Hey friends, good to see you!
Hope you guys enjoyed the cutesy of the previous chapters while it lasted, because today we're in Angstland. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Specific tags include:
during KH 1 canon; Hollow Bastion; dark!Riku; hurt/no comfort; established relationship; currently toxic relationship; jealousy; possessiveness; physical abuse; emotional abuse; emotional manipulation; some parts can be interpreted as gaslighting; alternating POV

Hopefully you enjoy! ^-^

Chapter 4: Flagitious

Something about Hollow Bastion makes you feel so small, so insignificant.

Granted, it could be the obvious fact that this is a huge castle with impossibly intricate and never-ending layers, an overly complicated system of elevators and transporters (How does Maleficent even go from the kitchen to the bathroom without trouble…?), towers that pierce through the sky and cast imposing shadows on the terraces below. Any person, no matter how tall, feels dwarfed in comparison; swallowed whole by the castle. Intimidated. Humbled. But it's not just that… it's not just about sheer size or proportion or grandeur. Rather, it's the very nature of the place. The afflictive aura that oozes off the walls and leaves your nerves frazzled while simultaneously squishing you against the floor like the most potent Gravity spell. These walls crush you even while they stand perfectly still. It's something unseen, untouchable, that floods the soul with a sense of grief and sadness for every tragedy these walls have witnessed in silence. More than thick stone and marble, these walls are made of woe. Hollow Bastion feels like the perfect place for someone to lose themselves; lose what's most precious.

Sora can confirm it is exactly the case.

This is the place where he lost everything. Everyone.

"You should have gone away while you could, like I told you." The boy clad in black and dark purple gazes down from atop the stairway magnificently decorated with a fountain; turquoise eyes fixated intently on the intruder.

Riku wasn't exaggerating back then, Sora can give him this much. Of course, it's kinda hard to even tickle the incredibly powerful Heartless that roam around this place when all he has left is an old, wooden toy sword. If he's made it this far, if simply unlocking the main entrance counts as some sort of accomplishment, it's entirely thanks to Beast's help. Castaways belong together, it seems, and misery does love its company. But Beast isn't here anymore; gone to chase a mirage of Belle. Gone, like Donald and Goofy. Every door in this room, what seems to be a main hall of sorts to the castle's interior, closed promptly after the enchanted prince left. Now it's only Sora in here; Sora and someone he doesn't know anymore and, at the same time, will always know better than his own self.

"Did you really expect me to listen to you? Especially when you've been doing everything wrong?" Sora's voice doesn't betray the turmoil inside, yet the power imbalance is blatant. He feels like an ant about to be squashed by a boot at any second. Riku's own boot, who knows.

He doesn't even look like Riku, at this point. The silver hair is still the same, as is the piercing blue-green of his eyes… but everything else has changed, and it's not only this dreadful dark attire that Sora has decided he hates upon first sight. This attire makes Riku look like one of them, more than ever before… like a being of the Darkness. This isn't the Riku he knows, the Riku he grew up with. The Riku he loves. This isn't my Riku.

"You sure you should be wasting your breath like that?" Riku's tone is calm as well, borderline casual, as he unhurriedly makes his way down the steps. As though the two of them are meeting after school like usual, rather than preparing to inevitably point their weapon at each other. "You look pretty ragged to me."

An understatement, really. Even with Beast's help, Sora has been taking hit after hit and has been unable to properly counter or dodge; a collection of bruises gathered all over his body, with plenty of scratches and cuts to match. And the sight of it does bother Riku… if nothing else, because this is salt poured on his own wound. It's rubbing in the fact that Sora would rather endure this than choose to stay by his side. Where he belongs.

"Don't worry… I'm still good enough to knock some sense back into you."

Maybe it's also why Riku moves so swiftly, in response to Sora's hollow provocation. His hold on the Keyblade tightens, but he doesn't use it to strike just yet – instead, backhanding Sora and hitting his nearest cheek with a loud slapping sound. Sora gasps and stumbles, taken aback by this unexpected choice of attack, and means to retort with his sad, sorry piece of wood, but Riku is one step ahead once more. With an eerily graceful move, he now strikes Sora horizontally across the chest with the Keyblade and repeats it, finishing with a vertical blow on his back. It's all it takes for the younger one to slump to the floor, so clearly defeated. It's such a pathetic display that Riku could have laughed, if he wasn't presently far too annoyed by it.

"It's over, Sora. Go back."

The whimper of pain he gets in response convinces Riku, for an instant, that it's really over. That Sora will listen and stop endangering himself by trying to continue towards the depths of Hollow Bastion, where the Princesses of Heart are being kept. But then that instant ends.

"N-no… it's not… not yet…"

Stubborn is a word that doesn't do Sora justice, sometimes. As the younger teen struggles to haul himself up again, leaning heavily on his sword, this is when Riku's patience snaps for good. His free hand grasps roughly at the collar of the hoodie and he yanks Sora back up himself, glaring at him in a way that can put any viper to shame.

"Why are you doing this? Do you want to die? Why won't you give up already?!"

"Isn't it obvious…?" Sora coughs a bit, both from the harsh blows he just suffered and from how being jerked up knocked the wind out of him. The previous slap split his lower lip and left yet another bruise spreading across his cheek, but he still has it in him to look Riku right in the eye. "There's– there's no way I'm going back without Kairi… or without you."

Ironically, this reply stuns Riku far more than any hit from that wooden sword could ever hope to. Sora was never one for lies; if he says something, then he means it. And Riku doubts it's gonna change now, but he refuses to believe the last part of it regardless. "Don't speak as if you care for me."

