Archive of Our Own

Kairi had to know that he was getting her out of the way, but she went off with Donald and Goofy on a tour of the tower readily enough. Riku waited until they were definitely out of earshot before he spoke.

“Is this really a good idea, sir? I mean, if Xehanort’s going after the princesses, aren’t we just playing into his hands?”

“Ten years ago, perhaps,” said Yen Sid. He might be annoyed at Riku’s presumption, or he might always sound like that: Riku couldn’t tell. “Then we might have hoped to conceal their light from him. But now it is too late. What one fragment discovered, all now know. Kairi would not be safe on the Destiny Islands. If there is safety anywhere, it lies in possessing the strength and knowledge to face the coming maelstrom.”

“But –” Kairi wasn’t supposed to have to fight. She was supposed to be protected. What was the point of being a Keyblade Master, if he couldn’t keep even one person safe?

“We have no choice,” Yen Sid said, his voice rumbling like a thundercloud. “There are few who know the use of a Keyblade, and fewer still who remain free to act. There is no time to create more.”

“You created Axel – Lea, I mean,” Riku pointed out.

“I did, with the aid of some valuable friends and more effort than is apparent, but it was not from void. He had the potential in his heart, as few do; moreover, he was not entirely unfamiliar with the Keyblade and its workings. Even so, to bring him so far in so little time was no small undertaking, and he is still a novice. More was impossible.” As he spoke, it seemed that shadows shifted in the room, and he looked much taller than Riku knew he was. “There is no time to spend in finding another potential candidate, even were there reason to do so. Kairi will wield the Keyblade in this conflict!”

“Yes, sir.” He still didn’t like it, but Yen Sid’s words made sense. Besides, if Kairi agreed, it was up to her, wasn’t it? And there was something reassuring about the thought of her being there with him and Sora. Nothing felt quite right without her, like the whole world was new shoes that hadn’t been broken in yet.

Then Yen Sid added, “And you will teach her.”

Riku sputtered. “Wh-what?”

“Lea as well, of course. He has had enough time to conclude his personal affairs. You will be going to fetch him soon.”

“But –”

“There is no time to waste. Xehanort may already be moving, and we must hurry if we are to complete our preparations in time to counter him.”

He finally managed to find the rest of the sentence. “But I don’t know how to teach!”

Yen Sid didn’t look like he cared, but then, Riku wasn’t sure he had more than one expression. “You are a Keyblade Master, and part of a Master’s duties is to train other wielders. It is a serious duty, not to be lightly cast aside.”

“I’m not casting it aside, I’m – I don’t even know how to start something like that!”

Then Yen Sid did change his expression: a small smile, no less intimidating than his habitual scowl, crossed his face. “No teacher ever does, before the first lesson. You will learn, like all the Masters before you.”

Riku didn’t find this very reassuring; he doubted he’d been meant to.

“C’mon, Riku, just for a little bit? I promise I won’t crash into anything!”

Riku gritted his teeth and jerked the gummi ship sharply around an asteroid suddenly looming in his windshield. “I doubt that.” He certainly wasn’t in any position to make such a promise.

“Riiiiiiikuuuuuu…”

“I said no! I’m driving!”

“Well, you suck at it!” To punctuate her statement, a Heartless ship clipped them, and the gummi ship shuddered.

“Because you’re distracting me!”

“No, you just suck. I could definitely steer better than – shoot that guy! Right now!”

“Which guy?” He shot at everything, just to be on the safe side. “Kairi, you’re the least helpful passenger ever.”

She giggled. “Sorry!”

Riku turned his focus back to steering in the comfortable silence that followed, so he was startled when a pair of tanned arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind his seat and a pointed chin rested on the top of his head. “Hey, Riku? I’m glad we’re together again like this. I missed you.” Kairi’s voice was soft, unexpectedly serious. This close, he noticed – and then tried to forget he’d noticed – that he could smell her shampoo.

He’d been missing her for so long, it was hard to remember how not to. They’d had some time together in the sunlight of Destiny Islands, but it seemed like no time at all compared to the time they’d spent apart, and then there had been the Mark of Mastery exam to separate them all again. He’d missed her the whole time, her absence a pain too precious to speak of.

And now she was here, warm and soft and real.

“...Yeah,” he said clumsily, grateful that she couldn’t see the heat rising to his face.

The ship jolted sharply; distracted, he’d hit another asteroid. Blushing harder (he could feel his cheeks heating up), Riku turned his attention back to the controls. It didn’t hurt that Kairi sat back down, even if he still felt the ghost of her arms’ comfortable weight.

He tried to conceal from Kairi just how close-run the trip had been, but the indicators were difficult to hide. She didn’t say anything, but he could feel her grin as she stored up ammunition for another argument.

Then they popped out into the air around Radiant Garden’s castle spire, and her silent chuckle turned into an “Ohhhhh…” of amazement. Riku circled the castle on the way down to give her a better view. He didn’t share her pleasure: too much of Hollow Bastion was visible in the damaged structure for him to forget what had happened, what he’d done, the last time he’d been here. It was only his imagination that turned the shadows of the tower into something sinister; if he truly looked, he could see that the pulsing dark heart he’d known so well lurked there no longer. He knew that, but the knowledge didn’t reach all the way to his bones. He couldn’t seem to stop looking for enemies who weren’t here anymore.

He should probably be focusing on the enemies who were here – or, if they weren’t precisely enemies, the people he didn’t particularly want to face unless he had to. He wasn’t sure how he felt about them, if he would be angry or sorry, but he wouldn’t mind never finding out. Maybe they could pick up Lea without running into any of them.

“It’s beautiful,” Kairi said distantly. “But sad, too. It knows it’s been broken. It used to be – I think it used to be – so beautiful and polished, like darkness could never touch it. But I guess there was darkness there all along, hiding where we couldn’t see it.”

Riku looked over at her, startled. Was that something she could tell about the world just by looking at, or maybe – “Do you think maybe this is where you come from? You sound like you remember it from before it was Hollow Bastion.”

“Remember it?” Her brow furrowed as she peered out the front window. “Maybe? I can’t – some things start to look familiar, but then I lose it again. Everything’s so jumbled. I could just be tricking myself, you know?” She smiled again. “But it would be nice, if it is. Underneath everything, this world has a good heart. Just like someone else I know!”

“Kairi, stop it!” He was blushing again. He’d never used to blush this much.

“Nuh-uh! That’s what you get for running off and doing things without me: I’m going to keep being proud of you, so there! So, Keyblade Master Riku, shall we land?”

“Just give me a minute to find somewhere to set us down, okay?” He missed portals briefly but fiercely. They were so much less cumbersome. Even half demolished, Radiant Garden was a sizable place, and between the town, the castle, and the cliffs, Lea could be anywhere.

“So, where do you think we should look first?” The logical place to begin was the castle, but…he really didn’t want to go back there. Too many memories, all of them bad.

Kairi tapped her foot as she looked around, then grinned. “I think we should ask someone. Yuffie! Hey!”

“Kairi? Kairi!” Riku had never seen someone actually move so fast they blurred before. His hand twitched into a Keyblade position automatically, but by the time he could formulate a thought it was clear the person wasn’t a threat. Unless she practiced a secret technique focused around hugging, but that didn’t seem very likely. “Hi! You’re okay, I’m so glad! And you’re back! Is Sora with you?”

“Hi, Yuffie,” said Kairi, returning the hug in equal measure. “It’s great to see you again. Sora’s off doing Sora things, but I brought Riku instead. Say hi, Riku.”

“…Hi,” Riku said helplessly.

