Chapter one: One last adventure

Noah was suspended high by some pulley system, working on some kind of circuitry near the top of the TARDIS, while River was below the metal grate floor, working with a blow torch and wearing rather ridiculous round protective goggles. Meanwhile, Nico was leaning on the outside of the TARDIS, on the inside of Noah's house. Nico had only actually seen Noah's house once, on their way to planet Wimenwept, Noah had wanted to run in and grab his ice skates, and that was it.

"So, where is your home anyway?" Nico asked. Noah replied from inside the TARDIS.

"Twilight Town, lovely little place just outside of Seattle. Great sunsets." He said simply.

"Why did you bring us here? I mean, one adventure left and we just go home? What's up with that?" asked Nico.

"Nico, when I took you away, I promised your friends I'd always be able to bring you home. I'm not sure if the TARDIS will ever time-travel again, but at least I got you home." Noah responded. "Besides, your dad would have killed me if you ended up stranded on some moon with the two of us."

"My dad isn't that bad," said Nico, as if the lord of the Dead were just any other dad.

"True, but Hades has never really liked that you've been traveling with me, he's kind of hated me since the time war."

"The gods were in the time war?" Nico asked, surprised. Noah almost never mentioned the Time War, except for one time when the two of them happened to cross paths with the Doctor in ancient Rome. Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with Noah, well maybe a little.

"Long story. Lots of people were in the Time War, Hades killed me a few times, and ever since then he's held something of a grudge. He feels cheated. Especially after I didn't fall for his 'congratulations for cheating death now you get a prize' act. River, pass me the hydro-dynamic hyper-sonic waveform photon oscillator, will you?" Nico poked his head into the TARDIS to see river toss an odd looking device up to Noah. This time Nico stayed in the ship, now leaning up against one of the inside walls.

"So how long have you known I couldn't die?" He asked.

"Since we rescued you from Aanthoni." Nico shuddered, remembering the time Aanthoni had tortured him to try and get Noah. According to Noah, Aanthoni was another Space Lord that was born during the time war, he seemed to have something of a sadistic personal vendetta against Noah.

"Aanthoni could have subjected you to a lot worse, I know because you're still mentally sound. Meaning he probably tried killing you. And if he tried, he succeeded. I still won't ask exactly what he did to you, but if you ever feel you can talk about it-" Noah was cut off.

"He killed me after taunting me in a battle I couldn't win. When I came back to life, that was the first time I had ever done it, he was curious, and spent the rest of the time trying to kill me in different ways. Bullet to the brain, bleeding to death, poison, guillotine. Then you guys came, and after you rescued me you offered to wipe my memory, and the rest is history." Nico said, clearly not as disturbed as Noah would have thought.

"You know, that mind-wipe is still on the table if you're interested." Noah offered.

"It's really fine, I'm not scared for life or anything," Said Nico.

"That's what bothers me."

"They didn't lie down…" said River, who was now back on the floor of the TARDIS. "The rest lied down, but for him it was worth it. For him it was enough, the ones that didn't lie down. But you didn't lie down. I won't watch. DON'T MAKE ME WATCH! NO! NO! NO! BURNING INSIDE WITH VIOLENT ANGER, THEY SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM AND NOBODY HEARS! GO AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME!" like most of River's outbursts, Nico had no clue what she was talking about, but still, River had a horrified look on her face as she screamed at Nico. Noah teleported down to stand in front of her.

"River! It's okay, it's okay," He soothed, putting his hands on the side of her head, trying to get her to sit down, "Nico isn't going to become a reaver, I promise. Just calm down and everything will be alright. Okay? Good, that's it." Rivers heavy breathing slowed as Noah, perhaps with the help of a little telepathy, calmed her down.

"What's she going on about?" Asked Nico, used to River's small schizophrenic episodes.

"Among other things, I think she thinks Aanthoni was trying to turn you into a reaver, but I checked your mind thoroughly, he didn't implant any kind of psychic messages. There was one dormant one, but I couldn't find out what was supposed to trigger it or even what it's supposed to do. I decided not to take it out at the time 'cause I figured he probably just left a useless junk-thought in your mind hoping I'd try to remove it and set of some kind of psychic booby-trap." Nico had no clue what most of this meant, so he changed the subject.

"Do you think you'll ever be able to get this thing up and running again?" Nico asked, Noah looked around.

"I don't think so, but still. There was a lot going on in our world when we left it. There's still one more adventure left here for us. Come on, I'll introduce you to an old friend of mine."

