A/N: This was written for kh-worldsconnected KH fanzine tumblr event. The theme was "time." The lovely cover was drawn by the incredibly talented letshareapaopu. I highly recommend you take a look at her tumblr! I hope you enjoy.
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The sweet, silver sound of bells chimed faintly, momentarily causing Roxas to freeze. They were so nostalgic yet, somehow, strangely foreboding.
"Come on, you bonehead!" Hayner urged as he cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. "Focus!"
"You can do it, Roxas!" Olette cheered.
"You got this!" Pence exclaimed, clapping loudly over his head to demonstrate additional support.
The distracted blond, upon hearing the encouraging voices of his dear friends, forced himself to snap out of the abrupt trance. "Right!" he called back urgently. He tightened his grip on the blue bat and faced the Grandstander ball with a fierce, determined gaze. Yet, while no longer in the air, the clock tower bells remained ringing hauntingly in his mind.
He attempted to disregard such bells and instead prioritize on what really mattered in that moment of time: reclaiming his number one spot as Twilight Town's Grandmaster Champion.
By then, a large group consisting of town residents and shop owners began to crowd around Roxas. Even Seifer (the current Grandmaster Champion) and his gang watched in the shadows as if only to ensure his failure.
With a full audience, Roxas rushed forward and swung at the ball with great force. The large ball, much to the amazement of the cheering crowd, soared high up into the air. Then, it came racing back down. Before it could crash to the ground, Roxas reached for it with his bat and smacked it back up. The crowd, with the exception of Seifer and his gang, applauded enthusiastically.
Roxas continued on. To build suspense, he would occasionally wait for the very last second before the ball hit the ground to throw it back into the air. The crowd went wild every time. And as Roxas reached higher numbers, they began counting.
"54, 55, 56!"
Roxas, Seifer noticed, was coming dangerously close to his record of 77. He emerged from the shadows and shoved his way to the front of the crowd for a better look. His loyal friends followed without any questions asked.
But as the numbers increased, the sound of the bells intensified in Roxas's head. He found that it was becoming difficult to focus and genuinely almost missed the ball - twice.
"65, 66...67, 68!"
"Come on, Roxas! You're almost there!" Olette exclaimed.
Roxas ignored the bells as best as he could and went on hitting the ball before it could fall. All he needed to do was beat Seifer by one. All he needed was a 78.
"71, 72, 73...74!"
But those bells, the melodic, melancholy bells, they wouldn't get out of his head. He just couldn't take it.
The ball was high up in the air. Time seemed to slow. The noise of the crowd blended harshly with the noise of bells. Roxas winced in pain and then stood still.
"What are you doing?" Hayner's voice demanded somewhere in the cacophony.
And then time seemed to speed up. In an instant, despite desperately reaching out to it, the ball crashed like a fallen star onto the ground. Upon impact, it exploded into confetti.
Collectively, the crowd went aww in disappointment. Seifer, relieved, merely smirked smugly. He and his gang walked away. The people in the crowd, seeing as though Roxas had failed, gradually left as well.
Roxas and his friends remained. By then, the shock of the ball suddenly exploding caused the bells in his mind to come to a sudden halt.
When the trio approached the boy, Hayner roughly patted Roxas's shoulder. "You'll show him next time," he said dully, apparent that he wanted him to "show him" that time, not next time.
"You did really good today," Olette added, genuinely.
"Yeah, don't worry about it," Pence said. "It's hard to keep the ball in the air after 20."
"Says the guy who can make it up to 5...on a good day," Hayner remarked with a snicker.
Pence thought about it. "It's tiring," he insisted. "I don't know how you do it, Roxas!"
Olette laughed. "See, Roxas? There's nothing to feel bad about. 74 is a great number!"
"Yeah," Hayner said. He looked thoughtfully to Roxas. "Come on, man, why are you being so quiet?"
Roxas became alert. "What?" he asked, only to shake his head. "Never mind." He looked at his three friends and smiled fondly. "Let's go get some ice-cream," he said.
"We haven't gone out for ice-cream in a while," Olette noted.
"That's right," Hayner agreed. "How long has it been now?" He rubbed the back of his head.
