Stygian Solace

by Uzumaki-sama

By taking Riku's hand, Sora alters their destinies, and Riku takes his rightful place as the keyblade master. Now as Riku plays between his duty as a hero and his own confused judgment, Sora tries to suppress the darkness within both of them. RS

38. Ch 22: With Wayward Valor part one

Author Notes:

Optimistically, I'd say to expect updates to start picking up, but... you know how that goes, especially with these huge chapters.

HUUUUGE thank you to Jess for still being the best beta reader ever, and thanks to Ashanti again for being an amazing help. Also, happy birthday, V—you're an amazing inspiration!

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Chapter Twenty-two: With Wayward Valor – part one

-o-o-

Pressure.

A deadly, freezing weight that swallowed him on all sides.

No air. Senses smothered.

Only a pitch black void of pressure and terror, and the hollowed rush of his own pulse.

Was this what it was like to drown?

Had he even made it back to Atlantica, or had the darkness finally consumed him? Would Riku be okay if he died right here, right now? What would happen to the worlds if Sora couldn't save their keyblade master?

No.

He couldn't give up here.

He wasn't going to let the scary octopus lady win, and he definitely wouldn'tlet her keep Riku like that! After everything they had been through, this couldn't be the end.

The keyblade in Sora's hand hummed to him, and he clutched its grip with every last ounce of strength he had. Lungs aching for air, muscles straining under the crushing weight of the water—not darkness?—he called out to the weapon's power in his desperation for help.

Like a wash of sunshine, he felt its strength softly connect with him and filter through his body, and he opened his eyes against the stinging sea to take a first look at his surroundings.

He'd made it back. The once magenta glow had changed, but everything else was the same within Ursula's lair.

And there they were—

The sea witch with the trident, her cauldron open, its magic spilling into the water—Ariel and Goofy evading two gray eels while struggling to get to the trident—and Donald, aiming his staff directly at him.

A flash of blue light blinded Sora, then he felt a whoosh as a cocoon of warmth enwrapped him, and all of a sudden—

"Sora!!"

He could breathe again.

Donald's shrill cry echoed within him as the mage's spell transformed his human body: respiratory system first, legs next, and blue skin spreading along his own. He felt the bones and muscles in his feet tingle as they melted away into the flat, sturdy flukes of his tail; then with a painless pinch of his spine, the cartilage of his dorsal fin formed, his dolphin skin solidified, and he was a merman once again.

It had been nothing short of a well-timed miracle, and duck-made or not, Sora wasn't going to waste his luck.

As soon as he could kick his tail, he burst out of the dissolving cocoon of magic and barreled right towards Ursula, who had been too busy fending off Goofy and Ariel to notice his swift return. He thrust the keyblade high as he summoned a high-level thunder spell, remembering how it had affected the shark.

"Eat this!!"

Electricity crackled around the sea witch before engulfing her and billowing outward in a small shockwave, stunning even her pet eels.

Ursula bellowed in pain and whirled to face him. Apparently she hadn't known he could world-hop using darkness, which made him wonder just how much Maleficent wasn't telling her wicked little buddies. When she saw who had attacked her and with magic of all things, Ursula's eyes grew wild with outrage.

"Why you little—"

Sora slammed the flat side of Riku's keyblade into her big face.

"Missed me!"

And boy, it felt good to get that little taste of revenge.

He kicked upward and narrowly avoided her tentacles as they shot out to ensnare him.

"Ahyuck, Sora!"

At Goofy's warning, Sora somersaulted around, and a searing power grazed past his face and hit the fibrous cavern wall beside him where he had been just a nanosecond ago. Boy, Ursula sure wasn't kidding around with that trident, was she?

A burst of magic from her cauldron shook the lair, and Sora took advantage of the opportunity to catch her off guard. He brought the keyblade forward and aimed right back at her. "Let's see how those tentacles of yours like ice!"

His blizzard spell caught her dead-on, temporarily crystallizing her, and when he heard Donald laughing, he felt a surge of pride for his magic; he may have been taught by Maleficent, but his powers were meant to fight people like her.

He felt a searing cold as another blizzard spell flashed past him, and he heard the telltale hardening crunch of ice as Donald's magic froze one of the eels. Right then, Ariel placed a fierce kick into the other eel's side and sent it bouncing off Goofy's shell.

Goofy got Ariel to high-five him, and Sora grinned because in that moment, with all of his friends working together, it almost felt like one of the play fights back home. Even though he knew the danger was real, Sora had missed being a part of this kind of teamwork. That, and usually Riku had been the hero, not him, and this time Riku was the damsel in distress.

If they got off this world alive, Sora wasn't going to let him live this one down.

The ice around Ursula and her pet shattered, freeing them but leaving her even angrier than she had been before. She shook off the icy shards and leveled the trident at Sora, murder in her eyes, but he was undaunted. He flicked his tail and rushed through the water back towards her, keyblade already aimed to strike.

But that was when the tides turned against them.

"Donald—behind you!" Ariel cried.

Suddenly worried about Donald, Sora forgot his own attack and rolled away to avoid another surge of power from the trident. He turned in time to see a large tentacle thwack the back of Donald's head and send him face-first into the side of the cavern. Before he could even check if the duck was still conscious, two gray figures flew forward—the eels!—and he heard Goofy's own call for help. And when he spun around to help Goofy instead, the knight was already hiding inside of his shell and being batted around by Ursula's pets like a ping-pong ball.

"Sora!" Ariel cried again, and Sora twisted around at once. Panic coiled in his gut as Ursula bore down on him too quickly for him to evade in time. He braced himself for a painful collision—

But a blur of green and red streaked past him and intercepted the homicidal octopus, and Sora froze, stunned that Ariel would tackle Ursula with her bare hands. Then he saw her trying to grapple the trident away from the sea witch and realized that she had the right idea in mind. Ursula was far less dangerous without the trident, so getting it away from her could end this fight quicker than anything else.

Sora's gaze flitted from Donald's floating, unconscious form, to the eels playing bat-a-Goofy, to Ariel and the sea witch wrestling for the trident, and finally focused on the gray-green polyp sitting near the base of Ursula's cauldron.

Riku.

Sora was the only help he was going to get.

Tightening his grip on the keyblade, he shot forward just as Ariel was violently thrown backwards. She slammed into the witch's vanity hard enough to knock several bottles off the shelves, and Sora tried to push his concern aside as he flew past her to meet Ursula head-on.

The sea witch spotted him in time to block his attack, and the keyblade struck the trident with an almost explosive force. The intense energy simmered between their faces as they glared at each other over their weapons. The trident had caught the key between two of its prongs, and Sora knew if he tried to pull back, she would have it with very little effort.

Trying not to let her ugly smirk get to him, he shoved the blade against the trident with fierce determination. "Give Riku back!"

"Forget it, loverboy," she snapped, "he's mine! He knew the details of the contract when he signed it."

A thick tentacle wrapped around the base of his tail and easily jerked him backwards before he could do anything, and the keyblade left his hands, caught there between the trident's prongs like dessert on a fork.

"Gah!"

Without warning, Ursula hurled him towards the cauldron, and the backlash of magic barely missed him as he spun in the water to right himself. He felt the power sizzling around him and knew instinctively that he didn't want to stick around and see what would happen if he got hit by one of those rogue spells.

Crowing with laughter, Ursula reached up with her free hand to grab the keyblade's hilt.

"No!"

Sora dove towards her to reclaim it, but he saw her fingers descend around the grip and knew he wouldn't make it in time.

Yet as Ursula's hand closed around it, the keyblade suddenly shimmered and dissolved into fragments of light.

"What?"

Her expression rekindled with anger, especially as she saw the keyblade reappear with a flash, now clutched in Sora's hand again. Another small miracle that he wasn't going to question. He closed in on her instantly, the blade singing through the water as he drew it to her large neck.

Pressing the tip against her purple skin, he narrowed his eyes in warning. Her chin lifted to avoid the keyblade, but Sora pressed it closer. "Let Riku go."

"Not so fast!" she sneered, to his surprise. She was the one with the weapon at her neck, so why was she trying to call the shots?

That was when he saw which way she was aiming the trident: directly at Riku.

Sora tensed.

She definitely noticed. Her lips pulled into a big, smug smirk. "That's right, sugar. Better think twice about where you point that thing. You might get someone hurt." She jabbed the trident in Riku's direction with emphasis.

The worst part about it was that he knew she wasn't bluffing. On the other hand, Sora wasn't even sure he had the guts to hurt her with the keyblade, not this close.

Destroying heartless and fighting giant genies were one thing, but staring face-to-face with a witch and killing her? He remembered how it had felt to defeat that three-headed dog in one of the coliseum's tournaments. All that blood... Maybe he had unknowingly been under the darkness's influence at the time, but Id wasn't influencing him right now.

This was Sora's decision.

Kill the witch and risk having her fry Riku? Or pull back and find another way to win?

He knew what he had to do.

Beginning to withdraw the keyblade, Sora silently asked for Riku to forgive him for being such a chicken-wuss.

But then Ariel came at Ursula from behind, her fingers clutching the witch's hair and sharply jerking her head back. Ursula howled as chunks of her hair were ripped free, and Sora quickly ducked out of the way as the trident, glowing with the witch's fury, released a jet of energy that hit not Riku, but the base of the cauldron.

