Disclaimer: Honest, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Just this story, people, that's all…(And I wish I could say Roxas was mine too.)

Chain of Hearts, Chapter 4:

Radient Garden (part 2)

By Nagori Kirashi

Leon stared incredulously as four large white creatures descended in front of the house. He and Yuffie had just gone out to look for the three boys when they had come face to face with their current enemy.

"Wait—!" Yuffie cried, holding her arms out in front of Leon as he was about to attack. "Look!!"

Leon, who thought he couldn't possibly be any more taken by surprise the way it was, nearly fell forward in shock when he saw what three of the four Nobodies were carrying.

"Sora!" He ran over to one of them, stopping about three feet away from the larger-than-life sized creature and approaching it carefully, unsure what was its intentions were or whether it would hurt him or not.

"Are they dead?" Yuffie asked in fear, not wanting to get any closer to the monstrous white beings.

"…No, I feel a pulse," he replied at last, after finally making his way to Sora's Dragoon, as he thought of it, and feeling the young key bearer's neck. "Let's take them inside…What do you think is up with these?"

He had nodded towards the large Dragoon Nobody, and got only a silent gawk from the face on its neck in return.

"Don't ask me," she said cluelessly as she tried to lift Roxas off of his own creature. Yuffie nearly dropped him in surprise when he opened his eyes partly.

"Hey, can you tell us what happened?!" Leon asked Roxas right away, having seen his eyes peek themselves open.

His only response was a series of soft gibberish, as if he were too exausted to even move his lips. The longer he was awake, the more it seemed he would never recover, until finally Leon threw Yuffie a potion and she nearly drenched Roxas in it.

It didn't seem to have much effect, but Roxas was able to at least walk on his own without as much help from Yuffie anymore. He stood aside, leaning on the wall and holding onto a loose brick drowsily as she and Leon worked to get Sora and Hayner off of the tall white creatures as soon as possible.

The four dragons were eyeing them all eerily, when suddenly Leon and Yuffie turned and heard Roxas say something to the four Nobodies as if it were an afterthought.

Whatever it was Roxas told them, they must have listened, because all four suddenly took flight and headed mostly in the same direction.

While Leon simply nodded in respect to Roxas as he stood hunched over weakly with droopy eyes, just waiting for someone to open the door, Yuffie stood frozen, carrying Hayner on her back with his arms slung over her shoulder. She could barely stop looking at the blonde Nobody even after they were inside, but Roxas wouldn't have noticed if he were being stared at by a crowd of people were they all shouting his name.

"'Ey, what happ'nd?" Cid asked them, this time coming over with a currently unlit cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth. "They alright?"

"We're not sure," Leon said, still carrying Sora over towards Merlin's bed. There wasn't enough room for two of them on the short bed, much less three, but they would worry about that after they had at least set them down. Sora looked almost sad as he lie sleeping on Leon's shoulder, and those who were awake enough to see him had the feeling that he had not been directly knocked out but was asleep from either a mixture of prolonged exhaustion or an experience that had brought him near the brink of death. They had no idea how right they were, but it was the gentle flight of the Dragoon Nobodies that had initially triggered the exausted sleep.

"Say, Yuffie," Leon said as he lay Sora down on the bed after shaking off the blanket to make sure it was clean. "Does Roxas bother you or something?"

"Huh?" she asked, feeling as if she had been caught red-handed. Cid took Hayner from her, and gently taking the pillow off the bed with one hand even as Sora lay on it, he dropped it on the floor, then rested Hayner's head on it.

"That should help a bit," the hulking Restoration Committee Member said, referring to Hayner. "But ya gotta admit it, yeh do seem a bit nervous around that kid, Yuffie."

"Well…" She glanced over at Roxas, the last of the boys in dire need of somewhere to lay down. Though Sora seemed to be the most unconscious of them all, Hayner appeared to have fallen asleep mostly from the smooth ride there, while Roxas looked as if he had undergone some serious mental strain as well as physical effort.

"…Is it because he used to be one of Them?" Leon looked at her with his calm expression, and the older girl hesitated in responding.

Suddenly she felt something, and when she looked over, Roxas was clinging to her left arm weakly, using her shoulder as a headrest while closing his eyes. His face looked almost angelic as he basically fell asleep while standing like this, and her face softened to a degree that caused both Cid and Leon to make a face at eachother.

"Here, bring 'im over here," Cid said. He led the sleeping Roxas away from Yuffie, whose morals seemed to have changed that quickly and were causing her to not give him up without a bit of a fight. "We can lay 'im over here, see," Cid comforted her somewhat humorously, then moved Sora over on the bed. He lay Roxas on the bed next to Sora so both were lying on their side while facing eachother. They could see that when one of Roxas' hands was rested on top of one of Sora's, both of them, despite one of them being unconscious, linked their fingers together in a friend-like stronghold, as if making it impossible for them to part.

