Time Only Knows ch2

Time Only Knows
by Tafkae

-------------------------------

For a second it was too dark to see. Cautious, Sora held still until his eyes adjusted to the light; when they did, he realized where he was. It was the secret place, where he and his friends had covered the walls with chalk drawings over the years, but right now the drawings were few and fresh. A small box of white chalk had been left in the middle of the floor, and somewhere outside he could hear running water. He jogged in that direction, knowing it to be the exit. The greenish light from outside grew stronger the closer he got, until he was pushing aside the ivy and leaves that almost completely obscured the opening.

He couldn’t help but smile. The sand, the rocks, the trees, the boats, the little island where the paopu tree grew—it was all so wonderfully familiar.

Sora was home.

“Good grief, Sora! You’re such a klutz!”

He jumped at the sound of his name and ducked halfway back into the cover of the secret cave, then glanced around to see who had said it. He soon noticed them, two sitting in the sand and one standing with a stick over his shoulder. The sitting boy jumped to his feet, brandishing a small wooden sword as well. “That was a lucky shot!” he shouted, and restarted the fight.

They were impossible not to recognize. Sora was watching one of many fights between himself and Riku. Well, that doesn’t help me know when I am, he thought, we sparred practically every day back then... He turned his attention to the right, and found another sign almost immediately. Kairi was sitting in the sand just a little ways off, apparently not paying attention to the other two. It looked like she was making something, but he couldn’t tell what from here.

If Kairi’s here, then it can’t be more than nine or ten years ago, he realized, but then again, the kids on the beach looked closer to ten than five. It’s probably been a few years since then, I guess. It wasn’t all that important, really, but at least now his curiosity was satisfied.

With practiced ease, Sora slipped out from his hiding spot and pulled himself into a nearby tree. When he scooted out onto a particular branch, he could easily keep an eye on the entire beach, but the leaves were still thick enough that nobody would be able to see him. It had been one of his favorite hide-and-seek spots when he was younger, and no one had ever managed to sneak up on him when he hid there.

Once he’d made himself comfortable, he looked back down at the trio. It was kind of surreal, watching himself and Riku duke it out like that from overhead. Wow, looking back on it now, I really sucked back then, he thought, amused.

All of a sudden, Riku swung around from the side, knocking the younger Sora’s feet out from under him. The brown-haired boy fell flat on his face in the sand with an “Oof!”

“Just try and tell me that was a lucky shot,” said Riku.

The younger Sora spit out a mouthful of sand. “Okay, I will! That was a lucky shot!”

“Oh, come on!” Riku moaned. “I already won, like, five times ago. Give it up already.”

Younger Sora stuck out his tongue.

“Come on, guys, don’t fight,” little Kairi sighed, looking up from her project.

Older Sora silently agreed with her. It was bad enough knowing he had lost to Riku nine times out of ten back then; having to watch was a little humiliating.

From the looks of it, younger Sora had the same idea. He huffed and folded his arms crossly, but didn’t attack Riku again.

“Hey, what’ve you been doing, Kairi?” asked Riku, sitting down to join the other two.

Kairi held it up. “I’m decorating my yo-yo,” she replied. “I found some really pretty pink shells when the tide went out, and the yo-yo was boring as just plain white.”

“It looks really nice,” said younger Sora, who had already lost interest in being angry over losing. “Cool, you made it look like a star! That’s really neat.”

“It’s... supposed to look like a flower,” Kairi replied hesitantly.

There was a brief pause. “Th-that’s what I meant!” the younger Sora exclaimed.

“It’s not what you said,” said Riku.

“Shut up! It’s what I meant to say!”

“It’s okay,” Kairi said quietly. “It does kind of look like a star, now that I think about it.”

“A star’s a star and a flower’s a flower,” said Riku. “Sora’s just being dumb.”

“What?!”

Kairi picked up another pink shell from the small pile in her lap, and glued it over the open center of the shell ring. “Look! Now it can be a star flower!” she proclaimed, smiling as she showed it to them again.

“Uh... yeah! A star flower!” said Riku, sounding more uneasy than he probably meant to.

“You just said it can’t be both, doofus,” replied Sora, clearly smug that he had finally managed to get a jab in.

