Chapter 56: African Depths
Hikari pushed through the overgrown bamboo forest with Sora, Brian and Kairi tailing from behind as the bamboo forest looked to be the safest route to go. After Sora had showed them that they could slide down the tree trunk, which lead to Kairi bringing carried by Sora as he slipped off and lead to another moment, they saw that most of the jungle was dead and there were patrols on some of the old elephant trails. Sora suggested on going to the campsite where Tarzan and Jane are normally found to see if there are any clues on what had happened and if there was anything that could lead to finding them. Without any weapons and with the cuffs on Sora and Kairi, they had to push through the bamboo forest as they couldn't take the route towards the camp with patrols guarding the entrance.
The group had been pushing for so long that Hikari didn't suspect to walk into thin air, making her fall to the ground with everyone else tumbling on her. Kairi was the only one that didn't feel any pain as she was at the top of the pile while sitting on Brian then Sora and then Hikari squashed at the bottom. "Kairi, even though I'm in a bad mood; I'm going to say this in the nicest possible way." Hikari muttered in the dirt, "GET THE HELL OFF!"
"Oh." Kairi laughed nervously before getting off of Brian and gave him a hand, "Sorry guys." Brian smiled up at Kairi and took her hand. As soon as he was pulled up, Kairi and Brian lifted Sora off of Hikari.
"You know, I was just wondering." Brian said as he helped Sora get up on one side of him while Kairi was on the other side. "If that was the nice way, what was the mean way?" Brian asked Hikari as he let go of Sora after making saw that he was steady.
"And why should I tell you?" Hikari said coldly to him as she stepped away from him.
"I just want to know, alright!?" Brian said with an irritated tone as he was starting to get annoyed of Hikari ignoring him.
Hikari turned and glared deadly at him, "Even if you were in a ditch with a few seconds to live; I wouldn't tell you."
"You're just being hash now." Brian returned the glare, "Can't you put aside the hidden truth and look at the memories that we have had together?" Brian begged her.
"Those memories were a part of your act to get to me." Hikari wiped her eyes quickly before anyone could notice the tears forming again, "Let's just get out of here." Hikari then followed the small corner path. Brian didn't say anything; he just looked at his shoes with a thoughtful look before rushing after her.
Sora and Kairi were starting to worry about the two, "I didn't think that Hikari would hold a grunge for this long." Kairi said sombrely. "I hope that it won't ruin their friendship."
"Yeah." Sora agreed before the two began to follow the path. Sora's arm began to hurt again but this time his chest, his heart was hurting him, not his head. Kairi noticed Sora not following her and rushed to his side as he fell to his knees as he clutched his chest.
Secrets are starting to reveal; how many more lies are your friends hiding??
Sssora. Fight it. I can't beat it a-a-alone. Trails of Roxas' voice echoed in Sora's mind. He planning to—"
You know the truth about the Endless; he is the link to your beloved's fall. Get rid of him and then she's safe and yours for the taking.
Don't listen Sora. D-don't L-isten Sor......
Sora...
Don't listen Sora
Sora... Flashes of the dream reminded Sora of the pain from the deathly scene
"Sora!" Kairi shook his shoulder to snap him out of it. As soon as she did, Sora sat up so fast that it made Kairi jump before wrapping his arms around her neck and placed her neck and placed his head on her shoulder, making Kairi even more worried about Sora's saddened scared nature. He hasn't been like this since we were seven and that we got attacked by that shark in the deep waters... "Sora, what's wrong? What just happened?"
Sora's mind was still trapped in the dream, "Don't leave me..." Sora breathed in a low tone. Kairi would have enjoyed Sora hugging her if he wasn't so freaked out. Kairi pushed Sora away from her, receiving a hurt look from the confused Sora, and placed her hands on the side of his head, making him face her.
"Light." Kairi's hands lit up and make Sora close his eyes. The thoughts that were in Sora's mind cleared and settled Sora down. Sora rested his gray claw on his head with his eyes shut before looking at Kairi. "Sora, what's wrong?" Kairi repeated with a firm voice.
