Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. It belongs to its rightful owners.

CHAPTER ONE: PREPARATION

SASUKE

"I live in my own little world. But it's okay, they know me here."
- Lauren Myracle

MY SILVER EYES landed on the peaceful horizon in front of me. The islands were absolutely stunning when it was quiet. I could feel a slight breeze picking up, raising goosebumps on my skin. The wind had filled the air with the island's natural salty scent. The calming sound of the palm trees could be heard along with the sound of the waves crashing against the golden shore. The seagulls loudly squawked in the trees above. This only added to the fact that Destiny Islands was nothing more than a tropical paradise.

"Hey, Sasuke? Why are you just standing there like a dead person?"

My head turned around to see a laughing redhead. The girl was rocking back and forth on the lilac heels of her white shoes. Her short hair danced around her neck as her body shook gently with each giggle. Her expression was carefree and lacked any strong emotion besides happiness . . . except one thing . . . She was hiding something behind her back . . .

I smirked a bit, leaning against the crooked tree and resting my arms behind my head. "What's that, Kairi? Is it a love letter to Sora or something?" I asked. The girl stopped laughing. She furiously shook her head and narrowed her eyes at me, obviously not wanting to entertain that thought. "Then what is it?"

"I need you to get these items for the raft if we plan on sailing anytime soon." Her lips pulled up into a smile, her hands moving to reveal the sheet of paper from behind her back. I reached out to take it from her. At least it wasn't a love letter. "I also need your help with finding Sora. He ran off to go take a nap somewhere again."

Again? The brunet had to be, without a doubt, the laziest person on Destiny Islands. What was was even worse was the fact that he left us girls to handle his pile of dirty work, because we all knew that Riku was going to refuse to do it. Kairi didn't like to do heavy lifting, either. Or, more like she couldn't. She wasn't one to go around swinging swords, fighting, and arguing like us. She couldn't do his heavy listing. That meant that I was usually the one left to finish the boy's chores.

A heavy sigh blew out from my mouth. "Really? Can't you look for that lazy bum by yourself, Kairi? I already have to get the other stuff and Tidus made my shoulder sore with all of his constant challenges," I begged, rolling my bare shoulder for emphasis. It was true. The blonde would challenge me to a duel every time that he seen me. Which happened to be every thirty minutes. She rolled her dark blue eyes. "Please?"

Kairi grabbed my pale arm in her hand, dragging me to the bridge that connected the small island to the larger one. My back high tops were clumsily clanking against the hard wood. She was pulling me across. My feet tangled up in each other, causing me to trip a bit. Who knew that the girl had it in her?

"You have a lot of excuses, Sasuke," she said, trying to sound as serious as possible. I could see her fighting a smile that was tugging against her lips. By that time, she has already begun pulling me through the little shack and down the home-made stairs. "Would you rather I ask Riku for help?"

My eyes grew wide at the mention of the older boy's name. Getting Riku involved really wasn't necessary. Not since he was going to tease me about how weak I was afterwards. The silver-haired boy was always hard on me for no reason. Sora called it making me tough, Kairi called it tough love, Riku called it preparing me for the real world, but I called it plain bullying.

"No, I'll help you, okay!" I exclaimed. I blew a strand of my blue-black hair out of my eyes. The action didn't do that much considering the fact that my hair was parted to keep my left eye slightly hidden. "Why do you always play my trump card, Kairi? I thought you were supposed to be my best friend . . ."

Kairi smiled, spinning on her tippy toes. "That's funny. Now you search the back of the island while I search the front." She gave me a determined thumbs up. That's when I noticed the familiar brown spikes behind her.

"Kai, turn around . . ." I groaned. He was right there.

Sora was lying on the shining golden grains of sand with his arms behind his head. His body was completely still aside from the slight rise and fall of his chest. If it weren't for the light snoring coming from him, anyone would have mistaken him to have died on the shore. His expression was relaxed within his dreams. This didn't sit well with me . . . not at all.

