Sora couldn't bring himself to stop touching Riku to confirm he was real. After the hug, it was pinching his cheeks and pulling at the corners of his mouth to force a smile. Sora fully expected to be brushed away, but, instead, Riku let himself be manhandled, and even let his mouth grow into a natural smile like Sora had put it there. It wasn't like what he was used to from Riku, but Sora didn't see it as a negative in the slightest. The reaction made him bolder, and his hands left Riku's face to brace one beside the other on Riku's chest, trying to feel for his heart beat, the reassuring steady thrum that proved the Heartless hadn't gotten to his best friend soon found, but Sora not soon to draw away. The gesture carried a lot less of the aura of goofy fooling around that the face pulling had, but Riku once again didn't tell him off, and when he repeated his best friend's name in a pleased, wondering tone for what had to be the fifth time within a minute, "Riku!" was met with a similarly reveling "Sora" that communicated a lot more then either boy could have if they tried to be more verbal. Neither was really that good with words.
"Have you been in Thebes since...the whole time?" Sora only slightly stumbled over the question, sure the stutter would be worse if he talked about their home as gone.
"No, I just got here." Riku gently moved Sora's hands from his chest, but didn't let go right away, lingering and exposing vulnerability as he ran his thumbs along the backs of Sora's palms. Holding hands wasn't that foreign of a gesture, just a habit that had largely fallen away as they had gotten older, started racing instead of pulling each other around, and teasing each other instead of reaching for comfort when one of them was scared, but this time it made Sora very aware of his heart in his ribcage. It didn't beat faster- it was still matched to the rhythm he'd felt in Riku's chest- but there was an increased consciousness of the organ to the point Sora thought he could feel the edges of it and the path of his veins through his body.
"Me too. Where's your gummi ship? Is there anyone with you?"
Riku suddenly tried to jerk away (like someone was watching and he had to posture, was Sora's immediate, unvoiced thought). Sora resisted, grabbing on tight, then twisting his hands when he knew Riku got the signal not to move and twining their fingers together. "Last time I didn't hold on tight, and we ended up separated," Sora supplied.
Riku tossed his hair like he was trying to shake it out of his face (or cover it so Sora wouldn't see the flushing of his regrettably pale skin, harder to pass off as heat exertion or sunburn than at home) and laughed with the same superior air he did when teasing Sora about paopu fruit-acted, hardened, normal Riku-but squeezed Sora's hands instead of trying to extract them. "You should try that on Kairi."
"Kairi!" Sora's distressed exclamation and widened eyes made it seem like he'd just remembered their other best friend, and Riku wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or charmed by Sora's eternal propensity to be fully consumed by one thought at a time. "Were you able to keep her with you? Do you know where she is now?" Sora snapped his head around like he thought she was likely to pop out from behind a nearby pillar.
Riku pulled his hands away and this time Sora let him. "We both ended up in the same place," the older boy began but couldn't finish.
"But?" Sora only made it harder to say what needed to be said when his blue eyes were too perceptive, and his perpetually cheerful voice wavered on the single word, cutting it into a shrill alarm when it rose at the end. Riku turned his back and walked to one of the stone benches that lay beyond the pillars. Sora followed, preparing himself for worse news with every step. "You didn't lose her afterward, did you?" Asking if she was still alive would threaten to give fear too much power.
Riku sat, his feet planted on the ground. Sora sat beside him. He was only a few inches shorter, and his feet should have hit the ground too, but he'd purposefully sat as far back on the bench as was possible so he could swing his feet to work out his nerves while looking carefree. Sora stared out at the clouds. Riku used Sora's shoes as a point of focus. Back and forth. Back and forth. "She's back at the place I just left. She's fine...physically. But she won't wake up."
"What do you mean?"
Riku wasn't entirely sure how he could be more clear. "She's under some kind of curse, like a fairytale."
"Are you sure she didn't..."
"I didn't let any of the Heartless near her," Riku picked up Sora's meaning without needing him to finish his thought.