"It's nothing." Sora lied as he stood up like nothing happened to him, making Kairi annoyed.
"It's obvious that something is wrong with you. You don't just fall to your knees in pain for no reason." Kairi said to him with an annoyed tone, "Why won't you tell me? Don't you trust me?"
"What?" Where would Kairi think that I wouldn't trust her? "Of course I trust you. With my life." I just not that sure with leaving in battle alone...
"Then why won't you tell me!" Kairi demanded. The conversation was interrupted when they heard Brian's yells from the other side of the path that Hikari and Brian had taken. Kairi had looked in the direction of the yell before facing back to Sora who had a cold and distant face on. What's happening to him? "Sora-"
"Will you just drop it?!" Sora shot at Kairi suddenly, making her jump slightly, before he pushed past his so-called love interest and ran in the direction of the yell. Kairi was shocked at Sora's behaviour, he had NEVER yelled at her before, it was always her and Riku yelling at him about something. Kairi followed Sora with a thought in mind.
There is defiantly something wrong with Sora.
BOWBOWBOW
"OW. OW. OW. OW. OW. How is this fair? I don't even have a weapon."
"Quiet Endless!. I won't let you harm the beautiful young lady."
"OWOWOWOW. Move the blade away, I wasn't attacking her. Would you help me out here?"
"Annnnd why would I want to do that?"
Sora and Kairi ran in to see a brown cloaked figure staggering over Brian with one of their purple coded looking daggers aimed at his neck, threatening to cut while Hikari watched at the sidelines with an amusement struck at her face. The hood covered the figure's face while the cloak was tied with a small rope at the top, leaving the rest of the cloak open. Most of the top half of the figure was hidden but Sora and Kairi could see that the figure wore straps of brown belts with a dark yellow tail wrapped around their waist, dark blue baggy trousers and a dark brown thief boots. On their belt was a symbol of Radiant Garden.
The figured looked up at Sora and Kairi before aiming their other dagger at Sora." Woah." Sora raised his hands up defensively. The figure moved away from Brian and came towards Sora, he slashed at Sora before pushing Kairi protecting behind them. Sora feared that this figure was going to take Kairi away so he quickly dodged the daggers and jumped at the figure.
Kairi, Brian and Hikari were surprised at this and tried to break the two up, "Sora, stop it." Kairi begged him.
While Sora looked at Kairi with confusion, the figure paused at the name. "Sora? You mean Sora the Keyblade Master?" The figure asked.
Sora looked back down at the figure as he got off of the figure. "Uhh, yeah?"
The figure placed their daggers into their holders again before stepping away from the four and removed their hood while relaxing their tail. It appeared to be a male and looked to be about 19. He had shoulder-length blonde hair and piecing light blue eyes. Sora, Kairi and Brian waited for the guy to explain who or what he was but Hikari seemed to cry out his name as she ran up to him and hugged him.
"You're alive." Hikari banged at his chest as she cried into his shoulder; the guy was just as confused as her comrades. "Sakuzy and I thought you got killed by the Heartless."
The figure's eyes widened and pushed Hikari away to properly look at her, "Hikari?" Hikari nodded shakily before hugging him again, this time the figure hugged back. "Man Hikari, you've sure have grown. If you weren't my best friend's sister, I would be flirting right now." The figure chuckled.
"Trust me, mate." Brian said, referring to the time when he had flirted with Hikari after the Stitch problem, "Not a smart thing to do."
"I'm Sora." He greeted, "This is Kairi and Brian."
Hikari pulled away from the figure and faced her friends, "Guys, this is Zidane." Hikari pointed to the figure, who shrugged innocently and smiled cheesy at them. "He was friends with......my brother." Hikari sighed before looking back at Zidane. "What happened to you?"
