Chapter 1

"Sora! Wake up, Sora!"

"Go back to the Realm of Darkness!" the boy yelled, jumping so that his feet were under him as he crouched, Keyblade in hand. He surveyed his surroundings, finding himself in the Gummi Ship, orbiting above a world he had never seen before, and not a Heartless in sight. "Um..."

Sora turned his attention to Donald Duck, whose arms were crossed as he gave Sora a look that reminded him of the looks his mother would give him when he forgot to clean his room. His mind wandered to when he might get to see his mother again...

He shook his head. No time for such thoughts. He had to find Riku, then he could worry about home. "Where's the danger, Donald?"

"Gawrsh, Sora, there's no Heartless or Nobodies around." Goofy chuckled behind him. "We were just waking you up so we could go explore that world down there."

Sora nodded slowly as he remembered the previous day they had spent in the Land of Dragons with Pin- Mulan! The day they had spent with Mulan! After they had finished there, they had taken the Gummi Ship to the next world, and parked in orbit, deciding to rest for a few hours before going back into danger.

He jumped off of the seat he had landed in when Donald woke him, dismissing his Keyblade as he did so. "Right! Let's go!"

After throwing the lever to make the hammocks they had slept in retract into the ship's storage compartments, they gathered at the portal in the back of the ship. Donald hit the crystal with his staff, teleporting them to the warp point on the world below. They appeared in the courtyard of an ominous, gloomy castle. There was no sun or moon, and the stars themselves were hard to see through the clouds cloaking the sky. There was not a living thing in sight, though outside of the courtyard and across a bridge there were some very dead trees.

"I vote we check out the inside first," Sora said, already moving to open the large doors leading inside the castle. Donald took the crystal and put it in his pocket so that the green warp point would vanish. It was never a good idea to leave a portal to their ship open in an unknown world.

Sora held the door open for Donald and Goofy, walking in after them. He gave the entrance hall a quick look over. Clean, but seemingly abandoned; scratched, torn walls; a tall ceiling with a few holes in it... "Hey, what is this place?"

"It's huge!" Donald gawked.

"And sorta gloomy, don't ya think?" Goofy added.

Sora nodded as he mused, "I wonder who lives here."

A ferocious animal sound shook the entire castle, and the three jumped into battle positions, scanning for the threat. Goofy was the first to relax. "Hey, does anybody else recognize that?"

Sora crossed his arms as he thought about it. He gave no visible reaction when the sound came again. Oh. "Hey! That's the Beast!"

"Maybe we should check up on him," Goofy suggested, almost nervously. It was a bit worrying that the Beast would sound so upset, especially if it was his castle they were all in. It could only mean something terrible was lurking

There was movement out of the corner of Sora's eye. As it skittered across the floor, Sora was able to make out the flat, yellow eyes of a Shadow Heartless. "Look!"

Donald's and Goofy's eyes followed where Sora was pointing, and they saw the Pureblood go into one of the rooms to the side of the entrance hall. It was the only one with an open door, and a dim light was coming from within.

"C'mon!" Donald yelled, leading the charge to the room. He peeked inside, Sora looking in from above him. "Where did it go?" They could not see any Heartless. The light was from the fireplace, and from a beautiful rose that was suspended in the air above the table in the corner of the room, a glass case covering it. Sora walked in after Donald and Goofy. He was only a few steps in when Donald yelled, "Found it!"

A Shadow came up in front of Sora, just as they had for Donald and Goofy. More continued appearing around them, and the three backed into a triangle with their backs to each other, Sora wielding the Kingdom Key, Donald his staff and Goofy his shield.

"They're all just Shadows," Sora pointed out to his cohorts. "We can take care of them easy!" That was what he thought for the first thirty minutes. Then he began to become more wary of the creatures.

His hopes rose when the last one was vanquished, only to be dashed when a half-dozen more came up before them. "Aw, c'mon, enough already!"

