Chapter 75, everyone! See, I told you I wasn't on hiatus anymore. :P
In this chapter, Copperhead tells all, Axel pops up, and I try to cram all of the Pride Lands into less than 10k words. Whoo!
As a side note: no more disclaimers. It should be obvious, after 75 chapters, that I only own the original content of this fic. Which is... about half of it at this point. Lawd.
Enjoy!
For the second time since Char's arrival here, three people sat down in a half-formed circle to hear an explanation. Riku kept a close eye on the redhead, who still had a fierce glower fixed on Copperhead; but the defiance simmering low in that icy fire said she wouldn't just attack him now.
Riku allowed himself to properly look over the two of them. Char didn't have near the extent of the injuries that marred Copperhead's body and blotted out his jacket's pale color with red; as he watched, though, she brought up a hand to the opposite shoulder and winced, as if her fingers had grazed a bruise.
For the first time, Riku also realized that what he could see of Copperhead's curved weapon was charred in more than a few areas. He shifted on the ground in response to the sudden surge of unease in his veins, considered asking them what had happened.
But Char spotted his roving eyes first. "Someone attacked us in that cavern," she explained, jerking a thumb toward the tunnel sloping the ground downward nearby.
Her next words – before which Riku glanced at Copperhead, but he was playing with the grass tickling his legs and had dark nostalgia permeating his expression – made Riku freeze in place.
"The guy looked a lot like Xemnas."
Beside them, Copperhead drew in a sharp breath. Riku turned his head to look at him, bemused, but the other man continued to stare at the blade of grass suspended between his fingers, eyes huge in something like horror.
He said nothing, though, and after a few moments Riku looked warily back at Char. "Xemnas?" he asked, lowering his hand from where it had halted briefly above one upraised knee. He settled into a comfortable position, though he got the distinct feeling that his knuckles tensing over his fingers' grip on his kneecap gave his tenseness away.
Xemnas? Why in the name of the gods had Xemnas shown up here?
It's not completely impossible, he reminded himself. Remember those Nobodies with the shields around them? They were his. He was here then.
Still… he didn't know what to think if Xemnas was here now. If the Organization leader was taunting them, prompting them to search a little more quickly. Come, Riku could almost hear that molasses-like voice purr, do you not have a goal to accomplish?
His fists clenched in response to a fresh wave of hatred, and he had to remind himself that he had a job to do. It didn't help that the fake Xemnas-voice had a point.
Char shook her head. "I said it looked like him," she said, heavily. "I never said it was him."
That coaxed a frown to Riku's face, more out of confusion than anger. From how resigned Char looked, he figured she probably had wanted Xemnas to show up. They both knew him better than that, though: they both knew he wouldn't be so direct unless he had a reason. "So…?" he prompted.
Again, the redhead shook her head, though this time considerably more frustration marked the movement. "His swords were a different color," she said. "Blue, not red. And…" She paused, fingers tensing from where they rested on her crossed legs. Riku recognized the anxiety in that gesture, the inherent annoyance at her own weakness: what he did not recognize was the latent fear shivering in her fingertips.
"I'm pretty sure Xemnas can't launch a bunch of pillars of fire at us," she admitted. The words nearly ran together in her haste, as if just remembering caused her pain.
Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he saw her draw up one leg slightly.
Riku blinked, at the same time feeling dread stir inside him. As if the Organization's presence hadn't hounded all of them enough; now this new enemy had shown up as well…
He didn't realize he had voiced this thought aloud until Char spoke. "If it makes you feel any better, he probably blew himself up with that fire attack," she said. "It… from what I saw the fire went in all directions."
She sounded more like she was reassuring herself than him, but Riku let the matter go. As much as he loathed admitting it, he shared the same sentiment: even though he'd had the fortune to avoid facing this particular opponent, he didn't want to have to deal with it.
Especially with Copperhead in the worst shape Riku had ever seen him. Ironic, that even though this enemy wielded blue blades he had brought forth red anyway.
Red, red, everything came back to red, didn't it? Blood, Char… Kairi…
Suddenly Riku remembered the other person sitting beside them. He faced Copperhead again, only to balk slightly when he saw the other had barely moved: still staring at the ground, only looking up when Riku called his name.
"You said you had an explanation," Riku said. "We're listening." Char uttered a contemptuous snort, though it shook a little in the aftermath of what she had just explained, and Riku cast her a withering glare to calm her down.
Copperhead took a deep breath, one that would have sounded exaggerated had Riku not seen him suspended in fear just moments before. Maybe he would explain that, too.
Good thing, too, because feeling concerned about this man and what he had to say rankled Riku more than anything else. Annoying and overly joking as Copperhead could become, somewhere between rolling his eyes and wondering at Falcon's anathema toward him, Riku had begun to regard him as less of an acquaintance and more as an ally.
"Or have you changed your mind now that you've had time to stall a bit?" Char added, belligerence resonating in every word. That hard, angry defiance had returned to her, that unspoken give me a reason not to destroy you now.
Copperhead shook his head quickly. "No, I haven't," he rebuffed her, sounding calmer than Riku would have thought. With how the girl had had him so easily pinned only minutes before, he seemed rather relaxed. "It might help to get this off my shoulders, anyway."
He took a deep breath again before beginning his tale.
"I already told you guys my brother died," he said, though the way his eyes moved from one to the other suggested it was more of a question.
Char nodded; she thought about asking what that had to do with what he had done, but ended up relenting. She knew far too well the effect that a brother's death could have: knew because she had lost six, regardless of what they had become.
He nodded, a movement that another deep breath punctuated. It made Char wonder just how much he had mentally prepared for this moment, when the masks fell apart and allowed secrets to scatter.
