Hyah~ Hikari here again.
For those of you who only follow/favorited this story, I'm here to let you know that Riku and I are working on multiple stories currently, so updates from me will be switching between Another Time; Another Life and Shadows of the Night.
Well, enough about the future update schedule, enjoy the new chapter.
Chapter 5
Riku once again was alone in his room. There was nothing to do today anyways so he wanted to take as much time as he could to have to himself. He breathed in and out as he let various thoughts swirl around in his mind.
Out of everything that had happened to him, having his memories as Ira being reawakened was the more troubling. It brought far more conflict to him than he already had. And there were still so many questions.
Many, many unanswered questions. No matter what Riku did to calm him mind, the questions never stopped burning in the back. Almost every moment he let his mind wander, new thoughts came from both sides of his mind. Ira and Riku. Two different people, yet technically the same. Both sides of his memories still clashed against one another nearly every chance they got. And at some points Riku wasn't sure what to do.
Currently he was in his room, lying on his bed like he usually did when his thoughts became too overwhelming. The subject in his mind today was one that he was surprised didn't arise right away.
His keyblade.
His former keyblade from when he was Ira.
"Is it still possible that I could wield it? In this new body and life, am I able to do such a thing?" Ira wondered as he rolled onto his back. If it weren't for the blindfold, he would be staring up at the ceiling, but the darkness over his eyes gave him the same feeling for spacing out.
"But my heart has given into darkness… I don't even think I would be worthy to use my former keyblade. I couldn't even gain back the keyblade I was suppose to have in this new life."
Finally feeling jittery from the sheer thought of his keyblade, Riku-Ira jumped to his feet and began to pace. It was the only thing that could slightly help relax him, but it didn't do much over all. He kept fixating on his keyblade. He knew that those with a strong heart could wield one, but they could also lose it. If enough darkness came to a person's heart, they could lose the ability to summon their keyblade.
That was what Ira grew up learning anyways. But then Riku remembered back some months ago. When he was at Hollow Bastion, waiting for Sora, he got his keyblade back for a short time. Even though he was using the darkness he managed to get hold of it once more, but then Sora's heart proved to be the stronger one.
Then there was the keyblade he had after that, but a lot of his memories from when Ansem first possessed him were too hazy to recall. But he knew he had used a keyblade of some sort then, and he was more empowered with the darkness at that point.
"Maybe what I thought I knew was wrong…" Ira mumbled aloud. "It may be possible for me to summon it back. But… do I even want to try? If I fail…" He sighed. "Then l'lI know what a disgrace I have become."
Standing still Ira held out his hand. Though the blindfold covered his eyes, he still thought to close them. He breathed in as he tried to concentrate. He let as many thoughts about his keyblade come to his mind. Then he felt the weight come into his hand.
With his free hand, he pushed up his blindfold slightly to take a proper look at what he now held. And it was in fact his old keyblade. There was no way he could forget the curved designed of the silver colored handle that made it look like clouds. Or even the delticalled designed unicorn just above the handguard with the red and black detail around it.
"I suppose I am still worthy to wield it… but I don't even know if I should."
With one, long finally sigh, he dismissed the keyblade. "Until I am able to sort out what is in my heart, I don't think I should use it."
Suddenly a new idea came into his mind. "Ah, I suppose with the time I have I could do some of that. I think a bit of inner meditation would be good."
Riku chuckled slightly before sitting down on the floor with his back up against the fall. "I guess one good thing to come from this is remembering these techniques. But I can only hope it helps…"
With a deep breath he became to calm his mind and enter into a deep meditation. The room around him faded as his mind went into a sleep. Though on the outside he was sleeping, the inside of his mind was an entirely different story.
Riku opened his eyes and saw two things. One was that he was no longer wearing his blindfold, and two was that he stood in a space that wasn't the bedroom. This was a very different, and very special space.
