Parte deux of the double update special! (Did I do that right? I took 4 years of Spanish, so my French is a little bad.) And some of you are either going to hate me for dragging it out this long, or hate me for how the chapter ends. Either way, you're gonna hate me. Which is good, because it means I did my job right.

(Unless you hate me for writing Mary-Sues. In which case, aww.)

Also, Xemnas is unexpectedly hard to write. I hope I did him justice. D:

Enjoy!

Falcon channeled her growing rage into a shard of ice and pointed her Keyblade in the Heartless' direction. An instant later, the spell coalesced in solid form at the Azure Ice's tip, pale blue all but blending with her weapon's form before detaching and firing.

The off-white creature still had its arm-like appendages wrapped about its body, pink shield rotating around its form. Incidentally, though, the Blizzaga shot through a tiny gap in the cube, collided with the off-white creature's head, and knocked the enemy back. It flung its arms out and sent its pink cube careening toward her, but Falcon ducked before it could make contact with her head. Purple flared out in her periphery – a sight she would have flung her Keyblade toward, given both the adrenaline of the fight and her frayed nerves, but she had grown used to the scarf's presence.

She refused to believe it felt like Copperhead fighting at her side, because it didn't.

The momentum from ducking so abruptly pulled her into a roll that she sprang up from at once. One lunge and physical assault from her Keyblade later, the enemy before her exploded in a shower of bubbles.

She gave herself a grand total of two seconds to wipe the debris off her face before whirling back to the masses in front of her. It figures that the minute I walk in here, these things swarm all over me.

An instant later, though, she shook off whatever doubt might have arisen from just how many obstacles stood in her way and charged forward, Keyblade out first, eyes on the spiraling staircase that wove up just behind them. "Out of the way!" she screeched.

Normally, Riku's exhaustion would have impeded his ability to feel wary about something. Even with his task in mind – a thought that, with every notion attached to its dread-filled coattails of Falcon's Keyblade clashing with Xemnas' ethereal blades, woke him up enough – the fact remained that only four hours of sleep or so lay bottled up in his system, and so were the only source of energy he could draw from.

Tired though he was, though, the lack of Heartless or Nobodies lurking in the outskirts forest's umbra unnerved him more than the darkness could.

Copperhead seemed to share Riku's sentiment. The scythe strapped across his back, whose curved end tapered out close enough to the back of his neck in tandem with his straightened spine, twitched as he shivered. Minute though the movement was, Riku spotted it anyway.

"Kinda quiet out tonight," the blonde tossed over his shoulder. He cringed at how loud and misplaced his own nonchalance sounded and lowered his voice. "Where are they?" he murmured, sounding almost panicky.

Riku knew he was referring to the Heartless, though their current mission's context implicated Falcon and Xemnas. "Probably all in the citadel," he replied.

This time, Copperhead did glance back, bemusement raising one eyebrow into his bangs. "And you know this how?"

Intentional or not, an irritated edge sharpened Copperhead's query. Worry created that edge, Riku knew that much; yet he still had to keep himself from bristling at the other's petulance. "Xemnas has been sending Heartless here, more than likely," he told Copperhead above a chorus of crackling leaves underfoot. "It's just like him to toy with us like this."

"So right now Falcon's fighting all those Heartless at once…?" Copperhead trailed off, then swerved fully back around and increased his pace. He didn't even comment on Riku's revelation about Xemnas, despite the fact that something about the Heartless master guy could have come so easily.

We need to hurry.

Riku's longer legs allowed him to easily keep up with Copperhead, yet he remained at his back, albeit keeping his own stride just fast enough to stay behind. Although uncertainty fed his fear for Falcon and tapped out a staccato heartbeat in his chest, his footsteps' rhythm didn't match that of Copperhead, whose feet crunching through the leaves littered along the path twined in tandem with Riku's heart.

As it turned out, thinking about Xemnas proved the least productive use of the contemplation offered to Riku by the ensuing silence. More than a tiny bit of truth had surfaced in the second part of his explanation: it was just like Xemnas, the manipulative bastard, to cluster every Heartless and Sorcerer Nobody in the citadel, where he knew Falcon would be. He had to be relishing the added bit of anxiety to the males chasing after her as well.

Riku's fists coiled so tightly into fists that his fingers rebelled, cramping and forcing his hands apart again. As if Xemnas didn't give us enough of a reason to hate him. Leading the Organization, messing up the worlds, manipulating Copperhead…

And then he frowned, bemusement clouding his rising anger. The last thought had come completely unbidden, and was an unwelcome one – Copperhead had lied and killed to get what he had wanted, after all.

But he's still your friend, something in the back of his mind pointed out gently. Due to that tone's unfamiliar nature, he almost didn't realize the voice sounded quiet and husky enough to emanate Char's until he remembered where he had heard her speak like that before.

About Sora, and everything the journey with him had entailed.

Riku fought back a sigh. If he was missing her now, of all times, he was definitely tired.

Trying to distract himself from that unwelcome revelation – both of them – he glanced up, only to blink in confusion. Moonlight poured darkness-tainted light over the forest, albeit somewhat stifled by the cover of a cloud passing overhead. Yet even though those shadows kept him from fully recognizing his surroundings, Riku had at least gleaned some familiarity from every tree and bush Copperhead led him past. Now, though, an even deeper darkness swathed itself over the path, an umbra born as much of unfamiliarity as the clouds obscuring the only light source.