A few hours later the trio was ascending a staircase leading to the top of the Twilight Town clock tower. At the top, as they rounded the corner onto the ledge facing the west horizon, there was a girl sitting there with her feet over the edge. Nico looked down and saw that this was the same side the clock face was on, with the big open area in front of the clock tower right in front of them, miles down. Nico shuddered.

"You're afraid of heights?" River asked.

"The god of the sky doesn't think I should exist, he's out to get me, It's justified."

Nico looked at the girl, she seemed to exude shyness, she had wavy blonde, (white blonde like Noah, not yellow-blonde) hair down just past her shoulders. She wore a simple white dress, a very simple white dress. It came down to about her knees and had no sleeves; she was wearing simple blue sandals, and busily drawing with colored pencils in a large sketch pad.

"Naminé, have you called them yet?" Noah asked her.

"Yes," Naminé answered quietly. "I'm working on drawing memories of the three of you, so we can save time on introductions," still quietly. River poked her head over Naminé's shoulder to peek at her drawing.

"Speaking of introductions,…" said Nico

"Oh, yes. Nico, this is Naminé. She used to be a Nobody, but because her past life is one of the few people in the universe to get her heart back, she can feel emotions now. She's also a precog, she can draw the future. And she can control memories of people connected to Sora."

"Well who's Sora?" suddenly a wave of memories rushed into Nico's head, filling him in on the complicated storyline of Sora's life as the true Keyblade master of the prophecy. Nico looked at Noah, expecting this to be the result of Noah using telepathy to save time, but instead he gestured to Naminé, indicating that the memories were her doing.

"Sora is the subject of our next adventure before settling down. It was foretold that he would bring new life to those who have been lost. It was previously thought that Naminé and Roxas were among them, but apparently not. It's my job to guide Sora through the journey of restoring old Keyblade Wielders," Noah explained.

"Why you?"

"Because I'm the only one who knows enough about the complete story, other than Naminé, to know how to revive everyone," Noah Answered.

At this time, two new boys arrived at the same time, rounding the corner to sit down on top of the clock tower. Nico recognized them from his new memories as Sora and Roxas. They both looked about fifteen or sixteen years old, both had very odd hair. Sora's was big, brown, and messy, but in an organized way, not quite a Mohawk or an Afro, but something in between almost. It was combed out in all directions, almost like an emo-type look. Roxas's hair wasn't much different, spiked upward, with a few locks off in other directions, and yellow-blonde as opposed to that of Noah and Naminé They looked a lot like each other but still were easy to tell apart and they both had Blue eyes. Sora was the first to speak upon arrival.

"Hey, Naminé, good to see you again. You said Noah wanted to talk to us?" he asked, almost like he already knew Noah (which, in a sense, he did).

"Yes, but we should wait for everyone else to get here. Hello, my names' Noah. You two must be Sora and Roxas." Noah Introduced himself.

"Actually, there is something you probably should know," said Roxas, but he was cut off by Riku's arrival. There was another round of polite greetings. Riku seemed older than Sora and Roxas, but only by a year at most. He had blue eyes and long straight silver hair. Nico thought it was odd that a teenager had grey hair already, but he didn't question.

"So what's this all about?" asked Riku.

"You'll see." Said Naminé quietly, still drawing in her sketchbook. A few moments later Kairi showed up and sat down alongside the others. Noah stood up and began to speak, pacing back and forth across the upraised ledge.

"Good, Now that you're all here, you're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here today," he said, Mimicking a British accent.

"No," Interrupted River, "but I wanna hear you say it anyway." A small smile flashed across Noah's face.

"You're here because you're all important to the revival of the last remaining keyblade wielders, especially you, Sora. As I'm sure you know there are a lot of prophecies surrounding you. For example, one legend says that the keyblade's wielder saved the world, another says he wrought chaos and ruin upon it. Another legend says that you're supposed to revive the Keyblade wielders that didn't die, but were lost from the realm of light in some way or another. Obviously, Roxas and Naminé were restored when you opened the door to kingdom hearts and let the worlds converge again, but I'm a little unclear on how they could simply be integrated into society, anyone care to explain?"

"Well, this isn't completely related but—"Roxas started, but again was interrupted by the matter at hand.

"Well, it's weird, we all ended up with two sets of memories for the same time period," explained Sora. "Like, I remember going on all my adventures, and meeting people, and being gone for three years, but I also remember other stuff; like going to school for that time, and knowing Roxas since I was young, we were friends since we were ten years old in these new memories, and he always had a regular family, and so did Naminé, it's kinda weird, but everything from the other set of memories seems to be true."

"Yeah, on the topic of multiple memory sets—" Roxas tried again to say what was on his mind.

"That happens sometimes. Instead of a choice making one reality into two something shocks to worlds into one" explained River. "History had to be rewritten when everybody got their heart back, and it was, but history doesn't like changing things it doesn't have to if it can help it."

