And in front of him sat a treasure chest full of gold medallions.
“He’s from the organization!” Sora gripped the Keyblade, and beside him Jack drew his sword.
“The darkness in men’s hearts, drawn to these cursed medallions…and the Heartless, a veritable maelstrom of avarice,” mused the cloaked man. “I wonder, which of you is worthy of serving Organization XIII?”
He waved his one hand in the air to summon something—an enormous Heartless, the Grim Reaper.
It held a huge ax, swinging like a pendulum, and it hovered on a single leg overhead. Something resembling a second face sat on its shoulder.
“You need an answer now?” Jack said reluctantly.
“Indeed, I do!” the man replied, and the Grim Reaper came swooping at them.
Jack heaved a sigh. “No monsters today, I said…”
“Well, let’s get rid of it!” Sora leaped at the Grim Reaper.
“Of course. I’m not about to stand by and let monsters rampage about my ship.” Jack wasn’t far behind.
Ten of the thirteen chairs were now empty. In the occupied three sat Xemnas, Xigbar, and Saïx.
“We’re down to Luxord?” said Xigbar, watching Xemnas for a reaction. When he received none, he kept talking. “Have to wonder if he’ll manage, up against Sora…”
Everything they’d tried so far had ended in failure. At this point, it was fair to say they were in dire straits.
Xigbar turned to the other remaining member. “What’s happening with Axel?”
“I can’t find him,” Saïx replied, his scarred brow darkening with a frown.
“Were you looking?”
Just as Xigbar raised the question, Xemnas looked toward the entrance to the great hall. “He’s returned.”
Xigbar and Saïx followed his glance, and there stood number 8—the Flurry of Dancing Flames, Axel.
“Good to be back.” With a smile curling his lips, he approached them and settled into seat number 8. He held a half-eaten ice cream pop. Pale blue sea-salt ice cream.
“What are you doing here?” The Claymore materialized in Saïx’s hand. “Foul traitor—”
“No, Saïx,” said Xigbar, glaring hard at Axel.
“What have you come for?” With rage barely contained under every word, Saïx stalked toward Axel.
“Well, if I stay out there, Sora’ll get me, too. Anyway, it looks like you’re having a personnel shortage. How are you gonna get ahold of Kingdom Hearts like this?”
Xemnas smiled as Axel taunted them. “There is a reason you’ve returned,” he said quietly.
“Bingo.” Axel leaned toward him. “I’m here to tell you where Naminé is. So, how about letting me back in the clubhouse?”
“You really think we’d believe that? We know you’ve been working with Naminé and that other boy,” said Saïx, as if it were an interrogation, and took his seat.
“Yeah, well, now I’m betraying them.”
Xemnas began chuckling at Axel’s overconfident declaration. “Heh-heh… Heh-heh-heh…”
“Xemnas…?” Xigbar frowned nervously.
But he didn’t stop laughing. Xigbar and Saïx looked at each other.
“Very well.” Finally, Xemnas stifled his laughter, though he still sounded intensely amused. “You’re reinstated into the organization.”
“But—!” Saïx jumped to his feet again.
At that, Xemnas’s smile disappeared. “Silence,” he growled, returning his attention to Axel. “Where are Naminé and the boy?”
“The haunted mansion in Twilight Town.” Axel stuck the last of the ice cream pop in his mouth.
Xemnas narrowed his eyes. “Oh…?”
“I’ll go.” Saïx started walking as if he couldn’t wait to leave the scene.
“Wait, Saïx. I will go.” Xemnas stood.
“Ha! We did it!” Donald crowed as the Grim Reaper fell away into the sea.
“Not over yet!” Sora closed in on the man who had been watching the fight from the prow.
Completely unruffled, the man removed his hood, showing his smartly trimmed platinum blond hair and beard, as well as a conceited smirk as he stared at Sora and the others.
“Toss him overboard,” Jack muttered.
“Aye-aye!” Sora stepped closer, Keyblade in hand.
“Parley!” Luxord said suddenly. The word was unfamiliar to Sora’s ears.
“What was that?!” Jack caught Sora by the collar and pulled him back.
