Kingdom Hearts II Vol 1

by Tomoco Kanemaki

Through the dune grass onto the sand. We always ran barefoot, too.

  “Kairi!” Selphie struggled to keep up, out of breath by the time she made it onto the beach.

  Without turning around, Kairi took a small bottle out of her satchel. The bottle contained a piece of paper, folded up tight.

  “What’s that?” Selphie asked.

  With a tiny smile, Kairi set the bottle down into the water. The receding wave carried it away, and it began to drift slowly out to sea.

  “A letter. I wrote it yesterday to the boy I can’t remember. I said that no matter where he is…I’ll find him someday. And then, when I finished writing, I remembered we made a promise—an important one. This letter is where it starts. I just know it.”

  She smiled, seeing the bottle bob atop the waves.

  “Wow…,” Selphie said. “I hope he gets it.”

  “He will.”

  They both watched the bottle float away.

  It’ll reach you. I’m sure of it.

  “It starts with an S…,” Kairi murmured, and then raised her voice into the sea breeze. “Right, Sora?”

  —Restoration at 79%—

  “Sora is coming back.”

  At that, Axel looked up.

  The one who had spoken was number 3 in Organization XIII.

  “Then—,” Axel started, but bit down on the question he wanted to ask. Then what’s going to happen to Roxas?

  It was an abruptly called meeting. He had suspected what it would be about, but there was no need to reveal his own agenda.

  “So, we have no choice but to destroy number thirteen,” number 7 pronounced coldly.

  “Indeed, if he has no intention of returning to us,” number 3 said.

  The others were silent, briefly.

  “So we have to eliminate the traitor, is that it?” That was number 9—Demyx.

  Axel’s eyebrow twitched. The words grated on his nerves. Actually, everything the others said irritated him.

  The fact that the members of Organization XIII shared the same goal did nothing to make them close with one another. Some among them had been friendly back when they were human. Whether that made any difference to the others, Axel didn’t know, and he didn’t need to know.

  For a member of the organization, there was only one goal—to obtain a heart.

  But just because we have no hearts doesn’t mean we feel nothing, thought Axel. We just know that we’re…incomplete somehow. When we were told that what we each lack is a heart, it made perfect sense. Because we definitely lack something.

  “Axel,” number 1 said.

  Axel stood in response to the rare occasion of their leader clearly addressing someone.

  “You will eliminate Roxas.”

  Keeping his mouth shut, Axel looked back at number 1.

  “Did you not hear me, Axel?”

  “No, I heard you perfectly.” A smirk curled the corner of his lips, and then he vanished from the hall.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE 5th DAY

  IN THE WHITE ROOM IN THE MANSION, NAMINÉ SAT sketching quietly.

  Now…what to draw today?

  “Oh…!” A tiny exclamation left her as she looked up from her sketchbook.

  She’d heard something just now—a voice.

  “…Sora?” it said.

  A hint of sorrow crept into her expression, and she focused on her sketchbook again. Then the door opened.

  “Naminé.”

  It was him standing in the doorway. He seemed a little out of breath—unusual for him. But Naminé already knew why.

  “…You felt Sora?”

  He had too many questions of his own to answer. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “…Oh.”

  Naminé noticed that he had something in his hand—a blue crystal. “What’s that?”

  “It…belongs to him.” He held the crystal up to the light, making it gleam and sparkle.

  “Him…?”

  “Roxas.” He tucked it into his pocket and turned away.

  “Did you go to see Roxas again?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  Naminé would have liked to know how he had taken something belonging to Roxas without seeing him. She asked a different question instead. “Then did you run into anyone else?”

  “Anyone else?” He turned to face her again. “Who are you talking about?”

  “You’d know if you did. Don’t worry about it,” Naminé replied, looking at one of the drawings she had pinned up on the wall.

  It showed a chestnut-haired boy and a red-haired man, both wearing black cloaks.

  “…If you say so.” With that he walked out.

