Chapter 149: Shocking Regrets

The Wielder of Dawn smirked at the Remorse Endless, waiting as the huge dark doors closed with his friends on the other side. "You ready for a real challenge?" He dared.

Link smirked at this. "Let's go." He spoke darkly as he clicked his glowing purple claw.

Riku breathed heavily as he pushed himself through the strong force of gravity that was applied upon his body, using the Way to Dawn to keep himself up while glaring back at the Remorse Endless, who was grinning sickly at him, laughing as if he had lost it. "How about you fight me?!" Riku yelled at him, only to yell in pain from the amount of memories begin forcefully replayed through his mind, the gravity around him feeling stronger.

"Do you know the five stages of loss and grief?" Link asked casually, huffing in amusement as the Wielder of Dawn glared back at him. "It is the stages that someone goes through when they have suffered a great loss or strong grief…Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance."

Riku yelled with frustration. He could hardly move to make a move. If he changed into his element, it would make it less likely to move, not to mention that there is no form of ground for him to move around. If he moved his keyblade, he will collapse to the ground with the force of the gravity that was being applied to him. The worst part was that his eyes were beginning to blur and hurt from the memories interfering with his mental battle with Link. Now, the fact that Link was asking him simple questions while he tried to keep his balance was belong believe. "What has this got to do with anything?!" He yelled.

"Regrets relate to loss and grief, they act very similar to each other, especially if you were to cause such loss and grief." He explained, pacing slowing around Riku as if he was a mere child. He faced him, summoning his scythe as he placed his blade to hook around the Way to Dawn. "You should know, you are still grieving for your regrets!" He told him, tugging his scythe hard to make the keyblade drop Riku's balance, sending him to the floor.

Riku gasped in pain as his chest crushed against the dark surface of the marble floor, forcing himself up with all of his might before turning his fist to stone to try and keep himself in place. The action had caused the marble floor to crack slightly but it kept him stable. "You think you can crack me?!" He yelled. "A member of Organisation XIII had already tried to pull his illusions on me! To tell me that the light will crush me and that I only belong in the dark. Let me tell you that it won't work!" He told him before disappearing from Link's sight.

"Hmmm." The Endless was a little taken back from his disappearance before smirking. "My illusions are more advanced than the bookworm that you had fought." He snickered before clicking his claw once more, covering the entire room in shadows.

Emerging from the shadows to perform his Dark Slicer attack, Riku only to swipe thin air as he found himself landing in a pure white room, a complete contrast to where he currently was. Walking around in the normal gravity, he noticed that he was currently in the organisation's throne known as 'Where Nothing Gathers.' "Why am I here?" he questioned, looking around the area in search for Link. This cannot be a memory; he had never come here before.

"To advise you."

Riku looked at the highest throne to see none other than all of his friends within the thirteen seats. While the infected Sora remained in the highest throne, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Max and Brian sat in the other seats while some remained empty. "What is this?" He asked, a questioned appointed to Sora as well as Link if he was listening. What Illusion is this? What was Link trying to do? "Why am I here?" He repeated.

"The final struggle." Kairi spoke.

"You have been through so much, Riku." Mickey told him. "There is one more thing you need to do. Something will truly show that your past won't hold you back."

"You do this and Link won't have any power over you." Brian explained.

"Now it's gonna sound crazy." Goofy warned him, raising his hands slightly.

Donald jumped up from his seat as he looked down at Riku. "It's for the greater good."

Riku looked around the room as he started to get confused. He knew this was an illusion, but surely Link would have made Sora into his original self or even as Sky….and where was Hikari? Why did everyone else appear in the room but her? "What is this crazy thing?" He played along for now, trying to see where this was going.

The infected Sora grinned.

No answers came as the room went dark, leaving Riku in the shadows.

"Defeat your past regrets!"

As soon as the light had filled the room again, he looked around to see that everyone was gone; all expect him, a past version of himself, which stood in front of him. Before he would question whether it was an illusion of his past self or an illusion of his replica, his younger form covered himself in shadows before golden eyes glared back at him.

