Chapter 15: Twilight Town: Leaving to Magic

"So, what are you two gonna do?" Sora turned to his familiar traveling companions, Toshiro walking ahead of them. "I've gotta find Riku and go back to the islands, Kairi's there waiting for us."

"Gawrsh, Sora. Do ya have to ask?" Goofy grumbled, putting on a saddened and somewhat annoyed looking expression. Donald had one as well.

Sora began to laugh and their white haired companion turned back to look at them curiously.

"What's so funny?" He questioned.

"Their faces." Sora replied between giggles.

Curious, Donald and Goofy turned to each other to see their faces, smiling as they realized they did look a bit ridiculous. They then joined Sora in his laughing while Toshiro huffed and went to get tickets for the train.

"So what do ya say guys? Let's stick together for one more journey." The Keybearer grinned as his friends nodded. "To…where again?"

"You're boarding the train." Toshiro replied, handing him the ticket. He'd already bought them.

"Oh yeah."

Donald sighed heavily and Toshiro just rolled his eyes and gave the animals their tickets before walking over to a familiar looking train, the one he'd thought was the virtual town's Ghost Train. The purple train was most definitely real this time. While he waited at the door for his new companions, he saw Hayner and the others come over to see Sora off. He wondered why, considering these three had never met Sora, or even Roxas.

'I wonder where this train leads.' Toshiro mused while he waited.

'Somewhere…' Hyorinmaru replied teasingly.

'Thank you, useless dragon.'

'Glad I can be of service, Master.'

Toshiro snorted at his zanpaktou spirit and turned to see if Sora was coming yet. Sure enough they were on their way over.

"Sorry for the wait, Captain." Sora grinned sheepishly at the Soul Reaper.

"Oh no, take your time." He replied sarcastically while stepping onto the train, leaving a confused Sora behind. He was capable of humor?

"Hey, Sora." He heard Hayner call out. "Are you sure we haven't met before?"

"Um…" Sora paused to think about that, Toshiro watching with interest from inside the train, which was thankfully a cool temperature, unlike Twilight Town trains. He hated that train ride. "Positive. Why do you ask?"

"Perhaps you met in another life." Toshiro offered truthfully. Unfortunately they thought he was joking and laughed, but he let them be. No point trying to explain THAT complicated system of the soul cycle.

Turning back to the others, Sora gave them a farewell grin and a wave before realizing he was crying. He quickly wiped it away.

"You okay?" Olette asked, worried.

"Y-yeah. Don't know where it came from." Sora replied, laughing nervously.

'Must be Roxas.' Toshiro mused and moved to take a seat in the train.

"Pull it together." Hayner teased the brunette.

"Haha, right…see ya!"

Sora stepped onto the train and Donald closed the doors before moving to sit next to Goofy. The train started to move, Sora still at the door as he watched Twilight Town get smaller behind them.

"Sora." Toshiro called out, before throwing something to him as the Keybearer turned.

Catching the object quickly, Sora realized it was a small blue crystal; one Toshiro found in the pouch and remembered seeing on the Struggle trophy in Twilight Town.

"Um, thanks?" Sora tilted his head in question.

"It was in the pouch, thought it might get your mind off the town for a minute."

"Oh…" Sora's expression fell.

"Don't worry, we'll be back." Donald assured.

"Yeah, we'll come back to visit Hayner and those guys again." Goofy added on, his feathered friend nodding vigorously.

Light filtered through the windows from the outside and, just out of curiosity, Toshiro took a look out the window. His eyes widened as he realized they were now riding the train through space and sat up to get a better view, noticing they were following tracks of light that appeared as they moved. This was definitely strange to the Soul Reaper.

"Never traveled through space, Captain?" Goofy asked, noticing how interested the ice Captain was.

"Not…exactly." He replied quietly, still observing.

Talking animals he could somewhat deal with, as one of his fellow Captains was a dog. Moving on a train through space…not quite clicking in his head yet.

"Then you're gonna love the Gummi Ship." Sora grinned at him. "That's how we get from world to world."

"Isn't gummy a candy?"

"Ah, you're thinking gummy." Donald said, lifting a finger as if teaching. "The Gummi we're talking about is spelled G-U-M-M-I. It's really hard material that comes in small pieces and it can be arranged in a lot of ways. It's perfect for space travel."

"I see."

