Chapter 4 Wonderland

Our memories are connected, like links in a chain. Those same chains are what bind us all together. I don’t destroy memories, I just undo the links and rearrange them. That connection—that’s what’s important, Sora. Both in our memories, and in our bonds with each other.

Before he knew it, Sora was standing somewhere new.

He had been in Traverse Town only a moment ago, had only closed his eyes for a second, and then he was standing here. Sora looked around, completely confused as to what had transpired.

He was in a magnificently tended garden, surrounded by bushes trimmed to form neat hedge walls with crisp square corners. The scenery was lovely—except for all the blocks.

Sora, do you read me?

“Mickey, what is going on? Where’d the town go? I was there just a second ago, wasn’t I?” Sora asked, relieved to hear Mickey’s voice.

I’m sorry, Sora. I don’t know what’s goin’ on. Eliminating bugs in one world must open a road to the next.

“Undo the hurt to unbar the way”…

Sora took a moment to contemplate what Mickey had said. It had to be the bugs that were causing the hurt.

“Wait, so that thing I clobbered inside the Keyhole… That was a ‘bug’? So then…these blocks must be bugs, too, right?”

Sora looked around as he spoke. They were ruining such a beautiful garden. It was impossible to take in the view without something in the way.

That’s right—or at least bugs are what caused them. So far, the major bugs seem to have been hiding inside Keyholes. You’ll probably need to find this world’s Keyhole, too.

Another road would open if he got rid of the bugs, and then he would probably get tossed into a different world.

A world he’d never been to before. He was starting to enjoy the idea of seeing so many new things.

“Sign me up! I’ve always wanted to see other worlds. Just point me at those bugs!”

Ha-ha! That’s the spirit!

Sora gave an enthusiastic nod at Mickey’s encouragement. Plus, opening those new roads would help people in trouble.

“Someone! Help!”

Suddenly, he heard a girl’s scream.

Sora hurriedly took his Keyblade in hand and ran toward the sound. A girl with blond hair in a blue dress and apron darted out from behind a block and over to him in fear.

“Help! Please!”

“What’s the matter?”

Heartless were in hot pursuit behind the girl.

“Right. Get back, I’ll take care of ’em!” Sora called, then charged toward the Heartless. They fought back, but with the help of his Keyblade and a little magic, Sora made short work of them.

“Whew! Good riddance.” The girl smiled at Sora.

“You okay?” Sora asked, dismissing his Keyblade.

“Why yes! Thank you, er… I’m sorry, have we met?” The girl tilted her head curiously.

“Oh, I’m Sora. What’s your name?”

“Well, it’s…it’s…” The girl seemed to be thinking very hard about Sora’s question.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, it’s hopeless! I simply can’t remember a thing!” She shook her head.

What does she mean? She can’t remember anything?

Just then, a cat appeared suddenly before the girl and Sora—well, its head did, to be precise. It was an uncanny purple with a very large mouth.

“You could say her mind’s like me—a bit fuzzy.”

“Huh?! What are you saying? She has amnesia?”

Instead of answering Sora’s question, the floating head kept talking. “Gesundheit! No, silly. I mean what the miss has misplaced lies literally littered about the palace. Yes, her memories—oh, and everyone else’s, too. The place has become quite buggy, you see—or maybe you don’t.”

As the cat explained, the rest of its purple-and-pink-striped body gradually faded into view.

“Bugs? That’s what Mickey said… So the bugs have caused everybody’s memory to go all funny? I better find the Keyhole quick,” Sora said.

The girl looked at him in surprise. “Keyhole? Was it a very large Keyhole?”

“Yes! You saw it? Where?” he asked, but the girl lapsed into thought again.

“Hmm… Ooh, I can’t seem to recall…,” she mumbled in distress.

“Poor dear,” said the cat. “What’s to remember with her memories dismembered?” The body disappeared again until it was only a head bouncing strangely back and forth. “No, to get the girl thinking, what you need is an Inkling.” The cat’s tail came back and pointed at something sparkling near a block in a corner of the garden.

“An Inkling? What’ll that do?”

