The sound of rushing waterfalls crashed around him, but Riku couldn't see a thing. Brightness invaded his eyes, the world around him burned everything he saw with light until they adjusted from being in complete darkness. His vision was blaring for a few moments before the outline of shapes became more apparent before him.

The source of the rushing water came from the most magnificent waterfall Riku ever seen. It stretched around him like a wall, crashing down into a smooth pool that lay below many floating stone plateaus. Riku blinked and rubbed his eyes, sure that his vision hadn't completely adjusted and his mind was playing tricks on him, but no—there truly floating platforms, each higher than the last. He followed them up with his eyes, each one close enough to the last that he could probably jump to the top. The top. There she was.

"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

He still couldn't see the mysterious woman's face. She stood at the edge of the highest platform, but the sun was behind her, making her nothing more than a silhouette. Maybe that's all she was…just a shadow.

"Where are they? Sora and Kairi."

"Aren't you ever the impatient one? Remember our little deal—you help me, then I give you back your friends."

Riku found it odd how she said she would give him back his friends, rather than help look for them. It made his stomach turn.

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"What other choice do you have?"

Her silhouette turned and walked out of sight and Riku jumped after her, scrambling from platform to platform in order to make it to the top. They seemed to be getting farther apart as he progressed, each one more difficult to reach than the last, but he was almost there—just three more jumps and he'd be able to see the top.

One…

Two…

Riku didn't completely miss the third platform. He'd never admit that. No, his hand met the side of the platform while his body dangled off the side, and while he could have lifted himself up, the rock was brittle along the edges and it crumbled off in his hand.

His eyes grew wide as he felt a sudden surge of gravity take him down to the waters below. Deep as the pool had seemed, he hit a splash of shallow water and was winded for a moment. He took a moment to catch his breath on the hard surface that rippled like water, fish swimming around below.

Riku hit his fist against the surface of the water, trying to break through it to no avail. The floating platforms…the surrounding waterfall that made no splash…and this false water… it was all clear, yet Riku still found himself shaking his head. Could it all be magic?

No, no…the rocks were probably magnetic and the hard surface of the water was probably just really really thick ice. It definitely wasn't magic. No, what a stupid thing to believe in. Sure, it was fun to muse over when he was a kid, but there was just no way. Riku bit his lip at the thought.

He needed to get out of this ditch and back up to the rocks above to follow the woman. As he peered up, the platforms above became more ominous from below than they had been from above. Now, they were too high to even think of reaching.

Riku's contemplation led him to stand and press a single gloved hand to the towering wall of rushing water and to his relief, it wasn't solid like the pool. If he couldn't go up, he might be able to go out. The weight of the water rushing down brought his hand down some but he pushed through and felt the water give up halfway through. Riku smirked at his cleverness, finding a clearing—a secret passage on the other side of the waterfall.

He ducked his head under the water and pushed through. Getting wet was never a problem, his hair wasn't too thick and his clothes weren't too heavy, so he'd dry easily. Plus, living on an island his whole life, he'd gotten used to getting wet when wearing clothes, letting the cool breeze from the ocean waves dry him off. As he continued pushing through the waterfall, he remembered the secret passage back home…

However, he immediately crushed whatever reminiscing thoughts came next.

There was no passage on the other side of the waterfall. There was a clearing, sure, but not the one he'd hoped for.

It was space. It had to be outer space. It was swirling and beautiful, yet terrifyingly empty and vast save for the hundreds of specks of far-off light that must've been other worlds.

His hair dripped and the droplets of water fell past his face and out into the vastness before him. There was nothing for him out there.

Riku pulled his head back into the world, his hair still dripping water that passed his chin and shoes and into the peculiar ground below, becoming one with the solid water. His clothes were wet and he waited for the breeze his home island always sent him but there was none, only cold shade from the towering walls of surrounding water and the useless floating rocks above. A chill ran down his spine, either from the cold or from the disembodied sounding voice that suddenly crept into Riku's ears. It echoed, not off the walls of water, but off the walls of Riku's head.

