To reviewers of Chapter 1:

Nightmaresbeast: Well, I do want Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, but it's not out yet, haha. I can't guarantee that there will be another umbrella scene in this fic, but I will try my best to at least incorporate a cutesy scene for Sora and Roxas somewhere along the way until the end of the fic. Thanks for the support.

A-dizzle: Well, I think the bossing around is a given, haha. Sorry to hear that you were out of it when you reviewed. And don't worry; you'll probably be able to catch every update before I even get to the end of the fic.

Dark-ranmaru: Here's the next chapter! I hope you'll find the next member of the SOS Brigade as interesting as the others.

Kixiku: I wouldn't put it to the extreme that it's the essence of awesome… but much thanks for the support.


Chapter 2 – Introducing Who?


For the two weeks after school started, the SOS Brigade clubroom was a quiet place. We gathered after school every day without fail and worked on our homework. There were no crazy events being planned by our fearless leader and no other student with mysteries on his hands came knocking on our door.

Now granted, 75 percent of the time, Sora wasn't in the clubroom. Where he went off to after class every day I cared not to know. But I had a strange feeling that whatever he was doing, it wasn't going to be good for me. And call me a masochist, but I was looking forward to whatever Sora discovered and wanted to share with us.

Still, needless to say, those two weeks were the good times…

Of course, all good times must come to an end, and this was no exception.


On the Tuesday three weeks after school started, Sora had, once again, disappeared from class right after lessons were done for the day. He didn't even bothered to say "Good-bye" or "See you tomorrow" before he zoomed off to who knows where.

"Sora seems in a rush," said Axel with an arched eyebrow.

"Maybe he's got a boyfriend," suggested Demyx. I snapped my head toward him and glared. Noticing my look, Axel laughed.

"Looks like someone's jealous," he teased in a sing-song way.

"No, I'm not," I huffed.

"Yes, you are," grinned Demyx. Both of them simply grinned at me, knowing perfectly well that those grins would grate on my nerves.

I scowled at their faces and picked up my bookbag.

"Whatever. I'll see you guys tomorrow," I said before heading out of the room to the clubroom. Behind me, I could hear the soft snickering of the two stooges.

God, they're acting like girls!

Though, why the hell do I care whether Sora's going out with someone else? We're technically not a couple.

Oh wait, I kissed him last year.

I wonder if he remembers that…

In any case, I made my way over to the SOS Brigade clubroom and saw that all the others were there already.

That could only mean one thing.

Sora's making a big announcement.

"Everyone's here, already, huh?" I said as I crossed the room to reach my seat at the table. Strangely enough, no one answered; not even the usually friendly Kairi. The atmosphere was so tense that Naminé didn't even turn a page in her book as we waited for Sora to show up.

What the hell is going on!?

Sitting in that deathly silent room for five minutes was really unnerving. As I looked from Naminé to Riku to Kairi, each of them had their heads bent down in anxiety. Was the end of the world coming? Did Sora figure out that he's the god of this world and was planning on remaking it? What was happening!?

I could feel the beginnings of a panic attack coming.

Just when I had enough and was planning on leaving lest I started hyperventilating, the door to the clubroom slammed open.

Sora stood there with his fists on his hips like a triumphant leader.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting!" he said cheerfully before bounding into the room like a hyperactive child.

"What's going on, Sora?" I queried. Sora, as usual, didn't hear me.

Goddamn it.

"It took me a really long time to figure out what we needed, but I figured it out! Since the SOS Brigade is a club, it only makes sense that we need new members, right?"

I blinked at him. Like anyone would want to join this who-knows-what-we-do-as-a-club club.

"Come in!" he shouted and I turned my head toward the open doorway.

A shaggy brown-haired boy stood there looking slightly flustered yet at the same time, he seemed rather at ease.

"Welcome our newest member, Denzel Eames! He's a first year!"

"Hiya," he greeted with a wave before stepping in.

The hell? Sora found a new member? But didn't he find all the special people that he wanted to find already? I mean, there are Naminé, Kairi, and Riku. Why did he need another member? Is he a replacement for me or something? Was something bad going to happen to one of the other three that prompted this replacement?

While the questions sped past my feeble brain like a long chain of bullet train cars, I looked from Naminé to Riku to Kairi. Surprisingly, the tension in each one of them seemed to have dissipated completely. Naminé was back to reading her book. Riku's smirk was back. And Kairi smiled happily at the newcomer.

