Horribly generic title, I know, but I love the name of Riku's keyblade so much that I couldn't name it anything else.

Of course, reviews aren't required but they are very appreciated/adored/worshipped. XD Thanks for visiting and please enjoy.

He breathed it; he dreamed of it, he lived it. It was his constant companion, his best friend and his worst enemy.

It was... everything.

Darkness.

He had always been different than his light-filled friends—never afraid of the shadows and what might be hiding within them, always had a fascination for the morbid.

His whole life, he had just managed to keep this part of him at bay. But then came the day he slipped, let his captivation for the darkness lead him astray. He nearly lost his heart to the shadows he had so believed he could manipulate, control. He had thought he was better than that, too good to fall prey to his temptations.

He wasn't.

He couldn't control the darkness. It consumed him. He lashed out, said and did many horrible, hurtful things to the very people he once would have died for.

He almost dragged himself out. He was so close to the light, so close to forgiveness. But soon he realized his redemption lay in the shadows, and so he resigned himself to this life, a life shrouded with night and gloom. He would never be able to live in the light. He loathed the dark with everything he had, but there he remained.

But that was okay. He didn't mind. Because he loved his light-filled friends with all his heart, and if a life in the darkness he so despised was what it took to save them, to help them, to make them happy, then fine. He would live a thousand lives in the shadows if that would right even half the wrongs he had committed.

For a long time, he simply watched his friends from the dark, alone. It took quite a long time, quite a bit of fighting for the light, but there came a day when his heart nearly reached the perfect balance, floating in an indeterminate place between dusk and dawn. He was almost content. Not completely in the sunshine where he didn't belong, not completely in the shadows where he would drown. It was nearly perfect.

But soon he admonished himself. If anyone deserved happiness, it was certainly not him. He had betrayed those closest to him. He was a monster, a deceiver, and a bad friend.

So when the day came that he learned he must help his friend wake, he surrendered himself to the shadows, rejected the light for a second time, let himself sink deep, deep into darkness' stifling depths. His pale skin darkened, his young face aged and his aquamarine eyes yellowed. It almost got to where he couldn't see the light, almost got to where he lost himself.

But it meant he was helping his friend, and despite everything, he didn't care. He knew, no matter how far he sunk down, no matter how far he got off the path to light, that he would find his way someday, would find his way through the midnight.

Someday, he would find his way to the dawn.

A blue-eyed boy sleeping in a crystalline flower wiggled a finger, his first sign of life in over a year. Somewhere far away, a man covered with a shroud of darkness, a man with nothing to lose and everything to gain, smiled.

The path grew lighter.