Bonds of Misery

Author: Cold Silence

E-Mail: writer.coldsilence@gmail.com

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts, Ai no Kusabi

Pairings: Multiple pairings all involving Sora. Given which fandoms are being crossed over, you might be able to guess why!

Warnings: Post DLC scenario. Non-consensual / rape situations, underage characters, child abuse. Very dark content, read at your own risk.

Special Note: I’m so excited to write this story. This will be my first foray into sci-fi content, as well as doing a canon-compliant crossover fic. Hopefully it doesn’t take me ten years to finish it!

Bonds of Misery

-Chapter Ten; For the Children-

        It matters who chooses you.

        Sora opened his eyes. He found himself staring up at an endless, breathtaking blue sky. It perfectly mirrored the calm, ankle deep water that he was laying in. Once again, he was dreaming of the Final World. This happened so often that he wondered if a part of him was longing to be here.

        He wasn’t alone. Vanitas was sitting next to him with one of his legs folded up. The tranquil world was reflected inversely on his black visor, which turned aqua to violet and white to gray.

        The words of his companion were met with quiet contemplation. He surmised from their shared memories that he spoke of the difference of his life from his counterpart: Whereas Ventus was taken in by people who cared and loved him, Vanitas had to live with Xehanort and his cruel machinations.

        “You’re stuck with me now,” said Sora with a light smile. As strange as this situation was, he felt comfortable. His limbs and eyes were heavy, and he wanted nothing more than to drift to sleep next to his former enemy.

        Vanitas turned his head to regard the lazy keyblade wielder. “How did you make it feel that way?” he asked in a quick change of topic.

        “Huh?” answered Sora in drifting tone.

        “With that guy earlier,” pressed Vanitas.

        “That guy? Oh. You must mean Riki.” Sora closed his eyes fully. “I forgot that you were around for that. That’s embarrassing.”

        Not a sound came from the water as Vanitas moved. He leaned over the brunette in a way that invaded his space and caused ripples to move away from their bodies. “Do it with me the way that you did it to him,” he demanded.

        That caused Sora to open his eyes again. He squinted up at the person looming over him, as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle. “Take off your helmet,” he said after a pause.

        At first, it seemed that Vanitas wasn’t going to do anything, but eventually he reached up and detached the visor from the chin guard. His revealed face was etched with a serious expression and fierce gold eyes.

        Sora looked deeply into that visage. He couldn’t tell if Vanitas was angry, sad, curious or wanting. Despite the fact that they had a similar appearance, he couldn’t read the motive behind the facade. “You know my rules,” he said neutrally.

        Vanitas grumbled with disgust. “I don’t kiss.”

        “Then we’re not doing it,” said Sora as he began to drift off again.

        “Hey, I’m not done with you yet!” Vanitas grasped Sora’s neck with his hands. Despite the physical threat, there was no response from the other boy. He rattled the other’s head back and forth in an attempt to keep him conscious. “This idea of yours is dumb,” he said in another fast topic change. “You won’t make it out of that lab alive.”

        “Just kiss me,” slurred Sora.

        “Get it together you dingbat,” said Vanitas in a louder voice. “They’re stealing your jizz. Do you want more people with your face running around? You need to wake up.”

        Sora chuckled as if Vanitas had just said something funny, and his head lolled to the side.

        “Wake up you piece of shit!” Vanitas was now yelling at the top of his lungs. The water around them was becoming more and more agitated as he shook Sora’s body by the shoulders. “You need to bite down. Now!”

        There was no response, so Vanitas leaned down and sank his teeth into Sora’s bottom lip.

{{———————————————–}}

        A burst of flavor flooded Sora’s palate as he clenched his jaw. All the lethargy that he was feeling was suddenly lifted away like a heavy blanket being ripped from his body. His eyes slammed open as the potion worked its magic.

        He found himself in a place that was entirely too white. There were white walls, white-haired men in white lab coats, white machinery with blinking lights and a white tilt table that he was currently strapped to. To his horror, there was even a white hose with a silicon cup firmly attached to his genitals. Someone had pulled down his white shorts and hooked him to this thing like a cow about to be milked.

        Everyone was too busy with their duties to notice that he had just woken up. The biometrics on their computer screens indicated that he was still completely sedated, thanks to Data Sora’s interference. He glanced at his right wrist and bit back a strangled sound when he saw that the D-ring was still there. Thankfully it was in an inert state, but now what? He couldn’t make a break for it until Raoul took it off.

        As if on cue, an automatic door opened and the forementioned blondie entered the premises. There was an immediate change in the atmosphere - the technicians stopped what they were doing to bow in greeting, and several moved to the side to grant room for the tall man to walk through.

        Sora slammed his eyes shut. He only caught a glimpse of the black clad Darkmen who were flanking Raoul’s arrival. They were probably the security detail that Ray had mentioned.

        He could practically feel the blondie getting closer to him; like an old horse that knew its master’s footsteps. The hair on the nape of his neck stood on end, and he irrationally thought that tiny detail would give him away. Sora knew for certain that Raoul was staring at him, and if he so much as twitched then everything would be over.

        “A pity that we had to say goodbye in this manner,” came Raoul’s tempered voice, “but it is only a temporary separation. Using your gametes, I will create pets with your same likeness and temperament. The Sora Series will be my next crowning achievement. A pet so soothing, entertaining and bright that it will delight any master.”

        “We are ready,” said one of the platinum-haired technicians in the room. “The D-ring will be unregistered in ten seconds.”

        “Proceed with vasodilators shortly thereafter,” instructed Raoul, “and as much dopamine as needed to harvest him. No worries about the damage.”

        Sora mentally started counting down the seconds in his head. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6…

        The bite of the D-ring began to lessen, leaving a cold pins and needles sensation as it released. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1…

        Raoul removed the ring. As he held it in his gloved hands, it retracted in size until it was no bigger than a dime. “I look forwards to seeing you again in the faces of your offspring,” he said to Sora. Then he turned to take his leave.

        “…Not my children.”

        Everyone in the room froze. The Darkmen, the technicians and the blondie all looked in the direction of their specimen, who was very much awake and shaking from head to toes with fury.

        “Not ANYONE’S children!!!” roared Sora.

        Kingdom Key appeared in his hands. He just barely managed to maintain his grasp on it since his wrists were strapped with metal restraints, but the sheer force of his anger managed to keep a white knuckled grasp on it. “FORCE!” he shouted.

        Instantly, a black ball of graviga bloomed into existence in the center of the room. Those that were at the center of it got flattened to the floor, and others at the periphery found themselves grasping the chairs, tables or each other to try to keep from being sucked in. Raoul and the Darkmen accompanying him were able to press themselves against the walls just out of the spell’s reach.

        During the confusion, Sora forced his wrist to turn painfully against the manacles holding him to rotate the keyblade, until his weapon responded and unlatched the locks. He slid off the table and ripped the hose attached to his dick as if it was the most disgusting thing that he saw in his life, and yanked his shorts back up.

