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Kingdom Hearts, "Layering" (Roxas)
Warnings: Kay is horrible to the characters she likes, but to be fair, Twilight Town was horrible to Roxas first. No spoilers except for the KH2 prologue. Implied violence. Gratuitous abuse of computers and Nobodies.
.layering.
The gang is hanging out at the Usual Spot, and the day is usual indeed. Pence and Olette are doing some puzzle together on the low table, but Hayner thinks those sort of things are boring, and he always drags Roxas into his entertainments. They're playing darts, taking turns hurling the sharp projectiles into the board on the wall and talking about Hayner's mother, who pisses him off.
Roxas has good aim and he knows it, but he goes easy on Hayner and even lets him win sometimes. The taller boy will sulk to no end if Roxas isn't careful to let him salvage his pride with close defeats.
"And then she's like," Hayner mimics her voice, "you should take your little sister with you! To the Usual Spot. Yeah right! We don't come here to play dolls with our tea-sets. Except for Pence."
Pence makes an offended sound from across the room, but the other boys laugh together. Hayner punches Roxas in the arm playfully.
Roxas jerks away and a scowl takes his features. "Don't touch me," he snaps.
They stare at one another.
"Reboot."
"I can't believe he went out to talk to Seifer by himself, is he crazy?" Pence is saying. They're all running for the sandlot. "We gotta be there to back him up."
In his mind's eye Roxas can see them, Seifer and his disciplinary committee. They're his enemies, a trio who have set themselves up against the peaceful order of things, determined to stake their claim on something they have no right to own. And as they round the corner they see the real things, laughing.
Hayner hits the ground, hard, and drops his Struggle bat. It's pure reflex for Roxas to race over and insert himself between his fallen friend and Seifer. He glares, and the older boy smirks at him.
"Something wrong?" Seifer says, taunting. "You want a piece? I'm happy to teach you your place -- on your knees."
There is neither hesitation nor emotion in blue eyes as Roxas propels himself forward, instinct that should have been erased summoning twin keyblades into his hands in place of a foam bat.
"Reboot."
Roxas pauses on the side of the road, his arms full with a bag he's carrying for Taro and kind of tired. He rests it against the shelf of a low-hanging window and leans heavily against it to keep it from falling, and looks up at the sky. It's hard work, but he'll have munny when it's over. He needs munny for Olette's birthday -- he wants to get her an umbrella that he saw in Alana's store that was brightly colored and patterned in a way that reminded him of her.
He knows that Pence and Hayner are also working on the side to gather up the cash they need. They do this every time an event comes up, none of them ever forward-thinking enough to just start working regularly so they have munny saved, and don't need to scramble by the time they need to buy gifts.
He doesn't mind, though. When they don't work regularly they get to spend more time with each other, and there's nowhere he'd rather be than surrounded by all his friends and...
Slowly, his expression eases from wistful into distant, cool lines.
"...what the hell am I thinking?"
"Damnit, this isn't working. The original personality continues to surface in every situation, no matter how I try to manipulate it. Shut down the system -- we're going to perform a complete reinstall. I shall erase his memory and upgrade his current personality to a stronger version."
He's given himself a headache staring at the summer homework and trying to remember what he learned in school from last year, binomials and foils and that sort of thing. To reward himself for his valiant attempt to be responsible, Roxas has gone outside to just lie on the grass in the little wooded area past Market Street. It's pleasantly cool here, so he lets his eyes slip closed and just enjoys the faint swirl of breeze over his skin.
"Roxas! Here you are, man. I've been looking for you everywhere."
He opens his eyes, blinks, turns to face Hayner. The other boy approaches with a grin and hands stuffed in his pockets.
"What are you doing all the way out by Creepfest Manor? Tell me you're not taking up the mystery schtick too."
Roxas says slowly, "Who are you?"
"What was that?"
"A minor oversight, a small error in the code. Reboot him, and I predict that we shall see a vast improvement."
He closes the door behind him, feeling exhausted. Summer is harder work than he remembers it being. "I'm back, Mom," Roxas calls into the house, toeing off his shoes, but he gets no response. A note on the refrigerator warns him that Mom has to work late tonight.
Mom has been working late a lot recently, and Dad never did get a job where he could get home at a reasonable hour. Roxas worries about them a bit -- sometimes he thinks he'd like to have a day just for his family, but he never remembers to ask them about it.
