Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

Kidnapped

He was flooded with anger, spurred on by rage a she burst through the entrance to the Secret Place.

"This is bad," Riku thought. "This is really bad. I have to find him now." Riku was suddenly struck with the feeling that finding Sora would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Sora could've been anywhere on the giant chain of islands they all lived on. "He might not even be on this world," Riku thought, putting a hand to his head. He needed to calm himself down. He was angry, but he knew he couldn't let that keep him from thinking clearly. "I've got to…"

All of a sudden, Riku was tackled to the ground from the side.

"You're not supposed to look for him, you know," came Sora's voice at his ear. "That's why it's called holding for ransom."

"Get off," Riku cried, struggling to throw Twine's Sora off of him. Sora held tight though, grabbing a good clump of Riku's hair and pinning his left arm to the ground.

"No," Sora said. "You're staying here until you hand it over."

"Why does Twine want me to give him Way To Dawn anyway?" Riku growled under his breath.

"You don't need to know that," Sora snapped. "All you need to know is that Sora's going to die unless you do."

Surprise and realization lit up in Riku's face. He really hadn't considered the fact that Sora's life might be in danger. He'd known that something terrible was going to happen to Sora if he didn't give up Way To Dawn, but he'd never suspected that that thing might be death. Riku needed to find Sora now more than ever.

"Hey, 'Sora,'" he called. "Tell Twine to let Sora go first. Let me see that he's all right, and then I'll give it to him." Sora gave a small laugh.

"I wish I could believe that," he said, mockingly. "But I don't think you would have any motivation to give it to him once he let Sora go."

"No, I would," Riku said. "I swear I would."

"It doesn't matter how much you swear you would. Twine's only going to let Sora go once he gets Way To Dawn." Riku didn't answer. He didn't say anything for such a long time that Sora said, "You know, the longer you stay here, the less time you have to get him Way To Dawn."

"What?" Riku cried. "I have a time limit?"

"Did I forget to mention?" Sora asked, sounding completely unremorseful. "You've got about two hours before something happens to your friend." Now, Sora got closer to Riku's ear and said with a soft voice, "If he's killed, it'll be your fault." Riku couldn't take it anymore.

His free hand shot up to the fist clasped around his hair and pried the fingers away. The action was so fast that Sora didn't have time to try and stop it. Now that he could sit up without having his hair pulled out, Riku managed to get both of his hands onto the ground to shove himself up, though Sora still had a firm grip on his left arm.

"Hey, get back down," Sora ordered, moving himself into a more upright position to push Riku back down. "You'd better…" As Sora's stomach became exposed, Riku took this opportunity to draw his elbow forward and jab it backwards as hard as he could.

There came a gasping noise from Sora and he stopped moving. He gave a groan as he slumped forward into Riku's shoulder. Riku shrugged him off and set him down with his back against the sand before standing. He sighed. Things were a lot worse than he'd thought. Twine was actually going to kill Sora if he didn't receive Way To Dawn.

Riku couldn't give him Way To Dawn though. He just couldn't. There were a couple of reasons why. Way To Dawn acted like the Key Blade in many ways. One of those ways was its ability to lock and unlock things, and Riku had a feeling that Twine must've had something he needed to unlock. If he did, it couldn't possibly have been anything good, so that was one reason why he couldn't give Twine Way To Dawn. Another reason was the fact that it was his weapon, his protection against the heartless. If Riku gave Twine Way To Dawn and the heartless found out, they probably would have come swarming.

Riku probably could have thought of three more reasons why he couldn't give his Key Blade over to Twine, but there was one reason why he had to give it over that pushed all of the other reasons away, and that reason was Sora. Riku wouldn't have been able to live with himself if something happened to Sora because of all this.

"I have to get him away from Twine," Riku thought. "As long as he has Sora, I can't do anything." The needle in a haystack feeling came back, but he quickly quelled it and began to think. "Okay, if he were on this island, where would he be?"

