Author's Note-Whee! A review, finally. Well, anyways. Sorry it took so long
for posting... Oh, and I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Riku was caught off guard by the question, and his expression showed it. But he smiled, and Taro could tell that it was a bit sad. "So you know now... It was only a matter of time. Damn that Chaos..." He brushed a couple of bangs away from his face.
Taro glared. "So you didn't lose your memory. It's been there all along. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I couldn't. I had my orders. And I still do."
"Orders? What orders?"
"...To take you to my master..."
Taro got into fighting stance. Riku smiled again a bit weakly. Sadly. "You'd fight me...the similarities are so obvious..."
"Cut the crap, Riku. So you want to kidnap me?! And I suppose that you're responsible for everything else that's been goin on, too!" Taro accused. "And here I thought you were our friend!"
"I am your friend!" Riku shot back. "And it's going to kill me." He pressed a hand to his chest where his heart was.
Taro blinked, this time being the one to be caught off guard. "...What do you mean?"
"...They own me, but I won't do what they say."
"They? Who's they? Riku, you're not making any sense..."
"The Nobody."
"The Nobody? What are the Nobody?" Taro asked. As he said it, he could feel a chill go down his spine.
"Who is Nobody, you ask? They are the nonexistent ones." Riku replied. "The third enemy..." he added softly. Then, back to his normal tone, he explained, "They gave me orders, but I will be free, or die trying to. I will not turn my back on my friends again. I will not hand you over to them." His hand now clutched at his heart slightly, wrinkling the jacket.
"But why are they after me? And what will they do to you?"
"Because you're the dual wielder. But I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to help you. You and Kiyoshi. As for what they'll do to me? Well, they're not gonna be to happy, so probably they'll torture me as punishment and when I still don't do as they say, I'll suffer a slow and painful death."
Taro's eyes widened and he took a step forward. "Riku..."
Riku only grinned in spite. "Now c'mon. There's a gummi ship at the top of the skyscraper. I'll get you and Kiyoshi to Traverse Town where we'll hopefully meet up with Sora. I don't know where he is, but he does visit there every now and then. Let's go." He turned and walked to the door. Taro started to follow but several shadows appeared out of the ground in front of him.
Riku turned and 'saw' several shadows arise from the ground in front of his friend, who to him was just a being of bright white light. "Chaos..." he snarled, his fists clenching.
Taro looked around and at the shadows. He saw Riku stop. Then he called, "Riku, go help Kiyoshi! I can take care of these guys! I'll meet up with you in a couple of minutes! Hurry!"
Riku nodded and ran inside. Taro looked around. The creatures were growing more and more in number, crowding-in fact, packing-the street. "...This doesn't look good..." he said. He decided to calmly wait until his opponents stopped multiplying.
Meanwhile, Riku and Kiyoshi reached the top of the elevator and ran out into the hall of the top floor. They ran to the stairs, to the roof, and climbed up. Opening the door, the rain hit them in a torrent and the boys shielded their faces to block it out.
"Oi, kid. You have that rope and hook thing, right?" Riku said.
"My kaginawa? Er...yeah..."
"Well, now's your time to use it. Yeah. From this point on, you'll have to put your training to use." Riku said, nodding.
"But what about Taro?!" Kiyoshi demanded.
"You're too important to get kidnapped. I would have prevented it all if I could, but I can't. Hyotoko and Sakura are being used as bait and you're the only one that's left. He has to have the responsibility to protecting you, now. That responsibility will keep him from falling into darkness for the time being."
"But isn't he coming?!"
"He'll be up here in a few minutes." Riku assured the younger boy. "Now hurry up with that rope."
Kiyoshi hesitated, unable to bear looking down to see what was happening to his best friend below, then nodded. "Alright." With that, he unhooked the kaginawa from his belt. "On the TV, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he expertly tossed the hook up to latch onto the top of the giant TV screen."
They climbed up to the top and dropped down to the center of the circle of TV screens. They landed next to a spaceship. A gummi ship. "Inside." Riku ordered as he thought he saw a shadow on top of the TV screens. A humanoid shadow.
He and Kiyoshi flung the door open and ran inside. Riku immediately made a beeline to the control panel and took off his gloves. His fingers brushed across the buttons and he rapidly began to type. "Riku...?" Kiyoshi asked quietly.
