Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts and I do not make any profit from this story.
Author's Note: So this is basically just a series of one-shots spurred on by the desire to break through my writer's block and get to the ten billion stories I have in progress, haha. I decided I was going to have fun and being creative with this, so I decided to do an a-z series with song titles. If the stories have nothing to do with the song, that's because I'm solely using the word or whatever happens to come to mind while listening to said song.
I apologize to you guys who have me on alert. I had to delete this the first time because the editor screwed with my story, putting a paragraph where it shouldn't have been. I've definitely got to start previewing my stories more often before putting them up...
Aftermath
The little island he, Riku and Kairi always used to go to was silent. The trio hardly went there anymore, wanting to forget everything that happened and try and be normal teenagers for a change. The keyblades, the worlds, the king—all of it was pushed to the side in order for them to rebuild the parts of the lives they missed. Well, Sora and Riku anyways. Kairi at least had the chance to go to school while the boys were still out there.
Nearly a year since the defeat of Xemnas, the worlds were safe and free from heartless. But there was a restlessness in the young hero Sora that even his friends noticed. Even after going back to their normal way of living, he couldn't just push aside the memories of his adventures no matter how much he wanted to. Besides, he had the constant reminder of what happened through the irritable other half of himself that inhabited his heart.
He missed Axel, his best friend and partner, and since Roxas no longer had his own body to cry Sora often cried for him. His heart clenched painfully as Roxas' memories constantly produced images of the clock tower in Twilight Town and Roxas's own friends sitting beside him as they laughed and talked while eating their seasalt ice cream.
There was one particular image that Roxas replayed in Sora's mind that made Sora believe his Nobody felt intense regret. One of ice cream sticks that had the word Winner on it was carefully sealed into an envelope and later placed on Axel's bed. It was Roxas's parting gift to Axel before leaving the castle. But that image would quickly change to a memory of Roxas leaving and Axel stopping him. Usually afterward, Sora knew he would start to cry because he knew the last time Roxas saw Axel was when the redhead had sacrificed his own life in order for Sora to get to the World that Never Was safely.
Lately, Sora found himself walking along the beach on the island where he and the others used to play…before everything happened. Before Riku opened the door in the cave, before the big storm, before he knew he was the Keyblade Master. He stopped, looking out at the ocean, smiling to himself. If he ever had the chance to go back and redo that part of his life, he knew he'd never change any of it. Being the Keyblade Master certainly had its ups and downs, but in the whole, he gained so much from it and it if he was ever needed again, he'd go without hesitation. Because that is who he is.