Kingdom Hearts 358-2 Days

by Tomoco Kanemaki

  In fact, Roxas knew how many days it had been because he’d been rereading all his reports.

  Axel stared at him as if trying to figure something out and then grinned. “Right, that first week you could barely form a sentence. But come on, you’re still kind of a zombie.”

  “Oh, thanks!” Roxas huffed, and they laughed.

  Then they fell quiet and watched the sunset.

  Sitting in silence with anyone else would be unbearably awkward, Roxas thought, but with Axel and Xion, he didn’t mind. It was nice, actually, sitting side by side and not saying anything. Because they were inseparable. It gave him the feeling that whether they were together or not, whether they talked or not, everything would be fine.

  “Hey, Roxas…”

  “Hmm?”

  Axel’s face was limned with the sunset’s glow, his red hair shining crimson.

  “Bet you don’t know why the sun sets red.” He eyed Roxas mischievously. “You see, light is made up of lots of colors. And out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest.”

  He finished with a boastful grin.

  “Like I asked! Know-it-all,” Roxas retorted, and Axel let out a low laugh.

  Axel wasn’t quite himself today, though Roxas couldn’t have said exactly what had changed about him. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing. Roxas laughed, too.

  He hoped Xion would get here soon.

  “Seriously, where is she?” Roxas thought aloud.

  “Roxas… I’m not sure she’s gonna show today,” said Axel.

  That was alarming. “Did she collapse again?”

  Xion hadn’t looked well for a while. What was wrong with her…?

  “…Oh, didn’t you hear?” said Axel. “She got sent on a really important mission. Pretty cool, huh?”

  The way he said it didn’t quite sound natural. Like maybe he was trying to keep Roxas from worrying.

  “Oh…” Roxas sighed. “So when’s she coming back?”

  “Well, I guess that depends on how well she does her job, right?”

  “Fair enough…” Roxas looked out at the red sky and bit into his ice cream. “I hope we get a day off soon…so the three of us can go to the beach.”

  They’d promised her, after all.

  The last rays of the sun cast him in their brilliant red hues.

  Xion — Seven Days

  HOW MANY DAYS HAD IT BEEN SINCE HE WAS LAST SUMMONED to the Round Room?

  Roxas sat in his usual seat, waiting for Xemnas’s arrival. Half of the other twelve seats were empty. Axel’s arms were folded sullenly. Xion wasn’t here yet.

  It occurred to Roxas that there was no seat for Xion. Maybe she would take one of the empty ones. Whose would she inherit?

  The air trembled, and Xemnas appeared.

  But Xion still isn’t here, Roxas thought.

  Xemnas was already speaking. “Xion is gone.”

  Roxas stared at him in shock. The other members of the Organization looked startled as well.

  But…what happened to Xion?

  “What?! Whoa, whoa, time out…” Demyx hunched his shoulders. “You mean she, like, flew the coop?”

  “Preposterous,” said Xaldin. “What would drive her to choose her own demise?”

  Xion would never desert. She must have some other reason. Or what if she met the impostor in the Organization cloak again and something happened to her…?

  What then…? The thoughts spun in Roxas’s mind, dizzying.

  Xemnas interrupted them. “No one is to go looking for Xion.”

  “Why not?!” Roxas was immediately on the defensive. But why wouldn’t they want to find Xion?

  Xemnas briefly glanced at him but offered no answers.

  Saïx spoke instead. “Your ‘friend’ will be left alone. Or would you rather we find some punishment?”

  “I’d rather you get her back!” Roxas shouted.

  “And why would we do that?” Saïx challenged.

  Roxas didn’t know how to answer that cold, flat question.

  He just wanted things to keep being the way they were. But Saïx wouldn’t understand that.

  As Roxas hesitated, Xemnas turned to him slowly, almost admonishing. “All will be revealed when the time comes.”

  Axel finally stopped sulking with his arms crossed and looked up. “Which means, if the time doesn’t come, things can stay as they are.”

