Sora

Sora (, Sora) is the main protagonist of the series. Originally a normal boy who sought to venture from his home in the and explore worlds, Sora embarks on a quest to reunite with his best friends,  and, after their home world was consumed by darkness.

During his quest, Sora obtains a mysterious weapon known as a, allies with and  to journey to various worlds in order to help each other reunite with their respective allies, and unravels the mysteries of both the Keyblade and the darkness that consumed the Destiny Islands and numerous other worlds.

Sora debuted in the  series as a playable character as the sixth and final character of.

Origin
Sora was born and raised in the, a group of small tropical islands. As a newborn, Sora's heart would make contact with an unconscious, whose heart was fractured in an attempt to separate the dark part of his heart from him. Offering to tether their hearts together to save Ventus, Sora was able to rescue Ventus; however, this caused the dark part of Ventus,, to bear Sora's facial structure. After the two merge, Ventus' heart clashes with Vanitas. When Ventus' heart is fractured in this battle as a cost of defeating Vanitas, Sora's heart offers for his heart to take shelter in his own body, so Ventus could regain his strength. Meanwhile, Ventus' friend Aqua hides him in their home, the Land of Departure, and transforms it into a new form called that will allow Ventus to stay hidden until he reawakens.

Unknowing of the decision his heart made, Sora would continue to live peacefully with his friends and, alongside other children such as ,  and. The trio of friends desired to explore other worlds, so they built a raft to sail away from the Destiny Islands. The night before their voyage, however, an ominous event occurred. A strange darkness overtook the islands, and creatures known as the appeared. Desperate to protect the raft, Sora went to locate Kairi and Riku, the latter announcing that he was not afraid of the incoming darkness and allowing himself to be sucked into a. However, thanks to Ventus' heart, Sora was then granted a magical weapon called the in order to fight the Heartless, and found himself thrown through the universe.

Awakening in a place called, Sora teamed up with and  to find his friends, as well as King Mickey. Together, they would venture through various worlds in order to save the universe from the Heartless, led by, who sought to open the door to , the source of all light. After fighting Ansem, now possessing Riku's body, in Hollow Bastion, Sora ends up sacrificing himself to Kairi and the other, whose power he used to open the door. His sacrifice gives birth to his own Heartless, Kairi's Nobody, and his, , sharing the same facial features as Ventus. Sora is able to return from his Heartless form thanks to the bond he shared with Kairi, and with Donald and Goofy, the trio travel to the to defeat Ansem and seal the, a doorway leading to the realm of darkness. He and Kairi end up separating, but not before Sora promises to Kairi that he will be back.

While finding a way back, Sora, Donald, and Goofy end up in Castle Oblivion, where they soon find out that their memories are fading or rewritten. While trying to figure out what is going on, Sora, Donald, and Goofy run into several members of that both try to stop and help them along the way. They also come across a girl named, Kairi's Nobody that had been hired by Organization XIII to mess up memories of Sora and his friends for the Organization's plans. After Sora, Donald, and Goofy defeat the castle's ruler,, Naminé agrees to help restore their memories, but in order for their memories to be fully restored, she has to put them in a coma for one year.

Concurrent to Sora's recovery, Roxas is quickly discovered by the head of Organization XIII,, who declares Roxas an Organization member and orders him to do various tasks. He also makes friends with two other members of the Organization: and. The latter is later revealed to not be a traditional Nobody, but a puppet created around Sora's memories. Xion is eventually forced by the Organization to kill Roxas and absorb him to become a "complete" Sora, though Roxas defeats her with regrets. Roxas is then taken captive by Riku, led by under the pseudonym DiZ. Roxas then realizes that he must cease to exist and merge with Sora to regain his memories. After some initial resistance, Roxas willingly accepts his demise for the greater good.

Sora, now awake and with all of his memories intact, sets out on another adventure to take down the Organization members and Xemnas. Heading to the, Sora reunites with Riku and the two foil Xemnas's plans to merge with his artificial Kingdom Hearts, and are able to find themselves back home on Destiny Islands, fully reuniting with Kairi. In the process, they learn that Ansem is a separate being from Ansem the Wise, really a pseudonym belonging to a by the name of. Xehanort split himself into two beings: Ansem, his Heartless, and Xemnas, his Nobody, in an attempt to call forth Kingdom Hearts and re-initiate the ancient. Previously, he had attempted this by splitting Ventus and Vanitas apart, allowing them to later fuse to create the, the very first Keyblade, which can summon Kingdom Hearts.

