Chapter 1

The Beginning of Beginnings

Riku woke suddenly, as if he knew he had slept through his alarm on the day of his final exams. His bright blue eyes scanned his surroundings. His silver hair flowed, though there wasn't any breeze. "Wh-… where am I?" he asked. "What time is it?"

"Stay asleep," a man's voice told him, seeming to echo off nonexistent walls.

He tried to sit up, but the sheer force exerted by his abdominal muscles in this weightless world sent him spiraling into two somersaults before he was able to regain balance and float upright. He moved his arms and legs as though he was treading water, but since there was no water in this world, or even air, for that matter, his motions only set him further off balance. After a few minutes of experimentation, he managed to regain stability by mimicking a T-stance.

"You should remain asleep, here, between light and dark," the man said.

Riku quickly realized that the caveat to his method of balance was that he was upside-down, as the voice was coming from somewhere above his feet. He collected himself into a ball as best he could and tried expelling air from his lungs to give himself momentum, but that only succeeded in launching him into a perpetual spin. "Between… what?" Riku asked, trying to face the source of the voice, but not having much luck. A realization hit him as memories came flooding back. He flailed aimlessly, his powerful arms whipping about in panic. "The king!" he gasped. "Where's the king? Together we closed the door to darkness… and he still owes me, like, twenty bucks!"

"After that, you came drifting here by yourself. You did not have the strength to overcome the darkness."

Riku arched an eyebrow at that, self-consciously flexing one of his massive arms. The diameter of each bicep was well over forty centimeters, let alone the limb it was attached to.

The voice continued. "Or, maybe you were close to it."

"Close to what?" Riku asked.

"The darkness."

Riku waved a massive hand dismissively. "Nah, we're just friends."

"That's not what I meant."

"Look, no offense to 'ol Darky, but have you seen its face?"

"Look, would you just—" The man sounded frustrated, but this frustration melted into his former, mysterious demeanor as he said, "Turn from the light. Shut your eyes. Here, blanketed by the darkness, sleep is safety. Sleep is eternal. But…"

There was a bright flash of light behind Riku. He sighed, flapping his arms in an effort to turn himself around to see what it was about. He wasn't very successful at first, flipping at an angle and only catching the light out the corner of his eye. Eventually he got himself mostly upright, as it were, at a forty-five degree angle. That was enough for him to see it—a bright blue card, its center displaying a picture of a strangely familiar castle. It shimmered so noisily Riku wondered if it was some kind of firecracker. "What's this?"

"It is a door to the truth. Take it, and your sleep ends as you take the first step toward the truth. But know this—"

"Sweet, thanks," said Riku as he snatched the card. When nothing happened, he waved it around a bit. "How do you use this thing?"

"Wait, wait; don't you want to hear the warning?"

"Dude, tomorrow's leg day. I can skip shoulders once, maybe, but I'm already way behind schedule for this week," Riku argued.

"…The truth will bring you pain. Will you still go?" the man asked.

Riku bent the card a bit, ignoring the voice and puzzling how to use the card. He pinched it between his thumbs and index fingers, bending the edge a bit. "Maybe I have to break it…?"

"No, no! That's a collectable! Jesus, just wait a minute…" A pause. "There. Don't let the Door Between Worlds hit you on the way out."

The card began to glow brighter, and brighter, until it was so bright that it hurt Riku's eyes. He held it as far away from his face as he could reach.

When it was over, Riku finally felt the force of real gravity pulling at his body, and he felt to the floor, cracking the marble beneath his feet when he landed.

He flexed, arching his back. The fifteen-year-old boy stood six feet tall at the shoulder, his form demonstrating his fondest pastime: Bodybuilding. Though his shorts somehow managed to stretch across his bulky thighs and rear, no single article of clothing could cover his titanic torso, which was completely bare, exposing for all to see the sheer amount of accumulated muscle. His massive gains made his head look relatively tiny in comparison, though most people avoided pointing that out when they spoke with him. As he journeyed through worlds, his swole form had granted him the admiration and envy of many, though both sides agreed on what nickname fit best. Now, "Buff" Riku found himself in some sort of basement, and was puzzling on how to escape.

