"Riku, Risu!" Sora ran up to them, relieved to see them. "Riku, are you okay-ack!" He wasn't expecting the powerful hug his friend gave him. "Riku, you're wet… wait… that's blood?" Sora pushed Riku back, gripping his shoulders tightly as he searched the other boy for injuries. Riku smiled, and it was an expression of utter relief.

"It's not mine. Don't worry about it. I'm just glad to see you're okay." He turned slightly took look over at his brother. "Risu? Are you okay?" Risu had been standing completely still, his hair hanging over his face, and Riku suddenly frowned. That looked… defensive, and that was completely unlike Risu. He was usually extremely self-confident. But as he spoke, Risu shook back his hair and looked over at them, reaching up to adjust his goggles on his forehead.

"I'm fine," Risu said calmly, but the calm had a strange, brittle quality to it. His face was expressionless, but Riku didn't like the look in his eyes at all. It was hard for him to read, but seemed like a kind of… anguish. "But we appear to be in a maze." Sora and Riku both looked around, really registering the room for the first time.

It was a maze of mirrors. Each mirror held a reflection of them that was different. Some subtly, some obviously, but none they could see matched the reality.

Find the true you and you will be free. The voice wasn't heard as much as felt, like a vibration in their bones. Sora frowned, and began peering at the mirrors.

"We have to find the true one? Okay…" He and Riku started searching the mirrors as Risu stood and watched, his eyes distant and his mind far away as he thought.

The true you. The true you… He mused, and glanced down at his hands. They were callused from his work, but unmarked by any scars. His nanite systems didn't permit scarring. The true you. Cautiously, he tried to call on the darkness, but it fizzled away as soon as he touched it. The nature of this place is blocking me. I have to try something else.

Darkness was always the easiest power to find, for someone of his temperament. But it was far from the only one. And when you got right down to it, light was only darkness turned inside out…

Risu opened himself to the anguish in his heart, closing his eyes as the tears welled up. The pain cut like a knife, and he sharpened it on his regrets, and then used it to open a channel to the light. It was hardly the best way to do it, and he knew he would eventually regret it, but the light needed to either be channeled through intense emotion… or completely clear-minded. And there was no way he was going to be clear-minded for some time. Not even a god could have stilled the hurt that quickly.

The power of the light came instantly, as if it had just been waiting for him to open up to it. Power filled him and glowed in his hands, a soft radiance that made Riku and Sora turn to look at him, startled.

"There is only one true Risu." He said to the World that Could Have Been. "The one standing right here. Enough with your silly tricks. Take my grief, take my hurt, take my pain." And in an almost gentle motion, he laid both his hands onto the mirrors and unleashed the power of the light.

Abruptly, they woke up in their real bodies, sitting up. And the mirrors began to shatter, starting at the bottom of the steps. Glass shards rained down on them, and the destruction continued up the stairs. Even when the explosions were far out of sight, they could still hear the glass breaking.

"I… I hope the wizard isn't upset about what we did to his mirrors." Sora said weakly, looking down at the shards. "And how did you do that?"

"I channeled the light." Risu closed his eyes as pain slid through his mind. His brain felt seared, and he knew why. Maleficent hadn't been able to give him any instruction about using the light, so he'd learned from books, and they'd had plenty of cryptic warnings. Now he was sure he knew what they had meant.

If you would channel the light through your emotions, the light will take the cause of your emotion as its price. Be wary.

Risu knew he had been in terrible, soul deep pain when he had called on the light. But he couldn't remember why. And he felt that he had lost something very painful and important.

"It was the only thing I could do, since the darkness wouldn't answer me here." He shoved himself to his feet, squaring his shoulders. "And I couldn't give less of a crap about what the wizard thinks. Come on." He started walking purposefully up the stairs, the glass tinkling under his feet.

It seemed to take forever for them to reach the top of the stairs. But finally, they came to the top of the tower and cautiously looked around.

They were standing in a wide, circular room. The floor was made of rough, grey stone and the walls were the same. Bookshelves lined one side of the room, and there was long table near them covered in papers and magical items. But most of the room was achingly bare, except for a few chairs. The wizard was sitting at the table, writing on a piece of paper. He looked up as they entered, completely unsurprised at the intrusion. His voice, when he spoke, was very old… at least as old as Merlin and Yen Sid.

"Hello Risu, Sora, Riku. I was hoping you would get here soon." He glanced down at the paper and pushed it away. "Please, have a seat." He gestured across from him, but Risu frowned.

"I think I'll stand." He didn't want to get that close to the person he was sure had helped kidnap Maleficent. He tried to examine the wizard for a moment, but the details of him just… faded out of his mind. It was like trying to see a blur. He could only get an impression of great age and wisdom. "Why did you kidnap Maleficent?"

"That way, is it?" The wizard sighed. "All business… I didn't kidnap Maleficent. But I did turn that keychain into the spell her enemies needed to kidnap her. As for why… to bring you here, Risu." He smiled, and even though Risu had a hard time focusing, he could tell the smile was both sad and tired. "This has all been about you."

"Why?" Risu asked, perplexed and a touch angry. "You could have just requested my presence. And I'm an apprentice! What use am I to you?"

"As you are, you are no use to me." The wizard replied candidly. "That was why I had to bring you here this way. Only when you overcome your conditioning will you be any use to me… and you must, to save Maleficent." The wizard paused, taking a deep breath. "I think I should start at the beginning." Risu grudgingly nodded, as Sora tilted his head and Riku crossed his arms.

