Here it is, the sequel to The Realm of Shadows! I finally decided to get off my lazy butt and get this thing started. (For those of you who didn't read the Realm of Shadows, the link is here: FanFiction.Net - The Realm of Shadows, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic)
Anyway, I hope everybody enjoys this first chapter, and hopefully the rest of them as they come!
CHAPTER 1
It was early morning. A silver crescent moon, already beginning to dip below the western edge of the horizon, cast the only light there was over the courtyard of Disney Castle. It was the time of day when owls and nightingales had gone to sleep, and morning birds had yet to wake up; everything was completely silent, and completely still. If there were tiny rodents scurrying about the garden, they were fully concealed by the tall, overgrown grass.
The only living creature awake at this early hour was a funny little white-feathered duck, standing at the edge of the topmost balcony, staring into the courtyard below. Half asleep, he slumped dreamily over the banister. He was hardly performing his function as night watch. Although he knew how important his job was – there had been Heartless attacks almost daily for the past week – he couldn’t bring himself to stand in one place, alert, for hours at a time. ‘Ducks need their rest much more than any other creature,’ he told himself resolutely. However, whenever he tried to explain this to his friends, all he received were annoyed grunts, and occasionally a kick to the midriff.
He was immediately roused to his senses by the sound of footsteps padding along the corridor toward him. “Who goes there?” he quacked shrilly, spinning around and brandishing his staff at whatever was approaching. “Oh, Sora, it’s you.”
“G’morning, Donald,” mumbled Sora as he shuffled toward his friend, stopping beside him and leaning on the banister. “I haven’t really been able to sleep tonight. I’ll take the rest of the watch if you like.”
Normally, Donald would have gratefully accepted and dashed away to his bed, but Sora’s demeanor troubled him. He had often complained of losing sleep in recent days. “You okay, Sora?” he asked concernedly. “Got something on your mind?”
“Oh, no, nothing much,” said Sora. A better question would have been what he didn’t have on his mind. Ajedel was gone, possessed by Xehanort. He had taken Naminé prisoner. On top of that, Riku and Mickey had been gone far longer than Sora had expected, and that worried Sora immensely. Had something happened to them?
“I’ll bet your worrying about your friends,” said Donald softly.
Sora chuckled at this; Donald had always been a bit on the slow side. “What, have you been reading my mind?” he joked. “Anyway, you can go get a little sleep, I’ll finish the watch.”
“Naw, I’ll stay here,” said Donald. “The night’s almost over anyway.”
Then, as if by his bidding, the sun peeked over the edge of the castle, illuminating the courtyard with its brilliant rays, revealing the miserable condition the place was in. The grass, once green and lush, had been browned and trampled by the Heartless which had appeared in the castle over and over again. Many of the beautiful hedges had been damaged or demolished by the continuous attacks. Even the red, velvety carpet beneath Sora’s feet was scratched and frayed by a few bold Heartless who had ventured so far up before being killed by staff, shield, or keyblade. Finally, in a quiet corner, there was a gaping hole in the soil, about six feet across and four feet deep. Sora hadn’t yet taken the time to fill this in, nor did he have any intention of doing so. As he gazed at this ugly gap, he was filled with a joy that caused him to momentarily forget all the rest of his problems. ‘It’s still hard to believe that we actually did it, that she’s really back…’
“Well, that’s that!” said Donald brightly, cutting into Sora’s thoughts. “A whole night with no Heartless…that’s been pretty rare lately! Come on, let’s go get some breakfast!”
Sora wordlessly turned and followed Donald down several flights of stairs, listening to him yammer the reasons why Goofy should have more watch time. “Really, you’ve gotta bring the iron down on him hard! Last time you put him on watch, he didn’t sound the alarm until the little devils had broken into my room and almost killed me! He thinks he can get away with that sort of thing. You’ve gotta punish him…I suggest that you make him take my next watch!”
He was still ranting as they pushed open a huge, oak door entered the dining room, where a breakfast of cold cereal and scrambled eggs had already been laid out for them by the handy walking brooms that attended to everything in the castle. Sora’s smile of amusement turned to an alarmed expression as he saw Goofy sitting at the table, gulping down a tall glass of milk. “Come on, Donald,” whispered Sora urgently, “let’s stop talking about that, please?”
