All previous disclaimers apply. We've finally hit the place where AU events throw a wrench in canon, so prepare for a bumpy ride.
Chapter 18: Surprise...
When Riku exited the darkness corridor, it took considerable self-control to not turn right around and flee through another portal from the biting cold that instantly sought to chill his blood. Growing up on a chain of tropical islands had left him with no tolerance for freezing temperatures, and his cloak provided minimal insulation against the mountain wind whipping across the snow-covered plateau.
Unfortunately, the sense of darkness emanating from the nearby summit of the mountain left no doubt about where the Heartless and their master were located. Pulling the black cloak tighter around his tall frame but stubbornly leaving the hood lowered, he began tramping uphill through the undisturbed blanket of snow.
He was going to get Xigbar for this. The Nobody could have at least had the decency to try and take over a world from one of its temperate zones.
At least it wasn't snowing. And his boots were waterproof.
He was still going to get Xigbar for this.
After several minutes hike up the mountain, Riku discovered that if walking in foot-deep snow was a trial, fighting in it was infinitely worse. At the upper edge of the plateau, a swarming mob of airborne Heartless proved that despite the claims of that one comic he'd found on Kaito's world, there was such a thing as overkill.
He could fight, and did, quickly dispatching the first half-dozen Heartless attracted to his presence, but the snow slowed him down and slipped beneath his coat, to be melted by what body heat hadn't already been leeched by the wind. The last thing he wanted to do was become embroiled in a mêlée with no end in sight, and escaped beyond them to a higher part of the mountain as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, this was not much of an improvement. While the Heartless seemed uninterested in following him, he found his new path infested with small packs of Nobodies who were more than willing to attack him for his heart.
By the end of the third fight, against an entire gang of Xigbar's trademark Sniper Nobodies, his temper had frayed from extremely annoyed to quietly seething. A lucky shot from one had forced him sideways into a massive snowdrift in order to stay free of holes—Kaito'd kill him if he came back in less than one piece, and he'd run out of accelerated-healing potions ages ago and hadn't seen a moogle to get more in even longer—and effectively soaked what few dry patches he'd managed to keep.
He despised cold. And snow. And wet. And whatever had brought Xigbar here in the first place, and Xigbar for coming—
Riku's internal rant ceased abruptly at an inhuman roar that shook the mountain. A few moments later, a huge shape shot up from behind the next ridge, shedding snow as it gained altitude.
He stared, frozen.
...Xigbar'd found a dragon.
Riku watched in half-awed, half-horrified silence as the dragon hovered for a moment, casting its shadow over sun-bright snow. Serpentine, predominately blue, with burnt-gold horns and fanlike wings, the creature's grand majesty was spoiled by glowing yellow eyes and the iconic mark of the Heartless on its lower jaw.
He was too late. It was all going wrong...
As the realization sank in, cold seeping from his bones to the pit of his stomach, the dragon seemed to reach a conclusion and shot away, down the mountain slope. Following its trajectory, Riku realized that the dragon's flight path was headed directly for the sprawling city situated not far from the mountains.
He didn't even pause to think. Concentrating on the largest structure in the distance, the ornate palace at the edge of the city, Riku stepped through a portal that dropped him in a stone-paved outer courtyard directly in front of the palace entrance. Unfortunately, the pair of guards standing alertly on either side responded to his unexpected appearance by drawing their swords, and he had to stop himself halfway through summoning his own. Having Souleater in hand would ruin what little chance he still had for getting inside without a fight.
"Halt!" In the name of the Emperor..." The younger guard's voice wavered, pale face belying his attempts to hide his uneasiness over Riku's impossible arrival.
No time, no time, no time...
He'd rather not have to go through them to talk to a person with any authority, but he would if they kept delaying him. Now that the dragon was coming, Xigbar might appear at any moment to watch the consequences of his meddling. And where Xigbar went, Nobodies followed; Riku wasn't fast enough to stop them all before more people died...
"I have urgent business with your Emperor," he declared, vaguely aware that his soaked appearance wasn't doing him any favors, nor was he personable even at the best of times.
The older guard, eyes narrowing in a worn and weather-beaten face, glanced at his partner and jerked his head towards the grand doors. The young man needed no further instruction, and darted beyond them while the older one blocked Riku from following, sword raised.
"I know not how you got this far, but if you be a peasant then the Emperor is too busy a man to be bothered with your trifles, and if you be an enemy I am sworn to defeat you. You'll get no farther!"
"I am not a peasant, and I am not your enemy!" Riku snarled, smoldering temper at its breaking point. "I have news of an imminent attack on your city and your precious Emperor."
"Other messengers came in time, and Shan-Yu was defeated. Be gone!" the guard countered, punctuated the command with a swipe of his sword.
Riku gave up. "I have no idea who Shan-Yu was, but I don't have time to argue with you about this." He summoned his sword and shifted into an aggressive stance, voice dropping into Ansem's more threatening bass. "Move."
