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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn	By : RotSeele Category: Kingdom Hearts > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3168 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thirty-Five - Halloween Town

The three dropped down onto a wide plateau that overlooked a deep chasm. A lonely bridge spanned the chasm, leading to an oddly placed tree house that looked like it had seen better days. It was falling apart in some places, and in others it looked like it had been blasted apart by some great battle. Kaoru stared at it, feeling apprehensive. The atmosphere in this area had changed completely from the area before. There was an odd cloud of impotent rage hanging over the chasm. Impotent rage, combined with black depression and eerie stillness. It made Kaoru’s heart flutter a little in an unpleasant way. He was glad he had Guardian in hand, and Kai and Rin at his back with their own weapons at the ready.
“This is really, really creepy,” Rinally whispered, her voice seeming loud in the stillness.
Kai’s hand tightened on Sanctuary. “Something isn’t right. I can’t feel anything. No light, no darkness, nothing. There’s just absolute stillness.”
Kaoru turned slightly to take in a semi-panoramic view of where he stood. The entire area was bathed in pale moonlight, making everything look washed out in greys and shadowy white. There was nothing moving. He wasn’t sure if there was anything alive out here, this far from town. “I don’t sense anything either, but... but there’s got to be something here. Jack said the boy came out here.”
Zero twisted around in the air and fluttered around Kaoru. Then he wriggled in a figure eight before zooming over to Rinally and settling again on her head. He opened his mouth in a doggy grin and pointed his nose toward the bridge and the house beyond.
“Looks like we’re going forward.” Kaoru said. He started toward the bridge, holding Guardian in a tight fist. The gold and white Keyblade seemed to gleam even in the moon-washed landscape, like a tiny star struggling to stay alight.
As they grew closer to the tree house, Kaoru began to feel his heart pick up its pace. It thudded in his ears, a loud drumbeat he was sure that everyone else could hear. Yet his body hadn’t flooded with adrenaline, nor had his breathing increased. It was like his body knew something his mind didn’t know, and was trying to tell him what that something was. He hoped that whatever he was sensing was resonance with Tae, and that she was here. If she was, then Hiromu was here. He didn’t want to believe that Hiromu was the one who had hurt Tae, who had ripped her necklace off, who had essentially kidnapped her when Sora had arrived in Twilight Town, and who had been the boy who had snapped at Jack. He couldn’t believe that Hiromu would have become so angry, not without reason, anyway. He couldn’t believe that Hiromu could hurt Tae in any way. He knew that Hiromu loved Tae, and he would do anything to protect her, but he didn’t think that Hiromu would stoop the low of scaring her or hurting her in order to keep her safe.
Kaoru stopped at the bridge, still standing on the plateau. Behind him, Kai and Rinally took up positions on his left and right respectively, watching the angles that Kaoru couldn’t. Kaoru’s heart finally stopped hammering, resuming its normal beat. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was definitely sure he was still sensing that strangeness that had made it start hammering in the first place. There was something wrong about this place. Something inherently wrong.
“Are we going?” Kai asked, his voice soft.
Kaoru looked up at him. “We have to.”
“Do you want me to go first?”
Kaoru shook his head. “No. I... I can handle it.”
“We’ll be right behind you.” Rinally said, a tiny smile on her lips.
Kaoru nodded and started across the bridge. It wasn’t large enough for them to travel side by side, so they had to walk single file. Kaoru could feel Kai at his back, a dark presence that was teeming with as much violence as he was with compassion. Sanctuary flickered in and out of Kaoru’s peripheral, glowing with its own light in response to Guardian’s ambient glow. Both Keyblades seemed muted, and their diffuse halos of light began to dim suddenly, as if there was something ahead that was sucking all the light out of the two weapons and leaving them as simple, mundane swords rather than the powerful blades they were. Kaoru stepped off the bridge and immediately brought Guardian up before him, inhaling sharply as his Holy Shield flickered into existence between him and the strange looking Heartless that sought to take his head off.
Kaoru reacted almost instinctively once his Shield dropped. He ducked low and twisted, Guardian’s hilt tucked close by his hip, and the Keyblade howled through the space between him and the Heartless and caught the monster in its chest, making it crumple in half around Guardian’s blade before sending it flying away. Then Rinally snapped off a Thundara spell, illuminating the entire area in bright golden light before the bolt caught the Heartless and blew it into little motes of darkness that drifted away into nothingness. Kaoru stared, shocked, unable to comprehend for a second that the Heartless had managed to get so close before attacking. Then he realized that it had gotten so close because he was distracted. He was so worried about finding Tae and Hiromu and making sure they were okay, making sure they weren’t hurt, or anything else that would be terrible that he wasn’t paying attention to the world around him.