"You really can tell they were once the same person," said another voice over Leon and Cid's shoulder. They turned around to see Cloud Strife standing with Aerith.

"You're back?" Leon asked. "So soon?"

"Don't ask, I still have things to do and at a few things on my list to clear," Cloud remarked. "I figured on coming by, though…Aerith told me about Sora."

"Too bad Tifa's not here," Yuffie giggled, and Cloud shook his head almost as if he disagreed.

Looking down at Sora and Roxas, who still lay together deep in sleep, the young warrior figure said, "I saw them coming while I was on my way here. Do you think Roxas had something to do with those creatures they were on?"

"We're almost sure he did," the other grave-looking adult said, followed by a nod from Cid. Yuffie was now leaning over Roxas and staring at him next to Sora as if she couldn't get enough of the puppy-like love he had shown her mistakenly earlier and was yearning for more.

"Get over it," Leon said to her at last. "I think you were better off looking at him as dangerous than you are now when you look at him as a pet. Why don't you try looking at him as human for once? It's not like he's that different."

Yuffie blushed embarrassedly and stood, nearly stepping on Aerith, who was kneeling over Hayner and checking him for injuries.

"Whoops–!" Yuffie gasped, tripping over her and causing Aerith to nearly fall right on top of Hayner. "Sorry! I didn't see you come in!"

"It's fine," Aerith said, catching her balance right away. She had found Hayner's favorite side-pocket and had pulled out his knife. "I think I found Hayner's weapon, though."

"Let me see that," Leon said, taking it from her and flicking it open. After a moment, he remarked, "I've never seen anything like it…I never thought I would, either."

Cloud was looking at him with a similar expression. "How did a runt like him get a hold of a weapon like that? Does he have any idea what it can do?"

"I'm sure not." Leon ran his finger along one side of it, then inhaled sharply as a long gash appeared on his finger. "What the—!"

Yuffie gasped as well. "Be careful, Leon!"

"I…I was," he said, staring at his finger in awe rather than cleaning it up right away. "I didn't even touch the edge of the blade!"

"Let me see that," Cloud said, taking the knife from Leon calmly and grasping it gently by the blade itself.

Suddenly they heard him swear, and they looked up to see the knife clatter onto the floor and Cloud holding onto his now bloody hand.

"Quit touching that!" Yuffie yelled at them, reaching down to pick up the knife.

"Don't," Leon told her, grabbing it before she did and being careful not to touch the knife blade at all this time. "I don't know how or why, but it seems whoever touches it is somehow cut by it, so don't. Close it like this." He held it and pressed one side of the blade to the side by using the floor, and the knife clicked shut. He put it in Hayner's pocket, closing it gently. Hayner, still asleep, put one of his hands over the top of his pocket as if forbidding anyone else to lay a finger on it—were they to actually want to.

Yuffie laughed as she noticed a cut exactly like Leon's on Roxas' finger. "Maybe it's a guy thing," she commented wryly.

"How about not?" Cloud said, still wincing at the deep wound that cut diagonally down the center of his hand. He looked around for something he could at least use as a tourniquet, but he frowned when he found nothing. Finally he just wrapped it in his black shirt, and Aerith began to search the area for bandages of some type.

Just then, one of them noticed that Hayner was beginning to stir.

"…Hey, I think this one is waking up!"

-,-,-

Kairi, Naminé, and Olette all sat in the strangely three-dimensional room together, holding onto one another in some way. Olette had fallen asleep on one of their shoulders, and Naminé was looking as if she were about to do the same.

Kairi, however, remained alert, something inside of her telling her that Axel was coming…as was Sora, she could feel it.

Sure enough, though, the next thing she knew she was looking at a mysterious black cloud swirling nearby and revealing a human shape.

"You guys; wake up!" she said, shaking the other two into consciousness.

"Well, good morning, ladies!" said Axel, walking over to them. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but recent events have forced me to relocate. And you're coming with."

All three of them gasped as Axel grabbed onto them. He needed only have held onto one of them, because nothing could have parted the friends at a time like this.

"Okay, well, I hope you're not afraid of the dark," he warned them, walking towards the portal.

Kairi managed to pull away, and the others used the sudden surprise that took over Axel to do the same.

"C'mon, guys, I'm not sure where it leads, but…!" Kairi yanked them towards the dark portal, and Axel was helpless to stop them.