  Why are he and I always shying away from talking about anything important? Naminé wondered. We can never say what we need to say to each other. We still can’t.

  DiZ faced the screen in the computer room beneath the mansion. Sensing another presence, he turned. “There you are. His progress is astounding.” He gestured at the number on the screen.

  “What happened?” he asked, and took a blue crystal from his pocket to put it into the embroidered purse he’d taken the other day.

  “Naminé’s encounter with Roxas put his heart in contact with Kairi’s,” DiZ explained. “And that, in turn, affected Sora—you see?”

  “Naminé…? She’s something else,” he remarked, fidgeting with the purse.

  “She wasn’t born like other Nobodies,” DiZ explained flatly. “She can tamper with the hearts and memories of Sora and those aligned with him.”

  Naminé was special.

  The darkness in one’s heart could become a Heartless. When it did, a Nobody was born. But Naminé had originated from a girl with no darkness in her heart—her very existence was unique.

  “…But whose Nobody is she?”

  DiZ smiled at the question behind his bandages. That’s right—I haven’t told him yet.

  “I could tell you. But first…perhaps you could tell me your true name?”

  He pushed back his hood. The features he revealed were gold eyes and silver hair. “It’s Ansem.”

  Whatever answer DiZ had thought he might receive, Ansem wasn’t one of them. Such an answer could only be in jest, or so it sounded to him. “Heh-heh…ah-ha-ha-ha! It’s an honor, Ansem!”

  As DiZ went on chuckling, he drew up his hood again and left the room.

  He was falling through endless darkness.

  Falling, and falling, and falling.

  Forever—

  Roxas woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. He felt a little better seeing himself at home in his own room.

  “Just a dream…,” he mumbled under a huge sigh.

  Or was it?

  He’d slipped and fallen from the clock tower—and he couldn’t remember anything after that.

  “Which parts…were the dream?”

  He couldn’t tell dreams from reality.

  He’d dreamed of that girl again. And he’d seen her in town the other day. Now he wasn’t sure what was real.

  “Naminé…Keyblade…Axel…Sora…Kairi…Riku…Ansem…” He listed all the names to himself.

  He’d met Naminé. He’d battled using the Keyblade. He’d fought Axel.

  And then there was the man swathed in red bandages. And the man in the black cloak.

  Kairi, the girl Sora liked. Riku, Sora’s friend.

  Which parts had he dreamed? He didn’t know.

  Roxas clambered out of bed and listlessly started to get dressed.

  Hayner and Pence and Olette. Those three were his friends, and that was unquestionably real.

  So of course he had to go to their haunt—there were only three days of summer vacation left. And they hadn’t been to the beach yet.

  Roxas left his room.

  A passing train rumbled above their hangout. Olette was arguing with Hayner, which didn’t happen often.

  “We’ve only got three days of summer left!” shouted Hayner. “Don’t even talk
about that assignment!”

  “But we agreed that we’d get it finished today. Didn’t we, Roxas?” She looked to him for support.

  Roxas was no help. “Um, yesterday…didn’t I fall off the clock tower?”

  Olette flinched at the idea.

  “You wouldn’t be here if you did!” Hayner said.

  “Man, it was a close one, though.” Pence laughed.

  So he hadn’t fallen…? Roxas cocked his head. He was so sure he had—or was that just another dream?

  “Stop changing the subject!” Olette scolded them.

  “All right already…” Hayner stood up with a sigh. “You win. We’ll do the homework. Today’s the day for a pain-in-the-butt independent study project.”

  Roxas had completely forgotten that there were any vacation assignments until now. Only three more days, and then it was back to school.

  School? Wait, was I ever going to school?

  “So, any bright ideas for a topic?” Hayner prompted.

  Roxas looked up at that. “Maybe we could study the stuff that’s been happening to me. You know, the dreams, and those silver things—”

  Hayner cut him off. “Forget it.”

