Memories of Twilight

So the feeling of coldness coming from the dark vacuum of the Lanes Between became unsettling as I traveled for around an hour looking for another world to settle down in. But I passed in front of a particular world that Ven's heart seemed to react to almost instantly.

As I passed this world multiple times, Ven's heart throbbed and warmed my chest, and I could feel the intensity of Ven's pull. He was trying to lead me towards this world.

Which world was this? I saw a clock tower, a beautiful sunset, a train…a weird jumble of objects put together to make this world. And most of all, this world felt warm. Something inside me told me that Ventus had been to this world before. But that was impossible. He'd never even come to a world like this.

Roxas. I felt that Roxas had been to this world, since he was Ven's doppelgänger. Something also told me that Sora, my own doppelgänger, had been to this world once before as well.

I pointed the X-Blade at the world, and a beam of dark light shot towards it, and I heard the sound sounding almost like the unlocking of a Keyhole or something like that. And I seemed to vanish in a flash of light.

Where was I now? I felt high up. The wind smooth its way against my face and ruffled my hair. My body felt like it was floating in the breeze. I opened my eyes. I was staring at a beautiful sunset over the horizon. I looked down. About a hundred feet or more down.

I noticed I was on the edge of a large building. The building I was standing on happened to be a large clock tower. I was so close to the edge of the balcony I stood on, one more step and I would plummet downward. And then I remembered.

Twilight Town.

I had definitely been here before. It wasn't Ven's pull on my heart, or the feeling I had from being Sora's doppelgänger. I had actually been here. With Xehanort. I looked around, familiarizing myself with the once familiar place.

I had been here close to fourteen years ago. Xehanort had just dropped Ventus at the Land of Departure to train under Eraqus. That's how I remember this place. This was the first place that Xehanort had taken me after our stop in the Land of Departure.

I remembered it well.

Xehanort and I landed on our feet in front of the large clock tower, staring up at the massive clock as the ticking became unbearable.

"Now that we are here," Xehanort said in his raspy, old voice. "It is time to train you in the art of darkness. For darkness shall clash with light. Are we ready, Vanitas?"

I still wore my helmet back in those times; I hadn't fully developed Sora's face yet. I was still a blank slate. I answered back in my, probably ten year old voice, "Yes, Master."

"Good," Xehanort replied back, placing a hand on my shoulder. "But in order to learn, we must do. Nothing I say can teach you. Only battle will suffice." And just like that, his own Keyblade of darkness appeared in his hand. Unlike other Keys, he'd never given his a name. "Go!" And rather suddenly, he swung at me with the Keyblade.

I had to think fast, drawing my own Void Gear and connecting our two blades, sending a spiral of darkness out from between us and nearly causing thunder to rumble in the distance.

"Now use you're true darkness abilities," he shouted, "that Ventus could not!" He wiggled his fingers a bit, darkness appearing at his fingertips, and Neoshadow Heartless rose from the ground. There were around thirteen of them.

Several jumped at me at once, so I slashed at the four that jumped my way. Each slash of my Void Gear caused them to perish and turn into liquefied shadows.

I raised my hand into the air, and three other Neoshadows instantaneously exploded in a flurry of darkness. The other six leapt at me, and darkness exited my body like several hands, each shadowy hand grabbing hold of a Neoshadow and squeezing them into oblivion.

I had easily defeated the Neoshadows. Apparently I knew more than I thought. How had Ventus notmaster my power of darkness?

I missed those days. I could actually tolerate Xehanort, despite the hell he's put me through and those countless waves of Heartless I was forced to fight. But I must say, I enjoyed fighting and killing each Heartless.

A hand rested on my shoulder. I quickly turned around. The boy there was a little bit taller than me, brown eyes, light skin, dark eyebrows, and spiky, blond hair. It wasn't the same blond or spikes as Ventus or Roxas, however.

"Whoa…" he muttered in disbelief. "Sora?" I arched an eyebrow. Had this guy met Sora? "Sora!? How'd this happen to you? What's with the hair, and those eyes…"

"Sorry, but I don't exactly know who you are," I said in the nicest way possible. And believe me, there's no way for me to sound nice. "And you've got the wrong guy. Sorry."