"Hey, there's no telling where you'll end up if you don't know how to—!" Axel held out his hands as if he were praying that his palms would suddenly become magnetic and bring the hostages back to him.

"You loser, anywhere's better than with you!" Kairi yelled furiously at him, and Naminé nodded with a huff in agreement as they both pulled a frightened Olette into the swirling mass of darkness.

Staring in shock and wonder at the black portal, Axel finally stomped a foot and swung his fist to one side in a casual attempt to display his frustration.

"God, now I really don't know what to do…" he said, looking at nothing in particular and crossing his arms. "Let's just hope that Saïx isn't the first to get to them this time, either."

-,-,-

Hayner was sitting up and talking to those present quietly when Sora and Roxas both woke up. Not much caring that they were on the same bed, Roxas continued to lay on it as Sora slowly blinked and sat up.

"Hey, lookit', this one's awake now, too," Cid pointed out. Sora realized the larger man must be talking about him, and he looked at them all, managing a weak "Hello".

"I wouldn't be surprised if they'd both woke up at the same time," Cloud said serenely, and Roxas moaned in disapproval of his assumption.

"Haha, I guess you were right," Yuffie said, poking Roxas in the back and causing him to sit up slowly. He grabbed his head and clung to his hair tightly after he did, wincing at the rush of migraine that had taken over his mind.

"Feeling better?" Hayner asked them, the only one of them to not have gone through the intense physical strain of dangling from a cliff until they lost their grip or…

Roxas opened his eyes suddenly, and they could see they were quite large.

"Wh…what happened?" He looked around at them quietly.

"We're not exactly sure, Roxas," Yuffie said, and Leon added, "We were hoping you could tell us."

"Did I…?" Now the blonde replica of Sora just stared at himself as he sat limply on the bed, barely aware any longer of the grinding headache that threatened to knock him back into unconsciousness.

"Hayner, do you remember those flying things catching us?" Sora asked next. "Weren't they Nobodies?"

"That's what I thought," Leon commented. Roxas continued to stare.

"How could I have…?" He feared the answer he already knew.

"Organization XIII," Leon said, pacing back and forth. "Strongest of all Nobodies, with the ability to control the ones that are weaker…I think you're re-discovering a power you once shared with others of your kind."

Hayner disliked how Leon referred to Nobodies as "others of Roxas' kind". Wasn't Roxas somebody too? Yet Sora was no better than Leon, and he even admitted it to himself.

"Well," Roxas asked desperately, "is there anyway to forget again?"

Cloud smiled slightly, Cid laughed, and Yuffie giggled to herself. Aerith, Sora, and Hayner made no response, while Leon just shook his head.

"Yeh can't forget what yeh are, kid," Cid said, adjusting the straw now dangling from his mouth. Turning to Hayner, who had told Cid about what Zexion had said, he added, "Neither can you, al'right? Jus' cause y' are something, it doesn' mean yeh should wish yer something else, even if everyone else is."

"He's right," Aerith said, nodding her head tranquilly in agreement. "There are just as many advantages to being different as there are when you're all the same."

Hayner shrugged, and Roxas rubbed his head as though he had a brand new headache.

"Hey, she's right!" Yuffie giggled. Then she randomly turned to Aerith and spoke to her quietly, and suddenly Aerith was leaving to get something. Leon looked thoughtful for a moment, then tried once more to convince Roxas.

"Being able to control the Nobodies is an advantage that you should be not just grateful for, but you should also hold onto it carefully and take advantage of it."

"How could I do that, though?!" Roxas asked, looking at them. From then on, he felt, every time he looked at a Nobody, he would see himself, incomplete and searching for something. Besides, what was he supposed to do, anyway? Lie to the creatures and have them walk up to Sora and Hayner, then bow and hold their necks out? As if that would make Roxas feel any better.

He voiced much of his opinion, and they all nodded and whispered to eachother while looking at him. Roxas squirmed uncomfortably, feeling their eyes all resting on him.

Finally they were done, and after a moment of silence where they just looked at him, Cloud spoke up.

"We see your point," the tall soldier said, holding up one hand and tilting his head just slightly. "Just keep doing what you have been doing, and save it for emergencies. Times when you're surrounded, or like what happened yesterday."

"Was it yesterday already?" Sora asked, looking outside, where it was dark out. The clock was resting on 7:34, but he had no idea whether it was correct or not.

"Almost two days ago, to be honest," Hayner said.

Leon and Cloud jerked their heads up as they heard him click open his knife.

"Be careful with that!" Cloud said as Hayner studied it.

