Re:coded

The Sora Who Wasn't

After it was all over, back at the castle, Jiminy sat down to put his journal in order, and found under the one line that had been left in it, "Thank Naminé," another line he had not written. "We must return to free them from their torment." He did not know whose torment, or who was to return, and he took it to the King.

The King thought the journal itself might know. He had the whole of it turned into data, every page and everything that had happened on them, a world built out of Jiminy's record, and inside it, to go and find out, he made a Sora out of the same data: a boy who remembered the islands and the first journey and nothing after.

That Sora woke on the islands with the sea going on as usual and strange blocks of corruption lying about the beach, and the King's voice in his ear telling him what they were. A figure in a black coat kept appearing ahead of him and vanishing, world after world, the old worlds of the first journey that were all coming apart at the seams in the same way; he mended each one and never caught up.

When he did, the figure pushed back its hood, and it was Riku. It was not. "I am like the Sora that stands with you. Strictly speaking, I am data in the form of Riku." He was the journal, he said, what was left of it, holding it together. "But, because of these bugs, I could not complete the restoration. Out of all available memories, I was selected to be a vessel to hold them all together."

Sora had a question for him, and it took him a while to get to it. "Oh, yeah. There was something I wanted to ask you, Riku. You said that you and I are 'data', right?" The journal told him it did not matter what they were made of, so long as it helped their friends, and Sora found that that was all he needed.

The journal told him why he had been left to find his own way. "Because I wanted you to grow a little. 'We must return to free them from their torment.' To solve the mystery behind those words, this world needed a keyblade, and a wielder with power."

Then Heartless came into the King's castle, the real one, and when the King and Donald and Goofy and Jiminy had dealt with them, they were not in the castle any more. They were inside the journal. The journal had done it on purpose. "Sink or swim, sorry. The clock was ticking. Inside the journal, the Heartless had already shattered the walls between worlds, and now the wall between the datascape and the real world was under attack from the bugs. I used that to my advantage and called Mickey and the others here to help."

The journal tried to find them a way home, and could not. "It's no use. The path connecting the data to reality has been taken away." Somebody else had come in after them. The King saw her first. "Maleficent. I didn't expect you to be here, in the data world." And Pete was with her, pleased to see him. "Gwahahahaha! Been a long time."

Maleficent meant to have the world she found, and she did not waste words on Sora. "I will not allow anyone to interfere with my plans. Allow me to introduce myself. With this!" The spell hit the Keyblade in his hand, and it crumbled. "In the end, it is only dust. And now, this world is ours!" Sora held out his hand for it, and nothing came. "Huh? What?" He held out his hand again. "My Keyblade won't appear?"

The journal stood against her. "The worlds. I won't let you have them!" Maleficent had a use for him. "However, because of your interference, the worlds are still much too bright. That is why this time, I will make sure you stay asleep!" The corruption closed on him in front of Sora. "Sora! Don't come any closer! Argh!" And he was gone, with her. Sora could not believe it. "Riku! Ugh, it can't be."

Donald saw what it meant. "Now all of the data could get turned into darkness." The King saw it too. "Riku's body was taken over by the bugs. So that means. Oh! If we don't get rid of these bugs, Riku might never wake up!"

Sora set out without a Keyblade, into the data of the town that had been called Hollow Bastion, on foot. "Even if I don't have my Keyblade, there's gotta be something I can do. At the very least, I've got to help Riku." Pete had left traps. "Pete said he set up some traps, didn't he? I've got to keep my eyes open." The Heartless came at him and he had nothing to fight them with. "Argh, if only I had my Keyblade, these guys would be nothing. No, even without it, I still have to try!"

Goofy found him. He had been told to wait at the castle, and had not. "His Highness said to wait at the castle. Should've figured this would happen." He had lost Donald on the way. "By the way, have you seen Donald? We were on our way here together, but we got separated." And there was Donald. "Sora! Goofy! Where have you been? Try not to get lost so often!"

Sora had never met them. He knew them anyway, the way he knew the islands. He apologised to them for the Keyblade. "Sorry. If only I hadn't gotten my keyblade broken, none of this would have happened. I'm so sorry for causing so much trouble for everybody." Donald told him the truth. "Well, all this time, all we could do was watch you from the outside, Sora. The truth is, we really wanted to go on another journey with you, the sooner the better." Sora laughed. "Hehe, it's just that with you two around, I feel like we can accomplish anything. Even though I have no memory of it, I get the feeling we've fought together like this, before."

