Kairi vs. Gambler of Fate, Another Side & A Far-off Memory

"You know, I never liked playing games that much," Kairi said. "Like that one time last year while Sora and Riku were away. Selphie was throwing a party for the girls in our class and we ended up playing "Truth or Dare.""Kairi wobbled a bit, but she remained rooted to the spot. "It was horrible. I stupidly chose dare. Next thing I know, I'm over on the diving board at the academy's pool."

Naminé took a few seconds to register what she was getting at. "You were dared to go skinny-dipping, weren't you?"

Kairi shuddered. "That wasn't the worst part."

"Oh?"

"The worst part was that it was winter, rainy, and typhoon season."

"Ouch." Naminé said with a sympathetic tone. "You might've caught hypothermia! At least there were no boys around, right?"

"Fortunately, it was raining so hard, visibility was almost null. That and the fact the pool was self-heated."

"Always a silver lining, huh?"

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately, a couple of the girls decided to steal my clothes while I was in there."

"Oh my gawd, that's awful! Did you at least get them back for that?"

Kairi giggled. "Let's just say that those girls will never look at a fire hydrant the same way ever again."

"Well, look at it this way. At least Sora and Riku don't know about it."

"Somehow I think Riku knows about it. Don't know how, but as long as he doesn't tell Sora..." Kairi's thought trailed off. "Um...shouldn't I have gotten hit by now?" Indeed, Luxord's spinning card attack was not as effective as she thought it would be. The cards propelled him toward Kairi like a frisbee. Due to her size and form, though, Luxord's attack kept carrying him over her in an arc, missing her completely.

Kairi wasn't damaged, but it was wasting her time bar. "How long do I have to stay like this?" As soon as the thought formed in her mind, she felt feeling returning to her limbs as she transformed back into her human self.

She shook off the numbness. "Alright, now back to business." She raised her Keyblade and charged at Luxord. Unfortunately, with a wave of his hand, the cards that were circling around him flew off and started to home in on Kairi. This effectively stopped her attack and forced her to back away. "Oh no."

Kairi held her Keyblade in front of her as the cards closed in spinning dangerously like sawblades. "What's with these cards stalking me?" The Gambler of Fate chuckled.

"When in the chronicles of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights."

Kairi stared. "What in the world was that?"

"Shakespearean Sonnet 106," Luxord explained. "It's a great read and I like to expand my vocabulary that way."

Kairi kept backing up until she almost lost her footing. She looked behind her and saw that she had been forced to the edge of the arena. Kairi could make out the ground forty stories below. There was nowhere else to run. It was either take the attack or jump. She tightened her grip on the Keyblade as the cards began to come steadily closer.

"This is going to leave one huge paper cut," Naminé commented.

Kairi shook her head. "Had to be Shakespeare. It just had to be freakin' Shakespeare!"

* * *

"This is awful!" Queen Minnie cried. "Why did this have to happen on such a happy occasion?" She was with Lady Daisy and the other wedding guests in the safe room away from all the danger. Staying as bodyguards were all of Sora's formerly summoned allies, excluding Simba, Peter Pan & Tinker Bell. Genie was busy entertaining the kids with his impressions. Chicken Little and Mushu were swapping stories.

Since they couldn't go outside, everyone didn't know how the battle was taking place. The most recent visitor they had was Jack Skellington, who had only stopped by to check in on Sally. He told them what he knew and then dashed off to help the others.

Daisy patted the Queen's shoulder reassuringly. "It's alright. These things happen." Minnie only hung her head in sadness. "If you think about it, this interruption is like a blessing."

Minnie raised her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Daisy placed her hand under her chin in thought. "Well, from what I heard from the Maid of Honor and the Flower Girl, Princess Kairi didn't seem so enthusiastic about the marriage."

The Queen looked at her in surprise. "Really? That's the first I've heard of it." As she was speaking, Stitch crawled across the ceiling in his spider-like fashion. "I thought the Princess loved Sora!"

"She does, but you know how it is at that age. Neither of them have even reached adulthood yet. Putting the fate of Radiant Garden and the other worlds on their shoulders must be a terrible burden."

Stitch finally found his target underneath him. Bambi was trotting around, blissfully unaware that Experiment 626 had let go of the ceiling and was diving straight for his back.

"Cowabunga!" Stitch hollered gleefully as he soared through the air.

As Bambi thrashed around with Stitch riding him like a rodeo clown, Daisy walked up to a window on the far side of the room and started gazing soulfully toward the horizon.

"So the only reason she agreed to this marriage was because of the letter?" Minnie asked.

Daisy nodded. "Yes, I believe so. That's probably why Sora went along with it, too."

"Oh dear. Ruling a kingdom is one thing, but having to deal with the entire universe..." The Queen shook her head. "I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for those two."

There was a bit of silence between them. The other summons were trying desperately to remove Stitch's perch from Bambi. Eventually Dumbo was able to wrap his trunk around the little alien and started slamming him comically against the wall.

Queen Minnie looked out the window, following Daisy's gaze toward the horizon. "Still, I hope those boys will be alright."

* * *

"Hey, you're that boy who helped me earlier! Sora, right?"

"Yeah, that's me! And you're that new girl...uh, Kari, right?"

"Close. It's Kairi."

"Oh, right. Sorry about that."

"It's okay. So, Sora, why exactly are you somersaulting on the ground like that?"

"This? It's a new technique I've been practicing! You know how it's harder to hit something that's small and moving, right? Well, if I tuck my body in like this and roll, attacks might pass right over me."

"But who would attack you? This seems like a peaceful village."

"Well, me and a few other kids hang out on that island over there. We sometimes go on adventures, goof around, get into fights..."

