Sora sat on a tree stump, one of many in the area through which he was walking. He believed that the area had once been a lush, green forest with vibrant and myriad shades of green and supporting countless animals. He could imagine it all too well, but now, the forest was gone. Destroyed by others, and with it went the rest of the wildlife within it. That was the problem with life, it just…died.

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Flashback

Sora came to a halt, unable to go any further. He leaned over, breathing deeply and feeling ready to faint. Pluto looked at him expectantly, thinking that Sora would soon be able to go again. Sora shook his head, refusing to have to go on any further for the day. They had been going on for miles upon miles with nothing in sight. Beyond them was merely a vast stretch of plains with a dirt road carving up the middle of it and twisting insanely. Sora was ready to believe that he was going nowhere, that Pluto was just leading them on a wild goose chase.

Looking to either side of him Sora saw Donald and Goofy, both of whom were as tired as he was. Pluto soon realized this and sat down, stretching out his forelegs and through his mannerisms seemed to say that he too was tired. Sora collapsed to the ground from exhaustion, knowing that he wouldn't have to worry about getting comfy. He then put his hands behind his head to support it and make sure it didn't get too dirty. He watched as Donald then walked over to Pluto and snatched the envelope with the king's seal from the dog's mouth. He quickly opened the envelope and removed the letter within it. Donald's eyes scanned back and forth across the letter, and occasionally his eyes would widen a bit before resuming their normal width, then widening again. After a couple of minutes he was finished reading the letter and plopped down onto the ground, something in his eyes conveying a feeling of hopelessness. He shook his head slowly before bowing it to the ground.

"Donald, what's wrong?" Sora asked, for what else was there to ask? Donald merely shook his head again and his head bowed down a little further. He sighed, and then lifted his head slightly to talk.

"The Heartless, they've… King Mickey's seen them again. But… they're stronger now, smarter too. Apparently there are more now than ever before." Donald dropped his head back down again, disappointed and disillusioned. "Maybe…maybe our journey meant nothing after all."

"Don't say that!" Goofy cried out, his expression shocked and appalled. "Yup, our journey was for something. Ansem's gone, and Kingdom Hearts was sealed. That's… that has to count for something." By the end of his declaration though, even the eternally cheerful Goofy seemed unable to believe his words. Sora felt ready to give up as well.

Remember Sora, you will be the one to open the door to the light. The words flashed through Sora's mind, and he remembered hearing those words before, earlier that same day. But he believed them no more. He had fought so hard, only to lose everything from his old life, and now it was for nothing?

End flashback

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Sora sighed. He should have given up then and there. Maybe then, had he done so, they'd still be with him.

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Thoughts slowly began to circulate through Riku's mind again. He groaned as he realized how sore his body was. Everywhere there was stiffness, soreness, and any imaginable type of discomfort. But…he was lucky to be able to feel such discomfort. He began to wonder how he had lived. There was an explosion and he had been thrown back by it. It made no sense.

"So you're up." Riku winced as the noise flooded his ears, and he identified the speaker as Mickey through the high pitch. He had long ago learned to identify people by their voice, for he no longer saw. Not with the blindfold encompassing his eyes, shutting out any light.

"We were worried about you. For a while there it didn't seem like you were going to make it." another voice stated. Riku noted the concern in the other speaker's voice. Riku really must have been on the edge this time. Regardless, he sat up in spite of his stiffness. He reached out with his hand, searching through the darkness for something to grab onto. Soon enough he found a chair and hauled himself up with its aid before sitting down on it. He listened as Mickey nimbly climbed up the chair next to him before the other voice spoke.

"The explosions were caused by a meteor shower. Not just any meteor shower at that. Do you find it at all possible that the barrier to this world has been broken?" Fleeting thoughts of hope raced through Riku's mind before being dispelled.

"I know what you're thinking, but it would never work. We don't have a gummi ship to get off of this world. That the barrier was broken works against us."

