Chapter Twenty-Two: The Empty Home

Terra's hands shook as they hovered ineptly over the half-done tie. Black formalwear for a black day—yet the sun shone regardless, obscuring his reflection in the mirror. Just as well, Terra didn't have the nerve to face himself. Keyblade Masters weren't supposed to cry.

But I'm no Master…

A knock on the door made his shoulders buck and his hands spasm. He knew that knock.

"Terra?" she called, empathy prevalent in her weary voice. "Are you ready?"

He took a moment to regain his breath, then wiped at his eyes with the back of his tuxedo's sleeve. Only after did he turn his reddened gaze to the blue-haired woman in her mourning gown standing in the doorway. His eyes were still bloodshot. Both of them—and all that marred his cheeks were the faded trails of hastily wiped tears.

And, of course, his tie was still unfinished.

Heartbroken Aqua sighed and approached him. "Here. Let me help with that."

It wasn't awkward, this old tradition of theirs, but Aqua voiced what they were both thinking. "It's been a while."

Terra made a light, acknowledging grunt.

Her hands maneuvered the black silk deftly around her closest friend's neck, and she spoke again, "How old were we last time?—sixteen?"

"Seventeen," Terra answered. "That's when I finally got the hang of this."

Aqua smiled, however feebly she could under the circumstances. "Giving me maybe a couple years before Ven entered our lives. He was just as clumsy with this as you were."

Terra didn't reply—not audibly, at least. Aqua understood and dropped the subject. That path would lead only to more grief. Surprisingly, Terra was the one to continue, sorrow tinging his attempt at levity, "He was always restless at formal events, anyway. And maybe he's better off now. He never did handle loss well."

Aqua choked back what would've been a stream of tears at the boy's mention. It didn't help that her eyes wandered to Terra's desk, where Ven's farewell note sat partly folded atop a much thicker tome. The letter was one of three that he wrote the night he ran away from the Land of Departure, all personalized to those in the castle he left behind.

But now, there were only two who called the castle home, and even they would leave soon enough.

She finished with the tie, and it seemed that was that. As removed from the present as Terra's mind was, it wasn't until Aqua's hands began shaking that he realized they still rested on his chest. He looked down to face her and found her shoulders bobbing as well. She was trying so hard not to cry.

He placed his hands on her hips and tried to reach her, "Aqua…"

"This…is the last time…" The words fell weakly through her lips, as though she was only half aware she spoke them. "The last time…we'll ever see him…and he's not even awake…"

Terra wrapped his arms around her and pulled Aqua in for a hug she so desperately needed, allowing her to mourn freely into his chest…into the tie she just finished. The young man's welling eyes wandered to a portrait of his crumbling family on the wall, where Eraqus' likeness was still as alive as ever.

Even on his deathbed, when the coroner gave the final word, the old Master was so dignified, so peaceful that it seemed he was only asleep.

But he's never waking up.

The geomancer choked back enough of his own grief to comfort the woman mourning in his arms. "Aqua…thank you for being stronger than me. I mean that more than you know."

She didn't say anything back. She couldn't. She only held on tighter, tighter…until the sobs subsided and her grip loosened. Terra's embrace never weakened. He placed a soothing hand on her hair, running his fingers gently through it as she did for Ventus when mending his broken heart, and they held onto each other for dear life, however brittle their wills.

Aqua pulled apart, only slightly, and replaced her hands on his chest. They gazed into each other's watery eyes, lingered…and, slowly, subconsciously, drew ever closer until their lips met. Neither one fought it. Now, more than ever, they needed this.

They hadn't been a couple in three years. They hadn't hooked-up in two. Stolen looks and lustful glances had become less and less frequent as time went on until both were certain this hot-and-cold relationship they'd enjoyed and endured since the onset of puberty had finally faded to nothing. Not even the kiss meant anything.

But they needed it—needed something to comfort them in the darkest point of their lives. This was simply the most convenient solution.

