"Come on! Get her! Hook your lef- there you go! Aqua! What's wrong? Don't let him get the best of you! You-… A little…'Atta girl!"
Sora, arm-in-arm with his best friend, with a proud posture, smirked mischievously.
"That's them now... Sparring."
They paused a moment, listening to jibes and cheers from the same deep voice, while cries of attack rang through the open door, and into the hallway.
"C'mon! It's between Aqua and Ven, and you don't wanna' miss them spar! It's awesome!"
Bouncing up and down, the younger seized Riku's hand, and yanked him into the open room.
At the elementary school, what Riku could remember of it at least, there was a gymnasium. Relatively enormous to his young body, during class he would always marvel at the size (before forgetting completely to pound another kid in the face with a dodge ball). He felt like a mouse in an empty room in the house.
Upon stepping inside the massive dojo-like gym, the faded feelings returned at full force.
Wooden bleachers lined up one of the eight walls in the room, while various other (enormous) weapons littered the rest. Riku wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if they weren't just for decoration. A large red outlining of about three feet surrounded the octagon, while the red seeped up the corners in straight lines, with the occasional marker every ten feet.
Two figures blurred across his vision, jumping around the room at wicked speeds. The only sign they were there at all was the clang and flash of light coming from two swords swung with great strength. A brunet stood a few feet away from the red outline, cheering them on.
"Come on! Try to make it to fifty! Let's go!"
The blurs became faster, or rather, became harder to see. The clangs became erratic and booming, the light came faster than lightning ever had. It was a little like fireworks- loud and bright, but spectacular and memorizing. In fact, after a few minutes of staring at the figures, Riku realized he had forgotten to blink. With burning eyes, he opened and closed his lids faster than a hummingbird's heartbeat.
And missed it.
"Uh!"
The cry of defeat rang from one of the blurs, and all at once, the smudges became people, and fell to the wooden dojo floor.
They landed, luckily (or was it skillfully?) on their armored feet with a soft clunk.
The shorter one had armor with various plates of red, black, silver, and gold, with two spike-like curves on the top of his helmet. It reminded Riku of a bird, like a hawk or something.
The taller one had a darker tone- burgundy, black, silver, and a little dark blue in some plates. This figure was female, judging from the breastplate. Her helmet had similar curved spikes, these pointing down, like a swooping eagle.
Not an inch of flesh was shown on either.
Both were panting, and, after a few moments, it registered to the brunet that there were a few visitors in the gym. He turned, eyes brightening and a smirk-grin mix.
"Sora! How's it goin'? You haven't came down here in the longest time! What kept ya'? I heard that Zack really kicked your ass a few weeks ago. Was that-"
In midst of reconnecting with Sora, his eyes caught Riku's. He stopped, arching an eyebrow.
"And...who might this be?"
Unbeknownst to the eye, the air became stiff. The armored people had regained stamina, and stood behind the brunet in a triangle-sort formation, instinctively. The fact that tinted plates covered their facial expressions and eyes gave Riku the "heebie-jeebies."
By then, Sora had stood, and moved defensively in front of Riku. His fingertips brushed across the blade strapped to his back.
"This is my friend, Riku. It took him a long time to get here..."
"Wait."
One of the armored ones spoke- the shorter. His voice sounded strange, filtered almost, through the thick helmet.
"Riku? Didn't Roxy and I help you bury a guy named Riku? And he looks...oh my God...That's him."
The female, and Ven's tone, visibly tensed. She tightened her grip on the sword she had yet to put away from the duel.
"Yeah Ven, it's him."
"But that's not possible..."
"He walks before you; his heart's intact and bright. It's true, Ventus."
Riku closed his eyes for the sake of being polite, and rolled them underneath the lids.
Why was meeting new people a constant death threat? Was the hearty 'hey there, nice to meet you' just not good enough for people anymore?
A noise ripped from Ventus, making Riku snap his lids open once more.
The armor began to vanish, as if dissolving into thin air, and within a few moments, there stood a blonde.
