A/N: Hello again everyone! After a two week hiatus, I am back with year two of Sora's adventure through the Land of Departure Key blade Academy: more twisted, bizarre, and suggestive than the first. As noted in Year 1, this story will dive into Mature territory towards the end. Until then, it will be rated T. It will include a variety of pairings, mostly involving Sora. It will be longer than the first. Sadder, in some ways. More complex. The first third will follow Sora's summer vacation. The second two thirds will follow the rest of the year.

If you are new to this story, I encourage you to read Year 1. It is titled Hero Academy. If you are uninterested, I think this is a good standalone. We will be seeing a LOT more of Organization Thirteen, and as also said before, major protagonists and antagonists in the KH series will rise to the forefront. Please enjoy, review, favorite, and follow. Feedback is invaluable.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own KH, FF, yada yada. I got the idea for my chapter design from Princess-Xion's Finding Hikari.

~X~

Chapter One

~X~

Sora spluttered awake in a world of white. Blinding bright light seared from all sides. He winced and raised his hands over his eyes, hunching into himself and curling his toes. Then he realized he was floating in midair. In panic he reached for wall. When his fingers met smooth glass, he furrowed his brows in confusion. The wall curved. Sora swam through the air, feeling the smoothness encasing him on all sides. It was as if he were stuck in some ellipsoid container. He was barefoot. Something crinkled as he moved. When he adjusted to the light and looked down, his stomach flipped. He was sheathed in a white hospital gown.

Trapped.

In anxiety Sora felt around the container for an escape route. The ellipsoid was cut by four seams. They met at its head; each of the seams' tips measuring ninety degrees. Once Sora found their crossing point, he floated towards it and set himself so that his hands pressed against the back wall and his feet pointed at the wall in front of him. Then he began to kick. A loud beeping noise rang above. Sweat beaded upon Sora's brow. He reeled his foot back and kicked harder. Muffled voices rose somewhere in the distance. When Sora kicked again, a crack appeared in the eerie white surrounding. Outside of it rose a shout. Before Sora could kick again, a metal whirring ascended and a thrumming click echoed around him. The front two seams of the ellipsoid hissed and separated. As they lowered Sora peered over their pointed tips. Mist billowed around him, displaced by the sudden appearance of the world outside his egg, a white room with marble pillars and translucent flowers. The twinkling heads of several other containers like his own thrummed around him. Sora clutched remaining seam edges of his own and let his feet dangle. When he looked down, he yelped. There, watching his splayed legs and crazed expression in a small huddle were several Shinra employees, half of Organization Thirteen, and the small, pale blonde he had seen at the beginning of winter break.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sora," called a voice behind her. When Sora looked up he met two emerald feline eyes and gasped.

"I died?" he barked. Axel rolled his eyes from Reno's side as Reno guffawed.

"No," Reno amended. "You were just in a magically induced coma."

"What?" Sora croaked. He could have said something else, but before he did, his floating powers wore off and he slammed to the bottom of his container. He propped himself up on his elbows as he rubbed his back. Now that he looked around with a clearer eye, he saw that his entrapment looked like a hard-boiled egg with petals on its base and the front cut in two. The pale blonde girl rushed to a small computer at the egg's side and toggled with the features, yelping an apology as Sora stumbled to his feet. Several hands met him as he climbed from the white steel petals on the egg's base to flat ground. When Axel peered closer at the egg, he scowled.

"Tip is cracked," he announced.

"What?" wailed the pale girl, charging forward to examine it. When she saw the faint splintering of glass at one of the flattened seam's tips, she clutched her hands to her hair and whimpered.

"Can we just replace the pane?" drawled Axel.

"Expensive," whimpered the girl. Axel rolled his eyes.

"No shit, it's expensive-"

"Sora!" Reno interrupted suddenly, throwing out his arms and giving the boy a massive hug. His hospital gown crinkled violently. When he pulled Sora away, he laughed again.

"You're a late riser!" he chirped.

"What?" asked Sora.

"You were one of the last to wake up," shot Axel.

"Why?"

