Title: Cities in Reverse (Part 1 of ??)
Rating: PG for this chapter - will rise for later chapters.
Summary: It's an old story. Evil threatens world. Boy defeats evil, saves world and learns important life lessons. It's too bad that, this time, the boy in question doesn't technically exist. University AU.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Never have, never will.

prologue: the boy who didn't exist

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Before Sora had left, his mother had made a list of things to watch out for at university. She'd warned him about the dangers of skipping classes, drug dealers, and shaking hands with people who had colds. She'd created an entire slideshow devoted to the virtues of doing one's laundry, subtitled Attack Of The Sentient Mushrooms: Dangerous Species Discovered In Laundry Baskets Through The Ages. Now, in his time of dying, Sora just wished that he'd listened a little harder when she'd given him the list of things to pack in case of emergency.

He was pretty sure that there'd been a kit for not being squashed to death by your best friend somewhere on it.

Footsteps carried through the door flung open in Kairi's wake. "Nice size for a closet," Riku remarked as Sora flailed and scrabbled for a grip on something, anything that would save him. He peered down at the scattered cardboard boxes – Sora hadn't quite finished unpacking when he'd opened the door and Kairi had tackled him – before nudging them out of the way. "Didn't know they still made 'em so small."

Sitting squarely on Sora's chest, Kairi made a face at him. "Oh, yeah, rub it in," she said. "Just because you don't have to live on-campus any more. You'll miss all the fun, secluded in your little apartment."

"Tell me that again after you get a roommate who wanders in at three in the morning and throws up all over your notes."

"You mean the notes you took that said, and I quote, 'frlwtz pizza grble'?"

"Kairi--" Sora managed, arms flopping on the mattress. His vision had started to shimmer. "Cho... king--"

Kairi looked down. "Hmm? Oh!" She scrambled to her feet and offered him a hand. "Sorry. I forgot. I guess you're still kinda..."

Deep breaths. One, two, three… Soon his vision had cleared enough for Sora to see the worry in her blue eyes. "It's okay," he promised, waving her away with a wan smile. "I'm lots better now. Give it two more months and I'll be sitting on you."

She planted her hands on her hips. "Hmph. You wish! I still can't believe you didn't tell us that you were coming to Ansem University until the last minute."

Sora sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head. "I didn't know if I could still get in or not. I barely got an interview. Mom had to threaten the Dean of Admissions."

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Isn't he the one who keeps all those lances on his office wall?" Kairi asked.

"Professor Xaldin," Riku said, leaning against the wall. His eyes were steady on Sora, though when he spoke his tone was casual. "I took his course in ancient weaponry last trimester."

"Huh?" Sora glanced between Kairi and Riku. "I thought Xaldin was his first name."

Kairi perched on the railing at the foot of Sora's bed. "It is," she said. "Ansem University's just weird. Everybody on staff goes by their first names."

"Probably because the university was founded in honor of some crazy guy with amnesia who only had a first name."

"A-ha!" Kairi's head came up. She jabbed a finger at him. "I knew you didn't sleep through the whole orientation!"

Riku rolled his eyes. "That's because I had to go through it twice. You dragged me to yours, remember?"

"It wasn't dragging," she protested. "More like light tugging. You folded after five seconds, so it's not like you really tried to get out of it."

"I didn't fold."

"Did too. Like cheap origami."

"Whatever. Anyway, hard to sleep when someone elbows you every five minutes."

Rising, Kairi put her hands behind her back and skipped over to him. "Admit it," she sang, "you liked it."

Riku opened his mouth, then closed it again under the combined force of Sora and Kairi's stares. "It was okay," he admitted grudgingly.

"Okay?" Kairi laughed and whirled back to Sora. "He bought Ansem's biography," she confided. "And slept with it under his pillow for a whole week!"

"Shut up, Kairi." Riku aimed a lazy kick in her direction. Giggling, she danced out of the way.

As they bickered, the last of the tension from the eight-hour drive seeped from his shoulders. Sora leaned back and laughed. For a moment, the dorm walls vanished and he was fifteen again, the waves hissing around his ankles and his toes digging into the sand. Fifteen, when the world was an endless stream of summer and the only boundary on his world was the sea – there on the beach with his two best friends in the world.

