Omg I've recieved another review, I'm so proud of myself that I'm tear jerking here, it's good to know that your work is actually being read by people. I also thank those potential invisible supporters out there who read my fic and at least found it entertaining enough to read on.

Which reminds me, I forgot to put a chapter title for the last chapter, not that it actually matters cause I didn't come up with a name for it but yeah...

Chapter 3: Beyond Kingdom Hearts - A King and a Double

The insistence within the last of the Ansem's reports were that Kingdom Hearts was a doorway to the home of all hearts, at the same time, a place of darkness. Yet what Ansem discovered himself upon stepping into the world that bordered upon Kingdom Hearts was that it was a world of light.

All around him, a light of whiteness stretched as far as his vision could. All that existed within this "room" was a lone gray path that he and the master of heartless walked upon.

It seemed that should he stray off this path ever so slightly, he would fall into a deep pit and never find his way out. Subconsciously, he kept his footing very tightly on the path.

"We are here."

"Yes, however the door will not open without the key."

"The keyblader."

"She is on her way as we speak, I have opened a path as far as allowed, she should be here any moment from now."

The lord of heartless paid no more attention to Ansem, instead he stepped forward on the gray path until he came close enough to Kingdom Hearts to hammer it with his macabre blade.

He did.

As the blade slammed against the doors of Kingdom Hearts, Ansem swore that he saw the fabric of space bend. The space around Kingdom Hearts appeared to meld themselves away from the blade into a world that it could not touch.

The black blade howled, echoing that soulless darkness that had been used to create the blade and the body of the heartless himself. The howl seemed to return Kingdom Hearts to normal and for a moment, Ansem imagined that the lord of heartless had such power that he alone could force open even Kingdom Hearts.

Yet as the space around Kingdom Hearts returned to normal, ready to be struck, there was a rebound affect so strong that its clash with the heartless' blade deafened Ansem's ears and shattered the blade in half in the process.

The heartless looked from his blade towards the large white door. Slowly heartless appeared from the gray path and swarmed towards the blade, becoming a part of it until it was whole again.

The lord of heartless turned back towards Ansem, "We will wait."

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Kairi massaged her shoulders in an attempt to loosen them up. Ansem had provided a nice and neat path towards the destination, but either he couldn't help the swarm of heartless that followed or he simply wanted it that way.

"What a lying cheat, acting all nice." Donald was complaining repetitively, he had lost his favourite hat to one of the heartless.

"Well at least it looks like we're almost there." Kairi pointed towards the end of the passage, a hexagon of light lay at the end, somehow they could all feel that beyond it lay Kingdom Hearts.

"Gwarsh, that's awfully bright right now."

The passage they traveled in was a pitch black tunnel, clearly explaining why they had been ambushed by heartless multiple times, after all it was next to impossible to tell which was which.

Kairi took a few more strides than Donald and Goofy and stepped first through the hexagon. Before her lay the same view that Ansem witnessed moments ago, a gray path, a white world, and a large set of doors.

Kairi raised her keyblade in Ansem's face, "Return Riku and get out of here."

"Sweet and to the point aren't you? But wouldn't you first like to meet the master mind behind all this?"

"Huh?" Donald looked as confused as everyone else, they had all naturally suspected Ansem was the master mind, after all he did play the part well.

Ansem stepped slightly aside to reveal the master of the heartless, motionless, uninterested and simply waiting. "I present, the Lord of the Heartless."

"Him?" Kairi sounded skeptical, sure the thing looked powerful but it didn't look like it had much in terms of thought.

He's generally what we would call a mid-boss isn't he?

"That's just another heartless." Donald was naturally a lot more blunt.

The lord ignored all this, "Keyblader?"

Kairi tensed up at the voice, the motionless and seemingly harmless figure appeared as though it had just unleashed its ferocious presence.

It turned and looked at Kairi, ignoring Donald, Goofy and Ansem. The yellow eyes seemed to pierce into her and for a moment she thought her legs were quivering.

Goofy stepped forward, his shield in hand and stood in front of Kairi.

Kairi found herself regaining her composure, That's right, I'm not alone.

"Mastermind or not, you're both going to be taken out here and now!" The emerald blade glowed in resonance to her resolution.

Once again, the lord ignored all this, "Open it for me, open Kingdom Hearts."

"In your dreams."

Kairi dashed towards the lord of the heartless, but there was only one gray path, and she could sense that her fall would mean a swift death. So she would have to get rid of Ansem who stood between the two of them, fine, it was going to happen anyways.

Kairi jumped, so that it appeared as though she were diving right into Ansem head first.