Pete found the three of them, and had no time for Sora. "I'm busy getting the Puppet ready. You stay here and play with these guys!" He told Sora what he was: data, a copy, with nothing in him. Donald would not have it. "He's not artificial! In every kind of world, Sora is still Sora!" And Goofy said why they knew. "He even said he'd fight with us! His feelings, they're so deep, and so happy! That's how. that's how we know for sure! Sora has a heart, and it's inside of us!"

Sora put his hands over his ears. "Stop. Stop it." And the Keyblade came back into his hand, a real one this time, tied to his heart and not to whatever had made him. Pete stared at it. "What's going on here!? I thought Maleficent destroyed that thing." Sora went for him. "You're not getting away again." Pete had one thing left to try. "Hmph. You just won't stop getting in my way, will ya!? I guess I got no choice but to show you what I can really do!"

What Pete could really do was the journal, bound in corruption and fighting for him. "I turned him into my Puppet, that's what! Data is such a handy thing, isn't it. I got those bugs inside of him. Come on, Puppet, listen up. I want ya to smash him good!" Sora called to him. "Riku! Riku. Can't you hear our voices anymore?" He could not. They fought him and beat him, and he fell. "Ugh. Defeat."

The corruption was still in him, and the only way to get it out was to go into his data and fight it there. Goofy said they would help any way they could. "A-hyuck. We'll help you out any way we can." Sora had already decided. "Whatever the danger, I can't leave my friend like this. I'm gonna save him, and everybody else!"

Inside, what was left of the journal met him, and warned him off. "You shouldn't be here. I can fight the bugs a little longer. but they're spreading. Pretty soon they'll take over all my data. You feel weak right? It's because the bugs have stolen your data. You won't last long in here." It told him what it was. "To be precise, I'm the last of my consciousness, partitioned off from the rest of my data. It looks like the bugs inside me stole your power away from you. The bugs have already infiltrated this part of me. Take this and get out of here right away."

Sora asked how he could save him. "You know it. Now, how do I save you, Riku?" The journal told him to get his own strength back first. "You should take care of your power, first. Leave the source of the bugs until you finish getting it back. The bugs are corrupting everything. Take care of yourself." And it thanked him. "Sora! Thank you. I'll see you on the other side."

When he came out, Maleficent was waiting, and she had become a dragon. "Maleficent! I can't let you get away with this!" She told him the darkness was a kindness. "Our plan is not yet complete. Also. You are mistaken about the Darkness. The world would be happier engulfed in it." And she ended the talking. "Hmph. There is no use in speaking any further. Since it has come to this, I will render you incapable of movement!" He beat her.

The journal was free, and it opened the way home. "As promised, the path to the real world has opened. You can go home to the real world, Mickey." The King and Donald and Goofy went back through it, and Sora waved them off. "We will. See you!"

The Hurt

The King's voice came back into the journal from outside. The journal answered it. "Can everybody hear me? It looks like you made it home safely." Jiminy wanted to know what had become of his record. "The record of our first journey is back to its original state. The corruption of the bugs is gone, and all that's left is what I wrote. Right?"

The journal told them the price of that. "Right. Everything you recorded during the first journey is back. Everything else. will be reset. That means, everything we did to fight off the bugs. The memories that Sora and I made in this world of data. All of that will be erased." Goofy understood it before anyone else. "That means. You and Sora will forget all about meeting us and everything we ever said to each other!?"

The journal did not pretend otherwise. "Well, that's the thing. Sora and me will also be reset. We won't remember any of this. After all, there's no mention in the journal of the fight to repair the bugs." Goofy said the other thing that nobody had solved. "Gawrsh. We never did find out about that mysterious message."

Then the journal shouted. "No! Sora, you've got to escape, right now! Someone's trying to close the road back to the outside world! Hurry or you'll be trapped in here!" Something was growing in the data where all the Heartless Sora had ever beaten had gone. The journal knew what it was. "Yeah. I figured out the truth behind the bugs. This thing is the shadow of your existence. Sora, this is your Heartless."

It had eaten all the darkness he had ever defeated. "No, they were devoured by this thing! This monster drew all the Heartless you defeated into Darkness. It devoured the Darkness data and it's trying to change itself into something new. Just like you did, getting stronger as you made your way on this journey." The journal asked if he was afraid. "Aren't you afraid? We're not just talking about losing some memories here. We could get erased. This whole world could get erased!"

Sora was not going to run. "I'm going to protect them. I'll do it with the power they gave me!" The journal left it to him. "I'm counting on you, Sora." And while he fought, the King's voice came in from outside. "I thought you'd already know. You and I, we're friends, Sora. So, remember. You're not fighting this battle all by yourself. The light that never goes out, even in the deepest darkness. You already have that light within you!"

