blizzardbox | [CMO] Like, is any of this for real, or not?

[Well, well. No wonder he felt like he recognized that soul. It's not too surprising that Sora has found his way to Shibuya after all this time - after all, traveling between worlds is just what Sora does - but it is a bit surprising that Sora stumbled into the wrong Shibuya entirely. It's probably a good thing that he decided to investigate, then.]

Hello again, Sora. You're looking older these days.

[Says the one that's taken an appearance to better match Neku's current age.]

[Seeing anyone again at this point, literally anyone, would have made all the difference in the world. But to see someone he actually knows? Someone he calls a friend?

It's such a relief.

So much so in fact that Sora can't even say anything, at first. He just looks at Joshua for a long moment, as if he expects him to disappear at any moment. Or for it to turn out he was talking to an imagined presence this whole time. He may not entirely believe he isn't until he's given a reason to believe otherwise, but...

He blinks quickly against the aching in his eyes, taking in a quick, shaky breath.]

Yeah? [The word is exhaled on a soft laugh.] I could say the same thing about you, you know.

[That's a response that's impossible to miss. It doesn't take omniscience to tell that Joshua's presence is a welcome one, far more than just seeing someone you haven't seen in a while. Combined with what he knows about this world... Just how long has Sora been here, anyway? Surely it hasn't been since he stopped regularly peeking in.]

I suppose you could say there's been a bit of an upgrade.

[He tips his head curiously, smile not budging an inch.]

What are you doing in a place like this, by the by? It's not exactly the most lively of worlds.

[A good question, that…one that even Sora isn’t sure he could fully properly explain, not when he doesn’t entirely understand how he ended up here after disappearing. He had accepted the fact that was just…that. There’s no real going back from what he’d done. Yet somehow he’s here, in his own personal purgatory.

It’s been worse than disappearing, he’d say. And as such, Sora’s smile- for once- falters, just the slightest bit. Never mind the fact that it was struggling to reach his eyes before, which is even wilder. He does put away his keyblade at least, letting it disappear as he suddenly sinks into a sit on the rooftop, as if realizing suddenly that his knees can’t support his weight any longer.

He tilts his head down, rubbing the back of his neck.]

Would you believe me if I told you it’s a really long story?

[... ah. Well, there's the inevitable loss of energy that comes with being in a mentally exhausting state. As Sora's expression sobers a bit, so, too, does Joshua's. Sora has always been so full of life, and to see him so sapped of it...]

I'd believe it.

[This isn't the best place for a conversation, though. If Sora has been here any long amount of time, he's probably in need of a lot of things. Food, a shower, a place to sleep that isn't asphalt or park benches...]

But before you explain, why don't we go somewhere a little more comfortable?

[With a small hand gesture, a portal opens behind him. Nothing is visible through it, aside from light, but he's sure it's a welcome sight.]

[Now, it wasn't like Sora had given up hope that he'd ever escape this place, not really. But...when you've been stuck here for as long as he has, you'd eventually start to be forced to make peace with your lot. He knew what was at stake, and he knew what he'd sacrificed to get to this point. So why, then, should he have been allowed to leave? It's not like he isn't happy to defy fate at every turn, but this time...it really did seem like that was it.

He lifts his head quickly when Joshua opens that portal, because the light that filters through it is so different from the lights Sora's been seeing for days on end now. Even if it isn't necessarily actual sunlight, it's different enough that he finds the energy to stiffly push himself back up to his feet, looking briefly back at the expanse of the urban sprawl below them one last time. Once again, it feels like he's cheating fate to escape this place.

But that doesn't mean he'll be giving up the chance.]

...yeah. Let's go.

[Good. The fact that Sora is able to get up and get moving just means that this place hasn't killed his will entirely, much less the fact that he's agreeing to get out of here. The serious expression leaves Joshua's face, and he steps aside, gesturing for Sora to move through the portal first.]

After you. Just don't move too much, once you're through. Theoretically, we should come out on the sidewalk, but you don't want to risk being too close to the street, do you?

[After all, Sora isn't used to what this city is like alive, yet. If he's been here any long time at all, the difference is going to take some getting used to.]

[For sure, it'll be Sora's first experience with Shibuya proper, and not this parallel version that's completely devoid of life. It's going to be more than a bit of a shock to the system, actually, to see that much again all at once...but he isn't afraid of it. If nothing else, he wants to see that sort of thing again, more than anything.

So there's no hesitation when Josh moves aside and indicates that he go ahead, stepping through the portal with every intent of getting out of Quadratum once and for all.]

