And so, Riku had finally joined the party. What an unexpected turn of events. The two friends were reunited, but Sora's journey was not yet over. There was still the matter of...that girl to deal with, not to mention the Heartless and the walking potato sack.

But as long as they had the Kiburado and light on their side, surely they would be able to overcome any-

"OOOOOH LOOK RIKU! IT'S A DOOR!"

...Ok maybe not.

Riku stared quizzically at the mysterious door that had a fire symbol on it. Maybe it was just decoration?

"...Well it doesn't have a handle. Are you sure it's a door?"

"This must be the door the guy in my dreams told me about!"

As soon as he heard that, he was ready to either start painting his cheeks red from blushing, or kill everything in sight. Maybe both.

"What...who's in your dreams…?" Riku managed to choke out, gripping his weapon so much that his knuckles turned white. I swear to DARKNESS if it's Cloud then he'll be up in the clouds soon enough…

Sora turned to Riku, smiling innocently. "It's the floating text!"

Riku was dumbfounded. Even though he's known Sora and his...quirks all his life, this was rather strange even for him.

"Floating...text?"

"Yeah! He talks to me in my dreams, saying that I'm the one to ooooooopen the dooooooor~"

"Well I don't think the...umm...floating text, is referring to this door."

While of this was going on, Dolan and Gooby...eh, who cares what they do, they're useless.

"But it is the symbol of fire! Which obviously represents the burning desire deep within your heart to save those who are close to you!"

"Just like that leaf that fell of the tree represents how the darkness is slowly consuming our world, causing everything we know and love to perish and eventually be forgotten?" Riku teased, smirking a little.

"YES! Exactly!" he exclamed, oblivious to the fact that Riku was just screwing with him.

"I think you need to cast some kind of Fire spell to open it. I could use Dark Fir...I mean, I don't have any Fire spells. What about you?"

Sora simply shook his head.

"Oh Riku...you really must be new to being a main character."

"E-Excuse me…?"

Huh...Riku was never used to being talked down to like this. Usually it was him that was being the jerk. And he didn't like it one bit.

"This is a jrpg Riku! Take it from years of gaming time in-between slavery and not sleeping. In a jrpg, everything is waaaay more convoluted than meets the eye," he said matter-of-factly, shown in his voice and his hand gestures.

"But isn't the simplest solution usually the best one?"

Sora merely chuckled a little at Riku's ignorance, muttering the word "casual" under his breath.

"Nope! We gotta think like a villainous mastermind~"

"And how do we do that?" Riku asked, giving up any and all logic and just playing along with Sora.

Sora began to think really hard, he could tell because he was making his thinking face.

"Simple! First we find a notepad. Then we draw an exact copy of this door, making sure that every detail is accurate. Then we figure out who made the door. Then we travel back in time to the exact point when the door was made. We show the drawing we made of the door to the past version of the door's creator, creating a stable timeloop. Once we go back to the future, we buy fake glasses with a fake nose and a fake mustache and legally change our names to Oras and Kiru. Then, finally, we approach the door's creator future version of the past version with our fake identities, and ask how to open it! It's genius!"

"There's just one problem with that plan."

"What?"

"Neither of us know how to draw."

"...Dammit!"

Sora couldn't help but sulk as his plan was doomed before it even began, which made Riku feel pity for messing with him. After all, he was the light of Riku's life, he would never actually do anything to hurt him. Ever. And so he patted his spiky little head, hoping that the hair wouldn't cut through his skin (seriously how does he get his hair like that?)

"It's ok buddy~" he reassured him with his soothing voice, which succesfully melted Sora. "Do you need a hug?"

Sora simply nodded lightly as Riku held him in his warm embrace. Ah how they used to hug each other like this all the time before they were forced to into Kairi's long hours of servitude. Sora loved him some Riku Hugs™.

"I missed you~" Sora said playfully

Hearing Sora's words sent Riku into a blushing frenzy that he wasn't able to hide no matter how hard he tried. The adorableness factor was only elevated when Riku struggled to answer.

"I...uh...I...ummmm…"

The blushing became even worse as Sora playfully poked him on the noise.

"Awww you're being so cute!"

...That was the turning point. There was no going back now.

Riku started to get a nosebleed and his face was pretty much as red as a tomato, muttering something over and over again along the lines of "oh my god oh my god he called me cute oh my god". Not only that but he ended up on the floor curled into a ball, rocking back and forth.

