Me: Okay, I really apologize for taking so comparatively long with this. But between swimming four hours a day and taking driver's ed (I have my permit now! Squee!), I've barely had time for anything other than the aforementioned things, eating, sleeping, and breathing.
Char: And not even the latter most of the time.
Me: Yup!
Char: Also, she just drove on the road for the first time. Be afraid... be very afraid.
Me: ...why is everyone making that joke? The only problem I had was that I didn't know when to brake some of the time and I kept veering to the right... The guy behind us probably thought I was drunk, lol. Well, anywho, I think readers are going to like this chapter. So, sit down, grab a Gatorade, and let's go through this 17-page long monster!
Everyone: Oy.

EDIT: In light of Birth by Sleep, I just thought you all should know: the Xehanort mentioned as the instigator of the Keyblade War in this chapter is NOT the same Xehanort as the one in BBS. Don't want to make this story TOTALLY AU, yenno. :)

Disclaimer- I don't own KH, and as hard as it may be to believe, I don't want to as much as I did. I want to own .hack/G.U. now! (hugs Haseo)
Haseo: ...-.- (BANG)
Me: (ded)

"Psst, Char!"

From her position half-entangled in the sheets of her bed, Char groaned and squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. Granted, in the past three days she had been getting more and more sleep due to the gradual influence of the healing spells; but today was definitely one of the days when she wouldn't have the privilege of resting up. "Go away, Sora," she mumbled, turning over onto her belly and surreptitiously pushing a pillow over her head.

"No, seriously! I have something really cool to show you, and you won't even have to get up." Now Sora's voice held a hint of earnestness in it. Char cringed at his tone and felt angry at herself for trying to send him away. Then she frowned; that idiot seemed to have a placating effect on everyone lately. Just the other day Sora had stopped Leon from practically taking Cloud's head off.

"This had better be good," Char growled, twisting around onto her back. As she removed the pillow that obstructed her view, her annoyance turned to shock.

At first, with her eyes only drawn to the black markings on his clothes, she assumed that he had simply morphed into Valor Form. Then her gaze swept over the azure garments that replaced his normal clothes. She felt certain that her eyes resembled tennis balls as she stared at him.

"Wow," she managed. "Another Form?"

"Yup," Sora replied happily. "Since Donald and I have to merge when I use this, we called it Wisdom Form."

He seemed a bit uncomfortable at Char's open awe, so she closed her mouth and blinked to clear her thoughts. "So, did Merlin give that to you?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Hm," was all she said in response. She narrowed her eyes. "And exactly what time is it?"

Sora's discomfort increased at her words. "Uh… seven o'clock…" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I… I just wanted to show you…"

Char sighed. "Look, I got up way earlier than this for assignments when I was a researcher here. It's fine." The boy's shoulders slumped in relief.

There was suddenly a brief flash of light, and when it cleared, Sora stood there in his regular black attire. Donald stepped out from behind the brunette's back, rubbing his head and looking a little dazed.

"Didja have fun, duck boy?" Char smirked at Donald.

"Ah, be quiet," the mage muttered in reply as he headed off to his room.

Sora waited until Donald was out of earshot before speaking. "So… how are you lately? I mean, I'm always out there beating up Heartless and stuff…"

Char raised an eyebrow. "Are you worried about me?"

The brunette looked guilty. "Well… yeah! You just… you nearly killed yourself protecting me, after all…"

"Sora, shut up." Harsh as Char's words were, her angry tone was half-hearted. "I get that you're grateful to me for saving your ass back in the Underworld, okay? Stop forcing yourself."

Sora unconsciously winced at her words.

Her eyes softened and she added, "And I'm fine. I think I'm coming along as far as recovery goes. Aerith told me that we should be able to leave here in a week or so."

Sora brightened. "That's great!" Seeing the redhead roll her eyes at his enthusiasm, he put one hand on his hip, but didn't stop smiling. "Hey, maybe one of these days when you feel a little better, you can show me some more of Hollow Bastion."

Char hoped her surprise at his request didn't make itself too obvious. But she just nodded. "Yeah, I think I could do that."

The boy's grin widened; then he turned away and left the room.

Char couldn't help it; she leaned back against the pillows and sighed deeply, running her hand through her hair to untangle it. She knew all too well that walking around the area with Sora wouldn't happen for a while yet. Her heart gave a sorrowful little dip of disappointment at the thought.

Just a week to go, she thought as she lost herself in the comfort of sleep. Just seven more days…

"So how was she?" asked Leon.

Sora, walking alongside the taller man with the Hero's Crest at his side, shrugged. "Better. She said that it'd be about another week before we could leave."

"Are ya glad we can keep travelin' soon, Sora?" This was Goofy, surveying the jagged stones of the bailey.

The Keybearer smiled at his friend. "Yeah." He hesitated before continuing. "To be honest, I sort of regret keeping Kairi and Riku waiting."

Leon didn't take his eyes off the boy as he voiced his concern, but now the Gunblade wielder glanced back at the area. "Char feels the same."

Sora blinked. "How do you know? Do… do you talk to her a lot?" The sudden revelation hit him and he felt something unpleasant in his gut at the mental image of Leon sitting by Char's bedside. With some difficulty, Sora inwardly shook off the feeling and tilted his head to the side questioningly.

Leon kept his eyes in front of them, even as they patrolled the flat piece of territory that was the ravine around Maleficent's castle, the territory known as the Great Maw. "Sometimes."

"Well… what else does she say?"

Leon raised and lowered one shoulder. "That she gets tired of sitting in bed when she thinks about how we're actually protecting the town. That she's almost better. That she hates how she's holding you back."

"So what if she is?" Donald's vehement question startled them. The Gunblade wielder blinked at the duck, which was about his equivalent of jumping in surprise. "At least Sora's not dead! If she regrets protecting him so much, then she shouldn't have done it in the first place!"

