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| Storyline |
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We pray for our sorrows to mend, And hope that our hearts will blend. Now I will step forward to realize this wish. And who knows? Starting a new journey may not be so hard… Or maybe it has already begun. There are many worlds, but they share the same sky: One sky, one destiny. Disney & Square-Enix present << . : Kingdom Hearts: . >> In the beginning… There once were two children who lived upon an isolated chain of islands, a bona fide paradise in the middle of a deep blue sea. But these children had questions of their own, and an unexpected arrival from a realm beyond would change the children’s lives forever…  Sora, Riku, and Kairi are three teenagers living in Destiny Islands, spending every waking moment of their summer playing together on a little speck of beach a five-minute rowboat trip from the island where they live with their families. This particular summer, when Sora and Kairi are fourteen and Riku fifteen, they’ve decided they’ve had enough of their secluded island home; they plan to build a homemade raft and set out for the outside world. Had Kairi not washed up ashore when the trio were very young, they may have never known other worlds even existed—or so Riku says.Sora and Riku have also set their sights on something new to compete over in friendly rivalry: their mutual friend, Kairi, whom both boys have a crush on. While Riku’s strength and cool manner seem to impress Kairi, Sora takes comfort in the special bond they formed when they were children—but carefully hides his true feelings from his childhood friend.  However, the legend of the paopu fruit—a star-shaped fruit found on the trees of their island, with a supposed ability to romantically intertwine the destinies of two people who share one—intrigues him. In the Secret Place, a small cave nestled among the palm trees that only the three of them know about, he ponders the rock wall etchings he and Kairi made as children…and adds an etching of his hand giving a paopu fruit to her.However, Sora encounters a stranger as they prepare to leave—a cloaked intruder in the Secret Place. The intruder speaks of darkness, and of the worlds’ instability, and Sora is left wondering… The night before the three set off, a storm invades the Islands—but as all three soon find out, it is no ordinary summer squall. Arriving to check on the raft, Sora is attacked by strange beings of darkness who hunt him relentlessly as he seeks out his best friends. Riku stands on the island, embracing the darkness and giving in to the temptation it offers…and as darkness overtakes the two friends, Riku disappears into the raging storm, and Sora is left with a strange weapon in his hand—a sword shaped like a key. Coming to the Secret Place, he finds that Kairi has already been caught up in the darkness, and as he opens his arms to catch her, she disappears entirely. As the dark beings continue to invade his home, he is forced to fight with this strange new key-shaped weapon, but before he can come out victorious, all goes black… In an entirely different world, court mage Donald Duck arrives in the throne room of his Majesty, King Mickey…only to find that the King is missing. Pluto, his faithful dog, carries a letter assuring Donald of the King’s safety—but also with an urgent order that Donald and the Captain of the Royal Knights, Goofy, set out from Disney Castle in search of a man named Leon and “the Key to their survival”. With Queen Minnie and Lady Daisy’s blessing, and Jiminy Cricket tagging along as a scribe of their adventures, Donald and Goofy set off for the world of Traverse Town.  Sora awakens in an alleyway, disoriented and unsure of how he got there. He emerges into a twilit town square, coming to realize that his dream of reaching other worlds has somehow come true. Concerned for the safety of Riku and Kairi, he immediately seeks out help—and finds it in the owner of an accessory shop, Cid Highwind. The gruff older man offers what help he can, but before Sora can search the town, a young man with a Gunblade challenges the young boy and defeats him in a one-on-one spar.Sora awakens later in a hotel room, where a 25-year-old swordsman named Leon (his challenger) and a 16-year-old ninja named Yuffie have taken him in to explain the situation. They inform him that the key-shaped weapon he has inherited is called the Keyblade, and that the strange night-black creatures hunting him down are known as Heartless—beings that have lost their hearts and succumbed to the darkness.  