Sora, Donald, and Goofy immediately recognized the familiar hideout Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith used as their base. It was hard to forget after all they went through together. When they went inside, they saw Yuffie and the two other members of the group.
The first was a blue-eyed man around Qrow's age with graying blond hair that had two small strands sticking out from the top. His lightly tanned face bore facial hair consisting of a soul patch and small stubble along his jawline. On his right arm was a tattoo of an emblem resembling a heart. He wore brown cargo shorts with a dark brown belt, black shoes, a red bandana on his left arm and a brown leather vest over a tan dress shirt with the right sleeve cut off. On his right arm, he wore a metal spaulder, leather vambrace and a brown fingerless glove.
The other was a green eyed woman who looked just barely older than Yuffie. She had long brown braided hair held by a red ribbon and wore a light purple belted pink button up dress with red short sleeves and brown boots.
Sora recognized them immediately but was a bit afraid of how they'd answer the question he had for them, he had to ask all the same. "Aerith. Tai." he tentatively began. "Have you both forgotten me too?"
Aerith and Taiyang's brows furrowed with troubled expressions as they looked at each other, then back at Sora. "I don't know whether to say 'nice to meet you' or 'good to see you again.' I don't think I know you, but I still feel like you belong here." Aerith said, her teal eyes and gentle voice full of confusion. It seemed she was just as confused as everyone else.
"Yeah...I don't quite know why, but I feel like I know you, even if neither I've ever seen you before." Taiyang agreed, the confusion evident in his voice as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah, exactly! Like, we've never met, but it still doesn't feel weird knowing your name." Yuffie chimed in, still surprisingly untroubled by this. Sora however was VERY troubled by it. How could they all have forgotten him?
"But I'm telling you, we HAVE met! We took on the Heartless together! We were a team!" Sora insisted. How could they not remember him after everything they all went through?
"It feels like you're right," Leon said at first with curiosity before looking to the ground and thinking about Sora's words. "But I can't remember."
Sora's face fell with mournful disappointment. It seemed they truly DID forget about him. "Then I guess you won't remember what you told me. In Hollow Bastion, when I sealed the Keyhole: 'We may never meet again-'"
"But we'll never forget each other."
Sora blinked with surprise when he heard Leon finish his recitation of their final promise. A promise Leon himself made. A mutual sense of surprise flooded the room as all eyes were on him now. "See, you do remember!" Sora exclaimed.
"He's right, Leon!" Yuffie exclaimed, her eyes wide with inexplicable recollection. "I remember you saying that, too!"
Sora looked over at Winter and said, "And Winter, you told us all when we first met you with Weiss to-"
"Be the best friends and teammates that Weiss could ask for!" Winter finished, her eyes widening with shock.
"And Qrow!" Sora continued. "You told us all about Ruby's-"
"Silver eyes..." Qrow said with a look of wide-eyed realization. "Yeah, I remember discussing it with her and you guys when she unleashed their power for the first time."
Taiyang's eyes widened with that same inexplicable recognition as he immediately looked over at Qrow. "Yeah, that's right! I remember you ushering me out of the room to explain it to them!" he exclaimed. One might have wondered how Taiyang would have known that, but then again, if anyone would have an instinctive knowledge of such things involving their own children, it would be a single dad as diligent and caring as him.
Leon found himself increasingly baffled by these unexpected recollections attached to Sora. There was no way he could logically rationalize this as he crossed his arms and looked down at the floor. "I guess I can't write it off as a coincidence, then." he said in a resigned manner.
"Indeed. Typically, correlation doesn't equal causation. But there is always point where coincidence ceases to be coincidence." Winter said with a thoughtful rub of her chin. "And there are far too many factors for it to be that. That means it has to be true...But why haven't any of us recalled those events until now?" she added, unable to ignore that particular elephant in the room.
"I don't have any memory of it, but somehow I still remember," Aerith said aloud before shifting her gaze toward Sora. "I think your heart is doing the remembering for us."
"My… heart?" Sora repeated with uncertainty. How could his heart be helping them remember?
