Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Royalty

I found the ship easily. To my surprise, Sora was standing there, waiting for me.

"Is everything okay, Demyx?" He asked.

"It's fine. Why do you ask?"

"You seemed so… hesitant yesterday. You don't have to do this."

I sighed. "Yes, Sora, I do. That's the thing."

He seemed to catch the drift. "I understand everything that's happened between the two of you…"

I cut him off. "Don't worry about me, please." I turned, went to board the ship. "You should be worried about yourself," I whispered, so low he wouldn't hear it.

The trip was short, silent. Axel and I sat side-by-side on the floor. There was barely room for both of us. I ignored the motion sickness that wanted my attention and toyed with the drawstrings on my cloak.

"Are you okay?"

I looked up, startled. "Everyone keeps asking that."

"You're nervous," Axel stated.

"Of course I am."

He tried to find something to say to make me feel better, but couldn't. He just patted my shoulder.

Everyone seemed worried about me. Why, though? I wasn't even important. In fact, I was downright pushed aside most of my life.

The ride wasn't long, maybe a half-hour at most. My heart was beating quickly. I felt almost like I was going to faint. I clutched the jacket. We landed, and disembarked.

"This shouldn't take long," Sora said. "Where is this… 'Virtual world'?"

Axel took the lead. It was surprisingly easy- almost suspiciously so. There were neither Heartless nor Nobodies here, and even the people were few in number. Then again, it was early morning. The fewer people out, the fewer enemies there would be.

We wove our way through town. I watched Axel's face the whole time, waiting for some sort of reaction. This had been where he and Roxas hung out, after all. That much I knew- I'd always heard them talking about meeting there while in the Organization. I could say it as much as I wanted, but it was a lie- I had never been part of their group. I hadn't been part of any group, really. Yes, I'd talked to both of them, a lot. But were we friends? Nobodies couldn't have friends. I hadn't been included in their special group, but Xion had.

Her name again. I hadn't been able to tell Axel about her yet. How come he didn't remember her? Just because she was a replica didn't mean she had no existence, ever.

I sighed. The five of us faced a large crack in the wall, which I could see led into a small forest.

Sora blinked. "Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Positive," Axel said.

I knew how it looked. But the Committee and I had grown to trust Axel this past week or so. Sora had no real reason to, though.

What was through here? I tried to remember my recon missions. Right… an abandoned mansion. I hadn't been able to get through the gate, even by dark corridor. Some kind of magic lock on top of the very big real lock.

The forest was… pretty. Twilight Town was always in an eternal sunset. I stared at everything through my new eyes, drifting behind them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of gold fly through the trees.

"Huh?"

"What is it, Demyx?" Axel asked.

I shook my head. "I thought I saw something… must have been a trick of the light." But it wasn't.

The forest emptied out into a small area by the gate. Ivy climbed the peach-colored walls.

I saw more gold… it was a Keyblade, I recognized with some confusion. Who was this person…?

"King Mickey!" Sora shouted with jubilance.

"Who?" Axel muttered.

I shrugged. "He said they were looking for their king… I guess this is him."

The figure with the Keyblade turned around slowly. He was a… mouse, that's for start. He wore large yellow shoes and an outfit with a red vest and shorts. It actually looked similar to how Sora was dressed. The King didn't look nearly as happy to see them as they were to he. "Hey… fellas."

"Your Majesty! Where have you been?" Sora asked. "We've been looking everywhere for you," He paused, waiting for an answer. None came. "Have you seen Riku lately?"

"Nope, not a trace," The King said. Had I not once been a Nobody, I wouldn't have realized; he'd lied. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"You sensed it, too?" Axel whispered.

"Yeah. There's something he doesn't want Sora to know."

Axel sneered. "Well, looks like their faith in their king was for nothing."

"It was one lie. I wonder why…?"

Before I could finish my sentence, Sora turned to us. "This is Demyx and Axel. They work with the Restoration Committee and they used to be members of Organization XIII, but they're human now."

The King gave us an appraising glance. "…Are you sure it's safe to trust them, Sora?"

He blinked. "Yes, if Leon does. I just don't sense anything evil about them."

The King tilted his head, and then nodded. "You're right."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Where are you all going?" The King asked.

Sora hesitated. "We're… we're going to face Xemnas. Axel knows how to get there."

The King glanced at Axel. "I was just heading there as well," he said. "We should travel together."

"All right!" Goofy cheered. "It's been too long, Your Majesty?"

Mickey forced a smile at his friend.

"Well… why are you going?" Sora asked. "This is my battle."

"…I have a friend who's in trouble," he finally said. "I should have done something a long time ago. But now…"

"…Right." Sora turned. I noticed that since the last time here, the gate had been opened. I had never been in the mansion before. Axel sighed.

"I hate this place," he told me.

"Is it because of… Roxas?" I asked.

"I… I suppose. I really wanted to save him, you know? He was my best friend."

