Chain of Memories

The Forgetting

The road went nowhere, and then the ways they might have taken stopped being several and became one way, and the one way ended at a castle, white and enormous, in a dark with nothing else in it. Goofy stopped short of the doors. "You sure we should just barge in like this?" Donald had already put his head round one of them. "Looks like nobody's home." Goofy followed him in, fussing. "Okay, but we should shut the door behind us. Sora!"

The castle took what they knew at the door. Donald had his spells on one side of it and did not have them on the other, and none of the three of them noticed, because losing a thing makes less noise than having it. There was a hooded figure in the first hall that did not speak, and Donald went at it as he always went at things, and found out in front of everyone what the door had done to him. "It must be a Heartless! Let's see how it handles my magic! THUNDER! Huh? That's odd. THUNDER! THUNDER! Umm. FIRE! Blizzard? I don't get it. Why isn't my magic working?"

They got through it anyway. Afterwards Goofy looked the other two up and down. "Hey, wait a second. Donald, where'd you get the new duds?" Donald could not tell him. "You tell us! When you opened the door, there was this weird light, and the rest is a big blank."

A man in a long black coat was standing where nobody had been standing. He was tall, with long hair of a muted rose colour and a calm, pleasant voice, and cherry blossom petals turned in the air round him. He explained the rules of the house before anyone asked for them. "I should think it's obvious. The moment you set foot in this castle, you forgot every spell and ability you knew. Though the forgetting does not end there. In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find. That is the way of things in Castle Oblivion."

He said there were people here Sora knew. "Yes. Here you will meet people you know. People you miss." And when Sora said Riku's name, the man picked it up and made an offer of it. "Do you want to find him? If you do." He held out a card. "I sampled your memories. And from them, I made this. This is the key to reuniting with those you hold dear." Sora took it. "A promise. Use that card and press on. You will find your friend." He stepped back. "Yes. Go, Sora. To lose and claim anew, or to claim anew only to lose." Then he was not there.

Beyond the door was Traverse Town, and it was the wrong Traverse Town in a way Sora could not name. The man in the coat was there ahead of him to name it. "It isn't reality that you see. This town is an illusion conceived by your memories ingrained in that card."

Then he taught him the castle. Donald and Goofy were cards now, and Sora would have to pick them up to have them at all, and spending one spent it. "They are at the mercy of the cards now. Master the cards, and their strength will be yours again." Spent cards came back if he wanted them badly enough, and each time they took longer. "Cards are the hearts of your friends. Everything in this castle is ruled by cards." Sora asked him why any of this was happening, and did not get an answer. "That is for you to ponder. Master the cards and make your way through the castle. From here on, you walk alone." Sora told him he would get through it anyway, and the man was amused. "Hmm, the hero speaks boldly. Go, then. The rest of Castle Oblivion awaits. Walk the avenues of latent memory, and you shall meet someone dear to you."

Traverse Town gave Sora back what he remembered of it, and took something else, and when he came out of it the man was waiting. "Well, Sora? Did you enjoy meeting your memories?" Sora wanted to know what he would have to give to see Riku. "That depends on what you have to give."

"Boo." There was a second man in the same coat, come in behind them, with red hair swept back in wild spikes and a purple mark under each eye like a tear turned upside down. The first man did not turn round. "What do you want?" The newcomer shrugged. "I got bored, what with you hogging the hero." The first man stepped aside for him. "Perhaps YOU'D like to test him."

The red-haired one turned to Sora. "Looks like it's my show now, Keyblade master. My name is Axel. Commit it to memory." Donald put himself in front of Sora, which was the first thing anybody had done in that castle without being told to. "He won't! We won't let him!" Axel was pleased. "Good, you learn quick. So, Sora, now that we're on a first-name basis, don't go dying on me!"

They fought, and Sora won, and Axel got up off the floor as though winning had not been the point. "After an introduction like that, you don't think I'd just give up the ghost?" He dusted himself off and grinned. "Congratulations, Sora. You passed! You're ready to take on Castle Oblivion. Follow your memories. Trust what you remember, seek what you forget, and you will find someone very special."

Sora asked who. Axel went round the question and came out the other side without touching it. "Well, I don't know. You'll just have to give some more thought to who's most important to you. Our most precious memories lie deep in our hearts, out of reach. But you can find yours, Sora." Then, lower: "The light within the darkness. You've lost sight of it, Sora. You've forgotten forgetting." He tilted his head. "Would you like a hint?" Sora said no. "That's my kind of answer. Just what I'd expect from the Keyblade master. But be forewarned. When your sleeping memories awaken, you may no longer be you." Then he was gone as well, and the stairs went up.

Jiminy turned the pages of his journal on the way, and found them empty, all of them. "Every letter! I finished off the first volume right before we got to this castle."

What the Cards Remember

He climbed floor after floor, and every one of them was a place he had been before: Wonderland, the Coliseum, Agrabah, Halloween Town, the inside of the whale. None of them was the place itself. Each was built out of what he remembered of it, and he came out of every one carrying a little less than he had carried in. Jiminy worked it out first. "Wait! Remember what that guy in the black hood said? 'In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find.' He was talking about memories!" And something else was bothering him. "What Axel said's been bothering me. What could he have meant by 'you may no longer be you'?"

Once, at the top of a stair, a girl was standing there. She was fair-haired, in a white dress, and she looked at Sora as though she had been waiting a long time and was sorry for it. "Sora, I'm so sorry. All this, because of me." Then she was gone.

Somewhere out of Sora's hearing, two of the black coats were talking about him. One was Axel. The other was a woman with slicked-back blonde hair and two long strands that stood up from it like antennae, and she was amused. "Wow, Axel, you seem pretty intrigued by this Sora kid." He asked what she made of him. "I haven't made up my mind, but I'd like to know what's on yours."

He had been thinking about a thing that had happened to the boy once, and had not taken. "He became a Heartless, Larxene, and you know what happens to people who do." She knew. "People who lose their hearts also lose their minds, their feelings. They're consumed by the darkness." Axel nodded. "Right. But that didn't happen to Sora. He held on to his feelings, even as a Heartless. Only one other man ever managed to do that."

"So it's the strength of his heart that intrigues you, the heart chosen by the Keyblade." He did not deny it. "What makes his heart shine like that? What sleeps in its most secret depths?" She said it lightly, and left it standing. "The heart is a mysterious thing, Axel." He agreed with her and turned it into the reason they existed. "Maybe so. But unlocking its secrets is the whole reason we, the Organization, exist." Then he looked up the stairs. "Let's see how far our boy will go, then. Think it's time for another round?"

Somewhere in those floors Sora started to remember a girl. He had never mentioned her before, and Donald was curious. "Hey, Sora! Did you remember anything else about that girl?" Jiminy had been keeping the book and watching it empty, and he noticed that this one had gone the other way. "Well, I'll be! I think that's the first time you've ever mentioned her." Then he worked out which way things were moving. "Anyone noticed something odd? Sora's remembering things, instead of forgetting them. Hmm. Maybe forgetting things is the only way to reach the memories buried deeper down." Goofy leaned in. "Tell us about her! Talking about it might help you remember."

Her name was Naminé. While it was arriving, something else was going, and nobody had any way to notice a subtraction.

By the fifth floor, below them, the woman in the coat was pleased. "It looks like Sora's memories have taken root, just as we planned." She wanted to go up next. "Only if it's my turn to play. You had your fun on the first floor." Axel told her the terms. "Remember, Larxene. Our job is to deliver him in one piece." She did not care for terms. "Fine. But who says I can't have my way with him first?"

"Don't break him." She looked at him sideways. "Do I detect a soft spot?" He said it was not that. "He's partly one of us." She laughed. "I'm not going to break the toy, Axel, just play with it. I'm not dumb." And he added the part that gave him away. "Then you won't mind the warning. Remember, Sora is the key. We need him if we're going to take the Organization."

She caught it at once. "So you're in on it, too? Well, keep it under your hood until the time is right." When she had gone he spoke to the empty room, which was a habit of his. "You would have been wise to do the same, Larxene."

After the sixth floor she came up to meet Sora herself. "Ooh, aren't you clever. The name's Larxene. Are you enjoying your stay in Castle Oblivion? I bet it's nice to peel all the worthless memories away, and awaken the true memories that lie deep in your heart."

She had come to plant something. "But you're still forgetting something, aren't you, Sora? The most important thing. When that poor girl hears you've forgotten her name, she'll be heartbroken." Sora understood from that that the girl was in trouble, which was what she had come six floors to arrange. "Uh-huuuuh. The bad guys are holding her deep within the castle. And you, the hero, have to go save her. Sadly, there's a catch. I'M a bad guy, so you have to go through me!"

Then she took something small out of the air and held it up where he could see it, and it was his, and he had been wearing it the whole way. "Tsk, tsk. You've been wearing it all this time, and you forgot? No, you couldn't have. The memory is engraved in your heart. Now think, Sora. What oh what could it be? Who gave it to you?" He reached for it. "That's right! Free the memory from your heart!"

