DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Snow White...but I do own the fact that I did not put the next two chapters together in this one.

Chapter 27

Hunting the Huntsman

"They'll keep coming at you."

-Leon

Shortly after the king had made his decision all eight of the companions were boarding on to the Gummi Ship. While the other six had been down below, eliminating the machines or comforting those who had lost something, Donald and Goofy had been busy preparing the Gummi Ship for travel to their next destination. When the others boarded they then stood by and at the ready for whoever was going to take the helm of the ship and be its captain. Seeing as they only had the Highwind now, due to King Mickey's autopilot of the Pearl back to Disney Castle, they all needed to be fit aboard this one ship. Mickey explained their destination and the ultimate plan and then took the captain's chair himself. Everyone knew why: he needed time to think and to give others time to grieve.

Certainly, Gentai seemed at least a little bit better than he had immediately after the battle. Riku figured that it was due to, in no small part, the kindness and compassion (as well from an overwhelming sense of empathy) that was shown by Demora to the man she loved. Still, all of them decided it would be best to leave the sixteen year old Keyblade wielder to himself. The three friends withdrew to the kitchen where they could sit, and possibly talk, in peace. For moments the room was silent and it almost seemed as if none of the members sitting n the room were even breathing. Sora was, naturally, the first one to break the silence.

"So tell us about this Huntsman, Riku." Sora said, and Kairi looked at her fiancée, immediately understanding where he was coming from in this whole business. They had never met the Huntsman and though Sora usually never knew anything much about an enemy before he faced it down, this Huntsman was enough of a reason to give him pause if he had defeated two of the Keyblade wielders so easily in battle. Riku shifted his weight in his chair and put his fingers to his chin.

"He's a cruel man…" Riku said softly and it almost seemed as if a chill had settled upon the room as the conversation began. "Like Maleficent, he can control the Heartless, though he doesn't seem to know much of darkness. Years ago, on Fabled Countryside, before our time or the time of Terra, he let Snow White go, captivated by her beauty and by pity of her position."

"Why was he after her in the first place?" Kairi asked, wondering what could prompt such a man to hunt someone so innocent. Riku chuckled a bit.

"Jealousy. Snow White's step mother hated her for her beauty because she wanted to be the fairest in the land. So she sent out the Huntsman to kill her. I don't know many of the details that follow after the Huntsman let her go save for the fact that she married a prince and was, years later, captured by Maleficent. But of course, we all know that part of the story." Riku answered them with a few over-dramatic waves of his hand.

"And how exactly do you know so much Riku?" Sora asked him with a slight smirk on his face. Riku returned the smirk, almost sneeringly.

"It was kind of my job, along with Gentai, to find out our enemy's history. We were only able to do so with the Huntsman though because the rest of them would have detected when we were on their world and would have immediately stopped us from snooping at all." Riku removed the hand that was resting on his chin and placed it on the table as he leaned back. "I don't think that the Huntsman really cared if we knew anything anyway. Maybe he even wanted us to know…I don't know."

"How does he fight, Riku?" Sora asked with determination, wanting to know his opponent like an open book.

"I'm not sure exactly…he's never really fought to kill before, just get us out of the game for a while." Riku said. "He usually has hidden behind Heartless for just that reason…I don't think he really wants to fight just yet. I know he uses a crossbow but of the nature of those crossbow bolts I wouldn't know. I've managed to deflect those and the time that he was able to harm us; he used the darkness to change the crossbow itself. It was sharper around the edges and it cut us up pretty bad."

Kairi let out a feeble gasp, an image of one of her best friends bloodied and bruised and left to die emerging into her racing mind. Her mouth formed a solid O and she brought her hands up to her mouth to cover it. Riku chuckled a bit and shook his head, almost finding it funny that Kairi would be so worried about him…but he knew that if she had heard the same things were happening to Sora that she would just not talk at all because she would be unable to.

"Well…" Sora breathed out, relieving a bit of the tension in the room. "We can stop him if we take him together!" Sora pumped his fist into the air and both his fiancée and his best friend couldn't help but start laughing. Riku laughed the loudest.

"Ah…did I miss the good times like this the past year…" Riku said, reminiscing for a moment, or so it seemed, before he rebounded immediately back to reality. "Don't get me wrong! Gentai is a good travel partner, as good a one as I could hope for. I mean, he knows how to fight but…he can't cheer me up like you two can."

