Chapter 30: What's Real and a Dream

Sora suddenly felt the pain stop. He opened his eyes to check what had happened, only to find that he was… home?

"The hell?" Sora said. He got up and looked around. He was in his own bedroom. Nothing was out of place; it was all as he remembered it. Had it really all been just a dream?

The realization caused to laugh a little. "Whoa, that was a REALLY weird dream. He checked himself over. No scars, no new clothes from Frank, nothing from the dream as far as he could see and he was still wearing his PJ's. "Wait… my fangs, my face. The mirror is in the bathroom." He slowly walked to the bathroom, but as he did, he began to realize just how quiet it was. Now Destiny Islands was never this quiet. Sure it was small, but it was bustling with life usually… Sora began to get suspicious. He entered the bathroom to find something he didn't expect…

The mirror was missing, screws and all. Someone had taken the whole thing off and not even bothered to cover the holes. Now things were getting pretty weird. He thought to call out to Riku, but wondered if he might be out somewhere.

"Riku! Where's the bathroom mirror?" He called out to the house. No reply. "Riku?" he called out again. Still no reply. Now Sora was a little afraid. No sound at all from anywhere? He decided to check outside. He put on his normal clothes and walked to the door, only to receive an even bigger shock. It wasn't there. At all. Just a thick wall where the door once stood.

"Okay… this is weird… what the hell is going on?" He ran to the kitchen to find the back door. That was gone too. He looked around himself and finally noticed all the windows were gone too. Nothing. It was like he had been walled in overnight. "Wait! The balcony in my room!" He ran back up to his room and saw the curtains closed. "Well, at least I can get out…" He drew the curtains and saw… nothing but darkness? There was nothing but darkness behind the window. Not even a distinct shape. Just black. "Okay, I must still be dreaming. A second dream or something. I need to wake up. Water might do the trick…" He went back to the bathroom and looked again at the spot where the mirror used to be. He walked over to the sink and turned on the taps. He closed his eyes trying to calm himself down as he splashed the water on himself. But when he licked it off his lips, he found it to taste weird. He opened his eyes to see that it wasn't water that was coming out of the taps…. It was blood.

Sora immediately looked up and saw not only the mirror had returned, but his face was tined red from the blood, and his eyes were the same color. Blood red. It wasn't a dream. He screamed at the top of his lungs as he grabbed a towel and wiped the blood off as fast as he could. After getting it all off, he looked back at the mirror and saw he was now dressed up in his new clothes again, and his fangs had returned. It DEFINTELY wasn't a dream. He looked down on himself to check nothing else had changed, until suddenly he heard himself speak.

"What's wrong?" Sora looked up and saw his mirror image was moving of its own volition. "Can't face up to what you are?" Suddenly the other him launched out of the mirror and grabbed Sora by the throat. Sora only felt mild pain, being that he didn't need to breathe. "Can't stand what you've become?" The fake Sora punched the real Sora in the face. He began to shout his words. "Can't stand the sight of yourself?! That you're a freak, an abomination!?"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Sora screamed. He used all his strength to throw his doppelganger off himself. He immediately got up and readied his Keyblade, only to discover that the other him was gone. After catching his breath, he ran for his room and closed the door behind him. He sat down on the floor, back against the door, thinking about what had just happened.

"This is crazy… How can all of this be possible? Just where the hell am I?!" Sora asked no-one in particular. He looked up at the window, staring into the darkness that was ahead of him, blocking what seemed to be his only way out. He began to think back to what happened in the Underdrome, but for some reason his head was drawing a blank. He could barely recall a battle with Hades, but not the outcome. What happened? Did he lose? Was he in purgatory or something?

"I have to get out of here… Guess there can't be any harm in trying the balcony door, right?" He walked up to the door and slowly put his hand on the door handle. Just before he turned the handle, however, a loud bang from the other side shocked him and he fell backwards. He quickly looked up to see that the bang was caused by the fake him, only now dressed in slightly different clothing, wearing a black long sleeved shirt and black trousers with several tight short belts and buckles wrapped around them His wrists were bound to an unknown place with chains, faraway enough so that he could move around.

"What's the matter? You afraid of your own true colors?" Fake Sora said. As he smiled, the darkness surrounding him began to glow with yellow dots in many places. They meant only one thing to Sora. Heartless. He readied his Keyblade.

