Riku wasted no time in heading to the deserted Castle Oblivion, cleaned out and completely empty now the Organization had vacated the premises. No Nobodies, no Heartless, not even a single soul anywhere in the castle. His own darkness, snaking out through the floors using the few shadows cast as waypoints and boosters to extend his reach, told him this within moments of seeking it out.
He had never come here before, but there were traces of the Sora Replica's journey through here, and even some other traces that further suggested the idea that there was another Sora, the other side of him acting on his own.
He also found that here in the Castle, the blindfold was unnecessary - whether by some illusion or just because of the place itself, he no longer had Ansem's appearance.
On the other hand, he no longer had his own appearance either. He gave himself a glance over, finding he looked more like Sora – or at least, the mirrored Sora he'd seen ever since the two had become one.
Where on his original arrival at Hollow Bastion he'd merely appeared to be Riku with some few of Sora's affectations – his hairstyle and the crown, to name but a few – now the reverse held true. He looked like Sora, though he noted beneath the coat he still wore the outfit he'd arrived in Hollow Bastion in. The only similarity was in the hair, still the same dark brown it had been, but settled into the style Riku – the original Riku, that was – had left it.
Rather than pause to ponder this though, he warily headed through the first room of the castle. Empty as it was, the idea of coming face to face with Ansem again was not entirely appealing. Once had been bad enough, and he'd had Donald and Goofy at his side then. Here he was on his own.
"So at last you've come to face me," Ansem's voice sounded from behind him. Soul Eater came unbidden to his hand rather than the Keyblade. "Fool, boy. Do you think you can stop me a second time?"
"I stopped you before," he shrugged in response, willing himself to stay calm and keep his tone level. "Once more isn't going to be hard."
"Is that so? But I know you now, Riku. I've watched you from your own darkness. You want the darkness – you want me back."
"That's not true. Alright, I need the darkness, but I don't want it."
The sound of a corridor took Ansem, depositing him in front instead, no different to how he remembered seeing him.
"Would you like to know what I see when I look at you, Riku?"
"I'm sure I'll find it absolutely fascinating," Riku replied with only slight sarcasm.
"I see a boy who reached his strength on the back of darkness I provided. Who disposed of Maleficent and even brought the Princesses together on my advice. You worked against her from within, even as you do the Organization now – but look! But for a few petty acts of sabotage, what do you have to show for it? Without me, you are no rebel. You may as well admit you work for them now."
"Oh really? And just how would you do it, Ansem? Just what would you have me do if I did agree to accept you back?"
"Nothing," he said with a smile. "You are already doing enough. Let them complete their goal. You desire power, else why would you command the darkness so willingly? But even that is nothing compared to the might of Kingdom Hearts. Once denied it, now they create it anew. All you need do is wait... for the opportune moment."
"When it's of greatest gain to you? I don't think so. The only reason I want their Kingdom Hearts completed-" Riku paused. "In fact, I don't think there is a reason. I'll be getting rid of you here, and that's the biggest issue. Everything else I can handle on my own."
"Still you spurn the ultimate power that could be yours! Why?"
"I told you. I don't want it." Riku sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "What it boils down to is this. You're a power-hungry egomaniac. I'm not. You want Kingdom Hearts. I don't. You need someone to work through. I refuse to be that one. Since Sora is off-limits to you and all that's left of you is a few remnants this Castle is projecting as you, you have to try to convince me to take you back – and I'm not likely to do that. You're out of bargaining chips, Ansem," he went on, looking back to the Heartless of the one who stole Ansem's name. "All that's left is to dispatch you."
Ansem was unmoved by the speech. He stood with arms crossed, looking almost amused, then when he finally spoke it was in derision. "Do you really think a fake could beat the real thing, Riku? Only your heart remains true – or had you never noticed?"
"You're crazy," Riku shook his head. "You make it sound like I'm exactly like the Sora Replica."
"Perhaps you have more in common with him than you think. I'd tell you more... but as you say – I'm out of bargaining chips. And if I have nothing to negotiate with..." he reached out, Soul Eater vanishing from Riku's hand to reappear in Ansem's own.
Without missing a beat, Riku summoned the Keyblade Xemnas had given him, already lunging for the remains of the Heartless. Ansem avoided it easily, striking back only to miss himself as Riku rounded on him again.
Ansem took a very defensive stance, choosing to pass up avenues of attack in favour of avoiding any harm. Riku reasoned it was because he wanted fighting him to seem futile. To counter it he pulled on the darkness, ignoring the fact that Ansem was much of his darkness.
He had to come up with something Ansem wouldn't expect, and that meant finding out just what he could do with it. Ansem seemed to have the same idea, projecting a barrier of darkness around himself.
Riku shaped the darkness around him, letting him move swiftly. The barrier, despite being made from the same darkness, still blocked his way.
"Unlock!" he commanded, aiming the Keyblade for it. It worked for doors, why not for barriers too?
The barrier flickered under the wan grey light coming from the Keyblade, but managed to hold. It wasn't enough by itself, he needed something that would cut through. Or he needed to nullify its effect.
He reached out, making some show of attempting to break through physically again as he touched the barrier and started to align his darkness with it, making them coincide. The darkness supplying the barrier would think his own darkness was the same as Ansem's and let him through – in theory.
-Yes – accept me back into your heart!- Ansem's voice sounded in his mind. Riku ignored it, striking through the barrier and straight into the heart of the remains.
"You have no place in my heart," Riku told him flatly, emphasising every word with another blow.
