Disclaimer: I in no way own Kingdom Hearts. Don't sue; I'm simply an E5 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.
A/N: Tried to make this game-based, but hey! I don't have KH2. This was written in September after I'd finally blown the dust off of KH: CoM and said 'Hey, I should beat this silly thing some year.' So I did, then I pondered, then I shrugged and made a quickie pair of fics. Set after Riku and the King march away from Castle Oblivion from the end of CoM and get back out onto the roads, before KH2 (obviously). Twin-fic to 'Which One's Destiny Islands?'
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"So, which one's Destiny Islands?"
Asking has become a habit. A mindless question to utter to spur the creation of any sound between us once conversation had fallen to the wayside. After all, we've been in one another's company for an indeterminable amount of time. We've seen plenty of trials and tribulations. And, seeing as how we're from entirely different worlds and backgrounds, we don't have much besides those trials and tribulations to relate to one another with.
He's got a significant other, a humongous home and a pet dog. Me? I'm an island boy, still undecided about who I would call a significant other, who lived in a beachfront shack with a rather nice balcony and had the island's birds, fish and insects as my pets.
He's also a mouse.
I'm an ordinary human being. Or so I'd like to think, thank you very much.
Yeah, where the heck do you start a relationship there? 'Hey, buddy, had any good cheese lately?'
Still, got to hand it to Mickey. He's one hell of a companion to have out here.
It's always nice to have a keyblade master when facing unending hordes of Heartless.
Heartless, darkness, what we wish we were doing and where we wish we were doing it – those have been our conversations for only God knows how long. I'd like to say a month, a week, a year, a decade. I'd love to be able to assign some sort of designator to our time spent in one another's company. However, when trapped within a world where the cycle of sunrise and sunset is noticeably lacking, it's more than a little difficult to do that. My internal clock was a bit reliable, but that ceased working after three days of being in Kingdom Hearts.
Wonderful place that was. Hmph.
A world seemingly without end, teeming with Heartless and black as all hell. A world in which the only light that shined was the light from the mouse's keyblade when he unsheathed it and destroyed those Heartless that were set on devouring us. A world that steals our soul bit by bit with its darkness, that destroys your mind with each passing measure of time, that consumes your heart until you lack any definition of self.
I would have lost myself if it weren't for Mickey.
For his presence, not only as a destroyer of Heartless but also as a foundation upon which I can stand, I am grateful.
It had been a short time after I'd watched those doors close, after I'd seen those cerulean eyes for the last time I was destined to see them, that I'd begun to lose myself. At first I was ecstatic. Madness, I had thought, would be a welcome reprieve from grief.
I'd been so tired of grieving.
I grieve for what I'd done to Kairi. I'd verily kept her prisoner then utilized her as a key to open the door to darkness, to allow its seeker Ansem to plunder it for its strength. I'd been her captor in the first place, my eager desire to escape our world assisting in tearing down the frail fabric of the barrier placed over our island's door and allowing darkness to consume it and all those who dwelled upon it. I had sunk to the very core of wickedness in desperation, trying to return her to who she was, to garner the power necessitated to reunite the three of us, and had become in the process that very evil she would so despise. I'd not be surprised if she'd never forgive me for all that I'd done.
Then it comes to Sora. The boy who's face I'd looked upon during my final moments facing light. Those dark eyes I will never forget. The boy I would never again spar with, never again hold another conversation with, never again trap in a headlock and laugh with, never again talk the philosophies of the sky with. The boy I'd faced when I'd thrown myself to darkness, he being the representation of light, of that which I'd abandoned in my quest to discover that power which was necessary to revive Kairi, reunite us and keep us all free from the prison that was our home. My best friend, my most bitter enemy. He'd never forgive me, either.
After all, his face held no forgiveness – hell, not even sorrow – when he'd closed the doors.
I can't fault him that. After all, it was my decision. After all I'd done, I wouldn't expect him to feel anything other than elation once he'd locked that door that now eternally separated us. Nothing but happiness once he'd gotten rid of the rather irritating thorn in his side that was me.
Why did I close those doors on myself?
I think, perhaps, it was my way of self-reprimand. My way of atoning for my crimes. How else was I to rectify what I'd caused to happen?
He probably thinks I'm an idiot for doing it.
I think I'd be more the idiot for staying on his side of the doors and facing the hell that would fall on my head for all that I'd caused to occur.
Truthfully, I'd rather die than face them again. Being consumed by the Heartless is far preferable to facing their scorn.
However, the mouse wouldn't allow that. 'Let's go find the door to light,' he'd blather. 'That's the best way to really correct what's gone wrong.'
Ha, soft way to put things. 'That's the best way to become less of an ass' would have been more fitting. 'After all, you've already screwed up the universe. Let's try to straighten it up a bit now, shall we?'
But he didn't say that. He'd been kind and supportive through everything.
