Enamis09: Yes, normal, 16 year old Meli would definitely not be even thinking about murdering people. That's the darkness talking, not her. Your theory is pretty cool! It's actually just regular ol' darkness controlling her, though. She just finally got to the point where she used so much of it and was so entrenched in dark emotions that it took over.

Hcbnc: Well technically, he doesn't have to kill anyone to get the final key. He only has to clash with someone. So there are a number of ways that it could still happen!

DyingofFeels: Glad you don't mind the change! I think Kairi deserves a better chance than what canon gives her.

xOneskyx: Ha I do that sometimes, too. I've always been a really fast reader. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much, though, and find it exciting!

Coolmegan123: Yes, definitely some foreshadowing going on in that chapter! (even though I haven't totally figured out what exactly is going to happen with that guy in the next book...*sheepish face * I'm hoping Re:Mind will give me some ideas) I'm glad you were good with the change from canon! I figured, since I had added a whole new character to the mix, it was about time that she actually changed the story a little.

A/N: Alright, I left you guys hanging a bit there last time, and I know everyone is anxious to find out what's gonna happen next (I'm anxious to share this chapter, too!), so here we go!

I awoke to nothing but black surrounding me. If I lifted my hand, I could see it clearly, but the rest of wherever I had ended up was shrouded by complete darkness, and a black fog covered the surface that I sat on, lapping up over my hips and feet. Immediately I could tell that this was not part of the normal world that I was used to living in, though I wasn't sure whether it was a dream, or a vision, or perhaps I had been transported into some other realm.

I had only seconds to process all of this before the emotions hit. There were so many at once that it was impossible to identify any one of them. All I knew was that I was drowning, and I clawed frantically at my face and chest in some desperate attempt to get them away from me. I tried to stand, but couldn't seem to make it to my feet. I was being dragged down, weighted by despair, pulled into the fog as if it wanted to consume me.

Tears streaked down my cheeks and I buried my face in my knees, rocking myself back and forth. I didn't know where I was, or how to escape, and the tidal wave of emotions was overwhelming my brain so that I couldn't even begin to think of what to do. After a minute, instinct from the last several days kicked in, and I tried to start shoving everything down inside, but that only seemed to make the forces outside my body swell angrily, as if I was adding to the problem instead of fixing it.

"Help!" My voice was a weak croak into the echoing chasm around me. "Please, someone help me!"

"Meli!"

I looked up in time to see Riku drop from the black sky and land in a crouch several yards away. "Grim!" I gasped. "What are you doing here? Where are we?"

Straightening, he turned his head slowly from side to side, taking in our surroundings, before locking his gaze on me. "I'm sorry, Meli. I had Mickey put you to sleep so that I could dive into your heart. It was the only way we could think of to get through to you."

"This...this is my heart?"

"Yeah." His mouth was set in a firm line. "I just...I just finished fighting through your memories to get here." He motioned up toward where he had fallen from. "All of your darkest memories, that is."

"What?" One emotion, fear, rose above the rest and stabbed through my chest with such force that I winced in pain. "What do you mean? What did you see?"

He hesitated before answering. "Everything." Fear assaulted me again, and he sighed. "At least, I sure hope it was everything. Because if there was more than that..." He shook his head sadly. "I saw some stuff from your childhood...and Aiden...all the things he used to do to you..."

Anger burned inside of me until I thought I might actually catch fire.

"I saw...myself...as Ansem..."

Shame threatened to pull me down into its abyss and suffocate me.

"I saw..." His jaw twitched, and he drew in a deep breath. "I saw Saix."

Panic dug its familiar talons into my throat, choking me, and fresh tears poured from my eyes.

"I could feel all of it, too...I doubt it was anything near what you felt, but I felt the pain, and the fear, and all of the other emotions."

"Can you feel them now?" I whispered.

He nodded. "Like I said, it's nothing like what you're feeling, I'm sure. But a little bit, yes. I...have a feeling this is the result of you suppressing all of these emotions so much."

I dropped my forehead down onto my knees. "So I asked for this, in other words."

"No." I heard him grunt, and glanced up to see that one of his legs was wrapped in a black rope. He tried to pull his leg away, but it wouldn't budge. Finally he summoned his Keyblade and chopped the rope off from the bottom, and it promptly dissipated into mist.

His eyes met mine again. "No, you didn't ask for this. You wanted me to understand why you chose the darkness, and...I think I finally do. The memories didn't just stop at Saix. I saw other things, too – the panic attacks, the nightmares...feeling like you were being left behind and forgotten...feeling lonely and misunderstood...feeling rejected by everyone. I get it now. I thought I understood you before, and I really didn't, and...I'm so sorry."

