CHAPTER 1

DESTINY ISLANDS & DISNEY CASTLE

first impression

AS HIS EYES SLOWLY OPENED, THE SUNLIGHT STREAMED in dazzlingly bright. The sound of the waves was the same as always, brushing softly against his mind.

Sora got up and stretched.

Before him the blue sky and sea stretched on and on. As far as he knew, that was the entire world.

These were the Destiny Islands—a little cluster of islets floating in the sea.

“Huh… What was it?”

He felt like he’d had a bad dream.

Was it scary…? No, something about it felt nice, too.

That voice—that light. And that dark black shadow—

And—was it really just a dream?

“Sora…”

“Whoa!”

Kairi suddenly appeared in front of his face. Sora jumped to his feet.

“Gimme a break, Kairi.”

“Sora, you lazy bum! I knew I’d find you snoozing down here.”

Kairi leaned in, peering into Sora’s face, and smiled. Her red hair glinted in the brilliant light that poured down from the sky and reflected off the sea and sand.

“No! This huge black thing swallowed me up, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t—ow!”

Whatever he was going to say got lost when Kairi knocked him on the head.

“Are you still dreaming?”

As she stared at him again, Sora began to feel uncertain about what he remembered. How could there be a pitch-dark monster thing like that around here, under such a bright sky?

“It wasn’t a dream! …Or was it? I don’t know…”

Sora hung his head. Kairi gave him an exasperated look and walked down to the water’s edge. Turned away from him, she felt just a little bit distant somehow. He didn’t know what to say to her, but as he hesitated, Kairi looked back with a smile.

“We better start working on it. Riku’s getting annoyed.”

“Huh?” Startled, he turned, and Riku was standing there, holding a log and scowling.

“So, I guess I’m the only one working on the raft.”

It was a fairly heavy log. Riku tossed it to Sora with a shake of his silver hair.

“Ack!” Sora fumbled to catch the log.

Riku turned to Kairi. “And you’re just as lazy as he is!”

“So, you noticed.” Kairi grinned and began ambling toward the inlet. “Okay, we’ll finish it together. Race you!”

Laughing, she took off at a run.

“Huh? Seriously?” Sora hurried after her, and then Riku.

“Ready? Go!”

Kairi was already running, but at her words the other two broke into full speed.

The sun was still high. They had plenty of work ahead of them.

“Riku, you get the logs…and some cloth and rope. Sora, you find some drinking water and mushrooms for us to take. I’ll wait here.”

“Got it!”

Sora and Riku took off running like it was another race, footsteps scrunching over the dry sand. A little ways off, they could hear Tidus and Wakka playing with wooden swords.

“Want to join them, Sora?”

“But won’t Kairi be mad?”

Sora threw that out as an excuse. The truth was, he just couldn’t win against Riku, which made it hard to be interested.

“Don’t worry about that.” Riku thumped him on the back and ran toward Tidus and Wakka.

“Aw, geez…”

On this little island, pretty much any game the boys played was something competitive, and the perennial favorite was sword fighting. Wakka, a few years older than everyone else, acted as a teacher. Just recently Sora and Riku had become good enough to beat him once in a while. They were about even with Tidus.

“Here I come!” Tidus closed in on Wakka.

“Go, boys, go!” Selphie was hopping up and down, making the outward curl at the end of her hair bounce in time.

“I’m not done yet!” Wakka’s voice rang out over the sound of wood striking wood, and Tidus’s sword flew from his hand.

“Aw, nuts.”

Tidus dejectedly plopped down on the sand.

Riku picked up the sword that had fallen some distance away and turned to Wakka. “My turn!”

“Hey, hey, gimme a little breather here,” said Wakka, scratching his head through his bandanna, and tossed his stick over to Sora. “You take him this time, Sora.”

“But Kairi’ll be upset…”

“You’re wide open!”

As Sora stood there trying to get out of it, Riku leaped in to attack.

“Hey! No fair, Riku!”

“Fights don’t have to be fair!”

Sora dodged his strike with a jump and finally grabbed a sword. There wasn’t any getting out of it, then.