"And you've always needed cheering up!" Kairi teased and Riku, despite be more mature than either of them, stuck his tongue out at her. Kairi leered in his direction before Sora quickly intervened.

"Okay you two…you want to go at it soundlessly then we have to do an arm wrestling competition, no other way." Sora said with a certain detachment from the situation. Riku smirked at him a chortled a bit.

"But Sora…why would we do that? The competition would be completely unfair." Riku said, clearly believing himself to be the victor in this competition no matter what. Sora nodded his head understandingly.

"You're right. Riku…Kairi should use her weaker hand to give you more of an advantage in the situation…otherwise she'll wipe the floor with you." Sora said and Riku just sat back more in his chair and pouted, but he leaned back too much and fell out, toppling to the floor. Kairi and Sora were now laughing raucously, doubling up, and clutching their sides, howling with laughter. Riku sneered as he at last stood up.

"Way to kick a man when he's down." Riku said with a nasty grimace but both knew that he wasn't angry at them at all, but rather just the opposite. At last, Sora and Kairi were able to get themselves under control.

"Oh, you'll know when we're kicking you Riku." Sora said as his fit of giggles at last subsided. Riku finally sidled back into his chair and glared at his friends.

"What? Is today "Pick on Riku" day?" Riku asked scathingly and Kairi waved the matter away quickly.

"No…" Kairi answered. "Pick on Riku day was only a few weeks ago and the time before that, we were traveling around and so didn't have time to pick on you." Sora thumped his best friend on the back with his hand.

"That's right man, you're overdue!" Sora replied cheerily and Riku just rolled his eyes. He was annoyed, and yet he enjoyed the good-natured teasing…it had been so long since it had come to him that it was almost foreign. Maybe Sora had been right…maybe he had been in darkness so long that the simple things of life and light and love were almost lost to him. If his friends weren't around he would have gritted his teeth. No…I'm not so far gone just yet…not now…not ever…

"You guys are impossible!" Riku said throwing his hands up in the air and they just beamed at him…like no time had passed since they were five, when Kairi had first arrived. It was just the three of them, joking around like old times…like no veil of darkness had passed between them, cutting them off from each other…or smothering them like a dark blanket. The only thing that was missing now was him hitting on Kairi…but the darkness had even smothered that. In Riku's opinion he came to only one solid conclusion: his heart was no longer capable of love…seven years after he had thought the darkness had released its hold on him…it was still there.

Sora was about to give a retort to Riku's statement when Mickey's voice came over the intercom. "We're at Fabled Countryside, prepare to beam down, fellas." With that, their banter-filled conversation was at last at an end. All three solemnly got up from their chairs and left the galley where they joined their five other companions in the beaming room. Few moments later they were before a castle amidst all the fields and meadows.

"Another castle?!" Sora yelled out exasperatedly, clearly quite angry at (and tired of) the fact that whenever they'd visit the princess' world, they would visit their castle. But Riku chuckled and tapped Sora on the shoulder, pointing in another direction across the field where a woman was picking flowers. Sora smiled sheepishly at his slightly taller, silver haired friend and led the party forward. "Snow White!" The raven haired beauty turned in his direction and a great smile came over her face.

"Sora!" Snow White cried out jubilantly before she saw the diminutive form of King Mickey Mouse behind him. She gave a quick curtsey to the king. "Your Majesty."

"Where is he?!" Donald yelled, breaking up the not-even-started conversation and brandished his staff around. "Where's the Huntsman?!" Snow White gasped and nearly dropped her bundle of flowers.

"Oh, surely not! Not here again!" Snow White gasped out. All of the members figured that she must have had some new encounter with the Huntsman in his current state or else she would not have been so fearful of him. She sat down in the meadow as everyone stared at her expectantly. "I had sensed a disturbance in the light of this world not a day ago…and it worried me for but a moment. I passed it off as a slight coincidence…I had not expected to-to-" Goofy came over to Snow Whit and put a pair of hands on her shoulders while looking at her comfortingly. Riku was the first to speak.

"Do you know where the darkness originated from? Where it could be in this world?" Riku asked her and she managed to compose herself long enough to answer.

"That's what worries me…it was near the dwarves' house." Snow White answered and instantly, in both Riku and Gentai's mind flashed the unbidden image of a house down in a valley and in another direction entirely, an abandoned wood where they had once fought Heartless not long ago. Mickey glanced sternly at Snow White.

