Roxas was quite shocked to see Riku when I met him for training again. He also wasn't too happy to see him there…

"What the hell is he doing here?" Roxas asked, face scrunching slightly in irritation as he gestured towards Riku.

Sora smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, you see…" He started, not quite sure how to explain himself to Roxas. Riku seemed to be able to sum it up for him quite well though.

"It's a long story. In short, Sora asked me to assist in his training." Riku explained.

"Why?"

"I just thought I'd be able to learn more stuff and faster if I had both of you teaching me." Sora answered. Roxas looked back and forth between the two of them then crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't like it." He stated, settling his eyes on Sora before continuing. "But it's your choice, not mine. So I guess we'll give it a shot. I can't guarantee that this will work out how you want it to though."

"So what have you taught him?" Riku asked as Sora grabbed his wooden sword to begin training. Roxas rolled his eyes as he turned his attention to Riku.

"It's only been a week. I taught him the basics."

"And how is he doing with that?"

Roxas sighed, placing his hands on his hips. "Why don't you watch and see?" He sassed. Riku simply stared at him in response, so Roxas got into position and nodded at Sora, who quickly took his fighting stance and launched himself at Roxas.

He easily deflected Sora's attacks, but that was to be expected since he was still only a beginner. He was doing well though. He could tell Sora was quickly becoming more comfortable fighting. His movements were becoming smoother, though he still fought like he was swinging around a baseball bat. It seemed to just be his style though.

"Good, keep it up." Roxas praised.

"Actually," Riku interjected suddenly, making the pair stop and look at him in confusion. "this isn't challenging enough. At this pace it's going to take him ages to learn to fight."

Roxas' brows furrowed as he glared at Riku. "What do you mean? This is exactly how our mentors taught us to fight."

"Maybe this is how you were taught to fight." Riku looked him dead in the eye as he spoke, his tone firm and serious. "But that's not how I was taught."

"What do you mean? That's how everyone was taught."

"Not me." Riku stated again. Before Roxas could respond again, Sora was placing his hand on his shoulder.

"Roxas… Riku had a personal trainer so he could protect me. Because I wasn't supposed to..." Sora explained calmly. Roxas stared at him for a moment. He'd forgotten about Riku's special training. With a huff he turned his attention back to Riku.

"Fine. You take over then." He said, dismissing his keyblade and moving to where Riku was standing.

With a nod of understanding, Riku stepped away from Roxas and moved over to Sora, taking the wooden sword from his hands and throwing it to the side. He then summoned his keyblade and handed that off to him. Roxas' eyes widened in surprise when the keyblade didn't disappear from his hand. That wasn't right. It was supposed to return to it's wielder, it shouldn't stay with someone that wasn't blessed with the ability.

Sora, on the other hand, was giving him one of the most confused and concerned looks he'd ever seen, though he said nothing as Riku took a few steps back and got into a defensive position.

"Alright. Bring it on." He said, smirking at Sora. He continued to stare at him for a moment in confusion before taking a swing at Riku. He easily deflected him, honestly, he wasn't even sure Sora was trying to hit him. He seemed too out of it.

"Sora, snap out of it and fight me for real!" Riku snapped as he slapped away another half assed attack.

Sora paused, looking up at him in confusion. "I don't understand. What are we doing? And how are we supposed to fight fairly if you don't have a weapon?"

"We're sparing. Don't worry about the finer details. Just attack me, for real." Riku insisted. Sora still didn't fully understand what was going on, but he sighed and nodded his confirmation before attacking him in the appropriate manner.

"Good." Riku smiled slightly. "But it's not enough."

"What do you mean?" Sora questioned. Riku was still only deflecting his attacks with his hands. It was kind of crazy to watch. He'd never seen anyone defend themselves in a sword fight with only their hands.

"I want you to fight me with everything you've got. Let's go! Pick up the pace, hit me like you mean it!" Riku commanded, and though he was concerned as to what might happen, he obeyed, not wanting to upset him. As they continued to fight though, Sora saw how easy this was for Riku. He wasn't breaking a sweat, he wasn't even concerned. He blocked every single one of Sora's attacks like it was nothing.

After a few more minutes Sora stopped, panting as he kept his gaze glued to Riku.

"Come on, Sora. Is that all you got? I expected better from you!" Riku taunted with a cheeky smirk. Sora blinked in surprise as his brows pinched together. He didn't understand, he thought he was doing pretty well, but now he wasn't so sure.

"Roxas would be giving me more of a work out than this." Riku said and Sora huffed in frustration.

"Roxas knows how to fight!" Sora argued.

"So do you, now let's go! This time like you mean it!" Riku gestured for him to come at him again.

