Kingdom Hearts Keyblade Legion

by lyokoMARVELanime

Sequel to Dual Keys. Sora, Donald, Goofy return to the worlds after an event that caused them to have their memories modified, and they're off on a new adventure with Ven. But this time they've some new friends with them. Can Roxas and Xion help to save the worlds from this new evil group? Is there some deeper mystery surrounding the two siblings? Find out along with the new team.

6. Summer Vacation: Final Day

AN: Hey, look what's out now. The sixth chapter of Keyblade Legion, and the last day of Roxas and Xion's summer vacation!

[audience applause]

Yeah, exciting isn't it? The big day when so much is revealed, and things changed entirely for Roxas in canon. Which is not to say they won't change to a similar extreme for Roxas and Xion here, but it certainly won't be the same way that it did originally.

Roxas: I'm not sure if that was confusing for anyone or not, but it does make me wonder a little...

AN: Well, don't think about it too much. Right now, think about the reviews we need to answer, starting with "Dragon Rider 66". To be honest...yeah, now that you mention it, it does kinda feel like Riku using darkness like he did in canon was similar to steroids or cheating, but others would also argue saying that it was like the ultimate, last resort trump card, so there's also that, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Riku: Oh come on! How could it have been cheating? I mean by that logic, Roxas being able to dual wield Keyblades without any extra help should be considered as cheating too, right? [looks around for any support, but finds none] Right? [still not finding support, and ends up crossing his arms and pouting] Shut up! I'm not pouting. I'm brooding. And you guys all suck.

Xion: Aw...poor baby. [gives Riku a comforting hug while running her hand through his hair]

Roxas: Urgh. I think I'm gonna be sick.

Riku: Shut up and go make out with Namine, dual-wield boy.

Roxas&Namine: [both blush crimson]

AN: Moving on, let's get into one of the guest reviews, namely the one "Guest" from 10/15/2018. The one that asked about what Xion got from Sora since Roxas got the sync blade from him, and the one that asked Ven about how they reversed the Xion's passive absorption powers. Ventus, the latter question seemed to be directed at you if I remember right.

Ventus: Well...at the risk of getting hit by a spoiler gag, I'll just say this: Xion is a replica made of memories, and Namine has powers to manipulate memories...Nuff said. And I'm pretty sure that's all I can say right now without the risk of getting hurt by some spoiler prevention gag.

AN: Yeah, that's pretty much it. [mutters] Shoot! Almost got him.

Ventus: What was that?

AN: [back to normal voice] Nothing! As for the rest of that same reviewer's other question...well, you'll have to find that out a little later on. No spoilers.

Let's move on to "BlazingEdge", and his question regarding an attire change for Sora and co when they get to Port Royal. I'm sorry to say that there will be no such changes at this time. They did not technically become a real part of Jack Sparrow's crew until well after they had arrived, so giving them pirate attire for their first trips there would seem unwise. Plus, when you consider that the town was being attacked by pirates when they showed up, looking like a pirate would probably not be the best thing for them.

Sora: By the way, to the "Guest" from 10/15/2018 who said I should've introduced myself as "First Mate Sora" to the enemy pirates in canon, I don't ever remember Jack giving me that honor, so I guess the idea never really occurred to me. Besides, you'll find that someone else gets that position this time.

AN: GET BACK IN THE POD, BOY! You only have to be in there for this chapter, and some of the next one! You can wait!

Sora: [drops his head and trudges back to the pod again]

AN: Ahem. Now to "Neostorm"'s question about how the others will get to other worlds when the gummi ship was destroyed in the previous story. Well, it wouldn't say the solution was that big, in metaphorical terms, but it will be something that will be impressive. At least in my opinion.

Moving right along to our old pal "Monkey D. Conan", I can't really answer anything about how Sora will awaken without Roxas and Xion refusing with him right now, as we are right on the verge of that very moment, but I can try to answer at least one or two of your other questions. First off, regarding the Drive Forms, only the kids of the Keybearers are going to get them (ie. Sora, Roxas, Xion, and Kairi), and they won't all be getting a full set. Some of them will end up not getting a Drive From that the others have, because they don't really need it that badly. You'll see what I mean when we get to that chapter. As for their outfits, the only changes that we'll see to Roxas and Xion's outfits would be that they get Keyblade armor gauntlets, and Sora's will change in a similar manner to how it did in canon, aside from how his own armor gets slightly upgraded. Same with Kairi. And yeah, Anti-Form will have something of a part to play, but that won't be until much later on down the line.

In regards to your inquiry about Sora's abilities in comparison to Roxas and Xion, well for one thing, Sora will still be able to cast the basic level of the spells he learned in the last story, but nothing more advanced than simple Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, Aero Shield, etc., and will also still retain the ability to use his Command Styles and signature Shotlocks. He just won't be able to use them as effectively because of how long he was asleep. Sora's reception to Roxas and Xion at first will actually be the one that's typical of him, but I'd like to think that they do have a little friendly rivalry start going once they actually get started on real training. As for how Ventus will react after Sora wakes up...well, you'll see about that and the rest of your questions regarding similar events by next chapter.

Now, in regards to the "Guest" of 10/16/2018, I don't think Ven really thought about that too much. As for your question about how Ven and Aqua would consider each other age-wise, and how they look physically in the same manner. For Ventus, he looks like he's the same age as Aqua was back in the BBS era, at least, especially when you consider he has a beard now. Aqua would more than likely still consider herself older than Ven at first, but that would mainly be because of how she had not seen him all grown up until just recently, and that was only in passing. It may take some time, but Aqua will come to accept the older Ven, and will likely just point out that she is technically older than him as a small joke or something. To be honest, I don't think they really care about that too much.

Ven&Aqua: We don't.

AN: So, to our pal "Anonymaton", you'll find out about that little "paradox" as you called it soon enough, don't worry. And as for your question regarding the remote I use in my studio, it's actually something I had my tech guys whip up for me, with some help from these guys over at Crazy-Gag Corp.

Axel: That is so not a thing.

AN: And that's my cue to hit this button. [like you really need to ask what he did next? Hit the button, obviously]

Axel: [suddenly drenched in water, making him freak out] AAAAAHHHHH! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!

Xion: What's wrong with him?

AN: His element's fire, and I just dropped several gallons of water on him. I'm pretty sure you can figure it out.

Xion: Oooooh. I gotcha. [turns to watch Axel continue to freak out while giggling a little] I don't think he's going to stop any time soon.

AN: Not my problem. Oh, and to everyone who posted some hate fuel on DiZ...thank you so much. It will be used to burn him at the stake ASAP.

DiZ: [is seen attempting to sneak out]

AN: And where do you think you are going?

DiZ: Rats! [bolts for the exit with Roxas, Xion, and Namine hot on his tail]

AN: Well, that happened. Oh, btw, Dcraus, I'm sorry to say that I cannot accept your challenge at this time. I'm trying to avoid starting any more stories right now that I haven't already got planned in the works for some time, and as such, I'm sorry to say that I will not be accepting any challenges either. Sorry.

Now then, enough of the silly stuff and review answering. Let's get to the good stuff! Onto the chapter everyone!

I do not own anything from Kingdom Hearts or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

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Chapter VI

Another barrage of dreams…no, memories came in the night, and these were proving to be the most incredible yet. It first opened with a meeting that Ventus was leading where he revealed something to Sora, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and a lot of their other friends. "The being that we encountered at Hollow Bastion and who is now possessing Riku, despite his claims is not actually Ansem the Wise. He may have been the one who had likely wrote the reports on the Heartless, but he's not the real Ansem. The truth is, he's the Heartless of someone that is as far from the kind of person that Ansem is as you can get, and is very dangerous," the blonde master revealed. "You see, there are some people who have so much darkness inside of them that when they become a Heartless, they don't lose their original form, and this particular man is one of them. I knew him long before he had became a Heartless, and I can assure you that he was far more dangerous back then than he is now. His name…is Xehanort."

"Just who is this Xehanort and how is he so bad, anyway," Sora asked.

"Xehanort is a former, fallen Keyblade master who became obsessed with learning everything he could about the Keyblade War, and recreating the very weapon that had been the inspiration for the Keyblades. In order to achieve this, he created a being of pure darkness by extracting the darkness inside of my heart, which he named Vanitas, and once we were both strong enough, he would let us refuse and allow that weapon to be created. It succeeded for a short time, but it did not last thanks to both my own strength of will, and the efforts of my other friends. Still, Xehanort is incredibly brilliant, a prodigy of his generation, and he had several plans in place to further his goals, including fanning the dark fires in my friend, Terra's heart so that he would have a new, younger body that would allow him to survive into a new age, despite his own body beginning to reach an old age. Xehanort was my first master, before the king and Master Eraqus." There was a brief moment when the scene seemed to skip a little, to a point when Ventus asked, "Leon, do you and the others remember Ansem having any apprentices?"

"Yes. He taught them almost everything he knew and they helped him with a great deal of his research," Aerith replied for the group.

"Well, among the brightest of his apprentices was a man by the name of Xehanort," Ven revealed. "And before you ask, yes this is the exact same Xehanort that had possessed my friend Terra and caused so much hardship to befall my friends and I. When I first met him, I was not entirely sure that he was in fact the fallen Keyblade master, and the apprentice did not appear to recognize me, but I could never mistake the darkness that I sensed from him as being anything other than that of my former master. I didn't say anything to anyone but the king when I first sensed that from him, and he decided that it was best to keep it to ourselves. Now, I can't help but wonder if we were right to do that, because I'm sure that your world fell because he did regain his memories and plunged it into darkness, while taking on Ansem's name as his own so that the good man I once knew would take the fall for his crimes."

That was when the scene finally shifted to a different moment, and when the static that usually came with those shifts ended, it immediately opened with Sora and company, Kairi included, aboard their ship as they flew to their final battle. Alarms could be heard blaring all around the team, the ship was seen shaking under the force of explosions, and various things were being shouted amongst the small crew of five. Most of their cries were hard to really understand, given that they seemed to blur together, but eventually, the blended noise gave way to one specific sentence, and that was a reluctant order given by Master Ventus from his seat at the helm controls. "Everyone, get to the teleporter. Abandon ship."

"WHAT," the other four all shouted.

"You can't be serious," Sora protested.

"If we do that we could get stuck here," Donald argued.

"And what about the Kingdom? We can't just let the Heartless destroy it," Kairi added.

"The ship's already lost, and if we don't get out now, we'll be destroyed with it," Ventus shouted before Goofy could utter one word in agreement with the others. "We came here to stop Xehanort's Heartless, but we can't do that if we go down with the ship! I don't like it any better than you guys, but it's our only choice. Now do it! Abandon ship!"

Another scene shift occurred, and this time, the three Keyblade wielders and their two friends could be seen standing inside a very dark cave. When a loud explosion suddenly rang out, the five directed their gaze upwards, and an instant later, the group's despair could be felt all around, for they were all watching in silence as the gummi ship that had served them so faithfully was destroyed. "What have I done," Ventus whispered, breaking the silence.

"What you had to do to make sure we could do what we came out here to do," Sora reassured his master, and though his smile did not quite reach his eyes, Ven could tell that the kid still meant exactly what he said in his reassurance of the older blonde.

The next scene shift saw the five looking out at a large, dark expanse of nothing, leading into a large, swirling dark vortex that rested on the opposite side of the abyss before them. It was a truly frightening sight to be certain, and the question that Goofy eventually asked made it even more terrifying for those who did not know about this place. "Gawrsh, is that all that's left of the worlds taken by the Heartless?"

"It certainly looks like it," Kairi admitted, clutching a hand to her chest when she spoke. "I can feel…something from this place. A faint light that's slowly flickering out into nothing."

"Don't worry. Those worlds will be restored when we beat Ansem, remember," Ventus pointed out to everyone, reassuringly.

Despite his master's efforts to ease their concerns though, Sora did have one major, overarching concern. "But, if we do beat him and all these worlds become restored and disconnected, what's going to happen to this place? And to us?"

