Tales of the Wanderer: Heart of Chaos

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or Kingdom Hearts. Pretty soon, I will be telling you that I don't own any other things. You'll find out what I mean later on, if you're still here by then.

Enter: Kairi, the Princess!

Kairi

What's that?

Is that your name?

It sounds pretty to me.

I feel at peace when I see your name

On that note you gave me.

Kairi

What's that on your head?

Your long, red hair?

It smells nice.

I knew a girl with red hair.

She was terrible.

But you're a cute angel

Kairi

You seem sad?

What's wrong with you?

Is there someone hurting you?

Do you love someone close to your heart?

If you do, he's very lucky.

You are sweet.

Kairi

I can't help but feel I've seen you before

like in a distant dream about a witch.

But you couldn't be a bit like that

blond witch of death

...

could you?

The Dark Realm, Present Day

"You have many parchments like this?"

"Quite a few, I'm afraid."

The Wanderer took the ancient parchment in his hand and carefully held it in his left hand, while waving his Pencil with his other hand, before finally putting the paper safely in his vest pocket after folding it.

"Very interesting." He started pacing around the campfire. "And when did you write this poem?"

"It was long after I left the island. I felt very strongly about this girl, Wanderer…"

This caused him to glance over in Yugi's direction. "Strongly?"

Yugi blushed, realizing what he had just implied. "Not in the way you think, sir. It's…complicated."

The bandaged man fell back into the ground and let out a sigh. "Complicated how?"

Yugi got up and looked up in the sky. "She was the first person I saw when I woke up after a deep sleep…"

Yugi's POV

I was lost. I didn't know what was going on, what was happening to me. All I knew was that I had to escape this rift I had gotten into, by any means necessary.

This next part is nearly impossible to define in logical terms, but that was normal for me…

I found myself on top of a strange tower in the middle of nowhere. All I could see around me was a black sky, the only sources of light being the stars. I was starting get scared. This was pretty creepy, alone in a place like this, with no indication as to where I was. It felt like a dream.

No, that wasn't right. That wasn't the word I was thinking of. I was going to say…an illusion.

Yes, that's right. An illusion. A gimmick. A trick. It had to make sense. It had to. What else could this be?

Suddenly, I heard a strange whooshing noise in the distance. I looked around to see what the source of it was. Behind me, nothing. In front of me, also nothing. What could it be?

And then I saw it. It was hurtling towards me at the speed of a silver bullet. Only this was much bigger and therefore, more deadly than a hundred silver bullets.

As I shielded my eyes and tried to protect myself, the object finally landed, and emitted another powerful light so strong that it nearly burnt my eyelids off.

After the light subsided, I opened my eyes. There, stuck in the ground in front of me, was a key-shaped sword with a mouse-shaped keychain attached to a golden hilt. I was struck in awe. Never had I seen a weapon so magnificent or so beautiful since…the Millennium Puzzle.

I just hoped that this incredible artifact didn't have any life-changing strings attached to it.

I hesitated for a moment, then decided to work my way towards the weapon, my feet literally glued to the ground. With great difficulty, I managed to drag my left foot towards the key weapon. Then my my left. Then my right. And so on, I slowly moved my body towards a weapon I had never seen in my entire life. My hands started to sweat and tremble, while my legs began to shake under the pressure. What if this was a trap, I thought. What if this is Namine's doing?

Where was she anyway? Did that attack kill her or something? Something in me doubted it. If she was dead, then he probably wouldn't be here in the first place.

Just as my hand had reached the hilt of the weapon –

"Help me, Yugi!" The voice of a young boy called out to me

I flinched, and without thinking, I grabbed the weapon with both of my hands and spun it behind my back before turning around and taking a battle position, with the key-sword in front of me. "Who's there? I'll kill you!"

But there was no one. I got even angrier. "Show yourself!" I held the weapon even tighter and started swinging it around blindly, knowing nothing was there. But you could never be too careful.

"Yugi…help, me please!" The voice now seemed worried, not threatening at all.

Slowly, I began to calm down. I dropped the blade to the ground, when it suddenly vanished with a burst of light.

"Huh?" I exclaimed. "Where'd it go?" I was puzzled. "What the heck is going on?"

"Look at the image underneath you. And you will begin to understand."

Listening to the Voice, I did what he said, and nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

The entire floor was painted with an image of me, in a Christ-like pose against a circle of bright white. I was wearing almost no clothes, save for a white loincloth, and my face looked dead, what with my eyes closed and my mouth hanging out. What really got my attention were the circles surrounding my body parts. A circle-like image of a white haired boy was next to my left arm, and a red-haired girl was next to my right arm. A brown-haired boy's picture was right above my head. Jaden's face was next to my left leg, and Sarah's image was next to my left leg. But the most shocking image was the same one I was standing on. It was on my heart. And the place where my heart should have been was gone, instead replaced with an image of another boy, this one a light blonde child.