        Now he had to face the chaos he caused. He looked in Raoul’s direction and found the blondie staring back at him with a reproachful air, as if he was some misbehaving child that needed to heel to authority.

        As they gazed at each other, Raoul said without the slightest hint of inflection, “Detonate it.”

        Sora’s eyes widened when he realized what he meant.

        One of the Darkmen used a virtual keyboard located on his forearm to input the code to activate the bomb planted in Sora’s skull.

        In the next few moments, the graviga spell petered out. It left a wake of wrecked machinery and groaning technicians buried in office furniture. As the people started to recover, Sora thought that he was seeing all these things happen in slow motion. His heart pounded to a crawl, as if to extend the last few seconds of his life.

        Ba dum… ba dum…… ba dum……..

        Raoul turned to the darkman with a smoldering stare.

        “It’s not working,” explained the man nervously. “The signal may be jammed.”

        Sora let out a breath that he didn’t realized that he was holding. Thank you Data Sora, he thought with utter relief.

        However, there was no time to relax. Since the explosive implant was not working, Raoul was forced to use a less elegant option. “Fire with maximum force,” he directed his men tonelessly.

        Several plasma rifles were immediately leveled at Sora. He barely managed to bring his keyblade up in time to deflect blasts of red hot energy that were sent in his direction. The white room turned crimson as he spun Kingdom Key like a baton to shield himself. Those who were not involved in the fight cowered under tables as the lasers bounced haphazardly away from their target.

        He realized that if he continued to stand his ground then there would be a lot of casualties. Besides, the next part of his mission was to get out of there. Sora could barely see Raoul past the haze of hellfire that was being shot at him, but there was no need - he felt in the deepest part of his heart that whatever strange thread that connected them had been broken the moment he gave the kill order.

        Although the depth of the blondie’s cruelty should have been expected, it was still shocking to hear him say it - but also freeing. Now he could walk away with the certainty that he owed absolutely nothing to this man who tried to own him.

        First, he had to survive. If all was going according to plan, then Data Sora found a safe place to send a teleport point. He just needed to figure out where it was. With no way to communicate with the AI, he would just have to tear through the lab until he located it. No problem, he had done this a million times before during other missions.

        “Goodbye Raoul,” said Sora through clenched teeth. “You were the worst friend that I’ve ever had.”

        With that said, he reflected the plasma beams back at the Darkmen shooting at him. This disrupted their firing long enough to allow him to throw himself at the nearest door. He managed to make it through as molten heat singed the walls behind him. Then he ran as fast as his legs could carry him down a hallway.

        The Darkmen gave chase, which allowed the people who were pinned down by the weapons fire to slowly get up from the floor and their hiding places. Only Raoul seemed completely unphased. He remained perfectly poised, as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening around him.

        “Engage all security protocols,” he said to the sluggish technicians. “Maximum threat level. He must not be allowed to leave Keeler Station alive.”

        As the staff worked to initiate the lock down, Raoul went to the main console and used it to direct all camera feeds to the room. A holographic image of Sora running for his life was soon illuminated in a three dimensional display.

        “This ends today,” he said to the glowing scene. “I also wish to say goodbye to the worst pet I’ve ever had.”

        Raoul picked up what appeared to be a metal circlet that hung from the side of the console. It was placed over his head, like a king crowning himself, and it immediately illuminated with a blue light and a wrap around screen that covered his eyes like visor. Very rarely did he ever use brain gear, but whatever was sophisticated enough to jam the signals to Sora’s implant warranted its use.

        “Now to resolve this technical issue,” said Raoul assuredly. His green eyes lost their color and fully turned white as he was patched in. Whatever was causing the interference would now face off against his superior, nano-enhanced brain, and the full force of Tanagura’s technology.

        All of Keeler Lab came alive with the sound of blaring klaxons. Red warning lights strobed the hallways to signal the staff to follow security protocols. Reinforced blast doors started snapping shut to seal off the exits. Sora just barely slid beneath one of the barriers before it slammed closed.

        That move managed to separate him from the Darkmen, but now he was trapped. He tried not to give in to panic as his mind conjured up the consequences of being caged again. Keep it together! he mentally shouted at himself as the slightest tremor started to shake his hands.

        Small shelves started to slide out of the walls, and something fleshy and robotic dropped from them. It unfurled to reveal what appeared to be large dogs that were frankensteined with a metal exoskeleton. Their craniums were helmeted in silver material that crawled over half of their faces and hollowed one of their eyes into a soulless, black pit.

        There were six in total, and when they growled, the sound had a mechanical tenor that mixed with an animalistic scream. Sora took several steps backwards. These were not heartless. They weren’t going to disappear into glitter if he hit them with his keyblade.

        One of them opened unhinged jaws that peeled back further than expected to reveal several concentric rows of sharp, black tipped teeth and a long whipping tongue. Copious amounts of saliva fell from that orifice and sizzled on the ground. Sora shuddered with dread as the thought occurred that these animals were likely modified into the horrific things that were creeping towards him now.

        His first instinct was to not hurt them. When the first one lunged at him, it latched onto his keyblade and tried to maul it away. At first he fought it, but when its secretions burned into the back of his hands and forearms, he let it have his weapon so he could back away and resummon it into his hands.

        The place where their missing eyes should have been glowed a virulent red, and that was all the warning that he got before they were firing lasers at him from their faces. He easily dodged the first volley, but when they started running alongside the walls and angling their shots, he had little room to cartwheel out of the way or deflect with his keyblade in the narrow corridor.

        Soon, his shoulder and legs got burned from the mere heat of the passing rays. He knew that he couldn’t keep this up; regretfully he held his weapon skywards and called “Thunder!” A rain of lightening bolts came down over the crowd of dogs, and they immediately fell over with piteous yelps.

        Just as he started to catch his breath, a new challenge appeared: A plasma net formed on the opposite end of the hallway, and it was so tightly woven that anything it touched would be turned into two inch cubes. This was confirmed as it crawled forwards and overtook the stunned dogs, instantly pureeing them into fried and cubed meat.

        Sora cried out in alarm as he backed up to the very end of the hallway. There was nowhere left to run and his attempt at unlocking the blast door with his keyblade failed. He couldn’t believe that Raoul was willing to go as far as to give him such a bloody end just because he couldn’t fit into his rules.

        His panic started to set when the plasma net was about five feet away, but he was saved when the door he was wedged against groaned open by ten inches. He let out a yelp of relief as he managed to commando crawl beneath it fast enough to keep his legs from being cleaved off.

        The reason that the exit opened became apparent - in the next section of hallway, there was a teleport point. Data Sora managed to come through for him. However there was something wrong; the glowing white disc of light was moving all over the floor instead of staying put. Sora tried to chase it down and step on it, but it kept moving out of his reach at the last moment.

        To make matters worse, another plasma net was forming. This time, from both ends of the hall. As they moved to converge on where he was standing, a blast door that looked small enough to cover a room started to edge open sideways in the middle of the corridor. Sora used his keyblade like a crowbar to help it open faster before ducking inside in time to save his life.