“All right, come get me!” Riku smirked like he knew he hardly had to try. Sora couldn’t stand it.

“Here I come!”

The wooden swords met with a clack! Sora threw himself into fighting just like Wakka had taught him, swinging straight down at Riku from over his head. Clack, clack, clack over and over. Sora’s style mainly involved staying on the offensive.

“Ngh!”

“That’s it, Sora! Keep going, push him right into the water!”

Just as Wakka cheered him on, Sora made a huge swing.

“Ouch!”

The sword leaped from Riku’s hand and spun up into the air, then landed point down in the sand.

“Wow!” Tidus yelled.

Breathing hard, Sora held out a hand to Riku, who’d fallen on his rear.

“Tch. Let my guard down.”

“Or I’m just better than you!” Sora grinned and pulled Riku to his feet, then took off toward the hill. “Race you to get all the supplies!”

“All right!” Riku replied, dusting off sand, and ran in the other direction.

“Hey, hey, a race to get what?”

But Wakka’s question went unheard as Sora and Riku ran off.

“Those two lately, and Kairi, too… I get the feeling they’re up to something…” Selphie screwed up her face and tilted her head in concentration.

Wakka shrugged. “Well, they’ve got Riku, so I wouldn’t worry, yeah?”

“That’s not the point!” Selphie said in a huff, kicking the sand.

“It’s not fair! I wanna be in on it, too!” Tidus tried to follow them, but Sora had already disappeared into the bushes on the hillside and Riku into the sea.

“Mushrooms… Where do I find more mushrooms?”

Sora wandered around the hill in search of mushrooms. The ones that grew on this island were all edible, and a while ago they’d even roasted some over a campfire. If they were planning to sail across the ocean for however many days, though, he needed to find more than that.

From up on the hill he could see Riku gathering things. He was carrying something that looked like a big piece of cloth.

Must be nice being Riku…

The thought stung in his chest. It felt like nothing more than an accident that he’d managed to win the sword fight. Sora was always the one who lost. School grades, sprinting, it didn’t matter what—he couldn’t beat Riku. If he could just win at something…

Sora slid down the hill and jumped into the thick foliage that grew beside the waterfall. Through there was the entrance to a little cave. It was their secret spot. Sora and Riku had found it and told Kairi.

“…Haven’t been here in a while…”

Inside the cave, the constant sound of the waves was hushed to a whisper. Further in, the space was more open, like a great big room. And at the other end of it—that door. It was a big door, but without a doorknob or anything. It just sat there, as if in wait for a visitor from somewhere.

On the cave wall beside the door, there was a little doodle.

“…There it is.”

Years ago, Kairi and Sora had drawn each other’s faces on the wall, and they were still here. Sora crouched down and softly touched the scribbles.

If he could just be better than Riku…

Sora turned toward a small sound. “Who’s there?”

It was a man in a brown robe.

“I’ve come to see the door,” he declared in a deep voice. Sora couldn’t see the face beneath the hood. “This world has been connected.”

“What are you talking about?”

The man showed no reaction to Sora and kept talking. “A world tied to the darkness…soon to be completely eclipsed…”

At that, a chill crept up Sora’s spine. “Well, whoever you are, you’re freaking me out! …Where did you come from, anyway?!”

He didn’t answer the question but said slowly, “There is much to learn. You know so little.”

“You’re from another world, aren’t you?”

“You do not yet know what lies beyond the door. One who knows nothing can understand nothing.”

Sora had been staring at the mysterious man, but now he looked at the door.

That door, he thought. That big door… Didn’t I see a door like that somewhere else, just a little while ago…?

“Hey, who are you—”

Sora looked back again, but the man was gone.

When he left the cave, the brilliant sunlight made him blink. The island spread out before him with its brilliant sea and sky, and what had just happened in the cave seemed like a dream.

Arms full of the mushrooms he’d gathered in the cave, he began to run down to the inlet where Kairi and Riku would be waiting.

That man—and the door. It did feel like a dream. And no one would believe him if he said anything about it. Here on this little archipelago called the Destiny Islands, there wasn’t a single person they didn’t know. Not even anyone from across the ocean—no, wait, there was one person.

