A Scattered Dozen
Riku is untrained, self-taught, and versatile. He adapts to his environment, his opponent. There is grace and speed in his movements, yes, but mostly there is raw power.
Sasuke appreciates these things, but sneers at the boy (his age, taller than him, but still a boy where Sasuke considers himself a man) anyway.
There are huge gaps in his defense, after all. His standard fighting position is absurd bordering on useless. He utterly lacks finesse; he wields a bladed weapon and hits with the blunt side.
They meet in the middle of a battle. Port Royal is smoking around them, Heartless running wild through streets littered with broken glass. Sasuke washed up on shore not two days ago, his own world a similar ruin, and he refuses to be a harbinger of the death of worlds.
He is an avenger, but he will save this backwater, useless world if it is the last thing he does.
Sasuke cuts through the Heartless, each slash of his blade precise, controlled, efficient.
Riku gets through the Heartless equally quickly, but he hacks his way through — not as badly as his key-wielding companion, but badly enough.
Naturally, they end up back-to-back.
Port Royal burns but is not lost. The Heartless are all killed or driven off, and the victors are left an abandoned city in which they can tend their wounds safely, peacefully.
Kairi heals Sasuke's injuries without question. He stares at her oddly, remembering other redheaded healers, but Kairi's eyes are dark blue (not green, not red) and when she looks at him it is a child's face that he stares at.
He leaves the city at dawn. Riku notes his passing, but makes no move to stop him.
. . .
Sasuke's Sharingan is good at controlling many things. It can bend tailed beasts to his will; people will dance like puppets at his command. The Heartless will not obey him, but they will flee.
He walks the Dark Corridors without fear. There is nothing to be afraid of; not even the threat of losing his heart matters to him.
He has lost everything else already.
His lightning resists the darkness — Chidori will not merge with it, too erratic, too willful — but his fires will burn on darkness just as well as they do on chakra. The flames turn a maleficent purple, eye-catching and undoubtedly evil, but he doesn't care.
Those flames still burn the Heartless, after all.
He wanders now, world to world, saving this one, losing that. He watches, searches, finds no trace of his world or anyone he knows. And he kills the Heartless.
He fights, grows stronger, gains scars, takes injuries. He runs into Riku — no children with him now, a new scar on the back of his hand, hair braided and hanging to the middle of his back.
Sasuke grabs that braid with his off hand and tugs downward, pulling his sword up to block the blow that would have split Riku's head open.
"Thanks," the young man — two years older now, or thereabout — says, before turning his full attention to the battle.
Sasuke grunts, ducks, sweeps his leg out to knock down a Soldier Heartless. Stabs it — twice before it turns to ashes and pixie dust — and moves on.
They fight on opposite sides of the battlefield, Riku attacking haphazardly and Sasuke calculating every move.
When the battle is over, Sasuke has a new scar on his left leg and Riku's hair has come out of its braid, now matted with sweat and dirt, and some of Riku's blood.
Riku heals their wounds with darkness, teaching Sasuke how to make it mend torn skin and remove burns. In turn, Sasuke points out the gaps in Riku's defenses — fewer now, but still there — and suggests that he get a shield.
. . .
Dalmasca's deserts are hot and Sasuke's skin burns red and peels.
He has been here for almost a year and a half now. It's the longest he's stayed on a world since his own was devoured.
He does not do it because he likes Dalmasca.
He does it because every wind that blows smells like war, and because Ivalice is a nexus-world, one of the few that attracts world-travelers and refugees alike.
He does it because he is still searching. He does it because there are rumors here, of a blond who wears orange, of a young man looking for his brother, of a warrior who is his own army and who kills the desert's monsters.
The monsters of the desert are not terribly powerful, but a chance wind and Sasuke's thrown shuriken makes the mistake of hitting the giant dinosaur and not the much-smaller wolf he had aimed at.
"Need some help there?" a voice that is not quite familiar asks, even as a blast of dark fire hits the dinosaur's left eye.
Sasuke glances at Riku even as the dinosaur roars its rage at them and charges.
Sasuke goes right, digging his sword into the monster's side, reinforcing it with lightning chakra to pierce its tough hide. Riku goes left, presumably also attacking it.
