--Chapter Ten: So we meet again--

The end of the corridor did not lead to Hollow Bastion. Instead they came out into snow. Berri had never seen snow up close, and had often spent her lazy winter days gazing out the window at snow-capped mountains, imagining what it would be like to feel the crunch of powdery ice beneath her feet. That day had finally come, and she was living it up. Her eyes brightened, flickering with the light of a child's curiosity. The girl pulled away from Riku's side to look around. She spun twice, three times, and then a forth as snowflakes fell, settling into her raven-black hair. Her attention turned back to him, as he was staring.

Feeling she needed to explain herself, Berri managed to breathe "It's snowing."

He chuckled a bit, much to her dismay, and walked over to the same patch of freshly fallen snow she had landed herself in, "I can see that."

"I've never seen snow up close before," Her voice trailed away as she crouched down, resting her arms delicately across her knees to stare down at the white frosty floor. She finally worked up the courage to scoop some of it up in herhands, and crinkled her nose at the way it packed together so easily.

"It looks pretty, but be careful. It can bury you."

Berri gave a short, humorless laugh and let the packed snow clump drop out of her hand, "I guess most pretty things have a flipside, don't they? Oh well..I think it's calming anyway."

Riku stepped forward through the still falling flakes of ice, and Berri followed. They were on a ledge settled very neatly into a mountainside. Cliffs splayed out beneath them, and as they got lower, the snow began to disappear until finally there lay a green valley with a square shaped city nestled comfortably inside.

"Oh, wow," She grinned, careful not to step too close to the edge. "Have you been here before?"

"Once. I did not meet anyone."

The nostalgic look on his face worried her. Berri crunched her way closer, vaguely becoming aware of her shivering limbs. When he finally noticed she was standing next to him, eyes wide with concern, Riku blinked. She pursed her lips, and set her hands on her hips, "What's wrong?"

"I just can't figure you out," he started, voice strong, but uncertain of wether or not he should finish speaking. When Riku finally reached his resolve, he turned to face her completely, "You can see me..the real me. How I'm supposed to look..and nobody else can. Why is that? And you can disperse darkness, whether you've realized that yet or not..You were hit full on by that nobody, and yet here you are, a little bruised, but not really hurt...you barely know me, and even after Sai'x told you what I've done, you still claim to care about me. I've been trying to figure out what you could possibly get out of sticking around, but my mind keeps bringing me back to nothing. You have absolutely nothing to gain from being this kind to me, so there's nothing else I can do but assume you're telling me the truth.."

"You keep saying that..are you supposed to be invisible or something?"

She heard the bitter laugh, and was immediately sorry she'd asked. Riku did not seem angry, but the glum mood that had settled over him could not be ignored. He waved her forward, and began crunching off throw the snow and around an outcropped section of rock, "I'll show you."

The path they took was a thin strip of icy rock. The constant twisting, bending, and snaking they had to do just to make it around the edge of the cliff brought to her attention just how bruised her body was. Every movement was becoming painful, and Berri cursed her own body for numbing up the injury. It had lured her into a false sense of security, and she was now paying for it. Her slow progress went unnoticed, and the dark sensation rippling away from her silver-haired friend's thoughts sent a chill down the girl's spine. He was obviously reliving painful memories, and she wanted more than anything to reach out and brush them away. It just wasn't fair.

Berri crept closer to him, not wanting to make the difficulty she was having apparent. Moments later the thin crackling trail of frozen stone widened, and eventually spread out into a curved, U-shaped area packed with snow. Cutting down the center was a river of ice, and further down to the other end of the bend was a waterfall, stopped in time. Riku walked forward towards the frozen waterfall, and drew Berri closer, gesturing to the ice. At first, she did not understand, but when the two of them finally looked into the reflections, she heard herself gasp. The face looking back at Riku was not the face she was used to seeing. His aquamarine eyes were golden yellow, much like the Sai'x's had been. Not only that, his hair was longer, cut so that no bangs fell before his face at all, and to top it off, the skin was not the creamy pale hue she knew. She rubbed her fingers together, trying to strike some warmth into the stationary limbs while she stared. It wasn't Riku..it couldn't be Riku. Berri extended her hand slowly to brush her fingertips gently against the glassy ice. It was real, and so the reflection had to be real as well. His reflection's expression shifted into that of a grimace, and Berri turned to look at the real silver-haired boy.

