Looming Darkness: Daybreak

by Shadow Horizons

Part I. Sora, Kairi and Riku are looking forward to a somewhat normal life. However, Maleficent has returned with powerful new allies, seeking revenge and control of Kingdom Hearts. All the while, an old enemy's revival is close at hand. Will our heroes be prepared? Or will they be consumed by the everlasting darkness? Rated M for language, violence, and some adult themes.

34. The Sun's Shadow Festival

Wait. What? Impossible. I released another chapter only a month after the last one came out? What sorcery is this?

For starters, it's not sorcery. This is what happens when I actually don't have writer's block. Well, that, and having the assistance of another author really helped.

That's right. Once again, Shire Folk has contributed his writing prowess to help this arc along. Without his help, this monster of a chapter never would've been possible.

So, here's our challenge to you: we want to see how many of you can figure out which parts of this chapter were written by Shire and which parts were written by myself. (Hint: One in particular sticks out like a sore thumb. You'll see why.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or their affiliates. I own my Original Characters, plot line, and original ideas. But you already knew that.

Enjoy!

---

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Sun's Shadow Festival

Saturday, July 3rd, 4794 P.C.

Destiny Islands

Kairi sighed tiredly as she summoned Oathkeeper to her hand and tapped her front door with its tip. The bolt locking the door clicked as the Keyblade's magic slid it back inside of the door, and Kairi prayed that this time the door wouldn't squeak when she opened it.

It did. Just a faint sound, but the door did squeak while it was being opened, and to Kairi that made it as loud as the foghorn on the Guiding Star lighthouse atop the cliffs of Selene's Fall.

"Okay, be quiet," she whispered to Naminé and Nanaki behind her. It was dark, very dark, except for the light of the full moon and a clear sky of stars, but it was also very, very, very late!

Naminé made a motion to show that her lips were sealed and Nanaki nodded her head. Together, the three teens that were shivering in goosebump-riddled skin underneath their still-slightly-damp bathing suits snuck inside, and Kairi slowly closed the door and gradually edged the lock back into place. Each of them slipped off their shoes as quietly as they could and tried not to bump into each other too much while doing so. Once accomplished, Kairi led the way out of the entryway and up a couple of steps into the living room.

Despite being the mayor of Destiny Islands, Jonathan Brightheart's house was just a tad nicer than the split-level homes of Kairi's friends. It had two storeys and a basement like theirs, but the difference lay in that her house was certainly a bit larger in comparison. The living room in front of the door in Kairi's home was at least one-and-a-half times the size of Sora's, also with a swanky kitchen and dining room big enough for twenty, and a den that if Kairi were to hold a house party and invite all of her friends from school it would still have room for the surviving crew of the Black Pearl to drink rum and sing lewd songs in. From the living room a curved stairway with wooden banisters led up to a small sitting room that began the hallway where the majority of the house's bedrooms resided.

Kairi motioned in the almost-darkness inside of her house for them to follow her up the smooth wooden stairs, and her knuckles bumped the edge of the railing to indicate where it was. She slid it into her hand, and carefully creeped up the staircase.

"Our clothes are in your room, right?" Nanaki whispered as quietly as she could, and in the silence it carried easily to Kairi's currently knife-sharp ears. Kairi almost didn't dare to answer the purple-haired fellow Keyblade Wielder.

"Yes," she answered in a barely audible ghost of sound.

They reached the top of the stairs, and Kairi looked past the shadowed forms of the recliners towards the hallway. Her room was the third door on the left, with a spare that was being used as an office between hers and the master bedroom. She couldn't see the door handle at all in the darkness, but it didn't matter. She knew this house inside and out, and knew that in six steps she will have cleared the sitting room, and then she could simply let her hand slide along the wall until she reached her door.

She got two steps in when a light suddenly blinded her.

In both recliners flanking the reading lamp sat her parents, and their eyes weren't burning from the sudden burst of light since the lamp was behind them.

"Hello girls," Melissa said. "Do you know what time it is?"

Oh fucking hell, Kairi thought. I am sooo dead.

"Uh... midnight?" she answered in a guilty groan.

"Try half-past one," said her father.

Goodbye life. It was a nice sixteen years now.

"I believe I told you not to be out too late, young lady," Melissa said. "Beyond one in the morning counts as too late." She narrowed her eyes at both of her daughters. "What were you two doing that you could have lost track of time to such a degree?"

"Uh..." Kairi said, mind spinning.

"I take it that you're in trouble," Nanaki said with a wince.

"Yeah..." Kairi muttered. "Please tell me that this is a part of our culture you do not need explained."

"No. Staying out too late is pretty universal," Nanaki answered. "Doesn't matter which world you're from."

Well that's a relief, thought Kairi.

"It's not what you think!" Naminé blurted out.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what do you think we're thinking?"

Caught in her own trap, Naminé blushed and blinked, and avoided the glare of the lamp as best as she could. "Uh, deh, well...that we were doing inappropriate things with our boyfriends and Nanaki was witness, and I swear that we didn't just spend the last four hours since the sun went down doing inappropriate things with our boyfriends!"

"That's an oddly specific timeframe, Naminé," Jonathan said. "I didn't know that Roxas could last four hours."

"He must be some stud," Melissa agreed, nodding at her husband. "And look! Dear Naminé is glowing."

"What are you two talking about?" Naminé screamed at half-volume with her entire skin able to shame a cardinal into becoming a blue jay.

"We had a bonfire at Selphie's after we were done on the beach!" Kairi explained. "And it just kept getting later and later. I'm sorry! I won't stay out 'till past one again until I'm eighteen or nineteen! Promise!"

Her parents glanced at each other. "We'll accept your apology, Kairi," said Melissa, "and let you off the hook this time, but on one condition."

Kairi groaned inwardly, but tried not to show it on her face. She shivered. She was still somewhat cold, but she was warming up now. The warm night air of the islands still didn't mean anything when you'd really just jumped out of a hot tub six minutes ago and your skin was still wet. "What?"

"You need to answer a question." Jonathan said.

Kairi waited.

He cracked a sudden smile. "How long are you going to stand there before you give your dad an 'I'm back' hug?"

Kairi smiled, realizing that her parents had been pulling her leg the whole time, and quickly enveloped her dad in as big and heartfelt a hug as she could muster. Her mother came into the hug too to welcome Kairi home a second time. She was home; she really was home. It was only for a couple of days, she knew, but the fact that her family was here and was happy to be reunited with their daughter made her gladder than when Sora had come back from his Anti-Form's control.

"We can hear all about how you've been tomorrow," Jonathan said, releasing her. "Right now though you should probably get to sleep. The Sun's Shadow Festival starts in the morning after all."

"Right," Kairi said with a nod. "G'night."

"Night, Kairi," her parents said. Melissa gave her one last hug and whispered, "Sweet dreams," before turning the interrogation/reading lamp off and parting ways for their bedroom. The blackness returned to the house, and Kairi got Naminé and Nanaki following her to her room. For a second the three of them were blinded again, but their eyes had already become mostly accustomed to the light and needed only a brief amount of time before they could see normally once more.

Their clothes were all right where the trio had left them, in three crumpled piles on Kairi's Queen-sized bed. Kairi went right to her pile and chucked everything into the hamper against the wall close to the door before going to her dresser for fresh underwear and a pink silk nightdress with three yellow butterflies at the hip that just touched the middle of her thighs in length. She saw that Naminé hadn't quite followed her example, but was stowing her own clothes from the day into the rust-coloured overnight bag she had brought from the Kingdom and was fishing out the somewhat revealing white slip she had purchased in Radiant Garden that she used as a nightie.

It wasn't until Kairi had slipped off her scarlet bikini top and begun to put her bra on that she noticed that Nanaki was looking anywhere but at them with the same blush she had had on her face when they'd first changed into their bathing suits.

"What's up?" Kairi asked. Nanaki took in a couple of deep breaths before looking up at Kairi. The redhead noticed that the other teen's eyes flickered to Kairi's bust for a second, which made Kairi only hurry to place her underwear back on.

"I'm feeling a little uncomfortable," Nanaki muttered. "I haven't ever been in a situation like this before."

Naminé, despite having one more piece to go through than Kairi, was already further along than her former-Somebody-now-sister and stood bare with her back turned and working on getting her bottoms on. "Situation like what?" she asked, tossing her head over her shoulder.

"Changing with other girls my age," she said. "And, I don't have anything like what you're each putting on to wear." Kairi had to pause for a second.

"You haven't? You don't?" Nanaki shook her head, still blushing in a fine bit of embarrassment. "Well...here, you can wear this." Kairi returned to her dresser and fumbled around for a bit, looking for a garment that might compliment Nanaki's hair and not draw attention to her lacking of a bust, even though like as not the only people who'd be witnessing her in it would be herself and Naminé.

Then again, Sora had once walked in on her after she'd gotten out of the shower, so who knew?

She found a decent-sized nightdress that Kairi had gotten several months ago. It was a light cyan made of silk with silver threads trimming the hem in a wave pattern. It was suspended by shoulder straps and was thick enough to provide warmth on some of the cooler, rainy nights while still being able to breathe when it was warmer. Nanaki thanked her and asked if Kairi and Naminé could turn around while she got out of the swimsuit and put it on.

"So you've never had a sleepover, then?" Kairi asked with her back turned while she finished slipping on her own light nightdress.

"I guess not," Nanaki replied. "We didn't have too many of those on Lynfael, or maybe I just didn't hear about them often when I was growing up. You can turn around now." Kairi did, and she had to admit that Nanaki looked pretty cute in what she'd picked out.

"Thanks, I guess," said Nanaki, her cheeks still tinged a healthy shade of red. "It's embarrassing, but I've never really been complemented like that before."

"I noticed." Kairi started grabbing spare pillows and blankets to make a makeshift bed in the carpet beside her bed. "You really were out of your element when Sora and Roxas and those boys complimented you."

"Well, I never attracted much attention like that on Lynfael," Nanaki answered in a quiet voice. She was silent for a second. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?" Naminé asked, plopping down on Kairi's bed with a thump!

"For not teasing me because of my, you know..." she trailed off, gesturing a little at her flat chest.

"Nanaki, I don't know if you noticed, but Kairi and I aren't that big in the," Naminé gestured at her own chest with a small wave of her hand, "boob, department either."

"Still, you've got more than I do," Nanaki replied, looking down. Kairi groaned and growled.

"Doesn't matter. Even combined, the three of us have less than Kim and her fricking cow tits," she griped. "That's the one thing I can't stand about her. Why do her boobs have to be so fricking huge?" She shoved a pair of pillows into the mass of blankets she had arrayed beside the bed. "So, how do we want to do this? The bed's plenty big enough for two."

"It's your bed, you should have it," Nanaki said.

"Well then that settles it," Kairi replied with a conspirator's smile. "I'll sleep right here, and you and Naminé can share my bed." Naminé snorted and Kairi quickly corrected her flub. "I mean you two can both sleep in my bed, I didn't...ugh! Nanaki, you can place your clothes down there beside the laundry hamper, and try not to asphyxiate Naminé overnight." Nanaki nodded her head and sat down on the bed. Her eyes widened as it sank and bounced back a little from her weight.

"I've never been on a bed this soft," she commented in quiet awe. A giggle came out of her and she bounced up and down for a moment.

"I've heard a lot of 'I've never's out of you lately," Kairi said. She shut off the light and cuddled into her pile of sheets. Kairi moaned as she clutched at the blankets and got comfortable, and listened to the sounds of Naminé and Nanaki getting into her bed. "Say, Nanaki. What was your world like?"

"Just like I told you earlier," Nanaki replied tiredly. "Barren wastelands as far as the eye can see in all directions above ground and predators who wouldn't bat an eyelash to gobbling up a human for lunch or notice if they squished one underfoot."

"I get that," Kairi said, her voice hushed to the volume befitting late-night conversations in darkness. "But that doesn't really explain anything. What was your world like? If that's all it was, then how did you survive? Where are you from? What about your family?"

Nanaki shifted, and her answer came back defensive. "Why do you want to know all of a sudden? We're off of Lynfael, and I'm never going back, so why does it matter?"

"Because you helped Sora and Roxas save us from the men who kidnapped us," Naminé said, rolling over to look at Nanaki's form. Naminé was chewing the inside of her cheek. "And you really haven't said much about yourself since. We don't know you, Nanaki, and we'd like to know you as more than just the girl who helped rescue us who has a Keyblade and left her world because it sucked."

Nanaki sighed. "Well, I guess I do owe you guys that much. Don't really want to be remembered as 'she's just the girl who helped save us' now do I?" She laughed a little to show that she wasn't being all that serious and quieted for a little while to put her thoughts in order. "I guess I should start with Lynfael, shouldn't I?"

"That'd be nice," Naminé said. "Although we can skip the whole 'barren wastelands and no oceans or forests' stuff."

"Well, I wasn't really telling the exact truth about no forests," Nanaki admitted, "but let me start at the beginning.

"At one time, our world was beautiful. Actually, beautiful might not be the right word, but it was vibrant and alive. There were thick jungles growing out of shallow seas with nutrient-rich silt beds, teeming with critters that lived and thrived in the canopies above the water. Vast plains stretched across the land with bluegrass-covered hills and meadows. Prairies with grasses as tall as a tall man would stretch for more miles than the eye could see and triple that, and the oceans were like the ones here. You could walk into a forest from one side and it would take you four weeks to reach the opposite edge even by following the road. Entire civilizations of our people flourished."

"Sounds beautiful to me," Kairi said.

"I wouldn't know. That's just what I've read in the paleoclimatologists', paleontologists', and archaeologists' journals and reports," Nanaki answered. "Then two, three? I can't remember, thousand years ago, disaster struck. According to the few scattered surviving records, stories passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, and our scientists' findings; there was a week-long rain of fire as a cluster of small asteroids collided with our world. The atmosphere and land burned, entire cities were reduced to rubble at the bottoms of craters in the blink of an eye. The impacts sent long-dormant volcanoes into fierce activity, pouring lava flows down their sides in never-ending waves of red. The dust from the hail of rock and the ash from the eruptions covered the atmosphere and blocked out all light for years, producing an age of ice on the surface that lasted a generation. Nothing grew, and all plant-life that survived the fires and impacts died.

"Now Lynfael has six rings around it, made of dust and the smaller asteroids that were caught in our world's gravity but didn't impact. The vast plains and prairies are barren, sandy, and roamed by fierce predators that survive in the extreme temperatures. You've already seen the Veneschall. What plant-life that exists is sparse and hardy, and isn't anywhere even remotely close to the abundance needed to properly regulate Lynfael's climate. The seas are far too basic to support life anymore, except for some microbes that can survive in extremely alkaline solutions. We humans survived the apocalypse by digging in and building underground cities in the mountains and rockier regions of the world, and because we're human."

"What do you mean by that?" Kairi asked.

"We're human," Nanaki said. "We're smart; we're intelligent. We can overcome adversity and adapt our environment to suit ourselves instead of adapting our bodies to suit our environment. We didn't need to become vicious predatory monsters that can rip apart whatever they come across in order to eat it, because we can develop tools to do for us what our fragile bodies can't. Technology developed rapidly once real civilization started to form again after a very long period of unrest from the relocation underground. We've even been able to make some of the lands outside of our cities arable, and grow crops there. There aren't a lot, but they produce yields you wouldn't even be able to imagine. Think of...of...of celery stalks or broccoli! Except, picture them fifty feet tall."

"So you have tiny forests of broccoli," Kairi said, blinking.

"Think of how big a pot you would need to steam that beast," said Naminé. "You could feed ten people broccoli for two weeks with that thing."

"That's the jist of it," Nanaki said. "That's why our agricultural advancements developed so much. With only a small percentage of land able to support the growth of crops, we need to make the most of it.

"However, not all of the communities are connected. We're loosely collaborated with each other, but we're all city-states separate from one another. Every generation or two a war starts up between two or sometimes three of the city-states for reasons I don't know and didn't care for."

"What city are you from?" Naminé asked.

"Eselyun," answered Nanaki. "It's the hub of scientific advancement. Eselyun scientists and engineers developed my goggles and skimmer. But, even though I haven't been there in a year, I'm pretty sure they still haven't achieved their goal of finding a way off of Lynfael to find a world that's more suitable for habitation."

"Radiant Garden might be able to help," Kairi said. Nanaki shook her head.

"They wouldn't take it. The chiefs are a bunch of stubborn old men who'd rather do it themselves than accept the help of others. Don't ask. It's a pride thing."

"Oh, well, that I can understand," Kairi agreed. "We're warriors, after all. Pride means a lot to us." Nanaki nodded her head, not that anyone besides Naminé could really see that she did.

"Anyway, that's Lynfael in a nutshell. I guess now it's time for my life story, huh?" She sighed, and looked up at the canopy of Kairi's bed. "You're lucky; both of you, that you've got a family like this. I was born seventeen years and two months ago, and my mom died in childbirth so I never got to know her."

Kairi's heart clenched a little. "Actually, I kinda do know what you're talking about."

"Hmm?" asked Nanaki. "But, but I thought..."

"I'm adopted," explained Kairi. "I was born in Radiant Garden, but I somehow came to Destiny Islands when I was five. I've got no memory of my life before coming here; who my parents were, whether I had any siblings. Besides a couple of faint memories of my grandmother, it's all a blank before waking up here in front of the mayor's house."

"I'm sorry," Nanaki said. Kairi shook her head, smiling.

"Don't be. I'm not. I've had a great life growing up here on the Islands. And besides, I wouldn't have met Sora or Riku or Selphie if I had grown up there. I wouldn't trade my life now for the life I might have had at all."

Nanaki smiled in agreement, and Naminé chuckled quietly. "Hey, I thought that this was supposed to be Nanaki's story."

"Alright, I'll shut up."

Nanaki laughed. "It's okay. Anyway, I never knew my mom, and my dad was one of the chief project scientists and was always busy with his work, so for the most part I grew up in the care of family friends. It wasn't exactly the best of circumstances, but it was certainly better than many others'. However, I think it was because I kept bouncing around between others and places, I never really got to be close to a whole lot of people. I was something of a shut-in."

"Certainly don't act like it," Naminé commented.

"That was my Master's doing." Nanaki smiled in the darkness. "He taught me that there was so much more to life than just surviving; that letting people into your heart can make you a stronger and better person than an ice queen who distances herself from everyone."

"You talk about him in the past tense..." Kairi realized. "Did he...?"

Nanaki sniffed, and rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. "He came to Lynfael on a crashing ship about two years ago, right when all the stars were going out. He couldn't fix it, but took me on as an Apprentice Keyblade Wielder after performing an Inheritance Ceremony. He stayed to train me, and I learned so much from him that my Master was like a second father to me when my own couldn't be there. He and my dad even hit it off pretty well, and they got me my surface skimmer together. But, even underground away from the more dangerous predators Lynfael isn't safe, and my Master got crushed by a cave-in. He never did get to take me to see the stars like he promised."

Naminé wrapped Nanaki up in a hug underneath the blankets. "Thanks, Naminé, but I'm okay, really. After it happened I quit the city and headed up to the surface for good, to use what I'd learned to help out others who were sick of living in the dark if I could find them. I'd been bouncing around on the surface for a year before the ship with you two in it crashed and I ran into your boyfriends fighting a larval venescall. And that, as they say, is that."

"Wow, sounds like you had it pretty rough," Kairi said. "I'm in awe."

