When she opened her eyes, she found herself floating in blackness. There was no sign of civilization for miles, not even any colors, just black, just darkness. It was like this whole realm was nothing but darkness, a black void. Ria closed her eyes, hoping this was some weird dream she would wake up from. She had this odd feeling inside her, a feeling of... comfort, safety, relaxation. She felt like she could lower her guard here, she just wanted to close her eyes and float forever.

"Turn back..."

Ria opened her eyes to find the voice that disturbed her peaceful rest, the only thing she could see was a small ball of light that illuminated the black void that she felt so relaxed in.

"I said turn back..."

the sphere said, It held the voice of a man.

"I was like you once. I followed the darkness in my heart, hoping it would give me answers, but I was wrong... oh so wrong!. I foolishly put my trust in the darkness and it corrupted me, my two best friends saw me as a different person, I became the very thing I swore to destroy. And now this is my fate, My heart is forced to sit here and watch as my body does horrible things to innocent people."

"you may think you're safe. but know this, The darkness is not your friend, it lies, it cheats, it manipulates and controls. Turn back... run away from this darkness, push it out of you, seek redemption in the light!... before you become a slave to the very power you control, before you become a puppet that dances for its master..."

Ria tried to comprehend what the sphere of light was warning her about. She felt that amazingly relaxing feeling begin to leave her and the feelings of dread and fear began to replace it.

The little ball of light began to glow brighter and ria could feel herself waking up from this odd experience.

"remember my words!... and if you ever find a woman named aqua... tell her i'm sorry..."

Ria awoke in an alleyway of disney town. She was a little groggy and lightheaded, it actually took a while for her to stand up. She had no idea how long she was sleeping, how did she even fall asleep here anyway?. True, she was a lazy person and she loved cat naps more than anyone else, but it wasn't like her to just knock out in the middle of some random location, and even if she would, she would make sure it was at least sanitary.

"what was I doing?" she said to herself, trying to remember why she even considered going in some filthy old alleyway. She tried as hard as she could but she just couldn't remember. she did see her keyblade laying on the cold pavement, was she in a fight? did it have something to do with the heartless?. All she did know was that it was late, when she looked above, she saw the full moon floating over the night sky, she couldn't explain it but she felt like it was watching her, she had always loved gazing at the moon, only now she didn't see it as a gigantic rock that floated around the world, she now saw it as a guardian, a protector. It was odd to assume that a moon could be considered as such, but it was just the way she saw it.

"Ria! Ria! Ria!"

she heard the voices of three familiar people calling for her. Looking out into the street, she saw sora, donald and goofy calling for her.

She stepped out of the alleyway to go after them only to look at the beautiful colored town on last time. The place was even more gorgeous at night, the street lamps illuminating the road, the windows glowing on the buildings, it was beautiful.

"Ria!" sora called out when he saw her, donald and goofy following him from behind.

"Ria, where were you?" sora asked with concern.

"i don't remember, one minute I was just walking around and the next minute I wake up in an alley." she said.

Sora had noticed that the long sleeves of her black knitted turtleneck were lifted, exposing the sink of her arms. Upon further inspection, sora could see scratch marks on her pale arms, they were to small to be done by human finger nails, they looked more like claw marks.

"where did you get these?" sora asked, even more concerned.

Ria seemed to be just as surprised as sora to find claw marks on her arms.

"Ria, were you in a fight?" sora asked.

"the heartless?" goofy asked.

"that's impossible, the cornerstone of light repeals all forces of darkness, the heartless can't get in here" donald said in a matter-of-fact fashion.

"i think a cat just decided that I'd make a good scratching post" Ria said, trying to make sense of the marks.

Donald, goofy and Ria just laughed it off and dismissed it, but it still bothered sora. as they walked ahead of him sora saw the red scratch marks on ria's arms begin to turn black and then the marks just disappeared leaving her skin as pale and flawless as before, was this some kind of fast healing? They were just scratches not cuts. he also noticed something different about Ria, the way she walked was more graceful, more catlike, and her footsteps were so quite that you could barely hear them. Sora couldn't put his finger on it, but something was wrong.

They soon returned to the hanger that held the gummi ship. It was fully prepared and ready for its passengers to board. Both ria and sora climbed in and began to take their leave of this world.

Donald, goofy, the king and his queen were there to see them go, waving goodbye and wishing good luck.

"you might wanna sit down" sora said to ria.

She took the seat of the second command, and let sora take the captains seat, it made sense, he was probably a better driver than her.