"You are always going to be a pawn!" Link appeared upon the highest seat, where the infected Sora was sitting moments ago, holding cross piece of wood while the shadowed Riku turned into a huge puppet like heartless of himself. "Now face it!" Using his powers, he began to move the piece of wood in mid-air.

The Dawn Puppet moved at a fast speed, his sown hands slammed down on the Wielder of Dawn, not giving him any time to react to it. The force of the puppet was stronger than he would have thought; the strength of it was nearly as crushing as Link's gravity was. He used Dark Slicer to teleport out from under the Dawn Puppet, breathing heavily as his magic was taking affect from the amount of time he was using Dark Slicer to move out of the way. As soon as he emerged, he felt gravity go against him, as if it was a great wind as he felt himself pushed against the wall, watching as the Dawn Puppet charged toward him.

BOWBOWBOW

The wind blew wildly as soon as the others left the room, leaving Hikari to face her infected, silent brother. "You hear me?!" She shouted to the Endless, trying to overcome the strong winds to speak. "What you did to my friends?! What you had done to my home?! I will not allow! I will show you! I will fight you!"

Storm huffed at her words, dying the wind down. "So you have claimed to have grown up." He laughed at the thought. "I can see in your eyes that you do not speak the truth!" He glared at her as she stood her ground. "I see in your eyes that you won't free me from this torture. Does that make you as bad as to those that cause the pain? The ones that see it happening and do nothing about it?!" His annoyance grew as he saw that his sister had no response to his words. "If you found a faceless man, would you aid him to see, hear and taste the ruin world? Or leave him in a dream, wishing to see what he imagines?"

"Why are you telling me riddles?" Hikari questioned.

Storm shook his head at this, "You see me in pain, in fact, turning faceless, yet you still believe that you can save me!"

Hikari stood her ground, looking away slightly before holding her weapon tight.

Storm charged in at a fast speed, catching Hikari off-guard as he uppercut her into the air, stunning her. He took a step back as he began to throw blades of wind at her. He watched as she recovered from the attack before and began to defend her, blocking the blades attack with her sword, before diving at his very feet. He stepped back slightly, only to be round kicked across the face.

Hikari huffed slightly as she watched her brother stagger from the blow. "I won't lose, brother." She told him.

Storm smirked with a sick like amusement, "Looks like we're on the same page." He dashed forwards once more, sword in hand, as the two began to clash.

As the sword fight commence, Hikari kept up to Storm's footing as they battled across the room. She noticed that apart from the occasion wind attacks that he would try and surprise her with, his battle and sword techniques were the exactly same as hers, they haven't changed during his infection. In a way, it was good and bad. It was good because he couldn't surprise her much when it came to his swordplay, the only problem is that she couldn't either and while he had magic on his side, she could only rely on her sword.

Storm seemed to realise this as well as he stepped back, disposing of his weapon. "Wanna fly?" He asked her darkly as he disappeared into the air.

Within seconds, the wind picked up upwards, making Hikari float in the air uncontrollably. She had only tried to fly once in Neverland, just to see what it was like, she had no control over it, all she could do was spin in the air. She couldn't see where she was, let alone, where her brother was hiding.

"Surprise!"

Without any way to defend herself, Hikari yelled in pain as the wind ripped her apart, feeling every attack that was being afflicted onto her, she felt the wind burn her, cut her, slice her skin painfully, yet not completely. She wasn't getting ripped to shreds but painful enough for it to be torturous. She couldn't even focus properly as Storm appeared in front of her and blasted her with his infected claw, sending her to the ground.

BOWBOWBOW

The Aversion Endless jumped from the floor as he tried to dodge the multiple amounts of ice that was being fired at him, watching from the corner of his eyes as Kairi, Donald and Goofy go to the final room. "Stop this Nikolai!" He yelled at him, using his staff to fire multiple meteors spells towards his former friend.

The Sorrow Endless remained silent as he speared through the meteor spells as if they were nothing, jumping forward with his gunblade, slamming his sword down at his friend's staff. "Forgotten…" He muttered, his breathe turned frosty from the touch of cold air. His sword glowed slightly as he looked back at Brian. "Sorrows remain forgotten…" He slashed him hard, impacting the Aversion Endless into the ice.

