This was fun to write. I don't think that I've ever really gotten into Sora's head before, but I think that it turned out well. Don't you? I liked the POV of this too—its different than my other two.
This is a companion to my other two fics, Because and Tape. You don't have to read those, but they make a nice little collection.
Oh, and I listened to the instrumental piece 'Forever Love' by Nobuo Uematsu when I wrote this. I recommend downloading that from Limewire or something to listen to while you read because it only makes the story that much more powerful.
I own no such thing as Kingdom Hearts.
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You never really got it—the talk of other worlds and places to go. You thought that maybe they didn't exist, but Riku assured you that they did—where had Kairi come from? And the more that you thought about it, the more you wanted to say, "Kairi came from another island, Riku. Nothing special, no where else."
Though it was very illogical—Kairi had fallen from the sky, so if she had come from another island, then how did she get up there? Not that the other world rant by your friend always went on was very logical either. Either way, your lives were ruled by a series of impossible possibilities—and it just kept getting worse. Because when you're suddenly thrust into a world where animals can talk, giant keys can come to your hand as if it was magnetic, and somehow it all still makes sense, you realize just how lucky you were not knowing.
Of course, there's another factor that plays heavily into that. It's the reason that you never wanted to believe in the other worlds in the first place. You're scared of the other worlds—scared of how big it all is, of how much there is out there. You never told Riku because he was just the opposite, afraid of how small your world was, and he would never understand your fear just as you never understood his.
And, suddenly, it's bigger than the three of you ever imagined and you're a big part of it and you can feel your head spin and your pulse spike and everything spins out of control because your scared—but you can't let it show. You never let it show before, you always controlled it around Riku, and so you'd have to do the same now. And they told you that if you completed this mission then the worlds would be unconnected again, and you could go back to a life believing everything but knowing nothing at all. And it would be small again. And all would be good.
You've gotten the deadly dance down pat now, you know all of the steps and you can execute them with ease. That's the only way to do it, because with each step and swing that's one step closer to everything being small again. But you fear that something is growing—your thoughts. Suddenly you're thinking of things that Riku used to think of, but you pray that the thoughts don't suddenly spiral out of control because that's what happened to Riku and look at him now.
You were always the innocent one. You were the 'stupid' one, the cute one, the one who never thought things through. It was because you were afraid to, wasn't it? You were afraid that if you stopped being innocent and began to think then you'd grow up and suddenly everything would get bigger. And if it was bigger then you wouldn't be able to understand it and nothing would ever make much sense and that scared you.
Not so innocent now though, you bitterly think to yourself. Not so innocent with all of the blood on your hands—even though most of your enemies didn't bleed, it was all metaphorical. You had slain thousands of them, because they were all the same now and you couldn't think straight because you were running on fear alone, and you had started to see Kairi everywhere, and now Riku was gone again, and nothing made sense and it all started to get even bigger.
And then there's Kairi. You go through so much to save her, even fighting Riku, which hurts even worse than your fears. It hurts so much because you can see that everything is too big for him too now and that means that there's no hope. But you do get her back and she saves you from the darkness and you're more glad than she'll ever know because the darkness was scary and all, but it was also so big—never ending—and you couldn't even hear yourself screaming.
You run on autopilot for the rest of the journey. You're scared, and lonely, and nothing can ever make it better so you withdraw into yourself while you just execute those moves again, this time with even better poise and deadly accuracy. And you don't remember much of it at all because your adrenaline is the only thing keeping you alive, but you remember fighting him and the suddenly you're standing on land with her behind you and a big door in front of you and you want to run to her because she's small and familiar, and the door is big and unknown, but you run to the door instead.
Riku's behind it. There he is, in that god-forsaken place, so huge and physics defying because it's just a door but inside lies an endless plane. You don't want to leave him in there because its so big, and scary, and unknown. But you realize that it doesn't matter because Riku was never scared of the big, scary, unknown, and it wasn't like you were going home anytime soon either. So you shut the door—left him inside with the King.
Kairi was waiting for you—Riku had told you to take care of her. You wished that you could, because that would mean going back to your world where everything was small, but you still had a job to do. So you watched her fade back home, and you promised to return, because that was the only thing that you had ever really wanted.
And you couldn't remember anything, but there was this ever-present fear gnawing at the back of your head. You weren't sure why you wanted everything to be small, but you did. But nothing in this castle was small, and all of it was big and unknown, and that scared you and annoyed you at the same time. Why were you scared of the unknown? You didn't know, but you still couldn't shake it.
And then you woke up, and all of your fears were realized. You were bigger, and in an unknown place that seemed bigger than it really was. A town with huge buildings and lots of people with no memory of how you got there. It was daunting. So you went through a whirlwind of events to end up at the home of the only person that could explain things to you—though you had half the mind to ask why he had made his staircases so large—but you didn't and he explained. And you felt smaller than ever, because now not only was everything big, but you were too. You had been the only thing that you could ever count on not getting bigger, but you couldn't play the part of the innocent one in your sleep and your body deceived you. And it didn't help that you, big as ever, was the center of this whole big universe.
And the dance was deadlier now and you were past the point of poise and accuracy to the point of strategy and swinging without thinking. And each move was perfect and, suddenly, you could do anything with that blade and no one could do anything to change that. There was something that you had control over, the keyblade, and nothing was unknown and big about the way that you swung it.
And the end was in sight, and you pushed yourself harder to get to it. Kairi was there and she was something familiar and not so scary, even though she had gotten bigger too, but for some reason it didn't bother you because she was still Kairi. And it was the same with Riku. He wasn't himself at all, not physically. It terrified you at first, rocked your inner core, but you could feel him there and suddenly his 'bigness' wasn't unknown and therefore it wasn't scary anymore.
And it was just the three of you, all fighting to the death. And the place was big, the battle was big, the outcome was big, and the weight upon your shoulders was just as big and it seemed to be crushing you. But Riku wouldn't hear of it, and he kept you on your feet because he had always been that kind of friend. So when the end came, and there was nothing to fear anymore, you held him up because you wanted to be that kind of friend.
It was scary on that beach, because it stretched out who knows how far. But you didn't concentrate on that, you concentrated on telling Riku. You told him everything—except how you were afraid of everything being too big, because you were also afraid that Riku would still feel that thirst for the unknown and you wanted to be that kind of friend that went with him even though you were scared. When the bottle washed up, you felt a pang of fear wondering how that was possible, but you willed it to go away because you didn't want to be afraid anymore.
And it was the end. The three of you on the island. The King, Donald, and Goofy had left—leaving you to your lives. And everything that you had ever thought that your homecoming would be was wrong. Because it wasn't as small as you thought, and maybe that wasn't so bad because you had survived the unknown and even had a little bit of fun. You decided not to question the unknown anymore, because then it would take the fear out of everything, and you wouldn't be afraid of anything. You thought that you should always be afraid of something or else you would make mistakes that Riku had.
"What a small world..." your friend, bigger and more unknown than ever before, mused.
And you just shook your head. "Yeah…"
Riku didn't know the half of it.