Notes: another crossover, this time with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This is a fic I originally wrote in French (and forgot I had the English version on LJ and not here), but now you can enjoy it! As usual, it isn't necessary to be familiar with the book universe, though it probably helps.
The Organization members above all worked for themselves, and Roxas was no exception. He joined the group of Nobodies willingly and carried out the missions he was assigned, but he didn't adhere to the pretty speeches of the Superior and would certainly not sacrifice his own interests for someone else's goals.
Another never-ending meeting had just finished and the young man was alone in his room of the Castle That Never Was when he felt a portal of darkness appear near him. A second later, a Samurai was bowing in front of him.
Low-ranked Nobodies copied their behavior from their respective masters; Xaldin's Dragoons imposed their authority upon their peers, Axel's Assassins always acted in the most unpredictable way, and his Samurai stayed focused on their objectives. Namely, as long as Roxas wasn't sent on a mission by the Superior, they looked for the origins of their master.
Sora… Ever since that day, when Xemnas had found Roxas in Twilight Town and had given him his name, he had never wanted to tell him more about his Other. Roxas didn't want to rely only on the Superior. If Xemnas thought that by keeping for himself some information concerning Roxas, he would keep power over him, Roxas wouldn't accept it. Contrary to the others, Roxas had an almost physical need to understand where he came from and get his lost memories back. Thus he could feel whole and more alive. Through Sora, he could give a meaning to his existence. If he could find him.
But it would be better if Xemnas didn't know how he was spending his free time. Roxas checked that the corridor was empty before carefully closing the door and signing to the Samurai to begin his report.
As you know, started the Nobody, most worlds are completely isolated from each other, making their access difficult…
Roxas sighed. Sora had traveled to many worlds, but then he had mysteriously disappeared. He had expected a difficult task, given the huge amount of worlds to visit. But he had started quite a while ago, and still nothing… Roxas was just hoping that Sora hadn't had the bad idea to get himself killed.
However, continued the Samurai, imperturbable, we reached a cluster of bounded worlds, and one of them may have an interesting trail. There are people there who are said to have the power to open anything.
The Keyblade! Roxas was sure that the Keyblade was intimately linked to his past. And he had seen that the powers of his weapon were like no others. Finally a serious trail. These people may know of him or Sora, or at least be able to tell him more about the Keyblade's destiny. As soon as possible, he would personally go there to investigate by himself, low-ranked Nobodies not being bright and independent enough to continue alone.
He listened to the other points of the report, but he was smiling now. Finally a journey he was eager to undertake.
¤¤¤
The Samurai was moving at incredible speed, gliding easily in the air, but Roxas had no difficulty in following him. He was listening to his guide's explanations.
The world we are currently in is called "Neverland". Sora was here a while ago and closed the world's heart. The Keyhole was here, said the Samurai, landing without any sound on the roof of a high squared tower with a clock on each face. The Clock Tower.
Below them was a huge city, its lights distributed here and there in the houses and the streets, forming abstract patterns in the dark night. The beauty of this landscape left Roxas particularly indifferent.
The Clock Tower is a connection point between various worlds that overlap each other and have this place in common. As long as one knows the road, it is possible to travel from one to the other. Please follow me…
The Samurai jumped from the tower and started going from roof to roof. It was following a precise pattern, shifting direction before a chimney or after having leaped over an alley. Their surrounding started to blur and suddenly the sun was high in the sky, as if they had gone through an accelerated dawn. Roxas could now see the inhabitants bustling about. At the entry of a park, a woman smelling of magic attracted his gaze; she was smiling while talking to two captivated children. At the moment they were disappearing from his vision, he saw them jump with another man into a drawing made with chalks on the floor.
Roxas hadn't the time to wonder about what he had just seen, because the Samurai had brought him to a new time-bubble. A thick fog, yellowish and malodorous, prevented him to see where he was going. His guide came closer to him.
Be careful, Master. Some of the scouts lost themselves here. There is a way to a world where the town is at war and one of the Samurai was destroyed in a bombardment.
Things would have been easier if he had been able to simply teleport. On the other side, isolated worlds were the best protected and it certainly explained why the Organization had not been interested in this world, despite the possibility of finding a new Keyblade Wielder…
When they finally emerged out of the bubble, they still were on the roofs of the town, but the scenery had evolved: there were now high buildings between the houses and the streets seemed even more swarming than before, a tumult of people, cars, sounds and pollution.
