Hello everyone, here's the fourth chapter for you.
This one a big information chapter, but I'm a little worried it could have been written better. If theres anything you don't get or worst I've forgotten to explain pm me and I'll tell you what I can.
Hope you enjoy the chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, Square enix does.
A world that's not your own
Footsteps resounded on the tiles of a small blue walled room. Glancing to the side, Hanabi turned away from the window to find the form of Minnie standing in the doorway, her long blonde hair flowing free down her back. This night she was garbed in long pale pink dress with a hot pink sash circling her slight waist. She had her hand placed on the frame of the door, a sad look on her face.
"Mi-chan" Hanabi said hesitantly from her spot in front of the window. Looking up at her face, Minnie met Hanabi's eyes and the younger girl was struck by the sadness that she saw in them.
"Are Luke and Crowtassha gone?" Hanabi asked.
Minnie nodded. "Yeah, they'd most likely be there by now."
Hanabi nodded at her in turn, returning her gaze to the starry sky outside of the window. Minnie approached her from behind and placed her hands on the smaller girl's shoulders.
"What are you looking at, Hanabi?" She queried.
"Stars are disappearing," she said, gesturing to the sky looming above them.
Looking up to view the sky, Minnie whispered, "So Micky was right then. It really is happening, the darkness is taking over."
Twisting out of her hold, Hanabi turned on her heel to face Minnie. She was forced to look upwards as there was a considerable size difference between them; Minnie was in no way a short woman.
"It won't take over if we can stop it. You know yourself how hard your husband has worked with this stuff; you should know that he'll never give up as long as there's hope, Luke and Crowtassha included." After she received no answer, Hanabi tried a different angle. Taking clear note of the sad look plastered on Minnie's face she asked.
"What's wrong Mi-chan? You've been so sad lately."
After a brief silence on Minnie's part, with a small twist of her mouth, she answered, "You want to go with them don't you? You can't stand being left on the sidelines."
Pausing, Hanabi bit her lip, knowing she'd been caught out.
"Would you have left here without telling me, like all the other times?" Minnie asked.
"No!" Hanabi quickly answered. "I would never do that, this isn't just going to Traverse Town to talk to Leon, it's much more!"
"War," Minnie uttered into the room. Pulling away from Hanabi, she stepped past her to stand in front of the window. Placing her hands atop the window sill she continued on to say, "I've witnessed it before you know, but it was never this bad."
Turning back around to stand by her side, Hanabi copied Minnie's movements and placed her hands on the sill.
"That's when you met my mother, wasn't it?"
Minnie nodded. "It was, but I'd already known of her, and Micky had met her numerous times."
Hanabi nodded to this, thankful of at least some information about her mother. Not much was ever said about her around here. Micky had mixed feeling about her and Minnie had a scarcely hidden hatred of the women. It confused her what in the world possessed them both to take in her only child. Ending that thought, Hanabi returned her attention back to Minnie.
"Mi-chan, why are you talking to me about this anyway?" She queried.
"I give you my blessing if you want to go."
"What?" Hanabi exclaimed, confused; Minnie had always been strongly opposed to her ever being involved in this, so what had caused this change of heart?
"If you want to go, you can." She stopped short, before gradually going on to say, "Truth be told, Micky convinced me months ago when everything started going bad, but it was on one condition."
"What, what was it?" Hanabi asked.
Pulling what looked to be a moderately sized rectangular jewellery box out of the hot pink slash on her dress, Minnie held it close and answered, "He wants you to find Esper."
Shocked by her admittance and sincerely taken aback, Hanabi was unable to reciprocate a response and stood stock still as Minnie took the jewellery box away from her chest and held it out to her. A sad, almost doubtful, look passed over her face as Hanabi's hands reached out for the small box.
"Here."
...:...
A tall girl wearing a loose white sleeveless top with blue embroidery on its bottom edge, and denim shorts skipped through the first district of Traverse Town. Stopping, she stretched her arms up in boredom. To the side of her a wolfhound sniffed around the ground carelessly, enjoying the change in scenery. The girl sighed and complained to the dog beside her, "Oi, why do Leon and the others have to change position every time we come around here anyway? It's a pain to find them; don't you agree Hades?"
Turning to face her other, silent, companion, she gave him a smile and weaved her hand through her short black locks, playing with one of her two dark blue bows that adorned either side of her head.
"So where do you reckon we go now, eh?"
No answer.
"Still not talking are ya?" She said, shrugging. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be expecting any different after years of perpetual muteness but could you at least offer somewhere to look." Again no answer, instead he gestured to the entire area around them.
Frowning, clearly frustrated, the girl crossed her arms and complained, "You could've been a little more helpful you know, Luke. You just happened to be gesturing to the entire district and beyond."
Luke shrugged and walked past Crowtassha only to be stopped by a gasp. Twisting around to face her, Luke walked back a couple steps and threw her a questioning look. Picking up to what he was inquiring; Crowtassha pointed to the sky and explained to him, "A star disappeared."
For a moment there was a curious expression on his face as he looked up to the sky but it was gone the next like it had never been there at all. Still staring at the sky, Crowtassha whispered, "The worlds."
A quick tap on her shoulder from the boy beside her snapped her out of her trance and Crowtassha looked back down to face an impatient Luke, looking like he wanted nothing but to move on. Following that sign, she began to move toward the steps in front of them both, mumbling all the while, "Gee, what's got into you all of a sudden?"