"Well, let's just say that when I stayed to let you and Sakuzy escape the Heartless world; I was a prisoner in darkness until the worlds were restored. I've be here ever since." Zidane simply said, not wanting to be reminded before realising why Hikari was sad at the reminder of her brother, "I heard what happened to Sakuzy. I'm sorry." Hikari smiled and gave Zidane another hug.
"You know, Zidane's personality is kinda like Brian's." Sora pointed out.
"Properly the reason why she was still my friend after the Recon mission." Brian sighed with misery. Kairi placed her hand on Brian's shoulder and smiled softly at her, noting that everything is going to be alright.
"We need your help, Zidane." Sora spoke up, grabbing everyone's attention, "We need to get our weapons back and these cuffs off." Sora showed the cuffs on his wrists to Zidane. "Then we need to find Tarzan and Jane to see if they're alright."
"You're lucky to find me then." Zidane said happily.
"And why is that?" Brian questioned as he crossed his arms.
"Because...ta da da da." Zidane opened his cloak to reveal Brian's staff, Hikari blade and a set of laser styled keys. "I thought the blade looked similar so I took it with me." Zidane handled Brian his staff and Kairi the keys to her and Sora's cuffs.
"How did you get our weapons?" Hikari gasped with amazement as Zidane handled her Eternal Blade over. Sora and Kairi took their cuffs off and summoned their keyblades.
"If you remember, I'm a thief." Zidane reminded her, Hikari smiled innocently; embarrassed that she forgot that about Zidane. "I also had some help from Storm."
"Storm?" Hikari questioned. Sora, Kairi and Brian were discussing a plan to travel across this world so they didn't listen in on Hikari and Zidane's conversation.
"Yeah, he's a Netrual Endless soldier where-" Zidane explained.
"Wait, you're friends with an Endless?" Hikari said with shock. He knew about Sazuky's death so he should have hatred for Endless as well.
"Ha! You can talk. You have two Endless friends." Zidane shot back while pointing at Sora and Brian, who was currently arguing on which route to take with poor Kairi trying to stop them from fighting.
"I can't say much for Brian but Sora isn't an Endless." Hikari said to him.
Zidane looked at Sora's claw for a while with wonder before looking back at Hikari, "I would keep an eye on him if I was you." He said, "Many unexpected things appear in life, one of them might change everyone's lives." Hikari nodded at the advice. "C'mon, let's stop these two." Zidane then started to comb his hair with his fingers and smirked as he looked in Kairi's direction.
Hikari looked in the direction that Zidane was looking at before shooting him a glare, "Zidane! NO!"
"Just this one time." Zidane shrugged Hikari's demands away before walking up to the three. Hikari watched as Zidane wrapped his arm around Kairi's shoulder, catching both of the boys' attention. Zidane then stepped back a bit when Sora AND Brian summoned their weapon and pointed at Zidane.
This confused Hikari as Sora and Brian was even had the same angry expression on their faces, why was Brian being protective over Kairi? He was the one flirting with her to begin with. Not to mention that he was the one promoting that Kairi can do her own things so why has his behaviour changed towards her?? Hikari huffed at what she was thinking. What do I care at what Brian does?! It's properly just another act to lure them in.
"Hikari!" Zidane called her over, breaking her out of her thoughts. She saw that Sora and Brian had dispose of their weapons. They are strangely familiar. "We have to go."
"Where are we going?" Hikari asked as she approached the group.
"Elephant Falls." Zidane said as he placed his hood over his head again. "We can meet up with Strom then think of a way to sneak into Dark Mountain." Zidane looked at Hikari, "Before we go, are you up for this?"
Hikari giggled at the thought of Zidane being protective, he always done that. "Yes Zidane, I'll be able to look out for myself."
"I know that." Zidane interrupted, "I meant when we meet up with Storm. You're not gonna go insane over him, are you?"
"Uhh, of course not. He's a Neutral." Hikari was slightly confusion on why Zidane was concerned about his Endless friend. He must have heard the death threats that she had made against Brian back at the tree house of horror.
