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.) But I hold myself liable for the town Ecstasy; that was all my idea.

Chain of Hearts, Chapter 5:

The Ecstasy District

By Nagori Kirashi

"Woa, alert ahead," a voice said almost happily to Sora.

"Thanks, Pence! I see it," the spiky-haired pilot replied, equally cheerful.

After leaving the Radient Garden, all three had agreed that their first stop should be to Twilight Town. There had been much debate between Sora and Roxas before finally they agreed to let Roxas drive there, but now that they had left, Sora was back in command.

Cid had installed a communication device into the ship, but what was the point of having a communication device if they didn't have someone to communicate with? Pence was now their official hometown directory, and a small grid-pad that he kept next to the cam that allowed him to view Sora and the others in the ship let him to see if anything was coming in the direction of his space-bound friends. Though it seemed like an obsolete piece of equipment, readable only by a blue dot that indicated their ship and a mixture of either red or green dots that kept coming at a steady rate, the wireless chart was a nice step up for Pence, who was loving technology more and more every day as a distraction while his friends were away. Vertical and horizontal lines moved on the screen rather than the blue dot to indicate what direction they were moving.

Pence was already a technology freak, so his appointed job was more than suitable.

When they had stopped and introduced the new system of communication to Pence and announced him as the one in charge of their official Base Control Center, the lonely teen couldn't have been more excited. He'd actually hit Roxas on the shoulder in his excitement, causing the hot-headed blonde to yell at him.

Yet nothing could lower Pence's mood, not even now, when they were already half an hour away.

"Hey, guys, we're coming into some rougher terrain," Sora warned them all. "Hayner, hold on; from now on, don't expect every ride to be as smooth as they have been."

Hayner swallowed as Sora suddenly doubled the ship's speed. The brunette placed one hand over the joy stick that triggered the huge weaponry installed on the ship and glanced at the screen that told him where the computer was aiming.

"I'll keep you informed," Pence said seriously from the other side of the connection, and Sora nodded, not taking his eyes off the challenge ahead of him.

-,-,-

When they landed, Hayner was by far the first to be teleported out of the ship.

"Hey, take it easy," Roxas and Sora said to him, both appearing seconds later.

Hayner couldn't hear him; he was too busy dropping to his knees and kissing the ground while muttering thankfully.

"Okay, here's the deal," Sora said to the other friend who was still listening. "Even with what we picked up in the Radiant Garden, we're really short on supplies, and a bit of practice wouldn't hurt either. Who else says we should just check out this place and see if there's somewhere we can stock up on?"

Roxas, who hadn't cared enough to ask what was up when they'd begun to land in the first place, just said in return, "It's not like we have much choice at this point, is it?"

"Well you could've said something," Sora replied honestly. "Besides, I don't think Hayner could've made it much longer."

They both frowned at Hayner, who was now struggling to stand close by. Roxas, who knew Hayner quite well, was almost sure that he was at least partially overreacting, though they all had a slight tendency to be like that. At last Hayner stood and joined the other two, both of whom simply shook their heads at him sadly.

"Say, it looks like there's a town nearby," Roxas said after a moment, wandering over to an incredibly tall, narrow sign that appeared to be placed next to a path in the middle of nowhere. Hills surrounding the area prevented them from seeing what was beyond the path in either direction. The sign had a name on it, but he couldn't quite read it.

"Hey, Sora, come here," Roxas said, signaling for his other side to come over, so Sora did. "I can't read this, can you?"

Suddenly both Roxas and Sora turned as they heard Hayner say nervously, "You guys, I don't know about this; I got a bad feeling…"

"What is it," Sora said, turning. Hayner was still standing some ways back, and he stood somewhat at an angle to where the sign was pointing. For some reason at this perspective he was able to read it.

"What's wrong, do you know what it says?" Roxas asked him.

Hayner nodded.

"It says Nowhere," Hayner replied quietly, still staring at the sign somewhat nervously.

Roxas came over, then stood next to Hayner off of the path, leaning his head closer to Hayner so he too might be able to read the sign. Finally, after a moment he just said, "Well, this sucks…now what?"

-,-,-

"Kairi, I'm scared…"

Olette whispered this softly while they looked around.

They were standing in the middle of absolutely nothing.

No matter which direction they looked, all the girls could see was black.

"Didn't Axel warn us this might happen?" Naminé said, also lowering her voice as they huddled together.

