Chapter 64, folks! And here's where the fic will start to deviate drastically from the original KH2 material. (Finally, right?) Don't worry, though - we haven't seen the last of Sora till TWTNW. I'm planning on including little tidbits of his second world visits so we know where he is in relation to Char and Riku.
This is also a good time to say that the other two OCs of this fic - Falcon and Copperhead, in case you've been skimming through Anxclof's little dream flashbacks all this time - are going to get a more prominent role for a little while. Don't worry too much; this section is still mostly focused on Riku's problems and his coming to terms with Sora loving Char now, so maybe I'll have no Fal/Copper POVs? I'm not really sure yet; I'm kind of just writing this part by ear. XD;
So, yeah. Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I do not own Kingdom Hearts - just Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, and the Shadowed Desert world.
It was weird, Riku reflected, to see Char again.
He glanced over at her as he walked through the bustling imperial city, ignoring the bemused stares of the world natives as they landed on him. For the most part she kept her eyes focused straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge his presence; really, he couldn't blame her for that. A month ago he'd practically begged her to leave Twilight Town and follow Sora, and now here he was, dragging her away from her mission. Moreover, a mission he'd imposed. That was a new low, even for him.
Still…
Something seemed… odd, about Char – if not odd, then at least off. Her licking his hand in a vain attempt to free herself had been something he'd expected – although, he thought with a grimace, it wasn't exactly the reaction I would've liked – but he had also expected her to calm down once she saw just what her assailant wielded. Yet she either had failed to catch sight of the Soul Eater in his hand, or just hadn't cared, neither of which seemed very viable for her.
He looked ahead again, only to stop in his tracks when he saw how close they were to the palace gates. Mentally, he took a deep breath as he went over what exactly had happened: Xigbar had tampered with one of this world's most powerful deities – turned it into a Heartless, only to find out animals could not produce Nobodies and leave it alone out of disgust. Now the dragon Heartless, furious at what it had lost, had tracked Number II to the imperial city and was readying to attack. Riku looked around at the metropolis' many inhabitants and felt his determination rise at the sight of their ignorance. If nothing else, he figured it would be polite to at least warn the emperor what was going on.
That way, Sora can take care of things. Riku's mouth twisted into a wry smile.
He turned his head to tell Char to stop, only to find she had beaten him to it. Angling his head downward to get a better look – geez, is Xehanort really that much taller than her? he wondered, and felt an unexpectedly sharp pang at remembering his true form cleared her by only a few inches or so – he saw her staring at the gates. Following her gaze, Riku stifled a groan as he noticed the firmly sealed crimson doors.
This was going to be more difficult than he'd thought.
"How are we getting in?" Char asked then, brusquely. The barely-disguised irritation in her voice made Riku quirk an eyebrow. He knew she wouldn't exactly welcome him back affably – her nature, and the fact that he had just dragged her away from her main mission, made sure of that – but this was almost ridiculous.
He chose not to voice these thoughts, though; if Char wanted to be this way, it wasn't exactly his problem. No matter what, he needed her for the mission after this. Instead, he merely shrugged. "How have we gone to places in the past?"
Char blinked, then a light of realization passed over her gaze and she gave a slow nod of understanding. "Of course," she murmured, before seeming to remember he was still watching and slipping the annoyed mask back into place. "Well? Do it."
Riku rolled his eyes. Amber – not green – eyes narrowed as he approached the gates, his back prickling under the heat of Char's stare. Why don't you try being a little more pissed off? I don't think you've reached your limit yet.
He surveyed the doors for a moment, at the same time listening for any onlookers. Detecting nothing, he took a deep breath before lifting a hand and concentrating; after a moment, a portal of swirling darkness had appeared before him.
Lowering his hand, Riku felt the familiar surge of self-hatred at just how deeply he had succumbed to the lure of the darkness – in both his physical appearance, and in using this particular form of transportation. Like so many times before, though, he forced himself to push down that nauseating feeling. This was to get Sora back, and now that he's all right, you're paying the price. Deal with it.
With that thought ringing soundly in the back of his mind, Riku extended one arm out in front of him, unable to resist his next quip. "Well then," he drawled, "ladies first."
"Oh, ha, ha," Char said, rolling her eyes. However, she did step forward, and as she strode past, he swore he caught a glimpse of her lips quirking upward just so. The sight made him feel unexpectedly smug, that even after a month, they could banter back and forth like they used to.
Yet his amusement faded abruptly when he saw her grin die down, to be replaced by a wistful look, as though remembering speaking like this with someone else. It startled him, because the only one he could think of that she could talk to regularly like this was Sora, and gods knew Sora wasn't exactly the master of witty conversation.
"You know," the girl suddenly said, her voice a bit strained, "if I go in there with you, and Sora shows up afterward…"
She trailed off then, because honestly, she wanted Sora to find her so badly it sent multiple surges of agony pumping through her heart in place of blood. Guilt tempered that agony – because how long had she prayed to see Riku again, albeit in urges that had long since petered off as she grew closer to Sora? – but it was how she felt. Torn, between her old love and her new one.
Riku didn't know about that last little development, though, and she intended for him not to. Playful jibes about her terrible taste in men aside, she knew that no matter how much Riku loved Kairi, he had long since resigned himself to her only chance at happiness being with Sora. Not him. Knowing Sora's heart had begun to follow Char would tear Riku apart, both with desperate hope that he still had a chance with Kairi and with guilt that he felt the former.
