Neku gave me a very succinct summary of the situation without any prompting, writing it out in his book almost before I'd taken it from Riku.

'You already know Charlie's interfering, but he's doing it in an oddly subtle way for him. He's making very small, minor alterations to you. Just enough to put you beyond my influence, and every time I change one of them back again another one happens. There's nothing actually stopping me directly, but I can't make the switch soon enough after his change to make it take effect.'

"Changing them back?" I asked aloud. "I thought you said you couldn't undo what another book did?"

'I'm testing the limits of that,' Neku replied. 'Technically I'm not undoing what he's doing, I'm just making a second change that just happens to restore your state before his one. He's made more of them since you took up my book again though. It's as if he knows you're holding it and is deliberately making it harder.'

That gave me an idea. Several, actually, but most unrelated to the current dilemma.

"Keep an eye on that will you?" I asked Neku, then to Riku, "Take his book back for a moment and give it another try – it won't work, I know, it's just testing a theory."

Riku looked puzzled, but did as I asked, then handed the book back again.

'Interesting,' Neku had noted underneath Riku's latest attempt to switch us back. 'When you gave me back to him, there was less resistance again.'

"He's set it to go ahead without having him keep an eye on it constantly. At least that's my theory, my reasoning is that if he was actively doing this himself, he wouldn't have done less just because Riku took the book."

"Is that even possible?" Riku wondered.

'Theoretically,' Neku answered. 'I wouldn't like to try it myself, but I think I can see how he's done it. If you're right, and my extension of your theory is too, we still can't get around it though. I can't change any of you enough to circumvent it, and I can't hide anyone from it.'

"I think you're wrong, Neku," I disagreed. "But you don't need to make any changes for it. You said Roxas is completely immune to you – and to other books too. If he took up your book and Charlie's little automatic resistance thing tried to account for him, wouldn't it just kinda... fall apart?"

'You're asking me to consider a complete unknown, Liam. There's absolutely no way to tell what will happen if we try that.'

"Guess then?"

'I think it will happen the way you're suggesting, but there's only one way to tell for sure.'

"Roxas?" I called over to him. "Can we borrow you for a moment?"

"Me?" he seemed startled. "What could I possibly do?"

"Solve this problem," Riku told him, gesturing at himself.

"You mean you don't like being Lee?" Sora teased, grinning broadly.

"Or is it me personally you've got a problem with?" I asked, looking equally angelic.

Riku looked from Sora to me, sighed theatrically, then said, "Honestly, what am I meant to do? My best friend and the guy who has a crush on me are ganging up against me."

Only Roxas didn't seem amused by that, but that wasn't really surprising.

"What do you need me to do?" Roxas asked simply.

"Take Neku's book from me, then write the words that will put Riku and me back to normal. We'll be able to tell you if it's worked or not."

"Won't I just have the same trouble Riku was?"

"We don't think so. Try it, Roxas."

"I don't know. Should I really take the book from you? It's kinda important."

"Trust me, Roxas. Just take it and try it."

He reluctantly took it off me, taking the pen with it, then looked back to us again before he wrote anything as if for reassurance. He seemed oddly uncomfortable being the center of attention, but eventually he got over that and wrote in Neku's book.

It must have worked, because my view blurred and shifted, leaving me slightly disoriented because my eyes told me I'd moved to the right, while my body – my own body again, at last – told me I hadn't moved. Riku took that slightly worse than I did, somehow ending up stumbling over and into me, while everyone else looked for some certain sign it had worked.

I can't be certain of this, because not even Neku was aware of it, but I'm fairly sure at the moment Riku and I were returned I heard an enraged howl coming from further up the Castle. If I really did hear it and it was Charlie, I'd say it gives an idea of what he thought of my solution.

"You know Liam, this might be the only time I don't mind being in your arms," Riku told me when I caught him.

"I'm just getting even with you, naturally. After all, I seem to recall you holding onto me similarly a while back."

"Did you really have to remind me of that?"

"It worked then," Data-Riku sighed, sounding relieved.

Roxas offered me Neku's book back, but after a moment to consider I told him, "Keep it. At least we know you can't be corrupted by any of the books. I'm trusting you to keep him safe." I think that startled him more than finding out we'd had something for him to do.

"What do we do now?" Vanitas asked.

