Souls Of Time : A Kingdom Hearts Story

Chapter 4: Relentless Courage

Hato and Aqua looked around, the trees had a light color of bark, almost silver. And the leaves were a pale yellow. It was dark outside. I looked down.

This place feels, familiar. I feel like I've been here before...

But then I noticed that the ground was actually sand.

Are we at the beach?

"Where are we?" I wondered.

Aqua looked to me. "I'm not sure, we should keep looking."

I nodded.

We walked for awhile in silence. The only sound were our footsteps. I led the way through the trees, I wasn't sure where I was going, but I went where it felt right. The trees were beginning to thin out. I stepped out of the grove. We were surrounded by sand dunes and tall grass. I looked up at the sky. It was dark and the stars were just starting to come out for the night. But just over the horizon there was a hint of the orange sun as it had just set.

"I know this place." I spoke.

I looked over to the right and there was a small path through the grass over the dunes. Even farther ahead there were tiny scattered pools of water with shining lights inside. And past all of that, an even greater distance away, was the ocean. The memory hit me and I remembered that this was the Star Pool Beach that Hoshi, Hikari, and I went to almost every evening after school to play on the beach and in the water. Then afterwards we would stay out and watch the sun go down so we could stargaze. I saw our favorite hill that we would sit on all the time.

"This was where we grew up." I revealed.

The sight and memories brought a tear to my eye. Aqua put a hand on my shoulder.

She looked at me. "I'm sorry, that your home is gone. That it was destroyed and lost to darkness. But, everyone loses something. We have to learn how to move past it, to become stronger."

I wiped the tear away.

"Thank you, for caring Aqua, I just miss them. I want everyone to be home, so we can all be safe. But, I don't know if it can ever be back to the way things were." I told her.

"Are you going to be alright?" Aqua asked.

I nodded. She smiled at me.

"Then let's continue on." She spoke.

Aqua went forward and I followed. After awhile of walking down the long path we arrived at the star pools. We still had a ways down to get to the ocean. I could see the waves crashing in the distance. We gazed at all of the different sized pools that twinkled back at us. There were so many.

How could I have forgotten about this unique place? How can I forget?

The lights in the pools used to attract all different varieties of fish, but not in this realm. There was no life anymore. No animals, no sunlight, no wind. Everything was gone in this dark land. How could a world be overcome by the darkness? How did it come to such a horrible thing like this? Everything that it once was, is now gone. But, does it last forever? Or could there be a way...

I turned to Aqua and asked, "Is there any way to save a world from darkness?"

Aqua stood there for a moment in thought, then she answered.

"There could be. But considering the circumstances that this world has gone through, I'm not so sure." She said holding her hand up to her chin.

I looked at her and asked, "What happened to your world?"

She looked down with sorrow. "It fell into darkness... Because of a man named Xehanort." Aqua paused for a moment, then continued. "I lost my friends because of him. And all I have left is my master's Keyblade." She spoke.