The walls were bleach white, with ornate fixtures and columns forming a symmetrical pattern around the room. A beige door sat at the end of the room at the top of a few stairs. What laid beyond was anyone's guess. Riku quickly realized that he had no idea where he was.

He looked at the door, then looked at the card. They didn't seem to be connected in any way, shape, or form. They weren't even remotely the same color, and the door didn't have a card-shaped keyhole or anything. What the heck was he supposed to do with it? Yet, there didn't seem to be any alternative exit.

He walked up to the door and banged his heavy fist on it, so hard it shuddered at the hinges. "Hello? Anyone home?" He looked behind himself. There was only a blank wall. He reached up his hand to knock louder, but luckily that same fist was holding the card; once it was close enough to the door, it burst into light with the sound of a delicate glass wind chime being smashed. The door pushed open, and Riku was able to enter.

Riku nodded, and said, "All according to keikaku." He cracked the knuckles of one massive hand, then the other, and said, "Yeah, alright. Let's do this." He stepped past the door.

Behind him, the door vanished. Riku looked around. He was in a world of pale granite and purple stone; an ancient castle held together by rustic pipes and steam. It was sunset, and the perpetually fading light cast a red-orange glow on the shambling architecture. Electricity twirled visibly through the air, holding up platforms and shuffling them around periodically.

Something occurred to Riku. The surroundings were, of course, rather familiar. "Wait a second. This is Hollow Bastion!" he remarked to himself.

"What you see is not real," the man said.

"Jeez, you're still here?" Riku complained.

"Shut up. This is the world of your memory."

"My memory?" Riku scratched his head. No wonder everything was floating around. His memory hadn't been that great since that one time he tried working out without a spotter.

"The things you remember from your time at Maleficent's castle became a card, and that card became this world."

Riku nodded, tugging at his foot, which had been caught in the apparently melting stone underneath him.

"...Some aspects of it leave a bit to be desired," he admitted. "Still. You have seen everything here before, haven't you?"

Riku looked around. "Uh…" He scratched his head. "I'll take your word for it. I mean, yeah, totally. But, uh, what now? I don't see anyone here."

"You would meet the people in your memories… ordinarily."

"Ordinarily?" Riku asked.

"Frankly, your memories are so messed up and jumbled that I have no idea who the hell you'll meet, or if they'll even be remotely similar to the people they are in real life."

"Oh, you think I'm senile, huh, is that right?" Riku asked, shaking his fist at the sky. As he shook, the air around his arm became thick and viscous, and a clear gelatinous substance started flying everywhere, landing on the granite with audible plops. It slowly evaporated after making contact with the ground, bubbling as it did. "Well? I'm asking you a question, voice in my head! Answer me!" Riku demanded.

He stopped making angry gestures after a blob of goo landed on his perfect six-pack abdomen. He had to bite his lip to stop from laughing as it tickled him, but when he tried to scrape it off, his hand phased right through it.

"Oh, okay," Riku said, shrugging. "Well, I'm outta here." And he ran off.

This imperfect world also had a population of imperfect Heartless. They lunged at Riku like fleas and swarmed around him like mosquitos, though the nature of this world meant they moved with lethargy, often getting tangled up in the strangely gelatinous atmosphere.

Given his limited range of motion, slashing the heartless with Soul Eater wasn't a great use of his time, feeling almost like hunting houseflies with a toothpick. Instead, he started smashing their heads in with his bare fists, which proved both simpler and more effective. Now, ordinarily, heartless wouldn't be vulnerable to strikes made with a non-anime weapon—but Riku didn't remember that, and this was a world of his memories, after all.

Eventually, he'd battled through enough rooms to finally come across the weight room in the very basement of Hollow Bastion, which, strangely enough, was connected directly to the balcony four floors up. Riku didn't think too hard about the geometry of it all; he was just happy enough to find his gear.

He inhaled the stench of stale sweat and sighed contentedly. "Everything is just how I remember it. Even this room…"

"You... were supposed to find your old bedroom, not your weight room. You didn't even have a weight room; you just slept on a bench press."

"Oh, hey, you're back. Man, if you could, like, actually come here, rather than just being a voice, that'd be awesome, 'cause then you could spot me," Riku said, immediately taking up two solid steel, fitty-kilo dumbbells and doing bicep curls.

