Through a combination of stubbornness, sheer force of will, a sprinkle of a Sora ex machina, and a threat of rope or handcuffs to both of them if they dared to leave his side…

Sora literally sagged in relief at waking up in Traverse Town (via Pluto jumping on him) with Riku and Kairi beside him.

Wait…

Kairi better not have lost her heart again!

She groaned as she woke to Pluto licking her cheek.

"Whew! Nice! We're here! We're ok." He then leapt to his feet and raised a fist to the air. "Let's do this!" He cheered as Riku groaned awake with Pluto jumping on him too. Kairi giggled at the sight as Riku glared at her.

Putting his hands behind his head as he faced his friends. The groggy duo finally noticed their surroundings.

"Sora..?" Kairi whispered, helping Riku stand.

"Is this…" Riku looked around in wonder.

"We are now in another world!" He lowered his arms and dramatically gestured to the alleyway exit to the front of the accessory shop. "Welcome to Traverse Town!"

They cheered and ran ahead with a chuckling Sora behind them.

Smiling at the blissfully ignorant duo, Sora faltered as a few tears fell down his cheek.

"Sora?" Of course Riku noticed. "What's wrong?"

Sora shook his head. He grinned a watery grin. "Nothing! I'm just really happy! We're actually doing this. Seeing and exploring other worlds! Together too!" And the tears started falling.

Riku quickly pulled him into a hug followed by Kairi.

"We're not going anywhere. Besides, even if we did, you know all our hiding spots by now, huh?" Riku teased.

Sora snorted and gave a weak laugh. "Yeah… I do, huh?"

"There he is. Wipe those tears! Aren't you supposed to be our tour guide?"

"Ha! That's right." Sora smiled at the subject change.

"Lead the way!" Kairi grinned.

"Right!" Sora wiped his tears and took a moment to collect himself. "First things first! In the future, through Maleficent, Riku learned how to make portals between worlds via the Corridors of Darkness. That's not a good idea without protection. Kairi can come and go no problem due to her lack of darkness, but I can't. So, for now, the next best thing are Gummi Ships."

"Gummi Ships?" She was curious about the 'Gummi' part.

"Gummi ships were how I traveled between worlds with Donald and Goofy. If you want to get anywhere safely, you need one. Good news is, I know a guy." He grinned, turned right around and walked into the Accessory Shop (Once again, just missing Donald and Goofy)...

20 minutes later

Riku and Kairi were very entertained watching Sora negotiate with a flabbergasted Cid.

Sora even had to resort to whipping out his Keyblade to prove to Cid that he could handle it.

Sora was not amused when Cid threw in a few random questions for laughs, not expecting Sora to know all the answers. The only reason it was 20 minutes was because Kairi stopped the debate before the two geeked out over various designs and which parts were better where.

Finally, Sora convinced him to help. Now, all Sora needed was the Munny to pay for it. Sora paid it no mind and told Cid they'd be back in a few hours with the money.

2nd District

Sora vaguely remembered watching someone lose their heart after walking through the door, and was relieved to see that same guy running to the door.

Seeing the Soldier Heartless, Sora simply Strike Raided the thing to Riku and Kairi's shock.

Judging from Sora's face when he briefly looked back it was something he prevented. They let it be.

After ensuring the guy made it safely back into the 1st District, Sora whipped around to face them.

"All right, you heard Cid! We need munny."

"I highly doubt anyone's hiring at this time of night." Riku drawled.

Sora simply pointed to where the Heartless was. As well as the half dozen Shadows that just surrounded them.

"Wait what?" There were Munny, HP and MP orbs on the ground. Sora grinned.

Casting Thunder distractedly, he wiped out the Shadows easily.

"The Heartless are constantly drawn to the Keyblade because it's the only weapon out there that can actually take them out. They have Munny. So~ We'll never be broke." He grinned and then turned to jump on the fountain railing and double jumped right in the middle of the below area.

"Sora!" Kairi screamed, surprised at how far he jumped without hurting himself.