"Welcome to the club," said Riku.

"Did you want coffee?" asked Kairi.

"Ah, sure," the teen had said. Strangely, a blush had appeared on his face.

Hmm, it would seem that our newest member is shy around girls. I shall have to exploit that in the future.

Yeah right. I'm not as vindictive as Sora. Exploiting the weaknesses of my foes… I don't even know if this Denzel Eames would be one of my foes. If so, what would we fight over?

Enough of this irritating train of thought.

I watched as Denzel took a seat across from Kairi's usual seat and looked about him.

"Do you know what we do in here?" I asked with a slight frown.

"Nope," the boy replied easily. "It's a nice clubroom though," he added, as if it was an afterthought. Maybe we have another Riku on our hands.

"And you have no qualms with not knowing what we do?"

"Not really. I hadn't exactly planned on joining a club when I started high school. But at Sora's insistence, I came to check this out. I must say that having another place to go to before I go home is actually pretty nice."

I think my eyebrows twitched at that. This guy's starting to sound like a combination of me and Riku. That's a scary thought.

"Everyone play nice now!" exclaimed Sora as he grinned widely while sitting in the swivel chair.

I could only frown at the sight of that and accept the change as he had made it so.


That first week with Denzel was strangely dull. Personally, I had actually expected him to approach me fairly soon after his induction into the SOS Brigade and tell me that he was a special person with special powers and that Sora is the one who made it that way. The lack of a private meeting between the two of us makes me rather uneasy around the first year. I hope that my original belief that he was a replacement for me wasn't actually true.

Needless to say, I breathed a huge sigh of relief—metaphorically of course—on that Friday a week after Denzel Eames's joining of the SOS Brigade.

As we got ready to go home—Denzel had long since realized that whenever Naminé is done reading, that meant that the day in the clubroom was over, Sora, as usual, bounded out first whistling yet another tune of happiness.

Denzel left the room next, followed by the rest. I had taken my sweet time packing up my stuff. Truth be told, I didn't want to stop playing my game. I was almost at the end again. But, alas, it would make no sense to stay behind when my coffee was gone and the snacks that I had brought with me long since devoured by me and everyone else, namely Sora.

I slung my bookbag over my shoulder and pulled out a copy of the room key that Sora gave me after that incident last spring. He didn't want to wait around for me again.

Fine, play with my feelings, why don't you!

But that's beside the point.

After I locked up, I was surprised to see Denzel leaning against the wall next to the closed clubroom door. He had a knowing smile on his face.

"I thought you went home already," I commented.

"You were expecting this," he replied.

"Maybe," I answered.

"I trust that it's because you already know the nature of the other three?" he inquired. We began our way down the hallway toward the staircase.

"I've known for a year now. To be honest, I hadn't expected you to take this long to set up this meeting."

"Had to clear it with the higher ups, you know how it is."

"Yeah," I said mindlessly. It was the same with the other three as well. "So are you going to explain what you are before you show me proof of your word or what?"

"I thought it'd be best to just show you," he grinned.

"Okay…" I raised an eyebrow in question.

"Follow me," he said with a grin.

The two of us made our way through the locker building and out of the school campus. At the bottom of the hill, we turned toward the Dark Depths. To be quite honest, I've never actually really been to the Dark Depths. I know that it's one of the grandest natural sites of Radiant Garden… but the fact that it's called the Dark Depths isn't all that appealing to me.

Still, I hear that hundreds of people visit the place every weekend.

We passed through the ticket booth; the ticket taker simply waved us thru. I raised an eyebrow at that.

"We don't have to pay?" I inquired.

"He's one of my colleagues," the teen answered.

"So you're not the only one of your… 'kind' here?" I struggled to get the right words out.

The shorter teen laughed. "Just like Naminé, Kairi, and Riku, I've been charged with an assignment to observe Sora Kazano. I hadn't expected him to find me just like that. It's no mere coincidence, you know."

"I've heard that plenty of times, thanks," I muttered.

The teen simply laughed.

We passed through the Crystal Fissure and entered the large canyon aptly named the Great Maw. Around us, several tourists were taking snapshots of the distant ruins on one side while on the other stood the great metropolis of Radiant Garden. But we didn't stop there.

