I'm back, and for once I'm going to take a break from Sora and Kairi and go to someone slightly different. But besides that, I REALLY hate Xehanort now. HE'S the real one to beat in BBS as Terra. As of this point though, Terra and Ventus are both down, on Critical, and it's Aqua's turn, on Critical. Like I said earlier, I am the Schiznit!
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
-A-D-
The War
Chapter XLV: Dawn and Destiny
0840hrs, Thursday, November 20th, 2003
Middle-earth
Riku
A yawn escaped the lips of the silver-haired Keyblade Master and he stretched his arms out back behind his head. Riku's aqua eyes gazed into the orange flames of the fire in front of him without a thought, even as he rubbed his gloved hands up and down the sleeves of his arms, hoping that the friction from them would generate enough heat to keep his limbs warm. He had no fathomable idea why he had woken up as early as he had, though a little before eight-thirty in the morning wasn't too early in a rational person's mind, but he was secretly glad. Very recently, eight had become late and five had become early. It was really messing him up.
Riku sniffed, taking in the sounds of frying meat and eggs in a frying pan held over the fire by Tessai Tsukabishi. The only reason why he had been allowed to sleep in until eight was because Sora wasn't there. And since Sora and Kairi were the primary reason to Urahara and his cohorts' presence, with Kairi gone to Radiant Garden and Sora called away to perform some mission again, they were allowing Riku to have a little time off; he'd already gone head-to-head against Renji's Bankai and fought him to a draw, in Riku's mind he told himself that he won, so Kisuke had little incentive to train the silver-haired Keyblade Master.
"Morning Sleepyhead," Jinta Hanakari said cheekily, the boy carrying a stack of wood as he came out of the trees.
"Morning," Riku said, fighting through another yawn. "What's for breakfast?" He glanced over at the frying pan. He hadn't actually seen yet what Tessai was cooking, and at the same time there was a teapot heating up nearby.
"Ah, get your own breakfast, giant," Jinta said. He sat down and grabbed a piece of ham out of the pan. Tessai smacked the backside of his hand with a flipper.
"Don't," he said with a warning note, "it's impolite."
"Alright fine," Jinta huffed, folding his arms. He looked away with a scowl. "Can I have breakfast please?"
"No."
"What!" Jinta shouted. "Why not! That's just evil!"
"It's not ready yet," Tessai told him. "Unless you would rather get food poisoning and have me make you throw up."
Jinta's eye twitched as his face paled slightly. "Never mind, I can wait." Riku chuckled slightly and turned his head to the left as he felt a weight on that shoulder.
"Riku, do you miss Sora?" Aiwemon asked, the small bird digimon the one that had landed on his left shoulder. The poor guy already seemed deflated, and Sora had only left the night before.
"Well, not particularly," Riku answered truthfully. "I suppose I do, but he's only been gone a few hours and he'll be back in no time. It's like a little break from Sora."
Aiwemon looked at him in confusion. "A break? From Sora?"
Riku laughed. "Unless you're Kairi, Donald, or Goofy you can't stay around Sora twenty-four seven and stay sane," he said. "But then again, she's head-over-heels in love with him, and I've never been sure just how sane Donald and Goofy exactly are, so…"
"But what do you mean a break?" Aiwemon asked.
The Keyblade Master sighed at the digimon. "You mean you've never just wanted to get away from everything and everybody and have a chance to be by yourself?"
"No."
Riku was a little taken aback. He honestly hadn't expected Sora's digimon partner to be so blunt. "Why would I want to be by myself?" Aiwemon continued. "I like being around Sora and Kairi and Menelmon. I like being around you too, Riku." Riku blinked, and Aiwemon looked up. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Riku said quickly. "It's just that I'm a little surprised that you like being with me too. I'm not your partner."
"No, you're not," Aiwemon admitted. "But, you're a very special friend of Sora's and a kind person with a good heart, even though it has gotten you into trouble in the past. I like being around good digimon and good people, and making friends with them makes me happy. But…" his green eyes trailed upwards to where the sunlight was just beginning to make the sky beyond the trees in the distance golden, "I suppose that if I were to want to be by myself, I'd probably want to be up there, in the sky, with the wind beneath my wings."
"Why's that?" Riku asked.