"Thank you, thank you," said Nanaki with humour. "But, as you can plainly see, I am alive and kicking and ready to have new adventures in places where the world itself isn't trying to kill me and in the company of adventure-loving teenagers like myself, even if I'm a year older than you."

"Year older, maybe, but not as experienced," Kairi refuted.

"Oh? I've been living on my own in giant sand worm infested wastelands for a year and survived using only my own skills and wits. How am I less experienced?"

"Have you ever kissed a boy?" Kairi asked, an evil grin on her face that matched the tone of her voice.

"N-n-n-No!" Nanaki whispered. "Guys never gave me a second glance on Lynfael, even after I started coming out of my shell. If you didn't have a chest bigger than one of your grapes you weren't worth chasing after regardless of your personality because you wouldn't be able to properly nurse their babies as well as the girls who actually had boobs."

"Ew," said Naminé. "You mean that they only thought about the babies they could have with girls instead of the usual perverted boy thoughts?"

Nanaki frowned. "What are the 'usual perverted boy thoughts' then? If procreation isn't-"

"See, this is what you don't get," Kairi interjected, even though she was blushing. "On a base level, yes it's because of procreation, but guys seem to like T and A just on the fact that they're T and A. They're the forbidden always-concealed fruit of the fairer sex."

"It's why girls like Kim attract the attention of so many guys and earn the everlasting position of freinemy." Naminé grinned wickedly as she clutched her hand into a fist. "One pass on the street causes guys to turn their heads, just for another quick glance to make sure that they saw them. It's because of girls like her, with their pointlessly large breasts that make them walking boy magnets who can get guys to do anything that they want just because they're always tempted by them. Oh it makes me sick!"

"What are you complaining about?" Nanaki asked. "Don't you two already have boyfriends who pamper you like princesses?"

"Oh right," Kairi said, "forgot about that."

"How could you possibly forget when you and Sora were making out so hard an hour ago that the hot tub physically got even hotter!?" Nanaki sighed exasperatedly. "Seriously? What's with you two? Can you never get a room?"

"Yeah, you two are pretty terrible," Naminé said, rolling over so that she could look down at where Kairi lay. "Seriously, your PDAs would probably get you in trouble at school if you were still going."

"Ugh!" Kairi moaned. "Naminé's so mean! Stop picking on me!" The blonde and violet-haired girls lying on the bed laughed, and Kairi stuck her tongue out at them, even though neither could see it. She suddenly shot upright. "I've got it!"

"Huh?" Naminé asked.

"Got what?" asked a bewildered Nanaki.

Kairi grinned. "We...are going to get you a man on this adventure, Nanaki."

"EH!?"

"What? Are we trying to get her laid or something?" Naminé asked. "Kairi, we're not even letting our guys get any. Why are we going to try something like that?"

"I didn't say get her laid!" Kairi refuted. "I said get her a man!"

"Don't I get a say in this?" Nanaki asked. "I don't want a boyfriend! It takes work to build a relationship like that, doesn't it?"

"Of course it does, but it's rewarding and fun," Kairi said simply. "Besides, you've basically already told us that no guy on your world would give you the time of day, but you've already gotten hit on by guys here. So obviously out here amongst the stars there's got to be at least one fish in the barrel who'll catch your eye."

"Kairi do we even have room on the Kingdom for another person?" Naminé asked incredulously. "Richard blew up his charm and has claimed the couch, Roxas got his own body, and we picked up Nanaki. I think we're out of room for a guy to pick up just to be Nanaki's boyfriend. Are you and Sora going to start sharing a bed, then? You wander into his often enough."

"What? And no! I sleepwalk when I have bad dreams! We're not ready to share a room!"

"I already said that I'm not getting a boyfriend!" Nanaki hissed. "No matchmaking's going to work on this fighter. The day that I get a boyfriend is the day I let my hair grow out, which will be never."

"You're going to regret that within five years," Kairi said, ignoring every word out of Nanaki's mouth. "This adventure won't last forever, and I take it that you might like to settle down somewhere stable. Maybe I won't be able to hook you up with somebody while we're out saving the worlds, but I'm not gonna stop trying."

"And I'm not going to stop trying to push your and Sora's buttons," Naminé added viciously. "Come on, Roxas was onto something earlier. Don't play the nice and innocent card, Kairi, I know what you two were like before Sora and Riku took their Mark of Mastery exam."

"I have not taken my top off for Sora, Naminé, but you were taking your sweet time putting sunscreen on Roxas earlier! Maybe we should be needling you as to how far you're willing to let Roxas go."

"Roxas, me, and his sexy chest are not going-"

Naminé was interrupted by a sudden sound that was a bit louder than their hushed conversation. They could hear it coming from the door, and it sounded like somebody saying, "Ohhhh!" in a somewhat high-pitched voice.

"What was that?" Nanaki asked.

"I'm not sure," said Naminé.

"Didn't it sound like your mom?" Nanaki wondered.

Kairi's entire brain froze. She clutched at her head and buried herself in the blankets and pillows. "No! No! No! No! No! No! I am not thinking that! I can't believe that I'm thinking that! They aren't doing that! I refuse to believe that they're doing that! Goodnight!"

"I...I think we should go to bed now," Naminé said, her voice strained.

"Y-yeah," Nanaki said awkwardly, and she rolled over. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

…

"Hey, Kairi?"

"What?"

"I guess it's not for lack of trying that Mom and Dad didn't have kids before you dropped in."

"DIE!" Kairi screamed a war-cry and chucked her pillow at Naminé's head. Thus began Nanaki's first pillow fight.

-LD-

"Well, shit," said Sora as he tried his door handle and found the door not opening even after it was unlocked.

"What's up?" Roxas asked, suddenly wondering why Sora was wincing.

"Mom's got the storm bolt on," Sora explained. "It's not part of the door's lock, so the Keyblade can't get it open."

"So that means we have to wake her up..." Roxas said quietly, his voice trailing away with the breeze.

"Yeah," Sora sighed before ringing the doorbell. They only had to wait a minute before the sound of the bolt scraping back was heard and the door swung open.

Allison stood in the doorway, dressed in a fluffy blue robe and with her hair in the tangles left by sleep. Her eyes were awake, though, and they were glaring at her son.

"Welcome back. Kitchen table, now."

-LD-

"I can't help but feel like we're forgetting something," Sora said, tossing Roxas a blanket and some pillows. The lecture Allison had given the pair of them had gone on for a solid thirty minutes and it wasn't an experience either of them really wanted to repeat. "Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid." Roxas gave his brother a snarky grin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to get some Zees."

Sora shrugged as he climbed into his bed and almost immediately started to drift off. Still, I can't shake that forgetful feeling. I wonder what it is?

-LD-

Richard stared woefully up at the moon shining overhead from his perch on a paopu tree. Next to him, Lily the rabbit slept peacefully, now free of her restraints yet oddly attached to the undead warlock. At his feet were several coolers filled with ice and the sliced up remains of the Vulkna shark he had caught earlier. Around his neck was a necklace of the shark's teeth.

"All by myself." Richard's dulcet tones carried out across the waves as he sang a lamentful song to the heavens. "Don't wanna be, all by myself. Anymore."

-LD-

King Mickey idly watched as the other people gathered in the room exchanged greetings, introducing themselves to newer arrivals and getting to know their allies a bit better. Admittedly, everyone present had a slightly awkward smile on their faces. After all, most of them were on different worlds or didn't have the proper means to meet on one world. So, utilizing holographic technology (provided by the combined efforts of Cid and Chronos), the various leaders and representatives from the various factions that now formed the Alliance were gathered together for the first time.

But time was of the essence. The holographic communicators had a limited lifespan, and as such, Mickey wanted to keep the meetings as short as possible until the technology was improved upon (something Cid promised him would take up to a year to complete if they were unlucky).

Clearing his throat loudly, Mickey drew attention onto himself and the room quickly fell silent.

"Thank you all for agreeing to meet on such short notice," the mouse-king said, rising from his feet to join the others milling about. "I've met with all of you one-on-one before, but it's great that we can all finally be together, just like an alliance should be."

"I couldn't agree more," Alan Westerlund, president of the former Twilight Town said. He gave Mickey a curt nod. "The time has come to discuss what we're going to do about Maleficent and her forces of Darkness."

"I can't help but notice that we're a few members short, your Highness," the southern-accented voice of the Director of Project Freelancer filled room. The Director was, to Mickey at least, a strange man. No matter where he stood, even as a hologram, he managed to keep the upper-half of his face concealed in shadow as though it were a natural part of him. Only the lower rim of his glasses and below were visible. He stood proudly, both arms folded behind his uniform. His beard was neatly trimmed to the point that it was almost stubble. "Surely this meeting would be more effective if all of those involved were actually present?"

"The Director is right," Sephiria Arks, leader of the Chronos Numbers added. "I was under the impression that we'd be joined by the Chaser and the Grand Templar. Neither of them are present."

"Leon isn't here either," Axel pointed out from where he leaned against an invisible wall.

"Leon was called away to deal with an unexpected issue with other members of Radiant Garden's government," Merlin said as he appeared in a flash of blue light. "It sounded quite serious. So I'll be filling in for him."

"And I don't know where my brother went," Jenna said. "Xanthos just up and left the Forge behind without so much as a word to me."

"And the Grand Templar?" Sephiria asked. "Where is he?"

"Derrick is busy handling issues of his own," Mickey explained, eager to get the actual meeting started. "He won't be able to join us either."

"Instead of sitting around wondering where why some of us couldn't make it, shouldn't we instead focus on the purpose of this meeting?" Jonathan Brightheart, mayor of the island of Exin in the Destiny Islands said with a slightly hurried tone. "I haven't had a chance to spend much time with my daughter since she returned home. And today's her birthday."

"I couldn't agree more," Mickey said. "Let's get right to it. Maleficent has six of the seven Princesses of Heart."

Silence fell across the room at that as the group exchanged looks of shock, anger and confusion.

"How is this possible?"

Haldir paused as he stood in front of the King of Rohan. "I bring word from Elrond of Rivendell," he said. "An alliance once existed between Elves and Men. Long ago we fought and died together." He paused again at the sounds of rushed footsteps, and smiled when he saw to whom they belonged. "We come to honour that allegiance."

"Mae govannen," Aragorn exclaimed with a broad smile, coming down the steps from the hold towards the elf of the Golden Wood. He embraced Haldir, with the latter returning it in amusement after a moment. "You are most welcome."

As one, the three hundred Elves under Haldir's command turned to the right in perfect precision to stand facing Théoden and the knights of his household. "We're proud to fight alongside Men once more," declared Haldir.

"How is this possible?" Jenna demanded as she slammed her fist down on a table that flickered to life in the hologram for only a brief second. "Ever since the end of the War, the Princesses were always guarded by the Templars! Why aren't they doing their jobs?"

"We are doing our jobs!" Jonathan snapped at her. "Our numbers have been in a gradual decline since the last Keyblade War. Hell, there's only five of us left. Five! And only one of us has a Keyblade! Just how are we supposed to protect seven princesses when there's only five Templars? One of which has to guard the Cornerstone!"

"He's right. The Cornerstones are too important to lose," Princess Cadenza said solemnly. Mickey turned to look at her. Easily the youngest of all present, Princess Cadenza maintained an aura of calm grace. She was garbed in a light cerise dress that faded to shades of violet at the fringes. Her neckline was accented by a heart-shaped, pale blue crystal pendant. Her eyes were a grayish-purple that seemed to pierce the soul. Her hair was mostly a dark violet with streaks of rose and gold faintly accenting it as it curled slightly at the ends.

Princess Cadenza, even though she couldn't physically be present, gave of a gentle, loving aura that seemed to have an immediate effect on the rising emotions of the Alliance leaders. Both Jonathan and Jenna seemed a little less angry, though they kept throwing slightly irked glances at one another.

"The Cornerstone of Light can protect itself. Pure Darkness can't even go anywhere near it," she continued. "And the Cornerstone of Harmony divided itself into six parts thousands of years ago, so no Darkness would ever be able to take it."

"And what of the Cornerstone of Darkness?" A dark skinned man, dressed in a dark brown and tan robe asked. "I highly doubt it protects itself from Darkness."

"Master Windu is right," Yen Sid said slowly. "The Cornerstone of Darkness won't protect itself from Darkness. Instead, the Templars keep it sealed away on a small, almost unnoticeable world. There it is protected by numerous enchantments, blood seals, and binding contracts with all manner of terrifying beings to keep it safe."

"And that's why I can never leave the Islands," Jonathan added. "I have to stand guard over the Cornerstone. That leaves only four other Templars to travel the worlds and guard the princesses."

"And with only one Templar wielding a Keyblade," Mickey finished. "It would be next to impossible for the others to find the Princesses."

"Which Princess hasn't been taken yet?" The man in the brown robe, Mace Windu, asked.

"Princess Kairi." The Director's distinct accent immediately drew all attention to him. "A week ago, two of my agents went rogue and were hired by one of the politicians on Radiant Garden to kidnap the girl. Though, my Recovery team informs me that the kidnapping was unsuccessful."

"I should hope so," Jonathan said with a huff. "Like I've said already, she's back here on the Destiny Islands."

"Can I interrupt?" President Westerlund said, holding up his hands to get the others to be quiet for a moment. "What is this War I keep hearing about? And why are these Cornerstones so important?"

"The Cornerstones keep the balance of the Realm of Light," Jenna explained. "Light and Darkness, existing in Harmony. If the forces of Darkness upsets the balance, then the world would be plunged into chaos and disarray. As for the war…"

"The Keyblade Wars of yore plunged the true Kingdom Hearts into Darkness," Master Yen Sid said, his magically crafted ethereal form stepping into the center of the room. "And the χ-blade,its counterpart, was shattered. But the Light still shining in the hearts of children rebuilt the world that we know today. And the Light from the broken χ-bladewas then divided into seven. That Light became the seven purest hearts we now know as the Princesses of Heart. Those seven pure hearts form the very source of all light in the world. If they are lost, the world will again give way to shadow."

Yen Sid turned to face President Westerlund, his expression blank and unreadable. "Does that answer your questions?"

"For now, yes." President Westerlund gave a courteous nod to the former Keyblade Master.

"We're getting off topic," Mace Windu noted. "And it is difficult to maintain this connection through the Gateway. Our timelines won't remain synchronized for much longer."

"This is why I hate meetings," Axel muttered. "So, Maleficent has all but one of the Princesses. Right?"

"That is correct," the Director confirmed. "We're running out of time."

"If six Princesses Maleficent has, then go after the seventh, she will," the raspy voice of a small, wrinkled green figure sitting next to the image of Mace Windu said slowly.

"Master Yoda is right," Mickey said. "Her focus in undoubtedly on Kairi now."

"Which means we should focus our efforts into ensuring her safety," the Director.

"I've got an idea on how we can do that," Axel announced. "But, I don't know how many of you are going to like it. Hell, I know she really won't like it if she finds out."

-LD-

When Naminé woke, there was no light. She shifted groggily, unsure as to whether or not she had even woken up seeing as she couldn't even see anything. However, after a few moments of moving around and reacting to how the sheets moved as she did, and that there was a definite mass that coincided somewhat with her last recollection of where Nanaki had collapsed after their pillow war, Naminé admitted that she had, in fact, awoken.

"What time is it?" she grumbled, rubbing her eyes with her hands. Nobody answered her except with sounds of sleep, so Naminé looked around for the red light that would be Kairi's alarm clock. She ended up having to get out of the bed because she couldn't find it, and accidentally stepped on Kairi. The redhead squawked in surprise and pain, and Naminé shrieked at the sudden squishyness underneath her foot.

"What's going on?" Nanaki asked in a groan, the sudden noises unfortunately waking her.

"Holy! Naminé have you been putting on weight?" Kairi asked, breathing heavily and probably staring up at where she assumed the blonde was standing. Naminé grimaced and growled.

"Yes, actually, I've put on one hundred and thirty-three pounds in the last month, thank you for noticing." She gingerly stepped around Kairi, scouting first with her big toe. "Where the heck's your alarm clock, anyway? I can't see anything and I have no idea what time it is."

"You wouldn't see anything anyway," Kairi replied, "the curtains are closed." Naminé heard the sounds of her sister getting out of the tangled mess of blankets she had wrapped herself into and the blonde couldn't resist a giggle as Kairi verbally equated to getting out as being stuck in a straightjacket. Kairi fumbled for a moment while Naminé continued to search for the elusive alarm clock. The curtains were pulled open, and only a shadowy luminescence entered the room.

"That's right," Kairi muttered. "During the Sun's Shadow Festival, the entire day is spent with Destiny Islands in a total solar eclipse. There is no dawn today."

"Great! So how am I supposed to find your stupid clock?" Naminé grumbled. "By whatever moonlight is coming in through your window?" Naminé continued to cast her eyes around, looking for the telltale red light from the clock but not finding it anywhere! She could barely see shapes now, but it still wasn't enough.

With a snap and a crackle, light suddenly gave the room shadowy, flickering illumination. Naminé turned around to look for the source, and found Kairi standing by the window with a snarky grin on her face and an orb of merrily crackling fire hovering above her hand. "Like this?" she asked, even though she had her eyes closed from the sudden change.

Naminé threw her arms up. "Oh sure! Let's just be smart and use fire magic to make floating torches." She turned away, sighing in dramatically exaggerated exasperation, and found the light switch. Once the lights were running, Kairi extinguished her fire, and Naminé took another look around the room.

"Aright, who tossed the pillow over the clock?" Naminé asked.

"That was me," Nanaki grouched, leaning up in bed. "It started beeping at me like crazy so I whacked it with a nearby pillow until it shut up." Naminé quickly removed the pillow from above the alarm clock, and a gasp got strangled in her throat.

"It's twenty after ten!" Naminé spluttered.

Kairi nearly stumbled on her pile of blankets in her haste to reach the door. She wrenched it open and dove out into the hallway, hollering, "First dibs on the shower!"

"Fine! Then I'll have breakfast first!" Naminé answered, and she quickly left the room.

Nanaki blearily watched the door for a few seconds after the two of them had left, only partially hearing the thudding of their footsteps on the floor. She sank back into the bed and moaned lowly, pulling the blankets back up around her body and over her head to block out the light. "Mmm...so soft..." she crooned while snuggling into the bed, blankets, and pillow.

-LD-

Sora glanced at his watch, tapping his foot impatiently while Roxas paced back and forth with his arms folded. Behind the pair stood the hundreds, if not thousands, of Islanders who had come out for the opening ceremonies for the Sun's Shadow Festival, waiting to be let into the festival fairgrounds which would occur only after the festival's opening ceremonies, which were to begin promptly at ten-thirty in the morning. Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, Richard with Lily, and Kim were all present with him and Roxas at the very back of the congregation, and all of them were showing signs of annoyance.

They had agreed to meet at ten o'clock in the morning. It was now now twenty-eight past the hour.

"Late yesterday, and late today," Roxas grumbled. He looked at Sora and tossed his hand up in the air with an irritated flair. "What's up with Kairi and being late?"

"She slept in," Sora growled while tapping his foot. "She had to have slept in."

"Do you think she could be sleeping, permanently?" Richard asked.

"Not a chance," Selphie said. "If there were some sort of attack the whole city would know. We don't exactly live in a violent world."

"Au contraire, just four seconds ago I saw a child mauling a poor, defenceless, teddy bear! What say you to that?" Before any of them could open their mouths to snap out a retort, the voice of Kairi's father boomed out over them on the loudspeakers.

"Good morning, evening, night, or whatever you want to call today," Jonathan declared from the podium he stood at.