"Even if this place goes poof, our hearts ain't goin' nowhere. I'm sure we'll find our pals again. Yup, I just know that we will," Goofy confidently commented.

By the time Goofy had finished talking, the other four had lightened up quite a bit, and Ventus soon commented, "Goofy's right. We didn't come all this way just to go down with the bad guys. We'll make it out of this and reunite with our friends soon enough."

"Yeah, you're right," Sora could be heard agreeing. As all of that dialogue was going though, one could also see the five traveling through this dark place, battling Heartless, and even entering a place where Ventus battled against a man in a black and white body suit and a helmet with a strange symbol that almost seemed to resemble a heart expressing emotion. The final image of the group in battle that was seen during this dialogue, was when the five were seen floating before a massive monstrosity that could only be described, most simply, as a massive demon. Considering that Ventus's face was seen paling at the sight of this beast at some points, that was probably a very accurate description, too.

When the scene shifted again, the five appeared to be back on Sora and Kairi's island home, but there was a dark feeling about it that indicated it was most certainly not said island. The villain that had possessed Riku standing before the group as Riku in his dark form only served as further proof of that, and one could hear him speaking as the five watched in horror as Riku's image melted away to reveal the true form of their enemy: Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. "All worlds begin in darkness, and all so end," Ansem's voice could be heard saying, while Sora and Kairi were seen apparently calling out in horror for their friend as he changed into this monstrosity. "The heart is no different. You see, darkness is the heart's true essence."

Various images continued to pass by the mind's eye, all of them showing the five battling against this final opponent, and occasionally being filled what looked to be basic computer coding, and even through all of that, one could hear Sora, Ventus, and all the others speaking out against the villain's words. "I've heard this load of crap before, you know. Or did you forget that you and I have fought once before already, Xehanort," Ventus was heard remarking.

"Even if he hadn't, it doesn't change the fact that none of what you said is true," Sora passionately protested. "The heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in, but I've learned that deep down, there's a light that never goes out!"

"And it's that same light that will give us the strength to stop you," Kairi finished proudly.

The final images of the battle against Ansem passed, with one seeing the villain fused to a massive ship, yet struggling to remain alive as said vessel exploded, until all that was left was a weakened and battered Ansem. Even despite this obvious loss, it was clear that Ansem was not quite ready to give up yet, as he turned to something that lay behind him in a last-ditch effort to secure his victory against these brave warriors. "Kingdom Hearts," he cried out. "Fill me with the power of darkness!"

"You truly have no idea what you're really dealing with here," Ventus sighed sadly. "And I almost feel sorry for you."

"No matter what you think, we all know that what you believe is all wrong," Kairi continued.

"Because we know now, without a doubt. Kingdom Hearts…" Sora lead off.

"IS LIGHT," the three Keybearers all finished as one, and their belief was easily proven true far too soon for Ansem's liking.

To punctuate the three's proclamation, a brilliant light unlike any other erupted from a massive, pristine white door that had been cracked open. That same light blinded Ansem, and given his nature as a Heartless, it proved to be incredibly harmful to him, right to the point where he was unable to do anything more than just float in the air as the light destroyed him completely. Another scene shift came, and showed the five struggling to close the massive door, with Riku joining their efforts on the opposite side as swarms of Heartless were seen rushing towards the door from behind the silver haired boy. Eventually, Ventus had stopped pushing and began backing away as he announced, "I'm going to go through the door myself, and help Mickey seal it on that end while Sora and Kairi lock it from here."

"Absolutely not," Donald angrily argued.

"You can't do that, Ven! If you go through, you might get stuck in there too," Goofy protested.

"Maybe, but it's a risk that we have to take," Ventus informed them.

"But Ven, you can't leave us! We still need you…I still need you," Sora pleaded.

That finally made Ventus look up, but when he did, it was only to give the boy a sad smile as he said, "No you don't, Sora. You never really needed me that much. You've had the power to accomplish everything you already have inside of you the whole time. All I really did was help bring it out and refine it."

Apparently Ventus's plan did not go as he had intended, as another scene shift showed him still on the same side of the door as the rest of his four friends, while they all looked in to see a figure sporting large shoes, gloved hands, with a tail and noticeably big ears. This figure was immediately identified by Donald and Goofy as they cheered, "Your Majesty!"

Another figure then appeared beside King Mickey, this one much taller and most definitely a woman, given her elegant figure and the grace with which she had landed when she appeared beside the king. Even with the bright light before her and Mickey hiding most of her features though, one could still see several hints of blue in both her attire and her hair, which obviously made it all the more easy for Ventus to recognize her. "It's her," Ventus said in a voice that was just barely above a whisper. "Aqua!"

The five all then watched as Mickey produced a Keyblade that was identical to Sora's, save for the reversed color scheme, while Aqua summoned forth the Master's Defender Keyblade, and the former then shouted, "Now Sora, Ven! Let's close this door for good!"

"Ven, if you even think of trying to come in here again, as sweat as that would be, I promise that I will smack you. They need you over there far more than I need you here," Aqua insisted, and somehow, Ventus just knew that Aqua was smiling almost as widely as he probably was at being able to see each other again, even if it was not in the way that they would have preferred. "Don't worry! Mickey and I have got things covered on this end!"

The scene then shifted again, to the point where the five friends managed to push the door closed, with Riku pulling from the other side. As the door was closing, Ventus and Aqua's voices could be heard exchanging a few last words before losing sight of each other again. "Aqua, I have to tell you one last thing while I still have the chance. I don't care if it'll be spoiled by the circumstances, because I have to say it now," Ven said, before taking a short pause and then saying that very thing he was talking about. "I love you."

Aqua could be heard gasping in surprise, and when she next spoke, one could feel all the love and emotion that was in her voice when she replied, "I love you, Ven."

When the scene shifting finally paused for a moment, it was at a moment just before the door was about to close completely, and Riku was seen looking to his best friend with a smile as he made one last request of him before being separated by the door. "Sora…Take care of her."

It did not need to be seen to know that Sora's reply was an affirmative, and so, the next images that passed before the mind's eye were of the door closing completely, followed by Sora and Ventus raising their Keyblades up to the door to Kingdom Hearts. One shower of lights and magic later, and they all saw the door vanish completely like it had never been there in the first place. The sound of something being locked only finalized it all for them. Their journey had come to a close and they had won the battle against the Heartless.

"Hey, Sora! I think I can sense the island," Kairi was then seen shouting out, turning in the direction that the feeling was coming from.

Sora immediately turned around as well, trying to find some clue that their home was in the place Kairi was looking towards, but not seeing anything at all. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's over this way! Come on," Kairi encouraged, and she immediately took off, eager to get back home again after everything that had happened.

While Sora did follow Kairi at first, his pace was much slower than you would expect, until finally, he came to a stop just at the edge of where their home was. The only thing was, when Sora did stop, it was not on the same side of that edge as Kairi, and she had quickly taken notice of that. Upon doing so, Kairi's smile fell, showing her confusion as to why he was not joining her on that piece of their home, but before she could approach him, the ground shook a little beneath their feet, and she quickly lost her balance. She probably would have fallen over if Sora had not grabbed her hand to steady her, but even then, he did not move to join her on the sandy beach.

"Kairi, remember what you said before," Sora asked as they slowly started to be pulled apart, each of them doing their best to hold onto one another until the last possible second. "I'm always with you, too. I'll come back to you. I promise!"

In that moment, Kairi knew exactly what Sora was doing, and she understood, completely. Sora truly believed that the others still needed him, and even if that was not the case, he was not planning on coming back home without his best friend. As much as Kairi wanted to join him, she knew that she could not. Wherever Sora was going, he had no clue how it would end, and given what he had said, she knew that he wanted her to stay some place where he knew she would be safe. So, despite how sad it made her feel to watch him go, Kairi eventually managed to smile in reply, and assure him, "I know you will!" Just before they slipped from each other's fingers, she finally found it in herself to say something she had been trying to say ever since Sora had confessed to her in Hollow Bastion, and she was not going to hold it back anymore. "I love you, Sora."

Even after their hands slipped away from each other, Sora was grinning happily over hearing Kairi say that to him, and as he slowly faded further away to an unknown world somewhere out there among the stars, he took a moment to call back, "I love you too, Kairi."

At that moment, everything had faded into a white blur, and when it turned clear again, one could see Sora, Ventus, Donald, and Goofy walking along a dirt path that rested amongst grassy hills, ready for the next chapter in their journey. Of course, it seemed that there was still a problem that they had to resolve before it could go very far. "Well, now what do we do," Donald asked after a moment.

"We've gotta find Riku, Master Aqua, and King Mickey," Sora had replied as simply as you please, never once dropping his usual relaxed pose.

"But, uh, where do we start lookin' for that there door to the light," Goofy pondered aloud.

Sora hummed in thought for a minute before he turned to his teacher and asked, "Do you have any ideas, Ven?"

When he heard his apprentice's question though, Ven could not help but think for a moment as well before he finally replied, "Well, Master Eraqus and Aqua always used to tell me that the door to the light is always much closer to you than you realize, so long as you continue to hold what's truly most precious in your heart, but I don't really think that they were talking about the door that we're trying to find. Add in the fact that Mickey, Ansem the Wise, and I spent years trying to figure out a way to get Aqua back from the Realm of Darkness without any success and, well…I really don't know. Beats the heck out of me."

The scene became a little more grainy at this point, like the picture on an old television going bad, but through the static one could see the five spotting a yellow furred dog with long, black, droopy ears, and a green collar just walking across the path in front of them, and happily wagging his tail. "Pluto," Donald gasped in surprise, and upon hearing his name the king's dog immediately turned to face them.

Sora was about to call out for Pluto to come over when he noticed that the friendly dog had something in his mouth. "Hey, what have you got there, boy?"

When Ven and the others took a look at said item, they quickly realized that Pluto was carrying a green envelope in his mouth, and it had a set of three circles formed together into one, familiar sigil sealing it shut. "Gawrsh, that's the king's seal," Goofy cheered.

"Hey, have you seen King Mickey, Pluto," Sora eagerly asked. Pluto's only response was to blink at them and then turn around to begin bounding down the path as fast as he could. The others all smiled at each other, taking that as a sign that they finally had a good lead on where to look for their missing friends, and Sora immediately took the lead as he waved to the others, shouting, "Guys, let's go!"

"You heard the kid! Follow that dog," Ventus cheered, feeling that for once, it would be okay for them to charge ahead without thinking too much.

The image then became more and more distorted and hard to see after the four were seen chasing after Pluto, only just managing to get a few images of Sora wandering out along the same dirt trail some point in the middle of the night. After a moment, Sora seemed to hear something, but whatever it was could not be heard. All one could do was make assumptions as Sora turned around to glare at someone behind him, and that person could be seen wearing a black coat just like the one that was worn by the mysterious man that he and Ventus had battled in Hollow Bastion. When Sora turned to fully face him though, the man disappeared from view, only to reappear behind Sora again, and then float away to an unknown location once Sora had turned around to try and chase after him. The image was barely able to show more than static and several different lines of code, before it displayed Sora standing before a massive, brownish-gold, odd-looking castle. If Sora ever went to the castle, no one viewing these images would ever know, because a second later, the images all disappeared in a flash, almost as though someone had just cut them off.

When any images came through again, one could see a man sitting on a rock that rested along the shore of a strange, dark beach, while a smaller person slowly walked over to him. "I've been to see him," the seated man informed the recent arrival in a deep voice that did not seem to possess any emotion. "He looks a lot like you."

When his smaller companion spoke, it was in a voice that was a perfect match to Roxas's, and that served as official confirmation of who that person was. "Who are you?"

The question remained unanswered, at least in these dreams, as the next thing that one could see was Xion entering a large room from a faded-tan door. The room in question was just as white as Naminé's, with the furnishings being the same way as well, and the things that were not that color was the door that Xion just came through, and the one on the opposite side of the room. The girl looked around the room from the doorway she entered from for only a moment, and then slowly proceeded inside as she continued looking, while the door closed behind her. After a taking a few steps though, Xion came to a halt as something seemed to echo in her head, while her eyes spun rapidly about the room. Eventually, the echo turned into a loud noise that made her clutch her head in an attempt to block out the pain that was penetrating it, until she finally dropped to her knees.