Char shook these thoughts off, though, and focused on the situation at hand. Screw missions, she thought with a vehemence she normally reserved for thoughts on the Organization. As far as I'm concerned, the first one you gave me – to stay with Sora – still stands.
She said none of this, and just gave Riku an expectant look. Though his expression remained shrouded in shadow from his hood, she could almost see the light dawning in his now-amber eyes. "If you're there, then Sora will definitely know something's up," he murmured, then let out an irritated sigh.
"Didn't think that far ahead, did you?" Char asked, raising an eyebrow.
Riku's answering grunt suggested that he hadn't.
"Well, whatever," he said, before Char could interject something about how she didn't mind being found. Or perhaps because he knew she would try and say something; his hasty choice of words implied that much. "You can just… stay outside, or something. This is something I should do on my own, anyway."
"Then why didn't you just leave me outside the city?" Char challenged, the true strength of her frustration making itself known in her words. "And why take me away from the first thing you told me to do?" The last part slipped out in spite of her self-restraint.
Riku huffed and angled his head down to glare at her. "You followed me, remember? And like I said before, I didn't want you getting involved. It wasn't my idea. But you're stuck with me now, so you'll just have to deal with it until we get done with what Ansem told us to do."
Char narrowed her eyes, shoved away the very large part of her that was demanding very loudly to know just what Ansem had told Riku to do. For a moment, the clouds above shifted, and she swore the newfound sunlight reflected off the annoyed amber stare hidden beneath the cloak's hood.
The two of them glowered at each other for a few moments, during which it occurred vaguely to her that they hadn't appraised the other with this much venom since he had first come to live with her and Ansem in Twilight Town. It also occurred to her that the amount of anger in her friend's eyes, concealed as they were, should hurt a lot more than it did, but somehow, she found herself not giving a damn.
Surprisingly, Riku tore his eyes away first. "Well, either way, we can't just leave this sitting out here," he commented, gesturing to the still-waiting portal of darkness undulating in front of them. "I'm still going. If you want to wait out here, that's your business, not mine."
Without waiting for a response, he stepped into the portal and was swallowed up by the tendrils that made it up.
The redhead looked after it, chest heaving with the force of her ire. Something inside her – something that reminded her painfully of Sora – told her she should be greeting Riku in a more friendly way, considering how she had pined for him when all of this had started. But, she wanted to argue, how the hell was she supposed to do that when he insisted on acting like this?
She cast a glance behind her, hoping fervently to see a spiky-haired shape charging through the town square and up the stairs toward her.
Riku easily parried the dark-haired young man's blade with the Soul Eater, groaning inwardly at the resistance. Almost the instant he had materialized in the throne room, the emperor's guard had leapt up, shouted a challenge, and lunged at Riku from where he had stood in front of the elderly man: the man who now looked on with narrowed eyes as the two clashed in front of him. At least the emperor only had one guard; this might actually have been a bit difficult if Riku had had to fight more than one of them.
His opponent stumbled back as the Soul Eater pushed against his sword, effectively pushing him away as well; to his credit, though, the young man quickly recovered and thrust forward again. This blow carried much more force than before, and Riku found himself actually grunting with exertion when the sword collided with his own wing-like blade.
Come on! he thought irritably, already-sore muscles screaming with the effort of blocking his opponent's jagged weapon. He could feel more than see his arms trembling as he held the other at bay, and cursed the time he had spent sparring with Falcon yesterday.
Before he could think any more on that, however, the man in front of him hissed out, "There's no way you're getting to the emperor!"
The words annoyed Riku more than he would have liked, and with a sudden burst of adrenaline, he spun and lashed out with his sword. Clearly his foe hadn't expected that, because he failed to anticipate the attack in time and was knocked back by the Soul Eater.
As the young man fell to the ground, Riku lifted his arm and mentally ordered his sword to vanish. It heeded his command with a burst of darkness, and Riku walked past the defeated guard who was now gaping at him and nursing his bruises on the ground.
"Some guard you've got here," Riku remarked, addressing the emperor directly. "Maybe more than one would have worked a little better for you."
He heard the young man gasp indignantly, but ignored it and stared right at the elderly man who sat on his pillow, watching him closely. "What is it you want here?" the emperor queried, not a trace of fury in his voice.
That made Riku blink, a little bemused. However, he quickly erased any signs of confusion – an instinctive response, even though his hood still concealed his face – and barreled onward. Time to do what he had come here to do. "Someone made the mistake of disturbing one of your dragons," he explained. "And now? Let's just say it's really, really mad, and it's on its way here."
"No," the man on the ground gasped. A flicker of movement from the corner of his eye told Riku he had gotten to his feet, swaying due to his haste. "You must employ your imperial guard immediately, Your Highness! I'll –"
"Captain Li," the emperor interrupted sternly. "I sense the newcomer has more to say." He inclined his head expectantly at Riku.
"You're pretty good," the dark-clad young man conceded. "I was just going to say that…" He paused, thinking of his best friend and how he knew Sora wouldn't just let the situation stay the way it was. A smile twitched across his face at the thought, but that too he quickly stifled.
"You don't need to worry about it, sir," he said at last, after a few moments of Li's eyes burning into his back. "Three wise guys are going to be here soon, and you can bet they're going to take care of things."
The emperor's lips quirked upward. "I see." He turned to his guard. "Well, Captain, you heard the boy. All we can do is wait."
"Are you sure we shouldn't do something about this?" Li demanded. "He could be lying. He could be the spy in black we've heard about!"