Jiminy remembered something in the middle of it. "I've just remembered something important! Maleficent and Pete are still inside the data! They're going to be deleted, too!" Sora got to them in time. "Pete! Maleficent! Good! Are you alright?" Maleficent did not care to be rescued. "What is this? I do not take orders from the likes of you!" Pete thought she should, this once. "But Maleficent! We really oughta listen, just this once." She would not thank him. "Hmph. I will not be thanking you. This merely makes us even." And Pete was done with the place. "I'm tired of this place. See ya. We're gettin' out of here."

There was one more place in the journal, a white castle of long corridors that Jiminy's record held only the outline of, and the journal was waiting in it. "I've got something you need to see. A hidden truth that isn't part of the memories. I want you to see it. And I want you to feel it."

It showed him something he had never seen, and asked him about it. "Darkness had taken ahold of my heart, and Kairi had lost hers completely. But at the end of your journey, Sora, you would have saved us. Now, what did me and Kairi have in common? When you watched, what did you feel? It was 'hurt'. We had both lost ourselves, and we were hurting. So what would you have done?"

Then it told him why. "I just wanted you to see you always make the right choices. On the road ahead, more than one truth will come to light. You'll forget things, lose things that you care about, and it won't always make sense. It may hurt so bad you'll feel like you're about to lose yourself. But you won't. Not you. You're like a sponge. No matter how much pain they throw at you, you'll suck it up, squeeze it out, and leave things a little better. Just follow your heart, and you can change lives. You don't do anything special. Just do what you do."

In the same castle a boy in a black coat with his hood up met him and gave him a card. Sora asked who he was. "Me? I'm nobody. In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find. That's the way of things in Castle Oblivion." Each card opened a world, and in each world Sora met people and helped them, and each time he came out he could not remember who they had been.

When the last card was used, the boy in the hood was waiting for him. "The sadness of knowing you forgot someone who matters, that'll gnaw at you forever. And you believe carrying around that kind of hurt will bring back the memories you lost? Really, Sora?" He had been playing with him all along. "I told you when you arrived. In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find. Well, you've lost your memories and found hurt in return."

He offered Sora a way out of it. "It's not too late to run. You can still be free of the hurt. Just tell yourself you forgot them because they don't really matter. You'll have no one to miss. No cause for loneliness. No hurt to keep eating away at your heart." Sora would not. He would keep the hurt, he said, if the hurt was what was left of them. The boy laughed at him. "You. accept it? Heh! Don't make me laugh! It's time you learned what real hurt feels like!"

Sora beat him, and stood over him, and did not strike. The boy understood. "Come on, Sora. Do it! Finish me off. What are you. Ah! Hmm. I guess you've seen through the last illusion." He took the hood off. He had fair hair and blue eyes, and he was Roxas, or the journal's record of him. "Me. I'm data, just like the rest. Not even worth the effort, right? No point in destroying what never really existed."

Sora said something about it not being all that bad, and Roxas gave up. "'Can't be all that bad'? Heh, I give up. Here. You pass, Sora. You understand hurt. Now, use this to find the truth." He told Sora what he had been for. "My role was to see if you were ready to take ownership of the hurt inside you. And now that role is done. Nothing left for me to do but. go away."

Sora asked him if he had a home to go back to. "I don't know if I have one, but. there's a place I'd like to be." Sora asked where. Roxas smiled. "Summer vacation." Then he was gone into Sora.

The Truth Behind the Keyblade

At the heart of the castle a girl in white was waiting for Sora and the King, a girl Sora had never seen and felt he knew. "Who are you? It's just like when I met Mickey. I don't know you, but you seem familiar?" She smiled at him. "Nice to meet you. My name is Naminé. You don't know me, but I know you."

The King explained her to him. "Sora, let me explain. Once upon a time, you lost all of your memories. This girl was the one who helped you recover them." Naminé would not take the credit. "No, you really don't. It's true I put your scattered memories back together, but I'm also the one who took them apart in the first place. Not only that, the bugs that appeared in Jiminy's journal. those were my fault, too."

She had found memories in Sora's heart, when she was mending it, that did not belong to him, and she had been afraid of them. "These memories are too painful. Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora's heart. even break it. I needed you to find a way to face that kind of hurt. That's why I left the message." And the bugs had been part of it. "No. that was me. When I added these memories to the journal, I added 'hurt.' I thought that. maybe if you fought the bugs that sprung from these memories, you might learn to face the hurt in the memories themselves."

She told Sora what he had learned. "Some people think pain is something you can just wipe away. and sometimes, maybe, you can. But not all pain can be erased. The only way to deal with it is to accept it head-on. And if the hurt is too great for you to bear it alone. well, then you turn to a friend close to your heart."

