Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts does not belong to me.

"I guess you can say it's kinda my fault, huh?" Sora sighed after King Triton left Ariel's grotto.

He had left an eery silence in his wake, none of us being able to find the right things to say. Lifting up a hand, Sora ran his long fingers through his hair. The fact that his chocolate spikes stuck back up like springs almost cheered me up. Almost. Ariel was upset because her possession was destroyed, and Sora had just been called a horrible key bearer. I could only imagine how he felt right now. He had a habit of beating himself up over the simplest things, and this was definitely one of them, sadly. But, the worst part was that there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't bring Ariel's crystal back and I couldn't repair Sora's image in the King's eyes. Hell, I could barely swim around my heavy Keyblade.

"Don't say that Sora," I said. It was the least that I could do. It was the only thing that I knew how to do. For years, Riku was the one to protect and defend him, but now that's it's my turn, I was too speechless to do it. It was a terrible feeling. I should have swam after Ariel. I should have told the King how amazing of a person Sora was. But, I didn't, and now I have to fix everything that I could have prevented.

Donald nodded and slapped Sora's bare back in attempt to make him feel better. Despite our cheerful attitudes, his sky blue eyes still remained glued to the ocean floor, his arms slack, and his eyebrows pulled low.

"Let's go."

"Huh?" Sora's head tilted down to look at me in surprise. I didn't know he it was because he wasn't expecting for me to speak, or if he knew it I was going to. If he was just waiting for me to say something. The corner of his lips tilted upwards a bit, confirming my suspicions. He was trying to make me forget about the fact that my Keyblade was too heavy for me to use. He trying to get the fight back in me because he knew I'd fight for him . . . the only friend I had left out of the three.

I found myself smiling as I shook my head. He was always using strange methods to get me back in the right frame of mind. "Let's go prove to the King that you're not bringing ruin to his castle."

"About time," he whispered before swimming off. Rolling our eyes, we followed after him.

"About time for what?" Goofy asked. He was the only one who hadn't caught up with the conversation. At that, Donald let out a very Donald Duck exaggerated sigh. "What?" Goofy asked again, causing Donald to face palm.

However, the light mood surrounding us seemed to disappear into thin air as we approached the King's doors. There were voices inside. More than one, two of which belonged to Ariel and the King. The other, though, we didn't know. Giving us looks, Donald pressed a finger to his lips before resting his hear against the door to listen. We did the same to hear as well.

"Ha ha ha, the trident is mine at last," one of the voices inside said. "And I couldn't have done it without your help, my dear."

"Ursula, no! I didn't want this!"

"Ariel!" I gasped, only for Sora to press a hand against my mouth to silence me.

The voice, Ursula I'm assuming, continued to laugh. "Why not? Aren't you tired of following your dear daddy's orders? Oh, yes. We had a deal, didn't we? Time for a little journey to the dark world of the Heartless!"

I couldn't take it anymore. Releasing myself from Sora's hold, I pushed the doors open as quietly as I could so that I could get the jump on them. Inside was a woman, her bottom half an octopus just like Donald. But, rather than her being blue and yellow, she was black and purple. Everything about her seemed to scream eerie. On the throne sat King Triton, powerless and clutching on to Ariel. It was a horrible sight. Sora, Donald, and Goofy rushed to my side, frowning too when they seen the scene in front of us.

Two gray eels were swimming around the room. Judging by the evil looks on their faces, they were with that Ursula lady. "The Keyhole is not here," one of them said. Thankfully, they hadn't noticed us . . . and they hadn't harmed Ariel.

"What?" Ursula snapped, then turned to look at us. Spoke too soon. "Why, we have company." She laughed as she waved King Triton's trident around, looking at Sora. "I'm afraid you're a little late, handsome."

That was it. She was gone into thin air. Or water for that matter.

I swam closer to inspect the King for any signs of cuts or scraps. Though I didn't want to get too close, I could see that he was fine, just a bit powerless. Ariel had the guiltiest expression on her face. When she swam out of the grotto, she must have called upon that Ursula lady. That was the only conclusion that I could come up with.

"Are you okay, King Triton?" I asked timidly. I wanted to double check, but I also didn't want to get yelled at again.

He nodded, a ghost of a smile appearing on his face out of gratitude. "The trident . . ." he started slowly. "We must get it back."