"Great, it's starting already," Tidus said.

"Good morning, and welcome, to this the thirty-seventh Sun's Shadow Festival!" Cheering erupted from the gathered crowds at Jonathan's words, booming out over several loudspeakers scattered about. "Today, the sun will remain eclipsed with the largest of our moons, Nox, while his sisters, Aurora, and Sol keep vigil on the horizon. The festival got its start nearly two millennia ago, when the first inhabitants of these Islands worshipped the moons as their gods.

"The story begins with Nox, the shadow of the sun, and his jealousy toward his younger sister, Sol, the guiding light. The Islanders believed Sol to be the true giver of life, and always gave her thanks for their crops. Nox, on the other hand, received very little thanks. For by his night, ships were lost to the whims of the sea, and monsters emerged to prey on the careless. His stars and brilliance, in his eyes, went ignored. So, to spite his sister, he placed himself between the sun and the world just before dawn and cast his shadow over the lands and seas. Bringing forth a day where the sun did not shine upon the world.

"Despite Nox's efforts, Sol was not wounded by his actions, nor was she lost to darkness. Instead, she felt only pity for her brother. But, she could not allow Nox to trap our world in an endless cycle of nighttime. She cared for the people of the world and saw how Nox was terrifying them. She rose up against her elder sibling and clashed with him.

"For a full day they fought, neither side willing to give in to the other. And, no matter how hard she tried, Sol could not get Nox to dispel his shadow that blanketed the day. Nox refused and as the second dawn without day approached, Sol despaired.

"It was then that Aurora, the eldest of the three stepped in. Compared to her might, Nox was an insect caught in a storm. And when dawn broke, the sun rose free of shadow. Aurora comforted her brother, who wallowed in his defeat and vowed revenge. She promised him that every fifty years, when a new generation of Islanders would be thriving, that he could cast his shadow over the sun and bring forth a single day of night.

"Broken and defeated, Nox conceded. And fifty years later, when Nox covered the sun, the people of the Islands chose to celebrate the night with a feast. And the Sun's Shadow Festival began, a tradition we've held every fifty years since and will continue to do so for as long as Nox keeps casting his shadow upon us.

"But I've kept you long enough. Please, enjoy the Festival to your hearts' content!"

"And look, still no sign of Kairi," Selphie deadpanned as the crowds around them applauded for Jonathan and began to migrate toward the fairgrounds. "You'd never be able to guess it, but she sure can be lazier than you, Sora."

"I resent that." Sora turned away from Selphie, made a pouting face, and sat down on the ground. He folded his arms and watched the street while the sounds of thousands of feet and half as many voices stormed his ears. Richard sat down next to Sora, and adopted the same pose. "What are you doing?" Sora asked.

"You looked like you were waiting for a rampaging earth elemental to appear so you could kill it. Naturally, I shall join you."

"Seriously, yah, where did you pick this guy up from?" Wakka whispered.

Sora snorted. "Actually, she's closer to a fire elemental than an earth one," he answered.

And so they waited; Sora and Richard sat on the ground and stared into the gloom lit only by streetlamps and additional lighting setup for the festival, and the rest made scattered loud smalltalk behind them, wondering what the festival would be like.

After an eternity that was really only ten minutes, Sora was able to see four people heading in their direction, three running and one walking casually. Kairi, Naminé, and Nanaki were racing towards them, a muffin in Kairi's hand and a piece of toast clutched in her teeth; Naminé held onto an orange and was also munching on toast, and Nanaki, interestingly, wasn't actually running as Sora first thought. She was standing on her surface skimmer and piloting it with one hand while eating a muffin with the other. It looked like there was a glass of juice in a cupholder he hadn't noticed before, and she was...she was balancing on the controls...

Sora got to his feet in amazement. "Have you got waffles!?"

Nanaki smiled as she landed the skimmer right beside him. "Yep," she declared smugly. "I've got waffles, a muffin, and a nice cool glass of orange juice."

"How were you able to hold the plate there?" Tidus asked.

"I'm boss, that's why," Nanaki answered, picking up the paper plate and folding the glass into the crook of her arm. She pressed a button and the skimmer neatly folded up into a tiny cube. Nanaki was just finishing putting the cube into a pouch by her hip when Kairi and Naminé finally arrived, with their mother trailing behind them at an easy pace.

"You're late," Sora said, raising his eyebrows at his girlfriend. "You're really late." Kairi bit down on her toast and pulled the rest of it from her mouth, chewed, and swallowed thickly. Her hair was still shining with moisture.

"Blame her," she said, jerking her thumb at Nanaki. "We only got up at, like, a quarter after because she chucked a pillow over the alarm when it went off."

"I was tired and it was annoying," Nanaki defended. "Sleep triumphs over all." She bit into her muffin, and moaned. "Mmm...muffin..."

Kairi and Naminé were about to retort when Melissa began her greeting. "Well, I can see that you're all assembled," she said with a warm smile. "Have fun today, kids, and don't forget, Kairi, the party's at two in Century Park."

"We wone forget," Naminé answered through a mouthful of toast. Melissa hugged each of them, said something about going to find Jonathan and for her girls not to take too much advantage of all the dark nooks they and their boyfriends could hide away in, and departed. Kairi glared after her mother's retreating image before finding Sora tapping her face with a finger. She looked at him, saw his smile, and shared a quick 'nice to see you' smooch.

Sora gestured towards the fairgrounds. "Well, shall we go?"

-LD-

"I don't understand why we can't take the target now."

Keila rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the oversized cotton candy she had purchased. So far, she had been forced to listen to one of her silver cloaked companions complain almost non-stop since the opening ceremony. The other two, thankfully enough, had remained silent. Though, whether that was actually a good thing or not was still up for debate since it allowed the largest of them to continue with his moaning and groaning about their leader's decisions.

"In the middle of a crowd, where who knows how many law enforcement agents are lying in wait?" The only other female in their group finally asked. "Not to mention at least four Keyblade Wielders. Do you want to be killed?"

"I say we let them try and stop us." The large one pounded his fists together. "I've been itching for a good fight for weeks now, but the boss never lets us do anything. It's always him or Naleten out doing the fun stuff."

"It's because you aren't subtle," the other man in a cloak pointed out. "Not only are you a hulking brute, but you've got a loud mouth and a habit for breaking things." He turned toward the woman next to him. "Are we sure he's a Nobody like us?"

"Or a really good actor," she replied. "It doesn't matter now. We wait until Jevenan gives us the signal, and we keep the target out of the public's sight."

"So, why am I with you lot?" Keila asked, drawing the attention of her companions for what felt like the first time. "You don't even need me until you get your 'target'. So why am I here?" All she got in response were shrugs.

"In case we need you to pick a lock for us?" the brute laughed. Keila let out a groan and allowed her head to fall onto the table in front of her.

Just once, can I get put on a mission where I don't have to work with a bunch of weirdos? Please?

She lifted her head slightly and gripped the 'Magic Eight Ball' she had won earlier and shook it. The icosahedral die inside rolled around inside for a brief moment before settling on 'Don't count on it'. Keila stared at the toy for a moment before slamming her head on the table again.

"Great," she grumbled, now also in pain from frustration. "Just my luck..."

Slowly, Keila raised her head from the table again, and took another bite of the cotton candy into her mouth. The super-sugary treat wasn't quite enough to fix the fact that she was with a bunch of Nobodies that she had absolutely zero interest in being with, but it was a start; however, she still had no idea how long it would take until Jevenan gave them the signal.

"Come one! Come all! Come and witness the amazing magic of the Great and Powerful Bellatrix!"

Turning her head at the declaration, Keila saw a young woman appear on a stage in a plume of smoke. Her skin was white and creamy, hair a pale cornflower blue, and she was dressed in a purple cape and hat covered in stars over a light blue chemise and black shorts, with big black boots halfway up her shins. A wand with a star on it was in her hand, and a roman candle of blue sparks shot out of it.

Well, thought Keila, might as well take in a show while I'm here.

-LD-

"Never again, Kairi," Sora muttered, holding onto the rails of a fence and waiting for his head to stop spinning.

"Oh come on, Sora," Kairi laughed. "Don't be such a spoilsport."

"Never again," he repeated.

"You can pilot a gummi ship in a fierce dogfight, doing all sorts of spins and tricks, and regularly do flips and twists on your own in a fight, and yet you feel lightheaded from a little spinning and Gs in the Gravitron?"

"I didn't mean that," Sora said weakly. "I meant, 'never again on an empty stomach'. But, probably not a full one either."

Kairi laughed, but placed a sympathetic arm over his shoulders. "Hey, you okay?"

Sora shook his head, but chuckled a little bit. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Just being a wimp for a moment." He took a deep breath and stood up straight, forcing a grin. "There, see? All better."

Kairi humoured him with a smile, and linked her arms around his. "How about we skip the rides for now? Want to try some of the games?"

Sora broke away from looking at a fire-eater and nodded his head. "Sure, why not? We've still got a bit of time left." Kairi agreed, and the two walked a little ways away from the spinning death trap behind them into the lines and lines of booths of the midway. They looked left and right, spotting games of chance, skill, and strength all over, with thousands of prizes hanging up on displays.

Sora beat out Kairi and three other competitors at a game where the objective was to shoot water from a nozzle onto a small target circle and race your chocobo against the other players. He got a small plush Mareep from that, which he was quick to teasingly gloat over in front of his Kairi and refuse to give to her. Neither of them won anything on any of the six betting games that they tried, not that they were really expecting to win, anyway. Kairi managed to beat Sora out, though, at a toy archery booth, and lorded her victory over him with the many annoying sounds that her funky yellow alien made while its belly also lit up with red light. Sora then one-upped her by shooting ten blitzballs through a hoop in twelve seconds, and got a big foam-rubber composite sword that looked like it was from a medieval Lego set.

It was while the pair of them were each munching on a shared small basket of fries, that Kairi saw it, the grand prize of the milk bottle toss. A giant stuffed winged horse, at least a third of her size. Its hide was cream-coloured, with a straight dark brown mane and the image of a flaming tire on her flank.

"Sora," Kairi said in a low voice filled with awe. "I want that."

"Huh?" Sora asked, turning around to look.

"That!" Kairi exclaimed, pointing. "That pegasus. I want it!"

"Milk bottles, huh?" Sora asked. "Alright, let's finish these fries off, and then have a go before heading to the park." Kairi nodded her head, and began shoveling the fries into her mouth with a gusto. Sora yelped and quickly grabbed some of them. "Hey, leave a few for me here!" She grinned at him and laughed. Sora groaned and rolled his eyes.

The fries consumed, Sora chucked the basket into a waste bin, and followed Kairi towards the booth. The man running it grinned and tipped his hat at the pair. "Welcome, friend! Step right up and take your shot! Best prizes on the midway, right here, if you can win."

"How'd you play?" Kairi asked, looking around for the signs and down the range at the three big milk bottles stacked in a triangular shape.

"Fifty munny gets you three balls," the carney explained. "You have three chances to knock the bottles down. Get it in three, you pick any of the prizes closest to the ground; in two, any of those or the ones above them; and in one, you get yourself Wild Fire there." He pointed up at the giant stuffed pony with a stick in his hand. "Well? What say you, friends? You and your strong-looking man there going to try for Wild Fire?"

"Oh you bet," Kairi said, laying down fifty munny. The man grinned, and presented her with three balls. Kairi picked one up, and her face fell. The ball was far lighter than its size suggested. She wasn't sure just how much force she could generate with it.

But Kairi looked up at Wild Fire, and nodded her head. She reared her arm back.

A sudden flash from a camera inside the booth went off, breaking her concentration and causing her to throw with less force than she wanted. Her ball struck the top bottle and harmlessly bounced off with a ping!

"Aw, tough luck there. Don't give up! You still have two balls left!" Gritting her teeth in annoyance, Kairi threw her second ball, and missed entirely.

"Calm down," Sora said patiently, watching. Kairi grabbed her third ball, and took a few deep breaths.

"Calm down," she repeated. "Just relax and throw your ball?"

"That's right," Sora said. "Remember, it's just a game." Kairi nodded her head.

"Relax. Relax. Relax."

Sora shook his head and rolled his eyes at the sky. Repeating the word 'relax' over and over wasn't going to help her relax at all. He leaned towards her ear, and grabbed her shoulders in his hands, and rotated his fingers into the skin. "Reelaaxx..."

Kairi laughed and danced out of his clutches. "Alright, alright! I'm fine now." She giggled again, just a little, and took aim with her third ball. She sent it flying on a beautiful bee-line towards the dead centre of the stack, and it bounced off!

Kairi stared at her result in pure shock as the carney muttered insincere condolences to her. Sora roughly stepped past her and dropped fifty munny onto the counter. "Are you going to play the hero now, young man?" The man asked. "Win a prize for your lady?"

"Bring it," Sora challenged, though without a hint of his usual smile. The three balls were placed in front of him, and Sora picked up the first one.

There is no possible conventional way that this ball would knock those bottles over, he realized upon picking it up. The ball was far too light to be of any practical use except as a child's plaything.

I'm willing to bet that nobody's won a prize at all today from these guys, he thought, and this time I'd win on that bet. Well, two can play at that game.

Sora took a step back, readying himself for his throw.

"Force," he whispered under his breath, and felt the ball become heavier as his gravity spell took hold. A flash came from inside of the booth, but Sora was ready for it, and powered through the distraction and sent the ball hurtling towards the stacked bottles with all the force that the Keyblade Master could bring to bear.

It blasted through the bottles, scattering them to the floor, and the ball thudded into thick padding over painted particle board at the back of the booth, still spinning.

Sora smirked at the dumbfounded and completely flabbergasted look on the man's face, and said, "I think that we'll take this," and grabbed Wild Fire from where it hung. "Thank you very much." Kairi tightly hugged the giant stuffed animal with the smile of a child on Christmas morning, and thanked Sora with a messy kiss before the two of them left the shellshocked carney's booth.

They made sure that they tipped off security about how absurdly rigged the game was. They both knew that a little rigging was fine, but that was beyond ridiculous.

-LD-

Tidus collapsed backward off of his bench, groaning and clutching at his stomach. "No more. I give."

"And we're down to our final two competitors!" The master of ceremonies announced as the crowd exploded into cheers. "Still in the running are Roxas and Nanaki and neither of them look ready to give up!"

Roxas shot a smirk in Nanaki's direction as he swallowed the last of the pies that had been set in front of him. Nanaki retaliated with a mile-wide smile as she tossed a plate off to the side.

"Gotta say, I never took you for the competitive eating type," the blond said as the empty plates in front of him were cleared by the event staff. "I only suggested this because it had seven different foods you haven't tried yet. I'm impressed you've made it this far."

"Don't insult me," Nanaki said with a laugh. "This stuff is lightweight compared to what we had to eat back on my world. I'd bet just about anything that my digestive system is a lot hardier than yours."

"We'll see. We'll see." Roxas crossed his arms smugly as the final food of the competition was placed in front of the two of them. "Because this just so happens to be my favorite food."

Nanaki glanced down at the final stage of the contest. Placed in front of her was one of the strangest looking pile of food she had ever seen. A banana was cut in half lengthwise and laid in the dish. Three scoops of ice cream, one each of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry were served in a row between the banana. A crushed pineapple topping was spooned over the strawberry ice cream, chocolate syrup over the vanilla, and strawberry topping over the chocolate. It was garnished with crushed nuts, whipped cream, and a lone maraschino cherry.

"Our finalists have done a fantastic job so far in this contest, but can they face the final round and still come out on top?" the master of ceremonies called into the microphone. "These banana splits are generously donated to our contest by the Surfin' Sundaes seaside shack. Which one of our finalists has the guts of steel needed to win this contest? Are you ready to find out?!"

The crowd erupted into wild cheers and shouts of excitement. The MC spun around and dramatically pointed at Roxas and Nanaki. "Contestants, are you ready?!"

"Bring it on!" Roxas said, gripping his spoon tightly.

"Let me show you how it's done, buddy," Nanaki sneered.

"Alright! Ten minutes on the clock. And... Go!"

As the crowd began to roar, the two Keyblade Wielders dug their spoons into their splits, each determined to win.

-LD-

Tidus chuckled as he leaned against the wall next to the public restrooms. The sounds of two people rejecting the food they had scarfed escaped the plastic walls.

"I warned you that this is what would happen if we entered that contest," he shouted through the wall next to him.

"Screw-HURGHK- you, Tidus!" Roxas' queasy voice shouted back. "At least I- guh- won!"

Tidus shook his head in amusement. "Well I hope it was worth it."

"Totally was!" Nanaki shouted back. "And, now my stomach will be empty again, meaning that I can still enjoy all kinds of different foods today!"

"That's a very positive, and disgusting, way to look at it. You guys done yet?"

"No. I've still got a couple hot dogs in here fighting their way back up," Roxas groaned.

"And that's my limit." Tidus made a face of disgust. "Come find me when you two are done bonding over your porcelain thrones."

"We're not bonding, we're worshipping and offering them a sacrifice of food!"

"That's even worse!" Tidus shot back before closing the door behind him.

-LD-

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Kairi asked as Sora led her down another side alley.

"I sure hope so." Sora shot her a slightly nervous grin.

The two of them had quickly discovered that it was easy to get lost and turned around in a sea of people when they tried to escape the main roads. In an effort to guide them quickly to the central plaza where a lunch to celebrate Kairi's birthday had been planned, Sora had led Kairi toward the nearest side street. Sora however, had never ventured beyond the main roads in Fatum to familiarize himself with the side streets and alleys.

"You do realize that we're going to be late, right?" Kairi said with a laugh as she watched Sora try and figure out where they were.

"It's a party for you, right? So, it doesn't start until you get there, which means we can't possibly be late," Sora rationalized.

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works." Kairi let out a small giggle as Sora led her down yet another alleyway. "Can't we just fly there? What were all those lessons in the simulator good for if we don't actually fly?"

"Well that's no fun." Sora glanced back at her and grinned. "Come on, Kairi. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I left it back on the Gummi ship," the birthday-girl said, a hint of playful sarcasm in her voice. "I didn't think I'd need it on the world where I grew up."

"Look at it this way, if we hadn't stuck around for that last booth, you wouldn't have Wild Fire, now would you?" Sora said with a grin as he made another turn. Kairi glanced down at the stuffed cream pegasus that was currently tucked under her free arm, and blocking most of her body from sight.

"True enough." She squeezed Sora's hand a little tighter. "Thanks again for winning her for me. Sora paused in his efforts to find the right path out of the maze of alleyways.

"No problem," he said with a grin. "Besides, it felt good to show up those cheats running the place."

"I still can't believe that someone would rig a carnival game like that." Kairi shook her head in disappointment. "It's not fun when the game's rigged."

"Guess some people only care about making munny and not just about having a good time," Sora grumbled.

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

Sora and Kairi turned at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and were greeted by a group of seven people, all obscured by the dark of the night. Before the two teens could make a sound, the figure closest to them lunged forward, swinging a long object in its hand. Sora's hand was torn from Kairi's grasp as the weapon struck him across the head with a dull thud, sending him crashing heavily against the wall of the alley.

Lights danced in Sora's eyes and a ringing filled his ears as he struggled to get back onto his feet. However, the descending fist of his attacker quickly put an end to that plan. Pain exploded through Sora's skull as he collapsed onto the pavement. A single gasp of pain left his lips as his attacker placed a foot on his head and pressed down hard.