Unidentified emotions shook my body, and I couldn't even answer for a moment. The implications of everything he was saying were too much for me to comprehend. My mind stuck on one fact, though, no matter what he said. "But...but it is my fault. I've been...I've been such an idiot, Grim!" More tears slipped out as I finally started to see the truth for the first time. "I never should have let the darkness in. You were right, I did know where it would lead, but I refused to listen. I should've...I should've told all of you what was going on, from the very beginning, and maybe...maybe then none of this would have happened. I'm so...I'm so sorry." I hid my face again, overwhelming shame making its way back to the forefront.

Riku was quiet, and for a second I wondered if he was going to agree with me, if he was going to tell me that yes, I had been an idiot, and maybe it wasn't worth his time to be here after all. "I do wish you had talked to us. I think you – and everyone else – could have been spared a lot of pain if we had just known what was going on in your head and heart. None of us would ever reject or abandon you, Meli. We love you, and we always want to be there for you."

I nodded against my knees, then lifted my head to look at him again. "I know. I know that...now. I just...I was so blinded by all the...everything, that..." I trailed off, reorienting my thoughts. "And I'm just so used to nobody caring. It's...I'm still adjusting, to having people actually care."

"I know. Believe me, I know that now more than I ever have before." He took a deep breath. "My point was, though, that I do understand why you tried to squelch your negative emotions. I can't say I've never wanted to do the same things before, and you, well...you've had enough of them to last you a lifetime." He tried to take a step forward, and another black rope rose out of the fog at his feet and wrapped around his other leg.

It doesn't want him to come near me. "Grim, be careful," I called in a wavering voice.

Chopping this one off like the first, he stood still again for the moment. "I saw Zephyr, too," he continued quietly. "I definitely wish you had told me that."

I was immediately swallowed up in grief, so strong that it was like I was still holding his dead body in my arms. "It's all my fault that he's gone! He would still be alive and living happily at home if I had just left him alone!" A sob wrenched from my throat. "How am I gonna tell his mom? He was all the family that she had."

"Meli..." Riku tried to run to me, but he couldn't get ahead of the darkness that wanted to hold him back. Two more ropes tied both of his legs in place. Growling in frustration, he cut one off and took another step, only for the leg to be captured once again. A third strand twisted around his left arm. When he reached to slice that one off, another grabbed his right wrist and jerked it down, winding its way up the arm and preventing any further use of his Keyblade.

"Grim!" My grief was quickly replaced by fear. I tried standing again, but the same black cords latched onto both my arms and yanked me back down onto my hands and knees. They were ice cold, sending chills down to my very core. "I can't...it's too strong!" The darkness, the fear, all of it. It was like Riku had said, it was eating me alive, right here in my heart, and for the first time I realized that this could be it. There might not be any hope left for me.

I could see the cords snaking further around Riku's body, winding onto his shoulders and chest, and could feel them doing the same to me. I was trapped. For all the times that I had wanted to die before, now I finally didn't. But more than anything, I didn't want Riku to have to die here with me. "Maybe...maybe if you back up away from me it will let you go. You should get out of here if you possibly can."

"I'm not leaving you."

"I don't deserve for you to save me, Grim, even if you could." My mind started flitting back over the things I had done that day, nearly taking my breath away with the shock of realization. "I deserve for the darkness to take me. I'm the one that let it in, I'm the one that let it take over. If I had just listened to what you were all trying to tell me..." I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes again. "All of that time that I hated you for hurting me when the darkness took you over, and today I did the exact same thing. I turned on the people I care about the most...you, and Kairi..." I gasped as I remembered. "I think I hurt Sora!"

"Sora's a tough guy, he'll be fine. And we all know that you didn't mean it." He struggled against the ropes, but they only tightened. "No one deserves to die for a mistake. You can make it out of this. Don't give up hope."

"I don't know how!" I sobbed.

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Even when we get out of here, there's still going to be darkness left in you, there's no way you can get rid of every shred of it. There will always be a bit of a struggle." One side of his mouth lifted in a sympathetic smile. "But I've got the same problem, remember? We can struggle through it together."

The cords had made their way up my back and now began to creep over my shoulders and down my chest. Craning my neck up, I looked him in the eye as my tears spilled over. "Why do you always keep fighting for me? I love you for it, but...I'm not worth it."

He paused, considering his words, before answering. "I've always fought for my friends. It...keeps me going, makes me feel like I'm worth something." Quirking one eyebrow at the look of surprise on my face, he smiled a little. "Yeah, I don't always feel like I'm worth anything either, remember?"

"I know," I murmured. "It just always surprises me, because...you mean so much to me."

Riku nodded. "And that's where I think the true measure of worth lies. I know you've been fed a lot of crap over the years about your value, but that's in the past. Those people didn't value you. But now you have people who do. You're worth something to Sora and Kairi, don't you think? To your mom and dad? You find that hard to believe, I realize, but they didn't have to choose to be friends with you, or adopt you, and they did."