Eventually, Denzel took me to the cliff that overlooked the majority of the Dark Depths with the ruins of an industrial castle in clear view. I scrunched my face in slight distaste. That ruined castle had been built on the ruins of an ancient temple. You could barely see the walls of the crumpled temple, but we know that it's there.

While I glared at the industrial castle, Denzel had walked towards the edge of the cliff and pulled out a switchblade.

In alarm, I looked around and noticed that there was not a single soul around us. Panic began to set in.

I must've squeaked or something, because the shaggy brown-haired first year turned around to look at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you one of those radical Data Integrated Thought Entities?" I blurted. "Were you sent to kill me too?"

Denzel blinked at me. He obviously had no idea what I was talking about. With a smile, he replied, "If you think I'm similar to Naminé, you're wrong. I'm no interface."

"Then why do you have a knife in your hand?"

He looked at the switchblade in his hand. "Oh. Sorry if it bothers you, but I need this to show you where I come from."

"Where you come from?" Panic has left my brain… for now.

"Yeah. I'm not from this dimension," he grinned before turning around once again. He raised the blade up before cutting straight down in front of him. Strangely enough, the blade didn't just pass through air. Instead, a ripping sound could be heard, as if the blade was cutting through coarse fabric. I stared in shock to see a cut made in the air in front of Denzel.

The newest SOS Brigade member pocketed the knife and pulled at the seams to make it larger until the bottom of the seam hit the ground where we stood on.

"There we go," he said cheerfully. "Let's get going, shall we?"

He gestured for me to go through first. I glared at him like he was insane.

"It's perfectly safe, I assure you," he said.

I exhaled loudly and gulped.

Stepping through that seam was rather disturbing, since the place that you end up in has no sky, no ground, just a swirl of colors, numbers, and clouds?

Denzel followed me in shortly and he bent down to "zip" up the seam that he had just made.

"Where are we?" I asked. This area strangely reminds me of data and I was skeptical about the fact that Denzel wasn't actually an interface.

"We call this place 'Between and Betwixt'," the teen answered. "It is the area that connects to the different dimensions."

"So you're a dimensional traveler."

"We prefer the term 'sliders'," he replied before setting off in a specific direction.

"O…kay," I replied lamely.

"If you're from another dimension, how did you know to come to my dimension?"

"Sora Kazano gave us the knowledge. Surely you would know this."

"Enlighten me," I said dully. And here it comes, the all-important "three years ago".

"Four years ago," he started.

Oh right, I'm a second year now. So technically it is four years ago now, huh.

"I found out that I could traverse through parallel dimensions by means of this blade." He patted his pocket for emphasis.

"And of course, you somehow knew that Sora Kazano was the one who gave you the powers."

"Exactly." We had stopped in front of a nondescript area of the strange place. "Using the powers that Sora gave me, I departed from my own dimension to your own. In the process of course, I met several sliders from other dimensions as well. They were all in your dimension to find Sora Kazano."

He had pulled out his special switchblade and cut another seam in the fabric of space?

"I'm assuming we're going to your dimension?"

"Yup," he replied with a grin. Once again, he separated the seams further until the end of one seam was at level with our own feet. Quashing another surge of uncertainty, I stepped through the seam…

And ended up in a world that looked strangely like my own.

"You had been searching for a world that didn't look like your own, right?" laughed Denzel as he noticed my look of astonishment.

"Well, yeah."

"And here I thought that having been in Sora's Closed space would've taught you otherwise," he grinned.

"And you would know this, because?" I inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Riku told me."

The hell?

"Why?"

"He recognized who I am that first day I met you guys," he replied nonchalantly before leading me away from the cliff edge where we had arrived at.

"How?" I was ever more confused by this change of events.

"He, like me, is a dimension traveler."

"What!?" I stopped for a moment, which made the younger teen stop as well. He huffed in annoyance, which reminded me oddly of Sora, and shook his head at me.

"Is this twenty questions?" he asked me with a raised eyebrow before laughing. "Joking aside, did you honestly not remember the detail that Closed space is just a separate dimension made by Sora? Or did Riku fail to mention that to you?"

Oh… right… That entire spiel about the Anthropic Principle or whatever the hell it was.

"Oh," I could only reply lamely.

"In any case, that's the only similarities the two of us have. He is limited in which dimensions he can go to, namely Closed space, while I'm free to go to any dimension that I want to as long as I know of them."