Words rose. A ghost uncoiled in the back of his mind, snaking through his thoughts. Sora shoved them back. Something of the struggle must have shown on his expression, for when he turned back to Riku and Kairi, both of them had stopped and were staring at him.

"Sora?" Kairi's brow furrowed. She reached out, but Sora flinched and she drew back again. Her frown deepened. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, but his voice sounded like a stranger's. "I kind of have to..." At last, Sora took a deep breath and blurted it out: "Roxas is back."

The air stilled. Behind Riku, a teetering stack of boxes overbalanced and crashed to the floor, but Riku was oblivious. The sling of his shoulders was tight; his whole body had sharpened in focus. "Back?" he demanded. "What do you mean, back? How many riots did he cause this time?"

Sora flushed. "He said sorry when that happened! Anyway, he promised never to do it again."

"Uh huh." Riku folded his arms, his frame still taut. "Just stay away from the zoo. I don't think we can convince any of our parents to pay the fee again, and my financial aid won't cover fines for stampeding flamingos."

He'd meant to tell them later, when the shock of seeing them after months of being sequestered in his house had worn off. But now that he'd started, there was no point in delaying it any more. "That's not all, though."

Riku shook his head. " How many more voices?"

"No, not more voices, it's not that big. It's not like Roxas is breeding up there." Sora halted. "I think."

Roxas did not speak, but Sora felt a sudden indignation flash through his veins. By the time he'd restrained it, Riku had turned to the door. "In that case," he said as he strolled out, "let's go to lunch. I haven't eaten all morning because Kairi wanted to stake out your place."

"Hey, you wanted to see him too!"

"Yeah, but you fell asleep on your shift."

"I did not!"

"Did too. You drooled all over my shirt."

Kairi flicked at him in dismissal and glanced back for Sora. "Come on, Sora. Hurry up." She smiled. "Or you're buying."

"That's not f—" Sora sprang out of bed, almost tripping over his suitcase in his haste to get to the door. Kairi was waiting for him at the threshold as he skidded to a stop.

"It's okay, you know. About Roxas." She laced her fingers. "Namine's been worried about him."

"You mean, you still talk to--"

She smiled at him, but it was Namine's smile - gentler, a little less confident – and Namine's odd, perceptive gaze slanting out through Kairi's eyes. "Extra personalities have to stick together, right?"

Roxas had begun in scars: a far-flung galaxy of bruises and scratches across his body. Being ten, Sora thought nothing of them. He blamed the sand that poured from his clothes each sunset when he returned from the beach; the rough path to perfecting the art of climbing trees; Riku, who seemed to have hit an early growth spurt that summer and used his newfound advantage to sit on Sora whenever possible.

It was only when he started to hear the voice that he realized something else might be the problem.

He didn't figure it out right away. Everyone had an imaginary friend at one point in their lives, right? True, Sora was kind of old for one. He'd never really needed an invented companion before – not when he had two real ones at his side. But things changed – things had changed – and Roxas's company was much better than being alone.

Then came the day when Roxas was sitting in a corner – not a real corner, he couldn't see Roxas no matter how he tried – and Sora was struggling to do his homework. Instead of letting him be, Roxas came over to watch him do it. After the fifth problem, he said, No, that's wrong, and reached out to fix Sora's errors.

And Sora's hand started to move on its own.

After the first scare, it wasn't really a big deal. Roxas wasn't invasive; he came and went like a spirit, and hardly ever spoke. Plus, he was was better at mathematics than Sora would ever be and could be persuaded – through horrifically sloppy mistakes – to correct Sora's homework for him. And it was nice – great, even – to have company during the school season after Kairi's parents started cracking down on her studies and Riku tumbled into the black hole known as school sports.

Then he started to forget things.

Little idle facts, like what he'd been doing in social studies or what he'd said to cause his art teacher's mouth to screw so tight every time she looked at him. He'd never had a great memory for school facts, so he didn't worry about it - didn't even bother to ask Roxas whether he knew what they'd been taught in science that day. Eventually he really did forget about it and it slipped from his thoughts into oblivion.

Until the day his eighth-grade language arts teacher passed back their assignments.

