Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Sora was sitting lifelessly on the floor, leaning against the wall. Kairi bit her nails while Riku was pretending to relax against the wall. “Pretending” being the keyword, because his right leg was shaking restlessly.
Yen Sid’s office was crowded and had been for the past hours. Along with Sora’s childhood friends, Donald, Goofy, Lea, Mickey and Yen Sid was waiting for Sora to wake up.
Sora flinched and for a moment it looked like he was about to wake up. Instead his face started twitching increasable with pain, and a black fog started to surround him.
“Riku, get in there now!” At Kairi’s demand he stepped forward, fully prepared to jump into Sora’s heart and save him again.
“Don’t,” Yen Sid’s powerful voice made him stop. “He has to complete the exam on his own. If he does not learn to awaken the sleeping worlds, then this all will be for naught.”
“That’s the third time he started emitting darkness-”
“And it’s the third time he’s going to stop it. We have to have fate in him.” Riku scowled at the older man, but he did not acknowledge him. Instead he turned his gaze to the other people in the room.
“I am sure that you all know the importance of this test. Sora was never intended to have the kingdom key, but he still has a role to fulfill. His heart is containing a power unlike any other and could turn the tide in the final battle against Xehanort.”
Riku scoffed at his words. “The Keyblade chose him, don’t deny that. He has a strong heart.”
“I am not denying the strength of his heart, master Riku. I am just stating the fact that if it wasn’t for master Eraqus pupils and your troublesome meeting with darkness, he would might had the possibility to spend his life on the islands, ignorant to the wars of the worlds.”
Kairi’s irritation was visible on her face but it soon changed to worry as a grunt slipped past Sora’s lips. He was still surrounded by a dark halo. The room went quiet for a few moments. His face kept on twitching and a tear suddenly fell from his eye. Donald and Goofy tried to reach towards him, but the king took their hands, stopping them in the process. Yen Sid drew a long breath before he continued.
“Sora’s completion of this test would definitely give us a great leverage, but there’s also other possibilities. And I believe the time has come to discuss them king Mickey.” Yen Sid gestured towards the three fairies’ room, hinting for Mickey to walk alongside him. Mickey slowly nodded, and he started to walk towards the door with his master.
“Wait a minute, you can’t give up so easily!” Kairi was nearly shouting, a furious look on her face. “Yes, Sora might not be the true chosen for the kingdom key and yes, he might not finish this exam on his own. But he doesn’t need to, not when he has his friends.”
She went over to Sora and sat next to him. The darkness made her flinch, as if it burned her skin. But she reached through the fog and grabbed his right hand, placing it in her left.
“Come over here Riku. You know he’s hopeless without us.” She half-joked. Riku gave her a tiny smile before he joined them on the floor. The darkness didn’t burn his skin as he took Sora’s left hand in his own.
Slowly but surely the darkness started to disperse. Kairi gave a sigh of relief and the pain in her hand got less present.
Yen Sid gave the teens a thoughtful look, his eyes concentrating at Kairi and Sora’s joined hands.
“Very well. Mickey, please join me in the other room meanwhile. We have other things to discuss.”
“Look at this smirking bastard,” Riku chuckled. Sora was now sporting a tiny smile. Kairi laughed along with Riku.
“I wonder what it is he’s doing in there…”
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He had found all the keyholes and unlocked them, just as Yen Sid said he was supposed to. Why couldn’t he wake up again? Why was he lying on the floor clutching his chest? It was just as the previous exam. He failed, and he had a sinking feeling that Riku wouldn’t come to his aid this time.
Sora struggled to get to his feet and opted to crawl to the closest wall instead. He leaned against it, still clutching his aching chest. Sora tried to retrace his memories of what had happened, but it was all so hazy.
He had been running through what seemed like an endless amount of white corridors. But after passing through two big doors, Riku had suddenly appeared. And he was just standing there, holding his hand outstretch form him to grab. Sora remember taking the hand, but that’s where things got messy.