“Hey, what gives?!” Sora protested.
“It’s a bit of a pirates’ code,” Jack explained. “Anyone who invokes parley must be granted a chance to negotiate.”
Sora squirmed, shouting, “This is no time for negotiating!”
“Have to agree there. But that’s the code. Take it up with the fool who thought of it.”
“Shucks…,” said Goofy, feeling thwarted.
Still restraining the struggling Sora, Jack observed Luxord. “All right, you. Out with it.”
“I surrender the chest with my humblest apologies.” Still smirking, Luxord pointed to the treasure chest.
“Rather accommodating of you, mate. And for that you want…?”
Sora finally stopped wriggling, and Jack dropped him to the deck. He scowled up at the pirate captain.
“Just a souvenir… For the memories,” Luxord replied.
“What?” Jack said suspiciously, just as Luxord grabbed a medallion from the chest and tossed it into the air.
“Oh no! We can’t break the curse unless we got all the medallions!” Goofy jumped after the one that tumbled to the deck—but a Nobody had appeared to snatch it up.
“Our friend’s about to learn what it means to cross a pirate.” Jack eyed Luxord darkly, clutching his sword.
“Oh?” Luxord taunted, leaping onto the navy brig beside them.
“We can’t let him get away!” Sora moved to follow him, but the Grim Reaper—which they thought they’d defeated—rose up out of the water in his path and attacked.
“It’s a ghost!” Donald squeaked. With the curse of the Aztec gold, it had taken on a form even uglier than before.
“Long as the thing’s cursed, it won’t be inclined to stay dead,” said Jack with his sword at the ready.
“Then we have to get the medallion back!” Just as Sora was about to leap onto the other ship, a fierce gust of wind threw them flat on the deck.
At the commotion, Elizabeth and Will emerged from the stateroom. “Jack?!”
“Get on inside, you two!” Jack shouted at them over the raging wind.
The gale blew furiously enough to pick up the gold pieces from the chest, and as they whirled through the air, the Grim Reaper swallowed them.
“Uh-oh! The medallions!” Goofy tried to chase them.
Swaying in the wind, the Grim Reaper floated away, and the ship with Luxord aboard followed it.
“Where’s the chest?” Jack scanned the deck for it.
“He took it with him!” Goofy wailed, collapsing hopelessly.
Meanwhile, Donald was clinging to the wood. “Wak…”
“Are you okay, Donald?” asked Sora.
“…Yeah…” He stood up and opened his fist.
Sora peered at the gleam in Donald’s palm. “A medallion!”
“What’s that now?” Jack sauntered over to them—just as the moon emerged from a bank of clouds.
“Jack!” Elizabeth said his name in a horrified shriek.
“Hmm?” He looked down at his hand and shrugged. He’d become a gruesome skeleton himself.
“The curse!” cried Sora.
Jack glanced sidelong at Donald. “Likely on account of you takin’ a medallion.”
“Wak! That’s not fair!” Donald objected. “I didn’t steal it. I saved it from falling into the water!”
“We need all of the gold pieces to break the curse,” Jack said with a frown.
“And if we lost one in the ocean, it’d never break!” Sora added brightly.
>
Goofy cocked his head. “But we’re not all skeleton-y.”
“Is it ’cos we’re not from this world?” said Donald.
“Right…” Sora looked away. “Always just passing through. Wonder when I’ll get to go home again…”
“Sora…,” Goofy said gently.
He recovered with some bluster. “Ha, just kidding! Lucky the curse doesn’t work on us, huh?”
“Enough yammerin’, mates!” Jack shouted over them. “We’d best get to followin’ that ship!”
“What’s he heading for?” Will crossed his arms, staring off after Luxord.
“Is it Isla de Muerta…?” Elizabeth murmured.
“Probably Port Royal instead,” suggested Sora.
“Why’s that?”
“Organization XIII is after people’s hearts. So they’ll go where there’s lots of people.”
Donald and Goofy agreed with him.
“He’s going to hurt the townspeople?” said Will.