"Mickey is right." the other voice pitched in. "This whole time we've been trying to contain the Heartless. Now that the barrier is broken, they can escape into other worlds. The chances of our failing have increased dramatically. And before you say we could build a gummi ship, the gummi blocks are probably buried over thirty feet into the rubble. We could spend years searching without finding anything, let alone enough gummi blocks to build a ship." Riku didn't answer to that. He knew the reality of the situation; this was just driving the point home.

Riku then stood up and walked away. He knew the halls of their makeshift home by heart, and he easily navigated them until going through a wooden door, shutting it behind him. After doing so he ran a hand through his hair before clutching at the blindfold. He proceeded to remove it, and after he had done so he slowly opened his eyes. As always, he opened them to a complete darkness. Riku had chosen this room because within it he could create a state of total darkness, and he still had forced himself to live under the burden of his darkness. Not until he was worthy would he stop doing so.

He then heard the door open, and it was quite clear that whoever was opening it was trying to be quiet. Considering Riku's amplified hearing, their efforts failed miserably. Riku shut his eyes tightly just as the light switch flipped on. He heard the disappointed sigh emitted by the person who had entered the room, and he then took his blindfold and tied it around his head again.

"Riku…" the invader began, "you can't live like this forever. Sooner or later you'll have to open up again."

"When I have to I will. Until then, when I have finally let go of my darkness, I refuse to forget. You may want to forget your past, you may need to forget your past, but I need to hold on to mine. Without it, I will surely fall."

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Kairi sat in front of the door. She had been there for hours, confounded by the door. She knew that the barrier to the world was broken, and as such the door to the world should have been open, but when she attempted to open the door it did not budge in the slightest. She had tried opening it numerous ways, pushing against it, ramming against it, pulling against it. Everything, but it just wouldn't open.

The door may be unsealed, but it is not yet unlocked. Kairi jumped upward as the words resonated within her mind, as though someone was speaking to her. She cast furtive glances into each darkened corner of the cave, attempting to identify who had put the thought into her mind, but finding only shadows.

Without the key, it is just a door, with no beyond. At this point, an intense fear coursed through Kairi. The voice she was hearing was undoubtedly coming from within her own mind, yet she knew that the thoughts were not hers.

You alone do not possess the power to remove the obstruction.

"Who's there?" Kairi finally ventured to ask. This voice, it was so very strange, yet there was a familiarity present within it.

I, however, can allow you to pass.

"What?!"

All you must do…

"What? Do what? Please! I'll do anything! I just… just want to see them again." Kairi's voice tailed off towards the end as more somber thoughts passed through her mind. It had been too long since she had seen them. Three years now?

Cast off the flesh.

Unite with the origin of hearts.

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Riku walked outside of the house, keeping a deliberate pace to ensure he didn't lose his way. As he felt the unyielding pavement beneath his feet he knew he was still on the correct path. Like always, he didn't carry around a weapon of any sort. Quite frankly, by himself he qualified as a weapon, and should too many Heartless dare to cross his path; the world was filled with makeshift weapons.

Yet even as he walked in confidence of safety, that same confidence became the source of overwhelmingly morbid thoughts. In what sort of perverted world did a person learn to see everything as a weapon?

Then again, this wasn't a world in the normal sense. The world was simply a meaningless shell, the end result of the Heartless's destruction. How Riku and Mickey had wound up here after escaping Kingdom Hearts was a mystery unto itself, one that Riku tended to think about each and every day.

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Flashback

Riku had managed to learn the true definition of frustration over the past several days. He had taken into account the possibility that he'd never leave Kingdom Hearts and that eventually he might even fall to a Heartless and join their ranks. He hadn't, however, quite thought of the possibility of a perky talking mouse keeping his hopes up that he'd find a way out only to come back empty-handed. Riku couldn't quite fathom how he was somehow just as disappointed each time a failure to find a way out occurred.

"Could've gone off with Sora, but no, I just had to atone for all the horrible things I did. Couldn't let bygones be bygones…" Riku kicked a nearby pebble, watching it fall into the festering pit of Heartless. For a place of light, Kingdom Hearts was awfully dark, with lots and lots of Heartless.

Riku practically jumped out of his skin as he heard a soft thud behind him. He quickly grabbed the wooden sword at his belt and turned around, making a powerful downward slash. However, after this new arrival didn't dissipate like the Heartless, Riku rather belatedly realized the newcomer to be Mickey, who was clutching at his head.

