AN/ Thank you Mr. Sora's Shadow, for over 2000 words. And, I'll admit, this chapter was fun to write
Chapter 44: Lurking Darkness
"I'm… bored…" the Shadow muttered. "Not in the mood to go deal with Sora. He's too weak to get any enjoyment from. Maybe I could-"
A sudden flicker of memory flashed through him. The Castle with white walls. Castle Oblivion. Sora had spent some time there. The Shadow had even visited there once, himself. But maybe he could pick up some thoughts concerning Sora to use against him.
"And even if I don't, I'm sure it will be fun," the Shadow laughed.
xxx
He wandered through the halls, not a single face striking him as familiar. So, so far, he had yet to run into anyone who had spent any time with Sora. He did, however, run into a pair of arguing Marluxia Replicas.
"Tulip, what are you complaining about! You can't even fight!" one of them shouted.
The Shadow burst out laughing. "His name is Tulip! Oh gosh, that is awesome! Man, it would suck to be him!" Oddly enough though, not the slightest dark thought or memory concerning that name was found inside the Marluxia Replica named Tulip.
"Well, not all of us can be as skilled as you are, Snapdragon!" Tulip replied, rather upset.
"Snapdragon?" the Shadow muttered. "That's not a bad name…"
"Besides, I'm still having issues because my arm has been Repaired so many times that I hardly have any of my original data left!" Tulip continued. "It's not really responding the way I want it to!"
"Well if you'd stop getting injured-" Snapdragon replied.
The Shadow paused a second, basking in the absolutely wonderful feeling of the anger and hatred that was coming from these two. Tulip was also feeling very upset and useless, while Snapdragon was very annoyed. The Shadow took a deep breath, thoroughly enjoying this.
"May not be as fulfilling as Sora's pain, but it's still nice," he sighed, before moving on.
He turned the corner and ran into someone who happened to be too busy going through his notes to pay attention to where he was going. Said person's name was Vexen, as the Shadow found out all too quickly.
"Joseph!" Vexen shouted, glancing around. However, he found no one there.
"Oh dear…" he sighed. "I'm going insane."
The Shadow might have laughed at that, was he not currently holding his head. He was reeling from all the dark thoughts and memories that had flooded through him the moment he and Vexen had made contact.
"I don't even want to know," he muttered, rubbing his temples. Finally he composed himself and started walking again.
Out of sheer curiosity he went over to the nearest door and opened it. He was surprised to find that it looked something like a bedroom. He raised his eyebrows and then went over to the next door and opened it. He found yet another bedroom.
"Huh," he laughed. "I wonder if Sora had a bedroom. He probably did. I wonder if I could find it…" He closed his eyes, recalling a memory. He began walking, letting the feel of memory lead him to where he wanted go.
However, he ran into someone else.
"Damn!" he breathed, clutching his head as he was bombarded with all the dark thoughts and thoughts connected to dark thoughts that were in this person. "What's with all the freaking bright thoughts!" He paused, getting a good look at who he had just run into. It was a young boy about 12. "That would explain- wait. WHAT!" He turned to the boy in shock. "You want to murder someone! But you're twelve!"
"Is… someone there?" the boy asked, glancing around.
The Shadow frowned.
"Geeze, I need to stop being so clumsy," he muttered. "I'm never this bad. And next thing I know, I'll end up having someone actually notice me for real. These little wonders are bad enough… but someone to flat out know I exist! That would be terrible."
He shook his head and turned to the nearest door, memory insisting that this was where Sora had stayed. He was very disappointed to find that it had nothing interesting in it. Just like all the other bedrooms, it seemed.
He wandered around a bit more, eventually going up a floor. He was surprised to find on the next level there were still plenty of bedrooms. Not as many as the previous floor, but still a lot. He checked every room, and was even more surprised to find that these rooms seemed to have more furniture. In addition to the typical bed he found a few computers in one room, a desk in another, a full shelf of books in another.
He went through each room carefully, though didn't find any information concerning Sora. The room with the computers had belonged to someone named Alpha, and the computers were impossible to get anything from (the Shadow blamed this on his weird plane of existence). The room with the bookshelf only had books that he didn't really care to read, and the room belonged to someone called 19. The room with the desk was a bit more interesting, as he got quite a bit from a journal that he was sure the owner never wanted read. The owner had been Riku, which lead him to believe this more.
He went to the last room on the floor.
"Whose room is this…?" the Shadow muttered with a smirk as he opened the door. "I hope I don't just walk in on some poor sap."
The room was, however, unoccupied. He glanced around with a bit of surprise, as this room has a lot of furniture, or, at least, more than any other of the rooms. There was a bed, a chair (that was rather close to the bed, he took care to notice), and a table. On the table was a stack or two of paper, a sketchbook and quite a few pencils.
"Someone who draws a lot lives in here then," the Shadow mused. "Someone who draws… hmm… I have a feeling I know someone like that. Or, at least, Sora does…" He closed his eyes and focused hard on bringing up the very fuzzy memories of Sora's that he had inside of him. After a while of concentration, a name finally came to his mind.
