Repliku stepped out into the pale moonlight, his eyes as wide as the moon itself. This was the first time that he had ever been able to leave Castle Oblivion, and he was utterly enthralled in his surroundings. Whilst staring at the stars, he heard a boom that shook him to his very core; it was the giant white doors of Castle Oblivion slamming behind him. The sound reminded him to stay on edge, and he deftly spun around to face the castle once again, secretly terrified that he was being followed by one of the nobodies. Amusingly enough, he found that the outside of the castle was just as whitewashed and creepy as it was on the inside. Ahh, sickening irony. That's all his life ever seemed to be about, from the moment he was "born" everything had been so stupidly unfair that it was almost hilarious. Almost.
Upon finding that no one had followed him to assassinate him, Repliku made a run for it. He knew he could go through the corridors of darkness to get from place to place, but he also knew that that mode of transportation was slowly corroding him from the inside. Despite his hatred for his life, he wasn't quite ready to kill himself yet.
Even on the run, Repliku watched the world around him. He watched the stars twinkle in the vast, vast, dark blue sky. The moon, which he had only heard of from Namine, was gigantic in the sky, and he suddenly remembered Namine explaining the sky to him.
"The moon and the stars look small, but they're actually huge." Namine said, showing him a picture from her ever present notebook.
"What? How can that be?" Repliku had asked, his eyebrows furrowing in obvious confusion.
"Well each star is actually a whole other world; there's thousands upon thousands of worlds in the universe, and we can see them as stars. The moon is pretty much an uninhabited rock, and it's bigger than anything you can imagine."
"This isn't the only world?" Repliku asked dumbly, trying to take in the information that Namine had provided.
"Nope. In fact, this isn't even the best world out there. In one world, I've heard that they sell this treat called sea-salt ice-cream, and it's the best thing ever created!"
"Ice-cream?"
"It's hard to explain, but just imagine a salty sweet flavour that makes you smile every time you eat it." Namine tried to help Repliku understand the world he had been forced into, but some things were just impossible to comprehend without experiencing them yourself.
Repliku was jolted out of the memory as he felt himself trip over something in the road. He fell flat on his face, and for the first time, experienced what gravel tasted like. He couldn't exactly say that he enjoyed the experience.
After picking himself up, he looked around a little closer to himself. He watched the grass dance in the breeze, something that felt lovely after the stuffiness of the castle. Speaking of which- he whipped around to see how far he had come, and found that he hadn't gotten anywhere. The castle still looked huge and menacing, standing for everything that sucked in his life. This was ridiculous. How did anyone get anywhere by walking around? Even in the castle, he never had the patience to walk from floor to floor; how could he be expected to walk to a new world? Oh well, getting away from those psychos was worth a little self inflicted pain, he reasoned.
Repliku opened the corridor of darkness and stepped in, hopefully for the final time.
What in the…. Where was he?
Repliku was seeing things that Namine had only briefly explained to him before, and it took him some time to remember the names of the numerous oddities that surrounded him.
It was, what was the word? Sunset. It was sunset here, and a….train… was moving along on some tracks in front of him. He wandered around, taking in the craziness around him. He had never seen so much colour before nor so many people. They appeared here and there, doing strange things that he couldn't explain to himself.
Repliku knew that he had never been to this place before, but there was something about it that made him feel reminiscent. He couldn't quite figure out why until he had wandered around for quite some time. It seemed that he had been there for hours, yet the sun hadn't set yet. He specifically remembered Namine telling him that the sun set quickly, and that the moon and the sun traded places with each other in the sky between night and day. So why was night taking so long to come here?
It was when he saw the sign that he remembered. "Twilight Town" was printed on it in big, orange letters. Of course! This was the world that Namine had told him about once- the world that sold sea-slat ice-cream. He couldn't help but smile a bit at the memory. It still hurt him to think about leaving her behind, especially when he wanted to share all of this with her, but there wasn't anything he could do about it- she had even said that. So he decided to enjoy everything he could, for the both of them.
He wandered around some more, wondering where he could get some of this ice-cream stuff while wondering what all of the people around him were doing. It seemed like they were all working, putting things on tables, setting up signs, and all while jovially chattering. What could they possibly be doing?