"We don't know," responded Reno in a bemused sort of way. "But we figured if you wanted to sleep, we'd let you sleep. We just kept an extra close eye on you incase you woke up without us noticing."

"In case something like this happened," added Axel with a sly grin.

"But we're pleased to report that your reflexes and ingenuity upon waking were stellar!"

"Though we can't say the same for your recuperation after the sleeping mist settled."

"When did it settle?" asked Sora.

"Thirty days, six hours, twenty minutes ago," responded the pale girl from the computer.

"A month?" gasped Sora. He looked at the surrounding containers again. Their insides were clear and empty. The color drained from his face.

"Where are Kairi and Riku?" he whispered. The color drained from Reno's face twice as fast. Axel glanced away with a hint of a smile. Reno beamed.

"Kairi's on a mission," he chirped. "Riku's sleeping sound."

"Sora wasn't the only late riser, was he?" Axel asked Marluxia suddenly. Marluxia grinned and nodded. When he met Sora's eye his glanced sharpened and narrowed. Sora became aware that his body was bare save for his laminated gown. he clutched it around his back and shuffled is toes together in discomfort. Marluxia gave a curt bow. Then he turned with the rest of the Organization and Shinra employees and left. The only remaining humans in the mechanical egg room now were the pale girl, Sora, Axel, and Reno. For a moment there was silence. Sora glanced from one empty egg to the next, picking out the largest and cocking his head.

"Which one is Riku's egg?" he asked as he peered into its soft, hazy glass. Reno slipped his hand around Sora's shoulder and steered him towards the door.

"He's in a separate room," he said. When they reached the identical white hall outside, he turned to Sora with a grim expression and sighed.

"I might as well tell you the truth," he muttered, glancing ahead of him with hesitation. "Riku's darkness got a little, uh… 'Out of hand' towards the end of his… trip in the egg."

"What does that mean?" asked Sora. What felt like a fist had tightened around his heart. Reno bit his lip.

"We woke him up a ways back and he didn't look so good," he muttered. Then he winked. "But after setting him back to sleep we helped him recuperate. He should be right as rain by summer's end."

"Summer's end?" blurted Sora. Reno nodded.

"Yeah, Sora, it's summertime!"

"What date?" asked Sora.

"July twenty fourth," Axel responded behind them.

"JULY-" Sora stammered in shock. He could hardly remember getting into the egg in the first place, let alone sleeping through half a year of his life in one. As he struggled to remember how Organization Thirteen had gotten him into the egg in the first place, Reno steered his shoulder again. They were walking down an adjacent white hall to a set of double doors without handles. Beside the double doors was a metal rectangle with two triangular buttons inside it. One pointed up and the other pointed down. Suddenly a memory came crashing back.

Standing in the exit stairwell to the school's basement after saying goodbye to Argento. Hearing echoing voices from below. Seeing the exit to the back of the school open. The wooden crate on wheels. The yelp of the pale girl.

"What's your name?" Sora's voice echoed in his memory.

"You'll find out soon enough," the phantom girl responded through its chords.

"You can thank Naminé for letting you sleep longer," Reno piped up, pressing the elevator up button and waiting with his hand on his hip for the doors to open. "We contemplated waking you with everyone else, but she said that that was a bad idea. Something about 'disturbing the dream world.' I don't know. I'm only an elected official," he winked.

"She does seem kind of… frazzled," Sora acquiesced, mouthing her name to himself so he could memorize it. Reno nodded and said it seemed like a tiring job.

"Especially dealing with the Organization," he muttered. "Those bozos don't know their heads from their tails."

"Ouch," Axel snapped. Reno jumped and laughed. "I forgot this dunderhead was still following me," he groaned. Axel snorted.

"So… will I go back to Destiny Islands for summer vacation?" Sora asked. Reno pursed his lips and shook his head.

"Sorry kid. No can do," he apologized. "Galactic Federation Vessel left weeks ago. We couldn't pay to take you home if we wanted to."

"You'll have to stay here for the summer," Axel chimed in.