"Two days, three hours, forty minutes, and fourteen seconds," Roxas replied without a second thought. After he said it, he gasped softly and brought a hand to his mouth. Where did that come from?
And the three friends stared at him oddly.
Then the blond attempted to play it off. He laughed. "I'm only kidding," he said, hoping that they wouldn't think much of his precise outburst.
Hayner crossed his arms. "You're such a weirdo, Roxas," he stated, closing his eyes. He opened them and brought his hands to his side after a pause. "But you are our weirdo, and we're pretty much stuck with you, right?" He smiled.
"Oh thanks!" Roxas exclaimed, and they all shared a laugh.
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"Man, Roxas, you're being weird again!"
"All I said was that the sunset looks nice. How is that weird?"
"It's the same thing every time, man. Get your head out of the clouds."
"Oh, leave him alone, Hayner. The sunset does look especially nice today. Right, Pence?"
Pence took a mindless bite out of his ice-cream before responding. "It looks the same to me," he mumbled.
Olette sighed and simply swung her legs over the ledge of the clock tower. It really did look as it always did, didn't it?
Roxas gazed at the golden palette in the sky. "Come on, guys," he gestured to it. "Just look at it!"
Hayner shrugged indifferently in response, and the three just went on eating their ice-cream.
But Roxas hadn't taken a single bite. He turned to take a good look at his trio of friends, and, just as with the bells, felt strangely concerned. It was an unprecedented anxiety gradually building up inside of him, just as before during the Grandstander event, but more intense.
He tried to forget it, but the feeling wouldn't subside. He wanted to watch the sunset and eat his ice-cream, but he just couldn't.
And then, the bells of the tower rang behind them. The bells, now closer to them, were much louder and even seemed to momentarily shake the world.
Roxas suddenly stood.
"What's wrong?" Pence asked immediately.
Roxas searched for an answer himself. "The bells," he finally said. "They're louder than usual today. I guess they just scared me." He managed a forced laugh.
The three exchanged glances before Olette informed Roxas, "The bells haven't rung yet." There was deep concern in her voice.
"What?" Roxas asked, completely lost. "But I just heard them."
"Roxas… You should sit down," Pence advised. "You don't look so well."
Without a single breath of protest, Roxas plopped right back down to his seat. "I heard them," he said, more so to convince himself than to convince his friends.
There was a pause.
"I forgot to tell you guys," Hayner said, in an attempt to lighten the mood, "Don't throw your ice-cream sticks away!"
"Why not?" Olette asked as she flipped her wooden popsicle stick around to observe it.
Pence brightened. "You're talking about that contest, right Hayner?" He looked eagerly in his direction.
Hayner nodded. "That's right," he said. "If you get a stick that has a big 'WINNER' printed on it, you get a prize!"
Roxas smiled. The terrible feeling, if only for that moment, fleeted. He took a bite out of his ice-cream and imagined himself being a WINNER.
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Roxas glared at the man. "Just, who are you?" he demanded.
The two stood alone in the back alley.
The tall red head made dramatic hand gestures while he spoke. "Ah, Roxas, come on! I thought you had the name memorized."
Roxas stiffened. He didn't want to admit it out loud, but there was something, something oddly familiar about the man. He wanted to ask him for his name, but all that came out instead was, "How do you know my name?"
"I'm not going to forget the name of my own best friend," the man said charismatically. "Look, I don't really want to hurt you, but I'll have to if you keep this up." He offered him a hand. "So just come with me, Roxas."
Roxas, almost offended, took a step back. "No!" he exclaimed.
The man, looking irritated, merely brought his hand back to his side. Then his expression suddenly softened.
Without prior explanation, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a single blank, white envelope. He held it before Roxas in between his index and middle finger.
"You gave me this before," the man said, tone indistinguishable. "It was your way of saying goodbye."
The very sight of the envelope caused the immediate feeling of confused anticipation to develop inside Roxas - the same feeling the sound of bells triggered.
Roxas frantically searched his memories in hopes of understanding why, but he discovered then that he could only recall memories of the short term involving his Twilight Town friends. He could not recall a time when the sun was not setting, a time when the bells were not ringing, and that unsettled him.
Perhaps, he figured, knowing of the contents of that envelope would be what made everything else make sense.