"Riku…" Riku's comeback is also what hurts Sora more than any flesh injury. "Are you really that stupid? You're the person in this world I care most about!"

"Oh really? You replaced me fast enough, for someone who claims that."

"I never replaced you… Donald and Goofy, they're my friends! They're just like Kairi. But you–"

"Yeah, amazing friends. Can't you see the obvious, Sora? Even now? They only wanted you for the Keyblade."

The sudden wave of hurt shadowing Sora's bright blue eyes is enough to make Riku let go of him, turning around and away. It's not the time to grow soft, but seeing Sora upset is never something he's prepared for.

"It's… it's all right that they left." Sora glances down at the tips of his yellow shoes, clearly still affected by what happened. During the past few months, Donald and Goofy became dear friends to him, almost like adoptive parents in a way, and of course his heart aches terribly at having been left behind like that. Tossed to the trash like a bag of old rags with no further use. As though, indeed, everything good about him weighed no more than a blade shaped like a key. Nonetheless, if his words are filled with sadness, there's no ounce of resentment to be found. "They have a mission, and the mission has nothing to do with me. It's the Keybearer they have to stick with, and if that is you – then… at least, I know they'll take good care of you, as they did to me until now."

"How can you say that?" Riku is screaming inwardly, but his voice comes out deceptively quiet. A bomb silently ticking. "They've used you and discarded you as soon as they didn't need you anymore, and you're still defending them?"

"It's not like that–"

"Yes, it is! You're the one who can't see it!" And the bomb goes off. Turning again, this time Riku grabs Sora by an arm; blood boiling in his veins like lava. The poetic mockery of it all… Isn't this how it all started? Because he can't bear the thought of Sora possibly caring for someone else more than Riku himself? "Because you are too good, Sora! You're good and kind and naïve, and you put everyone else before yourself… and people use it against you and you don't even notice!"

"Riku–"

"I can't stand it! This is why you belong with me, always! This is why you should have stayed with me! Look at you now… I would never have let anything bad happen to you!"

Without allowing Sora a chance to respond, Riku yanks on his arm again and this time brings him closer, till their lips crash together. It's an angry kiss, rough and ruthless, almost like Riku's intention is to make Sora keel over from it. To make him stop all this non-sense and return to where he belongs. And it kind of succeeds… at least, the keeling over part. By the time the kiss breaks, Sora is gasping for air and grasping at the contorted heart at the front of Riku's outfit; feeling like the only thing preventing him from dropping to his knees is Riku's strong arm now wrapped around his waist.

"Sora… come with me." Riku's tone is hushed again, but in a way completely different than before. Even his demeanor has changed from beast ready to tear to shreds to beast meaning to protect; even if in all the wrong ways, for all the wrong motives. As he brings a hand up to gently brush back Sora's bangs, Riku's lips curve slightly in a smile. "We can still do it. Together. We don't need anyone else, we never needed anyone else."

"Riku…"

"We can do it! You don't need those clowns and I don't need Maleficent. The princesses are gathered, we just have to finish this. We'll have Kairi back and safe, and then we can stay together. Just the two of us. Like it was always supposed to be, like we promised it would be."

More than that soul-wrenching kiss, it is the words that Riku is speaking that make it hard to breathe. Sora feels his heart about to tear in half, into two very different parts. The part that eagerly wants to agree, wants to stay with Riku and never again part ways… and the part that has already accepted this is impossible. That it can never happen, not if the price to pay is the sacrifices Riku is so effortlessly ready to make. Not at the cost of the princesses' hearts.

"Riku, listen to me… we can't. It's not right. We'll find another way, I'm sure–"

"There is no other way, Sora. Only by opening the Door to Darkness will I gain its full power, and only that power can save Kairi."

"No! I'm sure we can find something else! That's what Maleficent wants, she's the one using you!"

Wrong thing to say, Sora. All of it has been wrong already, from Riku's perspective, but this one struck a particular nerve. And hand squeezes arm a bit tighter again. "No one is using me. I'm not like you."

Sora is unfazed, however. If this is the last thread of hope he can cling to, the last glimmer of a possibility to return Riku to his senses, then he's going to cling to it even if it grazes his palms open. "You just said it yourself: we don't need anyone else. We don't need the Darkness, either!"

The two remain at an impasse for a moment longer, eyes locked and position unchanged. Riku goes as far as to consider the possibility to exert the forceful means he's avoided before, more than once, every time he's had the possibility to simply knock Sora unconscious and bring him along. Back to him and away from the so-called new friends who are nothing more than opportunistic vultures. What significance would that hold, though? Wouldn't it only shame Riku further and serve to confirm the obvious? That Sora is escaping through his fingers like water once more?

"So that's your final choice? You're breaking our promise and leaving me – again?"

"Riku, please!" Sora's tone is close to desperate at this point. His heart is racing, his head is spinning, his eyes burn with stifled tears. So close, he's so close… but so far away. He runs and runs but is unable to reach Riku, to pull him out of the dark cloud that has imprisoned him. "Don't… don't go where I can't follow you…"

"So be it."

Who needs a heart, anyway? Not Riku – not if it's only good for breaking. And so, as he lets go of Sora's arm, he leaves that same heart behind; to drop to the ground so that Riku can stomp on it as he walks away. A quick movement opens the dark passage and he slips inside, with no final glance behind him to spare.

A good call on his end.

He wouldn't have wanted to see the tears that finally broke free and now stream down Sora's cheeks.

Thank you so much for reading, I'll see you in the next chapter!
Theia