Author's Note: So where do I begin with this… So you know the core concept of Kingdom Hearts, right? Boy using the power of a weapon called the Keyblade goes from world to world fighting darkness? Well that is the same basis for the tale you are about to read. However before we get started I have decided that this is going to be a complicated enough story that an entire page of explanation will be necessary to make sure I fully communicate my thoughts and future plans for this story.

I LOVE Kingdom Hearts. The idea is so interesting but I felt like there was a certain aspect of it that could be explored further. Taking this story outside the confines of Disney and into worlds considerably darker, more complicated than any we have visited up to this point. So this tale takes place after Kingdom Hearts: DDD but before/during KH: III and basically completely compromises canon for the rest of the series. Sora finds that the Keyblade seems to have a mind of its own as it starts dragging him to worlds that need him to protect them from darkness and the forces threatening to throw them out of balance, including Xehanort.

Now to the other thing I feel I should bring up. I have a bit of strange relationship with crossover stories mostly in regards to the mainstream as Fan Fiction does seem to handle this better. Generally I find that crossovers do a couple of things that bug me a little. Use the same "worlds collide, creating or crash landing with another world which is a barely recognizable conglomeration of worlds with the amount of depth equal to that of the water level in a kiddie pool in Death Valley, which means that it has clearly dried up by this point just to bring this overly specific metaphor to a context where it has been over-explained" type of story that usually involves saving/finding the macguffin to save the *Insert Object* of Life. The other thing that generally happens is that the characters remain static. We come to see them and usually they start the story, do the story, and end the story all the same way. Which is why one of my focuses is to try to have the character remain recognizable but definitely develop and change due to the story.

Oh and as a final note… I am taking liberties with the power levels. There will be an in-story reason to "justify" it, but this is me taking liberties to the more extreme that I can take them. Please don't take it to heart, I am just having fun over here.

EDIT: I forgot to include something here. This opening portion is going to include a guide to the Crossover as it evolves. Currently:

Kingdom Hearts X Devil May Cry (Chapters 1-5) X Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (6-11) X RWBY (13-21) X Final Fantasy X (22-TBD)

A flash of light across the sky was not the first sign of strange things occurring for the owner of Devil May Cry. The silvery white hair of the man reflected the light of the setting sun as he stood on top of his own store watching his world change before his very eyes. At first it was small, a different sign here, a changed building there. However, it seemed that the further along these changes got the braver their creator was as it pushed them in larger and faster than before. After the first few changes, Dante had looked into them but found no source or way to track down any other effects of the changes. These three lights falling from the sky however, that was something quite a bit different from anything else.

The man leapt from the top of his shop letting the wind catch his red trench coat as he fell. Landing lightly on his feet, he immediately made his way at a brisk but still relaxed pace in the direction of the three lights. Arriving shortly after their landing, he found something he was not expecting in the least bit. Floating on the top of ocean surface were three teenage kids. This was definitely where the lights landed. So who were the punks?

"Hey!" he called out to the teens in front of him. The female stirred. A redhead wearing some kind of pink slip of a dress with an attached hood. He could honestly say that he had seen stranger fashion choices. A particular blonde that he knew came to mind. "Are you kids alright?"

The redhead looked up at him and replied, "We're fine." She swam to her two friends and with light coercion, they also stirred from their unconscious states. The three teens were all shortly afterwards back on land and already immediately back in their own little world as the silver haired man looked at them strangely.

"Hey! You kids ever hear about respecting your elders and explaining why you are falling out of the sky?" The man asked them loudly. It was clear that he did not appreciate being ignored.

The girl looked back at the man and with a small smile replied, "Oh, sorry sir. My name is Kairi. These are Sora and Riku."

The one named Riku turned to the man and asked, "Would you introduce yourself?"

"Dante," replied the man with the silver hair. Dante looked at three kids in front of him as they seemed to be taking in their surroundings. They fell from the sky, they seem to be separate from the rest of us, and now they are looking around like they have never see a city like this one before. "Are you kids aliens? Cause if you're aliens then I have to present my idea for the next blockbuster hit. Demons vs Aliens: The Epic Battle of "Where The Hell Did You Come From?"

