There Is a Destiny That Makes Us Brothers

Chapter 14: Answers

Notes: Just a short, wrap-up sort of chapter this time. Next is a brief epilogue to wrap this story up once and for all, and hopefully that will be up relatively soon!

Sora awoke wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, curled up on an unfamiliar sofa. He could hear quiet chatter from the next room, and the sounds of someone preparing breakfast. The smell of coffee wafted into the room and it seemed to prod Sora's senses awake. With a start he remembered he was in Radiant Garden, in Merlin's house, and that Roxas had been in dire straits the day before.

He remembered sitting on a chair by Roxas's side while the other slept, and he remembered Aerith putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and folding a cup of tea in his hands. He remembered night falling, and Riku venturing upstairs and coming to wordlessly stand beside Sora.

"I can't help feeling like this is all my fault," Sora had said finally. "If I'd just been watching more closely when we were fighting Chernabog...Roxas is like this because he saved me."

Riku didn't answer at first, just rested his hand atop Sora's head and mussed his hair, like when they were kids. "Roxas is gonna be fine," he said finally. "And you're exhausted."

Sora didn't even attempt to deny it. He let Riku steer him out of the room and downstairs to the parlor, where the two of them spent the night on the worn, albeit comfortable sofas.

Now, the other sofa was empty, save for the blanket folded neatly atop it. So Riku was already up, then.

Sora threw the blanket off of him and got to his feet, suddenly anxious. Quietly he made his way up the stairs to the spare bedroom. He gripped the doorknob and quietly, slowly, eased the door open. Roxas was curled up on the bed, just where Sora had left him. He was facing Sora, and his breathing was even and there was color back in his face. Sora breathed a sigh of relief and backed out the room. He hurried back downstairs to join the others; he was actually pretty hungry, when he thought about it.

Roxas slept most of that day, but he wasn't the only one exhausted. Days of fighting and few scattered moments of sleep here and there had taken its toll on all of them. Which was why everyone was so surprised when Kairi insisted on accompanying Aerith to the market.

Aerith hadn't been planning on shopping that morning, but the house needed more food if all five of them would be there for a week. "Aren't you tired?" she asked Kairi.

"Well, a little," Kairi admitted. "But...but it's the least I can do."

Aerith frowned. She and Yuffie had good-naturedly groused about all of the extra mouths to feed, but she thought it was clear that they were joking. "It's no trouble at all," she said slowly. "All of you are always welcome here for as long as you need to stay."

"Thank you," Kairi said. "But I'd really like to go."

"I'll go too," Naminé said quietly. Kairi looked truly troubled about something, and Naminé was still extremely grateful for Kairi's sympathetic ear when she explained what she had done in Castle Oblivion. Somehow Naminé felt that Kairi needed someone to listen to as well.

Aerith was bewildered, but there was no point in pursuing the matter any further. Not long after that, the three of them set off for the market. On the way they passed the town square, and the sight of the young flower patches filled Kairi with an inexplicable coldness.

"The flowers look nice," Naminé said as they passed.

"Thank you!" Aerith beamed. "They used to look much nicer, before... But we're all working very hard."

It was only when Aerith was catching up with the woman behind the produce cart that Naminé took Kairi aside. "What's wrong? You don't look very good."

Kairi swallowed. "Naminé...Do you have a weird feeling about this place? About Radiant Garden?"

Naminé shook her head, alarmed now. "No, why? Do you think we could be in danger here?"

"No," Kairi said vaguely. "It's not that at all. It's...almost the opposite, actually." She paused. "Naminé, how far back do your memories go? Do you, um, have any of mine?" She felt awkward and nosy asking it, as if she were asking a blind person how they had come to lose their sight.

"Only those that happened after I was created. When Sora used Riku's Keyblade to free your heart," she said. "Kairi...you've been acting strange since we got here. What's wrong?"

She turned away. "When we were fighting Chernabog, he showed each of us something awful, so that we'd give up, right? I saw these…ghosts, and the world where I lived before I ended up on Destiny Islands. At first I thought it was all made up, but...but it looked so much like Radiant Garden," she said, trailing off in a whisper.

Naminé's eyes widened. "Do you think you might be from this world?" she gasped.

"I...I don't know," Kairi said helplessly. "I might be."

"Well, that'd be great," Naminé said, a little confused. She expected Kairi to be excited at the thought of discovering her past.

"Great?" Kairi repeated, turning to Naminé. "What about my family? Did I live with my parents? What if I had brothers and sisters? They all might be dead, and I don't remember a thing about them." Sudden tears filled her eyes and she brushed them away in annoyance. She refused to fall apart over this.

Naminé took her hand. "Kairi," she said gently, "we've got to tell the boys about this."

Kairi squeezed Naminé's hand. "I can't," she sighed. "At least not right now, what with Sora so worried about Roxas and Riku so worried about Sora. Besides, I don't know if I'm ready to...to really try and figure this out." She smiled weakly. "Don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answer to, right?"

Naminé didn't answer at first. "Is there anything I can do?" she said finally.

Kairi smiled. "You listened," she said, as Aerith was coming over to them. "That's more than enough for now."