"Umm...Riku?" asked Sora as he stared at the embarrased messed that was his friend below him.

…

After that incident, Riku and Sora (and Dolan and Gooby I guess) had to find a guy called Cid who was an expert in Gummi Blocks. Riku, of course, was not particularly thrilled. At all.

"Come on Riku! They're nice enough once you get to know them!"

Riku merely scoffed, remembering what happened with him and Cloud.

"I doubt that. Other people aren't worth getting involved with. All we need is each other."

"But I need to get to other worlds and neither of us know enough about the ship to do it."

Riku frowned, unable to admit that he would indeed need someone's help for that. But he wasn't going to let these people be…"friendly" with him.

"Do you even remember what I told you about stranger danger?"

"Yeah, but these aren't strangers like the ones you've taught me about Riku, they're my friends! And I know that they wouldn't do anything to my body!"

Oh Sora, naive and gullible Sora...trust me, people would be lining up to get their hands on that body of yours, Riku thought to himself sadly.

Riku finally gave in as they both reached the accessory shop.

"...Fine. Thankfully I'll be here to help you out. Besides, I know how to dispose of dead bodies without being caught."

"What?"

"Hey is this place we're looking for oh yeah it is let's go inside!" said Riku in a rush, trying to change the subject.

…

And so they went inside.

In the shop was a man who was hiding behind the counter, shaking and afraid. He kept rocking back and forth like Riku was earlier, muttering nonscencial words and phrases, hands stuck firmly to the sides of his sweaty head.

"He was Cid...he was Cid...and now you shall sleep…"

Riku instinctively drew his weapon. Clearly this person was not to be trusted.

"Hey Cid!" Sora asked energetically, not noticing that this man was clearly insane. At the mere mention of his name he laughed maniacally. And Sora was still not fazed by any of this at all.

"Ah Cid...how long since I've heard that name…"

"...Why is he on the floor?" Riku asked, feeling like he was the only sane person in the room.

He jumped up and glared at the newcomer, and Riku gripped is Soul Eater tigher, ready to kill. The deranged look in his eyes made even Riku terrified. How was Sora completely ok with this?

"Tell me, what is your name? Or rather, which name have you decided to steal today?"

"Umm...my name is Riku."

Riku didn't want to admit it, but...the truth was that Riku was never his real name. His actual name was Rick, but he changed it to Riku because it sounds cooler. Apparently it was the japanese word for land too. Which was fitting because when Kairi landed on Destiny Islands his life became hell.

Sora actually managed to realize that somthing was wrong, intervening before Cid could actually do any harm.

"Calm down Cid! It's ok. He's not one of them. He's my friend!"

"Can I trust him?"

"Weeeeell he was probably involved with DARKNESS! at one point but he's a good guy now!"

As Sora reassured him, Cid slowly started to return to a sense of normality.

While Riku felt nothing more than tremendous guilt. To think that he actually could have been Sora's enemy as he joined the villains…granted, it was to find Kairi and kill her so all in all it was for the greater good. But he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy being a villain. Maleficent wasn't exactly a pleasure to be with.

"That's good. So you're not one of those identity stealing crooks then."

"Uhhh...no?"

Sora patted Cid on the back with a sad expression on his face.

"It's awful what's happened to him Riku. So many people around the universe have stolen his name, pretending to be the real Cid. And here I thought Squaresoft naming their characters Cid was just for fun, but it turns out that there's a major conspiracy behind it!"

Identity theft, huh…? Riku thought to himself. Not sure why they'd steal Cid's name though. It's not even that good of a name. And who were Squaresoft? Were they Heartless?

"It's true…" said Cid. "I'm not even sure if I'm the real Cid anymore. What if I'm just a clone or a replica of another Cid? What if Cid isn't even my real name?! WHAT IF-"

He started to fall onto the floor, twitching and convulsing madly. While Riku just stood there and watched in fascination, Sora actually tried to help him.

"I AM THE ONE TRUE CID!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

…

After half an hour of trying to calm Cid down, they had finally done what it was that Sora wanted to do, which was...Riku couldn't even remember. Was it something about gum?

"Ok so you did the thing, now can we finally leave this place?" Riku asked, starting to get impatient. He refused to associate with this weird perverted cosplayers any longer. He just wanted to hold Sora in his arms and never let go.

