Author's Note: Yes, the Stranger. And yes, it was Namine who said the "feigning ignorance" line. Tifa didn't drag Sora and Cloud to Hollow Bastion because Sora's busy dealing with his darkness OUTSIDE of Hollow Bastion so no one else gets hurt. Of course, Cloud still went and got himself hurt, but... yeah... (rar, correct me if I'm wrong.) Then Cloud's going after Sora to keep an eye on him. Fun stuff. And... we don't want to freak Sora out right now. It'd be up there with Riku's panic attack about seeing Namine. Trust me, such things will occur in due time. For now, enjoy the reason why this thing is so long. Sora's Shadow.

And, I will repeat to my chagrin. He's fun to write for. Though, I found myself censoring him, a lot. *sigh* He kept wanting to call Namine names, and I won't allow for that. Nor will I allow for the f-word.

The Shadow appeared in Hollow Bastion. The darkness of this world was comforting. It wasn't like Olympus Coliseum was bright, because it wasn't. It was balanced though. Hollow Bastion was so skewed that it made it nice.

He wandered about the streets, basking in the warped world that had been plunged into darkness one too many times. He tried not to think about how he had to run away from that last battle, about how that girl had been so damn bright.

Something in Aerith's house caught his attention. Or rather, the headache that he was immediately presented with caught his attention.

It wasn't the headache that he got when he got close to just anything bright…

It was the headache he got when he was around Kairi.

But what would Kairi be doing here?

He waltzed right into Aerith's front room. First, he had to grimace at the sight of Tifa. Why did she have to go and be here?

But then his eyes fell on Kairi. He didn't immediately notice that her hair was different and that she looked older. He did notice that Namine was sitting right next to her. He frowned, trying to figure that one out. He knew that they knew each other, but why were they here? And who was that girl with the short black hair that his mind was giving him no information on?

He made his way over so he was standing behind Kairi and the girl who he had no name for.

"What are you doing here? I didn't know you got off the Islands much," he whispered in her ear, trying to avoid being noticed by Leon or Aerith, both of whom could hear him on occasion.

However, Kairi did not respond.

"Seriously, you're ignoring me again?" he asked. "No one here's gonna think you're crazy!"

"Is someone talking?" Namine asked, looking about the room.

"Okay since when…" he began.

"No, I didn't hear anyone," Kairi said.

She wasn't his Kairi. Something in her voice…

Then Namine looked right at him.

Not, about him like everyone besides Sora and Cloud did, but right at him.

Well, that was disorienting. But, this could prove to be interesting.

Namine frowned at him.

"You just have a knack for showing up when people are talking about you, don't you?" she asked.

"You guys were talking about me? How sweet! Pity I missed it, I was too busy kicking Sora's ass!"

Namine raised an eyebrow. "And shoving a Keyblade through Cloud."

"Wait a second…" Tifa said.

I wonder if she can hear me… or if she only knows that because Namine had to go and mention it… I'm not sure how much strength I've got since I'm not feeding off of anyone right now. Not any significant darkness… eff.

He could tell that Tifa couldn't see him though, considering she was only looking in his general direction.

"Hey, let's keep that on the down-lo, okay? He was interfering with me dragging Sora into the darkness."

He leaned against the wall casually. What was creepy, was that Namine followed his gaze, staring directly into his eyes the entire time. Not even Sora had the balls to do that.

"It's a good thing Kairi can't hear you," she said.

"What'd he say?" Kairi asked, looking at Namine.

Namine didn't respond to Kairi out loud. However, Kairi must have gotten the gist somehow, for she frowned in his general direction. He decided he didn't like it when Kairi, any Kairi, frowned.

Shit, I should probably keep my mouth shut… if they tell any of this to Kairi… I'm screwed. And I thought the thing with Joseph was close…

"Not all of us have telepathy," Xion said. "Kindly tell the rest of us what is going on?"

"He's bragging about trying to drag Sora into the darkness," Leon explained. "However, I don't think it worked."

"How do you know?" Shadow argued.

"If it had worked, you wouldn't be here."

"Valid, I suppose."

"Why are you here?" Aerith asked, looking at him. He didn't like the look on her face.

"Why do you care?"

"You're in my house, I think I have the right to care."

He rolled his eyes. "It's none of your business."

"You had to run away," Namine said slowly. "You didn't overpower Sora, he was…"

"Shut up!" he roared, looking directly at her. She flinched, it made him happy. "How could you even…"

He began picking her mind. The first thing he got was possibly the most juiciest thing he could have hoped for.

"It's you!" he exclaimed. "You're that Namine! You're the reason why he's so messed up."

"What?" Namine asked, leaning away from him. "What do you mean?"

"You…" he began laughing at the brilliance of this all. "You…" he couldn't even get the word out between guffaws. "You shattered his memories!"

All the blood drained out of Namine's face.

"Okay, I heard that one," Kairi said. She looked at Namine. "Who's memories…"

"Oh-ho!" the Shadow laughed. "And you haven't told them! That's even better."

All of this off of one memory! He could have fun with this.

"Aw, man, I haven't had this much fun since I was teasing Aerith about Zack!"

There was a shattering of glass as a cup hit the wall behind the Shadow's head. The remnants of tea dripped to the floor.

All eyes looked to Aerith. She had thrown her cup of tea right at him. Had he been on the same plane of existence as the rest of them, it would have knocked him right in the head.

