Chapter Text
It’s a world full of life - but for you and I, it’s similar to an “afterworld,” I suppose.
In the beginning, Sora never gave this sentiment much extra thought.
He knew what brought him here, of course, even if it was only in the vaguest of senses. Chirithy spoke of taboos and laws of nature, but for him that price was worth paying if it meant Kairi was safe with everyone back home on the Destiny Islands. And besides, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t grown accustomed to flirting with the afterlife. He had become a Heartless, visited the Underworld and fought alongside one of its denizens, fell into the darkest depths of sleep, and even managed to live through his own death. How could this place and what it had to offer be any different? Would it not be better, in its own way, given it seemed far more lively than anything Hades could ever hope to come up with?
It took a few days - or weeks, maybe. His sense of time had been distorted at this point - for Sora to understand that Strelitzia’s explanation of this place was not descriptive of its function, but rather its fundamental incompatibility with them.
The first hint of this incompatibility, though he didn’t realize it at the time, was in his own apartment. Strelitzia had brought a newspaper to help him better understand Quadratum, so he’d spread it over the counter in his attempt to parse the articles within. He pulled a random mug from the cupboard, filled it with water from the sink, and brought it to his lips as he tried to decipher the first headline. Though the cup was firmly placed against his mouth, he felt cool water seep through his shirt and saw it drip down toward the newspaper. He jumped back in surprise, only to cough on the water he’d apparently ingested. The counter was dry, the newspaper pristine.
The second was when he was walking over a bridge. He felt as though his foot fell through some inexplicable hole in the concrete, and he scrambled to grip the railing, his shopping bag be damned. He thankfully managed to reach the railing as his other foot fell through, and he used the momentum of the fall to swing himself forward and up. And then, just as suddenly, his feet were planted firmly on the ground, produce rolling languidly in front of him as passers-by gave him a wide birth. And no wonder, considering he’d just thrown himself against the railing.
The third hint was an otherwise normal walk through one of the pedestrian shopping centers. He’d gotten better at navigating the crowds, but no amount of dexterity could help him when the people he’d meant to be avoiding began phasing in and out of existence. It started subtly, as something Sora thought was a trick of the sun. It wasn’t until he bumped into a man he couldn’t even see that Sora gave up all pretense and ran out of the crowd, apologizing along the way.
Strelitzia looked at Sora with pity when he told her of these weird phenomena.
“Is that just a quirk of this world? I dunno how people could handle stuff not working properly…”
“No… unfortunately, no one else has to deal with these things. It’s just us, really.”
Sora’s lips pursed in genuine thought as he shifted his weight. Strelitzia sat on the couch in her apartment, but Sora’s own frustration with the last few days’ worth of trickery had him pacing around the room instead.
“Okay, so, this isn’t normal. If it’s not normal, then why is it happening?”
“Because we aren’t normal here.”
“…Is this that ‘afterworld’ thing you mentioned before? I thought I knew what that meant, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
She nodded, but remained quiet. Sora didn’t press her for an answer; Strelitzia was always very patient with Sora’s questions, and he wouldn’t begrudge her some time to think of how best to explain this predicament.
“There are… rules, I suppose, about what makes up a person where we’re from. Hearts, light, darkness… They make up everything. That should make sense, right?”
It was Sora’s turn to nod. Even if he didn’t understand the intricacies as well as someone like Ienzo did, he knew enough from his travels to intuit how these pieces fit together. His stare remained fixed on Strelitzia, urging her to continue.
“These things make sense to us, because that’s what we’re made of, and what we know. But here, in this place… they make no sense at all. Our ideas of reality fundamentally differ. In this world, there is light from the sun, but no light in a person’s heart. You can find darkness in the shade of a tree, but darkness doesn’t prowl after human hearts. For this world, these concepts are as real as the program playing on the TV right now.”
Sora looked behind him to the TV. The volume was low, but he could tell it was a rerun of some show Strelitzia was fond of. Though much of the technology in Quadratum was utterly foreign to Sora, television he at least understood. As real as his tears were at the emotional reunion that played out on the screen that night he watched the program with Strelitzia, that they were playing out a fiction remained unchanged. As her explanation began to settle in his mind, he settled himself on the couch next to her.