Riku took that as a challenge, and before long, the two of them were up in arms again. The older Sora couldn’t help but chuckle from his tree perch. It was pretty exemplary of his entire childhood; he and Riku would use practically any excuse to go out and fight. There was rarely anger behind it, although the loser would gripe for a while. The fight itself, the adrenaline and the movement of it—that was what they enjoyed, and it was what they did for fun. Kairi had eventually gotten used to it after she figured that out.

What must have been hours passed. Riku and Sora soon got bored of fighting again, and the three went back to the dock to eat lunch. The older Sora’s stomach had also started growling, and he began to realize another reason to get to the bottom of this mess as soon as possible: he hadn’t brought any food. The problem was, he couldn’t find and correct the source of the disturbance yet, simply because there hadn’t been any disturbance. It looked like just another ordinary day on the Destiny Islands. Did Merlin send me to the right time? he wondered.

“Race you to the paopu tree!” Riku shouted all of  a sudden, jumping up and breaking into a run.

“I’m nof fimiff!” younger Sora protested with his mouth full, but got up and chased him anyway, his half-eaten fish sandwich still firmly clutched in one hand. A nearby flock of seagulls hopped after him, picking up the crumbs that fell off as he ran. Kairi just shook her head and smiled.

Halfway to the small island, though, Riku suddenly halted, and the younger Sora, paying attention only to his speed, ran into him full-tilt, almost knocking both of them over. “Hey! What giv...”

It was then that he looked up and saw what Riku saw—the portly figure of Pete blocking their path, casting a massive shadow over the two boys. “Well, well, what do we have here?” he chortled.

The older Sora tensed. “Okay, if that’s not a disturbance, nothing is,” he muttered, swinging out of the tree and landing deftly behind a large rock. But how am I supposed to do anything without showing myself?

“What the heck are you supposed to be?” Riku asked with a grimace.

Pete scowled. “You’ve got some lip, squirt. But don’t you worry, boys!” He snapped his fingers, and a ring of Shadows surrounded the two. “I’m gonna wipe those grins right off your snotty little faces!”

“We’re not grinning!” the younger Sora protested, but Pete had already stepped back to let the twitching Heartless do their job.

Before they could get a chance to attack, though, half of them were already gone. The boys had only a second to see the gleaming edge of the Keyblade before it had moved on to the other half. Within seconds, the Heartless had all vanished, and instead, a boy holding a giant key stood between them and Pete.

“Guess again,” the older Sora said firmly.

“B-b-b-b-b-b-b-but that’s impossible!” Pete exclaimed, quivering.

“Come on, you should know better. Why would I be anywhere else?” Sora cast him a smirk.

Pete shook, but it was hard to say whether it was out of fear or anger; it was probably a combination of both.

“It’s time we got this straightened out once and for all,” said Sora, dropping into his combat stance.

“Oh, so you wants ta fight, do ya?” said Pete. “Well, let’s see ya handle this!”

He snapped his fingers again, this time summoning a handful of Wyverns into the air. Sora glowered at them, then turned to his younger self and Riku. “Run! I’ll get rid of these!”

They didn’t have to be told twice, and bolted for the dock. Unfortunately, about half of the Wyverns decided to follow them. “Look out!” Kairi called from in front of them.

Older Sora heard her, and, abandoning the ones attacking him, jumped into the air over the boys to repel all three of their attackers with a spinning combo. Unfortunately, that left him wide open from behind afterwards, and one of the Heartless he’d ignored pegged him right between the shoulder blades with its red talons, sending him skidding into the sand.

One of the Wyverns that had been stunned by Sora’s attack came back to its senses and dove at the younger Sora and Riku. With a scream, the boys scattered out of the way barely in time. But older Sora was already back on his feet, and his Keyblade intercepted the Wyvern and evaporated it before it could get back into the air. One down, four to go.

He heard a shriek from Kairi’s direction, and looked up just in time to see her scramble under the dock for cover from one of the remaining Wyverns. At the same time, though, his younger self and Riku had retrieved their toy swords and were trying to attack the Heartless. “Grief, I can’t be everywhere at once!” he groaned. He’d have to end this fast, or they’d all wind up getting killed. “Everybody down!” he shouted, pointing the Keyblade straight up over his head.

