Thunder rumbles high in the atmosphere of the dark city, carrying with it the threat of a storm, a threat that looms constantly over this place in the In-Between, where everything is Nothing. It never actually rains, but the menace is always there, hovering in the background.

A man in a black cloak leans against a black metal wall, the base of a skyscraper that rises high into the gloomy air like the countless others that provide this place its bleak ambience. He wears a long hooded coat of black, plus black pants, boots, and gloves, his lower body blending near perfectly into the wall except for the zippers that reflect the glittering lights from neon signs, the only light in this forsaken place minus the tiny moon that hovers in the sky, not yet complete.

His hood is pulled back to reveal a gaunt face that seems more accustomed to playfulness and glee than the moodiness that weighs on it now. A shock of spiked red hair stands out like a beacon of brightness against the city's gloom.

The name he has been given is Axel, and while he doesn't necessarily like it, he realizes that it's all he's got now. He remembers his other name, the one he had before, but that was another time, another place.

Another world.

He hears footsteps coming his way, and looks up from his contemplative staring at the asphalt of the city's street to watch this new arrival. The approaching figure is dressed the same as Axel, a black coat with the hood down, and his golden blonde tower of spikes stands out just as much as Axel's red. He's much younger than his fellow coat-wearer, perhaps only sixteen, but the look in his eyes, one of pure grit and concentration, seems centuries old.

The boy walks past Axel without a word, not even sparing him a glance.

"So, that's it then, huh?" Axel asks the blond boy, his tone even and without inflection. "You've made up your mind about this, huh? You're going to turn your back on the Organization."

The boy stops and spares Axel a sideways glance, something that could be frustration in his blue eyes. Closing those eyes, the boy turns to fully face his interrogator. When he opens them again, they are clear and bright. Axel finds them no less than mesmerizing.

"If they aren't going to give me the answers I need to know, which they won't," the boy practically spits, sounding angry, "Then yes, I think I am." He shakes his head lightly. "I'm sorry Axel, or at least as sorry as I can be, but I have to know why. Why did the Keyblade choose me? Why did they lie to me, use me, like they did?" His fists clench, trembling slightly. "Why am I the only one who goddamn feels anything around here, huh? I'm not supposed to, and yet…"

"So it's your feelings then, eh?" Axel shouts, exiting his slouch and stalking forward a few steps. Something like rage wells up inside him, filling him in a way that catches him off guard, nearly breaking his stride. "Those feelings aren't going to protect you when the higher ups send someone to unmake you, y'know. And they certainly won't do you any good once you're reduced to nothing but a Dusk, if you're not killed outright."

The boy blinks up at his former compatriot, still as solid and determined as ever.

"Who would know I'm gone?" he says, something maudlin in his tone, resigned, melancholic. A hundred emotions that Axel can't even feel. The boy turns and begins to walk away once more. "No one's going to miss me."

Axel feels something odd, an anomalous lump in his throat that seems to radiate inside his entire being. Vague memories of sorrows past, sorrows born under his old moniker, give a name to it: Sadness.

"That's not true at all," he mumbles, not sure whether the departing boy can hear, or even if Axel wants him to. "I would miss you… Roxas."

Restoration at 12%

The sun shines down upon Destiny Islands, the same as it ever does. The afternoon air is the perfect temperature for fall, neither bitingly cold nor oppressively hot. School is out for the day, and the front lawn of Destiny Islands High School is full of young teens, huddling in groups and eagerly discussing either the events of the day or plans for the evening.

One girl stands alone in the midst of the grouped masses, her auburn hair gently billowing back with the breeze. She wears the same uniform as the other girls, plaid skirt and white shirt with a blue tie. Her blue cardigan rests around her waist, bouncing up and down as she makes her way through the crowd, something in her eyes suggesting that her thoughts are anywhere but where she is.

Another group of girls notice and, as teens are wont to do, immediately huddle closer to speculate about things that do not concern them.

"Every day it's the same thing," a girl with long, curled green hair comments to the rest of her clique, something nigh venomous in her every word. "She just walks right past everybody like they don't even exist. Won't talk to anybody. It's like we're beneath her or something."

"I hear you, Rydia," agrees another girl, her pink hair tied back in a braid. "It's the same story at lunch. I haven't seen her eat with anybody all year, not once. It's like she's actively avoiding any human contact at all."

"Maybe something is going on with her," suggests a blonde girl, sunlight highlighting her flaxen hair.

"Oh, there's something going on with her alright, Penelo," Rydia says with a scowl and pouty lips. "She thinks she's better than everybody, uh huh. Just because she's the mayor's daughter…"

"Adopted daughter," the pink-haired girl interjects.