She got through half the stack without blinking, handing each over with mechanical precision. As her eye fell on the next paper, however, she stopped, adjusted her glasses and squinted.

"Roxas?" she called at last, and Sora felt shock slide through his nerves like a knife.

He walked home without Kairi or Riku that day, stumbling blind down the sidewalk with his backpack heavy on his spine. For several blocks, they didn't say anything. When he reached for Roxas at last, he said only, Is it because you're lonely?

This clearly threw Roxas. What?

That's why I keep losing time, right? You're coming out. Because there's nobody to talk to but me. Sora hesitated. Roxas kept silent, and the quiet filled him until he could not think. Is that why?

I guess. He could feel it as Roxas shifted: his restlessness clouded Sora's veins. Sometimes I just get bored. And you need to stop doing the math problems wrong on purpose. I don't always get to all of them and then the teacher gives us funny looks.

Riku said that math was going to take over our brains, Sora said after a second's thought. I didn't think he meant this, though.

Yeah, I don't think he saw this coming.

So… are you going to do it again?

Not if you don't want me to. It'd be nice to come out, though, Roxas said. Once in a while. Eat ice cream. Feel the sun. He sounded so wistful that Sora felt guilty – actually felt the weight of it twist in his chest like a snake. Just being in school was confining enough. He couldn't imagine what it must be like, shut up in the corner of someone's imagination, brought out once in a while to do boring things like math and memorizing timelines. Just because he'd done it all without thinking didn't mean it was any less cruel. Roxas was fun to be around, and nice. He deserved better than that.

Okay, he said. So we'll share. It was a simple revelation, offered as easily as a breath. Roxas didn't respond, and Sora took the opportunity to enjoy the peace of the afternoon. Then the rest of it caught up to him. Hey! Does that mean you're the one who ate all of Mom's sea-salt ice cream?

This time, the silence that emanated from Roxas sounded distinctly shifty.

It was actually kind of funny how easy it was to settle: during school, Roxas got math and art (since the teacher hated them both anyway, she might as well hate the one who asked her where she'd gotten her toupee), and Sora got gym and language arts. Roxas didn't really want more time than that, but Sora insisted on telling Riku and Kairi about it, since Roxas might want to hang out with them someday and how would they feel if they found out that he'd been lurking around just watching them for years?

I don't lurk and it's already been four years, Roxas said, but he agreed.

They told Riku first. Kairi had disappeared under a fresh tsunami of parental expectations, which had taken the form of enrolling her in a pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-law school preparation course. So they waited until after school, then caught Riku as he was heading to blitzball practice.

As it turned out, there wasn't that much to worry about. Riku just stared, then shrugged. "So?"

"Huh?" Sora said. "Didn't you--"

"You're still you, right? Still Sora."

"Yeah, but... sometimes I won't be."

Riku bounced the ball on his knees. "Does..."

"Roxas."

"Does Roxas do stuff that might get you in trouble?"

"No. He doesn't do anything." Not yet, said Roxas, and Sora could feel him staring out at Riku in a way that boded ill. Fumbling around in his mind, Sora sort of shoved at him and, after a long moment, felt him give way with a bad grace.

"…don't see the problem," Riku was saying. "As long as he doesn't try to take over." He looked at Sora – really looked at him this time, and there was an intentness to his gaze that Sora couldn't read. "You won't disappear, right? It doesn't..."

"Nah," Sora said. He grinned, linking his hands behind his head. "You don't get rid of me that easily!"

"Good." Riku looked away. The blitzball dropped to his feet. "'Cause I'd hate to have to buy a punching bag."

"...Hey!"

Kairi had been different.

"You like him, right?" she asked, leaning an elbow on her books. Her mother had gone downstairs only after extensive protests and trailing an announcement that she was timing Sora's visit, and if it lasted a speck more than fifteen minutes she was going to have words with his parents.

Sora stuffed his hands into his pockets. He always felt grubby whenever he spent more than five minutes with Kairi's mother, as if he'd come in fresh from a day of shell-picking at the beach. "Who?"

"Roxas, silly."

"I guess I do, kinda. How'd you know?"

She smiled at him. It was as if the sun had flipped on. "You're you, Sora," she said. "You wouldn't just let something like this happen. You're the strongest person I know." She cocked her head. "Just don't tell Riku I said that."