When she heard someone approaching, Xion quickly looked up, ignoring the pain in her head for a moment, but that same headache quickly disappeared when she saw who it was that was coming over to her. "Axel…What are you doing here," Xion asked the tall redhead.

"I'm just here on orders, that's all," Axel easily replied. "There's nothing for you to see here."

"Lies," Xion snapped, startling Axel a little at the ferocity in her voice. "This is the place I come from. I just know it."

Axel was silent for a moment, likely debating how he would reply to the girl, until he finally asked, "What about your mission?" Xion did not reply and that was all that Axel needed to know that she had bailed on said mission to come here. He then walked over to help her up, and cautioned her, "Don't be selfish. You can't just throw orders to the wind like that."

"Or else they'll turn me into a Dusk," Xion angrily questioned.

Axel's response was to shake his head with concern. "They'll do worse than turn you into a Dusk. They'll just destroy you."

When Axel offered a hand to help her up, Xion did not accept it. Instead, she just glared at both him and his hand before getting up on her own and assuming, "And is that because I'm useless?"

"That's not it," Axel immediately denied. Before he could get another word in, Xion started to walk past him, prompting him to reach out and grab her arm in an attempt to stop her. "Xion, go home," he then told her, almost sounding like he was begging her to listen.

Xion did not turn to face him. Instead she replied, "I'm remembering things. I have memories of back when I was a human."

"Well stop remembering. Nothing good will come of it," Axel practically ordered.

That got Xion riled up, right to the point where she spun around, pushed Axel's hand off of her, and finally looked him in the eye with a look that was both desperate and angry at the same time. "I have dreams every night, and you're in those dreams, Axel!"

"Then they sure aren't memories. How could I be a part of your past," Axel pointed out. "They're just dreams, that's all."

Apparently that was the wrong thing for him to say, as it only riled Xion up even more. "You can't fool me! We've met before, Axel, right here in this castle," Xion insisted.

"No, we have not," Axel argued. He then knelt down so that he was closer to eye-level with the girl, and this time, it was not just his voice that seemed like it was begging, because his eyes were pleading with her as well as he spoke to her. "Let's go home, Xion. Don't keep Roxas waiting."

Xion said nothing in response. Obviously she did not want to worry her brother, but at the same time, she was just so desperate for answers, and she was sure that this place had them. It all made her head hurt in a different way that before, but in the end, she found her choice easy to make. Looking up to Axel again, she could only ask one thing of him. "Please, Axel…you've got to help me. I need to know who I am."

When Axel did nothing in response other than look at her sadly, Xion shook herself free from his grip, and then turned to run for the door opposite of the one she came in through. She did not even pause when Axel next called out to her, but she did not fail to notice that he sounded scared when he did. "Stop! Stay out of there, Xion," Axel had called out, but the girl just kept going, until she disappeared through the door.

The scene then shifted to a point where Xion was inside a different room, one that looked to be a lab of some kind, and as she gazed at what was being displayed in the strange orb in front of her, Xion could feel her whole world shatter into confusion. "Wh-what…" Xion finally gasped. "Then I…wasn't who I am…?"

At first, she was met with nothing but silence, but that quickly changed when the sound of metal boots hitting the floor rang out behind her. When she turned around, she was greeted by the sight of the armored man approaching her. "You know, just once I'd like to come back here and not find out that someone's going through something upsetting," the armored man commented as he looked this way and that. He soon settled his gaze on Xion before glancing at the orb behind her, which he slowly approached. After looking at the information inside of it, he glanced over to her and asked, "So, this is the truth about where you came from, is it?"

"Y-yes, at least, it looks that way," Xion nervously replied. "Who…"

"Don't you already know? According to this, you should've have absorbed a few of Sora's memories after all," the armored man asked.

"I'd still like to hear it from you," Xion immediately countered.

The man paused for a moment, before he finally said, "It's best that I don't reveal my name right now, even if your guess is accurate. If you really need an actual name to refer to me with though, perhaps just simply 'Master' will do. Unless that's unsettling for you."

"No…I guess not," Xion shrugged. "But…what should I do now? I'm not…"

"If you finish that sentence with the word 'real', then I'll have to take off the armor around one of my hands and smack you," the armored man cautioned. He then placed a gentle hand on Xion's shoulder and told her. "You are real, just as much as I am, as Sora is, or as anyone else is."

"Didn't you see what this said," Xion asked. "I'm just a puppet. Something that somebody created so that the Organization could have a Sora that they could control."

"…Well, from looking at this, it does seem that way," Master noted as he read a bit of the information aloud. "A replica, created from Sora's most precious memories, and which will be able to draw Sora's power into it through his Nobody, Roxas. Although, from what I can see, it doesn't say anything about you gaining your own appearance, or even your own identity."

"What do you mean," Xion asked.

"When you look in the mirror, do you see Sora's face, Kairi's face, or your own face? And I mean your exact face, and not something that's a perfect copy of the other two," Master questioned.

"I see…my face," Xion replied.

"And what was that drove you to come here seeking answers? Surely it wasn't just the dreams you had been having."

"That was part of it, but…more than anything, I wanted to know where I came from and who I was before I was a Nobody," Xion explained. She then lowered her head as she finished, "Turns out I never even existed in the first place, and I'm not even a Nobody at all." Master sighed with a shake of his head, walked over to Xion and lightly jabbed her in the forehead with two fingers, making the girl wince a little in response. "OW! What was that for," Xion demanded as she rubbed the spot on her forehead.

"I did warn you not to call yourself something that wasn't real," Master reminded her. "Besides, if you really don't exist, then that shouldn't have hurt, should it?"

"I don't know…But it does hurt," Xion admitted.

"Exactly my point. Things that don't exist can't actually feel, and more than that, they can't make decisions for themselves. You are able to do both of those things," Master pointed out to her, sounding much more like a wise teacher.

Xion slowly lowered her hand as she thought about that, studying said hand for a minute until she looked up and said, "I don't think I can go back now that I know all of this."

"Do you want to," Master asked.

"…No, not really, but I don't have anywhere else to go, and I don't want to just leave Roxas," Xion finally admitted after a moment. "I just…I don't know what I should do."

Master nodded in response before saying, "There's a girl in the old mansion in Twilight Town named Naminé. You should go and meet with her if you want the full truth about what is going on, and what your options are. She won't be able to tell you what you should do though, because that decision is yours alone. I'll keep anyone who comes here looking for you busy so that you can get there safely."

Xion nodded in thanks for that, and immediately dashed for the door, feeling it would be better to leave this castle before she opened a Dark Corridor to anywhere. She did not plan to go directly to Twilight Town though, but instead, figured it would be safer to jump through a few other worlds first, so that she was not easily followed. At that point, the images faded into blackness, and the scene shifted to show several other points in time where Xion was seen spending time with Naminé, talking, laughing, and really just appearing to become good friends, until it came back around to a point before Xion stepped out of the mansion to face Axel.

When the scene stopped shifting so much again, one could see the moment when Xion properly met Riku, only it seemed like a later point in their conversation, because the first thing that Xion could be heard asking was, "So, do you hate me for taking your friend away from you?"

"Nah. I guess…I'm just sad," Riku admitted, surprising the girl when he did.

Xion seemed to stare at him for a few moments, before she lowered her head and muttered, "I'm sorry, but…I can't go with you just yet. There's someone I need to meet. A girl named Naminé, and…I want to see Roxas again. I just know that he can help me somehow."

Riku smiled in response, placed a hand on her shoulder, and revealed, "Then I guess we'll be going to the same place after all. The only question is…how soon do you want to meet with her?"

Xion merely smiled back in response and the scene faded away again to another point in time. When the next scene came into view, it was showing Roxas and Xion together again, this time though, they were running through a very dark, twisted looking city that was overlooked by a heart-shaped moon, a massive skyscraper, and a castle that seemed to possess an aura that would make anyone nervous, while rain gently fell upon them and their surroundings. Behind the two, several Dusks were seen flying after them, almost like they were giving chase, until they suddenly stopped and several Heartless started to rise up from the ground around them. When the two were completely surrounded by the dark creatures, they found themselves with no choice but to try and fight, and in an instant, they both drew weapons that were a far cry from the Keyblades that they had been using until now.

In the case of Xion's Keyblade, one could easily see that it was more sword-like with a curved, notched blade, and a noticeably sharp edge. A set of odd thorns made up the teeth and guard while the color scheme was silver and black, and the token at the end of its Keychain was almost identical to the symbol that could be seen on all of the Dusks. Roxas on the other hand was very different, as he did not just summon one, but two Keyblades. One of the two was Oathkeeper, while the other was almost entirely black, save for the dark blue gem in the hilt and the chain-like design running up the length of the blade in dark grey. The second Keyblade's token appeared to be a black colored version of the crown pendant that Sora was always wearing, but that was of little concern to the Heartless, as they merely lunged forth after seeing the two spin their Keyblades around to show they were ready for battle.

Several Heartless were felled by one of the three Keyblades, but it did little to create any openings for the two to easily escape through. Eventually, a third person joined the fight, and his entrance was announced when a Keyblade shrouded in ice magic suddenly spun through several Heartless before returning to its owner. Said wielder turned out to be Master, who quickly leapt from the top of the tall skyscraper before sending his Keyblade flying again, this time coating it with wind magic so that he could redirect it into several targets at once before calling it back to his hand. When the Keyblade was in his grasp again, he had already landed on the ground, and immediately moved to stand alongside the other two Keybearers in the fight.

"You two need to get out of here! I'll keep you covered," Master shouted.

"Forget it! We can't leave you behind," Roxas protested as he sliced up four more Heartless with his two blades.

"Either we all go together, or we don't go at all," Xion added on.

Another shift change showed the three being joined by a third person, and this one entered the fight by throwing out a blast of dark fire at several Heartless before he landed on the ground. While his arrival was surprising to some of them, only Master seemed most surprised to see him, given how shocked his voice sounded when he announced their latest backup's name. "Riku?!"

The blindfold wearing boy slightly turned to the armored man and said, "It's been too long, Master Ventus."

Before the two could talk more, the fight was quickly back on, and when he saw that Riku was not using a weapon, Roxas drew back the arm holding his darker-colored Keyblade and shouted, "Riku! Catch!"

Riku immediately flipped up into the air, spinning around as he caught the Keyblade that Roxas just threw to him, and then easily felled several more Heartless with a single swing using the momentum he gained from his spin through the air. The silver haired boy nodded to Roxas for the assist before they all started slicing up every Heartless around them, hoping to make an opening in the enemy encirclement. They were not very successful though, and when he realized this, Riku tossed the black Keyblade back to Roxas and said, "All of you get ready to run."

"What? Riku, what're you planning," Master Ventus demanded.

"I'm gonna make an opening, and when I do, you need to bail out. I'll cover you as you escape," Riku explained.

"But…" Xion tried to say.

"We don't have time to argue," Riku insisted, and he then drew back his hand before unleashing a powerful blast of magic at the Heartless. Said blast proved to be quite blinding, and it was at this point when the dream finally came to an end.

Just before it did end though, Ventus's voice could be heard almost whispering, "The time to choose your path…has finally come again."

---

When the twins awoke from their most recent dream, both of them were not springing up from their beds. Instead, they just slowly opened their eyes, and stood at a similar speed, neither of them in too big of a rush for anything, and only part of it was due to what they had just seen in their dreams. Somehow, they just knew that today was promising something that they could not avoid, something that they somehow just knew had been calling for them, and that scared them a little bit. More than that, they could just feel that there was a new feeling like none they had ever experienced before, stirring inside of them. It was not just fear, or sadness, or any of the things that they now felt after all that had happened over the past few days. If anything, it was like the truest versions of themselves was beginning to come forth after being asleep for so long.