"Do you miss Maleficent? After all, she's the one that gave you any weights to lift. All the while, you were tempted by the power of the darkness."

"I dunno who you're talking about, but I do remember living here once. Pretty sure the reason I came here was that it was more convenient than using the gym in Traverse Town. The membership fees there are, like, two thousand munny." He muttered under his breath, "'Effin Moogles run the whole damn town."

"But you left your home, your family behind, all for what? Half-decent equipment?"

"Uh, probably. I mean, when I was lifting back on Destiny Islands, I had to bench-press tree trunks. My hands got so many splinters they called me Treant. And, one time, a hive of bees fell right on my pecs. That is the type of swole you do not want."

"Oh, man, that sounds awful. I hate bees."

"Yeah, right?"

There was a pause in conversation as Riku proceeded to do eighty reps in a row on both arms, silently wishing he'd 'remembered' heavier weights.

"So, um, how long are you going to stay here?"

Riku shrugged. "Um, there isn't that much more I can do without a spotter. And, to be honest, these weights are getting kinda flimsy," he added, shaking the steel dumbbell to illustrate. It flopped around like a half-cooked noodle. "Maybe there's stuff I remembered better somewhere else."

Riku set the weights down and got up, trotting onward, having barely broken a sweat.

After a few more rounds of pummeling, Riku found himself in the central chamber of Hollow Bastion. It was circular, with a fountain at the center, the bronze spigot in the shape of a roaring lion's head. A mirrored set of stairs, both as halves of a semicircle, led up from the ground of the room up to the second floor. Riku stood on a balcony. It creaked under his weight.

"Are there only Heartless in this castle?" Riku asked as he hopped down to the ground floor. He landed with a thud that sent tremors through the nearby columns. "Maybe I could teach one of them to spot me," he mused.

He walked over to the fountain, waiting for the man behind the voice to speak up and say something pointless and irrelevant. When it didn't, he sighed, and began to walk out.

"I bet you're wondering where the people from your memories are."

Riku shrugged. "Not really, no," he said. "Not many people that came from this place are really worth remembering... uh, probably."

"You're saying you're abandoning them? That you'd rather not see them ever again?"

Riku scratched the back of his head. "If you're talking about Sora and Kairi, then I'm pretty sure I'll see them again no matter what. Sora follows me around like a lost puppy, and Kairi, well…" He flexed his huge muscles unabashedly. "I've caught her looking, let's say. All the others, well, I can do without. Really, all I want out of life is to get as buff as possible. I'm sure I can get someone else to spot me."

"Then why the hell did you pass through the door to darkness? Why'd you fight Sora in the first place?"

Riku tapped his index finger on his tiny chin. "Good question. As far as I can remember, I thought that the powers of the darkness would make me even more swole. When I found out they didn't, I said 'seeya.' Seems pretty straightforward to me."

"What's hard to understand is why you're seeing Hollow Bastion at all when you apparently don't care about it in the least."

"Well, I mean, I did have some great workouts here. Probably made some nice gains," Riku said. "I mean, Maleficent isn't that bad a spotter, when she had the time. Where is she, anyway?"

"Ugh, hell if I know. Just keep smashing your way through the castle. If you run out of rooms, call me. I'm going to take a shower."

Riku nodded and jogged out of the chamber.

A few dozen clobbered heartless later, Riku found Maleficent's throne room. The dark fairy was sitting, cross-legged, on her throne. She had neglected to put on her formal attire, and was instead wearing a blood-red nightgown. A mug of tea, long since emptied, sat at the base of the throne, with the phrase "I Really Wish I Weren't Here Right Now" painted on the side. In her left hand, she held open a magazine, World Domination Weekly, and in the other, she held her staff, which she was presently using to pick her teeth. She set the bulky toothpick down when she saw Riku and rolled her eyes. "Oh, good heavens. For the last time, I will not spot you again. You nearly took my foot off the last time. Some of those weights are heavier than me!"

Riku grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, yeah, I know, just stopping by, I swear." Something occurred to him. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be, like, dead?"

The vile sorceress threw back her head in exasperation. "Riku, I swear, you haven't retained a single modicum of information since you got here. I'm a figment of your memory, same as all the rest!" She straightened out her magazine even as it began to melt a bit. "Apparently you remember me as some bratty ingrate who reads manuals on how to take over the world, but I suppose I won't really be able to convince you otherwise, now will I?"