Looking around, he realized he could see a gap through the foliage – and, upon tilting his head back and feeling the ends of his gray hair slipping further down his spine, spires arching austerely into the sky revealed themselves to him as well. The citadel's presence had been something he'd known of since he had brought Char here, but never before had it seemed so close.

Not just the citadel itself, Riku reflected, but… It exuded imposing ominousness, something he could only describe as a presence.

Whatever had happened here, even before Falcon and Copperhead's pasts and terrors had become intertwined with it, those battles and that blood clung to this place. Riku could practically smell the darkness wreathed around it.

The forest cleared around them at last, and the trees widened out into a clearing, creating a ring around the citadel, as though not daring to approach it. Riku stopped in his tracks, even though Copperhead strode on ahead, a bit too much haste clinging to his gait. Now, the younger thought, he could understand why Falcon and Copperhead had steered clear of this place. The turrets that he vaguely remembered staring out at with Char nestled against his side rose up before him and seemed to stare him down; whatever windows lined the front walls lay in shattered ruin on the ground, and the moonlight made its reappearance just in time to catch off a piece of glass and nearly blind Riku.

Thankfully, he shoved his hand over his eyes just before it could pierce his cornea entirely and looked away before removing it. He glimpsed the white tail of Copperhead's coat waving as its wearer disappeared around a corner. "Wait up!" he shouted, trying not to cringe at how loud his voice sounded in the silence. Starting after the other at a sprint proved a mistake, as dead grass met his every footfall and rattled out a series of crackles that sounded too much like what he imagined a death wheeze would.

In the end, Riku forced himself to slow down and follow calmly after Copperhead, even though both his pride and his mounting wariness strained to pull him into a dash again. He wound his way around the corner of the building and saw Copperhead tugging at something; for a moment, his mind chose to draw on the four hours of rest it had gotten instead of what was in front of him and thought Copperhead was trying to pull a Heartless off the wall.

Really, though, Copperhead's next action all but justified the indecision that flexed at Riku's fingers to summon the Soul Eater: a fierce snarl escaped him and he reached one hand behind his back to pull his scythe free.

Riku reared back, shocked back into wakefulness, as Copperhead swung his weapon back and drove its blade into the obstacle before him. All at once, the illusion of a Heartless' feral form shattered under the force of Copperhead's fury; veins bulged along his arms with the strength of his grip, which did not waver at all. Jagged fault lines zigzagged along what Riku could now see as a boulder, followed by a loud crack as his only warning before the rock splintered entirely.

He narrowly dodged a fragment that flew his way, growling lowly at just how close one got to impaling his eye. Quickly, he rounded on Copperhead, who was letting the scythe sag in his grip and staring, panting, down at the evidence of his anger. "Be careful!" Riku hissed.

"Sorry." Copperhead seemed to realize how raspy his own voice sounded and cleared his throat. "Sorry," he repeated.

Riku sighed, the sound clattering against his rapid heartbeat and making it rattle. In as gentle a voice as he could muster, he reminded him, "We can't help Falcon if I'm blind in one eye."

The mention of their friend's name jarred Copperhead. He straightened, raised his scythe again and exposed the furrows that its blade's tip had scraped along the dirt. "You're right," he admitted.

"Why did you want to go this way?" Riku asked, having calmed himself from his surprise enough to let curiosity show. The question was a valid one – the front gate wasn't exactly barred; in fact, its iron-wrought door swung wide open, almost inviting the two of them inside.

Thinking on that, Riku suddenly found himself wondering if the gates had beckoned Falcon inside the exact same way. If she had rushed inside, Keyblade at the ready, desperate to help her parents.

"This way is closer to the stairs," Copperhead explained. He kicked a few fragments of rock aside, wrinkling his nose up at the fine cloud of dust that sprang up at the contact. "I think…" A pause, then a low, rasping breath. "I just have a feeling in my gut that they're at the top of the citadel."

"I guess that's where it happened a year ago?" The words poured out of Riku before he could stop them. As soon as the near-accusatory question escaped him, guilt stirred inside him, all but begging him to want to snatch it back again; but he remained staring at Copperhead, genuinely interested, until the older turned away.

Guess that's a "yes."

As Copperhead, stone-faced, picked his way over the rock and stepped into the hole created by its disappearance, Riku peered around him to get a look at the citadel's interior. True to Copperhead's word, the first thing Riku saw was a spiraling set of steps that wound off in his periphery. On the other side of the room, another flight of stairs wove its way upward, eventually intertwining with its counterpart in the middle before coming apart again. That point where the two staircases intersected was offset by a stained glass window that, miraculously, hadn't broken in some ancient scuffle yet.

As for the entry hall itself, a simple long carpet stretched throughout the area. Extravagant as the citadel must have seemed long ago, the present gave nothing of that away: only that extravagance's remnants, a shadow of what it had once been.

Riku ripped his gaze away with a muted shudder. He had never been too fond of ruins; Char had known more history of the worlds and the Keyblade War than he had, so he had left that knowledge to her.