"Exactly, Serah, thank you," Rydia agrees with an approving nod. "Just because the mayor took her into his home after whatever freak accident got her dropped off here thirteen years ago, she thinks she's hot stuff. It's infuriating."

Penelo bites her lip before speaking up. "Well, she wasn't always this way," she says, her voice wavering a bit, not used to defying the will of the clique. "I remember she used to talk to us all the time. We were all good friends." Suddenly, an idea comes to the girl's head. "She used to always be with that Riku kid, y'know, before he… Well, before whatever happened to him. Maybe…"

"You're right, I almost forgot!" Rydia says, nodding sagely. "I'll bet that's what happened. Her little boyfriend got a little too close for her daddy's liking, and the mayor had him like, thrown in a dungeon or something."

"There's no dungeon in city hall," Penelo protests.

Despite their attempts at discretion, Kairi can nonetheless hear every syllable the group is whispering about her, back pressed up against a nearby tree where they won't see her. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, sighing at the cruel words before moving on, not wanting to hear any more of their slanderous invective.

She walks the path up the hill back home, thinking on what she'd heard. It's true that she has been exceptionally solitary this year, her classmates kept at arm's length. And it's not for any reason they might have come up with, any haughtiness or spite in the redhead's heart.

It's because of sadness.

"Kairi!" calls out a familiar girlish voice from down the hill behind her. Kairi stops and takes a moment to plaster on a smile, not wishing to alienate one of her few remaining friends. She looks down to see Selphie, clad in her own school uniform, her brown hair bouncing around her face as she makes her way up the path.

"Hey, Selphie," Kairi greets the younger girl, fifteen and only a sophomore, as she stops in front of her. "What's the rush?"

Selphie grins up at her. "I wanted to catch you before you got down the hill. Your house isn't far from here, and once you get there…"

Kairi's smile falters at the truth of Selphie's words. "Oh, uh, yeah. So what did you want?"

"Okay, so I know that you're kind of in a weird, like, loner phase," the girl says, twisting a strand of hair around her finger, "But I wanted to see if you'd come out to the little island with me this afternoon. I asked Tidus, but he's gotten all wrapped up in some ballgame, and Wakka's still at work…"

"Sorry, not today," Kairi replies, more curtly than she'd intended. Seeing the saddened look on Selphie's face, she decides to explain, hoping that the younger girl will understand. "Do you remember those boys who used to hang out with me all the time? We'd go to the island together…"

"You mean Riku?" Selphie asks, remembering the moody silver-haired boy who had disappeared from the islands a little less than a year ago. Rumors abounded as to his current whereabouts, or whether he was even still alive. "Yeah, you hung out with him a lot. I wonder what happened to him…"

Kairi smiles at the younger girl, thinking on her best friend somewhere out in the beyond, other worlds. The details are still fuzzy, like she's missing a huge chunk of information about him, but…

"He's very far away right now," is all she decides Selphie needs to know. It wouldn't be right to burden the sophomore with the oddity of knowing of other worlds. "But I know that he'll come back and we'll see him again one day."

"Sure," is all Selphie says, quietly under her breath, miffed at the oddly dreamy tone in Kairi's voice.

"But do you remember the other boy?" Kairi asks, a bright feeling swelling in her heart at the thought of him.

"Uh, no. I don't think there was…"

"He's real," Kairi says in a suddenly steely tone, shocking Selphie into backpedaling a few steps. Devastated that she'd upset the young girl, Kairi softens. "Sorry, Selphie, but he is. I think he went away at the same time Riku did, but his voice… His voice used to be there, in my heart, and now it's gone. I can't remember his face, or even his name…"

"That sounds awful, Kairi," Selphie says sympathetically. "I can't imagine…"

Kairi sighs, silently agreeing with the sophomore that no, she couldn't imagine. No one could. And what's more, she's sure there's something else, someone else, her heart is calling out to but getting no response from. She vaguely remembers red hair, so much like her own…

"Anyway," she eventually says to the bewildered looking Selphie, turning away, "I made a promise to myself that until I remembered them… I mean, him, I wouldn't go back to that island. Not for anything."

"Oh," is all Selphie says, confused by this odd behavior. She's always seen Kairi as so wise and mature, and suddenly this nonsense about boys who don't exist? "Okay, Kairi. I guess I'll see you soon then…"

Selphie bolts back the other way, and Kairi turns her head to watch her go, a breeze blowing her hair back into her eyes. She settles it with a flip and continues up the path, not stopping until she crests the hill.