"My parents died when I was really little. No one would tell me what had happened – I think I was maybe three, four years old when it happened. I still don't really know how they died. I just know I came home one day and my big brother told me Mom and Dad wouldn't come back anymore."
Listening to his words, seeing the way he didn't dare look away from Riku, forced her earlier words to echo harshly inside her mind. Guilt fluttered uneasily at the edge of that memory.
She half-expected a pointed edge to mark Copperhead's words, the words so no, Blaze, I did have parents at one point to follow caustically on the heels of his words. Some part of her sensed that edge trying to sharpen his voice. But fatigue, the ragged bitterness of secrets best left untouched, overcame what she once thought to be his instinctive response of lightening the conversation.
For some reason, that made her shiver a little.
"So Dyme basically raised me," Copperhead continued heavily. "For a couple of years, that worked out. The neighbors felt bad for us, so they would lend us money to be able to stay in the same house." A doubtful scoff escaped him. "More like they felt bad for starting the rumor that our parents just left us."
Just left us… Another, stronger shudder wracked Char's spine, because that part reminded her so powerfully of her own situation it almost hurt. The part of her heart and mind that had once dwelled so obsessively on her parents' identity, on the nebulous shapes that had brought her into this world only to fade away once they had, kicked out violently in the sleep she had forced upon it years ago.
When Braig had all but laughed at her and told her that her quest to find out her parents' identities was, in his words, "totally pointless."
She shook off the latent anger toward her former apprentice-turned-Nobody, though not without some effort.
"Do you think maybe Heartless killed them?" Riku asked. Unlike Char, who, yet again, was letting her nostalgia control her ability to conduct a suitable conversation, he spoke with a mixture of curiosity and grudging sympathy.
He had his head cocked to the side, a position that might have disturbed her deeply to see from Xehanort's form three days ago. Char wondered, reluctantly, what Riku was thinking of all this. How, in a weird way, Copperhead's situation mirrored Kairi's? How this boy – man, biologically at least – didn't deserve redemption, but he had wasted enough time in this world to hear him out anyway?
Copperhead's eyes widened, as if the possibility Riku spoke of had never occurred to him before. "I… no, I don't think so," he managed at last. He drew up his crossed legs a little tighter, wincing all the while, until he could rest his chin on his knees. It crossed Char's mind for an instant to fish around and see if she had any healing items left for him – he couldn't very well tell them anything if he passed out from blood loss – but at this point most of his less onerous injuries had dried.
"I don't think Heartless did it. Because they didn't show up until…" He paused, then shook his head with a half-hearted smile. "Well, I'm getting to that.
"Anyway, for a couple of years, the living arrangement worked just fine." Here, he grinned, this time with less bitterness and more nostalgia. "Sometimes, when I remembered Mom and Dad and started crying, Dyme would play a song for me on his sitar. That always calmed me down."
At the word sitar, something twitched briefly in the back of Char's mind.
Riku blinked, his brow furrowing in a much more familiar expression for both him and the face he wore. If his mind had completed the journey that Char's own had halted, though, he said nothing of it. "So what happened?" he pressed.
"What happened?" Copperhead repeated, without a trace of animosity. Rather, the soft expression on his face remained, the glimmer of better days almost overcoming his mental and physical exhaustion. Char almost hated him for it, in light of what he had done. "Falcon came, that's what happened.
"I think part of me saw something in her, even the first time I saw her. Because we didn't have any money until Dyme turned sixteen, I couldn't go into school until I was eight. That was where we met."
Somehow, that surprised Char, that this had all begun in such a mundane place as school. In the whirlwind of the last few months, anything having to do with traditional education had completely left the forefront of her thoughts.
"I knew she wasn't originally from here," Riku mused aloud, making Copperhead and Char look at him. He met their gazes evenly and shrugged, a little bitterly. "She told me at least that much about her."
Copperhead nodded. During the brief reprieve that Riku had brought on, the dark dread shadowing his face had receded, but now it crept slowly over his face again. Char prayed he wouldn't take much longer to tell them why. His story had too many damnably human elements to it – the dead older brother and scraping money together to make ends meet and falling in love at age eight.
Then again, she didn't know what she would picture, had she actually entertained thoughts of his past. An arrogant boy, swinging a scythe around and making promises he couldn't keep?
Falcon's hatred of him had influenced Char's opinion of him more than she had realized, Char reflected.
Said boy rested his chin back on his knees again and continued.
"Everything was normal for a few years. I got a couple of fan-girls that wouldn't leave me alone, so at lunch, when they bugged me, I'd hide in the courtyard. It was there that I ran into Falcon… practicing with her Keyblade."
"And it started there," Riku said.
"Hey, this is my story, remember?" Copperhead shot teasingly at the other man. Secretly, though, Char thought Riku filled in the gaps maybe too eagerly.
She couldn't blame him, though. After all, Copperhead's voice had become strained and the playfulness feigned, as though the weight of what was coming next had become liquid and slithered up his chest into his tongue.
"But yeah, Riku, you're right," he confirmed. "I'd listened enough between naps in history class to know what a Keyblade wielder meant. And, I don't know, maybe some twisted part of me saw this as the opportunity I'd been looking for."
Char quirked an eyebrow, finding her voice for the first time. "To do what, exactly?"
"Hell if I know!" Copperhead sighed loudly. "To at least become friends with her. Sharing the secret of her Keyblade just… it felt good, okay? Like a stepping stone, a starting point."
Riku leaned over his upraised knee, trying to gauge Char's expression. Before now, she'd remained locked in steadfast silence, straight and alert in a way that told him she was definitely listening. Only that researcher's curiosity, the existence of which he'd thought only remained in vestiges, had spurred her to speak.