"Hey, I must remember you pretty well, since you're literally the only other person in this castle," Riku said.

"I'm not people; I'm a fairy, you imbecile," Maleficent said, switching the order of her crossed legs. "Frankly, I'd prefer not to be remembered, since the only reason I'm here in the first place is because you're obsessed with forcing me to ensure that you don't crush yourself during one of your five-times-a-day workouts! Heaven forbid I even once ask you to renounce your friends and family, train in the dark arts, or even fetch the morning paper! You're worse of a freeloader than Pete!"

"Man, I didn't think I remembered you feeling so strongly about this," Riku said.

The witch folded back her newspaper, looking at Riku entirely bemused. "You remember me extremely kindly. I would like to think that the real me would be hitting you upside the head right now, you disgusting pile of flesh." She resumed reading. "At any rate, I have no interest in you. You're a failure as a disciple and as an investment of my precious time. If you would, please leave this world so that I may once again experience the bliss of nonexistence."

Riku smiled weakly, turning around and walking away with his hands on the back of his head. "You did make the best minced meat pies, though, Maleficent."

"That's because you never asked what was in them."

Riku grimaced. "Good point."

"Now get out of my house."

"Right," Riku said. He walked toward the door, then considered "Um… how?"

Maleficent rolled her eyes again. "Must I explain everything for you? You have to punch me square in the jaw and kill me! I'm the boss of this world, after all."

"Woah, isn't that a little extreme?" Riku said, turning around to look back at her. "I mean, I don't have any reason to fight you."

"Don't blame me; I'm not the one in charge. By some definitions, I don't really exist at all," Maleficent said, turning to the centerfold of her paper. "So, get it over with. The anticipation is annoying me."

"Jeez, Malley; we both know I'm way stronger than you." He looked up at the ceiling. "Hey, voice guy! Cut me a break! Us two are pals, y'know?"

Meanwhile, Maleficent had her head in her hand, a vein on her temple bulging out in frustration. There was fury in her small, sarcastic smile. "You know I hate that… that stupid pet name!" A few tendrils of dark energy swirled around her robes, wisps of green fire floating in the air around her.

"Well, at the end of the day, I'm not gonna hit a girl, so we need to find some other way out of here," Riku said, turning around, oblivious to the fact that the force of pure darkness seethed behind him. Any mortal man would have cowered in despair as the wicked woman behind him took her ultimate form, but the green flames emanating from her ritual of transformation deflected harmlessly off Riku's massive shoulders. He was about to exit the room when he heard Maleficent's voice again, this time deeper and raspier.

"Would you hit a dragon?"

He turned around. Before him sat Maleficent's ultimate form—herself, in a dragon suit, sort of similar to the kind people would wear at conventions, or a child's birthday party. She stood perfectly upright; the dragon suit encasing her was anthropomorphic, with its head sitting dopily inert on top, a floppy tongue hanging out the front and the eyes on either side of the head staring in vastly different directions. Maleficent's head poked out the middle of the dragon's neck. The rest of the suit was as mediocre in construction as its head jewel, with rubber claws, saggy legs, and a bulky torso that looked hot enough to give any Disneyland employee dry heaves.

"Woah," Riku said. "Maleficent, I had no idea you were a furry."

"I'm not a furry; I'm dragon-kin! Dragon-kin!" Maleficent yelled, stomping the ground angrily with her foot like a frustrated toddler. The force of her stomping made her entire suit ripple. In a moment of composure, she looked up at Riku, deadpan, and said, "I hate you."

She leapt at Riku with the full force of her draconic fury, a supremely stupid-looking charge. He sidestepped her. She lunged at him again. He stuck his arm out and held her an arm's length away while her mushy claws scraped along with the rest of her feet on the carpet and her upper limbs flailed at him uselessly.

After a couple minutes of this, she stopped to catch her breath, wiping her brow with her sleeve. "Gosh, is it hot in here," she remarked, tugging at the collar of her suit.

"C'mon, Malley; I don't wanna fight you," Riku said.