Yuffie detangled herself from Kairi at last, allowing Riku to see that she was a girl his own age or a little older with short black hair, dressed in blacks and greys, a large shuriken tucked on her back. Despite her enthusiastic greeting, she looked him over closely. “So you’re Riku, huh? I hope Sora thinks you’re worth the trouble.”

With Sora’s face when he’d woken up to remember, it was closer to easy than it had ever been for Riku to keep his eyes up. “I hope so too.”

“Riku’s a Keyblade Master now, did you hear?” Kairi chirped. “He passed the test and everything. Even Sora didn’t pass yet.”

“There were special circumstances,” Riku pointed out. Sora could have passed the exam if it had been the test it had been supposed to be, if Xehanort hadn’t interfered.

“But you still passed, didn’t you? If Yen Sid didn’t think you were ready to be a teacher and stuff, he wouldn’t have let you. He’s scary,” she confided to Yuffie. “Or intimidating, I guess. Kind of like a grandfather who hasn’t decided yet if he likes you or not. But then he sent us here!”

“Awww, you’re not just here to visit?”

“I’m afraid not. Maybe next time?”

If Riku knew anything about Kairi, it was that she was perfectly capable of chatting to anyone about anything, indefinitely. At this rate, Yen Sid was going to be wondering if something had gone horribly wrong again. (His haste had nothing to do with the castle still visible over the rooftops. Of course not.)

“We’re actually looking for someone,” he interrupted. “A guy named Lea. Have you seen him?”

Yuffie blinked and went back to interrogating him with her eyes. “You mean you’re really looking for that guy? He wasn’t lying?”

“I guess you have seen him, huh.”

“Aerith and Leon found a whole bunch of them over in the study. They’re holding them there. I can show you the way.”

As they made their way through the construction plagued with Heartless (he was worried about Kairi, but with the help of him and Yuffie, not to mention the town’s security system, she did okay) Yuffie asked, “Was everything that guy was saying true?”

“Probably,” said Riku, not willing to commit himself until he heard what Lea had actually said.

“So they’re really not bad guys anymore?”

“Well…” Riku thought about it. They were full people again, but that didn’t mean they were good guys. They weren’t working for Xehanort…but neither was Maleficent. He didn’t know them well or anything, but what he’d seen of them didn’t exactly lead him to believe that they were lovely people underneath. On the other hand, he didn’t know for sure that they weren’t, and it wasn’t his job to make that call (unless it was; being a Keyblade Master was confusing). “…Give them a chance, anyway? I know Lea’s different than Axel was.”

“And a good thing, too,” Kairi grumbled, pushing her bangs out of her eyes.

“It really is a good thing,” Riku said seriously. He remembered vividly the white room, being held helpless while something he understood all too well aimed itself at Sora. “He saved Sora. Though I guess Axel did that too, didn’t he? Maybe they’re not so different.”

“He really did that? And he really has a Keyblade?” Yuffie asked from her perch on a length of exposed piping.

“He really does. …Why didn’t he just show you?”

Yuffie leapt down onto an unsuspecting Heartless with a chipper war cry. It, obligingly, burst. “He tried I think? But he said he couldn’t get it to work for some reason. He just kind of stood there. I thought he was making it up.”

“No, that’s real. He was still having some trouble with it, though.”

“I guess some guys just have problems that way,” Kairi said disingenuously. She and Yuffie immediately broke into a storm of giggles.

Riku hid his face in the hand not full of Keyblade. “Kairi…” he groaned. He contemplated hiding behind his collar. Girls were kind of frightening sometimes. A lot of the time.

At least the Heartless didn’t make embarrassing jokes and then laugh for way too long.

“Here we are!” Yuffie said, leading them through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. “It’s not really a super great place to keep people, with the computer in there and everything, but a couple of them still look kind of gross, like maybe-going-to-explode gross, so we didn’t move them. Leon and Aerith are making sure they don’t try anything, anyway, until the others get here and we can all decide what to do. I was kiiiiinda supposed to be getting them when I ran into you. Whatever, this looks more interesting!”

At this point, they arrived at a door that didn’t fit with the blank metal walls, on which Yuffie knocked. “Leeeeeeeeeeon, it’s me! Guess who came to visit?”

“Can’t they come back later?” a man’s voice said, muffled by the door. “This isn’t a good time.”

“Nah, let ‘em in, c’mon! The more the merrier. We can have a party.” Even barely audible, that voice was unmistakable.

Riku stepped up to the door and called through it, “We just had a party, you glutton!”

“Riku!” Lea said, echoed by less familiar voices.

The door was opened from the inside, letting him see into the room for the first time. A woman, presumably Aerith, was holding the doorknob, but she still had half an eye on the people grouped on the other side of the room, being faced down by a man with a drawn blade. He turned at the sound, angling himself so he could see the door without lowering his guard, and Riku could see an old scar across his forehead. That had to be Leon. Neither of them looked entirely certain Riku wasn’t an enemy, though their stances gentled a little when they saw Kairi. The group on the other side of the room didn’t have the quandary of which potential target to face. They were also unpleasantly familiar. He firmly reminded himself that it was Ienzo, not Zexion, watching the scene with a silence that struck him as ominous; that it was Aeleus, not Lexaeus, standing immovable, the outline of a passage just visible behind him. Lea was slouching against a wall on the other side of a jumbled bookcase.

All in all, it was a tableau he could have happily gone a very long time without encountering.

“Hey, man,” Lea said, waving. He had a magnificent black eye starting to form: the bruise was bidding fair to cover half his face.

“…Hi.”

“Hi, Leon! Hi, Aerith! It’s been a while!” said Kairi, shouldering Riku aside. Someone on the opposite wall drew in a sharp breath, and Riku glared at them all on principle. Aeleus was looking at her more closely than he liked. He would have tried to step in front of her again, but she was moving too fast for it not to be obvious. He was still fast enough to get in front of her if danger threatened.

“It has, hasn’t it?” said Aerith. She dropped her guard long enough to give Kairi a friendly hug. “What brings you here?”

“We came here for Lea, actually. Riku – oh, you haven’t actually met Riku, have you? Say hi, Riku.”

“Hi,” Riku said obediently, feeling sort of like a new artifact being added to a museum.

“ – Riku’s supposed to be training us, so we came to pick him up. Is that okay?”

Leon glared at everyone, Kairi included. Riku didn’t really blame him. “You’re really going to train one of them?”

“…We don’t have a lot of choices,” Riku admitted.

“Hey!”

With a sigh, Leon lowered the point of his blade. “Whatever. He’s your problem. Yuffie – “

“I’m going!” She scampered off behind them.

Lea sauntered over to Riku. “Thanks for coming to get me, and all, but I don’t really need all this ‘training’ stuff. I know what I’m doing.”

“You can’t even summon your Keyblade reliably,” Riku pointed out.

“…Fine, fine. Hey, Kairi. Lookin’ good.”

Kairi punched him in the stomach and he doubled over with a pained gurgle. “That’s for kidnapping me!”

“Not…fair…” Lea gasped. “Already…hit me…once.”

“Then it’s for dying. You really made Sora feel bad, you know.”

“…Sorry…my death…bothered him? I mean, it…kind of bothered me…too.”

“You didn’t have to think about it afterward,” she said, but she patted him on the shoulder. Riku decided not to get involved. Kairi could clearly take care of herself, and she wouldn’t really hurt Lea.

Someone cleared his throat. It took Riku a moment to realize that it was Aeleus. “Before you leave. Dilan and Even are conscious but unstable. I cannot find a cause.”

“Your knowledge of Xehanort’s modus operandi exceeds ours in some aspects,” Ienzo said. He didn’t look happy about admitting it. That was fine; Riku didn’t feel happy about this conversation either. He could see where it was leading.

