Sora lay awake in his room after watching the sunset with Kairi. He couldn't shake the conversation out of his mind. Why would she want to leave Riku behind, out of all of them, he was the most excited, so why would she even mention it.

"You know, Riku has changed."

"Sora, don't ever change."

"I just can't wait. Once we set sail, it'll be great."

"Hopefully tomorrow, she'll see that nothing's changed about Riku and we'll on enjoy the adventure!" Sora leaned back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Thunder rumbled outside and he ran over to his window to look outside. Lightning flashed from menacing clouds over the islands. "A storm?" a storm meant wind and strong waves. "Oh, no, the raft!" He jumped out the window as soon as he could. He needed to secure the raft as quickly as possible to make sure it would stay on the island. Behind him, he heard his mother call for him. He'd explain where he was as soon as he came back from securing the raft. As quickly as he could he reached his small row boat and rowed out to the smaller island across the way.

I just hope the raft's safe, Sora thought. He arrived on the island and looked at the docks to see two other similarly sized boats.

"What's that?" His eyes widened. "Riku's boat. And Kairi's!" he said. Panic began to creep into him, that meant both his friends were here and possibly securing the raft, but what if something happened to them. He started to head towards where they planned on keeping the raft to find some black shadows appearing out of the ground. They were small creatures with antennae popping out of their heads. The only feature on them that wasn't black was their two yellow eyes.

"The creatures from my dream!" He pulled out his wooden sword and raised it just in time to block their claws from hitting him. He slashed through it only for his sword to go right through, doing no damage whatsoever. "I've gotta find Riku and Kairi!" He ran around to the small paopu island where Riku normally hid out. His friend was standing there, his back turned to Sora.

"Riku!" he shouted. Riku didn't turn around. "Where's Kairi? I thought she was with you!"

"The door has been opened…" the response made little sense to Sora. It didn't reveal the location of the young red haired girl or anything of real importance. In fact, it reminded him of the cloaked figure from the secret place and of his dream. Was the door Riku talking about the same one he would open?

"What?"

"The door is open, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!" Riku said. Sora looked at him in confusion. The raft was their way to the outside world, not this door.

"What are you talking about?" Sora asked. "We've gotta find Kairi!"

"Kairi's coming with us!" Riku shouted back. "Once we step through we may never be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back. But this is our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!" He reached his hand out to Sora.

"Riku!" Sora reached for Riku as tendrils of darkness began swarming around Sora and Riku, trying to drown them both in it. It was just like his dream, and nobody was able to save him, just like in his dream, he would die, except there was no waking up from this, it was real.

A bright light flashed in his hand, removing the darkness from Sora, but Riku was gone. A new weapon was in his hand, this one shaped oddly like a key. The key was silver at its blade; the teeth looked like a crown as it connected to a gold hilt with a red handle in the center where his hand was. Hanging off the edge attached to a chain was a small red mushroom with eyes and white circles at the top, similar to the mushroom that emblazoned the weapons in his dream. His eyes looked over the new weapon with wonder.

"Keyblade…Keyblade…" A mysterious voice answered the unasked question of what the weapon was. It was much like the one from his dream that guided him. He looked at the Keyblade one more time before turning around to face the creatures behind him. They had started sneaking up behind him while he'd been distracted. His Keyblade went through one with ease, turning it into a cloud of darkness within three hits.

He started slashing through the shadows as quickly as possible with a goal of finding Kairi. She had to be somewhere on the islands, it wasn't possible for her to just simply disappear and if he couldn't find her, then those creatures might have killed her. It wasn't long before he arrived at the last place to check, the small cave behind the waterfall. The cave's opening however, was now a large white door rather than an open mouth. Something was happening to his island, something bad. He opened the door and ran through the cave as quickly as possible to find Kairi. She was in there, but her skin was pale as she sat in front of the door that was unable to be opened, probably the door both Riku and the figure had mentioned.

"Kairi!" he shouted.

"Sora…" a gust came out of the door, knocking her into him. As he went to catch her, she vanished in his arms. The dark wind continued to push him back until he was forced out of the cave. He watched as the cave itself disappeared. He looked up to see a strange dark ball in the sky in shades of purple and black. It appeared to be sucking up the islands around him, as all that appeared to be left to his home was the small platform of sand he was standing on.

"Kairi!" he called out her name in hopes that she'd simply been blown out of the cave. The only response he got was a large black giant shadow with a heart shaped hole around its chest. It was the giant from his dream, and now it was taking out his home rather than some strange stained glass platform with a girl on it. The Keyblade appeared back in his hand as thought summoned by magic and he ran towards it, hitting its hand like last time as it punched the ground to generate more of the shadows from earlier. The Keyblade did more damage than his shield did, or at least he thought it did since the monster lifted its hand from the ground much quicker only managing to generate one shadow before stopping its creation of the dark pool.

He slashed out at the shadow quickly to take it out. He rolled out of the way as the giant through another punch at him. While he avoided the giant's fist, he was not fortunate enough to avoid the shockwave that came afterwards, which knocked him back towards the edge of the small piece of island left. He started to run after the giant only to begin being pelted by energy balls of darkness. He remembered how his shield in the dream would allow the hit to return to him, so he lifted up his Keyblade to avoid the strike and rebound them towards its face. After a few successful returns (and some not so successful ones) the giant stopped striking him with the energy bullets and this time punched the ground again. This time, Sora was ready for the coming shockwave and jumped out of the way to avoid the energy that sent him back. He ran up to the giant as it was recuperating and began striking at it.

He began ignoring the giant's move, only stopping his attacks when it was necessary to prevent being hit or when he had to lift up his Keyblade to hit the giant in the face, which did more damage to it than just hitting at its hand like he was doing. After one final strike, the creature lost its hold on the island of sand and began floating away.

"I…did it!" he cheered before leaning on his knee. The suction from the sphere above his head was stronger than he expected, and it wasn't long before he was taken off the ground and pulled away from his island to watch as the last of it disappeared from sight.

"No…"

-x-

"Hey Tippi, what's the consequence for not defeating the Heartless?" Peach asked. The four plus Pixl had just arrived in a new world.

"They devour all hearts, princess. A world can't survive without a heart because it's the source of the light, and as such, the world ceases to exist," Tippi said. "We can see this as a star going out in the sky."

"I see…" Peach nodded. She felt anything else she was about to say die in her throat as Luigi tapped her on the shoulder.

"Princess!" he said. His finger pointed up to the sky, where one of the bright points in the night sky was flashing into darkness.

"That stars going out," Tippi said.

"We have to help!" Peach said. "If we hurry-"

"There's nothing you can do. We won't be able to reach it in time." Tippi's voice was saddened by the fact, but she said it nonetheless. "The only thing we can do is try to bring it back by defeating the Heartless."

"But-"

"You heard the butterfly Peach! The world's gone, so stop worrying about it," Bowser said.

"All those people…we have to help Mario stop this!" Peach looked away as the star gave one last weak pulse of light before it stopped shining all together.

"We will, the sooner we find Leon, the sooner we can complete the mission," Luigi said.

"You're looking for Leon?" A woman in a pink dress with brown hair walked up to them. Her hair was braided and held back by two red ribbons.

"Mario sent us," Tippi said.

"Of course, follow me," the woman said. "We've all been waiting for you for a long time."