It was dazzling: the mass of heartless like a dark tunnel, the center of it bursting with light like the attack he had used to save his princess. Roxas fought and fought to save her, but there was nothing he could do to stop that final heartless he saw attacking Kairi as he faded. The moment he used the attack, he felt a tremendous weight, as if the trees and sky had collapsed on him. Then, when he faded, the weight was lifted. Somehow he had gotten free. She needs you. "Kairi!" he called out. The darkness swirled in again, the snow around him like a Twirl-a-paint, white spinning with the red of Kairi's blood, night swirling with the pulsing light of an ambulance.
She needs you. He did not hear it, but understood it. Did the others? "Kairi! Where's Kairi? You have to help Kairi!" But he could not hold onto the paramedic, could not even pull on his sleeve. "He's gone," a woman said. "No chance he survived." "Help her!" The swirling ran long and streaky now. Ribbons of light and dark rushed past him horizontally. Was she with him? The siren wailed: Kaiiiriii. Kaiiiriii. Then, he was in a square room. It was day there, or as bright as. People were rushing around. Hospital, he thought. Something covered his vision, and the light was blocked out. But he heard a voice. A wavering, male voice.
"Roxas." The voice broke. "Saix?" "Oh, my god, why did you let this happen?" "Saix, where's Kairi? Is she okay?" "My God, My God. My friend!" Saix said. "Are they helping her?" Saix did not speak. "Answer me, Saix! Why won't you answer me?" Saix held Roxas's necklace. He was crying, tears falling down onto the metal object. My necklace, Roxas thought with a jolt. That's my necklace. And yet he was watching his friend and the necklace as if he were right there next to Saix. "Saix, I'm sorry." A woman in a paramedic's uniform stood next to Roxas and Saix. Saix would not look at her. "Faded at the scene?" he asked, voice thick with emotion. She nodded. "I'm sorry. We didn't have a chance with him.
Roxas felt the darkness coming over him again. He struggled to hold onto consciousness. "And Kairi?" Saix asked. "A deep gash, a few minor cuts and bruises, in shock. Calling out for Roxas." Roxas had to find her. He focused on a doorway, concentrated with all his strength, and passed through it. Then another, and another-he was feeling stronger now. Roxas hurried down the corridor. People kept coming at him. He dodged left and right. He seemed to be going much faster than they were, and none of them bothered to move out of his way. A nurse was coming down the hall. He stopped to ask her help in finding Kairi, but she walked past him. He turned down a corner and found himself facing a cart loaded with linens. The cart and the man were on the other side of him.
Roxas knew that they had passed through him as if he were not there. He had heard what the paramedic said. Still, his mind searched for some other-any other-explanation. But there was none. He was dead. No one could see him. No one knew he was there. And Kairi would never know. Roxas felt a pain deeper than any he had ever known. He had told her he loved her, but there had not been time enough to convince her. Now there was no time at all. She'd never believe in his love the way she believed in her angels. "I said, I can't speak any louder." Roxas glanced up. He had stopped by a doorway. An old woman was lying in the bed within. She was tiny and grey with long, thin tubes connecting her to machines. She looked like a spider caught in its own web.
"Come in," she said. He looked behind him to see whom she was talking to. No one. "These old eyes of mine are so dim, I can't see my own hand in front of my face," the woman said. "But I can see your light." Roxas again looked behind him. Her voice sounded certain of what she saw. It seemed much bigger and stronger than her little grey body. "I knew you would come," she said. "I've been waiting very patiently." She has been waiting for somebody, Roxas thought, a son, or a grandson, and she thinks I'm him. Still, how could she see him if no one else could? Her face was shining brightly now. "I've always believed in you," she said. She extended a fragile hand toward Roxas. Forgetting that his hand would pass right through hers, he instinctively reached out to her. She closed her eyes.
A moment later, alarms went off. Three nurses rushed into the room. Roxas stepped back as they crowded the woman. He suddenly realized that they were trying to resuscitate her; he knew that they would not. Somehow he knew that the old woman did not want to come back. Maybe somehow the old woman had known about him. What did she know? Roxas could feel the darkness coming over him again. He fought it. What if this time he didn't come back? He had to come back, he had to see Kairi one last time. Desperately he tried to keep himself alert, focusing on one object after another in the room. Then he saw it, next to a small storybook about The Light on the woman's tray: a statue, with a hand outstretched to the woman and angel wings spread.
