Full title: the war between two sides of one coin

|||Kingdom Hearts II|||

The first time Sora felt it was only shortly after he woke up.

They were going to leave Twilight Town—Donald, Goofy, Jiminy, and Sora, with clothes too small and a big blank space in his head where the last year should've been—about to board the train to take them to Yen Sid, and hopefully answers, and though there should've been some swelling feeling of anticipation for the new adventure inside of him, something was dampening it. Something deep, and sad, and new.

It wasn't like any feeling, any sadness, Sora had felt before he'd gone to sleep. He knew that much. It widened the feeling of goodbye into sorrow, without a solid reason to do so. If anything, it felt like it was someone else's pain, but still it hit Sora harder than a truck. So hard, so fast, so unexpected, that there was a tear in his eye before he could process it.

All Sora was sure of was that it hadn't been there before he'd gone to sleep. Nothing else occurred to him about it, and Sora was able to ignore it most of the time, but then it would show up again randomly, smothering his own feelings with something else, something more subdued and less familiar than his own emotions.

The first time he saw Organization XIII, it was a brief flash of anger that was nearly lost in his own. When he found that one picture of Hayner, Pence, Olette, and the other kid, it surged with desire, with grief. And a name flew into his head: Roxas. It was hard to place where it came from, but he certainly hadn't thought of it on his own. And the name sounded so familiar too.

The first time he saw Axel, there was a pang striking him through his very core, a feeling like the one he endured every time he found that Riku was somewhere else, beyond his reach.

And every single time he met an Organization member, it happened again—usually anger, but sometimes something deeper, like betrayal, like loss.

It culminated with Axel's death.

Looking back, he thinks now that he's surprised it wasn't more. It was too deep to be just his own sorrow, too personal, much too agonizing to be just his own feeling; but it was gone before he could really quantify it, before he could be consumed by the greater sorrow.

He realizes, now, that the pain, the foreign feeling, only disappeared because its source had broken from him.

Does Sora know now how Roxas managed to do that? No. And Roxas won't tell him.

What he does know is that somehow, Roxas separated from him to call Nobodies—why did that still work?—and confront Sora, not physically—though he sure thought it was, at first.

That was where Roxas' true anger and grief came in.

He thinks now, that he had realized what was happening, at least subconsciously, that he might have known, kind of, while they fought, because not only was Sora buffeted by blows from the other's Keyblades, but he felt Roxas' emotions swirling through the mind-space where they fought. The emotions were almost physical, like a rush of fierce wind to accompany Roxas' yell of anger, a stagger as grief weighed down the air, and the coldness of betrayal sinking through his body, though Sora knew he should have been filled with the warmth of adrenaline.

Roxas' hurt, the hurt Sora couldn't understand until he finally experienced all of his Nobody's memories, was what hit Sora the most, sinking claws into his heart with "Tell me why he chose you!", hammering through him with every clang of their Keyblades.

And even now, Sora's not entirely sure why Axel did choose him over Roxas. Why Axel gave up on trying to get his best friend back and saved him instead. It didn't, doesn't quite make sense, even now—perhaps it never will. Especially not now that he has Roxas' memories too.

The worst thing is that Roxas no longer seems to blame him-not after the attempted Mark. Roxas' anger has simmered away, either calmed by his rejoined state or by self-control, and Sora no longer feels that pang when he thinks of seasalt ice cream, of clocktowers. There's nothing there to stab him with guilt whenever he visits Twilight Town, nothing to surge to fill his veins when he fights one of the Organization members or Nobodies. It's like Roxas has disappeared from within him, and suddenly Sora wishes once again for the days when he felt moody and angry over things he didn't know the reason for, wishes for the days when it was apparent that there was someone else inside him.

Because now, Sora can't tell where Roxas ends and where Sora begins and they merge and interchange and maybe Sora wouldn't feel so confused if he knew who he was still.

~fin~

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A/N: hey and in a stunning turn of events i am back with more KH drabbles because I lack inspiration for other fandoms!

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thanks for reading! i appreciate it. sorry i'm not all that active guys. if you would like to ask me about fic or remind me about my multi-chapters when I forget, please drop me a message on tumblr, under literally-in-too-many-fandoms!

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a sneak preview of (probably) the next drabble, Gravitation:

Magnet is the hardest spell to get right. Not to cast—"It's easy to make the spark that draws everything together, just like Lightning," Sora had told her, teeth flashing in his grin—but to modify, to make it work, it's the hardest.

She's not the best at magic—Kairi is the first to admit it; unless it's light magic, she's only mediocre, unlike Sora, who's got all the basic spells down pat and has seemingly unending MP, and unlike Riku, who's every cast is double the power of a usual spell and who knows dark magic like the back of his hand. Even Lea has quicker casts than she does. Kairi can summon fire and ice on command, can catch a Heartless in a Stop spell, can even Cure decently in a pinch, but she's no mage, and they all know it.

And Magnet is the hardest spell to get right.