Donald, however, paid him no heed; he wasn’t paying any attention to anything around him. “He’s a big oaf who doesn’t do anything around here! What if you make him take all of my watches, and let me get the sleep that I earn so tediously every day? Then maybe he’d…”
Goofy sprang to his feet so quickly that his chair skidded backward and smashed into the wall. He thundered across the room and stopped directly in front of Donald, towering over the hapless duck. “Now, you wouldn’t be talking about me, would you?” he said fiercely.
Donald’s eyes grew to an impressively large size. “N-n-no,” he stammered, as he slowly backed away. “I would n-never say anything like that about you, G-Goofy!”
Goofy never stopped staring into Donald’s terrified eyes. “Good,” he grunted, “I’m glad to hear it.” He finally stalked back to his seat and continued his breakfast, leaving a whimpering Donald to sink gratefully into a chair as far away as possible.
Sora breathed a heavy sigh of relief; he was glad this had been resolved so easily. The fights that frequently erupted between the two usually resulted in both nursing minor injuries and angrily avoiding each other for the rest of the day. But of course, it was all part of their bizarre friendship.
Just as Sora sat down on a nearby chair and helped himself to a bowl of eggs, the door creaked open. In stepped a person…the one person that caused Sora to be happy, even when so many things in the castle had been going wrong.
“Kairi!” he said, quickly rising to his feet. “Good morning!”
“Hey, Sora,” she called cheerfully as she walked across the room and plopped into a chair beside him, her red hair ruffling a little from the impact. “Mm, scrambled eggs! I love scrambled eggs!”
“Yeah, me too,” said Sora. He forgot his own breakfast for a moment, staring at Kairi as she doled a generous portion of eggs onto her plate and began to scoop them into her mouth. He hardly even realized he was doing it; he had found himself gazing blankly at her for no reason several times over the past week. For some reason, he found many of the ordinary things she did intriguing, as if she were some exotic creature in a zoo. Only when she turned and gave him a queer look did he mumble an unintelligible apology and return to his food.
Of course, Sora had told Kairi everything that had happened during the entire past year. At first, she had laughed and asked him to quit joking around, and who could blame her…she had no idea that she had been dead all that time. In her mind, she had simply gone to sleep in Destiny Islands and awakened to find herself here. However, constantly having the events recounted for her, and being shown the very grave in which she had been buried, eventually caused her to believe it. To Sora’s surprise, she took it as a fascinating story, even a humorous one, and asked him to tell it again and again.
For Sora’s part, this was the happiest week he had gone through in a very long time. After he had gotten over the initial shock, he fell into a continuous state of ecstasy. Kairi was back. The best friend he had ever had, the girl he had known his entire life, who he had lost multiple times before…forever, it had seemed this time…was back. But there was no way Kairi could know how he felt, she had been dead through the whole ordeal. Sora decided that he would try to act as though it had never happened, as Kairi did, but it was hard. He spent almost all his time around her, sometimes recounting the events that had brought them to Disney Castle, sometimes striking up general conversation, sometimes just mindlessly following her around like a stalker.
Kairi was sometimes unnerved by Sora’s incessant attention, but she always took it graciously. Although she had not been around to witness Sora’s torment over the past year, she thought she could imagine what it must have been like. She cared deeply about Sora and didn’t want to hurt him if she could at all help. Also, she immensely enjoyed the conversations they had together. When Sora wasn’t telling her the fascinating story of what had happened while Kairi lay dormant in her grave, they talked about all sorts of things, from relating their past adventures together to discussing things like philosophy. But there was one topic that Kairi kept trying to bring up, and Sora would not hear a word of it.
A brief flash of light in the corner of Sora’s eye caused him to glance up from his food. Kairi had summoned her flowery keyblade, right there at the breakfast table, toying with it mindlessly.
Sora lay back in his chair and observed her warily. He didn’t approve of this kind of behavior at all. He knew exactly what she was about to say, because they had discussed it many times in the past few days; Kairi wanted sparring lessons from him. Ever since she had risen, she had harbored an uncanny interesting fighting. Sora would not allow this under any circumstances. True, she had wielded her keyblade before, back in the Nobodies’ stronghold, and if Sora remembered clearly, she had done away with quite a few Heartless by herself. By all rights, she was probably ready for combat. The problem was that Sora wasn’t. He wasn’t about to let Kairi fight, to let her put her life on the line, so soon after she had already been dead.
They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Kairi finally spoke tentatively. “You know, Sora, keyblades aren’t really all that common. I bet this one came to me for a reason.”
