Chapter VI:
Sacrifice
Sora woke with a start and a flash of pain in his head. His head shot up, mouth dry and filled with sand, his body numb from the rain. He looked up at the rock to his left, jutting towards the sky. He remembered. The heartless had been winning, pouring through a breach in their defenses, heading towards the camp. He had fallen. Scores of heartless dragging him over the edge of the cliff.
Riku. Kairi.
He knelt in the sand, blood pouring from a dozen wounds, each more fatal than the last. Had the enemy been mortal, the beach would have been littered with corpse upon corpse, mountains of rent, burned, beaten, and frozen bodies. Blood would have run like a flood and a stench like death would have risen for miles. But only a dark mist remained. A heavy fog, leftover from the vanquished heartless, haunting the shore. The only testament to the army he had slain.
Sora could hear the remaining three Darksides breaking through the jungle behind him, imagine their hulking bodies towering over the trees. Neo-shadows ran past, bloodlust in their piss-yellow eyes as they vanished into the undergrowth.
The camp would be taken soon. He could see it, the vision searing itself into his brain. Fire raging through the trees, then the tents. His people running, trying to get away, screaming when they failed. Riku would fight until the end. Somehow believing they could turn the tide. He wondered when it was that Riku had become the optimistic one. Kairi would be there too. She would never leave, not while there were people in need. A cure spell here, a keyblade strike there. No. She would never run. Neither of them would, and both would die because of it. Because of him.
Another wave of heartless landed on the beach. Sora swayed, trying to get up, but only succeeding in almost falling. They ignored him. The human was already dead. Why should they bother? His heart would soon be theirs.
Sora fell, collapsing into the wet sand. After all he'd been through, this is how it would end? All he had ever wanted was to protect his friends. Turns out he couldn't even manage that. It just didn't seem fair.
Riku burst from the trees like a bull crashing through a fence. He charged the nearest heartless, cleaving it in two, then leaping back and flinging his keyblade to bring down two more. His feet slid through the sand, sending up clouds of dust as he came to a halt. A ball of dark blue fire formed between his palms. His eyes burned. The fire began to spin, growing larger each nanosecond. His lungs pulled in a deep breath. Faster it spun. His muscles strained, holding the fire back. Faster still, freezing his palms. Riku roared, the war cry echoing down the beach.
He let go.
The fire shrieked down the beach like death on the wings. Sand was superheated into needles of glass, lancing through heartless, in its wake. A fiery explosion rippled through the heartless ranks, blue light cascading down the beach, sending a hundred heartless to oblivion.
"Sora!"
Riku scanned the beach, hoping for a glimpse of that spiky brown hair. Too late. The heartless where coming. Pouring through a shattered barrier, even faster than before. He had to slow them down before looking for Sora. Riku's mind raced. Maybe he could collapse the trees, light them on fire. A makeshift barricade was better than non-
Wait
Between the heartless, but not a heartless. A figure. Taller, struggling to its feet. A flash of spiky hair.
"Sora!" Riku yelled.
Fireball after fireball launched into the enemy. Riku flung himself into the horde, carving and stabbing, taking the heartless out with ruthless efficiency. Instinct guided his movements. The unconscious rage diminishing the fight to snippets of glowing slaughter.
Smoke left by a severed head.
The chittering sound of five hundred talons.
A frozen body, shattered in midair.
The scent of burned sand and darkness.
A throat ripped through by a thrown stake.
His hands like frost, cold as death.
Skulls crushed on a reflect barrier.
The taste of copper on his tongue.
Soaring into the grey sky, gravity pulling him down, and black light searing through the enemy as he crashed his keyblade down to earth.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Riku lowered his keyblade. A path was torn through the heartless, straight to the ocean. Straight to him.
Sora stood as if he had been there for a thousand years. A statue, a monolith standing guard over the islands. He stood with the tide at his knees and hands clenched at his sides, defiant until the end. Tattered clothes flapped in the wind and blood glistened on his skin, unnoticed and immaterial. With the rising sun over his shoulder, he stood. Unbroken.
He turned, and his eyes met Riku's. No longer mournful, no longer distant, his eyes were the ones Riku had always known. Joyful, compassionate, and strong. A Darkside rose from the waves directly behind Sora. Riku gasped and pointed, his voice suddenly absent. He swung his keyblade into battle position and prepared to charge.
But Sora merely raised his hand, stopping Riku before he started, and Sora smiled.
For the first time since the initial attack, Sora felt at peace. The pain was gone. The fight would be over soon. He may not have won the fight, but they would win the war. His friends would survive. Riku would take care of Kairi, like he always had, and help would be here soon. Donald, Goofy, and the King. Together, they would push back the darkness and retake Destiny Islands. The heartless would be put down. For good this time. He was certain of it.
