Sora looked toward Riku. His friend's jaw was was clenched, his hands were fisted so tightly that Sora could see small drops of bright red blood falling from between his fingers to the ground. What Squall had said hadn't even really sunk in yet, but Sora knew that look on Riku's face was frightening.
He parted his lips and took in a breath. It was cold, no, it was more than cold. The entire room was freezing. There could only be one cause for such a drop in temperature, and that was Riku. It had to be. "Riku...?" He had barely managed to breathe the name out, but that was all it took to shatter the atmosphere around them. Riku turned, pried the door open with such force that Sora was surprised that the door didn't come right off its hinges, and then slammed it behind him with just as much force. "Riku!" His friend did not return.
"Let him go, Sora."
Sora turned his head. This was his master's fault. "How could you say something so horrible?" It was starting to sink in now, as the room's temperature began to warm up again. Squall had just told him that Ansem, at least in part, was Riku's father. What a horrible thing to say. Riku hated Ansem! It was genuine hate, the way he had gone after him after he'd come through the portal. Parents and children shouldn't fight like that! Trying to kill each other... His heart wanted to yell at Squall, tell him that he was wrong. The Three Aspects weren't Riku's sire. How could that possibly be?! But his mind told him differently. It wasn't just Riku's silver hair, or the way he'd stormed away that told him it was true. Ansem himself had already told him.
"Riku's blood belongs to me."
Those words, spoken days ago, rung in his ears. Sora had never thought he had meant it in a familial way, but now that he thought about it, that was obviously what he'd meant. Riku was his son. A father could control his own son, and a son could rebel against his own father for it. It didn't matter. It was still an awful thing to say.
"I said it because it's true. He is a Dark Prince, and his father is the King. No matter how hard he fights it, your friend will ascend to the Dark, and he will bring great chaos to the world in his father's name. I sense that potential in him. He may not be gone yet, but soon, Sora. Soon he will become just like his father. He will abandon the Light, and become a seeker of the Dark."
Sora bit his lip, and then he shook his head. "You're wrong, Master."
"You don't believe me?"
"I don't. Riku may be the Aspect's son, and if he is, I don't care!" It wasn't until the words left his lips that he fully realized that how true it was. He didn't care. Riku hadn't changed just because of this. He'd always been this person, and the only thing that had changed was that Sora now knew. They were still friends. They would always be friends.
He would defend his friend. "Riku is never going to be a Seeker of the Dark. Riku has already chosen to be a Seeker of the Light!" With this too, Sora didn't realize how much he believed it until he said it, but it too was only truth. It wasn't a conventional seeking, not like Guardians did, but Riku had begun to look for the Light in things. He'd helped to destroy Maleficent, a blow for the Light. He'd looked for the Light in the people of Halloween, a Light most people would say did not exist. He'd fought against the King of the Dark, his own father. Squall might never see it, but Sora could. Riku craved the Light. He desperately wanted to be a part of it.
"I'm going after him." He turned toward the doorway, his eyes glancing between it and his master. They didn't have to like each other, but Sora needed to bring Riku back. They still needed to solve this together. Together was only way.
He could hear Squall objecting as he opened the door and then closed it behind him, but he paid him no heed. Squall was his master, and knew a great many things Sora did not, but he did not know Riku or their friendship, no matter how he thought he did.
Sora had thought that Riku would have run off, far from Squall's property. Sora had thought that he would have to run to catch up with him, but he didn't. In truth, Riku had not wandered far off at all, so close that Sora could still see his figure in the gentle darkness that lingered about in the earliest hours of night. Was this the kind of Dark that Riku was, Sora wondered. Was he the early night, still desperately holding onto the last light of day? It seemed to fit, but if that were the case, Squall was right; that light always left, leaving an absolute darkness in the midnight hours. Sora also knew the sun always rose in the morning.
"Riku?" Sora reached out a hand, wanting to place it against his friend's back, but he hesitated. Would Riku not like that? Was he in too much of a Dark place right now? He wanted to help, but he wasn't sure how.
"Sora," his friend's voice was barely above a whisper, and he heard an equally soft sigh escape his lips, his head, which had been looking up toward the moon, bowed. "He wasn't lying. What Squall said was true."
"I know," Sora said softly, biting his lip again. It already felt chapped. "And I don't care. You're my friend. I believe in you, and I told that to Master Squall. I don't care who your father is. You are still you."
"I'm happy to hear you say that, but...that's not all there is to it."
"Then tell me." Again, Sora's fingers itched to reach out to his friend, but he didn't want to scare him off. He didn't seem angry, like he had inside the house, but sadness could be just as draining. A cat could sit perfectly still, and then run away into the night when someone approached. He was afraid Riku would be like that, if he pushed just a little too far. He still had to try. "I'm here for you. I want to know."
"It's a long story."
"We have all night." Riku sighed again, but he finally turned to face him, and he lazily leaned his body against one of the gnarly old trees that littered Squall's property. The darkness dulled nearly everything about him, but Sora knew that when the moon rose, his eyes would light up. It wouldn't be too long before that happened.
"If a witch bears a child for the Aspects," his friend began, "One Aspect may visit that child once as a babe, but then they have to forever leave the mother alone if she wishes for that. That's the deal."