"Namine," he whispered. "She's… one of Sora's friends… and…" His eyes squeezed even tighter shut with concentration. "She and Riku are- close. Very close."
His eyes flew open and a look of disgust flashed over his face. The disgust quickly turned to a grin as his eyes fell on the sketchbook.
"Let's see just how close," he laughed, picking it up and flipping through it.
Most of the pictures were of Riku, though there were quite a few of Namine and Riku together, and the occasional one of Kairi, or Sora, but mainly Riku. Always, almost always Riku, the Shadow found out rather quickly as he kept flipping. He paused briefly on each picture of the Namine and Riku together, scanning for any information. It wasn't like he was going to run into either of them, but the information would be handy, just in case.
He didn't get far in looking before the sound of footsteps reached his ears. He very quickly set the sketchbook down where he had found it. His actions were apparently not quick enough, though.
"Is someone there?" came a very confused voice.
He turned, finding Namine in the doorway. She was glancing around the room, looking as confused as she sounded. Her eyes never remained on him for more than a second though and he laughed slightly.
"Sorry sweetheart, you can't see me," he laughed.
"I guess I'm just crazy," Namine said finally, and then picked up the sketchbook and a few pencils, before going over to the bed and sitting down. She opened the sketchbook and began to draw.
"Maybe I should go…" the Shadow muttered. "She might notice me if I'm- well… nah. I can stay a bit longer. Maybe I'll pick up some more juicy information…"
He frowned in concentration, examining her face intently. She was completely focused on what she was drawing, and probably took no notice of him cautiously probing her mind. Of course, he could only pick up thoughts that were dark or connected to dark thoughts, so he wasn't getting much. For some reason, there were very few dark thoughts within her. There was one very prominent thought, though.
Riku.
There was just enough darkness around one thought of him for the Shadow to pick it up. However, before he could examine that, an overwhelming amount of other extremely bright thoughts concerning Riku hit him. He quickly shied away from those thoughts.
Surprisingly enough, he found quite the abundance of dark memories. He moved around them carefully, poking at a few, completely ignoring some.
Memory meltdowns…
The thought came drifting to him, and he frowned.
"Now just what are those?" he said.
He poked around the subject a bit more. Before he could get far though, a sudden wave of dark memories flooded through her brain, clouding everything.
She let out a cry of pain (which he might have laughed at, was he not currently occupied) and the overwhelming thought of: "Oh crud, not again!" filled her mind. Her sketchbook fell to the ground, along with a few pencils, as she clutched her head.
The Shadow clutched his own head, not quite being able to avoid the flood of memories himself. He decided rather quickly that he did not like pain. And the pain he was feeling at the moment was unbearable.
"I can't scream…" he gasped. "The moment I scream is the moment that I'll randomly have enough power for someone else to hear me. That would be bad… I can't scream!"
He quickly shoved all the memories aside and put up as many mental blocks as he possibly could. A sudden relief washed over him and he sighed. He straightened, lowering his hands, and glancing over at Namine, who was still in pain. His amusement quickly returned.
The sound of footsteps caused him to turn, yet again, and he found Riku. Riku was rubbing his head, as if he had a headache. However, Riku's worry about the headache seemed to fade quickly as his eyes fell on Namine. In one swift motion, Riku sat down in the chair, pulled one of Namine's hands away from her head and held it in his own, and then cupped her cheek in his other hand.
"The worry on his face is amazing…" the Shadow muttered. "So why can't I-" With a laugh at his own stupidity, he slowly lowered a few of the mental blocks. Just as it should be, Riku's worried thoughts came floating to him.
Another meltdown? Gosh, this is ridiculous! Riku thought.
The Shadow raised his eyebrows in interest as the thoughts continued, each being along the line of the fact that Riku just couldn't stand the meltdowns. He was so sick of watching Namine hurt like this, and angry at himself because there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"Well then!" the Shadow laughed. "I guess it was a good idea for me to stay, then. Though I suppose it won't matter, I'll never be needing to use any of this information."
"Namine," Riku whispered. "It's alright, I'm here now."
She just nodded.
"You'll make it through this," he continued. "It will all be okay."
"Oh barf," the Shadow whispered. "Those are some thoughts I didn't want to hear."
"I don't even know what triggered this one!" Namine said frantically. "I was just sitting here drawing, and it started with no reason!"
"Hmm…" the Shadow muttered thoughtfully. "I wonder if I triggered it. I was poking around at the memories." He paused, catching a sudden thought from Riku, and grimaced. "Sheesh, I guess it's good that he can't see me. I would be so dead right n- oh! Oh gosh! Really? Bright thoughts! Really bright thoughts! And I feel like barfing, too. Just great."
The Shadow groaned.
"That's it, I'm just going to go, this isn't worth sitting through!" he said, and in a flash of darkness, he left.