Kingdom Hearts “Essence”

Chapter 2
Memories of a Nobody

Bugs Bunny was a, well, bunny, a humanoid bunny, just as much as Donald Duck and Goofy were a duck and a…canine of sort respectively. He has white and grey with long pointy ears, and his bucktooth. He once had a trademark of holding a carrot but…and there was Daffy Duck. Nothing was spectacular about him, except his greediness, cowardliness, and egotistical self. He was a black duck with shiny orange beak and an eye for anything for himself.

It’s been a ‘while’ since the two pals, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, were traveling and defeating villains along the way. The usual tactic as two heroes were to charge in the battle and come what may. Villains can be annoying when they’re reoccurring villains and the world so far has been threatened by a giant pencil.

Their story originated in a doctor’s clinic. Bugs became allergic to carrots (losing his trademark carrot) and Daffy was losing his feathers (losing twice the grip he has). While the cases were rather random and unrelated, the thing is they didn’t stay long in the clinic. After a brief bicker that ended everything, they went off and met a pair of talking magical boots.

“We can help you if you agree to our conditions,” one of the pair said.

“You must save 99 worlds together.”

“You mean like a pair of boots?” Bugs pointed out.

“Yea, like a pair of boots.”

“So how are we supposed to save 99 worlds?”

“That’s kind of crazy, don’t you think?” Daffy said, picking up his feathers again and again.

“I’d go nuts without carrots.”

“You have to save 99 worlds in three hundred days.”

“THREE HUNDRED DAYS?”

Bugs slapped Daffy without much consent to look at him, appearing business-like. “Six hundred days.”

“Four hundred days.”

“Five hundred days,” Bugs replied instantly.

“Four hundred fifty days.”

“Four hundred fifty days.”

“Five hundred days.”

“Five hundred FIFTY days.”

“Six hundred FIFTY da—“

“DEAL!”

“Deal,” the boots chorused and instantly, Daffy who has been watching, laughing crazily.

“HA! He fooled you, you stupid boots!” Daffy roared. “HAHAHAHA—“

“Shut up, Daffy!” Bugs yelled, giving the duck another wake-up slap on his face that caused an instant explosion of his feathers. “Pull yourself together.”

While Daffy grumbled literally picking up his falling feathers, the boots continued. “If you don’t get to save 99 worlds within six hundred fifty days, you will never be cured.”

“Gotcha, doc. One more thing though.”

“Yea?”

“What worlds are we talking about? Carrot world? Bunny world? Milky world? Chocolate syrup world?”

“Daffy world?”

“Oh you know…”

The pair of boots said many things, but then it stopped talking soon since the stitches were completely pulled apart and since Daffy did a very poor job at darning it, the pair was dead.

Later on, they came upon the city and split up on what to do. When Daffy found (or was found) by Sora, they told him this story. No one sane can blame Sora for looking dense about the story. He just gave Daffy a reason to doubt his intelligence.

“Um, well, how come your feather’s not falling off, Daffy?” Sora asked, hoping it would clear the strangeness.

Daffy inspected his whole body. “Oh, hey you’re right! I’m cured! I’m cured—” And as soon as he jumped around, his feathers dropped one by one. “…….”

Sora cleared his throat, turning to Bugs. “Then you’re going to save this world?”

Bugs tapped his chin. “Naah. T’is our home world. We’re off elsewhere.”

“So…what is this world?” Sora recalled how there were so many worlds out there.

“We call this The Woyd That Is To Be,” Bugs answered, mimicking Sora’s act of looking around.

“That’s a strange name,” Sora commented and wondered if the people around were also like Bugs and Daffy. “I…I’ve been to other worlds, but not a name like that…” Though there was one world he swore sounded like this one, but somehow, he could not remember…

“Really? Well, it’s kinda fitting! You see—”

“See here, Sora!” Daffy interrupted, having regained his feathers. Bugs rolled his eyes. The bunny was hoping to give a direct, appropriate explanation, but as Daffy began to lead a stroll, he knew this was going to be excessively long and dramatic.

“This world…The World That Is To Be is a world of what is ‘to be’.”

“I think he gets that—“

“—We aren’t really alive, but we do exist! We are not dead, but we are not alive—we exist!”

“Huh?”

