Prologue:
Interlude V: Namine
Once upon a time, there was a girl who was imprisoned in a castle.
She dared to hope that a prince would come and rescue her from her imprisonment in the castle, but instead she found a wide assortment of people -- men and women and boys -- who took her by the wrist and hauled her in the direction they wanted her to go. No one ever took her where she wanted to go, or even asked her if there was anywhere she wanted to go, and there was only so much that even a girl who had spent her entire life as a prisoner in a castle could take.
Whatever else, Namine told herself, at least I chose this path.
Still, she couldn't help backing away nervously as DiZ and Riku stood motionless in front of the monitors where they had just recovered the picture of the capsule room. It was empty -- the capsule open, everyone in it gone. Their silence spoke so much louder than shouting.
"...where did they go?" Riku said after a moment, turning his head to look back at her. His hood was back, and Ansem's features were blank with incomprehension.
"It doesn't matter," she murmured, her arms tightening on her notebook. "They won't be coming back here."
"What?" he said, alarmed, and straightened quickly. "But-- Then I have to bring them back. Roxas--"
Soft and low and menacing, DiZ spoke, "Don't be a fool. That creature... isn't Roxas any longer." The words hung in the air for a moment, and then he shoved himself to his feet. "The Nobody has become a somebody," he snarled. "All of our theories were useless! Why did we waste our lives? Why did I ever try to do anything with Sora?" He slammed a fist into the wall, hard enough to crack it. "He was an anomaly to begin with--!"
"Became-- a somebody?" Riku echoed, lost. "Sora's--"
"Quite gone, yes," DiZ said, and then swept on, as if he didn't see Riku's heart break, didn't care. Namine curled her fingers tighter into the notebook, thought, I'm sorry, I know it hurts, I know it's hard... "How could a Nobody face his counterpart and merge so wrongly? It's against the natural order of things. That buffoon couldn't have changed things that much, his presence may have strengthened Roxas's resolve, but without the assistance of someone with access to Sora, he--"
Namine was so focused on Riku, on his labored breathing and almost tangible denial, on her own regret, that it took her a moment to realize that DiZ had stopped speaking, and that his cold eyes were on her.
"Someone like a witch," DiZ said finally, and then he surged across the room, his fingers clamping tightly on her shoulders and squeezing hard enough to bruise her. "What did you do to my program, you little nothing!"
She gasped and dropped her notebook, shoving at him with both hands, but he was so much bigger and stronger than she was, he hardly seemed to notice her struggling. "Your program was wrong!" she cried.
"My program was necessary!" he hissed, shaking her hard enough to make her head snap back. "That abomination will never be able to wield the Keyblade of Light! How many worlds have you--"
Riku put an arm on DiZ's shoulder and shoved him away, then stepped between them. All he said was a terse, "Don't call him that."
Namine wrapped her arms around herself and desperately said, "The Organization is already falling to pieces! It will destroy itself if you would just be more patient!"
"Will it now?" DiZ sneered. "And if a thousand more hearts are lost before that happens, I suppose that doesn't concern you in the least."
"Oh, please," Riku said, jerking one arm in a dismissive gesture. "This isn't about protecting innocent people. If you cared about that at all, you would never have brought either of them into this."
DiZ's eyes widened beneath the bandages, and he stared at Riku with something bordering on incredulity. "You defend these...? Haven't you been listening? Don't you realize what that witch did?"
There was a moment of silence, and Namine took a slow step away from Riku as he turned halfway around to look at her. "Namine...?" he said, so soft.
She licked her lips, struggling against some -- some strange and painful thing in her chest, stinging her eyes. Tears she'd only once shed before. "I couldn't let it happen this way," she whispered. "I wanted-- I wanted them both to be happy, Riku."
"Oh, and a fine job she did of it, too. I expect that monstrosity will even remember you, eventually, although of course he can't care--"
"Shut up," Riku told the older man, too quiet and contained to be anything but an order.
Namine ignored him, pressing on desperately. If Riku could just believe her, if he would agree, even a little... "It wasn't easy. I had to think about it for a long time. But -- you knew it too, didn't you? Sora wouldn't have wanted what we were doing. He would've hated it -- knowing that saving him meant destroying someone else."
Riku was still, hardly more than breathing. "...Sora never wants what's good for him."
"But you would've helped him anyway, if he'd asked, right?" Namine wet her lips again, fighting the misery that was so strong in this room. "I -- I would have. That's how I had to decide. And I think it was the right choice! Because, I -- I can still feel Sora, Riku."
She had clung to that warm presence for so long... a light like a beacon in the unending dark future that she saw ahead of her, always beside her, even though the boy himself was asleep and couldn't possibly remember or care for her. She only had to let go of her pitiful excuse for a life and he was there, waiting for her. And even now, if she let go -- not as warm or as close, but he was there, bright, a life that had touched hers in a way that could never, ever be undone.
Riku had never been able to let go enough to reach out and find Sora in the universe, and so she could only hope that he would believe her, but he stepped back, shaking his head. "How could you-- How could you do this?" he said, features torn.
DiZ moved close to laid a hand on his shoulder, saying sympathetically, "Haven't I said it all along? You can't expect humanity from her--"
But Riku smacked the hand away and stepped back from him, too, Ansem's lips twisting. "And you, stay the hell away from me."
"I was trying to help you!"
"You were helping yourself."
" 'And never the two shall meet?' Don't be a fool."