        He found himself in a strange place. There were nearly a hundred rows of glass canisters that were filled with glowing green liquid that lit the walls in that color. The area was well insulted with temperature cold enough to cause mist with every pant that he took. Even the sound of the sirens were dampened in that place.

        The teleport ring was still bouncing around, but he forgot about it. Instead, he was frozen in his track and white as a ghost as he stared into the tubes.

        There were hands. And feet. Half melted faces and pieces of people floating around in the goop. He didn’t need to be able to read the IDs displayed in blue numbers to know who they were or what this was. They were all pets who at the end of their usefulness had been brought here to be dissolved and recycled like trash.

        Maybe it was just his imagination, but he thought he perceived Elisha’s curly red hair, or Kirie’s mismatching eyes, or even the ridiculously long member of the pink haired kid from the pet salon drifting aimlessly. The full scope of the callousness of the blondies made itself crystal clear in that moment: People were nothing more than parts to them.

        This was what he was to Raoul.

        Sora screamed at the top of his lungs. He screamed and cried as he dragged his keyblade through the glass and fractured it. He tore through the entire storage facility like a madman, breaking everything that he could see.

        If he had his battle vestments he could have gone into rage form, but he was left in flimsy pet gear that was now stained, burnt and sizzling from whatever substance he just unleashed from those tubes. He lost his sandals a long time ago and was barefoot in the inch deep muck that was full of lifeless body parts.

        It was foolish. There were no hearts to be released, and freeing the pieces of what was leftover of those children couldn’t bring back their dignity or their lives. He fell to his knees and covered his face, utterly hopeless as he sobbed.

        The door that he managed to squeeze his way through opened the rest of the way. A flood of security dogs came growling into the room, this time with Darkmen handlers. Nothing was left to chance this time - they flooded the room so thoroughly that it had to be fifty of them versus one keyblade wielder.

        They barked orders at him, but he couldn’t hear them anymore. Sora was stuck in pain and grief so deep that it was paralyzing. He didn’t move a single inch of his body as they approached him.

        Then something in his heart ripped; as if someone had taken a knife and was cleaving it through his core. It hurt in a way that not even the D-ring could hold a candle to. He felt the pieces of his self fracturing and peeling away; threatening to siphon all of his identity. A darkness rolled from his body, and it took the form of a flood.

        One, another, then dozens. The more creatures that appeared, the more numb he became. Anger became floating Red Hot Chillis, his loathing turned into Axe Flappers, dread hopped along the ground as Lone Runners, and resentment turned into massive Bruisers.

        Their exit left Sora in a completely blank state. As the unversed clashed against his enemies with ruthless abandon, he could only stare up at one of the empty canisters he wrecked.

        “I guess I’ll see you in the Final World,” he whispered.

        A pool of light slid beneath him. In all the confusion, the teleport ring finally got a lock on his location and was able to come beneath him. As chaos erupted all around, Sora vanished into sparkles of energy.

{{———————————————–}}

        Riki was feeling restless. Although he didn’t expect to meet up with Sora anytime soon, he found himself wandering through Minstrel Park with his hands tucked inside of his jacket.

        He couldn’t stop ruminating over his choice to sleep with Sora. Iason was insanely jealous. The last time that he laid up with a female pet without permission, he was punished so thoroughly with the D-ring that it still made him shudder to this day. Yet, despite the possibility of being found out, he was glad that he did it. The act was irrefutable proof that after all this time, there was still a speck of him left that could defy the blondie.

        Although Iason didn’t speak about it, he knew that his time as a pet was coming to a close. From the beginning, he was a pariah because he was taken from the slums instead of being bred and trained in the Pet Academy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now he was simply too old. At eighteen, he was a dinosaur compared to the pubescent teens that other masters kept at their beck and call.

        Even worse, Iason fucked him personally. It was the biggest taboo in their society, and yet he risked his reputation by continuing the behavior and denying Riki his freedom. He even went as far as to remove him from Eos Tower, the exclusive home for Tanagura’s pets, and placed him in Apathia where the decreased surveillance allowed upper class humans to stow their lovers.

        Riki had reached a point where he thought that there was nothing he could do. Iason set him free for a year after his last scandal, and when he returned to Ceres, he realized that he didn’t belong there anymore. Everything he built with Bison was gone, and although it was a free life, it was one that went nowhere. Even worse, his body had been trained to respond to the blondie’s touch, so much that he had to get drunk on hallucinogenic liquor to quell the craving for it. Old comforts, such as his relationship with Guy, no longer eased him.

        His other life as a Tanagura blondie’s pet wasn’t any better. Even though Iason treated him more and more as a lover, he was still a possession, and that diminished any pride that he had left in himself. His identity as a tough mongrel from the slums was stripped away and made more poignant when his friends learned the truth. They rejected him and were aggrieved by what he had become. Now he was nothing to nobody; no better than castrated furniture.

        Sora was the only person left who gave him respect and did not hold his situation against him. That was why he was able to summon the will to defy Iason once more and open the door to the possibility of escape. Even though hope was a thing that didn’t belong on Amoi, he felt it strongly when he was near his friend. So he took a chance for one last opportunity; to put himself out there and take from the world instead of the other way around.

        As he wandered Mistral Park, he wondered what a new life might be like and what sort of Iason he would be leaving behind. Perhaps the blondie would endlessly pine for him; a thought that actually made him smirk. Then he wiped the expression off his face, because it was frightening to think of what sort of feeling would make him partially smile at the thought of his captor.

        He passed an alleyway, and a pair of gloved hands suddenly pulled him into the shadows. Riki got a glimpse of a long, brunette ponytail just moments before he was knocked out with a blow to the head.

{{———————————————–}}

        Sora was crushed, both literally and figuratively. He was face down in the tiny cockpit of the Sea Salt, and he was in too much grief to do more than drown in his own tears.

        The ship was still in stealth mode, but that didn’t save it from the random barrage of plasma fire that was shooting at it. On the viewscreen, the Keeler Lab was well within view. It was a white structure that was embedded on an asteroid that orbited Amoi. Several canons were protruding from the rock it sat on, and they were all firing simultaneously. Every now and then, a ray that came too close to the ship rocked it violently.

        “Sora!” came Data Sora’s voice from the console. “Sorry that I couldn’t get you out of there sooner. Something really wicked was trying to counter my interference and it messed with the teleport ring. But never mind - we have a problem. I can guide the ship out of here, but there’s no fuel. This ship runs on happy faces remember?”

        Sora could do nothing more but continue to sniffle.

        “I know that you probably saw something really bad down there, but we have to go. If my jamming signal is decrypted, then I can’t stop them from detonating the bomb in your neck. All we have to do is get out of their range. Come on, we’ve gotten this far. We’re almost there!” pleaded Data Sora.

