[that frown deepens the more roxas says. if he got told that immediately after defeating xemnas, he'd have taken it at face value. so much of that seems so plausible. it was intended that way. xehanort pulled so many people's strings and pulled them so well. all the organization members ate that up, sans maybe braig.]

You know how I said before that he lied to you guys? Well, most of that falls under the lie umbrella.

[a moment of silence passes as he closes his eyes and mulls around how to best start unraveling all the lies.]

Heartless and Nobodies aren't that simple, even if it'd be easier if they were.

[it'd make him feel a hell of a lot less guilty, that's for sure.]

Heartless are what remains of a heart consumed by darkness; a Nobody is what remains of the person. Heartless are drawn to the Keyblade because of its ability to lock and unlock hearts. There's a bit more I can go into with hearts, the Keyblade and Kingdom Hearts, but you deserve to hear the other part of the lie first.

[the part that applies to roxas. the part xehanort kept from the organization. the part that made riku feel worse about everything that transpired between himself and roxas.]

Nobodies, like I said, are the other half or what's left when a heart succumbs to darkness. They initially start off without a heart, this is true, but...

[his eyes open and meet roxas' dead on.]

As soon as it can, the body will try to replace the heart it lost. Those feelings you showed when we fought, ones that I discredited as being fake, weren't because your body did exactly that.

[so much of what happened with that fight and what transpired after all held to the assumption nobodies lacked a heart. that raw anger during their fight raised questions and riku wishes he'd heeded them. what's done is done, though. even if he did go back in time, it'd fix itself back to normal anyway. gotta love how time travel doesn't allow for do-overs.]