Riku looked down contemptuously at the castaway making such a ruckus outside the castle. It certainly wasn't what he was expecting, but he'd learned to expect the unexpected long ago. It was a creature that looked to be a mixture of several animals: the head structure and horns of a buffalo, the armed claws and body of a bear, the eyebrows of a gorilla, the jaws and mane of a lion, the tusks of a wild boar and the legs, teeth and tail of a wolf. This vaguely masculine creature was shirtless with ragged, dark gray breeches, and a ragged purple cape with a golden colored circular-shaped clasp. With the most defining, and curiously the most human, feature being those piercing blue eyes. "No vessel. No help from the Heartless. So tell me, how'd you get here?" Riku inquired the furry intruder.
The creature before Riku, the Beast, growled at the boy before gesturing its clawed hands to its chest. It...no, he, then spoke in a low, bass growl. Though his voice was low and intimidating, it carried something else. A tone that one would never expect of one so monstrous looking. "I simply believed. Nothing more." A tone of heartfelt care and devotion. But more than that. Love. "When our world fell into darkness, Belle was taken from me. I vowed I would find her again no matter what the cost. I believed I would find her...so here I am. She MUST be here." His words were filled with certainty as he looked up at the boy who blocked his way to the castle. Blocked his way to Belle. But he wouldn't let that stop him. Even if he had to fight this boy..."I will have her BACK!"
Riku seemed unimpressed by the Beast's passionate words. He wasn't going to let this animal stand in the way of him saving Kairi. "Take her if you can!" That taunt snapped the last nerve in the Beast's mind as he let out another forceful roar that shook the valley. Lunging up to the platform with feral speed and fury, the Beast swiped his right claw at Riku. For Riku, it was simple to dodge that savagely unfocused attack. And so, summoning his dark, bat-wing bladed sword, the Soul Eater, Riku reared it back and swung forward, slicing at the Beast's torso. Taken completely off guard, the Beast fell to the ground with a weak groan.
"No!"
Riku's brow furrowed and his smirk grew as he recognized Sora's voice. After all the time he spent going back and forth between worlds, he finally made it here. And much to his chagrin, Sora brought those new friends with him. Each one of them horrified by Riku's assault on the Beast. They must have heard the commotion when they arrived. "So, you've finally made it. About time. I've been waiting for you." Riku said with a serisive tone, which shifted to an almost nostalgic one. "We've always been rivals, haven't we? You've always pushed me, as I've always pushed you."
The way he spoke. It made Sora frown a little in sorrow. Perhaps deep down, Riku still cared and could be reached. "Riku..."
"What? Riku, you're not Sora's rival. You're his friend." Ruby spoke up, trying to placate the inexplicably angry Riku. "Sora has risked so much to try and find you and Kairi, both. You guys both want the same thing so it didn't make sense for you to be against each other. You and Kairi matter more to him than anything else." Riku had to see that much since Sora came all this way.
"Do we?" Riku asked, sneering with utmost disdain at Ruby. The one he despised the most among the Remnant denizens. "If Sora actually cared, he'd have found us sooner. Instead, he chose to play around, showing off the Keyblade to every person he came across, including you...his new friends...rather than look for the people who supposedly matter most to him. So how about keep your mouth shut for once, you stupid girl."
Ruby staggered at Riku's scathing words. Blake stepped beside her team leader, holding a hand out in front of an already seething Yang along with Weiss. "You need to wake up, Riku. If you're working with somebody like this Maleficent lady and Cinder, you're hanging out with a bad group. I know what it's like to be fighting along side a cause you think is in the right. You need to realize that you're being blind to-"
"I see what's going on clear as day," Riku said to Blake with a detesting glare. "You seriously think I don't doubt something is up with these guys? I do. I just don't care. They're doing everything they can to help me. They're more serious about restoring Kairi than Sora is because he stopped caring about me and her, a long time ago. Why else would he have taken so long to get here?"
"Jeez. Is this guy seriously Sora's best friend?" Sun whispered to Neptune as the boy spoke so bitterly toward them. Neptune exchanged an equally skeptic look with his simian faunus friend, wondering how in the world this could have been the same Riku that Sora had risked so much to find.
"Riku," Pyrrha spoke up, not flinching at the boy's glare as she stepped up to speak. "You're being unreasonable. Sora is here now because we finally know for certain that Kairi is here. The fact that Maleficent is here as well and you're working with her means you could have told Sora sooner. The two of you could have been with her sooner. Is he really the one being uncaring here?"
