Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney and Square Enix. No profit is being made. Another source of inspiration is Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, which is one of the most important books you'll ever read.

Author's Note: I like stories that play around with characterization. Too often you come across stories in which Sora is some gentle, noble soul and Riku is a hardened warrior. Part of the inspiration for this was to see if I could write them differently than their assigned roles. Another part is that I love AUs. I love exploring different scenarios for all the characters, and this is an idea that wandered into my head and just wouldn't leave.

This first part is brief, but it lays the groundwork.

On one last note, at the moment I do not have a beta. I want a beta. If you or someone you know might be interested, send an e-mail my way.

Please review. Concrit is awesome.

The new report came in on Wednesday

The new report came in on Wednesday. In the six years or so since order had been restored in the wake of Xehanort's disastrous experiments there were few reports of worlds afflicted with abnormally high concentrations of Darkness, so at first Leon thought it was a misprint. He gave it back to Chip and Dale for reassessment, they assured him that they had been no mistakes, and so he reluctantly gave the report to Sora on Thursday over breakfast.

"Hmmmm." Sora's eyes were troubled when he looked up from his perusal of the chipmunks' findings, and Leon felt a stab of guilt. Sora's eyes held too much pain and sorrow for someone of only twenty-one, and the older man would have liked his respite from duty to be permanent. Too bad that Fate seemed to have different plans.

"It seems weird that this would come up now, doesn't it? We were pretty thorough in dealing with the fallout from Xehanort's screw-up, and we didn't even come across this world at all back then. So why's it popping up after all this time?"

Leon shrugged. "You might try asking Ienzo."

"Huh." Sora sipped his coffee and grimaced. "Like he'd want to give me any help."

Leon said nothing. Ienzo had already been seventeen and accepted as one of Ansem's apprentices when Sora had entered the orphanage at age ten, and the lost little boy had tried to find something like an older brother in the older orphan. But Ienzo had been cold and distant even before his involvement in what the townspeople referred to as 'the Disaster', and had rebuffed Sora rather harshly at every turn. As a result, their relationship had been strained from the start, and only worsened after Ienzo's push for Ansem to further his research into hearts helped unleash the resulting chaos. This was followed immediately by Sora's awakening as the Keyblade Master and his quest to save the worlds. Now Sora was a hero, and Ienzo was shunned, rarely venturing forth from the old Bastion. Still, there was no denying his brilliance, and he might very well be able to offer some insight into the current situation.

"Well, maybe," the brunette conceded with a sigh, and began attacking a stack of pancakes. "After breakfast.

Ienzo was making a notation in his neat, careful handwriting when he felt the magical wards start to thrum. He sighed inwardly and delicately transferred the specimen back into its cage, murmuring a soft command for it to be good before striding toward the once-impressive entrance hall to greet this unlooked for and unwanted visitor.

It would be Sora. Ienzo's lips tightened slightly at the sight of the Savior of the Known Worlds, the Boy Who Had Turned the Tide of Darkness, but he still managed to utter a polite good morning and offer freshly brewed coffee.

"No thanks," said Sora polite but distant. "I actually just wanted to know if you could help me with something."

"If I can help you." Ienzo's lips curled up into a humorless smile. "Are you sure you trust me so much as that, Keyblade Master? Aren't you afraid that I might set off another chain reaction that will bring about a near destruction of all the known worlds?"

Sora rolled his eyes. "You always were melodramatic. You were twenty, and desperate to prove yourself. The ultimate responsibility lies with Xehanort, so just get over yourself. Or if you insist on wallowing in guilt, you can start atoning by helping me now."

Ienzo snatched the paper that Sora offered without a word and stalked back to his lab, doing his best to ignore Sora's presence at his back. Once he began reading over the report's contents, however, his irritation at the younger man began to wash away in the tide of scientific interest. This was something new, something he hadn't seen before… except maybe Ansem had mentioned something similar in one of the first lectures he'd attended, as an addendum to the main focus of their research…

"Sora, get me Ansem's notes. The red bound book on the shelf opposite the star chart."