  Saïx glared at him. “Lord Xemnas has spoken. Obey or face your end.”

  After Saïx’s warning on his behalf, Xemnas vanished from the room. The others followed suit.

  Soon, only Roxas and Axel remained.

  “Axel…?”

  “Time to get to work.”

  Roxas tried to bring up the question of Xion, but Axel promptly cut him off and disappeared in a swirl of darkness.

  Why did the others think this was okay…?

  Xion had been out of sorts for a while now. But now that he thought about it…so had Axel.

  Roxas was starting to suspect everyone else knew something about Xion that he didn’t.

  He slumped, staring at the middle of the floor. That was where he’d first seen Xion.

  He tried to remember the look in her eyes back then, but he couldn’t. It felt like so long ago.

  Today makes 256 days since I joined Organization XIII. I know because I just counted today. And Xion came on my seventh day, so it must be 249 for her.

  Roxas took a breath and let it out in a sigh before he created a portal back to his room. Axel must have done the same.

  Chapter 1

  Island of Memories

  THE WHITE ROOM HERE REMINDED HIM OF CASTLE OBLIVION, Riku thought as he settled into the chair.

  This was no castle at all but a place outside Twilight Town known as the haunted mansion. Across the table sat a girl with flaxen hair.

  Her name was Naminé.

  And the name of the dark-haired sleeping girl was Xion.

  The two had one other thing in common besides their faces—they had both worked with Organization XIII.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” said Naminé.

  “You made me a promise,” Riku said expectantly.

  “To look after Sora. I remember.” Naminé’s gaze dropped, falling on her sketchbook. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry… I’m not sure I’ve kept that promise very well.”

  “What happened?”

  She couldn’t meet Riku’s eyes. “Some of Sora’s memories are missing.”

  “Look after Sora.”

  That was what Riku had asked her to do, months ago in Castle Oblivion, and she’d promised she would. To undo what had happened to Sora in Castle Oblivion, take apart his rearranged memories and line the pieces up again—it was a special task, one that only a memory witch like Naminé could undertake.

  Memories don’t disappear, she had explained to Riku. It would take time to put them in order, but Sora would go back to the way he was.

  “How can that be?” Riku demanded.

  What would happen to Sora if he didn’t have all his memories?

  “They’re escaping through Sora’s Nobody into a third person…,” Naminé murmured, as if to herself, and then she finally looked up at Riku. Her voice rose as she laid out the problem. “And now they’re starting to become a part of her.”

  Her. Xion.

  At the moment, Xion was asleep somewhere else. They didn’t know yet whether she’d fainted due to the influx of Sora’s memories.

  “You mean you can’t get the memories back out?” said Riku.

  “If they’re still separate, I think I can…” Naminé looked down again. “But if they join with her memories, things get a lot more complicated. I would need to untangle her memory before I could finish Sora’s… What should have taken months might take years. DiZ would be furious.”

  She was staring at the drawing in her sketchbook. Riku couldn’t quite see it.

  “So what’s the solution?” he asked.

/>   “If I just try to jump in and rearrange her memory, then I risk Sora waking up to find that nobody remembers him anymore. I can’t do that to him. There are false memories from Castle Oblivion, Sora’s own memories, and other memories all tangled inside her. I’m losing track of which ones are real.”

  Their first priority was to help Sora awaken intact. But they might have to sacrifice everything else in the process.

  Was there really no other way? Must two others, with their own memories and personalities, be entirely lost for Sora’s sake?

  DiZ would say that Nobodies had no identity. But having seen Xion’s face, Naminé didn’t want to condemn her to such a fate.

  “Either way, it’s too late,” she went on. “We’ll have to delay Sora’s awakening significantly. I never imagined Sora’s Nobody and the other one would fight so hard to be their own people. Unfortunately, the only real solution…is for them both to go away.”

  She let Riku see her sketchbook.