Almost immediately, the power that had been spilling out of the cauldron turned into something else entirely. When Sora glanced back to make sure little wormy Riku was safe, he saw the energy within the claw-like structure blacken and boil. Within moments, it was no longer magic that streamed out of Ursula's cauldron—it was darkness.

Another scream returned his attention to the scuffle at hand, and he was surprised to find Ariel wrestling with the witch for the trident again.

"Let go, you little brat!"

"Sora, do something!"

He didn't have to be told twice. Gathering courage, he arched his arm back and swung hard, the keyblade slicing in a clean angle through the water. It struck Ursula's cheek and collarbone and snapped the string to her necklace. As the shell dropped from around her neck, Ursula shrieked and clutched her cut cheek. A hint of red seeped out from beneath her fingers, evidence that Sora had more than just nicked her.

"My necklace—" she gasped, and then pure fury darkened her tone, "my face—!" She forced Ariel back again and gripped the trident with both hands. "Enough! Flotsam, Jetsam!"

The two eels gave Goofy's shell a final thwack before they answered her beckon. They streaked downward, gliding towards the falling shell, and one of them caught it in its mouth before it rounded back to deliver it to her.

What was so special about that shell? Maybe it was important somehow...

With the eels no longer harassing him, Goofy dizzily spiraled through the water without aim. His flippers flailed in an attempt to recover his balance, but he still bumped into Donald, who awoke from unconsciousness with a startled squawk.

Then the eels deposited the necklace in Ursula's outstretched hand, and her fingers closed around the shell as her pets began to circle her once again to await her orders. A flash of fear moved through Sora as she whirled at him, her eyes blazing with murder.

"You!"

Sora's first instinct was to turn tail, but he kept his position and faced her, the keyblade held at the ready. He felt the water shift around him as Ariel came to his side, also ready to fight. Below Ursula, the cauldron continued to bubble and emit darkness, the shadows snaking along the lair's floor and seeping between the bones and tissue of the leviathan skeleton.

As she released a low, resonating chuckle, Ursula's lips pulled into a grin so sinister that she even put Jafar's to shame. "Let's show these clownfish exactly why they call Ursula the sea witch."

The trident took aim.

Sora tensed, not liking the sound of this—

And there, amongst the bubbling darkness and the pounding of Sora's heart, he heard the angrily determined cry of a duck seeking justice.

"Gravity!"

It couldn't have been more perfect. The dark spell swallowed Ursula and pulled her downward, right into her cauldron.

A look of panic crossed her face when she realized what was happening, but by then it was too late. With a scream of disbelief, she thrashed as she began to sink into the heavy darkness issuing from the cauldron, but she was caught by gravity's invisible fingers and no amount of struggling helped her conquer Donald's magic.

"NO!" she howled, her eyes wide as the darkness surged up around her. "This can't be!"

Flotsam and Jetsam wrapped themselves around her arm and tried to pull her out of the living shadows, but their struggles came to an abrupt end when a large turtle shell came launching at them. Goofy crashed into the eels from above and bounced off, knocking them both and the trident away from her.

Sora knew that was his opening.

He and Ariel darted towards her at the same time, two pairs of hands and a keyblade driving Ursula's head down into the bubbling darkness before Donald's spell could wear off.

"NOOOOooo!"

As if in response to Ursula's screams, the shadows lurched upward over her face and swallowed her completely.

Her eels glanced at each other in silent shock and, apparently coming to the same conclusion, they turned and hightailed it out of there before they could become the darkness's next victim.

The glowing trident twisted lazily in the water, prongs first, and sank into the shadows. As it stabbed into the floor of the skeleton lair, the weapon's power purified a patch of the darkness, and there, curled at the base of the cauldron was the small gray-green worm Sora had almost died for.

"Riku..."

Ursula's necklace had landed next to him. Sora looped through the water towards Riku, who lifted his small head to watch him approach. Keyblade still in hand, Sora scooped up the witch's fallen necklace by its string and held his other hand out for Riku.

"Come on, let's get out of here. Can you move?"

A despondent look filled Riku's eyes, and he lowered his head, his seaweed-like hair falling into his face. Sora took that answer as a no. By then, Ariel had joined his side and had taken hold of the trident's length, but he held an arm out to stop her before she could pull it out of the ground.

"Wait..."

The mermaid paused to glance at him. "We should hurry. I have a bad feeling..."

"I know, but—" Sora met her gaze and gestured back to the throat of the lair. "You saw all those worms when we came in—those are people too, right? But if the sea witch hadn't had the trident until Riku had given it to her, then she must have used her own power to transform those people. But she used the trident on Riku..."

Donald swam up to them, Goofy at his side. "Yeah, so?" the duck asked. "We'll have to take him to Merlin to see if he can help."

Goofy lifted a flipper to his mouth. "Ahyuck, I think Sora's trying to say that if the trident thingy did this to Riku, then maybe it can turn him back. Right?"

"Yeah," Sora said with a nod.

Narrowing his eyes, Donald released one of his contemplative hums.

"Now that I think about it, didn't she say something about a contract?" Ariel pointed out. Her fingers tightened around the trident but didn't pull it free. "I mean, I don't know much about magic, but..."

That was true. Ursula had made it a point to mention some contract that Riku had signed for her. "Oh—yeah!" Sora turned to Donald expectantly. "You're a magician, aren't you? What do you know about magical contracts?"

"A magician?" Donald demanded, affronted.

Oops. Maybe that hadn't been the right title. Even though now wasn't the ideal time to lay on the flattery, Sora gave it a shot. "Oh, my apologies," he said in a saccharine voice, and he batted his eyelashes for good measure. "I meant—Donald Duck, the great sorcerer, could you please tell us about magical contracts?"

Appeased, Donald crossed two of his tentacles. "Hmph. That's better." Then he lifted a wing to stroke his chin... beak. Whatever. "Hmm, magical contracts..."

Sora leaned towards him, growing hopeful. "Yeees?" he prompted. He was silently praying for a simple way to save Riku from his wormy fate. Surely Donald knew of some useful magic that could help them out here, or at the very least how to break something as simple as a contract...

But Donald simply shrugged. "Don't know."

"Wah—!" Sora's jaw dropped. "Donald, we don't have time for you to play around like that!" he cried, now incredulous. He grabbed Donald by a shoulder and shook him. "You don't know anything?"

Squabbling, Donald tried to brush Sora's hand off. "Well, I do know that if the contract maker goes kaput, the contract goes kaput, too!"

Sora released him and contemplated that piece of news; something didn't sound right about it. From the way all four of them exchanged glances and then simultaneously looked at little Riku, it seemed Sora wasn't the only one who thought this situation was more than just fishy.

"Gawrsh, but if that sea witch is already kaput," Goofy chimed in, "why isn't Riku Riku yet?"

Why not, indeed.

Their answer came from the still bubbling cauldron of darkness. As the shadows grew thicker along the lair's floor, a deep chuckle began to fill the chamber, softly at first, until out of the darkness reached two pudgy purple hands with fingers that now tapered into blood red claws. They clamped onto the edges of the cauldron, and Ursula's head appeared amongst the shadows a moment later, eyes stark yellow and slanted with anger.

"You're not getting away that easily!" she crowed.

Triumph laced her voice as she hefted herself half out of the cauldron. Darkness spilled out around her and clouded the water like ink. Her tentacles sprawled out from her dark throne, now three times as long as they had been before, and Sora instinctively wanted to back away. But he knew he couldn't, not with Riku still in the line of fire.

"Time for Plan B!" Sora cried. "Do it, Ariel!"

Not needing to be told twice, Ariel plucked the trident from its resting place, ducked to avoid the witch's immediate reach, and then aimed the weapon right at Riku. The way she squeezed her eyes shut didn't encourage Sora at all, but the weapon's glow sparked back to life, and a gentle stream of energy shot forward and enveloped the little worm.

Sora drew back in surprise—and hope—as the power blossomed and branched outward, trailing through the water to surround the witch's other wormy victims in the garden of the leviathan's entrance. As Ursula herself cackled and grew out of the darkness, no longer the sea witch they had come to know but a half-breed of darkness or heartless, Sora watched the trident's golden power swirl around Riku and spiral upward.

And there, a blink of an eye later, a boy grew out of the worm, the power dispersed, and Riku was Riku once again. Sora heard both Donald and Goofy's excited cries before he realized it had actually worked. Part of him still disbelieved his own eyes—but there Riku was, perfectly human and as pale as a ghost amongst the dark water.

And he was drowning.

Sora had a firsthand view of the pure panic that crossed Riku's face as he choked on water and began to thrash against the surrounding darkness. Sora knew exactly how it felt, but this time he wasn't going to wait for Donald's miracle transformation spell. He'd lost sight of Donald and Goofy amongst the thickening shadows, and there was no way he was going to risk taking the time to look for them.

"Sora—go! Get him out of here!" Ariel called somewhere to his left. He glanced in her direction, catching sight of not just Ariel, but dozens of merpeople crowding the lair's entrance, some of them fleeing, some of them lingering with Ariel. Then the darkness covered her as well, and Sora knew it was time for him to go. Donald and Goofy could back her up if she needed the help.

