• Wait!
    This is the fifth entry in the Keys to the Kingdom series. Reading out of order can cause confusion and brain explosion! If you haven't read the first entry, click here!

    *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    Chapter 4: Little Shop of Wonders
    It was a castle, Mia began to realize as she wandered aimlessly through the wide hallways and sweeping rooms. It would take her ages to find her way back to her room, but she would probably ask for directions. That is, if she could find anyone. The castle was quiet as the grave.

    It wasn’t scary at all, though. The halls were beautiful, with marble flooring, well lit with chandeliers with electric lights. There were windows, both stained glass and plain, and statues of various figures of import throughout. She’d wandered briefly through the foyer, where a fountain sprayed droplets of water through the air before splashing down in the pool again.

    Her legs carried her all by themselves. She didn’t pay attention to where she was going, and found herself in a back hallway of the castle. She stared around, heading down the corridor. There was a single room at the end of it, with a sliding paper screen of oriental design, incongruous with the rest of the décor. Mia approached, curiosity piqued.

    She slid the screen away to find a room with a similar oriental design. The floors were covered by grass mats; though you couldn’t see them too well because it was mostly covered in what could probably be accurately described as junk. Random objects—ranging from the mundane (a whole bunch of chairs, computers, and tables) to the just plain odd (she could see the bust of a man who might also have been a woman half-buried under a heap of stuffed toys)—were piled so that only a thin strip of floor could be seen, running straight ahead from the door to an identical door at the back.

    “Hello?” Mia called. “Anyone here?”

    “Oh,” someone—a girl—giggled. “Another visitor!”

    “Another visitor!” said a similar voice. “So many today!”

    Two girls stepped out from behind the piles of junk. One of them had short pink hair with small buns on her head. The other’s hair was long and green and done up into pigtails. They met in the center aisle and clasped hands.

    They approached Mia and grabbed her hands as well. “Come with us!” they said cheerily in unison, pulling her towards the back.

    The girls slid the screen door away to reveal a woman stretched out luxuriously like a cat on a chaise longue, with a long pipe in one hand. The light, airy smoke that came from it surrounded her, giving her a slightly ethereal look. She had extraordinarily long, black hair, and light eyes. She was garbed in a billowing purple kimono.

    The woman looked up and blinked lazily. “I apologize, Tifa. It seems I have a customer. We will finish this later, shall we? Stay, I don’t believe this will take long.”

    Mia looked over and saw another woman, also with black hair, standing off to the side, also staring at Mia. She had brown eyes, and wore a black tank top, black shorts, and a black overskirt.

    The woman in the kimono straightened up slightly as the two girls who had escorted Mia crossed the room and stood on either side of her. “I am Yuko Ichihara, and this is Tifa Lockhart. Tifa is the captain of Radiant Garden Police Force. These girls’ names are Maru and Moro. What is yours, sweetheart?”

    “Mia. Nice to meet you.”

    Yuko smiled gently. “Would you like me to read your fortune?”

    Mia looked skeptical. Tifa approached. “Yuko’s fortunes are extremely accurate. She hasn’t gotten a thing wrong with me yet.”

    “I normally charge for such things,” Yuko continued. “But I’ll make this a first-time deal for the Keyblade Master.”

    Mia jumped. “How did you know that?”

    “It’s written all over your face, dear,” Yuko explained. “Literally. A face alone can say much about a person. The outline of your face is cherubic, representing light and a bringer of love and peace. Also, you seem to be breaking out slightly, meaning you are under quite a lot of stress.”

    Mia blushed and covered her face. Yuko smiled gently again. “I can let you borrow some of my personal supply of facial wipes, if you wish,” she laughed.

    “Thank you,” Mia stammered. “So, what do you do to read my fortune?”

    “Just tell me your birth date,” Yuko informed her.

    “September seventh,” Mia answered.

    Yuko took a draw from her pipe, seeming to think a while. Tifa watched with mild interest. Yuko nodded and said, “A good date. I think that after this is over, you are to lead a fairly good life. Let me see… You are to visit many worlds on your journey. Finding the other Keyblade Masters will be easier than you think. You will make many new friends, but you will experience much loss.”

    Mia stared, unsure of what Yuko had just said or if the woman had told her anything she hadn’t already assumed. Yuko turned to Tifa. “Now, what was it that you wanted to…? Oh, never mind. The same thing as always, I suppose. You want to know where Cloud is.”