He didn’t want to go in there, into a room with people he’d killed to help people who’d tried to kill him. He didn’t trust them, not after everything they’d done. If he was being honest, it wasn’t the trying to kill him that he minded the most. It was the things Zexion had said with Sora’s voice, his greatest fear made real. It was looking into his own face and watching it fade away. He didn’t want to help them.

But he was a Keyblade Master. It was his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”

‘Conscious’ was putting it generously, Riku thought: the two men stretched out on one side of the computer lab had their eyes open, but what they were seeing, and whether they could make sense of it, was far from obvious. They didn’t look over at the sound of his footsteps. There was something off about them, he could tell that much from a distance, but he wouldn’t be able to say more unless he got closer.

He knelt down next to Even (more unpleasant, but also less likely to do serious damage if he started thrashing about suddenly), leaned closer to his face – and jerked away so fast he almost fell over. Vexen’s eyes had been green. He was sure of that. There shouldn’t be a ring of golden yellow pulsing at the edge of the iris.

When he looked again, the comforting weight of Way to Dawn in his hand, the yellow was gone, as though it had never been there, but he knew what he’d seen. That was the mark of darkness, of Xehanort. How much there was, what it was doing, he couldn’t see, though if he thought about it there were shadows on Even’s skin, shadows in the wrong places.

Sight had never been his most reliable sense; sight could be made to lie, as he remembered here of all places, among these of all people. Shutting his eyes, Riku drew in a long, steady breath and smelled.

The lab smelled clean, for the most part, the petrichor smell that came after overwhelming power had wiped past traces away. That would be from the appearance, he thought: five people didn’t come into existence without a great deal of power, and this smell, the natural smell of the worlds, wasn’t dark or light. It just was. Over that, he could smell himself, traces of other people going in and out, unremarkable, and – there it was. Curled around the two semiconscious figures was the heady floral smell of tainted darkness.

It wasn’t quite what he was expecting, however; when he concentrated, Riku could sense it moving, shifting, turning inward and then outward again, growing more and less concentrated in patches. That wasn’t like anything he recognized. Darkness might take circuitous routes when it was first getting a grip on someone, but it always moved in the same direction, and Even had been steeped in darkness for years, had been lost to it; he couldn’t be only starting to be affected by it now.

He relaxed so suddenly he almost laughed out loud. Of course he hadn’t seen this before; he’d never observed what the darkness looked like when it was losing. When he stopped focusing so closely on the details, he could tell that the ebb and flow of shadow was slowly but surely retreating.

Aeleus was looming over him when he opened his eyes again, and Riku flinched, instincts driving him to get away, out of range – but this wasn’t a fight, he reminded himself again. Aeleus was concerned for his…friend? Were they the kind of people to be friends? …Nothing more.

“They’re going to be fine,” he said. He was almost sure of that.

“What is ailing them?”

Riku dismissed Way to Dawn to give himself something to do while he tried to think of how to phrase it. “Xehanort’s influence is still…lingering, but it isn’t strong enough to take them over. Their real hearts are fighting it off.” As he watched, a shard of darkness drifted up from Even, glittering violet. He caught it in his hand. “See?” With a small effort he forced the darkness into himself, where it would take only the shape he let it. It was getting easier all the time.

“But why are they the only ones affected?” Ienzo asked from a corner.

Riku didn’t want to admit he didn’t know, and he wanted even less to throw ideas around with these people, so he shrugged.

As if the loss of the small piece of darkness had triggered something, Even’s eyes suddenly focused on his face. “You…you aren’t my Riku,” he said, sounding disoriented (and no wonder, Riku had to admit). Then his gaze moved on again. “…Aeleus?”

“I’m here,” said Aeleus, more gently than Riku would have thought he could say anything.

He took that as his cue to leave. Quickly.

Back in the study proper, Kairi was filling in her friends on everything that had happened recently, complete with expansive arm gestures. Lea was providing sound effects and dubiously helpful commentary.

“ – was kind of scary I guess, but at the time I was just mad? Like, we were so close to seeing Sora again after so long, and this guy just got in the way! Not even for a reason!”

“Xigbar was an asshole,” Lea said sagely. He was sitting in the footwell of the desk. Riku decided he didn’t want to know. “I mean, he always kind of was, but it used to be funnier.”

“Not really,” said Leon.

“No, he – hey, Riku.” A thin, black-clad arm extended itself from the cavern and waved. “How’d it go? Are they dying? That would suck, and Ienzo would totally blame me.”

“They’re getting better,” he replied. “…Would it be your fault?” All things considered, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility.

“Not…really? But also sort of? It’s kind of a long story. Not recently?”

Riku considered asking for more detail, then considered whether it was likely to change anything right now. He decided against it. Whatever had happened in the past, as long as it wasn’t coming back to bite them now, could stay there. It wasn’t any of his business, fortunately. “Well, they’re not dying.”

“Okay, cool.” Lea extracted himself from the footwell with some difficulty. “What’re we waiting for? Let’s get a move on!”

“…You’re awfully enthusiastic all of a sudden,” Riku said, suspicious.

“Ah, you know how it is…House arrest isn’t really my thing, you know? And this isn’t even my house.”

“We haven’t agreed to let you go with them,” Leon pointed out. He was blocking the doorway; his weapon was sheathed, but from the set of his shoulders that might still change at any time.

Lea rolled his eyes, which Riku didn’t think was likely to be helpful. “You always were the most—”

“I don’t think there’s any reason not to,” said Aerith. “I’m sure Riku and Kairi can keep him out of trouble. And then he won’t be our problem, isn’t that right?”

“…Fine.” Leon didn’t look happy about it, but he stepped out of the doorway.

Lea practically fled out the door, and Riku didn’t blame him. He lingered a little while Kairi hugged Aerith again. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay long!” she said. To Riku’s and Leon’s mutual surprise, she hugged him too. “I’ll try to come back soon.”

The only thing Leon said was, “Be careful out there,” but the look he shot at Riku said quite plainly that Riku had better be at least as careful for Kairi, or else. Riku left feeling vaguely offended. As if he needed to be told to look out for Kairi!

Just leaving the study felt like a great weight dropped from his shoulders. He didn’t even mind being assailed by Heartless as they tried to work out which passageways led back to the exit.

“More practice!” exclaimed Kairi, wading in with abandon. She was definitely going to have to work on her stance, Riku noted: she kept trying broad, sweeping swings that she didn’t have the stability to support, so they weren’t as effective as they could have been. And she wasn’t paying as much attention to defense as she should have.

She was still better than Lea, who after only a second of ineffectual concentration pulled out his chakrams instead of his Keyblade and started flinging them about. It worked, sure, but… “Lea! Use the Keyblade already!”

“I can’t!” he shouted over the crackle of flames. “The stupid thing hates me!”

“It does not. Just concentrate.” Riku thought about calling the Keyblade, the first time it had worked and the first time it hadn’t. He’d been thinking about other things at the time, but now from a distance he could remember how it had felt, could identify the difference that had made no sense to him then. “You have to focus your heart, to want nothing else. It’ll come if you need it.”

“But I don’t need it!”

They came to a narrower hall with only a few Heartless. When he looked, Kairi seemed to be doing okay, so Riku decided to risk it. He knocked one flying chakram out of the air, holding it down with his foot, and clipped Lea’s wrist with the hilt of Way to Dawn just hard enough that he dropped the other one. “Now you do.”

“Hey, that’s not fair!” Lea backed away from the advancing Heartless. He actually looked nervous.

Riku would have felt bad if he hadn’t known that Lea could call his chakrams back to him if it came down to it. “Don’t think about other weapons, just the Keyblade. You remember what it looks like, right?”

