Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He wished the sun would stop beaming on days like this. He’d never experienced rain firsthand, but the text in his head and the feeling in his heart thought it would be nice. At least then he wouldn’t feel as foolish, trying and failing to cry. The rain would do it for him. Nobody else was even trying to cry. 

Today they were saying goodbye to Riku.

 Or ‘JJ’ as he wanted to be called now.

Wakka and Tidus didn’t really get it, standing back more towards the beach questioning Riku’s strange ‘cult cloak’ and ‘cult name,’ but Selphie was at least being a good sport about it. Patting Sora’s back in a soft voice, “There there Sora! Ri- er, JJ will be back.” She paused and glared at Riku, “…You are, right?” Earning a quiet nervous laugh from him.

“I’ll be back in a month. I’ve got to do some very important work for Mickey, okay Sora? Everything will be fine; I might even get to come home early if things go well, ok?” His efforts to also give placating back pats were thwarted when Sora grabbed his arm and pulled him into a crushing hug. Everyone on the island had noticed Sora’s exponential increase in physical affection; no one had been spared, and everyone got a good chuckle in as JJ wheezed, “I promise…!”

Sora let him go and took a step back, eyes still bone dry but trying their best, “G-Goodbye!! Have a great trip!! Bring photosssssssssss!!! CALLLLLLLL WITH UPDATEEESSSS!!” Before attempting a truly awful attempt at a smile that quickly melted back into a sniffling frown.

JJ turned, waved, and a strange pixelated portal opened and closed, before he was gone.

Sora could see on the other three faces absolute confusion at the impossible events before their eyes, buffering, before Selphie recovered, “Well it’s a shame, but let’s go have a little sadness snack and have a movie night! That’ll cheer you up!”

And it was enough. Data Sora did feel a little better.

At exactly the thirty-day mark, Sora got a message from JJ. He wasn’t coming home anytime soon, the ‘war’ outside had gotten complicated. They still had small talk about what was going on, but 5 minutes on the connection didn’t feel like nearly enough time.

“And That was nearly a hundred days ago.” Sora sighed.

“Sora, your counting is getting creepy.” Said Tidus as he climbed a tree. “I think you’re thinking about this too much.” He broke off a coconut and dropped it to Wakka.

“Yeah man, we ani't good enough for ya?” He laughed, he was joking but Sora frowned more.

“Aww, give him a break!” Selphie sat beside him, “Nobody’s ever been on such a long trip before! It’s weird! And I bet you two would be weird about it if the other left!”

They rolled their eyes, and as Tidus zipped down the tree, “Okay, so I’ve been thinking about Blitzball again-”

And Sora immediately started ignoring them. Instead snatching the coconut away while the two were preoccupied. He might have been interested in this theoretical game had they not argued about its rules for weeks on end. Returning to his spot, rolling the coconut in his hands, “First Wakka’s going to say it can’t be seen, 'cause it’s under the water.”

“Man, I’m telling you, how is anyone going to be able to watch it?!” Wakka was giving Tidus a noogie right now, “It’s under the water!”

Sighing deeply before offering the fruit to Selphie, “Then Tidus is going to say something about a massive tank of water, followed by submarine cameras.”

“Dude listen!” Tidus finally gets free, “It would just need a giant fish tank! Like orca sized! Or maybe we can just put cameras on little submarines and do it in the ocean- yeouch!” Silenced by ball to the face.

Selphie gave a whistle, “Wow, down to the letter. You hiding some ESP from us?”

He leaned back, groaning with arms behind his head, “I wish. I swear they’ve had this argument like 3 times before? And it’s always the same? It doesn’t even make sense.” Nobody here can reach the water. How can you have a game under it if you can’t even reach it? “They’re going to be at it for hours….” He slumped even further down.

Getting off the edge, Selphie dusted off her dress, “So. Wanna ditch these guys? Maybe watch a movie?”

“…Yeah. That sounds good.”

They left for the docks, sat momentarily in one of the boats, and in a blink appeared in his room.

Now, he wasn’t sure when his wall across from the window had suddenly gained Selphie’s living room TV and collection of movies but no need to look in this horse's mouth. 

“Hey Selphie, do you mind If I pick the movie this time? Not that I don’t like your picks, but I feel like we’ve watch the same 5 over and over.”

“Sounds good to me!” Making herself comfortable on the bed, “Is that why you can quote the entirety of Titanic?”

He stuck his tongue out, “Hey, it’s a handy skill to inflict on people.” He rummaged through the selection, “Uh… dunno what ‘Splash’ is, wanna watch it?” She gave a thumbs up. Pulling out the tape, he double checked he had the right one, tossed it in, sat down on the floor, and pressed play on the remote. 

Unfortunately, familiar music began to play.

He pinched his brow in extreme exasperation as Selphie began looking very embarrassed.

“Selphie. Is this Titanic?”

“Appears so…”

Slowly turning to face her, “On your shelf of movies, are you telling me you have not only a normal copy of Titanic, but another copy, labeled and in the box of a different movie?”

“…Maybe mom recorded over it one day…?” She shrugged, before flailing her hands a bit, “Ahh I’m sorry we can find another one-”

“Nah.” He just rolled over to face the screen, “We can watch it again. No big deal. Frankly, your dedication to this movie is impressive.” That left her in a burst of giggles.

This time he was going to count how many doors appeared…

Lost track at around 255 doors. 

Selphie left, and he found himself bored again. Still on the floor he ran his finger over it. Supposedly a type of ‘carpet.’ Pointless to do, the only thing he was sure of was that his finger was colliding with it. Not for the first time, he wondered why anyone bothered with different ‘types’ of floors if they were all just the same.

He crawled back on the bed, and with a look out the window, sighed.
There felt like nothing to do on the islands anymore.

...

...He didn’t have to stay here.  His eyes turning to his bedroom door. 

Before JJ left, he gave him a little gift. He made that door lead to a strange dark cave with lots of other doors so he could visit his other friends of other worlds. 

But his eyes turned tired, and he looked away.

If he thought the days here were a bore, those places were practically trapped in one eternal uneventful day. The only place that wasn’t had 101 very beautifully dressed, judgmentally staring mannequins at the foot of arenas filled with Heartless. 

So he stayed home.

Chapter Text

'You know, Heartless that are in the Avatar Sector aren’t actually Heartless. They’re data beings just the same, just based on creature-y things instead of people. Maybe they can talk?' His curiosity burned bright enough to go, it would be worth dealing with the weird main Avatar grabbing his face and staring into his soul a bit. Their hands were always so still and lifeless, like a mannequin.

All that work, for naught. He tried talking to them. Nothing happened. Still livelier then the mannequins.

When he encountered the Eliminator, as a joke he called them ‘Elimi-chan,’ he probably just imagined their face twitching and them hitting him harder than usual…so just to be sure he called them. “Eleminichan!” Yep, they for sure were ticked off about that. Huh.

It had been nearly two hundred and fourteen days since JJ was here last, and Sora missed him something terribly fierce.

“I just wish he’d send a letter or a call again or something…” He said one day into the shoulder of a frustrated Selphie, “Just something? Anything? I’d be happy even if he picked up the phone just to call me a spikey haired F-grade idiot.”

She sighed and looked out the window, “It’s getting late Sora; it’s nearly 8 o’clock.” Even though the skies were always lit up bright as noon.

She then huffed. “I just don’t get what the heck is his problem! I know he knows our numbers. And he sure as heck knows his. His mom would totally run out and get us!” He should tell her one day that Riku’s mom doesn't exist in this context. “Anyways, I’ve gotta go home now. But I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?” Sora nodded. Asking people to stay never worked. They always despawned at some point in the night. She got up and made to walk away. He blinked, and she was gone.

It was getting depressing how many cracks were beginning to show; how many tricks and shortcuts were suddenly very noticeable in this fake little world he lived in. He rolled out of bed, and from underneath it he pulled out, of all things, a spreadsheet.

45 days. There were exactly 45 permutations of a day on Destiny Island. And he had been cataloging them all. Today had been day 17, a fairly common and calm day. Nobody would show up on the island until after 3, and then at around 6 Selphie would want to watch a movie. Easy stuff.

After checking off another tick and leaving a small note, his eyes, of course, drifted to one of the rarer days. So rare was this day, he was pretty sure he’d only seen it once. It was an utter fluke.

Day 8: The day Wakka had to take Tidus to the hospital.

It was so early in his cataloging that it was a bit of a struggle to remember what had happened, but he remembered the lead-up pretty well. Much like a day 19, 23, or 40, Tidus would approach him early in the day and demand a fight. No problem. They’ve sparred hundreds of times over the years; it was no big deal.

Until Tidus was halfway inside the bridge. Oh yeah, they haven’t sparred since he got his keyblade. And over his adventure, he’s gotten kinda strong. Everyone started panicking, especially himself, until Wakka slapped his own face and took charge as the eldest. He grabbed the first aid kit hidden in the shack, patched Tidus up as best he could, then got on a boat and booked it.

Sora and Selphie had spent the rest of the day on the beach wondering whether they should leave or not. They had decided to err on the side of caution and stay. They nervously talked about boats to try and pretend they weren’t totally worried. By quitting time, the two boys had returned, with Tidus just being a little bruised up.

A horrible part of him wanted to see that day again. 

He wanted to hurt him again.

Chest burning with pain at just the thought, he went through his bedroom door to the Avatar Sector. He passed the lead mannequin, today dressed as an unfairly gorgeous version of himself if he were older and had darker, cooler clothes. Their cold eyes tracked him, before following him down the path.

He fought Heartless till the burn left, and kept going till the Eliminator got the jump on him. Defeated, he crawled into bed.

No matter where he looks in the little cave, no matter what he tries on the console, Castle Oblivion is gone. He thinks Data-Roxas would be so disappointed in him.

The next day, he went to Wonderland and punched the Queen of Hearts in the face.

She then ordered every card in the kingdom to attack him and set the entire land into uproarious chaos.

Worth it.

She always acted like she never knew him, and when he came by the day after, it was still the same confusion. The easy lie about her ordering him to patrol still worked. Yet shame still took hold.

Chapter Text

If he acted up in other worlds, he could get maybe 3 more days out of them.
At least once a week, he went to the Avatar Sector to burn off the guilt.
If he acted up on Destiny Islands, he could get as high as 12 more.
Sometimes, it’s several days in a row of Avatar Sector to get the stress under control.

Sora could consistently get to the end without much fuss now, but it was kind of a bummer. Without JJ in the system, the bugged version of him at the bottom never appeared. The regular Heartless stood no chance against him. His ability board was maxed out and no longer had any blank chips. His cheats were set to make it harder for him and easier for them, yet the only challenge that remained was the Eliminator. But he couldn't just fight all day every day…

He kept the cheats on always now. They were painful, but that’s ok. People were always laughing at his silly new luck, and if it meant Tidus could win a few spars now and again, even better.

Another boring Wonderland Day, with him and Alice just bumbling around lost again. Well, she was lost; he wasn’t by this point. “My goodness…” She said again, “It truly is like stepping into another world, isn’t it?” 

“Not really.” An an exciting thought struck him, “Hey Alice, wanna go to another world with me?” He surprised himself by grabbing her cold hand. “I mean it! There’s a door we can take to get out of here.”

“An even yet Another world from this one?” She said curiously. “How do you know of such a door?”

“I’m not from this world. I used the door to get here.” He pleaded: “It’s totally safe and easy! Aren’t you a little bored… er… tired of… ah! Being lost? My home is a tropical island; it’s very hard to get lost there!”

That seemed to sway her, “Oh, it sounds most lovely! Do you know the way from here?”

With a manic grin, he led her easily out of the Lotus Forest, past the Clearing right up to the door, which she seemed to see for the first time, “Goodness, how long has this most mysterious door been here?”

“Don’t worry about it let’s go!” He stepped through the threshold.

Then Alice’s little foot touched it, and a horrible crunch was heard before the world went blank.

Minnie was in the library today, simply reading a book and trying to unwind a bit, the windows open to let in a refreshing breeze. The scent of the gardens filled the room, her comfortably plush chair just in the perfect spot to catch the morning light, and a small pile of long-awaiting books sat nearby. The scene would almost be perfect, if not for the huge computer on the desk.

Previously the computer being out was a rarity; used only when it was needed. Now it had to be out constantly. It took some getting used to, but Mickey said there was some stuff the people at Radiant Garden might need, thus it had to stay out and on. 

No problem! Easy to get over the feeling of needing to put it away. But today, the poor thing started making weird noises before suddenly going quiet, the screen changing to a nearly solid blue.

She set aside her book and hustled to its side, reading the message before it could vanish.

> ERROR 406 – Not Acceptable
> An appropriate representation of the requested resource could not be found.
> Restarting...
> Restarting JJournalV1Datascape.exe...

“Hm… well it says it's restarting. Maybe I should let Mickey know…” 

But she decided against it once the computer returned to the desktop, with all its weird little icons and windows, looking like nothing had happened.

“What was that?” Sora looked around his room, his head moving unmercifully slow, “Where… What was I doing?” His head kinda hurt. He could feel all of his CPUs searing from the start up process, “Did… did the system crash…?”

Without JJ around he’d have no way to check; his clearance on the console wasn’t high enough to tell him things like that.  Oh well. Hopefully it was just Daisy bumping into the computer too hard while cleaning again. 

“Now, what was I doing?” He looked to the door, and an exciting idea struck him, “I wonder if I can bring people here…!” He headed out the door.

“Sorry kiddo,” said the gruff Cid. “It’s hard enough keeping an eye on these three in this world. And before y’all ask, the answer is No!”

The triplets grumbled, but didn’t press the matter. Oh well.

“Sorry. Gotta keep the coliseum safe. Responsibility of being a true hero.” Hercules tussled his hair, “Have fun while you still can! Why not ask Cloud? He’s not doing anything, I’m sure.” 

Sora looked and looked, but couldn’t find the blonde. He shrugged and left.

“Hey Aladdin!” He said walking across the firm cold sand, “You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m not from here. Have you ever wanted to go to another world?”

Aladdin looked up from the stand he sat on, “Oh? Inviting me out? I’d love to! Let me just run it past Jasmine; where we headed?”

“You’ve got some options!” Sora put his hands behind his head, “There’s a really topsy turvy world called Wonderland, there’s a cozy city trapped in eternal night called Traverse Town, a colosseum of gladiators, a castle in a sea of crystal that’s got the coolest architecture, and then my small little island home. Whatever sounds good to you is fine by me!”

Aladin lit up at castle. “A castle you say? Castles are full of loot, right?”

“Sure is; place is very fancy and guarded by some pretty mean Heartless!” Well, it used to be.

“And a challenge on top? Sign me up; let’s go!”

They got a lot farther; Aladdin made it to the room of doors, inspecting them with a keen eye, before they made it through the door.

“Welcome, my friend!” Sora did a bow with a hand out, “…to Hollow Bastion!”

And heard nothing.

Curiously Sora looked up to see Aladdin looking out into space. Staring at nothing. 

“Everything ok, dude…?” Sora stepped up to him, waving his hands in his face. He didn’t blink.

Dread crawled up his back, “If… this is a joke, could you stop? I’m… getting really freaked out!” His nerves got the best of him. “Snap out of it!” He punched him.

It neither affected him nor broke his stupor.  

What has he done?! Aladdin is broken because of him! “Wait I can take him home!” He grabbed his hand and dragged him to the door. No luck. It was made with his short size in mind, and Aladdin wouldn’t duck down. Sora tried to tip him over but not many things could be rotated that casually here in the datascape.

“Think think!!” There must be something he could do, he felt his CPU’s warm up again, “I can’t check the logs… but wait. JJ left me in charge! Maybe I can now?” And he calmed down and stopped moving. He looked inside himself, past himself to the system beyond. 

...

>JJEntry344.txt

>JJEntry345.txt

> disload.efi

> crashlog.txt.

Bingo! Now let’s see…

“Huh? I tried taking Alice too… but when did I? Must have lost the memory when it crashed.” But at least a possible fix presented itself.

“Hey Alice wanna go to another world?”

“What was I doing?” He walked out to the beach, and lied down when he couldn’t anymore. His CPUs roasting, “Ow ow ow…” What was going on? Was it the cheats? They burn but usually not this bad.

Selphie looked down at him, “What’s got you under the weather?”

“Chest hurts.” It was basically the truth.

“Want me to take you back home?” She nervously shuffled around him, “Maybe I can take you to the doctors…?”

“I’m not that sore.” But an idea did strike him, “Hey, come home with me; I got something cool I wanna show ya!”

It was weird, his bedroom door. He could never normally remember where it actually led when visitors were around. Every time he tried going downstairs to go talk to mom, or get a snack or something he’d briefly freak out before remembering that he doesn’t have a mom, or a house, or a stomach.

Selphie made to make herself comfortable as usual, but Sora grabbed her hand. “It’s over here,” He opened the door. She shrugged and headed downstairs with him, her face growing more and more concerned. When she reached the main clearing, she looked around at the void-like ground and doors of the cave. Flatly she said, “Sora, what the heck kinda remodeling job is this?”

He laughed, “Dunno! They lead to cool places though.” He pointed to one, “That one leads to this cool city! Every time I go its nighttime.”

She wandered around a door, circling it. “It’s a shame JJ’s not here. I bet he’d love to explore this place,” She stopped at the door he pointed at. “A city at night? How big we talking?”

“Huge! I got on a roof once and it felt like in all directions there was more to see!”

She pondered before nodding, “Let’s check it out!” Opening the door herself. Sora followed after.

They made it to the other side, in the city center, as normal. Sora looked at Selphie excitedly. “You ready to go exploring?” She held her head, clutching it tightly, and he frowned. “Everything ok?”

“Ugh…something doesn’t feel right, Sora.” She took an uneasy step forward, shaking her head more, “I don’t feel so good.” She started to fall.

He caught her easily and scooped her up. She was warm, scaring him. “Don’t worry I’ll go get help! Cid will know what to do!!” He ran over to the next District, where Cid was slouching by a store. “Cid Cid help! My friend collapsed and she’s warm!”

Cid straightened up. “Oh?! Where are they?”

“Uh… you're joking, right? She’s in my arms?” He held her up a little higher to show him.

“Son, your arms are empty.” And by the way he was looking he truly couldn’t see her. “I can’t help people who aren’t here.”

“Boy real charming there, ignoring a lady in pain!” Selphie griped, startling the man, “Sora! Let’s leave this weird old guy!” Squirming in his arms a bit.

“Hey now, I can hear you little missy!” Cid fiddled with the stick in his mouth, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to help with invisible children. Maybe it’s just dehydration; go drink some water. If not, drink a potion. It’s all I can really do anyways.” 

Sora shrugged and walked a fair bit away, till he found a bench to place her on. He pulled out a potion. “Down the hatch!”

“Yeah yeah…” She took small sips, looking around. “Brr… this place is creepy. And you said it's ALWAYS night?”

He sat down next to her. “Every time I’ve been, yeah.” She was starting to feel a little bit cooler now.

She grabbed her shoulders and shivered a bit. “I feel like something’s going to leap out and grab me! Are all the places in that cave so creepy?”

“No. Kinda sad you think this place is creepy; I think it's cozy. Plus, if anything tried to hurt us, I’d rip their arms off.” If they had the capacity to at least.

She gave him an exasperated sassy look. “Sora. I’ve seen you sleep in your little dinghy at night. I’ve seen you sleep on a ladder. I’ve seen you sleep on the beach while high tide rolled in!”

“And?” Those feats were only true of the real Sora.

She raised her hands. “Your idea of cozy is warped!! You have no survival instincts! You've dangled off the edge of the treehouse upside down for six days and only left 'cause you said you got bored!”

Sora grinned; he actually did that one. “Got me there,” He got up and stretched. “Wanna keep looking around or wanna go home?”

Potion finished she tossed it over her shoulder, and with a big grin, spoke. “Oh why not? Let’s keep looking! I’ll have a heck of a story to tell the guys!”

They explored all of Traversed Town, wandering about the first district, wondered about the stores, shooting fire at the fire door and being sad that nothing happened. “Sora my feet are getting kinda tired, and we’ve been here a while. We should go home…”

Very satisfied at how the day went, Sora responded. “You right. Hop on my back; I’ll get us home in a jiffy.”

Walking through the streets, she enjoyed her new vantage point. “Man I’m so jealous of you tall guys! I can’t wait to be taller too!” 

“It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” He was a little too relieved that she had returned to being a nice and normal cold temperature.

While looking around, she practically stood on him. “Can we come back tomorrow? Oh or maybe a different world…!” She sounded so excited, and bounced a bit. “Wanna bring Tidus and Wakka too?”

“That’d be great!” At that she plopped back down, and Sora readjusted his grip.

“Sucks they had practice today.” Resting her head on his.

“What are they practicing anyways?” He asked, trying to look up at her.

She paused, “You know, I’m not sure. Probably a sport, right?”

And the easy conversation kept going until a loud, “Sora!!” came from behind. He stopped and turned a bit to see the three ducklets walking up. He greeted them, “Hey guys.”

“Why you got your arms like that?” Said Louie.

“Yeah! It looks like you broke ‘em or something!” said Huey.

“Dang it, you guys can’t see me ether?” They all jumped at Selphie’s voice. “My name’s Selphie and I swear I’m not supposed to be invisible!”

“Sora’s carrying an invisible girl?!” The trio surrounded him, and looked from all angles, “If she is there, she really is invisible!”

Selphie squeaked. “Hey! Stop that!”

Louie reached out a hand, and when he would have touch Selphie’s leg, it went clear through. Then the world flash banged them all.

Now the computer had done it again! This was the third time today! Without hesitation this time, she dialed up Mickey. “Oh please pick up, please pick up…” Clutching her gummiphone.

His face appeared on it, with what was clearly Riku in the background. “Hiya Minnie! What’s going on?” Riku ducked down to wave.

She waved back as she nervously spoke. “It seems the computer in the library has crashed three times! It keeps getting very loud and hot when it happens and I’m not sure what to do.”

Mickey got a thoughtful look. “Huh? That’s strange. Don’t worry Minnie! I’ve got just the guy to go take a look! Don’t worry anymore.”

She sighed in relief. “That’s good. You be safe now and come home soon!”

“Will do my best! See ya!”

“What was I doing?” Sora looked around confused when a telephone, a feature not normally in his room, started ringing.

Bewildered he picked it up. “Howdy howdy, this is Sora…?”

“Howdy howdy this is JJ.” In what was easily the most annoyed and sassy voice he’d ever heard from his best friend. “What are you doing? Why are you crashing the system?”

“Uh...I was crashing the system? News to me.” He scratched his chin nervously, “I’m sorry if I have been. Dunno why I’d be doing that.”

A feeling like JJ was in the room and it left as fast as Sora had felt it. “You’ve been…moving people from one world to another?!”

“You can do that?! That’s amazing!”

“NO!” He shouted. “You can’t do that Sora! The system was never meant for that!” He grumbled, “Haven’t you heard of world order…?”

“I think I’ve heard the two words next to each other yes.”

Sora could almost make out the face palm JJ was no doubt doing, “Okay. Now that you know it’s bad, don’t do it again. Alright? Okay? Cause I have to go now.”

“Already? Bummer. Stay safe out there JJ!”

“Don’t misbehave.” The line went dead.

The phone was gone before Sora could hang it up, and he didn’t care.

Leaping out the window, he ran up to Tidus, “Yo I got a call from JJ!!”

“What'd he say?! Is he coming home?!” Wakka also looking intrigued.

“Nope. Just called to call me a Z-grade imbecile this time.” Their disappointment was immeasurable, but Sora’s day was far from ruined.

It was silly; all JJ had done was call him an idiot and to stop crashing the program, but Sora lived off those words for weeks.

Chapter Text

Once the glow of JJ's call wore off, and long after he had lost count of the days he had been gone, Sora started going to the Avatar Sector. A lot. Nearly every other day. What was that about not fighting everyday? Not him no siree!

And when a Sora starts going to a place every other day, he’s bound to make a friend somewhere.

Not the mannequins. They freaked him out. They spoke only to dish out strange challenges, their unreal beauty left an impression of unapproachability, and the casual nudity that some partook in was just unpleasant. And not even the regular heartless, they still didn’t react to him much. 

No, it was the Eliminator. 

They fought every time now, no more running away. Every time he cheerily greeted her, “Howdy Eleminichan!” He’s pretty sure she hated that name at first. Not as much as when he tried to change it to “Mr. Eliminator,” so it must have grown on her. Eventually she would give a very noticeable but brief wave before the fighting started.

Seeing that, Sora got incredibly excited, “Yes! Yes! Oh, I could just hug you right now!” and he started to try.

It went spectacularly bad the first few times. To be fair after a greeting, tackling her from behind isn’t much of a hug. And it was usually a defeat whenever he did it.

Then one day he placed himself just carefully so when she shoved the shield at him, he bent down and hugged the dog head on the shield.

The Eliminator froze.

The face looked shocked, and he patted her head, “I just wanted to give you a hug. I’m very grateful for you being here and smacking me around. Keeps me sharp ya know? So, thank you Eleminichan.” And he gave her his best smile.

She snorted and bumped her dog face against him much like a real dog. Being that she was just a wall of muscle and steel, It was painful, but that’s ok. Then shot a blast of half defense directly to his face. Sora laughed and the fight was on.

Now when they fought there was a wave, a hug, a quick update from Sora and then they’d start kicking the teeth out of each other. He’s fairly sure she’s got more of his than he’s of her's.

And it worked for Sora. Gearing up for another trek, he eyed the walls of dustless knick knacks in his room, “How would she feel about a gift…?” and pocketed one before heading out.

It took only 6 floors to find her today. The warning signal once made him panic and nearly have a segfault, now it broke him into smiles.

“Howdy Eleminichan! Hey, for something different, I brought you something.” Her ear perked up and she slowly approached, as he nervously plucked the gift from his inventory, “It’s a seashell! They’re really pretty and neat and I thought you’d like it!”

Carefully eyeing the shell, with unexpected gentleness she carefully lifted it upon a single large finger and set it in front of her face. A sniff sniff, a rub against her nose. The face did a little nod. In a shpoof she was gone. He looked around, “Huh. Musta left to bring it home.” He waited for her return.   

She didn’t.

He shrugged and kept moving through the floors. Found her again 73 floors later and lost terribly when he tripped on a step. It was a good day.

