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Kairi opened her eyes to find herself somewhere familiar, her home islands. "I'm back home…?"
What she'd just experienced sure didn't feel like a dream, but it had to be…
"Kairi, are you alright?"
"Ah!" Kairi jumped slightly before looking around. "It's that voice again… Hey, how do you know my name?"
"It's rather hard to explain…" The voice sighed. "Well, what you need to know is my name is Minnie. My friends and I are trying to solve a mystery and think your world has it. We can't get to your world, so we were hoping you could act in our place?"
"My world…" Kairi mumbled in awe, her eyes widened in shock. "You mean there really are other worlds out there?!"
"Oh, right, I guess I sorta spoiled that for you. But Kairi-"
"Wait till I tell Sora and Riku about this!" The girl exclaimed, starting to run down the beach.
"Ah, Kairi… I'm not sure if they'll even be here…" Minnie muttered.
"What do you mean? Of course they're here! Sora and Riku wouldn't up and vanish on me, especially when we've been working so hard on the…"
There was a momentary silence as she stared at a tower of strange red and black blocks that now stood in the place of the trio's raft.
"Where's the raft… And what are these things?" Kairi asked aloud, peeking around the tower to see if the raft was somehow hidden behind it.
She then noticed there were other piles and towers of blocks all over the beach.
"Those are part of the mystery I'm trying to solve. See, these block things, whatever they are, recently invaded your world and many others. They also managed to cut us off from a message we were trying to read. That's why we need you to figure out where they came from… and how to stop them."
"If it'll get my home back to normal…" Kairi whispered. She made a fist. "I'll do it. I'll start by asking around, maybe my friends will know more!"
She didn't have to look far, her friend Wakka was nearby, trying to break the blocks up with a few good punches. He didn't seem to be having much success.
"Kairi! Where have you been, sista? Me and the others were starting to get worried the blocks got ya!"
"I'm fine, Wakka." She smiled warmly. "...But the island seems a little worse for wear... Do you know where all these blocks came from?"
"No idea! They keep popping up outta thin air, with no warning! Even if ya' take some down, more keep coming!" The boy grunted, spinning his blitzball on his finger. "Tidas and Selphie went to go check out the beach, but it's sure been a while…. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen Sora or Riku in a long time either."
"... T-They're probably just investigating with the others." Kairi insisted. For some reason, she doubted that… "Anyway, I'll go check up on them!"
"Tidus!" Kairi called, getting the boy's attention.
"Heya!" The boy waved her over to his spot by the docks. "Good thing you're here, Selphie just ran off on me and is bound to get into trouble with all these blocks around! She'll listen to a warning if it's you!"
"Oh, okay!" Kairi smiled. She then glanced around. "But why'd she leave in such a hurry?"
"She said she saw Sora and Riku chillin' up at your guys' usual spot and tried calling out to them but they didn't respond. She went to check on them a while ago…"
"How weird." Kairi muttered, mainly to herself. I can't imagine Sora or Riku slacking off when the island's in this much danger. And they'd definitely not ignore a friend, not on purpose. "I'll go see what's happening!"
The girl cut through hoards of blocks to get to the trio's spot but they just kept reappearing, just like Wakka said. At this rate, they'd never save the island…
After taking out the last of the blocks, Kairi looked up to see the bridge leading to the papou tree was simply gone.
On the islet she saw Sora and Riku looking out at the sea without a care in the world. Beside them was the a faint, shadowy outline of Selphie. It was like the world had glitched both her and the bridge out of existence. "Sora! Riku! Where's Selphie?!"
There was no sign they'd even heard her.
"Heyyy! Ignoring me isn't funny at all!" Kairi protested.
Having enough, the girl ran over to the seaside shack to confront them but nearly ran into someone. It was the hooded figure from her dream. "It's you…!"
The figure turned without a sound before suddenly vanishing.
She ran up only for the world to glitch out around her, flickering and blinking out.
"Kairi, a signal's coming in and… yes, it's an invisible door, right in front of you!"
"Invisible door? Is that some kind of glitch too?"
"I believe so. I think we're finally onto something!"
"Okay, I'll check it out!" Kairi promised. At that, a hole ripped through the door. Inside, there was the same pattern as the blocks.
"Kairi, this world is all data! If you destroy the bugs in the data, everything should turn back to normal!"
The girl raced through the door to find herself in a strange place filled with various shapes. There were blocks all around and those creatures from before, the ones who introduced her to the keyblades appeared: the Heartless.
She easily slashed through them all, summoning a pillar of light.
"That should lead you back to your world." Minnie explained.
She stepped through to find herself in front of where the bridge should be. It seemed nothing had changed…
She gave a sigh in disappointment before taking a step. The bridge suddenly appeared before her, and Selphie stood its end.
"Selphie!"
"Kairi!"
The two embraced.
"Are you alright?" Kairi breathed happily.
"Yep!" She glanced over to Sora and Riku. "But I'm worried about those two, this isn't them! They're just some hologram of a moment in the past…"
Kairi walked over to find the boys were indeed transparent up close. She slowly went to tap on Sora's shoulder, only for them to glitch away. If this wasn't them… where were they?
"They're not the only weird thing I've seen today." Selphie added on thoughtfully. "There was some guy in a black coat, they were heading to the waterfall!"
The waterfall? There's nothing of interest there… unless they know about our Secret Place!