"Believe me. I won't be anymore." Riku laughed, bitterly, and his gaze flicked at Namine.
Namine felt herself flushed, unusually hot, but she could only meet Riku's strange orange gaze for a single beat before finding herself looking away. "He's not wrong. Maybe I'm not fit to judge. But... I am very, very sorry."
Riku was still, but he -- maybe nodded, a little, and for a moment she felt herself relax before DiZ shrugged and said, pointedly to Riku, "Then perhaps she can still fix it. It might require ripping that thing apart, but she could clean up her little mess."
For a fleeting moment, Riku looked hopeful, before horror chased it from his face, and Namine stepped back -- even Riku had wanted it, for a moment, and that was more than enough to alarm her. She shook her head numbly. "How many times do I have to do this...? Have you learned nothing?"
"Could you do it?" Riku whispered. "Could you put him back?"
"Of course she could, but why would she want to? She--"
"I wasn't talking to you," Riku snapped, but hardly loud enough to be heard. Still, DiZ fell silent, eyes narrowed.
She wished she had better news to give him, some way to soften the blow. She wished that it hadn't had to be this way, that she had stopped this madness before it was too late to turn back, too late to avoid the inevitable collision they had engineered. She shook her head again, gently. "People aren't toys," she murmured. "They can't be taken apart and put back together over and over. Sora might not have recovered a second time if Roxas hadn't been there to lend him his strength." As much as she hated to acknowledge that idea... she had struggled for months to put Sora back together on her own, and in a matter of days DiZ's idea to use Roxas had dwarfed her efforts.
"Even if you could defeat Roxas and Axel," she said, "and even if you could separate Sora from him... No one is strong enough to bear that. Sora would break apart."
There's no going back this time.
Riku was still, blinking quickly, but there were no tears in his eyes. Namine twisted her hands together, not daring to hope anymore. Finally he said, "What about Kairi? You're supposed to be part of her. Don't you want to be whole, too? Vanish inside of her forever? Or, hey. We could go ask her!" He was getting agitated again. "Maybe she'll be so sympathetic she'll let you take her body and her heart, too."
Namine stepped back a little from his vehemence, but she managed not to flinch -- even mustered a small smile. "What would I do, if I had her heart? I... I wasn't meant to be remembered."
"Oh, I see. It's all about having people who care about you. So, you can't take Kairi's life, because you don't have anyone like that, so you matter less than her. I guess that would make sense, if Sora didn't have anyone to miss him."
She couldn't look at him, couldn't think -- of course people would miss Sora. Everyone he had ever met, ever touched... But she said in a hushed voice, "Whatever anyone says about Nobodies, I think that if Roxas had been taken into Sora, it would be Axel here, saying these same exact things."
There was a brief pause, and she saw her sketchbook a small distance away on the ground, and ducked to pick it up again. All the crayon drawings of Sora, the little boy who had given everything of himself, who had unknowingly created life when he thought he was sacrificing his because a friend needed him to...
"I had to make a choice," she whispered. "I thought... Sora would forgive him. ...and me."
Riku's expression tightened, and he glanced aside. They both knew it was true.
DiZ stepped forward as the tension abated, gesturing angrily. "You think his illusions compare?" he demanded.
"If you think you're hurt, aren't you hurt?" Riku said, toneless. "What's the difference, really."
Even though he was obviously speaking only to Riku, Namine said, "Those 'illusions' were enough to drive him to ruin your plans."
DiZ turned on her, snarling again, using all his anger with her the way he couldn't with Riku. "And you. That man, he may be doing it for the sheer fun of it. But you were supposed to know better!" He barely kept himself from reaching for her. "That boy had no right to exist. He was living on borrowed time, and now -- now it's stolen time."
There was that heat again, and Namine faced him, her back straightening. "You thought I would let you control me," she said, steadily. "You thought you could control him, too. But maybe we're not as meaningless as you thought."
Both of them straightened as if struck, and DiZ stared at her for a furious moment before he snapped, "And Sora? Sora is meaningless?"
"No!" she said immediately, and then, not quite as confidently, "Sora gives us all meaning -- something to believe in. ...even if he isn't here."
Riku was not looking at either of them, turned away, but he said to the air, "What if... I need him to be here?"
"Riku--" Namine's fingers tightened on the sketchbook, her priceless, irreplaceable memories of Sora. "You asked Roxas if he could feel Sora. He can, now. And I can feel him. And... I think you could, too, if you would just learn how to look."
The air was still, dust and darkness swirling around them. She waited, interminably, for him to make some sort of response, turn on her again or finally relent. Slowly Riku nodded, and some of the misery between them eased, if only -- if only a little.
DiZ reacted immediately, saying fiercely, "You're not listening to this nonsense, are you?"
"Nonsense?" Riku echoed, turning to look at him, and the tension was gone from his face, banished, at least for now.
They stared at one another, and then faster than Namine could react DiZ lunged for her, all but roaring his frustration. Riku was quicker, leaping between them and holding out the Soul-Eater, leveling it at DiZ's throat. He said over his shoulder, "Run."
"I'm sorry," she said, one last breath as the dark corridor welled up behind her. "But -- don't give up. Find your light. It still exists!"
And then she was gone from the mansion, walking her own path, running, even if she didn't know where it would lead, or if she would ever find her way out of the darkness.
NEXT >>> Beast's Castle, First Visit (Part 1)