"Aliens?" Sora asked. "Like the little blue fuzzy guys?" Sora's description matching that of a certain little alien he knew from his past. "No, we're human." Dante was a strange person to run into on a new world. He clearly was not what one would expect and based on the few number of people around who did not stand out like he did, he was a very different type of person. There was something that Riku did not necessarily like about the man though he had no way to define why, yet.

Kairi looked over at Sora and commented, "You've never told me you met an alien!"

Riku and Dante regardered each other warily while Sora described Stitch to Kairi.

"Dante? You are not normal are you?" Riku asked holding onto direct eye contact.

Dante smirked and with small scoff he replied, "Well if this ain't the Alien calling the Demon inhuman. C'mon pretty boy, wanna dance?"

Riku simply shrugged and looked back to his companions. There was a quiet moment between the three of them. When Riku manifested his keyblade Way to the Dawn, a keyblade that looked like the combination of demonic and angelic wings, he performed a backside spin through the air but his keyblade was stopped mid-swing. Looking at the man, Dante had simply turned and it was now that the three teens could see that he had a nylon guitar bag on his back and the thing within it just absorbed the impact of Riku's attack.

This caused the man named Dante to break out into a grin as he reached back to the case and pulled down a zipper. Reaching into the bag he...

A scream tore through the air as Dante turned to face the direction it came from. Looking down the street he saw a type of demon that he was unfamiliar with. It looked almost like porcelain mannequin built around a clockwork frame covered in a black ooze. It was disgusting and exactly his type of work. Looking back at Riku he commented, "Hold this thought Pretty Boy. A new suitor has stepped on the dancefloor." Dante ran forward at the enemy. It lifted an arm to reveal a weapon hidden behind it. It swung at the fast approaching demon hunter. Dante reached back into his guitar case and a long blade came out with his hand. It was nearly the size of him yet he twirled it effortlessly as he launched himself forward with a fast thrust. The blade planted itself into the demon and the residual shockwave of the motion sent the demon flying off of his blade.

Kairi gasped at the destructive display. "He is fast," Sora said out loud. Riku simply grunted in response. The group heard another set of screams in the opposite direction. Looking over at the enemies, they saw similar enemies to the one that was just dispatched by Dante however they were distinctly red and blue, both wielding large bladed shields. They approached the innocent people menacingly and the three got ready to spring into action. Sora jumped up high and came down on the one in red. His silver bladed, gold cross guarded weapon called Kingdom Key flashed through the air but felt his weapon bounce off of its body. Sora felt himself also bounce back from force of his keyblade being redirected. The enemy having not even blocked and readied a swing. Riku and Kairi both dashed forward and in combination sent the blue enemy flying back down the road. Riku then leapt over between Sora and his enemy and deflected the incoming attack. Kairi's keyblade looked like a bouquet of vividly colorful flowers sprouting from the central blade and she attempted to open up an attack against the red enemy, however, much like Sora's attack she felt herself just bounce off of the enemy.

"So that wasn't just Sora slacking off then," Riku quipped as he fell back from this enemy.

Sora mock laughed at Riku's comment and then added, "Alright so what have we learned about this enemy?"

Kairi fell back to her two allies, "Well the blue one is weaker or the red one is somehow immune to our attacks."

"Too easy!"

The three dodged out of the way as Dante seemed to fall from the sky as his sword tore through the red enemy. He then dashed forward to impale the blue enemy, but his blade bounced off of it and, unlike the three kids, did not have anyone to block the weapon that followed. The bladed arm of the blue demon lashed forward and impaled the demon hunter.

"Dante?!" Kairi called out ready run up to him. As she approached, she saw him twitch.

"Serrated edges, what is with you demons and serrated edges. They don't kill me any more than the others. But they hurt like hell," Dante challenged the demon who had him impaled. Dante then raised his fist. Appearing on his hand was a beastial looking glove that glowed with a white light. Winding up, Dante let loose with a powerful punch that also seemed to glance off his enemy. However, the energy that caused him to bounce away, slid him off the blade in his chest. "Oh c'mon!" he called out as he flipped backwards and planted his feet back on the ground.

