Chapter 94: Holiday's Soul
The beeping of Max's headgear echoed through the dark forest within the Hinterlands as the three friends began to head their way to where the craved trees were. The controlled zombie lead the way while Sora and Kairi trailing behind him, remaining cautious for any more Heartless appearing. "'Beep!' You think that the others will find the keyhole?" The zombie asked.
The three knew that Riku, Donald and Goofy had headed out of town to go and see if they could balance the keyhole before meeting them in Christmas Town. Max and Kairi had asked Sora about this so-called town but he only said it was a surprise before returning to his thoughts. "Donald and Goofy remember where it is, they should be fine." Sora replied quietly, placing his pale like hands into his pockets.
The corpse-like princess looked back at her friend, "Sora?" She spoke with concern as his sight remained on his pointed shoes. "Are you alright?"
Sounds of footsteps began to slow down with the scatter of dead leaves, making the vampire halt his own actions to look up at his concerned friends. There were many thoughts that was running through his mind to turn him quiet, there was the content thought of his worst nightmare appearing in his mind more than normal due to Kairi's costume change, there was the thought of where Roxas could be, there was the thought of doubt of ever finding Ventus to know the truth about the voice and his connection with him, there was also a thought from when he had departed from the group earlier on, passing a broken mirror, only to see someone else's reflection before turning into his own again.
The one thought that was currently on his mind though was the thought of home. The sounds of the crystal blue waves echoing in his head, the beaming sun shining in his eyes, the sand scattering wind brushing against his skin, the memories of his friends and family left behind, smiling back at him. He had to blink a couple of times before reality was brought back in front of him, making the Keyblade Master sigh sadly, "All of the time that has gone by…" He began, "Sometimes, I just wish that life would just stay slow, that we can enjoy the worlds that we go to, so we could realise know that there were good times while leaving home."
"You home- 'Beep!' sick?" Max asked him as Kairi walked over to him.
"Maybe….I don't know what to think-"He halted as he felt place her hand on his shoulders, his eyes turned to his blue-skinned friend.
"Like you said to me before, 'We'll find the King and defeat the Order then we can go home and finally return to our normal lives'. We'll be home soon, I know it." She assured him with a heart-warming smile.
Sora smiled sadly at her before removing her hand of comfort, "You make it sound so simple." He sighed.
She stepped in front of him, being right in front of him. "That's because it is."
"Kairi's right." Max stepped forward, "So long as you- 'Beep! Beep! Beepeepeepeep!'! Max yelled in frustration from the device, making the two islanders to chuckle from his actions. "This is SO annoying!"
Sora chuckled at this, Max and Kairi was right, they will be home soon and he assumed that Max meant that so long as he thought of his friends as well as home, it will always be with him. "What's the item that we have to collect?" His voice brightened up, earning a pleased smile from his friend as she stepped out of the way for him.
Max stood there in thought before his helmet beeped as the thought came across, "Brian said that it was called 'Holiday's Soul'." He explained to them, "He said that this will be one of the hardest ones to get."
"Why's that?" Kairi raised an eyebrow with curiosity.
"Each holiday's item needs to be formed together to create it, 'Beep!' I think the keyblade is needed." He answered.
The thought of the other holidays passed through the Keyblade Master's mind, "Now that I think about it, there was a number of doors to different holidays, including Christmas Town-"
"Sora!" He watched as Max quickly pulled out an arrow for his summoned bow and shooting just pass Sora's head, getting the Heartless that remained behind him.
Seconds later, a crowd of Heartless surrounded them. As Sora and Kairi summoned their Keyblades, Max tried to avoid the Heartless' strikes, only for the helmet device on his head to cause some delay with his moves, getting stuck down by one of the Heartless. He placed his bow in front of him as a number of Heartless pounced towards him, Is this really the end? A flash of light filled his eyes before the Heartless in front of him had disappeared, replaced by a familiar keyblader, "Max, you alright?" He handed out his hand to him.
Max delayed for a second due to the zombie device before grabbing his spare hand, "Thanks." He said before groaning in annoyance, "This is gonna be harder with my actions being jumpy."