Somehow, Sora’s confusion only made Daffy to believe he was going a great job at explaining. “This world and everyone living in it is to be born in world that is truly alive.”

Sora furrowed his eyebrows, following Daffy blindly. He paid attention then to those around him. There were many people passing by (and he thought wrong, as generally, there were different people), and many mundane lives acted in front of him. It was difficult to believe they weren’t alive—or dead.

“But if you’re not alive—and can’t die, why do you get sick, or why do you need to eat?”

Daffy’s walk halted and his eyes were wide and frozen like eyes. He slowly turned to Sora with a shaky finger. “Uhh…”

“It’s because of our h’arts,” Bugs answered, crossing his arms. “Well…we don’t have any actually…” his elongated ears fell for a moment and his arms loosely hanging. “But we hafta believe we have one, or else we won’t ever be alive. Once we believe enough we’d get our h’arts and we’d be born in a real woyd.”

“What kind of world would that be?”

Bugs shrugged. “That we don’t know for sure, but most of us wants to be born in Gaea.”

“Aand what’s that world about?”

“Hmm, from what I know, that woyd’s a nuytuwing woyd. It has three laws that makes it so great…maybe you’re asking the wrong doc, doc.”

“How about you, Sora?” Daffy asked.

“Yea?”

“You’re no newcomer. I deduce you’re from another world!”

“Thank you for letting us know, genius,” Bugs muttered audibly without the hesitation to have Daffy hear it. Daffy must have ignored his comment because he gave no reaction to satisfy Bugs.

“I’m not so sure…” he explained slowly. “I came from a far away place…with my friends…Riku, Kairi, but our world was swallowed by darkness and…” As the memories surged in, he realized it was a long story to tell. This he told the two who agreed to hear the long story elsewhere. They walked off towards the heart-shaped moon’s position in the sky.

In some corner of the city was the clean residence of Daffy’s friend, Porky Pig, who has the habit of stuttering horribly. He spends a few more seconds to actually say something stuttering severely. It was as if a fish was stuck on his throat.

“Wo-wo-wou-would you like to have some tea?” he asked, coming in the round aqua-wallpapered living room with a white red-polka dotted apron around his waist. Even though he was in the appearance of a pig, his house was completely spotless and the color and architecture were perfectly symmetrical and balanced.

“Meh, I’ll pass,” Bugs said, disgusted at the taste of tea.

“One cup of tea, please!” Daffy said from his seat.

“I’ll have any,” Sora answered, not really feeling any thirst or want for anything.

“Co-co-co-cooming right up!” Porky walked off and almost tripped at a little yellow bird that came along.

“Hey!” the bird cried out.

“Oh, so-so-so-so-sorry Twe-twe-tweety! I di-di-di-didn’t see you!”

It was a normal thing to happen as the two waved each other off. Porky disappeared behind the curtains of the kitchen and the little bird took Bug’s hand as its elevator up to the table.

“Who’s that, Bugs?” the bird asked, pointing at Sora.

“That’s Sora, Tweets.”

“Aw, stop calling me that!” The bird gave Bugs a glare and at Daffy for laughing. “My name’s Tweety. Nice to meet you, Sora!”

“Nice to meet you too, Tweety.”

“Tweety’s a newcomer. He’s been around for less than a month. He’s been with Porky ever since Granny disappeared,” Bugs explained. “Tweety’s pretty special. He’s one of a kind of boyd! A Tweetyboyd.”

Sora thought more of ‘Granny’ and her disappearance than Tweety’s kind. “Who’s Granny?”

Tweety dramatically sulked. “Granny took care of me, but then she disappeared too soon.” Tears too big for the little bird, slowly came out of his eyes. “Oh, I miss Granny…”

Even though Tweety was crying over this, Sora felt something from the use of words that he was missing information about disappearances.

“Tweety, what do you mean…what exactly happened to Granny?”

Tweety’s tears stopped and he quizzically looked at Sora. Daffy looked lower at Sora’s intelligence as if he was asking the stupidest thing ever.

“She disappeared! What else is there to explain?” he demanded with a flare of temper, in which Sora barely reacted.