The guard was saved from making a decision by the arrival of another man, young but with an air of experience the missing guard had lacked. Soldier, the battle-hardened part of Riku's mind whispered. Dangerous. "From where I stand, the only threat to the Emperor that I see is you."
Riku didn't even have time to respond to the newcomer's statement before the man had rushed forward, sword drawn and aimed at Riku's heart. He blocked without thinking, saved by instincts honed razor-sharp from a year of fighting creatures who could and did travel faster than humanly possible.
"Look, I need your Emperor's help," he growled through their locked swords. "A dragon Heartless and the one who changed it are on their way. It would be idiotic of me to harm the man who can order that something be done to stop them!"
"The last man I fought with golden eyes and power tinged by darkness," his opponent hissed, "controlled the Heartless himself and sought to take the Emperor's place."
...So much for that idea.
The man broke away and swung again, forcing Riku to back up in order to dodge. Riku countered with an onslaught of his own, but despite his attempts to end things quickly the soldier held his own and they were forced to go back and forth, neither gaining the upper hand.
Frustrated, Riku finally launched into a series of brutal blows, forcing the older man backwards as he shouted, "It would make things much easier on everyone if you would just stop fighting!"
"Deep freeze!"
There was no time to react. Even if there had been, the voice kept Riku frozen in place as a wave of frost knocked him to the cobblestones. A quacked cry of "Fire!" followed, and the ensuing fireball scorched his hair but defrosted his frozen clothes enough that he could scramble to his feet and turn, heart in his throat.
It couldn't be. Not like this.
Sora stood glaring at him from a short distance away, keyblade out and at the ready. Riku peripherally registered how Donald and Goofy flanked the younger boy, a faint wisp of smoke still rising from Donald's staff, but his eyes remained transfixed on Sora's face. The younger boy took a threatening step forward.
"Ansem—Xehanort's Heartless—Whatever! You! I thought we already got rid of you, but if we have to we'll defeat you again!"
The words washed meaninglessly past Riku as he stared, utterly frozen, at his worst nightmare of the past months now come true. Kaito had managed to convince him that he would never see it come to pass—that Sora would never turn on him as an enemy—
Riku had thought he'd known pain when he'd watched Sora take a different path, one that had seemed to lead away from him and Kairi.
That was nothing compared to this.
Something twisted in him at the sheer wrongness of that ice from a face that could match the sun for warmth. Rage and hatred did not fit Sora's personality, but the distaste that shifted the Keybearer's features to the antithesis of friendliness was far worse, backed as it was by the implacable determination that Riku knew meant that Sora would not relent until his enemies were utterly eliminated. There was no room for compromise, much less forgiveness, in that frown.
He felt his mouth fall open to utter something, anything, even if it was useless, anything to blunt that accusing gaze. Words jostled each other into crowded silence: apologies, explanations, a plea that he hadn't meant to do it, he'd tried to fight off Ansem, he had, he'd been trying to help all along! Desperately he reached in Sora's direction, hand turned up beseechingly, trying to express where words were failing him that if Sora would only believe him—
The way the soldier hadn't believed him. Riku's eyes widened in shock as he belatedly remembered their current amber color. Awareness of the world rushed back to him, bringing with it the full realization of how this must look from the outside. He... had forgotten that part of his situation more thoroughly than he would have thought possible in his time traveling with Kaito. It simply hadn't mattered to someone who had never known him differently, had never seen another's will present behind his face.
This was very, very different. What must Sora see? What could Sora see, except that the man—no, the monster—responsible for making his best friend betray them and nearly destroying the universe had returned when they had thought they were safe, and was now attacking near what had to be the heart of this world. What could he say? That they should ignore what it looked like? That he was really Sora's lost best friend, not his worst enemy? That it was really just a misunderstanding that he'd been trying to fight his way toward the ruler of a beleaguered world, through a warrior who was probably one of this world's foremost defenders, no matter how much it looked like the villain was up to his old tricks?
Sora was trusting, not stupid. Any attempt he made to protest in the face of the damning circumstantial evidence would be taken as a blatant lie at best, an insult at worst.
If only he'd had time to explain, time to introduce himself, to prove that he was who he said he was - but they were already moving to attack the armed, dangerous enemy before them. If he could only talk to Sora as himself—but he would have no chance to find out if Sora might be willing to listen to and forgive Riku when all they could see was Ansem. They would be on the alert now, and there was no chance that he would be able to so much as show his face before the Keybearer's defenders attacked. They were good friends to defend him so unwaveringly, but the thought gave no more comfort than ash sifting through his grasp when it meant that there was no way he would ever be able to get through to Sora, much less be believed long enough to find out if he could be forgiven for his mistakes.
The situation had slipped so very far out of his grasp that anything he could do would only make it worse. They would not let him talk; the duck, glaring, was already preparing his next spell, the knight's shield was raised solidly against him, and they would clearly interpret any attempt to speak as hostile, a lie, or both. There was no way he could avoid all their attacks, and he knew with bone-deep certainty that they would not stop once they began, just as he knew that he would not be able to take another attack from Sora, a vulnerability that had nothing to do with the physical. And he could not fight back. Not when the mere thought of raising a blade against Sora again tried to stop his lungs, and certainly not when even trying to defend himself would cement in their minds that he really was the enemy they took him for.