Some shouts alerted him. A man was crying something from a nearby roof while making broad gestures. Roxas dismissed the Samurai with a slight move of the head, and the Nobody disappeared immediately in the shadows. The young boy rejoined the man, who seemed relieved.
"You shouldn't go around there, you know. It's dangerous."
"Thank you for warning me," Roxas said absent-mindedly, looking at his interlocutor. The man looked out of place in this environment compared to the inhabitants below in the streets. He seemed quite old and wore several layers of clothes which were more or less dirty, covered by some kind of coat with bird feathers. Actually, he held several cages in his hands and some of them contained crows or starlings. Roxas couldn't say if the acrid smell came from the birds, the man, or both. For the moment, the man was staring at him with a suspicious look.
Another time, Roxas would have stayed hidden in the shadows and would have observed from afar, meddling with the inhabitants only briefly and if it was necessary. But Xemnas wouldn't let him wander eternally and he was quite in a hurry. He removed his hood so the man could think he was just an innocent kid and smiled, as broad as possible, hoping it would be enough to appease the suspicion of his interlocutor.
"Maybe you could help me, sir. I'm looking for…"
"Ahah," interrupted the man. "Old Bailey sells birds, for sure, but he always has fresh news to offer, everybody knows that."
It wasn't a problem. Roxas started to pull munnies out of his purse, but Old Bailey stopped him with wide gestures of his arms.
"No, no, I don't want that. Barter only."
Roxas bit his lip. He wished he had more time to study the usages of this world; if he made too many errors, he wouldn't be able to stay discreet. He has been careful enough to bring with him a few potions, just in case, and he gave one to the man. Seeing his perplexed look, he pretended it was an ointment. Old Bailey pocketed it with a satisfied smile.
"I'm looking for someone who can open anything," Roxas asked.
"I see who you're talking about… Their house is not easy to find, you should try the Floating Market."
Roxas raised an eyebrow at him.
"And if this ointment really soothe my old bones, I may take you there with me tonight. Okay for you, little buddy?"
The man didn't look like he wanted to trick him, and he could use these few hours – or even find by himself what he was looking for.
"I still have birds to catch before the market. Meet me in three hours at Mile End, just there," said Old Bailey, pointing below in the street stairs diving in the depths of the town.
¤¤¤
During these three hours, Roxas had taken the time to try to understand the world he was in. He had mainly stayed in the Mile End subway station, almost invisible thanks to practice, and had watched and listened around him. He had concluded several things.
First, that this world was quite particular; it seemed split into two parts, a surface devoted to light and a place underneath where darkness prevailed. The inhabitants of the surface, London Above, lived a simple, selfish life, oblivious to what happened under their feet. The Underground represented a point of convergence where the people passed each other, rafts for some, different rafts for the others. The situation of those from London Below reminded him of the condition of a Nobody, a creature at the frontier between light and darkness, between life and nothingness, cut from humans. These people weren't Nobodies – he had not seen any Heartless – but they were close enough for him to feel uneasy. It was as if they didn't exist… Exactly like him.
Then, that it had been wise to wait for Old Bailey. London Below was extremely dangerous, especially for newcomers. Creatures hunted and grew in dark corners. He had already lost several Samurai sent as scouts; the first one had disappeared right in front of him, grabbed by something, a monster with smoky appendices hidden under the platform. Time-bubbles and the moving geography disturbed orientation and made teleportation risky. Apparently, the market was never held at the same place and, according to the conversations he had overheard, even regulars did not necessarily know where it was and how to get there.
Therefore, when the old man came down the stairs, still with his coops, Roxas waved at him. Old Bailey headed toward him, with a "Great ointment!" as his greeting. A few minutes later, they were on a train – empty except them – heading to midtown.
¤¤¤
His guide had pompously announced that the floating market would be held at the London Tower. He had seemed disappointed when Roxas just shrugged, as if he had expected the young boy to recognize the name. Old Bailey had quickly abandoned his efforts in talking and Roxas really didn't mind. The racket the birds were making was already enough.
The train stopped, blocked by some debris, and Old Bailey explained him that they had to continue on foot. A narrow way had been made through the entangled stones and metal. A sign, half-erased by time, announced that they had reached the station "Tower of London". A bent metallic plate praised the upcoming construction of a new underground line, inauguration of 1884. Someone had added with a piece of chalk a warning against inopportune sneezes. Roxas strived to disregard the tons of rubble resting in jerky equilibrium above his head and entered the tunnel, guided by the flashlight of the old man.
