I'm BAAAAAACK! XD Hello all, I'm Anais (formerly known as Oerba Dia Lukia), and welcome to my sequel to When the Cicadas Cry, Darkest Eternity! * applause* If you're new and you haven't read my first fic I reccomend you do - if you start with this fic now you'll be hopeless confused XD For those of you who read WTCC, I know its been a while, but with the Japanese release of KH: Dream Drop Distance yesterday, I've been on a Kingdom Hearts hype and I just HAD to get this story on paper! Our main narrator is... RIKU! Yay! I love writing as him... he's just so awesome, especially since now we get to see inside his head about what happened between him and Xion!

This sequel is special because I'm going to be alternating back and forth between present-day March and the past during the time before and after Xion and Aqua's death. The past-themed chapters will include even more of our favorite Kingdom Hearts characters, including Ventus, Terra, and Vanitas~ This way I'll be developing Xion and Riku's relationship and just what it REALLY was that made her snap.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back in the world of KH, and as a final note - ENJOY!

Ever on and on I continue circling
With nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony
Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing
And suddenly I see that I can't break free-I'm
Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity
With nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony
To tell me who I am, who I was
Uncertainty enveloping my mind
Till I can't break free, and

Maybe it's a dream; maybe nothing else is real
But it wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel
So I'm tired of all the pain, of the misery inside
And I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night
You can tell me what to say; you can tell me where to go
But I doubt that I would care, and my heart would never know
If I make another move there'll be no more turning back
Because everything will change, and it all will fade to black

Will tomorrow ever come? Will I make it through the night?
Will there ever be a place for the broken in the light?
Am I hurting? Am I sad? Should I stay, or should I go?
I've forgotten how to tell. Did I ever even know?
Can I take another step? I've done everything I can
All the people that I see I will never understand
If I find a way to change, if I step into the light
Then I'll never be the same, and it all will fade to white

~ Touhou Project, "Bad Apple!", ValliereVee's English lyrics

~Prologue: Reality~

~Unknown time, Unknown place~

Riku could feel the heat of her breath on his neck as his laid on his stomach on the warm, bloody sheets. Her tongue snaked out, licking his ear, and he cringed. What was he thinking, believing he was safe from his dead, malicious former girlfriend this one time? The cold blade was pressing deeper into his neck and he tried not to swallow, tried not to turn his head and stare into her demented eyes—

"You love me, Riku," the dark-haired girl taunted in his ear, "Don't you, don't you…?"

His heart started to race and he could feel the chills going down his whole body. If he told her the truth – which was yes – would she spare his life? Would he be able to stay in this world, just once be able to not die and return again someplace new and unfamiliar, just to have to go through all the blood, gore, and hatred of death again?

"Y-Yes," Riku stammered, his eyes closing in preparation for his fate. "I only love you, darling. Only you."

"You're lying to me, Riku!" She screamed, pushing the cleaver farther. Riku choked on the warm, sticky blood rising from his throat, the gurgling sound he made making him feel sick. This was what this was all about, wasn't it? Lies. The lies they all had faced the time before, during, and even after the twins' death fifty years ago. Terra, Aqua, Ventus, and even Riku himself, but the murderous girl trying to kill him now had gotten the worst end of it.

"I'm sorry… so s-sorry…"

"Is that all you know how to say, Riku? 'I'm sorry'?" She whispered quickly in his ear with a crazy giggle at the end of her question. "You were sorry when you so-called 'had to' leave me. You were sorry when I died. You were sorry for all those deaths, all those deaths I caused… but you know this all could have been avoided. Had you just stayed with me, had my sister had just accepted her sin, her sin of always pushing me aside, being the best in everything… if you look at it that way, this isn't my fault. It's not only Aqua's fault…"

Riku let himself relax, waiting for her to finish her sentence. He wasn't sorry because of his girlfriend's actions, or what she had been through…he was sorry because she hadn't had the willpower to overcome this fate of murder, of killing, because of those actions.

And when he thought about it, maybe it really was his fault…

"… but also yours. Goodbye, Riku."

And Xion, the girl silver-haired Riku had loved for so long, slit his throat.

~Monday, March 5th, Riku's Apartment, 6:27 a.m.~

"Gah!"

Riku bolted upright in bed, his hand at his throat, his breath coming out in short gasps. That dream, it felt so real… he thought as he pulled away his hand from his neck – it came away clean, reassuring the fact that his dream was another one of the nightmares he had been having lately, and not that Xion had killed him and sent him to another place. Normally Xion wouldn't intrude on his dreams, but recently she'd been showing up more and more… as the 'Ides of March' Xion had mentioned in her note drew closer and closer.

Riku sighed and swung his legs over the bed, realizing that, yes, it was March. He hadn't done any research on what the 'Ides of March' meant since he'd received the note last November. Mostly because he was too lazy and too scared to look it up. He got up and flung open the window curtains by his desk, letting morning sunrise stream into the dark room; school didn't start until seven-thirty, so he had a while to do some research.

His laptop warmed up quickly when he turned it on, as he sat down at his desk, his fingers moving rapidly back and forth between the mouse and keyboard as he typed 'Ides of March' in a Internet search engine. He brushed his unkempt, sleep-tousled hair out of his eyes as he clicked on the first result.

The website said that the 'Ides of March' were the fifteenth day of March, and were generally a festive day honor a god a long time ago. Riku groaned inwardly. Today was the fifth of March, so that meant he had ten days to figure out what Xion's plan was and how to save Roxas and Sora from the malignant ghost of his beloved. "Great," Riku mumbled sarcastically. Roxas still had the necklace that Xion possessed, but it hadn't seemed to have much of an effect on him for the last few months, as Riku had seen… but in the past five days, Riku had seen a change in the normally bubbly teenager. He mentally cursed himself for waiting so long to focus on researching what Xion's note meant. Those months wasted… maybe if I hadn't blown off the fact that Roxas wasn't showing any signs of ghostly possession, I might have had a better chance at beating Xion this time.

He kept reading; the Ides of March also involved the murder of a historic general on that day, in which a fortune-teller had warned the general of his death. However, the seer was ignored and the general was killed by stabbing attacks. So that was why Xion chose March fifteenth, Riku pondered. It was the day someone was killed… He shook his head with a smile. Oh Xion, clever as always.

He closed his laptop and, putting his chin on his hands and gazing out the window, his eyes traveled over the parking lot of his apartment, the myriad houses and palm trees strewn among the coast of the Destiny Island, and, far in the distance, the ocean, lit up brightly by the rising sun. Riku felt the warmth on his face and smiled. This feeling – of happiness, of peace – reminded him of the times before Xion had gone crazy, before she had killed her sister and so many others. It reminded him of the day he had met Xion. She was such as bright, cheerful girl then always smiling or laughing…

He wished he could go back to that day…

Before his dreams – his nightmares – became reality.

Reviews are appreciated!

~Anais