He stopped to think again. "I'm worth something because you and my other friends say so, even if I don't always feel that way. And you...you're worth everything to me." His voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat. "Someday, I hope that will be enough to outweigh all the lies from the past. In the meantime, I'm going to keep fighting for you every second, and keep reminding you how loved you are whenever you forget."

I swallowed past the huge lump in my throat so that I could whisper a reply. "Right back at'cha."

Rotating his head, he took in all of the darkness around us. "Unfortunately, I don't think I can do the fighting this time. I think this is gonna be up to you."

My eyes widened. "What? I can't...I don't know how!"

"Come on, Miss 'I Can Control Darkness'," he smirked. "I saw you picking the stuff up and throwing it at people earlier. You can do it. Clear this out of here!"

I blinked, uncertain. "You want me to...use a dark power...to get rid of the darkness? Is that gonna actually work?"

He shrugged as well as he could with the cords holding down his arms. "Can't say I'm an expert in doing things this way, but...it's worth a shot, right? We're in your heart, and this darkness clearly doesn't want me around. I have a feeling that it's gonna need to be you who takes charge here."

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my quaking nerves. The icy strands of darkness that were inching around my skull and onto my face were not helping with that any. "Yeah, okay. I'll try."

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on feeling the darkness that was all around, seeing it in my mind. First I singled out the ropes that were binding me, visualizing them unwinding. To my surprise, I actually felt them doing so. My vision zoomed over to Riku, and I heard him let out a sigh of relief as I forced the cords off of him as well. With my hands now free, I stretched them out in front of me, willing away the fog that covered the ground. Even behind my eyelids I could see the room lightening. The heavy, choking feeling of all of the negative emotions lifted, as well, still present but very faint.

When I opened my eyes a moment later, there had been a complete transformation. It was still dark all around us, but now I could see that we were on a round, stained glass-looking platform. Is that...me? As I rose unsteadily to my feet, I could better take in the whole thing, from the image of myself, eyes shut and with Sorrow's Promise in my hand, to the background of Destiny Islands, to the faces of my friends near mine, all framed in various shades of purple.

"This looks much nicer." Riku gave me a wide smile. "Great job, Sunshine."

I ran to him, burying my face in his chest, and he wrapped his arms so tightly around me that it almost hurt, but I didn't care. "I'm so sorry, for everything."

"I'm so sorry, for leaving you alone for so long," he murmured into my hair. "Remember that whole, 'I'm not letting you out of my sight for at least a week' thing? It starts right now."

"Good. I'll expect my 'every minute and a half' kisses, then, too."

He chuckled. "Okay, well...every minute and a half when not in the middle of a battle, how about that? Don't want either of us getting killed because we're distracted by kisses."

I sighed dramatically. "Okay, fine."

"Speaking of which..." Riku leaned back a little, and I looked up at his face. "This next bit is gonna be difficult. Just because the darkness has been cleared from here, doesn't mean you're not still in danger. It just means you're back in control. Which is great, of course, but...you need to not use any more darkness until we can get through today and figure out how to better help you."

My eyebrows crinkled. "But...I mean, I know, I get it...but I'm not sure if I can. Without darkness, I'm–"

"Back to fighting fair and square, like the rest of us?" he teased.

His attempt to alleviate my worry didn't work. "No, I don't...I don't have any more light magic. Dark is the only kind I've been able to use lately."

"So you'll have to only use physical combat." Riku nodded knowingly. "It'll be tough, I know. But I have faith in you. We can stick together and help each other out, okay? And if you get too tired, don't be ashamed to take a break if you can. Everyone will understand."

I blew out a long breath. "Okay. I'll try."

He raised one eyebrow. "At the risk of sounding like I'm lecturing you, you've gotta do more than try. You may be one wrong move away from this same thing happening again."

"Okay!" I put on the bravest smile I could muster. "No dark powers. I promise."

"Good. Now let's get out of here." Summoning his Keyblade, he lifted it above his head and pointed it up at the sky.

A/N: I had this chapter in my mind for so long, then when it actually came time to write it I was like, how. How do I turn this into words. I could visualize it, but trying to make it so that you guys could, too, was a challenge! I hope it worked!

Speaking of visualizing...artwork! Check out Meli's Station of Awakening here (remove spaces and replace dotcom with the real thing): instagram (dotcom)/ p/B7WT-llA7Xg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Or go to the instagram app and search for actress4Him.

So, this chapter should hopefully have satisfied some of what you guys were looking for. It definitely marks a turning point in the story. We actually only have 2 chapters left after this! Aaahh! Can you guys believe it? I can't! It seems like it's gone by so fast. Guess that means I really need to get busy with writing the next book...hehe.