"Watch and learn guys!" Sora grinned playfully.

As the Heartless portaled in surrounding him, Sora quickly strategized.

He wasn't wearing either version of the clothes Yen Sid or the Fairies gave him, so no Drive Forms. The Keyblade Transformations were unrelated, so he had that. Maybe. He can do Thunder, but what about other spells?

Now time for a field test.

He started off with weaker spells and worked his way up. Simple moves of swordplay getting more elaborate.

Meanwhile Riku and Kairi were gawking at their friend. Simply stupefied at the clear progression to see what he can do at this point in time.

And judging from the joyful laughter, it looks like he's able to do more than he thought.

"He really is from the future." She whispered with a smile. "I know he told us, but I guess its only now sinking in. There's no way he was capable of this a few days ago. Right Riku?"

"Yeah…" Riku smiled, Sora's cheer contagious. "So, I guess all we can do is do as he says. I don't know about you, but the future he came from seems more bleak than he let on."

She sighed and turned back to her friend below, now dancing among the Heartless, seeming to now show off a little. She giggled at his antics before nodding in agreement with Riku.

Near 2 hours later

Now that Sora feels comfortable with what he can and can't do, he's a bit peeved that he has to collect more Keychains since he slapped himself by realizing he still just has his default Keychain. Anyway, still better than expected.

After the first half hour of this, the rest was getting Riku and Kairi some hands on practice. Sora made sure they started small with Shadows and Soldiers, gradually working their way up as he took on the Fat Armors etc.

Meanwhile, Kairi had a newfound respect for why Sora and Riku always sparred.

After a while, Sora claimed enough was enough and his friends found the nearest bench to collapse on. Riku glared at Sora for not even breaking a sweat.

While they rested, Sora counted up the munny and found quadruples of what they needed. Grinning, he divided it up, putting aside what was needed for the Gummi ship parts and a bit extra just in case, he evenly split the rest and gave it to them.

"Wait to go shopping, I'll help you with figuring out the essentials, but you need to learn as you go, ok?"

Nodding in agreement, they made their way back to the 1st District.

"They'll come at you out of nowhere." Leon's voice causes them to slow their pace and face him. "And they'll keep coming after you, so long as you continue to wield the Keyblade."

Sora smiles.

"Hey Leon, Cid mentioned you. You're from Hollow Bastion right?"

Behind him, Kairi perked up.

"Indeed, what of it?"

"My friend Kairi, here is also from there. She came to our world at a young age and doesn't remember much. I was hoping either you or Yuffie can help her out, please."

"I see, I don't know how much I can help with that, but Yuffie and Aerith, another friend of mine, cand definitely answer for you."

"Thank you so much!" Kairi stepped forward gratefully. Clearly trusting him due to Sora's stories."As for the Keyblades, we are well aware. Sora here has previous experience with it and is showing us how to use them."

"I see. In that case, I'll leave you to it. I'll see if I can find Yuffie and Aerith, they'll help you out."

"Actually, Leon?" Sora started as the man turned to walk away. "I could actually use all of you and Cid for help with something. Can you have them meet us here please? What I have to tell you is important. Also, there's two other people wandering around named Donald and Goofy, they need to hear this as well."

"I see. In that case, I'll see what I can do. What are you going to do in the meantime?"

"Haggling with Cid on building a ship so we can properly start traveling soon." He grinned.

Leon looked amused before walking off and waving goodbye.

Back in the Accessory Shop, it took a while, Riku and Kairi did their best to pay attention, but it was too much information. Sora took pity on them and suggested they go rest on the couches by the fire. They gratefully did so.

As Sora and Cid did their thing, Kairi gushed to Riku about whatever Yuffie and Aerith will hopefully tell her.

Eventually their guests arrived.

Fortunately Aerith had already bumped into Donald and Goofy, so that saved a lot of time.

To start, Sora just jumped right in and held out his arm to summon the Keyblade.