Roxas held a weary hand to his head. "What's inside of that?" he asked quietly.
"This?" the man asked, playfully feigning ignorance. "Who knows?"
Roxas glared. "Just, just tell me!" he shouted with a hint of desperation.
The man's face grew grim. There was a fire in his eyes. "You really can't remember." He carefully tucked the envelope back inside his pocket. "Guess I have no other choice then!" In a fiery display, he outstretched his arms and crimson chakrams appeared. "You're coming with me," the man said threateningly.
Before Roxas could make any move, the world around them seemed to pixilate if only for a single moment in time. This caused great distress on the man's part.
He lowered his chakrams. "Don't worry, Roxas," he said smoothly. "You haven't seen the last of me."
And before Roxas could say a single word in response, the man vanished into darkness.
The intense feeling only grew until Roxas tumbled to the ground.
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The sound of bells plaguing Roxas's mind woke him up with a start. He jolted up.
He panted heavily and instinctively brought a hand to his chest.
When he eventually calmed himself down, and when the bells faded, he gasped silently to himself. Where was he? His...his room?
He slowly cast his covers to the side of his bed and glanced in every direction to verify.
When Roxas concluded that the familiar setting was in fact his bedroom, he scratched his head, puzzled.
"What just...happened?" he found himself asking no one in particular.
He thought back to his previous encounter with the mysterious redhead. Did such an encounter even occur?
"A dream?" he mumbled to himself.
But what happened before that? He thought of his friends, of ice-cream, and of the sunset. Was that all a dream too? No, it couldn't have been. It felt much too real for it to have been merely a dream.
And the Grandstander match! Was that all imagined as well?
Shaking his head in utter confusion, he stood. Surely, he wouldn't find answers just sitting there. He made his way out through the door.
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"Look who finally decided to wake up," Hayner remarked as soon as Roxas stepped foot into the Usual Spot.
Roxas took a quick look behind him to ensure that Hayner was indeed speaking to him, and not someone behind him. He took a pause, and then looked back to his best friend. "...Me?" he asked, pointing to himself.
Hayner jumped up from his seat. "You'll never guess what Seifer did this time," he said, not bothering to comment on Roxas's enhanced obliviousness. He crossed his arms, looking dissatisfied.
"What did he do?" Roxas asked, deciding to stop trying to make sense of what was happening.
"Roxas!" exclaimed Pence as he and Olette came breathlessly dashing in.
"Huh?" Roxas asked, turning to them.
"Seifer broke your Grandstander record," Olette gasped out, panting and fanning herself.
Pence bent over and breathed heavily. When composed, he straightened and looked back to Roxas. "He made it to 77!" He screamed frantically.
"Roxas can beat that no problem," Hayner confidently remarked in response. He looked to Roxas. "Isn't that right?"
Roxas, in a state of bewilderment, simply stared at him. He, much to the dismay of his friends awaiting a response, lost himself in his thoughts. 77? Wasn't that...the record he attempted to beat in his recent dream?
No, it couldn't be. It was too convenient for that. Perhaps he was mistaken.
"Roxas," Hayner urged. "Don't do this now. You have to go show Seifer off."
Roxas blinked. His mind momentarily came to a blank. "Y-Yeah," he finally said. "Let's go...do that."
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"55! 56! ...57!"
Roxas tried to avoid thinking of the severity of the situation, but how could he when it was all so painstakingly familiar?
Here the crowd was, chanting his score - just as before.
But how? How could he have dreamt up such specific details?
He smacked the ball up into the air in frustration.
"58! 59! 60! ...61!"
Why did it feel as though he was reliving the same events from before? And why was he the only one who seemed affected by it all?
"62! 63! 64! 65!"
The same, familiar voices of his friends encouraged him to keep going - worded exactly as before. It was peculiar, like listening to echoes in a cave.
Hayner: "Come on, you bonehead! Focus!"
Olette: "You can do it, Roxas!"
And Pence: "You got this!"
"66! 67!"
Bells. The bells Roxas once found comfort in, now harsh and alarming.
Here they rang again, causing Roxas to lose his footing and nearly miss the ball.
"68! 69! 70! 71! 72! 73!"