But, judging by the broken windows and dark-stained floor and nature taking up the task of wrapping around the walls…

Something had definitely happened here long ago, to force the Shadowed Desert natives to regard it as their world's own haunted house.

Copperhead was standing there, looking around. He had never sheathed the scythe, and so now it dragged along the floor behind him, making soft scratching noises that Riku winced at. The blonde's back hunched visibly, tension wracking his spine and belying the true extent of his fear; his head tilted down toward the ground: perhaps seeing another source of the specks littering the otherwise-pristine, if worn, surface. Judging by the silence, Falcon had gone through here already – and, in all likelihood, ascended the stairs.

Riku drew in a sharp breath, suddenly gripped by such a sharp wave of desperation it physically pained him. Please don't let us be too late.

He took another step forward, intending to snap Copperhead out of his trance by his own actions, only to stop when he felt his foot bump against something. Without entirely knowing why, he moved his foot aside and squinted down at the floor. Amid the rock fragments littering the ground and covering the boundary where dead grass ended and worn-down tile began, something glinted up at him.

Maroon hair and violet eyes and the most beautiful smile and everything he missed about home flashed across his mind then.

Copperhead heard Riku gasp and whirled around, one gloved hand flying to his scythe and fear etched onto his face. "What?" he demanded.

Riku jerked his head back up from the object in his palm. "N-nothing," he stuttered, closing his fingers over his burden. "Just… something I picked up."

Copperhead's entire body slumped down with his tension's release, and his arm dropped limply back down to his side. "Don't do that!" he groaned, bracing his hands against his knees and letting his head droop toward the floor.

While he faced away from Riku, the latter took a moment to open his hand and stare down at the Keychain, stark against his palm. Other than dirt and rust curling about its chain, it looked innocuous enough, though its light-colored form stood out starkly against his dark-gloved palm.

The charm was what had startled him: how much it resembled the star-shaped paopu fruit back home.

Maybe it was because of what exactly paopu fruit signified, and who he had dreamed of sharing it with in another life, but he had thought of Kairi.

She's not a Keyblade wielder, though, his logic immediately set on arguing with himself. She can't be. It's not possible.

Still, he found himself stuffing the charm into his pocket.

By this time, Copperhead had looked up at him with, of all things, a stupid grin on his face. Trying to diffuse the tension in the atmosphere, Riku guessed, although the situation's magnitude should have made him toss the mask aside completely for once. "You shouldn't grave-rob, man," he laughed, straightening up. "Angry, Keyblade-wielding spirits will come get you, y'know?" He wiggled his fingers in imitation of said angry spirits as he spoke.

Riku rolled his eyes and stepped carefully over the rock scattered about; the hem of his coat brushed over said rock as he cleared it and approached Copperhead. "Somehow, I doubt that –"

Globes of shadow and smoky gray-white alike materialized around them then, effectively cutting Riku off. As the spheres' burdens dropped to the floor – or, in the Nobodies' cases, uncoiled sinuously, some with pink cubes coalescing around their bodies – Riku brought his arm back into his battle stance and summoned the Soul Eater to him.

"I think we found them," he remarked dryly.

Copperhead said nothing, only hefted the scythe up. His jaw set, violet eyes staring down the obstacles in his way.

As one, the two of them sprang apart, each lunging for the first enemy they could get their blades into. For Riku, that enemy was currently loping toward him at the marked, lazy pace of its kind – the Dusk's walk almost resembled a slide at first. However, that languid movement quickly transformed into something that belied its true nature as the Dusk pivoted around to rest on its head and swung its arms toward him. More than enough experience dealing with the lowest lesser Nobodies allowed Riku to easily dodge behind it. While it was glancing around, confused, he swung the Soul Eater and rendered the Nobody a pile of bubbles on the ground.

Spinning around, he found a silvery blur inches away from his face and brought up his blade to block. The robot Heartless' gold eyes bored relentlessly into his, and he thanked the gods that they were dull enough to not make him squint. Limited visibility, at this point, could mean getting overrun.

The Heartless' sword, trembling right against Riku's own, pulled back, only for its owner to press forward again in an airborne attack. Unable to dance back in time, the boy growled in pain as the first blow sliced into him. It pierced into the flesh between his ribcage and hipbones, into a barely-healed wound from earlier today. His free hand instinctively pushed against the afflicted area, stemming the source of the heat already beginning to rise there.

As the robot lifted its weapon to slash again, though, Riku lashed out with the Soul Eater, free hand still pressed against his side, and felt satisfaction rise at the shockwaves that shook up his arm upon the bat wing colliding with that metallic skull. The Heartless stumbled back and into one of its fellows; Riku lifted the Soul Eater again, ready to finish both of them off, but then they suddenly froze, as if transfixed by something. Then a series of spasms wracked their bodies, which suddenly found themselves offset by a red blur writhing behind them.

The Heartless dissolved in dual explosions of black smoke, which spiraled into oblivion and wreathed about Copperhead's face. Moonlight filtering from the stained glass window above illuminated every terror-wrought line of his countenance, but he let none of that fear for Falcon show. Instead, Riku found hardness in that violet glare.

That hardness told him that no mock scornful remarks about Riku's inability to keep up with him would be forthcoming.

Wordlessly, Copperhead spun around, taking his scythe with him. The ensuing spinning slash knocked two Dusks and one Sorcerer away from him; while the former, weaker foes vanished under the single, fierce attack, the latter merely swayed backward in midair before lashing out with its pink cube.