Sora lowered his hand, bringing his arms in towards his chest. He closed his eyes, gathering what strength he had left.
Sora.
A sudden warmth grew in his chest and he felt his feet leave the ground.
This is not the end.
Sora saw himself, floating above the waves. Light coalesced around his body like a cloud of burnished gold. The heartless rushed towards him, drawn to the light. The Darkside drew back its massive hand.
Hold on Sora, The Voice said.
The light collapsed inward, then detonated, blasting outward in a storm of pure light. From behind his eyes, Sora saw the blinding flash.
Then the world…went dark.
Hold on.
The explosion hit Riku with the force of a meteor. He shot backwards, nearly into the trees. His head whiplashed into the ground, vision flickering and knocking the wind out of him. He heaved uselessly, lungs searching for oxygen. Rolling onto his side, he tried to pull himself towards the edge of the water.
"Sora," He croaked.
Holding his side, he pulled himself up. He looked around. The heartless were gone. Not a single one remained on the beach. No one did. Just himself and the boy face down in the sand. Riku limped over, collapsing next to him, and rolled his friend onto his back.
The morning light fell on Sora's face. Sora, the boy who had saved the worlds. Once from Darkness, then again from Nothingness. The warrior who had saved countless lives and never asked for anything in return. The friend, who had never given up on him, even when he had given in to darkness. His best friend.
Riku touched his fingers to Sora's neck, praying desperately for the first time in his life.
No pulse.
A cold, iron fist dropped in Riku's stomach.
"No!" He yelled, "No, no, no goddammit Sora!"
He grabbed Sora's shoulders, shaking him.
"You can't go out like this, you hear me! You can't!"
Riku's eyes clenched shut and he punched the sand. His head fell on Sora's chest.
"You can't," He whispered.
His eyes tingled, and he tasted salt. Nothing felt real. After everything they had been through. They should have died so many times, but they had always made it through. Other people died. Strangers, people he didn't know. Never them. Never, Sora. Sora couldn't die. He couldn't…
Sobs racked Riku's body, shaking him to the core, grief piercing his heart like a rusty nail. He clenched Sora's shirt, willing him to come back.
"I'm sorry Sora," He said, "I'm sorry."
A slight noise penetrated Riku's consciousness, so quiet he almost didn't hear it. Wiping his eyes, Riku raised his head.
A single Shadow heartless stood in the trees, its head cocked to one side. Riku's brow furrowed and his lips twisted into a snarl. He stood, tearing his keyblade from the air. He couldn't bring Sora back, but he sure as hell could make them pay. More heartless gathered in the shadows, hundreds of twitching ghosts stepping into the grey light. Out of the corner of his eye Riku saw what must have remained of their camp's watchmen rush from the trees farther down the beach. Several gummi ships had appeared on the horizon, heading straight for them. The watchmen pointed towards them, directing the others away from the heartless. Several of them charged after him, the fury of men who are sick of running in their eyes.
The fight was brutal and short. On one side, creatures of instinct. Those who knew nothing, but darkness and the will the feed and fight. Without anger, without mercy, these slaves to the darkness only possessed the grim efficiency needed to slake their lust.
On the other, men with nothing left to lose. Their home was taken and burned to the ground. Their loved ones were either dead or depending on their own deaths to make it to safety. They had been running for what felt like a lifetime, fighting an enemy they never knew existed until their worlds were torn apart by it.
A mile down the beach the gummi ships landed. Their immense cargo doors opened onto the beach like ramps and the survivors flooded in, a writhing mass pulling and clawing at one another, desperate to get to safety.
Three figures sprinted from the central gummi ship. Their weapons gleamed in the dawn light: a shield, a staff, and a golden keyblade. They reached the battle in a matter of seconds, diving straight into the fray. They found Riku near the center, bleeding and surrounded by heartless, but taking ten of them for every drop of his blood that hit the sand. Together they fought, taking out heartless after heartless. The watchmen were dead. Their faces petrified in shock and bodies stamped into the ground by the horde. The remaining four stood back to back, their keyblades striking quick as vipers, shield swinging like a hammer, and staff launching vicious thunderbolts.
They were warriors.
But the heartless were legion.
Out of his bloodlust, Riku felt something tugging on his arm. The King.
"Riku! We have to go! Where's Sora?"
They both spun, back to back again, simultaneously blocking several heartless attacks.
Riku grunted as he shoved back an Invisible's sword, "Shoreline!"
