3- Worries Upon Worries
Okay, so here's chapter three. Fortunately, this story mostly alternates between Sora and Riku for point of view, so it's not as difficult to fix this one up as it is for the other stories Nakira and I have been writing together. I'm going to recommend a story real quick. 'Taking Sora' by ParadiseAvenger. It's in my favorites.
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Riku smirked a little. Squall was growling at him, completely pissed off.
"Can you at least stop calling me that?"
"Why should I, Squall? That's your name, after all." He sighed, folding his arms. "Stop whining about what I choose to call you and give me details on what happened! You have a way to contact me, so I think it's pretty sad that I heard about what happened from a total stranger!"
"You aren't getting any details until you tell me how much you told Sora." Okay, Squall was starting to get on his nerves a little.
"I told him what I had to in order to get the idiot to understand my situation…which was the basics." He said simply.
"And your situation his?" He frowned and grabbed Squall by the jacket, pinning him to the wall powerfully.
"My situation…" He growled, clenching his teeth angrily and knowing that his eyes were flashing dangerously with his pent up magic. "Is that I'm concerned for the well-being of my friends and I'll do what I have to—as always—to help them. Don't get sarcastic with me when I'm already in a bad mood." He loosened his grip a little, reigning in his anger with some difficulty.
"Scary." Squall pushed him back the moment his hold loosened. "Okay. I get it. I just wanted to clarify."
"Honestly you two…" Yuffie sighed behind them and Riku got the feeling she was shaking her head. "At it again?" Squall shook his jacket a little, straightening up.
"Just finished. Hey Sora, Kairi…we were just talking about you guys."
"We weren't." Riku muttered, sitting down. He was still fuming. "Talk Squall. Or I'll sic some Heartless on you."
"How scary." Squall rolled his eyes and sat down as well. "If it was Ash making that threat, I'd be concerned."
"You wanna see me pissed off, Squall?" He growled, joking now. He wasn't extremely angry anymore and their argument had just turned into banter.
"Still not worrying me. You guys haven't met his sister in person, have you? She's the most frightening Black Mage in any of the worlds. I'd bet even Maleficent was afraid of her." Riku scoffed.
"That's doubtful." Maleficent was a High Mage before she turned evil, but even Riku had been technically a higher rank than she was. And he knew that Maleficent wasn't even afraid of Ash. Hell, Maleficent hadn't even been afraid of the Grand Mage.
XX
"Okay…" Sora watched Leon and Riku go at it. It was obvious they were pretty good friends because their argument sounded a lot like when he and Riku would fight. It was all joke and pushing buttons for the heck of it.
"You wanna go a round after this, Ri? I'll kick your ass and send you via gift-wrap express back home." Leon laughed. Sora could tell he was joking. And since Leon couldn't beat Sora in a fair fight, and Sora had trouble sparring with Riku sometimes, he doubted that Leon could beat Riku in a fair fight.
"Try me. You'll be the one crying home to Aeris." Riku shot at him, though it was obvious that he was only joking too. There was the proof that Riku had known them for a long time. Sora saw Kairi blink in surprise beside him.
"Um…are we going to talk about what's going on?"
"Yea." Leon laughed, turning his attention back to what was going on. "How much do you guys know already?"
"Just about the explosions here and on Neverland." Riku sighed, leaning back in his seat.
"Right…and that Eli's sister was sick." Sora added. Speaking of whom, she'd vanished along with Cid. Cid must have taken her to check in on her sister.
"Okay then…" Leon ran his hand through his hair. "From what Merlin's gathered, there's some kind of epidemic going around the multiverse. We don't know what it is, so we've been referring to it as the 'Heartless Virus'. Symptoms that have been seen so far are like the flu. Fever, headache, chills, back pain, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting…the thing is that it gets worse after a while. The one with the infection's skin turns yellow and their eyes go blackish red, they also start puking up blood. Not long after they hit that stage—it depends on the person as to how long it takes—they vanish completely. We're assuming that they turn into Heartless."
"That sounds like…" Riku started, his eyes wide.
"Like what?" They all asked at the same time.
"Well, I remember reading in one of my mother's old books in her study at the tower about a disease like that she saw in a different multiverse. She called it 'Yellow Fever' in her notes…and compared it to what she called the 'Dark Death'."
"So this thing has been around for a while? If your mother wrote about it…" Leon sighed. Did that mean that Riku's mom was old? He highly doubted it. But he didn't know anything about Riku's family, so he couldn't make a guess.