Even when I started to lose my mind, the sensory deprivation starting to eat at my nerves at least, that silly rodent remained by my side to support me. Even though the intense light from his keyblade drew the attention of the light-hungry Heartless, he wou8ld bring it forth when I would start to lose my senses. I don't know how he managed to deal with me.
After I'd watched those doors close, after the mouse and I had started aimlessly wandering about the eternal blackness that was now our grim reality, time started ebbing away and taking my sanity with it. Every time I opened my eyes I saw nothing. Every time I parted my lips I tasted nothing. Every time I reached forward I felt nothing. Even when Mickey was close, he might as well have been a million miles away from me – I was alone. I was just as alone as I'd been those moments after I'd been taken from Destiny Islands, just as alone as I'd been when Ansem had hurled me from my own body and locked me in the prison of my darkness-encased mind.
It didn't take long before I'd had no idea who I was or who the mouse that was tagging along at my heels was, but I was alive. I would continue living. Not because I wanted to – even in my lacking state some part of my heart at that terrible time of my life had recognized that a lust for continued life was something contradictory to my soul's wishes – but because the mouse wanted me to. I would do anything for him. He gave me light when I screamed, when shadows were closing in and I couldn't bear it any longer. He gave me light when I started asking him who he was, who I was, where we were, if we were heartless and why we still had emotions if we really were shadows. He gave me light when I asked him what he looked like, what I looked like, what the area around us really was supposed to look like. He gave me pity when I looked at him after God knows how long once he'd lit that keyblade of his, confusion in my eyes, and uttered, "You're not a Heartless… are you?"
He didn't give up on me. He didn't abandon me for lost when I felt all was for naught myself. Rather, with the patience of a veritable saint, Mickey would smile serenely and explain exactly who he was, then delve into who I was. That my name is Riku. That I'm from Destiny Islands. That a lot of things went wrong in the past, and now we were trying to make it right.
So many nights he'd explain things to me that I'd forgotten. He'd describe how we'd come to be in Kingdom Hearts, what Kingdom Hearts was exactly when I'd questioned where we were and what the name of the horrible darkness was. He'd tell me about Sora, about Kairi, all of his recollections from those earliest conversations we'd had when I still had full possessions of my mental facilities – my ability to recall such conversations had long since disintegrated into nothing, but his, perhaps assisted by his keyblade and that light he holds so firmly in his heart, is astonishing. He'd tell me stories about the boy with the ocean in his eyes and the girl with the charms who came from another world and intrigued my imagination. He'd tell me about how we were looking for a door to lead us out of the infinite blackness and take us back to them, how we were going to someday be reunited with them and everything would be right with the world. He'd tell me about me, about how I'd fallen into darkness but finally turned towards the light in my last moments bathed in its warmth, about how I'd made the ultimate sacrifice I could possibly make to save my friend Sora from the Heartless that were seeking to destroy him at the End of the World.
It all sounds like fantasy, but Mickey assures me that it's real. Some part of lost heart tells me he's right.
I have to believe someone who still has their light and the capacity to seize it. I lost mine long ago.
The mouse tells me that I have light buried within me, just as Kingdom Hearts has light hidden inside of its dismal depths. I've been lacking its touch for so long that I find myself doubting that – I've mastered the darkness because darkness is all I feel staining my soul, all I feel comprising me.
I'd panicked when I'd awakened for the first night in Kingdom Hearts completely alone, the mouse no longer at my side, some greater task drawing him away from me. I'd fretted. I was once again alone – even my savior, the only anchor to keep my definition of self tied to my worn frame, had no need of me, had no wish to help me. In that empty expanse of hateful black I'd begun to give up what little hope I had left in me, whimpering my woes as I laid my head back down, determined to sleep away what little life still remained in my worn body.
It was then that I heard the mysterious voice, that I grasped a card, that I opened my eyes and was nearly blinded by the light that poured through the bottom-most level of Castle Oblivion.
When I'd first awakened in that loathsome castle, I was in shambled from the abuse I'd been put through. I'd gnawed through my gloves to bite my fingers, to prove that I was something flesh and blood and not a Heartless, to taste copper upon my tongue, to feel the spurt of life's vitae that would reassure me that I am alive. I'd worn holes through my pants from the repetitive caressing of that floppy material, my bared fingers raking the course fabric with nails, seeking the rough sensation as a confirmation of my corporeal condition. My hair was oily and dirty from lack of washing, the scent fairly repugnant, but that in itself was a comfort – I was able to smell, therefore I was alive and not a shadow.
As I bulldozed my way through the darkest depths of my memories, everything coming back crystalline and horribly clear despite my wishes that some of those events would remain shrouded in the dark haze that'd settled upon my brain during my time in Kingdom Hearts, I found determination mixed with despair. As I began to grasp hold of darkness, utilizing it to save me when Mickey was unable to send me any inkling of his power, utilizing it to rescue me when Soul Eater simply wasn't enough to beat back the Heartless or the Organization's members that came for me, I was frightened – for that darkness became more comforting as time progressed, more familiar, more… mine.