[The world that Sora steps into is vibrant in comparison to the one he came from. It's like night and day - literally, in fact, as the sun is shining bright in the clear blue sky overhead, and the world is no longer darkened and streetlit like the version he'd been trapped in. People move along the streets on their own paths, living their lives, talking on their phones, chatting with friends over recent purchases and local events. Cars zip along on the streets, crossing signals chime out their friendly little jingle, and a nearby restaurant floods the air with the smell of freshly grilled burgers.

It's Shibuya as it's meant to be, not some dark, empty shell.

Joshua doesn't take long to appear through the portal behind Sora, and within seconds the portal blips out of existence entirely. The people around them don't even seem to notice that they just appeared out of thin air, moving around them in a completely normal traffic flow.]

Welcome to Shibuya. The real Shibuya.

[Sora isn't ready for what he sees when he steps through that portal.

The way the world around him just seems to explode with life is nearly too much for Sora to comprehend. They've ended up on the sidewalk, safely out of the traffic that occasionally makes its way through, which is a good thing since Sora...finds that he can't move. He can only look on, absolutely awestricken as he tries to take everything in. It would be a bit overwhelming on a normal day for an islander like himself, even if he hadn't visited San Fransokyo before. But after having spent so long in Quadratum...it's almost overstimulating. The noise, the people...

The light.

In the end, Sora does nothing but stand there, looking ahead as his eyes catch sight of the 104 building towering in the distance. He can feel the wind buffeting his hair, which brings him to realize that Quadratum was lacking in that department as well. It was an empty husk of a world, not only devoid of life, but devoid of motion and substance...of light itself.

He doesn't even realize it, then, when tears start to roll silently down his cheeks. Not until he feels them dripping off his chin does he snap out of it, startling a little before quickly drawing back with a raised fist to try and quickly scrub them away.]

[If Joshua sees those tears - and he does, of course - he doesn't say a thing about it. Just skimming his surface thoughts, he can already tell that Sora has been in that place for a long, long time. The poor boy is going to need a minute.

Luckily, traffic in Shibuya is content to flow around an obstacle, so standing still for a moment isn't an issue. It probably helps, honestly, that the Composer is able to influence things like this with his presence alone, the subtle imprints ensuring that no one stumbles into them.]

If you'd like to sit down and orient yourself, there are a good number of park benches... or, there's Justice Burger, if you're feeling hungry. My treat?

[He's not exactly good at comforting, but he knows what works for most people. Especially for someone like Sora, who probably hasn't even seen a burger that wasn't on an advertisement in who knows how long.]

[Sora, of all people, isn't someone who shows emotions this negative often. And...the thing is it's not even really a negative expression at all, if you look past the fact he's crying. They're tears of relief, not sadness. He can't remember feeling this relieved in a long, long time.

But yeah...sitting down somewhere sounds like a good idea, he thinks as he quickly wipes his face off the rest of the way, tearing his gaze from the buildings overlooking them so he can look back at Joshua.]

Yeah...that sounds good.

[He physically turns himself a bit more towards the street proper as he says that, both to ready himself for following Joshua, and also to just limit his field of vision for a moment.]

...Thank you, Josh.

Think nothing of it. Besides, it wouldn't be a good look if I invited you into my home and didn't offer some sort of hospitality.

[That's not the reason, of course, but it's the reason he's giving. Sora and Riku helped him out a lot. It's the least he can do.

Justice Burger isn't far from where they're standing now. Just a little bit down the street and around the corner, right on the Scramble, in fact! All told, it's a 30 second walk. Since Josh is there first, he once again holds the way open.]

Go ahead and order whatever you like. I've got it covered.

[Being in a sort of liminal space for a year with no food is probably difficult to fathom, but somehow...it didn't seem to harm Sora in any way. Perhaps because his heart had been fragmented and scattered to that point, leaving him less of an actual living, breathing person and more...well. Something more on Joshua's level, perhaps. Not alive, but not really "dead", either. He isn't sure he's understood what's happened to him even now, just that he was supposed to fade from existence...but didn't, in the end.

Now he's here, and it feels like once more he's cheating the laws of existence in doing so.

Being here in Shibuya is enough to remind him of his appetite though, and just the smell of food is enough to leave Sora weak-kneed. Though it's tempting to order the biggest burger he sees, he also feels like that might be something he regrets later...so in the end he goes for something in the middle: a hero hamburger, fries, and a soda. And when it arrives, Sora focuses on just eating in lieu of speaking, starved to the point where he's not sure he can even think properly to explain the situation until he's gotten through at least most of a meal.

Eventually though, when he's gotten down to mostly just the fries left, he does finally give Joshua his attention once more.]

I'm...kindof in some trouble.

[Sora needs time to eat, that much is clear. Joshua isn't fussed about it, honestly. He simply takes a seat at the table, payment mysteriously having found its way into the cash register, and sits in companionable silence while Sora eats for the first time in... a while, clearly. He's still not certain what caused Sora's normal biological functions to cease while in that place, but the magic of that broke the second he stepped through the portal.

