AN/ I came up with a redesign for Riku's dark mode that is mentioned briefly in this chapter (though it, uh, never comes up again, I think?) Anyway it's on my deviant art somewhere I think. Good luck finding it now that off-site links in profiles are super broke.

Chapter 131: Detour

Namine was surprised to find herself in Riku's arms when she woke up. It wasn't like she minded or anything, but it certainly wasn't where she expected to be. Normally, after a meltdown, Riku'd take her to her room, and she'd wake up in her bed.

She remained very still, wanting to savor the moment. He was cradling her close to him, his arms protecting her. It was times like these that made her certain that there was nowhere else in all the worlds that she'd feel safer in than in Riku's arms.

It's not like you can stay here forever, the logical part of her brain argued.

She laughed slightly.

Oh, but sometimes I wish I could…

"How long have you been awake?" Riku asked. His voice was quiet and a tad rough.

"Not long," she assured him.

He relaxed his hold on her, allowing her enough space to get up. She did nothing more than shift slightly, perfectly content to stay where she was for the moment. He gave her a funny look. She just smiled.

"How's your head?" he asked after a moment.

She shrugged. "The usual." She stared at him for a second. He was still in dark mode, so he probably was still upset. It wasn't likely he'd forgotten to phase out of it. "How are you doing?"

"Alright."

She didn't quite believe him, but didn't press the matter.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. He seemed really worried.

Namine couldn't help but laugh slightly. "Yes, I'm sure," she told him.

Riku shifted slightly—not that it was easy for him to do that with her in his lap, and he didn't shift much, but it was enough to give Namine the sense that he was uncomfortable about something. "I just… I feel bad," he muttered.

"Well, don't," she said. "It's not like it's your fault."

"I know, I just wish we knew what caused them." There was a bit of bitterness in his voice. "Then we could figure out how to get them to stop."

"My meltdowns?" Namine laughed. "I think those are the least of our worries."

"They're hurting you, and that's enough reason to figure out how to make them stop," Riku replied, firmly, in a tone that immediately squashed her laughter. His tone made it clear that, to him, the meltdowns were definitely not the least of their worries.

She swallowed. "Well, we'll figure it out eventually." She frowned then, noticing something. "What's this?" she asked, reaching up and tracing the something she had noticed on his cheek with her fingers.

"What's what?" he asked.

"This," she repeated, laughing, tracing her fingers over it again.

He made a face, and then reached up to feel for himself. He promptly jumped in shock and felt his face more thoroughly. Namine sat up and took a better look at him. There were tendrils of red that snaked onto his face, coming from the red that was now present throughout the rest of his dark suit. The red seemed to have only manifested itself in tendrils: one tendril snaked down his left arm, while another snaked onto his back.

"What the crap is this?!" Riku said, still feeling the tendrils on his face.

Namine burst out laughing.

He glared.

Rather than apologize for laughing at his discomfort, she told him: "The rest of your dark suit has changed, too."

Riku glanced down at himself, taking in the changes. After a second he got to his feet as if to get a better look at himself. "It's different," he said, finally, turning to Namine. "I don't like it."

She laughed again, but tried harder at covering it up this time. She pushed herself to her feet. "I almost want to draw a picture of you now—actually, that's not an almost. I'm seriously itching to draw a picture." She chuckled. "I'm going to go get my—" She paused, realizing that Riku's eyes were firmly fixed on a particular spot on the wall and that he was glaring.

"Shoot," he whispered.

"What's wrong?" Namine asked. She couldn't see anything different about the particular wall Riku was staring at. It just looked like a wall.

He pointed. "There's a security camera right there. And I didn't take it out when I came here." He muttered something under his breath that was much fouler.

She frowned at the wall for a second—she still couldn't see the camera. It must've been hidden—and then turned to Riku. "I don't… see what the problem is…" she said, slowly.

"Well, I don't think I'd want anyone hearing anything from the conversation we just had," he replied. "Especially not one of the Larxenes."

"Oh." Now that he had explained it, it seemed obvious.

"Idiot!" Riku muttered. "You're such an idiot!"

Namine stared for a second, a bit shocked, and then realized that from the tone of his voice he was probably scolding himself. In fact, given the way he was kneading his knuckles into his forehead, that was probably exactly what it was.

"Now, don't say that," she told him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up over it. I mean, what's done is done—and, more importantly, the likeliness of anyone stumbling across the footage is pretty slim… right?" The last part was a legitimate question. She could assume that it wasn't likely, but she wasn't entirely positive.

"I guess so," he sighed. "My corner is in a pretty obscure part of the Castle—only Vexen would find the footage if he looked; he's the only one who knows that there's significance to this corner. Everyone else would be lucky to stumble upon it." He took a deep breath, and then shot what looked like Dark Firaga at the camera. "Still…" He held his hand out to Namine. "C'mon."

She took his hand. "Where are we going?"

"To delete the past few hours of footage from the system—at least for this room, anyway," Riku explained.

"Oh," Namine muttered. Again, now that he had said it, it seemed pretty obvious. "Can I ask what significance this corner has, first?"

He shrugged. "It's my corner—It's where I'd go in the other universe if I needed to be alone. Or, typically, after Larxene…" He trailed off, swallowed. "C'mon," he said, forming a dark corridor around them both.

