May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key
By SoulboundAlchemist
Chapter 1: Taking the Key
‘…So take a breath, before you skip a beat…’
I blearily opened my eyes, blinking a few times as I awoke to the chorus of Trinity by DAGames. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was 5:30 AM, a whole half-hour after I set my alarm for. Annoying, but not unexpected, since it’s a habit I’ve been trying to break for the past two years.
Now, I know what you’re probably asking: ‘who is this person that’s writing this story?’ Well, my name is Dmetri, Dmetri Ross, and I am waking up in my bed in my dorm room in preparation for a trip to AnimeNEXT 2019 in Atlantic City. If you couldn’t tell, I’m not exactly a morning person, and apparently my body simply refused to wake up at 5 in the morning. A little later than I wanted, but still early enough to get a shower before I need to head off.
With a groan, I roll out of bed, unplugging my laptop in the process and carrying it with me into the bathroom. Probably not the best of ideas, but I wanted to practice a song for the karaoke contest at the con today while in the shower, sue me. Anyway, after my shower I quickly packed my bag with my laptop, iPad, 3DS, Switch, PSVita and my headphones, along with the necessary items to keep them charged, before getting dressed and out the door.
At this point, I believe a time skip is in order, since I doubt any of you lovely readers want to read about my two-hour drive to Atlantic City In any case, upon arrival at the convention center, I was about an hour early, with almost nothing to do before the doors opened. A perfect opportunity to practice for the karaoke contest I mentioned earlier. Oh! That’s right, I never told you what song I was gonna do. Well, that’s an easy fix, I was gonna be singing Don’t Think Twice by Utada Hikaru.
In any case, while I sat there waiting to go into the con, I pull out my laptop and load the song up. I decide to practice the Japanese version, since there’s a chance the judges won’t let me use the English version. Actually, scratch that, I KNOW they won’t let me use the English version. On that note, fun fact about me: I’m abnormally good at picking up songs in Japanese. It’s honestly scary how quickly I’m able to learn new songs in Japanese, but that’s neither here, nor there. In the end, I draw a bit of a crowd as I practiced, though I didn’t notice until I finished the song and heard the applause. Its nice to be appreciated sometimes. In any case, after my unintentional concert, I pulled out my Switch to pass the time, challenging a few of the people in line to battles in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I knew, then and there, that today was gonna be a great day!
4 Hours Later
“Let’s give a big hand to our grand prize winner!”
Today sucked…
I’m sure you’re all wondering why. Well, to make a long story short, I actually did pretty well in the karaoke contest, netting 2nd place overall. The sucky part is the fact that the winner was the same person who won last year, singing the exact. Same. SONG! as last year, which happens to be Again by Yui from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Normally, I don’t have a problem losing to someone singing that song, however, the fact that they sang that song last year, and won again this year using the same song without any sort of penalization is why I’m angry.
“And let’s not forget our runners up. Congratulations, and use those vouchers wisely!”
Oh yeah, we all got $20 vouchers for anything on the main floor for being runners up, so I suppose it wasn’t all as sucky as I was making it out to be. In any case, after everything was said and done, I wondered down to the main floor to browse.
If you’ve never been to something like ComicCon or AnimeNEXT, then you have no idea how awesome going through the booths can be! They had almost everything my little nerd heart could ask for, from bags, t-shirts and hats, to anime DVDs, rare video games, costumes and props, there was a booth for everything! However, there was one booth in particular that caught my eye, mostly due to the fact that it was completely empty, save the person running the booth.
As it turned out, this booth was a prop booth. I could see as I approached that it sold rare and hard to find costume pieces for just about every franchise out there.
“Good day, sir.”
I just about jumped out of my skin as the man running the booth had snuck up behind me. Turning, I get a good look at him, making my jaw drop. The first thing I saw was the Organization XIII jacket he wore, which was easily the best I had ever seen, but that wasn’t what shocked me. No, what shocked me, was the fact that the man was a dead ringer for Xemnas, right down to the voice.
“My apologies for the scare,” he said, a small smile on his face. “Please feel free to browse my wares.”
I nodded, still somewhat unsettled by the man, before turning back to the booth. As I said before, there was something from just about every franchise under the sun. However, there was on item that stood out from the rest. It was the Destiny’s Embrace Keyblade, wielded first by Aqua in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, and then later by Kairi in Kingdom Hearts II and III. I had to have it!
“Um, excuse me?” I said, turning to Xemnas. “How much for the Destiny’s Embrace Keyblade?”
Xemnas eyed me for a moment before retrieving the item in question, along with a small pouch. “As an apology for scarring you,” he started. “I will sell the Keyblade, as well as this pouch of keychains to you for $20. I believe that voucher you’re holding will cover the cost quite easily.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before I shoved the voucher into his hands, while grabbing the Keyblade and pouch. I was ecstatic, and almost missed Xemnas’s last words to me.
“Enjoy your trip, oh customer, mine.”
And with those words, I knew no more.