Darkness surrounded him in every direction, but there was one large bright light source. Looking down, he saw the familiar glow of stained glass. A beautiful design surrounded him, but it was different than he expected it to be. But then he quickly recovered from his concern, factoring in that it was most likely influenced from having two active sets of memoires.
The stained glass platform beneath him appeared divided, accentuated by the obviously different colors that dominated the two sides. One half was predominantly red, with a backdrop of lavender-violet buildings and an elaborate clocktower off in the distance. The half-ring of circles had unicorn motifs in silver-white. On the other side was an island backdrop with the rest of the ring being made of what appeared to be the heartless symbol without the red 'x' through it. The remainder being shades of indigo-blue. In the lower center, dividing the backdrop, was himself, or rather both versions of himself.
He was kneeling on the divide, with a keyblade stuck in the ground before him. His appearance was split, with the half on the red side wearing the cloak and mask from his time as Ira, while the other side showed what Riku looked like now. The black Organization Cloak contrasting the white robes, as if to symbolize his divide between darkness and light. In the circles above his head were the faces of people he knew, also split like the rest of the panel.
Sora and Mickey were the upper and lower right on the bluish side while Gula and Invi had the top and bottom left of the red side. The two that were along the centerline were harder to distinguish, as a very obvious line went through both. The upper one was obviously Ava on one side, as apparent by the fox mask, while the other half looked to be Kairi. It was a bit harder to discern the last the last circle. While one side was obviously Aced, the other person had semi-spiky brown hair, and blue eyes.
Riku looked at each bit of the design, taking note of every little detail. It was pretty nonetheless, but still was strikingly odd to see everything split. But that was not why he was there. He wasn't there to stare at a symbol of the state his heart was in. He came to this place to try to meditate and relax. Or at least try to clear out things from his head.
Slowly he began to walk around the edge of the platform, looking out to the darkness that surrounded it. It was much more noticeable than he thought it would have been. He could sense it out there, looming and drifting.
He came to a stop when he felt a chill run up his spine. He turned his head and once more looked out into the vast darkness. There he could see a shadowy creature moving within the darkness.
It was no doubt the guardian Heartless than Ansem once controlled. Though Riku knew he had succeeded in defeated Ansem… the man's darkness was still left in his heart. Ansem's conciseness was gone, but everything else remained. All of the darkness and powers that was Ansem, still were tainted all over Riku's heart.
It was still there and had begun to try to take over him once again. It was the main reason he wore the blindfold. It helped keep the little bit of essence that was left from Ansem from taking him over.
Now as he stayed there, eyes locked on the Heartless, he saw that he slowly started to move. Riku gasped, stepped back when he saw that the Heartless was coming closer into range. Once it got to the platform, it's glowing yellow eyes fixed on Riku, it kept moving.
Without waiting too long to see what the creature would do, Ira instinctively summoned his keyblade in a defensive position. And much to his surprise, the Heartless came to a complete standstill.
Heavy breaths left Ira's chest as he kept his eyes locked with the creature. Something was strange about this, but he couldn't understand what. Normally Heartless would jump at seeing a keyblade, due to the light it held. But this Heartless wasn't doing that, and furthermore, it was no longer looking at Ira, but instead at the keyblade.
"What does it… why is it just staring at my keyblade?" Ira thought to himself.
Seeing that the creature was still not moving from the spot it hovered over, Ira lowered his keyblade slowly. The Heartless followed the keyblade, but then went to look back right at Ira. But still it did not move from its spot.
"Either this Heartless sees something about my keyblade… or maybe I am losing my mind here…"
Suddenly a faint growling sound came from the Heartless. Ira held his keyblade, but surprisingly the Heartless shook its head at him. It moved one of its clawed hands up and tried to pull at the fabric that was wrapped around its mouth.
Now Ira was starting to feel completely confused on what he was seeing.
Then a thought hit him. "Maybe it's not the outer appearance I need to be focusing on… maybe there is more to this than I originally thought."
Closing his eyes and concentrated on the presences of the Heartless before him. And as he suspected, there was something else there besides the darkness. There was a faint light constrained by chains and ties where the Heartless would be standing.
