FLASH! Another memory of Sora flashed before Kairi's eyes. However, this time it was a younger version of him that raised the Keyblade over his head, yelling "WIND!"/b A wind barrier instantly formed around Sora, protecting him from minor harm that would otherwise injure him...

"Huh. I never knew Sora could use Aeroga before," Kairi commented. She was sitting against the circular wall that lined the lower level, massaging her aching feet with her boots discarded beside her.

"You know, I've been thinking..." Naminé began.

"About what?"

"We've got all these magic spells, our own evasion move, and one of the sickeningly girlish looking Keyblades I've ever seen," Naminé said with a hint of irony in her voice. "I just realized there's one more thing we need before we can actually call ourselves a true Keyblade wielder."

"A damsel in distress?" Kairi guessed.

"No, a Limit! We don't have our own special ultimate attack!" Kairi nodded at this statement thoughtfully.

"Yeah. I mean, Sora's got Trinity Limit/Ultima, Riku's got Dark Aura." She began to slip back on her boots. "Even Roxas has that annoying light orb attack that for some reason he failed to use when we went up against him."

"Exactly."

The girls began walking up the ramp and headed for the second-to-the-last cove. "But how exactly do you do a Limit anyway?" Kairi mused. "Sora and Riku never explained how they do theirs."

In the back of Kairi's mind, Naminé shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe it's one of those things that show up when you really need it."

"Well, we've gone through eleven Organization members already who most of them almost succeeded in killing us. Except Demyx." Kairi rolled her eyes. "He got what he deserved, but I think we overdid it with the wedgie."

"Maybe," Naminé said only half-listening, "but if we don't get a Limit soon, we'll probably not be able to use one at all."

They stopped in front of Xigbar's shadowy object. "Is that a fan?" Kairi asked as she peered closer.

"It could be an axe..." Naminé suggested.

Kairi shook her head. "No, wait. Now I remember. Xigbar used to shoot people." She extended out her arm.

"A gun, huh?" Naminé stifled a yawn. "After seeing people with cards, musical instruments and books as weapons, I guess a basic standby like this is pretty refreshing from the unusual."

The light faded for the umpteenth time, depositing the girls in the Hall of Empty Melodies. Kairi took a good look at her surroundings. "I definitely remember this place," she said. Kairi pointed upward at the second floor. "Riku and I were fighting up there."

"Yeah," Naminé said in a serious tone, "Back when we first got this Keyblade from him." Kairi could feel that something else was bugging her.

"What's up?"

"Where exactly did Riku get it anyway?" Naminé asked. "If I remember correctly, he only had Way to the Dawn."

Kairi shrugged. "I'm not sure. I asked him about it before, but all he said was that he used his powers of darkness or something."

"So this could be a dark Keyblade we're wielding?" Naminé asked. Before either of them could give it any more thought, the data streams began to appear right before their eyes.

"I guess it's go time." Kairi sighed as she got into her ready stance.

"You mind if I take this one?" Naminé asked. "You can have Xemnas afterwards, I promise." Kairi thought about it for a moment. She hadn't dared to use Curaga to heal herself from the previous battle in case their magic wouldn't finish recharging in time. And switching was the easiest way to do both, so...

"All yours, girl." Before Xigbar's body finished forming, Kairi closed her eyes and relinquished control.

As Naminé opened her eyes, she checked herself. "Completely undamaged," she stated with a satisfied tone.

The first thing she noticed as Xigbar stood before her was that he wasn't holding his weapons. "Have you been a good little girl?" he taunted.

"Shut up, Braig," Naminé snapped as she got into her battle stance.

"Oh." Xigbar shook his head. "It sounds like you haven't. But I guess it can't be helped." He crossed his arms over his chest. Naminé shot him with a suspicious glare before she suddenly felt a pair of hands crawling up her sides.

"YEEEK!" Naminé shrieked. She quickly jumped forward and whipped her head around to see a pair of gloved hands suspended in mid-air, wiggling its fingers.

"A bit jumpy, ain't ya?" Xigbar laughed as he pulled his hands back out of the wormholes.

Naminé stomped her foot in frustration. "What is with all the tickling all of a sudden?"

"I guess that's a disadvantage of being cute," Kairi grumbled. "Every guy wants to tickle you at least once. Besides," she added, "I don't think wearing the skimpiest paper-thin dress in all existence actually helps either."

"At least I'm wearing underwear," Naminé muttered back. Then to Xigbar, "Don't tell me you're a perv like Vexen as well?!"

"Vexen?" Xigbar repeated. "You mean, the old coot who would be going through Larxene's laundry every Friday?" He shook his head. "As if. Not everyone thinks you're a god's gift to guys, you know."

Naminé's eyes widened at the insult. "Did he just call you ugly?" Kairi asked.

"At least I don't have a voice like some surfer pirate reject," Naminé shot back.

Xigbar wagged his finger at her. "Oh dear. I think you've got the wrong impression," he said. "I know. It's the eye-patch. But I wear it for a reason." He grinned at her, distorting his scarred features even further. "It helps my aim."

"Whatever, you spaz," Naminé growled. "You probably shot your own eye out with those gun arrows of yours."

"That would explain a lot," Kairi commented.

Naminé sighed. "I guess the Organization's big master plan's almost complete and you're not going to tell us squat."

Xigbar laughed. "You betcha! Like my philosophy says: 'You can talk all you want, but it won't change a thing.'"

