Posted 02-11-2011 at 03:03 AM by meilin
Updated 02-16-2011 at 12:12 AM by meilin
[size=1][justify]Months had passed since their return to Destiny Islands, but sometimes it felt longer, more like years almost. Sora was glad to be home again. He had missed it terribly since everything began. Sometimes, he wondered why they ever dreamed of leaving their home in the first place. Then the longing would set in, and he wanted nothing more than to be out traveling among the worlds again. At those times, Sora had a tendency to space out, occasionally tripping and falling flat on his face. Tidus and Wakka got a good laugh every time that happened. They would make comments about “the same old Sora,” but they don’t understand. They couldn’t possibly know just how much Sora had changed since his first departure from Destiny Islands. Sora didn’t talk to them about his adventures. He only confided in Riku and Kairi about his experiences.
But there were things that he couldn’t even talk to them about. When they first returned, everything had seemed great. He enjoyed seeing his friends and family. He even enjoyed going to dreaded school, even if he had to go and beg Riku for help with his homework. Then came a dark and stormy night that reminded him all too much of the night when their world was destroyed. Sora shot up in bed and threw open the window in a panic. But it was just a regular storm. No darkness threatened to wipe out their world. No Heartless appeared. But Sora couldn’t relax. His nights became restless, leaving him exhausted come morning. But it wasn’t only the threat of darkness that made him toss and turn at night. When he closed his eyes, sometimes he thought he saw something, but it wasn’t clear enough. It almost felt like a fuzzy memory trying to break free from the depths of his mind. But the moment he thought he might be close to remembering, it would slip away again. It drove him mad with frustration! But he put on a smile and pretended like nothing was wrong.
After two months, Sora worried that he just might be going crazy. At times, he would be walking along laughing and joking with his friends as they walked the halls of their school. Then, out the corner of his eyes, Sora thought he saw someone. When he looked, he saw no one. Only his reflection in the window stared back at him. It happened several times over the following weeks. Anytime he passed a window or a mirror or anything with a reflection, he thought he caught a glimpse of someone that wasn’t there. Some of those times, he would feel a sharp pain in his heart. The sorrow and the loneliness overwhelmed him to the point of tears. He clutched a hand to his chest that hurt almost familiarly. But why would that pain be familiar? Was it connected to that memory hiding just beneath the surface, refusing to come out? He kept quiet, not wanting to worry anyone.
“Spill it,” Riku ordered as he leaned against the Paopu tree. Some things never changed, no matter how much time passed.
Sora wrenched his gaze away from the distant horizon and looked down at his friend. “Spill what?” He looked utterly confused at Riku. He was deep in thought when Riku arrived and couldn’t make the connection to what his friend was asking.
“Everyone else might buy your act, but I know you, Sora. I know when something is up. You’ve been acting odd. Jumpy, almost.” Riku stared seriously at Sora. He wouldn’t drop the topic until Sora gave in and told him what he wanted to know.
Sora sighed as he raked a hand through his hair. “Do I look… different?” He frowned, not knowing how to explain things.
Riku looked him over, and a small smirk twitched at his lips. “You mean goofier?”
Sora tried to hit him, but Riku was already stepping out of range. He huffed. “I meant-” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think I see someone else in my reflection. And I don’t mean I don’t recognize myself or something. I mean, I see someone else completely. Only when I actually look, I just see myself. But I think he kind of looks like me, but he looks completely different too.” He doubted he was making any sense. Even in his mind, that all sounded crazy. He didn’t look at Riku, afraid to see his friend looking at him like he had grown a second head. “It just got me thinking. About Organization XIII and how they kept calling me Roxas and stuff.”
Riku was silent for a moment. “He was your Nobody,” he said at last. When they talked about their experiences, Riku mentioned his fight with Roxas and want he went through to defeat him.