"You mean the one you sent Fa Mulan to track?" When the captain fell silent, the emperor's smile completed itself on his wizened face. "Do have some faith in her. She would be here right now if this were the one she sought."
"I suppose," Li mumbled, sounding embarrassed.
Riku gave a nod, impatience crawling up from deep within him. No doubt Sora was already on his way here, and the last thing he wanted was for the Keybearer to find Char now. "Right, then. Can I go?" The question was more blunt than he would have liked, but he needed to leave now if he wanted things to go smoothly.
The emperor nodded, ignoring his guard's startled grunt at Riku's rudeness. "Yes, young man, you may," he agreed.
Young man, he says. The only reason he says that is because he doesn't know what I look like. I just sound like a boy. The same self-hatred he always felt on seeing those shadowy portals coalesce in front of him rose up powerfully at the thought.
He forced himself to just nod, before turning on his heel and stalking off down the hallway. Though every muscle in his body screamed for him to not wait, he forced himself to only open a dark portal and step through once he had darted around a corner.
When he reappeared outside the gates again, he quickly spotted Char, although her hair should have allowed her to easily blend in with the crimson pillar she currently leaned against. She was staring off at a fixed point in the cloudy sky, but as Riku approached and cleared his throat pointedly, she turned just her head to face him. "So?" she asked, briskly. "Did you get done what you needed to get done?" As she spoke, she pushed off the pillar and made her way toward him.
"Yeah," he answered. He wrinkled his nose as the injuries from the few times that Li guy's sword had managed to strike him began to throb anew, and put a hand to a slowly-oozing wound on his arm. "That guard put up a fight, though."
"Guard?" Char tilted her head to the side. "You didn't catch his name, did you?"
Riku shrugged. "Li-something-or-other. Why are you so curious?"
"No reason," the redhead muttered, though the tiny smile on her face belied the dismissive quality of her words.
Riku folded his arms, curious in spite of his desire to just leave now before Sora got here. Gods, but the brunette was taking a while. Probably helping some woodland creatures or something, he thought dryly. "That doesn't answer my question, Char," he said, dragging out her name.
"Oh, shut up," Char snapped, her nostalgia vanishing in favor of annoyance. He felt himself begin to smirk at her immediately angry response. A month hadn't taken that fire out of her. "I was just wondering because… Sora and the rest of us visited this place before."
The rest of us? Riku almost asked, before remembering just who she had included with her and Sora. He could recall Donald telling Sora quite firmly back in Traverse Town, a year and forever ago, that Riku wasn't allowed to accompany them, while Goofy stood back, looking quite uncomfortable, as if he didn't quite know who to side with. Weird, the dark boy reflected now, that she had chosen to include those two. He would have thought her incapable of tolerating either of them. "Before?" he asked.
"About three weeks ago," Char clarified. A distant look had come into her eyes, one that she had always reserved for discussing the old days with her fellow apprentices.
"We met this girl who was disguising herself as a man to try and get into the army."
"And Sora just had to help her," Riku guessed.
"Basically." Char chuckled, a warm sound that differed so deeply from what he'd grown used to from her. He blinked, wry amusement replaced by curiosity.
Just how much did being around Sora change her?
He chose not to voice the question aloud, even though it was now nagging deeply at him; if she wanted to say more, she would – a trait about her he had been forced to learn by a year in her close company. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. "We should get going," he said, at the same time casting a furtive glance over his shoulder at the town square. Still no brown-haired boy or light glancing off steel, though gods only knew how many seconds he had to get on with this before said boy and Keyblade did appear. "I'll tell you what Ansem wants when we get there."
"When we get there?" Char repeated incredulously. Before Riku had spoken, a small, rueful grin had still held sway over her countenance, along with a spark of almost-maybe-longing. At his words, though, those emotions sluiced off her face at once, replaced by disbelief that seared him as she tilted her head up to glare at him. "No. That's not how this works," she growled, standing on tiptoe and jabbing her finger into his chest. "You're going to tell me what's going on and why you needed to make me break that first promise to you."
A lesser being would have quailed under the heat of the fire in her eyes and in her voice, as well as the anger that tightened her expression. Riku had grown used to this in the past, though, and so he just rolled his eyes. "Geez, Char. If I didn't know any better I'd think you liked Sora or something."
The remark had been an offhand one – one tailored specifically to dig under her skin and serve as one of the many different types of gasoline that caused her temper to flare to the surface – but it had an effect he did not expect at all. Char averted her eyes, and relaxed slightly from her position standing on her toes, causing her form to lower just an inch or so. The hand she had used to point at him uncurled from the fist, and splayed out against his chest, tightening into the fabric of the Organization coat.
It took Riku a moment to pick up the emotion on her half-hidden face: shame.
All at once it hit him, what she was leaving unsaid. His eyes widened, both in shock and bemusement. "Don't tell me –" he began, the degree of exasperation in his voice making her cringe.
You can't have fallen for Sora. Because he can't love you back, he thought furiously. He loves Kairi. Always has, always will.
And yet, despite the impossibility of Sora returning whatever twisted semblance of love – loneliness, need for companionship, whatever; Riku could justify it however he wanted and it still confused the hell out of him – Char felt for the brunette, the possibility would not leave him.
Why? Because it would mean you've got a chance after all?
Light suddenly glimmered out of the corner of his eye, originating from beyond the castle gates and within the town square. Even as he jerked his head in the direction of the movement almost irritably – considering the revelation that had just come upon him and needed to be confirmed – his heart twitched in abrupt, jarring dread.
