A/N: I'm trying a new tactic with this chapter. Squee. For dream sequences (not the visions Riku had in the last few chappies, but actual dreams), I'm going to be writing in first person, mostly because I need to work on that, it's one of my many weak spots... So, yeah, please tell me how I did with the dream, and I'm sorry if I fXXXed up the song lyrics a little. BTW, this song is "Whisper" by Evanescence, which is also why I called the chapter "Whisper," and the fic "Whisper," and, and, and yeah. I also need to work on adding in songs, and this one just happens to be perfect for dream sequences. :) I've actually been planning this chapter since I first heard Whisper, which was perhaps a few years ago, whish was about the same time I got KH. Has it really been that long since I got Kingdom Hearts...? I got it on Christmas, '03, so... Wait, it's '06? HOLY FXXX I GRADUATE THIS YEAR! XD Wow, time flies when you're panting after Riku! XD Okay, none of you needed that mental image. Anyway, please, please, please, please, PLEASE tell me how I did with the dream, I really want to know and I need all the hints, tips, suggestions, complaints, threats, etc. I can get!


Catch me as I fall
Say you're here and it's all over now
Speaking to the atmosphere
No one's here and I fall into myself
This truth drives me into madness
I can stop the pain if I will it all away

The song was a lie. The pain wouldn't stop. My heart burned, ached, felt much like it had been mercilessly ripped from my chest by Ifrit's claws, wrung out like a rag, then thrown back in upside down and backwards. Maleficent was using my love, the only one who had any claims to my heart anymore, to spread darkness throughout the worlds. And no one was there to stop my endless descent. No one to alleviate the pain, to banish the loneliness.

No one to hear my screams.

I threw my arms up over my face to protect it as I plummeted through my own reflection, shards of the crystalline mirror slicing through my very soul, leaving a ragged and bloody mess in their wake.

I opened her eyes--or did I shut them?--only to see an image of him, looking at me with no recognition in his eyes, and turning his back on me. I ran to him, screaming his name, but he didn't hear me, or even notice the stark terror in my voice.

Don't turn away
Don't give in to the pain
Don't try to hide
Though they're screaming your name
Don't close your eyes
God knows what lies behind them
Don't turn out the light
Never sleep never die

How could he just shut me out like that? And was he also shutting me out of his heart, just as he was shutting out the light? What had happened to him that he didn't want me anymore?

My heart lurched again, and I doubled over in pain as every nerve burned white-hot, as my heart was again ripped from my already bloody chest. I couldn't even find the breath to scream this time. All that escaped my lips was a wimper, not of pain or of fear, but of loneliness.

I'm frightened by what I see
But somehow I know that there's much more to come
Immobilized by my fears
And soon to be blinded by tears
I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away

If I will it all away...

I looked up, only to see him again, as bloody and ripped apart as I was, though he did not appear to feel any pain. I tried to call out, even reached a hand out to him, but the sight of my own mangled arm almost made me vomit. I was no stranger to blood, had even spilled guts all over the pavement on several occasions using nothing more than my knife. It was the rotting, putrid flesh hanging off of my bones that made me want to puke.

I stared in horror at my hand as more of the flesh rotted away, and looked up to see his flesh rotting as well. The vision blurred, but soon cleared a little as tears poured down my face. I could barely make out that he was crying as well, tears turning to twin streaks of blood as they spilled from his eyes and down his cheeks to drip from his chin. He mouthed the words "I'm sorry," and turned away.

Don't turn away
Don't give in to the pain
Don't try to hide
Though they're screaming your name
Don't close your eyes
God knows what lies behind them
Don't turn out the light
Never sleep never die

I tried to call out to him again, felt my vocal cords nearly vibrating apart with the intensity and desperation of my yell, but there was no sound. One hand still clutching my bloody and mangled chest, I stumbled after him, tripping over what I soon came to realize were the bodies of my friends, the only family I had ever known.

I looked down into Sora's lifeless eyes, and saw beneath his body the broken remnants of wings; wings that had once been a radient shade of white, but were now stained crimson with Sora's freshly spilled blood. His heart had been ripped from his chest as well. Next to him was Kairi, in a similar state. Beyond them, I saw Cloud, Aerith, Vincent, Yuffie, Nanaki, Squall, Cid, Serenity; every friend I had ever made, even friends I hadn't met yet, were all spread before me on a scarred and pitted battlefield, where the only bodies were those of my friends, their blood slowly soaking into soil that had already absorbed too much. I fell to my knees, and let my bloody tears fall freely, pooling on Sora's dead eyes and running down his cheeks as well, a grim mockery of my own pain.