Roxas clutched his head with his free hand. What was the score he achieved before? He forced the memory to come. 74. He made it to 74, previously. If he could just make it past that number, maybe nothing would repeat anymore. Even if he couldn't beat Seifer's record, nothing would repeat. Nothing would repeat. He just needed a 75, and nothing would repeat.
74!
The blue ball froze mid air making a 75 impossible. The sea of faces in the crowd abruptly stopped cheering; they too, froze. Time stopped entirely.
Roxas, greatly distressed, turned in every direction. The frozen faces surrounding him, the frozen sunset above him, those bells, it was all too much to take in.
He searched desperately for answers until he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the world briefly pixilate. He'd seen that before, hadn't he? Yes, of course, it was when he confronted that man in the black coat. Perhaps he knew what was going on, why everything was happening all over again.
Having nowhere else to go, he ran as fast as his legs would take him to the back alley.
There, he was greeted by emptiness. Greatly aggravated, he took the blue bat still in his hands and swung it aggressively for some time.
Why was this happening? Why did everything stop? Why couldn't he have made it to 75? Why him? All he wanted was to spend time with his friends. All he wanted was to enjoy the remainder of his summer vacation. All he wanted was… What did he want, truly? He continued swinging his bat. He wanted time, he concluded. He wanted time, needed it, actually, and the world simply wasn't giving it to him.
"Roxas, are you okay?" asked a warm voice suddenly.
With a stumble back in surprise, Roxas looked up to see the speaker, Olette. Hayner and Pence stood beside her.
Roxas had so much to say to them, yet he caught himself unable to form a single word.
"I know!" Pence exclaimed, attempting to make Roxas feel better. "Let's go get some ice-cream!"
"That sounds like fun, doesn't it, Roxas?" Olette asked, smiling kindly as she brought her hands behind her back.
Hayner nodded. "It's been awhile since you had some ice-cream. Maybe that's why you're acting like such a weirdo." He smirked at Roxas's reaction.
"I'm not acting like a…" He trailed away and thought of the previous Grandstander game. "But what about Seifer?" he asked. "I still have to beat his record." 75. That was all he needed. Not to beat Seifer, but to ensure that nothing repeated.
"What Grandstander game?" Pence asked curiously.
Hayner placed a lazy arm over Roxas's shoulder. He faked despair. "Poor Roxas. He can't go a day without ice-cream without losing his mind!"
Roxas lightly shoved him away and allowed himself to forget everything to laugh. "It's been more than just one day," he argued.
"Oh yeah?" Hayner challenged. "How long has it been, then?"
Roxas opened his mouth. Two days, four hours, ten minutes, and three seconds. Why did he know that? Was he...counting? He just shook his head and kept his mouth shut that time.
Olette laughed into her hand. "You know," she said. "When we get there, make sure to check your sticks before throwing them away."
Roxas's smile faded. He felt his muscles stiffen. He'd heard that before, but from Hayner. Now...Olette was mentioning it?
"Why's that?" Pence asked.
But why didn't Pence recognize the contest that time? What changed?
"If your stick has a WINNER printed on it, you can take it into the shop and get a prize," Olette continued, nodding.
"With all the ice-cream Roxas eats, finding that WINNER stick will be a piece of cake," Hayner said, amused, and all but Roxas shared a laugh.
Roxas said nothing.
"Well then what are we waiting for?" Pence asked, throwing his arms up into the air. "Let's go!"
Roxas needed a moment to figure everything out, to piece together all the strange, recurring events. "You guys go ahead," he said. "I'll catch up."
Hayner studied him, but ultimately gave in to his request. "Alright," he said simply, and he and the others walked away after exchanging worried glances.
Roxas closed his eyes. What was happening? Could it all be just one large coincidence?
Before he could contemplate too deeply, a voice spoke immediately as if waiting for Hayner and the gang to leave.
"Well, well, well, don't you look like quite the trainwreck."
Roxas opened his eyes upon hearing the voice he instantly recognized. He needed someone to blame for everything that happened, and without a second thought, he chose the man with the fiery hair and personality to match.
"You again!" Roxas exclaimed, glaring.
"Surprise," said the man, smirking. He leaned against the wall with one foot on the building and with his arms crossed.