For the light was one he remembered well from his deadliest battle with Sora in Hollow Bastion, back when darkness overtook both his mind and body, as opposed to now just taking his form.
The glimmer of light glancing off the steel of a Keyblade.
"We need to go. Now!" he hissed, seizing the arm attached to the hand on his chest and yanking it away.
Char looked up at him, her brow furrowing, and she opened her mouth to ask what was going on. Before she could do anything other than summon the breath to speak, he put out his free hand and concentrated. In an instant, a swirling hub of darkness appeared before him, and he quickly pushed Char through to avoid hearing her protests.
"I swear I saw her!" Sora panted, heart screaming in his chest with the fade of the adrenaline that had come with his urgent burst of speed. The Oathkeeper sagged in his hands, and he fought the urge to copy his gesture from Hollow Bastion and just fall to the ground with the force of his despair. "Her hair… and that coat…"
Not that weapon, though. Fear twisted his heart as he remembered the presence of the strange Nobodies on the mountain path: evidence that, Riku or not, an Organization member still lurked about this world. For all he knew, that Nobody could have caught Char and kidnapped her…
No. Riku wouldn't have lost her. If it was him, even.
So many possibilities – each more stifling than the last – whirled about his mind that it almost hurt.
"Gawrsh, I'm sorry, Sora," Goofy said from behind him. Sora turned around and saw the dog eyeing him with pain and sympathy in his gaze. "But, you know, we can still ask the emperor about her!"
"And that dragon we saw, too," Mulan added. Her own face was filled with worry, but determination. "Don't worry, Sora. I'm sure Char's around here."
"Yeah." Donald nodded, even though Sora knew him well enough to detect the concern for the boy on his face.
Sora forced himself to smile. Put up a brave front, his instinctive reaction, even when both mind and heart were wracked with agony. "You're right, guys." He looked forward again and tried not to sigh aloud at the lack of crimson hair that he had picked up in the town square.
The emperor will know. The emperor has to know. He repeated the words until they buoyed him a little out of his despondency.
Char stumbled out of the dark portal onto a considerably darker path than that of the Land of Dragons' castle gates. She blinked a couple of times to get used to the change in lighting; once her eyes grew accustomed to the new settings, she realized that the newfound shadows came from the leaves from the overhanging trees swaying gently in the wind and changing the amount of sunlight that dripped on the dirt.
She glanced around at the forest path, eyes narrowing, even as Riku released her wrist and lifted one hand to push his hood down. The movement from him drew her gaze away from the continuously-undulating contrast of light and shadow, and her eyes widened as his hood lowered to reveal the face of the main foe on Sora's last journey.
"Riku, are you sure that's such a good idea?" she couldn't help asking. Even though her common sense told her one of her best friends – not Xehanort's Heartless – stood before her, and that, furthermore, said Heartless was long dead, she still had to hold back a momentary urge to summon her blades as Riku turned to fix an unnervingly familiar amber gaze on her.
Pushing away the uncomfortable memories of days long past that those eyes brought to her – of research with Xehanort; of watching Xehanort and Ansem argue over the merits of their findings on the Door to Darkness with a nervous Ienzo behind her – Char continued with her original query. "After all, you look exactly like the guy that went around destroying worlds a year ago."
Riku rolled his eyes, tousling his gray hair with a gloved hand. The move was so reminiscent of his old self that Char felt a burst of the old pain that had assailed her at seeing Xehanort's body perform Riku's habits in the past. "Only the Hollow Bastion people know exactly who was doing that," he pointed out. "So it's not like I'm setting myself up to get taken down. Besides, the only source of justice in this town knows who I am, anyway. As a matter of fact," he added with a hint of a smirk, "she should be here to meet us soon."
"She?" Char tilted her head to the side.
"The Keyblade wielder in this world," Riku explained, lowering his hand and focusing his gaze beyond her, as though searching for someone.
Char raised her eyebrows, now mildly interested. Obviously other Keyblade wielders besides Sora and Roxas existed – Anxclof was more than tangible proof of that – but she had never really focused on the thought of any others due to her prolonged proximity with the only one who mattered. "Really?"
"Yeah." Riku nodded. "She's the one who kept me entertained after you left. Gods know there's only so much Ansem anyone can take," he said dryly. "So I went world-hopping, looking for something to do."
"And you found her, right?"
"Yeah."
"Hm. I see." After a moment, during which the silence pressed in on them and Riku continued to search the winding dirt path before them for an unseen woman, Char spoke, suddenly needing to hear conversation. It was stupid – she treasured silence, after all, and she would have thought even more so after spending a month smothered by Sora's naïveté – but it was how she felt. Yet another way Sora had rubbed off on her, she supposed with a pang of bitter longing. I miss you already. "And what world, pray tell, is this?"
This time, Riku actually deigned to glance back at her before replying. "The natives call it the Shadowed Desert. It's obviously not much of a desert –" he gestured around at all the foliage surrounding them – "but apparently it gets to that level in the summers. All the forests around here dry up in the summer, shrivel in the fall and winter, and grow back in the spring." He sighed. "We're lucky we showed up when we did. It's spring right now – the time where this is called just the 'forest' and not the 'flaming forest.'"
The researcher part of Char was frantically taking mental notes, and she found herself listening intently as he explained this world's climate. Now that she had a name to go with, she could vaguely remember reading something on the Shadowed Desert in the past: nothing substantial, but at least the name sounded familiar.