“Yeah, I know,” replied Sora patiently. She had tried this tactic on him before, and even though there was some sense in it, he would not hear of it. As far as he was concerned, the reason she had her keyblade was so that the Shadow could never touch her again.
“Well, means that I’m meant to fight, right?” Kairi continued nervously. “I would be just fine, all you would need to do is give me lessons…”
“Look, Kairi, I know you would be fine,” said Sora gently. “But I’m not ready to give lessons just yet. Maybe in a couple weeks, okay?” He was only half lying. Maybe by that time, when the thrill of having Kairi back wore off a bit, he’d be ready to let her do a little fighting. Maybe.
Kairi persisted, however. “Aw, come on, Sora! I’m not being selfish or anything. I just want to help you save…her.”
Her, or course, referred to Naminé. The safety of her Nobody seemed to be Kairi’s chief concern. When Sora had first told her what had happened the night she was resurrected, she had clasped a hand over her mouth and remained in that position for several minutes, refusing to hear any more. Sora understood why she would be afraid, considered that Naminé was literally a part of her, but he still would not back down. “Naminé is going to be fine!” he said. “We’re going to save her as soon as we can. Besides, I bet the last thing Naminé wants is for you to go risking your life for her.”
Kairi opened her mouth to argue, but she was silenced by a strange rumbling sound in the distance. It slowly grew in volume until it reverberated through the whole room, echoing off the high ceiling. The vibrations from the noise caused the forks and knives to dance along the tabletop, some falling onto the floor with a clang.
Donald, who had been eating his breakfast in silence, sprang out of his chair and listened to the noise intently. “That’s a sonic boom, it is!” he shouted over the din.
“A sonic boom!” Sora yelled back. “That means that…” But everyone in the room knew exactly what it meant: an airship was coming.
Sora leapt to his feet and rushed to the giant door marking the exit from the dining room, his heart pounding. Was Riku finally coming home? It seemed a bit surreal, considering that he had been away for so long. If he was actually back, it would vanquish a good chunk of his worries.
As Sora reached the door and heaved it open, his hopes were confirmed by a streak of red flashing across the sky, decelerating rapidly and heading for the entrance to the hangar. It was unmistakably the Gummi Ship. “It’s Riku! Riku’s back!” he called happily to his friends. As he spoke the words, he felt everything inside him loosen, as though a heavy stone lodged in his stomach had just been removed.
Anyway, I hope everybody enjoys this first chapter, and hopefully the rest of them as they come!
CHAPTER 1
It was early morning. A silver crescent moon, already beginning to dip below the western edge of the horizon, cast the only light there was over the courtyard of Disney Castle. It was the time of day when owls and nightingales had gone to sleep, and morning birds had yet to wake up; everything was completely silent, and completely still. If there were tiny rodents scurrying about the garden, they were fully concealed by the tall, overgrown grass.
The only living creature awake at this early hour was a funny little white-feathered duck, standing at the edge of the topmost balcony, staring into the courtyard below. Half asleep, he slumped dreamily over the banister. He was hardly performing his function as night watch. Although he knew how important his job was – there had been Heartless attacks almost daily for the past week – he couldn’t bring himself to stand in one place, alert, for hours at a time. ‘Ducks need their rest much more than any other creature,’ he told himself resolutely. However, whenever he tried to explain this to his friends, all he received were annoyed grunts, and occasionally a kick to the midriff.
He was immediately roused to his senses by the sound of footsteps padding along the corridor toward him. “Who goes there?” he quacked shrilly, spinning around and brandishing his staff at whatever was approaching. “Oh, Sora, it’s you.”
“G’morning, Donald,” mumbled Sora as he shuffled toward his friend, stopping beside him and leaning on the banister. “I haven’t really been able to sleep tonight. I’ll take the rest of the watch if you like.”
Normally, Donald would have gratefully accepted and dashed away to his bed, but Sora’s demeanor troubled him. He had often complained of losing sleep in recent days. “You okay, Sora?” he asked concernedly. “Got something on your mind?”
“Oh, no, nothing much,” said Sora. A better question would have been what he didn’t have on his mind. Ajedel was gone, possessed by Xehanort. He had taken Naminé prisoner. On top of that, Riku and Mickey had been gone far longer than Sora had expected, and that worried Sora immensely. Had something happened to them?
“I’ll bet your worrying about your friends,” said Donald softly.
Sora chuckled at this; Donald had always been a bit on the slow side. “What, have you been reading my mind?” he joked. “Anyway, you can go get a little sleep, I’ll finish the watch.”