Kairi then took that moment to jump up and smash her keyblade into the back of the enemy's head and it crumbled forward finally defeated. "What were these things?" Kairi remarked as the enemy faded away.

"Demons. But none that I have ever seen myself. But that is to be expected with all the changes happening around here," Dante replied looking from teen to teen. "You kids seemed to be alright."

Sora let the keyblade disappear and he put his hands behind his head with a big smile. "We know how to handle ourselves. But how are you so strong?" Sora asked.

Dante looked out to the water with a thoughtful look on his face, "That is a bit of a long story. Pretty Boy, Porcupine, Kairi come to my shop. I think we have some things to talk about."

Dante started to walk and the teens lagged behind a little. Kairi was the first to follow him. Sora began to move shortly after and Riku reluctantly walked after them. The group walked in silence until Dante started to whistle tunelessly. Riku tried to observe him as much as possible. The man was very clearly seeped in some kind of darkness, but he was nothing like the other people like him. He was light hearted, but it never detracted from the fact that he carried himself with a purpose. The problem for Riku is that he has no idea what that purpose was and that is why he did not really like him.

"Are you… Where the hell is my shop?" Dante suddenly yelled standing outside a small residential apartment building. "Dude, I just finished paying for the damages the last time something happened to it!" Dante continued to yell some things about the situation which some of them don't bear repeating although they were accompanied by him kicking the bricks of the building that apparently replaced his shop, when the three keybearers felt a noticeable shift in the atmosphere around them.

"SPARDA!" a deep voice suddenly called out from somewhere in the area.

Dante simply planted his forehead against the building dejectedly, "Ok, who else wants me to clean up my father's mess?"

"Your father?" Sora asked.

A passerby ran up to the four of them wearing a blue hood. "You… you're not Dante," cried a young female voice. "Where is the real Dante?"

Dante remained strangely quiet after this outburst. "Who are you? What is going on?" Kairi asked the young woman.

"I'm looking for Dante, the son of the Dark Knight Sparda. Some bad demons are getting ready to come after him. I had heard that Dante had been seen headed this way, but this man doesn't match the image I was given at all," the woman explained.

Sora stepped forward and suggested, "Maybe you found the wrong Dante. Can we see the image?"

The young woman handed him a picture. In the picture there was a young man with short dark hair, a dirty smirk on his face and wife beater/coat combo. "Y'know… I think you might actually want this Dante to be the one you are looking for, this guy looks kinda underwhelming," Sora remarked. Dante walked over and looked at the photo and felt a laugh escape his lips.

"No kidding? What's this kid trying to pull? Destroy my reputation and my name looking like that," Dante remarked. "Look, Hoodie maybe you can answer a question for me, where is the Devil May Cry building?"

The young woman bristled at his nickname for her, "My name is Kat, Faker. And I have never heard of a place called Devil May Cry. Sounds like some kind of edgy clothes shop for teens though."

Dante looked at her and just threw up his hands turning away going off on some kind of tangent about people making accusations that they were guilty of today. Riku however walked over to Kat to try to confirm some things. "So you mean to tell me, that you are looking for a guy named Dante, whose father's name is Sparda, has people looking for them and you don't know this man here who meets all of those requirements?"

"Yes?" Kat replied curiously.

"So, Dante here is saying that his shop, which should be here is gone and that you don't know about his shop. Dante, has anything else changed around here?" Riku asked.

Dante nodded as he calmed down from the tail ends of his ongoing rant, "Yeah. Parts of the city had been changing for a while now."

Sora looked at Riku, "So are you thinking that their worlds are combining together?"

Riku nodded and replied, "That sounds like the case. I saw some things like that in the Realm of Darkness."

Kat looked at the two boys and hummed. "That seems really unlikely, but when you put it that way, I guess it does make sense, " she replied. "This is going to be tough to describe to Vergil though."

This caught Dante's attention. "What do you mean by that? Vergil is dead, I killed him," Dante remarked.

"Another difference between the two worlds then maybe?" Kairi suggested but Kat's outburst clearly showed that these two were not paying attention.

