Author's Note: Hi! Part 2 of this lovely crossover project! Nothing much that I can think of to say at the moment... so yeah, enjoy!

Namine's thoughts were interrupted by Kairi asking:

"What do you mean that Sora's blade was in a state of repair?"

Her question never got answered though. Aerith had batted the Shadow to the door with the broom and had found a more pleasant surprise waiting outside.

"Tifa!" she exclaimed.

"Refusing to kill the little ones, again, Aerith?" Tifa asked with a laugh.

Aerith laughed and shrugged. "You just missed Cloud, I feel bad… I tried to make him stay, but you know how he gets when he gets an idea in his head…"

"No, I didn't miss him," Tifa interrupted. "I found him at Olympus Coliseum. Good thing too, he'd gotten himself skewered again."

"By what?" Leon asked, frowning.

"I think it was a Keyblade of Darkness…"

"Keyblade of Darkness, who wields one of t…" Kairi began. "Oh, that's a dumb question."

"Xehanort had one," Xion said.

"Well, hello, who are you?" Tifa asked, coming inside alongside Aerith.

"I'm Kairi, this is Namine, and this is Xion," Kairi offered.

"We're from a parallel universe," Xion added. "Just to get all that on the table."

"And just when I thought my day couldn't get any weirder," Tifa muttered, blowing her bangs out of her face.

"Is Cloud okay?" Aerith asked.

"Sure, I fixed him up alright," Tifa said, shrugging. "He made a fuss about it, though, there was a ton of darkness in the wound."

"You said Keyblade," Leon said. "Was Sora there?"

Tifa nodded.

"Was anyone else there?"

"No one that I could see, but Sora sure was fighting something…"

"His Shadow," Leon muttered.

"Pardon?" Tifa asked.

"Sora has a shadow?" Kairi asked.

"And some things are different across universes…" Namine mused.

"Here we go again," Aerith muttered. "Let me go make up some tea. Sit down while Leon explains…"

xx

Everyone took a seat around the large table. Yuffie looked bored, Cid looked like he couldn't care, Tifa looked genuinely interested. Kairi, Namine and Xion all looked intrigued. Leon looked like he was about to give a lecture he'd already given.

"Maybe you three will be able to give us some insight," Leon said. "Typically, things tend to occur similarly across universes."

"We can try," Namine said.

"Sora dabbled too close to the darkness," Leon began. "To put it simply."

Kairi gasped, but motioned for Leon to continue.

"Since then, he's developed a dark shadow that follows him around. A lot of people will have this happen when they get too close to the darkness."

Tifa nodded in understanding. Cloud had a dark shadow once…

Aerith brought tea to the table and passed everyone a cup, then she sat down herself. She was frowning, but only slightly. Sora's Shadow had that effect on people.

Leon continued, "The shadows can do anything from play puppet master, to possession, to merely trying to drag the person back down into darkness. Regardless, the two feed off each other until one is exactly like the other. Unless, one of them can be defeated first, and it isn't always the shadow that gets defeated."

Namine frowned and took a drink of her tea.

"I'm afraid we're not going to be much help here. In our universe, it was Riku that got too close to the darkness. And he took care of Ansem before things got bad. And I know he'll argue me on that one, but still. Ansem got taken care of."

"I still don't get it," Yuffie muttered. "Why can't everyone see this shadow-thingy?"

"Sora's Shadow in particular can only be seen by Sora, given the plane of existence he's on," Leon explained, his voice strained.

Kairi and Namine snorted.

"Yes?" Leon asked.

"Nothing," Namine said, shaking her head. "Sorry, continue."

Kairi picked up her cup and slowly sipped at her tea to cover her laughter. Both of them were thinking back to Namine's experiences with odd planes of existences.

Leon frowned at them, but continued. "However, some people can hear Sora's Shadow because they've had experiences with darkness in the past and they know what to listen for."

"They don't even have to have experiences with darkness," Aerith said, her voice somber. "They just need to have a good enough picture in their heads of what darkness is."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Sorry," Aerith said, waving her hand in a dismissing gesture. "Continue."

"Don't be sorry," Leon said, picking up his tea for the first time and downing half of it in one gulp. "It's different for everyone. Now, where was I?"

