Author's Note: (magik) So... I meant to mention this the other day but I completely spaced it. When I went to go start posting this, I went into my doc manager and was legitimately surprised to still find documents from the end of Betwixt and Between. It feels like so long ago that I had finished with that project, but, i'm still within 90 days of those last few chapters. It's weird, guys... I'm telling you...

Anyway, rar doesn't have a particular note on this chapter, though she will have a blog up for it probably. Though, she might not... if I remember correctly, I wrote this portion. Do I have anything to say? Not really... nothing but, enjoy!

"Toby! Toby wake up!" Joseph shook Toby until Toby finally opened his eyes. "Sheesh!" Joseph said, once Toby was awake. "You're harder to wake up than Axel!"

"Whatcha wake me up for?" Toby groaned, rolling over. "I was sleeping…"

Joseph shook him again. "C'mon! We're gonna go on an adventure!"

Toby slowly opened one eye. "We are?"

"Yeah!" Joseph bounced up and down slightly in his excitement.

"Where we going?'" Toby asked, a bit groggily.

"I mentioned that I've been to another universe before, right?" Joseph asked. Before Toby could answer, he continued talking. "Well, we're going to go there again. I need to find someone!"

Toby slowly sat up. "Who are we looking for?"

"Ienzo. Zexion." Joseph made a face. "Vexen kept calling him Ienzo. Anyway, Vexen's suddenly worried about him, and he's too paranoid to go and make sure he's alright. He thinks he's dead. So, we're going to go find out for him." Joseph grinned, now. "It'll be fun!"

Toby rubbed his eyes. He didn't argue, probably because he didn't feel he had much of a choice in the matter. Joseph was hard to argue with, sometimes. "How we gonna find him?"

Joseph shrugged. "I figured we'd just go to the other universe, ask someone about Xehanort – someone else Vexen's worried about being alive, but for completely different reasons. Apparently Xehanort's out to kill him, or something. But, anyway, we'll go to the other universe, ask about Xehanort, and once we've got that cleared up, we'll ask about Ienzo. Hopefully someone knows if he's okay. And where he lives."

"That seems like an awful lot of work," Toby said, frowning.

"What else are we supposed to do?" Joseph asked.

"Can't you just… I don't know… form a dark corridor straight to someone?"

"Oh! Probably! Riku and Namine do that all the time!" Joseph laughed, then closed his eyes and stuck out his tongue in concentration. He slowly held out a hand. "Let's see… Vexen's Ienzo…"

A dark corridor formed at his fingertips.

Joseph opened his eyes. He and Toby stared at the corridor for a moment.

"You think that worked?" Toby asked.

Joseph shrugged, but he grinned. "Let's find out! What's the worst that can happen, huh? We end up in the wrong universe?" He stepped through. Not wanting to be left behind, Toby got out of his bed and followed after.

xxx

Hollow Bastion was surprisingly quiet that afternoon. Or at least, the particular district with this particular set of shops in it was. It wasn't like this area was always free of Heartless, it just was recently. Rumor had it that the owner of the Book Store was responsible.

Regardless of what Ienzo said, it wasn't actually true that he was responsible. For whatever reason, the Heartless had just decided to leave this area of Hollow Bastion alone for the past few days. It wasn't like he (or anyone else, really) was going to argue with it. However, Ienzo didn't quite like getting credit for things he wasn't even responsible for.

Especially if it meant that people kept smiling at him when he went anywhere. It wasn't like he didn't want to be smiled at—he just would prefer not to be noticed entirely. He wanted to run his Book Store and be left in peace. Something that didn't seem to be plausible in the slightest as of late.

Stupid Darkness. Stupid Xehanort. Stupid. Just. Stupid.

Currently, Ienzo was up in his study, trying to see if he could find anything in regards to getting past the large amount of darkness blocking their way to the Castle. No luck, as of yet.

Pi was downstairs, humming quietly to himself as he dusted the shelves—something he rather liked doing. He had to hum quietly though, lest he disturb Ienzo.

Neither of them were in the slightest way aware of the havoc that was about to ensue on their shop.

xxx

Joseph and Toby arrived in the quite streets of Hollow Bastion.

"Are you sure about this?" Toby asked, looking around warily.

"Sure!" Joseph said. "As soon as I figure out we're in the right universe, I just have to find Ienzo. Or, if I find Ienzo first, I have to make sure it's the right universe."

"How do you plan on doing that?" Toby asked.

"Asking around. People generally talk to me."

Toby scratched the back of his neck. "Okay," he said. "You seem to know what you're doing."

