So I'm hoping since I'm starting this a few days after chapter 35's upload that I should get this up and not make you guys wait so much. But then again, who knows how long it might take me to finish this chapter.
Before we get on with the story though…if any of you are interested, I've made some fan art of Kingdom Hearts and they are uploaded on my deviantart account gallery. I just recently put up two. You can see them here .com/gallery/#Kingdom-Hearts Hope that link works.
Anyhow, on with the next chapter…
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I did a quick glance over of the room as I stepped into it. The floor was a plain light grey color and the ceiling had teal pipes snaking about it. The two sidewalls had piping on them too. Inside I could see neon colored liquids rushing about in different directions. The room was slightly inclined. At the other end, the higher end was a blank grey wall. I could see the outline of an opening in it, but it appeared to be sealed shut.
When Kairi spoke I finally began to pay attention to what was located in the room before us. The first actual thing I noticed was the mist that occasionally drifted near us. It was mix of the colors red, purple, and black, and was cold to the touch. "Raene?" Kairi asked when no one answered.
"I don't know," I replied. Ignoring the other items in the room, I crossed to the other side and examined the opposite wall. "It's closed shut!" I called back to the others. I turned around looking around quickly for another exit. The others were still at the other end.
"It's so creepy in here, feels like a graveyard," Kairi said quietly.
"How do you not know where we are? This is your home," Sora said.
"Yeah, but…" I started to say. I looked to my right. There was a red light glowing from the ground. I walked in front of it and examined it. "This…this is Xemnas's part of the castle. Younger members aren't allowed in." The light was coming from a coffin-shaped panel on the ground. Behind the panel, coming up from the floor was another panel, but it was smashed into several pieces. I was about to stand up when I saw words written on the ground in front of the panel. I bent forward and squinted to read it. "The Free Shooter." A sudden sense of déjà vu swept over me. I placed my hand on the panel and brushed away some of the dust collected there. There was a picture of Xigbar's two guns.
I stood up quickly and looked across the center isle. There was another red panel on the floor. I bent down in front of that one and read the words below it. "The Whirlwind Lancer." I had seen this panel before. Riku, Kairi, and Sora walked up to me and glanced down and Xaldin's "grave".
"This can't be!" I said standing up suddenly.
"What?!" Sora asked. I pushed through them and began spinning around looking at the different panels.
"I've been here before…" I said. "When we had a funeral for Xaldin we came to this same room. There were white sheets…blocking out the rest of the room." I looked at the next row of panels. A red one with Vexen's shield and another red one with Lexaeus's tomahawk were on the row below Xigbar's. "Axel killed him," I said pointing to Vexen's as I crossed the isle to the two below Xaldin's.
"Axel killed another member?" Sora asked following me.
I nodded. "And the one next to it…Riku…" I said glancing at the completely destroyed panel belonging to Zexion. I couldn't even see his weapon because of the damage.
"Riku?" Sora said turning to his friend. "When did you defeat one of them?" Riku didn't answer.
"And this one too…" I continued.
"No," Riku said. I looked up at him. "I didn't kill Zexion. That was Vexen's replica of me."
"The replica?" I said. I remembered hearing something about a replica that the members at Castle Oblivion wanted to use against Sora. "He killed Zexy?" I asked.
"Zexion…yes…" he replied.
"But why?" I asked confused. "The replica had no reason to do so."
"He was manipulated. He was told that he could be real if he got the power to defeat me—power I didn't have."
"But it's impossible for him to be real. Who would lie to him like that?"
"Your buddy Axel," he said in with a cocky tone.
I shook my head. "No. No, Axel wouldn't do that. He was loyal to the Organization, just like Zexion."
"He killed Vexen," he reminded me.
"To rid us of traitors like Marluxia and Larxene," I argued. I looked quickly at the other people in the room. They all had confused looks on their faces. "He had no reason to betray his superior," I added looking back at the smashed grave.
"Entertainment," Riku said. "He did for his own pleasure, he had no other reason. He's messed up, that one."
"Was messed up. You forget he's dead," I said.
"So you agree he was crazy?"
"Enough!" I said moving to the panel next to it. "You still killed Lexaeus," I said quietly.
"When did you defeat a member, Riku?" Sora asked pulling on his sleeve.
"Haven't you noticed yet, Sora?" I asked calmly. He turned to look at me. "Look here," I said pointing to the panel in front of me. "This panel's blue and all the others we've seen have been red. This belongs to Saïx. See here." I pointed to his title. "'The Luna Diviner'".
"What about him? What haven't I noticed?"
"He's still alive! Blue means life!" I said. He looked at me confused. "Look around, Sora. How many blue ones do you see?"
He turned around then looked back at me. "Three," he replied.
"So how many does that leave to have already been killed?" He held up his fingers and started counting them off. "A lot, Sora. But how many do you remember killing?"
