Author's Notes: Hoohah, made it before the two-month deadline, school and all. Meant for this to be up a few weeks earlier, actually, but some scenes were being difficult, so it took longer than expected. But it's here now, and I'm as satisfied as much as I'll ever be (which is admittedly not very much, but...). Love goes to the reviewers from last chapter, and a thanks to those of you who favorited/alerted. Some of you have reviewed already, but for those who haven't--please do so! I'd love to hear exactly why you like this fic, because I honestly still don't know what it's got going for it. ;; Many thanks also to rabid behemoth for the beta. :)

Disclaimer: I do not in any way own/claim to own the Kingdom Hearts francise. And even if I did, suing me wouldn't be worth much anyways.

Sightline

chapter III: a woman smiling

"That damned bastard," Riku hissed as he stormed down the halls. "That god-forsaken, fucking bastard…"

Shoving his way past a startled, red-haired woman, Riku continued to fly through the hallway, made a sharp right and threw the door to the conference room open, letting it bang loudly against the wall.

Leon paused and looked up, his eyes crinkling slightly at the distraction. "Be quieter next time," he said, his voice harsh. He was about to turn back to his work when Riku's expression caught the corner of his eye and he stopped, instead glancing at his partner in full.

Unbridled fury stared back. Leon raised an eyebrow, silently curious. The silver haired man's posture was stiff, and his body seemed to crackle with invisible electricity. Large, aquamarine eyes were narrowed in anger, and Riku's lips were pursed and tight. When he spoke, it was with slow, feigned politeness.

"I'm sorry," he said, hands clenching momentarily. "It won't happen again."

Leon blinked carefully, before commenting, "Don't bother trying to be polite. I'm not your superior."

A tense pause. "Right," Riku snapped. "Whatever you want."

The brown-haired man shrugged and returned to the screen he had up. While Leon was mildly curious as to what had put Riku in such a state, it wasn't enough to tempt the subject. It wasn't his business anyways. Riku could be mad if he wanted to.

There was the sound an aggravated sigh, a few angry footsteps, and then the distinctive noise of a holo-screen fading. Reaching over the computer, Riku groped through the stacks of information disks and selected several. "…the digital recruitment won't take long, so I'll handle these."

Leon nodded silently, conceding.

"And I'll be late tomorrow. I don't know when I'll show up."

With that, Riku picked up the disks, recruitment information, and silently left the room, just barely controlling his temper enough not to slam the door behind him. Leon's fingertips paused over the keyboard as soon as the door closed, and a long moment passed in which Leon stared at the cluttered pile of disks sitting to his left-Riku had just tossed aside the ones he hadn't been interested in.

Frowning, Leon reached out and began sorting through the disks again in an attempt to put them back in the order Aerith had meant them to be in. Honestly, Leon didn't get how the woman had managed to spend so much time on this damn thing. It was as if she had a full-time team of five or six working for her, instead of a bunch of part-time volunteers and one or two other people with actual healing abilities.

It took several minutes for Leon to put the cards back into some semblance of order, and after finishing he gave it another go-over, just to be thorough. He stopped mid-way through, and then tapped his finger on the disk he had paused over.

Twilight Town, Series Number 004.

Leon glanced at the two cards that came before it.

Traverse Town, Series Number 006. Traverse Town, Series Number 005.

He quickly flipped through the rest of the cards, ending at Wutai, Series Number 002. They were all present, with the notable exception of the rest of the Twilight Town series.

Twilight Town had been relatively unimportant for most of the war; the violence had only begun to escalate a little over a year ago. If Riku had really meant to lighten Leon's workload—which Leon believed was about as likely as the sun unexpectedly exploding within the next minute—he could have taken one of the more inflamed war zones.

Which led Leon to the following conclusion: Riku either didn't want Leon looking at the information on Twilight Town, or Riku had a need to look at the information himself. But the former was too easy.

There was only one event that happened at Twilight Town, but Leon couldn't see why Riku would be so interested—everyone knew what had happened there.

Narrowing his eyes and sighing heavily, he tossed the cards back and turned back to the holo-screen, determined. He wasn't going to make it his job to figure out the mental tendencies of his partner…regardless of what the project description said.

It took hours for Riku to calm down enough to finally be able to concentrate on his work again. Even then, it was hard to stop himself from yelling in frustration as his fingers jammed the chip into the selected slot and waited for the information to show.