"Then why in blue blazes are we even having this conversation?" Naminé yelled. "If you wanted to kill us, you should've done it already, not doing some villainous monologue!" Her grip on the Keyblade tightened with anger. "You've been torturing us by going through all of these fights with you, and yet not one of you has managed to do it yet!"

"If you and your boyfriends hadn't decided to turn on us, we wouldn't have had to resort to this." Xigbar squinted at her through his eye. "Of course, we could've killed you if we really wanted to."

"Either that or the Organization just sucks at fighting girls," Naminé retorted. Kairi giggled at the remark.

Xigbar rolled his eye. "As if! You don't even look like you're half the hero the others were."

Naminé swiped her Keyblade in a threatening manner. "Come here and say that to my face, cyclops!"

"I've heard what happened back at Castle Oblivion," he stated. "You betrayed your fellow Nobodies for some twerp you never knew."

"If I hadn't," Naminé began, "Marluxia and Larxene would've used Sora to..."

"Enough rambling," Xigbar interrupted. "All I'm telling you, traitor, is that your time is up!"

"Well, it could be worse," Naminé thought as she got back into her fighting stance. "He could be using those wormholes to split my body all over the place and make me go through Vexen's torture again." A chill ran down her spine at the thought.

"Agreed," Kairi said. "It's one thing to be restrained. But having absolutely no body movement at all would be complete and utter hell."

Purple crossbow shaped weapons appeared in his hands. The cocking of the guns' barrels rang throughout the room. As Xigbar twirled the gun arrows in his hands, he gave the memory witch a crafty grin. "You really shouldn't have betrayed us!"

"Do you have any idea where we're heading, your Majesty?" Donald asked the King.

The King scratched absent-mindedly behind his ear. "Welp, I'm pretty sure everyone will be heading for the old mineshaft."

King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Tarzan and Hercules had gotten slightly sidetracked from their mission of finding the others due to Goofy leading the group. After a few dead ends (and a few rash phrases from Donald involving the words "wack," "phooey," and "palooka"), King Mickey took charge and began heading for where he believed the others would be.

"How exactly do you know this?" Hercules asked.

Instead of responding, Mickey pointed upward above the rocky cliffs at a green flying object about half a mile from their current position. The others squinted as best as they could. Then Goofy gasped in realization. "That's Peter Pan!"

Mickey chuckled. "Yup! And judging by where he's flying in circles, I'm guessing he's a beacon for everyone who's fighting."

"Bacon?" Goofy wondered.

Donald rapidly shook his head. "No! He said beacon!"

"A-hyuk! Right!" Goofy nodded as he rubbed his paunch and licked his lips. "Still sounds tasty!" Donald rolled his eyes.

The party quickly made their way through the chasms until they spotted Tidus and his group.

"Hey, look!" Donald cried. "It's Auron!" After everyone greeted and introduced each other ("Who's the guy in the loincloth?"), they got right down to business.

"Have you seen Sora?" Tidus asked.

The others shook their heads. "Actually, we were going to ask you the same thing," the King replied. "We've figured out why Kairi's been kidnapped."

Tidus, Wakka, Auron and Yuna (who had stuck around) were all stunned at the statement. It was Auron who recovered first. "Mind sharing with the rest of us?"

"As many of you already know, Organization XIII was destroyed by both Sora and Riku over the past few years. It turns out, though, that they had a contingency plan in case that ever happened."

"How'd you figure that?" Wakka asked.

"Ansem's computer," the King answered. "Anyway, the first part of their plan was to kidnap Princess Kairi on her sixteenth birthday."

"For what purpose?" Auron wondered. "She was no immediate threat to them."

"Welp, I'm betting that somehow she was. She may have something that the Organization lacks or something that we might need."

"She is a Princess of Heart after all," Goofy added. "Maybe they needed her for her heart."

Auron nodded thoughtfully. "Then what's the next part of their plan?"

"As far as we could tell," Mickey nodded toward Donald and Goofy, "they have a hidden storage room where they keep the essences of the entire Organization via computer data. The plan was to trap her within that room until they gathered enough data."

"Data?" Tidus repeated. "Data for what, exactly?"

"As for that," the King crossed his arms and sighed, "I have no idea."

"Well, what about Ansem's...I mean, Xehanort's Reports?" Goofy asked. "He was the one who sent Kairi to Destiny Islands, right? What if he knew about the decree stating that she had to get married here in Radiant Garden and he's going to extract all of her memories from her heart?"

The group stared at him with blank looks. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Wakka said.

"Hey, guys!" Peter called from above. "Everyone's almost here!"

"By the way," Hercules began, "what are you guys doing here, anyway?"

Tidus shrugged. "Riku told us to gather here for some reason," he explained.

Mickey jumped. "Riku did? But why would he..." The King's sentence trailed off.

Donald and Goofy looked at each other. The court wizard tapped Mickey on the shoulder. "Your majesty?"

"It looks like we didn't have to tell Sora and Riku after all," Mickey muttered. "They probably already know where Kairi's being held captive. In fact," he scratched behind his other ear, "the Organization's computer is probably at the other end of this mineshaft."

Auron looked at him suspiciously. "And how would you know this?"

King Mickey shook his head. "Call it a hunch. But if I'm right," Mickey's eyes narrowed, "we're going to need all the help we can get."