He got most of the way to the name and stopped, and she finished it for him, which was not a kindness. "Well, it's about time. That's right. Naminé. She's the one that gave you the cheesy good luck charm. Not that you remembered. No surprise, seeing as you forgot her NAME. Talk about heartless! It'd serve you right if I smashed this piece of junk!" He said it was precious to him. "Precious? Spare me! Ten seconds ago you didn't even know what it was!"

He beat her. She took it about as well as she took anything. "Hey, you're not half bad. Guess you really are a hero. A heartless hero!" And she threw a handful of cards at his feet. "Does it hurt 'cause it's true? Grow up, Sora. If you're going to be a baby, then here, play with these. They're more cards made from your memories. Say 'thank you' like a good boy. Ta-ta!" Sora started after her, and Jiminy caught at his collar. "Sora, calm down! She's not coming back."

Below, she rolled her shoulders and put a better face on it than it had earned. "Whew. Throwing the battle back there really wore me out." Axel was not fooled. "Throwing the battle? Looks to me like you plain old lost the battle." She rounded on him. "H-How dare you! You just don't appreciate the finer nuances of."

A third coat had come in on them, a tall man with long pale hair, sharp cheekbones and one eyebrow always a little higher than the other, and he opened with the fight she had just lost. "Axel is right. That was an ungainly performance, Larxene. Humbled by someone of such limited significance. You shame yourself and the Organization." He had come, he said, to help. "I came to lend a hand. I remain unconvinced of any potential in this 'hero' you've been coddling. Perhaps an experiment would put my doubts to rest."

Larxene asked him what he thought he was going to do to the boy. "I'm a scientist. Experimentation is what I do." Axel asked about the one who followed him about. "Follower? I'll have you know he's the product of much research." Neither of them was impressed. "Hmph. I see I'm wasting my time." Larxene said something to his back, and he turned on her. "Hold your tongue!" She said something worse. "You're hardly one to talk, you conniving little."

The Other Riku

In the rooms below, Axel looked up as the man with the pale hair came in again, and he was not alone. "Can we help you, Vexen? It's not very often we see you topside." Vexen said he meant to test the Keyblade master himself. Axel waved it away. "Whatever, Vexen. Do what you want. But cut the act. Testing Sora is just an excuse to test your little follower." Then he handed him something, a card, the way a man hands over a gift he expects to be opened somewhere he will not have to watch. "Have your fun. But take this with you. A wild card to keep the game fresh. Now don't tell me I don't respect my elders."

Larxene had opinions about the follower. "I knew this would happen. Everything's an experiment with you." She looked the thing over. "What he is is a toy." Axel surprised her by speaking up for it. "Now Larxene. Shouldn't we give Vexen the benefit of the doubt? Riku could be hiding as part of some elaborate plan to lure Sora deeper into the castle."

Somewhere in the floors after that, Sora met her. She was standing in a place he half knew, and she spoke to him as if the two of them had a long history, and he could not find the history but could not find the absence of it either. "Sora, you came for me." He said he had. "I could say the same. But I messed up. I really wanted to see you, but not like this."

"I was alone for so long. I couldn't bear it anymore. So I beckoned your heart to lead you here. And I'm so glad you found me. But your heart, I had to." She stopped there and did not go back to it. Then she said a stranger thing, and said it as an apology. "Thank you. Oh, Sora, forgive me. I'm not supposed to be in this picture."

A second voice came from somewhere else, and it was hers too, and it was arguing with the girl in front of him. "That's not me. I'm not in your heart. I'm not in anyone's heart. I never have been." The girl in front of him asked him something quietly. "Was it really me you came for?" And the other voice cried out. "No, Sora! Don't believe me!"

"Think, Sora. Think of the person who's most special to you. See that faint glimmer way in the back of your heart? That's a piece of your memory, Sora. Call out to it! No matter how far away the light gets, your heart's voice will always reach it." And then, very softly: "No. The girl you care about, the one who was always with you. It's not me. It's her."

Sora took one thing away from all of it: she was being held somewhere above him. He went at the stairs so hard that the other two started watching him instead. Donald defended him. "Can you blame him? After all this time, he finally remembers Naminé, only to find out she's being held prisoner!" But later, when it had gone on longer, Donald said the other half of it. "Before we came to this castle, you didn't even know her name. Now she's all you think about." Goofy asked it more gently, and it went in further for that. "Sora. What's happening to you?" Sora did not answer. "You always get real touchy when it comes to Naminé. Did you ever ask yourself why?"

Four more floors went by the same way: Atlantica, Neverland, Hollow Bastion, the wood with the hundred acres in it. In the one that was Hollow Bastion, Goofy stopped and named it, out of a memory of his own that the castle had not taken yet. "It's that castle I mentioned earlier. I'm sure I didn't make it up. That was the castle where Sora used the Keyblade to free Kairi's heart. Then he disappeared for a while, remember? I'll never forget how worried I was." Later, out of nowhere, he asked the other question about that time. "Sora, when you turned into a Heartless, did you forget about us?"

Donald, meaning to cheer him up, went for the three names and came up with two of them. "Have a little faith, Sora! You guys used to be inseparable, right? You, Riku, and Kai. Kai. And, um, what's-her-name." They were on the tenth floor by then. "The tenth floor already. We've come a long way."

The charm came out again, and this time Donald was holding it and Goofy was looking at it, and neither was in any doubt whose it was. "This is. Naminé's good luck charm, isn't it?" Goofy nodded. "Naminé's good luck charm!" And then Goofy found the other one, a card with the same shape on it, and he was alarmed. "Riku's good luck charm turned into a card?!" Two people seemed to have the same memory, and Donald could not leave it alone. "So you and Riku had the same memory? Umm." Sora took it badly. Goofy stepped between them without moving. "That's not what Donald meant. We're just worried." Donald was lost. "Ahh, somebody tell me what's going on here." And then, stubborn: "Of course it matters! Don't you think it's weird that you and Riku have the same memory? You can't both be right."

Riku was standing in front of him. He was the right height and he had the right voice, and he used it as Riku used it, and what he said with it was that Sora had stopped thinking about him a long time ago. "Don't sound so happy to see me, Sora. Let me know if I'm getting in the way of something more important." Sora said he had been looking for him the whole way. "Spare me. I bet you'd all but forgotten about me."

Sora mentioned Naminé, which was the wrong thing, and it opened the rest of it. "But not anymore, right? Now it's Naminé this, Naminé that. You don't care about me any more than you care about how Naminé feels." Sora opened his mouth and shut it again. "Never even gave it a thought, did you? Just 'cause you want to see Naminé doesn't mean it goes both ways." Sora took it for a joke. "Who's joking? Naminé doesn't even want to look at you." He let that land. "Ask your memories. If you bothered to remember why Naminé left the islands."

Riku told him to go home. "Go home, Sora. I can take care of Naminé. Anyone who goes near her, goes through me!" Sora did not move. "Since when have you cared about me? Naminé's not the only one who's sick of you." Still Sora stayed where he was. "Can't take a hint, can you? Leave, Sora." Sora said he had come to get him out of here, and that landed worst of all. "Hah! What makes you think I need rescuing?"

They fought. Sora fought him the way you fight somebody you are trying not to hurt, and it went on longer than it needed to for that reason. Then a voice stopped it, and this time she was in the room, the fair-haired girl in white. "It's because I went into your memories and." Riku came at Sora again. "Stop! Riku, no!" He did not stop, so she said it again with everything she had behind it. "I said, STOP!" And he did.

Goofy was at Sora's side. "Sora, are you okay?" Jiminy was frowning. "He sure was acting strange. It's almost as if the Heartless were controlling him again." Then he found the reading of it that let everyone keep walking. "Hey, Riku is still your friend, and that's no mistake." Sora looked at him. "I know he said some awful things to you back there. But don't forget, we're in Castle Oblivion. People lose their memory here a little bit at a time. Riku's probably forgotten that he and you were friends. That's all."

Sora said that must be it. "That'd be my guess. So instead of being sad, let's figure out a way to make Riku remember. It's not like you to mope. Let's work together and get through this." Sora said something in the right tone, and Jiminy seized on it. "That's it, that's the spirit! Good, good! Now you're sounding heroic!" Then he looked down at his book, and was less cheerful. "This is awful. Our memories are fading fast. We'd better hurry, Sora. I'm sure you and Riku can talk things out." He did the sum out loud. "And we've lost ten floors' worth of memories. Sora, it's not too late. We should turn back." Nobody turned back.

The Traitors Beneath

Donald said the thing underneath all of it, climbing, and it was not about the ten floors behind them. "So. The higher we go, the more we forget? What if we forget everything and can't get it back?" Nobody had an answer, and they kept climbing.

Below them, the replica had come back without doing what it was sent to do, and Larxene was enjoying it. "Now what, Vexen? Looks like your little toy isn't taking orders anymore." He had an excuse ready, and she pretended to accept it. "Oh, of course! Why didn't I see it before? Terribly sorry, Vexie. I guess I'm just used to you and your research being more funny than formidable." He would not look at her. "Aww, are you sulking? Ha ha, you are so half-baked." Then she stopped enjoying it long enough to name what she had been circling, and left it in the room with him. "Unless I'm mistaken, treason is a CAPITAL crime."

