ONE

Roxas's eyes opened as the falling sensation he was feeling started to slow and he drifted down to his feet, landing upright on top of a familiar stained glass platform that bore his likeness, and that of his two best friends and Riku.

"My heart?" he asked aloud, while looking down at the floor. "Why am I here?"

"Why indeed?" an unfamiliar voice spoke with him as he then summoned both of his keyblades to his hands.

"Who's there?!"

"I'm but a servant of the world." they spoke up.

"Oh very funny, you know you're not the first person to say something like that to me." Roxas glared angrily as he finally spotted this person who was shrouded in shadows. "Let me guess, you think of me as a tool, right?! I'm no one's tool! Not anymore!"

"Are you certain of that? Why do you hold those keys then if you're not a tool?" the figure asked while taking a step towards Roxas.

"They're to protect what matters to me." Roxas answered.

"What do you fear to lose that requires such protection?" The figure took another step towards the teen.

"My friends, they're all that matters to me."

"One last question, what do you want the most?"

A smile formed on the blonde's face as he lowered his guard. "To be with my friends. And I won't let anything stand in their way."

"Are you so certain of that?" the figure asked. "Change is coming and with this change, you may very well see your friends once again ripped away from you."

"It won't happen, not while I'm around." Roxas spoke up, adamant in his tone.

"Then demonstrate your resolve." The shadowy figure started walking towards Roxas more, growing in size with each step, before finally it resembled a Dark Inferno Heartless.

Readying his stance Roxas rushed forward to meet his enemy, clashing both of his keyblades with its swords before pulling himself back and boosting himself forward with light trailing behind him and knocking the heartless into the air.

Watching as it flew upwards, Roxas was quick to follow up that successful attack with another one, this time by throwing Oblivion towards the heartless.

The heartless narrowly dodged it by boosting itself downward with the jets of flames coming from its feet and slammed into the ground, forcing Roxas to jump away while calling Oblivion back to his hand.

The Dark Inferno charged forward, swinging wildly at Roxas who raised a keyblade to meet each strike before it charged right through him cloaked in flame and knocked him onto his back, near the edge of his station of awakening.

Pulling himself back up Roxas looked around for the heartless that quickly swung both of its blades in an X formation right towards his head.

Roxas was quicker than the attack still, a trail of light following him as he moved right behind the creature and slashed at its back with Oathkeeper, knocking it away from him and over the edge of the platform.

"This is my heart!" Roxas declared as he floated up now and held both of his keyblades together while the Dark Inferno started to reorient itself in midair. Light began to swirl around his station of awakening along with several pillars of light, but before he could do anymore, he felt a sudden heaviness overcome him, accompanied by the sound of buzzing.

He fell out of the air and landed on his feet, dropping both of his keyblades to the ground as the Dark Inferno slowly floated towards him.

His eyes started to grow heavy while he backed away, stopping at the edge of his heart.

With both swords raised, the Dark Inferno moved for the killing blow, swinging downwards at Roxas as the buzzing sound in his head grew stronger.


The buzzing reached its peak as Roxas sprang out of his bed suddenly and looked around, holding his head. "Again?" he groaned and pulled himself to his feet while turning off the alarm on his Gummi Phone.

Quickly getting himself dressed, he stepped out of his bedroom and into the foyer of the old mansion, which had looked a lot more cleaned up after he, Namine, Xion, and Axel all moved into the place.

Following the smell of fresh food he entered the kitchen where he found Namine and Xion chattering over plates of eggs, toast and pancakes. "Axel already left for work?" he asked.

"Good morning to you too Roxas." Xion rolled her eyes as the blonde took a seat at the dining room table across from her. "But yes, he did leave. He made breakfast and left."

"He does that a lot." Roxas sighed. "I was hoping to catch him one of these mornings for an early spar."

"You're really still on about that?" Xion asked, pointing her fork at him, the fork that had a piece of pancake on it.