I stood above him, casting a shadow over his body. "Sora!" I yelled. He shifted a little bit, but didn't bother opening his eyes. "Hey, don't act like you can't hear me!"

The brunet jumped up at my voice. He let out a small yelp before turning on his knees and facing us. The look on his face was pure embarrassment as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. A guilty smile graced his lips. This made Kairi laugh like she usually did when Sora was busted. I, on the other hands, just smirked and folded my arms over my chest.

"Give me a break, Sasuke," he said, chuckling a bit.

"Sora, you lazy bum, I'd knew I'd find you snoozing down here." Kairi giggled, rocking on the heels of her shoes again. I nodded in agreement as he shook his head in shock. Though, my expression quickly shifted from smug to disbelief. Wait . . . what did she just say?

My eyes narrowed into slits at the slightly taller girl. "No you didn't! You were going to have me search the whole island looking for him. I was the one who found him," I defended. Sora looked lost beyond words as he watched us argue over who did what. Honestly, he appeared a bit shaken up. Not that it would have meant anything. A shaken up Sora was a myth around here. "Just look at him," I added. "He looks like he crawled out of a pile of seaweed and passed out right there."

"No! This huge, black thing swallowed me up! I couldn't breath, I couldn't-OW! That hurt . . ." Sora cried, clutching the back of his head. I smirked in victory. It was about time someone smacked some sense into him. He huffed and pouted out his bottom lip, sending me a glare. "A simple tap would have been fine, you know . . ."

"Are you sure you're not still dreaming?" Kairi asked. Her bright red eyebrow raised in question. That was the exact same thing I wanted to know.

Sora lowered his head to look at the glistening sand. "It wasn't a dream! Or was it? I don't know. What was that place? So bizarre . . ."

"Yeah, okay." I chuckled, watching as Kairi began to walk to the water. The tide pulled in, pulling out and leaving a lump of wet sand in its place. She linked her hands behind her back. Her eyes were fixed on the cloudless sky. Sora raised an eyebrow at me and nodded his head over to her. I just shrugged, making him turn around to see what she does next.

"Say, Kairi, what was your hometown like? You know, where you grew up?" Sora asked, tilting his head to the side. Was he going to ask this question every week? He had a glimmer of hope in his eyes while he questioned her. It was as if he were expecting her to tell him after the fifteenth time of saying no.

Kairi let her hands drop to the side. Letting out a giggle, she replied, "I told you before. I don't remember."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing . . ."

"You ever want to go back?"

"Hmm . . . Well, I'm happy here," she answered. I knew that she was most likely smiling by the way her voice sounded. Then again, when wasn't she? She was always so happy and cheerful.

"Really?" Sora and I asked, our tones coated in disbelief. After all of the times that he had asked her, she had never said that. I guess I wasn't expecting it. How could she not seem to have the slightest bit of curiosity about where she was from? Everyone knew that I wondered where my original home was, and I came to the islands before she did.

She nodded her head to answer our question. "But, you know . . . I wouldn't mind going to see it."

A dreamy expression had begun to spread across Sora's face. "I'd like to see it, too. Along with any other worlds out there. I wanna see 'em all." He smiled. I looked down at him, my lips not being able to stop themselves from pulling upward, too. He was infectious. He had always been the adventurous one out of all of us. He was also the most hopeful, which I constantly thanked him for. Without him, our moods would probably be in the gutter.

Kairi turned around to show us her determined face. "So, what're we waiting for-"

"Hey!"

A deep voice had came from behind us. My eyes shot open; I knew who it was . . . and most likely, he wasn't going to be the happiest thing in the world when he seen us sitting around talking while he did all the work. My body stood up straight in an attempt to make myself seen bigger. If I showed that I wasn't nervous, maybe he wouldn't target me this time. Riku stood there with a giant log under his arm, his mouth pulled into a straight line.