    Tifa stared at Yuko earnestly. “He was my best friend. I’m sure you can appreciate my concern.”

    Yuko coughed, choking slightly on the smoke she was trying to take from her pipe. “Please. ‘Best friend’? He’s a lot more to you than that. Anyway, my answer is the same as always: I don’t know. He is out of my line of sight.”

    Tifa hung her head. Yuko rose—revealing herself to be amazingly tall—and put a hand on Tifa’s shoulder after handing her pipe to Maru, the girl with the pink hair. “The only thing for you to do is be patient. Cloud will return when the mood suits him, as it has always been.”

    Suddenly, the door slid open again. It was the same man who had saved her yesterday, the one in the red cloak. He passed Mia without a word.

    Tifa looked ready to strangle him. “Vincent, where have you been?! Leon is going to kill you! He’s going to rip out your rib cage, wear it as a hat, and dance the Macarena! He’s going to tear off your head and use it as a chamber pot! He was in the middle of briefing Mia, and because you weren’t doing your job, he had to take care of the Heartless problem himself!”

    “Good,” the man scoffed. “He needs the exercise.”

    “Vincent, I should arrest you!”

    “Go ahead and try, police girl.”

    “Please,” Yuko cut in. “I will have no fighting in my shop. If you want to fight, take it outside and leave Mia-chan and me in peace.”

    The moment was tense. Yuko looked poised to have Moro and Maru throw them both out at any moment. The man turned away. “I was with Cid, fixing the Gummi ship. I had my phone off the entire time.”

    Tifa sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Yuko,” she grumbled before exiting.

    “Don’t be such a stranger,” Yuko called after the woman. “You don’t have to keep visiting me just for business! Come by for lunch sometime!” She sighed, taking back her pipe from Maru before turning to the man. “Now… Vincent Valentine… as to your little issue.”

    The man stared at her expectantly, vermilion eyes hopeful. “You said you’d have your answer by today.”

    “And I do. I keep my word.” She pulled a match from her kimono and relit her pipe. She inhaled slowly and smoke billowed from her mouth as she added quite seriously, “My answer is ‘no’. The price for such a thing would be higher than anyone could pay.”

    He looked crushed. He didn’t seem to want to give up, though. He took a step towards her. “Anything you want, I’ll get it. Just… please. If you can do it, I’ll pay. Can you do it?”

    Yuko scoffed. “I can do it. It would be easy. However, removing your…” She paused as she glanced briefly at Mia. “…problem would require a huge payment. Failure to pay in full would lead to bodily harm or death. And, believe me, I have only the best interests of my clients at heart.”

    The man pushed more. “I need this thing gone. Please, Miss Ichihara, anything. Money’s not an issue. What would I have to pay?”

    “Your soul.” The room was dead silent for a moment. Yuko continued. “You may have your problem removed, but you would not be around to enjoy it.”

    The man was visibly rattled. “I… I see. Very well.”

    “Maru, Moro… escort Valentine-san to the door.”

    “Yes, ma’am!” the girls said in unison before obeying.

    The man gave Mia a glance and a simple, sad nod before exiting.

    Mia stared quietly. She wasn’t sure what to think of the man anymore. “Who is he?” she asked.

    “That is Vincent Valentine,” Yuko replied. “And no, I won’t tell you what he wanted. Client confidentiality, you know. He might tell you if you ask him yourself, but more probably not. He is quite the secretive one… I will tell you, though, what everyone else knows. He drifted into Radiant Gardens a few months ago without explanation. He helps Leon run the town.”

    “So Leon is the big authority figure around here?” Mia asked.

    Moro and Maru reappeared behind Mia. “Cushion for you!” they chorused, placing a tasseled cushion on the ground behind her.

    Mia sat down on the pad as Yuko returned to her chaise lounge. Mia stared at the two girls. Yuko smiled. “They’re Nobodies. I made them myself with Ansem the Wise before he decided to call off the experiments. Sweethearts… but I suppose that’s an oxymoron. As you’ve heard before, Nobodies have no hearts. And don’t worry, they’re completely harmless. They wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

    “You… made Nobodies?”