"I feel almost as happy and comfortable when I'm flying as I do when I'm with Sora," Aiwemon replied happily, beaming at Riku. "It's just a wonderful feeling, flying. I'm as at home in the sky as I am with my partner."
Aiwemon sighed, and Riku quirked an eyebrow. "You're really dedicated to him aren't you?" The little bird digimon nodded his white-feathered head.
"Uh-huh," he replied quickly. "I waited for Sora for a long time, all of us did. We knew that they would come to help save our world, but I had no idea back then that Sora would save many more worlds than just my own." Aiwemon raised his head to the sky, looking towards the growing light in the east amongst the tall, rocky, and snow-capped peaks of the Misty Mountains. "Seeing how much Sora cares for each world he goes to, and to all the worlds, it makes my heart stronger, and I want to be right beside him until everything is at peace once again. Then I can soar the skies of the Digital World, a free digimon in a free world."
Riku smiled and nodded his head before turning and looking towards the dawn. Tessai had finished cooking now, and Jinta was eating rather loudly. "That's a good dream," Riku told the little digimon. "Never give up on it."
"And what about you Riku?"
Both of them turned to observe the voice's owner, the black cat Yoruichi Shihōin, watching them and listening to their conversation. "What is your dream Riku? What do you fight for, long to see at the end of this war of yours?"
Riku stared at the cat for some time. What did he fight for? More often than not he and his friends had always been asked why they fought, but Yoruichi wasn't asking now about some intangible idea, like hope or chivalry, but for something material, something that he could touch, taste, or feel.
Yuffie's face immediately popped into his mind, followed swiftly by Sora, Kairi, Naminé, Mickey, and even Roxas, but Riku pushed their faces away. Of course his friends would be the first thing he'd think of, but Yoruichi wasn't asking about them either.
"Can I get back to you on that?" Riku asked, surprisingly drawing a blank.
Yoruichi nodded his head in understanding. "Of course Riku," he said. "Now have some breakfast."
-A-D-
It was only a little later inside of the tent that he and Sora were now sharing-having split the blanket bed and moving it to opposite sides, they were not sleeping together no matter how cold it got!- when Riku was comfortably rolling his arms around to get some of the kinks out of them as he watched a sphere, that Kairi had nicked from Naminé, on the portable sphere player, that Sora had nicked from Roxas, when a large swirling oval of white and golden light formed next to him. Riku, hiding his surprise, paused the sphere and looked at it expectantly. Sure enough, a few seconds later Sora walked right out of it, muttering "Hey."
"Hey," Riku returned the greeting. He hit 'play' again and turned his glance away from the spiky-haired brunet. Sora seemed dead on his feet, and his voice lacked its normal energy and enthusiasm. "How was the mission?"
"Just a sec," Sora said as the portal of light faded away. Riku looked at him again; Sora was fumbling around for something. In another two seconds, he had pulled out his Star Command communicator. Looking back at the sphere, Riku couldn't help but smile to himself as he overheard the conversation Sora began to strike up. He could only imagine the response on the other end, because Sora hadn't put it on video or speaker.
"Hey, Kairi? Yeah, it's me. Look, I know you're tired and everything, but next time we're about to fly into a tunnel, DON'T SAY "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" You nearly jinxed us!" There was silence, but Riku was almost certain he could faintly hear Kairi shouting a retort at her boyfriend. "Upset? Yeah I'm upset, four times last night I thought that one of you had gone down, four times Kairi! And Naminé twice! You know the only one who didn't almost die? ME! It freaked me out, okay! Do you know how scared I was that I was going to be the only one of us getting out of there, with absolutely nothing I could do about it! (Sora paused for some time and sighed) I'm sorry…I…I just… I'm tired and going to bed. I shouldn't have shouted. Sleep tight love. (He laughed slightly, dryly) Yeah… Love you too. Bye."
"Smooth Sora," Riku said, not even looking behind him to know that Sora had just placed his head in his hands.
"Riku," his best friend began slowly, "did you know that a giant satellite armed with a nuclear weapon capable of obliterating all life on pretty much half a continent could turn into a Heartless?"
"No."
"Neither did I. Pass me your pillow."
Riku just looked up. "What do you want my pillow for?"
"Just do it." Riku shrugged and tossed him the pillow, aiming for Sora's big head. Unfortunately, he caught it. "Thanks Riku," Sora said, placing the pillow to his upper chest.
