[holding off on adding in more info was the right call. going off the reaction, the info overwhelmed roxas well enough. not surprising, really, considering he'd been taught the very opposite of the truth. riku himself doesn't know what this means or how it happened or how roxas has his own heart while sora has his (definitely has that, riku got to check that out) and he's just the messenger so roxas has to be way more confused than that.]

Yeah. Nobodies aren't as much of a nobody as everyone thought.

[people who lacked hearts still had them. who'd have thought, right? all they knew pointed to them lacking it. all they knew, or at least the major details, were ones provided by the puppet master pulling all their strings.]

Xehanort played us all with that one.

[as nice and easy as blaming everything on old norty is, riku won't take that path. he made his choices despite having some doubts. this much he accepts. next step after accepting? saying so aka the hard part. he sighs before speaking once more.]

And I should've put two and two together sooner. There were hints to it, hints I ignored because I was too blinded by my own goals to believe it possible.

[thinking about whether or not your best friend's nobody has a heart really isn't a thing you wanna do while trying to save said best friend. an apology bubbles up but dies on his lips. 'sorry your life was hell and that i made it worse' doesn't really do much. leaving it without admitting to how badly he screwed up won't do, though.]

You didn't deserve what you went through, whether it be at Xehanort's hands or mine.