"That sounds awful! Violence doesn't solve anything!"

"What? Oh, that's not what I meant! I meant we get into PRETEND fights. No one really gets hurt."

"I see. So, that somersault you were doing is supposed to prevent you from getting hurt?"

"Yup! Doesn't it look cool?"

"But why not just sidestep attacks like that friend of yours does?"

"Who, Riku? Nah, he's got his own way of fighting and I have mine. I can't expect to beat him with his own techniques, right?"

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you can teach me how to fight too?"

"Uh...I don't know, Kairi..."

"Please, Sora?"

"..."

* * *

"Are you really worthy to wield such a powerful weapon as the Keyblade?" Luxord asked. "At least Sora seemed to be a worthy opponent."

Kairi could feel her temper flaring up again. "I'm not worthy, huh?" The cards were only a few feet away. "Sora's got his Dodge Roll, Riku's got his Dodge Leap," Kairi thought, "so why can't I have my own dodge move?" She stretched out her arms in front of her and dived underneath the cards, her nose just inches from the floor. As soon as she passed them, she slapped the ground with her hands, pushed her body into a handstand and immediately flipped herself into standing position.

"Think I'll call that my Dodge Flip," Kairi thought, smiling to herself. She focused back on Luxord and charged at him again. The spinning cards trailed behind her, but she ran so fast that they couldn't keep up. Luxord only looked at Kairi, his face expressionless.

"Look closely," was all he said before his body transformed into a card. The cards behind Kairi disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared at Luxord's sides. Before she could blink, the cards flattened face-down on the ground and started shuffling themselves.

"What kind of attack is this?" The cards finally stood upward and started to circle around her like moons in orbit. All Kairi could see was the back of the cards, unable to tell which one was Luxord.

"We have to touch the card that Luxord's hiding in with the Keyblade," Naminé said.

Kairi shrugged. "I guess I'll just attack them all!" She leapt at one of the stray cards.

"No, wait! You don't know what'll happen if you attack the wrong card!" But Kairi was already in mid-swing. As soon as her Keyblade touched the card in front of her, the card flipped itself to face her. She caught a glimpse of a fiery-red spiral before the card exploded in her face, temporarily blinding her.

Tears blurring her vision, Kairi started to swing the Keyblade wildly, desperately trying to hit anything. She eventually made contact with Luxord's card, causing the remaining one to disappear.

"Lucky guess, princess," Luxord said before flipping himself back into his card form. And in another puff of smoke, new cards were summoned to the field.

"Six cards this time," Naminé observed. "Come on, Kairi, you can do it!"

As her vision returned to normal, Kairi found herself surrounded by more cards. Since she had been blinded, she had no idea which card was Luxord. Her eyes gazed at them, trying to figure out if there was some telltale behavior that would give him away. In her peripheral vision, she noticed a card on her left was vibrating slightly.

"It was this one!" Kairi flipped the card with her Keyblade. She knew the card was wrong as soon as it showed its face: a clock. Glancing at the time bar, she was horrified to see that the rate of her time bar decreasing had sped up. "Oh no."

"Don't squander your time," Luxord's voice taunted from one of the surrounding cards.

Kairi tried to focus on which card that she had heard the voice from. She thrust her Keyblade at the card, not sure if she guessed correctly.

She was pleasantly surprised to see the other four cards disappear, leaving the gambler hobbling a bit.

"You play the game quite well," Luxord said as he summoned a total of ten cards this time.

"Again?!" Kairi was getting extremely ticked off now. As the pack of cards circled around her, she took one look at them and said, "You know what? Screw it." She raised her Keyblade. "THUNDER!" Lightning rained down from the sky, instantly obliterating every single card that was not Luxord.

Luxord brushed the leftover ash off his cloak. "Hey! That's grand-scale cheating!" he coughed.

"I'm through playing games with you!" Kairi shouted, pointing her Keyblade. "Why don't you actually fight me yourself?!"

Luxord smirked. "Well, well, well." The sky darkened as more cards appeared in his hands. "Look who's on top of the game!" Kairi braced herself as the cards flew out in every direction, scattering themselves onto the floor.

"What is this, 52-card pick-up?" Instead of responding, Luxord changed himself into his card form and fell flat on his face. Kairi ran up to the card that she had seen her opponent in and thrust the Keyblade into its body.

Nothing happened. Sweeping some stray hair off her face, Kairi scanned the field. "Where is he?"

"Kairi, I just went through Sora's memories again," Naminé said. "Luxord can transfer himself from card to card. That means he can pop out from under any of them."

"Any of them, huh?" Kairi rolled her eyes and sighed. "Ten bucks say he's going to appear right behind me." Without turning her head, Kairi took the Keyblade, tucked it beneath her arm and stabbed blindly behind her.

"Hoooph!" The sound of her blade making contact with Luxord's abdominals felt extremely satisfying to Kairi's ears. The cards that littered the playing field disappeared in puffs of smoke. With the wind knocked out of him, the crafty gambler staggered around like a drunk.

Kairi looked up at the display and was astonished to see that Luxord's time bar was completely depleted. Luxord clutched his stomach in pain.

"Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong," he recited, "My love shall in my verse ever live young." (Sonnet 19)

"Will you shut the $#@*&@% up, already?!?!" Kairi roared as she slammed her Keyblade straight across Luxord's head, leaving a beheaded data body that dissolved back into code.

Anger and adrenaline were still coursing through her as she reappeared in the Garden of Assemblage. Kairi leaned up against a wall, attempting to calm herself down.

"I'm sorry. I think Shakespearean sonnets are romantic and all," Kairi huffed, "but anyone who recites it just to show off deserves a can of Whoop-A 55."