Sorry for the lack of A Darker Road posts. I’m working on it! I'm planning to get something up over Thanksgiving Break.

This story is spoiler free!

Disclaimer: All property of Square-Enix and Disney. If they were smart, they’d release KHII:Final Mix worldwide…

Even if it’s not the Secret Place, if that’s what it makes you think of, then that’ll do fine.

Substitutions

Hollow Bastion's Final Keyhole was sealed. Sora let out a sigh of relief, somehow feeling the darkness loosening in response to his actions. They were just one step away from the last step of their journey. But Sora wasn't thinking about that. He looked at Leon, Aerith and Yuffie and could only think of one thing.

“Hey wait a minute,” he said, letting the Keyblade fade away so he could cross his arms over his chest. “If you guys are here, where’s Kairi?”

“Back in Traverse Town of course,” Yuffie answered, swinging her legs over the edge of the wall she sat upon. “It was too dangerous to bring her with us.”

“There are a lot of Heartless here,” Leon commented. “Hollow Bastion is no place for someone who can’t fight, even if the Keyhole has been sealed.”

”So you left her in town alone?!” Sora demanded.

“Um…” Yuffie’s feet became of great interest to her. “I…uh…suppose we sorta did.”

Sora ran down the stairs. “Come on!” He called to Donald and Goofy. “We’ve gotta get back to town!”

Leon just sighed and held his hand to his head.

Aerith giggled. “How cute,” she said, clapping her hands together.

“See ya later!” Goofy said as he and Donald hurried after Sora. “Don’t let the Heartless get ya!”

Sora was so far ahead, Donald and Goofy didn’t catch up with him until they had stepped into swirling green light that returned them to the ship. They barely made it aboard before Sora was taking the ship away from Hollow Bastion. The pair shared a knowing look, a smile passing between them.

The Warp gummi got them back to Traverse Town in under an hour. Sora was bouncing in his seat the whole time, willing the ship to go faster. Donald expected the boy to incessantly demand ‘Are we there yet?’ but fortunately Sora was old enough to be beyond that stage.

When they reached town, Sora barely stayed sitting long enough to disengage the engines. Donald was the one left to make sure all the ship’s systems were set to keep the ship in orbit. Sora was gone, running off the ship and pushing open the doors to the First District.

“Typical. He loves to fly the ship but will he park it properly? No,” Donald grumbled.

“Aw, you know why he’s in such a hurry. You would be too if it was Daisy.”

Goofy’s wisdom ensured Donald didn’t complain again.

Sora ran through into the Third District, taking down the Heartless that still lingered there with a single Thundaga spell. He flung himself at the door of the Small House and it opened with a bang, a very startled Kairi leaping up from the table and staring at Sora as if he’d grown three extra heads. “Sora!” she gasped, holding a hand to her chest. “I thought… I thought you were…”

He walked over to her, seeing her watery eyes only when he stood right in front of her. “Kairi… why are you crying?”

“Oh!” Her hands hurriedly rubbed her cheeks. “I’m not! It’s fine, really.”

Sora gave her a look. She fell apart beneath it and sobbed. He let out an “Ah!” and held a hand to her shoulder. “Kairi! I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

“N-No, it’s okay,” she said as she cried, her red hair falling over her face when she rested her head on his shoulder. “Really.” Her breath hiccupped. “It’s nothing…”

“Crying isn’t nothing!”

“Sometimes it is,” she sniffled before sobs broke her words apart.

Blushing madly (why? He never had before…), Sora reached around Kairi and hugged her carefully. “I’m sorry you got left here all alone. I came back as soon as I could.”

“But I’m never alone,” she whispered.

“Sure you’re not, but sometimes it’s nice to see someone face to face, right?”

That pulled a laugh out of her and she made a better effort to rid herself of tears. “Sorry. Sometimes… I just…” She smiled so sadly. “I really want to go home.”

Donald and Goofy poked their heads in. Sora stepped backwards so fast, Kairi almost toppled over. Donald and Goofy were nice enough to pretend they hadn’t noticed. “We’re gonna go get some food from the café in the First District,” Donald said. “Anything you two want in particular?”

Sora made a pose. “Donald, you know I’ll eat anything!”

Kairi confirmed that, adding, “I’d like some tea if that’s possible.”

“Sure,” said Goofy. “We’ll be back in a little while!” And off he and Donald went.

“Sora?”

“Mm?”

“Could we… go back to that place from before? The one that looked like the Secret Place?”

“You mean Merlin’s House?” Sora said, remembering one of his numerous Kairi-hallucinations.

“No, the place beneath it.”

“Oh! The Waterway. Sure!”

Leaving a note for Donald and Goofy so they wouldn’t worry, Sora led Kairi to Merlin’s house. He held the Keyblade ready, just in case any Heartless came along – not because it looked really cool when he held it over his shoulders and he wanted Kairi to see that too.