He laughed. "It's a promise!"

"Can you feel what he feels?"

"Sometimes," Sora said after a pause, because there wasn't really a way to describe what it was like, having Roxas around. He got the feeling that it might have been hard to remember who he was after a while if it weren't for the fact that Roxas was so very different from him – Roxas didn't talk much, but his presence was strong, almost overwhelming. "It's a little weird."

"What's it like?"

"I dunno. He gets lonely, I guess. The only person he really talks to is me."

"Will he talk to me?"

"Hold on, I'll ask." Roxas?

They were still adjusting to the idea of sharing: Roxas was better at blocking things than speaking them; and so, as he tried to form the words, Sora felt bits and pieces of his thoughts sliding through: Kairi was kind and Roxas liked her – much better than he liked Riku, actually – but she was still Sora's friend. No matter what he did, Kairi wouldn't be able to help herself from looking for flashes of Sora in Roxas, and he wanted friends, but he didn't want to be someone's ghost—

"He doesn't want to, does he?"

Sora didn't realize that she had spoken until he saw her gaze fixed on him, bright and trusting. "Huh?" As it filtered through, he waved his hands in quick denial. "Kairi, it's not that, he just—"

Kairi touched his arm. "It's okay," she said, and he stopped. "I've got an idea."

"What?'

Her eyes sparkled as she pressed a finger to her lips. "It's a secret!"

Before he could question her, Kairi's mother started up the stairs, footsteps sounding into the room like thunderclaps, and Sora was forced to make a hasty exit through the window. "Tell you on movie night!" Kairi hissed at him as he clambered down the oak. She sounded happier than he had heard from her in days. Sora tried to give her a thumbs-up and nearly fell out of the tree.

Movie night was a tradition they'd arranged after Kairi's parents had gone neurotic and started tossing about ominous terms like 'M.B.A' and 'pre-med' at a girl who hadn't even graduated elementary school yet. On Fridays, they'd gather up all of Kairi's insane textbooks and drag them over to Riku's house for what was ostensibly a study session. In reality, Riku would pick three random movies out of his father's extensive collection and they'd watch them in the den while trying to figure out how to get rid of the books without arousing suspicion.

To be fair, this had given them a thorough education in things like What To Do When Killer Tomatoes Attack.

Kairi was usually the earliest of the three. Once, when blitzball practice had run late, she'd even beat Riku to his house and made it halfway through Killer Tomatoes Eat France! before he came in at last. That Friday, however, she didn't show up until towards the end of their second movie.

"Look who decided to show up after all—" Riku started, glancing back, and halted abruptly. Without looking away, he found the remote and paused. "Jesus, Kairi, what happened to you?"

Kairi – looked down, toeing the carpet. She tucked her hands underneath her arms as if to hide her white summer dress. "Hello, Riku," she said quietly.

"Kairi?" Sora jumped up from the couch, striding towards her. Before he could touch her, however, Roxas said, That's not Kairi.

What?

Don't you see it? She's not Kairi.

Sora stopped, lowering his arms. The girl who was not Kairi still hadn't looked up. Kairi, Sora thought, would have met his eyes, would have grinned and teased him about not knowing how to greet her. She would have done a thousand things by now. The girl before him only stood and waited.

Uncertainly, he asked, "Who… are you?"

She tilted her head. He glimpsed Kairi's pleased look in her eyes. "Namine," she answered. "And you must be…"

This time he felt it: Roxas' waiting presence rising from the depths of his mind like a storm. Sora let go, or tried to. It was still such a strange thought to be splitting his life with someone else – as if a body were just a house, just a frame for other things. Eventually they figured it out, and Roxas surfaced to smile down at Namine. "I'm Roxas," he said.

"…what are you guys doing," Riku said from the couch.

Drifting at the back of their shared thoughts with nothing better to do than observe, Sora could see the strain that snapped through Namine as Kairi held back the instinctive retort. Namine wasn't real after all, just a ghost Kairi had conjured up to keep Roxas company. Roxas knew it too, but Sora could feel happiness humming through his thoughts like quiet electricity. It was enough.