She held out a light for them to touch, and the memories in it went into them. The first were of a boy with fair hair and a man with red hair, on a clock tower at sunset. "These are hidden truths that Sora has been keeping locked away deep inside him. Remember, these memories aren't his."

Then three more, and the King knew them. Naminé saw his face. "Mickey, maybe you know how much they're hurting. These three were keys, too. They were connected to the truth behind the Keyblade." She turned to Sora. "And, they're still connected, Sora, somewhere way down deep inside of you."

Sora asked if he had met them. "Yes, two of them, you have met. As for the third. I never realized it, but. you and he share a very special connection." The King asked what could be done for them. "I can't say for sure. But I do know a day will come when they must rise from their sleep. And then, the only one who can save them. will be Sora."

Sora had one more thing to ask her, and asked it as if he already knew. "Naminé, you made a promise with the other me, that I don't know, and you kept it, right?" She had. "I may be gone, but my promises to him are forever. And anyway. I owe this much. For all the. all those people that I hurt."

She was fading, and she told them what she was. "I'm really just data made to pass along a message. I shouldn't. exist right now in this journal at all. And now, the record of me will disappear. But when you pass my message on to the other Sora, just remember to tell him the things that you've seen. and that you've felt. If you do that, then we'll be at rest. her, and me too."

Sora stopped her before she went. "Oh, and. There's one more thing I have to tell you, Naminé. Thank you."

When the journal was mended there was nothing left for the King to do but go home, and this Sora could not come. He would be reset with the rest of it, and would not remember any of them. He did not like the feeling, and said so, and the King told him what it was. "No, Sora. That's how it feels to say goodbye. Since meeting you here in the data world, I've come to remember a lot of things. Things about the first time I left home to go on an adventure. About the first time I made friends, long ago. This all brought back so many memories."

The King looked at the boy who would not remember him. "And now I understand. The notebook didn't only contain the record of your journey. It also held everything that each of us felt. Our hearts. I promise you. We will tell everything that happened here to Sora and Riku. That way, we can all remember this adventure, together. Memories link hearts to each other. They link us to each other. So. we'll be friends forever."

Goofy said it too. "Even if Sora doesn't know us, we know him. You're important to us, Sora." And Donald, going, called back the thing he wanted this Sora to keep for as long as he could. "Quaack! That's right! Sora, we went on an adventure together!"

Back in the castle, Jiminy said it plainly. "Sora lost all his memories of his adventure in the data world. That means the Sora in the data world is the Sora that hasn't met us yet."

The King wrote a letter, and put it in a bottle, for the three of them on the islands. "Sora, Riku, Kairi. The truth about the Keyblade is connected to you in many ways. It was in your hearts all along. Sora, everybody connected to you is waiting for you. You are the only one who can relieve their sadness. It could be that your journeys so far were only a warm-up for the next one. Everything you thought was a coincidence is turning out to have a connection. The door to a new journey is just about to open."

Then he went to see his old teacher, with what the journal had given him. "Yen Sid, I think we're finally close to figuring out where Ven's heart is." Yen Sid thought about it. "Is that so? Then that leaves only Terra." The King meant to find all of them. "Right. And we've gotta save all three of them." Yen Sid was looking further ahead. "Hmm. The question is: What does Xehanort intend to do next?"

The King did not understand. "Xehanort? But his two halves are gone. There was Ansem, who commanded the Heartless. and Xemnas, who commanded the Nobodies. Didn't Sora defeat them both?" Yen Sid explained the trouble with that. "Correct, those two met their end. However, therein lies exactly our problem. Their destruction now guarantees the original Xehanort's reconstruction."

"Xehanort's heart, once seized by his Heartless half, is now free. And his body, which had become his Nobody, has been vanquished. Both halves will now be returned to the whole. In short. this means Master Xehanort will return." The King asked if he thought Xehanort would try something. "And you think. you think that maybe he's gonna try something?" Yen Sid was sure of it. "A man like Xehanort will have left many roads open."

The King was not worried. "Well, it doesn't matter what he cooks up. Me and Sora, we'll be ready, and Riku, too!" Yen Sid was not so sure about the other two. "Yes, they are indeed strong. But. not true Keyblade Masters, like you." The King asked what he meant. "What? What do you mean?" Yen Sid asked him a question back. "Tell me. would a single one of you suffice if what you faced was not a single one of him?"

Then he told the King to send for them. "Mickey, please summon Sora hither. Riku as well." The King asked why. "Of course, but. why?" Yen Sid told him. "To show us the Mark of Mastery."