Chapter 169: The Realization

"Damn wolf!" he spat, kicking a rock across the tunnel he was in. He couldn't remember what world this was. He knew he was underground. The walls around him were dark and rough—he'd made his knuckles hurt real bad by punching them earlier. Not that he bled. He never bled.

"Where the hell did it even go?" He picked up the nearest rock and chucked it at the wall. "It was supposed to come back! Dammit!" He couldn't locate another rock nearby, so he threw a blast of darkness at the wall instead.

"It's been over a week since it left me-" He threw another blast of darkness at the wall. "And no sign of Sora!" He summoned his blade and turned on the column in the center of the room, hacking away at it, sparks and darkness flying with every hit. "What. The. Hell. Am I- supposed- to. Do?"

The pillar cracked, shifted slightly, the ceiling above him rumbling. He quickly rolled out of the way before any chunks of the ceiling could fall on him. He looked down at the rubble, disgusted, and prepared to kick one of the smaller chunks across the room.

"Hey!" someone called, and he paused, glancing up. He was surprised to see none other than Hades—the Lord of the Dead himself. He looked pretty miffed.

Sora's Shadow just rolled his eyes, and rubbed his head, looking away. He smirked slightly. Well, this would be fun to watch. What would Hades do when he discovered there was no one here who could've possibly done this?

Or, no one he could see, anyway.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hades shouted. "I mean, sure, this place could use a little remodeling, but collapsing half of the ceiling is uncalled for!"

Sora's Shadow glanced over at him. Was he really going to shout at thin air? Wait…

No, it had to be a coincidence that he was looking this direction. Of course.

"I don't see what shouting's gonna do for you," Sora's Shadow muttered, examining his knuckles. Still no blood, though they were throbbing again. He ran his thumb over them. Yup. Nothing but pain.

"Excuse me?" Hades asked. In a puff of smoke and a little fire, he was suddenly standing about three inches away from Sora's Shadow. Sora's Shadow backpedaled, and Hades jabbed him in the chest, hard. "And just who do you think you're talking to, Mr. wreck-other-people's-property?"

"I- uh-" Sora's Shadow stared in shock, stumbling back a few more paces. Could Hades? No! But how else to explain—"You can see me?" he blurted, finally, unable to do anything more than stare.

Hades raised his eyebrows, looking a little surprised himself. "What? Am I not supposed to or something?" he asked.

"Well… normally people can't," Sora's Shadow stammered. "I mean, I've run into a few people, but it's a very small number… The hearing thing is much more than common, but actually seeing me…?" he trailed off. About… three people could do that. It wasn't any more than three.

"News flash!" Hades said, smiling a toothy grin. "This is my Underworld, and there'd be a problem if I couldn't see the people mucking about in it."

"Your Underworld?" He quickly masked his confusion. "Ohho! So you're Hades! I should've known. No other god could be this handsome."

Hades didn't seem impressed. "Uhuh, yeah, flattery's great, kid. So what's your excuse, hmm?"

"I'm… uh…" Sora's Shadow swallowed. What was he supposed to say? He needed to say something that involved Hades not getting mad at him. But… what? He… wasn't used to… "I'm looking for somebody?" he offered.

"Aaaand what does that have to do with collapsing a cave?"

"I- uh-"

Yeah. Taking responsibility was something he certainly wasn't used to. Figuring there wasn't an easier way out of this, he turned and ran.

He hadn't gotten more than twenty feet when Hades reappeared in front of him, grinning again.

"Leaving so soon?"

xxx

"Sora!"

His head was pounding.

"What the heck are you doing?"

A rush of movement. The sound of blades crashing together.

"Destroy… the threat…"

Roxas's sharp blue eyes were filled with shock, but not panic. In fact, there was a glint to them. A glint—

"Heh. Y'know, I guess I should've expected this!"

Panic. Jump back. Feet hit the ground.

What if he's—?

Blades striking. Sparks flying.

"You're making a huge mistake, you know?"

Blurring pain—

Sora sat up in shock. He rubbed his head, fingers curling into his hair, trying to find something to hold onto to steady himself. His body ached all over. His head was still throbbing, and he felt a little sick, too.

What did I… do?

Did I… do something?

He couldn't entirely remember. He cradled his head in his hands, closing his eyes.

He'd been… in Halloween Town. With that boy. Roxas, he said his name was. Roxas was… could wield a Keyblade. And he'd been wearing one of those black cloaks. So he was a part of that Organization, wasn't he? Probably.

But there was something else about Roxas…

It wasn't fair.

Sora opened his eyes. "What?" he whispered.