“Don’t look at me! It’s not as though I have an Inkling! But if you find one, this whole mess will surely be forgotten. Or is it remembered?”

With those parting words, the Cheshire Cat vanished.

“H-hey! Sheesh…”

The cat wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Anyway, let’s go grab that Inkling.

“Wait here.”

Sora ran over to the corner of the garden, jumped atop the blocks, and picked up the sparkly object.

ALICE was written on what appeared to be a small shard. Maybe that’s her name…? Well, only one way to find out.

Sora leaped down from the blocks and made his way back to the girl.

“Ohh, whatever was my name? It’s on the tip of my tongue…”

“It’s Alice,” Sora told her, offering her the glowing Inkling.

The light disappeared into her, and then the girl—Alice—smiled.

“Yes, of course! I’m Alice!”

“Hey, that’s great! Your memory’s back! So, Alice, where did you see the Keyhole?”

“Well, let me think. It sort of…glowed, as I recall,” Alice mused.

If Sora could just find the Keyhole, he would be able to get rid of the disturbances around here.

“Yep, yep, that’s the one! Where was it?”

“Hmm, well that’s… Oh dear. I suppose I’m still a bit foggy about the details.”

Then, the Cheshire Cat reappeared in front of Sora and the troubled Alice. “But the fog that’s bogging her could be unclogging with the right memory jogging.”

If what the cat said was true, Alice’s slowly recovering memory would also help her remember where the Keyhole was.

“But where can I find more Inklings?” Sora asked.

The cat flipped over into a handstand. Sora had never seen a cat doing a handstand before. Well, he’d never seen a cat that could fade in and out of existence, either.

“Oh, this way, that way, and in-between ways. And don’t remember—in blocked ways, too.” The Cheshire Cat spun about in the air.

“Okay, sit tight, Alice. I’ll be back with more stuff to remind you.”

“Thank you.” Alice nodded somewhat uneasily.

“Ah, careful now. Mind you find the right reminders. Alice’s Inklings lie strewn about. But then, so do everyone else’s! The question is: which are remind-hers, and which are remind-thems?”

With that, the cat dissolved into thin air again like a puff of smoke.

So everyone else’s memories were messed up, too. Well, if Sora tracked down all the memories, Alice’s would be included.

“Guess I’ll have to sort it all out.”

As Sora was about to walk away, the man in the black coat appeared before him.

“That’s right. Sort it out and end the hurt. Our world still aches, and your next road still awaits.”

“What are you after? And how do I figure into it?!”

The man didn’t even deign to answer Sora’s question, and instead he disappeared just as suddenly as the Cheshire Cat had.

Sora still had no idea what the guy wanted. Right now, though, he needed to track down Alice’s memories.

He left the garden to find yet another, but here the hedges formed a maze. As he made his way along, Sora found his path blocked by a card soldier with a heart-shaped spearhead at the ready.

“You there. What are you doing?”

“Me? Oh I was looking for, um…for something I lost.”

“Well, you may kindly look elsewhere! These gardens are the property of Her Majesty the Queen of Hearts. Wander about, lad, and I’m afraid it’s off with your head.”

In that case, Sora would just have to sneak by without drawing attention.

He pretended to turn back, but as soon as he was out of the soldier’s sight he snuck by along a different route that kept him hidden behind the hedge walls.

There were roses growing here and there around the garden. They smelled wonderful, but the stems were full of prickly, painful thorns.

“Huh? Hey, is that…?”

There was an Inkling hidden among the rose bushes. It had WHITE ROSES written on it. As Sora carefully picked it up, a voice addressed him from behind.

“Hey!”

“Ack! They saw me!” Sora ran off in a panic, the heart-card soldier chasing after him.

He managed to lose his pursuer only to arrive at a dead end with another card soldier standing there. This one was a spade.

“I’ve made a real blunder this time… ‘Off with his head!’ the Queen of Hearts will say. Look at me! I’ve worked so hard, I’m covered in dirt! And for what?! I got it all wrong. What was my mistake?”