There is always another way.

Riku perked his head up at the words and turned around. He clenched his teeth along with his fists, looking for another way. He seethed the word "always" through his lips.

If he was going to find Kairi and get back Sora, he couldn't give up.

A high-pitched twinkling sound made its way about the waters. With each passing moment, the noise increased in pitch, reaching higher and higher notes until it disappeared beyond the reach of a human ear. The boy stuck a finger in his ear and winced, almost sure he was hearing things now, but that wasn't the case when another sound came rumbling up into his open ear. This one was of low pitch.

Blow the water, curious fish beckoned toward bubbling waters. Each fish took turns sticking their face to the bubbles, possibly thinking maybe it was food or something other.

Riku shook his head at the absurd thought that fish would have any sort of thought of their own.Yet he still refrained from eating them back on the island when he and Sora would go fishing. While Riku liked to consider himself a strong silent type—though he was anything but a dork when Sora and Kairi were around—he also liked to hold himself to a meat-free diet. Not even the occasional tuna could be found on his plate.

This was a fact that Sora still didn't believe to this day. Riku let himself remember.

"No way, your diet has to be pure meat!" Sora exclaimed.

"I just don't like the way fish smell all that much," Riku lied. He truly didn't like eating something that had its own heart. It unnerved him.

"But, your muscles!" Sora always thought Riku's physique was a bit unfair considering he'd never seen his friend work out any more than he had, and while Sora remained a bit scrawny, Riku managed to look like a natural Hercules. "What's your secret? Protein shakes?" Sora then gasped, "Riku, you're not on steroids, are you? You know what happens when you take those things, right? Your—"

"Sora!"

"—starts to shrink."

Riku raised annoyed eyebrows as Sora laughed it up. His friend was always asking him about his muscles and accusing him of "cheating," whatever that meant. Honestly though, he didn't do much beyond his usual training with Sora, beside a few pushups and what not in the morning and at night—nothing much.

"I don't do anything more than you do besides eat healthier."

"What!? Meat is healthy! Otherwise it wouldn't have such a big section of the food pyramid, right next to cake—that's the biggest."

"I think you're forgetting an entire layer of fruits and vegetables. Also, I'm pretty sure cake is considered a sweet—you know, the things you're supposed to avoid. C'mon Sora that stuff is nothing but sugar."

"Nu-uh! It's made with flour, and good stuff like eggs and milk. It's like…" Sora counted on his fingers before continuing, "eighty percent grain and protein."

"Then I guess that makes me twenty percent healthier than you."

Sora growled and playfully jumped at Riku who lifted his arms up. Riku was hoping to grab him and somehow make his way to pinning him in a small, yet victorious wrestling match, but instead of grappling Riku to wrestle, Sora instead threw himself around to Riku's side, grabbing a hold of his raised arm and hanging from it like a child. Riku held his younger friend from his upper arm, flexing to hold him up. Maybe straining a little more than he'd like to admit as Sora tried lifting his legs to hang there a bit.

"No waythisis just twenty percent."

"Alright, alright, you caught me." Riku said as he thrust his hands straight into the air, causing Sora to fall to the ground. "I'm not vegetarian… I'm a vegan." Of course, Riku said this jokingly, and he smiled down at Sora, who defiantly grabbed onto his legs and shook them, causing Riku to fall in return.

"Liar! Tell me your secret pleaaase!"

The two were scrambled in a heap, continuing to tease each other about anything and everything from eating habits to height with Riku throwing in the occasional,

"You'll never catch up to me."

Riku watched the fish nip at the bubbles. A small, but fond smile formed on his face, reminiscent of the fun times he'd had with Sora. But the words rang in his head. You'll never catch up to me.

"Now look at me. It's like I'm the one scrambling to catch up."