And then he fell forward, his body dropping onto the blankets and open sleeping bag and his head hitting his own pillow. Thirty seconds later he was snoring. Very carefully Riku leaned over and snatched his pillow out from underneath Sora's body.
Nice, Dawn commented inside of his head. He didn't even wake up.
"Sora'd sleep through worse than that," Riku said aloud, smiling slightly at his snoring friend.
You up for a little training then? Dawn asked. Sis has agreed to that threesome you wanted.
Riku blinked, hard. What? He thought, confused. What are you talking about Dawn?
He felt something tugging at his mind, and he knew that he was being drawn into his heart's platform as Dawn said Just get in here.
-A-D-
The silver-haired Keyblade Master opened his eyes and looked around. As usual, darkness surrounded the platform of his heart, but when he looked down he could see that the image on his platform had changed. Where before it had shown him looking back at himself on a dark road to the rising sun, King Mickey, Sora, and Kairi waiting there for him, now it showed him standing on the right half of the platform and looking up into the sun's light, Sora, Kairi, King Mickey, Yuffie, Naminé, and Roxas all in a line alongside him. Naminé's and Roxas' faces had been added into blue circles near his head, and the one that had previously held that of Xehanort's Heartless was fractured and greyed. Yuffie's heart had turned a deeper shade of red than it had been when last he'd looked at it, so that now it was tinged a bit closer to red rather than the lightish red of pink. Riku looked again, and saw that he and Yuffie were discreetly holding hands in the line.
His vision was suddenly cut off as hands went over his eyes. "Guess who?" a voice asked flirtatiously. Riku rolled his eyes but smiled.
"Aw, Spirit Yuffie, I didn't know that you cared so much."
A snort came from behind him and his vision was restored. He turned around and looked right into the orange eyes of Dawn, the Keyblade spirit floating up to meet him eye-to-eye. "Party pooper," she muttered.
"Dawn, play nice," said a different voice. The bubbly white-blonde haired spirit turned around, and Riku followed her gaze. His head jolted back in surprise. Dawn had mentioned that she had a twin sister before, and Riku had since taken that to mean the soul of the other Keyblade he found himself with: the girly (according to Kairi) Destiny's Embrace. But he did not expect the sight in front of him. Where Dawn looked like a teenager, and was bright and exuberant and flirty, Destiny certainly had a different look to her.
Dawn's sister looked to be around twenty-seven, a much older Keyblade Spirit than the one he was used to. Her hair was long and silver and her sagely brown eyes looked him over with amusement at the amount of fussing that Dawn was prone to make over her wielder. Her skin had more colour to it than Dawn's creamy complexion, but her face was no less attractive. In fact, if she didn't appear to be so much older than Riku, he'd be tempted. A black vest was over a silver sheer halter top, and there were silver cut-away sleeves on her arms extending to just below her elbows with frills against the wrists. From her waist loosely hung a pleated violet skirt; at her knees most of the skirt ended, but a portion wrapped around the outside of her left leg and trailed down to her ankles. She also wore small black heeled shoes with two straps crossing diagonally over the topside of her feet. Around her neck was a deep purple chocker and in its centre was a tiny yellow paopu fruit.
Dawn stayed floating in the air as the woman's heels clacked against the stained glass of the platform. The 'younger' of the twin sisters pouted and air-stamped her foot. "Aw, why do I have to?"
"Because it annoys him," the woman answered.
"What!" Dawn asked. She turned around. "Riku, am I annoying?"
"Actually, you are," Riku told her. "But I'm fine with it, and wouldn't have it any other way."
"Yay!" Dawn giggled. "I'm so happy I could kiss you!"
"Watch it…" Riku said as her arms went around his neck.
"Dawn," the woman said simply. Dawn extracted herself from Riku and floated over to where the woman was standing. She landed on the ground in her white sandals, and Riku looked between them. Dawn was at least a half a foot shorter than the woman. She nodded at the smaller spirit and then looked at Riku. "I don't suppose I need to tell you who we are, Riku."
"No," Riku answered, shaking his head. He held out his hands, and in them both Way to the Dawn and the flowery Destiny's Embrace appeared in flashes of golden light. "You are the spirits of my Keyblades."