"Somebody help us!" Donald started yelling. Sora was about to tell him to be quiet, as it would only attract more Heartless, but the door was violently thrown open, and Sora feared the monsters had already arrived. Instead of a vicious Heartless on the other side, though, it was the Beast.

He prowled into the room, a numb look in his eyes as he swiped at the Heartless, obliterating them. No more appeared. They were likely too scared. Sora did a fist-pump at the victory, then held his hand up to Beast for a high-five. "Just in time!"

Beast did not return Sora's greeting. Sora lowered his arm as Beast stalked closer. Then, his once ally backhanded Sora to the floor.

His vision went white for several moments, then began to return to him as he sat up, squinting from the new headache he had received. Before he could ask why he had been so harshly greeted, Beast, cradling the glass holding the rose, left the room, not giving them a single word or glance.

"Gee, do you think he maybe forgot who we are?" Goofy asked as they all stood. Sora kept his eyes on the door where Beast had left them. Beast had never been the warmest of fellows, but his behavior was very peculiar.

"With this many Heartless around, something must be up." He concluded that must be the reason that Beast was not acting right.

"Why'd he have to do that?" Donald grumbled as he lead the way from the room, as if he wanted to have a word with the Beast. When Sora and Goofy made it out after him, Donald had his arms crossed and was tapping his foot in thought, looking up the grand staircase at the end of the entrance hall.

"What is it?" Sora asked.

"I just know I saw a lady at the top of those stairs..."

"Well, if the Beast is here in the castle, that lady musta been Belle, right?" Goofy asked. The thought of Belle being with a moody Beast did not settle well with Sora.

"Yeah, maybe so..." Sora's voice trailed off as he looked at the top of the stairs where Belle had supposedly been, trying to make a mental map of how large the area was based off of how big the castle had seemed from the outside. "Belle might know what's happened to the Beast, too."

"C'mon, let's go find her!" Goofy and Donald ran ahead of Sora to chase after Belle. Sora lagged behind, examining the entrance hall once more. The large scratches and tears on the walls... did the Beast make those?

lack danced at the corner of his eye, and Sora turned to the staircase in time to see a wall of flame rise between him and Donald and Goofy. "What! You guys...!"

He could not see through to the other end, but he could hear the sounds of battle. Was it some kind of fire Heartless? Why would it separate them? There had to be one on Sora's side of the flame, too. Yes, he could sense a presence behind him. Sora spun and lifted his Keyblade against an attack, catching the blade of another before it could catch his skull.

The attacker wore the Organization's coat, but unlike the members he had encountered in Hollow Bastion, this one was female. Blue eyes stared at him from under shoulder length auburn hair, seeming completely, utterly lost. "K-Kairi?!"

He was still from the shock, and she seemed to be stuck in an equal state. Finally, her eyes hardened and she growled as she jumped back. She leveled her Keyblade with his face and yelled, "Firaga!"

Sora dodge rolled from the attack on instinct. The sudden movement helped bring him to his senses enough that he could speak. "Kairi, what are you- why are you-?!"

"Stop talking!" She ran at him and swung. He lifted the Kingdom Key to block her unfamiliar Keyblade. She continued to attack, constantly muttering, "You should be dead, you have to be dead..."

"What are you saying?!" He pleaded with her to answer, but she did not seem to hear him. He finally swung back with his Keyblade, countering hard enough to knock her Keyblade away from him and throw her off balance. He reached out to grab her shoulder, but she jumped away, eyes going wide as if his hands were jaws ready to draw her blood. "Kairi, what's wrong?!"

She did not respond. It did not make any sense. He went ballistic. "Why are you here?! Why are you... and why..."

"Gravira!" she screamed. The spell knocked Sora off his feet, but he quickly adjusted to the change in gravity, grabbing Kairi's shoulder before she could impale him with her Keyblade. He swung around the weapon and brought his feet back to the ground. Within a moment of grabbing her shoulder, Kairi had collapsed to the ground and scurried away from him. She looked scared for her life. Scared of him. His throat went dry.

What had the Organization done to her?

