The pod room is quiet, only the steady hum of electronics keeping it from absolute silence. That and the vitals monitor running on the keyboard. Naminé looks it over, frowning as she once again observes the small irregularity. It seems to fluctuate every minute or so, though truthfully she doesn't need a machine to tell her what's wrong.

Deciding to ignore the beeps, she stares down at the picture on her sketchpad. Three happy children sit on an island beach. Two boys, one brunette and one with silver hair, and a blonde girl in white. The one who isn't supposed to be there. Frowning, Naminé grabs the nearest pencil, the silver one she'd used on the last touches of Riku's hair. Gripping it tightly in her whole fist, she takes it to the blonde girl with wild abandon.

It feels surprisingly good, erasing herself from the picture. Sora's overpowering forgiveness streak aside, it's nothing less than she deserves. After all, it hadn't only been Marluxia's threats that had made her bring Sora to the castle, twist his mind around. She'd been lonely, and selfish, and a total idiot who…

"Uh, you okay there Naminé?"

The small blonde shrieks, practically jumping out of her chair. On pure reflex, she hurls the crayon in her hand in the voice's direction. It flies across the room, harmlessly bouncing of the chest of a black coat.

It takes a moment to get her breathing under control, and recognize the intruder. Upon seeing the familiar face, she calms down considerably. Riku stands before her, looking quite a bit different from the last time they saw each other. For one, he's in an Organization cloak, though she suspects that's simply to make moving through the Realm of Darkness safer. What the blindfold is for, she's not quite so sure. There's a momentary impulse to probe his memories and check, but she curbs it. That's not who she is anymore.

"I'm, uh, very sorry about that," Naminé says, standing up and placing her sketchpad on the control panel. "I just, um…"

"My fault," Riku apologizes, holding up his gloved hands in a peaceful gesture. "I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that Kai… Er, Naminé. Sorry about that too. You just, y'know, both feel so similar, and with the blindfold…"

"It's okay," she assures him. Pursing her lips, she adds, "You make me think of someone else I knew too."

The silver-haired young man's frown only deepens. "Yeah, I suppose I would. Look, Naminé, about the replica…"

"I know he attacked you first," the girl interrupts, looking away. Her eyes momentarily focus on the picture she was doctoring, but that's too hard to look at right now. "I just wish I knew why. He seemed so content the last time I saw him."

"I can't say either," Riku says, shrugging. "But you should know, Naminé, that at the end… well, I think he managed to find just a little bit of peace."

"Which is more than it should have expected."

A dark portal opens, shocking Naminé again. Especially with such a deep, imperious voice accompanying it. A man walks into the room, possibly the most strangely dressed person she's ever seen. Red is the dominant color, a thick blood-red. Bandages wrap around the man's face, leaving only spaces for one gold-colored eye and a few centimeters around his mouth free. There may be a spot for the other eye, but the pair of black belts criss-crossed over the space keep it from being visible. Add to that a long red cape, black robe with many pouches, and some kind of armor around his torso, and it's like a closet threw up. And yet, somehow it all ties together.

"Who…?" Naminé begins to ask, her voice quivering. She feels trapped again, like at any minute Marluxia is going to walk back in the door and start making demands of her. She hates that feeling.

"This is DiZ," Riku explains, gesturing to the man. He doesn't sound terribly enthusiastic or impressed. "I know he's kind of scary, but if you look past the dumb name, the awful outfit, and that condescending way he talks to you, I suppose he's alright. An ally."

"And one that you sorely need, my boy," DiZ says, walking up to the pod's control panel. He glides past Naminé as if she isn't even there, checking the readouts with a frown. "I see, it's just as I feared."

"H-he's a bit unstable," Naminé hurries to explain. "It's, well, because of the form he's in, because of when he became a Heartless. Um, Kairi, she sort of…"

"No need to babble," DiZ cuts her off, his lone eye casting its imperious gaze upon her. "I can deduce what is the matter without your help, Nobody."

"Watch the way you talk to her!" Riku says, stepping up to DiZ with a challenging tone to his voice. "If it weren't for her…"

"Were it not for her, we would not be in this position in the first place," DiZ interrupts again, apparently a habit of his. "You show a surprising amount of sympathy, given the circumstances. With that soft heart of yours, it's a wonder you were able to subdue the spirit of Ansem as well as you did."

"I'm sorry to pull us off topic here," Naminé cuts in nervously, "but weren't you traveling with the king, Riku?"