"We don't know you, Sora, but your heart is full of memories of us together." Aerith further explained, the trio listening raptly in the hopes of gleaning something to help them understand. "Those memories must resonate in our hearts, too. Maybe they'll tell us things we couldn't otherwise know."
"So you're saying that Sora's memories are affecting ours?" Leon asked Aerith, earning an equally uncertain glance from her.
"His memories do seem to have a certain power." she said, not knowing how else to describe it.
Thinking back to when he shortly arrived in this apparent figment of memory, Sora remembered what he was told by the man in the black cloak. "Maybe it's like that guy said, then. This town is just an illusion. Something my memories created." he said aloud.
"And... there's someone special to you in this town?" Aerith asked him as she turned to face him again.
"How did you-" Sora's surprised inquiry stopped in its tracks when he remembered that very important, recently discovered memory-related detail. "Ah, I get it. My memories are resonating with yours, telling you what happened." He wasn't sure how he managed to figure that out, but it sort of made sense. Emphasis on the 'sort of'. Because he, Donald, and Goofy STILL didn't know what was going on. Regardless, he nodded to Aerith and answered, "Yes. Some dear friends of mine are somewhere in this town-I mean… Castle Oblivion."
Yuffie's face shifted to a look of utter confusion as she shared an equally confused glance with the others. "Castle Oblivion? What's that? There aren't any castles here." she said, voicing her utter confusion.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'd have seen some kind of castle in this place. And that's not even with me flying around as a bird." Qrow remarked, making it extra clear he had no idea what Sora was talking about either.
"Normally I'd doubt the words of someone who was likely inebriated half the time he was out scouting." Winter remarked with a pointed glare at Qrow. "...but he and Yuffie are right. There aren't any castles in Traverse Town."
Her response made Sora realize that he was getting ahead of himself again. "That's not quite what I mean." he said, struggling to find some way to explain it in a way that made sense…though it still didn't make sense to him.
Though Sora tried not to let his frustration show, Aerith could see it clearly in his eyes. "You're still not sure what's going on yourself, right?" she asked.
Sora couldn't lie about that even if he tried. "Right. We just got here after all. I want to have a better look around." Sora answered. He really needed some time to make sense of this.
Taiyang smiled and walked up to Sora, giving him a pat on the shoulder, "Maybe a little walk around town will help. And hey! While you're out there, give a big shoutout to all the sidewalks out there...for keeping you off the streets!" he said with a great, big, toothy grin.
The joke drew a confused blink from Sora, who didn't seem to get the punchline. Those who DID get it, numbering among Donald, Leon, Yuffie, Qrow, and Winter gave a collective groan, while Aerith seemed to be trying REALLY hard not to herself.
"Ugh...Tai...just shut up before I end up preferring a hangover over listening to your jokes." Qrow said, looking as if he was about to smash his own face into the wall.
"A-hyuck! Oh, I get it! A-hyuck! That's a great one!" Goofy however...was nearly doubling over with laughter from the joke. A response which made the smile on Tai's face grow all the more proud.
"Well...now we know where Yang gets her humor from." Donald sighed with annoyance as he pinched his brow. Though it was arguable at this point which was worse. Yang's puns, or Taiyang's...dad jokes.
"Just...go have walk around town. There are Heartless, but that's no problem for you." Leon said as his hand finally left his face. Though the lingering effects of Taiyang's humor, such as it was, still hung over him a bit.
Sora, brushing off the joke he still somehow didn't get, smirked confidently as he raised his hands up behind his head and leaned into them with a confident smirk. "So you know I can fight?" he asked.
Not acknowledging the smug boast with which Sora spoke, Leon spoke up again. "I can't say I know, but I feel like believing you. Let's leave it at that."
While Sora, Donald, and Goofy were still immensely confused by this utterly bizarre series of events, standing around talking about it wouldn't help them get it better. And it definitely wouldn't help them find Riku, Ruby, and King Mickey any sooner. So a little walk along the streets of Traverse Town may just be what they needed to clear their heads. And perhaps the Heartless would make good punching bags for stress relief, and help the group remember some of their forgotten abilities and spells.