I kneeled down to the boy's face and felt the glass where his hair was. "Why? Who are all these people? Is this one you?"

"It was. " Then I saw it. It was a shining orb with no body, glowing bright yellow. "Something terrible-"

Just then, before he could finish, the tower and the surrounding began to be consumed in light-

Destiny Islands

"Wake up, mister! You have to get up!"

"GYAHHH!" I woke up with a start. Panting, I put a hand to my sweat-soaked forehead. It was all just a dream, I guessed to myself. What a relief. I guess there was nothing to worry about.

And then I saw her.

"Hi there!" A young girl of about about fifteen or sixteen beamed brightly at me, her lips so full of life. I couldn't help but smile back. "Hey," I managed to utter weakly.

The girl brushed a hand through my tri-colored hair and blew some hair out of her face. "You've been out for a while, so we decided to take care of you."

Puzzled, I tried to put a hand to my forehead, but she grabbed it beforehand. "Don't. You don't wanna waste your strength now."

I agreed. "So who's this 'we' you're talking about?"

The girl got up from her chair and started to leave. I panicked; she was the first normal person that I had met in a long time. I didn't even know her name, for crying out loud. "Wait," I started to call out.

But it was too late. She was gone.

I sighed. So it was too good to be true. I was never gonna get happy, was I? Everyone hated me anyway, so what was the point of living on? This girl didn't care about me; she was just trying to be a good person and help. Otherwise, why would she bother for a freak like me? Who was I to anyone?

Maybe it was better if I didn't exist.

I started to examine the room around me. There was relatively nothing of importance; I was just in a straw hut with a single bed and a chair. Except for one picture above the doorway. I closely examined it after walking closer to it. It was a picture of three kids playing in the sand with wooden swords, and they were so…so…damn happy.

Why couldn't I be like that?

But something about those kids seemed familiar. Just when I was about to point out what it was…

"Hey, stranger." The familiar girl was standing in the doorway, holding a strange charm in her hand. "Hope I didn't leave you here too long."

As mad as I was for her leaving abruptly, she was a nice girl who didn't deserve to have her heart broken. So I brushed it off by saying, "It's okay. It's not your fault. What did you leave for, if I could ask?"

She giggled when I said this.

"What's so funny?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. It's just what you said earlier. If you could ask me what I left for."

I didn't get it. "What's so funny about that?"

The girl held the object to her heart. "Everyone can ask questions. We're all allowed to ask questions to something we don't know. It's whether we want to ask them that makes all the difference."

I walked closer to where she was standing. "And your point being?"

"It's simple. For instance, when you asked where you were, it's like you really wanted to know where you were."

"Well, yeah. I really did want to know where I was. How can I do what I wanna do if I don't know where I am?"

"Well, why do you need to know where you are to know that?"

"Because if I know where I am, then I'll know something that I didn't already know, and that will give me the confidence to set out to take care of the matter that I couldn't do before."

The girl winked. "Exactly. You wanted to ask one question get on the path of answering another question. That's what makes us so great. It's because we're always asking questions that we're able to get things done. Because we do so much to try and answer some questions, but actually answer questions that we didn't think were possible of conjuring."

About three sweat drops fell from my head. This girl is getting me lost. "You're very smart for a teenager, aren't you. I was like you when I was a kid and even I didn't know this much." I chuckled.

She smiled again. There it was again. That beautiful smile. It just seemed to make my heart melt.

"Well," she began, "I did read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was 7."

That made me jump in surprise. "What is it?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

"Er, nothing." I regained my composure and coughed, to clear my throat. "It's just…that's a really young age to read a book like that. It had a lot of adult themes like drugs and sex and, well…"

"What? 7 isn't a good age to learn all of that?"

I nodded. "That you're thinking of those things isn't good when you're a child. Childhood is supposed to be a happy time, when you don't have a care in the world. When you're….infinite."

For the first time, I saw her face grow sad with worry. "Yeah," she reassured. "Infinite. " But the tone in her voice sounded more worried that reassuring. She looked down at her shoes and sighed.

I then did a very bold move. I took my hand and held hers, feeling her warm fingers trembling in mine. I took my free hand and lifted up her head, so that her eyes were making contact with mine. "Did…did you have a bad childhood?"

She shook her head. "Well-"

But she could go no further. For then she heard a young, chipper voice calling out to her.

"Hey, Kairi! Come on! Bring your friend with you! We've got everything set up now!"

"Right there, poochkins!" She yelled, blowing a kiss in the direction of the yell. "Come, on, stranger!" She ran out of the tent and was about to leave when I said, "Kairi!"

She turned her head back. "Yeah?"

"So that's your name, huh?" She nodded in response.

"Uh-huh! And what's yours?" She smiled sweetly.

"Yugi. Yugi Muto." I responded. I smiled back at her to match her beaming face.

And with that, I ran out of the tent, and we were running together, towards the voice that had called us to somewhere new, where I could get my answers at last.