"Sora!" Kairi tried to rush to her boyfriend's side, only to be intercepted by three of the other shadowy figures. She quickly found herself pinned to side of the alley, five hands holding her arms and legs still while another pressed a knife up against the side of her face.

"You're a right pain in my ass, you know that?" The man currently pressing his foot into Sora's face growled. "Thanks to you, all of our booths have been shut down. Do you know how much munny you've cost me tonight?"

"I don't care," Sora grumbled. "You guys were cheating."

"It's called 'making a profit', kid." The assailant ground his heel against the side of Sora's face a bit. "And you're gonna pay me every last bit you've got on you. But, I'm guessing you don't have very much." Sora glared up at his attacker, doing his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his head. If his head hadn't had been the target, he'd be able to focus on some magic and put this cheating thief in his place.

"So, here's what me and my boys are gonna do," the assailant continued, either unaware or not caring that Sora was glaring daggers at him. "We're going to take everything you've got on you that's worth something. Then, we're going to break your knees and your wrists so you can't run away. That way, you can sit and watch as my boys share this 'treat' you brought with you." The other shadowy figures all chuckled, hinting at their anticipation. A shiver ran up Sora and Kairi's spines.

"I swear, if you so much as breathe on her…" Sora growled.

"You'll what?" The assailant spat. "You can barely see straight in your condition and we have you outnumbered. You wouldn't last two seconds against us!"

"Then it's a good thing he won't be doing the fighting," a male voice said from the shadows directly behind the assailant. A flash of light lit up the darkness, illuminating the speaker's face for a brief instant as the Way to the Dawn appeared in his grip.

"Riku!" Sora and Kairi cried out in unison. Sora's assailant didn't have time to react before Riku struck him with the flat side of his weapon. The man was sent crashing to the ground, a howl of pain escaping him as he went. A wreath of green light appeared around the Way to the Dawn as its Wielder held it over Sora.

Immediately, Sora felt the pain leave his head. He was on his feet in a flash, the Kingdom Key appearing in his hand as he rose.

"Son of a bitch!" Sora's assailant howled. "Who the hell are… you?" He looked up from the ground, only to find the Way to the Dawn mere inches from his nose.

"Someone who doesn't appreciate you threatening his friends." Riku swung his Keyblade and bashed the assailant over the head, knocking him unconscious. "How's it going back there, you two?" He glanced behind him in time to see one of the attackers get flattened by Kairi's Oathkeeper.

"Good to go!" Sora said, flashing Riku a grin as his Keyblade took down the last of his and Kairi's attackers. Riku grinned back.

"Why is it that I always have to be the one to save your skin?" He asked, feigning annoyance.

"It's because you're the oldest," Sora replied as he dismissed his weapon. "You have to." Riku rolled his eyes. He turned back toward the alley's exit only to nearly be knocked to the ground as Kairi threw her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Not even a 'hello'?" the red-head grumbled as she squeezed the life out of him. "We don't see you in a month and you can't even give us a normal greeting?"

"I thought saving you guys was a 'normal greeting'," Riku wheezed. Kairi released him and gave him a light punch to his shoulder.

"Jerk," she said with a giggle.

Riku opened his mouth to retaliate, but stopped as the sound of several pairs of feet running toward them reached his ears. Apparently, Sora and Kairi had heard them as well, as they both summoned their Keyblades back to their hands in response.

Four figures slid into view at the entrance, only to collide with one another. Sora and Kairi both winced as the new arrivals all let out cries of shock and fell over one another, resulting in a painful looking pile of tangled limbs. Riku raised a hand to his head with a sigh.

"You guys took your time getting here." He let out a chuckle and dismissed his Keyblade.

"Well, excuse us for not growing up here!" Hayner snapped as he pulled himself out from underneath Olette and Nikki. "You're the one who ran off without even telling us where to go."

"Then it's your fault for not being able to keep up." Riku shrugged.

Hayner opened his mouth to let out a retort, but his words died in his throat as he caught sight of Sora and Kairi, both of whom were now standing in the dim light of a street lamp. The two Wielders stared back, each with an equal look of surprise on their faces.

Before either of them could react, Hayner, Pence and Olette all cried out in excitement. The next thing Sora and Kairi knew, they were flat on their backs from a tackling hug their friends from Twilight Town delivered. All three Twilight Town natives were babbling greetings over one another to the point where it became an incoherent mess of noise.

"Hayner? Pence? Olette?" Kairi managed to gasp as her lungs reunited with their good friend, oxygen. "What are you guys doing here?"

"How are you guys here?" Sora asked as he managed to get to his feet.

"Riku, obviously," Pence replied. "We hitched a ride with him."

"And ate all of my food in the process..." Riku crossed his arms and shot a glare at Hayner. The blond replied with a cheeky grin.

"Come on, you were fully stocked. It's not like we ate that much..."

"My mind is still boggled on how you could have possibly eaten all of my food in a day and a half!"

Olette gave Riku a look of bemusement. "Have you ever seen Hayner eat?"

"Well I have now..." Riku lamented, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Hayner has a hollow leg," Pence said with a laugh. "All that food has to go somewhere."

Kairi let out a giggle. "Okay, that answers the 'how', but what about the 'why'?"

"For you, obviously." Olette gave a Kairi a wide smile. "After Sora and the others went through that portal to the virtual Twilight Town, we had no idea if you two found each other. For all we knew, something even worse had happened to you.

"But, when we met Riku on the Frozen Fields, he filled us in with the rest of the details. He was even sweet enough to bring us here with him before we head off to Radiant Garden." Riku gave a small cough and turned away, doing his best to hide the pink tinge his cheeks had developed. All he got in return was a bout of giggles from the two girls.

"So, what were you guys already doing away from Twilight Town?" Sora asked. "I didn't think you had a Gummi ship." The three off-worlders' expressions fell almost instantly. A heavy silence hung in the air around them for a few seconds.

Hayner spoke up first. "We don't. We were evacuated."

"Evacuated?" Kairi looked over at Olette for confirmation. To her surprise, Olette looked the most downtrodden of the three. She looked on the brink of tears.

"The Heartless took Twilight Town's heart," Riku explained. "They attacked in force. They never stood a chance."

"'In force'?" Sora repeated. "That doesn't make sense. I've only seen the Heartless attack in large groups twice. Why would they attack Twilight Town?"

"Because of me..." Olette choked out. The others turned to face her. Sora and Kairi shared a brief, confused glance. Olette held out her hand and summoned her No Name into existence. Sora and Kairi's jaws dropped.

"When did you get a Keyblade?!" Sora exclaimed.

"Just before the Heartless attacked." Olette stared sadly at the Keyblade for a moment before willing it to vanish. "I accidentally touched Master Xanthos' Keyblade and triggered an Inheritance Ceremony." She drew in a shaky breath to steady herself. "Then the Heartless started popping up everywhere. Master Xanthos said it was because they saw me, a new Wielder as easy prey."

"Don't go blaming yourself, Olette." Hayner placed a comforting arm around her. "Xanthos said himself that it was just dumb bad luck."

"I know." Olette wiped away the tears that had started to form. "It's just… hard to think about what happened."

"Hey. Come here." Kairi pried Hayner's arm off of the brunette and pulled her into a comforting embrace. "You know what you need? Cake."

"Cake?" Olette gave the red-head a confused look.

Kairi nodded. "Cake makes everything better. And I happen to have it on good word that there's a rather large red-velvet cake waiting in the park." She pulled away slightly from the embrace to give her friend a small smile. "Besides, the Islands are basically one big celebration today. So you need to cheer up, and put on a smile! Birthday girls' orders!"

That got Olette to smile. The brunette wiped the tears that had started to form on the back of her hand. "As you wish, your majesty," she said with a small laugh.

"We can always catch up later." Sora glanced down at the watch his mother had lent him. "We need to hurry if we aren't going to be late."

"Sora's actually being proactive and trying to avoid being late?" Riku shook his head with a chuckle. "What is the world coming to?"

"Hey!"

-LD-

"You look troubled."

Naminé gave a start as Roxas' voice broke her mile-long stare. He stood over her, offering a cup of iced tea. She smiled and graciously accepted the drink. Roxas sat down on the bench next to her and fixed his gaze in the direction she had been staring.

Waiting for Sora and Kairi to show up was about as glamorous as one would expect. None of the others who were there with them were complaining just yet; for which Roxas was thankful. Instead, he had spent time wandering amongst friends and family, getting to know them a bit better. He didn't want to have to rely on Sora's own experiences and interactions with people when he could make his own, after all.

He almost hadn't noticed that Naminé was sitting to the side, away from the other partygoers. Her fingers had been drumming against her knees and Roxas, being the gentleman that he was, immediately set out to learn what was worrying her.

"It's nothing." Naminé's gaze shifted back to a spot off in the distance. "I've just... there's a lot on my mind, at the moment."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Roxas fixed her with a worried look.

"Thanks, but I can handle it." Naminé took hold of Roxas' hand. "But, I promise to talk to you right away if I start to doubt myself. Deal?"

"Deal," Roxas said, squeezing her hand slightly. Naminé gave him an appreciative smile and sighed.

"So, how are you feeling" she asked.

"Huh?"

Naminé rolled her eyes and poked him right over the blue ribbon he had proudly pinned to his chest. "Roxas, you and Nanaki were puking your guts out for seven minutes after that contest. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Never better. Especially after I got some drink and a bit of what your dad's grilling up back into me." Naminé laughed and kissed his cheek, called him a goof, and smiled fondly at him, only for her gaze to harden as something caught her eye.

"Naminé?" Roxas was startled as she suddenly leapt to her feet.

"Sorry, Roxas." She bent down and gave her boyfriend a quick peck on the cheek. "I've gotta use the little girl's room. Before Roxas even had time to form a cohesive response, Naminé had already dashed away and disappeared inside one of the park's public restrooms.

"What was that all about?" He muttered.

Naminé let out a quick sigh of relief as she shut the restroom door behind her. She really didn't want to have to explain her behavior to Roxas, not when she knew she could handle the issue herself. She quickly put on a smile as her eyes locked onto the only other occupant of the restroom, Kim.

Kim turned at the sound of the door latching shut, a look of carefully veiled contempt crossing her face for brief moment. Naminé smiled back, an unusual feeling of confidence swelling in her chest.

"Hello, Kim." Naminé kept the smile on her face as she moved to stand next to her.

"Naminé." Kim went back to examining her reflection, sparing Naminé a glance out of the corner of her eye. "Enjoying the festival?"

"It's been fun," Naminé said as she fiddled with how her hair fell across her shoulders. "Roxas and I spent a lot of time riding the rides they have out."

"That's good," Kim muttered. She cast another glance in Naminé's direction and saw that she was smirking at her. "Did you... do anything else?"

"Well..." Naminé said, setting her mouth into a line. "Not today. But I did learn something interesting yesterday."

"And that would-" Kim was swiftly cut off as Naminé suddenly lunged at her, pinning Kim to the wall of the restroom. "Naminé! What the hell?!" A flash of light nearly blinded Kim as Naminé summoned the Rejection of Fate.

"I learned that someone has kept us all under a pretty powerful illusion spell." Naminé glared fiercely at her captive. Kim's eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed in agitation.

"How did you figure it out?" she demanded.

"I've got a special talent," Naminé explained smugly. "I have a unique connection to the memories of everyone who's close to Sora. I didn't figure it out at first, since my power was weakened when I rejoined with Kairi. But then I got my own body. I became my own person and my powers started growing again. And my connection to memories and illusions is stronger than ever. When I saw you yesterday, I sensed something was off. It took me a while to figure it out, but when I did, your spell lost its hold on me."

"Good for you, you can break an illusion. Whoop-dee-do." Kim rolled her eyes. "So are you going to kill me or what?"

Naminé pressed Rejection of Fate a little closer, the edge of the blade sliding against Kim's neck. She could see every pore on Kim's face beginning to bead with sweat at the cold metal's touch. Naminé growled in her throat. "Not just yet," she told Kim in a low voice. "And that's only because Kairi is still under the effects of your spell. If I killed you now, that'd totally ruin Kairi's birthday, and..." Rejection of Fate drew a thin line into Kim's neck, and a tiny bead of crimson rolled onto the Keyblade's silver blade, "...I don't want that."

Suddenly the Keyblade was gone from the other blonde's neck, and Kim dropped to the ground and placed a hand to her windpipe as Naminé turned away. The former Nobody turned a baleful eye onto the other illusionist while she slowly strolled towards the exit. "I know that you're a fake, Kim, and if you make any move against Kairi today, I won't spare you a second time."

Kim stayed in the public restroom for a minute after Naminé had left, and healed the hurt on her throat with a minor cure spell. She laughed weakly, and a wicked grin grew on her face. "Damn. Looks like I get to take out that bitch sooner than I expected to."

-LD-

It didn't take Kairi long to decide that she had officially been on the receiving end of enough hugs to last her a lifetime. She and the others had barely made it ten steps into the park before she was glomped by Selphie, crushed against Wakka, lifted off her feet and spun around until she was dizzy by Tidus, smothered by both of her parents (separately and together), squeezed by Naminé and Roxas, passed back and forth between Sora's mother and Riku's parents, practically had her spine snapped by Nanaki (who was under the impression that a proper Destiny Island greeting involved painfully tight hugs because of Tidus), embraced by Richard until her face turned purple, and given a one armed hug by Kim.

"I am going to be the first person in history to die from a hug overdose," Kairi groaned as she plopped down on a bench next to Sora. Sora smirked at her, having watched from afar for his own safety.

"What? You don't want your family and friends to show their love for you?" He teased.

"It's not that. It's just that I could've lived without all the hugs one right after the other." Kairi's head made contact with Sora's shoulder as she let out a sigh of relief. "And if you try to hug me too, I'll chop your arm off."

"If you say so," Sora chuckled, lowering the arm he had been about to drape around her. He settled for planting a quick kiss on her cheek instead. "Better?"

"Much." Kairi gave her boyfriend an appreciative smile. "I meant what I said about the arm, though."

"Noted." Sora got to his feet and held out a hand in Kairi's direction. "Well, come on. It's party time!" Kairi grinned and accepted Sora's hand.

"Just no more hugging," she insisted. "You're on anti-hug duty." Sora rolled his eyes as he led Kairi over to the pair of picnic tables serving as a buffet for their rather large group.

Kairi's mouth started watering as her eyes locked onto the spread her mother had prepared for the party. There were slices of watermelon arranged in the shape of an open lotus. Large plates of jerk pork tenderloin with jicama salsa and applesauce on the side caught the eye with the faint traces of steam still rising into the air. Sliced pieces of yellowfin tuna sizzled alongside several shrimp kabobs on a portable grill. Oversized bowls of potato and pasta salads were surrounded by an assortment of hamburger fixings. A platter of cold-cut sandwiches took up the center of the buffet, arranged in a visually aesthetic fashion. Bags of various chips were lined up alongside nine different kinds of dips and salsas. Two large trays of cut fruits were arrayed on the ends of the tables, made up of the choicest-looking pieces of pineapple, starfruit, dragonfruit, kiwis, strawberries, and both green and red grapes with a pink-coloured dip in the centre of it all-a full quarter of the pineapple and strawberries were already gone, to Kairi's annoyance.

Sora let out a low whistle from behind her, snapping Kairi out of her reverie. "Look at that spread! Your mom really knows how to go all out."

"Would you expect any less for my Kairi's sixteenth?" Melissa asked as she appeared suddenly beside the two teens. "Granted, I could've done more, but the birthday girl talked me down to what you see here."

"Would we really need a lobster platter?" Kairi turned and gave her mother a gracious smile. "It's more than enough food. And it all looks spectacular. Thanks, Mom."

"My pleasure, sweetheart." Ignoring her daughter's pleas for Sora's help, Melissa swept Kairi into a tight hug. Kairi let out an exasperated groan, which died quickly in her throat when she realized what her mother had shoved into her hand.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Why did you give me a margarita?" Kairi held up the glass with the neon green concoction contained within.

"Why not?" Melissa asked, her lips curled into a mischievous smirk. "There's hardly any alcohol in that. It's practically a virgin." She raised her own glass and tapped it against Kairi's with a small clink. "Besides, one weak drink like that won't do you much harm. If you had three beers and a bottle of rum like I did on my sixteenth..."

"Mom!"

Melissa laughed at Kairi's shocked expression. "I'm just kidding, sweetie. Or am I?" She laughed maniacally for a few seconds before taking a sip from her glass. "Well, I'll leave you to it. I'd hate to hog you when you have so many people to see. Be sure to eat plenty of food! There's more than enough to go around." With a wave and a grin, Melissa strode off in the direction of Allison and Sharon, both of whom were in the process of pulling out cameras, preparing for what would undoubtedly be an endless stream of possible embarrassing pictures to one day tease their children about.

Kairi shook her head and began to load up a plate that Sora courteously held for her with various edibles from the table. "It's a good thing my mother can cook," she grumbled, despite being unable to resist smiling.

"Or what? You'd break up with her?" Sora teased. Kairi responded by shoving a slice of watermelon in his mouth.

"Shush, mister. Eat your fruit." Sora gave her a sarcastic salute, earning him a slap on the shoulder from his girlfriend. Kairi snatched her plate from Sora and stuck her tongue out at him, which Sora only laughed at. He turned his back on her long enough to quickly take what he wanted from the spread.

Kairi quickly scanned their surroundings to find a place to sit and eat. The flickering torchlight revealed a nice spot on a pair of large rocks somewhat close to the barbeque, where her father was currently watching over the burgers that he was expertly grilling-complete with his 'Love the Chef' apron on. Kairi pointed them out, being careful not to spill the margarita that her mother had given her, and she began to make her way over to the grey stones with Sora following and sipping on the melon pop he had grabbed.

The burgers hissed and spat, and the fire beneath the iron grate underneath them leapt up to kiss their undersides after Jonathan flipped them over. Kairi saw his face clearly in the flash of flame flaring up from the burger grease, and the aroma of the grilling meat wafted through the air. He obviously saw their approach, because he turned and raised his flipper into the air and gave a greeting. "Happy birthday kiddo. How're you two doing?"

"Wondering if mom's sixteenth really was as wild as she says it was," Kairi said, shaking her head. "Did she really have three beers and a bottle of rum?" Jonathan grinned and chuckled.

"Your mother's sixteenth?" he laughed. "Oh yes. If you think your mother's bad," he nodded at her margarita with his flipper, "you should have seen your grandfather. That man got us all completely smashed for his baby girl's birthday every year from sixteen onward. He even shoved her into their spare bedroom with her then-boyfriend and told him to 'treat her like a lady' before locking the door."

Sora laughed and extended his plate (that had an empty bun on it) towards the grillmaster. "You're joking." Jonathan held his free hand up to his mouth and exhaled. He sniffed.

"Nope; I can still smell the liquor on my breath," he claimed. "And that bed was squeaky and Mel's always been a screamer." Kairi felt her mouth drop.

"DAD!" she yelped. "Seriously! On my birthday? Last night wasn't bad enough?"

"What happened last night?" Sora asked, giving Kairi a quizzical expression.

"I am not talking about it," Kairi muttered darkly. "Let's just say that what has been heard cannot be unheard."

"I'm not telling Sora to do that, now am I?" Jonathan asked his daughter. "You asked if your mother's sixteenth birthday was crazy, and I'm telling you that it was." He plopped a burger onto Sora's bun and gave him a stern look. "And if that was your plan...I don't want to hear any complaints from her." Sora involuntarily took a step back, and Kairi prayed that dying from embarrassment wasn't possible.