Goofy stared at his friend. "Gawrsh, Donald…"

"Since when have you been singing Char's praises?" Leon beat Sora to that skeptical remark.

Seeming to realize how strange his behavior had been, Donald became very interested in what his feet were doing. "She's a good fighter; I'll give her that much," he muttered.

Sora had been staring at Donald in surprise, but at Leon's sudden battle cry, he whirled around. The Gunblade whipped through the air in a silver blur, carving through the mass of darkness that had just surrounded him. Sora leaped into the fray, swinging the Hero's Crest to impale one of the small, armored creatures. It squealed in pain and fell to the ground, where Goofy made quick work of it using his shield.

Almost as soon as they had vanquished the Heartless, flashes of white heralded the abrupt arrival of Nobodies. Sora gritted his teeth as he sized up his opponents. Most were the gently swaying Dusks or the Samurais from the last visit to Hollow Bastion, but the others, off-white creatures with a definite shape and bright pink shields surrounding them, were unfamiliar to Sora.

"Uh-oh," Goofy gulped.

"We'll just have to take these out first!" With that command, carrying more confidence than he felt, Sora charged forward.

He could hear battle snarls behind him and knew that Donald and Goofy were focusing on the Dusks. However, not even Leon's constant support could keep back the relentless onslaught of their enemies. Sora could barely get at the superior Nobodies due to their constant lashing out with the pink shield, and the attacks that did strike the enemies barely did any damage. Soon, both brunettes found themselves panting and bleeding on the ground.

"What the hell are these?" Leon grunted.

Sora himself felt something pricking the edges of his conscience – anger, and, for some reason, the sense of being watched. He shook off the latter as it was overtaken by hopelessness.

Are… are we going to die here?

He remembered turning into a Heartless – agony, the sense of falling asleep, becoming prey to a plague of nightmares. He remembered "awakening" from these nightmares, and seeing his friends there. He remembered feeling angry at himself for always having to be saved.

That anger grew now and gave him the strength to reach inside himself for that inner power. When the light disappeared, he glanced down. Crimson clothing greeted his eyes; his once-free hand held the Star Seeker, and Goofy was gone.

Leon stared at the Keybearer in shock as the younger brunette leaped forward, his wounds healed from the transformation into Valor Form. With a few swipes of both Keyblades, every once in a while having to dash away from the shields, Sora had finished the strange Nobodies.

He morphed back into his normal form, and Goofy appeared near Donald. The duck jumped up in surprise and started lecturing Goofy about not scaring him like that, while Leon raised one eyebrow at Sora. "You did well," he remarked.

Sora grinned breathlessly at him; the Keybearer still couldn't get over how natural dual-wielding felt. "Thanks –"

Abruptly he fell to his knees in exhaustion. Donald dashed over and held his staff over Sora's head, but the boy pushed it away. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I just need to get back to Merlin's house and rest a bit."

The mage looked doubtful, but nonetheless he made his weapon vanish. Leon and Goofy followed suit.

Sora forced himself to get to his feet. "See?" he said to the others, knowing that his smile was strained. "I'm fine."

Leon sighed. "Your legs are shaking," he warned, but said no more.

The sun was just barely past its apex in the sky when Sora finally staggered into Merlin's house, Donald and Goofy following close behind for support. The Keybearer didn't know what he expected to see when he entered, but those expectations most definitely did not take the form of a dual-wielding redhead sitting at the table and practically inhaling a cheeseburger. Char moved only her eyes to acknowledge the group's arrival, her eyebrows vanishing into her bangs as she looked up. "Hey Sora," she greeted after swallowing. "Back for lunch…?" Her words trailed off when she saw his state, and she abruptly dropped her meal and stood up, using the table as support. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Nobodies," Leon grunted from the back of the group, causing Donald and Goofy to turn and look at him. Char's eyes widened.

"Dusks or Samurais couldn't do that to him," she said in a voice that suggested she was brooding. She looked at Sora, her gaze following the weary brunette as he took the seat next to her with a pained grunt. "Or… was it…?"

Her eyes met Sora's sapphire-colored orbs, and he saw the silent follow-up to her seemingly trailing question. The Nobodies we fought in Beast's castle… Sora searched his memories, trying to recall what that girl had called them. "Avengers", that was it.

He suddenly realized that Char was still waiting for him to respond. He shook his head. "Nah, these were different… they had these weird pink shield things around them. I think… I think those were more superior Nobodies." Even as he spoke, he realized the significance of the fact that the girl who kept attacking them – the girl who turned him into a Heartless – seemed to control her own type of Nobodies. Again, the possibility that she had once been with the Organization struck him.

As Sora gave the report, a change seemed to come over Char. A shadow passed over her face, and her brows drew down in a hawk-like frown. Suddenly, she reached out with both hands, and before Sora could do anything, she had seized the collar of his jacket and yanked him close.

The brunette stared at her in shock, even as her cold eyes appraised him angrily. "What is the matter with you?" she hissed.

Sora didn't know whether to stutter out an incoherent response or defend himself; his mind couldn't quite get away from the fact that her face hovered inches from his. Fortunately, Char spared him from having to make that choice by continuing in a shout, her voice dripping with pure venom that made him wince. "If you didn't recognize that thing – no, if you tried fighting it and failed, which you obviously did – then you should have run away, you dumbass! Damn it, don't you remember the last time you tried to bite off more than you could chew? In case you forgot, let me refresh your memory." Char jerked her finger toward the area below the desk, which Sora took to mean her leg. He flinched at knowing that she was right.

"It's bad enough when you deliberately put yourself into danger, but it's even worse when you do it at the expense of those who care about you. I won't always be around to save your ass, you know. So stop being such an arrogant idiot already!" She took a deep breath, as though exhausted from her temper. The silence lay so thickly upon the room that one could have heard a pin drop.

A puff of pale smoke caused them all to look. From the fog, a certain magician appeared. "What's all this racket?" Merlin complained, adjusting his glasses and glancing about. When he saw Char and Sora, a look of understanding appeared on his features.

