Secrets of Memories Chapter 1: Seekers in Twilight Town
The monstrous white creature towered over him, the strange length of cloth wound around his neck flowing behind him ominously. Aozora took a step back in fear, his innocent brown eyes staring up in horror at the strange white being as he took a slow step after step towards the edge of the circular column he stood on, a column with a strange design on its flat surface. A design of a woman of royalty, that was for sure; she had long, golden locks, a soft purple gown, and was surrounded by rose vines riddled with thorns, with a large circle underneath her. Within the circle were smaller circles, with three above her head, so that they were visible to all who spotted the surface of this strange column. The three circles held the silhouettes of three fairies. The woman had a dainty crown on her head and in her hands held a rose.
Aozora continued to stare up in horror at the white monster through his golden bangs as he inched towards the edge of the column. The white monster, with huge shoulders and an odd, hourglass-like body, made no move towards him, seemingly content to just stand there and scare him to death. Then, when Aozora expected it the least, the monster swung his right hand down onto the surface and darkness exploded from it, swamping up Aozora in its murkiness. Aozora thrashed in it, trying to reach the ever-fading light but it was out of his reach…
He saw the face, if only for a moment, as the darkness overtook him. It was the face of a youngster, a toddler in fact, with light brown hair that spiked everywhere and the bangs that fell over his innocent, bright blue eyes. He was wearing a black shirt and blue pants, no shoes, and was sitting on a beach of light yellow sand, with the sea rippling up in white waves behind him. The toddler grinned, giggled joyfully, and held out a tubby hand, stating, " Come on Aozora!"
The image faded and Aozora screamed out, " Wait! Come back! Come back and tell me who you are! Come back-"
A cloaked, hooded figure stood before him, only his chin, nose, and mouth being visible. He stood in the rain, unfazed by the wetness. He whispered ever so quietly to Aozora, " The time will come, Aozora, when the past comes back. The seeker of light needs your help, you, who are also a seeker of light. But you are also the guardian of the seeker and must protect him with all your life. He will come to you, the sky-child, and you, child of the blue sky, will journey with him to the end of the dark."
" Wait, no! Tell me who you are? Tell me who that kid was who called out my name! You must know everything to tell me this! Tell me about my past! Tell me about that child in my dreams, the white monster, everything! Wait, come back-"
Hands shook his shoulders hard and Aozora jerked back into the waking world. Gasping for a breath, drenched in sweat, Aozora looked up into the eyes of his concerned friends.
" Its that dream again, isn't it?" Ashita asked quietly. The sixteen-year-old blond teenager in a gray-green vest, a sleeveless camouflage shirt and matching pants, and green and white shoes looked at Aozora face-to-face with dark green eyes.
Aozora nodded numbly.
" The one with that white monster and that little kid?" Yuri added. She was fifteen-years-old, like Aozora, and had wavy brown hair split into two parts that went over her shoulders, wore a spaghetti-strap orange shirt, yellow Capri pants, orange socks, and light yellow shoes with green lacing. Her brown eyes matched her hair and she had a brightness that glowed around her.
" Yeah, that one," Aozora agreed hoarsely. He must've been screaming that loud to have such a gravelly voice.
" Oh geezes," fifteen-year-old Orion sighed. " And there was that black, hooded dude, right?"
Orion had dark brown hair that literally sprouted on his head, thanks largely to the blue headband with yellow bordering that he was always wearing on his head. He wore a bright red vest, long-sleeved white shirt with red cuffs, blue jeans, and white and blue tennis shoes. His eyes were also brown and he was Yuri's cousin.
" Yeah," Aozora sighed, shaking his head, his blond bangs swinging in front of his face. " And I still don't understand what that guy means. He tells me that I'm the protector of a person he calls 'sky-child' and that I'm to work with him to destroy this darkness."
Aozora sighed, yawned very openly, and stood up to stretch his limbs. He was a lean, athletic fifteen-year-old teenager, with short, spiky blond hair and bangs that always fell in his face. He wore a white short-sleeved jacket, a v-neck black shirt belted at the waist, and long pants that were three-fourths white and one-fourth a dark greenish color. His shoes were black and he wore a black-and-white checkered wristband on his left wrist. He had a gently serious face, with innocent brown eyes. It would take a sharp eye to note the sadness behind the kindness in those eyes.
