A/N: Here's chapter two! Enjoy it xD. And sorry if I took too long…-hides Super Mario Galaxy- Italics represent thoughts or emphasized words.

DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING.

Torn Hearts - Loss

"So, he's lost his heart, right? Does anyone here know what Xemnas's 'master plan' was that he somehow managed to go through with even though he faded into oblivion?"

"Don't look at me! It's not like I know. You faded away into oblivion with him. There must have been a way to get out of there. I mean, you're here. That's proof enough that there's a way."

"Hey, Naminé, what's going on with this kid's chain of memories or whatever?"

"I don't know. I mean, most people become a heartless when they lose their hearts. My guess is that his heart was strong enough so his shell kept its human form. Xemnas must have done something so Riku's existence would stay as a nobody instead of becoming a heartless."

"Yeah, yeah. But if his chain of memories is lost, it might change things a bit."

"He might still have his memories depending on how long it took for the nobody process to complete."

"Roxas is right. Roxas didn't have Sora's memories because Sora got his heart back so quickly that he didn't have a chance to obtain them. I have Kairi's memories because it took a while for her to get her heart back, therefore her memories also became mine. Because of what happened to Riku is a bit different, we won't really know until he wakes up. Until then, all we can do is guess."

"At least we know that he's officially a nobody now. Those heart beat machine things or whatever they're called don't work on him. The doctors think all of their machines are broken. But they can't detect a pulse either. They just know he's alive because they detect brain activity."

"Yeah, I guess so. Poor kid. But he is the 'original' keyblade master after all. That's probably why Xemnas chose him."

"Also for the fact that he opposed the Organization. Can't forget that."

"Hey, it looks like he's waking up. Geez, and things were just getting interesting too. Oh well. I was getting hungry anyway. Let's go."

Riku groaned as he opened his eyes. He immediately regretted it. The whole room seemed to be spinning so out of control that he couldn't even comprehend what was going on or where he was. Wherever he was, it was all just a blur of color.

What happened to me?

I could have sworn I hear voices earlier…Naminé's, Roxas's, and…

His. The one who stole my heart.

He clutched the grey and white blur that he was lying on as two people walked through a nearby door.

"And anyway Sora, we don't know when he'll wake up. He seems to have gone through an ordeal of trauma and - Riku, you're awake!"

Riku seemed to have blocked out everything as he was thinking to himself about what was happening.

Damn…I think that was real…

And I do feel strange…

And dizzy…

But…

I think I'm going to throw up.

Sora looked towards Riku's bed and saw his best friend's eyes open, "RIKU!" He smiled gleefully as he ran to Riku.

"How are you feeling? I've been so worried about you!" You've been out for so long, about two weeks and…"

"Sora…" Riku's face turned ashen.

"What's wrong?" Sora asked.

Riku's eyes seemed to be staring right through Sora as they began to mist over. To him, Sora was just a blur of color. Although his ears could hear his best friend speaking, they couldn't understand his words. The swirling world that he couldn't understand slowly became too much for him. He began coughing violently.

Sora became nervous, "Riku? Riku? RIKU! AHHHHH!!"

Blood splattered all over Sora's clothes. Riku began heaving as blood and bile escaped from his lips.

The doctor swore loudly and yelled, "Sora, leave the room! His heart rate is probably going up, but the machines for some reason can't sense his heart rate!" He then paged a few doctors.

Riku began gasping for breath. He couldn't breath and his chest felt heavy. He put his hands to his throat and began to make an odd and pitiful sound. He couldn't comprehend what was happening. All he could see was white mixed with red. He could hear people talking or maybe even screaming but it didn't make a difference. Different colors slowly crept into the scene and he felt like he was being tortured.

Am I screaming?

He suddenly felt a 1000 needles being pushed into his throat and his entire world went turned to black.

-line-

Sora ran out of the room and continued running until he made it outside into the parking lot. Kairi was sitting on a bench by a flowerbed.

"How is he?" she asked with an unidentifiable emotion in her voice, "Hey, what happened to your clothes? They're stained with blood!" she exclaimed.

"H-he's not doing v-very w-well," Sora stammered, "He woke up but, I don't even know what's happening to him! Hesatupandgotthisweirddazedlookandstartedcoughingupinsaneamountsofbloodandevengotsomeonemeand…I…" Sora couldn't finish his sentence as he began sobbing.