Riku watched Copperhead swing his blade forward with a snarl, gray eyebrows jumping up on his forehead as the blonde leapt and twirled his scythe around to deliver a series of blows to the Nobody's vulnerable, rippling form. From the looks of things, Copperhead had his situation more than under control.

He turned just in time to throw up one arm against the pink glow that assaulted his eyes. His mind had a second or so to string the name Sorcerer to that blinding light's source before something hammered his forearm and pain exploded there. It was all he could do not to howl, both in agony and in anger toward himself for doing something so stupid.

Well, he tried to force reason past the block of rage and pain that the Nobody's attack had stationed over his rational thought, the cube had failed to produce a cracking noise. At the very least, his arm wasn't broken.

Pulling his seemingly-crushed arm back slightly, enough for him to be able to see, Riku glimpsed that faceless, off-white being, its form bathed in that otherworldly pink light. Before it could attack him again, he darted forward, aimed the Soul Eater's tip at the Sorcerer's body. Unlike the Heartless before, whose form had creaked in protest against the undue weight crushing its skull, the Nobody twitched violently away from Riku's assault; but he kept up, pushing it back with his blade in a series of rapid thrusts, until it finally gave up its jerking movements and succumbed to his assault.

Riku lowered his arm from where his final attack's momentum had flung it back behind him. After a quick, rudimentary glance to make sure all the flies stayed off him, he lifted his badly bruised arm, only to wince and halt his intended appraisal immediately at the tongue of flame that lanced up into his elbow. The fiery pain trickled into a low throb between the two bones in his arm, but he didn't dare try to move it again.

Seconds of digging around in his pockets later, he realized that in their hurry, he and Copperhead had failed to pick up any healing items. Hell, he thought with mild panic twitching in his belly, even swiping a roll of gauze from the floor would have helped.

Then again, he recalled, Falcon had flitted past him and Char, that first night, and made a hasty cleanup around the room. She had tried to hide it, but she couldn't have expressed more nervousness at her guests' presence in her home – a sanctum she had kept hidden to all but herself for a year.

That, he thought, and she was suddenly so close to the person she –

And then his thoughts were scraping up against that l-word, that taboo word, that word he had only allowed himself to think of in context of his feelings for Kairi and Char's feelings for Sora, and the breath caught in his throat and his entire body seized up.

As abruptly as the icy fear had seeped into his bloodstream, though, it evaporated.

He whirled around, seeking out Copperhead's white coattails, or even the crimson blur that his scythe's hilt symbolized. Beyond the heaving sea of curdled white, metallic gray, luminescent pink, and the occasional flash of shadowy black, Riku could barely discern anything else.

Suddenly something was surging up from beneath him and embedding its talons into his coat.

Leather tearing apart wasn't an unfamiliar feeling to him. The occasional trip to other worlds, or the virtual Twilight Town's tunnels, had acquainted him with as much: the ripping sound, followed by cool air rushing to the exposed area and a snarl of retribution as the Soul Eater tore into the offending Heartless or Nobody. In fact, Namine had sewed the Organization coat up for him more than once, to the point where she had only shaken her head and reached out one dainty white hand upon opening the door for him.

Nonetheless, the sensation of claws snagging against his flesh once they had peeled back the coat's protective layer wasn't one he ever grew used to.

Sleepy fog wreathed about his mind for a moment and tricked him into thinking a robot Heartless' blade had done the trick, despite the hot breath that billowed up unnervingly against the top of his thighs. Heat radiated off the claws that had dug into him as well, a sign of life that had always unsettled him when Heartless had attacked him.

But then hot liquid splattered against his hip as his assailant yanked its weapon back. He spun, angling his wrist in preparation to parry a sword – then the Soul Eater froze in its horizontal state as gold, black-surrounded eyes leered at him.

The Neo-Shadow pulled its hand – paw? – back, talons glistening with what he realized was his blood. Riku recovered from his confused state long enough to bring his blade back and drive it into the Heartless' paw with a growl of exertion. The Heartless recoiled, more startled than in pain, at the blow. Riku took that moment, as he had earlier, to sweep in with his bat-wing sword and finish it off.

Straightening, he winced at the newfound stinging feeling just beneath his hip. On the same area as the side wound too, he reflected; he needed to keep that side covered more often. Combined with the throb pulsing through his thoroughly crushed arm, though, he found himself all but unable to think.

However, he did catch himself in the act of making the mental reminder get Falcon to heal me when we find her before his desperation slammed itself down over that thought.

When we find her, huh? That's optimistic.

When. Not if, when. When we find her.

Had this really shrunk down to that sort of chance?

"Riku!" Copperhead's deep voice bellowed out from above. Riku glanced up and saw the very person whose trademark colors he had sought out earlier, standing on the stairs that stretched up and over his head. The distance between them rendered Copperhead's expression all but a nebulous blur, but his urgency tunneled its way further into Riku's own heart nonetheless.

"We don't have time for this," Copperhead called down.

Riku rolled his eyes. "You think I don't know that?" The last word turned into a gasp of surprise when he turned away and found a Dusk hovering in front of him, close enough that its gray face loomed up at him beneath its hood. It drew back one arm to slice into him…

…then an off-white shape barreled into it from the side.

