Sora: 15
Riku: 16
Kairi: 15
Aozora: 15
Kobi: 15
Lorien: 15
Ashita: 16
Yuri: 15
Selphie: 15
Now, let us continue, shall we?
Secrets of Memories Chapter 55: Somewhere Beyond the Sea
His mind gave him no rest. Ever as he drew nearer to the gate that would lead him back to the Real Universe, they haunted him, those blue-violet eyes, haunted by the darkness that now ravaged the Universe and brought it close to war.
She shouldn't suffer¸ he thought, as the world around him became arid and colored. She doesn't' deserve to suffer, she doesn't deserve to bear the heavy weight that we all share. She's gone through enough, maybe too much. The Fates are cruel to let her suffer-
Is life so fair or does it go on without care? For you, dear Guardian, is letting stray your mind. You forget the one with whom you left your heart behind.
Aozora grimaced as he heard the rhyming voice resonate in his mind. " Shut up, you stupid lion. I don't need sniping crap from the likes of you."
Touchy, touchy, the poor child suffers from love. Who shall it be that you call your dove?
" Now you're reaching me," Aozora snapped sarcastically. " Anything more to say?"
The pathway you seek is here. Walk to where you belong, never fear!
" Good," Aozora nodded. " That's more like it. Thanks, Guardian, I owe you one."
Nay, child, you owe me none. Now go, never tarry, begone!
" Sheesh, I'm going, I'm going!" Aozora grumbled as the great lion's head, tinged blue with color, erupted from the sand pit before which he had stopped. " I'm not gonna get lost while Agrabah gets back, too. Damn!"
A gaping black hole stared starkly back at him as the great lion's head opened its jaws. Within, Aozora heard, faintly, the cries of seagulls and the soft waves of the sea.
Paranoid, yes? The lion asked amusingly as Aozora turned pale and trembled. That was my guess. In you go, dear sir. Now face what you must endure.
Aozora, by then, had controlled his rising fear of the terrible ocean. Breathing deeply and calmly, he blinked several times, then walked into the mouth of the Guardian of the Cave of Wonders.
The Guardian silently closed his mouth, as Agrabah rumbled and shook.
Methinks this will not turn out to be so good. But it is done, all I can do is brood…
""
First came the violent tumble into darkness. He had first felt solid ground beneath his feet give way into space. Now he felt like he was falling, falling forever. He lost all sense of time, of self, of everything but the fact that he was falling…
Something slowed him down, something fluid yet solid, cold and yet hot, cool yet warm. Now he could hear, the bubbles rippling, the sound of rocks tumbling gently over each other, the rippling water –
Aozora opened his eyes. Water? Where?
Everything came out fuzzy. He blinked a couple of times to clear his eyes and suddenly realized that his range of vision had changed. Except for a small blind spot right in the middle of his face and right behind him, he could see almost all around him. How strange.
Then he realized that he seemed to be in the middle of a tall green forest with colorful gravel for the floor and strange stone formations. Light seemed to reflect off these objects in strange ways. And then he realized that he wasn't standing on the floor.
" What the?" he stared down at the colorful stones…
…and caught sight of a black and white tail. Yet when he looked again, the tail had vanished – no, it was right there, right out of his vision – no it had vanished again – no it…
He saw his reflection, faint as it was, on a strange barrier that was clear yet reflective. Beyond the barrier he could see a room, with chair and equipment fit for a giant. He heard voices, felt the pounding of feet and thought, Is this the land of giants? But my reflection? WHAT HAPPENED?
He wasn't staring at himself. He was staring at a killer whale, an orca.
" WHAT HAPPENED?" he screamed, touching himself all over. He felt nothing but smooth rubbery skin, which was atypical for a human being but not for a large, supercharged killer dolphin. He touched the barrier, discovered it was glass, and realized that he was in a fish tank.