The redhead winced – such a subtle gesture that only Sora saw it – and abruptly pushed the brunette away with a "che". She turned away and crossed her arms.

As Sora shakily faced Merlin and told him about the Sorcerer Nobodies, Char sighed, breathing through her nostrils so that only she heard it. She didn't dare turn back around from fear and embarrassment – fear of seeing Sora's face, and embarrassment that Merlin had seen her. She tried to tell herself that her desperate words had only spawned due to the fact that the Nobodies Sora had described were controlled by the Organization's Superior himself – Xemnas.

She distracted herself from her feelings by attempting to think rationally. If Sorcerer Nobodies were wandering around, then that definitely meant that Xemnas had arrived as well. The thought sent shivers down her spine and made her legs tremble in worry. If they were lucky, perhaps the Nobodies wouldn't find them here…

A soft snort escaped her. Yeah. And maybe I'll grow wings and fly up to Kingdom Hearts and ask them very politely to give my friends back.

She chanced a look back. Donald, Goofy, and Leon had vanished, and only Merlin and Sora remained. Char cringed inwardly at the looks on the magician and Keybearer's faces as they gazed at her. "What?" she grumbled, averting her eyes.

Merlin just sighed and disappeared in another cloud of smoke. Char cursed his horrid timing, because this left her alone with Sora.

"Look," she snapped as he opened his mouth, "I'm just… I was worried, okay? You scared me for a minute there. I'm… sorry for freaking out on you like that." She hated having to apologize, but with Sora staring at her like she'd just grown a tail and wings, the obligation to try to redeem herself was eating at her belly with guilty teeth. "Just… remember what I said. Don't put yourself into danger, especially when you know people will miss you." She forced a smile. "I don't know what Donald and Goofy would do if you made a stupid, fatal mistake."

Or me, she left unspoken.

Hoping against hope that he would be able to read between the lines of her speech, she popped the last bit of burger into her mouth, got up while chewing, and loped off back to her room.

Sora watched her disappear into the hallway, a mixture of bemusement and cold self-reprimand building within him. Char's words echoed in his mind with the quality of someone yelling from a high elevation. Suddenly he wished that Merlin hadn't told him that the magician could take things from there and eradicate the Nobodies himself. Sora thought that it would help to have something to do and get his mind off Char. The harshness of her words stung him, for some reason.

With a sigh, he settled into Char's empty seat and wondered if there was any leftover hamburger.

"Did you have to yell at him?" Aerith sighed.

Char's own sigh had a huffier quality to it than the brunette's. "Look," she muttered, glaring at the dresser to save her eyes from the bright green light of the Curaga spell, "nothing else was going to get through to him. He has to know what an idiot he was, trying to take on those powerful Nobodies like that."

"I've known Sora for a longer time than you have." Aerith didn't look up as she cast the healing spell on Char's gradually-closing wound. "I think if you'd just reprimanded him without raising your voice, the two of you wouldn't be avoiding each other right now."

"I wouldn't call it avoidance," the redhead grumbled. "Besides, I was worried. When I'm worried, I get desperate."

"And that's understandable." Aerith looked sympathetically at Char. "But all the same, I don't think shouting at him is going to get him to see things your way."

"I know," Char murmured, breaking the eye contact and staring at the covers of her bed. Even she knew what she had done; even she, she who had only been with Sora for a week and a half, realized she'd hurt him.

However, she knew, as she jerked her head back up to glare defiantly at the healer, that that still didn't mean she had to just accept the lecturing.

"What would you have done?" she growled.

To her credit, Aerith didn't falter or flinch back at the venom that oozed from Char's tone. The older girl straightened and looked down at Char with her head slightly tilted to the side, appraising the redhead in a way that started to make the latter uncomfortable after a while.

Then Aerith spoke. "Truthfully? I would have done the same as you had. But… it's not that you scolded him at all. It's the way you did it."

"We're talking in circles!" Char groaned and plopped back against the sheets. "Now we're back at the 'you yelled at him and so it's not enough that you already feel bad about it; we must prod you and remind you of it and make it worse'!"

"Wasn't that the point of this conversation in the first place?"

Char fell silent at these words and looked away. When she looked back up, the dark green eyes were staring straight into her ice-colored orbs.

"You should try and make it up to him," Aerith finally said.

"Well, obviously," was what Char wanted to say. But she brushed those childish words aside and just snorted instead. "And how do you propose I do that?" Inside, she felt hope begin to bubble up in her chest, thinking that the healer honestly had a solution.

However, Aerith failed to fulfill Char's expectations, as she just shrugged. "You're the one that put space between you two. I'm sure you can find a way."

"Oh, come on." Char sat back on the bed and crossed her arms. She felt certain that a bratty expression covered her countenance at the moment, and anger swelled within her at the thought.

Aerith chuckled and shook her head, waggling a finger reprovingly. "It won't be special unless it's your idea."

Char snorted. "'Special'? Geez." Her temper heightened. "Cut me some slack here."

Aerith's laughter faded at this. The healer fixed Char with a look that seemed to be on the cusp of skeptical and annoyed.

"Alright, alright, don't look at me like that!" Char growled, unnerved by the flower girl's uncharacteristic irritation. The redhead directed her own eyes toward the sinking sun that was casting the bricks of the ground and walls into a dark reddish-gold.

Now that she took the time to consider the solution, Char realized that she hadn't really thought about how she would bridge the conflict that lay like a canyon between them. However, the annoying voice of reason in the back of her mind assured her that Aerith was right; the journey with Sora couldn't continue normally even when the wound that ravaged her leg and gnawed at the nerves was vanquished, if he and Char could not talk and synchronize in battle like they used to. The dual wielder winced inwardly at the memory of how she had treated him when they had first met, eleven days that felt like a lifetime ago. The remembrance of her harsh tone and how she had pushed his offers of friendship away sent waves of stinging humiliation through her. She reflected that when Riku had forced her on this adventure, she hadn't foreseen how badly she would need a friend in the events to come.