"Here." Sora pointed Kingdom Key at his friend, "Haste!"
Kairi battled the Heartless away just to see Sora cast 'Haste' on Max, her eyes widened slightly as she saw a part of Sora's shadowed claw glow orange for a second. "Sora…" She was sure that it had to do with the virus, she just wasn't sure if he was feeling any pain or not. She watched him turned to her, he must have her me mutter his name she quickly thought before seeing him run over to her with a panicky expression. What th- She turned around, only to see a slight glance of the NeoShadow before getting knocked to the floor.
Due to haste, Max had managed to pull out and shot multiple arrows at the Heartless enemy, including the NeoShadow that was near Sora and Kairi before changing his bow into combat style as he dashed through the enemies like they were butter. Seeing the speed of the archer dog, the Heartless disappeared again through the shadows from where they came from, just as 'haste' began to wear off. The teen dog humanoid breathe heavily before gaining a goofy smile on his face, "That was 'Beep!' AWESOME!"
While Max was talking of how cool 'haste' was, thinking that the other two was listening, The islanders were too focused on the fact that Sora had managed to throw the two into. The Keyblade Master had covered Kairi from getting struck from the Heartless, he pushed himself up slightly only to see Kairi's redden face upon her pale blue skin, keeping the Keyblade Master drawn to her redden face. He was pretty sure that if he was still in contact with Roxas then he would be able to point out the closeness that the two have. After a moment of looking at the girl in confusion, he finally notices the position that the two are in, making his pale skin flare up. "I'm sorry." He quickly rushed off of her; it didn't help when she was still in her corpse form, reminding him once more about the dream.
"Hey guys! I think I found the holiday pathways!" Max had gone up ahead while the two were in their own world.
Sora quickly held his hand to Kairi, helping her up as the two began to walk to where the holiday craved trees were. He had smiled softly at the girl before the sudden feeling past through as if a ghost was reaching in for his heart, making him turn towards the forest. "Do you sense that?" He said out loud.
"Sense what?" The girl looked at her friend in confusion, watching him looking into the dark forest as if he was searching for something. "Sora…" She was starting to get worried.
"You go and catch up with Max." He said to her, looking in the forest, "I'll be there in a minute."
At first, she stayed where she was. She knew that he shouldn't be able to use Haste if he's taking the remedy, let alone see his claw glow an emotional colour. After seeing that he was too distracted looking into the forest with cautious, she slowly began to make her way over to Max.
Hearing the sounds of Kairi's footsteps in the leaves, the Keyblade Master stepped forward slightly, looking into the forest once more for the source of the strange sensation. This is annoying. I don't have time for searching for ghosts. His claw slightly glowed blood red before returning to its original colour as he turned to reach the others, missing the movements of shadows and trees within the forest.
BOWBOWBOW
The silver werewolf looked up at the open area of nothing as the three of them merged from the graveyard, "This is it? It's an empty space!" The wolf growled. There was no sight of the Keyhole and his mind seemed to be worried about his friend ever since finding him looking into a cracked mirror with fright.
"Donald! Goofy!"
The silver werewolf turned towards the source of the voice, even though his voice hadn't been called out. He looked at the figure strangely as he ran toward them, seeing his bone like figure, only to see that he was actually a skeleton in a black with white linen suit. The sight was just plain creepy compared to the Sally person. "Donald! Goofy! Am I glad to see you." He grinned with his skeleton grin before laying his boney sight on Riku. "And who's this delightful friend of yours and where's Sora?" he asked, looking around for the vampire.
"Riku." He kept it simple. "Sora's in Christmas Town." He crossed his flurry arms as he looked at the skeleton man. "Question is, who are you?"
"I'm none other than: JACK SKELETON, THE PUMPKIN KING!" He yelled in pride as he pulled a scary face towards the three, while Donald and Goofy jumped slightly, not being used to the scary face, Riku remained where he was as he shook at the skeleton's fright. He watched as the expression on the pumpkin king's face change into confusion as he fully stood up once more, "How is it that you haven't heard of me?" He questioned, being the King of flight and the lord of Halloween, he would have thought everyone had heard of him.