Aozora could not remember the distant past but he knew he had a family: a father, a mother, and a twin brother. He knew they lived on a world called Deep Tranquility, until something happened and killed them all. Everyone on Deep Tranquility died…except Aozora. The lone survivor, he was adopted by a family in another world, Celt Circle, where he lived until the age of ten, when another event destroyed that world. He was then taken in by a strange, small king in a place he learned to call D.C. and was brought up in the arts of swordsmanship, warfare, and magic. Two years later, he was out on his own, and then began a student of a hermit mentor for a year. It was then that he was first hinted about his past and his future, as a guardian and seeker of the light. Then he was told to find the 'sky-child' and join forces with him, in order to conquer a strange darkness that had become the guilty one in the destruction of Aozora's homes. And so Aozora, equipped with three keychains, set off in search of this 'sky-child'.
That was two years ago. Now Aozora had made a home in Twilight Town, an industrial word basked in a sunset glow, in an ancient bell tower. There, he hangs around with his three friends Ashita, Yuri, and Orion, procrastinating and not willing to find this 'sky-child'. But dreams like the one he had moments before had begun to pester him in his sleep and handed the teenager a great deal of stress. He would need to begin searching again.
" I think…I think I'm going to have to go," Aozora admitted quietly as he finished stretching and stood on the balcony of the bell tower, looking out at the busy city he had considered to be his 'home' for have a year.
" Oh really?" Ashita, the oldest and the leader, asked.
" Yes," Aozora replied sadly. " I don't want to but the dreams…they're telling me something."
" Is it really that important?" Orion asked curiously.
When Aozora nodded, Yuri added, " Why is it that important?"
Aozora's mind went blank. He had not expected that sort of question and was now baffled while searching for the answer.
" So is there a reason?" Ashita asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowing as he continued to stare at Aozora.
" Um…" Aozora looked a bit lost. " Basically has to do with my past life…you know."
" Oh," Yuri said. " You mean about that thing about being a 'seeker of light'. Am I right?"
Aozora nodded and stated solemnly, " I might as well start getting supplies before heading to the train station."
By train station, he meant this universal station that can take you to any world in the universe.
" Do you have the munny?" Orion asked with a sneaky smile on his face.
Aozora groaned. " No, I'm all out."
" Not to worry," Ashita said sternly. " We've got enough to pool together something for you. You need elixirs and potions, right? I'll go buy that stuff-don't try to stop me, Aozora; you know you haven't got the munny."
Aozora reluctantly inched away from the door down the stairs of the bell tower to ground level. Ashita gave him a reassuring slap on the back before opening the red door and heading down the stairs, the door swinging behind him.
" And your cloak," Yuri stated as she stuffed a long black, hooded coat into his arms. " It's been gathering dust for a long time but thankfully no moths."
" Thanks, Yuri," Aozora grinned, causing Yuri to blush slightly before looking to Orion, who was clearing his throat rather loudly.
" You crazy lovebird," Orion teased. " Come on, Aozora; I've get to get you some stuff from our chest."
While Orion led Aozora away towards the group's 'treasure' chest, Yuri stuck out her tongue at her cousin's back. Aozora spotted that little childish rudeness and grinned as Orion proceeded to bend down in front of a very old, battered green chest with lighter green straps on it, and fumbled with the lock with a tiny, golden key. A musical click occurred and Orion continued with what he had set out to do; he began to pull out maps, a matchbox rammed with matches, a pocketknife, a small, handy First Aid kit, and, of all things, two pairs of socks.
" Here's some maps so you know where you're going, a matchbox in case the night catches you in some rural world, a pocketknife because everybody needs on, a First Aid kit to help you if you ever run out of potions and elixirs, and socks because you'll regret it if you don't' bring enough," Orion listed the items and their uses as he stacked them on Aozora's arms.
" Believe me, he's not kidding," Yuri added as she approached them. " I've been lost before in this weird world with no socks and I came so close to getting a frostbite."
" And mud in your shoes without socks is a very nasty feeling," Orion agreed. " And no need to thank me, Aozora; you've done enough for us already. We'd never have gained complete control of this bell tower without your help."
" Yeah," Yuri added. " And you kept Ashita from dying on us after that fistfight with Shanks."
Shanks was a complete 'weirdo', as Orion calls him, and he was a homeless drunkard in search of fistfights with anybody he thinks to be a good target. Take Ashita for instance. Shanks nearly pounded Ashita into complete pulp had Aozora not come up on the scene. A complete stranger at that moment in time, he cast a strange wind-like spell on himself and approached the attacker-Shanks. When his spell came into contact with the attacker, Shanks got knocked off a barely alive Ashita. While Yuri and Orion, who were watching in fear and helplessness in the distance, rushed to their friend to administer an elixir on him, Aozora proceeded to beat the stuffings out of Shanks. Since then, nobody in Twilight Town had seen Shanks.