The first three disks were virtually blank; they held only the basic information on the town and its inhabitants, including their general political structure and mainframe over the course of the last three and a half years. Notable but small events included several "sieges" ranging in length between two weeks and four months, and a mid-sized skirmish about two years ago at the end of one of them. Other than that, the area had been a small but active participant in food distribution between Traverse Town and Radiant Garden, as both quartered thousands of militia and were desperately short of provisions.

Riku distantly remembered his first encounters with Twilight. It had been a family trip, and he had been disappointed with how empty it had seemed, like a ghost town. He had discovered later that it was simply because most of the locals kept to the upper reaches of the town, where tourists didn't often go.

He had visited again by leave of his father when he was seventeen- a reward of sorts for making it into the Academy. The trip was more interesting this time around, and he had enjoyed it.

Lips tight, Riku took the next card and inserted it, waiting. A moment later, the screen was effused with data. Slowly, Riku began to scroll. When he finished, he looked over the next one- the last one. He paused, hands tightening as he read:

…final death toll: 39/53. Names as follows.

He scrolled through the names, refusing to skip over them. It was nearly impossible to keep his hands from shaking.

Then it was the end of the list. The end. There was no more information on Twilight Town.

NOCTURNE had not been mentioned.

Roxas' head jerked up as the doorbell rang once, twice. He blinked and frowned. He carefully set down his pen and stood, making his way to the front hall and the telecom box. Pressing the button, he said slowly, "Shimizu residence."

"It's Riku, Roxas. Let me in."

Roxas' frown deepened in curiosity. Riku? Reaching the door, he pulled it open. Riku stood on the other side, customary smirk on his face and dressed in a long black coat. Roxas' face lightened and he grinned back.

"Come in, come in," he insisted, ushering his friend through the door. "You know where everything is- get yourself a seat, and I'll grab something for us to drink."

"Thanks," Riku replied, pulling off his shoes. There was an old familiarity to the action, but it startled Riku to realize that it felt strange. The military had changed him more than he liked. "Coffee would be nice."

"Mainlander," Roxas baited good-naturedly, vocalizing Riku's thoughts as he turned down the corner at the end of the hall.

Straightening, Riku called back, "If anyone's a mainlander here, it's you!"

The silver haired man heard a laugh, but no retort. Shaking his head ruefully—Riku doubted the mainlander insult would ever really die between the two of them—he began his way down the hall and passed the kitchen, were Roxas stood with his back turned, presumably measuring coffee beans. Taking the next left, Riku entered the study; it was his favorite room in the house.

It was small, a contradiction to the overall area of the Shimizu home, with only enough space to comfortably fit a queen-sized bed and maybe one or two other pieces of furniture. Dark wooden paneling made up the floor, and it was covered with a beautiful royal blue and cream colored rug that Roxas had bought during his extensive stay in Wutai. The walls were also a deep blue, the large windows accentuated with sheer dark blue curtains. A few bookcases piled with volumes upon volumes of literature were the same color as the wood on the floor. The room was completed with several chairs comfortable to relax and read in, a few shades lighter blue than that of the rug or walls.

As he sat down, Roxas entered, commenting, "You could have put your coat in the closet, you know. Here. Coffee, not tea."

Taking the steaming mug from the blond, Riku admitted, "I never actually liked tea all that much. Coffee was an easy switch."

"You are a mainlander," said Roxas, mock-disgusted.

"The people in Wutai drink tea," Riku commented lightly, taking a hearty sip. "They're from the continent."

"The people in Wutai are insane," Roxas said wryly. He sat down in a chair opposite Riku. "Besides, it's not the same kind of tea."

"Details."

Roxas sighed in aggravation and took a small sip of his own steaming beverage- tea, not coffee- before setting it down on the desk, which was next to him. "Then ignore them, and tell me why you're here."

His companion straitened a little, pursing his lips. "I came to see Sora," Riku said.

"I know that," the blond said, irritated. Why did Riku always have to go about dodging the question?...honestly, he hadn't been this infuriating when they were kids. A bully, maybe, but at least then he was direct.

"Well, it's why I came. Can you get him for me?"

"He's probably asleep right now."

Riku's eyes narrowed in a slight glare, and he set his drink down on the desk as well. "Asleep? It's the middle of the day."