Marluxia found Vexen and closed his project for him. "That will do. Your project has failed, Vexen. Do not disappoint us again." Vexen drew himself up. "Disappoint YOU? You presume too much, No. 11. I am No. 4, and I will not stand for your snide remarks!" The numbers were the wrong ground to fight on, and Marluxia moved off them onto the ground he had prepared. "Yes, you will. This castle and the girl Naminé have been entrusted to ME. Defy me, and you defy the Organization."

Marluxia let the words fall one at a time. "In the name of the Organization, I pronounce your project a failure. This lapse must be reported to the Superior."

Something went out of Vexen at the last word, and what he said next he said in a voice nobody in the castle had heard him use. "No. Please, don't! I beg of you! Leave him out of this!" The price was set at once, and it was not a punishment. It was an errand. "You must eliminate Sora personally." Vexen stared at him. "No. I mean. But. Why would you want that?" He did not get an answer.

When Vexen had gone to do it, Marluxia went to the girl. She was kept in a room of her own in the castle, and she did not look up when he came in. "What to do? Your hero is soon to be wiped from existence. But he made a promise to you, didn't he? Isn't that right, Naminé?"

Axel was leaning in the doorway. "He'll really do it, you know. He's got no choice." He spoke to Larxene and Marluxia both, as if thinking aloud. "If he just passes through without catching on, we can patch things up later. But if not."

Marluxia did not look round. "Let Naminé handle this. In the meantime, Axel, you know what to do." Axel smiled at him. "No, I don't. Maybe you could spell it out for me." So Marluxia spelled it out. "Rid us of our traitor." Axel pushed himself off the doorframe. "Done. There's no taking that order back later."

The Other Side of the Heart

The one who came up to meet him on the eleventh floor came as a creditor. "That's no way to greet a stranger, Sora. I am Vexen. I've come to collect your debt." Goofy looked from one to the other. "Do you owe him something?" Nobody answered Goofy. Vexen answered Sora instead, and the answer was worse than the question. "Oh, but you do. You owe me for reuniting you with your former friend." He smiled thinly. "Yes. I am the one who brought Riku to you."

Sora asked him what that meant. "I see no need to tell you. Why trouble you in your final moments?" Sora beat him, and it did not seem to cost the man anything he minded losing. He got up like someone whose experiment had run to completion. "Splendid! As expected, you don't die so easily."

Then he had a card, and it had been made out of Sora while the two of them fought. "You'll yet have your chance. As we fought, I delved deep into your memory, and look what I found. This is a card crafted from memories locked in the other side of your heart. If you want to fight me for real, then step into the world within this card!" Jiminy turned it over in his hands after Vexen had gone. "A card made of memories from the other side of your heart. I wonder what it does."

The card opened onto a town at evening, and Sora had never been there. Jiminy said so aloud, because it broke the only rule the castle had kept. "But that can't be right! Up until now we've only been to places in Sora's memory." Vexen let Sora stand in it a while before he asked the question he had built the place to ask. "Does it, now? A question, then, Sora. Which is more real to you: your memories of Naminé, or the familiarity you feel here?"

Sora did not treat it as a question. "That's enough! YOU'RE the one who changed Riku! Every word you've said is a lie! I'd never throw away my heart! I'm gonna take you down and save Riku and Naminé. That's what's in my heart!"

Vexen only laughed. "Ha ha ha. The memory's wiles are cruel. In its silence, we forget. And in its perversion, it binds our hearts firmly." He spread his hands at the town. "Then recall that this place was made from another side of your memory. Yes, the other side of your heart knows this place. The other side remembers." And then, coldly: "If you remain bound by the chains of memory, and refuse to believe your heart, then you may as well throw your heart away. You're no Keyblade master, no master of anything, just a slave to twisted memories. Just like my Riku. You're not fit to exist."

They fought again, and this one Sora had to work for, and when it ended the man was on the ground in a town nobody had been to. "Urrgh. Such strength, even at the mercy of your memory. You ARE dangerous! You must be exterminated!" Sora said he would make him put Riku back the way he had been, and that produced the only useful thing Vexen said all day. "Put him back? Fool of a boy! Even now you understand nothing. The Riku you speak of has but one fate, to sink into the emptiness of darkness. And you will share that fate, Sora! If you continue to seek the girl Naminé, the shackles will tighten. You'll lose your heart and become Marluxia's pawn!"

Sora had never heard the name. "Marluxia? What does Naminé have to do with."

Below, Larxene had watched Vexen hand the card over, and she saw it for what it was, a man losing his nerve in front of everyone. "Is it just me, or has Vexen finally lost it? Now he's done something REALLY rash. What now, Axel? The show's over if Sora finds out about the other side."

Axel answered her by coming in from behind Vexen while he was still talking, and ending the sentence rather than the argument. "Hey, Sora. Sorry to cut in right when he was getting to the juicy bits." Vexen could hardly get the question out. "Unnngh. Axel, wh. why?" Axel looked down at him. "You sure love to talk. It's about time you shut up, forever."

Vexen raised a hand as if it could stop anything. "No. Don't do it!"

Axel explained it to him first, taking his time, and what he said was not about Vexen at all. "We're nobodies, Vexen. We've got no one to be, but we still 'are.' So look on the bright side. You're off the hook. Now you can be nothing instead of just being nobody." Vexen begged. "M-Mercy, Axel! I don't want to. go yet." Axel lifted his weapon. "NOW you can tell me I don't respect my elders." Then there was no Vexen.

Sora asked him why, and what they were, and Axel only shrugged. "Wish I knew the answer to that myself."

In the rooms below, Larxene was pleased with him. "Nice work, Axel. Good riddance to that blabbermouth." Axel turned to Marluxia. "Marluxia, you used Vexen to test Sora's strength, right?" It was Larxene who answered, and she said it as an admission, which was rarer with her than the killing had been with him. "Not just Sora's. Yours too, Axel. We weren't sure if you had it in you to take out a fellow member of the Organization. Well, I guess you did. You can join the big leagues now. With the three of us, taking over the Organization will be child's play."

"I see. And that's where Sora comes in, right?" She nodded. "Right. He wants to see Naminé, so we give him what he wants."

Marluxia went up to the girl with the other two behind him. "Rejoice, Naminé. The hero you've longed for is nearly here." She said it without looking at any of them. "I'm. I'm very happy." He told her what to do. "All you need do is layer the memories, one by one, and bring his heart closer." Larxene leaned down to her on the way out. "Are you, now? Well, in your fits of happiness, try not to do anything to hurt Sora's feelings. Am I clear?"

When they had gone the girl spoke to the empty room. "Sora. Even if you come for me, what then?"

The Promise That Wasn't

On the twelfth floor Donald and Goofy tried to slow Sora down, and got the worst of it. Jiminy was looking at his book. "This is terrible. Our memories are practically gone." Goofy tried to reason with him. "It doesn't make sense. Maybe you should stop and think things through?" Sora turned on them. "Think ahead? What is the matter with you guys? Do you want me to abandon her?!"

Donald said something back, and Sora lost his temper. "Then do whatever you want! You can lay back and take a nap for all I care! I'M going to find Naminé!" Jiminy started to say something. "Sora, you shouldn't talk to Donald and Goofy like." But Sora was already on the stairs, and the other two stayed where they were.

Larxene was waiting at the top with a true thing she had been saving. "She broke his heart. More like smashed it, really." Sora asked her what she meant. "Ah ha ha! You're so much fun to watch. If it's Riku you're worried about, then worry no longer. Riku was never here." He demanded to know what that meant. "You want me to tell you? Gee, I don't know. I just HATE spoilers."

Riku was in front of him again, and this time he had an argument ready. "You're the one forgetting. I told YOU to take care of her. At Kingdom Hearts, when we closed the door to darkness. Give it up, Sora. I'm not going back to the islands, and you're not changing my mind." Sora said the names of the people at home. "You can have them. I forgot about those losers ages ago."

He turned it back on Sora. "What about you, Sora? Do you even remember what they all look like?" Sora tried to picture them and could not, and the answer came back to him from a face he trusted, in a voice gone gentle for it. "Don't feel bad. That's what this castle does to you if you stay too long. You forget all the useless stuff and remember for the first time what really matters. I remembered it, Sora. The one thing most important to me. I'm staying here to protect Naminé. Nothing else matters!"

Sora said he would stop him. "Go ahead and try." They fought, and Sora hit him, and nothing came back the way it was supposed to, and Riku took that as a joke at Sora's expense. "Grrr. Too bad, Sora. Nothing's coming back to me. Maybe you should try hitting a little harder."

Sora offered to go up the rest of the way together. It was the only offer he had. "What, together? That is so like you. You're always trying to worm your way into my heart!" And as he went: "Hmph, you probably forgot. It never mattered to you how I felt!"

Below them all, Axel had gone to see the girl. She was sitting very still. "Heh heh. I know exactly how you feel. Don't get your hopes up. Nobodies can't be somebodies. But think, Naminé. I'm sure there's SOMETHING you could do." She shook her head. "But, it's too late now."

