If the Princess and the hero's friends had stopped for a moment to consider that one, lone Heartless that had followed them, perhaps the Princess could have restored it to human form. Perhaps, with her power, the hero would not have lost himself, and existed alongside an other who knew nothing of his past life, who struggled to understand himself.

But that did not happen here. The three never stopped for the single Shadow that followed them, and soon enough the Heartless let go of that last shred of humanity it had left. And elsewhere, a boy woke up in a small world with an ever-setting sun, his memories slowly returning.

And that, alone, was all it took to make a difference.

"Sora you lazy bum! Wake up!"

"Ya gotta look goofy, like us."

"They say that every world is connected by one great big sky."

"I guess I'm the only one working on the raft."

"Sora, do you like Riku?"

"All for one, and one for all!"

"It's like... something's squeezing me inside."

"Sora? ...Don't ever change."

Sora... That's right, he was Sora! It had been a full day since he had woken up outside of the old mansion on the outskirts of Twilight Town. He had been given a short speech about how nothing was real, a name, Roxas, and a black coat, which he hadn't worn yet. The man who gave it to him said he'd be given a day to decide if he wanted to join or not (Join what, he wondered). And the man he was sitting next to now- Axel, right? He was here to bring him back if he agreed or not. And to eat ice cream together, apparently.

"I just remembered who I am," he said, before taking another bite of his ice cream bar. It tasted like sea-salt, like the Islands he grew up on.

"Oh yeah?" Axel raised an eyebrow at him. "Is the haze clearing then?"

"Kind of." The boy looked out at the sunset. "But... it still feels like something's missing. Like, I know who I am now, but... something's not right. Like I'm not the same person I was."

"That'd be your heart, man," said Axel. "Or, well, your lack of, I mean."

"What do you mean?"

Axel scratched the back of his neck, not looking at the kid. "Well, what's the last thing you remember before you showed up here?"

The boy tilted his head back, thinking. "Well, I was in Hollow Bastion, and I had just gotten the Keyblade back from Riku... Riku!" He quickly scrambled to his feet, maybe a bit too quickly since he nearly lost his balance and needed Axel's help to not fall to the ground below.

"Easy! What's gotten into you?!" Axel kept a gloved hand wrapped around the boy's arm, in case he lost his footing again.

"It's Riku!" The boy looked at him with panicked eyes. "And Kairi too! They were in Hollow Bastion, and Riku was being controlled by this Ansem guy! And I fought him but he disappeared, but then I had to save Kairi so I unlocked my heart, and... and..." He frowned. After that, all he could remember was waking up in Twilight Town. But he had lost his heart so shouldn't he be a Heartless now? So then... "How am I still alive?"

"I'm not sure if I would call either of us here 'alive'," said Axel, a wry smile on his face. "See, you're not really you anymore. You remember that you turned into a Heartless, right?"

"Well, yeah. Kind of." The boy pulled his arm away from Axel and stuck his hands in his pockets. Huh. When had he changed clothes? "I don't exactly remember it very well. But... How can I be anyone other than me?"

"Your heart is what makes you who you are," said Axel, crossing his arms and sounding very much like he was trying to remember a lecture he had forgotten to take notes on. "The heart is proof that you exist. And you lost that, like you said. But when a person with a particularly strong heart becomes a Heartless, the body might become what is called a Nobody, like me and you, now. We don't have hearts, so we aren't exactly real people, see? We can't exactly feel without one, either. but we remember what it's like to feel, or something like that. I'm not exactly good at explaining this stuff."

"I don't have a heart?" The boy stared at him with a dumbfounded expression. "That's... That's crazy!" He took a step away from Axel. "I have to go back to Hollow Bastion! My friends need me there!"

Axel frowned. "Go back? Look, I know you think you're upset but-"

"Axel, they're my friends!" The boy gave him his most effective glare. "Heart or no heart, I need to help them!"

"Roxas..."

The boy shook his head. "My name isn't Roxas! It's Sora!"

Axel sighed. "Fine, we'll go to Hollow Bastion. But don't be surprised if your friends aren't there anymore."

"They might not be," Sora agreed. "But as long as they've gone somewhere safe, that's fine with me. I don't want to see them get hurt."

The redhead shrugged. "Whatever you say. But first..." He picked up the black coat that Sora had refused to wear and threw it at him. "Put this on. Our way of travel isn't the safest, and this is all you'll have to protect you."

Sora looked at Axel warily. "How do we travel, exactly?"

Axel gave him a wide grin. "Ever heard of a Corridor of Darkness?"

-o-

This is just a short little story idea I've been playing with in my head for a little while. According to the games, the reason Roxas didn't remember anything about being Sora was because Sora was restored to human form. So if Kairi never restored Sora, wouldn't Roxas have his memories? And knowing Sora, even if he felt something was wrong, he'd brush it off and insist that he's still him.

Unlike many ideas I've had, this one I felt confident enough writing and posting. I can't deny that it was better in my head, but I'm still proud of what I wrote. I did write part of a second chapter, but my laptop decided to shut itself down and I lost it. At the moment, I don't feel like writing it all over again, and I'm not sure if anyone would be interested yet. Maybe if people like the idea enough, I may continue. And my writing ability can only improve, after all.