000 - Fourth Floor Memory
The sky was red and orange, smeared in streaks like someone hand trailed their fingers through tomato juice and dragged them across the clouds. A faint whispering sound broke the quiet along the stretch of beach, and a swirl of black erupted in the air, like the smoke off a fire.
"Let me go!" came a girl's voice from the whorl of black, and a figure emerged, struggling. She was slim, fair, with auburn hair and wearing a pink dress. Her bright blue eyes were narrowed dangerously, and her thin hands clenched as she pulled against the grip of a black-gloved hand. "Let go!" she cried, and pulled again, and the gloved fingers snapped open, sending the girl sprawling into the sand.
"Ah--" The gloved hand gave way to a long, slim black sleeve, and Lea emerged from the shifting black portal, his other hand over his mouth in an attempt to stifle amusement. "Are you okay?" he asked, half a chuckle in his voice, and the girl whipped her head around to glare at him.
"Don't come near me!" she hissed, and Lea scratched the crown of his head almost awkwardly, looking a bit troubled that she seemed so angry.
Fidgeting briefly, he extended one hand in half a gesture to help her up. "Hey, easy," he chided; "It's not like I was--uwaugh!" Before he could explain himself, however, he was bodily tackled from behind by a very happy, very yellow dog. With a whump of breath, Lea found himself up close and personal with the sandy beach, and twisted quickly to scowl at the dog. "What the-- You followed me?" he gasped incredulously, and the dog gleefully parked itself on Lea's chest, its tail wagging in earnest. Lea sighed long-sufferingly.
Looking almost as surprised by this turn of events as he was, the girl took a step toward the toppled Lea and his new dog accessory. "Did you come to help me?" she asked the dog.
"Geroffa me!" Lea growled, giving the creature a shove, and then made a wordless series of noises somewhere between alarm and disgust when the dog responded by zealously licking his face. "Uwaugh--knock it off! For the love of--would you stop that?!"
The girl watched with a bemused expression as this continued for a moment, and then Lea succeeded in shoving the dog off his midsection and into the sand. "Ugh," he grunted, hefting himself back to his feet. His coat, his hair, his face...he was covered in sand, and as he dusted himself off, he watched disdainfully as the dog turned its attention to the auburn-haired girl instead.
"C'mon, stop it~" she giggled as the dog nuzzled her affectionately, and Lea just sighed, attempting to get all the sand off himself. Then he shrugged his shoulders, folded his arms, and looked expectantly at the girl.
She lifted her head after a moment, her brow furrowed. "You...aren't a bad guy, are you?" she asked, and Lea looked at her seriously.
"I ain't a bad guy," he admitted, "but...I ain't really a good guy, either."
"But this one seems to have taken a real shine to you," she countered, ruffling the dog's head, and Lea looked down at the dog, one slim eyebrow cocked.
"A canine stamp of approval doesn't automatically make you a good person," he said, wagging a finger at her; "got it memorized?"
"I'm...afraid I don't quite understand you," she admitted, tilting her head.
Lea waved one hand dismissively. "Yeah, well, that makes two of us." He shifted his weight then, lifting his chin. "So," he said after a moment, "you want to see Sora, right?"
She didn't miss a beat. "I do."
"Well isn't that too bad..."
Lea and the girl turned in tandem, looking startled, when a new voice broke into the conversation. Lea's face twisted in contempt when another swirl of dark energy split the air, the portal parting to reveal a man in a black coat just like his, with a head of spiky strange blue hair and a cross-shaped scar across his brow. Before Lea could move, the man lifted his chin, and a massive white figure with burly arms and a helmet-shaped head appeared behind the redhead. Lea twisted sharply, but not in time, and the white figure swung a massive hammer-shaped weapon at him, striking him soundly across the head and sending him flying. The girl shrieked as he hit the sand hard, and the man with the blue hair narrowed his golden eyes.
"This ends now," the man said, his voice steel. "Give the princess to me. I've seen through your actions already, and I will not allow your selfish desires to get in the way of the Organization's plans."
Lea grunted where he was sprawled in the sand, one eye squeezed closed in obvious pain, and then he grinned. "Heh, well well well," he said, "I'm pretty sure this is the first time the trash has attempted to take me out."
"What is going on??" the girl cried then, and squeaked in alarm--or pain--when the great mammoth hands of the white figure closed around her wrists and held her fast.
"This man will destroy you," the blue-haired man said smoothly, gesturing at Lea. "He's merely using you in an attempt to turn Sora into a Heartless."
The girl's face fell slack, her eyes widening. "Y...you're lying..." she breathed, and the blue-haired man just averted his eyes.
"Take her away," he ordered the white figure, and the girl yelped in alarm.
"Kairi!" Lea shouted, and pushed up to his hands and knees, summoning his chakrams and sending one flying toward the man, who quickly knocked it aside.
"Really now," the man said, shaking his head, "such pluck, right until the end. It really is a shame to get rid of you, even if you are a traitor. However..." He held up one hand and summoned a great, heavy claymore to his grip.
Lea was back on his feet in an instant, leaning sligtly, his eye still squinted and his skin abraded from where he'd been struck. But he was grinning. "If it's such a pity," he ventured, catching his wayward chakram as it returned to him and hurling it toward the man again, "then how about you just turn the other cheek?"
The blue-haired man blocked the incoming weapon, then bared his teeth, an unholy glow lighting up his eyes. His posture changed, his shoulders hunching and his figure growing almost dense in its appearance. Suddenly he looked more like an animal than a man, and with speed that didn't suit his massive weapon, he lunged at Lea.
"Disappear!!" the man roared, and Lea gasped, drawing up his weapons to block the blast of energy that erupted from the claymore.
"It's not very sporting of you to go all Berserk on me!" he complained, waving a hand to summon a whorling portal.
"Planning to run?" the man snarled. "Why not just vanish into the shadows forever, then? Nobodies like us can't feel things like friendship--what you seek is an illusion!"
Lea whirled, baring his teeth, anger and indignation clear in his eyes, but then there was the sound of the girl's voice again, and he turned.
"What he said, it's a lie, isn't it?" Kairi bleated, pulling against the firm grip of the white figure. "Tell me it's not true!"
Lea hesitated. The man with the blue hair took the opportunity, swinging his claymore. The wave of energy slammed into Lea, sending him staggering, reeling.
"It's fine for a traitor like you to just lose everything," the man hissed, his teeth still bared, though his posture had returned to normal. Lea struggled a moment, trying to remain upright, but the blast had been too much, and he crumpled to his knees before pitching forward into the sand. He didn't move.
The man with the blue hair waved his hand, summoning a portal and walking through it. Kairi cried out to Lea, a strange unintelligible name tearing from her lips as she was dragged into the darkness by the white figure, her eyes wild and frightened.
Lea didn't move.
The portal closed.
[[this memory is not in the games, and is only in the KH manga/novels. the scene differs slightly in each version, so i basically combined the relevant parts of both. alas, there's no posted translation of either at the moment. i'm doing scanlations, but they're not to this point yet. logged here.]]