"Hey, I'm just trying to keep myself from getting rusty, okay?! Odd jobs around town aren't exactly common, and I know there's no threat or anything, but I still don't like the idea of becoming completely complicit, anything can come up."

Namine loudly cleared her throat. "Oh um… Good morning, Namine!"

"Good morning to you too, Roxas." she rolled her eyes. "Sleep well last night?"

"I had a weird dream again, well this one's I suppose less weird as I was in my heart…" he began to retell what he could remember from that dream.

"I'm worried about that warning. That my friends will be ripped away from me again. Namine-"

"I'll check into your memories later if you want, but, I doubt we'll find much of anything." Namine assured. "This could easily just be a stress dream."

"Besides, anyone wanting to tear us and Axel apart again would be in for a rude awakening." Xion chuckled. "I still don't get how you can have two keyblades."

"Don't look at me. I'm still as lost as you are with that one. Any normal keyblade wielder only gets one, but after I lost you, I got my second one. I thought originally it might have been your keyblade. But you still have your's, and it's a real one now too." Roxas sighed. "Just another mystery from my heart, huh? And we're still no closer to finding Sora."

"Maybe we should tackle one problem at a time." Xion stood up from the table now with an empty plate. "And I'd say class is a more immediate problem."

"Oh right, class…" Roxas checked the time on the clock in the room. "We should get going."

"One step ahead of you." Namine stood herself up, making sure to cover up the leftovers from breakfast before pulling her messenger bag over her shoulder.


A school day was what one would expect for a town as easy-going as Twilight Town, a fairly simple schedule consisting of 6 classes in total, with a lunch break halfway through the day.

The stuff Roxas learned in History Class about Twilight Town interested him far more than the boring numbers stuff he struggled with in algebra, but compared to doing missions every day, he preferred worrying about grades.

After writing class, Roxas was relieved to be eating lunch, the cafeteria food wasn't all that bad, even if Roxas preferred Axel and Xion's home cooking to it. A simple and hearty plate of curry was at least satisfying enough to keep him famished after a boring morning of classes.

Xion sat down next to him and smiled. "Hey Roxas, you have your notes from History earlier?"

"Oh um, yeah? Why? Did you miss anything?" He took out his notebook and handed it to her when a shadow loomed over the pair.

"Well, well, well…" Spoke the familiar voice of Seifer. "I trust you're not exchanging any cheats for a test…"

"What? You know I'd never do that." Roxas seemed perplexed while turning to face him and his two cronies, Rai and Fuu.

"Looks like someone's getting trigger happy with his Disciplinary committee job." Xion rolled her eyes before leaning closer to Roxas. "I bet he knows his time is almost up so he's wanting to abuse his power as much as possible."

Roxas couldn't help but chuckle at that before Seifer cleared his throat. "Oh right, I'm just trading my notes with her because she lagged behind in class, nothing malicious." he held up his notebook to show his surprisingly neatly written notes.

"Carry on." Seifer groaned before walking off.

"We're watching." Fuu spoke briefly.

"Don't think you can pull any tricks on us, y' know!" Rai added while following behind his two friends.

"So about that bet you lost, are ya ready to pay up?!" Rai seemed extra smug as Fuu grunted in annoyance.

"I gotta say, I'm probably gonna miss their constant pestering." Hayner spoke up while sitting down at the table with the pair.

"Got room for 3 more?" Pence spoke up, approaching with Namine and Olette.

"Do you guys even need to ask?" Roxas shook his head.

The group were all seated around the table. As luck would have it for Roxas, Olette was excellent with math and really knew how to explain it in a way he understood.

"And all you really need to do for X is just swap it out for 2 like that description so shrewdly says in a roundabout way." Olette explained.

"Man, why do they gotta be so sneaky about it?! It's not like people are actually sneaky about describing things!" Hayner groaned before shoveling more curry into his mouth.

"You never know, Hayner. Maybe our next big bad will be good with math! Then what'll you do?" Xion snickered.