And – yes, yes, now she remembered; she had read a couple of pieces on some battles of the ancient Keyblade War that had taken place here. Apparently a few of the wielders opposing Xehanort had died here, and so their comrades had buried them near the citadel with their Keychains.
Curiosity flashed across her mind as to whether or not those Keychains still remained here; but before Char could ask just how much this female Keyblade wielder had told Riku of this world's history, Riku suddenly straightened, his eyes lighting up with recognition. "I see her," he announced.
Following his gaze, Char's interest increased, its focus shifting from the past to the anonymous Keybearer. Other than descriptions of Keyblade wielders from that period – which weren't always accurate – she had relatively little to go on as far as present Keybearers went, unless she included Sora. However, she liked to think she knew him well enough to recognize his blitheness was only partially a front. Besides, not all Keyblade wielders had that personality. Anxclof was more than proof of that, despite her status as a Nobody.
At first Char only saw a flash of iridescent, translucent blue, a color that, despite not shining particularly vividly in the fluctuating shadows, appeared in the gaps between the trees nonetheless. Then, as the pale blue object rounded the corner, Char had to hold back a gasp at seeing it was a Keyblade – a solid, slender one whose larger nicks and scratches she could now see from this distance.
She followed the path of the bare fingers wrapped around the Keyblade's hilt up to the face of the girl who held it. She was surprisingly young, no older than eighteen, and barely tall enough to pass for sixteen. Before she could assess the stranger any more than that, though, the girl had come to a hasty halt in front of them, panting aloud and lowering her icy weapon.
"Sorry I'm late, Riku," she said between gulps of air, tilting her head back to meet his gaze with her own emerald eyes. "Those Heartless wouldn't leave me alone." The last words emerged amid a sheepish smile.
Riku shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Falcon. It's actually better that you got here when we did."
Char noted the rather pointed edge to his voice as he spoke, even more so as he swerved a glare onto her. She rolled her eyes and looked away, embarrassment heating her spine at why she had made them this late. At thinking of what Riku had almost figured out, literally minutes after she had vowed to never let him know she loved Sora. "Like it's my fault we were late," she grumbled.
Falcon's gaze shifted to Char then, and the redhead glanced back just in time to see the warm grin fade into a more stoic, calculating look, such a drastic contrast from her prior expression. Char met those now-narrowed green eyes, fighting the powerful urge to raise an eyebrow at the coldness of Falcon's appraisal. Don't antagonize Riku's friend; it'll piss him off, Char told herself.
"This is her, huh?" the other girl asked then, turning back to Riku and pushing a strand of short, dark hair behind her ear.
"Yeah." Riku gestured at the redhead. "This is Char. The one whose master I've been trying to avoid for the last few months."
"You mean the guy who sent you out here in the first place?" Falcon quipped dryly. When her words earned only a noncommittal grunt, she smiled a little before looking back at Char. Maybe it was just her, but the amusement on the dark-haired girl's face died down considerably when her eyes landed on her again. "I'm guessing Riku explained why he dragged you here?"
"Actually, no," Char answered, making her voice just as tart as Riku had when indirectly pointing out her shortcoming earlier. She punctuated her words with a stare just as he had. "This guy failed to tell me anything. Just showed up, nabbed me, and here we are."
"I told you I'd explain when we got here," Riku muttered, putting one hand to his face and sliding it over his cheek. "Look, let's just go into town, and I'll tell you there. Falcon knows the way."
Falcon nodded and turned around to look out in the direction she had come from. Following her gaze, Char spotted the outline of buildings poking up in the distance; the sight spurred another burst of curiosity that made her wonder what exactly this world would be like outside this forest. Somehow she had a feeling it would be like Hollow Bastion – a bustling metropolis with Heartless-filled outskirts. Along with the twinge of wistfulness at what her home had become came security in the likely familiarity.
"Just be careful, all right?" the dark-haired girl said then, without turning around. Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her Keyblade. "The Heartless have gotten worse since the last time you were here."
The announcement induced a smirk from Char; at least she would get to exercise her fighting muscles while she was here. It was a paltry source of solace – and a somewhat pointless one, as thinking of fighting Heartless made her remember just who Riku had taken her from – but she clung to it. "Piece of cake," she boasted, folding her arms. "If there was anything fighting with Sora taught me, it's how to kill Heartless."
As she spoke, she remembered her near-defeat at the claws of the Dusks during their first visit to Hollow Bastion, and how her skill with her twin blades had evolved enough by the battle with all those Heartless in the Great Maw that she had barely any trouble at all. The memory hurt more than she would have liked it to.
Some of her pain must have flashed across her face, because Riku actually tilted his head down to give her a concerned look. However, Char only responded with a hard stare, one that, she hoped, conveyed her desire to not discuss this now. Or ever, preferably.
Falcon's shoulders tensed slightly at Char's arrogant remark, but her next words were relatively calm. "Well then, at least that makes one person I won't have to look after." She glanced over her shoulder, pupils moving up to accommodate the height Riku had over her. "I'm assuming the usual place, then?"
Riku put a hand to his chin, thinking. In spite of herself, Char watched his expression, wondering what exactly he would have to say. After dragging me out here and still refusing to tell me what's going on, I need to hear at least this much, she thought in annoyance.
Finally he raised his head and lowered his hand. "No," he said.
Falcon actually turned halfway around, one slender eyebrow vanishing into the bangs that swept over one part of her face. "No?"
"No," Riku repeated firmly. "The saloon's too public. Let's head to your house instead."