Suddenly, a fish that'd nipped the bubble got sucked into the spherical air pocket. A loud pop sounded which caused Riku to startle before running forward to investigate. The fish rose to the surface of the water, but when it reached the top, the bubble did not pop. Instead, it ascended into the air with the fish still inside, the bubble growing before falling back down into the solid waters below. Riku watched, astounded at what he'd just seen, unable to believe what had just happened before his very eyes, until it happened again, and then again!

The fourth time it happened Riku was only inches away from the magical bubbling pit. He pressed his hand to it and a loud pop passed by his ears. He was inside the bubble, going higher and higher into the air before descending back down into the water.

He had beentold there was another way, and while he assumed it'd be one of those where-you-least-expect-it type deals, he didn't in the least expect that he'd be traveling in a bubble with a fish through some impenetrable waters.

He held his breath as he passed beneath the water's surface, but the pressure of water surrounding him never came. Instead, he felt cold and weightless. He tried to take a small breath to investigate if maybe he could breathe in outer space, he could breathe underwater. And when he inhaled… It was air—fresh, crisp, breathable air!

Riku stumbled out of the bubble and onto the rocky ground. It looked as if he were underwater but as if he were on any other land. A small fish came and nipped his cheek and he shooed it away before standing, brushing himself off and looking for a way onward.

There was an exit to his far left where the towering rocks had met him as he entered. They had all sorts of ledges that he could hoist himself up onto and suddenly he was very thankful for the amount of upper body strength he had, weather that was thanks to his diet or not.

Riku was growing tired after hoisting himself up so many times. The final ledge approached fast and as Riku pulled himself over the final edge he was met with a beautiful yet eerie sight. There was a castle, tall and magnificent more so than anything he'd ever seen. It was white marble and had complex stain glass windows. There were towers and archways and stairs and intricate designs on the edges of each, but only half of the castle seemed enchanted. The other half was a harsh brass metal, breaking through the pearly walls with pipes and crooked smoke stacks. The windows surrounding them were black and when Riku looked through them, he felt a coldness in his heart.

Stern, he walked onward, splashing through a man-made pond and weaving through beautiful outside hallways that lead to a large gate, half white, half black with a large symbol reminiscent of a heart over it. The yin and yang of this place was starting to weird Riku out, but stepping inside the place seemed to be a bit better. The inside matched the outside—big and beautiful. There was a running fountain in the middle of the room and curving staircases on each side that lead up to a second floor. A large chandelier that looked almost like one giant gem instead of thousands of smaller ones hung just above a platform on the second floor which reflected light off of something up there in beams, dazzling the room.

He stood there in awe, the eeriness subsiding as he wondered and waited for the woman to appear again. When he shouted for her, a door on the second floor swung open and Riku promptly rushed up the stairs, pausing for a moment to stare at that dazzling crystal chandelier.

What he entered beyond the door was a library, a two-floor room with book shelves made of brilliant gold that set themselves in mazes around both floors. It was beautiful, as was the foyer, but this room had that hint of darkness visible from outside—brass pipes crashed in from the ceiling, infecting the elegancy like a spreading disease. The windows showed the sky in twilight, even though he was sure it had been the middle of the day when he'd entered.

A desk stood in the middle of the room; a book left open on the desk.

At closer inspection, he saw that it was a sketchbook. A child's drawings filled the pages. There were dogs and ducks as well as round eared mice. There were places—mostly castles, and a princess to match each one. Starting from the beginning of the book to the end the child's skill seemed to improve, the drawings became less scribble and the people looked more like people. Many of the characters repeated, but there was one on the last page who only appeared once. It was a drawing of a girl. The drawing was good—better than anything he or Sora had come up with in their scribbling on cave walls back home.

The girl had bright blue eyes that matched her short, choppy hair and outfit. A pink holster crossed her body and tied itself around a skirt that opened in the front, revealing athletic shorts. Unlike the other princesses in the book, she looked like a warrior. Her steel toed boots and lightly placed armor almost confirmed it. Riku's eyes traveled back to her face as it was remarkable how well the child had drawn her features, especially the eyes. The melancholy look in her eyes was uncanny and the more Riku contemplated her expression the more he felt it stir in his own heart.

