And we are back! Another chapter for this story. Not back where we left off! So here we go!

Ch.4

It had taken them a bit to get up to where Xemnas was. It was hardest of course for Riku though he still pushed himself to try and keep up with the rest of them. Sora could tell though that Riku was wearing himself out. They had made their way through buildings and up to a large machine controlled by Xemnas. It was a struggle for Riku at first to make it up to the ship, as it was in the sky and he could not judge exactly where to go. Sora had made sure to step back and stay by Riku to help him get up there.

Riku still fought at full force though against Xemnas. He still easily dodged out of the way of most of the attacks, though there was still a few surprise ones that knocked him back. Sora tried to make his way over to Riku each time to make sure he was okay, but Riku just told him that he was fine and that they really needed to focus on the battle. It didn't stop Sora though from worrying about Riku.

After delivering the final blows to Xemnas, a bright light surrounding all of them and Sora found that they were back at the top of the Castle that Never Was. Xemnas stood before them before he fell to his knees, clutching his chest.

"I need… more rage... I need more… hearts…" Xemnas said in between deep breaths.

"Xemnas. There's more to a heart than just anger or hate. It's full of all kinds of feelings. Don't you remember?" Sora asked as he took a step forward.

Xemnas paused for a moment as he stared right at Sora. "Unfortunately… I don't."

Xemnas then faded away into nothingness before the group. Sora breathed a sigh of relief as he let out a happy laugh. He couldn't believe it, but it was finally over. He turned around to face Donald, Goofy, Mickey and Kairi as he smiled happily. All of them cheered back as they all were thinking the same thoughts about the battle finally being over.

"Gosh, you all did great!" Mickey complemented.

Sora nodded as smiled until he noticed that Riku was not standing in the group with them. He turned around to see Riku standing off at the far edge of the building. Slowly, Sora made his way over there. He could see that Riku's head was lowered and his eyes were closed.

"You're… You're coming back with us, right?" Sora asked, uncertainty filling his voice.

"I'm not sure anymore…" Riku muttered.

"What? What do you mean?" Sora asked, caught off guard by Riku's change in mood about the situation.

"I… I had given in to the darkness…"

"Riku!" Sora exclaimed, upset at the fact that Rikus till seemed to be clinging on to those thoughts.

"Sora… I gave into the darkness. I did many things I regret… and now look at the price I've paid," Riku said as he slumped his shoulders. He never had felt so disappointed in himself back there. Despite trying as much as he could to do everything on his own, Sora still had to lean in several times and help him. All of it because he couldn't see. All because he had used the darkness and given in to it.

"But Riku… that's in the past now. You are back and that's what matters," Sora said as he tried to reach out to Riku. He tried to gently place a hand on his shoulder, but Riku pulled away and shook his head.

"No. I just… I can't. Not after what I have done. I wouldn't be able to face anyone… I can't even do that. I won't ever know if they are looking at me with hate or not," Riku replied, his voice shaking slightly. He kept trying to hold back his feelings, but they were starting to pile up. The air around his started to feel heavier as his head slightly ached with pain.

Sora stared with hurt-filled eyes at Riku. Never before had he even see his childhood friend so disstreed. "That… That shouldn't matter." Sora couldn't give up though. He wasn't going to let Riku just stay behind with those thoughts. "I spent a lot of this journey looking for you. I wondered where you were and if you okay."

"Well I'm not okay!" Riku retorted quickly. "You saw what happened to me. You actually can see it! I can't… I guess no matter what I can't get away from the darkness…Really… I'm not worth it anymore."

"Stop it Riku!" Sora shouted as he grabbed onto Riku's arms. He turned Riku towards him without thinking. It didn't matter what he did there, Riku couldn't see it anyways. But Sora did it anyways. He stared right at Riku… right into his dulled, unfocused eyes. They still were not looking at him and where looking off just by a few inches. Sora now felt his own emotions overflowing him. He still wanted to have his friend come home with him, but he was frustrated how Riku was acting. His heart felt like it was being squeezed as he leaned forward to rest his head against Riku's chest.