The monster falls and the sand beneath their feet trembles at its passing.
Sasuke looks up at Riku, disregarding the other monsters in the area. They will feast on the dinosaur until another one comes to take its territory and kills them. That is the way of things in the desert.
Riku looks back at him. "There's a guy in the bar — the Sandsea — looking for you."
Sasuke's gaze turns sharp.
"Yellow hair, blue eyes. Whisker-scars on his cheeks. Friend of yours?"
Riku's smile is small and careless, but his shoulders are tense and his eyes are narrowed. If Sasuke says no, he's not sure what Riku will do, but it will not be good for Naruto.
Sasuke smirks. "Yes."
Riku nods. "Good for you." And then he walks out, heading for the deeper desert, the stronger monsters — the shadows where the Shadows creep.
Sasuke walks towards Rabanastre.
. . .
Sasuke and Naruto travel together for a while before they separate.
Naruto wants so many things — helping people, finding people, rebuilding worlds, uniting worlds, peace, prosperity — too many things.
Sasuke has learned, in the years since Konoha, to not want too much. One desire, one goal, is enough.
Kill Itachi. Avenge Itachi. Save this world right now. Save that one right now.
There is no long-term, not with Heartless crawling on every horizon.
Naruto tells Sasuke not to use the darkness to fight, and for a while, Sasuke doesn't. He thinks, If I stay with Naruto, that's enough. He thinks, This will work. He thinks, We can do this.
But Naruto dreams and dreams and Sasuke is firmly grounded in a reality that is somehow worlds away from Naruto's. He can't help it; it's who he is, who he's always been, and nothing he does can change that.
Eventually, the two of them wind up on another nexus-world — the name is Radiant Garden, and he knows because he makes a point of learning and remembering the worlds' names, always (and Konoha is first among them) — and after a few battles with weak Heartless, he and Naruto pause for a rest.
"I'm thinking about getting a Gummi Ship," the other confesses, looking Sasuke in the eye. "There's a guy here who makes 'em."
They have been using the Dark Corridors, but those give Naruto nightmares that he won't talk about. Sasuke knows this, and so he nods and passes Naruto his munny.
Naruto gapes at him. Then his jaw snaps shut and he shakes his head. "No way, man. That's yours."
Sasuke rolls his eyes. "I don't need it. You do. Take it."
Naruto won't. After ten minutes, twenty, he still won't, so Sasuke growls and glares and says, "Let me help you, you dumbass," and Naruto stares at him.
Sasuke looks anywhere but at Naruto, but he doesn't miss the soft, "All right," or the sudden emptiness when Naruto takes the bag of munny out of his hand.
"Thanks," Naruto says, louder, and grins when Sasuke looks at him.
"Don't make me regret that," is Sasuke's reply, but they both know what he really means, and so they both smile.
It's not the good old days because it's better, and Sasuke wonders at the fact that the happiest he's felt since Konoha's destruction is not when he reunited with Naruto, but when they part.
"See you around," Naruto says, and he pats Sasuke's shoulder.
Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Only if your luck runs out," he says, and means, If your luck runs out, find me.
Naruto laughs, and Sasuke thinks that he understands. He says, "Or if yours does, bastard," which Sasuke translates as, The same goes for you, bastard.
By the end of the week, Naruto's left on a bright orange ship and Sasuke's still in Radiant Garden, waiting for something he can't name. He visits a local bar, Seventh Heaven, not to get drunk but to talk to the barkeep. She's almost as busty as Tsunade, but she reminds him of Iruka more than anyone else, and she knows people, knows information.
She also mixes Sasuke drinks for free, and laughs when he complains that they're all virgins. "Takes one to know one," she says, which makes his face twist into an unconvincing scowl.
He sits by himself at the bar, glaring away the few men and women brave enough to approach him. (And the barkeep says, "Don't mind Sasuke" — because of course he's told her his name, or rather that was the price for the free drinks, and that's not such a steep price to pay, on this world — "he's an antisocial bastard. Anything I can get you?")
Sasuke starts when someone takes the seat next to him. He turns his head to deliver the standard glare.