Saloon? Char almost laughed aloud. Maybe she had made assumptions too quickly about just how much this place resembled her old home.
Pushing down her amusement – her thought from earlier about not wanting to antagonize Falcon, no matter how much her random shifts from warmth to disdain unnerved Char, came back to the redhead – Char refocused on Falcon. Riku's suggestion had a very visible effect on her: her eyes widened and a tint of crimson appeared on her cheeks.
"I, um… Are you sure?" she managed after a moment.
"Yeah," Riku answered, though not without a hint of weariness in his voice. Either the events of today were finally catching up to him, or he noticed Falcon's change in demeanor all too well. "You know what I brought Char here for. It's not really something we want everyone in town to hear."
Char blinked, indignation rushing into her anew. "Oh, so she gets to know and I don't?" she growled, narrowing her eyes at Riku. The gray-haired young man folded his arms and opened his mouth to speak, but he only got to utter a warning "Char…" before her frustration exploded forth.
"I made you a promise a month ago," she hissed, striding forward and standing on tiptoe to glower at him properly. "You made me make that promise. To stay with Sora and help him on his journey, keep him on the right path for revenge on the Organization."
Despite her genuinely strident words, a flare of uncertainty embedded itself in her heart: because for all intents and purposes, she had already fulfilled that part of her vow. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were likely following her suggestion in the Gummi ship – searching the worlds for a seam, a rip of darkness through which they could slip and find Kairi and the boy who stood, disguised, in front of her – and in the process, would destroy the group of Nobodies who had been using them for their goals all this time.
And now they probably think that I'm in the World That Never Was, too, Char realized with a pang of dread.
She fought back the very terrified part of her that suddenly wanted to tell Riku to open a portal and take the both of them back to the Land of Dragons. Actually, she thought with a newfound wave of horror, for all she knew they had left already; trying frantically to remember which world lay next to Mulan's world on the map brought her nothing. However, she forced herself to maintain her angry appearance and push on.
"And you think, after taking me away – after making me break that promise – you think I have less of a right to know than a total stranger to me and Master Ansem does?" To Char's immense shame, her voice got damn close to breaking on the last part.
Up till this point Riku had looked as though he were trying not to roll his eyes with intense difficulty; now, though, his face actually softened a bit before he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down to the flats of her feet. "I never said that," he pointed out, surprisingly gently. "When we get to Falcon's house I can tell you what's going on. Sorry I freaked you out by keeping it secret this long. Like I said, I wanted you to stay with Sora; I didn't want to do things like this."
"You may as well tell her now," Falcon suddenly called from behind them. Char jumped; in her frustrated outburst she had all but forgotten the older girl still waited for directions as to what to do.
Risking turning around to face Falcon, the redhead found, unsurprisingly enough, exasperation on her countenance. Exasperation and, Char suddenly noticed, a kind of grudging sympathy, as though Falcon understood what it felt like to be torn from something precious.
Fast on the heels of that revelation came another: the true reason why Falcon's face turned sour when looking from Riku to Char, and why Riku looked so uncomfortable at Falcon being embarrassed to take him home with her. It took every ounce of Char's self-restraint not to clear that little situation up right now, not to leap up and tell Falcon she wasn't out for Riku's heart.
It's Riku she's going to have to deal with, the redhead reflected. I highly doubt he'll move on from Kairi anytime soon.
But she had assumed the same thing about Sora, and Char herself had warped that; why was Riku any different?
The whole situation was confusing as all hell to think about.
Thankfully, Riku's voice tore her out of her reverie; sent a reassuring surge of black and white into the shades of gray his and Sora's love had become. "Might as well," he sighed.
Char's eyes widened as his words sank in. "Right now?"
Riku folded his arms. "It's not like we're going to get any more private than this." He waved a hand vaguely at their fairly-empty surroundings, at the trees that still swayed patiently in the breeze and welcomed the embrace of the early afternoon sun.
"Since the Heartless showed up," Falcon added, walking closer, "I'm the only one who ever comes this far out of town anymore."
"You're the only one who can fight them, though," Riku told her. Glancing back to Char, he sighed again, with the same sense of resignation. Char tried not to feel too gratified that she was finally getting some concrete information, but her lips still twitched a little nonetheless. During their time in Twilight Town, the days she could wear him down like this came few and far between, so she welcomed the chance to do so. "Right, then. Let's sit first. Falcon, you look like you're about to fall over."
"Huh?" Falcon blinked; clearly, she hadn't expected him to address her anytime soon. Now that he had pointed out the Keyblade wielder's exhaustion, Char saw the fatigue in those green eyes and the dust coating her dark hair. Gods only knew how many Heartless she had had to fight through to meet them here, in this oddly-empty clearing. It's the curse of the Keybearer, I suppose.
For now, though, it didn't matter, because she was finally going to get some answers.
"Once again, you have served China well," the emperor said, gazing down at them from his throne. Mulan ducked her head modestly in response, causing Shang to smile from where he stood at the emperor's side. "It would please me to reward you. All of you." His wise old eyes swept over Sora, Donald, and Goofy as he spoke.
Sora hesitated, wondering what to ask. On the one hand, he wanted to know if that Organization member from earlier – the one that was so clearly not Riku – had appeared to the emperor and Shang, and what he could do about it. That part of his mind reminded him so painfully of Char. Which brought him to the impetus to his decision: a larger part of him just needed to know that Riku had been here in the first place. That, just once, his hopes weren't completely unfounded.
