It felt like he was floating. Or at least like he was being gently buffeted by the ocean current. In fact, being dead felt a lot like when he took naps in the shallows when he was a Somebody.

Demyx opened his eyes and was greeted by familiar sea shells he had decorated his secret cove with and the sun's light being distorted by the waves twenty feet above him. Even his human world knick knacks were still here. He had been friends with the princess for such a short time before getting attacked yet she had still learned enough about him that she had given him several "musical instruments" which now he cringed at the thought of ever believing such things could make any sound considered music. A badly damaged candlestick and a smoking pipe certainly had never made any music that he knew of. The only thing that did was a small music box that still managed to work underwater.

He propelled himself off the sand, moves a bit awkward after having had legs for so long, and popped his head above the water. It was a shallow cove compared to some others so it wasn't too difficult. In fact, you could even see the palace from there, even though it was far off in the distance. He wished he had shown the princess this place before he died. She probably would have liked it considering how fast her interest in the humans had been growing.

It was only then that he even noticed he actually had some type of clothing on. He was a merman, he never had clothes. Looking down, he realized it was similar to the cloak all members wore. Just… sleeveless… and short… and really more like a vest with a hood. Obviously, like any other self respecting merman, he took it off and tucked it away in a hollow in the cliff that surrounded his hiding place so the water couldn't reach it. He didn't think the locals would respond well to it, seeing as it was obviously not from Atlantica, and he never knew when it could come in handy.

Demyx took a few experimental laps around his little hideout and once his body remembered it originally had a tail, he was off.

It hadn't taken as long as you'd think for him to forget what it was like. After only a few months as a Nobody he had almost forgotten the exact shade of deep blue his tail was or how a few scales glimmered a lighter sky blue when the light hit them. It had taken only another after that to forget how it felt to swim so fast and to trail his fingers on the water's surface as he swam right beneath it. Of course it only took a second to remember it all again.

He didn't even know where he was going. Part of him wanted to see if the merfolk he used to know where still the same, part of him wanted to visit the reef where he'd play with the fish and dolphins when they came around, and another part wanted to see the princess. Ariel would be thrilled to hear about his adventures as a human and all the worlds he had visited.

The palace was finally coming into view when the worst happened. Heartless. He didn't want to die again. He was finally his Somebody, something he never thought would happen again. They were just as quick as he remembered, and just as driven to chase any merperson that swam in their field of vision.

He wanted to turn tail and swim as fast as he could away, just as every other merperson was, yet he knew at least one or two would fall by the heartless. He couldn't let it happen to them. He had to stop it from happening. He needed Arpeggio.

A keyblade formed instead.

There was no time to process what was in his hands, just that it could beat the heartless away. He swung it into a heartless's head and didn't stop to watch its stolen heart to float away and vanish before he charged at the next.

It felt like it all happened in the blink of an eye. The next thing Demyx knew, the heartless were either all destroyed or had fled, and the merfolk had come out of their hiding places, cheering their thanks to him. It was hard to hear their praise when all he could focus on was the strange weapon in his hands.

It looked like Arpeggio. The handle was shaped like her base, leading up to her stem, and the top a rearranged version of the spikes, all aligned on one side as to mimic a three pronged key. But he didn't have a keyblade… Roxas did… Sora did..

When a hand clapped down on his shoulder, it vanished, and he was swept up into the stream of merfolk swarming him and thanking him for saving them. It hurt more than he thought it could that none of them recognized him, or that he didn't recognize them in return.

It wasn't too surprising that so much had changed over the past few years. The reefs they lived in seemed to have grown and their shape changed from new fish moving in, the seabed where the kids played was smaller than he remembered, and the ban on interacting with humans was lifted. He had hoped he could at least see Ariel, see at least one person hadn't changed, but she had changed the most. He had barely known her, yet she was unrecognizable to him. Demyx had caught a glimpse of her on a boat sailing above Atlantica, and she had legs.

He didn't stay to greet her. He doubted she had even noticed him. Or even remembered him, actually. They were both only fifteen or sixteen when they met, and now they were both twenty. A lot changed in that span of time and he didn't think she'd bother trying to remember some odd kid she knew that died before she went on her grand adventure that earned her legs.

It felt almost wrong to stay there. His memories that he had clinged to and expressed in his songs didn't match up with what was here now. He was a stranger in his own home world. Demyx couldn't even claim back his original name with this feeling. He thought being a Somebody again wouldn't feel so painful.

Of course. He was a Somebody again. The moment he had been killed by Sora, his heart and body had been able to rejoin. That meant the same had to have happened when the Castle Oblivion went south. He could find Marluxia and Larxene!

He really hoped going through a portal as a half fish wouldn't end terribly.