"Oh," Sora faltered, his brows knitting closer. Finally, the green-coated light bulb above shone as the elevator doors opened. Inside stood Larxene and Marluxia with their backs turned. They seemed to be in deep conversation. When Axel cleared his throat, they jumped and whizzed around. Reno waved at them with Sora grinning at his side. Marluxia narrowed his eyes and cast his glance to Axel.

"Just the pair I wanted to see!" Axel announced as he looked from one to the other. Marluxia and Larxene snorted and filed to his side, trading places with Reno and Sora. As the elevator doors closed, Axel waved goodbye and returned back down the hall with the other members of Organization Thirteen. The elevator beeped. Reno reached past Sora to press the button for the second floor. His cologne wafted up Sora's nose. Another memory filtered with it. Sora shaking beneath the table at the burger joint. Reno reaching over him to pick up a five-dollar bill. Vomiting into the mangrove infested lake below the joint's balcony. Sora felt queasy again just thinking about it. As he rubbed his stomach, Reno leaned on the wall behind him and whistled along to the pop music playing from a speaker on the elevator's ceiling. Sora became suddenly aware that the two of them were alone.

"You listen to Yuna?" asked Reno.

"Who-na?" muttered Sora. Reno laughed and repeated himself slowly. Sora shook his head. Reno furrowed his brows and grinned.

"Doesn't she come from Destiny Islands?"

"She'd be from Luca if she did," responded Sora glumly. "I know everyone on my archipelago, and her name doesn't ring a bell." Then he narrowed his eyes and gasped, swiveling around with a beam. "But my Native Tongue professor was named Yuna! She sang in the Yevonite choir!"

"Was she a summoner?" asked Reno.

"No, she was an elementary school teacher," responded Sora.

"Then I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not her," returned Reno. "Unless your Native Tongue teacher goes to this school."

"Nah…" responded Sora. "She'd be too old."

Reno chuckled. The elevator beeped and the doors opened. Familiar territory washed through the path of Sora's eyes. Concrete floors, the exit door, and the stairwell leading all the way around the school's third floor. When Reno trudged up and through the second floor door and turned left, he told Sora to follow him. Once the pair had passed all the empty classrooms and offices, Reno turned another left and took a key from his pocket. He picked the third door down the wall and shoved the key into its lock, turning the knob and pressing his shoulder against it until it swung inwards. Once it opened, Reno guided Sora inside.

The office was sparse yet comfortable. It was much bigger than Axel's- in fact, this room seemed more like a disused lecture hall than anything else. The rising steps where seats must once have sat bolted on an incline ended in a small platform that housed Reno's desk. Sora felt like he was climbing up to a stage. Along the wide steps teetered filing cabinets piled with folders. Reno crossed to the one marked "M- N," opened the drawer marked "first years," and thumbed towards a rather fat folder that looked like it said "Nomura." Once he hoisted it in his arms and shut the filing cabinet with his backside, Reno whistled his way back to his desk and spread the folder's contents across its surface. As he sat down, he called Sora to his side. Sora plopped before Reno's desk in expectation, readjusting his hospital gown and staring at Reno's framed photographs as he waited. There was one of Reno and the bald, sunglasses man he had sat with during midterms. Then there was one of himself and a band of Shinra employees in blue suits. The bottom of the picture read "Doom Squad- 1989." When Reno saw Sora staring at it, he snorted.

"Ah," he worded with a sigh, "the self important stupidity of the young and talented." Then, patting the picture frame fondly, he returned to skimming through Sora's folder with a whistle. When he settled on a page near the back of the pile, he scribbled his signature and drew a fat circle around some print on the page bottom. Then, checking off a few boxes, he drew it to the side and scribbled notes on the page behind it. When Sora peered over his elbow to see what he was writing Reno explained that he was recording Sora's date of awakening. Sora nodded like he understood what that meant.