"I know you wouldn't if you had any power," Sora was firm in asserting he never doubted Riku's protective instinct or ability.
"They never got close," was snapped and it sounded like a vehement 'it's not my fault,' an answer to an accusation Sora had already established he wouldn't make.
Sora's cheeks puffed and he nearly snapped at Riku in return, but opted instead to let out a long, hissing sigh and ask of, "Is there someone with her now?"
Riku nodded, making sure Sora was looking at him before he did, still braced for Sora to take out his worry on him.
"Good. I'm glad you two haven't been alone. I found some...people too." Sora was going to say 'good people' but found himself faltering again.
"I saw the guy you arrived with." It sounded like an indictment. Sora couldn't wrap his mind around just what he was being accused of, though he didn't try very hard, finding it more pressing to huff and ask his own offended question.
"You were watching? Why didn't you come out and say something right away?"
"I wanted to see if I could get you alone first." Riku smiled with his eyes, and that made it a valid answer instead of a suspicious one.
"You can trust Leon," Sora assured his friend. Shyness couldn't be a problem. Riku had never been shy in his life. It had to be mistrust, though if Riku wasn't sure whether Leon was to be trusted, it still didn't fully explain him hanging back. He knew he could trust Sora. Hadn't they learned about this in school? Communitive property, or... not that. That was a numbers thing. Something, something association. Innocent by association didn't sound right, but it felt right to Sora. If he saw Riku being friendly with someone after all, he'd know they had to have passed Riku's test and had to at least seem like a decent person. "He's not so bad once you get to know him. Are any of your new friends here?"
"I don't have new friends." Riku bristled at the idea, typical Riku these days. Sora counted himself lucky that he was still considered Riku's friend, and, more still, his best friend. "Just people that have helped me and Kairi. We're not buddy, buddy like you and Leon ."
"Buddy..." Sora blinked confusedly as if the word had suddenly become foreign, imagining Leon's scowl from the silent patches in the gummi ship. "What? You don't know what you're talking about!" A laugh and a smile were mixed with letting his incredulousness show in order to soothe Riku. He was acting really weird about Leon, but Sora knew he got moody sometimes when Sora and Kairi did things without him too. It was some kind of fear of missing out.
Sora knew what to share that would eclipse everything else though. "Though he has been teaching me to use this better." Sora launched himself off the bench as he spoke, spun to face his friend, and summoned his keyblade, slashing it through the air. The angle wasn't quite right to catch the sunlight on the blades and dazzle Riku's eyes, but Sora was pretty sure he looked like a dashing hero.
He was only treated to Riku struck mute and unguardedly impressed for a moment before his friend surged forward himself and grabbed for the handle. "Let me see that."
It was more demanding than Sora would have liked, almost like he was being accused of stealing it, and Riku could have stood to add a "please" in Sora's opinion, but he handed the keyblade over, smugly anticipating Riku's shock when the blade disappeared on him and returned to the one true wielder.
The keyblade wasn't in on the plan this time, however. It obeyed Riku like it hadn't Leon any time he'd tried and behaved as Riku danced back and carved patterns in the empty space between them, reciting in a barely audible awed whisper, "In your hand, take this key. So long as you have the makings, then, through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be."
The words sent a wave of goosebumps up Sora's arms. "Where did you hear that?"
The interruption wasn't enough to fully break the spell, though Riku's attention shifted from following the arc of the keyblade through the air to look Sora in the eye. "No ocean can contain us. No more borders around, or below, or above. So long as we champion..." The thought seemed unfinished, but Riku trailed off. His eyes looked fevered. It was the same manic edge they'd had the night the dark portals took him and Kairi away from Sora.
Sora made a grab for the keyblade, and Riku didn't resist, passing it back. "All of that, but I will be the champion." Leon would have been pleased to hear him accepting his destiny so forcefully. "Now, what was that?"
"An old secret," Riku smiled, cocky yet genuine.