"Correct," Destiny said, nodding her head as both Keyblades vanished. "As such, we chose you to wield us and to control our power, the power of the Dawn. So far, you have only interacted with Dawn, and I have stayed silent in the background. Your fighting with Renji Abarai awakened me to your need for my guidance, for you and Dawn have both been fighting brashly." She glanced at Dawn, and the other Keyblade spirit bowed her head just as Riku looked away as if he'd been reprimanded.
"But your conversation with Sora's digimon partner Aiwemon, and with Yoruichi Shihōin convinced me that the time for me to appear to you is now," she continued. "The powers in us and your heart are strong, and will see you through most trials, but only if you know how to properly use them."
"Am I not using them correctly?" Riku asked.
She shook her head. "No, you are," Destiny said. "There are just some things that could be… for lack of a better word… better."
"Better?" Riku asked her. "Better how?"
"You were asked earlier what it was that you fought for," Destiny answered. "Knowing that answer could help."
Riku blinked his eyes and looked at both Dawn and Destiny. Dawn still had her head bowed and was looking away from him, as if she were ashamed, while Destiny's eyes were on him, studying him, trying to discern the answer he might give. Dawn's expression made him more nervous than the gaze of the other spirit. "Why should that matter?" he asked aloud. "Dawn?"
She jerked her head up at her name with wild eyes, startled. She looked down again. "Because it does Riku," she told him. "We Keyblades, we have our own thoughts, our own dreams and desires, even though we are weapons; tools with which to vanquish those who upset the balance between light and darkness, usually those with darkness on their side. What you may fight for… may not be the same thing that we would like you to fight for."
"Huh?" Riku asked, confused.
"Imagine, just for a moment, that over the millennia I have existed, that I became lonely," Dawn said, turning her eyes up towards Riku again. "And that I decided to choose someone at random who had a strong heart, just so that I would feel a hand wrapped around my grip again, so that I could feel like I was still useful in the good fight, rather than waiting for a thousand years to find that perfect person, that perfect wielder to bear me."
Riku's voice almost trembled at the look in Dawn's face. "Dawn?"
"If it were you," Dawn asked, "if you had a person who made you feel like you had a purpose again, wouldn't you do everything in your power to protect them, no matter what they did?"
A hitched breath, and Riku looked at Dawn with a new light. "Balhafa, your last wielder, what was it that he did that made him plunge into darkness?"
Dawn shook her head. "I'd rather not say, not even to you, who walked a little of the same path. Just know that it made your betrayal of your friends look tame, and it took all of my strength to force myself to see what it was he was doing and to turn him to the path of redemption. In the beginning he was good, he really was, but he lost his reason for fighting, exchanging it all for what he fought for and that was power. I had been so alone, I gave him every ounce of power I had, and convinced myself that we were fighting for the same things. But that wasn't true, that was never true."
Destiny looked at Dawn with mild surprise and sympathy. "Sis…"
"I'm warped because of it," Dawn muttered, extending her hand. Way to the Dawn appeared there, and she glared at it. Her orange eyes were seething as she gazed at the black bat-wing on one side of the hilt and the blood-red blade. "I didn't used to look like this, I didn't used to be the Keyblade that bore the power of the Dawn, I hadn't been the Keyblade of a Legendary Wielder of Power before, I hadn't even known that Dawn was one such power; I used to be beautiful. But that's it, isn't it? Because he became so obsessed with power, and I helped him so much, Dawn was created when my heart finally forced me to get him and me onto the path of redemption. I wish I could go by my true name again, and see what I had looked like before I turned into… into this demonic blade!"
Dawn screamed and threw the Keyblade down towards the image of the sun on the platform. Riku's eyes flashed and his right hand flexed. Right before the tip of Way to the Dawn could strike into his heart's platform it appeared in his own hand. "Don't say that," Riku said quickly, coming up to her and placing a hand on her shoulder, suddenly finding a kindred spirit in his Keyblade. "You are not a demon."
Dawn looked up into his aqua eyes, and suddenly she had thrown her arms around him again and buried her face into his chest. Riku couldn't say that he wasn't surprised by the act, and looked to Destiny for any sort of advice. She looked just as confused as he did by Dawn's behaviour though, so Riku awkwardly placed his arms around Dawn's shoulders and back while dismissing her Keyblade form.