“Naw, I’ll stay here,” said Donald. “The night’s almost over anyway.”
Then, as if by his bidding, the sun peeked over the edge of the castle, illuminating the courtyard with its brilliant rays, revealing the miserable condition the place was in. The grass, once green and lush, had been browned and trampled by the Heartless which had appeared in the castle over and over again. Many of the beautiful hedges had been damaged or demolished by the continuous attacks. Even the red, velvety carpet beneath Sora’s feet was scratched and frayed by a few bold Heartless who had ventured so far up before being killed by staff, shield, or keyblade. Finally, in a quiet corner, there was a gaping hole in the soil, about six feet across and four feet deep. Sora hadn’t yet taken the time to fill this in, nor did he have any intention of doing so. As he gazed at this ugly gap, he was filled with a joy that caused him to momentarily forget all the rest of his problems. ‘It’s still hard to believe that we actually did it, that she’s really back…’
“Well, that’s that!” said Donald brightly, cutting into Sora’s thoughts. “A whole night with no Heartless…that’s been pretty rare lately! Come on, let’s go get some breakfast!”
Sora wordlessly turned and followed Donald down several flights of stairs, listening to him yammer the reasons why Goofy should have more watch time. “Really, you’ve gotta bring the iron down on him hard! Last time you put him on watch, he didn’t sound the alarm until the little devils had broken into my room and almost killed me! He thinks he can get away with that sort of thing. You’ve gotta punish him…I suggest that you make him take my next watch!”
He was still ranting as they pushed open a huge, oak door entered the dining room, where a breakfast of cold cereal and scrambled eggs had already been laid out for them by the handy walking brooms that attended to everything in the castle. Sora’s smile of amusement turned to an alarmed expression as he saw Goofy sitting at the table, gulping down a tall glass of milk. “Come on, Donald,” whispered Sora urgently, “let’s stop talking about that, please?”
Donald, however, paid him no heed; he wasn’t paying any attention to anything around him. “He’s a big oaf who doesn’t do anything around here! What if you make him take all of my watches, and let me get the sleep that I earn so tediously every day? Then maybe he’d…”
Goofy sprang to his feet so quickly that his chair skidded backward and smashed into the wall. He thundered across the room and stopped directly in front of Donald, towering over the hapless duck. “Now, you wouldn’t be talking about me, would you?” he said fiercely.
Donald’s eyes grew to an impressively large size. “N-n-no,” he stammered, as he slowly backed away. “I would n-never say anything like that about you, G-Goofy!”
Goofy never stopped staring into Donald’s terrified eyes. “Good,” he grunted, “I’m glad to hear it.” He finally stalked back to his seat and continued his breakfast, leaving a whimpering Donald to sink gratefully into a chair as far away as possible.
Sora breathed a heavy sigh of relief; he was glad this had been resolved so easily. The fights that frequently erupted between the two usually resulted in both nursing minor injuries and angrily avoiding each other for the rest of the day. But of course, it was all part of their bizarre friendship.
Just as Sora sat down on a nearby chair and helped himself to a bowl of eggs, the door creaked open. In stepped a person…the one person that caused Sora to be happy, even when so many things in the castle had been going wrong.
“Kairi!” he said, quickly rising to his feet. “Good morning!”
“Hey, Sora,” she called cheerfully as she walked across the room and plopped into a chair beside him, her red hair ruffling a little from the impact. “Mm, scrambled eggs! I love scrambled eggs!”
“Yeah, me too,” said Sora. He forgot his own breakfast for a moment, staring at Kairi as she doled a generous portion of eggs onto her plate and began to scoop them into her mouth. He hardly even realized he was doing it; he had found himself gazing blankly at her for no reason several times over the past week. For some reason, he found many of the ordinary things she did intriguing, as if she were some exotic creature in a zoo. Only when she turned and gave him a queer look did he mumble an unintelligible apology and return to his food.
Of course, Sora had told Kairi everything that had happened during the entire past year. At first, she had laughed and asked him to quit joking around, and who could blame her…she had no idea that she had been dead all that time. In her mind, she had simply gone to sleep in Destiny Islands and awakened to find herself here. However, constantly having the events recounted for her, and being shown the very grave in which she had been buried, eventually caused her to believe it. To Sora’s surprise, she took it as a fascinating story, even a humorous one, and asked him to tell it again and again.
