The sun was a bit too bright, the air a bit too hot, but Sora had insisted on going out to the little island anyway, and so, after about fifteen minutes of bugging him, his dad begrudgingly got the old fishing boat out and rowed him and Riku over.

Really, Sora didn't understand why he and Riku couldn't just have their own boats like the older kids did. They weren't stupid; they wouldn't try to set sail during a storm or anything like that. It wasn't like they were little — Sora was four and a quarter now, and Riku was five! They could take care of themselves.

And yet, every time he'd asked his parents for a boat, his dad had led him to the docks and told him to lift up one of the fishing boat's oars. He couldn't, of course, and so his dad told him he wasn't ready. Really, it wasn't fair, and it didn't make sense; the oars on the fishing boat were big and heavy, but he just wanted a small boat, and surely he'd be able to lift the little oars on that, right? But whenever he tried to explain that to his dad, he was brushed off.

It was just another case of grown-ups not listening.

Slathered in way too much sunscreen — his mom had kept putting more on, despite his protests — Sora walked along the beach, still lost in thought.

Riku, ahead of him by several feet, turned and called out to him. "C'mon! You're always telling me to hurry up, aren't you?"

Sora only shrugged, looking at his feet. He'd been feeling a bit off since his arrival at the little island; there was this vague feeling of dread welling up in his chest, and he didn't know where it was coming from.

Sighing, Riku slowed, allowing Sora to catch up. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Sora said quietly, finally looking Riku in the eye. "Just feeling kinda weird."

"Weird? Like, sick or something?"

"Nah, not sick," Sora explained. "Just a little…"

He trailed off, not really knowing what to say. Exactly what was he feeling?

Putting a hand over his heart, he frowned. He could feel the echoes of some sort of ache, but it wasn't his own heart that was hurting — he'd felt this sort of thing several times over the last two months, ever since he'd listened to that voice and let it into his heart. Maybe the voice was sad again.

Riku stared at him for a moment, then smiled. "Well, if you're not sick, then you're up for a race, right?"

Sora dug his foot into the sand. "I guess…"

"What, are you afraid of losing?"

"I am not!" Sora exclaimed, straightening up. "I could take you on in a million billion trillion races and still win every time!"

"Oh, really?" Riku said, his smile growing. "We'll see about that."

Without another word, Riku took off running.

"Wha — hey!" Sora snapped, chasing after Riku the second the shock wore off. "You didn't count down! You didn't even say where the finish line is!"

Riku only spared him one glance. "Waterfall."

"Oh, now you tell me?"

The two boys raced to the waterfall, then back, and then back to the waterfall, then to the treehouse, and all over the little island, making up new rules and obstacle courses as they went. One memorable race involved both of them hopping on one foot the whole way — that was the only race Sora won.

Finally, when they were too tired to run, Sora and Riku flopped down into the sand, laying on their backs, listening to the waves crashing against the shore. For several minutes, they said nothing, just took deep breaths, still winded from all the running.

Suddenly, Riku broke the silence. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Are you feeling better?"

"Oh, that?" Frankly, Sora had forgotten his earlier worries pretty fast, determined to beat Riku. And he had! Well, only once, but still. "I'm okay now."

"That's good," Riku said. "My mom always tells me to run around and do something when I'm feeling sad. She says exercise gets your mind off of whatever was making you feel bad."

Something clicked in Sora's mind, and he turned his head to look at Riku. "Did you do all that for me?"

Riku kept staring at the clouds. "Do what?"

"You know, all the races. You were trying to make me feel better, weren't you?"

"More like I was trying to kick your butt," Riku said with a snort, but he was smiling.

"Thanks, Riku."

Sora turned his head back up to the sky, trying to see if he could find any shapes in the clouds — he'd seen people do that on TV, and it looked fun. Unfortunately, all the clouds just looked like clouds, and there weren't even that many of them. Boring.

