Sora the Maelstrom

by KHGiggle

Sora is a nice boy. A very nice boy. But what if he was raised by the Tsviets in DEEPGROUND? Slight crossover twist. May contain OOC and butchering of characters. Chapter nine fixed.

19. Chapter 19

Right, here's Chapter 19.

I've started a new story called Betrayal. I'm mostly writing the chapters when I have writer's block or don't feel like thinking. This is still my main story. Still, the reviews I've gotten for it are positive for the most part, so you guys might like to read it.

I still don't own anything in this story, except for some of the plot.

-Starting up-

As soon as Sora used Ansem's Keyblade to stab himself in the chest, he and the Keyblade started glowing. The Keyblade dissolved into six glowing hearts that returned to the unconscious princesses. A second later, another glowing heart came out of Sora and went into Kairi's chest. Her eyelids fluttered for a second before opening. As the Keyhole flashed white, Sora smiled. Then his face went blank and he fell backwards as the glow around him started to intensify.

"Sora!" Aladdin ran towards him.

"Sora!" Donald ran towards Sora too, with Goofy right behind him.

Kairi pushed herself to her feet. "Sora!" She ran towards Sora and got near enough to catch him, but he disappeared completely as soon as he hit her arms, leaving only the lights for a few seconds.

Sora opened his eyes for a second. It was completely dark, and he could feel himself falling. "I'm falling…into darkness?" An image of Kairi's face filled his mind. He smiled. "I don't mind. As long as Kairi is okay." And he continued to fall, no longer minding such a fate.

Sora's friends stared at where he had just been in shock and horror.

"Is he…gone?" asked Goofy.

"I don't know," said Aladdin. "I mean…he seemed invincible, but…"

"You can't come back once you lose your heart," finished Donald, rather sadly.

"Is Sora really-" Kairi shook off her head, as if to fling the idea from her mind. She looked up with a stubbornly set expression. "No! It can't be! I won't let him go!"

"But what can we do?" asked Aladdin. That was the question. No one could answer it.

A few feet away, a dark portal suddenly formed and a man walked out of it. He had very tanned skin, long gray hair, glowing yellow eyes, and a very complicated outfit that had the Heartless emblem sort of acting as a clasp. His outfit seemed to be an open black and white jacket with shoulder armor, black pants, white gloves, black boots, some sort of white shirt thing, and the Heartless clasp. If you want to know about the buckles and stuff, look up a picture. That's not really something you can describe just with words. The man smirked at the group, more specifically at Kairi. The guys got into defensive positions with their weapons drawn. "So, you have awakened at last, Princess." He glanced over at the Keyhole. "The Keyhole is now complete." He went back to looking at the group with a predatory look on his face. "You have served your purpose, but now, it's over." The guys tensed. Who was this guy?

"Don't make another move!" shouted Donald.

"Do you think we can take him?" asked Goofy.

"Of course!" shouted Aladdin. "We can't let Sora down, can we?"

The man just smirked and made a step forward. Then he did an odd full body twitch. He seemed to be trying to move, but couldn't seem to do more than twitch when he tried to move. "Im-Impossible…" And talk.

"No! You won't use me for this!" A transparent image of a very familiar boy appeared in front of the man.

Kairi's eyes widened. "Riku!" Well, that meant the man was probably Ansem. Why he looked different now was anyone's guess. Riku looked like he was trying to keep Ansem from moving forward and had a pained look on his face.

"You've got to run! The Heartless are coming!" As soon as he said this, a bunch of Shadows started popping up all over the place. Ansem still wasn't moving, but it looked like Riku was weakening quickly. Kairi looked uncertain for a moment, but nodded. There was no way, the guys could fight Ansem while protecting her. They made a run for it.

"But what about the Keyhole!" asked Goofy.

"Let's just get out of here!" shouted Donald.

Aladdin gave Beast a quick look. "Beast! You better run too!"

Ansem made an annoyed sound as Riku collapsed and started disappearing. "Fool. What makes you think you can stop me?" Ansem walked into the Keyhole while dismissing the Shadows. He didn't notice that one Shadow stayed behind. It stared at the Keyhole for a moment. Once it was sure Ansem wasn't coming back, it jumped off the platform and ran towards the princesses. Beast was still there. Seems he hadn't taken Aladdin's advice. The princesses still seemed to be unconscious. When Beast saw the Shadow, he started growling. The Shadow quickly ran through the hall to get away from the large angry creature. It didn't want to get ripped apart.

The Shadow made an odd sighing noise when it reached the chapel. It looked around a bit. There was only one way out, so that's where it went. It tried to use one of the lifts, but it wouldn't activate for the little Heartless. It sighed again and looked over the edge of the platform. After a moment of deliberation, it jumped off. Thankfully, it landed on another platform. After repeating this a couple of times, it got on some steps that would let it get back into the castle. It quickly ran in and found itself looking over the group it had been looking for. It seemed they'd stopped to let Kairi get her breath. She wasn't used to running for her life. She also seemed to be crying a bit.

"I-I can't leave them here!"

"We can't stay here!" said Donald.

That was when Aladdin noticed the Shadow watching them. "Guys! We got another Heartless!" Since it had been spotted, it jumped down and tried to get a bit closer.

"I'll take care of it!" Donald quickly ran over and bopped it over the head with his staff. It quickly covered its head with its claws. It didn't really do anything else, which was odd for a Heartless. It actually made the blows less effective. It looked over at Kairi. She was staring at it, confused. It seemed really familiar to her.

"Sora?" The Shadow perked up. "Is that you?" It ran over to her, making everyone tense, but it didn't try to attack her, it just tried to stand up a bit straighter. Then a bunch of other Shadows appeared around them.

"Uh oh."

They Heartless started closing in, but they seemed especially interested in Kairi and the Shadow. Kairi stood in front of the Shadow protectively. "This time, I'll protect you." Of course, Kairi had no fighting capabilities. The Heartless kept closing in. Kairi turned and grabbed the friendly Heartless as the others jumped at them. "Sora!" Then they were enveloped in darkness. The boys looked over.

"Kairi!" Then there was a light that destroyed the Heartless. Kairi frowned. It didn't feel like she was holding a Heartless anymore.