"In other words, today, Sora," Reno added. Sora furrowed his brows before blushing in realization. When the scraping of Reno's pen filled the room again, Sora peered towards the wall perpendicular to the office door, where a blackboard must have once stood, judging by the position of the wall's cracks. There were tiny rust marks along the ceiling. The floor must have once sat carpet. Now it was barren concrete with odd scuffs of industrial glue. Sora wondered if all the offices in the school were this dilapidated. But, then again, the office with the skull candle Sora had sat in during his first year had been homey. Suddenly, Reno's pen stopped and a sigh filled the air. Sora glanced towards him. Reno sat with his fore and middle finger pressed to the center of his temple, right above the space between his brows. His eyes shut. His teeth bore. Sora shuffled in discomfort. Reno groaned.

"What was I supposed to do?" he muttered. He curled his hand into a fist and tapped it against his forehead. Then, with a gasp, he shot up with wide-open eyes and a grinning mouth and clapped his hands. "Of course!" he cried. Then he hunched over and scribbled more on the extensive line of notes he had been writing. Once he finished he marked the note page with a sticky note and thumbed back through Sora's packet until he reached a thin, spiral bound report labeled, "continuing." Reno curled himself over the first page of the report before nodding and standing with it. Snapping his fingers, he leaned over the right lower drawer of his desk, opened, and thumbed through it until he reached a fat black binder labeled, "Record Keeping." As he flipped it open and scanned for the divider marked N- P, Sora asked what mission Kairi had been sent on. Reno glanced up at him with one beady eye.

"None of your business," he muttered. "Missions are top secret."

Sora's shoulders fell. When he set his elbows against Reno's desk so he could set his chin against his palms, Reno swatted them away. Sora leaned back in his chair and twiddled his thumbs.

"Junction Menu," Reno intoned. Sora frowned in confusion.

"Junction?"

"Junction Menu," Reno repeated. "Doesn't ring any bells?" He flipped back into the folder and scowled, leaning back and rolling his eyes. "Stupid…" he muttered.

"Stupid?" blubbered Sora. Reno snorted.

"Not you, me," he sighed, holding up the binder and yelping when a couple of papers fell out the bottom. Sora scrambled to pick them up. As Reno caught them in his hand and stuffed them haphazardly into the back of the binder, he muttered that he had tried giving Sora someone else's journal. When Sora replied with a glance of confusion, Reno explained that all first years maintained a journal while in their dream pods.

"The journal is the interface between your mind and our computer," he said. "We pose your mind the idea for the journal, and once you name it, we're in. Now, if I could just find yours… Ah!" Reno closed the binder in his hands and strolled to a stack of spiral bound reports on the top of the filing cabinet nearest to the door, glancing down their spines and picking at random. The second pick seemed to be the ticket by Reno's grin. "Jiminy Journal," he piped.

Sora clamped his hand to his head. The room spun. Images of a cricket the size of his palm tipping a top hat as it bowed to meet him, a child sized duck, a man sized dog, a Destiny Islands cut into ugly fragments of crumbling beach and black, tar winged trees with a dark cleft dug in the middle, and a towering door with stained glass fragments in a field of black crackled before his eyes like wildfire. Overlaying the stream like a monster magnified from outside a fish tank, drew a curious, distorted Reno.

"Remember something?" he drawled. The question echoed inside Sora's spinning head. Once he was able to calm himself, Sora gulped and asked what it was.

"What's what, Sora?" murmured Reno.

"The images!" blurted Sora. Reno pursed his lips and blew through them.

"Shit," he muttered to himself. When he leaned towards Sora, he smiled.

"Are you pulling my leg?" he cooed.

"My hand is nowhere near your leg!" Sora cried. Reno rolled his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

"Term of expression, Sora," he sighed. "I'm wondering if you're joshing me. Having me on. Playing a joke."

"I'm not doing any of that!" Sora cried. "When you said Jemima Journal-"

"Jiminy, Sora."

"-Jiminy Journal, I got this train of images in my head!"

"Such as?" asked Reno, thumbing through the spiral report labeled Jiminy Journal: Sora Nomura, as he went.

"A duck, a dog, a cricket, my island destroyed-"

"Your island destroyed? Hm. That part must not be in yet. Can you remember either the duck or dog's name?"

"Uh, Ronald?" blurted Sora. "Scooby? Gloopy?"

"Goofy?"