Riku thought of all of the places on the island anyone could possibly hide in, and after a few seconds he gasped. He felt like an idiot for not having thought of it before. It was the place where everyone had hidden whenever he'd played hide and seek as a small child. Riku didn't have any time to waste.

He rushed down to the Sora that lay in the sand next to him to make sure he really was unconscious and wasn't just pretending. When he found that he really was unconscious, Riku stood and started running towards the Cove as fast as he could.

"Don't worry Sora," he thought. "I'm coming."

It was dark in the small cave. The rock that hid it from view let in a few ribbons of light, but other than that it was pitch black to Sora. He lay on his stomach, fighting to break the rope that bound his wrists. He was starting to get tired though. He'd been stuck in the cave for what had to at least be an hour, rarely stopping to rest from pulling at the ropes. He needed to get away and make sure Riku was all right.

As they'd carried him over to the cave, Twine and the other Sora had talked about a plan that involved Riku. They were trying to get him to do something. Sora hadn't heard enough before being dropped into a dark portal and into the cave to know what that thing was, but he knew that Twine had taken him hostage to force Riku to do it. Sora gave three more tries at pulling his arms free, but to no avail. He stopped.

"I have to warn him," Sora thought, panting. "Riku is in danger." A feeling of hopelessness suddenly swept over Sora. "Who am I kidding? I'm danger."

He'd tried everything to try and escape his prison. He'd tried slipping his hands through the cords, but that obviously hadn't gotten him anywhere. He'd tried kicking himself free too, but that hadn't worked either. He'd tried getting as close as he could to the cave wall and running his wrists across it in hopes that it would pull the ropes away. This hadn't worked because the walls were smooth and didn't have anything that would snag. He'd tried pushing the rock that blocked the cave out of the way, but that hadn't worked, not because he wasn't strong enough to do it. He'd been able to push that rock ever since he was thirteen years old. The reason he couldn't push it now was because in his present state, he couldn't get into the right position to even begin pushing the rock. He hadn't even bothered trying to cry out. No one was on the island to hear him, and even if they had been there, with the cloth at his mouth in place his voice was muffled and muted. They wouldn't have been able to hear him over the waves.

Since he'd tried everything and nothing seemed to be working for him, Sora sat there in silence, not moving or doing anything. He'd come to the conclusion that the ropes were too tight. He wasn't' going to be able to break them.

"I guess I'm just going to have to trust Riku," he thought. "Or Kairi." Those two were the only ones that could've helped him. Twine was obviously from the dark by the way he could use dark portals, and this being the case meant that only objects with a certain amount of magical ability could be used against him. Riku and Kairi, being ones that wielded Key Blades, were the only ones on the world that had anything like that. Sora knew that it would be one of those two that saved him, and that it would most likely be Riku. Kairi had piano practice from nine o'clock to ten on Saturdays, so she wouldn't be able to come.

"You never know though," Sora thought. "I could be here for a while." Right now Riku and the replication Sora were probably off on the main island doing something together, Riku blissfully unaware that his friend was actually a "spawn of magic," as Twine had called it. They were most likely at an arcade. That's what Sora and Riku had planned to do until Kairi got out of her lessons. "For all I know it could already be ten," Sora thought, sighing. He had a watch on, but there wasn't anyway he could look at it with it being on his wrist and his wrists being behind him.

Now that he thought about the time, Sora wondered when it was going to be that anyone found him.

"If Riku thinks the replication is me, and they do whatever they're going to do until Kairi gets there, and then Kairi thinks the replication is me, doesn't that mean that no one will come looking…" If Sora could have, he probably would have smacked his temples. He was extremely tired at the moment, his thoughts becoming a rambling mess. After taking a few deep breaths, Sora closed his eyes. He really was starting to wonder when he would be allowed to leave. It felt like hours had passed since he'd been put here, but he knew that wasn't true. It only felt that way to him because he'd been waiting.

