Tales of the Wanderer: Heart of Chaos
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or Kingdom Hearts. If I did, they would come together and make millions of dollars. Too bad…
A Hero's Beginning
Long ago, the world was united and filled with warm light.
People loved the light, and eventually began fighting over it.
Then, Darkness found its way into people's hearts.
Darkness consumed the hearts and light of the people,
and in a flash it spread...
The world disappeared into the darkness.
But a glimmer of light remained in the hearts of children...
Children gathered their glimmers of light and recreated the worlds.
The recreated world, however, was no longer united...
It was divided into several smaller worlds.
Because the true light was still hidden deep within the darkness...
"Yugi, this isn't a poem." The Wanderer put the poem in his notebook by turning it into Essence,and then turned back to Yugi, hoping to get an answer.
Yugi nodded in agreement. "Yes, and no. It is poetry because it's about life…Our lives."
The Wanderer raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"This is not just a piece of poetry or just a fairy tale. This is real…"
Yugi held up his half-eaten sandwich and showed it to the bandaged man, the latter looking away with disgust."Geez, Yugi! I give you food and expect you to eat it, not shove it in my face!"
"But I'm only trying to illustrate my point. See the sandwich closely." He pointed at his stomach. "It's no longer whole; part of it is now in my stomach. So the sandwich isn't really gone; part of it lives in me, while the other still remains complete. It's just like the worlds; they were one, but became separate smaller worlds because of the darkness. But like the sandwich will one day become whole," Yugi said, eating the remaining half of the sandwich, "so will the worlds, because the true light remains as the connection between them. People just have to let go like the darkness."
The Wanderer smirked. "Well, what connects the two sandwich halves?"
"Hunger. Desire. That is what."
Destiny Islands, One year ago
I was in a library on the far side of the island, sitting on one of the bamboo-constructed chairs in front of a wooden bookcase holding entire collections of Star Trek books and magazines.
And then he walked in.
Sora.
I knew who he was because Kairi had told me earlier. He was her boyfriend, and also an extremely powerful fighter. She said that he could have the answers I was looking for, and that he could even figure out how to get me home. I hoped to God that she was right.
The boy in front of me was dressed in a entirely black outfit, consisting of a baggy black and silver shirt, shorts, and had many zippers and leggings. He wore a crown necklace, and his shoes were big and colored yellow and black. He wore black gloves with yellow lining, and right now, he was carrying a tote bag over his right shoulder. After setting the bag on the table nearest to me, he walked over to the bookcase where I was sitting next to, and pulled up a chair, before proceeding to sit down.
"Hey there. Yugi, right?" He held out his hand. Reluctantly, I accepted it and we shook hands.
"Now that's better. In case you wanted to know, I'm Sora." He smiled.
Now that was reassuring. I felt a little less angry and a little more happier now. A little.
I faintly returned the gesture. "I know; Kairi told me about you."
"Did she now?" Sora got up and started flexing his muscles. "She probably told you how strong and flexible I was!"
I laughed wholeheartedly. "Well, she does think you're strong, but not in the sense you think."
Sora blushed a bright red and stopped flexing. "Er…okay." Uncomfortable, he sat back down. After regaining his happy composure, he proceeded to ask, "So why are you here?"
I put a hand to my forehead. I was afraid he would ask me that. "It's just that…Forget it."
But now he was curious. "What? Forget what?"
"Nothing; I don't wanna talk about it. You may not like it…" The last thing I wanted to do was tell a complete stranger my life story. I didn't know at that point if I could trust anyone again.
Not again. No, not again. Not completely again. Perhaps not ever again.
But Sora didn't give up. Not him. He held my hand and pressured me to continue. "Come on…you can trust me."
A tear began to fall down my cheek. "How?"
"You're Kairi's friend, right? And I'm her boyfriend. That means you and I are connected." Sora held his other hand close to his heart. "I trust Kairi with all my heart, and because she had opened her heart to you, I can trust you as well. Because I trust Kairi so much, that's why I'll never doubt her judgment."
I was amazed at how this young boy was capable of so much trust and love. How could he possibly know any of those things at this age? Maybe it was those qualities that made him special. Many months later, I would grow to adore and love Sora maybe as much as Kairi did. That boy was truly special, in so many ways. If only I had realized it at the time, I would have appreciated him a lot more…
If only I had…
I then proceeded to start my hunt for answers. First question: "Where am I?"
Sora nodded. "I think we've held that back from you for long enough. You're not on your world anymore. You're on the island world of Destiny Islands."
My eyes began to widen with fear and astonishment. "W…what?"
