- An Insufficient Memory -
Riku remained on the steps of the Acropolis, even as the dual suns blazed down on him and the gold temple's shell became scalding to the touch. Maleficent disappeared shortly after she'd finished her story, and just as well, Riku didn't have anything to say either way.
But, he figured, I guess she's never truly gone.
Because the truth was, her offer was tempting. Why fight the darkness inside him when he can figure out how to utilize it? Draw power from it? And maybe Sora wouldn't understand, but it would just make Riku a more effective warrior and his friend would see that, in time.
So, it became a debate. Climb the stairs, and keep the faith that whatever awaited at the top could help conquer the darkness when it seemed all his other attempts had failed. Or, he could go back into the jungle and, once and for all, own the black within him, and that was sure to come with an entirely different set of rules.
Sora would want you to get help.
Why did it always matter what Sora wanted? Riku was different than him, he had to live by different circumstances, and he couldn't always be held to the same standard. And it was unfair for Sora to ask that of him.
He never doubted you.
It was Sora's own fault if he was disappointed! Riku had told him, time and time again about what it was like, how hard it was to hold on.
Be the person he knows you can be.
Riku climbed the rest of the stairs.
-x-
"I'm worried about him." Kairi closed the heavy oak door behind her. The King, Donald and Goofy were seated around a large carven table in the underground levels of the Enchanted Dominion. The setting was as grim as the predicament, and Kairi shivered in the cold darkness of their dark meeting chamber.
The King sighed. "Has he said anything yet?"
Kairi shook her head. "He hasn't said… or done anything. Will he be okay?" Tears welled up in her eyes.
A few hours had passed since the attack on the Enchanted Dominion. A deafening alarm had blared at Disney Castle; and when the King told Kairi there was an attack she had been on the first Gummi Ship to leave the ground.
When they'd arrived, she had launched into the forest to cut anything that moved. That's when she spotted Sora across the yard as a hooded figure disappeared into the chaos, and she knew the fight had been lost. But when Kairi made it to the top of the hill, she hadn't prepared for the devastation.
Her fellow Princess of Heart lay, face down, on the perimeter of the forest with bloody lacerations all across her body. Nearby, Sora remained motionless with blood on his face and Phillip's corpse on his lap. He just looked straight ahead with Phillip's coat tightly grasped in his fist.
What happened here?
Kairi made sure Sora heard approach but it didn't seem to matter, he wasn't with her in the clearing. She knelt beside him and put her hand on his arm. "Sora… I've got you, okay? We need to get out of here." He didn't move.
Kairi pulled him, gently. "There's nothing you can do for him now, we just need to get to a safe place. Sora? Are you listening to me?"
There was no sign that he was.
With much difficulty, and a painful moment where she had to pry Sora's hand free of the body, Kairi was able to detach him and practically dragged him back to the castle. But this wasn't the boy she left Destiny Island with. He didn't say a word; he just stared into the distance, watching the horrific memory like a movie. Over and over.
The only time he responded was when Kairi tried to clean the blood off his hands and he'd ripped them away. So, under the King's recommendation, they situated Sora in one of the guard's quarters, and summoned a meeting.
"He's in shock, Kairi. He needs time." The King tried to give a reassuring smile but it did little to lift her spirits.
"Well what can we do to help him?" Kairi pointed to Donald's wand on the table. "Magic! You can cure him!" she exclaimed. Donald grabbed the wand and dragged it into his lap.
"That's not good magic Kairi." He stuttered. "We don't do spells like that."
Kairi looked between them. "But there is something you can do?"
"Sora's strong. He'll bounce back from this. Just let him work it out for himself, okay?"
"I guess so." Kairi looked to her shoes. Sora and Mickey were friends too, she reminded herself. He was probably just as upset as she was. "So… what do we do now?"
The mouse stood on top of the aged cushion. "We need to collect all the information we can about the attack. Donald, round up whatever witnesses from the castle you can find, see what they can tell us. It was obviously led from the forest, maybe something with Maleficent?" The King asked.
"But the man in the robe." Kairi announced. "He looked like Organization, didn't he? Do you think they're working together?"
Goofy shook his head. "They didn't seem too good a' friends in the World that Never Was."
"And Maleficent isn't a forgiver… or forgetter." Donald squawked.
