"I don't want to be here." Roxas muttered.

Sora nodded agreement, he felt no better at standing outside Cid's house with so many others. The King was there, Maleficent and Merlin in attendance, Sephiroth and Laguna were her too. Riku stood besides Sephiroth, Sora had tried to get his attention but he hadn't even paid any attention to him or Roxas. The door to Cid's front door opened and Leon, Tifa, Cloud and another man, Sora recognized Zack from the pictures, stepped out and to his shock they had a humanoid Heartless tethered between them. It kept lashing out at its captors and whenever it moved towards one of them the others jerked on their tethers preventing it from reaching its intended victim.

Cid stepped out after them, looking smug. "Thank you all for coming, your Majesty I'm sorry to ask you out of the castle."

Ansem waved away the apology, his eyes focused keenly on the thrashing and snarling Heartless. "I think you've earned the time already, proceed."

"In light of the recent….attack, on my daughter," Cid began, his voice faltering slightly as several pairs of eyes looked towards Roxas who wished he were anywhere but there. "I developed something that should provide some means of protection for the everyday person on the street."

Now he really had their attention, even Sephiroth and Maleficent seemed to lose their air of boredom. Cid produced a remote from his pocket and pressed a button. There was a beeping sound, Sora noticed a circle of light tracking across the ground, it stopped beneath the Heartless who seemed to have noticed the light as well and was following the circle with its bright yellow eyes and clicking its jaws together nervously. There was a beep as the circle expanded, encompassing the Heartless in its diameter, rods of light shot up from the light, impaling the Heartless which shrieked and howled in agony.

Sora winced, he hated the Heartless, but this just seemed cruel to him. Then an orb of light fired up from the circle on the ground and floated for a moment above the writhing Heartless, it fell and smashed the Heartless to the ground where it began to unravel in a twitching mass of shadow. Leon, Tifa, Cloud, and Zack stepped away from the remains as the light vanished and what remained of the Heartless dissipated.

"Impressive," Ansem said calmly. "What is it?"

"It uses highly focused light to destroy the Heartless, I installed it up there," Cid pointed to the lamp post in the courtyard. "I can install projectors on all the light fixtures around the town and it draws all the energy it needs from the power grid."

Ansem nodded, stroking his beard for as he considered what Cid had said, Sephiroth spoke next. "What level of Heartless can it destroy?"

Cid shrugged. "I haven't tested it on anything bigger than a chocobo sized Heartless. I don't know how it will handle them, but in theory it can adapt to anything."

"I want them installed throughout the city as soon as possible. Cid the Engineers are at your disposal." Ansem said, he paused and frowned. "Does it have a name?"

Cid nodded; there were tears in his eyes as he spoke. "Rikku's Grace."

Roxas practically shriveled on the spot, Sora reached down and gripped his hand tightly. Besides Cid, Leon and Cloud were looking towards the boys with supportive expressions.

"I can't believe he invited Roxas there for that." Tifa steamed as she gripped her ice cream cone, crushing the cone itself but she didn't seem to care.

"I don't think he meant to be malicious." Leon said quietly, "after all he invited Riku as well."

She snorted, looking away. "Rikku's Grace, he could have spared us that."

Roxas was quiet, staring at his ice cream. "I deserved it."

Cloud slammed a hand down on his shoulder. "We've been over this."

He nodded, not saying anything; Tifa frowned and stood, planting a finger in Cloud's chest. "Cloud, he's your little brother, be gentle!"

Cloud flushed and looked away from her as she sat down besides Roxas, putting her arms around him. "It'll be okay Roxas, after all he made this to make sure something like that night doesn't happen again."

Sora nodded emphatically, "yeah, cheer up Roxas! I know it hurts bu—"

"Just shut up all of you!" Roxas cried, eyes filling with tears as he threw his ice cream to the ground. "Just leave me alone!"

He turned and ran, Sora tried to follow but Cloud grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. "Leave him alone for a little."

Sora glowered up at Cloud, trying get free of his grip; Leon was pointedly staying out of the scuffle though he looked concerned. Tifa stood back up and planted a kiss on Cloud's lips, his eyes widened and he stumbled back, losing his grip on Sora's collar who took the chance to run after Roxas.

Tifa broke the kiss and smiled at Cloud's stunned expression, "serves you right, jerk."

"Roxas needs to be alone." Cloud spat.

"He's not you, stop acting like he is. Right now I think he needs Sora, so leave them alone and buy me another ice cream."

They both looked down at her spilled cone, Cloud's face flushed as Leon snorted. "You're supposed to be older than me."

Sora caught up to Roxas, half-tackling him and wrapping his arms around him. Roxas thrashed, trying to get free desperately.

"Stop it!" Sora said, leaning his head against Roxas' back. "Please stop."

Roxas stopped thrashing, shuddering uncontrollably. "Cloud told me that I shouldn't blame myself…but how can't I? Sora I was right there, I should've saved her."

Sora nodded, holding Roxas tightly unsure of what to say as his cousin cried.

"What are you two doing?"

They looked up; Riku was sitting on a roof above them. Sora frowned up at him. "Riku if you're going to be a jerk, just…please go."

Riku shrugged and hopped off the roof, landing besides them. "Not my fault he can't handle the guilt. He's right to blame himself by the way, he did fail."

Roxas jerked out of Sora's grasp and swung at Riku, he sidestepped and tripped Roxas, smiling smugly as Roxas landed on the cobblestones.

"Please, you couldn't hit me even if you tried."