"I'm not one for children stories." He simply shrugged.
"What's going on, Jack?" Donald butted in.
"Yeah. How ya been?" Goofy added.
Jack placed his bony hand against his skull in thought, "Well, I was taking down the last remains of my scarecrows when I noticed something out of the originally so I thought I come here to check the keyhole. Then I realised that I can't really check the keyhole without Sora, since he's the one that has the key to show it." He explained.
Riku placed his paw out in front of him, "Just show me where the Keyhole is." He smirked as he summoned the Way to the Dawn into his paw.
Jack awed at the Keyblade, "I see you have one too." He grinned before turning his back to them, "Alright men, follow me!" He said bravely as he began to walk across the empty plain, leaving the others bewildered.
BOWBOWBOW
Hikari sighed with boredom and frustration as she started to wish that she had joined the others to Halloween Town, finding it worrying and plain that Brian kept looking at random reports that were in one of his boxes that had remained deep within the closets, or in this case, looking for the memories that remained deep within his heart. Deciding that she wanted her friend to remember to good times, she quickly grabbed a box of her own and slammed it down on the table, making Brian's papers fly everywhere once more. Before the Endless could question her actions, he was bombarded with lots of pictures from Little Devon.
"Okay! Look at this!"
Brian groaned with annoyance as he looked at the picture dully, "Looking." They have been looking at pictures for the past half an hour and his patience was beginning to wear thin.
A few seconds of silence, "Anything?"
A growl of annoyance escaped his lips ad he glared down at his cake loving friend, "Hikari! This is pointless. I remember nearly everything from when I came to live in Little Devon." The mage moaned.
"You don't remember 'why' you came thought or anything before that." She pointed out, "So I'm gonna do what any good friend would do and help you remember your true self." She said as she shuffled through the box of pictures of them back at Little Devon.
"If you want to help me remember, try and find stuff that isn't from Little Devon." He told him, moving some papers about old missions in Little Devon.
"Well, why don't you tell me what you find familiar? The memory might pop back." She suggested.
"Remembering memories isn't the problem here." He replied with a sad tone, "Without the other memories to connect to it, it won't make sense."
"Well, what doesn't make sense?" she asked.
He remained in thought before shaking his head, "It doesn't matter. I'm just looking at this wrong." He said before picking up another box from the pile, it's hard to believe that he didn't remember having all of this stuff.
"What about your armguard?" Hikari spoke, "Does it remind you of your father?"
"As much as I would like to remember, I rather not." He said quickly.
"Why not?" She questioned, "When you first came home, you would always say that you wanted to be like your father, you wanted to prove that his death wasn't meanness." Even though she hasn't met his father, she couldn't sit to watch Brian insult his own blood.
"I know that." He stared down at his armguard, "I'm sorry."
She snapped herself out of her sudden questioning to see her friend's heartbroken expression. "Brian…" She said quietly, "Why do you hate your father?"
"I don't know." He admitted him, receiving slightly wide eyes from his friend. "I just—all I remember was blaming him. For leading me to a world I didn't know, with a path I couldn't see, with a task that I can't complete." The room fell in silence. "I guess- I don't even know what I'm here to do anymore."
"Warning! Warning! Endless detected!" The A.I system went off.
"Is it picking up Sora?" Hikari asked her friend.
"It shouldn't pick up Sora." He quickly rose to his feet and ran up the stairs to the cockpit.
It didn't take Hikari long to follow him to the cockpit, seeing him scan the world below. "What's going on?"
"Warning! Heartless detected!" The A.I spoke.
"Looks like an interesting battle is gonna commence." He said, seeing energies of endless and Unbirth on one side of Halloween Town while Heartless were on the other.
BOWBOWBOW
The Keyblade Master appeared from the Thanksgiving Door, receiving the Turkey's Feather from the leader of that part of the world as he walked back into the Hinterlands. He looked at back at the door that lead to Valentine's Day Town, the town he quickly went to before going to Thanksgiving Town, remembering about what the leader of the door had said to him about his heart. "Love can lead you to the brightest of light or the deepest of darkness…" He repeated while placing his claw to his heart, not noticing the door to St. Patrick's Day Town opening up. "What did he mean by that?" he said outloud.
