Chapter 36: Tempting Darkness

"No! You're doing it all wrong!" Yuffie shouted, causing Sora to stop. He frowned.

"Like this," Yuffie told him, again throwing her shuriken to demonstrate.

Sora sighed.

"I don't know if Keyblades are meant for throwing…" he muttered.

"Sure they are!" Yuffie said. "I know a kid who used this technique all the time with his Keyblade. Well, less knew, more ran into him once but, still."

"Keyblade?" Sora asked, confused.

Who else out there has Keyblade?

Are there more Keyblade wielders than… just me?

"Besides," Yuffie continued, completely ignoring what he said. "You can use this technique with any weapon!"

"She has a point, Sora," Leon called.

"Well, almost every weapon," Yuffie whispered. "If your weapon is weird, like Squall's, then it won't really work."

"That's Leon!" Leon called from not far off. Yuffie sighed and pouted a little.

Sora laughed a little at Leon's annoyance. He had been here long enough to learn that Leon had once been called Squall. However, after the destruction of his home world he changed his name to Leon in hopes to separate himself from his past. Between him and Cloud, Sora felt quite at home with his regrets of his own past.

Even though he had yet to figure out what had happened to Cloud. But he wasn't going to ask. That would be rude. No one had pestered him much about what had happened during his past.

"Try it again," Yuffie said, tapping her foot impatiently.

Sora sighed and tried yet again to toss his Keyblade like Yuffie had taught him. He did actually manage to throw it and cause it to spin mid-flight. However, it didn't boomerang back to him. Instead, it hit a wall on the other side of the area.

"I'll get it!" Aerith called.

"Wait," Leon said, turning to Sora. "You know how to summon your Keyblade back to you, right?"

"I can do that?" Sora asked, a bit surprised.

Leon sighed and rubbed his head. "Yes…" he replied slowly.

"So how do I do it?"

"It should be as easy as willing it to come back to you," Aerith said with a smile. Leon just continued to rub his head, obviously bothered by the fact that Sora somehow didn't know this.

"Sounds easy enough…" Sora muttered. He reached out towards his Keyblade and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Focusing hard, he wished his Keyblade back to him. There was a sudden rush of wind and a flash of light, and suddenly he was holding his Keyblade again.

"There," Leon said. "Yuffie, back to you."

"You got it!" Yuffie laughed, turning to Sora. "Go on then."

Sora sighed, and again tossed his Keyblade.

About five minutes later, Sora was still trying to toss is Keyblade and have it come boomeranging back to him. He was, however, getting good at summoning it back to him.

"Again! You'll get it this time!" Yuffie said.

Again, Sora threw his Keyblade.

Please come back this time! This is getting old! he thought desperately.

A large BANG broke his concentration. Everyone turned to where Cid and Cloud were working on modifying Cid's cannon. Cid and Cloud seemed to be okay. The cannon… well… maybe not so much.

"Can't you pay attention to what you're doing!" Cid shouted.

"Sorry…" Cloud muttered.

Something hit Sora in the back of the head. He turned.

His Keyblade had finally come back to him.

"Great!" Yuffie cheered. "Now you just need to work on catching it!"

Sora sighed.

xxx

"Hey! Look who's getting stronger!"

Sora's nostrils flared. He turned, and sure enough, there was his Shadow, leaning casually against the wall with a wicked smirk on his face. His blade wasn't summoned, but his chains were, and he was twirling them playfully.

"What do you want?" Sora hissed.

"Oh, don't mind me," his Shadow replied. "I don't plan on bothering you. I'm going to go ahead and let you get a bit more stronger. Then, at least, fighting you will be fun. Because, with your strength the way it is now, I could kick your ass into next Thursday without breaking a sweat."

Sora frowned and readied his blade.

His Shadow burst out laughing. "Oh, so you want to have your ass kicked into next Thursday!" he said.

Sora's eyes slowly formed a glare, and his grip on his blade remained firm.

His Shadow rolled his eyes. "This will be too easy…" he muttered, raising his hand.

Sora let out a sudden gasp of pain, as the darkness sprung to life within him. It had been a while since it had acted up this much. Wave after wave of pain washed over him as the darkness roared to life.

The grin on his Shadow's face was absolutely sick as he watched with amusement.

"I bet someone's feeling some regret," he laughed, slowly clenching his hand into a fist.