Friends… For some reason, the word conjured up the mental movie sequence of a smitten, gray-haired teen, holding out a few ragged stems of honeysuckle flowers to a bemused-looking, nervous redhead. And the two people conjured up the question Char had asked, one fine eyebrow raised and her heart pounding fit to burst through her chest.

"W-where did you get those?"

"Let's just say I have my sources."

Char's eyes flicked toward the window again. If she hadn't known any better, she could have sworn a burst of emerald green shot through with speckles of white greeted her just beyond the drab gray hue of the town's walls.

Aerith watched the redhead closely, the brunette's eyes observing every flicker of movement from the younger. She said nothing, but when Char pivoted back to the room's entrance, the older girl gave her an expectant look.

"I have an idea," Char murmured, her heart beginning to kick up in the way of one who has just found the answer to a large crisis, and the aforementioned idea began to form in her head as she spoke her next words. "Do you think you could let me walk around the town for the next couple of days? I need to find something, and I don't think it's within the bounds of Hollow Bastion."

Unless a random green field is contained somewhere inside a ruined city, she added silently.

Aerith put a hand to her chin, her index finger brushing against her lower lip thoughtfully, but otherwise she kept her composure. A smile spread across her face. "I think we can manage that."

Char nodded enthusiastically. Inwardly, she frowned. Since when had the dual wielder become Little Miss Sunshine?

"Yeah," she went on. "We can just have Merlin turn on the defense mechanism so that it kills any enemy that shows up, so then it won't be a problem that I can't defend myself." The last fact she had stated didn't anger her as much as she had expected, and Char wasn't sure whether to take that as a good sign or a bad sign.

Aerith's pleasure faltered a bit when Char had finished talking. "But what about those Nobodies Sora and Leon fought?" She asked the question innocently enough; however, Char sensed the undertone of doubt – doubt that the defense mechanism could handle exterminating something that held so much power.

Char shrugged. "Cid can enhance the defense mechanism, right?" Inside, though, she was nodding in apprehensive agreement at Aerith's fears. Char had never been very into computers – that little honor had belonged to Even, and though Braig had always teased the long-haired blond for being such a "nerd", Char couldn't deny that Even, known as Vexen in the Organization, carried an erudite reputation for knowing computers. The most interaction Char had ever had with Ansem's computer mainly involved typing up papers or looking up information to use in works cited pages.

Aerith confirmed Char's opinion. "It won't be that easy," she murmured. "The defense mechanism has to adapt to the enemy's genetic code and know the exact way to destroy it."

The clever manner of the Organization's methods hit Char like a fist then. Of course. The lesser Nobodies had been getting in mostly undetected by the light pedestals for so long because of this flaw in the system. The Organization sent their lesser Nobodies into Hollow Bastion, knowing this flaw, and let their minions wreak havoc before pulling them back again. Due to this, the defense mechanism had never had time to create a method of destruction for the creatures, and so that was why Nobodies were now running rampant.

And the Sorcerers will be the exact same way. Char shuddered inwardly, a shudder that chilled her to the core, at the thought that even now Xemnas could be here, controlling the Sorcerers.

Aerith shrugged helplessly. "I'll ask Cid and Merlin about it myself," she promised.

Char nodded in an equally despondent way, though her voice, as usual, was strong with confidence. "Could you? That'd be great."

Because honestly, she reflected dryly, she really didn't have any better plan.

The sky of Hollow Bastion was clad in the heated garb of sunset. The dying sun shone across the bailey and washed the broken rocks in a paler gray glow as a lone boy stepped up to the ledge where, not too long ago, Leon had shown him the problem with the town.

Sora leaned on the ledge that overlooked the trail around Maleficent's castle, his cheek propped against his upraised palm, and sighed when a few off-white silhouettes, their bodies streaked with iridescent pink, appeared far below. The Sorcerer Nobodies – so dubbed by Merlin – swept through the plain, and even though Sora could barely see them, he shivered nonetheless remembering how they had nearly killed him just a couple of days ago. Admittedly, his wounds hadn't been as bad as Char's own burned leg – his own injuries had only needed one of Merlin's Curaga spells before becoming whole again – but the brunette's shoulder still ached from where one of the Sorcerers' shields had thrown him to the ground.

Thinking of the day he had clashed with the powerful Nobodies caused Char to spring into his mind yet again. Another sigh was heard and Sora focused determinedly on the rock formations around Maleficent's castle. He still couldn't help but wince whenever he thought of how Char had shouted at him – and how he knew the truth of her words.

She was right, though – if he made a mistake, what would Donald and Goofy do? Char herself could probably manage, the Keybearer thought wryly; she had obviously managed before now, with her research and her knowledge of the worlds.

But why did she leave Hollow Bastion? And how did she end up in Twilight Town and find us so fast? Were it a physical force, the myriad of questions swirling about in Sora's mind would have toppled him. He realized only now how little he knew about the dual wielder. The only facts that were certain were the bare essentials, such as her red hair and blue eyes and twin swords, and that she had once lived and worked here.

Now that Sora delved into the topic a bit more, more things became clear to him. Before, she had always rejected his offers of friendship, yet as of a few days ago, after bringing him back from the nightmares of Kingdom Hearts, she had extended an ironic offer of her own. He briefly considered whether or not it was a matter of taking him for granted, but dismissed it, as the concept of the negative option stung him.

He did know one thing, though, and that was that he wanted to know her – not so much for himself, but for the sake of his journey. Whether he found Riku and Kairi right away or not, Sora understood the importance of everyone working together in battle and otherwise.

He blinked a few times to clear his head and lifted his head so he could gaze back out at the sunset. The bright golden disc had slipped down a couple of notches so that the light projecting into the bailey was dimmer, less vivid.

Sora blinked again. The scene was starting to fade out, the gray backdrop of the walls melting away, the sunset darkening into a cloudier, storm-shaded sky.

