Beyond here, there be spoilers for KH:DDD - don't go further if you haven't seen the spoilers.
This is an AU rewrite of KHDDD - based on the tvtropes wmg "What if Sora fell into darkness and Riku had to save him?"
"Hey, Sora, mind if we talk for a bit?" Kairi is casual in that strange open way that all princesses of Heart, in that way that makes everyone want to talk. Riku leans on the wall, listening to every drop and waver of their voices.
"Haha, nope!" The laughter and excitement is forced and they all know it.
"Well, are you alright?" Sora looks stricken, but puts on a confused mask. They all notice and Kairi continues, "You've been more closed off since you and Riku came back… is there any problems happening? At home? At school?"
"No, not at all," He is lying and it is heartbreaking to all three of them, "I dunno what you're talking about Kairi. It's probably some stress or something. I'll get better soon, I promise."
"But-"
He cuts her off, his words so chilling and cold like the Queen of Hearts' guillotine, "I always keep my promises, really. I'll get better."
He walks away, tearing himself away from the heaviness of Kairi's worried gaze.
/
See, all they want to do is interfere.
Shut up!
They've never been your friends, Sora.
Just go away.
/
"I'm myself!" Sora shouts at Xehanort, who merely raises an eyebrow at his response. It makes Sora feel like a child, waving Riku's oversized keyblade for a stupid quest.
(What did he fight for? Friends? His home? All that the keyblade brought him was pain.)
"Are you sure?" The man teleports behind him and Sora slices through the air – a pace away from slashing his midsection. He continues, as if nothing as happens, "Are you sure you are the real personality? Not some anagram of the past?"
"Your friends – Riku and Kairi – they're fairly similar to Ventus' friends. I wonder if his heart chose to become their friends, due to their similarities."
"I choose my own friends!"
Sora growls angrily. His anger is ignored again and Sora truly starts to hate this unflappable man – unaffected by fear, nothing. Xemnas was the lord of nothing as a nobody and Sora has this feeling that his somebody is exactly the same, except with more creepy grins.
"That face reminds me of a young boy… he had the same darkness as you."
"Shut up!" He remembers that apparition and how close it mirrored his face. It can't be him. It can't. He doesn't want to know now.
The old warrior smiles in his horrible, dark grin, which clashed against the holy atmosphere of the church and trapped Sora in his own confusion. He continues breaking Sora's confidence in his heart, "So, you already know, Sora… or should I say Vanitas."
"Stop… Stop calling me names of other people!" The boy recovers, but that can't do for Xehanort and he pulls the strings tighter. "I get that enough from your minions!"
"You can't deny this forever, Sora. If you do, you won't be able to control your darkness. And who knows what would happen to your friends?"
He shrugs and Sora hates him more for saying the truth.
"I can teach you how to control it, if you join me."
Sora barks, "Never!" but this is good enough. He'll join him soon.
/
The nightmare is dying. Its feathers are dissipating into the sky as Sora pummels it with his keyblade and magic. Nyaoof and Raff are supporting his fight, one blasting healing spells on his body, the other charging into the monster again and again. It is almost simple.
But, it makes a single desperate move and throws itself at Nyaoof. Sora can't lose Nyaoof and so, he runs after the nightmare. He is almost too late, but energy flows through his body and darkness slashes through the nightmare. It disappears quickly, leaving only smoke and its feathers.
It also leaves behind the fading body of Nyaoof.
Sora spams healing spells on his body, sobbing and apologizing at the same time. Nyaoof's golden eyes are growing dimmer each passing moment.
It makes a pathetic whimper and licks Sora's cheek kindly. It disappears in pink haze, leaving Sora with Raff and a black-and-red keyblade.
Someone whispered into his head – that voice – "So you killed it. Just like you did with the nobodies."
"Shut up! They didn't have hearts anyway."
Vanitas laughed, "Nobodies grow hearts, don't you know?"
Sora was silent.
"See… you're just a murderer with a keyblade of darkness. Just like me." Sora's scream permeates through the air.
Xehanort smiles from his vantage point.
/
"I know now," Fear swelled in Riku's throat. Sora's eyes were so dark, so unlike the sky, that they mirrored the stormy surface of the world, and his voice so cold, almost like him, "what this keyblade truly looks like."
He laughs. It's an insane cackle. Riku stares at that blood-red and coal-black blade, feeling a chill of that darkness. That darkness, which haunted him for three years, which caused the (temporary) death of his home, which was seeping from that blade, was in Sora.
"What do you mean?" Riku demands, voice hoarse from fear, "That's not you! You're better than that thing!"
"This keyblade is mine, not yours, not his," He bites his lip, in a surprisingly Sora-like fashion. For a moment, Riku sees pain canvasing his tan face, "Maybe, just maybe, after killing all of them and him – this is the real me."
Sora reaches out his hand to him, "Come. We'll go together." Darkness illuminates his feet.
Riku wants to take his hand, but he does not. He stands stoically in the midst of the lights of Traverse Town. He wants to struggle for his hand, like Sora did so long ago. But, he doesn't and stands.
Riku stares into the insane blue of Sora's eyes and hates himself (for being too weak to save him).
Sora grins, as if he was expecting his silent refusal, and allows the darkness to envelop him. Riku starts to move, but then he is gone.