Kairi sighed. "Well if she's out, then that leads us back to the Organization. What if, whatever new evil is coming, raised the Organization Members from the digital space? They already brought back Sephiroth."
The King thought it over. "It's possible. But why only send one member with no other planned attacks?"
"Plans we know about!" Donald yelled.
"Have you heard anything from the other planets?" Kairi asked hurriedly.
"All quiet. We've doubled security in Agrabah, alerted the Beast, and raised the red alert for the rest. If there was going to be another attack, it would have happened already." The King declared.
The group looked between themselves and they were forced to ask the question nobody wanted to know the answer to. "What about Aurora?" Kairi stammered. "There's one less Princess of Heart, doesn't that mean the light is broken?"
"It means we have six other princesses to protect." The King said and jumped off his chair to head toward the door. "Including yourself. We need to head back to Disney Castle, there isn't a safer place." He looked at Kairi. "Before we go, though, we need to know what happened in the forest and Sora's the only reliable witness we have, we'll get his version first. Goofy, tell whatever troops we brought to remain here and help mend the wounded. And, write King Stephan, we'll withdraw once he's taken over." He swept out of the room.
-x-
"Hello?" Riku called into the darkness and a thousand echoes returned his call. "Is someone here?"
The inside of the stone temple was only lit by the sunlight that poured through its doorway, and that only managed to cast a dim glow around the seemingly endless room. Riku started forward, passing rows of columns on either side until he came to a shallow wading pool in the center. The water looked clean, and before he realized what he was doing, Riku knelt beside it and began to drink.
The water absorbed into his cracked, dry mouth and he drank handful after handful but in the end, opted to dunk his entire head in. When he pulled back, something, or someone, moved amongst the shadows.
"Hello?" He asked of the empty room and another dancing shadow moved in the distance. Riku walked toward it, and toward the back of the temple.
Along the back wall, torches were mounted above ancient carvings, drawn like a spider-web. Within it's deep grooves, gemstones and jewels were inlaid, so they sparked by the firelight. Riku couldn't help but admire them when the shadow appeared on the wall behind him.
Riku turned with his weapon in hand and brought it to the intruder's throat. It was a woman, not much older than him, with short blue hair, and a keyblade pressed into his stomach.
"Who are you?" She snapped. "And why are you here?"
-x-
Sora's eyes were fixated on the stone wall across the room. He didn't know who had put him here, or where it was. Was this his room? No, his room had been destroyed in the attack. Sora closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Something rose in his stomach so he fixated, once again, on the stone wall across the room.
What came next? Phillip and Aurora were… Sora couldn't bring himself to think the word. And it was because of him. The King had told him what might happen but he'd been too proud, too concerned with finishing the war instead of winning it. Sora closed his eyes, took a deep breath and fixated on the stone wall across the room.
Their side was weakened with fragments in the light, Sora knew that. To what degree, he wasn't sure, nothing like this had happened before, not that he had heard of. But whatever the solution was, he doubted the King would call on him again. He doubted anyone would. Sora closed his eyes, took a deep breath and fixated on the stonewall across the room.
Tears welled in the corner of his eyes. Where was Riku? What was he doing? What would he think of him, now he wasn't the hero they all thought he was? He couldn't face them, how could he look at the King's face after what he'd done? Sora felt that all he'd accomplished could never amount to the damage he'd caused in a single night. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and fixated on the stonewall across the room.
The heavy brass latch slid from the lock and shattered the silence like glass.
"Hello?" came Kairi's light voice, and her head popped through the door. Sora didn't look up.
Kairi crept into the room with her head hung low and her voice too soft. A spark of anger flew up inside of Sora. He didn't want to be coddled, not after what he'd done. "What do you want?" He said flatly.
With a small nod, Kairi closed the door behind her. The light dimmed and the two friends were left in the darkness. "You need to eat something." Kairi smiled and tried to meet his eye line. Sora looked right through her.
"I'm not hungry." All enthusiasm had left his voice.
Kairi felt awkward. "I didn't think you would be but… I'm glad you're talking again."
"What…" The tears came on their own. "What are they going to do to me?"
"Do to you?" Kairi questioned but the door opened again with Mickey in the archway.
"Sorry Kairi, but we need to talk to him."
