Riku back there again to post the chapter. Hikari went ot sleep and I had things to do, but the chapter is here at least! Hope you guys enjoy!
Chapter 11
The darkness had grown stronger, and Riku knew full well that it was going to get out of hand soon enough. He had tried his best to keep it at bay from the start, trying to keep it balanced with his light. It was doing all right, but slowly Riku had tried to keep it hidden and down, which only let it grow stronger.
It was a bit troublesome, but nothing he couldn't handle. Though that all ended up going south once he remembered being Ira, after that his balanced was terribly skewed and he hadn't been able to mend it back. From that the darkness had gotten even worse and was close to overpowering him even if he kept his blindfold on.
Holding it back too all of his energy and strength, and it was starting to wear him down. He sighed heavily before he began pacing around his room, trying to get the jitteriness out of him one way or another.
'There has to be something we can do at this point,' Terra commented. 'I just can't figure out what it would be.'
"Well whenever you think of something, I would be glad to hear it," Ira replied with heavy sarcasm.
'First you need to calm yourself, getting upset only makes it worse. Ira, you need to try to listen to yourself, to Riku. As Riku you are more understanding of the situation. Yes neither side of you wanted this to happen, but Riku isn't trying to continually still force it away.'
"I know that…" Riku muttered quietly. "It's still hard though, to know that it's come to this. That either way the darkness is going to overpower me…"
'Even with that you will still be yourself, Xehanort's Heartless is gone, only the darkness is left. The only major part of all of this, is that the darkness seems to be trying to transform you into him physically, but not mentally. You will still be you even if it happens…"
"But I do not want that to happen! Do you understand how much of a disgrace as a forteller I would be if this were to happen to be back then?" Ira questioned.
'It doesn't matter Ira! Listen for once!' Aced yelled back. 'All of that is in the past. None of what you speak of matters anymore. The thing that matters is the life you have now and how you shape it from here.'
"I still have a right to be upset! It's only been a day since Roxas was placed in the simulation and the darkness has already-"
A knock from the door stopped Ira from finishing.
"Riku?"
With a few deep breaths, Riku made his way over to the door and opened it. "Yeah, Namine?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing, you've kept yourself in your room since you brought Roxas back."
"Just lost in thought again," Riku halfheartedly said before sighing. "Sorry…"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Riku shook his head. He wanted to calm down from his rant he had just had, not give any more fuel to it. "Nah… it's okay. Maybe later though."
Namine nodded in understanding, before speaking up after a moment. "Uhm, Riku, would you be willing to answer a question or two about your past memories?"
Riku raised an eyebrow slightly. He hadn't expected Namine to ask something like that. With what was going through his head, he did feel a bit disjointed, but he didn't want to turn Namine down. He could only figure that she was either curious or had something that she learned from Sora's memories.
"Sure," Riku said as he took a seat his bed. "What do you want to know?"
"In your previous life, did you ever come across Roxas, well, someone identical to him?"
Riku-Ira's eyes when wide. "Wait… what? Roxas? I don't…"
He trailed off as he tried to process this new information. "Why do you ask? I assume you may have seen someone in Sora's old memories?"
"There was a young boy. His outfit differs from what Roxas wears when not in the Organization cloak, but his face and hair are an exact match. Though maybe a bit younger."
"Do you think… that it could…" Riku tried to finish his thoughts, but once more he trailed off, trying to understand it all.
'It's possible I suppose. Given what we know so far. Ventus could be from that time as well.'
"But how? That's what I don't understand… how he would still look the same from the two times."
'Apparently Marluxia still looks the same as he did in his old life as Lauriam. On top of that has nearly the same name only slightly differed.'
"But then… who's union? Clearly not either of ours."
Riku looked at Namine again, ready to figure out more on this new development. "Did you happen to see anything else about him that could be more insightful. I mean this is already, but it's hard to go off on where he could have been in the unions."
"Half of his jacket is mainly white, with black accents while the other half is reversed in coloring. His pants are shades of brownish grey, the upper half is darker than the lower."
'That's exactly what Ventus wears!' Terra exclaimed.
"So strange…" Riku ended up muttering aloud without even realizing.
"Did you know him?"
Ira shook his head. "I'm afraid not, but I do know of him. Not from that life though, ah… it's a little hard to explain right now. Someone I knew from back then knew him though… technically. Again I am not sure how to explain this, but do know this, he seems to have connections to this like all the rest of these things."
'You could be more specific than that. It's not going to harm her to know more.'
Riku nodded his head slightly. "I don't know how to explain it too well, but to summarize it lightly… Ventus is why Roxas looks like that rather than Sora."
"Ventus?"
Riku nodded. "Yes, that's what his name is. The boy who looks like Roxas."
Namine started to speak again, most likely to ask another question, but Riku never heard her words. Instead a vigorous pain surged suddenly through his body. All his senses became blurred and felt out of place. He breathed heavily as the room began spinning.
The darkness was trying to reach through him and take over again. Another sudden attack trying to break through. It was trying to take control and change him. Once more just like all the times before, but this time felt worse, way worse. He let out a cry as he felt the darkness prickled through every inch of his body.
With all of his senses being thrown off, there wasn't so much he could do. He did know one thing though. He could hear a voice shouting… shouting something.
Who was shouting? He couldn't tell, his mind wasn't allowing him to focus that deeply anymore. All his focus was on the pain and how much it was hurting him.
Though maybe there was more than one, more than one person shouting to him. It was still too hard to tell, too hard to focus.
Slowly he could no longer hold on to his senses, and everything began to fade into darkness.
I know it is a bit shorter than usually, but this is what we could figure for this chapter. Either way it's a cliffhanger! Heh. Thanks for reading!