Finally giving up his search, Repliku took a rest on a bench and leaned his head back. It felt like forever since he had left the castle, and he hadn't sat down once since then. He watched the clouds drift in the orange and yellow coloured sky, until everything seemed to fade away…
Repliku woke to a crack and a boom so loud that he shouted aloud. He jumped up from the bench, realizing that he had fallen asleep there. He searched wildly for his attacker; he looked everywhere around him, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. He had summoned his keyblade, and still refused to put it away until he had looked around some more. In the distance, he heard what sounded a like a crowd of people, and decided to follow the noise to see what all the commotion was about. Maybe it was a heartless making all the noise?
Repliku cautiously made his way down the streets, following the sounds of the crowd the whole way. He had no idea what to expect, but when he came upon the crowd, he knew he hadn't been expecting what he found.
There was a crowd of people all right, but none of them were afraid, and none of them were being attacked by heartless. In fact, the people looked excited, and they were all smiling and cheering happily. A man that Repliku had never seen before was on a large set up of wood, probably so that everyone could see him, and he was talking to the people. They were all crowded around the wooden thing, and Repliku was behind all of them. He was at the top of a hill, far enough from the crowd that he could see them all quite easily. Still utterly confused, he listened to the man, hoping for some kind of explanation.
"I hope everyone has had a wonderful year this year!" The man started. The crowd cheered in response. "This new year should be as prosperous and wonderful as last year as long as we all work as hard and as wonderfully as we did before. I expect great things from everyone, and because of how proud I am, everyone gets free sea-salt ice-cream!" The crowd cheered even louder than before, and the man bowed and began to walk away. He ran back quickly, seemingly haven forgotten something, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I almost forgot. Please enjoy the fireworks!" Then he walked off the wooden platform, and was swallowed by the crowd.
Before Repliku could fully process what the man had said, another explosion went off, this time much louder than the last. Repliku shouted again, covering his ears and ducking for cover. He looked up quickly, embarrassed by his actions when he realized that no one else was afraid of the explosions. Fortunately, he was out of the way, and no one seemed to notice him at all. He watched the other people, wondering what it was that they weren't afraid of. Repliku noticed that most of the people were looking up, and he followed their awed expressions to the sky, only to see a burst of light and colour. Another explosion quickly followed, and Repliku finally figured out what was going on.
"People love to celebrate things, Repliku." Namine said as she drew.
"So what? Where did that even come from?" Repliku said, irritated at his own confusion.
"It's been two weeks since we met, and I thought we should celebrate." Namine confessed, a blush creeping onto her cheeks.
"Oh. Well, what other kinds of things do people celebrate?" Repliku asked, now more curious than ever.
"All kinds of things! A new year, random days they enjoy, birthdays, anything! Somebodies love a chance to enjoy themselves." Namine exclaimed, her face lighting up at the idea.
"But how do they celebrate all of that? And how do they know when to celebrate it?"
"They just keep track of what day it is." Namine shrugged. "And for all the days that they celebrate there are hundreds and thousands of ways that people celebrate. Normally they go and see people that they don't see very often, like old friends. Sometimes they eat and just talk, sometimes they dance or play games, and then, on some occasions, they shoot fireworks." Namine sounded more and more excited the longer she went on. She really seemed jealous of all of the things that Somebodies did.
"Fireworks sound dangerous…" Repliku said, eyes growing wide. Namine laughed at that, causing him to glare at her angrily.
"No, no. Fireworks are beautiful. You shoot them into the sky, and the burst in an explosion of colours that rain down like this." Namine wiggled her fingers in a downward motion, making Repliku laugh out loud.
"You're making that up." He accused.
"Am not!" She laughed, poking him with her pencil playfully.
Repliku blinked, finally looking away from the fireworks when someone poked his arm. He automatically went on the defensive, expecting an attack.
"Whoa man, relax. I'm just giving you your free ice-cream." Said a guy Repliku hadn't seen before. He handed Repliku a blue thing on a stick, and Repliku stared at it in utter confusion. What was he supposed to do with this? "Dude, you just lick it. It's not an alien, I swear." Then the mysterious man walked away.
"What's an alien?" Repliku asked the ice-cream before licking it for the first time.
Another firework went off, and Repliku felt like he was in heaven. Namine had been right, he really couldn't help but smile. This was the best thing he had ever tasted, and the fireworks were more beautiful than Namine could have ever described. He licked the ice-cream again, wishing that she could be there with him.
With another lick, he came to a decision, one he had been contemplating since he had left the castle. Since it was the New Year, it felt appropriate to be making a decision- something that would define him into the new, and hopefully improved, year.
He would save Namine. By this time next year, they would be celebrating New Years here. No matter what she had told him, he could save her. He knew he could do it. Than they would both eat sea-salt ice-cream together and watch the fireworks like she always wanted to.