Darkness had once fallen over Destiny Islands, but that had passed, during that time, no one noticed the Darkness took someone with it, someone to protect its heartless from the keyblades. No one would have thought the cheeriest child of the islands would be chosen for this duty. But that was a few years ago, before the darkness fell.

Now a young adult man with brown spiky hair looked around his hometown. Everything was peaceful until suddenly a pureblood heartless appeared in front of him, floating somehow. Then slowly pale arms formed and a girl, his age, dressed in black pants and shirt, with a red skirt-like cloth over her pants, and black boots, was in front of him. Her eyes were red and she had long black hair with red streaks in it. He stepped back and he noticed on her arm was a band with the heartless symbol on it.

"Who are you?" he asked looking at her with his blue eyes.

"You have harmed too many of the heartless, it is time you paid." she said with a dark, monotone voice as she glared at him with hate.

"What ar-" he didn't get to finish since a metal fan whizzed past his head, narrowly missing his neck. "Hey, what was that for?" the fan suddenly came up behind him and returned to her hand, while her other hand held the heartless close to her chest.

"I said you are done with harming the heartless, I will keep them safe, that is my duty." she snapped swinging at him, only for him to trip her and hold a giant key to her neck.

"That's enough, I have no idea what's wrong with you but I've done nothing to you to be attacked like this." he said. "Now, I'm Sora, who are you?"

"You have no right to know my name." she hissed and kicked his knees, knocking him over and sunk into the shadows and out of his sight.

"Hey, where did you go?" he asked looking around only he could not find her anywhere he looked.

With the girl gone, Sora went home to his dorm room. He found his silver-haired friend still up studying for the exam he had in the morning.

"Anything happen tonight?" He asked not looking up from his text book.

"Huh, yeah some girl attacked me, claiming she protected the heartless." Sora replied.

His friend dropped his pencil and looked at him like he was crazy. "You can't be serious, I never heard of a girl who defines the heartless. And I would know." he said.

"Riku, I'm serious. She attacked me while she was hugging a heartless. Who hugs a heartless?" Sora retorted at his friend.

"Okay, that is something to think about." Riku replied with a yawn. "You should get some sleep or you're gonna sleep through classes again."

Sora chuckled some rubbing his head, "Yeah, you've got a point but I have that girl on my mind. She kinda seemed familiar look wise."

"What do you mean?" Riku asked going back to his studying.

"Well, she looked like someone we knew, but I can't place a name for some reason. But I guess sleep is the best idea." Sora said before going to bed.

XXXXXXXXXXx

At lunch Sora meet up with his other friends, he was heading to their table, only to run into a girl knocking her down. He starting apologizing and helping her up, only she pulled away from him. He surprised she looked like the girl from the other night only she had dark brown eyes and no red streaks in her hair. "Don't touch me." was all she said before swiftly moving away. He watched her for a moment, but looked back at his friends for a second then at her only to find her gone. He was confused for a moment but joined them.

"Sora, what happened? Running over strange girls now, are we?" a girl with light blue hair joked.

"No, I just... never mind, Aqua." he said shaking his head.

"What's wrong with you? You've been all zoney on us." a boy with blonde hair said.

"Well, I need to know have any of you heard of a Heartless Guardian?" Sora asked.

His friends gave him a bunch of 'no' and 'that's not possible' making him sigh. He rubbed his forehead and explained his story. He noticed his raven haired friend seemed to know something and looked at him. "So Vanitas, what do you know?"

He looked at Sora with cold amber eyes. "Well, I know that there is a slight chance of it happening but I highly doubt it since if there was one, I'm sure more heartless would be attacking everywhere." he said.

"Well, how do you know that she leads them?" Aqua asked. "She could simply just guard them from those with keyblades, like us."

A man with short brown hair looked at Aqua, "If that is true, why haven't any of us seen her before? Why is she only now coming out to speak up?"

"Terra makes a good point." another blond haired boy said. "We all should have seen her sooner than this."

"But Ven, maybe there is a reason for her late appearance." the other blond boy said.

"Or maybe because we were all over, she had a hard time moving about in time to stop us, Roxas." a blond haired girl said as she drew a picture.

"Whatcha drawing, Namine?" Roxas asked looking over her shoulder. "Oh, cool who is she?"