"What, are you scared of it?" Hayner asked, not noticing the bandage wrapped around Cloud's hand multiple times. Leon had left his to heal in the open, though his was not nearly as big as the other fighter's injury was. Both of them looked stunned when Hayner, after asking them this, took his knife and ran it along the side of his face, the actual blade's edge tracing an invisible line down the side of his cheek.

"…Give me that," Cloud said at last, grabbing the knife from Hayner with his good hand almost impatiently. He made the mistake of allowing part of his finger to touch the dull side of the blade as he grabbed it, and Hayner gasped and covered his mouth when a streak of blood leaked down from a mysterious cut on Cloud's finger and stained the side of the blade.

"Dammit, not again!" Cloud swore, throwing the knife onto the floor. Hayner ran over to it, bending down and holding his arms in front of him as he ran to retrieve it while Cloud sucked on his finger.

"You loser, what'd you do that for?!" Hayner asked him, wiping the knife off with his shirt and rubbing his palm on the side of the blade to polish it.

"That knife wasn't just any regular hunting tool before you got it, Hayner," Leon said. When the young blade wielder looked up, the wise adult was back into his "thinking pose".

"What do you mean?" Hayner asked quietly, then looked down to rub his thumb across the strange marking on it.

"That knife is really rare, forged by darkness itself and given only to few people," Leon began while he stood in his favorite pose holding his eyes shut, as if this would help him remember the knife's full history. "When the Heartless were building up, many found their way into the Realm of Darkness, where they could grow free of interruption. After awhile, they developed new traits that used the darkness there itself to help feed their growing needs. They developed sharper claws, wings, larger sizes, and new weapons, forged from the shadows. That knife is one of those that was forged there, one of the original weapons that began the design of what would seem to be countless breeds of Heartless now found in every world. It's thanks to the Organization that much of the Heartless are scattered among the different worlds, and even more thanks to Ansem for copying them in the first place, but that doesn't mean that Natural Selection didn't still play a part when it came to the finishing touches. A good example is the Yellow Nocturne, which has a similar looking relative in nearly every world."

"So…" Sora cut in, putting together some pieces in his head. "Even though there are different Heartless for each world, they all come from the same basic Heartless?"

Leon nodded somewhat driftily.

"Most were started by Ansem, I thought," Sora said. "So he just copied them?"

"Exactly, somewhat," Leon said, taking the knife and holding it up carefully. Hayner stuck his lip out in protest, but did nothing. "And this is from one of the real ones that we'll never see. If it weren't for Ansem the Wise—and Malificent, of course, these Heartless you see everywhere would still be where they belonged, and that's hidden away in the Realm of Darkness with the ones they're based off of…with the exception of the Shadow Heartless, anyway."

"It's too bad that Heartless breed the way they do, too," Yuffie said. "Taking people's hearts to create more—that's not how it should work."

"Of course," Leon continued, "it's the ones that were created by Ansem that were the ones that learned to survive outside of this darkness and remained, learning to adapt to their specific environments. Yet this knife is genuine…The breed of Heartless that this knife came from can't be found anymore, and the only way I can see that you obtained it would be through someone with some serious ties to darkness."

Hayner continued to look at the blade. The detailed insignia that was imprinted on one side of the knife, he finally figured out, was a deeply intricate shape that combined the symbol for both Heartless and Nobodies, with a few extra characteristics added to it. "So," he asked, looking at the camouflaged handle, "Does that mean there used to be military Heartless or something?"

Leon looked up finally with an expression that suggested he thought he shouldn't even have to answer that question. "I'm pretty sure that it went under a few modifications," he said to the shorter blonde. "That's probably not even the blade's original shape; it could even be made from Heartless armor or something, and I'm even more sure that handle was added on later. Don't kid yourself, alright?"

"Okay, and I'm not a kid," Hayner mumbled, almost disappointed. Yet the fact that his knife was something to be proud of kept a smile on his face.

"So can it choose its keeper just as the Keyblades can?" Cloud asked, more just to make this clear to Hayner and the others than to confirm it for himself.

"It would seem so," Leon replied. He went over to the bed where Roxas still sat after Sora had already been standing for some time. Sitting on the bed next to him, he asked, "Are you feeling better? I'm sure it's not easy pulling an ability like that out of nowhere after so long."

"What do you mean?" Roxas said, looking up at Leon in the corner of his eye, then regretting it when his head spun.

"Go easy on that new trick. It'll be awhile before you've got the hang of it again, I'm sure." Leon patted Roxas' back and stood once more.

Roxas was still looking up in confusion when Yuffie sat down next to him with a huge smile on her face. Roxas moaned and rested his face back in his hands with his elbows on his knees, groaning about something as Yuffie smiled at him and began to talk his ear off.