They made it through the Third District without a hitch and passed into the cavern. Kairi hopped quite merrily over the moving stones that led to Merlin’s House, giggling every time she wobbled and almost fell in. Sora stayed alongside her, laughing when she did, doing anything he could to make sure her tears didn’t return. They made it across without any impromptu swims and soon Merlin was sending them down into the Waterway, telling them to watch out for Heartless and not to swim in the water because it was undoubtedly cold and dirty and would surely cause any number of ills.

“Don’t you swim through it every time you go down there?” Kairi whispered as they headed downwards.

“Sh. I don’t want a lecture!” Sora was still smarting from Merlin’s last lecture concerning improper use of Fire spells to toast marshmallows with.

They jumped off the lift and headed down the short flight of steps to the cave. Kairi let out a happy sigh, holding her hands behind her back as she paced forward. “Just like home,” she said. “I almost wish there was some chalk here so we could draw on the walls.”

Sora’s mind immediately leapt to a certain drawing involving a Paopu fruit. “Y-yeah. It is a shame.”

“But you know, it wouldn’t be the same without Riku.”

Sora tried to hide the weight of responsibility her words placed upon him. “You’re right,” he said in as light a tone as he could manage. “It wouldn’t be any fun if he wasn’t here to say ‘I don’t look anything like that! I have longer hair!’”

“Oh gosh, do you remember the time you said you were gonna cut his hair to make it match your picture?”

Sora snorted with laughter, very fond of that particular memory. “I don’t think Riku has ever run that fast in his life since then.” Sora sat down, hugging his knees to his chest. “But he got his own back.”

Kairi sat next to him. “You mean the picture he drew of himself beating a monster while you and me looked like we were crying?”

“Yeah, that one,” Sora said with a scowl. “But I covered over it…”

“Hah, with that giant castle, I remember.”

“And then Riku got mad…”

“And I made you two settle your differences with a giant game of noughts and crosses…”

“…which Riku won,” Sora sighed.

“So you tried to settle it with a fight…”

“…and Riku won that too…”

“And while you two were busy fighting, I drew Riku’s hair like it should’ve been in the picture that started everything.”

“He forgot everything after that.” Sora held his hands behind his head. “And we went back to drawing all the different worlds we were gonna go to and all the different things we were gonna see.”

“Things didn’t turn out like we thought, did they?”

“Nope.” He hoped that came out cheerfully.

It didn’t, but Kairi didn’t want to trouble him. “But at least we’ve all seen new worlds. And I even got to see Hollow Bastion, the world I came from.”

“And you’ll get to go home,” Sora said. “We all will. I’ll bring Riku kicking and screaming if I have to!”

“Riku screaming?”

Sora shrugged. “If I says he screams, he screams.”

Kairi couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of Riku screaming. “Maybe I should draw that in the cave when I get home – Riku with a big ‘Eek!’ speech bubble.”

“Yeah, then you can sit back and watch him chase me all around the islands because he’ll blame me for your idea.”

“As he should,” Kairi said with that regal air of hers. “You’re the one who said he screams.”

“Aw c’mon you remember the time a crab grabbed onto his toe and he ran shrieking around the beach.”

“Yeah but I also remember you running out the Secret Place screaming because you found a bunch of bats and they all flew at you.”

“Hey, you try having bats fly at you and see how much you like it.”

Kairi stood up. “I think I’ll draw pictures of both of you screaming.”

“Fine! I’ll draw one of you screaming!”

“So? I’m a girl and we’re allowed to scream.”

Sora leapt to his feet. “I’ll draw you doing a really loud burp then!”

Kairi shrugged. “Okay.”

“Farting!”

“Sure.” She headed back up the stairs.

“Loads of snot coming out your nose!”

“I hate it when I catch a cold.”

“Your head exploding!”

“Now Sora, that’s just silly.”

“Argh!”

“Ooh you just screamed!”

“That was not a scream!”

“Was too.”

”Was not!”

“Was. Now I’ll definitely draw a picture of you screaming when we get home.”

“Kairi!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll draw Riku screaming too. And I’ll tell him it was your idea.”

Sora let out a moan of despair as they stepped onto the lift. “If I had known this was gonna happen, I wouldn’t have come here with you.”

The lift began rising upwards.

Kairi let the teasing drop. “Thanks for bringing me here again Sora. I like it. It reminds me of home.”

Sora nodded. “Me too, even though it sounds different because the sea isn’t outside.”

“But even a little piece of home is nice.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I miss it, even more than I thought I would.”

Sora didn’t say anything.

“And I’m sure Riku does too.”

“Yeah.” Did he?

“We’ll all go back one day.”

“I know. I just… nah, never mind.” Sora smiled at Kairi. “We’ll go home together, all of us. The Secret Place is waiting.”