They finally pulled apart from the empathetic kiss. There was no guilt, no judgment, nothing awkward between them. Only understanding. And they understood they needed more. They leaned closer a second time…

…and a knock on the open door snapped them both to their senses. It was Vanitas, unmasked and unamused. The sharp features of his face and hair were accentuated by his slick, black suit. He had none of his usual jocosity, but no hint of sorrow either. Not even catching Terra and Aqua in a compromising position could lift the dry annoyance he'd suffered since preparing for the funeral of a man he neither knew nor cared about. It was almost a relief when he cut straight to the point without any funerary reverence, "We're starting." He inflected like the annoyed teenager he so clearly was.

The service was brief and simple, just as many remarked their conversations with Eraqus had been. It suited him. Xehanort himself led the service, knowing precisely how to speak and what stories to tell to best honor his best friend. A flood of sunlight through the stained-glass window seemed to envelop the elderly Master in a heavenly glow.

Many officials from the townships and burgs surrounding Eraqus' castle attended as well. Most were friends from a childhood well before Terra and Aqua's time, but none were family. The Keybearers learned from speaking to these relics of a dying generation that Eraqus had no blood-related family. None that survived him, at least.

"He spoke often of you," revealed one Master Yen Sid, an ancient Keyblade Master who'd seen more centuries than most other guests had seen worlds. Dressed in black robes with the famed hat removed out of respect, Yen Sid met the two younger Keybearers as a fellow pallbearer. Hardly the ideal condition to meet someone. "He once said he thought of you as his own children. To hear him regale Xehanort and I of your progress as Keybearers and his dreams for your futures as you matured into the fine adults you are today, one would know immediately what a proud father he was."

Aqua's voice almost cracked in response, "He…really said that?"

The bearded master in his black robes nodded. "That and so much more. He's even shown me pictures of when you were younger. You've both grown so much since then. I regret delaying meeting the both of you sooner. You're everything your Master praised you for."

With that, Xehanort quietly approached. A slight motion of his head towards the nearby coffin and the muttered words, "It's time," were enough to signal the inevitable.

The pallbearers assumed their positions: Xehanort and Yen Sid at the front, Terra and Aqua at the center, and Vanitas and one of Eraqus' old friends at the back. They looked ahead to the open doors, almost blinded by the flooding sunlight. Not a cloud in the sky.

Each pallbearer grabbed their handles, and at the silent signal, lifted.

The coffin weighed nothing at all. That, more than anything else, pierced the pallbearers' hearts and reminded them that Ienzo was only a child.

It was the morning of February the seventh—three days after the Keybearers returned to Radiant Garden, and the day of Ienzo's funeral. Terra and Aqua found themselves in the same position they filled nearly a year ago: on either side of an embossed, black coffin, preceded and flanked by two other pallbearers before and behind them. Only now, Terra donned an eyepatch over his right eye, and a deep and jagged scar ran along the left underside of his jaw to the surface of his cheekbone.

Even, the prince's adoptive guardian, took one of the front positions, and Braig filled the other side. Aeleus and Dilan took the rear, the former still bandaged from surviving the riot that claimed the boy only four days ago.

They carried Ienzo to the royal cemetery, where he was laid beside the grave of his sister, Evelyn. She left no corpse, many knew—nothing remained for burial after the Heartless' attack, but the grave was a courtesy. Ienzo, by contrast, left nothing recognizable.

No sun shone this day, not like it had for Eraqus not so long ago. Grey clouds ushered countless snowflakes in the middling breeze, thousands of which fell on dozens of black umbrellas.

Sage-King Ansem the Wise made yet another public appearance before he was ready, instilling far more despair than morale in his subjects when they beheld his skeletal frame too small for his clothes. His health appeared worse than ever, and he collapsed more than once despite his cane and slew of bodyguards to support him.

Few of the attendants actually mourned. To most, Ienzo's death heralded the final cleansing of an incestuous house that had no business surviving the Night of Calamity two years ago. But they attended all the same for appearance's sake. None but Ienzo's informally adopted family—the Keybearers, his few friends, the two knight-captains, and the ailing sage-king—grieved for the life taken too soon.

Even gave a convincing performance.

But the heartbroken wails of the children standing by Ventus were genuine. Sora and Princess Kairi wept freely for their lost playmate, holding each other's hands for support. But Riku…he did nothing. Not the apathetic kind of nothing, but that silent sort of devastation where invisible walls conceal the torturous emotions within.

And Ventus had no idea how to comfort any of them. He had no experience with children and knew nothing of these three. Grief he understood well, but not empathy. Not for strangers thrust into his life after they'd lost someone so dear to them. Two losses, if he counted Naomi. He couldn't have moved in with his old family at a more awkward time, and it tortured him how helpless he felt in a funeral where the only real mourners were those nearby.

He looked sidelong to Master Xehanort and the Demi-Heartless Smee beside. Both held themselves with a dignified composure, and Ven wondered if Xehanort really knew or cared for the child in the ground or the woman in the hospital.

Ven glanced to his other side and found himself morbidly transfixed by the contrast of Vanitas' formal suit and his abyssal mask. The blackness revealed nothing, and Ven wagered the boy beneath it felt just as much. Except for dry annoyance. There was always that.

A slight turn of Vanitas' black helm seemed to accuse Ven of staring. The blonde Keybearer averted his gaze back to the lowered coffin and wished he hadn't. It reminded him of Jexel and every other shipmate he betrayed. They didn't have funerals. Their mass cremation was crude and impersonal. And Marina, the girl Jexel loved…was she still alive? The question haunted him ever since she escaped her village's destruction at Hook's hand…or hook.

Why was it that everyone he loved and lost was either torched en masse or condemned by ambiguity to haunt him as a ghost while this total stranger was given a funeral fit for a king?

Ventus curled his fist, silently outraged at the injustice and hating himself for even thinking like that. At least that produced a tear. He could only imagine what sort of mocking expression Vanitas leered at him with beneath the helmet.

Hours passed and the crowd dispersed. The Keybearers and their family returned to their home, a private estate lent to them by Ansem himself. To them, it was home. To Ven, it was a dungeon: desolate for all its opulence, deathly silent for all its company, and daunting for its endless emptiness.

This was the second night he spent in the place. The night of the Keybearers' return was an agonizing stretch of strained sympathy to the boy pirate, considering they'd spent it in the hospital with Terra and the children, grieving for the fate of Naomi. Terra and Aqua spoke of her on the ride home, but, like Ienzo, she was nothing more than some distant abstraction whose tragedy was only an awkward inconvenience to the only one in the residence who had nothing to do with her.

Well, Smee didn't know her, either. He hardly knew anyone. To the children, he was just some stranger. To Ven, he was a mortal enemy living under the same roof.

That was the manor in a nutshell—it had nothing to do with him. Nothing kind, at least. He wandered its gorgeous, dead halls and constantly lost his way because it simply wasn't his. It was not his home, and this was not his family.

His real family was just a forgotten ash pile in some backwards corner of the solar system. These strangers weren't worth the price of treason. These strangers weren't worth dressing up for overblown funerals in clothing he had no earthly idea how to wear.

The necktie was the worst offender.

He'd needed Aqua to tie it for him, and now that they'd returned and he'd once again gotten himself lost in labyrinthine halls that couldn't have contrasted more offensively with the pirating lifestyle he'd loved more than anything else, it was all he could do to tug and pull furiously and impotently at the damnable silken strip that hung from his neck. All dressing rooms and bathrooms had eluded him, so he had to use a window for a guiding reflection. It didn't help.

Nothing helped. Everything about this stupid house with its stupid strangers and stupider hallways only channeled more and more fury into the lost boy who just hated and hated—

"Ven?" she called.

It was too late to stop the small burst of fire exploding subconsciously from his palm. That and Aqua's sudden appearance made him recoil and squeak, but at least the tie was finally gone. Along with a good deal of his formal jacket and dress shirt.