He crouched to her level. "You're all he's got left. If you don't stop this, no one will." And he looked round the empty room. "Oh, I don't think you should give up just yet. By the way, Naminé. I don't see Marluxia around. Do you?" She did not understand him. "What are you trying to say?" He stood up and stepped out of the doorway. "There's no one here to stop you. Do it right."

She ran. He stood in the room by himself and laughed. "Hm hmm. Ha ha haaa! Now THIS should be good. All the actors are in place. Now, Sora! Naminé! Riku! Marluxia! Larxene! It's about time you gave me one hell of a show!"

Upstairs Riku had stopped Sora again. "Enough, Sora! You'll just hurt Naminé if you go any further." Sora asked what he thought he was keeping her safe from, and got the reason instead of the answer. "Free? I'm protecting Naminé from you because it's what MY heart tells me to do. I promised her. I promised Naminé I'd keep her safe."

Then he told Sora what the promise was, and it was the same night, the same sky and the same words that Sora had been carrying up twelve floors as his own. "There was a meteor shower one night when she and I were little. Naminé got scared and said, 'What if a shooting star hits the islands?' So I told her, 'If a shooting star comes this way, I'll protect you!' And then." Sora finished it for him, and Riku stared at him. "Y-Yeah. How do you know about that?" Sora said it was his memory. "Liar! It was just me and her!"

Sora held out what he had been carrying since the sixth floor, and Riku went into his own pocket and brought out its twin. "But. Where did you get that? Oh, I know what you're trying to pull. That's a fake. I've got the real one right here!" And he came at Sora. "I'll teach YOU to make stuff up!"

They fought a third time, and afterwards Riku came up off the floor still arguing, because the argument was the part of him that would not stop. "Let ME explain this. Plain and simple. Your memory is a train wreck. You're not the one who's meant to protect Naminé, I AM. But you and your messed up memories always get in the way!" Sora got up again. "Want some more?" This time Sora went down and stayed down, and Riku stood over him. "Looks like I win." He raised his weapon. "You're through, you fake!"

Naminé was in the doorway, out of breath, and at the sight of her he stopped.

Larxene had been waiting a long time for the next part, and she said it slowly. "All right, have it your way. It'll kill you to hear this, but I can live with that. That thing lying there is a puppet Vexen made. Nothing more than a toy. It's laughable, really. It called you a fake, but IT was the fabrication all along."

"Fake in every way. It was only finished recently. And without any past, how could it remember anything? Its memories with Naminé were planted, not real. All this time it's been picking fights with you over bogus memories. Isn't that right, Naminé? Behind that cute little face you do some awful things." Sora said it was not true, the way people say it when the sum has already been done somewhere behind their eyes. "You are so STUPID. Don't you get it? Messing with people's memories is about all she's good at. She steps into people's hearts and rearranges their memory. If she wants, she can even draw new memories of things that never happened. The girl you've been dying to protect is a manipulative witch who shackles people's hearts with phony memories!"

She told him the rest, delighted with herself. "Lies, lies. All lies! An illusion Naminé made. Binding you in the chains of your own memory was central to our trap. It makes me tingle to think how easily you were duped. This was our chance to make the Keyblade master our puppet! We nearly had you. But that jerk Axel used Naminé to wreck everything! He betrayed us!" Naminé said something in Axel's defence, and Larxene turned round on her. "Excuse me? It's a little late to grow a conscience, witch. Last I checked, YOU'RE the one who got him into this mess." She rounded on the girl. "I should tell you that I am in an EXTREMELY foul mood. Thanks to you, all our plans are toast!"

Sora said the promise still stood. He had been told in two minutes that the girl was a stranger, that the night had never happened and that the promise had been drawn for him like a picture, and he said it still stood. Larxene could not believe it. "What what what? Do I detect DISTRESS? You don't even know her!" Sora said it again. "What an idiot! There is no promise, there never was! YOU ARE DELUSIONAL. Must you insist on playing the hero? Oh, whatever. It's your funeral. Nighty-night, you sham!"

Then Donald and Goofy came in at the top of the stairs. Donald planted himself in front of Sora. "You have to go through us!" Goofy was beside him. "Right! It's always been the three of us." Donald finished it. "And it always will be! Got it, Larxene?" She laughed at them. "Have it your way. Thrice the pain for you means thrice the fun for me!"

The three of them put her down. She went the way Vexen had gone, and she was still talking as she went. "No. Nooooo!! I refuse to lose to a bunch of losers! I. I'm fading?! NO. this isn't. the way I. I won't. ALLOW."

Then the girl came out and stood where they could all see her, and did the thing she had been unable to do the whole time she had been in that castle. She spoke first. Goofy got there before her. "Gawrsh, you must be Naminé! We're friends of Sora, I'm." She smiled a little. "Goofy, I know. And this is Donald."

Donald said something about what she had done to them, and she agreed with him before he had finished. "I don't mind. It's my fault, after all." She made herself go on. "I took the people and memories in Sora's heart, and little by little replaced them with false memories that I made." Then she said the part that was for Sora, looking at him. "It was all a lie. Sora never promised me anything. Me being on the islands, that was a lie, too. This is our first meeting. I was never Sora's friend."

"I'm sorry. In your true memories, I was never there." She wanted to put it back, and the obstacle was upstairs. "Not right away. If we go to the thirteenth floor I can fix everything. But Marluxia." She looked down. "He said he'd keep me locked away in this castle forever if I didn't obey. I've been alone for so long." Her voice gave. "I'm. I'm so sorry."

Sora told her it was all right, and she would not take it. "I know. I don't have the right." So he explained why she did, and it took him a while, and he got there by a road with nothing clever in it. "It's like this. I'm really not happy about you messing with my memories. But you know, I can't really get mad at you for it, either. These memories you gave me. In my head, I know they're lies, but they still feel right. Like the promise I made. I said I would protect you and that I wouldn't make you cry, not ever. Naminé, if you cry now, I'll feel guilty, like I let you down."

She looked at him for a long moment. "You're sweet, Sora." And when he turned for the stairs: "Okay. Be careful, Sora."

What Remains

Marluxia found Axel before Sora found either of them. "You're a fool among fools to show your face here, traitor!" He was shaking with it. "Why did you let her go? You and your cursed meddling! He was ours! The Keyblade master could have been our slave!" Axel let him finish. "Traitor? I don't know what you're talking about."

"But you eliminated Vexen!" Then Marluxia understood, while he was still speaking, and did not enjoy it. "I see. A double agent. You've been investigating our conspiracy from the start." Axel did not deny that either. He laid the other man's plan out between them, in order, the way you read a list back to show you have had it for a while. "Right, your big plan. You use Naminé to rewrite Sora's memory piece by piece. He becomes her puppet. Then, using Naminé and Sora, you and Larxene overthrow the Organization. Did I get it right? 'Cause that would make YOU the traitor, Marluxia. Not me."

Marluxia went back to the killing. "Go ahead, then, strike!" Axel shrugged. "Yeah, come to think of it. So what? All I did was weed the garden. And I had to be sure you two trusted me." Then he threw the order back at him. "Moving on. I believe you ordered me to 'rid us of our traitors.' I always follow orders, Marluxia."

"Larxene paid the price for disloyalty. You're next, Marluxia. In the name of the Organization you betrayed, I will annihilate you!" Marluxia put the girl between them and stood behind her. Axel looked at that for a moment and put his hands down. "What kind of game is this? You think cowering behind Naminé will stop me? Think again. Your little mascot can keep you company in the void. Farewell, Marluxia."

Marluxia handed the fight to somebody who had been told for twelve floors that his job was to protect her. "Oh, I think not. Are you listening, Sora? Axel is willing to harm Naminé just to get at me! Destroy him!" And then he and the girl were gone.

Sora went at Axel, and Axel let it happen and remarked on it while it was happening. "Well, well, Sora. Marluxia made you his puppet after all." He lifted his weapons. "Hmm. Listen, Sora. We've got more in common than you think. I'd rather not fight you, but I do have a reputation to think of!" They fought, and Sora won that one too. Axel was on one knee and smiling. "You're not half bad! Looks like it was worth saving your hide after all." Then he was not there, and his voice came back out of nowhere. "Sorry. I'd hate to kill the suspense."

The room at the top was the last one, and the man who had given Sora the first card was standing in it with the girl beside him. "So you've destroyed Axel. You have my thanks, Sora. Or perhaps I should thank the power of the Keyblade. How I long to make it my own, and have the Organization at my mercy!" Then he gave the order, and he gave it to her, because she was the part of the machine that had never been meant to answer back. "You cannot win as long as she is in my hands. Naminé. Erase Sora's memory!"

She answered back. "No. Sora forgave me even though I deceived him. I could never break his heart! I don't care what you do to me. I won't hurt Sora!" Marluxia told her what she was refusing. "Yes. If you uproot the memories you planted, then Sora's heart will collapse and all his memories will be torn asunder." He did not care. "I'd prefer the Keyblade master unmarred, but even a riven heart can be rebuilt with time. Sora will yet be my slave. Do it, Naminé! Obliterate his memory!" She did not move. "Then you'll pay the price."