" But this, this is impossible!" Aozora muttered to himself, slowly using his tail to swim forward, as he stared at the colorful gravel, the green forest, the strange rocks, the massive fake volcano, the little treasure chest –
He smacked his snout on the glass wall of the other side.
" Oh shit!" he swore and backed away. This made no sense at all. He knew, sure as hell, that orcas were very big dolphins, very big ones. Much bigger than the room he was in right now and yet, here he was, the size of a fish tank fish in a fish tank!
And he was all alone.
" Damn you, Guardian!" he swore, flipping his tail and overturning the top of the treasure chest. Bubbles came streaming out of it. " Damn you and your damn mouth! Where'd the hell did you send me? This ain't Twilight Town! It's-"
" Bubbles!"
Quite abruptly, something shoved him aside and a yellow tang fish, with a paranoid craze in his eyes, fell all over the treasure chest, stopping the flow of bubbles. Aozora looked at him with consternation.
" My bubbles!" the yellow tang shot back.
" Whatever you say, man, I'm sorry, sheesh!" Aozora backed off…into a rather spiky blowfish.
" Yow!"
" Whoa! Sorry, sorry, sorry!" the blowfish backed off as well. " Just…uh…calm down! Don't panic. You've no need to panic, understand?"
" And why don't I have a need to?" Aozora asked slowly as a tiny cleaner shrimp, a starfish, a black-and-white humbug, and a royal gamma appeared from the depths of the tank as well.
" You're a killer!" The royal gamma screeched and hid behind the humbug, who gently calmed him down.
" Now, now, Gurgles, be nice to our…guest," she spoke with a frown on her face.
" Okay, will somebody tell me what's going on here?" Aozora demanded, eyeing this motley group of fishes worriedly. " For all I know, this ain't right. You guys talk and I'm supposed to be a killer whale. Did you do something to me? Because really I'm not supposed to be a killer whale!"
" But you look like one," the blowfish commented.
" And act like one," the royal gamma added fearfully.
Aozora eyed them. " I'm not! I'm not a freakin' orca, I'm a human being!"
They all gasped. "What, is something wrong with that?"
" A human being?" they all looked at each other. " Impossible. He's a fish alright…well, a whale actually….a really small whale…yeah…"
Aozora stared at them. " You know what, you fishies freak me out. Good day!"
" You know, you could be a bit nicer," the starfish commented. " You're not very nice."
" I am in a very serious situation right now, starfish," Aozora growled. " I have a right to be mad."
" Well would it help if I told you that you came out of the blue, like popped into the tank?" the starfish enquired.
Aozora thought for a moment. " Maybe…just give me some time to think. I don't get how this is all working the way it is…"
He slowly drifted through the fake forest of what he now knew as kelp, until he found a secluded corner and hid.
" This can't be right!" Aozora knew quite well that he was human, not a miniscule killer whale that breathed underwater. " Something must've gone wrong while the Guardian was transferring me here from In Between. That's it, something went wrong is what! But what? And why? Why am I here? For all I know I can't go after Sora looking like this!"
He felt a disturbance in the water, something he found he could sense quite easily and looked up from his reverie…
…staring face-to-face with a small young clownfish, a clownfish with a bad fin.
They stared at each other. Aozora stared at the wrinkled tiny fin beating madly in the water. The clownfish stared at the whole of him, his eyes wide with fear.
" Um…" Aozora decided to break the silence. " I'm not going to hurt you."
" But-but-but," the little fish stammered. Perhaps a young child among the fishes. " You're supposed to be big, big and one of those air-breathers But you're small, um…small and you aren't an air-breather."
" Well, I was supposed to be an 'air-breather'," Aozora admitted. " But something went wrong when I came here…this isn't what I'm supposed to be, believe me."
" You're something else?" the fish asked, fearful but madly curious at the same time. Aozora really did like that.