"Even if that was going to happen, which it isn't," Kairi said, her cheeks burning a bright shade of red, "I wouldn't come running to you!"

"No, you wouldn't. You'd go to your mother, and she'd tell me," Jonathan reasoned. "So, I'd better not hear about her having a bad first time, Sora."

"N-no sir!" Sora replied. "You won't. You'll hear about a great one instead." Kairi looked at the two incredulously.

"Sora!" she hissed. "I thought that we'd-" she stopped when her father started barking his laughter over the sound of the flaring burgers on the grill, and when she spotted Sora's somewhat amused grin. Jonathan clapped a hand to Sora's shoulder, and nodded his head at the Keyblade Master, and winked. Kairi bowed her head and quickly beat her retreat to the rocks, whereupon she sat down and took a large gulp from her margarita, completely ignoring the rim of sea-salt around it and the lime wedge.

I cannot believe my family today!

Sora laughed as he sat down next to her, and Kairi pointedly snubbed his presence with a slight shift of her head away from him. "Aw, come on, it's not like it was that bad."

"You and my dad are joking about sex with me," Kairi huffed, "don't you think I'd be a little upset about something like that?"

"I'm shocked that your dad was the one who brought it up," Sora answered, "but what was I supposed to say?"

"Nothing," Kairi told him. She bit off half of a strawberry. Sora shrugged.

"I think making him laugh was the better option," he said, and picked up his burger. Kairi chewed, swallowed, finished her strawberry and ate another one before dipping the piece of tenderloin she'd picked up in the applesauce. She watched as Hayner and Tidus sat at opposite ends of a picnic table, engaging each other in an arm wrestle while Selphie and Olette cheered them on and Richard shouted bits of nonsense advice to both combatants.

"I guess it's okay," Kairi said at last, breaking the silence, "but you'd better make good on that promise when it happens." She caught Sora blushing and he coughed and glanced at anything but her.

"Uh, sure, don't worry," he mumbled. He coughed again. "So, uh, are you happy with how today has been?"

Kairi took a sip of her margarita and decided to be just a teeny bit mean. "Well, it has had a couple of rough spots..." she said, and let her sentence hang for a few seconds, "but..." she gave Sora a quick peck on the cheek, "Wildfire makes up for it. So the day hasn't been a total loss. Yes, I'm enjoying myself." Sora laughed in what she took to be relief.

"Glad to hear it," he said. He looked like he was about to say something else, but stopped when a certain tune started to enter his ears. "Oh no."

Kairi blinked a couple of times and looked around for the loudspeakers that had been set up all throughout the islands over the last couple of days. She couldn't see them in the eclipse's gloom, but Kairi could certainly hear what they were broadcasting. "Wait, isn't that..." Her eyes widened and a joyful smile leapt onto her face as she recognized the sound of the pahu and the beat it was making. The deep drum beats were joined with a quick clicking that sounded like the crackling of fire and the clacking of drumsticks striking each other, all in a quick and rambunctious tempo. "That's the intro to The Maiden of Fire!" Kairi exclaimed, and quickly put aside both her margarita and her food. She jumped to her feet, and turned to look at Sora. "Sora, do you know it?"

He looked away, and suddenly winced. Kairi followed his gaze and saw Allison looking directly at the pair of them with an evil smile on her face and a camera in her hands. Sora half groaned. "Yes, I know it," he said, defeated. A smile quickened to Kairi's face and she grabbed Sora's hand.

"Great! I need a partner, but you knew that already, didn't you?"

Kairi kicked off her shoes, pulled her socks from her feet, dragged Sora out into the open, and had him stand a couple of paces in front of her, and both of them waited for the appropriate place in the music. The birthday girl could feel the eyes of her friends and family on her and Sora, and her feet suddenly started to feel like they were pieces of lead attached to legs of gelatin. The Maiden of Fire was a traditional folk dance between lovers, representing the two players of the old tale between an ancient fire spirit and the human man who fell in love with her, and whose love she eventually returned in kind after his arduous courtship. The accompanying dance is as quick as the music, except for a minute-long section three-quarters through the song where it slows to a crawl and becomes very intimate, and leaves both dancers panting and sweating but feeling completely empowered by the end.

Her nerves were suddenly steadied when Kairi discovered that she and Sora were not alone in front of their friends and family; that Selphie had come to stand loosely beside Kairi and forced Tidus opposite her. The brunette flashed the birthday girl a smile, but there wasn't time for anything else, as with a triple-clack of the drumsticks and a great boom from the pahu their cue was sounded and followed by a hush. Kairi's arms and hands flew up to the sky and she placed her right foot behind her, leaning back slightly and slowly bringing down her arms with fingers splayed out.

The drum beat once, twice, now three times, and the two girls were off!

Her friends and parents watched as Kairi and Selphie went through the steps and moves that they had painstakingly practiced over and over again in their after school dance class. Their hips swung around and bare feet carried them lightly in shallow circles, spins, and wild leaps, including the leap that landed each of them straight into the startled embraces of Sora and Tidus. There was a slight falter and pause in the music, and then it began anew and Kairi and Selphie quick-stepped backwards out of the boys' grasp.

Sora and Tidus gave chase as they fulfilled their part, each circling his partner and performing the same steps and actions, trying to get close to her, but always just a flirtatious distance away. The boys would drive in like a storm, and the girls would flee like birds. Tidus would encircle Selphie like the water surrounds a rock, and Kairi would escape like fire leaps from branch to branch; quick, darting, dangerously close but always just out of reach. All the while the music was building, and slowly increasing in tempo slightly as the clicks grew louder and the pahu beat faster until it reached a crescendo-

-until Kairi and Selphie each made a wrong turn, and wound up with their fingers entwined with their partner's at a frighteningly close distance. The drum had ceased, leaving only the clicking sounds that crackled like burning wood to lead the dancers as the girls reluctantly tried to escape, but the boys held fast to the prize they'd sought and finally ensnared. The human had dared to touch the fire spirit and miraculously was not burned; he had been the first to not be turned to cinders at her touch. The spirit touched the man more: a quick flicker against his cheek, a pass at his chest and side. He touched her back: a stroke against her neck, a hand against her back that pressed her close.

Suddenly the drum came back, and with it arrived an eager smile on the fire spirit's face, and so too came a smile to the man who'd caught her, and with their hands never leaving each other's they fell into a quick modified box step that had them spinning around and around each other. The box step evolved into a wild tango, and with a loud clash of the drums the man dipped the fire spirit with his head low, and slowly brought his head and her back up until he was looking into her eyes from just above her chest.

As they danced, their friends and family could see two very different dances being done by the four teens, even though they were all performing the same steps. For Tidus and Selphie, it was a little coy, each approaching with a hint of timidity as they began to try to become something more than what they were, unsure whether or not if would work but taking small steps in that direction all the same. For Sora and Kairi, the dance was more energetic and passionate, the mark of two young souls bound together and comfortably aware of it, looking excitedly to explore and expand their constantly growing and deepening relationship with new experiences as each uncovered new facets of their partner. Their smiles shone brighter, and their touching hands touched easier.

The drum boomed a few more times with a quick beat, and the fiery maiden spun upright and joined hands with her partner once again, and both swooped into a quick and deep bow before coming back up, pulling tight against each other, and then the fire maiden spinning back into the embrace of her lover right at the end.

Cheers, applause, and catcalls filled the ears of the four dancers at the dance's (and song's) conclusion, and with faces red from the exertion and glowing in the torchlight (and from the places the boys' hands were touching that made an excited thrill run through Kairi's and Selphie's veins), they breathlessly separated and took a bow. Kairi quickly returned to her food and margarita, and downed what was left of the drink in four deep gulps, no matter the small burning in her throat and the slight tingle in her forehead from it. Her body felt hot, both from the look in Sora's eyes in the final moments and the feeling of his hand sliding up her thigh to rest against the side of her bum, his fingertips just pressing against the fabric of her underwear beneath the hem of her dress. Kairi shook her head, and she looked up at Sora in wonder as he stood next to her, draining his melon pop. Sweat was glistening on his neck. Another folk song was starting up, but Kairi didn't have any more dance in her after The Maiden of Fire.

"I didn't think you knew how to do that," she said, completely enthralled at the surprises Sora still had in store for her, "or Tidus."

Sora swallowed and took a few deep breaths before answering. "Mom forced me into learning it," he admitted. "She told me that I was going to have to learn the traditional dances whether I liked it or not, because one day it might come in handy at a certain girl's sixteenth. She's a devil. She worked out that your sixteenth birthday would take place on the Sun's Shadow Festival."

"Wow," Kairi said breathlessly. "Remind me to thank your mother. And Tidus?"

"Who do you think I was able to bully into learning it with me?" Sora asked rhetorically. "Mom and his mom are old friends too, so when my mom told his what she was planning on having me do she jumped at the chance of having Tidus learn too."

Kairi laughed. She really couldn't help it. "You are such a mama's boy."

"Shut up. You love me for it."

Kairi threw herself at her dance partner and kissed him with fiery passion. She ignored the wolf-whistles that the act attracted with such ferocity that a great laugh rose from the gathering at her proudly displayed upright middle finger.

"You're right, I do," she said when she was done with him.

-LD-

They each grabbed more to eat and drink, with Melissa forcing a second margarita on her daughter and both mothers embarrassing the pair with a plethora of pictures taken during their dance. Riku fortunately saved them from that, and Kairi wandered around with him, Sora, Selphie, and Tidus for a bit, and genuinely enjoyed the praise that she received for the dance she and Sora had shared when they conversed in small-talk with the rest of her friends. Nanaki was really interested in them, but had said pretty quick that she was sure that she wouldn't be able to master their native dances, at all, period, especially when she found out that traditionally that dance was supposed to have been performed with both the fire maiden and the man wearing far less clothing than what the four who performed it were.

"We're supposed to have been in a really provocative red top and skirt," Kairi had said, "with yellow and orange sashes tied to our wrists and ankles and an orange headband, and the guys are supposed to have been in a grass skirt and nothing else. That's how it's done by the dance groups that perform it at our festivals."

"It's a shame that we didn't do it that way," Riku had said. "because I would have killed to get a picture of Sora and Tidus in grass skirts."

"Riku, I'd rather live not knowing that," Sora told him.

"Why not? Blackmail for life right there."

Nanaki blushed. "When you say, 'nothing else', do you mean...?"

"Not anymore," Selphie had told her. "About seventy years ago the girls were allowed red underwear underneath the skirt and the guys could wear beige, but before that it was just this itty bitty top that barely covered and the skirt; and both men and women were buck naked underneath."

Nanaki's eyes quickly glanced at Sora and Tidus, her face turned an even brighter shade of red than before, and she quickly excused herself, muttering, "You guys have really strange customs."

A loud banging of wood on metal alerted Kairi that it was time to stop forcing Olette to laugh at her denial of giving her master 'snu-snu' whenever he asked, and turn her attention to Jonathan, the one who had been rapping the cooling barbeque lid with the wooden handle of his flipper. "May I have your attention please?" he asked loudly. It took a few moments for the scattered remnants of chatter to cease, but attention was given to him. "Thank all of you for coming today. As you are all aware, today is my daughter, Kairi Brightheart,'s sixteenth birthday. I know that I haven't met all of you before today, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you friends from all over for coming together today to wish her well on this special occasion." Cheers and applause met with his proclamation, and Kairi couldn't help but blush. "However, I do believe that now is the time we have all been waiting for! Allison, bring her out!"

Heads turned as Allison produced a rather large parcel and placed it on the mostly clear table. Inside was a large, dual layered red velvet cake, decorated with a cream cheese frosting. Written in crimson lettering were the words "Happy 16th Birthday Kairi!" along the cake's edge. A gel paopu fruit had been hand-piped onto the centre of the cake and was surrounded by an appropriate number of candles.

"Allison, this cake looks wonderful!" Selphie fawned.

"You should see my wedding cakes," Allison said with a chuckle as the others all moved to circle the table. "I can't find my matchbook. Can anyone light these?"

"My pleasure." Richard's hands were quickly engulfed in flame as he raised them up.

FWOOSH!

"How many times do we have to tell you?" Roxas snapped as he grabbed the warlock's arms and forced them down. "No fire!"

"Then it's not really a party, is it?" Richard countered.

"Ignore him." Naminé snapped her fingers and the wicks of the candles ignited.

"You're lighting the cake on fire?" Nanaki tilted her head in confusion. "Is this some sort of ritualistic sacrifice to your gods?"

Wakka almost cracked a rib laughing. "Nah, it's tradition, yah? On a birthday you light candles on the cake, and then the birthday person makes a wish and tries to blow them all out in one breath. If they do, the wish's supposed to come true, yah?"

"And if he or she doesn't," Olette added, "the number of candles still burning are the number of boyfriends or girlfriends they're going to get that year." She giggled. "So that mean's Kairi's looking for either one left or none."

"She's looking for none," Sora mock-growled. "She's already gotten a boyfriend this year."

"I thought she got a master this year," Tidus reminded him.

"I'm her boyfriend too!"

"Semantics."

"Happy birthday to you," Melissa started to sing. "Happy birthday to you."

Kairi winced and giggled as the disjointed, off-key tones of nineteen voices joined her mother's. "Happy birthday dear Kairi~! Happy birthday to you!"

Kairi smiled widely at all of her friends and family, and Richard, before turning her attention to the flaming dessert in front of her. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on a wish. Inhaling deeply, Kairi opened her eyes and locked on to her target. With a single breath, the flames were blown away. Several camera flashes practically blinded Kairi in the dim light as the mothers went shutter-crazy.

"So, what'd you wish for?" Nanaki asked.

"I can't say." Kairi smirked. "If I do, it won't come true."

"Your culture confuses me sometimes." Nanaki shook her head. "So many rules."

"It's all part of the fun!" Selphie said cheerfully. "Plus, things like that add mystery!" Nanaki shook her head.

"Mystery," she muttered. "I just don't see the point."

"Give it time." Kairi giggled and looked around. "So, where's the plate for the birthday girl's piece of cake?"

"Right here, Kairi," Melissa said. Kairi quickly took the plate from her mother and tried to avoid making much eye contact. Her dad's words swam in her head and she knew that it'd probably take another couple of hours before she'd be able to get over what he had told her, regardless whether or not he was lying just to get a reaction from her.

"The knife?"

"Oh dear me!" Allison cried. "I can't believe it! I forgot the knife. Kairi, I think you'll just have to do the honours!" Kairi laughed, though she figured that she should have been more annoyed than she was, and grinned. She placed the plate down on the table next to the cake, and extended her right hand. There was a flash of light and Oathkeeper appeared within her grasp.

"You're seriously going to cut the cake with a Keyblade," Nikki deadpanned. Kairi grinned at her.

"Yep!" she cheerily declared. "It's my party and I'll cut my cake how I want to." She sliced downwards, and neatly cut the cake in two before lifting her Keyblade back up. The weapon's sides were now covered in crumbs of red cake and pieces of frosting, but Kairi didn't care at the moment. She'd clean it later. "This half is mine," she said childishly, "and this half is Olette's because I promised her cake. No cake for the rest of you." Melissa gasped and laughed at her husband.

"Our daughter's a greedy bitch." Kairi included herself in the raucous laughter, and then began cutting the left half of the cake into smaller pieces with Oathkeeper. She took a large piece with a bit of the paopu design for herself, and Sharon brought forward the knife that Allison had 'forgotten' and set about serving the rest of them. Kairi was about to stick a fork into her piece of cake when she stopped, and glanced at the Keyblade she'd set down on the table.

"Um, does anybody have a cloth?" she asked.

"I brought one for the knife," Allison said. "Here, let me go get it." While she was gone, Kairi quickly found a bowl and filled it with warm water. Allison returned and Kairi thoroughly cleaned Oathkeeper of the cake she'd put on it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she did the task, "I shouldn't have done that to you. You're a beautiful, wonderful weapon and deserve more respect than what I showed by using you to cut a cake."

"Kairi is now speaking to her sword," Richard stated. "I do believe that her mind has snapped. What say you that we be merciful and put her out of her misery. Who's with me?" He raised his hand up high, and looked around expectantly.

"Just ignore it," Roxas told him, handing the warlock a slice of cake, "it'll pass."

"I shall do what you say but only because you have given me cake," Richard said. "I still believe that we should burn her before she starts singing to the bees and milking the snakes."

Kairi heard him, and laughed quietly in her throat before she took up her plate again and grabbed another slice of cake to take to her father's guard. She'd seen him on the perimeter of their party, and knew him by face if not by name, and felt that he should at least get to eat some cake too. He was standing in the shadows behind one of the trees that edged the portion of the park that they'd set up her party in. Her father's guard wasn't something of his choice either, but his secretary badgered him that his position as Mayor warranted it until he had finally caved. The man always shadowed her father wherever he went, and Kairi had figured that he was stationed in the house next door...or hiding in their basement. Even on the occasion when she, Sora, and Riku had returned to the Islands after Xemnas' defeat, she had just been able to spot him outside of Destiny's through one of the windows.

She was rather forward in her approach, coming straight at the man after leaving the table. He noticed when she was about three-quarters of the way over to him, and turned from the tree he was leaning against in order to survey the surrounding area in the gloom of the day-long eclipse. "Hey!" Kairi hailed, venturing close enough to start speaking, "Want some cake? It's double-layered red velvet!"

"Chocolate or white red velvet?" he asked. Kairi frowned and looked at the cake again. She'd moved away from the main source of light, and couldn't quite remember what it had looked like nor could she see. Expertly getting both plates into one hand, she used her other to pinch some crumbs out of her own slice.

"Chocolate," she answered.

"Excellent, lass! I'll have a piece." He placed his spear against the tree trunk, and received the plate from Kairi with a grateful smile. Kairi gave him a once-over while he stuck the plastic fork into the cake. He looked like he was in his middle-late twenties, and stood a little on the short side of the scale. His shortness didn't mean that she could make any assumptions, though, because his arms were like tree trunks of muscle. A small amount of crumbs from the cake and icing fell into his thick ginger beard, matching the colour of the sleek stuff that emerged from his skull and was tied back into a ponytail underneath the steel cap that normally would be on his head but currently was sitting beside where he'd placed his weapon. A brown brigandine covered his torso with leather cuisses and greaves attached to the iron poleyns over his knees. Leather pauldrons were on his shoulders and the upper half of his upper arm, showing the symbol of his rank at the joint. Kairi assumed that it must have been somewhat high to be the mayor's guard, but she had no idea what the insignia she saw there meant. Along with the spear he'd set aside, the man also had a round wooden shield, painted green, with an iron boss in the centre, the boss looking almost like a metal mountain standing on a field with how close to being pointed it was, on his back; a bearded axe with a sharp gleam on its edge was set in his belt; and a sheathed dagger was strapped to his leg.

"You've got a lot of weapons," Kairi noted. He swallowed the bit of cake in his mouth and smiled at her. His face was a little on the rugged side, for a twenty-something, and there was a thin white scar that she could barely make out on his cheek

"Ye can never be too careful, lass," he told her.

"All I've got is my Keyblade and magic," Kairi muttered. She put a piece of the cake in her mouth and began chewing thoughtfully. It was moist and soft, and the rich milk chocolate flavour melted on her tongue in waves of goodness in tandem with the cream cheese icing.