When they both finally came into the kitchen for breakfast, they were silent for several moments, until they finally locked eyes with each other. No words were needed between them, since they both knew exactly what was bothering them so much, especially after the dreams they just had, so Roxas had no problem with catching Xion when she suddenly threw herself into his arms, crying her eyes out as she held him as tightly as humanly possible. Then again, that was part of the reason why she was currently sobbing so harshly. Learning that you are not actually human…Well, there are just no words to really describe it, and Xion never thought she would have to try and find those words. Yet now, she actually had to try and do so, but all she could really do was cry her eyes out while barely able to mutter incoherently.

"It…It can't be true. It just can't be," Xion finally muttered through her tears. "How could I possibly be just…just some…thing that someone created in a lab? Does that mean I'm some kind of…of m-monster?"

"Hey, hey, calm down, Sis. You're not just something that was created in a lab, and you're definitely not a monster," Roxas whispered as he rubbed her back. He was not really sure if it was helping, because he was not entirely sure what to think right now, himself. Still, he could not let Xion suffer through something like this. "You're my sister. You're a good person with a good heart. Besides, you saw how the dreams seemed to end. Do you really think a monster would've refused to leave so much as one friend behind? No matter what anyone says, you and me, we're us, we're alive, and we decide who and what we are. Okay?"

Xion just whimpered out a small nod. She understood what her brother was saying, but she was still not done crying just yet, or at least not enough to be able to properly speak. Roxas knew this, and that was why he tightened his hold on her, hoping that she would be able to know he was silently telling her that he was going to be right here for her no matter what happened. Eventually, when Xion did calm down, she paused to dry her eyes with her gloved arm, and then asked, "At the end…we were definitely running from something, and Master Ventus and Riku helped, right?"

"Yeah," Roxas nodded. "But it obviously wasn't quite the full story."

"Well, considering we're both still here, we must have gotten away…But what do you think happened to Ventus and Riku," Xion pondered.

Roxas tapped his chin in thought, thinking it over before he answered. "Well, we know that Ventus must've gotten out okay, because we just saw him yesterday. Or at least, someone who was wearing his armor."

"That still doesn't tell us what happened to Riku though," Xion pointed out.

"Hey, if this much of our old memories have come back to us now, maybe the rest will fall into place soon, too," Roxas reasoned. "Until then, let's just…get breakfast and meet with the others."

Xion nodded in reply, not really able to think of anything else that they could do right now, and sat down at the table while Roxas quickly cooked up some eggs and toast for them to enjoy before leaving to meet with their friends. Even through the delightful smell of her brother's cooking though, Xion could still not shake the feeling in the pit of her stomach that nothing would ever be the same for them now, and even less so by the time the day had ended.

---

The twins ended up being a little slow in finishing their breakfast that morning, because even with Roxas's comforting words to Xion, the two were still feeling really out of things. As a result of that, they ended up arriving at the Usual Spot a little later than the meeting time that everyone had agreed on yesterday, but thankfully, any distress or sadness that they were still feeling was pretty well covered by the time they did get there. Neither of the two wanted to worry their friends about these problems, so if they had to put up a little façade to conceal their troubles, they would. Their friends had already gotten the whole town to help them out with a search for answers regarding the weird things that had been happening around the town and the two of them, and there was no need to worry them any further than that.

When they walked in, they found Hayner, Pence, and Olette gathered up in a huddle just talking, and apparently not taking notice of their arrival just yet, so Roxas decided that he should let the three know he and his sister were here. "Man, we have had a morning," Roxas commented as casually as he could. It may have defeated the purpose of putting up a front to not worrying their friends, but it would at least get the other three's attention. At least, that was what Roxas thought, but none of them so much as glanced at him or Xion. When he looked over to his sister and received an unsure shrug in reply, Roxas reached out to Hayner and said, "Guys?"

What happened next startled both Roxas and Xion, because when Roxas went to tap Hayner's shoulder, his hand ended up going right through him. The other three still did not seem to notice anything wrong, as they merely continued talking and laughing like it was just another day for them, prompting Xion to come closer and see if she had any better success than her brother. That turned out to not be the case, because when she reached to tap Olette's arm, Xion's hand went right through the girl, just like Roxas's hand did with Hayner. A minute later, the three then turned and ran right through the twins, off to parts that the two were unaware of, and the twins were left in the Usual Spot on their own. At that point, Xion noticed something on the small, makeshift table, and quickly went to see what it was. The item in question turned out to be the photo of the whole gang outside the old mansion, but there was something very different about this photo in comparison to the one she and her brother knew about, and she immediately let Roxas know about it.

"Roxas, look at this," Xion called out. "We're not there."

Upon looking at the picture in Xion's hand, Roxas saw that they really were not in the photo. Instead, it was just Hayner, Pence, and Olette standing before the gates of the old mansion. Seeing this immediately reminded Roxas of the photo thief incident, and given where that had lead them, and that the very same location seemed to have a lot happening around it, Roxas figured that there was only one thing that they could do to get some answers as to what was really going on now. "Let's head for the old mansion," Roxas determined. When Xion looked at him in confusion, Roxas explained, "That's where all of this started, where we met with Naminé, and where both this photo and the one with us in it were taken. I know it's a bit of a long-shot to say that we'll find all the answers there, but it's the only idea I've got."

Thinking it over for a minute, Xion had to admit that she was no better off than her brother in thinking of other ideas, so she easily agreed with him and then turned to join him in a quick run to said mansion. At least, it started out as a run, but the minute they stepped outside again, they both noticed that it was far too quiet for this time of day, or really any time in Twilight Town, and that made them slow their pace to a cautious walk. When they finally did stop, it was not because they saw something that might serve as a clue as to what was going with both them and the town. What made them stop was the appearance of several Dusks, blocking all of their available exits from the alley.

"Look at what it's come to," a familiar voice sadly sighed, making the two turn around to see that Axel had now appeared just outside the entrance into the Usual Spot. "I've been given these icky orders to destroy you if you refuse to come back. And just to be clear, it doesn't matter if both of you agree or not, because if either one of you says no, that one's gotta go."

"You…You can't mean that," Xion stated, uncertain and yet still feeling in her gut that Axel would not actually hurt them.

"Yeah. I mean…we're best friends, right," Roxas asked.

"Sure…but I'm not getting turned into a Dusk for…" Axel started to say, until he realized what the two had just mentioned, and a hopeful smile started to form on his face. "Wait a sec! You guys remember now!?"

"Y-yeah," Roxas hesitantly replied, while Xion just gave a similar nod.

"Great," Axel cheered, taking that as a good enough sign. At least, he did for a minute. "But, you know, gotta make sure and all. So, uh…Umm…What's our boss's name?"

"Our…boss," Xion repeated, uncertain of what that meant. When she turned to Roxas, she only received a shrug in reply, and she figured that she might as well come clean. "Axel, we don't remember everything. Just a few small bits and pieces."

"Oh…well, I guess it's better than nothing," Axel sighed, a little disappointed. "So…what do you remember?"

This time it was Roxas who answered, and he did so as he slowly reached for a stick that was lying on the ground, cluing Xion in to what he was thinking. "What we remember…is that whatever group we worked for, and that you work for…It's one that Xion and I left for a reason. More importantly, it's one that wanted to destroy Xion. I don't think either one of us are planning on going back."

All hope left Axel's eyes when he heard that, and he shook his head sadly as he muttered, "Can't believe this…"

Xion was about to apologize to Axel for their response, when one of the Dusks suddenly flew at her and Roxas. Without even thinking, Xion swung out her left arm, the Keyblade appearing in her hand as she did, and destroyed the offender the minute it was within striking distance of her. Another one quickly fell to her Keyblade in another swing, and when a third tried to get the jump on her from the side, Roxas jumped in with his own Keyblade and cut it down before it could harm her. The two then launched a combined assault against the last Dusk, and believed that to be the end of it, when suddenly; a new silver creature appeared that, while similar, was still very different from the Dusks.

The new enemy did still have a humanoid body like the Dusks did, except for the fact that the bodysuit that it was covered in was purple and silver, and its arms appeared to be segmented and lined with four blades that looked similar to the spikes on the logo that they had seen on the Dusks' heads. They then watched this new creature dive into the ground, and then extend its long arms up to slash at them like a pair of long blades. Luckily the two were able to avoid said attack, but they were unprepared for the moment when it suddenly jumped out, compacted itself into a floating disk that they could not help but notice looked similar to Axel's chakrams, and then flew at them like the redhead's weapons did. Xion managed to deflect the beast in a manner very similar to the one she had used in one of her previous dreams, and that gave Roxas the chance to jump in and grab it, before spinning around to throw it back down on the ground, making it explode the minute it hit the cement.

Xion then turned her attention to Axel, only to see that he had summoned his chakrams in preparation to fight them. "Please Axel," Xion begged. "Don't make us fight you."

"…Sorry kiddo, but I don't have any other choice," Axel replied, and he drew back in preparation to throw one of the chakrams at them.

Roxas and Xion were both on their guard for the moment when he did throw them, but the attack never came. In fact, Axel appeared to have stopped moving completely right after he had drawn his arm back, and when Roxas moved closer to get a better look, he saw that was exactly the case. More than that, Xion quickly noticed that everything was now completely quiet, as she could not even hear any birds chirping, or even a faint gust of wind. It was like someone had hit pause on the town once again, only this time, it had the added effect of making everything seem like it had turned into a complete and utter ghost town. At that point, they heard a familiar voice echoing around them, and it was one that they were not too eager to hear from again.

"Roxas, Xion, to the mansion," the voice of the man in the red mask commanded. The same man that they had come to assume was actually DiZ. "The time has come!"

Neither of them wanted to listen to the man, given what they had heard about him from Naminé, along with the uneasy feeling they now had in their guts, but right now, the mansion did seem like a much safer place that this alleyway was. Besides, they were already going there anyway, so they both gave Axel's frozen form one final, apologetic look before they turned and made tracks for the woods, and the building that rested beyond them.

---

Any fear that the twins felt right now was more over how empty the town had suddenly become than it was regarding the Dusks that were now appearing very frequently in various attempts to try and destroy them. Sure, it was better than moving through a town full of people that were as still as statues, but seeing a bustling city like Twilight Town suddenly become deserted like this was far too unsettling for their liking. They were honestly wishing that they could hear the candy shop owner's cat meowing, or see a friendly wave from Biggs at the armor shop, but there was just no chance of that happening, because everything from the streets to the buildings were completely empty without a soul in sight.

Thinking of how empty the town was only served as more of a reminder on where they needed to go, which was why they made it to the mansion in what could easily be considered record time, at least without the use of a skateboard. The only problem was that, as usual, there was absolutely no way to get into the mansion. The gate was locked shut as always, there was no way they could have climbed the wall quickly enough, and considering that a small squad of Dusks had just appeared behind them, they obviously did not have any time to look for another way inside. Apparently the Dusks also realized that the two kids had run right into a dead end, because their approach towards the two became much slower afterwards, like a predator that was savoring the moment before it pounced on its prey, and they way they were slinking around right now definitely made Roxas and Xion feel like helpless, small animals before a large, mighty predator.

"Come on," Roxas groaned. "Don't call us and then lock us out."

The minute Roxas mentioned locks, Xion's mind went back to one of the few, specific things that they almost always saw in their dreams, and it may have been a little silly, but she figured that they really did not have much to lose right now in trying it. So, she quickly fired off a quick blast of the ice spell she had quickly become very good at, and then jumped back from the gate a little as she summoned out the Keyblade. "Roxas," she called as she aimed the blade at the lock on the gate.

Roxas just nodded in reply, having thought of the same thing as his sister, and copied her actions, save for the spell casting, so that he was also aiming his Keyblade's tip at the gate's lock. At once, as if on instinct, the tips of both Keyblades flashed with a sphere of light before they fired a beam into the lock that quickly opened it up, making both the lock itself and the chains that it was holding together drop to the ground. With the lock removed, the gates slowly creaked open, allowing entrance to the mansion, and the twins immediately raced to the door just as a new group of Dusks materialized to pursue them. The silver creatures would have continued after the twins had the pickpocket not suddenly appeared in their path, blocking the way to Roxas and Xion, and then raised his odd-looking, demonic-wing-shaped sword to the monsters as if to challenge them.