“Duh, how could I forget something like that? Seriously, Riku, this isn’t funny.”

“You remember how it felt in your hand?” He seriously considered letting it go for now. Lea was still backing away, more than he should be. There was only a single Heartless aiming for him; could he really be scared of that?

He firmed his resolve. He was supposed to teach Lea, and this was the only way he could think of to force his hand. Riku wouldn’t let anything happen to him if it didn’t work. “Reach out and grab it. You know you can.”

“This is a really terrible – ” Finally, just when Riku was preparing to intervene, light flashed into place around Lea’s extended hand, and there was his Keyblade, as ridiculous-looking as before. “ –Oh.” The chakrams dissipated into the smell of shadow and charcoal.

“Told you you could,” said Riku, trying not to show how relieved he was. He wasn’t much of a teacher, but he would be even less of one if he couldn’t teach a single lesson.

“A little help here?” Kairi called from around the corner out of sight. She must have wandered ahead while they’d been distracted. “Ow!”

“Kairi!” Riku rushed forward to help her, leaving Lea behind. From the corner of his eye he caught the flash of an escaping heart.

Kairi was picking herself up off the floor where it looked like an unexpected explosion from a Crimson Jazz had thrown her. She didn’t look much the worse for wear so far, no more than lightly singed, but the large Heartless could be nasty. Riku slid to a stop between it and her.

“Kairi, stay back,” he ordered.

“I can – ”

“It’s too strong for you. Stay with Lea.”

“…Fine,” she said. He could hear her pout, but there wasn’t time to reassure her that she would get stronger. Evading the attacks of a Crimson Jazz was mostly a matter of staying in motion. First, get its attention – he ducked under its physical range and hit it with a solid set of hits – then keep moving, circle around ahead of the explosive spheres, hit it again from the other side, and off again –

The close quarters of the hallway were working against him; he couldn’t swing around as wide as he wanted, to give the explosions time to detonate harmlessly. Instead, he paused long enough to raise a barrier – but that kept him in one place, and when he dropped it to move in for another attack the Heartless got its hit in first. He rolled with it, skidding across the floor before springing to his feet to counterattack. The next explosive was larger; the Heartless was weakening. Riku finished it off with another quick combination and then raised his barrier again to let the lingering bombs detonate harmlessly.

“Are you okay?” he asked Kairi once the air was clear again.

“I’m fine,” she said, but she was trying not to be obvious about poking at the reddened skin of her left arm.

“I think I still have a Potion in here somewhere,” Lea offered, but Riku shook his head.

“I’ve got this. Both of you hold still for a second.”

Healing magic had never been his forte, but the Mark of Mastery exam had pushed him in more ways than one. It was easier than it had ever been for him to draw up just the right amount of energy, then give it that special twist that let the Cure spell wash over them like a summer rain shower.

“Oh! Is that what magic feels like?” Kairi asked. Her skin was smooth and tan again.

“Tickles, doesn’t it?” Lea said. He poked inquisitively at the bruise on his cheek, which was still not completely gone but had paled from swollen purple to a light yellowish brown.

“I can get the rest of that for you in a minute,” said Riku.

This time it was Lea who shook his head. “Nah, I think I’ll keep it, if it’s all the same to you, now it’s not messing with my vision.”

That was odd. What did he want a bruise for? There was a story there, but Riku didn’t want to ask. Let Lea keep his secrets if he wanted to.

Kairi didn’t seem to agree. “Where did you get that, anyway? Was it Xehanort?”

“Nothing so glamorous, sorry to say. Let’s just say Aeleus wanted to have words with me, and you know he doesn’t talk so much, and leave it at that.” Lea wasn’t looking at either of them, which had to be on purpose.

Riku elbowed Kairi when she started to ask another question. She would be sympathetic, he knew, but he also knew that sometimes sympathy wasn’t wanted. Sometimes it felt better to accept the consequences of your actions and let the bruises form. (And if Aeleus hit half as hard as Lexaeus did, Lea had gotten off easily with just a black eye and probably knew it.)

“Hey, look!” Lea said, apparently relieved. “More Heartless!”

The gummi ship was waiting for them. Lea started to laugh, but Kairi stepped on his foot, at which point he started agitating to get to drive.

“Do you even know how to drive a gummi ship? Or drive anything?” Riku asked, not letting go of the steering wheel.

“…I could.”

“No.”

“Look, I’m the oldest. That means I get to drive, because you’re, what, twelve?”

“Seventeen.”

“Same difference.”

“…You’re older than we are?” Kairi asked Lea. “I thought you were just tall for your age.” Riku wasn’t sure if she was genuine or not. Kairi could be tricky that way.

Lea reeled dramatically back, clutching his chest. “That hurts me, Kairi. It really does. I’ll have you know I’m older than both of you – probably not combined – and, as such, more mature and trustworthy when it comes to operating heavy machinery.”

“Lea. You know we’ve met before, right?” Riku said. “Would anyone who’s ever met you describe you as ‘trustworthy’?”

“As a matter of fact – ”

“Accurately?”

“Maaaaaaaybe.”

“Look, this is silly,” said Kairi firmly. Riku hoped for the best, until she continued, “Obviously we don’t trust Lea to drive, and Riku’s already proven that he sucks at it, so I should drive. Move over, please!”

“I’m not moving.” Riku gave up on waiting for them to be reasonable. “I’m driving because I’ve done it before, because I said so, and most importantly because I’m not moving and you can’t make me. Now get in.”

“Where are we even going?” Lea asked, settling into the back. Riku thought that counted as surrender, but he wasn’t sure. “Back to the wizard’s tower?”

Riku shook his head. “Yen Sid’s working on something with the King. We’d only be in the way. I’m taking us home.” It might not have been very long, in waking time, but he missed the islands already. They were solid, when everything else seemed to be sliding away under his feet. “We’ll start training in the morning.” Hopefully by then he’d have thought of something to do for training.

“Your place? Hey, you can go faster than this!”

“That’s right. Why not?” Riku resisted the urge to slow down just to annoy Lea.

“You can see how it looks when you’re not appearing out of nowhere to kidnap people!” Kairi said.

“Would you just let that go already? And make your boyfriend stop weaving all over the place; this thing has gotta turn sharper than he’s doing.”

“I’ll let it go when I want to. I’m not mad or anything. And shut up!”

Riku couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t quite deny it. From the back seat Lea couldn’t see him blushing, thank goodness. He concentrated very closely on steering, blowing up asteroids, and not looking over to see if Kairi was perhaps blushing too.

“And your parents or whatever are just gonna be okay with a random dude they’ve never seen before showing up for a sleepover? That’s like, rule one of parenting: don’t let your kids sleep with mysterious strangers.”

“Lea!” Riku and Kairi both exclaimed, but it was Kairi who reached back to smack him.

“I’m just saying!”

“It’ll be fine,” said Kairi. “Mom won’t mind, and Riku’s parents…won’t mind either, so you can pick whichever. Or stay at Sora’s, I guess, but if he’s still doing his thing that might be a little weird. You can meet his parents, though! They’re great.”

“They really are,” Riku agreed.

“I think I’ll pass, thanks. Which is the option where I don’t get the scary parent who-are-you-and-what-are-your-intentions-toward-my-precious-offspring treatment? I’ve had about all the interrogation I can handle for one day.”

“Riku’s.”

“Mine.”

Kairi shrugged; Riku could see the movement from the corner of his eye. “It’s not that Mom would mean to, but she’s the mayor, so she’s used to asking pointed questions. And she worries about me sometimes.”

“And Riku’s – never mind.”