His sense of duty taking over, Sora snatched Riku's arm with his free hand and kicked upward. He flew past massive tentacles in the darkness and headed straight towards the cavities between the leviathan's ribs. The racing pulse of the wrist beneath his palm was Sora's only concern in those few moments as he streaked through the water to the surface, Riku in tow.

Somewhere far below him, Ursula's maniacal laughter grew, followed by a heavy rumble, a nerve-splitting crack, and an unearthly wail of something coming alive. It took every ounce of Sora's willpower to resist looking back. Whatever was happening, it would have to wait.

He broke the surface and struggled to keep Riku there above the water, but Riku did nothing to help Sora. He was already unconscious. He tried not to panic as he slipped Riku's arm over his shoulders and grasped him around the waist, making sure his grip was secure before he glanced around to make sense of his position.

The sky had grown almost completely dark, leaving just a shred of dark blue on the horizon. Sora wasn't sure which direction led shoreward, but the sun had been at their backs when they had been close to land, so he used that hint of blue as his guide as he began to swim carefully towards the shore.

The journey wasn't likely to be easy. The waves were choppier than they had been earlier when he and Riku had been racing. Sora knew he would have to hurry if he wanted Riku to survive this, but Riku's dead weight and the keyblade still clutched in his other hand easily dragged his pace down to the mermaid equivalent of a doggy-paddle. He was just grateful that the water wasn't freezing up here, otherwise he'd have an even bigger problem on his hands.

Come on, Riku, cooperate with me! he silently screamed, but fate only offered him another wave in the face.

Sputtering, he carried on and tried to ignore his straining muscles and the deep-seated fear that he was going to lose Riku for real. It occurred to him that they were perfect prey for passing sharks, and thatwas the last thought he needed festering in his mind at the moment.

That was why, a few seconds later when he saw a dorsal fin break the surface close by, he knew someone was out to get them. Oh no, no way! He hadn't come all this way just to get eaten by a shark!

"Give me a break!" he yelled and fought to swim faster.

Then he heard the happy chirrup of a dolphin and realized that maybe luck was on his side after all.

Three other dorsal fins appeared beside the first, and he wanted to cry with relief as the dolphins glided forward to flank him. He had no idea if these were the same dolphins as before, but he wasn't going to question the extra help, not when he needed it the most.

He didn't say anything—he doubted the creatures would have even understood him if he'd tried—he just let his desperation make his statement for him, and the dolphins did the rest.

One of them surfaced enough for him to slip Riku onto its back, and another dolphin nudged Riku's lifeless arm to draw Sora's attention to it. Sora fought back sudden tears as he fixed Riku's arm so he wouldn't topple off the side of the dolphin's back.

"Hold on, Riku... we'll get you somewhere safe."

The first dolphin chirped in response, and Sora wiped an eye before taking hold of the creature's dorsal fin. Another nuzzled his waist, and he managed a grateful smile as he rubbed its slippery side.

"Thanks, guys..."

With a playful, keening sound, the extra dolphins submerged, and Sora held on as he and Riku were carried above the surface towards shore, safe in the company of providence.

-o-o-

Waves crashing against a shore.

Soft lips pressing to his.

Riku knew this had to be another dream, except he couldn't remember the last time he had had one this muddled. Darkness slowly crept away from the edges of his mind and left it swimming in a slow, churning ocean of its own.

Something lingered there inside of him—a black breeze that swept away his thoughts and threatened to carry them back into an undertow of nothingness. He struggled against it and mentally grasped onto what he could.

Air rushing into his lungs.

The taste of the sea on his tongue.

The pit-pat of water falling onto his cheeks, and the path each drop took as they slipped into his wet hair.

A shuddery inhalation against his ear, then a stifled sob.

"W-Wake up..."

Pain.

It started as a deep burn within his chest and then gradually spread—a tingling sting along his feet and wrists to the base of his spine and focusing in his shoulders, then the sensation of thousands of prickly feet crawling beneath his skin. And finally—

His stomach lurched, and he heaved water, his lungs and ribs aching like a whale had landed on them. Rolling onto his stomach, he coughed and gasped for air and collapsed against the ground.

His fingers met a grainy warmth, and his racing heart gave a tremble at the unexpected familiarity.

Sand. Beach sand.

Releasing another hoarse cough, he buried his face in the remnants of his childhood, and he tried to pretend he was home. He could even feel the fragments of shell, smell the fishy salt...

A cold hand rested against his bare shoulder, reminding him he wasn't alone. Then the hand became a chest against his back, two arms that clenched around him, a face that pressed to his neck, and a voice with a name saying his name with so much concern and relief that he knew, just knew, he really was dreaming.

"Riku..."

Sora...

He felt the tears burn beneath his clenched lids as unbridled emotions fought their way out of him. He didn't dare open his eyes for fear of waking up. No, he wanted to stay home just a little bit longer...

Here he didn't have to worry about keyblades or heartless or sea witches or what memories he may or may not have lost or what exactly he had done to hurt Sora's feelings... and didn't have to acknowledge that knot of sweltering guilt deep in his heart.

"R-Riku, stay with me, stay awake, don't—"

Fingers ran desperately through his tangled hair, touched his face, lightly slapped his cheeks. I don't want to wake up, not yet... But the dark breeze from earlier swept through his mind again, carrying his thoughts away into the comforting shadows of unconsciousness.

"—don't—!"

"...m'sorry..."

Sora held onto Riku's head as he passed out again. His body relaxed into the sand, but his pulse remained strong, and Sora let that steady beat reassure him. At least Riku was alive.

With a loud sniff, Sora curled his tail beneath him and reached for the keyblade, resting it over Riku as he continued to cradle his unconscious body. "Hang on, Riku," he whispered and focused on the highest cure spell he could manage.

Moments later as the green and gold light faded from around Riku, Sora felt the body in his arms grow listless, and he allowed himself to relax as well. Now that Riku wasn't near death, he would be fine after some rest... hopefully.

He knew he needed to get back to Donald, Goofy, and Ariel to help bring Ursula down for good, but he couldn't just leave Riku like this. Drawing the keyblade and Ursula's necklace close, he reassured himself that his friends would be fine. After all, so many mermaids had been freed thanks to Ariel and the trident—as evil as Ursula was, she wouldn't be able to stand up against that many fins.

Satisfied with that mental image, Sora concentrated on Riku again. He rolled him onto his back and settled down against him, lying there with his head on Riku's chest to listen to his steady heartbeat. He thought about that drowsy apology Riku had uttered moments ago and wondered what exactly he had been apologizing about. He couldn't have gotten his memory back, could he?

He curled his sandy fingers over Riku's heart. He still wanted to be upset about everything Riku had screwed up, but after what they had been through together today, and especially since he had almost lost Riku, Sora didn't think that dwelling was going to be worth it. What if Riku never got his memories back?

Man... he wasn't sure what to think anymore.

"You're so stupid," he murmured. Closing his eyes, he tucked his face against Riku's neck and tried to fight off the worry of what Id had said.

Still in denial, huh?

Sora tensed as the familiar voice washed over his mind and sent a cold sensation trickling down his spine. Once again, he instinctively tried to close himself off to Id's influence, but the dark presence lingered as if Sora had no power over it.

Someone is being feisty. Trying to push me away so soon?

"Go away," Sora grumbled.

Still caught up on that silly confession like a love-struck fool, I see. I told you, he only said it because it was his way of staying in control.

"Go away," Sora repeated, this time snappier. "I don't need you."

Id was silent for a long moment, so long that Sora might have thought he had left if not for the cold weight remaining inside of him. Then, finally:

You don't need me?

He didn't sound pleased, but Sora wasn't in the mood to care. He was tired of Id trying to manipulate him into distrusting Riku even more. "I was fine without you before," he remarked, and he had been fine before. He didn't need Id making commentary in his head at every opportunity.

Alright, fine! Id said with all the flair of a petulant child. See what happens when the darkness is no longer on your side.

And like a light switch being flipped to off, Id's presence vanished.

Sora had the distinct feeling Id wasn't gone for good but had rather just stormed off like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. Despite what had been said—the darkness was no longer on his side?—Sora wasn't worried. If worst came to worst, he still had Riku.

Sora settled beside him again and breathed in the scent of the sea around them. Riku's skin was still cool to the touch, but the weather here was warm enough that he wasn't at risk of hypothermia or anything. He wondered if he should try to gather some wood or something to make a small fire for him anyway... Lying wet and naked on a beach after nearly drowning couldn't be too healthy.

Sora could make a fire with the keyblade, but the problem was gathering wood to fuel it. As much as he wanted to explore nearby, he didn't exactly have feet at the moment...

Not that firewood would have made much of a difference. No more than a minute after Id's disappearance, Sora heard thunder rumbling in the distance.

It came softly at first, a low purr that reminded Sora of the summer showers back home; but then he saw the black clouds quickly building on the horizon—unnaturally fast—with colored lightning flickering amongst the anvil-tops, and he was suddenly reminded of something else entirely.

The storm that had swallowed Destiny Islands.

