Bait, Chapter 27.
I better get Sora outside before he does something drastic! Riku thought as he ran full speed up the stairs and to Sora's room. He knocked on the door and quickly escalated to slamming on it while screaming his name when there was no answer. He finally had to resort to breaking the door down and finding a deserted bedroom. Sora had quickly packed away the few possessions he carried and had only left a note on the bed:
To all my friends,
I have gone out to put an end to this once and for all. I do not want to just stand back and watch my best friends get hurt again, so I will be the one to take action this time. Don't wait up for me, I should not be long...
-Sora
Riku clutched the letter so hard it had began to tear. Sora, you idiot! He had just lectured him about not doing this, when he remembered something Yen Sid had warned him about the salve:
"In high doses, one would enter such a dangerous state of recklessness that they would begin to see themselves as infallible, causing them to engage in potentially life-threatening activities..."
This is all my fault! Riku thought mournfully. He didn't know how long it would take such a high dose to wear off, but he prayed the fresh air would help Sora come to his senses quickly and return to them.
Nonetheless, he felt it important to let Yen Sid and the others know what had just happened.
XXXXXXXX
Sora stood outside one of the deserted shops in Twilight Town. Everyone had gone home for the night, making the streets dark, quiet, and a perfect place to collect his thoughts. He honestly had no idea what had come over him. Riku was just trying to help him cope, when suddenly the familiar protective rage came over him again.
"Maybe I should go back and apologize..." Sora thought out loud.
"Now why would you wanna go and do that? It's obvious that the wizard and the brats you train with don't deserve an apology..." The owner of the mysterious voice had apparated so swiftly yet quietly behind Sora that he didn't realize he was there until he could feel the man breathing down his neck. "I mean, Riku defended Lea but let Yen Sid tell you off for beating him up after he burned him..."
"Have you been stalking me!?" Sora turned around quickly, keyblade in hand, and got a better look at his sudden companion. The man was thinner and more ragged than the last time they crossed paths, and he was sporting more scars, many of them were of Sora's own making. But he still recognized him, and the fiery seeds of rage blossomed in Sora's heart upon sight.
"You... YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO RIKU!" Sora charged at the man, driven forward by pure rage, and swung his keyblade at his chest- the exact same area where Riku had been stabbed.
Xigbar just summoned his own weapon and used it to knock the keyblade aside, and struck Sora hard in the stomach with his free hand. Sora was knocked backward from the force of the blow, and Xigbar acted quickly, using the moment Sora was stunned to bind his wirsts with black cords.
"No, wait! What do you want with me? Why don't you just kill me, your sadistic plans would be met so much faster!"
"Oh don't worry your naive little head about that. I will kill you after all this, but I wanna have a little fun first!" Xigbar answered, fastening Sora's bonds so tightly that Sora could feel his hands going numb. "Might as well make you feel what I have had to feel these past months! And we can start right here..."
Xigbar siezed a thin razor-like blade from the remnants of his cloak and slowly, excruciatingly, ran the blade down Sora's cheek, leaving a deep bloody track to match one of the fresh scars on Xigbar's face. Sora did not hold back like Riku did, he started to scream the moment the blade touched his face, and Xigbar took a sadistic pleasure in the sound.
At that exact moment in Yen Sid's tower, Riku suddenly fell into a strange fit. He suddenly stiffened and seemed to stare wide-eyed into nothingness. He came out of it in a short time and spoke quickly.
"It's Sora. Somebody is torturing him." Riku looked genuinely frightened, but Mickey seemed to understand.
"It's the connection they share..." Mickey told Yen Sid. "I'm pretty sure Sora is calling to Riku as we speak."
"Can we hurry? We might be able to get to him if we set out right now!" Kairi exclaimed, looking genuinely frightened.
"But we don't even know where to go!" Yen Sid answered.
"Yes we do..." Riku had gone into another of those bizarre fits, and Mickey noticed something about it that the others must not have.
"Riku, did Sora say anything to you about his whereabouts?" Riku shook his head.
"No, but I keep getting this strange feeling..." He stretched out his arm, pointing at something outside the window. "Like I need to be in Twilight Town right now."
"I see..." Yen Sid stared at him, deep in thought. "Is this the first time this has happened to you?"
"I can't remember..."
"I've never seen a connection this strong before... To be able to sense a persons feelings is one thing, but to be able to discern their location is something entirely different. It's as though your hearts run on the same wavelengths or something like that, so whatever one feels, the other can detect. It just may explain a lot of things about you two..."
End of Chapter 27.
A.N: Ok, the title of this chapter alone should be enough to raise some "Oh Shit!" flags among the readers- as every time I feature Xigbar in this fic bad things happen. But he's back, he's obviously either deserted or been kicked from the Organization(I haven't decided which yet), and he's more unstable than ever. Expect some gore in the coming chapters.
Also, there are two sources to explain the whole "resonating hearts" thing between Sora and Riku. First there's Chain of Memories- Riku woke up in Castle Oblivion and clearly had no idea how he got there- however in one cutscene we hear an Organization member- Zexion I think- if it was someone else please correct me, its been a long time since i played COM- but anyway we hear Zexion say that Riku's heart reacted with Sora's and had somehow led him to that location. And the other was none other than Dream Drop Distance... The game is FULL of suggestions that Sora and Riku share a connection of some sort.