It was then that the four became friends and they had proceeded to help each other in any way they can. Like right now, in which Ashita, Yuri, and Orion are helping Aozora get ready for a new trek to unknown lands in search of the sky-child.
" Basically, I've got to find this sky-child," Aozora told Yuri and Orion as Ashita returned with an armload of potions and elixirs. " And I've also got to give the keychains to the people I know who they really belong to."
He fingered the three keychains the pocket of his coat. One of the chains was the darkest steel, with a black, iron crown at its end. One was a silvery white chain, with a pale moon pendent at its end, the shape of three circles, one bigger than the other, etched into it. The last was a clear, crystalline chain, with a strange star at the end that glowed in the colors of the occasional auroras that traveled through the sky of Twilight Town.
" And that means that it'll be the last time I see the moon chain, right?" Yuri asked, pouting at the same moment in time.
" I'm sorry, Yuri," Aozora grinned, placing a reassuring hand on the girl's left shoulder. " It just doesn't think you to be its master."
" Oh…" Yuri moped. " But it's so pretty…I wish it was a charm instead of a keychain or whatever it is."
" Can't always get what you want, my spoiled friend," Ashita stated calmly, before his voice turned hard and serious. " Be careful out there, Aozora. There aren't as many nice people as you think there are. If you run into any trouble here, come back to us or use that whistle we showed you and we'll help you, okay?"
The grin on Aozora's face revealed his deeper emotions for his friends: gratitude.
" Thanks, you guys," Aozora said quietly. " If it weren't for you three, I'd never have lasted this long out in that wild world."
He slowly made his way to the red door, before he found himself being hugged by three pairs of arms at once.
" Good luck," were their parting words and Aozora slipped out of the top area of Twilight Town's bell tower and made his way downstairs towards an unexplored universe, this time on his own.
I've got to find this sky-child, he told himself. I must.
" So this is where we start looking for Riku and King Mickey?" Sora asked of his friends, his arms behind his head, as he surveyed the scant crowd in the train station of an industrial city bathed in the colors of the sunset.
" That's what Leon said," Goofy replied, referring to one of their friends back at Traverse Town, the place where Sora, Donald, and Goofy first met and began an adventure to ultimately led to the doors of Kingdom Hearts.
" The info which he got from Cloud," Donald responded, mentioning that cold knight they met at the Coliseum. He never really did trust the moody warrior and probably never will.
' The info which he got from some distant friends," Sora finished, fingering the hood of his black jacket. His sky-blue eyes surveyed the crowd and the whole of the train station. " There aren't a lot of people around here. We might be able to find one of them wandering around in this place."
" King Mickey does NOT 'wander around', Sora," Donald snapped. " He knows where he's going. King Mickey always knows where he's going."
Sora sighed and rolled his eyes. Ever since they saw King Mickey and Riku within Kingdom Hearts, Donald had become very protective and loyal of his king. Use even one single word when talking about King Mickey and the white duck would blow up in your face.
" Um…" Goofy patiently waited while Donald began a tirade on what words to use when talking about King Mickey. Sora, visibly bored by Donald's rampage, yawned and turned away to explore yet another area of the train station with his eyes, ignoring Donald all the while.
" Hey, look, it's a map!" Sora suddenly exclaimed when he spotted a huge white sheet on a wall of the train station.
" …should not use casual talk when talking about the king-hey!" Donald yelped when he suddenly realized that his comrades had abandoned him and were instead reading a huge map on the wall to his left. Two maps in fact. One was of the world itself and the other was of the universe that included the world.
"…the bell tower is right here," Goofy pointed out a rather visible landmark on the map.
"And the bell tower is right there…" Sora looked out the huge windows on wall to his right to the rustic tower that loomed above the smokestacks of this industrial city.
" And there's the information center for newcomers two blocks from that bell tower," Sora turned back to the map and looked over the labels of the grid of squares and buildings that represented the whole of Twilight Town. " North of the bell tower."
" You think we can get information on King Mickey and Riku?" Goofy asked uncertainly, leaning casually on his round, steel shield that bore the insignia of the king he served-the outline of the king's head.
" Yeah, we can ask, " Have you seen a small person with huge round ears and a tall teenager with silver hair?" Do we know of anyone other than King Mickey with big ears?" Sora asked sarcastically.
" Big ears?" Donald gapped at Sora's use of vocabulary when describing his king. " That is NOT-"
Sora reached over and held his beak shut. Donald took to squabbling from his throat and flailing his arms about.
