Pairings: Riku/Sora, Leon/Cloud, Axel/Roxas, Tidus/Seifer more pairings later?

Warnings: AU, I guess spoilers or something for people who haven't seen all the way through the end of the game, medieval stuff, possibilities of violence and bloodshed and sexiness

Author's comment: Been kinda sick the past four weeks plus not getting enough time to edit and post up these fics. This one's completely and I'm currently working on and editting the other three chapters. Hopefully they will be posted up by this weekend. And I'm still coughing. x.x

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Princely Garbs 52

While Seifer and the others were in the midst of heading towards the Heartless army, Roxas was busy with his training. The week long amount of training he got while inside the training room was equivalent to half a day in the real world. He was tired, just flat out exhausted but he wouldn't allow himself to rest until he was stronger.

Zack had left at one point. He wasn't sure when or even for how long since his concept of time was all jumbled up. There was no sun, no moon, or a sky to indicate day or night. Whenever his stomach rumbled, Zack was already there with plenty of food to reenergize him.

As time seemed to float on by slowly he slowly gained more control over his powers. Zack would help out with pointers and new ideas but for the most part he let him practice on his own. The idea behind it was so Roxas could develop his own ideas and style of fighting.

Imagination, Zack called it. He lacked creativity so his uncle said anyway. Not like Roxas ever had time for creativity as a kid considering he worked with a group that got whatever they wanted with manipulation and the use of the darkness. Would the creatures of darkness even listen to him now?

"Break time!" Zack said coming through the door like it was nothing. He carried with him a covered tray, but he could already smell the sandwiches and soup escaping the tin covering. "Come eat before you pass out."

"How long was I gone for this time?" Roxas asked heading over to him. Since being around him Roxas had grown to like his uncle. Zack liked to talk, especially about life here in the palace. He liked to do it while Roxas trained which had started out as a nuisance at first. Now, it was something he looked forward to. He liked hearing about his parents when they were younger or how Cloud used to help his father sneak out of the palace when he didn't want to do paperwork only to be caught by a brooding Auron. They sounded so happy. It made him feel warm inside.

"Ta da!" Zack smiled and lifted the cover off the food. "Chicken sandwiches and chicken soup."

"…Why so much chicken?" Roxas asked looking up at him.

"Why not?" Zack grinned at him. He felt like he was talking to Sora the way his young brother seemed to make everyone feel better. "By the way." Zack glanced away from him looking at a particular area in the room. "Have you noticed anything strange in this room?"

Roxas looked up at him, cheeks filled with food before he swallowed hard to clear his mouth for speech. "Come to think of it, I keep seeing a spark of light every so often."

"Good…you're almost ready then." Roxas stared at him waiting for an explanation, but Zack just smiled and moved on to a new subject. "So what's something new that you've learned?"

Roxas quickly finished slurping on the soup and used his shirt to wipe his mouth clean before standing. "I've been trying a lot of things." He held out his hands, the keyblades appearing in both of them. He was just accustomed to using two, ever since being in the Organization. "With two, there's a lot of options open to me." The blades glowing starting to change shapes. One of them ended out sporting small wheels of all kinds and designs on it. They spin just like real wheels and Roxas didn't doubt that if he laid it on the ground, it would move. He'd partially made it for that reason, after all. The other keyblade had the handle that was designed as a wheel. It didn't spin but was merely cosmetic. Colors of white and black were here and there organized in tight checker board squares that every occasionally were interrupted by a single red square.

His clothes changed as well. Actually, it was more that accessories had been added. He had red tinted eye shields on now that looked more like a visor that covered his eyes. A small, cloak covered one shoulder, red on the outside and black underneath. His hair even seemed firmer and to stick up more as if wind were hitting it. Two small wings of light stuck out from the back side of his shoes hovering by his feet. They shifted quickly with each movement of his feet. The same but bigger was at his back at each shoulder blade. The feathers of the wings shifted constantly in quick twitchy movements that went unnoticed by the boy that owned them. At the sole of his sheets, small wheels had formed glowing brightly.

"It looks like it's made to fly," Zack said tilting his head and observing the wings.

"They're not," Roxas said as he lifted up the visor. "They help me to glide." He smiled. "I have to be faster. I need to know where my enemy is before they get there." He remembered how fast Xehanort was, how he'd been unable to move himself and how frustrated it had made him. He needed to be faster than him. "This ensemble is called Quick Shot for a reason."

"So…is the visor for show?"

"Hm?" Roxas reached up touching it almost forgetting it was there as it felt natural to wear it. "No, it actually feeds information to me."