Kairi barely understood half of what Sora just said but she stood up and hugged him anyway, "He'll be alright, Sora. He's been unconscious for two weeks; something's obviously wrong with him. But the doctors here are good. They have degrees. They'll get him better!" she attempted to console him.

"I'm…I'm so scared!" Sora confessed to her.

"Sora, I'll be by your side no matter what happens. Riku will be okay and he will get better. And that's a promise!"

Sora's sapphire eyes seemed to gain some hope, "Heh, I guess you're right! I'm overreacting…"

"I wouldn't lie to someone I love," Kairi smiled as Sora's eyes widened, "Anyway, let's go. We should give Riku some more time to heal."

"Kairi…" the young adolescent's voice trailed off, "Are you saying that…"

"Yes, Sora! I love you and…I think we should go out on a date. Especially since we need each other's emotional support right now. You know what I mean"

"…I love you too."

Kairi laughed and reached out for Sora. He put his hand to his forehead, "Hey Kairi, do you have some painkillers? I have a headache for some reason."

"You probably just got a little too emotional!" the teenage girl laughed, "But you know what? I have a headache too…And it's a bit weird, but you know what Sora? I was sitting on this bench while you went to see Riku and…I blacked out."

Sora's eyes widened, "I blacked out too on my way too Riku's room. But then I woke up in the waiting room."

Kairi began walking towards the exit, "It doesn't matter. Let's just go and get a bite to eat!" She took Sora's hand and kissed him, leaving him pure red. She laughed and took his hand, running the entire time to the nearest fast-food restaurant.


"So, Doctor Ishida, what exactly is wrong with Riku?"

The doctor sighed, his black hair in front of his eyes, "That's exactly it, Sora, Kairi. We don't know. We discovered that three days ago when he went through that attack that something was and is definitely wrong with him internally. But also…From our test…Well, it's obvious that he's suffering from depression."

Kairi looked down at the floor of Doctor Ishida's office. She and Sora were sitting together with their friend's doctor in his office. Neither of them said a word.

"How long is he going to be unconscious?" the royal blue eyed teen asked, ignoring the doctor's previous statement.

"Unless we find out soon what's wrong with him…I don't think he'll ever wake up."

"You mean he's in a coma!?" The patient's best friend stood up, infuriated.

Doctor Ishida slowly nodded as he asked, "Do you have contact with his parents? In the case that his brain no longer shows signs of activity and it's best to cut his life support off, we'll need to contact them."

"We don't know anything about them," the redhead whispered, tears slowly falling from her diamond eyes, "Riku…Riku's always avoided the subject of his parents. He's never believed in straight-up lying so he'll answer us questions we ask about them, but in a language that we don't understand."

"We know that he does have some sort of guardian," Sora continued, "There's clear evidence of that in his house, but he's never mentioned a parent, and we've never met one."

"Do you know if you could reach a guardian that currently is on or could easily make it to Destiny Islands?" the doctor questioned, "Because if not, we have the right to assume a medical proxy to make the decisions for his health. I guess that would make maybe a grandparent or some sort of relative?"

"He doesn't have any relatives," Kairi stared at the floor as he sat back down in his foldable black chair, "Whoever he lives with, that's all he has. We know that for a fact."

Doctor Ishida leaned back in his comfortable office chair, his arms crossed, "That's a bit of a problem for us. You two are underage but if we don't have anyone else, I guess we'll either have to make one of you a proxy, or assign him a temporary guardian."

"I think that I should be his proxy!" Sora cried, "I've known him since we were kids, probably since I was four! I know and understand him the most out of all of us! I think I could do what's best for him!"

"Even if it means shutting down his life support and ending whatever he has left?" Doctor Ishida asked coolly.

"Well…that…you see…" Sora sunk back and put his face in his hands.

"Tell you what," the black haired doctor sat up straight as he clasped his hands together, "I will tell you my medical opinion about everything we do for him, and you guys can decide together with an adult in this hospital about what to do, let it be me or a social worker."

"That sounds great," Kairi smiled sadly as she stood up, "Is that all?"

The doctor dismissed them with a grin. Kairi took her boyfriend's hand and walked out of the room with him as she whispered into his ear, "Sora, I promised, and I intend on keeping my promise. Riku will get better."