"Come on, let's go!" Sora's eyebrows pulled together with determination. Without another word, he swam to the doors, expecting us to follow after him. The look on his face said it all. He was going to get the King's weapon back if it killed him. Then, his fast pace suddenly came to a halt as Ariel swam in front of him. He stopped, staring at her confused, and asked, "What is it?"

"I'm going with you!" she said. Sora chewed the inside of his cheek. "My father is hurt and it's all my fault. I have to stop Ursula!"

He wasn't going to let her. I could see it in his eyes that he thought this was too dangerous for her. But, he still managed to give her a nod. If she wanted to prove to her father that she wasn't a baby anymore, this was her chance to do it, and Sora knew it. Ariel smiled at him, thankful for his decision.

Sebastian raised a claw. "That's right. I'm right behind you, Ariel!"

Good, the crab was going, too.

"Ursula draws power from her cauldron. To defeat Ursula, you must strike her cauldron with magic," the King informed us. Good, I didn't need my Keyblade. I could use the one good attack that I had left. Noticing this, Sora sent me one of his goofy, toothy grins. "She was banished to the cave beside a sunken ship, which is where she should be. Good luck, you guys."

"To the ship," I said. The ship where I was almost eaten by a shark. They nodded and we began swimming out of the palace, through the caves and tunnels to get the the sunken ship.

"I hope you guys are ready for this." It was Sebastian who said is as he struggled to keep up with us.

Sora just shook his head. "We're never ready for anything, but we always get through it when we try."

"So . . . you're not ready to fight the sea witch?"

I groaned, upset that was the only thing the red crab had taken out of Sora's motivational words. Even Ariel had to chuckle at that one. In some sense, I guess Sebastian did brighten the mood a bit. But, that didn't take away from the fact that we were on our way to fight the woman who had stolen the trident. If she had taken it from the King, she must have been powerful.

Ariel pointed to a rock against the wall by the sunken ship with strange carvings on it. "I think that's it," she sighed. "Are you guys ready?"

"Ariel, they already said that they're never ready. This isn't going to turn out so good . . ."

"Oh, calm down, Sebastian." After shooing him away, Ariel pressed a button hidden in the cave walls. The rock started to tremble before it lowered into the ground. A secret passageway. The redhead swam aside so we can go in first, muttering something about it being polite. At least she still kept her manners while she was under pressure.

The inside of this cave wasn't like everywhere else. Opposed to the sea green tint everything seemed to have, the inside of this one was a deep purple. Ursula definitely was in here, or her cauldron was. The cave led to a dead whale, I'm guessing. When we swam inside, the bottom of it's mouth was lined in little, shrived up creatures, moaning and groaning for help. I didn't know what to do.

"Come on, Sasuke," Goofy reassured, grabbing my hand to pull me further into the body.

At the end of the path was Ursula's lair. Just like the King had said, right in the middle was a bubbling cauldron. Ursula herself was hiding in the shadows of the lair. Clearly, she didn't want to come out.

Donald frowned as we swam further in. "Come out! You can't run!" he snapped.

"Your time has come!" Sebastian added. However, when Ursula stepped out of the shadows and growled at them, they screamed at the top of their lungs. "AHHH!"

We summoned our weapons to fight a six against three fight. Since they knew that they weren't that good at magic, Sora and Goofy swam over to Ursula to fight her head on. Ariel and Sebastian went to distract the eels from us, leaving Donald and I to attack Ursula's cauldron with magic. I aimed my Keyblade at the cauldron and shot fireballs at it, only for them to bounce off and almost his Sebastian. This caused the crab to glare at me.

"Sorry," I apologized.

If fire wasn't working on it, what will? I tried three other spells, yet none of them worked. When I raised my Keyblade to try a fire spell one more time, a loud yell rang throughout the lair, freezing everything. Everyone stopped. We looked around in confusion to see Ursula's eels fading away. One of the boys must have defeated them.

Ursula's eyes went wide as she yelled, "You'll pay for this!" Magic mist began to surround her like a thick curtain. Before we knew it, she grew in size, breaking the ceiling of the cave and expanding to a height far larger than any of us. We were now just about the size of her eyeball. "You pathetic fools!" she hollered, holding the trident in her hand like a sword. "I rule the seas now!"

