Why no, I never played Chain of Memories. What's your point?

- Gira

11. MEMORY — She didn't know it was wrong. She didn't. At the beginning, it had been what her masters told her to do: change the memory, switch them, fiddle them however you like. Add yourself in. Cause bubble, bubble, toil and trouble wherever you went. Ransack it, they had said once.

What ugly words.

But she had kind of known what they meant, and she did just that — she bore a connection to Sora, a strange, strange connection, and that was how she was able to coax his mind in the wrong direction. That was all she was good for, playing with Sora, changing him and molding him into a form that the people in black deemed appropriate. All she knew, all she knew, was that it was okay. She could do that. She was told to do that, and what could she do otherwise? Reject it? Hardly. They had shown her what they could do, all of them, and they made it clear that she would share the fate of that poor little Assassin the red-headed man had brought up, just to be felled by his own master, and plenty of others besides.

Naminé didn't want to end up that way, so she did what she was told.

Why had she done what she was told?

All alone in the moonlight—

Saïx couldn't bring himself to look at it anymore.

The great heart-shaped moon hung over them all, taunting them, mocking them. 'Ah, look at me,' it said. 'See me? Yes? Good! You can use me! But not yet, not yet… I want more. More. I can't spare a few hearts, no I can't, until I have more!' The blue-haired man very nearly said this out loud, in a mocking tone of voice, before he felt the uncomfortable stretching of skin on his face that suggested maybe getting riled up wouldn't be such a good idea. Still… he had followed the Superior's orders, and he had selected the renegades and the pests. The Superior hadn't questioned his decisions, except for with Vexen, and that was only for a little while — but Saïx had reminded him that they had other smart people in the Organization, and they could use his notes.

Xemnas didn't seem to recall that the other smart members of the Organization were Zexion (now on death row) and Xemnas himself.

It was all for the good of the Organization, he told himself over and over again. The good of the Organization, the good of the Organization.

Right.

I can smile at the old days—

"Wait!"

The Riku Replica waited.

"Who cares if someone created you? You are you, and nobody else — you have your own heart inside you! Those memories are yours, and yours alone… they're special!"

"Sora, you're a good guy." The Replica turned his head around, so that it was facing the side with one eye on his spike-haired companion. "I don't have to be real to see how real your feelings are… and that's good enough for me." He started walking then, ignoring Sora's pained yell of "Riku!" that echoed behind him. The Riku Replica didn't have the heart to tell Sora otherwise — that he wasn't Riku, that he was just a Replica, a copy, a fake made by some deranged blond man who had later paid dearly for all of his sins. (The Replica tended to consider himself as the top of the list.) He had tried to make this clear to the boy, but it just wouldn't go through — he looked like Riku to Sora, and therefore, he had to be Riku.

The Riku Replica clung to his false memory.

He saw a truth within lies. Sora had always been that way, just a little too slow on the upswing. But he was also loyal, so loyal, and friendly as a human could be. This he saw from the depths of his mind. He knew it to be true, though… even if Naminé was the one he wanted to protect, he knew Sora now, and he thought he knew Sora then. They matched up. He was the same, he was Sora. Totally inherently Sora. He had acted so crudely to Sora based off of those memories, too, but he used them as basis for, well, everything. Underneath, he saw. He knew. Sora was friendly, to everyone, to everyone — and even though Sora thought he was someone else, or knew and refused to accept it, he was the Riku Replica's friend too.

'Riku' grinned at that. All Sora saw was his back.

I was beautiful then.

The castle had a heartbeat.

It had a sentience, a life, a memory. It knew what it was, it knew what it had been, and it kind of knew what it would become. Many had walked its halls, some with good intents in mind, others not. It had watched the growth and creation of many, and it felt the things they felt. It just wanted people to be within it, to be using it — like any living thing, the castle was becoming deranged. People. Inhabitance. They could use it for whatever they wanted, it didn't care, it just wanted people. And soon, soon, a new one came in. A little boy, so like the old, who carried a fantastical weapon and was followed by good friends. He was going up the castle, and he was growing, and the castle saw that and was proud. But the novelty began to wear down, and soon, it could hardly bring itself to watch the procession of deception. It was being misused… this had never happened under previous management. It saw the top dogs, and it saw how they acted. It saw what they did, the minds they fractured like nothing, up to and including that poor little girl.

Castle Oblivion didn't like that. It didn't like that one bit.

I remember—

Well, no, Sora didn't remember. At least, he didn't at first.

It was all coming back now. A girl, a girl he cared about. Friends with him and Riku. They were on Destiny Islands, just the three of them, having a good old time. This he knew — he knew her position, he knew what she was like. It seemed that the farther up he went, the farther into his lost memory he went. This castle… was it his memory, just by itself? No way, no way. That couldn't be. Anyway. He wanted to know more about her, so he could know what she looked like, or even knew her name. It was like there was a block in his mind, waiting for him to go farther up the Castle, so he could bypass it by some magical virtue. He wouldn't get past the block any other way, and this was a friend. Sora needed to know about his friends.

The Keyblade bearer continued.

—a time I knew what happiness was.

She hadn't done what she was told.

There was no one left around to tell her otherwise. Her friend had taken care of them. She had seen them wash up in front of her, their visages no longer threatening, but just weak, dead. Now, she knew, she could do what she wanted, and before anything else she needed to repay his kindness.

It looked like a giant flower, with Sora standing inside. Looking down at her, his face seemed expressionless, but she got a happy feeling from it — he was trying not to smile. He wanted this. He wanted his memories back, and she wanted to give them back. Because she had wronged him, and he was her friend.

Naminé shifted her weight and looked up.

Let the memory live again!