"I was making out with Kairi when it happened." He then began to describe the incident with the burst of light that suddenly crashed on their home. "We were very scared, Kairi especially. So we ran over to see what happened. When we got to the site of the crash, we found you."
"You were all bloody and cut up, your entire body was charred and charged with lightning, and your clothes were burned pretty badly. That's why we got some new clothes for you."
He pointed to the long, white buttoned shirt and silk white pants that I was now wearing. It was true, apparently. I must have forgotten to mention that my original clothing was burnt beyond restoration. Suddenly, I thought of something else. "My cards! What happened to my cards?"
Sora looked down at the ground. And then I knew. "They didn't make it; did they?" Even though I already knew the answer.
Slowly, Sora reached in his coat pocket and pulled out ten cards. "These were the only ones that could be saved. I'm sorry, Yugi." With that, he fanned out the cards in his hand for Yugi to see. They were Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, Valkerion the Magna Warrior, the three Magnet Warriors, the 3 Egyptian God Cards, and Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. The card that had started this whole madness. Then he put them back in his pocket.
I started to cry miserably. I had lost everything. Nothing of my old life was left anymore. First my friends, and then the Pharoah, and now my cards. I had never felt so alone in my entire life. What was the point anymore?
"I think I know why're you're here." As if to answer my question, Sora held up his hand, and did something that I will never forget. At once, a key-shaped weapon appeared in his hand, with a mouse-shaped silver key chain. "You're here for this, aren't you?"
No, it's not possible! That was the weapon in my dream! I started to panic, and once I saw the weapon in his hand, I screamed as loudly as I could, falling out of my chair as a result.
This upset Sora very much. "What is it?" He started with a worried expression, walking over to me…
"STOP! Get away!" I pushed Sora to the ground with all my strength and started to run for the library doors.
All of a sudden, I was thrown smack dab into the wall next to the door.
THUD!
The right side to my face collided with the bamboo wall, and my body hung limply next to the obscure wall. And all this time, I was wondering what was keeping my body stuck to the wall.
"It's the Keyblade, you fool! I threw the Keyblade at your shirt, and it's keeping you against the wall right now." And when I looked down, he was right. The weapon was next to my stomach, holding my shirt to the wall.
I started trembling in fear over the predicament my paranoia had gotten me into. "What's the…Keyblade?"
That was when the storytelling began. He told me that the Keyblade was a powerful weapon that could only be held by chosen wielders, and was capable of tremendous powers. You see, the worlds were at conflict because of the darkness, and those with the Keyblades had the power to travel around the worlds and save the victims from their troubles, effectively keeping the worlds at balance. Moving on, he spoke of the powers it had; for one, it could allow the user to break the barriers that prevented most people from travelling from one world to another, which protected the worlds from coming together, in order to preserve the natural order of things. Only someone with a strong heart that contained little darkness could be a true wielder, and if one chosen to wield the weapon lost their hearts to darkness, the Keyblade was passed on to the next strongest heart with less darkness.
He then proceeded to tell me his story, of how he lost his home to darkness because of his friend Riku, who was supposed to wield the Keyblade instead of Sora. However, he lost his heart to darkness, and so the Keyblade was passed on to Sora. Then Destiny Islands was consumed by darkness, and he was sent to Traverse Town, where he met Donald and Goofy, good friends who would aid him in his quest to find his friends and inadvertently save the worlds in the process.
"So you see, there are a few things here that aren't the same as what you're used to." Sora continued, pacing around the table as he spoke.
"Like what?"
"Well, for instance, a heart isn't a physical organ, like they teach you in biology. No, a heart is more like a ball of red energy that has special powers. And when it leaves the body…."
I was intrigued by this new revelation. "What? What happens?"
Sora brushed it off. "Well…forget it. You'd think it was stupid."
At this point in my life, it was impossible for me to consider anything was farfetched. "Try me."
The brown-haired boy continued. "When a heart leaves the body, it succumbs to darkness and becomes a being without a heart; a Heartless."
I couldn't help but laugh at this obvious pun. "I see your point."
Sora nodded in agreement. "Their sole purpose in life is to collect hearts, eventually reaching the hearts of worlds. Because they must."
I could tell this was not good. Worried, I put a hand to my forehead and sat down on the ground. "That's remarkable! Beings who steal hearts? And you've seen them?"
Sora turned around and looked blankly in front of him. "Yeah, we have a history, what with me being the Keyblade Master and all?"
Whistling in amazement, I told him, "Wow…"
This caused Sora to get all riled up. "The Keyblade Master. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well it's NOT!" His voice sharply rose and became less calm and cheerful and more aggressive and pained. "I've had to travel for a long time to other worlds in order to free them of the Heartless, as well as solving all those personal problems. Quite recently, I had to save the worlds from a cloaked group called Organization XIII!"