Leon tells Sora that as long as he is the Keyblade wielder, the Heartless will never stop coming after him—and he doesn’t have much choice in the matter.As Sora talks with Leon and Yuffie, a strange woman approaches Donald and Goofy, who are still searching the town for Leon and “the Key”—her name is Aerith, and she informs them of the research of a man named Ansem. He studied the Heartless to a great extent, but when his world was overtaken, the pages of his reports were scattered to many different worlds. Aerith theorizes that the King went to look for these missing pages.. When Heartless invade the Traverse Town hotel, Leon, Yuffie, and Sora rush to defeat the bunch and to find their leader. As Sora emerges into the town’s third district, he runs into two other warriors—Donald and Goofy, who quite literally fall from a balcony right onto the young boy, and exclaim when they realize they have found the Key the King talked about. As Heartless approach, the three band together—Sora with the Keyblade, Goofy with his shield, and Donald with his magical staff—and defeat the small fry and a giant Heartless, whose heart floats up and disappears into the night sky.  Donald and Goofy introduce themselves to Sora, and implore him to come with them on their quest to find the King—and promise him that traveling to other worlds will help in his search for his missing friends, as well. Sora complies, and the three set off in Donald’s Gummi Ship, the Highwind, for worlds unknown.Upon arriving in Wonderland, Sora interferes with the world order by jumping in at the exact moment that the Queen of Hearts condemned Alice to be beheaded. After a sequence of events and quite a few Heartless, Alice disappears from the Queen’s court, and is nowhere to be found. Before they leave, however, the Keyblade emits a strange light and locks a “keyhole” concealed in the world of Wonderland—keeping the world’s heart safe from the Heartless forever. He discovers that all the worlds he comes upon have Keyholes—and that unless he locks them with the Keyblade, the worlds stand the chance of collapsing. The Heartless invade worlds searching for both human hearts and the heart of the world, and when a world’s heart is found and attacked by Heartless, the world disappears—just like Sora’s home world had been overtaken. In a distant land, mischief is afoot…villains from every world have come together to discuss the recent happenings in the world balance. Maleficent (of Sleeping Beauty) is the leader of all these villains from the different Disney worlds, and the group makes a pact to dispose of the “problem” that Sora poses—by disposing of Sora himself. They also plan to capture the seven Princesses of Heart, maidens of pure heart whose hearts contain only light and have no taint of darkness, and bring them together. Only Maleficent seems to know the true motive behind kidnapping the Princesses, but she does not disclose this to her accomplices. Their plan seems to be going quite smoothly, especially when Alice and Snow White stumble into their clutches…  Sora, growing more desperate by the day to find his two best friends, travels with Donald and Goofy as they continue on and search the worlds of Olympus Coliseum (Hercules), Deep Jungle (Tarzan), Agrabah (Aladdin), Atlantica (The Little Mermaid), and Halloweentown (The Nightmare Before Christmas). As they go along, they find remnant’s of Ansem’s report on the Heartless, and string them together to learn more about the mysterious philosopher. In Olympus, Sora encounters a grim young swordsman named Cloud, a lost soul under contract with Hades to finish off Hercules in a tournament. However, when Hades’ plan goes to pieces and Cloud realizes the error of his ways, he and Sora part ways as unlikely friends. Cloud claims he is looking for someone—Sora can relate, and Cloud tells the boy to never lose sight of his light.Upon a re-visit to Traverse Town, Sora gets the shock of his life when he enters the third district, only to run into…Riku! Relieved that his best friend is alive and well, Sora and Riku compare what they know…and what they know is that neither of them have the slightest idea where to find Kairi. Riku, always the confident one, assures Sora that they’ll find her together, and to just leave everything to him—until Sora takes out a Heartless with one quick swing of the Keyblade, and Riku’s jealousy flares. While trying to talk Donald into letting Riku accompany them on the Gummi Ship, Riku disappears—and later is found with Maleficent, who manipulates Riku’s bitterness into indignance that Sora has “replaced” him and Kairi with some new companions, Donald and Goofy. Knowing this, Riku sides with Maleficent and resolves to find Kairi on his own.  During a trip to Halloweentown, the Gummi Ship is swallowed by a monstrous whale named Monstro—one that Jiminy Cricket certainly knows something about! Inside, they encounter the carpenter Gepetto and his son Pinocchio, a small boy who is nothing but a simple puppet with a heart. While figuring out a way to escape the whale’s belly, Riku shows up with Pinocchio in tow, and leads the gang on a wild goose chase through the bowels of the beast. When they finally catch up, Pinocchio is limp and lifeless—Riku explains that not many puppets have hearts, and perhaps his heart can help someone who has lost theirs. When Sora realizes that Riku is talking about Kairi, his resolve wavers, but his conscience prevails and he gets Pinocchio’s heart back as Riku disappears a second time. From then on, Sora’s desperation to save Kairi and knock Riku back to his senses becomes stronger than ever.After escaping, the Gummi Ship is interrupted once again—this time by a pirate ship! On board, Riku has taken control of Captain Hook’s ship en route to Neverland (with the threat of Maleficent’s wrath keeping Captain Hook obedient to the boy’s commands). It turns out that Riku had commandeered the vessel in order to capture Wendy, Peter Pan’s lady friend, as he believed her to be one of the seven Princesses that were crucial to Maleficent’s plan. However, it turns out that Wendy is NOT one of them…and Peter is now aiming to rescue her from Hook’s clutches.  