Chapter 3

“I wouldn’t worry.” A small smile curled the edges of Naminé’s mouth. She returned her attention to Sora. Soon… Soon, Sora will wake up. But then what will he do? And what about us? Do we have to meet the same fate as that false one, the Replica? Is there no other way? Naminé thought of the chestnut-haired boy who had come into being in the same moment she had. What…was that voice just now? Roxas looked around. He knew he’d heard someone speaking. About his heart returning. “Roxas?” He raised his head to see Pence peering anxiously at him. “C’mon, let’s go.” “Yeah…” Pence grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, and they left the space under the tracks. Outside was a sloping back alley, leading up toward the station and down to the sandlot. “Roxas, what’re you doing?!” Hayner shouted from downhill. If they ran straight ahead, they would come to the tram common at the center of town. “Hurry up!” Hayner yelled again. “Okay!” Roxas chased after Pence. But that voice…where did it come from? And those dreams…about Sora. What does it all mean? “Over here!” Hayner called. Roxas followed his voice through the gate and dashed into the plaza. The stillness of the room was only broken by a mechanical sound. The only light in the dim space came from the computer screens. A man headed toward one of them and typed something on the keyboard. The man’s face was wrapped in red cloth bandages and black leather belts. There were things he had to record. The experiments that had led to all this… The root of all these evils was within him. Little electronic noises broke the room’s silence. “It seems we have some contaminants…,” he murmured to himself. The man’s name was DiZ. It stood for “Darkness in Zero.” This was the name he’d chosen for himself—and the burden he’d brought upon himself. “Time to get this investigation under way!” Pence declared when Roxas caught up. The four of them gathered in the middle of the common to confer. “Did you find out who’s been robbed?” Hayner asked. “Sure did!” replied Pence. “Wallace at the Item Shop, Jessie at the Accessory Shop, Auntie Elmyra at the Candy Shop…and…” “That’s practically everyone in town who runs a shop!” Olette exclaimed. “Well, I guess we’ll have to go around and ask them one by one,” Hayner said with a sigh. “You’re right,” Roxas agreed. They headed to the Item Shop. “Roxas,” Wallace started before any of them could get a word in. “Never thought you’d do such a rotten thing…” “We didn’t steal anything, okay?” Roxas said. Wallace only shook his head. “I’d like to believe you, but…who else would take that stuff?” “Could you tell us what got stolen?” Olette asked, standing beside Roxas. “As if you kids didn’t already know,” Wallace said icily. “Look, I’m not gonna talk to you. Go to the Accessory Shop and ask Jessie.” Apparently there was no doubt in his mind that Roxas and his friends were the thieves. “What a drag… Well, we better talk to Jessie.” Hayner spun on his heels and fixed his sights on the Accessory Shop. Pence followed suit. “Even if Seifer was spreading rumors about us…didn’t Wallace seem a little too convinced that we’re guilty?” “Yeah, well, it’s Seifer’s fault! Why else would everyone think it was us without any evidence?” Hayner said. Pence and Olette both tilted their heads in thought. “Hey…are all of us suspects or just me?” Roxas wondered aloud. “Saying you are is the same as saying all of us are!” Hayner clenched his fists. “But…” Dejected, Roxas lowered his head. Wallace definitely suspected me and no one else. “That’s right,” Pence said. “Besides, you’d never be able to steal things on your own without getting caught.” “I guess so— Hey! What’s that supposed to mean, Pence?” When Roxas looked up, Pence covered his head against retaliation and sprinted ahead. “Well, it’s true,” Olette giggled. “There’s just no way you could pull off anything so scandalous.” She took off after Pence. “Aw, c’mon! You too, Olette?!” Roxas complained, and chased after them. “Hey—wait for me!” Hayner ran to catch up. The four of them stopped short outside the Accessory Shop. “Oh, it’s you, Roxas…” The voice from behind the counter belonged to the pretty shopkeeper, Jessie. “I wish you wouldn’t let me down. You used to be one