Riku and the young Sora ducked, Kairi curled up tighter underneath the dock, and the older Sora let loose with a powerful Thundara spell.

With a bright flash of light and a deafening CRACK, the Heartless all vanished.

For a second, no one moved. Then the older Sora lowered his arms, the Keyblade disappearing from his hand as it was no longer needed, and let out a sigh of relief. “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

“THAT WAS AWESOME,” younger Sora gushed, jumping up and down next to his counterpart with an impossibly excited grin all over his face. “Can you teach me how to do that? Canyacanyacanya?!”

“Um, I ...” The older Sora scratched his head. “Look, just—you’ve got to be okay if you’re jumping around like that.” He turned. “Riku, Kairi? Are you all right too?”

“Huh? I’m fine,” said Riku. “But how do you—”

“I just got a scratch on my leg from the boards,” said Kairi, crawling out from under the dock and dusting the wet sand from her clothes, but still very visibly frightened. “Wh-what were those things?”

At least that Sora could answer. “Heartless,” he said simply. Then he looked behind him. “It looks like their boss was just using them as a diversion so he could get away, too.”

“What a jerk,” the younger Sora piped up.

“I couldn’t agree more,” his counterpart replied, nodding.

By now Riku and Kairi had joined the group. The older Sora couldn’t help but be amused that, for the first time in his life, he was actually taller than Riku.

“Thanks for saving us,” said Kairi, snapping him back to reality.

“Uh, no problem!” Sora replied quickly. He barely managed to stop himself from adding “What are friends for?” “I just didn’t want you guys to get hurt, that’s all.”

The younger Sora grinned. “I’m Sora! Man, is this cool or what?”

“I’m Riku, and this is Kairi, but you already knew that,” said Riku. “What’s your name?”

“Dude, Riku, he’s me, but from the future!” exclaimed younger Sora.

Older Sora jumped. “WHAT?! No no no no no no no—”

“Geez, Sora, sounds like you need some time out of the sun,” Riku muttered.

“He totally is! He looks just like me!”

Riku rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “He is not you from the future! Good grief!” Then he looked up at the Sora from the future. “Seriously, what is your name, though?”

“S—” Sora caught himself just in time, but realized too late he hadn’t readied a false name ahead of time. He dithered for a second before giving them the first name that popped into his mind.

“Uhh... Roxas! My name’s Roxas.”

-------------------------------

Leon pushed open the door to Merlin’s house, and was instantly greeted with a peppy “Hey there, Leon!” from Goofy. He acknowledged the knight with a nod.

“Running out of Heartless?” said Aerith, who had come in not long after Sora left.

Leon shook his head. “Do we ever run out?”

“Need a glass of water or anything?” Aerith asked.

“That’d be nice. I’m heading right back out.” As she ducked into the back of the house, he looked back and forth between Donald and Goofy and the newly added door. “Is Sora still here?” he asked.

“Afraid not,” said Merlin, peering up over the pages of a massive book. “His past was tampered with, so he traveled back through that door in order to fix it.”

“I see.” That explained the renovations, then.

“We’re guarding the door,” Goofy added as Aerith handed Leon his water. “After all, we don’t want—”

He was cut off by a tap on the window. Everyone looked to see a long, silver creature staring at them through it. Leon took a quick sip from his glass, then set it down on the table. “Nobodies, too? That’s all we need,” he muttered as he hurried out of the house.

Aerith took a closer look out the window. “Uh-oh. There’s an awful lot of them.” She turned to the wizard. “We should help him out, Merlin.”

Merlin nodded and hopped to his feet. “Donald, Goofy, stay at your posts. We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“Aye aye!” Goofy and Donald exclaimed with a salute. Merlin vanished in a poof of smoke, and Aerith scurried out, closing the door behind her.

“Gawrsh, I do feel kinda bad that we can’t help out, though,” said Goofy, taking a seat on  one of the dining chairs.