"I didn't think we had secrets," Sora pouted, hurt, but more so calculating. He knew what effect his sad face could have. Riku had proven not to be immune.
An arch look said that Riku was perfectly aware of what he was attempting, but Sora got the result he wanted anyway. Riku nodded back to the bench and sat down. "Do you remember that day when we were little…" He backtracked a moment, interrupting his own thought to qualify the timeframe before he identified what made the day special, "It was only the second or third time your father had rowed us out to play island where it was just us and he let us run out of his sight, and we met a stranger even though there was no other boat at the dock?"
Sora searched his mind, frustrated when he couldn't immediately call to mind what Riku framed as a defining experience. "I remember Wakka and Tidus laughing, and saying we made it up to scare them," he spoke slowly as he started to piece together recollection, "but trying to picture the stranger...gets all fuzzy. It happened more than once though. There was the blue lady, and then a man looking out at the water. Different days."
He was somewhat mollified by the widening of Riku's eyes in the second before he leaned back and looked up at the sky. Riku had forgotten the woman. He seemed to remember now though, running a hand over his face that obscured a few words mumbled to himself before he admitted as much out loud, not in so many words, but in his tone at least. "You're right. I was talking about the man. He had a sword like-"
Sora thought he heard the "y," but Riku stopped before saying "yours," leaving a cold prickle to dance across the skin of Sora's arms and a sour taste in his mouth that made him feel silly. Why get possessive now of something that, despite the times it had saved his life, he counted as a burden? Then again, why did Riku shy from admitting the keyblade belonged to Sora? Sure, Riku could hold it, but Sora was the one who could summon and banish it at will. It obeyed him. He was the master of the keyblade, not Riku.
"He had a sword with teeth like a key," Riku continued, not appearing to notice Sora struggling with himself. "He told me there was a bigger world outside our small one. He gave me the key to hold, and he said that verse. He told me I was going to leave the islands one day and be a hero, just like him, but if I told anyone, the magic would wear off." Riku tossed his head like he was flicking hair out his eyes again and ended looking at his hands resting on his legs, which meant he had to be afraid he was blushing, though Sora didn't see it. "I think that part was just one of those things you tell little kids to make sure they keep a secret, but the rest turned out to be true."
It was odd, to be floating on air about seeing Riku one moment, and the next to want to make a cutting remark about Riku getting a big ego thinking he's a hero already and pass it off as a joke. Sora didn't give in to the impulse of course. One moment of hard feeling didn't outweigh the weeks of worry that Riku was dead, and he couldn't stand the thought of fighting. And he knew it would be a fight if he challenged Riku's ego, even as a joke. Riku always had to be first place, the victor, the special one.
It didn't bother Sora usually, just like it didn't bother him that Riku got weird about things happening without him. Seeing him grab the keyblade and not even ask about how Sora had called it or trained with it was different somehow, and the revelation that Riku had kept something so important from him for most of their lives even while they were working on the raft only made it worse.
It helped that there were bigger revelations to distract from the moment of bitterness.
"That was the keybearer." Sora's chills returned, but this time he was left buoyant and not sick. "You met the keybearer." Sora's mind reeled in awe and questions flooded his mind, threatening to tumble out of his mouth, though he held himself back, prepared to first explain to Riku just how special his special secret was.
As it turned out, Riku was ahead of him once again. Rather than surprise, the sheepish smile Riku had been wearing when he talked nostalgically of meeting the stranger turned into a slight condescending one. He'd probably had a secret conversation with Aerith too where he'd been brought up to speed on everything. The real reason he couldn't talk to Leon in front of Sora probably was because Leon would recognize him. "I met a keybearer. There are others."
Sora pulled his bottom lip to the side and hmmed doubtfully, looking carefully at Riku's eyes to assess whether he was just pulling his leg. "I don't know what that guy told you about the keyblade, but you may have misunderstood or forgotten. It has been awhile. There is only one master of the keyblade. He's kind of a big deal." Sora couldn't help the pride that slipped into his voice. "The one that calls the keyblade is the guardian of the universe." He turned away from Riku, stretched out his arm and summoned the keyblade once more, this time just holding it still. He meant to glance over and see what Riku's reaction was this time, but he found his gaze pulled in by the Kingdom Key. " He has the fate of all the planets on his shoulders. It's not just an adventure. He travels from world to world because it's his duty."