"Nope! First we gotta talk to Leon."

"Ugh, whyyy?" Riku whined as he crossed his arms like a spoiled child. He had enough people interacting for one day, even just one was too much to bare.

"Well he's my friend! Sure he's an NPC, but sometimes it's nice to explore the world a little. To expand your own world!"

"Well my world doesn't need people. I don't like people."

"But Riku!" Sora exclaimed, as if Riku just said something forbidden. "If you give up on yourself, you give up on the world."

"Huh? That doesn't even make any sense."

"The point is Riku, the world ends with you. Well technically it ends with me cause I'm the main character. But it really is a wonderful world!"

"...What?"

…

As they both explored the districts, beating up any Heartless who dared confront them, they made it to a passage that was unfortunately blocked by metal bars. Riku couldn't help but sigh as this meant-

"Gasp! Metal bars! What mystery must we solve to open these?!"

"Sora, we don't-"

"Do we need to do a few sidequests? Do we need to find the answer in other worlds? Will time travel be involved? What if-"

"Use the key Sora."

"I beg your pardon?"

Riku sighed again. As much as he found Sora's general cluelessness adorable, even he had limits.

"The Keyblade. Use the Keyblade!"

"What's a Keyblade?"

Ok even for Sora this was a bit much. How could he not know what a Keyblade was when he's been wielding one this whole journey?

"Your key shaped weapon, Sora. Use that."

"But I thought it was called a...eh, never mind."

He did as Riku instructed, pointing his key at the metal bars. Concentrating all his might into the tip of the blade, he unleashed his ULTRA MEGA KEY LASER OF OPENING AND CLOSENING!

And so the closened gate became opened, and Sora couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't use that laser in his battles. Because seriously it was a friggin' laser. It would have been so cool.

"I did it Riku! I did it!" Sora cheered. Riku chose not to point out that he was the one who helped Sora do it.

…

And so they both went underground, it was a green-ish cave full of water. What would anyone even be doing here? And how could the people who apparently have this as their base enter it with those bars that seal the place off? Why am I asking so many questions?

After swimming their way to a patch of ground (Sora, despite not being athletic, was an excellent swimmer. Maybe it was the shoes), they finally found Sora's friend. He was Squa- I mean, Leon. Riku had met him when he first arrived at Traverse Town. And he didn't like him at all. He didn't know much about Final Fantasy or it's characters, but he had to admit that Leon was very, VERY attractive. Just the thought of Sora abandoning him and running off with Leon made him feel sick to his stomach.

But he wasn't alone. There was a girl there too standing next to him, with a long pink dress and strange hair. Riku wasn't sure whether to be cautious of her too, after all Kairi was the only girl that him and Sora knew on the island.

However, her mere presence made Sora's eyes wide with shock. He just...stood there, looking up and down at her from head to toe.

"...Aerith," Sora managed to choke out, his voice naturally higher than usual.

The girl who Sora dubbed Aerith looked confused, but then she realized Sora's confusion and chuckled a little.

"No, I'm not Aerith. I just dress as her. My real name is-"

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" Sora cried out in bliss, rivers of tears streaming down his face. "I-It's really you! I thought Sephiroth had killed you, but you're still ALIVE!"

"Aerith" backed away slightly, a little concerned for the boy. Even if Leon had told him about Sora, she still didn't think he'd react like this. Leon just watched and RIku, who had never played FFVII, was really confused.

Sora immediately embraced Aerith, holding her closely as tears of joy kept streaming down his face. She tried breaking free but his love was too powerful to outmatch, despite his weak and frail body.

"I-I was so hurt when I thought you died...I-I missed you s-so much...but you're back now!" Sora muttered in-between sobs. "A-And now w-we'll never be apart a-again. Ever!"

"Umm...Leon," Aerith mumbled over Sora's cries. "He won't let go of me."

"Ok, that's enough kid. Let go of the nice lady," asked Leon authoritatively.

"But she's ALIVE!" Sora cried out once again.

Riku still didn't really understand the context, but nonetheless he was consumed by darkness...I mean jealousy. Negative thoughts started spiralling in his head, would Sora even care if he died? Or did he care more about his beloved fictional characters? Was death the only way to get his attention?