Sitting back down, Toshiro took a moment to try and wrap his head around everything. He'd since come to terms with the fact that he was definitely on another world and NOT dreaming, and that he was traveling with a kid who used a giant key as a weapon and two talking animals of the cartoony type, not like Captain Komamura who was fierce looking. He'd also gotten used to fighting Nobodies instead of Hollows, switching his tactics for the smaller and quicker creatures in order to fight efficiently.

Now he just needed to come to terms of travelling through space on a train and eventually a ship as well as having possibly no way of getting home. The latter he didn't want to come to terms with, not unless he was outright told there was no way home. As long as he stuck with Sora there was a chance he could return and he would take that chance.

"Hey Captain."

Sora's voice brought him out of his thoughts and he noticed Sora sitting next to him.

"Since we've got some time, maybe you can tell us about your world?"

"Yeah, I'd like to know more about Soul Reapers." Donald piped up.

"There's only so much I can tell you." Toshiro replied. "I'm under strict orders not to give out too much information about the Soul Society."

"Orders? From who?" Goofy questioned.

"The Head Captain."

"Ya know, you've already told us a lot, especially about your zanpaktou." Sora pointed out. "I think you already disobeyed orders."

'…Dammit, he's right.' Toshiro grumbled mentally while outwardly sighing. "Fine."

"Cool!" Sora grinned in victory and teal eyes turned to glare at him. "So, what's the Thirteen Court Guard Squads? You said you were a Captain of that group."

"Correct. The Thirteen Court Guard Squads is a military group of trained Soul Reapers. Our job is to destroy Hollows, which are like Heartless as you noticed, and protect the souls of those who die. As the name suggest there are thirteen squads, each with a Captain ruling over them with the Squad One Captain also ruling as the Head Captain. Under the Captains are the Lieutenants, and under them twenty seated officers from those with more power to those of less power. Anyone under that is simply a grunt. I run Squad Ten with my Lieutenant, Rangiku Matsumoto."

"What are the other Captains like?"

"Well, to put it short, there's a few crazy ones and a few somewhat normal ones. There are few I get along with and the same goes for their Lieutenants."

"Gawrsh, must be hard to work together." Goofy frowned.

"We generally don't work with other squads. Each squad has their own task to do and we try not to interact with one another unless under orders."

"Tasks? Like what?" Sora questioned.

"Squad Two coexists with the Stealth Squad, which is a group of trained assassins. Most of the seated officers and the Lieutenant also have a commanding role over a Stealth Force Squad, and the Captain leads both divisions. Squad Twelve also runs the Department of Research and Development."

"So what does Squad Ten do?"

"We don't have any special tasks such as Squad Two or Twelve. My squad does what the others do, which is to train new Soul Reapers, eradicate Hollows and protect souls. When we get orders we follow them whether we like it or not."

"Sounds pretty strict." Donald crossed his arms, looking skeptical.

"It's a military society; of course the rules are strict." Toshiro snapped. "Important orders come from Central 46, which is comprised of elders and nobles. They give orders to the Head Captain and he in turn passes those orders to the rest of the squads."

"Well it sounds like a cool place." Sora grinned and Toshiro gave him a skeptical glance. "Except for the whole 'strict rules' part, I guess, hehe. I wonder if we can find your world."

"I seriously hope so." The ice Captain sighed in agreement.

It got quiet again after that, Sora's head bobbing off to sleep and his animal companions staring eagerly out the window for their destination. Eventually even they sat down and began to drift off. Toshiro did not bother to break the oppressing silence and kept his eyes closed to feign sleeping while he waited for the train to stop.

"Hey look!" Donald quacked, startling the others awake. "I think we're there!"

"I'd prefer if you didn't shout." Toshiro mumbled under his breath before sitting up and looking out the window.

Sure enough they were approaching some sort of island, the space around them gone with a thick mist below them and tall mountains peeking up, suggesting their destination was on top some kind of flat tipped mountain. A crooked tower stretched up out of the ground with small trees dotting the green ground around its resting point. His sharp eyes spotted a large figure at the door, though he quickly realized it wasn't a Nobody. A Heartless, perhaps? He hadn't met one of those yet.

The train slid to a stop with a good few yards of distance between them and the tower door where the large figure sat leaning against it. Time to find out what it was.

Well, finally out of Twilight Town. How many chapters was that? Nevermind, don't answer that. Anyway, Sora gets to know a little more about his Soul Reaper companion and Shiro gets his first trip through space! Exciting. Now they need to figure out who's at the door ;) Enjoy!