That's enough. Sora thought to himself. He banished the blade once again, and wiped his hand off on his thigh.
"But he doesn't need to do it alone. There's more than one master," Riku's contradiction was gentle, and Sora didn't feel as annoyed as before, especially when Riku raised a hand carefully as if Sora was going to skitter away like a cornered animal and laid it on Sora's shoulder with a solid pat, though there was another spike of frustration at his friend's stubborn ignorance. Riku just always had to be right, didn't he?
Riku pressed on, more excited "I thought there was only one master too, but when Maleficent...the one that's been helping me and Kairi...the friend that took me and Kairi in-'' Riku said the word "friend" as if it were new vocabulary he might need to look up the definition for "-showed me where you were, she told me how you wielded the keyblade, and she explained about how there used to be a whole order of keybearers. Like knights from a story. She said there was once a whole society of them." He could still feel the phantom sense of her bony fingers with their long, tapered, clawlike fingernails resting on his shoulder as she leaned down and whispered into his other ear how Sora might be able to show him how to manifest his own keyblade (little did she know he'd already been passed the right to carry the weapon if he could only figure out how to access it) and she could help them both train to wield greater power and control the Heartless together. He jerked his own hand back from Sora's shoulder, mood dimmed slightly when Sora's brows knit further and frown deepened at the idea of sharing a destiny across the worlds. Riku knew it was what he had always wanted, and he thought Sora had felt the same.
"You've been staying with a woman named Maleficent?" Sora asked with the same barely withheld disgust Riku imagined he would have had if the question had been whether he'd been living with horse sized cockroaches. "She wouldn't happen to be a witch, would she?"
It wasn't the takeaway Riku had expected Sora to have, to say the least. "Sometimes she calls herself a sorceress, but she's a fairy, one of the oldest and most powerful of fairies. She has a castle she's been letting me and Kairi stay in, while she works on breaking the curse over Kairi. She gave me a sword and taught me magic. She's done as much for me as Leon has for you." Once again, Riku couldn't say Leon's name without a bitter, mocking tinge, even when focusing on something else. "How do you know her?"
"I know she's evil," Sora scoffed. He knew Riku had asked how he knew her, not what he knew about her, but some facts were more important to communicate. Plus, he suspected Riku wouldn't listen if the first words out of his mouth was Leon or someone else's name. Sora's voice turned urgent as he went on, and he vacillated repeatedly between fixing Riku with an imploring stare and glancing toward the stairs he walked up and back toward the gummi ship he'd left behind. " She's the one that called the Heartless and destroyed Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid's home, Hollow Bastion! She probably put the curse on Kairi! She's bad news. We have to get Leon. You know where Maleficent is and Leon can help us slay her."
"What are you talking about 'slay her?'" Riku dug his heel into the ground, leveraging and pushing himself away from Sora, scooting over and putting distance between them on the bench, absolutely horrified. He'd thought about killing, as an abstract or an extreme of what he would do to follow his vow to protect what mattered, but Sora, who had always been so innocent and idealistic, talking about murder with casual conviction was not easy to swallow. "She's not a dragon! She's a person...kind of." The passion of his speech only faltered for a second as he struggled with humanity versus personhood in a fae. "And she's been taking care of Kairi! You forgot about Kairi until I mentioned her name!"
The accusation hit Sora like a punch to the face. His gut instinct was to lash out in the same way. "At least I never would have passed off Kairi to a stranger!" His shout echoed in his ears along with the pound of his heart.
Riku didn't say anything. He clenched his jaw and inhaled sharply, but he didn't even indulge in his nervous habit of making a fist and releasing it (Sora had asked him about it before. He said he was taking emotions and letting them go).