"You know...I almost died too, not long ago," Riku exaggerated in a bid to get Sora's attention, as Leon had to resort to separating Sora and Aerith himself, struggling to do so. "This was this hooded old guy that almost tried to kill me. He looked like a walking potato sack or something, and he was pretty dangerous. I barely made it out of there alive."

Sora didn't hear any of what Riku was saying because he was too busy being grabbed by Leon as he kept trying to separate them.

"Hey, is anyone even listening to me?" Riku asked irritably as Leon was still trying to control Sora, who was still sobbing and clinging onto Aerith for dear life. As for Riku, he just crossed his arms in frustration. "Ok, yeah, fine, I see how it is. Fine, just ignore me then. I get it, not like I'm supposed to matter or anything."

Leon had gotten to a point where he had just had enough of this shit.

"For Etro's sake could you please angst later and help me?!" huffed Leon as he tried with all his might to control Sora.

Wait a minute...Riku realized...that by doing this...he would be...touching Sora…

The thought was too much to handle for him, his cheeks became a dark red from all the unintentional blushing. And then he got a nosebleed, and fainted.

Leon just sighed.

Seriously, where are these kids parents? he thought to himself.

…

As Sora finally calmed down and Riku regained consciousness, Leon had sat the two mentally unstable and potentially dangerous children down. He didn't want to scold them or hurt their feelings, but he had to discipline them. Sora didn't take it well when Leon was yelling at them for a good ten minutes.

"A-Are you mad at us?" Sora muttered, sounding like he was about to burst into tears.

"I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed."

Those words definitely managed to kick Sora in the gut, while Riku just didn't care in the slightest, and hated the fact that he was being treated like a child. It was times like this that made him glad his parents were dead. Meanwhile Sora finally broke down, holding Leon tightly as he sobbed like he did back with Aerith. One has to wonder how Sora even has any tears left at this point.

"We're soooorryyyyyy!" Sora cried out. "We promise we won't misbehave again, right Riku?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Please forgive us! We'll be good, we promise!" he wailed. Leon, who had had enough, was close to just rendering him unconscious, but he chose to repress that urge. He had lived in a ghost town protecting the last few citizens from evil creatures of darkness, he really needed all the help he could get.

"If you let go of me, then you're forgiven."

Sora's mood took an extreme turn, he instantly became his happy go lucky self again.

"Hooray! Now we're all friends again!" Sora cheered.

It seemed Sora's optimism was contagious, because soon enough even Riku and Leon, two people who were always acting as badass as they could, let themselves go for a moment and ended up smiling and laughing along with Sora. Until Leon ended up patting Sora on his spiky head of hair.

Big mistake.

"HANDS OFF!" Riku shouted threatingly at the top of his lungs.

Sora jumped at Riku's outburst, his eyes fixated on Riku, who was shaking uncontrollably with sweat dripping from his face. Leon just stared at Riku with a blank expression. Riku felt a strong urge to draw out his weapon and kill Leon right there and then...but he managed to repress it.

Once Riku realized that what he did was questionable, he tried to calm down as he gazed at the floor, feeling genuine remorse. Leon did seem to be innocent after all...maybe he had judged him too harshly at first.

"I'm sorry."

The mood went from happy to awkward almost immediately. Sora wasn't really sure what to think.

Leon was the first to break the silence.

"Anyway...I have an important message for you, Sora."

"A m-message?" Sora asked, still a little shaken from what happened.

"Yeah. The King sent me a letter."

...Somewhere, wherever they were, Dolan and Gooby started running around panicking like madmen, and they didn't even know why.

"The King?"

"Yes. He's not happy. Then again it's hard to tell with him."

"What does it say?"

Leon looked around in his pockets and found a scrunched up letter, when he read it's contents out loud to Sora and Riku, he frowned a little.

"SORA YOU *bleep* *bleep*, WHAT THE *bleep* IS WRONG WITH YOU?! ALL THE WORLDS ARE BEING *bleep* DESTROYED, YOU *bleep*. HOW THE *bleep* AM I SUPPOSED TO EXPLOIT THEIR CITIZENS TO MAKE MONEY NOW, HUH?! I'VE WORKED TOO HARD IN CONQUERING THE *bleep* UNIVERSE TO LET MY EMPIRE GO DOWN LIKE THIS YOU *bleep**bleep*!