" Yes, I was supposed to be something other than this orca," he continued cautiously. " This is like some new skin to me. I'm frankly not used to this, especially swimming and not falling. See…I'm supposed to be one of those land dwellers. But I guess something really went wrong and here I am…an underwater miniature killer whale in a salt-water aquarium talking to a fish."
" Well…I come from the ocean," the little clownfish said proudly, swirling in the water, his big fin doing more work to compensate for the problematic little fin. " The big blue ocean."
" Is that so?" Aozora asked, trying to sound as kid-friendly as possible.
" Yup," the little fish nodded. " And my name's Nemo. What's yours?"
" Aozora," he replied in like. " If you're from the big blue, why are you in here?"
Nemo seemed to shrink. " Well…I-I disobeyed my father and went beyond the reefs back home. Some humans caught me and put me here. In two days, the human who caught me is giving me to this little girl and all the others said she's a fish killer!"
" A fish killer?" Aozora followed Nemo as the little clownfish swam to the window in the room, the one overlooking a harbor.
" My daddy's out there," Nemo said softly, almost to himself. " I wonder what he's doing…"
" Looking for you, maybe?" Aozora suggested, trying to lighten the somber mood.
" Fat chance," a cool voice fired from behind them. " There's no way he can make the jump from the harbor, if he ever decides to reach it, to this mangy dentist office."
" Oh hey Gill," Nemo referred to the giant moorish idol fish as he swam near, giving Aozora something like 'the eye'. Aozora coldly returned the stare. Nemo, caught in the middle of this exchange, quickly backed out. " Uh…guys? Hello?"
" Welcome, Guardian," Gill said slowly, his words harsh and precise. " It's about time you got back on track. What took you?"
" I should ask the same of you, considering the fact that a free-ranging fish like you is stuck in this stupid tank like the rest of the fish here," Aozora snarled back. " Member of the Order, indeed. Aside from Cid Number Two, the Society spent the least time placing you under chain and lock…or should I say glass?"
Gill's eyes hardened into steel bits. " We have our limitations. As you have just so kindly noticed, I am a fish. I cannot pick myself out of the water, walk out of this dentist's office, and out to the great ocean. You do realize that."
Aozora glowered at him. " Why did they want you?"
" I'm part of the freakin' Order, you jackass!" Gill barked. Nemo and the others in the tank blinked at each other, started by Gill's behavior. " I wonder why they wanted me! Without me out there patrolling the seas, the Heartless could thrive in the waters, like they used to back in Atlantica, that waterlogged planet! Of course they've got other reasons as well…"
" Pray tell," Aozora asked in mock formality.
Gill heaved a sigh; he suddenly looked tired, very tired.
" Gill?" the starfish asked worriedly.
" I don't know much," Gill said quietly, " but I think it has to do with where I'm coming from. I was born in the seas of Deep Tranquility, a world now destroyed and gone, perhaps forever. I was lucky to have survived the blast that finished it off; like a shooting star, I fell here…in the world Australia."
" You came from another world?" the blowfish demanded. " You never told us that! You said you came from the big blue!"
" I did!" Gill shot back. " I landed in the waters of Australia. There I was, in a world that I didn't know, among fish I never knew. The human child that fed me everyday I knew was gone as was the rest of his family. I remember that human child well. He was dark haired, with eyes like the bluest sea, and he always brought me something to eat. Those were the good days and I knew those days were long gone. He had a brother, too, but his brother didn't really like the ocean…never knew why. I knew he had the sea in him but he just seemed to plain scared of the water…"
" You're getting off topic here," Aozora offered to wake him up out of his reverie.
" Oh right, sorry, sorry, sorry," Gill shook his head back and forth, clearing the images from his mind. " Well, I lost my only friend, and I had to go around finding new ones. What luck. First I got caught by some stupid fisherman, then I ravaged my fin trying to get out of this damn tank. So…I've been trying to get out of here ever since."
" He's only been here like how long and already he's nearly killed himself!" the starfish exclaimed to Aozora.