Confused as to why the Nobodies had suddenly turned on one another, Riku blinked a couple of times, during which his savior's true form became clear to him. The Nobody's stance – feet apart, sword held aloft, almost like that of a fencer – struck dual chords of familiarity inside him: one that Falcon's presence had strummed ready fingers over in the last few days, and the other nigh untouched.

The latter was what he ended up focusing on, though, as that chord's melody unfolded memories of wandering neon-lit streets under a heart-shaped moon and turbulent sky.

He shook his head with a chuckle, even as more Avengers sprang forward. One of them lunged mere inches away from his face, making his grip on the Soul Eater twitch; but it passed him entirely and pounced on a Heartless that had also tried to approach him.

Anxclof, helping us now? This has to be Xemnas' fault.

A startled grunt floated down to him from Copperhead's direction. Turning back toward him, Riku lifted and lowered one shoulder. "Not exactly what I was looking for," he said, raising his voice over the clangs of pale blade clashing with gray, "but I'll go with it. Let's go."

Dizziness induced by adrenaline and mounting fatigue wrung Falcon's vision into a blurred mess, but she still managed to step forward from the final spiral staircase without much stumbling. With the part of her mind untouched by resolve – the determination that added a new layer of blindness to her eyes – she reflected on just how much flame that ascending the stairs had pumped into her legs.

No matter how much soreness plagued her body, though, her reason for coming out here at all lingered at the front of her thoughts.

She paused a moment at the top of the stairs to catch her breath, and cast a brief glance back down the way she had come. The moonlight chose that moment to filter in through the citadel's stained glass windows, a sight she found herself suddenly wincing at, for it illuminated the dark spots sprinkled in her wake all the more easily. Were it not for the silvery light clashing with the myriad colors, darkness would still conceal the evidence of her struggles to get up here.

A shiver rippled along her spine then. Even though iridescent blue had surged across a Heartless' prone form, setting its pink burden free of its dark cage, barely moments before, the past half hour or so of fighting came to her only as hazy half-images and sensations. As ichor clinging to her Keyblade's teeth; as pink hearts and pink cubes alike imprinting spots across every blink; as her own blood and sweat warming against and beneath her coat; as the beginning stirrings of fatigue with every drop of mana she expended on a Blizzaga or healing spell.

Thinking about every small battle that had led up to this one proved an almost painful strain on her fatigue and strummed at her taut nerves. More powerfully than ever before, it thrust into her mind the idea of dying in this building, in the lair of more than one bloody past, and watching her blood flow over the reflective floor in the next room.

Her palm, already sweaty from the last hour of fighting – or was it half-hour? She didn't even remember anymore – twitched against the Azure Ice's hilt. When her grip slackened on the steel, though, she felt her fingers instinctively gripping tighter, pulling it back into her grasp. At her vision's edge, the teardrop-shaped charm swung, and she watched it eventually complete its journey to stillness.

Just like she would.

Because I have nothing left to lose.

She pressed one shoulder against the ornate door before her and leaned into it.

Surprisingly, the door yielded under her weight within seconds; the abruptness with which the way opened up yanked her off balance and forced her to stumble before her sense of balance returned. Falcon stepped over the threshold, into the site of so many bad memories.

Every step echoed eerily in the silence. Every impact of her feet against the reflective surface sent a tok tok tok bouncing about the round room's contents. In the past, royal scientists might have stargazed here, or perhaps gathered around to observe each other's notes. The moonlight pouring down into the darkness certainly provided the right ambience for either one.

Only when the rattle of a single chain joined her footfalls as the only noises did she realize her hands were shaking.

Fear's tides had just begun licking at the very edge of her consciousness when a break in the light drew her gaze. Even after sixteen months, even after her nightmares and her isolation and Riku's friendship and Char's truce and Copperhead's revelation, Falcon's memory honed in on that darkness' familiarity at once.

The object next to Xemnas was one she had never seen before, though. Its vaguely cone-shaped form somehow managed to balance at a very small pin protruding from its bottom. Dual, yellow bulges, set off by blue globes and iron chains, climbed its sides, before the object tapered up into what almost resembled a test tube. A bell balanced itself atop the test tube-like structure, and a long, thin pipe rose up from the bell's top.

The machine, Falcon realized. Her formerly-slippery hand clenched around her Keyblade. So this was what Riku had spent days here searching for. Rage stirred deep in her chest, pumping flame into every throb her heart made, as she watched Xemnas reach out one arm and stroke it over the machine's form. The gesture was almost loving, albeit spitefully so.

Falcon didn't even notice how hard her teeth were biting into the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

At that moment, those dark-clad shoulders twitched, and the pivotal figure in her life's collapse, the hurricane that had thrown her sense of trust into a tumbling whirlwind and shredded it to paltry remains, turned to face her. The hand on the machine slithered away and lifted to brush coarse gray hair – so much like Riku's, and no you are not going to think about him now this is the man who ruined everything not Riku not him – out of gleaming amber eyes.

"Greetings, Falcon," Xemnas greeted, and so much cordiality dripped from his voice she all but crushed the Azure Ice's hilt in her grip. "It has certainly been a while."