Now Sora's mind started drifting away into sleep, his body so tired and fatigued that he could hardly help it. He probably would've fallen asleep right there if the startling sound of the wooden door at the head of the Cove banging open hadn't jerked him awake.

Sora listened as distant footsteps plocking against wood, and then sand, got closer and closer. He didn't know who this person was, but they were coming in his direction. Sora was holding his breath by the time the person got close to his cave. They couldn't have been more than five feet away. When the person stopped running, Sora gasped. This was his chance and he was missing it.

Sora rolled onto his back and started kicking his legs against the side wall of the cave, shuffling around, and making as much noise as he possibly could. He cried out as best he could with the cloth over his mouth and hopped, prayed that the person would hear him, and set him free.

"The cave," Riku thought. "How could I be so stupid?" As Riku ran down the small bridge that ran across the Cove, he couldn't help but beat himself up for not going to the cave in the first place. There was a small cave near the place where he, Sora, and Kairi had built their raft, and Sora was just small enough to fit into it. Riku was positive that this must've been where Sora had been stowed away. "If I'd come here first, Sora would be safe right now." Riku didn't like the fact that he'd gone to the Secret Place when he'd first found out about Sora's kidnapping. He knew that if he'd thought things through then, he wouldn't have just gone to the first place that popped into his mind. "Oh well," he thought. "There's no point in feeling bad about it now."

He was coming up on the point in the land that dipped down. It was about a five-foot drop, and normally he would have slowed down to get passed this part, but he was in too much of a hurry to do that now. He jumped, landed, and then ran a few more steps before finally making it to the outside of the cave. It really couldn't be considered a cave, as it was more of a hole drilled into the side of the wall.

Whatever the thing was called, Riku noticed one thing about it, and that was that the position of the rock was over the mouth of the cave, but the sand around the rock was smooth and plain. If Twine had put Sora into the cave, he would've had to move the rock, and this would have unsettled the sand. "Maybe he's not in there," Riku thought, walking forward all the while. The next thing that happened changed his mind though.

He started hearing shuffling noises and small, stifled cries. It sounded just like Sora. Riku shot out towards the rock and kneeled down next to it, putting both hands on it to push it away from the cave's mouth.

"Viku?" came Sora's voice once Riku had the rock open a little. He went on to say a few more things, but Riku couldn't understand them, as a cloth had been draped over Sora's mouth.

"Sora," Riku breathed, the relief he felt evident in his voice. "Just hold on. Let me untie you first." Riku went to push the rock a little further away from the cave so that he could fit through and get Sora out, but he never got the chance. To his horror, a dark portal appeared underneath Sora, and with a cry Sora fell through.

"No, Sora," Riku cried, sticking his hand through the gap that the rock made to possibly catch hold of Sora, but it was too late. Even if he had been able to fit through the gap, it still would've been too late. The dark portal left as quickly as it had come. Riku sat there, staring at the place where Sora had just been. He'd been less than a foot away from Sora, and still he hadn't been able to save him.

"Lost something?" came a voice from behind. Riku clenched his fist. It was Twine. He stood up and spun around.

"Bring him back," Riku shouted. "This is between you and me Twine. Leave Sora out of it."

"But he's the Key Blade Master, isn't he?" Twine asked, a sly smile on his face. "I don't think there is a way to leave him out."

This gained a surprised look from Riku. He hadn't expected Twine to know that Sora was the Key Blade Master. He hadn't wanted Twine to know that Sora was the Key Blade Master. He'd known that Twine would definitely go after Sora if he knew this bit of information. Riku narrowed his eyes at Twine.

"How did you know that?" he asked.

"I should know," Twine smirked. "I'm the one that took it away from him." Riku gasped. This situation was getting too out of control. He knew he had to stop it before it was too late.

"Let Sora go," Riku shouted, once again trying to gain Sora's freedom. "He is not involved in this. It's me you want anyway."