The play island occupies the same spot it always has, about two miles out from the largest resident island. From the back Kairi doesn't recognize any of her most treasured landmarks, but she remembers her and Riku on the small paopu islet, and the other boy with them, watching the sunset.

She tries not to dwell on it as she starts down the hill and toward home, keeping her eyes on the path in front of her. There are things she remembers about that island clear as day but for a single detail, an anomalous boy that may as well have had no name. It's without a doubt the most frustrating thing she's ever experienced.

She reaches her house soon enough, a two-story plantation style home with a wraparound porch. The window that her room is behind lies farthest to the left, the curtain drawn and the lights dimmed.

Sighing, she lowers herself into the cushioned wicker couch next to the door, leaning back into its soft padding. There are too many houses and tall palm trees in the way for her to see the play island, but she knows exactly where it is, like it's calling to her very core. Her heart.

Come to think of it, there seems to be something else in her heart at the moment, a sudden heavy burden in her chest that spreads up to her forehead, pressure gathering there.

"Naminé?" a male voice asks interrogatively, breaking through Kairi's rush of discomfort. Despite not recognizing it in the least, the redhead nevertheless casts her gaze around to see if there is someone approaching. She sees no one. "Naminé, what's happening to me?"

Kairi struggles to her feet, but her legs are as wobbly as a newborn calf's, and she collapses back into her seat, darkness edging out her vision…

She sees someone in the darkness, falling endlessly through the void. The figure seems far away, but she can see a few details: a red jumpsuit and black hoodie with white sleeves, spiky brown hair…

Suddenly the details change and the mysterious figure, a boy, is wearing black and white, with spiked blond hair rising above his head.

"Who are you?" Kairi asks the boy, her voice echoing in the black emptiness. "Why did you call me that? My name isn't Naminé. It's…"

"Oh!" the mysterious boy's voice exclaims, sounding delighted. "I think I know… Kairi, right?"

"Yes, that's it. My name is Kairi."

"You're that girl he likes," the voice says with a hint of knowing. "I dreamed about you. He must have made me…"

"Who?" Kairi asks, a desperate feeling like none she's ever known before rising up inside of her. "Who are you talking about?"

"Somebody…"

"I needa name!" Kairi demands, determination edging out desperation and taking control. "Please, just tell me! I…"

"You don't even remember my name, Kairi?" a third voice suddenly interrupts, so different from the boy she'd been previously conversing with. This voice sounds lively and sure, suffusing ever word with raw emotion. He sounds exasperated, but at the same time full of joy…

"Are you… Telary?" Kairi blurts out the first name that comes into her head, though why that name is Telary she has no idea.

"Not at all, but I think he'll be glad to know you thought of him," the cheerful voice says, and suddenly the image of a smirk comes to Kairi's mind. "You know how neurotic he can get…"

"Who are you talking about?" Kairi demands, going for as fierce an attitude as possible. "Would you please just give me a name…?"

"I'll give you a hint," the voice concedes, and Kairi can momentarily think of nothing but clear blue eyes rolling exasperatedly. "Everything else you'll have to figure out on your own, but… It starts with an 'S'. I'll bet that will be enough…"

Kairi's eyes snap open, and she frantically casts her gaze around the porch, finding nothing has changed but the position of the sun in the sky, closing in on the horizon.

"Something else," Kairi mumbles to herself, suddenly feeling the need to clutch her heart, like the vessel is overflowing and only she can hold together what's inside.

And just like that, everything begins to click into place.

Gasping at her sudden revelation, Kairi stands and darts into her house, racing straight up to her room. She skids to a stop inside, catching the door with one hand and shutting it tightly.

Restoration at 36%...

Be advised, restoration speed has increased by factor of 2.

A blue crystal that shouldn't exist flies up into the air, hovers for a brief moment, and falls back down into a black-gloved hand.

The man in the black cloak, hood up to conceal his face, watches in amazement as the numbers on the computer's main screen begin to rise rapidly, far faster than they had been all throughout the week.

Putting away his trinket, he types a few commands into the console's keyboard, making sure that the sudden rapid growth isn't going to harm the subject two chambers over, or the ones in the hall. Looking at the medical charts, he actually begins to see an improvement.

There's a sudden sound from his cloak's pocket, two sharp beeps. Frowning, Cloak reaches into his coat and pulls out a small pager device, the source of the annoying noise. He reads the red digital word across its face:

Den. Now.

Sighing deeply, he returns the device to his pocket and makes his way out of the small laboratory.