In all honesty, every bit of this, Falcon had told him at least once already. Before, though, darker parts of the past – parts that, he knew, were about to cringe at the light set upon them – had clouded her recollections and given them an angry bite. Copperhead sounded almost wistful, like he wanted to grab every fragment of good memories and keep them close.
"Anyway," he spoke before Char could say anything else, "we started hanging out more after that. Patrolled the forest together, killing Heartless and talking about stuff. She kept trying to tackle big Heartless on her own, so I asked to help her out. Even now, I'll never know why she agreed to it."
Maybe because even she knew she couldn't handle it on her own. Riku recalled the day they had met, how she had kept stubbornly fighting the chameleon Heartless and only reluctantly accepted his help.
"Somewhere along the way, she started liking me back. And that was pretty nice." From the smile on his face, pretty nice was an understatement.
But the nostalgic grin faded away, puppet strings falling away from the corners of his lips.
"Then Dyme died. And that's when it all went bad."
Riku had heard that much too. Beyond this point in the story, though, Falcon had never told him: the bitter nostalgia tempering her voice had locked up, transformed only into the former. Something twinged inside him, maybe eager anticipation at the departure from what he already knew; maybe anxiety at how now the story stretched into darkness as deep as he'd ever known.
Or maybe that something was dread, a kind of queasy acceptance that told him Copperhead's mask dropping to the floor and shattering had happened before, and they were about to hear about it.
Copperhead uncurled from his progressing fetal position very slightly, straightening his legs out and using his hands to keep himself up. "After the funeral," he went on, quiet enough to make Riku lean forward to hear him, "someone knocked on my door. I'd skipped school for a couple days – just holed myself up in our house and tried not to think about what had happened. So naturally, when I opened the door, I was a little pissed.
"It was a guy in a black coat. Kind of looked like the guy we just fought." He directed this part at Char, who looked almost sickened at her viscerally moving closer to hear him better. Like this man was telling them a heroic story, instead of whatever this was.
When she took in his words, though, she jolted, horror intensifying. After all, that dark garb could only mean a member of the Organization had visited.
Seemingly ignorant of Char's powerful reaction, Copperhead went on. "He told me…" He stopped abruptly, shook his head with a choked-sounding laugh. "Now you guys are gonna think this is stupid."
Riku narrowed his eyes. "Copperhead, this is you. It's not anything new."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," the other said, rolling his eyes with a half-hearted huff. Riku resisted the mighty urge to roll his own eyes. Pathetic, floated across his mind again, but even that contempt felt muted in the face of what he was learning.
That contempt, it turned out, died off completely at the next words.
"He told me he could bring my brother back."
"And you just believed this weird strange guy in a black coat?" Char asked incredulously.
Copperhead shrugged. "You know how it is," he said. "You're lost, you have no idea what to do; and someone comes along pretending to understand you. You grasp at that with everything you have, because what else are you supposed to do?"
Riku thought of Xehanort's Heartless, the entity he'd fought and grappled with for over a year now, and Maleficent, who had promised she would save Kairi, and realized he was right.
"I'm sure you've figured it out by now." Char's shoulders tensed violently at Copperhead addressing her again. "I'm more observant than you think," he went on, a sigh embedded so deeply in his voice that Riku only vaguely heard the hitching breath. "And you're observant too. You saw me react to Xemnas' name earlier."
"So it was him," Riku said. The fingers on the grass completed their journey into a revulsion-filled fist. Somehow, it didn't surprise him – that desperation could force Xemnas into hunting down grief-filled boys and coercing them into…
Into…
Riku frowned, gazing down at the ground in contemplation. Up until a while ago, the Organization's motives had been just as muddled for him as for Char – no thanks to DiZ – despite both of their positions as the old man's closest confidantes. Before he could start thinking about how much DiZ using them for his dirty work annoyed him, Riku looked back at Copperhead.
He'd sat down intending to get some answers, and damn it all, he was going to get them.
"Why did he tell you he could bring your brother back?" he asked.
Copperhead winced visibly, rolling a blade of grass between his fingers again. "See, here's the point where things get a little sketchy. I never found out."
"You never asked why he wanted to help you?" This time, Char's disbelieving query was spoken amidst a mounting rage. Riku glanced over to see her bracing clenched fists on her crossed legs, with the visible part of her knuckles stark white. "You should've known he was just setting you up!"
"Char –" Riku began, a sigh embedded in the name despite himself.
"Did he tell you killing your girlfriend's parents was the way to bring your brother back to life?" the redhead demanded, overlapping over Riku's impending order for her silence.
Copperhead said nothing – but then there it was, the only subtle thing Riku had seen from him: the slightest guilty twitch of his mouth.
"Don't you know anything?" Char shouted."That's not how getting killed by a Heartless works! The only way to bring someone back if they're a Heartless is if they turn into a –"
At once, the near-practiced anger in her voice died, as did every venomous word. She had all but pushed up onto her knees, fury making her try to loom over its target as much as possible, but now she slumped back down. Riku recognized the horrified recognition on her face.
And he could have sworn he heard something like "Demyx" whispered from her direction.
It hit him then, too, what she had just realized about the fate of Copperhead's big brother. The revelation should have rattled him, too; instead, though, he felt laughter bubbling up from deep inside him. Fortunately, he managed to quell that strange amusement before it could take audible form, but the sentiment remained nonetheless, toxic and sickening in his veins.
Anxclof's Other, and Demyx's Other, both in the same world. Life had a funny way of making Riku laugh nowadays.
