AN/ pst so remember how I said I had a SoShad amv thing for ch231? Guess what there's a Namiku amv for this chapter too and you can find it conveniently over at the blog, attached to this chapter's chapter commentary yay

Chapter 232: EPIC AND INSPIRING CHAPTER TITLE HERE

"WHEN YOUR BEST FRIEND'S ALL STRUNG OU—"

"KAIRI WHAT THE HELL!" Riku interrupted, sharply.

He was still on the ground, lying on his stomach. He'd hardly moved an inch, actually. Namine was pacing the battlefield, waiting for Kairi to leave an opening. Kairi was very careful about staying between Namine and Riku, all while screaming what sounded like poems—no. Song lyrics. Riku vaguely recognized some of the songs, because Kairi'd played them so often. Anyway. Kairi was screaming song lyrics at the top of her lungs. She'd been doing that for nearly five minutes now.

"I'm trying to drown Namine out!" Kairi snapped, throwing a quick glare at Riku before returning her attention to Namine. "Unless you really want to hear her…"

Riku bit his lip, silently admitting that, yeah, being unable to hear what Namine was saying over Kairi's screaming had been kind of nice. Namine had kept up a near constant stream of "c'mon Riku just get up and fight it's not that hard. You really are useless, aren't you?" along with a bunch of other foul things that pained Riku to hear coming out of Namine's mouth.

However, enduring Kairi yelling was something he could only do for so long. He'd hit his limit. His ears throbbed, and he covered them with his hands. No, he didn't want to hear what Namine was saying, not really. But if only Kairi could be a little quieter…

He was restless. He wanted to run, but he wasn't sure if he could trust his legs once he stood up.

He had to do something though, right? How much longer could Kairi keep this up? Namine was hesitating in attacking her, for now, but how long would it last? It couldn't last long.

Get up, then, he told himself. Throw yourself in front of Kairi before she can shield you—take the blow Namine wants to deal and just… get this over with.

There's no sense having Kairi getting hurt for me. There's no winning this anyway.

The blood pounding in his eardrums blurred with Kairi's not-quite-muffled shouting and the ever-present rise and fall of Namine's voice. It was unfortunate that plugging your ears did so little. But after a moment, Riku thought he heard a voice—

"Are you really giving up? You made me a promise…"

"Namine!" he gasped, uncovering his ears and looking up. He pushed himself up to his elbows, then hung his head, biting back tears.

The voice had only been in his head.

Promise? He thought, wearily. But you made me promise to… to kill you if they rewrote you, right? And I can't…

"I can't, I can't, I can't."

He clutched at his hair and tried not to scream, though he so desperately wanted to.

A bolt of lightning—one of the only things Kairi had trouble protecting him from—hit him. He did scream then, his body flung back like a ragdoll. He landed on his side, near the center of the area, but away from Namine, at least.

"Riku, please get up!"

I can't…

But that voice wasn't in his head. It was real and as tangible as sound could be. Kairi's voice. She was begging again. He tried to push himself up, to acknowledge her, but he could barely raise his head an inch off the ground. The pain was too much.

Kairi was on her hands and knees not far from him. Her left eye was swollen and black, and her bottom lip was split and bleeding—or it had been. She looked between him and Namine, then continued, earnestly:

"You don't have to fight her! I won't make you—I'll do all the hitting if you'd like, you just have to get up. You're too easy a target otherwise."

He really should get up. Defend himself, at the least. And if it did come down to it, Kairi could do the killing. He hated to make her do it, and hated himself for being too weak to do it himself… but the thought of raising his blade against Namine was unbearable.

Now he just needed to get up.

"Don't bother, Kai," Namine sneered. She kicked Kairi to the ground and pinned her there, her foot pressed to Kairi's neck. "He's not going to listen. He won't fight me—he can't. Why else do you think they picked me to be the weapon made to kill him?"

"I thought you wanted him to fight you…" Kairi grumbled.

"That's not the point!" Namine snapped. "If he can't, fine, I need to get this over with already anyway."

"Kai?" Riku asked, squinting at Kairi.

Kairi stared.

"You really haven't ever heard Sora call me that?"

"Uh….. no….?"