Sora put himself in front of her, and Marluxia told him what he had just stood in front of. "Ignorant fool! If Naminé destroys your memory, you'll be naught but a lifeless shell. Your heart will be unable to feel, to care! Just like that pathetic imitation of Riku."

Someone answered from the far end of the room. "Guess again."

He had come in at the other end of the room, and he was standing in front of the girl. Marluxia stared at him. "But. you're an empty shell! You've been stripped of all you had!" Sora said Riku's name, and the boy shook his head. "No, not Riku. Just someone's pet project."

"What did I ever have? My body and heart are fake. But there's one thing you can't take from me anyway, even if it is a lie! I will protect Naminé. Phantom promise or not, it's MY promise!" He looked at Sora then, and said it plainly. "I'm not Riku. I'm fake. I can't remember when I was created, or why. All I've got left is you and Naminé. But those memories aren't real."

Somebody started to say something, and he stopped them. "It's all right. Don't worry about me." And to Sora, last: "Sora, you're a good person. I don't have to be real to see how real your feelings are. That's good enough for me." Then he was gone from the room, and he had been the only one of them who left saying something kind.

Donald had his staff up. "This is it, Sora! The final battle!" Marluxia met them with his scythe. "Know your place! You would chain your heart with false memories? Cast your heart's freedom aside? You turn from the truth because your heart is weak. You cannot defeat me!"

Sora beat him, and what went down was not him. "You could say that. But what you destroyed was just an image of me. No more than a petty imitation." He rose up into something enormous. "Drown in the heart-lorn world of nothingness! I shall scatter your heart to the empty winds!" The second time it was him, and what he went into was petals, and there was nothing standing there afterwards. Donald could not believe it. "We. we got him?!"

Then she told them what she had actually done, and Jiminy began it for her. "Hmm, where to begin. Naminé, I know it's not easy, but could you tell us what's going on?" She told them. Jiminy worked through it aloud. "So you're the reason the rest of us lost our memories, too. Can we ever get them back?" And of the man in the coat: "Is that the person who made you tamper with our memories?"

She had good news, the first in thirteen floors. "Yes. Just because you can't remember something doesn't mean it's gone." Jiminy brightened. "So you can put them back together?" She explained the shape of it, and it was the first plain account anyone had given of what the castle did. "Remembering one thing leads to remembering another, and then another. Your memories are connected, like links in a chain. Those same chains are what anchor us all together. I don't destroy memories. I just take apart the links and rearrange them. You still have all your memories."

Jiminy got to the end of it faster than the others, and stopped halfway. "Hey. Wait just a second! You said you'd have to undo the links you made. But that means." Donald finished it. "So the promise Sora made to keep you safe." She looked at Sora. "I'm sorry. It's the only way. You have to choose, Sora. You can lose your memories of this castle and reclaim your own memories, or keep your memories here and give up the memories that you've lost."

He chose without going away to think about it, and she told him what it would take. "Yes, but first I have to undo the links I made. Then I have to gather up the memories scattered in your hearts and reconnect them. It will take time. But I think it will work. No, I'll MAKE it work. It's my turn to help you out." Jiminy asked about his book, and she was honest with him. "Yes, Jiminy. You won't be able to recall what happened in this castle." Goofy asked about the boy who had been Riku. "Naminé, can you put Riku's memory back to normal?" She shook her head. "It. It doesn't work that way."

Goofy had been quiet a while, working on something, and it was the one thing in the castle nobody had thought to try. "Then let's make a promise!" He looked at Sora. "What you said back there got me thinking. It's easier to face the scary stuff when you've got a promise to keep!" Sora asked what the promise should be. "That's easy. No matter what happens, even if we end up far apart or forget each other." Sora finished it. "Whatever happens, we're friends!" Donald came in late and loud. "And that's a promise."

There were pods for them to sleep in while she worked. Donald thanked her, gruffly. Jiminy made a note of it. "No problem, Donald! I'll make a note in my journal: 'Thank Naminé.'" Donald was pleased with himself. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that!" Goofy looked back at the girl from the door of his. "But when we wake up, we won't remember you anymore." She answered Goofy, and not the room. "You'll be fine. It might take a little time, but I'll take care of you." The pods began to close. "Good night. You too, Sora."

Sora was the last. "It may have started with a lie, but I'm really glad I met you, Sora." He said they should make one too, and she agreed as though she had been asked for something enormous. "I guess you're right. Let's promise, then."

Then he was lying down in it and she was talking to him through the front of it, and she told him where to look for the rest of himself. "Sora. The loose links will sink into the darkness in your heart. You won't be able to just reach in and pick the one you want. But there's another promise you made, a promise to someone you could never replace. She's your light. The light within the darkness. If you can remember her, all the memories lost in the shadows of your heart will come into the light."

She had the charm in her hand, and she turned it where he could see it. "Look at the good luck charm. I changed its shape when I changed your memory. But when you thought of her, it went back to the way it was. You're remembering." It was a star of thalassa shells again, the one he had been given on an island. "Don't worry. You'll forget me, but we have our promise, so I can come back to you." The front of the pod began to close. "One day it'll be our light, the light that brings us together. I'll be in your heart until that time comes."

He went to sleep in a castle he would not remember.

The Offer

He woke in the dark, and the dark had no floor and no direction. "Ungh. Where. where am I." Something came back to him, most of a thing, a door and someone standing on the other side of it with him, and it stopped short of being a memory. "The king! Where's the king?! Together we closed the door to darkness, and after that. Grr, why can't I remember?"

A voice answered him from nowhere. "Sleep. Here, between light and dark." It told him the king was far away. "Your king is far away. Sleep, and leave the war with darkness in his hands. The thorny light of awakening will bring only anguish to one in your state. Turn from the light. Shut your eyes." Riku did not care for being talked to like that. "You talk like I'm some kind of demon of the dark."

"Can you face the truth? Here, blanketed by the darkness, sleep is safety. Sleep is eternal." A card hung in the air in front of him. "It is a door to the truth. Take it, and your sleep ends. Take it, and take the first step toward the truth. But know this: The truth will bring you pain. Will you still go? There can be no returning to the sweet security of sleep."

Riku took it. "Yeah, well. Seems like a boring place to take a nap anyway."

Where the card put him down was a castle he knew. "This is Maleficent's castle! How'd I end up HERE? Someone must have brought me here while I was sleeping. But who?" The voice was with him still. "What you see is not real. It's the world of your memory. The things you remember of Maleficent's castle from your time there. Those memories became a card, and that card made this world. The things you see, you've seen them all before, haven't you?"

It was right in every particular, and it was empty. He asked if he would meet anyone. "Ordinarily, yes. You would meet the people in your memories." Riku did not like the word. "Ordinarily? Hey, I'm asking you a question! Fine. But it'd better be you I run across next, Voice. I'm sick of talking to thin air."

He walked the halls and found no one. "No one here, either. There's nothing but Heartless in this castle. Voice! I know you're watching, so explain this. Where are the people from my memories? Tell me!"

He came into the room that had been his, when he lived there, and the voice was there too, and pleased. "It must be nice being back in your old bedroom. Think of all the memories." Riku said Maleficent had given it to him. "So she did. And you lived here, tempted by the darkness she offered. You cast away your home, your friends, everything. But at least they gave you a nice room."

The voice kept on. "But you cast them aside. To reach the outside world, you passed through the door to darkness. Behind you, you left family, friends, home, everything, all in pursuit of darkness." And then, softly, the cruelest part. "Then what do you have to show for it? First your home, then the dark. Your heart only knows how to throw things away. It's empty, like that room. Like your memories. That's why no one is in the castle with you. Your heart is hollow except for the darkness you couldn't quite shake off." Riku rounded on the air. "You're full of it! I rejected the darkness!"

She was waiting for him in the room she had always waited in, made of what he remembered of her. "Of all the people I could run into, it had to be you." He did not argue with her about her. He put the whole of it on himself, in front of her. "There was a time I did want you around. I surrendered my heart to the dark. But never again. You and your darkness have nothing to offer. All I did was lose myself. Empty myself! I'm finished with all that. If I'm stuck seeing people like you, people of the dark, I'll take you out one by one."

Maleficent laughed at him, and he drew. "That's fine with me. I turned to darkness because my heart was weak. I hate that weakness. It's like I'm my own enemy. And seeing people like you embrace the darkness just makes it worse! Enough talk, Maleficent." Then she was a dragon, and then she was not anything.

When he came out of that world, the voice came to him again, and this time it had a shape, and the shape was one he knew. It was Ansem, as Riku had last seen him. Riku was not surprised. "You always were chatty when it came to darkness. So let me guess." He did not wait for an answer. "You want to pull me back into the darkness and play puppet master again, right?"

"Stop resisting and accept the darkness. You must, if you are to serve me again!" Riku fought it, and it only laughed. "Clever boy. You'll make a fine host. Now, surrender to me again and." It came at him through the dark he had carried out of the islands, and it knew exactly where to push. "Did you really think you could harm me? A weakling like you couldn't even defeat Sora, and you had darkness on your side."

The shape of Ansem leaned closer. "You need the darkness. Submit! Bow to the darkness, and bow to me."