XX
Riku sighed as he stood on the balcony outside the room he was staying in in the old castle. There was a lot he had to mull over and figure out. He leaned on the rail, worrying about the most important thing to him at the moment. Sora obviously didn't trust him much—if at all—anymore.
"Riku! Kairi's not with you?" Sora shouted, running across the bridge to the Paopu tree where Riku was standing, looking up at the storm above them.
"Come with me, Sora. The darkness isn't something to be feared." He said lightly, turning to face his friend and secret love. He caught Sora's hand once he was within reach and pulled him close. "Kairi's coming too."
"Riku…?" Sora asked nervously as Riku opened a portal under their feet. He dipped his head to steal Sora's first kiss. Sora backed away from him when he released him. "Why…?" He sighed, sinking slowly into the portal.
"Take this. We'll find each other soon." He tossed a keychain to Sora and smirked. "When this world disappears, tell Squall I sent you." The island disappeared as he got fully into the portal, but he could still see Sora's beautiful face in the darkness.
"Riku…?" He saw a tear fall from Sora's eyes and it really pained him to leave like that.
"Hey daydreamer." Ash greeted, jolting Riku from the memory. He blinked at her.
"Ash! What are you doing here?" She grinned, hanging upside down in midair.
"Dropping in with my update. Peter and the boys are okay, and there were only two fairies injured in the Home Tree explosion. One was a Cleaning Talent and the other a Caterpillar Sheering Talent. Mother Dove is using her magic to repair the tree, so it'll be good as new in no time." She turned over and sat lightly on the balcony rail.
"Okay. That's good to know." She nodded a little.
"So? What did Squall have to say?" He sighed.
"Did you two fight again? Usually you'd ask him yourself." She glared at him for a minute, her eyes darkening.
"So what if we did? The idiot can't seem to decide if he likes me, Yuffie, or Aeris." She shrugged. "Dish."
"Dark Death." He said simply. His sister's angry expression turned into shock and she gasped.
"What?"
"That's what it looks like." She nodded slowly and her calculating expression made him guess she was about to change the subject.
"How are your friends holding up with the knowledge that you've been going around to other worlds?" What a subject change…out of the frying pan and into the fire.
"I'm not sure…Sora I know doesn't trust me…but I think Kairi's taking it in stride…" In fact, he wasn't even concerned about how Kairi felt about it. He knew that she was pretty open to the fact that not everyone was how they first seemed.
"Well, Kairi is Ansem's daughter. So naturally she has the intelligence to take things the way they should be taken."
"Right…I keep forgetting about that." She was nothing like the Grand Master, so it was really easy to forget that they were related.
"So? Which one of them are you in love with? I know just by looking at you you're in deep." He felt his face flush.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He said quickly.
"Let me guess…it's Sora? You wouldn't get so defensive over it if it was Kairi."
"A-Ash!" He shouted, glaring at her. She laughed at him.
"I'll see you around, Ri-chan. If you need any advice, you know where to find me." He sighed.
"Mom's tower?" She nodded once and leaned back on the rail, dropping off the balcony and disappearing. He sighed and leaned on the rail again, looking out over the valley. He could barely see the Rising Falls in the distance. Had it really only been a year or so since he'd first seen what Maleficent had done to this world…?
"Well then…what have we here? A little wanderer?" Ash laughed, helping Riku stand. He looked around, not recognizing the place where he'd landed. He'd been trying to get to Leon's base.
"Where is this? I don't recognize…"
"Rising Falls." His sister answered before he could finish.
"So I made it to Radiant Garden?" He frowned, Radiant Garden was not where he'd wanted to go. He knew it had been consumed by the Heartless…hadn't it? Ash shook her head and led him up the trail of floating stones to the lift stop.
"Take a good look." He gasped at the sight of Ansem's castle. Or at least, he thought it was Ansem's castle. It had the same silhouette.
"That's…what happened here?"
"Maleficent rebuilt this world and gave it a new name. Hollow Bastion." He narrowed his eyes.
"Maleficent…?" Ash nodded once.
"What will you do? To help your friends. Kairi's a Princess of Heart." He clenched his fist and glared at the castle.
"I'll find her and protect her."
"Why? Because she's a princess?"
"No…" He narrowed his eyes determinedly and called the lift. "Because she's precious to Sora." He got on the lift and went to the main castle, hoping that when the place had been rebuilt from the darkness the layout hadn't changed.
"Hey Riku…?" Sora's voice shocked him out of the memory. He turned to face him.
"What's up?"
"I've been wondering…why didn't you tell us before? You know, about the other worlds." Great…would it be worse if he just told him? No, he decided. He had to tell Sora. He couldn't deny him anymore.