"Feeds it how?" Roxas took the visor off and handed it to Zack watching his uncle put it on. He looked funny wearing it, actually. "Ah so it gives you information on the actual lens. Impressive…why didn't I think of that?" Roxas felt himself flush at the praise his uncle gave him. With this, Xehanort wouldn't be able to hide anything from him, including his strengths, his weakness, and the overall percentage of winning against Roxas. "Huh…what's this now?"

"Hm?" Roxas tilted his head. "What is it?"

"Check over in the corner there." He handed the visor back and Roxas looked up at him curiously before putting it on anxiously. There, he saw the quick slash of the light he'd seen before. He was about to look and ask his uncle before his eyes caught sight of the word "processing" blinking on his lenses. His eyes narrowed as he looked up at the corner again. The word on the lenses changed to "loading," and right before his eyes he started to see the spark of light taking shape. He saw it clearly and was surprised he didn't pass out.

"Sora?" Sure enough, he saw his brother's body being outlined and getting more visible by the minute. He saw his brother look over at him and looked away back up at his uncle to see if he saw the same thing. Considering where he was staring it was obvious that he did. The strange thing was that he didn't look surprised at all.

He turned to look again but his eyes caught sight of something else. Roxas stared at the figure, feeling familiarity even if he didn't remember meeting the man. The man had walked over to Sora and was talking with him saying something Roxas couldn't hear. He didn't think they were ghost. In his opinion, ghost would never be so animated. Was this what Sora saw the day of the festival?

"You see them, right?" Zack asked.

"Yeah…" Roxas didn't turn his eyes away like he was afraid of the image disappearing. "How am I seeing this?"

"The light…your light," Zack corrected. "And your heart's desire."

Roxas swallowed. "So are they dead?" He'd like to think they weren't. The thought saddened him. Then he noticed Sora looking at him.

"No but they are currently without bodies." Then Zack rested a hand on his shoulder. "Try talking to him."

"How?" Roxas did look at him then. Zack's form was that of a red tinted man through his visor. It scanned him pulling up his name, age, and miscellaneous information about him including his favorite foods. Zack rested an open palm on Roxas's chest and the young boy looked down at it sure he felt warmed flowing inside him.

"Use the light of your heart," his uncle said.

"The light of my heart?" Roxas frowned then looked over at Sora who was outright staring now, the adorable pout on his lips that could only belong to his twin brother.

"Think about the person you want to talk to then send your light out to them." He barely understood what that meant. But he stared at his brother, the desire to talk to him again and see him alive overwhelming. He needed to know that Sora was ok.

Roxas took a deep breath then mentally reached deep into his heart pulling forth the light and sending it towards Sora with a simple, "Sora, can you hear me?" He was a little surprised to hear, "Roxas, is that you?" in response. He heard it not necessarily with his ears but with his heart.

"So that is you…" The words came out mentally but physically he breathed a sigh of relief.

"You can see me?"

"Yeah…can you?"

"Sorta…you're really just a shadow…" He didn't really know what the other meant by that. Sora looked at Tsunami and the two exchanged words Roxas couldn't hear before Sora started to walk towards him.

"Is that…?"

"Our dad?" Sora finished for him and looked back at Tsunami before nodding his head. "Yeah, it is." Sora smiled fondly as he stopped in front of Roxas. "He's wicked cool." Sora looked past him and Roxas already knew where he was looking. "So…who's that?"

"Our uncle." Roxas's smile resembled Sora's at that moment when he looked back at Zack who gave him thumbs up. "He's wicked cool too."

"Awesome." Sora looked about to give him a high five but hesitated before lowering his hand. That's right…if he's a ghost, it'd be useless trying to maintain physical contact with someone like Roxas. "Ansem's here too," Sora said before he frowned. "Well…he is but he couldn't come in." Roxas blinked. So even spirits couldn't come in. He didn't really know Ansem so he had no emotional attachments at all. But he knew he was Riku's grandfather and Kairi's granduncle.

Sora explained a lot of things to him, about why Tsunami and Ansem were there, about how they weren't dead and how Xehanort was holding their bodies' hostage. While Sora spoke, Roxas listened carefully and when it was his turn to explain, Sora took it all in. Between the two of them they gained a lot of knowledge. He'd almost forgotten the other two men were in the same room.

He didn't know what made him do it but he reached out to rub Sora's hair. It didn't register at first when he felt the soft brush of hair against his fingers but he noticed it when he thought about the fact that he could see through Sora. His twin apparently noticed it instantly because he looked up at him in shock and confusion.

"You can touch me?"

Roxas blinked and withdrew his hand slowly. How had he been able to…? He looked at Tsunami and tried talking to him, but none of his words got through. It confused him and he turned quickly too look at Zack.

