Chapter 30: Beast's Castle: Darkness Among Royalty

"Oh, Sora." Goofy suddenly said as they finally got through the Heartless infested path, reaching into his pocket. "Mulan found this on Shan-Yu when we defeated him."

He handed the Keybearer a small golden keychain, the ship now in Donald's wings, and he examined it closely. The actual charm was a golden yellow sphere with a symbol on it Toshiro didn't recognize.

"Cool! I wonder what kind of Keyblade this one gives me." Sora pocketed the Keychain for now and took up steering once more.

"What do the key chains do again?" Toshiro questioned.

"They give the Keyblade a special power of some sort. Some can be really strong."

"Hm…"

The world came into view, a forested land with a large castle jutting out. He vaguely wondered what the Soul Society would look like, with only the most important aspect of the world shown as the world's outer icon. Probably the Sokyoku Hill or the Tower of Penitence. Well, that said a lot about the Soul Society, considering both of those were for high class prisoners.

"Beast's Castle." Donald read, before turning to the other two. "Do you think it's THAT Beast?"

"Dunno, maybe." Sora looked excited.

"What beast?" Toshiro questioned, confused.

"Someone we met on our last journey. He's a good guy, just a little scary looking."

Several people Toshiro knew came to mind as Sora said that and he could understand completely.

"Hold on, Captain, this is the part you don't like." Sora called back and Toshiro obliged, gripping tightly to his seat.

The ship passed into the atmosphere and headed for the forest, the driver looking for a clearing to land in. Once done, the ship was set down and their Soul Reaper companion was quick to distance himself from the ship.

"He really doesn't like flying, does he?" Sora sighed as he quickly shut down the ship.

"Not on the ship, anyway." Goofy shrugged.

"He'll get over it." Donald waved off the issue and the three of them walked outside to join back up with Toshiro.

Said ice Captain was quickly getting over his migraine. It would probably take a few more trips before he was able to go through a path without getting one. As Sora and the others showed up he began heading off towards where the castle was at a slow pace to let them catch up.

"So what's with you and flying?" Sora asked as he fell into step beside the white haired boy.

"I'm fine with flying, it's just I'm not used to flying in a spaceship." He replied with an irritable grumble. In a mutter he added: "I prefer wings…"

"Hm?"

"Nothing."

Together they walked across the bridge leading up to the gates and pushed through into the courtyard. Feeling uneasy, Toshiro sped up towards the castle doors and walked inside quickly. Something was in the castle that made him tense, on guard, and he was determined to find the source and be rid of it.

"It's huge!" Donald admired as they looked around the large hallways, a stairway straight ahead that led further up to the east and west wings, the doorway in the middle most likely leading into a ballroom of some sort. Toshiro was used to the Eastern style mansions like the Kuchiki Manor but he'd seen a western castle or two such as this one.

"And sorta gloomy, don't ya think?" Goofy added on to Donald, shivering slightly.

"I wonder who lives here." Toshiro mused aloud, trying to pinpoint Spiritual Pressures of the inhabitants. They were all spread out, no one near them.

A sudden roar echoing throughout the castle startled them all, Toshiro partly drawing his blade in case whatever it was attempted to jump them.

"Does anybody else recognize that?" Goofy questioned, a smile forming.

"No." Toshiro deadpanned.

"It's the Beast!" Sora exclaimed. "Don't worry, Captain, he's a friend of ours."

"I hope you're right." He let go of Hyorinmaru but remained tense.

"Maybe we should check up on him." He heard Goofy say.

Something sparked the Captain's interest and this time the long blade was drawn, the sound of the sheath dissipating catching their attention.

"Heartless." Toshiro reported, using his sword to point out a Shadow moving along the floor, untouchable at the moment, and into a room off to the side, away from the stairs.

Nodding to each other, they followed Toshiro into a small parlor room. There was a fireplace inside and a velvet red carpet with a large, intricate design in the middle. A table off to the side with a white tablecloth held a floating red rose encased in glass.

"Where did it go?" Donald searched around the room before his eyes fell onto the rose. Fascinated, he began to walk over to it.

"It's hiding in the room but I can't pinpoint it." Toshiro closed his eyes to concentrate. "I think there's more than one."

"Oh great." Sora quickly summoned his Keyblade and kept an eye out for Shadows.

Teal eyes spotted Donald reaching out for the rose as if enchanted by it. Toshiro sighed and started heading towards the duck to bring him back to reality; he hadn't expected the duck to be a lover of shiny things. Just his luck, Donald could be easily swayed over for something like that. He'd need to keep an eye on him.

A Shadow rose up from the ground just in front of Donald, startling him. With a quack he backed away, taking out his staff. Luckily he'd had time to recover his magic on the trip there and was ready to fire off spells.

"Found it!" He quacked, backing up into Toshiro.

The Soul Reaper pulled the duck behind him as more Heartless appeared around them, trapping them in.

"As I thought." He grumbled, moving into stance and preparing to strike first as he usually did.

"Guess the ice dragons won't be much help inside." Sora said, standing back to back with the Captain.

"Not unless you'd like to freeze over too. Seeing as I disrupt the weather when I release Hyorinmaru, doing so inside could be…problematic."

"Swordplay it is, then."