Xion quickly took notice of this, and upon seeing that sword he was using, her mind went back to several points in the dreams where they had seen Riku wielding a weapon just like that. Seeing this man use it made her even more certain that this person was Riku, and she wanted to try and help him. That idea was cast aside though when the man called out, "Go Xion! I can handle this! You and Roxas just get inside!"

Hearing those words suddenly brought back a memory to Xion from that battle she and Roxas saw themselves fighting along with Ventus and Riku in their most recent dream, and she could not stop herself from repeating the same words that she had back then. "No, we can't just leave you behind, Riku!"

The man was silent for a moment before he turned towards Xion and said, "First off, I'm not Riku. I'm just a castaway from the darkness. And second, this isn't the time to argue. Just go and do what you have to do."

Xion refused to believe that first claim, and probably would have argued against both that and his second statement had Roxas not suddenly grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her towards the mansion. "Come on, Sis! If the guy says he can handle it then let him handle it," Roxas insisted. "We need to get inside if we're going to put an end to this."

She looked between her brother and the taller man, unable to really bring herself to actually keep going at the expense of someone else, but she knew that the two boys were right. So, reluctantly, Xion nodded to the man she was so sure was Riku and then continued to follow Roxas into the mansion, tears slowly falling from her eyes as she went. This just seemed far too familiar to something inside her that felt equally unpleasant to her. She would have said it was in her heart, but now, she knew that could not be the case. After all, she was just something that somebody created, so did she even have a heart of her own? Well, if the dreams of her and Roxas's old lives were any indication, they probably did not, and that made her tears start to fall a little faster.

When Roxas noticed this, he gave Xion a gentle shove, letting her know that he was still here for her, before nodding forwards, indicating that they had stepped into the mansion, and Xion took this time to glance around at the interior of the mysterious old building. The foyer was definitely showing plenty of signs of how long the mansion had been abandoned, as there was quite a bit of dust on several different surfaces. Somehow though, the twins doubted it was as much as there should be. In the middle of the foyer, there was a model of a castle inside of a glass case that was slowly falling apart. Looking to the right, they could see that a door had been completely blocked by fallen rubble, while the one on the left was clear. When Roxas peaked in, he saw what appeared to be a partially destroyed living or dining room of some kind, but no sign of anyone being inside, recently or at the moment. Still, they were sure that there was someone here waiting for them to come by, just like Naminé was.

Thinking of the blonde girl immediately helped Roxas to remember that her room was up on the second floor, and he quickly ascended the stairs to the second floor, turned left and raced for the room that he knew to be hers. He paused at the door though, thinking it would be rude to just barge in on Naminé out of nowhere, assuming she was inside. After all, what if she was getting dressed? Still, he took his sweet time building up the courage to just raise his hand up to knock, and Xion was not too willing to wait this time, so she barged in ahead of him. Roxas would have scolded her for doing that, but when he saw that there was no one inside but his sister, his words died in his throat. Once he joined Xion inside, the twins had to take a moment to marvel at Naminé's drawings once again.

As the twins looked around, they could not help but think once again that, while the blonde girl's drawings may have held a childlike quality to them at times, there was so much feeling in each one of them that they were all incredible works of art that deserved the attention and adoration of the world. Sure, the two had seen a lot of these places and scenes in the dreams that they had been having, but even if that were not the case, they were confident that they would still be able to feel every last detail of the emotions that went into each scene that Naminé had drawn. The heat from the city in a desert that could only have been Agrabah, the calm of the starry night beneath the trees that were clearly from the Hundred Acre Wood, the sense of foreboding in a place of vast knowledge that was obviously the castle library in Hollow Bastion, and even the simple drawings of specific people standing together communicated the feelings that were in those moments along with Naminé's feelings as she drew each picture. After a while, it was not any of the pictures that they had already seen that drew the twins' attention. Yes, they did pause for a minute to study the picture of them standing on either side of Sora for a little longer than the others, but what really got their attention was an image of them on the other side of the dresser, dressed in black coats and apparently running through a darkened place.

As both twins studied this new addition to the artworks on Naminé's wall, their heads suddenly began to hurt quite a bit, while a faint ringing seemed to build up in their ears, and a moment later, a new, or more specifically, an old memory suddenly came back into their heads.

---

It was nighttime in the dark city that lay beneath the Organization's headquarters, or at least the closest thing that came to night in this place that was always beneath a dark sky with the only lights being the ones from the buildings, the castle, and the heart-shaped moon, and after the grueling fight he had just been through against Saïx, Roxas was actually very grateful for the calm sense that the night air brought to him in his march through the streets. That calm was quickly dissolved though when he noticed a familiar redhead leaning against the wall alongside the street he was walking down, and it took little thought for him to figure out that the man who claimed to be his best friend had been there waiting for him. Roxas paid him no mind at first, electing to simply keep walking by without sparing more than that first glance, but ultimately had to stop when he heard Axel speak up.

"Your mind's made up," Axel somberly questioned, his voice indicating how much he hoped that it was not.

Roxas had to disappoint the redhead, and only spared him a few words. "Why did the Keyblade choose me and Xion? I have to know, and more importantly, there's something that we both need to do."

That got Axel to jump off the wall and drop his usual, calm stance in favor of a really angry yet worried one, while he snapped, "You can't turn on the Organization!"

The scene faded out after that, clearly skipping over what came next, but only by a few minutes or so, because the next thing that was seen was Roxas rounding a corner, and seeing Xion waiting for him, leaning against the similar to the way Axel had just been before. Upon seeing Roxas arriving, Xion smiled a little bit, stood up straight, and asked, "Are you ready?"

Roxas did not answer right away, and after a minute or so, he finally asked, "Just tell me this: are you absolutely sure about this?"

Unlike her blonde brother-figure, Xion did not hesitate in her answer. "Yes. Sora needs us if he's to ever wake up again, and the only way we can help him is if we go to him now."

"But what will happen to us afterwards," Roxas asked. "Do you think that these people will…?"

"No, they won't," Xion promised. "I'm sure of it. Master gave me his word that we would still be us when it was over and I think we can trust him."

"…Okay then," Roxas nodded with a smile. "Let's go help Sora, and make up for all that we've done to help the Organization."

---

When the memory flash ended, the two found that the pain in their heads had finally ended, and they were able to stand up straight again. The moment that she had done so, Xion felt a set of eyes watching them, and immediately turned around to see Naminé seated in her usual spot at the table in the middle of the room, gazing at them with kind, caring eyes. Tapping Roxas's shoulder, Xion immediately brought her brother's attention over to the blonde girl, and a small smile quickly slipped onto Roxas's face when he saw her before he thought about what they had just seen in that memory just now.

"Organization XIII…," Roxas started.

"They're a bad group, right," Xion finished.

"Bad or good, I don't know, but from what you two told me, they're certainly not taking actions that would be considered very good," Naminé informed them. "They're a group of incomplete people, Nobodies like you and me, Roxas, and they wish to be whole. To that end, they're desperately searching for something."

"What," both twins asked.

"…Kingdom Hearts," Naminé hesitantly replied.

"But I thought that Sora and his friends sealed Kingdom Hearts away," Xion recounted.

"They closed one door to darkness, one that led to a Kingdom Hearts, but it was not the true one of legend. From what you two once told me, Organization XIII is not looking for the true Kingdom Hearts either. They're looking for a different one," Naminé corrected. She had expected that new information to either worry or upset the twins, and she would not have blamed them if that was the case. After all, she had seen Sora's memories of the Kingdom Hearts that the wielder of Kingdom Key had sealed alongside of Ventus, King Mickey, and Aqua, and even just the memory of that gave her chills. What she did not expect was for Roxas to suddenly let out a short laugh. "Funny?"

"No, not really. It's just…I think—we've been running away from the question we really wanna ask," Roxas admitted. "What's gonna happen to us now? I know that we came here to help Sora, but I feel like that's just about done, so what will happen once we're not needed for that anymore. Just tell me that. Nothing else really matters anymore."

Naminé studied Roxas closely, saddened that he would really think that there was not anything else in his life that could matter now, and then turned to Xion with a question that was clear in her eyes before she even voiced it. "What about you, Xion? Do you feel the same way?"

Xion did not say anything at first, clearly thinking about the answer to that inquiry as well, before she finally replied. "I want to know, too. I don't want to think that nothing else matter for us, but I still feel like we have to hear for ourselves what will happen once this has all ended," she stated with a somber expression that she was hoping had kept any worries she had about the matter hidden. She doubted that it worked though, since it was clear from some of her recent memories and dreams that she and Naminé were once really close friends. "Please, tell us if you know anything about that."

Naminé gave them both a small smile when she heard that, and proceeded to do as the two had asked. Before she got more than two words in though, she suddenly stopped short, making the twins look at her in confusion. When they did, they saw faint lines of light crisscrossing over her as she broke down into small, square pieces and then disappeared, much to their astonishment. Their first thoughts were to assume that they had not been talking to the real Naminé just now, but then again, she sounded and acted so much like the real Naminé that they could not have been too sure of that. It might have been an avatar of some kind that Naminé had been using to talk to them from somewhere else, much like when she had appeared in Roxas's dream the other night, but they could not spend too much time thinking about it, because just after Naminé had completely disappeared, the masked man from the Struggle tournament teleported into the room in the exact same manner that he had appeared that day. One look at him and both twins felt a deep sense of anger and distrust build up inside of them, and it was all directed towards this man. When he spoke, they quickly figured out a good reason why they would feel that, because his words were far from kind.

"There's no knowledge that has the power to change either of your fates," the masked man decreed, sounding like he was someone who could order them around like a master to a servant. "To be quite honest, one of you should've met their fate quite some time before now."

"Who're you to say that? What even gives you the right to decide it for us," Xion demanded.

"Besides, even if it doesn't, we wanna know. We have the right to know," Roxas insisted, repeating words that he had spoken in a previous dream without entirely intending to.

"A Nobody doesn't have a right to know, nor does it even have the right to be," the masked man scoffed derisively. He then scowled a little as his gaze fell to Xion, and added, "A puppet such as you has even less of a right for either of those things."

"I am not a puppet," Xion retorted. "I'm a living person, just like my brother, Naminé, Riku, and even Sora."

"Besides, just what IS a Nobody," Roxas asked.

The answer to his question, and the masked man's counter to Xion's belief, went unsaid, as the hooded pickpocket suddenly teleported into the room in a burst of shadows, looking more than a little tired. "DiZ, we're out of time. Too many Nobodies! Master Ventus is doing what he can to hold them off, but even he can't last long against such odds."

DiZ merely nodded in reply and seemed like he was about to leave when another dark portal opened up, allowing Naminé to enter the room once more, and both siblings could tell from looking into her eyes that this was in fact the real Naminé. More than that, they could tell that she was determined to finish what she started no matter what, and they were sure that she was going to get into trouble with these two if the nervous glances she threw at DiZ were any indication. That did not stop her though. "Roxas. Nobodies like us are only half a person, while replicas like Xion were meant to be empty shells that are programmed with specific characteristics that could mimic others," Naminé revealed. "But you've both become more than that. You're both already whole, and you don't have to disappear to become that way."

"We don't have to…What do you mean disappear," Roxas asked.

DiZ quickly turned to glare at Naminé before marching over to her as he growled, "No further outbursts!"

"You never would've disappeared to begin with! DiZ would've…" Naminé tried to say, but she was cut off when DiZ grabbed her and slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling the rest of her words.

"Let her go," Roxas shouted before dashing around the table to charge at DiZ. He never reached the masked man, as the pickpocket moved in between them.

"Get out of the way, Riku! We have to help Naminé," Xion shouted as she moved to try and blast DiZ with an ice spell. She did not want to blast Riku as well, but if he was going to get in their way, she would.

"You really want to put Naminé at risk, Xion," the hooded man questioned. That made Xion realize just how risky it was to try and cast her spell right now, and she slowly lowered her hand in sadness.