So this soldier had amnesia, too. True, he was covered in dirt…and the only work around here was gardening. And Sora had only one other Inkling as to why that was.

“Maybe…white roses?”

“Yes! I planted white roses instead of red ones! Quick! Do you know where I can find some paint? Here, you can have this as thanks for helping me remember.”

The card soldier gave Sora the Inkling “Queen of Hearts.”

I sure hope the queen won’t lop off that soldier’s head… Sora continued onward until he reached a gate immediately before the dead end.

The moment he stepped through, he yelped. “What—What happened?! I’m tiny!”

This place was nothing like the garden where he had just been. It was an ordinary room with a tidy arrangement of furniture, perfectly normal except for one thing: everything in the room was oddly large. Apparently, Sora had shrunk.

Then, the Cheshire Cat appeared. For some reason, he always showed up to chat when strangeness was afoot. “Being little makes for big trouble, hmm? Especially with them around. What to do, what to do?” With those cryptic words, the cat vanished again.

“Hey! D-don’t just leave!” What did he mean, “them”?

Out of nowhere, a huge Heartless appeared in front of him.

“Agh! Giant Heartless!” Sora cried out, startled by its size. The Heartless had grown as much as he had shrunk. Something this big would be all the harder to take down. “You won’t beat me, though!”

Sora was able to defeat the Heartless somehow. Thankfully it had been just the one. He doubted he would be so lucky if Heartless of this size came at him in numbers.

With these doubts in his mind, Sora went as far as the table in the center of the room, only for the Cheshire Cat to show himself again. Now there were two small bottles—one red, one blue—standing on the table. What were they?

“Surprised to see me? Here’s a little something for rising to the challenge. After all the commotion, you might like this little potion.” Then he was gone again.

Sora was left with an Inkling and two bottles of what the Cheshire Cat had called “potion.” The glimmering shard had CHESHIRE CAT written on it.

Alice should already know that name. As for the two bottles, the red one had a picture of a tree growing larger on it, whereas the blue one showed a tree shrinking.

“I guess that means…this one.” Sora took the red bottle and drained it all in one go. He got bigger, just as he’d thought. Now he should be able to get around here without too much trouble.

Sora searched the room and came upon on a small door. The doorknob was askew, though.

“What a weird-looking doorknob,” Sora muttered…and then the doorknob twitched. “Agh!”

“‘Weird’? Impertinent! Of the two of us, I would say you look pretty odd for a doorknob.”

“It talks?!”

As Sora recoiled in shock, the doorknob let out a big yawn.

“I’d just fallen into the nicest nap, and then the whole world turned on its side! Mmm… Do take care. You never know when another twist of fate might be at your door.”

A twist of fate at his door…? That had to be a System Sector. “Must be another bug. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to put things right again.”

“Please do… I’m so tired…”

Sora walked around the room again, and before long he found another fissure in the air.

“Okay, in I go!”

Sora entered the System Sector.

“Inklings…and memories,” Jiminy said softly as he observed the monitor.

“Something on your mind, Jiminy?” Mickey asked.

The cricket tilted his head thoughtfully. “Do you remember what Naminé was called in that report?”

“…A memory witch!” Donald shouted before Mickey could respond. During their second journey, they had discovered Ansem’s secret report—the report of Ansem the Wise—and it had described Naminé.

Naminé was a witch who controlled the memories of others.

“Somethin’s been bothering me.”

Jiminy pulled the other journal from his pocket.

“In your second journal?” Goofy asked, looking at Jiminy’s hands.

“The journal that’s givin’ us all the trouble is the first one. The one that says Thank Naminé. The second journal is perfectly fine.”

Jiminy flipped through the pages of the book in question. Among its various entries were some details on Naminé.

“Are you sayin’ she might have something to do with the glitches?” Mickey asked.

“I wouldn’t say it’s definitive…but I do have a hunch that she’s connected in some way,” Jiminy replied.

Mickey crossed his arms in thought for a moment, but soon raised his head.

“Anyway, let’s keep watching,” he said, returning his attention to the monitor.

When Sora returned from the System Sector, he was greeted by a huge yawn from the doorknob.

