Chapter 40
Everyone finally arrived at Acem Acres. Bugs Bunny quickly greeted everyone inside. Almost all the Looney Tunes where there, but there was no party. Everyone was anxious, asking questions about how things will work out. As everyone started to unload from the truck, Sora decided to sneak away for a walk. Behind him were Riku and Kairi.
"You guys coming with me?" asked Sora.
"Why not? We're friends." said Kairi.
Riku simply nodded.
The three friends walked into the playground of the school where kids were playing. Sora sat down and watched Fievel coming down the slide with his sister.
"I wonder how Roxas is doing. I kind of miss him." said Sora.
"We'll get you back to your family soon. I promise." said Riku.
"Sora, you know what the Keyblade is. You saw it in dreams. What power does it have?" asked Kairi.
"According to my dreams, the Keyblade can open any door and seal the door the darkness and stuff like that. It's so confusing to explain." said Sora.
"Wow. But how come I have it, and you two don't?" asked Kairi.
"In my case, I wouldn't trade my chainsaw for anything." said Riku.
"What's the deal with your chainsaw? I don't remember seeing you with that in my dreams." said Sora.
"I was raised by Looney Tunes. I grew up here in Acme Acres. This was my home. Here, chainsaws, anvils, hammers, and dynamite are the norm here." said Riku.
Sora nodded, finally understanding Riku better. He then looked up and saw a young woman by the forest clearing of the park. She looked instantly familiar and Sora recognized her.
"Princess Aurora." said Sora.
"Who?" asked Riku.
"A princess? Where?!" said Kairi excitedly.
"She was standing right there by that tree. She went deeper. But she was looking straight at me." said Sora.
"You should follow her. Do you know who she is?" asked Kairi.
"The Sleeping Beauty." said Sora.
"Rumor has it she once slept in a powerful coma. No one knew who it happened." said Riku.
"But I think I know. I'll go and talk with her." said Sora.
"Be careful!" said Kairi.
As Sora left, Riku looked at Kairi with a grin.
"So. What's the deal with you and Sora?" he asked.
Kairi blushed and shook her head. "We are just friends. Like how we both are." said Kairi.
"When are you two going to kiss?" asked Riku.
"You're annoying me." said Kairi.
"C'mon! You and Sora are a good match. I heard what happened back at Mustafar. He's a good guy. Give him a chance." said Riku.
"No." said Kairi.
"What do you mean?" asked Riku.
"I like Sora. But I'm not ready for love. In fact, I cannot love. It's forbidden." said Kairi.
"Forbidden? Wait, what are you saying?" asked Riku.
"I grew up in a very strict household. My parents always told me to never give in to love. You see, love is forbidden in my family." said Kairi.
Riku was confused. "That doesn't make sense. What about your parents? They had to fall in love in order to be married and to have you." said Riku.
"It wasn't like that. You see, my father had a history with Darth Vader. He worked at Mustafar for him. My father betrayed him because Vader actually had a weakness. Love." said Kairi.
Riku stood up dramatically. He was processing the bombshell Kairi was telling him.
"Kairi, who are you?" he asked.
Kairi replied. "I'm an Ancient."
….
Sora followed Aurora into the forest and saw her sitting on a tree stump.
"We've been waiting for you, Sora." said Aurora.
Sora sat down and then five more women appeared.
Snow White, Jasmine, Alice, Belle, and Cinderella.
Sora gasped. He saw this in dreams. "You're all the seven princess of heart!" he said.
"Six for now. And you need to hear this." said Snow White. She looked a lot younger, Sora thought. She didn't wear her regal Queen outfit or anything. She looked very young, like how he saw her in the dreams.
"So, I imagine you all know about me." said Sora.
"We know. We have dreams as well." said Cinderella.
"We all have dreams, but our dreams tell us of stories and worlds we can only imagine." said Jasmine.
"In our dreams, we have totally different lives, yet we are still the same people with the same virtues." said Alice.
"So, please tell me. How can we stop Chernabog?" asked Sora.
"Chernabog is not the enemy. Nor is Sephiroth." said Snow White.
"Sephiroth is alive?!" cried Sora.
"Yes. He lives and he now conspires with the dark one." said Cinderella.
Jasmine sighed. "I'm tired of this whole story. Can we just tell him everything now? I bet Sora's just as tired as the rest of us."
"Agreed. I wish to come clean too." said Snow White.
"Come clean? What's going on?" asked Sora.
Aurora stood up. "Sora, do you know what Kingdom Hearts is?" she asked.
"I do. It's a heart shaped moon that has hearts in it." said Sora.
