Riku yawns as he opens his eyes, before squinting them again to get used to the sun. He sits up, pressing his hands against the sand of the beach. He looks around and notices Kairi sitting on the palm tree looking at the open ocean. Kairi, perhaps feeling the sense of somebody watching her, turns to see Riku awake. She smiles and hops down from the raised island and sits next to her childhood friend.

"How's your shoulder?" asks Kairi

"Better now. . . still sore though." Riku complains, rubbing the area on his shoulder where Sephiroth had stabbed him.

"That's good. You'll be up and ready to beat up heartless in no time!" says Kairi optimistically.

Riku cracks a smile. "Yeah. . ." he says before returning to a brooding expression as he stares over the ocean.

Kairi sighs, she knows what's on his mind. "Still thinking about Roxas?" she asks. Riku nods in response.

"I'm just so tired of him. No matter where we go he's constantly glaring at me like my mere existence is a pain to him. I'm just so tired of it." Riku admits. "I understand why he's mad, but I don't understand why he can't just let go. I have."

Kairi looks a bit confused. "I mean, besides him blowing up in your face yesterday, did he do anything to you?" asks Kairi.

"Well, not directly, but he definitely did something. . ." Riku trails off. He looks over to the princess of heart, and she looks at him with anticipation. Riku sighs, "You want me to explain it, don't you?" Kairi nods her head with excitement. "Alright, well, be ready. This may be a bit long." Riku changes his sitting position to be more comfortable in the long term.

"It all happened so long ago. . ." Riku said as he looked back on his own journey. "One day, Roxas and Axel were looking for Xion in Twilight Town after she had disappeared for so long. She'd been hiding in the Town for a while now, and by the end of the day, she hadn't returned to the mansion, which I took as a sign of Axel and Roxas finding her and returning her to the castle. I took a big risk and snuck into The Castle That Never Was, and while I was there I had overheard Axel talking to Saix." Riku explains.

"That's when I found out that Roxas had actually attacked Axel, and ran off with Xion to . . . who knows where. I looked around a few worlds, but I couldn't find them. When it was finally morning in Twilight Town, I went back to the mansion to tell Namine everything that happened. . . but then I saw she was gone. I went to to the lab and saw that Sora, Donald, and Goofy were all left in stasis, that Namine had sopped working on their memories. That's when everything started falling apart. . ." Riku said in a grim tone.

"Everything we had worked for, everything I put my hope into was gone, and I was back to being alone again. No one but the darkness." Riku takes a deep breath, before going on. "There was Diz- er, Ansem. But he wasn't much for conversation. Just telling me obvious things, "Find Namine, retrieve Roxas and Xion." He wasn't a friend, he was an ally."

"What about me? You could have come to Destiny Island any time, we would have welcomed you with open arms," says Kairi. Riku sighed.

"I didn't want to. . . I couldn't bring myself to face anyone. Not until Sora had all of his memories back." Riku explained.

Kairi sighed, but she understood his reasoning, and she didn't blame him for not visiting during those dark times. "I understand," she says.

Riku nods and keeps on telling his story. "I spent some time looking for them in a large variety of worlds, but juggling that with fighting the darkness. It wasn't a great time," says Riku

"Sounds like it." Kairi comments.

"Eventually though, I did find them. I went to Hollow Bastion to investigate the large amount of darkness shrouding the world. And that's when I saw them. They were obliterating thousands of heartless."

"You're joking," Kairi says in disbelief.

"No I'm not, they actually were taking on at least a thousand heartless, but it definitely looked like more." Riku says "Thinking back on it. It's very impressive how much progress they made since I lost seen them. Xion was barely able to put up a fight when I first encountered her." Riku snaps back, remembering what he was supposed to be talking about. "But at the time, all I can think about was how many hearts were going to Kingdom Hearts." Kairi's eyes widen, as she hadn't even thought of that. "Once they had cleared the entire valley of heartless, they made their way to the cliff's edge outside Villain's Vale. I arrived just as Xemnas and Mickey disappeared into a corridor of darkness. With them gone, I decided to confront them. . ."

"And?" asks Kairi

"They had completely forgotten about Kingdom Hearts."

"Really?" Kairi says in shock. Riku nods.

"I was very angry when I heard this. It's like they thought leaving the organization would magically solve all their problems. Sora was stuck asleep because of them and they weren't even doing anything to stop the heart-shaped moon in the sky. I had enough." Riku confesses. "So I attacked them, I was gonna drag them back to the twilight town mansion, and return Sora's memories to him whether they liked it or not. But someone got in the way."

"Who?" asks Kairi.

"Maleficent," Riku responds. Kairi is shocked. That makes it twice where Maleficent had helped Roxas and Xion, despite being on opposing sides.

"You think she's turned over a new leaf? Helping us a few times?" asks Kairi

"No. She only helped us because she had something to gain from it, something she couldn't get with her own power." Riku explains. Kairi sighs, she knows maleficent has light in her somewhere, she just needs to find it. Riku goes on. "They end up escaping and using the gummi ship to flee to another world." Since I can't track them or anything, I was back to square one. Though with some investigating, I found out which worlds they've visited before, and I started patrolling them regularly. One day, however, I was at the Land of Dragons, investigating some Organization activity. Xigbar had turned a dragon into a heartless, and I was planning on warning the city ahead of time after investigating . . . but then I ran into them on accident."