"Kairi…" Kairi's eyes opened in shock. She looked up and saw Sora smiling at her. "Thank you."

Kairi's eyes started watering. "Sora…"

"Sora!" And then even more Heartless appeared. Sora quickly pushed Kairi behind him and summoned the Keyblade. He figured he could get Kairi out of there without a problem, but he didn't want to leave any of the others either. Fortunately, Beast made a reappearance. He jumped down with a roar and slashed the nearest Shadow, getting the attention of the other Heartless.

"Go now!"

Sora frowned. "Come with us!"

Beast shook his head. "I told you before, I'm not leaving without Belle! Now go! The Heartless are coming!"

Sora frowned. Beast was strong. He could take care of himself. Sora nodded. "Let's get out of here!" So the group ran. They ran all the way to where the nearest green circle was, hitting away any Heartless that got too close to them. They didn't stop until they got on the gummi ship and had started it up. Thanks to the warp drive, they were in front of Traverse Town in a moment.

"That…was nuts," said Aladdin.

"No, kidding." Donald turned towards Sora. "How'd you change back?"

"Kairi."

"Huh?"

Sora turned to Kairi. "When I was falling, and had accepted I was going to turn into a monster, I heard Kairi's voice. I wanted to see her again, so I reached out for it as much as I could." Sora grinned at the blushing Kairi. "You brought me back. If it wasn't for you, I think I would've just been another Heartless."

"I…I'm glad I was able to help!" There was some snickering from Donald and Goofy. Kairi blushed some more.

"That reminds me…" Sora hit the two anthros in the head hard enough to send them onto the floor. "That's for going off with Riku!" Sora crossed his arms with a smirk. "I'm glad you changed your minds though. I've become fond of you guys."

"How hard did you hit them?" asked Aladdin staring at the two semi-conscious anthros.

"Not too hard. What happened to your clothes?"

"Magic fire." It's actually why Aladdin didn't stay to keep an eye on Jasmine. He would have been really embarrassed if she saw him wearing pretty much nothing but torn up shorts. "By the way…" He handed Sora an odd looking red stone that looked a bit like a dragon head and had an inner glow. "I found that after Maleficent disappeared. I figure it's some kind of summon gem. And…" Aladdin gave Sora back his daggers. "I kind of need a new sword too…"

Sora winced. That was gonna be a bit expensive. "Good thing we have plenty of munny…"

As soon as the anthros were woken up, they beamed down into the main square. Aerith was there. "Oh my! What happened to you Aladdin? !"

Aladdin blushed a bit. "Magic fire…"

Aerith's eyes then went to Kairi. "Oh, are you Kairi?" Kairi nodded. Aerith gave her a smile. "It's nice to meet you. I'm glad Sora was able to find one of his friends." Kairi smiled back.

"It's nice to meet you too."

"Aerith, we need to talk about what happened at Hollow Bastion," said Sora. "Do you know where we can find the others?"

Aerith chuckled. "First, I think we need to find Aladdin some new clothes. I don't think he wants to walk around like that."

Aladdin nodded. "Yeah, that would be really nice."

"Yuffie and I have some outfits. I'm sure we can find something that fits." They made a quick trip to the hotel, where Yuffie was messing with some shiny objects.

"Whoa! What happened to Aladdin? !"

"Magic fire," explained Aerith. "You collect the clothing that shows up. Do you have anything that might fit him?"

Yuffie took a moment to give Aladdin a good look over. "I think so. Give me a moment to grab some stuff."

A few moments later, Aladdin was wearing a white shirt, a violet vest, black fingerless gloves, denim pants, a belt with an attached pack, and brown boots. Aladdin looked his new outfit over. "You guys have the weirdest clothing…"

"We better get to Leon now," said Sora. Aerith had gone to tell Leon that Sora was back while Yuffie was updating Aladdin's wardrobe. The group traveled to the familiar house.

Leon gave Kairi and Aladdin an appraising look. Then he turned to Sora. "Tell me what happened." Sora did tell what he could, but Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin had to provide information for when Sora had been unconscious and hadn't been able to see anything. When they finished, Aerith and Yuffie looked shocked, Cid was cursing under his breath, and Leon was rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We'll worry about Ansem later. For now, we need to focus on the Keyhole and the darkness flowing out of it."

"It must be why there are more and more Heartless everywhere," said Aerith. "The only way we could stop them would be to seal the Keyhole…"

"Maybe…" said Leon. He looked worried. That wasn't good. "But no one knows what will happen once it's sealed."

"Well, I'm not just gonna sit around here," said Sora. "I gotta another friend there that I need to save."

Kairi perked up. "Does that mean you're not angry at Riku anymore?"

"I don't want to kill him anymore, but I'm still upset at him! He should have known better than to have listened to a strange woman like Maleficent." Sora muttered some other things about Riku's unfortunate lapse of judgment.

Leon glanced at Aladdin. "What about you? I thought you wanted to beat Riku up for kidnapping your girlfriend."

Aladdin paled. "I'm good. I don't think Riku needs to be beaten up anymore."

Sora nodded. "Yeah, his body was pretty beat up. I should probably keep an elixir on hand in case we can get his body back and it's in bad shape."

"Well, if you want to save Riku, you will have to return to Hollow Bastion," said Leon. There was a short silence as everyone thought for a moment. "Riku's Keyblade must've been born of the captive princess's hearts-just like that Keyhole you saw." Here Leon looked at Kairi. "Of course, without Kairi's heart, it remained incomplete. Once that Keyblade was destroyed, their hearts should have been freed and returned to them." Leon nodded. "I don't know if anyone can save your friend, but if anyone can, it's you guys."

Sora smiled. "Thanks. But we need to get back to Hollow Bastion."

"There's a big problem with that," said Cid. "The Heartless there are multiplying by the minute. They'd eat your ship up."

"Isn't there a back way in?" asked Aladdin.

Cid nodded. "Yeah, sort of. Go around them instead of through them. You'll need a new navi-gummi for that though, and I don't know where you're gonna get something like that."

"The mural in the sewer," said Leon. Everyone looked at him. "There's a navi-gummi like that there."