"R-Riku…" he whimpered out softly. "I don't want to l-leave you behind. Don't m-make me do that again."

Riku could hear the pain and sadness in Sora's voice. It was as clear as day. His soft and quiet whimpers did not go unnoticed by Riku. He sighed as he placed a hand gently on Sora's head. He tried to take in a deep breath, but it still was shaky and weak. Despite not being able to see, he still could at least feel a tear streaking down his cheek.

"I'm sorry Sora… I didn't mean to upset you. It's just hard for me right now," Riku replied quietly.

"You don't have to continue doing everything on your own though. We're all here for you and you can't forget that," Sora said as he wrapped his arms around Riku and held him tightly. His warm presne surrounded Riku, and it seemed to ease his tension a little.

"Sora right. You can't just forget about us. We won't give up on you at all," Kairi added, now after seeing the conversation between the two boys.

Riku sensed her light and warm presence grow closer and then she too wrapped her arms around him. Now with both Sora and Kairi holding on to him, he sighed again, though it was a more relieved one. A few more tears fell down his face as a small smile appeared across his face.

"Th-Thank you guys," Riku whispered to them. "Thank you both for still caring about me."

Before any of them could say a word more, the building began to shake and tremble. They all gasped as they tried to stand their ground.

"We have to hurry!" Mickey exclaiming, seeing as the building would soon come collapsing down.

"How are we supposed to get off here though?" Sora asked.

Riku was about to suggest that he could open a corridor of darkness, but he stopped himself as he thought about it. "Can I even do that anymore? My darkness is weaker than before… I don't know…"

Before Riku could even try, he heard the familiar sound of one being formed a few feet in front of them.

"How did this get here? Who did this?" Donald asked.

Riku felt confused about it as well, mainly because he could not see what had happened in front of hi. But there was something else he notice. He sensed a very faint presences near to the portal. It was a lighter one… but very familiar… and similar to Kairi's.

Mickey, Donald, Goofy and even Pluto all quickly entered the portal, as they saw it was the only option that they had. From what Riku could tell, even though Namine was standing right in front of the portal, they couldn't see her. Riku began to wonder if Sora and Kairi could even see her. But he didn't have to wait too long for an answer as he heard Kairi's voice.

"Thank you, Naminé."

"Sure. See? We meet again, like we promised," she replied.

Riku listened on as Sora gave a questioning 'huh' after her statement. Riku figured that Naminé must have been looking towards Sora when she said that last bit. He then picked up a another presence, just as faint as Naminé's, but this time more similar to Sora's, yet still different. It didn't take Riku too long to figure out it was Roxas that he was sensing.

"You said we'd meet again, but when we did, we might not recognize each other," Roxas said.

Riku tried to tune out most of the conversation that had started. It wasn't his to be apart of anyways. He stood to the side though as he listened. Roxas and Naminé talked happily to each other as they were going to be together since Sora and Kairi would be together. After a minute or so he sensed that Naminé's presence was fading away. And then it was gone entirely, but he knew it wasn't exactly gone. She had returned to Kairi.

After one last comment to Sora, Roxas's presence faded away back to Sora. Though Sora sounded confused as he stood there trying to process what had just happened. Riku took a step forward as he stood next to Sora.

"Don't worry," he said reassuringly. "You're all still you."

"Oh. Okay," Sora replied quickly.

"Hey, come on guys, let's go home," Kairi said as she stepped closer to the portal.

"Riku…" Sora said as he looked towards him. Riku couldn't see it of course, but Sora had a hopeful look. He paused for a second though before he continued, hoping everything would be all right now. "C'mon."

Riku took in a deep breath before he nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."

The power of the portal started to flicker and fade. Riku didn't understand why it was suddenly fading away, but he tried to run to it, nearly stumbling over his own feet. The portal faded away even more just as Riku got up to it. He could tell that Sora was right by his side as the portal completely disappeared. The last thing he heard was Kairi calling out for both him and Sora. But now the portal was gone along with Kairi.

"What? What happened?"