        There was no response from the battered passenger. Data Sora tried something different - he cut off the view of the lab and projected his image onto the screen. He appeared as Sora did when he was a child: dressed in a pixilated red jumpsuit, big yellow shoes and white jacket. The AI wore a soft smile on his face as he said, “I know that this world is really terrible. I looked through all the files that I could find and what I saw was scary. But you know, I found one thing that made me pretty hopeful, but in a selfish sort of way.”

        Data Sora looked embarrassed as he turned his gaze away. “This world can put the minds of people into new bodies, just like Even’s replica program. I’ve always wondered if I would ever get my own body and live the way the rest of you do, but I have so many terabytes of data that it won’t fit into one of the usual dolls. I would have to give up a lot of myself if I were to transfer, and that doesn’t sit easy with me. I like all of my heart.

        "But this world, it might actually have a way. I could have my heart and a body, and then I could feel things. Like the taste of ice cream, or what its like to swim. Most of all though, I want to know what a hug is like. If I ever become real, I hope that you’ll be there, because everyone says that you give the best hugs.”

        As Data Sora spoke, the unversed that were left behind in the lab were being defeated. One after another, they were struck down by the Darkmen and their weaponized dogs. With each vanquishing, Sora’s numbness was jolted with the return of the feelings that had been ripped away. It was almost as painful as when they were flayed out of him, like being freshly smacked over and over again.

        In the midst of the torrent of those negative emotions, Sora tried to imagine being there in the moment that a dear friend had one of the wishes of a lifetime come true. His tears stopped and his head lifted slightly to see the gentle expression on the AI’s face.

        Then the Sea Salt was violently rocked as laser-fire hit its left flank. The cloaking plates that kept it invisible on that side were peeled up, and the ship lost part of its stealth capability.

        “They can see us!” warned Data Sora.

        Sora stretched out his hands and grabbed onto the controls. His face was wet and his vision was blurry, but he forced his mouth into painful smile. “Don’t worry,” he warbled thickly. “When you’re real, I’ll be the first to hug you.”

        Data Sora gave a relieved nod, and then he allowed the viewscreen to return to its normal view. Sora punched the steering gears forward and launched the ship towards the asteroid. It barrel rolled through a hailstorm of laser fire at speeds that were only possible thanks to the ridiculous amount of boosters that Roxas had installed on the tiny ship.

        Although getting closer to the lab made dodging more difficult, eventually he would reach a distance that made it likely that the asteroid would start hitting itself if it wasn’t careful. The Sea Salt was turned on its axis and flipped around so that it dragged butt first against the metal exterior of the lab. There was a horrible grinding sound as the broken stealth cloak was forced back into a closed position by the friction.

        “We’re invisible again!” said Data Sora jubilantly. “Let’s go!”

        This time, the Sea Salt was able to jet away undetected, leaving the station to fire blindly at nothing. When they were a safe distance away, Sora released the white knuckled grasp that he had on the controls.

        “I can take it from here,” offered Data Sora. “I’m flying us to the rendezvous point. And Sora, thank you.”

        Sora imagined meeting his data self in reality for as long as he could in hopes of keeping the ship powered, but he couldn’t stop the dark memories of what he saw in the lab from dragging him down. By the time they approached the meeting area in one of the many run down sectors of Ceres, the Sea Salt was out of fuel and dropping like a rock from the sky.

        On ground level, Roxas was waiting anxiously. He kept looking upwards although it was useless - the Sea Salt would be invisible, so there would be nothing to perceive. It was all he could to do to pace back and forth as he waited, until something crashed a few feet away from him with a loud bang of twisted metal.

        It had to be the ship. A cloud of dust and exhaust indicated where it had fallen. Roxas ran in that direction and batted at the smoke with a cough. Some of the dirt had settled on the Sea Salt’s exterior and revealed its silhouette, and what he saw looked beyond beat up. He didn’t think that the ship would ever fly again.

        “Sora!” he called. Roxas pawed at the mangled gummi blocks until he managed to find the emergency release latch and pulled it with a hard tug. The cockpit door folded upwards and revealed a badly injured Sora inside.

        Without wasting a second, he summoned one of his keyblades and casted curaga on his friend. Then he dismissed the weapon and leaned down so he could wrap his arms around Sora’s middle and pull his dead weight out of the ship. “What happened?” he demanded to know.

        “A lot,” answered Data Sora. “I’m going to uplink back to your watch. Long story short - Sora did it. He got the D-ring off. Bad news. I think he lost his smile. Please watch over him.”

        “What?” Roxas said dumbly, however there was no answer from Data Sora. The AI was already moving his consciousness from the ship back to the portable unit on blonde’s wrist. As for Sora, his wounds were completely gone and he was physically fine - but there was a scary emptiness in his eyes. He wasn’t even making an effort to stand.

        “We have to go,” urged Roxas. “Your landing was too flashy.” It took a lot of effort, but eventually he managed to sling one of Sora’s arms over his shoulders and help him to stagger away from the crash site. “And this is the last time that you’re ever wearing that weird pet outfit ever again.”

{{———————————————–}}

        The chaos that Sora caused in the Keeler lab continued long after he was gone. White-haired technicians rushed from console to console to put together exhaustive damage reports, and Darkmen patrolled the hallways with a fine tooth comb to ensure that all the beasts that had been unleashed were dealt with.

        Raoul powered down all the weapon systems and removed his brain gear. After the alien ship regained its ability to cloak, it was highly improbable that it would remain in the vicinity, especially with the damage it took. There was never any return fire, so it was safe to assume that it either had no weapons or did not have the firepower needed to take on the entire station.

        No, the real threat was its passenger. Raoul was sure that he had broken that boy down and tamed him. There was no hint of a warrior when he gave him lessons in bed. Monsters didn’t lurk behind his blue eyes as he cried at his feet. Intelligence wasn’t a factor in their conversations. Yet, his strength was unquestionable. His body harbored beasts, and he could counter a million petaflops of processing power aimed at hacking his jamming signal.

        Such a dichotomy of softness and power was rare in the natural universe. It inspired a terrifying excitement; the sort that consumed until it was satisfied, like an unanswered hard on. Raoul needed to know more, and he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

        One of the technicians approached the blondie with a bowed head. “Lord Raoul, we have nearly completed the damage reports. We are ready to begin making orders for repairs.”

        “There will be no orders,” answered Raoul, much to the surprise of the technician. “Everyone at this station is under strict command to keep what happened here classified. We will proceed with repairs at a pace that will not arouse suspicion as to what transpired. Anyone who disobeys my word does so at the risk of losing their life.”

        A ripple of surprise and fear went through everyone gathered there. No one dared to say a word in defiance of the blondie.

        “I want to refocus our attention on something else,” said Raoul calmly, as if he did not just threaten his staff. He used his console to bring up satellite pictures, and soon the room was filled with the three dimensional display of a mysterious white moon in the shape of a heart.

        “I want a full analysis of what this is,” continued Raoul. “I am especially interested in what is inside. We will devote all our resources to answering those questions.”