"What did who mean?"
"Woah!" He jumped slightly as he shot his body around only to see his dear friend. "Gimme a break, Kairi." He huffed.
She giggled at this, "Sorry about that." She walked towards him and looked at his with curiosity, "So, what were you talking about?"
"Nothing." He looked away from her. His pale skin began to redden, "Did you get the Irish's Luck?"
"Yep!" She held out the four-leaf clover out to him, "All we need is the item from Easter and Christmas Town."
"Speaking of Easter, is Max still there?" He looked at the door with question.
"Do you think that he needs help?" Kairi added.
Sora shrugged it off, "I'm sure he's fine."
As soon as those words left his mouth, the Easter Door flew open as the zombie flew out and landed hard on the ground. "That's the last time I 'Beep! Beep!' the Easter bunny." He groaned.
It didn't take long for Sora and Kairi to be by his side, "Max! Are you okay?" She asked as she and Sora helped him up.
"Yeah..I'm fine." Max told them before looking up to the sky sadly, the forest blocking most of the view. "The Easter Bunny isn't gonna deliver eggs to me this year."
"What happened?" Sora asked him.
"Apparently, the last time someone from Halloween Town went to Easter Town, the Easter Bunny was dragged back here so seeing me only reminded the bunny of the town." He explained, "So, two seconds after grabbing the Golden Egg, I had to run away from lots of bunnies and dodge whole of chocolate egg missiles."
Sora couldn't help but chuckle at this, "Sucks to be you." He laughed, only to receive a chocolate egg to be thrown at him.
"Right, we only have to get the item from Christmas Town and we can form the Holiday's Soul, right?" Kairi ended the boys joking.
Max nodded at this, "All we need is a 'Beep!' mistletoe." He chuckled at their surprised look on their face, "C'mon guys, you're not expected to stand under it to make it work." He added as he walked over to the door to Christmas Town, not noticing Sora and Kairi look at each other with brighten cheeks before looking away from each other again.
"C'mon!" Sora shook away his blush as he looked over to Kairi and held his claw out to him, "To a winter wonderland." He smiled, seeing her accept his inflected hand as Max opened the door, looking down with wonder. While walking towards the door, the Keyblade Master managed to trip up on one of the tree roots that were hidden in the leaves, making him and Kairi tumble into Max, falling into the tree as the door closed shut behind them.
A/N: I'm SOOOOOOOOO sorry guys! Apparently, Uni actually requires you to do work O.o, giving no time to work on the fanfic. So sadly to say that, updates might take a while to update, which is bad in my eyes since this fic is big enough already and you might not remember a key hint or moment that has happened in the previous chapter. On the plus side, been working with RCC with new videos, soon the beginnings of Songs of Love and Tales of a Nobody will begin on youtube then soon on here as well. Order, Ventus and Nikolai Chapters have been updated since some events in Birth by Sleep, just to make the characters act like their actual characters ^^
Messeges!
Ultima-Owner: I wouldn't want to go to Halloween town O.o
Foxthefox: So you dreamt Sora's Nightmare then? Lol Nightmares are always good of giving hints.
Kisdota-The Freak Gamer: Damn it! I forgot to mention the reason. Kairi's a corpse zombie cause I wanted her to look similar to 'emily' from corpse bride, another of tim burton's films. You will properly finish before me, knowing my luck.
Van Pat: We will have to wait and see.
Transitions End: I'm struck on final chapter T-T
Future Keybearer: Hope you enjoy the chapters when I manage to put them up.
Celticskyedancer: Hehehe my mind is starting to snicker over the plans I have for those two heheheh.
Again, I'm sorry for the late update and will try to update again as soon as. I'm determined to finish Halloween Town before it gets to Christmas.
Thanks to all readers that have stuck with this fic so far, it must be agonising for you.
Kingdommad