Chapter Text
Roxas looked up at the boy sleeping in the white lotus-shaped pod in front of him: Sora, Roxas’s ‘Other’, whom Roxas had to return to in order to wake him. He had accepted his fate; after all, Roxas had not been meant to exist in the first place, so what right did he have to keep Sora in a coma just so he could stay around? No, it was time to return the parts of Sora that Sora needed.
Roxas smiled sadly. “Looks like my summer vacation… is over,” he said as a bright light engulfed him, and Roxas knew no more as his essence returned to Sora, blending into him perfectly.
At least, that’s what Naminé told him would happen.
Roxas moaned slightly as he blinked awake; was it morning? Had that all been a dream? No, wait… Roxas looked around; all he could see was darkness, except for the glowing stained glass circle underneath him. He moved to the edge of it, looking down into what seemed to be an endless abyss. He turned around and examined the glass, trying to discern the design; to his surprise, it was himself!
“Is this… a heart station?” Roxas mused aloud, recalling something someone had once told him. “But I thought I didn’t have one of those… And why didn’t I fade away…?” Roxas didn’t have his own heart; he had stolen part of Sora’s. His essence should have blended back into the boy, his own consciousness lost. So why…?
Roxas looked up, noticing that there appeared to be a much larger circle above and to the side, but he couldn’t tell the design. There were, however, glowing stairs leading up to it. Well, might as well climb them, Roxas figured; there wasn’t much else to do. Maybe it was Sora’s station; that would make the most sense.
Roxas’s suspicions proved correct as he reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the much larger platform, which displayed Sora’s image prominently. Curiously though, Roxas’s station didn’t seem to be the only one connected; there were two other paths branching off of the station. Roxas decided to investigate them.
The first one Roxas tried had a thick purple smoke covering it and some sort of invisible barrier blocking it off, so he decided to ignore that for now and try the second, the investigation of which proved more fruitful—albeit extremely confusing.
“Is that… me?” Roxas wondered as he entered the heart station. The boy sleeping in the center of the glass panel was nearly identical… Was Roxas not the only Nobody that Sora had? Or was this something different? There were pictures of people in smaller circles around the boy’s image; who were they? No one Roxas knew of, and no one he had seen in his dreams about Sora. Sora himself had had Riku and Kairi in his circles, as well as the duck and dog, so they were probably people important to this boy. Roxas hadn’t taken the time to look at his yet, but going by that logic it probably had Axel, and possibly Hayner, Pence, and Olette, although the latter three had been digital creations who Roxas had technically only known for a week despite having artificial memories going back further; he didn’t know the real-world version of them. He’d check later.
Roxas walked up to the boy, who was floating in the air as he slept, then shook the boy’s shoulder slightly. “Hey, wake up,” he said, to no avail. So Roxas shook him harder. “Come on, I want to know what’s going on here!” he complained. Still the boy slept.
Roxas concluded the boy must be in some sort of coma and went to leave that station to head back to his own; there was nothing else to explore.
Then, something caught Roxas’s eye; curiously, there was another station connected to this boy’s, shadowed enough that Roxas almost missed it. Roxas headed over to it; instead of stairs leading downwards, the path was horizontal. A shiver ran down his spine as he moved along it; the path was unexpectedly long and winding, leading away from the rest into who-knew-where. As Roxas was debating giving up, the end finally came into view; however, as with the first platform Roxas had tried, it was completely blocked off.. Although, this barrier felt different; whereas the other, despite being dark in color, felt warm, this one felt harsh, like it would lash out at anyone who got near.
Roxas sighed and headed back to his own station, contemplating his situation.
So, was he stuck here forever, or what? Things were going to be awfully boring if this was his life now. Why couldn’t Roxas have faded like Naminé said he would?
Entering his own station, Roxas noted that Axel indeed was in a smaller circle—along with a second circle that for some reason was blurred out. Roxas rubbed his eyes, hoping that would help, but he just couldn’t get the image in focus. Was it purposely like that? Maybe it was a placeholder for someone he hadn’t met yet, Roxas decided. There was no Hayner, Pence, or Olette, but Naminé was there, and so was Riku, of all people. Why him? Roxas certainly wasn’t friends with Riku, not at all.
Roxas sat down in the middle of the station, wondering what he should do. Should he try to sleep, like the other boy was doing?
Roxas gave a start as something appeared in front of him; an eye-shaped screen? But the edges were blurry. Weird… Roxas peered through it; to his surprise, he saw Twilight Town. He leaned forwards, trying to get a better look; as Roxas got closer, he realized it was a glassless window, roughly as tall as him, and he could lean out to see better, which he did…
With a lurch Roxas was sucked into it. It appeared that that had not been a window after all, rather some sort of portal, which Roxas should have known as the dark portals had similar fuzzy edges. The lack of black had been what threw him off.