"Killed Vergil? Why would you ever lie about killing such a great person?"

"Great person? Homicidal sociopath is more like it. The fact that he and I have the same parents is where the similarities end."

"He's a better person than some pretender would ever be."

"Listened here Kitty. If there is anyone here who is saying that they are Vergil, Son of Sparta they are going to stab you in the back as soon as a grab for power comes up. He should be destroyed, I'll even do it myself."

"Vergil is the only one fighting back against Mundus's grip on the world!"

Sora, Kairi and Riku all felt very much like third, fourth, and fifth wheels so they began to converse among themselves. "So let's think, two worlds are colliding here. They are similar to each other but both now seem to in turmoil. One is about to be replaced and the one replacing it is apparently under some kind of tyrannical control. Ah this is complicated," Sora remarked after listing off the things they had learned about this world they had ended up on.

"Well. if our job is to help these worlds as we go to them… then we should probably figure out how to fix both the worlds before one destroys the other and then itself," Riku suggested.

Kairi nodded. "But how would we do that?" she asked. The change in the atmosphere occurred again and they were very much aware of the fact that Kat was suddenly very nervous.

"Oh no, they're coming. They are going to try to pull you into Limbo. If they get you there they'll try to kill you. Especially if they think you are Dante."

Dante shrugged. "Pretty sure they already know that," he replied honestly. He simply sighed and, as if on queue, he Immediately disappeared from sight for the three keybearers.

Kat then gasped, "Oh no, Dante! Can you hear me still? Good. Look you have to escape from those Demons. They are going to send the Hunter after you. You must find a way to escape from him. Meet me further in the city."

The three keyblade wielders looked at Kat for moment and she gestured for them to follow her. "Listen you three, I am going to need your help. Mundus has agents everywhere. If anyone tries to interrupt me while I get your Dante out of Limbo, we may not get too many more chances. Run interference for me and keep close."

"Yes ma'am," Sora replied seriously. The three teens followed Kat as she seemed to be very focused on something the rest of them could not see. However a short distance into the city, a building suddenly cracked above her. Sora rolled forward next to her and put up a Reflect spell. The rubbled crumbled around them. "Let's keep going," he told her confidently.

Kat nodded and then she spoke aloud again, "Ok, Dante, you need to head south from here if possible. The Hunter will be coming from the North... Please just run, if we can avoid him I would prefer that we not have to deal with him and his bulletproof face... Stop complaining and get going!" Kat began to run after the man they three keybearers knew as Dante. More of the grey mannequin enemies from before showed up along the route.

Riku suddenly disappeared and reappeared behind one of the colorless enemies. "This better work!" he shouted as he swung his weapon and it seemed the colorless did not resist his attack at all like the red enemy from before. Kairi ran forward and threw her keyblade and it tore through several of the enemies and then returned to her. Sora smiled at the display because she was learning quickly. He stood back with Kat to act as more direct guardian for her.

"Good, your friends are making quick work of those Stygians," Kat said, her voice was clearly drenched in relief.

"Stygians? Is that the name of a type of Demon?" Sora asked her. Kat nodded. "Have you ever had any difficulty with creatures called Heartless or maybe Nobodies?"

Kat shook her head as she kept her gaze focused on something Sora could not see. "Not that I could tell you off hand. Are those some kind of demons?" Kat replied.

"No, I don't think so," Sora remarked with a thoughtful tone. "There is something about the way that Demons feel that is both in a way darker but shallower if that makes sense. Like there is more evil in demons, but they are not the all consuming darkness of the Heartless, or the complete hollow feeling of Nobodies."

Kat looked at him for a moment, "What do you mean by evil?"

Sora looked at her to hopefully guage her tone better but her face was expressionless. Why are other people so good at that? "Well, I think that there are forces that define us all in certain ways. Like Riku. He is very closely tied to the darkness because of how long he has lived within it. Kairi, pure light. Demons don't really seem to fall on that same type of scaling. Like the Nobodies. I think that if the term evil could be used to describe anything about them, it just the energy they give off. Less about who they are y'know?"

