Rhiannon: Well... school has started for me... first day of of my junior year of college wasn't so bad... I guess... Takako-sensei was prettyu cool... but I'm not sure about Miss Corin... ANYways... that's not why you're here.

-)-

Chapter 25—Without Hope

Sora lifted his hand to push open the door when the world around him suddenly when dark as night. He lifted his hand and called the Sleeping Lion to him and stared hard into the inky darkness. He pressed his back against where he remembered the door being and felt it solidify behind him. He spared a glace over his shoulder to see that a large white wall had appeared behind him, bright and pristine but the darkness seemed to steal the light from it. He turned to look before him and there was a tall silver haired figure standing.

"Sora!" The silver haired teen gasped as his aqua eyes opened and Sora felt dizzy as if he was staring at the sea. Who was this figure standing before him and how did he know him?

"Who… who are you?" He stared up at him and the boy looked absolutely shunned for a minute before he scratched the back of his head and sighed softly.

"Figures." He walked closer and lifted up a hand. "I'm not going to hurt you… I just… I want to see if you're real." He pressed a hand to Sora's cheek and the brunette couldn't deny the shiver that went through his body, he knew this touch, even if he didn't remember the face.

"What… what is your name?" Sora asked quietly staring up into those oceanic eyes, captivated.

"Riku." He replied and was it Sora or was this 'Riku' getting closer?

"Land and Sky." Sora whispered quietly and forced his eyes to stay open. "And sea."

"Sea?" Riku paused at that and Sora reached up and laid his hands slowly on the older teen's shoulders.

"The land and sky never touch, but the sea connects them." He breathed and the older teen laughed lightly.

"My Mom use to say that." Riku moved closer, pressing Sora into the wall.

"Wh-what… Riku?" He stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Trust me." Riku whispered leaning into him and Sora leaned his head back.

"I do." He replied and it wasn't a lie, he really did trust this mysterious boy with the oceanic eyes.

Pale lips met pale lips and Sora felt as though he was dying. He reached his hands up and wrapped them around broad shoulders. The kiss was perfectly chaste and he indulged Riku by pulling him closer. A warm, wet something prodded at the seam of his lips and he jumped. The older teen was insistent, hands squeezing his hips and Sora opened his mouth and moaned when Riku tangled their tongues together.

"You still taste so good." Riku murmured. "Just like I remember."

"You… remember?" Sora asked quietly, his cerulean eyes so confused.

"Shush." Riku murmured against his skin as he pulled Sora close. "Nothing else matters right now, in this moment. It's just you and me."

"Nothing… matters?" Sora pulled back from the embrace.

"I love you." Riku's words were charming, quiet but something felt wrong.

"Let me go."

"What? Why? Sora!" Riku gasped as Sora shoved him away, hugging himself

"You're not Riku." He growled firmly.

"Of course I am! Who else would I be!" Riku climbed to his feet.

"Riku wouldn't say those words so carelessly!" Sora choked on his words. How did he know that?

"How do you know that? How do you even know that Riku really loves you when you don't even remember him?" The figure asked as he stood up slowly, his hands curling into fists.

"My heart knows! My heart would never forget! He would never ask me to forget about the others! He'd help me save them!"

"Do you really think that your precious Riku is so selfless? When he is so close to the darkness?" The figure slowly walked forward. "You have no idea Sora… how seductive the darkness can be."

"Well you can take the darkness and shove it!" Sora pushed the false Riku backwards and lifted his hand, the Sleeping Lion appearing.

"Would you really strike down your own lover?" Sora felt pain pierce his heart. "Oh wait… Riku isn't your lover is he? You're just a pathetic little boy."

"SHUT UP!" Sora struck him with the keyblade. "Riku loves me! Riku loves me!" He struck him over and over again; he didn't care about the blood that spurted from the corpse as it hit him across the face. He wouldn't let this fake, this mockery of who Riku was to continue to exist.

-)-

"He got rather angry doesn't he?" Naminè asked as she stood to one side of the portal. "Maybe this So-ra isn't all that you thought he would be."

"He is… the darkness has touched him, but Riku… Riku will protect him, make him learn to trust and use the darkness in his heart to build up his light."

"You have this all worked out don't you?" Naminè asked with a little quirk to her lips. "You know more then you're letting on Marluxia."