Then light came into the place that had not come from anything in it, and a voice with it that Riku knew. "That voice." He turned toward the light. "Your Majesty, is that you?!" It was the king, or a light in his shape. "You betcha! Riku, you're not alone. Listen careful now, Riku. The light'll never give up on you. You'll always find it, even in the deepest darkness! But you have to believe!"

The shape of Ansem did not care for the interruption. "You think some feeble light can save you from the darkness I command? Fool!" The king did not look at it. "I can only send a little bit of my power here. But I have a request." His light flickered. "Riku, don't let go of yourself just because darkness has a hold on you. Fight the darkness inside you! It won't be easy. But don't forget! Even in the darkest darkness, there's always a little light."

"You and I have seen it! The far-off, welcoming light inside the door to darkness. The light of Kingdom Hearts, Riku, it'll show you the way. Please don't give up. Believe in the light. That's all I ask." Riku reached for him, and his hand went through. "You're. an illusion? My hand passes right through you." The king was fading. "And I'll try to find a way to reach you. I'll come, I promise." He was almost gone. "But we shook hands, in our hearts. We're connected, you and me."

Riku turned back to the shape in the dark. "I will. Hear that? I'm not losing to the darkness today, Ansem." It seemed almost amused. "It seems you are intent on resisting the darkness. Very well. See with your own eyes." It gave him more cards. "They are cards crafted from your memory. Advance through the worlds they beget, and you will come to understand. Chasing the light will not distance you from the dark. You cannot run."

Riku held out his hand. "Who's running? Give me the cards. I'll enter those worlds. And in the end, if I haven't given up, I win."

It left him one thing more. "I tempered the darkness that remains in your heart." Riku felt it, deep in himself, waiting. "Whether or not you use it is your choice. I'll be waiting, Riku, for you to come to your senses and yield to the darkness!" Then it was gone.

Something came over him afterwards that had not come over him before, and it took him a moment to understand it was a sense he had not had. "Something, tastes kind of funny." He stood very still. "What is it? It's so familiar. Darkness. The taste of darkness. What's happened to me. The darkness even seeps into my senses."

The Copy

In the basement of the castle three of the black coats met where Marluxia could not hear them. The youngest of them, slight, with steel-grey hair hanging over one side of his face, spoke first. "Don't I even get a hello, Lexaeus?" Vexen swept in behind him. "What's going on, Zexion? I demand an explanation." Zexion was cool with him. "Nice to see you too, Vexen. You know, it's deplorable. The Organization used to be the rope that binds us. And now it's full of kinks."

The big one, Lexaeus, broad and square-jawed with his ginger hair slicked back, settled it. "Let it go, Vexen. Zexion, tell us. What did you detect?" Zexion told them. "Visitors. I picked up two scents in the castle's lowest basement. One of them was Maleficent, but." Vexen would not have it. "Absurd. The witch is gone. She cannot return from the realm of darkness of her own volition." Zexion waited for him to finish. "If you'd let me finish. The scent belonged to a very convincing double. But I can't say much beyond that, since the would-be Maleficent is no more. Our other visitor saw to that."

The other visitor was the puzzle. "I don't know. But the scent was very similar to the Superior's. Exactly similar, if I may say." Vexen scoffed, and Zexion did not rise to it. "Fact, Vexen. Now, what shall we do?" Lexaeus counselled patience. "Let us bide our time and see what develops."

Later Zexion had it. "I've identified the scent. It's Riku." Vexen could not believe it. "Riku? But Riku is gone! He and that king were lost when they ventured beyond the door to darkness. How could he have escaped?" Zexion had a theory. "Riku once shouldered the darkness. Perhaps that made him half-dark." Vexen seized on it. "And that's why you mistook him for the Superior. Fascinating. The dark power given to Riku facilitated his escape from the realm of darkness. One with ties to both the Keyblade and the powers of darkness. This merits further research."

Zexion wanted to know why the boy had come at all. "What I want to know is why Riku appeared here in Castle Oblivion." Vexen thought it simple. "Ha! That's simple. His existence resonates with that of another hero. Sora came, so Riku followed." And Sora was already in the castle above them. "Yes, he and his companions arrived earlier. By now that dog Marluxia is already using Naminé to meddle with Sora's heart." Vexen saw an opening. "I don't think Marluxia plans to hand Sora over, but, he can play his little game. If he gets Sora, then we need only acquire Riku. If he truly is like the Superior, then we will be untouchable!" Lexaeus was looking at the door Axel had last gone out of. "Nor is Axel. Who knows what that one is thinking."

Riku went up floor after floor, and every one was somewhere he had been: Traverse Town, Agrabah, the whale, Neverland. On one of them a man in a black coat was waiting, tall, with long pale hair, and he smelled of the thing Riku had found in himself at the bottom of the castle. Riku asked if he was with Ansem. "You are half correct. Let us say that it's not the Ansem you know. He is Ansem and he is not, which is to say he is nobody."

He looked Riku over, fascinated. "He belongs to neither the light nor the dark, but walks the twilight between. As do I. And for that matter." He laughed. "Ha ha, that's right. We have much in common."

"Maybe we do. But so what! Is that an invitation to join your club? Yeah, there's darkness inside me, just like you said. But darkness is my enemy! And you are, too, for making everything around here reek of it!" Vexen seemed delighted. "Oh ho, so it's a fight you want. Very well, a fight you shall get!"

Afterwards he said what the fight had been for. "Ha ha ha. This battle has made it clear. The darkness coursing through you is a tremendous power. All you needed was the right provocation." Riku asked what he had wanted. "Precisely. Your fiery reaction provided just the data I needed. You have my thanks, Riku!" And he was gone.

What was waiting for Riku when he came out of the next world was himself. "What the. What are you supposed to be?" It grinned at him with his own face. "Surprised? I guess you would be. After all, I look just like you. I bet it's not every day you meet your twin. Too shocked to speak? This should come as a relief, then: I'm a replica of you that Vexen made."

Riku called it a fake, and it objected at once. "I didn't say 'fake'! Just because you're real doesn't mean you're better! We share the same body and the same talents. There is one easy way to tell us apart, though. Know what that is? Unlike you, I'm not afraid of anything." Riku's eyes narrowed. "Are you calling me a coward?" It was glad to. "You ARE a coward. You're afraid of the dark! The darkness inside you scares you witless."

"But I'M different. I embrace the darkness. I can make it do whatever I want. In other words, I can wipe the floor with you!" They fought, and Riku beat it, and it laughed off the losing. "Go on, laugh. I'm still new. I'll get stronger and stronger, just you wait. It won't be long before I surpass you. Next time we fight, you're finished!"

Riku called after it. "Hey, FAKE. I thought you were gonna wipe the floor with me." It was already going. "Ha ha ha! It's nice to have darkness on my side. How could you be scared of something so thrilling! You're missing out." Riku went after it. "Sorry, you missed your chance. I'm finishing you first, right here!" It only looked back at him from further off. "So now the coward is playing tough guy. That's cute. See you next time, Real Thing. Try not to miss me."

The shape of Ansem was there again when it had gone. "Fake? Oh, I don't think that's the right word." It seemed to consider the boy who had just run off. "A copy, yes, or maybe a model. He is an example of what you should be. He accepts the darkness, just as you once accepted me. But now you are afraid. Perhaps YOU are the one who is being fake."

"In the card-worlds, you grappled desperately with the darkness. Desperation is a product of fear. You fight the darkness because it frightens you." Riku saw the trick in it. "Oh, I get it. You think I'll stop fighting the darkness just to prove I'm not afraid of it. Nice try. But I'm gonna keep fighting." It clicked its tongue. "Tsk, so stubborn. Then continue your fight, if you must. Eventually, you will see. You cannot resist the dark."

Vexen was waiting for the copy when it came back. "How did it feel to fight the real Riku?" It was contemptuous. "He's spineless. I'll be running circles around him in no time." Vexen had another errand in mind. "Before that, wouldn't you like to meet another hero?" It knew who he meant. "You mean that Sora kid. He's here in the castle, I hear. Want me to take care of him?" Vexen was careful with it. "Nothing's definite, but yes, it may come to that. I intend to make good use of you." It was not worried. "No worries. Sora's just one more person to crush on the way to Riku."

Larxene had plans for it too. "This is your chance to get your hands on the real Riku's memories. All you need is that card and a little help from Naminé. Maybe we'll get her to make you forget you're fake. Better yet, we could remake your heart so you can be just like the real Riku." She turned to Vexen. "Any objections, Vexen? Do you or don't you want to test Sora?" Vexen gave way. "Didn't I say I intended to make good use of you?"

The copy had objections of its own, which was not in its making. "Hey, hold on! What do you mean, remake my heart?! The real Riku's a wimp who can't deal with the darkness inside him. What do I want with the heart of a loser?" When Larxene laughed at it, it went for her. "I'll show YOU hurt!" She put it on the floor without much effort, and explained the arrangement while it was down there. "Stupid little toy! What made you think you could even SCRATCH me? But look on the bright side. Naminé will erase the memory of me knocking you flat along with everything else. She'll implant the loveliest little memories you could ever hope for. So what if they're lies?"