"Oh, I hardly ever actually know what I'm doing," Joseph said. "Not the whole plan anyway. I sometimes like to just make it up as I go along. It seems to work."

"You planned the chandelier," Toby pointed out.

"I had to!" Joseph argued. "I had to have a definitive distraction to even be allowed to go on that mission. Besides, it was the chandelier, of course I had to bring it crashing down. The Larxene Replica was just an added bonus."

Toby wasn't sure what to say to that. So he didn't bother saying anything, he just followed off in the direction Joseph started walking.

"So where did you have that Dark Corridor set to go?" Toby asked.

"Oh, somewhere near where Ienzo would be."

"So, wouldn't that mean we'd find Ienzo before we figure out the universe thing?"

"You would think," Joseph said with a shrug. "But I think you should know that things don't always work out like that."

Toby shrugged passively. "So, won't people notice that we're just walking around?"

"Well, from the looks of things, we're in Hollow Bastion—a Hollow Bastion, anyway. Loads of people come in and out of here all the time I hear. We should be fine. If not, well, Dark Corridor."

"I don't think you can use that as a verb," Toby mused.

Joseph shrugged. "Like I care?"

The two boys continued walking about the streets until Joseph saw an art store.

"Hmm, I wonder if I should pick Namine up some pencils," he mused. "She's always complaining she needs more blue ones."

"Aren't we looking for someone?" Toby asked.

"Well, yeah, but, art store!" Joseph replied.

Toby frowned, looking around. "Didn't you say something about a guy who was worse than Xemnas?"

Joseph rolled his eyes. "Like he'd recognize us for what we are? Please."

Toby bit his lip.

"You are a worry-wart," Joseph announced. "Fine, I won't go into the art store. But if Namine complains about missing any pencils when we get back, I'm blaming you."

"You can go get her some pencils."

Joseph shrugged. "I'm pretty much broke anyway. I should save my munny."

Toby smacked his forehead.

"Oh look! A bookstore!" Joseph exclaimed.

"What are we going to get in a bookstore?" Toby asked.

"Well, I originally formed the corridor for somewhere near where Ienzo would be. If Ienzo's like Alpha, or vice-versa, or however the heck that works… anyway! Alpha likes books. If I were trying to find Alpha, I'd go there. So, I'll go there to find Ienzo!"

"Sounds reasonable enough," Toby agreed.

Joseph beamed. "See?"

Toby waved Joseph on. "Come on, we don't want to worry 29."

"Assuming we're in the correct universe, time moves much faster here. We'll be fine."

Toby didn't look convinced. Not that it really mattered, because Joseph was already skipping his way into the bookstore. Toby followed behind him quietly.

The bookstore sure seemed promising enough. There were loads and loads of books. The only thing was, they needed to find people. The bookstore was obscenely quiet at the moment, outside of the little jingle of the bell over the door when they walked in.

Just then, they heard humming. Both boys looked around, trying to find the source.

"Vexen?" Toby asked, running into the person humming.

Pi stopped what he was doing (mid-dust, too) and looked down at the young boy.

"Hello," he said. "Though, I must inform you that I'm not actually Vexen, I'm Vexen Replica Pi."

"Pi?" Joseph asked, coming over to where Toby was.

"Joseph?" Pi asked.

"Ha!" Joseph exclaimed. "We are in the right universe!"

He punched the air excitedly.

"Why-ever did you wish to come here?" Pi asked.

"We're trying to see if Xehanort's still around," Joseph said.

"Are you looking for him?" Pi asked, incredulous.

"No," Joseph said. "Vexen, your Vexen wants to pay a visit home, but he's too scared that Xehanort's still around and is going to kill him."

"Oh, goodness, no!" Pi said. "Xehanort is very much dead. The Keyblade Wielders took care of him."

"Cool, I guess," Joseph said, already thinking of what else he had come here to do now that he knew Xehanort wasn't around anymore. "So, do you happen to know if Ienzo is still around? We actually want to see him."

"Yes! Actually!" Pi said. "You've come to just the right place. He's just upstairs. Or, at least, he should be."

Joseph and Toby exchanged excited looks.

"Told you," Joseph whispered.

Toby shrugged.

"Shall I go get him?" Pi asked.

"No need to bother," Joseph said. "I can go up there!"

"I must say, you probably shouldn't…" Pi began.

But it was too late, Joseph had already taken off towards the stairs, Toby following after him.

"Oh dear," Pi murmured. "Ienzo isn't going to be very happy."