Chapter I; The Memory Theif
Y frowned and leaned against her computer desk. She looked over her shoulder at the man in the black coat who behaved as a messenger between her and DiZ. As always she couldn't see his face, so she had no guess as to who he was or what he was thinking. She hoped he was at least slightly annoyed. She herself was very annoyed by the situation.
"What do you mean? Nobodies?" Y asked, her face resting on the keyboard in front of her. She really didn't care about the marks it would leave, though it was a bit uncomfortable.
"DiZ says some have managed to find their way into town. Be on your guard." The man replied. His deep voice was rather familiar. But who exactly it belonged to Y couldn't remember. Y sighed and pushed herself back into a sitting position.
"Alright." She agreed calmly. "I guess that means I have to keep a closer eye on him." She decided. The hooded figure nodded in agreement.
"He cannot be taken." He said. Y sighed and looked down at her keyboard sadly.
"I hear ya." She agreed rather quietly. She blinked back tears before looking up again to speak. "I'll be sure he stays in the dark and I'll keep an eye out for anything weird too." She promised.
Y didn't notice when the hooded man left. She really didn't care all that much, but she did remind herself she would have to check his heart later. Just to see if she knew him.
It was a curious thing, Y decided. She had joined up with DiZ to interfere and hopefully separate the two. But DiZ had placed her inside the digital town to babysit. Y wasn't sure if that was a sign he trusted her, or a sign he wanted her as far from the action as possible. The bright side was she was allowed access to a computer and was helping to program the town. Mostly she spent her time patching holes, but sometimes she could create things that meant something.
Y sighed searching through her countless stacks of notes. She knew the coding for the forest was somewhere. But she had no clue where somewhere was. She frowned as she picked up a stack with a picture on it. She riffled through the papers quickly and set them down again. Y gave a heavy sigh and placed her hands on her hips.
A strange sound like hissing caught her attention. Y blinked and slowly turned to face the direction she had heard the hissing from. There was nothing but a wall with papers all pinned up. A map of the town with bugged areas marked. Y frowned and turned back around. She was probably just jumpy from being stuck in the town with the looming threat of Nobodies.
Y picked up the same stack of papers she just had and flipped through them again. She frowned as she set the papers down. The picture on the top was missing. Y blinked a few times and looked back to where the hissing sound had been.
"That's probably a sign I should go check on them." Y said to herself.
Y could only guess the group she was supposed to be watching was in their usual hideout. It was unfortunately almost across town from the place Y had set up her workspace. That meant a lot of walking. Y reached the usual place to find the group of four in the middle of a strange conversation.
"All our - are, gone? Huh?" The blonde boy with brown hair said. Hayner was his name if Y remembered correctly. Y frowned as she tried to understand him. Was the system glitching again?
"Huh? You can't say -? Why not?" Olette, the only girl in the group, asked. Y frowned once again trying to figure out what the word was. Nothing she was coming up with really fit, but they were entertaining thoughts.
"But you do understand what I'm saying, right?" Pence, the brunette boy asked. "Our - are gone!" He insisted.
"Ok, I don't know what you guys are trying to say, but I'm really confused now." Y said suddenly. The entire group of four jumped and turned to face her. Hayner narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms. Y guessed that meant he wasn't in a good mood. He didn't seem to ever be in one now that she thought about it. Must have been his programming.
"Oh, Y. You're not here to accuse us of stealing the - too are you?" Hayner asked. Y nodded in understanding. Right, the thief running around town that everyone was assuming was the group of four in front of her.
"Oh, that's what you're trying to say. -." Y said. She frowned when she was unable to say the word. That was an extremely strange glitch. Not something that could have just occurred. "And now I can't say it. So, unless you all know some serious magic I'm going to go with you're not the thieves. So one of your - was stolen too?" Y asked. She sighed heavily. At least the blanks in their sentences had clear meaning now.
"Stolen..." Roxas agreed softly. Y frowned as she looked up at him. She was trying to avoid that at all cost. Every time she looked at him she could only feel guilt. "And not just the -. The word -! They stole it too!" Roxas continued.
"What kinda thief is that? Seifer could never have pulled that off." Hayner decided. Roxas nodded in agreement.
"Yeah!" He said.
"All right, time for some recon!" Hayner said. He, Olette, and Pence ran out of the usual spot, brushing past Y as they did so. Roxas went to follow after them but began stumbling and swaying. Y sighed and turned to walk away as Roxas fell to the ground.
"Could make it a little less obvious guys," Y muttered to herself.