Sora knew the stunned, angry silence wouldn't last long, and he was struck by the heart freezing fear that Riku would leap up and run away or disappear to where he couldn't follow in front of his eyes again, making him lose his two best friends and last lifeline all over again. "Riku, listen to me," he pleaded, sliding back toward Riku. He'd apologize next. He'd beg. He needed to make Riku understand the stakes though. "Maleficent's the one who commands the Heartless."
Sora was expected for defensiveness and pushback. Instead, he saw some of the stiffness ease its way out of Riku's shoulders as they sunk down a fraction and the stressed tendon in his neck slip out of obvious sight, nonverbal signal that Sora had effectively communicated that he was just worried because he loved Riku and Kairi both so much, and that Riku accepted it. For a moment, their eyes locked and both apology and acceptance on both sides was confirmed, then Riku's gaze drifted down and to the left for a moment. The gesture looked furtive, guilty, but when his teal eyes met Sora's again, uncertainty was gone.
"Do you trust me?" Riku asked, softness of his voice making the non sequitur come across like manipulation or trap, which it was, as much as Riku would have denied it or called it necessary. Maleficent did have some measure of command over the Heartless, but the truth was more nuanced than her calling them for destruction. He was sure Sora would understand if he met her. And, at the end of the day, Maleficent meant a safe place for the two of them and Kairi with access to resources Riku was sure Leon didn't have.
Sora willingly walked in and let the steel snap. He wasn't going to fail to take Riku's hand again. "More than anything."
"Maleficent didn't bring the Heartless to Hollow Bastion and she didn't want it destroyed. She's all that's holding the Heartless back from devouring the world completely even now." Riku didn't have as much faith that Maleficent was a force for good as he was trying to convey to Sora, but he at least believed that. He'd seen some of the swarms in the valleys. "Meet her with me. See for yourself."
"Hollow Bastion still exists?" Sora reeled. Did that mean Destiny Islands might still be out there too? Did Leon and the rest not know, or, had they been keeping more secrets and telling more lies to try to get him to trust them more and follow the plan they had for his keyblade? Sora was suffering, not having time to process one revelation before the next came. It was going from the Heartless appearing on his island to waking up in Traverse Town and chasing Yuffie for his necklace all over again. Riku reappeared. Riku had met a keybearer. There could be more than one keybearer. Riku and Kairi were allied with the witch who had destroyed Hollow Bastion, except she was still trying to save it.
"Come with me and see," Riku reiterated. He was becoming animated once more, like their near tiff hadn't happened. "See Kairi. Talk to Maleficent. There are others too. Alice! You'll like her. I saved her from a queen who wanted to cut off her head."
"You what?" Sora gaped as one more revelation was heaped on his head.
"It's a long story," Riku demurred, "And I can tell it to you tonight. We can sit in Kairi's room so she can hear it again too."
Sora wanted to say he didn't need more bait. The three of them together again was all he wanted. "I'll find Leon." He knew saying it wouldn't go over well. Telling Leon he was taking off for Hollow Bastion with Riku would go even less well, but he couldn't just disappear. "We don't need to take him with us," he added quickly to head away the return of the slaying misstep, though he wasn't completely sure he could avoid Leon coming. Even if they took Riku's gummi ship, Leon would be able to follow. "But if I never show up to meet him at the gummi ship tonight. He won't know what happened, and he'll worry."
Riku subverted Sora's expectation once more and didn't bristle at Leon's name this time. "When are you supposed to meet him? Go with me now, and come back with proof Hollow Bastion still exists and Maleficent isn't who he told you she was."
"How? I didn't see any other planet on the flight here, and Leon would know if Hollow Bastion was that close."
"You flew?" Riku's familiar cocky attitude was back. That was the true sign they were okay. "I took a more direct route." He sprung to his feet, waved an arm, and opened a rip in the air by the pillar he'd been standing on when he'd first called to Sora, a cold, dark gateway, small at first but growing quickly from the moment it popped into creation.
