[Sora]

Secret Ansem Report #6
My choice to befriend darkness here in the midst of nothingness was a sound one. The moment I stared straight ahead with a calm heart, neither rejecting darkness nor fearing it, I gained a newfound power. A superhuman power—the power of darkness. It is likely Xehanort and the others were enraptured by this power, eventually becoming its prisoners. I do not intend to allow my heart to be devoured by the darkness as they did, of course. With this new power, I uncovered a “corridor of darkness” that connects the realm of nothingness to the outside world.

While it is still difficult to come and go as I please, my banishment is now a thing of the past. To deceive Xehanort and my apprentices, I first used my power to change form before returning to the realm of light. As I had suspected, Xehanort had become a Heartless. Under my name, he commanded other Heartless in quests to snatch away the hearts of many different worlds. At the center of the hearts Xehanort had stolen was “Kingdom Hearts,” which attracts tremendous darkness to itself and attempts to send any and all matter back into its depths.

The other five have disappeared. Have they become Heartless, like Xehanort? Or did they vanish after Xehanort exploited them? I became familiar with an unusual “entity” while pursuing the truth. It is the soul and body that remain when a being loses its heart. When a Heartless is born, these entities disappear from the realm of light, to be reborn as entirely new beings in a completely different realm.

Secret Ansem Report #7
While beings born of darkness and those lacking hearts may find them convenient, it is dangerous for others to make much use of the corridors of darkness. Darkness erodes the heart. In search of a place to proceed with my research and planning away from prying eyes, I found myself in “Twilight Town.” It is a quiet village, forgotten in the chasm between light and darkness. I situated myself in the basement of an abandoned mansion beyond the woods. My underground research resulted in one new discovery after another.

When a Heartless is born, the body and soul left behind are reborn into this world as a different being. They possess different intentions than their Heartless brethren, and while it is unclear what these sentient “things” are after, it would appear they are responsible for much bedlam in the world. My erstwhile friend the King and his subjects, along with a hero wielding the Keyblade, are battling the Heartless even as a new threat approaches. This new threat…they have given themselves a fitting name, I suppose. These non-beings: “Nobodies.”

A great number of Nobodies have lost human form, as have the Heartless. Yet the Nobody born of someone with a strong heart retains its shape, with but the faintest visible changes. It appears my betrayers have retained their human forms as Nobodies, and are gathering more followers in hopes of furthering a new scheme. “Organization XIII,” formed of 13 Nobodies with my betrayers at its core, has divided into two; they are said to be carrying out some sort of research. Seeking to uncover the plans of this Organization, I have decided to head for where six of its members have gathered. Towering over the outer limits of the realm between darkness and light: Castle Oblivion.

Secret Ansem Report #8
It appears that I have been too distracted by the behavior of Xehanort and his cohorts, and by the events occurring in their vicinity. My friend’s struggle to protect the realm of light from the threat of Heartless is now over, with Xehanort’s Heartless—going by the name Ansem, Seeker of Darkness—defeated at last. The other wielder of the Keyblade, this “hero,” traveled from world to world sealing up keyholes and laying Heartless low.

Meanwhile, the King, who had dived into the realm of darkness, worked with the Keyblade-wielding hero to close the door to Kingdom Hearts from the realms of both darkness and light, thus holding off the threat of tremendous darkness. But there are still a great number of Heartless afoot, and Organization XIII and the Nobodies continue to be active in the shadows.

Indeed, the world is still a very dangerous place. We must find a way to do battle with these enemies. Thus I will both make amends and have my revenge. It is for this reason that I infiltrated Castle Oblivion. It consists of 13 floors above and 12 floors below ground, with the contents of its “White Rooms” transforming in response to its visitors’ memories. Organization XIII was conducting experiments on memory here. The subject in these experiments, a girl named Naminé, appeared to possess extremely unusual abilities. Were they attempting to derive something from these powers? Refusing to be distracted by Organization XIII, I had returned to my own secret research when a new visitor appeared at the castle today. It was Sora, the Keyblade-wielding hero who had defeated Ansem, and his companions. Deep underground, the stench of darkness arose. All the players are coming together, it would seem.

Secret Ansem Report #9
I should have expected nothing less from a Keyblade-wielding hero. Sora and friends defied the machinations of Organization XIII and rescued Naminé. Naminé was a witch who controlled the memories of others. Most likely these powers were achieved through a special process when she was born. Naminé is a Nobody, created when a young girl’s heart left her body. Yet she has no corresponding Heartless. This is because the “young girl” in this case was a princess.

Kairi, a resident of Radiant Garden over which I had ruled, was one of the Seven Princesses that uphold the realm of light. With no darkness in her heart, Kairi produced no Heartless, and instead of vanishing, her body remained in the realm of light. In other words, both the Nobody called Naminé and the Heartless—proof of a lost heart—are extremely unstable beings who lack the bodies needed to produce a Nobody. Therefore, they also lack Kairi’s memories. One reason for this may be that Kairi’s heart did not return to the darkness when separated from her body, but rather migrated to another vessel…deep within Sora’s heart. That is, Naminé is an alter ego of the Kairi who has directly interfered with Sora’s heart.

Could this be why Sora and those whose hearts are connected to him were able to have their memories controlled? She is a “non-being” in the truest sense of the word; having not even become a Nobody and with nowhere left to go, she is but the most fleeting of shadows.

Secret Ansem Report #10
Sora went to sleep in order to recover the memories he lost in Castle Oblivion. It would take quite some time to bring back all the memories he had created in his lifetime. But Organization XIII held sway over Castle Oblivion. Sora would need to be kept someplace more secure. I persuaded Naminé to move the slumbering Sora to Twilight Town for safekeeping.

Naminé. As I have written here before, she is a most unusual being. Born of the same process as a Nobody, but lacking virtually all the elements of a Nobody. Perhaps she continues drawing in hopes of capturing that which she lacks: the memories of others, especially Sora. I have arrived at a hypothesis. I believe that Naminé was born as a special type of Nobody when Sora attacked himself with the Keyblade, causing his and Kairi’s hearts to leave their bodies simultaneously. Naminé emerged as Kairi’s Nobody…but the body and soul necessary to exist as a Nobody belonged to Sora.

When a person’s heart is stolen, a Heartless is born with no sense of self, and the body and soul left behind give rise to a Nobody. But what if one willingly releases one’s heart from one’s body? Sora and Xehanort retained their selfhood even after becoming Heartless. Then there are Kairi and Naminé. Kairi was exceptional for having had no darkness within her heart. Also exceptional was that her heart, once freed, migrated to a new vessel—Sora. The combination of these two theoretically unlikely exceptions may be behind this anomaly. There are matters I must attend to while Sora is sleeping. A new ally has appeared on the scene: Riku.