The next day was far easier. Roxas felt much better, and early afternoon found Sora sitting in the room with him, just talking. It was a warm, sunny day, and the breeze that floated in from the window overlooking the street lifted both of their spirits.

The wind carried a familiar trio of voices into the bedroom, and both Sora and Roxas froze in midsentence. Sora leapt out of his chair and hurtled over to the window, and his heart swelled at the sight of the three approaching the door. "Your Highness! Donald, Goofy, up here!" he shouted. The three looked up and saw him.

"Sora! Hey, Sora!"

It was as if all of his pent-up anxiousness over Roxas, all his tiredness, just flew out of him all at once. Sora, grinning from ear to ear, flew out of the spare bedroom and down the stairs, throwing open the front door and leaping at Donald and Goofy. The three of them tumbled out onto the street, nearly taking out Mickey as well.

Roxas got out of bed and made his way over to the window, watching Sora mock-wrestle his friends on the sidewalk. Passers-by glanced at them in amusement or thinly veiled annoyance. Roxas just shook his head at Sora's antics, but he was smiling too.

Once Sora had calmed down, all of twelve of them gathered in the parlor; even Roxas, who was admittedly growing tired of the spare bedroom. The house, which had been so unusually quiet the day before, was once again full of happy chaos. Even Kairi, still deeply conflicted over what to do about her past, felt her troubled mood lift.

"Well, Chernabog's good and gone, this time for sure," Mickey announced, once they had finally settled down.

"Good!" Sora declared. "But...when we were fighting, he said someone gave him the prophecy. And that's how he knew what to do."

Mickey nodded, frowning. "I figured something like that might have happened."

"Any idea who passed on the prophecy?" Riku wanted to know.

Mickey shook his head. "Yen Sid and I had an idea or two, but no proof."

Sora's eyes widened at the mention of the old sorcerer. "Oh yeah, Your Majesty, it...didn't really go that well," he said sheepishly. "When we went to see Yen Sid, I mean."

Mickey sighed a little. "I heard. He's a little...well, set in his ways."

"He started it," Sora mumbled somewhat childishly.

"All right, already, we get it," Roxas said mildly, realizing that he no longer cared what the old wizard thought of him.

Mickey looked at Roxas as if really seeing him for the first time. "Oh yeah!" he burst out. "How are you feeling, Roxas?"

"Not bad, thanks," he said slowly, suddenly aware that everyone was quiet, their eyes locked on him.

"So what actually happened to you back there?" Sora burst out finally.

"Yeah, we heard it was pretty bad," Goofy added, and there was a general murmur of agreement from the rest.

"Um, well...Chernabog kind of clawed me, which wasn't very pleasant, but Naminé healed it and I was fine," Roxas frowned. "And then all of a sudden I felt like I was on fire," he said, gesturing to the spot on his side where Chernabog had struck him. "And everything went black. When I came to, I was..." He trailed off, uncomfortable, suddenly realizing that everyone was staring at him with thinly veiled fascination.

"Then what happened?" Naminé asked, in the most neutral tone she could muster.

"Um, I was standing on the clock tower in Twilight Town. And Axel was there." This revelation was met with a stunned silence.

"Axel? From Organization XIII?" Donald asked.

"Was it is his...ghost or something?" Sora asked.

"Or something," Roxas said finally. "We were friends back then, you know. He told me that Chernabog poisoned me, but that I was strong enough to beat the poison if I wanted to. So we just...talked, and then I decided I wanted to go back." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It had been a profound moment, but it sounded a little silly put into words like that.

"Um...I guess I still don't get it," Sora said finally.

"Me neither," Kairi said, relieved that someone else had said it first. Naminé and Riku nodded as well.

"What don't you get?" Roxas asked.

"If you were stronger than Chernabog's poison, then why'd you almost die in the first place?" Sora asked.

That, Roxas didn't have an answer to. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought about it, either; after all, there had been plenty of time for thinking while he had laid upstairs resting. He gave Sora a helpless shrug, just as Merlin spoke up.

"Now, you're all looking at this wrong," the wizard announced. "Any…internal damage inflicted by Chernabog wasn't caused by the sort of poison you'd find in, say, a snake bite. Roxas was nearly killed by the very dark nature of Chernabog. Indeed, it takes a very confident, bright heart to fight off the sort of darkness Roxas must have been infected by."

Roxas leaned back in his chair, taking in this new information. "Yeah, I remember the Enchantress told us something like that," Sora was saying, but Roxas wasn't really paying attention. Roxas was again thinking of Axel, and of how difficult it had been to shake off that terrifying vision of Axel throwing him from the Twilight Town clock tower. Roxas' eyes widened as he realized he hadn't been able to shake it off until his conversation with the real Axel in the afterlife.

"C'mon, you gotta learn to let stuff go," he had told Roxas.

"That makes sense," Roxas finally said aloud. "There was this thing I needed to let go of before I was strong enough to fight that darkness…I guess," he added quickly. Next to him, Sora's face broke into a knowing smile.