Sora felt the chill of the darkness long before he saw the shadow heartless climb out of the sand. Its antennae twitched as it danced in place, as if hesitating, and Sora pulled Riku's body even closer to himself before speaking to the heartless.

"You can't have his heart."

Another pool of darkness appeared, then another, and a few more shadows crept out of the sand towards Sora, who was beginning to have a really bad feeling about this. Id had said the darkness was no longer on his side... Did that mean...?

He silently tried to command the heartless to go away, and when nothing happened, he took hold of the keyblade again, shifting forward through the sand to put himself between Riku and the heartless. He knew he probably didn't look very intimidating half lying on the ground, but there was only so much a beached merboy could do.

"Go back to your master!" he yelled.

No response.

When the heartless began to creep too close, Sora lifted the keyblade into the air and connected his powers with it once again. After so long of having the creatures on his side, he couldn't help the small pang of guilt for destroying them now, but... he didn't see much of a choice here.

"Thunder!"

Electricity shot out of the sky and crackled around the heartless, which were instantly reduced to black wisps from the spell's force. No sooner than he had finished those few off, however, just as many began climbing out of the ground towards him.

Great. He couldn't keep casting magic forever!

He lifted the keyblade again, preparing another thunder spell.

"Hya!"

But his concentration shattered as a sharp cry rang through the air, and a dark figure fell from the cliff above. Its black wing spread out as it landed, a giant sword slicing clean through the heartless nearby. Another figure dropped next to the first and shot a ball of fire into one of the shadows looking to pounce Sora during his distraction.

Feeling the heat from the flames flying past him, Sora shuddered at the close call and turned his attention to the people who had just helped him. When they stepped out from the rock overhang into the remaining moonlight, he gaped as he recognized them.

"Leon!" he called. Then, in confusion: "...Cloud?"

Leon and Cloud looked perplexed to see him as well.

"Sora?"

"You're... a fish."

That last comment had been Leon's. Sora fell into a grin and lowered the keyblade. He had a feeling that this was going to take a lot more explaining than they had time for. "It's a long story."

"I'm sure," Cloud replied.

"At least you're okay," Leon sighed as he approached Sora and Riku. His eyes scanned Riku's unconscious form, and Sora protectively shifted to cover Riku with his tail, definitely not forgetting that Riku was naked at the moment. If Leon noticed the defensive gesture, he didn't comment on it. "How's Riku?"

"Alive..." Sora's fingers delicately traced through the tangles of Riku's damp hair, and his heart clenched as he realized that, with Leon and Cloud's arrival, he didn't have a reason to stay here with Riku. Ursula was still on the loose... and he was the one with the keyblade.

And in that moment, Sora knew his decision had been made for him. Though Ursula was working with Maleficent, and Maleficent was probably expecting him to work under her, and though fighting Ursula meant turning Maleficent against him, Sora couldn't let Ursula win, not after what she had done to Riku. He had to fight her, and when he did, he knew he would be going with Riku when they left the world. He wouldn't let Riku's sacrifice go to waste.

"Sora—"

Drawn out of his thoughts, Sora glanced up just in time to see Leon's gunblade aiming right at him.

Sora's eyes widened, and before he could even blink, there was a sharp burst—a bullet zipped past his head—and he whirled around to see a heartless dissipating into darkness. Had that thing just been about to attack him? Gah, he was going to have to start watching his own back now.

Despite his pounding heart, Sora glanced up at Leon with a sheepish laugh. "I thought you were going to shoot me."

"They're attracted to the keyblade," the older man said by way of explanation, then slipped his gunblade into its holster on his belt.

Leon was right, and Sora knew the heartless would be returning soon. Above them, the clouds continued to build, the thunder intensifying as the storm slinked across the water towards their empty beach, ever closer. This world really was in danger, and he had to wonder if it had anything to do with Ursula and the darkness from her cauldron.

Cloud stepped forward and stabbed his sword into the sand. It stayed upright, and he knelt beside Sora now that he had his hands free. "How long has he been out?" he asked as he began to take off his mantle.

"Oh... uh... ten minutes?" Sora estimated as he watched the man spread out the red cloth. He shifted off of Riku to let Cloud drape the mantle over him like a blanket, but as soon as Cloud was done, Sora moved close again to nestle against Riku's side.

Maybe it was the protective, worried way Sora continued to hold onto him, or just plain curiosity as to what Sora was doing as a half-dolphin with an unconscious Riku, but the question finally came.

"What... happened?" Leon wondered.

And so Sora took a deep breath and backtracked, attempting to make sense of the situation as he explained it to the older men. Though he left out most of the details, such as waking up to a clam lunch, getting attacked by a shark, racing through the kelp and ocean and playing with dolphins—he remembered all too well the details of his adventure with Riku leading up to that point. He focused instead on retelling what had happened with Ursula, the deal Riku had made with her, and how they had wound up stranded on the beach like this.

Though he had spoken for only a minute or two, the thunder had now grown into a continuous growl, a stomach-deep reverberation that put his nerves on edge. He sent Leon and Cloud an apprehensive look, and they exchanged grim expressions.

"Things are beginning to make more sense," Leon sighed. He plucked a small gadget off his belt that looked like a cross between a walkie-talkie and doomsday device, and he glanced at it. "So if this reading is the keyblade, the one we read earlier must be that trident you mentioned."

Sora studied the machine in confusion. "Reading?"

"Cid made us this ETD—an energy tracing device." He hooked the machine back to his belt. "When we got here, we used it to track two high energies, but one of them was underwater, and the other was towards land—here. So... we checked here first and found you." He lifted a brow. "We hadn't been expecting this, though."

"Merlin did mention that we would run into a few surprises here," Cloud noted quietly.

At the mention of the old wizard, Sora glanced between the two of them with surprise. "He did?"

"Yeah," Leon replied. "Apparently he can read the future."

"Sometimes," Cloud added.

Leon smirked at that. "He wasn't exactly clear about that part. Anyway..." He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. "We were supposed to be here earlier, but Merlin wouldn't let us leave until Cloud mastered some adaptation spell. Said we'd need it."

Adaptation spell? Sora couldn't help recalling Donald's miracle magic earlier. "Is that the transformation magic that Donald can use?" he asked.

Cloud nodded, and his wing shifted against his back as he rose to his feet and folded his arms. "Yeah. Morpha. Now I get why Merlin was so adamant about it..." He glanced down at Sora and his dolphin tail as if to make his point.

Sora wondered if that meant Leon and Cloud were going to take an undersea plunge as well, and he smiled at the thought of Leon having to take off his jacket just to get wet. He didn't seem like the water type.

And Cloud... Well, Sora wasn't even sure what Cloud was doing here. The first and last time he'd seen the man had been at the coliseum before he, Riku, and Yami had gotten stranded at Hollow Bastion. Had someone gone back to the coliseum and picked Cloud up? The way he and Leon kept adding on to each other's sentences, they seemed a lot closer than they had been before... But then, the last time Sora had seen them interact, they had been trying to kill each other in the tournament, and that had been weeks ago. Just how much had he missed while he had been at the bastion?

Curling his fingers into Cloud's mantle, Sora sat up a little more. "I have a lot to catch up on, don't I?" he asked with a sad smile. This time when Leon and Cloud exchanged glances, Sora got a bad feeling. "What? What's wrong?"

Leon's solemn expression did nothing to reassure Sora. "You're planning on coming back with Riku to Traverse Town?"

"I'd been planning on it, yeah," Sora replied hesitantly. He had to force himself not to pout as both of them avoided meeting his gaze. "Can't I? What's wrong?"

Cloud's wing shifted again, this time as if he were uncomfortable about something, but he looked as stoic as usual and said nothing.

Expectant, Sora then turned to the other man. "Leon?"

He met Sora's eyes finally, briefly, then released a heavy sigh and pressed a hand to his forehead. "You really don't remember it, do you?"

"Remember what?" Sora demanded, unable to hold back his pout any longer. "Tell me."

Now Cloud was watching Leon again, and for what seemed like minutes, neither of them responded—almost like they didn't want to be heralds of bad news. Then, finally, in a voice so low it sounded as though it should be reserved for a cemetery, Cloud spoke.

"Tell him."

Sora almost didn't hear it over the encroaching thunder. He swallowed against the sudden knot in his throat as Leon crossed his arms and regarded him, his tone just as grave as Cloud's and even more distant.

"A few days ago, you attacked the town," he explained. "Rather, the people think you did. Only a few of us know that it was actually Dark Sora."

Dark... Sora?

Those words sent a chill right through him that had nothing to do with the storm or the eerie calmness that had swept over the dark beach. He felt his stomach tighten as he mentally repeated the statement and tried to understand how it could have happened. He had attacked Traverse Town? Well, not him, but a dark Sora? How...?

"I don't understand," he said, sounding shaken. "A dark... me?"

"He called himself Id," Leon added solemnly.

And that's when it all fell into place.

With a gasp, Sora pressed a hand to his forehead. He remembered exactly when it could have happened—when Yami had spoken directly to Id, and Sora had blacked out and then woken up hours later in the library all exhausted, and Yami hadn't wanted to tell him anything. So that's what was going on during Sora's blackouts? Id was taking over his body and attacking innocent people!