"Who, that guy back there?" Kairi didn't even bother to soften her vocals as she stated the next sentence with a mixture of disrespect and apprehension in her girlish voice. "Don't even talk about him…he's the one who took us from Sora! And sorry, but I was too busy running to pay any attention to what's-his-name!"

"Well…I'm sorry." Naminé looked away with a displeased expression on her face, her blue eyes clouded with submission. Only when Olette began to tap them both on the shoulder repeatedly did they stop quarreling.

"Guys, I think something is coming," she told them, and Kairi and Naminé lowered their voices again.

"I guess it's safe to say now that Olette is our official watch girl," Kairi commented quietly while attemting a small smile, trying to cheer them up.

Yet the taunting voice that replied to them did anything but make them feel better.

"Trust me, ladies, nothing is safe in the Realm of Darkness."

Kairi and Naminé felt a cold hand wrap around their shoulders and cling to their arms. The figure pulled Naminé in particular more closely as if paranoid she could still use the darkness herself to escape.

"Now, maybe you should have stayed with that rebel, Axel, and then you wouldn't have ended up here…or with me."

"Xigb—!!" Naminé gasped, but he put a hand over her mouth, stopping her as she began to struggle. In the meantime, the brunette princess tugged against the ice cold grip of the mysterious figure. Olette's eyes shook as she watched the two held captive.

"Ah—run for the portal, Olette!!" Kairi yelled to the last of the friends not to be held back by the black-clad kidnapper.

Olette backed away from everything at first, away from Zig-something, away from Kairi and Naminé, and away from the portal.

The dark figure began to laugh at her fear, and suddenly she felt a wave of courage travel up through her nerves and cause her hair to stand on end. Clenching her fists, she suddenly managed to shoot a nasty look at the intruder before bolting as fast as she could towards the portal.

"Damn it, don't even try—!!" the figure said, reaching out the hand that held Naminé at first before being forced to use that arm to recapture her and hold her thrashing figure against himself, all to keep her from also tearing away and following Olette.

"I'll see you guys soon," they heard Olette say before disappearing.

Kairi stood still for a moment before unexpectedly beginning to pull against her captor's grip.

"C'mon, you little brat…" He dragged her and Naminé slowly to the portal, and once they were through, back in another world with at least some color, Kairi wondered why she would ever fight to stay in a place so horrendously dark and frightening as the Realm of Darkness.

When she watched the tall figure shove Naminé into one room, causing her blonde twin to land on her side in what must have been a painful manner before he slammed the narrow door, Kairi realized why.

-,-,-

"Nowhere?" Sora repeated. "That sounds like it's being used as a name. Like…'Welcome to Nowhere,' you know what I mean?"

"No, Sora, please explain," Roxas said sarcastically before going back to examining the sign. This time he had to stand somewhat on his tip-toes and reach his neck backwards to look at the strange sign, and he ran his fingers across the letters that looked as if they had been chipped into the wooden sign impatiently by someone who was either un-experienced with a chizel or scratched in randomly with a sharp tool. Red paint was slapped over it in places almost to help clarify which notches belonged with what to form letters, yet it didn't seem to help. Only from an odd angle like Hayner's were the letters at all legible.

"…Wait a minute," Sora said, noticing that the sign was cut roughly into an arrow shape at both ends. Though it was hard to tell at first, once Sora noticed it the two-way arrow shape seemed quite obvious. "What if…?"

He ran over so he was standing close by to Hayner at the opposite angle, who still stood looking at the sign with a thoughtful expression. Sora held his pointer finger in front of him, pointing at some of the letters, jerking his finger backwards now and then as if this helped him decipher the sign better.

Then he took one step to his right.

"You guys," he said loudly, as if there wasn't nothing but grass and the occasional strangely-colored tree to stifle his voice. "When you stand here…"

The other two turned.

"…it says Somewhere!" Sora finished, his face an expression of shock.

"How'd they do that?" Hayner asked, equally surprised.

"Great, so let me guess." Roxas crossed his arms and leaned against the sign. "One way actually goes somewhere…and the other way leads nowhere whatsoever. So how do we figure out which is which?"

Sora and Hayner stood in thought for a moment, when at last, Sora spoke.

"Hayner, what direction do you have to face to read 'Nowhere'?" Sora asked him.

"Um, that way," Hayner said, pointing past the sign at nothing in particular. He was standing diagonal from where it faced, so his finger leaned towards one direction of the path.

"Right, and I have to face…that way," Sora said, pointing the opposite way, so his finger leaned towards the path in the other direction. "And that's what direction you have to stand to read 'Somewhere'! So…This must be which way you go if you want to go somewhere!"