"Seriously, I have the weirdest friends in the world," Riku muttered. "If you guys don't get over here right now, I'm going to finish watching Night of the Living Dead without you."

The moment passed. Namine straightened and the illusion of her slipped away into Kairi. White dress flaring behind her, she marched over to the sofa and planted herself on the far side of the couch. "I was introducing Namine to Roxas," Kairi told him. "You should have come over to say hello." As Roxas returned to Sora's seat, she beamed up at him and patted the space between herself and Riku.

"Great," Riku said. "More reasons for me to call the asylum." In the flickering lights of the attacking zombies, Roxas could barely see the hard twist to his mouth and his brows drawing together. It disappeared as he caught Roxas' eye.

"Just remember," he added, "Roxas and Namine don't get votes on movie night. Unless they're on my side."

And so it went for two years.

Midway through junior year, Sora came down with a fever. His mother checked his temperature and promptly forbade him from walking, talking, or going to school. This was just as well, since by lunch he was delirious.

In his dreams he walked through a desert full of monsters and into a sea of doors. As he passed them, finger-bones reached through the locks, grasping for his limbs. They never reached him; their wrists stuck in the locks, trapped and writhing. He wanted to stop and help them, but his legs never slowed; he walked away as those skeletal hands strained to touch him and never looked back.

For instants and centuries and days, Sora wandered among the dunes, weaving his way back to the doors. Each time he returned, he could hear a faint choir growing louder.

By the third return, he knew that they were screaming.

He didn't know when he woke. It was so simple a thing that he didn't see how he could have missed how to do it in the dream. One day, he just opened his eyes, and there they were: his parents clustered at the foot of the bed, and Riku at his side.

Sora blinked rustily. "Guys?" he said – or started to say. His voice cracked and faltered before he could make it through. His parents gasped and clung together, both almost falling over themselves to babble at him, though he could barely make out the words. He turned his head to find that Riku had sort of just – crumpled at his side, one hand tight on Sora's wrist.

"I was worried," he said in low tones. "We were all so worried. D'you know how long you've been like that? You idiot. Idiots." In spite of the chaos, Sora could hear that Riku's words were cracking too.

They were worried for us, he told Roxas. Us. You and me.

No response came.

Roxas?

Only in the wake of his own words did he feel it: the void where Roxas had been. There was no presence there now. Sora was alone inside his own head for the first time in years. Roxas was gone.

Kairi leaned both elbows on the table and knocked. Sora started out of his memories. "Is that why you were sick for most of senior year, too? You didn't come to school and your mom wouldn't let us anywhere near you." She sipped at her coffee, made a horrible face, and elbowed it discreetly in Riku's direction. "I came up with this whole big plan to get in to see you. Riku stopped me."

"Hey, it's not like I wanted to," Riku snapped, and Sora could see the differences in him, then: the sharper lines to his jaw, lankness of his pale hair, deep shadows under his eyes that had just started to fade. It must have been hard enough for Kairi, Roxas thought for them both, who'd have been there to check with his mother every week. Riku would have been away for his first year of college. He couldn't have come back very often, no matter how he wanted to. "What if we'd gotten him sicker?"

"I know." Kairi looked down at her plate. "I was just so worried."

"I'm sorry," Sora said. "I didn't mean to make you guys feel bad."

They all fell silent, picking listlessly at their separate bowls. Kairi recovered first. "It's all right, Sora. But from now on, you have to get better faster, okay?" She brandished her spoon. "Or else Riku and I really will break into your room in the middle of the night."

Riku picked up her discarded coffee and dropped it on Sora's tray. "You say that now," he remarked. "Wait 'til you hit finals. You won't even think about doing anything other than studying then."

"No, that's you. Just because you can't stand to be second doesn't mean everyone else can't. Oh!" She punched her palm. "Sora, what were you going to say about Roxas?"

"Huh?" Sora scratched his head.

"After the fever, you said," she prompted. "He came back, but..?"

"Oh yeah." He nodded. "Roxas is a little bit… different now."

"Wasn't he always a little bit different?" Riku asked. "I thought that was the point."

"No, I mean he doesn't… It's like he's not the same person anymore."

Riku stared. "So, what," he said. "Even your multiple personalities have multiple personalities?"