Horrified, he curled his fingers into his hair, half expecting Id to show up and tease him about having no control over his own body. He didn't. No, after plaguing his mind for weeks, Id really had left Sora's head for now—and what a spot to leave him in!

Cloud's cold eyes narrowed at him in suspicion. "You recognize that name."

Before Sora could explain, there came a rush of cold air at his back as the storm arrived, all air and no rain, and he glanced up just in time to see the dark clouds swallow the pale face of the moon. The keyblade resting on top of Riku released a calm glow, but its light wasn't enough for comfort. Shadows stretched across the shore, broken only by the constant flash of lightning above, and Sora suddenly no longer wanted to be on the beach, but back in the safety of the sea.

The whisper of shifting sand behind him alerted him to the approach of nearly silent footsteps, and with a shiver, he drew closer to Riku and reached for the keyblade to dispose of the sneaky heartless.

"Sora has grown quite familiar with that name recently. Right, Sora?"

The hair on the back of Sora's neck stood on end as he instantly recognized the voice. Okay, definitely not a heartless! He twisted around in surprise, his eyes wide as lightning streaked through the clouds again and illuminated the beach long enough for him to spot Yami—Yami?—stepping toward him. The dissolving swirl of shadow behind Yami explained how he had gotten to this world, but Sora was more shocked that Yami had been able to find him here of all places.

Yami took one look at Sora's stunned expression and offered him a faint smile. "This world is beginning to perish, and the three of you are chatting here amongst the shadows?"

For a second, Sora was simultaneously filled with relief and dread—relief that Yami had found him and seemed okay after all, and dread because he was right. With this world in danger, they really had no time to talk, let alone time to resolve their problems...

"Ansem!"

...which seemed to keep multiplying. Apparently not everyone was going to take Yami's appearance well.

Cloud drew his buster sword from the sand and brought it forward as if preparing to attack.

Yami came to a stop beside Sora, and even through the darkness, Sora could see his face flicker with annoyance. "Do not call me by that lunatic's name," Yami responded in a frigid tone without even sparing Cloud a glance.

Another chill crept through Sora at the sound of his voice, but that was nothing compared to the hollow fear he felt when he heard Leon's low, dangerous growl and realized he had no idea what was going on anymore. He glanced from man to man with a complete sense of bewilderment, hushed by the sudden tension in each of them. Both Leon and Cloud looked ready to pummel Yami into the ground, but why? And why was Cloud calling Yami Ansem?

But even though he was the source of all this tension, Yami was the only one who remained unruffled by the situation. "Save that fighting spirit for someone else," he said as he cast a pointed gaze in Leon's direction.

Over the sound of thunder, Leon's growl only deepened, and when Sora saw him lifting that gunblade of his, he decided to intervene before Yami got into real trouble.

"Guys, it's okay!" he called from his resting spot against Riku. "He's with me—" He paused for a split second to glance at Yami, seeking his approval. "Right?"

Cloud nor Leon backed down, but they also didn't advance, which was good enough for Sora. He kept his focus on Yami and tried to remain hopeful.

Yami calmly met his gaze, a hint of gratitude in those strange eyes. He said nothing in reply, but Sora took that look as confirmation anyway. A lot of stuff had happened in the past day, but Sora hadn't forgotten what had occurred right before he had been abruptly snatched into this world.

He remembered everything—Beast's anger and his warning about Yami's screams, and what he himself had seen there in Ansem's old study: Yami curled up on the floor clutching himself in anguish, his eyes a strange brownish-gray and wild with panic. He also remembered how Yami had tried to grab him away from the spell that had taken him through the portal into Atlantica...

It was like, despite how much he and Yami should have been enemies, somehow Sora kept wanting to look out for him, and he was beginning to think Yami felt the same. Yami must have followed him to this world because he had been worried about him—why else would he have come all this way?

As the air and sand trembled around them from the advancing thunder, Sora studied Yami expectantly now, forgetting for a moment that the world was in danger and that their history with Riku still put the two of them at odds. After what he had seen yesterday, he wanted to ask Yami if he was okay, or at least ask him what had happened that had made him act like that, but as he propped himself up on Riku's chest to begin his interrogation, neither was the question that actually came out.

"How did you find me anyway?" he wondered. It had taken Yami a day to show up... but maybe that was because this was the first time Sora had been on land in all that time. Leon and Cloud had only found him because of that E..T... whatever device that Cid had given them, and he doubted that Cid and Yami were buddy-buddy enough for a repeat of that.

Yami hesitated at the question before slowly averting his gaze from Sora's. "Bright hearts are easy to find," he said, then tilted his head and frowned down at Sora. "What is this...?" Another crack of thunder resonated around them, and the only reason Sora had heard him at all was that he wasn't standing too far away.

Spotting what had caught Yami's interest, Sora realized Ursula's necklace had fallen into the sand on the other side of Riku, outside of Cloud's mantle where Yami could see it. It was still glowing, softly pulsating almost as if it were somehow alive.

And in that moment, as Yami crouched to retrieve the necklace, Cloud sprang forward to attack. There was no notice—no yell, no rustle of sand—just a branch of light piercing the clouds above, and Sora spotted Cloud's dark form closing in on them.

He cried out in warning just as the buster sword swung right for Yami's head.

Yami dropped to the ground, and the thick blade grazed past so close that its momentum swept his pale hair aside. As lightning illuminated the beach again, Sora saw Yami's dark sword swirl into existence, clutched in his hand, just in time to swing up and block Leon's gunblade as it too came cutting through the air.

Inches away from the fight, Sora winced at the sharp clang of the crashing weapons. The sparks gave him a snapshot of Yami crouched low on the other side of Riku, holding Leon and his gunblade back, but only barely. Sora instinctively pulled Riku farther away from them, never mind the effort it took, so long as Riku wouldn't get trampled by their careless egos.

The sky erupted with a series of rapid flickers, like multiple cameras firing one after the other, and Sora caught glimpses of the fight—the flat side of Cloud's buster sword slamming into Yami's shoulder, then Yami landing sprawled in the sand a few feet away, and finally the gleam of Leon's gunblade as it aimed directly at Yami's head. When the next strike of lightning hit somewhere down the beach, he saw Cloud's boot planted over Yami's neck to keep him pinned.

Scared now, Sora shifted through the sand towards them, already shouting, "What are you guys doing!? Yami didn't even do anything!" But his tail was too cumbersome to move, and with a frustrated sound, he curled his hands into the sand and raised his voice even louder. "Let him go!"

But either they weren't listening or they didn't care.

Cloud's voice was tight, unyielding—almost resentful. "Alright, Ansem..."

Sora couldn't see much except their silhouettes from here, but he heard a heavy exhalation in response to the use of that name—most likely Yami being exasperated again.

"What was your real mission for Id?" Cloud demanded. Gone was the subtle playfulness Sora had seen within Cloud just a few minutes ago; it was like he had reverted to the Cloud he had first met at the coliseum. "Why mess with my memories of Sephiroth?"

Thunder rumbled loudly around them, reverberating so heavily that, even through the sand, Sora could feel the vibrations against his stomach. He grabbed the keyblade before he pushed towards Yami and the others again, advancing a few inches by coiling his tail like a snake.

"Cloud!" he cried. "Cut it out!"

Yami's own voice had gained a venomous edge. "My name is not Ansem, and I am not permitted to—"

Ka-chik.

Another stream of lightning. Sora saw Leon releasing the safety of the gunblade's barrel.

"You're going to answer our questions," Leon said in a dangerous tone, right before thunder drowned everything out again.

Yami's eyes sharpened, focused on that gunblade, which Leon had leveled only inches away from his grim expression.

Lightning was a constant streak now, its jagged intensity leaving afterimages in Sora's eyes, and with each strike drawing closer, he felt his heart fluttering in his throat. Didn't any of them care that they could die out here?! He was worried, beyond worried—for Riku, for Yami, for the world, for Leon and Cloud—

"Guys, let him up!"

But his words faded beneath the rising thunder.

Again, the sky split into two, the light rendering the world as bright as day in that one split second—and it was in that moment that Yami's gaze caught Sora's, and those amber eyes widened.

"Sora—behind you!"

Only then did Sora recognize the cold tension that had been creeping into his bones. Darkness!

He twisted around without thought, Riku's keyblade already swinging to attack. The heartless that had been crouched beside Riku banished into shadow as the blade swiped right through it. Lightning illuminated the beach again, and when Sora saw how many heartless were climbing out of the sand around them, the reality of the danger struck him again.

Yami was right! Here they were on a dying world, and they were just talking and fighting instead of acting!

Sora moved faster now that real danger was here, and he pushed through the sand back to Riku's side to protect him. The keyblade sliced clean through two more shadows and cleared them from around Riku, who was still unconscious but thankfully untouched.

He heard the cushioned footfalls of someone—Leon—rushing through the sand, and felt the sudden breeze as the man leapt past them to take care of the rest of the heartless. The gunblade's strikes punctuated the silence between the swells of thunder, reassurance that Sora had his back covered now.

He returned his attention to Yami and Cloud, but the next burst of lightning revealed the unexpected: Yami was disappearing into melting shadow, right from beneath Cloud's foot.