It is here that Sora finally sees Kairi again, who sits on the deck like a living doll—breathing, eyes open, but silent and lifeless otherwise. Riku holds her hostage in the ship’s cabin, while Sora and the gang befriend Peter Pan and Tinkerbell in the ship’s hold—and escape their prison. Sora just barely manages to get to Kairi before Riku disappears into a dark portal with her body in his arms, and a fight ensues on deck—Captain Hook demands the Keyblade in return for Wendy’s safe return. However, the gang emerges victorious, and Captain Hook’s parting words are that Maleficent is hiding out in the ruins of Hollow Bastion—the final world.Sora, Donald, and Goofy arrive at Hollow Bastion soon after, surviving a barrage of Heartless trying to take down their Gummi Ship en-route. They arrive at the bottom of an impressive, looming waterfall, with magically supported rocks forming a staircase up to the largest, most intimidating castle that the three friends have ever seen.  They begin the climb to enter the castle, but are interrupted once again by Riku as they proceed. Riku is busy confronting a stranger from another world, a huge beast in search of his beloved, Belle. He had supposedly followed her through sheer force of will, without the aid of Heartless or a Gummi Ship, when she was kidnapped from their home world and brought to Hollow Bastion. Riku heartlessly slashes at the Beast, and Sora intervenes—but Riku counters by taunting Sora, his immersion in darkness having become very apparent. Sora falls to his knees as Riku suddenly is able to summon the Keyblade from his grasp—and claim it for himself as the “true” Keyblade master. Leaving Sora alone with only a wooden sword, Donald and Goofy reluctantly follow Riku…as the letter from Mickey ordered them to “find the key and stick with it, no matter what”.Sora and Beast enter Hollow Bastion together, navigating the castle’s waterway and sewers to open the front gates of the castle. Once inside, Riku confronts Sora once again, this time much more of a threat now that he is in possession of the Keyblade.  However, Sora brandishes his wooden sword, his strength of heart helping him to believe that his heart will never die so long as he has friends who remember him. This prompts Goofy to leave Riku’s side and return to Sora, and Donald follows close behind—and Sora’s strength of heart compared to Riku’s allows him to reclaim the Keyblade, in that instant. His friends apologize, and Riku transforms into a dark form—an outfit entirely of black, with a Heartless symbol adorning the front, and brings out his true weapon: Soul Eater, a bat-winged sword with the power of darkness to boot. A battle ensues, and Riku is defeated…he flees the scene, the darkness dissolving and leaving him vulnerable.Sora, Donald, and Goofy then head deep into the castle in search of Kairi, as Sora’s heart is telling him that she is very nearby. They encounter more devastating Heartless than ever before, and eventually find their way to the topmost tower in the castle, where Maleficent is expecting them…  In the meantime, Riku collapses in a darkened hall, the light completely gone from his heart and the darkness finally eating away at his core. As he struggles with the fact that Sora’s heart was so strong that he was able to take back the Keyblade, a mysterious hooded figure emerges from the shadows. He tells Riku that only the heart that is strong and true will win the Keyblade, and for the one instant that Sora’s heart outshone Riku’s, the blade returned to him. He assures Riku that he can become stronger by giving in to the darkness. His tempting words sway Riku, and he is swallowed in darkness as he finally gives in…
Sora, Donald, and Goofy finally break into the Castle Chapel, a darkness-ridden chamber on the uppermost level of the castle, where Maleficent stands guard. She does battle with the three, but is quickly subdued, and she retreats into a hidden chamber behind the Chapel. Sora follows her to finish her off, but upon arriving, find Riku fully clad in darkness, and wielding a Keyblade of his own: a black and red monstrosity that he wields with even more confidence than he did when he’d stolen the true Keyblade from his former friend. He quickly turns the Keyblade on Maleficent, claiming the dark Keyblade has the power to unlock hearts and bring them to their full potential.  