What wasn't fair? Roxas was… Roxas…

We were walking around town, Sora told himself. And we talked and had fun, I guess. Then we fought a Heartless together, and we killed it… and… and then—

Nothing. Sora couldn't remember it.

He squinted hard, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. What'd happened? Why did it hurt his brain so much to think about? But there was something he was forgetting. He knew that. So he should… try and remember it. He focused all his attention into what he could remember. Every detail. Maybe he'd trigger something.

He and Roxas had been standing there. Roxas was a little shaky—he'd just single-handedly taken down that Heartless, after all—but he was alright. And Roxas had done all the work. Sora knew that. He'd helped a little, but it'd all been Roxas. And he'd been thinking that Roxas was strong, clearly very strong.

And he was caring, too. When he got out the hi-potions to cure them after the battle, he'd handed Sora one first. Didn't even pull out one for himself right away. He'd made sure Sora was taken care of, first, and then he'd—

Sora's eyes went wide. The sound of shattering glass mixed with Roxas shouting filled his ears.

I knocked his hi-potion out of his hands.

And then I attacked him.

It was all rushing back to him now. Images, sounds, all jumbling together. The shattering glass. His blade and Roxas's crossed. That glint in Roxas's eyes. He hadn't seemed too worried about the battle—and no wonder, I feel like I got ran over by a truck!—but that didn't change anything.

Sora had still attacked him.

After Roxas had been nice to him, shared his potions with him, saved him from Heartless, told him about treasure chests, and all around treated him like a friend he'd known for years, despite them having just met.

And even though Roxas had done all that, Sora'd still attacked him.

I let the darkness get the best of me, and I attacked him!

He hoped he hadn't seriously injured Roxas, but, if how much he ached right now was any indication, then he had a pretty good feeling that Roxas was doing just well. He was strong, after all. He'd nearly single-handedly taken down that Heartless. It didn't matter if he was tired. So was Sora.

Roxas definitely came out of that battle alive.

I wouldn't have killed him anyway. I wouldn't kill anybody!

Certainly not someone who'd been so nice to me.

Sora pulled himself out of the bed—that stupid bed—ignoring all of his aches and how his muscles cried out regardless of how he moved. He didn't want to lie there any longer. He didn't want to be here any longer. He'd never really wanted to be in Maleficent's care, but he'd never wanted to be away from here so strongly as he'd wanted to be right now, either.

Never again, he thought. I'll never let this happen again.

Attacking someone who did me no wrong?

Someone who clearly wasn't a threat to me or to anyone I cared about?

No.

I would never.

On a whim, he summoned his Keyblade to him, holding it out in front of him. His eyes fixed themselves on the crack that ran down the length of it, narrowing slightly. The crack represented how broken he was. How much the darkness had become a part of him.

But cracks could be mended. And so could hearts.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered. "I won't hurt people I care about, and I won't attack complete strangers, either. And you can't make me."

He took a deep breath. This was so wrong. Attacking Roxas. Attacking anyone. Letting the darkness use him like this. He wasn't a monster. He wouldn't hurt innocent people. He'd rather not hurt anyone at all.

"I'm better than this. I am stronger than this. This is not a path I am going to take." He nodded, firmly. "Never again. Do you understand that? Never again."

Sora watched as that crack in his Keyblade started filling itself in.

And ever so slowly, he smiled.

xxx

"Vexen?"

Vexen looked up from his notes. He'd been searching through them to see if he could find any other information he'd written down on Namine's meltdowns. While, of course, they were currently testing Alpha's hypothesis, there was…

Well, there was certainly a chance that Alpha could be wrong.

"Yes?" Vexen asked, a little surprised to see Amaryllis. Amaryllis usually didn't bother him about things. It was usually Alpha who did that.

"Well, do you remember when Riku suggested that retrieving the external might work best as a one-person stealth mission?" Amaryllis asked.

"Yes…" Vexen responded, slowly, wondering where this was heading.

"Alpha and I were discussing it, and thought maybe you should go," Amaryllis said. "Seeing as you're not from this universe—"

"I'm not setting foot in the World that Never Was if I don't have to," Vexen replied, returning his attention to his notes.

"Why not?" Amaryllis asked, sounding a little confused.

"Because if the Organization discovers who I am—"

"And what's so special about you?" Alpha asked. Vexen turned to locate him, and was surprised to find him sitting on the opposite end of the couch. How long had he been there?

Regardless.

"Oh, I don't know, nothing besides the fact that I'm perfectly capable of restarting the Program," Vexen spat. He groaned, raking a hand through his hair. "And seeing as I'm not a Replica—plus the bonus of being from another universe and having different knowledge—they might just let me."