That deep voice coiled up inside her mind, wedged itself behind the block she had shoved over those bad memories and deftly smashed it to ribbons.

I suppose their hearts simply weren't strong enough, he had said of her parents that day, among other things. But that particular phrase ghosted its way up to the top of her consciousness.

Her last bit of self-control snapped.

The way his eyebrows jumped up on his forehead when she shot forward gratified her entirely too much. Then his features were curling up into a smirk and bright red seared into her vision as he brought up one ethereal blade to parry her strike. Friction sizzled up where the Azure Ice landed against the slender beam of fuzzy light.

I'm finishing this, Falcon thought, glaring at Xemnas, and you're going down.

She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until those orange eyes, bathed in both preternatural crimson light and earthly silver moonlight, narrowed in amusement. "Going down?" he echoed, quirking one slender eyebrow. "Oh, dear girl. Does your heart still ache from what happened one year ago?"

"Sixteen months, actually," she snarled back, "but who's counting?"

Annoyance at her instinctive reaction heightened even further inside her when that reaction met with a low chuckle. "Certainly not you, I assume," he chortled, then twisted away from her and whirled in an unnerving contrast of dark black and bright red.

She danced away from the attack, landed on her tiptoes, and surged forward again. This time, though, he lowered the single lightsaber and raised his other hand – a gesture that confused her until a solid, translucent wall suddenly loomed up in her path. The wall's composition – dozens of cubes set atop each other – reminded her of the white enemies' pink weapons.

Unable to halt her momentum enough to pull up short, she swerved sharply to the side and ducked when he swung his lightsaber at her. The weapon's heat swept close enough to the top of her head to make her flinch, but she allowed herself no more display of weakness than that before leaping back to her feet and lashing out with her Keyblade. Xemnas was still lowering his arm from where he had struck out at her, Falcon thought, so he couldn't possibly have a chance to block her in time. Gods willing, the exposed column of dark-skinned throat would give beneath her assault, and this would all be over.

Her brow furrowed when the Azure Ice met not with bare skin, but with a fluid sphere of darkness that enveloped Xemnas. When it moved across the floor and out of her field of vision, Falcon spun around, chased after it; but suddenly the sphere darted away from her again and bright red flashed above her head.

She looked up just in time for the source of that flash to blind her. An instant later, physical pain joined the light's drill into her eyes as Xemnas twirled above her, lightsabers ebbing and flowing in an extension of his spinning form. Only after those dual blades had collided with her ribs and shoulders several times did Falcon recover herself long enough to jump back and out of the way.

Liquid spattered the floor behind and beneath her, added a touch of opaqueness to the reflective battleground. Falcon didn't dare look down at the floor to see the dual condemnation of her own blood and her own pained expression there.

Xemnas landed smoothly, dark robes swaying in response to his feet touching the ground. The fuzzy glow from his weapons crawled up his body, and through the film of hazy agony that had draped itself over her vision, Falcon could see that uneven light eventually give up on lightening his garb and skip to his face instead.

He flicked one lightsaber: a seemingly odd gesture, but one that made sense when something dark flew from it and landed on the floor. As he continued to regard her with that damned smirk on his face, Falcon realized she could also see mild surprise in his smug amusement. Like his plaything had done something he hadn't expected.

He's just toying with me. He hadn't planned to use both blades to take me out at all.

One foot nearly gave out from under her when she charged forward again, almost making her slip in her haste; but she still managed to recover herself and force her Keyblade forward. Again, Xemnas blocked it with barely any effort. This time, though, the presence of an extra sword allowed him to pivot around on his heel and drive said extra sword toward her, at an angle that would slice deep into her side. The trick looked familiar to her, for a reason that rippled an entirely different shade of red from the ethereal swords in Xemnas' hands.

A shade that resembled the life fluid dotting the floor than anything else.

Of course, Falcon suddenly realized – Char had done the exact same thing more than once, on the group's excursions to the forest and the Heartless' haven. She refused to think of their awkwardly balanced tension as her group, because that brought up the question as to whether Riku was coming after her or not and she didn't need that right now.

But that blade was still moving toward her on a one-way journey to her right kidney, so she pivoted her own body away from that deadly weapon and danced behind him.

"Come now," Xemnas purred. He lowered his blade again and slowly turned to face her, head cocked to the side. If she hadn't known any better, she would have called the look on his face hurt. "Is this not the confrontation you so desperately wanted?" One hand curled into a fist around his lightsaber and swept out in a near-placating gesture, carving a bright red arc in the air close to him.

The tone in his voice sounded almost like that of a parent admonishing their child.

"Shut up!" she spat back. Her fingers shook, rattling the Keyblade in her hand and making its chain jingle again. "You don't – you don't even know what I want."

Wow, Falcon, sound a little more pathetic, why don't you, but she stood her ground and renewed her glare at him, even though at this point dizziness from blood loss had begun to manifest at the edges of her vision in fuzzy black splotches.

Xemnas blinked at her, eyebrows jumping on his forehead again. "I can imagine," he answered in that silky voice. When he began to move forward, she quickly repressed her trembling and flexed the fingers of her free hand, flinging it back behind her to give her next blow more force. Yet she found herself unable to move.