Kairi.

She came from across the ocean, people said. Kairi came from another world across the ocean, somewhere we’ve never seen or even heard about. That’s why we’re going to find…

“Sora! You’re late!”

“Sorry! It was hard to find enough mushrooms…”

Winded from running, Sora held up the stockpile of fungi for Kairi to see. As soon as he saw her face, the incident with the strange man was gone from his mind. Kairi and Riku were standing beside a soaringly tall tree trunk.

“Wooow. You really found a lot, huh!”

“Not bad for you!”

They both laughed, relieving him of the armfuls of mushrooms.

“Right, Sora—this looks like a good sail, don’t you think?” said Riku.

Sora looked up at the cloth tied to the tree trunk like a flag. “Where’d you find a piece that big?”

“Oh, nowhere.” Riku shrugged and smiled and then began to climb up the trunk. “If there’s a storm, we have to climb up the mast and lower the sail.”

“I know that.”

Kairi watched their back-and-forth, giggling.

The three of them were building a raft, a nice big one. A raft that would take them to worlds they’d never seen before. They lashed several logs together with some rope and stood up the trunk for a mast. Then the sail went up, made from the cloth that Riku had found, flapping in the sea breeze.

“She looks seaworthy already!” Kairi exclaimed.

Riku leaped down from the mast. “Yeah. On this, we can go anywhere we want,” he said, gazing into the distance beyond the perfectly smooth horizon. The sun was sinking low, the sky shifting from clear blue to deep crimson.

“Hey, Sora,” he said, looking at the mast again. “We haven’t given our ship a name yet.”

“Heh. Right, we should!” Kairi looked up at the mast, too. “A sail like that is sure to catch the wind.”

The sail hung quietly over them, the sail that would fill up with wind and take them gliding over the sea.

“What should we call her?”

At Kairi’s prompting, Sora mentioned the name he’d been thinking of all day. “How about…the Highwind?”

“The Highwind…” Riku softly repeated it. “When the winds are high, she’ll take us as far as we can go.”

“Pretty good, right?” said Sora. Riku gave him a nod.

“The Highwind it is, then!” Kairi grinned and clung to the mast, turning her gaze out to the open sea. “…It’s getting late, huh?”

Riku and Sora, too, saw that the sky above the horizon was glowing brilliant red and the sun would soon disappear below it.

“If we go to the very end of the sea…I bet we’ll find the world where you came from, Kairi.”

Sora said it like he wanted confirmation. Kairi turned slowly away, staring into the distance.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“If we don’t go and see, we’ll never find out,” Riku replied, arms folded.

“Do you really think we can get that far on a raft?” said Sora.

Riku looked at him, and back out to the sea. “Well… If it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else.”

The sun sank lower toward the horizon, turning the sea and even the sand red.

They had watched this very scene together countless times, but to Sora, it looked just a little bit different today. Something about that made him uneasy.

After this…what’s going to happen to us?

I want to see other worlds, he thought.

There was the sea, always so calm, though storms came once in a while. There were the beautiful sandy beaches. There were birds on the hills and even mushrooms to eat, and…Riku and Kairi, Tidus and Selphie and Wakka. Mom and Dad and the other people in town. All the wonderful friends he had fun with here on the Destiny Islands. But the landscape that Sora saw was always the same. If he could just see a different world…maybe something would change.

So he wanted to try going somewhere else.

“Suppose you get to another world. What would you do there?” Kairi asked Riku a little nervously. “Do you just want to see, like Sora?”

“Well, I haven’t really thought about it. It’s just… I’ve always wondered why we’re here, on this island. If there are other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?” Riku paused for a moment, as if listening to the waves, and then went on. “And suppose there are other worlds. Then ours is just a little piece of something much greater…” Then he turned to Sora and Kairi. “So, we could have just as easily ended up somewhere else, right?”

A little piece of something greater. This was pretty complicated. Not quite following, Sora flopped over on the raft. “I dunno.”

Riku looked at him with a little sigh and started walking down toward the shore. “That’s why we need to go out there and find out. Just sitting here won’t change a thing.”