"You're so kind," Dawn said, her voice muffled a bit as she clutched at the back of his vest and hid her face under one side of it. "And you wonder why I obsess over you. Even after all you did, you still had the strength to see the evil you were doing yourself before too much damage had been caused. And even now you still put your friends above yourself in every case, still trying to redeem yourself in their eyes even though they've already forgiven you a hundred times over. Even now with me, you've forgiven me for what I've done without even saying anything or spending any time debating on the issue."
"Would there be any reason for me not to forgive my partner for something she's done in the past?" Riku asked, pulling Dawn back and looking tenderly at her. "If I can't forgive you, then there's no way I'd be able to forgive myself for my actions."
"It took sis twenty years to forgive me," Dawn whispered, timid orange eyes glancing surreptitiously at Destiny, "and we were forged at the same time."
Destiny looked away. "Our circumstances were different," she said bitterly. "My wielder and I could see what was happening."
"So?" Riku asked quickly, a little more bite in his voice than what he'd intended. "Sora could and I couldn't, yet he still forgave me for falling into darkness and doing what I'd done."
Destiny turned her brown eyes on Riku, and he nearly recoiled as a jolt of pain went through his mind. "The difference between your fight with Sora is that Sora was the victor," Destiny said, an underlying note of pain in her voice, "and that when he won, he didn't kill you."
Dawn dipped her head back underneath Riku's vest and whimpered slightly. But Riku didn't pull back, if anything, he placed himself more between Destiny and Dawn. Who was she to say such things about Dawn, even if they were true? Dawn had turned away from that past, just as he had turned away from his own dark deeds and come back into the light. Destiny smiled slightly. "I see that we were right after we reconciled," she said. "You would fight against the spirit of one of your own Keyblades, just to protect the other one. You have found the strength you sought."
Riku resisted voicing his confusion, and only continued to stare defiantly at her, just in case she would try something. "You wanted strength to protect the things that matter, like your friends," Destiny told him. "You fight because you want to protect them, and you fight for them, to keep them safe, because their lives and their love for you and yours for them mean something. Even in your darkest hour, your friends still stood beside you, or wanted to. What you fight for is life and love, and you fight to protect that, even at the cost of your own."
"But we don't want that," Dawn said, pulling away from Riku. "Or, at least, I don't want that." Riku looked down at her quizzically and she separated herself from him. "I've waited eleven thousand years for the one who is my chosen one," she whispered, "my chosen champion of light, and I've found him in a tall, handsome, stoic teenager who selflessly throws himself into danger and darkness to keep his friends safe from it. But where will that get you if you die?" Dawn asked. "You fight for them, but what I fight for is you."
"What?" Riku asked, taken aback.
"Before you I felt like I was nothing," Dawn said. "For eons I went masterless, hopelessly searching for the one, until loneliness drove me to make my mistake. You have no idea how painful it was for me to watch you fall into darkness right when I was making up my mind about whether or not you would suit as a new wielder, especially after crawling my way back out. Destiny had to coax me into it, and it was only after she agreed that she would let you wield her too that I came to you, and as soon as I came into your hand I knew that I had finally made the right choice, and knew that I was doing good in your hands. I come out to protect you. I never want you to die. I never want to feel so…"
Dawn stopped as Riku gently placed a hand to her chin. He tilted it up, and her eyes were roving all over his, searching for something. Riku saw the watery look in them and closed his own before placing his lips against hers. In the back of his mind was the thought that he was cheating on Yuffie through doing this, but he brushed it away as he felt Dawn's moist, plump lips moving against his own. He knew exactly what he was doing, and in no way was it cheating on his girlfriend. And actually, he was kinda enjoying kissing her. Dawn's fingers wound their way into his hair and the tips grazed against his scalp. One of her legs hooked around his and she pressed herself closer, seemingly desperate to become as close to Riku as possible. Slowly, Riku wound back the kiss and broke away from Dawn, a kind smile on his face after he reopened his eyes.
That was almost too much for Dawn, her mind already in a complete tizzy. She could really understand why Yuffie loved Riku so much; he was such a good kisser. And to have been kissed like that by the person who had proven him strong enough to resist her… well, it wasn't actually all that hard to resist her anyway. She had never calculated her advances to try and make him fall in love with her, but to seduce him for a quickie. Still, she'd never imagined that she would actually get a kiss from Riku.