He sighed, half-heartedly severing the Invisible's arm from its body, "He's…he's…dead your Majesty."
The King couldn't have looked more shocked. Donald and Goofy stopped in their tracks. Even the heartless seemed to pause, almost as if they sensed the sorrow crashing over those four brother's.
"Dead?" Goofy choked out.
"But…but he's Sora." Donald said, his eyes wide and disbelieving, "How?"
In a halting voice, Riku spoke, "He sacrificed himself…to save me…"
He pointed towards the ships, "To save them…To save the islands…H-he knew he didn't have l-long so he…"
Riku buried his face in his hands, unable to continue. Tears were running freely down Goofy's face. His shield trembled in his hands, shimmering as they fell onto its silver steel. Donald's head hung low, his beak quivering as he quietly sobbed. The King was breathing hard. His shoulders tensed and he stared straight into Riku.
With a shaky breath, Riku straightened and lowered his hands.
"He died a hero. I'll be damned if it was for nothing."
His piercing gaze met the King's, "And I won't leave him behind."
The King turned to the heartless, and whispered, his voice ragged with rage.
"I'll clear a path."
So the brief pause ended. The King speared into the heartless army, spheres of light launching from his keyblade. Forsaking his usual graceful, acrobatic style, he cut down the heartless with vengeful brutality. The others followed, each channeling their grief into the fight, trading anguish for wrath.
The heartless had resumed their attack, but by the time they rallied the four had reached Sora. Riku swept him over his shoulder, flinching at how pale Sora already was. The air vibrated as gummi ships shot overhead. They headed towards the remaining ships, fighting for every inch, each second stretching out for an eternity.
A lone soldier waved frantically from the cargo hold of the last gummi ship. Goofy jumped forward, whipping his shield into a blistering spinning attack. The other three dashed through the opening Goofy created. They leapt onto the cargo ramp, the soldier yelling to the pilot to take off. The gummi ship lifted, rumbling into the air as they beat back the heartless. Then they were in the air.
Donald and Goofy collapsed, and the King and Riku panted heavily, hands on their knees. Riku felt the adrenaline slowing in his veins. Finally, the fight was over. Help had come. He looked over at Sora, his head rolling loosely over Riku's shoulder.
Just not soon enough, Riku thought.
Out of nowhere, the ship jolted violently. Riku was thrown sideways, the sudden turbulence hurtling him into the wall and Sora's body slipped from his arms. Riku froze, watching uncomprehendingly as he slid towards the edge.
Sora fell.
Riku leapt after him realizing with a shock what was happening, but was pulled back by several pairs of hands. He collapsed, landing on top of Donald and Goofy.
"Riku," Donald said.
Riku watched as Sora's body grew smaller and smaller. He hit the ocean's surface, so far away Riku could barely hear the splash. Then he was gone.
He heard footsteps behind him and a hand fell on his shoulder.
"It's too late Riku. If there was any chance we could get Sora we would, but we have to leave while there's still a chance. You know that's what he would want."
The King stared down at the Islands, avoiding Riku's gaze. For a second Riku swore he saw a tear rolling down his face, then it was gone.
"I'm sorry Riku," The King said, walking back into the ship.
Riku stared down at the waves. Picturing Sora's body sinking into the abyss. The darkness closing in around him, his eyes closed in death. The crushing depths taking him down into forever sleep. The cargo hold began to close, but Riku's eyes never moved. He had failed Sora so many times. Now his final failure was complete.
The ship gained speed, just behind the others, heading for the edge of the atmosphere. Its secondary engines rumbled and a thousand piss-yellow eyes looked up. After a moments pause, they turned back to their work. There was still much to be done. There was still a world's heart to claim. The sky flashed blue, as a score of warp gummis kicked in, and the ships winked out of existence.
And Riku wept.
Author's Note:
There you have it. After all this time Sleep has finally come to a close. I knew this would be the final chapter and I wanted to post it before the 25th as a gift to you guys. I know it's a little early, but hey, who doesn't like opening a couple gifts a few days early ;). I would also like to say thank you to everyone who favorited, reviewed, and followed this story to its bitter end. Can you believe all I originally planned for this story was two thousand words and a single chapter?! Crazy right? But in all seriousness, it all meant a great deal to me and I appreciate you putting up with my infrequent updates, ridiculous sense of humor, and occasionally rambling a lot longer than I should have in the author's notes.
And so, without further ado, post any lingering reviews you have and let me know what you thought. I can't promise whether or not the next story will be in the world of Kingdom Hearts, or when it will be posted, but I promise this won't be my last.
With that, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Holidays, and to all a goodnight! Sleep well! (HA! See what I did there ;))
XIII