“We are helping!” Donald insisted. “Somebody’s gotta guard the door for Sor—”

Suddenly, a swirling black ovoid rose from the floor, eliciting a surprised quack from Donald, and a black-coated figure stepped out, his hood up.

“Huh. Weird place for him to be, but I’ll take it,” the man said, seemingly oblivious to—or unconcerned with—the presence of the two guards.

“The Organization!” Goofy exclaimed.

“We’ll show you!” said Donald.

He rushed forward and unleashed a Fira spell on the coated man, but his opponent sliced it harmlessly in two with a wheel-like weapon he hadn’t been holding a second ago. “Fire? That’s cute,” he sneered. “You wanna learn about heat?! I’ll show you heat!”

He brought his hands together, and a bolt of flame shot straight out toward Donald, knocking him forcefully into the wall. Goofy threw his shield like a discus at the intruder, but the man ducked out of its path and reciprocated in kind with his chakrams. Like his friend, Goofy hit the wall, stunned by the impact; across the room, his shield clattered to the ground and stopped.

The man’s chakrams returned to his hands and disappeared, then he crossed at a leisurely pace to the time door. “Can’t say I agree with your taste in decorating, but I guess looks aren’t everything.” He yanked on the handles, and the door came freely open. “Nice chatting with you,” he added facetiously as he entered.

Just as the time doors clicked shut behind him, the front door swung open for Aerith. She gasped and shouted, “Leon, Merlin, come quick!” over her shoulder, then hurried in to check on their wounded friends. She had already cast Cure on Donald when Merlin and Leon entered.

“Good gracious! What happened?” exclaimed Merlin.

Donald leapt to his feet and started quacking far too fast for anyone to understand him. “Calm down, calm down,” Merlin coaxed him, as Aerith finished healing Goofy. “One word at a time, Donald. What’s going on?”

“Somebody from the Organization broke in an’ went through the time door!” Goofy shouted. “We tried to stop him, but he was too strong!”

“So all those Nobodies were just a diversion?” said Aerith.

“That explains why they all disappeared so suddenly,” said Leon.

“We’ve got to stop him!” Donald shouted, rushing toward the door.

Merlin collared him before he reached it. “No! The timeline is already unstable enough with this many people in the past! Send anyone else through, and there’s no telling how chaotic things might become!”

“Isn’t there any way we can warn him?” asked Goofy. “We’ve gotta do something!”

Leon shook his head. “Merlin’s right, Goofy. There’s nothing we can do at this point.” He folded his arms across his chest. “We have to trust that Riku can handle it.”

Everyone nodded slowly, except Aerith, who gave him an odd look.

“.... What did you just say, Leon?” she asked tentatively.

Leon blinked at her. “We have to trust that Sora can handle it.”

“You’re sure that’s what you said?”

“Yes, I’m sure. What’s wrong?”

Aerith paused, then shook her head and looked back to the door. “Nothing. I must not have heard right, that’s all.”

-------------------------------

Axel squinted in the unexpected dimness. What’s this supposed to be? It didn’t seem like just an adjoining room, given how humid it had gotten all of a sudden. After a second he lowered his hood and moved toward the daylight ahead of him, but let out a curse as his head smacked into a low-hanging root.

Ducking to avoid any additional foliage, he made his way out. The splashing of running water grew louder as he approached the exit, along with the unmistakable sound of children’s voices. Just as he was about to push aside the thick overhanging vines at the small opening, though, he heard something that made him freeze in his tracks.

“Roxas, I’m open!”

“Roxas!” Axel whispered. So the Dusks had been right! He shoved the foliage out of the way and stepped forward, looking rapidly back and forth for his friend; but his grin quickly dissolved. There were four people on the beach, as far as he could see—Sora was here, bouncing a beach ball on his knee, then passing it to a little kid who could have been his clone, next to a familiar-looking grey-haired boy and a young girl who didn’t look familiar at all.

But where was Roxas?

The girl got the ball and grinned. “Heads up, Roxas!” she shouted, throwing it at Sora.

“Hey, quit throwing it to me, guys, I’m trying to keep an eye out,” Sora replied, chucking the ball in the direction of the grey-haired kid.

“Awww,” the Sora-clone whined. “Come on, Roxas, we can’t play foursquare with just three people!”

