Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Herutsu no Oukoku ❯ The Keyblade Master ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any Disney characters. They belong to Square Enix and Disney respectively.
“Riku!” Sora ran around the sandy beach, his head turning in all directions in hopes of catching sight of his friend’s bright white hair. “Riku, where are you?” He yelled. His spiky brown hair bounced with every step and the chain around his neck and on his pants clinked together.
Clothed in bright red pants, a red shirt, a blue, black, and white short-sleeve jacket, and large bright yellow sneakers, Sora wasn’t the easiest person to not see. On the other hand, Riku wasn’t hard to miss either, with his yellow and black shirt, dark blue pants, and blue and white sneakers, but Sora still managed to do just that.
“Gotcha!”
Riku flew out of a bush and tackled Sora and the two landed heavily in the sand. Sora struggled for a few minutes before Riku managed to pin him down so he had no choice but to give in. Sora pouted and stopped moving, disappointed that he had once again lost to Riku.
Riku leaned down with a smirk, his sea-green eyes boring straight into Sora’s sky blue eyes, and said, “I win.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sora grumbled. “Could you let me up?”
Riku’s eyes took on a playful glint. “Let me think about that.” He pretended to think about letting Sora up, but didn’t move so Sora could get free. Sora tried to squirm away, but soon found there was no hope of escaping without Riku’s consent and stopped squirming.
“Riku, come on!” He whined.
Riku smirked. “How about, ‘no’?” He asked before he removed his hands. For a split second Sora thought Riku was letting him up, but his hopes were dashed when Riku began to mercilessly tickle him. Sora was soon laughing so hard that he could barely breathe and his eyes were tearing up. He tried to squirm every which way to escape Riku’s tickling, but, like always, it was just no use.
“R-R-Riku!” Sora stuttered through laughter.
The tickling lightened up for a second or two and then came back full force. “Not a chance!” Riku exclaimed.
“Riku!” Sora yelled. “I’ll do it! Just stop!”
Riku stopped tickling his friend and sat back with a triumphant smirk on his face. “I knew you’d see it my way. Now lets go!” He stood up straight and held a hand out for Sora to take. Sora hesitated a moment and wondered if it was just a joke before he took Riku’s hand and let the older boy pull him to his feet.
“So what are we going to do?” Sora asked.
“We’re going to explore that cave near the waterfall.” Riku replied. He started walking in the direction of the cave, expecting Sora to follow him.
Sora looked worried at the mention of the cave, although he had no idea why. When Riku first found the cave Sora’s heart began pounding fiercely and he ran all the way across the bridge to the small paopu island before Riku caught up to him. Ever since then he had refused to go anywhere near the cave.
Sora ran to catch up to Riku and tried to talk his friend out of going into the cave, but Riku didn’t listen to one word. And then Riku grabbed Sora’s wrist when they got close to the cave so the brunet couldn’t run off. Sora struggled against Riku’s grip for a moment before he gave up and let himself be dragged along. He began trembling when they got into the tunnel and by the time they got to the main cave he was shaking from head to toe. Riku looked at him in concern and started to ask him something when the cave went even darker than it was before.
“What’s going on?” Riku asked, stepping closer to Sora to protect his friend. “Who’s there?”
Hundreds of shadows surrounded the boys and started closing in on them. A single word popped into Sora’s head and he shouted it out. “Heartless!” A warm tingling feeling collected in his hand and Sora subconsciously acknowledged and welcomed the feeling as he stepped closer to Riku.
“What?” Riku asked. He had never heard nor seen anything like the creatures around them and he wondered how Sora knew of them. Odder still to him was the familiarity of the scene. Riku didn’t notice the Heartless sneaking up on him, but Sora did.
“Watch out!” Sora yelled. He pushed Riku out of the way and swung a fist at the creatures. The tingling feeling intensified and a bright light flashed and chased back some of the Heartless. A weight settled in Sora’s hand, but he paid no real attention to what it was and began using it to fight back the Heartless. When he got a chance to, he glanced back at Riku only to find his friend overpowered by the Heartless. “Riku!” He yelled, rushing forward to help.