"Let's hope you're right," Roxas said with a sigh.

And with that, all three began to head roughly in the direction Sora had pointed.

-,-,-

"What, Twilight Town?" Olette said, looking around.

She couldn't believe her luck.

Now if only the others had ended up there with her…

Olette felt somewhat guilty for having left them like that; then again, she reminded herself, she didn't have to follow them in the first place. Had she known she would have ended up in such dark places, she may not have followed them anyway.

"Now, where are we…?" The sign she looked at said she was South of her Usual Spot; she needed to get back so she could tell Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Sora all about what happened; or, she thought, at least as much as she knew.

Suddenly she saw something that made her quiver.

Hayner, Pence, and—it couldn't be!—her, or someone who looked exactly like herself, were walking down the street below from her, all talking happily with eachother about something. Olette panicked…was this some sort of…alternate town?

Could it actually be?

Déjà vu struck her hard, and for some reason, the mansion came into her head.

Without hesitation and propelled by an overwhelming sense of confusion and fear, Olette began to run as fast as she could in the direction of the woods.

-,-,-

Naminé looked up in time to see Saïx walking in, a look on his scarred face that showed, like usual, he was in no mood to negotiate or fun-talk.

"You," he said to her right away. "Number Two told me he found you and another certain someone wandering around in the Dark Realm. Just how did girls like yourselves end up in a place like that? Was Axel involved?"

"I'm never telling," Naminé said stubbornly, a look of determination on her face that showed she meant what she said.

"I can see that much is true," Saïx replied coldly, and Naminé felt chills run up the sides of her arms. "Then again, there are always ways to make someone tell."

The blonde girl feared his answer.

"Roxas…" He stalled, letting the name echo through the room, not by accoustics but more by the rock hard sensation of fear that it sent shattering through the air for Naminé. She lowered herself slightly, clenching her fist. "Don't worry, though; if we can't find him, he'll come to us soon enough."

"What do you want with Roxas?" she demanded.

"Oh, I think if we convinced him, he would figure out he still has reason to join us," Saïx replied. "After all, he has almost nothing in common with those other two he hangs with. Even Sora…Roxas isn't one of them, nor are they one of us. This is where he belongs, and I believe I could use an extra hand around here…"

He glanced down at what Naminé held, which was a pencil and a small sketchpad that he had slipped in the room earlier. There was already a picture beginning to form on it.

So he had been right…she still had her dangerous talent.

"…But I think two hands would be even better." He grinned darkly at her, then began to turn. "Including a nice, artistic hand…"

"You want me too, then." Naminé declared somewhat quietly, making it sound like more of a statement than a question.

"Of course," Saïx replied to her, his back already turned. "You know, I could always use you to help turn Roxas against Sora and bring him back, couldn't I? He would be safer with us, anyway."

"Never!" Naminé yelled boldly. "You've all been defeated by Sora before, and you know it'll happen again!"

Saïx remained silent, turning to look at her. His face was wrung with fury, with even a red glaze in his eye to punctuate it. Finally, in a quiet voice that somehow managed to have the same effect as yelling, he replied coldly, "So maybe we will be again. And again, and again, and again. But what matters is…We can come back. It's Sora who cannot, and once we bring him down, he's not coming back. Ever again."

Then, with those last cold words, he left Naminé, who sadly began to draw a sketch of her and all of her friends from Twilight Town, including Sora and Kairi, laughing together as if nothing was wrong at all.

-,-,-

"Okay, I think I see something ahead."

"You had better…my feet hurt," Hayner said to Sora somewhat wearily. "And if I don't get something to eat soon…plus I still have to use the bathroom—"

"So find a tree!" Roxas shot, growing annoyed with Hayner's complaining.

"Sure, that'd take care of one problem," Hayner said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"You're right, you'd still need to find a restroom and sit down somewhere," Roxas replied blandly.

"…Are you saying I eat offa' trees?" Hayner said, looking at Roxas somewhat annoyed.

"I wish you would so you'd shut up!" Roxas said back to him. Sora shot a look at both of them that told them they should both shut up.

So they did.

As they drew closer to the town that Sora had seen, Sora reached his fists high above his head as if he were stretching and said, "You know, I think Hayner's right…I'm kind of tired. Where is this place, anyway?"

"Wait, there's a sign—"

Roxas was cut off as a familiar dark-haired girl came into view from just outside the town, then came over to them.