"A long time ago, there was an apprentice." The wizard began, and Risu schooled himself to patience as Riku bit back a groan. They were starting THAT far back? "Unlike you, Risu, this apprentice had no great natural intelligence or aptitude for magic. But he was similar to you in being a diligent, conscientious worker but he was also ambitious and had a great love for knowledge. He looked forward to his likely future as a hedge wizard, selling love potions and wart cures, with discontent. And one day, he happened to find a box. Or perhaps it found him. It's hard to tell, sometimes…"

"Inside the box there was a globe of surpassing beauty, and it turned out to be an artifact. Do you know what an artifact is?" The wizard asked them. Sora and Riku glanced at each other, not having any idea, and Risu answered.

"It's a magical item created by a god. There's some speculation that keyblade's, genie's lamps and some of the odder items out there are artifacts… but how did you know the globe was an artifact?" The wizard smiled sadly.

"Because as soon as the apprentice touched it… no, as soon as I touched it… it made me an offer. I could wish for anything, anything at all. The globe would name the price it required to meet my desire, and if I agreed, I would have my wish."

"Like a genie?" Sora said, and the wizard nodded.

"Somewhat. But not limited to three wishes… and with consequences. So, my first wish was to have the talent and intelligence needed to become the greatest wizard to ever live. The price to have that… was to never know love." The wizard's voice was steady, almost indifferent, but Risu winced. "I agreed, of course. Love meant nothing to me then."

"That was only the first bargain of many. I sold away so much… finally, I made my last wish. I wished to be able to see the past, present and future. I loved knowledge for its own sake, and that would truly be the ultimate knowledge. The price for that was that no one would ever know my name, or remember me for more than the briefest time. I would be a phantom across the world, unknown and forgotten. It was a dreadful price, but I disdained fame, so I accepted… and the globe vanished."

"You were very dedicated." Risu offered, and the wizard laughed. Sora shivered at the sound. It was old, tired, and so very bitter.

"I was a fool." Risu couldn't think of any good reply to that, and sensibly stayed silent. The wizard smiled crookedly. "I sold gold coins for silver. Well… it's too late for me, but I'll at least make use of the gifts I have. Risu, you must overcome your limitations and save your worlds from the darkness before it is too late." Risu's eyes widened, and his anger suddenly flared.

"MY worlds?" He suddenly snapped. "The worlds that made me a social outcast, afraid that my very MIND would be destroyed if I dared say what was on it? The worlds that enslaved me to a fucking computer? Let them rot! I don't care about them!" Riku and Sora stepped back as darkness flared around Risu, and cold suddenly filled the air.

But the wizard only laughed, long and hard. The sound rolled over them, gaining volume as the wizard stood, a staff appearing in one hand. It glowed with power as he raised it. All three of them summoned their keyblades, standing ready for an attack… but a bolt of power shot up and hit the ceiling. With a burst of black and silver sparks, the roof of the tower ripped away into the sky… a sky that was turning dark.

"Don't care was made to care, Risu." The wizard boomed, as the floor under their feet began to break up. "Don't care was made to care!" Jagged streaks of purple and black shot through the fragmenting floor, and the stone vanished as they fell into the darkness.

They landed hard on a massive boulder, floating free in the void. Risu looked down over the edge and swallowed hard. It was the Maelstrom, the great swirling void that his people believed was the place that lost matter went to be recycled. It was always a frightening sight, a sink of primal power that seemed as utterly destructive and indifferent as a hurricane. But in all the time he'd lived directly over it, on the waystation, the size of the Maelstrom had not changed at all.

This was at least ten times as big as he remembered. The Maelstrom seemed to stretch out into infinity, and he could see bits and pieces of worlds he knew, ripped and torn and falling into the Maelstrom…

There a piece of Maleficent's castle. There… a house from Agrabah. And there…. Sora made a strangled sound and Riku grunted as pieces of Traverse Town and the Destiny Islands passed them by. Heartless danced over the ruins, delighting in the destruction.

So many Heartless. They were being devoured by the Maelstrom too, but they seemed to welcome it, and there was so many. Their dark little figures danced through the Maelstrom, and swarms of them darkened the air above them. Their numbers were uncountable.

"All the worlds of light are ending," Sora breathed out. "Risu, how...?" Risu swallowed again as he realized the answer. His worlds had billions of inhabitants. Billions of people trapped in a high tech hell that had no escape… and a good number of them had no reason to live. No reason to fight the Heartless, and in fact every reason in the world to give in to the Heartless. Becoming a Heartless would be a way to be free.

And the vehicles they used were oh, so easy to use. Easy enough, perhaps, for even a Heartless to use them. Of course, if his people were right about the Maelstrom, and it was a great recycling unit, perhaps this was the natural consequence of so many Heartless. All the Heartless and all the worlds would be recycled into something new.

Of course, that was no comfort at all to the people who lived there right now.

"Alright! I take it back!" Risu yelled out to the wizard who was sharing his vision of the future with them. "I care! Alright? I care! I'll do what I can to stop-ah!" The rock began to break up, and Sora yelped, grabbing onto Riku as the rock disintegrated into gravel. Riku grabbed Risu by the ankle as they fell down into the darkness…