“Yeah, Roxas, we need you!” the girl repeated.

Axel slumped in disbelief as the reality of the situation began to set in. He’s not ... he’s not here...! His body tensed. “You,” he hissed. “You—!!” His voice grew a bit louder with each word until it had escalated into a roar. “That’s—not—your—NAME!”

-------------------------------

Everyone froze at the sound of the inhuman yell. Riku dropped the beach ball in surprise. Older Sora whirled, instinctively summoning the Keyblade into his hand. “Stay here,” he ordered them, and ran the few steps to where he figured the shout had come from—only to find nothing out of the ordinary.

“What is it? A H-Heartless?” Kairi called after him.

“I don’t know,” said Sora, searching briefly in every direction he could think of. But there was nothing in the tree, nothing by the waterfall, and, as much as a brief look would tell him, nothing inside the secret place.

“No, Roxas, wait!” He felt something tugging on his sleeve, and looked back; his younger self let go of him for the moment.  “You can’t go in there, it’s our secret hideout,” said little Sora.

“I just want to make sure whatever made that noise isn’t hiding in there,” he assured him, then took a few steps inside.  “See? There’s nothing here anyway,” he added.

Younger Sora folded his arms as his counterpart emerged from the secret place again. “Well, duh, of course the monster didn’t go in there. Me and Riku and Kairi are the only ones that know about that place.”

“Yeah, but as easy as you found it, we’re gonna have to hide it better,” Riku grumbled, climbing up on a nearby rock and adjusting the vines that covered the entrance.

“It’s not a big deal,” older Sora tried, but it seemed that Riku was just as intractable as always, and he decided not to argue about something this unimportant. With a sigh, he dismissed the Keyblade and rested his hands on the back of his head again.

“How do you do that?” said younger Sora.

Older Sora was caught off guard. “Do what?”

“That thing, with the big key,” his younger self elaborated, swishing his hand about in the air as if he were holding a sword. “How do you make it show up and disappear like that? Where’s it go?”

Sora paused. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, bringing the Keyblade back to his hand. “It just does that.”

“Can I see it?” asked younger Sora, excited.

Older Sora thought for a second, then shrugged and handed it to him. “I guess it can’t hurt anything.”

Younger Sora stared at the Keyblade in awe for a second, then hopped off the ledge and started swinging it around experimentally in the sand. Older Sora mentally counted down. Three... two... one...

To his surprise, though, the Keyblade didn’t return to his hand. Oh, right, he realized after a second, he’s me! Of course it’s not gonna work! “Um, Sora, can I have it back now?” he asked.

Younger Sora obediently handed it to him. “It’s really cool. It’s wicked awesome,” he commented, grinning.

“Uh... glad you like it?” said older Sora.

“Can I try?” said Riku.

“I’d rather not,” older Sora replied carefully.

Riku frowned. “Aw, c’mon! No fair! Sora got to try it!”

Sora rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay! But just for a few seconds,” he added.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to ask for it back this time. After a few seconds, the Keyblade returned to his hand by itself, which elicited a small yelp of shock from Riku. The younger Sora giggled. “I don’t think it likes you, Riku!”

Older Sora grinned in spite of himself as Riku started chasing his younger self around the beach. After one last check around, he dismissed the Keyblade and sat down on the overgrown stone ledge that separated the trees from the sand, watching them.

“Roxas?” Kairi asked from behind him.

He turned. “Yeah, Kairi? What’s up?”

“What made the noise?” she asked, looking unusually worried.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Is it going to come back?”

Sora thought for a second, then sighed. “I want to say no, but it probably will.” To keep her anxiety from growing any further, though, he added, “But don’t worry! I won’t let the Heartless hurt you.”

Kairi relaxed a little. “And Sora and Riku, too?”

“Of course.” Sora grinned. “Nobody’s getting hurt on my watch. I promise.”

-------------------------------

Elsewhere on the island, a seagull squawked and flew away to safety as its treetop perch shook; then, with a loud crack, the trunk snapped and crashed to the sandy ground.

Axel let out a deep breath as his chakrams whirled back into his hands. Certainly he was furious, but he had enough sense to know taking it out on Sora would be counterproductive. He’d gone to all that trouble and it had just been a wild goose chase!