“That should make it a little quieter around here.”

“Mmm, finally, some peace and quiet. I’ll be getting back to that nap now. Take this as a token of thanks.”

The doorknob gave Sora an Inkling. It had WATCH written on it.

“Okay, sweet dreams.”

“Good night.”

Bidding farewell to the doorknob, whose eyes were already closed, Sora left the room from a side entrance.

“What’s with this place?”

It was another garden, just as immaculately tended as the others. In the center was a big table, on top of which Sora saw the leftovers of an apparently recent party.

Was someone there?

“Hey, anybody here?!” Sora called out, but he was answered by the arrival of the worst kind of uninvited guests: Heartless. “No, not you!”

Sora slashed with his Keyblade and dodged the attacks, but one Heartless managed to avoid him. It landed on the table and began kicking dishes everywhere.

“No, not there! Over here!” Sora called, and the creature came after him again. “Okay, party’s over!” He did away with the Heartless in a flash and then grinned.

But there was still something beneath the table, he could tell.

“Come on out!”

“Ooh, I really must be going. I’m already late, late, late!”

“Whoa!”

The mysterious guest popped out from his hiding spot: a white rabbit wearing glasses.

“Um, h-hello. What were you doing under the table?”

“Why, hiding of course! Those shadows showed up and… Oh me, oh my,” the rabbit muttered, pushing up his glasses.

“What, the Heartless? I took care of them. It’s safe now!” Sora announced.

The rabbit peered intently at Sora, then tilted his head to one side. “Yes, that’s well and good, but I’m late for a very important…something. Whatever was it?”

So this rabbit had lost his memory, too.

“Sorry, I don’t remember. I just know I was going somewhere in a hurry.” The rabbit stood with his arms crossed in thought.

Sora decided to ask him a question. “Listen, do you know anything about a girl named Alice?”

“Hmm, Alice, you say? And a girl? Yes, perhaps I do…”

“Really? That’s great! I—”

“But then, perhaps I don’t. I simply can’t recall.”

They wouldn’t get anywhere like this. Maybe he would need to find the rabbit’s memories, too.

“All I remember is, I glanced at something and knew I was dreadfully late! But what?”

What could that be? What do you look at when you’re in a hurry?

Sora recalled the Inkling he had received from the doorknob a bit earlier. “Was it this, do you think?” The glowing Inkling Sora held out read WATCH.

“Yes, of course! I saw the time and knew I’d be late to the trial!”

As soon as he accepted the Inkling, the rabbit dashed off before Sora could get a word in edgewise.

And when the rabbit was gone, another glowing object was left behind—the Inkling “White Rabbit.”

Maybe this was Alice’s memory. Sora dashed off to deliver the Inklings to her.

Alice was waiting nervously in the middle of the garden.

“Hey, Alice. I’m back,” Sora called.

“Do you think you could help me get my memories un-fuddled?”

“Sure!” Sora replied, then took out the three shards he had obtained.

“I was in a field of flowers, as I recall… Then I saw someone and began to follow them.”

Sora had three Inklings on him: “White Rabbit,” “Cheshire Cat,” and “Queen of Hearts.” The Cheshire Cat would be hard to follow since he liked to appear and disappear at random, and the Queen of Hearts lopped off people’s heads, so she probably wouldn’t be spending her time in a field of flowers. That left only one.

“It has to be the White Rabbit.”

Sora gave Alice the “White Rabbit” Inkling.

She smiled. “Yes, it was a White Rabbit, and he seemed in an awful hurry. I followed him into a burrow, then fell down a peculiar hole. That’s how I got here.”

The White Rabbit had definitely left Sora in a hurry, too.

“Do you remember what happened next, Alice?”

“I tried to ask someone how to get home. Oh, who was it?”

Sora still had the “Cheshire Cat” and “Queen of Hearts” left. It was the Cheshire Cat who had told him about Inklings in the first place. So, the answer here had to be…

“The Cheshire Cat, right?” Sora gave her the Inkling.

“That’s right, the Cheshire Cat. And he suggested I visit the castle of…someone important.”

Only one left.