"Aren't you guys forgetting about me? So, I guess I'm the only one working on the raft," he said sarcastically. He tossed the log in the air so that it would land on Sora. The brunet let out a gasp as the wood crashed onto his stomach. I snickered and his sea green eyes traveled to me. "You are just as lazy as he is, Sasuke. You, too, Kairi."

My eyebrows furrowed. "No way." I shook my head at him. Being told that you were as lazy as Sora was saying something . . . and it was saying way more than it should have. Riku collapsed on the sat next to Sora and smirked at me. I just shook my head again.

Kairi, however, changed the subject completely. "Okay, we'll finish the raft together! I'll race you!"

A round of competitive looks shot between the three of us.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Ready? Go!" she shouted anyways. The boys jumped to their feet and got ready to take off. Though, before they could, I hopped onto Riku's back. If I was going to cheat, I may as well pick the fastest one. He huffed but, nonetheless, started running as fast as he could. Since he was carrying my weight along with his, he was only a little bit ahead of Sora. Kairi, on the other hand, was all the way in the back. "Hey, Sasuke, that's cheating!"

MY EYES SCANNED the sheet of paper as Kairi read the items off to me. Building this thing was going to be harder than I thought. I barely knew where half of these things were. This meant I had to run around for about an hour. Not that I was complaining. We all wanted to explore different worlds. This is what we had to do to do just that.

"Sasuke, are you listening to me?" the girl sighed whilst shaking her head at me. I blinked a few times and looked up at her.

Of course, I wasn't listening . . .

I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck out of habit. "Yeah, I hear ya," I replied. She playfully rolled her eyes and nudged me on the arm with her elbow. "You said to . . . uhh . . ."

"I said you need to find a log and a cloth. You can get the rest tomorrow, since it's getting late," she explained again. I nodded before giving the sheet of paper back to her. Might as well get this over with. "Come back when you're done, 'kay?"

"All right," I said, jumping off the platform that led to the door to the other side of the island.

Where was I supposed to get a log? Better yet . . . where was I supposed to get a cloth on this little island? I thought about where would be a good place to search first as I walked under the bridge. I know there's got to be a cloth in one of the shacks. But, which one? I had better luck going back to the mainland to get all of these. It was too bad that we were trying to keep this a secret. Doing that would make ourselves look suspicious to the adults.

I came to a halt when I seen a log sitting next to the shore. It didn't take as long as I thought it would to find one. Score! My legs carried me over to it to go pick it up, but something got there before I did. The next thing I knew, the log was missing, an a bunch of footprints were left instead. My head whipped around to see Sora running away to where Tidus was . . . with the log under his arm.

"Sora, I saw that first!" I yelled after him.

He just flashed me a wide, toothy grin and continued running, ignoring everything that I said. Great. Where was another one going to be? This thought was in my mind on replay as I headed to the bridge that would take me to the small island. There was almost always a bunch of interesting things waiting up there.

It was pretty peaceful on the small island; nothing important catching my eye. Riku was sitting on the paopu tree. His gaze was off somewhere in the distance like it usually was when he was in deep thought. Trying not to bother him, I walked further onto the sand. A light brown log was sitting at the edge of the island. I checked around me for signs of the brunet, diving for it when I seen that he wasn't here. Once it was in my hands, I hoisted it high into the air as if it were a trophy.

Riku raised a silvery eyebrow as me, causing me to slowly wave at him. He shook his head. He probably thought I was a weirdo now. But, then again, after spending all these years with us, we were most likely all weirdos in his eyes. Next, I went across the bridge, going back to the sand below. There had to be a cloth here somewhere.

My next stop was where Selphie was seated on the dock. Maybe I could ask her where the cloth was.

The ginger girl sighed, swinging her legs back and forth. "Aah, the breeze feels great." I tapped her shoulder and she turned around to smile at me. "Sasuke! What're you up to these days? We never see you."

