Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, or any of their characters.
A/N: He totally ditched Aqua! She could've been outta there and part of the problem in the games would've been solved, making it so she could help Sora find Ven leaving it so he only has to beat Xehanort and save Terra. But nope, she's stuck there because Seiki was mean and didn't bring her along to escape the Realm of Darkness.
Radiant Garden…
After passing through the door, Seiki finds himself in a desolate town. Clouds fill the dreary sky and bricks from crumbled buildings litter the elegantly painted stone pavement. The town seems long deserted, lying in ruins.
Seiki looks around, eyeing a few of the worn down buildings. He can't help but feel that this place is familiar to him, though memories elude him. Hoping to find clues, he decides to explore. Seiki walks through the city, passing by houses in varying degrees of destruction.
He stops in the middle of a small courtyard between some buildings and takes seat on the edge of the courtyard. Withered flowers line the sides of the area. Seiki takes seat near the edge of the wide area that is built into the ground like a small crater and picks up one of the flowers. The petals instantly wilt and fall away once being plucked. Before he can raise it very high, the stem crumbles away as well. He sighs and tries to think back why this place feels so familiar.
A girl wielding a claymore is running alongside Seiki up a long a set of stairs. The pair comes up just to the side of the courtyard Seiki is sitting in; though the flowers are still in bloom at this point.
Another pair of individuals, a young man and woman, is standing in the middle of the courtyard back to back fending off a large number of Heartless scurrying about the pavement. The male is holding a white book open with his other hand held just over the pages. A few ice shards fly from the book at some of the Heartless. Meanwhile, the girl is waving her magic sceptre causing several balls of black flames to launch into the Heartless mass.
The sound of a loud crash, like that of a large rock crumbling, snaps Seiki from his trance. He quickly spins his head in the direction of the noise; past the staircase from his vision.
"Who else could be here…?" Seiki wonders aloud.
Curiosity takes over, leading Seiki to get up and walk to his left down the stairs, passing under a building to end up in a small underpass before heading back outside. He comes out into a garden that is much larger and filled with many more flowers, all withered, than the courtyard he was in before. A flower-lined, stone path leads to the main part of the garden which is shaped rather like a diamond. A fountain sits in the middle of the diamond-shaped portion, though the waters no longer flow.
Near the fountain, a young man is digging through some debris littered near the fountain; his rifling likely the source of the noise. Upon closer inspection, Seiki sees the boy to be his sandy-haired friend from Twilight Town, Akira. As Seiki draws closer, Akira takes notice of him, looking up from the pile of debris. He leaves his rummaging to greet Seiki; sticking out a hand to shake which turns into a hug much to Seiki's confusion when Akira wraps his arms around him.
"Hey! Good to see you again!" Joy spreads across Akira's face in Seiki again. "Wait, how did you get here? Travelling between worlds isn't easy."
"I don't really know I got pushed through this dark portal thing, ended up in this weird place, then another portal thingy opened and I ended up here."
Akira stares at Seiki, rather confused by his vague explanation. "Well, it's still good to see you."
"What about you, what are you doing here?"
"I was travelling about the worlds when I ended up here. When I saw how run down this place was I thought I'd poke around and see if I could find anything interesting. Which it seems I have." Akira smiles at Seiki.
"Hate to interrupt your little reunion, but I don't care." a female voice calls out to the two young men.
Seiki and Akira turn to see a girl about their age who is wearing a long black coat, sitting atop the ornate fountain with her legs crossed.
"Toko…" Seiki absentmindedly says her name, mostly reminding himself.
"Oh good, you have your memories back, that makes things a lot easier." Toko claps her hands together in joy as she speaks.
"It's coming back slowly."
Toko puts her hands over her heart as if touched by Seiki's words. "Well, I'm honoured that you at least remember me."
"Do you two know each other?" Akira interjects.
"Oh yes, we were good friends back in the day before all this mess started, you know, with the Heartless and worlds falling to darkness. By the way, Seiki, who's your friend?" She waves to Akira and seductively mouths the word "hello" causing him to blush.
"What do you want?" Seiki interrupts Toko's flirting.
"Egckh, so boring and straight to the point." Toko rolls her eyes. "Fine, after this last little fight against the Heartless, which is what's causing your rather inconvenient bit of amnesia, our group of friends got separated. This lady named Rei found us and brought us all back together providing shelter from the Heartless on one teensy condition; we help defeat these bad guys who have captured a bunch of people's hearts. You're the last one left from our rag-tag group of pals. I'm here to get you to come with me so I can take you somewhere safe where you can see your friends; then when your memory returns, we can we can beat the big baddies and save the day."