Maleficent, impaled on the blade, transforms into a monstrous dragon as Riku disappears, leaving the three friends to deal with the new menace. However, Sora is triumphant, and Maleficent is finally defeated forever, melting into a stain of darkness on the floor. Sora then goes deeper into the castle, following Riku…where, at long last, he is reunited with Kairi, who is limp and lifeless on the floor of the Grand Hall. He runs to her and lifts her into his arms, pleading with her to wake up, but is interrupted by a warped and evil voice from behind him—he turns to see Riku, with a mad glint in his eyes that Sora has never seen before. He quickly realizes that while it may appear to be Riku physically, someone else has most definitely taken over his heart—and Riku quickly proves that theory when he announces that he is Ansem—the “seeker of darkness”, and that he has overtaken Riku’s body and possessed him from within.Behind Ansem/Riku is a gigantic Keyhole, an oscillating portal of darkness that seems to be partially incomplete. He tells Sora that the Keyhole cannot be completed and sealed, so long as the last Princess of Heart still sleeps.  Knowing that six of the princesses are already trapped in the chamber behind him, their hearts imprisoned, he makes a quick and accurate deduction: Kairi, beyond all doubt, is the seventh and last Princess of Heart. As if that wasn’t shock enough, Ansem goes on to inform Sora that she has lost her heart—and instead of becoming a Heartless, her heart had taken refuge elsewhere: all along, it has been resting within Sora’s heart. Ansem then demands that Sora give the Princess back her heart, to complete the Keyhole and lead him to everlasting darkness. He then attacks Sora with his dark Keyblade, aiming to release Kairi’s heart from Sora’s, killing him and reviving the Princess only to imprison her. However, Sora leaps to his own defense, and the two go at it in an epic one-on-one battle.After a long struggle, Sora manages to defeat Ansem, but as he falls to his knees, Sora immediately fears for Riku’s body and runs toward him—but he disappears from view, leaving the dark Keyblade behind. Donald and Goofy implore Sora to hurry and seal the Keyhole, but his Keyblade does not respond…the Keyhole, unfortunately, still is not complete without Kairi’s power. Sora considers for a long moment, then picks up the dark Keyblade…as Donald and Goofy yell in protest, he turns it and plunges the heart unlocker deep into his chest.  It stays there for a moment, but then releases and dissolves into six lights: the hearts of the six Princesses, which is the material that comprised the dark Keyblade. They float through the Grand Hall and return to their rightful owners, who awaken as soon as they regain their lost hearts. As Sora falls, another heart escapes from him, and floats down to Kairi’s lifeless body, reviving her. She stands up, disoriented, but yells and runs to Sora as he falls—but he disappears in a flash of blinding light, his heart drifting away and vanishing.  Donald, Goofy, and Kairi stare at the ceiling, unwilling to believe that Sora is actually gone forever, but they don’t have time to wonder long—Ansem, free of Riku’s body and in his full adult form, finally shows his face. Seeing that the Keyhole is finally complete, he tells Kairi she is no longer necessary and aims to finish her off—but a sudden light appears in front of him, holding him back. Riku, in his normal, untainted teenage form, spreads his arms and holds Ansem back, telling Kairi to run. She escapes the Grand Hall with Donald and Goofy, but with the knowledge that both her best friends appear to be lost forever, she runs with a heavy heart.Once downstairs in the entrance hall, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy are suddenly ambushed by small Shadow Heartless, the smallest and most common creatures of darkness, but dangerous when in large numbers. One particular Heartless appears extremely persistent—it tails Donald wherever he goes, not attacking, only following, until Donald finally gets fed up and smacks the Heartless a few times with his staff, telling it to get lost. However, Kairi uncertainly asks, “Sora? Is that you?” The heartless responds in the slightest, but another wave of Shadows attack the group. Kairi and the Heartless are surrounded by the shadows, and as they all leap at once to attack, she turns to grab the Heartless tightly in her arms to protect it…and suddenly, she is in Sora’s arms, and he whispers “Thank you” as Donald and Goofy rejoice that Sora is finally back. The Beast suddenly reappears, ordering the group to leave immediately, as the Heartless were overrunning the place. The group makes a quick escape to Traverse Town in the Gummi Ship, where all are reunited with Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid.  Once back at home base in Traverse Town, Sora and the gang plan what to do next. Desperate to save Riku from Ansem’s clutches, Sora resolves to go back to Hollow Bastion, despite the danger of the sheer force of darkness pouring out of the giant Keyhole in its depths. Cid modifies their Gummi Ship to allow them to warp straight there, but warns that the Heartless would probably be extremely treacherous now that the Keyhole of such a massive world was exposed. Before leaving, however, Sora and Kairi meet up in a secret waterway below the second district of Traverse Town to discuss a few things before he leaves.Sora recounts their adventure to Kairi, and muses about how he had been looking for her so hard, but she was really with him all along. He tells her that when he fell into darkness and became a Heartless, it was her voice that brought him back. Determined to keep Kairi safe at all costs, now that he has found her, Sora tells Kairi that he can’t bring her along with him, despite her wishes to come along and help him find Riku.  