"Something from when you came here?" asked Aerith. Leon nodded.

"Well, why not split up?" asked Sora. "Goofy can go to the synthesizing shop, Donald and Aladdin can go get supplies from the shop, and me and Kairi can go get the navi-gummi. Then we can meet back up here."

"But that's-" Donald was cut off by Aladdin.

"Okay, sounds good, see you there!" Then Aladdin grabbed Donald and dashed out of the house. Goofy smiled at Sora and Kairi before leaving. Yuffie waggled her eyebrows.

"Have fun you two!" The two kids blushed before walking out of the house.

"They seem really nice," said Kairi.

"Yeah, I guess since you were along the whole time, you know as much about them as I do." They walked along a little, with Sora taking care of any Heartless. Now that they were alone, things felt kind of awkward.

"So, that other voice was your father?" asked Kairi.

Sora winced. "Yeah, not exactly the nicest guy…" That was an understatement, and they both knew it.

"I always wondered why you were so happy to stay with those guys…" mused Kairi. "And I think I understand now. They never actually tried to kill you."

Sora nodded. "Yeah, they're not so bad. That's just how most of them were raised…like me."

"Sora…Why did you decide to save Riku all of a sudden? I was scared that you really were going to kill him."

"Kimihiro made me have an epiphany."

Kairi gave Sora a confused look. "When was Kimihiro there?"

"He wasn't. It was some sort of astral projection-telepathy thing."

"He can do that?"

"Yeah, he just hadn't bothered to in the years we lived on the islands."

Kairi looked relieved. Probably because that meant her mind hadn't been read without her permission. "Oh…what did you realize?"

"I don't want to be a psychotic assassin. I want to be a normal kid. I probably won't be very good at it, but I'd like to try it. And…I missed Riku. I wanted to be friends again."

Kairi smiled. "That's wonderful."

"Ya think? I'm worried I might go into a killing spree again."

Kairi shivered as she thought about some of the things she'd witnessed through Sora's eyes. "You don't actually enjoy that do you?"

"I'm not really sure…" He knew several of the other Tsviets did. He'd just followed their example. Kimihiro had not been exaggerating about how Sora had ended up with similar views to the Tsviets. "I guess I'll find out. I hope I don't enjoy it and it's just something I'm good at."

"That's kind of sad."

Sora rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "Yeah, I guess it is a depressing talent. It comes in handy with stuff like this though."

"Yeah, but how often does stuff like this happen?" More often than they thought, but they didn't know that.

That conversation stopped as Sora noticed the entrance to the sewers just ahead. "Here's the entrance to the sewers. If you wanna wait out here-"

"I'll go with you."

"Okay."

Kairi followed Sora into the sewers. "Wow, it's a lot cleaner than I expected."

"Yeah, I guess it's different than the ones we're used to."

They walked forward a bit until they saw the mural of a sun. Kairi gasped. "Wow, it's beautiful."

"Yeah, but where did Leon hide the gummi?" It didn't look like there was anything but rock on or in the wall. Sora quickly started feeling the wall. Maybe the gummi was hidden in some sort of secret compartment. Sora sighed. "Leon didn't tell me how to get it out of the wall…"

"We could go ask him."

"Yeah, but he's not the type to forget something like that. Shouldn't it be easy to find?" Sora paused for a moment. Then he jumped up and tapped the center of the sun. It glowed and a gummi came out and fell into Sora's hands. Then the mural changed into a crescent moon. Sora grinned. "Thank you Cetra Sense…"

"Now we can go get Riku back!" Sora's face fell. "Sora? Is something wrong? You don't think…Riku could be dead?"

"No! No, that's not it! Our hearts are all connected. If I was able to come back from the darkness, I'm sure that Riku can too. It's just…"

"Just?"

"You can't go."

Kairi immediately looked upset. "Why not? !"

"I'm sorry. It's just…you can't fight! At all! And that place is full of Heartless!"

"But we were together this whole time! Shouldn't we stick together 'till the end? !"

"It's too dangerous! You'll just get in my way!" He instantly regretted that when he saw Kairi's face. "Sorry, that didn't come out right."

Kairi turned towards the mural. "Fine, you win."

Sora winced. "I didn't mean…It's just…" Sora sighed. "I just don't want to lose you again. That's all."

"I know, but did you have to say it like that?"

"I didn't mean to. That's just how it came out." Being a normal kid was harder than he thought. "Being normal is so hard…"

For a while, the two were silent, staring up at the altered mural. They both did some thinking. Sora put a hand over his heart. "Maybe…you will be with me." Kairi gave him a slightly confused look. "Like I said, our hearts our connected, so why won't a part of you be with me?" Sora scratched the back of his head nervously. "Never thought I'd be talking like this…"

Kairi looked over at Sora. He really did seem sorry about what he said, and she did understand that her going to Hollow Bastion wasn't really a good idea. Still…she wanted to do something. "Oh!"

"Hm?"

"Your keychains!"

"The charms?" Sora glanced at the chain wrapped around his arm. "Yeah, I'm not sure where they come from, but they're useful."

Kairi immediately reached into her pocket and pulled out a charm that was made out of seashells that had a smiley face drawn on it. There was a thin silver chain coming out of the shell with the face. "Use this!"

Sora blinked. "You mean as a Keyblade?"

"Yeah!"

Sora took it carefully. "Isn't this the charm you were making when we were building the raft?"

"Yep! It's my lucky charm! You can keep it even if it doesn't work but you have to promise to bring it back to me!"

Sora summoned his Keyblade and switched it with Olympia. The Keyblade changed so that it now had a mainly silver color, the hand guards seemed to be angel wings, there was a heart and a couple of spikes on the guard, there was a heart near the end of the shaft, and the teeth were blue and gold and somewhat resembled the kanji for light. Sora immediately knew what to call it. "Oathkeeper." It was a very fitting name considering the promise Kairi just had him make.

"See? You'll bring it and Riku back to me! This proves it!" Sora looked at Kairi. She was smiling again. He smiled back. Then she suddenly hugged him, making him blush bright red. "Don't ever forget. Wherever you go, I'm always with you."