“You think he’ll bring ’em flowers, mate?” Jack retorted as he went to take the helm. “Don’t know who these organizers are, but I will say they’re makin’ us pirates look like proper gents.”
“Yeah! We have to help!” Sora ran after him.
“Only because I don’t like ’em. Now hurry up and haul to!”
At Jack’s orders, the others scattered over the deck to get the ship moving.
Axel walked alone through the castle. It had been a while, but everything was the same here, dim and quiet.
He had not expected Xemnas himself to head out for Twilight Town. But there was no way to warn Riku and Naminé now. Riku had taken Ansem’s form, though, with all of Ansem’s strength—so it wasn’t entirely impossible for him to win against Xemnas. Maybe…maybe there was a chance. However slender that hope was, Axel would cling to it. Riku can handle him.
Anyway, right now, he had his own task.
As he went down the halls, he sensed someone following him and turned. “You need something?”
“I don’t trust you,” Saïx replied flatly, the enormous Claymore in his hand.
“Trust? We don’t even have hearts,” said Axel with a twisted smile. “How can we trust anyone in the first place?”
“Where are you going?”
“My room. Where else would I go?” He shrugged, turned his back on Saïx, and kept going.
The first question was how to dodge Saïx and get Kairi out of here.
This won’t be easy, Axel thought with a sigh.
The Grim Reaper floated at the shore of the Port Royal harbor above the treasure chest filled with the cursed gold.
“I’ll take the monster.” Jack rushed at the Grim Reaper and lured it away.
“Now, to break that curse!” said Sora. The trio crept toward the chest and tossed in the gold pieces they’d found. The Grim Reaper changed back to its previous form—not so skeletal and slightly less ugly. “It worked!”
But as soon as those words left Sora’s mouth, the Grim Reaper noticed and came after them.
“Wak!” Donald fumbled with his wand. “Fire!”
The Grim Reaper backed off, just a little, but it had overtaken Jack.
“We’ve got ’im!” As Sora closed in, the giant Heartless shook itself wildly.
“Ah-hooey!” Goofy yelped as a gust of wind knocked him into the sand. The maelstrom began scattering the gold pieces yet again.
“Aw, c’mon!” Sora complained. Once more, they had to run around collecting the pieces, and in the meantime, Jack—also a skeleton again—kept the Grim Reaper at bay.
“Quick now, Gala!”
“Really?! It’s Sora!” he shouted as they returned the last of the gold. The Grim Reaper changed back again. “This time we’ll finish it!” He charged with the Keyblade ready. “Take this!”
With a few blows, he managed to stun it.
“All right, my turn.” Jack leaped right over Sora and brought his sword down on the Grim Reaper’s head.
After a grinding, clunking noise like a mechanism breaking, the Heartless fell still.
“We did it!” Elated, Sora hugged Jack when he landed.
“Ah, not quite, mate…” Jack was hale and human again, but his gaze was fixed on someone else—Luxord.
The heart of light floating up from the Grim Reaper disappeared into Luxord’s outstretched hand.
“Bravo, Sora,” he said with a grin, opening a dark portal.
“Hey, wait!” Sora tried to catch him, but Luxord vanished, melting away into the darkness.
“Wak!” Donald stamped his feet.
“So, who was that chap?” asked Jack.
“He’s part of this organization that’s collecting hearts. They release the Heartless into different worlds, and then we defeat those Heartless.” Sora glowered at the ground in frustration. “Over and over. We’ll never stop them like this…”
“Got another plan, then?”
“We gotta find their stronghold and finish them off once and for all.”
Jack shrugged. “Sailin’ these waters, I’ve heard many a tale, but none like this.”
Will came closer to offer anxiously, “Is there any way we can help?”
“Um…” Sora folded his arms. He couldn’t think of anything he might ask the people of this world to do.
“Aye, there is,” Jack cut in, pointing to the treasure chest with its heap of cursed gold.
The chest sank into the sea. They all stood on the deck, solemnly watching it disappear beneath the waters.
“Whether it’s thirteenth organized or Heartless or what, one thing’s certain,” Jack muttered. “We don’t need the likes of ’em about. They’ll ruin the market for us true pirates.”
