Sora waved goodbye to Riku and Kairi, walking up the worn dirt path to his house. Up on the hill, he turned around and looked out over the ocean, considering the island from afar. It looked as if nothing had ever happened to it. But the time he had been here before his second journey began; it had been ripped apart and decimated. He knew he had changed that himself. He knew he had changed a lot. Including his own state of mind.

Sighing dejectedly, he made his way up the rest of the hill towards his house, which was five houses away from Riku and Kairi's. He always remembered this, because when he was much younger he'd count the houses as he ran down the hill to meet them. Wow, he thought sadly, right when I try not to remember anything, everything comes back.

At that moment, a rushing feeling swept through Sora's head. Stopping, he watched the world spin in front of him, and suddenly everything tilted upwards, the ground swerving up to meet him. Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over, and everything turned black.

"Where am I?" Sora asked himself, standing up and looking around. He was standing in mid-air, surrounded by nothing except pure black void.

An inner sanctum. A booming voice, devoid of all emotion, answered. No one else can possibly get here but you and those connected with you.

"Then who are you, huh?"

I am Nothing.

"Nothing?"

I am what there was before. And I am what there will be after. Nothing.

"Before what? And after what?"

You will know, soon enough. You are here for a reason, Keyblade master.

Sora stiffened. "I'm not the Keyblade master."

Oh? Is that so? The Keyblade appeared once again in Sora's hand. Then why does it still react to your will?

"I may still wield it, but that game's over. I'm home now and I'm done with world saving. Forever."

You may have accomplished saving the universe, but that does not at all entitle you to end your journey as the Keyblade master. There is a legacy to fulfill.

"Legacy? I haven't heard of any legacies."

True, no Keyblade master is born knowing, and you haven't been told. So of course you are ignorant of the fact that you are a reincarnation.

Sora gasped in absolute shock. "A reincarnation? I'm reincarnated?"

Yes, Keyblade master. You are a reincarnation. Every Keyblade master there ever was has been a reincarnation of the very first Keyblade master.

"But that's impossible." Sora said softly. "Riku was the true master of the Keyblade. I got it by dumb luck."

Dumb luck, perhaps, yet it also chose you for the power of your heart. Your heart was the door to the light, the pathway to victory over the darkness. You are still a part of the cycle. When Riku was born, his fate was sealed. It was known that he would without a doubt turn to the darkness. So the duty was passed on, to a certain boy born one year later.

"Me." Sora said with disbelief.

Yes, you. You are the next Keyblade master to complete the legacy and earn your place among all the other Keyblade masters.

"And how do I do that?"

Remember the letter from the King.

"The….letter?"

There was a bright flash of light, and the void disappeared from Sora's view.

"Huh…?" Sora moaned, rolling over in the dirt. A blurry image of Riku and Kairi appeared above him. Kairi sighed with relief, and Riku shook his head tiredly.

"Good, he's alive." the older boy muttered.

"Thank goodness you woke up." Kairi said, sighing again. "We thought you were in a coma, or something. We've been here almost a half an hour."

"What?" Sora asked again, not coming to terms with the situation. "What ha—"

Riku lifted him up off the ground and put his arm around Sora's shoulder. "No time for that. We're walking you home, okay? Just shut up."

"The…sanctum…reincarnated…" he said feverishly, mumbling almost to himself. Kairi was saying something to him in a calm voice, telling him that whatever dream he had had was just a dream, and not to obsess over it. "But, no…the letter…" he continued, trying as best as he could to get the point across.

"Sora, you've got a fever. You're hallucinating." she said patiently. "We're taking you home, and tomorrow you probably won't remember any of this. Calm down."

"Letter…" he whispered, passing out.

"Sora? Are you awake?" A girl's voice echoed through his mind. Still unconscious, he mentally reacted to the voice.

"No. Namine?"

"Yes, Sora. It's me."

"But…why?"

Namine paused. He couldn't see her, of course, only hear. But by the tone of her voice he could tell she was very worried. "Kairi's heart is reacting. She's frantic about what's come about you."

"Kairi…aw, man, what happened…?"

Another voice joined his own. "Sora?"

"Not you, too—Roxas?"

"Yeah. I'm still here, remember? Half of you?"

"Oh, right, yeah. I remember now."

"Sora, listen, please." Namine urged, her voice rising in worry. "You're sick because of what happened. That void, the encounter with Nothing, it wasn't supposed to happen. No Keyblade master has ever or will ever experience that."

"Why not? Why did it happen to me?"

"Because of me." Roxas said sadly. His voice became almost lifeless with guilt. "Because no other Keyblade master had a Nobody, either."

"It's not your fault, Roxas!" Namine said resolutely. "The only reason Sora's heart reacted to the situation in that way was because he has two sides to his heart. One side reacted, but not the other. So he was brought where Nothing was."

"Which is where?"

"It isn't really anywhere at all. It was just a subconscious state of mind, I assume. Nothing isn't real. It must have only been your mind telling you something, just like a dream. Theoretically, it was a dream and nothing more."

"Then is what it said untrue?" Sora's question was worried. He wished with all of his heart that it was a lie.

"No, Sora. I'm sorry. It was all exact."

"You have to follow their legacy." Roxas added. "At some point, something's going to happen to trigger the beginning of it all. All we—well, you—can do is wait for it."

"I can't stop it?"

"Impossible." Namine said apologetically. "Like it was said, you are a reincarnation. The voice in your dream was the voice of the Keyblade masters before you, combined into a single manifestation. It told you what you were, and what you had to do, and it's what ever Keyblade master has had to do. But they didn't get a hint like that."