"Snow White…head back to the castle and stay there. You should be safe there." Mickey said and Snow White left without another word, Mickey ordering Donald and Goofy to go with her in order to protect her. They agreed without any arguments. "Riku, Gentai, do you know where this house that Snow White was talking about is?" They both nodded slowly.

"I can picture it clearly…but Riku can find the way." Gentai said with a glance to his partner in saving the worlds most recently. Riku nodded with some sense of grim determination and this time, he took the lead of the now six-member party. The journey didn't take remarkably too long thanks to the highly accurate and heightened level of precision with which Riku was able to lead them to the cottage. After that remarkably short trek they found themselves outside the home of the seven dwarves where not a single living thing was to be seen. Sora leaned in towards Riku.

"What do you smell, buddy?" Sora asked and Riku swatted him away, almost like a gnat as he used his power to probe the house. There was no scent of anything…at least, no scent that worried Riku. Oftentimes, if there had been a struggle, a fight, or even a slaughter, the remnants of said confrontations would settle so strongly onto his senses that there could be no doubt left in his mind…but this time it was all so eerily quiet.

"Riku!" Gentai snapped, and Riku's eyes did the same. He had grown to know what Gentai's tone meant and without another thought, he summoned his Keyblade. Everybody looked and both him and Gentai curiously, as to why they had their weapons out. The question was answered on its own before long when a fresh batch of Heartless appeared. It was mostly just the standard, garden-variety Heartless but the fact that they were here was enough cause to worry. Suddenly, everybody understood and brought their own weapons into the battle. Riku fired off a few shots of Dark Aura that cascaded upon the Heartless he was facing, destroying them effortlessly. In the meantime, he had sidled up near Gentai.

"This isn't like him." Riku muttered and Gentai nodded in understanding, as he spun around on the spot, swinging his Keyblade and cutting through the Heartless surrounding him.

"I know…this is too weak a batch to be sending at us…" Gentai growled when the realization hit him. "He's taunting us." And as he finished those words, the Heartless had at last been vanquished by the Keyblade Masters and Demora. Sora ran up to them.

"Are we getting close?" Sora asked and he saw Riku's set look and the view of nearly unbridled rage on Gentai's face. Clearly he had not yet forgiven the Huntsman for the tragedy to his home. Riku answered Sora's question with a simple jerk of his head up and down.

"Looks like we're really close." Demora answered as piece of parchment that was slightly long and flowing came fluttering down from the roof. Kairi was the first to grab it. As Riku at last got a glimpse at it, he knew that Gentai was right: the Huntsman was taunting them. The entire group gathered around to read the parchment as it stated thus:

My Dear Friends and Keyblade Masters,

Alas I find it so sad that we had to depart from our last encounter with such unfinished business. I know you have come to hunt me and you have come so far. And that is why I shall tell you exactly where I will be after you have found this letter after battling the Heartless.

Riku scoffed. The Huntsman was beginning to change the rules on them because he still wanted to play by his rules and his game. Still, if it could get them within enough distance of the Huntsman to destroy him then it would be worth it. Riku continued to read.

I will be in the very same forest that both of you, Riku and Gentai, encountered me and my Heartless in not too long ago. However, it will be deeper in, near a cabin I have made in the woods. There we shall at last settle our differences if you so choose. Might I note, I am still keeping my word…one week (or slightly after) before we settle our differences and I deal with you, as I told you in The New World. That time has come. I await you.

With Sincerity,

The Huntsman

"Well that's awfully nice!" Sora said, sarcasm oozing into every strain of his vocal cords. But Kairi held up a hand.

"Wait a moment…there's a P.S." Kairi said and they all looked in one more time to read what it said.

P.S. No members of the Disney Castle Court…even the king.

Author's Note: Yes, I am SO sorry that I took so long (and that it's kind of short), and normally I don't take so long but this was the MOST BORING chapter to write (you can tell I feel very strongly about this). Also, complications arose, ensued, were overcome. In any case, there's really not much to say about this in my opinion other than I hoped you enjoyed my light banter. Ha! Lord Moldybutt, there's my version of Riku for you. Granted, our two Rikus are totally different and have been through different things while my Riku is older than yours by four years. On another cool side note, I've updated my profile page recently…not super big changes save for two things. 1) I now have a Psych quote of the month which is an awesome TV show and 2) I changed Fear of the Darkness and its placement in my timeline…it will now be twelve years after this story rather than three. In the meantime, please review and Dare to Be Silly.