"We got separated," the blindfolded young man explains. "The dark realm is a big place after all. I met up with DiZ again not long after."

"And I still haven't managed to convince him that it was not I that engineered his and the king's detachment," DiZ adds with an amused note in his voice. "But that is the past, and therefore not important. What matters is that Sora is moved to a safer facility. Honestly, it's a wonder that the Organization has not shown up already."

"You sure we can move this safely?" Riku asks, crossing his arms. "I mean, it's not like all this equipment can be packed up in a box. We're gonna need another facility like this too."

"I am prepared," DiZ says, clearly affronted by the questioning of his judgment. "And as I said before, we haven't long to stand around bickering. The remaining Organization members will be upon us soon. Sora must be hidden properly."

"On that we agree," Riku says, glancing over in the pod's direction again. "And not just because of the remaining Organization members. This place, the castle… He can't stay here long when he's helpless like this."

Naminé nods in agreement. Riku had made his way up through the castle basements on his first journey through, which means he must have visited a few areas where the Organization hadn't done any redecorating. Blinding as the white halls are, what's down there is… She shudders.

"Then let us prepare to move," DiZ says, commanding as ever. He begins typing into the keyboard, faster than Naminé would ever be confident doing. As he does, his normal grimace only becomes more pronounced.

Naminé quietly leads Riku away from DiZ. "What exactly is DiZ's stake in all this?"

The blindfolded boy shrugs. "Couldn't get it out of him. He's a crazy asshole, but I think his word is good at least where Sora is concerned. And he seemed pretty happy when I gave him the tally of dead Organization members between us. I'm guessing there was some kinda grudge there, and he was particularly gleeful when I mentioned Vexen and one of the guy's I fought, Lexaeus."

"I didn't hear talk of any DiZ when I was being held captive," Naminé says thoughtfully. "But then again, I didn't get much info from them at all. The only one who ever really seemed to more than tolerate me was… Axel."

"He got out, by the way," Riku says. "DiZ was pretty peeved about how one had 'escaped'."

"Oh," Naminé says, unable to keep from feeling a small spark of gladness at the fact. Organization member though he was, the redheaded man had been the one to give her the first opportunity at freedom. As for all that business about going through her to get to Marluxia, she figured that he had to have known by then that Sora had arrived, that the Keybearer would never let harm befall her.

"If you two have finished gossiping, we are ready to move," DiZ announces, clasping both hands behind his back. "I've even managed to deduce a way to stabilize the process. It's so simple, I find myself quite embarrassed it took me even as long as it did."

"Oh yeah?" Riku says, stepping closer to the bandaged man. "And what exactly is this solution?"

"A quite satisfying one, I must say," DiZ answers, his mouth turning upwards in a wicked smile. Naminé flinches, suddenly preferring the usual grimace. "After all, what a boon it will be, to deprive the Organization of yet another of its members."

KH-KH-KH

A blond young man sits on the lip of a clocktower, contentedly watching the never-ending sunset. It beautifully illuminates the town below, providing a lovely view. The perfect place to relax after a day's long, grueling work. He closes his eyes, a gentle breeze stirring his black cloak.

"Hey there, fellow slacker," a cheery voice says, drawing the blond from his daydream. Opening his eyes, he watches as the similarly dressed redhead takes a seat beside him. "Glad I told ya about this spot now, eh? Well, as glad as any of us can be, I guess."

"Yeah," the boy says. "This is a nice place, Axel."

The Organization's number VII gives his young friend a smile, the feeling behind it almost believable. "Ya got that right, Roxas. Ya got that right."

Fading memories… reconstructed memories…

And a dream of you, in a world without you.

Whew, finally put this one in the bag. It wasn't something I initially wanted to do, skipping right to KttK II instead. But I figured that without this bridge between one and two, the series felt incomplete. Of course, there's also the fact that Castle Oblivion will be showing up in KttK III (with a completely different context for its origins, I feel I should say for those of you still understandably attached to canon. I scattered a few tiny hints about the story, very minute details that I hope will give everyone who read this an "ah-ha!" kind of moment when everything is revealed.)

Anyway, here I'll just say a huge thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this cheap knock-off of a story. It's time to get moving on, focusing on the end of Life Goes On and Keys to the Kingdom III. I hope you considered this journey worthwhile, and thanks for sticking with it!

Until next time!