While Sora eats, he keeps himself occupied with his phone, updating Sanae on the situation to the best of his current knowledge - among other things, of course. He has FanGO dailies to do, after all.

At least he puts his phone away once Sora is ready to talk, folding his fingers together on the tabletop.]

Oh? And here I thought you decided to take up living in dead cities for the hell of it. [A head tilt, and a little smile.] What kind of trouble?

Edited 2022-06-24 03:47 (UTC)

[If Sora didn't already know Joshua by now, that kind of amused reply might have frustrated him. In a way it still does, but...in a fond kind of way. He knows that Joshua has tricks up his sleeve, and there's more to him than meets the eye. Far more than even Sora himself understands. Maybe it's a fluke- sheer luck- that Joshua happened to check up on that place and find Sora there, but...Sora isn't going to let this chance go to waste either way. Joshua might have some insight to offer, if nothing else.

And so, he starts to explain everything that's happened to him since they parted ways back in Traverse Town. He tries his best not to leave anything out, though some of the finer details inevitably fall through the cracks. Joshua can, at least, feel confident in knowing he's gotten the cliffnotes version of the most important parts. Of how Sora was unable to successfully complete his exam to become a Keyblade Master due to his brief fall to darkness, and subsequently being forced to set out to rediscover the power of Waking while Riku and Mickey occupied themselves with searching for Aqua. He'd been successful in reawakening the hearts trapped within his own, but when it finally came to confronting Organization XIII...]

...we were overwhelmed by the Heartless. There wasn't anything I could do.

[It feels like he's been talking for a long time, but it's really only been a few minutes. The weight of the memories make it feel like a century's worth of information, even so.]

I don't know if you know anything about it, but there was this...world, that I woke up in. It was like walking on water...standing in the reflection of the sky.

[Then he repeats the words that Chirithy had said to him, one of the few things he can remember with oddly perfect clarity:]

"It serves as the destination for those whose hearts and bodies perished together, but continue to persist due to something...or someone holding them from death."

[It may be a lengthy explanation, but Joshua listens to every bit of it, taking it all to note even though he may not be automatically familiar with some parts of it. It's Sora's tale to tell, and he isn't about to interrupt with questions. Clarification, after all, can be had simply by skimming information off of Sora's surface thoughts, like a running commentary on a DVD.

The description of the mystery location makes him curious, though. It doesn't exactly sound like anything he's familiar with. Not quite like the Higher Plane, and not quite like the holding area he uses...]

It sounds functionally similar to something here, but your description of it doesn't sound familiar at all.

[Josh cradles his chin in his hand, tapping a finger against his lips in thought.]

The Game is the place for those souls that have passed from the world of the living, but from the sound of it. it doesn't seem like there was a Game going on there at all.

[Sora shakes his head a little, likely looking more serious now than Joshua ever remembers him being in recent memory.]

No, it wasn't like that. Other than Chirithy, I was the only one there. The whole place was full of fragments of souls, but...

[That's all they really were. Fragments, just...existing in limbo, unable to live, but also unable to pass on. Only one in particular back then had stood out to Sora, but even then he doesn't know...

He continues after a moment to let Joshua take that information in to chew on.]

I was able to recollect the pieces of myself in that world. I went back...somehow. And I used the power of Waking to bring my friends back.

[To put it in plainer terms:]

I went back...to the moment before we lost.

[... ah. That's... hm. Somewhere distinctly different from the Game, from the Underground in general. It almost sounds like... But no, it can't be. He didn't go there himself, of course, but to describe it as a plane of water reflecting the sky doesn't seem right. Particularly not with what he's heard.]

You know, this power of Waking sounds awfully familiar.

[Like something he himself is capable of doing. Like the power of Replay. Both of these combined into one, somehow...]

And yet, you found yourself trapped inside a dead Shibuya.

[Sora...is silent, for a moment. He still has no regrets- he doesn't think he ever will- but this part is still hard to talk about, even now.]

The power of Waking isn't supposed to be used like that. It's to restore lost hearts, not travel through time. Chirithy called it a "Nature Taboo". I wasn't supposed to do what I did, and I knew that...but I did it anyway. Which meant I was gonna pay a price so things weren't left...out of balance, I guess.

[He still doesn't fully understand it, if he's honest. Just that he knows that Chirithy wasn't lying, and nor was Xehanort.]

But after that, we were able to continue where we couldn't before. And we won.

[...]

But I couldn't stay.

[Sora faded from the world not long after Xehanort was defeated. He'd assumed he'd died, more or less, and wasn't really expecting to end up...anywhere.]

...when I disappeared from my world, though...I ended up there. And that's where I've been ever since.

