Well, here I am again, this time with a short Kingdom Hearts fic. This started out as just an idea of Riku and Naminé talking and quickly ended up becoming a mostly dialogue pseudo-character study of the two of them and their motivations. I wouldn't call this a one-shot since it's significantly shorter than any of my other work, but more like a drabble. There's gonna be one more chapter after this and then I'm back to working on Marvelous Misadventures. Anyway, please read and review, and I hope you enjoy.
Special thanks to my friend Aditya for proof-reading this for me.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Kingdom Hearts series or its characters. All credit for the game and characters goes to Disney, Square Enix, Tetsuya Nomura, and all other involved parties.
Chapter 1: Who You Are
Frantic, the blonde-haired girl ran through the abandoned streets of the dimly-lit town. Traverse Town was supposed to be a good place to lay low.
"Apparently not." thought the girl as she ducked down another alleyway.
She had been poking around the newer parts of town, the fourth or fifth district, she couldn't remember and didn't care at this point. That's when they found her; the Nobodies, white husks of former lives. They contorted inhumanly through the air in their pursuit of the panicked teenager. She rounded a few more turns to shake them off, but they were gaining quickly. The girl's white sundress and light-blue sandals weren't exactly made for running.
The now exhausted girl made one last turn under a stone archway, her blue eyes widening at what she saw, it was a dead end. The Nobodies surrounded her, making strange muffled noises from their zipper-like mouths as they prepared to attack. The girl clenched her eyes shut as the twisted creatures lunged forward to attack, but the pain never came.
The hum of a blade was heard slicing through the air. The girl opened her eyes just in time to see the Nobodies shatter into oblivion as they were struck down one by one, then two by two, until there were none left. What stood in their place was a tall man in a black coat with his hood pulled up, a strange sword that looked like a demonic wing in his hand.
"You shouldn't run off on your own like that, Naminé." he said in a deep voice.
"I've spent most of my life in captivity or in hiding. Can you really blame me for exploring a little?" responded the girl, Naminé, with a sheepish smile.
The man shrugged. "I guess n-get down!"
Naminé dropped to the ground as the man thrust his blade forward, skewering one last Nobody.
Naminé got up, releasing the breath she had been holding. "Thank you, Riku."
The man dismissed his sword in a cloud of darkness. "…I told you, it's Ansem."
Naminé pouted. "I'm not calling you that."
The man simply walked away silently as she followed after him.
"You may look like Ansem, but you're not. You are Riku."
"…Riku is dead."
Naminé stopped and stared, slack-jawed as she wrapped her head around what he just said to her. The two of them continued in silence down several roads, neither of them looking at one another. Naminé was deep in thought as she walked before she decided to break the silence.
"Was it a lie?"
"Hm?"
"Back at Castle Oblivion, you said you wanted to face your friends, you said you would face your friends. Was it a lie?"
The man seemed to consider her words deeply for a moment. "I guess it was."
Naminé looked away and scowled ruefully.
"I'm curious now," he said suddenly, causing Naminé to look up, "why did you help me in the first place?"
"At Castle Oblivion? Because DiZ found me and told me to."
"Now that can't be right. You're saying after you rebelled against the Organization to help Sora, you just gave yourself over to the next guy looking to use you?"
"What's it matter? He and I had a mutual goal so I went along with him." she responded, indignantly.
"Is that all, no personal reason?"
Naminé hung her head. "Part of it was because I finally got a chance to help someone."
"Weren't you already helping Sora?"
"I meant someone who's life I didn't screw up. I destroyed Sora's life in that castle, not to mention that Replica of you. Helping you was a way for me to finally start atoning for everything I had done."
"So, it was out of guilt?"
"Yeah, mostly."
The man thought for a moment. "That seems like a lot of guilt for, what, a few weeks of forced deeds."
Naminé looked up at him, bitterly. "You don't get it, it wasn't just Sora, it was my whole life before that."
What do you mean?"
Naminé lowered her head again. "Like all Nobodies, I started out unable to feel anything. After the Organization discovered me and my powers, they tested them. They brought people into Castle Oblivion and performed memory experiments on them. I just went along with it, just followed orders, I didn't care."
The man looked down at her, she was on the verge of tears. "So what happened? You don't seem like that now."
"I'm not. I don't know what happened, but somehow I started to feel something like emotions. I looked back after that and was horrified at what I'd done." she said, breaking into tears.
"And I take it that didn't sit too well with the Organization."
The light sobs stopped. "That was when the loneliness and the fear came to me too. They used that to keep me obedient."
"I see."
Naminé dried her tears and the pair continued in silence for a few more minutes. The tension in the air was thick enough that it could be cut with a Keyblade. Despite this, Naminé kept thinking of ways she could get through to her companion, she wasn't about to just give up on him.
"Tell me something else Riku," she started, noticing him groan at the name, "Roxas, why exactly did you fight him?"
The man tilted his head slightly. "Why does that matter?"
"Just answer the question."
"We needed to capture him, something that would've been difficult if he had gotten himself killed doing something stupid."
Naminé frowned, knowing the incident that he was referring to, but pressed on. "And why exactly was it so important for you to capture him?"
"Obviously, it was to help Sora wake up." said the man, before he could catch himself.
A sly grin formed on Naminé's face. "All that trouble just to help Sora, doesn't seem like something 'Ansem' would do. More like something Riku would do, to save his best friend."
The man tried to respond but remained silent. He hung his head, unable to refute her claim.
"…So, what about you?"
Naminé looked up, surprised at the broken silence and curious about what he meant.
"You went out of your way to help Roxas. Why?"
"Oh…well, I just…I felt like he and I were the same, in a way."
"The same?"
"Yeah, we're both Nobodies who tried to become our own people."
"Sympathy, then?"
"Yes, and…something else too, a promise I made to look after him. It's strange, I don't remember why or to whom, but I just know I had to do something."
"You just knew it in your heart, huh?"
Naminé gasped before looking down at her fee. "Yeah…maybe."
Silence hung in the air again until the man spoke up again. "I'm surprised actually, I thought there would be more to it than that."
"What d'you mean?"
"I figured you and Roxas had some kind of special connection, what with you two being Sora and Kairi's Nobodies."
Naminé's face reddened slightly in embarrassment. "I'm not in love with him or anything if that's what you think, it doesn't work that way. We're our own individuals with our own memories and experiences."
"I guess that's what makes you two so confusing, even among Nobodies."
Naminé looked up with a mischievous smile. "Are you jealous?" she asked in a teasing voice.
The man's head noticeably flinched back. "What? I-"
"I mean, you and I did spend a lot of time together, I'm obviously important to you. I guess it's only natural you'd be jealous of Roxas."
"No…that's not…I-"
"Relax, I'm kidding."
The man calmed down as Naminé sighed.
"I know you could never love me, no one could. Even if you did, it would only be because I'm Kairi's shadow.
The man was silent, gathering his thoughts, before responding. "That's not true. You and Kairi may be similar, but you're not the same. You're not Kairi, and I'd never make the mistake of thinking you were. You are Naminé."
Naminé looked shocked, but quickly replaced the look with a bright smile. "Yes, and you are Riku."
The man flinched back slightly. "I guess you're right."
Naminé and Riku continued their walk in an understanding silence, now more comfortable with each other's company.