Roxas blinked, adjusting to the bright sunlight. He looked around. Did he have his body back? Had that all been some sort of strange daydream?
“Sora! Pay attention!” a squawk next to him sounded. Roxas jumped in surprise, turning to see… Dolan, right? Was that his name? No, it was Donald, right? Wait…
Roxas pulled down a piece of his hair, seeing brown. “I’m… Sora…” he muttered in realization. He had hijacked Sora’s body. Did that mean Sora was watching right now? He must be awfully confused!
“What? Of course you are!” the duck snapped.
“Gawrsh, did all that sleep muddle your brain?” someone else said, sounding worried, and Roxas turned to find the anthropomorphic dog… crap, what was his name again? Gooey? Groovy? Goofy, that was it!
“N-no, I’m fine,” Roxas said, deciding the best thing to do for now was pretend to be Sora until he could figure out what the hell was going on and how to fix it.
“Then let’s go!” Donald said.
“Go where?” Roxas wondered, belatedly realizing that Sora would have known.
“Are you stupid? We need to find the train station!”
“R-right,” Roxas said, not very comfortable with how easily the duck had insulted him. Or, Sora. He didn’t do that a lot, did he? That wasn’t very nice. Roxas barely resisted the urge to punch the duck.
Roxas led the way to the train station, unaware that Sora wouldn’t know the way until the duck and dog said something. Oops. Thankfully the questions about that were cut short as they reached the train station, only to find…
“H-heartless?” Donald stuttered in surprise, readying his wand.
“No, I don’t think they are,” Goofy said as he summoned his shield.
“Dusks,” Roxas muttered quietly as he assessed the undulating white figures. Hostile, or not? They weren’t attacking; in fact, they seemed friendly. Perhaps they only wanted to investigate. Did the dusks know he was Roxas? No, they’d be attacking if that were the case; the Organization had wanted to capture Roxas, last he checked. Should he tell the other two that the dusks were unlikely to attack, or would knowing that be too suspicious?
Too late; Donald and Goofy rushed in, weapons blazing, to fight the group of dusks.
“Sora, help us!” Donald chided when he noticed Roxas wasn’t moving.
“R-right,” Roxas said, drawing the keyblade—thankfully Sora’s standard one rather than one of the other two models Roxas now used—and rushing to help.
But Roxas hesitated, unsure if he truly wanted to attack them. The dusks didn’t deserve to die just because the duck and dog were trigger-happy. Should he try to talk to them? But, that would be suspicious. Maybe there was a way to subtly let the dusks know that escape would be better?
A dusk, now convinced the three were enemies, took advantage of the delay to whack Roxas in the side, and he tumbled to the ground.
Suddenly, Roxas found himself back in the heart station with the window in front of him.
“What’s going on?” Sora mumbled, sitting up groggily as Roxas watched through what he now realized was Sora’s eyes; the window was directly connected to what the brunette was seeing. His voice echoed through the entire heart station. “Where am I?”
“Sora, stop dawdling and help!” Donald squawked, tone clearly annoyed. Roxas bristled again, already not liking the duck despite barely knowing him. He was so obnoxious; why did Sora stay around him? Stockholm syndrome?
Roxas’s thoughts trailed off as he suddenly found himself very sleepy. He sat down and closed his eyes…
Next Roxas woke, the portal showed some sort of study with an elderly wizard in blue spangled robes sitting at a desk, describing something to those there.
As Roxas listened, he realized with a start that the wizard, whom a cricket—Jiminy, right?—addressed by the name of Yen Sid, was describing Nobodies and the Organization to the group. Roxas had mixed feelings on what the wizard was saying; technically it was all true, at least according to what Xemnas told everybody—which Roxas was beginning to suspect had been inaccurate, considering Roxas had a heart station, which meant he must have a heart—but the way Yen Sid phrased it made them sound like some sort of nefarious group of supervillains! They weren’t that bad, were they? The wizard didn’t even know their plans, either… should Roxas say something? Wait, no, that’d reveal his presence. Plus, if Xemnas lied about them having hearts, had he also done so about their plot? Why summon Kingdom Hearts to get hearts if they already had them?
“Sora, are you listening?” the duck suddenly said, and with a start Roxas realized that he’d taken control of the body again. Had he accidentally touched the portal? Well, fuck; this was the absolute worst moment to do that. Roxas wanted to punch himself; he'd need to stay further away from that portal next time.
“Yeah,” Roxas said. After all, he had been, even if Sora apparently hadn't been.
“As I was saying,” Yen Sid continued, “The King is currently traveling from world to world, fighting the Heartless as he searches for information on what Organization XIII and the Nobodies are planning.”