With a yawn, Sora let himself go limp. The sand was at that perfect temperature where the sun had made it warm, but not baked it to the point where it couldn't even be walked on without shoes, and the breeze was nice and gentle…

Sora had just about dozed off when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. At first, he dismissed it, closing his eyes again, but when he heard Riku take a sharp breath beside him, his eyes shot open and he sat up.

Riku was already on his feet, pointing at the bridge leading to the paopu tree. "Do you see that?"

At first, to Sora's drowsy eyes, the figure just appeared to be a black smudge, but when he looked closer, he could see that it was definitely a person, albeit one dressed in black. The stranger wore some kind of strange, almost organic-looking bodysuit that went up to their neck, and their head was covered by a black glass helmet.

Their head was turned to face the boys, and though Sora couldn't see the stranger's eyes, he knew they were staring right at him.

Sora could feel his heart pounding hard, louder than ever before — wait, no, that wasn't his heart. He could feel his heart beating normally, albeit fast. That other heartbeat must belong to the voice…

"Riku, who's that?" Sora asked, his voice down to a whisper.

"How am I supposed to know?" Riku snapped, his voice shaking. "I've never seen them before."

"Do you think they know that guy you were talking to?"

Sora didn't need to specify which guy, or when the conversation had happened; he knew Riku remembered that evening, that meeting he'd refused to discuss for the last two months. Sora was still curious as to what Riku and the man had talked about, but he was no closer to uncovering the answer now than he was then.

"No, he didn't mention anyone like that," Riku whispered, his right hand clenching and unclenching over and over again. "But they've got to be from outside…"

"Should we go talk to them?" Sora asked, though he really, really didn't want to.

Riku hesitated. "Well…"

"You know, it's not nice to talk about people behind their backs, and it's even ruder to talk about people to their faces and pretend they can't hear you."

Sora and Riku immediately froze, staring at the masked figure — probably a boy, judging by his voice.

The boy chuckled as he jumped off the bridge, landing in the sand a few meters away. He began walking forwards, towards the two boys — towards Sora — his boots leaving deep imprints in the sand with each step. "It's okay. You don't need to apologize. In fact, I should thank you."

The boy's voice, though not openly hostile, didn't exactly sound grateful either, and Sora fought to repress a shudder. The other heartbeat was even louder now, drowning out the sound of the waves.

"Thank us for what?" Riku asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Not you, just him." The boy was close now, and he walked closer still, reaching out to point at Sora.

Sora stiffened, every muscle tensing. His mind was telling him to run, to go get his dad, but his body wouldn't budge.

Riku stepped in front of Sora, holding his arms out. "Y-You should get away from him before —"

"Before what?" the boy interjected. "Before you make me?"

Riku stood firm, but Sora could see that he was shaking hard. "Before — before I —"

In a split second, the boy was standing right in front of Riku, close enough to grab him, and that was exactly what he did, grabbing him by the collar before shoving him to the side like he weighed nothing. Riku was flung into the stairs with an audible thud and a yelp of pain.

Sora could only stand there, ice seeping through his veins, as the boy stepped forward, not even looking at where Riku lay, and bent down so that his face was almost level with Sora's.

"Now," the boy said softly, "let me thank you properly."

He reached forward and grabbed Sora's chin, yanking it up so that Sora was staring right at him. Despite Sora's attempts to keep his mouth shut, a small whimper escaped. He tried looking away, anywhere except at the boy, and his eyes landed on Riku.

Riku, holding himself up on scraped, shaking arms, yelled, "Run! Get help!"

"Don't run," the boy murmured a second after. "If you try to run, I'll have to hurt you."

The boy's warning really didn't matter much; Sora couldn't get himself to move an inch, no matter how much he wanted to get away.

Sora's eyes remained locked on Riku's, and this seemed to make the boy angry, because his grip on Sora's chin tightened to the point where Sora knew it would bruise.

"Look at me," the boy hissed.

Trembling, Sora turned his gaze to the part of the mask that most likely concealed the boy's eyes. The boy nodded slowly, and without any further warning, his mask began to dissolve, glass vanishing into thin air until all that was left was a face.