He'd kissed her.
Riku had actually kissed her.
RIKU'D KISSED HER!
Dawn's face exploded with a smile and she leapt up into the air. Fireworks were going off in her mind and in the darkness as she let out a squeal of joy. "HE KISSED MEEE!" she shouted to the silent heavens, floating further up on her back with her arms and legs splayed out in triumphant bliss before hysteric laughter and giggles started to escape from her heart and lungs.
Riku watched Dawn's reaction in fascination and heard another sound. Destiny had sighed, but was smiling at him. "You actually kissed her," she said. "So what's this going to do between you and Yuffie?"
"Absolutely nothing," Riku answered, still smiling too. "But Dawn needed that, after what she's gone through."
"How do you know that she was telling the truth?" Destiny asked him.
"Nobody would lie about something like that," he replied seriously. "But what about you?"
"Hm?" Destiny asked.
"If I fight for my friends, to protect the things that matter to me, and Dawn fights with me to protect me, what is it that you fight for?"
"Hn," the 'older' Keyblade spirit said. "Perceptive kid." She turned and looked up into the dark sky, still being lit by fireworks that were somehow being set off, probably through Dawn's emotional high. "I could tell you that I still fight for the light, like Tylythia forged us for, but that might be a bit of a stretch now. No, now I fight for the light still, but I also align myself to the hopes and dreams of my Wielder. If I don't, then I'm using them as much as they're using me. In fact, this is actually a breath of fresh air." She turned towards Riku as one particularly bright firework of yellow cast its light down on them. "To tell you the truth, since only the Legendary Wielders of Power, and the Kingdom Key's Chosen, can speak with the spirits of their Keyblades, this may actually be the reason for why they are so strong compared to other Keyblade Wielders, because Keyblade and Chosen Wielder are able to bond and find a common ground with which to fight on and take strength from one another. Others, like Asterix and King Mickey, are not as lucky as you are Riku."
Riku smiled, but just then he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see a steaming Yuffie. Even though it wasn't the real Yuffie, Riku still became very afraid. "And just what was that about kissing Dawn?" she asked, her booted foot tapping rapidly with crossed arms and a malevolent look on her face, just slightly positioned downwards even though he was a head taller than her. "Yuffie's going to knock your block off when she finds out that you were kissing her, especially after she felt that there was no competition between her and Dawn."
"There is no competition between you—her—and Dawn," Riku said quickly. "I care about her… but in a familial way, like Kairi. Yuffie, she's… she's different. I don't think I've ever felt as… deeply about someone before…" His voice had quieted as he kept talking, emotions stirring in his heart as he thought about the raven-haired kunoichi, and he let his words trail away.
Spirit Yuffie still wasn't impressed. "Yet you've never kissed Kairi full on the lips before," she pointed out.
"Kairi's got Sora to do that," Riku countered. "And he'd kick my ass if I did and I'd let him. Dawn's only got me."
"Touché," Spirit Yuffie relented. "Then again, there is another way that this could be taken, if you can convince Yuffie to do it."
Riku narrowed his eyes at the mischievous look on the spirit's face. "How?" he asked, an idea coming to him but demanding confirmation. Spirit Yuffie giggled, but before she could answer someone else spoke up.
"Oh Riku!" Dawn called from above, doing aerial flips through the stars of fireworks still lighting up the darkness, "I'm so happy I'm going to tell you my true name! Then we'll be even closer, you wonderful kisser you!"
Spirit Yuffie smirked and looked back at Riku. "Dawn said earlier that she'd convinced her sister to that threesome you wanted," she said merrily.
"And Destiny probably wouldn't mind participating either!" Dawn hollered from above, laughing and proving that she'd heard the conversations below. Spirit Yuffie laughed a bit more herself before skipping back to the heart where she resided within his. Destiny couldn't hold it in anymore and burst, placing one arm across her chest as a brace for her mirth, leaving Riku blushing and flummoxed in the wake of it all.
I have got to figure out how I keep getting harem jokes directed at me.
-A-D-
That's it for this one. Poor Riku, he keeps getting all the man-whore jokes.
May the Grace of the Valar Protect You
Shire Folk