Maleficent only fumed. "Did I not just tell you never to call me that again?!" She leapt at him, swatting at his face with her rubber claws. Riku caught her swipe, and when she tried to break away, he held on to her costume, letting go of the hand within. Unfortunately, before he decided to let go of the costume, Maleficent pulled it off herself by breaking off a couple claws still locked in Riku's indecisive grip.

She was furious. "You fiend! This costume cost me thirty thousand munny on Etsy! It was a custom commission! I was going to take it to the next festivallll!" she screeched, backing up from his hand and trying to tackle him.

He hopped aside, but before she was able to regain her balance, he grabbed the tail of her costume and held her up by it. Her body sagged to the bottom of the suit, stretching out the feeble material it was bound by and giving the impression that it was originally made for a much larger, burlier man.

"Let me down! If this costume rips, I, I'll…" Maleficent, now completely red-in-the-face, searched desperately for an avenue of threat she hadn't already exhausted. "I-I'll trap your fat ass in the Door to Darkness forever!"

The room instantly chilled by twenty degrees. There was a glint in Riku's eyes, his expression now deathly severe. He tossed Maleficent up in the air, then caught her by the collar of her costume and pulled her up close to his face.

"Did you just call me 'fat?'" Riku said.

Maleficent blinked. "Eh?"

With that, the room shook as Riku uppercut Maleficent with such titanic force that she crashed through the many floors above him in Hollow Bastion and sailed off into the distance.

Faintly, one could hear her yell as she flew, "Team Heartless is blasting off again…!"

Riku, satisfied, dusted off his palms. A little black card, similar to the one he had used earlier, floated down before him. On it was a picture of Maleficent in her dragon suit, though she was a tad blurry. Whoever took the photo must have snapped it the instant her face hit the ceiling. Riku shrugged and put it in his back pocket. Maybe it'd be useful later.

Seeing nothing left to do, and having no interest in Maleficent's mug or magazine, he left the chamber.

He exited the throne room to find himself walking straight back into the room he'd started in at the beginning of all this, a pale, white, ornate chamber. The door closed behind him before he thought to hold it open, but after a moment of consideration, Riku realized he had, in fact, progressed. Though the room he'd entered had the exact same layout as the one he'd left, this time, there was both a door behind and in front of him. It was only feature distinguishing between the two rooms.

Riku sniffed the air. Something smelled. It was a heavy smell, thick and humid, like a sauna, or warm lotion, or spicy floral cologne. He knew who owned that smell. He grimaced, turning away from the door.

"Why do you shun the darkness?"

Riku took a deep breath. "Look, I know you saw everything that went on with Maleficent. Can we cut straight to the point?"

"I think you know that, at this point, I'm not going to take 'no' for an answer. Darkness is your weapon. You must accept it."

Riku shrugged. "Okay, darkness exists."

"That's not what I meant!"

Riku laughed. "Well well well, how the turn tables."

"Stop resisting. Accept the darkness. You have no choice…"

A black portal opened in front of Riku. It quickly dissipated, revealing the Lord of Darkness himself. He wore a V-neck collared long-sleeve shirt with thin vertical stripes running down the otherwise black fabric. The V was so deep that it left the majority of his dark olive chest exposed, almost down to his navel. His top was tucked into a thick belt, accentuating his hourglass figure. He wore pants as dark as a starless night as well as jet-black loafers with red soles. His steel gray hair was tied in a long ponytail that hung down past his shoulders. Emblazoned as his belt buckle was the Heartless insignia. Now materialized, he finished the sentence he had started as a voice: "…if you are to, like, totally be mine again."

"Ansem," Riku growled, taking a few steps forward toward the center of the room. "I'm surprised you chose to disguise yourself this long."

"Aw, shucks, looks like you missed me after all," Ansem said, tipping his gray fedora in Riku's general direction. "Did you know they offer theatre classes in Traverse Town? I was supposed to be in a production, even! I had to cancel, though, 'cause I found out I was busy during rehearsals. Y'know, with the whole drowning every single world in darkness thing. But it's still something I really wanna do, so while I've been in your heart, I've been practicing! Neat, huh? I think I've gotten pretty good. Shooting for that whole, 'mysterious narrator' role."

Riku facepalmed. "All you've been talking about is darkness this, darkness that. It gets old, y'know!"