Sora rolled his eyes at Ienzo's imperious tone, but obeyed. Ienzo began flipping through the pages so quickly it looked like he might accidentally tear them, his brow furrowed in a frown.

"So you think you might know what this is?"

"Let's say that I might be able to make an educated guess." Ienzo's fingers had come to rest on a page covered in neat, precise handwriting toward the end of the volume, and he was tapping the paper idly as he read. Sora resisted the urge to shake him.

"And would you care to share it with me?"

Somewhat to his surprise, Ienzo did. "Ansem's primary area of interest was in the nature of hearts. He spent most of his time investigating healthy, living hearts, but like any competent scientist he made sure to do some examinations into dead and dying hearts as well."

"I thought that they just turn into Heartless…"

Ienzo raised his eyes to the heavens as if praying for the Divine to knock some sense into Sora. "A Heartless is formed when a heart is forcibly seized. In the usual course of things, someone does not turn into a Heartless when they die, or if their heart is ailing."

"So then what does happen?" asked Sora, feeling slightly put out.

"According to Ansem, they simply fade away, at least in most cases. Sometimes, however, a weak heart can become…cancerous, if you will, and provides an opening for the Darkness, which will then proceed to infect the entire body – or, in this case, world."

"So this world is Darkness-stricken, but not because of what happened with Xehanort?"

Ienzo nodded. "Yes. This isn't a world that's been overtaken by Heartless. It's a world that's gotten sick, and is now dying a slow, agonizing death."

"The rain's stopped."

Kairi's voice was low, but Riku had no trouble hearing her. His sense of hearing had sharpened since losing his sight three years ago after the Blast, to the point where he could hear their neighbors three cubicles away in the derelict warehouse that was now home. He didn't miss the sense of sight as much as he's expected. If anything, maybe he wished he'd lost it earlier so that would've been spared witnessing the Blast itself, and the immediate aftermath.

"But there's no sunlight, is there?"

"No."

Riku could picture what Kairi was looking at easily enough. Ash-white sky above, the ground painted in shades of gray and black. The charred and twisted remains of buildings looking like the bodies of old men writhing in agony. Everything scorched and barren, a landscape devoid of hope, stripped of anything that spoke of life and renewal. The ones who had died were lucky. Death was easy; it was living that was nearly unbearable.

"I overheard what Axel said to you the other day, about how the food in this area is running out. We're going to have to move on soon."

It was unfortunate. This place had been surprisingly good to them, being far enough from the center of the city to offer some protection from the gangs, but close enough to offer plenty of scavenging opportunities. The people here were also – not nice, exactly, but they knew when to leave each other alone while also understanding the logic of protection in numbers. They'd been able to feel at least somewhat secure here, a rarity in this changed world.

Kairi knelt next to him and rested her hand lightly on his forearm. She could hear the anxiety hovering underneath Riku's cool, unconcerned tone, and understood the feeling all too well.

"Axel thinks that we should stick with him and Roxas and go somewhere together. They figure our chances of… of finding something might be higher that way."

"Probably right." They'd met the redhead and the blonde a few months after the initial wave of destruction, not long before Riku's sight was gone for good. They were an unlikely group: Roxas and Axel with their sarcasm and street smarts matched against Riku and Kairi, the quiet, studious types who had survived through sheer luck and were now struggling to adapt to the new reality. Even so, they'd somehow managed to strike up a rapport that turned into something like friendship. Kairi, who believed in signs and omens even though she'd been planning to study medicine, called it fate. Riku just thought of it as luck.

Neither Kairi nor Riku gave voice to the thought that the idea of moving just seemed so difficult, impossibly so, a proposal heavy with uncertainty and danger.

"Kairi? Tell me about the Islands?"

Kairi threaded her fingers through her friend's hair and began to talk about the seashore, with it's beautiful white sandy beaches and sparkling blue water, the sound of the wind rustling through the palm trees, evoking a world that had been real only a few years earlier but was now nothing but a memory.