Move come on now's your chance get him while he's taunting you –

Her rapid breathing and his boots colliding with the floor with every step became the only sounds in the room, at least until he stopped in his tracks and spoke up again. "I can imagine what must have plagued your heart. Being betrayed by your closest friend, losing your parents… it must have been more than you could bear."

The instant he brought up Copperhead, Falcon knew she couldn't let Xemnas talk anymore.

The gray-haired man maneuvered himself away from her oncoming attack and used the momentum from his dodge to spin around and slash at her with his blades. However, before either could make contact, Falcon slammed the Azure Ice forward so it ran perpendicular to the dual, glowing red lines of his blades. There, she threw her weight forward with every ounce of strength left, inwardly gathering her mana to heal herself. If anything, she thought while tamping down the panic stirring inside her, she could stall him out.

Xemnas effectively tore that plan apart in an instant. Just as the ghost of that green glimmer touched the tips of her Keyblade, he ripped one lightsaber from beneath the slender, translucent cyan and drove it toward her. She was forced to yank the Azure Ice back and jump back to avoid having her skull impaled.

I can't run around and dodge his attacks forever, she realized with a thrill of dread.

In the past, she had always manipulated Heartless' haste and fury by using what fencing had taught her and sweeping around them, before taking advantage of their surprise and finishing them off. With Xemnas and the off-white newcomers, though, her strategy didn't work as well.

Darkness rippled through the air as Xemnas darted forward again. Just before his blades could touch her, though, intangible shadow cloaked his form in an extra layer of black, and the globe of darkness formed around him.

This time, though, she prepared herself for his attack. The moment heat seared across her spine, she whirled and thrust the Azure Ice forward. Triumph flared inside her just as hotly as the now-stinging laceration along her back at Xemnas' slightly opened mouth and quirked eyebrows. His equivalent of surprise, most likely.

Still, her raw nerves and the tremble along her body poured gasoline onto the tiny blaze that was her satisfaction at having finally hit him. Even that small amount of surprise, which rapidly turned to mild pain as she laid into him, gratified her.

Just as quickly as triumph had come, though, the same fear from before replaced it. Although her Keyblade had connected with his flesh multiple times, no blood or bruising welled up at the points of contact. He simply rose back up to his feet, looking a little shaken, but that infuriating smugness did not waver in the slightest.

"I believe it is time to end this," Xemnas suddenly sighed.

I've been telling myself that for the past few hours, Falcon thought, but said nothing and only narrowed her eyes.

"And what does that mean?" she demanded with far more bravado than she felt. As though just the mental effort required in affixing this new mask had summoned it, something wet dribbled down her scalp. Whether Xemnas had inflicted that wound or whether some latent injury from fighting those Heartless had reopened, she didn't know; but she did know, through the fog of exhaustion that had suddenly wreathed about her senses, that it was the last thing she needed.

When she felt herself swaying slightly on her feet, she shook her head and renewed her glare on Xemnas, just as he continued.

"I mean," he said, "that you have wasted enough of my time here."

Maybe the pain and fatigue was clouding her mind more than she thought, because she swore the tiniest hint of a snarl embedded itself in his voice and turned the tail end of his declaration rough.

In the next moment, though, he was sweeping behind her in a moonlit blur of shadow and blood-colored light – or maybe that was just her imagination – and something hot was searing across her body, just as it had that day sixteen months ago.

Sixteen months and ten days. But who's counting?

Sixteen… months…

Unlike before, she couldn't catch herself in time before the floor jumped up to meet her. Unlike before, she found condemnation in her reflection with her cheek pressed to the floor. Unlike before, she found not desperation and terror and horror, but apathy and resignation and the look of hope's last embers finally dying.

Well, Falcon, you wanted to die. You're getting your wish.

Just before darkness oozed over her vision entirely, though, something deep rumbled at the edges of her hearing. Something like a voice: that, despite its normal timbre, stretched up toward a higher octave and then cracked beneath the strain.

Great. My last thought's going to be of that bastard.

Just like before.

Falcon Gracebreeze closed her eyes.

For a moment, staring at the limp, small body that served as a lone stretch of darkness in the otherwise-translucent floor, Riku felt his blood freeze in his veins.

Copperhead was already sprinting over to that smear of black. When he grew close enough, he dropped to kneel beside the prone form on the ground, so abruptly that his kneecaps colliding with the ground sent an unnerving thud reverberating throughout the silent room. Riku didn't know if that volume indicated Copperhead's knees had given out.

More than likely, though, it did, and they had.

Shadows flickered just near the body – Riku didn't dare think of its, her, name for fear of how real this would become if he did – and he glanced just slightly upward to see ahead. Grogginess made one final round on his senses and tricked him into thinking that said shadows originated from the still form.

But no: even though Copperhead was now hefting it – her – up into his arms and desperately sweeping his hand over the bangs that had fallen into her eyes, the movement that had drawn Riku's eye came from another source entirely.

Xemnas appraised Riku with a seemingly blank expression. As Copperhead's voice, half-choked with fear and horror and nearly breaking under the pressure of both, rose shakily up between them, though, the younger realized he could see the corner of the Nobody's lips shifting ever so slightly upward.

Although he had never encountered the Organization leader face to face like this before, Riku had watched Roxas' memories play out in Twilight Town's artificially lit basement. Those memories alone had held more than enough of the Superior for Riku to know his equivalent of smug triumph.