"Kairi, why are you working with them?!" Why else would she be wearing their coat and attacking him? "You're not one of them!"

It had been more to himself, convincing himself that it she was not with the enemy, but her angered response destroyed any hope that she was not on their side. "Shut up!"

As she tightened her grip on the grey Keyblade and charged him again, Sora continued to yell at her to stop, to put the Keyblade away, to not be with them.

It was not working. She was not listening. She was trying to kill him.

He had to end it before one of them got hurt, or worse.

"Magnet!" he yelled. Kairi yelped as the spell yanked her body toward him. He quickly grabbed her hand that was wrapped around her Keyblade, holding the weapon away from him. The other hand went around her back to grab her shoulders, forbidding her escape. He felt his entire body weaken at the way she squirmed and writhed when he touched her. He felt his head becoming light, and dots danced in his vision because he was not getting enough oxygen. "Kairi, you're not a Nobody! You don't belong with them!"

She interrupted before he could say anymore. "You don't know anything!" She headbutted Sora as his spell wore off. He stumbled back from surprise, accidentally dropping her. She hit the ground and cast, "Blizzaga!"

Sora brought the Kingdom Key up to absorb the attack, but it was much faster than he had expected and the spell wrapped around his hand. He seethed from the sudden freezing, but it went away almost as quickly when Kairi's Keyblade hilt collided with it. The ice shattered, his Keyblade went flying, and he yelled at the pain in his contorted, bloody hand.

"Kairi, please, stop! It's me, Sora!" he pleaded. She shot a firaga at him. Sora jumped at the wall and started running along it to avoid her successive magic attacks. She was not supposed to know magic.

She should not have been able to hurt him like that. She should not have been that powerful. She should not have been there. She should have been on the islands, waiting for him and Riku to come back. "This isn't you! Stop fighting me! Please!"

Sora saw his Keyblade on the ground, and quickly jumped off the wall. He landed beside it, reached for it with his left hand, but it slipped from under his fingers. He looked up as it arrived in Kairi's hand and vanished.

The girl before him knew magic. She could fight with a Keyblade. She was part of Organization XIII. She girl wanted to kill him. The girl before him was not Kairi at all.

He stumbled away from her, cradling his still bleeding hand to his chest. The pain in his heart was great enough that he almost forgot about how she had crushed his fighting hand. Her figure was blurred through the water in his eyes, but he could see her slowly advancing. He stumbled back.

"I have to kill him," she was saying. Her voice was cracking. Sora quickly wiped at his eyes, and before they were covered again, he thought he saw tears in hers. "He has to... because he can't... he doesn't understand about being a Nobody... he deserves..."

He hit a wall. He felt trapped. Physically, he could escape, no doubt, but he could never escape her, his best friend and his Light. He could never escape Kairi.

She looked ill. She looked tired and worn. She looked small and scared. Sora's good fist was clenched so hard he could feel blood leaking between his fingers. The Organization had done that to her.

"Kairi, please stop..." he pleaded, his voice and body shaking. "This isn't you. It can't be you. You can't be one of them! You can't be a Nobody! You're a Princess of Heart, you can't fall to darkness! It's impossible."

She drew back. "I'm a... what?"

She was listening. He felt himself grinning again at just the fact that she was listening. "You're a Princess of Heart, Kai!" He saw her flinch at the name. He kept going. "You can't possibly be a Nobody. You've lost your heart before, but you didn't fade away into darkness! You're not capable of fading to darkness." She should have known, but it seemed that each word he said was like a new dawn upon her.

Finally, her eyes narrowed again, and her face contorted in anger. "Shut up." She swung the Keyblade. He ducked out of its reach, and it lodged in the wall by his head. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

She grabbed her Keyblade, swinging harder than before. Sora had difficulty evading her fast attacks. She had never been that quick on Destiny Islands. He looked for more words to say, seeing the effect it had on her, but his entire being was focused on getting around her attacks.