" Do you guys have any names? Seriously, all I know here are Nemo and Gill," Aozora demanded.
" Bloat, pleased to meet you," the big blowfish grinned.
" Bonjour!" Jacques the shrimp bowed elegantly.
" Um…heheheheh, I'm Gurgle," the royal gamma said nervously.
" Bubbles!" the yellow tang exclaimed.
Aozora winced at this one. The yellow tang was not only obsessed with bubbles but his name was Bubbles. What a namesake.
" Deb here, and this is my twin sister Flo," the humbug introduced herself and her reflection.
" And your friendly neighborhood friend Peach," the starfish grinned. " Picked it up from those Spiderman movies the dentist shows now and then."
Aozora stared at her.
" Never mind."
" Gill thinks we have a chance to go home," Nemo said proudly, breaking the awkward silence. " He's got this plan and all, since Darla's coming in two days."
" Darla?" Aozora asked.
" The dentist's niece," Bloat explained. He then whispered, " She's a devil! A fish killer I tell ya!"
" Oh please stop mentioning her name!" Gurgle wept. " Oh please stop!"
" See, we had a tank mate, Chuckles," Deb explained patiently. " Last year, the dentist gave him to Darla. That was the last time we saw him alive."
" He killed her!" Gurgle shrieked. " Right in front of our faces, just like that!"
" And the dentist plans on giving Nemo to her!" Bubbles blurted out.
" This…is bad," was all Aozora could say.
''
" We've a plan to go and send Nemo up to the filter," Gill told Aozora later that day, after Aozora was given a tour of the tank. " I was thinking, " If we clog the filter, then the dentist has to clean out the tank. He'll put us in plastic bags and then we'll roll ourselves out the window, down the street, and into the harbor."
Aozora blinked. Was that really what Gill said? Is he that insane?
" Are you sure you're part of the Order?" he asked carefully. " Because that sure as hell doesn't sound like something someone of the Order would plan to do."
" When you're desperate, you're desperate," Gill sighed. " Believe me, out there in the big blue, I'd be more sensible, more calculating than this. Sure it's farfetched. You got any better ideas?"
" Uh…talk to the dentist?"
" Okay, you're just plain crazy. There is no way you can do that without having someone wipe out his memory afterwards. You really think you can barge into his perfect little world by talking to him as a miniature killer whale? I don't think so."
This he said in a dangerously low voice.
" But Gill, remember that man who paid the dentist to keep you?" Peach shouted out but all the others heard was a muffle. Conveniently, she had her face flat against the glass.
" We can't hear you, Peach," Gill called out patiently; apparently they had gone through this many times before.
" I said 'Remember that scary looking man who paid the dentist to keep you'?" Peach repeated.
" Wait…that's a longer sentence," Bloat counted out.
Peach rolled her eyes. " You know what I mean."
" A strange man?" Aozora looked to Gill for an answer.
" What did he look like?" Nemo asked curiously.
" He was…" Gill started to look kinda funny. " He looked quite out of place. Really blue hair. Didn't quite like the look in his eyes…"
" Black trenchcoat?" Aozora knew who it was.
" Well, no," Gill answered.
" He's not Gothic," Peach added.
" Oh."
" But Peach, he was Gothic," Deb spoke up, then looked at her reflection. " Isn't that right, Flo?"
" All black, don't know what's wrong with him," Bloat agreed. " Who'd want to wear something that dark in this Australian weather?"
" I think I know…" Aozora offered, softly, knowing just what was going on here. " It's Domitan."
They all heard the door into the room swing. Gill looked at Aozora. " Quickly! Hide!"
Nodding, Aozora dived into the long green forest of the tank, then peeked out with his shining bronze eyes to see who it was that entered.
" Okay, right this way, young lady," the dentist said pleasantly as he led a teenage girl to the seat with all its contraptions built into it. " I'll be back in a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable."