He puts water out on the stove to boil and grabs something to make. Linguine with canned clam sauce, maybe even a little luxury. It's not the first time he's made dinner for his parents, and they can reheat it when they get home. They need the rest, he thinks. They leave at the crack of dawn and he's not often up early enough to catch them on their way out, and they rarely get home before late night. And he himself is so tired by the time he gets home that when night settles on Twilight Town, he's usually long asleep.
While the water is boiling, Roxas leans back against the counter, and slowly he frowns. When was the last time he saw his parents?
"Load from the backup. Ten minutes ago should be sufficient. I'll activate someone to make a phone call to distract him."
"Not a reboot this time?"
"No... I don't think we need to go that far. I think this version may prove to be exactly what I need."
"I can't believe you made me come out here in the middle of the night," Roxas says, skeptical and huddling into his jacket. He would like to be irritated, but he would also like to be amused, and he'll have to wait to see what it was that made Hayner call him out to the Usual Spot when it was pitch black.
Hayner is sitting in the corner where the roof is missing, where it floods on days with poor weather, and he has a little fire going, as if they've gone out camping in the woods. He's got his jacket slung over his shoulders, and Roxas sits across from him and does the same.
The other boy says slowly, "I wanted us to hang out together. Just the two of us." He shifts. "Sometimes I feel like..."
"This sounds like something Pence would say," Roxas teases slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. "But did you have to say it at eleven at night?" He remembers when they were kids and used to sneak away from everyone, even their other friends, to play by themselves. This reminds him of those times.
"It's just that sometimes I feel like we're only pretending to be friends."
Roxas looks up, slight surprise registering in his face. Hayner is not looking at him. He's not sure where this comes from, but it makes him uneasy. "...don't be stupid. You're my best friend."
The fire crackles briefly, snapping loud in Roxas's ears. He glances at it, at the sullen flicker of flames, and adds, "There's no one else."
"...that went better than I expected. I hadn't thought I would need to monitor the output of the other children, and yet, the constructed personality held firm."
"It seems cruel to me."
"Cruel is a weak word -- it implies that there is ever a reason not to do everything within one's power for what must be done. Now there is only one thing left to test."
A small crowd has gathered to watch them spar: this town loves its Struggle, even unofficial practice rounds. They applaud happily as Hayner gets in a blow to the side of his head and Roxas staggers a bit, blinking to clear his vision. It doesn't hurt, but it's kind of startling.
Hayner says something he can't make out and someone laughs, so everyone laughs because of course he must have said something funny. Roxas smiles at him a bit and settles back into a ready position.
The tension deepens in the air as they swing the Struggle bats, deflecting and scoring and laughing, and somehow the crowd starts murmuring uneasily and Roxas isn't sure when it happened but it feels as if the very sky has darkened. The two boys look up, by some mutual agreement stopping in the same instant, and Roxas has a sudden thought -- a sudden memory -- the sky has grown dark like this once before, hasn't it?
And he knows that he needs to protect this place, his home.
His fingers flex, and the Kingdom Key appears in his hand. His breath hitches.
"Rollback."
His fingers flex, and a keyblade appears in his hand. His breath hitches.
"Rollback."
His fingers flex, and the air around his hand distorts, and a large object shaped like a key appears in his hand, its hilt fitted snugly to his grip. His breath hitches.
"...excellent. The program is flawless, and compatible with the keyblade application. I shall load the backup from ten minutes ago, and we can begin Sora's restoration without needing to worry about Roxas."
"He doesn't seem to know what to do with the keyblade."
"Of course not. He's fighting on instinct, not on experience and practiced skill -- we had to take those from him, as they were too deeply ingrained to his original personality. It's better this way, at any rate. He would be dangerous if he could use his full ability. The new Roxas will pose no threat to our plans."
"But, what about the real Roxas?"
" 'Real' Roxas? My dear boy, he was never real in the first place."
* *
Roxas is a boy who lives in Twilight Town: he is fifteen, or one-and-a-half, or two days old; who can tell. He used to be a different boy, and before that, he was yet another boy. He would have called himself real... once. But the part of him that is real is tired now, because he has fought and struggled and been beaten back again and again. He is smothered beneath a thoughtful and shy young man, the boy next door that everyone would like in their neighborhood. He has forgotten stoicism, decisiveness, independence.
That part of him sleeps now, exhausted. It will not wake again in this life.
And so for now, he is fake after all.