Kairi peeked into the Secret Place but found no one there. "Huh? But… I thought he'd be here…"
She walked around slowly, turning to get a full 360 of the cave. He wasn't there…
"Maybe he went through this door…" She took a step forward only for a low rumbling to shake the cave. "Whoa!"
Over the shaking and crumbling of the cave, she heard a voice that sounded familiar somehow.
"There's a road for the taking if you end our world's aching…"
"That voice… Who was that? It wasn't Minnie…"
Before she had the chance to ponder it more, the keyblade suddenly summoned itself in a bright light…
"That light… So bright!" Daisy grunted.
"I can't see a thing!" Clarabelle cried.
The friends shut their eyes as the glow from the keyblade flooded from the monitor, engulfing them entirely.
Finally, the light dimmed and the screen was back to normal.
"Ohh, what was that?" Minnie whispered, rubbing her eyes.
There was an urgent ringing and the Queen had to blink the little red dots out of her vision to see what Tink was so worked up about. "What? Another message?"
Sure enough, a new mysterious message had been added to Tink's Journal:
There's a road for the taking if you end our world's aching.
"The world's aching… What could that mean?" Minnie mumbled to herself. The world… Could it refer to Destiny Islands itself? And the aching had to be the bugs masquerading as Heartless… But the strangest part was the fact it said 'our' world… "Our world's aching… Wouldn't that mean whoever's been sending us these messages must live on the data version of Destiny Islands, just like Kairi..?"
"But who would do that? Selphie, Tidus and Wakka didn't know anything about the bugs until they showed up… You don't think…"
"I'm not sure." The Queen answered earnestly.
"Oh!" Clarabelle suddenly gasped. "Look!"
They all looked back to the monitor to see the hooded figure now standing in front of Kairi.
"This world has been connected…" The figure said. "Tied to the _."
His voice distorted greatly as Kairi struggled to hear.
"… There's a road for the taking, if you end our world's aching."
"Aching… You must mean the blocks! Do you know how to get rid of them?" Kairi asked.
The person gave a snort, nearly a laugh. "Isn't it obvious? Just do what you always do.. or at least, what your true self does: save us all. You can do it, you can fix this in the keyhole…"
"My true self?" Kairi repeated to herself. "And what do you mean keyhole?"
He gave her no answers as a shadowy portal appeared behind him.
"Wait! Please, tell me what you mean!" Kairi cried but he was already gone.
"Kairi, can you hear me alright?"
"I can hear you fine." Kairi told Minnie.
As if the keyblade was a prompt, a glowing light came from behind her and she turned to see a large keyhole sitting in the middle of the wooden door. "There's some sort of keyhole here… That boy said I could fix everything if I fixed the keyhole… I think I have to find a way in."
"Maybe try using the keyblade?"
"Oh, of course!" Kairi gasped, summoning her keyblade.
Like before, a beam of light cam from the keyblade and it was Kairi's turn to be blinded.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a destroyed version of her home. It was as if a storm came through and tore the island apart, leaving the storm to rage on above it.
"Kairi! Are you alright?"
"For now..." Kairi whispered uncertainty. "This place… it isn't my home, right?"
"I don't think so… It's just a simulation made to look like it. But I'm pretty sure whatever caused this mayhem is in there with you!"
"And if I defeat it, I can turn the island back to normal…" Kairi reasoned.
"Just be careful, whatever's in there is quite powerful."
"Got it!"
Just as she steeled herself, the sky split open and dropped a massive creature in front of her. It was a giant Heartless with a large hole in its center.
Kairi flipped out of the way when it smashed down its fist and took out the shadow Heartless it spawned before swinging at the fist with all her might. She grabbed onto one of its giant fingers and let it raise her up high enough to scale its arm. She gave a cry before slicing down on its head, making it glitch into a green code of 1s and 0s. Electricity coursed through it as the wind grew stronger and stronger, eventually sweeping the beast up in its gale.
Kairi gasped and grabbed a branch, trying to cling onto it. She didn't want to leave her home, she had to find a way to get her friends back, she couldn't let her home slip from her fingers! She loved it, it was the only place she had!
The girl screamed as it finally tugged her away into the Darkness. "NO!"
"Where'd she go?!" Daisy gasped.
"Hang on, I'll track her down!" Chip promised, pulling his brother over to help him out.
As they clicked on the keyboard, Tink pulled Minnie's ear before pointing to the screen.
"Another entry!" The trio cried in unison.
There are more hurts then the one you have just undone
"More hurts than one…" Clarabelle mumbled to herself. "Could that mean the other worlds in the journal were affected by the bugs too?"
"I- Oh!" Minnie gasped in surprise when she noticed there was someone new standing on the broken islet.
They recognized the person as Sora. Much like Kairi, he was younger than the real one, having been made of his past data.
He stood there yelling at a man in a brown cloak, placing a hand to his heart to emphasize his point. He looked betrayed, scared, and abandoned without his friends.
They couldn't make out what all he was saying as the audio was all distorted:
"Promised—-friends—would be— safe— Kairi—- left— me—! —- Riku—- missing—! —LIAR!"
The man in brown didn't respond as a dark corridor appeared behind the boy.
Before he could even register what was happening, Sora was shoved in.
"What was that…? I thought this is supposed to be Tink's journal and what she wrote about our adventures, but I don't remember that happening…"
"Tink, you didn't write that down, did you?"
The fairy shook her head in confusion, staring at the screen.
"Just what exactly is the person giving these messages trying to show us…?"