Riku’s hands tightened on the wheel. He was glad not to have to discuss it, but knowing what Kairi was thinking, what even Lea was thinking, was almost as bad. Not bad enough for him to say anything, but bad.

“Hey, watch out for that – Kairi was right, you do suck!” said Lea as a stray laser jostled them, and Riku tried not to be too grateful to him for acting as though nothing had been almost-said.

Not saying things could only help so much, however; once they had arrived at Destiny Islands, once Kairi had run off up the hill with a last wave and shouted “See you tomorrow!” Riku couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to go back to his parents’ house.

He should have known the silence was too good to last.

“So, is this a your parents are really poor thing, or a your parents are actually dead and you’re an orphan thing, or a your parents are in prison for something awful thing, or –”

“No! Geez, where do you come up with these ideas?” Riku concentrated on balancing just on the edge of the sidewalk. “They’re just…not around much.” Please, he hoped, let that be enough to shut Lea up. He’d only ever talked about his parents to one person, and Lea wasn’t nearly as easy to talk to as King Mickey.

“But not in prison.”

“Definitely not.”

“Do they have…jobs?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“They kill houseguests who ask too many questions.”

Lea contemplated this for a moment. “That doesn’t sound like a very lucrative profession to me, unless you run a hotel or something. Do they run a hotel?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t! Lea, what is your problem?” Riku spun around, frustrated. His hands clenched into fists.

Lea didn’t appear to notice or care. “I was just asking. You know, taking an interest?”

“Well…don’t,” he said, knowing he sounded sulky but not caring. It had been a very long day. “Come on, we’re here.” He pushed the gate open and gave in to the urge to let it swing back and smack Lea in the knees.

Nobody was home, just as he’d expected: another late evening all around, busy with things he definitely didn’t care about. At all. He’d just happened to hear that the newspaper was thinking about expanding the weekend edition, and everyone was working extra hard to prepare for new staff. People on this island gossiped all the time. It wasn’t like he’d listened on purpose.

“Do I get a tour or whatever?” Lea asked, looking around like he was at a museum.

“…Sure, why not.” That was safe, not involving emotions or even questions more involved than ‘where’s the bathroom?’ Riku managed to walk Lea through most of the rooms of his house without having to play any more question-and-answer games to maintain his sanity, which was nice for a change. The guest room was already set up tidily, though Riku had no illusions about how long that was going to last with Lea sleeping in it. He just hoped nothing caught fire. His parents would probably notice that.

Sure enough, Lea’s first action upon seeing the room was to fling himself full length onto the bed with a cry of delight and an ominous creaking of springs. “Pillows! My darlings, how I’ve missed you!”

Riku stared at him. Was he nuzzling the bedding? “…You’re really weird,” he said, in case Lea was somehow unaware of this.

“Shut up,” Lea said without lifting his head. “I came back to life passed out on a metal floor – not a bed. Before that, I was on the run – also no beds. I can appreciate the finer things in life. And the finer things are fluffy and full of feathers!”

“Oh…kay. Just…get some sleep or whatever. And stay here.” He didn’t want to think about the trouble Lea could cause wandering around town on his own. To be fair, some of it would be without trying. But only some.

He left a note on the dining room table, the way he always did when he wanted to be sure his parents remembered something; with their schedules so different, there was no point in waiting up for them. They wouldn’t mind having a temporary houseguest, and it wasn’t like they would see Lea, so they wouldn’t be driven to ask questions.

That left him with nothing to worry about except everything else. He took himself off to his room hoping to sleep, but his brain refused to slow down. Instead he lay on his bed, bouncing a rubber ball rhythmically against the far wall and considering and rejecting plans one after another. He heard his parents come in and thought about going down and speaking to them, about trying once more to make his life relevant to them. He didn’t move. Eventually the sounds of movement stopped. Only then did he start to drift away, tenuous plan in place, into a world of dreams that were only dreams.

Riku was up, dressed, and eating breakfast before he remembered that Lea existed. He forgave himself the oversight, since there was no sign of him other than his shoes by the door.

He knocked on the guest room door. “Lea? Are you still in there?”

“Mmf,” said the door helpfully.

“Lea! It’s time to get up!”

“Yeah, yeah, jus’ a minute, Is—” The space behind the door went abruptly dead silent.

Riku turned away from the door, saying loudly, “We’re meeting Kairi in an hour, so hurry up and do your hair or whatever.” Then he walked as fast as he could for the stairs. He wasn’t fast enough to miss the quiet, heartfelt cursing from the guest bedroom.

Lea made it downstairs in less than half an hour, though whether or not he was awake was still up in the air. Riku shoved a plate at him and didn’t bring it up. He wasn’t Lea’s friend, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t know what to say. This was Sora’s kind of situation, not his.

“Whaftrwedoon?” Lea said with his mouth extremely full.

Assuming he’d asked the obvious question, Riku said, “We’re going to meet Kairi at her house and then head over to the play island. Most people have summer jobs, so it should be pretty quiet in the morning. No interruptions.”

“Mfkay.”

“Lea, that’s disgusting. Stop.”

“Mrfoo – okay, I’m done. Thanks and stuff. Let’s go to the happy fun playhouse.”

Riku tugged on his shoes and then impulsively vaulted over the fence. “Race you!”

“Hey – hey, that’s not fair! I don’t even know where we’re going!”

Lea’s legs were longer, and Riku was hard put to keep ahead, but he knew the town better: he took sharp turns into alleyways, slid under fences, and jumped directly over rubbish heaps, all without having to really look at them. It wasn’t like racing Sora or Kairi, but it was close.

And it spared him the minefield that was conversation, as well.

Kairi was waiting outside her house, sitting in her favorite cleft tree and kicking her heels impatiently. “You’re late!” she shouted as soon as Riku came around the corner.

“We didn’t set a time,” he protested, skidding to a stop.

“That just means you’re super late, ‘cause I’ve been up for ages. Good morning, Lea!”

“I hate you and everyone,” said Lea. He had twigs in his hair.

“Someone isn’t a morning person,” Kairi sang.

“Hate.”

“It’s okay, I’m not usually one either; I was just so excited I woke up early, like birthdays and Christmas. It’s this one you have to watch out for.” She pointed down at Riku. “I happen to know that he gets up early on the first day of summer vacation.”

“It’s not early if I get up at the same time every day,” Riku attempted to defend himself, but Kairi wasn’t having any of it.

“You get up in time for school whether there’s school or not! And you’re happy about it!”

“Well – well, so what?”

Lea chuckled quietly, shaking his head from side to side. “And you’re supposed to teach me? This is gonna be hilarious.”

“Hey!” Riku objected. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Twelve years o-old,” Lea repeated from the day before. Kairi’s sing-song appeared to be contagious.

“Just how old are you, anyway?” Kairi asked, hopping down from her perch with a huff of breath. “Are you secretly like a million years old?”

“I bet he’s forty,” Riku said meanly as he followed Kairi toward the small dock where all the kids’ boats were kept.

Lea really waved his arms around a lot when he was talking. “Oi, oi, oi! I’m not forty, you little brats! Or a million, but seriously, forty? That’s just cruel and unfair, man.”

“So how old?”

“…Twenty-seven. I think? Does time I was dead count?”

They passed the journey to the play island in considering this question, among other things, such as whether or not Lea had wrinkles or grey hair coming in, since he was so ancient. Meanwhile, Riku tried not to show how nervous he was about the upcoming lesson. He had a plan, sort of, but what would he do if it didn’t work? Or if Lea didn’t listen to him?

He could always just hit him until he did, but that wasn’t the kind of thing a Master was supposed to do. He was sure of that much. Which left reasoning with him, he supposed, or just hoping against hope that the problem wouldn’t arise.

