I see myself the way you remember me

He watched them all file through the portal to Hollow Bastion, satisfied that they would end up safe. Roxas, however, had other plans. He stepped away from their portal ever so slightly, waving the hand behind his back to open up one more portal, one that would lead him to a different place entirely. They would probably hate him for this, say he ran away or abandoned them, but Roxas thought that it would be for the best. While safer, he was still sending them into the care of strangers; the presence of a black-cloaked member of Organization XIII (defected or not) would not smooth anyone's passage.

Stepping backward from their portal, one foot in his, Roxas began closing the one to Hollow Bastion.

This was the right thing to do, he thought, watching the people who'd become his family separate from him. They didn't need a subhuman monster with them.

Raindrops hit against his closed eyelids and Roxas sat up, wondering how a leak could have gotten into the hut when Zack had fixed the roof so recently. In sitting up and opening his eyes, Roxas realized that it was because he wasn’t in the hut at all. Instead, he saw nothing but blue-black ghosts of buildings as far as the eye could see, the outlines made visible by the weak illumination from a far-off heart-shaped moon and flickering television screens mounted on buildings. Looking down, Roxas realized he was atop Memory’s Skyscraper. He was in a world that was the exact opposite of the Island, of any world at all.

He was in The World That Never Was.

Automatically, Roxas put a hand against his chest, knowing what wouldn’t be there. The reassuring, constant heartbeat that had been so easy to become accustomed to was gone. It was gone and he was in The World That Never Was in a long, black, hooded coat. He shouldn’t be here. At least, Roxas shouldn’t be here as himself. He’d gone back to Sora. They’d merged. It shouldn’t have been possible and it couldn’t all have been a dream.

And then he heard someone’s voice. A voice he remembered from the Island and Roxas’ confusion renewed itself. Looking down from the top of the skyscraper, he searched for its source only to see the familiar multitude of heartless below. If his friends were here and there were heartless, confusion aside, Roxas knew what he had to do. He pulled up his hood to keep the rain away and hide himself, and opened his hands, never doubting that they would be filled with the familiar weight of his keyblades.

Oblivion in one hand and Oathkeeper in the other, Roxas leaped from the side of the building, keyblades flashing as he cut through the heartless that crawled up the side of the buildings like insects. As he landed on the pavement in front of the building, in front of yet more heartless, he began to cut his way through them in earnest, seeking out his friends.