  The drawing depicted three figures in Organization cloaks. That red-haired man had just been in Castle Oblivion the other day. The blond boy was Sora’s Nobody, the one Riku had yet to meet, and the girl with black hair was Xion.

  “Did you know her face was blank at first?” Naminé said. “Only now can you see it.”

  Riku was about to ask what that meant when she continued.

  “That proves some of Sora’s memories are inside her. Sora’s memories, Sora’s Nobody’s memories, and her memories… They’re all a jumbled mess now. And to put them back into one… I’m afraid there’s no other way.” Naminé trailed off.

  At this point, they were out of options. Still…

  “All right, then.” Riku stood and left the room without another word.

  She didn’t know when she’d fainted, but she woke somewhere very quiet—quiet and somehow lonely. Xion sat up and shook her head, though not too hard. No one was with her.

  I think… Oh, that’s right. I fainted in Castle Oblivion. Where I learned what I am.

  What I truly am.

  I…was never me. I was no one at all.

  But who does that make me now?

  And then—Xion knew where she was. She remembered.

  This was Hollow Bastion, the world where Sora had to fight his best friend. And this little room was where Riku had lived while under Maleficent’s sway.

  I remember it all. I remember what happened that day when I first came here. Riku, Sora, everything.

  Xion climbed out of the bed and left the room.

  Hey…so where should I go now, do you think?

  Day number 257. Two days since Xion went missing.

  Day number 258. Three days since Xion went missing.

  He felt like he had to do something, but he had no idea what.

  Roxas sat on the tower ledge, hugging his knees. He hadn’t brought any ice cream today. Axel was not here.

  Maybe Axel was avoiding him.

  Roxas didn’t know why he would, but if wasn’t coming to meet him at a time like this…there was only one explanation.

  I didn’t hear anything about Xion leaving the Organization. Maybe she confided in Axel? I should ask him about it. But…I’m afraid to. I can’t even get up the courage to go to his room.

  Why am I scared to talk to my friend?

  The days rolled by, and Roxas still didn’t know what to do.

  It was his 262nd day. Xion had been missing for a week. The haze never lifted. It was all he could do to count the days—after completing a mission he could barely recall anything from it. He felt so detached. His thoughts ran in circles, and his nights were restless with dreaming.

  Though, of course, he couldn’t remember anything once he woke up.

  And the dreams weren’t all he was forgetting, he knew. His waking experiences were going right out of his head, too.

  There was probably something wrong with him. But what? Xion was gone, and he couldn’t talk to Axel. Without them, he was lost.

  He had such vivid dreams that the lines between dreams and reality were starting to blur. Sometimes he got the feeling that maybe everything was a dream.

  Did he feel spacey all the time because he didn’t sleep well? Or was he not sleeping well because he spent all day vacantly going through the motions? He was so tired, even on missions. No, not tired exactly—more like there was a thick fog over his mind. Like he was stuck in a hazy twilight.

  In the Round Room sat the usual three—Xemnas, Xigbar, and Saïx.

  “While Xion is gone, we must further reinforce Roxas’s memories,” said Xemnas.

  “Preparations are already complete, sir,” Saïx replied.

  Xigbar snorted. “Hey, how do you see Xion?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re asking.” The words were evasive, but as long as the intent behind them was clear, that was enough, in Saïx’s opinion.

  Xigbar only smirked and turned to Xemnas. “That works fine for me. What about you?”

  Xemnas stared back.

  “Just wondering if you ever see our Poppet like I do,” Xigbar said with a shrug.

  Xemnas’s answer was a burst of laughter. Saïx wasn’t sure if that meant yes or no.

  “Watch Roxas. Don’t take your eyes off him.”

  With that, Xemnas vanished.

  “Well, good luck with that,” Xigbar remarked to Saïx before disappearing.

  But what had Xigbar meant before…?

  Riku trailed Xion as she drifted aimlessly through world after world, and eventually she came to an achingly familiar place.