He looked so much like Roxas, Riku half-expected the blonde to lash out at the sight of him.
But, after a minute of close examination, there were faint differences between the two that became apparent.
Ven was taller, by a few inches. Roxas' eyes were a slightly darker shade of blue. Ven was much more muscular. He seemed to be a little nicer too.
The blonde's eyes flashed with hope, a low, pathetic sign of hope.
"This is...This could mean...Cloud? Could we-"
The degree mark cooled below freezing, once the forbidden name was spoken.
"No Ven. That will never happen, and you know it."
His gaze drooped to the floor, with a brisk,
"Oh."
It hadn't really come to Riku's attention before, but there was something missing. He wore a few layers of short-sleeves; a short-sleeved jacket, a short-sleeved half-turtle neck- yes, he would win a layer contest.
But where his right arm was supposed to be, there was a long black glove.
Now, Riku always had something of a symmetrical-OCD. When outfits weren't matching on either side (or at least, were dramatically different), it drove him up a wall. (Axel had quite a load of fun with this information when they were young.)
But it wasn't his OCD that brought the attention to the glove. It wasn't the fact that the glove was much like ones women used when seeing a fancy play, and clashed but the outline of the glove.
Comparing Ven's right arm to his left, the right was, without any exaggeration, a pole. It was incredibly skinny, impossibly skinny, and clearly out of proportion with the rest of his body. The thin pole led to oddly curved outlines of what would be very sharp
He must've made his gaze too obvious, because Ventus gave him a hurt look, while subconsciously stroking the glove. Ven stared at the strange arm, a wistful look drawing on his features. Although he only saw Sora do so, the others also glared at Riku for a split second, as if to say, 'watch it.'
"Sorry...Riku, was it? Sorry, I banged up my other one, and I'm waiting for Lightning to get back to me on it. The other looks more natural- this is the spare. I'm sorry if it's a distraction."
Shaking his head, Riku tore his gaze away from the arm to Ven's face.
"No, no. It's me, it's rude to stare, after all."
A sad smile crossed briefly across his features and vanished when Aqua spoke, now in strange clothing that matched her armor.
"So Sora, why's your pet here?"
The brunette pouted, exaggerating his reaction by flailing his arms and practically yelling,
"He's not a pet! He's my best friend! Ugh!"
. . .
It was after the intense training session between the three, Ventus spoke up. Sora was having an animated conversation with Aqua and Terra, and Riku was standing by the door, silently watching, shaking his head with a small smile.
"Riku."
The voice startled him, and continued even before the two made eye contact.
"I want you to listen. Listen good."
Ven pointed towards the three, who were laughing at something Terra had said, smiling a little.
"I know you like Sora...And it might even be more than the 'just friends' kinda' like too. Which would be..." The smile perked for a second, letting the sentence drop off there. "Anyway, I need for you to do me a favor."
Riku returned with a warm half-smile.
"And what's that?"
Ventus gave him a cold look, his posture stiffened, his eyes a color described as ice.
"When you go into training...for the draft. I don't care how distant or crazy some of the rules seem..." The glove slid off, revealing a crude metallic work that imitated a human arm. The look in Ven's eye's could never be as serious. "Follow them. All of them."
With that, he nodded once, and strolled towards the others, laughing and whirling the conversation up once more with some story about walking in on Roxas and Axel.
-
Knights.
That's what Sora said Ven Terra and Aqua are. They're the knights of this 'sector'. Sora said a bunch of other stuff about um, but I didn't get it. He tries to explain a lot of things to me, but most of them don't make any sense...at all.
I'm surprised that he doesn't get angry or frustrated, but usually he just laughs and says that it's gotta be hard to take all of this in.
Has it really only been ten years?
. . .
Golden wings enveloped a small, familiar blonde.
Riku tried to move, only to find white fingertips clutching the toes of his boots, keeping him in place. The once-comfortable warmth of this place (that reminded him of childhood nights underneath a mountain of covers) was becoming unbearably dry. To the severe degree of desert sand baking in the sun.