The engines of the gummi ship began to start, the engineers known as chip and dale gave salutes through two separate monitors, the gates in the hanger began to open and the countdown began

"3... 2... 1... blast off!" sora said while pointing towards the launch doors. Only instead of them blasting off, a gigantic red arrow that pointed down began to shine, a trap door opened under the gummi ship and gravity sent them falling. Ria and sora screamed as they fell out of the world, they soon exited disney town and began to blast away to another world.

Sora and ria were sitting in the chairs of the cockpit, sora was programing the ship's GPS to show the locations of worlds that sora had previously visited, he didn't know where he would start but he would check every world's keyhole if he had too.

Sora chanced a glance at ria who was leaning against the window, gazing out at the many stars, she looked so peaceful, so tranquil.

"she's right there, just say something" roxas said from inside sora's mind.

What would he even talk about? What conversation could he have with her that wouldn't end with awkward looks at each other?. His last conversations with her weren't the greatest, whether it was him accidentally rubbing his many friends and family in her face, or him making her feel insecure and awkward. Sora sighed, riku was right, he was bad at talking to girls. Maybe if he was a little more charismatic then he wouldn't have a problem talking to anyone.

"so... Ria, what world are you from?"

Ria turned her head away from the window of the cockpit to meet sora's eyes and answer his question.

"well, I don't really know the name of my world." she said, a little embarrassed that she didn't even bother to remember the name, let alone the location of her home.

"we can find out where your home is" sora said as he walked over to her.

"really? How?" ria asked. Sora put his hand to her back and he could feel strands of her long hair getting tangled in his fingers, he also saw faint blushing on her cheeks. her hair felt so soft, she must have took great care of it. Sora leaned close to her and whispered in her ear.

"sorry"

with a quick pull, he managed to get a tiny strand of her long silver hair to detach itself from her scalp, however the sudden pull on her hair did create pain, even if it was like a small pinch, she still said "ow"

with the tiny strand of her beautiful hair in his hand, Sora began to walk towards the newly added DNA tracker. The device allowed a person to locate their home world if a DNA sample was provided.

Sora put the strand in the tray on the device and it began displaying information on its monitor.

DNA subject: Ria Sayomi.

Gender: Female.

Age: 16.

Date of birth: September 23. 1998.

the machine kept telling the details of Ria Sayomi, she was amazed at how machine was able to define things about her, all this information came from a tiny strand of her hair. It told them everything about her, her IQ, her height, body weight, it even revealed a few of her traits, turns out she's ambidextrous. Sora didn't want to know this stuff as he felt like it was an invasion of her privacy, but it was helpful, her birthday was coming up in another two months. The machine kept displaying information.

Eye color: ?.

Hair color: silver.

DNA relatives: ?.

Home World: ?.

Searching for last long term world Visit...

the DNA machine had concluded that Ria's home world could not be found, so instead it planned a course for the last world ria had spent longer than one year in. the GPS concluded that it would take at least half a day just for them to get there. This was one of the few reasons sora disliked the gummi ship, since chip and dale uninstalled the warp drive. it was impossible to get anywhere fast, even the quickest routes to other worlds took hours, minutes if they were lucky. Sora had decided to go into the cargo hold of the gummi ship and bring out something that would pass the time.

He soon returned carrying a medium sized cardboard box of board games that he kept for long trips, so many memories lied inside this box, from donald getting frustrated at chess, to goofy just getting confused at some of the more advanced games. Sora had built quite the collection, everything from the casual candy land to the infamously nerdy dungeons and dragons (which was one of sora and riku's guilty pleasures)

he also took great care of these games, to this day not one game piece or pair of dice was missing from any of them, everything was kept in its place.

"whatcha got there, sora?" ria asked, seeing the box.

"its my board games that me and the others would play when we took long trips, its going to take a long time before we even get close to your world, so I thought this would be a good way for us to pass the time."

he held the box full of games out to her. "go on, pick any game you want." he said.

Ria looked through the box of board games and picked one that she had fond memories and skill of playing.

"whoa, I think this one is a little advanced for you" sora said after ria had chose none other than, (you guessed it) dungeons and dragons.

"are you kidding?, I know this game like the back of my hand" ria said.

Sora was kind of intrigued, he never met a girl who liked, or even knew what D&D was.

"i don't know, maybe we should play something different" he said.

"chicken" ria said.

"i am not chicken!" sora defended.

Ria just made clucking noises in a successful attempt to provoke sora.

"i said i'm not chicken!" he shouted

"prove it, chicken boy" ria said. Tauntingly

"yeah, prove it, chicken boy"

"shut up, roxas!"

"okay... you're on." sora said, accepting her challenge. "but I call dungeon master" he added.

The two began opening the box and setting up the game.

Sora gave her the rule book, just to be sure she knew how to play, but she just swatted it out of his hands, claiming that rule books were made for morons.

And soon the game began.