        As his staff bowed to him and rushed to obey the new orders, Raoul gazed at the hologram. This anomaly was his last connection to Sora. Perhaps if he reached out and clawed at it, then the boy would once again feel his fingers dragging down his back.

{{———————————————–}}

        The boys had to go into hiding. It was impossible to stay in any of the motels of Ceres because there were wanted posters with Sora’s face and a hefty award posted in every nook, cranny and computer available within the derelict city. There were plenty of abandoned buildings to stay in, but they had to keep moving to avoid the raids and the gangs that frequented the area.

        Their plan was to wait until Riku arrived with Excalibur. The ship was big enough to take all of them back home. Unfortunately, they had no way to communicate with him or determine how far out he was. It could be days or weeks until he arrived.

        During that time, Sora was a shell of himself. Every time they settled into a new hideout, he would find the closest corner and curl into a ball for hours. Roxas tried his best to talk to him and get him to move or eat, but it was a slow, grueling process that seemed to get him nowhere.

        When Data Sora finished downloading to his watch, he was able to update Roxas on what happened in the Keeler Lab. He listened in silent horror as the concept of an organ farm was explained to him and where the body parts were sourced. The only reason that he didn’t become as traumatized as Sora after hearing the awful details was the fact that he didn’t have to see it and have it burned into his eyes.

        One night, Roxas was sitting on the mangled remains of a window at their shabby hideout with his head turned upwards. The twin moons of Amoi were high in the sky and stars scattered as far as the eye could see. Kingdom Hearts glowed ominously, like a mark of death over the dying planet.

        “Do you think it will be ok if we don’t close the keyhole? If we just let everything fall back to darkness instead of saving it?” Roxas asked his companion. “Maybe it’s alright if this world just stayed asleep.”

        There was no answer from Sora. He looked over and found his friend curled up on the floor with his eyes closed. Roxas got up and dusted himself off, and then he walked over so he could lay down next to the brunette. His embraced his quiet companion and pulled him close until their foreheads touched.

        “No one would be mad at you if we just left. Everyone would understand,” Roxas continued in a soft voice. “Not every world needs saving right?”

        With a sigh, he closed his eyes and held onto Sora in hopes of providing the most comfort possible, despite their harsh conditions.

{{———————————————–}}

        Sora was dreaming.

        He was back in that horrible chamber, surrounded by pieces of people who were slowly melting in acrid water. This happened every time he closed his eyes and drifted off. For a few fitful hours, he would try to pick the dismembered parts out of the water in a useless effort to save them, before waking up drenched in sweat and shaking profusely.

        Tonight, he was at it again. He carried so many appendages, torsos and barely recognizable faces that they would fall out of his arms and plop back into the water. It was scramble to pile them back up each time this happened.

        “Not this bullshit again,” drawled Vanitas. “How many times are you going to have the same shitty dream?”

        Sora was surprised. Vanitas never appeared in this dream. His doppelganger was sitting on a pile of body parts in a casual way as he swung someone’s detached arm like a macabre windmill.

        “Don’t do that!” cried Sora as he stretched his hand out. “That’s a person!”

        “No it’s not,” said Vanitas as he continued what he was doing. “It’s something a person left behind. Just trash now.” He threw the mangled flesh over his shoulder in a flippant way.

        The audacity of what he did brought forth an angry expression on Sora’s face. “How could you!”

        “How could you,” countered Vanitas. “You’re just sitting on your ass, crying like a baby over someone’s detached dick instead of getting off this joke of a world. And I get to be front seat to all of this insanity.”

        “I can’t just forget them. They were used like toys, and thrown away, and nobody cared,” said Sora tensely. “If I don’t mourn these people, then who will?”

        Vanitas hopped off his pile of flesh and walked through the putrid water to approach Sora. As soon as he got close enough to him, he leaned into his face and jabbed his chest with his finger. “Who asked you for your pity?” he said fiercely. “Do you think that’s what the dead want?”

        For once, Vanitas wasn’t wearing his helmet. Sora was able to stare into his gold eyes, and for the first time, he was able to read something raw there. “What is it that you want?” he asked placidly.

        “You already know what I want,” answered Vanitas with a pointed look. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted from any of you lights.”

        In the quiet that followed after those words, Sora could feel something boiling from deep within: An anger that seemed to vibrate the dreamscape around them. He couldn’t tell if it was Vanitas’s anger, his own, or both, but it was building in crescendo.

        It was easy to follow that sentiment to a path of vengeance. He could take his pain out against the world and punish it thoroughly. The power for it was there. Vanitas was practically offering it in a silver platter. If he turned to darkness, he could rip Amoi apart and make the blondies pay in blood for what they had done.

        Vanitas lived in that pool of anger, and it was his impetus to inflict that upon the cosmos. He wanted it to eclipse the light and warp it. There was an intimacy in the way he wanted Sora to take it and live in it with him.

        However, as Sora stared at his doppelganger’s face, he remembered feeling his pain, seeing his memories and experiencing for himself what it was like to live as an existence that bled unversed. He now knew what it was like to be numb while all his insecurities were revealed to the world. It was a constant humiliation that had no cure, and a loneliness that no one could even begin to understand.

        Yes, they had every right to be angry for the dead, but those feelings couldn’t bring back their lives or restore their dignity and self-respect. It didn’t make a difference to survivors like Vanitas or himself. They were victims who had to keep standing up or risk becoming like the shattered parts who were already gone.

        Sora knew that whether they were living or dead, the oppressed did not want to be forgotten. He didn’t want that for himself, nor could he accept it for the one standing before him. “I see you Vanitas,” he said quietly as he cupped the other’s cheek.

        Vanitas looked shocked as the world around them stopped trembling, and Sora leaned in to kiss the corner of his lips.

{{———————————————–}}

        When Sora opened his eyes, he saw a mirror of his own face, framed by feathery blonde hair. The color of those tresses alone should have sent him into a panic, but even before he woke up, he could feel Roxas’s presence nearby. Strong, warm and bright; it gave him such relief to know that he wasn’t alone.

        As if sensing that he was being stared at, Roxas fluttered his own lashes open, and found that Sora was looking back at him. For several long moments, they gazed at each other and took in the quiet peace of the moment.

        Sora was the first to break the silence. “I’ve been really hard to deal with lately. I’m sorry,” he whispered.

        “You don’t have to apologize,” answered Roxas in the same tone. “I’m just glad to finally hear your voice.”

        A bittersweet smile tugged at Sora’s lips. Since he returned from Keeler Lab, he had been utterly silent, until now. “I promise that I’ll do better from now on.”

        Roxas reached out to grasp Sora’s shoulder and shuddered a relieved sigh. “If we make it through breakfast, then I’ll do a cartwheel.”

        That caused Sora to laugh lightly and his smile became more soft. Roxas returned the expression, and then pushed himself up into a seated position.

        Sora got up next, and then said seriously, “Thanks for coming for me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

        “I owed you one anyway,” answered Roxas with a grin. “Guess we’re finally even.”

