Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. It belongs to its rightful owners.
"Sasuke? Hey, kid, it's time to wake up."
This voice wasn't that familiar, but I know I've heard it before. My head was pounding. It was throbbing from the incident in Halloween Town, and the random blackout I had while we were landing. The sound of moving water rang throughout my ears. Were we on that ship from earlier. My eyes fluttered open, expecting to see Donald, Sora, and Goofy's silly faces, but instead, seeing those bright sea green eyes. I quickly sat up, clutching my head when the movement made it pulse even harder.
Staring at the boy, my lips trembled a bit, and I whispered, "Riku?"
"Hi." He smiled slightly. It wasn't that cocky smile that he used to give all of us on the island, but a genuine 'I'm glad you're here' smile. It was a rare one. My hands reached out to touch him, resting on his cheeks to check that he was real. Unlike last time, I could feel the warmth of his skin. "Yes, I'm real. You can stop touching me."
I knew that he was on the other side, and that I should be mad at him, but I couldn't. In my eyes, he was still the boy who used to skip rocks with me way before we were strong enough to climb trees. He was still my best friend. That wasn't something that I could just overlook due to one situation. It would take a lot to change that. It was then did I noticed that we were in some kind of ship. The furniture in the room were red satin and gold, everything having a pirate-y feel to it. Through the window to the far right, the gentle waves of the ocean were visible. The explains why we were rocking a little bit.
I had so many questions. For one, I wanted to ask why he was being so nice to me. All of the other times we had bumped into each other, he seemed to have a grudge against Sora and I. Now here he is, head in between my hands staring at me. Wait, I was still holding him? Clearing my throat, I moved my hands to avoid making myself seem weirder than I already am.
"Why are you here?" I asked, ignoring the pounding in my head. "Where have you been all this time? Did you know we were looking for you? I saw you almost everywhere I went. Are we on that ship that tried to kill us-"
He cut me off with a large, gloved hand. "You're talking too much," he said. He sat on the wooden floor beside me, folding his legs casually. He was acting as if our island hadn't been swallowed by the darkness and that his parents weren't missing. That everyone's parents weren't missing. But I played along, looking in the mirror on the wall to see if my gauze had gotten even more bloody. Just as I thought, it did. "One question at a time."
"I missed you," I blurted out. What was I supposed to say. It was like being away from my big brother and not knowing if he was alive or not. I didn't even know where Kairi was. I didn't know where anyone was. Where was Donald and Goofy. My silver eyes scanned the room. Where was Sora? Was he not here? "Riku, where's Sora," I asked carefully.
He ignored my comment, ruffling up my hair playfully like he used to when we were kids. "I missed you, too, kid." Okay, he was acting weird. Usually if I felt something heartfelt like that to him, he'd give me a long speech about how he'd prefer to keep the mushy stuff to a minimum. How he's not Sora and he can't express emotions like a little puppy like the brunet could. Which brings me to another thing . . .
"Riku? Where is Sora? Is he here?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders to signalize that he didn't know what I was talking about. "I don't know," he breathed out. "I only seen you here. I didn't even know Sora had landed in this world with you. We'll keep an eye out for him."
We'll keep an eye out for him? The Riku that I knew would search high and low if any of us turned up missing. What the hell was going on? I opened my mouth to question more of his motives, but stopped when the door opened. Two random pirates came into the room dragging two people behind them. My body leaned forward to see if Sora was one of them. However, I felt almost winded when I seen who the two people actually were. A girl with a brown ponytail and a blue dress was pulled into one corner of the room. The other pirate was dragging a lifeless, dull-looking, redhead behind him. My eyes went wide; it was Kairi.
I quickly struggled to my feet to race over to her. But, I couldn't get up. I fell back onto the wood flooring, my back hitting the ground with a loud thud. Everything was fading in and out. Everything felt so light. Riku stood up, taking Kairi from the pirates and telling them to leave. I just wanted to know if she was okay. Why is she acting like that? Why is she acting like a doll? Why can't she see me trying to reach her?
"Kairi?" I croaked. The lifeless boy didn't do anything. Riku placed her in the corner next to the brown-haired girl. Her dark blue eyes were half-lidded. She wasn't even blinking. "R-Riku . . ." The words were hard to form. My eyelids were growing so heavy. They felt like lead. I couldn't even feel my pulse. "W-what's . . . w-wrong . . . with . . . her . . ."
He walked over, crouching down to where I was on the floor. He moved the dark hair out of my face to look at the gauze covering the upper half of my head. "Did you bump your head earlier?" he asked, more to himself than me. "You're losing a lot of blood, Sasuke. It's okay, you can take a little nap. I'll get you out of here. I'll be here when you wake up."
"W-what's . . . wrong . . .w-with . . . h-h-her . . ."