Part 3
From his bedroom balcony, Riku saw the island and made out the red and white dots that were his friends on the beach. While he came home and grabbed another change of clothes, Sora had gone and collected Kairi. The two of them had to be talking. About him? He sighed and put on a pair of shoes. Probably.
He counted Kairi as one of his few friends, and he knew she cared about him, but care didn't equal trust. She knew him too well for that and love didn't cloud her eyes like Sora. Before the darkness had appeared, she'd known that he'd changed. A day more and she might have taken Sora and the raft herself. Later on in Xemnas' castle, she had seen through Ansem's shape and recognized him when he would have preferred disappearing again. He suspected that she could look through him and see his darkness.
Before he left his room, he grabbed all his gear and munny as if he was going into battle. He hoped he wasn't, that the serpent heartless and his dark outfit had been a fluke. He doubted it, but it was nice to hope.
Opening a door of shadows came naturally, as if he'd never lost the ability. Stepping across its threshhold felt like passing through cool mist before coming out in the hot sun of the island. He let the door vanish behind him.
"Hey, Riku," Kairi grinned.
"Hey, Kairi."
"Are you okay?" she asked, her smile softening to concern. She leaned forward with her hands clasped behind her back, smiling. "Sora told me about the heartless you and him killed. It didn't hurt you, did it?"
So Sora hadn't told her everything. Riku breathed out in relief.
"I'm fine."
"Oh." She stood straight and her smile faded.
He winced at how curt he'd sounded and made himself continue. "But I need to know more about my powers. I figured Hollow Bastion might have some answers."
She nodded slowly. "Well, while you're reading, Sora's gonna introduce me to his friends and maybe I can find out more about who I am."
"Oh."
If Sora was going to visit his friends, then he wouldn't accompany him to the library. A fist clenched in Riku's stomach. He didn't want to go back to the castle--Maleficent's castle--without Sora. But he swallowed his annoyance.
"Are you both ready?" he asked.
When they nodded, he opened the door and beckoned them through.
They arrived on the ledge overlooking Radiant Garden's merchant district, a small distance from Scrooge's ice cream parlour. Riku looked around to make sure no one had noticed their arrival, then scanned the horizon. Hollow Bastion, frozen and still, loomed in the distance.
"Wow..." Kairi breathed, staring at the waterfalls scattered through the city. "It's so pretty."
"Just wait 'till you see all of it," Sora said. "The view from the bailey is awesome. And there's the ice cream, and the skateboarding, and the crystal cave."
Riku walked to the edge of the roof and gazed at the castle. It looked so small now, a place from another lifetime.
"While you two visit," he said over his shoulder, "I'll be studying. Will I meet you back here?"
"Huh?" Kairi turned from the waterfalls and stared at him. "You're not coming?"
"Not even to meet them?" Sora asked.
Riku didn't turn. Hearing the disappointment in Sora's voice hurt, and he knew that if he turned and saw Sora's eyes, he'd lose his resolve. It was hard enough that so many people knew he was the keyblade master of darkness. He didn't want to suffer being introduced to people who knew what he'd done to Sora, who had been his friends while Riku plotted against him.
"You know I'm not much of a people person," Riku offered. "And I don't want to lose time. That library will take hours to sort through, let alone begin to read."
"Okay," Sora said, although he didn't sound happy about it.
He came beside Riku and put his hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to meet his look. Riku lowered his head and glanced at the stones at Sora's feet.
"Want me to come get you later on?" Sora asked. "I wanna show Kairi the crystal cave, so it'll be on the way."
"That's okay," Riku said. "I'll come back around sunset and meet you at--Merlin's house, was it?"
Sora's face lit up. Riku felt his heart sink. He knew what Sora would say before he opened his mouth, and there was no way he'd enjoy--
"Great! Then you can meet my friends."
There were a thousand ways he could say no, but he couldn't bring himself to use any of them. He smiled despite himself and sighed.
"Sure. I'll see you then."
One kiss shouldn't be worth the time he'd spend with people who'd hate him, not one quick flutter against his cheek followed by a smile and wide eyes. Somehow it was. He opened another door behind himself, staring at Sora with what he knew was a horribly shy smile, unable to look away until the door closed around himself, swallowing him in darkness.
When he appeared a second later in front of Hollow Bastion's gate, Riku shook his head at himself. A kiss from Sora and he turned into a love-struck fool. Good thing he'd left right after Sora kissed him. A moment more and he might have stayed, no matter how awkward he felt.
The sheer height of Hollow Bastion dragged his attention back. The heavy winds blew fast around him, chilling him to the bone, and he pushed open the huge doors, sliding through the thin opening. He closed them again quickly, and the sound of them shutting echoed through the large chamber.
The stillness unnerved him. He walked slowly into the middle of the room, listening to his footsteps. No clockwork, no elevators running on magic and spellcraft, no heartless scurrying in the corners. Even the fountain had run dry. The castle had been so alive when he'd lived here. Dark, ominous and lonely, but alive. Now he felt like he was walking through a corpse.
The passage of time couldn't clear the scent of darkness still clinging to every wall and suit of armor. Maleficent had ruled here too long. The empty corridors echoed with her raven's beating wings, her haughty laugh.
Maybe it was best that he'd come alone. His memories of this place left him cold inside, as if Maleficent were still here and he was biding his time until she found Kairi. As if Sora might come running up those steps with a wooden sword, and Riku, in his terrible dark gear, would face him again, as cruel as the monsters who stole hearts.
He hurried into the library, relieved to find that he was alone. He brushed his fingertips along the books, reading their spines as he walked. Memories returned to him. He'd spent long hours and days here trying to learn about the darkness, the worlds beyond his island. The books he wanted lay in the corner beneath the second floor overhang. After picking out a handful--Keyblades: Myths and Legends, Prophecies of Chaos, A History of the Light, An Account of the War Between Light and Dark, that last one little more than a brittle manuscript--he sat down at the table against the wall. The candle he'd placed there more than a year ago still stood on its corner, and he lit it with a small spell.
As he opened the first book, he realized that he had nothing to write with. If he didn't want to have to come back and re-read everything, he needed notes. He left the table and searched for pen and paper, finding some left by a more recent visitor upstairs. A small stack of neatly written stationery lay beside an open book, and as he took a handful of blank paper and a pen, he also took a moment to skim the book.
"Princesses need not be chosen only from those of royal blood. True nobility shines forth with an inner light. Royal lineage is no requirement for royal quality, and the royalty of Radiant Gardens has always been so."
He shook his head. He wanted to keep reading, but he didn't have time to spend on it. He made a mental note to tell Sora and Kairi that this book was here and returned to his own studying.
What he found was not promising. Despite the books' titles, most of the information was sketchy at best, vague with few details. There were few keyblade masters who'd become dark, and most of those had lost their hearts to the heartless. Only one other had given himself to the darkness, and he had destroyed cities and worlds in a mad frenzy until the keyblade master of light had destroyed him.
Riku felt his stomach clench. The picture in the book, a copy of a long faded tapestry, showed a young man wearing a dark suit with a white train kneeling before another young man, one whose keyblade was a blaze of light as he held it aloft, about to strike.
To Riku, it looked less like the dark master had been defeated and more like he'd surrended to be executed. What was it like to be so lost in the darkness that death was a mercy? He sighed and sat back, closing his eyes. He wished Sora was here. He wished he'd never given himself to the dark. He wished he hadn't let the keyblade of light slip through his fingers--
No.
Shaking his head to himself, he knew better. Why lie to himself? Sora's heart was stronger. If he'd tried to go it alone as Sora had, humiliated with nothing but a wooden sword...he didn't think he was that resilient.
No, the darkness suited him. Perhaps if he accepted that, he wouldn't go mad like his predecessor.
The candle hissed. Riku looked up with a start as the flame drowned in a puddle of wax. How many hours had passed? The setting sun threw long shadows on the floor. He wasn't finished, but it was time to find Sora. He doubted that he'd find more information if he stayed anyway.
He stuffed his meager pile of notes into his pocket, and as he stood, his chair scraped the floor. It sounded loud in the still air, but what startled him was the tiny drag of a foot on the tile outside. Someone was in the front chamber, someone who didn't want to be discovered.