  “How come?” Roxas protested.

  Pence and Olette exchanged glances.

  “You know how things have been weird with you and around town since those photos got stolen?” Hayner said.

  Roxas nodded.

  “Tomorrow, everyone’s gonna search the town and find out what’s been going on,” Pence said brightly.

  “Lots of people are helping out,” Olette added, giving Roxas a reassuring smile.

  This was the first Roxas had heard of it. “All that for me?”

  “Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t we?” Hayner crossed his arms and puffed out his chest.

  A town-wide investigation…for me? That makes me really…happy. Everyone was thinking of him, after all.

  Noticing that Roxas looked a bit bashful, Pence spoke up. “So, there’s this weird rumor going around—you wanna hear it?”

  “A weird rumor?” Olette said.

  Pence made a grim face for effect and went on in a creepy hushed voice, like an old woman telling a story at a campfire. “You know the stone steps at Sunset Station? We take them all the time without even thinking about it… But there’s something very strange about them… You’ll count a different number of steps going up and down!”

  “Seriously?” Hayner blurted.

  “And there are six more weird stories like that,” Pence said in his normal voice. “It’s like the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town.”

  “We can investigate those for our project! Pence, you’re a genius!” Hayner gushed.

  Olette nodded, too.

  “There might be even more urban legends around,” Pence added. “Let’s split up and look into it.”

  Hayner dashed to the entrance. “Okay! Olette and I will go find some new rumors. C’mon!”

  “Slow down, Hayner!” Olette called, chasing him.

  “That leaves you and me, Roxas,” Pence said. “Let’s try the train first. To the station!”

  Roxas nodded, and they left their hangout together at a run.

  Twilight Town had two train lines—the one that ran to the beach and another local line that went through town. The other end of the local line was Sunset Station over in the residential terrace.

  “Here I go, Pence!” Roxas hopped on a skateboard he found sitting outside and took off for the station.

  “Hey, Roxas! No fair!” Pence tried run after him.

  It had been a while, actually, since he’d ridden a skateboard. He liked the wind on his face as he zipped along the streets.

  When he thought about tomorrow, he felt better than he had in a while.

  Tomorrow, everyone would come out to help him search for the secrets behind all these strange things happening to him. Knowing that, he felt like not even the dreams or those silver creatures could bother him.

  He sped through the city on the skateboard and waited in front of the station for his friend to catch up. “Took you long enough, Pence!”

  Pence came running, breathing hard, his shirt soaked through with sweat, since he was a bit on the heavy side. He huffed and glared reproachfully at Roxas.

  “Oh… Sorry.” Roxas did feel bad at that. He hung his head apologetically.

  “Aw, it’s fine. C’mon, let’s get on the train.” Pence smiled at him and climbed the steps to the station, then pulled the door open. Roxas followed him in.

  He was pretty sure that the local line had no fare. They continued up the steps to the platform to find that a train to Sunset Station was waiting.

  “And now…we hunt for the Seven Wonders!” Pence said in his creepy voice, grinning with anticipation.

  “Not without us!” Hayner announced, storming the platform with Olette.

  “Whoa, you find new rumors already?” asked Pence.

  “Nothing on Market Street,” Olette said.

  “You twerps aren’t gonna scoop us. We’re going to the terrace, too!” Hayner jumped into the train car.

  Olette looked exasperated. “Honestly… It’s not a race, Hayner.”

  “It is now!” Hayner declared, poking his head out.

  Roxas and Pence exchanged glances. “I guess we’re all going,” Roxas said. Pence and Olette stepped onto the train with him.

  The familiar rumble of the train was relaxing, though Roxas usually heard it from outside rather than in.

  The four of them all sat apart, staring out the windows. The light from the lowering sun shone softly into the train car.

  “It’s so pretty…,” Olette said, and took something out of her pocket—her yellow crystal, the one Roxas had given her from the Struggle trophy. Smiling brightly, she held it up to the light, where it sparkled.