It takes only a minute to reach the manor's den, once surely a cozy little nook, but now nothing but a dilapidated wreck, from the fallen chandelier to the heavy oak table cracked in two. Various other debris lies all around, and a large shelving unit has even falling over. The only light is filtered in through the room's grimy windows, giving a sense of gloom to the entire place.

But Cloak ignores all that, focusing only on the man in the high-backed chair, red bandages covering most of his face. One hole reveals a right eye the color of dull gold, and another his mouth, cracked lips surrounded by tanned skin. He wears a long red cape draped around his shoulders, and a long black cloth covers most of his black clad legs and leather boots.

Oddest of all is the two belts cinched around his head, crossing each other where his left eye should be.

"The progress is astonishing," Cloak reports, taking a seat opposite the man in red. "Like it's suddenly doubled. I don't know how it happened, but I have to tell you DiZ…"

"It seems that his encounter with Naminé put Roxas in contact with Kairi," DiZ interrupts, waving one black-gloved hand and a long tan sleeve. "And from there, his heart was able to find her. With such a strong connection made, it won't be long now at all."

"So it's nearly finished, eh?" Cloak marvels, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers thoughtfully. After a moment, he leans forward. "Now that you mentioned it, things are starting to become much clearer."

"The holes in your memory are beginning to fill in," DiZ informs Cloak, nodding sagely. "Since I was able to shield you from the harshest effects of Naminé's powers, you're only getting a small taste of what's happening to everyone else who knew the Keyblade wielder."

"It's amazing to think that all this trouble was caused by one little Nobody," Cloak marvels, shaking his head. "Naminé's skills with memories are truly something to behold. She's actually chaining them together."

"Yes, she has been quite useful," DiZ admits dully. "Although it was her who started this mess to begin with."

"You know she was forced to do that. You were there."

DiZ shrugs nonchalantly, like it isn't even important.

Something has become exceedingly important to Cloak in these past few months of his association with the bandaged man, though, a question that has nagged at him from the start.

"I think I deserve to know now," he says evenly, leaning back in his chair and resting his hands in his lap. "What has been the purpose of all this for you? You don't even know him, so what is the point of restoring him?"

DiZ's single eye stares impassively at Cloak for a very long time. After the pause, he leans forward and whispers a single word.

"Revenge."

Cloak cocks his head at his strange collaborator, silently mouthing the word back at him.

"Now you know my secret," DiZ says with a smirk and a sardonic air. "And I of course know all about the things you are trying to hide yourself."

"I suppose that makes us even," Cloak concedes bitterly, grinding his teeth together in frustration.

DiZ stands up and looks down at Cloak, clasping his hands behind his back under his cape. It's an obvious power move, but Cloak feels no need to stand himself and counter.

"Yes, it seems it does," the bandaged man says plainly, nodding once. "Which is quite fortuitous, I must say, since we are nearly to the end of our endeavor. All we need now is for Roxas to add his power, and things will have all worked out rather splendidly, I must say."

"Do you need me to get him to come here?" Cloak asks, cocking his head to the left. Internally, he cringes at the thought of returning to DiZ's false data world, but if it means his goals can be reached, he's willing to venture in once more.

DiZ shakes his head. "With what I have planned for him tomorrow, he shall come to us quite of his own accord. I'm sure of it."

"Then that's it," Cloak says, rising from his chair and moving to the door before DiZ can say anything else.

"Not so fast, my friend," the bandaged man calls softly. Scowling, Cloak turns to face him. "There is still the matter of Naminé. Her unique birth and powers have made her valuable to us so far, but with this affair at an end, I think it would be best if she were to… disappear. Permanently."

"How can you even suggest that?" Cloak rages, his anger summoning his sword to his hand in a violet flash. "After all she's done for us…"

"Roxas is not the only one who was never meant to exist," DiZ says, his voice hard as granite. "I know it may seem unpleasant to you, but I firmly believe that even a Nobody such as she cannot be allowed to live, insofar as the creatures can live." DiZ takes a pair of strong steps, fire blazing in his single revealed eye. "Take care of it…" The bandaged man chuckles, something almost fond in the sound.

"…Ansem."

Restoration at 66%...

Kairi stands on the seashore, looking out once again at the island she and the boys used to play on. She is certain there were two of them now, a trio of friends there for each other through thick and thin.

She's wearing her uniform once again, having rushed here from school as soon as it had let out, ignoring the whispered words from her schoolmates. In one hand she holds her tote, in the other, a green glass bottle.

"Uh, hey Kairi," a familiar voice says behind her, though not one she'd expected to hear. Turning, she sees Penelo standing a few feet away, looking at her bashfully.