Kai reached out and grasped Kaoru’s shoulder. “Let me go first.”
“Sure.” Kaoru whispered, stepping aside to let Kai by. He felt terrible, because his distraction meant that his friends were in even more danger than usual. If he couldn’t protect Rin and Kai, what good would he be when they finally found Hiromu and Tae?
Rinally moved up beside Kaoru and looked at him with a concerned expression. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Kaoru shook his head.
“You haven’t been yourself since we found Tae’s necklace.”
“I know.”
“You can’t let it get to you. I’m worried about my sister and my parents too, just as much as you’re worried about your friends. But you and Kai are the ones who need my attention.”
“I know.” Kaoru whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Rin smiled. “We’re so close to finding the people you’ve been searching for that it’s probably completely overwhelming. But Kai and I need you. You have to be focused, just like you were in all the worlds we’ve visited before.”
Kaoru reached up to finger the charm on Tae’s necklace for a minute, trying to draw strength from the feeling of light the piece of jewelry still possessed from its owner. “You’re right. I know you are. But... I just can’t help but feel like something’s not right. I’m scared.”
“Don’t dwell on it.” Kai said. He turned back to face Kaoru and Rinally, looking at Kaoru specifically. “Don’t dwell on it until you have no choice. Focus on the right here, right now. You’ll be fine as long as you do that.”
Kaoru nodded, taking strength from Kai’s words, or trying to, at least. It was hard to push away all the thoughts of finding Tae and Hiromu, the thoughts of uncertainty that they were even here, that the boy Jack had spoken of just might be Hiromu, but he did it. Somehow, he did it. Right now, they had to get into Oogie Boogie’s mansion. After that, they had to actually find the boy Jack had spoken of, all the while surviving against the Heartless and whatever else might be lurking within that place. Then, when they finally found that boy, Kaoru could finally begin to worry again about Hiromu and Tae.
Kai studied him for a moment longer, then turned his back on his friends. “Let’s go.”
Kaoru and Rinally fell into step slightly behind Kai, allowing him to keep the lead. Kai seemed to know where he was going, holding tight to Sanctuary’s hilt as he headed up to the front door of the mansion. The redhead placed his hand upon the door and gave it a slight push. The portal opened with the loudest of creaks Kaoru had ever heard, alerting everything that was inside the building that someone new was about to enter the place. Even Kai winced, but he held the door open anyway, Sanctuary held ready for an attack. When nothing came, he stuck his head over the threshold and looked around the place. Then he leaned back and looked at his friends.
“Nothing.” Kai said. “The place looks completely abandoned.”
Rinally stuck her head inside. “It looks like it’s seen better days, for sure.”
Kaoru leaned in, his hand braced on Rin’s shoulder. The interior of the front hall looked dilapidated and was incredibly dusty. There were holes in the walls, floor, and ceiling, and there were questionable stains on them as well. Kaoru wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what those stains were. There was a fine layer of dust on everything within sight, showing that no one had been here in some time. Kaoru pushed past his friends and stepped into the hallway, Guardian held low by his side. The Keyblade seemed to pulse with its own diffuse light as Kaoru took slow step after slow step deeper into the mansion. The short hall led into a myriad of other rooms, all of which were in the same state of decay. There was a set of stairs in one of the rooms that led up and in another there was a set that led down. He pointed those out to Kai and Rin.
“But I don’t think it would be a good idea to split up.” Kaoru said.
Rin entered the hallway ahead of Kai, and when Kai stepped away from the front door, the door slammed shut hard, almost making the wall rattle. Kai reached to pull on the knob, then he let out a pithy curse. He struck the door with Sanctuary in his frustration.
“I guess we’re stuck.” Rin said, correctly guessing their situation from Kai’s glower of disdain toward the door. “Which means we can only go up or down.”
Kai spun away from the door and stalked toward Kaoru. “We go up. It’s easier to search up to down anyway. At least we’ll know that, if there is anyone here, they can’t get past us.”
“Unless there’s a door downstairs that will let them escape.” Rin pointed out.
“Unless there’s that.”
Kaoru looked toward the stairs leading up. “Even if there is a door leading outside, we should be able to see them run from a window. Kai would be able to catch up first, especially if he uses Nightmare Raid to enhance his speed. He could stall them until we could catch up.”
“I think I have Float spells. Aero might work too, if we had to jump.” Rinally added.
Kaoru nodded and looked at Kai. “What do you think?”
Kai smirked. “I think we’d better start looking.”