Sora toyed with his spoon. "It's not really a personality, I don't think. He just kind of..."

Forgets, he wanted to say, but that wasn't really the right word. It was still the same presence, same sensation of another soul settling over his memories. Sometimes it would seem perfectly normal, as if Roxas hadn't disappeared for a year and come back with no idea of where he'd been. He talked just as he had before. Then, just when Sora was on the brink of forgetting, Roxas would turn and all his thoughts would flash to winter - but only for an instant.

Afterwards he'd frown and retreat, and Sora wouldn't hear from him for a while.

"Okay," Kairi said. Sora started, realizing that he'd been staring gloomily down at his rice. "You guys are so depressing that you're actually making my steak melt. Let's talk about something else."

"So," Riku said dryly. "How 'bout them--"

"Not blitzball." She turned to Sora. "Hey. What courses did you sign up for?"

"Well... I got here late, so I'm getting the really basic ones." He counted them off. "That one computer science course that counts for math credit…" I'm not helping you with computers, Roxas said. Anything that explodes in there is your own fault. "German 300. History 250..."

Kairi beamed. "Oh, yeah! I'm taking that with Professor Donald."

"Hey, me too!"

"Man." Riku leaned back in his chair to fix them both with a superior, pitying look. "You guys are in for it."

"What?"

"Didn't you hear yet? Professor Donald flunks half his class on a regular basis. If it weren't for Goofy and the grading curve, nobody would ever pass."

"Goofy?"

"History 250's a joint class, Sora." Kairi looked at him wryly, eyes slanting. "Did you forget to read the course book?"

"Uhhh..." His guilty look was answer enough.

"You're going to get behind," Riku said, drumming his fingers along the edge of the table. "I had him for a class last year, and—"

"Riku, whose class didn't you take last year?"

"Keep talking like that and you can borrow someone else's notes."

Kairi only smiled at him. "But I trust you, Riku," she said. "You wouldn't leave a friend in need, would you?"

Riku grumbled.

Laughing, Sora pushed back his chair to get dessert. As he strode towards the ice cream cart, he bumped shoulders with someone in passing. "Oh!" He backed up a few steps. "Sorry."

The stranger's brilliant eyes widened and narrowed in an instant, flicking over Sora's features. His mouth tightened, lips pressed thin. Then, all at once, he relaxed. "Sure, it's nothing." He dismissed it with a wave of a gloved hand, already looking elsewhere. "Move along, kid."

Sora wandered on. The stranger did not.

Ducking into the nearest alcove, he settled in to watch as Sora dug enthusiastically and somewhat ineptly at the ice cream. He didn't move, even when a shorter figure came up beside him. "Of course," the other remarked at last. "Stay here. Someone is bound to notice you and deport you from campus – which, I'm certain, is precisely your intent. Would you like to report our plans to the other side while you're at it?"

"Nice to see you too." The first man leaned an elbow on the wall of the alcove. "You sure we got the right guy?"

"I am certain."

"'Cause I've gotta say, he doesn't look much like--"

"If you'd like, you may approach him again."

"Really now."

The second man crossed his arms. "So long as you're willing to face the consequences, who am I to stop you? Each of us is to have unchecked autonomy, remember. Freedom from interference. And if it is your will to summarily ruin what we have been building for centuries--"

"Talk about easy to annoy. You should work on that." With a grand whirl, he started up the stairs out of the dining area. His companion followed, brows twitching. "So who're we sending in for recon?"

"You and I are to go in first and see if a subtle extraction can be managed. If it cannot..."

"Got it."

"No, you don't."

"Really? What'd I miss?"

"Everything I was going to say before you interrupted me."

"And what were you going to say?" Before the second could answer, the first swept on. "Let me guess: ominous threat, babble about how we have to bring the walls down soon if we're gonna get anywhere, icy sneer, ominous threat?"

"Bear in mind that this mission is not for your amusement, Axel."

"Don't worry about it. I've got this." Axel cracked his knuckles. He glanced over the railing for one last look. Sora had rejoined the table and all three of them were laughing now. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Zexion."

"The ride to Hell, I suppose?" Zexion said scathingly. Axel only quickened his pace and disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

to be continued

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