.layering.
The gang is hanging out at the Usual Spot, and the day is usual indeed. Pence and Olette are doing some puzzle together on the low table, but Hayner thinks those sort of things are boring, and he always drags Roxas into his entertainments. They're playing darts, taking turns hurling the sharp projectiles into the board on the wall and talking about Hayner's mother, who pisses him off.
Roxas has good aim and he knows it, but he goes easy on Hayner and even lets him win sometimes. The taller boy will sulk to no end if Roxas isn't careful to let him salvage his pride with close defeats.
"And then she's like," Hayner mimics her voice, "you should take your little sister with you! To the Usual Spot. Yeah right! We don't come here to play dolls with our tea-sets. Except for Pence."
Pence makes an offended sound from across the room, but the other boys laugh together. Hayner punches Roxas in the arm playfully.
Roxas jerks away and a scowl takes his features. "Don't touch me," he snaps.
They stare at one another.
"Reboot."
"I can't believe he went out to talk to Seifer by himself, is he crazy?" Pence is saying. They're all running for the sandlot. "We gotta be there to back him up."
In his mind's eye Roxas can see them, Seifer and his disciplinary committee. They're his enemies, a trio who have set themselves up against the peaceful order of things, determined to stake their claim on something they have no right to own. And as they round the corner they see the real things, laughing.
Hayner hits the ground, hard, and drops his Struggle bat. It's pure reflex for Roxas to race over and insert himself between his fallen friend and Seifer. He glares, and the older boy smirks at him.
"Something wrong?" Seifer says, taunting. "You want a piece? I'm happy to teach you your place -- on your knees."
There is neither hesitation nor emotion in blue eyes as Roxas propels himself forward, instinct that should have been erased summoning twin keyblades into his hands in place of a foam bat.
"Reboot."
Roxas pauses on the side of the road, his arms full with a bag he's carrying for Taro and kind of tired. He rests it against the shelf of a low-hanging window and leans heavily against it to keep it from falling, and looks up at the sky. It's hard work, but he'll have munny when it's over. He needs munny for Olette's birthday -- he wants to get her an umbrella that he saw in Alana's store that was brightly colored and patterned in a way that reminded him of her.
He knows that Pence and Hayner are also working on the side to gather up the cash they need. They do this every time an event comes up, none of them ever forward-thinking enough to just start working regularly so they have munny saved, and don't need to scramble by the time they need to buy gifts.
He doesn't mind, though. When they don't work regularly they get to spend more time with each other, and there's nowhere he'd rather be than surrounded by all his friends and...
Slowly, his expression eases from wistful into distant, cool lines.
"...what the hell am I thinking?"
"Damnit, this isn't working. The original personality continues to surface in every situation, no matter how I try to manipulate it. Shut down the system -- we're going to perform a complete reinstall. I shall erase his memory and upgrade his current personality to a stronger version."
He's given himself a headache staring at the summer homework and trying to remember what he learned in school from last year, binomials and foils and that sort of thing. To reward himself for his valiant attempt to be responsible, Roxas has gone outside to just lie on the grass in the little wooded area past Market Street. It's pleasantly cool here, so he lets his eyes slip closed and just enjoys the faint swirl of breeze over his skin.
"Roxas! Here you are, man. I've been looking for you everywhere."
He opens his eyes, blinks, turns to face Hayner. The other boy approaches with a grin and hands stuffed in his pockets.
"What are you doing all the way out by Creepfest Manor? Tell me you're not taking up the mystery schtick too."
Roxas says slowly, "Who are you?"
"What was that?"
"A minor oversight, a small error in the code. Reboot him, and I predict that we shall see a vast improvement."
He closes the door behind him, feeling exhausted. Summer is harder work than he remembers it being. "I'm back, Mom," Roxas calls into the house, toeing off his shoes, but he gets no response. A note on the refrigerator warns him that Mom has to work late tonight.
Mom has been working late a lot recently, and Dad never did get a job where he could get home at a reasonable hour. Roxas worries about them a bit -- sometimes he thinks he'd like to have a day just for his family, but he never remembers to ask them about it.
He puts water out on the stove to boil and grabs something to make. Linguine with canned clam sauce, maybe even a little luxury. It's not the first time he's made dinner for his parents, and they can reheat it when they get home. They need the rest, he thinks. They leave at the crack of dawn and he's not often up early enough to catch them on their way out, and they rarely get home before late night. And he himself is so tired by the time he gets home that when night settles on Twilight Town, he's usually long asleep.