"…Was?" Automatically, I looked to Sora, who was chatting with the King. The King himself looked stressed.

Axel looked towards him, too. "I thought that… maybe Roxas would recognize me, if they're supposedly one now," he murmured. "But so far… nothing. And even though he's a nice guy… Sora just isn't him." He shrugged. "That's all said and done. I understand that Roxas is where he needs to be. I was being selfish in trying to get him back. …That's how I figured out how to get from here to 'Never Was. I wasn't on a mission. I was trying to get him back. There was… a glitch in the programming. I don't know why, but it leads straight to where we need to go."

I exhaled.

"Are you sure you can face him, Demyx?" Axel prompted.

"Yes," I whispered. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

"…Let's go," Axel finally said. "The others are ahead of us."

The inside of the mansion was worn and dusty. It was obviously once a beautiful place, but now it was a wreck.

The King was already leading them.

"He must know about it," Axel muttered. "I'm not surprised. He might have been the one to tear the hole in the programming- the glitch."

"I'm confused," I admitted.

"Don't worry about it. It's all just technical."

We walked into a library. At least, it had the guise of a library. The floor was missing; instead, a staircase led down into a blue basement.

"I remember this," Sora gasped. "I… I woke up here!"

"Yes," Mickey said. "It's no coincidence." He turned. "Something happened to your memories, Sora. We had to fix them. A man named DiZ oversaw the work."

"My… memories?"

"I'll explain later," Mickey said honestly. "I don't know all the details."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Is this DiZ your friend?"

Mickey stared at me. "How did you know?"

"Deduction," I said blankly. "How else would you know about all this stuff, unless DiZ himself told you about it?"

"Where have I heard that name before?" Axel muttered.

Sora blinked. "Let's just keep going," he pleaded, and went straight into the next room.

We were confronted with a computer. It blipped gleefully, the screensaver flickering.

"I've done this before," Axel said. "Let me handle it." He sat down. "There's a password. Mickey, you know DiZ. Maybe you can make sense of it."

The King crossed over to him. Sora looked at me and shrugged.

The screen looked something like this.

Password?

-Sky sugar

-Liver pepper

-Sea salt

"Well, sea salt is the flavor of an ice cream," Axel murmured.

Mickey brightened. "DiZ loves ice cream!"

"I hope that's the answer, then," Axel said, and selected the choice.

All of a sudden, a white light shot down from a sort of device near the computer.

"Whenever you're ready," Axel told us dryly, "That'll take us to the virtual world."

"Just a minute," Sora said. "Demyx, why don't you suit up? I just want to talk to the King for a minute. Axel, you can bring the others on over."

"Okay," Axel said uneasily. He led them over. "Just touch the beam, when you're ready."

He and the two of them quickly disappeared. Sora took Mickey into the other room. With my heightened sense of hearing, I'd be able to hear every word. I quickly threw the coat on, tucking my pants into my boots- it wasn't like I had any other shoes- and pulled on the gloves. I was just about to leave when I heard them start to talk.

"Your Majesty… are you sure you haven't heard anything from Riku? Nothing at all? You two were together when we sealed you in the realm of darkness." I sensed a hint of suspicion on top of Sora's desperation to find his friend.

I went to touch the beam, but I couldn't stop listening. Personally, I was curious to myself as to why the King had lied.

"Sora, I'm sorry."

"…You're sorry that you can't tell me anything, or you're sorry because something went wrong?" Sora's voice was soft.

"Sora, please. Don't think it's not difficult for me, too." Still ambiguous, Your Majesty.

"How? I've just been blindly searching for you guys. I thought you were well and truly missing at some point… but you've been avoiding me."

"It's complicated."

"Yeah, that's what everyone says." Sora sighed. "What is it, though? Why were you avoiding us? I can understand that you are fighting the darkness… but so are we. And what's going on with him? Riku's alive, I just know he is."

"Sora…" the King exhaled. "There's no stopping you, is there? Okay. I made him a promise."

"To what?"

"To not tell you where he was."

"What?" I could hear some anger, some pain. "Why?"

"Riku didn't think you'd understand what happened to him. He doesn't feel like he belongs to the realm of light anymore."

Sora exhaled too, and I really heard the pain in his voice. "He needs us. We can't just let him do this."

"Sora, I tried to talk him into coming with me. He wouldn't have it. See, the whole time you were sleeping… he was protecting you. He was working hard to see that you woke up the way you used to be."

"…That's another thing I don't understand. What happened to my memories? What made them so they had to be fixed?"

The King paused. "That's a story for another time."

"Promise me. I need to know the truth."

"You're not quite ready. But I will tell you. Someday."

They must have evidentially shook hands. I gasped and touched the beam, hoping they hadn't found me listening in on them.

There was a flash of bright light, and suddenly, I was standing in the same exact room as before- only the computer was smashed to bits.