She concedes at long last, and instead gives him a lucky charm she had fashioned from thalassa shells and twine—the Oathkeeper. The five stars were strung together in a star-shape, with a happy face drawn on its tip and a keychain attached. According to legends on Destiny Islands, sailors used these shells in necklaces and charms to ensure a safe voyage. Kairi tells Sora that he has to bring it back to her, but hopefully that it would bring him luck—and assures him that because their hearts have been connected, she’ll always be with him no matter where he goes. After this conversation, Sora sets off for the endless abyss—the Heartless’ world—with renewed heart.Sora and his friends arrive at the End of the World, a literal apocalypse-in-progress, to find that it is a graveyard for worlds that have been overtaken by the Heartless. They progress through the World Terminus, a series of portals which the Heartless use to go to whichever world they please, and finally come upon Final Rest—a chamber comprised of gummi material, as the world borders are comprised of the stuff and the blocks are released when a world falls. Sora sees a very familiar door—one he had seen in a dream before his adventure—and upon opening it, discovers that it leads to a most unlikely place, one that is both wonderful and devastating: his home world, Destiny Islands.  There, he meets Ansem in his true form, where he discovers that Riku is no longer of the realm of light—his heart has been completely swallowed by darkness and he can only be found in the dark realm. Furious, Sora attacks Ansem as he warps the vision of the fallen world around him, and Sora pursues him into the Endless Abyss, wherein lies the heart of all worlds and the Door to Darkness: Kingdom Hearts.A long, terrible, and epic battle occurs as Ansem uses the darkness of his own free will, manipulating it to capture Sora’s friends, and to throw every type of devastating Heartless at his heels. After hours of endless fighting, Ansem offers a brief respite as he turns to the tall, stained-glass doors of Kingdom Hearts and commands it to fill him with the power of darkness…the doors creak open, and Sora outbursts, “You’re wrong…I know now, without a doubt! Kingdom Hearts…is LIGHT!” Beyond all hope, it is indeed light that streams out from between the doors, hitting Ansem full-force and consuming his darkness in all-encompassing light.  Ansem fades from existence, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy rush toward the doors to shut off the darkness for good.They throw all their weight against the doors, pushing the massive portal closed, when Goofy chances a peek inside—Kingdom Hearts is an endless realm full of millions upon millions of Heartless, a literal breeding ground for the creatures of darkness. However, a sudden voice calls out to encourage them…and none other than Riku appears inside, reaching to pull the doors closed, finally himself again. Another voice rings out, too…that of King Mickey!  He pulls out a Keyblade of his own—identical to Sora’s, except inverted in color, and reassures Sora that even though they must be trapped inside to complete the sealing, there will always be a door to the light. With a heavy heart, Sora pushes the door closed, but Riku looks at him with a smile and one final request: “Take care of her.”Once closed, Sora and Mickey both raise their Keyblades from opposite sides of the door, and in a blast of light, the door to darkness disappears forever, and Sora is left with his friends in the endless abyss. However, he turns to see Kairi appear at the end of the frozen path they stand on. He rushes to her, but the ground she stands on suddenly shakes, and Sora takes her hand tightly as a gap widens between them: the Destiny Islands are returning, and taking Kairi along with them. “I know you will!”  Kairi and Sora’s hands are torn apart, and they reach just a little farther for the other, and a shower of stars erupts from all around them as they are further separated. Kairi gazes up in awe at the star shower, seeing all the fallen worlds shooting back into place in the night sky as Sora shouts one last thing to her—something she can’t hear as he disappears into the cloudwrack. She sighs, and smiles as he fades from view. |
The next morning, Kairi wanders into the Secret Place alone, to look at all of the sketches they made as kids. She traces her hand along the carvings in the walls, reminiscing, but sinks to her knees as she notices the one in the corner: the portraits she and Sora had scratched of each other when they were young. She sees that he has recently added a hand holding out a paopu fruit to her, and she sees a brief image of Sora etching the image and smiling at her. She puts a hand to the drawing, softly giggling as a tear rolls down her cheek, and she reaches to draw another paopu fruit—one from her to him.