"How come I can't talk to Tsunami?" He asked looking distraught. He'd wanted to at least hear his father's voice once, even if it was through mental means.

"When you try to talk to others, it also depends on the strength of your bond to each other." He smiled at bit. "I'm barely able to hear some of the faint words he says to me not to mention he and Sora are little more than outlines to me." Roxas glanced down at that. So that meant he couldn't even fully see his own brother. "Anyway," Zack continued. "Did something happen? You seemed kind of shocked just a moment ago."

"I…" Roxas bit his lips slightly thinking. "I just touched Sora…" Zack's eyes opened a little wider in surprise and Roxas took it to mean that this wasn't normal. Was talking to ghost like people even considered normal?

His uncle reached out towards Sora then to touch him, but his hand went right through him instead. Roxas frowned and reached out again, touching his brother as easily as he touched is uncle, and lifted his hand up by the wrist.

"That's…that's great!" Zack yelled out. "This is perfect! If you're able to touch then…training should really be more effective now!"

"Huh?" Roxas blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"It means the two of you need to stay here and train while I talk to Mickey," Zack said starting his way to the door. "I'm also thinking of a way to get Sora back into his body if possible."

"H-Hey, where are you going?"

"Just out," he said throwing a hand over his shoulder. "You two just keep training. I'll be back in no time." And the door closed up behind him leaving the two, correction, three people there to stare after him. Tsunami seemed to have an amused look on his face but it wasn't like Roxas could ask him what he was thinking.

"Zack said we should start training together. He said that he was going to go talk to Mickey and that he has an idea about how to get you back in your body."

"We should be fine for right now."

"Yeah," Roxas agreed with a smile. "We should be." He walked away a little bit before he turned around and pulled his keyblade out and held it up looking at Sora. "So, let's get this training match going so we can get out of here faster." Sora didn't even hesitate pulling out his own keyblade and getting ready to spar. They spent what felt like forever training. It was hard to say with the concept of time missing from this place.

He was honestly good and tired by the time that Zack had returned, not looking the least bit happy. It stopped the two of them from training, Roxas panting hard as he looked over at Zack. Sora didn't even look tired. That was to be expected from someone that looked like a ghost.

"Something up?" Roxas asked Zack when his uncle hadn't said anything. His uncle only wiggled his fingers in a follow me motion before he turned leaving from the place and leaving the two brothers looking at each other in confusion.

"Leon's been kidnapped," he said as he heading out expecting to be followed. "We have to get Sora back into his body as soon as possible." Roxas frowned and relayed the message to Sora who stopped and yelled out a quick, "what!" Tsunami was behind him, however, and easily coaxed him into moving again. "Apparently we can't tell Cloud about this for a couple of reason, one of them obvious." He was referring to his relationship with Leon which was pretty much not a secret anymore. Like how everyone knew about Seifer and Tidus being together. "Xehanort wants both Leon and Cloud for something…but we don't know what that is. Either way it's not good. We need to keep Cloud away from Xehanort."

"How are you going to avoid telling Cloud?" Sora asked through Roxas.

"Just leave that up to the adults," Zack said and smiled ruffling one head and going through the other unintentionally before clearing his throat. "Anyway, let's get you two ready. We'll be using those necklaces as amplifiers to draw out all of Sora's light and reconnect him with his body." Zack smiled at Sora. "Your little friend doesn't realize that she's made some really powerful tools that are going to be very useful to us."

When Sora looked at Roxas in confusion he smiled in return and told Sora what Zack said, only in a less wordy way.

"How is Kairi doing by the way?"

Roxas hesitated looking at him and frowned. "I'll…tell you after we're done getting you back in your body." Sora blinked his eyes a couple of times then nodded in agreement. He really didn't want to get his brother freaked out and worried right before he was going to use his light to return to himself. Kairi was taking what happened to Sora a little hard. The only thing they could do for her was to protect her and keep her going. But of course if she could see Sora up and walking again, things could change.

That didn't stop him worrying about how Kairi had gotten taken over by Xehanort in the first place. Zack opened the door to Sora's room and the two brothers took a deep breath and held hands before following him inside. They didn't know if Zack's plan would succeed or not. All they could do now was hope.

TBC…..

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Loooooong delay. I apologize. X.x Between Korean dramas, and having a constant cough these past three weeks, I haven't been focusing like I should. If something sounds confusing in the latest three chapters, it just means I was on the cough syrup from hell that makes you sleepy and nauseous to the stomach. Blah x.x don't like the feeling of a twisted stomach or being high on medication…hate meds. Anyways, hope you enjoyed.