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Chapter Three: Fading

Roxas lay beside Sora on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, his arms pillowing his head. Sora was sleeping, his face illuminated by the moonlight on the window, just as he had been last night. The only difference was that by the time it was dawn, Roxas would have disappeared. It was a weird feeling, realizing that you were going to die. Accepting death. But then, you can't really die, if you never had a life to begin with, can you?

Roxas got up off the floor, sitting beside Sora on the bed, and studying his Other, before slipping a note underneath his pillow, and walking silently out of the bedroom. The faint light shone on the letter, which read…

Sora.

By the time you read this, I hope to be dead. I hope that what is rightfully yours is returned to you. I hope that nothing will go wrong.

I hope you'll forgive me.

You gave me half of yourself. I'm giving it back. I was never supposed to exist; I was never supposed to take what wasn't mine. The Organization was wrong. We each held half of our Other's hearts. We just didn't realize it at the time. I'm sorry, so sorry, for taking your memories… your heart… your emotions. So, I'm giving them back. I'm fading back into what I should always have been: Utter nothingness.

I love you, my brother, but I cannot live a half-life anymore.

Please forgive me…

-Roxas.

***

Naminé stood alone on the beach, looking out at the sea, her eyes closed and face upturned to the sky. Her sketchpad was loosely held in her left hand, a black pencil in her right. A wave gently brushed over her bare feet, leaving sleek trails of water behind, before it ran back out to sea.

"Hey."

She turned around to face Roxas, who was holding a papou fruit. "Here. I got this for us. I mean, you can't be too sure if there's an afterlife or not, can you?"

Naminé almost laughed, but instead took the fruit and broke it into quarters. "That way they can share it too."

Roxas smiled weakly. "Are you ready then?"

Naminé inclined her head, facing the ground. "Yes," she whispered. "I left a note for Kairi."

Roxas stepped forward to hold her hand. "As did I with Sora. Then… are you ready?"

Naminé sighed, closing her eyes, beginning to fade for the last time. Roxas joined her, and then –

***

Sora woke up with a prickling, urgent sensation that something was terribly wrong. "Roxas?"

There was no reply. The Keyblade bearer felt unusually empty; an emotion he only felt when Roxas was gone. "Roxas?!"

Again, there was no reply. Beginning to panic, he sat bolt upright and found the note. "What…?"

His eyes grew wider and wider as he read it. "No," he whispered hoarsely, then screamed "NO!"

He leapt out of bed and raced downstairs, automatically heading to the beach. He saw Kairi, who had the same shocked, frantic look about her. The two didn't exchange words, instead, kept running. They saw the Nobodies, holding hands and fading. Kairi stopped dead, and then shrieked "NAMINÉ!"

Sora just kept running, tackling Roxas and pinning him to the ground. The blonde boy became solid again instantly, but Naminé was too far gone to turn back, almost invisible. Only her face could be seen, her porcelain skin and pouty mouth; her white-blonde hair. She opened her eyes, looking scared. "Roxas?"

But it was too late. A second passed, and then she was gone, completely. Air was there where the thin blonde had been only seconds ago Kairi dropped to her knees. "No! Naminé, no!"

Roxas was writhing underneath Sora. "Let me go! Let me GO!"

"No!" Sora cried, his voice cracking. "Please, Roxas, I need you!"

Roxas cried right back "I need her! I can't live this life any longer, the life of a shadow! Please, Sora, let me go!!!"

He stopped struggling, crying bitterly. "Please… Sora…"

Kairi dropped to her knees beside Roxas. "Naminé…" she whispered, then started to cry.

Sora was shaking from grief and shock, almost to the point where he couldn't keep a hold on Roxas. The blond was fading and then returning to solidity alarmingly fast, with only Sora's grip keeping him tied to reality.

"Let him go, Sora…" Kairi whispered.

Sora turned to her, cerulean eyes wide with shock and pain. "Why?"

"You wouldn't be missing anything you already had," she whispered quietly, repeating the words which Naminé had said to her before. She was holding the sketchpad, open to a page displaying the four standing together. Thin chains bound Naminé to Kairi, and Roxas to Sora, but a shattered Soul-Eater Keyblade had split Naminé and Roxas apart from the other two.

"Kairi…"

"Sora, Naminé's out there. She's waiting for him. He needs her, and she needs him. Let him go."

Sora took a ragged breath, before leaning back and getting off Roxas. The blond murmured "Thank you, Kairi…. Sora… I know why you did it… But I can make my own choices, and I've chosen to return to the darkness. You can have everything back; your heart and soul can be whole again."

"But you won't be here…"

Roxas smiled sadly, tears on his cheeks. "I'll still be with you. Just not in the way you expect. Trust me… I love you."

And with that, before Sora or Kairi could say anything more, he vanished. Sora groaned softly. "No…"

Kairi handed him Naminé's sketch pad, shoulders shaking with sobs. "Read this…"

She opened Naminé's sketchpad to another page, covered in beautifully drawn flowers and a simple poem.

I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other, we still are.
Life means all that it was ever meant.
It is the same as it ever way; there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

Above them in the sky, two shooting stars streaked across the horizon.