Virgin's Kiss - Sakura Bloom

Kairi casted Firaga on her blade, in which she proceeded to swing in a circular motion while she was still diving in mid-air. The result was a flurry of dancing firelight that sprang off her blade in all directions thus the name Sakura bloom. The petals of flames clouded Ansem's vision and forced him to raise his arms to shield himself as he braced for the keyblader's assault in the illusion.

Instead what came was a sharp spear of ice from the center of the blossoming fire petals launched by Donald.

Ansem stepped back, evading it. At the same time, Goofy had long prepared for his evasion and had jumped up above him, falling shield-first right onto Ansem.

Ansem hadn't seen Goofy until the shield began casting a shadow, at which point he blocked it with a magical enchantment on his arm and repelled Goofy back to Donald. He turned around for a moment, and there was Kairi, running right towards the lord of the heartless.

"It seems she has overestimated your abilities, all three of you together may have stood a chance, but without the keyblader..." Ansem stretched the arm he had used to block Goofy's drop hit, it was sore...a bit, "Without the keyblader, you are only fodder for the heartless."

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Kairi ran up to the lord of the heartless, her blade in ready position.

She slashed at him.

Kairi had never meant to hit him, it was just to test what kind of reaction she would get from this supposed master of the heartless. Instead it did hit him, right across his eagle face, the strike was never really strong but it did enough damage to send off black smoke from his face, as though part of him turned to dust and flew off. Yet his expression remained the same, that is supposing he had other expressions to begin with.

"You will not?"

Kairi pulled her blade back again, and this time she struck hard, and she meant it to hurt.

Which it did, the heartless staggered a little and his left foot seemed to buckle for a moment. Kairi withdrew her blade before he could grab it with his claw or something and they looked at each other. Her, just to see how tough this heartless really was, and him, because well...who knows.

"KEYBLADER!"

The lord moved with such unimaginable speed and swung his maleficent sword, the blade left a trail of darkness where it passed in this world of white. All Kairi could muster was an emergency backflip as her evasion. The blade skimmed right above her stomach, missing her flesh by only a hair. But the vibrations it caused in the air struck Kairi and though she ignored it, it felt like one awfully hard punch on her stomach.

No problem, all part of the plan, though I hadn't quite expected this.

Kairi followed up her momentum and kept running backwards, as though trying to catch herself from falling after the backflip.

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Ansem held Donald by his head holding him forward like a shield, and Goofy standing before the both of them.

"Useless."

Ansem raised his other hand and summoned a ball of firaga to which he tossed at Goofy who barely bounced it off with his shield but staggered back a few steps.

"It's over dear duck and dog."

"Not quite."

The voice came from behind him, a girl's voice, the keyblader's voice. But how? Surely there was no way she defeated the master of the heartless, had she fled? But why would she flee right into him?

Ansem swung himself around in time to parry off a strike of her blade away from his face.

"Ice!"

A pillar of ice erupted from the end of Donald's staff aimed for Ansem's head.

Ansem released Donald, and just in time ducked his head out of way of the ice pillar.

Donald fell onto Goofy's shield which he had thrown as a boomerang so that Donald sat on the shield and flew past Ansem onto Kairi's side.

Ansem's focus turned to his front side, the keyblader and the duck, but as he did this, he felt Goofy ram him unarmed from the back. it didn't hurt, but it did make him loose his balance for a slight moment.

Thundaga - Wateraga - Combination Art

Kairi's blade released a bolt of thunder while Donald summoned up a serpent of water, combining to create a serpent of lightning. The living spell coiled around Ansem in his moment of hesitance and confusion and pinned him onto the gray path.

Kairi stood right on top of him, a moment without stop, there was only one chance and one moment to do it. She plunged the keyblade right into Ansem's chest, at first she met a fierce resistance, a magical barrier of some sort that Ansem had established, but Kairi's domain had been technique, and it only took another moment's focus before her keyblade struck into him. Like dipping a rod into a pond.

Keyblade magic - Open

Ansem screamed in fury as his black body began to decompose, at the same time, Kairi felt like something had happened around her with the activation of her magic, but she couldn't tell what it was and since Ansem was still present, she choose to deal with it later.

"Gwarsh it really is Riku!"

Kairi looked down, her face trimmed with tears, it was him, it was really him after all this time. He wore the same cloths as he did when they had last met, carried the same peaceful expression, the same age, he was her memory towards the past, when it was still happy being with each other on that island, when that was the whole world to them and it was enough.

She lifted him gently into her arms, "Riku?"

The boy opened his eyes to see a friend from a long time ago, "Is that...Kairi?"

Kairi nodded, barely able to contain herself, so much to ask, so much to cherish, so much lost memories to make up for, Riku was back.

"Yes."

Kairi's mind snapped back into reality, she had almost completely forgotten about this heartless. She had a plan to deal with him if he had interrupted during their fight against Ansem, but he hadn't, and now as she turned to look at him, she began to understand why.