He looked to her shamefacedly and found she was also concerned by the fiery outburst. She'd also since changed out of the mourning gown and into something more casual, doubtless because she actually knew where her room was.

Ven stifled an indignant growl and stuttered, "It's—this stupid tie just—!"

She reached him faster than he anticipated. He didn't expect her to come so close or for her to wipe his…tears?

But when…when did I start crying?

No sooner than he thought it did more tears fall. Aqua pulled him into a passionate hug before he knew what hit him, and only then did he remember how awkward their height difference made this. But any inner protest he might've had died the moment his grief rushed back in full force. An onset of sniffles and bucking shoulders emasculated him further until he was nothing more than a hot, weeping mess that couldn't even reach Aqua's shoulder.

"I know this must be difficult for you," she cooed with an empathy he didn't know he needed. "I know this isn't anything like you thought it'd be. I'm sorry. And I'm here for you now."

"Aq—ua," he barked hoarsely, tears falling more freely now. "Where…where's my room? Where's my—my stupid clothes?"

Ven was never this emotional or irritable over nothing. They both knew it. These were simply the pains of growing up manifesting at the worst place at the worst time, as they always did.

He clung tighter to her and choked on his own sobs. Her embrace somehow deepened, and with every pacifying stroke of her hands and every hushing whisper, he felt himself growing heavier, wearier—like the weight of his heartbreak was simply too much to carry and—

Wait.

No.

That wasn't it.

He knew what this was.

She was putting him to sleep.

She knew that magic.

Ven always hated it.

"You're leaving?" Xehanort asked, unsurprised.

Terra nodded, fastening the last button of his winter jacket.

"To see Naomi?"

He popped his collar. "Who else?"

"And what about your sons and Kairi?"

Terra's hand hovered over the doorknob. There was that knot in his stomach again, torturing him every time he left his family behind to visit his comatose wife. He told Xehanort what he told himself every time this happened. "I can't be here right now. It's too empty."

"And it will be emptier without you."

The geomancer's hand curled to a fist around the doorknob. His shoulders almost shook with cold rage. "Master…"

"I'm not judging you, Terra."

"Then get off my back." He didn't shout or bark the words. They seethed with a subtle, shaking fury through his teeth, hushed in tone yet loud enough to resonate through the mansion's vestibule.

The harshness of his words surprised the old Master, but hardly offended him. He'd lost enough loved ones over the years to understand Terra's pain. Many times, he'd acted exactly like that.

And Terra was mature enough to realize his slight. But he didn't care. He opened the door, walked outside, and, with a shaking hand, released the handle without caring to close it. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, the wind blowing his scarf around and ushering ice crystals into the empty home.

It didn't take Terra long to vanish in the distance. It wasn't until after the rushing white drowned him out that Xehanort heard the flash of materializing armor and the roar of the glider's engines. The old man had stayed in the rapidly freezing doorway far longer than he'd liked, transfixed on that living reflection of himself who acted so much like he did in his younger days. At length, Xehanort scoffed and turned away, a forceful wave magically slamming the door shut.

He marched for the stairs, arms folded meditatively behind his back. He made it only a few steps up before the small, pitiful presence he'd sensed earlier finally spoke.

"I hate him."

Xehanort paused, surprised at the child's choice of words. He turned to face the speaker and found young Riku, still wearing his funeral suit, reposed with his arms crossed in the shadow of a large grandfather clock. Terra wouldn't have seen him. Or maybe he did. And maybe he didn't care.

Xehanort flashed a patronizing smirk. "Now, now, is that any way to speak about your father?"

"He's not my father."

"Not by blood. But there is far more than blood that binds us."

"Don't give me that shit!"

Xehanort's eyes bulged in surprise. That shock of a six-year-old cursing at him quickly turned to crude amusement and it was all he could do not to laugh on the spot. Children hated being laughed at when they wanted to be taken seriously. Not that Xehanort cared.

The silver-haired toddler continued, "I had three dads before Terra came along. And none of them were ever there for me or my mom."