I must be more tired than I thought, he mused, and tried to shake his head to clear it.

But it wasn't going away – the dark sky, the blindingly white castle, the heart-shaped pastel moon that was glowing above him. Sora felt like he was standing off to the side as, a nameless ghost, he watched a familiar blond boy clad in a black cloak step onto the rampart. The brunette gave a start as he recognized the garb – the coat of an Organization member.

But the boy walking toward the very edge of the area bore almost no resemblance to the Nobody Sora had encountered in the Underworld; this one had a smaller and slighter frame, and his hair stood up in slicked spikes, more of a shade of golden butterscotch than dirty-blond. Sora's brows drew down in a frown. Why does he seem so familiar?

The brunette craned his neck to see better, and he had to put a hand over his mouth to hold back his gasp. The Keyblade-wielding girl who had turned him into a Heartless was sitting near the precipice, dangling her booted feet off the edge and staring down at the murky blackness as though contemplating flinging herself off.

Then the blond spoke.

"Somehow I knew you'd be up here."

Sora couldn't help his curiosity. Mirroring the movements of the other boy, he walked slowly over near the edge and stopped right next to the girl.

The aforementioned female sighed, putting her arms around her upraised knees in a somewhat defensive way. "Roxas… just go away."

"Roxas?" Sora didn't bother holding back the incredulous cry. Now he knew the girl was – or at least once was – part of the Organization.

"Sora!"

And with a cry from the present, the scene was broken. Startled, Sora shook his head a few times and looked around. Somewhat to his disappointment, the dull gray of the bailey was back, the Nobodies traversing the trail below were back, and the comparatively-blinding light from the sunset was back.

He turned, half-annoyed at whoever had disrupted… the memory? The flashback? Whatever it was – either way, he had probably been about to get some answers about the Organization and what this Roxas had to do with him.

But for some reason, all the irritation melted away like dew in the sun at seeing the dying light catch crimson hair.

"Hey, Sora," Char greeted breathlessly, skidding to an ungraceful stop beside him. The Keybearer took a step back, noting her uncharacteristic clumsiness. It was… rather nice.

He smiled. "Hi, Char. What's going on?" He found himself praying fervently that Char hadn't noticed any of his little displays from earlier – frowning at something nonexistent; crying out a nonexistent person's name. Yet in the back of his mind, he wondered why she would bother talking to him after what she had said. Nevertheless, he added teasingly, "Aren't you supposed to be in bed right now, young lady?"

Char rolled her eyes and playfully hit his arm. "Oh, shut up, you freak." She ignored his pout at the "insult" and continued. "Alright, um… So, do you remember a little while ago, when you asked me to show you around Hollow Bastion?"

In fact, he had forgotten all about it. The hectic quality of the last few days had kept Sora up until midnight and awake at dawn, pushing out almost all of his more superfluous thoughts. However, now that she brought it up, the memory came rushing back, of himself in his Wisdom Form making the request. "Yeah. What about it?"

"What about it?" Char repeated with an exaggerated sigh. "You're so dense sometimes. Well, I want to take you up on it! I begged Aerith to let me leave for a little bit –"

"But wasn't that not really the smartest thing to do?" Sora interrupted. He winced a bit at Char's annoyed countenance. "Because there are Sorcerer Nobodies right down there – don't look like that; Merlin told me what they were called."

The boy pointed conspicuously down at the Great Maw, which now looked coated with a patchy layer of white from the Nobodies, white that had an undertone of blue from the ground.

Char folded her arms. "Well of course we're not going down there, you idiot! I don't go back on my word – I'm not going to let you try and kill yourself again."

Sora rolled his own sapphire eyes and chuckled. "Darn it, you caught me."

"Don't even joke, spike. I was worried."

Spike… Unbidden, Roxas came to Sora's mind again – Roxas talking to the Organization girl, putting his arm around her and bringing her into a gentle embrace, his arms wrapped around her back and her head pressed against his shoulder.

"Yo! Earth to Key-boy!" Char was waving a hand in front of his face.

Sora shook his head and leaned back slightly. "Okay, okay," he answered, laughter in his voice as he raised his hands in surrender. "I'm here. So where are we going, anyway?"

A look of thoughtfulness spread across her face, as though she were contemplating his strange behavior, but she clearly dismissed it, because a smirk graced Char's already-playful features. "That," she replied, "is for me to know and you to find out."

"Oh, come on!" Sora put his hands on his hips. "Is there anywhere in Hollow Bastion I haven't been?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," she retorted, with a you-don't-even-know quality to her tone.

"Char…" Sora turned the name into a drawn-out whine.

She rolled her eyes, but all she said was, "Just come on. I have something I want to show you."

Without waiting for his consent, she turned on her heel and, her walk brisk if not uneven, started walking toward the stairs.

"H-hey, wait up!" Sora called, hastily making his way down the steps so that he was right behind her. He glanced around nervously as they reached the bottom. "Uh, I thought you said we weren't heading that way –?"

His words trailed off. True to her word, Char pivoted in the opposite direction from the castle gates, toward the cluster of broken buildings. She passed through the pipe-surrounded entrance and he ran after her.

Okay… He wondered briefly why she was taking him to a construction area, and then realized that this must just be the way there. Sora scolded himself inwardly; why would Char give him such an enthusiastic impression about a bit of fragmented architecture?

The path wound in an almost-confusing way, taking sharp turns, and more than once Sora nearly ran into a wall, causing Char to stop, look back, and either raise an eyebrow or suppress a laugh. Each time, Sora would frown, only to have the corners of his lips quirk back up in a grin whenever she turned back around.

Char suddenly stopped in her tracks, and the boy found himself mere inches away from making contact with her back. Quickly he stepped back to avoid crashing into her.

"Uh, Char?" He leaned slightly to the side from where he stood behind her so that he could see her face. The brunette hesitated before continuing, putting a hand on his hip and setting his weight on the opposite leg. "Why did we…?"