"You found it! Nice going Leon!" Yuffie grinned.

"THE KEY!" Donald and Goofy leaned forward in surprise.

"Now that I have your attention, My name is Sora. This is Riku and Kairi. I hope you guys are comfy because this will be a long story."

They all looked at eachother and Jimmony jumped on the table and pulled out his journal to start writing.

Sora grinned.

A few hours later…

It was late and everyone was tired.

The number of times Sora, Riku and Kairi were ambushed into a hug were countless. Sora himself was squished between a still terrified Riku and Kairi.

As the others talked, Sora eventually had to take the reins again before sleep claimed him.

"So, here's the plan I came up with." He started and the others quieted. "Please offer suggestions, but this is what I have so far." He waited for them to nod in acknowledgement.

"First, Master Xehanort's endgame is to use Kingdom Hearts to start another Keyblade war. The point was to balance out the forces of Light and Darkness because he believed there was too much Light. In order to do that he had two plans should one fail. 1) the original X-Blade was split into 20 pieces: 7 Light and 13 Darkness. In my timeline he used the 7 Princesses, including Kairi to open the Final Keyhole found in Hollow Bastion. The other was having 13 Vessels that either held some significance to something in history or the rest were a piece of him or a dark version of someone else. And the 7 Guardians of light were the collected and rescued group of Keyblade wielders." He paused to make sure he didn't lose anyone.

"So, one plan I had was basically two birds with one stone: the Princesses. Kairi?"

She perked up and explained her idea.

Needless to say they were very skeptical.

"Hey, he wants Balance so bad, why not? Also, its other Keyblade wielders out there fighting Heartless and sealing Keyholes. I'm only one person and I had other priorities remember?"

They mumbled in agreement about that.

"We need help." He deadpanned. "Through our actions, Kairi here was repeatedly kidnapped and used against me. By having her train with the other Princesses, it will make things very unpredictable for Master Xehanort who is so very comfortable with how predictable everything is. While they are getting trained, we can focus on other things that were neglected. Like rescuing Aqua, restoring Ven's Heart and freeing Terra. By changing things up, we're already removing a bunch of players and changing the rules." He grinned.

Needless to say, it took ironing out the details to get them to agree to this plan.

So they set it up into phases:

Sora and Kairi will set off to Hollow Bastion to convince Maleficent and co. She'll be easy once it's revealed she was just a pawn to Xehanort.

Riku will go with Donald and Goofy. Why? Riku really needed to lighten up and make some new friends and experiences. (Did Sora feel guilty of sicing Donald and Goofy onto his grumpy stubborn friend. Not. One. Bit.)

The re-named Restoration committee will get a jump start on restoring Hollow Bastion by going over what Sora remembered (They made a mental note to teach Sora how to use computers…)

Basically everything else can wait, now that they know about the organization, Axel/Lea, etc.

They have time to plan.

And so, the next day, they set out. It'll take a bit for Cid to put a ship together, so Sora dragged Riku and Kairi to go shopping for supplies and explained what everything does. Sora took great amusement of the triplets messing with Riku.

Clothes wise, they were okay for now, but Kairi's crocs had to go. They were quickly switched with sneakers of similar coloring.

With the ship done (A/N- Insert any ship you made here!) Sora explained to Riku how the controls worked on the Kingdom, as well as mentally thanking Cid for having the foresight to install the communicators on both ships. The Gummi phone hasn't been invented yet…

Once satisfied Riku can grasp the basics, Sora did the same with Kairi on their ship. Using the same method as the 2nd District, Sora let Riku and Kairi try the small fry and walked them through some simple maneuvers. The harder ones, Sora quickly took over until it was safe.

Sora remained oblivious to the awestruck stares of everyone else with how easily he maneuvered and decimated the enemy ships.

Sora decided to divide and conquer. Sora and Kairi took Wonderland to get Alice, while he sent the others to Deep Jungle as a good starter world for Riku. No way was he sending Riku to Olympus off the bat!