"Hey, I remember you," she told them, then turned to Roxas. "Say, you look kinda like the guy I'm looking for. Seen him around lately?"

"Sorry, Tifa," Sora said. "Cloud's in Radient Garden right now."

"I thought so," Tifa said somewhat disappointedly. "Well, I'll just have to look for him there, then."

"Wait," Sora said, stopping her. She turned and looked at him, and for a moment he hesitated. Something about her made him uncomfortable, though it was probably just her overly persistent nature that scared him the most. "Where is this place, anyway?"

"Oh, you're new here?" Tifa smiled as she motioned around. "This is one of my favorite towns to hang out in now, Ecstasy! It's named after the Ecstasy District, that's the one we're standing outside of. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Ecstasy…?" Roxas repeated, the three boys ignoring the last question. "What kind of a name is that?"

She smiled and waved a finger at him. "You should be wondering what kind of place has its own emotion named after it."

Sora pondered her words for a moment, then felt somewhat uncomfortable again as she leaned closer to him and asked, "Need me to show you around?" He leaned away from her just as much as she leaned forward, and at last he said, "No, well…I guess we do."

"Of course we do!" Hayner said. Suddenly all his problems from earlier really did seem to be solved after they had run into Tifa.

"Aw, a new face!" she said, touching Hayner's nose. He turned a deep shade of red as though mortified, however the other two knew this was just how Tifa was. She could be very provocative at times, but it was usually in the name of something much simpler. "Are you new around here too, Soldier?"

"Yeah," he replied quietly. Suddenly he looked much bolder, back to the Hayner that Sora and Roxas both knew and hung out with. "I'm from Twilight Town."

Her face took on a suddenly much more serious look, but if she had something to say to them then, she held it back. "C'mon," the dark haired girl said at last. "I'll show you to the Hotel here. I'm Tifa Lockhart, by the way."

After much walking, Sora could begin to see why it was named such a town. The path they had been following had cut off into bricks, many of which looked as if they had been tinted by different colors. The people there were all smiling and talking, and Hayner and Sora couldn't spot a single dead flower in the many gardens that bloomed there.

"You really don't seem like you come from this place," Sora said to her. A gentle looking tree bloomed above their heads on one side of the street, each branch wound around in its own extravagant way as if God had spent extra time on making this one perfect. He smiled as a single petal floated down onto his shoulder and another past his cheek.

Something about this place was making him feel giddy inside, like he couldn't stop smiling.

"Well, okay, I usually hang just a few Districts over now when I'm not in Radiant Garden, but it's really safe in this part of town, since everyone here is friendly, so I used to get to visit here a lot when I was younger. I lived in Nibelheim a long time ago, but now it's…" She stopped.

"Heartless?" Sora asked.

Tifa was quiet, then shrugged quite casually.

"No, don't worry about it," she reassured at last. "Anyway, just a heads-up—if you stay here too often, you might never want to leave. People get a bit high in this district too, it seems; like everything has to be perfect."

Roxas began to learn what she meant soon enough; he turned just in time to see one gardener move to the next part of her garden in her small yard, study a flower carefully, then pull it from the ground and move the one next to it over to make up for the extra space.

"What'd you do that for?!" Roxas asked the woman, stunned. Sora and Hayner were too caught up in the scenery to even notice that they were short a friend, but Roxas didn't notice them going ahead, either. All he cared about was why this woman had removed such a beautiful bloom. Didn't it deserve a place in the garden, too?

"Look," she said, smiling as she held out the flower in her clean, colorful cloth gloves. Up close, her smile looked routine, almost fake as she gently rubbed the dying petals on one side of the golden flower.

"That's it…?" Roxas asked her. "But it's still blooming…"

"It's dying," she said to him. Suddenly her smile gave him the chills; it was like the smile of a mannequin. "Soon enough it will be no good, so it's good to get rid of it while you can, isn't it? Might as well."

"Might as well…" Roxas repeated her softly, but without a word, he took the flower from the woman as she still held it out. She had no objections, but just went back to her silent, ruthless pruning.

All the way to the Hotel, Roxas continued to hold the flower, stroking its bright yellow petals the entire time.

-,-,-

Once at the mansion, Olette looked around. She felt as if she were on the right track, yet she wasn't sure for what.

Had she been here before?

Her feet placed themselves placidly upon the right flight of stairs, and she could almost see the outline of her shoe's footprints before she had even taken the next steps. Finally she was at the top, and the same strange instinct that had told her to flee to this dusty facility said for her to turn right.

