Sora and Kairi in Hollow Bastion. Hello and thank you for reading! Here's a story excerpt from my Artbook One Heart, where Sora and Kairi travel to Hollow Bastion. The full story can be read in my Artbook, which will release in 2023.
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They eventually reached the castle's Grand Hall, which was lit by blue flame cauldrons. Right in the hallway in front of them, he finally saw her.
Before him slept seven maidens, all trapped in glass coffins. Alice and Jasmine were there, another of them had long golden hair, the other had her blonde hair up. Another also had her hair pinned up, but her hair color was black as ebony and her skin white as snow. The next girl resembled the phantom that Beast had seen in the entrance hall, so this must have been Belle. And finally, at the end of the corridor, slept the girl who was most precious to Sora.
The boy gasped when he saw her. He had never seen Kairi so lifeless before. Her cheeks, which were always a faint pink color, were pale and all life seemed to have drained from her body.
"Kairi!" Sora cried longingly and ran towards her. However, the coffin was tightly sealed and there was no lock to be seen. He put his hands on the pane of glass and called her name, but Kairi didn't move. Sora had risked so much to reach her and he certainly wouldn't let a pane of glass stop him. He drew his Keyblade and with a powerful blow he shattered the glass. Kairi eventually fell out of the coffin and straight into his arms. Finally he had her back. With a gentle grip he lifted her to his face and tried to shake her awake. "Kairi! Kairi! Open your eyes!" But Kairi did not respond.
"It's no use."
Sora gasped when he heard the voice. He turned and finally saw Riku, who was sitting over a huge portal.
"That girl has lost her heart. She cannot wake up."
That girl? Did he really just call Kairi that girl? Now Sora was sure. The person speaking to him might look like Riku, but it wasn't him anymore. Something must have taken possession of him.
Sora carefully put Kairi down and then turned to the boy. "You're not Riku..." he finally stated.
The boy didn't respond to that and continued, "The Keyhole cannot be completed so long as the last Princess of Heart still sleeps." When he said that, he floated down to Sora and the two now faced each other in front of the portal. Hearing this, Sora looked at him in shock. "The princess...? Kairi's a princess?" So the maidens he just saw were the seven princesses that Maleficent and Riku had been looking for. Never would he have guessed that Kairi was one of them. Now he knew why Maleficent stole her heart.
"Yes, and without her power, the Keyhole will remain incomplete. It is time she awakened."
Sora had enough of this talk about the Keyhole. "Whoever you are, let Riku go! Give him back his heart!" he snapped at him.
The dark Riku raised his Keyblade now, forged from the hearts of the princesses, and pointed it at Sora. "But first, you must give the princess back her heart!"
As he said this, it felt like Sora's heart was being drawn to the Keyblade, and his chest suddenly began to ache while his heart lit up. "Argh!" he cried out from the stabbing pain in his chest, and fell to the ground. "Sora!" Donald called, worried, who was the only one who could follow him, as Goofy was already separated from them by an invisible wall that suddenly appeared behind Donald. The dark Riku had quickly erected it to have Sora to himself.