"How is Sora doing, anyway? I hope he's doing well…" Namine said, pressing her foot harder against Kairi's neck. She giggled, not sounding the tiniest bit concerned about Sora's actual well-being.

And that's when it hit Riku.

He sat up on his knees, slammed his palms against the ground.

"KAIRI DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" he shouted. "She's just trying to antagonize you and once she's gotten under your skin you'll be too pissed to fight properly."

Kairi groaned slightly. "Glad you know her strategies," she mumbled.

"Of course I do…"

Riku's fingers curled into fists. His body trembled.

"Because this is exactly what Larxene would do."

He was kicking himself for not realizing it sooner. He'd recognized that Namine was acting like Larxene before, yes—it was too obvious not to notice—but he hadn't fully realized what that meant. They hadn't just Rewritten Namine to be cruel and given her command over lightning to further piss him off. No.

They'd given her Larxene data, and a lot of it from the feel of things.

Namine'd stopped being Namine, and that was terrible enough. But now he realized that she hadn't just stopped being Namine… she'd started being Larxene.

And he wasn't afraid.

He'd never been afraid.

Horrified of what had happened to Namine? Upset? Yes. Too horrified to lift his blade against her? A thousand times, yes.

But he wasn't scared.

And this wasn't Namine.

Riku pushed himself to his feet. Tears stung in his eyes, but he tried to ignore them.

"I get what they did to her, now," he said—his voice shook with his tears and fury and his fists were clenched hard enough that his fingernails broke his skin, leaving blood on his palms. "They were short on time and out of ideas, so they went with the obvious one. Make her just like Larxene…"

Namine grinned and backed off from Kairi. Riku tried not to look directly at her. He was on his feet and prepared to fight, but it didn't make this any less painful.

"The girl I love… the woman I hate… both in the same body." Riku sighed. Unclenched his fists. Summoned his blade. "I don't think I can kill her, but maybe I do have the nerve to fight her…"

Darkness pulsed through his veins. He could feel it strengthening him. Further erasing all fear. Namine couldn't be saved, and he hated Larxene so much—especially for wearing Namine's skin.

"Kairi," he turned to look at her, watching as she straightened to her feet. She wiped blood off her lips, wiped her hand on her shorts. She was pretty beaten up, he realized, and all for him… And now he was only going to ask more of her.

"Kairi," he repeated. "I really am going to need you to do the dirty work, and I'm sorry. She made me promise to kill her if she got like this—I don't think I can do it myself, but someone has to."

"You sure?" Kairi asked, hesitantly.

Riku nodded. "Positive. There's no way to fix her, unless 37 was dumb enough to save her original file." Riku gritted his teeth, attention returning to Namine. "Besides…. letting someone with Namine's face and Larxene's mind walk around free seems like the dumbest idea in the worlds."

Kairi turned away from him, settling into a fighting stance.

"Glad to know you're fighting with me," she said. "But I'm not going to kill her—we're gonna subdue her, somehow, and drag her to C.O., got it? They can fix her there."

Riku growled. Bit back tears.

"I said she was a lost cause—"

"AND I'M SAYING SHE'S MY FRIEND TOO, RIKU," Kairi screamed. Another look at her proved she was crying, trembling, just like he was. "You can't just tell me I have to kill her all willy-nilly like that. You can't just…"

"Are we going to fight each other or what?" Namine asked.

Kairi turned away from Riku, called blades of light to her hands. "Friends don't give up on each other, anyway," she said. "They hold out for each other. Do whatever they can for each other." She readied herself to attack, jumped forward, bringing a blade down to strike Namine. "I'M NOT GIVING UP ON HER SO EASILY."

xxx

Xemnas was waiting at the top of the Castle, on the top of an open tower which overlooked the whole world. The moon that was Kingdom Hearts—fabricated or not—took up nearly half the sky from this vantage point. Xemnas stood in front of it, staring longingly up at it.

Mickey summoned his blade. He held it by his side, ready for battle, but not entirely looking prepared to attack. When Sora summoned his own Keyblade, Mickey held out a hand to signal him to wait.

Sora did, watching curiously as Mickey took a step towards Xemnas.

"…Terra," he said.

