7

I'm kind of annoyed right now.

You see, after wandering the forest for nearly 3 hours, I found that I had been moving in completely the wrong direction.

And I know that, because instead of finding fences or gates, I found the god damned tower in the center of the forest.

Literally the exact opposite direction I could have been going. I turned around and went back to where I had been going.

Then, after another 5 fucking hours of skittering across the ground, I finally found a gate out of this place. After I found the fence line, I just followed it around until I found a road, crossing a river in the process.

As it turns out, when you're a shadow, you don't really care about things like river rapids. I just moved right along the river bed without a care in the world.

At one point, I really had to learn how to travel through the Corridors of Darkness, it'd make things so much easier. I also had to learn how to use the rest of the abilities that the Heartless have, and preferably learn how to manipulate Darkness, if I could.

I wouldn't have gotten lost if I could find a way to sense the Darkness in Hearts, or whatever it was that the Heartless did to find Hearts. In fact, the very second I find an opportunity, I'm going to experiment with that.

Being able to tell where everybody is would be such an incredible advantage in this world. It would also be conducive to my continued health.

I paused.

Actually, there was nothing stopping me from trying it now, save only my own inexperience.

Inexperience that could, and inevitably would, cost me.

I shuddered.

Then, I pushed further away from the World.

Unlike last time, I wasn't in a hurry here. My life wasn't threatened by a madman of a ninja, so I didn't rush towards the Darkness. I didn't want to unintentionally immerse myself in it, like I had last time. This time, I was merely trying to look around, trying to find Darkness in the world, rather than the omnipresent and overwhelming Darkness outside of it.

I stopped before I truly entered the Darkness, just outside the roiling mass of Half-Existence, just barely connected to the World.

I turned my eyes towards the World, looking not at the physical and overt, but the metaphysical and underlying.

A tidal wave of malevolence crashed into my senses, an unrelenting hatred directed towards anything and everything, though it seemed... muted, somehow.

A wave of power came next, a slow leak of hateful red, almost, but not quite hidden among shades of blue, feelings of sadness, happiness and everything in between. A small, tiny really, shade of green mixed in among other colors, alongside a few dozen minuscule spots of black.

Finally, the Darkness washed over me, through me and into me, like a tide from an ocean, a vast and powerful ocean. This Darkness, however, unlike the great Darkness which I stood at the edge of, was not infinite and overwhelming, but merely the combined darkness of tens of thousands of Hearts.

A mouth that I didn't have watered, the feel of the Darkness whetting an appetite I hadn't known I possessed up until that very second.

I wanted it. I wanted to absorb it, to consume it, to feel it coursing through my form. I wanted to become it, to learn from it, to-

With supreme force of will, I tore into the world once more. Once again, further from the Darkness. Once again, on the edge of true existence.

Away from the siren's call of tantalizing Hearts.

I shuddered. Just the reminder of it forcing the involuntary action.

Even -maybe- without a heart or a soul to influence, it still called to me, inviting me for just a taste, in fact, you can have as much as you want.

I was nothing but a Shadow, an existence that was barely there. If I tried to consume it, I would be consumed by it. No if's, and's, or's or but's. If I did not maintain my mind, I would lose it.

If I didn't learn how to control it without be subsumed by it, I stood to lose everything.

With new-felt determination, I started the journey to Konoha.