"Exactly. Seems like YOU are the one who doesn't really care here." Jaune said, stepping up beside Pyrrha with a glare. "Sora even offered you to come with us when we first met at Traverse Town, but you just left! Are you seriously going to say that Sora is the one who doesn't care when you-"
"Spare me the lecture." Riku simply scoffed at what he viewed as Pyrrha and Jaune's attempt to get in his head. "If I told Sora about Maleficent, he'd only get in the way, trying to play the hero. He always was fixated on such things when we played as kids. And it's no different now. You can make all the excuses you want for him, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm the one who found both him and Kairi, and I'm the one who's been giving everything to get her back. Not him."
"So you think that gives you the right to hurt people from other worlds like Pinocchio?" Yang interjected angrily. "You think Kairi would like hearing that one of her friends tried to hurt a child, thinking it would bring her back?"
Riku glared at Yang as he yelled back at her. "Are you saying you wouldn't do the same for your precious little sister if she was in Kairi's position? I'd be just fine with letting the Heartless have her to see if you care just as little as Sora does for Kairi. It would at least shut her up." His threatening taunt shocked Ruby, and made Yang furiously clench her fists as her eyes flared red. Donald and Goofy rushed to help Weiss and Blake hold Yang back as her fists trembled with rage, lest she lose it and charge him.
"Riku, listen to yourself! Don't you hear what you sound like!?" Sora exclaimed. He couldn't believe Riku, his best friend, would say something so cruel.
"They don't have anything to do with this, Sora." Riku said, focusing his attention completely on Sora now. "This is between you and me...and it's all over. There can't be two Keyblade Masters."
Sora and his friends blinked with confusion at those words. Two Keyblade Masters? "What're you talking about?"
Everyone's mutual confusion drew a smirk to Riku's face. That was going to make what happened next all the more satisfying. Now it was time to wake Sora up from his little play-fantasy. "Let the Keyblade choose...Its true master!" he proclaimed as he thrust out his open right hand.
To Sora's confusion, his Keyblade emerged into his own right hand even though he didn't want it out. It began moving all on its own afterwards, pulling him so hard that he almost leaned over and nearly fell over until regaining his footing and held the other end. Even when tugging with both arms, Sora felt like something was trying to pull his Keyblade out his hand and he was struggling to maintain his grip.
"Sora? What's the matter?!" Weiss said, her face plastered with the same confused concern as everyone else.
The next moment, light always surrounded Sora's Keyblade whenever he vanished or summoned it suddenly flashed all the brighter, causing Sora to nearly stumble from the struggle. In Riku's right hand came the same kind of light... before in his hand, the Keyblade Sora had was now in his.
Everyone was stunned, releasing their own shocked 'Huh?!' or 'What?!' as Riku held the Keyblade now in his hand. Smirking with an amused huff through his nose, Riku examined the weapon with cold satisfaction. "Maleficent was right," His expression turned to a sneering grin as he spoke in a brutally factual tone at Sora and pointed to him. "You don't have what it takes to save Kairi. It's up to me." With the Keyblade raised, his confidence was strong, like he was a knight making an oath. "Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world.
Everyone was silent for a while and still in shock at what just happened. Nora was still holding Yang and said, "Okay, I don't get a whole lot of it but... didn't Jaune and the others tell us that apparently the Keyblade chooses its master? So why does it look like it chose Riku?"
Ren could only answer her question with a shake of his head, showing he didn't know either. NONE of them knew what had happened. Especially Sora who looked at his empty hand, flexing it desperately to try and call it back...only for nothing to happen. The Keyblade...wouldn't obey him anymore. "But...that's impossible? How did this happen? I'm the one who fought my way here with the Keyblade!" he exclaimed, disbelief filling his voice. He went through so much with it. It helped him seal the Keyholes in all the worlds they went to. He fought so hard for so many people with it. Why?
Riku delivered the answer as he raised the Keyblade high, as if admiring it with that same sneering grin. "You were just the delivery boy." The implication of his words struck Sora to the core. Was Riku really the one who was chosen by the Keyblade?
"So that's why it didn't vanish from his hand when he took it from Sora at Traverse Town." Blake muttered. The entire time, Riku was LETTING Sora keep it, only to take it away from him here and now?
"...Deliery boy?" Ruby spoke up, her face angled down toward the ground as shook her head with disbelief. "After all we went through, all the things you put Sora through, how can you just call him that?!" she asked, anger lacing her voice as she looked back up at Riku, unable to believe he could be so cruel.
Her inquiry barely seemed to matter to Riku as he kept his gaze on the Keyblade. "He was never going to be good enough for this. His heart's too weak. I know what needs to be done, unlike him. You don't like it?...well, guess I can't tell you to "just go home", can I?"