With one swift motion the Shadow punched the air in front of him, and Sora went flying, as if he had actually taken the punch himself. His Keyblade clattered to the ground before disappearing, and he curled into a ball, as the pain became unbearable.

"Stop it!" he screamed. "STOP IT!"

His Shadow just laughed, clenching his fist tightly. Another cry of pain left Sora's lips, as the darkness began crushing him.

He could hardly breathe.

His thoughts were getting clouded and muddled by the darkness. The weight that was on his chest was unbearable. It felt as if something was squeezing his heart, crushing it. And the darkness was growing strong inside of him, feeding off the pain, feeding off of his anger. And his Shadow was eagerly feeding it to, making it ten times worse.

"I… I can't give…" he gasped. "I can't give into the darkness! I- I refuse! I- I won't-"

"So that's what your thoughts are…" the Shadow whispered. And despite their distance, Sora could hear him clear as day. "You'll refuse the darkness, no matter how much it hurts," the Shadow continued. "But I didn't think it always used to be like that…"

Sora watched out of the corner of his eye, and slowly raised his hand and attempted to open a dark corridor himself. A bit of darkness formed at his fingertips for a second.

"What are you doing?" Riku asked, breaking his concentration.

Sora lowered his hand. "I thought you were leaving," he snapped coldly over his shoulder.

"Give me a second…" Riku muttered, before leaving.

Sora was hardly paying attention.

'How does he DO that?' Sora thought, trying again to open a corridor. Again what could have been the start of one appeared at his fingertips, but it fizzled out of existence before getting anywhere. Sora grunted in frustration.

'Maybe I'm not trying hard enough,' he thought, and then tried again, this time focusing harder on tapping into the darkness inside him. The darkness shot through him like fire, and the dark corridor got farther in opening. But then a wave of pain shot through him. Sora gasped, and the dark corridor disappeared.

"And you didn't stop trying… even though it hurt you," the Shadow scolded, pulling him out of the memory. "Wow. Just wow. How stupid are you?"

"Shut up!" Sora shouted. The pain only continued to grow within him, as the darkness started feeding off of that newly found anger. A scream of pain left him, and he closed his eyes, just trying to fight it off.

The darkness only continued to crush him.

And everything around him was slowly beginning to fade…

"Hey, are you okay?" came a sudden worried voice.

Sora struggled to open his eyes, and found a very concerned Cloud staring at him. Sora had never seen Cloud worried before, and was a bit surprised by this fact. However, the darkness was continuing to grow inside him, and another scream of pain left his lips.

"What's wrong?" Cloud asked.

Sora paused a second, trying to fight the darkness down and catch his breath. "The darkness…" he managed to gasp. "It's- crushing-"

"Oh no you don't!" his Shadow called, clenching his fist even tighter. In response to this another wave of darkness washed over Sora.

"No!" Sora screamed. "I won't give in!"

Cloud frowned. "Just keep fighting it," he told Sora after a moment. "You don't have to give in." He started glancing around the area, as if looking for something.

"Oh sure… he thinks he's all smart and fancy," the Shadow muttered in a sing song voice, glaring at Cloud. "Cause, somehow, he can get through to Sora, and give him enough strength to fight back." His voice was slowly rising with annoyance. "Just who is he, anyways? What's happened to him that makes him different? I can see the darkness inside him, just about as much as there is in Sora… but… it's tame. How the hell can someone have so much darkness inside them and not have problems with it!"

The Shadow's eyes narrowed in concentration as he continued to stare at Cloud. There was a mystery inside Cloud, one he was determined to unlock.

He was pure darkness.

He could see the darkest thoughts and memories of anyone.

But Cloud was different.

Try as he might, the Shadow just couldn't figure him out. He managed to get a glimmer of memory, but nothing more than the sight of blood and the feeling of being useless.

And his attempts to read Cloud were quickly shattered when he realized something.

Cloud was staring right at him.

"He can't see me…" the Shadow assured himself. "But it sure looks like he knows I'm here… does he know?" His fist slowly unclenched and Sora's breathing returned to normal as the darkness became bearable inside him.

His eyes locked with Cloud's for a brief second.

Cloud knew.

Somehow, in some weird way, Cloud knew that the Shadow was there.

Slightly panicked, the Shadow disappeared from the area in a flash of darkness.