"I'm Hayner, then." The boy insisted on the introductions when all I wanted to do was move along. Great start to a perfect world. "But you do look a lot like Sora."

"I get that a lot," I lied, trying to speed up our conversation. "Now if you don't mind, I've gotta be somewhere."

I started walking forward. "Wait!" He yelled behind me.

I whipped my head around and sneered, "What!?"

"I guess you're new around town," Hayner said with a smile. "So I have to warn ya, this town isn't too safe to be walking around. In the past day or so, there's this ghost who walks down the streets and disappears with at least once townsperson. So you can come back with me—"

"Okay, let me stop you there," I snapped at him. "What does this ghost look like?"

"Glowing, spherical red eyes," a voice answered for me, and walking from behind Hayner was a new kid.

The kid was a rather heavy-set boy with light skin, brown eyes, and black hair and eyebrows. He holds his hair up using a black headband with grey lining.

The boy continued, "Oh, yeah! He seemed to be wearing a jacket! A black jacket!" I arched another eyebrow. The Organization? "The only other thing worth mentioning is that this jacket had magenta colored flames printed going up the jacket's coattails and sleeves. That's about it. Oh, wait, with every step, darkness rises from the ground!" He sighed, clearly not wanting to explain this again as if he had done so already. "Oh, yeah, I'm Pence!"

This was definitely not the Organization. From the members I've seen so far, none of them had the style to wear fire flames on their coats. And I'm pretty sure they're supposed to have golden eyes, not red.

But this definitely was mystery worth solving. So I decided to say, "Fine, I'll go with you two back to wherever it is Hayner was gonna take me." I smiled evilly in Hayner's direction, but he didn't seem to catch on.

"Okay, I'll lead the way," Hayner said running on ahead, Pence following closely behind and motioning his hand for me to follow.

As I followed these two kids who were both probably fifteen or sixteen, I seemed to remember a mystery ghost in this town long before this day, back when I had first gotten to Twilight Town.

"Master, send some more out! I'm ready to kill—"

"Patience, little Vanitas," Xehanort replied to my whines. "We will resume our training once I'm done my job here. You stay around. Look at the sights. I'll only be an hour." And with that, he conjured up a corridor of darkness and vanished within it, leaving me all alone.

Not even a full minute since he's left me, I found my way on the balcony near the top of the clock tower. And then I saw it. What seemed to be floating in the air, twenty feet away from me and the balcony, was a strange person in a black jacket. It was a normal jacket, not a cloak like the Organization has.

The hood was covering its face so I couldn't see what it actually looked like underneath. And just like that, it vanished into thin air, almost fading away.

It was a ghost alright. I turned around to walk back down the stairs that led me up here, but the ghost was right there in front of the stairs. Under its hood I saw spherical red eyes. I drew my Void Gear, and the creature simply laughed in a feminine voice.

It put its hands on either side of its hood, and slowly removed the hood. Her eyes immediately went from red to green. And herhood was finally removed; another face was staring at mine.

"We're here!" Hayner's voice cut through my unconscious mind and I finally realized I had walked the whole way, even without me realizing it. Passing a curtain made of cloth, we had entered a strange room willed with random objects, a few chairs, and even a sofa. "Our Usual Spot. Here's our other two group members! Olette and our newcomer!"

Two other people were in the room. A girl; she had bright green eyes, soft peach-colored skin, and brown hair. Her hair sticks out on the sides and two strands of hair fall from either side of her head, just long enough to drape over her shoulders. This must've been Olette.

"Hello, pleased to meet you!" she said in a happy-go-lucky attitude.

I looked at her awkwardly. She was kinda cute, but not as cute as Nami. Wait…what am I even thinking!? I had to quickly erase those thoughts and emotions from my mind.

I looked to the other person. She had on a simple black jacket, the hood over her face to where I couldn't see. She wore a pair of dark purple jean shorts that were slightly ripped on the legs, right above the knee, along with black sandals.