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If Kairi's plan to assault Ansem had gone exactly as she had hoped, then the Lord of the Heartless' plan to open the gate of Kingdom Hearts had also gone exactly as he had hoped, as it was opening right now as he stood before it, looking.

Kairi's keyblade magic would have never affected the door if the lord had never constructed this world that they were in from the first place.

Before Kairi was invited in, he had constructed this white world to be a medium, so that all forms of power are passed through conduction and reaches the doorway. This world where originally nothing stood but pitch blackness was made white by his own power so that he could open this door, whether the keyblader was willing or not. Ansem was a playing piece in the latter situation. Things had proceeded as he had foresaw.

"Open, Kingdom Hearts, show me my heart."

"I think you should just give that a rest already." Kairi swung her blade, bound with Donald's magic. The lord didn't bother with her, instead he folded his demon wing and snapped it at her so that it acted as a shield and repelled Kairi's attack.

"Don't stop me."

"I can't let a heartless gain the power that's contained within."

"My heart, don't stop me..."

"There's a lot more in there than just your heart."

The heartless fell silent, but didn't turn to look at Kairi, "Please..."

"Please?" Kairi was naturally surprised, she had never heard a heartless say please, for a moment she hesitated and wondered whether it was really a heartless. Then she saw the glow in his eyes as the door grew wide enough to enter, and she realized her mistake, the greed in his eyes was clear, the desire, this was just another heartless.

"Stop!"

The heartless turned towards her this time and swung his blade. The keyblade and the black sword collided, the keyblade by nature held the advantage as it was made to banish the heartless, yet the brute force of the heartless was on such a different scale that Kairi imagined her arms breaking and sent riveting back or the keyblade cut in half and her body along with it.

But neither happened, instead the heartless pulled back so that Kairi fell forward in her struggle to keep her footing. The heartless spun around and sent his sword cutting at her again at a sideward angle this time.

Kairi had not anticipated the heartless to turn towards strategy rather than his bottomless brute strength, so she was unprepared. But Goofy stormed in just in time to take the full impact with his shield.

The shield was cut in half instantly, but the magic it held parried the heartless' assault. Yet Goofy was sent flying right into Kairi, and her being off balance didn't help. So they both stumbled and fell off the gray path into what would be a bottomless pit.

"Gotcha."

Kairi looked from Goofy hanging onto her hand below her, and Riku who had mustered all ounce of strength to hold her arm. Donald ran as fast as his legs could carry him and held out his...well wings to help lift Kairi and Goofy. Note here that Kairi was ok, she was a girl after all, but Goofy, he was just huge.

"Loose some weight, you're going to turn into Peter at this rate." Note that Peter was the fat...well I suppose dog, who always seemed to play the villain in those mickey movies.

"Gwarsh, I'm not evil."

"Guy's, not to be a critic or anything but this is a bad time for jokes." Riku was panting now, he didn't have the strength for this kind labour already.

Kairi turned to look at the heartless as she tried her best to help with being pulled up, or at least hanging onto Goofy, he was really heavy and her arms felt like breaking any minute now.

The heartless paid no attention to them, instead it began to walk through the door.

I've failed my duty, I've failed what Sora entrusted to me...I'm sorry Sora.

"My heart...Sora..."

"Woh hoho, and where do you think you're going?"

A golden stream of light erupted from inside Kingdom Hearts, sending the heartless back so that if he took one more step back, he would end up stepping on Donald which would essentially lead to the demise of Kairi and Goofy.

From the other side of the door, two figures appeared, one who was a lot shorter than the other.

In his hand, he held a golden keyblade, and wore a pair of red pants...that's it...pretty light attire. His ears were rounded and black a thin tail extended from a purposely cut whole on his pants. The best way to describe him was obviously a rat...I mean a mouse. Yes, the cute furry kind that bites off your furniture and nibble your cheese when you're asleep like a good little boy on Christmas eve.

"King Mickey!" Donald was ecstatic, and Goofy, who couldn't see well enough but could hear him almost forget he was hanging onto his life and began wiggling in excitement.

"Donald? Goofy? Weren't you guys just with Sora?" This was the other voice, a child who had stepped through the gate with the King. He had the same hair, he wore the same cloths, and he carried the same expression of utter confidence.

"Riku?" Kairi gasped, if he was then who was the one holding onto her hand?

Both of the Riku's looked at each other, just as confused as the other one.

"Me?"

Well there goes another chapter, this would take us about halfway through what I had in mind originally for the fic. So far so good, although I was planning on finishing this sooner but got caught up on my summer job and reading Full Metal Panic novel, it's good stuff.

Until next time, and remember, dopplegangers exist...or not?