And once again, despite the fact that she knew he could hear her clearly, Luke made no attempt to answer, he just followed along with her silent as always. Following the path beyond the steps both of them entered the second district, leaving whatever lay in the first district behind them.
...:...
Hades stood behind the large wooden doors of the second district, sniffing around in curiosity, left behind by Luke and Crowtassha. A certain smell caught his attention so he jumped off the higher ledge and landed next to a dark alley to follow it. Sniffing around he picked up the scent again and followed it towards its source. Entering the alley, Hades soon came across a boy. He realised quickly that he was unconscious; which caused him to wonder how and why he'd gotten here. Barking at the boy with his loud deep bark he sought to wake him up.
He was successful, and the boy soon began to rouse.
...:...
As his mind slowly came back to the present, Sora groggily opened his eyes to world beyond. What first met his eyes what not what he would have expected.
An enormous back dog with scruffy fur sat in front of him, poking at the ground at his feet with its long snout.
A little taken aback by the sight, he rubbed a hand across his eyes to test it was really there. It was; the dog remained in its spot, staring at Sora with its dark black eyes. It was then when he noticed where he was: a dark secluded alleyway. Sora just about gawked as he looked over the short concrete paved street with and a wooden blockade at the end. Standing up, he began to wonder where on earth he was, or better yet how he got here in the first place.
Glancing down at the large dog, which even while simply standing on four paws still easily reached his stomach; he asked knowing it was useless, "Where am I?"
He hadn't expected the dog to react, but contrary to his belief it barked at him and turned around to face the opposite side of the alley. It approached a large crate that lay against the side of a small building and jumped onto it, then proceeded to jump onto a higher ledge. Once the dog reached the high ledge, it barked down to Sora and turned away and walked out of his line of sight.
Staring up at the ledge in curiosity, Sora presumed that the dog wanted him to follow him. But a louder voice in him said it wanted to find out where he was, and to do that he needed to find someone who actually spoke English. So following the dog came later. Casting a look across the alley one last time before he left it behind him, the only thing he could surmise was that, one way or another, he wasn't in his own world anymore. Walking closer to the small building to the side of the alley, he quickly found the door and decided to go inside. Upon opening the door, he found himself within a small room with a fireplace to the right of the room, and a couch and a decent sized table in the middle. To the left of the room there was a bench top with a man standing behind it.
The man was of decent height and wore blue pants with a white top. His hair was light blonde and he was smoking a cigarette. Glancing quickly around the room once more, Sora walked towards the man and asked, "Hey, um, where am I?"
The man responded with a, "Hmm, new around here are ya?"
Sora nodded. "I guess, but where exactly is here?"
"Traverse Town," he answered, "and I'm only guessing from yer questions, but I say it's safe to say you're from another world."
Sora nodded again and questioned "I am, actually, but how did I get here?"
The man shrugged. "Wouldn't know, I just met ya. But everyone tends to end up here eventually, so I guess you're just one of them."
The man's last sentence propelled Sora's mind into a different train of thought. He'd said everyone ends up here eventually, so could that mean that someone from his islands could have ended up here?
'Maybe even those two,' Sora thought thinking of his lasts memories of the island. Riku and Kairi. All the common sense in his body told him that it'd be best to stay away from Riku, given his experience with him back on the island. His attention was brought back to reality when the man across from him coughed purposely. Snapping his head back in the man's direction, Sora apologised, saying, "Ah, I'm sorry I was just thinking about some stuff."
"Along the lines o' what?" The man asked.
Contemplating what to tell him exactly, Sora settled on "I was just thinking, but could my friends have ended up here as well?"
Even as he said it, he knew as strange as it was his mind was more focused on Riku and Kairi.
Trying to find Riku was something every part of his mind screamed against, but Kairi, on the other hand was a different story. A part of him had always thought that she had always kept secrets to herself, and tonight hadn't just hinted that that was true, it had given him undeniable truth that she knew enough to know exactly what was happening. And that was information he wanted dearly wanted to know.
The man didn't notice anything about the half lie, he only responded to the question with a simple answer: "Suppose so," he said, scratching his chin, "but you won't know unless you look, now won't you?"
Sora nodded once more at the man and took his advice. "Guess so."
Walking back to the door, he stopped with his hand on the handle. Tilting his head backwards to look at the man, Sora asked, "Hey, what's your name by the way?"
The man grunted and answered, "Cid, Cid Highwind."
Sora nodded at him one last time before heading out the door "Mine's Sora."
After heading out the door, Sora cast a look about the area he'd found himself in. Directly in front of him were a series of stone steps that led to a large concrete paved area that was filled with a grass patch, a decently sized area that housed a series of tables and chairs, and furthest from him a gigantic wooden door.
Taking in the sight of the place, Sora quickly remembered the black dog that had woken him up. Looking to the side he found another series of stone steps and walked up them. After ascending them he found himself with a dead end to one side of him and more stairs on the other. Following that path, he quickly came across large wooden doors. Sora assumed that this was what that dog was trying to show him.
Looking over the area quickly, he saw that the dog was no longer there and was nowhere to be seen. Giving a moment's thought to where it could have gone; Sora stepped forward and opened the wooden doors. Once he stepped through he was met with a sight he didn't want to see again. He saw a man run across the path in front of him, only to be struck down by one of the little black monsters that had plagued his island. This monster was a little different in looks but it held the same dark aura that enveloped the others.