Roxas let out a small breath, shrugging helplessly. "Sometimes, he'll say he's just going to go take a nap and not to bother him. He comes back out in time for dinner. It's better than most days."

"Tell me."

The blond took a moment to examine his companion silently before he answered. Riku's face was calm, but his hands were clenched lightly in his lap and his green-blue eyes were dark with apprehension. It shook Roxas slightly. He had always known the deep respect and care that Riku held for his brother- Sora was probably one of the few people that Riku would do anything for. Riku was indifferent to many people, and his hard-won affection was often disguised by teasing insults. It was somehow disconcerting to see the other man being so open with his worry, even if it was for his best friend.

Resigned, Roxas said bitterly, "He locks himself in his room a lot of days, and doesn't come out for anything. After he comes back out, he's all right for a little while. Maybe a day or two will pass, and then he'll go back in again. He was in there for two days without food once- I always make him something when it happens, but he never takes it, even if I just leave it at the door for him."

"Idiot," Riku muttered, and Roxas could tell he felt guilty. It was uncomfortable; Roxas wasn't good at consoling people and wasn't quite sure what to say or do. There was a tense pause before he offered:

"I don't think- he's probably not sleeping right now, in any case. I can get him for you—"

"No," Riku interjected suddenly, standing. "It's…fine. I'll go talk to him. That'll…that'll be alright, I think."

"Yeah," Roxas conceded. "Alright. You know where his room is. He'll be happy to see you."

Riku, who was at the door, paused and said, "Yeah," before exiting the room, closing the door softly behind him. Turning right, he made his way to the stairs at the end of the hall and began to climb. Then in what seemed like only half a second, he was in front of the closed door that opened into Sora's bedroom. He swallowed painfully, and his heart beat hard in his chest. Slowly, he raised his hand, knocked on the door, and waited.

There was no response. The silver-haired man knocked again, slightly louder this time, before calling, "Sora? I came to see you. Open up."

Still silence. Maybe Roxas was wrong, and Sora really was asleep?

Then, a moment later, Riku heard muffled footsteps, a small click, and then the door swung open. Sora stood at the other side, a surprised smile on his face. "Riku!" Riku returned the smile and entered as Sora stepped back from the door, saying, "I got your message last week, sorry that I didn't reply…"

"No worries," Riku said calmly, grabbing the chair from the nearby table and dragging it over towards him over the cream carpeting. Sora closed the door softly—Riku noted that he left it unlocked—and flopped over onto the bed. "How are you?"

"I've been okay," was the response. Seeing Riku's disbelieving gaze, he frowned. "Really. I'm…as well as to be expected, I guess. Some days…some days are better than others."

"What have you been doing? Roxas says you stay up here a lot."

"Yeah, well," Sora shrugged. "I just…it's easier to think here. Try and sort things out. It's…really…strange, I guess…not seeing her here anymore. You know?"

"Yeah."

Sora paused and glanced away, and Riku knew he had made the wrong response.

"I want the truth," Sora finally said quietly. "Intended comfort isn't worth much anymore. Anger, sadness, contentment—I don't care what I feel after somebody says something, as long as I know what they're saying is true."

"Is it really that simple, though?" Riku asked seriously.

"It is now," Sora replied simply, looking up and letting his blue eyes squarely meet Riku's own.

Another pause, and then Riku said, "Alright."

Sora smiled gratefully, and Riku wondered how many people the blue-eyed man had really spoken to in the last month and a half. Not many, he was sure. Especially the last three weeks- Roxas was likely the only company that Sora had been given. He at the very least was glad for it. The brothers didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but their relationship was almost as close as Sora's and Riku's was—closer, before the military had split them down their separate paths. In a way, to enforce that split was what Riku was here to do; with Sora's request, he couldn't hide his motive for coming any longer.

Sora knew it too. "So, Riku…" he drifted off, and waited.

"You…" Riku started, breaking off abruptly. "You're required back at the Organization. You've been reenlisted within the active service rosters."

"Yeah," Sora agreed, whispering. "I figured as much." His tone and facial expression were resigned.

"Sora, I—"

"It's not your fault, Riku," the brunet interrupted, not breaking their eye contact. Riku detected the note of forced calm in his voice, but before he could protest Sora continued, "How long…do I have left before I'm expected to be there?"