        Finding breakfast was an ordeal. They had no provisions left and they couldn’t use money sticks without risking being electronically tracked. Roxas managed to scrounge up food by sneaking into bars when they were closed and taking what he could find. Almost all the drinks in Ceres were alcoholic or gross, so he used waterga spells so they didn’t die of thirst.

        Now that Sora wasn’t drowning so badly in his sorrows, he realized how much Roxas had been struggling for survival. He felt terrible for not doing his own part, so he decided to be extra helpful. They left together to find something to eat, but Sora wasn’t willing to steal from bartenders who looked like they were barely scraping by. Instead, he suggested that they go to Midas to take from the elites.

        It was risky, and Roxas was initially against the idea, however Sora assured him that he had a plan. So they snuck into the glittering city through the underground tunnels with their hoods drawn over their faces. They were able to avoid cameras with Data Sora’s help and locate a nearby restaurant.

        Once the video feeds were disabled by the AI, Sora strode through the door and manifested his Kingdom Key. Before anybody could look up at the flash of light, he whispered: “Stop.”

        The world froze. All the patrons were stuck in poses of talking, eating or gesturing, and the servers were locked in the service of passing food or accepting money.

        Roxas’s mouth fell open in stunned surprise. He stayed that way until Sora gave his shoulder a push.

        “Come on, let’s grab what’s behind the counter,” he urged.

        The blonde snapped out of it, and they both made quick work of taking breakfast muffins, toast, sandwiches, cookies and anything else that they could stuff into their pockets. Then they fled from the store just as the spell wore off.

        They didn’t say a word until they were safely back in the smelly tunnels. Once there, Roxas rounded on Sora to say, “That stopga spell was ridiculous! I think you held it for five minutes. I can only do that for a few seconds.”

        Sora smiled in a distant way. “I got better at it in Quadratum.”

        “What was that place? You still haven’t told anyone about what it was like there,” said Roxas.

        His question was initially met with silence. Sora tightened his lips as if he was resisting the unspoken words, and then he finally said quietly, “It wasn’t a bad place. There were a lot of people there. A city that was kind of like San Fransokyo, but with a different vibe.”

        “That doesn’t sound bad at all,” mused Roxas. “Why so hush hush about it?”

        “Because,” answered Sora slowly, “it’s a place where people go when they’ve abused the power of waking. I.. wasn’t supposed to leave. I was never going to see my friends or family ever again. I was reminded of that every day that I was there. I was sad all the time. I wanted to give up. But then Riku and Kairi saved me. If they came any later, I don’t know if there would have been anything left to save.”

        “We missed you every day that you were gone,” said Roxas emphatically. “We looked everywhere, especially those two. They were crazy without you. I don’t get it though - when did you abuse the power of waking?”

        A memory flashed in Sora’s mind: A countless tower of shadows ripping away everyone he knew and cared for. Riku bravely standing firm before he was swept away, and Kairi shattering to pieces in the cruel grasp of Xehanort. Just thinking about that day still ran his blood cold. As much as he suffered in Amoi, it still didn’t top the worst day of his life.

        “I can’t talk about it,” he answered. “But I’ll never regret what I did.”

        Sora gave Roxas a tight smile. If he hadn’t abused the power of waking, then he would have never been able to see his friends again, or get the chance to know his other. Although it caused him a lot of anguish, it was moments of togetherness like this that made the sacrifice worth it.

        “Tell you a secret,” he continued. “I wanted to come to this world alone because things were almost too good when I got back. I was so used to being sad all the time that it didn’t feel right to be happy.”

        Roxas stretched his arm out to stop Sora in his tracks. He gave his other a serious look. “If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you. Happiness is not something you have to earn. It’s a part of you that comes out when you give it space. You taught me that. I can be happy because you gave me that space, and I want to do the same for you. Even if its just for a little while.”

        Sora had a stunned expression on his face, as if he had just remembered something that he had forgotten long ago. Then he gave a slow nod.

        His acceptance made Roxas beam a bright smile at him. The blonde grasped Sora’s arm and hurried him along to their hideout. Once there, they feasted on the food before spending the day ducking through the derelict streets in search of different places they could hide in case their hangout was compromised. There were a lot of Darkmen and cameras to avoid, but they managed to stay undetected.

        By the time evening came, they were covered in dirt and sweat from running around for hours. They ended up peeling most of their clothes off and throwing waterga spells at each other to clean up and ease their thirst. Sometimes they managed to knock each other over from the strength of the flooding water, resulting in retaliatory incantations and rare, uproarious laughter.

        Sora smiled so much that his face hurt. He changed his Kingdom Key to Master Chef in a swirl of light and aimed it at his bare-chested, snickering companion. Roxas looked up in time to see the focused look on Sora’s face and said incredulously, “Are you shot-locking me?!”

        “Eat this!” yelled Sora with a wild grin. Multicolored light fired off from his weapon, and Roxas was inundated with a shower of melons that fell from the sky.

        At first he covered his head, but when they bounced harmlessly away from him, he tried to grab one and bite it. Sadly, it merely dissipated away in a ghostly swirl. “Awww, I could almost taste it,” he complained.

        The entire situation made Sora double over with laughter. There were tears in his eyes, and he marveled that he could still feel this way. Then the thought occurred that there were so many others on this world that could not experience this, and his grief returned in a wave. In the next moment, his hiccups were sobs and he couldn’t keep the wetness from his eyes.

        Upon realizing the sudden shift in mood, Roxas approached Sora and pulled him into a tight hug. “It’s okay,” he said as he cradled his friend. “Sad or happy, it’s all okay.”

        Sora clung tightly as his feelings swept over him. There were so many things that he couldn’t come to terms with. The pets he left behind, the world that was mired in darkness, the things that he endured, the fact that Raoul tried to kill him - it all became one muddled ball of pain that wedged itself in his chest.

        He wanted to be told again that it was okay to be happy. He wanted to feel his hair stroked the way his mother used to do it when he was a child. He wanted murmured comforts to remind him that he wasn’t alone. He wanted to feel safe and loved. Somehow, as if Roxas knew exactly all the things that he needed, he gave Sora all of his wants and more.

        At some point, they laid down on the dusty floor and Roxas used his cloak as a makeshift blanket. Sora closed his eyes and quieted down with a shuddering sigh. His pain ebbed into the background, where it was kept at bay with the soothing strokes that his friend rubbed along his arms.

        “I miss sea salt ice cream,” whispered Roxas.

        Sora was quiet a few moments, before answering, “I miss paopu pie.”

        That brought a soft smile to the blonde’s face, and he closed his own eyes. “Miss the sunset.”

        “The sound of palm trees in the wind,” came his answer.

        Back and forth, they whispered the good things that they missed while clinging closely and intimately. In that moment, they were two different halves of one whole, completing each other.

        I miss a starry night.

        Sora fell asleep, and he was dreaming again. He was back at the Final World, but he was far from the place where souls waited to move on. The sky was black and mottled with celestial light. Water beneath his feet glittered as he moved through it, like a rippling curtain of shining sequins.