Brian winched slightly from the ice digging into him as he pushed himself off the ground, looking at the reflections of the picture he had seen earlier. He quickly scanned the ice to see multiple pictures and drawings, every single one crumbled up. What is with the pictures? He questioned, only to get drawn from his thoughts as the infection Nikolai charged toward him. "LOST HEART!" He aimed his staff at him.

"FORGOTTEN SOUL!" Nikolai yelled at the same time, firing a huge ice attack from his blade, clashing with Brian's attack, only for Brian's attack to force its way through, hitting the Endless.

Brian smiled at this. His magic was always better than Nikolai's. His smile dropped as Nikolai stood complete balanced from the attack, unaffected by the dents and cracks that were being made in his ice like chest. He only gulped as ice spikes formed out of him body, as if he was suddenly a hedgehog, as he ran at a high speed, striking Brian with his spiky body by morphing into a ball. The only downside is his strength compared to mine. He sighed, pushing himself slowly off the ground, looking around from the Endless. "Where is—"

By surprise, Nikolai appeared right in front of him, grabbing him by the throat as he held him in the air with his ice crafted shadow claw; his breathe drawing from the lack of air, dropping his staff in the progress. "You broke your promise!" He revealed to him. "You were supposed to protect my sister and you failed me. What's worse, you didn't even try to contact me. Did you lie about everything too?" By the throat, Nikolai swung around and slammed Brian's body against the ice at a rapid rate, cracking the ice as he done so.

After a couple of slams, Brian placed his foot on the ground, jabbing his covered claw into Nikolai's ice chest, forcing the Endless to let go of his throat. With a deep breathe, Brian turned into his fire element as he attempted hand to hand combat. Even though Nikolai is better with physical attacks, his ice body might have slowed him down.

'Might' was the key word in Brian's thoughts as Nikolai didn't show any signs of being slowed down by the ice, if anything, the ice made it easier for the Sorrow Endless to dodge the fury flames of his friend's fists. He continued to dodge until he forcefully grabbed a hold onto Brian's flaming claw, causing the Aversion Endless to yell in pain, dropping to his knees. "Feel the pain for being forgotten, Brian!" He told him darkly.

BOWBOWBOW

His body was getting beaten to a pulp. Remaining against the wall, on the floor. Just hitting the floor over and over again. The Wielder of Dawn felt dazed from fighting with the puppet, no matter what he tried to come up with to try the puppet or even try to get close to Link, gravity will force him to the ground and the Dawn Puppet with bash at him until it is convinced that he couldn't move for a good couple of seconds. First, he thought that he could try and go against the puppet's strength, but with the gravity, he didn't stand much of a chance. Second, he tried to use his speed but the gravity got in his way once more. He had tried to sneak towards Link but with the puppet after him like some hound dog, he couldn't get anywhere near the Remorse Endless. Now he stared at the Remorse Endless and his supposed puppet form, breathing heavily as he tried to keep his consciousness, he couldn't lose. Not here. His friends were in danger. He didn't want them to die.

Link raised an eyebrow at the sight in front of him, "Are you ready to be happy yet?" He asked with a bored expression on his face.

"Ne….NEVER!" Riku buffed, forcing himself off the ground as he looked at the situation in front of him. There has got to be something to this! He thought. If I pass the puppet then I can fight Link. He slipped slightly, having troubled keeping his balance as he leg began to hurt him painfully. He looked at the Puppet to see if it held clues itself. How was he to defeat his past regrets?-

He yelled in pain as the Dawn Puppet slammed its fist into him once more, crashing into one of the high chairs, sending it collapsing to the ground. The hollow, screening laugh coming from the puppet stung his ears painfully as he push himself out of the rumble of the broken throne. As he pushed the remaining off the stone chair off him, he noticed that it was marked with 'Key to Destiny'. "Roxas…" Riku muttered from under his breath. Seeing Roxas' name reminded him how he had fallen to his darkness so that he could stop him. Granted, he had done it to wake Sora up, but he had been ashamed of himself for falling to the darkness, he didn't want his friends to see what he had become. If it wasn't for Kairi revealing who he was to Sora, would he still be wondering in the dark, hiding from his friends? A part of him regrets ever being jealous of Sora, that he fully accepts—

The Dawn Puppet groaned slightly, holding its sown head in pain. Yells echoed through the room as the Remorse Endless tried to control it.