"Not long," the silver-haired man said quietly. "If possible, they want you to come back with me this afternoon."

"And if not?"

"By this coming Tuesday."

"Three days."

Riku nodded silently. Sora let out a long breath, and said, "I'll go with you."

"You have time. You don't have to."

"Riku, there's hardly any difference," Sora said, this time not without a trace of bitterness. "And you know there's nothing good here for me anyways."

There wasn't really any way for Riku to express what he was feeling without getting Sora angry. He didn't want Sora to come back right then, but he didn't want Sora to have to come back on Tuesday either. Given that, there wasn't really an argument that Riku could make that would prevent his best friend from returning to the Organization immediately.

So instead Riku acquiesced, saying, "I'll give you some time to pack whatever you want to bring with you."

"I'll need to talk to Roxas first. To…explain."

Riku briefly contemplated telling Roxas himself, and then threw the idea aside. Roxas would be furious regardless of who broke the news, but Sora could handle Roxas' temper better. If Riku were to try, Roxas would get him riled up within a few seconds, making polite conversation impossible.

"I'll get him for you, then…I can wait downstairs, or should I help you pack?"

Sora thought about this for a second, and then replied, "I'll pack by myself. It won't…it won't take long."

Riku agreed, casting the cream-colored room another long glance—Sora had turned around and picked up a photograph from atop the nightstand, staring at it wistfully—before exiting into the hallway and setting off in search of Roxas.

He found him in the living room flipping through a sheaf of papers, marking them rapidly with a pen. He looked up as Riku entered.

"Your turn to talk to him," Riku said.

"Ah…right," Roxas responded slowly, visibly disconcerted. He set the papers down and stood, heading towards the door before turning and looking at Riku strangely. "Aren't you coming?"

"I think Sora wanted to talk to you alone," Riku replied lightly, shrugging in a what can you do? sort of way. Roxas blinked, bemused, but exited the room without further ado, leaving Riku alone.

Riku heard the padding of sock-shod feet on carpet and the slight creaking of the stairs whenever someone climbed them, and then silence. Looking about the room, his eyes fell briefly on the paperwork that Roxas had abandoned, and then moved on to a painting hanging on the far wall.

The picture featured the edge of a small house a simple, worn-brown porch, the support beams merging into pale yellow sand. Plants with large, shiny green leaves rested in red ceramic pots on the porch and in the sand, and the background featured a sparkling sea with a pure blue sky and a few clouds. A small figure stood near the edge of the water, his back turned towards the viewer. Moving closer so that he only stood a few feet away, he gazed at the painting sadly. It was a beautiful piece of work, but the feeling it gave Riku now was bittersweet.

Naminé hadn't liked this painting; she had been pouting when Sora had insisted on putting it up. There are better ones, she had protested. The colors on this one are wrong, and…Sora hadn't heard a word of it. Riku had privately been glad to see that Sora had chosen this painting; it was one of his personal favorites. Sora had admitted once that he thought that Naminé had a bit of a habit of not liking her own works as much as she should have, especially the ones which took her more time. The more time she spends on one, Sora had once said playfully, the more she's bound to hate it.

It had thus been amusing to both of them that Naminé spent days going over the final details of each painting and yet always was somehow less satisfied than she was before the improvements. What was funnier was that she never verbalized these complaints—instead, they were all suggested by her manner after finishing something.

Riku had watched her in these final stages once. She had been cleaning up the remainder of her paint, regarding the smidgens of the oil paint that had remained untainted from the others on her palette woefully, before she sighed and stuck the shaped glass under the running tap. Washing the paint off with a light sponge, Riku had watched as she made small talk, glancing back at the picture with a small frown every other minute. Finally, he had smirked and extracted her forcefully from the room, saying, Stop being so nitpicky, and go scat already. She had been quietly indignant—Naminé was soft spoken, but there had been a stubborn streak that had been fun to tease out of her.

She had been good for Sora. She had been a good woman in general. Riku had spent many hours quietly grieving over lost comrades over the past year and a half, but her death—or, rather, the imminence of; her fate had been known long before her breaths stopped coming—had affected him the most. The world hadn't seemed quite right without her quiet smile.