"How is that a bad thing?" Amaryllis asked, slowly, suddenly seeming very curious, his eyes narrowed with thought. "I mean… if you could get on the inside and—"

"You expect me to get on the inside and be a double agent?" Vexen asked. He laughed. "That wouldn't go well."

"It wouldn't?"

"It wouldn't. Trust me."

"Why wouldn't it?" Alpha asked.

"Because I won't say no when Xehanort forces me to build him Replicas!" Vexen practically shouted, very narrowly keeping himself from jumping to his feet with his frustration. He was the worst person for this job! Why couldn't they understand that?

"Xemnas," Alpha corrected.

"Whatever. That doesn't change the fact that I'll probably end up running before I can do you any good."

"Mmm, I don't know," Alpha said. "If you could get into the Program just long enough to get the passwords, or maybe change them to one we've already agreed on, and then run—"

"I can get you a star shard on the off chance you need alternate means of escape," Amaryllis adds.

"I am not doing this!"

"It'd make our lives a lot easier if you would, you know," Alpha said.

Vexen sighed, burying his face in his hands. "I suppose, if it becomes our only option, I might consider it," he muttered. "But at the moment, there's still the chance that I will be able to hack the Program from here and change the passwords. Besides…" He looked up. "I thought we were focusing on the external, anyway!"

"But if we only get the external, we'll just be back at that stalemate we've been at for the past two months," Alpha replied. "And we're running out of pieces to keep this game going. If you want to consider this all like a game of chess."

"What, so they took our queen, and I'm the pawn you're sacrificing to get her back?" Vexen asked.

Alpha shrugged. "And maybe you'll be able to take their queen in the process."

"If by 'queen' you mean the passwords, I can get those without sacrificing myself!" Vexen retorted. "I am not doing this."

"Vexen, please," Amaryllis said. "Can you at least go get the external? You can form a corridor straight to it. If you get caught, you get caught, but you shouldn't."

Vexen let out a long breath and leaned back. He wasn't going to talk himself out of it, it seemed, even though it was more than logical that anyone else go retrieve the external. He rubbed his head. "Where is the external?" he asked.

It couldn't hurt to ask.

"Here." Alpha moved so he was closer to Vexen, and pulled up a file on his laptop. It was a video. Security footage, from the looks of it. The camera was trained on a computer desk—though the computer's monitor was at angle so you couldn't see the screen.

The footage was short, showing a Larxene Replica walk in, and stash the external in one of the desk drawers. She paused to look at the computer, but she didn't get more than a few keystrokes in before leaving the room again. From the looks of it, the computer didn't do what she wanted it to and she gave up.

"Don't ask me why she did that," Alpha said. "But that was very clearly our external."

"It was probably sabotage," Amaryllis said. "That's a very Larxene thing to do."

Vexen nodded, absentmindedly, more focused on the computer on the desk than the Larxene's motives. "That's a very… clunky computer," he commented.

"It's R's," 7 said, automatically.

They all turned to look at him. He was sitting in a chair not far from them, but far enough that he wouldn't have been able to see the footage. He wouldn't have been able to even see the computer screen.

"I mean, there's no other 'clunky' computer in the World that Never Was," 7 continued. "It has to be hers. All other computers you could define as 'clunky' were thrown out. She built hers out of scrap parts."

"So if it's R's computer…" Vexen said, slowly.

"Then you'll be perfectly safe going down and grabbing the external," 7 replied. "If not hacking into the Program while you're at it."

"What do you mean?" Alpha asked.

"No one goes down there," 7 said. "I mean, someone did, if they stashed the external—"

"I meant about hacking the Program!"

"Oh." 7 shrugged. "Well, once you get into the computer, I'm fairly certain she already has access to the Program."

"You're joking."

7 shook his head. "No. This is R we're talking about. She has—had—access to the Program without a doubt. It is… was… necessary for her, ah, hobby. Whether or not she's still logged on from her computer is, well…" He shrugged, then. "But it's possible."

"So there's a chance I could go and not only retrieve the external, but also change the passwords while I'm at it?" Vexen asked. "Without it involving getting found out by the Organization?"

"There's a chance, certainly." 7 nodded, very confident in himself. "Do you want me to go, though? I'll have the best luck getting into her computer."

Vexen caught himself before he said "yes, please, go in my stead". Because… well…

"How skilled are you with the Program?" he asked.

"Decent," 7 said. "I'm much more skilled with the Repair Program and building Replicas and how Replicas work. Not so much with the actual mechanics of the Program itself. But, if someone were to walk me through it-"

"I'll go," Vexen said. "You'll have to help me get into her computer, from the sounds of it, but…" How could he say no at this point? He could get the external, along with having a fairly good shot at changing the passwords. And there was hardly a risk of him getting caught! "I'll go. Yes."