“So that’s why you went to Port Royal.” Elizabeth sighed. “And here we thought you actually wanted to help people.”
“A pirate always looks to profit, Miss Swann.” Jack shrugged jauntily and strode to the helm.
“Too bad. You had us going there,” said Sora.
At that, Jack paused.
“Thought you were turnin’ over a new leaf!” Goofy added.
Jack spun around and smirked at them. “The question is what’s under the leaf. Rewards, mate. Savvy?”
“Huh?” Sora instinctively backed away a step.
“That shiny blade of yours,” said Jack. “That’s the share I want.”
Sora smirked in response and held out the Keyblade with the handle toward him. “Okay, sure.”
“…That was far too easy. Where’s the rub?” Jack took hold of the Keyblade. It promptly vanished from his hand and flew back into Sora’s. Caught out, he smiled ruefully. “Aha. That’d be it.”
“Well, you’ve got your ship, Jack.” Sora held the Keyblade firm.
“That I do. But one day, when I’ve got a right mean crew behind me, I’ll come to take that blade. By then, I’ll have the way of wielding it.”
At that declaration, the trio looked at one another.
“Gawrsh. Maybe Jack’ll be able to use the Keyblade someday.” Goofy grinned in amusement.
“How?!” Donald demanded without even pointing out how that made no sense.
Only very particular people could wield the Keyblade. Like King Mickey and Sora and Riku…
“A-hyuck! He and Sora are kinda alike, don’tcha think?” Goofy looked from one to the other.
“Are not!” Jack and Sora both exclaimed at once.
“See?” said Goofy, and Elizabeth laughed.
It was contagious. The sound of their mirth echoed over the dark seas.
Then a beam of dazzling light shone from the helm of Jack’s ship, the Black Pearl.
“Sora! The gate!” Donald pointed to the sky, where the keyhole had taken shape.
“Right!” Sora held the Keyblade high, and the ray of light streamed from it into the keyhole. “Guess we’d better be going now.”
“Right then, off with you. For now,” said Jack.
The trio soon took off again i
nto the Other Sky.
Naminé sat quietly as tears ran down her cheeks.
Her drawings were tacked up here and there on the walls of the white room in the haunted mansion. She’d apparently passed the time with her artwork while she waited here alone for Riku and Axel. Riku perused the collection, realizing there were quite a few he hadn’t seen before.
He found one of himself smiling with Axel and Naminé and averted his eyes.
Then he became aware of someone outside.
“Naminé, go to the basement and hide in the pod room,” Riku said, resting a hand on her head as he turned his attention outside the window.
And just as he did, Nobodies surrounded the mansion—something that hadn’t happened since Axel’s attack. Although that hadn’t been the real mansion but another place that looked like it.
“Riku… Do you think Nobodies have a home? Somewhere we belong?” Naminé wondered.
“There’s no time to talk right now. When the organization attacks, I don’t know if I can fight them off and protect you at the same time.” He summoned Soul Eater to his hand.
“This is the only time we have to talk,” she argued. “Do you think Nobodies really don’t have hearts? Who told Axel he doesn’t have one? The heart—there are secrets that—”
“Naminé!” Riku had to interrupt. Nobodies were crawling out of the corners, and one sprang straight at her.
He made it in front of her just in time to knock the Nobody aside with Soul Eater.
“So here you are.” From a strange warp in the air, a man in a black cloak appeared.
Riku faced him with Soul Eater ready, getting Naminé to safety behind him.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that face.” The man removed his hood and smiled at Riku.
The two men, who bore more than a slight resemblance, stared each other down.
Riku knew who this was. “You’re…Xemnas.”
He hadn’t suspected that Organization XIII’s leader would come.
And based on what Axel had told him, he couldn’t win this fight alone.
Still, he couldn’t simply give up.
If I can at least hold him off until Naminé escapes…
“I am. Riku—or rather, Ansem… No, not Ansem, either. Perhaps I should call you Xehanort.” Xemnas stepped silently toward him. “Well? Don’t you feel more at home in that form?”
Kingdom Hearts II Vol 2 Page 10