Xemnas went rigid for a moment, then relaxed. "Of all names I expected to hear… that was not one of them."

He turned to face them. If he was shocked, it was well hidden. He didn't look the slightest bit shocked. In fact, he smiled, pleasantly, as if he were addressing a friend.

"It's been a long time," Xemnas finished. He even spoke as if he were addressing a friend. It made Sora grit his teeth, but Mickey didn't even acknowledge it.

Mickey just shook his head.

"No…" he whispered. "You're not Terra, and you haven't been for a long time. You're Xehanort." And now Mickey raised his blade. "You took Terra's body and used it for your own gain—and when that wasn't enough, you took Ansem's name, too!"

Xemnas only chuckled, lightly. "A new body was necessary," he explained. "It would have been a shame if I died of old age before my research was complete. And the new name ended up being necessary, too. 'Xehanort' carried too much negativity. Too much hostility. I couldn't go anywhere under it. Couldn't get anything done."

"And what did you do with the real Ansem?" Mickey demanded.

Sora raised his eyebrows, but refrained from asking questions. So the Ansem he'd fought, the one who'd used his body, that… wasn't Ansem? It was someone just going by Ansem… and yet Xemnas spoke as if that were him. But it can't have been…

Yes it could've, he told himself, suddenly a little annoyed. Xemnas is the Nobody. Ansem was the Heartless. Two halves of the man Xehanort.

Sora grimaced, trying to remember where he'd learned that Ansem—or whatever his real name was—was a Heartless. Also… who was Xehanort? Mickey'd mentioned him before, but he'd never explained who Xehanort was.

"Ansem the Wise?" Xemnas asked. His smile widened further. "I would assume he's still in the Realm of Darkness, where I sent him years ago."

"And Terra?" Mickey's voice darkened drastically. "Where is he?"

Xemnas downright laughed. "I suppose he's somewhere with my heart, though that was extinguished a while ago!" His eyes settled on Sora.

Ansem… Xehanort's Heartless… I killed him… and…. Terra?

The thought made Sora uncomfortable, even more so when Mickey turned to look at him, too.

"Well? What was I supposed to do?" Sora asked, exasperated. Just LET Ansem have my body again?

"It's fine," Mickey assured him. His face softened, but it was sad. "Terra couldn't have been saved in that state, anyway."

"…how do we know Xemnas isn't just saying that to tick us off?" Sora asked, lowering his voice a little more. "What if Terra wasn't with Ansem?"

"Then he's with Xemnas," Mickey answered. "But that doesn't mean we can afford to go easy on him. There's too much at stake." He shook his head, sadly. "Terra would've wanted it this way, though. He wouldn't want us to save him and risk the safety of the worlds."

Sora wasn't quite sure if Mickey was saying that to reassure him, or to reassure himself.

"Who's Terra?" Sora blurted. He couldn't hold it in any longer.

"An old friend."

"And Xehanort?"

Since Mickey'd deflected this question earlier, Sora wasn't surprised when all he answered was:

"An old enemy."

"And… Ansem?"

"Another old friend, and a good man," Mickey said. "Xehanort got rid of him and took his name for the sake of research. But his research went too far. He decided the only way to learn what he needed to was to turn himself into a Heartless—and he took the rest of Ansem's research team with him."

So there was a larger bone to pick with Xemnas—Xehanort?—than the simple "he's going to destroy everything if we don't stop him". Sora readied his Keyblade and steadied his mind. This was going to be a long battle, he could feel it, but a more than necessary one.

"They all went willingly, I promise you," Xemnas said.

The smirk on his face suggested otherwise.

Mickey's eyes narrowed, and his stance deepened. Power absolutely radiated from him. Sora was quite glad he was on Mickey's side, but he hoped the anger wouldn't distract Mickey from the battle.

"Kingdom Hearts!" Xemnas called, before either of them could attack. He turned back to face the moon, reaching his arms up to it. "Lend me your power, so that I may stop these fools who dare threaten our progress!"

Sora turned to Mickey, wondering what their move should be.

Mickey lunged a few steps forward. "Xemnas! Wait!" he cried, his anger fading quickly. "You don't know what you're—"

The area exploded into light.