She landed a kick to his stomach, and he hit the wall behind him, slumping down but catching himself before he could hit the floor. He held his left arm around across his stomach, his injured hand dangling limply. He was gasping to regain breath. He tried to rise. His eyes were focused on his bent knees, but he found he could not bring his body any higher. It was taking all of his strength to not fall.

He felt her presence above him, and saw the tip of her Keyblade aimed at his chest.

"Kairi..." He wheezed. Fresh, hot tears were burning his eyes. She wanted him dead. She hardly even seemed to know him. "I'm Sora... your best friend... don't you remember?"

"Remember?" She laughed mirthlessly. Her voice was shaking with hysterics. "I remember Hollow Bastion... and sunsets with Axel and Roxas... but you?" Her Keyblade left his vision. "I remember you're important. And that I care about you. And that we used to watch sunsets together... and I remember... I remember..." Her voice had been getting higher and higher, and it finally cracked. He looked up enough to see her small, shaking body. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her head shaking, as if she were trying to block out a bad dream. "I don't remember anything else before this bloody Organization! I just remember being a Nobody, and a rubbish one at that!"

A year had passed since they had last spoken, when he had promised to go back to her, when he had promised to take care of her.

He failed.

Worlds saved, lives won, but he had failed what had mattered the most to him.

He pushed the Keyblade from her hand and pulled her against him. Kairi struggled against him, but she had lost all strength and ability to effectively resist. She continued to struggle against him, as if he were burning her. The tears running down his cheeks and onto her shoulder were burning him. "You're not a Nobody. You're my best friend, my light, my Kairi. You're no one else. You're you."

A fist went against his chest. Sora grit his teeth, waiting to feel her Keyblade through him. "Why can't you just die?" she whispered. Her arms went around him, and she repeated those five words. Once, twice, thrice, her voice soon blurred in his mind and only the words remained. He could feel every tear from her eyes that hit his shoulder.

His knees gave out, and Sora hit the floor, pulling Kairi down with him. She landed in his lap and tried to struggle away, but he was not letting his Light go. He had once. He would never do it again. "What did they do to you?"

It was Organization XIII's fault, he knew. They had taken her from the islands, they had done this to her. They had taken Kairi and turned her into an almost unrecognizable form.

It was his fault, too, because he did not protect her, because he never bothered to make sure she was okay. He let them take her away and destroy her.

"What did they do to you?" he continued to whisper. He could only imagine what might have happened to her during her time with those Nobodies. He was angry, more than he could ever recall being. At them, at himself...

"This is real," she whispered. He was painfully aware of that.

He was painfully aware that the fact that Organization XIII had completely destroyed Kairi was very, very real.

And he would forever hate them for it.

A/N Welcome to Eight Lights (formerly Memory Scars), the continuation of Missing Chains. If you have not read the first part, do not fret, you can go read that now, or I will give a summary at the end of this note. Even if you do not want to read the entirety of Missing Chains, I recommend at least reading the last chapter. It is the fight you just read, but from Kairi's perspective.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you again soon. Have a lovely day!

Missing Chains Summary: Before Sora entered Castle Oblivion, Xemnas ordered Kairi be taken from Destiny Islands and have her memory erased by Naminé. She was then told she was a Nobody and had to join Organization XIII to get her heart back. Wielding Stormfall, given to her by Xemnas, she began to collect hearts for the Organization. With her surface memories locked away, she began to remember those she had lost of Hollow Bastion (Radiant Garden). When she became friends with Axel, Roxas, and Xion, Roxas's presence made her remember Sora, who she then assumed had died and become Roxas. Confused by her supposedly non-existent feelings for the boy Roxas once was, she began to avoid Roxas, and her lack of presence allowed events to carry out similar to as they had in canon, including Xion being erased from memory, and Roxas being caught by Riku and sent back to Sora. Kairi's confusion over Roxas and Sora overwhelmed her, and when Saïx saw she was losing control of herself, he had her thrown in the Organization's dungeon. Days later, Axel rescued her, saying they were going to get Roxas back, but the only way to do that was for her to use her keyblade to kill Roxas's other: Sora.