"Maybe I'd just let him do whatever to me." Hayner admitted. "Even losing my heart would probably be better than having to deal with algebra."

"I dunno, working a job without benefits that won't let you quit sounds more crappy than finding out what the value of X is." Roxas admitted.

"Not to mention a job that turns you against your best friends." Xion crossed her arms, the mood at the table dropping significantly after that.

Namine loudly cleared her throat before producing her sketchpad. "Hey, who wants to see my newest sketches?!"

That immediately turned the mood around as she started to show some scenery sketches she was working on of the town and of Destiny Islands while the group chatted more.


Classes had thankfully come to an end, with Roxas nearly falling asleep during a teacher's lecture on Biology and the heart, which it did weird him out to learn that there were two different types of hearts, the literal heart in his body that kept his blood going, and his more figurative one that made him who he was.

"Wonder if I still had the literal one when I was in the organization." Roxas pondered. "I mean I know I eventually grew a figurative heart of my own…" he stopped pondering the moment he stepped back out onto the Tram Common.

Xion and Namine had already left to go home and get their homework done immediately so they could spend the rest of the day out in town. Hayner, Pence, and Olette had to stay back for some volunteer thing that Roxas wasn't too interested in. This meant there was only one person left for Roxas to hang out with.


The Bistro was still the most bustling restaurant in Twilight Town that offered surprisingly fair rates for the quality of food that customers were getting. Of course, more premium dining options were offered inside, but the townsfolk often enjoyed the outside seating options more, given the traffic volume.

If Scrooge McDuck was anything, he was knowledgeable about how to run a business, and with a business came its employees.

"Thank you so much!" A woman sat up from her table, leaving a rather sizable tip of Munny with her receipt on the table.

"No, thank you!~" the familiar voice of Axel returned as the woman turned around and blushed just from looking at the tall man before her.

He was wearing a fairly traditional waiter uniform and bowed as the woman left, giving him a wave while she did.

It became somewhat apparent to Axel that some of the recent foot traffic this place had seen was as a result of him being one of the servers there, Scrooge may have had a point about his Charisma being perfect for the job. Isa's arguments for him being more responsible than he seemed also helped too.

"Hey, Axel!" Roxas's voice called out behind him, which averted his attention .

"Oh hey! I'm still on the clock for about 10 more minutes, can ya wait till then?"

"Oh… Um, sure thing!" Roxas propped himself against a wall and took out his gummi phone.

Axel walked inside the restaurant and was ready to check on a table when the sound of Scrooge's cane tapping on the ground caught his attention. "I saw you talking with your friend over there."

"Oh um yeah, he's just waiting for me to finish up my shift-"

"Why don't you go early then?" Scrooge smiled at him. "Go on, I won't even dock it off your pay. You've done my business well enough today. Besides that, I do need to close up shop early today for something."

"Business meeting?" Axel asked.

"Something along those lines. Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure it'll go over as well as any other meetings with this person." Scrooge assured him.

"Thanks again, boss." Axel nodded to Scrooge before going to the backroom.


Glancing up from his Gummi Phone, Roxas saw Axel come into view, clad in his new favorite outfit that the three good fairies had made for him that he never got around to using until after Xehanort was dealt with.

"So, up for some struggle-" before Roxas could finish what he was saying someone frantically came running up to them. It was one of the shopkeepers, Jessie.

"R-Roxas, Axel! I-I need your help with something urgently!" Jessie panted and leaned herself against the wall.

"Whoa, whoa! Calm down, we'll help. What's wrong?" Axel asked.

"It's my Grandma… There's some heartless outside of her house, she hasn't gone out and she's scared they're gonna hurt her." she explained as Roxas took a step forward.

"We'll handle it."

"Heh, sure thing. You can tell your Granny to sit still, Roxas and I can deal with some pests." Axel grinned.

"T-Thank you so much!"