"What's that? It looks like what took you from the island, only not as grabby." The portal may not have had the physical pull of the black hole it resembled, but Sora was drawn nonetheless, finding himself on his feet and about to stick an arm in it when Riku stopped him with a chiding call of his name that had him turning his head toward his friend to pout at him, waiting for an explanation. Riku had clearly been trying to impress him. He was impressed. What more did he want?
"You don't know what it is and your first instinct is to touch it?" Riku'd exasperation was infinitely fond.
"It's a shortcut to Hollow Bastion. I do listen sometimes," Sora shot back, happily self-deprecating. He reached a hand toward Riku, pitched his voice low, and injected a near insufferable level of smugness into, "Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark. Take my hand."
"Dork," Riku grumped, though his dancing eyes looked anything but put out. He put his hand in Sora's, squeezed, and reversed their roles, pulling Sora through the portal. There was an adjustment as usual, like jumping into a cold pool with no bottom, just more room to sink, but the darkness didn't tear at Riku like it once did. It pushed against him much more gently, passing by (passing through, burrowing in to stay) with no resistance, whispering to him instead of shouting at him, calling him horrible names in voices both familiar and foreign that by now seemed almost like terms of endearment for the darkness's new favored son. Sora, on the other hand, gasped what sounded like a death rattle as a full-bodied shudder worked through him. Waves of dark mist buffeted him, not as much trying to push him back as seeking his open eyes until they were squinted closed, pulling at his mouth, and coiling around his body like a snake. His grip slackened, and Riku tightened his own, pulling Sora onward, mumbling assurances. "Stay with me. You have to keep moving and fight through it. Don't give up on me now, Sora. You may be Mr. Second Place, but I never knew you to be a quitter."
Sora's eyes shot back open, and instead of taking advantage, the dark fled. Riku didn't see it, and it wouldn't be until Sora's hand in his started to radiate with a warmth that had nothing to do with body heat that reminded him of walking in the dark with Alice that he would feel the evidence of the darkness suddenly repelled. "I could never give up on you!"
"That wasn't what-" Riku swallowed around an abrupt thickness in his throat. "I know. Thank you, for believing in me still." The dark's imitation of Sora's voice fell silent, stifled by the real thing, power stripped away, though other calls remained.
Sora had the unvarnished truth, "I don't know how not to," spring into his mind, but before the words could leave his mouth, they died on his tongue as they emerged from the tunnel into a high ceilinged, windowless room dominated by a stone table, at once foreboding and familiar. There were carvings high up on the wall, obscured by shadow, indistinct like the dark basil green patterns on the tile underfoot.
"Woah! Neat trick!" Sora turned on his heel, performing a small turn in place he was too manly to call a twirl to take in the whole room and watch the portal disappear. "One new world, no waiting!" His heart contracted in his chest and the foreboding feeling intensified for a moment, but he fought against it, acting increasingly cheerful.
Riku pulled out one of the chairs from the table, further than it seemed he would need to sit down, intention becoming clear when he kicked his feet up on the table, purposefully defiant and insolent lord of the castle, or playacting as such. Show off. "It's no big deal. Shame everyone's left. There was a meeting going on before with some representatives from other worlds that believe in Maleficent's work. I wanted you to get their recommendations too."
Truthfully, it was probably a good thing Sora wouldn't be thrown in with Ursula, Hook, Jafar, or Oogie Boogie right away. Maleficent's colleagues weren't exactly the most assuring assembly. Riku still had his doubts about what their mission actually was. It would have at least been more voices, older voices too, all saying the same thing though. Of course, that couldn't be would just have to take his word and Maleficent's. If he was lucky, Alice, Belle, and the smaller fairies would be inclined to add a few reassurances. The fairies would at least. They loved The Boss.
"What work?" Sora drifted around the room, hand hovering over the back of each chair at the table as he passed as if he was trying to find where he might want to sit by absorbing and analyzing the aura left behind around each one, which wasn't so far from the truth. "You said Maleficent is holding the Heartless back from the heart of this world. Are you saying she's saving others too?"