"Tell me," Roxas demanded. "What's going on!?"
The man pulled out the white envelope again. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Roxas?" He spoke slowly as if analyzing the boy.
The blond balled his hands into fists. He exploded. "What is it that you aren't telling me? Why did everything that happened before happen again? And why am I the only one who sees it?"
The man laughed tauntingly and neglected to answer a single question.
"Answer me!" Roxas demanded.
The man tucked the envelope back into his pocket. Roxas's anger was starting to get to him. "It's a glitch, Roxas," he spat.
Roxas was no longer upset. Such a response caught him off guard. "Huh?"
The man straightened. "Don't you understand?" he said. "None of this is real. It's all just his creation. You're being lied to. Those people you just saw - they aren't your friends."
Roxas huffed, his anger returning. He spoke quietly. "How can you just say that?" he asked. "Hayner, Pence, Olette… Of course they're my friends. Who do you think you are...to say otherwise?"
The man was frowning. Then, an idea came to him. "How long has it been, Roxas?"
"What?"
The man clarified. "How long has it been, since we last shared ice-cream?" He crossed his arms.
Roxas glared. Was the man taunting him further? He wanted to yell out that they never shared ice-cream before, and that they never would. Only friends shared ice-cream. They weren't friends! They were far from it! How audacious was this man, to ask such a thing?
How audacious was this man, to ask him how long ago had it been since they were friends?
But Roxas said none of this. He just couldn't bring himself to do it, and he didn't understand why.
His answer, in actuality, surprised himself. It was automatic, precise, and felt like it belonged to a stranger.
"Two weeks, three days, two hours, one minute, and seventeen seconds."
Roxas and the man fell silent.
But how did Roxas say that so effortlessly?
There was a trace of sadness in the man's green eyes. "See?" He looked to the sky. "You got the number memorized."
Then, before he could say anything, the sound of bells struck Roxas like a slap to the face.
He shut his eyes tightly in a feeble attempt to escape. When he opened them, he was laying peacefully on his bed.
He wanted to scream, but would good would that do him? He jumped out of his bed and scrambled to the door. This was his chance to make sure things went differently this time around.
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"Let me guess," Roxas interrupted before the upset Hayner could say it. "Seifer beat my high score in Grandstander."
Hayner stared at him. "How'd you know I was going to say that?"
Roxas forced a smile. "Just a feeling I had."
"You have to go and defend your title," Pence insisted, and Olette nodded in agreement.
"We'll be there to cheer you on," she added.
Roxas took a small breath. A glitch, the man called it. His creation, he said. You're being lied to.
The gut wrenching feeling returned.
But he refused it to be a glitch. A glitch would imply that the world wasn't real, and if the world wasn't real, what was? Hayner, Pence, Olette, they were real. They had to be.
Things wouldn't repeat again. Roxas would make sure of it.
"Seifer could keep the title," he said. "I don't really mind."
Hayner was the most startled by his comment. "What do you mean?" he asked, demanded, even.
Summer vacation would be ending soon. Perhaps that was why the sound of bells frightened him so. He was afraid of running out of time.
Roxas's voice cracked slightly. "I just want to spend time with you guys." There was so much on his mind, and yet, that was all he needed to say.
Hayner, Pence, and Olette all looked at one another, and then to Roxas.
"Okay," Hayner said. "How about we go get some ice-cream, then?" He and the others smiled.
Roxas nodded weakly.
"Hey, and you know what?" Pence said excitedly. "If there's a WINNER on the stick, you can take it into the shop and win something!"
Now Pence was mentioning it? Roxas tried not to think too much of it.
"What are the chances of finding one of those?" Olette questioned.
"With our luck, probably one in a million," Hayner said, laughing. "But we have all the time in the world! Odds are, one of us is bound to find one, right?"
Pence and Olette nodded in unison.
Roxas looked to his friends. Just being there with them, listening to them, made him smile and forget everything.
"And besides, being a Grandmaster Champion isn't all it's cracked up to be. Being a Struggle Champion, now that's a different story!" Hayner exclaimed with a grin.
Roxas nodded. "Yeah," he said.