In far too little time, their boats bobbed up against the dock. Riku tried to kill time tying off, but his hands betrayed him: after years of practice, they knotted the rope before he could think about it.

“Okay,” he said, trying to sound confident and like he’d gotten enough sleep, “you’re going to start off sparring,” which wouldn’t require him to come up with anything new, “so I can see where we’re starting from.” That much was true: he’d never had time to just watch either of them fight.

Lea’s mouth pulled to one side doubtfully. “Great idea and all, but, uh, I don’t wanna hurt her.”

“Hey!” said Kairi, but Riku talked over her, glad to have a problem he knew how to solve.

“No problem. Hang on a sec.” The shack was just as it had always been, full of the detritus of years. But some things were used more often than others, and he had no trouble finding what he sought. “Catch!”

Lea snapped his wooden practice sword out of the air with a casual one-handed grab – around the hilt, too – while Kairi clapped hers between both hands. “Seriously?”

“You don’t want to hurt anyone, right? You couldn’t do much damage with these if you tried. Don’t think this gets you out of practicing with your actual Keyblade, though!” He and Sora sparred with their Keyblades, but…to be honest, it was different doing it himself, when he knew the risks and it was his own business to not get hurt, than it was telling other people to do it. Especially Kairi.

She was holding her sword two-handed, looking around the beach with an experienced eye. “Usual boundaries?”

“Sure. Docks to the bridge, bushes to the water,” Riku added for Lea’s benefit. “Try not to hit each other in the head.”

“No fair,” Lea complained. “She’s all tiny, her head’s right in the way.”

“Sucks to be you!” said Kairi cheerfully.

“Ri-i-ight. Sorry in advance about your concussion.”

“Sorry in advance about your losing.”

“And I’m keeping score, so no cheating,” Riku added, giving Kairi a pointed look.

“I was not cheating!” Kairi protested.

“Were so. Ready…go!”

Lea was confident, Riku could see from his place outside the designated arena. He didn’t run forward, just waited as Kairi charged down the beach at him. He was still holding his sword awkwardly, too loose, and that was something to work on, but with his experience advantage he might not think it mattered as long as it was just Kairi.

She swung up as she stepped into his range, meeting Lea’s downward swing – both one-handed, but gravity was on his side, so –

With a crack, Lea’s sword spun out of his hand and landed in the sand several feet away. He blinked at it (so did Riku, for that matter), and Kairi held her sword to his throat. “Surrender?”

“Hmm…nah!” Lea jumped back out of her reach and ran clumsily through the dry sand for his dropped sword. He made it with a deep lunging grab – this time he was holding it like it was a chakram, with his hand wrapped around the guard, which he shouldn’t do either but was an improvement over barely holding it at all – and twisted around like a cat to face Kairi again. This time she was the one swinging down as he crouched, raising his sword at an angle to push hers aside as much as block it directly, much like he would with a chakram.

“Ow!” Lea yelped as his sword hit the sand again, though at least this time it was only dropped. From the way he was shaking out his hand, he’d just learned why that grip was a bad idea. “That hurt!”

“Sorry! I didn’t expect your hand to be there!”

“I think you broke my fingers. I’m calling foul!” Since there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his fingers, Riku ignored him.

“Kairi gets a point!” he called.

“Hey! No fair! Favoritism! Violence against unsuspecting trainees!”

“You were totally suspecting!” Kairi objected. “So there! One to zero! What’re you gonna do about it?”

“Stop messing around, I guess,” he said, dusting himself off (for all the good that would do) as he got to his feet. Finally, he held his sword properly, without his hand inching up the blade. It was really too small for him; these swords were meant for kids, and Lea was tall. They’d have to get full-size ones later.

Maybe he should be writing these things down so he didn’t forget them.

Meanwhile on the beach proper, Kairi and Lea were squaring off again. Lea looked like he was finally taking their sparring match seriously; he looked more like Axel, the Organization member, than like Lea, Riku’s temporary houseguest. Kairi for her part didn’t look the least bit cowed.

There was a longer clash this time, as Lea successfully deflected Kairi’s attack to one side, but he brought his empty hand around instead of disengaging, forgetting (Riku assumed) that there was no second weapon in it.

And then there was a second weapon in it, and Riku was leaping down onto the sand, casting as fast as he could but still not fast enough –

Lea jerked himself back a second before the Zero Gravity spell yanked him off his feet, a second before Kairi hit the sand in a roll that didn’t quite work but took her out of the space where a chakram had almost been.

“Crap! Kairi are you okay – I’m so sorry – ” Lea babbled as he spun slowly in the air. Both his chakrams were sticking out of the sand where he’d dropped them, one next to the wooden sword it had replaced.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Riku knew her too well to take her word for it. “Let me look.” She didn’t look injured, neither by Lea nor by her incomplete roll, but he had to be sure before he could relax. His heart was pounding in his throat the way it never had when he’d been in danger, when he’d been injured. If something had happened to Kairi while he was supposed to be in charge…

“Really,” Kairi insisted, “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

With a thump, Lea dropped back onto the sand as Riku’s spell dissipated. “You sure? I didn’t–?”

“I’m sure! I’d be the first to know. No problems here!”

Lea grinned, already over it. “So Riku can stop touching you now and you won’t disappear?”

Riku realized abruptly that his hand was still around Kairi’s wrist where he’d lifted her arm to check for cuts. He let go and tried to convince his face not to blush. It didn’t work. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay!” Kairi said hastily.

Lea laughed at them.

“What happened?” Riku asked, trying to regain some form of dignity. “That was dangerous, Lea. You could’ve seriously hurt her.”

“I would’ve been fine – ”

“I know, okay! I didn’t mean to. I just – I wasn’t thinking. Sorry. Again.”

“Don’t feel too bad about it. We’ll just…” Riku paused, trying to think. It wasn’t Lea’s fault that he was so used to his chakrams and real fighting, but they couldn’t keep sparring like this if he was going to do that again. On the other hand, they couldn’t keep sparring at all if Lea had to be keeping an eye on himself so that he didn’t. That wasn’t fair to him. Lea had to get more comfortable with the Keyblade; that was the only solution. And while he was doing that, Kairi had to train too. So… “Kairi, you’re sparring with me for a bit. Lea, practice summoning and dismissing your Keyblade.”

“Seriously?” Lea groaned. “Boring.”

“Do it anyway,” he replied.

Kairi bounced on her toes, grinning. “Are you ready to lose, Riku?”

Riku picked up Lea’s discarded practice sword. It didn’t fit into his hand the way he remembered it. Definitely time to get new ones. He couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm. “I don’t know. Are you?”

He was going to have to watch himself as much as Lea was for this: he didn’t have much practice sparring with anyone other than Sora, and he didn’t want to hurt Kairi by accident himself, or finish the match too quickly either, before she had a chance to really try. But he couldn’t go too easy on her the way Lea had, or he’d look silly and she wouldn’t get anything out of it either. But if he was very careful, he should be able to do it. He had to be able to do it.

“Okay, go!”

Kairi ran straight at him; ordinarily he would have dodged to one side at the last minute and then struck from behind, but that wouldn’t teach her anything. Instead, he stepped closer, where her swing wouldn’t have much momentum, and brought his sword up one-handed to parry –

The impact jarred him all the way down to his bones, and he only barely kept his grip. He’d assumed Lea had been underestimating Kairi’s strength because he hadn’t expected a serious contest. He’d been wrong.

He managed to slide her sword away from him despite his surprise, but she kept coming like a battering ram, cutting for his right side. That meant parrying to the outside, and for a brief moment he wasn’t sure he would be able to do it. He pulled it off, and that left Kairi wide open, at least, so he could show her the downside to her strategy, tapping her just hard enough to notice right under her collarbone.