"I don't understand..you don't look like that to me at all."

"I'm not supposed to look like this," his eyes softened into quiet contemplation as Riku himself touched a hand to his reflection, "What you described as seeing when you looked at me is how I used to appear, before I gave in."

She did not want to pry, but her mouth seemed to be moving of its own accord, "Gave in..?"

"Ah," He let go of his previous thought, and the girl watched as Riku's hand fell away from the ice, "it's a long story."

She refused to be dettered, and stepped between her friend and his reflection only to look up at his face, once more cursing her height, and put on her best pleading expression before saying, "If you tell me yours, I will tell you mine."

Riku agreed, but insisted that they pick their way down the mountain in the process. Berri listened intently, letting his words carry her away to other worlds, past times, and past hurts. The story that seemed to bring him so much same seemed to her a wonderful display of a tragic hero..but this time, it had a happy ending. Her curious nature led her to consider interrupting with questions or comments, but the look on his face always silenced her. It occured to the girl as she watched the flicker of emotion behind his eyes that Riku had never spoken his own story aloud. He couldn't have, or the feeling emanating from his voice would not have been so strong. Even the mountain began to listen. Snow stopped whistling about, and moved to hang suspended in the very air they breathed for fear that even the lightest swoosh of a snowflake's edge would break his train of thought. The banks of rolling white smoothed before them in a silent serenity, and even the crunching of packing ice beneath their boots evaporated into a gentle humming whisper. She felt sorrow when he told of Destiny Islands, and how it was virtually destroyed by his own foolish mistake. Her heart reached out for him when he accounted the story of Maleficient, and Ansem's Heartless who, apparently, had borrowed another man's name. That led into his attempt at rescuing Kairi, and when he spoke of losing his body to the darkness within his heart, she could not help but clench her hands with worry.

She allowed herself a few breaths to cut through the silence when he spoke of overcoming his darkness to save Kairi only to loose her courage when he told of being locked on the other side of the door with the King. Berri noticed he had become shy, and perhaps even a little embarrassed when the silver-haired boy continued on, speaking of the King's encouragement, and how he had left him in order to look after Sora. The girl could not help offering him an encouraging smile after that. It was exactly as she had predicted; passionate to a fault, but it was a tragic flaw that made him all the more worthwhile. He went right on explaining up until his fight with the nobody called Roxas, and simply stated that the boy had rejoined Sora, and that was who the Organization had been calling out to--not his spikey haired friend.

Berri nodded, drinking in her new surroundings. Over the course of their walk they had descended a great deal, but there was still a layer of slushy snow lying about them. The great white peaks above looked almost menacing, but she brushed the notion away by asking, "What happened to Kairi?"

"She's safe. Back at Destiny Islands."

"Oh," her solemn tone drifted away, and the girl smiled, turning to face him. "You went through a lot to take care of your friends. I'm glad I met someone like you."

She thought herself insane, but after closer inspection, the girl confirmed his cheeks had just turned..pink? Riku cleared his throat with a rather rough cough, and looked away, "So what's your story, then?"

"Well..I'm afraid it's not really as interesting as yours, but here it goes." Berri took a deep breath, leaning her back against an exposed section of brown stone. It was still cold, and she decided to use the chill to freeze her nerves. She had never spoken aloud the tragedies riddling her recent years of life, but Riku was different. She could talk to him. "I lived with my mom, Taylor, and my older brother James. Well..James wasn't actually my brother, he was my cousin, but I had always called him brother..so he never corrected me. I'd never met my dad, and nobody talked about him, so I just let it go. My brother was a lot older than me, and so he had to go away to school. I was sad he left, and a girl living down the street noticed. Her name is Zera, but everyone calls her "Zee." She's the one I was going to see at the festival. Anyways; I met her when I was seven/eightish, and we became friends. We did everything together, and we were always there when we needed each other, but the house I was living in cost a lot of money and it was hard for us to pay the bills. When I turned sixteen my mother sold it, and we had to move three towns over. I got angry. James came over to help us unpack, and I was in a bad mood, and when my mom tried to talk to me about it I snapped at her. I dropped my things right there on the floor and walked away. She must have thought I would come back before dark, but I kept going. I walked myself all the way to Zee's house, even though it took me almost all night. She let me inside and after a few hours of talking she convinced me to call my mom and tell her where I was.."