He reappeared close to Sora in quick swirl of darkness, only visible because of the keyblade's soft glow. "What happened to your powers?" he asked Sora in a rushed whisper, and Sora's initial response was to draw a blank.

He squinted at him through the dark. "Huh?"

"The heartless," Yami clarified, "were they not under your command before?"

Half expecting Cloud's giant sword to come swinging towards Yami's head again, Sora glanced in his direction and saw nothing, but from the sound of it, Cloud had become too preoccupied with heartless to pursue Yami right away.

Sora thought about the question, then about Id and what his disappearance meant. "Well, Id was being stupid, so we had a fight, and Id took off—like a big baby!" he said. At first, Sora had figured Id had been a piece of him, like a darker half or something... but if Id could just leave like that and actually take powers away, then he seemed more like a separate person who just happened to have a link to Sora's body, mind, and heart. Creepy.

The crackle of flame again drew Sora's gaze to Leon, who was throwing a fire spell into the advancing heartless. He backed towards Sora without looking, his voice rising above the thunder. "We need to get off the beach!"

Then Leon turned, and both he and Yami looked at each other through the faint glow of Riku's keyblade. Sora half expected Leon to attack again, but instead the two men seemed to come to a silent understanding. Interrogations could come later; right now, there were more important things at stake.

Yami's dark sword returned to his hand, and he leapt over Sora's tail and rushed past Leon towards the heartless. "You have Riku! I will take care of the creatures."

If Leon disliked being told what to do, he didn't argue about it this time. He slipped his gunblade back into its holster and knelt beside Riku and Sora. "Cloud!" he called. "We're moving to the ship!"

"Gummi ship?" Sora asked. "Where is it?"

Leon scooped Riku into his arms, keeping Cloud's mantle carefully wrapped around his listless form. "Not too far down the beach, beneath an overhanging cliff."

In other words, much safer than here.

Cloud joined his side, buster sword in hand, and took one look at Yami fighting the heartless before dismissing him, as if deciding he wasn't worth the aggravation at the moment, to Sora's relief. Cloud focused on Sora instead, and through the keyblade's glow, he could see Cloud's lips form an amused half smile. "Need a lift?"

After thinking about it, Sora shook his head. "If the ship is by the water, I'll just swim there." He plucked Ursula's necklace from the sand and offered it to him. "But take this, okay? It belonged to the sea witch."

Cloud took it from him with a lifted brow but nodded. "Don't lose sight of us."

A swirl of flame appeared close to them, hovering obediently over an outstretched palm, and Yami met Sora's gaze. "I can lead you. Hurry and get to the water." He didn't even glance at Leon or Cloud to see it was okay for him to accompany them, but Sora was glad for his cut-to-the-chase.

As Sora worked his way down to the water alone, he looked over his shoulder once in a while to see the fire spell trailing along through the dark farther and farther down the beach as Yami followed close behind Leon and Cloud; and once in a while, as lightning flickered and filled the landscape with its snapshot flash, he saw all three of them in mid-run, Riku securely cradled in Leon's arms. That was enough reassurance for him.

He made it into the shore just as the men disappeared around the bend. The water flowed up around his sides and lapped along his tail and flukes in velvety licks as if welcoming him back, and he was glad for the rehydration—he hadn't noticed how dry he had become until he felt the low waves breaking against his sandy skin. The water was colder now that he had been out of it for so long, which couldn't have been more than a half hour since he had dragged Riku onto the beach, though Sora had no real way of knowing the time.

Still, however much time he wasted here was time spent leaving Ursula unattended.

He slid through the shallow water past rocky breaks in the waves, and when he crossed the first sandbar, he submerged. The waves here were more violent because of the storm, so he only resurfaced every minute or so to make sure he could still see Yami's signal fire. He caught up to them quickly despite their long head-start, and he swam along the shoreline towards the stretch of cliffs where they were headed.

The gummi ship was exactly where Leon had said it would be—resting on a tiny beach beneath a cliff face that had been worn away over time by wind and water, creating a perfect hidey-hole. The best part was that the water was relatively deep right up until the patch of sand, so as Leon, Cloud, and Yami reached the ship, Sora could linger in the water nearby and still talk to them.

The interior of the ship lit up as Cloud activated its ramp to lower it, and its light softly illuminated the surrounding area. Riku was still unconscious when Leon lowered him gently onto the ramp of the ship, but even from where he was, Sora could see that he was still breathing. At least he was in safe hands, now.

The uproar of the storm still hadn't subsided, but Sora kept picturing that same ball of darkness from Destiny Islands suddenly forming above them to swallow the world whole... The storm then had been like this one—sudden, fierce, without rain. Worst of all, he knew it was possible for it to happen here, if Ursula really had gone off the deep end. All that darkness, all those heartless... He didn't want a repeat of Agrabah.

Sora tightened his fingers around the keyblade. "I want to go fight," he announced. Another peal of thunder chased his voice, but he knew he had been heard when he saw the three men turn towards him. "I have to go fight."

Cloud nodded. "You have the keyblade."

You have the keyblade.

Those words, more than anything else, strengthened his resolve. Just because he hadn't been picked by the keyblade didn't mean he couldn't use it in Riku's stead. He had proven to himself that he could still be a hero despite Riku's position or situation. Sora had helped save Agrabah, hadn't he? So whether Riku realized it or not, he was counting on Sora.

"That's right." Sora lifted his chin. "I have the keyblade." And it was his turn to use it. Holding it close beside him, he glided back through the waves towards deeper water and shouted over the rolling thunder. "When Riku wakes up, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid!"

"Wait—!"

At the sound of Yami's voice, Sora paused before submerging and glanced back in his direction, wondering what was wrong. Had he forgotten something? Sora relaxed his tail and let the waves carry him back to the gummi ship. He came to a stop in the surf and propped himself up in the wet sand to better see the men. "What's up?" he asked.

Yami now stood at the waterline. "You're going alone?"

He sounded surprised, which struck Sora as unusual. But then... Maybe it was weird that Sora had been about to swim off straight into danger all by himself. That was more of a Riku thing to do—and if Riku had taught him anything from all of this, it was that acting alone probably wasn't a hot idea. That had gotten him turned into a little worm for Ursula's collection.

"Well... unless you want to come?" Sora said with ill-disguised hope.

The suggestion seemed to put Yami on the spot. He hesitated and glanced out into the dark sea, a frown weighing his expression. Sora could only guess as to what was so hard about making the decision—after all, Yami had followed him this far, so what would another adventure cost him?

Yami seemed to think the same. "Very well," he said at last, then knelt to begin unbuckling his boots.

Then Leon stepped forward. "You're not going alone." With a hand resting on the grip of his gunblade, he gave Sora a look that Sora recognized—the authoritative "listen to me 'cuz I know what's best" parentally-challenged look—except Leon wasn't his mom, and Sora was too old to need a babysitter. Besides, hadn't he been paying attention?

"Um... I'm not going alone," Sora pointed out. "Yami just said—"

"I meant, alone with him."

He couldn't be serious, could he? "I've been alone with him," Sora countered, not seeing the big deal, "for the past few weeks." And during those few weeks, Yami'd had plenty of opportunity to do awful things to him. As nice as their concern was, he didn't need their protection from Yami of all the forces out there. Plus, after what Yami had done with Riku, Sora knew better than to trust Yami with certain things. If Riku was going to stay behind, Sora wanted Yami to be in his sight.

Yami himself was barefoot now, his boots set side-by-side at the base of the gummi ship. His hands paused in the middle of gathering his long hair behind him as he glanced from Sora to Leon, silent for good reason.

Cloud, on the other hand...

"Leon's right."

All three of them focused on Cloud, who had taken perch on the ship's ramp, his elbows on his bent knees and his wing folded behind him. The unconscious form within his red mantle still hadn't stirred.

Once he had everyone's attention, Cloud sat up straight. "Besides, you might need his help."

The suggestion didn't go unnoticed. Leon suddenly didn't appear so sure anymore. "Wait—me?" he said, not a shred of happiness in his tone. He seemed downright cross now, but Cloud simply lifted a brow in challenge.

"I need to stay behind with Riku," he said, nodding to the motionless bundle beside him. Then a faint but roguish smirk pulled at his lips. "Who else knows the right spell to transform him?"

Touché.

From the looks of it, Leon knew there was no talking out of this one. He glanced from Cloud to Sora to Yami, then to Sora again and sighed. "Whatever. I'll go."

Sora still didn't think he'd need the help, but he decided not to argue lest he make Leon even grumpier. Besides, Cloud was right... an extra hand or two in bringing Ursula down couldn't hurt. "Alright. Then I'll wait for you guys past the second sandbar!" With a wave, he turned to slip back into the deeper water.

"Sandbar?" Leon asked. He was already pulling off his jacket, though reluctantly.

Oh, right. Not everyone had grown up near water. Traverse Town wasn't exactly beachy. Sora pointed out towards the bigger swells. "See where the waves are breaking? Around there, the water will get a lot shallower. I'll be waiting right past that, okay?"

Leon and Yami didn't respond to him but rather glanced at each other, Leon with his eyes narrowed and his jacket slung over an arm—not making a move to continue undressing, as if daring the other man to make a remark. Yami only averted his gaze and went about removing his own clothes. At least they weren't fighting anymore.

