Authors Comments –

1. Welcome to Sacrifice, my first long Kingdom Hearts fan fiction. I've been working on this storyline for quite a while and I hope you all like it.

2. At this point I haven't played KH2. I'm writing this on a basis of information I've gathered from the net; so if anything is OOC or wrong, please tell me so (nicely!) in a review and I'll try and either change it or work on it.

3. This fan fiction contains SLASH. That means m/m relationships! If you don't like that then don't read!

4. Kingdom Hearts doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Square.

Chapter One

It didn't feel like home. Something was wrong. Sora remembered falling asleep in a hammock on the beach, rocking gently in the breeze. Riku had been leaning against the paopu tree a few metres away, arms folded behind his head and legs crossed. It had been peaceful, and relaxing.

But suddenly it didn't feel like home.

Cerulean eyes snapped open as Sora jerked awake. The rocking and sea breeze was gone and his cheek was numb with cold. Pushing himself up he gasped as he found himself on a floating glacier in the familiar landscape of Hollow Bastion.

"Riku?" He called, getting to his feet.

"Your finally awake."

He turned to see the silver-haired teen sitting on the edge of the glacier, staring towards the castle with a frown on his face.

"Riku, what's going on?" Sora rubbed at his eyes and looked up again, hoping he was dreaming. Riku shrugged, and stood.

"I don't know, one minute we were in Destiny Islands, and I think I fell asleep. And then, when I woke up-"

" – We were back here." Sora finished for him firmly, hands clenched.

"Might as well head up to the castle," Riku sighed. "I'm freezing my ass off here."

Sora nodded and blew on his hands. The two had grown accustomed to Island life, and were dressed only in casual shirts and swimming trunks. Sora followed Riku as they jumped from one slippery glacier to another, until they reached the lift to take them up to the castle.

As the lift was moving, Riku looked beside him to see Sora's lips were turning blue.

"You okay?" he asked, noticing his own hands were shaking. The brunette nodded fiercely at him, and when the lift reached the top they both sprinted for the castle gates.

Once inside, Riku took Sora over to the fountain.

"Here, the waters hot."

Sora stuck his hands under the spray and sighed in relief, rubbing the warm water over his face. Riku followed suit and ran his fingers once through his hair, looking around.

"I wonder where the others are." He said, looking up towards the library. "We should try and find them."

"Yeah, maybe they can tell us why we're here." Sora jogged up the staircase with a determined frown. Riku paused and glanced through one of the other doorways shaped like the Heartless symbol. Turning away from the bad memories, he followed Sora into the library.

--

"Hello? Leon! Aerith!" Sora called, making his way through the maze of bookshelves. "Anybody home?"

Riku headed slowly up the stairs, looking around at the stain glass windows. Sora was already on the second floor, looking curiously through some papers that were spread across the desk there.

"What's that?" the older teen asked, approaching to peer over his shoulder. Sora chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyes scanning across the fluid handwriting on the page.

"I… I'm not sure. It looks like information on the Nobodies!"

Riku immediately grabbed a sheet and read the first few lines.

"It's like some sort of warped version of Ansem's reports." He said. "Listen to this –

I can't be certain of what to do with these Shells. A Shell can't be anything except a Shell until the Shell has found its true soul. These Shells are docile until they find their soul, and until they do they are worthless. I will keep them safe until their time comes, or until their souls arrive."

Riku whistled and dropped the sheet. Sora raised an eyebrow and picked up another sheet. On it was a pull page sketch of what looked like a Keyblade. It was detailed, with strings of flowers around the handle and near the blade itself. The blade was decorated into the shape of snowflakes and stars, and the artist had coloured it in soft blues and whites.

"What's this, a design…?"

"Look." Riku pointed down to the corner of the page, where scratched in ink were two small words. The Sacrifice.

"The Sacrifice." Sora read, and dropped it back onto the table. "Come on, let's go try and find everyone."

Riku nodded and they left through the door to one of the lifts. Looking around Sora could almost feel Riku tense beside him.

"You all right?" he asked, stopping at one of the staircases. Riku shook his head.

"It's too quiet around here, where is everyone?"

Sora shrugged. "Maybe they all went…out."

"Out."

"Well, yeah."

"Out where?"

Sora floundered for a moment, and then sighed. "You're probably right, something's wrong."

Riku punched his arm playfully and grinned.

"What, you're not afraid, are you Sora?"

The brunette scowled at him and flipped his head. "Of course not! Please, I'm the Keybearer, remember?" he grinned and ran through another doorway. Riku followed, and they found themselves on one of the open area's running along the outside wall of the castle.

Sora stopped and looked around. Three years ago he had been running along these area's slicing Heartless left right and centre, now he walked with Riku, in uncomfortable peace.

The older teen walked over to the edge and peered down the castle wall and into the abyss.

"If we keep going this way we'll end up at the Castle Chapel." Riku stated, looking over his shoulder to Sora.

"I know. If Leon and the others aren't there, there's nowhere else they could be, right?"

"They could be dead." Riku stated matter-of-factly. Sora glared at him.

"That's not funny, Riku."

The silver-haired teen nodded once, facing away from Sora. "You're right, I'm sorry."

"Let's go," Sora said, turning. "I want to hurry up – URK!"

Riku snapped around as soon as he heard Sora cry out. Before he could react, Sora had been sent flying backwards off the ledge and down into the mist below.

"SORA!" Riku yelled, and stared. The shadow Heartless that had stricken Sora across the chest blew Riku a kiss, and disappeared into shadows once more.

Freezing for only a moment, Riku turned and dived over the side after Sora.

--

Sora was winded as he hit the water with crushing speed, his body curling underneath the water. For a moment there were only stars in his vision, and his mind was still taking its time catching up with the pain. Then there was an explosion of bubbles next to him, and a strong arm was slipping around his waist, pulling him upwards towards the surface.

Sora cried out as his head broke the water, gasping deeply for air. Riku bobbed in the water next to him, and shook sopping wet silver locks out of his face. Looking around hazily, Sora could see they were in the depths of Hollow Bastion, the gateways and nodes on the walls around them set for unlocking the castle door.

Sora's vision swam, and Riku helped him paddle to the ground.

"What was that? Heartless…it was…Heart…" Sora gasped, resting his head back against the concrete. Riku nodded weakly, also breathing heavily. He opened his mouth to say something, and felt the words die in his throat. Looking up, his eyes grew wide.

As they fixed on the door right in front of the two, marked clearly with four large black letters.

XIII.