Y didn't waste her time wandering with the group of four friends. If she did that she probably wouldn't get any good information. Instead, she did her own form of recon. She returned to her workplace and logged onto the computer. She skimmed over the coding trying to find any hole that could have caused such a strange occurrence. It quickly became clear there was nothing simple to blame for the missing word. That left the choice of outsiders.
Y let out another heavy sigh and logged off her computer. Next step was to figure out why the town was convinced the group of four were the thieves. Asking around town it soon became apparent. All of the missing items were of Roxas. Somehow. Who else would want them but him?
Y was just about to find the group once again when the hissing sound returned. Y froze where she was glancing around. The hissing sound persisted, so Y guessed whatever it was was still around.
Y caught movement out of the corner of her eye causing her to turn as quickly as she could. A white creature flipped through the air hissing as it moved away from Y. Y groaned in annoyance. A Dusk, already. The system must have had more openings than she thought it did.
Y followed the Dusk all the way to the Sandlot. The Dusk escaped her sight hiding somewhere along the walls. In the center of the Sandlot Roxas was just finishing a fight with a blonde boy named Seifer. Roxas, of course, had beaten Seifer with no challenge. No kid could hope to beat Roxas. Not with the experience he had. With or without his memories.
"Seifer's not feelin' so hot, you know?" A muscular boy with brown hair said as he jumped in front of Seifer with a girl with bluish silver hair. Rai and Fuu were their names if Y could remember correctly.
"Tournament decides," Fuu said simply. Y watched as Pence took out his camera and positioned it on the scene in front of him. As the camera flashed the Dusk appeared once again. The Dusk grabbed the camera and the product that it had just produced before fleeing toward the tram common.
"What was that?"Hayner asked in confusion.
"The thief!" Olette said in realization.
"It's heading for the tram common!" Y yelled as she ran through the Sandlot. Roxas and his friends followed her, though only Roxas could keep up with her.
Following the Dusk was almost too easy. It blew past the tram common and went straight into the forest outside of town. Somewhere along the way Hayner, Pence, and Olette stopped running with them. It was only Roxas and Y who made it to the old mansion. Y hung back as Roxas slowly stepped toward the Dusk.
"Huh?"Roxas said in confusion. The Dusk responded by unzipping its mouth and hissing before attacking Roxas. Roxas rolled to the side to avoid the attack. He raised the struggle bat he was still holding to defend himself, but the Dusk wasn't phased by the useless piece of rubber. Y looked around for anything she could use. Getting out her keyblade wasn't an option. Then it would be far too obvious something was wrong. Roxas couldn't know that yet. "It's no use," Roxas said in annoyance. The struggle bat was suddenly covered in a swirl of data. In bright light, it was replaced by the plain silver and gold keyblade that Roxas had used while with the organization. "What, what is this thing?" Roxas asked as he looked at the keyblade. The Dusk hissed angrily rearing back in preparation of an attack.
"Roxas!" Y yelled in warning. Roxas raised the keyblade to defend himself. He once again took on the Dusk in a fight. This time the Dusk had no chance. Roxas easily beat back the Dusk, destroying it. When the Dusk vanished all the lost pictures returned, scattering across the ground along with Pence's camera.
Y and Roxas gathered up all the pictures in silence. The keyblade had conveniently vanished after the fight. Y flipped through the pictures as she gathered them. She couldn't find the one she was looking for. She really didn't want Roxas to see that one. She didn't have a good explanation ready.
Back at the usual spot Y, Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Olette gathered around the pictures. Pence was holding the stack flipping through all the pictures. As Y had thought, all of the pictures were of Roxas in some way.
"What's this?" Hayner asked as they flipped through the pictures.
"I was his first customer after he took over the shop. So we took a picture together." Roxas explained calmly. Olette giggled a little.
"It's a really nice photo. Oh!" She said in surprise. Pence turned to her in surprise.
"Hey! You just said photo!" He said. Hayner didn't seem interested in what was going on. He had turned his attention to Roxas and Y excitedly.
"So, Roxas, Y- tell us about the picture thief," Hayner demanded. Roxas shrugged in response, rubbing the back of his head.
"Not much to say. The pictures were just lying there." He said. Y nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. It was like he stole them just to drop them in front of the mansion." She said. Roxas glanced at her and smiled softly. Y supposed he didn't want the rest know about the white thing he had fought.
"Then how do we prove we weren't the ones who took 'em?" Hayner asked. Roxas only replied with a shrug. Hayner looked at the stack of pictures and smirked. He chuckled looking over at Roxas again. "It's a girl." He teased.
"You look happy Roxas," Olette said, joining in Hayner's teasing.
"Do not." Roxas snapped. Y giggled as she took the picture off the top of the stack. She smiled down at the picture.