Staring at the scene ahead of him, he watched helplessly as the man tripped and was set upon by the monster. After being attacked the man seemingly disappeared into thin air, a heart floating up to the sky in his place.
Sora watched as the black monster took the heart for its own and left. Stepping forward hesitantly, he approached the edge of the higher ledge he was placed on, and peered over. With nothing of much importance meeting his watchful gaze, Sora took to scanning the area around him. This place was considerably different than the previous one he'd just left. Currently he stood on a higher ledge that circled a lower ground expanse that took up most the area. There were buildings to either side of him, with an alley splitting through a group of them to the right of him. The entire place was once again concrete paved, with steps leading down to the ground expanse on the end of the higher ledge's right where it stopped it give way for the alley. Directly at the end of the area was a large white building of considerable proportion, with large stained glass windows down the side.
Pushing away from the edge, Sora decided to take a look around.
That was a wrong move.
Sora hadn't taken more than a couple steps when those small black monsters appeared again, the exact ones from the island. The instant they lurched at him, the key he had used back on the island appeared in his hands once more. Surprised by its sudden appearance, Sora's eyes widened for a moment before he took advantage of its presence and swung it at the monsters. The blade met with one of them and sent it flying into the wall opposite them, as it struggled to get back up; the others began to strike at Sora. He batted them back with the key one by one until they were all taken down and disappeared into blackness.
Swinging the key up onto his shoulder, Sora breathed out a sigh of relief.
Maybe exploring the area was not the smartest idea. But as dangerous as he now knew it was, he couldn't fight his curiousness of it. And in the end, that curiosity won out and he strode forward once more to look around.
He didn't find that much of interest. The area was deserted save for the black monsters that were adamant on attacking him. As he continued to look around the area he found himself growing bored with the unsuccessful results. Giving up, he found himself walking back towards the door that had led him here. After a couple more fights with the black monsters Sora reached the door and entered the first area again. Slightly paranoid that those black monsters were going to jump out and attack him again, he began tracing back the path back to the front of the shop he'd been in before with the key still in hand.
Looking over the expanse that lay beyond the stone steps in curiosity, Sora decided to head down them and have a better look around, seeing as he really didn't have anything else he could do. But as he was about to walk down the steps he heard a voice call out from beside him.
"They'll come at you out of nowhere" a clearly male voice rang out.
Twisting over to face the source of the voice, Sora questioned, "Who are you?"
Ignoring his question the man continued, "And they'll keep on coming at you as long as you continue to wield the keyblade." As he raised a hand to his face, the man went on, "But why? Why would it choose a kid like you?"
Ignorant of the man's reason for questioning, Sora asked him, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never mind," the man countered as he began to walk towards Sora. "Now let's see that keyblade."
As he reached his hand forward Sora quickly yelled, "What? There's no way you're getting this!"
Stopping in his path, the man resigned to swinging his own monster of a blade up onto his shoulder.
"Fine," he said. "Have it your way." And with that he swung the gun-blade forward at Sora in attack.
The battle was short lived as the man threw stronger and faster attacks then anything Sora could muster, and soon enough, with one hard hit to the head, Sora found himself caught in the dark embrace of unconsciousness.
...:...
Treading hesitantly through a dark path that lay on the furthest side of the second district which was only reachable through a door hidden in the shadows of a fountain, Crowtassha walked side by side with her silent companion. Holding both hands behind her back, her eyes scanned across the area in search.
So far they hadn't come up with any results on where on earth Leon and the others were located, and not even Cid had been able to help them on this one. She was beyond frustrated with their tedious search, and as Hades had long since disappeared it was beginning to bug her not having someone with her that would at least make a sound when she talked to them. Breathing out a quick sigh, she caught Luke jumping in fright in the corner of her eye. Curious to see what had scared her rather stoic friend, she turned around, finding something she wouldn't have guessed at all.
"Aerith!" She exclaimed happily, seeing the brown haired girl behind her.
She hugged her friend around the middle. "My, my you're a sight for sore eyes." She said a little too loudly.
Putting a finger over her lips to signal her to be quieter, Aerith whispered, "Sorry it took so long to find you, but we have to be quiet, there are dark seekers in this town. We need to be careful."
Nodding in understanding, Crowtassha asked, "So where to, then?"
Nodded at her request, Aerith backed off towards the door at the end of the alley. "Come with me."
...:...
His mind slowly coming back into focus, Sora sat up and looked around. He soon registered that he was lying on a bed within a small room, but exactly where that was, was beyond him. Turning his head at a sound to his left, Sora found himself staring up into the face of young girl with boys' length black hair. The girl was wearing green crop top held up by two blue straps, beige shorts and a blue belt. There was a bright yellow scarf wrapped around her neck and a grey headband around her forehead. She wore large orange gloves, with darker coloured wrapping that reached her shoulders and white thigh-high socks and orange shoes.
Still a little disoriented after being knocked out, when Sora went to ask her who she was it all came out sounding like jumbled up gibberish. The girl laughed at his fail and looked backwards to someone else in the room.
"Uh, Squall?" She said, "I think you hit him a little too hard."
"That's Leon," another voice range out. Recognising it instantly, Sora quickly looked up to face the man who knocked him out. Realising why he was looking at Leon with such fright the girl laughed and reassured him, "Don't worry, he won't hurt you."