"Well you can't expect us to just stand here," Roxas hotly argued, but the man they suspected to be Riku still did not move.

After struggling against DiZ for a few more moments, Naminé finally got his hand off her mouth, and locked eyes with the blonde boy across from her so that she could tell him one last thing. "Roxas, don't worry about me. I'll be fine, and we will meet again, and then we can talk about everything. There's a chance that I may not know it's you, and you may not know it's me, but we will meet again one way or the other. Someday soon. I promise!"

"Wait! Let her go," Roxas shouted as DiZ pulled her back through the portal she came from, but the masked man just kept going, until they were both out of sight and the portal closed behind them.

Xion fixed an angry glare on the tall, hooded man still standing in the room, and angrily shouted, "You were right before. There's no way that you're Riku! He wouldn't have let DiZ take Naminé like that, knowing he was likely going to hurt her!"

The hooded man looked at Xion before he replied, "I did try to warn you about that. Besides, what makes you so sure that he will even get the chance? After all, Naminé did promise that you would all meet again, and she would not have said that if it weren't true."

"What do you mean," Roxas asked, but the man simply summoned his own portal and stepped through it. "Wait! What do you mean?!"

In that instant, both of the strange men were gone, Naminé along with them, and Roxas found all strength in his legs leaving him as he sank to the floor. He pounded on the ground a couple of times in frustration, hating the fact that he could not do anything more to help her, and Xion was unable to do anything to try and help him feel better about this since she was almost just as upset about the whole thing too. Of course, she was also really upset about the man she suspected to be Riku just letting it happen, but at the moment, seeing Naminé getting taken away like that just hurt a lot more for some reason. At that point, she finally noticed that there was a sketchpad resting on the table. Thinking it was Naminé's, Xion walked over to have a look inside, and found something in it that was truly touching.

"Roxas, you might want to take a look at this," Xion informed her brother, bringing the sketchpad over to him when she did.

Roxas turned to see what his sister was going to show him, and gasped when he saw a picture of himself and Naminé sitting outside the Tasty Treat Parlor enjoying ice cream together. Flipping to another page, he saw another image of Naminé and Xion spending time at the Tram Commons, and a third page depicted all three of them together on Sunset Hill. As he continued flipping through the pages of the sketchpad, he saw more and more images of the three of them spending time together and basically hanging out like good friends, until he finally reached a point where he found a few pictures of him and Xion with Sora as well. There were a few times when Riku showed up in the pictures, mostly with Xion, Roxas noted, but a good majority of the rest had Sora and Ventus in them along with themselves and Naminé.

Turning to another page, Roxas quickly started to find pictures of him and Xion spending time with Axel. Many of them were up on the clock tower and eating ice cream as they watched the sunset, but there were also a few times when they appeared to be doing other things as well. There was an image of the three having fun at the beach, and one where Roxas looked to be teaching Axel how to skateboard while Xion watched. Considering how she appeared to be doubled over in laughter while Axel's arms were held out at his sides, Roxas figured that it must have been a very ridiculous sight or just not going very well for the tall redhead. Turning to another page, Roxas saw a picture of the three of them apparently flying over an island, with a small fairy right beside them, and then came one last page where he saw all three of them standing ready against some kind of monster, clearly prepared to do battle against it.

"These look like Naminé's attempts at preserving the memories of our days with Axel," Roxas finally whispered. "But what about these other pictures?"

"Maybe their how she remembers the days after we came to see her," Xion suggested. "Or maybe…they're what she wished for. A chance for her and us to all spend time with people that she believed could be good friends for each other."

Whatever Roxas's response was, Xion could not be certain, as another headache suddenly flashed through her head, bringing another forgotten memory back into her mind.

---

"Welcome back, Xion," Naminé greeted with a smile. "Where's Master?"

"He's just in the other room, resting. We had to go through quite the fight in order to get away," Xion explained with a smile, just as she wrapped the blonde girl in a tight hug. When she pulled back, she continued smiling, but this time there was an even greater hint of happiness in said smile than Naminé had seen since she first met the raven haired girl. "More importantly, there's someone I'd like you to meet," Xion announced, waving for someone behind her to step forward. "This is Roxas, the best brother I ever could've asked for."

When Naminé turned to Roxas, a small gasp quickly escaped from her, as she found herself completely entranced by the boy before her. He was even more handsome in person than she had imagined, and his blue eyes seemed to have a shine that was all their own, despite whatever dullness there may have been. Roxas was no better than her, as he could not take his eyes off of this blonde haired girl in a white dress. Looking her over from head to toe, Roxas found himself wondering how something could be so beautiful and cute all at once, and that must have rendered his ability to speak very limited, because he found that he could just barely stutter anything in greeting to her. That was something he could not remember ever having trouble with before, but there was something about Naminé that seemed to make his stomach do summersaults in a way that made him wonder if he should be concerned for his health.

"Um…H-hi," Roxas finally managed to choke out.

"H-hello, Roxas," Naminé greeted in return, not doing much better than the boy in front of her, considering that her rosy cheeks turned a little more red as she smiled at him. "Xion told me a lot about you."

"Oh, r-really," Roxas asked. "Well, I hope they were all good things, like what she told me about you when I asked. But she didn't tell me that you were so pretty." Roxas cringed a little after that last bit before he asked, "Did I just say that out loud?"

"Yeah, y-you did," Naminé stuttered, now very red in the face, while one of her hands absently played with the hair that was hanging over her shoulder in a nervous manner. "But…I don't mind. I…I think you're really handsome as well."

While the two blondes were busy making stuttering fools of themselves, though ultimately bringing smiles to each other's faces in the end, Xion could only look back and forth in bewilderment, trying to process what was going on with her friends. After one last look from her friend to her brother, it all started to come together in her mind, and Xion quickly began to smirk a little at this new knowledge. She tried her best to hide it though, but it was just so cute that her efforts ended up failing, ultimately leading to the moment when Roxas did take notice. When he saw her grinning that way, Roxas went from a stuttering mess of a fool to very suspicious, which made his next question quite obvious. That did not mean he was sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"What's with that smile," Roxas questioned.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Xion immediately denied, but it only further proved to Roxas that she was up to something.

"Uh-huh. Spill it, Sis. What are you thinking?"

Seeing as her brother figure was not going to let up, Xion just shrugged and turned her grin to both him and Naminé when she replied. "Nothing really. I was just thinking about a certain song."

"What song," Naminé asked, more curious than suspicious, but she probably should have been, otherwise she might not have asked.

"One that goes a little like this," Xion answered, before singing said song. "Roxas and Naminé sitting in tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Both blondes were blushing up a storm again after that, and were quickly sputtering excuses on why that was not the case. Not that Xion believed any of them, as her arguments in support of her suspicion quickly proved, and their little bouts of fun continued on until Master finally entered the room, likely smiling at the three under his helmet until he felt that he needed to break it up. There was still a lot of work to do after all.

---

When the pain passed, Xion had a smile on her face, happy to have remembered that particular moment in their history with Naminé, for more reasons than just the teasing opportunities that it opened up to her, and she then looked to her brother who was still skimming through the sketchpad, as she said, "You should keep that." When Roxas turned an astonished look to her, having paused on a page that contained the only image that was not of people, but instead, a strange collection of symbols, she explained, "It only seems right that you have something to remember her by until we see her again like she said we would. Or rather, when you see her again, considering that she seemed a lot more interested in meeting up with you again than me."

Roxas rolled his eyes at that last remark, knowing that Xion was just joking around a bit when she said it, and quickly began scanning the room for something. When his eyes finally came to a stop, he quickly moved over to pick up one of the drawings and held it out to Xion. Upon accepting said drawing, Xion gasped a little at the sight of the people in it, because recognized each of them at once. Standing alongside each other in the picture, hand-in-hand, going from left to right, were herself, Riku, Sora, Kairi, Roxas, and Naminé. If the sketches in the blonde girl's sketchpad were not something she wished for then this definitely was, because it was a wish that Xion would certainly want to share with her.

"If I get the sketchpad, you should at least have that," Roxas explained, making Xion look back over to him. "It's only fair that you get at least one of her drawings, since you two were friends before I had ever even met her."

Xion smiled for a minute, glad that Roxas would think of her like that, before she asked, "Are you sure, Roxas?"

Roxas nodded in response, his smile never fading, as he stated, "Only the best, for the best sister I ever could've asked for."

That was what did for Xion, and this time, when she wrapped Roxas in the tightest hug she could muster while crying into his shoulder, she ended up shedding only tears of joy. Roxas was happy to share in the feeling of her happiness, but he still wished that they could have done something to help Naminé all the same. Even so, if Naminé was so sure that they would meet again someday then he was inclined to believe her. After all, she had not given them reason to doubt her before, so he did not think she would start now. When they finally released each other from their hug, the two prepared to leave again, only for Roxas to pause for a minute and then move over to where some scattered crayons lay on the floor.

Xion immediately quirked an eyebrow at her brother, before he handed her a sea-green colored one while he pocketed a yellow one as well. "I think Naminé would like to have at least one or two drawing utensils when we see her again," Roxas explained. "After all, she does really like to draw a lot."

That got a small giggle out of Xion before she nodded and pocketed the crayon her brother just handed her as well, and with that, the two turned and left the white room, ready to search the rest of the mansion, while keeping an eye out for any sign of clues that could help them find out where Naminé had been taken. They were not quite ready to give up on saving her from whatever DiZ had in mind for her just yet.

---

As it turned out, there was only one other room for them to search, and that was the library. Inside of said room, there did not appear to be anything of significance other than the various books lining the shelves, a statue that stared down at the floor, and a single table, but after all they had been through in the past few days, neither sibling was willing to take anything at face value. Thanks to that skepticism, Roxas was able to recognize the drawing on the table as the last one he saw in Naminé's sketchpad, and he quickly pulled out the crayon he had grabbed from her room to add in the missing symbols. When he was done, the floor beneath the table vanished, revealing a staircase that led down into a steel-grey room, and it definitely did not appear to be like something that had originally been part of the manor.

Now that they knew this was here, the two figured that this was where they should head next, and immediately descended down into the secret room, where they found an empty computer lab of some kind, with a strange device sitting next to the very complex computer. As she continued to look around in awe, Xion felt like she had just stepped into a science fiction movie, but at the same time, there was something about this place that stirred up an ill feeling in her chest. Glancing over to Roxas, Xion quickly realized that he was feeling the same thing, but in his case, it was more than just a bad feeling. It was something that was obviously making Roxas very upset, as his glare seemed to indicate. Just before Xion could ask her brother what was wrong, another splitting headache hit them both, and with it, another old memory resurfaced.

---

The memory picked up at the point where their dream had left off, showing Roxas, Xion, Master Ventus, and Riku battling against an endless swarm of Heartless, until Riku suddenly shouted for them to get ready to run. It reached the point where Riku said that they did not have time to argue and unleashed a blast of powerful magic, only this time, it did not completely blind the mind's eye and end there. Instead, they saw that an opening was in fact made in the enemies' formation that Master Ventus quickly led the other two through as fast as he could. Xion was still reluctant to leave though, as she kept glancing back at where Riku was still fighting. Every time she did, she silently wished that Riku had moved to start following them, only to be let down each time when she saw him getting farther and farther away.

Eventually, it caught Master Ventus's attention, and he insisted, "Xion, I don't like it any better than you, but Riku's giving us a chance to get away. We have to use it now, otherwise the Organization will get us all, and the worlds are doomed."

"…Okay," Xion finally nodded. "But where do we head to first? Won't the Organization will be able to follow us if we use any Corridors of Darkness?"

"Not so long as you're wearing those coats, and not if you were to make several jumps between multiple worlds," Ventus pointed out.

"But what about you? You're not wearing a coat like ours," Roxas pointed out.

"I'll be fine. This armor isn't just for show, kid," Master Ventus reassured him. "Now let's go!"

