Chapter 6: Splitting up
"Reach for my hand, let's show them that we can free our minds and find the way. The world is in our hands. This is not the end!" (Within Temptation, See who I am)
"NOOOO! SORA!"
Kairi screamed from the bottom of her heart, feeling something inside of her break as she saw Sora close his eyes and slip out of sight into the dark liquid that they'd been struggling against.
With tears streaming down her face she lounged herself towards the black pool to follow him, hoping to get a hold of him once more, but was stopped by Riku, who'd snapped out of his own state of shock fast enough to react in time.
Riku wrapped his strong arms around Kairi's waist and heaved himself backwards, taking her with him and landing on his back in the sand behind them.
"NO!" Kairi screamed again, struggling to get free from his grip. "LET ME GO! Let me GO!"
The white light surrounding her grew in strength once more and Riku shut his eyes tight so as not to be blinded by it.
"Not until you CALM DOWN!" he yelled back at her, forcing back his own desire to scream out his pain at seeing the person he'd promised himself to always protect fall into the enemy's hands in order to, once again, save him. "Sora didn't want for us to go down that pit as well and I'm not going to let his sacrifice be all in vain because of a rushed decision!"
Kairi closed her eyes, realizing that Riku was right, they had to think before they acted, or the darkness would take all of them prisoner.
With one final heartbroken wail, she forced herself to calm down and let her light gradually fade until it disappeared all together.
Riku let go of her, got out from underneath her and was on his feet in an instant, the Way to the Dawn materializing in his hand as he readied himself for the heartless that would come back towards them, now that the light that they'd fled wasn't there to protect them anymore.
Kairi bit down hard on her lower lip and tasted blood as she herself got up from the sand.
"Riku…" she began, her voice thick and shivering from the emotional eruption a moment earlier, but was interrupted by Riku, who's own voice seemed to vibrate from held back emotions, be it rage or great sorrow.
"We will find him, Kairi. We'll get him back somehow, I promise!" he said and locked his eyes on hers.
Kairi nodded, giving him a faint smile to show her appreciation, not sure on how well her voice would carry.
Riku quickly turned his head back towards the enemies and Kairi called forth her own keyblade, Destiny's Embrace, and positioned herself so that they would stand back to back, not wanting the heartless to separate them.
When the first heartless jumped at her, Kairi focused all of her inner turmoil on the attack and swung her weapon in a wide strike that was followed by a shining beam of light that cut down even more of the shadows than she'd expected to hit with the blow.
Surprised she looked at her blade as it took on a white glow.
"Riku, my blade, it's…it's glowing!"
Riku forced back and cut through a group of shadows on his side.
"It responds to your heart! The blade works through magic, so use what you can, but be careful not to empty your magical storage completely!" he called to her over his shoulder, hoping his advice would help her figure out a better way of fighting besides simply cutting and slashing at the enemy.
Kairi renewed her grip on the hilt and focused.
She would not lose Sora again. This time she would be the one coming for him. She would fight for him, to get him back she would do all she could.
The next time she swung her blade, the light beam swooped out like a scythe and decimated the masses with at least twenty shadows.
They fought like that for what felt like hours, but the shadows never seemed to lessen, they just kept on coming. Riku felt his strength starting to give in and he guessed from the worn look on Kairi's face that she was close to her limit as well.
Riku knew they had to get out of there, or they'd be overpowered.
But where would they go?
As he looked around them, all he could see was darkness, the rest of their world slowly vanishing into nothing as the darkness swallowed it up.
Just like before.
He squared his jaw as he fought, giving himself a mental slap in the face for the negative thoughts.
They were still alive and this wasn't like the last time. This time, he wasn't going to turn over himself to the enemy, and Kairi was with him. They would make it, one way or the other.
Suddenly he realized that he knew of one way to escape.
It was dangerous, but so was staying here. He had to try it.
"Kairi!" he called out over his shoulder. "Do you think you have any of that light left in you?"
"I think so," came the answer, followed by a heavy smacking sound as her keyblade went through one of the bigger heartless. "Why?"