“Swinging wide like that gives you extra power, but it takes longer,” he told her, “and it leaves you open if you miss.”

She nodded, rubbing her chest where he’d hit.

“Again?”

This time she brought her sword up in a two-handed guard, and Riku swallowed before he could stop himself. The last thing she needed was more power, when he could barely block her one-handed. He took a similar guard, adding his left hand for support. He suspected he’d need it.

She came in high again, and this time Riku was ready. Rather than passively waiting for the blow, he surged forward and up to meet her –

Their swords met with a crack! that echoed around the beach, and Riku jumped back hastily as something gave in his blade that no amount of force from him could remedy. Pulling back, he saw that the wood – good, solid wood, capable of taking any amount of punishment, he would have said – had split, cracking straight down the blade.

He stared at Kairi, wide-eyed. She stared back and then began to giggle.

“I’m sorry!” she said, muffled by her hand over her mouth. “I just – I – ”

“You broke my sword,” Riku said, stunned.

“Not on purpose!”

“You broke my sword.”

“I’m not fighting her again,” said Lea. “No way, no how. She scares me.”

“Don’t be such a big baby,” Kairi said.

“Excuse you, I am a delicate flower,” Lea said before breaking out into laughter himself.

Riku looked at the former practice sword one more time before tossing it into the bushes. This was just not working. Lea was too experienced, and Kairi, apparently, was too strong. He couldn’t keep them using toys. He was just going to have to trust that nothing would go so wrong he couldn’t fix it.

“So much for that,” he muttered. “Lea, did you get the hang of summoning your Keyblade?”

“Not…quite yet?”

Something in Lea’s expression prompted Riku to ask, “Did you even try?”

“Some?” He just rolled his eyes at Riku’s exasperated scowl. “What, did you think I wasn’t gonna watch you guys? That’s way more interesting than staring at nothing.”

An idea (that might be slightly wicked) struck Riku, and he smiled. “Too bad. You and Kairi, with your Keyblades, now!”

“Hey, that’s not – ”

“If you don’t need to practice, then you must be ready, right?” Riku looked at Kairi as Destiny’s Embrace flashed into her hand. “Better hurry up. The match starts in three…”

“I can’t do it with you watching – ”

“Two…”

“C’mon, very funny, but – ”

“One…”

“Riku, you jerk!”

“Go! You might want to start running,” Riku added helpfully.

He didn’t have to tell Lea twice. Still Keybladeless, he took off, stumbling over the sand toward the bridge with Kairi in hot pursuit. He had the advantage of longer legs, and for all her unexpected strength Kairi wasn’t much faster than Riku remembered, but she knew the terrain and Lea didn’t, so while he could outpace her he couldn’t lose her.

He was shouting insults in Riku’s general direction, but he was laughing too, so Riku wasn’t bothered.

After circling the entire island at least twice and climbing four trees that Riku would have sworn couldn’t be climbed in such a hurry, Lea schlepped across the bridge and draped himself across the paopu tree like an empty coat on a clotheshorse. “I give up,” he said through harsh, gasping breaths. “You’re an evil little goblin, and I don’t even care anymore.”

“No Keyblade?”

“I can’t concentrate with her chasing after me. That was the worst idea. Ever. You suck at teaching.”

“Mmm.” Riku didn’t really disagree, but there wasn’t anyone else, so they were all going to have to manage somehow. “Try it now.”

“I hate you so mu¬-ch?” Lea’s exhausted declaration of loathing abruptly changed tone. That probably had something to do with the Keyblade in his hand. “…No. I still hate you. In fact, I think I hate you more. Why?” He gestured vaguely with it.

“You were thinking too much,” said Riku simply. “The Keyblade comes from the heart, not the mind.”

“Thinking too much, huh? No wonder Sora’s so good at it.”

Kairi came panting up, her face red. “What’re you lazybones doing?”

“No,” said Lea in a general way.

Riku looked at both of them. “I think we’re done for today.”

“I take back everything I ever said about you.”

“What? I can still – ”

“Yeah, well, I can’t,” Lea said. “It’s hot. I have sand in my everywhere. I have sweat in my ears, Kairi, my ears. You’re both completely crazy if you think I’m ever doing this again. Heck, I don’t think I’m ever moving again.”

“You’ll have to if you want to get back to the house,” Riku pointed out.

“Never. Moving. Again. I’ll sleep here. This tree and I, we have an understanding now.”

With some prodding, however, they managed to get Lea upright and vaguely moving. He really didn’t look good, Riku saw as they made for the boats: his skin was almost as red as his hair, except for white around his mouth and eyes, and he really did seem to be having trouble walking in a straight line.

“We’re going shopping this afternoon,” said Kairi out of nowhere.

Lea blinked at her. “Huh?”

“Those clothes you’re wearing are awful for this weather. No wonder you’re overheated! Why didn’t you at least take your coat off?”

“Oh.” Lea looked down at his clothes as if seeing them for the first time. “I guess I…forgot I could. It used to protect us, from the darkness, you know? Not a good idea to run around without it.”

“But you don’t need it now! Plus, what you’re wearing has to be really sweaty and gross. You need more clothes! So, shopping. We’ll show you all the best stores, and Riku can get a new wooden sword to replace the one he broke.”

“Hey! You broke it, not me!”

“…Clothes. Yeah, okay. Nap first, though.”

“Definitely,” Riku agreed. “But drink some water before you go to sleep, okay? You’re probably dehydrated.” He should have thought of that, shouldn’t have assumed that Lea knew what everyone on Destiny Islands knew about dressing right and drinking enough water.

“Yes, mom.”

“That’s Master.”

“No. No, absolutely not. I’m not into that, and you’re fourteen, and – no.”

“Seventeen,” Riku said, replying to the only part of that comment he felt he could.

“Also, ew,” said Kairi helpfully.

“Ew,” he agreed.

“Hey, what’s wrong with – you know what, never mind, please feel free to not get gross adolescent crushes on me. I can live with that, really; I know it’ll be hard for you, but I believe.”

“Double ew!”

Lea thumped his way down to the den several hours later, where Riku and Kairi were doing their summer reading in amiable silence. He stomped through to the kitchen and started banging the cupboards open and shut. “Where do you keep your cups?” he called eventually.

“Left of the sink!” Riku shouted back without looking up.

He came back in with the largest glass in the house filled to the brim with ice water, sat down on the couch, and gulped it down enthusiastically.

Riku did look up then to take stock of him. Lea didn’t looked nearly so close to collapse, at least, but his face wasn’t exactly less red than it had been, especially across his forehead and nose. In fact… “You’re sunburned.”

“Brilliant observation. I can see why you’re a Keyblade Master,” Lea griped. “My neck hurts. My scalp hurts.”

“Didn’t you put on sunblock?” Kairi asked. “You look awful, worse than I did last summer when I was in a hurry to meet Selphie and forgot.”

“…Sunblock?”

Riku resisted the urge to hide his face in his book. “Sunblock. You put it on your skin so you don’t get sunburned and wish you were dead.”

“Did you not tell him to put some on this morning?”

“I assumed he’d know! I’m not his mom!” He felt faintly guilty all the same. He should’ve thought to remind Lea, the way a responsible person would have. The way a teacher would have.

“Blaming Riku is great and all, but what am I supposed to do about it? I think it got my ears, too. I’m not supposed to even feel my ears.”

“We can get some aloe while we’re out? That might help a little,” Riku suggested.

“And a hat,” Kairi added.

“If I find out you’re denying me a cure out of petty sadism, I’ll put needles in your pillow.”

“Sorry,” said Riku.

“…This sucks.”