That was the last straw for Yang. "That's IT!" Yang shouted as she suddenly charged at Riku, breaking out of Weiss, Blake, Donald, and Goofy's hold in a rush of fury. Riku simply smirked as she lunged at him, fist reared back to punch him.
But Yang's fist did not strike him as he inched to the side to avoid her punch, and struck her as she left herself open, sending her tumbling back. "Yang!" Ruby cried out as she and her other teammates ran to help her sister.
Riku scoffed as he dismissed the Keyblade and looked back toward the disbelief stricken Sora. In place of the Keyblade...was a wooden sword, like the ones he and Sora once fought each other with. "Sorry, but your part's over now. Here. Go play hero with this." he said derisively as he threw the wooden sword at Sora's feet and turned to leave.
Sora couldn't believe this was happening. He lost it. He lost the weapon that was given to him to slay the Heartless, stop so many terrible people and save the world's he came across. Now it was gone. Having nothing but a toy sword as a replacement was like pouring salt on an open wound. It was enough for Sora to fall to his knees and keel over with a hung head.
"Hey, Sora! Snap out of it!" Ruby said as she knelt to his side. But nothing she said could rouse Sora from his defeated reverie.
Jaune trembled furiously as he simply watched everything unfold. Sora had been utterly broken by his own best friend, left behind like some obsolete failure...the very thing Jaune feared he himself would always be. He couldn't just stand by and do nothing. Everything Riku did to Sora just infuriated him as he drew his sword and charged at him. "Get back here!"
"Jaune, wait!" Pyrrha cried out, but Jaune was already rushing toward a heavily unimpressed Riku.
It was only after Jaune swung his weapon toward him that Riku reacted, turning and parrying the blade with the Keyblade. As Jaune stumbled backwards, caught by surprise, Riku spoke up again. "You look older than me. How old are you?" he asked, showing little difficulty, keeping Jaune's weapon at bay.
"Ngh-What? I'm seventeen. What does that have to do with anyth-?"
Jaune didn't even have time to finish his startled response as he noticed the dark flames gathering in Riku's free hand. The shocked team leader didn't have the time to react as suddenly, he was blown back by a waft of dark fire.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren all cried out as their leader tumbled backwards.
As they went to help him up, Sun and Neptune found themselves uncertain of what to do. While they were certainly angry enough to attack Riku, considering he now had the Keyblade, and how important...and powerful it was as well as Riku, they could tell that that wasn't a good idea. With the Keyblade on his side, Riku seemed powerful enough to knock all of them for a loop.
You remind me a lot of Sora. When he was a kid, yet you're two years older than I am? Seriously" Riku said with a derisive huff. "On the outside, perhaps. But you're both children pretending to be grown ups. Kids pretending to be heroes." Riku paused as he looked back up at Ruby who was frozen on the spot, trembling with disbelief at everything Riku was doing. "Just like you." With that final scathing comment, Riku turned and walked away. And all Ruby could do...was stand their, silver eyes agape with moist disbelief.
As the fighting, such as it was, came to an end, Donald looked to his canine friend with an expression of morose finality. "Goofy. Let's go. We have to remember our mission." he said, reminding them of the task the king had appointed them.
"Oh!" Goofy said, realizing what Donald meant. Despite his understanding, he sounded hesitant as he looked back toward where Riku had gone. "Well, I know the king told us to follow the key and all... but..." He turned back to Sora and Ruby, the latter looking at him with a sad expression and worry.
"Goofy? What are you...?"
Her sorrowful question only made Goofy feel all the more regretful as he walked ahead. Her teammates and friends looked up in disbelief as they saw the pair just...walking onward, after RIKU. "Wait, Goofy?! Donald! What are you guys doing?!" Yang inquired, praying that they were NOT doing what she feared they were doing.
Donald stopped only to look over his shoulder at the former wielder of the Keyblade. As much as both of them hated to do this, especially after everything they'd been through, King Mickey entrusted them with a mission of utmost importance. Something they couldn't forsake given the state of the worlds and the Heartless running rampant...Even if it meant leaving their friends behind to see it through. "Sora...Sorry." With that final regretful apology, Donald and Goofy walked away, leaving Sora, Ruby, and the others behind as they stood atop a platform connected by a line of an unusual energy leading up to the castle, ascending to the grim structure.
"You traitors!" Weiss yelled furiously. She may not have thought much about the little group of weirdos Ruby found herself with when they found her in Wonderland, but she NEVER would have thought they would just...abandon Sora like this after all they'd been through together.