That little upward quirk of his lips was it.

Behind him sat an odd-looking apparatus, which Riku realized abruptly was the machine. We finally found it.

Gods knew he hadn't wanted to pay this price, though. He hadn't wanted any of them to pay this price.

"I'm afraid you're too late to save your friend," Xemnas announced obviously. He tilted his head down ever so slightly, just enough for gray locks to spill over his collarbone – a sight that had Riku suddenly fighting the urge to pull at his own, matching hair. Dual pairs of orange eyes watched Copperhead finally give up and lean forward, even though the action caused more of Falcon's blood to stain his jacket scarlet red, to press his forehead to the red-splotched purple scarf wrapped around her neck.

Riku thought of the healing item he had tossed at her earlier today. He thought of her aggression turned curiosity on the day they had met and he had saved her from the chameleon Heartless. He thought of her groaning and demanding why they had recruited Copperhead to help find the machine. He thought of her envy and veiled jabs toward Char before the latter had offered a mediating hand and Falcon had accepted it.

Char. Now when he reunited with Sora and Kairi and Char, he would have to tell Char that Falcon – Fal was –

Suddenly Copperhead rose to his feet, lowering Falcon's body with a tenderness that belied her current state. Riku dared to step closer until he stood next to the older man, a decision he regretted almost instantly. Bright red stood out in bold strokes along his torso; if Riku hadn't known any better, he would have thought it was just a painting mishap, and not blood that had resulted in this. When he lifted his head to look at Xemnas, obvious tear tracks marked his cheeks. Grief and sorrow had melted away into rage.

"You know," Copperhead said suddenly, "my entire life, all I've done is just sit back and let things happen. When my brother took the attack that Heartless aimed at me? I sat there and didn't do anything. When you came into my life and ruined both it and Fal's? Sat back and watched you do it. When Fal ripped her own damned heart out because she thought it would bring back the people she loved most? Guess what I did. Nothing."

"As you did this time," Xemnas pointed out. "You watched Falcon go off to fight me, knowing full well how things would end. It was a simple conclusion to deduce," he added when Copperhead's eyes widened.

Riku stared at the blonde. The incredulous query as to why he had let Falcon go – when he'd had a chance to stop her, nonetheless – scrabbled against the grief-wrought lump in his throat, but eventually gave up when it couldn't push past.

Then Copperhead laughed, a sad little sound that came as more of a sigh.

"You're right," he admitted. One hand reached behind his back, and Riku saw it rest close to the hilt of his scythe. "I thought it would be easier than facing up to her about what I had done. But now it's too late, and I can't even think about being the coward anymore." He pulled his weapon free, so abruptly that Riku had to dart to the side to avoid getting gored.

Copperhead aimed a quick, apologetic grin in Riku's direction in response to the latter's indignant stare, before redirecting his glower at Xemnas. "I won't let you get away with killing her," he said.

Xemnas chuckled. Of all the responses to an implicit declaration of his impending doom, the bastard chuckled. White-hot anger oozed past the numbness in Riku's heart and finally dissolved the obstruction in his throat. "What's so funny?" he demanded, summoning the Soul Eater and lifting it into his battle stance.

One black-clad shoulder raised and lowered. "You know which Keyblade wielder has consistently interfered with our plans," Xemnas said, pointing at Riku. That same hand came to rest on the opposite arm as he folded both across his chest. "It is truly ironic, then, that one who I had cast aside long ago crossed blades with me now." He dropped his arms back to his sides and quirked one eyebrow at Riku.

Sora. The one who interfered was Sora.

Char's influence aside, Riku knew Sora could hardly stand to just let the Organization move about in the shadows and warp the world of light. Only now, though, did the extent of just how much hit him. Just the thought had him fighting back a smile: the one thing that made him different from his current form's doppelganger eyeing him from across the room.

"I figured Sora couldn't just leave you alone," he remarked. "And you know what? I can't let him one-up me here. So I won't back down."

Copperhead looked over at him, confusion dancing across his face; then he seemed to decide that the details of Riku and Xemnas' conversation didn't matter and gave a single, determined nod.

Riku cast a glance back down at Falcon's body, even though every muscle in his body strained to keep him from it. Fortuitously enough, seeing his friend's husk on the ground pumped an extra strain of fire into his heart and strengthened his resolve.

I'm sorry, Falcon.

Turning back to Xemnas, he tightened his grip on the Soul Eater. The paopu-shaped Keychain in his pocket came to mind, reminding him of just what he was fighting for. "I'm not going to let you kill any more of my friends or mess up our worlds," he growled out.

Xemnas nodded, as if understanding his opponents' reasons, and lifted both lightsabers in a silent invitation for them to fight…

…then a shattering noise drew all their attention to the windows.

Shards of rainbow-colored glass littered the floor, and more moonlight shone in through the newly created gap in the stained glass window; but not even that silver light could win over the newfound blaze of gold.

A shade that Riku had watched die into tiny embers around a sea of emerald green from beneath his hood and with otherworldly flame ebbing around his hands.

"Hey there, boss," Anxclof hissed, pushing herself into the room with the hand not gripping her Keyblade. "Remember me?"

Yeah, guys, Anxclof. Remember her? Sort of? ...okay...