Riku walked through the door from the castle onto the captain's quarters of an all to familiar ship. "This is Captain Hook's ship." He observed, standing over an empty bed, looking past the window towards the islands in the distance under the night sky. Even though this was another place filled with negative memories, he couldn't help but recall the former momentary joy he felt when he first arrived in this world.
Clawing his heart, he took a deep breath as he turned towards the door leading onto the main deck. Just like the other worlds before, he could sense a powerful dark Aura drawing him towards it as it radiated that disgusting smell of darkness.
He summoned his weapon in hand, taking another glance back to the night sky behind him.
"No turning back now." He said to himself as gripped his weapon of darkness.
"What's happening to Sora?" Vexen asked, rapidly typing coding on the monitor, the fruits of his labor almost coming into fruition.
"Naminé's powers are being used to shuffle his memories as we speak. Marluxia may well succeed in getting his puppet. As it stands now, Sora would be a valuable asset to the Organization..." Zexion trailed off for a moment, upset with this turn of events, but soon regained his composure. "But the actions of Marluxia and Larxene, they-leave me quite uneasy. And then there is Axel. Who knows what that one is thinking..."
"What would you have me do? Considering you have opted to facilitate my time with the actions of our fellow members." Vexen asked.
"You despise Marluxia do you not? Think of the repercussions of his actions if left unchecked."
" I haven't the time or energy to care what Marluxia is scheming, nor with his project or lackeys. However, if you are so concerned, I suppose I could, interfere, with Marluxia's little experiment." Vexen remarked waving his hand to save the giga-ton of data he had uploaded to the computer. "The boy Riku is proceeding far to fast for my liking. Should he and Sora make contact as things are right now, Naminé's work would be hindered even further. And that would benefit no one."
"Perhaps you replica could play it's part." Zexion suggested as Vexen opened up a door to darkness.
"That would be foolish. As it stands, my replica is still only in it's experimental stage. To push it towards combat now would render all of the work done so far, worthless." He said, standing before the portal, "No, I shall handle this myself for the time being. I've been wanting to meet the Champion of Darkness for some time now.
"Do be careful, if he truly carries the scent of the leader-"
"I am fully aware of the situation Zexion. But rest assured, all I do is for the advancement of the Organization." Vexen proudly remarked as he walked through the portal with a sinister smile on his face.
Riku withdrew his weapon as the memory of Hook fell into darkness. In his hand appeared the card to unlock the next level. Right on cue, a white door appeared before him as he stepped through without a second through.
For a moment he was blinded with light, just as the other doors. But this one was different. When he opened his eyes, he realized that he was standing upon the edge of the clock tower, overlooking a large city.
"This is..."
Riku's gaze drifted towards the full moon before him, shinning amidst the darkness. He reached towards it instinctively, trying to grasp it's fleeting light as he replayed the memory within his head. For a moment he hesitated, turning back to where Sora should have been. His body limp, eyes glazed over, but it was still him, his best friend.
But nothing was there.
Not even gifting him a fleeting vision of a friend as this castle had done for Kairi. If this place, this castle was suppose to replay the most important memories in his head, why hadn't he seen his friend yet. He glanced down to his hand, unable to capture the light, still radiating the dark aura of Ansem.
"Did I hurt so you so much, that even in my memories you're trying to escape me?"
Riku asked himself, grasping his hand tightly as he could still feel the overwhelming hopelessness he had felt as he realized his friend would never awaken.
Notes:
Riku's arc chapters are way shorter. Boy didn't get a lot of dialogue on his side. :T