Still, within a few seconds, he had managed to force his jaw to unclench and his hands to release the chakrams, which vanished into thin air. The rage dissolved almost as suddenly as it had emerged, leaving Axel nothing more than strongly aggravated, and thereby able to think rationally again.

There’s got to be a way I can turn this around.

Hopefully, anyway. But even when he left the downed palm tree behind him and paced along the beach a ways, no ideas would come to him. He was about ready to try knocking over another tree when, from around a bend in the outcropping, he heard something... no, a voice! Out of habit, he flipped his hood up to obscure his face, then crept close enough to eavesdrop.

“...s’posed ta be an easy job. I goes t’roo the door back in time and turns dat little Keyblade brat into a Heartless while he’s still practically in diapers, right? How’d da big one even get here, anyway? Ohhh, Maleficent’s gonna eat me alive when she finds out...!”

Axel could barely believe what he was hearing. Back in time?! Then again, it would explain a lot... Curious, he stuck his head out from behind the rock for a better look. The speaker was a big, fat... something-or-other (definitely not human, at least) sitting on a couple of wooden crates, and since he didn’t see anyone else around, he could only assume the guy was talking to himself. He did keep talking, but everything he was saying now described what exactly he thought Maleficent would do to him if he came back empty-handed.

Something clicked in Axel’s mind, and he decided to make his move.

“... put me head on a pike ... throw me in da dungeon ... maybe even turn me into a Heartl—” At that moment, Pete happened to look up and noticed the hooded figure in front of him. “What the—who da heck are you?”

“Nobody,” Axel answered sardonically.

Pete shook a big forefinger at the newcomer, hopping down from his perch atop the crates. “You’re one o’ dem Organization fellers, aren’t you? Ya can’t pull the wool over my eyes! How in da heck did you find yer way here?”

Axel shrugged. “How did you and the Keyblade master find your way here?”

“Well, I don’t—”

He held up one hand in a stopping gesture. “Rhetorical question, don’t answer it. I didn’t come here for chitchat, I came to make a deal with you.”

Pete eyed him suspiciously. “What kinda deal?”

“You said you were here to turn Sora into a Heartless, right? Well, it happens I want the same thing,” Axel explained. “Now, you control the Heartless, but it sounds like you’re a little lacking in the ‘brilliant plans’ department. Turn over a few Heartless to me, and you’ll be in the clear with your boss in no time.”

Pete scratched his chin. “What’s da catch?”

Axel shook his head. “No catch. We’re simply two people with a common goal. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you know,” he added. “It’s not every day we wind up on exactly the same side like this. What do you say? Deal?”

He extended his right hand to Pete, and after a moment’s consideration, Pete took it and shook. “Deal!”

-------------------------------

“So, Roxas, where’re you from?” said the younger Sora, plopping down next to his older counterpart in the sand under the tree he’d been watching them from earlier.

“Serenity Island,” Sora replied without missing a beat. With a fake name, the rest of his story was fairly easy to make up; all he had to do was name some places he knew he’d never been, and his younger self would never know the difference.

“Wow. All the way out there?”

“Yep.” He absently kept an eye on Riku and Kairi at the same time. Kairi was a little ways off, still decorating her yo-yo, and Riku was trying to kick their beach ball into the air to hit it with his wooden sword.

“That’s really far. How’d you get here?” the younger Sora asked.

Sora bit his lip and put his hands behind his head to think, but was saved from having to invent anything by the beach ball’s sudden impact with his face. “Hey!”

“Sorry!” exclaimed Riku. “Can you toss it back?”

“Watch where you’re hitting it, Riku,” older Sora scolded, throwing the ball in Riku’s direction. Riku took advantage of it already being in the air and smacked it again, sending it right back into Sora’s head. “Ow!”

Younger Sora giggled. His older counterpart scowled and picked up the ball, but made no move to give it back. “C’mon, Roxas, give it back,” said Riku.

“Is there like a target drawn on my face or something?” Sora replied facetiously.