“We’re alive, but we don’t match this world’s definition of living, so it’s always having to remind itself we’re here. Tell itself that we’re ‘real.’”
“Yes. We’re like ghosts in that sense, I suppose.”
A beat of silence, and a collective sigh. Though it was followed by laughter at their overlapping reactions, it was tinged with defeat.
Sora did not regret his decision, but he could not deny how utterly oppressive this world felt to him. The blue of the sky was no less bright, the greens of the trees and the reds of the neon lights no less vibrant… but the gray filter his eyes naturally seemed to apply to his surroundings made the air he breathed feel like concrete. This odd monochrome filter applied to most people he spoke with, too, but not to Strelitzia. Likely due to their shared origin point, his senses never had to fight to register her as a person in the way he understood people, which is why he was endlessly thankful for her presence here.
And this is also why, one day on his way home, when his gaze locked onto a flash of white so vibrant as to compel him forward, he gave into the urge. Sora never thought to question who it could be, but he knew he could feel a heart - not a beating organ, like the one pumping blood into his legs as he weaved through the crowd, but the shimmering crystal that put the light of life in his eyes. It served as a beacon in the otherwise void landscape, and Sora was a moth to its flame.
Once he was sure he was close enough, Sora extended a hand outward and through the crowd to catch an arm. His grip was tighter than he anticipated it would be, but if this person was from Sora’s reality, then he was sure he’d understand the desperation. The person - a man, Sora now realized - froze momentarily before turning around…
And Sora’s blood ran cold.
“Xehanort…?!”
“Here you are, the price paid… just as I warned.”
There’s a high price to pay for wielding such power foolishly.
Your time… in this world is--
The sentence was loaded with the weight of previous taunts, and Sora’s hand reflexively pulled away from Xehanort’s wrist as if burned. He stared at the man in front of him, keenly aware of every minute detail as adrenaline took its hold. Though Xehanort wore a black coat, it was not the one he associated with the Organization. It and the rest of his wardrobe reflected the fashion of those around them, a fact that Sora’s shocked mind only barely registered as meaning Xehanort was likely just as trapped here as he was.
But even as they stood there long enough for Sora’s shock to wear away, Xehanort did nothing.
“What’s your plan?”
“…”
“Why are you here, too? How long have you known about this place?”
“…”
“All that time spouting nonsense in the Organization, and you’ve got nothing to say now? What, did you run out of stuff to confuse me with?”
“…There is nothing, for you or for me.”
Sora took a single step back, confused. Not because of what he said, even if it was admittedly just as confusing as what he’d grown used to hearing from any given Xehanort incarnation, but because of how this information was delivered. It was quiet, but not in the unnerving monotone he’d expected from this particular Xehanort.
Assuming this was that particular Xehanort, but it didn’t look like he was getting answers about that any time soon.
“Why do you sound so…?”
“…”
Defeated.
Even the old master had reached something approaching peace when he met his final moments, but the young man standing in front of Sora now looked at him with vacant eyes. Vacant eyes that now closed forlornly as Xehanort turned away.
“You’d best resign yourself to your life here, Sora. No amount of chasing hope will alter the hand fate has dealt.”
Sora’s hand twitched as he looked down to the pavement. There was nothing left for his fingers to grasp at any longer, but they curled inward to leave frustrated crescents on his skin. He had seen hope in that flash of color escaping the gray, and Xehanort knew that. But his chastising comment didn’t hold the usual dry vitriol. The indifference in his tone was not born of cruelty, but of resignation.
He looked up, yet another question on the tip of his tongue, but it faded away before he had the chance to speak. Xehanort had walked away, and Sora couldn’t bring himself to chase after his receding back. It was so… normal, compared to the usual flare and dark portals.
It’s only then, as the differences began to pile up, that Sora realized one more crucial difference:
His eyes were silver.