"Ach, that won't do. Get yerself a dagger, if nothing else," he told her. "Magic and magic returning longsword should never be all ye have at yer disposal." He leaned down with his hand reaching for his boot. The hiss of metal on leather whispered into Kairi's ears and her neck hairs stood on end at the surprising entry of the sound. A steel dagger was now in his free hand, two parallel fullers running down the majority of the blade's 12" length, with a forward-curving crossguard and simple steel pommel. He regarded it for a few seconds and then swung it in two quick arcs left and right before thrusting forward into an imaginary foe. Nodding to himself, he lowered his plate to the grass by his toes and presented the weapon hilt-first to Kairi. "Happy birthday, lass."

The giggle that Kairi wanted to let out at his continued use of calling her 'lass' never made it to her throat, as she was more impressed by the serious nature of him gifting her a weapon out of the blue when they didn't even know each other. Regardless, Kairi took the offered blade in her free hand and brought it before her eyes, admiring the shine on the metal's edges in what light there was to see by. "Thank you," she uttered graciously. Suddenly overcome, she put down her plate and looked him in the eye, thrusting her empty right hand towards him and drawing the dagger back to her body and switching to holding it in a reverse grip. "I'm Kairi."

"Aye, I know," he said with a chuckle. He took her hand in his and shook it. "Bael Stoutiron, at yer service, lass." Their greeting ended and he picked up his plate of cake again. He nodded at her with the plastic fork. "Ye'd best get a sheath fer tha' soon," he told her. "Wicked sharp, it is. Cut through yer dress like it wasn't even there."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kairi giggled. She carefully manoeuvred her hand to be able to eat the cake while holding onto her plate after picking it up again.

Bael Stoutiron nodded at her again. "Ye'd best get back to yer friends too, lass; it is yer party after all."

"But-"

"Dun worry, I'll bring the plate back," he said. "Go on, and thanks again fer thinking of a poor overlooked guard like me." Kairi smiled and shook her head.

"You protect my father. You're anything but a poor overlooked guard." Kairi's lips quirked upward in something resembling an impish smile as a thought suddenly came to her. Acting on the impulse, she quick-stepped forward and left a light kiss on his cheek. The man's beard tickled her face and caused another giggle to come from her as she stepped back. She gestured with the hand that held onto the present. "Thank you again, Bael Stoutiron."

"Yer welcome, Kairi Brightheart," he returned pleasantly. "Happy birthday." Nodding at each other, Kairi turned and started to make her way back to the party.

Damn mother and her margaritas, Kairi thought. I never would have done that without them. But...he seemed happy for it, so maybe it's okay.

"Hey, where'd you run off to, birthday girl?" Selphie asked as Kairi returned. The redhead's reply came back rather chipper.

"I went to give dad's guard some cake," she told her bff. "And he gave me this as a birthday present."

"Wow," Selphie said, looking at the small weapon in Kairi's grasp. She coughed in her throat. "Well then, I guess that tells us what time it is." She turned her head so that it was facing the general majority of the group and shouted. "Alright, present time!"

Excited voices greeted Selphie's call to arms, and within two minutes there was a circle of people in front of her with brightly and mundanely wrapped presents in their arms. Melissa forced another margarita on her daughter before she could protest, and Kairi quickly finished her cake (vowing internally to have more later) and transferred over to the rocks where she and Sora had initially been eating. Sora, naturally, sat down next to her while Selphie and Riku hung out beside them, with Naminé and Roxas flanking them.

"Alright," Kairi said with a giggle (she was doing a lot of that, she noticed), "who wants to go first?"

"I will," said Riku with a small grin. "Here, catch. Happy B-Day." He tossed her a small package about the size of his hand and as thick as his fist, brightly wrapped in gold and white wrapping paper. Kairi fumbled her catch for just a moment before her fingers found their grip and kept a hold of it. Grinning to herself, Kairi started ripping open the wrapping paper, and found a second layer taped on underneath. She ripped that off too, and smiled at the box that had been buried.

"Aw, cool! An mp3 player! I've been meaning to get one of these! Thanks a bunch, Riku!"

He chuckled and waved away her praise. "No prob, Kai." Kairi set the box aside to her right and balled the wrapping paper into a wad, which she discarded to her left. She took another sip of her third margarita.

"Now I'll be able to listen to all of my music while we're on another world," Kairi said aloud. She sipped her drink again. "Alright, next! Um..." she glanced around, trying to decide who to ask or if she even should.

Riku's parents relieved her of that duty and stepped forward. "Here you go Kairi," Sharon said with a smile on her face. "Happy sixteenth." She and David handed her a small present in metallic silver and red with a red bow on the top.

"I guess we're going by families," Sora said while Kairi worked at getting the wrapping paper off. A small cardboard box was underneath the paper, and Kairi found a use for her new dagger by carefully using it to cut the tape that bound it shut. She smiled in annoyance at the newspaper that lined the inside and hid the contents of the box, but her smile increased threefold when she discovered what was inside. Kairi's hands pulled out two silver earrings, each of them with a teardrop-shaped lapis lazuli stone the size of her fingernail wrapped in a pattern of silver leaves.

"Ooh," fawned Selphie. "Those are gorgeous, Kairi."

"They are gorgeous," Kairi said, turning them around and around in her hand.

"We found them when we were looking for Riku," David said. He chuckled. "But Sharon's allergic to silver and we figured that Riku wouldn't like them as much." Riku rolled his eyes.

"Well maybe he would if he got his ears pierced," Hayner sniped.

"Yeah. No chance." Riku let out a huff of irritation, his eyes zeroed in on Hayner.

"I don't know, you've got the hair for it," Kairi said, holding one of the earrings up at eye level and lining it up with Riku. "And these would go well with your natural coloring." The group erupted into laughter at Riku's expense.

Riku hung his head with a groan. "That's it. I'm cutting my hair." Another round of laughter, though a bit quieter this time, humiliated him further before Kairi thanked his parents for the earrings. She placed them back into their box and placed it with Riku's present.

Another gift was already on its way to her hands by the time she'd chucked the wrapping paper down beside her, this one coming from her father. "Happy birthday, Kairi," he said, leaning down and giving her yet another hug before leaving the present and its accompanying card in her hands. Kairi grimaced at the hug and shot Sora a look, to which he returned with an amused shrug. Kairi took another sip from her margarita and began to read the card's front aloud. It had an elderly woman on the front.

"Take every birthday with a grain of salt." She flipped the card open, and there was the same picture of the woman, only extended to reveal her holding a margarita glass with a lime-green liquid on the inside. "This works much better if the salt is accompanying a margarita."

Kairi snorted in amusement and glanced at the card, and the margarita in her hand, while everyone else howled in laughter at the situational perfectness of the card. She looked to both her father and her mother, the margarita, the card, and her parents again. "You two planned this, didn't you?" Guilty smiles and nods answered her, and Kairi couldn't help but smile and raise her glass towards them before having another sip. What could she say? The margaritas had grown on her.

Either that or she was progressively growing more drunk from the so-called 'practically virgin' drinks and had simply ceased caring.

Her present turned out to be an e-reader, already out of its packaging and fully charged. Intrigued, Kairi turned it on, and she gasped in excitement when she discovered that at least thirty of her favourite books and book series were already ported onto the device. Ignoring her own decree to Sora, she leapt to her feet and hugged her father tightly in gratitude. No longer would she be eternally bored on the Kingdom while they travelled between worlds or while she recovered from injuries sustained in battle, as she now had her books to read!

Jonathan chuckled slightly in the embrace and patted his girl on the head. "You're very welcome, Kairi." She nodded her head and returned to her rock to place the present down.

"And this one is from me," Melissa appeared by Kairi's side. She set down a flat, square parcel in her daughter's lap. Kairi let out a small grunt of surprise at the weight of the parcel. It certainly didn't look as heavy as it felt. Eager to find out why, Kairi lifted the lid off and peered inside.

Snugly nestled inside the walls of the parcel was a thick, leather bound book. A pair of elegantly designed golden forks were inlayed on the front cover. The gold seemed to shine of its own accord, illuminating the dark space around the book.

"Hang on." Kairi recognized this book. She had seen it countless times growing up whenever she helped her mother in the kitchen. "Mom, isn't this your recipe book?" Melissa smiled at her daughter and pulled her into a hug.

"Not anymore," she said. "I'm passing it on to you. That book has been in our family since your great-grandmother first wrote in it. It's been passed down, mother to daughter ever since. The women in our family have always had an adventurous streak in them during their youth, something I've noticed that you picked up from me as well. This book has been all over our world and is filled with so many wonderful recipes." Melissa let out a small laugh. "I even used this book to open up the restaurant. But, I think it's seen enough of our world. I want you to take it out to the stars and fill it with new and exciting recipes. Don't worry about running out of room to write, it's enchanted to always have however many pages you need. And maybe one day, you'll pass it on to your daughter as well."

Kairi moved the book off to the side and wrapped her arms around her mother squeezing her tightly. "Thanks, Mom. I'll take really good care of it."

When she turned back toward the others, she found herself face to face with Richard. The warlock was leaning over her, so close the she actually realized just how white his skin was.

"For you." He held out a hand toward her. Resting in his palm was a ruby, carved in the shape of a fireball. Magical energy within the gem danced and flickered, giving it a sense of realism.

"Oh, wow." Kairi was taken aback. This was the first normal thing she had seen Richard do so far. "It's beautiful, Richard. Thank you."

"But of course." Kairi assumed the warlock was smiling, if the way his eye's moved were any indication. "Just point it at your enemies and let the ruby do its work."

"Say what?" Kairi blinked in confusion.

"The Ruby of Fwoosh!" Richard cackled. "There's nothing its flames can't burn! It even burns fire!"

"It burns... fire?" Kairi deadpanned. "Isn't that redundant?"

"Clearly you've never seen fire burn." Richard strode away from her, happily seeking out additional food from the remaining selection. Everyone else watched him in silence, unsure of how to respond to the warlock's eccentricities.

"Okay then," Kairi gently placed the Ruby of Fwoosh! down carefully next to the rapidly growing pile of gifts she had received. "Who's next?"

"I guess I will be," said Naminé. She reached into one of her pockets of her Khaki shorts and withdrew what looked to be a piece of paper. Naminé gave it to Kairi, and the birthday girl looked at the delicately written note. Naminé's cursive was really impressive.

IOU one all expenses-paid-by-me day at the spa! Love, Naminé. Happy B-Day sister!

"Okay," Kairi said, leaning back with a grin dominating her face after Richard's strange gift, "this is awesome Naminé. I'll be sure to take you up on it."

"Just not right now," Naminé said sheepishly. "I don't quite have the munny I need for it yet."

"What is it?" Nanaki asked.

"What does the note say?" added Olette. Kairi waved it in front of them, but it was near impossible for them to make out the writing at a distance.

"A day at the spa, courtesy of Naminé," she declared cheerily. Kairi gave Naminé an evil grin. "And I don't plan on letting her back out of it later."

"Why would I?" Naminé asked with a giggle. "It's not just for you, it's for me too. Spa date! Boo-yah!" Kairi nodded and placed the note in her purse.

"And this one is from me," Roxas said. He tossed Kairi a small package wrapped in black and white checkerboard paper. The box nearly slipped out of Kairi's grip as she tried to find where the paper had been folded. To her surprise, she found that every fold was covered in tape.

"Looks like someone got a little tape-happy," Riku said with a laugh.

"What do you expect from a guy who's never handled the stuff before?" Roxas retorted. "It's a miracle I even got the paper on at all."

Kairi giggled as she continued to fumble with the package. "It's alright, Roxas. I like a challenge." Roxas responded by sticking his tongue out at her. Finally finding a weak point in the gift's defense, Kairi attacked it with a swift slice from her nail. The paper fell away from the box inside neatly as Kairi took the lid off of the box.

Nestled on a bed of packing foam was what appeared to be a green-handled pocket knife, decorated with a white circle that had a small black block hammer in its center. Kairi's eyes widened at the sight. Alatori utility knives were hard to come by away from their shores.

"Where'd you get your hands on that?" David asked, leaning in for a better look. "I've only seen them outside of Alator twice!" Kairi removed the knife from its box, turning it over in her hand as she examined it.

"I met a guy." Roxas gave a small shrug. "I figured Kairi could use something with a bit of practicality."

"Since when do you think of 'practicality'?" Sora asked with a smirk.

"It doesn't matter," Kairi said, giving Roxas a hug before he had the chance to escape her. "Thanks, Roxas."

"What was that about anti-hug duty?" Sora asked.

"Shush. That was only for other people giving me hugs," Kairi told him. Selphie started to fidget next to her, and Kairi turned her head towards her best friend with a suspicious look. "Oh? Does this mean that you're giving me my present now, Selphie?

"You bet!" declared the brunette. She handed Kairi a box, wrapped in banana-yellow and red. "Happy birthday, Kairi." She continued to speak as Kairi worked at unwrapping the present. "I actually got it a long time ago, thinking that you and Sora still wouldn't be an item by now, so it was supposed to help give you that extra 'push' to get you and him together, but..." she waved her hand in the air in a dismissive gesture, "oh well."

"Now I'm intrigued," Kairi said, tossing aside the wrapping paper and looking for where the cardboard box opened. She flipped up the lid and pulled out a bottle that looked like it contained about 250mL of liquid, with a push-spritz top screwed on. The bottle itself was clear and colourless, but the liquid inside was a light rose pink colour. The label read 'Irresistible' with red hearts over the 'i's. "Um, Selphie, what exactly is this? Did you get me perfume?"

"Perfume of Attraction," Selphie said knowledgeably with a finger pointed in the air. "When worn, for twenty-four hours the person who sprays it on becomes more attractive to a single person of their choosing."

"So you were planning on using some kind of mind-compulsion love perfume to make Sora and Kairi hook up?" Riku asked. He grinned. "That's devious."

"Well..." Selphie sighed, "if they were still beating around the bush by now they would have needed a drastic measure like this to kick them into gear."

"I think we were fine when it came to drastic measures," Sora said defensively, "especially since Master Xanthos had to practically beat me to death before asking me if I had any regrets for it to happen."

Selphie leaned forward, eyes half-lidded in annoyance. "Really? It took a dumb near-death experience by a guy who's really a friend in order to hook you two up? Seriously? Couldn't you have at least waited the month for Kairi to mind-control you into it with this instead of being that dumb and clueless?"

"Yeah," Roxas chimed in. "It's like you guys were in the plot of a poorly written romance slash adventure story."

"It's not my fault that Xanthos beat the crap out of me, okay! Can we just get over it? Kairi and I are together now and happy with the result. Let's move on." Selphie scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Fine...I hope you put that perfume to good use, Kairi."

"Oh, I probably will," she replied. "Thanks Selphie."

"I have a gift for you as well." Kairi looked around as Nikki's voice reached her. "Though we've known each other for less than a day, I hope you'll accept it. I'm sorry for not having time to wrap it." She held her hands out to Kairi, offering her what appeared to be a fairly large blanket made up of countless red and gold feathers that had been woven together.

"Oh wow." Kairi exclaimed breathlessly, taken by surprise at the beauty of the blanket. The feathers caught every tiny bit of light and seemed to glow as if they were ablaze as Kairi took hold of the blanket. It even felt unnaturally warm.

"This is a Phoenix Down," Nikki explained. "It can heal any wound, regardless of how terrible or life-threatening it is. It can even bring the dead back to life as long as they've only been so for under ten minutes. Since phoenixes rarely give up their down feathers to make these, Phoenix Downs are incredibly rare. Use it only as a last resort, because it's only good for one use."

"Thank you, Nikki. I will." Kairi got to her feet, stumbling slightly as she stood to embrace her new friend. Sora got up from his rock and Kairi looked at him. "Where are you off to?"

"I'm thirsty, so I'm getting another drink." Kairi shrugged at his response and went to sit back down, placing the Phoenix Down atop the pile of presents.

"Tidus, how about now, man?" Wakka asked. Tidus clapped his hands.

"Alright, we'll do it now." He nodded, and quickly grabbed a parcel beside him. "Kairi, this is from me and Wakka. Happy birthday." What he handed her was something soft and squishy, wrapped up in brown paper and tied together with a string. It immediately made Kairi think 'clothes' just from the feel of it.

"Oh boy, let's see what this is," Kairi said. "If I don't like it, I can always exchange it, right?"

Selphie shook her head with a knowing grin. "You're not going to be exchanging this one Kairi, trust me." Sora returned with another melon pop in his hands and Kairi untied the string and unfolded the paper wrapping. She lifted up the garment within, scarcely able to believe her eyes.

Tidus and Wakka had gotten her a cloak. It felt smooth as silk, and the main body of it was coloured the deep and rich tones of an evergreen forest. Trimming the edges was a golden twelve-strand Celtic braid that ran a three-border circuit from shoulder to bottom to shoulder. The cloak's hood was trimmed and lined with white ermine fur, and the clasp about the neck was a golden brooch in the shape of the radiant sun. It was warm to her touch, warmer than the silk by all rights should have been, and the fabric had a faint white glow to it that Kairi could really only tell thanks to the current lighting situation from the eclipse.

"Wow," Kairi whispered.

"You're a princess, yah?" Wakka said. "And Princesses need cloaks, right?

"It's also magic," Tidus added.

"And where did you two manage to get a magic cloak from?" Riku asked skeptically. "Those things cost more munny than what a pair of highschoolers have."

"Know the legend of old Blackbones?" Tidus asked. He nodded at the cloak. "Found it in his lair! Along with a whole bunch of gold and silver coins, a cool dagger, and a piece of topaz."

"You two did not go and fight the ghost of Pirate King Blackbones the Greedy," Sora said. "Nobody is that stupid to try and get anything from any of his chests."

"But they did, I was there," Selphie said earnestly.

"Selphie, I can imagine them concocting this story to make them sound cool, but you're actually going along with it?" Kairi asked.

"Well did you think we were all happy that you, Sora, and Riku got to go across the universe having adventures and battling evil while we stayed behind and went to school and did homework? Leading peaceful and boring lives?" Selphie asked. She waited for an answer.

"Um..." Sora muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

"So we decided to become adventurers so that you guys don't have all the fun," Tidus said. "We're gonna go to all the different islands, checking out ancient ruins, burial grounds, jungle forests, and mapping out the unmapped islands and naming the unnamed ones. We're gonna be famous."

"So where's the other stuff that you said you got?" Riku asked. "The dagger and the gold?"

Tidus began to sweat, and he rubbed his chin awkwardly. "Uh, well, I kinda dropped the dagger while we were running for our lives from Blackbones' ghost and we didn't realize that there was a hole in our bag until after we got back to our boat, so we lost most of the coins, and then had the rest converted into munny and spent it all on a big meal celebrating."

"So you decided to start off becoming big-shots by going and checking out the tomb of the Pirate King? And then telling us that all you have to show for escaping death and dismemberment it is this cloak and maybe a piece of topaz you could have bought from a jewelry store?" Riku asked. "Again, I'm not buying it."

"Fine, be that way!" Wakka retorted. "Just don't ask for us to forgive you when we become more famous than you, yah?"

"But the cloak is magic!" Selphie reminded them quickly. "We just don't know who to ask to find out just how magical it is."

"I still think that we should have sold it," Wakka said. "We might be able to get a better boat or some stuff that we can actually use." Kairi drew the cloak closer to her body.

"You were planning on selling my birthday present?" She gave both boys a look of shame.

"Until I put my foot down and said that they should give it to you for your birthday because there were only three days left and they still hadn't gotten you something," Selphie dramatically sighed in exasperation.

"For shame..." Olette tisked, shaking her head. "Try it on!"