Without looking at him, Char held up one finger for silence. Sora looked on, one eyebrow slowly disappearing into his brown bangs, as her free hand moved to stroke her chin thoughtfully. "I thought it was –"

Abruptly she cut herself off and whirled to face him. "Never mind, I found it. Let's go."

"Char, what –" Again, she cut him off, but this time she startled him into silence by seizing his wrist and heading off a little further down the path at a haughty pace.

Sora sighed and let himself be led along, knowing her certainty of the way to this place. He stared down at his feet and couldn't help but notice that Char's limping gait wasn't quite as pronounced as it had been in the early days after the return from the Olympus Coliseum. Sora felt a wave of relief at that; perhaps the recovery now would not take as long as Aerith had predicted.

Glancing back up, Sora was greeted by a strange sight. An off-white glow, not unlike the hue of the Nobodies themselves, was emanating from not too far above them, nearly hidden by the stone formation that rose up in front of it like a column of a cave.

Char stopped in front of the ledge near the strange glow. "We're going up there," she announced, nodding toward where the aura was originating.

Sora didn't know why, but he felt a faint sense of foreboding every time he looked up there. "Are you sure?" he asked at last.

Char sighed impatiently, leaning against the rock and folding her arms so that her hands were tucked under the opposite arms. "Sora, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were thinking I'm leading you into a trap. I've been in there… I know it's safe. Now come on." She stumbled a little over the last two sentences, as though she didn't quite believe herself.

"Okay, okay," Sora murmured; all the same, though, he resolved to call forth the Hero's Crest if any Nobodies or Heartless decided to impede their path.

Uncurling from her position, Char nodded and made her way up the rocks. Having trained hard lately with the Valor Form, Sora had learned exactly how to push down on the ground so that he could jump higher than before, so getting up the makeshift stairway proved to be a simple task for him. However, Char didn't have that luxury; not to mention that she was injured and therefore only had one leg to work with. She gritted her teeth as she pushed herself upward, the pained expression on her face giving everything away. Sora watched her anxiously from the top, at the same time shooting surreptitious glances toward the still-glowing corridor in case anything dangerous popped up. "Are you okay?" he called stupidly.

The redhead gave him a glare that suggested she was most certainly not okay as she continued to struggle to get up the narrow cliff. "Pull me up, would you, you idiot?" she grunted.

Sora started. "Oh! Right!" Clumsily, he leaned down and took her outstretched hand, trying to be careful and not irritate her injury even further as he pulled her up next to him. Nonetheless, a sharp intake of breath grew from behind Char's clenched teeth and she placed her free hand on his chest in order to get better bearings.

When he had pulled her up, he stumbled back briefly and unwittingly took Char with him. It took Sora a moment to realize that this ended up with him against the wall, practically pinned there by Char's body. They stared in shock at each other, faces scant inches apart.

Dimly, he supposed that she must have instinctively put out her other hand to balance against the nearest surface. So, of course, it had to be him. Embarrassment turned his face a ruddy crimson when he realized that she definitely had to feel his heart pounding against his sternum by now.

Before he could comment, however, Char had stepped away from him, shaking her head as though to clear it and rolling her shoulders. "Whew! Thank the gods the journey down's a little easier."

Sora stared at her, and after a few moments, the heat started to vanish from his face. How could she not have noticed that…?

When he looked a little closer, though, Sora could have sworn he saw anger flash in her eyes – and was that a tint of red he saw radiating from her own cheeks?

"Hey, so if you had a hard time getting up here just now, how did you find this in the first place?" he queried, in an obviously-strained attempt to change the subject.

Char sighed and turned back to look at him. The off-white glow from behind her framed her body in a faint pale gray as she spoke. "I obviously didn't go this way – I just found out that this was a back way yesterday."

Huh. Sora remembered that he had been mostly resting yesterday and had thought how strange it was that he hadn't seen Char in bed. Later, the girl had returned back to Merlin's house, looking strangely triumphant, and had taken only a few small pieces of the steak that Cid had cooked before heading back to her room and becoming dead to the world. So that was where she was. Briefly, Sora reflected on how even in one's own home, places that one didn't know about – hadn't bothered trying to find – existed.

He followed Char into the cavern and watched, his eyes wide and awe growing, as the normal stony hues of the walls of Hollow Bastion paled out into the murky off-white he had come to recognize as the trademark of the Nobodies.

The sound of their footsteps gradually changed as the long tunnel ended and turned into a spacious, circular room that was illuminated by the ice-blue torches lining the walls. Stairs spiraled off directly across the room from where the two of them stood, creating a platform that rose above the computer on the lower "floor." Objects on the upper story, objects that looked like some kind of door and that numbered fourteen in all, surrounded this computer. Black symbols adorned the doors, and these symbols were set off by either dark crimson or a pale blue. When Sora squinted to get a better look at these doors, he realized that the red and blue in the area of the doors were created by fire itself.

"Wow," he managed, looking over at Char. He took a few steps along the upper story, placing one hand on the closest door. It was decorated by what looked like a single Keyblade outlined in blue. Sora peered a bit more closely at it; the look of the Keyblade seemed familiar somehow, but when he tried to remember it, the answer scuttled just out of reach.

Suddenly, he realized that he could feel Char's gaze on his back. He turned to look at her, and saw that the corners of her mouth were twitching with amusement.

"Is… is this what you wanted to show me?" he asked, tilting his head to the side and trying to ignore his embarrassment.

To his bemusement, she shook her head. "Not quite." She descended the stairs and moved toward the other side of the room from where Sora was standing. Sora saw that directly above where she stood, there was a red door with a picture of an open book on it.

Hastily, he followed her through the door.

At first, he had to blink to get used to the dimmer lighting after the sheer whiteness of the other room. Once he could see well enough, to his surprise, it was just another tunnel, pristinely white like the previous chamber. He glanced over at Char, wondering despite himself when they were going to find what she had wanted to show him.