“Give it back! I’ll be more careful,” Riku pleaded. When Sora didn’t return the ball, Riku lunged for it, forcing the older boy onto his feet in order to keep it out of reach. “Roxaaaaas!” Riku whined.

The younger Sora got to his feet, but just then noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. “Uh, Roxas?”

“What’s the magic word?” said older Sora, clearly having fun teasing Riku like this instead of the other way around for once.

“Roxas!” younger Sora exclaimed, louder. A single Shadow was hopping up the ladder toward the tree house, but nobody else seemed to notice it.

“Roxas, this is dumb. You’re being a jerk,” said Riku.

“That’s not the magic word,” older Sora teased.

Younger Sora scowled. He couldn’t ever seem to get anybody’s attention. Well, there was only one of the little ones, right? And it wasn’t like it was one of those giant red monsters from before. Heck, I can probably even beat it by myself. He picked up his toy sword and followed the Heartless up the ladder, unnoticed.

As he reached the top, the little Shadow paused and turned around to look at him, then took off at a run, disappearing through the wide door into the tree house. Sora scowled and pulled himself onto the platform, wooden sword at the ready, then followed the Heartless. He paused by the door, flattening himself against the wall like someone he’d seen in a film, then burst into the tree house with a loud “A-HA!”

It was empty.

Puzzled, Sora stepped forward and looked around. Sunlight seeped through the cracks between the planks that made up the tree house, and a crude rope ladder sat half-finished in the far corner, but apart from that, there was nothing here but him.

He scratched his head with his free hand, then came to the realization that he must have scared it away and brandished his makeshift sword. “Yeah, you better run!” he exclaimed, then laughed and turned to head back to the beach—only to find a stranger blocking the way out.

Sora jumped, but calmed down quickly. “You scared me,” he said.

The red-haired man did not reply, but stared silently at the young Sora with a calculating smile. Sora decided to try again. “Are you lost?” he asked.

Axel shook his head. “I thought a friend of mine was going to be here, but it turns out he isn’t. What a waste of time.”

“Oh.” Sora thought for a second. “Well, maybe if you tell me what he looks like, I can help you find him!” he offered.

“I don’t doubt it for a second, kid. In fact,” Axel added, “you’re the only one who can help me find him.” Sora frowned in confusion, but Axel didn’t seem to care. “And as for what he looks like—well, let’s just say he looks a lot like you.”

Sora furrowed his brow for a second, then looked up with a spark of recognition. “You mean Roxas?”

The calm vanished from Axel’s face, replaced with a sneer. “Okay, for future reference, kid—bad things happen when you steal somebody else’s name.” He took a step backward. “Commit it to memory.”

Sora gasped as the stranger disappeared into a portal of darkness. At the same time, the uneven shadows around him writhed and stretched, rapidly taking on the simple black forms of the Heartless. He spun around, brandishing the thoroughly undaunting wooden sword in front of him, but he was surrounded, and the circle of twitching monsters tentatively closed in. He had just enough time to scream, “Roxas! HELP!” before they pounced.

-------------------------------

Down on the beach, Riku shoved his hands and his pockets and frowned, his sword tucked under one arm. “Okay, fine, whatever. Please.”

“That’s better,” said the older Sora, handing him the beach ball.

“Jerk,” Riku muttered as soon as Sora couldn’t take it away again.

Now that the entertainment had ended, Kairi looked quizzically around. “Hey, where’d Sora go?” she asked after a moment.

Older Sora jumped, then looked anxiously back and forth. “Sora?” he called. “Sora!”

Just then, an unmistakable shout of terror rang out. It took them a second to figure out where it was coming from, but then Sora bolted toward the tree house, Keyblade already drawn. Riku and Kairi followed him as fast as they could, but he didn’t notice. His mind kept screaming at him, No, no, no, no, no...

Within only a few seconds, he had burst through the open arch to the tree house; but those few seconds had been a few too many. The small form of the Sora from six years ago lay motionless on the floor, surrounded by a small horde of predatory Shadows. The older Sora let out an enraged yell and tore into the mob, the Keyblade swiftly ripping every last one limb from insubstantial limb.

“Sora!” Kairi shrieked. When he looked back, his two friends were standing over his younger counterpart, trying to shake him awake.