"You done?" Copperhead asked testily. His uncharacteristic display of irritation startled both Char and Riku out of their respective revulsion and amusement. Char dropped her hands into her lap and just stared at him; Riku quirked his eyebrows and closed his mouth when he realized it was hanging slightly ajar.
Seeing their nonverbal confirmations, the blonde leaned back and folded his arms. "I nabbed her parents when they had a day off," he said, barely audible. Every trace of fire from an instant before lit out in the face of what he was about to reveal. Once Riku caught the other's words, his eyes widened.
"Xemnas met me right outside their house and formed some dark portal thing." Copperhead wiggled his fingers in imitation of said 'dark portal thing,' the gesture almost disgustingly lighthearted. "When I stepped through, we were at the top of the abandoned citadel, and there was some Keyblade-like thing on the floor."
Keyblade? The hand on Riku's knee found its way to his chin. Where would Xemnas have gotten a Keyblade?
Skepticism stirred briefly inside him, only for thoughtfulness to eclipse it. After all, at this point, Copperhead had no reason to fabricate parts of his story.
"Riku?" came tentatively from next to him. He almost started – that had to be Falcon showing up now, not Char; she never sounded so hesitant – but no, he found Char watching him curiously and knew that she had uttered his name.
Gods, but Sora had had a deeper effect on her than he had thought.
"I'm just wondering what Xemnas would've been doing with a Keyblade," he said, before Char could repeat his name and confuse him even more.
"I never said it was a Keyblade," Copperhead interrupted. When the two of them glanced back at him, he quickly elaborated. "I said it looked like one."
So was it a Keyblade, or not? Riku thought, suddenly frustrated.
"Either way, though, it didn't matter in the end," Copperhead said. "Falcon found us… right after we'd turned her parents into Heartless." A wry smile twisted his lips. "She didn't take it well."
Despite the remark's pathetic nature, Riku found himself cutting off his contempt before it could return. Somehow, Copperhead was leaving so much locked up in that severe understatement: images, sounds that weighed his words down and turned them into pain rather than just a statement.
"Xemnas practically threw that Keyblade at her and told her… told her if she sacrificed herself, she could bring them back."
Riku twitched, a disturbing sense of familiarity creeping up inside him. That sense only cemented itself as reality when Copperhead kept on, even though every word sounded choked. "She stabbed herself with it and released her heart."
Coincidence. Xemnas couldn't have just gotten ahold of the weapon Sora had used to unlock Kairi's heart a year ago – the weapon he had unwittingly birthed Roxas with.
From next to him, he thought he heard a muted gasp. That didn't surprise him; he knew Char would have figured out Anxclof was Falcon's Nobody eventually. This only confirmed it.
"But… then she'd have turned into a Heartless!" Char pointed out. Riku reluctantly swung his head toward her, willing her unnerving almost-fear from earlier to have vanished in the process. Much to his relief, sheer force of hope had sufficed to take her uncertainty away. Now she was regarding Copperhead with unabashed curiosity. "How is she even alive right now, if she lost her heart?"
"That's the real question here." Copperhead shrugged. The mental effort it had taken him to get this far had quite visibly taken its toll on him: as if the battle from earlier hadn't muted the crescendo of his normal enthusiasm, now even the simple rise and fall of his shoulders looked limp. Riku watched him push a shaky hand through his hair and scrape over mottled red.
"I watched her Heartless stand there. She – it – kind of wiggled its antennae around before looking right at me. I knew she was gone, but… for a couple of seconds, it was like she remembered me. The me that loved her, and wasn't a murderer. And I just broke down. Went on my knees and hugged it.
"The next thing I knew, a big light flashed and I was holding her again." He laughed shakily again.
"So?" Char pressed, voice almost as rough as his.
Copperhead cocked his head to the side at her. "Like I said. She didn't take it well."
Riku's mind seemed to have taken up the details where Copperhead had cast them away: in the deceptive shelter of his eyelids Riku could almost see the pink light of Falcon's heart, her body disintegrating, Copperhead running forward to try and catch the particles just as Kairi had to Sora.
Xemnas would probably have left at this point, the bastard. Knowing he'd succeeded with Falcon where he had failed with her parents – for Riku knew her parents hadn't produced Nobodies, or they would fight at the Organization's side – had probably been enough for him. If Xemnas had been the type, he probably would have laughed and said something alone the lines of my work here is done.
And Falcon's Heartless…
Riku hadn't seen Kairi bring Sora back firsthand. No, if anything, watching it through the monitors in Twilight Town's basement had almost hurt more. Her desperation, the Heartless surrounding her and Donald and Goofy, the latter two throwing promises of protection to her…
The way she had flung herself over Sora's Heartless, how she'd had enough faith to know he was in there somewhere.
By the time the light had cleared, the Heartless had vanished. All of them. And Sora had come back.
In the present, the shock and hurt and jealousy that had tunneled their way through Riku's body as he had looked on ached faintly inside his heart. He found himself thanking the gods that DiZ had gone to bed early that night, and Char had chosen to spend time watching Namine draw.
Kairi had been able to bring Sora back because of her role as a Princess of Heart. This hypothesis, Riku had arrived at long before obtaining every detail as to what had happened after Sora's illustrious return to the living world.
But if Copperhead, a completely mundane man, had copied Kairi's method and succeeded…
Maybe the jarring force – the force whose light wove over every ounce of darkness and left it quivering in its wake – was…
Thinking on that, Riku suddenly felt stupid. It truly was a foregone conclusion, something obvious. After all, his love for his friends had pulled him out of the darkness and… not necessarily into the light, but into a twilit sanctuary far removed from the shadows he had sought after a year before.