Char answered his skepticism with a reproving look of her own. "Look, if there's a shorter way to get there, tell me. It'll save me the time."

Hearing the sharp edge of impatience in her words – impatience that, honestly, matched his own feelings at the moment – Sora bit back his own annoyed remarks and fell silent.

Again, he followed behind her as they trekked through the tunnel. For the first time Sora began to notice that light was gradually vanishing as they progressed further; perhaps that was a sign that they were getting close, since night was falling.

He looked back in front of him, watched Char walk for a bit in the way of one who was obsequiously following another. Even a half-blind old man could tell that the agony from the wound was impeding her stride and creating a slight limp in her normally confident gait. At least she could walk, though, Sora thought. Only a few days ago, she had been irritated due to the fact that he'd had to support her.

The realization of how little he knew about Char still nagged at Sora. He suddenly wondered whether or not this strange venture had more meaning to it than he had first assumed.

They walked on for a while longer, for what seemed like hours, and then he took a deep breath. "Char –"

And then the tunnel ended, and what Sora saw in the dying sunlight made him inhale sharply in awe and look around with large eyes.

The first thought he had was that this place had to have the first sign of plant life he'd seen in this journey's visits to Hollow Bastion. While the area wasn't exactly a plentiful field of flowers, a few white petals still made themselves known among emerald green grass as they fluttered in the early evening breeze. This grass lined the perimeter of and surrounded what had apparently once been a pedestal, but what now lay in ruin, the same dark blue color as the rest of the rocks in the restoration site and Great Maw. As Char and Sora stood there, looking on while the wind gently tugged at their hair, the boy noticed that they stood on a path that led up to the pedestal. He looked behind them and was greeted by only solid rock; however, when Sora craned his neck to see more properly, he could see Maleficent's castle not too far off.

"So?" Char's voice made him look at her. The redhead was staring at him expectantly, her arms folded across her chest, every few moments brushing away a strand of hair that had strayed into her eyes. "It's some ancient ruins where a battle of the Keyblade War took place, and as far as I know it's also one of the few places where plant life still grows in this world."

Sora gazed around. As he watched, a bird fluttered down on a shattered column that had apparently encircled the pedestal. He wondered whether or not this had been some sort of shrine once. The idea sent shivers up his spine; the more he looked around, the more this place was starting to paint a picture in his mind of Keybearers in armor clashing blades and spilling blood, of snarls of anger and battle taunts, of the breathtaking feeling of victory.

And yet, when he blinked, just like that, the feeling was gone.

"I like this," he finally said, glancing back to Char, who was still giving him a "well?" look.

A small smile graced her features in response. "I thought you would."

A shadow came over her face then, as though looking at this were reminding her more and more of something from her past. In truth, Char was thinking of Ienzo, frowning in determination as he uprooted some of the honeysuckle flowers. She wondered what her friend and fellow apprentice had been thinking as he had walked down the same tunnel she had just exited from – that today, he would finally show Char how he felt? The idea created a lump in her throat, for some reason.

Focus, she reminded herself. Remember what you came here to do.

And yet, when she watched Sora, just like that, the attempt to be reasonable had all but evaporated from her mind.

Dark blue eyes met her own topaz gaze. "So…" His voice was quiet, as though he were afraid to break the serenity that seemed to envelop this place. Char couldn't blame him for speaking softly; earlier, she had felt like her voice was echoing throughout the whole of Hollow Bastion.

"Can you tell me more about what happened here?" he asked at last.

Silently thanking Sora for giving her an excuse to think about something other than the gray-haired boy who had apparently fallen so hard for her, Char gave a single, brisk nod. "Yeah, we had an especially long unit on this part of the Keyblade War. See, Xehanort and his allies had already sent Heartless through most of the worlds, right?" Like so many times before, she was struck by the irony of the fact that the Xehanort of her own time had the same name as the instigator of the Keyblade War. Even more ironic was the fact that Xehanort had turned out just as ambitious and passionate as his namesake.

As Char went through the history lesson, animating it by walking around and exasperatedly clarifying points to the clearly-clueless Sora, she noticed vaguely that the sun had vanished entirely and now the barely-visible moon of Kingdom Hearts bathed the pedestal in silver.

"…so, it turned out that Xehanort won over this world, too." Sora's shoulders, tensed in anticipation of the Keyblade warriors' epic victory, slumped in disappointment. Char felt slightly guilty at building everything up in her tale only to tear it down again, but that was the sad truth of this place's history. "He was originally going to use this place as a sort of palace for himself – see, this thing over here was apparently a throne once – but the Unversed and Heartless kind of got a little crazy when they saw how much light this place contained. They tore it apart and it was forgotten."

"Huh," Sora mused, his arms folded in thought. His eyes traced absently over the few remaining columns that surrounded the stone floor of the pedestal, and his gaze eventually landed on the grass beyond. "And that's why I never knew about this place even when I visited a year ago, right?"

"Yeah."

She found herself leading him over to the small strip of grassland. Immense trees blocked off the view of whatever lay beyond.

Before she could open her mouth, Sora had plopped down on his back in the grass, wriggling out of his jacket and sighing as he felt the cool blades against his skin. "I didn't even know Hollow Bastion had much grass!"

Char held back the urge to roll her eyes. "Well, obviously they do; otherwise how the hell would they get vegetables?" However, as she spoke, she sat down next to him, one arm settled against the same knee. Silence reigned for a moment, and, suddenly needing to feel the breeze against her skin, Char took off her own jacket and placed it on the grass, so that her white, camisole-like top showed.