Together, they headed toward the staircase that led upwards. In a staggered line, they mounted the stairs one at a time, checking each floor they came to as thoroughly as they could. There were the usual Heartless, including more of the strange-looking Heartless that had originally attacked Kaoru outside. Now that he could get a good look at them, he noticed that they looked like some sort of huge spider, with long spindly legs and four bright, butter-yellow eyes that constantly rotated in their sockets, almost like how a chameleon’s could. They had fangs hanging out of drooping mouths and thick, almost chitinous armor that covered their backs. That armor made them harder to kill, because Sanctuary and Guardian would simply bounce off it without dealing much damage. It took the Kai and Kaoru working in tandem with Rinally to get the spider-like Heartless flipped over onto its back, leaving its belly vulnerable to the Keyblades.
Nightmare Raid and Cascade made their lives easier, but both Kaoru and Kai didn’t want to waste too much of their energy by using their most powerful attacks constantly. They still hadn’t found any sign of inhabitance in the mansion, and they still had to go back down through the floors they’d already searched to search the floors below the front hall. Thankfully, the attacks by the Heartless weren’t frequent, but the downside was that they came in droves when they did attack. It drove Kaoru, Kai, and Rinally to their limits, and it made them more cautious when entering a new floor.
“I think,” Rinally whispered, “that someone knows we’re here. The Heartless are far too organized, don’t you think?”
“They’re trying to wear us down.” Kai said, about as much an agreement as Rin would ever get. “Trying to tire us out, to make us less a threat to whatever might be waiting for us.”
Kaoru found the next set of stairs and leaned against the wall, taking the time to rest before they continued on. “Someone’s controlling them.”
Both Rinally and Kai looked at him sharply. Rin, of course, hadn’t forgotten their earlier bouts with controlled Heartless, and she clutched tighter to her witch’s staff. “You think it’s the Creepy Coats?” she asked.
Kaoru shrugged. “I haven’t seen any black rods in the Heartless we’ve faced so far, but the Heartless we’ve faced so far don’t make sense to me. You have small Shadows attacking at the same time the Spider-Legs do, but they don’t get in the Spider-Legs’ way. There are Search Ghosts attacking with Pumpkin-Heads and Minute-Bombs, but they don’t get in each other’s way either.”
Kai folded his arms across his chest. “So they’re puppets, with their strings being pulled by some unseen puppet-master. Which means there’s someone here, because if the puppet-master wasn’t close, the Heartless would be attacking whenever and however they felt like.”
“Exactly.” Kaoru said.
“But even though they’re attacking in groups,” Rin pointed out, “they’re not attacking one after another. It’s like they were placed on each floor to make sure anyone trying to come up had a hard time of it.”
“Which means one of two things: either we’re looking in the wrong direction, or we’re close to what we’re looking for, and they’re trying to convince us we’re wrong.” Kai said.
“So do we keep going?” Kaoru asked. “Or do we turn around and head downstairs?”
Kai and Rinally remained silent for some time, thinking over their options. Finally, Kai shook his head. “We might as well keep going. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. Otherwise, things might finally get interesting.”
Rinally nodded. “We might as well, right? We can’t have that much further to go, anyway.”
Kaoru nodded and turned to head up the stairs, Guardian in hand. Four floors ago, he wouldn’t have bothered to have the Keyblade out in such a cramped area, but after being attacked by Spider-Legs in the stairwell twice, he didn’t want to forge ahead undefended.
As he stepped up the last stair into the attic room, he felt a rumbling start under his feet. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what was happening, but then the floor surged beneath him, sending him stumbling forward where he crashed to his hands and knees. Then he felt a surge of darkness press against his mind, foul and malignant, and realized it was coming from the house itself. It was being pushed by a presence Kaoru could barely sense. He struggled to his feet, fighting with the swaying of the mansion to try and reach the stairwell.
“Kai!” Kaoru yelled. “Rin! It’s a trap! Get back!”
If they responded, he didn’t hear it. He was violently thrown backwards away from the stairs by a sudden lurch of the mansion and crashed to the floor. He gasped, feeling a sudden pain in his right upper arm and shoulder, but then his senses were assaulted by that malignant darkness and it battered at him, beating him from all directions until all he could do was grasp Guardian and fight to get a Holy Shield around himself to stave off the darkness. He had barely formed the shield when that presence behind the darkness made its move. That presence hit so hard and so fast that Kaoru had no time to dodge or defend himself. His Holy Shield shattered, and Kaoru was slammed into the floor again. Guardian winked out of existence in a flash of bright light.
As he lay there, stunned and wounded, he saw someone walking toward him but he couldn’t make out who it was. He whispered, “Tae?”
Then he knew no more.
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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn