Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters explicitly under the ownership of SquareEnix or Disney.
Of Ripples and Waves
Chapter 1
What do you think it would have been like? If we had been chosen, I mean.
I'm…not really sure. But…I'm sure I wouldn't have liked it.
Oh?
I'm afraid I would have been a slave to my own fears.
And she doesn't have fears?
She does…but they're different fears…fears of the heart.
And yours were fears of the mind?
No.
Then?
Fears of the soul.
Sora looked up into the slowly darkening sky, watching as the azure formed into a flaming orange and then to a deep indigo. It was funny. He couldn't remember for the life of him the simple daily changes in his own home. His memories held faint memories of a home, but the pictures were jumbled up, smothered in the numerous memories of the other worlds he had gone to.
Of the other life he had led.
It was over now, he assumed. And it was true. The Keyblade's presence, once so strong and bright within his heart, was now a dim flicker, much like the memories he had of his home. It was a saddening thought- the weapon was much a part of himself now- but also one of relief. The Universe no longer rested on his shoulders. His friends, the friends he had longed to see for years and years, were right next to him, watching the sun set from their favorite spot next to the curved paopu tree. King Mickey's letter, still in his hand, still seemed false.
"So what should we do now," said Riku in his usual soft voice. The silver-haired youth hadn't said much since their return to the islands, lost as usual in his own thoughts. Sora ventured a thought into Riku's journey, wondered just how much he had endured when Sora could almost not bear to remember his own journeys, the pains, the joys. The losses.
"You should go to school," said Kairi, as if it were a matter-of-fact.
"What for?" Sora heard himself saying. School, family, it all seemed so distant to him now. Well, not family, he supposed, but he had gone through more with his companions than he reckoned most families went through in three generations. They had fought for each other, sacrificed for each other. They had run into battle with the full understanding that, if the need ever rose, they would die for each other.
"Well, it's the law," said Kairi, brushing strands of her auburn hair from her face as a breeze blew by. "And don't you want to meet everyone again? With you two back, it'll be just like old times!" Sora laughed and Riku smiled as she faced them and began to dance in a very Selphie-ish manner.
Strangely enough, it was Riku who agreed first. "Well, Sora? Why shouldn't we? We might as well be normal teenagers for a while until we figure something out." Sora stared at him for a second and then broke into his grin while nodding.
But while Kairi broke into description about their school, the grin slowly faded as Sora looked out over the ocean to the island on the far side.
"Kairi?" he said.
"And the gym- Huh?"
"What happened to my home? To my parents, I mean. Did they ever try to find me? Were they worried?"
Kairi's smile began to falter and she didn't answer for a while. As she opened her mouth to say something, they heard a familiar voice yell, "Kairi! There you are!"
A bouncy-haired brunette had sailed up near the island and was waving at them, standing precariously on a small sailboat. Next to her, a blonde-haired boy holding a blitzball looked towards them, shielding his eyes from the light.
Kairi waved back and turned to Sora again, her expression worried, but Sora, oblivious to that, ran over to the side of the island waving and shouting. She was about to stop him, to tell him, before she felt a strong grip on her arm.
"Riku!"
"He needs to find out for himself," said Riku softly.
Kairi was about to protest, but stopped as she saw Riku's own pained expression. No one remembering Sora would mean that no one would remember him.
"Selphie! I'm finally back! Did you miss me?" said Sora, still waving.
"I'm so sorry," murmured Kairi. Riku turned his eyes away.
Selphie eyed the waving Sora for a second and said,
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
She turned to Tidus and looked at him questioningly before turning back to Sora once more with a quizzical expression on her face. Tidus merely glanced at Sora and shrugged.
The words hit like a jackhammer in Sora's face. He could feel his smile falter for a second. Somewhere in his heart he kept pleading that it was not true, that those words had been but a play of the wind.But his mind answered his heart with a resounding no. Selphie did not remember him.
"That's not completely true," said Riku, as if answering Sora's thoughts. "It's not that she doesn't remember you. She just has no memory of you."
Sora lowered his hand, and turned to Kairi, who avoided his eyes. He looked at her thoughtfully for a second, his expression unreadable.
"And my parents?"
"They…They.." she didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
Sora looked at Riku, who had turned around and was walking off the round island.
"When did you find out?" said Sora softly, but not so softly that Riku couldn't hear.
Riku stopped and said tersely, "The King told me it would be this way," before continuing to walk away from them.
Sora nodded and looked towards Selphie, Tidus, and then back to Kairi. You should go, his eyes said, and he began to follow Riku off the island.
Kairi put a hand on his shoulder. Sora stopped for a second to give her one of his cheesy grins from boyhood, and kept walking. She stared after his retreating figure with sad eyes, and was, for a moment, reminded of that very same form leaving her to fight some demon in Hollow Bastion. While she could only stand back and watch.
Nothing's changed…
Slowly, sadly, she jumped off the island and plunged into the water next to the boat, but hadn't realized how tired she was. Her body went limp and the world swam before her eyes. The last thing she remembered were strong arms pulling her up and a warm, beating chest keeping her warm.
Sora…
Tidus held closely onto Kairi as Selphie sailed as fast as she could for shore.
Sora found Riku sitting down on top of the bird's nest Sora had used to beat the older boy in their petty race. He, despite himself, chuckled and put a hand on the ladder to pull himself up.
"Don't," said Riku. "No one's used this in years and it's gotten old and rackety. It'll probably break to pieces if you bring your fat head up here."
Sora climbed up anyway; Riku didn't say anything more. Both knew that Riku hadn't really meant it and that Sora would have gone up even if we had. They chuckled as Sora plopped down behind Riku.
Sora gazed up at the sky, dotted with stars. He tried to guess to which ones he'd been. Maybe that slightly yellow one over there was Agrabah? Or the bluish one Atlantica? When he tried to find the yellow-ish one again, though, it had disappeared, and the blue one soon after that.
"There are so many stars," he murmured. "Did I really make a difference?"
Riku didn't answer. The two stayed silent for a while, watching the heavens, recalling memories about a part of them they had closed off forever.
Finally, Riku said, "So, did you decide on what you're going to do?" He could feel Sora shake his head- the entire frame of the little watchtower shook.
"To be honest, we don't need to go to school," said Sora, waving his feet back and forth. He stopped as the tower began to wave along with it. "I've got more munny than I can handle, and I'm sure being a bodyguard or something wouldn't be too hard, considering. And…I don't think I can face my parents yet…"
Riku didn't reply. On the night of the storm, he remembered telling Sora, We might never meet our parents again…It was a risk he'd been willing to take. An outcome he had long ago accepted.
They stayed like that for a while, brooding over their decisions, their futures. It was only when the tower gave a mighty creak and finally snapped, causing the two boys to land below, that they were roused from their thoughts. Neither of them were hurt, as it had been bound to happen, but Sora was caught off guard as Riku took one of the sticks used to prop the tower up and tossed it to the spiky-haired brunette.
"We didn't get to spar since our fight in Hollow Bastion years ago," he said casually. Come on, let's see how well we do without our Keyblades for a change."
Sora, with a laugh, stood up and jumped high into the air and Riku jumped up to meet him. The spar didn't last very long, as the sticks were more brittle than dried bones to the two Keyblade masters and snapped on their second slashes. Neither had even reached the ground yet.
They sat back down on the sand after tossing their broken weapons aside, watching the waves. Sora yawned and laid back. The last thought he had before he fell asleep was, You're right, Riku. The waves really don't change.
Roxas was sitting across from him. Sora knew, instinctively, that it was a dream. One of those dreams.
"Sora…"
Roxas was gesturing wildly. A haze appeared behind him. Disappeared.
"Sora…"
Roxas pointed, and Sora turned his head to look before he felt a painful light blind his eyes.
"Sora!"
Sora woke with a start. Riku had kicked him. Hard. The sun overhead was blazing, and the seagulls were already moving about. Sora groggily shook his head as he said, "What time is it?"
"I don't think you've understood situation yet, Sora."
"What situation?" Sora, still half-asleep, looked around. There were people around them. So what? They must have been back in Hollow Bastion. He squinted, seeing a blond-haired figure standing in front of him, holding a long sword. But it couldn't have been Cloud…Cloud had…He rubbed his eyes again and stood up, exclaiming, "Tidus!"
Tidus didn't answer, though, and his face became, if anything, darker. So were the faces of the others around them. Sora immediately noticed Selphie and Wakka before he turned his attention back to Tidus, who had raised his his blade- a sword that looked like it was made of water- and said,
"You two are under arrest for the kidnapping and the torturing of the Mayor's daughter."