“I think Sora has a different idea about disappearing since he came from another woyd,” came Bugs’ rescue with his ever cool, thinking-first self. “But…I’m not from other woyds either, so why don’t you tell us what disappearing is in your woyd.”

“Hmm…when someone disappears, something must have happened…I mean, people don’t just disappear,” Sora explained with his own skepticism. “Like they’ve died or something…”

“Pff!” Daffy mocked with a mock-fancy wave of his wing. “We don’t die! We’re not even alive!”

“Yea, I know, but…”

“I think Sora’s thinking why Granny disappeared!” Tweety concluded and Sora nodded.

“I see!” Bugs cried out, finally solving the misunderstanding. “You got the wrong idea, doc. When we disappear, we’re born in a real woyd because we finally got a h’art. You can’t blame Tweety for missing Granny though, but he’s happy Granny’s got her h’art.” Tweety nodded furiously.

“I am, I am!”

Porky served tea for Daffy and Truemerry can for Sora (which tasted very cool and sweet and felt like explosions in the mouth). Questions about Sora’s origin was brought back, so Sora spent on talking rather than eating the breadnuts Porky handed out. Porky settled on cooking dinner, but listened well on Sora’s story from the other room.

“So who’s this Axel guy?” Bugs interrupted.

Sora frowned. He has been talking more energetically as he go on, recalling clearer the pictures in his memories. “Who?”

“Bugs, what’s the use of those big ears if you can’t listen?” Daffy mocked, taking a bunch of breadnuts. “I’m pretty sure Sora said nothing about a name like that.”

“That’s like asking the point of your big beak when you have a stupid tongue,” Bugs countered with ease. “And I’m pretty sure Sora did.”

“Why you—”

“HEY!” Tweety’s voice boomed, enough for Porky to flip vegetables in the air, Bugs to jump, Daffy to lose his feathers, and Sora to flinch. “NO FIGHTING!” Tweety could glare if he wanted to glare, and he could also smile if he wanted to smile. He innocently blinked his eyes and asked Sora to continue. When Tweety gave that smile, Sora felt coerced to continue.

Sora continued on, initially bothered by the unknown familiarity to ‘Axel’, but as he retold the things he knew, the name was completely forgotten.

Sora dreamt of many things he would forget upon awakening. He dreamt of Kairi dumping him over a young man named Seifer because he didn’t dye his hair green. Riku dyed his hair green, somehow in the thought it would help his friend. Riku’s hair turned instantly back to normal the next day they skateboarded in a haunted mansion in Destiny Islands. At first, they were just fooling around when the second half turned out as a rescue mission to save Kairi. At one part, Seifer held Kairi hostage with his group of thugs, but then Seifer changed to a tall red-haired, cloak-wearing man. Kairi and Riku disappeared and Sora engaged in a fight with this man, both using fists and chairs and pots at each other. After all that with an undecided result, Kairi reappeared and said Riku was proud of him, and offered Sora a sea-salted ice cream.

The specks of light created a ray through the tiny openings in between the curtains. The room was too small for Sora, but it was a space given to him as their guest and new friend. The bottom half of his legs were extending out of the bed, but he slept comfortably well despite the small bed.

He heard cries of children and listened while half-asleep.

“Get back here, Suzaku!”

“Too slow, Lelouch!” Suzaku mocked.

“Haha, Lulu! Haha!” laughed a girl.

“Eu-euphie!” the boy stuttered, hinting embarrassment.

A high-pitched, but gentle voice then teased, “Little brother, you’re always so slow!”

“Be patient, Nunnally! Your little brother has small legs!” cried Euphie.

“I-I’m not the little brother! Nunnally, I’m you’re older brother!”

“Hihihi…”

When he mildly decided it was time to stand, the children’s voices faded. He sat up and stared at his feet. He looked at the sealed curtains and spread them asunder. Sora moved so quietly and slowly, thoughtless and moving according to plain whim. He saw people move about in their mundane lives down the streets and was apparently trapped to watch a bleached blond-banged kid skateboard.

The new sound in the room was the knocking on the circular door. Porky’s stuttering voice came. “Gu-gu-gu-gu-gu…morning Sora!”

Sora didn’t reply, probably because of his half-asleep zombie state or lack on enthusiasm to greet back.

“So-so-sora?” Porky knocked again.