Pausing for second, she corrected herself. "Well, at least not anymore he won't."
Sora wasn't too sure of her words. Still he didn't see a way at of this situation, and she seemed nice enough, he might as well find out where he was and who they were. So he asked "Who are you?"
"Me?" The girl struck a pose and stated boldly, "I am the great ninja Yuffie." Pointing over to the man by the door, she said considerably more quietly, "And that sourpuss over there is Leon."
Nodding, Sora tried to ask his next question, that of his whereabouts, but the man, Leon, interrupted him "Enough with the introductions Yuffie. We have more important matters to speak about, like why on the earth the Keyblade chose nothing but a kid."
Before Sora could wrap his head around his words, a third voice rang out across the room, "You should know better than that Leon, don't go writing him off as nothing but some useless little kid."
He recognised that voice. Looking over to a place at the back of the room he had neglected to notice, his eyes fell on her.
"Kairi"
Looking up to his face, the girl smiled and pushed herself off the wall and walked over to him "Wondered when you'd notice me."
Surprised by her appearance Sora blinked his eyes twice as if he was seeing things.
Giving him another smile, Kairi reassured him, "I'm really here you know you don't have to do that. Back on the islands when the darkness tried to suck me up I used a light portal to escape. And seeing as you're here it's safe to say you made it out fine." Pausing, she said in a quieter voice "But I guess now I kind of owe you an explanation about all the weird stuff I told you."
Sora answered her with an immediate yes; all of what had happened at the islands definitely needed an explanation. Kairi gave him a knowing nod as she backed off from the bed a bit.
Looking at her now, Sora noticed that she was actually wearing something quite different from the norm of what she wore, or at least what he thought was her norm.
She wore a short, sleeveless white dress in place of her normal jeans and long sleeved tops. It showed off her arms and the majority of her long legs down to the heeled black ankle boots on her feet. Her arms had multiple fabric armlets on them, most prominently a black one close to her right shoulder. Her ears were studded with an array of earrings and her lip was pierced on the left side with an unusual lip ring. It was a black with a golden snake encircling it, its colour a great contrast to her painted black lips. Taking in her different look he realised she had been wearing the exact same thing back at the islands; he had just been too distracted at the time to notice.
Noticing his mind wondering off, Kairi placed both her hands on her hips and her tilted her head at Sora. "Hey airhead, you do want your explanation don't you?" She asked him with a cheeky grin.
Snapping back to reality, Sora quickly nodded. "Of course."
"That's better," running a hand through her hair, Kairi muttered to herself, "Now where to start, where to start."
After a moment's thought she decided, "Well I guess first things first isn't it." Pausing for moment she went on, "Okay first, all of the people you see in this room have been involved in a war with the darkness for many years, me included."
Nodding his head, Sora waited for her to say more.
"You see, when I was little, our world was swallowed by the darkness, and I, as you'd already know, ended up at Destiny Islands when these guys ended up here at Traverse Town. I found them again when I was still getting the hang of using light portals. I, quite accidentally, transported myself here and met Leon's group again."
Noticing something in her sentence that he had no knowledge of, Sora was forced to interject "Question? What are light portals? You mentioned them before."
"Ah, sorry I kind of forgot to explain that. Light portals are simply a kind of portal that light users can create."
"Light users?" Sora inquired again.
"Oh, they're people who can wield light. They're pretty rare too, I mean the majority of all people have the ability to wield darkness if they so choose to, but only a select few can wield pure light."
"No boasting!" Yuffie burst out randomly at Kairi from where she sat at the end of the bed; who in turn pouted and retorted, "Awww, but it's so fun!"
Crossing her arms at the retort, Yuffie resigned to simply listening to the explanation, waiting for her next chance to catch Kairi out on something. Turning back to face Sora, Kairi smiled at him and apologised, "Sorry about that, but getting back to our original topic. You see, when I met up with Leon and that again, I was still real young, only around five years old, they could have sent me away, but they didn't. They had their reasons of course, the main being that they saw reason to protect me. I've come here a lot of times since, but it's mostly just so they can know that I'm alright, it's a plus that it keeps me up to date with all that's been happening in the worlds that they know of."
"Why did they want to protect you?" Sora questioned, not seeing what possible reasons they could have behind it.
A brief but sad expression passed over her face as Kairi's hand reached up to touch her left shoulder. Turning to her side slightly, giving Sora a clear of the shoulder, Kairi said, "See this?"
See that he did, and as Sora stared at the bizarre marking that laced across her left shoulder he wondered how on earth he hadn't noticed it before. It was a mark of an open eye, with dozens of ancient markings bridging out from it. Before he had the chance to ask what it was Kairi answered, "This is a 'mark', it's a form of ancient magic that dark beings brand humans of interest to them with, and as long as someone bares a mark, the one who branded them with always know where they are and what they're doing. This way we can never elude their sights. Leon's group prefer to keep an eye on me because of this. Because of certain 'qualities' I have, I've caught the eyes of more than a couple dark beings and it puts me in danger."
Kairi's mouth twisted in frown, it was obvious that this wasn't a subject she liked talking about. Shaking her head to rid herself of the darker emotions that had gathered about her, Kairi straightened up and continued her explanation. "But back to topic. Well you kinda know my story already so I guess now I have to tell you the other side of this fight, the people and things we're fighting."