A sort of sadness he couldn't explain.

A voice startled him from his trance.

"Glad to see you made it up. I was beginning to worry you wouldn't show."

She sounded like she was playing at a pout.How disgusting, thought Riku. He felt like this woman was tormenting him, even though she'd offered to help him. Though this time, her voice didn't sound disconnected, in fact, it sounded as if it were coming from right next to him. Riku shot a glance over and was met with the gaze of a beautiful woman, standing on the second floor. She was bathed in a golden light turned into a rainbow of colors from the stain glass window behind her.

Her lips were full and red and her eyes were brilliant and green and they seemed to fit perfectly on her angular face which was framed with a fitted black leather helm. Atop her head were horns, either part of the helm or part of her, Riku had no clue. She was draped in a long black robe, the center parting just a bit to reveal a royal purple trim. The collar of her robe rushed up around her neck and spread like wings, delicate and just off her shoulders. What caught Riku's eyes the most was her scepter, twisting and brass like the yin of the castle. The crystal atop was bright and green, swirling and catching him in a new trance. It took more than a moment for him to blink away from it.

"I see you've found my child's imagination book. Anything and everything that popped into her tiny little head she just had to scribble down—a waste time if you ask me, but she was a creative little beastie and it's not like you can just ask someone to stop thinking of things to think of."

"What are you talking about?" Riku asked, somewhat furious. It'd taken him a lot of effort to get to this place and he was not in the mood for nonsense—he wanted his friends back.

"You were staring at that book for quite some time—I assumed you were in the mood for stories."

"I'm not in the mood for anything but having my friends back!" The woman didn't seem to hear Riku—or rather, she just flat out ignored him.

"Here's one you might like. It starts out rather nicely too, it goes 'Once upon a time…' I always liked the ones that started out like that. …Once upon a time, long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light… Then people began to fight over it."

Riku narrowed his eyes.

"They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts. The darkness spread, swallowing the light and many people's hearts. It covered everything, and the world disappeared. But small fragments of light survived…in the hearts of children. With these fragments of light, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now. But the true light sleeps deep within the darkness. That's why the worlds are still scattered, divided from each other."

Riku begrudgingly listened to the story.

"Who… who are you?" He wanted facts, not fairy tales.

"I am Maleficent—Mistress of All Evil, Fairy of the Darkness."

"A fairy? I don't see any wings." Riku scoffed.

"I had wings once; they were stolen from me. That's all I wish to say about it." Her face was solemn and as her tone quickened her face remained devoid of emotion. Riku wasn't sure he could trust a "Mistress of All Evil," but… she did say she was willing to help him. A deal was a deal.

"So, I guess there really are other worlds out there… even if they're divided. I wonder if Kairi's out there. Maybe I'll find Sora in one of those worlds too!"

"My dear boy, your latter friend cannot be found in any other world."

"Wh-why not?"

"Because he's here, in this world."

Maleficent turned; her presence obscured by a bookshelf.

"Wait!"

Riku ran after her, his eyes wide at the idea of Sora being here in this castle. There was a single door on the second floor of the library and he pushed through it, running onward, not thinking until he nearly fell off the quick ledge of the hallway that dropped off in front of him. He looked down, thankful he hadn't stumbled over the edge as it was an insanely long way down.

The hallway he was on lined the edges of the room; in the center—a bottomless echo of a cavern that buzzed unnervingly into nothing.

"It must go deep into the heart of this world." Riku mused.

Riku looked up, the ceiling even further up, but not endless. He bit his lip, wondering which way to go when a he felt a small bump on the back of his ankle. Lifting his leg, he saw that swirling green crystal that had been atop Maleficent's scepter. It rolled forward after catching his eye and lead to the turn of the walkway before meeting with a sparkling glyph. When it touched it, it vanished into a star of light before racing along a beam of light to the floor above.