"Not the moon. We meant… the game." said Alice biting her lip.
"Oh. Yeah. That we all are fictional characters." said Sora.
"Sora, we need to tell you this. It's going to be hard to swallow and it's going to be very hard to hear. Are you ready?" asked Cinderella, putting her hands on Sora's.
Sora nodded and it was Aurora who spoke.
"This world does not exist. We all are figments of the imagination." said Aurora.
"This whole world was designed out of your dreams." said Snow White.
"What?" asked Sora.
"In other words Sora, you are the creator of this whole world." said Snow White.
"No. It can't be." said Sora.
Snow White explained. "It's the truth. We'll tell you what happened. Before this world was created, you were a hero. You saved the world along with Donald and Goofy. You defeated powerful villains who wanted to destroy the light. Ansem, Organization XIII, even our own villains from our respective worlds. And then, you defeated Master Xehanort, the evil Keyblade Wielder. However, before you fought him, he killed Kairi.
To rescue her, you had to time travel to find her and bring her home. Unfortunately, when that happened, you vanished into the nothing. As of now, as we speak, Riku, Kairi, and all your loved ones are searching for you."
Sora didn't say a word. He processed it all in. He knew the stories by heart, but now, now things were either making sense or just confusing him.
"But what about you? You have a family. You have a son with Denahi." said Sora.
"That is not me Sora. That Snow White you saw was created for this world and had a different life than the one I have." she said.
"Then you all exist here as different people! Then who are you all?!" cried Sora.
"We are the real ones. Finding you was not easy. After you vanished, Goofy and Donald revisited our worlds and asked us all to find you using our powers. We all decided to sleep, just like Kairi was doing to find you." Cinderella.
"We don't know where you are unfortunately. Even you were created for this world." said Jasmine.
"What am I then? A fragment?" asked Sora.
"In a way you are. When you vanished, your heart was taken someplace very far away. But a glimmer of light survived in time and space. It burst and this world came to be. But it only exists in this dimension." said Alice.
"I've read so many books about time and space and before falling to sleep, I found that this dimension is closer to another dimension. One that is said only to exist in real time. A world far beyond the borders of our own world." said Belle.
"That world is called Earth. A world that was created for good, but evil contaminated it and now, only the good angels work tirelessly to watch over the good people of that world." said Alice.
"And because this dream world of your heart is closer to Earth, some of its influence reached here." said Cinderella.
"Which explains why we are all aware of the game, Disney, and other product placement things I won't mention." said Belle.
"And certain people from other worlds co exist here. Bugs Bunny for example does not know Mickey Mouse in the realm of light." said Jasmine.
"Nor Snow White and Denahi never met." said Snow White, feeling blue at mentioning this.
"However, that was a good thing! You see, because of Snow White and Denahi falling in love and having a family, a miracle happened. Soren was born. A boy who does not have a story." said Cinderella.
"Soren is in a way the first true human to live in this world. Everyone else and everything here is unfortunately not real." said Alice sadly.
"But that's awful!" cried Sora.
"Yes. Sora, the reason why we came to you was to find you, but unfortunately, you are not the Sora we are looking for." said Snow White.
"Instead, we found a world that is amazing! However, it was not meant to exist and sadly, the Heartless are here too." said Belle.
"And if Sephiroth were to destroy this world, he would die and so would Chernabog. The only one who will survive the whole calamity would be Soren." said Sora, understanding what this meant.
"We are sorry to tell you all this Sora. But you are very special. You are a fragment of Sora's heart that somehow survived. And you are not the only one. The glimmer of light created other two alternate realities out there. You exist in those places, but in a different life." said Cinderella.
"Am I the only one who knows about all this?" asked Sora.
"We have tried to warn the Namine of this world, but our connection was lost. Then we tried Kairi, until we found no love in her heart, for she is an Ancient, one of the guardians of this world. But Kairi does not know about you or us. She was raised to protect the world from its evils. We didn't want to bother you, and you don't have the Keyblade. But we had no choice. The only one who will stop Sephiroth from destroying everything is you Sora." said Cinderella.
"You are the key, even without the Keyblade." said Snow White smiling.
"And should you save this world, you would be doing this dimension a service and life will continue in this marvelous world." said Aurora.
Sora nodded. For the first time ever, he had no questions. He felt like all of them, even the ones that made no sense were finally answered.
"If this world is saved and life continues, I would still live here?" asked Sora.
"Yes. You are a different Sora. And you deserve to live in this dimension more than anything else!" said Snow White.
"And so does this version of you." said Jasmine looking at Snow White.
"I do look happy here." said Snow White.