"Hey," Riku says, smirking. "Long time no see."
. . .
He and Riku stay on Radiant Garden for a while, before moving on. Riku's not averse to using the Dark Corridors, though he does protest Sasuke's methods.
"Does your eye always bleed like that?" he asks, criticism lacing his tone. "It's creepy. Can't you make it stop?"
"No," Sasuke answers, one hand pressed to said eye. It helps the pain, a bit.
"Doesn't that hurt, though?" Riku presses, frowning, and Sasuke snaps.
"What do you care?" he snarls. "Just leave me alone."
Riku's silent for a long moment, but the look he levels at Sasuke is a fucking monologue.
"I care," he says quietly.
Sasuke glances at him, then glances away.
Somehow, he'd already known that.
. . .
Riku handles the Dark Corridors after that. By mutual, unspoken agreement, Sasuke limits his Sharingan to everything that isn't the Mangekyou.
Of course, this includes copying attacks.
On Spira, Sasuke raises a short staff and twirls it in an inane pattern.
The enemy in front of him freezes into a block of ice, then shatters.
He turns to Riku, smirking, and Riku glares back at him with a mix of envy, admiration, and disgust.
"At least you're not singing anymore," he says after a moment.
. . .
"How did your world die?" Riku asks.
They're at the Sandsea — the only bar besides Seventh Heaven that Sasuke will willingly set foot in — and they're drunk.
Riku's more drunk, though, because Sasuke's better at holding his liquor. Or so he tells himself, anyway. He also tells himself that his fading-in-and-out vision is the liquor. He doesn't see any contradiction in these two supposed facts.
"Shut up." Sasuke slurs, and glares.
Riku shrugs, tosses back what's left in his mug, and says, "No, really. How'd it go down?"
Sasuke glares at him some more. It takes another two drinks for him to admit, "I don't want to talk about it."
"No one ever does," Riku says, sounding almost wise. "But it doesn't make it go away. Besides, we're both drunk. It's okay to talk about it."
Somehow, Riku has all of Naruto's charisma and charm when he's drunk, and all of Sasuke's when he's sober.
Finally, after a bit more wheedling — and a few more drinks — Sasuke relents.
"My ancestor," he says solemnly, "was a dick."
Riku blinks, then laughs right in Sasuke's face.
Sasuke pauses for a moment, reveling in the sound of Riku's drunken laughter and the way the light plays on his hair when he moves. Then he punches Riku in the face.
. . .
On Gaia, Sasuke realizes that the kids that he'd seen Riku with when they first met hadn't become casualties.
Of course, Riku had never said that they were dead. Sasuke had just assumed, because Riku avoided talking about them in the same way that Sasuke avoided talking about Konoha.
But in the frozen Nibel Mountains, they run into each other.
The mountains are miserable, especially in the winter — so of course Riku and Sasuke are stuck there in the winter. They end up snowed-in at the only inn in Nibelheim, with local mako supplies inhibiting Dark Corridors.
Sasuke and Riku share a room. Predictably, Sora and Kairi are in the room next to theirs.
Meals are an awkward affair; Riku avoids looking at the other two, and they in turn stare incessantly at him. After a whole day of this, with the promise of more to come, Sasuke seriously considers burning his way out of the inn.
"I'm going to kill them," Sasuke promises on the first night.
Riku snorts. "You'll try. They both suck at staying dead, though."
That gives Sasuke pause. He thinks for a moment, then returns Riku's snort.
"I know someone like that," he says.
Riku shifts, looking at Sasuke. His expression is shadowed but clearly surprised.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." Sasuke pauses. "He's twice as annoying as they are, though."
Riku laughs.
The next day goes roughly the same as the first. On the third day, Kairi approaches Sasuke and Riku.
"Hi," she says, awkwardly.
Riku looks at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Hi," he replies, just as awkwardly.
Sasuke observes silently, one eyebrow raised.
"So... How're things going?" The set of her shoulders, the jut of her chin, the way her hands are fisted in her shirt — all of this tell Sasuke that Kairi is determined to have this conversation.
"All right," Riku replies noncommittally, just as determined to not have this conversation.