"I'm setting this thing on autopilot to Traverse Town." Riku explained.
"But how can you tell what's what on this thing?" Kiyoshi asked.
Riku moved his hand aside momentarily to show that there was Braille written on the keys. "This ship was made to fit my specifications for when I needed it." He finished. "Wait here." He said, going outside, shutting and locking the door behind him. The rain pounded down on him, yet, he spread his arms out wide, smiling, silently still thankful that he was out of the hell he was in before. As he did, he was unaware as the clouds above parted, revealing dozens of shooting stars.
'Surprise, surprise.' He thought. 'You might get the dual wielder, you might not. But I'm gonna help them as much as I can to give you hell when you try.'
With a powerful leap, he landed and stood on top of the TV screen. He 'looked' down to see a point of light in a mass of black-a teeming darkness. Riku's look grew a bit grim. 'This is worse than I thought. Chaos has gone crazy...' Riku thought.
The light moved a couple of paces back as the darkness neared him. 'There's much more than I expected there to be...he's gonna need help.' Riku thought, reaching for his black blindfold.
"Pull off that blindfold, Riku, and you're sentencing yourself to death." A voice said behind/next to him. Chaos.
"Too bad then, huh?" Riku said. "Because this is my plan: Step one: give the non-existent hell." With that, the blindfold slipped off his face.
And he opened dark blue eyes.
***
"Way too many..." Taro muttered, getting into fighting stance. "Just way too many..."
He took a few steps back as the circle of creatures began to close in on him. A blackish-purple light like suddenly surrounded him. A heart shape. In fact, the noticed faintly that it was the shape of that symbol on the robot in the dream. Strangely, though, he felt energized. Strengthened. Much more powerful than before.
The creatures, which had warily stayed outside of the light-watched the light fade. As soon as it did, they leapt forth. Taro twirled his body and his keyblades in speeds he never had before. The creatures burst at contact and splattered onto the pavement like ink. More just kept coming, though.
"Just how many of these are there?!" he demanded, leaping up. The leap was much, /much/ higher than he expected, though. And still, the monsters followed him practically twenty feet into the air! Insane! He sliced at them as he rocketed up and looked down at the street.
The street seethed and teemed with monsters, all seeming to be after him. "Holy..." That was the most that he was able to say before gravity took over and he began to fall. He landed perfectly in a crouch and jumped up to slash at more monsters. He looked towards the doors of the skyscraper. Like any other side, he was blocked off by a mass of shadows.
"Guess I'll just have to make a path! He said. With that said, he twirled his keyblades beside him (being much practiced at this from his kodachis) and dove into the fray.
***
Riku tied the blindfold back on. After all, the city lights were really hurting his eyes. "So..." he muttered. "He really is the dual wielder..."
"And you really are dead." Chaos said. Riku turned to him. "I'm going to enjoy killing you... I admire your spunk, kid, but there's a line called stupidity that you've crossed. You've been giving us trouble from the very start."
Riku's smile faded away. He knew what was coming, but he wasn't going to give Chaos the benefit of his fear. His head lowered slightly. 'I'm sorry...Sora...Kairi...I thought I was going to see you again...just one last time...'
"Ready?" Chaos said, a grin upon his face. His fist clenched tightly. Riku screamed in pain as he felt his heart being squeezed, about to burst. He dropped to his knees and clutched at his heart.
This time, Chaos didn't let up. He drew out the pain to its fullest. Flashes of memory, images of friends-these are what flashed through Riku's mind.
"Chaos, stop!" A voice behind Chaos ordered. A pale hand grabbed his shoulder roughly from behind.
Chaos whirled around to see an unknown. It was an unknown with short, read hair and piercing green eyes. She-for it was a girl-was nearly up to his shoulders yet a teenager-fifteen or sixteen, it looked like. Chaos glared down at the girl as his fist slowly opened. Riku collapsed entirely, whimpering.
"Don't kill him." The red-haired girl said firmly.
"Why not?" Chaos growled.
"We have no orders from the dark lord to do so."
"Who cares?!"
"I do! Disobey and you lose this body so graciously granted to you!"
"I'm working on my own accord!"
"Chaos, you will not harm him. You will refrain from sentencing him until your orders are clear. Tamara is right." A sharp voice commanded. Both unknowns looked over at a /third/ unknown, a tall one with a gold, glowing eye who walked out of a portal. Chaos looked crestfallen, but angry.
"Silence, what are /you/ doing here?" he asked.
"To stop you from making a terrible error. Riku...he will probably be needed for later. It is not yet clear. Either way, the boy belongs to the dark lord, not to us." The third unknown-apparently named Silence-said.
"Yet he is one of us." Tamara said quietly.
"The dark lord is providing us-we allow him ownership of this boy."
Riku, at the mention of Silence's name, grinned and slowly stood up. This was an unknown that he could probably reason with. That wasn't ruled by homicidal intent. But reasoning is not what he did.
***
Taro's head jerked up to look at the roof as he heard a loud, blood- curdling scream from the top of the roof. 'Riku!' he thought. He sliced the monsters at the door and grabbed the handle. He tried to pull it open. No use-it was locked.
"What the hell..." Taro growled. He turned to face the next wave of shadows before him. He raced back to the center of the street, slashing through shadows all the while.
"There must be another way up!" he exclaimed, looking around a bit frantically. His eyes settled on the notches in the wall. 'There! But...can I do it...?' he blinked, then shrugged. 'Worth a shot...heh, if I don't try pulling off a Spiderman, then I'm dead. So what are my options, ne?' he thought.
Slashing through the shadows as he got back up to the building, he leaped! His foot caught one of the notches of the building and began running up the wall. More shadows began to rise up out of the wall. The surprise nearly made him miss the next notch. "What the crap?!" he yelped, slashing at the shadows.
There. There it was-the TV screen! He reached for his kaginawa as his keyblades disappeared...
***
Riku took a couple of steps back, his feet dangerously close to the edge. By now, all of the unknowns had acknowledged his presence. "Riku..." Tamara said quietly.
Riku only grinned. "Like I said: I can find the others on my own. So I'll be leaving you all now. Take this message back to your master: I am not his slave like the rest of you are, and neither is Taro. From this day forth, watch your backs: because I am both your ally and your enemy. My place is...non-existent." With that and a roguish grin, he leapt off the TV.
"Riku!" Tamara exclaimed.
"The lunatic...!" Chaos yelled.
Silence, hence his name, only watched grimly in silence.
Author's Note-Well, that was chapter five. Please review! Ja ne!
Riku was caught off guard by the question, and his expression showed it. But he smiled, and Taro could tell that it was a bit sad. "So you know now... It was only a matter of time. Damn that Chaos..." He brushed a couple of bangs away from his face.
Taro glared. "So you didn't lose your memory. It's been there all along. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I couldn't. I had my orders. And I still do."
"Orders? What orders?"
"...To take you to my master..."
Taro got into fighting stance. Riku smiled again a bit weakly. Sadly. "You'd fight me...the similarities are so obvious..."
"Cut the crap, Riku. So you want to kidnap me?! And I suppose that you're responsible for everything else that's been goin on, too!" Taro accused. "And here I thought you were our friend!"
"I am your friend!" Riku shot back. "And it's going to kill me." He pressed a hand to his chest where his heart was.
Taro blinked, this time being the one to be caught off guard. "...What do you mean?"
"...They own me, but I won't do what they say."
"They? Who's they? Riku, you're not making any sense..."
"The Nobody."
"The Nobody? What are the Nobody?" Taro asked. As he said it, he could feel a chill go down his spine.
"Who is Nobody, you ask? They are the nonexistent ones." Riku replied. "The third enemy..." he added softly. Then, back to his normal tone, he explained, "They gave me orders, but I will be free, or die trying to. I will not turn my back on my friends again. I will not hand you over to them." His hand now clutched at his heart slightly, wrinkling the jacket.
"But why are they after me? And what will they do to you?"
"Because you're the dual wielder. But I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to help you. You and Kiyoshi. As for what they'll do to me? Well, they're not gonna be to happy, so probably they'll torture me as punishment and when I still don't do as they say, I'll suffer a slow and painful death."
Taro's eyes widened and he took a step forward. "Riku..."
Riku only grinned in spite. "Now c'mon. There's a gummi ship at the top of the skyscraper. I'll get you and Kiyoshi to Traverse Town where we'll hopefully meet up with Sora. I don't know where he is, but he does visit there every now and then. Let's go." He turned and walked to the door. Taro started to follow but several shadows appeared out of the ground in front of him.
