Rhiannon: So... here is chapter..1 enjoy!

Chapter 1—Birth

Sora stretched his arms over his head and smiled at the bright sky outside his window. On the bed next to his own, his best friend Riku had brought his pillow down over his eyes. Laughing to himself he all but fell off the bed as he reached to turn off the alarm before it could go off and disturb his friend. A yawn tore its way out of his mouth and he arched his back to remove a kink from it. He grabbed his pants from the day before and pulled them on before making his way downstairs. The house was a bit too quiet and he realized that it was because the owners of the home had gone to work. Work… he and Riku needed to get jobs soon. Maybe he could apply at that café they'd gone to the other day.

"I smell coffee." Riku was almost zombie-like as he headed towards the pot of coffee that Sora had started.

They sat in silence as the coffee brewed, Riku still asleep and Sora surprisingly contemplative. He had had strange dreams last night. Dreams of darkness. He looked up studden to see Riku's oceanic eyes regarding him carefully.

"I can't have anything on my face… I haven't eaten yet." He pointed out but his friend just shook his head.

"You're crying." The older boy pointed out.

Sora shook himself and reached a hand up and brushed at the bruised skin under his eyes. The wetness startled him and he got up and grabbed mugs and nervously began to pour the too hot coffee. Hands covered his taking the pot and the mug away from him and he was turned around and Riku was in his space, too close.

"What's wrong Sora?" He shook his head and the tears seemed to choke him and steal away his voice.

Riku wrapped his arms almost lazily around him and squeezed. Sora clutched him gratefully and breathed in deep the smell of his friend.

There's only so many places the darkness can get you.

I want to live in everlasting light.

Leon glared at his laptop as if it were the sole reason for why his life sucked. He slammed it shut and stood up heading calmly from the door. He stormed through the house but paused to check in on his father. The older man was sitting at his desk with working on business for the restaurant. He looked up and Leon with a fond smile. Leon sighed as the same gunmetal eyes looked back at him from the wrinkled face of a man that had aged far too fast. The inky black hair that his father possessed was down today and he placed the pen down.

"I'm all right." The man answered his son's unspoken question.

"I know Laguna… It's just…" Just what Leon? He asked himself and then shook himself.

"I know." Laguna replied and Leon just nodded. That made sense… he guessed.

He shut the door behind him and slowly walked towards the back of the house towards the practice room that had been built so long ago. The practice room was a dojo style room that Yuffie's mother had built. Yuffie studied the style of the ninja at her mother's insistence while Leon studied the discipline of his mother's family. The gunblade. He fell into the stead rhythm of parry, thrust, guard. They way his grandmother had taught him.

"You work too hard." A soft whispered form the door way and he pivoted on his feet and turned to face Yuffie with the same barely emotionally eyes he always showed her.

"It's hard not to." He set the tip of the blade against the wood and turned to face her. "I can't help but feel…"

"That something's going to happen." She distractedly nodded her head and then stretched her arms above her head. "So what if it does? Nothing we can't handle! After all… I am the great ninja Yuffie!"

He shook his head with slight mirth and lifted his blade to began practicing again.

The pieces are still scattered.

Cloud looked up from his laptop to regard the black haired woman before him with narrowed blue eyes. "Darkness… that's all you can think to describe it Tifa?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared back just as fiercely. "It was made of darkness… it had these haunting yellow eyes... It felt like… like a shadow had crossed my heart."

"Somehow—"

"We should talk to Merlin. It could be something serious." She whispered and he leaned his head on his hand.

"What could it possibly be? Avalanche got Hojo and his freak experiment Sephiroth. We were there remembered?" He eyed her and she shook her head firmly.

"This was nothing that Hojo could have cooked up. It… We should talk to Merlin." She finished with a grave look in her eyes. "This could be anything."

"Fine… I'll send him an email. But if this is nothing… you get to explain that to him." Cloud grouched as he pulled up the internet. "Though… if it is more…"

"It is." She stated firmly and grimly. "It is."

She was pale and blond. Wispy. She should have been insubstantial but she wasn't. She was alone, the room all white and too bright. Everything was white, even her small dress that clung to her thighs and the shoes that adorned her feet. She had been born this way. White and bright and nothing at all. Simply… nobody. She held her sketch book firmly too her chest, her most prized possession… filled with color upon color anything to erase the whiteness of the pages.

"Naminè." She turned to look at the man in red. A red-yellow eye gazed back at her.

"DiZ." She whispered and then looked away. She was nothing to him, his Princess of Nothing.

