Castle Oblivion 1st Basement Floor

Riku, a boy of fifteen floated in a grey abyss. His hair was long and silver, and he was dressed in a yellow-and-black tank top and dark blue pants.

As he slowly opened his teal eyes, he looked around his surroundings.

"Where am I?" He asked.

"Stay asleep," a deep voice suddenly spoke to him. Riku's eyes widened and he flipped upwards.

"Who's there?"

"You should remain asleep. Here, between light and dark."

"Between...what?" Riku asked in confusion. Then he realized that he wasn't supposed to be alone.

"The King! Where's the King? Together we closed the door to darkness. After that-"

"You came drifting here by yourself," the voice explained, "You did not have the strength to overcome the darkness...or maybe you were close to it."

Riku snorted. "Hmph, as if I'm some kind of demon."

"Turn from the light. Shut your eyes. Here, blanketed by the darkness, sleep is safety. Sleep is eternal. But…"

A blue card floated down towards Riku.

"What's this?" He asked as he observed the card cautiously.

"It is a door to the truth. Take it and your sleep ends, as you take the first steps towards the truth. But know this: the truth will bring you pain. Will you still go?"

As the card floated in front of Riku's face, he nodded.

"There is no return to the security of sleep."

Riku smirked. "This seemed like a boring place to take a nap anyway."

"Very well said, Riku."

A bright light clouded his vision, causing him to shut his eyes.

When he reopened them, he saw that he was in a white room. A large yellow door stood on white steps on the other side of the room.

"A door to the truth, huh?" he said as he looked at the card.

The world of Hollow Bastion appeared on the front of the card.

Riku was already not pleased with the situation, and he hadn't even gone through the door yet. Hollow Bastion was his prison as he was manipulated into being Ansem and Maleficent's pawns. It was the centerpiece of his betrayal to his island, family, and best friends. It was his low point, where darkness took over him.

Begrudgingly, Riku walked up the steps and held the card up to the door. It opened widely, and flash of light blinded him again.

Riku looked around his surroundings...and indeed he was in Hollow Bastion.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Boy did he hate this place.

"What you see is not real. It's the world of your memory," the voice said.

"What? My memory?"

"The things you remember from your time at Maleficent's castle became a card, and that card made this world. You've seen everything here before, haven't you?"

"Yeah…So what now? Am I going to learn something? Maybe meet someone?" Riku questioned, curious yet unsure.

"You would meet the people in your memories. Ordinarily."

"What does that mean?"

The voice didn't answer him.

"Hey! I'm asking you a question!"

It still didn't answer him.

"Fine," Riku said, sighing. He was just going to have to figure this out on his own. "But it better be you I come across next, Voice."

He entered the top floor of the Library, where he used to sleep.

"Everything is just how I remember it, even this room," he stated.

"It must be nice being back in your old bedroom, Think of all the memories…," the voice spoke.

"Sorry, I could do without these memories," Riku replied. He hated this room the most. "Maleficent gave this room." And it was always cold and lifeless.

"So she did. And you lived here, tempted by the darkness she offered. You cast away your room, your friends, your everything...But hey, at least they gave you this nice room."

Riku frowned deeply. That was extremely shady. And this was NOT a nice room. He barely slept at times due to the very stiff bed. That, and the late nights thinking about whether allying with darkness was worth it all.

"Stop talking!" Riku shouted as he ran out of the room.

Riku looked around in the ballroom. "No one here either…There's nothing but heartless in this castle." And the heartless weren't any nicer, though perhaps that was the only thing consistent so far.

He ran down the steps, calling for the Voice. "Voice! I know you're watching so explain this! Where are the people from my memories?"

"Do you want to see them?" The voice answered.

"Of course I do!"

"But you cast them aside…"

"What?"

"You dreamt of the outside world and you passed through the door to darkness. Behind you, you left family, friends, home, everything...in pursuit of darkness."

"But I cast that aside too!" Riku argued.

"And what do you have to show for it? First your home, then the dark. Your heart only knows how to cast away. It's empty like that room. Like your memories, that's why you won't meet anyone. Your heart is hollow, except for the residual darkness."