of my favorite customers.” “I’m not a thief!” Roxas felt like he was repeating himself. It hurt to be presumed guilty like this. “But there’s no one else who would steal those things,” Jessie said. Roxas hung his head. Hayner spoke up behind him. “Roxas says he didn’t do it!” “Well, it doesn’t really matter.” Jessie let out a small sigh. “What got stolen? Can you tell us anything?” Olette asked persistently. Jessie’s shoulders sagged, as if she didn’t want to talk about it. “Anyway, you’ll have to find a way to clear your name. Elmyra at the Candy Shop is pretty disappointed, too.” “Let’s go, Roxas.” Pence gently pushed him away from the counter, apparently convinced that there was no point in asking any more questions. The four of them trudged to the Candy Shop. “I’m not a thief…,” Roxas mumbled. “We know that. That’s why we’re asking around, isn’t it? After all, we were robbed, too!” Hayner gave him a friendly thump on the back as they ran up to the counter. “Hey, Auntie!” Elmyra looked up. “Oh, hello there, Hayner. Sea-salt ice cream for you?” she said in her slow, easygoing way. “We wanted to ask if anyone stole things from you,” Hayner said. The others clustered around him, all of them watching Auntie Elmyra. “Oh my, yes. Something important,” she replied, and the black cat perched on her lap softly meowed. “Just so you know, we didn’t do it,” Roxas suddenly declared. Auntie Elmyra looked squarely back at him. “I believe you,” she told him warmly, with a faint smile. “Thank you, ma’am,” Olette said. “So, what did they take from you?” “I can’t say the word, but… My . My precious.” She sounded mournful. “They took ours, too!” Pence cried. “So, the culprit is going around stealing . And not just, but the word, too,” Hayner said, looking at Roxas. He nodded. But why would a thief steal ? “I wonder if Seifer knows anything about it,” Olette murmured. “We’ll have to go ask him,” Roxas said. The other three nodded. “Thanks, Auntie Elmyra!” They waved to her and took off for the sandlot. “Thieves!” Fuu’s voice sounded from the sandlot the moment she saw Roxas and his friends. “That was real low, y’know!” Rai added. “Oh yeah?!” Hayner ran straight down to them. In the sandlot stood Fuu, a slender girl with a piercing gaze who spoke strangely in clipped phrases, and Rai, a brawny boy who had nothing but the greatest respect for Seifer. With them was Vivi, a timid boy who seldom said a word. This trio was Seifer’s retinue. “You better take that back!” Hayner shouted. He was on the verge of tackling Rai when Seifer strode onto the scene from the path leading to Station Heights. “Nice comeback.” Hayner jumped and spun around. “What’d you say?!” But Seifer brushed past Hayner to face Roxas. “You can give us back the now.” “I didn’t steal it,” Roxas said, glaring back. “You’re the only one who would!” Rai retorted from behind his hero. “It was our proof that we totally whooped your butts,” Seifer went on. “So, what’d you do? Burn it? Not like getting rid of it would change the fact that you’re losers.” “Rematch!” Fuu declared. Rai laughed loudly. “Yeah! That’ll be rich!” “If you surrender now, I might just let it slide,” Seifer said with a healthy dose of swagger, and he drew the toy sword that was his weapon of choice. “Roxas…,” Olette called nervously. But Roxas stepped closer and knelt down, then lowered his head. “Ah-ha-ha! Beggin’ for forgiveness?!” Rai taunted. Instead, Roxas picked up another toy sword from the ground and swung it at Seifer. “Hey—are you for real?” “Yeah, I am!” The two boys battled for a bit until Roxas finally knocked Seifer’s sword from his hands. He glared at Seifer as he tried to catch his breath. Hayner jumped up and cheered. “All right, Roxas!” As if that took the wind out of his sails, Seifer simply walked away, leaving his sword where it had fallen in the dirt. “Seifer’s just not feelin’ so hot, y’know!” said Rai. “Tournament decides!” Fuu added. They followed Seifer, and then Vivi toddled away after them. “Nice work, Roxas!” Pence took the camera from his pocket and aimed it. “Huh? Oh, okay…” Seeing the lens trained on him, Roxas struck a victorious pose and grinned. The shutter clicked. And that instant— Something appeared out of nowhere and swiped Pence’s