If you ask me, I believe you've more than paid the price for it. I'm not sure how long you were in that place, of course, but I used to check in on it occasionally, out of pure curiosity. I fell out of habit, though... about a year ago, if I had my guess.

[There's probably no telling. Sora wouldn't have had any way of knowing the passage of time, either. Places like that are outside the regular flow of time in their own ways - technically, they don't exist at all in their respective timelines.

Still, Joshua tips his head and smiles.]

Lucky for you, I'm not much of one for following rules to the letter. Besides, Shibuya is my jurisdiction. If the Higher Planes have an issue with your rescue, they can say so to my face.

[Sora really does think he's lucky, knowing Joshua. If he didn't...why, he could have very well spent the rest of time in that Shibuya. Or maybe not, if Joshua still found him as a stranger and felt like taking pity on him. Who could truly say.

Joshua saying Shibuya is his jurisdiction suggests that so long as Sora is here, then he's safe from whatever pulled him into Quadratum in the first place. He's not sure what that means for...well. His continued existence though, and that shows in the way he looks back at Joshua, a mixture of uncertainty muddying his features.]

I just...I don't wanna go back there.

[Not if it means he'll be alone again.]

But I don't know what it means for me to be here, either. I should be back in my world.

[But...he can't be. Can he?

He's displaced...and he's not sure if going back is an option now.]

[The concern is obvious, but Joshua pays it no mind. Sora has every right to be worried about it, but Sora also doesn't know what he's capable of. Not yet, at any rate.]

You won't be going back, no worries there. I've pulled you out, and as far as I'm concerned, you're taking refuge here while we figure out what to do with you. Same as any refugees from another district, though in your case it's from a bit farther away.

[He picks up his phone again, tapping away at the screen while occasionally humming or frowning thoughtfully.]

This is only a temporary accommodation, of course. I can set you up with a place to stay, some clothes to wear, some funds to use. In the meantime, I'll see what we might be able to find out.

[He honestly should have expected that Joshua would have things under control, and part of him was optimistic underneath that defensive layer he’s built up over time by sheer necessity alone. After a while of being around people again Sora will no doubt be back to his old self, but for now…it’s still almost too hard to believe he’s here to begin with. Never mind the fact that something…something still doesn’t feel right. He can’t put his finger on it; he just knows it has to do with Quadratum.

Someone- something- is still calling to him from there. Still pulling at him, despite Sora now being beyond its reach.

For now, he just has to trust Joshua.]

Okay. And if there’s anything I can-

[Wait. That does bring something to mind as he sits forward a bit in his seat.]

Are there Heartless here? [He asks, before remembering that Joshua only ever saw Dream Eaters, not actual Heartless.]

They’re like Dream Eaters, but different.

[In reality, altering things to make the aforementioned accommodations takes very little effort. It's done within seconds - conveniently, an apartment just so happens to have been purchased in Sora's name weeks ago, and there's a well-established bank account with a couple hundred thousand yen in it.

The name gets a glance up, though, and a raising of eyebrows. Heartless...?]

No, I don't believe so. Coincidentally, I haven't seen any Dream Eaters here, either. Only the Noise... which, if you're lucky, you won't even notice.

[As he finishes tapping away on his phone, he holds up one hand; a white rectangle pops into existence in his fingers, and with a couple of invisible brush strokes, it turns into a debit card, which gets passed across the table.]

Here. Use this to pay for whatever you need. Don't worry about how much is on it - I'll see to it that it doesn't run out. And, if anyone asks, your last name is Suzuki. Suzuki Sora, specifically. Surname first, given name last.

Edited 2022-06-28 13:27 (UTC)

[That's both a relief on one hand, but on the other immediately creates a sort of vacuum that Sora is going to have to try to figure out how to fill. Most of his time spent in other worlds, typically, has revolved around clearing out the Heartless and helping people out where he could otherwise. But here...he's even more of a stranger in Shibuya than he was in any other world he's visited. His Keyblade might as well be a fancy universal key, for all the use it has for him at the moment. Not that he used it in Quadratum, really...

He nods at Joshua's confirmation, and while he does feel a twinge of curiosity hearing him mention Noise, he doesn't question Joshua further about them yet. Maybe if they do show up, but apparently if he's "lucky" they won't.

Ominous.

He watches as Joshua just conjures that debit card out of nothing, taking it carefully as its passed to him. He's immediately struck with a bit of an overwhelmed feeling, one that's different from the general feeling of being overwhelmed by the scope of Shibuya. Sora carries around munny in various worlds for usage, sure, but this is different. He's going to be a bit struck by the sticker shock when he realizes just how much Joshua has left him, but that's a realization for later. For now, he slips it carefully into one of his pockets.]

Suzuki Sora...alright.

Is there anything else I should do?

[CMO] Like, is any of this for real, or not?

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