“I know,” Sora said softly, risking a glance at his friend. “You did what you had to.” He was thankful that Riku risked so much to help him. But he had a nagging feeling of wrongness about the whole thing. Even if Roxas was simply the body and soul left behind after Sora became a Heartless, Roxas was still a person in his own right with his own feelings and memories. Did Sora really have the right to take away that existence? Sora felt badly about it even he couldn’t do anything about it. Roxas had already merged with him to make him whole again. “But it’s not him. This is something else.” He placed a hand over his chest. Someone else seemed to be calling out to him.
Riku frowned, confused and concerned about his friend. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after I got to think about those comments, I remembered something that confused me.” Sora gave his friend a sharp look before Riku could make any smart comment in response. “The first time I met Xigbar, he said something strange. He said ‘[i]he[/i]’ used to him that same exact look. Then later before I fought him, he said the Keyblade picked a dud [i]this time[/i] and I didn’t look like I was half the hero the [i]others[/i] were. I still have no idea what he was talking about.”
“He could have just been trying to mess with your head,” Riku suggested. “Distract you so you’d be an easy target.”
“Maybe.” Sora wasn’t convinced. He couldn’t help thinking about it. If Xigbar had faced other Keyblade wielders, what had happened to them? And why did he make that comment about “the same exact look?” He kept trying to piece things together, but it was like working on a puzzle without all the pieces. “I would have liked to meet them if there really had been other Keyblade wielders.” He smiled at that thought. They probably could have taught him a thing or two about wielding the Keyblade.
A look flashed across Riku’s face, like he remembered something important. Sora nearly missed the look but somehow turned in time to catch it before it faded from Riku’s face.
“I saw that!” Sora cried out, pointing at Riku. “What did you just think of?”
“No, it’s nothing.” Riku shook his head.
“Oh, come on! You can tell me,” Sora whined, eager to know what had been on Riku’s mind.
A smirk snuck across Riku’s face at old memories suddenly surfacing again. It had seemed like a random meeting at the time. And he had been so young that by next week, he had already forgotten it. But the memory wasn’t completely forgotten, just buried under all his other memories. Sora’s comment had unlocked it for him. “I can’t. I gotta keep it a secret,” he repeated what he had told Sora so many years ago.
“Riku!” Sora whined, his cheeks puffing out in frustration.
“Sora, do you remember that night?” Riku asked in an obvious change of topics. But it worked to distract Sora.
“Which one?” Sora’s brow knitted in its usual look of confusion.
“We had stayed out late just laying on the beach and staring at the stars.” That wasn’t all that unusual for the pair of friends. They had spent many nights like that as young children. “When we were walking home, you started crying.”
Sora tilted his head and frowned at Riku. He tried to place that specific memory from all the other ones. It took some time for that particular memory to wiggle its way to surface. “Ah,” he gasped as he gripped the front of his shirt. “It felt like something was squeezing me inside.” It reminded him of the time before he got on the train in Twilight Town. The tears spilled down his cheeks without his realizing. “I wonder if he’s still there.” At the time, Sora had thought Riku’s suggestion was silly. But he had tried it anyway. He opened his heart, and someone out there in one of those many worlds had responded.
“Maybe he is,” Riku suggested, and Sora found himself relaxing. Riku always seemed to understand what he was feeling, even when Sora was completely confused by his own feelings. “Maybe he’s that person you think you keep seeing.”
“I wonder,” Sora said as he looked out toward the horizon. He gripped his shirt tighter. “Is he trying to tell me something?” He had forgotten about that event and so hadn’t bothered trying to talk to the other heart residing in him. Maybe if he tried to talk to that heart now, he might get some answers.
“Sora! Riku!” Kairi’s urgent shouts tore Sora away his thoughts.
Sora wondered what she seemed so anxious about until he noticed the bottle in her hand. The letter inside the bottle held the unmistakable mark of King Mickey. Was that other heart trying to warn him of the coming journey that awaited him? Sora dropped down from the Paopu tree and took the bottle that Kairi held out to him.[/justify][/size]
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pumpkin phantom
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