While the water is boiling, Roxas leans back against the counter, and slowly he frowns. When was the last time he saw his parents?
"Load from the backup. Ten minutes ago should be sufficient. I'll activate someone to make a phone call to distract him."
"Not a reboot this time?"
"No... I don't think we need to go that far. I think this version may prove to be exactly what I need."
"I can't believe you made me come out here in the middle of the night," Roxas says, skeptical and huddling into his jacket. He would like to be irritated, but he would also like to be amused, and he'll have to wait to see what it was that made Hayner call him out to the Usual Spot when it was pitch black.
Hayner is sitting in the corner where the roof is missing, where it floods on days with poor weather, and he has a little fire going, as if they've gone out camping in the woods. He's got his jacket slung over his shoulders, and Roxas sits across from him and does the same.
The other boy says slowly, "I wanted us to hang out together. Just the two of us." He shifts. "Sometimes I feel like..."
"This sounds like something Pence would say," Roxas teases slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. "But did you have to say it at eleven at night?" He remembers when they were kids and used to sneak away from everyone, even their other friends, to play by themselves. This reminds him of those times.
"It's just that sometimes I feel like we're only pretending to be friends."
Roxas looks up, slight surprise registering in his face. Hayner is not looking at him. He's not sure where this comes from, but it makes him uneasy. "...don't be stupid. You're my best friend."
The fire crackles briefly, snapping loud in Roxas's ears. He glances at it, at the sullen flicker of flames, and adds, "There's no one else."
"...that went better than I expected. I hadn't thought I would need to monitor the output of the other children, and yet, the constructed personality held firm."
"It seems cruel to me."
"Cruel is a weak word -- it implies that there is ever a reason not to do everything within one's power for what must be done. Now there is only one thing left to test."
A small crowd has gathered to watch them spar: this town loves its Struggle, even unofficial practice rounds. They applaud happily as Hayner gets in a blow to the side of his head and Roxas staggers a bit, blinking to clear his vision. It doesn't hurt, but it's kind of startling.
Hayner says something he can't make out and someone laughs, so everyone laughs because of course he must have said something funny. Roxas smiles at him a bit and settles back into a ready position.
The tension deepens in the air as they swing the Struggle bats, deflecting and scoring and laughing, and somehow the crowd starts murmuring uneasily and Roxas isn't sure when it happened but it feels as if the very sky has darkened. The two boys look up, by some mutual agreement stopping in the same instant, and Roxas has a sudden thought -- a sudden memory -- the sky has grown dark like this once before, hasn't it?
And he knows that he needs to protect this place, his home.
His fingers flex, and the Kingdom Key appears in his hand. His breath hitches.
"Rollback."
His fingers flex, and a keyblade appears in his hand. His breath hitches.
"Rollback."
His fingers flex, and the air around his hand distorts, and a large object shaped like a key appears in his hand, its hilt fitted snugly to his grip. His breath hitches.
"...excellent. The program is flawless, and compatible with the keyblade application. I shall load the backup from ten minutes ago, and we can begin Sora's restoration without needing to worry about Roxas."
"He doesn't seem to know what to do with the keyblade."
"Of course not. He's fighting on instinct, not on experience and practiced skill -- we had to take those from him, as they were too deeply ingrained to his original personality. It's better this way, at any rate. He would be dangerous if he could use his full ability. The new Roxas will pose no threat to our plans."
"But, what about the real Roxas?"
" 'Real' Roxas? My dear boy, he was never real in the first place."
* *
Roxas is a boy who lives in Twilight Town: he is fifteen, or one-and-a-half, or two days old; who can tell. He used to be a different boy, and before that, he was yet another boy. He would have called himself real... once. But the part of him that is real is tired now, because he has fought and struggled and been beaten back again and again. He is smothered beneath a thoughtful and shy young man, the boy next door that everyone would like in their neighborhood. He has forgotten stoicism, decisiveness, independence.
That part of him sleeps now, exhausted. It will not wake again in this life.
And so for now, he is fake after all.
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That's probably my favorite sentence in the whole piece. The whole thing is just really horrible and I want to save him but nooo it's fiction and I can't.
But the very ending is pretty painful for its sense of inevitability.
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AU to the rescue!
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Buuuut my feedback is apparently full of spoilers, so!