"These Heartless are all that understand you, Sora. They have spent years watching you. Studying you. They have been watching you from your own shadow every day you walk on land. They know you better than you know yourself, Sora."

"What the hell do you want? And where the hell am I?" Sora demanded.

"My name… is Aros, or Anti. Anti-what, exactly? Who knows? You might call me Anti-Sora, after all, I am you in many senses of the meaning, but unlike you, I accept what I am, and I deny that which would seek to control me." Aros uttered as he pointed to the Keyblade.

"The Keyblade? What are you talking about?"

"You believe the Keyblade is bound to you, and your destiny, whatever that may be. But you do not look past the lie to see that it is really you, who is bound to the Keyblade." Sora looked down at the Keyblade, pondering these words. "Think about it. Where would you be if you didn't have that Keyblade? You'd probably be sitting back home on Destiny Islands twiddling your thumbs with your stupid friends while some other kid got to save the worlds."

"And your point is?"

"Without that Keyblade, you're… just you. You're not a hero. You're not a powerful warrior. You're just a kid with a fantasy in his head."

"That's nonsense. Why wouldn't I be in control? The Keyblade chose me!"

"Very true. It chose YOU. Not the other way around. And it can abandon you whenever IT wants to. Think about it. When you became one with the night, you lost control of the Keyblade, didn't you?"

"I was able to get it back!"

"After you got down on your knees and begged it to come back."

"That's crap! I had to fight to get it ba-" Sora stopped mid-sentence, knowing that he had just proven Aros' point.

"You should take a good, long look in the mirror. If your fight is to vanquish the world of darkness, then you have already lost. You are consumed by it, but still you fight it. I am just like you, but I don't fight what I am…" Sora looked in horror as Aros' skin turned jet black and his eyes began to glow a bright golden colour. "I accept my powers, and now you will, too." And with those words, Aros disappeared, and so did the glowing eyes of the Heartless, once again leaving only darkness. Sora readied himself for an attack. He didn't want to get caught off-guard again like he did in the bathroom.

But no attack ever came. For a few minutes, Sora stayed alert, but after a while he finally realized Aros wasn't coming. He sat down on the bed and contemplated what to do next.

"I need to get out of here before I get killed." Sora proceeded to the door leading to the hallway, and slowly opened it. He checked to make sure he was alone before proceeding downstairs back to where the main door used to be and began to look for a way out. First thing he tried was pressing on the walls, hoping for a secret passage, but he wasn't having any luck. He checked all the floors on the upper floors as well, but found nothing. The strange thing was, Aros hadn't returned yet either.

As Sora roamed around the kitchen checking for the back door, he noticed a door he hadn't seen before. It was completely white, save for the roman numerals XIII written in black on the door. "13? What does that mean?" He approached the door and began to turn the doorknob. As he opened the door, a blinding light overcame him.

He opened his eyes to notice he was in a familiar hallway, but now from his house. He couldn't quite remember where he had seen this place before. He turned around the rest of the hallway overcome by darkness, overflowing with it. As he followed the path, he reached the very top of the building, realizing he was inside The Castle That Never Was. Or at least, the top part of it. All around it was complete black, nothingness, not even an indication of where the rest of the castle was. It just sort of ended.

As he looked around, a sudden burst of light came from in front of him. A path appeared extending out from the flat circular roof he stood on. Deciding to proceed, he followed the path until it led to two doors. The door to the left was adorned with two large locks. One flowing with darkness, the other flowing with light. To his right was the same door that brought him here, adorned with the roman numerals XIII again. This time, however, the door had the Nobody symbol on it.

Sora was about to try to summon the Keyblade to open the left door, but a voice he sensed was familiar to him called out to him.

"You really think that's a wise choice?"

He scanned around behind him for the source of the voice. Nothing.

"You don't yet have the power to open this door, nor do you have the right."

Sora turned back to the door to find a familiar face standing in front of him. Roxas. He jumped back in surprise, Roxas smiling at him and waving his hand.

"Roxas? What the hell? What are you doing here?"

"Jeeze, you're really slow. This is your heart. Everything you see is what I guess you would call a visual representation of what is going on inside you, and it's not good."

"I… don't understand."