She had stopped speaking. The words felt heavy on her tongue; each syllable a boiling vat of mercury. The more she spoke, the more it burned, and the more her brain fizzled. Riku had moved closer, and Berri took comfort in the fact that he had trusted her with his own words. She sighed, feeling the cold air rush through her lungs. The near electric charge it gave her made speaking possible again.

"The last thing I said before I dropped my things was that I wished I'd gone to live with my Dad, whoever he was, instead of her. I don't even remember what we had argued about..but I called her, and told her where I was. She wasn't even angry..and she didn't say anything about my temper. Actually she sounded glad to know where I'd gone, and told me that she and James were on their way. They got on the bus and it dropped them off at the town square, and from there they had to walk on foot. I was sitting with Zee, and her neighbor Krysta had come over with hot chocolate for us. My mom and James never showed up. Some idiot was going down the road in a cart pulled by a horse that he didn't know how to control. He ran them right over..mom hit her head, and James tried to help. The horse kicked him, and then trampled right over him. I moved in with Krysta, right next to Zee, where I'd wanted to be in the first place, but I lost my family in the process. For the next year fires started breaking out over the valley. We never could figure out why, but I guess it was those red heartless."

The look on his face was horror; absolute horror, and perhaps even a hint of sympathy. She did not let him speak, though. There was something Berri had to say, even if you might not want to hear it.

"I never got the chance to say I was sorry, Riku. They were gone, forever. They are gone forever. So, I can't understand," her eyes blurred, and the back of her throat began to sting with dry salt and the promise of heaving sobs, but the girl swallowed them down, determined to finish, "I can't understand why, when he's right there, you won't tell him you're okay. I don't know how many opportunities you've had, but I know for a fact Sora has already forgiven you; what if something happens, Riku? What if you lose him forever too? I know you're having a difficult time trying to forgive yourself, but if you stay there without taking a chance you might lose it! I know it's hard, but I found out that just because bad things happen, it doesn't mean you should never let yourself live again..I could have bolted out of that house when you fell through the portal--hell, you even told me to run--but I was afraid that if I didn't stay I would just be feeding that little voice at the back of my mind that still to this day insists I'm nothing more than a burden to everyone. Zee made me promise never to think like that again--literally sat on top of me until I agreed, and I've never owed her more in my entire life. I wanted to help you, and I still do; even if I mess up I know it's better than never trying," the girl stepped closer, giving a short, apologetic stare, "The only way your friends will ever question whether you care about them or not is if you don't try, Riku..Everything you told me, everything you did, regardless of whether or not there was a better way to do it proves that you cared. All I have to show is a bad temper's consequences and an opportunity to say "I love you" that I didn't take. I know you think it's easy for me, but it's not, and I'm sure it isn't easy for Sora either. We're no different from you, except in the fact that you aren't afraid to admit you have trouble..all you need to do now is stop being afraid of asking for help, because I can promise you every one of your friends will be more than willing to--"

Her eyes narrowed again, struggling to focus. In the midst of her tyrade she had noticed a figure, but until that very moment, it's true shape had not been made clear. She could see out past them on a lower level of the mountain a group of strangers--no. They weren't strangers. It was Sora, Donald, Goofy. The trio looked spent; tired, and utterly lacking in any sense of morale. There was a woman with short, cropped black hair, and someone else she did not recognize. They were huge, with a definite brick-wall build, and a furry hodded outfit. The man seemed gruff, and carried a sword with a wavy blade; his shiny mustache was pointed, beady eyes narrowed like a hawk's. As soon as the observation of hawk eyes was made, a real hawk perched itself upon his outstretched and muscled arm. Then she saw the heartless; row upon row of yellow, fishlike creatures with razor jaws, and her hand shot out to grip Riku's arm.

"Berri..?"

"It's Sora--look!"