"I swear, I'm gonna knock that duck into next week the next time I see him!" Nora said, clenching her fists angrily as several sparks arced across her body.
"Get in line, Nora." Yang agreed with just as much fury, her lavender eyes flaring.
Ren could only muster a sorrowful and disappointed shake of his head at the pair's betrayal. Though it mattered little by now, they couldn't believe Donald and Goofy would put the mission over their friendship. Over Sora.
Jaune and Pyrrha could only watch as those they thought were their friends went up to the castle. Jaune in particular felt angry. Not just at them, but at himself being unable to do anything to stop Riku. "Argh!" he yelled with frustration as he slammed his fist against the floor beneath him. Pyrrha gently put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. His breathing relaxed slightly, but that didn't banish his frustrations at all. But he could only imagine how shaken Sora was as once again, he sank to his knees in despair.
"Sora..." Ruby murmured sadly as she knelt down beside him. She wished she could do something. Say something. Anything. But the words wouldn't come. She had no idea how she could possibly comfort him. All she could do was shed a single tear as she sat where she was...feeling utterly helpless to raise his spirits.
Neptune and Sun certainly didn't as they looked at each other uncertainly. This entire situation just went from bad to worse in a split second...and they didn't do anything about it.
Suddenly, the Beast stirred and growled as he pushed himself to his feet. Everyone watched him in surprise as began to walk forward, barely making one step at a time as he moved to the device Riku, Donald, and Goofy used to get to the castle. At that point, Sora raised his head, gasping as he saw the Beast sink to his knees again. "Hey, don't move! You're hurt." Sora urged as he dashed to the Beast's side.
A little more composed, the Beast stared at the boy who looked mere moments ago like he'd given up entirely. "Why... why did you... you come here?" he asked, still wounded and dizzy from Riku's assault. The question made Sora pause as he wondered that, himself. He still wanted to save Kairi and get Riku back to him old self, but he lost the weapon that helped him get this far. The one thing he knew could defeat the Heartless. So why was he still here? "I came to fight for Belle." The beast's words caught Sora's attention as he saw him stand more proudly, likely pushing past the pain as he marched forward, his voice full of determination. "And though I am alone, I will fight. I won't leave without her. That's why I'm here."
Sora, Ruby, Jaune and their friends watched with awe. The sheer determination he showed despite the overwhelming odds...It was enough to inspire Jaune to pick himself up and walk toward the beast, holding out a spare potion. "Here. This'll help you." Despite his concerned tone, he couldn't help feeling intimidated by the Beast's size and downright overwhelming presence.
The beast stopped, looking to the blonde adolescent, then at the offered item. Eventually he accepted it, and popped the cork to drink from it. Within moments, he felt much better and dropped the empty vial.
The Beast's display had inspired more than just Jaune. Sora turned back to the wooden sword Riku left with a new expression. Even if it was to mock him, Sora needed something to fight with. So he picked up the wooden sword went to stand alongside Jaune and the Beast. "Me too. I'm not gonna give up, now. I came here to find someone very important to me."
"That's the spirit, Sora." Pyrrha said with a proud smile. Sora had found his courage again.
A display that everyone smiled at as they regrouped and gathered around. "What do you say we work together, big guy? We're all going in there together anyway." Sun said cheerfully, earning a vaguely bemused look from the Beast.
Ruby smiled to him. "That's right. Odds are the people who took Belle are the people we're looking for, too. So what do you say Mr... um... what's your name?"
Their new furry companion looked at Ruby, mildly surprised that she wasn't intimidated by him like Jaune was. A moment later, he looked away from her with a sigh. "I have no name. Not anymore. So simply call me what I am...Beast." His words seemed almost like self-inflicted wounds, the way he spoke of himself. But that resolve to save Belle still laced his voice.
"Um, alright...Beast." Of course, Ruby sounded unsure abut calling him that as it seemed a bit demeaning in her eyes. Blake in particular seemed to dislike how Beast spoke of himself going by the brief flash of sadness on her face. Something about him just felt...oddly familiar. Like a lingering regret she wanted to banish from her mind. But now wasn't the time to think of such things. They had to get inside.
And as everyone stepped forward onto the platform, Ruby reached out and grasped Sora's hand, surprising the boy. "Sora." she spoke up, turning toward him with a smile. "We'll be right there with you. No matter what happens." Her words caused Sora's lips to curve upward into a small, grateful smile as he squeezed Ruby's hand gently. As they released each other's hands, they stepped onto the platform, and up they ascended toward their destination.