The Roads We Take
Vacurai: We all know about Roxas's heroic end. But we don't what exactly happened to him, and today I am here to tell you that the roads we take only lead to us.
There have always been the three of us,
The last of the three who hang on,
But nature won't allow us to stay long together;
The connection is broke but not gone.
The roads that we take lead us on separate paths
And we may not yet meet for a while,
But once again when we meet,
On the usual, broad street,
We will shake hands, then smile, and hug, and go on.
"Good-bye, Roxas. It was nice meeting you…Oh…and of course…Axel. You're both my best friends."
"Never forget…that's the truth."
The blond boy grabbed her falling hand out of the air.
"No! Xion…Who else will I have ice cream with?"
The young girl's body dissolved into light and mingled with the floating crystal shards. Roxas looked down and saw a single seashell where his friend had lain, and he picked it up and bent his head. "Xion…"
He couldn't stop crying.
The girl who he had liked so much…she was gone. Roxas slowly stood up. Xemnas would pay for this…they would all pay.
Roxas shoved the envelope into the mailbox. There went his lucky WINNER stick. Axel needed it more than him, anyways. He had more important things to do, like setting Kingdom Hearts free.
He really needed his friends. They…completed him, and they made him feel like he was a Somebody.
Roxas couldn't live without that feeling.
"Hey, kid! Why are you out this late?" Roxas ignored the boy wearing the hoody and the two lackeys by his side and kept walking. "This is our turf, so you better get out! Here, I'll teach ya!" Seifer charged, but Roxas drew his Keyblade and pointed it at the bully.
"Just…keep away. I'll be out of your hair soon."
Seifer's attitude softened a bit as he stopped running. "Oh. Well, go on." Even he could see the sadness the Nobody was feeling.
The rough-muscled lackey frowned. "You better go, ya know?"
The girl lowered her head. "Bye."
"Alright. See ya." Roxas opened a dark corridor from the Sandlot to the place where he had fought Xion. The sky was as light as usual, but the Keyblade wielder's mood was at its worst.
Oh, why did I have to go and leave? Everything would have been fine if Xion and I hadn't left our little group.
"Hey there, Roxas!" Pence, Hayner, and Olette walked out of the station and up to the saddened boy. "What's wrong?"
"I…lost someone."
"Oh."
"I'm sorry."
Hayner put his hand on Roxas's shoulder. "Hey, things get better. You'll keep on trucking without them, okay? And if you don't, we're here for ya. Got it?" The blond boy looked up and smiled sadly.
"I got it memorized." Roxas straightened up and nodded. "I'll be back soon. I've got to go take care of something." In and out another corridor, this time to a rooftop near the floating castle so he could think about what he had to do.
Why? Why did I have to know how to use the Keyblade? It's just not fair! He summoned the blade and threw it into the abyss far below, but it just rematerialized in his hand and disappeared again. Rrgh…why? I didn't want this burden. It's brought nothing but bad luck. He placed his head on his knees. I wonder how Sora lived with it…
"Hey." Axel sat down next to him, staring out at the darkness.
Roxas did a double take. "Axel!" The boy hugged his friend for a moment, then backed off.
"Yeah. I got your special ice-cream stick."
"That fast? I only sent it a few minutes ago…" Roxas was silent. The two sat there for a while, just sitting there among their own thoughts.
Roxas:
Should I tell him? About what happened to Xion? It'd break his heart. But he has a right to know. He was her friend, too.
Axel:
Why did I join the Organization? It's just a bunch of people together with no feelings and no hearts. But…Roxas and Xion make me feel like I do have a heart.
Then the blond-haired boy turned to the red –haired one. "Xion's…dead."
"Yeah, I know." Another moment of eternal silence. "Well…what do you want to do, Roxas? Are you going to come back with me? Xion would want us to be together. We could still try and complete Kingdom Hearts. Maybe there's a way to bring her back."
Roxas shook his head. "I promised Xion that I'd release all the hearts we'd captured. I can't let Xemnas have his way. We weren't meant to be complete. We're Nobody's. There's a reason why we're called that."
Axel frowned. "I know, but…I can't let you release those hearts. What happened to being complete? About having a heart? That's what we've been fighting for! Haven't you got it memorized yet?"
"Xion completed us, and now she's gone."
Suddenly the red head was crestfallen. He returned to resting his head on his knees, and he looked up into the sky. The two stayed there, motionless, for what would be described as eternity, until Roxas stood up. "Well…Axel, if you aren't going to stop me I've got to keep the promise that I made to…her."
"Yeah. I've gotta go too. RTC and all that. You know, maybe you are right. What was the use of collecting those hearts if we'll never get one?"
Axel sank into a dark corridor and Roxas jumped down, pulling up his hood. I have to make them pay, for taking her away from us. And for making me use the Keyblade. He stopped walking for a moment and frowned behind his coat.
I am me. Nobody else.
"Me and Axel…and her…can go back and keep on eating ice cream."
"Why? Why do you have the Keyblade?"
"Shut up!"
"Why don't you quit?"
"Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."
"Get real! Look which one of us is winning."
"So it's true. You are his Nobody. DiZ was right."
"What are you talking about? I am me! Nobody else!"
Riku-Ansem pulled up his hood as man wearing a cloak and red bandages around his head stepped out of a dark corridor.
"DiZ," says Riku, "he could feel Sora."
The man frowned. "Oh, he told you how he felt, did he? Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything."
Riku-Ansem looks down at Roxas passed out on the ground. "If he had met Sora, things might have been different."
"Come along. We must get him to Twilight Town."
The silver-haired man lifted the blond up and followed 'DiZ' back through the portal, and he set Roxas down in the Computer Lab under the beam of light coming from the transporter. "Well, what are we going to do with Roxas? The Organization's numbers might be getting smaller, but they're still hunting after us and are bound to succeed one day."
DiZ sat down at the computer. "I have already thought of that. I created an alternate Twilight Town made out of data and placed it inside Sora's memories. We can place Roxas there until Sora is ready to awake."
The beam flashes once, and data circles whirl around the Keyblade wielder until he disappears. "But what if he remembers us and tries to escape?"
DiZ turns to Riku. "I will have to store his memories deep away in his heart and replace them with artificial ones. That way, he will have friends to keep him company."
Riku leans against the wall. "Why don't we put him on summer vacation?"
"Hmm?"
"I overhead Roxas and Axel talking about it once, and Sora's Nobody took a real interest in it. Why don't we let him have a little fun for his last few days?"
"Hmm."
A boy wearing a white and black outfit turned a corner and ran into the alley. "Maybe…today we'll finally hit the beach!" The blond boy dashed into the open gate, closing the red fabric behind him and his past with it.
Only seven days to go,
and then my summer vacation's over.
Vacurai: The next chapter is going to be about Axel trying to see Roxas again, and the one after that will be about Xion.
Roxas: I miss her.
Vacurai: Yeah, I bet you do, Roxas. I bet you do.