"Did you know… My dear Princess of Nothing that many nobodies of higher thought remember who and what their somebody was?"

"And I suppose that you do?" She asked as she hoped up on the table and watched him with her luminous blue eyes.

"I was… a mystic." He looked at her and smiled in a way that chilled her but caught her interest. "The great Raine Leonheart sought me out for many reasons. The first was to lock away the darkness within her so that she could face the great bitch, Sorceress Adel… The second time she came to see me, I failed her, unfortunately."

"You failed her?" Now Naminè was absolutely convinced that the death of Marluxia might be a bad thing.

"She came to ask me if there was a way to save the life of her child. I managed to do as thus… but in the end it cost her… her life. I was not as good of a mystic as I thought…" He shrugged a shoulder lightly. "My arrogance cost her and I… far too much."

"Wait… then that man." She asked quietly.

"Yes, I've waited twenty years to meet Squall." He smiled at her. "Though he no longer goes by that name."

"And you no longer go by your true name either." Naminè pointed out.

"True enough. I made a promise to Raine regardless of name… and I plan to keep it." He turned to walk away.

"A nobody with ties to somebodies." Naminè stared at him confused and then shook her head, remembering her own ties. "I guess most of us do."

-)-

Cloud was kneeling beside Tifa, who had Sora's upper half lying in her lap. She was stroking her hands over his spiked hair and whispering to him, words of nonsense, probably more to comfort herself then anything else. They force fed him a potion, not sure of what to do when he'd collapsed on his way to push open the door. A hissing, crackling sound made it's way from behind him and he stood swiftly, reaching for his large bastard sword.

"I never thought I'd see you again." A silky voice spoke behind him, a voice that Cloud would never forget.

"How… You're dead! I killed you!" Cloud cried as his most hated enemy Sephiroth walked forward. "I killed you and Hojo both!"

The man cocked his head to the side, the long silvery strands slipping over his shoulders and around him in a nonexistent wind. "I am not exactly… that Sephiroth… I am your darkness Cloud and you make my memories. You make my thoughts."

"Then I command you disappear."

"I never said you controlled me. You angry, your anxiety of this place gave me form." Sephiroth stepped closer to him. "This place is filled with deep magics that you could not understand."

"You should be dead!" Cloud ran at him his sword held high and Sephiroth pulled his long katana from its sheath and blocked his attack.

"Why waste our time with this useless fighting? I am simply a memory… A passing thought. A darkness best left forgotten."

"Then why are you here!"

"I am here to open the path." He smiled at Cloud, eerily and lonely. "You were brought here for a reason Cloud Strife. It's time you stopped living in lies."

"Living… in lies?" The blond stepped back and stared at him, senses aware, sword at the ready.

"Though not the same, never the same… you and I are…kin. The man… Vincent has your answers."

"Vincent Valentine? The former Turk?"

"Yes." He smiled at him almost fondly. "Before the great men were seduced. Ansem the Wise and Rufus Shinra… the rulers of our world."

"That tells me nothing!" Cloud cried, so angry his hands were shaking.

"Vincent Valentine will tell you everything… After all, he helped you to defeat Hojo… when he… perverted me."

"Perverted you!" Cloud spat. "You were always a vile son of a bitch!"

"It's amazing how people forget you so fast. I fought against Adel… along with many others."

"Oh? And what happened afterward is of 'little consequence?' Bullshit." Cloud growled.

"I never said… that I did not know regret." Sephiroth smiled at him. "I know a great many things… Marluxia is waiting for you."

"So you're just going to walk away!"

"I have no sins to repent for… I am merely a ghost. A helper." And with that Sephiroth began to fade into darkness until it was if he was never there at all.

"Damn you!" Cloud whispered harshly under his breath. "Damn you for everything."

He about face to see Tifa looking at him with such sad eyes. He smiled thinly at her and approached her and gingerly sat down beside her.

"I don't blame you for anything that happened in our battle against Hojo and Sephiroth." He smiled at her thinly and reached out and pushed the hair back on her shoulder. "You were trying to protect me. You're the best big sister I never had."

She laughed softly at that and he smiled. "And you're the best little brother."

Sora began to stir in her arms and they waited to hear that he was all right, their relief pouring out of every pour.

-)-

Rhiannon: P.S... is anyone else annoyed with the fact that the 'line spaces' don't work anymore and won't except the ones you already put there?