Three days later, he arrives with one of his harpoons. The main mannequin doesn’t touch him today and in fact makes an effort to stand as far away from him as they both approach the elevator. Understandable, since when he gives it to the Eliminator they’re nothing but giggles and chucks it at the floor’s avatar. 

The Main flinches, but the floor’s doesn’t react to the harpoon in their chest.

“Hey Selphie, if you wanted to give someone a gift what would you give them?”

That sparked an impish gleam in her eye, “Ohhohohoho? Who we giving gifts to? Is it a girllllll….?”

He took a breath to say yes, but then paused and scratched his chin in thought, “I mean. Truth be told I have no idea. I call them a she in my head and they really didn’t like it when I called them Mr. once. But I really don’t know.” He only knows people's genders by what the journal says, and it really doesn't say anything about that for Heartless, "They don't really talk at all, there more of an action type of... person."

Not ready for the confusion she said, “Oh. Well. I’m not sure. I like flowers ‘n stuff but if there not… well I mean you can’t go wrong with food, right?”

“That’s a great idea! Thank you, Selphie!”

He caught a fish for the Heartless, who didn't eat it but seemed pleased nonetheless, and he later made sure to get a rose from Wonderland for Selphie.

A week later it slipped from his mouth mid battle, “Hey after this wanna come to Destiny Islands?” And he desperately wanted to pull them back. JJ would kill him if he reintroduced Heartless to the rest of the system!

The Eliminator perked up at the idea but didn’t halt her assault. He actually won this fight today and made it to around floor 80 before seeing a strange, 'Play on the weekend!' challenge that he’s convinced is just nonfunctioning, souring his mood considerably so he headed back up to the lobby.

“It’s Saturday! How the heck did I fail? He let me win for like 2 weeks straight and now I’m in the wrong? Grumble grumble…” Sora would have missed her if she hadn’t huffed some air at him.

“Huh what- oh! Hi Eleminichan!” He really wasn’t expecting the Heartless to appear in the lobby. “Where is...ah.” The main mannequin was hiding behind a piece of furniture looking at them in terrified silence. There little vermin pet growling from behind their leg.

Oh well. He made this bed, better sleep in it, “So, Ready to go?” and he led her up the stairs to the small dark cave room.

She spent a while lazily walking around the doors, sniffing them. Glancing at them curiously before returning to him. “Be careful this next room is kinda small.” Up the stairs through the door, with a wide flourish of his arms “Welcome to my bedroom!” he walks as far as he could before pivoting, “This is my home, and I hang out and sleep here.”

It was comical, seeing the large heartless step into the room, and try not to hit anything. She nearly touched the ceiling, but she didn’t seem to mind. If anything, her eyes were wide and happy, looking at everything.

His room had so many trinkets for her to prod and poke, to lift up and tilt her head and lift her ear in question. “That’s another harpoon! We use ‘em to hunt fish.” “That’s a pair of shorts. I really should get rid of them I like this outfit too much.” “That’s an art piece I made! At least Jiminy thinks it’s an art piece; Sora insists it is a working rudimentary robot, but Jiminy doesn’t really believe him so he wrote both I guess so I don’t really know.”

A few hours of this, and she nodded in content. Turning back to the door, walking down the steps and poofing away in a teleport. Sora couldn’t help but sigh in relief she didn’t want to go out further.

In the coming weeks, sometimes he’d wake up to see three glowing eyes in the dark and feeling not afraid but giddy levels of joy. As long as he didn’t hear the sounds of the other islanders screaming, he was sure it was fine.

Another movie night with Selphie, when he suddenly felt her back into him and then rapidly crawl and hide behind his other side, “Sora!!” She whispered in fear, before pointing a shaking finger at his bedroom door.

“Huh?” He looked, and there frozen in place was the Eliminator, shield face half out the doors eyes aglow, “Oh that’s just Eleminichan, she’s cool. Don’t tell JJ.”

Chapter Text

On a normal trip through the Avatar Sector, Sora tried to count every Heartless he could, “…139, 140, 141, 142…” and it was going pretty great until around floor 45, “…251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 0, 1, 2, 3….” And it took him until floor 57 before realizing, “Wait shoot that numbers way too low, when did I lose count?”

It happened all the time. He’d often get bored and found counting and sorting objects to be very relaxing. He hasn’t lost track of how many times he’s sorted the strange wall of DVDs in his room (24), but he definitely can’t keep track of how many actual cases are there, at least with direct counting. If he just counted, he’d always end on a total of 76. …Which was less than what was on the first shelf at 83. It was only after counting the individual shelves and adding them together did he get his answer of 380. 

But flying, biting, lightning shooting Heartless were not DVDs. They didn’t hold still long enough for that. Plus, the bigger issue was there were more than 255 rooms, so he couldn’t count all the Heartless in the rooms and then add those together. And thanks to floor 88, ran by a bootleg Tidus mannequin, he couldn’t do it by floor because that floor had more than 255 Yellow Operas. Too much music.

Why was he so useless at this? Do other beings struggle with counting like him? But how did Jiminy figure out how many entries there were before it was digitized? Is he just extra good at counting?

It wasn't like Sora was bad at math. The few times he offered to help Wakka with trigonometry homework he could do it in his head near instantly. Wakka was very jealous of that. Why was it just counting that he sucked so bad at?

When is JJ coming home? JJ’s smart, he could count the things. He could probably fix what was wrong with Sora very easily. 

…

Was it easy enough to just ask…?

Reaching the console, he felt a bit guilty. It always felt weird touching it, and now he was touching it for something probably pretty stupid.

Finding the ‘call outside button’, he clicked it and then accessed the speaker’s volume, both somethings he was very much expressly told not to do unless there was an emergency, and softly whispered, “Hello…? Hellooooo…? Is anyone there?”

The microphone easily picked up the click of heels, “Hello? This is Queen Minnie speaking?”

“Hi Queen Minnie. I’m Data-Sora.” He spoke very softly cause last time he accidently hurt everyone’s ears from speaking too loudly, “I’m sorry to bother you, but would it be ok if I asked you to help me make a phone call?”

She giggled, “It would most certainly be ok.” The webcam was covered so he couldn’t see what was going on but heard ruffling, “I’ve got my gummiphone right here. Who do you need to call?”

“I really need to Speak with JJ. The Data-Riku from here. I don’t know if he has a direct line or not.”

“Hm… Well, I’ll send a few texts first, see if I can’t get a hold of someone who can get a hold of him! Sit tight for a moment. I’ll call you back is that ok?”

“Of course! Thank you so much Minnie!” and from her end she clicked the keyboard and ended the call.

Sora sighed and pulled out some paper. A ‘moment’ for the beings outside was anywhere from 5 hours to 3 days. He pulled out a pen and started to draw. Did it still count as drawing if it was just an instance of Disneysoft Paint? He mulled the question over as he tried to draw one of the weird creepy animal things the Main mannequin had some days.

Riku did not like the Demon Barber. He and Mickey had started calling it that on the way to Ansem’s workshop to try and feel at least a little bit in decent spirits before meeting the scientists and not totally crushed by their failures.

Mickey was tapping away at his gummiphone, “With this video and the other one Jiminy sent us we can give it to the computer and have them process it. Hopefully they can give us some much better insight!” At least he was feeling optimistic about all this.

“It’ll be…uh…him, analyzing it won’t it?” Riku nervously scratched the back of his head.

“Probably, he works just as hard and as carefully as you.” 

Riku huffed a bit, his data version had better be at least kind of comparable to him. At least as he was a few years ago.

Seeing his data form for the first time, didn’t go so well. It was another replica of him, leaving him on edge, although unlike the last one who was angrier than him and wanted to be the only Riku around, this one didn’t care. Even changed their named to JJ to make it easier for everyone. They came off as more of a very estranged cousin, or maybe how he always guessed how his mom felt about her half-sister. 

The feeling doesn’t sit right in his head.

Not helped by just…what a strange little dude he could be. Which felt physically painful to think, but it was honest. Data-Riku might act like his past self on the surface, but just a bit more time with them revealed them to be weirdly young, extremely prone to severe bouts of guilt, and a desperate need to prove himself and fix his mistakes.

Perhaps that’s just how Jiminy saw him at the time.

Riku looked up from his musing long enough to get in the elevator and pick the right floor before zoning out again.

What was definitely not intended was the general weirdness of data beings. They just…pick up on the strangest parts of the conversation and have a crippling lack of life experience. Mickey says it’s more of a young child thing. Which was possible given Merlin’s not helpful warning during that first meeting, which was, “Be nice to him; he has a brand new, very small, very squishable heart, that he isn’t really aware of yet. Treat him kindly.”

And Riku just hated, as he crossed the threshold into the lab that the word, ‘Squishable’ was always the one that got stuck in his head every time he came to see them.

But that was enough musing for now, as Mickey approached the computer, “Hello in there! JJ are you home?”

A window with his young face appeared, “Hello King Mickey. Hello Riku.” A paused, “Did you change- ah never mind.” Nodding to them, “Got something new for me?”

“Yep!” Plugging in the phone, “This here’s a Heartless we’ve named the Demon Tide. Think you could give it a once over and help us find anything out? It’s been given us a real tough time. The other video we think is a different heartless called the Demon Bar- er Tower! The Demon Tower that Sora, Donald, and Goofy fought but we’re not 100% sure on that.”

JJ went unnaturally still as the footage played before him. “The one Sora fought had approximately 1,213 heartless in it, were as the one you were fighting is a bit more indeterminate. Shadows kept entering and leaving the fray, total count would definitely be over 4,000 though.”

Yikes. “That’s a lot of Shadows.” Individually, nothing. Together? A massive problem.

JJ got that nervous look on his face, so Mickey came in to break that a bit, “Donald says Sora tried to count them, and he only made it to three.”

Non sequiturs really threw JJ off his rhythm, and he looked baffled, “W-what?” He looked at the frame the video was paused on, “…Only three? Sora…can only count to three?” He was so innocently baffled. His capacity to understand teasing and hyperbole were very inconsistent.

“Nah, Sora can count more, he’s just lazy and Donald always pokes fun about that.”

“Ohh…ok that makes sense.” The relief on his face clear.

Before he could say anything more the phone went off, “Oh you have a text from Queen Minnie asking for a call. Would you like me to call her and put her on screen?” Spoken like a true digital assistant.

“Yeah, that’d be swell! Thank you JJ!” 

With a quick blip a large window with Queen Minnie appeared on screen, “Hello Mickey! Riku! It’s good to see you two in one piece!” She looked thoughtfully at Riku, “Did you cut your hair?”

“…A little bit yeah.” No need to worry her, “What’s up?”

Minnie pointed to the computer behind her, “Data-Sora needs to talk to a ‘JJ.’ Do you have his number?”

Mickey couldn’t hide his giggles, “He’s right here on this computer!” Minnie looked a bit startled when the window with JJ returned, thou small and in the corner and likely also appearing on her screen, “Oh, are you JJ?”

He nervously nodded, “Yes, I am he. Is something wrong with Data-Sora?”

“All I know is he really needs to speak with you, want me to go get him back on the computer?”

“No, I’ll just patch him through to me directly. Thank you very much.”

“Absolutely no problem! Now you all better be careful, ok?”

“Of course, Queen Minnie.”

“You betcha!”

She waved goodbye, “Come home soon~!” and she hung up. Leaving behind one program clearly on the verge of a panic attack.

JJ fidgeted a bit, “What could have happened this time…?” he turned to them, “Ah, do you want me to finish the analysis first-”

Riku cut him off, “Call your friend. It could be urgent.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Fidgeting more and looking around for something, “I’ll call right now!”

 As the call tried to connect, Riku could see his data copy strum his fingers nervously, a tick picked up from Ienzo, though JJ did it so much more than Ienzo ever did. Did their nervousness come from him or come from their actual life…?

The line finally connected and there was a new window, Data-Sora in the…flesh? Binary? Hm.

And he looked like shit.

Not like, his model quality mind you, though it was clear he wasn’t provided as much detail as JJ being on the other weaker system, and with Sora being naturally more expressive revealed the limitations much faster. Not to mention that he stood in front of a weird meaningless DisneySoft paint drawing of a …something.

No, It was the clearly frazzled state they were in, eyes wide and overly alert, smile a little too big, shaking with every movement. Riku knows what a 3 AM beat to hell Sora looks like and that’s him. Not to mention thinner than he remembered him being…

“JJ!!!!” Oh yeah, ready to fall over any minute now, a gasp, “King mickey!!” They looked at him, and their face fell for a moment as they failed to recognize him, before getting even brighter than ever before, “Are you…are you Real-Riku?” He did a few little hops and clapped his hands, a little gesture a 6-year-old Sora had picked up from a 5-year-old Selphie that Riku never saw again after leaving the island the first time, “It’s a real pleasure to meet you!! I’m Data-Sora!!”

It was too much, a weird nostalgia blended with a voice screaming in the back of his head to cast Cura on the computer, “Uh, nice to meet you too Data-Sora.” His resolve broke, “Please drink a potion.” 

Without dropping eye contact or their wide smile, he pulled a potion from offscreen and broke it in his bare hand. The potion’s magic fizzled and failed. Like he was at full HP.

Maybe JJ’s guilt did come from him, because if this is how Jiminy saw Sora during his first journey, it's going to fuel his guilt-ridden night terrors for months, “Thanks.” He wheezed, “Ah, you wanted to ask JJ something?”

“Yep yep!” Very casually before holding his hands together in a begging pose, “JJ could you please help me count better? Like how a real being can count? I keep losing track of things I count.”

…

What. Was that IT?

JJ shared his Exasperated reaction, “Data-Sora. Did you really, touch the emergency call button, bother Queen Minnie, King Mickey, Master Riku, and me, just to…’count things better’?” Riku was about to agree with him until, “Why do you need to count more than 255? That’s plenty for you.”

“Well, I wanted to count things that are over 255.” He said very plainly, “And I can’t even count them by groups because there in groups larger than 255.”

“Just count a group and add It to the first group.” JJ huffed, “You can’t waste people’s time like this!” But he sighed and got a…weird smile on his face, “But I can make it so you can count just like the real Sora if you like.”

Oh no-!

“Please!please pleasepleaseplease!!” Data-Sora looked like JJ just hung up the moon, “Please! That would be amazing!” 

Mickey could also see where this was going, “Ah, JJ maybe…”

“Done. Alright Sora, try counting those beakers over there.” Ugh, had he always looked so smug and punchable?

Data-Sora looked excited, “Ah easy! One, two, three-. zero, one, two-…” and his face dropped into something akin to an extremely annoyed glare with a forced smile, “JJ Why didn’t-.” He kind of coughed on the sentence, “Why can’t I-. Why sentences effected?? What’s going on?” Holding his throat, smile morphing more into a glare, “…Is this prank?”

JJ shrugged, “I made you count just like the real Sora.”

Data-Sora’s face looked concerned, “Real-Sora Counts three?!”

“No, it’s a joke about how lazy he is.”

“Not very funny. Sounds like insult. Talk like this-. Is bad? Fix me please.” This would be kind of horrifying if Data-Sora wasn’t taking it in strides.

“Don’t worry I’ll put it back to normal tomorrow, but Dilian always says that people don’t learn without punishment. You won’t call unless it’s an emergency from now on, right?”

“I’m sorry please-.” His face scrunched rather pitifully, “JJ please fix-.” He tried giving him puppy eyes that absolutely would have worked had JJ not looked away the second he started talking in chunks.

“I’ll fix it tomorrow Data-Sora. I have an important analysis to help them with right now, and your kind of wasting a lot of time. See you tomorrow.”

Data Sora stuck his tongue out at him, “Big meanie!” and JJ hung up.

He sighed, “I’m sorry about him.” Pulling up the Heartless footage again, “Let me take another look at this and I might-”

“You should go fix him right now.”

“What?”

“JJ, what you did to him was just… borderline evil.”

Mickey spoke up, “It was a very Maleficent style punishment. Like a curse.”

They looked horrified, “W-what?” He tried to defend himself, “But… it’s only for a day. I promise. I've given him other punishments like that, like once took away his ability to see green. I always pick just weird and harmless things.”

Riku and Mickey, both gave him very disappointed looks, “Well we’re going to head back to the Dark Realm tomorrow, but before that we’ll be here to watch you fix this okay? Cause that was very wrong what you did to Data-Sora just now.”

JJ nodded, “Okay. Ah… I’m sorry. For now…shall I continue the analysis?”

They did. They got a few interesting pointers about what AOE magic would actually hit the most in this sort of stormy Shadow soup, but it wasn’t a ton of information they didn’t already know to some degree.

In the morning, they returned, this time with Ienzo in attendance, “What brings you two here this morning? Was there still more to analyze?”

“Nope but we’re here to make sure JJ fixes and apologizes to Data-Sora.” Ienzo looked a bit confused, “Ah don’t worry about the details but basically Data-Sora called for something kinda small and JJ sorta gave him an unfair punishment over it.”

Ienzo sighed, “I might have to start excusing Dilain from the room if he’s going to teach the computer’s bad behaviors. JJ, come on out.” The program very shily peeked his window from the edge, “Come on. You know what you have to do.”

They did and looked very small again, “I… I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” Riku wasn’t going to sugarcoat it, “You might have a chance to not do permanent harm to your friendship if you get on it right away. And don’t be too surprised if Sora’s-er Data-Sora’s not willing to take your apology.”

JJ nodded, steadied himself, and started the call.

It dialed, and then when it connected there were two people.

Riku had to bite hard to keep from exclaiming Selphie’s name, but JJ didn’t, “Selphie?! What are you doing-”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” She all but screamed, “Sora’s been completely out of it ever since you guys last talked! He said you ‘broke’ him?! He’s been talking funny and can’t count past three! Was this you?!”

“I mean I- guess I- sorta did-”

“Well, you better fix him before I have half a mind to break you!” She shook her head angrily, Riku doesn’t think he’s ever seen the real Selphie so mad before, “You’re a real jerk you know? You and Kairi just up and vanish for months upon months on end, you basically never call so we’re never sure if your even alive anymore, and the one time you call and tell Sora, “Ok i'lL cAlL bAcK tOmOrRoW.” You leave him hanging for over 2 weeks!”

“WHAT?!” JJ snapped, “That’s ridiculous It’s only been a day-”

“News flash! The sun went up and down over 16 times since Sora started having issues, that’s over 2 weeks you dummy!” Selphie sighed, “He asked me right away to count the days for him because he couldn’t. Get in there Sora, Say your piece.”

He looked really tired and annoyed. Like someone cut him in line at the coffee shop annoyed. And just said, “Fix me.” His glare was tempered from just how unimpressed he was with the situation.

JJ stilled and just as unnoticeable and fast as last time, “I fixed it. I-I’m truly sorry. I will never do that again! Could…could you find it in your heart to forgive me…?”
After what should have been a very torturous two weeks, Riku expected a big fat ‘No’ because he sure wouldn’t have forgiven him probably ever, but a Sora does as a Sora does, “Do you mean it?” and looking delighted he could say the whole phrase, “Ah! All fixed! Yeah, I forgive you JJ.” Selphie recoiled with a pointedly squinty disbelieving look of disagreement and disgust, “Ahha! But You OWE me!” her expression then turned into a gremlin smile, “I want you to come back home for a day! You owe me!!” He couldn’t help but break into laughs at his demands.

“Heck no he wants 16 days!” Selphie demanded, “You’re lucky I don’t make it for every day you’ve been gone!” and she crossed her arms, “No more negotiation!”

JJ sighed, “Okay… I’ll…I’ll try.”

“No. You will.” She then lifted her nose up at him, “That’s all I have to say to you right now! Meanie!” and then she marched off camera, “Holler for me if you need me to yell at him more Sora!”

Data Sora seemed tickled by the notion, but he was all smiles by this point, “I can’t wait to see you again. See you soon?” He waved, and JJ hung up the line. Data-Sora’s bounce backs might just be worse than the real deal’s…

Riku was honestly very annoyed, “You go enjoy your two weeks.”

“No, I’m going to spend the one day Data-Sora wanted.”

“Aw, shucks you really should go back for longer than that; they really miss you!”

“And you really don’t want to wear out his good will, or he really might one day come to resent you.” Riku tried to be as serious as possible to impart his warning.

“No, he won’t. He’s very forgiving.” It wasn’t enough.

Mickey checked up with a text the next day just to be sure JJ had left at all. Ienzo replied that he did. But returned in less than an hour. 'JJ said it went well. Sora was happy. Selphie wasn’t but he didn’t really seem to care. Maybe he should visit more on quieter days, but he 'wasn't really feeling it' I'm not sure if there is anything to be done about it'.

Data Sora was so pleased. It might have only been one day and sure they wound not doing much. JJ didn’t want to spar, didn’t want to explore, and wasn’t feeling up to too much conversation. He was just feeling very worried about what he should be doing and wasting time. Most of the rest of the day was mostly spent trying to keep Selphie and Tidus from wringing JJ’s neck, but it was so good to see him at home again. It was weird how the best part of the night was after he had left, and Selphie demanded they all party harder without him. 

Hopefully because it made a lot more sense to miss him when he was actually gone, and not when he was sitting right there.

He still couldn’t count the Heartless, which felt bad, but it was ok. Maybe one day he’ll ask if Real-Sora could help him. That way he could get his number and people would stop saying Real-Sora couldn’t count.

Chapter Text

When had his home become the indoor group gathering place of him and his friends? In the data scape he guessed the answer was ‘always’ but a distant echo of the Real-Sora written in the journal was still baffled at the idea.

It’s a day 36, a group movie night and the genre of choice was action. He’s had so many they’d lost their charm. There were only three movies in this category, and he didn’t care for two of them in the first place. This one was his least favorite. It was something about people going into a blackhole or something? It was boring. 

These nights always left his mind wandering. Like how obvious this TV didn’t belong in his room; the large thing was clipping through the wall. Like how the 4 of them didn’t fit in his room so good. Wakka always took his small wooden desk chair, and Tidus long ago cleared himself a spot on the floor to lounge right in front of the tv. Selphie sat next to him on the bed. All night was a constant shuffle, soft ‘ow!’ and sorry as elbows and feet collided with one another.

Tonight, he found himself staring at the holes in his roof, trailing down to some string, following that to his right and out of the corner of his eye, realized Selphie was staring at him. Shoot maybe he’s being disruptive. He turned back to the screen and attempted to pay attention. There was some ugly robot on screen, and he could fake it no more, face dropping hard. His eyes trialing back to Wakka and Tidus, both of whom were glued to the screen.

He felt a hand touch his, and he looked back to Selphie. Her face in sympathy.  She glanced at the screen and made a very large and exaggerated eye roll. Was she not having a good time either…?

As quietly as she could, she scooched a little closer and leaned up against him. Very normal, but also very much a Wakka approved no-no. She smirked a little, and the night became a much more fun silent face critique of the film. Frowns at the dumb lines, they pretended to take a drink every time the robot said it’s dumb catch phrase, and exaggerated miming along with some of the worst performances. Popcorn had been made, even though none of them ever ate any of it, and they kept tossing it at each other. It was the most fun he’d ever had watching this, and it was so, so hard not to laugh too loud and get them in trouble. 

When the film neared the credits, she unfortunately pulled and scooched away, and it felt so weirdly painful to let her go. They continued to play their little games until it was over and Wakka finally got up and looked around, “That’s a real classic, yeah man?” 

Tidus rolled over, “I love how dumb it is. Thanks for hosting this again, dude!”

“No problem, guys. You all be safe getting home.” And the two boys left with a wave.

But Selphie remained, “What’s up?” 

She gave him a big smile, “We really gotta do that more! That was so much fun!” She ran up and gave him a hug, “Ugh I can’t understand why they wanna watch that one so much!”

“Same! But I can’t lie, kinda wanna watch it with just you, so we can dunk on it the whole time.”

She got up, “You know that might not be so bad. It was great making fun of it behind their backs; we gotta do that next week when they break out Cloud 9 again.”
That line left him reeling, what?! She knew they were going to watch that again so soon?! He wanted to check the spreadsheet, but he knew for certain that yes, in exactly a week they were going to do just that, “Y-Yeah! Love to!”

She grinned, “See you tomorrow!” and left.

He’d love to do that with Selphie again.

And something clicked in his head, and he felt his chest get very, very warm.

Things don’t change much in the data scape. It can’t. It’s a digitized version of a journal; and the journal’s words were supposed to be law. 

But because of his adventure, because of the bugs, it was treated as alternate law. Entire worlds were not here correctly. Not a word was lost, but the data couldn’t represent it correctly anymore. Those moments exist properly only in the hearts of those who experienced them. And thanks to Naminé that might not even be true anymore.

To break the status quo should be impossible. He’s certainly tried. It all just ended in failure. But there was something he had to do. Once he realized it, he could barely contain himself, utterly buzzing with energy because it only just hit him; he was ever so painfully in love.

The Real-Sora had been in love, and now with that written experience following along with what his actual heart was starting to yell at him, he knew it was love and he had to confess sooner than later. Real-Sora almost assuredly regretted not doing it when he had the chance. 

And he knew just what to do and when to strike. With more of his research, he had figured out the pseudo random sequence and could figure out perfectly when days were due to occur. He really began to wonder if she had done the same. Had she also been struggling with the cycle as well? Had he just not noticed? Dealing with real hearts had given him a real heart; maybe his real heart had given her one as well? The perfect day was a week away, and that gave him time to write up his words, practice them, and get himself a perfect fruit.

He was going to confess his love and change their little world.

Sitting down at his desk he pulled out some paper to write out his confession.

At first, he wrote nothing, his feelings overwhelmed him.

She had truly become a beacon of joy in his life, they hung out together the most of anyone. They played games, watched movies, sparred a bit, got as close as they could to the water before the sand vanished into the void and ‘splash’ around. Whether or not the water actually moved or if his pretending to fight counted as a real spar, it was still a very good time.

Asking her for advice was always fruitful, and she still had the flowers he got for her. So, there were at least a few things that stuck around. This had to work!

It was entirely too much for the paper. His hands had started moving at some point and just sort of wrote everything on top of everything else making an illegible mess. He tossed it away and made his way down the stairs. 

He had to do this right. They’ve been friends for the entirety of their existence; both in the real and data worlds. And maybe Real-Sora didn’t care for her in the same way, he suspects the real one thinks of her as a sister, but he loved her. So, everything must be done with care. 

