Fifteen Years Later

"That will be all for today, class. Have a wonderful weekend." Thirty students start to rush out of the room, stuffing books into their bags as they go.

Before they can reach the door, one boy raises his hand. Elias, Hayner's son. "Mr. Rizla, when will we be able to start practicing with real Keyblades?"

I smile at his impatience. "Right now, I think you need to work on your skills with a Struggle bat before you worry about getting a real weapon."

The kids, even Elias, laugh as they leave the room, finishing another day of school. I am left in the classroom alone. Sitting down at my desk, I start organizing the students' essays that I assigned, a brief history of the second reign of the Creator. I don't make it very far into the pile before getting distracted by staring out the window at the pink clouds in the sky.

Never in a million years would I have thought that I would end up living in Twilight Town again and teaching at the school that I hated going to. I never saw myself giving kids their first steps into becoming a new generation of Keyblade weilders. There have been a lot of things over the years that I never imagined myself doing. But these years have taught me that anything is possible.

The second reign of the Creator has been glorious. More worlds than ever before joined together to live under her. Even worlds that did not believe in her way before joined the union, especially when they found out what Hubrin's plans for them were.

Not once since the last of Hubrin's forces fell has there been another uprising. No one wants another Hubrin.

"Uncle Dexlin! Uncle Dexlin!" Little Namine runs into the room and straight into my arms. Following her are Sora and Kairi.

"You guys made good time."

"Traffic from Radiant Garden wasn't too bad." Sora picks Namine up from my lap and swings her around.

"That and he's been letting Cid install turbo thrusters on the engines again."

Sora looks away at the warning tone in Kairi's voice. "Where's Roxas?"

"Right here." Roxas walks through the door and quickly hugs us all before picking up little Namine and placing her on his shoulders.

It's been a while since we've all gotten together, not since Nyzol's birthday. It's nice to be around them again. But now that we've stepped down as the Keyblade wielders and left it to a new group, we haven't had to be together all the time, saving the worlds. Still, these people are part of my family.

There was a time when I thought that we would always live together, but that was when it felt like all we had in the worlds were each other. Now after everything that we've been through, we've learned that isn't the truth at all.

Besides, no matter how are lives have changed over the years, we all know that we have each other.

"We better get going. People are coming from all over the worlds for this thing. We'll be lucky to get inside." Roxas takes little Namine off his shoulders and is swinging her around.

"I think we are pretty safe. We are kind of close to the guest of honor." Sora flashes one of his overconfident smiles that I have actually missed seeing.

"And I'm sure those turbo boosters are going to get us right through all that traffic." I push myself up from my desk as everyone laughs at Sora's reddening cheeks. It's nice to know that after all these years I can still get Sora. Riku would be proud.

"We just have to pick up our stuff from our apartment." Roxas leads Sora and Kairi out of the room. I look back on last time before shutting off the lights.

There standing in the back corner of the room is a young blonde girl. She's transparent and has a glow about her. I haven't seen her face in many years, but I will never forget her. "Namine."

She tilts her head to the side and smiles. Her eyes sparkles despite the glow she already has.

"We miss you, Namine." Without even realizing it, there are tears running down my cheeks.

"Come on, Dex. We have to go." Roxas comes back in the room, drawing my attention away. When I look back, Namine is gone. "You okay?"

I nod my head as Roxas reaches over and wipes the tears from my eyes. "I love you, Roxas."

Roxas pulls me into his arms and holds me tight. "I love you too, Dexlin." His words bring a flood of memories to my mind. The good and the bad. Years of fighting. Loss. Loneliness. Fighting. Love. Family. Belonging. They are all connected and I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

This was always how my life was supposed to turn out. It just took a while to get to this point.

"Let's go." Roxas slips his arms around me and takes my hand, leading me out the door. "We're going to be late."

I smile. I don't think I would ever hear the end of it if I was late for Riku's coronation as the second Creator.

END VOLUME THREE

END THOSE LEFT BEHIND