Dreamers Awake - I

Mysterious Tower

Day 30

Light

He had always been frightened of the darkness. It concealed all manner of unsavory things that, he was certain, would like nothing better than to devour his light. He had always been frightened of the darkness, but this… this was something altogether different. Light had never known that darkness could feel so menacing; even as he stumbled blindly through the darkened tower, he thought that he could feel unseen teeth snapping at his heels. It was beyond terrifying.

How had things gone so horribly wrong? His vision had been one wrought of simplicity and efficiency; Sora would awaken, confused and weak. Light would rush to his side the moment he materialized, eager to answer his questions and ease him back into the realms of light.

And then, with the power that he had siphoned from Hollow Bastion's Cornerstone, he would in turn absorb Sora. No longer would his presence be hazy and impermanent. No longer would he be relegated to a seldom-used tract of Sora's mind, an overlooked corner of his heart that was treated with indifference and neglect.

Only… Sora's grand entrance had not been at all what Light had expected.

"I- I'm sorry!" Light shouted as he ran. He stumbled over some unseen piece of debris in the darkness and very nearly lost his footing. He slammed into a door and staggered through it, clumsily shouldering it shut and thrusting his back against it. "I didn't… I didn't want this, I-"

"Oh?"

Light choked on his own saliva and stumbled to his knees. He flipped over and scrambled away from the door in horror as a thin black mass slowly phased through it. Amber eyes shone like twin beacons in the darkness, pinning him to the floor. Light considered making a last desperate stand, but he was sure that anything he could do would have little to no effect on the horror that now stood before him, Cornerstone or no.

Sora, bereft of his light, was both greater and more terrible than anything Light could have ever envisioned in his darkest dreams.

Lea

"So, uh… how long is he gonna be like this?"

It was more of an accusation than a question, and Lea immediately regretted how it must have sounded. He glanced at Sora out of the corner of his eye and saw that he was still staring down at the writhing, shrieking Light in consternation. His arms were folded and his brow was wrinkled in thought, or perhaps annoyance. His eyes were precisely the same shade of blue as Roxas'. Lea found that more than a little unsettling. Sora had reappeared quietly and without ceremony. To be honest, Lea had been expecting a fancy light show at the very least, but no; the savior of the Realms of Light had winked into assistance as a disheveled heap on the floor of the observatory moments after Roxas and Xion had vanished.

"Dunno," Sora exhaled heavily. "You said that he started… this shaking and stuff around the time I woke up, right?" Lea nodded that it was so. "Then that has to be why," said Sora. "Just don't know what we can really do about it. I- … hang on, those two…" he trailed off into silence, clearly distracted by something that he alone could hear. Lea watched with trepidation.

"Sorry," grunted Sora after a moment's silence. "Those two won't give me a moment's peace. I couldn't hear them before, but… I don't know what they've done. Anyway, Xion's claiming responsibility for… this." He gestured vaguely at Light. "She said something about suddenly having access to his thoughts and… I don't know. I didn't really understand much of it, but I think she's trying to say that something really weird happened to this guy's connection to my heart when I woke up, which allowed her to mess with his mind in some way?

… Xion is terrifying," he concluded with a tone that seemed to bespeak both admiration and a certain amount of apprehension.

Lea felt compelled to agree. He wondered what, exactly, Xion had done to Light, as well as how she had been able to do it. He was still uncertain in his belief that Light was indeed responsible for the disaster at Hollow Bastion, but if those two claimed that it was so…

"And Roxas says that this guy's probably responsible for a lot of pretty terrible stuff," continued Sora sourly. "Guess I should apologize if he really is a part of me. I don't think I've ever had any interest in destroying an entire world for my own benefit. But, well, assuming- … please shut up." Lea had thought that Sora's behavior had been extremely out-of-character from the moment he had awoken, and the swift, irritable kick he now delivered to Light's ribs only served to further stretch his credulity. This version of Sora reminded Lea very strongly of Roxas, or perhaps Roxas when he was in a particularly foul mood.

"Can't even have a conversation," muttered Sora as Light's screams died away. His convulsions had lessened, though he still twitched at odd intervals. Sora thrust his hands into his pockets as he considered the scene. "Guess I gotta take him back though, huh? Can't let him run around unchecked… and as weird as this is gonna sound, I feel incomplete without him. You might not have noticed, but I'm not really myself right now. It's such a weird feeling too; I feel this insane amount of guilt, but also anger, loneliness… and frustration. And I don't know where any of it's coming from."

Roxas, is that you? thought Lea, though he dared not voice the words aloud.

"What was this guy even planning, anyway?" continued Sora with an irritable huff. "What did he think would happen when I woke up? Xion says that he most likely absorbed whatever power he could from that Cornerstone, but it doesn't seem to have really done him much good. Of course," he added offhandedly, "that could just be Xion trying to smooth things over for when we do manage to get set the two of them free. We're going to have a nice, long talk about everything that's happened while I was asleep. Don't think she's particularly thrilled by the idea.

And where's the old man?" he added sourly. "Riku and Kairi… should be fine with His Majesty, right? He would be of more use up here helping us figure out what we need to do."

As if on cue, Yen Sid appeared in the doorway carrying a small leather bag; various tools and devices that Lea could only wonder at peeked out of the top where he had apparently forgotten to close it all the way. Silver spindles and what looked suspiciously like a needle glittered in the brightly-lit chamber. Yen Sid cast a wary glance in Sora's direction before proceeding to kneel before Light.

"Hey old man, can we keep this version of Sora?" asked Lea lightly as Yen Sid began to rummage through his bag. "The original gets embarrassed a lot easier, but this one speaks his mind without giving it a second thought. Reminds me of Roxas when he's in a bad mood."

"I'm standing right here, you know," said Sora dryly.

"No… no, this inconstant, unstable version of Sora is not to my liking," muttered Yen Sid distractedly. "You shall have Roxas back soon enough, so you will have to be content with that. In all likelihood, Sora is acting that way because Roxas is the strongest presence in his mind at present. I have little doubt that he will return to normal when all of this has been resolved."

"So we'll have to… what, knock him out again?" asked Lea. Sora flinched. "Moving people in and out of his heart while he's awake seems kinda… that'd be a bad idea."

"That would be a very bad idea," opined Sora emphatically. "Almost as bad as attempting to knock me out."

"… We will free both Roxas and Xion from their prison," said Yen Sid reassuringly after a moment's silence. He produced an odd-looking instrument that looked like nothing so much as a silvery scalpel. The edge glinted a cold blue when he held it up to a lamp. "I promise. Hold Light still, if you please. Let us see if light that has been drained once can yet be drained again… and thereafter returned to its proper vessel."

Rvs: 2.1