"So how many parallel dimensions are there?" I decided to ask.

"Four."

"Only?"

"Sora got the idea in middle school that the regular definition of the 'dimensions' in geometric terms should not be limited to mathematics. So, with the manifestations of his powers, his subconscious consequently created four parallel dimensions. Closed space is an exception. So technically you could say that there are 4.5 dimensions."

We passed through what should have been a ticket booth and ended up at the bottom of the hill at Radiant Garden High School. Well, not my high school.

"Each dimension is similar in the sense that they have basically the exact layout, landscape, and structure of the world. The technology's similar and in essence, all general knowledge is the same. What differs between each dimension is that there are no two persons from different dimensions that look the same."

"So…"

"In other words, there is no one who is your 'equivalent' in this dimension."

"So I don't actually have an alter-ego here then?"

"Nope. Just like there's not an alternate Denzel in your dimension. In essence, the dimensions are there to support more life than possible on a given world. So if you want to be correct, there are approximately 25 billion people who live on Earth, both ordinary humans, humans like myself, and interfaces like Naminé."

"Are there interfaces in this dimension?"

"No," replied the teen simply. "But there are more people like me and Riku in this dimension."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

We had stopped in front of a strangely familiar house.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, noticing for the first time why it looked so familiar. Although the sign was now "Eames" rather than "Uchiyama", there was no doubt that this is the same exact house as my own back in my own dimension.

"This is my house in this dimension. It should look familiar to you, no?"

"It's my house!"

"In this world, it's the Eames residence," smiled Denzel. "Come on, I want you to meet my family. They know all about you."

"What are you, some kind of stalker?" I glared at him.

"It's our job to keep tabs on people near Sora," he replied mysteriously.

We walked up the steps to the front door and Denzel opened the door with a set of keys that strangely enough, looked nothing like my own set. I surmise that I couldn't expect the locks to actually be the same.

"I'm home!" announced Denzel as he stepped into the threshold of the house. "And Roxas is here!"

A squeal echoed through the house and I was suddenly tackled by a little girl who apparently was Denzel's little sister.

"Yay, Roxas is here!" she cheered as she hugged me tightly. The feeling of a little girl latching on to you like a leech is an interesting experience. Of course, it's not one that I'd like to have again when the said-girl started rubbed her face against my shirt like a kitten.

"Marlene!" exclaimed the first year teen, aghast at the behavior of his little sister.

The owner of the name, of course, paid no heed to him. Hmm, this is strangely like Sora and me.

"Marlene," a deep voice came as the head of the household came into view followed by his wife. Both of them had a smile on their face and appeared just as excited to meet me as Marlene. "Let the guy go, he's staying for dinner, after all."

"Yippee!" cheered the brown-haired girl before she rushed off toward the living room. Her parents simply shook their heads in amusement.

"Roxas, this is my dad and my mom," said Denzel. "And the twerp that you just met is my sister, Marlene."

"I'm not a twerp!" came Marlene's voice.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last," said Mr. Eames as he shook my hand firmly.

"Pleased to meet you too," I replied.

"Dinner will be ready shortly, Denzel. Did you want to show him more before dinner?"

"Yeah," said Denzel. "We'll be in my room."

"Of course, dear," said Mrs. Eames happily. She reminds me oddly of my own mother.

We made our way upstairs and into his room, which coincidentally was my room. There was a huge difference, of course. Where my room is painted in a warm golden color with a shelf of containers full of stuff, his was painted in a calming light blue color with a shelf full of books. But otherwise, the layout was eerily similar.

"Are you sure you're not my alternative self in this world?"

"What do you think?" he replied.

I shrugged. "I doubt I act like you."

"Then that's that," he replied simply before throwing his bookbag onto the motorcycle-themed comforter.

"What did you want to show me?" I asked as he gestured for me to sit down on his bed.

"This," he said, booting up his desktop computer.

"It looks like an ordinary computer," I said.

"We developed this interdimensional communications network through Between and Betwixt. The data numbers that you saw in that place were manifestation of our communications."

"So are all sliders like yourself from the other dimensions besides the one I live on?"

"No. There are a few of us who are from your dimension. They ended up being my superiors due to their proximity to Sora Kazano."

"I see." The both of us remained silent for a few seconds as the computer finished booting up.

"So why are you telling me all this? You, out of everyone, have shown me the most about themselves."