The doctor hurriedly left. As soon as the door clicked shut, the teenage girl looked around to make sure the woman at the reception desk wasn't looking, then quickly got off the chair and hurried to the fish tank. Her blue eyes peered intensely into its watery depths.
" Wait a minute…" Aozora murmured as Gill ventured out.
" Gill, how are things in there?" the blonde girl asked tersely.
" Well, it would be a whole lot better if you can get me outta here!" Gill hissed back. " Why don't you just wipe out the damn dentist's memory and get it over with?"
" You know I can't do that!" the girl shot back. " The king was explicit on his order. I'm forbidden to tamper with memory.
Aozora stared. " You again…"
The teenager looked at the bronze eyes. " Gill, who is that?"
The moorish idol fish looked behind him. " Oh him? That's the damn Guardian, being where he ain't supposed to be."
" The Guard – what did they do? Why is he here? He's supposed to be at Twilight Town!" she exclaimed. " What happened?"
" Speak to him, like I'd know-"
" I know you," Aozora said, tying down the anger in his voice, " Naminé."
She sighed. " Yes, it's me, the brain hacker, the fiddler of memories. And I'm actually glad I found you. Aozora, I need to tell you something."
" Like what?"
" Do you remember anything before you came to Celt Circle?" Naminé asked.
Aozora was silent. " Well…no."
" What?" the others looked at him, then at Naminé, then at him again. " What does this have to do with anything?"
" I thought you wouldn't," she said quietly, looking away. " All you know is that you had a father, a mother, and a twin brother, huh?"
" I don't get it," Aozora said slowly. " What's going on?"
" Look Aozora, its my fault you don't remember anything," Naminé admitted, sighing. " When I found you, I…I messed up your memories."
Silence.
Total silence.
" Wait…what!" Gill turned on Naminé. " What did you do!"
" I…was an apprentice to a witch," Naminé began. " And I had been taught from a young age to help those who need it. So when I found someone washed up on the shores of town, I thought that it was best to 'change' his memories of whatever happened before, so he'll forget the shipwreck I thought he was in."
" Only there was never any shipwreck," Aozora concluded. " Was there?"
" None," Naminé shook her head. " After I found out my mistake, I tried to change it back. All I managed to link was your memory of who was in your family. Everything else…all your other memories…were lost. I couldn't bring them back; I was too young."
" You were certainly a precocious child," Gill muttered.
" So…does that mean I'll never find my memories, ever?" Aozora asked in despair. " Are they gone forever?"
She shook her head. " Remember, I was young. And inexperienced. Now I could undo whatever I had done. Back then, I didn't know how. And past deeds, I discovered, could not be undone. Undone by the one who tampered with the memories but, as Sora had done, the one who had been tampered with could bring back what was lost. The dreams you had back at Twilight Town involving your mentor…was really all my doing. I tried to bring back your old memories because I felt you had too much to do to spend time trying to find your memories…but instead I only found your most recent memories."
" And in the process, you made me forget much of what I'd gone through with the Society," Aozora concluded.
" See, your memories are picking up the pieces I've left already," Naminé smiled. " You knew much more of the Society before I played around a bit. But gradually it's been coming back to you. As you traveled with Sora, Donald, and Goofy, you were able to pick up things involving the Society that you thought might not have remembered. Eventually, either someone tells you the truth…or you find it yourself. I'm sorry, Aozora. Everything really is my fault. Because…who knows what might have been in your memories…"
She looked away, completely broken. Aozora swam to the glass wall and touched his snout against it. "Naminé…I understand. Some things just happen that way. Don't worry. You'll be happy once I find all of my memories."
" I hope so, Guardian," she smiled. " I hope so."
" Well this is all very strange," Bloat boomed. " A human child who can play with memories. Does that mean you can change mine, too?"
" I would but I'm forbidden to," Naminé replied.