Ansem puffed, blowing a few strands of hair out from in front of his face. "Oh, that's rich. Mister Protein Shake over here calling me a one-trick pony."

Riku sighed, folding his arms, and said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "I can't even guess what you're here for."

Ansem's eyes lit up. He strutted closer to Riku, one foot perfectly in front of the other as though he was dancing tango. "Ooh, that sounds like fun! C'mon, guess, guess," he said excitedly. Next to Riku, who was half a meter taller, Ansem looked comparatively tiny, but that didn't seem to phase him.

"Um…" Riku put a hand on his chin, stroking it as he thought. Didn't Ansem just say what he wanted me to do? he thought. It wasn't that hard to guess, anyway. "I'm guessing you want me to rejoin you in your quest, or something."

"Close, close!" Ansem said, daintily skirting around to Riku's side. The dark lord seemed to be as light as a feather. "What I actually want, though, in clearer words, is for you to call me, um..." He hopped up and lingered in the air for a moment, his lips right by Riku's ear as he said with a drastically lowered and softened voice, "...daddy."

Riku tried to swat Ansem away, but his attack was effortlessly dodged. Ansem arched his back at an unnatural angle to evade, holding onto his fedora and doing a backflip, landing perfectly a few feet away.

"Eugh, gross!" Riku said. "Being around you makes me feel like I'm being constantly coated in slime, just, layering it on, all over me, all over my chest..."

"Mmhmmm," Ansem said with music in his voice, covering his mouth as he laughed. "My, I might take you up on that."

"It wasn't an offer," Riku said.

Ansem shrugged. "In any case, I tip my hat to you." He tipped. "I knew you'd be the one who'd most appropriately service me." He held out his arm. "Now be a good boy, and come home to daddy."

Riku's response, of course, was to raise his fist and yell "Way too creepy!" before charging at Ansem. He undercut toward the nimble fiend's dainty chin, but before the strike landed, Ansem vanished and appeared behind him.

"Yeah, Riku, mm, flex for me," he said as he dodged each of his opponent's strikes, sidestepping, ducking under, or leaping over them, even at one point leaping over Riku and stepping on his head. "Get your freak on, baby!" he yelled.

Riku leapt back, panting and pointing at Ansem. "You're the one that's gonna get freaked on!"

Before Riku could realize his gaffe, Ansem pursed his lips and made a kissing noise, using his right hand to hold up a V sign right next to his mouth. "You can freak on me anytime you like, Riku~."

Riku yelled in frustration and charged Ansem again. This time, the Lord of Darkness leapt up around Riku's head and wrapped his legs around the teen's neck, strangling him. Riku struggled to get free, but found that Ansem's grip was as strong as titanium.

"Can't... breathe... thighs... too... strong...!" Riku was blue in the face after a couple of seconds, what with how hungry his muscles were for oxygen.

"Honestly, Riku, to think that you could harm me at your level is actually kinda cute," he said with a giggle. He eventually let go of Riku and leapt away, leaving him a choking mess on the floor as he struggled to regain his breath. "Maybe you should try something more your speed, like, um…" He looked up, scratching his chin with an index finger as he thought. His eyes lit up in inspiration. "Oh, I know! We should do yoga together! There's this great new place by the Coliseum…"

Riku chose not to listen, instead covering his ears with his beefy palms. His efforts didn't save him from Ansem coming over and stepping on his face with his loafer.

"Are you even listening? Gosh," he said as he leapt back before Riku could grab his leg.

"Excuse me for not wanting to listen to your nonsense," Riku replied, pulling himself back to his feet. He pointed at his chest with his thumb. "I am a man. What men do is one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit ups, and one hundred squats every day! With a little running on the side." He pointed at Ansem. "You promised me that the darkness would make me strong—it didn't. It just made me emo. But," he said, pointing at the ground, "if you wanna go surfing, then we'll talk."

"It's impolite to point, you know," Ansem said, rolling his eyes and flipping his hair back behind his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at Riku's suggestion. "Surfing, though? Really?"

"It's something I've always really wanted to try!" Riku declared. He flexed both his upper arms, his entire body sparkling as he demonstrated his superior fitness. "Because even when I'm not possessed by darkness, I'm still a total show-off!"

"Surfing is fine; it's the beach I can't stand," Ansem said, sticking out his tongue.