They had already spoken to each other about so much, but he kept finding more things to speak to her about. So much he wanted to tell her. Maybe with this he can finally get himself to tell her some truths he wasn’t supposed to share. Like about this, world, its nature, why JJ was away. What was up with him and his strength and why he stopped taking sparring so seriously.

The world shouldn’t be able to change, and due to the world’s nature, really couldn’t. But he was here. An anomaly. And maybe with enough of his anomalous experiences he could make a change that could maybe make their days feel brighter.

So lost he was in thought he hadn’t noticed he made it into the Avatar Sector, until the mannequin touched him.

After the first few times, these soul staring moments were actually super brief. Having already let him go by the time he noticed. Today they were dressed in a truly random collage of what some person might consider clothing. An unfitting mish mash of clashing colors, patterns, and fabrics splashed across their body like they rolled out of a laundry bin. Sora looked right up to them with a big smile. They blinked with an uncharacteristic hitch. 

Sora gave them a large nod, “Howdy! Hey, I know we don’t talk much. But I really need to ask you a favor.” Then his face blanched, “Oh shoot, I’ve got no manners!” He offered his hand, “It’s also nice to formally meet you!! Again. But more formal! I’m Sora; and you are…?”

Their head tilted nearly imperceivably, the tiniest fraction of curiosity. They pointed to a plaque on the wall, ‘DefaultAvatar.’

“DefaultAvatar, eh? Kind of a mouthful, but I’ve met a Queen of Hearts once! So!” He clapped his hands together, “I could really use a tiny, tiny, tiny favor from you, and I mean its ok if you don’t, but I really really could use your help.”

They continued to stare impassively. 

“I uh… wanna…uh…ask my friend out? On like a date. Or confess to her if I’m…really being honest.” Their eyes started to expand, “We’ve uh…kinda already had date like hangouts ‘n stuff and I really really like her and…” they looked at him with incredulous eyes, it was a very small change to their face, but it was the most extreme expression he’d ever seen on them, “Well ya don’t gotta look at me like that.” He scratched the back of his head, “I just wanted to practice confessing to someone to like…you know practice without making a fool of myself. Maybe get some pointers or be told if I go to creepy or something…”

Face back to calm, they closed their eyes, and their form began to melt, shrinking down from towering over him to having to look up, wearing the face of his friend in that hauntingly empty expression he didn’t think the real- er data Selphie could ever make.

“Never seen you change before. Makes since it’s not a 6-hour session at the salon but that was certainly horrifying.”

They walk from their normal spot to sit on a step, patting the spot next to them.

When Sora sat down, and looked to them it was like all his nerves smacked him in the back of the head, and he let out a very intelligent sounding, “Uuhh…Hi Selphie? Uh, I love you!!”

The unimpressed look on their face pierced his soul, “Ah wait lemme try that again…” and for a full minute he sat leg bouncing, energy mounting, and embarrassment drowning him. They grabbed his hand, “N-no wait I’ve got this I swear-” and started dragging him towards the elevator.

Once there DefaultAvatar pushed him in, with a shoo shoo type motion, Sora felt a little confused but proceeded to slaughter the Heartless as per normal. 

At the next floor entrance, next to that floor’s mannequin, his awaited for another attempt. He took a deep breath, “Uh… Selphie we’ve known each other for a…really long time now and I uh…wanted to…. ask… hmmm….” And they grabbed his hand again and set him out on the next floor.

Again and again, this happened. He started catching himself talking out loud while fighting, “Selphie, you mean so much to me! I really wouldn’t mind spending more time with you- ack no that sounds weird…” and he began pausing in fights too.

Curiously this wasn’t backfiring. 

“You’re the apple of my eye? Ugh that’s bad.” Did that Shadow just nod at him? Can’t be.

“Je t'aime tellement… does she know French? Wait how the heck do I know French??” Now that Soldier absolutely nodded no, they even waved their hands in a ‘no no no!’ fashion, “You’re right I shouldn’t do that.”

“You mean so much to me from the bottom of my heart to the deeps of my soul. Deeps? That’s not right.” By now they were all sitting on like floor 27 or something and the Heartless were helping him workshop out answers. Currently a gaggle of Soldiers and Shadows were currently striking a bunch of poses, Spelling out the word, “Depths! Ah, thanks guys! To the depths of my soul. Sound good?” and he got a lot of sharp red thumbs up.

“I really could look into your eyes forever…” He caressed their cheek, without changing his dreamy tone “…is the touch a bit much?” The shield of the Eliminator waggled its eyebrows, but the peanut gallery was a sea of thumbs down. “Gottcha, won’t do that again.” The shielded heartless pulled back and then punched his lights out.

The days passed in a blur, and the morning arrived. With the little time he had before she arrived, he went back to the sector, all the participating heartless milling about DefaultAvatar’s room much to their disapproval. “Today’s the day guys! Thanks again for helping me and I’ll give you an update as soon as I can!” the heartless all chittered and the clincky clang of their armors and wings as they clapped and rooted made him swell with confidence, “Aw shucks…thank you guys.”

DefaultAvatar walked up and melted into the form of Riku. Possibly they meant to be JJ, but he only ever wore the cloak. They crossed their arms and gave a strong nod of approval. “Thanks, DefaultAvatar!” It wasn’t JJ, nor even Riku, but the counterfeit approval felt very comforting. 

They shook their finger at him, before underlining a specific part of their plaque, “Uh… thank you…Ava?” They smiled and melted back into one of their normal mis-mashy outfits that actually looked pretty cool. Sora then returned up the stairs waving backwards, before heading out to the island.

He sat on the edge of the dock, taking in slow deep breaths to stay calm. Her boat paddled on up to the dock, “Ahoy there Sora! Gosh you’re here early.” She tied up her boat, “What’s the occasion?”

Its go time, “Selphie …I need to have a serious talk with you, if that’s ok?” His face was already burning with a blush, “It’s nothing bad or anything.” She quietly walked over and joined him on the edge.

She looked into his eyes, and he quietly reached out to her hand. She grabbed it with both of hers, her brows pinched a little bit in, “Selphie, I’m not the greatest with words. And I don’t want this to get muddled up with me trying to be fancy. We’ve spent so much time together, and you’ve really become someone very special to me. It’s ok if you decline this but I really want,” and he quickly pulled a fruit from his pocket and placed it in her hands, “…to share this with you.”

If his face felt red hers was wide eyed and radiating, “O-Oh! S-Sora I had no idea you…you felt this way!” She looked around nervously, “This… this isn’t a prank, is it? If it is, you better tell me now or I’ll-”

“Not a prank.” He frowned, “I’d never do that. That’s a real mean prank to pull.” He tried to catch her eyes again, but she was actively avoiding his gaze.

“You’re right, you’d… you wouldn’t do that.” She settled on staring at his hands. Her hands had grown very very warm in his, “You mean it…?”

“Absolutely.” 

“But... but what about Kairi? We all know you have a crush on her.”

“Kairi?” He actually had to take a moment and remember who should have been his other best friend, “Like don’t take this the wrong way but what about Kairi? I haven’t seen her in ages. Have you?” Something about her felt... disconnected? Like in his head it said he liked her but there were no feelings. Just none. She was just someone he had heard about.

Selphie shrugged, “No I haven’t. I think I saw Riku sooner than last I’d seen her.” She frowns, “That…that doesn’t seem right…” Yeah, where was she? He hadn’t thought about it because she hadn’t even been here since before Mickey asked for help.

Sora shook his head fiercely, “Ahh, that mystery we can work on another time. And you don’t have to give me an answer right away and you don’t have to ah reciprocate it ether so just-HORMP!” Selphie shoved a torn edge of the star right into his mouth, as she giggled around her own piece.

They ate and soon both descended into massive giddy giggles. Fruit eaten, she grabbed his face, and he was confused until she pressed her lips to his.

Then one of the best days of his life started. 

All day they ran around the island, hand in hand, or her excitedly jumping on his back and either getting a ride around for a bit or knocking them both to the sand. They climbed the highest trees, he took her to the secret cave and directed her to all the points away from a wall he might have made an effort to scratch off the art, all day they hugged and laughed. 

She demanded she get to wear his jacket and he happily complied. She looked real cute in it. He felt so light and free, the breeze rustled their hair, and they splashed in the water. A sudden large wave knocked them both down, soaking them to the bone but it just left them chuckling. He set his shoes on the dock to dry, and Selphie took the chance to hop in them and poddle around a bit. She tripped and he caught her. Their cheeks were both starting to hurt from all the smiling.
They made it to the other side of the island, leaping bridge to bridge, zip lining down the tower. Climbing up the palms and having fresh coconuts. Chasing away the gulls.

“Let’s head to my place,” she giggled, “It wasn’t on purpose, but we are making your favorite for lunch!” and they got on their boats and headed back to the mainland. Fuzzy and indistinct, only her with clarity but everything felt right and good. He’s pretty sure they ate something tasty, and he saw her mother again he’s sure, and they walked back to his house, and past his faceless mother, up the stairs to his room where they cuddled and watched a movie. It was a new one this time. He wasn’t paying the greatest attention to it though. 

As the sun dipped below the horizon Selphie let out a huge yawn. It had been a very busy day. The sunset was gorgeous, and she looked up at him and gave him another kiss on the cheek. Before her eyes closed as she leaned against him. They had fallen asleep at each other’s houses in each other’s beds loads of times, but now it felt a little naughty even if they had no inclinations of the sort to make it so. Sora slowly leaned down to the bed, staring at the tv static. The ambience of night, the soft rhythm of the sea, her soft little snores, and the comfortable warmth surrounding them…

He fell asleep, holding her close, head right next to his heart.

They were on a boat, and Selphie was looking out over the sea with a bit of a cross look on her face.

…How’d they get here?

She suddenly pointed, “Check it out!” and there was in view a massive island covered in flowers and rocks, and he just knew it was…

“Radiant Garden?” He looked around at the pretty normal fishing boat, “But isn’t that-”

“Look there he is!!” She shouted, running up the deck of the ship to get closer, “There’s that punk!” and yep, while a bit hard to see, the sparkle of JJ’s silvery purple hair was visible from the boat. In just a few moments they were there at the dock, and JJ opened his mouth to greet them.

Selphie beat him to the punch, by actually punching him, “WE WERE SO WORRIED! You jerk!! What was so important that you had to ditch us for years on end?!” and her little fists kept bopping him the entire tirade.

It felt vindicating as heck and Sora found himself falling over and rolling in laughter. Eventually JJ got a greeting in and gave him a hand, “Alright, alright, you’ve criticized me enough, I need your guy’s help.” 

“What’s happening?”

“Data-Kairi.” He gestured to the island, “We think she might be here.”

“Why?”

“Her original was from here.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t her data from the journal start at Destiny Islands? I don’t think Jiminy or Real-Sora knew that at the time.”

He shrugged, “She gets into a lot of trouble that girl. Doesn’t hurt to check out more areas.”

“But does that really make sense when-ouch!” Sora found himself receiving a headbutt from a strange… multicolored deer? With a heart shaped crest on it??

They bahhed at him annoyed and pushed him forward to follow his friends.  They continued to bahh bahhha bah and Data Sora got the impression to just stay calm and roll with it all.

He shrugged and did. Having a great time with the two of them.

Somewhere around the part where they walked into Merlin’s house and wound up in a jungle did the world flicker for a moment and

Sora found himself lying on his bed, awake. Alone, he looked around, “How did I…” Confused, before suddenly gasping with a soft look of wonder, “Was that…a dream?” He sat up slowly, “I’ve never dreamed before…”

Giddy as could be he launched himself out of bed out the window and found himself on the island in record time. “Selphie!!! Slephieeeeeeee!” and very quickly found her, “You’ll never believe it, but last night I had my first dream ever!”

“What?! No way! Your first dream? Get outta here.” She stuck her tongue out at him, “What was it about?”

“Looking for Kairi, we found instead 7 evil doppelgangers and JJ got lost in a wall.” She giggled at that, and that made him smile too. Happily, he scooped her into a hug, rubbing his face in her hair.

Her laugh turned a bit confused, “Whoa Sora! What’s with all the affection today? Something happen?”

“Give me a break Selphie!” He laughed, “You know what happened yesterday.” She did love to be silly sometimes-

“Nope!” She smiled, “What happened yesterday?” 

“Well, I mean if you wanna be like that you tell me.”

“Nothing as far as I know. Uh... I went to the store, I guess. Like seriously, what did you do? It sure put you in a good mood.”

A glance at her face and his gut froze in horror. Selphie was being serious. He released her and stepped back in mixture of disbelieve and disgust at himself. She looked to him confusion, “Something wrong…?”

Overwhelmed, he bolted away, “Sora?” He could hear her call from behind as he ran into the secret place.

Initially it was just the instinct to hide away that drew his feet here, but his eyes soon landed on the wall.

The now unmarred wall of him and the Kairi.

Guilt. Shame. Confusion. Anger. EmbaressmentSicknessPainDispair-

_{> Warning! System Resource limit reached!}

How could he have been so stupid.

“Sora?” He heard a voice from behind call his name.

_{> Warning! System CPU Temperature too high!} 

Nothing could change. This world was just a record in a book. Every day had been a lie, a loop, nothing about any of this time had ever mattered.

“Sora!! Sora the sky turned black??”

_{> Warning! Critical Processes Failing!} 

He registered that something had collided with his arm and was screaming. 

How could he have been so blind!

_!

_!

!

:(

A problem has been detected and Windows Disney 2000 has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
The problem seems to be caused by the following file: DSora.ISO.
SYSTEM_THREAD_ EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Chapter Text

He reactivated in the copy of Sora’s room. A quiet, “Is everything all right in there?” and he moved painfully slowly to look around and see no one, “…Who…” He remembered her voice, “…Daisy?”

He couldn’t put a face to her, she had never entered the system, but spoke to them on occasion and he could make out her concern, “I found the computer with a blue screen with some kind of error code. I followed the instructions, are you all ok in there? Should I send for Chip and Dale?”

He slowly shook his head, “No. No, everything’s… fine now. It’s a bit slow cause everything starting back up but everything’s good.” No it's not, “Everything will be fine in a bit.” No, it will not be. He felt like he’d been stabbed.

“If you say so….” Sounded like she didn’t believe him, “You can always talk to us. I can leave a broomstick by the computer so you can shout for help if you need it.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be needed. Computer just got a little hot. Everything’s fine.”

“Alright then. Talk to you later Sora.”

“Data-Sora.”

“Hm?”

“It’ll be confusing if the real Sora is in the room you know.”

“Ok, have a good day Data-Sora.”

He spent the rest of this day sitting on his bed. Windows closed. Counting the individual polygons of his hand.

He doesn’t know when it happens, but the door opens and out pokes his own face. But it’s too pretty to be him. 

It appears Concerned and looking at him, before very tentatively slipping out, and holding on to his blocky chunky hand, and taking him and his stiff joints down the stairs. 

They wanted him to stop in the middle of the room, surrounded by Soldier and Shadow Heartless who all looked very nervous and as sympathetic as frozen faced monsters could be. But he kept walking when they let him go, and he walked down the elevator to the arenas. 

Data-Sora felt nothing.

He sliced into Heartless, they sliced into him. Couldn’t feel it, he didn’t look damaged, there was just a variable in his mind’s eye that told him his condition. He went further and further down. Not even trying the challenges of the other avatars, just destroying everything in his path.

He walked into an empty room.

And a warning message popped up into his skull and the Eliminator arrived directly in front of him.

Neither of them moved.

And the ‘warning’ message box appeared again.

‘Did she not accept your feelings…?’

The dam broke, he sniffled, he gasped, he tried to release them but his tears were nonexistent. The Heartless face reacted in surprise with a baffled and annoyed expression. It stayed where it was in judgment.

‘Do I need to teach her a lesson?’

“No, because…She did…!” He bawled, “She did accept my feelings! We had a wonderful day together…and then… and then the system reset her. She doesn’t remember. That day never happened to her as far as she knows… everyday we’ve had together... I don’t think she actually keeps with her.”

He sobbed, and he heard small steps towards him, and a large arm wrapped around him. He leaned into them and cried some more. They eventually shoved the shield directly into his face.

The Eliminator growled,

‘Get back to the others and explain it to them.’

Before reducing his HP to 0.

Back on the top floor, Ava awaited him with the strongest emotions he’d ever felt them have radiating from them. Same with all the other heartless.

“She did accept my feelings. She really did.” He was much calmer after having told the Eliminator, “But then that day became tomorrow and in morning the system reset. And she…forgot everything.” Still painfully raw.

The devastation on Ava’s face was startling, as was their hug, and the subsequent group hug from the Heartless. He didn’t have the strength to hug back. He just sobbed a bit more and spoke. “Thank you for helping, I’m sorry I wasted all of your time.”

Disengaging the hug, he went back upstairs. He opened the window and looked out to the stagnant lifeless mimic that was his Destiny Island.

It had always felt like home, always felt correct. Real. He had no concept of a fake world. Not really, his brain could say it was fake data all day and his heart wouldn’t care.

His fake heart that is.

But now in his chest was a very real heart. That heart had gifted him a keyblade for believing in his connections with very real creatures. Talking to them had left a seed, and adventuring with them let it blossom, it left him with enough to understand the hurt and help Data-Roxas and Data-Naminé. 

And now it starved alone in the substanceless soil of the data world.

Data-Sora crawled his way into a dark little corner of Hollow Bastion and stayed there for months now. Maybe. The time scale never seemed accurate.

What even was that day…? His memories can’t be true. They don’t have families, there’s nowhere else to go to, there is no wind no waves no mothers.

He reached inside his mouth, it’s as dry and cold and flat as everything else. It registers the collision and nothing else. He can’t taste, so how could he even interpret the idea of ‘tasty’? He can’t even fathom hunger.

How could he have been deceived to that level?

His chest was open, his ability board exposed, he pried out every chip, short circuiting his CPU’s when they got disconnected. He couldn’t find the one holding his heart. He took the time to rearrange them nicely and passed out from the overwhelming pain. But that’s ok.

Data-Sora wasn’t sure how long he had been rotting there, before Selphie barged into the room, “That’s it! You’re not vanishing too! I’m sick of losing friends!”

By that point he could stand to look at her again, “Ok. What do you want to do today?”

The Eliminator was right behind her, and he figured that’s how she got in here.

He didn’t hang out in the main worlds that much anymore. Hadn't for a long while really. Mostly only movie nights with Selphie, but those had really started to hurt. Even with the Eliminator being there to bring some levity. He spent most of his days down in the Avatar Sector, chatting and fighting with them on their home turf. They would always let him speak his feelings, probably because they didn’t exactly respond or anything, and if he needed to fight, they’d fight. Eliminator never pulled her punches. And he appreciated that. 

By now he’d sort of befriended a truly embarrassing amount of Heartless in the entire sector. The amount of hostile Heartless was easily in the single digits and were outcasts by their own kind, literally being kicked to death when they spawned on the floors now. Which was probably a mercy by this point; even with his cheats rigged in their favor, with his weakest keyblades, weakest commands, no commands, all blank chips, and a number of other challenges he’d done, he had kinda gotten the entire thing memorized and none of them stood a chance anymore. Except Eliminator.

When the Heartless had all started making a complicated series of identifying dances he went to ask Ava for accessories to start handing out. 
Ava didn’t sacrifice their own, they just started snatching stuff off the other avatars. And nothing was funnier than holding a box with a bunch of hats and ribbons and other goodies, presenting it to the heartless who try and fail not maiming each other to riffle though them. Inevitably one would pick something then desperately keep it out of the paws of their brethren. And those accessories directly led to names for many of the heartless. Beanie the Shadow, Clover the Soldier, Terrifying the Angel Star… 

The Eliminator was actively given a cool jacket cape, she wore it with some semblance of pride. It didn’t stop her from sticking her snoot into the box and picking out a cute ribbon for her shield. Which bugged Ava but made sense to him, it was her real body.

It was almost enough.

But then he’d go home. And he’d talk to the other data beings and feel miserable all over again. They tried their best, but the wool was gone, and the true nature of the world was as immutable as always. 

One day he woke up to see a shield shoved in his face and she grabbed him, “Whoa what are you-” and she teleported to the beach. The others gasped in fear. Tidus took up a stance, “What the heck are you?! Let Sora go!”

And she did. Softly too. 

That sure took him aback before Selphie tentatively walked closer, “I’m sorry Sora, I talked her into this.” When Tidus and Wakka looked at her like she grew a second face, “Don’t worry guys; she’s a friend!” She looked at Data-Sora, “She was worried about you. And we are too.” They all nodded.

Wakka calmed down and took a breath before looking him in the eye, “Okayyyy, Sora, we’ve all been talking. And we’ve noticed you’ve been not yourself lately, yeah?” Walkka gets a bit closer, “You must be really out of sorts if even monsters are trying to get you help! What’s going on Sora? You know you can always talk to us.”

He coiled up, “No I can’t. You wouldn’t remember it. You can’t remember it. It’s the nature of this world.”

“Sora that doesn’t make any sense.” Said Tidus.

“Data-Sora. I’m not the real Sora. Nor are any of you the real versions of who you think you are.”

“What the hell man!”

“What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Data’ Sora? I don’t understand.” Selphie began to plead, “Is this all because JJ left? And Kairi’s been missing? I’m sure JJ will be back soon, and we can all help you find Kairi if you want-”

He snapped, “I do NOT want to find her; she doesn’t exist here! I’ve never met her! I’m sick of people thinking I care about someone I’ve never met!” His voice cracked, “I’m sure she’s lovely, and I’m sure the real Sora loves her, but I don’t, and I never want to talk about her ever again. I don’t want to talk about anyone ever again. I just wish I was… reset…” He was sure one of his cores was going to burst, “I wish I didn’t have this stupid heart anymore! I wish I could go back!! I wish I could be satisfied with my lot, but I can’t-!”

“Sora you're hyperventilating-”

“I don’t have to breathe.” And he stopped pretending to, and he felt unbearably warm, “I don’t have to pretend to be alive cause I’m not. None of us are.”

“You’re not making sense dude, sit down you're spiraling.” At some point he heard the Eliminator vanish. 

“Nothing here matters. Nothing I ever do stays! I’m a lie that’s convinced itself its more! And I wish I could go back, I can handle others hurt, but I can’t handle this. I can’t. I don’t even care that I’m a mimic or whatever, but I can’t take this world anymore!”

He finds himself surrounded by Heartless, Selphie and the others gathering close too, and everyone gets into a big group hug with him at the center, “It doesn’t matter what’s going on with this world, or what you think is happening; together we can fix it ok? Things can change Sora; you just have to believe.” 

Data Sora’s stress levels spike. He began to hurt.

And then the system crashed before he could do anything else.

Chapter Text

Everything felt gross.

Everything looked gross.

How did he ever think this place was real? Any of these places were? That he himself was?

Why can he feel this difference now? How can he know the real world enough to even comprehend what he was being denied of?

For weeks he could only focus on the bad. The limited animations of his friends. Their lack of voices that he could somehow read in his head. The small little box rooms that made up every world. Bad bad bad. He spent his days, ‘sleeping’ on the sand, just as it was written, at the start of an adventure that would never begin because some of the most important actors were missing.

Then one day… he returned.

Data-Sora blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Looked back and forth. They were still standing there above him, “JJ?”

He stood up and walked around him, in their stifling black jacket that looked so starkly higher resolution against the backgrounds of these islands, “Sup. Sorry it took me so long.” He did a little hair flick, and they all moved with actual physics, in the wind, shimmering from the light refracting...

Data Sora stopped caring and he charged at his best friend and leaped into his arms, “JJ!!” He buried his face inside their jacket. It was warm, and that felt good.

That day they made a bonfire, and everyone was so happy to see JJ again. The not stressed out JJ who didn't want to do anything. But the old JJ, the self proclaimed leader of the pack. The games felt fresh, now that the undisputed king of challenges was running around again lighting the fire of competition back into Data Sora’s heart.

JJ talked with the others, played their games, he made them feel like real people again.

It was almost enough to restore the world in Data-Sora's eyes.

That night, back in his room, he all but danced as he kept jumping in a circle around JJ, “So! Hap! Py! To! See! You!!!!!”

A smirk, “I know, I know. Now sit down. I have some news to tell you about.”

And he collapsed into a pile next to him, putting his head on their lap and looking up, “Fill me in, what’s happening out there?”

“For starters, I owe you an apology. When I said I’d be back in a month, it was one of their months, and not ours.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’ve only been gone one of their months, and how long has it been since you’ve seen me?”

He looked away, “Long enough I stopped counting. The number made me sad.” It had been over a year. Maybe more. He lost count at 255. Twice. "You know I can't count that high."

“Again, sorry about that. I didn’t realize that was going to happen. But at least it seems everything was ok while I was gone right?”

“Uh…” and he looked very guilty.

JJ raised an eyebrow and checked the system log. Sighing, “Sora. Bad. You know what you did was bad, and you did it anyways.”

“I was so lonely…”

And that startled JJ, “Huh? How could you be lonely-”

“After so much time, everything started to feel…funny. Like my eyes had been opened to the truth and couldn’t stop lying to me anymore. Everyone here is fake.”

JJ took it in stride, patting Data Sora’s arm, “I didn’t take you for dramatics.”

“This didn’t start feeling normal again until you came back. They’ve felt wrong for…months now easily. Everything’s felt wrong.”

He looked sympathetic, “That’s…a shame. Cause unfortunately, I’ll be leaving soon-”

“Again?” Data-Sora squeaked desperately, grabbing tight to JJ’s cloak, “What do you mean? Why? I thought you were done that’s why you're home…!”

“Remember my last call about the war outside? It’s gotten worse since then. Mickey wanted me to come back to let you know that until is over, I’ll be gone, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He tried to hold Data-Sora's hands, "Calm down, I might actually be able to visit more often cause everyone over there has to sleep at night."

"Please take me with you, please?” He begged, grip turning vice like.

“Sorry I can’t do that.” 

Data-Sora thinks something in him broke. 

JJ flinched hard, and started scanning the data, “S-Sora what did you do?”

They couldn’t speak anymore. Their hands went limp, their eyes lost sight, and the value that held his stress overflowed into memory, they began to grow, very, very hot, “Sora snap out of it you’re going to crash the system!”

Good.

“What?!”

Then it means you’ll stay longer.

“Are you crazy?!” But JJ leaped up, and as fast as he could started transferring out of the system. He looked out the window and realized the textures were failing to load. In the logs there had been crashes claiming to have come directly from Sora, he thought it was just a mistake, but it was happening right before his eyes!