No, Nanime wasn't necessary to erase my memories. My time in Kingdom Hearts, my darkness pounding out what little light retained its wavering grasp on my soul, my impending insanity and my lust to forget what I'd done would do that for me.
By the time I'd demolished the physical incarnation of my worst dreams, by the time I'd assimilated what nightmarish power he wanted me to have and queasily accepted the black aura that was destined to be mine, I'd wanted to toss myself back to the darkness of Kingdom Hearts. I didn't fight at all when Ansem's power dragged me back to the death I'd come to know so well.
Mickey snatched me from its recesses, though. The stubborn damned mouse had finally arrived, his light and hope brilliant enough to rescue even a lost soul such as myself.
Then he shocked me, proclaiming that within me he'd seen light and dark mingling in a fashion he'd never imagined he'd bear witness to. He said he wanted to follow me.
My mind still muddled beyond reckon, I'd faintly agreed. On our way out of the looming Castle we'd found robes mysteriously left for us, oddly tailored for our individual frames. We'd not asked any questions as we'd donned them.
Then we'd found a path.
We'd rejoiced and followed immediately, putting our feet to a substance that was no imagined landscape and that wasn't as black as the world around it, putting our feet to something that was distinct and present and there. We didn't care where it would lead us – it was just taking us away, away from that mind-numbing darkness. It was taking us to a place where perhaps I could remember on my own who I am, why I was in Kingdom Hearts, who I was looking for, without Mickey's prompting or assistance from a card swiped from those recesses of my mind I'd inadvertently locked myself out of.
When we'd come across the mysterious voice who'd led me on my madcap travels through Castle Oblivion, his red-wrapped body physically before us, I'd made a choice.
DiZ referred to the path I'd placed my feet upon as the Twilight Road, leading to night.
I think of it more as a Road to Dawn, to a horizon colored to match eyes I'd so very nearly forgotten.
Even if it does lead to my eventual night, my inevitable death, it will still lead me to hope. To light. Not to darkness – I wouldn't let it return me to darkness.
It is my escape from Kingdom Hearts. It is my escape from darkness, from my past, from myself. I won't let it lead me back. Never again.
Unless that sacrifice is required again.
A frown taking my lips, I cock my head slightly to my right. The mouse is there, his lit campfire keeping us warm and cooking our dinner. I hear him rising from his place, coming to my side. "What was that, Riku?" he asks as he sits beside me, his feet folding comfortably underneath him.
"Destiny Islands. Which one is it?"
"I couldn't tell ya, Riku. I don't know. Why do ya ask?"
Letting a smile take my lips, I shrug, my face still pointed towards the heavens. "I'm just wondering how Sora and Kairi are."
"You remember them?" he pushes. I can hear hope in his voice. This would be a first, after all; the first time I could recall them without his prompting and his reminders or without those accursed cards and the taunting of those who reside within the Castle we've left in our shadows.
"Today," I truthfully reply. "I remember them today."
"Ah, that's a good thing. Then ya know, I'm bettin' you can find Destiny Islands yourself."
"You think so?"
"That place has your heart in the form of your best friends, right? So it'd be the brightest point in the sky."
I blinked slowly, my eyelashes brushing past the fabric of the blindfold wrapped tightly across them. Home of my best friends… I wish it could be so. For that to be true, it'd have to be a two-way street. I'd already proven to them so very long ago that I am no friend. I am nothing more than a weak-hearted fool who was the perfect puppet for the seeker's spirit. I still am nothing more than that puppet – his mark upon me, the aftereffects of his darkness upon my body, makes that perfectly obvious.
I can not be a friend to anyone while my eyes are as they are. Such is the reason behind the blindfold – I couldn't be Mickey's friend without it disguising that frightening coloration from him.
No single star in the heavens overpowered the others. However, I still had to give him hope – if the mouse lost faith, I don't know where we'd end up. Two soulless, lost little shadows walking down a path aren't exactly destined for a happy ending. One of us has to retain his cheer and his hope, or we're truly lost.
"Oh, that one. Right there." I smile faintly, pointing to the sky.
I hear his sigh of pity, but I know he's smiling at me. I know he's beginning to see through my deceptions and pretenses at hope and happiness – he saw through my vain attempts to convince him that I still had full possession of my mind, so I'm certain he's able to see through my almost silly attempts to be cheerful.
I think, too, he recognizes why I still pretend and appreciates it. Of course, I can't know for certain. I won't admit to my pretenses. He won't admit to seeing through my deceptions.
With a quiet, almost disappointed voice, Mickey answers, "That's right, Riku. That one's Destiny Islands."
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