So she did, and in there she found a room that was so strangely out of order that she couldn't help to stare around. It was a library, old fashioned with the statue of a horse built into one bookcase studying the floor, and its soft carpet was like a relief after the dying wood floors and endless brick streets she had just tread upon to get there.

And there, taking up most of the rest of the floor, was…Another room!

Thickly built steel stairs that looked as if they had been bolted together and were hiding countless cords and wires led her down into a room whose walls looked the same. A doorway stood open in front of her, its sliding doors already drawn open as she walked into the room. When she arrived, she found herself standing in a room that looked equally put together as the open room that the stairs had led to; everything looked high-tech.

To her left, she saw a mechanism that flickered down a beam of light occasionally, and something told her to touch it. Approaching it slowly and hesitantly, she reached her hand out towards it, and suddenly she was standing in the same room again, but different.

For one, she noticed that over on the other side of the room, the computer that had been there before was now completely destroyed. Its many screens were smashed in as if they had been attacked by a heavy object of some type.

Somehow this felt more right, and in an instant, she began to run out of the mansion and towards where she knew she would find at least one of her friends, down at the Usual Spot.

-,-,-

Roxas was leaning his chin on one hand and stroking the petals of the soft yellow flower with his other hand. It was now potted in a small, clay pot with simple yet bright designs painted onto it; nothing in this town, it seemed, didn't have some kind of color or theme to it. He had set the freshly potted blossom on the table in front of the window that he now sat next to, not seeming to want to take part in anything that Sora or Hayner did.

"Are you boys ready?" Tifa said. She had invited them to lunch over at her own favorite district, and was now standing by the door as if waiting for them.

"Yeah, you bet we are!" Hayner said, jumping up from the springy bed. Sora also felt in a strangely good mood, and he couldn't help himself as he leapt in the air while he too responded positively.

"You guys be careful," the older girl warned them. "If you smile too much around here, it might not go away."

"Is that bad?" Sora and Hayner laughed.

Roxas, however, could not feel the same spite-less glee that the other two felt.

Was it because he had no heart? Or was it because of what he had experienced earlier?

Roxas stood and went over to the small, softly painted bathroom that was tinted with rainbows of gentle light colors connected to the main room. Once there, he took a cup that sat next to the sink, filled it with clear water that spewed from the faucet, and went back to water the yellow flower he had obtained earlier.

In some ways, he felt like that flower. That was why it was so special to him, he was sure of it. They had something in common, but even if he knew what it was, he couldn't admit it to himself yet. He didn't feel ready.

"Roxas, over-water that and it'll die," Tifa warned. "C'mon, you wanna miss out? We're going to the Black District today; that's where I mostly hang around. I think you'll like it."

"Hold on," the blonde replied, pouring only half the cup into the small pot.

"Come on, Roxas!" Hayner said impatiently, coming over to Roxas and grabbing onto his arm. The Sora duplicate was so surprised when Hayner actually did try to rip him to his feet that he nearly dragged the small potted flower right off the table with him when he stood. Roxas gave an irritated frown when Sora laughed.

"Okay, just remember, every district has a different emotion," Tifa warned. "If you're not from that area, you might find yourself affected by its emotion." She had a huge smile on her face as she spoke, and Sora wondered if that really was because she wasn't from this part of town.

"Well, all the people sure seem happy here," Sora said. "Is this part of town different?"

"No, people just like to come here more, so you see less of the, well, natives," Tifa replied to them. They walked together down the colorful hallway, and Hayner hung his head in embarrassment when he felt the urge to go up to one particularly colorful wall and hug it.

As they walked down the street, Sora kept his eye out for these "natives" that Tifa had spoken of. He counted a total of two people who weren't smiling, though they didn't look unhappy, either. The rest of the smiles he saw looked almost as if they were cut out and pasted on the peoples' faces.

'Go back where you belong,' he thought to them without realizing it. 'How can you really be happy? You don't fit in here…This isn't your world.'

-,-,-

When the group reached a set of tall doors that led to the next district, Sora genuinely felt sad. After they stepped into the district, he wondered if maybe it was just because of where he was.

"I'm real sorry," their female guide told them, "but in order to get to my place, we have to cross through the Serenity District first…This is the district of sadness."

"That explains why it's so dreary here, doesn't it?" Hayner asked, feeling as if he had been shot on the back by his best friend. What he had to feel so sad about after just being so happy only seconds ago, he had no idea. Then the burden of the journey they were on began to sink into the minds of Sora and Hayner in particular, like a blanket as cold as the air they now wandered through.