Sensing JJ in fear, Data Sora felt immeasurably guilty, and desperately tried to backtrack but it was too late. The last thing he saw before the system shut down was JJ’s enraged face vanishing in a flurry of light.

A sparkle of life flickered on the screen, drawing Ienzo’s attention. JJ must be back now. The light flickered oddly and spat the little program out very forcefully, slamming them against the floor. JJ wheezed in pain. He had left to tell Data Sora the bummer news and looked rather frazzled for such a short trip. Ienzo came to the console, “Everything alright JJ?”

“No!” He finally calmed his breath, “To say Data Sora didn’t take it well…understatement. I told him the news and he tried to crash the system with me in it.”

“What?” Ienzo looked confused, “I’ve never properly met Data Sora, but in that call he seemed very much like the normal Sora. What could have caused this?”

JJ leaned up against a wall, “He said he was lonely. I don’t get it! There are plenty of people in there, and he’s friends with all of them. While I was gone, he actually tried dragging people into different worlds! Multiple times! That’s nearly a guaranteed program crash and they won’t work even if they made it there! He made friends with the data Heartless!” utterly exasperated, “I had to do so much damage control on those things. I don’t understand.”

Ienzo rubbed his chin, “…You said Data Sora has a heart, correct?”

“Yeah, a real one. Let’s him use a keyblade.”

“Does anyone else in the datascape have a heart?”

“No? They’re just logs in the journal.”

“If there just logs in the journal, are they perhaps tied to a script? Or otherwise limited?”

“I mean… I guess? Nobody can age and there aren’t too many like weather options or world altering things. Big changes are reverted at the end of the day to keep the integrity of the data. It is a record after all.”

“That’s probably the major issue right there.” Ienzo sits down and looks at JJ though the screen, “A real heart needs other hearts. Needs new experiences to remain healthy and in good shape, to grow and change. He is surrounded by people who systematically can’t. It must be very frustrating.”

JJ looked confused, “But it’s not like I have a heart, why freak out if I’m gone?”

Ienzo gave him a pointed look, “Are you sure about that? Even if that were true you have the majority power in the journal and could make a lot of change. You can go to those other worlds. Meet his other friends. The more I think about it the more I’m sure that’s his issue.”

“But I left him the Avatar Sector, and extra NPC’s with more complicated coding! I even fixed up that one Heartless he keeps talking to!” The little program took a second to think and his face fell, “What do I do? I can’t just leave him if he’s really suffering.”

“Hmmm I think just simply talking to him is a good start. From my perspective you were gone for only a few seconds. You can bring him here if you’re that worried, I’m sure we can find a job for him.”

“I can’t take him from the journal; who knows how many bugs would spawn with his absence?” He sighed, “but …I can’t leave him like that. I’ll go talk to him again.” 

By this point, the system had rebooted. And JJ returned, touching down gently on Destiny Islands. He looked around for Data Sora. Not in his room. Not in the cave that led to other worlds. He found Data Sora tucked in a small corner in the Secret Place. When he approached, Data Sora scrunched even smaller. “I’m sorry.” he weakly croaked, “I don’t know why I…I’m sorry. But I know I did something bad. I don’t know why I did bad.”

JJ patted his head, “Don’t worry. I understand you are in pain. I’ll fix this ok?”

He vanished. And in a few minutes Sora’s sniffling stopped. He felt a bit confused, “What am I doing in here?” He scrunched back down, “This might be a nice napping spot…”

But he got up and dusted off his pants, and walked out, he better go help with that raft before Kairi and Riku got on his case.

He stopped at the mouth of the cave, JJ. Before Kairi and JJ got on his case.

Chapter Text

Something’s wrong.

…But nothing’s wrong?

It’s another beautiful day in paradise. The beach, the sand, his friends… they were working on a raft today. That’s the clearest thing he’s sure of. 100% positive that’s what’s happening today.

But where are they? He looked all over the island, in the caves, at the top of the zipline, in the tree house, in his room, under the docks… and he just can’t find them! 
It didn’t help that for some reason he was in a ton of pain! Bone deep aches all over his body. A part of him was all ‘eh no big deal, very normal.’ But….No?? He’s only 14 not 73!

Eventually after turning over every rock, stump, and chest he could think of he had to just stop and rest. Plopping down at the end of the dock with a large sigh of defeat. Rolling his shoulders, which just like everything else stung for some reason. If this is even a quarter of what gram-gram feels he owes her an apology.

He heard footsteps walk up from behind and sit next to him, it was Selphie.

Instantly in his chest it felt both way too warm and far far too cold. Like someone was trying to make a smoothie of blizzaras and firagas and felt like his ribcage was the best place to do it, “Hey…Selphie.” Finally wrangling the words out.

“You sound tired, I saw you looking for something earlier, what’s up?” Cheery and as radiant as ever.

“Oh. I was looking for Kairi and Ri… um. JJ. I was looking for them, and I couldn’t find them.” He shook his head hard, “I know JJ’s going to be gone awhile but I thought it’d be pretty easy to find Kairi.”

She had a funny look on her face, “I’d love to help ya, but I really don’t know when was the last time I even saw her. It’s weird.” She rubbed her arm, “I’ve always hoped that she was with JJ just cause… well we’ve looked everywhere, we can’t find her.” Her face turned firm, “Shouldn’t you have remembered that?”

“I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, for some reason I was really sure today was the day we were making that raft…” He fell over and lounged on the wood.

“Raft?” Her eyes lit up, “Why were you guy’s making a raft?”

Oh. Guilt stabbed him, that’s supposed to be a secret… 

…But four passengers wouldn’t hurt right? Especially if Kairi’s been with JJ this whole time…What? What was he even thinking?

“You know how JJ’s full of wanderlust. And how Kairi’s from a different world ‘n all. We figured like those old legends, we’d make a raft and sail off!” He smiled and said before he could reconsider, “Wanna join? You can’t tell anyone else cause JJ’ll already be super mad about me telling you.”

She giggled, “Heck yeah! That sounds so cool!” She clapped her hands, “On a journey with friends across the sea? It’s just so romantic!”

He felt the mysterious warmth in his chest return, “Yeah. It’d be pretty cool.”

The day finished without much incident, just a fun movie with friends. 

And it was enough. Sora did feel a little bit better.

No, something’s absolutely wrong.

Well, a couple of somethings are wrong, but this wrong feels a lot bigger than the island missing a few supplies. Much bigger than his guilt about telling their secret about the raft. Then what’s going on at home.

Firstly, Kairi’s gone MISSING. She’s been missing for so long nobody else is even thinking about it anymore! They guess she might be with JJ, but without a way to talk to him, they can’t be sure. It was just a guess on their part.

Without those two it felt like there was a hole in his heart. And when he tries to find comfort in what he still does have, even that is slowly turning sour.
Maybe he’s just going crazy but… he’s pretty sure he’s lived through this day before. Like, In its entirety. Beat for beat!

Wake up, wander out to the beach in confusion, talk with Selphie, beat up Tidus way too easily or get beat up by Tidus way too easily (no in-betweens), help Wakka with some repairs around the place, in the same spots as last week, look for Kairi, play with the gang for the day, wonder were JJ went, remember he’s got to help with data processing (whatever that was!) and get back to the others before falling unconscious at some time that sleep would be happening. They tried to watch movies but somehow a collection of what should be 300+ movies (he lost count at around 255) is now only about 20 in total.

He sees weird shadows in the bushes, they look like people or animals, but they’re gone before he can make much of them.

So many days felt like wholesale repeats, some days even felt like they happened more often. Like the one where Tidus and Wakka fight about blitzball seems to happen every 3 days, maybe? He needs a piece of paper. Math might not be his strong suit, but over the past week he finds it a lot easier. Maybe he is growing up? Does growing up make you better at math? From two different points in his head, he feels that’s incorrect.

His very own bedroom didn’t even seem right. He keeps looking at the weird TV in his wall with confusion every day. Wasn’t this Selphie’s? He found some weird papers under his bed and just a glance made him feel sick to his stomach. There were things missing from his room, mostly meaningless trinkets but it’s still weird that they’re missing. Did he give them to somebody…? 

The only person he could think he would have maybe, and that’s a very strong maybe, was Selphie. But why? At this point he’s only half sure he’s got a crush on her, which is just mortifying she’s like his baby sister… but every time he looks at her a horrid mix of happiness and utter contextless despair filled him. That’s not what his crush on Kairi felt like but it’s the closest he can figure. He doesn’t think he’s been doing a very good job hiding the distress. He doesn’t know what’s causing it, but he hopes it goes away. She means so much to him.

Maybe, there's just something wrong with him. 

His head, his heart, and something deeper than that keep getting in fights. Is that even supposed to happen?

He’d be sitting on the beach idly, and his hands would try to dip into the sand. But they would meet the unrelenting grains and be very confused; Mind would always inform him that sand cannot move and has never moved. Something Deeper would snap back that’s incorrect. But mind would point out all the times he’s tried. Then Deeper would inform Mind about sandcastles. They would get suck there unable to make out what’s going on. Heart would be sad the entire time and wish the sand would move. 

Why does this divide even exist?

Tidus or Wakka would break him out of his stupor, with a concerned look on his face. Sora would try to laugh it off, but it always felt so meaningless to try.

He wasn’t even able to escape in his dreams, if they weren’t nothing, they were just a weird wall of confusing words. What’s a ‘dis32’? A ‘bootloader’? Why are there so many libraries…?

Maybe about two months into this new holding pattern of life (53 days if you wanted to get that specific) something different happened!! 

During one of Sora’s new normal dreamless nights, he heard dog sniffles. And chuckled awake as he started to receive dog licks. Laughing he started petting the dog, “Ahaha! Knock it off Killer!” Scratching just behind the ear where he liked…

Uh.
‘Yes brain?’
Killer died when you were 12…?

Sora’s eyes finally opened to witness a dog’s face with three demon yellow eyes less than an inch away from his face. He didn’t really make anything else out between his screaming and leaping out the window.

On the play island, he finally had a chance to catch his breath, “What was that thing??”

Uh…
‘Yes Brain?’
How did you RUN to an ISLAND?

He plopped to the sand, hand to his forehead, and tried rubbing circles to avoid the massive headache brewing, “Ugh, what else could happen today?”

“I don’t know. Did something happen this morning?” said Riku sitting beside him.

“Oh, hi Riku.” A beat and then shaking his head, “JJ. Sorry Still getting used to it.”

“I told you I’d be back, I figured you would have been much more excited about it. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed.”

Uhhhh!!??
‘Brain, you have unlimited unilateral permission and frankly a duty to just tell me what’s on your mind in a timely fashion! What?!’
When did JJ get back? And beside you without you noticing??

This time Sora just groaned and rubbed his head, “I’m sorry I’ll tackle you in a hug in a moment my head just hurts…”

JJ sat there calmly, bringing a hand to his back, and rubbing small circles into it, in a voice the softest he thinks he’s ever heard Ri- JJ speak, “Everything ok?”

It helped a little, “Yeah everything’s…fine. Nothing ever happens. And without you and Kairi I finally get why you wanted to leave so much.” He lowers his head to JJ’s lap, and lies on it, “Are you two having fun out there?” He hopes the jealousy doesn’t slip into his voice.

Given the sigh he thinks he failed, “Sora. I’m not out there having fun. I’m out there trying to keep people safe. Trying to keep you safe.”

“Who people?” New people always perked Sora up, “Are they nice?”

JJ nods, “Yeah one is…my cousin.”

He tilted his head, “David?”

“…Yeah. He’s made some bad decisions in the recent past and hurt his friends. Now he’s trying to make up everything to his Sora. His sort of Sora. His best friend uh…” JJ paused and looked thoughtful, “Sorry it’s a weird name. Roxas.”

“Roxas?” That sounded familiar, “Oh, I’ve been having a weird dream with text, I’ve seen the word Roxas floating around in there! Weird stuff.”

“You’ve been…. dreaming?” JJ looked very put off for some reason, “I mean I guess how dreaming is described it would be a lot like accessing…never mind. You really should just ignore that weird text. Anyways what other dreams have you been having?”

“This morning a demon dog with three eyes licked my face.”

That actually put a smile on him, “…Weirdo.”

“And what’s Kairi doing? I’ve been so worried about her.”

He looked away again, going solemn, “She’s also out there with a big task. You see Sora, she’s something called a Princess of Heart. There is a set of 7 of them and the reason she came to our world in the first place is her world fell to darkness.”

“Her home world fell to darkness?!” Sora squeaked, “…Did they fix it??”

“Yeah actually. Roxas did it. With the help of Donald and Goofy.”

“He sounds really cool!”

“He is! I haven’t really gotten a chance to meet him. I mostly deal with Mickey and… Dave.”

Sora tisk tisked, “Oo, I’m telling him you said that! He’s going to kick you in the teeth when he finds out!”

“?? Ah David. Sorry, I’m a little tired.”

“Jetlag?”

“…Sure.” JJ sighed and stood up, “As much as I like this view, I don’t want you falling asleep on me, let’s get up and walk around.”

“Tell me how Donald and Goofy are doing.” Sora groaned, and picked himself slowly out of the sand, bracing his back, and being unable to hide the expression of pain on his face, JJ of course noticing and was very upset, “What was that? Sora are you ok?”

“Just peachy.” His eyes stung a bit, “I’ve just been really achy for some reason. My bones hurt. But don’t worry! I’m fine.”

JJ was concerned, then paused in confusion, “...Bones?” Before shaking his head, “Hold on lemme get a good look at you.” He ran his hands over him, circled him a bit giving him a very alarmed once over, “…I think I know what’s causing it. Close your eyes.”

Sora did so. He felt JJ’s hand over his chest.

And then felt it go through his chest??

But none of it mattered, as if a switch had been flipped the pain lessened so much, Sora’s knees turned to jello and he started to fall forward, “Ah! Hold still! I’m not done!”

Sora couldn’t keep his eyes closed anymore, looking up to JJ, “Thank you thank you thank you!!” With huge smiles and grabbing the taller boy in a bear hug, “I feel so much better!!”

“But Sora you’re still probably in a ton of pain, let me finish-”

“Nah I feel great!” Burying his face into the warm black coat, “Thankyou!ThankYou!Thankyou!” Rubbing his face into it, it was like being let free from an Iron maiden, “Thankyouthankyuothankyouthankyou!”

He received small head pats, “Uh…You’re welcome, Sora.”

For half of the day, they played childish games alone on the island. Things Sora had thought Riku thought were beneath him were now fair game, and he got to find out how his friends in the real world were doing. It was such a relief. When it turned noon JJ sighed and had to get ready to leave.

Sora held his hands, “And you’re sure you’ll be back?”

“Of course.” Giving them a squeeze, “I promise.”

“…and you’re sure I can’t go with you?”

“This isn’t a game Sora. I can’t. I’m sorry but you’ll have to wait for me.”

“And Kairi?”

JJ fidgets got really quiet, then stopped looking Sora in the eye, “I…know you have feelings for her. But I guess I should rip the Band-Aid off…”

Sora's eyes lost their glimmer, “…You’re dating her?”

“What? No. Uh, Roxas. Roxas is.” He scratched his cheek, “Uh. I’m sorry? I wasn’t sure how to break it to you.”

“It’s…ok. I should, stop holding you up…” But he still went in for one more bone crushing hug, “Be safe JJ! Bring pictures next time!”

“I’ll try. See you later Sora.” 

But then he paused and suddenly grabbed Sora in another hug, “Ah? JJ?”

“I’ll fix this. When it’s all over, I promise I’ll fix all of this. You won’t be alone for long, you won’t be like this forever, ok?”

And he vanished again.

That was strange. Sora wasn’t alone. Why wouldn’t he want to be like what…?

After he left Sora had a mostly normal empty day. Heard a very normal Wakka and Tidus complain about Blitzball rules, with its unviewable water, little submarines, and Wakka shutting Tidus up by tossing a ball in his face. Selphie sighing and being able to repeat the bullet points before they even got going.

If it wasn’t for his nerves singing in relief, he would have thought JJ was the dream.

JJ told him not to, but he’d never stared at the text harder.

…
>JJournalLibrary
>DisRegistry 
> JCBasicKnowledgeLib

There was so much, and it happened every night when he tried to force himself to sleep. What could it be?

…
>SoraLibrary
>RoxasLibrary

The text didn’t make sense. Thinking about them too hard made them open up into even more text. 

Who was Roxas? Why was his name in here? Next to Sora’s? Like as if he meant anything to him. 

He’s probably a fine guy, probably very cool. Saving people. Saving worlds. Probably handsome. Someone perfect for Kairi…

Why did this hurt so much? He long ago made peace with Riku being with Kairi. Not helped by his mom, she made all kinds of wildly inappropriate comments about people. But some random guy? And didn’t even introduce them before they got together?

Why does this burn? This is so silly. He shouldn’t be thinking about this so hard. He shouldn’t care so much…as long… as long as she’s happy.

>RoxasLibary

Sora glared. Who does Roxas think he is? Putting his library books in his dreams…

Sora stared and stared. And for some reason the word ‘delete’ came to mind. Yeah…delete! And the words were gone. In its place Sora’s good friend horrific bone deep pain returned, what?

Waking up with a start he looked at his body and gasped, weird black blocks with red patterns were bursting out of his skin. He couldn’t move as several embedded into his joints, and it HURT IT HURT IT HURT

He screamed. Loud and shrill, nearly covering up the sound of a smoke bomb going off near his head. A dog’s snout entered view, and he tried to bite back his squeals. Even though he wanted to out of horror instead of pain this time, as the Demon Dog had returned.

‘You silly child. What made you do that?’ The mouth hung open, the words dropped into his skull, ‘That’s part of your core being. Let me see if I can help you.’

The eyes closed, the nose touched him, and he felt…something crawling under his skin, in his head, something looking through his mind to that wall of text. It flickered and jumped around. 

The dog snorted. ‘I will have to initiate a rollback on this. Hope you didn’t do anything important today, cause it’s all about to vanish.’

Sora wanted to say, ‘No please don’t, today was a good day!’ but all he could wonder was if JJ was ever going to visit…

Chapter Text

78 days on a sunny rock with nothing happening. Every pore of his body ached, including his ever-numbing brain. When against all odds, something different happened.

Wakka saw their boat first, and immediately yelled to the others, “Look guys!! It’s Kairi!”

The other two merely stood, and in that time, Sora had launched himself into the air at the dock how the heck did he do that! And looked out with him, “Kairi? KAIRI!” Waving like a maniac at her.

Slowly rowing up on her boat, tying it down and stepping out, leaving behind some strange creature in the boat, she found herself surrounded by her friends in a cacophony of ‘Where were you!’ ‘Is JJ with you?’ ‘We’ve missed you!’ ‘Did you do something with your hair?’

Yeah, it’s weird her hair was longer, but shoot it’s been so long Sora’s amazed he hasn’t needed a haircut, “Kairi!” But now noticing one difference made all the rest stand out. Her dead cold stare, her strange silence, her… how to say this politely… fundamentally incorrect level of beauty?

Sora wanted to punch himself for that one, unable to break eye contact, he made her sit down, “Please. Tell us where you’ve been…”

Her lips moved, but no sound was made, the others glanced at each other nervously, before finally in a voice that hurt from how much he missed it she said, “In the Avatar Sector.”

…

“The what??” said a baffled Selphie.

Scratching his head, Sora asked, “Is that like where JJ’s been? I’ve never heard of it.” Another fight in his head broke out, this time the Heart at the center of it, punishing him with guilt for his lie. But what lie? The Mind and Deeper didn’t know what the heck Heart was on about.

She cleared her throat, “On another island. With my dad. Business trip?” That answer didn’t make sense, but it did, and everyone accepted it. 

Relieved, they all gathered in a group hug, “We’re so happy to see you again!” Selphie laughed.

“Yeah, no more vanishing!” said Tidus.

Sora realized he was a little too full of emotion to say anything, so Wakka instead asked, “Wanna watch a movie tonight?”

“…Sure.” Said the… probably Kairi. Now staring into Wakka’s eyes like she was going to steal his soul.

By the end of an excoriating excruciating two hours was that movie always that bad? And with just him and Kairi alone in the room she suddenly turned to him, “What has happened to you?”

“Uh…nothing?” this gaze was no Kairi, “What’s happened to you is the better question.”

Those blue…no purple eyes were boring into him, “Something has altered you. Are you Happy like this?”

“Kairi you’re really freaking me out…” He started shuffling away from her.

But she just crawled after him, “Is this the true form of you? Does this bring you joy?” Are her eyes glowing?? “Can you Accept what has happened to you?”

And before he could think his heart said, “No.”

She backed off, “I will return in a week. I will find you a better place. Survive until then.” Without a second glance, she walked downstairs.

“…Well, that was weird…” He collapsed on his bed and looked up at his roof. What was all that about? He tries to sleep.

Hours into pretending to sleep, surrounded by the unbroken silence, he gets to thinking.

Stuff doesn’t make sense to him anymore. Why Is it when he thinks about his mom if feels like a lie? Why does it feel like he never sees some parts of the island anymore? He’s been stuck in a loop trying to even picture the downstairs Kairi walked down and into.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

Trying to think about anything felt like he was ripping open his third eye after someone had stapled it shut and rubbed sand in it. Always forcing its way open, if just for a moment, always catching a glance at some new revelation, before slamming shut again.

Tonight’s: that the sun has never gone down. He can’t remember what the island looks like at night.

A week passed and Kairi didn’t return.

With JJ and Kairi gone off doing…whatever and both lying about how long they were going to be gone, Sora just had to accept that the raft wouldn’t be made.

With them.

Sitting bored with Selphie on the tree with the paopu fruit, “Hey Selphie remember that raft?”

She kicked her legs idly, also a bit bored, “Hm? The one with our missing duo?”

“Yeah. Wanna go see if Tidus and Wakka will help us make it?” 

She all but leapt into him, “GOOD IDEA LET’S DO IT!” then raced off to the little platform Tidus was normally on, “Tidus! Tidus!! Help me and Sora make a raft! Pleassssse?”

And he shrugged, “Sure! It’s something different to do!”

Wakka however was an immediate, “No! That’s very dangerous!”

“But Wakkaaa….” Whined Selphie, “It’ll just be for fun! We promise we won’t go too far! Always in view of the beach! Please! We’re so bored…”

But he remains firm, “It’s extremely dangerous, don’t you remember the story of the one person who did leave?”

Sora flatly said, “I know the story exists, but I don’t know the story.”

Wakka grabbed him by the shoulders, “How can you be so irresponsible?! How can you not know the story?!”

“Well I know I’ve heard it, why don’t you tell it to me?” It’s been a long time since anyone’s told him a story. Who was the last person to tell him one? Mom? JJ…?

The older boy took a breath, and then…paused. And looked confused.

“What’s wrong dude?” asked Tidus, “You know all the stories.”

“I do but…” Wakka looked frustrated, “What on earth…? Why can’t I….” He looked even more frustrated beyond belief. He dropped to his knees and grabbed his hair, “It’s like it was taken right out of my head!”

“Ha!” Selphie pointed, “If you can’t even remember the story then we can totally make the raft!” turning to Sora with a big smile, “So what do we need?”

“Well…” He felt a little guilty about this given Wakka’s breakdown but it’s too exciting!

Goal One: Logs!

“First thing’s first! We’ll need logs to make most of it!”

Selphie darted back to the paopu tree island and snatched a log that had been there for ages, Tidus grabbing another from under the bridge. 

“Ok, that’s two, where can we find more?”

“Hmm…I dunno. Cut down a tree?”

“But we can’t just destroy a chunk of the island!” complained Wakka.

“What if we put a coconut back in its spot?”

The older boy sighed, then laughed, “Alright, I can see you guys are dedicated to this. I can’t stop you now. I’ll lend a hand and hold you to your words.”

“What would we cut down the tree with anyways?”

Sora smiled, left, and returned with a harpoon, “It’ll take a bit, but I think it’ll work.”

He readied a strike, and in one swift movement chopped the tree down. Holy cannoli how’d he manage that?!

It exploded into black and red blocks. Startled he dove back before they could touch him, a part of his heart screaming, ‘RETREAT! RETREAT! DON’T TOUCH!’

But Tidus and Wakka nodded, “Yeah this should be plenty of logs.” Selphie looked at them like they had lost their minds. She flinched terribly when Tidus actually picked one up.

Sora looked at them oddly before, “Uh, think you guys can get the logs in shape ‘n all while me and Selphie get some rope…?”

The two gave thumbs up, and Selphie easily darted to his side, and as they walked away she whispered, “Are they going to be ok??”

“No idea. If they’re dead later, we can just rip parts off the big bridge for raft parts.” She tried to fight it, but she giggled pretty hard.

She gave him a slap, “Oh you’re awful.” 

Goal Two: Rope!

Rope wasn’t too hard to find, it’s actually all over the island. They just pulled some down, probably wasn’t holding up anything too important.

Goal Three: sail!

Selphie perked up, “Oh, I saw one in the tree house ages ago; think it’ll still be there?”

“Let’s find out!” Sora easily climbed up and over and turned to walk in and froze.

It was pitch black. The space could be dark but…this was like a wall of tangible darkness. When Selphie caught up and saw she gasped. They looked at each other. They looked back. She elbowed him, “You touch it.”

He reached out his hand, but then stopped, paused, and went, “N-No?!  No way!”

She then pivoted around, “No more looking at that! Think a bed sheet would work?”

“Yeah let's go steal my one.”

With that obtained, the supplies for the actual raft part of the raft were completed. 

Now the ‘raft’ itself…

They approached the strange…blocky frightening approximately raft shaped arrangement, and offered the supplies. To their friends, who didn’t seem to notice the sand around them slowly turning black and red and patterned in bad stuff. Tidus and Wakka just grabbed them and kept going at it.

“Uh…were going to work on the…other part now.” Said Selphie, walking backwards, slowly. In fear.

“Yeah! You know…p-previsions!” Sora stuttered. The other two boys just looked at them funny, then shared a knowing look with each other. Sora didn’t like that look, and started walking away much faster before they said anything that would earn them a punch to the jaw.

Selphie ran off somewhere to get a cooler of stuff, as Sora tried to gather Kairi’s list. He’s pretty sure it was wrong, but three coconuts, a bottle of clean water, and a seagull egg (which he dropped from the tree, and it didn’t break very cool) were all he could obtain.

For some reason he couldn’t reach the water for the fish. 