Sora gripped the keyblade tightly, trying to process what was happening. He locked eyes with Riku, his eyes hard and taunting, like he was picking on him without even having to say anything. It hurt in a way, it made him feel like he wasn't good enough, and that feeling just served to piss him off. With his brows deeply furrowed and his jaw clenched tightly shut he charged at Riku, lashing out at him with all he had, putting all of his anger behind every attack.

The whole time they were sparring Riku kept saying things to spur him on, like;

"Don't you want to protect the people you love?" and, "They're gonna die if you keep fighting like that!"

It was infuriating.

Riku still managed to block every one of his attacks though. Sora wasn't even sure how after some point, he was moving faster than he ever thought was possible, but Riku still managed to keep up. With everything that was going on Sora didn't have a chance to see the look of concentration on Riku's face, or the concerned one on Roxas'. The only thing he was concentrated on were his anger induced attacks as he lashed out at Riku.

"You can't save me if you keep fighting like this Sora!"

Sora's eyes widened at those words, memories of his nightmare flashing through his mind, and something inside him broke, like a dam shattering and water gushing out. He wasn't even sure what happened next really, it all happened so fast. Before he knew it, his blade was suddenly heading straight for Riku's head, and Riku seemed startled. Unprepared.

A wave of terror washed over him as he watched Riku stumble back slightly, a weird shield appearing before Riku, blocking his attack.

"Holy shit..." Sora breathed out, all the anger suddenly evaporating from his body and being replaced with a flood of panic as he simply stood there and stared at Riku, his hands shaking with fear.

"Alright..." Riku started, breathing slightly heavier than normal, giving way to his own bit of panic and exhaustion, as he stared up at Sora. After a moment he regained his senses and a small smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. "Now I know what button to push."

Sora stared back at him for a bit longer, a million thoughts running through his head, before dropping the keyblade, the weapon disappearing once it hit the ground, and collapsing onto his knees. His whole body was shaking, heavy breaths rushing out of his mouth as tears began to drip from his eyes. He had almost hurt Riku, he probably would have killed him if Riku hadn't managed to put up a shield. And all because he had let his emotions get the better of him. He didn't even know why he got so mad, he just… The memory of Riku being stabbed flashed through his mind again and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, a small, broken hiccup pushing out of his mouth.

Riku didn't even bother getting off the ground, just crawled over on all fours and sat down in front of Sora Indian style.

"Hey." He whispered, reaching over slowly and gently taking Sora's hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand in a soothing manner. "You did great."

Sora didn't respond though, he just kept silently crying and Riku sighed.

"I cried too the first time. Well..." Riku paused and let out a halfhearted chuckle. "the first few times actually."

Sora froze at that point, his eyes snapping open as realization washed over him. That was Riku's special training, that's what he had to go through after he saved Sora, that's how he learned to fight. His head snapped up suddenly, teary eyes locking onto Riku's for a moment before he suddenly pulled Riku into a hug.

"That's what you went through?" Sora whispered and Riku nodded slowly as he began to return the hug.

"Yeah. My instructor had said a hell of a lot worse to me though." Jimminy Christmas, Sora didn't even want to know what horrible things they had probably said to Riku.

"Well that explains a whole lot." Roxas added as he finally approached the pair.

"What do you mean?" Riku questioned, looking at him in mock confusion.

"Your uh… Sparkling personality." Roxas drawled. Riku looked him dead in the eye, his expression deadly serious.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm a fucking ray of sunshine." Sora immediately cracked up, causing a smile to break out across Riku's face, shattering the super serious expression he had on his face.

Roxas smiled, and shook his head in response. "Whatever. Perhaps we should take it a bit easier on Sora? I'm not sure he can handle this kind of training, and it feels wrong to push him like that."

Riku looked over to Sora for a moment before turning his attention back to Roxas. "He can handle it. I know he can."

And it was true. Riku wholeheartedly believed that I could handle this intensive training. Knowing that filled me with pride and determination. It pushed me to work harder, to become better at a faster pace, because we had little time to spare. I had to learn to fight before everything went to shit.

And I could tell that time was rapidly approaching.

He was back in that dream. Only things were more clear this time. It was getting dark out, the sun setting low on the horizon, most of the light around him was coming from street lights. He could see Heartless crawling up buildings and Nobodies slithering their way down the street. Then there were those monsters he didn't know. He'd never seen them before, but they resembled the Heartless quite a bit in an odd way. The only reason he knew they weren't was due to the insignia on their bodies.

People were running from them screaming, though he had no clue what they were probably seeing. Since he could see through the magic all he saw were the monsters and the chaos they left in their wake. Whatever it was though, it wasn't good.