Confused, the Wielder of Dawn was about to question when realisation hit him. This was his chance to strike Link while he was distracted. Moving quickly and quietly, he began to move around the room, past the Organization's thrones and behind the Superior's throne, where Link stood. "Here we go!" He jumped up, wall jumping between the thrones before pushing himself toward, his keyblade in hand as he flies into Link.

With one strike, Riku grabbed Link by the throat and slammed him to the floor; changing the surroundings back to the dark room they were originally in. "Time for you to feel happy." Riku told him as he pointed his keyblade to him, only to gasp. "What the—" In front of him, the Remorse Endless disappeared through his portal, leaving Riku in the empty room once more. So close! I He cursed himself, looking around him.

"If you choose to be unhappy, so be it!" Link announced in the echoes of the room. "I will not waste my time with you!" He spoke with venom in his voice.

"You're running away?!" Riku spoke in disbelief and annoyance, he prevents him from helping his friends and now he's leaving the battle, the only one that has been wasting time in Link himself.

"I will tell you this!" Link echoed. "You will only make everyone around you unhappy just by being. Do everyone a favour and disappear!" His words turned into whispers as his voice faded out, truly leaving the Wielder of Dawn alone as the doors heading to the next floor opened.

"Why leave?" Riku thought. It seemed unlike Link's behaviour to leave in the middle of a battle. There was something that he was missing. With the doors opened, he began to hear noises coming from the next room. "Is there another battle?" He spoke with confusion before running towards the door.

BOWBOWBOW

Hikari coughed roughly as she struggled to get up on the ground, forcing herself up with her weapon as she yelled towards her brother. With all of her might, she tried to strike him off-guard, only to find Storm deflect the attack without even looking towards her.

"So original…." He huffed before elbowing her in the gut and kicking her away, sending Hikari to her knees. "Did you not learn anything new after my departure?" He asked her rhetorically, knowing for a fact that she knew the answer. "You thought that I wouldn't recognise my own moves?!" With strong winds, he lifted Hikari up from the air and towards him and kicked her straight in the back.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could fight for. Her brother was over-powered compared to her. With no magic on her side and that every move she knows was taught by the one she is fighting, she stood little to no chance of surviving this. She watched as the sound around her disappeared, losing her sense of hearing from the amount of damage she had withstood. Her body was screaming in pain, she couldn't stand anymore. Her infected brother carried on talking to her by she couldn't hear a sound, she could only watch her brother slowly approach her by watching his feet.

She was dying, she was soon to be dead, but she done what she needed to do. Maybe she could have waited for back-up, maybe she could have let Kairi, Brian and the others help, but this was HER battle that she had to do alone, even if she has to die tonight, so be it. She had given her friends more time to reach Sora and even though she hasn't defeated her brother, within another fight, someone else will. So long as this fight remains hers….

With blurry eyes, she looked up at her brother, who only hovered over her now, his blade to her neck. "Die clone!" Storm spoke darky before he raised his blade for the final strike.

A gasped escaped her lips as the shock flooded her body. Not because of the pain, mainly because there was no pain at all. The main reason her body was filled of shock was because her brother in front of her, frozen in pain, as a light beam went through him. She reached up to her brother, who was now looking at her in sorrow and regret, the look of her true brother. She reached out for his hand, only to miss by a couple of inches as Sakuzy fell to the floor, whispering her name before turning into lights.

Hikari stared at the lights, shaking as she watched her brother disappear in front of her eyes, truly seeing him die and leave her. She shot her eyes from the spot to where the light originated from, feeling anger build inside as she looked at the person in disbelief. "Silver…" She muttered.

Riku ran to Hikari's side at fast speed, suddenly glad that Link had fled the battle. From the position that she was in, it looked like the Endless was she was fighting was going to finish her off. "Hold on, Hikari." He fell to his knees as he searched for an Elixir within his pockets. As he found the drink, he handed it over to Hikari, only to see her look at him angrily. "Hikari. Take it—"

"Why did you interfere?!" She cut him off, snatching the elixir off his hands and taking the drink down with urgency.