For Sora’s part, this was the happiest week he had gone through in a very long time. After he had gotten over the initial shock, he fell into a continuous state of ecstasy. Kairi was back. The best friend he had ever had, the girl he had known his entire life, who he had lost multiple times before…forever, it had seemed this time…was back. But there was no way Kairi could know how he felt, she had been dead through the whole ordeal. Sora decided that he would try to act as though it had never happened, as Kairi did, but it was hard. He spent almost all his time around her, sometimes recounting the events that had brought them to Disney Castle, sometimes striking up general conversation, sometimes just mindlessly following her around like a stalker.
Kairi was sometimes unnerved by Sora’s incessant attention, but she always took it graciously. Although she had not been around to witness Sora’s torment over the past year, she thought she could imagine what it must have been like. She cared deeply about Sora and didn’t want to hurt him if she could at all help. Also, she immensely enjoyed the conversations they had together. When Sora wasn’t telling her the fascinating story of what had happened while Kairi lay dormant in her grave, they talked about all sorts of things, from relating their past adventures together to discussing things like philosophy. But there was one topic that Kairi kept trying to bring up, and Sora would not hear a word of it.
A brief flash of light in the corner of Sora’s eye caused him to glance up from his food. Kairi had summoned her flowery keyblade, right there at the breakfast table, toying with it mindlessly.
Sora lay back in his chair and observed her warily. He didn’t approve of this kind of behavior at all. He knew exactly what she was about to say, because they had discussed it many times in the past few days; Kairi wanted sparring lessons from him. Ever since she had risen, she had harbored an uncanny interesting fighting. Sora would not allow this under any circumstances. True, she had wielded her keyblade before, back in the Nobodies’ stronghold, and if Sora remembered clearly, she had done away with quite a few Heartless by herself. By all rights, she was probably ready for combat. The problem was that Sora wasn’t. He wasn’t about to let Kairi fight, to let her put her life on the line, so soon after she had already been dead.
They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Kairi finally spoke tentatively. “You know, Sora, keyblades aren’t really all that common. I bet this one came to me for a reason.”
“Yeah, I know,” replied Sora patiently. She had tried this tactic on him before, and even though there was some sense in it, he would not hear of it. As far as he was concerned, the reason she had her keyblade was so that the Shadow could never touch her again.
“Well, means that I’m meant to fight, right?” Kairi continued nervously. “I would be just fine, all you would need to do is give me lessons…”
“Look, Kairi, I know you would be fine,” said Sora gently. “But I’m not ready to give lessons just yet. Maybe in a couple weeks, okay?” He was only half lying. Maybe by that time, when the thrill of having Kairi back wore off a bit, he’d be ready to let her do a little fighting. Maybe.
Kairi persisted, however. “Aw, come on, Sora! I’m not being selfish or anything. I just want to help you save…her.”
Her, or course, referred to Naminé. The safety of her Nobody seemed to be Kairi’s chief concern. When Sora had first told her what had happened the night she was resurrected, she had clasped a hand over her mouth and remained in that position for several minutes, refusing to hear any more. Sora understood why she would be afraid, considered that Naminé was literally a part of her, but he still would not back down. “Naminé is going to be fine!” he said. “We’re going to save her as soon as we can. Besides, I bet the last thing Naminé wants is for you to go risking your life for her.”
Kairi opened her mouth to argue, but she was silenced by a strange rumbling sound in the distance. It slowly grew in volume until it reverberated through the whole room, echoing off the high ceiling. The vibrations from the noise caused the forks and knives to dance along the tabletop, some falling onto the floor with a clang.
Donald, who had been eating his breakfast in silence, sprang out of his chair and listened to the noise intently. “That’s a sonic boom, it is!” he shouted over the din.
“A sonic boom!” Sora yelled back. “That means that…” But everyone in the room knew exactly what it meant: an airship was coming.
Sora leapt to his feet and rushed to the giant door marking the exit from the dining room, his heart pounding. Was Riku finally coming home? It seemed a bit surreal, considering that he had been away for so long. If he was actually back, it would vanquish a good chunk of his worries.
As Sora reached the door and heaved it open, his hopes were confirmed by a streak of red flashing across the sky, decelerating rapidly and heading for the entrance to the hangar. It was unmistakably the Gummi Ship. “It’s Riku! Riku’s back!” he called happily to his friends. As he spoke the words, he felt everything inside him loosen, as though a heavy stone lodged in his stomach had just been removed.