"Nothing much, you know. The usual," I answered, smiling back at her. "Hey, do you know where I could find a cloth . . . by any chance?"

"Yeah . . . if you duel with me." Selphie sent me an evil smirk, standing up. I rubbed my imaginary beard while I pretended to think about it. I could fight her and find out what I wanted, or I could look around for another who knows how long. The first option seemed more appealing. "So . . . what do ya say?"

"I say prepare to be beaten," I teased, watching as she pulled out her infamous jump rope. I picked up a wooden sword and started for the beach with her on my heels. She took her stance while I took mine. Not bad, she guarded her front good. Riku had always told us that we needed to guard our front. She had definitely improved since the last time we fought.

She sprinted toward me, shouting, "Okay, don't hold back!"

She swung her jump rope and I blocked it; just in time, too, or it would have hit me hard on the face. I jumped to attack, which only led to her twisting out of the way. When my second attack came, this time, it hit her on the back of her leg. She lost her balance a bit before swinging the jump rope. I tried to dodge it, but it hit me on the arm. It stung a bit, though it was nothing to focus on. Selphie was a lot faster since we last fought, too. I ran at her and hit her on her back, making her yelp out and fall onto the sand.

A look of defeat crept onto her features. "Aww, I can't believe I lost," she whined. My hand reached out to help her up. She took it, using me to help her climb onto her feet. She was back to smiling within seconds. "Just head that way and climb up the ladder," she explained. "There's a cloth in that shack."

"Thanks, Selphie!" I smiled, running in the direction she pointed to.

That direction happened to be slightly to the left of the waterfall. Climbing the ladder, I walked into the shack, glaring at the white cloth that was hanging on the wall. All of that hard work and it wasn't somewhere extremely hard to find. Great. But, at least it was found. I pulled it off of the wall, fully intent on going to find Kairi and telling her what I had gotten. Sora was most likely finished collecting his items . . . just because he got the head start of stealing my log . . .

When I got there, Kairi was already counting all of Sora's dropped-off things. Of course. "Ready to call it a day?" she asked, taking the items out of my arms. My head nodded at her question. Who was I kidding earlier? I was lazy. But, what did they expect to happen when we just sit around on a tiny island all day? "Okay," she said. "We'll finish this up tomorrow."

WE ALL SAT on the paopu tree as we watched the sunset. Oranges, blues, pinks, and purples swirled across the sky. It was nice, getting to watch it like this. Normally, Sora and Riku would be arguing about something pointless, or Kairi would be trying to get me to cut my bangs. None of this took place at the moment. It was just the four of us together with pure silence. For that, I was grateful.

Suddenly, Sora's head turned to look at Riku. "So, Sasuke and Kairi's homes are out there somewhere, right?" he asked.

Riku was leaning against the tree with his toned arms crossed over his chest. All day, it had seemed as if her was heavily thinking about something. "Could be," he simply replied, looking down at his shoes for a brief moment before his eyes wandered back up to the sky. I tilted my head to the side as we all watched him. "We'll never know just by staying here."

"But, how far could a raft take us?" Sora pressed on. His expression shifted to his familiar curious one. Kairi and I bounced our head back and forth between the two as if their conversation was a blitzball game.

"Who knows? If we have to, we'll think of something else," he answered. He didn't look the slightest bit phased by Sora's questions like the rest of us would have.

"So, suppose you get to another world. What would you do there?" Kairi giggled. I wanted to know the answer to this one along with her. This thought had never occurred to me. This plan just seemed like a good idea because it would take us off of Destiny Islands for once. Riku was probably thinking the same as me.

Riku smirked, looking up at the three of us. "Well, I haven't really thought about it. It's just . . . I've always wondered why we're here on this island. If there are any other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one? And suppose there are other worlds . . . then ours is just a little piece of something much greater. So we could just as easily end up somewhere else, right?"

Sora laid on the tree and put his hands behind his head. "I dunno."

