Chapter 220: Do you

Riku left a very distinct path to follow, at least. Or, according to Roxas, he did. There were always less Nobodies in a room if Riku'd been through it—not no Nobodies, just less. Kairi wasn't entirely sure how Roxas could tell there was less, but she took his word for it.

It turned out that he could redirect most of the Nobodies, too, so there were some perks to traveling with him. The only Nobodies he hadn't been able to redirect so far were the ones with guns. And, even then, those were fairly easy to kill, so their progress was hardly hampered.

"Heartless?" Roxas paused, in surprise. Kairi did too.

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked.

"No, it's just…" Roxas trailed off, squinting and rubbing his head.

Kairi took a step towards him. "Are you—"

"I'm fine!" He waved her off. "Sora's been here."

Kairi's heart skipped a beat, and she moved to look Roxas in the face. "Has he?" she asked, her voice squeaking a little with excitement.

"Well Heartless only come here when summoned, and they definitely weren't summoned for me," Roxas explained. "I mean, I suppose it could be some other Keyblade wielder, but Sora seems most likely."

That made Kairi pause.

"Are there other Keyblade wielders besides you and Sora?" she asked, tentatively.

"There's at least two," Roxas replied.

Kairi frowned, considering that, but soon Roxas was moving again. She hurried to catch up with him, not that it mattered. He paused again, this time at a branch between two different pathways.

"Ahh… now we have a problem," he said, quietly.

"We lose Riku's trail?"

"Maybe problem isn't the right word," Roxas corrected, licking his lips. "See, it's more of a decision. Do we follow Riku…" he gestured at the left path, then the right as he continued speaking: "Or do we follow Sora?"

Kairi stared.

"You know which way Sora went?"

"The path of Heartless would lead us right to him."

Kairi's heart skipped in her chest. This was it. She could go find Sora. He couldn't be far, right? And after all this time… she could go right to him. See him again. After all this time…

A sound from above caught her attention. Both she and Roxas had to edge backwards to the middle of the area to see what was going on. Riku was up above, on the balcony-like place that towered overhead. He was fighting off various Nobodies, from the looks of it, though they were a large bulky type she hadn't seen before.

Kairi made her decision.

"Riku needs our help more," she said. "He needs to get through this Castle as quick as possible."

"I could go after Riku and you could go after Sora," Roxas suggested. "Sora's been here fairly recently, so the trail's fresh." At Kairi's hesitation, he added: "Trust me, the Heartless would've lost interest and left if he hadn't been here recently."

"Yeah," Kairi said. "But what happens if we catch up to Riku and you go all homicidal again, hmm?" She squinted at Roxas, and tried not to smile. She was partially teasing, but didn't want him to know. "Someone's gotta be there to keep you restrained so Riku can go on ahead."

Roxas shrugged. "Whatever. Up to you. This way, hurry!" He ran down the path on the left, and Kairi ran after him.

The path led them to a stairway of sorts. Not that it was stairs, but rather a slope heading upwards. It twisted at least three times before finally letting out onto the balcony.

"Riku!" Kairi called.

Riku turned to look at her, and stopped dead in his tracks again. Roxas quickly sent a blast of Firaga at the Nobody he was fighting to dispatch of it before it could harm anyone.

"Why'd you bring him?" Riku demanded, glaring at Roxas.

"He insisted," Kairi replied. Given the fact that Roxas had just practically saved Riku, she supposed the whole wanting-to-kill-him thing really was done with.

"You can't deny I'm gonna be a lot of help," Roxas added, with a smirk.

"But you're trying to kill me."

"I'm fairly positive that's stopped," Roxas said. He sent Riku an apologetic shrug. "It was nothing personal, really, just programming."

"Which is exactly why I can't trust you!"

Roxas just grinned and said: "C'mon, Reeks—" (Kairi had to cover her mouth to stifle the snort at that nickname for Riku.) "—I think you know perfectly well that you can fight what your programming tells you to do." Roxas grinned a little wider. "Besides, I mean, if I still wanted to kill you I would've attacked already."