Kairi looked back at Sora. "This is only going to take a minute. They - I'm sorry - but we need to know what happened. You know, in case we need to act on something."
Sora thought he would throw up but managed a nod. Mickey, along with five people Sora had never seen before, entered the small room. One of them turned on a tape recorder, while the other took out a pen and a map.
"Sora?" Said the King. "Can we begin with the attack? When did it start?"
A blooming firework in the sky.
"They… they had catapults… from the forest." He stuttered. "It started at dawn. With balls of fire."
There was unease in the room, and Sora felt something inside of him begin to slip.
No more. No more.
Mickey touched his arm. "It's okay, tell us what happened next."
There was a lump in Sora's throat he tried to swallow. "The castle was chaos… so many people died... I tried to help, but…" It was silent while he composed himself. "Everybody was going to the Throne room but… that's where they wanted us. And that's where I found Aurora and Phillip."
"You weren't near them when the attack started?" Mickey asked.
Sora shook his head.
"Then what?" The King asked with an edge to his voice.
"The Heartless decimated the room…. And the leader was there, but I never saw their face."
"Is that where they apprehended you?"
Sora shook his head again. "Phillip and The Princess escaped through a trap door under the throne. I tried to hold them off but they seemed to know what we would do."
The King and his men exchanged looks. "And, is the leader the one that cut your neck?"
Sora didn't say anything.
"May you show it to us?"
Sora's hand trembled, but he pulled down his collar and winced as the fresh wound was irritated.
"It's the mark of The Reborn." Mickey commented, analyzing it with a blank face. "Can you think of why they gave it to you?"
"Your Highness, I think Sora needs a break." Kairi mumbled from the back.
"I know this is hard, Kairi but the more information we have, the more lives we can save." He turned back to Sora. "Now, what happened in the forest?"
Sora opened his mouth but tears started to flood down his face and he shook his head wildly. "I can't - I'm sorry, I can't. I can't do this. I can't."
"It's okay, Sora. Just take a deep breath."
Kairi clenched her teeth. "Your majesty."
He tried, but it was like his body was rejecting the very idea of calm, so it ended up coming out as shallow gasps that served to make him light headed.
The King looked him in the eyes. "You were going to talk about the forest. What happened to the Princess?"
"It's… it's my fault… it's 'cause of me… that she's dead!" He erupted in a fit of sobs.
"That's enough!" Kairi snapped. "You can ask him more when we're back at Disney Castle. After he's rested."
"But Kairi -" The King started.
Kairi snapped. "But nothing!" She pulled back, recognizing her mistake. "I'm sorry. I don't mean any disrespect. But, your majesty, how many lives are you putting at risk if you break our best fighter?"
I'm already broken.
"You're right." The King stood. "I'm sorry, Sora. I should have waited." He turned to his host and motioned toward the door and they filtered out.
"Get him to a ship." He said to Kairi before he left. "There's nothing left for him here."
-x-
"My name is Riku." The edge of her instrument pushed into his stomach. "The King sent me."
"King who?" The girl sounded annoyed.
"… Mickey? He sent me here to… train with you." She pushed her keyblade into his gut, and he twisted his closer to her throat. "He said you might know something about the darkness."
She froze. "I haven't seen Mickey in many years. How did he know I'd returned?"
Riku rolled his eyes and loosed his grip a little. "He knows everything."
She withdrew her sword and started to walk into the center of the Acropolis. "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I can't help. There's a reason I'm in the middle of the jungle in a dark temple and it's not 'cause I love parties."
An ice-cold chill ran through Riku. His worst fear was coming true before they had even begun.
Sora never doubted you.
"Please! If he sent me here, then he knows you can help." She stopped at the edge of the pool but didn't turn. "I… I'm out of options. If you can't help me… I'll just have to move in here with you, 'cause I have nowhere else to go."
She turned and rolled her eyes. "Why did you become my responsibility?"
Riku rolled his eyes back at her. "Did you have something else going on?"
"Rule one, don't be rude." She started towards the sidewall of the temple.
Riku jumped behind her. "Rule one, does that mean you're going to help?"
He heard her sigh but didn't care, and he felt a spark of hope again. Meanwhile, the girl had run her hands along the adobe wall until she found something Riku couldn't see and pushed in a stone. The large wall moved and revealed a passageway beyond. "It means I need time to figure out how to get you to leave and not feel bad about it."