"R-Right." Kairi pulled back and got a good look at Sora. She giggled when she saw his surprised, red face. One bad thing about being a Tsviet: You know nothing about romance.

"C'mon, let's go back to Cid's house." Kairi grabbed Sora's hand and pulled him away toward the sewer entrance. Sora was still blushing.

Meanwhile, Aladdin had gotten the shock of his life.

"You have a sword made out of diamond? !" When he'd asked about a new sword, Donald's nephews had produced a sword with a diamond blade. "Where do you even get a diamond big enough to make a sword? !" That was a very good question.

"Moogles make them," said Louie. "You just need enough carbon. It's kinda expensive though."

"You guys can make jewels? !"

"Calm down already," said Donald. "You got anything for me and Goofy?" The boys shook their heads. "Okay, we'll take the sword. How much?"

"10,000 munny."

"That much? !"

Meanwhile, Goofy was trying to figure out what Sora would get if he was the one getting the synthesizing stuff. He knew not to get any of the things they already had, but that was it. He decided to just get one of what he could. He ended up getting a Mega-Ether, a Defense Up, a Gaia Bangle, a Heartguard, a Titan Chain, and a Crystal Crown. Sora and Aladdin had gotten a lot of synthesis items while separated from Goofy and Donald. Aladdin must have been stealing from the Heartless again…

Eventually, everyone made their way back to Cid's house.

"So, did ya get the gummi?" asked Cid. Sora just nodded. "Good ta hear!" He frowned as he took a closer look at Sora and noticed that he was redder than usual. "What're you all red for?"

"Oh my Leviathan! Sora's blushing!" Yuffie was instantly up in the two younger teens' faces with a mischievous grin on her face. "What did you two do in the sewers? !" That made Kairi blush too and made Sora's blush deepen.

Leon sighed. "Yuffie…Leave them alone."

"Kairi was just giving me a new Keychain! That's all!" said Sora. Then he summoned his newest Keyblade form to prove it. Kairi quickly nodded in agreement.

"Yeah! We just talked some while Sora was getting the gummi!"

"I believe you," said Aerith. "Kairi, are you going with Sora?"

Kairi shook her head. "I'd just get in the way, so I'll stay here with you guys."

"Can we leave now?" asked Aladdin. "I'm really worried about Jasmine.

"Hold your horses! I gotta install the gummi first!" Cid walked out muttering about impatient kids.

"So, what should we do while we wait?" asked Goofy.

"You could show me around and introduce me to people," suggested Kairi. "So far, Sora's just showed me this house and the sewers."

Sora pointed at Leon. "That's Leon. He's a really good fighter. He uses a gunblade, sort of like what Weiss uses." He pointed at Yuffie. "That's Yuffie. She's a Wutain. We're from the same world. She's a ninja, and she's fun to hang around, but I'm pretty sure she's a kleptomaniac." Yuffie gave him an insulted look.

"Hey!"

Sora moved on. "That's Aerith. We're from the same world too. She's nice and motherly and has some weird powers. She's sort of like a girl version of Kimihiro."

Aerith giggled. "I remember you mentioning him before…I'll have to meet him sometime."

Sora turned his attention to his traveling companions. "You've already met Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin. Donald's got a bit of a temper, but he's okay when he's not yelling. He's a really powerful mage too. Goofy is…well…goofy, but he's a good friend. He uses a shield. I'm not sure how that works. Aladdin kind of tagged along. He's a nice guy, but I think he's a kleptomaniac too."

Aladdin just shrugged at that. "I only steal what I can't afford."

"Now, c'mon. I wanna introduce you to everyone else." Sora quickly dragged her out of Cid's house.

"Should we follow them?" asked Aladdin.

"Ah, they'll be okay," said Goofy. "Sora won't let anything happen to Kairi."

Meanwhile, Sora had gotten Kairi over to Merlin's house. "Merlin, this is Kairi. Kairi, Merlin"

"Oh, hello young lady." He adjusted his glasses. "Hm…your heart seems to radiate quite a bit more light than a normal one."

"She's supposed to be a princess of heart," explained Sora. Merlin nodded in understanding.

"That would explain it." He paused in thought as he gave Kairi a quick look over. "Do you wish to learn magic?"

Kairi perked up a bit. "You'd teach me?"

Merlin nodded. "I'd expect you to have some sort of power with a title like that. Of course, that's only if you'd like to learn."

"I'd love to!"

"Good to hear. You should also meet the Fairy Godmother." Said fairy made her appearance at that moment.

"Hello dear."

Kairi gave a respectful bow. "Hello."

The Fairy Godmother turned to Sora. "Thank you for finding a way to return Cinderella's heart."

"Who?"

"She is also a princess of heart."

"Oh. Which one?"

"I believe she was wearing a powder blue dress when our world disappeared."

Sora thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think there was a girl dressed like that." Then he pulled out the red gem Aladdin had given him. "By the way, Aladdin gave this to me on the way back here. He thought it might be a summon gem."

"It is." The Fairy Godmother waved her wand, allowing Sora to connect with the entity within the gem.

"Okay, who's idea was it to stuff me in a tiny little rock? !" Sora blinked at that.

"I have no idea."

"Who're you? ! Some sort of sorcerer or something?"

"I'm a Tsviet."

"You let me out right now or I'm gonna hafta show you the power of a guardian of the Fa family!"

"I have a better idea." Sora promptly shoved Mushu into the part of his mind he'd been keeping the other summon creatures when he wanted some privacy. Hopefully Simba could explain things to the vocal summon. "I'm gonna wait to try that one out. He's being uncooperative right now."

Kairi tilted her head. "You have others?" Sora nodded. "Can I see them?" Sora nodded.

"Sure."

Meanwhile, Cid was back. "Okay, I got the navi-gummi installed. You can leave whenever you like."

Aladdin pumped a fist, something else he'd picked up from traveling. "Great! I really want to see if Jasmine is okay."

"Before we go, I wanna ask about something," said Donald.

Yuffie chuckled. "Usually, Sora's the one asking question." He just shrugged.

"Yeah, but something weird happened to him back in Hollow Bastion."