"Because the islands are cut off from the other worlds. If I'd told you about the other worlds before Kairi came to the islands, you wouldn't have believed me. And even after she showed up…" He sighed a little. It was a rule that Sora knew about. It was the same for everyone who travelled the worlds. "There's a rule among Black Mages…when on a world that's cut off from others, you don't say that you're from off-world. I would have told you guys after we got the raft to Traverse Town. Because the only way we would have been able to leave the islands on that raft would have been if I'd opened a portal. So I wouldn't have had a choice but to let you guys know." Sora frowned.
"What about when we got back to the islands? You could have told me at least…" He looked like he was about to cry and Riku's heart tightened in his chest. He frowned and approached Sora.
"Would you have believed me?"
"Probably…"
"Probably isn't good enough. I didn't want to have to tell you all that under these circumstances." Without thinking, he put a hand gently on Sora's cheek.
"R-Riku…?" A tear fell down his cheek onto Riku's hand. He brushed the tear away with his thumb, bracing himself for the heartbreak he was about to force on himself.
"Do you still trust me, Sora?" To his surprise, Sora nodded a little.
"Yea…" He smiled a little, slowly leaning close to Sora so their faces were only inches apart. He just couldn't stop himself. Even as Sora's face turned an adorable shade of red. "What are you doing…?"
He didn't answer, searching Sora's bright blue eyes for answers to questions he was afraid to ask. "Riku?" He blinked and stumbled back, covering his face.
"Sorry…"
"What's with you all of a sudden?" Sora approached him.
"I think you should leave, Sora." He turned away and almost ran to the balcony in an attempt to flee. He wouldn't be able to stop himself. He glanced back to see Sora trying to approach him again. "Leave!" He whirled around, blasting Sora out of the room with a shockwave. Once he was the only person in the room, he slammed the door shut with magic and put a barrier up.
"Riku?" Sora shouted, banging on the door. Riku leaned on the rail and dropped to his knees. He wouldn't have been able to stop himself. He'd admitted to himself that he was in love with Sora a long time ago, but he was terrified of admitting it aloud.
The reason he'd kept his powers a secret even after Sora had become the Keybearer and had brought order back to the multiverse was because he loved him. He wanted to protect his little naïve love from things he'd never be able to understand. It was the reason he'd worked so hard to protect Kairi before. Because she was Sora's most precious person and he wanted Sora to be happy, even if it was with someone else.
If Sora was happy, he was happy. He heard Sora's resigned sigh outside as he gave up and left. What was he going to do? There was no way he'd be able to prevent himself from eventually admitting his feelings to Sora if he stayed with him. But he'd promised he wouldn't separate from them this time around. Gods…he had too much to worry about.
XX
Sora sighed as he went back to his room, rubbing his lower back a little. That shockwave had been pretty strong—it had blasted him hard into the edge of a poorly placed table in the hall right outside Riku's room.
"Hey Sora." Kairi greeted him with a smile, falling into step beside him. He smiled a little at her.
"Hey Kai…" She frowned, seeing something in his expression probably.
"What's on your mind?"
"Riku…I think…I think he tried to kiss me just now…" He blushed a little.
"Oh? I was wondering when that would happen." She said lightly and it shocked him. He stared at her blankly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kairi giggled and he suddenly felt both out of the loop and really stupid.
"You mean you never noticed?" He frowned.
"Never noticed what?"
"How he feels about you." She said lightly.
"How…Riku feels about me…?" What did she mean by that? She only nodded in response. "You mean…"
"You really are an idiot sometimes." She sighed. "He's in love with you. Probably has been since you two were kids." That was impossible…wasn't it?
"B-But…"
"You seriously never noticed? You didn't even notice how jealous he always gets when you and I spend a lot of time together? I think he just doesn't argue it because he loves you enough to let you go." He blinked, understanding hitting him harder than a Large Body.
"That would explain a lot actually…"
"So? What are you going to do?" He looked at her.
"What do you mean?" Kairi turned and went into her room as they passed it.
"What are you going to do?" She repeated as she shut the door. He frowned and went into his room right next to hers.
"What am I going to do about what…? Maybe about Riku…?" He shook his head. "I'm not going to do anything." He decided. "If things change between me and Riku, I don't know what I'd do. And besides, what is there to do about it? The one I love is Kairi…right…?" He wasn't so sure anymore.
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Okay, as a recap: Large Body is a Heartless. I don't think Sora has much experience with wrecking balls so that's the closest thing I could think of—since in the second game if you get hit by those things you go flying across the screen. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks to everyone who reads my stories!