"The two are preparing a war." She shrugged a bony shoulder at the words.

"Let them fight. After all… a nobody wants a heart right?" She looked up at him with her impossibly blue eyes. "Just like me."

"You are different."

"You ripping me out of Kairi to be your Princess of Nothing changes nothing!" She yelled but there was no anger in her words… just… nothing.

"I needed your power." He shrugged his shoulder.

"She doesn't even know she's missing me." Naminè pointed out quietly. "It really is as if I don't exist."

"As it should be… You shouldn't exist." DiZ liked to hold that over her head as if it mattered. Naminè was learning to care about nothing.

"You disgust me." She opened her pad and slowly traced the blue eyes that she had never seen in person but remembered.

She could almost hear the whirl of darkness as DiZ disappeared into it, probably heading back to his lab to think and plan. The blood feud between the two halves would help to fuel his revenge. She studied the girl in her picture and grabbed a red crayon and slowly filled in her hair.

"Kairi."

Sora sighed as he pushed open the door to Radiant Gardens to see about the interview they'd called him in for. The café was even practically dead this time of day but he didn't mind. He found his way to the register and was directed to a chair in the back. The owner smiled at him, inky black hair pulled into a ponytail so that his sparking gunmetal eyes shined almost fatherly at Sora.

"I'm Sora Miryoko." He held out a hand and the older man shook it firmly with callous hands, Sora wondered if it was just from working in this restaurant.

"Laguna Loire." He returned with a silly grin. Sora felt relaxed immediately. "I guess I want to start like this… This restaurant means… everything to me."

Sora nodded and idly wondered if the restaurant to him was what his old home—house was to his parents. The older man spared him another bright smile before beginning the interview proper and by the end of it Sora had a job and a friend to greet him each day when he entered the Radiant Café.

He was getting up to leave when he saw his waiter from the other day. His name tag read Leon as he approached the table with a large glace of ice tea which he sat in front of Laguna. He smiled at the obvious relation between them and hoped that the restaurant meant as much to Leon as if did to Laguna. He turned and headed for the door with a grin.

"Took you long enough." Came from the car in front of him.

He gave the occupant a silly grin and climbed inside. "It was an interview Riku… they're supposed to take a while."

"And…" He drawled it out as he pulled the car out into traffic.

"And now… I have a job and you don't." The young boy pointed out with a smile.

Riku didn't reply but reached out and pulled a long cinnamon spike as they sat at a red light before he turned down Kairi's street. Sora whined about it but didn't really mind. He leaned his head against the window and briefly thought about his mother as he looked up into the endless sky before he shook himself. Dwelling on memories of his mother wouldn't do him a damn bit of good.

Riku stretched as he climbed out of the car and looked over at his friend. "How bout we go spar? I managed to get the keyblades from my dad."

"Sounds like—" Sora was cut off and as the sound of someone slamming against the side of the door filled Riku's ears.

The silver haired boy dashed around the car to see his bestfriend lying slumped against the car a peculiar black creature staring at him. Sora had been knocked unconscious by the blow and Riku went to move forward but then it looked at him. Eyes of a murky yellow amber glared at him from its round face. Its clawed hands clutched Sora tightly as it soundlessly stared at Riku.

You have the key. A voice whispered in Riku's mind.

His arm shot out of its own accord and a keyblade appeared in his hand. The magnificent keyblade attracted the attention of the odd little shadow creature for only a second before it dismissed him as more creatures appeared. He cut through the black creatures quickly severing limbs and avoiding the wicked looking claws as best he could though he received a cut in his side and across his collar.

The wielder of the Way To Dawn.

So close and yet so far Sora was suspended in mid-air his heart in the air. The… the creature was stealing it. He divided forward through the heartless and… and then there was one.

It stared up at him with its freakish eyes but it didn't attack. Even though there were no real facial features to distinguish… Riku decided that the creature looked… sad. He let his hand fall to his side. The Way to Dawn disappearing as he lowered it.

"You're… you're Sora aren't you?" He asked quietly.

The creature cocked his head and Riku scrubbed his face firmly. The day had started weird and just when things had got good and normal the Twilight Zone theme had started to play without his knowledge. He lowered himself down to his knees and reached his hand out and wrapped it around the creatures clawed fingers.

"You are Sora… My best friend." A bright light appeared as Riku dared to give into emotion as much as he ever did reaching and wrapping his arms around the little creature. When the light was gone, a sleepy eyed Sora Miryoko was left in his arms. "Well, fuck with all."