Sora was too late and he watched helplessly as a swirling black portal appeared beneath Riku and swallowed him into its depths. He ran forward in hopes of following Riku, but found himself falling through endless darkness. Then he blacked out.
0-0-0
“Hey, hey! Wake up!”
Sora tried his best to ignore the speaker, wanting nothing more than to continue sleeping. His plans went unfulfilled when he was roughly shaken awake. He slowly opened his eyes and was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar girl who had short raven hair and brown eyes.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
Sora looked at her in confusion for a moment, his brain not quite registering what the girl was asking. She repeated her question and he snapped out of his daze enough to answer with a soft, “Yes.”
“That’s a relief.” The girl said with a sigh. “For a second there I thought the Heartless had gotten you.”
“Heartless?” Sora asked. He may have called the creatures that before, but it was only on a whim. He had no idea they were really called Heartless.
The girl nodded. “Yeah. They’re these bad shadow things that attack people and steal their hearts. You’ve got to be careful around here because they’re everywhere.” As she spoke, a few Heartless crept toward them. She noticed them immediately and fended them off with a fierce yell.
Sora scrambled to his feet as the girl beat back the Heartless and a familiar weight settled in his right hand. When the shadow creatures got close to him he fought back using the newly acquired weapon. When he had a chance, he took a quick glimpse at the weapon and surmised that the best way to describe it would be to call it an oversized key.
“Impressive!” The girl remarked as she used her large shuriken to destroy three Heartless in one shot. “Think you can keep up?” She asked.
Sora gave a short nod, not wanting to trust his voice at that moment.
“Good. Follow me!” The girl shouted. She ran forward with a battle cry and slashed at the Heartless in her path. Sora was quick to follow, not wanting to be around the creatures any more than he had to. That and the girl was the only person he had seen so far and he hoped to get some answers from her. “This way!” She shouted, leading Sora up some steps. She continued to slash at the Heartless in her way and Sora followed her and did the same. The two came to two large doors and the girl skidded to a stop. “Go through those doors and look for a woman in pink named Aerith. Tell her that Yuffie needs backup!” She shoved Sora toward the door. “Go! I can handle things here for a minute or two!”
Sora did as she asked and pushed his way through one of the doors. Yuffie continued to battle the Heartless and keep them away from the door until Sora closed the door. Once the door was closed she was less cautious and waited for the Heartless to go to her instead of chasing them down.
In First District, Sora ran through the streets in search of anyone. With each step his breathing grew more labored and came in shorter breaths. He stumbled out into the courtyard and spotting a young woman with long brown hair wearing a pink dress talking to a man with brown hair dressed in mostly black.
“A-Aerith!” Sora stumbled over his own two feet and nearly fell before he reached the two. By then his vision was started to go blurry and he was feeling faint. “Yuffie- Heartless- needs backup-said-find-you.” He stopped in front of them, breathing heavily. Once his message from Yuffie was delivered he closed his eyes and let his body drop to the ground in a dead faint. Aerith gasped and immediately went to her knees to make sure he was all right while the man eyed the key-shaped weapon Sora was holding.
“The keyblade wielder.” He murmured. “Just like King Mickey said.”
“Leon.” Aerith’s soft voice cut through the brunet’s thoughts. “Go help Yuffie.”
Leon nodded and then ran off toward the large doors to help his comrade. That left Aerith alone to take Sora to the small house-shop they were sharing and lay him down somewhere more comfortable. After she got him inside and on the couch in one of the side rooms, she made sure there were no terrible wounds and then went back out into the main shop to mind the counter. Just as she was settling herself behind the counter, Yuffie barged through the doors, tugging a pretty redhead behind her.
“Aerith, we’ve got another one!” She cheerfully greeted. “Kairi, this is Aerith, our resident healer. Aerith, this is Kairi!”
The three girls chatted for a while and Aerith and Yuffie told Kairi that she was in Traverse Town. Then a groan from the next room was heard and Aerith rushed off to check on Sora.
0-0-0
End Chapter
0-0-0
Shiro: And that brings up back up to where we left off in the first chapter. Whatcha guys think of it so far? Are the introductions too confusing? The descriptions not good? Any comments on the flow of the story? Let me know! Constructive criticism is something I could really use.
NEXT: Chapter 3: Two Weilders Meet