"I would think Terra has shown considerable care for you. Didn't you live in the slums before he came along?"

"He just wanted to fuck Naomi!"

That did it. Xehanort exploded into laughter. Riku reddened indignantly. The old man said between titters, "What a mouth this suckling has! And is this mewing all that the lion cub can muster, or has he discovered his fangs yet?"

Riku growled. "You're a stupid old freak, you know that? I hate you! I hate Terra! I hate your stupid Keyblades and your stupid magic! The Heartless are your fault!"

Xehanort froze, all sense of hilarity vanishing instantly. Riku sensed it and stepped back, fearing what might come next. He forgot he was up against the wall.

The words dripped slowly from the Master's mouth, accentuating the dreaded, rhythmic echoes of his approaching footfalls in perfect sync with the grandfather clock. "Where. Did you hear. That."

Riku lost his balance and slid, terrified, to the floor. Xehanort was at his eye-level in an instant and cupped his jaw with an iron grip, repeating more forcefully, "I said. Where. Did you hear that."

All attempts at ferocity were gone. Whatever fledgling nerve the toddler intimidated his peers with was eradicated entirely before this ancient devil that no longer treated him like a joke. Riku stuttered something desperate and unintelligible.

"Speak up, lion cub." Xehanort raised him to his feet, iron grip tightening.

"It—It—"

"Louder." He raised him off the ground. His fingers discharged a biting frost that burned the boy's skin, and his golden eyes blazed with a molten fury beyond that of any Heartless Riku had ever seen.

"Vanitas!" he shrieked. "Vanitas told me!"

That answered one question, but raised another. "What exactly did Vanitas tell you?"

"Let me go!"

"Answer me!" The ice intensified, and his voice blasted the boy with a hellish echo.

"The Keyblade legend! He says it—it destroyed the worlds! And the Heartless want it!"

Xehanort released him instantly. Riku collapsed to his knees, tears of terror running uncontrollably as he rubbed frantically at the burning frost gathered at his jaw. To his surprise, he found the ice vanished into mist the moment he touched it. And then he heard that low, unearthly chuckle from the haggard Keybearer who'd throttled him.

"Oh, is that all Vanitas told you? Nothing more than an old legend? And it seems you misremember it. The Keyblades of old have a complicated history. Some say they brought peace to the worlds, and others say great destruction. But then, what is destruction if not a pathway to peace? That is how wars and disasters are ended. What can follow them but peace? And as for the Heartless desiring the Keyblade, nothing could be further from the truth. They flee from it."

Xehanort brandished his ghoulish Keyblade in a flash of light that made the toddler squeak and curl away, further into the wall. "Do you see this? Look at it, boy." Though hesitant, Riku obeyed. "This is power. This is war and peace branded as one. This is the calm and the storm. This is the power of life…and death. Only those with the strongest wills are worthy of wielding such a weapon. And so I ask you, lion cub…what are you afraid of?"

"…Wh—what?"

"What. Are you. Afraid of."

Riku shook at the interrogation. And then he blurted, "You!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"Because I'm bigger than you?"

Riku squirmed, curling in on himself.

"Because I'm stronger than you?"

He squirmed again.

"You fear being weak. It terrifies you to be so vulnerable and helpless. You couldn't stop your fathers. You couldn't stop the Heartless. And you couldn't stop me. Question two: What do you desire more than anything in all the worlds?"

"To kick your ass!"

"To be strong, then. Understandable for a mewling child. The world is so big and you're so small. You are nothing. Only a stain on the boots of everyone who so easily walks over you. My final question: What, out of everything you have in life, is most important to you?"

By then, Riku's breath had almost normalized, or at least adapted to the tension of the moment. He could think a little more clearly. Enough to give a real answer.

"Sora and Kairi."

"And why is that?"

"They don't treat me like this."

"They respect you. And do they listen to you when you boss them around?"

Riku swallowed, almost ashamed of his answer. "Yeah. They do."