"It's not like a program can be smart enough to lead you on like this, right?" Kairi added. She was still smiling over Reeks, though, and was rather surprised Riku hadn't said anything about it yet.

"I guess," Riku grumbled. "I don't trust him, though, and we don't have time to talk—"

As if on cue, a dark corridor opened.

"Right… stalling…" Someone stepped out of the corridor, groaning and rubbing their head as they did so. With a wave of their hand, the dark corridor closed behind them. "Ugh, I hate work like this."

Kairi's first impression of the man was that he was quite a bit younger than any of the other Organization 13 members she'd met previously. Granted, he wasn't terribly young, but he looked about mid-twenties as opposed to older-than-thirty. He was slouching, too, and while she wasn't sure what was going on with his hair, something was definitely going on with it.

His name also happened to be Demyx, but Kairi wasn't aware of that.

Demyx looked between the three of them, and jumped a step backwards when his eyes fell on Roxas. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, then his eyes narrowed in confusion. "Heyyy wait a minute, what are you doing over there, Roxas? Aren't you on our side?"

"Ehhh, not anymore," Roxas replied, surprisingly casual about it. "I got my memory back and kinda realized why I tried to leave to begin with."

"You lost your memory?" Demyx asked.

"Apparently."

"Okay I'm not fighting you!" Riku protested.

Demyx slumped with exhaustion. "I gotta stall thoooooough…" he whined.

Riku rolled his eyes and groaned. Loudly. "You are literally no threat! I will kill you in like five seconds!"

"Give him a little more credit than that," Roxas said, throwing a sideways glance at Riku.

"Aw, thanks Roxas!"

"Buuuuut," Roxas continued. Kairi couldn't see the smirk on his face, but she could hear it in his voice. "Riku's right. Between me 'n him we're—"

"And me!" Kairi added, appalled.

"—gonna sorta beat you in about ten seconds."

Roxas didn't acknowledge that Kairi'd even spoken up, and she glared in response. It was awfully rude of him. No, she didn't have a weapon, exactly, but that didn't mean she couldn't help at all in battle. Magic was plenty useful.

The slight smile on Demyx's face fell to a glare. "I knew I couldn't trust a traitor like you," he said, and the tone of his voice sent chills down Kairi's spine. His sweet attitude had vanished completely. He held his hand above his head and in a burst of water summoned what looked like a sitar. "You should've never decided to leave us, Roxas, y'know? Things would've been a lot better if you'd stayed."

Roxas was suddenly holding both of his Keyblades. "I'm not so sure about that."

"Kay well that's great," Riku said, opening a dark corridor. "You two can settle your differences and I'm going to—OH MY FU- ow. Mgh."

Clearly, the corridor was blocked this time, too.

Kairi dropped into a fighting stance next to him and shook her head, smiling ever-so-slightly. "Well, c'mon Reeks—"

"I never agreed to that nickname."

"—let's get this over with so we can go save Namine!"

xxx

Luxord's "game" was a lot more draining than Sora'd expected—and he'd expected it to be pretty draining.

Luxord fought with cards, and though they looked like playing cards, they were razor sharp and caused quite a bit of damage. Sora'd spent many a "turn" Curing the various cuts he'd received. And to make things worse, there almost appeared to be some sort of protective shield around Luxord. Something in the cloak, maybe? Whatever it was, it was making Sora's attacks feel less effective, and he couldn't see any visible damage on Luxord to gauge whether it was just his imagination or not.

Sora gritted his teeth as his body froze again, mid-step. He closed his eyes as Luxord's cards hit him—he could feel their sting and didn't need to watch them fly towards him. It just made the whole experience even more disconcerting.

What sort of game was this, anyway? It seemed too twisted to be a game any normal person would want to play. Being unable to move while your enemy was free to attack? It just made Sora's stomach turn.

How did you win the game, anyway? By killing the other player? Was passing out from exhaustion enough to end it? Or was there a time limit, and whoever'd dealt the most damage at the end won? Unfortunately, despite how much Sora asked for clarification, Luxord refused to give a straight answer.

So Sora kept fighting.