Pointing to the giant key he'd got at the island, where it had been placed near the door she told him, "That thing there is the keyblade, it is a very powerful weapon, something of legend." She added seeing the sceptical look on Sora's face "It chooses its master, somebody can't just decide they want to wield it, and since it's chosen you, you're kinda stuck with it."
"The keyblade." Sora whispered to himself. He was curious about it now, if the fact that it was a giant key that had just materialized in his hand out of nowhere hadn't already made him so. Hearing him say those words, Leon pushed himself off the wall and went over to pick the weapon.
"Yes, the weapon for killing the heartless." He said, holding the weapon in his hands before it disappeared in a burst of light, but he didn't seem surprised by this. It was like he knew it was going to happen. But Sora on the other hand was surprised when it reappeared back in his hand in the same burst of light that it had disappeared from Leon's. Slowly getting over his shock Sora looked back at Leon.
"The heartless?" He said questioningly.
Leon nodded. "Those monsters that have been attacking you, they are scared of the keyblade, so they'll do anything to steal your heart and end you."
"They want to steal my heart," Sora repeated, surprised by the fact.
This time it was Kairi's turn to nod "Yes, heartless are creatures of darkness. They were humans who lost their own hearts to the darkness."
"So, if I lose my heart I'd turn into one of them?" Sora asked.
"Yes," Kairi answered, "simple as that."
Sora shivered at the thought "I'd hate to become one of those things," he told her.
In response Kairi just tapped the edge of the keyblade and replied, "Then it's as simple as getting them before they get you."
'How right' Sora thought. Simple logic was always right.
Looking back up at Kairi he asked, "Anything else I should know?"
"Definitely," Kairi answered. "Firstly," she said pointing at his keyblade, "We kept that away from you so it'd be harder for them to find you."
Sora dropped the keyblade almost instantly, causing Kairi to laugh.
"Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you, I was just letting you know." Adopting a more serious demeanour she said, "Now secondly, there are people who are directing the heartless, they're not just acting on their own."
"Who?" Sora asked.
"Mostly, it's a group that goes by the name of the Dark seekers."
"Who are they?"
"We don't really know that much about them actually, but they've been terrorising the worlds for many years, before any of us were born even. They went quiet for years but they have re-emerged recently and heartless activity has rocketed. They're some of the most annoying people you'll ever meet I assure you. So a piece of advice, when it comes to t hem don't feel bad to hit a girl." Kairi told him a little too cheerfully.
"To hit a girl?" Sora asked her
Smirking cheekily, Kairi informed him, "They're women, all of them."
That admittance made Sora pull a face, his mind couldn't help but go back to all the times over the years when his father had told him never to hit girls, or fight with them. Well, looks like all that's going down the drain.
"You should see your face right now, it looks so funny!" Yuffie exclaimed loudly from her position at the end of the bed.
Ignoring her Sora asked Kairi once more, "Anything else?"
Kairi thought for a moment, "No, nothing much, if there's anything more I'm forgetting I'm sure you'll find out on your own." She stopped then, with her mouth still open as if she was going to say more, but instead turned her head and scanned the room they were in fearfully.
"Leon." she stammered.
Jolting up from his position in the wall Leon grasped his gunblade just in time as a heartless appeared atop the table in the middle of the room. Swiping at it quickly, Leon successfully took it down, its remnants disappearing into the air. Turning back to face Sora he gestured for him to pick the keyblade saying in urgency, "Come on and grab that, there'll be more where that came from."
Nodding, Sora picked up the keyblade from where he'd let it fall to on the bed and leaped up to join Leon by the door. Opening it, Sora found that it lead out to a small balcony, which Leon proceeded to jump off to the ground below. By the time Sora peered over the edge he was long gone, taken away by his superior speed. After a moment's indecision, Sora lifted himself off the floor and jumped off the balcony, landing rather roughly on the ground below. Composing himself, Sora straightened out and followed the path he guessed Leon had taken.
...:...
Back in the small room, Kairi approached the balcony that both Sora and Leon had just jumped off. As she walked towards it, she was half aware of Yuffie running into the next room, probably to tell Aerith that the heartless had found them again.
Passing the threshold of the balcony, Kairi stepped out into the cold night air. Bracing herself against it, Kairi sighed to herself. She gradually lifted her head to gaze up to the star filled sky, whispering to herself as she did, "I wonder, but will he be able to save you?"
...:...
Crowtassha crossed her arms pondering what she had been told.
"So this Ansem guy, he wrote a report on the heartless. So where is it?" She asked.
Aerith shrugged her shoulders and told her from her seat on a bed, "We don't know, its pages were scattered."
Crowtassha thought on that sentence for mere seconds before she said to Aerith, "Why don't we find it, then?" A slightly annoyed look from Luke quickly stopped her in her tracks, and Crowtassha, knowing Luke like the back of her hand, swiftly translated the look for the confused Aerith.
"Ah yeah, we were sent here to find someone weren't we?"
"Who?" Aerith queried.
"The king called them the key but we're kind of in the dark about who he's referring to," Crowtassha admitted.
Thinking this over for a second, Aerith offered them, "Do you think he was talking about a key bearer?"
Crowtassha sighed and sat on the bed next to Aerith, watching Luke in the corner of her eye as he stepped closer to door to listen in on a conversation going on in the other room.