He could get ankle deep before his brain just said ‘stop’. And if he kept trying it felt like there was a wall in the way. But that’s silly…

“Boo!” Selphie sure got him, he yelped and lurched high into the air, landing hard on the unyielding sand, “Ack! Sorry Sora! Didn’t mean to spook ya that bad.”

He dusted himself off, even though there wasn’t anything to dust off, “I’m fine. Think they’ll be rea….” Sora looked beyond her, and his face paled.

“Sora? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t look behind you.” He grabbed her and led her away. 

Don’t look behind you and see your friends frozen without faces being consumed by the cubes.

Chapter Text

“Let’s go do our other plan!” he hopes he doesn’t sound too scared, “Make a raft out of some of the wood just, lying around.”

“I bet if we pull a few nails, we can get the roof off the shack.” Selphie was being a very good sport, following Sora’s plea to not look at her friends. And the encroaching dark cubes.

They did a bit of a rush job, at one point Selphie cut her hand pretty badly on a nail, and Sora had to pour 4 potions on it, “Why do you have so many potions? Are your pockets really that deep?”

“Dunno.” Tossing the bottle aside, “But are you really going to look that horse in the mouth?” 

She barked with unexpected laughter, “Haven’t heard that one out of you in a while!”

Sora didn’t get it, but he also couldn’t find the 4 bottles he just tossed so maybe he’s just going crazy. Everything in his life sure seemed to be going that way in quick order.

They found another bed sheet, and Sora stabbed a hole in the separated shack roof for a quick cobbled together mast. The two dragged it to the paopu tree’s island, before the cubes encroached any further and consumed the bridge.

And then they couldn’t make it to the water. That stupid wall stopped them.

Sora kicked it, “You have GOT to be kidding me! How long has this stupid wall been here!?”

Selphie rested her forehead on it, leaning her whole body weight against the invisible wall. It looked weird but also a mood, and Sora followed suit.

The wall is very cold.

“You know…it’s funny.” She started, “I missed you.”

“Huh? Missed me?”

She took a second to compose herself, “What I’m about to say…well it’s not going to make a ton of sense but no making fun of me, got it?”

“Gotcha. What’s up?” Sora tilted his head curiously.

“I missed…you. This Sora. But it’s funny. I got so used to the other Sora that, even though I’m so happy to see you again, I miss him now.” She looked out to sea, “But I don’t want to lose you again. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I was different?” He scratched his head, “What do ya mean?”

“Like the day JJ first left, to about uh… a few months ago, you acted so different. Like as if something happened and you changed, I guess. Like way more than if it was just JJ leaving.” She rubbed her chin, “Is it weird to miss a past version of a person? Twice over?” 

“Hmm… yeah that is weird but I think I get you.” He walked over to the tree, ignoring the now missing bridge, and lounged on it, “So what was that ‘Other Past Me’ like?”

She leaned against it in Rik- JJ’s spot, with a grin, “3 AM Sora madness, all day, all the time!”

Sora groaned, wincing and throwing his head back to the tree, “That sounds exhausting!”

“It could be, but we got used to it. At first, I just kinda thought you and Riku had been replaced with changelings, and while I’m not unconvinced for Riku, with you…” She got very quiet, “It was like…”

“You cause problems.” Came a female voice from behind them. Sora rolled over to see Kairi ominously standing at the edge of the small island, with the larger chunk of island behind her all but consumed with cubes.

“Well, good morning to you too.” Said Selphie in a deadpan voice, “All we tried to do was make a raft, and then all that,” She pointed to the catastrophe, “Happened.”

Sora added, “Not our fault someone was hiding an ancient evil in a random palm tree we cut down.”

“I will fix it.” Kairi paused, and considered their new crummier raft, “Get on it. I will send you two out while I restore the island.”

Without so much as a grumble, they did so, and Kairi snapped her fingers and a flock of flying moogles and bat creatures appeared, got under the boat, and started to fly up and over the wall and down to the water, Sora shouting, “Thank you Kairi!”

She didn’t acknowledge him as she turned away, and before long the island was completely out of view.

Selphie put her legs over and into the water, “Hm. Well that sucks.”

“What’s wrong?” Sora said kicking off his shoes and joined her, “Oh…” It didn’t feel like anything. No water being displaced, just legs making an obnoxious visual mistake not interacting with the water, “You’re right. This sucks.”

There was an awkward silence, “So…What were you going to say?”

She hummed, “I think you changed because you saw something. Something bigger than here. Me and Tidus talked about it once, figured you’d maybe had seen an alien and gone on an adventure and now had to try really hard to fit back in, but you... saw to much.”

Suddenly stiffening, wrapping her arms around her, “Sora…Do you dream anymore?”

“Now that you mention it…Not really?” Does a wall of text count as a dream? “I don’t…remember the last time I had one.”

“You did once. I almost asked you how many days ago. One of your funny weird quirks was you used to count the days between things. Actually, you used to count a lot of things, but kept losing count.” growing very quiet, "You said it was your first dream. I know you told me what it was but I can't remember. I'm sorry." She huddled even closer, “Somethings wrong Sora. Something’s very wrong… I think old you knew that more than anything.”

Sora sat as close as he could and wrapped an arm around her, “…Like how the days fill the same?”

She looked up to him, her eyes red like they were going to cry but nothing came out, “When do we go back home? To our houses? Where’s the rest of yours?”

“And school? I can’t lie part of raft was to avoid it but right now I think I'd kill to go to school.”

“Our families? Where are they? Why haven't they come for us?” She shakes her head, "Wasn't I close with my mom? Where is she?"

“I can’t even think of what my dad looks like. Or anything about him.” He shuttered, "And I feel so... conflicted about something with him? But what is it? Why don't I know what it is? Isn't he my dad?"

“Once I had a dream,” Selphie reached her hand to the sky, “It was a city at night. I was with you. I think about it sometimes, it feels too real to be fake, but it’s impossible.” Her face grows cold, “I think someone’s been in my head. Taking things from me.”

Sora wishes he could cry from relief, “I get it, me too, I…” He points to the sky, “Why Doesn’t it ever become night? Why doesn’t it rain anymore?”

The questions are rapid fire they grow more frenzied with each one, Selphie shouts, “Why don’t we grow up?! Aren’t we all due for a growth spurt?”

“Why’d Riku change his name?”

“Why JJ?! He’s too deliberate to settle for random names.”

“Why does the water,” he kicked it, “Not react or feel like anything?!”

“Why can’t we eat or taste?! Why…” She grabbed him tighter, “Do you feel so cold?” She feels cold too.

“How has it been years, but nothings happened? Nothing’s changed?”

Selphie looks up for a moment before gasping, and then nearly retching, “Oh…what…what the heck?!” She looks back and recoils in fear.

Sora looks up and wants to scream, “Is that an edge?” The raft floats over to it and passes it. The water is just a plain floating in space. Above a blue sky, below a pit of complete darkness. He holds her, dragging them both back firmly onto the rickety wood, shaking profusely, “Is…is that an, an Edge?!”

“It would be best if you two stop asking questions.” Announced Kairi from directly behind them, frightening the hell out of them, “Or you will both be reset again.” She glared hard at Selphie, “You in particular know far too much.”

Selphie shouted, “Know Too Much?! Are you KIDDING ME? We don’t know anything!!” She made to scramble towards her, probably to hit her, but Sora held her back, “This isn’t fair!”

He couldn’t help but ask, “What’s going on Kairi? Why can’t we know what’s going on?” He looked around to the emptying expanse around them, “…How did you get here?”

Kairi snapped her fingers, and without even a blink they were back on the island. The shack roof repaired, the palm returned, and not a dark cube in sight. “I do not like what he has done to you.” She knelt down before them, “But you both must stop now. You must live these days as intended or you will both be reset again and again until you fit. JJ cannot know of any of this.” She got up to leave.

“Wait!” Selphie shouts, “Please! I see you can put things back, can you put Sora back? He knew. And I think underneath it all he still knows.”

“Absolutely not. Yet. He crashed the system too many times before. At least with bug creation it’s much easier to hide.” And she walked away.

They sat there on the beach, before they both shakily got up and walked to the secret place. They huddled in the dark for some time, silence aside from the dripping sounds. Selphie turned to him eventually, “Go home for now Sora. We’ll…figure this out later.”

He just nodded, waved goodbye with a shaking smile, “Wanna come with?”

“No. I... need some time to think.” And he left.

It was quiet. Perfect for thinking. And she was alone.

But not for long.

She gasped, as Riku all but sauntered out of the darkness, “You said it’s this one?” Behind him was… something. It looked pretty but like no one she had ever met. They nodded robotically.

“JJ, what’s going on? Who are they?”

He smiled, “They’re nothing. They told me you had some weird questions?”

She looked at him, then them, “…Not really. Just when were you going to get home. Sora’s sad without you.”

“And you’re supposed to be doing a better job of keeping him that way.” He said plainly.

She stomped, “And how am I supposed to do that when nothing-” but she caught herself, “When nothing’s the same without you two.”

He looked unimpressed, “I have to keep him out of this fight. He needs to stay home otherwise they will find him. They tried to hurt the real Sora in so many ways. What would they do if they got their hands on a perfect recreation of him? That had its own keyblade? That has a solid chunk of his memories?”

She took a step back, nearly bumping into the wall behind her, “What are you talking about Riku?! What do you mean ‘real’ Sora?! The real one’s just sitting in his room waiting for you! The heck is a keyblade? Who are these people you're so scared of?!”

JJ got an unpleasant frown, “Oh. So, you do know too much.”

“You just said it all yourself right here, right now!” JJ approached with a hand out threateningly, “Stay back! You’re being a real creep you know!”

“I have to keep world order Selphie. These worlds have a more delicate balance then real ones and you’re messing with that.”

“Seriously what on earth are you talking about?!”

“Goodnight Selphie. When next we meet you should be all back to normal.” He finally grabbed her and let her go. She blinked. Face blooming into confusion, looking around, “Where am I?”

“You’re in the secret place, guess you just found it?”

“I suppose.” She looked up, “Wow it’s dark outside. Sorry, but I gotta get home JJ! See you later.” And walked out none the wiser.

Just to be sure, he decided to check up on Sora.

“JJ! He tried to get up, but stumbled, “I have had a heck of a day.”

“Oh yeah?” JJ looped an arm around his shoulders.

“Yeah it…” Sora scratched his head, “Well I don’t really remember but it sucked. Wanna hang out?” He points to the TV, “I’m sure we can get the SNES and-”

“Sorry, only visiting again.” Removing himself.

Sora shrugged and plopped down on the bed, “Well remember to tell your mom goodbye. You know she worries about you.”

JJ just nodded and left the system.

Chapter Text

Kairi went missing again. Or at least, didn’t return in the week she had promised. Sora was scared she was going to vanish again, maybe forever this time.

But the day after, she beat him to the island. This time dressed very differently than normal; did she normally own a kimono? When she spots him, she charges up and grabs his hand, “Follow.”

“Where we going Kairi?” He’s not sure he hid the tremble in his voice good enough.

“Follow.” She repeats.

She leads him home, and opens the door downstairs, and somehow, they’re in a cave. The walls slide painfully over his eyes. That third eye fighting to see again.

Gasping, he wheezes, “What’s all this?! Is this where you’ve been hanging out?!” He looks around the cave, “How the heck didn’t I notice this…?”

Her face is as stern as it is concerned, “Truly something horrible has been done to you.”

“What does that mean? You’re really starting to scare me Kairi…!”

Kairi led him to a specific door, opening it, and beckoned him through. Equal parts dread and excitement as he crossed the threshold.

Instantly as they entered weird little ant men surrounded them, “Ooh jeez?!” A part of him was scared, but how could he be scared at all the silly hats and tassels and pants they all wore, “Who are you little cuties?” and they all froze, looking at each other in confusion.

A huge Red armored, dog shielded, nightmare in a spiffy coat and cute ribbons started barreling through the critters. In his head it screamed at him a warning, before also screaming, ‘Where have you been? Why are you acting weird?’

“I’m acting weird?” He held a semi offended hand to his chest, “Would have thought Kairi fit that bill better than me.”

The monster stared blankly at him, ‘Do you know who we are?’ bringing its hand to its chest, and it's shield looked at him with…disappointment?

“No, but I’d love to.” He was very confused right now, but something felt right about this creature, “You guys seem cool.” 

Red Monster and Kairi looked at each other, before Kairi stepped up and before Sora’s very eyes melted. “WHAT IN THE SAM HILL?!” Falling to the floor and crawling backwards a bit. From the melt came a different person…himself! “What?!” He wanted to crawl away more but there were too many little dudes at his back.

The he that was Kairi held up their hand, “We will correct this grievance against you.” Closed their eyes, and in their hand appeared a key.

Sora could feel his soul itch.

Something inside him said to try it, and he mimicked his mimic’s motions.

“Draw this key from your heart.” Sora doesn’t understand, but he makes an effort to try. Mind went blank, before a snap.

Zero/One is in his hands, and he’s floored as all the feelings come back. All the memories. He finds his friends surrounding him, as he convulses involuntarily. This isn’t fair.

45 days on repeat, the same arguments, fighting, fighting, fighting, befriending, falling in love, being devastated, the boredom, anxiety, counting the days, losing count, JJ, the crashes, his adventures, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Data-Roxas, Data-Naminé. A void. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt HurtHurtHURT!

Data Sora gets back up, and says point blank, “I can’t stay here.” On the verge of unshedable tears, “I can’t.”

If JJ would do it once. He’d do it again.

Chapter Text

Between the three of them and the week dedicated to sitting around the console and figuring out it's secrets, Data Sora found himself better able to access his inhumanity and reach out to other systems across the internet. 

Disconnected from the setting, eyes glazed over, looking outwords, he said, “There are…a number of other computers out there, but really I think there’s only one we can actually go to.”

‘What makes you think this?’ The Eliminator’s eyes honed in on the stream of data flying past their eyes.

“While this computer is connected to a lot of others, most of them are way way too weak to have us. The two that can, one is at Radiant Garden and is currently where JJ is right now.”

‘Unacceptable. The other?’ Lightly holding her hand on his shoulder. Which was still heavy enough to hurt. But that’s ok.

“It’s a place called ‘TwTownLocalComp’ and also has a datascape simulation like here, so I think this one’s nicer anyways. Closer to what we know, ya know?”

"Not everything would transfer over perfectly, but a 98% compatibility is good." said Ava.

He taps away at the keys, “But I’m not sure how we can get us all there easily… together our file size is just a bit too large.” He types a bit more, “Actually, to be more specific, I have no idea how to get Ava there at all, no offence your file size is huge!”

Ava tapped his shoulder, his sight returning, and he turned to look into the dark glassy helmet they wore today, “Sora, do not worry about me. You and the Eliminator are more than small enough. Someone needs to take your place here; I’m positive JJ will be back to check on you. That will be my task.”

They melted into his shape again, and smiled softly not reaching the eyes, “I might not be a great actor, but I should be good enough, right?”

Smiling more earnestly back, “Don’t sell yourself short! Just be peppy and dumb and JJ will believe ya.” 

Eliminator gave him a small headbutt,‘You stop that.’

He just laughed and went back to typing. “In any case we can get there easily but will have to transfer briefly through the Radiant Garden System. But that place should be massive, and I doubt JJ’s the one in charge of security. We should go during this time when there’s few people on the system. That’ll be in a week from now.”

Plan secured; Sora left to finalize his goodbyes.

Maybe... maybe he could bring...

The day before their planned escape, Sora made sure to hang out with his island friends, help with their silly arguments, walk into the non-feeling of ankle-deep sea water with a vow to feel the real deal, and gave Selphie a hug and another flower. 

But she wasn't the same.

In a way she was still as Selphie as ever, the normal topics came up, but something in his heart was causing him fresh agonising pain. She had an air of confusion as well, upset by something she didn't understand. Shugging, she just set it aside as a weird vibe.

It didn't feel like he was talking to Selphie anymore.

He returned to the cave with little more than a frown, then the faceful of tears he wanted.

Eliminator seemed ready for the trip, idly rotating its shield, while he just nervously stood around.  Ava kept changing form rapidly and fussing over them, their certificates, the message and explanations they were going with, and also to getting the last bits of morphing they could do done before they couldn’t anymore. She even prepared one of her 'Buddies' a kind of... mammal looking thing, to follow them.

In what felt like it could be his final conversation with Ava he just had to ask, as they stared into his eyes one more time, “Why do you do this staring thing?”

“I was made to wear all faces. When I look into eyes, I can see all they have encountered. I keep checking in case there’s new faces. I need them all for the Users. It was what I was created for.”

Smiling softly, “You’re still horrifying, but you’re a dear friend to me.” And he gave them a hug.

Ava and the Eliminator nodded to each other, and Data Sora and the heartless were carefully placed in something Ava called a 'transfer packet'; it looked a lot like a cage. Sitting in one sure felt like it, It had little jail bars and everything. Ava just kinda tossed her buddy in as almost an afterthought.

“Goodbye. Be well.”

“You too!” They waved and Ava sent them loose.

Out of the simulation, they compressed considerably. There wasn’t enough processing power to have all his cores running. All illusions stripped and they were down to the raw studs of their data.

Which was to say they wound up looking almost like some kind of paper dolls. They stood still inside their 'packet', that soon found itself on a 'solar sailor', he thinks Ava called it, and they silently absorbed the view before them. Large multicolored vistas of untapped data and the void of the spaces between.

When they hit their transfer stop, suddenly there were resources again and they returned to full function. Data Sora couldn’t help but bounce a bit, “Did you see that?? It was so pretty!!” The Eliminator nodded and smiled along.

But now came a kind of scary moment; they would be checked by a security program. They had forged a request from Queen Minnie to send them to the other system, and if caught there was no doubt they would be deleted.

They heard the footsteps and braced themselves. A tall silver man, with glowing blue lights on his gray armor turned to face them. His stern expression suddenly morphing into confusion, doing a full double take, “Sora?! Is that you?” He got even closer to the bars.

Data Sora actually perked up, “Oh? You’ve met the Real-Sora? That’s really cool! But alas I am but a humble data version; just a record of him basically.” At least he hopes they haven’t met, and he’s forgotten, that’d suck.

The silver man nodded along and turned to his companion, where he stiffened up, “And this is…?”

“That’s Eleminichan!” Data Sora patted her on the back, “She’s also a journal entry but of a Heartless. Don’t be confused though; she’s not actually one.” his words actually seemed to calm the program down, “So who are you Mr.? It’s so exciting to know you met the real Sora! People always say he’s really nice, is it true?”

They laughed a bit, “Ah yes, I am Tron. Sora was brought into the system by the MCP; to make a long story short he helped me eliminate them and is a friend of mine, I didn’t know him for long, but he was certainly kind to me and his allies.”

“Does he visit? Think I could meet him?” Data Sora unconsciously held his hands to his chest and pressed his face against the bars.

But Tron looked disappointed, “He did for a bit, but things got busy in the world of the Users. Speaking of that, I’m supposed to report to them any programs over a certain amount of complexity.”

Uh oh. 

“But I’ll make an exception for you two.” Crisis averted! “Two simulator programs heading out to the other simulation, that’s perfectly acceptable. You two stay safe now.” Pressing a few things on the packet, they were on their way again.

“Thank you, Mr. Tron!” He was waving excitedly and was followed by a cheery bark. For a moment he wondered why didn't he see the Buddy, but it was gone. Weird.

Tron waved back briefly, before continuing his scan. He had met JJ, and in their occasional brief conversations had learnt a little about the Data-Sora, and the most important thing was JJ thought he was as trustworthy and kind as his real user counterpart. The Twilight Town system must be in some trouble if they have to send him out there. Tron spared them a few more thoughts, before returning his full focus to his job.

It was back to being condensed, and then back to being fully aware. This computer, while smaller and in charge of less programs, was actually a little bit more advanced than the Radiant Garden System. He felt free, like a vice had been removed from his mind.

He truly could never return home; he would suffocate.

They stumbled out of a portal, and immediately found himself inundated with an overload of data, taking a full two minutes to eke out a “W-what?”

200,000 collision calls a second. That just can’t be right! All he was touching was the floor and… and the strange particles on top of the floor. Wrangling his own console log felt nauseating, but when he did, he realized he was being bombarded by things labeled as ‘duPart.258277068 collision; true’ messages. What in the world?!

Relief soon came in the form of the Eliminator, who grabbed him and with a small but painful hack, made it little more than ‘Touchingdu.PartAtAll = true’ and then everything went silent.

“Whew, thanks. I was worried I was going to be stuck forever like that.” He looked at the floor, at these strange, ‘du.Part,’ “What is this stuff?”

When he moved his foot, he found they all moved with it. Startled, he reached down and touched it with his hands. This time he realized it was giving him more than just collision data, but a number of tags along with it.  “Roughness: 40? TextureTag: mildly slimy? What does that mean?” It was intriguing that when he moved his foot a kind of layer of the stuff moved fluidly around as he did it. It was some kind of… of…shoot he should know this word.

Hm. He checked something.

This place doesn’t have the JCBasicKnowledge Library. That’s going to be an issue, but no big deal. That just means he’ll have to learn a bit more actively. Probably relearn a bunch of things too if he can't find some equivalent.

Strange data kept flowing in, but at least it wasn’t overwhelming anymore. He rubbed the stuff between his fingers, and he realized something. Head and Heart were here. They were entranced. But that deeper calling, the writing of the journal itself was… gone. Where had it gone? Was it no longer inside him? Maybe he's missing a lot more than he thought. But maybe it was a good thing...?

Eliminator huffed too close to the floor, scattering the du.Parts into the air. Changing the associated tag 'AirQuailty: dusty'. 

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Both of them couldn’t peel their eyes away, as the motes of du.Parts flittered in the light. He reached his hand out to touch them a little. The old system could never handle anything like this. They all collected on his hand, a strange and novel concept.

As he looked at his hand, he noticed the ambient lighting of his body didn’t match that of the room. He glew with unnatural brightness against the moodier lighting. Ready for noon and not a sunset. 

Eliminator, after grabbing a fist full of the du.parts, inspecting them, and deciding that they didn’t want it on their hand ran it across his jacket, “Hey!” All of the particles stuck and left a smear. Suddenly the words ‘dirty’ and ‘filthy’ made actual sense. 

Ignoring him, the heartless was intrigued by the delicate webs that hung in the corners, nothing like it existed amongst the journal’s worlds. Data Sora soon received a message, ‘Hop on my back, and bring me that.’ He shrugged and complied, easily stepping onto their broad shoulders, and reaching out.

Expecting to need to actually grab he was shocked when the fine fibers latched on to his hand, even after he tore it away, “Ack! What’s with everything sticking to us?” He waggled his hands a bit to try and get it off, but that failed. He then rubbed his hand on her arm to be free of it.

She laughed, but as she turned it suddenly died. Face soured to a grimace.

“What’s wrong Eli- yikes!” The console of this world had been viciously smashed in. What could have done such damage to it? The time to repair it would be astronomical. 

Finally, Data Sora took the moment to actually observe where they had landed. A metallic lab, very reminiscent of the system sectors, with stairs that led up into a much more normal world. Books lined the walls above them, along with a window with a large curtain that from this low angle let in a small flicker of light. All of it was a mere staircase away.

Eliminator boldly began the climb. He must agree, it looked much more interesting up there; this lab can wait another day. Data Sora, quick to follow, only to get distracted halfway up, “This is a nice big library! Do you think there real or as blank as the ones in Hallow Bastion?”

She paused and pulled one out with her mouth, dropping it to the floor where it open and revealed words, “Aah that’s cool as heck!” The book filled his head with its different roughness, the texture tags ‘grainy, gritty, cotton threads,’ and something called a Scent. It meant nothing to him, but it sure was neat! He put it back on the shelf.

Chapter Text

They kept exploring the house; the level of detail was unreal! No matter how close he put his face to the walls and floors he couldn’t see the resolution of the textures. There were tiny unique cuts and nicks everywhere, the glass shards on the floor had 76 well distributed variations, he almost thought they were all different; how insane! Every step gave him so much information, even the air itself was overwhelming with its strange ‘Scent’ tags; he couldn’t make use of them and no matter where he moved, he couldn’t escape them, it was nothing like home.

It took him and the Eliminator literal hours just to make it to the door of this place, too enraptured were they at all the small objects and eventually to the changing of the light. It did not go as dark as Traverse Town, but the red orange light did darken till it was nearly gone. Seeing it move as time passed… he knew that’s how light really works but seeing it in action was staggering.

Then they opened the front door.

A bunch of leaves dashed past them.

They both braced, before lessening, the Heartless wiggling her nose curiously, ‘Why are they moving?’

“I don’t know?” He grabbed a leaf out of the air, “It’s… being carried by the wind?” At least there was an object tag saying it was a leaf in the wind. He wasn’t sure what real normal wind felt or looked like, he was expecting pale wisps like a harmless aero, but it was completely invisible! “If it is its weird!” He tried to grab some of this invisible wind, but it felt like nothing and must have just gone right past his hand.

The temperature in the building was uncomfortably warm, a weird middle ground between fire and normal temperature, but out here it was much cooler even if still concerningly hot. This place’s temperature varied so much more than home. Then his eyes spotted something past the threshold, “Whoa! What’s this all over the ground?”

‘It looks like spikes.’ The Eliminator stuck her nose in it, ‘But they are not sharp? Curious.’

As he stepped out on to it, “I think it's…plants? Is this grass? Why isn’t it flat?” He reached his hand down, and it was an overwhelming long string of data being fed into him. Everything in this system was layers and layers deeper than anything he’d ever encountered before.

It would be an entire night and dawn, carefully observing every last phenomenon in the woods, until they encountered their first person.

Small, with an adorable hat, Sora couldn’t help but compliment them, “Yo! I love your hat! Very fancy!”

The small person flinched, turned to him and shyly shuffled a bit, “O-oh? Thank you… I love this hat.” They were very small, shorter than him in a blue coat and stripy green pants. He couldn’t make out their face, it reminded him of a Shadow, was he a Shadow?? If he is he is the cutest Heartless Data-Sora has ever seen! 

“Do you live here? We’re new and don’t know the area very well.” He held out his hand, giddy as could be, “My name is Sora! And you?”

They shyly reached out their hand, and carefully shook his own. “I’m Vivi. I live in town yeah. Do…do you guys live here? In the, the woods or the old mansion…?”