Kairi sighs. "We missed you," she says, and then she walks away.
She doesn't hear Riku's, "Me too," but Sasuke does.
On the fifth day of being snowed-in, Sora is the one to approach.
"Riku," he says. "Come back with us."
Riku looks at Sora and says, "No."
Sora's fists clench at his side. "But we missed you. We've been looking all over for you, Riku! After you just took off—"
It is so easy to superimpose images over theirs, but Sasuke refuses.
Riku's not him, and Sora's not Naruto. He's very sure of these facts.
"Sora," Riku says, cutting through what would surely have been an epic monologue on Sora's part, "I've made my decision and I'm sticking to it. I miss you guys too, but you don't need me, and I need to do this."
He doesn't say, I'm sorry, and Sasuke knows it's because he's not. He might regret leaving, but it's not something that he would change.
Sora squares his shoulders, and for a moment, he looks like he might protest. But then he sighs.
"I guess..." he says, just as awkward as Kairi's hi, "I guess you're right. It's up to you." He smiles slightly. "Just — keep in touch, okay?" He punches Riku's shoulder lightly. "We were really worried about you, you jerk."
Riku smiles back at him. He says, "Okay." He says, "I will."
Sasuke nods to himself, and the next morning, he leans out the window in his and Riku's room to breathe a fireball on the snow trapping them in.
. . .
Tokyo is a world of neon lights and spray paint. The streets are packed with faceless drones that seem to do nothing except mill about and complain when people run into them. But on, above, around, and below those streets roam the Rudies, the gangs of rollerblading teenagers who bathe Tokyo in paint and laugh as they do it.
"Why am I wearing this," Sasuke says, tone promising death.
Riku swallows his laughter as best he can. "World rules, Sasuke," he says, eyes dancing. "We have to blend in."
Sasuke glares at him, then pauses.
In the scheme of things, his outfit isn't too bad. The shirt is vaguely similar to one he wore under his old Akatsuki robe — high-collared, short-sleeved, white, zipper up the front. The zipper ends about an inch above his navel, true, and the shirt itself flares out, exposing his stomach to enemy kunai or Heartless claws — but he's not completely exposed.
And his black pants, tight as they are, aren't exactly uncomfortable. He's already getting used to them, in fact.
The contraptions on his feet, considerably less so. He rolls every time he moves, and he's fallen on his ass three times in the first minute that he's been here.
Still, it could be worse.
Riku's got on a yellow short-sleeved shirt, and over that, a blue tunic-vest that flaps this way and that with every move that he makes. His jeans aren't as tight as Sasuke's stretch pants, but they aren't as baggy as what Riku usually wears, either. And on top of them is some sort of white half-skirt that covers his ass, with crisscrossing belts in front.
"Blend in," Sasuke repeats blandly, eyeing that skirt. "Right."
Riku flushes and glares at him. "Shut. Up."
Sasuke smirks, and the look on his face promises that Riku will never live this down.
"Shut up," Riku says again, before turning away — presenting Sasuke with a great view of his skirted ass — and taking off.
He crashes into a rail, and Sasuke laughs.
. . .
Sasuke and Riku go to Traverse Town, following rumors of an amazing healer who can fix almost any ailment. Riku's leg — "it's always this leg," he says sourly, glaring at it — is pretty messed up — the same way that Lee was pretty messed up after his fight with Gaara, to give some perspective. Riku's lucky it's still attached.
Sasuke isn't expecting to see Sakura, of all people. Nor, judging by her expression, is she expecting to see him.
"Oh my god. Sasuke?" It's practically a screech.
He finds that he doesn't care. She's alive. She's alive.
She hugs him, and he hugs her back with the arm that isn't supporting Riku. She keeps repeating his name, and unshed tears are thick in her voice.
"You're alive, you're alive," she says as she pulls away, echoing his thoughts.
He smiles at her. "I am," and they're nothing but two good friends, the years between falling away.
Only they don't, not really, because the woman in front of him is beautiful and powerful and half a stranger, in the same way that Naruto was half a stranger when Sasuke first met up with him in the Sandsea.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Riku says, sounding sort of apologetic, but mostly pained, "but I—"
"Oh shit," Sakura says, "I'm so sorry, I didn't — here, let me see, the problem's your leg, right?"