"I don't know… Something doesn't feel right," Riku replied as he tried to focus on his senses as much as he could. There was something far away from them… some kind of presnese, but it was too far away for Riku to figure out.

"There's something out there," Sora muttered.

"What? What is it?" Riku asked, knowing that he couldn't see whatever it was Sora was looking at.

"It's right over… oh… I-I mean. It's some large flying machine I think? It kind of looks like a dragon. It's coming right this way," Sora replied as he continued to stare at what he was seeing.

Before Riku could reply, whatever it was that Sora had sen crashed into the building as everything shook violently. The machine let out a loud roar as it fly by and moved around the area. Riku tried to sense it, but for some reason it was barely able to be sensed. He could tell there was someone within the machine It was some faint presence, but other than that he could barely tell where the machine was.

The building behind them started to tilt and crumble. Without much time to reaction, Riku slipped backwards as the building was slowly tilting to the side. He grunted as he hit the floor and started to slide.

"Riku!" Sora shouted as he reached out to him, but they both kept sliding down. Sora glanced to the side though and on a ledge of the castle he saw a small thing that looked like it could be some type of flying device. "Hold on Riku. I got an idea."

Sora push himself up to his feet and ran down to the small machine. He jumped onto it and stared for a moment before pushing random things on it. After a few seconds it started to hover above the ground and Sora put his hands on the steering wheel.

"Maybe it's like flying the Gummi ship," Sora thought briefly to himself before looking over to Riku. He was still on the building, slowly sliding towards the edge, unable to grab onto anything. Thankfully there was a small platform attached to the flying machine, with just enough room for someone to stand on.

Sora stirred the machine closer to the edge of the building. "Riku! Jump on!"

"Jump?" Riku questioned. He knew Sora had jumped onto some flying device, but with everything that was happening all at once, his mind felt distorted. He couldn't judge exactly where Sora was exactly or more importantly where he wanted him to jump. Sora wanted him to jump off a falling building onto a moving object and his mind was racing far too quickly to try to process it properly.

"Come on! Hurry!" Sora said as he stirred a bit closer.

"I don't know where you want me to jump though!" Riku shouted back.

Sora bit his lip, seeing the difficulty there would be with Riku was blind. Slowly Sora try to set the machine to just hover in place as he moved over to the platform. He held out his hand and leaned closer to Riku. "Reach for my hand!"

Riku breathed slowly as he tried to focus his mind again. He tried to stand up on the now slanted building and held out his hand. "Sora's right in front of him. Right there… just have to reach a little further."

Riku's hand then grabbed onto Sora's and with one pull Sora pulled him up onto the platform. Now that Riku was there Sora went back to the pilots positions He glanced around to see the giant dragon machine still flying around, and it was slowing heading back towards them.

"Hold on tight, looks like we're going to have to fight that thing," Sora replied as he grabbing the handle to steer it and swived them away from the falling castle tower.

Riku sighed heavily as he tried to brace himself better on the platform. Now that there were up in the air, flying around, everything felt even more blurry and distorted. He could still barely sense the machine that was flying around, and now he couldn't even tell what was happening. "You're going to have to handle it."

"What? But Riku…" Sora started as he tried to keep his focus on where he was flying.

"I can barely even sense what is going on. There isn't much I can do right now," Riku quietly replied as he lowered her head.

Sora stared for a moment as a pit form in his stomach. He didn't want to see Riku look so discouraged, but he didn't know what else he could do. "Just hold on tight, and don't worry," he started to say. "I'll handle it."

Riku sighed again as he nodded. "All right."

He didn't want to show Sora that he was upset that he couldn't really help, but it started to eat away at him again. He tried his best to force a calm and collect face rather that the hurt expression he wanted to show.

He felt useless right now.

He hated that he couldn't do anything now.

Unable to see anything. Unable to help fight against some giant machine flying in the air. He could only just stand there and have Sora do all the work. He would only hope there would be something he could do eventually. But for now, all he could do was stand there and do nothing.

Poor Riku T.T why do I do this angst to him lol.

Well I hope it was good enough and I hope you guys enjoyed!