        Lost and alone, he walked because he didn’t know what else to do. Then a feeling of deja vu made him stop in his tracks - he’d done this before. Upon realizing it, he heard footsteps approaching him. Trudging through the water to his direction was a familiar face with mismatching eyes.

        Yozora’s appearance made Sora freeze. One of the reasons that he never spoke of Quadratum was because of him. Long before he was a captive at Amoi, this person was his first warden and harbinger of despair.

        He approached Sora until they were only a few feet apart. His red eye had an eerie glow, and his blue looked cold. Impartial judgement shone from them both. “You were told not to use time magic,” he said in a perfectly neutral tone.

        Like so many times before, Sora ached to hear his voice sound more like Riku’s. It lacked his playful warmth and tender protectiveness. “It was only one little stopga,” he answered plaintively, “but that’s not really why you’re here, is it.”

        “You know the terms of your release,” reminded Yozora. “I allowed you to go because you gave me your word.”

        Sora’s shoulders slumped as he confessed, “I know that. It’s just.. I’m having trouble coping with the real world. I want to change things for the better, but I don’t know how. I end up using the power of waking without thinking. I repeat these moments because I keep hoping for something different, but it never goes the way I want it, and I know it never will. I should accept that, but it’s so hard.”

        “I took years from your life to make you learn the lesson of accepting the path that fate has handed to you, yet you still try to twist the timeline to fit your needs,” said Yozora reproachfully. “An ugly reality is no excuse.”

        “You’re right. I should have never broken my promise. I messed up.” Desperation laced Sora’s words as he pleaded, “I don’t have any right to ask for this, but please give me one more chance. Please don’t make me go back.”

        “Who is this loser?” interrupted a third voice.

        Sora looked to his left and was surprised to see Vanitas standing there with his arms folded.

        Yozora leveled a long stare at the interloper. “An aberration,” came his assessment. He continued to speak to Sora as if they were still the only ones there. “You seem to be used to breaking forbidden rules.”

        “Whoa, this wasn’t me,” protested Sora as he gave a quick gesture to Vanitas. “Someone else made him.”

        “You have all kinds of weird shit creeping around in your darkness, Sora,” said Vanitas without taking his eyes off Yozora. “Why does this stooge look like your pathetic ex?”

        “I am his constant,” answered Yozora. In the next blink, he was standing behind Vanitas with Void Gear in his hand. He was looking at the keyblade as if he was opening the pages of a book and reading. “Where he exists, there will always be a version of myself. No matter the singularity, no matter the dream.”

        Vanitas whirled around to track Yozora’s movements, and was clearly shocked to see his weapon in the stranger’s possession. “Hands off!” he demanded as he extended his palm and summoned Void Gear back to him. Immediately, he fell into a threatening high guard stance upon the return of his keyblade.

        “Cut it out, both of you,” interrupted Sora anxiously. “I’ll stick to my word this time. I won’t even use stopga if that’s causing a problem. I didn’t think it counted.”

        “It counts if I say it counts,” said Yozora with a light narrowing of his mismatched eyes. “You are out of chances. Keep to the terms, or I will make you my constant again.”

        In the next moment, Yozora was gone.

        “How the fuck did he take my keyblade?” roared Vanitas. “I want to murder that guy! I bet I can beat him on the first try without using your cheat.”

        “Have at it,” muttered Sora. Honestly, he was glad that Yozora was gone. He turned his face to the starry sky and blew out a breath of relief.

        “You’re just going to let that wanna be hang over your head like an albatross?” challenged Vanitas. He gestured wildly with his Void Gear. “Kick his ass! You can use stopga all that you want.”

        “He’s really not that bad,” said Sora. “I just don’t want to deal with him right now.”

        “You mean you don’t feel like having your ass handed to you 20 times before you finally win,” surmised Vanitas. He rested Void Gear across his shoulders as he gave Sora a narrowed look. “Obviously the universe doesn’t like cheaters, otherwise the Old Man would have used his time magic to win the war.”

        “As it turns out, it sort of takes you out of the universe,” explained Sora with a subdued expression, “where there’s people like Yozora to make sure that you can never get out.”

        “But you obviously got out,” countered Vanitas. “If that creep is just like all the other ones that look like him, then he’s got a blind spot when it comes to you. How the hell do you do it? You even have that not-Ventus acting like a complete tool around you.”

        “You mean Roxas?” asked Sora. “I just let him be himself. No matter what he decides to be - I respect him.”

        That answer caused a disturbed expression to wrinkle Vanitas’s face. He couldn’t even fathom giving Ventus an ounce of respect.

        “You should try it,” continued Sora. “You might be surprised at what you get in return.”

        “I don’t need to do something so stupid,” groused Vanitas. “I already have everything I need.”

        “Right,” said Sora skeptically. Then he added with a more playful lilt, “I respect that.”

        Vanitas growled in return.

{{———————————————–}}

        Sora knew that he had to accept his reality or forfeit living in the real world with his friends and family. Yozora had been more than generous to forgive his transgressions and give him one last chance. Perhaps Vanitas was right about his softness towards him, and if so, he felt bad about taking advantage of it.

        He didn’t like the sort of person that he was becoming. Sora never broke his promises. Yet, since he returned from Quadratum, he kept trying to fix things by reaching for the forbidden power. It was something that even Xehanort wasn’t willing to do, and it galled him to admit that his adversary had been stronger than him in that way.

        I need to stop. I have to stop, he told himself.

        Then he remembered what he saw at Keeler Lab, and he felt his resolve faltering. If he couldn’t change the fate of all those children, then what was he here for?

        To close the fucking keyhole. Do I have to spell everything out for you?

        The intrusive voice made Sora jerk his head up. He was currently outside with Roxas, and they were both on the lookout for a new hideout. It was more than a week since they were on the run and their options were running out. Every day, they scanned the terrain and the skies in hopes of finding shelter, either in the form of a new broken down building or the glittering arrival of the Highwind.

        Since seeing Yozora in his dreams, Sora found himself missing Riku more and more. It was becoming an ache so deep that it was painful. He wanted to see his friend and tell him everything, and he also wanted to hide and never speak a word of what happened on Amoi. The conflicting feelings tore at him as much as his need to reconcile his use of the power of waking with allowing the most horrific sort of darkness to go unchecked.

        “Are you okay?” asked Roxas.

        For a moment, Sora thought about lying to his Other just to ease his mind, but he realized that it was another part of a terrible pattern that was slowly warping him into someone else. “Hanging in there,” he said ambivalently.

        Roxas looked as if he wanted to follow up on that, but before he could get to it, there was a loud rumble. They lowered themselves to the ground to keep their balance, and after not seeing any change in ground level, they looked up.

        What they saw floored them. There was a beam of light arching through the sky, and it connected directly to Kingdom Hearts. It was causing a small fissure in the artificial moon, and from it spilled a steady stream of shadows.