Sora squatted down next to himself. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Hey! Sora!” He reached out to make his younger self sit up, but before he could touch him, the small body evaporated in a black mist, which rose and dissipated into the air.

Riku shouted and looked frantically around, and Kairi yelled something indistinct; Sora didn’t really hear either of them, but let himself fall backwards into a sit. He knew exactly what had happened. He had let his guard down, and now the him in the past had been turned into a Heartless.

He’d screwed up.

What was he supposed to do now?

Suddenly, he squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his forehead as the dizziness returned, stronger than ever. Somebody was yelling in his ear, and he strained to listen. It was Riku. “What’d you do?!” his friend demanded, shaking him. “What’d you do to Sora?!”

“Leave him alone!” Kairi pleaded, but Riku ignored her.

“Where is he?!” he screamed.

Sora finally pulled away and looked right at him. “Riku, listen—”

He stopped short. It was no longer Riku and Kairi standing in front of him. Or rather, they were, but they looked somehow different. Instead of a little boy and girl, they were strange amalgamations of light and shadow; the one standing where Kairi should have been was so bright that it was hard to look at her. For a few stunned moments, Sora didn’t know what to make of the sight, but then he remembered. Freeing Kairi’s heart—opening his eyes—

This was the way the Heartless saw the world.

A rush of panic washed over him, and he glanced at his hands—but they were just as he remembered them, and between blinks his vision had returned to normal. Oddly, that didn’t make him feel any better.

He jumped to his feet and wobbled; the dizziness was getting even worse. Kairi tried to steady him by his waist. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Sora let go of his head and glimpsed her between his fingers. “You have to get off the island,” he ordered. “Both of you!”

“What about Sora?!” Kairi protested.

Riku grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. “He’s gone! Let’s get out of here!”

Kairi resisted, but couldn’t break his hold. “Riku, wait! Roxas!” she called.

“GO!” Sora shouted, and at last Kairi gave in and followed Riku away.

Sora didn’t go after them; the cyclone in his head wouldn’t even let him see straight. Riku... Kairi. Would they be okay? What about the present? Were they feeling the same thing he was? What was going to happen to them? What was happening to him?

One thing was for certain: he had to get back to his own time.

Determined now, he left the tree house with three running strides, and used his fourth to vault over the railing, landing on the ground below with the agility born of darkness—NO!

He looked toward the dock as he ran; the light-forms representing Riku and Kairi were just about finished untying their boats. Good. The secret place was just ahead. He barely felt his own footfalls, or the curtain of vines as he carelessly brushed it aside. Inside the cave, he lost his sight altogether and tripped, but, purely by luck, caught hold of one of the handles on the time door; another blink of the eyes and he could see the black claw grasping it. His claw.

Without sparing another moment, he took the other handle and pulled both as hard as he could. The doors creaked open, and the light from the crack between them almost blinded him, but that didn’t deter him in the least. He shouted and heaved himself through.

The doors closed slowly behind him.

But how? There were no doors.

-------------------------------

Axel glanced at the light grey corridor around him, confused. How did I—

“What’s the matter, traitor?” came an icy voice from ahead of him. “You seem... nonplussed.”

He whirled to confront the voice, chakrams appearing instinctively in his hands; but he jumped as the other man’s face came into view. “Wha—you’re dead!” he exclaimed.

The man frowned sternly. “I’d worry about my own fortune were I you, Eight.”

-------------------------------

“Ohhh, Maleficent!” Pete called as he pulled his own door shut behind him. “It’s me, Pete! I done just like you said, all by myself, even!” He paused to climb over a small pile of rubble where the ceiling had fallen in (odd, that hadn’t been there when he’d left). At the top, he stopped and took a second to listen. “...Maleficent?” he tried again.

But the stately, cracked halls of Hollow Bastion only answered him with silence.

-------------------------------

He looked out his bedroom window and stretched, no more or less contentedly than any other day. But today wasn’t just any day.

What great weather! Maybe we can go down to the beach. He smiled in anticipation. He’d been waiting a whole year for this day, and darned if he wasn’t going to make it a good one this time around.

Finally... the first day of summer vacation.