  He felt his heartbeat quicken, just a little, as the salt air filled his nose. The sound of the waves, the blue sea, the blue sky… A year ago, he’d abandoned this place. He didn’t imagine coming home like this, without even preparing himself for it.

  Xion meandered along the water’s edge where the waves lapped. Riku turned his gaze on the horizon. This beach was his home—Destiny Islands.

  “You destroyed your home!”

  Zexion’s accusation from Castle Oblivion echoed in the back of his mind.

  Riku had been home once, if the fake Destiny Islands counted. He’d met Wakka and Selphie and Tidus there. Kairi too, of course, and Naminé. But none of them were real, only phantoms made of his memories.

  His head throbbed slightly, and he rubbed his temples.

  As if she noticed someone was there, Xion turned, and when he saw her face—

  Pain shot through his head. The wave at Xion’s feet receded, revealing a seashell there on the wet sand. A thalassa shell.

  “So even if one of us gets lost, we’ll make it back here safe and sound.”

  It was a good luck charm, to protect them on their journey.

  Xion picked up the seashell. Then she sensed someone else and turned. “Roxas!” she yelped quietly.

  She took a step toward the third person, then hesitated and hid behind a rock.

  A boy wearing the same black cloak had emerged on the seashore—Roxas, Sora’s Nobody.

  Riku peered at him, but he couldn’t quite tell from here how closely he resembled Sora.

  Roxas picked up the seashell Xion had dropped.

  She let out a muffled cry and clutched at her head.

  “Xion…?”

  As if in slow motion, she collapsed to the sand. Riku instantly ran to her and scooped her up.

  I woke him up when I called to him. Or…was I the one who awoke?

  That girl used to sit here, at the edge of the island. I came because I remembered talking to someone here, too, but I don’t understand. Was I the boy? Or was that someone else?

  Who was I?

  I want to sit on the edge of the island, the three of us together, and watch the sun sinking into the sea…

  We promised… We’d go to the beach.

  Don’t forget, okay, Roxas?

  His mission today was recon in another new world. A place he’d never been, a world he’d never seen.

  Usually he didn’t mind explorin
g unfamiliar places, but now he wasn’t sure about that, either.

  He stepped out of the Corridors of Darkness, squinting at the world that opened up before him. A shining blue ocean, a clear bright sky. This place was called…Destiny Islands.

  It feels strange here somehow, Roxas thought as he walked along the wet sand where the waves rushed in and out.

  His toe hit something—a seashell. It looked like the ones Xion had brought him.

  Had she been here, too…?

  The beach… Maybe this was the one Xion was talking about when they said they should all go together.

  Then he saw a figure on the bridge connecting to a little islet off to his left.

  A figure in black—a black cloak.

  Xion?

  Roxas took off at a run, calling her name across the sand. “Xion!”

  Her hood still up, Xion turned and pushed it back, revealing—Zexion.

  But how? Hadn’t he been terminated? Why was he here?

  “Surely you knew this would happen.”

  “Why would I know that?!” demanded another voice.

  Roxas turned to see an unfamiliar silver-haired boy.

  Zexion was talking to him. “You’ve been to a number of worlds in your memory before this one. And in those worlds, you met only dark beings.”

  Roxas’s head ached so fiercely he wondered if it would shatter.

  The silver-haired boy glared at Zexion.

  “That’s all that is left in your heart—dark memories,” said Zexion. “Your memories of home are gone.”

  “That’s a lie! I remember everyone from the islands!” the other boy cried. “They’re my… My best friends…”

  No— Who was that? Who shouted just now?

  Was it me?

  Or Xion…?

  “And who cast aside those friends?” asked Zexion.

  I’d never abandon my friends.

  “Have you forgotten what you yourself have done?”

  No. I didn’t forget.

  “You destroyed your home!”

  I did not—!!

  But he didn’t know. Maybe he had.

  My home… Where am I from? Do I have a home?