"Well, that Xigbar guy, Xaldin, and…" he thought for a minute. "And Demyx."
"Well, that's three, Axel died, then these three," I said pointing at the graves of members 4, 5, and 6. "That's seven, Sora," I said.
He turned and looked around again. "But, Raene, there's only 12 in here," he said.
I did a quick glance. There were only twelve as he said. There were four left alive, Xemnas, Luxord, Saïx, and Roxas. That still left two he couldn't explain. "Look," I said as I jumped down to the row behind me. I brushed the dust off the panel on the isle-side. Underneath was the image of a scythe. "This is Marluxia." I brushed off the dust on the panel next to it too. "And Larxene."
"Who are they?" Kairi asked.
I sighed. "After you sealed the door to Kingdom Hearts…some things occurred that you don't remember. Xemnas had established another Organization headquarters. He sent Marluxia, Larxene, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion there," I said pointing at each grave as I said their name. "And he put Marluxia in charge." Sora nodded and I continued, "Marluxia and Larxene wanted to take over the Organization. They asked Axel to come along and they wanted me to, too, but Axel wouldn't let me go. Axel would have to gain their trust first, however. He did by killing Vexen who threatened to destroy their plan."
"How did they plan to take over the Organization?" Sora interrupted.
"Naminé…you remember talking about her?" He nodded. "She has the power to control the memories of people. Marluxia kidnapped her and forced her to do as he wished."
"What did he want her to do?" he asked.
"Bring you down," I answered. He looked at me for a while. His face held confusion and shock. Riku stood with his arms across his chest, his eyes shifting back and forth between us. Kairi mouth opened slightly and she glanced at Sora. She moved closer to him and placed her hand gently on his forearm.
"What…what do you mean?" he asked after a while.
"When you, Goofy, and Donald," I said glancing at his companions, "closed Riku and King Mickey in Kingdom Hearts you continued on in the only direction available, right?"
"That's right," Goofy said, "Pluto was holding an envelope with the King's seal on it."
"Yeah," Donald joined in, "we started chasing him down the one path.
"And then?" Sora said questioning his own memory. The other two shrugged. Sora looked at me for the answer. "We woke up in Twilight Town?"
I shook my head. "You're forgetting a lot, Sora," I said. "A man in black cloak came to you and told you that ahead was something to needed, but in order to get it, you would have to lose something dear to you. He led you to Castle Oblivion. From the moment you entered the doors, your memories began to fade into the darkness."
"How come I don't remember this?" Sora asked angrily.
"Relax, Sora. Let her explain," Riku said.
I smiled. "You slowly began to lose parts of your memories. With each level you went up, you lost more and more. Parts of your memories were revisited though. You traveled simulated versions of worlds you had traveled to in your past—like Traverse Town. That was the first place you went to, and when you discovered that this Leon and Yuffie and Aerith and Cid and others that you came upon had forgotten you, you were very sad. You learned as you went though that these worlds were just parts of your memories. The Leon you met in this virtual Traverse Town wouldn't remember you when you woke up because he wasn't the real Leon."
I took a deep breath and continued. "So then you began to remember this girl from the islands…another one besides Kairi. You could barely remember anything about her at first, not even her name. As you went further in the castle, your friends kept losing all their memories. You, too, lost memories, but you gained some as well. New ones replaced the ones you lost. Kairi, the person most precious to you, as you said, was no longer; the person who took her place was Naminé."
"What do you mean I forgot Kairi?!" Sora shouted. "How could I forget one of my best friends?"
"Sora," Riku warned. He turned to me. "Please…continue, Raene."
"Marluxia's plan was to make you fragile because of your caring for Naminé. You would be drawn farther into their trap to make you their puppet. Larxene approached you and told you that Naminé was in the castle. You remembered a promise you had made to her when you were little kids that you would protect her no matter what. And because of this false promise, you continued on, becoming a puppet just as Marluxia wanted. With you doing as he wanted they would use you to take over. Naminé was forced to change your memories, but all this time she felt terrible for doing so. Axel's the one who convinced her to tell you. After defeating a replica Riku, made by Vexen to turn you against the real Riku, you carried on and defeated Larxene and Marluxia. See, the whole time Axel had been playing as a double-agent to rid the Organization of the two traitors."
"How does that explain those two's deaths?" Sora asked pointing to Lexaeus's and Zexion's graves.
"The same time you were traveling through the castle above ground, I was below ground working to find you," Riku said. "Vexen made a replica of me which he sent to tear us apart. Naminé too was forced to changed its memories so that we would fight over Naminé…just as we used to over Kairi." He turned smiling at my sister who smiled back and him. "In the end I destroyed the original source of the darkness in my heart…Ansem, and I killed No. 5 of the Organization and fought against No. 6. It was the replica in the end who ended up defeating him completely."