Xehanort smiled. "You fear being weak. You desire to be strong. And you cherish the reverence of those beneath you. Thus, the true nature of your heart is laid bare. Only one test remains."

At this, Xehanort plunged the end of his Keyblade through the marble floor, making Riku flinch and squeal once more. The ancient Master stood and backed away, and it took the child a moment longer to realize he'd left the Keyblade within his arms' reach.

Xehanort smiled menacingly. "Go on. Pick it up. Show me your strength, little cub."

Riku didn't move. An incredulous glance at the blade, then back to Xehanort. That harrowing leer only further penetrated his heart, made him shrivel and cower and hate himself for being weak.

All the more reason to take the Keyblade.

At length, he swallowed and reached a trembling hand for the macabre weapon's haft, then the other. Tiny fingers wrapped slowly around it, and the chill of terror only intensified. He shouldn't be doing this. This weapon shouldn't exist. It was jagged and grisly and cold and evil…

And it was his.

Fear gave way to anger, anger to pride, and the false heroism surged through the boy in a cosmic rush beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He clenched the handle more intensely and pulled upward.

The blade didn't budge. Pride swelled further into deeper anger, and he pulled harder and harder. The Keyblade refused to obey him…but it did acknowledge him.

The demon face carved into the dark blade's guard glowed savagely from the relief's crystal eyes, blazing from chill sapphire to the flare of an inferno. Riku would've released the weapon right then, but fear petrified him where he stood; that cosmic rush corrupted into something far more infernal so that the jaws of Hell itself opened up to him. Shadow and fire, perdition and darkness, the destruction of the worlds—

This was the power of the Keyblade, and it terrified Riku to tears.

A sharp jolt from the haft expelled the boy's grasp, flinging him hard against the near wall and leaving him more horrified than he'd ever been in his short life. He looked back up to the insidious blade, and Xehanort chuckled at finding his face so wet and red.

The Keyblade snapped from the floor, eliciting a shriek from Riku, who curled into a ball, and the destroyer of worlds returned to the ancient Master whom it served…or who served it.

That baleful smile grew deeper than ever. "Hardly surprising. You are unworthy of wielding such a weapon as mighty as the Keyblade. Your heart is weak. You are weak. And yet you dare criticize those who've mastered this terrible blade's power? Know your place, you feckless neophyte, and never forget it."

Only a second of silence lingered between them. Then Riku, quivering and teary-eyed, scampered away from Xehanort and ran with aimless abandon out the front door and into the oppressive chill of winter. He never thought to grab his coat.

Xehanort chuckled. He called to an unseen spectator at the top of the stairs, "Did you enjoy the show?"

Mr. Smee did not.

He ran and he ran. Tripping over cobblestone, stumbling through briars, young Riku in his funeral suit bolted for all he was worth further and further away from the hell his life had become. That wasn't his family. That wasn't his home. This wasn't life. And these monsters—

Riku cowered and screamed every time he saw them. The Unversed. Vanitas' offscouring emotions given monstrous form and employed as the estate's security team. They looked so much like the Heartless. Riku'd never seen one—a fortunate consequence of Vanitas' imprisonment—but now they were everywhere. Eldritch sprites and gargoyles stalking the manor grounds and bearing so much in common with the monsters that destroyed his home…

They afforded Riku a passing glance and nothing more.

Eventually, they vanished from sight. He'd run far beyond the security perimeter and into a forgotten acre that few knew of, stopping only at the mouth of a cave that even fewer knew existed. This was his—no, their real home. Their secret place.

Just like the one on the Islands. It's even got that weird door in the back.

But unlike their previous hideout, it wasn't just him and Sora. Kairi and Ienzo had entered their lives and were counted among those permitted to enter. As often happened when inner circles expand, Sora and Riku each found themselves gravitating to one of the newer members. Sora and Kairi were nearly inseparable, and Riku found in Ienzo that long-sought friend who took him more seriously.

But now Ienzo was gone, and the cave was deathly quiet.