  Hayner and Pence followed suit and took out theirs. The crystals all glistened in their respective colors.

  Roxas stuck his hand in his pocket—but the crystal wasn’t there. He couldn’t find it anywhere. His blue crystal… Where could he have put it?

  The others had theirs, sparkling in the low sunlight. Roxas looked at them blankly.

  Come to think of it, he had lost something else like this when he had every reason to think he had it—Olette’s purse.

  The photos, Olette’s purse, and now his crystal.

  Why do my things keep disappearing?

  The moment the train came to a halt, Hayner jumped up. “C’mon, Olette! Hurry!”

  She paused to exchange glances with Roxas and Pence, then ran after Hayner.

  “I say we take our time,” Pence said blithely, stepping out to the platform, and Roxas followed him.

  Sunset Station was on a rise overlooking the neighborhood. The stone steps that led up the slope were supposed to be one of the Seven Wonders.

  “This is it, right? The stone steps that count differently going up and down?” Roxas said, peering down the steps.

  “Um, actually…” Pence grinned as he examined the steps. “It’s the stupidest thing ever, but…”

  “What?” Roxas said.

  Pence started walking down them. “The one who counted them was Rai. And he’s like, ‘Every time I count, it’s different, y’know!’ So there it is.” He shrugged.

  If Rai was counting, he would get a different number every time. “You mean…he just counted wrong?” Roxas sighed.

  Pence nodded.

  Roxas slumped in disappointment. “Ugh, really…”

  “Hey, there’s other weird stuff out there,” Pence said. “In fact, I thought Olette might bring it up for the school project, so I put ’em all on a map.”

  “Really? Nice work, Pence!”

  Pence unfolded a map and Roxas leaned in to look at it. There were five spots in the neighborhood marked with an X. One was the steps they were standing on.

  “What about the last two?” Roxas said.

  “I’ll tell you after we investigate the first five.” P
ence smirked.

  He walked down the hall that led to the room where Sora slept. Pods lined the hallway, but only two were in use. He looked up at the two fast asleep inside them, the king’s loyal servants, Donald and Goofy. The others were all empty, though some of them showed traces of past use. But whoever had slept in them had nothing to do with him, he thought. Even though he sensed a powerful scent very similar to his own.

  He opened the door. Unlike the corridor, this room was full of serene white light. In the middle of the space, Sora was sleeping.

  Up until now, he hadn’t been able to feel Sora without looking straight at him. Today was different.

  Today, he had felt Sora all day. He could feel that Sora was returning to his heart.

  He wanted to see Sora. He wanted to see Sora awake, and soon.

  But the way he was now—he couldn’t look Sora in the eye. Maybe he could never let Sora see his face again.

  He felt like he hadn’t truly met Sora again since that night—the night when their island was destroyed.

  Could Sora ever truly forgive him?

  He pushed back the hood of his cloak to show his silver hair and looked up at Sora with amber eyes.

  This form that he hated more than anyone…

  He had given his name as Ansem to DiZ. It wasn’t quite a lie.

  That’s right… I am Ansem. The one who covered the world in darkness.

  His eyes remained fixed on Sora.

  Just like the stone steps, the other four wonders on Pence’s map turned out to be nothing remarkable.

  The so-called “friend from beyond the wall” rumor came from some kids who threw a ball and didn’t realize it had only bounced off the wall back to them, and the moans from the tunnel had been Vivi practicing for the Struggle. The report of the wiggling bag arose thanks to a dog who liked to climb into bags and jump around. The mysterious doppelgänger was actually one’s own reflection in a sheet of water from a fountain.

  “You know…if you actually investigate them, these wonders aren’t exactly wonderful,” Roxas complained with a sigh.

  “I know, I know. But this next one’s gonna be really great! Wonder number six!” Pence said cheerfully, just as Hayner and Olette came running.

  They announced their findings in rapid succession.

  “We got another lead!”