The emperor's words from earlier – that a black-clad person had in fact shown up and acted rather rude, a clear indicator that it was Riku – still rang in Sora's mind, and he didn't doubt those words for a moment. And yet if Riku really had taken Char – which seemed sickeningly likely, given the all-too-familiar blade the figure had whipped out to dispose of the Heartless in his path; the certainty of that much made Sora's stomach and heart take a nauseating dip – his possibly having been here could give Sora some clues as to where he had taken Char.
She'll be safe with him; I know that much. But…
Suddenly torn, the brunette muffled the sigh building up in the back of his throat and looked at the emperor, who was waiting for his reply. "You said a guy in black came by earlier," he said. "What exactly did he say?"
"That is all you request?" the emperor asked, quirking a brow.
"Yes," Sora replied evenly.
"And, uh, do you know where our friend might be?" Goofy queried hesitantly.
"I'm afraid I do not know the whereabouts of your friend," the emperor said, and Sora's heart plummeted completely. He looked away, down at the ground, where he hoped his despondency wasn't too visible to his comrades. Apparently, though, even that effort failed, because he felt the sympathetic eyes of everyone in the room on him.
"But when the man in black appeared to us," the emperor went on, "he told us that a source of great evil had disturbed one of our dragons, and turned it into what you call a Heartless."
Sora lifted his head and nodded.
"Yeah, we remember that thing," Donald muttered, rubbing a few lightning burns on his arm and wincing at the contact. Thinking back on the battle just outside the imperial gates – the battle that had cleared the formerly-bustling town square of terrified citizens and rent the air with flashes of lightning and the flares of bombs thrown from the dragon Heartless' wings – Sora could detect just the tiniest beginning of his own more onerous injuries throbbing again.
Char would have hated that fight, he thought wistfully, thinking of her fear of fire. A fear that, he reflected guiltily, his reckless lack of action in the Underworld had instilled in her.
The emperor acknowledged Donald's bitter interjection with a slight, indulgent smile before continuing in his explanation. "This young man came to warn me to ready our troops, and I was prepared to do so. But he told me the situation had changed."
"He said three 'wise guys' had come along," Shang put in, "and they would take care of things."
"Wise guys?" Donald repeated, a look of both realization and annoyance coming into his eyes.
"That had to be Riku," Goofy said, his dark gaze landing on Sora.
"Yeah." Sora nodded, at the same time wondering at the odd mixture of triumph and confusion that twisted inside him. For one thing, this all but proved Riku had shown up in the mountains and taken Char; even though the last time Sora had seen Riku face to face had been in front of the door to Kingdom Hearts, the figure on the summit had definitely seen that Sora had an extra companion from then. However, even though the emperor had cleared that much up, that stirred so many more questions, first and foremost why Riku was wearing an Organization cloak in the first place.
"But that means he definitely has Char," Donald pointed out, his voice unusually subdued. Clearly, he had come to the same conclusions Sora had.
"Yeah," Sora repeated, allowing the fear and sorrow and despair that the day had built up to condense into a sigh. "But… if she's with Riku, then she's safe, right?" The words tore him apart to say, but he knew he had to focus on getting his friends back and taking down the Organization. Besides, now finding Riku meant finding Char as well; it wasn't like he was giving up on his original goal entirely.
"Yeah, but you don't look real happy about that, Sora." Goofy angled his head to look right into Sora's eyes.
No, I'm not happy about it, the Keybearer wanted to say. After I finally figured out how I feel about her, she just up and disappears… I don't know if I can handle that. He left those words unspoken, though; donned his mask of optimism, no matter how frayed and tattered it was, and just shrugged, because now even the emperor was eyeing him with sympathy. "I'm not, really," he said. At least that wasn't a lie. "I just think we should keep looking for a way into the Organization's world. If Riku's there, and he has Char with him, I'll find both of them. And Kairi's supposed to be there, too."
As he spoke, his resolve slowly began to replenish within him until he believed every word he said. He thought of Riku, dragging Char along with him, and of Kairi, sitting in the Organization's world waiting for someone to come save her. Unconsciously, the brunette's fist clenched. At this point he didn't even care if the Organization had set him up for everything – for feeding Kingdom Hearts with his Keyblade, and likely for heading to their world – so powerful was his desire to just see his friends again.
I'll get them back, and take them home.
"It's what Char would want," he added for good measure.
Donald gave him a skeptical look, as though doubting the validity of Sora's decision. Odd, considering his attitude toward Char. Eventually, though, he relented and just nodded. "We'll pound the Organization and save everyone again," the duck vowed. "Kairi, Riku, Char, and the King."
Sora gave a perfunctory nod of agreement, even as the conversation carried on and the emperor asked what Mulan wanted. It hit him that he was clinging to Donald's determined words with every ounce of strength in his aching body, and he knew that was because it would have to be enough until he got to see Char again.
It would have to be enough.
The three of them settled on the ground in a small caricature of a circle. Char saw Falcon eye her iridescent blue Keyblade for a moment before shaking her head with a soft sigh. An instant later, it had vanished into its chain form in a flash of light, and she settled with her legs crossed on the ground.
"So," Riku began, making Char look back to him. He sat with one elbow against the knee of the opposite leg, an oddly relaxed position, considering just whose form he had taken. "I told you already that your master put me on this mission. There's a reason for that."
Obviously, Char wanted to say, but remained silent.
