Phones, Axel keeping his name, the RG nobodies changing sides, and even anti's return, kh3 was lovely! Right until the ending… anyway, small break in my block! Hazzah! Enjoy this little rescue scene that has been in my plans since the beginning!
A little over a week and a half passed after Riku had entered that dream. Sora true to his prediction, didn't remember very much of the conversation his human side had with Riku. Riku would find that out over the next couple of days cause that Thing kept coming back to mess with his Dreams and Riku would always feel that same insecure panic when it did. Dream Sora still had trouble keeping his Human thoughts from translating into Heartless ones, Riku now understood why Sora phrased it as a bundle of descriptions when a single thing turned into strings of run on word vomit. But Riku could tell some of it had stuck after repeated visits.
Sora was clingier than before, but also very cautious about initiating it, like if he was waiting to see if Riku would draw away and take back his promise.
Roxas at least, under the watchful eye of Evan and Axel, was slowly getting better. Regaining what weight Sora had lost and carefully training his muscles back up. Between the nitpicky physician and Leon supervising exercise, the group was hopeful the two would recover. Every other day or so Even or Ienzo would examine their hearts keeping track of their stability.
Unfortunately, that didn't go without some hiccups. It had taken a lot of trial and error to figure out what Sora could eat. Riku hoped it was just stubbornness at first when he outright avoided vegetables and most breads, opting only for things that were soft and sweet or included meat. It wasn't until Riku had practically guilt tripped him into eating a plate of curry for dinner that Even had to change tactics.
The night had ended up with Sora huddled in Roxas' arms trembling from a stomach ache that caused the Heartless to hack up not only dinner but splashes of dark ooze that would dribble down his chin throughout the night. He avoided Riku all the day after.
Turned out while in Anti form Sora was more prone to a carnivore's diet, hearts being their natural food and all, the sweets strangely seemed to be an exception to any being of the heart or emotion. Even ended up sending a request to Scrooge for special ice cream formulated with heavy doses of nutrients.
Another problem that they encountered was they both still tired fairly easily, it would take a long while still to fix what was wrong before the split even happened, but whatever had happened to them had set them back pretty far both magic and stamina wise, worse than Sora was before.
Roxas was often found asleep sunbathing or with all the lights in the room turned on, the latter of which caused the lamps to flicker after a while because how desperately his body was trying to absorb it. Sora was reduced to his Shadow size for most the day, especially when he tried to sunbathe with his twin. His Heartless skin more sensitive to bright lights than Roxas said it should be, something which caused endless worry for the other Keybearers.
Today however something new happened. The sky had been overcast, thick enough to leave Roxas with barely enough energy to keep awake, opting to burrow into Axel's side on the couch, leeching at his warmth while staring blankly at whatever movie was playing. Sora on the other hand had perked up a little, enough so that he decided to sneak out to explore alone.
Roxas could sense him faintly, stretching out further away in whatever direction he was moving. He couldn't blame him for being restless, no matter how tired they both felt. It was just ingrained by now with how long Sora had spent traveling and constantly fighting, added to tiring missions Roxas used to go on daily. Plus, they both had a deep hidden fear of falling into comas again if they let themselves sleep for too long.
Riku and Leon had left hours ago. Something about Cid and shopping managed to slip through the tired haze in Roxas' head, the rest of the ex-organization busy with their own tasks elsewhere. Ax had fallen asleep himself at some point, which is how Sora was able to get away in the first place.
Roxas couldn't help the uneasiness he felt at the others distance, they were separate now yes but it felt like there was still a rope between them that strained the longer and further apart they physically got from each other till it forcefully snapped them back together out of instinct. Something Even had enjoyed testing the limits of. It was stretching slowly, building up a tolerance, but still very fragile right now.
The blonde's thoughts had turned slowly towards hunger while a commercial for some pizza joint played on the tv, wondering how far off dinner was. Then the feeling of something wrong washed over so suddenly that he choked on his own breath.
Roxas lurched upright, senses muddled with heat and pain and anger, two of which he wasn't sure was actually his. There were arms around him, holding his own down as he thrashed to get away. A voice near his ear yelled and his own soundless cry for his Other summoned heavy footsteps. He felt his tails torn from their grip on his captor and the door he was trying to drag himself through by strong hands. White Nothings appeared to answer his call but were kept at bay by those holding him, he couldn't understand why until his head was forced to look at a face.
His eyes locked onto glowing green and felt the order to still from the higher rank's gaze. His instincts warred between obeying and finding the source of his pain. The green won out, it's stare turning to the Nothings just long enough to have them search in his stead, returning back to him with the assurance of stay here, we'll find him. Roxas could only twitch in response, trusting but anxious.