Seiki pauses for a moment thinking it over and trying to process all of what Toko had said. What little he remembers did suggest that they were friends, but something didn't sit right with her story. Then, there is what that other guy in the hood had told him back in Twilight Town; that "they" would come for him and try to trick him. Though how is he to know if he is any more trustworthy?
Akira puts a hand on Seiki's shoulder, sensing his apprehension. "Something about her story just doesn't seem right."
"So he feels it too…" Though he has only met Akira a short time ago, Seiki is sure he could trust him. He turns to Toko, confident in his decision.
"Well, what's it going to be?" She sits forward.
Seiki's Keyblade materializes in his hand, holding it firm at the ready.
"Have it your way."
She holds her arm out, allowing a magic staff to slide out from up her sleeve. She swings it forward, letting a ball of dark energy to launch from the tip, quickly growing in size. Seiki holds up his Keyblade and closes his eyes, cringing, bracing for impact; though the attack never hits.
Seiki opens his eyes, relaxing his stance, yet is a tad confused. The ball of energy, as well as the attacker who cast it, is nowhere to be seen. A finger taps on Seiki's shoulder from behind.
"Boo." Toko whispers in his ear.
Seiki spins around in surprise to find the witch standing behind him. Akira strikes while he has the chance. He jabs one of his lances forward, plunging it through Toko's stomach causing her to grab where it pierces her.
"Ohhh! Oww! That hurts so much!" Sarcasm highly evident in her voice. "Not." Her body fades away into thin air. "Let's play a game." She now stands right in front of the fountain. A few dozen Tokos appear throughout the garden. "Which one is real?" They all speak at once.
Subconsciously, Seiki begins to zone-out once more.
Seiki, Toko, and their two friends stand together in the courtyard, exhausted from battling the Heartless, yet their work is far from done as an army of the jittery black creatures slowly gathers closer and closer to them. The four pant, out of breath, as they look out at the approaching Heartless mass knowing its hopeless to keep fighting, yet there isn't much else option.
"You guys need to go. Seek shelter in the castle. I'll stay and keep them busy." The boy with the book turns to his friends and smiles, a slight tear in his eye.
"Snow, you can't, it's suicide." The claymore wielding girl with shoulder-length brown hair bats away a Heartless as it lunges at her.
"There isn't much other option. Either we all stay and die together, or someone sacrifices themselves."
The others know it to be true, but don't want to accept it. After a short debate they agree, knowing it to be the only way any of them will survive the attack. Seiki and the girl with the claymore work to clear a path through the Heartless so that they can escape. Unexpectedly, Toko grabs Snow by the collar of his shirt and pulls him close, pressing their lips together much to Snow's surprise.
"You better come back to me." Toko says as she breaks from the kiss.
Snow simply blushes in response.
Akira once again snaps Seiki back to reality. "It's time to start working on a plan B. In all my travels, I've learned to pick my battles, and this is one we aren't winning."
"If we can make it to the castle, I think I know of a place where we'll be safe."
"I don't have any better ideas, let's go for it."
The two take off, slashing through any Toko-clones that get in their way as they head back up the stairs and into the courtyard. The large number of Tokos chase after them, firing the occasional ball of energy as they pursue the pair through the courtyard and past a rusted metal gate barely hanging on it hinges before going uphill along a winding path to the towering, mostly rotted metal castle. Seiki and Akira dash through the vast doors and down a hall going deep into the basement, the clone army hot on their trail.
They eventually find themselves in a small office that seems to have been trashed; with papers scattered about, books thrown across the floor, and a portrait of a young man having fallen from the wall.
"Now what? We're trapped!" Akira's voice is filled with worry as the Tokos draw near.
"Not quite…"
Seiki presses against the wall until a secret door swings open. He and Akira quickly duck inside, the wall swinging shut behind them. On the other side of the wall, they find themselves in a vast laboratory which continues far below and beyond the short metal bridge where they stand.
Seiki leads the way across the bridge into a rather open computer room. A high-tech computer stretches along the wall facing the lab with a window taking up most of the wall to overlook the facility. More equipment sits by the wall opposite the computer with a door on either of the side walls. The room isn't too large, but is still a rather decent size. Wasting no time, Seiki takes seat at the computer and begins typing away while Akira stands guard.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Akira asks as the sound of the Tokos banging against the wall, trying to get in, echoes through the lab.
"Yeah, I think so."
"How did you know about that secret passage, about any of this stuff?"
"I'm not really sure…"
"I'd said before about you maybe being from another world, Seiki. Maybe this is your home-world."
Seiki considers the idea without stopping his work. As familiar as this place seems, it would rather make sense if this is home. If that is the case though, how did he end up in Twilight Town? Just what happened to him?
With a few more keystrokes, Seiki finishes his work. A laser behind him activates and fires a beam at both he and Akira; their bodies dematerialize and get sucked back into the laser.