“I’m awake,” he said as loudly as he could.

“Oh…a-a-a-all right…bre-bre-bre-breakfast is do-do-do-do-wnstairs! Bu-bu-bu-bugs and Da-da-daffy are there al-a-a-already.”

Sora heard Porky’s steps leaving and returning downstairs. He closed the curtains with one arm and pulled himself up from bed. He grabbed his pants and pulled it up his hips, then grabbing his jacket-fashioned sleeveless collar-necked black shirt through his arms and zipping it up; he took his white resting on one end of the room (a few seconds of finding it) and went off his way through the long stairs.

He heard Daffy grumbling and the sound of newspaper pages flipping. Sora came noticed with his footsteps, but only Bugs, looking relaxed and cross-legged, came to notice him.

“G’morning, doc,” he greeted cheerfully.

Sora nodded. “Good morning.”

“Have a seat,” Bugs said when Sora just stood at the end of the stairs.

Sora sat in between the two (chair relatively small still) with a cup of chocolate milk in front of him. Daffy was drinking hot coffee and typically looked grumpy up in the morning. Bugs was pleasant as always.

“Shora, Djaffy and I were jush talking,” Bugs said, his mouth full of celery. He didn’t have any plates in front of him, like Daffy’s and Sora’s ham, soup, and bread. Bugs swallowed his munched celery. “Since you go around woyds locking Keyholes and meeting villains…well, we thought maybe we could hang around you?”

Sora was genuinely reminded of his two companions, Donald and Goofy at the thought of Bugs’ request. He quietly sipped on his blown spoon of soup.

“It’s okay,” he answered after a while, giving really not much thought of their invites. “But like I told you, I have no idea how I got here…”

“We’ll find a way!” Bugs answered brightly. “Right, Daffy?”

Daffy grunted, nodding.

“You really okay with this, Sora?” Bugs asked again, somehow unconvinced. Sora nodded. He looked at Daffy, thinking he would exchange looks with him, but Daffy was buried in his coffee and newspaper. “Doesn’t look like your happy…” he said.

Sora’s bread stopped in midair. He politely put it down for a while. “I guess I’m not…but I’m not sad, either. Maybe I’m just not a morning person.”

“All righty,” Bugs conceded, half-convinced. “Well, where we’re going, you’d have to have lots more spirits!”

Sora was pretty much obliged to ask where they were going.

“To do Redeemer station!” Bugs stood up and looked at Daffy. “Daffy’s still pretty grumpy, so let’s leave him behind. See ya, Daffy!”

Daffy grunted again and the two were off.

The morning in the streets of the city of The World That Is To Be appeared brighter. Even though the nights were blooming with artificial lights, the ‘brightness’ atmosphere was not because of the light, but because of the people. Sora was eying at everything with a careful, curios look, while Bugs was exchanging hellos and greetings. Sora heard his name mentioned a few times by Bugs and people the bunny greeted. He nodded slightly to those who greeted him. He thought he should be a little more cheerful, but felt that he couldn’t. Sora just realized himself that not being a morning person was not the reason at all. With all the brightness, he wondered why he was still immune to it (then again, there was grumpy Daffy).

They went down the sloping streets. They were located in a hill. A gray, cloudy bus went marching on their opposite direction. He read the title written on the bus: “My affluence makes nonsense of the regulations” and saw a rich guy with an out-of-place comic-relief moustache who was advertising trading card games. Sora turned to the side to the chorus of ‘hi’s’ by the Three Little Pigs they past. His head shot back at the view of the street as a female voice called out.

“Hey, Bugs!” A girl with short apricot hair and bangs cheerfully greeted with an energetic wave of her right arm in the sky. “Good morning!” Her hair was pulled behind her ear, revealing a yellow earring. Her eyes shimmered with chocolate brightness that softened her round-shaped face. Beside her was a less cheerful boy (so Daffy was not the only exception) with lavender pair of eyes and a dark blue, silky hair lazily matting his head and its ends curtaining a part of his face.

“Good morning, Yukari!” Bugs greeted. “And who’s that fellow over there?” Bugs asked, cupping his mouth.

Yukari, looking at the boy beside him, who curiously looked up, but remained unresponsive. She found his expression funny, giggling. “His name’s Minato Arisato!” she shouted.