"We figured that out pretty quickly, but it doesn't really narrow it down does it?"
"That it doesn't," Aerith agreed with a nod.
The room went quite for a moment as there was the sound of a commotion in the other room. Waiting to see if it would quiet down, Crowtassha and Aerith shared a moment of silence. Just as Crowtassha was about speak up again, Yuffie burst into the room, slamming the door right into Luke's face. Crowtassha flinched; he'd most likely be pissy about that for a while, but on the bright side: at least he couldn't complain about it out loud. Returning her focus to the situation at hand, Crowtassha stood up off the bed and listened to what Yuffie had to say. The girl came to halt in front of Aerith and told her in urgency, "Aerith the heartless have found us again, we need to get out of here before they attract the dark seekers."
Jumping up from the bed Aerith followed Yuffie back through the door to the other room, questioning her as she did, "Where's Leon Yuffie?"
"Already gone, Sora should be with him."
"Sora?" Aerith said questioningly, trying to think of where she'd heard the name before. "Wait, you don't mean the boy from Kairi's island, do you? How'd he get here? And why is he with Leon?"
"He was sucked through the darkness when his world was destroyed, ended up here," she answered quickly. "But guess what Aerith? The kid's a key bearer."
Aerith stopped dead, taken aback by the admittance. She glanced back at Crowtassha, who looked just as surprised as she was, seeing as Yuffie's words had just completely narrowed down her and Luke's search. Gesturing to her with her arm Aerith told her, "Go find them."
Crowtassha nodded to her as Yuffie pulled Aerith away into the next room with her.
After they left the room, the door was left to gradually inch forward to reveal the highly disgruntled form of Luke pushed up against the wall. Crowtassha held in a great laugh as she watched Luke peel himself off the wall, knowing that laughing would only make him more peeved than he already was.
"Yuffie's dead to you now, isn't she?" She said it as a statement of fact rather than a question, knowing how much of a person Luke was to hold grudges. The disgruntled frown was enough for her to know the answer. Holding in yet another laugh that threatened to bubble over at that face, Crowtassha pulled him away from the wall saying, "Come on lets go find that kid. If he isn't the one the king wanted us to find I'm gonna jump off a cliff."
Quickly shrugging off her hand Luke walked past her and signed to her in sign language 'No way in hell you would.'
"Who's to say" Crowtassha argued with him, knowing that he was right in every single way possible.
Exiting the building swiftly, they made their way across town in search.
...:...
Lightly tapping Kairi on the shoulder, Aerith sought to bring the girl out of the curious trance she'd found her in. Flinching at the contact, Kairi eyes shot up to Aerith in shock. Calming when she found she was in no danger, Kairi directed her eyes downwards and resigned to being silent.
Tapping her on the shoulder again, Aerith gently told her, "Kairi we have to go, we can't risk being caught by the dark seekers."
Kairi didn't verbalise a response, she just backed away from the balcony and turned to face the door and strode over to where Yuffie waited for them. Aerith watched as the girl walked away, wondering as she did so, what had caused her mood to change from how she'd been when she'd seen her earlier that night. She could guess, of course, that this mood had many catalysts. The loss of her world, which had always been a sanctuary in times like these, was definitely one. And her failure to do anything about it was doubtlessly weighting heavily on her. There were many smaller reasons too, but in the end it would always equal the same. Kairi had spent her life just bearing it with a smile, but you could only take so many blows before you broke. She just hoped that she'd recover from this; she didn't want to see the girl suffer anymore.
If only life would allow that.
...:...
Laying her weight against the railing of the small balcony she was on, Crowtassha blew out a quick sigh and caught her breath before straightening up. She was getting tired of all the fights they were having with all the heartless that were jumping out at them. Looking to her companion, she caught him looking over the balcony's edge curiously. She ignored him for a second, instead of questioning the look and cast a glance along the small balcony, complaining, "We just can't catch a break can we? It's like this every single time we're here."
A burst of purple in the corner of her vision caught her eye and she tilted her head, just in time to see a pair of heartless running at them. It was too late to react though, as by the time she managed to warn Luke the heartless were upon them and quite literally batted them off the balcony. They were propelled into the air and landed harshly on the ground below; Crowtassha rose slowly to sit on her knees.
Stretching out her now arching limbs, she looked around for where her irritable companion had fallen. She had held a laugh in for dear life when her eyes located him, as he had landed smack bang on top of someone. Oh, dear lord, she would never let him live this one down even if it meant getting her head ripped off. It was then her eyes focused on what the person was holding.
Launching up to a standing position she called out to the still disoriented Luke, "Look! The key!"
Shaking his head to clear it, Luke sat up and pulled away from the person he'd crushed beneath him. Frowning to himself at actually landing on someone, his eyes landed on the keyblade in the boy's hand as he got up from the ground. His eyes widened in shock, he lifted himself off the cold ground and looked behind him to catch Crowtassha smiling triumphantly at him as she walking towards them. As she reached him and the brown haired boy she assumed to be the one Yuffie had called Sora, she held out her hand in greeting.
"Sorry about my friend here falling on you like that," she apologised "but-" It was just a thought, but she couldn't help but be bothered by why the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
'Oh shit' she thought grimacing at what she guessed now stood behind her, the looks of the two boys in front of her not helping. Spinning on her heel, Crowtassha was met with the sight of an inhumanly large purple cloud forming itself into the form of an equally large heartless.