Sora turned to the sea, his eyes following Riku.

“It’s the same old stuff. And I want to go.”

“You’ve been thinking a lot lately, haven’t you?” Kairi said softly.

“Thanks to you. If you hadn’t come here, I probably never would have thought of any of this.” Riku turned away from the setting sun to look at her. “Thanks, Kairi.”

Those words sounded more earnest to Sora than anything he had ever heard. He felt his heart skip a beat.

“Um, you’re welcome…,” Kairi said with a shy laugh, turning to the sea again.

“Well… Guess I better get going. You two shouldn’t stay out too late, either.” Riku took off for the pier at a brisk pace, as if suddenly embarrassed by what he’d said.

Staring after him, Kairi said in a tiny voice, “You know, Riku’s changed.”

“What do you mean?” said Sora. If there was anything different about Riku, he couldn’t tell. It seemed like the usual Riku to him.

“Well… Hmm. You don’t think so?”

“Nope, it’s just you.”

Kairi looked a little sad at that. But then she blurted, “Hey, let’s take the raft and go—just the two of us!”

She peered at Sora with a mischievous grin.

“Huh? What’s gotten into you? You’re the one who’s changed, Kairi.”

“…Maybe.”

She started ambling down to the beach. Something small and bright fell out of her pocket.

“Kairi, you dropped something.”

“Oh—” She carefully picked it up and showed it to him. It was a pendant made of seashells, tied together into the shape of a star.

“What is it?”

“I’m making thalassa shell charms. In the old days, sailors always wore them. They’re supposed to ensure a safe voyage.”

“A sailor’s amulet, huh…”

Sora gazed at the charm in the palm of Kairi’s hand.

“I’m making them so even if one of us gets lost, we’ll make it back here safe and sound. …So the three of us will always be together.”

She placed it gently back in her pocket. The sun had already fallen halfway below the horizon.

“You know, I was a little afraid at first…but now I’m ready.” Kairi looked at Sora, speaking like she’d made up her mind. “No matter where I go or what I see, I know I can always come back here.”

He ran to catch up with her. “Yeah, of course!”

I still want to come back to Destiny Island, too, he thought. I want to see other worlds, but I’ll come back. To the sea and the sky and everyone here. To this place with Kairi and Riku.

“I’m glad… Sora, don’t ever change.”

“Huh?”

Kairi smiled at his startled sound. “I just can’t wait. Once we set sail, it’ll be great.”

“Yeah… We’ll make it, for sure.”

The sun was nearly gone now. The waves went on and on with their calm, soft rush.

A great trumpet fanfare rang out.

The castle stood tall against the clear blue sky. The broom servants swept by on their important task of morning cleaning. Donald strode past them, chest puffed out, tail waddling to and fro. As the royal magician, his first order of business for the day was to greet the king.

“A-hem!”

Putting even more puff into his chest, he cleared his throat and knocked on a grand door ten times his size. A little Donald-size door cut into the big door opened, and he entered the great hall.

Here, in the biggest room in the castle, was the king’s throne, and Donald walked up to it on the long red carpet.

“Good morning, Your Majesty! It’s nice to see…quack?”

The king should have been sitting there. But the throne was empty. Instead the king’s dog, Pluto, poked out from behind it.

“Pluto?”

Hearing his name, Pluto trotted up to Donald. He held a white envelope in his mouth.

“…Quack?”

Pluto held his head out, waiting for Donald to take the envelope. Frowning, Donald did, and opened it to find a single sheet of notepaper. The moment his eyes took in the writing…

“Gawawawawawawaaaaa! QUACK!”

Donald ran back out of the great hall, shouting all the way.

That was the note he left behind. A very important letter from their beloved king—and their dear friend. If this was all true, things were serious. That strange problem with the stars vanishing from the night sky and the disaster on the way. Did this mean the king had gotten involved in something really dangerous?

Donald hurtled down the long hallway and out to the gardens. That was where he’d find Goofy, the captain of the royal knights.

“Captain Goofy! This is bad!”

Goofy was sound asleep. Donald tried to wake him up to no avail.