Sora forgot about his discomfort around Riku and head butted him the back, sending him sprawling, he knelt to help Roxas up.

"Riku, go away."

Riku picked himself up, smiling. "When did you start fighting dirty?"

"When you started pissing me off," Sora muttered sullenly.

Riku nodded. "Fair enough….do you want to see them?"

Sora frowned, "who?"

"Namine and Kairi," Riku looked at Roxas, his smile in place again. "I heard about how you were able to cast when she was holding your hand. You could probably do with a visit."

Roxas flushed, wiping away his tears. "Just shut up Riku."

Riku shrugged and began to walk away. "I'm going over there; you guys can come if you want."

As he walked off, Sora and Roxas looked at one another, then both moved to follow him.

Kairi opened the door, giggling. "Riku I was going to be mad when you were late, but I don't think I can be."

Riku snorted. "Good to know that I'm loved."

She kissed him on the cheek, "thanks for bringing them."

Sora got more than a kiss on the cheek; she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned against him. "I'm glad you were able to come."

He blushed as he put his hands around her waist and held her gently, grinning widely. Roxas felt uncomfortable watching Sora and Kairi so he moved past them and followed Riku inside and sat down on a couch in the living room. Riku reached over and grabbed a peach from a bowl on the side table, biting it as he watched Kairi and Sora talk by the open door.

"They might as well get married."

Roxas nodded quietly, Riku snorted as he took another bite. "So why don't you go look for her?"

Roxas' flushed and he looked down at his feet as Sora and Kairi joined them. Kairi sat down next to Roxas, Sora on her other side.

She put an arm around him. "Are you alright?"

"He's fine, just coming to grips with the fact that he's helpless." Riku said nonchalantly.

Kairi smiled at him. "You're a jerk."

"Guilty."

Sora's smile had vanished now as he looked over at Riku. "Can't you be nice to him for a minute?"

Riku looked between Sora and Roxas. "You know I think last time I saw you two your roles were reversed. At least this time you remembered your friends."

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Riku, I'm happy you're here but you aren't helping anyone, why don't you go make something for lunch?"

Riku blinked, "lunch?"

"I'm hungry."

He sighed and shook his head, standing up and heading over to the kitchen. "This is child labor you know."

She giggled. "So you noticed, you deserve it though."

Riku shrugged and began rummaging around for something to make. Sora stared in astonishment.

"How did you do that?"

Kairi's smile was sad. "He's not as big a jerk as he acts, you should know that Sora…" She looked increasingly pained as she continued. "We all lost our parents and home. Riku I think has taken it the worst, especially living with his aunt and uncle, they're not…well they're not like a normal family. I don't think he was able to heal after losing his mom and dad like we were."

"I heard that." Riku called over, without looking up. "I'm perfectly fine."

Kairi looked at Sora and smiled secretly, Sora got the feeling she didn't believe him. Sora remembered what he'd when he'd realized his mom and dad were gone, yes, he had been lucky to move in with Roxas and Cloud. He and Leon had found a loving family. If Sephiroth was as cold and stoic as he seemed then Riku probably had never found that. He wondered if there was anything he could do for him, but came up blank.

Kairi put a hand on Roxas' knee. "You know Rikku wouldn't want you doing this. We all used to go out together, Rikku, Namine, Yuna, Yuffie, we all hung out together. If she saw you now she'd hate herself for causing you to suffer."

Roxas continued staring down. "She isn't here though, and that's because of me."

"Roxas…" Kairi's voice was gentle; she put a hand on his cheek and turned him to look at her. "I'm sure she doesn't blame you, and I know you did everything you could."

Roxas looked at her eyes; he wished she hadn't made him look at her. This was awkward, he couldn't break the gaze though she was trying to tell him something and she wanted him to listen. The thing was that he wasn't certain that she was wrong; he didn't think Rikku blamed him, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Namine's upstairs in her room I think. I'm sure she'd like to see you." Kairi looked over at Riku, "will you be long?"

Riku scowled. "What, not fast enough princess?"

Kairi smiled slightly. "Sora go help him, and no, I just want Roxas to go see Namine."

"Oh good, more couple drama," Riku said as Sora came into the kitchen. He pointed towards a cupboard. "I need pepper."

"Riku," Kairi said sweetly, "shush."

He didn't say anything more, so Kairi turned back to Roxas. "Her room is to the right of the stairs, the last door."

Roxas nodded and stood up, heading towards the stairs and climbing them slowly, he felt like there was a lead weight in his stomach, but at the same time he took some comfort. Namine made him comfortable, made him feel safe, and for whatever reason when she'd helped him he'd been able to use magic. That had to mean something didn't it? He turned right at the top of the stairs and walked down the short hallway, he knocked once when no answer was forthcoming he knocked again.

"Namine?" He turned the door handle and stuck his head in; she was nowhere to be seen, he swallowed slightly and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

"Namine are you in here?"

He moved towards the bathroom, he stumbled for a moment, he looked down to see a book lying at his feet, some pages had been knocked out, he knelt to pick them up and replace them. The pages were crayon drawings; something about the characters looked familiar to him. He began flipping through them, they really did look familiar. He turned the next page and froze.

"Roxas?"

He looked up; Namine was standing in the door to the bathroom, a towel around wrapped around her. She was staring at him in terror, he thought he knew why as he turned the book around.

"What is this?"

Her face twisted in pain. "I—I'm sorry."

"What is it?" He asked again, his voice growing angry.

The page he was holding open showed caricatures of Roxas and Rikku in a beam of light, there was a pool of blood around them and Roxas was holding Rikku in his arms.