Riku Meets Rikku?
Chapter 3
yukito the NM Syndromer
mewprout@yahoo.com
y.NM.S: Eh, sorry about the lateness of this update. I've had more writer's block. I can barely get past the first few paragraphs before I run out of good ideas. And I have no idea how the font changed. O_O 'Tis magic. But it's not magic how it screwed up the last part of the chapter. _
More Shout outs: Mellinia, Artymas, Molly-chan the Anime/Game fan, AnimePrincess, Ri Ri, and MusicFreakCQL21 - THANK YOU! *hug*
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X or Kingdom Hearts. If I did, I'd have the people at Squaresoft and Disney producing a sequel by now.
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Riku paced the length of the sandy stretch of lane, impatiently tapping the Keyblade along his thigh. "How long is this… Cid going to take?" he grumbled at the Al-Bhedian girl. She fiddled with her goggles and shrugged.
"Not long now." That had been her response every five minutes Riku had asked her in the last hour. Normally he wouldn't have been so impatient, but sitting around when he should have been finding a way back home was not what he wanted to do. But Rikku had talked him into it. Apparently, Cid had an airship, and from Rikku's description it sounded a lot like a Gummi ship.
Riku growled lowly, kicking out at a rock.
"Don't take it out on the rocks. They didn't do nuthin'." Rikku said. The silver-haired boy flushed for a second before turning so his back was to her. He could still feel her eyes on him.
'She has nice eyes…' he thought to himself, before shaking his head. 'There's no time to think like that.' There wasn't time for anything. Just as Riku was about to strangle the poor girl for a straight answer, a humming noise filled the air. It grew louder and louder, and a large shadow filled the sky. Rikku grinned and stood up, waving to the large ship-like machine in the sky.
"Hey! Down here!" The airship hovered above them, and Riku strained his neck looking up at it. A rope ladder was lowered, and Rikku swiftly began climbing up. "Come on!" Riku looked up again before hesitantly following the young girl.
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"So this is the guy you were telling me about over the radio?" A tall bald man in a yellow suit eyed Riku.
"Yes! His name's Riku, just like mine!" Riku muttered a 'nice to meet you' and busied himself in staring out a window. "He's kind of antisocial."
"Hn." Cid turned to Rikku. "So why do you need to see Yuna?"
Rikku sighed. "It's a long story. He'd be better off explaining it to you." She bounded out of the control room before either had the chance to protest.
"So…Rikku, was it?" Cid addressed the Keyblade wielder.
"It's Riku, with one 'K'."
"Oh. Well, anyways, you better start at the beginning…"
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Rikku strolled through the familiar hallways of the airship she had fondly named "Phoenix Flight".
"Geez, I hope they get along," she said absently. As she turned the corner, she heard a sniffling noise coming form the storage room. The doors opened with a swish, and there was a little girl crying in one corner. The child looked up at Rikku when she entered, and tried to curl up further behind the boxes to hide.
"Hey, it's okay." Rikku pulled the girl out and checked for injuries. Her clothes were a bit dirty, but other than that there were no signs that something was wrong. "Why are you hiding back here?"
"I wanted to be alone," came the harsh reply.
"Why?" Rikku prodded, sitting down beside the child.
"Mommy's gone. The black monsters came and took her away, and then the Al-Bheds found me. They took care of me since then…" The girl lowered her head and didn't say anything else. Rikku waited until she fell asleep, and then picked her up, carrying her to one of the empty rooms.
"Goodnight, little sister," Rikku murmured before closing the door.
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Riku rested on the bed of one of the ship's numerous rooms. After telling Cid the entire story (leaving out the parts about his fall into darkness), he was met with a few surprises of his own. Apparently, the Heartless were already known of to most of the people in the world, and for some reason the "Fayth" had returned. From what Riku understood, the Fayth was a collection of people's souls, minds, and hearts that had willingly been given in order to form a summoning Aeon. The Fayth were supposed to not even exist anymore, freed from their endless dream, but a few had been sighted several times in the last week, trying to protect the cities from falling into the grasps of Heartless. The swish of the doors awoke Riku from his inner thoughts, and he looked up to see Rikku staring down at him.
"Sleepy?" she said teasingly. Riku just sighed and closed his eyes again, not seeing fit to converse. "Fine," he heard the agitation in her voice, "We'll be landing in Besaid in a little while, so rest while you can."
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As the huge flying machine floated down and landed in the clearing, a young woman rushed up to greet the two emerging from the ship. She wore a revealing white top with an attached pink hood, and shorts that reached her mid thigh. There was a dark blue cloth tied around her waist, and matching knee-high boots.
"Yunie!" Rikku raced over to meet the young summoner, and gave her a warm hug.
"It's so good to see you again!" the woman, apparently Yuna, returned the hug tenfold. She noticed Riku and smiled. "Ah, you must be Rikku's new boyfriend…" Rikku looked mortified.
"Yu~nie!" she whined, "That's not true; I just met him, after all." Riku rolled his eyes, and shook Yuna's hand.
"I'm Riku," he glanced mischievously in Rikku's direction, "And I'm not planning on hooking up with anyone like her anytime soon."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the girl pouted more, stamping her foot. "Now you're both ganging up on me!" Rikku noticed how well she could imitate a 'Sora pout'. Yuna laughed.
"Come on, you two can rest at my house for a little while."
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"So you think the appearance of the Aeons has a connection with the Heartless?" Rikku asked, wide eyed.
Yuna nodded. "Yes. I remember seeing Valefor again just a few minutes after seeing my first Heartless."
"What did Valefor do?"
"He told me to get back to Besaid. I was following a Shadow Heartless when I ran into him. If I hadn't listened, I might be dead, with my heart in the possession of the Heartless."
Riku nodded, "That might be it. The Aeons might have come back to protect those with the purest hearts on this world. How they could possibly come back, if you "sent" them off, is a mystery to me."
Yuna nodded, and then looked out the window. "It's getting late. I should be getting to sleep." Rikku stretched and nodded.
"Er, just one question Yunie… Why are you dressed like that?" Yuna smiled.
"I was planning to go and look for Tidus. We have a movie sphere that shows he might still be alive. I wanted to go undercover, so I decided to wear this!" She spread her arms, letting Rikku look at her outfit.
"It's a big change. I admit, I almost didn't recognize you!" Riku watched as they got into a conversation about things he called "Girl Stuff", then decided it best to find the beds for himself.
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The town of Besaid was silent, and cool wind whispered through the streets. Slowly, as if to avoid being detected by an unseen force, a shadow slinked out from under the porch of one house, and moved swiftly across the street. As it went, more and more pools of blackness joined its march to the house of the summoner.
Riku, asleep in his bed, was jerked awake by a pang of sharp pain in his head.
"Agh!" He sat up, and rubbed his sore head, calling the Keyblade into one hand. "What is it?" He whispered, trying not to wake the sleeping girl in the next bed. "What's so important that you have to wake me up in the middle of the night?" He knew before he received an answer.
Heartless.
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y.NM.S: Wee! Cliffhanger! ::smirk,smirk:: I'm such an evil bitch. Well, hopefully there'll be more action in the next chapter, rather than talking. Oh, and when Rikku called the girl "little sister", she didn't mean as an actual sibling. It was more of an affectionate term.