camera. “Whoa!” Startled, Pence fell backward. The thing that held his camera was some kind of creature they’d never seen before, gleaming silver and writhing strangely, like a mirage that warped the air around it. “What’s that?!” Hayner yelped as the thing slinked and hopped away toward the alley that led to the plaza below. “The thief!” cried Olette. Still clutching the toy sword, Roxas ran after it. “H-hey, slow down, Roxas!” he heard Hayner call, but he wasn’t about to stop. This is the thief…! Roxas was absolutely certain of it. The weird creature dashed out of the sandlot, then cut across the tram common—it was ridiculously fast. It slithered into a hole in the wall at the edge of the plaza. “Is it heading for that haunted mansion…?” he muttered as he ducked through the hole into the dim, quiet woods. In the woods, there was a huge old house where no one lived—haunted, supposedly. The thing seemed to be moving steadily toward the gap in the trees, where Roxas could just barely see the lighter patch ahead. It stopped in front of the mansion’s gate. Roxas lifted his toy sword and crept closer to it. But the thing suddenly froze still—and at the same time Roxas heard a voice that seemed to speak directly into his body. “We have come for you, my liege.” “Huh?” Roxas blurted. The thing rushed at him. “Augh!” He swung at the winding, writhing creature. He was sure he’d made contact, and yet the sword seemed to go right through it. “It’s no good… Why can’t I hit it?” The moment he lowered his sword, the world went askew. “Not again…!” It felt like what had happened to him back in the hangout. But not exactly the same. This time, there was a quiet, electronic kind of sound. Light gathered around the toy sword in his hand. It looked like there were spirals of numbers swirling around it. “Huh?” And before his eyes, the sword transformed—into a giant key. “What…is this thing?” The key seemed to draw him forward, moving on its own to attack the creature. “Whoa!” This time, when the key made contact, Roxas felt the impact. A second and a third strike, and then the strange creature vanished like it had been an illusion the whole time. Likewise, the giant key he held changed back into wood. He had no idea what was happening. A giant key…and a strange creature. Those voices from nowhere…and those dreams. “Roxas!” That voice was Hayner’s. There on the ground, exactly where the creature had been, were a few pieces of paper. Roxas picked one up. It was a photo of himself with Wallace from the Item Shop. “Are you okay?!” Pence called out. Olette joined them a moment later. “Yeah… Look.” Roxas held up the picture. “Are these the ones that got stolen?” Hayner said, peering at it. “I think so…” Pence and Olette gathered the other photos. “Well, looks like this is all the missing stuff,” Pence said, picking up his camera. “Back to our usual spot?” Olette suggested. “Yeah…” Roxas nodded. A gathering of men in black cloaks sat in a great hall of shining white marble. Their hoods hid their faces, making their expressions unreadable. There were seven of them, and their seats were according to some kind of numbered order. Six seats were empty—numbers 4 and 5, 6, 11, 12, and 13. “It seems we’ve found him at last,” the man in seat 1 said in a deep voice. “Roxas?” asked the man in seat 2. “Or the hero…?” “Both.” Number 8 looked away from number 1’s high seat near him and shrugged. Another man slowly shook his head. “Both of them at once? That’s impossible…” “So someone’s will is in action…,” muttered another. “…It smells like him,” number 1 rumbled. “Who?” Number 9 cocked his head. The man in seat 3 spoke for the first time. “It can’t be…” Number 9 leaned over to his neighbor in seat 10. “Wait, who are we talking about?” he asked, intensely curious. “Be quiet.” “Tch. Whatever. Hey, Axel…” Shut down by number 10, number 9 tried to turn to number 8. In seat 8, Axel crossed his arms and said nothing. “What, you too?” Number 9 gave a dramatic sigh. “Enough, Demyx.” That was number 2. “The time to act is upon us,” number 3 said. A slight frown tugged at Axel’s brows. What if…? What if he’d been able to stop Roxas back then? If he had told Roxas all the things they kept secret, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this. But