A putrid breeze blew, murmering words in my ear. I couldn't make them out, but I knew what they were. Words of death, and pain, and suffering; words of war, and my own hellish past.

Fallen angels at my feet
Whispered voices at my ear
Death before my eyes
Lying next to me I fear
She beckons me shall I give in
Upon my end shall I begin
Forsaking all I've fallen for I rise to meet the end.

Only one thought entered my mind: I've let them all die in vain.

I stood, laboriously climbing to my feet, fighting back waves of nausea at every sharp jab of pain that came with every inch I gained. I looked ahead, to Maleficent's laughing face, the witch's arm draped almost lovingly across Riku's shoulders. Riku showed no emotion at all, merely stared blankly into the blood-sodden distance, his own blood still pouring freely from his wounds, and the gaping hole in his chest. Maleficent gestured, and Riku turned to look, his expressionless eyes locking right on mine, as I struggled the rest of the way to my feet.

Riku pulled out a Keyblade, a Keyblade so obviously forged of darkness that I almost wept. But, stubbornly, I pulled out a sword of my own, a twisted, black, evil thing wrought of my own betrayal to my friends and ideals. Riku charged at me, and I easily parried his blade, but he swung back around, having ran almost right past me. I turned to meet him, and lunged, intending to take him down with one swing while his guard was dropped.

I stopped when his Keyblade penetrated my stomach.

My blood sprayed all over him, over his face, and he barely even blinked. He twisted the Keyblade, still with that blank, expressionless stare, and more blood spurted from my wound. I dropped the sword, and clutched his blade, more blood spilling from my lips as I coughed, attempting to inhale past the blood pooling in my mouth, bubbling up from the wound in my belly. Hot tears poured down my cheeks, tracing lines of fire on my skin, and I collapsed into Riku's arms. He gently laid me on the ground.

I felt myself sinking, watched as waves of blood-darkened water closed over me, watched as Riku's face drifted further and further away. Listened to Maleficent's laughter ringing in my ears... Riku stood, watching me slowly sink further and further into a lake of blood, then held his arms out wide, as though to embrace something, and fell forward into the blood after me, sinking with me. He wrapped his arms around me, and we sank together.

Servatis a pereculum.
Servatis a maleficum


Cloud nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard something splash over the floor. His eyes snapped open and his hand reached for the hilt of his sword before he realized what he had heard. He looked over to the bed, and saw Mizu bending over the edge, holding her loose hair away from her face as she vomited all over the floor again. Cloud was too stunned to react at first, having never seen Mizu in this state before. She was as pale as the sheets, her hands shook violently, and her arm barely seemed capable of holding her up as her stomach emptied itself of what must have been last Tuesday's lunch.

Before Cloud could recover from his shock, Serenity was on the bed beside Mizu, one arm around the girl's shoulders as she offered her comfort, heedless of the expanding pool of puke. She lightly rubbed Mizu's back, telling her in soft, soothing, mother-like tones to get it all out. One more expulsion, and Mizu was done, and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Serenity asked soothingly.

"What happened?" Cloud demanded a little more urgently at about the same time. Serenity opened her mouth to snap at him, but Mizu shook her head, and looked Cloud dead in the eyes, though she still wore that utterly terrified expression, and that only served to frighten Cloud even more.

"It was just a nightmare," Mizu whispered. "That's all. It was nothing more than a nightmare. Please, God, let it only have been a nightmare!" The last was said in an almost strangled voice, and Mizu drew her knees up to her chest, clutched her head in her hands, and pressed her forehead to her knees. Her shoulders shook violently with her sobs, and Cloud, purely on instinct, went and wrapped his arms around her, making soft shushing noises and gently rocking back and forth, gently stroking her hair in a subconscious gesture intended to help calm her down. He looked at Serenity, almost helplessly. He'd never seen Mizu this vulnerable before, and it hurt him more than he would care to admit.

After a moment, Serenity went and got a bucket and a mop from the innkeeper, and began cleaning up the puddle of bile on the floor. Cloud just did the only thing he could do in this situation: he held Mizu in his arms, held her to his chest as her tears slowly ebbed and her shaking lessened.