It got up afterwards changed, and what it said was not to her. "Knock it off, Larxene. Naminé wants to forget about Sora." And to the girl, gently, as it went: "Don't worry, Naminé. I'll make whatever's hurting you go away. I swear it on the good luck charm you gave me. I'll be back."

Larxene stayed behind with Naminé and went through the work item by item. "Why so glum, Naminé? Is something on your mind? Feeling bad about tinkering with Sora's memory? Or maybe you." She admired it. "Simply amazing. It's like you completely rebuilt his heart. The good luck charm was an especially nice touch. I didn't know you could use memories to transform objects like cards into keepsakes. Just like you changed Kairi's good luck charm. It won't be long before Sora forgets her completely! And then he'll be yours to." Naminé said something, and Larxene waved it away. "So what? There's your incentive not to screw up. Rewrite Sora's heart, and you can be somebody, not just the shadow of somebody. In Sora's heart, you can be real."

The Island That Wasn't There

Below, Zexion and Lexaeus watched the castle come apart. "He's off using Riku's data to create some kind of replica," Zexion said of Vexen. And of Sora: "Naminé is shuffling his memories even as we speak. Marluxia may well get his puppet. He's a danger to us all. Larxene's not to be trusted, either." Lexaeus saw the difficulty. "But Vexen despises Marluxia. Think of the mess it would create." Zexion was in no hurry. "Let's observe a little longer, then speak with Vexen."

When they next spoke, Lexaeus had news. "Vexen is no more." Zexion had smelled it. "Yes, his scent is gone. It was Axel. You know, it's deplorable. Agents of the Organization striking each other down." Lexaeus looked past it. "The bigger problem is Sora. His strength exceeds Vexen's, and yet surely Naminé has subverted him by now. It's only a matter of time before he ends up Marluxia's puppet." Zexion asked it plainly. "So what do you propose? Shall we destroy Sora before Marluxia secures him?" Lexaeus had another answer. "That won't be necessary. If Marluxia is to hold the light, then we will hold the dark."

Riku had been counting the cards the whole way, and there was one left. "Just one card left. If I get through this, can I finally rid myself of the dark?" Four more floors, and every one somewhere he had been: Wonderland, the Coliseum, Halloween Town, Atlantica.

The big one was waiting for him in the last of them, and Riku knew what he was before he had finished turning round. "That scent. You're another 'nobody.'" Lexaeus measured him. "You've done well to make it this far, Riku. Your reputation is well deserved. But to be scared of the darkness. What a waste." Riku said he was not afraid of it. "I can see that you are. You have the potential to control it. Cast away the fear that weakens you. Unbind your heart, and take hold of the darkness within."

Riku would not, and Lexaeus lifted a great blade the length of a man's arm. "Then you end here, light, darkness, and all! See the power of darkness! I, Lexaeus, will not yield to a frail-hearted craven! Now, end your resistance, and let the darkness in!"

It was the hardest thing Riku had been given so far. When it was over he could barely stand, and he said it through his teeth. "Huff, huff, what's wrong, Lexaeus, is that all, darkness can do?" Lexaeus was going, and he went threatening. "Well, it seems, I am beaten, but the Organization shall triumph! I may perish, but all the darkness within me will billow forth and devour you!"

It did. The dark came off him as he went, and into the room, and into Riku, and something that had been lying quiet in Riku since the islands woke up in it. "I can see. I can see clearly! Riku. I can see your heart." Riku knew the voice. "No, it can't be. Darkness this foul could only belong to one person."

"That's it, remember me. Let me drift into your heart." It was inside him and it was delighted. "Mwa ha ha. You called my name, Riku. You're thinking about me. You're afraid of the darkness I command. Good. The more you think of me, the closer my return draws. And when I awaken. Your heart will be mine!"

The shape of Ansem that had guided him was there too, and it stood back and let him struggle. "His Majesty is not here. You must battle me and the darkness alone!" Riku was going down under it. "Giving up already? Then accept your fate, and accept Ansem as your master!"

Then the king's voice came through the dark. "Riku, fight! Don't let Ansem take you!" And light with it, and the thing inside Riku howled. "Meddlesome king!" It went back down into wherever it had been lying. Riku was on his knees. "Unnh, the king, protected me? Your Majesty, where are you? Please answer! You're with me, aren't you."

He was, or his light was. "Golly, I'm glad I made it in time! That should keep Ansem tied up for a while. Sorry I couldn't come sooner, Riku." Riku asked how he had found him. "This card showed me the way. I was lookin' for the way out of the realm of darkness, and then this card came along. As soon as I picked it up, it showed me your heart, waaay out beyond the darkness. And that's how I tracked you down. I guess the card thought it belonged with you." Then, before he faded: "The power of light should keep Ansem locked up for a while."

Zexion stood alone in the room where the three of them had met. "First Vexen, and now Lexaeus is gone as well. What's to become of the Organization?"

Axel found him there. "Larxene's out of the picture, too. Naminé turned on her. Gee, I wonder who's next?" Zexion looked at him. Axel shrugged it off. "Me? Naah. I already took my pounding from Sora. He thinks I'm done for good. I don't plan on doing a repeat performance anytime soon. No, I think Marluxia's next." Zexion saw what he meant. "You think Sora will win. Because anyone who beats you is unbeatable, is that it?" Axel smiled. "That's the idea. Marluxia plotted to use Sora against the Organization, so it's fitting Sora should be his downfall."

Zexion had lost interest in the other boy. "Then, we won't be needing Riku anymore." Axel looked amused. "Good luck disposing of him. You want to take on someone who wasted Lexaeus?" Zexion did not intend to fight him. "That's not how I do things. Tell me, did you get the data on Riku's home?"

Higher in the castle something large went out, and Riku, who could smell such things now, felt the air change. "Huh? The air has changed. One of the scents has died, a really strong one." Zexion was there to tell him whose it had been. "That was Marluxia, keeper of this castle. Ex-keeper, I should say. The Keyblade master just finished him off." Riku stared. "Keyblade master. You mean Sora! Sora is here?!"

"Would you like to see him? Or should I say, can you face him?" He told Riku what he was, in the order that would hurt most. "Darkness and Ansem's shadow nest within your heart. Aren't you ashamed to face Sora in that state? Sora's fate is to battle the darkness. As the hero of light, he must oppose hosts of the dark, in other words, you. If you don't believe me, then you had best see the truth for yourself."

He went on. "You've been to a number of worlds in your memory before this one. And in those worlds, you met only dark beings. That's all that's left in your heart: dark memories. Your memories of home are gone, each and every one." Riku said something about his friends, and that was the door Zexion had been waiting at. "And who threw away those friends? Maybe it's your own actions that you forgot. You destroyed your home!"

"The islands you grew up on were sundered, scattered. Many hearts were lost to the darkness. Because of what YOU did!" And the last of it: "You hated being an islander, cut off from other worlds. So you opened the door to darkness and destroyed the islands. YOU did that! And now you belong to the darkness. Look at what you are!" He handed Riku a card.

Then the floor was sand and the air was warm and moving, and the place had a shape he did not have to think about to walk in. "I never thought I'd miss the island winds so much. Funny, there was a time I couldn't wait to get off this rock. And now I'm acting all relieved." His friends were on the beach, Tidus and Selphie and Wakka, and they were not moving. "Is that? Hey! What's with you guys? I don't think I've EVER seen the three of you so quiet. What, is there something on my face? Guys?!" They went without answering him.

Then there was one more of them further down the beach, and she went the same way while he was still crossing the sand to her. "Kairi. Hey, Kairi. Don't tell me you. Ah. No, no, NO!" Sora was standing where she had been, and it was Zexion's voice that came out of him. "Yeah, I recognize you. I can see exactly what you've become! Look at you, shrinking away from the light. You're not Riku anymore. You're just a pawn of the darkness. So be it. It's time for you to face the light!"

Riku would not have it. "That's a lie! I remember everyone from the islands! Tidus and Selphie and Wakka. Kairi and Sora, too! They're my. my. They're my friends." The thing wearing Sora's face came at him with light he could not stand in. "Sora?! Stop it, Sora! Don't you recognize me?" And the light closed round him. "I'm. fading. Consumed by the light."

In the light a girl was standing, and she had Kairi's face. "You won't fade. You can't fade. No power can defeat you, not the light, not the dark. So don't run from the light, and don't fear the darkness. Both will make you stronger." She knelt by him. "Especially darkness. Because that power is yours alone. The darkness in your heart is vast and deep, but if you can stare into it unflinching, you'll never know fear again."

"Just be brave. Know that the darkness is there and don't give in. Do that, and you'll gain strength unlike any other. You'll be able to escape the deepest darkness." He got to the end of it for her, without being asked. "And I'll be able to see through the brightest light." She smiled at him. "Follow the darkness, Riku. It'll show you the way to the friends you miss."

Riku stood up. "You know I do. And I will! The darkness, MY darkness, will show me the way! Darkness, awaken!"

He came out of the light knowing exactly who had put him in it, and he had not needed to see anything to know. "You reek of the dark. Even the light can't block out the smell. I followed the darkness right to you." Zexion could not understand it. "Im. Impossible! How did you find me in the light!" Then he recovered himself. "Heh. After all your protests you're still just another darkling." He had seen what Riku was carrying now. "Since when? You were terrified of the dark before."