So, yes. Much~ love~ for~ you~!
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(And I think it could easily have taken another month or more for Riku to have found and fought Roxas twice. After all, Roxas can move about more freely than he can, and has allies who he may be with reasonably often. Riku has to be sure he doesn't go throw away what may be his only chance. But Roxas let him live the first time... and then he has to be more careful, because whatever saved his life the first time probably won't happen again.)
We need DiZ to make more trouble in our story. XD ...Gargoyles might be good. He can be with Oberon! ...hmm, Xanatos.
OKAY. DiZ IS an asshole, and actually one of the projects I want to poke at next is a fic about Riku and Namine, and the various points in between Castle Oblivion and... whenever they separated after the Twilight Town incident. I find it interesting that they were in such radically different places and sympathized so much with each other and were together for a long period of time, so I want to poke. X3
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Diz deserved much worse then what he got. GRrrr...
At least he did one thing right, even if he wasn't sure it would happen. He brought Riku back to normal Riku. Riku...*hugs* I loooove Riku.
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...do it again do it again! But then you have to make it up to Roxas later, alright? :P
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*cuddles roxas*
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This line affected me a lot. It was really... saddening how DiZ treated Roxas, and what became of him.
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So that line was very significant, for Roxas, and I'm glad that it touched a chord.
Thank you for reading. ♥
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It's possibly even more heartbreaking because throughout the whole thing in the back of my mind there's that one scene where DiZ and Riku are just standing over Roxas talking idly about what they're going to do with him, and poor Roxas has no choice in it at all.
I really love the workings of erasing who he was and creating who it becomes, it really touches on how Twilight Town's Roxas is definitely not the Roxas Axel knew, nor the real Roxas at all. It's so sad yet perfect.
For some reason the lines with the keyblade were just amazing, they flowed, so nicely. I ♥
The "He has forgotten stoicism, decisiveness, independence." line also got me. Poor Roxas. You deserved more screen time!!
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And I agree very much. When Axel said that the Roxas he knew is gone, he meant it. The kid in Twilight Town isn't the same person who fought with him, who was his best friend, who
he fell in love with squeemade him feel like he had a heart. DiZ replaced his personality. I think it's something that gets missed alot in fandom when it has so much interesting potential for, uh, horrible. XDThank you for your lovely comment~ ♥
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*hugs you*
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Okay, so maybe I managed to be horrible to Axel while I was being horrible to Roxas. You know you love it. ♥
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No prob, Axel loves being a martyr. He was having the time of his bitter empty unlife, dying, you could tell. Roxas was probably bashing the inside of Sora's head with an imaginary keyblade yelling "AXEL YOU IDIOT" the whole time, since no one could see him being undignified. I bet Axel could hear him and that's what he was laughing so hard about.
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Demyx was one of the few members of the Organization who actually liked it when it was his turn to monitor the witch. Most of the others avoided her when they didn't have to deal with her, which meant that no one was around to make fun of him; that meant it was time to play. Namine always listened to his songs with her knees curled up under her chin and her arms folded around her legs, and she sometimes clapped when he was done. She never said anything or smiled, but she listened, and she didn't make fun of him, so he considered it a good deal.
When his impromptu concert was done, she drew out her sketchbook and balanced it on her lap. "Draw me," Demyx said eagerly. "Me! Playing my sitar!"
She drew a picture of what seemed to be Roxas in the Hall of Empty Melodies, but she let him take it, so he treasured it anyway.
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Thankies! *savors the cute*
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..........
*goes to replay the prologue*
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There aren't enough fics dealing with the implications behind the fake Twilight Town. And I hate DiZ so goddamned much.
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My mantra is, "DiZ is a fucker." *hates him sooo much~*
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But I want him to die in a fire. XD
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I'm glad you read and enjoyed -- I apparently never get enough of inflicting horrible on my characters and then sharing it with other people. Ehehe.
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Evil because it's wonderful U_U
And the rollbacks and the reboots... I could picture this perfectly, that's what made the fic even more evil(meaning good xD).
And DiZ... well, the guy was whoknows how many years trapped in whoknows where, with the darkness and toughts of revenge nibbling at his heart. He clearly is nuts xD
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But the things he did~~~ Gah. XD *kicks him*
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Hence this fic, which is, um, a sort of prose representation of the beating. XD Glad you enjoyed. :3
Wow. That was awesome!