"What's an evil fairy going to get out of helping me?" Riku said to himself before touching the glyph and riding a beam of light to the second floor. Turning into a star for a second made Riku feel kind of warm and tingly. He didn't like it—the split second of turning into a star and turning back to normal was disembodying. And though it wasn't the same, it reminded Riku of being lost in darkness.

When he came to, he held his head for a moment before noticing that same heart-like shape on the ceiling. Double doors stood before him. Once again, he pushed onward and upward.

There wasn't an inch in the room that wasn't a dirty brass color. The place looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie, with six clear tubes on either side of the entrance hall just big enough to hold a person. Furthest against the wall was that heart-thing again. It was swirling with black matter that made Riku's back feel cold. He rolled his shoulders and shook his head. He didn't like the feeling.

In the middle of the room was a small figure. Sora lay on the ground, limp like a doll.

"Sora!"

Riku ran up to his friend and grabbed him, shaking him by the shoulders to try and wake up him, but the boy's eyes remained closed, his lips slightly parted as if he were merely sleeping.

"I'm sorry, my dear boy. I did say your friend was here but it seems I may have been partial with the truth I told you." Maleficent stood at the far corner of the room. Her scepter whole once more and her voice unwavering. "While his body may be in this castle his heart is still elsewhere. I can bring it back for you, but it's not so simple. You see, his heart was split in two, but that's only a part of the truth as well. Think of it as a separation."

"A separation?"

"When a heart is stolen from a strong-willed person, like your friend, the heart becomes a heartless, the body becomes a shell—a nobody. But he is a special case indeed. Even though his heart was stolen, he still had another to spear. The heart he did lose wasn't even entirely his to lose. He seemed to have been sharing it with someone else, the poor thing. A heart is something you should never share."

"Would you quit playing around already? Stop talking in riddles."

"There's no need to shout just because you do not understand." Maleficent shifted her gaze from Riku to Sora and then back again. "In order to save your friend, you'll need to find the part of his heart that was his own as and the memories that belonged to it. As well, you'll need to find the guest's heart that was living on within' Sora's, both the part that belongs to the light, and the part that belongs to the darkness, and let's not forget that each has memories of their own to collect too. Lucky for you, the guest's dark heart and dark memories already lie before you. They were left in that shell-of-a-boy when he was attacked by the heartless. Only the light was taken from him."

She moved a filed finger to her sinister lips and made a shushing sound.

"They're sleeping now. Would you like for me to wake them up for you?"

"Please." Riku surprised himself with his tone. He squeezed Sora's shoulders. He didn't matter what was left of Sora for now, he wanted his friend back.

"So polite. Of course, there's just one little thing I need from you."

She took the crystal off her scepter and held it in her hand, squeezing it tight until it turned into a putty of black goop. She tossed it to Riku who had no choice but to catch it lest he let it land on Sora. It was warm and pulsed slightly in his hand.

"I need to keep a careful watch on you so that you keep up your end of the deal. So, if you don't mind…" She tapped her lips with her finger before sliding it down her long throat and Riku knew what she wanted him to do with this handful of darkness.

"You haven't even told me what you want."

Maleficent didn't reply, she only smiled patiently.

He'd do anything to save his friends. Anything. Even if it meant consuming the darkness he'd tried so hard not to give in to. Maybe he could control it this time. Maybe, if he could, then he can save Sora and find Kairi. He had to be strong. Strong like he promised he'd be. Strong, like how his friends thought he was strong.

He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, downing the darkness and letting shadows consume him from the inside out.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

After several excruciatingly long months that were—let's be honest, WAY longer than they should have been, I bring to you now THREE new chapters! Of course, they aren't totally new for those of you that were following along before the reconstruction of this fic, but they are edited and retconned appropriately to allow the story to move forward. For example, this chapter was choking itself on the amount of exposition-to-plot ratio but that has now been remedied for an easier read. Lets hope that it won't take another few months for me to get out another few chapters all at once, shall we?