"Yeah!" cried Sora. A strange, hiccupping laugh reverberated inside his head. For some reason it made him feel happy. "Yeah," he grinned in remembrance. "Goofy and Ronald."

"You mean Donald and Goofy."

"Yeah, what I said."

"Right…" sighed Reno. He slammed the spiral shut and scribbled a long note and his signature on the back. Then, returning to and searching through his desk again, he came out with a short purple form and filled it out. Once he was done, he removed the plastic strip blocking a line of adhesive on the form's end and attached it to the back of the report. When he was finished this, he took the binder labeled Record Keeping and scribbled a signature on a chart close to its back. Then he scribbled a signature on the bottom of a form in Sora's main file. When he asked Sora to initial after him, the boy nodded and did what he was told. Once everything was signed, Reno scribbled out another purple form, slammed it on the front of Sora's file, and replaced it in its filing cabinet. With this done, he fished a walkie-talkie from his middle desk drawer and called the number eleven into it. There was a short spurt of heavy static in response. Reno snorted and muttered, "very funny." Then he plopped in front of his desk and waited. Sora copied him.

"You still not going to tell me what mission Kairi is on yet?" he asked. Reno shook his head.

"I'm great at keeping secrets," Sora tried. Reno chortled. There was a wrap on his office door. Before he could say, "come in," Marluxia entered.

"You wanted me?" the man asked. Reno nodded and asked for him to sign some paperwork. Marluxia nodded and shuffled up the steps to Reno's side, bending and scribbling his signature over Reno's shoulder as the man turned pages for him. On the last page, Reno asked Sora to sign as well. When Sora's hand faltered over the empty box, Marluxia glared.

"Time's a-wasting," Reno drawled. "Wouldn't want us to rethink your probation, would you?"

"I'm off probation?" gasped Sora. Whether Marluxia opened his mouth to object or concur, Sora never knew. Before he could speak, Reno held up his hand for silence and nodded with a beam. Sora jotted down his name. The moment his pen left the fresh inked paper, the form disappeared into a manila envelope at the left hand side of Sora's massive file.

"All paperwork done!" sang Reno with a finite dot of his pen. As he closed Sora's folder and made to hoist it under the pit of his arm, Sora piped up to ask what he would do for the rest of the summer.

"That's out of my jurisdiction," Reno chirped as he emptied Sora's file back into the cabinet marked N- M. Once back at his desk, he sealed the manila envelope, hoisted it under his arm, jogged back down the steps, and emptied the stack of spiral reports on the cabinet nearest to the door into an empty rolling cart at its side. It cleared the last step with a thud. Reno chucked the manila envelope on top of it. Once it fell he clamped his hand to his forehead and asked Marluxia to walkie his team for him.

"Which of them?" asked Marluxia.

"I don't know, the captain, Cid, Cisnei, whoever," Reno drawled. "Just get me to Costa Del Sol."

Marluxia muttered something nearly unintelligible into the walkie-talkie as Reno gave him what sounded like a run down of Land of Departure operations. When he finished talking he legged it back to his desk and removed several belongings, including the nametag he wore on a daily basis.

"I think that's the last of it," he mumbled. He grinned, sauntered back down the steps, and patted Sora on the shoulder with a wink. Then, he snapped his fingers and ran to the desk one more time, his forefinger held high in emphasis. "One more thing," he muttered.

"You said you wanted a mission, Sora?" he asked. Sora nodded. Reno grinned, fished one last stack of forms from his desk's left drawer, and scribbled his signature onto the bottom of them all. Once he was finished, he dashed back down the stairs and chucked the form stack into Marluxia's arms as he left.

"An internship?" asked Marluxia as he read through the top of the stack. Reno nodded. The pair walked together outside Reno's office with Reno's paperwork cart pulling up a squeaking rear. Reno bent close and asked how Sora's final report was coming along. Sora tiptoed towards Reno's office door and craned his neck to listen as Marluxia responded. Their voices waned with the echo of stairs. Sora followed. They appeared to be heading for the school's front doors. Reno dashed down the steps to the entrance hall and stopped.