" Look, Donald, we are looking for your king and my friend and that means we don't' have time to use formal vocabulary. We are running out of time and therefore we have to find them the fastest way possible. Now let's not talk about vocabulary and focus more on finding Mickey and Riku. Finding Mickey is your priority, isn't it?" Sora questioned.
Donald pulled Sora's hand off his beak and grumbled, " Fine."
Sora suddenly grinned and, slapping the court wizard on the back, said, " Aww, cheer up! I know how protective you are of your king. It's actually kind of funny watching you vent your anger on us in public. But we really don't' have time to get into small arguments-Goofy?"
Goofy was staring out one of the windows that faced north, north towards the bell tower. In fact, he had himself literally squashed up against the window, his nose flattened against the glass and the whole of his body seemingly pasted to the glass.
" Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Goofy asked as the others approached him. " Right there…on that street."
Sora and Donald peered through the glass window down on the busy streets of Twilight Town. Not being able to see much, they pressed their faces against the glass window-at least Sora did. Donald was forced to turn his head and look down from the side of his head; his beak sometimes provided a bit of a disadvantage in situations like this.
" No, I don't see anything," Sora admitted.
" You see that street," Goofy tapped the glass, his finger pointing in the direction of the bell tower. "That white, jumpy thing?"
" I don't see it," Donald complained, leaning even harder on the glass window, his eyes straining to see what Goofy could see.
" Don't you guys see it?" Goofy asked, uncertainty subtle in his voice. " That there is a funny-looking white jumpy thing going down that there street-"
" Isn't that one of those Heartless we fought back at Traverse Town before coming here?" Sora asked, worry blooming in his voice, yet his voice also grew a bit high with excitement with the prospect of yet another battle awaiting him and his friends.
" Not those again," Donald moaned. " I've seen enough of them, thank you very much. I don't' need to see this one, either."
With that, he strutted away from the window and took to reading the map of Twilight Town, while the other watched the white Heartless leap and traverse about…on a definite direction towards the bell tower.
" It's going towards the bell tower!" Sora exclaimed. " Right at it! But why?"
" It says that the bell tower's been shut down for a few years, " Donald replied as he read an inscription of the bell tower on the map. " Funding for the keeping of the bell tower failed and they had to close it down. But somebody scribbled here that some darkness resides in the bell tower for decades. Darkness?"
He turned to the surprised faces of Sora and Goofy.
" Darkness here? Gawrsh, and that's before King Mickey disappeared," Goofy stated, visibly puzzled and scratching his head.
" Even before Ansem started his research?" Sora asked carefully, referring to the Ansem Reports he and his friends had to find in order to learn Ansem's purpose in merging with the Heartless.
" Gawrsh," Goofy commented. " The Heartless have been here for a really long time, then, right?"
" Let's go to the bell tower," Sora decided immediately.
" It's been closed for decades," Donald objected. " Wouldn't it be all boarded up?"
" I think the white Heartless is trying to get in," Sora countered stubbornly. " If it can get in, so can we."
" But those white Heartless can twist into small spots while we can only stay as we are now," Donald protested. " It probably can get into small cracks on the bell tower and all but we can't. If we try to break in, we'd create a scene-hey! Wait for me!"
Donald waddled madly after his departing friends, who were pretending to talk with each other and making Donald furious that he was left out. When Donald finally caught up with them, they made their way out of the train station and headed in the direction of the bell tower.
" The Dream Heart is moving, Master," the hooded figure spoke to the being sitting in an elegantly carved chair in the room. " It is determined to get to the seeker before we can. What can we do?"
The being was swathed completely in red, adorned in a thin red cloak with black belts crisscrossing all over his body and arms. He wore red trousers and black boots, and his hands were encased in red and black gloves. His head was in red, too, with belts going all over his face. Only one of his eyes were visible and its was narrowed down in frustration, the yellow iris glaring.
" Try to stop it without being seen," the red being replied, his voice, cold, clear, and precise. " It cannot give the seeker the information the seeker seeks. If it has already reached the seeker, kill it and stop it from telling the seeker more than we want the seeker to know. Make sure you are not seen."
The hooded figure, cloaked and swathed up in black, bowed its head and turned to go.
" Remember," the red figure stated. " You cannot be seen. If they see you, they will eventually find out. And if they find out, our plan will be ruined. Do not be seen."
The cloaked figure paused to contemplate the words, before turning away completely and leaving the room.
The red being smiled darkly and put his hands together.
" The Keyblade Masters…we know of two already; we must find the third one! Three Keyblade Masters must reveal themselves and then…we can carry out our plan. And all will fall into darkness!"