Axel raised his eyebrow with me. "What took you so long? Did you get caught in the zipper or something? And what's with the face?"

I shook my head, feeling too strange to react to his innuendo. "I'll tell you about it later."

Sora and the King appeared only a few seconds after I had. Sora looked hurt. The King looked sheepish and ashamed.

"Well, let's go, guys," Sora said without the enthusiasm he'd had before.

Axel led us into another room. It was large, with only one doorway, and a green pattern in lights running across the floor. Everything was blue metal, like the rest of the place. There was swirling red and green light in the corner. "That's our way there," he said, pointing.

We proceeded. The room… changed. We were in this odd sort of lane in between- it was almost cylindrical, like those illusions where the room spins and you feel like everything's tilting. I took a tentative step forward.

Axel swore. "Damn… they sealed the entrance." He pointed to the edge. "It used to be over there…"

"Don't worry," the King said. "I've got it covered." He whipped out his Keyblade and walked to the edge of this… area.

"What are you going to do?" Sora asked.

The King smiled a little. "There's more to being a Keyblade Master than just being a powerful fighter," he said. He raised his blade so it was parallel to the ground, and turned it, like one would with an actual lock and key.

An odd sense of power swept over the room. Everything around the edge of the blade swirled together, stirring a dizzy feeling inside of me. It was unnatural, what he was doing; not evil, but I didn't like the feeling it game me. I stumbled. For a minute, I nearly fainted.

"Demyx, what's wrong with you?" Axel hissed. He grasped my arm. I closed my eyes.

There was an odd ripping sound. I gasped. For a second everything went white. I quickly regained control of myself. What was this? Why was this happening?

"Come on," Axel said gently, pulling on my arm.

I noticed, through a hole in this room, that the World that Never was waiting for us.

It was raining.

The rain kissed my face. I looked up to the sky. It hardly ever rained here. I shook off the last remnants of that weird trance.

"…Where do we go from here?" Sora asked.

"It's this way," Axel said. "Not far at all… we're just on some side streets."

"I didn't think it was a whole world," Sora told him honestly. "I just thought it was the castle…"

"It might as well be," Axel agreed. "It's just… an empty city."

I felt someone staring at me and turned. It was the King. He had an odd look on his face. "What is it?" I asked him.

"Nothing, I was just thinking," he said. "You remind me of someone I know."

That was interesting. Was it a good thing? Or was I reading too much into it to think that maybe he knew Xehanort…? "Oh…"

All of us continued through the streets. I remembered them better than I thought. There were plenty of Heartless for us to fight, but all of them were mere Shadows- weak.

Even under the sky and the large moon that was Kingdom Hearts, I felt slightly suffocated. The buildings seem to press in on me. I hoped this wasn't foreshadowing for what was to happen next.

"There's no one here," Sora whispered, his voice carrying easily in the dark street. "It's so… eerie."

"The whole place is just abandoned," Axel explained. "No one… lives here. Not even the lesser Nobodies. I'm not even sure why there's a city. It's probably symbolic in some way."

I bobbed my head.

In front of us now loomed a large building. Memory's Skyscraper, my mind provided. It seemed like ages since I had been here. Blue and green lights ran up and down the building, flashing and blipping. For a second, before I looked away, I saw one of my memories flicker on the screen. I blinked hard. That was the last thing I needed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sora disappear.

It was the weirdest thing. He was gone for the slightest second- almost a trick of the light. I was about to convince myself that it hadn't really happened… until he turned to us. "Who was… that?"

"Who was what?" Axel asked.

"The guy. The guy in the black coat."

I raised an eyebrow and pulled on my sleeve.

"No, not you…" Sora looked at us, panicked. "Someone… else."

"Well… what did he look like?" I asked.

He glanced away. "No… never mind. It's not important."

"You sure?" Axel asked.

"Yes. I'm still tired, that's all." This wasn't the problem, I was sure of it. Sora himself looked confused, almost like he'd seen a ghost. "Let's just get this over with."

There was a moment of silence.

"Yeah, it's… this way," I muttered.

And sure enough, the castle was there. Waiting for us.

I hate... necessary chapters... XD Yes, it achieves something, but this chapter wasn't very fun to write. I was glad I had written almost the whole thing ahead of time, because between a family emergency and work, I've had almost no time to write, and the time I did have, I wasn't able to complete anything. I have that type of writer's block where the ideas are in my head, but they don't write out well.

And the last few lines. What lazy writing that is, oh my gosh. I didn't know how to put that into words. I don't think I included that bit in the original. Oh well.

Still no update for One Hundred Snapshots this week. I just can't finish this one prompt. I don't know why. It's very difficult.

Thank you all for your reviews last week, especially from TheChel, Mystical, The Ninja And The Writer, Willowfur, anonymous reviewers Wolven24KH and WinxKHeartsPitchiMewSailorFan, and Anna. Is it too much to ask for eight reviews this time around? I need some inspiration.

Next update: July 28th