Kat looked at him for moment and then gave a small cute smile. "While you probably could have said it better, I get what you mean. I feel the same about Vergil when I am near him. But I have always been attuned to the other forces in the world. But Vergil's intentions as he has made them known to me, have always seemed pure."

Riku and Kairi finally dispatched the enemies and made their way back to Sora and Kat. "Alright, where to next boss?" Sora asked her. Kat began moving and the three teens followed. Sora would have to share the details of the conversation he just had with Riku and Kairi, seemed like it could be useful.

"Oh no, Dante! The Hunter is here. Just survive for a couple of minutes I will reveal his weak spot," Kat called out. "You three, I need you to help me. The Hunter is going to draw more demons to our location. Cover me."

"Kairi you stay by her side, Sora and I will try to take down as many of the enemies before they get to you two. Kat do your thing," Riku instructed. Sora nodded at him the two of them took places on opposite sides of the two women. While Sora recognized the Stygian enemies that began to filter into the area, there seemed to be some kind of strange sandy looking demon wielding a scythe scattered amongst their ranks.

"Demon's like that don't exist, what do you mean you recognize those scythe wielders?" Kat suddenly asked out loud. Kairi looked at her as she was speaking to Dante while pulling out ingredients from her bag and putting them into a bottle.

Riku ran forward and with his keyblade in hand jumped head long into the hordes of demons approaching. Sora met the demons half way and the two fights were well on their way.

Kat swore under her breath. "I don't have my lighter to heat this up."

Kairi turned to her and said, "How hot do you need it?"

"Not much," Kat replied. "Just enough to activate the wax in the mixture."

Kairi nodded. "Set it down and step back," Kairi told her. Kat did she was told and Kairi pointed her weapon at the bottle. A flame sprouted from the end and briefly engulfed the bottle. "There you go."

Kat looked surprised. "Thanks," she replied slightly stunned. "Calm down Dante, I am almost done!" She suddenly was yelling at the unseen man. After a couple more moments, a demon flew over the head of the two women and Kairi looked to see where it came from. On top of a building, there was another white haired man. He wore a dark coat with a sleeve pulled back and glowing, blue, demonic arm revealed.

"Who is that?" Kairi asked aloud. Kat finally finished her bottle and as she readied to throw it she looked up and saw the man on the roof.

"Nero? Your nephew? Vergil's kid?" Kat started saying to Dante again. "Ok, I'll throw it then! Sheesh." Kat let loose the bottle and it broke in midair as if it had hit something. "There you go, you big whining child."

The man named Nero leapt down from the roof and took in the chaos. His blue arm lashed out and a ghostly visage of the arm flashed to life. It grabbed a nearby Stygian demon shattered it in a massive blast of mechanical parts.

"Man, this city really has changed. Dante was not lying about this place transforming. Two years does not explain this." Another Stygian approached him and Nero pulled a double barrelled revolver from the inside of his coat and a single shot bounced the enemy in the other direction. The number of demons very quickly went down as Dante reappeared from the thin air.

"How low can it get? Limbo… are you kidding me?" Dante asked upon reappearing. "Thanks for the assist there, Kitty."

"Kat," both Kat and Kairi replied automatically.

Sora and Riku both reconviend with the group and looked at the newcomer.

"Nero, good to see you have not disappeared with my business. How ya doin' kid?" Dante asked his nephew.

Nero shrugged, "Demons show up, I kill them. Human are afraid of me. So the usual. Who are the kids?"

"I'm Kairi. This is Sora and this is Riku, Oh, and this is Kat," Kari introduced the group to him.

"I started a daycare service for teenagers," Dante remarked after their introduction.

Nero simply scoffed. "Apparently. So what is the next plan of action?"

"I have to report back to Vergil," Kat commented. "Since you are all involved now, I should take you with. Can I trust you to not attack my version of Vergil so he can better explain things to you?"

Dante sighed and replied, "Sure, I'll hear him out. Then I'll run him through. Let's go talk to my big brother."

"So, Nero… would that make Vergil your father?" Sora asked.

Nero shrugged and replied, "I guess. But even if he did make me, he was a terrible father."

Riku added, "Sounds like he was also a horrible brother. Let's hope Kat's Vergil is a better man."