“Goofy!” His shouts echoed in the peaceful courtyard, but Goofy didn’t stir. Now totally out of patience, Donald snapped his fingers and yelled, “Thunder!”

A little crackling bolt of lightning struck the end of Goofy’s black nose.

“A-hyuck?” Goofy blinked a few times and finally saw Donald. “Hey there, Donald. G’mornin’. Nice weather, isn’t—”

Donald cut off his carefree hello. “We-we’ve got a big problem!”

“Problem?”

“Now, don’t tell anybody!”

“Anybody? Tell ’em what?”

“I’m telling you, it’s top secret!” Donald said, flapping his arms.

Goofy wasn’t quite grasping the urgency of the situation. He got up slowly and stretched, looking at Donald. “…Queen Minnie?”

“Not even the queen!”

“Daisy?”

“Definitely not Daisy!”

“G’mornin’, ladies.”

Goofy looked past Donald’s flailing and nodded.

“…Er…?”

Finally realizing what Goofy meant, Donald turned around to see Queen Minnie and his girlfriend, Daisy.

“What’s all the commotion, Donald?”

“Quack…gawawawawa…”

Hearing the queen’s voice, Donald began flapping around again. Daisy pointedly cleared her throat.

The castle’s bell chimed the hour. Donald, Goofy, Daisy, and Queen Minnie were in the king’s room, deep in serious conversation.

“…That’s how it is,” said Donald after explaining to the others.

“Oh, dear! What could this mean?” Daisy worried.

“It means…we’ll just have to trust the king,” Minnie replied softly.

“Gawrsh. I sure hope he’s all right,” said Goofy, unhurried as usual.

Donald kicked him in the shin and spoke with determination. “Your Highness! Don’t worry. We’ll find the king, and this ‘key.’”

“Thank you.”

“Daisy,” asked Donald, “can you take care of the queen?”

“Of course. You be careful now, both of you.” With a scatterbrain like Donald for a boyfriend, Daisy herself was quite steady. She’d be able to protect the castle and the queen in their absence.

“Oh. And Donald, take him with you.” The queen gestured toward “him”—but Donald couldn’t see anyone there.

“Er…who?”

Then Donald saw him, hopping up and down. “Over here!”

“…Him?”

He was much smaller than Donald or Goofy. He wore a tiny suit and a silk hat, which he politely doffed, and bowed to them.

“Cricket’s the name. Jiminy Cricket, at your service.”

And Jiminy sprang up onto Donald’s hat.

“Wak!”

“I’ll just stay nice and quiet like this. No worries!” With that, Jiminy jumped into Donald’s pocket and made himself at home.

“Jiminy said his world disappeared, too.” Queen Minnie lowered her long lashes.

“…Disappeared?” said Goofy.

Jiminy poked his head out from Donald’s pocket again, his brows furrowed. “That’s right. It all just disappeared. Everyone’s scattered—I’m the only one who made it to this castle.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to find the others from your world, Jiminy,” the queen said.

Jiminy leaped out onto the desk, doffing his hat again to Donald and Goofy.

“So, that’s how it is. Thanks for taking me along.”

“All right, but…” Donald looked at the queen.

“Outside of this castle, you mustn’t let anyone know that you’ve come from another world,” the queen told them firmly.

“Oh, to keep the order—right?” said Goofy.

“Right. To maintain the order of each world,” Donald replied. It was a closely guarded secret that he and the others could leave Disney Castle and travel to other worlds. If the secret got out, other people might try to go between worlds willy-nilly, and the order would break down.

A heavy silence settled into the room. The queen spoke brightly to dispel it. “Your Gummi Ship should be ready soon. We hope for your safe return. Please help the king.”

Donald saluted with his hand at his breast. Goofy returned the salute to see him off…

“You’re coming, too!” He grabbed Goofy by the arm and dragged him out.

The Gummi Ship factory was at the end of a long spiral staircase that wound down beneath the castle. Puffs of steam rose from chugging, clanking machinery. In the middle of it all, a little orange rocket ship sat waiting for Donald and Goofy. This was the only kind of vessel capable of flying between worlds—a Gummi Ship.