Namine stood up.

"You can tell everyone about what I've done, I don't care," she seethed. "But you do not get to be mean to Aerith!"

"I dunno what he said, but it had to have been bad," Cid muttered, chewing on a piece of straw. "It had somethin' to do with him though."

"What are you going to do about it?" the Shadow asked, raising an eyebrow cockily at Namine.

"I'll fight you if I have to," Namine said.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" he asked, summoning his chains and twirling them around. Namine frowned at them.

"They remind you of all those memories you unchained?" he taunted.

"Do your worst," Namine said. "I'm not afraid of you."

"You should know that you're going to regret that," he said, summoning a bunch of Neoshadows.

"Hey look, enemies I can see!" Xion exclaimed.

With a wave of Namine's hand, they all disappeared.

"Not in the house," Namine said.

"And how are you going to stop me?"

He summoned up some more Neoshadows.

Namine made them disappear as well.

Leon, Aerith and Kairi were watching the exchange between Namine and the Shadow with piqued interest. Yuffie was in shock that Namine had just taken out not one, but two rounds of Neoshadows without even breaking a sweat. Tifa, Xion and Cid were waiting to see what would be summoned next.

"Why couldn't she be here for the Heartless battles," Yuffie muttered. Tifa frowned at her, not that Yuffie cared.

"I could do this all day," the Shadow said lazily.

Namine knew she couldn't, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"Why doesn't he, like, actually attack you?" Xion asked. "As opposed to just summoning up Heartless that you can shatter."

"Oh, so that's what she'd doing to them," he said. He'd been wondering how she'd been making them disappear, however, he hadn't really spared any effort in actually, you know, caring.

Then, he laughed. "You're shattering them like you shattered—"

He paused to look at the expression on her face. He was expecting one of horror or shock, or pleading for him not to finish that statement for the two, maybe three, other people in the room that could hear him. However, the look on her face was just daring him to say it. She turned to look at Xion.

"It's because he's on a weird plane of existence," Namine said. "He can't physically touch me, nor I him."

"Then how are you planning on fighting…" Xion began, but she was cut off by the Shadow's voice that she heard for the first time.

"Shattered Riku."

He had been pulling at the small tendrils of darkness coming from her since they'd started this battle. She was darker than he would have originally thought. Definitely darker than the other Namine. Plus, there were the dark thoughts that he'd been getting off of Aerith ever since he'd mentioned Zack's name. He figured he could expend the little extra energy to let everyone in the room hear about what Namine had done to poor, poor, Riku. Or, from her perspective, the Riku Replica. Those were about the only thoughts he could pick up on, because they were the darkest—sure, there were some others about unchaining things, stuff about people he didn't care about. But the stuff about Riku was the best.

Because, as fate would have it, the Riku that she had shattered, happened to be the Riku that Sora had struck in a fit of anger, beginning the downward spiral into darkness.

Which, essentially, had led to his entire existence. Provided you followed the pronouns.

And! To make it all better, she thought he was dead. And he wasn't about to tell her otherwise.

Meanwhile, all eyes had turned to Namine. Namine had bit down hard on her lip. She squinted her eyes shut for just a moment, then she relaxed. She looked down at her shoes.

"In Castle Oblivion," she began. "Our Castle Oblivion, Vexen made a replica of Riku—our Riku. I was the one who gave him memories, because that's what I did. I controlled all the memories in that blasted castle. However, mere days later, Larxene threw him on my table and told me that I had to Rewrite his memories, to make him think that he was the Real Riku. I didn't want to, I wanted to tell her how unstable it would make him… but it wouldn't have mattered even if I had, she wouldn't have believed me. So I rewrote him, out of fear. This caused him to begin to deteriorate because the memories in his head were more like fragmented shards than a complete chain. He was going to kill Sora, so I had to shatter his already unstable heart. If I had had more time, I would have come up with a better option, but I only had a split-second..."

She paused, but didn't look up from her shoes.

"Why didn't you mention anything?" Kairi asked.

"I… I didn't want to."

"But, the Riku Replica," Xion said. "I've been through the Database in Castle Oblivion. It says he was terminated by Riku."

"He was…"

The Shadow burst out laughing. He clapped his hands.

"Well, everyone, I think we've come leaps and bounds from where we were ten minutes ago. How does it feel to have everything out in the open, Namine?"

"A hell of a lot better," she said, looking up directly at him. He almost flinched. It was unnerving how she could do that.

"What I don't get," she continued, taking a step closer to him. "Is how you know him."

"I can read all your dark little thoughts, missy," he taunted.

"No, you know him personally. Or, at least know of him."

"I never said that."

"Your exact words were: You're that Namine. You're the reason why he's so messed up. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but that implies to me that you know of the Riku Replica."

Namine closed her eyes. Kairi and Xion exchanged wary glances.

The Shadow suddenly felt something poking around in his brain. He instinctively threw up a wall, like he did with every thought about Kairi when Sora was around. Namine grimaced.

"You're poking around in my head!" he exclaimed.

"And that was a thought about Kairi that I didn't need to see," Namine muttered.

"What…?" Kairi began.

"You don't want to know," Namine said.

Kairi grimaced.

"Get out of my head you bi—"

"Enough!" Aerith screamed.

*laughs nervously* Sorry to leave you at a cliffie like that... but, it was the best place to split this section. I'll have more up soon :)