Yeah, her and Luke really couldn't catch a break.
Tilting her head back to stare over at the boy with the Keyblade she asked him, "You up for a fight? 'Cause I could definitely use your help on this one."
Crowtassha almost laughed at the look plastered on his face. She guessed he wasn't all that used to heartless in the first place, but nevertheless he nodded his head at her. Turning her head back to face the monster of a heartless they were about to battle, she grinned to herself. Well, at least he was brave.
Bearing her eagle-like shield in hand, Crowtassha drew the small dagger sheathed at her wrist and prepared herself for the battle ahead. Behind her, Sora took the keyblade in hand as well, still confused as to who the other two people were, but extremely willing to except their help to beat this heartless. Lifting the keyblade higher he took on a battle stance as the giant heartless took a step towards them. It kept on jostling around its disconnected floating limbs about its larger main body, its entire form coloured purple with the tell-tale heartless simple emblazoned on it chest.
Sora could see the tall black-haired girl watching it closely, assessing it. The moment before it was upon them, she turned her head back to face both him and the other boy and told them, "Go for its limbs first, and then head for the main body so it won't have anything to attack us with." With that she rushed into the battle and bashed both her shield and dagger strongly into the heartless's right leg.
Following her lead both Sora and Luke attacked the heartless head on, Sora with blow after blow by his keyblade and Luke by series of magic attacks. As they worked on destroying its legs the heartless started spinning it hands around its body in circles, successfully making all three of them scatter away from it for safety. Not reacting fast enough, Sora was hit by its spinning hands and went smashing to the ground hard.
Jumping back into the fray Crowtassha covered him as Luke went to work helping him up and healing him. When he recovered, Sora joined Crowtassha and Luke once again in attacking its legs.
It proved to be dangerous work as the heartless kept up its attempts to smash them to pieces with its hands and had an easily-more-annoying habit of stamping its feet into the ground continuously.
After countless of blows to its legs they burst into nothingness and disappeared. With nothing to hold it up, the heartless simply fell to the ground, temporarily stunned. Taking the chance given to them, the three of them set to work attacking the main body with all they had. Blow after blow they landed on the heartless as it lay motionless on the ground, Luke's fire magic setting its immobile form aflame as Sora and Crowtassha's weapons reverberated loudly against its solid surface with each blow.
All too soon did the heartless raise from the ground and reinstated its dominant presence in the battle. With its legs gone, it lost the ability to hamper them with them as it stamped on the ground but it did continue to try and smash them away with its hands. Crowtassha was once again the first one to raise her weapon at the heartless, attacking its hands with all her might.
Soon following her, Sora and Luke began attacking as well and the three of them worked to send the hands the same way as the legs. Following the pattern of attacking and then scattering to avoid its spinning hands, they soon had the hands destroyed and they set to work on doing the same to the main body.
It was easy work from then on with no hands or legs attacking them to hinder their attacks.
Soon enough all their hard work payed off and a ring a light exploded from the heartless's core, followed by an even brighter light blasting out from where its head had been. A heart followed the light and floated into the sky until it disappeared and the heartless after it.
Catching his breath, Sora bent over hands on his knees and sucked in air. He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see the brown haired boy standing over him, with a look in his eye that he couldn't quite read. Behind him, Sora could see the older girl jumping up in triumph, it was a queer sight, if you took into account that she looked easily in her late twenties.
Straightening up he returned his gaze back to the boy in front of him, asking him curiously, "So who are you guys anyway?"
He became confused when the boy didn't answer and only stared back at him in silence, it was only when the girl called over to him from her position a few metres away did he understand.
"Peridot's mute, he ain't gonna be talking to you anytime soon."
Sora watched as the boy threw the girl an infuriated look, to which she simply took with a smile and teased, "What? If you decide you're gonna wear a peridot jacket of all colours, I'm at least allowed to tease you for it."
Walking towards Sora, her silver boots clicking on the ground as she went, she held out her hand.
"Nice to meet you. You're Sora, right?" She asked curiously.
Sora nodded. "How do you know my name?"
"Yuffie mentioned it."
"Ah, so who are you two then?" He inquired.
Giving him a smile, she pointed over to the other boy, "Well this here is Luke, and as I've already told you, he ain't gonna talk to you no matter how hard you try, trust me I've been trying for the past ten years."
"Ten years?" Sora asked in disbelief.
"Yep, ten whole years and he still ain't talking."
Casting a quick look in the boy's direction for a moment, Sora returned his attention back to the girl. "And what's your name?"
"Crowtassha," she told him with a smile.
Did he hear that right? "Crowtassha?" He repeated just to be sure.
"Yeah."
"That's a bit weird isn't it?"
That's when the smile fell from her face and she twisted on her heel to face away from Sora, beginning to mumble angrily to herself.
"What's wrong with my name, everyone says that! I like my name, I think it's cool. Better than having some common, generic one."
To the side of the complaining Crowtassha, Sora could see Luke giving him a thumbs up, something that only succeeding in making him extremely confused.
"Luke's giving you a thumbs or something right now, isn't he?" Crowtassha asked him knowingly with her back still turned to the both of them.
"Yeah," Sora said still confused, "how'd you know?"
"Because he lives to annoy me," she said, seemingly calmer, turning back to face him.
"Okay," she said, pointing her finger in the air, "If you think my name's so weird, call me Crow."