Great big magic hands were readying the ship for departure, giving it a final inspection.

“Donald Duck to launch crew!” he said into a big pipe, and his voice quacked through the control room. “Is she ready to go?”

The two crewmen smartly saluted in return. The one with the black nose was Chip, the designer, and the one with the red nose was Dale, the mechanic. Chip pulled the big lever in the control room and the whole factory began to groan.

“What’s goin’ on?” Goofy wondered, and just then a big magic hand picked him up. “A-hyipe!”

“Be quiet!” Donald snapped, and another magic hand grabbed him by the tail. Jiminy nearly fell out of his pocket, hanging on to his silk hat and clinging to Donald’s hem for dear life.

“Maybe go a little easier…” Just as Goofy said that, they plopped down into the cockpit. Pluto, who must have been following them for some time, jumped in, too.

“Pluto!” Donald exclaimed. Pluto barked in reply.

The cockpit smoothly closed up with the four of them inside, and the door at the front of the factory opened. The Gummi Ship slowly rose into launch position.

“Gawrsh, I’m kinda nervous,” said Goofy.

“—Hush, it’s gonna be fine.”

Just as Donald scolded him, the Gummi Ship reached its mark.

Queen Minnie and Daisy had come to see them off. “Please help the king…and the worlds…”

The soft plea didn’t reach the cockpit, but Donald gave a thumbs-up and a wink to the queen and Daisy.

The engine started with a bomf! and the little ship shook.

“Blast off!” Donald pointed to the track ahead—but the arrow there pointed down. “Quack?!”

A hole in the floor opened up and sucked in the Gummi Ship. It kept falling and finally popped out the other side of Disney Castle upside down, then righted itself and sped into the stars.

Lightning flashed, and in nearly the same moment, rain came pattering down on the roof.

“…Rain?”

Sora sat up and looked out the window. His house was on a bigger island, a little ways off from the small one where he and his friends always went to play. A little house in a little town—that was where he lived. Since he came home, he’d been spacing out, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about what happened today and what was going to happen soon.

The rain started to come down harder. Showers after sunset weren’t that rare here. The ocean here was usually calm, but once in a while, there would be downpours or storms.

Still…

Lightning flashed again. Sora could tell…

“It’s coming from our island!”

He jumped out of bed.

Sora took his kid-size rowboat and hurried to their island. There was a nice big reef surrounding it, so anything less than a hurricane wouldn’t cause much damage. But at the moment, there was a raft to worry about.

If the raft got swept away…

Luckily the waves weren’t very high yet. The raft should be okay if he just tied it good and tight to a cocoyum tree.

Rolling thunder enveloped the island. Sora looked up at the starless night sky to see a ball of darkly glowing energy floating in the air. “What’s that?!”

When he climbed up onto the dock, he saw that there were two other small boats.

“Riku and Kairi are here, too?”

He ran in from the dock to the beach, but some kind of shadow rose up from the ground, blocking his path.

“…What’s going on?!”

He swung his wooden sword around, and it felt like he hit something, but the shadow didn’t go away. In fact, more and more of them appeared.

“Ugh, they just keep coming…” Sora gave up trying to beat them and ran along the beach, looking for Kairi and Riku. The wind swallowed up his voice as he shouted their names. At the waterfall, he paused and looked around. Then he saw it—in front of the bushes that hid the path to their secret spot, there was a big white door.

“What…?”

Suddenly he remembered the strange man he’d met in the afternoon.

Soon to be completely eclipsed

No way, Sora thought. But he was definitely saying something like that… Anyway, I have to find Riku and Kairi.

Holding the shadowy things at bay with his wooden sword, Sora looked around again.

“Riku!”

He could see Riku standing in the darkness, facing the sea, his silver hair whipping in the howling wind.

Sora ran to him. “Where’s Kairi? I thought she was with you!”

Riku slowly turned. “The door has opened…”

“Riku?”

Something wasn’t quite right about him. He was different. And what was this about a door? Did he mean that white door? Or…

“The door is open, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!” Riku said in a rush, a strange excitement in his eyes.