"Because they didn't have a Nobody." Roxas repeated sorrowfully. "Their heart could only react one way, so their mind didn't throw that at them. They wouldn't get sick like this, either."

"Roxas!" Namine's voice was swamped with anger. "For the last time, this isn't your fault! It was a coincidence." Her voice calmed, and she redirected her discussion to Sora. "Kairi's waiting with you. That's why I was able to get through to you and Roxas. When you wake up, thank her for me. She was the one who let me through in the first place." A sort of sadness crept into her tone. "She really is worried, Sora. She cares about you more than you know."

Roxas's voice drifted to him quietly. "Sorry about this."

With that, their voices left him, and Sora drifted back into quiet, uninterrupted sleep.

"Sora? Sora, wake up." a voice pleaded, almost sounding shaky. Was there a hint of crying? "Sora, please, wake up."

"Ka…Kairi…?" Sora moaned, opening his eyes weakly. She was sitting in a chair beside him, looking more worried than he had ever seen her. A single tear escaped and slid down her face slowly. "Wh…what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Sora, I'm just…"

"You're worried." She looked at him, taken aback. "Namine told me. She said to thank you."

"Oh. Um, it was nothing, really. I didn't know what was going on, and I guessed maybe she did. So I wanted her to talk to you."

"I know now. It's nothing big." he lied. "Don't worry about me, Kairi. I'm all right."

"Oh Sora…" she sobbed, leaning on him and crying into his sweatshirt. "I can't stand to see you like this anymore. Ever since you came home, you've been so sad—like you're afraid to move forward, afraid that if you do, something will happen to separate us again. Riku and I, we know you've been through a lot. We know that you're different and that what happened before scared you and upset you and you don't ever want to see that again." She paused to catch her breath, and let out another sob. "It's terrible, that you're so miserable even though we're together. I just want you to be happy and to know that no matter what, I'll always be with you. Please don't worry about what's going to happen. The future is the future, and we'll get through it, together, just like we got through it before."

Sora stared at the ceiling in shock. Kairi had just almost exactly pinpointed his anxieties sparked by the letter's arrival. She understood when he thought that no one ever would. Half of what she had said had been drowned out by her tears, but that didn't matter to him. What she had said came from her heart, and that was all that was important.

As best as he could, he sat up and hugged her, listening quietly as she cried herself into hysterics. "Kairi." he said quietly. "Stop crying, okay?" She snuffled a little and looked up at him. "You're right. I am scared. I'm scared out of my mind. I wouldn't be able to stand it if we got separated again. All I want is to be with you, and Riku, but I know that if that letter has anything to do with something that's about to happen, I might have to leave again." Tears fell as he tried to hide what Namine had told him. "I don't want to leave. I want to stay here. That's all I want." He shook as he cried.

"Thinking of you." Kairi said softly. Sora stopped halfway through a sob and stared at her, surprised.

"Wherever you are." He finished, wiping a tear away.

Kairi smiled and nodded. "Remember that, Sora." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "Always, we're together."

Sora sniffed and went on crying, hugging Kairi tightly as she cried with him.

Riku looked up. "You're back."

"Yup." Sora said tiredly, sitting down in the sand. "Still sick, I guess, but better enough to be back."

"What made you sick in the first place?" There was a pause. "Was it your…other you?" Riku knew very little about Roxas at all. In fact, he only knew that he was there somehow and that was it. But he had to ask.

"No, it wasn't his fault." Sora said matter-of-factly. "He wouldn't do that. Anxiety got the best of me, that's all."

His friend nodded. "Kairi was really upset, Sora."

The brown-haired boy stared at the sky. "I know. She talked to me, a little while ago. She's okay now."

"Are you sure?" Riku asked. "You never know, she might just be trying to be strong about it, for you."

"No, I'm positive. She's fine."

As if on cue, Kairi sprinted across the beach and sat next to Sora. "Hi guys."

"Hey." Riku said quietly, managing a feeble wave. The three looked out at the ocean silently. No one spoke for a long time.

"Looking out there…" Kairi whispered. "…it reminds me of when we were little. And we wondered how far the ocean went on for."

Sora smiled happily. "Yeah. I was what, seven? I always thought that it just went on forever and ever."

Riku laughed. "Which is why you were afraid to build the raft. You thought we'd get lost in the middle of the ocean and just keep going the wrong way for the rest of our lives."

"Yeah, so you said 'Fine, we'll wait until you're older then.' And we waited. Seven more years." Sora scoffed. "And we never even finished it."

"But we got out there, didn't we?" Riku said ironically.

"Even me!" Kairi said cheerfully.

"And we may have gotten lost, but we found the right way back." Sora ended, nodding his head slowly in realization. "It may have been a nightmare, but we found the right way back home in the end."

Riku and Kairi looked at their friend and realized that then, at that moment; Sora had come to terms with what had happened. They knew that he wouldn't be forever haunted by the experience anymore, and that he would be able to accept what had happened and move on. It turned out that talking about the past helped the future.

"Sora." Kairi said gently. "You were the right way back."

"Yeah." Riku agreed. Sora looked at them with confusion.

"I was the door…" he said slowly. "I was what I was looking for all along. So I didn't really find the door…but I found you guys. We all came back, because of me?"

"That's right. You were the road that brought us together again." Kairi said, putting her hand on his shoulder. The three friends sat for a moment, letting the thought sink in, and then they continued the silence while they watched the ocean waves.