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Axel, sitting alone on the clock tower, sighed. Maybe, he thought, instead of asking Roxas how long ago they shared ice-cream, he should have asked how much longer until they could again. He took a bite out of his ice-cream and watched the sunset. It was, he noticed, particularly beautiful that day. He looked beside him to point out the view only to be reminded that his best friend was still worlds away.
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"Have you fixed it, DiZ?" asked the tall, hooded figure.
The man in red, who sat by the computers, nodded. "It took longer than previously anticipated, but my digital Twilight Town and its inhabitants should be functioning properly now. That is, time should no longer loop."
"And Roxas?"
"Naminé is working on adjusting his memories of the previous catastrophe now."
The hooded man lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry all this had to happen to him. All the glitch did was waste what little time he has left."
The man just laughed coldly. "Do not concern yourself over the wellbeing of a Nobody, Riku," he said.
"I already told you to call me Ansem," the man said plainly.
DiZ laughed as if he were enjoying the most amusing, private joke.
"Still, isn't there something you can do for him?" Ansem asked when the laughter faded.
"I'm doing far more than enough for the Nobody," DiZ said indifferently. "Did I not allow him to spend the remainder of his time in a perfect world?"
"I guess so. But, still…"
"That is enough."
"So be it," Ansem said. He turned away. "I'm going to check up on Naminé's progress. Let me know if you find the source of that glitch."
The man in red gazed thoughtfully into the computer screen. Roxas and his friends sat atop the clock tower oblivious to the previous events. It was when he saw Roxas so blissfully unaware that everything came together: the source of the glitch was Roxas himself.
The digital world was meant to serve as a distraction for Roxas, a means of forgetting his past in the Organization. Following such logic, a glitch would mean anything that had Roxas remember the past. In this special case, it was Roxas; Roxas was, perhaps subconsciously, attempting to remember the past.
But why?
DiZ considered it. It started after Roxas spoke with that blasted Nobody. Perhaps something that Nobody said to him sparked something deep within. Perhaps…
DiZ felt himself slam a fist on his keyboard. Of course! It was whatever was inside of that envelope that triggered some part of Roxas to try and remember.
"The source was a miscalculation on my part," DiZ concluded distantly. "Nothing more, nothing less. I will not allow it to happen again." But he seemed to be keeping something to himself, something he wouldn't dare admit out loud.
Ansem nodded once realizing that DiZ would most likely never tell him the true source of the glitch. Then, without another word, he walked away.
DiZ, now in solitude, continued watching the screen.
A mere miscalculation, he thought to himself. The glitch was the result of a mere miscalculation.
But just what was inside that envelope? He pondered over it for some time until realizing Roxas had been giving him the answer all along.
It was the only variable that he never coded into the system that still somehow showed up in all three time loops - a community ice-cream contest.
DiZ raised a suspicious eyebrow every time one of three of Roxas's friends mentioned it, but he ultimately thought little of it due to its seemingly harmless nature, but now… Now it didn't seem as harmless as he initially thought it to be.
Roxas must have somehow created the contest himself. DiZ assumed that he would never understand how, but he knew that it was, without a doubt, Roxas's doing.
But why? Why did Roxas want to remember his past? Why forget such a perfect life in exchange for a nonexistent one, if it meant being a WINNER? Why did he want to win that badly, so as to go that far?
A faint sense of guilt plagued the old man's heart as he mused further. Impulsively, he began typing away at a few lines of a potentially risky code.
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Hayner, Pence, and Olette eagerly spoke of the time Roxas single handedly reclaimed his Grandstander Championship title as if it happened years ago, and not only that afternoon.
"82!" Hayner reminded everyone. "Roxas scored 82!" He was grinning proudly.
Roxas, in his own world, focused his undivided attention on the sunset. The voices of his friends played distantly behind him. The sunset was just so beautiful that day, and he couldn't help but to marvel at it. He ate his ice-cream as he did, and while not even realizing it, he reset the timer to 0 seconds ago, in terms of how long ago he and his friends shared ice-cream.
He smiled. Bells chimed sweetly. All was right with the world.
When he eventually finished his ice-cream, he looked back up in surprise with a soft gasp after carefully observing his stick.
"Guys," he announced, unaware of how painstakingly ironic his next statement really was. "It looks like...it looks like I'm a WINNER!"
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