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Riku walked along behind Sloth without complaint, the will to fight almost entirely gone. He vainly tried to keep back the tears, feeling weak for crying for the second time in less than a week after almost two years of never having the luxury of being able to shed such tears. As he wept silently he lost track of where they were and where they’d gone. When Sloth stopped, Riku bumped against his side.

“Why’d you do it?”

He swallowed, trying to piece together the little coherency that was left. “I thought it was going to help.” He shrugged Sloth’s hand away as best as he could, rubbing his hand over his arm as though trying to force warmth into it. “What do you care anyway? You don’t have a heart either, do you even feel pity anymore?” He didn’t want pity, but at this point he knew he was probably going to either get pity or not get anything at all. He didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He glanced outward away from Sloth to see pillars of light in the centers of platforms. When he looked into one, he could swear he saw a brief flash of Twilight Town, but it was gone when he looked again.

“Am I going to be a prisoner here? Why bother containing behind bars the ruined shell of a broken man?”

Riku blinked, looking at Sloth's hand a little bit confused. Did Sloth... care? Well that was ridiculous- wasn't it?

He smiled a little. Sloth was right, bizarre emotions aside. He shouldn't let it break him... right?

He stepped into his cell, walking to the edge of the platform. He hadn't really noticed where they'd gotten to, in those final moments, but now he saw that he was on one of the circular platforms like those he'd seen earlier. He cast a final glance back at Sloth before experimentally touching the air before him. His hand hit something solid, vague shimmering lights surrounding his fingers where it touched the barrier for a moment before they vanished.

He leaned his forehead against it and sighed. "What do I do now? Where did the King and Xeryim go, anyway? I hope he doesn't hurt Sora or Kairi." He gave a bleak chuckle. "If I threaten to kill him for harming my friends, does that mean I destroy my own heart?" He stared blankly outward, not really seeing anything at all, save a purple mist rising toward a ceiling and a shadow taking form and color into something of which he could never have dreamed...

Prison of the Worlds

Riku visibly jumped when he heard the other voice. So he wasn't alone, huh? He turned and regarded the other person, reclining somewhat peacefully against the wall.

"What happened to your hand?" he asked, blunt as a steel pipe. He didn't move any closer, but felt his hand twitch in response to the comment about his heart.

"How would you know anyway? Who the ******** are you?" He found it somewhat irritating that this guy had listened in on his mumbling to himself, and more irritating still that he seemed to know what was wrong with him. If having darkness as bad as his had been a burden, he was starting to think his lack of a heart was even worse. It was like some kind of blemish on his soul. Look at me, I have no heart yet I'm walking around and talking to you. I'm a freak of nature.

Prison of the Worlds

He felt his jaw drop open slightly. Greed?

"But you were killed! Roxas told me Pride dragged you away to be executed." He took a few steps toward the other Heartless, sitting on his knees a few paces away. "Everyone thinks that you're dead, Greed. Everyone out there thinks you were killed."

His mind was spinning at a thousand revolutions a minute. "You lied to them!" he said abruptly, as he remembered what Roxas had said about Kingdom Hearts. "You told them Kingdom Hearts was destroyed, but here we are. Why did you lie to them?"

Prison of the Worlds

He nodded bleakly, relaxing backward as his knees started to complain from supporting his weight.

"I'm not really alive though, am I? Human beings can't live without a heart. So I'm not really living."

He couldn't help wondering where Sora was, what he was doing. How was Kairi? Was she still as blissfully ignorant as she'd been when they left? Or as much as they could hope, after Saix butted in where he wasn't wanted.

"Oh man," he mumbled. Where was Roxas? If the news was out about his disappearance, how was Roxas taking it?

Prison of the Worlds

After dumping Envy into the room of his birth he stormed through corridors, furious glare etched almost permanently into the lines of his face, sea-like eyes now stormy with rage. The flared collar of his vest fluttered around his jaw as he nearly jogged through the hallways, chain clanking angrily. There was someone with whom he needed to speak.

Now.

He rounded a corner, ending beside his cell, and took a deep breath, fixing his appearance. No need to look as though he’d sprinted here, was there?

“So they dumped you in here too? At least I won’t be here alone anymore.”

He frowned at the sound of Greed’s voice, reminding himself of all the things he’d been told of the ex-Heartless, as it were. There was a long pause, and he heard his big brother’s voice.

“I suppose not. How long will I have to stay here?”

Xeryim was tired of waiting. He snaked into the cell, letting the bounds knit back into place as he walked over, standing beside the sitting Riku.

“You will be here forever, Pawn. You are never leaving this place, and you will never find peace, for without a heart to stop beating you cannot die.” He cast his hand downward, looping the chain around the neck of his brother, dragging the other man up to his face, feet sprawled outward uncomfortably as the chain’s rings cut viciously into Riku’s neck, drawing blood. “You will rot here, Riku, suffering in the knowledge of enabling the near fatal pain of countless innocents.”

Riku stared dumbly at him for a moment, mouth working like a fish gasping for breath as he searched for words, fingers clutching vaguely at the chain without success. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“You are pitifully uninformed, aren’t you, Fearless? Sora’s been through a right mess with me around. It was so easy to break his will– his Heartless took the reins for a bit there. Kairi knows about you and Sora. All of it. She was devastated. Roxas was broken, and Yuffie nearly took her ridiculous shuriken to her own wrists.”

He swallowed hard as he realized the impact of Kairi’s revelation. “What did you do to Roxas?” he choked.

“Nothing really, just showed him a very interesting possibility.” He threw Riku aside, letting the heartless body slam against the floor. “I’m really tired of them asking about you. I’m really sick of them shoving your name down my throat. I may not be able to kill you. But I wanted you to know that I’ll be back, and I know ways to make your non-life a hell of your own worst fears.” He kicked Riku in the stomach, forcing the boy to ball up, protecting himself from further abuse.

Xeryim looked at Greed, snorting derisively before turning to the door, hand outstretched to open it. “Oh yeah, and big brother?”

Riku looked up at him, coughing as he tried to regain his breath, small rivulets of blood dripping down his neck from sporadic puncture wounds ringing along his flesh.

“Just to let you know. Sora believes you hate him.”

He opened the door and walked out, smirking as it slid shut behind him, knowing he’d just delivered a crushing blow.

“Hate him... why would he think that?” Riku tried to push himself up to his knees, still doubled over painfully, swiping a hand across the cuts and staring blankly at red-stained fingertips. “Why would Sora ever think I hated him?” He wanted to cry, to get rid of the pain. But he had no more tears to shed, no outlet for the storm of horrible revelations dumped on his head. “What am I going to do?”

Prison of the Worlds

Xeryim's words had cut so deep. It didn't seem he could possibly hurt this much, yet here he was. He wanted to die and fade away like the bizarre pseudo-Nobody he now was, if it meant that the pain would stop.

“Well nothing. You might as well sit down and relax, you know.”

Nothing? How could he do nothing when so many people were in pain, and Sora thought he hated him? Kairi was in pain, Yuffie, Roxas... How could he sit by and do nothing at all?

When Greed yanked him up he found himself crying out in pain as his flesh realigned to its non-balled-up positions. "Nngh... don't 'help' me again," he said, pushing away from the Heartless and rubbing a hand painfully over his stomach. After a moment, Greed's words caught up to him.

"Is there..." He almost didn't dare to hope. "Is there a way to talk to them from here?" How? They couldn't ask him to give up more for the chance to speak with the outside- they had all that was left, both his blindfold and his heart. Surely no one would let him contact his friends for nothing?