Sadists. All of them.
Vexen had once compared him to a bird helpless on the ground, wings broken and twisted. And then he'd laughed, leaving only echoes behind him in the impossibly dark white room.
Riku hates that laugh.
Hates how it makes him feel, hates how its mocking sound reminds him of the fragile thread by which his life hangs. After all, he only exists because someone finds him useful.
He isn't even real.
Larxene tells him this every time she sees him. He'll walk down the empty corridors of Castle Oblivion, belt-spat fluttering white in his wake, and she'll come out of that mysterious room that he's always wondered about. She'll grin wickedly.
And then she'll laugh. "You're just a doll. But at least you have a heart."
Riku places a hand over the emblem on the center of his chest, feels the faint pulse of the only thing that's his, the only thing that the other Riku hasn't claimed first. Perhaps it's also the only thing that makes him different, unique, like people are supposed to be.
He laughs bitterly, not caring how ironic it is that he's uttering the same sound he loathes so much. People. The Organization may be human, but they are not people.
If he is a doll, than they are shells. And even a doll has something inside to prevent it from shattering into tiny fragments.
Sadists. All of them. He aches to draw his sword, put an end to this miserable world he exists in. And still he finds himself walking down the same hallway, over and over. As Riku passes the door to the mysterious room, Larxene appears. He knew she would.
But this time, she does not laugh or speak those cruel words that send knives stabbing at his heart. Instead, she seizes his wrist and drags him through the door, ignoring his frantic cries, his struggle to escape.
Riku is deathly afraid of the unknown. He hates the other Riku for giving him this fear, for allowing him to be traumatized by the darkness that caused it in the first place.
The room is white, like every other room and hallway in the entire castle. But this white is different. This white is too white, as if the color were not a color at all but pure, radiant light.
He is darkness itself and the white burns at his soul like it does at his eyes.
Larxene lifts him easily, tossing him onto the table like a little girl losing interest in playing with her rag doll. He lands hard, crushing the crayons lying there, skids to a stop upside-down with his arms twisted underneath him like broken wings, dazed and wondering just what's happening.
He is vaguely aware of two blue eyes, hovering in the murkiness that clouds his vision, wide and scared.
"Take his heart and remake it to be just like the real Riku's!" Larxene leans down, leering at him. "Want to be real?"
Riku wants to nod his head, wants to cry, "Yes!" with all his heart. But those blue eyes catch his own, still wide and scared and yet almost defiant this time. The mother bird, looking down from the nest at the baby who's fallen from her protection, watching the cat stalk ever closer.
Knowing that the baby has broken wings and will never walk the sky as she does, will never escape the fate of the weakest.
"Do it!" cries Larxene, tired of the delay. There is the sound of a slap. Bright tears spill from the blue eyes. The lids close, and open: sorrow for what must be done, wishing there was another way.
Bright. So bright. And then dark, black as a tortured soul. His tortured soul. Riku's. The real Riku's.
I am the real Riku. Not a doll.
He doesn't know what they've done to him, what these feelings are. But he is absolutely certain of the one thing he must do: kill the other Riku. The fake Riku. The one who would dare to impose upon this identity that only he can hold. And once that is accomplished, he will be the only reality in this sadistic world he lives in.
Slowly sliding off the table, he turns to leave. Blue flashes at the corners of his vision.
He turns his head, and abruptly the blue becomes twin sapphires, staring at him from underneath the shadow of flaxen hair.
She sits there on a chair much too big for her tiny frame with a sketchbook balanced across her knees, pencil in slender fingers, just staring at him from those brightly shadowed blue eyes.
He realizes suddenly that he's staring back. She tilts the sketchbook ever so slightly, but Riku can barely see the lines on the page. His world has suddenly melted to this, light radiating in swirling streams from the figure in front of him, met by the angry flood of his own darkness. Her lips move. Riku looks at her, confused, before he understands, looks down at his heart where a blossom of light is flickering feebly. She meets his eyes as he looks up and then she smiles.
The light within him explodes outwards.
Bright. So bright. There is no more darkness in this realm, not in his heart, not in her eyes, not in his lips that meet hers with gentle ferocity. It's been vanquished by something more powerful and yet far more painful than anything the darkness could ever offer. Anger melts to acceptance, knowledge that he can never be anyone but himself, bittersweet realization that this pure and spontaneous love will be snuffed out by the sadists like a bird with its wings clipped, pining for the sky until it passes from this life.
And with sudden wild joy, he realizes that it doesn't matter. This moment is worth all the pain he'll carry.
The lines on the paper glow fiercely and then resolve into clarity.
Riku, arms outstretched, silver wings fully expanded and unbroken.
Freedom to fly.