Cloud nodded to him, and Sora took that as his cue. He slipped back into the sea and didn't surface again until he was in position.

The waves here were deafening as they broke around him, louder than the thunder itself as the storm continued to split the sky with its formidable strikes. He managed to stay above the waves as he turned to check on Yami and Leon. From here, he could only see their silhouettes from the light of the gummi ship.

Yami's form was tall and lean as he stepped into the surf and started to wade into deeper water, and it took Leon a few seconds more to finish undressing before he followed after him, slightly taller and more muscular and still carrying his gunblade—and definitely keeping his distance from Yami.

On shore, Cloud stabbed his sword into the wet sand and waited for the other two men to reach a chest-high depth before he began the transformation spell—Morpha, they had called it? But—and maybe it was just him—Sora had been expecting something more impressive. All he saw was a shimmering orange light surrounding Yami and Leon, and then a large wave swallowed them before Sora could see them finish transforming.

That was when Sora remembered how abrupt his own transformation had been and realized that they might not even make it to the second sandbar without him. He dove underwater and used the keyblade's light to see ahead as he returned to his new companions. The glow didn't penetrate the churning water very far, but it did so well enough that, when he found Leon, he was able to get a clear look at his tail as the orange magic dispersed.

Leon's taut abdomen faded from peach to white, the white trailing down the front of his entire tail to the flukes, which were a dark charcoal fan that bled into fiery orange. From his hips downward, Leon's back and sides were also that deep charcoal, a sleek design faintly speckled with black. His dorsal fin was a rectangular flare of black ribbon tipped in orange, and he had a similar but fleshier fin below it, which Sora recognized as a distinctive catfish trait. How fitting.

With a laugh, Sora grabbed Leon's arm to help right him, because judging from the panicked flail he gave as the strong current knocked him backwards, he already wasn't doing too well on his own.

"Steady!"

"Trying," Leon snapped, but he let Sora help him, his other hand too busy clutching his gunblade. For someone who spent an awful lot of time in the secret waterway, Leon definitely didn't seem to like the water much.

Their mission momentarily forgotten, Sora turned his gaze towards Yami nearby, who was discernable enough through the water for Sora to make out his form as well. His was much simpler to distinguish than Leon's because Sora knew that a second dorsal fin and a vertical tail usually meant shark—except, even as a shark, Yami didn't look very dangerous.

His tail was a shade of chocolate darker than his own skin, with a stretch of white down his frontside that tapered into his fins, which then gently tilted into a L. They were solid brown except for their white tips, much like Yami's white-tipped dorsal fin. What made him seem less threatening than a real shark was how all of his fins sported a round edge, even rounder than a whale shark. Nope, not scary at all.

Especially when one push of the powerful current sent Yami tumbling back towards shore. His tail and arms thrashed at the water as he, like Leon, tried and failed to balance himself.

Mission to save the world or not, they wouldn't get anywhere until they learned how to swim properly. Sora supposed he was lucky that Riku had just sorta dragged him into learning, but even then, he had way more experience with water than either of these two. They probably didn't even know the difference between a rip tide and an undertow—either of which would be handy right about now. Deeper water would be easier on their untrained fins, and where there was a storm, there was probably an undertow that could drag them out to sea. He just needed to find it.

He gripped Leon's wrist harder and let the flow carry them to Yami, where he hooked his arm against Yami's before they could sweep past him.

"Gotcha!"

Yami's arm tightened against his with a silent but clear message: Don't you dare let go. Sora tensed his arm back in reassurance.

Then he caved into the urge to tease. "Guess you guys'll need some help, huh?"

Leon's withering look and Yami's averted gaze were all the answer he needed.

He couldn't hold back a grin at both of them. Keyblade in hand and two clumsy mermen at his side, he laughed and turned parallel to the current. "Just follow my lead, and you'll be experts in no time!"

Hopefully.

He kicked out, feeling them do the same right after, and together they awkwardly but surely made their way through the rolling sea. Though they had been fighting minutes before, Leon and Yami moved in harmony at his sides—silently, but Sora wasn't going to complain that they were quiet so long as they were actually working together.

He would find that undertow and get back to Ursula, and together they'd bring that witch down for good. And if Riku wasn't awake by then to fix the world, then...

Then...

He clutched the keyblade harder.

Then it's up to me.

-o-o-

The cold weight on his chest had changed. It no longer felt like a watery abyss pressing down on him or the tides threatening to sweep him away. There was something else there. Solid. But cold.

Very cold.

So weak...

It shifted against his chest, a caress of material against skin, and through the haze of his waking mind, Riku recognized the separate pressures of someone's fingers and palm centering over his heart. A glove. His pulse was strong beneath that hand—even he could feel it.

He was alive, somehow. And warm.

Something soft and worn enveloped his body tightly, smelling of dust and sweat, with just a faint trace of sandalwood beneath it. He deeply breathed it in and turned his face to the side, feeling more fingers slip slowly through his tangled hair and brush it out of his closed eyes. Somehow, it was a familiar touch. Comforting. Without words, it almost seemed to whisper promise of sanctuary.

The hand against his chest slid away from his heart and out of the cloth wrapped around him, and as it skimmed up to trail fingertips against his bare shoulder, goosebumps prickled along his arm and he shuddered. He curled himself into his makeshift blanket (whatever it was) and shifted onto his side away from the hand.

Instead of sand, his cheek met a plastic chill. Not what he had been expecting.

But then... he wasn't sure what he had been expecting.

His mind beginning to clear now, he cracked his eyes open and groggily focused on where he was.

The black tread of a ramp beneath him. The lit interior of a ship above him. A dark stretch of sand... and beyond that, the gray foamed surf of a stormy sea. Lightning flickered across the sky, and there—far away above the churning waves—a sphere of chaotic energy, an electric purple cloud growing within.

Darkness. It seemed to be the center of the storm.

And for just a moment, he thought he was dreaming of home again. The sea, the islands, the storm and the darkness and his desperation and Sora's fear... but the gummi ship's presence shattered the illusion. Sora must have brought him to shore. He was still near Atlantica...

Was this world dying? There hadn't been any heartless before, so why...? And why was there a gummi ship?

He sat up to ask Sora, but the movement sparked a sudden throbbing behind his temples and a deep ache within his bones.

"Agh..."

He clenched his eyes shut and rubbed at his forehead to try to ease the piercing pain. What the heck had happened to him...?

The crunch of footsteps against sand made him glance up again, and though his vision was swimming, he could have sworn he saw Cloud step into the ship's light.

"Cloud...?"

He didn't believe his eyes until the older man offered half a smile. "Thought I heard you. Guess I was right." He rested his buster sword against the side of the ramp and moved forward. For a second Riku was confused as to what was wrong about this picture—aside from Cloud being here in the first place—but then he spotted Cloud's wing folded behind his back where there was usually a cascade of red covering it.

That was when he recognized what had been covering him: Cloud's mantle. Oh man... He had the growing suspicion he didn't want to know what had happened for him to end up here like this.

Relieved either way, Riku swallowed against his dry throat and cracked a small smile back. If Cloud was here, so was Leon. They could save the world and finally go back to Traverse Town.

With Sora.

Who was being awfully quiet...

Riku pressed a hand to the ramp and glanced over his shoulder at Sora to see how he was fairing.

Only, no one was behind him. He was alone in the ship.

He fell still, bewildered at first, but then a deep chill washed over him as he thought about why he had thought Sora had been here. That hand on his chest, those fingers against his hair... The touch to his shoulder. He hadn't been imagining those, had he?

Unsettled, he looked to Cloud in question, who had drawn closer to him as if to check his forehead—but stopped. Cloud's hand froze in midair, then pulled back, his head tilting to the side and one of his brows furrowing like he could smell something Riku couldn't.

Riku stared at him, already apprehensive enough without Cloud's weird behavior. "What?"

Cloud hesitated, gaze distant for a few seconds. Then, with a dismissive shake of his head, he reached past Riku to rummage in a cargo sack right behind him. Even his tone seemed distracted. "How are you feeling?"

Riku's headache responded to that by pounding harder. "Could be better..."

"Which means you could be worse." Cloud dropped a blue vial into his lap. "Here."

A hi-potion.

A sigh of relief left Riku before he realized it. "You're a life saver..."

With a soft laugh, Cloud returned to rummaging. Riku drank the potion a few sips at a time, the pounding in his skull easing away and leaving his mind room to wake up, like a cat stretching after a long nap. Once he felt oriented enough to think straight, he turned his gaze out to the darkness swirling above the sea and knew this peace wouldn't linger very long.

How long had he been passed out? Too many questions, not enough time... That ought to be the story of his life.

He especially wanted to ask where Sora and Leon were, but he had a feeling he already knew the answer. They were off fighting without them already, probably. So... it was just him and Cloud here?

He finished the potion and nudged the empty vial against Cloud's arm, and as Cloud took it from him, Riku caught a glance of the man's hand. Even now, Riku imagined he could feel the remnants of a glove pressing against his chest. Cloud had a brass claw... but his other hand wore a fingerless glove.

"Cloud," he said without thinking, "were you..."