"Exactly. That's why we need to go out there and find out. Just sitting here won't change a thing. It's the same old stuff," Riku said, uncrossing his arms.

I raised my eyebrows at him. I hadn't thought of it that way. "You've been thinking a lot lately, haven't you, Riku?" I asked, gently nudging him on the arm with my black high tops. He turned around to look at me. Were his eyes always this intense. "You seem to have thought a lot about this," I added.

"Thanks to you two. If you guys hadn't come here, I probably would've never thought of any of this," he explained, smiling at us. Kairi smiled back while my eyes went wide. Riku hardly ever smiled. When he did, though, it was something to step back and appreciate. "Kairi, Sasuke, thanks."

"You're welcome," we replied in unison, flashing him a thumbs up.

He started walking toward the bridge and the three of us hopped off the tree, following him. It was about time that we went to the mainland. Sora's parents, especially, would be upset if we stayed here another hour. They didn't like for us to be here by ourselves when it got dark. Which was understandable. Kairi linked her arm with mine, the both of us walking ahead of the boys. Since I had agreed to let her spend the night at my house, because neither of us had parents, she seemed in high spirits. I was, too, seeing as how I wouldn't be alone tonight.

"Come on, I know you wanna try it."

"What are you talking about?"

I turned around to see what the two were talking about. Riku was laughing while Sora was tossing something onto the sand below. I raised a questioning eyebrow at the silver-haired boy, only for him to pat my head an run to the docks. Sora and I chased after him, both of us confused by the older teen's actions.

3rd Person P.O.V.

DONALD WALKED THROUGH the bright halls of the gigantic castle. This was just about the third time that he'd passed the animated brooms carrying buckets of who knows what. Surprisingly, he was in a good mood. It was weird, considering the fact that he was Donald Duck. He was almost rarely in a good mood. He stepped in front of the light purple doors that stood around fifty feet tall, only to open a small section in the door that was normal sized.

He walked into the large throne room with a smile. "Good morning, Your Majesty," he greeted. His feet followed the long, red rug that led to where the king was sitting. The room was unnaturally quiet, but he didn't question it. "It's nice to see you this morn-WHAT?"

Once the throne came into sight, he seen that the king was not sitting on it. Instead, Pluto sat next to it with a letter in his mouth. Donald carefully took the letter from the yellow dog to read it. He opened it, his onyx eyes scanning the neatly written cursive.

He blinked a few times before running out of the room screaming . . .

He ran, ran all the way to the garden searching for his friend. Of course, he found him sleeping soundly on the grass. "Wake up, Goofy! Wake up! This is serious!" Donald shouted. The sleeping knight ignored him. The duck growled, pointing his index finger in the air, and yelling, "Lightning!"

Goofy yelped as electricity came from the sky and surged through his tall body. He looked around tiredly until his eyes landed on the mage in front of him. He waved a gloved hand. "Hey there, Donald. G'mornin'."

"We've got a problem, Goofy! But, don't tell anyone . . ." Donald whispered, a serious glint in his eyes.

Goofy slowly nodded, most likely not understanding what he meant. "Queen Minnie?" he asked.

"Not even the Queen!"

"Daisy?"

"No!" the duck screamed at the mention of his girlfriend. "It's top secret!"

Goofy moved his gaze from Donald over to something behind him. The small duck opened his mouth to speak, but the dog cut him off. "G'mornin' ladies." Goofy smiled.

Donald froze. He turned around, coming face to face with two previously mentioned girls. "Wha . . ." he trailed off, a shocked expression clouding his face. Minnie put her hands on her hips and gave Donald a stern look, matching the one Daisy was giving him. He was toast. "Hehehe . . ."

Hello! As you can see, if you're a re-reader, I've made Sora, Kairi, Riku, and Sasuke slightly more mature. When I started writing this, I was young and irresponsible. Now that I've grown up, you'll see that the characters have, too.

And if you're a new reader . . . have fun trying to unlock the mystery of this story. :)