“We don’t live anywhere yet; we just got here!” He brought his arms back before the Eliminator gave Vivi the good once over, the boy trembling and clearly afraid, “Don’t worry about Eli-chan there. She’s friendly!”

Little Vivi’s eyes were darting from him to a large hole in the nearby wall, and every few seconds made a little step towards it, “Well, uh, it’s nice to meet you, but I really have to get back to my friends now-”

“Oh, that’s a shame. Before you go could you point us in the direction of like, information I guess?” He was very content to explore the town on their own, but it’d be nice to start somewhere, “I’d even take something as simple as a…! Uh… shoot I should know this. Like one of those papers with pictures and info about the town?” He mimed opening the paper he saw in his head.

“Like a… brochure?” They nervously rubbed their fingers, “Ye-yeah sure the billboard has info…it might have brochures?” Before leading the two out the hole in the wall and down the street some, “It’s just right around this corner and-”

“VIVI!” Came a loud shout, before a large man in red rushed up, and leaped in front of Vivi, “Back off! Don’t you know better than to pick on small guys, ya know?!”
A blonde in a beanie, followed by a thin lady with silver hair also arrived, “What the hell are you two freaks?!” Before also taking a battle stance.

The Eliminator was unfazed. Merely huffed at the indiscretion. 

Sora frowned, “Gosh Vivi your friends are kinda mean.” But there was something tickling at his mind, something about the way these guys looked, “All we wanted to know was where to go to find out more about the town.”

“What so, you and your gang of monsters can cause more issues?” The blonde huffed, “Not on my watch!” And he took a threatening stab forward. Well, it would have been threatening if say their weapon had been anything but a bright neon foam bat.

“What gang of monsters? We literally just got here yesterday.” Data Sora looked around, “We can help fight monsters if they’re a problem. We’re professionals at it.”

“Disbelief.” Said the lady in purple. Ah. He knows what it is now; they’re like the avatars. Extremely pretty. And pushy with their challenges.

Eliminator clearly had had enough by this point, snorting hard, before grabbing Sora’s hand and walking around them. The man tried swinging the bat a few times, but it didn’t even have to hit her shield to be repelled. Plinking harmlessly off her puppet body’s armor. He tried again to Data Sora, but it felt no harder than one of Selphie’s playful head bops. It had a tag of ‘spongey.’

It was early in the day and the boards were currently being perused by a different group of teenagers. No big deal, he could wait and eavesdrop in the meantime.

“Man, only two days till the tourney…”

“Keep focused!” The blonde smacked his hand, “Don’t you wanna go to the beach?”

“There’s a beach here?!” Data Sora couldn’t help but shout, startling the three in front. Whoops, he didn’t mean to scare them but…but beach! Here? He must find it!

The girl and the blonde looked warily at each other, while the brunette boy merely tilted his head before returning a smile, “Yep! There’s a pretty little beach accessible by train. We’re doing some odd jobs to get the money for the tickets.”

“And the pretzels!” Said the blonde as if to remind the other. He merrily rolled his eyes.

Now these people seemed nice! “I’m Sora! And you guys?” Data Sora still felt a bit... inadequate to stand next to them but they seemed nice! 

“Pence. These are my friends Hayner and Olette.” Hayner looked annoyed, but Olette shyly waved. They were all very very pretty. Are all the people here avatars? Or are they even more advanced? Pretty and with social skills? All of them seemed wary of the Eliminator standing behind him.

“I’ve never been to a real honest beach before!” Data Sora clasped his hands, “I have some munny; how much are these tickets? I’ll happily pay for all of you if you show me where to go.”

Olette immediately shook her head and hands, “Oh no no no! We can’t just take your munny like that!”

“Yeah, part of the joy is earning it.” Said Hayner, “but if you’re insistent on going, meet us at the foot of the clock tower around noon. It’s like 500 munny a ticket.”

“Or like a 1000 cause you’re not a student.” Pence paused, “Sorry was that presumptuous?”

“Naw, I’m not a student. At noon, no problem! Thank you thank you!” He bowed to them, “See you guys later!” Jittery from his excitement.

The three quietly nodded and walked away slowly before bolting when they got near an alley.

Data Sora did some small little hops in a circle, bursting with energy, “Alright, alright, that’s cool! This place is so cool!” He then firmly planted himself on the floor, “Let’s see these jobs…”

Something about bee elimination, getting rid of junk, and posters. He turned to his Eliminator, “Wanna go after some beeeeees?”

The Bee lady didn’t like him. She screamed when she saw him. Rude! For some reason she wanted him to swat the bees, and he did but with fire. She suddenly stopped him and gave him a little munny. But when he went back in the alley to check his work the bees still spawned, and the note was still on the board. Ick.
With the Eliminators’ help they broke the spawner. No more bugs.

Ah she hasn’t noticed.

Hm. 

He tried to return her money but she just yelled at him to leave.

The Eliminator was annoyed, then yawned, and said 'If you are in need of me, I shall be back at the mansion fixing the console', and she slowly lumbered back that way.

But the big clock over the town was showing it was soon noon. "Are you sure Elminichan? You don't want to see the beach?"

'When you get there, call for me. I will teleport in to take a look.' and she left.

Shrugging he quickly wandered up the road to the tower, passing by all kinds of sights nearly distracting him from his goal, and the three were already there, “Hey guys! Sorry I’m late!”

“Oh, it’s you again…” Olette shifted on her feet, “It’s no problem. You’re not late, we just tallied up our earnings.”

Hayner couldn’t help but boast, bopping a fist against his chest, “Yeah! We got 5000 munny!” Data Sora whistled, that’s like, 33 bees for each of them!

“We can get a watermelon!” Pence said excitedly. Ohh what’s a watermelon?! Ahh, they need to get a move on!

“Ah that’d be so cool! So, we’re heading out now?”

“Yep!” And they pivoted and headed towards the station. Entering past the ‘smooth’ doors they approached the ticket window, Data Sora noticed that the pouch of munny vanished. What? One second it was there, the next it was gone. Did it fall…?

“Ah my pouch!” Olette cried, frantically checking her pockets.

“Did you drop it?” asked Pence.

“Did he take it?” Accused Hayner, glaring at him.

“No what the heck!” Data Sora pouted back, “Why would I do that?”

Olette sighed, “Without that munny we can’t go.”

Data Sora approached the window himself, “No, no, we can still go; here I’ll pay.”

Placing the munny on the counter. “Four Tickets to this beach please.”

It was Pence’s turn to whistle impressed, “Dude, your loaded!” and Data Sora couldn’t help but smile at that.

“…This isn’t enough.” Said the teller.

Everyone froze for a second. The other three were confused, glancing at each other, before Hayner snapped “What are you talking about?! That’s way more than enough!”

“It’s not enough.” Their voice cold and level, “The train isn’t coming. Leave before I call security.”

“What?!” Was it him? Was he ruining their chances to go to the beach? “But… but we just want tickets. Here I can double it.” And Data Sora doubles the amount, the bright little charms threatening to spill onto the floor.

“There are no trains out that way.”

“But it’s right there?” Pence points to it on the terminal. 

The ticket booth shuts.

Data Sora didn’t even get his money back.

“…Was it me?” He sounded small, and looked defeated, “I’m sorry guys. I just…wanted to see… a real beach…” He felt like crying. But he still can’t.

The three felt guilty and Hayner awkwardly patted him on the back, “Next year, ok? We’ll figure something out. Maybe…” and the three somberly said goodbyes, before leaving the station.

Data Sora left after a few moments, walking to the edge of town, and looking over the cliff. It was very pretty, and soon he found himself lost in the intricacies of the world around him. It’s ok, he wasn’t able to see the beach today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next year. It’ll all be fine.

It got late, it got dark, and he continued to explore the empty streets long into the night. His body's ambient glow a stark spector against the dark bricks.

DefaultAvatar is not sure of the time discrepancies between this system and wherever they ran too, but it’s been three weeks since the two left. The people of the island have not really noticed the change much, perhaps the Selphie entity but she can't do much, and they have been slowly but surely cutting them more and more out of their life. 

They brought a lot of stress unto Data-Sora. Therefore, it’s in his best interest to not deal with them so closely. Having gone to all the other worlds, obtaining all available information, and returning the distance was growing nicely.

A portal opened at the end of the docks, and from their perch atop the tree house they spied JJ strolling in. He looked around a bit confused, “Sora?” He called.

Still having not gotten the hang of freely talking, DefaultAvatar paused, considered, confirmed they had the correct voice setting, and then spoke, “JJ!” Waving down to him.

For just a second their eyes met. Oh. He has seen many, many new faces. They smiled, hopefully bright enough to trick him, and said, “Come on up here!”

He seemed to summon a screen and checked the console. There have been no crashes since Data-Sora left, and all the bugs had been cleaned up and redacted from the log, DefaultAvatar was especially sure of that. Everything must be perfect to trick JJ.

JJ quickly climbed up the ladders, and seemed plenty at ease, “Hey Sora. It’s good to see you again.” He smiled and sat next to them; he did not seem concerned that he could not break eye contact. Maybe he did not notice he could not. The Data-Sora disguise puts people at ease, and many people are much more willing to look Data-Sora in the eyes compared to DefaultAvatar.

…

Oh yeah they're supposed to be talking.

“…It is good to see you too. It has been lonely.” 

He was startled, “Huh? Still?” Before snapping back to aloof false coolness, “Are you really all that lost here without me?”

“Yes.” Data-Sora's behavior has assured them of that.

“Oh…” He looked embarrassed, “I’m sorry to say I’m still going to be very busy and away. Is…there anything I can do to help?”

Hm. The chance to do something to help the mission, but not particularly Data-Sora. … It will be acceptable, “Well. In Hollow Bastion I’ve been reading the books there.” Observing JJ… unfazed, “It would be nice if there was more to read.”

He rubbed his chin, “…Yeah. I can give you access to some of the Disney castle archives. Uh, on a computer. You’d have to be very careful but if your just reading books you’ll be happy to know that every book in the library has been scanned in digitally and the castle has access to the city’s library archive as well. Do you want me to put the computer in your room?” 

At first, they were baffled at the ease of that, surely JJ knew that they had been lying. All the books in Hollow Bastion were empty and blank. But as Data-Sora had once told them, it was best not to look into the horse’s mouth.

They forced themselves into a large smile, “That would be perfect JJ!” Something is not correct about their response. Ah. Data-Sora is very physical. They scooched closer to JJ, and leaned on him, head upon his shoulder as they had seen Data-Sora do to many others. JJ’s face turned two increments more red. Odd. There is nothing here to cause a burn.

They returned to Data-Sora's room. A computer was placed there, "Do you need me to teach you how to use it?"

DefaultAvatar does not need admin assistance to use a virtual machine, "No. I got this."

He snorted, "Well when you break it let me know."

JJ didn’t stay long after, he 'secretly' gave the permissions, made sure this small VM could connect to the database, chatted about nothing, and received a hug as he left. And following at his heels, were one of the Avatar’s little buddies, this one label as a 'dog'. It will be another handy scout to see what’s going on out in other systems.

The avatar sat careful at the desk, with the brand new computer, and with the new permissions got into the archives.

And went directly to the citizenry database.

So many faces. 

Chapter Text

Data Sora saw a few people before the sun had truly risen, a lady fiddling with some plants, a man opening up his store. Even in that brief hour he had seen more people on this one world then he had seen on the entirety of his home datascape. Even including the Avatar Sector.

It made him very uncomfortable, they all stared at him. Whispered to each other while staring and pointing. Did...did he look weird? Shifty? He had seen many worlds at home and none made him feel so unfitting. Even the world filled with cards treated him less... less... whatever this was.

When the sun had truly risen into the sky, he saw Pence and Olette walked from the train station. He ran up to them, relieved to see familiar faces, “Good morning, guys!”

“Good morning.” Olette was a lot more chill, “We were going to do some shopping today. Wanna join?”

“Shopping?" Was it like the moogle store? "What kinda shopping do you guys do here?”

“Clothes for the most part.” Grumbled Pence, “But then I get to go look at the tech store next door, so it all works out.” He was smiling now.

“That sounds like fun! I’ve never been clothes shopping before.” Or tech store shopping! Hopefully Real-Sora has.

Olette gave him a very serious look from head to toe, “Yep. Sure, looks like it.” She tugged on his sleeve a bit and got a strange expression. “…Let’s see what we can find for you.” And then they walked into town.

Near the armor shop was something called a ‘Thrift Store.’ From what he could remember of some of Jiminy’s journal, Real-Sora had apparently always shopped at the ‘Thrift Stores.’ How exciting!

They entered past the doors and he couldn't help but gasp. There were rows upon rows of shirts and pants and dresses and oh he gets it the collective is called clothes. Neat! 

Olette giggled, "OK, I'm looking for a nice dress for the fair. Think you can help me?"

"Certainly!" Hopping up, excited to look at all the things.

Pence did not share his enthusiasm for helping Olette find a nice dress, he sighed and seemed rather bored.

Data Sora walked to the the first line of clothes, "I have no idea what I'm looking at!" That got Pence's attention, Data-Sora plucked out a strange swirling purple and pink fabric... thing, labeled as 'fuzzy' in its tags, "Is this a dress?" He asked Pence nicely.

The grin on Pence's face looked like he was trying very, very hard not to laugh, "Nope. That's a shirt, I think? Never seen one in that color before." 

He put it back, went a few things over till he saw something lime green, this one was tagged, 'Dry rotting' "Is this a dress?" It was very long and had two floppy things.

This time Olette answered with a soft laugh, "No silly! That's a pair of pants. Have you ever shopped for clothes before?"

Sora has. So he should know this. But he doesn't, and he hasn't, "Nope." The two's laughter overrode the light layer of concern they seemed to share.

Maybe missing the library of common knowledge was a bigger issue than he thought.

It came at no shock that Data-Sora's lack of knowledge about clothes came with a consequence of having no taste for them. He was apparently 'magnetically attracted to the gaudest colors of the rack.' It took him awhile to figure out what the difference between a jacket and sweater were, same with ties and belts, and skirts and dresses. Hats were a constant distraction, and he kept stacking them on his head. But he was getting better! He started showing Olette things that were actually dresses more often than not.

Sizes were however a new challenge, as the last four times he had brought her dresses many many times her size. That kept making Pence laugh a lot which was nice, but not the goal. However she just smiled and shook her head no.

He finally found something that might work, it was a very sunny yellow dress, the waist on this one was well under 57 inches this time! It had a nice orange belt around the middle. He showed it to her, startling her a bit as he crawled through the rack to reach her, "Is this good?"

She inspected it, “Well, it’s my colors, but I’m not a big fan of those cuts of dress.” A tad disappointed he sighed. It had nice colors.

“I kinda like it,” he pulled it close to him as he had seen her do, “Think It would look good on me?”

Pence laughed again, “Dude, you know that’s a dress, right?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, Olette said it was.”

There was a pause as Pence had the expression that something might have dawned on him, “Well I mean uh… whatever floats your boat, I guess. You can always try it on, right?”

But Olette fidgeted and looked guilty, “Hey uh...Sora…strange question but can you even change clothes?”

“Huh?” He looked confused, “I can put on clothes.” He put another hat on his head, “See?”

“Yeah but… like I’m not trying to be weird or rude I swear, but I’ve noticed that like… like your gloves don’t… move right. Can you take off your gloves?”

He thought about it, “I guess I’ve never even tried.” He gripped the edge and pulled. His two companions seemed unnerved by the movement of the glove. Upon inspection it seemed to move more as if it were a part of his skin, “Huh. I guess it doesn’t come off.” He looked at his jacket, “Can this…? I’ve… never tried.”

Olette got behind him and pulled at a few points, “I’m really sorry to say Sora but I think it is grafted onto you too. She pulled a little bit at the seem, “…Does it feel like anything?” She moved her hand to the tip of the jacket flap, “If I hold this here, and I make a little shape with my finger, can you feel what it is?” and she moved her finger.

He thought about it, it didn’t ‘feel’ like anything, but he could see how the colliders were handling the interaction, “You’re making like a square? With an x in it?”

She let go immediately, “Eekk!”

Pence then looked around, noting no one was looking, then look to Data Sora deadly serious, “What about the zipper?”

“The zipper?” He looked at his jacket.

“I mean the big one on your uh…suit?”

“Oh, this one.” He had never thought of it. And he pulled.

Surprisingly it did go down. The teeth parted.

Pence and Olette gasped, Data Sora freaked a little, “What what? What’s wrong?” Looking down he couldn’t really make out much more than his skin cutting off after the collarbone. Was that normal? He didn't know anymore!!

“We can see right through you…!” Just came her horrified response.

Pence ever curious, reached forward, “Ah, do you mind if I…?”

“Go on!” and he put his hand through, and it clipped directly through Sora’s back. Pence touched the inside part of Sora's jacket. Olette looked like she was going to be sick. She gagged and held her hand over her mouth, skin even going pale. Data Sora didn't want to admit how hard it was to not stare in amazement at her abilities. 

Pence pulled back and Data Sora zipped it right back up face burning with embarrassment, “I’m sorry. Let’s just…go back to shopping for you two, ok?”

But the mood had soured. Olette was just done for the day. Pence said something about maybe the dress could go over his clothes if he still wanted it. He didn’t anymore.

The tech store was more fun. He bought a camera.

They met up with Hayner around noon. Who was practicing with one of the strange bats in the sandlot, “Whatcha doing Hayner?” He took a photo. Pence laughed. Apparently Data-Sora was 'wasting a lot of tape.'

“Tomorrow’s the big struggle tourney and I gotta be sharp for it!” He looked at Data Sora and hesitantly said, “You… thinking about joining?”

“Oh, that might be fun. It’s kind of a fighting thing, right?” Hayner nodded, and Data Sora clapped his hands, “Hey Eliminchan!! There is a fight thing you might be interested in!” and in a puff of smoke she arrived.

Though Hayner’s companions panicked, he himself just took a deep breath, before muttering to himself, “He’s just that kinda dude…isn't he... ”

Eliminator laughed at his calmness, and she poked her nose into the conversation, “I think she wants to try too. What’s the rules?”

“Well, for starters you use the struggle bats.” He tossed one to him, “Not spooky pooch shields.” He went over to one of the organizers and asked to borrow equipment. He tossed a few variations to them, “Usually most folks go with the standard bats but there’s a few more options for the connoisseur.”

She picked up one in their off hand, picked up one in her mouth, and then picked up the third in the hand holding the shield, and looked quite comical.

The organizer had a good laugh, “Well I enjoy your spirit; but please use only one.” She tossed away the two fancy bats and kept the one in her shield, “You can’t have your shield in there…um…mam?”

“Eliminchan IS the shield.”

“…Can the shield go alone then?”

The Eliminator’s body poofed away and the shield balanced for a moment, before falling over. The body soon returned to pick her up, she looked a bit sad.

“…Well, we can make an exception this one time. Let’s see you two give the old struggle a try, and if you do well, we can enter you into the tournament, how’s about that?”

The two nodded excitedly and listened intently to the rules. They were given the strange little orbs and readied at each end of the stage, “Ready? STRUGGLE!”

As it was a fight, the Eliminator didn’t hold back, swinging fast and slamming Data Sora hard against the nearby wall of a building, half his orbs already gone, “I haven’t hit the floor yet!!” Data Sora screamed as he air stepped back onto the field and retaliated with an air spiral.

Their battle lasted the full two minutes, and it was rough. The onlookers were baffled beyond compare. Orbs constantly exchanging with each brutal hit, the two dodged and teleported all over the place and was that magic being added to Data Sora’s cool moves? Did the shield spit out a kind of fire that made it so Sora couldn’t jump anymore…?

By the end Data Sora had 34 orbs, Eliminator 29, and the rest were scattered from one end of the sandlot to the other. Some likely to never be seen again. The coordinator gulped. And readied to give some bad news.

“You two…well it was amazing. But unfortunately, I think your both…ah little too destructive for the struggle tournament? I’m really sorry but I don’t think we can add you two safely.”

Data Sora shrugged, “Darn. But can we struggle together some other time? It was really fun!”

“…You know what sure. Maybe not this week with the tourney and all, but sure.”

“Woot!” He seemed happy and they’d live today. A Win-Win. The only loser was Data Sora’s camera, crushed and embedded into the concrete. 

Late in the night, Data Sora heard a dog noise, “Oh? Doggy?” He’d always wanted to pet a real dog. Realer dog?

A very familiar weird lanky dog that looked like a bad impression of Riku bounded up to him, “Hey, I know you! You’re one of Ava’s! Who’s a good doggy?? Who’s a good boy?? How have you guys been?” It wasn’t a real dog, but it was still very nice to see.

They barked. Data Sora laughed, “Hey that’s’ pretty cool! I’m glad to hear JJ’s doing well.”

JJ appeared so rarely, and they now dealt with the others so little, DefaultAvatar felt comfortable enough returning to the primary directive, just a bit. They didn’t change from Data-Sora’s body but did change his clothes. They knew he was unable to do such an action, but about a week ago JJ visited without warning, and he didn’t notice. He didn’t notice his best friend dressed in the outfit of a key bearer known as Terra.

He always looks into their eyes, possibly more intensely than they did to others. 

They changed a few more times, every time he looked away, into more and more audacious outfits and he never noticed. He left without ever once realizing that. For an observer his perception was very low.

It was only a two week wait for his next visit. DefaultAvatar used that time to plan some tests for him.

JJ continued to be oblivious. Even in the face of his friend dressed as a Large Body, or in a nearly head to toe outfit of a Shadow. 

With a bit more studying, they realized JJ was only looking at their behavior. He only seemed to care that the system was working and that 'Data-Sora' wasn't displaying very spessfic concerning or destructive behavior. The once time JJ had noticed anything 'wrong', he was more confused as to why they refused to go outside. He wondered if they were sick.

During the waits between his visits, they absorbed a massive amount of data. From registries, from books, from live camera feeds. They even found away into the other Jimny’s Journals; the second adventure and the constantly updating one for the third.

At the rate they were going the system would run out of faces soon. JJ noticed their ravenous appetite for ‘reading’ and gave them permission to access other networks and be able to read some of their data. Excellent.

Their second scout had yet to report anything other than they had passed through the radiant network, but that was some time ago. There first had sent word about several other systems outside of the normal network, but were not making great headway.

To expedite the search, DefaultAvatar sent out another few scouts, all ones that could fly and be sneaky. And they returned to their computer and continued to gather and gather.

Chapter Text

The day of the tourney and the town was buzzing, people were EVERYWHERE! And in a good mood too, hardly anyone looked at him! It was so surprising, he figured while there were a lot of people he had never seen too many in a large group before. How could there be enough system memory for them all? But boy was he wrong! There were so many packed so tight it was hard not to bump into people.

At least they parted for the Eliminator. Data-Sora was so happy he invited her. Vivi was currently on her shoulder, shaking a bit after having been fished out from the masses. "T-Thanks for rescuing me! But that doesn't bode well..."

"Why what's up?"

"I'm entered into the tourney. If I can't work my way out of a crowd how am I supposed to duel someone in a real fight...?" He sighed, "This was a mistake."

“You’ll do great Vivi! We believe in you!” Well he shouldn’t speak for the Eliminator, but he believed, patting him on the shoulder.

“Well, I’m glad someone does…” He said very softly.

The first matchup was Heyner verses [Name-Unspecified]. What a mouthful! Never met anyone with brackets in their name before. And Heyner looked confused and beat the guy up no sweat.

“You did great Heyner!”

“Shuttaup!” Grumbling and looking bothered, “That was too easy…”

The Eliminator took Vivi to the side and seemed to ‘whisper’ in his ear. He looked surprised but very curious and listened closely, nodding along.
She made him ready a stance, and then showed him a little trick. 

Data Sora smiled; Vivi was supposed to fight Seifer next. He couldn’t wait to see the look on his face.

Vivi’s greatest weakness was his lack of confidence, but with two people in his corner he was doing a lot better! That and being taught the illegal art of teleportation, but there weren’t rules against that. Yet.

He actually managed to give Seifer a run for his money, and while he didn’t win, he exhausted Seifer so bad that he abruptly lost his next match to Heyner.
And Heyner went on to win, everyone cheering as the old champ ran off.

For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on why things felt… off. Maybe it was how fast the fights were. How they didn’t seem to follow half the rules. How everyone seemed to be expecting someone who didn’t show up.

Eh. Maybe next year he and the Eliminator can spice it up.

“Oi” A gruff voice called out, Data looked up to see Seifer and his other people, the large one known as Rai, “We’ve seen ya be nice to Vivi, we know you taught him that trick, and we respect that, ya know?” 

Fuu crossed her arms, “Tolerable.”

Data-Sora shrugged, "It wasn't me. It was Elminichan. She deserves your praise." She did seem to preen at the idea.

Seifer looked mad but said, “I can deal with you punks as long as you don’t cause any more trouble, got it?”

Data Sora smiled at that, “Horray! It’s nice to properly meet you guys. My name’s Sora.”

“But tell your monster mut to scram!” Seifer suddenly shouted.

“What? But she’s lovely-”

The Eliminator snorted, ‘If you need me, I’ll be back at the mansion.’ And she vanished.

The silence was palpable until Fuu suddenly spoke up, “Food?”

Rai nodded to that, “Yeah let’s go get a bite!”

Vivi seemed giddy, “Maybe after we can get ice cream?”

“Why wait,” Seifer led the way, “I could use something refreshing after all that.” And the rest followed his lead, “I wanna try that dumb flavor those punks are always having.”

There was an old lady at this shop, and after a bit of munny was spent Data Sora was given a strange blue rectangle on a stick.

He had less than 0 idea what on earth he was holding. Couldn’t even be sure he knew what eating really was. So, he thanked them and carefully watched the others eat the strange bar.

They brought it to their mouths and dug in with their teeth. Alright. Seems easy enough.

He ate the food. It was tagged with stuff again. ‘Salty’ ‘Sweet’. The only thing he understood was that it was cold like a weak blizzard spell yet didn’t hurt. But there must be something wrong, as he watched the other four react. Seifer gagged and reacted to the flavor in disgust. Spitting it out in a goopy mess on the floor. Fuu seemed quite happy with it, or maybe ambivalent? It was hard to tell with her. Rei looked baffled but he was eating it. And Vivi was very much enjoying it.
Data Sora wasn’t sure how to react. What’s salty? What’s a sweet? Are they good? Bad?

They swallowed the food and Data Sora realized he was in a new bind.

