Who Am I?

a kingdom hearts fanfic

YAJJ

Summary: After all is said and done, Sora isn't sure who he is anymore.

A/N: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. So it's, uh, been a while. I got sucked back into FMA, where I honestly intend to stay for at least a while longer since I have some fics i REALLY WANT to finish. But I had no choice. KH3 came out and I knew that Sora was trying to bring back Roxas and I had NO CHOICE but to see if he succeeded. I just got. A lot of Sora feels on the way to (and after) my incredible Roxas feels.

I might have another coming later, but I've only got vague ideas. It's, um, for the Wayfinder trio (plus a tagalong), but again, like a vague summary and two sentences is what I'm at.

Anyway! I hope you enjoy this! KH3 spoilers ahead, but you were warned in the summary. I also want to say that the end is not Sokai necessarily. I don't care for romance and I didn't write it intentionally; Sora has a lot of feelings for all his friends.

Disclaimer: I do not own KH.

He had been accused of having a lot of people in his heart. And he… supposed that made sense. He knew about Roxas, at least. Sort of. He knew about Ven, but in an offhand way that he didn't really remember.

There were more, apparently, but he didn't know about them.

He didn't mind them. At all. He pretended that they were hurting (they were) and he had been tasked the all-important mission of keeping them safe (he was). So he guarded his heart and protected these people who had made a home inside him. He didn't mind, because they were his friends. And Sora was the way that he was, so Sora would do anything for his friends.

Then, he and Aqua went to the Land of Departure. And there was Ven, sitting on a throne, still sleeping his days away. Sora had never seen him, had never seen the body that went with the heart in his own, and he was startled by how much this body looked like his Other.

But he didn't have time to worry about that, because Vanitas showed up and wanted to hurt Ven, and Sora was the way that he was and would do anything for his friends.

Then, in the same moment that Aqua was about to be killed by Vanitas, Sora felt his heart pounding, as the heart he normally forgot about stirred.

He looked inside himself, and woke up Ventus.

He wouldn't tell Ventus, wouldn't even tell Donald and Goofy, but the place where Ven was hidden inside his heart felt hollow, watching Ven wake up and fling himself at Vanitas so powerfully that Aqua's Barrier magic shattered. Sora really didn't even notice it until they were in Master Yen Sid's Tower, walking up the flight of stairs to join Riku and Kairi and Lea.

Then, to ignore the feeling of great loss encompassing his heart, he took off into a run and booked it up the stairs. Being active kept his mind from wandering to dark things, like what was going to be in Ven's place in his heart.

Ven took off after him. It wasn't a race, because Ven was still wobbly and slightly atrophied after ten years of sleep. Or, if it was, Sora won by like a mile.

Then Aqua came up behind them, all long limbed, not really racing with them either, not really running at all. She laughed and put a hand on Sora's head and ruffled his hair, the same way she had ruffled Ven's hair after he woke up and saved her, with so much affection clouding her eyes, and she said, "it always amazes me just how much you're like Ven."

He had smiled at her and laughed, in the cheerful, lackadaisical way that Soras do, and then he had shared a look with Ven, who was smiling too.

The smile didn't reach Sora's eyes, though. He didn't mind being like Ven. He didn't know a lot about Ven, just had heard stories from His Majesty King Mickey and one or two from Lea, but he knew Ven was a good person.

Yet, through the hole in his heart left by Ven's awakening, he thought, 'yeah, but I'm Sora'.

Then they went in, and met with Master Yen Sid and the other Guardians of Light.

After that, they were so busy going to the Keyblade Graveyard and being separated and dying (dying?) that the hole in his heart was kind of left forgotten besides a distant ache. He didn't let it bother him, though, because everyone always told him his heart was strong, and he couldn't let his heart falter.

He got lost in the labyrinth at some point. Fought Xigbar (Braig?) and Young Xehanort, fought Marluxia and Larxene and Luxord. Then he stumbled on Lea and Kairi getting attacked, and his heart was in his throat because they had only just finished their training and Kairi had never been much of a fighter. He was on them in a split second.

There had been talk. Lea got in front of them, because somehow that's where he always ended up. Xemnas was talking, but Lea, because he was Lea, was fully prepared to snark right back. A spot of pride echoed through Sora's heart, but he knew it wasn't Sora's pride, judging by the way his heart beat proud and strong. It was a pride deeper than that, not necessarily more meaningful, but borne with a grief and love that Sora, no matter how much he did care for Lea, simply could not express.

The fear that encapsulated his heart when Lea was shot by a thousand energy bullets was equally powerful and equally hard.

Then, the one shrouded in the black coat, the one who had not made themselves yet known, defended Lea, and then Sora had no choice but to get in the way, and he didn't even know what he was saying before he said it.

"You can stop now! Xion…"

In the next couple of instances, as Sora lay on the ground and Lea and Xion were about to be murdered, his heart emptied so completely that he didn't even know what to do with the void.

And as happy as he was to see that Roxas, somehow, had come back to himself... (and he was, he was so happy, this entire journey had been a cross between defeating Xehanort and returning the one in his heart to his rightful self) The grief that was replaced there, as he told them "Good luck!" and went off to save Kairi, was so powerful and unexplainable that he knew no cure.

When Vanitas had mentioned his heart being a prison, during his Mark of Mastery exam, he had never really considered what it would mean for him, once he let all those prisoners go.

Ventus, he soon found out, had been in his heart for most of his life. If Ventus had slept a ten year sleep, and Sora arriving in the Land of Departure had resulted in him waking, and if Roxas even looked so similar to Ven that they may as well have been twins, then it made sense, in some sort of messed up way that could only explain Sora's life thus far, that Ven had slept on in his heart for ten years. That was two-thirds of his life that Ven had been in him—that his heart had been occupied by two.