"Why's that?" Riku asked, returning to normal standing position.

"I hate sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere," Ansem explained.

Riku shrugged. "I mean, that's pretty dumb, but it's whatever I guess."

"So is that a no on yoga?" Ansem asked.

"I'm too busy making massive gains to bother with that," Riku said.

"Yikes," Ansem remarked, arching both his eyebrows and biting his bottom lip in sympathy. "Your tendons are going to be like fireworks. I can hear them now: Pop, pop, snap."

"You keep my tendons out of this!" Riku demanded.

From seemingly nowhere, a new voice spoke up. "Riku's right! His tendons have nothing to do with this! This is a battle between light and darkness!"

There was a shimmering noise, and a ball of light descended from the ceiling. Riku looked up in shock as it approached him. "That voice… your mousiness?!"

The ball of light cleared its throat. "Ahem, your majesty, Riku." It floated in a circle around him. "Remember, Riku, you're not alone. Listen close: The light will never give up on you. You'll always find it, even in the deepest waaaah!"

It didn't get to finish, as in that moment Riku snatched the orb out of the air and threw it right at Ansem's stupid face. "TAKE THIS!"

It whizzed right past its target, ruffling Ansem's ponytail a bit before smashing into the wall and shattering.

Ansem looked back at the dent in the wall it made, wide-eyed. "…That wasn't in the script," he mumbled to himself. He cleared his throat and turned back to Riku, faking a laugh. "Wow, you just threw away your only chance at victory against me. Like, bravo."

"I'll never lose to the darkness, and I don't need an anthropomorphic mouse with a copyright fetish to tell me so!" Riku said.

"Pfft, whatever," Ansem said. He shrugged, dropping his hands to his sides. "You're still not getting past me. Not even that little blip of light could save you from my darkness."

Riku readied himself, taking a low stance, ready to strike. Ansem, meanwhile, yawned a bit, pushing his fedora down on his head, trying as best he could to look unimpressed.

There was a pause, both warriors, classic rivals, waiting to see what the other would do.

Ansem acted first. He leapt forward, sticking out his fist.

Riku was quick to react, sticking out his fist to meet Ansem's.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Ansem had the upper hand, choosing paper over Riku's rock. Riku gasped, staggering backward, but quickly recovered and met Ansem on the field again.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

This time it was Ansem who was caught off guard by Riku's rock, completely countering his scissors. He was shocked, and grasped at his non-existent heart, his fedora almost falling off.

"Ready to give up?" Riku asked.

Ansem shook it off. "Not a chance."

They met once more, arm to arm, both fighters wounded, but both far from giving up. They each had one final shot at victory—one chance for each to prove to the other that he was, indeed, the best. Or, at least, better than the other one. They readied themselves.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Their yells echoed through the chamber, a gust of wind somehow creating a cloud of dust and debris in the formerly spotless chamber. It took a few seconds to settle. Riku sneezed, but kept his position firm as he waited to see his fate. He held his fist steady—his rock against Ansem's… Riku's eyes opened wide.

It was a tie!

Riku and Ansem both grit their teeth, each staring the other dead in the eye.

Despite the situation, Ansem snickered, daintily brushing some stray hairs out from in front of his face. "We both know how this is going to end, Riku."

Riku rubbed his palms together, warming them for luck. In this moment, it was as if the weight of the entire world hung on the next throw. He smiled confidently, the chamber's unnatural light glinting off his pearly whites so bright it caused lens flare, and said, "No spoilers."

Stillness on the battlefield.

"Rock!" Riku said, his polished arm holding his clenched fist high.

"Paper," Ansem replied, widening his stance and holding onto his hat with his off hand.

"Scissors," both men said, wind whirling around them, though only Ansem was wearing enough clothing that it dramatically flapped about.

"Shoot!"

And, when all was said and done, Riku chose rock, and Ansem chose scissors.

"Yes!" Riku yelled in victory, jumping and pointing his index finger straight up. Unfortunately, the ceiling was so low that he stubbed it. "Ow, ow, ow ow!" he yelled, shaking his injured digit before biting on the knuckle. He didn't let it spoil his victory, though. "I win!" he stated, pointing his non-stubbed index finger straight at Ansem.