He ran forward, dealt two combos. He'd miscalculated how much time he had, though, and froze while in the middle of the finishing blow of the second combo. It worked out in his favor, however, seeing all Luxord's attacks worked best from a distance. The time it took for Luxord to distance himself for an attack gave Luxord little time to attack.

The cards were midflight when Luxord froze and Sora could move. The cards were unaffected by the freeze, but Sora was free to roll out of their way this time. He rushed forward again to attack Luxord, and just kept attacking. Clearly, being closer to Luxord at the end of his "turn" was the best strategy.

Of course, he wasn't guaranteed time to roll out of the way of the cards, but his chances certainly seemed higher. And honestly, simply having a chance made it all the more worth it. He also got more attacks done his "turn", which was just another plus.

The fight—the "game"—continued, until Luxord collapsed.

And Sora found he could move freely again.

Sora took a second to cherish the feeling. Being able to move when he wanted to was quite a relief, though he found himself trembling. The whole experience had left his nerves in a mess.

"Beaten me… at my own game…" Luxord mused. He didn't sound upset about the fact, however, and even straightened to his feet. "How unfortunate…. for you!"

He made a throwing motion, not that he actually threw anything.

Except Sora found he couldn't move again, and then he was falling to the ground. He fell for quite a while longer than should've been possible. The world spun dizzily around him as he flipped head over heels, finally landing face up on the ground.

As Sora got a better feel of his position, he found that he wasn't breathing. His heart didn't appear to be beating. Nothing, though he was quite conscious of his situation. He could see the sky just fine—black and empty and rather boring—and he could hear footsteps—presumably Luxord's—just well, too.

It was when Luxord picked him up that Sora realized what had happened.

He'd been turned into a card.

He'd been turned into a playing card, and was very effectively trapped.

Luxord flashed a small smile at him—or rather, at his handiwork—and then started off. He reached to put Sora in his pocket, and Sora was just starting to dread how awful that would be, when Luxord stumbled again. Sora's card fell from his hand, landing face-down this time.

"Maybe… I was wrong," Luxord mused. His voice was distant, grainy. "I had more to lose than I thought…"

Then Sora couldn't hear anymore. Had Luxord left? Died? Sora was still face-down on the ground. He couldn't see anything. What if he was stuck here forever? What if someone else came and picked him up? Someone worse?

What if my Shadow found me? Sora thought, horrified. Oh man, he's the LAST person I'd want to find me here. Even if he could magically get me out of this. He wouldn't. I know him. And even then—

"Oof!"

He was very suddenly human, his nose squashed against the ground. He pushed himself up, looked around.

Luxord was gone.

Sora got to his feet, dusted himself off. He sent a look over to the way he'd come in, which also appeared to be the only way out, and then turned away from it. His hands were shaking and his heart was racing. He didn't want to move on just yet. Didn't want to have to fight any Heartless. Or anything.

Quite frankly, he just wanted to sit down and catch his breath.

He made his way over to the edge of the balcony—or whatever he was on—and plopped down. He'd wanted to check out this view before Luxord showed up. There weren't any railings of any sort, though, so Sora made sure to stay a pretty far from the edge. The drop was fairly large, not to mention the chances of actually landing on the bridge-like pathway below were probably slim.

Sora sat there for a long while, until he noticed two shapes running by on the path below. Upon closer inspection, he found that one of those shapes looked a lot like Joseph, and the other like the boy that had been with Joseph in Hollow Bastion. Toby, his name was?

"Joseph!" Sora called out, pressing his stomach against the ground so he could lean over the edge but not risk falling off. He wasn't sure how well his voice was carry, so the closer he was to Joseph, the better.

Joseph heard him, though, and looked up. Toby had to nudge him and point Sora's position out to him, but Joseph grinned once he saw Sora. Sora straightened just as a dark corridor opened behind him and Joseph flung himself against Sora. The force nearly knocked Sora over the edge.

"Careful!" he scolded, as he balanced them out. Joseph remained perched on Sora's back, his arms looped around Sora's neck, and didn't let go until Sora feigned choking noises.

"What are you two doing here?" Sora asked, as he turned to face the two boys. "Weren't you supposed to stay behind?"

"Uh, well, y'see," Joseph said. "That's a funny story."