Sorry it took so long. Here's Ch. 14. Once again, these characters belong to Square-Enix, Tetsuya Nomura, etc. 'Cept Bruixe.

I'll be updating more this weekend, so check back often. Chances are I'll put up at least three more chapters.

L: I left you a surprise. See how much I love you?

The two teenagers were only halfway to Radiant Garden when the sun finally slipped below the horizon.

Bruixe had been following Riku without really paying attention to where she was going; when he stopped abruptly, Bruixe ran head-on into him. "Sorry," she said automatically. "What's up?"

"It's getting dark," Riku said. "We should stop for the night."

"In the middle of the Between? What if those super-Heartless things show up again?"

"They'd show up whether we're moving or not," he pointed out. "We can't keep going in the dark anyway. I don't know the road to Radiant Garden well enough to do it at night."

Bruixe crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one foot in what Demyx had always called her 'Axel stance.' She didn't want to stop; they'd never find her heart at this rate. "So what? We just get attacked while we're off guard?"

"We can take shifts, doofus," he told her.

"Oh," she said, feeling slightly foolish. Doofus? she wondered.

"We'll take two two-hour shifts each," decided Riku. "I'll set my watch. You want to go first, or should I?"

Four hours of sleep? Here I thought this guy was nice. "I will," answered Bruixe, who wasn't tired in the least. She shrugged off the cloak and held it out to Riku. "Here, a blanket."

"It was mine to begin with anyway," he reminded her, and took it, pulling it on before stretching out in the soft grass. He linked his hands behind his head, carefree, and was asleep within minutes.

Bruixe watched his even breathing and peaceful expression, goosebumps prickling over her now-bare shoulders as the cool wind surrounded her. She pulled her bracers higher over her arms as her mind waged an internal war.

He called me his girlfriend.

He said it himself; you're just his friend.

But girlfriend

Come on, you've known the guy for three days.

Yeah, but he followed me here.

To give you Kairi's medicine.

If that were the only reason, he'd've left already.

Maybe he's just being nice.

To a girl he's only known for three days?

Maybe.

Two hours seemed an eternity for Bruixe to be alone with her thoughts, but finally the alarm on Riku's watch beeped. She shook him gently awake, and he stretched lazily before handing over the cloak.

It smelled like palm trees and sea salt after Riku had slept in it. Bruixe pulled it closer and curled up inside it, inhaling deeply. For a moment, she could almost imagine she was back on the islands…

And the sun was shining through her eyelids, staining her sight red. She flung a black-sleeved arm over her face, trying to block it out. Next to her, Riku muttered something unintelligible and rolled over, the side of his face pressing into Bruixe's stomach.

What the hell?!

Bruixe jerked awake, blinking in the morning sun. She looked to her left; Riku had fallen asleep using her abdomen as a pillow, the back of one hand resting on her thigh.

"Ah!" Bruixe yelled and shoved him off, rolling away abruptly, feeling slightly violated. Riku's head hit the ground hard, and he woke with a dazed, "Huh? What happened?"

"You fell asleep on watch, that's what," Bruixe said shakily.

"Oh, man," Riku said, sitting up and rubbing his face. "What time is it?"

"Like eight in the morning," she told him. "Come on, get up, let's go."

She wondered if he realized what he'd been sleeping on. Probably not.

They made it to Radiant Garden without further mishaps, though Riku kept complaining that his head hurt. Sleep on someone else next time, Bruixe wanted to say, but thought it best not to go there.

"We're looking for a guy named Leon," Riku told her when they reached the city. "He'll get us in to Ansem's lab."

"Where is he?"

"I… don't know," Riku admitted. "He's Sora's friend. I don't really know him."

"While we're looking, you can explain the whole Ansem-DiZ thing," Bruixe suggested.

And so Riku told her his own story, the part he'd left out when explaining things on the island. He told her how he'd always envied Sora; how he had met the witch Maleficent and believed her lies about Sora replacing him and Kairi; how he was possessed by Ansem, who was not really Ansem but the Heartless of Xehanort, pretending to be his former master.

"You were used by the darkness?" Bruixe asked quietly.

"Yeah," he said. "I wanted to be strong. And I was… but it was never enough. I figured if I used the power of darkness and still got beat by Sora, it wasn't worth it."

He explained his and the King's journey through Castle Oblivion and how he'd conquered the darkness in his own heart, becoming able to use it instead of it using him; how he'd watched over Sora with Naminé and the man who'd called himself DiZ for almost a year; how he'd tried to defeat Roxas and failed until he became Xehanort himself; and how he'd recovered his own body with Sora's help.

"It turned out that the guy I'd always called DiZ was really Ansem the Wise," he said. "He had this machine that… well, I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but it ended up destroying Kingdom Hearts, so Xemnas couldn't use it," he explained. "It exploded, and in the blast Ansem was killed, and I got my look back."

"Did your friends ever… I don't know… mistrust you, for using the darkness?" Bruixe wanted to know.

"Not really," replied Riku. "At first, I wanted to get rid of the darkness completely. But then I realized it was never going to go away, not really. And I figured, hey, what if I can use it? It wasn't Ansem's – I mean, Xehanort's darkness – not anymore. It was mine."

Bruixe nodded slowly.

"What's up?" he asked, seeing the sorrowful expression on her face.

"Nothing," she said. "It's just… well, I've seen my share of the darkness, too… but I never thought of it like that. Your darkness… and no one else's."

No matter how Riku pressed, though, Bruixe wouldn't elaborate. He doesn't need to know, she thought.

"Hey, you in the cloak!" called a voice from behind them. Bruixe turned to see a teenaged girl with cropped black hair and brown eyes run up to them. "Are you guys new here? I don't think I've seen you around."

From the tone of her voice, Bruixe could tell she was wary of strangers. "Yeah," she said. "Actually, we're looking for someone. Name's Leon?"

"Why do you wanna see Leon?" the girl asked suspiciously. "Who are you, anyway?"

Riku stepped in. "I'm Riku, and she's Bruixe. We're friends of Sora's."

The girl's eyes widened, and she clapped once. "Well, why didn't you say so?" she said cheerfully. "Any friend of Sora's is a friend of mine. I'm the great ninja Yuffie."

Bruixe raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"I'll take you to see Squall," Yuffie said. "I think he's in the lab. Come on."