In that kind of situation, Roxas was almost glad to be a Nobody, and therefore unable to feel claustrophobia. He could heard cracking and rustles, but couldn't say if it came from stones settling around him or creatures following them, waiting for an opportunity to attack. He wasn't sure which possibility was worse.
They heard a shout in the shadows of a crossing tunnel. Roxas didn't want to play the hero, but he preferred to anticipate troubles rather than suffer them, and he wondered if it was worth it to cast a fire spell in the gallery to study the situation and get rid of a potential adversary. Old Bailey, seeing that the boy had stopped, grabbed his wrist and pulled him to take him away from the origin of the scream.
"We shouldn't linger here," he mumbled.
Roxas didn't at all appreciate being touched, but he gritted his teeth and said nothing. After all, the old man was trying to help him, and he wasn't keen on finding himself alone under the crumbling with only a corpse as guide.
The emerged on a long cornice in a wider and more secured tunnel, dug in the stone. Water was running at the bottom of the tunnel, but Roxas could only smell moss and humidity; they were in a storm drain, and the young boy thanked the gods of this world for allowing them to avoid the sewers. They headed upstream as Old Bailey told him that a careless couple had drowned there on a day of hard rain. According to him, they had had enough of value to give him enough to live on for several weeks, but Roxas didn't want to know the details.
Old Bailey removed a grid so they could pass and the tunnel leaded them outside, into some old ditch currently covered with grass. They were circling a stronghold that Roxas supposed was the famous Tower of London. He helped Old Bailey to climb out of the ditch; roughly carved stairs lead them through a concealed opening in the rampart, to the inner court. As they entered in the main building, the White Tower, Roxas thought that – mumbled sounds of car traffic left aside – he could as well have been outside of London, in a medieval world.
¤¤¤
Roxas had seen Agrabah's market. He had let himself be overwhelmed by its colors, sounds, heat, and the abundance of junk and treasures its arrays offered. However, Agrabah was nothing compared to the Floating Market.
He had feared that the Organization coat brought him curious looks, but he was quickly reassured. No one was dressed the same way, wearing what they had managed to find and was practical. He had never seen such a colorful mob. Everyone had something to sell, so there were as many merchants as customers who were rapidly wandering between hasty arrays.
The Tower was used as a museum for the inhabitants of London Above. The first merchants had installed their products on the low display cases and the others wherever they could, including on the floor. The museum displayed mainly armor and weapons – a room even had torture instruments, adding to the eeriness of the situation. Despite all the alarms and surveillance cameras, no one came to stop the market; it was as if the people of London Below were immune to any kind of perception system from the surface. On the other hand, he didn't see anyone stealing anything.
Roxas thought that some of the Organization members would have liked this place. Xaldin would have tried several weapons and would have groused because they were not sharp anymore. Vexen would have completely ignored the museum to focus on the strange products offered by the merchants, like philters, unknown creatures, or indefinable food.
Xemnas would have summoned a little army of Heartless, so he could take advantage of such a high number of humans in one place.
Finally Old Bailey pointed him a young girl talking with a blacksmith and left to sell his birds. Roxas walked through the mob to the little silhouette. He saw the blacksmith hand out to the girl a chest with a heavy keyhole. The girl made something that Roxas couldn't see, being behind her, but the man's face brightened up when the chest opened. He hugged the girl and she began to laugh. The she took leave of him and Roxas took the opportunity to approach her.
¤¤¤
He did not want to draw attention to him by summoning the Keyblade, especially if it could be interpreted as a threat. "My name is Roxas," he started.
"I'm Door."
She had answered with suspicion, staring at him. She seemed to be around his age, but it was not easy to tell. She too wore various layers of clothes. She wasn't very feminine not particularly pretty, with her short auburn hair. To tell the truth, he didn't think she had the strength to wield a Keyblade. To be named Door when you used a key… How ironic. He offered her his universal remedy against distrust: "Are you hungry? My treat."
Apparently, in this world, you didn't miss an opportunity to eat for free, because Door accepted eagerly. Fortunately, the next stand was selling sandwiches and didn't refuse another of his potions.