Sora nodded and wiped his tears with the back of his hand.

Even though Kairi had promised, the days slowly turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. The doctors had tried everything, but they couldn't seem to find what was wrong with Riku. One April afternoon, the couple and the doctor stood once again in the room where Riku was staying.

"I'm sorry…But it's almost impossible to wake a coma patient up at this point," Doctor Ishida digressed, "And we just can't seem to figure out what's wrong with him. At this point…It'd be best to turn off his life support. He can't even breathe for himself. His brain is shutting down."

The two held hands as they stared at Riku's pale body. It seemed so sallow and lost in the world…

"I think we'll need to discuss this together alone," Kairi answered, Sora too shaken up to think straight.

"That's fine," Doctor Ishida's brown eyes seemed dull as the three together left the room, "Just give us an answer by tomorrow."

Meanwhile, a mysterious figure ran into the silver haired teen's room stealthily and unnoticed. He sat on a stool beside Riku's bed and took a needle filled with green fluid out of his black jacket pocket. He slowly pricked Riku's ashen skin and inserted half of the substance inside him.

"Hey, kid, wake-up!"

Riku opened his eyes. He had an extreme headache but he could at least see straight. He deduced that he was in a hospital bed as he looked around. He had a tube in his throat so he could breathe. By the looks of it, he had been there a while.

The unhealthy teenager noticed something, or more like a lack of. He felt surprisingly odd. He put his hand to his chest. It felt so…

Hollow.

"Hey, are you listening to me?"

Riku turned to his left to see who was talking to him. He stared at the familiar nobody.

"Axel."

Axel grinned, "Oh, so you remember my name. I'm so honored. And I see that your chain of memories is fine and intact."

"What's happening to me?" Riku demanded to know, his emerald orbs piercing into Axel's skin.

"You're pretty scary for a nobody," he mocked, "Especially those eyes of yours. They could stare at me all day but there's no hatred emitting from them."

"Explain. Now."

"Oh, you've just become a nobody. That's all. You've been in a coma for about…four months maybe? You see, the boss wanted you to understand what it is that we're- no, what they're dealing with. Why it was unfair of you to try and stop us- I mean, them from getting their hearts back. Got it memorized?"

Riku seemed to be unfazed at the situation. He analyzed it instead.

So it wasn't a dream…Which means that he has my heart. This could mean that...

"Oh, I get it," Riku said with fake happiness in his voice, "You have my heart. I feel empty. We'll live like this for a period of time until I 'learn my lesson about prejudice against non-somebodies'. Then I'll get my heart back and you'll fade back into oblivion just like you would in a badly written fan fiction. It all makes sense now."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hey kid, listen. I can get you better if you abide by my little set of rules," Axel's malachite eyes sparkled, "I've already given you a small dosage of the medicine."

The silver haired adolescent knew that Axel wasn't lying; he already felt so much better from the last time he had been awake.

"What do you want from me?"

"All you have to do is promise not to kill yourself. Not like you could anyway. Well, you could, but it'd be pretty hard considering you don't have a heart. You'd have to go through something pretty heinous where you gotta give it your all. Something that you'd have to put your heart into. Of course, you don't have one, which is how we're – I mean nobody's are killed. Got it memorized?"

"That's all you want?" Riku questioned cynically.

"Why not? A pretty fair deal considering that being a nobody is living hell. In your current condition, you can't even die just by bleeding or being stabbed repeatedly. You either live with this medicine I can give you, or you die by sleep."

"What's wrong with me anyway?"

Axel chuckled heartily, "I thought it was obvious. Your body is trying to accept the loss of your heart. Kinda like a drug addict that stops taking all of his drugs right away instead of in small steps. You know, withdrawl. Got it memorized?"

"Whatever. Ok, fine, just give me the medication," Riku rolled his eyes. He didn't know what else to do; he usually made his decisions depending on how he felt at the time. Now, there was nothing left to feel, let alone understand.

This can't be real…It's all a dream, right? Might as well go along with it.

"I guess you haven't quite realized just what's happened," Axel shook his head as he prepared the needle with the other half of the lime solution, "You don't truly understand the pain of it all which is why you're choosing to live as what you are instead of entering a never-ending sleep."

"Sleep gets kinda boring. Just give me the medication."

"Fine," Axel sighed, "If that's the case…"

"You're in for one hell of a ride."