he’d been unable to betray the organization. No—he had definitely betrayed them. The one who killed everyone in that castle, who led Riku to Naminé—that was him. And yet it wasn’t a total betrayal. Doubts still swirled inside him. Why am I here? What do I want? How can I become whole again? Even now, he wasn’t sure. What should I have done? What should I do? Roxas… “We have to discuss strategy… Axel?” Startled at being called upon, Axel raised his head. “You’re the one who knows the most about the Keyblade wielders,” number 2 said. Axel nodded. Back in their nook, the four friends looked at the photos one by one. “What’s going on in this photo?” Hayner wondered. A grin came to Olette’s face. “You just said ‘photo’!” The stolen things and the stolen word had both been recovered. Roxas eyed the photo in Hayner’s hand. “It’s me and Wallace. I was his first customer after he took over the shop, so we took a picture together.” “Photos are memories.” Olette inspected another one. “You look happy in this one, Roxas.” This picture showed Roxas with Jessie from the Accessory Shop. “With a girl!” Hayner leaned in to see the photo and whistled. “So, anybody else notice that all the stolen pictures are of Roxas?” Pence remarked a bit nervously, examining the other pictures. “Huh? Really?” Olette peered at the photos fanned out in Pence’s hand. It was true—Roxas was in all of them. “So that’s why everyone thought it was us.” “You mean Seifer didn’t go around accusing us after all…?” Hayner said. “What about the real thief? Who was it?” Roxas shook his head. “I don’t know. The pictures were just lying there.” He couldn’t really say what that weird creature was. All he knew was…a lot of strange things were happening to him. “Then how do we prove we didn’t take ’em?!” Hayner said, stumped. “Well, all the pictures were of him… What if the thief actually wanted to steal the real Roxas?” Pence teased. “Get real. Why would anyone wanna steal a bonehead like him?” “Excuse you!” Roxas jokingly raised a fist. “Ack! No!” Hayner covered his head. “Oh, hey—guys! Here’s a picture of all of us.” Olette held up a photo of the four of them in front of the haunted mansion. “Yeah, I look pretty good, huh?” Hayner said. “Not seeing it.” Pence laughed. Beside them, Roxas stared at the picture. Right… That picture of all of us together…is important. Except he couldn’t remember when they’d taken it. From across town, they heard the bells ringing. “Time to get going, huh?” Olette said. The boys nodded. “I’ll go give everyone’s photos back on the way. See you tomorrow!” Hayner left, clutching all the pictures. “Okay!” “Later.” Olette and Pence followed him out. Roxas was the last to leave. Twilight Town’s setting sun shone in his eyes. So bright… Roxas closed his eyes. And instantly, the world was dark. “Where am I…?” He heard a voice inside his head. “Who’s there?” Roxas asked. “Who are you?” It was a voice he’d heard before. It was— —Restoration at 12%— DiZ felt a presence behind him, but he didn’t turn away from the monitor. “Those Organization XIII miscreants… They’ve found us.” The man in the black coat peered over DiZ’s shoulder at the boy’s face on the screen. “Why would the Nobodies steal photographs?” “Both are nothing more than data to them. The fools could never tell the difference. We are running out of time. Tell Naminé she must hurry.” He nodded once in reply and left to speak to Naminé, leaving the sterile, inorganic room and ascending the stairs back to the old mansion. Hardly anyone ever came in here, and the air was musty. But at the end of the hall on the second floor was her room. When he opened the door, Naminé felt his presence, too, and she closed her sketchbook to hide the drawing she was working on. The room did not match the rest of the house—it was all white, like that castle. “What were you drawing?” he asked, and went to the window. “…The castle.” “Oh. Well…time’s running out.” Naminé looked up and stared at him, but he did not look back. “I promised…,” she murmured. “Huh?” “Nothing…” You, the one who chose not to sleep. And Sora, sleeping. I promised you both, but… Maybe I wasn’t able to keep those promises to you. Naminé held her sketchbook to her chest and stood up.