Blinking, he looked up, his memories of Naminé temporarily forgotten as he heard shouts from above him. The ceiling muffled too much sound for Riku to determine what was being said, but he could distinguish that it was two voices yelling, not one.

His hand clenched involuntarily for a moment, then relaxed slightly as the screaming ceased. He waited for another few minutes. His eyes were still on the ceiling when he heard, in rapid succession: a door slamming, the rapid pounding of footsteps on stairs, and then Roxas' voice in a barely audible hiss.

"You bastard."

"You think I don't know that?" Riku countered bitterly, turning and bringing his gaze down to Roxas as he crossed his arms. The blue-eyed man was livid, his expression promising a painful death for all those who cared to come across him.

"You should have told me!"

"Yeah, and I didn't."

Roxas let out an aggravated hiss, making a violent motion with his hand but remaining on the other side of the room. "So why the hell didn't you, then?"

"Maybe I should have considered it," Riku conceded, voice flat. "And maybe I would have, if I hadn't been so assured that you would react the exact same way you are now."

"Acting the way I am right now is hell of a better response than yours was—what, you just flop right over on the ground like some dead puppy and let them step all over you? Yeah, like that's doing Sora a lot of good! At least if you'd told me, we could've fucking tried something!"

"Well, if that's the case, it would have been better to tell you- what a way to let Sora know!" Giving the other man a sarcastic grin, he continued, pent up frustration and volume seeping into his voice as he went along. "Just imagine: I walk in, say, 'Hey, Roxas. Guess what. I'm here to drag Sora's ass back to the Organization, and there's not a goddamned thing either of us can do about it.' You start yelling in outrage, I start yelling back, and then Sora comes down totally clueless to find his brother and best friend screaming at each other about how the Organization doesn't give a fuck about his wife and that he's expected back ASAP!" Riku didn't bother to curb the sarcasm from his words. "Of course, now that I think about it, that would have been better, so I'm so sorry, right?"

"Don't give me that shit," Roxas retorted, his own voice rising to meet Riku's. "Don't act as if you're the only one who cares about what's good for him—if that was true, what the hell are you doing here?"

Riku flared up instantly. "It was a direct order, Roxas," he said, struggling to keep what remaining hold he had on his raging temper. "You don't turn down orders from one of the Commanders. You can't."

"You still could have done something—"

"Like what? Auron flat out told me first thing that he'd be sending one of his messenger yes-men within the week if I planned on doing anything to stop it by refusing the assignment! The Organization already knows that it's the wrong thing to do, Roxas! Get it through your head—it wasn't my choice to do this!"

"You're here, aren't you? That was your choice!" Roxas yelled, knowing and hating how weak his argument sounded, but too angry at the silver haired man and the Organization XIII and everything else to care. Sora's words as he left—Don't you even try and take this out on Riku, he doesn't have anything to do with it—echoed in his mind, and he was in just enough of a state of mind to consciously lower his voice so his brother wouldn't hear. "You knew when you came that Sora would choose to go back right away—if you had refused, at least he would have been given a few more days, more than he's getting now, at least!"

"Three days at most! Four, if he was lucky! It doesn't take long for Auron to dispatch somebody, Roxas, and they wouldn't have even given him time to get his bearings before they whooshed him back into the war! You didn't join the military, Roxas; you have no idea what it's like, and until you do don't act as if you know they way everything works!"

Roxas was already opening his mouth to retort when he saw Riku's eyes widen and then a strong hand pulling on his shoulder roughly. Sora's gaze was murderous, his eyes a dark sapphire. The hand on Roxas' shoulders tightened considerably as Sora stared him down, his expression telling everything Sora wanted to say and more.

The car ride back across the city to the Organization was for the large part silent, with Riku concentrating on driving and Sora simply gazing out the window as Traverse Town passed by. The name was misleading; Traverse Town wasn't anything but a city, and a populous one at that.

As they neared the street that would lead them directly to the main headquarters of the Organization, Sora asked quietly, "How are things over there?"

"The same as when you left, really," Riku replied, turning left. "There's a new group working on recruiting more people from the west and south for the regular army, but we don't know how successful it'll be."

"Casualty rates have gone up?"

Riku shook his head. "They're the same, but Auron and Cid want to lower the Organization to militia ratio around some of the smaller areas; they're a lot higher in our favor than they should be."

Sora made a sound of understanding as Riku pulled up to the security gate and rolled down his window. Reaching over to pull two cards from the identity check slot, he handed one over to Sora. They peeled off the clear plastic tape that covered each card, and then firmly pressed their thumb against the plain white surface. Then Riku took Sora's card back, careful not to touch it where an imprint could be made, and stuck them back in a different slot, waiting for the thumbprints to be verified by the security computer.

A few moments later, the gate opened. Riku drove through slowly, waiting until the gate closed behind them before speeding up and leading the car into the Organization garage. The cars there were loaned out on basis of assignments to the Organization members.

Parking in the designated space, Riku shut the car off and opened the door. Sora did the same to his right, and stepped out. The silver haired-man pulled the single suitcase Sora had brought with him out of the trunk, and then the two of them made their way through the garage and up into the actual building.

"Riku, did they happen to tell you where I was rooming?" Upon his friend's negative, he said lightly, "Should've guessed."

"Auron probably wanted for you to talk to him first."

"Probably," Sora agreed. "I can carry my own suitcase, though, Riku."

Riku shrugged and handed the luggage over. When they reached Auron's office, the Commander called them in.

Entering, Riku stood by the doorway, knowing that there really wasn't anything important that Auron had to say to him and waited to be let go. Sure enough, the dismissal came a few seconds later, and Riku left to return back to the work MORNING STAR had left him.

He stopped by his room momentarily to collect the Twilight Town and recruit information he had taken from the workroom the day before. When he entered the room, Leon was already there, typing away. The stormy eyed man looked up and gave him a curt nod, as stoic as ever, then returned to his work.

Riku suppressed an irritated sigh—the least he could do was say hello—before sitting down across from Leon, and setting up the holo-screen. There was a tense pause, and then:

"Leonhart."

"Okada."

"I…apologize. For yesterday."

Leon glanced up. Riku met his gaze squarely, his green-blue eyes determinedly clear. He continued, "I won't deny that given the choice, I wouldn't be here. Just…" he broke up and shifted his gaze away, the strands of hair that escaped his braid framing his face as he frowned. He was silent for a moment, then let out a huff and muttered, "Well, you get the idea." Uncrossing his arms, he gave Leon a slight glare, daring him to say anything, before starting in on his work.

Leon watched his partner silently for a moment as Riku decidedly ignored him, and then said slowly (and somewhat deliberately, though Leon was loathe to admit it), "…whatever."

The tall brunet saw Riku stiffen in anger, and with a small, sarcastic smirk on his face, Leon returned to the realm of his computer screen. Don't say stuff you don't mean, Okada.

Silence reigned.

"Selphie, can you get me more bandages from the storage cabinets?" A red-haired girl called quietly as to not disturb the man in the bed next to her. Selphie nodded, and left to grab the requested swathing.

"Here," she said, handing it over. The girl gave her a grateful smile and began to unroll the bindings, her small hands covered in clear, skintight gloves.

"My shift doesn't end for another ten minutes, you can go wait for me in the main hall, if you want," she offered, her blue eyes serious as she began to wrap the gauze around a deep wound on her patient's forearm. Selphie watched the shallow but steady breathing of the man—he, like all of the invalids in this hall, had been placed under a drugged sleep to ease pain and promote the effectiveness of the healing magic.

"It's fine," Selphie said softly. "This place makes the world seem more real, somehow." Her companion nodded as she continued, "I almost wish I could work here, but I don't have time, and I know how hard it is. I don't know if I could take it."

Blue eyes were understanding as the bandage was trimmed and a slight amount of healing magic applied, enough to speed the process without affecting any of the man's internal systems. "Not many people can, it's why we're short of staff right now."

"Can't you do anything about it?"

A pause, and then Kairi said, "Miss Gainsborough said something about that we were getting a new healer, a good one, but…" She shrugged. "We can't force people to heal."

Selphie thought about this before asking, "But that doesn't make it any easier when…" she gestured to the beds, and Kairi's eyes dimmed as they both had the same thought. Cause of Death: Unknown.

"No. It doesn't."

Alright, hit that review button now please. Think of it this way--a little bit of pain on your part to leave a message gets me much more motivated, and the update will come that much quicker. So...review? Please? Black holes are unfriendly.

next chapter: all the worst qualities. Triangular discussions, and truth is allowed to be just that obvious.