For days after, all Kairi could remember was Roxas fading in her arms. The heartless battle was like a dream she kept having, but couldn't remember. Asleep or awake, it would suddenly take over. Her whole body would tense, and her mind would start reeling backward, but all she could remember was the sound of Roxas's Keyblade slashing through heartless, then the slow motion attack that took him from her. Everyday, people came and went from the house, Selphie and Olette, and some other friends and teachers from school. Repliku came once; it was a miserable visit for both of them. Zexion ducked in and out on another day. They brought her flowers, cookies, and sympathy. Kairi couldn't wait until they left, couldn't wait until she could sleep again. But when she lay down at night, she couldn't sleep, and then she had to wait forever until it was day once more.
At the funeral they stood around her, her father and Aqua on one side, Sora on the other. She let Sora do all the sobbing for her. Riku stood behind her and from time to time laid his hand on her back. She'd only lean against him for a moment. He was the only one who didn't keep asking her to talk about it. He was the only one who seemed to understand her pain and didn't keep telling her that remembering was good for her. Little by little she did remember-or was told-what had happened. The doctors and police prompted her. The undersides of her arms were full of cuts. She must held her hands up in front of her face, they said, protecting it from the heartless's claws. Miraculously, the rest of her injuries were just bruises from the impact of being knocked out by the heartless. Roxas must have cast a weak barrier around her before he faded. To protect her, she thought, though the police didn't say that.
She had told them he wouldn't stop fighting. It had been twilight. The heartless had appeared suddenly. That's all she remembered. Someone told her the glider they had been riding in had been totaled, but she refused to look at the newspaper photo. A week after the funeral, Tifa came to the house and brought a picture of him. She said it was her favorite one. Kairi cradled it in her hands. He was smiling, wearing his old baseball cap, backward, of course, and a ratty school jacket, looking as Kairi had seen him look so many times. It seemed as if he were about to ask her if she wanted to meet for another swimming lesson. For the first time since the heartless fight, Kairi started to cry.
She didn't hear Riku come into the kitchen, where she and Tifa were sitting. When he saw Tifa, he demanded to know why she was there. Kairi showed him Roxas's picture, and he looked angrily over at the woman. "It's over now," he said. "Kairi is getting over it. She doesn't need any more reminders." "When you love someone, it's never over," Tifa replied gently. "You move on, because you have to, but you bring him with you in your heart." She turned back to Kairi. "You need to talk and remember, Kairi. You need to cry. Cry hard. You need to get angry, too. I am!" "You know," said Riku, "I'm getting tired of listening to all this crap. Everyone is telling Kairi to remember and talk about what happened. Everyone has a pet theory on how to mourn, but I wonder if they're really thinking about how it feels for her."
Tifa studied him for a moment. "I wonder if you have really mourned your own loss." "Don't tell me you're a shrink!" She shook her head. "Just a person who, like you, has lost someone I loved with all my heart." Before she left, Tifa asked Kairi if she wanted Cupcake back. "I can't have him," Kairi said. "They won't let me!" Then she ran up to her room, slammed the door, and locked it. One by one, those she loved were being taken away from her. Picking up an angel statue, one that Olette had just brought her, Kairi hurled it against the wall. "Why?" she cried out. "Why didn't I die, too?" She picked up the angel and threw it again. "You're better off, Roxas. I hate you for being better off than me. You don't miss me now, do you? Oh, no, you don't feel a thing!"
On the third try, the angel shattered. Another waterfall of glass. She didn't bother to pick it up. After dinner that evening, Kairi found the glass cleaned up and the picture of Roxas sitting on her bureau. She didn't ask who had done it. She didn't want to speak to any of them. When Riku tried to come into her bedroom, she slammed the door in his face. She slammed it in his face again the next morning. That day, she was barely civil to the customers at A Little Bit Of Light. When she arrived home, she went straight to her room. Opening the door, she found Sora there, spreading out his Fruitball cards. She had noticed that he no longer called out the play-by-play for his games, just moved the players silently from base to base. But when he looked up at Kairi, he smiled at her for the first time in days. He pointed to her bed.
"Cupcake!" Kairi exclaimed. "Cupcake!" She hurried in and dropped to her knees beside the bed. Immediately the heartless began to purr. Kairi buried her face in the side of the creature, and started to cry. Then she felt a light hand on her shoulder. Drying her cheeks on Cupcake, she turned to Sora. "Does Dad know he's here?" He nodded. "He knows. It's okay. Riku said it was. Riku brought him back to us."