"Thank you, River, for bringing me to that. Kingdom Hearts couldn't completely restore everybody, as for the rest of the lost ones there are four altogether. Are any of you familiar with the phenomenon known as Birth by Sleep?" Noah was still pacing, he got blank stares from his audience. "Birth by Sleep is something Diz came up with, or rather, Ansem the wise. Birth by sleep is the phenomenon in which a heart presumably lost from the realms of light without dying, can be reawakened from its dormant state. Sort of like a second chance, like when Sora used the heartblade to save Kairi, or when Kairi, in turn, restored Sora from the form of a heartless. Sora, for some reason they're waiting for you. I know how to restore them all, but I'm going to need your help. As for their stories, the people we're trying to bring back are named Terra, Aqua, and Ventus.

"Did you just say—" Roxas began to speak, but Riku shot a glare at him, a glare that said something along the lines of "Don't you know it's impolite to interrupt someone? Even a Nobody should know that!" Not noticing the subtle digression, Noah continued.

"All of this happened when you all were still little kids, before you knew anything about keyblades, or heartless, or nobodies, or unversed. Anyway,Terra's body was stolen by Xheanort, who wanted a younger one, but Terra's body put up a fight. After Xheanort took the physical body for himself, Terra's lingering sentiment was preserved in his empty armor. Oh, a lingering sentiment is sort of like a nobody, but not quite. It mainly consists of,… sort of like a footprint of old memories and emotions. You have to have a strong consciousness to leave one behind. It's rather like a data ghost, not really the original, not really conscious, just a degrading pattern of psychic energy. And the more psychic energy it uses to think, the more it forgets who it is, the more confused it gets. But, if something can be remembered, then it can come back. I learned that from an old friend of mine. Anyway, Terra's lingering sentiment tried to fight back for its body, and it defeated Terranort, but used up too much energy. To this day, the sentiment still kneels on terra's keyblade in a world called the Keybade Graveyard. Sora, I think you fought it once. If I'm not mistaken, it mistook you for Ventus at first, but then thought you were Xheanort?"

"Yeah, I tried talking to it after it kneeled down again, but the only thing it could say was 'I have nothing left for you. All I have left is my hatred for Xheanort' what does that mean?"

"It means what it sounds like, the pattern is degrading, probably at the minimal level now, wouldn't be able to tell Ventus from Xheanort at this point. There's more though, you see Ventus had a counterpart, Vanitas. Ventus used to be apprenticed under master Xheanort, who was planning to use him for the new body, but when Ventus wouldn't embrace the darkness, Xheanort ripped it out of him with his heartblade. You see, Xheanort's plan was in two parts, the body, and the χ-Blade. The χ-Blade is a powerful, not to mention forbidden, Keyblade of Heart. The only way to forge it is for two hearts of equal strength, one of pure darkness and one of pure light, to clash. If that were to happen, the χ-Blade, oh, it's annotated with the Greek letter Chi, which looks like the letter X, so it's actually pronounced Key-Blade, but spelled with an X, as in Xheanort, or Xemnas, or XIII, anyway, It's said that the χ-Blade can unlock the door to Kingdom Hearts itself, in such a way that would re-create the keyblade war and inevitably end in an apocalypse. Anyway, every heart has darkness in it, even yours, Sora. Now, Vanitas could survive as pure darkness in the form of an intelligent heartless, but Ventus wouldn't be able to live without that part of his heart. He was dying, and Xheanort, who still had a little good in him, figured it would be better for Ventus to die in peace, so he brought him to his own childhood home, destiny islands."

"WAIT! You mean Xheanort used to live on our island!" Exclaimed Sora, aghast.