That was the last thing they heard Ventus say, before they heard someone yelling really loudly as a powerful surge of darkness erupted from behind them. Whatever it was though, they could not say, both because they were already rushing through the portal, and because that was where this part of the memory ended before jumping to the next scene. That scene was the moment after Xion had battled Axel outside the old mansion. The redhead in question was down on the ground, clearly defeated, while Xion panted heavily in exhaustion before stumbling back inside where the others were waiting for her.

Everyone from Master Ventus, to Roxas, to Naminé, and even DiZ, along with a tall man in an Organization coat that kept his hood up, were all waiting for her. Sure, she was a little concerned about the last one, who had clearly arrived very recently, but there was something about him that told her he was not an enemy. Her first thought was that this man was Riku, but then again, even Riku was not that tall, and this guy seemed to tower over almost all of them, save for DiZ and Ventus, whom he was only slighter taller than by a few centimeters at best. Whatever the case, she had to put it aside, as there was a much more important matter to deal with, and they could not put it off any longer.

"The Organization will be coming back for us soon, so long as that puppet and Sora's Nobody remain here," DiZ informed everyone, already racking up points on the scale of how much Xion disliked the guy once again.

"She's not a puppet," Roxas growled, clearly feeling the same way. "And I'm me. Nobody else."

"We know, Roxas, and as badly as he had put it, DiZ does have a point. It's not as safe here for you two as we originally thought it would be," Ventus calmly informed him, hoping to diffuse any explosions before they could go off. "More importantly, if they find out that Sora's here, there's no telling what they could do."

"So what are our options," Xion asked.

The hooded man glanced around the room as everyone silently thought this over, before he revealed, "DiZ, aren't you working on a virtual copy of this town? Why not simply hide them in there?"

Everyone other than DiZ seemed surprised to hear that, and when they heard no denials from the masked man, they knew that this was true. While it was a little annoying that the man was working on such a side project when he should have been helping his apprentice though, Ventus's mind had clearly gone to the positives that now came from this project. "That's actually not a bad idea," the Keyblade master admitted. "You said yourself that Nobodies can't tell the difference between mere data and real beings, right? So, if we send Roxas and Xion in there, they'll be hidden among an entire city made of data, and become that much harder for them to find."

"Yes, it could work, and I do admit, it would allow the parts of Sora that those two possess to return to him a little more quickly, but the Organization's members are not that easily fooled. The minute that they see the two in there, living their lies as they have been until now, without the Organization's influence, they will be upon that world and us before we even have a chance to defend ourselves, and we'll lose a good escape option for both us and Sora," DiZ disputed.

"So we just don't act like ourselves. We can do that, you know," Roxas pointed out.

"Optimistic, but foolish. Something I did think was possible for a Nobody," DiZ noted, almost sounding as though he were surprised. "No matter how good the act may be, they will see through it. You would have to be completely different people inside and out for that to work."

Hearing that made Xion pause for a minute, and then slowly turn to Naminé as she asked, "So why not make us that way?" When the others glanced at her in confusion, Xion directed her attention to Naminé, along with her next question. "Naminé, you told me you have the power to alter memories, right?"

"Yes, but only those of Sora's and the people close to him," Naminé clarified.

"Well do you think you could change our memories," Xion asked, surprising everyone in the room. Before anyone could ask the question, Xion explained, "If Naminé can alter our memories, and make it so that we think we had lived peacefully in Twilight Town our whole lives, then the Organization wouldn't be able to realize that we're putting up an act. After all, you don't actually need to pretend if you don't even know that it is pretend, right?"

Naminé scratched her chin in thought for a minute before she said, "I suppose it could work. Seeing as you both hold a piece of Sora in you, there is a connection to him despite the fact that neither of you have ever met Sora, but in order for that to really work, I would have to wipe out all of your memories and rewrite them with new ones. You wouldn't even remember me, Master Ventus, your friend, Axel, or even how to use the Keyblade, and there's no telling how long it could take to reverse the process, assuming it ever could be."

"That's a chance that I'm willing to take if it will let us help Sora," Xion insisted. She then turned to Roxas and asked, "What about you, Bro?"

Roxas was silent for a minute before he said, "Yeah. I'm in."

"You do know that you don't have to do this, right," Master Ventus asked.

"We know, but we want to," Xion informed him.

"This is our choice," Roxas added.

Ventus stared at the two for a moment before he finally nodded in response, and then allowed DiZ and Naminé to lead them both to the device that would send the two into the virtual town. While DiZ made sure to get everything ready for transport, Naminé quickly ran upstairs to grab something, and then came back down with a couple boxes in her arms. She then presented one of the packages to Xion as she said, "You're going to need a new look while you guys are in there, and I remember you once told me you did not really have any clothes besides the ones that the Organization gave you guys. So, while you were gone, I thought I'd get you both some new clothes. I don't really know if Roxas's are the right size or not, but I did my best to find a style I figured you two would like. I hope you both like them."

Xion accepted her package before opening the lid and grinning widely at the light blue shirt and dark vest inside. While Roxas just accepted his package with a happy nod, Xion made it a point to wrap Naminé in a tight hug as she said, "I know I'll love it. Thank you so much, Naminé!"

Ventus let the two girls have their moment to hug it out, and when they finished, he decided to give the two a few parting words of his own before anything else happened. "If you ask me, you two have proven yourselves to be truly worthy of the Keyblade. The fact that you both used your own instead of one that was obviously a copy of Sora's is proof of that. I believe that the chances of you two proving yourselves again after going in there, are a lot better than you may think."

"You really think so," Roxas asked.

"No, I don't think. I told you, that's what I believe," Ventus corrected.

"And sometimes, that's enough, right," Xion finished.

"Exactly. And when it does happen, I'll be waiting for you both to truly begin your training," Ventus confirmed.

Roxas and Xion both nodded in reply, eager smiles forming on their faces at the thought of being trained on how to really use the Keyblade, and just when DiZ reported that he was ready, Roxas looked at the armored master and said, "Thanks, Master."

With that said, the teleporter system activated, and the two disappeared into the virtual world it led to, but not before they heard one last request from Ventus. "Hey, I think we've gotten to the point where we don't need to be so formal. You can just call me Ven."

---

When the memory flash ended, both siblings were panting heavily, wide-eyed at what they now knew to be truth, and staring out into space as they tried to pull it all together in their minds. They had little success, until Xion finally whispered, "Naminé was telling the truth. It really was our choice to have our memories changed, and we chose that for the sake of Sora."

Unlike his sister, Roxas did not find this to be a great revelation, mainly because he kept thinking about DiZ's first comment in that memory, and that made him think of what the masked man had done to Naminé, ultimately leading him to finally summon out the Keyblade and start smashing the computer in front of him in blind rage. Xion did not do anything to stop him though, because she could tell that her brother really needed to vent like this right now, so she just let him. For several minutes, the only sounds in the room other than a few faint beeps and whirs, were those of Roxas's Keyblade smashing into the computer, while electricity sparked and surged forth with every angry strike, all the way to the point when Roxas finally had his fill of angry smashing, and let out a calming breath to make sure he was better now.

They did not have time to worry about that for long though, as the other door in the lab slid open, allowing them access to the next room. The twins felt like they were not likely to find anything too bad in there, besides another memory flash, so they did not hesitate to run through the hallway that had just been opened up, and into the large, empty room beyond. It turned out that they were very wrong, because they did find something that was going to be much more painful for them, as Axel was waiting there for them, and he did not look happy at all. Instead of the friendly or tired looks that they had seen him sporting up until now, he was now looking very pissed off, and from what she could remember of her old memories, Xion knew that could only mean one thing for them.

"Simply amazing, Roxas, Xion," Axel sarcastically applauded. "You've really outdone yourselves with this little scheme you cooked up for hiding."

"Axel, you don't understand," Roxas started to say, hoping that he could reason with the man that he and his sister were supposed to be best friends with.

"Oh, so you really do remember me this time? I'm SO FLATTERED," Axel roared, summoning forth a ring fire that enclosed all three of them inside the room, with no way out when he did. "But you're too late!"

Seeing that they were not going to be able to reason with him, Roxas and Xion exchanged a nod with one another, and then narrowed their eyes at Axel, determined to fight him to the finish if they had to, before summoning forth their Keyblades. This time though, they did not bring forth copies of the Kingdom Key, but instead, the same three Keyblades that they had been using in their most recent memory flashes. Seeing this surprised Axel a little, more so in the case of seeing Roxas wielding two Keyblades at once, but he managed to shake it off and bring forth his chakrams in their usual, fiery display, grinning madly all the while. With their arena set and their weapons drawn, the battle between the three friends had begun, and two of them they found it weighing heavily on their shoulders, and in their chests.

Despite any upset feelings that he had about fighting Axel, Roxas still took the initiative and charge the redhead, batting aside both of Axel's thrown chakrams with the black Keyblade so that he could better close in and start unleashing a powerful combo attack that started with a slash from Oathkeeper. Several slashes tore into Axel as a result of Roxas's assault, and the redhead was only able to survive it by summoning forth a quick inferno that pushed the blonde away. It did not allow him to avoid Xion's sudden attack from behind, or her point-blank blast of magic ice, and Axel was soon pushed into the flaming ring around them as a result. If either sibling thought that was the end of it, they were soon proven wrong, as Axel suddenly jumped at them from out of the flames, slashing at them both with his chakrams.

Xion managed to parry a few blows with her black and white Keyblade, before she attempted to fire off another blast of ice. The problem was the surrounding fires made it too hard for the ice to really be effective at a distance, and the shards quickly melted into water before they could even get halfway to their target. Her mistake would have cost Xion the fight had Roxas not jumped in front of her to block Axel's next attack, and he then used both of his blades to push him up into the air. Xion then used her brother's shoulder as a support to help her get airborne as well, and she immediately unleashed a fast-paced, furious barrage of sword strikes against Axel, before using him to spring board away. Once his sister was clear, Roxas took to the air as well, and delivered a quick cross-slash onto the red head that sent him flying down to hard impact on the floor.

He would not deny that these two were doing really well in this fight, but Axel was not one to easily give up, and he proved that point when he summoned a jet of fire up from the ground. The two Keyblade wielders likely would have been burnt to a crisp had they not dived to either side of the room at just the right moment, but Axel had disappeared into the fiery walls once again, avoiding any counterattacks from the two. This had allowed the redhead to start springing out of the flames with several fast-paced attacks, all of which were followed by a few plumes of fire, and Roxas and Xion were just barely able to stay ahead of him this time. Even when they did manage to deflect a few blows from the chakrams, they were still not quite fast enough to completely dodge the following flames without getting a little singed.

Since Axel was focusing most of those attacks on him, Roxas was not really able to do much in order to counterattack, but Xion was, and she did as soon as she saw the first opening she could. The next time Axel leapt out, she tossed her Keyblade at him, knocking him off his path and causing the flames that were following him to disperse, giving Roxas the chance to rush the redhead and start unloading a furious barrage of slashes from both of his Keyblades. With one last cross-slash, Roxas managed to get Axel down to his last leg, and Xion took the chance to deliver the final blow. Surprisingly, Axel did not do anything to stop her, and took the hit head-on, without doing anything to block it, proving that he knew he was beaten. The two did not relax right away, but instead, waited into the wall of fire had died down and left no signs of ever being in the room aside from the scorch marks that were on the walls and floor, while watching as Axel panted in exhaustion.

Even after the flames had died out, they did not relax, because they felt that Axel could still make one last, desperate move, but as they watched him continue on in his doubled-over state, they started to think that he really was beaten. The sound of his two chakrams dropping to the ground before vanishing in bursts of fire were what finally proved that they had won, but neither Roxas nor Xion were too happy about this victory. Who would be after having to fight a battle like that against their best friend? It was only made a little worse when a couple more memories suddenly returned to their minds, both of which proved that Axel really was a good friend to them.

---

The first of the memories was actually the conclusion of Roxas's last conversation with Axel, as he departed from the Organization to find out the answers he was seeking, and it was now clear that Axel was not just begging him to not leave, but also warning him why he should not. "You get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!"

"No one would miss me or Xion for that matter," Roxas waved off, walking away as soon as he had said the words. That did not stop him from hearing Axel's response before he rounded the bend though.