"You mean how he turned into a Shadow?" asked Aladdin. Donald shook his head.

"No."

Goofy's eyes widened in realization. "Oh, you mean when he started attacking us, don't ya?"

Leon frowned. "He attacked you?"

"Oh dear, what happened?" asked Aerith. She looked particularly worried.

"He screamed, grabbed his head, and when he stopped screaming, he changed the Keyblade's form and attacked us," recounted Donald. "He wasn't acting like himself. He tried to stab me, but stopped himself by grabbing the blade. Then he fell over unconscious until after we fought Maleficent."

"Oh, his eyes changed too," said Goofy. "They were greenish. With cat pupils!"

"Sounds like Sephiroth's eyes," said Yuffie

"He had slit pupils?" asked Aerith. "That sounds about right. Maybe it's because of an experiment?"

Cid snorted. "Wouldn't surprise me one bit. Those bastards wouldn't care one bit about messing up a kid like that."

Leon frowned. "This is important. Why didn't you mention it before?"

"I wasn't there," said Aladdin.

Donald scratched the back of his head nervously. "Uh…"

"We didn't wanna bring it up around Sora," explained Goofy. "'Cause it was right before we decided going with Riku was a mistake."

"Still, this is serious." Leon rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Someone is able to possess Sora. What if he tries to do it again?"

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Aladdin. "Sora was able to snap out of it, wasn't he? I bet he can do it again if he needs to."

"You better hope he can." said Yuffie. "It sounds like whoever took control of him wouldn't have a problem killing you three!"

"Maybe we can get something to exorcise him or something," said Aladdin.

"Where'd you hear about exorcisms?" asked Leon. It didn't seem like something they'd have in Agrabah.

"Halloween Town." Of course those guys would know about exorcisms.

"Sorry, no one in Traverse Town knows how to do something like that," said Aerith.

That was when Sora walked in, and everyone quickly stopped talking. They didn't want Sora knowing they were discussing whether he'd get possessed again. "Kairi's gonna stay with Merlin and the Fairy Godmother so she can learn magic. That way she won't be so defenseless."

Aerith nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. You won't have to worry about her so much that way."

"Do you think Jasmine could learn magic?" asked Aladdin.

"Well, she's a princess of heart too," said Sora. "It might be possible. First we have to go get her though."

Aladdin grinned. "Then what're we waiting for? Let's go!"

"And we'll come with you!" said Yuffie.

Sora looked at them. "All of you?"

"Not me," said Cid. "I'm old and I have other things to do. Aerith ain't going neither. She ain't a fighter."

Aerith nodded. "It's true. I'm more of a housewife."

"Well, let's go then." The group of six then got on the gummi ship to go to Hollow Bastion. They had to go through another of those swirling vortexes though. And it turned out Yuffie got really bad motion sickness. She spent the entire trip in the bathroom being sick.

When they got there, Beast was waiting for them in front of the falls. Fortunately, Yuffie and Leon had been told about Beast so they didn't attack him. They were still noticeably surprised by his appearance though. Beast growled at them. "Who are these two?"

"They're Leon and Yuffie. They're fighters too," explained Sora.

"Wow, you're really fluffy!" said Yuffie. The look on Beast's face said that he had no idea how to respond to this statement. Yuffie looked around. "Where's this Belle chick Sora told us about? Still being held hostage by the Heartless?"

"No…" Beast gave the males a look as if asking where they'd gotten the hyper ninja. "She's still in the castle, but she stayed of her own free will. The other princesses are inside as well."

Leon frowned. "What are they doing still inside? It's dangerous with all the Heartless that must be in there."

Sora grinned. "Let's go ask them."

"You may need my strength," said Beast. "I'll go with you."

"Good, this place is even worse off than I thought it would be," said Leon. "The Heartless did a real number on it."

So the seven worked their way through the castle until they got to the library. At that point, Beast seemed to get a bit twitchy and started looking around quite a bit. They saw why when they got up the stairs. A pretty young woman in a yellow ball gown with her brown hair in a bun was looking at a book.

"Belle!"

The young woman turned around and her eyes lit up. She ran over and threw her arms around Beast. The others let them have a private moment until Belle backed up. "I'm so glad you're all right! I was worried that the darkness got you!"

"Where are the other princesses?" asked Leon.

Belle looked over at the group. "You helped Beast before right?" Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin nodded. "Thank you so much. The others are in the chapel. We've been holding back the darkness raging inside the Keyhole, but we won't be able to hold it back much longer."

Yuffie put up a hand. "Question! If that's going on, then why are you in here instead of over there?"

"Well, we don't need to be anywhere in particular to hold it back." Then Belle gestured towards all the bookshelves below them. "And look at all these books here! I bet I've never read any of them!"

That made everyone raise an eyebrow. Leon was the one who said what was on their minds. "You're a bookworm, aren't you?" Both Belle and Beast nodded.

"Well, we'll take care of it," said Sora. "Don't worry."

"There's one more thing." Belle held out a rose charm. "I thought you might be able to use it."

"Thanks." Sora took it and looked it over. "Well I might as well try it out." He summoned Oathkeeper and switched the charms. The Keyblade changed to a more plant-like form. The hand guards looked like they were made of stained glass panels, there were some pointy green leaves where the shaft met the handle, and the shaft was a bit thicker than normal and a dark purple with a thorny stem twisting up it. At the end, a red rose extended out of the shaft as the teeth. The rose charm was attached to a silver chain. "Divine rose…It's…nice."

"Hm…" Belle looked over the Keyblade. "I think the other one will be better for what you have to face in the chapel. It had a sort of light element to it."

"You don't mind?" Belle shook her head. "Okay, thanks." Sora really wanted to use Kairi's Keyblade for this. He quickly switched back to Oathkeeper.

"We should get going," said Leon.

"I'll go to the chapel with you," said Belle. "We want to give you something."

The group of seven plus Belle moved on towards the chapel. Belle stayed out of the way while they fought Heartless. It was surprising how easily she could move around in that dress.

When they got to the chapel, the other five girls were there. Aladdin and Jasmine immediately ran up to each other. "You came back!"

"Yep!"