Sora had heard that before, from Squall years ago, but he'd never given it much thought. Why would a witch want that anyway? It made no sense. Didn't creatures of the Dark wish to get closer to the Dark? There was no closer than being visited by the Aspects personally, was there?
"It's rare, but my mother managed it, on Walpurgisnacht, when the Aspects can walk the earth from dusk to dawn, no strings attached. She was powerful, and she wanted freedom, and she hated how the Aspects would take it from her if they found that they wanted her power for themselves."
"So she had you." That sounded wrong to Sora. Children were supposed to be made of love, not to be a means to an end.
Riku nodded. "She didn't really realize that having a child was just as confining. Instead of having to do what the Dark wanted, she had to do what I needed. A baby can't survive on its own after all, and then there was my confinement. She may have been free, but because of my parentage, I had a powerful sense of Dark from the very first moment I took in breath. She didn't want that either, for me to give into it, to serve my father. He had to stay away as long as I was close to her, but if I left, he could visit me on Walpurgisnacht, or even try to summon me straight into the Dark."
The mage stopped speaking for a moment, his eyes drifting away from Sora's face to look at the sky. He did that a lot, looked up at the sky. "I always loved playing with you and Kairi when we were little. You know that, right?"
Of course Sora had known that. It had never been a question, but, "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Everything," Riku laughed once, but it wasn't a warm or kind laugh, it was bitter and cold. "To keep me as pure as possible, my mother looked for a pure Light. A light so pure that it not only shined, but actually kept the malicious Dark away. She found it in Destiny. That's why we moved there." This. This gave Sora a reason to pause. He'd never really thought about it before, but Riku was right. In all his years never had anything from the Dark come to harm Destiny. It was like it was shielded from the cruelties that plagued other ections in the Region. He'd never given it much thought, how they were never called to Destiny, but Riku made it obvious.
"Who makes the Light?" A Light that strong could only come from a person. The Light in items faded over time and animals were neutral, neither good nor bad, and so this pure Light could only be someone he knew; someone they both knew.
"Kairi."
Sora felt like he'd been punched in the gut. His heart pounded against his chest. How could that be? "Kairi?" Really? Her? A Light that strong had been that close to him all this time?
Riku nodded. "There isn't a shred of Dark in her. You have some Dark in you, and so does Squall, but not Kairi. Her Light is so pure..." he shook his head. "I forgot what it was like, to be Dark, when I lived there. So did Mom. She didn't take care of people before we moved there, but being in Kairi's presence made her want to help people. That's how strong it is, it changes people, or simply keeps them away." Riku held Sora's gaze for a moment, and then looked toward the sky once more. "Squall should have known that. He should have left us alone. Instead he ruined it. The peace we'd lived under. In a single day he took away both my protection from the Dark, and my protection from my father, but it was more than that. He took my home, my mother, and worst of all, he took away my friends."
Sora wanted to tell Riku that it wasn't true, not the part about his mother, his home, or his protections, those were all true, but the part about his friends. He wanted to say that Squall hadn't taken that from him, but when he opened his mouth he found he couldn't say it. He couldn't say something he didn't feel was true. Riku had always been his friend, Sora had always known that in his heart, but he too had always felt like Squall had taken Riku away from him.
With nothing said, Riku continued on a moment later. "Ansem came to me next Walpurgisnacht." He closed his eyes. "I don't even remember how I managed to survive that long. It must have been a miracle of some sort, how I ate and survived." His friend shook his head. "I remember I was desperate, and I wanted revenge. He came to me, and told me how to access my magic, told me where I had to go, what I had to do, but in return I would one day use my power for him. I was stupid, and I agreed."
"You were desperate." Sora echoed the words. It wasn't stupidity. It was desperation. Riku had still only been a kid, of course he'd needed help. He knew that desperate people sometimes did much worse things, like kill someone over an apple. At least Riku's situation had not come to that. Given the options, Sora thought this was the best one, but in truth any option would have been better than his best friend dying.
"Still." Riku shook his head. "It was wrong to agree. It took me so much closer to the Dark. I've been struggling with it ever since. My magic, my choices, everything, and now that Ansem's here without chains..." His friend took in a deep breath. "It's calling to me. Ansem. The Dark. It gets stronger every day, Sora. I don't know how long I'll be able to resist." He bowed his head toward the ground. "I know it won't be long," he whispered the words so softly that Sora could barely hear them, and then he was completely silent.
The seconds passed and Sora found it harder and harder to do nothing. His natural instinct was to say something, but there was nothing to say. For once, Sora could not find words. Words would not make his friend feel better, so instead he did the only other thing he thought he could; he reached out and wrapped his arms around his friend, and held him close. Maybe his embrace could tell Riku what words could not. He was not alone, he would never have to struggle alone. Sora would always be there. They could fight it together.
Riku was rigid, and Sora tightened his arms more and more around the other boy, as though tighter hugs meant more than looser ones. Soon, Riku relaxed, leaning his whole being against Sora, his face pressed into his shoulder. Riku had never done that before, and it made Sora's heart beat faster, not a pounding, but a flutter against his ribs. Weak. Riku had always been strong, but as they stood there, Sora felt that for the first time, Riku was showing how weak he actually was under the facade.