“That would be the Queen of Hearts.”

“Precisely! And while I was trying to ask the Queen of Hearts how to get home… Oh! There in her court is where I saw the Keyhole!” Alice smiled happily. She had remembered everything.

“I’m glad you got your memory back, Alice.”

“Yes, thanks to you. So what shall we do? Go and have a look?”

“You bet!”

With that, Sora and Alice set off for the queen’s castle.

Just then—the man in the black coat appeared behind them, watching them go.

“…The truth lies through the Keyhole. And with it, true memories…,” he murmured quietly, then vanished.

Sora and Alice continued walking toward the castle without noticing or turning back.

The “queen’s castle” was a rather strange place. It was less a castle and more an audience chamber in a garden, where the queen sat atop her tall throne and the rabbit waited obediently off to one side.

The moment she spotted Sora and Alice, the queen pointed her heart scepter and shouted, “Who are you?!”

“Oh, don’t mind us. We only need to have a quick look around.” Paying no mind to the short-tempered queen, Alice began to march right in.

“Stop where you are! This is my garden, and only I decide who gets to look around or asquare or any other shape. Is that clear?”

“Yes. Well, no… It’s just that we’re in a hurry, you see…”

Perhaps Alice was in a bit too much of a hurry. As she stopped, the queen examined her appraisingly, then announced her judgment. “Hmph, a likely story! I demand that you both stand trial immediately!”

“What?!” Sora exclaimed. Why were they suddenly on trial?!

“Oh please, Your Majesty! We haven’t done a thing!” Alice shouted.

“Aha! A lie if I’ve ever heard one. More proof that you’re the thieves who made off with my memory!”

I didn’t know the queen lost her memory, too. I could have looked around for more Inklings…

“Hey!” he cried defensively. “That’s not our fault! It’s the bugs that took your— Urk.”

“So… That’s how you did it! You and your army of insects!”

Bugs was a bad choice of word. The queen pointed her scepter at Sora and Alice, then raised her other hand.

“Please, be reasonable,” Alice argued. “You have no evidence!”

“I most certainly do! For one, I’ve decided you’re guilty!” the queen spat coldly.

She was speaking complete nonsense, and before anyone could even respond, the queen delivered her verdict.

“Guards! Off with their heads!”

A large circle of card soldiers formed around Sora and Alice.

“Oh no! Run, Sora!”

“Wait, Alice. Where’s the Keyhole? You said you saw it.”

“Yes, over there! Inside that birdcage!”

Alice pointed out a small cage, covered with a cloth, beside the queen’s throne.

While it was quite a ways up, Sora spied a wheel next to it. Spinning that would probably lower the cage.

“Thanks!”

“Sora,” Alice called as he started to run off, “where are you—?”

He paused. He would probably lose his chance to get to the Keyhole if they ran away here, and they couldn’t afford that. “I have to get to the Keyhole, and this could be my only chance. Don’t worry about me. Go on, run!”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

“Well…all right. But don’t let them catch you.”

Once he was sure Alice had gotten away, Sora made a beeline for the wheel. But the card soldiers got in his way. As he did battle with several of them, Sora figured out that five or six blows from his Keyblade were enough to wear them out.

“He’s getting away! After him, you imbeciles!” the queen roared furiously.

With a sidelong glance her way, Sora fought his way through the endless waves of soldiers before finally reaching the wheel. He gave it a big spin.

Just as he’d thought, the birdcage came down.

“Don’t let him get away!” the Queen of Hearts shouted. Near her, Sora removed the cloth from the birdcage.

There it was! The Keyhole. Like before, Sora held out his Keyblade.

A light shot from the tip and into the Keyhole, and a door appeared.

As the queen howled and raged, Sora plunged inside.

“Whoa! Where am I now?!” Sora yelped.

Beyond the door was nothing he’d ever seen before. The earth and the sky were upside down, and there appeared a huge Heartless with long arms and legs that attacked with bizarre movements—Trickmaster.

The monster swung its flaming clubs at him in an inscrutable dance, but Sora managed to keep away from them and wore it down with spell after spell from his Keyblade.