It was an exciting prospect, someone other than him being both willing and able to take up the role of savior of the worlds-at least, Sora chastised himself, exciting when it wasn't Riku trying to steal the keyblade. He still didn't understand what had made him react the way he did. Riku had even talked about going together, and, outside of the heat of the moment, Sora really liked that idea, even if it did end up with him being Riku's sidekick once again.
"She's trying to," Riku confirmed, not stretching the truth too far in his mind from the facts he knew. He pulled his feet from the table, and stood even though he'd barely had a moment of staged comfort that was anything but. "Let's go find her. We can start with the library, and maybe you can grab something there to take to Leon to show there's some civilization here at least."
"The Ansem Reports," Sora murmured aloud, more than half for his own benefit. The building they were standing in could be Ansem's castle, and the library his library, so the reports Cid thought were so important could be here.
"The what?"
"The ruler of Hollow Bastion, the old ruler, I guess, was a guy named Ansem, and he supposedly wrote a manuscript on how to get rid of the Heartless." Dots suddenly connected in Sora's mind. "Do you think that's how Maleficent stopped the Heartless from consuming Hollow Bastion completely?" There were still a lot of questions, including why Maleficent had been on planet in the first place, and what had brought the Heartless if not the great fairy, but Sora thought he may have just answered one.
"I think it's more her own magic,"Riku answered. She'd been honing some measure of control over the Heartless, just like Sora's new friends had said, though Riku still didn't feel like it was the right time to reintroduce that theory from his angle. "But you could be right. I bet the library has the reports at least."
Riku led Sora out of the war room. Every new hall and room seemed to enchant Sora for a long moment. He was inclined to stare at fixtures Riku had taken for granted, attaching meaning to the details, though Riku couldn't guess what those meanings were, and Sora didn't seem inclined to explain. "It was blue once upon a time," was the only intelligible sentence said aloud, and Sora's eyes were glazed and voice dreamy when he said it. There was no elaboration. The lift stops and paths along the ledges running outside the walls of the castle found Sora more lively, eyes darting instead of staring, lips bitten as if he wanted to start asking questions, but was still concerned he was dreaming and didn't want to risk poking the wrong detail and waking up.
They nearly made it to the library before a pink and blue blur flew at Riku's face, taking his temples in its tiny hands and shaking his head. "You're a million hours late. I was worried." Yuna. Riku tried to free himself, but the small fairy held on while he tossed his head, not getting the hint.
"I was not gone a hundred years. Do you know how long a million hours is?" he huffed back. He should have introduced Sora, planned to in a moment. He had to address Yuna's dismay first though, or he knew she wouldn't be able to follow along the topic change. One thought at a time with pixies.
"Alice is hurt." Yuna, on the other hand, had no such concerns about verbal whiplash.
"What happened? How hurt is she? Is she going to be okay?" Sora was the one to interject, face contorted with worry over a name he'd only heard once that belonged to someone he'd never met, beating out Riku, who'd processed more slowly and only got out the word "what" before Sora steamrolled over him.
"She trapped me and Rikku under a basket and ran off on her own. A group of Defenders almost got her and Belle! It was only thanks to Paine that the boss got there in time! Maleficent was like pssh ssss sha-bow!" Yuna let Riku have his face back in order to pose and mimic Maleficent shooting exploding fire out of her staff, and Riku felt his heart finish its leap up into his neck.
"Where are they now?" Riku chose his words economically as he ordered his pulse to come back down. Yuna said Maleficent had gotten there in time. Alice and Belle would be fine. Whatever injuries they had sustained, the fairies would be able to heal them or Maleficent could call Ursula. That didn't answer how Alice and Belle had gotten within range of a group of Defenders, but that was a question that could be asked once he was able to see Alice and Belle were alright with his own eyes, and he'd surely get a clearer answer from Maleficent than he would from trusting Yuna to tell the story.