Jasmine gave his clothes an odd look. They were different from the clothes normally seen in Agrabah. "What happened to your clothes?"

Aladdin chuckled nervously. "They got set on fire. There wasn't much left so Yuffie gave me some spare clothes she had lying around."

"So that's why you were running around in those torn up clothes before." Aladdin sputtered a bit as all the girls present giggled at him. Seems they'd been aware of what was happening at some point. Then the one in the powder blue ball gown (Sora was assuming this was the Cinderella the Fairy Godmother had mentioned.) turned to Sora.

"We've been waiting for you Keyblade master." She smiled. "It's good to see you're back to your old self."

"No kidding." Sora didn't like being a Heartless. "Is Ansem still in the Keyhole?"

Cinderella nodded. "Yes, but the flood of darkness hasn't stopped. We're working together to hold it back."

The blonde in the darker blue dress shuddered. "I cannot forget the look on his face. As he was engulfed by darkness, he was smiling." Sora shuddered too. That had been a pretty creepy smile even by his standards.

"You guys better hurry," said Jasmine. "The darkness just won't stop pouring out of the Keyhole."

"It's all we can do to hold back the darkness," said Alice.

"I don't know how long we can manage even that," said the last princess. She had black hair and a blue and yellow dress. "We're counting on you Keyblade master."

"But we're gonna help out too," said Belle. "Hold still. We're gonna try something." The princesses held out their hands with their palms facing the party. After a moment, their hands and the party glowed for a couple of moments.

"So, what was that?" asked Yuffie.

"Well, it was supposed to make your magic stronger," said Jasmine. "I guess we won't know if it worked until you try using a spell though."

"Cool!" Yuffie promptly pulled out what looked like a green marble. Sora's eyes widened when he realized what it was.

"Don't-" Too late. She used the materia and froze half a wall. She nearly hit Alice as well.

"Awesome! Whatever you did worked!" Sora couldn't help but wonder if the princesses were going to regret upgrading Yuffie's magic.

So, the group continued to make its way to the big Keyhole. The Heartless were becoming more concentrated, which was becoming quite a bit of a problem. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any traps to keep them away from it.

Leon looked up at the vortex. "So, this is the Keyhole Maleficent kidnapped those girls to make…"

"Well, it looks creepy," said Yuffie. She turned to Sora. "Can you lock it or what?"

Sora summoned his Keyblade and pointed it towards the Keyhole. Nothing happened. "I guess something's keeping it from happening…"

"Does that mean we have to go in there?" asked Aladdin.

"Looks like it."

They headed inside it. It was easy. There was no resistance, and it didn't make them feel any different from normal. It was just that there was a giant Heartless inside. It was even bigger than Cerberus.

"What is that? !" shouted Yuffie.

"It's a Behemoth," said Sora. He, Yuffie, and Leon all sweatdropped at the name. It didn't look anything like the Behemoth they were used to. It was big and purple, with cleft hooves, tusks, an overbite, beady yellow eyes, one horn in the center of its forehead, and no tail or mane. "IT's immune to Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder magic."

"But we just got our magic upgraded!" complained Yuffie. The Behemoth snorted and its horn started flashing. Then a bunch of electricity shot out and hit everyone. Donald and Sora quickly used some Curagas.

"Any weak spots?" asked Leon.

"It's horn!" That would normally be a bit difficult to reach, but Sora was able to jump up onto its head. So was Yuffie. Must be her ninja training. Donald settled for casting spells directly on the horn. The others decided to just settle for distracting the giant Heartless. The Behemoth quickly decided that it wasn't going to be able to get Yuffie and Sora off so it decided to try and go for Donald instead. This is why distractions were needed. Aladdin and Leon would go in to try and make it focus on them instead of Donald. Goofy was making sure no one got hit by its tusks when it tried to sideswipe someone. It turned out the Behemoth wasn't as tough as it looked. It only took a few minutes to take care of it. After it had faded away, the group walked forward until they found a Keyhole seemingly just floating there.

"So, will locking this Keyhole have any effect on the Heartless?" asked Sora.

"If nothing else, it will weaken the darkness and Heartless," said Leon.

"Good enough." Sora pointed his Keyblade at the Keyhole, a beam shot out into it, and a locking sound was heard by the group. Everyone stood still for a moment after this. After a few minutes of nothing happening, they left it. The outside looked the same as well. Everyone started spreading out to see if anything was different. Sora paused as he stepped on something. He looked down and saw what looked like a black version of his crown charm. Sora frowned and picked it up. "Isn't this Riku's charm? Did he drop it after the fight?" He decided to worry about it later and slipped it into his pocket.

"Did anyone find anything?" asked Leon.

"I found puppies!" shouted Yuffie. That seemed to be the only notable thing that had been found so they made their way back to the princesses, who all looked quite a bit relieved.

"Thank you Sora," said Alice. "I think the darkness is starting to weaken now."

Jasmine frowned. "But we can feel a powerful darkness growing somewhere far away."

"It's the heart of the darkness," said the blonde in the darker blue dress. "It must be where Ansem went."

"We'll take the gummi ship there and take care of him and the Heartless then," said Sora.

Cinderella smiled at him. "That's good to hear. Everything will go back to the way it was."

"What do you mean?" asked Aladdin.

"All the worlds should be restored, including Sora's island if you defeat Ansem." Everyone turned around to see Aerith and Cid.

"You guys came?" asked Yuffie.

"The Heartless got a lot weaker," explained Cid. "Figured it was safe to come check things out. Place is a *beep* mess."

"So beating Ansem will fix everything?" asked Sora. That was good. While he'd admitted to wanting to try to be a normal kid, he was still good at killing things. He just hoped killing Ansem wouldn't kill Riku.

"Yeah, but it'll also mean good-bye," said Yuffie.

Aerith nodded. "The worlds will all be separate again."

Yuffie looked down. "Everyone will go back to where they belong."

"You guys can visit with your gummi ship though, right?" asked Aladdin. He was answered with a silence. "Right?"

"It's not that simple," said Leon.

"Before all this happened, you guys didn't know about the other worlds, right?" asked Yuffie.

"It was because the worlds were divided by impassable walls," explained Aerith.