" What keeps you back? There really is nobody to stop you," Peach muffled out.
" Peach, we can't hear you," Gill called out, rolling his eyes.
" Oui, oui, speak in the clear, Peach," Jacques nodded.
" I said, " What's keeping you back? There's nobody here to stop you,"" Peach repeated.
" Wait, that's longer than what you originally said," Bubbles counted out.
" That was my line," Bloat grumbled back.
" Some of us, Peach, have a code of honor," Aozora answered for her. " Therefore, once we make a promise, we're bound to it."
" Just like Sora," Naminé spoke up, smiling. " He didn't know who I was or what my purpose was but he promised to protect me. And he held true to his word, when he could've just left me at the castle and gone on to find King Mickey, Kairi, and Riku. See, it was honor that bound him to finish what he had done."
" Makes sense, right Flo?" Deb asked. " O c'mon Flo, say something! See, she's always imitating me…"
" What are we going to do now, though?" Nemo asked, being rather timid around the blonde teenager.
" Wait and see," Naminé said optimistically. " I've been told that others have arrived to help fish you out of here."
" As in Sora?" Gill asked hopefully.
" You'll see."
Aozora nodded at this, then made to head back into the forest of kelp.
" Aozora," Naminé ventured to mention. " Listen, there is one thing I managed to find from your early memories."
" Really?" Aozora turned around and quickly swam back, putting on the brakes fast enough to prevent himself from crashing into the glass wall.
" Yes, I've been wanting to tell you this for ages. It's some poetry, imprinted in your mind. I think maybe your mother read the poem to you many times before."
" My mother…" Aozora bowed his head. " If only I could remember her…"
" Maybe if I tell you the poem, you'll remember her," Naminé offered. " Shall I?"
Gill, Nemo, Bloat, Jacques, Deb, Bubbles, Gurgle, and Peach all looked at Aozora, who was deep in thought with his eyes closed. Then his great golden bronze eyes opened. " Tell me."
" As you wish, Guardian," Naminé smiled again. She never seemed to run out of them. " It goes like this:
Walking this road,
Without you,
To remake forgotten promises
And meet you at road's end.
Faded memories,
Reconstructed memories,
A dream – a dream of you,
In a world without you.
The dream I see in the world without you.
Torn dream, like a memory from the far past.
I'd like to put it together
With you…
I think, and this is my hunch, mind you, that your mother knew something was going to happen."
" And it did…" Aozora swam back into the forest of kelp.
" Aozora?" Nemo questioned, looking to where the orca had gone.
Silence answered him.
" Let him be, he needs time to think," Gill told Nemo. He looked up at Naminé. " Thank you. I think this may be the breakthrough we need."
" I know," she agreed solemnly, her smile suddenly gone from her face. " I hope so. Thing is, Gill…"
Here her voice dropped to a whisper. " Thing is, there was something I've kept in my mind forever, ever since I first saw into his mind and erased his memories. And from what I see, I don't think anybody's going to like what I'm going to be able to describe to them."
" Your secret is safe with me," Gill swore with all honesty.
" No time!" Deb suddenly exclaimed as they heard footsteps nearing the room.
" It's the dentist!" Gurgle shrieked. " Hide!"
''
Aozora drifted in the sea of kelp, keeping as far away from the dentist as possible. The poem jarred his mind, it kept playing over and over again in his head. But it wasn't Naminé reciting the verses. It was another voice, hazy, faded, far back in time. Someone was reading the poem to him, in another age long forgotten.
" Mother…" he whispered, as the lilting, soft voice repeated the poem in his head over and over again. Faded memories…a torn dream…with you…without you…
He saw something, hazily in his mind. Golden hair and smiling sky eyes.
" I remember your name," he whispered. " Alara, Mother."
Chapter 56…
" Pooh, what have you done?"
" I saw an elephant do that once, quite by accident you know-"
" Remove the clot and you'll soon find out there are no rewards."