"If we're going to get out of here alive, I'll need some space to move on," Riku answered. "Do you think you could clear us of these heartless for a short moment?"
Kairi didn't answer, but soon he felt a surge of energy starting to grow behind him. He quickly looked over his shoulder and saw how Kairi, her keyblade swinging repeatedly at the oncoming enemies, started to glow.
He turned his eyes back to what was in front of him and readied his own magic.
When she felt her magic warm her up from inside, Kairi took a steadier grip on the weapon in her hands, channeled the energy through it and bent down low to get as much power out of her legs as possible, before she took off straight up in the air in a high jump over the heads of the shadows. She turned the blade downwards and readied herself for the impact with the ground as she summoned more magic into the weapon.
When it hit the ground, Kairi let the gathered energy loose, creating a shockwave of light traveling through the ranks of the heartless and for a moment even lighting up their surroundings, slightly lifting the veil of darkness that now covered the island.
Riku felt the impact in his very bones and saw the heartless evaporate as they were hit by the outburst of light coming from Kairi's keyblade.
He turned and gave Kairi an approving smile, before he raised his hand and concentrated hard on a place he knew would be safe, hoping his aim wouldn't be too far off after not using the dark powers for such a long time.
A dark portal opened up in front of him and as he turned towards Kairi, Riku felt the opening draining him far worse than it had used to do, but kept it open nonetheless.
"Kairi, get in, now!" he called out for her.
She turned around, saw the portal and gave him a quick nod before pulling Destiny's Embrace out of the ground and straightening herself up to do as told. The moment the blade left the ground, the light went out and, sensing their prey getting away, the heartless swarmed in fast.
Kairi jumped through the portal and Riku was about to follow, when something caught his wrist and pulled him off his feet from behind. Desperate for Kairi to not be followed, he made a quick decision to close the portal and cut the power link to it, snapping it shut just as a large dark shape appeared at its side.
Riku didn't care to look closer at the creature that had appeared, but focused instead on the one clinging to his ankle.
With one slash of the keyblade, the heartless vanished and Riku was soon back on his feet, surging up more power to open another portal for himself.
"The ssssshard! Where is it?" a voice hissed in his ear from behind, making him jump from the shock.
Riku spun around on his toes and raised his weapon to strike, but was caught by the neck of his vest before he could do anything.
The thing holding him in a hard grip was not a man, nor a heartless, but rather, something in-between, its skin shadow black and its eyes a glowing yellow. But this creature had a mouth, with several sharp, pearly white teeth gleaming in the darkness. It was clad in a black hooded cloak that hid most of its body from sight, but Riku could still see the tip of a powerful tail whip back and forth below its hem.
Something with it reminded Riku of the nobody husks, but he couldn't pin point the reason why. What he did know though, was that he was just about drained on all his magical abilities and his physical strength was quite worn out from the fighting and this didn't make good odds against this creature. He swallowed hard and aimed a blow at the thing with the Way to the Dawn, but his hand was caught in mid-air by his captor's free arm, shooting out from underneath the cape.
"The sssshard," it hissed with a toothy grin. "Give me the sssshard!"
"I don't know what you're talking about! Let me go!" Riku yelled at it and tried to kick it, but to no avail, the thing holding him just chuckled nastily as the arms holding him seemed to grow longer and thereby making it so that his kicking legs wouldn't reach their goal.
"You hasssss it. I can senssse it. A sssshard of the Cryssstal. Give it to me now, boy!"
Riku fought his rising panic and stared the creature in the eyes.
"I've never heard of it!" he spat out as he gathered his last resources one more time. "And what I have, I don't intend to let you take from me!"
At that, Riku raised his free hand and sent off a dark blast right into the creature's face.
It immediately let go of him and hunched over in a loud, hissing scream of pain.
Riku, charging up his power once more and knowing he'd get no other chance, rolled to his feet as he landed and shot up his hand. He focused for one intense moment on the same place that he hoped he'd sent Kairi to, and opened up a portal.
At the very second it opened up, Riku threw himself through it head first, and closed it just as his feet passed the opening, leaving a very raged creature staring at the air as its prey got away.