Beside him, Char took a deep breath. She must have sensed the story was over. Curiously, Riku looked back over at her, trying to glean the contrast between her earlier angry defiance and now.
That, and he wanted to see if she had arrived at the same conclusion.
Judging by the crestfallen look on her face and the way her fingers curled against her legs, she had.
Kairi loved Sora enough that it could bring him back from Kingdom Hearts, Riku could almost hear her thinking. Can I really just get between that?
From the sounds of things, though, she already had.
"The shadows are an improvement," Axel remarked dryly.
Donald groaned and rolled his eyes, dragging one wing over his face. In spite of his annoyance toward the Nobody-turned-lion, Sora had to agree. The last time they had seen Scar, invisible, fiery puppet strings had pulled his Heartless form about, and he'd proven one of the most difficult opponents that the group – which had numbered five, counting Char and Simba – had ever faced.
Just remembering that day made a shiver lance up Sora's spine. Simba's grievous wounds, the words that the true heir to the throne had hissed into his traitorous uncle's ear… and the fury clouding Char's face the first time Scar had nearly knocked the Keybearer off the precipice.
He pushed that disconcerting memory away and glanced over his shoulder. Even though Axel's legs were longer, he still padded along behind the smaller lion, as if pushing his arrogance aside long enough to respect the unspoken leadership he had only glimpsed.
"So," the Nobody said, staring with his head cocked to the side at Sora, "why are we going to this Pride Rock place again?"
Sora sighed. Even his own notorious forgetfulness didn't extend this far. "Because we have to see Simba. The current king of Pride Rock," he explained hastily. The explanation came instinctively: a very large part of him – the part that had propelled him forward to push Axel down and demand where Kairi was – was writhing in disbelief at his own failure to tear the pyro apart. Even Donald and Goofy shared that incredulity, according to the conversation they'd had before Axel had tagged along with them.
But another part of him – a part that definitely didn't answer to Roxas – had influenced his decision to keep Axel with them. He couldn't get a definite answer about where at least one of his friends was if he destroyed Axel now.
And maybe at the end of this, Axel would tell them how to get to the Organization's world.
That hope rattled thinly and felt frail within Sora's chest, but he found himself clinging to it anyway. If only because the battle with Jafar earlier today had exhausted him and reminded him why he had stopped darting from world to world within one day.
"Oh. Heh. Right." Axel blinked, focused on the grass his paws currently pushed underfoot with every step he made.
Sora almost stopped in his tracks, so surprised was he at Axel's relative quietness. In the end, he faltered only momentarily before walking on. Pride Rock's thorn-like structure protruded from the horizon in the distance, growing closer all the while with every greasy blade of grass the four of them passed.
Before long, the silence began to unnerve Sora's already-strained senses. Lashing out in fury toward Axel had sapped his emotional strength, but while that exhaustion weakly dueled with the desire for the truth in his heart, he still found it in himself to feel that anger stir again. This quiet felt more oppressive than those first few days with Char.
And at least with Char…
Bolts of lightning rent the air, along with multiple globules of swirling shadow. Immediately, Sora summoned the Decisive Pumpkin into his teeth; he almost spat it out at the taste on the hilt – apparently he'd forgotten to wash his own blood off the miniature Jack Skellington face – but focused quickly on the task at hand.
At least with Char, they'd fought constant battles to keep their minds off the weirdness surrounding their new comrade.
Sora was more than willing to admit he needed the distraction now.
Multiple Heartless converged on them, all tower-like creatures whose eyes leered out at the group on a dark sphere near the tower's bottom. Sora had fought these in the Land of Dragons, where, in retrospect, his search for his friends had expanded.
As he flung himself forward, though, images of something else flashed across his mind. White towers, a red carpet stretching across a pristine floor, Queen Minnie recoiling in terror.
Above all, though, one thing was prominent: a streak of brown and red dashing from Heartless to Heartless.
Sora nearly groaned aloud. As if he didn't have enough memories he couldn't explain.
In spite of his frustration – and the thread of longing that formed in his heart at the thought of her – he leapt into the air and channeled everything he felt into his Keyblade. The jump proved a little wobbly, thanks to his shorter, increased amount of legs; instinct pulled his Keyblade forward, though, and disposed of the Heartless in moments.
Goofy pulled his shield forward, and the turtle shell flipped easily from invisibility onto his back. It was a strange sight, a hollow shell balancing on top of another one; this way it near blended into Goofy's body. Donald's broom materialized in his talons, which nearly fumbled the staff out of their grip. Sora stifled a chuckle at the sight of Donald tightening his grasp and looking around challengingly, as if making sure no one had noticed. He found himself glad he had remembered how to summon his Keyblade in this form.
Which was more than Axel could do.
He looked over at their newest companion, words of advice springing almost reluctantly to his tongue. We can't really fight with someone who can't do anything.
Then again, he couldn't picture Axel just standing by and watching, weapons or not.
His suspicions died away, as did the rather paltry suggestion to hold his chakrams in his teeth, when one of the towers suddenly jerked. The ball at its base rolled free, as if the Heartless had lost control of its weak spot, which allowed fiery claws an easier target.
Axel landed, paws still coated in that flame. He leaned down and blew on the fiery paw prints left in his wake before looking up and seeing Sora gawking. "Don't you have something to do?" he prodded, though not without a smirk on his feline face.
His veiled insistence broke through Sora's trance. The brown lion cub shook his head and couldn't stop the grin that wove its way across his face. "Yeah!" He turned back to the Heartless and pawed the grass. "Let's do this so we can see Simba!"
Before Axel could form any response, he darted forward, veering around the towers in front of them to head for a dinosaur-like Heartless. Somehow, the Keybearer didn't want to see if Axel's eyes bore any kind of longing nostalgia.