"I think we get the picture," Tifa said, looking at Aerith.

Aerith had the look on her face that she always got when Zack was close to being mentioned. She gripped her cup of tea like it was her lifeblood.

"I'm sorry," Kairi said. "Really, I am, but there's something I just can't wrap my head around. Why would Sora get so close to the darkness to have someone comparable to Ansem following him around trying to drag him back into the darkness?"

Namine put a hand on her shoulder. "Things are just different in this universe. Think of it this way, the people here probably have a hard time comprehending Riku falling in."

"What's the Sora like in your universe?" Yuffie asked, trying to change the subject to something that she understood. And also something that made Aerith less edgy.

"Well, he's bright, and happy," Kairi said, her face growing red at the question. "He's not against the darkness, but he certainly wouldn't get close to it as a personal choice. He knows there's a balance to keep."

"The Sora we know isn't evil," Aerith said, gently. "He's just trying to find his light."

Namine and Xion instinctively looked at Kairi.

"You said Sora had mentioned me, or the Kairi he knows," Kairi said. "What all did he say?"

"Well, he mentioned that she's a friend of his and that he hasn't seen her in a while," Aerith said.

"He always got a little touchy when teh subject came up," Cid said.

"He thinks she hates him," Kairi said quietly.

"What would give you tha' idea?" Cid said.

"Joseph," Kairi said. "He's this boy we ran into a while ago. He was from a parallel universe. And I'm beginning to think that we're in the universe that he was from—mostly because I refuse to believe that there are many universes where Sora would do something to make himself think that Kairi would hate him, and dabbling in darkness is probably a good enough reason."

"Joseph," Cid muttered, scratching his chin. "I remember Riku and Namine mentionin' somethin' about him…"

"This should clear things up," Namine said. "Well, maybe. The Riku that you know, is he in charge of a Rebellion going on in Castle Oblivion?"

"Yes," Leon answered.

Kairi and Namine exchanged excited glances.

"I'm so lost," Yuffie muttered, resting her chin in her hands.

"Me too," Xion said quietly, sipping her tea. "Mostly because I wasn't there for the conversation with Joseph."

"Parallel universes confuse me," Yuffie said.

Xion shrugged. "I've seen a lot of weird things. I've been through weird things."

"Yeah?"

"Try getting destroyed and rebuilt," Xion said, laughing.

"Wha—?"

"I'm a replica," Xion said. "Weird stuff tends to happen around you."

Yuffie wasn't sure what to say to that.

"Tha' doesn' necessarily prove that we're talking about the same universe though," Cid said, looking between Namine and Kairi. "There can be a lot of similarities between close parallels."

"Do Riku and Namine look like they should be together but actually aren't?" Namine asked.

Leon snorted. Cid nodded. Aerith laughed.

"Right, that's enough to convince me," Namine said. "But I'm out of other stuff to try and prove things one way or another."

"Would be interestin'," Cid said. "Perhaps our universe and your universe are tied together somehow. Provided the Joseph you met was from this universe."

"What would tie two universes together?" Xion asked.

"Someone meddlin'," Cid replied. "Some person doing some tiny little thing between two universes that caused the two of them to be woven together."

"It's like eating a Paopu fruit," Kairi said. "When two people share one their destinies become intertwined."

"Well, it's not as poetic as tha'," Cid said. "But tha's the general idear."

"Okay, I know this is off-topic," Yuffie said, looking at Tifa. "But where did Cloud go after you helped him become unskewered again?"

"He said he was going after Sora again," Tifa said. "He's trying to look out for him because he knows the signs. Either that, or he just needs to be on his own again for a while."

She sighed and rested her cheek on a fist.

"Not that the last fifteen minutes was any indication saying that things happen similarly across universes," Kairi said. "But the Cloud that I know found his light again."

Tifa smiled. "Thanks, that's comforting."

"So did Riku," Namine said. "There's hope for Sora, too."

"I would hope Riku found his light," Xion said, jabbing Namine in the ribs.

Namine flushed bright red.

Cid raised his eyebrows and Aerith smiled knowingly.

"I wish I could feign ignorance to what you're talking about, but I can't."

Everyone burst out laughing.