Ira's eyes shot wide open. "You… You're trapped? The darkness has some hold over you with deep binds, correct?"
The guardian Heartless nodded slowly.
This was already far weirder than he ever expected. But he started to think more on it, and newer questions came to mind. There was one thing that Riku wanted to know before he tried anything that could end badly. "You're not actually Ansem, are you?"
The Heartless shook its head quickly and gave a short growl. Even if Riku didn't want to believe it, the way the Heartless reacted was enough to make him understand. It wasn't Ansem, but whoever it was had been confined to the Heartless and controlled by Ansem.
There was also something about the faint presence that Ira felt was… familiar. He couldn't truly tell though for the binds on the light was making it too hard to sense. But he knew now that he had to do something.
He raised his keyblade, pointing it directly at the Heartless. With a deep breath he thought on a deep spell that needed all of his concentration. The tip of his keyblade glowed and soon light shot out and headed right towards the Heartless.
As the light struck, golden chained materialized around the Heartless. Ira kept his concentrated though and didn't let what was happening distract him. He knew what he was doing and he couldn't stop for a moment, otherwise it wouldn't work.
The chains started to crackle and crumble away as more light hit them. Finally a snap sound was heard as the chained shattered from around the Heartless and the light was free to hit it directly.
The Heartless became engulfed momentary in the light and the shape started to change. Ira lowered his keyblade, finished on his part, and now watched curiously what was going to happen.
When the light faded, the Heartless was no longer there, but instead the glowing form of a person. They had a glowing light around them, and were slightly transparent from the looks of it. That lead Ira to understand that the light was in fact someone's heart that had been trapped within the Heartless. But when he got a good look at the person, he couldn't believe it, or really Riku couldn't.
Before him now was the spirit, it was the closest thing that described it, of a man he saw one before. Once many years ago when he was just a boy. Back then, what had happened didn't make any sense. But now with the help of his memories of Ira, the event made complete sense. This was the man who gave Riku the ability to use the keyblade in the first place.
"How in… But you're… how are you even…What even is…"
No matter how hard Riku tried, he couldn't get a full sentence out. Everything was far too jumbled in his mind to even think coherently. Thankfully he didn't have to try and speak for the man nodded and smiled slightly.
"I know it is pretty weird given the circumstances. When I first saw you, I never expected to have our fates so intertwined. But it makes sense when you think about it," the man replied before walking right up to Riku. "And since we never got to introduce ourselves before, I'm Terra. Though I already know you since I have been around for a little while now."
"Wait what do you mean that it makes sense about our fates being intertwined? We only met once before, so what does that mean for this?" Riku asked.
Terra smiled again. "I'd actually think it is a bit ironic how we were led here. But I want to believe that it is fate's way of leading us to make amends towards one another."
"I still don't get it. What are you talking about?" Riku demended. He didn't want to get frustrated with Terra, but he couldn't figure out what it was that he was meaning. Though in his mind he did feel something tugging at him. Something was telling him that he wanted to agree with Terra, but he was still missing one piece that connected to it.
"I think you should know since you are using your old keyblade… Ira," Terra replied.
Riku-Ira let out a gasp. He knew that there was a bit of familiarity to the light he had sensed. But before the chains were broken, he couldn't tell which side of his memories had that feeling. But now, strangely, he understood it was both.
Focusing on the light from Terra, Ira thought as hard as he could. It didn't take long though before he had his answer on who Terra was to him. It made complete sense now, but still left so many more questions than ever before. Yet he now understood what Terra had meant, even though it was strange to think about. But the answer still left him at a loss for words.
All he could manage was one word.
One name.
"Aced?"
And now we have another reincarnated amongst the cast.
Now, did any of you expect for this?
Please follow/favorite if you haven't already and enjoy the story, and don't forget to review as we enjoy hearing thoughts/theories.
For those who wish to guess at the others... Sora's past life is probably the hardest to figure out.
Until next time, Nyah~