Denzel gave a snort and I stared at him suspiciously. "Well, Riku's basically shown you everything you need to know about his abilities. As you could obviously see, his job is very straightforward. Naminé can't show you everything she knows because it's impossible to explain what she knows if one lifetime. Kairi, of course, can't tell you everything or the future would be jeopardized and two versions of one time period would result. You've experienced such a parallel timeline before."

Ah yes, that fateful week where Naminé had changed everything.

"As for me, there are many aspects to my job that I can explain to you fairly fast. For example, this." He pulled up a program that began to show a series of strange graphics on the screen.

"What is it?"

"This is a program we use to simulate the existence of the different dimensions. Each one of sliders would input details about their dimensions into the program and we would look at the details and see if there are coinciding events and whatnot."

"Coincidences?"

"Some might be coincidences, others might mean that the dimensions are merging. My organization essentially is working to keep the dimensions separate. If the dimensions coincided and become one, it would be the death of humanity as we know it."

"Sounds like Riku and the Closed space," I muttered.

"There are many versions of Armageddon. Ours is just yet another version. Riku's would be Closed space replacing your dimension, though the other dimensions might not be affected at all. Kairi's would obviously be the complete breakdown of the time frames and Naminé's would be, well, the end of the universe where no intelligent life exists."

"You seem to know a lot about everyone."

"Well, when you've spent the past four years communicating with others in this dimension who essentially share the same ideals as those three, it's easy to speculate."

Oh, I see. Wait a minute…

"Does that mean people in this dimension believe that there are aliens, time travelers, and psychics in the world?"

"More or less. The United Nations of this world differs from yours in that we have a committee dedicated to alien diplomacy and making sure that the countries of this world don't mistreat the aliens like a lesser race."

"I see."

I wonder what would happen if Sora decided to pop up in this place. I'll bet he'd love it.

"Denzel, Roxas! Dinner's ready!" came the voice of Denzel's mom.

"Any questions?" he asked as he closed the program.

"Yeah. Can you link my computer to this interdimensional network of yours?"

"Sorry. The network is strictly for slider access only." He smiled at me.

Dammit!


Dinner was pleasant to be sure. Marlene, as it turned out, wasn't as bad as she originally was when I first met her. She was just a very touchy-feely kind of girl who is curious beyond a fault.

Denzel's parents made small talk with me and I got to know them better. Strangely enough, Denzel's dad was also a slider while his mom was a psychic. Marlene was the only "normal" one out of them.

Guess that explains why she's insanely curious. Or maybe that's why she latched onto me since I'm the only other "normal" one at the dinner table.

In any case, dinner came to an end rather fast and I bid my farewells to the Eames before Denzel escorted me back to the Dark Depths.

"So there are a lot more people here with special powers huh," I commented.

"We believe that at least half of the population on this dimension's Earth has special powers. Most of the powers are different from what you'd expect in your world though."

"I see."

We stepped into Between and Betwixt once again before passing out into my own dimension.

"How do you know that this is my dimension?" I asked once we stepped out of the interdimensional highway of sorts.

"We just know," he replied. "It's just something Sora provided to us when he made us."

"As everyone else said," I said.

Denzel laughed at that comment. "It can't be helped. You're stuck in a group of people who sincerely believe Sora's our creator. You should accept that fact."

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I have to like it," I retorted.

"True." We had exited through the now-empty gate leading into the Dark Depths. "This is where I leave you."

"I'll see you tomorrow then," I said before continuing on my merry way.

"Later."

So Sora's motley crew is now complete. I guess I should prepare myself for another long year…

Dammit.


Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and Haruhi Suzumiya do not belong to me. This piece of work is purely fictional and free to readers. That doesn't give anyone the right to post this on a separate website without my permission though.

A/N: So I had a dilemma in the beginning of this chapter when I was deciding who I introduce next. But, I had already decided who would be who for most of the Kingdom Hearts characters. And since the dimensional traveler hasn't been introduced in Haruhi Suzumiya (probably never will be), I hadn't thought to assign the role to someone. In the end, I decided on Denzel (who is very much non-canon…) over "canon" KH characters (Rai, Fuu, and Vivi came to mind) because he's the one who most likely would be seen associated with the SOS Brigade members and also would be seen as younger than the rest of the others.

Also, props to whoever can figure out where I came up with Denzel's last name.