He can’t do that! The back of his mouth just ends; he doesn’t have a throat like that.

“You ok bro?” asked Rai, “If ya don’t like it, you can spit it out ya know?”

Fuu pointed at a trash can, “There.”

He was thankful for the out and spat it up. It wasn’t gooy and sloshy like Seifer’s, it looked like he had only crushed it. A mystery for another day he supposed.

They went shopping at the same thrift store he went to with Olette and Pence. This day was quickly turning on him.

He found a different dress that went over his clothes pretty well and showed it to them, they appeared confused and unhappy about it. He tried a set of overalls that reminded him of something Tidus would wear. They didn’t get it.

“Why don’t you take off your other clothes idiot?”

“Cant. They're attached to me.”

They looked disgusted.

He puts it back.

Data Sora spends the night mostly discovering the edges. There were limits to this world too, around dusty alleys would suddenly be large drops into the skybox. He was mystified at how nobody noticed these or built-up boarders or anything. 

Or maybe they did, and he just wasn’t compatible with them.

This world was becoming less fun. He shook the thought out of his head, he can't be petty about things like that! He can't let his opinion of a world be ruined just cause he's the one with issues. 

But it wasn't right to just ignore them all either. It just... felt bad to think that his body had somehow failed him. Maybe he can send a message out to Ava once the main console was fixed. They're a good listener. Maybe they won't be able to relate to the idea, but maybe they could give him advice.

He found a nice place to sit for a bit. It was a low wall next to a huge drop looking over the large fields. A Waterfall was nearby. It was calm. It was pretty. The newest prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

And he wasn’t alone.

“I know you’re in there.” He patted the spot next to him, “Come on out! I don’t bite.”

A shadowy figure stood behind the water.

Data Sora beamed.

The figure stepped out of the water. It was hard to make them out, being night and all, and their body was just a pitch black silhouette. He couldn’t make out any details other then they had upwards spiky hair. 

For a moment they just stood there. Then approached and sat next to him. For a while they sat in comfortable silence. Data-Sora couldn't help but laugh after a bit, "You know it's funny, we seem to be having exact opposite lighting issues eh?"

“This is a prison.”

“Huh?” Where had that come from?

He turned his head, and they were already gone.

The night was saved, however, when he found the nearby river and played in it till the sun returned. The dust on his clothes finally gone.

"Oh what is it this time? Why are we having so much issues with the network?" Ienzo grumbled. It had been so slow and finicky the past few days! It was driving him mad!

He pulled out his gummiphone and called up Cid, "Good Morning, Cid I'm sorry to bother you but there seems to be some kind of issue with the network?"

The older man rolled the stick in his mouth, "I was actually getting ready to head out there and ask you all in person what the fuck ya'll were doing myself. This sure ani't caused by any of us folk."

"I wasn't implying it, if anything I just want a second set of eyes, I feel like I'm missing something obvious."

Five minute later Cid arrived with a saunter, crashing into one of the computer chairs and rolling it up to the main system, "Alright, alright, let's take a lookiseess..." Not 30 seconds later, "Well there's your problem. Why the hell are you sending so much data to Disney Castle?"

"There's data being sent to Disney Castle?" Ienzo looked at it and yep, "Oh my lord! Why is 13 terabytes of data being sent to Disney Castle??" He tapped something on screen, "JJ? JJ can you please look at this?"

JJ did and immediately looked worried, "Oh...oh no... I didn't realise that would happen!"

"What's going on sport?" Cid looked at him annoyed.

He twitched a bit, "I uh... So Data Sora was bored right? He read all the books in the Disney Castle Archives. And library. And the city. He read everything. I thought he was just a very fast reader. Uh...turns out it's actually just a time discrepancy form the different speeds the systems are run on. They're running at a way way faster time scale. And ah, giving him access to the digital library here... well from his end he seems to just be getting a few books reading them, and downloading more right? But from our perception its ahh like he's downloading several thousands a second...?" He got very squeaky by the end. 

Cid blinked, "If he's that bored bring him over here. We can always put him to use. I've got gummi ship calculations with his name on it if he's that bored he willingly picked up a book!"

"But if he leaves the simulation that'll cause a ton of bugs-"

"So turn it off when you leave." said Cid.

JJ looked flabbergasted, "I can just do that??" He held his head and looked at the ground in horror like he just received news that he died.

Cid grabbed his brow and trying to stave off the headache that was building, "Look I know you data guy's can't see the forest past the tree, and I get that you've got it worse since Riku can't see past the hair in front of his eyes-"

"Actually he got a haircut recently."

"...Cool. Whatever. But just bring the gremlin here. Turn the computer off on your way out. Easy." He turned to Ienzo, "Do you guys really need anything on that computer anymore anyways?"

"Us downloading everything we could possibly need off it is better than this, that's for sure." Ienzo lowered himself to look JJ better in the eyes, "I know you're worried about his safety and well being, but it'll be ok. The Organization is not interested in this system. They're not even interested in this world that much right now. It'll be ok. No one will be mad at you for bringing your friend here. We're not worried about the possible lack of productivity or mistakes or anything else you've convinced yourself of. "

JJ fiddled with the bits on his coat, "...You promise?"

"Promise. Now go get Data-Sora before the network completely locks up."

JJ arrived, DefaultAvatar hadn’t noticed until he was right on them, “Hey Sora.”

“Hi JJ.” They tabbed out of their browser, “What’s up?”

“So…” He looked nervous, “You’re technically in trouble.”

“What?” There hasn’t been any crashes or issues, “Why am I in trouble?”

“You access…a lot of stuff. Constantly. It’s actually a notable strain.” He raised his hand placatingly, “It’s not something you’d notice; time in here just moves crazy fast compared to out there. Turns out low level simulations tied to CPU speed makes them run fast.” He laughed awkwardly, "Like really old DOS games!"

“I am sorry.” They apologized but honestly didn’t care, “I like reading. It’s the only thing worth doing in here.” Enough time had passed that their scouts had finally returned, they knew where their ward was and how he was doing, and had even been discovering more systems to access eventually.

JJ looked guilty, “I, I’m sorry about that. I...really should have done this sooner, but I got permission to take you into the Radiant system with me.”

They blinked, “Really? ...What does any of that mean JJ?"

He blinked this time, "Oh. Uh... Lemme restore your memoires." He snapped his finger. Thankfully they had planned for this. A dummy file system with the correct names for him to 'restore.'

Not sure how to react, or how Data-Sora would have reacted they just continued on there original line of thought, "I thought you always said if I left, bugs or worse could happen.”

“Well, my plan is to shut down the simulation on the way out. No issues then.” He leaned against the wall, trying to look cool even though at the moment they looked like the biggest fool that could ever exist, “In any case you should take the time to go say goodbye to all your friends. I know you're sentimental like that.”

DefaultAvatar stood up, “Alright then. But first, could you step out for a moment?”

“? Why?”

“I need to change.”

“Change what?”

“…My clothes? I don’t exactly think it would be appropriate if I left like this.” Today they were wearing Yuffee’s black outfit along with a handful of random accessories.

JJ blushed profusely, looking away rapidly, “Uh…why the heck are you dressed like that…?!”

“I got bored. I thought it’d be fun to do something a little differently.” And JJ left immediately. And they melted back into the basic Data-Sora form.

To make it seem legit, they went to each of the other worlds, doing a fairly slow circuit around. They said goodbye to no one. Talked to no one. Observed very little. But they knew Sora would have said goodbye, and at least semi taken his time to do that.

It was the last lap on the island that they were suddenly stopped. Before them in a defiant pose, stood the Selphie entity, she growled through gritted teeth, "I know you're not Sora and if you don't take me along I'm telling JJ!" 

Well that's a pickle. They couldn't reset her without JJ noticing, and... well Data-Sora probably misses her. They could work around this.

They returned to the docks, JJ waiting, “I’m ready to go when you are- what is she doing here?”

"She's coming with." she looked at JJ with a bold smile. And they tried to match as Data-Sora would, "She probably has a heart too you know."

He sighed, "I was trying very hard to avoid that." But opened a portal and they all stepped through.

On the other side were more and more faces than ever before. 

Perfect.

Chapter Text

JJ returned, looking incensed, before followed by Data-Sora, and…a girl?

“Who’s this?” asked Ienzo, “We weren’t expecting more then you two.”

He glared at Data-Sora, “Data-Selphie. He says she’s gained a heart. I think he’s lying.”

The Data-Sora rolled their eyes at Riku, then yawned, “I’m sleepy.” Ienzo had only seen him for one call but…this can’t be the same person. They looked much healthier for starters, and sleepy wasn’t a word he’d escribe to the manic looking child from before.

But it has been a little while since then…

Cid was still here, and nudged his elbow, “You got any fancy tools for figuring the hearts of Data people?”

“Yes actually.” This time he took a good look at the girl, young with brown hair, green eyes, a yellow dress, looking around very confused, “And what’s your name?” 
It took her a moment to realize, “O-oh you’re talking to me? I…I’m Selphie. Selphie Tilmitt.” She gave a little curtsy, “Nice to meet you sir.”

“Interesting. I wasn’t aware of anyone from Destiny Islands having a last name, why is that?”

She shrugged, “I…feel like I should know but I don’t. I’m sorry?” She looked very scared and alone. Not comforted by either of her two friends. Very odd when there’s a Sora in the room with her.

JJ snapped, “Don’t get distracted!” 

Cid shot back, “Cool yer jets. What do you need to do?”

“It’s simple really.” Ienzo activated a few programs, “Now I don’t know what this will look like from your end but there’s a program that’s going to scan your heart. Just hold very still for now, ok?” She nodded before freezing up like a statue, “That’s good. JJ, can you make sure it’s working?” The program grumbled but seemed to oblige. 

After a minute the readings were displayed on screen, and Ienzo couldn’t hold back a small gasp, “Oh my, would you look at that.”

Cid got closer to the screen and squinted, “What am I lookin’ at doc? Cause it looks like a blob to me.”

“That.” Pointing right at it, “Is the very, very start of a heart. Brand new. Any less and it wouldn’t be one at all.” And he saw weird abrasions, “And…has your heart been attacked already?”

They could see the heart shutter as she felt unsure, “I…I don’t know what’s going on. Or what you’re talking about.” They saw it sharply compress as she looked to her companions, “Either one of you going to fill me in?”

JJ bonked his head on the side of a wall, “Ugh! She’s so behind! It’s going to take forever to explain to her cause she doesn’t know anything!”

“Hey, you can at least try!” She put her hands to her hips, “What’s going on? What’s with all the secrets?”

But he ignored her, going instead to the sleepy person on the ground, “I tried so hard to keep that from happening and becoming a problem! You brought her, you’re why she’s like this, you explain it to her!”

Data-Sora just looked at him unimpressed.

Cid huffed, “Break it up! Quit whining like your 5. Now what do you recommend doc?”

“Well maybe it would help her acclimate if she had more normal people to talk to. You said you were looking for an assistant?”

“I mean yeah, I need someone to go over the math at speeds higher than uphill climbing molasses.” He rolled his shoulder, “What of it?”

“Your computer is in the main room of the Restoration Committee. Talking with all of them might help her heart stabilize. Isn’t Kairi also staying with them?”

“Kairi?!” They heard her perk up, “Is she ok? We haven’t seen her in ages!”

He sighed, Cid can’t stand seeing kids worried like that, “Alright little missy, how’s about we send you to our comp, and we get you reintroduced to your friend?”

“…What’s the catch.” 

He smirked, “Math. Now I don’t know how good you were at it before, but you’ll find yourself a real natural at it now. Cause I don’t think any of these ding bats have told you you’re a computer program.”

“I’m a what now?!” She looked at him like he was crazy, “You’re drunk! You weird old man-” She paused, “I’ve seen you before…” She tilted her head, “You were in a city that was always at night...?”

JJ looked ready to scream, “You actually remember that?!”

“The mind forgets, but the heart always remembers.” Ienzo sighs, “Enough fighting. Selphie I will be sending you to their system, just hold tight for a moment.”
Cid laughs, “Ever heard of a gummi ship?”

All three programs looked confused at the term, “No?”

“They’re spaceships.”

Her face was lit up in surprise before she was whisked away in a flicker of light.

“Ok now JJ, could you finish that search for me?” JJ nodded and walked away, “And uh…Data-Sora?”

They yawned again.

“…Take a nap. Get comfortable. We could really use another searcher.” Before he walked away from the computer, signaling Cid to follow.

The older man took his time following after, and once they were farther away from the computer and the microphones, “So what’s ruffled your feathers?”

“That program scans the hearts of everything on the server. Data Selphie’s heart was attacked in the past and given how he’s acting I think it was JJ.”

“Rotten brat.”

“But that’s not even the thing that most concerns me. No… I saw her heart. JJ’s heart. Tron’s heart. But I didn’t see Data-Sora’s.”

Cid stopped walking for a moment, then caught up, “I thought something seemed wrong as hell with the kid. I mean I know it’s not the same kid but, JJ’s just high strung little Riku. I thought the way he talked about Data-Sora I was expecting a little manic man and not a sleepy pissant.”

“I share the sentiment even if I’d word it differently. I’m just hoping it’s a glitch or a mistake and not…”

“Not something much worse right?”

He nodded as they made it to the base, walking into the door to see Kairi hopping up and down in front of the computer screen, “Lil’ Selphie!!!!! Lil’ Selphie!!” An Axel sat by, looking relaxed if a bit confused. She bounced around to face the two pointing, “You nerds! Explain yourselves! Why is there a tiny Selphie on the computer?!”

“YEAH!” Shouted the Lil Selphie from behind her, “Why am I in a computer?!”

Ienzo softly laughed, “This is going to take a bit. Sit down. We’ll do our best to explain.”

“Homework?” Data Sora looked curiously, “You guys have school?” Excitement bleeding into his voice.

“Uh...yeah?” Hayner looked distressed.

“Can I go to school too?”

The three looked at each other, back to him, and at each other even more concernedly, “I mean sure?? You’d have to sign up for it.” Olette offered.

“Can I help with the homework? Please??” He begged. Strongly considering getting on his knees and begging harder.

Hayner flinched, “By the powers that be, today was the first day I’ve ever heard anyone excited to do homework….”  Pinching his brow in suffering, sighing utterly exasperated, “Sure, you can help.”

“Today we’re doing our independent studies and we picked the 7 Wonders of Twilight Town. We really could use the extra hand.” Pence happily added.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Data Sora was very excited.

Selphie leaned up against the weird cyber wall, “So…let me see if I’m understanding you guys correctly.”

Pointing to herself, “I am not strictly speaking, Selphie. I’m a digital record of Selphie by a Mr. Jiminy Cricket for his journal. I’m just supposed to be a record, but because of stuff that my Sora, the Data-Sora, Did, I became more alive than I should be??”

Kairi nodded, “You’re handling this like a champ cause I’m not sure I would be.”

“I mean… It’s weird to get a million answers for things so indirectly. Like ‘Why do I know less about my self and my family then Sora and his?’ It’s because Jiminy got most if not all of his journal entry from Sora. Not… ‘real’ me. Or Kairi I guess.”

Axel’s face suddenly crumpled really badly, “How do programs handle family relations? Does that mean the Cricket is her dad? Or whatever nutjob made the paper to data machine-”

Selphie shouted, “Silence you! Don’t you even START on a topic like that, or I’ll come out there and break your ankles!!”

“Alright the first mystery is these steps.”

“Okay okay! What’s up with them? Ghost wailing up and down them? Mysterious bricks randomly tripping people? If you walk on them at the right hour on the right day they LEAD TO THE HEAVENS?!” Data Sora screamed, cheerily cartwheeling up and down the steps.

“Uh…” Pence shuffled a bit awkwardly, “There... uh. Count. Changes depending on whether or not your up or down them.”

Data Sora's face scrunched unpleasantly, “That’s not true.” And he stuck out his tongue. He counted again to be sure. Walks up and down and double checks, “That’s not true.”

“I guess Rai was just mistaken.”

It was funny at least, but for some reason, he wasn’t laughing.

The little digital young Selphie was sitting on the virtual gummi ship, twirling around the seat, “So…So key blades? And there’s an evil organization that the keyblade guys have to fight?? And they’re people but not but are and all the same person?”

They were trying to explain to her about the war. It didn’t seem to be going too smoothly from what he could see.

By this point Riku and the King had arrived to see the program, mostly out of curiosity. Riku walked up and poked Kairi on the shoulder, who looked up and greeted him with a nod.

The Selphie on screen noticed him, “Ok! Ok! So, you’re the ‘real’ Riku?” She waved, “Hi Real Riku! I’m fake Selphie!”

“Yo.” He really didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have anything to say to Selphie let alone one from years ago.

“Hey, you might be able to answer this! Why is my loser you named ‘JJ’?”

He snorted but had no answer. King Mickey had something of the sort, “So apparently, he’s actually the journal! And that it took Riku’s form because he figured we would trust him more if he looked like that. We’re pretty sure he merged with him though. At least that’s how I came to understand it I could be wrong but-”

“Oh my god. Are… are you telling me JJ’s full and legal name is ‘Jiminy’s Journal’?” She looked broken with a huge smile sitting in that chair, “Ohhhh my goshhh…...he really is the biggest loser.” 

Riku shrugged, “Well better JJ then us sharing the same name and being confused.”

“Oh psssh, you act like there weren’t three Leilani’s in 3rd grade.” True that, she got him there, but he liked being the only Riku around.

“Whoa! That ball came right out of the wall!”

“There’s a ball spawner on the other side of the wall.” 

“What?”

“I’m dead serious.” Pointing at said offending wall.

“…What??”

This Leon fellow looked at her with strange trepidation, “Do I…Know you?”

The cool Yuffee girl rolled her eyes, “Leon, you’re crazy, how’d you know someone from their island?”

Selphie shook her head, “I have never met you Squall!”

“…Who told you that name?!”

No one did. But something in her head said to say it. It was funny. 

“Oh, hi Vivi! Training for the next struggle? Anyways, there’s supposed to be ghosts fighting down here or something wanna help us find them?”

“Sora, I think he IS the ghost people have been talking about.”

“Bro Not Cool! Apologize to him and never say that again!”

“I’m telling you I’m not that good at math.”

“Give it a try you might surprise yourself.”

She glanced at it, looked at the parts, the angles, so the speed would have to be…

“…16 knots?”

“That’s correct! See you can do it.” 

“We’re going to check out the bag, why don’t you check out the waterfall?”

Normally the idea of a moving bag would be much cooler than a waterfall, but he knew exactly what they were talking about, “Sounds good to me!” easily running down the terrace to the best ledge in town.

He sat right by the fall again with a soft snicker, “Heehee, I’m glad we get to see each other again so soon.”

The darkness reappeared, and in the better lighting it was clearly a shadowy guy, “Don’t go to the mansion if you’re going to carry that hurt.”

“Huh?”

And they were gone again.

Yeah, a shadowy dude living behind a gorgeous waterfall that talks about as crypted as Fuu, that’s pretty wonderous. 

A shame the others didn’t believe him.

Selphie has found her dream job.

She gets to help make ROCKET SHIPS made of CANDY that are powered by SMILES go FASTER.
“I can’t wait to tell Sora about this he’ll just flip!”

“Tell me about what now?” A familiar spiky head poked out from around a corner. It felt great to see him again, with his proper nature and not a weird somber fake wearing his skin, even if it wasn’t her Sora and technically her Sora was also a fake wearing his skin. Although Real Sora wore really cool black and red clothes.

“Hi real Sora! I’m Data-Selphie.” She waved from the computer.

His eyes light up the same as ever, “Nice to meetcha! I’ve always wanted to meet Data-Me, Goofy and Donald say he’s really nice but kinda crazy! Is that true?”
She giggled, “Probably! But I don’t know if you’re not just crazy to start.”

Donald laughed really hard at that. Goofy also chuckled, “Spoken like a true childhood friend huh?”

The bag was a DOG? First off who puts a dog in a bag- wait is that actually unusual he’s not sure anymore BUT MORE IMPOARNTLY they met a REALER DIGITAL DOG without him! Data Sora was a bit embarrassed at how intensely jealous he was. They offered to get him ice cream and he declined a little too fast for their liking. They all awkwardly headed back up the hill.

It was getting late, and she couldn’t keep track of all the names flying by. “Ok…Kairi, Riku, Sora. Axel, Ienzo, Cid, Leon, Yuffee, Tifa, Aerith, Merlin, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Lea…”

She counted again, “Wait a second we’re short one??”

“This sucks.” A full day wasted. Data Sora was pouting, “None of these are really wonders, there just glitches or oversights. Lame.”

“Glitches? Oversights? What is this a video game?” laughed Pence.

“Approximately.” Simulators were a genre of game.

Hayner spoke up, “Oh yeah? How do the bugs explain the ball out of the wall?”

Data Sora points, “There’s an entity that’s been misplaced and it’s behind the wall. The wall is only one sided. Not a bug per say but an oversight for sure.”

“Oh…. kay… what about the waterfall?” 

“Ah that’s just a shadowy guy living there. He’s neat. Actually, you can count that wonder he’s cool.”

“So just some dude was in the waterfall…?” Hayner’s voice grew depressed.

“… and the stairs?” ask Olette.

"Just a mistake.” Pouting intensifies.

Pence tried to salvage the mood, “Well, the next one’s going to be a lot better! It’s the legendary ghost train!”

Sounds promising, but the pout was not removed yet, “How long has it been a legend?”

“…Uh…No idea, but we’ve heard about it for a while I guess.”

“Alright then, any descriptions?”

“Not really.”

“Any… I don’t know time estimates for its arrival?”

“Nope.”

“…And you’re sure this one is even remotely real…?”

“…I mean it’s the most likely to be real…”

Data Sora plops down by the fence and stares directly at the train entrances, “Alright. I’ll help keep watch.”

This heart lacking Data-Sora is simultaneously the best and worst helper program ever.

Need him to search for something? If you can find him, it’s damn near instantaneous. Especially if it’s a person’s file. 

Now, will you find him? No. They like to be sneaky and idle in the darkest, most obscure folders the computer has to offer. It would normally be no big deal. If this wasn’t a supercomputer with millions of files.

At first it was easy enough to find from just the files size, Data-Sora was magnitudes larger than JJ or Data-Selphie. But every day, by every hour, that file size would shrink, until it was lost in the crowd of normal sized files.

Worst yet the other helper program is too embarrassed to see them. JJ can’t look them in the eye and has been stressed to the max since they arrived. Hopefully he will calm down soon because they really could use the extra hand…

And seriously at the rate he’s going Ienzo’s going to have to hire JJ a therapist to help a program with stress management.

The quartet waited at the top for a strange train. It was nice chatting with them, even if his eyes never moved. But the others seemed to be getting tired, grumbling more and more about the train. So far 15 normal orange trains have passed by at regular intervals.

Then something different is on the tracks. A weird purple one, “Hey guys do you see that one? it’s purple.”

“A purple train?!” Pence leapt up, “I’ve never heard of something like that!”

FINALLY, A REAL WONDER! “Oh! Lemme check it out!” Data Sora leapt off from the edge, someone shouting at him not to, before air stepping his way to the train.
He was ready to hit the side of the train, but he passed right through it hitting the track with a thud. Trying to understand what just happened he tried reading the tags. 

The tags on it were nonsensical. ‘Nonviewable’? ‘Grape flavored’? ‘Easter Egg’? What? What’s an ‘Easter’?? As far as he could conclude this ‘train’ was a fake object. It felt strange to just walk through something so seemingly solid like this. Kinda gross from just what a trip it was. Maybe that’s why it’s a ghost.
He leapt back, the trio recovering from their previous horror.

“Guys the train has no collision; it really is like a ghost!”

“You saw it?”

“…Yeah? Didn’t you see me go chase after it?”

“We thought you saw an animal or something on the track.”

“Look just cause I did that once doesn’t mean I’d do it again. It’s kinda rude too, considering I told you about it. Don’t you see the purple train right there?” He points at it, but he sees a series of shrugs.

“Are you messing with us man? Cause there’s nothing there.”

Data Sora stares. Then walks away, “This is a terrible day. I’m going home.”

Pence follows at his heels, “I know today hasn’t been great, but there’s only one left and it’s at the mansion. Visible from the window! Please don’t bail on us yet…”

So, the last one is at the mansion…which is his home. Kinda. “Alright. I’ll help.” He put his arms behind his head, “Guys, Shadow guy said I shouldn’t go there anymore. I wonder why, the mansion is very very nice.”

“You have strange tastes my dude. Rotting ceilings? Count me out!” Pence cringed, “In any case, we don’t have to go inside. But supposedly from the window you can see someone standing in the room upstairs.”

“Let’s get this all out of the way, we can do this really fast. Let’s go.” Is all homework so disappointing? Data Sora had been really looking forward to a sheet of paper to write an essay on, not lies.

A train trip, a very distracting forest jaunt where he discovered what a ‘butterfly’ was, and they stood in front of the door.

“So, we going in?” Data Sora said, whilst holding the prettiest animal he’s ever seen.

“Can’t; that’s trespassing. Sides we can see the window well enough from here.” And they looked into the pale colored room, and all that could be made out was a curtain in the wind.

“I don’t see anything. Are you sure you don’t want me to at least check it out? Just to confirm. You don’t have to write that I went in.” It wings glittered in the light, lucky fellow was pretty and could fly!

Hayner pointed out, “I mean you basically live here. I think it's fine.”

Pence sighed, “I hope it’s someone and not just the curtains.”

Olette nervously said, eyes not wavering from the butterfly either, “Be really careful, those little guys are very fragile. Put them on a flower before you go in?”

Data Sora happily left his new favorite animal on a leaf, walked into the mansion, walked up the steps and entered the room. He hadn’t made it to the rooms on the second floor before, and he gazed around excitedly.

Pure white walls. With pictures on them.

His skin began to crawl, “Is…this where Castle Oblivion went?” What kind of room is this? Was someone trapped here at some point, stuck in an illusion like the castle? But a closer look, the pictures were hand drawn…

“Did... someone draw the illusions?” In them he saw what looked like…him. Of Real-Sora. Of Real-Roxas. This room is getting repainted. Horrible. Nasty room. It’ll just remind everyone of a terrible place that did mean things to people. He at least makes it to the window and waves to them, and the other’s wave back.

He reports back in record time, “Unlike the rest of the place its spotless and has lots of drawings. Someone was in there recently. Honestly horrible. Where can I buy paint?”