"Okay. If you're sure." Zidane didn't sound conviced by Hikari's answer but choose to respect the reply for now. "Let's go."
BOWBOWBOW
The group had decided to go with Sora's idea as they used the vines to get across the jungle. Brian's idea was going through the paths where there are lots of patrols and suggested that they fight their way through. If they done that, Zidane wouldn't be able to meet up with Storm and they would easily get out-numbered and throw back into the slammer. Even though Sora's route took longer, it was the more safer route.
"C'MON KAIRI, WHILE WE'RE STILL YOUNG."
"Can't you see that she's having trouble?"
"Yeah but Sora's over there so he should be able to help."
"AHHH! SORA!"
"C'mon Kai. I was only kidding."
"Not by much though."
While Zidane was relaxing in a tree as well as lookout for enemies and distance, Brian and Hikari were one the larger branch below as they waited for Kairi to learn not to look down while swinging on a vine. Brian and Hikari watched as Sora tried to explain to Kairi how to swing on a vine but so far it had lead to Kairi nearly falling to her death five times and counting.
"SORA!" Brian shouted over to him, grabbing his attention, "JUST LEAVE HER. SHE CAN DO IT ON HER OWN." Hikari looked at Brian in disbelief.
"Have you not been counting the failed tries??" Hikari asked him.
"Yeah but Kairi can't really try with Sora down her throat, that's why she trains with me and Riku." Brian explained, "Listening to Sora's advice on things is like giving a monkey a flamethrower."
"Sora is just naive. He's not an idiot." Hikari defended Sora.
"I never said he was an idiot." Brian said as he watched Sora shack his head at him before grabbing a vine himself and showed Kairi how to swing instead of telling her. "I just said that his advice on training isn't that good." Kairi swinged on the vine but ended up tangled in other vines and having herself trapped in the vines. "Exhibit A." Brian smirked at the tangled up Kairi.
"How about you respect Sora for once in your life?!" Hikari complained to him.
"I'll respect him when you forgive me." Brian shot back. The two were too busy glaring intense heat into each other's eyes that they didn't notice Zidane hang upside down while using his monkey tail as support with his arms crossed.
"Hello?!" Zidane flipped to the ground as his let down of the branch above. While Brian and Hikari took their attention away from each other and faced Zidane; Sora came swinging over with Kairi holding tightly against his chest with both arms around her waist. Sora settled Kairi down and asked if she was alright. "Now that everyone has made it." Zidane took command, "Let's carrying on." Zidane pushed aside a huge jungle leaf to reveal a cliff that had a view of a waterfall and the Endless camp by the side of the lake. The water was strangely pure white instead of light blue. Zidane, Sora, Brian, Hikari and Kairi dropped to the ground to try and keep cover as they slowly crawled to the side of the cliff. While Zidane watched out for his Endless friend, the others watched the soldiers of the Order.
They could see that the gorillas that take residences on this world were all chained up with a number of Endless soldiers guarding the defenceless animals. They saw some sort of machine that the soldiers were leading the apes in. They couldn't see the outcome of the apes as there was dead like trees blocking the view. All they could tell is that at first they heard the apes shrieking in fear but the cries of help turned into blood thirst roar. The deadly roars of the mammals sounded worse than any sound in Halloween Town.
"The gorillas..." Sora said with guilt hitting his heart, feeling that he had failed to help them.
"What could the Order be planning with the gorillas?" Kairi asked Zidane. Zidane just shrugged as he seemed to be used to the roars.
"Maybe we should ask Brian." Hikari suggested coldly, "He IS the Colonel's son after all." Every time Sora seems to hear about Brian being related to the Colonel, he feels an instant anger towards Brian.
"WILL YOU JUST-" Brian stood up as he shouted at Hikari, angered that she would bring that bit up. Zidane quickly rose and pushed Brian back down before covering his mouth.