The hidden passage was nothing but a staircase that lead into the heart of the Acropolis. "Are you going to tell me your name?" He asked.
For a moment, it seemed like she was just relieved to say her own name again, and Riku wondered how long it had been. "It's Aqua."
-x-
Sora looked out the window as the Gummi ship pushed off from the ground. Kairi fidgeted nervously in her seat next to him.
"Where's Riku?" He asked, breaking the silence.
It was the one question Kairi had dreaded. "He's still on his mission. I'll call him right when we get back to the Castle."
Sora didn't speak for the rest of the flight.
-x-
When they had arrived back at Disney Castle, Sora had gone straight back to his room and Kairi hadn't seen him since. She tried to go with him, but he brushed her off so she had returned to her own wing of the castle.
Like Sora's, Kairi's room had over stuffed furniture and a roaring fireplace but her bed had been topped with a canopy and an ornate vanity mirror next to it. She sat at its bench and dialed Riku. The watch rang for an uncomfortable amount of time, and with each passing second, the hole in Kairi's stomach grew deeper.
If he were all right, he would answer.
The dark thoughts came too fast to stop and by the time it disconnected, Kairi was ready to tell the King she would be going after Riku.
"Maybe it's a bad connection." A voice came from behind her.
Reflected in the mirror was Sephiroth, reclined in one of the comfy chairs, legs crossed, watching Kairi. Her insides flipped but she thought she hid her surprise well.
"I wondered when you'd come back." She growled.
Sephiroth laughed. "I missed you, too."
She rolled her eyes. "Can we just get to it?"
In a flash, he was behind her with his index finger pressed to her back. "Don't think that one conversation with a computer puts you at an advantage. The only reason I don't snap your spine is because I'm deciding not to."
Her breath was taken from her, but she had prepared for this moment. "If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already. So why don't you just tell me what you want?"
Then, the unthinkable happened, Sephiroth looked surprised and started to laugh. He stood up straight and started to applaud. "The King has been teaching you well! That was almost believable!" The clapping stopped. "And mighty for a girl who let her planet fall into despair."
She'd prepared for this, too. "Radiant Garden wasn't my fault, so if that's the best you have, you can save it."
"You're very quick to scrub the deaths of millions from your conscience, but it was worth a shot. As it stands, though, you are correct, I do have need of you. My Master finds you an anomaly, a keyblade wielding Princess of Heart, and the one we haven't managed to break, yet." Kairi went to speak but Sephiroth continued. "And, for that reason, we are offering you a deal I advise you take. My Master, in exchange for you, will call a cease fire on all the other Princesses."
-x-
The door to Sora's room opened and he was torn from his nightmare. His back was to the door but he could feel someone standing in the archway until the hallway's light dimmed, the door closed and there were footsteps on his floor.
"Sora?" It was Leon. He sounded concerned but despite himself, Sora didn't say anything.
There was a moment of stillness, then a pressure on the bed, and Leon lay next to him, with an arm around his waist.
"It's not your fault."
He couldn't see but Sora began to cry.
-x-
Aqua had created a jungle all by herself that was nestled in the interior of the Acropolis. The walls on either side of the stairs stopped halfway down so it was like Riku was walking through open air to a small patch of grass with a river running through, supplied by a modest waterfall that poured from a port in the wall. Plants grew along the walls that doubled as marshes and small birds and butterflies flew about. Aqua managed to bottle the best parts of nature.
When she'd cleared the stairs, Aqua crossed to a wooden cabinet that blended with the foliage and extracted a basket from inside. "You're probably hungry." It was filled with bread and she held it out to him.
It probably seemed rude, when Riku ran and grabbed it from her hands but he was so famished, he couldn't care.
"What is this place?" Riku looked around, eyes wide.
Aqua followed his glance, like she was seeing it all for the first time. "A sanctuary I built for myself."
"Why build a jungle in the middle of the jungle?" He asked, while spewing crumbs.
"It's a nexus point, between our world and the darkness." She pointed to an archway in the wall that was so lightly engraved, it would have been impossible to know it was there. "When I came through it, all of this was dead." She looked around. "And this is what grew after I decided to stay."
"Why?" Riku was confused. "Why stay if you just managed to escape?"