She stared up at the sky, at the faint pinpricks of light that announced the presence of the stars. Her eyes were drawn toward the conspicuous pink-gold-and-black heart-shaped moon that was Kingdom Hearts, and she let out a soft sigh. She knew that if Kingdom Hearts was visible to a world, then that meant that the world itself hung on the cusp of getting overrun by Heartless. Quickly she went over the list of worlds they had already been to in her mind, besides Hollow Bastion and Twilight Town. Beast's Castle, the Land of Dragons, the Coliseum… During their trip to the very latter of the worlds, the group hadn't stuck around long enough to see it at night; but from what Char had seen of the Coliseum, it seemed safe, as did the other two worlds. When she sighed in relief, she reflected that before this journey had begun, she couldn't have cared less what had happened to those other worlds. A grin twitched at the corners of her lips. Sora was definitely rubbing off on her.

She glanced at the boy in question and saw him staring thoughtfully at her, his head tilted to the side. Char felt her heart do that annoying flutter thing as their eyes met and quickly averted her gaze, but she could still feel him looking at her.

"What're you thinking about?" he asked.

Char looked back at him. Sora was barely visible through the long blades of grass, but she could see through the patchy curtain of green that his arms were behind his head and he was lying on his back on the ground with his head still cocked to the side.

She shrugged. "Nothing. This journey. Stuff."

Sora's mouth quirked upward when she had uttered the words, and he returned his gaze to the darkened sky. Irritation flared inside the redhead. "What's so funny?"

She saw him flinch slightly at the anger in her tone, but nevertheless he turned his head to look at her again. "I was just thinking how weird it was that you called me out here." He hesitated before continuing, with tentative nervousness veiling his voice. "When you were so mad at me and all…"

An irritated sigh permeated the night air, and Sora started. "Um, if you don't want to talk about it –"

But a finger promptly placed against his lips silenced him. Char's brows were drawn tightly together in a frown, one eyebrow slightly raised as she stared at him with annoyance plain on her countenance. There was a moment of silence, a moment that was permeated by the rustle of the trees as the wind shook them, before Char spoke again.

"Sora… can we just stop talking about that?"

He blinked. Once. Twice. Again.

As soon as she took her finger away, he opened his mouth to speak, still bemused. But she beat him to it, and he saw her fingers occupied with tearing apart a few innocent blades of grass as she gazed at the sky.

"Have you ever done something – no, said something to someone, something that you looked back on later and hit your head against the wall for being so incredibly stupid?"

Sora hesitated, about to reply negatively. But then he thought of Riku, extending his hand to Sora, waiting patiently even as darkness threatened to consume him. Come on, Sora, his position had whispered, let's go together – best friends, on the journey to new worlds.

And what had Sora done? Sat and stared like an idiot while his best friend vanished right before his very eyes. (1)

"Yeah," the brunette murmured, coming back to the present in a rush.

"Well… that's the exact situation I'm in right now. I'm sorry, okay?" Char cringed a little as she said the last part, almost as though apologizing was physically injuring her.

Inside, her heart was pounding madly. She hoped with all her might that this was going well, because Sora's surprised gaze wasn't exactly giving her any hint toward the positive outcome.

But then he'd risen so that he was supporting himself with his palms, and one hand was placed on her shoulder. Char looked briefly down at the hand on her shoulder, and then her eyes went back to the Keybearer. She was sure she was gaping stupidly at his next words, spoken through a gentle, warm grin and accented by shining blue eyes.

"Char… everything's okay."

It was Char's turn to blink. Once. Twice. Again.

Then she saw the look of hopefulness on his face, lying behind the smile and bright eyes, and knew how much her reconciliation meant to him – a realization that was further confirmed when his hand squeezed her shoulder.

"Alright then," she answered, and to her complete and utter shock she found her own hand reaching up and brushing briefly against the hand on her shoulder. Sora turned red at the contact, the blush darting across his face before he lowered his gaze, his face still a little pink. Char put up her free hand to hide her giggle at his reaction.

"You know what?" she murmured.

Sora raised his head and tilted it to the side, blue eyes wide with curiosity. "Yeah?"

"You're not so bad, Key-boy."

"Shut up," Sora laughed, but his hand pressed against her shoulder one more time before lowering.

Char suddenly looked up at the sky; Kingdom Hearts was appraising them from almost the same point it had before, yet she still felt a sense of urgency to get back to Merlin's house before everyone started worrying.

"We should get back," she remarked aloud, getting to her feet. Disappointment caused Sora's face to fall, but then he glanced up at the sky and his eyes widened a little, as though he saw her point.

"Yeah – I don't want Leon and the others to worry," he acquiesced; but the effect of his words was slightly diminished by the yawn that permeated what he said. He gave Char a sheepish grin. "Sorry… it's been kind of a long day."

A smile threatened to tug at Char's own lips, but she turned away before he could be sure. He wasn't sure if it was to hide her amusement or to pick up her jacket. "C'mon," she said, pivoting back to face him. She gathered her jacket against her frame with one arm and, to his surprise, extended her free hand to him. He stared at it, and then back up at her. Her normally-icy eyes were warm, which startled him even more.

In the end, though, he smiled back at her and took her hand, letting her pull him to his feet. He shouldered his own jacket on and shivered, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and rubbing them to try and stave off the sudden cold.

"Aw, is Key-boy tired and cold?" Char joked.

Sora just laughed in reply, and they set off back through the tunnel. He cast one final look behind him, at the moonlight-bathed ruins and the rare grass and the bloody past.

And suddenly he felt serene.

(1) You know, if you think about it, the whole thing with Riku and Sora kind of parallels Anxclof and Roxas...

Me: I was originally going to add more than that, but eh, I figured it'd been dragged on long enough. Nearly 10,000 words, baby! Still, though, I'm not sure how much I like nice!Char right now. We'll just see how things play out for her friendship with Sora.
Lexi: I liked the dragged-on part...
Me: (irritated) Gtfo! You're not even in this fanfic!
Lexi: (flinches) But... but I heard Haseo was here...
Haseo: (hiding behind potted plant) Oh crap.
Lexi: (starry-eyed) Hi!
Falcon: XD You has a Haseo!
Me: Ah, the fluff between two characters of my non-written story idea in a fandom that probably half my reviewers don't know about...
Sora: I'm still here! D: