Thanks to Agent Moonlight for the suggestion with Riku in the Land of Dragons! (And for your patience in how long it took me to write it!) And hey, look! We've got some action this time!

Coming Clean

He probably shouldn't have been surprised. Of course Sora would chase him. And of course the Organization agent sneaking around up here would take the opportunity to send the local Heartless horde after the Keyblade wielder.

"Again?" Donald sighed before pulling out his staff, preparing for the fight as the Rapid Thrusters started their charge down the mountain.

"Okay, first things first!" Sora said, Keyblade in hand. The group started running towards the horde, meeting them head-on.

Because Sora, of course, didn't know about the dragon in the mountain, so he'd just get stuck here fighting Heartless until it was too late, all of which would only further the Organization's plans by adding about a thousand new hearts to their version of Kingdom Hearts...

Unless he could stop Sora from fighting the Heartless. There were too many for him to just banish – and if he was right about which Organization member had sent them, they'd just come right back – but if he could give Sora another target while the others whittled down the numbers...

Sora slowed the instant he stepped out of hiding, letting the others run ahead. Guess his friend's senses were getting better. (Or maybe it was because... No, that wasn't worth thinking about.) Sora turned around, staring for a second with an odd expression, before holding out the Keyblade with a scowl. "Hey, you! Quit sneaking around!"

Rather than respond – his voice would be a dead giveaway and he didn't want Sora to know – he pointed behind Sora, where a Rapid Thruster was gearing up for an attack. Sora gave him a look that was a mix between "what are you doing?" and "are you kidding me?" At the whir of the Thruster's propeller, however, Sora glanced back, turning quickly to bat the Heartless away and seeming to completely forget about the guy in the black coat.

...This was such a bad idea.

Rolling his eyes under his hood, he called Soul Eater to one hand, gathering dark fire in the other. He sent the flames out in a wide scatter, bolts flying around Sora and hitting the occasional Heartless. Sora whirled back around to face him, dropping to a ready stance.

He kicked off with a a wide swing, darkness swirling around him and shoving Sora back. Another blast of dark flames followed, but Sora dropped quickly, twisting in the air to land on his feet just before hitting the ground and avoiding the volley entirely – which conveniently took out a handful of Heartless instead.

Sora darted in close, a thrust quickly followed up with an upwards swing forcing him back a step. He diverted the next swing and slid past Sora with a slash, ending up quite a ways behind Sora and using the time he'd bought to gather more darkness for his next attack: a heavy downwards swing that caused pillars of darkness to burst from the ground.

Sora dodged the line of energy easily, running around to the side and sending off a quick shot of Blizzard. He countered with another set of dark fireballs, consuming the hunk of ice on their way towards Sora. The teen held out a hand to form a shell of shimmering hexagons, which flickered into being just long enough to bounce the flames back towards him. He had already moved away from the spot, however, rushing Sora with a few swings of Soul Eater. Sora's Keyblade knocked aside his first two swings, but the third, while blocked, had enough force behind it to launch Sora into the air again.

Rather than drop and catch himself like before, Sora somehow went further up, knocking aside some of the Heartless flittering above them as more dark flames passed below him. More Heartless promptly swarmed him to take the place of the ones he destroyed, and he raised his Keyblade above his head as he suspended in the air for a moment at the top of his arc. A swirl of red and blue energy formed an orb that drew the nearby Heartless into it, and Sora fired off a few Blizzards at the cluster as he fell back to the ground.

Released hearts drifted off and vanished as Sora landed, aiming a determined look at him as they squared off again. He raised Soul Eater level with his face as Sora fell back to his usual stance.

And then came right out of it, looking hard at Soul Eater and then him. "Riku?"

He didn't answer, instead launching another volley of black flames at Sora, who hurriedly raised the Keyblade and knocked aside the one that would have hit, but made no move to counter. At all. The Heartless still above them were ignored as Sora took a step forward, raising his free hand.

"You fight like Riku... This isn't a trick, right?" he asked. "Why are you...?"

He lowered his sword, wondering for a moment if maybe – no. No, he couldn't tell Sora. Not while he was still...

Darkness whirled around him as he slashed Soul Eater in a wide swing again, forcing Sora to leap back. A follow-up of dark flames sailed after the teen, who skimmed just above the ground as he darted to the side to avoid them. Sora stopped there, though, still not fighting back, just staring at him with an expression like a kicked puppy. "What's going on? Riku?"

Why wasn't he fighting back!?

He raised a hand, darkness swirling around it as he prepared another attack, but paused. Why did he want Sora to fight back? He was just trying to stop Sora from taking out the Heartless, right? He didn't really want to fight his friend again... did he?

...Oh.

Snarling inwardly, he shoved the darkness in his heart back down. For a second, he thought he heard a disappointed scoff. He dismissed it – more important things to worry about, like the mass of darkness building in the mountain that probably meant the dragon was about to lose its heart – and glanced past Sora, seeing there were still more than enough Heartless to keep the others busy for a while.

Wondering why he hadn't thought of it earlier (he knew why), he let the darkness in his hand disperse as he silently coaxed a handful of Heartless. Sora watched him warily, Keyblade half-raised to block, but didn't move. A shimmer of light flashed along the ground, forming a hexagon with Sora in the center. Before his friend could realize what was happening, the light launched into the air, the barrier's walls shining in rainbow hues for only an instant before the light faded, trapping Sora inside.

"What –" Sora pressed a hand to the barrier, light rippling from the contact. "Hey!" he yelled. He swung at the wall with the Keyblade, producing more of the ripples, but there was no other effect. "Let me out!"

He found himself smothering a grin at the situation, despite everything, and was glad for the hood hiding his face. He didn't have much time; Sora would easily handle the Rapid Thrusters that had formed the barrier, trapping themselves in with him (as it seemed that was the rule – too bad, as being able to put Sora in a bubble was becoming an increasingly appealing option). He turned his attention to the Heartless outside of the barrier, a few swings of Soul Eater and the occasional fistful of darkness making short work of the ones nearby.

He could feel the darkness in the area shifting, the Heartless being wiped out by Sora's friends, though it was still building within the mountain itself. Just a little more to go...

Inside the barrier, Sora had caught sight of the Heartless flying above him, and jumped up, bouncing back and forth on the walls to get to their height. When he was high enough, he backflipped to the center of the space, Keyblade flashing as he spun it and created a small vortex to draw the Heartless together. The wind continued to swirl around him, holding him aloft as he swung, and the Keyblade left his hand and flew around him on its own, destroying all the Heartless at once. Sora drifted down as the barrier faded, floating above the ground for a second before landing softly and turning his attention back towards him.

...Weird. When had Sora learned to manipulate air like that?

He shook his head, brushing off the thought as he lifted Soul Eater once more. Sora surprised him by running right at him, Keyblade in one hand and apparently over his earlier hesitation. He raised the sword to block the swing, but was caught off-guard when, after knocking his sword aside, Sora's Keyblade vanished, the younger boy tackling him to the ground and now-free hand reaching out to grab the collar of his coat. Before he could react, Sora's other hand took hold of his wrist, preventing him from being able to swing Soul Eater effectively. "Gotcha!" the boy said, smirking triumphantly. "Now tell me what's going on!"

For a moment, he was completely frozen. He could break Sora's hold without any problem, but...

"You're not..." Sora started, eyes searching the shadows under the hood. "Riku, you didn't join those Organization jerks, did you? No way, you wouldn't." Uncertainty began to creep into Sora's eyes as silence was his only answer. "Right?" He let go of the collar and reached for the hood. "Riku?"

He shoved Sora off with his free hand, breaking the weak hold as he rolled back to his feet and backed away. He couldn't let Sora see...

Sora tumbled into the snow, regaining his feet just as easily and looking at him with that kicked puppy face again. "Riku, c'mon," he said, undisguised pleading in his voice. "Have you got any idea how worried I've been? Say something."

This was not how he'd wanted this to go. He didn't want Sora to think he was an enemy again, but he couldn't let him know about giving into the darkness. If he'd stayed hidden, instead of stupidly jumping at the idea of distracting Sora from the Heartless, this wouldn't be happening. Now Sora was going to be hurt no matter what he did, and that was the absolute last thing he wanted.

It was Sora's face that finally did it. He just wanted that look to go away. And there was really only one way to do that.

Slowly, he reached up and took the edge of the hood in both hands. And, just as slowly, he lowered it, revealing Ansem's face instead of his own. "Sorry," he said, deep voice still strange even to his own ears. "This probably isn't what you were expecting."

Sora simply stared at him, looking betrayed and confused but mostly just utterly heartbroken. His voice was weak and strained when he finally found it. "I thought..."

"I know what this looks like," he said. "But it's... I'm not..."

"Ansem!?" came a warbled cry. On instinct, he threw up a barrier, shimmering hexagons forming just in time to block the bolts of lightning raining down towards him. The barrier blinked out of being from the assault, and before he could form another, a metal shield flew at him and bounced off his raised arm. The force of the blow knocked him precariously close to the edge of the cliff, and before he could think, his sword was back in his hand, darkness swirling around the other.

And then Sora was between them, holding a hand to both him and the group, halting everyone in their tracks. "Guys, wait! It's Riku!"

That got a few looks, and not all at Sora. Donald and Goofy exchanged glances before turning to him, both narrowing their eyes to study him carefully. The girl (Fa Mulan? He was pretty sure that's what he'd heard her called – she'd done a disturbingly good job tracking him) was a little better, expression considering though still guarded. But all three had lowered their weapons, so there was that, at least.

"Uh, Sora?" Donald said quietly, trying unsuccessfully to pull the boy away by the hand. "If that's Riku, why does he look like Ansem?"

"And why's he wearing those Organization XIII duds?" Goofy added.

"The coat helps me hide from the Organization," he explained, figuring he may as well let them know he could hear them. There wasn't any point in holding back now. "I've been tracking them, too, since you weren't available." He hesitated, then sighed, not able to look at Sora. "And the way I look... That's my own fault." He wanted to make that clear first, before his friend could even try to blame himself somehow. "Some... things happened, while you were asleep." He lifted his hands, studying them as an excuse to continue not looking at Sora. "I fought Ansem when he tried to invade my heart, and I won, but..." But Roxas had been too strong to stop when he had to hold the darkness back at the same time. And if accepting that darkness into his heart meant Sora would wake up... "I had to use the darkness. And to do that, I had to become Ansem myself."

"So you can't change back?" Sora asked. He still looked hurt, but it was clear he was trying to understand. And it was just as clear that, despite everything, he still trusted Riku.

He shook his head, dizzied by the realization. He'd barely let himself hope that Sora would still accept him like this, and to see Sora so ready to believe him... It took him a second to even remember Sora had asked him a question. "The Organization isn't something you can beat with just the light. Until they're gone, I still need the powers of darkness."

"Then..." Sora walked over to him, holding out a hand with a hopeful smile. "Let's take them on. Together." Behind his friend, Donald nodded encouragingly while Goofy held his thumbs up and grinned, and even Mulan offered him a tentative smile.

He glanced down at the offered hand, trying to think of why he shouldn't take it. Sticking together would make them an easier target for the Organization, and he knew he owed most of his success so far to working quietly and hiding in the darkness. That wouldn't be an option with Sora.

But... it was Sora.

He started to reach out, hesitating just once. Then he took Sora's hand, giving his friend the first honest smile he'd made in months. "Together, then."

At that moment, the ground shook, a massive swirl of darkness bursting from one of the higher cliffs. A gigantic Heartless rose from that darkness, ignoring them as it flew off with a beat of its massive wings.

"It's heading for the city!" Mulan gasped, once more drawing her sword as she turned to the path down the mountain. She gestured quickly for them to follow. "We've got to warn Shang!"

He and Sora glanced at each other, then nodded. Sora's Keyblade appeared in his hand. "Let's go!"

And as one, the whole group ran down the mountain. Including Riku.

Riku was a pain in this one and insisted on not referring to himself by name. Because (in my head, at least) as much as he doesn't want to be Ansem, he feels he doesn't deserve to be Riku anymore – hence the "I'm no one" line from The World That Never Was. Hopefully it didn't get too confusing...

And yes, I think I am going to take every opportunity to draw connections between Sora and Ven. The others, too, of course, but mostly them.