"No," came Twine's brusque reply. "In fact I'm never letting him go, not after the stunt you just tried to pull. You might as well kiss your friend goodbye. He's as good as dead." (A/N: Don't get excited yaoi fans. The kiss comment was just an expression.)

"Don't you dare lay a finger on him," Riku cried, summoning Way To Dawn.

"Is this your way of changing your mind about giving me Way To Dawn?" Twine asked, looking as if he didn't take Riku seriously at all.

"No, this is me threatening you," Riku cried, running at Twine with his Key Blade above his head. He went to come down on Twine with Way To Dawn, but in a flash of light he made contact with something hard. Twine had blocked his attack, and he had done it with the Key Blade. The two separated, jumping away from each other.

"How are you using the Key Blade?" Riku asked once he'd landed.

"I already told you I took it away from him," Twine said. "What did you think? I just took it for show?"

"No," Riku thought, gripping the hilt of Way To Dawn, "But I didn't expect you to be able to use it." He was already angry enough, what with Twine being on the verge of murdering his best friend, but the fact that Twine had the audacity to use the Key Blade right at this moment made Riku all the angrier. Riku ran forward once more, wanting nothing more than to hurt Twine. Twine had other plans though. Before Riku knew it, Twine's fingers were coiled around his wrist and a sizzling pain was going up his arm.

Riku let out a scream at the pain, and then reached up to Twine's hand to move it away. Twine held on though, and the longer he did the more Riku felt his grip on Way To Dawn slip away, and it wasn't just physically. The connection he had with Way To Dawn was slipping away as well.

"This must be what he did to Sora," Riku thought. He had to do something before Way To Dawn was gone completely. That's when he thought of it. "Reflect," Riku shouted out. A shield of light burst out from Riku, bumping Twine away and causing him to let go of Riku's wrist.

Riku stumbled backwards and then fell to his knees, clutching his arm and dismissing Way To Dawn. He couldn't risk using it and having Twine try to take it away again.

"But what can I do?" Riku thought. "If I can't use Way To Dawn, what's left?" He thought, and found that the answer to his question was nothing. "Unless…" He slowly stood and brought his eyes up so that they were level with Twine's. "If I were to give you Way To Dawn right now, would you let Sora go?" he panted.

"It's too late for that," Twine snapped. "You had your chance, but you ruined it for yourself, and Sora." A dark portal opened up behind him, and he turned around to go through.

"No, wait," Riku shouted, taking a step forward. "Please, I'm begging you. Don't hurt him." Twine stopped his stride and actually turned to face Riku. A few long seconds passed, and Riku was starting to think that Twine was going to reject his request.

"Fine then," Twine spat. "This is the last chance I'm going to give you. Come to the place where you first met me. I'll be keeping him there. You have a day to come, but if I don't have Way To Dawn by this time tomorrow, I really am going to kill him." With that, Twine turned and left through his portal.

As the last remnants of the dark portal disappeared, Riku stared out into space. His legs all of a sudden felt too weak to hold him up, and so he sank down to his knees.

"How could I let this happen?" he breathed. Riku didn't think he'd ever been so scared in all of his life. Sora was in the hands of a deranged nobody, one that had no regard for his life at all. Twine had so little regard for it that he'd been about to go kill Sora just a few moments ago. "That was too close," Riku thought, shuddering at the thought of what would have happened if he hadn't convinced Twine not to do it. He had a new lease on life now, or rather Sora did, literally. He couldn't mess it up this time.

Slowly, Riku stood, swallowing at the bad taste in his mouth. He didn't bother reaching into his pocket to grab the orange juice that was still in there. There was no time to stop for a drink as he walked towards the door that led away from the Cove. He had to find Kairi. He had to save Sora.

To Be Continued…

Okay! The second chapter is done. Was Riku in character? He may be mister "cool and collected," but he does have the right to be scared, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. This is The Mangosity saying, actually, asking, if you have two black cats that meow, constantly, what do you do to make them stop?