Donald was frantically backing away from the Heartless as it advanced, flinging his staff frantically. Every spark from his attacks bounced uselessly off the Heartless' gleaming aura, though, much to his visible frustration.
Sora recognized this foe from last time they'd come here; even more, though, he recognized the dinosaur's mount, a twiggy, shaman-like beast waving its own makeshift wand about. A pale azure glow rimmed with swirling shadow enveloped the shaman, flames appearing in a circle before shooting forward at Donald.
Quickly, Sora barreled forward into the dinosaur's side. The remnants of its attack sputtered into oblivion, making him wince as the light blue fires doused his back and left minor burning sensations in their wake. Since they didn't have the same otherworldly heat as normal fire, though, he knew they wouldn't leave any permanent damage.
Normal fire. Hades. Char pushing Sora aside.
Glaring up at the Heartless, Sora pushed forward in his assault, spiraling in midair before landing with a roar. The sound tunneled up from somewhere deep inside him, a frustrated place he hadn't dared to probe before now, but that now was making its debut in this attack.
Beams of orange light rent the air; the shafts impaled the Heartless and rendered it a cloud of smoke and a glowing pink heart that had once been its burden. Watching it float, jewel-like, into the air and into the clouds, Sora felt the grip on his bloodied Keyblade – which was starting to hurt his teeth a little – grow more slack.
Oddly, he thought, that particular shade of pink reminded him of Kairi.
A hoarse voice squawking his name brought him back to reality, the reality that condensed him into a feline form and had none of his closest friends at his side. He whipped his head back toward Donald and saw the duck eyeing him with unabashed surprise.
"New attack?" was all he said.
Sora nodded. "Yeah. I guess."
As one, the two of them whirled and charged for the nearest Heartless. For Donald, it was a tower; for Sora, it was another sorcerer on a monster's back.
Between the four of them, the battle quickly ended; soon, though, Sora noticed the Heartless falling much more quickly than just their group was capable of. When the enemies cleared and he could again see the savannah grass swaying gently, his eyes widened at who had shown up.
"Simba!" Goofy greeted.
The dusty-pelted lion lifted his head and smiled at them. "You came back," he said, yet exhaustion threaded through every word.
"This the guy we're looking for?" Axel nudged Sora's shoulder with the human equivalent of his elbow. As a human, the gesture would have only been irritating; now, though, it only annoyed him because it nearly knocked him over.
"Yeah, it is," he hissed back.
Axel appraised the true king: ruffled red mane, sunken brown eyes, the haunted hunch to his spine and the forced nature of the welcoming smile on his face. "Looks kind of pathetic to me," he said at last. "Some king."
"Axel!" Sora gasped. He shoved the larger lion with the bony part of his shoulder, feeling far too gratified when Axel cringed away from the sharp contact. "This is the king of the Pride Lands you're insulting!"
"Yeah, you don't know what he's been through," Donald added. "Show him some respect!" Although he directed his anger toward the Nobody, he cast a withering glare in Sora's direction. As one, the Keybearer and Simba winced, both out of shame.
Now are you glad you dragged him with us? Donald's glower demanded.
Simba straightened his shoulders, nodding gratefully to Donald and Sora. "So… have you gotten any closer to finding who you're looking for?"
That proved the exact wrong question to ask. Feline as the action was, Sora's ears and tail unconsciously fell anyway. "Not exactly," he murmured.
"Yeah, we found the King for a little while, but then we lost him. Uh, our king!" Donald hastily amended when Simba looked bewildered.
"And now Char's gone," Goofy said, tentatively, as if dreading Sora's reaction to mentioning the addition to their search.
Simba's eyes widened. "I was wondering why she and Roxas were gone," he said. If he noticed the way Sora's shoulders tensed at Roxas' name, he didn't mention it.
His tired gaze sharpened when it landed on Axel. "And who this was."
Axel tossed his head of messy spikes, completely flippant of how his own comment had made Simba wary. Doubtless, he thought the vibrant lion was some remaining spy of his uncle's. "Just a guy passing through."
Simba lowered his head, fur along his shoulders bristling. "The last time we had strangers 'passing through,' she turned out to be working for Scar."
Axel's eyes widened a fraction at that "she." Just a fraction. Almost immediately, though, the confusion – and near recognition, a trait that the Roxas in Sora picked up despite Sora not knowing him well – in his eyes faded. "Oh, all right, if you have to know my name," he drawled. "The name's Axel. Got it –"
"He's like Roxas," Sora interrupted. That earned him a startled glare from Axel, and instantly he realized the mistake he'd made bringing up Roxas. After all, as far as Axel knew, Sora knew little to nothing of his Nobody's existence.
Thank Char for that, he thought, and found himself suddenly, irrationally proud of what Char had done. Because it had allowed him to one-up Axel, if nothing else.
Regret at his verbal slip faded almost instantly, and he barreled heedlessly forward. "We found him… a little while back, so he's sticking with us for the time being."
He could feel Donald staring incredulously at him, the strength of his disbelief potent enough to contain both his feelings and what Char would have felt. In the corner of his eye, Goofy cocked his head to the side, before his rounded back shifted in something like a shrug. An unspoken well, you're the leader, I guess you know what you're doin'.
Sora had to repress a laugh then, because that was so far from the truth it was sad.
Simba regarded him skeptically; Sora tried to keep his fur from rising along his spine, but as the instinct was too ingrained in his current species to suppress, it proved immensely difficult. He just quailed under the king's gaze, hoping he wouldn't see through the lie.
To his immense relief, Simba only straightened his shoulders again. "I see," was all he said.