Riku turned and 'saw' several shadows arise from the ground in front of his friend, who to him was just a being of bright white light. "Chaos..." he snarled, his fists clenching.
Taro looked around and at the shadows. He saw Riku stop. Then he called, "Riku, go help Kiyoshi! I can take care of these guys! I'll meet up with you in a couple of minutes! Hurry!"
Riku nodded and ran inside. Taro looked around. The creatures were growing more and more in number, crowding-in fact, packing-the street. "...This doesn't look good..." he said. He decided to calmly wait until his opponents stopped multiplying.
Meanwhile, Riku and Kiyoshi reached the top of the elevator and ran out into the hall of the top floor. They ran to the stairs, to the roof, and climbed up. Opening the door, the rain hit them in a torrent and the boys shielded their faces to block it out.
"Oi, kid. You have that rope and hook thing, right?" Riku said.
"My kaginawa? Er...yeah..."
"Well, now's your time to use it. Yeah. From this point on, you'll have to put your training to use." Riku said, nodding.
"But what about Taro?!" Kiyoshi demanded.
"You're too important to get kidnapped. I would have prevented it all if I could, but I can't. Hyotoko and Sakura are being used as bait and you're the only one that's left. He has to have the responsibility to protecting you, now. That responsibility will keep him from falling into darkness for the time being."
"But isn't he coming?!"
"He'll be up here in a few minutes." Riku assured the younger boy. "Now hurry up with that rope."
Kiyoshi hesitated, unable to bear looking down to see what was happening to his best friend below, then nodded. "Alright." With that, he unhooked the kaginawa from his belt. "On the TV, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he expertly tossed the hook up to latch onto the top of the giant TV screen."
They climbed up to the top and dropped down to the center of the circle of TV screens. They landed next to a spaceship. A gummi ship. "Inside." Riku ordered as he thought he saw a shadow on top of the TV screens. A humanoid shadow.
He and Kiyoshi flung the door open and ran inside. Riku immediately made a beeline to the control panel and took off his gloves. His fingers brushed across the buttons and he rapidly began to type. "Riku...?" Kiyoshi asked quietly.
"I'm setting this thing on autopilot to Traverse Town." Riku explained.
"But how can you tell what's what on this thing?" Kiyoshi asked.
Riku moved his hand aside momentarily to show that there was Braille written on the keys. "This ship was made to fit my specifications for when I needed it." He finished. "Wait here." He said, going outside, shutting and locking the door behind him. The rain pounded down on him, yet, he spread his arms out wide, smiling, silently still thankful that he was out of the hell he was in before. As he did, he was unaware as the clouds above parted, revealing dozens of shooting stars.
'Surprise, surprise.' He thought. 'You might get the dual wielder, you might not. But I'm gonna help them as much as I can to give you hell when you try.'
With a powerful leap, he landed and stood on top of the TV screen. He 'looked' down to see a point of light in a mass of black-a teeming darkness. Riku's look grew a bit grim. 'This is worse than I thought. Chaos has gone crazy...' Riku thought.
The light moved a couple of paces back as the darkness neared him. 'There's much more than I expected there to be...he's gonna need help.' Riku thought, reaching for his black blindfold.
"Pull off that blindfold, Riku, and you're sentencing yourself to death." A voice said behind/next to him. Chaos.
"Too bad then, huh?" Riku said. "Because this is my plan: Step one: give the non-existent hell." With that, the blindfold slipped off his face.
And he opened dark blue eyes.
***
"Way too many..." Taro muttered, getting into fighting stance. "Just way too many..."
He took a few steps back as the circle of creatures began to close in on him. A blackish-purple light like suddenly surrounded him. A heart shape. In fact, the noticed faintly that it was the shape of that symbol on the robot in the dream. Strangely, though, he felt energized. Strengthened. Much more powerful than before.
The creatures, which had warily stayed outside of the light-watched the light fade. As soon as it did, they leapt forth. Taro twirled his body and his keyblades in speeds he never had before. The creatures burst at contact and splattered onto the pavement like ink. More just kept coming, though.
"Just how many of these are there?!" he demanded, leaping up. The leap was much, /much/ higher than he expected, though. And still, the monsters followed him practically twenty feet into the air! Insane! He sliced at them as he rocketed up and looked down at the street.