"Okay, but that's still a little weird for a name," Sora told her.
Crowtassha scowled at him and said, with unneeded venom "Say one more thing against my name and I'll see to it you'll have an extremely painful death!"
Sora stared at her in shock at the threat, finding it extremely over the top for what he'd actually said. Calming down and directing her attention elsewhere, seemingly forgetting her earlier anger, Crowtassha scanned her eyes across the area, asking him, "So where's Leon anyway?"
"Right here!" Yelled an excited Yuffie as she jumped onto Crowtassha's back.
Sora watched on as the poor girl freaked and fell forward to the ground, landing on her face. She threw Yuffie of her in an extravagant movement before proceeding to yell at her no small number of vicious unneeded death threats. This went on for around a minute before Crowtassha eventually calmed down enough to ask "So you're under the radar again."
Yuffie nodded. "Yeah, we made it out safe, but it took me a million years to find this one here," she said pointing to Leon who stood not so far off from them.
Leon gave her a grunt in return, stepping closer to Crowtassha and saying, "I see you've found what you were looking for."
Confused at his words, Sora sounded, "Huh?"
"He means you Sora, me and Luke were sent here to find you." Crowtassha cleared up for him.
"Me?"
"Yep, well not you exactly but our king told us to find a key bearer that'd apparently be here. Not too sure how he knew that, but it's safe to say he was right." She said, tapping on the keyblade in Sora's hand.
Bringing the keyblade higher, Sora stared at its length. Dropping it down, he asked Crowtassha, "Who's your King?"
Twisting her head to look over at Leon, she asked, "Miss a few subjects, did we?"
"Well we didn't really have time to cover them," Yuffie answered for him.
Shrugging, Crowtassha casually responding to Yuffie as she turned to face Sora, "Guess so."
Balancing her weight onto her right leg she told him, "Our king's just our king really; the king of our world he is. He and Leon's group here are the two main fighters on our side in this war."
Nodding, Sora asked, "So why'd he send you after me?"
Crowtassha shrugged again and told him, "Not overly sure, he just up and disappeared a few days ago and left a letter telling us to find the key."
Facing towards Leon and Yuffie, instead of facing Crowtassha, Sora asked to no one in particular, "So what's going on with me then exactly?"
"A bit overwhelmed, are you?" Crowtassha asked him.
"A bit? Yesterday I was just some kid on an island." He told her.
Smiling at him she said, "That's fine then, I can see you have reasons to be. To put it simply, Fate's chosen you for a higher purpose; you were never just some kid on an island. It takes quite a person to be a key bearer and you're just such a person. The keyblade chose you, so you're stuck with it. Our king wanted us to find you, so we did, and together, me and Luke want you to help us find him."
Taking her words in, Sora bit his lip. Truth be told, he didn't really know what to do. Sensing his hesitation, Leon stepped forward and told him, "Go with them, it'll serve you better than staying here with us ever will."
That banished some of his hesitation, but it didn't disappear completely. Still, without his island to go back to, he didn't have all that many choices.
"You know, I guess I will go with you, seeing as there isn't much I can do here anyway."
"Good!" Crowtassha said clapping her hands. "You'll come with us then." Grabbing his hands she pulled him forward towards a large door he presumed led back to the area he'd first found himself, without even saying goodbye to Leon and Yuffie.
"And where exactly are you taking me?"
"To our ship, that way we can travel to other worlds."
"Other worlds," Sora said incredulously, before tonight to him they'd only existed in old stories, the idea of travelling in and between them was a little daunting in a way.
"Of course! There's not all that much we can do at this place, now can we?"
Letting go of his hand, Crowtassha stepped forward to open the door that stood blocking their way. As she battled to open the sizable door, Sora turned to see Luke walking up to them. When he came to a stop behind Sora, he signed to Sora in what he assumed was sign language. But not knowing a speck of what the signs meant, it was nothing but a bunch of random arm movements to him, and guessing by Luke's current demeanour, he guessed he knew that too. When the signs stopped and Sora gave no response, Luke pointed behind him to Yuffie jumping in the air waving to them.
Waving back to her as he heard Crowtassha get the door behind him, Sora took note of a second woman in the area. She had brown hair tied up in a plait that went down the length of her back and had a long pink dress with a chunky blue belt adorning her slender form. Before he had time to question who she was, Crowtassha called over to him from her location at the door, "Hey, you comin' or what?"
Turning back to face her he nodded and followed her path through the door, with Luke close behind, wondering, as the door closed behind them, just where Kairi had gone off to. It had only just hit him now that he'd never asked what she'd meant by her words back on the islands.
...:...
From her location to the left of the stairs of First District, Kairi watched Crowtassha practically dragged Sora with her towards the gigantic door that decorated the start of First District's expanse. She smiled a little at the scene. It was just like Crowtassha to act like that; showing in no way that she was twenty-seven years old. Acting so much like a little kid, while Luke just watched on finding the poor person who was unlucky enough to become one of her victim the most amusing thing in the world.
She could see where Hanabi got it.
Stepping to the side, her feet met the stairs and she gripped the hand rail, watching as the three of them disappeared as the door closed behind them. Keeping her eyes locked on the door, she felt her regret well up in her chest and thought to herself, 'Will he be able to help you?'
She wished that was so, because if anyone could save Riku, it was Sora.
Hope you liked it, and remember to review.
Sayonara.