re_alignment_logs | Faded memories...

Entry tags:

Faded memories...

Who: Axel and Sora
Where: A quiet corner of the human-scale part of the bar
When: After Knockout lets Sora out of his clinic
What: Axel tells Sora about Castle Oblivion, among other things
Warnings: 95% chance of feels. Also talk of Axel being a general violent asshole.

Knockout had finally let Sora out of his clinic, and they arranged to meet up here. Axel had offered to make some food for the occasion so they could eat while they talked, and thus was ready and waiting in a booth back in the far corner of the bar, two plates of chicken and vegetable stir fry, along with utensils and glasses of water, on the table in front of him. Axel had made a point of toning down the amount of spices he would normally have used for his friend's benefit; he doubted Sora liked his food as spicy as Axel did.

Quite apart from a 'welcome back to freedom' meal, the food was a a way to cover the awkwardness that would no doubt result from the conversation to come. Axel knew it was a conversation he and Sora had to have at some point though, and putting it off was doing no one any good.

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"Are you going to add some candles to this because if you are, then I think I should telly you ahead of time that I just don't think of you that way," Sora teased, squirming around in his seat a little.

The promise of food was definitely one way to get him out here. However, Sora really didn't need any sort of bribing. Axel said that they needed to talk so Sora was here to listen. Mostly. He didn't know what was up with the other or what they needed to talk about... None of that really mattered though. Whatever the topic was, Sora was sure that it would be all right.

There was a question on his mind too. Mostly about Roxas and Ven... They looked identical, no question about that. Yet if Axel and Ven knew each other from all those years ago...

Geh... His head was hurting just thinking about it.

OK, Axel had to snicker at that. "What, I can't make a 'glad you're not locked up any more' meal for a friend without you assuming ulterior motives?", he teased right back. "Shame on you." As a matter of fact, he did have some ulterior motives as far as the food went, but they had nothing to do with that sort of thing.

"Anyway," Axel said, spearing a bit of chicken on the end of his fork, "you want to ask your questions first, or should I go ahead?"

"Maybe! Doesn't really matter because hey, free food," Sora laughed right back. He wasn't really one for manners either, since he was helping himself to the plate put before him.

Other than that, Sora mulled over the question. Did Axel go first, or him? Sora's question was probably going to get complicated. The spoon just dangled from his mouth while he thought. Some kid.

"I dunno. Mine could get weird."

Axel raised an eyebrow at Sora's comment about 'weird'. "Sora," he said, "you spend your time traveling from world to world with an anthropomorphic dog with buck teeth and an anthropomorphic duck with a speech impediment, killing creatures of pure darkness with a giant key. Meanwhile, I've got maybe 10% of a heart, can open Dark Corridors at will, and spent over a decade of my life not properly existing. I think 'weird' is going to play into it no matter who goes first."

"Oh c'mon," he groaned. "That's not that weird!"

To him it wasn't. In fact, he wasn't freaked out by much when it came to his adventuring. At first the Heartless were a little scary, especially since he didn't know what was going on. Riku turning on him? That got to him too, even if there is a part of Sora that wonders if that was really Riku at that point... Xehanort in his dreams too. Had to count that one.

Anyway, he took a breath, scrunching his face up in confused. "Okay... Why do Ven and Roxas look alike? I mean, you've had know it..."

"You know, the fact that those are the kind of things we consider normal probably says something about our lives," Axel commented with a shake of his head. He fell silent, though, munching a bite of food as Sora asked his question.

Unfortunately, it was one that Axel didn't know the answer to. "Yeah, I noticed that they looked the same," he said. "Kinda hard not to. And I know it can't be a coincidence; there's gotta be some connection there."

"Damned if I know what it is, though," he replied with a sigh. "I mean, there's over a decade separating them, but they look and sound exactly alike. Other than them both having met me, and the fact that they're both Keyblade wielders, though, I don't know what they have in common. Or why Roxas looks like him instead of you."

He paused, recalling something that had come up in his discussion with Ven just after his arrival. "No wait, that's not exactly true," he said. "Ven mentioned something to me when I was talking to him after I first got here. See, apparently, when he first arrived at the Land of Departure- the world he'd eventually call home- he was totally zoned out, just sitting there like a doll, barely saying anything. Roxas was the same way at first, just walking around like a zombie; the first week, he could barely form a sentence."

"I know that's relevant somehow," he said, "but again, I'm not seeing the actual connection. There's something there we're not seeing..."

Edited 2014-03-09 23:25 (UTC)

It shouldn't surprise Axel that Sora kept plugging away at his food while he listened. It was a bizarre situation - not that Sora and Axel both hadn't been involved with that before. Too bad Sora wasn't really the type to think too hard either. Whatever it was that made Roxas and Ventus blank out... Maybe that was the connection right there, like Axel said. They just didn't know what caused that in the first place, did that.

"Great, so basically we have no idea." Sora sighed, hands in his hair and tugging. "There's... Something else, Axel. I didn't tell him about it, but..."

