Crowned Hearts Chapter
Thirteen
By
Blue Dragon
Riku was a mess, his nice suit soaked. Of course
they might as well have been soaked with his tears. Even so, it was
his time to change into his usual outfit, the shirt, black jeans, and
blue waders. He needed to find Sora, too. After that they could make
their journey, he would do whatever was necessary to get her back.
A
chill went down his spine thinking about her again. It was hard to
keep the tears from coming, with only the thoughts of the possibility
of seeing her again wandering about his mind.
Eventually the
sand turned into the unlined concrete road that led to Sora's house.
He and the others were worried about him, no doubt. Fortunately, as
heard from old man, moving into whatever crazy dimension he was
talking about and outside of the world he was in would keep too much
time from passing in between. No one would worry about a sudden
disappearance of he or Sora. He just hoped that he didn't waste too
much time explaining that.
He branched at his house first,
telling his parents he had fallen into the ocean by mistake and would
be out about twenty minutes-that would probably be the amount that
their quest would take-at Sora's house for a little break. He
couldn't mention Lisa.
After Riku had changed and made sure
his keyblade was nicely secured, he knocked on Sora's door.
Immediately his friend was there with a worried look on his
face.
"Riku! Where have you been? Are you okay? You were
going crazy! We were worried!"
"Listen, Sora, come
with me and bring your keyblade. Tell your parents you'll be out for
twenty minutes. I'll explain on the way"
"Riku? What
are you talking about?"
"I'll explain. You're
already dressed," Riku said looking at Sora's normal red attire
and gigantic yellow shoes. "So just grab your keyblade."
"Its
right here" he pulled it from behind him.
"Then come
on!"
"Where exactly are we going for twenty
minutes?" Sora asked as he stepped outside of the doorway.
"We
have to make a short swim across the ocean, that's where I'll tell
you everything"
"Okay. I hope you know what you're
doing"
Sora followed Riku to the beach, and the two dove
into the water and began swimming outwards.
"Sora? Have
you ever noticed how often we keep our blades around?"
"I
know what you mean. I feel like every second of the night some
heartless is going to come out. Paranoia."
"I guess
I'd better explain things. I don't think you'll believe me
immediately about one thing, so I'll tell you what we're going to do
up to point. A guy is looking for locations of a hole in time that
may lead to this other world. I can't tell you why yet, but we need
two keyblades. If we're off in other worlds, not much time will
pass"
"Which guy? Other worlds?"
"Just
what I said. I think it will be less complicated once we're out there
and you see what I'm talking about."
"If you say
so"
Sora and Riku swam steadily, but they didn't get
there as fast as Riku did because they were moving at a comfortable
pace. It took them a good thirteen minutes of swimming to find the
opposite beach of the smaller southern portion of Destiny
Islands.
Sora felt as if he needed to ask Riku something
important, and then quickly remembered.
"Riku, have you
ever felt left out?"
"What do you mean?" Riku
pretended as if he didn't know.
"Between me, you, and
Kairi. Kairi and I are kinda close but you're our friend too, one of
our best between the three of us. And I thought that you might have
felt that you didn't have anywhere or anyone to go to."
"Really?
I'm glad you care so much. But I'm just glad knowing that you guys
are.my.friends" It hurt Riku to have to lie to his friend, but
he didn't want Sora to feel too bad, knowing that he actually felt
horribly left out. When the two reached the shore, Sora was surprised
to see the simple straw house and a gummi ship in front of it,
complete with an old man.
"So you brought him? Good. We
can get going. Those keyblades actually will help direct us to hearts
in different worlds. Did you tell him that?"
"Who's
that?" Sora asked Riku.
"That's old man. Which is
actually what he likes to be called."
"Nice gummi
ship, eh?" Old man bragged. The ship was of red and black, a
Full-Life G as the cockpit, sleek black engines of maximum power, and
a big black X split down the middle on the back made of more black
gummis. It was at least four times bigger than the Excalibur/Highwind
Sora had been used to flying.
Sora and Riku stared for a
second, and then their jaws hit the sand.
"Great heavens!
Its-it's a friggin' monster!" Riku said through his extended
jaw.
Sora's pupils shrunk and he felt like if he had been up
against THIS in a heartless gummi ship dogfight, he would have
lost.
"Who built that?" he finally asked.
"This
guy with a blue glow in his eyes gave it to me. He called it the
Akujiki."
Riku turned to Sora.
"I don't think
we have to worry about safety"
"Me neither"
"You
two just make sure you have your keyblades, and we'll be on our
way."
Riku didn't hesitate for a second to jump into the
cockpit and pull Sora along for the ride by his collar.
"Oookay.
I'll just be following you."
Old man jumped into the
cockpit, and found that he was next to Sora in one of the two
passenger seats. Riku took the pilots seat.
"This thing
have warp drive?" he asked.
"Yeah. Just let me and
Sora-"
Riku didn't hesitate to smash the knob sending
them hurtling into the sky, away from the barrier of Destiny Islands,
and into the blue nothingness that was the space between the worlds.
Riku had a big smile on his face, thinking that he had made a big
leap into getting to where he wanted to go.
He looked behind
him, worried when he heard nothing from Sora or the old man.
Both
of them shared the back of the black wall of the Akujiki's cockpit,
plastered on by the sudden acceleration, and as Riku stopped they
flew into the front of the cockpit due to the inertia.
"Christ
boy! You almost turned us into dang pancakes! Let us strap on our
belts next time!"
"Yeah Riku! You coulda killed
us!"
Riku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Sorry
about that. But now what? I thought that the worlds were no longer
connected."
"Which is why we need those two
keyblades. They will take us to our first stop?"
"First
stop?" Sora and Riku asked simultaneously.
"Yes. A
world called 'Gaia'"