Later, when Riku's sleeping off his healing, Sakura turns to Sasuke and says, "We're all that's left."
Her tone is sad but resigned.
Sasuke shakes his head. "No, we're not," he says, and, "Stay here." And, "I'll be back."
She stares at him, startled, as he opens a Dark Corridor to Seventh Heaven.
When he returns a few days later, it's with Naruto in tow.
Sakura greets him with a punch to the face, and Sasuke is sent through the wall.
"What the hell, Sasuke?" she yells, and, "You can't just decide to open up a freaking dark portal in the middle of my sickbay! What if the Heartless came in and attacked?"
Sasuke groans as he picks himself up. Still, he glares at Sakura.
"You would punch them through a wall," he states.
There's a moment of perfect stillness. Then Naruto laughs.
Sakura turns to look at him, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. Then she glances at Sasuke, questioningly.
He shrugs. He doesn't say, I'm sorry, because he's not, not for anything. If he could, he wouldn't go back and change his choices. Though maybe, on second thought, he would have made Naruto walk in front of him.
She smiles at him. Then she grabs Naruto's arm and his shoulder and pulls the two of them into a tight embrace.
None of them say, I missed you, because it's simply understood.
From the doorway, Riku watches. Sasuke meets his eyes over Sakura's head; Riku smiles, and mouths, I'm happy for you at him.
Sasuke smiles back and nods.
. . .
Sasuke and Riku are passing through Port Royal — it's been rebuilt and repopulated in the intervening years — and happen to detour through Tortuga on their way.
In Tortuga, they happen to get drunk. They find out that Sasuke can still hold his liquor better than Riku — or so he continues to claim. This time, his vision's not quite so bad, as a result of Riku bringing up the topic of his eyesight in front of Sakura and Aerith, in addition to every other healer they run into. His sight isn't perfect — it isn't even as good as it was before he gained the Sharingan — but it's better, and unless he uses the Mangekyou, it won't deteriorate any more than it has.
This time, when they rent a room, there's only one bed. They don't realize this until they make their way into the room, and by that time, it doesn't even matter. Riku's lips have already found Sasuke's neck, and they happen across the place where the cursed seal used to be.
Sasuke hisses and arches, and Riku smirks and laughs drunkenly. One of them stumbles towards the bed and Riku winds up sprawled on Sasuke's chest.
Sasuke grunts and pushes until Riku's sprawled facedown on the bed. Riku growls and rolls onto his back, teeth and tongue meeting Sasuke's in something that is less a kiss and more a demand.
"Ever done this before?" Riku asks, panting a bit.
Sasuke, in the process of stripping Riku, pauses and looks at him.
"Yes," he admits after a moment, then quickly, "You?"
"Nah," and Riku grins at him, a little wider than he grins while sober. "Go easy on me?"
Sasuke snorts and smirks down at him. "Not a chance."
. . .
Riku takes Sasuke to Destiny Islands exactly once.
There, Sasuke meets Riku's parents, which is intensely awkward. They ask about him — where he's from (Konoha), what he does for a living (kills monsters), what his family's like (dead, and he keeps a straight face while Riku winces and the parents quickly change the subject), what his future plans are (they're going to meet up with Naruto in Rabanastre two weeks from now, to talk about rebuilding Konoha; after that, Sasuke has no plans, because it's safer that way)...
Sora and Kairi are also there, and they kidnap Riku for a friendly reunion that Sasuke is pointedly not invited to. He doesn't take offense; Riku made himself scarce for Sasuke's reunion with Naruto and Sakura.
So, with nothing better to do, he picks a random beach and starts walking down it. He doesn't take off his shoes, but he does enjoy the sea breeze, and he relaxes, just a bit.
A flash of orange from the top of a palm trees draws his eye, and he glances at it, frowning.
He blinks. He closes his eyes, opens them, and blinks some more.
Kakashi waves one hand, the other holding his porn open. "Yo," he calls out, his single visible eye crinkling in a grin.
Sasuke drops his face into his hands. When he looks up again, he's still smiling.