But the weirdness didn’t stop there. Suddenly, the world tilted on its side so that the ceiling was on the right and the floor was on the left. It was getting hard to make sense of anything anymore.

Apparently, the world would rotate every so often.

“Oh, come on!”

Sora needed to bring this fight to an end fast. Otherwise, he really was going to fall prey to his opponent’s games.

Changing his strategy a bit, Sora sprang off the wall—or was it the ceiling now?—toward Trickmaster.

Then, with all his strength, Sora swiftly struck the Heartless in the torso with his Keyblade. The blow felt solid under his hands.

Trickmaster’s arms, soft as cloth, were the core of a crafty offense that had given Sora a lot of trouble—but finally, they fell still.

And when they did, Trickmaster turned into a flash of light and vanished.

Eventually, the world spun back right way up.

“Now everyone’s memories should be back to normal!”

Sora twirled his Keyblade, then rested it on his shoulder with a grin.

“That’s another world repaired,” Mickey commented, watching Sora on the monitor.

“Look, just as we thought! Another line has appeared in my journal! ‘There are more hurts than the one you have just undone,’” said Jiminy, watching the journal in the digitizer. He turned back toward Mickey, but Donald and Goofy didn’t seem very happy.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Uh…fellas… The door’s still locked.”

The door to the study wasn’t any closer to being open than it was before. They were still trapped. Goofy had tried the door, but it didn’t budge. They had hoped fixing the glitches in the data world would restore the problems in this world, too, but apparently it would take more than that.

“‘Undo the hurt to unbar the way.’ Other worlds in the journal must still need our help,” said Mickey with chagrin.

Exactly how many hurts were there in the worlds within the journal? And what did they need to do to get out of this room?

“So, will Sora be heading to a new world?” Jiminy looked up at the monitor again. On the screen was Sora and… “Look! It’s him!” he cried.

“What does he want this time?” Donald was equally surprised.

Sora was glaring at the figure in the black coat.

“I’ve got you now!” Sora took up his Keyblade, ready for a fight, but the man in the black coat didn’t move. “I want some answers! Somebody’s behind these glitches. Is it you or not?” he asked.

Finally, the man replied. “This world has been connected. Memory and reality now stand tied. And now it’s time you learned the truth.” He opened a sort of black portal and smoothly walked into it.

“Hey! Get back here!”

Sora ran in after him.

“How’re we gonna find out who he is?” Jiminy muttered nervously.

“What if he’s Organization XIII?” asked Donald grimly.

Organization XIII was known for its members’ black coats. But the Organization had been wiped out, as far as they knew. The worlds inside the computer were worlds within memories—so maybe the Organization existed there as data?

“Don’t worry. Sora will catch him. Then we’ll know for sure,” Mickey assured them somberly. Suddenly, they heard a noise from outside the room.

“Who’s there?” Donald ran up to the door. Someone was on the other side.

“Chip and Dale musta come back to rescue us!” Goofy cried happily.

And then the door opened.

“Wak!”

Donald fell onto his backside in shock when he saw who it was.

Sora, with his Keyblade at the ready.

“You’re here?!” Mickey sprang up from his chair and ran over to Sora.

“That voice… Mickey? Is that you?” Clearly confused, Sora put away his Keyblade.

“What happened?”

“I was just…following that guy, and…”

Before Sora could continue, the screen abruptly filled with static.

“Majesty! There, on the monitor!” Jiminy shouted.

Everyone looked up at the same time. After less than a second, what appeared was—Mickey’s back. And Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy were there, too.

“What’s going on here?” Mickey muttered, but then turned as he sensed someone else was there behind him.

Suddenly, standing next to Sora was—the man in the black coat.

“Wak!”

“A-hyuck!”

As Donald and Goofy yelped in surprise, the man’s hood vanished like an image fading from a screen.

And the one standing before them was…

“Riku?!” everyone cried at once.

All along, the man in the black coat had been Riku.

But the boy shook his head quietly. “Sorry. Not quite. Much like Sora there, I’m just zeroes and ones that look like somebody you know,” he slowly explained. Sora stared at him with his mouth agape.