Sora had wandered off a long ways into the canyon maw. Exploring the nooks and crannies that were too small for him to get into before he could travel through the shadows. It had been nice to get away from the new not-light people but now he was considering going back. His heart-twin was too far away now and making them both ache in their souls. Sora had just shadowed through into a wide space before he was face to face with his Not-kin. Tensing up with a growl and show of fang.
A swarm of morning stars and Crimson Jazz had surrounded him. His dark form blurred as he pounced to and fro, taking each down one by one. Blasts of darkness, claws and teeth felling one after another. Sora was actually having fun at first, the prey where simpleeasy-slowandnoguard-hitthebackhittheback. But there were so many, all surging in, closing his maneuvering space into an ever-shrinking area. Getting-tired-why-so-soon?-No-gottafight-destroy-to-protectPROTECT! A dash to the left and into the air then pain-hot-hurt-pain-burn-ow! Balls of fire-go-boomboomboom-stop-can'tmove!
Falling to the ground in a ball of pain, struggling to puff himself bigger-look-big-bad-dangerous-don't-mess-with-me! As now his prey had the advantage on him.
The first to leap on him were two Soldiers, sharp hands raking across his shoulders until he twists and caught a wrist in his teeth, the second drawing back for a spin attack before a wave of energy cut it in half. With speed too fast for his tired brain to track a man leaped between each group of Heartless killing many at a time with a blade as big as the man himself. The last heart that floated off being from the other Soldier that attacked him when it changed targets.
The man stood close and considered the strange Heartless, as his sword arm shifted digging the edge of the blade into the ground in front of him, Sora trembled and attempted to shuffle away hissing a warning, go-away-don'thurtme-I'll-fight-you! The hurts didn't let him get far though.
The man dismissed his sword and crouched down. He looked less intimidating when he wasn't looming over Sora but Sora kept still anyway. Maybe he would decide Sora wasn't worth the meal and leave? Sora jumped when there was a sound of flap and something dark stretched out from the man's shoulder.
Sora's eyes followed it as the wing unfurled, his head tilting curiously. Sora glanced between the wing and the man it was attached to before it was stretched towards him in offering. Sora picked up a hand and slowly reached over, letting his knuckle brush against the leathery limb.
It twitched in response like a normal wing should and Sora drew his hand back accordingly, but he could feel the darkness that had formed it. His own wings fluttering as he trilled in excitement.
The man looked familiar. He didn't feel like light, but he didn't feel like dark either. More of a mix of the two that was familiar and comforting, like himself-like-Roxas-like-Riku. They belonged to both sides, yet neither at the same time. Not-light-not-dark-bothandnone. The wing and the yellow hair prickled his mind until it clicked. Sora did know him, fought both against and with him, he had the same name as the-puffy-white-things-in-the-sky-that were-too-high-up-to-reach! Cloud!
But why didn't he know right away? He recognized Roxas as soon as he woke up that first morning. He knew Riku, and Axel, and Kairi.. but then they came to here to where all these other people that smelled-like-sort-of-Darkness he didn't know kept poking-prodding-staring at him, Heart-twin says they were safe but the cold-man-made-him-angry-why-cant-I-bite-him-please?! It felt like there was a lot of things he should know but didn't. Was it just that his memories looked so much different from what he sees now?
Sora was to tired to care right now, his skin burned and the dark aura that came off the wing was soothing as he leaned into it, Cloud lifted Sora onto his hip as easily as a toddler, the wing folding around him like a blanket to shade him from both the weak light and enemies view.
Allow me to explain! The 'soundless cry' and 'obeying higher rank', from Roxas was more to do with him being 'less of a nobody' at this point. I got to thinking about how the Dusks seemed to talk to Sora/Roxas telepathically, calling them 'liege' due to his rank and figured that was how Rox communicates when panicked. Of course only other Nobodies, former or not, can hear him. I also sort of get the feeling that lesser Nobodies aren't vocal at all? Especially when most of them don't even have real mouths? And that kinda is why they're so darn twitchy: replacing sounds with body language. So while Sora can make all the noises he wants Roxas loses his voice and his movements are more exaggerated. Roxas is more human than he was before, but the split also caused him to fall to more base nobody behavior when he gets unstable much like Sora does as a heartless. Yes he was a high ranking nobody, higher than the Dusks and other mass foot soldiers, but still ranked lowest in the Org aside from Xion. Therefore, anyone at the castle is higher than him still, while his own rank is now somewhere between his old one and the Twilight Thorn I based his scarf on (Don't care that wiki says its lower, that thing is just below the org in my opinion) the Dusks will still obey him but the other members come first.