Sora's face.

Sure, the boy was at least a decade older, and he was definitely more muscular, with black hair and a slightly paler complexion, but Sora knew that was his face, just as he knew there were two hearts within him, both beating too fast and too hard.

"What the hell?"

If she was there, Sora's mom surely would've scolded him for using a bad word, but it'd just slipped out, and besides, she wasn't there. No adults were there — not Sora's parents, not Riku's mother, nobody. No one was around to help them, or even close enough to hear them.

The boy grinned, bright yellow eyes staring straight into Sora's, and Sora couldn't look away. The world was darkening around him, and the boy's eyes glowed by comparison, and Sora felt very, very dizzy, like he couldn't even stand —

He didn't even notice himself hitting the ground until he'd already fallen to his hands and knees. At least now he was looking at the sand, not those creepy eyes, and he could already feel the dizziness fading.

"Tell me your name," the boy said, resting his hand on top of Sora's head. Though his grip was light, Sora could tell the boy could easily push his face down into the sand and suffocate him if he wanted to.

"I'm Sora." Again, the words practically slipped out on their own.

With a quiet laugh, the boy removed his hand from Sora's head, then used it to push him up to a sitting position. When Sora was no longer prone, the boy moved his hand so that it was right over Sora's heart. "Well then, Sora, I'd like to thank you. You saved Ventus's heart — twice, if my face means anything — and I'm grateful for that."

"V-Ventus?"

"Yes, Ventus. My lesser half, my light, my brother. You joined your heart with his about four years ago, and when he shattered our heart, he returned to yours," the boy explained, his smile gone, looking almost upset.

Ventus. So that was who the voice was…right? Sora didn't really understand what the boy was saying, especially not the bit about what'd happened four years ago. He'd been a baby back then, so how could he have saved Ventus?

Slowly, the smile returned to the boy's face. It wasn't a kind one. "He's still in you, but it's okay. He doesn't need you anymore, so I'm taking him back." He held out his free hand, and in a flash of blue light and purple flames, some kind of weapon materialized. It was jagged, ending in sharp cogs, almost like a key, and chains were wrapped around its middle. Two greenish-blue eyes were set into the weapon, one at the top and one near the handle, and they stared at nothing with slitted, catlike pupils.

Sora's breath caught in his chest as he looked at the blade. Is he going to stab me with that?

Sora didn't realize that Riku had managed to get up until he saw him throw himself at the boy, trying to push him off his feet. The boy turned around, looking mildly irritated, and shoved him away. Riku landed on his back, sprawled out in the sand, but he got to his feet quickly and charged at the boy once again, lashing out with a fist.

Looking to Riku, then to the terrifying weapon the boy was holding, then back to Riku, Sora opened his mouth, but only a small squeak came out.

Too little, too late; the boy swung his weapon at Riku, who lurched away just a bit too slow — his shirt was torn open, and a cut stretched from his right shoulder to his left hip bone. The force of the impact knocked Riku back yet again, and this time he stayed down, crying out in pain.

"W-Why do you even have that?" Riku hissed in between pained gasps. "Keyblades are for heroes, not people like you!"

"Keyblades are for anyone strong enough to wield them," the boy replied, sounding almost like he was holding in a laugh. "That's it. You don't need a savior complex to use one, but I assume you didn't know that, since you still haven't run away like a smart kid would."

"I'm not just gonna let you hurt Sora!" Riku was using that voice he did when he wanted to sound tough, but it wasn't working this time; he just sounded scared.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Calm down. I'm not gonna kill him, I'm just gonna take Ventus out."

Sora flicked his eyes to the boy's weapon — his Keyblade, apparently — and wondered exactly what Riku and that man had talked about back then. The thought quickly left his mind, however, as the boy turned back to him and pushed him down until he was laying flat on his back. His eyes widened as the boy positioned his Keyblade so that it was pointed straight at his heart.