I SWEAR TO SATAN WHY ARE ALL YOU *bleep* KEY WIELDING *bleep* SO *bleep* DUMB.

FAIL ME AGAIN AND I'LL *bleep* YOU UP SO HARD, I'LL TEAR OUT YOUR *bleep* INNARDS AND SELL THEM TO *bleep* CHILDREN.

ALSO ANSEM IS THE BAD GUY SO BEAT HIM UP OR SOMETHING.

I DON'T *bleep* CARE.

King Mickey"

Sora and Riku were rather taken aback from the angry letter. Especially Riku after hearing a certain name being mentioned…

"What's with all the censors?" Sora asked, remembering when Kairi swearing was also always censored.

"Well this is the Disney universe, no one other the King himself is allowed to swear," said Leon informatively. "Apparently, their products have to be accesible for people of all ages."

"All ages huh?" Riku grimaced. "Well the worlds are being ripped apart, creatures from the depths of hell, who eat the hearts of their victims, are invading the universe. Not to mention that the humour has no subtlety or finesse whatsover and relies only on fourth wall breaking and reusing the same jokes over and over again, which barely worked the first time anyway."

"I AM THE MAIN CHARACTER OF A JRPG!" Sora screamed at the top of his lungs, waving his arms in his air like a madman.

"See what I mean?"

Ok now this is getting off topic. Back to the plot! (If you can call it that).

"Sora, I thought you were supposed to be saving the worlds. And yet they're all still being destroyed by the Heartless. What have you even been doing this entire time?."

Sora frowned at Leon's accusations. Who was he, a lowly NPC, to talk to Sora in that way?!

"It's not my fault! It's not like any of us can do anything about it, we're all just fictional characters going through the motions."

"Don't give me that excuse Sora. Why haven't you been sealing the Keyholes like I told you to?"

Sora was incredibly confused once Leon had said that. Throughout his journey no one ever told him about any "Keyhole". Riku was also rather suspicious cause he had never heard of them either. Then again villains aren't neccesarilly reliable sources of information.

"What's a Keyhole?" Sora asked.

"I told you about them ages ago!" Leon replied bitterly. "You need to find the Keyhole of each world and lock it so that the Heartless won't be able to destroy that world. Isn't that what you've been doing throughout your journey?"

...

It was at that moment that Sora's world started to crash down on him.

Dammit...how could I forget about something so important like that...? Maybe because he told me offscreen? Oh god...now because of me...Deep Jungle...and the other worlds...oh god...

This was all Sora's fault. It was thanks to him that Deep Jungle was destroyed. It was thanks to him that many others would surely be destroyed soon.

How could he oversee something as big as this? Maybe he went on too many side-quests and forgot what his main objective even was...what had he even accomplished when he went to those three worlds? Everyone there was surely still suffering, and one of which didn't even exist anymore…

And then Sora remembered something that made him feel physically sick.

Destiny Islands.

Surely that was gone by now too...he couldn't save it. Riku may have been safe from the darkness now, but back then...he couldn't do anything. And what became of Kairi?

Some main character he was.

He was useless.

Pathetic.

He's come this far and accomplished...nothing.

Sora tried his best to fake a smile and put on an act of happiness to hide the fact that he was currently dying inside.

"OF COURSE I've been locking all the Keyholes!" he exclaimed cheerily.

That's a lie.

"I was just joking around, what friends always do! HAHAHAHAHA!"

This isn't funny.

"And I TOTALLY didn't let a world get destroyed or anything! TOOOOTALLY!"

Yes you did.

Both Riku and Leon knew that something was definitely up with Sora's behaviour, but there was no time to say anything as he dragged Riku away from Leon forcefully. Despite his weak and frail body, Riku couldn't escape from Sora's iron firm grip.

"H-Hey!" Leon cried out. ...Ah well. Maybe it's best if I just leave them be. I can't keep babysitting them all the time.

…

The two ended up in the alleyway, and Sora would keep on running nonstop, with Riku barely managing to keep up.

"S-Sora! Where are we going?" asked Riku.

With a big grin plastered on his face, he summoned his oversized key and was ready to fight.

"COME ON RIKU, LET'S GO SEAL THE KEYHOLES!" he cheered joyfully to his friend. Riku didn't notice since he was behind him, but a tear ran down Sora's cheek.

He, the great protagonist Sora, would surely triumph...at failing his quest.