“Hey, doc! I’m Bugs, Bugs Bunny—and this guy’s Sora! Newcomer, eh?” On first impressions, the boy looked gloomy, but if he’s with Yukari, there was nothing to worry about. “Have fun you two! Oh, and welcome, Minato!”

They went off, Yukari waving high and soon continued their discussion.

“Bugs, how do you know he’s a newcomer?” Sora asked as they continued walking.

“I didn’t recognize him, you know, like Daffy didn’t recognize you. You see, we kinda have a job around, helping people here and there. I would have helped that doc if Yukari hadn’t. It’s important that everyone feels welcomed and happy in this woyd, you know to have a feeling of h’arts.”

Sora thought that this place was too nice to be. Somehow, doubt stirred in him that there was a ‘darker shade of things’. Where he got the idea was just an uneasy feeling, so he dared to ask directly without thinking. “Is that how things go around here?”

“Yep!” Bugs answered, missing Sora’s intention in his question completely, so Sora did not try to persist about it.

They turned to a curve to the left, reaching an alley filled with laundry hanging overhead. Right after the alley, they reached a street curved in a circle, tying the two sidewalks on each side of the large road. There was one more street to go, but they weren’t heading there. They headed to the farthest house, which stood as the biggest, covering three stories and two lots. It did not appear a mansion at all. It was colored in bright lemon yellow with blue arched windows and red double doors at the entrance. By the entrance and in front of the house were bright flowers in pots, where Tweety was already reading a book three times his size. The whole house looked like a cartoon.

“What cha reading, Tweety?”

“Bugs!” Tweety exclaimed happily. “And you brought Sora! Is he gonna come? Huh, huh?”

“Yep,” Bugs said.

“What exactly are we going to do, Bugs?” Sora asked.

“Oh, nothing hard, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, turning to him. He then gestured Sora to follow and they approach close to a sign hanging above the double doors.

“Read aloud, Sora.”

“The Redeemer Station, where we get your spirits kicking and burning. We will do anything to help keep up your spirits, whether it’d be an annoying creaking sound on the floor or a bad hair day. We answer in every way you need to be happy, because it’s the every reason to look forward and have hearts.”

Sora turned to Bugs who held an excited grin. “So, what cha think? Might be a bit cheesy, but it’s tougher than it sounds.”

“So you help people around?”

“Exactly, but ‘helping’ can become a bit complicated when the problem’s a little tough. Stuffs have been pretty easy though, nothing really serious. The most serious case we had was lotsa crying.”

“Why?”

Bugs waved his hand in the air. “Losing in a dodge ball competition consecutively. Almost had competitions banned because of it.”

“Banned?” he blinked. “Isn’t that too extreme?”

“Not really,” Bugs answered, quizzical at Sora’s expression. “Why…do you think it’s extreme?” he asked slowly.

“It’s just a competition, a game. We have our wins and lose and we learn from our mistakes. Just because you’ve lost, doesn’t give everyone a reason to ban competitions.”

“I see your point, Sora. But you can say it’s ‘dangerous’ because people are different and circumstances are different, too.”

Sora furrowed his eyebrows, now getting bothered. “How is it dangerous?”

Bugs scratched his left cheek. “Umm, well when stuffs like those happen, we feel very down and it can lead to despair.” Sora didn’t respond, so Bugs elaborated. “When that happens, we don’t feel like existing anymores.”

“Does…something happen when you don’t feel like, existing?”

“Yea,” he replied rather solemnly. “We disappear.”

Author’s Notes: The World That Is To Be is a fictional world created by me.

(Code Geass)
Lelouch, Suzaku, Euphie (Euphemia), and Nunally are all from this series. They appear as children in the chapter.

(Persona III)
Minato and Yukari are both from the game and adopted manga with the same title.

(Looney Tunes)
Tweety and Porky Pig are both Looney Tunes characters.

(Others - )
The Three Little Pigs is a fairytale about talking animals…and the ad in the bus refers to Little Kuriboh’s Abridged Series of Yu-Gi-Oh (“My affluence makes a nonsense of the regulations” as seen in the latest episode, Episode 35: A Tale of Two Tournies. It’s basically the Brit-style of “Screw the rules, I have money”)