"What happened to you in the end? And me? What happened to me?" Sora asked turning to me.
"Naminé told you what she had done and offered you the chance to regain the old memories sleeping deep inside your heart. She told you that you'd be able to remember the real girl from the islands. In exchange for regaining your old memories, though, you'd have to give up the ones that you gained in Castle Oblivion."
"I agreed to the old memories?" Sora said calmly, to no one directly.
I nodded. "You were reluctant because you felt that you were Naminé's friend, but she convinced you to sleep. It would take a year for you to awaken, but it was as though nothing changed."
"I don't remember her at all," Sora said turning to Donald and Goofy. They both shook their heads, showing that they don't either.
"Donald and Goofy went to sleep too so they could remember their quest, and the king, and all their past," I added. Sora lowered his eyes to the ground and became strangely quiet. "Although you don't remember her, she's still apart of you." He looked up at me. "She told you that your memories would never be completely lost, only forgotten. In my case, the people of my past will never remember me because Naminé erased them entirely. You won't ever remember the time you spent in Castle Oblivion because Naminé rearranged them to be separate from your conscience ones."
"I feel odd, Naminé was a good friend to my old memory…but I forgot her. It just seems terrible."
"It is terrible, but it's not over yet. You'll meet again."
"So what happened to you, Riku?" Sora asked turning to his friend.
"Naminé gave me a choice as well. I didn't lose any of memories in the castle. I was busy fighting off Ansem, who was trying to regain control of me. I found Naminé after you went to sleep and she explained everything to me. She said that Ansem would resurface from the darkness in my heart and I'd have to fight him…also that he would most likely win."
"Ansem? The Heartless Ansem, right?" Sora asked.
Riku nodded. "Naminé told me that she could lock my heart so that he could never come back; I'd be back to how I used to be."
"But there was a catch?" Kairi said.
He nodded again. "I would lose my memories of the castle and my memories of the darkness. Earlier in the castle, Naminé had come to me. She was disguised as you, Kairi, in order to convince me to listen to her. She told me to accept both the darkness and the light to overcome my enemy. I did that, so when she told me that I had to choose between my destruction and losing half of who I was, I chose to fight Ansem. I had fought the darkness before and had won. The darkness is more a part of me than of anybody else in the realm of light. Naminé was proud of my decision. She said that was what she hoped I would choose. She said I was the only one who could beat him."
"That's really brave, Riku," Kairi said, reaching her hand out to his arm. He pulled away.
"We should get going," he said. "There are still three more members in this castle." He walked to a blue portal, looked down at the name, and nearly stepped through.
"Wait!" I said. They all looked at me. I went to the left of Riku to where two red graves sat in a shadow. I sat down. "Just a moment, I promise." Kairi sat down next to me.
"Raene?" She said.
"I'm fine," I replied. I placed my hand on Demyx's grave. "I wonder what's gonna happen to me once I disappear…" I said. "He always questioned that."
"He was your friend?" She asked.
I nodded and scooted further left to Axel's grave. "Nobodies aren't supposed to show emotion…since we don't have hearts. Axel, on the day we met, told me that he felt like he had a heart because of his friends. I believe what they always told us, about not being able to be happy or sad or angry…or to love or hate someone…isn't true. I mean, how could we have friendships if we didn't? How could we not show any emotion when someone died or when something good happened?"
"Nobodies remember what emotions are like…from their past lives, remember?" Riku said.
"How could Roxas and Naminé feel emotions though? They don't remember their past lives."
"Their others are both very unique people," he said. "And I'm sure someone like you helped them to understand them too."
"I wanna disappear. I know I shouldn't, and I know Axel would want me to stop it from happening. Even if it is possible to stop it though, I'll never see Axel and Demyx again. And once it happens to Roxas and Naminé, they'll be gone too. I wanna disappear so I can see people who have forgotten me one day…maybe my mom and dad. The people I grew up with, even the ones who aren't the greatest people in the world, I wanna see them again. Because we were family."
Kairi touched my shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, Raene," she said.
I looked at her and nodded. She helped me up. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the note Axel had left me. I read it once more, and I could feel a tear collecting in my eye. I smiled, rolled it back up, and placed it in my pocket once more. "I love you guys," I said to the graves as Riku led me to the blue portal. As we disappeared through the door, I looked at Roxas's portal and whispered, "He'll be the last one."
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Hello there, everyone! I don't suppose I need anyone to accept my apology. I'm so slow on updating. But, nonetheless, I have updated and am still working on the story. Hope you enjoy this one. I'll get to work on the next one as soon as possible. It's been harder to get free time to sit at the computer and just type. So enjoy! And I'm terribly sorry again! Love you guys, and thanks so much for sticking with me.
~Sarah