The picture was of a girl with cold red eyes, long black hair with red streaks, and hugging a heartless. "I'm not sure but she was in my dream." Namine replied pausing her drawing to fix her hair so it fell over her shoulder again. "Sora, did the girl look like this?" she held the drawing so Sora could see.

"YES! THAT'S HER!" he shouted getting everyone around them to look at him like he was insane.

"Huh, sorry everyone ignore him." a red haired girl said with a nervous smile as she put her hands on Sora's shoulders and pushed him into the seat.

"Thanks Kairi." Sora said looking at her with a cheesy smile.

Ven stole the drawing and studied it some turning it every which way, trying to place the face with a name himself but threw it on the table. "Nope, I got nothing."

Next Vanitas picked up the drawing and looked at it and rubbed his chin some and hummed a bit. "Well, I have no idea who she is, but I'd screw her." he said with a smirk.

Aqua reached over, took the picture, and then hit him outside the head, saying "Commentary not needed." and getting a yelp of pain from the raven haired boy.

He gave her an apologetic smile and whined, "I was just kidding."

"It doesn't matter, you don't need to be a jerk." Terra said crossing his arms. "Girls do have feelings you know."

"Yeah, that's why I look for ones like that one. She's so heartless, even the Heartless avoid her." Vanitas said.

Sora sighed. "I wouldn't say she's heartless, only cold and maybe her heart is just frozen over because of the way she seems to care about the Heartless a lot. I mean she seems to always be hugging one. She was when I meet her and she is in this drawing." he stated.

"Really?" Ven asked looking at Sora.

"Yeah, she didn't want to put it down by the looks of it." He sighed some. "I wish we knew something."

"Well, we don't but tonight I will." Vanitas said with a sly smile.

"You are not going out tonight, at least not to torment this poor girl." Kairi snapped as Namine nodded.

"You can't stop me. Besides, you and Sora have a date tonight, so he can't go out and do the check around." the amber eyed boy said with a smirk.

Kairi blushed and hides her face in her hands. Namine gave Vanitas a dark look. Vanitas just shrugged and smiled.

"How did you know?" Sora asked looking at him.

"You don't need to know." he replied with a yawn. "Well I should get some sleep, so I'm at my best when I meet this girl, and maybe I'll get her name." with that he got up and left the rest of the group.

XXXXXXXXXX

That night Vanitas walked around the town slaying all the heartless he laid his eyes on, in hopes of getting the girl to show up but none of them seem to bring her. He was tired and so he leaned his head on the bricks of the wall he stood by, and suddenly a metal fan with the heartless symbol was on the blades was inches from his nose. He looked surprised and put his guard up and looked around.

Then his eyes fell on a girl with cold red eyes with anger in her eyes. He wasn't expecting her to have weapons, because he had to dodge another fan that almost cut his arm off. He looked over at her only to find her gone.

"Where did you go?" he said to himself only to find a fan to his throat and the girl in front of him.

"You've killed the most heartless out of all of them in one night." she hissed. "What have they done to you?"

"They tend to take people's hearts." he answered and grabbed her wrist. Next thing he knew he was on his back. He didn't think she would that strong. "Hey, I only did it to get you to come out of hiding."

She looked surprised and let his arm go and back up playing with one of her curls. "You... you wanted to see me?" she asked, slight blush danced on her cheeks as she looked at the ground some.

"Yes, and I must say you are very unique thing to see. How does one such as your beauty become something of the darkness?" he asked getting up and moving closer to her.

"I don't remember anything about my past." she said softly watching him.

"Come on, you look like you need a bed to sleep in." he said holding out his hand.

"I don't sleep." She replied watching his hand.

"I see, well you must have a name at least." the raven haired boy said with a charming smile. "I'm Vanitas."

She moved around him and collected her other fan and hide it under her skirt. "Raven." she responded looking at him.

"Well, Raven. Would you like to come to my place and stay the night?"

She thought about it for a moment then nodded. "You're a strange man, but you're also a lot nicer than the other guy, who looked like you." she smiled some.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"You can't stay in those clothes, that'll give you a way to Sora." Vanitas said as he looked in his closet. "These are all too large, maybe Ventus has something for you to wear."

He went into the blonde's room and opened his closet in a noisy fashion that woke the blond. "Vanitas, what are you doing in my room?!" he snapped rubbing the sleep from his blue eyes.

"Raven need clothes to wear, and mine are too large for her." the raven haired boy replied digging around and throwing a shirt and pants and the girl. "Those should keep you nice and cozy."