"Long before you were born. You were a toddler when he came back in the middle of the night with Ventus. But then something very strange happened, Ventus's dormant heart merged with someone else's out of necessity for survival. This other heart offered itself to be sort of like one and a half hearts together to keep Ventus alive until he could reclaim his darkness and be independent again. The heart he merged with, it was yours Sora. That's why as Vanitas grew stronger and forged an identity, he developed a face that looks just like yours, the details of your features were seeping through the connection in Ventus and expressing themselves in Vanitas's features, except his hair was black and, like all heartless or people close to the darkness, he had yellow eyes. In the end, when he came to the Keyblade Graveyard, he ended up battling Vanitas anyway to protect Terra and Aqua, but when he defeated Vanitas, it turns out that was the plan all along, when Vanitas's body was about to perish, it had no choice but to become part of Ventus again. The forging of the χ-Blade was completed, and the explosion created by it woke up Aqua, who had been knocked out at the time. She battled Vanitas on the outside world, who had the power to use the χ-Blade; meanwhile Ventus was still putting up a fight subconsciously. Ventus's heart had rejected Vanitas's strong darkness as a foreign element, and wouldn't join completely, the soul of the χ-Blade wasn't complete, so Ventus ended up subconsciously fighting Vanitas in their dive to the heart, a battle of psychic energy, on the telepathic battlefield mainly. At the exact moment Aqua defeated outer-Vanitas, Ventus was just about to land the finishing blow on Vanitas, but then Vanitas shattered the stained glass representation of their heart, and the two of them battled in something of a state of limbo. What involved a lot of teleporting, and a few different forms of Priori Incantatem and finally Ventus being able to finish him by using "Last word" happened all within the space of an instant on the outside world, at the same time Ventus re-absorbed Vanitas, The χ-Blade went haywire in the real world and was destroyed. The King managed to Save Aqua and Ventus in the lanes between, but when Ventus destroyed the χ-Blade, It did damage to his own heart, and he ended up sleeping in the balance between light and darkness. Aqua took him to their old home, the land of departure, but the darkness had almost overrun it and she had no choice but to lock the heart of the world to keep the balance, at which point it became Castle Oblivion, with Ventus safely sealed away in the chamber of awakening on the fourteenth floor. Ventus's dormant heart then went to Sora, following the old connection looking for refuge. Sora, do you remember the dream you had when you were little? The day that you were sad for no reason?"

"A little, why do you?"

"A heart without a body came to your dive to the heart, or at least what it was when you were five, and asked if it could stay with you for a while until it could recover, and you said it could. Ever since then, Ventus's heart has been within yours, dormant. And then it all kicks off, because when you grow up and one day get a nobody of your own, the details bleed through the skin of the universe just like they did with you and Vanitas, and Ventus's features manifest in Roxas. Of course, they're not the same person, Ventus's heart stayed with yours, and Roxas, who originally didn't have one, forged his own over time without realizing it.

"So you're saying I do have a heart?" asked Roxas, sounding a little sarcastic. Riku was giving Noah a skeptical look

I wonder, Noah thought, but he continued speaking.

"Yes. Without a doubt. The only reason no one was able to tell you before is because it takes one to know one. Anyway, as for Aqua, she heard Terra calling to her heart and followed it to radiant garden where she encountered Terranort. He wasn't really sure which one he was, Terra didn't have quite enough darkness to sustain Xheanort's heart. Aqua ended up battling Xheanort trying to free Terra, and Terra's heart was helping her, fighting back from within. In the end, in an attempt to eradicate Terra, Xheanort plunged his heartblade into himself and was inadvertently consumed by the darkness into the dark realms. Aqua still thought that there was a chance to save Terra, so she put on her keyblade armor and dived into the dark realms after him, but she couldn't get out fast enough. She realized the only way to save Terra was to lighten the load, so she abandoned ship. Left her keyblade and her armor to carry Xheanort back to the realms of light, where he was found by Braig, who later turned out to be Xigbar, Dilan, who became Xaldin, Aeleus, who became Lexaeus, and Ansem the wise, who he was apprenticed under as a scientist.

"Meanwhile, Aqua wanderd through the realm of darkness with only Eraqus's dead Keyblade. After years of wandering through the darkness, without feeling time pass or aging, she came to the shore of the dark margin where she met Diz, having died trying to digitalize Xemnas's Kingdom Hearts. Diz told her a summed up version of Sora's legend, at first she thought he might be Ventus, or Terra, but no luck. Diz also told her about the Birth by Sleep prospect, That Sora was the one who everyone was waiting for to bring them back to the light."

"This might actually be important—" Roxas tried to interject again, but Sora was the only one who even looked at him before Naminé started talking.

"That's where I come in, you see, Sora, when I was repairing your memories, I found some that didn't belong to you, but that Kingdom Hearts wanted you to see."

"What is Kingdom Hearts anyway?" Asked Sora.

"It's a lot like the over-soul. Which is a lot like the hive-mind. It's complicated." Said Noah

"Anyway, these were the memories of Terra, Ventus, Aqua, Me, Roxas, Axel, and Xion. But they were all sad memories, the painful kind. I wasn't sure if you'd be able to handle them right away, so I erased Jiminy's first journal and left a coded message in it. Apparently the king had a little trouble with data corruption, but Data-Sora was able to clear that up. Oh, I left data versions of you, me, Roxas, and Riku in the the journal as well. You were analogous to well, you, to see if you could handle the memories. Riku was supposed to protect the data of the journal, which he did well, Data-me was supposed to pass along the message of what I found in the real world, but not until Data-Roxas made sure you were strong enough by testing your resolve, to accept that the hurt is part of who we are, and also physical strength by battling you. Everything went more or less by that plan, and the King sent word to me that you were ready for the memories, and that your friends should help you—" This time Naminé was interrupted by River.