"Who are they?"
"A group of Nobodies – that is, the body and soul left behind after a person loses their heart to darkness- who wanted to destroy a lot of people to get hearts again. Except for their leader. He was just power crazy."
Thinking about Marik, Bakura, Zorc, and Kaiba before the Pharoah freed him, the following statement slipped out of my mind. "I know what you mean dude."
This was followed by a strike to the face by the Keyblade. "SHUT UP! How could you know what it's like to save toe world, always trying to solve other people's problems, while never always solving your own? How could you know the pain of losing your loved ones and trying to find them, not knowing how they were or what they were doing now? How could you know what any of that feels like, Yugi? You've never had to see your home blown away and watch everything you knew and loved be snatched away! You've never had to sleep for a year and wake up to find that everyone was still suffering, not knowing why you were sleeping or what caused it to happen? You don't know what it's like to turn your back on the world when they needed you, whether it was intentional or not! So how could you know what a hero really feels, Yugi?"
"BECAUSE I DO!"
Sora was taken aback at this outburst. My hair now overshadowed my eyes, and my voice became just as angry and malicious as his voice had been earlier. "I know exactly what a hero has to go through because I WAS A HERO, SORA! I WAS ONE!"
And then it spilled out. All of it. I told him of my adventures on Earth, about the Millennium Items and the Pharoah, starting from Duelist Kingdom and going on to Battle City, The Lost City of Atlantis and Orichalcos, The Grand Championship, and of the final battle with Zorc and the Ceremonial Duel. I told him all the losses I had endured, from Tristan's death to grandpa's death, and the loss of all my friends. Everything that had happened to me since my Pharoah had left. Just when I was about to tell him of my encounters with Namine and my daughter's apparent kidnapping –
"Sora!" It was Riku, the friend that Sora had told me about, the one who lost his heart to darkness but became good again. "It's them. They're coming."
Sora nodded. "I'll finish soon. Yugi, come on!" With that, he ran out of the library and into the sand. I followed him out of the library. "Wait," I called out, trying so hard to keep up with the young and more agile child. "Where are we going?"
Sora did not answer, and merely kept I complied and ran a little faster, in the hopes that my questions would be answered….
About 10 minutes later
Eventually, we were led to a strange place on the island. There was no sand here; all that could be seen for miles was just grass and rocks. There were giant pillars of rocks every square mile, and we were standing in a circle built in rock that was about 2 miles long. In the middle of the circle, there was a single card face down inside a smaller rock circle that was yellow.
As I looked in amazement at the card, Sora thumped in the head. "What are you waiting for, idiot? Pick it up!"
Surprised and baffled, I slowly reached down to pick up the card. "Now, don't look at it. Put it in your Duel Disk."
I put the card in my now empty Duel Disk, which had magically appeared on my arm, and turned the Duel Disk on. "Exactly what is this about?"
"I know how to get you a deck. We have Duel Monsters in our world as well." Sora's Duel Disk appeared on his arm, which already had his deck loaded up. "Now, there's a special power in our world that allows us to create our own decks in a special Pickup Duel…"
"What's a Pickup Duel."
Sora closed his eyes and began to speak. "Long ago, the first inhabitant of this island had a Duel Monsters deck and no one else to talk to. He had special powers that enabled him to speak to Duel Spirits, and when he died, his Duel Energy resided in this place, allowing the powers, magic and monsters of the Monster World a portal from which to enter our world. From now on, if someone wants to create their own Deck to start off dueling…."
He pointed at the yellow circle in the ground. "They have to create their cards with the energy inside their hearts!"
I had dueled for over 10 years, and I had never heard anything like this. "What?"
"You'll figure out in a few minutes. So let's duel!"
Sora: 8000
Yugi: 8000
As their Duel Disks activated, Sora took the first move. "I draw!" He drew. "And I summon Blade Knight (ATK: 1600 DEF: 1200) in attack mode!" A monster in shining armor appeared on Sora's side of the field, with a sharp sword. "I end my turn.
"My move." Since I only had one card in his Deck that was the one I picked up. It was Warrior Dai Grepher (ATK:1700 DEF:1600)! "I summon Warrior Dai Grepher to the field in Attack Mode!" The dragon-slaying warrior appeared on the field, green sword in hand. Warrior Dai Grepher yelled triumphantly and ran towards Blade Knight. "Attack his Blade Knight now!" The stronger warrior cut off the weaker's one's head, his stray body exploding into thin air.
"Is that all you got, Sora…" I, the King of Games, had returned to prove my strength once more…