"Oh, speaking of darkness!" Naminé said suddenly. She turned to King Mickey. "Your Majesty, I can't open up a Corridor of Darkness anymore. And it might be the same with Roxas. Why is that?"

He regarded her with surprise. "Of course you can't open one, you – Gosh! You mean you haven't realized it yet?"

Naminé exchanged glances with the others, but they seemed as clueless as she. "Realized what?"

"I bet you saw something you were afraid of there in the Domain of Shadows," was Mickey's somewhat cryptic reply. "What was it?"

Naminé was taken aback by the question. "I…" She blushed. "I saw Marluxia, but then Sora came. He was just a shadow, but he was trying to hurt Sora, so I told Sora about what really happened in Castle Oblivion."

Kairi, squeezed into a large armchair next to Naminé, turned and regarded her with surprise. Naminé only gave her a quick shrug in reply. There hadn't been time to tell anyone what had happened in the Domain of Shadows, and in light of Roxas' injuries, it had slipped her mind. She felt eyes on her and looked up to see Riku regarding her with a mixture of surprise, and was that pride in his eyes?

"Exactly!" Mickey said excitedly. "Naminé, the only people who can use Corridors of Darkness come from darkness or have darkness in their hearts, or aren't whole somehow. And that's not you or Roxas anymore!"

Naminé's eyes widened. "You mean…"

Mickey smiled widely and nodded. "Yep! Naminé, you faced what you were most afraid of to help Sora. And Roxas, you were willing to put your own life at risk for the life of a friend. You both have earned those hearts."

There was a brief silence. And then Sora exclaimed, "Are you serious!" and the whole room seemed to erupt. Kairi threw her arms around Naminé's shoulders and Roxas was having his hair ruffled.

In all the commotion Naminé placed her hand over her heart and felt it beating; every beat seemed to grow louder and louder, filling her from head to toe with light. Somehow she caught Roxas' eye.

"We're staying!" he mouthed to her, eyes wide in disbelief.

"I know!" she mouthed back, smiling widely.

The rest of the week passed without incident. Mickey and Merlin had both agreed that at the end of one week, Destiny Islands would surely be safe to return to, and Mickey had arranged for the five to be teleported there at the end of the week. The time passed peacefully – and quickly, in Naminé's case. She had asked Merlin to school her in the basics of magic, and he soon found that her friends had not exaggerated in their description of her natural gift for magic. Naminé glowed under the praise, and she was pleased at the thought that she would be able to truly help her friends, the next time they were confronted with some evil.

But the day before their allotted week was up, Sora felt incredibly antsy to get home. By early evening, everyone was getting a little tired of his anxious pacing. So Kairi seized him by the wrist and pulled him outside.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" he asked.

"Let's take a walk before you pace a hole in the floor," she retorted.

The sun was beginning to set over Radiant Garden, and the clouds were a smudgy haze of purples, oranges, and pinks. There was a warm breeze, and the people heading home looked contented. Sora surveyed this scene with a growing satisfaction. "I like seeing Radiant Garden this way," he said, arms folded behind his head. "Leon and everybody are doing a great job putting it all back together."

"I like it here too," Kairi said quietly, all thoughts of her unknown past coming back to her.

Sora unfolded his arms and turned to look at her. "Something wrong?" he asked.

Kairi shook her head. "No, nothing…I guess I'm just ready to go home."

Sora nodded, and the two lapsed into silence as they meandered through the market district. Kairi was deep in thought, remembering Naminé's advice when she had confessed her feelings about Radiant Garden. "Sora…" she began. "If you were in my position, would you be scared too?" She stood still.

"H-Huh?" Sora stopped as well, regarding Kairi with concern. "What position d'you mean?"

"If you didn't know where you were from. If you couldn't remember," she said quietly.

"Kairi…"

"I want to know, so much," she continued. "But I'm also afraid of what I might find."

"Yeah, I would be afraid, if it were me," Sora said carefully. He took her hand. "But…I'd also know that my friends would have my back no matter what I find."

Kairi smiled a bit. "Thanks, Sora." She began walking again, keeping Sora's hand in hers.

"Do you…want to start looking?" he asked. "For where you came from, I mean."

Kairi gazed around at the buildings that rose up on either side of them. What sort of secrets could these buildings hold, she wondered. "Not right now," she said. "But maybe soon."

Sora nodded. "Okay! Whenever you're ready. Just say the word and we'll go."

His eagerness was infectious, as always. "Sounds good," Kairi smiled. They continued on, taking in the peace of the moment. Sora's words had cheered Kairi much more than she had thought they would, and she felt calm. In the back of her mind, she still feared what she might find in her past, but she had decided she would take it one step at a time. And her friends would be with her the whole time. After all, they had already been through so much together.

When the sun began to fade, they turned and headed back for Merlin's house. "It'll be nice to be home tomorrow," Kairi sighed vaguely as they approached the house.

Sora nodded slowly. "Except…what are we gonna tell our parents about Naminé and Roxas?"

Kairi giggled. "We'll have to think of something good, huh?"

"Yeah," Sora grinned, reaching around to open the door for her. "I don't think that, 'they came out of our hearts' would go over very well!"