The characters in this story belong to Kindom Hearts and Square Enix, except for Xandra, who is a creation of my own. I hope you like it!
Xion stood in her room in the Castle That Never Was and stared into her mirror. The same girl was there: a girl with short black hair that framed a pale face and bright blue eyes. She closed those eyes and counted to five, light dancing on the insides of her eyelids. Taking a deep breath, she opened them.
Her reflection hadn't changed. She could still see herself. But she knew it wasn't always going to be that way. She knew that soon it would not be her face that looked back at her from the mirror, but someone else's.
Riku gave me this time so I could figure things out, she remembered. And now she knew what she had to do. Her being here only hurt Roxas. She didn't want to lose everything she had come to love.
She had to go back to Sora.
Suddenly from behind her she heard the sound of the air being ripped apart, and she whirled around to see a hooded figure step out of a dark corridor. Her first thought was that it was Riku, but then her mind registered that the figure was too slim beneath the black cloak. This was someone she didn't know.
The person shook off the hood and Xion could see that it was a girl. She was as pale as Xion and her brown hair was just as short, but her eyes were dark brown, standing out starkly against her skin.
"You're Xion, right?" asked the stranger. Her voice had a musical quality, but there was the emptiness of a Nobody there. Before Xion could answer, she spoke again. "Of course you are. I already know that."
"Who are you? Where did you get that cloak?" Xion had a sinking feeling. The last time she had met someone who should not have been wearing the Organization coat, she had been told that she was a fake and that her memories were not her own.
"Xion, I'm from the future. My name is Xandra and in the future I've just been asked to join the Organization," the girl said urgently. "Where I come from, when I come from, almost everyone in the Organization is dead. Roxas has been absorbed into Sora, who is getting ready to battle Xemnas."
Xion felt a shock course through her. She knew that, like herself, Roxas had to go back to Sora, but hearing it was a different matter altogether. She didn't like it. She didn't want to think of Roxas's life ending, of him no longer existing except as part of Sora. It was okay for her, because she was a doll. A nothing. But Roxas deserved his own life!
"Roxas..." she whispered. Her chest was hurting. Why was it hurting? She hadn't been wounded there.
Xandra nodded, as if Xion's reaction had confirmed something.
"I thought you'd feel that way," she said.
"How do you know me? Do we meet in the future? Why are you here?" Xion shook away her thoughts of Roxas, trying to focus on the strange girl.
Xandra shook her head, crossing the room to look in the mirror. She tugged at her hair, tilting her head as though she did not recognize the person staring back at her.
"Once, my name was Drana," she said softly. "I lived in Twilight Town, and I had the unusual power to see the future. I met a man in a black cloak with red, spiky hair."
"Axel!" Xion exclaimed. But Axel had never mentioned a girl named Drana...
The girl nodded, a strange look appearing in her eyes.
"I saw in the future that he would become a killer. You see, this happened when he had just joined the Organization, long before her met you or Roxas. We became friends and I tried to help him, but I only ended up hurting us both. The Organization erased his memory of me, and I was dumped back in Twilight Town. But I couldn't let go, so I used my powers to watch over Axel. I saw him become friends with you and Roxas, so I know everything about you. I watched him at Castle Oblivion, and I know the whole story there, although you don't. But in the future, Axel dies."
Xandra paused, looking down at the floor, and Xion felt another dull pain in her chest.
"He died," Xandra continued. "And when I saw him die, I lost my heart to darkness, and became a Nobody. Xemnas invited me to join the Organization, but I'm going to decline." She suddenly spun around to face Xion. "But first, I had to come back in time to tell you this: I know a way for both Roxas and Sora and you to exist separately. Sora doesn't have to be the only one who lives. I know how to save all three of you."
"What?" Xion couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had just decided that the only path for her was to go back to Sora, but now she was being offered a way for everyone to survive!
"I got curious about Sora, about his backstory. So, in the hours after I became a Nobody and before Xemnas approached me, I looked into the past and discovered what went on before Sora got to Castle Oblivion. It was then that I realized something: everyone thinks that you, Sora, and Roxas can't exist at the same time without Sora's memories leaking into you, but at one point you did. It was only for a few days, but it was enough."
The room seemed to close in on Xion and her chest tightened, as though there wasn't enough air to breathe. Expectancy pulsed through her and she waited, like she was on the edge of a cliff, for the next words that were going to push their way out of Xandra's lips.
"After Sora closed the Door to Darkness, he set out to find Riku. He then came across Castle Oblivion, and inside his memories were torn apart, and they found their way inside you and Roxas. But there was that period of time when he was travelling! When he hadn't reached Castle Oblivion yet! At that same time, both you and Roxas were existing comfortably in the Castle That Never Was. If Sora's memories had never been pulled apart, then all three of you would be able to exist at the same time."
"But that's all in the past," Xion stammered. "Even if I wanted to, how could I change it?"
"When I became a Nobody, my powers just increased," Xandra explained. "I can now travel back in time, and take anyone I want with me. Think about it. You can save yourself and the one you love, without getting rid of Sora."
Xion gave a start. "How did you-?"
"I could tell you loved him," Xandra said quietly, her gaze suddenly distant. "I may have only been watching from afar, but I could see it anyway." She swallowed, then finished her sentence, her voice going strangely flat. "The way you looked at Roxas reminded me of how I looked at Axel." She cleared her throat. "But Sora needs to survive, because he's the one to defeat Xemnas."
"Even if I could go back in time with you, how would I stop Sora's memories from being torn apart?" Xion asked. She'd already made a snap decision in her head. If there was any way to help Roxas, she'd do it. Even if that meant trusting a girl she'd never met before, and who claimed she was from the future.
"The Organization doesn't know how to erase memories on their own," the other girl responded. "They have a tool who does it for them. It's a Nobody, a girl named Namine. She is under their control, and she will take apart Sora's memories the instant he steps in that castle. That's why we have to get rid of her."
Xandra stared straight into Xion's eyes, her gaze determined.
"The only way to save Roxas, Sora, and you, is to assassinate Namine."