Donald let out an irritated sigh. "Why can't I do that?"

"The sea and all it's spoils bow to my power!" she screamed.

As soon as the words escaped her mouth, she sent a swarm of thundering clouds our way. Pushing Sebastian, we swam to dodge her attacks. Sora wasn't intimidated by her. He swam up to her head, bringing his Key onto her again and again in powerful blows. The others joined them, trying to move out of the way whenever she swatted at them. I, on the other hand, stayed to the side, shooting fireballs and thunder until I ran out of magic to use. Sadly, that came all too soon.

Because I was out of magic, I summoned my Keyblade and prepared to join the battle. Ursula took in a deep breath before blowing out a ray of lightening. Everyone swam for cover, Donald's tentacles almost getting caught in the beam by how slow he was going. I didn't have time to worry about that, though. Wielding my Keyblade, I aimed for her head with Sora. His blows were continuous, unlike mine. Whenever I found the strength to lift the Keyblade up, I used the momentum to swing it back down as hard as I could. Though it wasn't doing as much damage as Sora, it was doing a lot, I supposed.

With a few more attacks, and a giant fire storm thanks to Donald, it was obvious that Ursula was weakening. I swung my Keyblade despite my arms growing tired from the strain. It was like lifting weights. Back on the island, I never could catch up to Waka and Riku. Perhaps this was my result for that.

That was, until she opened her mouth to let out another ray of lightening.

She was aiming at Ariel. Out of everybody we had to protect, she was high on the list. The beam was heading right for her and no one had noticed. Not even Ariel herself was seeing it coming. Letting the Keyblade fall from my hands, I charged for Ariel. At that same time, she had turned around to see the beam, her eyes and mouth going wide with fear.

"Ariel, move!" I shouted before colliding with her body and knocking her out of the way. She spun a bit, landing in safety. I couldn't say the same for me, though. With a loud, crackling thunder sound, the beam went straight to my chest. I let out a scream as the shocks went through my body. My limbs twitched from the electricity. It was like I was being tased.

"Sasuke!" Sora completely left his chain of attacks on Ursula to swim over to me.

Everything looked so foggy. It felt as if my insides were melting and there was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn't even think. Thoughts rushed to my head in attempt to distract me from the surging pain, but it wasn't enough. They always came back incomplete.

"I'm going to di-"

"This is the en-"

"Kiss this world goodb-"

They could never have the chance to finish before my body was sent through another fits of twitches. Sora grabbed onto my arms, but yanked his hands back once he felt the stinging vibrations of the shocks. I was finished. Doomed. But, as long as Ariel was okay, it wasn't for nothing.

Sora tried again, grabbing my arm, but, just like the other time, he took it back once the shocks became to much for him. I could almost feel my eyes rolling into the back of my head. "Sas-"

He was cut off by Ursula's screaming. Donald rushed to my side, too, digging through his collections to find a potion. A potion probably wouldn't even fix this. Smirking in triumph when he found what he was looking for, he used it on me, crossing his fingers in hope that it works. It took a while, but the electric shock feeling in my body slowly faded away. I blinked a few times, my vision becoming clearer. Goofy, Sora, Donald, Sebastian, Ariel, they were all crowded around me, scared expressions on their faces. Ursula must have been defeated, then.

"Thank you for saving me, Sasuke," Ariel started. "No one has ever really risked their life for me. That could have-"

"Killed you." Sora was the one to cut her off, his scared expression quickly changing into a frown. When everyone seen how upset he looked, they swam in a different direction to get the trident. I just clutched my slightly pounding head. "What if Donald didn't have any mega potions, huh? What if you died?"

I closed my eyes to fight off the headache. "The princess is okay, right?"

"Sasuke, you're important, too." Sora sighed. "Stop thinking about others for once and think about yourself. Please?"

"But-"

"Please," he tried again, pulling that same hideous smile that he wore in Traverse Town.

I snorted as the pain began to subside. "All right, fine."

"Thank you."

He was completely oblivious to the crossed fingers behind my back.

"Daddy, I'm so sorry," Ariel pleaded with the guiltiest look on her face. We were back in the palace, the trident in the princess' hands. You could practically see how sorry the redhead was just by looking into her blue eyes. She felt that everything was her fault. No one should ever feel like that.

