Fade chapter 7: Atonement

"I promise you, I'd go everywhere I've been
To find a way to make atonement for my sin and see
See your smiling face again"

Nothing I won't give- Vic Mignogna

It hadn't taken long to explain the concept to Roxas. A new chance was something that he hadn't even dared to let himself believe could happen. When her words sank in, there was a palpable relaxing energy surrounding them both. "It shouldn't take too long." Namine assured.

"Will it hurt?" Roxas asked, lips rolling into his mouth expectantly while he waited for her response.

Namine cocked her head to the side. "what a strange question." She then shook her head negatively, "I don't think so, but I can't really remember, and neither will you in a few moments."

"Oh," Roxas looked down. "so I guess it doesn't matter then, huh?"

Once again Namine shook her head, even though she felt like she was lying. "Do you need to think about it?"

"No," the pale boy replied "I'm ready as soon as you can take this all away."

The next thing Roxas would know would be darkness. Once again, he was surrounded in the space between memories.

The blond boy dissipated as Namine began her work. She reached into her own dim memories. If she relaxed she could still feel the traces of each and every world that she once had been connected to. She would create something from each little thread, much like the copy of twilight town. This place would be unique, something like them, so Roxas would feel safe and welcomed. It would also have memories of people that no longer were, or those who never had been. Those memories would live again in a dream; a dream that Namine dreamed for Roxas.

She thought deeply about breathing, but couldn't talk herself into pretending the action. The room shifted away. Her paper faded into the darkness behind closed eyelids. Namine herself became nothing but a flicker in the REM of Kairi's thoughts. Whispers of the past blurred together in a colorful present. The figment of reality that the girl in the white dress had tried so hard to cling to was smeared like a watercolor picture soaked in tears.

Bitterly Namine began to chip away at the thoughts that held Roxas to Axel. She took his deepest, most secret memories and produced a copy. He would be the Axel who had called Roxas best friend. He would also be the Axel as remembered by a girl in a white room: a man whose kind words were both surprising and soothing. She dug deeper into the mind she inhabited and procured a man who would drag young girl away from her home for a dark purpose. Lastly, she pulled the memories from the oblivious Sora of a man who whispered about a heart he didn't have as he destroyed himself for the good of all.

It was like ripping into open wounds. She knew the facts, but to have to feel them so plainly was torturous. Once again experiencing the loss of Roxas. Once again she turned her back on reality and pushed the limits of her power. This time though it was so he could LIVE. She owed it to the boy she had so many times trapped in his own thoughts.

"I wanted to meet you...just once."

"Roxas." She whispered even though he wasn't there anymore, and neither was she. "Your name is Roxas."

XXXXXXXX

Slowly feeling was coming back to Roxas, starting at his chest and throat. It burned hot and cold all at once as his body struggled to breathe. His body was slowly being reconstructed. His eyes would be made of the sky, and his skin would be drawing paper, his hair would be the sands of destiny island, and twilight town would be clothing. He was reborn in a new world.

Blue eyes blinked open to diffused sunlight. "What a weird dream." The young boy commented to himself as he sat up in his bed, the starry comforter falling away.

A dull banging resounded from an oak door that was the only entry to this room. "Roxas!" came a girls voice. He remembered her.

"Yeah, yeah, Namine. I'm awake." he stood up and opened the window, ready to breathe in some fresh air.