"We need to get going everyone. We thought for sure this was our Sora. But I think we are still way off." said Aurora.
"It's a shame we didn't get to meet our counterparts in this world." said Belle.
"I do have one last question. It's a little silly, and I'm not sounding ungrateful. Why did you tell me all this? You could have just told me that Sephiroth was going to destroy all life as we knew it and not tell me too much about the outside world." said Sora.
"You deserved answers. Besides, we were not responsible for your dreams. We worked hard to find answers for you too. And apparently, our memory of this place will vanish once we return home to our hearts. Better keep our hearts not knowing we all came from animated films." said Jasmine with a wink.
"Also, you were the only one who had the most dreams out of all the people who had them. And you were much closer to our Sora. So we decided to check you out and learn more of this world." said Cinderella.
"But wait. I'm curious." said Alice.
"Here we go." said Jasmine.
"What if the games… Kingdom Hearts… they came from Earth right? What is Earth? Why is it so far away? And who created Earth? What hearts live there? What this, and what that?" asked Alice.
"No! Stop! Too many questions! I thinks we broke a lot of rules just by coming here!" cried Jasmine.
"I'm so glad we are not going to remember any of this when we all wake up." said Belle.
"Wait a second? One last question. I promise. If you were looking for "Sora" and say you did find him somewhere, and you guys woke up with no memories… then doestn that mean you lost him again?" asked Sora.
The princess all looked at one another and started to laugh.
"He's right! We could have woken up and not know a thing!" laughed Jasmine.
"Oh boy! I can't believe we were this stupid!" cried Aurora.
"I would't say that. It was fun while it lasted." said Alice, still laughing. Even Sora started to laugh.
When the princess settled down, they all smiled and held hands. They then vanished into glowing orbs of light and vanished from existence.
Sora took in a deep breath and smiled. He turned around and saw Oblivion High School coming closer. It appeared instantly.
"Okay. So we stop the one winged angel and Chernabog and save this reality. Simple enough. I guess." said Sora to himself.
Before he was about to leave, he was suddenly stopped by someone pulling his arm. Sora turned around and took a step back.
Standing in front of him was Sora. Sora!
"I take it you are like me. Are you?" asked Sora.
Kingdom Hearts Sora smiled warmly. "I'm asleep in some world I know nothing of. But for some reason, I felt the Princesses were here. I had to see for myself and then I found you."
"So… what now?" asked Sora.
KH Sora chuckled lightly. "You know what to do. Do you call this place home? Despite knowing way too much or hearing all this dimension mambo jumbo?" asked Sora.
"I have friends and family here. I have brothers in this world. I finally have a father who loves me. And an uncle. A fun one. And if they vanish, nothing will exist in this dimension. I have to save it!" said Sora.
KH Sora smiled. "You and I are both fragments of the same person. Do you know why you don't have the Keyblade?" asked KH Sora.
"I don't. But I've come this far without one. I found answers, I came upon questions, I learned about things I shouldnt even learn. And I made connections with loved ones. I didn't need the Keyblade for any of that! And perhaps, I don't need it to face Sephiroth. And Chernabog. But the princess mentioned something. They are not the enemy. It's Heartless. They are the true enemy huh?" said Sora.
KH Sora nodded. "Chernabog and Sephiroth are fragments of imagination. They cannot harm anybody in this world. The only thing that can hurt this place is the Heartless."
"Then I need to find out where they are coming from. And destroy it. The Xehanort of this world found a way to bring them. I'll go in and find the source." said Sora.
KH Sora stood by Sora's side and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You can't do this alone. You will need friends by your side. Friends who have known this world better than anyone. Donald and Goofy."
"Kairi has the Keyblade. Why not her?" asked Sora.
"Kairi has a different role. She will defeat Sephiroth and Chernabog. You are to find out where they Heartless are coming from."
"That's a good start. Okay!" said Sora.
KH Sora then summoned his Keyblade. He then offered it to Sora.
"You will need this. This is the only way to save this world." said KH Sora.
Sora hesitated at first and smiled. "I think I know why I didn't have the keyblade in this world. It's because you and I… in KingdomHearts, we were not meant to be Keyblade wielders." said Sora.
KH Sora laughed. "I'm so glad we're taking these fourth wall things lightly."
"Apparently I'm the only one who knows. And Namine. Sort of. Perhaps I can convince her that those were just dreams." said Sora with a wink.
"It's like Donald said. We got to protect the world order." said KH Sora.
Sora nodded and he took the Keyblade in his hand.
"May your heart be your guiding key." said KH Sora and then he vanished.