She shrugged. "I became trapped in the darkness a long time ago, and the only thought that pushed me forward, to keep walking that dark path, was that there would be light on the other side. I walked for years and nothing ever changed until the endless night ended with a glimmer in the darkness. There used to be strong magic on this world, but it's all since died out. I was able to use the last traces of that ancient power to travel through the portal. It didn't occur to me that, for all those years, I never gave a single thought to what I would do once I escaped. If I escaped."
"But without anybody to talk to, isn't this just as bad as the darkness?"
"It's light here." She said, sadly. "And I know I'm doing something good by keeping this nexus for the side of good. But, it does get lonely. If you're here to battle your darkness, my suggestion to you is to stop. Darkness is in all of us; it's all around us. Concentrate on the light, make that grow brighter or else you're fighting a fight you're never going to win."
-x-
"Kairi…" The King sighed. "This has 'trap' written all over it."
Kairi couldn't help but feel like she was on trial with both hands behind her back, stationed in front of the King's desk while he debated her decision to take Sephiroth up on his offer. "I don't think it is and if I can give us some time to figure things out -"
"And wind up dead? Then we would be another Princess down. Besides, we have no guarantee this is a legitimate offer. Chances are, they'll take you, kill you on the spot and cross you off their list."
"They could have already, and they didn't!" She knew The King was partially right, she probably would be killed, and that had her screaming inside for him to decline her offer. But there was a stronger, louder voice that said this was the right thing to do. "I can save a lot of lives and I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't try."
"I'm sorry Kairi, but the answer is no. We will not buy into every red herring the enemy throws our way. We are working on fixing the Cornerstone and after that happens, I'm hoping to have a lot less of these conversations."
A rise of anger sparked in Kairi, but she held it down. "I understand, your Majesty." And before he could say another word, she was down the hallway and on her way to Sora's room. But when she made it to his door, she was surprised to see Leon coming out.
"Leon?!" Kairi asked, her mind was still racing from her conversation with the King. "What're you doing here?!"
"Why are you yelling?" He questioned.
"Am I?!" She heard it, then. "Sorry…" she said softer. "Just a little wound up, I guess. When did you get back?"
"Just a bit ago, thought I'd check in on him first."
"And?"
Leon shrugged. "About right, considering what he's been through." He nodded to her. "Now, what has you so wound up?"
-x-
Ten minutes later and out of breath, Kairi finished her story and waited for Leon to agree with her.
"You shouldn't go." He said bluntly. "It would be suicide."
Kairi wanted to scream. "But I can't do nothing! What if this is the break we've been waiting for?"
"I think the break already came."
She narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"Whatever The Reborn wants, it seems to come down to something they think you have. Don't give them what they want, figure out why they want it."
Kairi nodded. "Right, but the King forbid me from going anywhere. And where would I even start looking for something like that?"
Leon looked around, like someone might be listening and pulled Kairi into a hallway nook. "Just between us, the girls back in Radiant Garden might have found something. When we tried to look into The Reborn, we couldn't find anything. No past members, hideouts, nothing. And a group this big doesn't just start with a bang, they have a history so we changed the search, worked from the angle of the Princesses, trying to figure out what they could be after."
"And… What did you find?" Kairi said eagerly.
"That there's another… an eighth Princess we didn't know about, until now."
Kairi's head was racing. "Another Princess? Is that even possible?"
Leon shrugged. "Don't know, yet. But we have coordinates, just not a plan of action."
"Have you told the King?"
That seemed to make Leon more nervous. "Before he left, Sora came to me. He was worried about you and Riku. I told him to trust the both of you and to trust the King's decisions. Well, I'm starting to wonder if the second part was bad advice, so I'll follow the first."
"So you think I should go talk to this 'new princess'?" She glanced back over her shoulder to Sora's bedroom door. "I can't, I can't leave him like this."
"I'll take care of Sora, and I'll tell him where you went. But if this is really something you want to act on, I would advise you to move quickly."
"But King Mickey said I couldn't go anywhere, and any departure that isn't on the flight plan will point directly to me."
"Not unless it's not your ship."
-x-
And that's how Kairi found herself launching into space, screaming at the top of her lungs with her destinations coordinates glowing on Leon's flight panel.
-x-