"Stop lending your girlfriends my clothes." Ven said.

"This one is the one Sora was talking about." Vanitas said.

Ven jumped out of bed and looked at Raven more closely and saw that she was the girl from the picture. He was amazed at how little emotion on in her eyes. "Alright, but she's not staying long."

"Alright, but she'll have to stay on the fold out bed." the amber eyed boy said.

Ven sighed, since it was the only place she would have to sleep, unless one of them were going to share a bed with her, and if she shared one with Vanitas, no one knows what he'd do to the poor girl. "I'll go get her blankets as she changes, you get the bed ready." Ven said dragging Vanitas out of his room and closing the door.

Raven watched them both leave, then looked at the clothes in her arms. She was confused on everything. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. She dropped the clothes and looked at them one by one, and slowly realized how they went. Slow she changed and looked at herself in the mirror that was in the room.

She opened the door and walked out into the room that the two boys where, to see them fighting over how the bed should look. She tilted her head some and walked over as a heartless formed by her feet and walked beside her. She noticed it and smiled, picking it up and carrying it in her arms. She nuzzled it as it made its sounds that brought her comfort in this strange place.

"What is a heartless doing in here?" Ven asked.

"He's my friend." Raven said.

"They steal hearts of people." he replied.

"He won't take hearts." she responded holding the creature closer to her breasts.

"Just let her keep it. If it tries anything, I'll get rid of it, let's just make her happy right now." Vanitas said walking over to Raven. "You may rest on the fold out bed tonight. Tomorrow you'll meet our friends."

"You have more friends?" she asked looking up at him.

"Of course." he said with a smirk.

"Okay." she said sitting on the end of the bed.

"Rest up, we'll see you in the morning." Ven said going back into his room.

"Don't lose that charm." Vanitas said with a wink and went into his room.

Raven laid back, the mattress was softer than anything less she had felt. Her eyelids grew heavy, as she felt something she had never felt before, but she liked the feeling as she curled up and fell asleep with the heartless cuddled against her. Falling asleep as images flooded through her dream, she didn't understand only felt the pain of something run through her.

She sat up, only to knock heads with Ven. She looked at him with a scared look in her eyes as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She let go of the heartless and put her hands on her head. Ven sat down by her.

"Raven, what's wrong? You were making strange sounds." Ven asked looking at her.

"I don't know, I felt something I've never felt before and then there were these pictures in my head, and I felt nothing but pain. I'm so confused." she replied rubbing her head.

"You had a dream, that's all." he explained. "They happen sometimes when you sleep."

"I've never slept before. I guess it's something I'll have to get used to." she replied as she looked at the heartless that crawled onto her lap and sat there. She smiled at it and looked at Ven. "I hope I didn't wake you up."

"Nah, I couldn't sleep so I came to get something to munch on." he said.

"Oh, alright then. I guess I should go back to sleep or do something." she said rubbing the Heartless's head, getting strange coos from it.

"You could take a shower." Ven suggested with a shy smile.

"A shower?" she questioned.

Ven explained it to her and then lead her to the bathroom so she could take one. He was caught off guard by her starting to remove her clothes with him in the room. He rushed out, closing the door behind him as blush danced across his cheeks. He felt like an idiot since he should have realized that Raven didn't seem to understand anything right now. But that can happen after his heart stops racing.

XXXXXXX

Vanitas woke up in the late morning by Raven's heartless jumping on his bed, only for Raven to join it. Throwing him off the bed. He curled up on his side and groaned since the air was cold and his warm bed was taken over by a girl and her heartless. But she screamed and fell off the other side of the bed for some reason.

He sat up and found his Flood unversed on his bed, kinda yelling at her, as she curled up against the wall with the heartless in her arms. The look of fear was in her red eyes again. Vanitas was puzzled for a moment, then realized that she had never seen an unversed before and was probably scared of it.

"It's alright, she's like your heartless, my pet." he said picking up the blue creature. "She's gentle, she just gets jealous of those who share a bed with me."

"He's not a pet, he is my friend!" Raven snapped standing up. "It tried to hurt me."

Vanitas found that the girl was going to hate the blue creature until she understood it. He held the unversed in his arm and he used his other hand to pet its head. "Look, she's very gentle, why don't you come pet her?" he asked.

"No, I'd rather not." Raven shot heading out of his room, never turning her back to him.