He didn't know what it meant. At the time, in his dreams, he was really freaked out. People he didn't quite know, though the one with blue hair did look familiar to him, show up and call him Ven? It just so happened that Ventus' friends call him Ven? Sora didn't know how to take it... Xemnas and Xigbar both said they couldn't put images in his dreams, but the kid had no idea how true that was or not.

Axel certainly wasn't surprised. That was part of what the food was there for, after all, to give them something to do when they weren't talking.

Axel, on the other hand, was the type to think pretty hard, when it suited him. Unfortunately, this particular puzzle still had him stumped. It's like there's an all-important piece missing, without which nothing else made sense.

"Basically," Axel agreed with a bit of a sigh, and was about to have a bit more of his own food before going on. Sora's somewhat hesitant comment, though, firmly caught his attention again. "What didn't you tell him about?"

"I don't know if it means anything, okay?" Sora admitted, crossing his arms over his chest in thought. Who knew what parts of his crazy dreams actually meant anything.

"When I got to The World That Never Was, the dreaming one, things got a little weird. I saw Kairi and Riku... So you know I had to chase after them. But then they turn into two different people. The girl had short blue hair and eyes... She kind of felt a little familiar. The other one was a guy with brown hair and pretty tall. They kept saying someone's name. Ven."

He put his hand over his heart, remembering how he felt at the time. Sure, he was confused by it all. It was that 'Roxas' thing all over again. Yet his heart had hurt the entire time. "The pain in my heart didn't go away... And when I looked down my hands didn't look like my own."

Sora looked back up at Axel, confusion clear. It was almost as if there were so many puzzle pieces and yet they were missing the ONE that would somehow put all of them into place. "Xemnas and Xigbar said they couldn't put any images into my head... I don't know if they were telling the truth or not, but..."

But what if they were? What did something like that mean?

Well, if Sora hadn't had Axel's attention before, he got it right when he mentioned a girl with blue hair. It couldn't be... Or could it?

"Well, normally I wouldn't trust Xemnas or Xigbar as far as I could throw the castle," Axel said. "Especially after what you told me about them."

"But, that girl with blue hair that you mentioned...", Axel asked. "Did she have armored boots and an outfit with detached sleeves?" Because if she did...

"Neither would I, but they thought they had me, remember?" he replied with a half grin. He would like to think that they were being overconfident in that moment. Sora surely did make Xigbar, of all people, back pedal. Stutter. So what if he felt a little glad about that. Really, though, the truth was they might have been lying about that.

Either way, Sora nodded. That definitely looked like the girl that he say there. "Yeah, she did. Did you meet her once!?"

Axel shook his head. "I didn't meet her, exactly, but I did see her once," he said. "The same day I first met Ven back when I was a kid in Radiant Garden. I told Ven about it too..." He trailed off for a moment, stunned by the implications of what this could mean.

"...Sora... that girl with blue hair? That's Ven's friend Aqua! He told me so himself when I described her. Which must mean that the other guy you saw was Terra."

"And you said they were calling you Ven and that your hands didn't look like yours..." He paused. "Sora, you know what this means, right...?"

"Terra and Aqua, huh?"

Sora paused, shaking his head. No, he didn't know what it meant. Not really. Deep down, though, he probably had a better idea. There were only so many ways that something like this would make sense. It was obvious that there was some kind of connection. That was a no brainer. Just one look at Roxas and Ventus and anyone would know that.

"I have a sinking feeling, though..."

Times that Sora reacted like that, seeing things... All of those instances where when either Kairi or Roxas was reacting to something around Sora. When they were a part of him.

His head smacked into the table, though. "My head hurts."

"Well, of course it's going to hurt if you smack it against a table," Axel said, unable to resist the opportunity for a smart-ass remark.

"But what this means is," Axel declared triumphantly, "that you and Ven are connected somehow! That's why Roxas looks like him; I mean, you weren't a Heartless for very long, and Nobodies aren't exactly the most stable things out there. When you went back to being... well, you, that connection must've affected Roxas somehow and made him look like Ven."

The question now was the nature of that connection. Sora seemed to have some idea about what it might be, but Axel thought the better of asking just now. The important thing was that a few more of the pieces had fallen into place, and that was enough for now.

"Anyway, now that we've sort of solved one mystery," Axel said, "is there anything else you wanted to ask before I got started? Cause fair warning, it's liable to be a bit of a long story."

"Because that much wasn't obvious..." Sora said, rolling his eyes. The 'how' wasn't likely to be answered for certain. Chances were that only Ventus really knew that or whoever was involved. Either way, Sora shrugged. He'd asked what he mwant to...

"Nah, I'm good. You should start, Axel."

This was going to be good.

"Well, it was obvious they were connected somehow," Axel said with a shrug, "but we didn't know that you were the connection until just now. So that's something at least." Odd that Sora seemed to be the focal point of so many connections. Axel couldn't help but wonder what it was about Sora that had landed him in such a position. Or was that just the kind of person Sora was?

In any case there was no time to speculate on it now. It was his turn. "OK," he said, trying to figure out how best to lead into this. Even with this long to prepare, he wasn't sure how to start. "Sora," he finally asked, "do you remember the first time we met?"