    Yuko sighed. “Yes… Ansem-senpai and I both preformed many experiments of the sort. Looking back, I suppose it was foolish. However, at the time it was cutting-edge science. Sort of like lobotomies and electroshock therapy forty, fifty years ago. We made Nobodies and Heartless artificially, ‘bypassing the middleman’, as you might say.”

    “You and this Ansem made Heartless… without human hearts.”

    “You don’t miss a beat, Mia-chan,” Yuko replied with a smirk. Her face fell as she added, “Pity what happened to Ansem-senpai, though.”

    “What happened?”

    “Betrayed by his own students,” the older woman said softly. “They got too charmed by the darkness… They continued experimenting with the human heart even after Ansem-senpai and I pulled the plug. His most trusted student stole his name before becoming a Heartless.”

    Mia pondered this. “That wasn’t nice,” was all she could come up with. Yuko made an affirmative grunt. “So this student. He must have had a Nobody—”

    “Oh, yes. He did. And that Nobody is in charge of Organization XIII.”

    “Lovely.” Mia groaned. “If I don’t get stronger, then I’m never going to be able to take care of them… Is there anything you can do?”
    Yuko looked up like a dog that had just been offered a bone. “‘Anything I can do’?” she mocked. “Why, that’s how I make a living nowadays. This is a shop for people who want their wishes granted, and it cannot be found except by people fated to come here. So if you have a wish, I can take care of it. You see, Mia-chan, you may not know it, but you have a habit. Do you know what that is?”

    Mia thought honestly. “Well, I’m not strong at all. I don’t like to exercise; I’m rubbish at math…”

    “Those are just personality flaws. Think hard.”

    Then a possibility came into her mind. “Maybe… I’m lazy.” Yuko gave her a ‘getting closer’ sort of look. “I rely on others to solve my problems?”

    Yuko snapped her fingers triumphantly. “You have a habit of relying on others to solve your problems. Do you like that about yourself?”

    Mia shook her head. “Not really… It makes me feel like I’m mooching.”

    Yuko nodded appreciatively. “Good, good. Accepting what you don’t like about yourself is the first step to breaking the habit. Now, for a small fee, I can help you break your habit for good. This may have a secondary effect of helping you defeat Organization XIII.”

    “What do you want?” Mia asked, hoping dearly that she wouldn’t ask for her soul.

    “Whatever’s in your right pocket.”

    The girl frowned and reached into said pocket. She drew out the necklace that Fuu had given her. “Oh, no… I can’t give you this! My friend gave this to me for luck… she’ll want it back…”

    “Then let’s make a deal. You give me the necklace for now, I will give you what you need to break your habit as well as a message for you to give someone else. When you deliver the message, you can have your friend’s necklace back. What do you say?” She extended a pale pianist’s hand to Mia.

    Quietly, Mia handed the necklace to Yuko. Yuko put the chain around her neck, the tackiness of the glass out of place with her stunning kimono. “Pleasure doing business with you, sweetheart.” She snapped her fingers and a glowing green sphere appeared in her hand. She offered it to Mia. “Take the orb, dear.”

    Mia reached out. As soon as she touched the sphere, it surrounded her arm and sunk into it. “What the…?”

    “That was a Cure Elemental. It’s taken up residence in your body. In return, it’s going to give you the ability to heal any wound.”

    “How does it work?”

    “I thought you said you were going to break your habit of relying on others. You can figure it out on your own.” Yuko grinned mischievously. “As to my end of the deal… I need you to give a message to the Nobody of the student who betrayed Ansem-senpai and I. Tell him, in these exact words: ‘Yuko-sensei remembers you, and if I don’t manage kill you, she will.’ You’ll remember it when you need to.”

    “I’ll tell him that,” Mia promised. “But don’t expect to have a chance at him.”

    “Not at all cocky, are we?” Yuko laughed. “Well, it’s getting late. Moro, Maru, please conduct Mia-chan to her room. Leon will be frantic by now.”

    Moro and Maru, who had until then been making silly faces at one another behind Yuko’s back, jumped up and skipped to Mia’s side. They led her to the doorway and gently pushed her out.

    And suddenly Mia was standing in her room. She turned and saw only the door that led out into the hallway. Totally bemused, she flopped onto her bed, and, within a few moments, fell asleep.

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

    Did you like that? Cool. Rate. Comment. Do you want more? Click here to go to the next chapter right away!