"Hi Penelo," the redhead greets cheerily, waving the hand grasping the glass bottle. "What are you doing here? Aren't your friends…?"

Penelo shrugs. "They've, uh, actually been getting on my nerves lately," the girl admits with a shrug, looking past Kairi to the open ocean. "They can be such gossips, and they say mean things a lot, so… Anyway, I noticed you running out here."

Kairi giggles. "I think everyone did. But, that's okay."

"What's, uh, going on?"

The redhead turns back to the ocean, waving the bottle for emphasis. "There's a letter in here that I wrote yesterday."

"Who's it for?" Penelo shakily inquires. "Not that it's really my business…"

"The boy I can't remember," Kairi answers, the words coming out in a rush. She smiles as they leave her lips. "Riku and I's best friend. The one I love."

"Uh huh," Penelo says skeptically, wondering for the hundredth time if following Kairi like this wasn't a monumentally terrible idea.

"The letter is a promise," Kairi continues, almost dreamily. "It says that no matter what, wherever that boy is, I'll find him, because our hearts are connected. We made another promise together, and this letter is where I start fulfilling it, I just know it."

"I hope he gets it," Penelo says sincerely, the romance of the moment temporarily beating out its strangeness.

Kairi bends down and awaits the incoming wave. When it rises up to hit her black dress shoe, she lowers the bottle into it, letting the current send it drifting out into the sea. She watches it bob farther and farther out, a smile growing on her face with every second.

"Starts with an 'S'," she repeats to herself, though she's sure Penelo can hear it too. "Isn't that right, Sora?"

Restoration at 84%...

"Two please!" Pence declares cheerfully to the young woman behind the counter at Sunset Station Ice Cream. She nods and begins to calculate the total.

"That'll be sixty-five munny," she declares, taking the boy in the long red jersey's munny and placing it into her register. Another man comes up behind her to hand off two frozen rectangles of Sea Salt ice cream, which she passes to Pence. He eagerly takes one in each hand, holding on tight to their thin wooden sticks.

He thanks the shop girl and goes on his way, licking at one icy treat with a fervor as he heads for the exit to Sunset Station, the only place in Twilight Town that serves his favorite ice cream flavor. He loves the salty-sweet treat so much that he doesn't even mind having to brave the train platform to get one.

He did go in quite early, though, to beat the after-work rush hour. The only train docked now is the one to Sunset Terrace, and as far as Pence can tell nobody is in a rush to go there.

There's a sudden loud noise that draws the slightly pudgy boy's attention back to the platform just in time to see a large door retracting into the ceiling, another train coming in. With nothing else to do but help Olette start that independent studies project, Pence decides to watch.

His eyes widen as he realizes that the train clacking along to a stop at Berth Zero is no ordinary train. Instead of the dull orange color of most Twilight Town cars, this one is colored a deep purple with a golden grille sticking out in front. Atop the car is a purple cone, rising high to a point some ten feet in the air, covered with images of white stars and crescent moons.

Most disturbing, however, is the fact that through the violet tinted glass at the train's front, Pence can see no conductor.

"So the rumors are true," Pence says softly to himself, both of his ice cream bars forgotten, which is a good indicator of how truly shocking this is to the boy.

For years rumors have persisted of a mysterious "ghost train" that had only been seen by a few from the high perch of Sunset Hill, rolling along the tracks through the plain green hills and valleys beyond Twilight Town. One story purported that it was the private car of a long dead sorcerer, others that it carried illicit narcotics into the town from parts unknown.

But the most popular rumor of all was that the train existed to ferry damned souls to the clutches of their eternal punishment.

There's a loud hiss of air as the train's door slides open, and Pence immediately seeks refuge behind a trash can, futilely bending down in an attempt to hide himself. There's no way his soul is going for a ride to the afterworld.

He's shocked, then, when a small creature that can only be half his height emerges, dressed head to toe in a black cloak, hood up to conceal most of his face. Pence is hardly looking at the man's face, however, far too distracted by two hood-covered ears the size of dinner plates.

Restoration at 99%...

Here it is folks, the beginning to the sequel to Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom. I am so glad to get to introduce this both to my loyal readers and any newcomers.

And yes, I realize I skipped all Roxas prologue stuff, but honestly I did not want to write, and I suspect you wouldn't have wanted to read, like five chapters without Azlyn and Telary in them, so I just put what I thought was important stuff here in this prologue. I hope it doesn't incite anybody, but that's just the way it's gonna be.

Well anyway, feel free to review what you've read, and if any newcomers want to check out the first Keys to the Kingdom, it's in my bio.

Looking forward to hearing from people!