"That's not true! I would," Axel admitted sadly, and if one were looking at him right then, they would have sworn that he was on the verge of tears.

At that point, the memory shifted again, and showed Xion battling against someone who appeared to be part of the Organization, while Axel begged for her to stop. She did not listen though, but from an outside perspective, she had good reason to at least act in self-defense, because the other Organization member had obviously drawn weapons on her and began to shoot at the girl. Whatever words were exchanged between them, one could not say, as most of them seemed muffled, until Xion put on an incredible burst of speed and attacked the Organization member that was targeting her, knocking him out of the fight in a flash.

"I'm sorry, Axel," Xion apologized as she dismissed her Keyblade.

"What're you doing, Xion," Axel asked. "First you abandon your mission to go poking around in Castle Oblivion, and now you're trying to run away? I just don't get it."

"Please, let me go," Xion begged. "I have to do this, or else…nothing will ever truly be safe, for anyone. Not even for Nobodies like us. You know I'm right. Please, Axel, let me go so I can help him."

Axel seemed to consider this for a moment before he finally nodded for her to go, bringing a smile to Xion's face when he did, but that smile quickly disappeared when he warned her, "Just so you know, they'll likely set me on your trail, so I ever run into you again…I won't be able to hold anything back."

"…I understand, but only if you know that if you do see me again, it'll only because I want you to find me, and it will likely be for yours or Roxas's sake," Xion cautioned in return, and she then ran into a Corridor of Darkness that would lead her to the next world she planned to hop through in her journey to find Naminé.

The last memory was of an earlier time in the three's friendship, and they were all seated on the clock tower, eating ice cream, and laughing as they horsed around a little, until Xion paused to gaze at the horizon. "Wow, the sun's beautiful," the girl gasped in awe, making both boys turn to look at the sunset as well. They both had to agree with her on that, and in all honesty, her next remark was another one that they had to agree with. "I know we've seen a lot of sunsets, but today's puts them all to shame. If only things could stay like this forever…"

The other two were silent at that, and they all enjoyed the peace between them for a little bit, until Roxas seemed to get an idea that surprised his friends a little. "Say…What if we all just took off? If we ran, I bet we could always be together."

"But we have…nowhere to run," Xion reminded him sadly, but somehow, she knew that Roxas was thinking of one place that they could run too, and at least one of the people that would be waiting for them there.

Still, Roxas kept up the act of not knowing anywhere they could run, and agreed with Xion, prompting Axel to speak up in an attempt to keep the kids from getting too sad. "What's important isn't that we hang out with each other every day…"

"As long as we keep each other in our thoughts, we'll never be apart, right," Xion finished for their fiery friend. "We've got it memorized, Axel."

"Good," Axel nodded with a smile.

"Just like we've also memorized how that line is so not you," Roxas teased.

"Hey," Axel playfully snapped as he shoved his friend a little, earning laughs from all three.

When they quieted down again, Xion smiled a little more as she whispered, "I'll have these moments memorized for a long time. Forever."

"Me too. Forever," Roxas happily agreed, earning a smile from Axel after he had heard that from them.

---

"Axel…" Roxas sighed sadly, showing just how upset he was that he did not remember that last memory until now, and Xion was no different from him given the look in her eyes as she stared at the redhead now.

Hearing his friend's voice made Axel raise his head up again so that he could look the two in the eyes, and much to Xion and Roxas's surprise, he was actually smiling at them. "Let's all meet up again in the next life," Axel offered without a hint of his previous malice.

"Yeah. We'll be waiting," Roxas promised.

"And I'll make sure that we have some sea-salt ice cream for that moment, too," Xion added with a smile.

That brought a smile to Axel's face as he started to fade away into shadows, and he soon had to laugh a little at them both. "Silly," Axel continued to laugh. "Just because you guys have a next life…"

Whatever else he was going to say went unheard, and the two were left to keep going in their exploration from there, wishing that they could have had a few more moments with Axel like the ones they had shared before. As a result, they took a moment to send a few last silent words of thanks to their best friend, along with a silent apology for not really remembering him too well until now, even if it was due to Naminé modifying their memories, before they both turned to move into the next room. When they stepped inside, the first thing they noticed was a number of egg-shaped pods lining the wall, and from the look of things, most of them were left untouched, their intended purpose going unfulfilled. At least, that's what they thought until they noticed that there was someone inside the last two of the pods.

When they stepped closer, Xion had to rub the glass a little so that she could have a clear view through its fogged-up state, and she gasped a little when she saw a familiar looking duck inside, apparently sound asleep. Moving over to the next pod, Roxas repeated his sister's actions, and spotted another familiar face, this one more dog-like, and they both knew exactly who these two were.

"Donald…" Xion whispered.

"And Goofy," Roxas finished, though it was mostly as a question, as he could still hardly believe it. He then turned to the large door at the end of this hallway, and asked, "Does that mean that he's…?"

"I guess there's only one way to find out," Xion offered up, and the two then slowly proceeded towards the door, ready to face whatever awaited them beyond it.

They were quickly rethinking just how ready they were after they stepped inside the room, but not because of the massive, egg-shaped pod that was bigger than the ones outside, or how empty and white the room itself was. The reason was actually because of the first person they saw in there, and he was not someone that they wanted to see again right now. "At last, the Keyblade's chosen one," DiZ stated, almost sounding happy at their arrival, but they both knew that it was not them he was awaiting.

"Who are you talking to," Roxas asked with an angry glare. "One of us, or Sora?"

"To parts of Sora, of course," DiZ replied like it was obvious. "You both reside in darkness. What I need is someone who can move about the realm of light and destroy Organization XIII."

"And what makes you so sure that we can't," Xion demanded. "What even gives you the right to decide that we're not capable of helping?"

"More importantly, why are you obsessed with destroying the Organization? Just who are you, really," Roxas questioned.

"I am a servant of the world," DiZ answered, letting out a hollow laugh immediately afterwards that only got Roxas and Xion even angrier, but not as much as the next thing he said. "And, if I'm a servant, then you two should consider yourselves tools, at best."

"Was that…Was that supposed to be a joke? 'Cause neither one of us are laughing," Roxas shouted as he summoned out his copy of Kingdom Key once more, and then rushed to cut DiZ down, finally having had enough of the man's manipulations. His Keyblade went through the masked man, but it did not do so in a way that one would have expected. Instead, it just went through him like he was merely a ghost, much to the two's surprise and frustration.

"My apologies. This is only a data-based projection," DiZ informed them, not sounding the least bit apologetic at all.

"Don't apologize if you're not actually sorry. You've been wanting to get rid of us right from day one, and not that your chance is here, you're too much of a coward to do it in person, or even be honest about it," Xion snapped, summoning her own Kingdom Key copy just emphasize her point. She was about to try her own luck as slashing through the projection, when it suddenly disappeared and then rematerialized closer to the pod, beckoning them to approach it.

"I hate you so much," Roxas growled at DiZ.

"That makes two of us," Xion agreed.

"You should share some of that hatred with Sora. He's far too nice for his own good," DiZ recommended.

"And what's wrong with that," Xion demanded, not liking the idea at all.

"Besides, our hearts belong to us," Roxas insisted, and he then charged DiZ again, only for the projection to disappear the minute he got in reach. At that moment, several lines on the pod flashed brightly, and it began to slowly open up like a flower setting into bloom, allowing both Roxas and Xion to see the person inside clearly. When they did see him, they were both awestruck, and could barely speak, until Roxas finally said the person's name. "Sora…"

Indeed, it was in fact the true wielder of the Kingdom Key Keyblade, brown spiky hair, crown necklace, and all, looking like he was sleeping as peacefully as a man without any worries at all, though there was one difference between the Sora before them and the one the two siblings had seen in their dreams, and Xion was the one to point it out. "He's a lot bigger now than he was in those memories."

"Yeah, and he looks ridiculous in that too-small outfit," Roxas laughed in agreement. It was an empty laugh though, as he then looked up at the boy he and his sister had been created from, and said, "You're lucky, Sora. A lot more than we are, at least."

"Roxas," Xion whispered, reaching for his hand as she came to stand closer to him. "I'm…a little scared. This is definitely not how I pictured meeting the real Sora, and it feels like at any moment, we could…"

"Except we won't, Sis," Roxas reassured. "Naminé said we wouldn't disappear, and we've got more reason to trust her than we do DiZ." He then turned his sad smile back on to Sora as he added, "Either way, it looks like our summer vacation is…over."

The two continued looking up at Sora with those same sad smiles, both knowing Roxas's words to be true. No matter what happened to them next, their time for fun and games was at an end, and they were okay with all of that. More importantly, they were happy to just be with each other when it did come to an end, and for these two, there was nothing more important than that. Despite everything that DiZ said, they knew who they were, and nothing would ever change that. What they did not expect, was for someone else to suddenly speak up in response to Roxas's words.

"You're right. Summer vacation is over, for all of us, and it's time we finally got back to work," a familiar voice said, and both Roxas and Xion spun around to see a man dressed in familiar armor slowly walking up to them from behind, until he stood right before them, and they no longer had any question as to who he was.

"Master Ventus," Xion gasped in awe, while Roxas could only stare in shock.

Hearing the girl speak his name, prompted the Keyblade master to lift both hands up to his helmet, and then slowly remove it, allowing the two to see someone that looked like a much older version of Roxas, right down to the blonde spiky hair, save for the small beard that was now on his face, along with the smile as he happily reminded the two, "I thought you would've remembered by now. You guys can just call me Ven."

---

AN: Well, I'd say that you didn't see that coming, but let's be honest, we all knew this last bit was going to happen from the moment you saw the cover art, right?

Riku: Not to mention the various author's notes from earlier in the story, and several hints in the last story that alluded to this to begin with.

AN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Point is, we all knew that something was going to happen that would keep the two from getting fused with Sora, and on top of that, more of their history, AKA this time line's version of 358/2 Days is revealed, while Ventus finally gets to show off his face to the world again.

Roxas: You know, I can't help but wonder now if he ever noticed that he was growing that beard before.

AN: An excellent question, but not really one that we're going to answer right now. What is important is the hopes that you all noticed the story changes that took place in this chapter, both in terms of what happened in the memory flashes, and what happened during the rest of the day. Also, just to give you all final confirmation, yes, Roxas's Keyblades are Oathkeeper and Oblivion, while Xion's using Two Become One. Hope we avoid any confusion with me saying that.

If I'm being honest, I had originally intended to show the full conversation between Ventus, Roxas, and Xion at the end there in this chapter, but it started getting too long for my taste, while the next chapter felt like it would be too short in comparison, so I decided to end things where I did so that it would have more of an impact come next chapter, or something along similar lines.

Xion: At least we got to see more Roxas&Namine moments, along with more of me teasing them. Plus, we also found out how me and Roxas got our Twilight Town outfits, or in Roxas's case, how he got his back.

AN: Yeah, I figured that if you and Namine had gotten to spend more time together, as it has been implied here, it would make sense that she would be the one that got you your new look for this story. Don't ask how she did it. It's pretty clear that DiZ does not have as tight of a leash on Namine as he thought he did after seeing what she managed to pull off in canon without Ventus's help.

Ventus: I don't think that there's really anything else you can say now.

AN: Sure there is. There's...well, how about...uh...huh...I guess there isn't anything else I can say about today's chapter. Everything was pretty much covered here, so we might as well run the warp-up. Onto the Preview!...

Roxas and Xion get a surprising truth revealed to them after meeting Ven at last, and with that new knowledge, they find their next course of action simple: leave the virtual Twilight Town, enter the real one, and meet up with Sora for real. Of course, not everything is going to be smooth sailing, as they all quickly learn shortly after leaving the mansion alongside Donald, Goofy, and Ventus. Apparently the Organization is much a bigger threat to more than just Roxas and Xion, and the worlds are counting on those chosen by the Keyblade to save them. A new team is born, and a new mission awaits, next time.

The big moment approaches! It's time for the hero of Kingdom Hearts to make his comeback at last! But before that happens...

Please read and review, and see ya real soon!