"Cloud, run!"
The gold was alluring, but he knew there was something more to the angel wings on the blonde's back. Some horrible.
"Please, get away!"
The feathers began to wrap around the small child, ensnaring him in a soft golden blanket. His eyelids were becoming harder and harder to keep up; sagging, just like the rest of his body began to do, into the spectacular gold.
His foggy blue eyes saw Riku once more, before a feeble movement of moving his fingers in unison.
A silent wave of good bye.
"No!"
Cloud was swallowed, and the gold died, leaving him alone in a new place.
A place was hard, and bright. And cold.
. . .
"Cloud!"
He was forced into sitting up, the muscles in his back doing somersaults. Sweat beaded down the back of his neck, and breathing was shallow and hard to do.
'Just a nightmare...'
Taking in the rest of the room, the oh-so-familiar room Riku had come to memorize wholey in detail over the past few months.
It was hot and humid, like a day at the islands, without the vast ocean to cool them down.
His muscles returned to normalcy, and he was about to get a glass of water, when the screaming came. It was high-pitched, and hurt his soul just by listening to the immense torture the voice was going through.
Glancing towards the door, he threw back the sheets, and crept towards it.
He did so cautiously, as if he was expecting the door to come alive and devour him.
The screaming became worse, closer.
Riku jumped a few feet in shock when the door slid open mechanically, breathing cool air in his face. Without the interference, the screaming echoed around the dark lab, growing more and more desperate.
He sprinted across the lab, ignoring the small scientist who gave him a look and asked why he was up so late.
Riku ran at the door, which wouldn't open automatically. He turned to the scientist, who was eyeballing him curiously.
"Open the door! Now!"
Zexion gave him that look.
"Why? Riku, what are you doing?"
"That screaming...can't you hear it?"
Gazing at the door, there was silence between the two of them as Riku resisted the great urge to cover his ears. After a moment, Zexion nodded, arching an eyebrow,
"Yeah. But it's so...faint. How'd you hear it from your room?"
Blinking in a way that would convey the message 'What the hell?', he spoke slowly.
"You call...that faint? It's...ugh! Open the door Zex-now!"
He had to help this person- dear god, what was wrong with them?
Hearing the tone of voice, the scientist realized there wasn't any point in trying to convince Riku in going back to bed (with the tests and training he had done to catch Riku up to speed with his age, there was one thing that was painfully obvious- he was stubborn.)
Zexion glided across the room, positioning himself before one of the tables, and doing something that made the door glow a tranquil blue, and slid open easily.
The hallway was empty.
But the screams were in his ear. His fingers curled, eyes clamping shut, threatening to roll to the back of his skull, which was pounding.
He took a few steps out of the lab, the floor freezing the sensitive flesh of his feet. Eyes scanned about the hall, landing on a door to his far left. Riku jogged to it, and stood a few feet outside of it, listening as the screaming slowly died down.
Riku stepped forward, making the familiar blue glow appear around the edges.
It slid open.
The room it led into was small and emotionless. The walls, the floors, and every piece of furniture (a writing desk and a tiny box-spring bed) was painted the color of white.
White, white, white.
The key-points of the room that made it look occupied were the hundreds of pieces, strips, scraps, and whole papers that cluttered every inch of the room. There were pictures with vivid flamboyant colors on every bit.
Another sign of occupation was the figure, wriggling and writhing on the bed, screaming.
The person flipped and shook so quickly, Riku couldn't make out any features, including gender and hair color.
He hesitantly approached the bed, keeping his eyes locked on the figure, remaining silent until the screaming came to a name,
"Sora!"
With that, Riku rushed to the person, and put his hands on their small shoulders. They thrashed about, until Riku pushed (her/him) down, pressing them against the sheets.
The screaming abruptly stopped and after a few moments of shaking, the person was still.
"Hey. Are you alright? Hey! Hey!"
Lashes delicately fluttered against flushed cheeks, lids opened-
To a pair of wide golden eyes,
"Riku."