"Olette," he whispered sadly after a moment, the memory flooding his mind.

"And Kairi…" Sora added. Both boys sighed in unison and hung their heads miserably, and even Tifa began to look somewhat down.

Roxas, on the other hand, looked no more dreary than he had moments ago. Not even the chipper mood of their last stop, the Ecstasy District, had been able to lift or change his mood, and for some reason the same thing was happening in this district as well. Keeping his hands in his pockets, he quickened his pace just slightly so he wasn't lagging behind Sora and Hayner, then turned his head to look at both of them.

"Are…you guys alright?" Roxas asked them. He had forgotten about the flower by now, and now all that mattered that much was whether or not his two buddies were okay.

"Hey, and you are?" Tifa asked him, turning to him with a dismal look of surprise on her face. "Take a look around, why don't you. Not that I'm not positive you're just really good at acting tough, mister."

Huh? Roxas thought. Then he took her advice and glanced around.

Everything, including the bricks they were walking on, had some bit of blue and grey in it. Even the sky was darker. When he peered in the distance, no longer able to see the other district, he could still see only clouds in the sky that he had been sure weren't there before, which only tinted everything even grayer. It seemed like the only ones in this part of town were those who were passing through in grey-tinted clothing with depressed looks on their faces or else people clothed in blue, sitting together and talking. One young girl with red hair and pale skin who looked like she was from around there actually laughed as she sat on the edge of a roof with her friend. After the many fake smiles that the last district had created, seeing someone laugh—even in a place such as this—was like a huge sigh of relief to the group.

Still, everything was beginning to feel a little bit colder, and Sora wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered as his breath condensated in the air in front of him in a small puff of gray. A snowflake drifted slowly down onto Sora and landed where a flower petal had recently been.

Roxas still seemed somewhat un-phased by the gloomy feeling that wrapped itself around the others' hearts, though he could now understand why they felt that way. Instead, he was now confused as to why he couldn't. If anything, he could feel a slight bit of sadness filtering to him through Sora, but in contrast he was actually beginning to cheer up slightly.

"Alright, we're almost there…" Tifa took them through a series of turns on the strangely vast, widened road, then walked towards two large fitted doors that separated them from her current home.

"You might not like this place," she said to them as she reached for the goth-like handles that looked quite out of place in the town. "But knowing what you've been through, I'm sure you'll manage just fine…Otherwise I wouldn't have invited you here."

"What's the emotion here?" Sora asked, looking up.

Tifa was silent for a moment as she swung the two doors open.

"Fear," she said quietly.

-,-,-

Kairi struggled angrily as a tall, older-looking blonde male in a black cloak entered her small cell and grabbed her by the arm. He had deep set eyes with whitish slicked-back hair, short facial hair surrounding his mouth, and a ruthless gleam in his eyes as if life were a game and he were winning. She hated him instantly.

"What do you want?" she wanted to scream, but it came out as a quiet voice. "Who are you, and where's Sora?!"

The Organization member laughed haughtily at her.

"They call me Luxford," he said to her. She could almost feel him looking down on her. "I've been given specific orders; I'm to be your escort today, young lady. Whether you like it or not," he added when she continued to struggle.

"Where are you taking me?!" Kairi continued to pull away, but his strength was at least tenfold of her own.

"Does it matter?" he said to her, then pulled her through a blackened orb of darkness that he had formed.

When they stepped through, she gasped and looked around. She no longer continued to struggle.

"Welcome home," he said, shoving her forward in a purposely crude attempt to nudge her onward. "Now stay, not that you can help it. We'll be back for you when we know what to do with you, but until then you're just taking up space. And do say hi to your friends for me, won't you?"

He turned around and walked back into the portal. Kairi yelled, "Wait, what about Naminé?" She nearly chased after him but decided against it when she realized she might not end up where he was going. You couldn't always be sure about those portals, not unless you had some idea about what they were.

Unfortunately she didn't.

So, not entirely sure where she was and with Sora and Naminé's names still heavy on her mind, she began to look for someone to ask directions for where she was. Yet finally she decided against it.

'I've been staying here for almost a month,' Kairi reminded herself as she forced herself not to panic and tried to think about what she could do next. 'One would think I could at least find my way around Twilight Town by now, wouldn't they?'

Now she just had to find the Usual Spot. Then the others could take it from there…if they weren't gone already.

Kairi broke into a run.

-,-,-,-