She seemed mysterious. And familiar. She looked up at me. And then those memories flashed through my head again.

The mysterious ghost-girl, or whatever she was, had removed her hood. I looked at her nervously, obviously feeling my first ever emotion: love. The beauty of her couldn't be replaced. I was in awe. I awkwardly said, "My name's…Vanitas."

The girl that stood before me chuckled and smiled, saying, "Hello, Vanitas. My name is…"

"My name is Rika." As my flood of memories ended, I stared at the girl who had stood before me, her hood now down, and I was able to see her familiar face. This was Rika, a girl I had met fourteen years ago. Yet it looked as if she had never aged. Well, to be precise, it looked more like she was my age. Around fifteen or sixteen, or however young I actually looked.

But now she looked so much like Nami and Xion. I couldn't place it. Her hair was the same raven colored hair as Xion, but longer and going over her shoulders, similar to Nami's. Her face looked nearly identical to Nami's and Xion's.

Because Nami and Xion were close to the same person, being created somehow by this Kairi chick, so I imagined this girl looking like all three of them.

Maybe I need to explain. Nami is Kairi's nobody, who was born at the same time as Roxas. Xion is a replica of Roxas created from Sora's memories of Kairi, thus rendering her so similar in looks, her face identical to Nami and Kairi.

But this girl looked like all three of them, I suppose, even though I hadn't seen Kairi, but Nami explained it a hell of enough times.

The next thing I noticed were her bright green eyes that really popped and made her look even more beautiful. Normally I could control my emotions, but seeing an old friend like this, as well as her natural beauty and resemblance to Nami, my heart was going a mile a minute.

I had never been this way before. I tried to convince myself that this was Ven's heart talking, but I knew the foul truth. I had feelings for this girl, and for Nami. I had feelings. Darkness isn't supposed to have feelings.

A long silence had passed. Hayner, Pence, and Olette seemed to be intent on staring at Rika and I staring at one another.

Rika smiled and said, "Come on, not going to say anything? You remember me, don't you? Although, I'm pretty sure when we met, you hadn't had that face that you're wearing now. You had this bulky helmet thing."

"You two know each other?" Olette asked.

"Well, Vanitas, this is Rika," Pence replied before Olette could. "She's the newest addition to our group. You know, it's strange. Vanitas, you look like Sora a lot…" He then trained his eyes on Rika. "And she's a dead ringer for Kairi."

Rika tensed up. Her eyes looked to the ground. Was it something Pence said to tick her off? Why did she suddenly look like she was ready to punch a wall?

"I guess you can say I am closely related to Kairi," Rika said, returning to her smile. The smile looked a little forced. "Drop it, Pence." She then looked back to me. "Vanitas, was brings you here? Are you back with your Master?"

"No," I said quickly. I didn't want Hayner, Pence, and Olette to know about my powers, Xehanort, or my Keyblade. "So Rika…why are you here?"

"To investigate this mysterious ghost running around," she said smiling, winking at me without making eye contact with the other three. "You three, stay behind. Vanitas and I will go outside and talk."

Pence gave us a thumbs up, and Rika grabbed my gloved hand and dragged me outside out of earshot. "This ghost may be related to the group of powerful beings known as Organization XIII. And of course it's not a real ghost. It's obviously just a member who has a certain style."

"You've seen it?" I asked back.

"Only once, by that old mansion on the outer edge of Twilight Town," Rika replied. "I say we go there without the other three idiots following us." Wow, it didn't take her long to immediately become hateful towards the others. Was she like me? No emotions? "Are you gonna come with, or stand there gawking all day?"

"Fine, I'll go along, Rika," I replied with a sinister smile, making Rika smile with pleasure. "But tell me, why do you look so much like—"

"Save it for later," Rika replied. "I seemed to have spawned three doppelgängers. I'll explain it later, at the mansion. For now, we need to go." And I followed her. I had to know how she looked like Nami…as well as Xion and that other girl, Kairi, I was unfamiliar with.

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Did you like my new OC, Rika? WHY does she look so much like Kairi, Naminé, and Xion? Find out if you STAY TUNED!