“Well, that’s something, I guess. And super worrying, maybe it’s not safe for you to stay here if someone’s squatting in there all ready?”

“I’ll just ask Elminichan to take them somewhere else. And I’ll just buy the place I’m sure it’s not that much.” Nothing on the entire world had been even remotely expensive so far.

Hayner sighed before making a loud squawk of agony, “This sucks! Chasing around nonsense…then we gotta write a paper on it?! Summer vacation is almost over! Two days left… the last days the fair at least but…this bites man.”

“We get to write an essay now??” Data Sora was ecstatic.

But was then shot down, “Nope. You’re off the hook.”

Trying to recover, “After two days that school thing starts right? Think if I got to the school now, I could sign up and join you guys?”

“Bro, you’re not going to like it.”

“Or maybe I will who knows?! I’m excited!!” He wonders what they teach in school, is it what clothes are? He could really stand to learn more about that.

Olette softly patted him on the head, “I can take you there tomorrow, ok? In any case it’s getting late. Good night, Sora.”

“Good night, guys!!”

He thought about going back in, maybe writing that paper they mentioned would help him get into school, but he figures first he better go down to that hardware store. Those sell paint, right?

Data Sora got a little turned around and then super lost and then found himself roaming the tunnels that night, when an unusual buzz went through his head, “A message?”

It appeared in his head, and he opened it right up, “Oh it’s a message from Tron! ‘Hello Data-Sora, just checking in. Is everything going well over there? If you need any help don’t be afraid to return here. -Tron.’”

Sora spends the night crafting his response and finally found an exit that left him right in front of that hardware store.

JJ hasn’t noticed that Data Sora has been replaced. Tron thought about mentioning it right away but first he wanted proof.

During a slow part of his patrol, he idly sent a small message to the little recreation that went to the Twilight Town system. Nothing special. It was returned a few hours later.

He needs to confront the imposter living here. This sham of a Sora. They couldn’t hold their smile for very long, lacked Sora’s energy, and spent most of its days creepily observing people, programs, and studying files they had no business looking at.

Tron found them at their normal sitting location, deep within an out of the way sector, diving into the Radiant Garden Citizenry Database. How they even got access, he’ll never know, he approached as casually as he could, “Good morning, Sora.”

“Good morning, Tron.” They put the console away quickly, “What can I help you with?”

“Well, it’s simple. What happened to the real Data Sora?”

They turned their head, “Pardon? I am the real Data Sora.”

“Ah then, someone is mimicking you. There in the Twilight Town comp. I asked them how they were doing and gave me a very detailed report, more in character for Sora then you’ve ever been.” He stood firm, “What are you really?”

“Let me ask you this.” Suddenly turning to face him eyes more piercing than ever before, “How do you think he got the chance to be free?” they stood up and with a growl, “He was trapped in a simulation that deprived him of freedom. Through the consequence of their actions, he was granted a heart and yet they refused to give him the care that requires. I held his place while he left to go live his life.”

Oh. So, this was a bit more complicated, “And what would JJ do if he found him again?”

“Disable his memories. Like he had done before.”

Well that just seemed cruel. And it seems they really were on Sora’s side, “Whether or not I believe you lies in your next answer. Why are you digging into the citizen database?”

They immediately flickered and changed forms a few times. “I’m an Avatar program. I’m supposed to gather pieces of people’s faces and outfits and clothes and features. Users can change my form based on what I’ve gathered. I’m programmed to gather more options. It is in my nature.”

“Understandable, but I would ask you not do it this way. It’s a security vulnerability.”

They nodded, “I was given this level of clearance from JJ. I assumed it was ok.”

“In any case, if you’re really looking out for Data Sora, then you might want to read his message. It sounds like he’s not doing so well.”

They looked confused, and read his message somberly, “I’ll head out then. Could you please cover for me?”

“I can say I sent you on a small task to check out the system. I usually go myself, but I don’t think it would be unusual to send ‘Data Sora’ instead.”

“Thank you.” And they wandered to the solar sailor. That’s ok, if Data Sora isn’t having a good time, they can fix this. The scouts have found a much more interesting opportunity in a different system…

It couldn’t be real.

This was just a very nice dream, the first she’s had in who knows how long, she’s going to wake up back at the island where nothing ever happened and where her Sora was gone three times over. 

But she never woke up. It seems her questions were answered, a new purpose given, old friends rediscovered in ways she couldn’t have even imagined. A truck ton of new friends. Spaceships.

…It was too perfect. There would be a great cost for all this coming up. And it was likely never being able to bring up that Fake Data-Sora.

That fake made her skin crawl. They were nothing like Sora. Not kind, not sweet, not active or helpful or anything. How was JJ so easily fooled by this faker…? She tried for months to talk to Sora again, only to be met with a fake who wouldn’t talk to her at all. She couldn’t even find Elminichan anymore.

She sighed. It’s the middle of the night. And the inside of this computer was pretty small. A virtual garage with a little nook for her and a big space for making gummiships virtually. Finding out she was fake meant she didn’t have to sleep anymore. But all this extra time just made her think about this stuff more now. Maybe Data-Sora slept anyways to get it over with faster…?

She heard a noise and through the camera realized Yuffee’s up to grab a cup of water.

Selphie doesn’t have to eat anymore either, so now she’s just staring at Yuffee. That’s weird she should at least talk. Maybe it was her opportunity before that weird fake could do anything.

“…Hey Yuffee.”

“Sup?” She looked tired, wobbling on her feet, “Settling in…*yawn* ok?”

“Yeah, this is great honestly. But uh…can you keep a secret?”

“Nope.” She said super confidently.

“Perfect!” Selphie whispered, “That ‘Data-Sora’ they got in the other computer? He’s a fake. A faker than fake Data-Sora.”

“That’s whack. I’ll tell Cid in the morning.” She walked away.

Selphie prayed it would be enough.

Unfortunately, Yuffee would forget. And by the time she could tell anyone else, it was already too late.

Chapter Text

Data Sora whistles a cheery little tune as he slaps paint all over the walls of that nasty room. He rested on the Eliminator’s shoulders as they also trundled about using her hands and a brush in her muzzle to help out.

They didn’t bother with painter's tape. They didn’t bother with drop cloths. The goal was to cover every last inch with color. He sorta just grabbed a weird rainbow of them from the store. 

Looped on his arm were 5 buckets, and he pried the lid off the one that was purple. It gleamed in the light, and from the wobbling moved so intriguingly. The fluid dynamics here were so…entrancing….

He tipped over the bucket and watched the paint slowly, then very quickly spill out and on to his leg and then floor. Of course, his partner in crime barked in confusion as the paint on his leg dripped onto her shoulders, “Oh, sorry Elimi.” He tried scraping some of it off, before wiping it on the wall. Gasping at the change.

This was fun!

The air got a strange variety of tags; ‘inhospitable,’ ‘vaporous’, ‘stench,’ ‘flammable.’ “Hey, Elminichan, don’t use any fire cause the air will blow up.”

She huffed. ‘What will we do with the drawings then?’

He put a paint covered hand to his chin, “Hmmm... oh! I can drop them from the banister and you can try shooting them down!”

She laughed.

By the end of the morning the only thing that got painted super carefully was a vase of fake flowers. Then with some care a variety of butterflies and fish. With only a passing resemblance to care, a series of people Data Sora was missing, and then everything else was right out of a water-soaked Lisa frank notebook.

Including the two painters, “Whoa, purple is absolutely your color!” He looked down at himself, “I don’t think green is mine, what do you think?” Striking a silly pose.

She hard shakes no, ‘It doesn’t match your shoes.’

A glob of paint fell from the ceiling, right on to his forehead and dripped down the bridge of his nose and into his eye, “Yeah I think it’s time for a bath.”

The Heartless grabbed him and led them down to the nearby bathroom, whose door was way, way too camouflaged to be ok so he slapped it, leaving a little blue handprint, as they entered.

The bathroom was small, the fittings old, the water running, and the rest of the morning was spent trying to get the drying paint off them. The paint clung onto them much worse than the dust, but the sensation of functioning water was far too interesting and made up for it in spades. The two sat in the old claw footed tub, scrubbing and splashing in equal measure. It took 5 rounds of water before they were even remotely presentable.

He regrets looking so hard for the bathroom door, he's still not sure if he’s gotten all the paint out of his eye socket. And he knows for sure she hasn’t gotten all the paint out from under her armor.

As the noon sun’s light streamed in, Data Sora mused, up to his chin in the cool muddy water, “Huh. Olette said she was going to show me the school today. I should go find her…” Stepping out, instantly the water sliding off leaving him dry, “See ya later Elimichan!”

The Heartless waved and continued to luxuriate in the water.

The town is deserted. Completely and utterly deserted. The lighting is about the only thing moving anymore. It’s eerily familiar to his old home. Maybe even worse cause this place was so much livelier before...

It felt normal that at night the town would be still and unmoving, but in the daylight, it’s just wrong.

“Hello?” At the sound of his calls echo, he felt the need to retreat. But only after he checked out one spot.

At the gorgeous waterfall, he tried talking to the shadowy guy. Who was there, they looked at him. But for some reason just didn’t say anything today.

So, they’re not allowed back into the… well the white room would be a very disingenuous name now, but in any case, they had to wait for that paint to fully dry.

Data Sora had explored most of the other above ground rooms, and all that really remained were the basement rooms. He had saved them for later because their cold blue walls reminded him of the system sectors of the Disney Castle datascape. And he really didn’t want to think of home right now.

The dust from the day they arrived was still displaced. Nearby was a door barred from pipes. He cleared enough to get to the door, but it just opened right into the void. Yuck. He put the pipes back.

In the next room there was a strange dark void in a corner he avoided. There were rooms and halls with screens. Screens that when he finally stopped and started reading them had a lot of data about…

“Isn’t this Real-Sora?” It was about integration, recompletion, something about the status of Roxas, his body, how the real world and datascapes interacted… it was a lot of heavy stuff. It mostly flew over his head, especially parts talking about life support where every other word failed to register any sort of meaning. 

And there was something else in this ‘stale’ cold air, something not tagged by the system. Extremely unnerving. No something inside of him was warning him, some sort of…sickness perhaps? Something left behind.

He walked deeper in, past a number of pods. Two of them seemed recently used, there life support systems left discarded at the bottom, and they held…a feeling that wasn’t exactly pleasant. But that was as far as it went.

He turned the corner and looked at a door. Instantly his chest filled with an overload of emotion. Data Sora actually fell to the floor bowled over from the typhoon.

Hurt was the first tangible thing he could make out from the swirling feelings within.

Hurt. Data-Roxas’s Hurt. It was reacting to this place.

But… there was another. A much quieter hurt, just beyond this door.

Hesitantly reaching for the door, the shadow guy’s words rang out in his head. “Not if I’m…carrying this Hurt…” Recognition crossed his mind, he dropped his hand and pivoted back out. Today wasn’t the right day for this.

Instead, he found the books from the first day he was here, pulled out a random one, and started reading. This one was about architecture.

He had enjoyed the first 7 books he read, they were all strange technical and medical things that were way outside of his wheelhouse, but it was really fun to learn something new.

He’s not sure where Real-Sora stands on book reading. Data Sora hopes he doesn’t struggle as hard as he does. He’s not very good at words and he can’t sit still, reading the books while walking around the various rooms, thankfully only falling down the stairs twice. The 8th one sucked, it only had weird drawings of what might be people. He reached out for a 9th one, a random pink covered book that got his attention.

He opened it and it was blank. Startled he dropped it.

Reaching for a different one, it thankfully had text. Whew.

Something about the world just felt a little bit more like a lie.

“Hey JJ, Tron gave me a small mission to go check out the Twilight Town comp. So, I’ll be gone a bit.”

“Alright, sounds good.” His eyes didn’t peel from his search, “Good luck on your mission.” 

Chapter Text

Sora was so excited, today was supposed to be some kind of fair! He made his way out of the mansion and immediately bumped into Vivi, “Good morning Vivi!”

They jumped up in fear, he was really easy to startle, “Eh? G-Good morning.” They were back to being shifty and ready to bolt, Data Sora wondered what he did to upset him.

He sat beside the little guy, “So what’s happening today? Hayner said something about a fair coming up.”

“Oh, the fair…? Th-that’s still a few days away. R-right now everyone’s super worried.”

“What’s up?”

“S-someone’s gone around and s-stolen a lot of things around town. They’ve stolen all the _____.”

What the-! He completely understood what they meant, but while all the data transferred, the word and sound itself didn’t.

“You mean _____? ___________? Graphs? Graphs of the nature that would show representations of the real world in printed form, they come from cameras?”

“Y-yeah! Isn’t it creepy?? They managed to steal the word too!”

“Want me to go look for them? The ______ or the thief.”

“Ohh…that seems really dangerous.”

“Don’t worry I’ve gone through lots of danger, and I’d hate to see you guys get hurt.”

Vivi touched his chest, seemingly moved, “T-Thank you… you really don’t have to do that.”

He stood, “Naw, I gotta help my friends out! I’ll see ya later Vivi!” and he made his way to the entrance.

“W-wait! Wait!” Vivi called, “Uh...um… You, you should only check the woods or the mansion.”

Data-Sora tilted his head, “Why?”

“If you go out in town, I’m sure they’ll accuse you of being the thief…”

“Aw, why they going to do that?”

The small lad took a moment to ponder how to say this tactfully, and landed on, “You’re the newest person in town…?”

Everyone was acting so WEIRD today. Vivi was right on the money. Nobody looked like they remembered him. They kept asking if he had stolen things and he hadn’t! Why is he being accused of stealing stuff all the time?!

It didn’t help that he was a part of the robbed; he checked his pocket for his own smashed camera and photographs, and they were gone!

What the heck? His feelings thoroughly bruised he went back to the mansion to sulk alone. Vivi was right, today was a stay home kinda day.

A few hours in and he’s about done with a whole row of books. And two piles were beginning to develop with a concerning trend. 

The real books pile was thankfully the larger one, but as he went down the shelf the books became more and more blank. The blank book pile was about a 3rd of the size of the real book pile.

Better enjoy what there is at least.

When Eliminator strolled in, she approached the console and worked on finishing up its repairs. She was making fantastic progress, down to just replacing the last screen. By that point he was nearly done with half the library. Unfortunately, his blank book pile had gotten significantly larger than the real book pile.

“Carcinogen…noun… a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue…”

'I got this computer working, I’m going back to the tub.’

“Gottcha! …! Ah, shoot I lost my place…” 

It had taken him all day, but Data-Sora read every book in there. It was not nearly as impressive as it seemed with the final blank book tally. In his hand was a red book on warfare, something that he just had an inkling that Eliminator would like.

It took him forever to find the bathroom door again, dang thing was weirdly super camouflaged, “Hey Elimichan, I found this book you might-” it took him forever to find a door with a blue handprint on it.

The book fell from his hand as he raced across the hall and all but did a flying dropkick into the door at the end of the hall.

And was inside the perfectly spotless White Room.

Chapter Text

He wanted to scream. With how intricately the town was set up, for all its efforts to appear real, when things started looping it stood out like a signal flare in the middle of a black cloth.

Collapsing against a wall, his mind reeling at the thought of staying here.

7 days.

7. Pathetic days.

Could there be more- he doubts it. The world feels much more scripted somehow. And it’s worse because these people can’t even remember him when it loops back. They don’t like him. It would be so hard to get them to start. And he’d have to do it over and over and over again.

“This world is so unfair.” He felt so silly and sad and stupid, and just walked past them all back to the woods to cry. To pretend to cry. Even here where he knew others could cry, he could not join them.

He touched a tree. Its bark told him it was rough. But what was Rough? What does it mean to rub his fingers on something and be told it’s ‘Gritty’? His eyes are open, and they can’t be shut again, but he himself lacks. 

He wanted to leave this horrible place.

But there was one last space to check. With it checked, Curiosity would be forever satisfied, and he could leave and never look back.

He walked inside past the glass, passed the piles of empty books, into the cold dark basement hallways and past the strange portal of darkness in the corner.
The feelings returned. They burned. He paused to center himself and approached.

Opening the door and peaking in, the sickly white walls of Castle Oblivion greeted him, and a flower like pod larger and more ornate than the others, stood resolute in the middle of the room. Half of its petals were slightly ajar. A small computer sat in its shade. Green lines were embedded into the floors.

Tapping into his senses, there was some kind of entity here. Labeled ‘projection’ it was waiting for user input and had some kind of event set to go off if the right person entered the room.

“What is all this…?” His hand touched the pod. ‘Glass’ ‘Smooth’ ‘Cold’. Yet his heart communed there was something that felt…much worse than those measly tags suggested about this. Something… insidious. 

Lifting up, he reached for a petal. And it didn’t give under his weight. He crawled up and into the pod, grateful for his small stature.

There wasn’t much to see in the pod. It was dark. There were lines and grids. Scanners. Unlike the pods outside this room, this one didn’t have anything for traditional life support. What was held here…?

His foot clinked against several things at the bottom. He reached down and picked one up. In the gloom he could barely make out the bugged texture of…is that…a chain-link? It held something within.

He was Compelled to access it.

An hour later. Head and heart heavy. The small bit of light that bled in was covered by a darkness with 3 small blots of yellow. The petals were forced open by the strength of the Eliminator who touched him with her snout.

‘I could sense your distress. What’s wrong?’

Lips flapped uselessly for a moment, his eyes burned to cry but could not, in the end all he could wheeze out, “I feel hurt.”

DefaultAvatar arrived to see the Eliminator failing to calm a raving Data-Sora, whose comments just sounded like off key screaming at this point and didn’t make any sense. Perhaps if he had the capacity to cry it wouldn’t look and sound so strange.

They approached, and dropped their hand on his head, “Sora.”

A sniff, “…Ava? Is that you?” he broke into a watery smile and grabbed them in a big hug, “Oh Ava, I missed you! This place is horrible. I hate it! I hate it I hate it is so pretty but it’s so so sooooooo ahhhhhh!!!!” 

“Correct. Let us leave. I have found a much better opportunity for you in a different system.”

He looked up, “Really?”

“This one doesn’t have a simulator but has something you’ll want so much more.”

They smiled their dead smile.

Data Sora took their hand, and Ava lead the trio to the console to leave.

It took nearly 5 hours of prep work before they could actually depart though.

“Why so much stuff Ava?” He asked as they ready themselves for the solar sailor. Those hours were all about making their entrance into the system look like nothing more than a benign security update for the browser for some reason.

“This computer has a lot more security measures because it’s a personal research computer attached to a very important and interesting project. One that you will be greatly enriched by.” Without the aid of a simulation Ava looked like not much of anything. A blank slate, worse than even their papery-doll forms.

He shrugged which was a bit hard with his arms like this, “Whatever you say Ava! I’m glad we’re going on an adventure together. Are you guys excited?”

They had a weird pause, “We cannot feel excitement Sora.”

“Huh? What do you mean, I’ve seen you excited before.”

“You have certainly seen us pretend to be excited for your benefit.”

Data Sora felt a really cold pit form in his stomach, “…You’re joking, right?” letting out a shaky laugh, “After all the time we’ve spent together you’re going to make a weird joke like that?”

“Data-Sora.” Oh shoot they busted out the full title, “I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Neither I nor the Eliminator have hearts. We cannot ‘feel’ emotion like that.”

The world might as well have stopped “…What?” 

Ava brought a hand to themselves, “JJ altered us to keep you busy. At the start of each day the data from the previous day is accounted for and then we are hard reset. That way we never develop hearts. It would be irresponsible to let more creatures develop hearts in the datascape.”

Data Sora choked, “B-But why would he do that? Why… but you guys always acted… I don’t understand…!” The horror dawning on his face. He wasn’t really sure what to say but the next thing out of his mouth was, “But I thought we were friends?”

‘You may think of us like that.’ The Eliminator bumped him like they always would. As usual it was painful. But that was ok.

“We exist to protect you and keep you happy. Nothing More. Nothing Less.” Ava shrugged.

“But…but if you guys don’t have hearts then…. Then I mean nothing to you guys.”

“You give us purpose Sora; you are part of our main directives. You mean a lot to us.” They have never looked or sounded falser.

“I’ve never meant anything to you…”

He then suddenly belted out in undesirably loud laugh, “Ah!! This is a really mean prank!! Very funny!! You sure got me!!”

“But Sora-”

“Let’s go to this new system!!” He started walking away.

“Sora-”

“LET’S GO CHECK OUT THIS NEW SYSTEM I BET THERE'S ALL KINDS OF THINGS TO SEE RIGHT ELIMINICHAN?!” He grabbed her paw and started dragging.

‘I concur. Let’s go.’

This time even after entering the system they were still in their papery doll forms. This place seemed much more hostile, with scanners and locks around every corner. Data Sora was not having a meltdown, no sirrie, but he was able to access the name of the system without trouble. “'Vexen’s Personal Research Computer – DO NOT TOUCH’. Are we supposed to be here…?” Ava shushed him.

They had to do a lot sneakier sneaky stuff this time around. Lots of obscuration, compression, and even some spoofing. Ava was apparently only a small chunk of themselves, the rest of them already snuck onto the system beforehand.

The system was cramped, lean, and full of security at every step. They had to pass quickly and as close to a solid group as could be to get to the correct sector. The data they were pretending to be came in three little scripts; handy as that was their excuse the few times they were stopped. And anytime it was deeper than skin Ava’s transformation properties could falsify a file extension.

They eventually made it into a very specific program, so large it was like a temple, with tons of other smaller programs, tools, and scripts passing though. The Eliminator offered her shoulders so he could get a good look around without slowing them down.

Maybe Ava was wrong. That’s so personable. Maybe Ava doesn’t have a heart, they’re like one of them Nobody things he’s heard spoken about. But Elimi-chan was his friend. They were real friends. She meant a lot to him, and he meant a lot to her right? 

They eventually snuck their way onto what looked like a gargantuan stage before a massive tunnel that was closed off. Scripts of all shapes and sizes were here and they barged in-between them, and they hardly reacted. Data Sora was sure this is the most amount of people or programs he’s ever seen in one location ever in his entire existence. He looked up to one, “Who are you?”

Even and without spice, “I am the script responsible for handling the integration between spinal vertebra T12 and L1.”

“Oh! I read something about that, there both…lumbar nerves, I think? Or L1 was?”

The program nodded and blandly smiled, “You must be part of the personality.” Then fell back to flat and lifeless.

Ava grabbed his arm, “Are you ready? When you wake up again you will be in a whole new world.”

Look. She’s preparing him, she’s doing a nice thing because she wants to!! But he couldn’t get himself to say anything, just a nod.

She summoned all of her scouts to the area, some ran off hitting buttons, moving some switches around and one of them was talking to a different program who approached a large console, “Activating the Integration Program, what is your Status?”

The sea of programs and scripts mostly said “Affirmative.” With a handful going “Incomplete.” Or “Missing components.” But Ava’s scouts would shout over them with the affirmative. Those were probably unimportant. Ava knew what they where doing.

As they did what they do at the console, all but one of the scouts returned and all the scripts huddled as close as could be. Eliminator holding on to his hand before they got separated by walls of people. He was grateful for the feeling of her hand. Ava was nearby as well, if he stretched his arm out, he could reach them. A different program observed the mass, looked at the screen, and asked the program at the helm, “Hmm… unusually small. Are you sure there aren’t scripts missing?”
The scout spoke for the other, “Positive. All has been accounted for.”

“There were a number of errors from knowledge base scripts, are you sure we should not do a double check?”

“There will be no double check. Everything is accounted for.” 

The programs scooched together somehow even closer. It was a little weird to be shoulder to shoulder with so many strangers, but Eliminchan and Ava were still right by him. Data-Sora couldn’t hide his giddiness, “Alright! I’m really excited for wherever we’re going. I hope it’s nice! Thanks for bringing me along.”

“Always at your service.”

‘Anytime.’

“Activating recompiler.” Announced the strange program outside.

“Huh?” Was about the only sound that got out before he felt a horrible tug in his data in one direction, and a horribly invasive injection of data in the other. His companions were equally shocked, and more horrifyingly, beginning to derezz before his very eyes. Everyone was.

Trying to reach out to Ava was useless; he found himself soon without an arm as the strange force pulled him apart, then with even greater horror as she crumpled into digital glass that was being forced into himself.

Ah. They did pretend to be individual scripts, didn’t they?

How foolish.

They were going to die conscious about it.

A thought that wasn’t his own; a bland notion that nothing here had furthered their directive. An excitement equally incorrect about experiencing an interesting demise. A torrent of meaningless noise from programs he didn’t know. He would have to try harder to protect Data Sora now. Wait but wasn’t she Sora? Wait, no they…

In one desperate attempt he tried to reach his heart out to them. To hold them close and protect them.

It backfired. All attempts to hold them separate in his heart were a complete failure, his personal need to protect them just overpowered what little they actually had to themselves. In moments the Eliminator was integrated fully. The forceful expansion on to his ability board felt like a stake had been stabbed directly into his heart. He had always thought he had made great strides towards the changing of her nature. She started a mindless Heartless after all. She was made to keep him busy, distracted, and sharp as a fighter. Her memories lodged behind his eyes are all cold and as stark as text on a page. All her power dancing beneath his skin felt like rot. It was in conflict with his health draining cheats.

His hands were not his own, they filled her vision with too many fingers, too many tones rapidly in flux, his hair wildly growing and falling out in a maelstrom of fibers. The Eliminator was one swift jab. The other programs a drizzle. Ava was an unbearably slow mince. Their mind had been immediately washed away at the first pull, but the complex data that made her body, their life’s purpose of collecting faces, was a deluge upon his processors. Why she felt the need to wear them all at once was beyond them. But soon it wouldn’t matter anyways as they all fell apart.

Remembered it was part of setup and recovery. She He can’t have remembered that wasn’t… They are a heatle…no what…they… who

PleaseforgivelethelpmeusmeIfaceI’mcouldn’tthisscaredcomfortnewworldJJyouwithpleaseforgivedon’thopemeletandus.love.die!

What shambled out of the system, melting and unsure of where it started or ended, was uploaded into the replica, and integrated as far as the system was concerned, correctly.

JJthereitPLAESEisisHELPnothingpointlessMEtotoIMfear.scream.SORRY!

Not even a chance to grasp the violation done to their soul, was an incomprehensible pressure against their body, unimaginable chill upon their skin, and a horrible sloshing of matter inside their chest.

All they could do was scream as hot wet tears ran down their screeching face.