The Wielder of Dawn looked at the girl in confusion and annoyance. "If you haven't had noticed, I just saved your hide." He reminded her. "You could at least say thanks."

Hikari threw the bottle on the floor as she stood up, glaring at him still. "This was my battle, Riku. You had no right." She snared.

"I had no right to save you?" Riku looked at her in disbelief. "You think I was going to let that Endless kill you?!"

"That Endless was my BROTHER!" She yelled at the top of her voice, the room echoed her voice. From the look of Riku's face, it was filled of surprise. "You knew how important this was to me. You knew that I wanted to fight him alone. THIS WAS MY FIGHT!"

"He was going to kill you, Hikari!" Riku argued. "You think that he was going to take mercy on you just because you're his sister?!" He stepped forward. "How was I supposed to know that he was your brother anyway? I have never encountered him. From where I stood, it was another Endless taking your life." His expression made her release that throughout their journey; Riku was the one of the few that had never even encountered Storm before now.

The fact didn't cool her down though as anger still pulsed through her. "What about when Nikolai showed you who Storm was? When he treated it like a sin?!" She questioned.

"The image show wasn't clear!" He explained as he watched Hikari pace back and forth in rage. "He just told me that there was a new member—"

Hikari halted as she looked back at the keybearer. "That's not good enough, Riku!" She shouted.

Riku shook at Hikari's anger. "Will you stop acting childish?! Whether I knew him or not, he was going to kill you and I wasn't going to stand and watch you die!"

"You should have let me die?!" She yelled at him. "If I was dead, at least I had kept my promise."

Riku frowned at her words. "You don't mean that…"

Hikari kept her glare at him. "Whether I survived or not, it was my fight."

He looked at her in disbelief. "You mean that you knew that you were going to die today, yet you faced him on your own, just so you could keep your promise?"

Hikari looked away from him. "It was my fight." She repeated.

"It was a stupid decision, Hikari!" Riku yelled at her. "You should have had someone to back you up, to support you at least. It still would have been your fight; we would have let you defeat him."

"But I didn't defeat him!" She turned to glare at him, stepping forwards him. "You did. I was supposed to set my brother free, instead, you killed him."

"And tell me what's the difference between freeing him and killing him, Hikari." Riku questioned, stepping towards her, their faces were inches away from each other, their eyes full of rage. "Unless you had the item that he needed to be cured, which we still don't know if it truly works, both of those phases are the same!"

"The difference is that you interfered when you shouldn't have and now I can never fulfil my promise to free my brother from his horrible fate!" She glared at him, looking fully at his face before looking back into his eye with disgust. "Just looking at you now…..it makes me sick." With her words spoken, Hikari took a sharp turn away from the Wielder of Dawn, looking at the open door. With no other words, she picked up her decreased brother's sword and headed to the next floor.

Riku could only watch Hikari run ahead, hearing her sob slightly as she ran ahead. He remained frozen, Hikari's words echoing in his head, his heart. She hated him. Her eyes held pure hatred as she looked at him. He held his chest, feeling his heart ache in pain. Throughout their journey, they had gotten so close together, only for that to break apart from act. "You're understand some day…" He muttered to her, watching as she disappeared from sight, slowly making his way to follow her.

He didn't regret his actions though, it was better that she hated his guts rather than watch her die, knowing that he could have done something. He didn't have time to deal with his childish, stubborn attitude anyway. He has his friends to save.

He has no time for love.

A/N: Sooooo…This chapter has been delayed for a long time…..3 months exactly….my bad. I thought I should quickly finish this chapter, I had combined two chapters together since I made you guys wait too long. With deadlines next week, job search, deadlines, it being boss battles as well, It's been tricky to write the chapter. Not to mention new relationship as well….you try and write and you just get kidnapped instead hahahaha.

I hope you do like this chapter, I'm sorry that it took so long.

Name: Storm
Emotion: Shock
Ability: Wind
Theme: Faceless by Red

Kingdommad