Riku hit him, and what came out of him was not an argument any more. "Ngaah. Hypocrite!" He fled, and in his fleeing said it to himself. "What, what IS he?! No one's ever worn the darkness the way he does. It's NOT POSSIBLE!"

He got as far as a room where Axel was waiting, with the copy of Riku beside him. Zexion was so frightened that for a moment he took it for the real one. "Waaah! Riku?! Oh. Oh, yes, of course. Vexen's replica. Good thinking. We can use this Riku to defeat the real one. Axel?" But Axel was talking to the copy. "Say, Riku. It must be hard now that you know you're not real. I bet you'd LIKE to be real." The copy looked at him. "Well, you can. All you need is strength that the real Riku doesn't have. Get that, and you can be a new person, your OWN person. Not Riku, not anybody else."

Zexion saw where it was going a second before it went. "No. STOP!!!" Axel only stepped back. "Sorry, Zexy. Saving you doesn't seem half as entertaining as observing Sora and Riku." And the copy took him, all of him, into itself.

It came for Riku with what it had taken, and it had stopped arguing about which of them was real. "Hold it, Real Thing. Well, well. You've changed. Last time we met you were afraid of the darkness, but not anymore." Riku told it who he was, and it laughed at that. "'I'm me,' he says. It must be nice, being real. A fake like me could never get away with saying that. That's right, I'm a phony! The way I look, the way I feel, everything!"

"I thought by finding some new strength I could be someone, someone who's not you! But nothing changes. I'm still just empty! Everything about me is borrowed. As long as you're around, I'll never be anything better than a shadow!" Riku put it down.

It was quiet at the end. "So, this is the end. Figures. But I'm not afraid. Good riddance to an artificial life. I never had a real heart. Even what I'm feeling now is probably fake." And then, as if it had just thought of it: "What happens when someone who's not real dies? Where will my heart go? That is, if it doesn't disappear completely." Riku answered it, and did not hedge. "It'll go somewhere. Probably the same place my heart will go." It almost smiled. "Heh. How original. Oh, well."

The Road to Dawn

The next floor was a town at evening that Riku had never been to. "Where am I now? I don't remember this place. Your Majesty, do you know where we are? Your Majesty?" The king was there, and this time when Riku got to him there was something to get to. "Ha ha, this time you're real. No illusions. I'm so glad you came!" He had to stop and get his breath. "Don't worry, I'm okay. Just really relieved, that's all. I've been alone so long that having someone else around is a little, overwhelming. But how did you get here, Your Majesty? I thought you were really far away."

The shape of Ansem was waiting further into the town, and it had been waiting for him all along. Riku walked up to it and breathed in, and knew. "You're not Ansem. Your scent, it's different. The Ansem in my heart smells darker, more foul. But not you. It's not darkness I smell, it's, something else. I know. You're the one who guided me when this all started. You pretended to be Ansem and gave me the card, to make me face the darkness."

The disguise went, and the man under it did not deny any of it. "You are special. You exist between light and dark. You stand in the twilight. I want you to meet Naminé, then choose." Riku asked him what he was, a Nobody or somebody else. "Nobody, or anybody. It all depends on whether you choose to believe in me or not."

She was in the town too, fair-haired, in white, and she was looking at somebody asleep. She said it as if it were something she had to keep saying to herself. "He won't forget. No matter how much I change his memory, Sora will never forget Kairi. Memories of me will just make his feelings for Kairi stronger. Because. Because I'm her shadow."

Riku saw who was asleep. "Hey! It's Sora! What did you do to him?" She was quick to answer. "Nothing, he's just sleeping. He has to, to get his memory back." Riku understood. "I see. Sora chose to forget about this castle and get back his old memories."

She told him the same choice was his to make, and he could not see why. "It's not about your memories. It's about your darkness. In your heart is darkness, and in that darkness is Ansem. Right now, he's at bay, but eventually he'll awaken, and he'll conquer you when he does. Before that happens, let me lock your heart tight. I can make it so Ansem never escapes."

"The darkness in your heart will be sealed along with your memory. You'll stop remembering the darkness. You can go back to the way you used to be. It's your choice, Riku. So, choose." Riku thought about it. "And what happens to me if I let you do that? Will I forget everything, like Sora? I will, won't I." He looked down at the sleeping boy. "Sora looks like he hasn't got a care in the world. Will I sleep that well?"

Then he went somewhere else with it first, which was his way of taking a moment. "Sora always did as he pleased. It doesn't matter what we were doing, he'd still go off and leave me with all the work. Take the raft we were gonna use to leave the islands. That was all me. I've made up my mind. When this slacker wakes up, I'm gonna tell him off good. I told him to take care of Kairi, and here he is taking a nap! But I can't chew him out if I've been sleeping, too. Keep your lock. I'd rather just finish Ansem off once and for all."

"I'll make that darkness show me the way." And then he understood the rest of it, looking at her. "So that's why you came to me in the light. As Kairi." She did not deny it. "I didn't know. I hoped. I want you to face the darkness, because you're the one who can."

He told her at the door that she had never fooled him, and gave the reason, and it was not one anyone else in the castle could have given. "I knew as soon as I met you. Somehow you, smell the same. Look after Sora."

The man was waiting outside. "And you pushed away slumber and chose to face Ansem." Riku did not care for being steered. "Boy, you really like pushing decisions on other people." The man was untroubled. "It was your answer. I'm just here to watch." He gave Riku one more card. "You choose. Then you need only believe in your choice. That card will draw the darkness inside you out into this world. Finish your business with Ansem." He gave them coats as well, black, like the ones the Organization wore, so that the Organization would not smell them coming.

The king was glad of the choice. "So, you decided not to go to sleep, huh?" And he would be coming. "Don't you worry! Together, we can defeat him!" Riku stopped him. "I'm glad you said that, but I have to face Ansem alone." The king opened his mouth, and Riku went on before he could. "There's no point in doing this if I can't do it on my own. But I have a favor to ask. If Ansem wins, he's going to enslave me. If that happens, I want you to destr."

The king was not listening, and Riku tried again. "Huh? You're not listening. I want you to destroy Ansem and me with." He did not get to the end of that one either. "No can do! I already made my choice. No matter what happens, I'm going to be there to help you. I'm not backing down. Unless you don't believe I'll come through for you." Riku gave in. "It's my choice to believe or not. I know you'd never let me down, Your Majesty." The king grinned. "Same here. You won't lose, not in a million years." He put a hand on Riku's arm. "You'd never let the darkness get the best of you. I'm sure of that."

He found the last room by smell. "Come on out, Ansem. I can smell you." The answer came from where it had been all along. "Riku. Riku. I know you can feel it, Riku, the grip I have on your heart. You've let the darkness in. And all-consuming darkness is what your heart shall become!" Riku was not afraid of him. "Wrong. The truth is. You just really stink."

"The deeper the darkness runs in you, the stronger I become. Controlling your body is an effortless task." It reached for him through the dark, and the king's light stopped it, and it raged. "Graah. You, interfering again!"

Then it made its case, and the case was that the two of them were the same thing and that Riku's refusal was fear. "Oh, I know what you can do. Your skill with darkness has matured. But I do not understand. Why accept darkness and still refuse me? You and I are similar. We both follow where the darkness leads. We exist in the same space, so why deny me? Perhaps some part of your heart still fears the dark?" Riku drew his blade. "Oh, I do. I used all the power you had to give and still lost to Sora. I'm not impressed."

"You're a fool to choose a fight with me. You've been conquered by me once before. You should know what sort of power you face." Riku did not answer. "Very well. Then sink into the dark abyss!"

It fought him with everything it had given him. "Insolent brat!" And Riku finished it. "Ansem! You're finished!" What was left of the voice spent itself on a promise rather than a plea. "Hardly, finished, I gave you, the dark, my shadow, lingers, I will return!"

The king came to him when it was done. "I know you wanted to do this alone, but you don't mind a LITTLE help, right? Let's go, Riku."

In the entrance hall of the castle, Riku said what he had been carrying since the fight ended. It had not entirely worked. "I don't know if I can. It's still there. His scent, it's faint, but not gone. I can't go home until it is. His darkness may still have a hold on me."

The king had been thinking about it the whole way up, and had come somewhere he had not expected to come. "Your darkness belongs to you. Just like your light. Until now, I thought darkness was nothing but bad. But my time with you made me change my mind. You've chosen a road I never thought of. Light and dark, back to back. With you, they mingle in a way no one's ever seen before. I want to see where that road leads. And if it's okay, I want to walk the road with you." Riku did not know what to say. "Wow, Your Majesty, I don't know what to say. Thanks." The king laughed. "Oh, you don't have to call me that, heh heh!"

Outside, where the road divided, the man was waiting, and he put it to Riku one last time. "Will you take the road to light, or the road to darkness?" Riku sighed. "What are you making me choose now?" He did not take long over it. "Neither. I'm taking the middle road." The man thought he understood. "You mean the twilit road to nightfall?"

Riku shook his head. "No. The road to dawn."

They went out of the castle together in the coats they had been given.