Yeah, um, please don't mind the fact that Vexen's notes kind of contradict themselves at times. I noticed that I had the first set of notes describing Riku as having a high pain tolerance, and now this second set seems to indicate that Vexen is complaining that Riku can't handle enough pain. Silly scientist, please to be making up your own mind, kthnx. XP

I'm not sure why Riku's pain produces better hearts though, unless it somehow overwhelms him to the point that all he can do is cling to a tiny glimmer of light deep inside of him -- and/or maybe he knows in his heart that he needs to survive for the sake of somebody or something, though he can't remember with his mind who or what, and it's his strength of heart and will that compels him to hang on. And this determination, coupled together with the light, gives rise to better hearts.

Or something to that effect. ^_^;

If Riku is a Replica, I don't know if the above hypothesis would still hold true or not, so I won't have the notes say anything more about it. But I figured that the whole 'more pain = better hearts' would give Vexen a good excuse to keep torturing 'improving' Riku.

And I couldn't resist tossing in a mention of the other Roxas. ^^ I don't know if Riku will sense something familiar about him at all, but I'm thinking that newbie!Roxas somehow gets a hold of one of Riku's hearts and tries to shove it into his own chest ... or Riku could try to shove it in Roxas' chest. Either way, Roxas has a very poor reaction to the heart, since it's not his own, but the experience is of some marginal interest for Vexen since none of the other Organization members have tried to use Riku's hearts like that before. They tried using them with Dusks and other lesser Nobodies in the past, but the results were not promising.

*flails helplessly* Or something like that. I dunno. Have any plotbunnies that you want to let loose, by any chance? ^^