/
"Sora! You saved me from the darkness before." Riku points his sword at Sora, "I'll take you to the dawn, I promise."
Sora starts cackling, sounding almost broken. "You can't! I've done so much… I can't go back, Riku."
"I used to think that too, Sora," Riku replies, "But, I will do anything for you – my best friend."
"I killed them. The nobodies," Riku starts at their mention. He didn't feel any regret before, so why? "They had hearts and were somebodies and I killed them!"
"They're back now, Sora, and they forgive you,"
Sora looked away, summoning his red-black skeletal blade. As they readied for battle, tensing, waiting to see who would strike first, Riku calls out to him, to his heart, "Sora! I'll be your light, just like you were for me."
Sora strikes first.
/
"I'll go," and like that he is swept into a vortex of light and darkness – descending into Sora's heart.
He stands on a pillar of light and colored glass. There is a boy standing in front of him and he looks so much like Roxas, but that isn't him. Roxas didn't have a shoulder guard and the boy's clothes had different colors than the nobody.
"Who are you? And where am I?"
"I am Ventus," He smiles softly, "And you should know where this is."
"Sora's heart," The glass he is standing on seems so fragile now.
"His heart was shattered by Xehanort and so, you must rebuild it."
The glass floor and surrounding night shifts into a familiar home, Destiny Island, and Ventus turns his gaze to Sora.
He says, "I was the first," and walks into Sora. Sora is standing on the sand peacefully with the waves licking his ankles, but his eyes are blank and still as a lifeless pool.
It's time to start finding Sora.
He checks in the grove where they sparred, before they knew of darkness. He checks where their raft was tied. It's still there. He looks all over, until he reaches the secret cove. He looks inside and sees pitch darkness. He lights the torches with a quick Fira and strides inside.
He is prepared to see what composes up Sora, but not for the sudden attack. He recognizes the similar face and the keyblade.
"Sora? How?" He was expecting a peaceful process of taking each part of Sora back, not some black-haired, gold-eyed lookalike attempting to kill him. It was rather easy, given that he understood enough of his own fighting style to defeat the clone.
A frightening thought flashed through his head, as he pressed his keyblade on the lookalike's neck. Was this part something Sora saw in him and idolized?
The lookalike smirked at him and began to cackle. That didn't help.
Riku then lifted him up and carried him to Sora. "You are the second, right?"
The clone looked sad for somebody who radiated so much darkness, "Yeah…"
Riku pushed him into Sora. The overwhelming light radiating from Sora became muted, neutralized. Sora was in the middle of darkness and light – the ideal of all hearts.
He then saw a black-cloak at their sparring place. It must be Roxas.
He jumps onto the bridge leading to the grove of palm trees. It's quite a shocker when he realizes that this isn't Roxas, but a girl.
Who is she?
She removes her hood. She looks like Kairi, but she looks so fragile, her blue-eyes bright as Sora and her black hair as somber as The-World-that-Never-Was.
He doesn't know her too.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Xion, number XIV." Her face doesn't show any emotion and her voice is as serene as Destiny Islands on one of its dull days.
"That's not true… there were only 13 members in the Organization."
She shrugs, "I guess that's true in a way. Let's go to Sora."
They walk silently to him.
Once they reach Sora, she strokes his cheek as if replaying the same scene from a time before, "Thank you, Riku," and like that, she is gone.
There is a bit more of life in Sora's eyes, but despair as well.
He begins to search for Roxas and finds him where the raft is docked.
"Hey." It's not the smoothest conversation starter, but Riku will take what he'll get.
"Hey, Riku," Roxas looks at the sea, "This is where it all started. A desire to open the world, to see what lay beyond this, to reach for the unknown started your journey. There is darkness in the unknown, but there is hope."
"I know… I know so much." It is his greatest failure and greatest success.
"You cannot change the past," It is a simple statement, but so difficult to listen to, "You made things better in the end. Vanitas would have festered in Sora's heart and transformed Sora into the thirteenth 'Xehanort.'"
"I still did wrong. I could have saved him."
"But, you can still save him now. When I was still with the Organization, I could not save my friend and she died by my own hand. You have a chance."
"Yeah, I do."
"Let's go to Sora now. I want to see my friend again." The girl?
"Alright." They go together.
When they reach him, Roxas goes back to Sora the same way as before.
"Wake up, Sora." He is gone then.
Sora blearily blinks, "Where am I?"
They are no longer in Destiny Island, but in his heart of glass and light.
"You're home." Home is where the heart is.
"I am?"
"Yeah. Let's go to our friends." Riku offers a hand and Sora clutches onto it, "We'll go together."
I don't own Kingdom Hearts. lalala
Happy /late/ Birthday Charisse! I hope you enjoy this! Thanks for being my friend through middle school and high school - I wouldn't have survived without you :)
So - background
This operates from the theory that Vanitas lives in Sora's heart and is at the beginning of the fic, corrupting Sora's heart and in general destroying his convictions. It also refers to the theory that Sora has three keyblades - Riku's original, Ven's, and Vanitas'
Nyaoof - Wondernyan and Raff - is the giraffe one
It's my personal headcanon that Sora would name his dream eaters haha
I hope some readers noticed the shoutouts to FFVII and other KH Games :)