A/N: Title change! Overused title, I know. I love going back to old projects and reworking them. When I wrote this originally, I had to do a lot of research, but the attempt was to make it as canon as possible. I tried.
Ultraviolet
"I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us, don't tell! They'd banish us, you know."
-Emily Dickinson
-
"Will it work?"
The sad, broken figure crumpled before him was nothing like the boy he had fought just hours earlier. He stood in Diz's computer room, staring down at his lifeless body in sick fascination.
"If we can maintain the simulated town until Namine finishes chaining together Sora's memories," Diz answered dryly, sitting down at the machine.
"What will happen to Roxas?" he asked, half-knowing the answer already. What happened to all nobodies, of course. Especially somebody's nobody.
"He holds half of Sora's power within him. In the end, he'll have to give it back." It was strange how he didn't feel at all triumphant over his victory. All he could do was stare at the boy and fight the bile rising in his throat as the cruelty of what they were about to do sank in. "Until then, he'll need another personality to throw off his pursuers."
"Poor thing," he said under his breath, more to himself than the bandaged man. Diz answered anyways.
"It's the fate of a Nobody."
He sounded nonchalant for denying someone's existence. A beam of blinding green light shot from the machine.
Just like that, he was gone.
-
The next day Riku found pictures left by the Nobodies outside of the mansion, carpeting the grass, and he nudged one aside as it stared up at him with striking blue eyes. Evidently Diz had scattered them around town to keep the Dusks off track, because they couldn't tell the difference between the real Roxas and the photographic data.
What must it be like to be mistaken for a photograph? To be nothing but data, data that can easily be altered (deleted), to everyone around you?
Riku flipped through the pictures, a knot forming in his stomach. Roxas looked like he existed here, laughing with his friends, smiling. Did he really need a heart to exist?
-
Diz's piercing orange eyes bored into him from across the decrepit banquet room.
"When are you going to tell me your true name?"
It had been a long standing joke with his friends that Riku's eyes shifted when he lied, and he had taken to closing them briefly as he did so. Even now, though he wore a blindfold, a hood, and someone else's face, he shut his eyes as he responded.
"I already told you. It's Ansem."
The bandaged man laughed. "Of course."
Then why was he still staring at him like that?
-
Riku watched from the alley as Roxas tried to summon the keyblade.
He could condemn him.
What was the happiness of one boy to his best friend's return? To a safe world? Hundreds of safe worlds?
The boy threw the stick angrily into the shadows, frustrated by his lack of success, where it struck Riku.
"Sorry about that!" Roxas called. As Riku slipped away, he wondered.
What was the happiness of one boy, compared to everything he'd ever loved?
-
"We can't let him leave the town."
It wasn't fair.
He had decided to go along with it for Sora's sake. Who was he kidding? Sora wouldn't have wanted him to do this. Riku would have given anything to be back at that island with his friends, curious, bored, safe. Roxas didn't deserve to be dragged into that mess. No one did.
Roxas' arm was surprisingly solid. Riku half expected his fingers to slip right through it and he stepped back in shock, pulling Roxas upwards so he was looking straight at him with those blue eyes. Familiar eyes. Did he realize who those eyes belonged to?
"Can you feel Sora?" They flashed in recognition at the name. Roxas opened his mouth.
"Roxas! Three minutes!" One of his friends called. Riku relinquished his grip on the boy's arm and disappeared into a nearby alleyway, where he leaned against the wall and pulled out his prize: A handmade munny bag. There he stood, breathing hard, a familiar knot twisting his stomach.
-
"Is it that hard to make a beach?" Riku tossed the bag restlessly with one hand, up and down, following the motion with his eyes.
"We'd be giving the enemy another entry point. Besides, we can always buy some sea-salt ice cream." He laughed. It was a cold and hollow sound. Riku hated it.
"What should I do with this?"
"Delete it. Objects from that town must be kept out of the real world."
"He won't be able to see his friends much after this. Can't you let him…?"
"Absolutely not. And get rid of that bag."
Riku slipped the bag under his cloak, resolving to get it back to Roxas. One little munny purse wouldn't hurt anything, right?
-
"I'm telling you, I almost pity it." Diz murmered as they watched the monitor flash footage of a blurry Roxas. Riku said nothing. He hated the way Diz referred to Roxas.
"It".
"It would have nowhere to run."
"Keep a close eye on it."
As if Roxas just didn't deserve a name. What did Diz know? He was a man playing with puppets, and Roxas was just a creature he had deigned unfit to dwell in his realm. His realm that he sat in his dark, wretched little room and controlled, like a child with his dolls and building blocks.
Roxas was part of Sora. Not an 'it.'
A part of Sora. That was why he was defending him.
Right?
-
No, Riku decided as he stood behind the swinging pendulum in the clock tower; it wasn't indifference, the need to defend Sora, or even pity he felt.
It was painful understanding.
-
You wake up in the morning, and there are a few terrifying moments of not knowing who you are.
You begin to forget little details about yourself. The color of your hair, where you live, the faces of your friends…
You wonder if anyone will remember you.
You wonder if you ever existed at all.
-
"Can you give up your friend for a complete stranger?"
He wanted to comfort him, to whisper to him.
"It's okay. I'll save you. I'll save you…"
He's just one little Nobody. He wouldn't hurt anything.
Except…
-
On the night before the scheduled awakening Riku lay awake pondering the question that's answer had eluded him for the past six days. Do you need a heart to exist?
No. To exist, he decided, you had to be needed.
Sora needed Roxas.
Axel needed Roxas.
And when Riku thought about it, maybe he did too.
-
"Diz, we're out of time. Too many Nobodies!" The white room wasn't empty, though. Roxas stood there, tangible and nonexistent.
"Nobodies like us are only half a person. You won't disappear… You'll be whole!" Namine cried as Diz moved toward her. Riku felt his chest tighten painfully as shock and devastation mingled on Roxas' face.
"I'll…disappear?" he repeated, swaying. Sora had looked at him like that once, when Riku had sought to kill him at Hollow Bastion…
Diz clamped a hand over Namine's mouth. "No further outbursts!"
He was dragging her toward the darkness, and she had shifted his hand and was shouting something. Riku couldn't move.
Roxas held out a hand, reaching toward her in desperation.
"Wait!"
Numbly, he moved between Diz and Roxas. The boy's pathetic expression dissolved into shadows as they retreated to the other Twilight Town.
-
Riku waited in the shadows as Diz made the transmission.
He was goading Roxas and laughing as despair overtook him, as if there wasn't enough despair in his face already. Riku wanted nothing more at that moment than to shield him, from the world, from his fate, from the man standing in front of him and telling him that he didn't have a right to exist, that he didn't matter.
Diz ended the transmission and faced him, God of Twilight Town, servant of the world.
"Operation success."
Riku closed his eyes and nodded.
-