It is then revealed that Riku and the King are in the basement of the castle and need to fight their way to the first floor. Riku was corrupted by the darkness in his heart during the first game and so he does battle with Organization members as well as the darkness within him. Riku also runs into a man named DiZ who assists him with his journey.

358/2 Days

The next game in the chronological timeline is the Nintendo DS title 358/2 Days. The title refers to the year that Sora and his friends were asleep and events that took place during that year but there are also events that are concurrent with Chain of Memories. The game tells the story of Roxas, who is Sora’s Nobody. Confused yet? Remember that Nobodies are formed when a strong person is turned into a Heartless. When Sora turned into a Heartless to save Kairi in KH 1, Roxas was the result.

Roxas is a member of Organization XIII and has no recollection of his previous life as Sora. Roxas engages In his own self-contained story, using his own Keyblade to defeat Heartless across many worlds. The Nobodies of Organization XIII want to use the collected hearts from battles to become whole human beings again. Along the way, Roxas runs into Xion, who is the organization’s 14th member. It turns out that the leader of the Organization created Xion as a fail-safe for Roxas. Xion is essentially a Nobody version of Kairi, created from Sora’s memories. If Sora is ever going to wake up, Xion has to merge back with Sora, but that would mean she would no longer exist.

Xion is manipulated by Xemnas, the Organization’s leader, and Roxas has to fight her. After her defeat, Xion does merge with Sora, causing everyone’s memories of Xion to disappear. Finally, Riku manages to capture Roxas, on advice from DiZ. Riku captures Roxas by releasing the darkness within him, which causes Riku to take the physical form of Ansem, one of the things that he fears most. DiZ places Roxas in Twilight Town with no recollection of what happened in 358/2 Days so that he can eventually merge again with Sora, causing Sora to wake up in Kingdom Hearts II.