"Five hours?" he snapped. Marluxia shrugged in apology.

"It will take quite some time to edit and print."

"I don't want it edited," Reno hissed, as if this point had been harped upon before. "I want it printed and nothing else."

"Well if you want it raw we can have it to you in two hours."

"What the fuck is that girl doing down there, painting her nails?"

Reno remembered Sora was there and muttered an apology. Sora blushed and said it was fine. Marluxia gritted his teeth.

"She is working very hard," he murmured, "to make sure protocol is followed."

"I've got Axel for that," responded Reno. Marluxia looked hurt. When he recovered he responded, "We can have it to you in an hour. It takes that long to print and notarize."

"Just have her notarize this one," Reno scowled, throwing the report labeled, "continuing," into Marluxia's hands. "Have her come up here and sign it right now- with the paperwork."

Marluxia nodded and mumbled into his walkie-talkie again. Ten minutes later, Axel dashed towards them with another envelope of paperwork. Naminé trailed behind him with her arms hunched at her sides, a creature of fluorescence wincing at the sunlight from the wide windows at her sides. When she noticed Sora she blushed and nodded in greeting. Sora did the same. Then she signed the "continuing" report and dashed away with Axel. Reno flipped through the report and accompanying envelope of signed files and smiled in satisfaction. Then, closing it all up and dumping it into his data cart, he swiveled on his heel and disappeared out the front double doors. When a groan encapsulated the entire valley outside, Sora dashed out to meet it.

Reno stood with his hands stretched on either side of him, paperwork cart swaying dangerously in the breeze at his side. When Reno finished enjoying the weather, he grabbed its handle. "Vacation, here I come," he said. Then he turned to Sora and asked if he wanted to walk with him. Sora nodded. As they curved down the mountain path towards the summit Reno apologized for cursing. Sora forgave him in a mumble. Reno beamed.

"I know you're wondering why I can't take you back with me, but it's against the rules. You either go to school or home. Course, if you were in Organization Thirteen you could go wherever you wanted."

"Really?" asked Sora. Reno laughed.

"We send those bozos everywhere and all they do is mess stuff up."

"That… sucks," Sora tried. Reno patted him again.

"I'm boring you with staff meeting drama. Do you have any questions for me before I head off?"

"Why are you leaving?" asked Sora.

"I wasn't supposed to be here at all this summer," responded Reno. "If thirty days of your vacation was cut traipsing around giant eggs, filling out paperwork, and staring at your brother and his cronies, wouldn't you want out?"

Well, half of Sora's summer vacation had been spent in a deep sleep, and the other half he would be stuck at school. But he decided not to say anything.

"We sent your parents a letter," Reno tried. "You'll be fine. I just authorized the creation of a paid internship with Organization Thirteen for students over fifteen and nominated you."

"But I'm not over…" Sora's eyes widened in realization. His birthday was in April. He had spent all of spring in a pod. He was a year older.

"I know hearing about it like this sucks," Reno apologized. "I made Marluxia promise to throw you a birthday party before school starts."

"Am I going to be alone with… them?" asked Sora.

"Organization Thirteen?" responded Reno. "Only half of them. Marluxia, Larxene, Axel, Zexion, Vexen, and Lexaeus. Oh, and Naminé. And you might come across Terra, Aqua, Eraqus, Ventus, or Vanitas-"

"Vanitas?" Sora cried. His stomach started doing cartwheels. "Will Roxas be around?"

"No, unfortunately, but Riku should be waking up soon!"

"When will Kairi be back from her mission?"

"Summer's end."

"Oh," Sora mumbled. His shoulders sagged. Reno pursed his lips as he looked at him. Then his eyes widened as Sora's hospital gown crinkled in the wind.

"Where are my manners?" he beamed, slipping off his dress jacket and throwing it over Sora's shoulders. At over eight inches too long, it barely swallowed him. Reno laughed when he looked at him. "I was so ready to go I forgot you were in that gown. Wonder what that jacket would have looked like when you were fourteen. You must have shot up five inches, at least."