"The Heartless destroyed those walls," continued Cid. "Once the worlds come back, so do the walls. Won't be able to go to other worlds even with a gummi ship then."

Sora frowned. "You mean we'll never see each other again?" The silence was answer enough.

"We may never meet again, but we'll never forget each other," said Leon. He seemed especially depressed. It occurred to Sora that Leon didn't actually know anyone else from this world, even though it was his home world. He was probably going to be lonely once the worlds were restored…

Aerith nodded, a bit sadly. "It doesn't matter where we are, our hearts will bring us together again."

"Besides, I couldn't forget you guys, even if I wanted to!" chimed in Yuffie.

"What's that supposed to mean? !" shouted a slightly indignant Donald.

"Actually, there's a bit of problem," said Belle. Everyone looked at her. "I was reading some of the reports in the library. I thought I might find out something useful. I found one that talked about those things, but it mentioned that there are circumstances that can keep it from happening."

"What sort of circumstances?" asked Leon.

"Well, have you ever heard the expression 'Home is where the heart is?'" Everyone nodded. "Well, it said that if someone has a stronger bond to a world than their home world, they end up there instead."

"That might be good thing," mused Sora. "Kairi's not actually from Destiny Islands. It would be awful if she ended up in a world she doesn't even remember." "Plus I do not want to go back to Midgar. Please let me go back to Destiny Islands instead."

Belle nodded. "Yeah, she has amnesia, right? She'll probably end up back on your islands. It also said that if people are in certain places, they get stuck there. I think that the place where Ansem is right now is one of those places."

"What, so we might get stuck here if we go there?" asked Aladdin. Belle nodded. Aladdin sighed. "So, what do we do about that?"

"I'm going," said Sora. "I'm not going back to the islands without Riku."

"We're going too!" said Donald. Goofy nodded in agreement.

"I'd like to go too," said Aladdin.

Jasmine sighed. "I figured you'd say that…" Aladdin winced and got a rather guilty look on his face.

"Sorry, it's just…If someone doesn't do something about this guy, he might try doing something with you again."

"But what about you?"

Aladdin grinned. "I'll be okay. And if I don't automatically go back to Agrabah, I'm sure I can find my way back there!"

"Well, I think Beast should stay here," said Belle. Beast gave her a questioning look. "You already came here without a vessel. I'm worried that if you go there, you won't survive it." She had very good points so Beast nodded.

"Unfortunately, someone's gonna have to be around to rebuild things here when everything's over," said Leon. "Since I'm the only one who's sure to stay here after the worlds are restored, I'll have to leave this to you."

"I'll go!" said Yuffie.

"Yuffie, you have those responsibilities," said Aerith.

"But-"

"You better not go either."

"Wutai will be fine without me!"

"Except you're an only child." Yuffie grumbled under her breath about the unfairness of that decision.

"That's four people," said Sora. "That seems a bit…small for a group to that's trying to save the multiverse."

Cid shrugged. "What can ya do?"

"We could explore this place," suggested Yuffie. Everyone gave her an odd look. "What? They might have some useful stuff."

"I'll go too," volunteered Aladdin.

"Go ahead," said Sora. The two thieves ran off. Jasmine raised a questioning eyebrow. "They're both kleptomaniacs. I'm pretty sure they teamed up and robbed the lockers at the Coliseum."

"Yuffie has a point," said Leon. "You might want to wait a few days to go and see if you can find anything useful on any of the worlds you've been to before."

Sora nodded. "That's probably a good idea. We'll look around after Aladdin and Yuffie get back."

That took about an hour. They spent the time getting to know the princesses. They were nice, but Jasmine and Belle seemed to have a rebellious streak in them.

When Aladdin and Yuffie got back, they had more puppies so the boys decided to make Traverse Town their first stop and beamed straight down into the Dalmatians house.

"I think that's all puppies," said Goofy.

"Thank goodness. It was always so weird finding puppies in chests or somewhere dangerous," said Sora.

"I kinda liked finding them," said Aladdin.

The male dog pushed a box over to Sora. He opened it, and a bunch of gummi blocks started shooting out of it. It took an hour to gather them all up and sort them. Where the Dalmatians got all the gummi blocks, they had no idea.

The next stop was Merlin's to say hi to Kairi.

"Sora! Did you find Riku?"

Sora winced and shook his head. "I didn't even see Ansem there. The other princesses said he was somewhere else."

Kairi looked down. "That dark place, right?"

"Probably."

Kairi frowned. "But it seems like Riku's here…"

Sora reached into his pocket and pulled out the black crown charm. "Maybe it's this?"

"That looks like your crown necklace," said Donald.

"I gave him and Riku those charms," said Kairi. "I gave Riku the black one…" Kairi frowned at Sora. "Where did you get this?"

"I found it in front of the Keyhole in Hollow Bastion. It's where I found you and fought Riku. I guess he dropped it when he…you know…"

"Oh…" Kairi looked at it for a moment. "There's something different about it."

"Huh?" Kairi put her hands around the hand gripping the charm. The charm glowed for a moment. The Oathkeeper Keyblade appeared in his hand. Then it suddenly changed form. It now was almost completely black. There was a blue diamond where the hand guards met the shaft, a pair of black bat wings came from the diamond and acted as the hand guards, from the base came a black chain with the black crown charm on the end, the shaft had a sort of chain design on it, and the teeth looked a bit like the kanji for darkness. Sora stared in surprise. "How did you do that?"

"I-I'm not sure."

"Might I suggest something?" Everyone turned towards Merlin. "That charm belonged to Riku, correct?" They nodded. "You both have a very strong connection to him. I think that the majority of the charms used to change the Keyblade's form represent the bond between the wielder and others."

Sora raised an eyebrow. That was news to him. "Really?"

"Yes, Aladdin, you simply found the charm that you gave to Sora?" Aladdin nodded. "I don't think that it was just there. I think that your bond to Sora was given a physical representation. This can be used to change the Keyblade. As such these altered forms are combining your power with the power of the one who gave you a charm. Of course, it's just a theory, and I'm sure it's not completely correct. There are a few charms that don't seem to have a connection to anyone."