Donald spoke up then, clearly itching to reach the crux of the trouble here. "We saw Scar's ghost earlier," he announced.
"Donald!" Goofy chided him, swinging his head to glare at the duck.
"Well, what? You guys weren't gonna tell him anytime soon!"
Sora's lips twitched upward at the others' arguing, but he ignored them mostly and watched for Simba's reaction. Beside him, Axel shifted his claws in and out of the grass; Sora could see the movement due to the dim light that meandered through the clouds flickering off his claws.
The curiosity at Axel's anxious movements died instantly when Simba let out a resigned sigh. He turned back to the true king and saw not surprise, not fear, but defeat. "I was afraid of this," he murmured.
"Y'mean that's not the first time it showed up?" Goofy asked.
"No," Simba sighed with a half-hearted shake of his head. "It… he's shown up all over the Pride Lands. Timon and Pumbaa invited me out to our old hangout the other day, and Scar showed up there, too." He gave a weak grin, one whose affection toward his oldest friends was tainted by resignation. "Pumbaa about broke our eardrums screaming."
Somehow, it wasn't the lack of concern toward his friends or his home that grabbed hold of Sora's heart and held it: it was that first pronoun replacement, that referring to Scar's ghost as he. It almost seemed like in Simba's eyes, Scar had come back to haunt him for good.
Simba lifted his head and stared Sora right in the eye. "You know what I said to my uncle that day, on top of Pride Rock? Just before I finished him, I looked him in the face and said…" He stared down at the ground, as if seeing that hellish, twisted glare of darkness once more. "I told him, 'you will never haunt us again.' It's like he's proving me wrong, even now."
"But that's not right!" Sora argued. "We took down Scar, remember? I'm sure it's just some other Heartless playing tricks on you."
"He's probably right." Axel had remained infuriatingly silent up till this point, but now he spoke. Simba listened on with undisguised hostility, making Sora repress a sigh. It was Char and Roxas all over again. "Sometimes Heartless prey on your heart, even though they don't try to kill you. They feed off fear and darkness, too."
His words sounded familiar, tickled a sense of déjà vu deep inside Sora's mind. Yen Sid had said something to that effect, too, hadn't he? He had to dig relatively deep down into his reserves of memory to recall even slightly what Yen Sid had said; a month had gone by so quickly, and held so much significance, that just those four weeks felt like an eternity ago.
As long as a shard of darkness remained in a single heart, the Heartless would never go away.
Goofy had asked something about whether or not the absence of darkness would destroy the Heartless, and Char had laughed at his attempt at optimism. At the time Sora had resented her pessimism, and the way she kept undermining his leadership, but now he knew she had a point.
Simba's situation only proved she had a point.
Simba shrugged and looked up at the darkening sky. Oh yeah, Sora remembered vaguely, the day was almost over. Now he remembered why he never tried to visit two different worlds within the same day anymore. It reminded him too much of only a few days before, when he'd found out so many things. Kairi's being so close, Char's secrets, his feelings for both of them having reversed…
"I tried asking Rafiki about it," he confessed quietly. "But he just told me to ask the hyenas, since they probably knew more about their old leader coming back." Despite the dullness in his tone, he all but spat out the word leader. Something like hope for Simba stirred in Sora's heart then.
That hope only died, though, when the king sighed again. "Then when I tried to ask the hyenas, they just laughed at me, and the ghost chased me off."
"Wait, wait, wait," Axel cut in. Sora cringed – the derisiveness blazing in just those words told him this could only end badly – and dared look over. Even from the side, those acid-green eyes looked scornful, and his face had twisted into an expression like he had just tasted a lemon. "You let a ghost – no, a bunch of Heartless probably messing with you – chase you, the king, back to your little throne? Probably with your tail between your legs, too."
"Axel –" Sora began.
"No, Roxas, give me a second," Axel tossed over his shoulder. Donald's jaw dropped, and Goofy covered his eyes with his ears; Sora's muffled gasp was drowned out by the Nobody charging on, voice growing more and more mocking all the while. He didn't seem to have realized his mistake. "Some king you are, if you let something that barely even exists shake you up like that."
Simba drew himself up, baring his fangs. "You don't even understand –"
"Oh, I think I do." Axel stood up, forcing himself right into the king's face. "I don't even have a heart anymore, but I know what it's like to have a reminder of your past looking you in the eye and taunting you. Hell – I've got two, right now."
Roxas and Anxclof, Sora realized, sick to his stomach.
"But that never, ever stopped me. Why are you letting it stop you?"
He pulled back, settling on his haunches with that same disgusted look on his face. At some point, nostalgia for the old days with his friends had probably twitched across his countenance, sent a fissure into that façade of anger and disdain, but the cracks had repaired themselves almost immediately and left him the same as before.
Simba glared down at the ground, an internal struggle visible in both what they could see of his furrowed brow and his claws tearing at the grass. Sora's eyes darted from where he was riveted on Simba's conflict when Axel cleared his throat.
The brown cub opened his mouth, ready to chastise the Nobody for all but destroying Simba's already-fragile confidence. He could feel Donald's feathers bristling against his back and Goofy's shell raising in response to his tensed shoulders.
All three reactions dropped, though, when Axel winked.
He flicked his tail at Donald. The mage gave him a look filled with as much bemusement and rage as Sora had ever seen from him; when Axel hardened his gaze at him, though, he let out a faint squawk of understanding.
Sora and Goofy exchanged confused glances, only to blink when Donald's staff flashed. An instant later, both cub and dog-turtle gave a start at a familiar, shadowy figure springing up in front of them. The grass blew seamlessly across Scar's translucent, dark shape.
