Radiant Gardens

I

Sora's feet touched down onto a stone walkway and he looked around. A lot of the unfinished housing was done and the streets were fixed but other than that the castle was still falling apart and he saw heartless running around the walls of the city. "I guess some things haven't changed."

"Ah…there's still heartless…" Donald thought that maybe Tron would have been able to take care of them.

"And there's Yuffie!" Goofy exclaimed while pointing to a girl in the distance with a slight bob and was bouncing over to them.

"Who?" Julia asked as she jumped down next to Sora.

"One of our friends that we met when we first…oof…started traveling!" The girl had jumped at him in a hug.

"Sora!" Yuffie said happily while hugging him tight, "you came back. I thought something had happened to you! Everyone was worried when you didn't come back for Kairi!"

He snapped out of the surprise greeting, "where's Kairi?"

"Huh? I thought she was with you! She said she was going back to your world…"

"SHE LEFT BY HERSELF!?"

Yuffie pulled back, "you should probably talk to Leon. He knows the whole story." She turned to Donald and Goofy, "sorry for ignoring you but everyone knew where you were!" She leaned a little and saw Julia; she walked over and asked, "Who's she?"

Donald and Goofy looked at each other while trying to think of a simple way of explaining who she was.

"Well she's a friend that I met on the way here," Sora simply said while smiling, "she's here to help us find Kairi."

"So…Kairi is lost again?" Yuffie asked, putting her hand on her chin, "that's funny because she said she was going straight back to that place called 'the island'. Leon didn't want her to leave but she said she had to meet you and Riku there."

He tapped his foot while looking at the ground, "I don't understand why she would go by herself. It's not like her."

"Maybe she felt the shift…" Aerith said walking around a corner, "I'm sorry…I heard your voices…"

Sora smiled at the brown haired girl, "hi Aerith! How's Cloud? Did he come back?"

She sighed and looked at the ground.

"Oh…" he looked at the ground in embarrassment, "I'm sorry, I thought he would be back by now."

Aerith stayed quiet while everyone held their breath for her answer. She raised her head and smiled, "its ok, I know he'll come back."

Sora smiled back while Julia clapped her hands together.

"Of course he will, everyone always..." she stopped midsentence and pointed at a shaking black figure with a helmet. "Is that a Soldier Heartless?"

Aerith gasped, "Sora we'll leave them to you!" she said while grabbing Yuffie, "come on we have to go tell Cid!"

Sora pushed Julia behind himself and pulled out his keyblade and crouched in his defense position, "don't worry; they'll be quick work."

Donald nodded, "we'll make sure they don't follow Yuffie or Aerith!"

Julia took a hesitant step back, "but I don't have anything to fight with..."

Sora turned around and flashed a quick smile to her, "I'll protect you."

Julia gasped, "Sora in front of you!"

He turned around quickly and blocked the heartless's attack and pushed it away. "Just give me a minute ok? Then we can go get Kairi."

Another small group of heartless circled around while Sora, Goofy and Donald were fighting the main group; they slowly made their way towards Julia.

"Get away from me!" she cried while she started running down an ally and turned a corner. After a few minutes she was hopelessly lost and everywhere she went she saw heartless. "Oh why did I have to leave Sora, he told me to stay behind him..." she scolded herself while hearing clanging from around another corner. "Sora?" she asked no one in particular and ran towards the sound. "SORA!!" she cried happily while turning the corner and running into a tall brown haired man.

The man looked down at her, "no…but…" he slashed at a heartless in front of him. "Can you at least help instead of standing there?"

"I don't have…" he had turned back to fighting the heartless and she saw a heartless running towards her, "anything to fight with!" She shut her eyes willing her problems to go away but she could practically hear the inferior thoughts of the heartless. "Keyblade..." she said while there was a flash of light and in her hand was a keyblade with a dark blue handle that had a silver shaft that split into two and the hollow part formed the sign of the nobodies. These two shafts continued on and the top one became a sharp point and the other became the 'teeth' of the keyblade and came together to form a small area that formed the shape of the Kingdom Heart; but she never noticed that the keychain was that of the heartless sign.