His keyblade came to his hand instantly. He didn't second-guess himself. If he was wrong, he'd laugh off his own nerves playing tricks on him. If he was right...
His hand was on the doorknob when a masculine voice yelled "whoever's in there, show yourself!"
Wonderful, Riku thought. Sounds like a hero.
He stepped out, keyblade in hand, and stared at the man in front of him. Tall, brown haired, with a sword mounted on his gun, aimed right at Riku.
"And you are?" Riku asked, barely glancing at the gun.
"You're the one trespassing," was the reply. "I should be asking you that."
"Just a visitor. I'm about to leave, actually. Your library's pretty useless."
Beneath him on the lower floor, Leon frowned. He didn't recognize this kid but he knew a keyblade when he saw it. Sora had mentioned his friend coming here to research, but this kid didn't look anything like Sora's other friends. This person looked like he'd come straight out of the shadows.
About to demand his name again, Leon tightened his grip on his gunblade, readying for a fight. Riku did the same, raising his keyblade.
Before either could strike first, darkness suddenly covered Hollow Bastion
Shadows swirled on the floor, spreading out in all directions. The fountain coughed and sputtered as shadows ran from the gargoyle's mouth like water. The torches on the wall flickered with black fire. Riku gasped as the stench of darkness became overwhelming.
As Leon backed away from the whirlpool, he looked up at Riku. His eyes narrowed. If he was Sora's friend, the keyblade master of darkness, why was he struggling to breathe?
"Is this your doing?" Leon yelled, no longer aiming at Riku.
"No," Riku rasped. He dropped to one knee and leaned on his keyblade. "It isn't me. It's--it's coming from somewhere else."
Leon aimed at the whirlpool and fired, but the bullet disappeared. He growled in frustration. There was nothing to shoot, nothing to hit.
Riku squeezed his eyes shut. Something was wrong. Darkness never affected him like this. It was always cold, not stifling. He never--no. He had, once. He'd nearly succumbed and lost himself, gasping and weakened, when he'd used too much of the darkness to travel with Kairi from Hook's ship back to Hollow Bastion.
The shadows were so thick they turned into sludge, like a mudslide filling the chamber. Across the room, Leon flung the doors open wide and yelled at him to follow, but Riku shook his head. He could barely move. The doors might as well have been miles away.
What would happen if he transformed? Would the shadows overwhelm him again, this time permanently? He hesitated. If he opened a door of shadows, would it be affected by the maelstrom here?
Seeping up through the floor as if the castle were sinking, shadows began to coalesce around him, creeping over his fingers and up the keyblade. He had no choice. He summoned the darkness around himself and felt the familiar outfit appear with the heartless emblem on his chest.
Instantly the feeling of suffocating stopped. Drawing in a deep breath, he stood and leaped onto one of the columns, hanging onto the edge of the second floor.
Riku still didn't understand. Was this a trap? It was too slow. Maybe it was a spell left by Maleficent? But she hadn't wielded any real power over the darkness. Or maybe it was the heartless? If so, then where were the dragons, the guards with their huge shields, the little black annoyances that disappeared into the ground just before he could hit them?
The chamber rumbled and shook. The whirlpool spun so violently that the rim of the fountain cracked and chipped. The columns trembled and Riku gripped harder as the castle tried to shake free. Outside, Leon jumped back as one of the huge doors tore loose from its hinges and nearly crushed him.
Certain that Hollow Bastion was about to fall apart, Riku tensed, took a deep breath, and leaped towards the doors.
He didn't see the darkness shoot up at him like a tentacle, but he felt it whip around his arms and pin them to his side. Jerked to a stop, Riku yelped and twisted, but before he could strike, the darkness dragged him to the floor.
Barely aware of Leon's shout, Riku lost himself to panic. Darkness clung to his skin, covered his eyes, even forced its way into his mouth. Desperately trying to stay afloat, he kicked and flailed only to sink deeper than should have been possible. The muddy shadows should only have been a couple of feet deep, but he felt himself drawn down until he disappeared.
TBC...