But when the man turned to him, he stopped himself. Cloud had been outside the ship when he had woken up, so it couldn't have been him, right? Maybe it had been another one of his vivid dreams...

Cloud's blue eyes were sharp, calculating. "Was I what?"

Riku shook his head and turned away. "Never mind." The chances of it happening again were slim, but if it did happen, he'd try asking about it. He didn't want to cause them more stress than what he already had.

Gathering the mantle closer around his hips, he prepared to stand when something fell from the bunched material and clunked against the ramp next to him. His heart jumped at what he saw starting to slide down the ramp.

Ursula's necklace!

He snatched it before it could escape too far and, his pulse now racing with anticipation, he lifted the shell to study it. It was lukewarm and emanating softly. He stared into its golden light, the rest of the world fading to the back of his mind as he thought about what he had sacrificed to bring Sora here.

These were his memories. Something so simple, yet had caused so many problems... Maybe Sora had been right. Maybe he had been too reckless and stupid.

But he'd had his time with Sora, and he was safe now. If he could just fix this world, maybe things could go back to the way they used to be, just him and Sora—this time the right way.

Giving up that string of memories, whatever it consisted of, had given him this chance with Sora, and for that, he wasn't so sure he wanted those memories back. What if he regretted all of this when he could remember what had driven him and Sora apart in the first place?

He closed his other hand over the shell to smother the light. Its faint glow seeped between his fingers, almost in reminder that even if he tried to bury the truth by keeping it forgotten, there was no telling if or when it would begin to trickle out again. Sora might not let him live this pleasant lie forever...

Besides, Sora may not have realized it, but Riku could tell the difference between Sora's genuine smiles and the smiles he gave only because he wanted to hide how hurt he was. He didn't want to see those and always wonder what Sora could remember that he could not that had hurt them so badly.

Deciding to keep the shell for now, Riku tied the black string around his neck.

When he glanced up again, he saw Cloud finishing off a heartless, and he realized he hadn't even noticed the heartless approach or Cloud retrieve his sword to dispose of it. Wow, he was still out of it...

Cloud slung the buster sword up and rested it against his shoulder. "Hm. They must be looking for stray hearts now," he said as he crossed the beach back to the ship.

Riku drew his hair out from beneath the necklace. "What else would they be doing?"

"Following the keyblade." Cloud rested a hand on his hip, casual as if the world wasn't dying and full of heartless, and when he saw Riku's frown, he explained. "Sora has it. Said something about a sea witch. Leon went with him." Then his voice darkened. "And Yami."

Yami...

The sound of his name made Riku's stomach clench.

Why would Yami be here? Something about that bothered him, like he should be mad or upset that Cloud would let Yami go with Sora, but he couldn't figure out why. Yami was working with Maleficent just like Sora was, right?

Wait, no... Sora had denied working for the witch. Then what did that mean about Yami...?

And since when could Sora use his keyblade?

Cloud must have recognized the confusion there on his face because a thin smile pulled at his lips. He didn't look too happy, but he seemed amused enough. "We have a lot to discuss," he commented as he stepped closer. Riku was about to agree, but Cloud continued. "But first—"

He suddenly grabbed hold of the mantle wrapping Riku and, with a fierce jerk, stripped it right off of him. The momentum of Cloud's yank sent Riku off balance, and with a cry and a flail, he rolled off the ramp and into the sand naked, his ass in the air.

"HEY, what the—!"

But Riku's angry outburst was cut short when Cloud plunged his sword into the sand and quickly summoned a spell. A very familiar spell. In fact, Riku had only been aware that Donald could use transformation magic.

Riku sent Cloud an incredulous look as the orange magic surrounded him. Then it kicked in, and he felt his body seizing as his bones painlessly began to shift inside of him, popping out of place, some dissolving, and more muscles developed in his legs as his skin began to meld together. Silver scales ran down the length of his new tail, and his feet tapered off into his translucent flukes before he felt his dorsal fin pierce his back, followed by his other fins along what used to be his thighs.

When the change was complete, Riku stretched his tail in the sand, feeling even more out of place than he had when just naked. He propped himself up to give Cloud a piece of his mind—that he should at least give Riku a warning next time—but his words died in his throat when he saw Cloud slipping out of his shirt and working his wing through the slit in the back. His armor and claw were already in a pile on the ramp where Riku had been sitting moments before.

Was he coming with Riku?

Cloud paused with his glove dangling from his mouth to meet Riku's stare. The question didn't even have to be asked. Taking the glove out of his mouth, Cloud dropped it and his shirt into the pile before he reached into the ship and retrieved a thin scabbard. So that's what Cloud had been rummaging around for a few minutes ago. Riku recognized it as Sora's sword, Einlanzer—he felt like he hadn't seen that thing in ages, which made him wonder how Cloud could have known it would be needed. While Riku could just summon his keyblade, Sora didn't have a weapon available...

"Merlin said that we might need this," Cloud sighed. "Now I get why." He tossed the sword into the sand in front of Riku. "You're going to need it, especially if Sora has the keyblade right now."

Not liking the idea of letting someone else use his keyblade, Sora or not, Riku began to protest. "But I can just—"

"What?" Cloud challenged, his dark wing spreading behind him. "Call it back to you and leave Sora defenseless out there? That's a sure way to get him killed. Or worse."

Riku fell silent.

He tried to be angry or think of a good counterargument, but... Cloud was right.

As if letting Riku contemplate the truth of his statement, Cloud resumed undressing. The clinking of his belts could be heard beneath the rumble of thunder, which had remained a consistent growl since Riku had woken up. The storm of darkness would probably spread soon, maybe even begin to consume the world... like Snow White's. Like Agrabah. Like Destiny Islands.

Right now, Sora was the one out there fighting for this world. Didn't he need the keyblade more than Riku?

That thought in mind, Riku closed his hand around Einlanzer's scabbard and drew the sword out of its sheath, meeting his reflection in its fine blade. He didn't look like much of a hero, but... neither did Sora. Yet Sora's instincts had always been faithful. He followed his heart, and always had, even back home...

The one who was inclined to take that one step too far or get them into trouble or somehow hurt... That had always been Riku. He would never admit it to Sora, but Riku knew that Sora was probably a far more reliable hero than he ever would be.

Duty versus Happiness. Riku wanted to choose both, but in the end, he always seemed to lose both. Sora would want to choose both as well, but unlike Riku, he would probably make the right decision.

Maybe it was time Riku got his priorities straight, too.

-o-o-

When they reached deeper waters, Sora hadn't been expecting much light to see by. It must have been a few hours since sunset, but with how the storm raged on above, he knew there would still be no moon, not after how it had been smothered by the clouds...

Yet the farther they traveled from shore, the more visible things became. After a while he was able to see Leon and Yami clearly even when they strayed several meters away. Somewhere, something was giving off a lot of light.

It wasn't until Sora surfaced to find their bearings that he noticed the ball of darkness hovering almost directly above them.

As it turned out, the darkness itself was that source of light—not the usual kind of light light, but a surreal purple glow. With its crackling lightning, it almost seemed like the storm itself had been drawn into the darkness or was growing within it. Storm clouds had been covering the dark sphere before, but now it hung in the margin of clear sky like a dark moon had descended upon the sea. The eye of the storm. Just like Destiny Islands... He had been afraid of this.

He had a feeling this darkness would lead him straight to Ursula.

Yami and Leon had surfaced beside him, near each other without realizing, and both of them observed the darkness above—Leon grim-faced, but Yami calm and guarded, as usual.

His amber eyes, tainted by the purple aura of the darkness above, turned to regard Sora with purpose. "If the heartless reach the keyhole, this world will begin its degradation, and you will be unable to help it."

"Then we better hurry," Leon noted, but spoke to Sora instead. "Are you up for this?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah..." Then he glanced back up at the darkness with a frown. "I don't get how it can give off so much light. It's... darkness."

"Darkness is energy," Yami explained. "Just like fire or magic. If it is concentrated enough, it will give off an aura. ...I have also heard that, even in the deepest darkness, there is always a light within."

If light could exist in darkness that deep, Sora wondered if that meant heartless had some light inside of them, too.

As if recognizing the saying, Leon narrowed his eyes in Yami's direction, and that was when Sora decided it was time to move on. He didn't need the two of them to start another fight with each other when there were heartless and a sea witch to take care of.

Sora turned, only pausing to glance back at his companions. "Let's go."

Averting their gazes, Leon and Yami silently moved to follow.

The three of them submerged and continued deeper into the sea, this time with the darkness as their guide.

-o-o-

---

Please, if you've read this far, don't be shy. Review? I pour my heart into this story more than any other, and your words encourage me to continue trying my absolute best, especially now as we draw closer and closer to the end after years of hard work.

This chapter took so long because I had to solve dozens of tiny little problems I had accidentally created for myself. Thanks, self. I had sorta forgotten that Leon and Cloud wouldn't accept Yami very easily, haha. After a while it felt like I was manipulating pawns on a chess board.

To satisfy curiosities, Leon's fish form is a redtail catfish (I was going to go with lionfish, but it was too flashy), Cloud will be sort of a plecostomus algae eater (thought it would go well with his wing), and Yami's is an oceanic whitetip shark (with colors to match his hair and skin).