"NO! NOT MEMORIES! THE SECRETS, ALL THE SECRETS! NOT MINE! SHOULDN'T HAVE TO CARRY! NO! NO! NO! YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T JUST POKE ME! HURT ME! STICKING NEEDLES IN MY EYE, ASKING ME WHAT I SEE! THESE AREN'T MINE BUT I CARRY THEM ANYWAY, BURRIED SO FAR DEEP BUT THE BODIES STILL DRAG ME DOWN!" River kept going, everyone seemed a little freaked out, but as always, Noah rushed to her side to comfort her, and she calmed down.

"What wrong with her?" asked Riku, trying not to sound insensitive, and failing. River was now sleeping in Noah arms.

"She's a psychic. The government tried to turn her into a weapon, but they kept operating on her brain. They broke down the barriers that naturally filter out our emotions, block the ones we shouldn't need. But she has no choice, she feels everything. At times it gets a little too much for her to bear. Another side effect of the conditioning is mild schizophrenia. Because she's a psychic, and doesn't have the ability to control what she thinks and feels, everyone's pain always comes to her, well, everyone's everything. At one point she was being analyzed by key members of parliament, the people who know the government's dirtiest darkest secrets in a room with a psychic. Most of the secrets are buried under layers of psychosis, but every now and then one of them will surface. Talking about sharing the painful memories must have brought it back to her. She'll be fine once she comes around.

"Its sunset, I think that's enough for today. I'm going to need to observe you for a few weeks, or days to get an idea of what I'm working with before Sora and I can start working on restoring the first keyblade master. I have a techno-path friend in New Orleans who can get Nico, River, and Me into the school system without a hitch, school year starts tomorrow, right? Good. Naminé, I'm going to need you to do the people-aspect of that. Re-work people's memories so that we won't get arrested or something, can you do that? Thanks, and I think that's everything for now."

"WAIT!" Roxas shouted, everyone turned to him. "Is it just me or does anybody else have a third set of memories as well, because I woke up this morning with a twin brother named Ventus!"

"Really?" asked Noah, standing up, "how did that work?"

"Well, like you said, I've got my memories from the organization, but I also remember this life, but also another version of this life with Ventus! I've never met him before, but now it seems like I've known him all my life!"

"Oh, yeah, I remember Ventus now!" said Sora.

"Me too,"

"And Me,"

"So do I!"

"That's odd," said Noah. "I'll have to look into it. Does he live with you?"

"No, according to my memories he got fed up with our dad about a year ago and left, he's living with a friend now until he graduates, but I talked to him today, he seems to have memories he got from me and Sora while he was dormant, but nothing else, like he's new to this life."

"Well, that's odd, but like I said, I'll have to look into it. In the meantime, we should all get some rest, first day of school tomorrow and all."

Riku, Kairi, Sora, and Roxas all departed, leaving Noah's trio and Naminé

"Hey, Roxas, you need a ride home?" Sora asked.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks." He replied. After the three cars left the bottom of the clock tower, Nico and River were sitting on the ledge watching the sun set. Meanwhile Naminé was talking to Noah on the Northern side of the building.

"Xion was the reason the organization wanted me to take Sora's memories apart in the first place, to have a puppet, a backup plan that could wield the keyblade for them in case something happened to Roxas. She was made out of his memories of Kairi, so I had no choice but to destroy her if Sora was ever going to wake up." Explained Naminé, a little chocked up. "And because she was made of memories, when she went away the only one that was able to remember that she ever existed was me. Even Roxas forgot, and they were better friends than he and Axel ever were." The colorful sunset was just beginning to shift from orange to red as Naminé continued to explain.

"Xion can be removed from Sora's memory, but not until he's more in tune with her. He needs to be able to connect to how she felt, how it is to be broken, and hurt. I hate to do this, but we,….meaning you, will have to torment Sora in the worst possible way. And, you know what that means,"

"I need the darkness,…" finished Noah.

"You can't avoid it forever; you're going to have to embrace the darkness eventually," said Naminé.

"Yeah, I know,…. But still, If I am about to go all 'Robert Chillingworth' on Sora, I'll need some time to find out what really gets at him."

"Why didn't you just read his mind?"

"It's rude to read minds without permission."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about." By now the sky had gone red, and Nico was hurling toward the ground at increasing speed as the effect of gravity slowly accelerated his descent.