A/N: I'm really sorry about the delay, but... Well, there's really no excuse for me this time. I'd already had this chapter typed up when I posted the last one, but I kind of put off posting it. Mostly because it sucked really really bad before I rewrote it, and that took forever because I had already had the next few chapters typed before I decided to redo this one. That, and I had graduation crap to put up with, and then my family and I went up to Colorado for a week. I hope you like the rewritten version of this, because I personally think it's a whole heck of a lot better than the original. ;P
P.S: To the person who has me ranked as a Kingdom Sue, thanks for the free publicity. I worked really hard on Mizu and my fics.
Riku stared down at his hands, slightly amused that they didn't look any different from the way he remembered them. He certainly felt different, stronger, and more in control of his life and his new-found powers. He didn't entirely trust the darkness he was immersing himself in, but it was the best and only way he knew of to save Kairi. If only that voice in his head would shut up...
He recognized it, and somewhere deep in his ever-darkening heart, he wanted to hear it again, but it kept getting in the way of his goal. It was an unneeded distraction, and at times seemed to be a bit of a handycap to what he knew he needed to do. But at the same time, he knew that every thing the voice was telling him was absolutelly right. The darkness was going to devour him, he was hurting innocents in his single-minded persuit of Kairi's safety, and he was slowly but surely pushing Sora, his best friend, further and further away, even though their goals were almost exactly the same.
"Sometimes the right thing and the easiest thing aren't always the same," he muttered out loud, quoting something the voice had told him frequently. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared up at the ceiling of the chamber of Monstro's intestines he was in. At least, he thought it was the intestines...
"But how do I know whether or not I am doing the right thing?" he asked the silent room, not expecting an answer. He almost jumped out of his skin when he got one.
"Well, if I knew the answer to that," said the voice that had been in the back of his mind for the past several days, "I wouldn't have made so many fucked up choices."
Riku turned, surprise etched plainly on his face, to see the owner of the voice leaning up against the side of the entry to the chamber, arms crossed over her chest, and green eyes shining with ironic humor. Her lips were slightly quirked up at the corners, not quite a smirk, but close enough.
"Mizu!" Riku exclaimed, surprise warring with elation in his heart. "What're you doing here?"
"A: looking for you," Mizu replied, ticking her points off on her fingers, "but we got here totally on accident. B: looking for replacement Gummi blocks so we can get out of here. C: looking for Sora so he can help look for you, but that's kind of moot now that I actually have found you. And D: looking for Kairi, and getting delayed. You?"
"I'm looking for a way to help Kairi," Riku admitted, almost without thinking.
"Help?" Mizu asked, her smile slipping from her face and her eyebrows drawing down over her nose in a confused frown. "Interesting choice of words, love. What happened?"
"I..." Riku clenched his fists and looked away from Mizu's face, afraid for some reason that when he let her know the truth, she'd be angry with him. He was completelly unwilling to face that anger. "Kairi's lost her heart."
Mizu let off a stream of curses that did quite a nice job of blistering Riku's ears, even though most of them were in a completelly different language.
"...fucking HELL!" Mizu finished, her own hands clenched into fists and her entire body tense with suppressed anger. She slammed one of her fists into the wall right next to her, sending the tissue and muscle of the whale's innards trembling.
"I'm sorry," was all that Riku could think of to say, but he still couldn't look her in the eyes.
"It's not your fault," Mizu said, far more calmly than Riku had expected. "You don't have any reason to be sorry, Riku. But right now, let's just focus on saving her, huh? What's done is done. Dammit."
"I'm already doing everything I can," Riku pointed out, but Mizu just shook her head.
"I know you are, dearest, but a little bit of help can't hurt at all, can it?" she asked calmly, smiling up into his eyes. "I know of about half a dozen people I can threat-- I mean, ask to help."
Riku didn't miss the slip, and knew her well enough to know that she would threaten people into helping if she had to. She could be absolutelly ruthless when she wanted to be.
"Thank you," Riku said, and meaning it.
"Oh, no problem," Mizu said gaily, waving away the thanks. "You know me, always willing to help."
"So long as you get to carve something up in the process," Riku finished for her, a grin on his face that she returned, though hers was positively bloodthirsty.
"Comes with the territory, love. Fightin' dirty's what I was trained for, and that's what I do best."
"I'll believe that," Riku muttered, and Mizu's grin widened.
"Trust me, Riku, no matter what you though you knew of me after spending time with me on the islands, there're a few more, less glamorous sides to me that will have you tossin' and turnin' in your sleep for weeks after learnin' 'em. That's always assumin' you can get to sleep afterwards."
"Tell me later," Riku said, suddenly slightly frightened by the slight, wiry girl in front of him. "We need to come up with a plan first."
"Right," Mizu said, just as suddenly switching from a blood-thirsty savage to a concerned friend. "All I can think of right now is to enlist those friends of mine I told you about. Back a few years ago, we helped a man named Ansem with research on hearts and Heartless." She shook her head slightly, but not as though she were changing her mind about the plan so far. "The memories are kind of hazy; nothing's really clear in them. But I think I remember enough clearly enough that we can find something to help."
"I don't know what to do other than what I've been doing," Riku admitted. Mizu looked up at him with somber eyes, and he looked away. "I know I haven't always been doing the right thing, but I don't know what else to do."
"We need someone on the inside anyway," Mizu muttered, as if to herself. "You're working fairly closely with Maleficent, right?" she asked directly to Riku, a speculative glint in her eye.
"Yeah," Riku confirmed. "Why?"
"I don't trust her," Mizu announced. "Well, we've been through that. If you could somehow get word to us of what she's doing, we could prevent other hearts from being lost, and other worlds from being destroyed. But that's secondary to getting Kairi's heart back. Yeah, you should probably just keep right on with whatever it was you were doing before. Anything else would get the witch suspicious, and that's a distraction we don't need."
"What, you want me to spy?" Riku asked, slightly apalled.
"Subterfuge is something you gotta get used to, Riku," Mizu replied. "It's not all black and white out here, you know. And, as much as I hate to say this, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good."
Riku opened his mouth to protest, but at that moment, Mizu looked up into his eyes and he saw such a fire in them that the words died on his lips.
"But mark me," she said, her voice steady but intense, "if there is any way to save Kairi, any at all, I will take it. I will do everything I can to save her before I so much as consider leaving her as a casualty." Mizu hung her head, but not before Riku noticed that her eyes had begun to mist over with unshed tears, and what she said next was in a very subdued whisper. "I don't want to go through that pain again..."
What's she talking about? Riku had to wonder. He'd never seen her react so strongly to anything before. Though, granted, he was used to seeing her in the stress-less life on the Destiny Islands. But before he could ask her what was up, she made another abrupt switch.
"So the plan is research on my part, and subterfuge on yours, correct?" she asked.
"I refuse to act as a spy," Riku immediatelly protested.
"Okay, then," Mizu said with a shrug. "You do what you need to, and I'll do what I need to. With any luck we'll be able to pull this off. Thank whatever Gods there are that I've always been extremely lucky."
They spent a little more time on the "plan" before Mizu figured she should get back to Cloud and Serenity and Riku took a portal of darkness back to Hook's ship. Both hoped that the next time they saw each other, it would be time to head back home.
PROUD TO BE A KINGDOM-SUE