As he looked around more, he spotted Roxas down a side street. He had two keyblades summoned and was brutally assaulting any enemies that dared get close enough to him. Even the demons that looked like humans didn't stand a chance against him. He had already knocked out this woman with blonde, slicked back hair and was currently attacking a man with long black dreadlocks.

To his left he discovered Axel, though the demon appeared to be fighting with them rather than against them, flames spiraling around him as he threw a pair of chakrams at this blue haired man. His opponent was wielding a large, sword like weapon, swinging it around with ease as he blocked all of Axel's attacks.

Finally he turned his attention above, recalling the last time he was in this dream. He spotted Riku, fighting that man with the cold yellow eyes that looked right through him.

Riku didn't appear to be struggling at all either. In fact, he was holding his own quite easily, which was incredible considering how fast he and his opponent were moving. They were practically a blur in the sky.

But soon enough, just as it had happened last time, Riku was struck, and Sora still wasn't sure by what. All he knew was that Riku was falling to the ground, and he was calling out his name as his legs were carrying him across the pavement at a speed he didn't even know he was capable of.

Before he could reach him though, in a flash his opponent was towering over him, plunging his saber into Riku's chest.

Sora felt his heart breaking at the sight, and before he knew it, that man was in front of him, stabbing him as well. He looked up with blurry eyes at the man's wicked smile.

"You're mine."

Sora snapped awake, sitting straight up, breathing heavily and tears already streaming from his eyes as he looked around the dark room. He could hear someone else's heavy breathing as well. His mind slowly registered it as Riku's, though he couldn't see him, and he couldn't feel him in bed beside him anymore.

"Riku?" Sora called, voice hoarse from sleep.

"Here." Riku answered simply, his own voice breathy, startled.

"What happened?"

It was silent for a moment, the only sound being that of the pairs breathing. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness he began to make out Riku's dark form.

"I..." Riku started slowly, unsure of how to respond. "You were screaming in your sleep. I woke up and… Nightmares."

Sora's eyes widened and he shifted on the bed, trying to get closer to Riku.

"But how? I thought that kind of stuff couldn't enter this zone."

"Dream Eaters can. They only cause bad dreams, there's no reason to keep them out."

Sora nodded slowly in understanding, the room falling silent. After a moment Riku stalked over to the light switch, flicking it on. Sora closed his eyes for a moment so he wouldn't be blinded by the sudden brightness, before slowly blinking them open and looking up at Riku. His expression was filled with concern.

"You look like you just saw a ghost." Riku muttered. Sora laughed shakily.

"After everything that I've seen, I don't think a ghost could possibly scare me."

"I guess that's true." Riku conceded, though his mood didn't seem to lighten any as he slowly made his way over to the bed and sat down beside Sora. "What did you dream about?"

Sora sighed, his expression dropping as he wiped at his eyes. "The same thing as last time. That battle and you dying..."

Riku let out a sigh of his own, leaning forward and dropping his head on Sora's shoulder.

"I'm sorry..." Riku mumbled, relaxing against him.

Sora smiled sadly at this and placed his hand on Riku's head in a comforting manner.

"It's not your fault." Sora whispered in response.

"I know, I just… feel bad."

Sora nodded in understanding, pulling him a bit closer. "Let's go back to bed."

It took me a while to get back to sleep after that dream. It had been so much more real than the last time I'd had it. Plus, I was worried about Riku. He was a lot more shaken up than I'd expected him to be, but every time I asked him if something was wrong he'd just tell me he was fine. At some point I drifted off, but I don't think Riku managed to get back to sleep that night.

Riku was still wide awake, well after Sora had fallen asleep again. He couldn't bring himself to close his eyes. Every time he did all he kept seeing was Sora getting stabbed through the chest like in that damned dream. He had not been woken up by Sora's screams, though he was screaming when he woke up. No, he had woken up from his own nightmare. His dream matched Sora's description of the one he'd had perfectly, only from his perspective. And at the end, he didn't die. Only Sora did...

He'd been having more and more nightmares since he'd Fallen, usually they weren't too bad, a lot of the time they were about him Falling again. But that dream he just had… It fucked him up. He'd woken up in a cold sweat, shaking and taking ragged breaths. He sat there for a moment, trying to calm down until he noticed the Nightmares in his room.

Riku sighed, looking over at Sora's sleeping form, his face was peaceful with his mouth slightly open, snoring quietly. He seemed fine now, no more nightmares. He wished things would remain like this, wished he could keep things this peaceful for him. He knew he worried about their future constantly, because Riku did as well. If he could he would take all of that worry away from him. But he couldn't. And for now, he would just have to wait and see what their future held. He just prayed that dream wasn't going to come true.