Chapter 28

~Day 321~

"You're really, really okay?" Xion asked Roxas for the umpteenth time. The question had been directed at him every five minutes from the start of their mission up to them being on the clocktower together right then.

"Okay, you're starting to weird me out," he confessed.

"Why?"

"Since when do you ever worry about me?"

Xion scoffed and dramatically lifted an arm into the air. "Well, excuse me!"

"Just feels strange, that's all. Usually, I do all the worrying over you. I don't think it's ever been the other way around before."

She looked down at the twilight streets below as she said, "Well, for your information... I worry about you all the time, Roxas."

He laughed lightheartedly at that. It made her smile. He was laughing. Almost like they used to laugh together. "I'm glad you're back, Xion. I just wish Axel didn't have to be so rough with you."

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the stairs. "I guess he and Kairi aren't coming today."

"You want him to?"

Xion quickly turned her attention back to Roxas, her face weary. "What, did you two have a fight?"

He grit his teeth in anger as he nearly spat, "I can't believe that jerk would actually attack you."

"So he's a jerk now?" When he did not respond, she placed a hand onto his own and continued. "Roxas, I wouldn't be sitting here with you if Axel hadn't done that." He still said nothing. "He's your best friend."

"So are you."

Xion sighed and turned her attention forward. "It's just not the same without all of us... you're not mad at Kairi, too, are you?"

"I think she is at me."

"What do you mean?"

"She never talks to me anymore, except occasionally when Axel's around. She's been avoiding contact with me for weeks, maybe months, but she keeps staring at me and giving me weird looks."

"She's probably just confused. I think we all are."


"Axel!" Xion yelled at him across Naught's Skyway. He stopped walking, allowing her to catch up with him.

"You need something?"

"What? No... I just... something's wrong with Roxas. I thought you might know what's up. He says the Keyblade wears him out now when he goes to use it. And suddenly I find myself fighting the same way he does."

"Well, you know him better than me."

She avoided the urge to cringe. "Why... why would you say that?"

"Ask yourself what's doing it to him." She hoped she mistook the venom in his voice.

"I'm not sure."

"Oh, you're not sure? What, did they forget to build you with common sense?"

She took a startled step back, as if he had slapped her. Axel was going, though, and was not about to stop. "Oh, come on, don't look shocked. You already know you're a Replica. A puppet whose original purpose was to duplicate Roxas's powers. If he's getting weaker and you're getting stronger... well, that just means you're borrowing a little more than you oughta be."

Nobodies cannot cry. Puppets especially cannot cry. Those were not tears in her eyes. "What should I do, then?"

"I can't make that decision for you. You're no puppet in my book. You're my best friend. Mine, Roxas's, and Kairi's. Got it memorized?"

Still not tears. Still not tears. But she was definitely smiling. "Yeah... can I ask you one other thing?"

"What's that?"

"I saw a boy today who looks just like Roxas. Is he who I think he is?"


~Day 322~

As long as she did not look, she was alright. Just don't look, Kairi, she would tell herself. Don't look up at Roxas. Don't look at how pale he is, and how he looks like he's about to fall over. Just don't look.

She could not stop looking.

I can't talk to him... what if he goes all... Sora?

"I'm stronger than that," she whispered. Demyx, who had been sitting beside her, gave her a look. It was their morning tradition to sit in the Grey Area, he playing his Sitar, she reading a book, and he typically giving her looks whenever she began talking to herself. "I am stronger than that!"

"Good for you," he said."Think you're strong enough to-?"

"You're doing your own mission," she announced as she stood. Demyx swore at his defeat. Kairi proceeded to ignore him and walk over to Roxas, who was half-asleep talking to Luxord. "Hey, Roxas."

He turned to her, and his face lit up when, she assumed, he saw her. "Hey, Kairi! Nice seeing you this morning."

Ouch. Is my negligence that obvious? "You too. Are you feeling alright? You look kind of... sickly."

"Perfectly fine!" His eyelids were half-closed as he said that, but he showed no sign of knowing.

"Good, but still..." She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of her elixirs. When he made no attempt to receive it, she took his hand and placed the elixir in his palm, curling his fingers around it so he would not drop it. He seemed unsure how to react to her gift, so she kid, "Just make sure you're coherent when you come back."

Roxas laughed, remembering that night so long before when Demyx had kept them up with his Sitar, and then Kairi had five too many elixirs the next morning and later had been unable to remember any of it. Kairi smiled at his laugh, pretending that it was not the laugh of Sora. If she could ignore that, she could see that Roxas was already looking better. "Kairi, thank you!"

Her arms went around his Heartless. Shadows pounced on her. There was pain from the Heartless, but then, she could feel light, and his arms around her. She was leaning limply against him."Kairi, thank you," he said. She looked up, and saw Sora.

The image faded, and Kairi uttered a sound akin to that of a suffocating animal. Roxas's eyes grew wide and he reached out to her, but Kairi stepped back, out of his reach. Her hand went up to her mouth to conceal any more noises threatening to escape. Her throat was dry, strained.

Sora had regained his heart. He had not stayed a Heartless and Nobody. He had come back to life.

But he could not. Because Roxas was standing right in front of her.

Sora was alive.

But so was Roxas.

Only one could exist.

"Kairi?"

"Excuse me, I'll..." She could not even bring herself to finish her statement. She ran from the Grey Area and down the hall, making it to her room before she collapsed onto her bed, shaking. One hand went to her head, as if that could help the migraine that was forming because she could not grasp what she had just seen.

When she recovered enough of her coordination, she reached under her pillow and pulled out her notebook. She read her last entry.

Roxas, Sora... I can hardly tell the difference anymore. Whenever I look at Roxas, I see his human self, and I almost always stumble when I try to say his name. It's giving me this killer headache. The main problem is, I don't know which one I want to be seeing anymore.

New entry.

I saw another image. Sora came back to life. But he couldn't have, because that was when Roxas was formed, and if Sora came back, Roxas would have to be dead. They can't both exist. It doesn't make any sense. I don't get any of this! Why can't he just get out of my head?!


Saïx had witnessed the entire ordeal in the Grey Area. He promptly teleported to Where Nothing Gathers, where Xemnas still sat from their meeting earlier that morning.

"It would seem we do not have as much control over Kairi as we thought," he said. "It is only a matter of time before she, too, falls."