“So then… what should we do?” Roxas wondered. Sora didn’t have a goal as of now, right? Did the wizard want them to help fight Heartless? Roxas could do that; he’d been fighting Heartless for the better part of a year.
“Well gawrsh, Sora,” Goofy replied. “We already know that, don’t we? We need to find Riku and the King.”
“Oh, right,” Roxas quickly said. Ugh, Riku. Roxas did not have a very good rapport with the silverette. He wondered if it’d be a bad idea to tell them to stop looking… No, that would be too suspicious. Sora, the idiot, was practically in love with the guy—the others would never believe it if he said he wanted to stop looking for Riku, and then Roxas would be caught.
“Sora, are you okay?” Jiminy wondered. “You’re awfully spacy. Are you not feeling well?”
“Huh? I’m fine,” Roxas said quickly as he snapped out of his thoughts.
“Then answer the question!” Donald squawked.
“Wait, what question?” Roxas asked. He hadn’t been that distracted, had he?
“I asked if you have any clue where Riku might be! You know him best,” the duck explained, clearly annoyed at Roxas.
“Um… Probably with Naminé, right?” Roxas ventured. The two had been working together, after all.
“What do you mean, with Naminé?!” Donald angrily asked. Why was he angry?
Jiminy said, “Gosh, Sora, do you know who Naminé is, after all?”
“Um… no?” Roxas said nervously. Was he not supposed to know her?
“Then why might you think she’d be with Riku?”
Roxas shrugged. “I dunno. Just a feeling, I guess,” he lied, aware that Yen Sid seemed to be studying Roxas during the whole interaction. Did he suspect anything? Well, it seemed that they had already known Naminé’s name, so at least he wasn’t talking about a random ‘new’ person.
Thankfully the conversation was interrupted by a cacophony of excited voices as three large fairies scurried out of the adjacent room, each clad in a different color: pink, green, and blue. They were talking over each other, saying something about how they needed to give everyone new clothes and didn’t want to wait any longer. As they shoved the group into a side room, Roxas really wished he knew how to return to inside Sora.
Sora awoke the next morning extremely confused and unsure where he was. He sat up in the familiar-feeling bed and looked around, realizing he was in one of the bunks in the GummiShip’s tiny bedroom.
The last thing he remembered, he had been in the study of the strange Tower talking to a wizard, whose name Sora had forgotten. How had he gotten here from there? Had visiting the wizard been a dream?
The wizard had been talking about a new enemy, those white wiggly things. Which was weird, because Sora had the distinct feeling that they were friends, not foes, even though the creatures had attacked them. Or had they attacked? Sora didn’t remember actually entering the battle, and he wouldn’t put it past Donald to start fighting without being attacked first. Yet that wizard said they were bad, and Donald and Goofy seemed to trust him…
“Sora!” came a squawk from elsewhere on the ship. Ah, it must be time to wake up. Sora wondered if they’d reached somewhere new or if whoever was driving needed a turn to sleep; he didn’t remember even going to sleep, after all. Had he passed out? Sora hadn’t thought he’d been quite that tired.
Also, what was with the new clothes? Sora was relieved that he didn’t have to wear his too-tight old outfit anymore, but he would have liked to remember getting them. Missing such a large chunk of time probably wasn’t a good thing. Was it an aftereffect of sleeping for a year?
Sora groggily stumbled out of the bed and stretched out his back; the bunk beds in the GummiShip’s tiny room, which contained a small closet in addition, were barely adequate for sleeping. Sora had asked Donald if they could upgrade the ship, get something more comfortable, but the duck always claimed that would be a waste of munny. Maybe if Sora said it was a health issue the duck would finally agree; collapsing in battle due to a sore back wouldn’t be good, after all. Maybe Sora could fake that to convince the duck… Oh, wait. Duh.
Sora used a quick ‘cure’ spell to get the kinks out of his back, then exited the room and climbed some stairs to reach the cockpit, where Donald was waiting with his fists on his hips.
“It’s about time!” the duck squawked.
“Time for what?” Sora mumbled as he rubbed some sleep out of his eyes.
“You said you were going to take a quick nap. Three hours is not a quick nap! We have things to do!” the duck practically yelled.
“What things?” Sora wondered.
“What things?! Finding Riku and the King, of course! We’ve reached a world; let’s go already!”
“Oh, right!” Sora recalled. “Riku!” They had to find Riku.
“And the King,” Goofy reminded him, more gently than Donald had.
“Yeah yeah, him too,” Sora said with a casual wave of his hand, not caring nearly as much about that as about Riku.
“Sora!” Donald chided.
“Okay, okay, sheesh,” Sora grumbled, annoyed for some reason and having a sudden urge to punch Donald. Instead he said, “Let’s just go, okay?”