"OW! This is exactly why I didn't leave my Keyblade here. Every time, you go and hit me!"

"Well it's not like it's all my fault!" Riku protested. "If you managed to land in front of me, I might not hit you." Mickey simply responded with a vacant glare, asking silently what difference that would make. For all that wisdom and power of his, Mickey wasn't the most logical person in the world. Granted, this illogic he possessed was what allowed him to search for a way out of Kingdom Hearts. Had he been logical like Riku, he would have simply resigned himself to the impending oblivion.

"Well…" Mickey began, ready to leave behind the recent altercation, "I've found a way out!"

"Really?" Riku exclaimed. It was impossible. The place was sealed, but if Mickey said there was a way out, there was a way out.

"You betcha. Mickey then looked up into the blackness. Somewhere beyond Riku's vision, there was a ceiling, concealed within the shadow. Perhaps…

"Do we go through some sort of ceiling exit?"

"What? No!" Mickey shook his head fervently. "Kingdom Hearts doesn't exactly have a ceiling anyway."

"So then, how do we get out?"

"Well, this may sound at least a little crazy, but I think that the problem is that we've been looking for a way out." Riku cast a confused glance the king's way, so Mickey then explained. "Maybe we're supposed to go further in." Riku's stare became rather blank as he attempted to wrap his mind around the inverted logic. Mickey simply sighed.

"Okay, now, as you know, Kingdom Hearts is the heart of all worlds, right?" Riku nodded in affirmation. "Well, this means that all hearts originate from within Kingdom Hearts. Yet somehow, these hearts wind up as completely different entities, independent altogether from Kingdom Hearts. Now, if you really stop and think about that, what's wrong with the picture?" Riku stopped to think for a bit before risking a guess.

"Well, how do the hearts of worlds become independent of Kingdom Hearts?"

"Exactly!" The king yelled, drawing more than a few glances from the dormant Heartless below. "There isn't any way shown. Yet as we know, new hearts are created by the second, whether for people or for worlds. Yet we haven't seen any hearts just flying out of this place, have we?" Mickey didn't wait for a response. "Of course not. My theory is, we've only sealed off the external entrances to Kingdom Hearts, which might have coincidentally served as exits when open. Speaking of which, Kingdom Hearts was closed almost all the time anyway."

"That would mean that there has to be an exit inside!" Riku blurted out the revelation a bit prematurely of when the king wanted him to, but Mickey took it in stride, nodding sagely.

"Precisely. There is an exit within Kingdom Hearts. And I propose that this exit would be…" Mickey waved his finger a bit before pointing straight at the center of the pit of Heartless, where the concentration of the monsters was so great the area appeared as simply a solid shadow. "There! The exit from Kingdom Hearts is Kingdom Hearts itself."

"So… how do we use Kingdom Hearts to get out?"

The king stared blankly again at him, and simply shrugged before leaping haphazardly into the pit.

End flashback

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Riku chuckled slightly as he reminisced. He must have slain a thousand Heartless fighting his way to the center of the pit. Each swing of the wooden sword took out a dozen of the tightly packed Heartless. By then he had stopped using the other, much darker sword Ansem had bestowed upon him.

Riku closed his eyes, going from one darkness to another, checking his bearings. He sensed the area around him and as soon as he gained confidence that he was still going the right way, began to go forward again. Before he even finished his first stride he felt it. A malignant force watching him, targeting him.

A slight smirk formed on Riku's lips as he prepared himself for battle.

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Author's Blurb- Because notes just aren't good enough.

Well, I guess I should apologize for taking so long to update. You see, I decided to stop this a while ago. What changed my mind? Well, after getting a review, I looked back to see how horribly written this was, only to find that it, well, wasn't. So I'm trying to regain the form I had for this, so that I can improve on it and truly become a better writer. That, and this chapter was halfway done a long while ago anyway, so I figured, what the heck, why not go for it.

Remember, a reviewed chapter is a happy chapter, and an incoherently flamed chapter is a laughing chapter.