They emerged in a part of the Castle that Namine didn't recognize. It seemed almost bleak, the walls appearing more grey than they were white. Part of her knew that they were in the basement, but even so, she wasn't sure why they were here. The room was completely empty.

Riku swore.

"What is it?" Namine asked.

He ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs out of his face for a second. "It's not here," he muttered, angrily. "There should've been a computer here. Why is it not here? This is exactly where it was in the other universe!"

She shrugged. "This isn't the other universe," she pointed out.

He groaned. "We'll have to go ask someone where we can find a computer that has access to surveillance footage." He shifted out of dark mode, took a deep breath, and formed another dark corridor around them. They came out in the Main Room, this time.

"Omigosh, Riku!" Joseph was running towards them, Toby following at a much slower pace. "Are you okay?"

Riku grunted. "Yeah." He clearly wasn't in the mood for this.

"Well, that's a relief!" Joseph said, beaming. "Q left, which I figure you maybe wanted to know. She said she'll leave us alone and stuff and um. Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened? Toby's sorry too, even though it was mostly my fault, and—"

"It's fine." Riku interrupted. The tone of his voice told Namine he didn't want to be having this conversation right now. "I'm fine." He sighed. "Do you know where Alpha is?"

"Whatcha need him for?" Joseph replied.

"I need a computer with access to surveillance footage," Riku said.

"Oh, that's easy!" Joseph laughed. "There's one on Floor 13. Don't need Alpha for that, haha."

Riku tensed. "Figures," he muttered, voice rough. He was shaking slightly. Namine squeezed his hand, hoping to calm him.

"Is… there something wrong with Floor 13?" Joseph asked, cocking his head to the side.

Riku quickly shook his head. "No, of course not!"

Namine knew that this was probably a lie, and given the look in Joseph's eyes, he most likely knew, too.

"Well, if you don't want to be hanging around there long," Joseph said. "I could form a dark corridor straight to the computer for you—"

"I've got it," Riku said.

Joseph frowned. "Why do you—" he began. Namine held up a hand to stop him.

"Maybe another time," she said, smiling. She tried to catch his eye, hoping that she could somehow tell him that this wasn't a subject to get into with Riku and that he should stop asking questions. Even though Joseph did turn to look at her, he didn't seem to get the message. Namine turned to Riku. "We going, Riku?"

He nodded, and formed a dark corridor around them.

Namine glanced around. She didn't see a computer. "Riku…" she said slowly.

"I know," he replied. "I wasn't aiming for the computer. I was just trying to get away from Joseph." He reached out, face set with determination, and formed a dark corridor. He stared at it. "I think that'll take us to it."

"Why didn't you just let Joseph form a corridor for us?" Namine asked.

"Because if he had control over the corridor, there's no way I'd be able to stop him from coming with us," Riku explained.

Namine sighed. She couldn't argue with that.

"You know what you need to be doing with the computer?" She asked. She felt slightly bad for doing so—she didn't doubt Riku's computer abilities—but given his aversion to wanting to be on the 13th Floor, she wanted to make sure they weren't going to spend more time there than they had to. Having him get frustrated because he couldn't figure out how to use the computer wasn't going to help that cause.

"Of course I do," he replied, a bit tense. "I've done this before: I just have to find the footage for my corner and delete the past seven hours."

Namine frowned at the "seven hours"—she doubted it was that much time—but didn't say anything about it. It wasn't worth it to argue about how much footage he needed to be deleting. "Do you know how to find the footage?"

He rolled his eyes. "It should be listed by floor number and room number—it'll be easy to find."

"Do you know where—"

"I know where my corner is, Namine," he interrupted. He didn't seem entirely happy.

She shifted uncomfortably—she felt bad now. She swallowed. "Just making sure… This is a parallel universe and all; it could be somewhere different than where you expect it to be."

Riku was definitely annoyed now, though he tried not to show it. "It's in the same place. Trust me. Even if this is a parallel universe, certain things feel the same." He threw a glance at her. "Why else do you think I don't want to go to the 13th Floor?" He turned to the dark corridor, starting through it. "Now let's get this over with!"

She grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him. "What happened to you on the 13th Floor?" she asked.

He didn't turn to her, didn't move at all, and it was a long time before he spoke.

"Everything." His voice was quiet. "It was where the Organization had their meetings. It was where I was rewritten. Most of my 'punishments' happened somewhere on this floor."

She was silent for a moment, staring at his back. She wasn't sure what to say.

"You don't have to go," she tried. "We can have someone—"

"I don't want anyone else seeing that footage," he interrupted, throwing a glance over his shoulder. "And the longer we sit around here arguing, the more likely someone's going to stumble upon it."

"What about Vexen?"

"I definitely don't want him seeing the footage."

"But he—"

"No."

Namine sighed. "I can do it," she suggested. "You don't have to come."

Riku rolled his eyes. "Yeah," he said, sarcastically. "Do you know how to delete the footage?"

"Is it hard?"

He turned to her then, a tired look in his eyes. He sighed. "Look, Namine, I'll be fine. I'm just deleting some footage—we won't be there for more than five minutes."

She let go of him. "Okay," she said. "Let's go then. Get this over with."

They stepped through the dark corridor.