Riku started typing on the keyboard, and Jiminy’s journal appeared.

“Memories used to fill Jiminy’s journal—but when they were pulled apart and then stitched back together, bugs appeared. It was these bugs that kept the book from being completely restored. Of all the vessels to protect the data, I was chosen from the journal’s pages. The full set of memories was transferred inside me to shield them from corruption.”

Everyone seemed confused by his explanation. A vessel to shield memories?

Looking at all their clueless faces, Riku chuckled and then continued. “So, in a way…what I really am is Jiminy’s journal.”

“You’re my journal?” Jiminy asked in shock.

So this Riku was Riku, but also not Riku? A vessel that stored the set of memories within the journal? For a vessel, though, he sure seemed to have a will, a purpose—a mind. Did it come from Riku himself? Or was it the “mind” of the scattered memories inside him? Or maybe it was even the mind of someone connected to the memories within the journal…?

As Jiminy tried to make sense of it, Riku kept typing until the words written in the journal appeared on the monitor.

Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it.

“I took the liberty of importing all of you to help solve the mystery of this entry.”

“‘Imported’? Where?” Donald had no idea what that meant. He cocked his head to one side quizzically.

“You really haven’t noticed?” Riku asked, slightly exasperated.

Mickey looked up at the monitor and saw the image of himself do the same.

Meaning…

“Are you saying…?”

“Yes, we’re inside the journal.”

Riku nodded with one final keystroke.

Your Majesty! Your Majesty!

If you can hear us, please say something!

That was Chip and Dale.

“Chip? Dale?” Mickey replied to the voices coming from the air. Exactly like Sora when he responded to Mickey’s calls.

We finally got through!

The room was empty when we came back, and we’ve been searching the data for you ever since!

As Chip and Dale explained, Goofy crossed his arms and fell into thought.

“Well, if Sora’s here with us, and Chip and Dale are out there lookin’ in, then…”

“Then we really are inside the datascape, just like Riku said,” Mickey finished, nodding at Goofy.

Riku was standing quietly next to them, arms folded. Mickey turned to him and asked, “Maybe you can tell us—is there any way for us to get back home?”

Before Riku could answer, an alarm sounded.

It was the same noise Mickey and the others had heard way back at the beginning when they turned on the analysis device.

Oh no!

Someone’s trying to break into the data from the outside!

Hearing Chip and Dale’s cries, Riku hurriedly turned toward the keyboard.

A whole slew of the red-and-black blocks had appeared on the monitor.

“A hacker! If that’s true, then there won’t be any way out for you.”

Riku hammered away at the keyboard in an attempt to fix it, but the blocks on the screen wouldn’t go away.

You have to escape before—

The chipmunks’ cries broke off.

“Chip? Dale!” Mickey called, but there was no reply.

“No luck. The link from here to the real world has been totally cut.”

Riku shook his head, and his hands fell still on the keys.

“How ’bout some good news?” Donald looked up at Riku apprehensively.

“If we repair that link, a new pathway should open,” Riku replied. “Of course, that’s if these bugs weren’t around.”

That did little to cheer up anyone.

Suddenly, Sora spoke up. “I don’t understand it all, but basically, this means you guys can’t go home, right? Okay. Then I’ll go bash the bugs for you.”

“You will?!” Donald hugged Sora’s legs happily.

“That’s swell!” Goofy smiled, too.

Then, Mickey held out his hand. “Sora. That’s another one we owe ya,” he said gratefully.

Sora accepted the handshake. “Who says we’re keeping score? We’re all friends, right?”

It was such a straightforward response, and Mickey and the others shared a look. Sora would always be Sora.

“Right. See you.” Sora swiftly turned to leave the room, ready to run off—but then turned back and scratched his head.

“…Actually, where am I supposed to go?”

“Sorry, Sora. I’ll open the path to a world that’s still bugged.”

Riku tapped a few keys, and a dark portal opened just like the one that had brought Sora here from Alice’s world.

“Okay, bye for real this time!”

Sora took a deep breath and set off again.