"When I was finally reconnected with you, I got a little bored, so I used what little power I had at the time to decorate the place. Nothing harmful, just wanted to not be so bored all the time sitting here watching you kick butt."

"So that's why this place is like the castle from the world of darkness…"

"Right. But unfortunately, the peace didn't last long. Something weird began to happen when you re-awoke and started fighting the Nobodies and Heartless. Darkness started spreading in your heart, and I couldn't fight it. I did manage to find a way to 'borrow' some of your power, but it wasn't enough. It did quiet down after you finished Xemnas, and it even began to retreat, but then when you got bitten, it just spiked fiercely. It went from having the entryway, to nearly having the entire castle. And because I had borrowed your power, it limited your ability to fight back."

"So that's why I couldn't get the Keyblade back?" Sora realized.

"Well I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. Follow me." Roxas grabbed Sora's hand and led him back to the darkness protruding from the hallway.

"Hey Roxas, do you know who Aros is?" Sora asked Roxas as they stood in front of the darkness.

"So that's what he likes to call himself now, huh? Yeah, that is his name. Or at lest, he tells you that. I don't know for sure. Told me his name was Anti-Sora, but I thought it sounded pretty ridiculous for a name, even for a being that shouldn't exist."

"You can talk, Nobody." An evil voice echoed from the hallway. Out of the darkness came Aros, still blinded by chains to something not seen by Sora or Roxas. "A being that shouldn't exist, huh Roxas? Take a look in the mirror. Oh wait, you can't."

"You and I are different, Anti, or Aros, whatever. I was created because Sora gave his heart so save Kairi. You were created by accident." Hearing these comments, Aros just laughed, which creeped Sora out.

"Hey Sora, can you believe this guy? Breaking news, Roxas, we were BOTH created by accident! Since when did you have any part in saving that girl? Sora never even knew of your existence until it already died!"

"Shut up." Roxas muttered.

"Come to think of it, the only people who ever cared about you were some digitized copies of real people and a backstabber!"

Roxas summoned his keyblades. "Shut up!" He shouted.

"What are you gonna do, hurt me? Look at them; they aren't even a shell of their real selves!" Aros was right. Sora looked at Roxas' keyblades and noticed they were fading away already. A few seconds later, they disappeared completely. Roxas didn't appear fazed, as if this had happened before. Seeing his opportunity, Aros jumped at Sora, but with just a millimeter of distance between them, the chains Aros were bound to pulled him back and into the air, pulling his limbs in different directions. As they got tighter, Aros smiled as he made grunting noises, signaling he was in pain. He looked at Sora. "I thrive on pain Sora… and this was so much sweeter than the number of times he has tried to hurt me." He turned to Roxas. "You see that? I was about to get him there! I could never get close to you, but now you're both weak. I'm winning this fight. YOU HEAR ME? THIS HEART IS MINE!"

Suddenly, Aros screamed in pain as he was electrocuted by an unknown force that didn't come from Roxas or Sora.

"That's enough, you three." Sora turned around to see the man standing behind them. Suddenly he remembered what had happened before he blacked out. Before him was the one who had done it.

"Brody!" Sora summoned his Keyblade.

"I'm afraid I must bring this little experiment to an end, Sora. But in case you are curious, you passed with flying colors."

"Huh?"

"Sayonara." And with that, Brody jumped off the edge of the walkway, into the darkness. Roxas and Sora ran over to the edge to see where he had gone but he was no-where to be seen.

Aros sniggered. "That bastard… interfering with my business… Sora, you better not let those guys win. I'll be sure to have fun with your friends if you fail."

"I won't fail!" Sora turned around and pointed his Keyblade at Aros. "And you'll never hurt my friends!"

"Hmph… we'll soon see…" A bright light enveloped Sora and he blacked out.

"Sora, wake up!" Riku called to him.

"Wha?" Sora opened his eyes to see that he was back on the Gummi Ship. "What happened?"

"After that Brody guy hurt you, you just passed out. Then he disappeared and out bonds were released, so we took you back to the ship. Herc's back at his home." Sora sat up. "I think that we have stuff to do, right?" He asked Sora, knowing it was a rhetorical question.

"Yeah, I guess we do. Better get moving then." Sora hopped up to the controls. "A lot of work ahead of us."

Chapter End

A/N: Finally! That one took a little while and about 3 writers blocks. Sorry for the mean wait.