"We move on. After that, Riku will no doubt want to go back upstairs to keep an eye on Data-Sora. Axel should still be with him after I drafted him in, but you might want to reassure Data-Sora that you're not me."

"Yeah, we kinda read about his reaction," Riku nodded. "He doesn't seem to like you too much right now."

"Couldn't be helped. You go on up, we'll move on."

"There's a problem with that," Data-Riku told me. "We don't have a world card between us."

"If you give me the name of a world, I can make one," Roxas suggested.

"That might be a good idea," Neku spoke yet again through Data-Riku. "When he made use of me, his immunity was somehow extended to me. I'm still looking into how far that can be pushed, but between him and me, we might be able to create worlds that are free from Charlie's influences entirely."

"Wouldn't that sort of annoy him a little?" Sora suggested.

"Think I care?" I replied, then scratched thoughtfully at my chin.

"You need a shave, by the way," Riku told me.

"I know," I replied absently. "Haven't you left yet?"

"Trying to get rid of me? I thought you liked me?" Riku laughed as he opened a dark corridor.

"Which world should we go to?" Roxas asked afterwards.

"I don't know about you, but I'd like a nice peaceful one," Data-Riku asserted. "After Ansem in the last one, I'd rather not have to go through that again."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sora told him. "This entire trip through the Castle is so Liam can get a handle on his darkness. Maybe you ought to take a leaf from the Castle itself and go somewhere where you had a problem with it before. Coming to terms with it like that is kinda what Riku did, right?"

"Something like that," I agreed. "The Castle seems to have picked worlds in chronological order, so I don't think there'll be any from the original adventure left to go on, and there's no point repeating Castle Oblivion inside itself."

"The Coliseum, second visit," Vanitas murmured. "At the very least, the Underdrome there."

"Didn't I tell you to stop looking at my memories?"

"You're the one who left the door open," he shrugged. "Metaphorically speaking, that is."

Data-Riku gave me a speculative look, then his eyes went distant and I felt him touching on the link I'd created between us.

"Don't you start too," I told him irritably. "Stay out of there."

"I don't think so," Data-Riku replied. "You want us to go there? Do you have any idea how dangerous that could turn out? That's the time and place you originally got your darkness!"

"Best place to confront it then, wouldn't you say? Write it down, Roxas."

Data-Riku almost said something as he did so, but a dark corridor opened. We all turned to look curiously to find out who had created it, then after a few moments it pulsed and spat Riku out, who collapsed onto the floor nearby. The corridor, indifferent to this, whisked itself out of existance.

Riku did not get up. 'Heal' echoed through the room as seemingly all of us cast it at once, followed by Esuna from me because I was the only one who had it.

"Roxas," I snapped. "Get Neku to find out what happened to him!"

Sora was the first to reach him, closely followed by me. Aside from being unconscious, there didn't appear to be any evidence of what had happened to him. Since he, unlike Data-Sora, was not purely light, I touched carefully on him with my own darkness to try and find out anything. Putting it to use as a kind of medical aid is probably not something many people have thought of, but if it works...

There were some light bruises left that the barrage of healing magic had not managed to restore, and the last of that magic was clearing up the remnants of any injuries he'd obtained while away, but he was at least not in any immediate danger.

"Neku says he can't find out," Roxas reported. "Something's blocking him out of the upper floors entirely."

Sora didn't even bother to consult me. He brought out his own book, a slender volume that looked almost as if the cover was made of neatly cropped grass.

He didn't even bother to write in it, he just flipped it open and said, "Lets see what we can do about that."

'Way ahead of you,' his book wrote back. 'Data-Sora attacked him.'

"Why didn't Axel do anything to stop him?" I asked.

'He was being held up by your Heartless,' the book replied.

"I'm going to do something permanent about him soon," I muttered. "Have you got that world card, Roxas?"

"Right here," he replied from behind me, reaching ahead to hand it over.

"Vanitas, Riku – pick up Riku here and bring him with us. Sora and I will have to do what we can to keep him and you two out of trouble, and Roxas can work with Neku to try and guarantee some kind of safety."

"You're just going to move on?" Sora said. "You're not going to wait for him to recover?"

"We're far enough behind as it is after the last issue Charlie threw at us. He's not in any immediate danger, so he'll be fine. Now let's move people, we have work to do!"

I'll admit I may have been a little rough with him about it, but at the time I was contemplating a number of things to do to my Heartless just for the trouble he was causing alone.