The worst part was that he couldn't blame them. He wouldn't trust anyone who wore this face either, and he almost laughed at the pain of the irony. One more thing that bastard had stolen from him.
Riku set his teeth, pulling back his hand from its futile gesture. He gave one last helpless, pained glance toward Sora, keenly aware that all he could do now was cut his losses and leave before he did any more damage. The Keybearer was regarding him with faintly furrowed eyebrows, but before anything else could be said, a miniature red dragon popped up over Sora's shoulder.
"Hey, gimme some of the action, Sora! One, and two, and three!"
A stream of fire completely out of proportion for such a small lizard flew in Riku's direction, and the duck enthusiastically added his own fireball. With no hope to dodge, Riku resorted to the only option left to him, summoning a portal and stumbling backwards into it, away from Sora and the mess he'd made of things and the fireusingjerkanddragon...
The portal closed behind him.
When Mushu's fire dissipated, Xehanort's Heartless had disappeared. Sora frowned, gaze raking the empty space as if staring hard enough would bring him back.
"What was that all about?"
Donald quacked irritably, stomping over to the Heartless's last position as if hoping to find a trail. "What do you mean, what was that all about? He's back! How dare he come back from the dead!"
"Gosh, Sora," Goofy added, sounding oddly worried. "I think he's right. It looked like Xehanort's Heartless was trying to hurt Shang. What if he was trying to turn him into a Heartless?"
"No." Sora turned to see Shang leaning on Mulan, looking exhausted. "He said he was trying to get to the Emperor."
"Well, that's even worse!" Donald sputtered.
"Why would he want the Emperor?" Mulan asked, looking worried.
"He... he claimed that someone turned a dragon into a Heartless, and it was coming here..." Shang's brow furrowed.
Sora blinked. "That's... weird."
"Who cares what he said?" Donald demanded crossly. "How did he come back?"
"Yeah, I thought Kingdom Hearts destroyed him," Goofy agreed.
Sora frowned again. "He didn't have a body of his own because he was a Heartless, right? That's why he had to possess Riku last time. What if...what if he didn't actually get destroyed and possessed someone else's body again?"
"Gawrsh. You think he might've done it to Riku again?"
"No... Riku's smarter than that. He wouldn't let him trick him again," Sora declared with certainty. A sudden thought struck him, and he brightened. "But maybe Riku's looking for him again now, to get rid of him for good. I bet he thinks it's his job to take care of it, and he doesn't want to come back until he can say he made up for not being able to stop him before. That's why he won't let the King tell us where he is. Hey...maybe he's that "mutual friend" that box the King gave us at Hollow Bastion was from! Remember? The one with the picture and the ice cream in it, the one we thought came from Hayner and the other kids in Twilight Town—maybe that was Riku! He still wants to help us, but he thinks he has to finish what he's doing before he can come back for good."
Not that Sora didn't still wish that Riku could understand that he didn't care. He'd much rather confirm that his best friend was really okay and then take Xehanort's Heartless and the rest of Organization XIII down together, but... Riku'd never seemed to be very good at figuring out that sort of thing.
"We can take care of it just fine," Donald groused. "It's the Keybearer's job! Does he think we're not good enough to finish the job?" He glared accusingly at Shang and Mulan, as if daring them to say anything.
"It's not that..." Sora tried to explain patiently. "Riku always tries to do things his way. He's not... he's never been good at accepting help."
"If it's your mess, you clean it up." The phrase floated through Sora's memory in Riku's familiar voice, though he couldn't say exactly where it had come from.
Mulan interrupted his thoughts before he could pursue it any further. "Maybe you're right, but none of this explains what that man was hoping to accomplish here..."
"If he was telling the truth about the dragon, he must have been trying to get a clear path to the Emperor," Donald grumped, crossing his wings.
"Wouldn't it have been easier to just let the dragon do it?" Goofy asked.
"He must have been afraid that the dragon on its own would take too long and we would get here first to stop it. Which we did!" the magician noted, puffing up proudly.
"I guess it coulda been like that..." Goofy said uncertainly. He looked about to continue, but all conversation was cut short by a deafening roar.
"...It seems there really was a dragon after all," Shang managed as Mulan hurried him out of harm's way, leaving Sora, Donald and Goofy to defeat the massive Heartless.
There was no more time to think as Sora raced forward to take on the dragon, but he couldn't shake the sensation that he was still missing something...
Author notes:
The box that Sora mentions, which was originally given by Riku right before the Land of Dragons, changed hands between Riku and the King during their meeting in Inuyasha's world.
Credit goes to Snickerer for a significant chunk of the trip through Riku's mental processes.
In answer to those who previously requested it—why yes, world-hopping is back with a vengeance. :grins: Expect to meet more familiar faces in the future.
3/08