"Cloud?" Mizu said tentatively after a moment.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking down at her, into her frighteningly vulnerable face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, starring blankly off into the room. She was curled in an almost fetal position, still with her head on Cloud's chest, and her hands were curled into fists.

"Shh, don't be. It was just a bad dream, that's all."

"I hope that's all it was," Mizu admitted quietly.

"It is," Cloud assured her, though he wasn't so sure himself, and she seemed to sense his doubt. "Go back to sleep, Mizu. I'll be right here if you need me."

"Promise?"

"On my life," Cloud swore, gently kissing the top of her head. "But if I have to sing you to sleep..."

Mizu chuckled weakly at the feeble joke, and nestled down next to Cloud, her head still pillowed on his chest, and her back pressed comfortably into the crook of his arm. She closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and relaxed every muscle individually, and was soon asleep again.

"Take your boots off," Serenity said quietly so as not to wake Mizu again, "they need to be cleaned."

Cloud did as he was told, trying not to move too much and dislodge Mizu, then swung his feet onto the bed and scooted into a more comfortable position for the both of them, still cradling her in his arms like a baby.

"What do you make of this?" Cloud asked, keeping his voice down.

"Honestly?" Serenity asked. "You know her better than I do. But, from what I know of her so far, anything to put her in that state must have been terrifying indeed. I hope that whatever it is doesn't plague her again. I'll admit, Cloud, when I saw that look on her face, I was scared, too."

"I know, so was I. I've never seen her that terrified before. I mean, I've watched her slice I don't know how many people's throats open with her own knives, and she'd barely even blink. And that was when she was six! She's never been this... vulnerable before."

"It has been nine years," Serenity reminded him.

"I know," Cloud sighed. "She seemed so much more cheerful than she used to be, too. But, I suppose, for every good change in her, there's bound to be a negative one."

"Trading stoicism for vulnerability?" Serenity asked, then shook her head. "I don't know, Cloud. I think it's deeper than that. Something happened to her, something that changed her in subtle ways."

"She has a more positive outlook on life," Cloud said absently, "she laughs more now, she's as stubborn as ever and just as dedicated to her duties, she allows herself to feel emotion... She's become more human since the last time I saw her nine years ago. When she was six, she was incredibly fatalistic, we could barely get her to crack a smile half the time, and she never, ever let on that she was feeling anything. If she was scared, we never even noticed, and we were almost always looking. The first time I ever heard her laugh just for the joy of it was when she saw her first snow. It never snowed in Midgar, but one night when we were traveling through the mountains, we stayed at this old man's hut, and it started to snow out. Red XIII persuaded her to go outside with him, and I watched from the doorway as they both let go of their dignity and played. Mizu threw a snowball at me, though, so I was compelled to join in the fun. We wore her into exhaustion that night. Tifa and Aerith were worried when we first came in, thinking we'd been attacked, but they understood that that was the first time Mizu had gotten to just let loose and be a kid in her whole life. Yuffie lamented that we didn't invite her to join in the fun, though. She looked so vulnerable, sitting in my lap that night, and so innocent. Every care she had just washed away in the face of being a child for once."

"Wow," Serenity breathed, looking at the girl comfortably nestled against Cloud's chest in a new light. She had a hard time believing that the fiery, rambunctious girl she had come to know could be anything like Cloud had just described, and yet, seeing her like that, with all her shields down and trusting fully in Cloud to protect her, it was an easy thing to imagine. This girl, so independent and stubborn, yet so vulnerable. It was hard not to love her, not to care about her even the tiniest bit. She wondered what it would be like to be in love with her, like Riku so obviously was. Just being her friend was roller-coaster enough, it must be hell to care for her any more than that! And yet, this girl was a point of stability in the lives of those she touched; dependable, brave, honest, proud, yet strangely humble at the same time. A soft chuckle escaped Serenity's lips, and Cloud looked up at her in vague surprise.

"What is it?" he asked.

"She was appropriately named," Serenity said, summing up her thoughts in a few simple words.

"Mizu," Cloud said, looking down at the girl sleeping in his arms. "Mizu Hikari. Water Light." He gently brushed a strand of her loose hair from her face, and she sighed in contentment, nestling closer.