"Don't thank us till the job's done." Roxas insisted now before holding his Gummi phone up and pulling up his map application to have Jessie mark down where her Grandmother's house was.


As the pair approached the lot, they could see clear as day what kind of heartless they were dealing with, it was none other than a group of soldier heartless being led along by a commander.

Summoning their keyblades, Roxas and Axel smirked when the heartless turned their attention towards them both.

The first few soldiers ran forward, but found themselves quickly struck by a pair of thrown chakrams that destroyed them instantly.

Roxas sped through a soldier that was reeling back for a kick, but never got the chance before the commander raised it's claw towards him, only to end up struck by Axel, who had transformed his chakrams back into their keyblade form.

"Glad you're getting a handle on its base form more." Roxas complimented while watching the commander stand back up.

"Yeah, well I still prefer throwing things." Axel remarked before pointing his keyblade forward. "But there are some nice perks… Like this. FIRE!" he shouted as an orb of fire shot out of his keyblade and towards the commander.

Its explosive impact blasted the commander into the air. "You're finished!" Roxas yelled while vanishing into a blur and cutting right through the commander, destroying it.

The heart it had flew into the sky as the pair dispersed their weapons. "Hope that heart finds its way back to its rightful owner." Roxas nodded.

"I'm sure it will." Axel smiled.

Roxas walked over to the house and was able to inform Jessie's Grandmother that the heartless were gone now.

Things seemed to have worked out well in the end.


With another day at it's end, it only made sense to get some more ice cream and sit at the usual spot.

"I'll never get tired of watching this view." Axel commented while staring ahead at the distant sunset.

"Me either. It just reminds me of my friends." Roxas turned towards Namine, and Xion.

"You can say that again. I'm glad that even if everyone lost their memories of me, I didn't." Xion leaned back a little now.

"I've sketched this view from just about every angle this tower can give." Namine admitted. "It's too bad we can't just reposition the tower."

"That'd be nice for you, wouldn't it?" Roxas chuckled.

"It'd be a pain in the neck for the people who go to this tower for the station." Axel commented before yawning. "I think it's time to pack up for today. C'mon you three." he stood back up.

"No long discussion about work or anything?"

"What do I really have to say about it? It's a good job and my boss genuinely cares about my wellbeing, unlike my last one." Axel walked off.

"Hey wait up, and also I didn't appreciate getting left out of the action!" Xion quickly chomped on her ice cream and got up to follow after him first, the others weren't far behind.


Things seemed so easy now, with no looming Xemnas to manipulate his friends, or Xehanort orchestrating a whole war, there was really no reason to worry about anything.

Stopping in the clearing outside of the mansion, Roxas smiled while watching his friends approach the mansion. "Maybe that dream I had was full of it." as he took a step forward, some rustling in the tree line outside of the mansion made him stop.

Glimpsing up to his left he saw something, a figure looming in the distance… He could see clear as day the very familiar shape of the organization's cloak. "What now?!" He summoned Oathkeeper to his hand, but just as he did, the figure vanished.

"Hey Roxas, you're spacing out again!-" Namine called out to him, but was a little startled when he summoned his keyblade. "Something wrong?"

Roxas dispersed the keyblade and took a deep breath. "No, I'm just seeing things."

"I see." Namine frowned. "I know things being calm is different than what we're used to. But it's been a year. If you want, maybe I can give your memories a look and see if I can just-"

"No." Roxas shook his head. "I'll be fine, Namine. It's clear my nerves are getting to me. Maybe I do need to fight a little less."

Sighing, Namine just walked Roxas back towards the mansion.

The cloaked figure moved from the tree they hid themselves behind…


Commentary: So here we have it, a brand new story! This time just some pure KH content at heart. Now, I do have some bigger ideas in mind for it, but for now I'd rather just things progress as they will with this story. I've decided to release the first 3 chapters together in a single cluster as a kind of extended prologue section. Although technically the prologue isn't over with these 3 chapters yet.