"Can you hear me, Ventus? It's time to stop hiding."

What's he gonna —?

Sora's thoughts were interrupted when a bolt of pain shot straight through his heart.

Vaguely, he could hear Riku shouting his name, hear the screams coming from his own mouth, see the beam of rippling darkness going into him, but it was like all that was coming through a thick pane of glass, and he was trapped behind it with nothing but the intense, searing pain of his heart being yanked at.

He could feel it — something was pulling him apart, reaching deep, deep into him, where he didn't even know he could be hurt. The warmth from the sun-baked sand was gone, and now he was so cold that he felt like he was frozen, like any more of the pulling would shatter him into a thousand pieces.

"Stop it! You're hurting him!"

"It'll stop hurting when he stops being so stubborn and gives Ventus back."

Sora was crying now — he could feel the tears coming out, stinging at his eyes — and he was writhing on his back, flailing all his limbs in a desperate effort to get the beam out, get it out of him, but nothing worked. He couldn't get it to go away, and every move he made just put the pain at a new, even worse angle.

After one last scream, one that burned his throat on the way out, Sora went silent, his breathing rapid and shallow. His arms and legs weren't moving anymore; they felt weird, all cold and numb, and everything felt like it was spinning. He wasn't even sure if his eyes were open or closed anymore, because everything was black, and —

"Okay, this isn't gonna work."

As suddenly as it had begun, the pain stopped.

Sora slumped over on his side, just in time for the contents of his breakfast and lunch to come spewing out of his mouth, stinging his already hurt throat. He still couldn't see a thing, and the voices were growing more distant. After a brief struggle with his still-numb body, he managed to turn to his other side, away from the vomit.

He wasn't hurting anymore, but instead of relief, he just felt cold. Cold and tired, so tired. He couldn't feel most of his body, just his slowly-beating heart, and he could no longer hear Riku's cries. He was all alone in the dark.

Sora could only pray that he was just having a nightmare as he slowly lost consciousness.

Vanitas stared down at the unmoving kid, narrowing his eyes.

The boy was still breathing, but he'd been unresponsive for several minutes now, even when Vanitas had tried shaking him awake. Still, he could tell that the boy — Sora — wasn't going to die. He hadn't damaged his heart too much while trying to pry Ventus out; he'd probably be fine in a few hours.

Having Ventus so close, he felt like a nearly-starved man seeing food for the first time in weeks, only for it to be shielded by unbreakable windows. Ventus was right there, and yet he couldn't be pulled out, no matter how hard Vanitas wrenched at Sora's heart. It seemed that Ventus, while alive, wasn't nearly healed enough to be entirely distinct from Sora, and even if he could be torn out, the strain would most likely kill him.

Figures. You were always too slow, too weak, always lagging behind. You should be grateful I put up with you, Ventus.

The other boy, the silver-haired one, wasn't moving either. A few minutes ago, Vanitas had gotten tired of his high-pitched screams and weak punches, and so he'd cast Gravity on him. The boy was now crumpled up in a small heap near the water, either unconscious or playing dead — it didn't really matter which. He wasn't going to be able to stop what came next.

Ventus needed Sora in order to heal, and Vanitas needed Ventus at full capacity if they were ever to fuse again. Therefore, Vanitas needed Sora.

Still, Vanitas was a bit pissed at how slow the healing process seemed to be moving. He'd been back to normal mere hours after his defeat, so why was Ventus, the winner of that battle, barely even a fragment of his former self? It'd been two months!

No, this wouldn't do. At this rate, Ventus might never be fully healed. Sora would have to strengthen his heart, and by extension, Ventus's. He wouldn't be able to do that in this nowhere world, and besides, Vanitas wasn't just going to let Ventus go now that he was so close.

Vanitas had never been very good about giving up the few things that belonged to him.

He chuckled to himself; this was kind of messed up, wasn't it? Vanitas, the pupil, becoming a Master, just like the one he'd wanted to kill so badly. Really, though, what part of Vanitas's life wasn't messed up?