“What are you talking about? We’ve gotta find Kairi!”

“Kairi’s coming with us!” Riku shouted at the top of his voice. “Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. But this might be our only chance. We can’t let fear stop us! I’m not afraid of the darkness!”

As he went on, eerie dark energy gathered above his head.

“…Riku?”

“Let’s go, Sora!”

Smiling, Riku stretched out his hand, but at his feet the darkness swarmed and grew, twisting itself around his legs—and in the blink of an eye, it had covered him completely.

“Riku!”

Sora tried to run toward him, but when he stepped into that darkness, it began twining up his body, too.

Smiling in the midst of the darkness, Riku called his name. “… Sora…”

But Sora couldn’t reach him. Riku was engulfed in darkness, and just as Sora was about to be swallowed up, too, a light shone from inside it and drove it away.

For a moment Sora had to shut his eyes against the brightness. When he opened them again, there was a giant shining key in his hand. A voice echoed in his head—

Keyblade…

As if on cue, the dark, shadowy things came up from the ground again. Sora swung the key—the Keyblade—at them, and this time they disappeared.

“…Riku?” With the Keyblade still firmly in his hand, Sora looked around, but couldn’t see Riku anywhere. “Riku! Where are you? Riku!”

Sora ran, swinging the Keyblade as he searched. No matter how many of the shadowy things he defeated, more kept springing up. Finally he was in front of the white door again.

“…Huh?”

The door was opening, almost as if to invite him inside. This was the only place left on the island where Kairi and Riku could be. Sora ran through the door.

“Riku… Kairi!”

There was the cave—their secret spot, just the same as ever. The only difference was that glowing door at the end. And in front of the door, Kairi stood silently staring at it.

“Kairi!” Sora dashed toward her.

She turned to look at him, slowly and sadly. “Sora…?”

The moment she reached out for him, the door began to open. Ink-black darkness erupted out, blowing her toward him like the blast from an explosion. He tried to catch her in his arms—but her body just faded out. She passed through him and vanished.

It was like she’d been sucked into Sora himself. He called her name, but with a huge rush, Sora and the door and the island were all hurled away in the wind.

“What’s happening—?!”

Thrown out onto the sand, Sora pounded the ground with his fist. Inches away, the ground just dropped off, like a cliff. He looked up and saw that dark sphere covering the entire island. And a huge black shadow was standing right in front of him.

This isn’t our Destiny Island anymore, he thought.

Riku isn’t here. Kairi’s gone, too.

So how am I still here?

Sora was still on his hands and knees. The huge shadow swiped at him, knocking him aside.

He groaned, and the Keyblade glowed in his hand.

“Power sleeps within you. Give it form…and it will give you strength.”

I feel like someone’s speaking to me. Power sleeping within me…? I don’t have any power. I can only just barely beat Riku. So how…

“No matter where I go or what I see, I know I can always come back here.”

But Kairi disappeared. Riku, too. And now even the island’s about to disappear. Can we really ever come back here? All three of us?

“Make it so the three of you can always be together.”

Sora thought of Kairi’s smile. Kairi and Riku and me. So we’ll always be together. So we can come back here.

The Keyblade shone brightly, like it was reacting to Sora’s emotions. There’s no way I’m gonna lose. So I can go see other worlds, so the three of us can run on the beach together…

He stood up and took a huge leap, and his attack became trails of light that wounded the shadow.

“Yaaaaah! I won’t lose!”

Two, three blows from the Keyblade he wielded, and wounds made of light kept appearing on the giant shadow.

“You’re not gonna beat me!”

Sora felt the Keyblade pierce something, and the shadow let out an enormous roar.

“…I did it…”

Bellowing in fury, the shadow was sucked into the dark sphere up above.

“Kairi…,” Sora whispered. Before he could take another breath, the sphere raged and howled, swelling up and dragging what remained of the island into it, along with Sora. With a terrible rumbling, it swallowed up the cocoyum trees, the rowboats, even the sea…

Sora strained to hold on to the wreckage of the wooden bridge, but the huge force pulled him off. In a swirl of debris, he fell into the dark sphere and disappeared.