"The first time we met?"

That was a trick question, wasn't it? Sora squinted at Axel. Obviously the first time they met was with the rest of the Organization members, right? Chances were that Sora didn't exactly know it was Axel at first. It was hard to tell when everyone wore those hoods. Almost everyone looked the same!

"What're you getting at?"

Axel was silent as Sora squinted at him, either with suspicion or consideration. Or perhaps both. Axel couldn't tell which.

As it turned out, Sora answered his question with another question. Axel frowned slightly, though it was more thoughtful than anything else. "What I'm getting at," he said after a moment, "is that no matter when you think our first meeting was, you're probably wrong. And I know why."

"Before I can explain, though," he said, "I need to ask you another question. Have you ever heard of a place called Castle Oblivion?" This was more of a legitimate question, since Sora could easily have heard mention of it from one of his friends, even if no details had been shared.

Sora sighed, leaning back. He ran his hands through his hair in agitation. It wasn't aimed at Axel or anything. Truth is these sorts of questions always bugged him. There was something else going on here and Sora didn't know anything about it. It only served to confuse him and confusion never settled well on the teen.

"No, but I guess maybe I should have?"

He wasn't really stupid, even if naive. If his first "meeting" with Axel wasn't what he thought it was, then it probably happened in that huge blank spot in Sora's memories. While he never really worried over what must have happened to have so many blank pages, there was still part of the teen that was curious. It wasn't exactly wrong to be, right?

"Didn't know if anybody'd mentioned it too you," Axel said with a slight shrug. "Guess not."

"Anyway, Castle Oblivion is a world that's situated exactly between the Realms of Light and Darkness," Axel explained. "Because of that, it's got some unusual properties. For one thing, the rooms inside are constantly changing and shifting, new ones appearing, old ones vanishing, and so on. That's part of why it's called Castle Oblivion; you go in without having a reliable way of getting out, and you could be lost in there forever."

"But like I said, that's only part of the reason," Axel continued. "It's not just a place where you can get lost physically. It's a place where you can lose everything else if you're not careful. Inside the rooms of Castle Oblivion, you meet people from your memories. They're illusions, crafted by and from the memories inside your heart, but they seem real. And the further into the Castle you go, the easier it is to literally lose yourself in your own memories until you can't tell what's real and what's an illusion any more."

"The Organization," he explained, "found he properties of the Castle and its affinity with memory useful, and set up a research facility there. Six of us were stationed there, for awhile; Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Marluxia, Larxene, and me."

"And that," Axel said, "is where we first met. And your memory problems started."

Part of Sora wished that he could remember such a place. Shifting rooms? Seeing people from his memories? That wasn't really such a bad thing, was it? Yeah, the rest of it was kind of startling. Getting lost forever was no good, but how much trouble could that be if so many Organization members went in there and managed to come out all right? Or, well... Sora assumed they go out all right. Axel's here and so is he!

"Was I in there for too long?"

Why else would he have memory problems.

Axel nodded. "It was kinda hard to keep track of the days and nights there honestly," he said. "Apart from the fact that there were no real windows or clocks or anything, the place was just... weird like that. But it was more than two weeks. I know that much."

"It started not long after you defeated Ansem," he said. "The Organization drew you to the castle, with the help of a girl named Namine. We'd been holding her there for a little while; her powers, combined with Castle Oblivion's natural qualities, were exactly what we needed."

"But I'll get to Namine's involvement in a minute," Axel said. "In the Castle's Entrance Hall Marluxia- who was ostensibly in charge of the castle and the mission- greeted you, and gave you a little bit of information on how the castle worked. As well as informing you, Donald, and Goofy of the fact that entering the castle had stripped you of all the powers and abilities you'd developed on your journey up til then; you'd have to start back from square one. That was another of the Castle's weird properties, and one that the Organization found particularly useful. Especially since we, as Nobodies, were immune to it.
We still had to play by the Castle's rules, but we could keep our abilities."

"Anyway, after Marluxia's little rundown of how things in the castle worked, he gave you a card made from your memories of Traverse Town, and sent you into the first floor of the Castle. I watched you on our viewer; Roxas' Other. The Keyblade Master. I was interested." Axel said.

"You made it to the second floor landing, and Marluxia was waiting there for you," he said. "That's where we met. I showed up there a moment later. Couldn't let Marluxia have all the fun, after all. He tossed me another card, and left you to me."

"I introduced myself, and we fought. It was more of a test really; we needed to make sure you were worth the effort we were about to put in. You won, but like I said, it was just a test. You weren't at your best, and I was pulling my punches. I just wanted to see for myself what you could do."

"After the fight," Axel continued, "we talked for a minute. I told you a little more about the Castle was about. Or rather, what we wanted you to think it was about. Really, it was all part of the plan. Before I left, I offered you a hint about surviving the Castle. You refused, just like I expected you would. It wouldn't have mattered either way, though. You were already walking right into our hands."

Edited 2014-04-17 05:23 (UTC)

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Faded memories...

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