"So, it's like two people fighting together." Sora looked at the new Keyblade and found the name. Oblivion. "When I use this, it's like I'm fighting together with Riku." Then Sora took a look at the chain wrapped around his arm and found the Oathkeeper charm. "And when I use this one, it's like I'm fighting together with you." Sora smiled. "If I could use both of them, it would be perfect…"

"Would you like to try your new summon now?" asked Merlin. That got a couple of surprised looks.

"Where'd you get another summon?" asked Donald.

"Aladdin gave me a gem he found that he thought might be a summon gem. Turns out he was right. It's a little…weird though."

They went upstairs and Sora quickly started the summoning process. The result was a dragon. A very small, red Chinese dragon. Standing on Sora's head. "It's about time! What's the big idea stuffing me in with that overgrown pussy cat and a couple of babies?"

"It can talk?" asked Aladdin.

"Oh I can do more than talk!" Then he spat out some small fireballs at Aladdin, who promptly dodged them. "Yeah that's right! You better run!"

"But I'm not running…"

"Oh yeah? !" The dragon took another deep breath, but Sora reached up and clamped its mouth shut before it could do that and brought it down so he could look it in the eye.

"Look, it you're going to spit fire at everyone, I'm going to send you back to where you were before and never summon you again. Which means you'll have to put up with Simba after calling him an overgrown pussy cat. Got it?" The dragon nodded. "Good. Now, I think I figured out what you can do, and our time's about up, so bye." Then the little dragon disappeared.

"That was strange," said Donald.

"No kidding," agreed Sora.

"His other summons weren't like that…" asked Kairi.

"No," said Merlin. "He was just a rather odd summon. It happens sometimes."

They didn't have much else to do after that. They decided to show Aladdin the two worlds he hadn't been shown before. First up was Wonderland.

"Wow, this place is really confusing."

"Yeah, that's Wonderland for you." Sora walked down the wall and poked at a picture. "This is like water over here."

"Can you drown in it?"

"Good question." Sora jumped in. He came out a moment later. "It just goes to that weird forest." He held up a card charm on a chain. "I found this."

"Will it change you Keyblade?" asked Donald.

It did. It turned it into a Keyblade called Lady Luck. Sora decided he preferred Oblivion though and switched it back. Then it was time to go to Deep Jungle.

Jane tilted her head at the Arabian. "Oh, you're new…"

"I'm Aladdin."

"Are you here to see the gorillas?" Aladdin blinked.

"What's a gorilla?" And then Jane got into a long explanation about gorillas and the other fauna indigenous to Africa. Tarzan just watched in amusement. Aladdin decided he didn't need to meet Prof. Porter so they left afterwards.

"So, is that it?" asked Aladdin.

"I'd like to go to the place the Princesses keep mentioning as soon as possible," explained Sora. "I don't know what it's like there, but if Riku is there, I'm sure he's not enjoying it."

That was when the gummi ship consol beeped. Donald pressed a button. "Yeah? What is it?"

"There's a tournament at the Coliseum. You guys should go check it out!"

Everyone looked at Sora. He nodded. "It might be a good idea. The prizes are usually useful, and it might be good practice for what we'll have to go through."

"Okay, time to go to the Coliseum then."

End Chapter!

Yeah, I'm going to do the Hades Cup, but because it's so epic, it gets its own chapter.

I always wondered why the FF characters never went with Sora. Ever. If they wanted to save their world, wouldn't it make sense to go with the guy who can fix things? Especially if it's a kid who has no experience fighting monsters? (I'm talking about canon Sora there.)

The Tsviets have had enough of an influence on Kairi that she's going to learn magic to avoid being a burden.

When the princesses updated Sora's magic, they updated all of it, not just his fire magic.

Omake: I'm a princess too!

"Excuse me? Miss Yuffie?" Yuffie looked at the English princess with a raised eyebrow. She'd never been called Miss before. It sounded weird.

"Just call me Yuffie. What is it?"

"Why wouldn't Miss Aerith let you go with Sora?"

That made Yuffie get noticeably nervous. She coughed into her hand. "Well, you see…Aerith can be pretty overprotective when she wants to be."

"But she mentioned responsibilities," pointed out Belle. Seemed Alice's question had caught the other princesses' attention, and Belle seemed to be curious about it too. Actually, the other princesses were starting to come over to find out just why Yuffie couldn't go.

"What sort of responsibilities?" asked Jasmine. "I know you're a thief, but that's all we know about you…"

"Maybe you have someone you have to provide for?," suggested Snow White.

"Not really…"

"No family?"

"Just my old man. We don't get along…"

"Do you have some other job maybe?" asked Cinderella.

"Not unless you count killing Heartless."

That was when Cid decided to walk in. "What're you all crowding around for?"

"We're just trying to figure out why Yuffie couldn't go with Sora," explained Aurora.

"Oh, that's all? It's 'cause she's a princess." There was an awkward silence.

"Cid! That's supposed to be a secret!" The Princesses just stared at Yuffie in shock.

"You mean…you're a princess too? !" asked Snow White. It was quite a shock considering what Yuffie was like.

"Yeah, she is," said Cid. "It's just that the royalty is trained to fight where she comes from. It's why she's such a tomboy."

"Cid!"

"'Course Wutai is pretty poor so she doesn't get the stuff princesses usually get…"

"Seriously shut up!"

"Uh, Yuffie, if you're a princess, why don't you want anyone to know about it?" asked Alice.

Yuffie twitched. She didn't seem very happy about getting revealed. "Because I hate being a princess! My old man wanted a boy, and since he's not getting one, he wants me to get married and give him a grandson!"

"I can understand that," muttered Jasmine.

"And 'cause dad messed up so badly in the war, Wutai's been turned into a tourist town! And no one's doing anything about it! It's so humiliating that I'm almost glad that the Heartless came and destroyed it so that no one can see what's become of it!"

"Aw great, she's on a rant," muttered Cid. "Better settle down. We're gonna be here for a while."

The princesses just kept staring at the most unprincessy princess in the history of ever. Unless you count Faris. That would bring up the Pirates vs. Ninjas issue though so we won't get into that.