He remembered the feeling of hurt, betrayal, jealousy and immense guilt. There was flashes of Maleficent, Destiny Islands, white corridors and oddly enough, memories of Sora himself in a pod. He also saw himself with Donald and Goofy, but it was strange. It wasn’t from Sora’s point of view at all. The worst part must have been seeing a lifeless Kairi on the ground.
Sora shock his head, as if it would clear it up. He tried to get to his feet again and succeeded this time. He was making his way down the corridor slowly now. It was weird what had happened with Riku, but that still didn’t explain how he ended on the floor.
“What happened after I left Riku? Or was it he who left me…,”
Then it hit him. It hadn’t just been Riku. There had been two other guys!
He had passed through another pair of doors, and there had been two guys holding their hands outstretched to him. He had taken their hands, and there had been an immense pain. Sorrow, anger, hate, abandonment, desperation… just pure pain.
Pictures had been passing through his head displaying moments of hurt, and it had been too much. Sora had collapsed. He couldn’t remember exactly what he had seen, and his head was throbbing.
“I can’t even try to think about it. It just hurts to much,” he mumbled to himself as he approached the next door.
If this maze was following a pattern, there would most likely be someone at the other side of the door. Most likely they would hold fort their hand again, and he would feel some sort of pain.
Sora rubbed his hand over his chest before taking a deep breath.
“Okay, here we go!” With a great pull he opened the door and stepped through to yet another room where a familiar silhouette was waiting for him.
“Kairi!”
She was standing in the middle of the room, looking calm with her arms crossed behind her back.
“Kairi, I’m so glad to see you. You wouldn’t believe-,” Sora stopped abruptly. Kairi was just looking at him, not saying a word.
“… You’re not really here either, are you?” Sora asked with a sad smile on his face.
The Kairi in front of him gave him a tiny smile before reaching her hand towards him.
“You too, huh,” He gazed at her hand for a moment.
Sora suspected he would feel pain again, but this was Kairi. She was pure light. He didn’t know about the two strangers he had seen earlier, but Riku had been straying on the path to darkness before. Maybe he was sensing the consequences of that? If darkness was terrible pain, then the light Kairi was emitting might be giving him feelings of happiness and joy.
“Let’s do this.”
He grabbed her hand and was immediately pulled into darkness.
A feeling of safety flew over him, but at the same time he felt hollow. Just hollow and incredibly empty.
Then there was light and suddenly he was in Merlin’s old house in Traverse Town. His body was moving across the room, looking around, and he felt as though he was just a passenger. And then he saw himself, Donald and Goofy examine the same room before his mouth started to move on its own accord.
“There’s something about this musty place…” The voice that came out of his mouth was not his own. He walked towards his fourteen-year-old self, who looked positively stunned. “It reminds me of the secret place back home, where we used to scribble on the walls. Remember?”
He could hear himself calling Kairi’s name before he was pulled back into the darkness again.
He was seeing Kairi’s memories! This was not okay at all. He felt as an intruder as more memories from his first adventures seen through Kairi’s eyes appeared in front of him. He felt the emptiness that she had been carrying for such a long time, and felt the desperation, fear and sadness when Kairi saw Riku attacking him, before he pierced himself with the keyblade to rescue her and the heartache she felt when she couldn’t hold on to his hand anymore and watched him disappear into a sea of stars and light.
After that, a feeling of being lost and forgetful filled his mind through the next memories. Then the fear of being taken away by Axel and then pain when Saix captured her. Kairi had put on a fight but Saix had seriously injured her when she tried to fight back. He had healed her scars, but not the psychologic wounds that came with the knowledge that she was used as a puzzle piece to hurt her friends.
The last memory he saw was of himself and Riku running towards the portal she was standing in, just missing entering before it closed. The feeling of terror. Then it all faded to darkness again.