"Still more room to grow!" said Sora with hope. Reno beamed. Then he threw out his arms for a hug. Sora reciprocated with trepidation. The gown crinkled violently beneath Reno's jacket as the redhead pressed his hands around the boy's waist. When Reno pulled away, he winked.

"Tell Axel if anyone is mean to you," he whispered. "He's my spy." Sora tried not to scowl. "And use the money from your internship to buy yourself some new clothes."

When Reno attempted walking away, Sora asked what had happened inside the pod. Reno closed his eyes in understanding.

"I'm really sorry this is happening like this, Sora. I am. You should have woken from that pod knowing exactly what happened in there. For some reason your memory is in bits. I'll be talking to my superiors about it. In the meantime, tell Marluxia to get me your finished report."

"Okay," said Sora, standing straighter. Reno saluted him. Then the redhead turned, waved goodbye, and continued towards the summit. Sora watched until he disappeared completely. A cough sounded when the gleaming black surface of a rocket rose through the clouds in the distance. When Sora turned around, he noticed Marluxia standing a distance from him.

"Would you like to come with me?" he asked. Sora nodded and followed him back up the mountain path, silent save for the crumpling of his hospital gown. Eventually the peak of the school towered over them, and they were inside, back in Reno's spacious office, mounting the steps to his desk. Marluxia sat at it in satisfaction. Sora's internship paperwork spread out before him.

"I suppose you have questions," the man muttered. Sora blinked. Marluxia glanced up in expectation.

"About… what?" Sora asked dumbly. Marluxia narrowed his eyes.

"Are you aware you have been housed at this school in some shape or form for close on a year?"

"Feels like it's been a semester," Sora sighed.

"During the second semester of your first year at the Land of Departure Key blade Academy, the remainder of your class was put into a coma," Marluxia announced. "Through this coma each of you was transported into a simulated reality inspired by the unique life experience of yourself and those closest to you. We monitored these realities from computers plugged into the sides of the pods you slept within. The goal of each simulated reality was to awaken a vision quest, a spiritual coming of age. Your performances in your vision quests told us if you were worthy of becoming heroes. Once we decided your classmates' worthiness, we allowed them to continue their second year with us. Those deemed unworthy returned home."

"So… was I deemed worthy?" Sora asked. His heart hammered.

"Well that's the trouble, Sora," Marluxia cooed. "Once each vision quest ended, we shut off the sleeping mist inducing each of your comas and collected and transcribed each of the "journals" your minds kept into hard documents. In the two weeks following the collection of journals most of your classmates woke up. A panel of judges scored each quest out of one hundred points. Then, expulsion and acceptance letters were sent out, the Galactic Federation vessel rolled in, and everyone bar Reno, the latter half of Organization Thirteen, and the denizens of the Land of Departure traveled home for summer vacation."

"Why did Reno stay?" asked Sora.

"Because of you," Marluxia chirped. "You kept dreaming after the sleeping mist wore off. We could not review your journal because it remained incomplete. But, now that you are awake, we'll be able to compile it and send it straight to Eraqus for judgment."

"It won't be judged by a panel?" asked Sora.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances it will not," echoed Marluxia. "Each of us will give recommendations and Eraqus will review all data accordingly." Sora bit his lip and asked if there was any way he could help his chances in the meantime.

"Let's get you an internship first," Marluxia responded. He slid the appropriate forms straight for Sora's middle. When Sora caught them, he signed the circled boxes and handed it all back. After Marluxia reviewed it, he held out his hand for Sora to shake. Sora took it. Marluxia beamed.

"Welcome to Organization Thirteen, Sora," he winked. Sora said thanks and stood, fumbling when Marluxia gave him a packet of paperwork to look over. As Sora turned to leave, Marluxia stopped him. Sora swiveled around.

"One more thing," Marluxia sighed, pressing his forefinger up. "Something I'd like you to keep in mind while it's just us around here."

"What?" asked Sora in curiosity. Marluxia's eyes narrowed and sharpened the same way as when Sora had descended from his memory pod. The man's lips parted. He wetted them with his tongue.

"Don't disturb Naminé."

~X~

A/N: Please follow, favorite, and review!