"That one's mine," Y announced. She was glad it was only that one, to be honest. She had made a few pictures with the computer. This one was the easiest one to explain. The picture was of Roxas sitting on top of the clock tower with a raven-haired girl beside him. Both were laughing and smiling.
"I don't really remember that one," Roxas said with a frown. Y shrugged it off.
"It was when my cousin came to visit. You two got along pretty well." Y said not making eye contact. She hoped it was enough to pass it off. Roxas didn't seem to want to drop the subject so easily. Luckily Pence interrupted.
"So, like, anybody else notice that all the stolen pictures are of Roxas?" Pence asked. Y nodded glad to have something else she could use to switch the conversation.
"Yeah, that's why everyone thought you guys were the thieves." Y said.
"You mean Seifer didn't go around accusing us after all?" Hayner asked almost sounding disappointed.
"Are they really all of me?" Roxas asked looking over the stack of pictures.
"Yep," Pence said spreading out the pictures. As promised Roxas was in every single one. "See."
"Look!" Olette said in surprise.
"Right? Every single one." Pence agreed. "Wouldn't it be weird if the thief wanted to steal the real Roxas or something?" He suggested. Y rolled her eyes at the conspiracy theory, no matter how true it was.
"C'mon, get serious. Why would anyone wanna steal a bonehead like Roxas?" Hayner said brushing it off.
"Oh, thanks!" Roxas said, shoving Hayner playfully.
"I don't know Hayner. I'm pretty sure you're just jealous someone would rather steal Roxas over you." Y teased earning a laugh from the group. Y felt herself smile a real smile despite what she knew. Maybe this wasn't such a bad way to spend his last days.
Yuki pushed open the doors to the old mansion in Twilight Town. Her bright blue eyes looked around carefully. She hadn't been here since her last conversation with Naminé. She had been warned to stay away from that place, DiZ wouldn't want her in the way. It was too close to where Roxas was hidden. But Yuki really didn't care anymore. It's not like she had anything else to lose.
"Hey! DiZ!" Yuki called out. She walked farther into the room, letting the door close behind her. Hearing nothing she stepped forward again. "DiZ!" She yelled again. Yuki only had to wait a short time before the man in red slowly crossed the hall between the two staircases.
"And what has brought you here, monarch of darkness?" The man asked. His yellow eye was focused on Yuki with nothing but contempt. Yuki frowned, ignoring his strange words. He had always said things like that, and Yuki had stopped caring a long time ago.
"I'm going to pretend I know what you're talking about," Yuki said. She turned and paced around the room, looking at the broken display cases. "Just thought since you were so worried about me getting in your way I'd let you know I'm not with the organization anymore." She said casually. DiZ watched her for a moment. She tried not to flinch under his cold gaze.
"That seems like something trivial to walk into your enemies encampment to announce," DiZ said calmly. Yuki smirked a little to herself and nodded. He was seeing through her too easily.
"Yeah, there was something else I wanted to check," Yuki admitted.
"Really?" DiZ asked. He sounded genuinely curious. Yuki guessed he didn't think she would want to ask him anything. She hated him too much.
"Do you know who Xion is?" Yuki asked. Yuki put her hand in her pocket, brushing it across the shell she carried with her. The only thing left of her friend.
"I cannot say I have heard the name," DiZ said calmly. Yuki sighed and looked to the ground.
"Figures," Yuki said with a shrug. She looked up at DiZ once again. "Think I could talk to Nami for a quick second?" She asked. DiZ only scoffed.
"Naminé is far too busy to waste time on you." He said. Yuki chuckled lightly to herself.
"Also figures. Well, I'll be going." Yuki said. She turned toward the door but stopped. She looked over her shoulder calmly. "Oh, how's Sora?" She asked. DiZ glared at her but didn't say a thing. Yuki laughed a little and turned back to face DiZ a hand on her hip. "I'm not going to hurt him. I was just wondering. I can kinda remember him now. Still really fuzzy, but I remember." She continued calmly. "Is he getting better?" She asked. DiZ continued to glare at him in a stony silence. Yuki sighed and shook her head. "Ok, I get it. Hope I never have to see you again."
Yuki turned and walked out the door. She pulled the seashell from her pocket and frowned down at it. She really was the only one to remember. Not even DiZ who had destroyed her. Yuki sighed and put the seashell back in her pocket. She didn't know what she was going to do. What was left for her to do?
A/N: Here's the first actual chapter of the story! Thanks for all the support you guys give as always reviews are appreciated!
Gry22- I honestly hadn't thought about that, but now that you brought it up there's a possibility of something like that happening later on in the series.