Sora stood motionless in the dark, a feeling of guilt growing in his stomach. They hadn’t had much time to talk when they were home on the island, and none of them felt like discussing the scary parts of their adventures. Sora, Kairi and Riku had mostly used their time with their families but joined each other every night by the papou tree to watch the sunset. They would talk about mundane things, but occasionally Sora would talk about some of the happier memories he made on the trips, and the people he’d met.
To even ask what had happened or how long she was in Saix custody hadn’t crossed Sora’s mind, and he felt terrible about it. What a friend he was…
A bright light appeared, so bright that Sora had to cover his eyes. He expected to be taken back to the white corridor but when he opened his eyes he was in some sort of dark office.
He had gained control of his body again. The room was full of bookshelf stocked with at least a hundred books. Sora walked toward a desk which was at the center of the room. He picked up one of the dozens of papers which was covering the surface.
Experiment 17: The subject was given a shot of darkness-essence in her left forearm. No changes in the subject the first 15 minutes. After this the subject started to display symptoms of pain through screaming and biting. Subdued after 35 minutes of this behavior. The subject was sluggish the rest of the day, but the scar after the initial shot disappeared after few hours and she was at normal behavior the next morning. Will try again with a bigger dosage of darkness.
Sora picked up more of the papers. They were all test papers! Some there had been drawings on, illustrating the experiment. And on every single paper there was a name.
Ansem.
He spotted something colorful between the black and white reports. It was a drawing of what looked to be a field of flowers, colored with crayons. Sora’s hands started to tremble, and it took all his might to not crumble the drawing in his hand. The sick bastard was experimenting on children!
His heart stung again, and he dropped the drawing, clutching his chest. It was like it was pulling itself out of his body, trying to go somewhere. It pulled him towards the door.
He went through it and he arrived in a long, dark corridor with many doors. His heart urged him towards the end of the corridor. He could hear voices on the other end of the door. Sora pushed up the door slightly and peered to the opening.
“Today you’re going to drink this.”
“Is it cocoa?”
Sora gasped. There, sitting on an examination table, was a four-year-old Kairi. She was humming to herself, swinging her legs back and forth. She eyes following the dark drink a young Xehanort was pouring from a container to a purple cup.
“It is not,” He said as he walked to her. “but we can make some for you later if you like.”
Xehanort reached the cup towards her. Kairi gave the drink a sniff before belching and turning away.
“It smells like those weird things. I don’t want it.”
“Now come on. After you finish this you’ll get cocoa and then we can draw some more.” Kairi shock her head vigorously as Xehanort pressed the drink nearer her face.
“No, it hurts. Take it away, I want grandma!”
Sora couldn’t take it anymore and burst through the door.
“Kai-” He slammed into an invisible wall. None of the other in the room noticed him. On the other side he could see Xehanort getting angry. He was throwing threats at Kairi, saying that she couldn’t go home before she drank the substance.
But he couldn’t hear it. The noise was disturbed by the fear in his heart, the feeling of being small and just wanting to hide. He was connected to Kairi’s heart and she was terrified. He started to bang his hands against the wall, trying to break through.
The betrayal he felt when Xehanort grabbed her face and forced the drink down her throat was sickening.
“See, that wasn’t so bad. How do you feel?”
Kairi sat there motionless, and Sora felt the same tug at his heart. Something was incredibly wrong. He ceased his beating on the wall and just watched her. For a few seconds everything was quiet.
Slowly a halo of light started to pure out of her. The little girl took a deep breath before she let out a horrifying scream. She shone brighter and brighter, and Xehanort had to back away and cover his eyes.
Sora could feel his heart break. Light fighting the darkness inside him. It was too painful.
He felt the light push him backwards and before he knew it he was falling into the darkness.
Suddenly he was back in the white corridor, laying on the floor. The pain and the dark in his heart were eating him up. He threw up his previous meal, then wiped the salvia away from his mouth. He could feel his eyes burning with tears.
“I can’t do this.” He cried openly before curling into a ball on the floor.