They sat on a finely worked chest – the label told it was six centuries old – to enjoy their meal. Roxas did his best to speak with her. He wasn't very social and envied the skills of Axel, who could manipulate anyone with a few words, or Demyx, who was able to adapt his character to appear immediately as a nice guy.
He told her he came from far away, which seemed to interest her, so he continued that way with vague examples from his journeys. She explained that she didn't travel much because she was learning to use her talent. But she didn't add anything. Roxas blamed himself for his stupidity; he should have thought ahead and bring something to unlock, anything, to test her capacities.
Had he the opportunity, Roxas would have gladly avoided any contact with humans. They openly displayed their spontaneity, their feelings, and reminded Roxas too much of all he was deprived. They had experiences to share whereas he had to make up everything. But his efforts seemed to be successful. Door took an interest in him, and that was just what he was looking for. Maybe he was even reveling in faking a normal human.
She was certainly very insightful because it wasn't long before she said: "You seem to be looking for something."
He was taken by surprise and mumbled an embarrassed response, a story about a mysterious artifact that his owner could summon at will. She was listening carefully. Then she shook her head. "I don't know. But we could ask my father. He knows a lot of things, much more than me. Maybe he'll be able to help you?"
At that moment, Roxas thought that he had come for nothing, that there was neither Keyblade nor Keyblade Wielder in this world. He wondered if he should leave now, before the Superior figured out where he had been and, above all, why. But on the other hand, it was the first time he made a 'friend' with a human, and he was curious to see where it would lead him. He convinced himself that was doing things right, thinking that Door's father may have interesting information for him or for the Organization, and that it was the reason why he accepted the girl's offer.
One way or another, he followed Door when she got up and they left the market together.
¤¤¤
Door led him to her home. Her house was just like London Below, with an unpredictable and shifting architecture. Her relatives had linked each room to each other even if they were not geographically close. Only her family members could travel freely between the different parts, she had proudly explained.
They entered into some kind of living room. Two children were playing inside and ran toward Door to welcome her. The younger one, a little girl, was begging Door loudly to tell her how the market was. The boy was trying to act old and serious in front of a guest. "Mother won't be at home tonight," he said, and Door looked disappointed.
She was introducing Roxas when a man came in. He looked thin and sharp, but his eyes were very soft. He hugged Door warmly.
"And this is my father, lord Portico," she announced.
"Father! Access made some huge progress today," said the boy proudly. Portico turned to his younger daughter with a smile. She was holding a little padlock in her hand. She closed her eyes and her face tensed while she was concentrating. Roxas heard a weak click when the padlock opened. Access opened her eyes and looked silently for approbation. Portico gently stroked her hair and Door clapped her hands enthusiastically. In all this joyful excitation, Roxas had been completely forgotten.
In the Castle That Never Was, the atmosphere was loaded with betrayal and individualism; considering the Organization as a 'family' was misleading and dangerous. Its methods had never allowed him to get so close to mundane humans and experiment with the warmth of a home. There was plenty of love in this family… another thing he was forbidden.
Roxas couldn't stand this atmosphere anymore. His head was spinning, flooded by a desire he couldn't express, and he left. He didn't even know if he had asked his hosts to walk him back or if he had summoned a corridor of darkness and fled, at the risk of getting lost in the mazes of London Below. He could just remember a pair of wide pale eyes staring at him with a concern mixed with surprise and incomprehension.
Maybe it was what bound him to the other Nobodies, this choice to live among the shadows to not face a human warmth he couldn't feel himself. A common point between creatures that does not exist. The only one he could pretend to.
¤¤¤
Roxas went back to the time-bubble invaded by the acrid fog without looking back. A Samurai has stayed to watch over the world's entrance and warn him if Heartless or Nobodies found the passage.
Master? Its voice would have been worried, had a low-ranked Nobody been able to feel worry.
"It's worthless," Roxas answered dryly. "They had no Keyblade. There's no use staying here any longer."
During his return travel, he took the time to attract a few Shadows and guide them to the world he had just left. London Below's inhabitants would probably manage to defend themselves against the Heartless, as they were used to adapt and organize themselves against new menaces. However, those of London Above would make easy preys and, soon enough, London would crawl with hearts ready to be reaped for Kingdom Hearts. Xemnas would be glad to see how much he was devoted to the Organization.
And still, Roxas would continue to search.