Scribbles of every childish sort lined the stone walls, a crudely tapestried chronicle of the friends' history together. Most of the carvings were courtesy of Sora and Kairi, who even etched each other's portraits into the stone. Riku ignored them and marched straight to his section of wall: a utilitarian collection of tallies in groups of five to count the days since Destiny Islands was destroyed. It was adjacent to the oval door without a handle, far in the back of the cavern.

At first, the wall was nothing. But as the strokes added up, Riku found it harder and harder to approach it. Lately, his stomach sank every time he glanced in its direction. But he embraced that pain, clutched to it for dear life so he'd never forget his hatred of the Heartless and the Keyblade. Only he and Ienzo knew what the tallies meant. To Sora and Kairi, it was just an odd curiosity not worth exploring.

Riku grabbed the makeshift chisel and scratched a diagonal line across a cluster of four, bringing the total count to eighty-five.

But there was more to the cave.

Though Riku confided in Ienzo his deepest hatred and grief, the orphaned prince kept his a secret. Or so he thought.

Neither Sora nor Kairi knew that Ienzo had made his own contributions to the scribbled gallery, and Ienzo never knew that Riku had discovered it. It was a small recess, barely accessible by children, let alone adults, and he hid it well behind a stone that seemed a natural part of the wall. Riku removed it and read for the hundredth time the supernatural message the dead prince received the night of his sister's demise, and which he received dozens of times more in the weeks afterward, etched in stone for posterity.

THERE WAS NO HEARTLESS

EVEN DID IT

EVEN DID EVERYTHING

HE HAS NO FACE

SEE HIM LIMP

EVEN IS GUILTY

CAN THEY SEE?

HE IS A MONSTER

BROUGHT THE HEARTLESS

BROUGHT CALAMITY

KILLING ANSEM

KILLING THIS WORLD

DOOR TO DARKNESS

MIRROR, MIRROR

DARK SEEKERS

TRUST THE KEYBLADE

SAVE THE SEVEN

STOP V

BEWARE CHERNABOG

Much of it didn't make sense to him, but he'd pieced together enough to have some understanding of what the late prince endured in his last month alive. Riku knew Ienzo had a sister who was reported to have been slain by a Heartless, but the conditions for the murder were impossible, hence "There was no Heartless. Even did it. Even did everything." Or so Riku surmised.

And he decided no one else would see this. Not his friends—they were too innocent—and definitely not the Keybearers, despite "Trust the Keyblade"—a mistake, no doubt. The last thing Riku wanted was Even, the apparent destroyer of this world, to find more allies in those who wielded such terrible weapons.

And so Riku inherited the late prince's onus: to be the tragic bearer of apocalyptic knowledge that he couldn't share with anyone. Now, after touching Xehanort's Keyblade, Riku was surer than ever that the end of this world and every other was imminent. The Keyblade had shown him their end, and it terrified him to the core.

Riku huddled into a ball and held himself tight. It was getting cold.

He stayed inside for a long time, longer than he cared to keep track. The weather outside only worsened, and he shivered without an extra layer to keep him warm.

"H—hello?" a small but aged voice called a half-hour later. "Riku, are you in there?"

The boy shot his gaze to the cave mouth and found a silhouette only slightly taller than him. Mr. Smee. Xehanort's new Heartless pet.

Riku huffed and turned away.

"I brought you a coat for the weather, and I have a thermos with some soup—"

"GO AWAY!" Riku shrieked.

The Half-Shadow froze. "B—but I—"

"I SAID GO!"

An uncomfortable silence lingered between them. Ten seconds, thirty, a minute…

And then Smee set the thermos on a smooth area of the cave floor, loud enough for Riku to hear the echo, and he folded the winter coat and set it just beside.

Riku didn't say anything. He didn't turn to face him or offer any intentional acknowledgment of his generosity. He was one of them. A Heartless. One of Xehanort's goons. And now they lived under the same roof.

Mr. Smee turned away, starting for the outside, and he said over his shoulder with an unmistakable empathy, "Just so you know, I hate them too."