"Psh," Ansem said, looking away and trying his best to look disinterested. "Enjoy your victory while it lasts."

Riku scratched his forehead. "Wait, doesn't this mean that I get to, like, banish you from my heart forever? I won, best two out of three."

Ansem arched an eyebrow at Riku, then rapped his knuckles on his temple. "Oh, when did I ever say it was best two out of three?"

"It's always best two out of three, you… cheater!" Riku yelled.

"Aww, did I get you excited?" Ansem asked with a pouty tone. "I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on you. It is true that almost all of the rules in this universe are arbitrary and stupid. But, ehe," he giggled, winking at him condescendingly, "everyone knows that."

"So if it's not best two out of three, what is it?" Riku demanded.

Ansem threw out both his arms in a shrug and opened his right eye, casting a smug glance back at his rival. "Best seven out of thirteen."

Riku growled a bit in frustration. "Fine, then. Come at me."

"I'd come at you all day if I could," Ansem said, "but fighting in the depths of this ugly, humid basement is just horrible for my mood and my complexion. Tell ya what." He pulled a card out of his back pocket—at least, what Riku hoped was his back pocket—and tossed it at him. "Take this and meet me upstairs. We'll finish our duel… if you make it that far."

Riku caught the card. "What, wussing out already?"

Ansem laughed. "That would be a bit… premature. Look, bad as your memory might be, I hope you remember how these cards work, at least. Take that one and, y'know, advance through the castle and stuff. Along the way, I hope you'll learn a thing or two about light and darkness. Rule number one—" he stuck out his hand, holding up one index finger, "—running from the darkness won't distance you from the light."

Riku was about to retort, but paused. Something about that last sentence didn't seem quite right. "Uhh...?"

Ansem blinked. He held up an index finger and said. "Sec." He turned to the side and hunched over, trying to use his hand to disguise the fact that he was looking at an index card that was almost entirely black with ink. "…Oh, bollocks."

Riku scratched his temple. "Um, what?"

"Look, never mind. I need some… beauty sleep or something," Ansem mumbled, putting the card away. Character resumed, he added, "Just climb some stairs and get back to me, kay?"

Riku folded his arms. Ansem had lost a bit of his menacing glow. "Look, I'm not even running from anything. I don't give a crap about light and darkness. So I'll climb to the top of this castle, like you ask, but if—in the end—I still don't care… would you please just leave me the hell alone?"

Ansem shrugged. "Suit yourself. But there's one more thing I have for you. A little see-you-soon present."

He reached out his hand and did some sort of hocus-focus gesture. Suddenly Riku felt as if there was a hand inside his chest squishing around his organs. It didn't feel painful, just… uncomfortable. A dark aura seeped from his chest, and he staggered back a bit, clutching at it. His entire body felt feverish.

"B-… Bad touch! Bad touch!" Riku yelled.

"Oh, don't be like that. You know you love it," Ansem said, grinning. "Annnd… there. Just did some spring cleaning. You should find that the darkness you'd hidden away is all nice and presentable now." He winked. "Try it sometime. It's quite a rush."

"I just told you that I don't care about the dahknass…" Riku swooned a bit as a wave of nausea hit him. "Heuuk."

Ansem held up his hands in a shrug. "Look, all I did was move some things around. Your heart is, like, totally disorganized. Good luck when you're forty, by the way. They'll have to do some serious digging for the triple bypass." He yawned. "Any-way, whether you use it or not is up to you. But it's time for my noon-o'-clock, so…" He did a quick heel-turn and held up his hand in a wave as he walked toward the door, away from Riku. "Ta."

A dark portal rose up from the ground just in time for Ansem to step into it. The darkness enveloped him, and when it dispersed, he was gone.

Riku shook off the sickness and inspected the card Ansem had given him. It looked like the same card as before, but the picture inside was blank. It carried the same disgusting scent as Ansem, so Riku held it far from his nose. He flipped it over. In orange sharpie, to contrast the blue of the card, was a note.

"555-030-6969 Call me! XOXO –Ansem"

Riku heaved a sigh. "At least it'll disappear when I use it to open the door."

And so it did, as Riku found when he began to leave the lowest basement of the castle behind. The light of progress shined upon his face so bright he had to cover his eyes before he stepped through the portal leading forward.