Just then, Aerith walked back in. She held the keys to the Gummi Ship in her hands after just coming back from Cid's large workshop nearby and retrieving them. "Key bearer," she said, handing the keys to Sora and the other two. "You have someone waiting for you. I wouldn't want Cloud to keep me waiting either, so, maybe it's time you went on your way."

"Key bearer, huh?" Sora smiled and took the shiny keys from her, tossing them in the air before catching them and putting them in his pocket. "I'll be back," Sora said, looking at each of the Radient Garden residents in order. "Thanks for everything, you guys."

"Is he ready to go yet, though?" Cloud asked in his deep voice, nodding towards Roxas who was still in the same position with his chin nearly touching his chest and his hands hiding his face.

"Oh, I'm ready, all right," he groaned, and they noticed that, as he buried his face in his hands, he had one finger from each hand dug in his ears to keep out Yuffie's constant chatter.

"Well, then, let's go!" Sora said, grabbing Roxas' arm and yanking him up. The blonde party member felt as if he were going to throw up from the sudden movement of his head, but Aerith handed him something else before distributing it among the other two as well.

"Here, potions for the road ahead," Aerith told them quietly, making sure each one had a fair number. "You don't want to get caught without them," she reminded.

Sora was quiet as he smiled around at them maturely. At last he said, "Thanks again, you guys. I don't know what I would do without friends like you."

"No problem, any time!" most of them said together while waving to Sora.

"So, then, yeh ready to get on that new Gummi Ship I built fer yeh?" Cid asked him, motioning gruffly towards the door.

"Yeah," Sora replied. He was watching the others over his shoulder as he headed towards the door.

Just then Hayner felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Leon handing him something.

"Take this," Leon said to him. "It's to keep your knife in. Strap this around your waist so you don't have to keep reaching all the way for your pocket every time you want to use it. That thing is special enough where it deserves a good resting place, anyway."

Hayner took it from him, looking at the knife sheath. With this, he wouldn't even have to close it, but he saw it was designed where he could store it open or closed, whichever he chose. The black strap and even darker black case went well with the knife, if one took the blade's lusty colors into consideration while comparing them.

"Thanks," Hayner said to Leon meaningfully, yet Leon made no reply and was already looking away as if he had been embarrassed to give it to Hayner. He knew that his much older friend was probably just deep in his own thoughts again, so Hayner strung the strap through his belt loops and fit his rare pocket knife into it snugly. It was as if they were made for eachother.

Now he felt ready to take on anything.

So with that, Sora and Hayner, followed by a still somewhat tired-looking Roxas and a much larger Cid, all left the quiet little safe-haven with three people still waving goodbye to them.

-,-,-

"Well, here it is," Cid said, throwing open the door for them to see.

All three of the friends ran up to it in awe, yelling to eachother excitedly as they circled it and tried to devour it with their eyes all at once. It was the slickest ship that any of them had ever seen, including Sora, who had seen his fair share. This one looked different than before, with much less geometrical designs incorporated into its blueprint and created to suit both space aerodynamics and the eye perfectly.

"Thank you so much, Cid!" Sora said, running back over to the Gummi expert as he stood proudly staring at it.

"Thanks, I did quite a bit o' modifyin' to it myself," he said to them, touching the straw in his mouth with his thumb and forefinger seemingly just to make sure it was there. "That ain't no ordinary Gummi, as I'm sure you can tell—so take good care of it fer' me."

"We will," Roxas said with a huge smile, looking over at Cid as he and Sora talked.

"Good, glad ta' hear it," Cid replied, going over to the ship. "You guys need a bit of a refresher, or d'ya think yeh got the hang of it?"

"We're good," Sora said, itching to try it out in action.

The older adult patted the side of the sturdy ship once, resting his hand on it when he did. "She's got a few new functions on 'er, so I hope yeh figure out how teh' use 'em all when th' time comes."

"I'm sure we will, don't you worry about us!" Sora said, then stood silent for a moment. Finally the two shook hands, and when Cid let go, Sora looked at his hand with a grimace on his face and shook it loosely as if Cid's hand had crushed it. "Well," he said finally, wiping away the look on his face and replacing it with a look of gratitude. "I'll be seeing you again soon!"

"I'm sure yeh will, kid." Cid stood by as Sora, then Hayner, and finally Roxas shoved and argued their way excitedly into the vessel. Cid pressed a button, and the roof of the somewhat spacious house subsided to reveal a darkened sky. After a moment he stepped aside as the engine turned itself on, and then it was gone. As he watched the speck in the sky grow smaller and smaller as it disappeared among the stars, he repeated, "…I'm sure yeh will."

-,-,-,-