"East wing. Third floor. Alice's bedroom." Yuna confirmed, as Sora asked what a Defender was.
"Heartless," Riku answered Sora with the only word needed to see the full import of what a near miss the girls had hit those blue eyes, then hit the crystal to change the direction of the lift stop and stepped back on the platform, trusting everyone was on the same page and would follow without him needing to tell either of his companions they were headed to see the injured girls. Yuna got a nod as thanks for filling him in on the situation.
"You must be Sora." With mission accomplished and Riku heading back to Maleficent with her, Yuna was able to focus on other things. She flitted over to Sora and made a full circle around his head, sizing him up. "Riku talks about you a lot." Sora passed inspection, and she favored him with a warm smile and a wink from her green eye. "You're just as cute as I expected."
"I'm cute?" Sora flinched back ever so slightly, surprised almost to the point of nonsensical dismay.
"Almost enough to deserve our treasures," Yuna assured him, "But first you have to pass three tests." Rikku tapped his hand against his leg, a tense, nervous gesture, and shook his head at the pixie, though she ignored him. "Paine, Rikku, and I have been discussing them."
Sora looked to Riku for an explanation, but he looked stiff and upset enough Sora wasn't sure he was listening. "Treasure? You helped her with tests?"
"Not that Riku," Yuna giggled. "The other Rikku, my cousin. This Riku's one of our prized treasures you're winning."
"You can't claim living people," Riku grumbled. It had been one thing when Yuna, Rikku, and Paine had claimed Kairi as part of their hoard, and he could just take it as them promising to look after her closely. Claiming him as a spoil of battle was embarrassing, and made it more difficult to ignore the stranger implications of taking the idea of treasured friends to a literal place.
Overlapping him, Sora protested, "He was mine first!" then seemed to hear both his own words and Riku's and contradicted himself. "People don't belong to other people!"
"You've failed the first test," Yuna let a dismayed sigh escape her, then flew off the lift before it halted at the next stop, leaving the boys to trail after her.
"That's not fair! I wasn't ready!" Sora yelled as he jogged to keep pace, shoes thwapping against the stone and tile.
Riku kept his stride slow enough to satisfy his ego and to give himself a moment where he didn't need to worry about Sora's eyes watching every twitch of his face just to breathe and think. He should be feeling a lot of the worry and weight resting on his shoulders lift right about now, even with the girls hurt. He'd found Sora, and that could be the key to breaking the spell over Kairi as well. They were all together at last, on a new world, just as they'd planned.
Riku couldn't help but feel the fight wasn't over though. Sora was planning on leaving, going back to Leon and his other new friends. The plan was to tell them about the real fate of their homeworld, yes, but what after that? Would Sora come back? Why should he when it would make more sense to stay on a world where keeping the Heartless at bay wasn't an ongoing daily struggle? Would he expect Riku and Kairi to come to Traverse Town with him? Would that be so bad?
Riku wasn't ready to give up Maleficent's help and knowledge. Whatever tricks Sora's new friends had; they weren't anything like Maleficent's surveillance magic or they would have known Hollow Bastion still stood. They didn't have near instantaneous travel. They weren't truly connected to the other worlds.
Then there was the prejudice they had about controlling the Heartless. Was that sort of power really a bad thing? What would they think of Riku if he still wanted to learn? Would they try to put a wedge between him and Sora? Would they deem that he was a monster to slay too?
Riku couldn't let that happen. Honestly, he'd feel better if Sora missed his meeting with Leon entirely, or if he could make him forget it somehow. Now that Sora had set foot on Hollow Bastion, Riku didn't want to let him leave unless it was on his terms.
It sounded selfish, put that way. Like he was caging Sora or trying to control him, the same way he would hate happening to him, exactly what he had promised wouldn't happen to Alice. Of course, what had Alice done with her freedom to almost die? He didn't want to oppress or restrict. He just couldn't lose Sora, and he could see a clearer, bigger picture of what was important. He'd fight to protect what mattered, if it came down to it. Leon should hope it didn't.