"You may destroy me," Ansem breathed, already starting to fade. "But the seeds of doubt are already sown. You'll regret not hearing more from me, Riku," he whispered with his last breath, then with a faint brush of wind, he was gone.
Already his darkness seemed vastly less than it had been before, but Ansem was right – he had doubt. What was it that he shared with the Sora Replica? What had he meant about being a fake? He couldn't be a Replica himself... could he?
He brushed those thoughts aside, rechecking the castle to ensure it was still empty, then headed back outside. With the blindfold still off he almost expected to return to Ansem's form, but instead he remained the same as he had inside the castle. Proof enough for him that he'd rid himself of Ansem.
With the small darkness he had left he opened a corridor back to the World that Never Was, and if anyone got curious about the new appearance and the lack of the blindfold, he'd already decided to tell them to mind their own business.
Later that evening, he leaned against the window of Saïx's room, staring down into Dark City as he filled him in.
"Haven't heard from Xigbar since this morning," Riku told him. "But that's probably not remarkable, he is still investigating the Beast's Castle. He hasn't told me anything since starting the mission, so I can only assume he doesn't have anything. Same for Luxord, but he at least stopped by, telling me he wanted permission to talk to certain people in Hollow Bastion."
"What did you tell him?" Saïx asked.
"I told him he could probably expect them to welcome him with a policy of shoot first, questions later, but he was welcome to try. He did try to get me to go with him or to assign Roxas with him, but I've got other things I want to do and the last thing we need is to lose Roxas in some pointless skirmish."
"Speaking of Roxas, what has he been doing?"
"I wouldn't know. It's a day off for him. As long as he turns up tomorrow I'm not too concerned. Even if he just shows up to find he has another day off because the portals aren't ready yet."
"No need to be concerned there. Xemnas has already informed me we have one of the back up portals operational. The original is severely damaged, perhaps irreparably so. We can only hope Xaldin or Demyx find the culprit."
"I certainly hope so," Riku said. "Once you're through with them I've got my own plans for them."
Involving the termination of both Nobodies if they get close enough to finding out I'm responsible, Riku thought to himself. "I wish I'd heard back from them as well. I saw them, but neither of them said anything."
"Inconvenient, but soon you will no longer need to worry. Axel found and took me to see his medical expert. She believes I will be back on my feet in a few days, so all you need do is be patient and continue to handle things for me, then when I have recovered I will take over again. No doubt it will set to rest the rumours that you are responsible for my apparent disappearance."
"That'll be a weight off my shoulders," Riku agreed. "No offence, but sometimes I wonder how you manage it."
"Organization and procedures," Saïx answered with the barest hint of a smile. "I had a long time to put them into place before Xaldin found us Roxas."
"Where did you find him?"
"Roxas? In Twilight Town. All new Nobodies appear there when they are created. When we heard about your actions in Hollow Bastion he immediately went there to search for the Nobody of Sora. Roxas was the result. He is unusual among Nobodies in more than a few ways – for one thing his prior life seemed to have assert itself much quicker than is normal, and with a number of considerable differences. He was able to confirm events that happened in Sora's life to prove he was Sora's Nobody, so the matter was put down as a special circumstances – we had no idea what would happen to a Keyblade Bearer when they became a Nobody."
"And you think the Keyblade is responsible for the differences. I wonder if that's true?"
Saïx paused in his work, fixing Riku with a stare that seemed to bore into him.
"Why would you say that, Riku? Do you know something we don't?"
"Lots of things," he admitted, unashamed. "But most of them aren't relevent."
"And those that are?"
"Pure speculation, hunches, intuition and the like. I don't like to work with uncertainties. If I can't confirm them and they're not important, I don't mention them."
"Roxas is the only one beside you who can gather hearts Riku. I'd say whatever you know is worth mentioning."
Riku paused to think, realising he might have said too much already. Then again, maybe he could turn this to his advantage.
"I heard a rumour earlier today. Stopped by Neverland to verify a few details from Demyx's report – not that I think he missed anything, I just had a feeling and I wanted to check up on it. There's a captain there I know, Captain Hook. He doesn't know I listened in on him, but I overheard him mention something about a boy named Ventus asking a native boy to protect something."
"How does that relate to Roxas?"
"I'm getting to that, let me finish," Riku snapped with faked irritability. "If Hook can be believed, and despite being a pirate he usually can, it was his heart Ventus had the boy protect. I asked about – carefully mind. The description of Ventus matches Roxas perfectly."
"So perhaps Roxas is the Nobody of Ventus and not Sora," Saïx mused to himself. "If that happened before the events of Hollow Bastion, we would have missed it entirely. It would explain the differences we observed in him. But why would he leave his heart behind?"
"I couldn't say. It's still only rumour. Hook is more or less reliable, but we don't know who he heard it from or how many hands its been through to reach him. I don't think we need do anything about it though – as long as he still works for us, it doesn't matter who he's the Nobody of, right?"
"Perhaps so. Riku, I am going to ask you to do something that you may find... objectionable." Riku said nothing, glancing to him with an inquiringly raised eyebrow. "Do not speak of this rumour to anyone – even Xemnas. If it is true and Roxas finds out we know he may turn on us, and if Xemnas finds out, it is possible he will continue what his original being had planned for the boy Ventus – both of which would lose us Roxas. We cannot afford that right now."
"What does Xemnas want to do?"
"He has not seen fit to take me into his confidence on the matter, and I do not think him likely to change that. Go to bed, Riku – tomorrow there will be no new missions to hand out but Roxas's, and I trust you to go with him somewhere to handle both your quotas."