively. "It's not my fault neither of you guys would write it. I'm literatetly challenged."

All four of them laughed, even Kairi, who wasn't really sure what they were talking about.

As it was a Friday night in Twilight Town (it was Tuesday back at home) Hayner, Olette, and Pence had arranged to sleep in the Usual Spot. Apparently it was a common practice on the weekends and during the summer. They invited Kairi to stay, which was lucky, as she had nowhere else to go.

She and Olette were sharing the couch, while the boys had been left with the floor. They had grumbled about it for awhile, but had drifted off to sleep almost immediately, as Olette had predicted. Kairi, however, wasn't tired. There was just too much circling around in her head. It had only been a few hours since she had been kidnapped, but it felt much longer. It felt like a lifetime. She and Olette stayed up talking, and Kairi soon discovered they shared a lot of interests.

At one point, the conversation lapsed into silence. Kairi was staring into space, her thoughts straying…

"Tell me what he's like."

"Huh?" she asked, glancing at Olette.

"Tell me what Sora's like."

"Didn't you meet him?"

"Yeah, but he was only here for about a day." She hugged her knees, bring them up to her chin. "He seemed nice."

"He is," Kairi smiled. "He's probably the nicest boy I've ever met."

"Cute too," Olette interjected.

"Yeah." Kairi smiled sadly. "I doubt he's been thinking about me as often as I've been thinking about him."

Olette snorted. "Bullshit. He probably thinks about you more. Don't get all depressed. You're gonna find him and then the two of you can make…" She paused. "Did you hear that?"

Kairi listened but didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. "I don't hear any—." She broke off. A low distant whistle had sounded, bouncing along the narrow streets like a rubber ball.

"That's a train whistle," Olette muttered, getting to her feet and pacing to the curtain.

Kairi tossed her blanket off and followed. "But isn't there a station here?"

Olette nodded. "Yeah, but I know the train schedule by heart. There aren't any between eleven and eight. It's half past twelve." She glanced at Kairi. "This is weird. You wanna go check it out?"

"Sure." Kairi doubted she was likely to get any sleep anyway.

They left the two boys where they were, exiting the Usual Spot and taking a road that wound steeply upwards. It was a muggy, rather listless night. They passed quiet shops and lightless houses, windows opened to coax in whatever slight breeze there was.

The station was as empty as the rest of the town, but here there was something distinctly different. The brick building was lit, its overhead lights high and blinding. Sitting on the first track, just inside the door was a magnificently colored train. It looked like something out of a fairytale (though fairytales didn't usually have trains in them), almost glowing in the fluorescent lights.

"What the hell…" Olette looked at a lost for words. "I really wish this had come before we turned in our project…"

"Why?" Kairi asked curiously. Sure, the train was odd looking but it didn't strike her as an unsolved mystery.

"This train…it's the one that just appears sometimes. It comes from a track that leads nowhere and you can only ever see it from this one bridge in the north of town." Olette did a little dance of excitement. "And this is the second time, too!"

"What?" Kairi looked at her in confusion. "What do you—?"

"What are you two doing?"

The girls turned around to find Hayner and Pence, both puffy-eyed and droopy, behind them. Pence's hair was all over the place, sticking up around his hurriedly placed hat.

"We heard a train," Olette explained. "The train." There was no need for her to elaborate. Both boys knew exactly what she was talking about.

But Kairi didn't.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, feeling exceedingly out of the loop. "Why's this train so special?" The other three glanced at each other.

"This train appeared the day Sora was here, too. He left on it."

Kairi's heart rate had increased. Sora. She had finally found a clue!

"Could this train bring me to him?" she asked eagerly.

Olette nodded. "I think it could."

"Yeah, me to," Hayner agreed. "I don't know why, but for some reason it seems…"

"Right," Pence finished.

"Exactly."

Kairi turned to the sleek, gleaming machine. So this is the right train for me, she thought.

For a moment, she hesitated. She liked these people. They had been good friends to her. They had even given her blue ice cream. It would have been so nice just to stay with them for a few days…But the train could up and leave at any moment, and she wouldn't give up a chance to find Sora. Not for anything in the world.

She turned back to her friends. "Thank you."

Hayner grinned, stretching. "Hey, no problem." He seemed to have warmed up to her a bit. "Hey, when you see Sora tell him we said hi."

"You got it," Kairi assured him. "But I don't know how long it'll take me. I don't know how to drive a train."

Olette was staring past her, at the engine. "You know, I don't think you need to know how. I think the train knows where to go."

Kairi grinned, hugging all three of them a swift goodbye. She was just about to step onto the platform, when a lone bark echoed through the station. She looked up to see Pluto barreling up the cobblestones, tail held high and ears flopping.

"Hey boy!" she greeted him, scratching his back. "You coming with me?"

Pluto gave a bark of approval. Kairi laughed and jumped up onto the platform, the dog at her heels. The moment her hand touched the side of the coach, the train roared to life and the door slid open for her.

She was on her way.

Chapter Four: The Sailor, the Sorcerer, and the Sadist