Riku continues to go on about his encounter with them. "They caught me off guard, and so I ran until I managed to get to a place where I was comfortable fighting them," says Riku.

"I'm assuming you lost?" asks Kairi, to which Riku nods.

"Yeah. They had the help of a hero from that world, named Mulan. I noticed the dragon emerging from behind the peak of the mountain, and so I said my farewells, before jumping off the cliff and disappearing into a corridor of darkness, in order to warn the emperor." Riku explains before he continues to tell his story.

"From there, I frequented the other worlds, watching them from a distance, to see if there were an opportunity where I could fight them, alone. But there wasn't such an opportunity," says Riku. "I almost had a chance though. I was investigating the underworld, as it seemed like Hades was scheming something, turns out, it was a tournament. I had entered under the name Highwind to see what was going on, only to find out that they too had entered. But I ended up losing to one of my opponents, a man named Auron, who was under Hades' control" Riku explains, before continuing.

"It turns out though, they also lost, to Hercules. I was going to ambush them once they left the coliseum, but it turns out Hades pulled some strings so that he could destroy all three of them at once with his puppet Auron." Riku explains. "I watched the battle from the shadows, they seemed to have realized as well that Auron wasn't himself, since Xion threw her keyblade to Namine before fighting in Master Form, sending Namine off to get the doll which contained Auron's free will."

"She didn't Destiny's Embrace?" asks Kairi.

"Not yet. This wasn't the first time they gave her a keyblade either. They had done so while at Beast's Castle, Roxas giving up his keyblade so she wouldn't be stuck in the gummi ship. But when they encountered Xaldin, he destroyed the keyblade." Riku explains. Kairi gasps, she did notice that Roxas didn't have the Kingdom Key and that Xion's looked cracked and beaten up, but she didn't know a keyblade could be flat out destroyed. "Not only had they put her in danger, but without the keyblade, Xaldin managed to capture her and threaten to take her life if they didn't obey."

"Did you help them?" asks Kairi

"I was about to, but I noticed the beast had already started crawling his way to Namine's aid. So instead of causing a disruption, I helped him out a bit, healing him without anyone noticing." Riku explained. "Still though. They put her in so much danger. I wasn't letting them do it again." says Riku. "I followed her into the depths of the underworld when she suddenly collapsed. I managed to catch her before she landed on the ground, but she was already unconscious I sat down and leaned against the wall, letting her head rest on my lap while she slept, but before I knew it, I went unconscious as well." Riku continued,

"Suddenly I was in Destiny Islands, back when it fell to darkness." Riku goes on. "That's when I saw it. Zexion, one of the fallen members of Organization Thirteen, he wrapped and bound Namine with black and green thorns, before entrapping her within a book." Riku explained. "He saw me and quickly hid in a book of his own before the area went dark, with copies of his dark tome flying everywhere. I managed to track down the book Namine was trapped in just before she suffocated, I set her free and we defeated Zexion together," he explains.

"Once she was safe, I tried sneaking away into a dark corridor, but she tried convincing me to help. I- I didn't want to. I couldn't trust those two, not just because they ruined the plan, but they nearly got her killed." Says Riku, clenching his fist. It shakes as he continues to crush the air in his hands.

"You really care about her, don't you?" asks Kairi.

"Yeah. . ." Riku says as he exhales a deep breath. He looks over to Kairi, who has a smug look on her face. He looks at her with confusion, until he realizes what she's thinking. "H-hey! Don't get any funny ideas!" Riku says, his cheeks turning to a light shade of pink. Kairi laughs.

"Sure, alright," she says before calming down her laughter. "What happened after that?" she asks.

"Well. . . after that, you basically know the rest of the story. I spied on them in Twilight Town until you and Axel came along. I overheard the explanation about how the nobodies were coming from Organization Thirteen's homeworld, and from there I simply left and waited for you guys to arrive. And after that, well. You know the story." says Riku. Kairi nods.

"Well, I'm glad I at least have a perspective on your side of the story," she says. "I don't exactly blame either of you guys for being angry with each other." she goes on. "But Roxas, well. . . he definitely needs to chill," she says before laughing to herself a bit. "Wow, he really did inherit his naivety from Sora, didn't he?"

Riku laughs along with her "Yeah, I guess so." the two stare at the ocean for a second before Riku sighs. "I miss him. . ."

"I miss him too. . ." they continue to watch the ocean silently just living in their memories of each other and Sora until they hear footsteps approaching from behind. They turn around to see Aqua behind them. "Hey Aqua! What're you up to?" asks Kairi.

"Nothing really. I just got a message on the terminal. Follow me." she turns around and begins walking. The two pupils quickly get up and follow the master, until they eventually reach the room where she stays. In it is a small terminal with the only function being to receive messages from other worlds. In it, there's one new message, from Cid (/a/CLR8sAx [imgur link]).

"Look's like we're going back to Hollow Bastion sooner than I thought," Riku says as he rubs his shoulder.

"You up for it?" asks Kairi. He nods.

"Oh yeah. There's no way I'm NOT investigating a cave full of heartless," says Riku. Kairi and Aqua smile, before making preparations.