Later, Sora and Riku are tasked by to complete the  to become Keyblade Masters themselves after sensing the return of Xehanort. It is later revealed by copies of Xehanort that he plans to assemble 13 Seekers of Darkness that all carry a piece of his soul, becoming the true form of Organization XIII, in order to restart the Keyblade War. While only Riku becomes a Keyblade Master, Sora is still believed to be the one destined to save the day. Vowing to stop Xehanort, Sora manages to save Aqua from the, and uses the on Ventus in Castle Oblivion, after Aqua reverted it back to the Land of Departure. Together with Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Kairi, Riku, and, the true form of Axel, they head to the to fight Xehanort's clones and his subordinates.

Although the group manages to save and Xion from Xehanort's grasp, and restore Roxas and his heart, Xemnas kidnaps Kairi and delivers her to Xehanort, who promptly destroys her after the group defeats the last of Xehanort's subordinates in order to craft the χ-blade. Using all their strength, Sora, Donald, and Goofy manage to defeat Xehanort in, and stop his plot to reignite the Keyblade War. Sora then travels into in order to save Kairi, but at the cost of supposedly being lost forever.

One year later, Sora awakens in a nighttime version of The Final World and discovers himself intact. He calls for anyone to answer him, and encounters, the protagonist of the fictional video game  who was mentioned by a that Sora had met in the Final World. Yozora cryptically claims that he was sent to "save" Sora, and teleports himself and Sora to the city of. A battle ensues in which Sora is the victor, and Yozora fades after realizing his power was not yet needed, something which a confused Sora asks.

Afterwards, Sora returns to the daytime version of the Final World, and his fate after that is unknown as his friends continue to search for him. Kairi learns that Sora has ended up neither in the realm of light nor darkness, but "somewhere on the other side," from which Ansem the Wise gathers that he has landed in the realm of fiction. With the help of the, the two learn about Quadratum, and Riku leaves for the city in search of Sora while Kairi remains behind in order to train under Aqua.

At some point in time in Quadratum, Sora wakes up in a luxurious apartment and immediately meets Strelitzia, who tells him that he has arrived in Quadratum and has been asleep for a week there. Sora then finds out that the Heartless are invading Quadratum and proceeds to fight a Darkside Heartless in the city.

In Super Smash Bros. 4
During Sora's reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it was revealed by  series creator Masahiro Sakurai that Sora was the overall highest-voted character on the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot. On a related note, 's reveal trailer in December 2015 declared her as the winner of the Fighter Ballot among "realizable and negotiable characters", implying that Sora's inclusion at the time was impractical for unspecified reasons.

As a playable character
Sora appears as a newcomer in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with his inclusion being announced during a Mr. Sakurai Presents presentation on October 5th, 2021. He is the final fighter of and Ultimate's roster overall, and was released on October 18th, 2021. In addition to confirming Sora's aforementioned status as the Fighter Ballot's overall winner, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that Sora's inclusion was made possible thanks to an encounter with a representative of Disney at a "certain game awards venue." As a result, Fighters Pass Vol. 2's roster was increased from six fighters to seven to accommodate Sora's inclusion.

Sora's default costume is his normal appearance from Kingdom Hearts, whereas his alternate costumes consist of his normal appearances from Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, and Kingdom Hearts III, his appearance, his Valor and Wisdom Forms from Kingdom Hearts II, and his Ultimate Form from Kingdom Hearts III.

Trivia

 * Sora, Banjo, Kazooie and Steve are the only fighters who belong to a non-Japanese company. In Sora's case, he is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
 * Sora is the first and only fighter from a Square Enix-developed series to be fully voiced in both English and Japanese, as Cloud Strife, the Luminary, and Sephiroth are voiced only by their Japanese voice actors (Takahiro Sakurai, Mitsuki Saiga, and Toshiyuki Morikawa, respectively) instead of also being voiced by their English voice actors (Steve Burton, Rasmus Hardiker, and George Newbern, respectively).
 * Due to having all of his voice clips repurposed from preexisting Kingdom Hearts games, Sora is also the only fighter from a Square Enix-developed series to lack new voice clips for his appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series.
 * Due to the 's token being a, Sora is the only fighter whose model features a reference to a non-gaming icon.
 * According to Masahiro Sakurai, Sora's inclusion was made possible thanks to an encounter with a representative of The Walt Disney Company at a "certain game awards venue" (possibly the 2019 Tokyo Game Show, though the interview does not mention it by name). As a result, Fighters Pass Vol. 2's roster was increased from six fighters to seven (counting and  separately) to accommodate his addition.
 * Coincidentally, the Kingdom Hearts series itself was kickstarted by a near-identical circumstance, in which Shinji Hashimoto was able to pitch the idea of a crossover to Disney by stepping into an elevator with a Disney executive.
 * Contrary to popular belief, Disney was actually supportive of Sora's inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. series. According to Tetsuya Nomura, it was he, not Disney, who viewed Sora's inclusion as being difficult to achieve because of his concern over the crossover clashing with the Kingdom Hearts series' lore. Ultimately, Nomura viewed Sora's inclusion as "really great" following the outpouring of positive responses from fans.