"I should try it on?"

"Yeah, try it on!" Melissa said, readying her camera. "Let's see what you look like in it." Kairi humoured her mother with a smile, and stood up.

"Alright," she said while shaking the cloak out to its full size, "if you insist." She threw the cloak around her shoulders with the fabric fluttering around her, it didn't really feel like it weighed a whole lot either, and then pinned it closed around her neck with the sun-shaped brooch.

Immediately she could feel a change take place as she felt the cloak's inherent magic. She felt absolutely stunning, and it looked as though everyone around her felt the same way with how quickly the mothers' cameras were snapping up pictures. Kairi gave them a winning smile and half-turned while clutching a small portion of the cloak's edge in her left hand. She brought that further to her left to showcase it for the cameras, and there were a few whistles and "Ow!"s called by her friends and family. Kairi almost laughed at how charismatic she suddenly felt, almost as if the cloak itself was whispering to her mind how best to diplomatically achieve what she desired if it was within her capabilities to get it.

"Riku," she purred, "would you be absolutely wonderful and get me some more pineapple, please?"

"Sure," he said with a light shrug and a smile, and he compliantly went to complete her request.

She turned around, and Tidus and Wakka had once more dropped to one knee before her. "We are not worthy, your highness." Once again, she slapped each on the back of the head.

"Oh get up you morons," she laughed. They rose, and she gave both of them a tight hug. "I love it! Thank you!"

I am never, ever, telling you two what this thing does just by putting it on! Wait, they've probably already worn it a time or two so they already know! Selphie, I love you so much for convincing them to give it to me. I wonder if she was wearing it at the time, or if she...?

"Selphie, what on earth did you do to convince these knuckleheads to give me this?"

"I told them that they were being idiots if they were just going to sell the cloak instead of at least letting someone put it to use," Selphie answered with a laugh, though Kairi noticed that there was a blush rising to her friend's cheeks.

Okay, Kairi noted, so it doesn't completely work, it just helps me be better. Still, Selphie's hiding something from me. Oh well, I guess I can let it slide for now if she doesn't want to tell me, but I'll find out eventually. Riku returned with her pineapple, and Kairi took a piece before sitting back down to the flashes of cameras.

She wasn't going to take the cloak off. Not by a long shot was she taking this thing off except for bathing and bed.

"Hmm..." she muttered, picking up a little bit and looking at it again, "I'm going to need a new wardrobe to go with this."

Selphie gasped. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Kairi?" The birthday girl laughed.

"I think I am, Selphie. Olette, are you thinking what we're thinking?"

"I think I am, Kairi. Nikki are you thinking what we're thinking?"

"I think I'm thinking what you're thinking, Olette, but I'm probably thinking what they're thinking. Kim, are you thinking what we're thinking?"

"I think I am, Nikki. Naminé are you thinking what we're thinking?"

"I think I am, Kim. Nanaki, are you thinking what all of us are thinking?"

"Probably not," Nanaki deadpanned, looking at all of the girls like they'd gone insane.

"That's a shame," Kairi said, "because it's..."

"SHOPPING TIME!"

"Not now it ain't," said Riku. "There's still more presents to open." Kairi snorted in laughter.

"Alright, fine. But after presents it's-"

"Spend munny and treat the boys like pack mules time," Sora interrupted. "We get it." Even he broke into laughter with the rest of the gathering.

Kim chuckled loudly and raised her head to the starry sky. "Welp, can't beat a magic cloak, but here you go anyway, Kairi," she said, handing over a card. It didn't have a funny greeting on it, but it did have a picture of a really cute puppy saying 'Happy Birthday'. Inside was a gift card worth six hundred munny for one of Kairi's favourite book stores.

"Thanks Kim," Kairi said, smiling at the other girl and giving her a quick hug.

Kim blushed a little bit and muttered. "Yeah, no problem. Happy birthday Kairi."

Nanaki was next to give Kairi a gift. She handed the birthday girl what appeared to be a protective case for glasses. When Kairi opened the case, she found a pair of reflective goggles nestled inside, identical to the pair Nanaki never seemed to take off.

"A Providence Visor," the purple-haired teen explained. "This one's pretty standard compared to the high-end ones, but they're still pretty hard to come by. They work well for making it easier to see when it's bright out, and they've got various settings to adjust to certain situations. You know, like night vision, low-level heat detection, stuff like that. They've also got a built in motion tracker. Pretty handy when fighting something you can't see."

After examining them to the best of her ability, Kairi donned the goggles. Immediately, the dim lighting seemed much brighter to her, clearly bringing the world around her into focus. "How do I change the settings?"

"There are a couple small buttons on the sides of both lenses," Nanaki explained. Kairi ran a finger along the edges of the lenses, and found one of them. She pressed down and the world darkened again, while the outlines of her family and friends began to glow various shades of orange and yellow.

"I'm going to have to play around with these later." Kair beamed up at her. "Thanks, Nanaki." Nanaki nodded, a grin spreading across her face.

"Looks good on you, Kairi," Selphie said, giving her best friend an appraising look. "Definitely 'you'."

"Our turn!" Hayner declared, squeezing himself in between Sora and Kairi while ignoring Sora's protests.

"The three of us decided that it would be a good idea to get you something as a group," Pence said. He and Olette sat down in front of the birthday girl. "The only problem was, we couldn't decide on what we were going to get you."

"That's when I came up with the idea to make something for you," Olette explained. "Something that would represent the friendship the four of us share. So, using our friendship as a catalyst, we're going to chase a Keyblade."

"Wait, wait, wait." Kairi held up her hands to stop her three friends from continuing further. "Let's back up a step. You can make a Keyblade?"

"'Chase' a Keyblade," Olette corrected. "And yes I can." She tucked her hair behind her ear, turning so Kairi could see the Chaser earrings Olette wore. "See? I'm a Chaser."

"That's pretty awesome." Kairi grinned at her, more eager now than she had been. "Alright, so what do we need to do?"

"Put a hand out in front of you," Olette instructed. "Then concentrate on our friendship. Try focusing on memories, or emotions you felt." Kairi, Hayner and Pence obeyed their friend. Each of them held out a hand toward the center of their little circle, faces screwed into looks of concentration.

It felt kind of silly to Kairi at first, just holding her hand out in empty space. But she ignored that feeling and instead focused on when she first met the three teens from Twilight Town. She remembered how they had welcomed her (a complete stranger that had popped out of a magical hole in the wall) into their group of friends. She remembered how they offered to help her find Sora.

She remembered the warmth in her heart when Olette had offered her a place to stay. The gratefulness she had felt when Hayner and Pence offered to find her a job to keep busy and to even loan her camping supplies should she have left to journey out on her own. And of course, the moment when Axel found her and took her away, when the three of them were willing to fight for her sake. The moment when her heart knew that the four of them were friends.

An orb of white light formed in the center of their hands, rapidly expanding until it touched each of their palms. A smile formed on Olette's face as she plunged both of her hands into the orb. "Alright. Here we go. Just keep concentrating on what I told you."

Olette's smile vanished, replaced by a look of complete concentration, as if she had tuned out the entire world. She didn't even wince as a burst of fire briefly surrounded the orb of light, traveling from the bottom hemisphere to the top in the blink of an eye. Electricity danced across the orb's surface, running a circuit around the circumference. Over and over again.

"Chasing Lightsteel," Olette muttered. The orb changed colors, turning from white to a shade of deep silver. The muscles in her arms twitched as though she were grabbing hold of something. "Heat metal." Silver gave way to a brilliant orange. Kairi winced at the sudden change in the light's intensity in the darkened park.

"Pour, then cool." Orange shifted to sky blue, allowing no relief for the eyes of the onlookers.

"Now fold. Fold. Fold. Fold. Fold. Fold." With each 'Fold' the light shifted slowly back to a dim silver. "Shape metal." The orb briefly changed into a multi-faceted diamond, lasting only for a few seconds before its sides expanded back into orb shape. Olette slowly drew her arms apart, spreading them out until there was at least three and a half feet of distance between her palms. As she did so, the orb changed it's shape into a narrow cylinder.

"Water quenching." The rod of light briefly glowed with an ocean blue light before it was quickly replaced by an emerald green shade. "Small ratio Chasing. Accumulation Chasing. Chase core Lightsteel. Chase skin Lightsteel."

Olette gripped one end of the rod in her left hand, while her right slowly traced a line down from the opposite end. "Shaping the teeth. Shaping the blade." Under her hands, the rod began to flatten out and expand where the blade would be, while the teeth expanded even further.

"Heat with fire and merge with catalyst." The light turned bright red. A small shock ran through Kairi's body, eliciting a small gasp of pain from her. From the gasps she heard from Hayner and Pence, she assumed they both had also felt the same thing she did. "Cool with water." Red gave way to ocean blue.

Olette looked up from her work and smiled at her three friends. "You guys can put your arms down now." Kairi giggled as Hayner and Pence both gave exaggerated groans of relief. Olette rolled her eyes at them and gave Kairi a small wink. "Almost done! Just a few more steps to go."

Kairi beamed back at her. "I can't wait!"

With a grin, Olette turned her attention to the partially completed weapon in her hands once more. "Apply coating." The light shifted to a deep, royal purple as sparks danced along the length of the blade. "Rough polish. Fine polish. Sharpening blade. Coarse sharpening. Gentle sharpening. Fine Sharpening. Finer sharpening." With each step, the purple color of the light became steadily lighter until it was almost a shade of periwinkle. "Jido finishing. Hearne finishing. Final sharpening. Final polish."

The blade instantly changed to a stunning white and began to shine even brighter, practically blinding everyone in the process. "Release!" The light burst outward like shattered glass in an explosion, quickly fading to thousands of twinkling lights.

Kairi had to blink several times to get her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the park once more. when she did, she found the hilt of the newly chased Keyblade being offered to her. The guard was in the shape of an oval, with the top half looking like a palm tree and the bottom the colour of the sands of Destiny Islands' beaches. At the joining of the two was the white foam of a cresting wave that began the blade. It sharply shifted into blue, and then transitioned back to sea-foam white before becoming the golden-red of sunset from the middle on until the tip. The key was composed of three bronze dome-shaped bells, with one standing on top of the other two leaving an upside-down triangle-shaped hole in the middle. The two bells along the base emerged from the blade on a sea of small red stars set in a golden wave, and each of the three bells had at least one of the stars on it somewhere.

Olette examined the blade for a moment checking for any flaws. Satisfied with her handiwork, she flipped the blade over, allowing the flat of it to rest in her palms while offering Kairi the hilt. The birthday girl accepted it graciously, letting out a low whistle as her eyes roamed over the details of her new weapon. The weapon's name filled her mind as she took it in her hand. Ocean's Toll.

"This is amazing, Olette!" she exclaimed. She stood up and gave the Keyblade a few swings to test its balance, and each time she came to the end of her swing she could just hear a bell tolling, deep and low, from the key. "That's one heck of a talent!"

"Thanks," Olette said with a grin. "I can't take all of the credit though. The stronger the catalyst used in the chasing, the better the Keyblade. And the friendship the four of us share certainly makes one beautiful weapon."

"No argument there," Hayner laughed. "Just look at that sucker!"

A giggle escaped Kairi's lips. "Thanks, you guys!" She bent down and quickly gave Hayner and Pence each a hug. When she turned to Olette, however, she discovered that the Chaser had already gotten to her feet and was making a beeline for the restroom. "Olette?"

The brunette stopped in her tracks and threw a look back over her shoulder. "Don't mind me," she said, waving her hand dismissively, "I'm just going to go splash some water on my face. Chasing Keyblades can take a lot out of you." While the others all expressed their understanding, Kairi remained silent. She saw the beads of pained sweat that dotted Olette's brow and the way she held her wrist. She remembered the last time she had seen a Keyblade chased and put the pieces together.

"Hey, I'll come with you," Kairi said, getting to her feet and quickly jogging to her friend's side. "You don't mind a little company, do you?"

"Why do girls always do this?" Roxas stood up and asked at large. He was met with an assortment of shrugs from the males, and Naminé grabbed him by the collar and had him sit down again.

"I- uh- um- er... Sure. Why not?" Olette stammered. Before she had a chance to change her mind, she found herself dragged quickly inside the restroom by the birthday girl. "Kairi, what-"

"How bad is it?" The redhead interjected.

"How bad is what?" Olette asked, but her voice was wavering and facial muscles were twitching. Kairi could see the clenching in her neck.

"Don't pull that with me," she said, crossing her arms and fixing Olette with a narrowed stare. "I saw what happened when Xanthos chased a Keyblade. Where'd the scar form?"

Sighing in defeat, and doing her best to not cry out in pain, Olette held up her left arm. A silver-toned, x-shaped scar had appeared across the back of her wrist. Kairi shot her a sympathetic look.

"Why are you trying to hide it?" She asked gently. "It's a part of the process, right? It's not something to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed!" Kairi was taken aback by the forcefulness of Olette's words, even though tears of pain were running down her cheeks at this point. "It's just... I don't want Hayner to know... He has a tendency to be overprotective of his friends and he-HNNGGG-overreacts a lot over little things like this. If he knew that chasing did this to me..." A gasp of pain escaped her lips as she slumped against the restroom wall.

"He'll find out sooner or later," Kairi pointed out, in as gentle a tone as she could manage. She placed a comforting hand on Olette's shoulder. "Probably sooner since you two are traveling together."

"I know. I -GAH- I know..." Olette grimaced. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "I'm not doing a very good job of handling this, am I?"

"Probably better than some." Kairi half-smiled at her. The two of them were quiet for a moment. Olette stared blankly at the cracked tile walls of the restroom while Kairi watched her facial expressions carefully.

"The pain's died down a bit." Olette glanced at her new scar, grimacing at the sight. "It's more of a dull throb now."

"Is it always supposed to be this bad?" Kairi asked, helping Olette straighten up. The brunette shook her head.

"According to Master Xanthos, my body'll get used to it with practice." She glanced down at her scar again. "I just have to chase Keyblades whenever I can find a new catalyst. I want to try and chase one for every world I go to."

"But, won't that leave you covered in these scars?" Kairi raised her brow as Olette strode to a sink and began running water into it. "I caught a glimpse of Xanthos. Even his face is scarred."

"I can't really say." Olette's voice was slightly distorted as she splashed her face a few times. "The scars can overlap each other. So there's the possibility that they won't cover my whole body and leave me looking deformed. Master Xanthos didn't really go into much detail about it."

Kairi offered Olette a small stack of paper towels to dry herself off with. Olette murmured her thanks and quickly buried her face into the towels.

"So, I take it you still won't be telling Hayner about the scarring?" Kairi asked, glancing at her reflection briefly to admire her new cloak in (somewhat) better lighting. She flipped up the hood for a few seconds and whispered, "Ooh, I look nice!" to herself under her breath.

"I won't really have a choice once he see's this in the light, will I?" Olette held up her wrist for emphasis and let out a groan. "You know what? Enough of my problems. You still have gifts to receive and a birthday to enjoy. We can always talk later."

"That's true." Kairi flipped the hood back down, turned, and beamed at Olette, who was finally smiling again and showing a little more color in her cheeks. "We've got plenty of time to catch up now that I'm not running the risk of being kidnapped."

No sooner had the words left Kairi's tongue then a portal of Darkness opened up less than three feet from the two Wielders.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Kairi growled. "On today? Really?" Ocean's Toll flashed into existence at the same time the No Name appeared in Olette's grip.

"Let's make this quick," Olette said with a smirk. "Like I said, you've still got gifts and a party out there. We've been in here long enough."

"Then let's put down whoever's after us and get outta here." Kairi smirked. What neither of them were prepared for was the person who stepped out of the swirling black and purple portal.

"This isn't a park," Axel realized as the portal vanished behind him. "I could've sworn... I'm not that out of practice, am I?" He let out a groan of frustration as he took in his surroundings.

His body tensed up as he caught sight of the the two girls occupying the restroom. For a moment, the three of them simply stared at one another. Then a grin broke across Axel's face.

"Well, at least I got the right place," he laughed.

Kairi stood stock still for a moment, her mind briefly flashing back to when she first met Axel. To the moment he tried to kidnap her and to the fear she had felt, even if it had only lasted briefly. So, Kairi did the only thing that seemed natural when facing down her former kidnapper: she screamed.

-LD-

"And then they made me their chief," Roxas finished proudly. Hayner and Pence both let out impressed whistles. Sora fought back a snort of laughter.

"That is nowhere near close to what happened." Naminé rolled her eyes at Roxas' 'story'. "They trapped us in bone cages and dangled us over a cliff so we could wait to be eaten alive. We barely made it out of there with our lives."

"True. But my story's more interesting," Roxas said defensively.

"You were still part of Sora! You wouldn't have felt anything!"

"That doesn't mean that I wouldn't be dead."

"But the point is-" Unfortunately, Naminé never had the chance to reiterate her point. At that moment, one of the walls to the women's restroom was blown apart, scattering ruined chunks of brick and mortar out across the field.

"Holy...shit..." Riku said, staring at the blast site.

"Kairi was in there," Sora said slowly, his eyes slowly widening.

"And Olette..." Pence added.

Silence lasted for another second before the shock wore off, and a number of voices all began shouting, "Kairi!" and "Olette!" simultaneously. Several Keyblades were summoned into their wielders' hands, just in case, as nearly the entire group ran for the restrooms.

An unidentifiable figure was thrown bodily from the cloud of dust left in the explosion's wake, barreling into Roxas, Hayner and Pence in the process. The others slid to a halt and glanced back to try and identify the assailant. The three victims and the person that had knocked them over all let out groans of pain and annoyance as they quickly shook off their sudden disorientation.

"Okay, running with my sword is a bad idea," Hayner hissed as he clutched at the wound his own weapon had left in his upper leg.

"I think I hit my head on something." Roxas winced as he felt a goose-egg forming under his scalp.

"You did," Pence confirmed. "Mine."

"Did anyone get the license plate number of the princess that hit me?" Axel grumbled as he crawled away from the human dog-pile he had created when he had crashed into the three teens.

Roxas did a double take as he realized what had just happened. "Wait. What? Axel?!"

"Hey, Roxas!" Axel grinned at his best friend. "Long time no see."

"Are you the one that blew up the restroom?" Hayner growled, fixing Axel with as menacing a glare as he could manage in the dim light, and given that he was wincing in pain.

"Not this time." The former Nobody pointed at the ruins of the restroom. "It was her."

Now that the dust had settled, everyone could clearly see Kairi charging toward them. Ocean's Toll was clutched tightly in her hands and wreathed in brightly burning flames. Directly on her heels was Olette, shouting at Kairi and doing her best to get the red-head to stop her assault. However, her protests seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Will someone please stop her from killing me?" Axel asked quickly. "If I try to defend myself, she might just keep attacking!"

"I've got this," Sora said, dismissing his Keyblade. He stepped into Kairi's path, serving as an ineffective wall between her and her intended target. Kairi, however, showed no signs of slowing down.

She raised her eyebrows at her boyfriend as the distance between them rapidly vanished. Sora's confident grin slowly began to slip away as the distance between the two decreased. "Uh...Kairi?"

"Outta my way, Sora! I'm gonna pummel him into dust!"

"Ooh, Kairi's gotten herself into a scrap!" Richard squealed with glee. "This should be entertaining; I've never seen her fight before. Make sure you go for the jugular! It's much more satisfying with the way all of their blood shoots out!"

"Thanks for the tip!" Kairi called out. Sora adjusted his stance, readying himself to stop Kairi before she could make it past him. Fortunately, he didn't have to.