"We're in cover, Endless." Zidane reminded Brian, "Stay in cover." Zidane send a warning glare to Brian to shut him up before letting him go and looked down at the position again. "I thought I smelt a snake around here." Zidane said with disgust.
The others looked in the direction that Zidane pointed at to see Major Snake with his armour on, pointing to one of the cages that the group couldn't see from the position they were in. Sora was the first to notice that the soldiers had come back with Tarzan and Jane in chains and was forced to follow Snake's gorilla army. "Where could Snake be leading them?" Sora asked.
"Dark Mountain." Zidane answered, "It's the only place where the gummis are. We need to get to Dark Mountain but not without Storm."
"Where is this so-called Storm anyway?" Brian said as he was starting to get impatient with the monkey warrior.
"There." Zidane smirked as he pointed to the Endless guard that was just signed off duty and was heading towards the lake. Zidane then faced Hikari with concern.
Hikari, knowing what Zidane was going to say, beat him from speaking, "If you ask if I'm okay with meeting this Endless one more time then I'll throw you into that lake using your monkey tail." Hikari threatened.
"Have I asked you that many times?" Zidane acted innocently.
"You've asked her twenty seven times." Brian said with irritation as he was starting to get sick of Zidane asking the question all the time too. Sora and Kairi nodded in agreement to Brian.
"Really? Doesn't feel like it." Zidane shrugged.
"Just tell me why I should care about this Endless?" Hikari raised her voice at Zidane.
Zidane just pointed to behind her. "Take it up with him." Hikari turned around to see the Endless guard standing behind them on the back of the cliff edge. The Endless was wearing full covered armour but seemed to have a coloured shadowed claw like the Order members as his claw was gray as a dark cloud. Hikari didn't waste any time to draw her Eternal Blade out and started to charge at the Endless. The Endless didn't take any acknowledgement of Hikari and started to take its helmet off. Hikari was about to kill their only source to Dark Mountain when the Endless took off its helmet and revealed its face.
Hikari then froze with shock.
Mad: Who is this mysterious Storm? Will Hikari EVER forgive Brian? Will Kairi discover what's wrong with Sora. Tune in next time for...dun dun dun duuun. KINGDOM HEARTS: BALANCE OF WORLDS.
Hey everyone, sorry for the slow update. Everyone seems to want to go on the computer now a days and not go out in the sunshine, crazy right?
Brian: Can't you just give us a name??
Mad: Nope, The next time I'll update is when I go back a college so this should keep you muddled for a while. BWAWAWAWA.
Brian: Evil... okay, here are the messages.
Future Keybearer: I never though of it that way. I guess that Devil is right after all. Thanks for reviewing.
Celticskyedancer: Vivi was to busy watching the ducks games to notice the chocobo sneak in his hat. Thanks you.
Soragirl4ever: I think you caught up with the number of reviews you send to this story which is always good. YAY! COOKIES yum yum ths will give me the enegry to think of the plot for the next chapter. I think your the first person to comment on my message board, cheer me up. Don't worry, you'll come up with ideas. Best thing to do is to come up with what will happen at the end and what stuff needs to be mentioned for the story to make sense before imagine what sort of bosses would you find in the story. If you want, you can think of a way I could continue Bachlor Auction since people want me to continue the three shot. Thanks for the reviews.
Starlight: Computer is still not working. When my computer is fixed, i'm changing it back to XP.
KairiDestiny: Thank you. I'm glad that you love the story so far.
Kisdota- The Freak Gamer: More about the chocobo will be mention later. Hope you can update soon, leave it too long and people will forget what's going on in your story.
Artism: Don't worry about it. You will be a beginner so some authors will understand. If anyone steals your character then they're sad and should get a life. You'll do fine. The buses run at 6am??? Where are you from again? It sounds like USA cause i think the buses act like that in america. Our buses just be late all the time which is ignoring. Thanks for the reviews.
That's all folks. I'm gonna enjoy the rest of my summer. See ya in September.
Kingdommad