"Guys –!" Sora started, but Goofy's paw across his mouth silenced him. He struggled against the knight's grip, which held him fast even though he stood at maybe half Sora's current height, but Goofy shook his head frantically at him. He mouthed something, much to Sora's growing frustration; now not only had another Scar ghost appeared, but he was face to face with his reminder that he couldn't read lips.
He was even more shocked when Donald spoke tauntingly.
"Simba, the do-nothing king…"
"That's what they'll call you in the end, isn't it?" Axel queried lazily, bringing up one paw to rest under his chin. "Remember that Simba guy? Oh, you mean the one who sat around quivering like a big fat baby when push came to shove? Yeah, that guy. Wonder what happened to him."
Simba's eyes widened at their steady derision. As Sora looked on, wanting more than anything to dispel the negative emotions undoubtedly brewing inside Simba right now, something flashed across the king's face.
Something akin to frustration, anger, and humiliation, breaking free of the chains Simba had bound tight about those emotions as they had festered in his heart.
In the stillness of the savannah, Sora could almost hear a snap within Simba.
With a roar, he lunged for the phantom, claws out. The ribbons of shadow undulating off Scar's form writhed in response to the charge, and his talons carved through the shape like a knife through hot butter.
As the ghost vanished, shadows twisting weakly through the air, Simba looked back at them, understanding flashing in his eyes. It was like something inside him, something that had lain dormant since the day he had taken his place on Pride Rock, had switched on, lighting his eyes and giving him resolve.
In the same moment, Sora realized what his friends had done.
Feeling his captive relax in the aftermath of epiphany, Goofy lowered his paw.
Simba grinned wryly. "Thanks for tricking me, guys."
"Anytime, Your Majesty." Axel lowered his paw to press it to his chest and dipped his head in a melodramatic bow.
"You guys could've told me that was what he was up to," Sora said to Donald and Goofy.
Donald rolled his eyes, bringing his staff out from where he'd hidden it behind his back. "I didn't even know until the last second, okay?"
"Guys," Simba said, a chuckle embedded in his voice. "I think I should tell Nala and the other lionesses that… I'm ready."
"Ready?" Goofy blinked.
"The king's back," Sora explained, feeling a grin spread across his face.
He glanced at Axel, not knowing whether to thank him or not. It was the polite thing to do, but… something about the Nobody's smug face made him reconsider it.
Fortunately, Axel beat him to it. He looked over, blinking when he saw the Keybearer's eyes on him, then shrugged his skinny shoulders. "You're welcome. Roxas."
The name seemed almost tacked on, almost a reminder of just whom Sora was a remnant. Anxclof had done that; Demyx had done that…
Yet with Axel, the visceral response, the need to confirm just what his name was, only stirred momentarily within him before falling silent.
As it turned out, nothing had finished yet.
Simba stared evenly into the sunken eyes of Scar's ghost. Behind him, Sora tensed, ready to summon the Decisive Pumpkin if necessary. Nala stood protectively in front of the other lionesses, fully ready to risk herself to help Simba despite the growing life deep in her belly.
Above the anxious murmurs of his subjects, Simba spoke two words to the phantom before him.
"Get out."
Just like that, it vanished in the same way as its fake from minutes before.
He heard a breathy sigh behind him and turned just in time to see Nala stagger. As it turned out, one of the other lionesses had fainted dead away.
Axel snickered, while Simba grinned and shook his head. Without waiting for his order, the other lionesses rallied to carry their unconscious fellow away, grumbles and triumphant whispers alike mingling. Nala alone remained, padding up to stand by her love's side.
"You did it," she said, nuzzling his neck. Her bravery from earlier melted away in the face of her relief, rendering her all but leaning against him.
"Yeah." Simba breathed deeply; clearly, he was taking as much strength from her as she was from him.
"Way to go, Simba!" Sora congratulated. He didn't realize he'd raised one paw in anticipation of a high-five until Simba gave him an odd look.
"Lions," Axel muttered into the Keybearer's ear.
Sora lowered his paw sheepishly. "Right."
"You sure that's the end of it?" Goofy queried, coming up to stand next to Sora.
As if his doubt had been a signal, suddenly tendrils of darkness weaving together from all directions obscured the view of the savannah.
"You had to say something," Donald sighed.
"Simba!" two familiar voices shrieked. The six of them turned to see Timon scrambling toward them with Pumbaa straggling behind. Sweat coated both meerkat and warthog's fur, as if they had sprinted here from the oasis.
"Even at the oasis?" Simba asked, eyes widening.
"Yeah," Timon said through heavy pants. He leaned his palms on his tiny knees, trying to catch his breath. "There are… ghosts of Scar… everywhere…"
"Told you it was Heartless," Axel said.
Ignoring the Nobody's snide remark, Sora gazed out at the savannah. "And now they're gathering," he said.
Simba disentangled himself from Nala's embrace. "You know I have to go down there."
Hearing the king's tone, the way his words were a statement and not a question, Nala gave a nod of defeat. "Just… be careful. I'm counting on you to do what you need to do. And so is our baby."
Simba nodded back at her, before turning to Sora and his companions. "Are you with me?" he asked. In that question lay all his remaining doubts, all the fears that had festered over the few days since he'd been crowned.
A few days. Simba had only ruled the Pride Lands for a few days.
With that knowledge ringing in his head, Sora dipped his head and bowed. "Now and forever, Your Majesty!"
Random side note: Is the formatting for documents on this site being dumb to anyone else, or is it just my laptop? The buttons are all blank, and I had to keep hitting them before I could find the horizontal rule. (That's what she said.)
Immature jokes aside, please review!