Sora reached into his pocket and pulled out the keychain he'd gotten from the Land of Dragons, removing the one on the Kingdom Key and quickly clipping on the new one. The Keyblade glowed with a fiery light, to which Toshiro frowned, and shaped itself into a new weapon. The hilt was dark red and swirled with a dragon's head at the base of the shaft, the flames coming from its mouth being the shaft with the teeth shaped into a swirl of flames.

"A Fire type." Toshiro observed.

"Seems to give me a boost in magic, too." Sora added. "Okay, let's stop hanging around!"

He attacked the nearest Shadow quickly with small sparks jumping off on impact. It did indeed seem to do more damage to the Heartless and they went down much quicker. Not wanting to be left out, Toshiro quickly struck with his icy zanpaktou while Donald and Goofy remained as support. Occasionally the boomerang-like shield came his way and Toshiro would back off those hit and move on, knowing the sharp edges of the shield would make quick work of such weak Heartless.

Despite the speed and strength of the blade wielders and Donald's strong magic, they didn't seem to be thinning out the numbers. They were backed towards the table with the rose.

"Oh come on." Sora groaned. "Give us a break!"

"They are starting to get a little bothersome." Toshiro sighed heavily.

The doors slammed open and they assumed a larger Heartless had caught onto them. The one at the door was a large beast with fangs and horns, covered in thick brown fur. He wore pants, which Toshiro thought was strange, and a long purple cape. Angry blue eyes stared right past them to the rose before turning in a rage towards the Heartless, which jumped him. The beast snarled and tossed them aside easily and they finally turned tail and left.

"Just in time!" Sora greeted the beast as he approached.

Assuming this was the beast Sora had mentioned, Toshiro sheathed his blade but removed himself from his path, as he could sense much hate emanating off of him. That couldn't be good for him; there was too much of the dark Spirit Energy trapped on him.

Beast got close to Sora before shoving the Keybearer away roughly, to his surprise. He pushed the stunned Donald and Goofy away and Toshiro decided he wouldn't move away. When Beast made a move to shove him back he gripped onto the thick arms and pushed back, bringing them to a stalemate. Annoyed, Beast simply removed his arm from the small Captain's grip and kept moving, apparently finding the rose more important than the stranger in his castle.

In fact, he flat out ignored all of them, picked the rose up off the table, and left. Sora and the others quickly stood, obviously confused.

"I'm guessing he usually says hello, at least?" The Soul Reaper questioned.

"Yeah…" Sora replied sadly.

"Gee, do ya think maybe he forgot who we are?" Goofy frowned.

"With this many Heartless around, something must be up."

"Why'd he have to do that?" Donald quacked angrily, rubbing his cheek where one of Beast's claws had struck him.

There was a moment of tense silence as the trio attempted to find out what was wrong with their friend.

"I suppose talking to him won't work, considering you're all just standing here?" Toshiro pointed out.

"Ah, well." Sora scratched his head nervously. "I really don't want to get hit again…"

"We best do something." Toshiro started walking back out to the entrance hall.

Sighing, the trio slowly followed.

Once outside, Toshiro sensed a human's Spiritual Pressure up the stairs just above him. He turned to see who would be crazy enough to stay here and saw the fleeting image of a girl as she rushed all the way up and out of sight. Strange, he wondered what the girl was running from. Either them or Beast, most probably.

"Do you sense something?" Sora asked, noticing Toshiro's concentrated expression.

"More like saw someone." The Soul Reaper replied. "Just up the stairs, a woman."

"Well…" Goofy mused aloud. "If Beast is here in the castle, that lady musta been Belle, right?"

"Belle?"

"It's a long story." Sora scratched the back of his head. "See, we first met Beast in Hollow Bastion when that witch Maleficent still ruled over it. He was trying to rescue a girl named Belle. Maleficent had kidnapped her because she was a Princess of Heart."

"And what is a Princess of Heart?"

"A person with absolutely no darkness in their heart. There are seven of them and Maleficent was trying to use them to open Kingdom Hearts and cover it with darkness. Belle was one of those princesses."

"So you've had issues with people trying to get to Kingdom Hearts before?"

"Yeah, just in a different way." Sora sighed heavily. "Can't they just leave the thing alone?"

"Anyway, Sora." Donald tapped his foot impatiently. "We should see if Belle knows what happened to Beast."

The others all nodded and they headed up the stairs to the east side of the castle. To their annoyance, Heartless attempted to bar their path but Hitsugaya's impatience to get somewhere destroyed their ranks quickly. Once they were in the hallway where the woman, Belle, was he placed a barrier over the entrance to prevent them from coming inside. Thankfully they'd gotten through uninjured so Donald didn't have to waste any of his magic.

The four of them found the room where Belle was, the doors locked. Toshiro and Sora stood on either side with Donald and Goofy behind the latter.

"Oh, what am I going to do?" A woman's voice sighed sadly inside.

Donald moved out and looked like he was about to crash into the door, not having noticed that Toshiro had already knocked. So, when the duck charged, the doors opened thanks to the woman inside and he crashed to the floor.

"Hey!" He grumbled, pushing himself up. "Who opened the door?"

Late night post! Ugh, anything to get my mind off my aching feet T^T The down side of anime conventions is all the damn walking, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, first part of Beast's Castle! Too tired for commentary, Enjoy!