All to make me stronger, better.

He'd never considered himself a babysitter, but adding another brother to the "family" couldn't be that bad. Sora even looked like he could be his little brother. Also, the boy definitely had Keyblade potential, even without Ventus in his heart — he had a strong, warm light and all that bullshit the light users always went on about. It was certainly annoying, and Vanitas would readily admit that he didn't have much experience with light, but that light would serve Ventus well.

It was settled, then. He'd bring Sora back with him to the Keyblade Graveyard, then figure things out from there. He wouldn't be able to stay there for long; Aqua and Mickey came there all the time, allegedly to investigate, though Vanitas was pretty sure that Aqua was there to mourn Terra. He'd had a close call recently where they'd almost spotted one of his Floods, and he wasn't keen on repeating that experience.

Eh, he'd figure something out. He knew of a few worlds that were almost unknown to and certainly uninvestigated by the guardians of light, and he knew one of those worlds better than anyone at this point. Besides, it was about time he stopped going from world to world and set up a permanent base.

Vanitas scooped up Sora into his arms — the kid barely weighed a thing, anyway — and without bothering to remask himself, opened up a dark corridor and carried the boy through.

Riku had been playing dead, of course.

Judging by how the boy kept looking at him, he knew that he was probably giving himself away, maybe by breathing too noticeably or something, but the boy didn't really seem to care. He probably thought Riku wasn't a threat.

He wasn't a threat, was he?

Ever since he'd met that outsider two months ago, he'd known that his life was going to change. He was meant for greater things than sitting around at home, lining up for unemployment checks, moping and muttering about how things could've turned out differently. He wasn't like his mom; he'd make things different. One day, he knew, he would leave his tiny world and become strong like he'd always wanted to be, strong enough to protect the things — the people — that mattered.

He would fight the enemies, the monsters, and come out victorious. He would, as the man had said, champion the ones he loved. That was what heroes did, right?

He just hadn't expected everything to begin so suddenly. One minute he'd been playing with Sora, and the next, the boy had arrived, and then everything had gone to hell.

His body was practically groaning in pain, and he was sure something was broken from that last hit, but even worse was the sting of knowing he'd failed. He couldn't protect Sora, not like this. Sure, he could beat the other kids, but against that boy, he hadn't been able to do anything. Even the punches he'd landed did nothing but slightly annoy the boy, and then he'd been hit by something that made him hit the ground so, so hard…

Would he be that strong when he was older?

Riku let his left eye open a crack, just in time to see the masked boy bend over in Sora's direction. He wasn't going to kill Sora, was he? He said he wouldn't, but people like him lied all the time. Riku had initially stopped moving because he thought the boy would leave them alone if they didn't respond; that's what the adults always said to do with bullies, and though it almost never worked, he'd ran out of options. Now, though, it seemed like the boy wasn't done with them — with Sora, at least.

The boy picked Sora up, holding him almost gingerly in his arms, and began to walk away. Riku fought to hide a gasp as darkness welled up right in front of the boy, arching into a tall oval. Through the oval, Riku couldn't see the island; there seemed to be some sort of road instead, but it was hard to make out, covered in inky blackness.

The moment the boy stepped into the portal — that was what it was, right? — he was gone, and so was Sora. Riku sat up, straining his eyes to try to make out their forms, but he couldn't see much of anything in there.

It was at that moment that Riku realized the portal was already starting to dissolve, wisps of darkness breaking off before vanishing into the air. There was no time to run and tell an adult; besides, what could the adults on the island do, anyway? They had no experience with other worlds or Keyblades.

It was up to Riku. He'd failed before, but he wouldn't fail again. He wouldn't let the boy take his best friend away.

He would figure something out. He had to.

That was what heroes did, right?

Pushing aside his fear, Riku sprang to his feet and ran into the portal just before it disappeared.

It's okay, Sora. I'm coming.

I'll protect you.