Nanaki stepped in between Sora and Kairi, hand outstretched and a smug smirk on her face. "Drift." With a quick snap of her fingers, a large orb of purple and black swirling energy surrounded Kairi and lifted her off of her feet.

"What the-?" Kairi's anger was replaced by confusion as she suddenly found herself staring down at the ground as Nanaki's zero gravity spell spun her around in the air. "Not funny, Nanaki. Put me down!"

"Yes! Let her explore her hidden violent nature! It's so much fun!" Richard added from the sidelines.

"You're not helping!" Olette shouted as she finally caught up to Kairi. "Kairi, listen to me. Axel's on our side. He's a good guy."

"I know that," Kairi grumbled. "But he still kidnapped me. Don't you think that deserves a beating?"

"Hey, you already beat down Xemnas and the Superior is the one who ordered it in the first place," Axel pleaded. "Besides, I helped your boyfriend here get there in order to rescue you, got it memorized? Don't I get a little credit?"

"I wasn't going to kill you. I think that counts as giving you credit." Kairi shrugged.

"That's a disappointment," Richard grumbled. "I've lost interest." He shoved his hands into his robe's pockets and shuffled off to the food table to kill a little more tuna, kicking a stone as he went. He paused, and turned around. "Has anyone seen my fork?"

"Your what?" Nikki asked.

"My fork," Richard repeated, looking through his robes and around him on the ground in a quick circle. "My Fork of Truth. I never go anywhere without it or my pillaging shovel. Or my bear arms!" He smiled and produced the arms of a bear out from his robes, holding each claw by the protruding bone of the shoulder joint.

"Those don't look like a Fork of Truth."

"Derrr." Richard fixed her with a deadpan stare. "These are my bear arms."

"Richard! Maul Axel with your bear arms! You'll be my best friend forever!" Kairi called out.

"I have no idea what's happening anymore, but I respect your attitude and willingness to maul another living being." Richard wiped a tear of happiness from the corner of his eye. "I'm so happy, I'll maul him for free!"

"What? Hey, no mauling! No mauling!" Axel shouted, scrambling away from the warlock advancing on him. "Roxas, get him to back off!"

"Get him to back off?" Roxas asked incredulously as Richard stalked forward menacingly with the severed bear arms held high and Kairi still floating in the anti-gravity ring. "I couldn't even get him to stop cheating at poker while Sora and Nanaki were on Padosoan. What makes you think that I can get him to stop?"

"Dad," Riku asked with an amused smile adorning his face, "are you and Mom getting pictures of this? This birthday's got to go on record."

"Kairi!" berated Selphie. "I'm your BFF!"

"You could at least try!" Axel snapped at Roxas. "Come on, Kairi, call off your attack dog!"

"Richard, no mauling," Naminé said, pressing one hand against the warlock's chest to stop his advance. "Kairi, I understand that Axel kidnapped you, but he saved Sora's life, he kept me safe from Marluxia and the Organization, and he..." Naminé paused and looked at Axel with a frown built from confusion on her face. "What other good stuff have you done?"

"I fixed the power at Alliance HQ!" Axel screamed, ducking underneath the claws of the right bear arm that Richard threw when Naminé turned her attention away from the warlock. "And nearly died doing it! And I helped with the evacuation of Twilight Town, got it memorized?"

"Okay, I guess," Kairi muttered while her hands went to the edges of her cloak and wrapped them around her body to prevent anyone from looking up her skirt as the anti-gravity spell sent her on a slow spin towards being upside-down. "Why did you specifically mention Marluxia?" she asked.

"Because he was a total jerkass creepo lolicon perv," Naminé answered. She shuddered. "If he didn't have Larxene giving him head I'm sure he would have-"

"There's a mental image I could've lived the rest of my life without having," Roxas muttered.

"Hey what about me?" Axel shot off. "You never went to Castle Oblivion. I'm the idiot who was there and walked in on her doing that! I don't need a mental image, it's scarred into my brain, along with this one across my chest!"

"Stop moving so much." Richard growled, still trying to hit Axel with his remaining bear arm. "It makes you harder to hit."

"That's kind of the point!" Axel snapped at him.

"Richard, stop it!" Naminé snapped. The warlock stopped in mid-swing, though interestingly enough he had halted his advance when Naminé placed her hand to his chest.

"But... mauling!" Richard stuttered.

"No!"

The warlock hung his head in dejection. "Fine..." he grumbled.

"Getting kind of dizzy here." Kairi's face was starting to turn a little green from all of the spinning caused by the Zero Gravity spell. "Put me down now, please."

"Only if you aren't going to attack Axel as soon as Nanaki lets you down." Melissa said as she finally caught up to the group of teens. "He's already apologized and he's clearly not here to kidnap you again. So just make amends and move on. You've still got a party going on, you know."

A groan of defeat escaped Kairi's throat. "Fine. Axel, I'm sorry that I tried to attack you and had Richard try and maul you."

"Does the 'best friend forever' offer still stand even if I didn't maul him?" Richard chimed in.

"I forgive you for kidnapping me," Kairi went on, ignoring the warlock.

"So… we're cool?" Axel asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, we're cool." Kairi winced as she finished yet another rotation. "Nanaki? Could you put me down before I start seeing today's food again?"

"Sure thing." Nanaki snapped her fingers and the Zero Gravity spell dissipated. Kairi let out a small cry of shock as she plummeted into Sora, whose arms were in place at just the right moment.

"Listen, about the whole 'kidnapping you so I could turn Sora into a Heartless and get my best friend back' thing…" Axel rubbed the back of his head with a free hand, doing his best to ignore the awkwardness that hung in the air after Kairi's outburst at him. "I'm going to try and find a way to make it up to you. It's only fair, after all."

"Axel, I already forgave you," Kairi deadpanned.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. But it doesn't feel right otherwise." Axel gave her a semi-apologetic grin.

"If you're going to insist, then go right ahead," Kairi said. "What do you plan to do?"

"I'm not really sure, to be honest." Axel lowered his hand and stared at it silently for a few seconds. "I don't think there's a protocol for how kidnappers are supposed to make it up to the kidnap-ees. And I really doubt that Hallmark has a card to cover this sort of thing."

"Probably not," Roxas said, clapping Axel on the back. "You could always just hang around with us until you come up with something, you know?"

"Yeah, we're definitely going to need to get a bigger ship," Sora added in an undertone to Kairi. She responded by rolling her eyes at him, even though she knew he was right.

"Oh! I almost forgot!"Axel said suddenly. The others all glanced at him in confusion as he produced a small silver charm from his pocket and tossed it to Kairi. "Happy birthday!"

Kairi caught the charm in one hand and gave it an appraising look. In the heart of the charm was the image of three katana, two crossed into an 'x' shape with the third intersecting down the middle of the other two. "A summon charm?"

"Figured you'd get better use out of it than me," Axel said dismissively. "I usually run solo. Except when I'm workin' with my good buddy Roxas, of course!" Using his reach to his advantage and grinning widely, he wrapped his arm around Roxas' neck and put him into a light headlock while his free hand tousled the blond's hair.

"Thanks, Axel." Kairi pocketed the charm and finally smiled at her once-kidnapper.

Jonathan sighed as he came up next to his daughter. He placed his hands on his hips and looked forward, shaking his head. "Kairi, how are we going to explain this?" he asked, gesturing at the half blown-up public restroom.

"Gas leak?" Olette suggested.

"Psychotic, undead, pyromaniac warlock on the loose?" Roxas tossed in. Richard crossed his arms.

"You know, I resent that remark," declared said warlock. "I'm not on the loose and I'm not a pyromaniac."

"Fwoosh?" Roxas asked.

"Fwoosh is just one of many ways of killing," Richard clarified. "I also like freezing things to death and stabbing their necks and ripping faces, and animating their skeletons to rip their way out of their flesh. Fwoosh just makes it better with the scent of them cooking alive."

"Burrowing rodents?" Kairi asked, trying to ignore Richard and Roxas. Jonathan gave her an unamused look. "Uh..."

"It was structurally unsound and needed a remodel anyway," Axel said breezily. "You should have seen the graffiti on the stalls. In fact, you still can. There are some pieces scattered around. Don't worry, the Alliance will pay for the damages to build you a new one."

"Dear, just go with the gas leak," Melissa said. "It'll be much easier than trying to explain that your daughters are magic knights and one of them freaked out when her ex-kidnapper showed up out of a dark portal and she blasted away half the building." Jonathan sighed audibly once more.

"Ah...we'll deal with this tomorrow. The festival's still going on and, more importantly, your party's not over yet." Jonathan slowly smiled again and looked around. "Hey, someone give Kairi her margarita back and David, pour me a scotch!"

"We didn't bring scotch!"

"Le gasp! We didn't bring the scotch? Then give me the rum, or rye, I'm not picky! And give Sora and Riku some rum too."

"Jonathan!" Melissa scolded.

He raised his hands in self-defence. "I'm not working today and," he directed his hand towards the area of the giant hole in the wall of the women's restroom, "I want a drink."

"Not about that," Melissa said. "You can't just tell David to give his kid and Sora alcohol."

"Hypocritical mother," Kairi said with a quick circular bobble of her head as she was handed back her margarita glass, half-full, and took another sip.

"I'm fine with Sora having something," Allison commented with a shrug. "And Roxas, too." Sora looked at his mother in stunned wonder.

"Seriously?" he asked, hopeful.

"Knock yourself out," Allison replied with an evil grin, and she privately wondered whether or not Sora would retain his mental faculties enough to prevent him from doing just that.

"But what about that half-hour lecture that you gave us last night about responsibility and 'would-it-kill-you-to-let-your-mother-know-that-yo u're-home-personally-instead-of-leaving-it-to-Kair i's-Mom-all-the-time'?" Sora asked.

"You won't learn to be responsible with your booze unless you know how much you can take," Allison gave her son a sagely warning. "Go on," she said kindly, giving him a light push. "It's your girlfriend's birthday and there are responsible adults here watching over you kids. Have some fun."

Sora gave her a quick hug. "Thanks Mom!" He let go and turned towards David. "I'll take the rum, mixed in with some of the melon pop!"

As Sora turned away, Kairi saw her father's guard come up close. "I think I'll keep close tah ye, sir," said Bael Stoutiron. He nodded at the hole in the washroom.

Jonathan sighed. "Yes, that might be a good idea, even though we don't expect any more incidents. Thank you, Bael."

"At yer service," said the guard with a nod of his now steel-capped head. He had his spear in hand and his shield slung over his back. Kairi again took note of the bearded axe tucked into his belt. She took another sip of her margarita, and returned to the rock that was being dusted off by Wakka.

"Your throne, Your Highness," he said with an exaggerated sweeping arm gesture and bow. Deciding to humour him, just this once, Kairi paused and inclined her head while giving him a soft smile.

"Thank you, my lord Wakka." She extended her free hand towards him. "Please, attend to me." Wakka bowed slightly and took the offered hand, and they sat down.

Sora returned, and looked between Kairi and Wakka with 'what the fuck' written all over his face. "Wakka, you're in my seat."

"Oh no," Kairi replied hautily. "Lord Wakka, Earl of the Ginger Ward, will be sitting beside me for a moment, and Riku, my valiant Lord Protector of the Realm, will you deign to sit with us as well?" Riku stopped, took a sip from the drink his father had given him, and then graced the heiress of House Brightheart with a wry smile. He clutched his fist to his chest in the salute of Destiny Islands and bowed his head.

"At your command, my liege," Riku answered, and sat on the rock at Kairi's left hand.

"Lady Selphie, Duchess of Exin Plaza, would you please inform our guests that I shall resume holding court now and am ready to receive the remaining tribute."

Selphie, though surprised at the sudden change of proceedings, looked at Kairi and laughed at how queenly she appeared, sitting on a rock in a clashing cloak and dress with a pair of goggles strapped around her neck. Selphie began to address the gathered company. "Her Highness, Kairi Melinda Brightheart-"

"Your middle name is Melinda?" giggled Nanaki, while Nikki and Olette each covered up snorts.

"-will now be receiving the rest of her presents. If you have yet to present her with a gift for this, her most esteemed sixteenth birthday, step forward now, cough-Sora-cough, or face my wrath."

"You might want to get your throat looked at, Selph," Sora said. "That can't be healthy."

"Well I know that I wouldn't dare face the wrath of the shopping fiend Duchess of Exin Plaza," Allison said quickly, faking distress and elbowing her son out of the way. She dropped to her knees before Kairi and extended her gift towards the girl with both hands and a bowed head, actually having fun with the change of pace and enjoying the flashing cameras. "Lady Brightheart, I ask that you accept this humble offering as a token of homage to my future daughter-in-law."

"Mom!" Sora spluttered, his face smashing through three shades of red to reside firmly on the colour plane of fuchsia. Kairi was quite pink in the face herself, but nodded her head.

"Th-thank you," she said with an embarrassed smile, and she took the present, wrapped in green paper with a golden bow stuck onto it, into her hands. It was rectangular in shape, and felt heavier than it looked. Wanting to know what was inside, Kairi quickly tore at the wrapping and found a book underneath. A red leather cover with a tied strap protected the inside from the elements and dust. She had never seen this book before, and her fingers fumbled to undo the wreath knot binding it closed. She couldn't stop the gasp that came from her lips when she opened the book and saw the first page dominated by a picture of her and Sora kissing in the booth at Destiny's a month ago.

A big smile warmed her face as Kairi randomly went through the pages, seeing every one with pictures of herself, Sora, Riku, Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, and other friends of hers from childhood up to the present day.

"This is beautiful, Allison," Kairi whispered, looking up at the woman who was still acting and kneeling before her. Kairi laughed. "Oh stand up and give me a hug."

Allison obeyed the command with gusto, rising and sweeping the girl into a huge hug that lifted Kairi off the ground in one quick motion.

Kairi's feet barely managed to touch the ground again before a hand gripped her shoulder and turned her around. Sora stood there, wearing that goofy grin he always wore that Kairi loved so much about him. He held out his hand to her, his eyes never once leaving hers. Resting in his palm was a small black velvet covered box with a ruby-red ribbon tied around it.

"Just one more," Sora said, placing the box in Kairi's hands before stepping back so everyone else could get a better look. "Happy birthday, Kairi."

"You know that you didn't have to give me anything, right?" Kairi smiled warmly back at her boyfriend.

"And face the hell my mother and Selphie would put me through if I didn't? No thanks," Sora teased. "Just because I don't have to, doesn't mean I'm not going to."

Grinning in anticipation, Kairi made short work of the ribbon tying the box shut and set it aside. She fumbled with the box for a moment when it wouldn't open right away for her, and found a small latch that kept the top down. The latch quickly gave way and the top rose on its own accord.

A sharp intake of breath accompanied Kairi's first sight of the gift. Resting on the satin padding inside the box was a stunning necklace. Even in the dark of the day, Kairi could see it clearly. The metal seemed flawless and was the color of a Destiny Islands sunset. Seven gems were set into charms at even intervals: a diamond, an emerald, a lapis lazuli, a golden topaz, an opal, a ruby, and an amethyst. Unlike the circular charms the other gems were set into, the diamond rested in the heart of a three-pointed crown, the color of rose petals and identical to the pendant Sora always wore.

She was speechless. The craftsmanship of the necklace was phenomenal. There were no tool marks on the gems to signify that they had been cut. The metal used was flawless, as though it had been forged in the earth as it was.

"May I?" Sora offered. Kairi looked up at him, eyes still wide with amazement. She nodded, words of gratitude dying in her throat before she could properly voice them. She handed the necklace back to Sora and turned so that her back was to him, quickly ruffling the hood of her new cloak to ensure that it was down. In a quick, fluid movement, Sora placed the necklace around her neck and fastened it in place. Shivers ran down Kairi's spine as his fingertips brushed the sensitive hairs on the back of her neck, lingering there for just a moment longer than necessary. "There. It looks perfect on you, Kairi."

The birthday girl glanced down at the necklace, admiring the way it shined regardless of how she angled it and the way each stone set into the charms seemed to radiate warmth and comfort into her. "Sora, it's beautiful," she whispered breathlessly.

"Especially on you." Kairi gave him a light shove with her shoulder for the cheesy line. "This necklace is special."

"Oh?"

"It's blessed with ancient magic," Sora explained, wrapping his arm around her as Kairi leaned back against him. Silently, he thanked Naminé for using her skills with memory magic to help him remember what the old woman who had given him the necklace had told him about it. "It's supposed to protect the wearer from Darkness. And each gem is blessed as well.

"The amethyst changes color in the presence of illness, pales near poisoned food or drink, and guides the wearer towards sincerity, security and peace of mind. It's supposed to represent truth.

"The ruby should turn pale when misfortune threatens you. It wards off evil spirits, and can be an antidote to snake venom. It represents joy.

"The opal has the power to give you weak glimpses into the future, and aids with weak sight. It has a special bond with the lapis lazuli and symbolizes hope.

"The topaz can give you some contact with the spirit world, and it strengthens and clears the mind. It symbolizes loyalty.

"The lapis lazuli is a heavenly stone. It wards off many forms of evil. It can lessen the darkness when there is no light. It's the symbol of purity.

"The emerald dulls in the presence of evil and when a vow is broken. It is a remedy for sores and ulcers and is an antidote to poison. It symbolizes honor and is the sister gem to the amethyst.

"And the diamond gives courage, strength and helps the cause of true love. It embodies strength and love."

Sora tightened his arms around Kairi's waist for a moment and whispered "Happy birthday" into her ear. Kairi turned in his arms and embraced him in return before planting her lips on his in a tender kiss.

"I love it," she whispered, ignoring the flashes from the camera in her mother's hands. "Thank you, Sora." Sora smiled back at her and kissed the tip of her nose.

"You're very welcome. And as much as I'd love to keep you here, I don't think it's exactly fair to keep you to myself for the rest of your birthday."

"Aw… You don't want to spend time with me?" Kairi said, pulling away from Sora and giving him the fakest pout anyone could possibly give.

"I never said anything about not spending time with you." Sora gave her a smirk. "I'm just not going to hog all of your attention. Especially since our mothers are right behind you and armed with cameras."

"Say what now?"

Kairi barely managed to register what Sora had said before Melissa and Allison descended upon her like a pair of wolves, both eagerly expressing their desire to get in as many photographs of the birthday girl in her new getup before she could escape to the safety of the remaining hours of the festival. And, Kairi being Kairi, she allowed them to. She let out a series of giggles as she was dragged away by the motherly duo to an area with better lighting, insisting that she take a picture with everyone present at the party. A single thought passed through Kairi's bliss-filled mind: Definitely the best sixteenth birthday party I could've asked for.

-LD-

---

This is the longest chapter in Looming Darkness. Sitting at a whopping 33,855 words! Good lord.

Once again, I want to express my immense gratitude to Shire Folk. He's been a pleasure to work with and has really contributed ideas towards several plots I'll be exploring in the near and far future. I'm really looking forward to working with him yet again in chapter thirity-five. And, if you haven't read his work yet, then I strongly suggest you go do so. His stories are well worth the read.

So, could you figure out which parts were written by whom? Internet muffins to those who get at least five right!

I promised a review of Dream Drop Distance a while back. But that'll have to wait until later. My boss is staring at me and I can only pretend to type an email for so long. I guess that's my cue to actually release this thing and jump headfirst into the next chapter, huh?

Until next time!

Aspicio, diluculo Infinitas Noctis.

Shadow Horizons