I placed a hand on Ariel's shoulder, kicking my blue tail a bit to steady myself. "Please don't be angry with her."

"It's my fault," King Triton said, shocking us all. He was actually admitting this? Was this really even his fault at all? Donald and I exchanged glances. As fellow hard-headed people, we knew this must have been tough for the King to say. "You followed Ursula because . . . because I wouldn't let you follow your heart. And when you found that crystal, I lost my temper and destroyed it."

Goofy raised a hand. "Why did you destroy the crystal?"

"That crystal held the power to reveal the Keyhole," he answered. "The Keyhole is dangerous. I had to keep you five away from it at any cost." He then turned to face Sora with a serious glint in his eye. Sora gulped. "Key bearer, I have one more request: Seal the Keyhole. My trident also holds the power to reveal the Keyhole. Will you do it?"

"Of course. That's what we had in mind from the start." Sora chuckled, nodding his head. "Where is the Keyhole?"

"It's in Ariel's grotto."

Goofy raised his brows in surprise. "Really? Let's go."

Sending us off with a wave, King Triton just watched as we swam out of the palace. Something told me that Ariel's grotto would possess the Keyhole. It was simply too beautiful, too important not to. I've noticed that places like that don't go to waste. They usually host great things. In this case, it happened to be the Keyhole, the sole heart of this world.

We swam as fast as we could before something else happened. Though, I couldn't help but see Sora giving me side glances on the way there. It was as if he knew that I had crossed my fingers earlier. What would he expect. He, Riku, and Kairi taught me that friendship goes over all else. In that moment, Ariel's life went over my health. Now he was a bit upset with me.

It was evident as he pushed the rock out of the grotto entrance. As everyone went in ahead of him, his blue eyes stayed locked on me. He tried to go in, but I grabbed him bicep and pulled him back. Surprised, his eyebrows furrowed at me. "What is it?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. Yes, I was apologizing. It was something that I rarely did, but this was Sora. He was the type of person that deserved an apology even if you hadn't done anything to him directly. Sora deserved all the kindness he could get. "You were right."

A toothy grin spread across his face, and he said, "I'm sorry? I couldn't hear you. Can you repeat that?"

"I'm sorry, Sora," I repeated. "You were right. I should have thought about the consequences before jumping into a situation like that. But, what if Ariel had gotten hurt? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself knowing that I could have done something to prevent it. I know this is coming off as an explanation for myself and a horrible apology, but I just wanted you to know."

"I know." He started chuckling and I looked up in shock. "I know why you did it. You're brave. I guess I was just scared. You know, seeing you floating there twitching isn't the prettiest sight in the world."

"So . . . you're not mad at me?"

"Me? Mad at you? In the past five years, when have I ever been mad at you?"

"Well, there was that time you wanted Riku to spend the night at your house, but he came to mine instead when we were twelve. You were pretty pissed off."

He just laughed. He's never been angry with me and we both knew it. I was blowing everything all out of proportion again. If anything, he would have done the same as I had to save Ariel. After ruffling my hair, he swam inside the grotto to catch up with the others. I followed suit, glad that the waters between us had been cleared.

Ariel had already held up her father's trident, exposing the Keyhole to this world. The heart of Atlantis was right in front of us. Giving us one last look, Sora pointed the Kingdom Key to the Keyhole, and shot a bright, white beam at it. A locked sound was heard and the Keyhole disappeared. It was done. This world was now safe.

Ariel watched in silence, a comfortable smile growing on her face. "Tell me. Your world, what's it like?" she asked innocently. I couldn't blame her. We were curious once, too.

"Oh, about that . . ." I scratched the back of my head. It was a nervous habit that I had picked up from Sora. "Sorry for lying to you, Ariel."

She laughed and shook her head. "It's okay. Besides, if you can travel to other worlds, maybe I can, too. So many places I want to see . . . I know I'll get there someday. I'll find a way somehow. I'm sure of it."

Sebastian broke her little fantasy with a grumble. "Well, if you find it, do me a favour and leave me out of it."

That made me laugh. It was a genuine, loud laugh that only came out in happy times like these. These were precious times. Ones that we didn't get to see often.

Yay! I think there will be two more worlds until the big finale. I'm excited, are you? Also, thank you to KittyCatKate for staying with this story through my Hiatus. I really appreciate it!