Chapter 35: Unhappy and Frantic Thoughts

Riku returned to the main room, blade already drawn, already in dark mode.

He was not in a good mood.

And to top off his bad mood, he was starting to get a headache.

"Get out of the way!" he called to a nearby Marluxia Replica who was with the Rebellion (it might have been the one from earlier, but he didn't care). Said Marluxia Replica quickly did so, and Riku fired Dark Firaga. It hit the Larxene Replica the Marluxia Replica had previously been battling, probably killing her.

Riku quickly scanned the room, looking for any other possible threats. However, everyone other Replica that Saix had sent was being taken care of.

All except…

"You!" Riku shouted, turning to 37, who was trying to sneak off to get to the computer room again. Though, why he didn't just open a dark corridor…

Angrily, Riku shot Dark Firaga at 37's feet, causing him to pause before he went any further. He turned to glare at Riku. Riku returned the glare with twice the intensity. He threw open a dark corridor to get closer to 37.

"And what put you in such a bad mood?" 37 asked, as Riku emerged from the dark corridor.

Riku responded to this by aiming his blade at 37's throat.

"Get out of here," he said simply. "As you already know, I'm not in a good mood. And I've got quite the headache starting, too. I'm not quite in the mood to kill anyone at the moment, though that might change any minute now."

37's eyes narrowed.

"You do realize that every Replica here chose to come, knowing that they might die," 37 replied coldly. "I don't see-"

"Chose?" Riku laughed. "Are you kidding? I know every Replica here was forced to come because Saix couldn't care less if they died or not."

"That is not entirely true," 37 muttered. "There are a few here that-" his sentence was cut short when Riku drove his blade through his arm (about the same place that Alpha had gotten him a while ago).

"By 'a few' you mean you, don't you?" Riku sneered, pulling his blade slowly out of 37's arm.

37 gasped in pain, and almost immediately started cradling his injured arm.

"You do realize I'm in as good of a position as any to kill you right now," Riku continued. "And I doubt that Saix would miss you. So call this party off and get the heck out of my sight!"

"There is a high chance that if you send us back Saix will destroy us for failing," 37 gasped. "You wouldn't send us to our deaths, would you?"

"Well it's either you die here or you die there," Riku replied, blade quivering, as if he was ready to strike again. "So leave." He emphasized his point by shooting another Dark Firaga at 37. 37 dodged easily.

"I suppose this mission has failed anyways by this point…" 37 muttered unhappily, glancing around the room. He raised his hand, doing his best not to wince.

Everyone paused, and then quite a few dark corridors opened, and everyone sent by Saix left.

"We'll be back though," 37 warned, stepping through his own dark corridor. "You can be sure of that."

The room grew silent.

All eyes were suddenly on Riku.

He shifted uncomfortably.

"Nice going Riku!" Joseph cheered after a moment, probably just to break the silence.

"Yeah," Riku muttered, flickering out of dark mode. He turned to Alpha, who happened to be nearby. "Check the computer room. 37 might have headed in that direction."

Alpha nodded and headed in that direction.

Riku rubbed his still throbbing head and quietly banished his blade.

"I'm going to… go…" he whispered, forming a dark corridor around himself.

He appeared outside of Namine's room. He figured it would be rude to just open a dark corridor directly in there, so he didn't. He sighed, and grabbed the doorknob.

But then he paused.

After a moment of thinking, he pulled out his blade, which was still covered in 37's blood. He took one look at it and frowned. Finally, he sat down next to the door, leaning against the wall, and began cleaning the blood off of his sword.

xxx

About five minutes later, Riku was still getting the blood off of his blade. He had gotten most of it by now, and to top things off, his headache was almost completely gone. He was definitely in a better mood.

Well… better than before. Not necessarily good.

He examined his blade, which seemed to be completely clean by this point. He took a few extra seconds to make sure of this, and then banished it, satisfied. He then rose to his feet and opened the door to Namine's room.

He was rather surprised to find that she was awake and drawing frantically. He frowned, but after a second stepped in and closed the door behind him. Namine glanced up at him, and she smiled slightly.

But there were still traces of fear on her face.

Riku's frowned deepened.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded and then returned to her picture.

No you're not… Riku thought with a sigh, sitting down in the chair.

"What's up?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"Huh?" Namine said, sounding a bit confused. "Oh, nothing." She laughed. "Nothing at all. Don't worry about it." Not once did her eyes leave the paper as she said this, and her hand continued sketching out… whatever it was.

This only made him worry more.

"Namine…" he whispered.

"I'm fine!" she insisted, eyes once again not leaving her picture. "Don't worry about it."

Riku sighed. They sat in silence for a moment as she continued to draw frantically and he tried to figure out what exactly he planned on doing.

After a moment he grabbed her hand, stopping her from drawing anymore. She glanced up at him, a frantic and almost scared look in her eyes. He swallowed, and then gently tugged the paper away from her and set it aside, not even bothering to glance at it. His eyes remained on her face the entire time.

"I am worrying about it," he said calmly with a small smile.

Namine continued to stare at him, looking absolutely shaken with fear.

"What's wrong?" he asked again, voice calm and kind.

"I-I-" Namine stuttered, seeming to be at a complete loss of where to start. "You don't really hate him, do you Riku?" she asked after a moment. "You can't really hate him…"

Riku frowned, slightly confused. "Hate who?"

"Sora…" Namine whispered. "You said that you hated him, that you always hated him." Her voice slowly grew more frantic as she kept explaining. "And then you got confused, because you thought you hated him, and yet you weren't sure, and then you and Sora were fighting, and everything hurt and-"

She might have continued talking, but Riku stopped her, gently cupping her cheek in his hand.

"Calm down," he whispered, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Where did the memory take place?"

"Here," Namine replied. "In Castle Oblivion."

Riku sighed and closed his eyes. Thankfully, though, it made explaining easier. But he knew which memory she was talking about.

He didn't quite like the memory she was talking about.

"It was nothing but a fragmented, messed up memory," he told her simply. "Something that happened forever and a half ago, in my past. You know how messed up my past was. I probably only said that I hated Sora because the Organization told me to believe so. And I probably wasn't sure. Sora's a hard person to hate."

"So you don't hate him?" Namine asked quietly.

Riku nodded. "I don't hate him at all."

"Even after what he did?" she whispered.

"Even after all that," Riku assured her.

"Even after what happened just a while ago?" Her voice was extremely quiet as she said this. "He almost-"

"But he didn't," Riku interrupted before she could finish. "And even if he did, I couldn't really blame him, could I?"

"No… I suppose not…" Namine muttered.

"Are you okay?" Riku asked.

She gave a small nod. "Memories like that hurt though…"

Riku pulled her into a hug.

"They're just stupid memories," he told her. "None of them matter. None of them, got it?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"Good," he said, letting go of her and pulling away. He grabbed her hand though, a grin on his face. "C'mon," he laughed, hopping to his feet.

"Where are we going?" Namine asked, a smile slowly returning to her face.

"We're going to get you a new sketchbook," Riku replied, grin growing even wider as he opened a dark corridor.