        “That’s coming from the Keeler Lab,” announced Data Sora from Roxas’s bracelet. “I think it’s trying to take a core sample.”

        “Is he nuts!” railed Sora with a closed fist. Obviously there was only one blondie who could be responsible for all the madness. “Can’t he see that he’s going to shake this world apart?”

        “That’s if he doesn’t bury it in darkness first,” added Roxas solemnly. He pointed at the black waterfall; it was moving and writhing like a black tornado, and it didn’t take long to see why: There were hundreds and thousands of shadows spinning in that vortex; a Demon Tide the likes that they haven’t seen since the Keyblade War.

        Sora’s heart sank as they watched it touch down at the border between Ceres and Midas. His memory flashed to the last time(s) that he stood against that thing. If it weren’t for twisting the power of waking, none of his friends would have survived. Now he had to decide if he was willing to defeat it in the same manner again.

        “I’m with you no matter what you chose, Sora,” said Roxas seriously. He already made it clear in past conversations that he was willing to walk away from Amoi and let the whole rotten thing crumble. There was no point in saving what was unsavable.

        For several long moments, Sora gazed out to the catastrophe, and then he turned to face his friend. “Ever since I came to this world, I’ve been trying to figure out who I am as a person. People can call you strong, and resilient, and good, but unless you feel it in here,” at this point, he placed a hand over his heart, “those words don’t mean anything. The only thing that can make it real is what I do for myself. That’s why I have to go. It’s not about whether anyone deserves it or not. It’s because this is who I am.”

        An expression of grim relief colored Roxas’s face. He was both happy to see that Sora was pulling it together, but also chagrined over the fact that he was taking a stand for people who were unworthy of him. However, he wouldn’t be Sora if he didn’t. “Then let’s do this,” he said resolutely.

        Now that they were decided, they rushed in the direction of the Demon Tide. They didn’t have to worry about being located on cameras or turned in to the Darkmen - everyone was too busy fleeing for their lives to care. As they got closer to the storm of shadows, they were hit by powerful winds that tore cement slabs apart and toppled already precariously perched buildings. The vortex was causing a breach in the high walls of Ceres, which was fighting back with useless laser fire that did nothing more but tickle the spinning heartless.

        They took cover behind exposed rebar to keep from being pushed away. The wind was so loud that they had to shout at the top of their lungs just to be heard.

        “I don’t suppose you have a plan!” Roxas yelled.

        “This isn’t the same as the keyblade graveyard - I can’t do here what I did over there!” Sora called back. “There aren’t any other keyblades but ours!”

        “So what - you’re going to just walk in?” Roxas shouted with an incredulous expression.

        Honestly, that thought had crossed Sora’s mind even though he knew that it would be a wasted effort. Now that he was faced with the enormity of the challenge ahead, he realized that this amounted to a suicide mission. Roxas must have known this, and yet he was still willing to stand by his side.

        It warmed his heart, and he wished with everything that he had that he could have shown all those children that bonds like that existed. It was a tragedy that the ones that had passed on would never have the chance to know.

        Someone had to stand up for their memory, so that’s what he did. Sora rose up from his place and steeled himself for the inevitable. The Kingdom Key appeared in his right hand in readiness.

        Don’t write us off yet.

        Unbidden darkness pooled into his left hand. Sora’s expression turned surprised as Void Gear emerged in swirls of deep purple and black.

        Roxas looked just as shocked as he witnessed this. “Why do you have that!” he demanded.

        Because WE have a bond.

        Portals suddenly opened up in the sky around them. Dead and broken keyblades poured out of the rifts en masse and floated in the direction of the demon tide. At first, Sora didn’t understand what was happening, but as each key raced by, he felt lancing pain pierce through his heart, and then he realized the truth: The children of Amoi didn’t understand friendship or love because it was not allowed; they only knew a life of servitude and oppression. It was how Vanitas started his life, and it was what Sora had to endure since coming to the planet. All of their experiences amounted to a powerful and painful connection in bonds of misery.

        Now get to work.

        “Come on!” Sora shouted to Roxas. Without wasting any time, he jumped onto the nearest keyblade and surfed it all the way to the demon tide. Roxas was only a few seconds behind him, although it was obvious by the look on his face that he had serious reservations about this. They sailed to the column of shadows and clashed through its walls with brute force.

        The keyblades that they rode splintered outwards and attacked the heartless like cluster bombs. Roxas wielded Oathkeeper and Oblivion as if he was the star attraction at a circus show - both weapons spinning, slicing and guarding against heartless that tried to come at them from all angles. Sora did the same, and anywhere he pointed the tines of his keyblades, darkness and light shot out in powerful rays that pierced their enemies. His heart tuned with all the rushing keys and he heard whispered names, numbers, sometimes even the simple word “me” in representation of the broken and discarded pets.

        Once they reached the core of the demon tide, all the keyblades unleashed a hail of energy to destroy it. Miraculously, in a shower of rainbows and darkness, the vortex of shadows exploded into glittering motes and ceased to exist.

        Now that the threat was over, the wave of dusty keyblades brough them back to the ground and vanished. Still full of adrenaline, Sora didn’t realize that his face was completely covered in tears. He didn’t snap out of it until Roxas grabbed his wrist.

        “Hey,” said the blonde with serious concern. “That was nothing short of miracle, which is normal when it comes to you, but this isn’t.”

        Roxas jostled the hand that was still tightly wrapped around Void Gear. Sora let his fingers open to dismiss the weapon in a swirl of wispy smoke. “It’s okay,” he assured his friend. “I haven’t fallen to darkness. I just.. got to know someone really well.”

        “That is not an explanation,” said Roxas flatly.

        It was obvious that Roxas was not going to let things go, so Sora ended the fight in the same manner that any pet would. He leaned forwards and planted a kiss on his Other’s lips. The blonde’s reaction was priceless: he turned beet red and staggered backwards as if he had been punched in the gut.

        “W-w-w-what was that!” Roxas stammered as he covered his mouth his hand.

        “That’s the Amoi way of saying, we’ll talk later,” said Sora casually. He let his Kingdom Key vanish, and then he placed his hands behind his head as he started to walk. Despite being covered in dirt and tears, he actually felt okay. In that moment, he was alright with holding everyone’s pain, including his own. He now understood that he didn’t carry it alone.

        Roxas trailed behind him by a few healthy feet, and Vanitas cackled in his head. Sora didn’t even know where he was walking. Right now, he just wanted to feel what he felt and let it be.

        That didn’t last long. They were soon approached by a familiar figure with short cropped, red hair that fell over his eyes. Finding the twin boys had been a long ordeal for Katze. Their aptitude for eluding cameras and informants was by now, legendary. However, thanks to the show that they created with the demon tide, everyone knew exactly where to find them.

        “You must come with me,” said Katze in neutral tone once they were close enough to speak.

        “What for?” challenged Roxas.

        He answered simply, “Riki is missing.”

        Sora’s light feelings immediately sobered into dread.

To be continued.