And Sora, Aqua said, was so like Ventus. It was almost remarkable. Perhaps they were related, she had joked once, ruffling their hair in the same fashion, in a way that made Sora's heart ache but maybe not in a good way. She said that, and even looking back, Sora's heart ached again.

It almost felt like Sora was too like Ventus.

Lea said that he shared the same face as Roxas, too. He didn't like that. He knew it was sort of inevitable (after all, Lea and Axel shared the same everything, but somehow that didn't feel the same). Looking at his Other, a boy separate from him who, for a year, split his heart into at least three, it hurt. And then, seeing Xion again, and Xion and Roxas shared a face, and didn't that mean that Xion and Sora shared a face?

And Vanitas… Sora didn't have the ability to explain how much despair he felt when Vanitas pulled off his mask and showed Sora his own face.

If Sora was split into so many faces, so many people… what did that mean for his poor, fractured heart? He had always thought that his heart was strong, but it was his friends that were his power. So perhaps the strength of his heart remained in the others who had since split from him.

And perhaps… the Sora that everyone knew wasn't Sora at all.

Everyone said that Sora was so friendly. He liked that. He liked being the friendly, guy that someone could lean on. But Aqua, and now Terra, said that Ventus was so much that way that he could make friends with any enemy—had attempted on numerous occasions, in fact, to make friends with Vanitas.

So maybe friendly was Ventus. Not Sora.

People also said that Sora was kind. He liked giving to people in need and being there when they needed him most.

But Lea and Roxas apparently had tales upon tales of Xion, not even a full year old, stopping to feed lost puppies and scoop up things and chase after the owner when the owner didn't realize that they had dropped it. Lea even told tale of Xion falling in love with a lost pup in a matter of moments—and the pup coming home with them five minutes later.

So maybe kind was Xion. Not Sora.

Sora had also been told that he was generous. He gave his all to his friends and then some. He would give everything he had without a second thought.

And then Xion, giggling over at Roxas who turned a wonderful shade of red, told him about the time that Xion brokenheartedly couldn't summon her keyblade, so Roxas lent her his, and used a stick, until she could make the keyblade work for her again.

So… so maybe generous was Roxas. Not Sora.

Sora didn't know what else there was to have. His anger was Vanitas' and Roxas'. His loyalty was Ventus and Vanitas.

His heart… his whole heart belonged to them.

So who… who was Sora? What was left for Sora?

It wouldn't have been so hard before this. He thought. Probably. But his heart ached, almost entirely empty. It was used to being at least three times as full, and now… it just wasn't. There was a huge hole where Ventus had slumbered, and another one where Roxas had waited, and he thought there was probably another where Xion, and even Vanitas, waited their turns to be their own people again, too.

His heart, broken five separate ways, wasn't so strong anymore.

Still. Sora was the way that Sora was, and he went off to find Kairi on his own. Xehanort had died and everyone went their separate ways. Ventus, Terra, and Aqua to the Land of Departure, Xion, Roxas, and Lea to Twilight Town, Donald, Goofy, and King Mickey to Disney Castle. And Riku, all on his own, returned to Destiny Islands because it was Sora's job to reunite lost friends, and no one else's.

He wondered every day.

He called them all. Since Jiminy had been so kind to provide them all Gummiphones. He didn't always ask the question, but somehow, at least a few of them seemed to know what he was thinking.

"An idiot," Roxas said, although Sora couldn't help but notice the note of affection in his tone when he said it.

"A good person," Ventus said, his voice swelling with his heart, honest and for true.

"A statistic," Riku said, but Sora knew he only said that because he wasn't quite sure just what else he was supposed to say, and because he was at home on Destiny Islands, where everyone remembered him now, and apparently there were posters up with his face on them asking "Have You Seen Me?"

"Sora," Donald said, Goofy agreeing hugely in the background. Sora wasn't sure if that answer hurt, because he didn't know what that meant, or helped, because Sora just being enough the way that he was was… nice.

He didn't really know what to make of all those answers, though. And he didn't know what that could mean for him.

He found her. After another long journey. Thankfully, most of the journey had not been fighting, but searching. The Heartless were gone, and the Nobodies were gone, and the Unversed were gone, so for the most part Sora was safe. He still dealt with rogues occasionally, but when all he had to do was whip out Shooting Star and form change to Double Arrowguns, or Wheel of Fate and form change to Highwind, it was pretty easy to scare off all but the most serious.

The most serious, of course, was the one who had her.

He was fading. He knew. He had outdone himself. Kairi was safe, at least. Holding him tight. Crying. He hated it when she cried. It made his heart ache. He had passed her the keys to the Gummiship.

"Get home," he said. Because Sora was the way that Sora was, and did the things that Soras do and he worried about his friends more than he cared about himself. Was he scared? Without a doubt. But he knew… he knew nothing could be done for him.

...Kairi had always seemed to know him so well.

"Kairi?"

She sobbed, clutching his hand tight, and whispered, "Yes, Sora?"

"...Who am I? If I was Ventus, and Roxas, and Xion, and Vanitas, what was left for me?" How he had the strength to even say those words, he didn't know.

He was fading fast.

And Kairi smiled, so bright it lifted his heart a little. He was so happy to see her safe, now. He loved her so much.

"A hero," she said, and there was no hesitation whatsoever. She squeezed his hand and linked their fingers together. "You're a hero."

He paused, and a weak smile passed over his lips, up to her. A hero, huh?

For the first time since Roxas had finally been released, his heart was full. Figures it would be just in time for him to die.

He liked that...

Aaaaaaand then we get into the secret ending.