The street seethed and teemed with monsters, all seeming to be after him. "Holy..." That was the most that he was able to say before gravity took over and he began to fall. He landed perfectly in a crouch and jumped up to slash at more monsters. He looked towards the doors of the skyscraper. Like any other side, he was blocked off by a mass of shadows.
"Guess I'll just have to make a path! He said. With that said, he twirled his keyblades beside him (being much practiced at this from his kodachis) and dove into the fray.
***
Riku tied the blindfold back on. After all, the city lights were really hurting his eyes. "So..." he muttered. "He really is the dual wielder..."
"And you really are dead." Chaos said. Riku turned to him. "I'm going to enjoy killing you... I admire your spunk, kid, but there's a line called stupidity that you've crossed. You've been giving us trouble from the very start."
Riku's smile faded away. He knew what was coming, but he wasn't going to give Chaos the benefit of his fear. His head lowered slightly. 'I'm sorry...Sora...Kairi...I thought I was going to see you again...just one last time...'
"Ready?" Chaos said, a grin upon his face. His fist clenched tightly. Riku screamed in pain as he felt his heart being squeezed, about to burst. He dropped to his knees and clutched at his heart.
This time, Chaos didn't let up. He drew out the pain to its fullest. Flashes of memory, images of friends-these are what flashed through Riku's mind.
"Chaos, stop!" A voice behind Chaos ordered. A pale hand grabbed his shoulder roughly from behind.
Chaos whirled around to see an unknown. It was an unknown with short, read hair and piercing green eyes. She-for it was a girl-was nearly up to his shoulders yet a teenager-fifteen or sixteen, it looked like. Chaos glared down at the girl as his fist slowly opened. Riku collapsed entirely, whimpering.
"Don't kill him." The red-haired girl said firmly.
"Why not?" Chaos growled.
"We have no orders from the dark lord to do so."
"Who cares?!"
"I do! Disobey and you lose this body so graciously granted to you!"
"I'm working on my own accord!"
"Chaos, you will not harm him. You will refrain from sentencing him until your orders are clear. Tamara is right." A sharp voice commanded. Both unknowns looked over at a /third/ unknown, a tall one with a gold, glowing eye who walked out of a portal. Chaos looked crestfallen, but angry.
"Silence, what are /you/ doing here?" he asked.
"To stop you from making a terrible error. Riku...he will probably be needed for later. It is not yet clear. Either way, the boy belongs to the dark lord, not to us." The third unknown-apparently named Silence-said.
"Yet he is one of us." Tamara said quietly.
"The dark lord is providing us-we allow him ownership of this boy."
Riku, at the mention of Silence's name, grinned and slowly stood up. This was an unknown that he could probably reason with. That wasn't ruled by homicidal intent. But reasoning is not what he did.
***
Taro's head jerked up to look at the roof as he heard a loud, blood- curdling scream from the top of the roof. 'Riku!' he thought. He sliced the monsters at the door and grabbed the handle. He tried to pull it open. No use-it was locked.
"What the hell..." Taro growled. He turned to face the next wave of shadows before him. He raced back to the center of the street, slashing through shadows all the while.
"There must be another way up!" he exclaimed, looking around a bit frantically. His eyes settled on the notches in the wall. 'There! But...can I do it...?' he blinked, then shrugged. 'Worth a shot...heh, if I don't try pulling off a Spiderman, then I'm dead. So what are my options, ne?' he thought.
Slashing through the shadows as he got back up to the building, he leaped! His foot caught one of the notches of the building and began running up the wall. More shadows began to rise up out of the wall. The surprise nearly made him miss the next notch. "What the crap?!" he yelped, slashing at the shadows.
There. There it was-the TV screen! He reached for his kaginawa as his keyblades disappeared...
***
Riku took a couple of steps back, his feet dangerously close to the edge. By now, all of the unknowns had acknowledged his presence. "Riku..." Tamara said quietly.
Riku only grinned. "Like I said: I can find the others on my own. So I'll be leaving you all now. Take this message back to your master: I am not his slave like the rest of you are, and neither is Taro. From this day forth, watch your backs: because I am both your ally and your enemy. My place is...non-existent." With that and a roguish grin, he leapt off the TV.
"Riku!" Tamara exclaimed.
"The lunatic...!" Chaos yelled.
Silence, hence his name, only watched grimly in silence.
Author's Note-Well, that was chapter five. Please review! Ja ne!