"You're wrong! I rejected the darkness!" Riku protested loudly. He didn't want to believe that his heart was hollow. He came back from the darkness and helped King Mickey close the Door To Darkness. He may have fallen, but he came back up when it came down to allying the darkness or protecting his friends!

Darkness was no longer apart of him, he refused to believe otherwise.

The voice chuckled loudly. "Did you really, now?"

"I did! I'll prove it to you!" Riku shouted as he ran out of the hall.

When he entered the Castle Chapel, he was greeted by a most unwelcome sight.

Maleficent grinned evilly as she looked him up and down.

"I knew you would return Riku," she purred.

Riku gaped at her in shock. "You're alive? But how?"

"You haven't been paying attention. I am but a figment of your memory," the fairy witch explained with a smirk.

Riku growled. "Of ALL the people I could run into, it had to be you."

Maleficent was a starch reminder of how far he gone to save Kairi, and how he betrayed all of his loved ones to darkness. The fairy witch had seduced him with her lies. She had played into all of his insecurities with Sora, and he fell for it like a fool.

"But of course. After all, your heart is seeped in darkness," she stated, "You can only see those who exist in darkness."

"No!" Riku shouted. "I'm past the darkness, and I'm especially past YOU!"

Maleficent dropped her smirk and glared at him.

"Be grateful you have someone to keep you company. Your heart is empty. Were it not for the darkness it contains, you would be completely alone," she sneered.

"That's sounding pretty good right about now!" Riku barked.

Maleficent rolled her eyes. "Come, now. You onced turned to me to sate your hunger for the darkness. You want me here. Who but I can grant you the darkness you long for?"

Riku shook his head in denial. "There was a time I did wanted you around. I surrendered my heart to the dark. But never again. You and your darkness have nothing to offer!"

Riku walked past her. "All I did was lose myself! Empty myself! I'm finished with that," he continued, "If I'm stuck seeing people like you, people of the dark…"

Riku turned around to face Maleficent again, with his fists balled at his sides.

"I'll take you all out, one by one!"

The evil fairy did not say anything for a moment. Then she walked forward towards the other direction. She smirked again, this time even more cruelly than the last.

"Then you mustn't forget to destroy yourself last," she said spitefully, "For, like me, you are of the dark."

"That's fine with me. I turned to darkness because my heart was weak. I hate that weakness. It's like I'm my own enemy," Riku explained, "And seeing people like you embrace the darkness just makes it worse! Enough talk, Maleficent!" He summoned his sword, Soul Eater, out of a puff of darkness. He held it out at Maleficent threateningly.

Maleficent chuckled deeply.

"So you hate the darkness enough to fight it. Oh the agony you must feel!"

Dark tendrils snaked around her as she began to glow green.

"Then let me end your pain, Riku. I'll end it forever...with the wondrous power of darkness!"

The ground began to shake as a pillar of green fire shot down from the sky and covered the evil fairy. Maleficent cackled as she grew bigger and bigger, her face burning away to a reptilian one, her claws growing longer and sharper, and her form completely shifting away to its true nature.

For Maleficent was not just a fairy witch, but a giant dragon as well.

The dragon roared menacingly but Riku was not frightened.

The first thing he did was charge at the dragon and slash at its chest. The dragon howled in pain before smacking him away with its long tail. Riku bounced back immediately in the air before landing gracefully on the ground.

"Is that all you got?" He taunted. The dragon responded by launching a green fireball at him, only for him to block the blow with Soul Eater. "I guess not."

The dragon roared again before attempting to clamp down on him with its jaw, but Riku rolled away before casting Firaga at its face.

The dragon howled in pain before slamming Riku back with a large shockwave. The impact was felt harshly as Riku was slammed into a wall. He winced as he held his arm in pain. However, he had no time to think on it any further as he dodged a stream of fire directed at him by the dragon.

A black card floated downwards from the sky. Riku caught it as it landed on his hand, and a green silhouette of King Mickey appeared on the front.

"A card? What does it do?"

The green glowed a bright green and Riku suddenly found himself on top of a floating platform.

