Sorrow's Promise

Chapter 34

The first world we found ourselves landing in was called Hollow Bastion, and was apparently a place that Sora, Donald, and Goofy had spent a good bit of time in during their previous adventures. We met up with a group of their friends, though I mostly hung back and didn't say too much. Then one of the friends, a man named Leon with shaggy brown hair and a prominent scar across his face, led us to an area of town known as the bailey to show us their world's Heartless and Nobody problem.

There was an entire ravine just outside of town literally crawling with the creatures. Sora assured his friend that we could handle them, then began to give him a brief run-down of the Nobodies and Organization XIII. He was interrupted by a booming voice echoing through the stone corridor.

"You called?"

We all jumped and looked around for the source of the voice. Sora took off running through the gates of the bailey, with the rest of us not far behind.

"You're doing well," the deep voice came again.

"Who's that?" Sora demanded, summoning his Keyblade. I grabbed hold of mine, as well, still glancing up and down but seeing no one.

"This calls for a celebration," said the voice. Dusks began appearing around us, and we all fought them off, including Leon, who had his own giant sword. When the last of the Dusks were gone, the voice spoke again. "The Keyblade...a truly marvelous weapon. Were it only in more...capable hands..."

Laughter began to echo around us, now definitely coming from multiple voices. "Show yourselves!" Sora ordered.

Up above us on a high wall, a black-coated figure materialized out of the darkness. He raised his hands dramatically in the air, and five others appeared behind him.

"Organization XIII!" Goofy exclaimed. He was right, it had to be them. I quickly dismissed my Keyblade, but I knew it was too late. They had already seen me, which meant that I had blown my chance to follow Axel's advice and stay off their radar.

"Good, now we can settle this!" Sora shouted. I glanced at him and shook my head slightly. Somehow I doubted that it was going to be that simple, but I had already figured out in the short time I had known him that Sora was a definite optimist.

"What a shame," the leader remarked. "And here I thought we could be friends." The group laughed again, and quickly began to vanish back into the darkness.

"Stop!" Donald yelled. He raced off as if he was somehow going to catch up with them, but another dark corridor opened in his path just a few yards away from where we were standing. One of the Organization members stood there, staring at us from the black void under his hood.

"What's the big idea?" Donald stormed.

"Oopsy-daisy!" the man laughed.

"Move!" Sora ordered.

"Now, do you think that's polite, shutting me down like that?" the man queried.

I furrowed my eyebrows, watching them all throw threats and insults back and forth at each other for a while with no clear intentions or progress. What was his point here...unless he was just stalling us? But for what reason? It wasn't until the very end of the conversation that I began to get an idea of his possible purpose.

"Why don't I remind you how tough the crowd you're dealing with really is?" the man told Sora.

"Remind me?" Sora looked confused for a moment, but shook it off, returning to his battle stance with a determined expression on his face.

The Organization member began to cackle. "That's right, he used to give me that same exact look."

Sora and the others were completely confused, but I began to wonder if he was referring to Roxas. Maybe that was the reason for this strange encounter – perhaps they were trying to determine if Roxas was really inside of Sora. DiZ did say that they would be eager to have their Keyblade bearer back.