"While we were all at Twilight Town," the boy in front of her went on, "Ansem was working on something that would destroy Kingdom Hearts – the one the Organization used Sora to build up." His voice grew tight as he mentioned Sora, one of the few indicators of just how much he had sacrificed to get his friend back; in an instant, though, he was brusque as ever again. "Apparently the old geezer didn't leave the finished product well-guarded enough, and so the Organization had time to show up and steal it."
"They took it?" Char gasped, shocked. "But…" She groped for words – why, how, when all tripped over each other, so she ended up just settling for the last one. "How long ago was this?"
"A few days or so, right?" Falcon glanced to Riku for confirmation, to which he nodded.
Char's heart twinged. With the pace at which Sora's travels had been going, a few days felt like an eternity. While I was watching Timon and Pumbaa drill 'hakuna matata' into Sora's head, and listening to Roxas complain about having lost Anxclof, the Organization was ruining Ansem's design. Again.
As it turned out, that was the same day she had come to terms with, or at least put a name to, how she felt about Sora.
Not wanting to think about it, knowing it would distract her, Char fixed her gaze on Riku, praying the tears she could feel burning at the back of her eyes didn't appear too soon. "Go on."
Her voice must have sounded less brusque than intended, because Riku raised an eyebrow before continuing. "When Ansem found out, of course he was furious. He's been up for three days straight trying to figure out where the Organization could have hidden it. But this morning, he finally tracked the machine down."
So here we are. The question at the heart of the matter – why Riku had felt the need to drag her along on this venture – had still not been addressed, so Char beat back any pretense of manners and did it herself. "So why am I here?"
Falcon had previously occupied herself with staring at the grass and tapping her fingers to some unknown beat on the ground, but at Char's words she glanced up sharply, expectation on her face. Politeness had clearly kept the dark-haired girl from asking that question as well, which, for some reason, sent a current of irritation into Char's veins.
"I told you a thousand times I didn't want to drag you into it!" Riku barked, fixing a smoldering amber glare on Char, which she returned with gusto. "He said you'd be able to recognize the design on the machine or something like that. Don't look at me!"
Char narrowed her eyes to little more than glittering icy slits, wanting nothing more than to vent the full extent of her anger at this whole situation: an anger that ramped up considerably when she remembered the look of pure horror on Sora's face upon spotting Riku dragging her away.
"And after all this," she spat, "after you find this machine or whatever –" she deliberately danced around using the word 'we' – "what are you going to do with me?"
Even with all the venom she threw into her query, though, a tremor of fear began to shake through her – fear and humiliation, that even by asking that she had resigned herself to being an unwilling participant in this whole damned mess. She found herself wanting Riku to say he would take her back to Sora so badly the desire began to devour her and make her need little else.
And it was so incredibly pathetic, but along with that want came a need to feel Sora's heartbeat against hers again.
That grudging sympathy had returned to Falcon's face again, and she opened her mouth to say something, only to gasp aloud as multiple globes of translucent pink-and-black shadow coalesced in front of them. With a blaze of pale blue light, her Keyblade appeared in her hand. "We've got company," she muttered, settling into a stance that reminded Char of a fencer.
Sure enough, a series of foes dropped down in front of them, and Char took a moment to assess what kind of Heartless these were. Most of these particular enemies had never attacked her and the brunette in the past: larger versions of the shadow Heartless she was already familiar with, who immediately vanished into a puddle of darkness beneath their feet. A couple of the Heartless from yesterday had arrived as well: the robots and the ball-and-chain-like ones.
Concentrating, she found her dual swords in her hands and took comfort in the familiar way their hilts fit in her fists. A ripple of darkness out of the corner of her eye announced that Riku had summoned the Soul Eater as well.
The three of them tensed as a new series of silvery spheres appeared in midair as well, Char in particular, as she recognized the typical signal of a Nobody beginning to manifest itself. As if things aren't crappy enough; now there's an Organization member here, too.
She had fully prepared herself to take down whatever kind of Nobody appeared out of that globe in an instant. She had been ready for Dusks or whatever chose to show their face.
However, any semblance of determination immediately flew out of her mind to be replaced by terror when the silver-and-white cloud vanished to reveal their burdens.
Sinuous bodies surrounded by pink cubes, and bipedal creatures wielding their blade in a disturbingly familiar stance advanced on the trio.
Sorcerers.
And Avengers.
Oh crap.
Yes, that machine Ansem put there is the KH Encoder machine from KH2. You know, the one he blows up Kingdom Hearts with?
Besides that, the only thing worth noting is my head-canon about the whole bit on the Keyblade War battle in the Shadowed Desert.
As you may or may not have figured out, this is the place where Riku's going to pick up the Destiny's Embrace Keyblade and give it to Kairi. (You know - the "flowery ugly one" that's one of Aqua's BEST WEAPONS in BBS? -eyeroll-) As such, one of those Keychains buried there is, in fact, that of the Destiny's Embrace Keyblade. But someone obviously went grave-robbing and stuck the Keychain in Radiant Garden so Aqua could pick it up. Later, after Aqua gave up her Keyblade and armor, the Keychains she owned scattered to the various worlds of their origin (yes, even the ones that ended up in the Realm of Darkness), so the Destiny's Embrace Keychain did return to its original spot.
Basically, in my mind one or both of Kairi's parents is a Keyblade wielder. So yeah. XD
NOW. After that big tl;dr bit... Review please?
The request from that last chapter still stands, btw. I'd like to think it's common sense to do, but I'm afraid if I don't repost it here no one will heed it.
So: please say more than "so good, update soon" or "I love it." Feedback will always mean so much to me.