"Oh, that's what it does," he simply commented. He looked at the dragon and smirked again.

Using the platform, he flew the dragon and unleashed a series of slashes at its face, with the dragon knocking back each one.

It tried to blast Riku with fire, but he blocked it with his sword. Taking advantage of the dragon's confusion, he slashed its throat brutally with one strike.

The dragon exploded in a green burst of fire, and there was left was a black card with its face on it….and one of Sora's pals. One of the sisters to be exact.

"Huh?" Riku asked as he walked over to her unconcious frame. She was the slightly lighter skinned one, and the quieter one compared to her more boisterous twin.

Her name was Rini, he believed.

She stirred awake, lifting her upper body up. She opened her eyes up and looked around her surroundings.

"Where am...where am I?" She asked softly. When she noticed Riku, Sarina jumped up quickly. "You! You're Sora's best friend!"

"I am, though I haven't been much of best friend lately," he replied bitterly. "You're Rini, right?"

She looked down to the floor shyly.

"That's my nickname. My actual name is Sarina, but you can call me Rini if you'd like. Everyone else does that anyway."

"Rini," he repeated, tasting the name on his lips. He took a step towards her, and she instinctively took a step back. She was never good at talking to others, especially boys.

"Hey, I'm not going to bite, at least not anymore," he joked. "How'd you get here anyway?"

"I don't know. I was battling the Guard Armor in Traverse Town with my sister and the others, but everything went white the second the battle was over! I don't know what happened! I don't know if May's alright or-"

"Traverse Town? In here?" Riku cut her off in bewilderment.

"I think it was a figment of all of our memories. The cloaked man said that we will encounter those from our memories but I don't really trust him because he seems very suspicious. He said something about "to find is to lose and to lose is to find". I have a bad feeling about him and I wish we didn't enter this castle but Sora thought it would lead us to you and the King," she explained. Then something clicked inside of her head, and so did Riku's.

"Wait, Sora's in this castle?" He asked. She nodded.

"Yes, do you know where the King is?"

"No," he answered regrettably, "That's what I'm trying to find out."

Rini looked up towards the sky. "This is Hollow Bastion, isn't it? We fought Maleficent in her dragon form here. If it wasn't for May, she would have killed us all."

Riku snorted. "Then this must have been a pretty weak memory of her because I kicked her ass."

Rini frowned. "You? But you were her right hand man, or did she manipulate you? Did she? I'm sorry I can be-"

"I was nothing more than her pawn," Riku finished for her bitterly, "Her toy, her and her cronies little tool to gather the princesses of heart. But she was a pawn too, to Ansem. He was using her for his ultimate plan, and I almost fell for it completely." He balled his fist up in anger at himself. He then relaxed himself.

"You're different now, right? You held sealed the Door To Darkness with King Mickey," Rini stated.

"I want to be different. I'm trying to be different," he said. "Come with me."

Rini looked at him, startled. "What?"

"We want to look for our friends, right? I don't see why we can't do it together," he sighed when she wouldn't budge, "I said earlier I won't bite. You can defend yourself, right? I don't want to be carrying any dead weight around."

She nodded, albeit still unsure of his motives. "I can, I'll go with you."

He smiled. "Alright then, let's go."

They entered the exit hall of the first basement floor.

"Why do you shun the darkness, Riku?" The voice said.

The two teens froze.

"Where is that voice coming from?" Rini questioned fearfully.

"I don't know. It's been following me for awhile," Riku answered. He then rolled his eyes at the question the voice gave him.

"Didn't you hear what I said to Maleficent? I know you've hear every word."

"Darkness is your weapon. It is time for you to accept it."

"What do you mean?"

"Stop resisting. Accept the darkness. You have no other choice…"

A dark portal opened and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness appeared.

"...If you are to serve me again!"

A/N: Ruh roh. Ansem, Seeker of Darkness may not be "dead" after all, or is he? Nonetheless here is another cliffhanger! Just to throw this out there, Riku and Rini's partnership won't be anything more than platonic.

Sorry about the late update as finals week took over my life for two weeks.