Kairi threw her book down on the table. “And on that note, let’s go! We can save you from your unpreparedness and save me from this book.”

“Little late for that first one, don’t you think?” grumbled Lea on his way out the door.

Riku wasn’t sure what he was supposed to get out of it, but he didn’t have anything better to do except read, and he wasn’t enjoying his book any more than Kairi was hers. Even an afternoon of shopping and listening to Lea complain about his sunburn (to be fair, it looked nasty, like it might blister and would definitely peel) had to be better than spending that same afternoon with those characters, who didn’t do anything and didn’t talk interestingly about what they did do either.

“Hat first!” said Kairi as soon as they came to the market.

Lea didn’t object. He was wearing his coat again despite the heat, this time with his hood up to hide from the afternoon sun. It made him look a little mysterious and a lot uncomfortable. “My hair hurts,” he whined.

“It does not,” Riku said.

“What makes you so sure?”

“You’re not the only one who ever got a sunburn, you know. Your hair doesn’t hurt. It’s just your skin.”

“So my scalp hurts. Same thing.”

“If I go get some aloe, will you stop whining?”

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?”

By the time Riku had picked up a bottle of aloe and some extra sunblock – and a tube of toothpaste, to be thorough – Kairi and Lea were leaving the hat shop, Kairi grinning, Lea with his coat slung over his arm and a truly monstrous straw sunhat on his head. It had flowers, huge crimson ones the exact shade of his hair that flopped back and forth when he nodded.

Lea grinned too when he saw Riku’s face. “Hey, I won’t have to look at it, right?”

“It’s very…you,” he said eventually. It wasn’t a compliment, precisely, though he didn’t mean it as a serious insult either. That was the kind of hat he should’ve expected Lea to buy.

“Isn’t it perfect?” Kairi said. “I can’t wait to knock it off his head!”

“Were you always this violent?” said Riku, pretending to be appalled.

“I would think you’d remember. Come on, clothes next! We can stop in and see Selphie. She’s working there this summer, you know?”

Riku hadn’t known, but he wasn’t surprised. Selphie liked clothes, and she was an excellent saleswoman if you didn’t know her too well. If you did, you remembered being begged into no small number of schemes that had somehow been more work for you than for her, so you took her assurances with a grain of salt. Still, it would be nice to see her.

“Hi, Selphie!” Kairi called as they walked into the cool of the air conditioning. Lea relaxed visibly; the clothing under his coat was also black and also far too warm for the island summer.

“Kairi! And Riku! And – who’s this?” Selphie gave Lea a measuring sort of look. “Is he your new boyfriend?”

“No way!” Kairi laughed.

“Hey,” Lea objected, “what’s that supposed to mean?” Kairi just laughed at him again.

“So, what brings you in here?” Selphie asked, surprisingly professional all of a sudden. “Are you two looking for a present for Sora? We just got these new jackets in, they’re really cute and just his style!”

Kairi shook her head. “Not this time. We’re actually here for this guy.” She tugged Lea forward. “He’s visiting and, well, you can see what his clothes are like. It’s a disaster.”

“It sure is!” Selphie looked Lea over again, differently this time, less like she was about to eat him. “…Is that a sunburn?”

Lea tugged the brim of his hat down over his face. “Don’t look at me,” he said dramatically. “I’m hideous.”

“We can fix that!”

“Mostly,” Riku put in. “…Hi, Selphie.”

“Hi there, Riku! Long time no see! What’ve you been up to?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.” He was almost positive she didn’t know, but he wasn’t sure where to start explaining. He just wanted to buy Lea some clothes and leave without spending an hour chatting.

“Fine, be mysterious! You know I’ll find out eventually.” She usually did, too. Riku contented himself with a shrug.

“So, I think we need some of everything,” Kairi said. “Where do you think we should start?”

“Well, that depends on what kind of look you want. Judging by what he’s wearing now…something elegant?”

This time Lea was the one who laughed. “Not even close. I just need something I can run around in, got it memorized?”

“We can do that! Let me see…what colors do you like best?”

“I dunno…red? Yellow?”

“Okay then, let’s try these!” She led Lea to a rack of shirts, and Riku stopped trying to pay attention. He bought new clothes when he grew out of his old ones, and that was about it. He usually just let Selphie pick everything out, anyway. Most of his friends did; she had very strong opinions and no qualms about sharing them. It was easier to just let her; at least then one of them would be enjoying the shopping experience.

He dozed on his feet, vaguely aware of loud arguing from the back of the store. Eventually, the argument made its way towards him, and he blinked himself awake.

“Riku, tell him –”

“Riku, tell her –”

Lea and Selphie had disturbingly similar expressions on their faces. Riku looked to Kairi, who was tagging behind them both, for explanation. She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think Selphie approves of Lea’s taste in clothes.”

“His taste is awful!” Selphie complained. “He wants to wear all these different patterns and none of them flatter his coloring at all! And he won’t get new shoes.” She pouted as though Lea had personally offended her with his lack of interest in footwear.

“I like these shoes. They’re comfortable, they’re watertight, they’re perfect. I’m not getting your stupid flimsy shoes, memorize it already!”

Riku was almost positive Lea didn’t actually care one bit about shoes. “Okay…”

“And these clothes look fine with my normal coloring.”

“You look like a giant lobster!”

Kairi sidled around them and looped her arm around Riku’s. “I’m tired of refereeing. Want to go get a smoothie and let them sort it out?”

Riku looked between them again. Lea was trying to loom over Selphie, but she was used to people being taller than her, so it wasn’t working very well. “Absolutely.”

Two frozen drinks later (Riku got mango; Kairi got strawberry and stole some of his), they went back into the store to find the fight over and something far more ominous taking place.

“You’re pulling my leg!”

“No, it’s true! See, in sixth grade, Kairi – ”

“Nope!” Kairi interrupted, zipping across the room to smack her hand over Selphie’s mouth. “I never did anything in sixth grade! Yuck, no licking!”

“Are you done yet?” Riku asked Lea.

“Feel free to go away again; we were having a simply fascinating conversation.” Lea grinned. “I had no idea you let Sora cut your hair with a mixing bowl.”

“Wha – I was seven! Selphie!” A good friend, Riku was sure, wouldn’t tell embarrassing stories about him to someone she’d only just met. How did she even remember that? “Yeah, you’re done.” The mixing bowl story was bad enough: he wasn’t leaving Lea here to learn more.

“I got him to buy shoes, but he won’t wear the shirts I picked out for him,” Selphie put in, squirming free of Kairi’s grasp.

“Those shirts were way too tight,” said Lea.

“They were flattering! You have a lovely figure.”

Lea crossed his arms. “I do not. I’m a guy, G-U-Y, got it memorized? Guys don’t have lovely figures.”

“Lies!” said Selphie cheerfully. “You do have a lovely figure. Not as nice as Riku’s, though.”

“…We’re leaving. Let’s go.” He wondered if he was ever going to stop being embarrassed. It didn’t seem likely.

Lea waved goodbye as they walked out, and Selphie waved back, calling, just as the door was closing, “She named it Theobald!”

Kairi spun on her heel, but Lea blocked her way back inside as well as he could while laughing so hard Riku worried he might drop his bags. “C’mon, it’s too late now. And aren’t you supposed to be above revenge, princess?”

Kairi relented but shook her fist at the shop window. “You’re the worst best friend ever!” She yelled through the glass. Inside, Selphie just waved.

“Hey, since when is Selphie your best friend?” Riku asked, vaguely offended. He and Sora were supposed to be Kairi’s best friends, forever. Neither of them were girls, but surely that didn’t make Selphie a better friend…did it?

“Since you disappeared on me, remember?” said Kairi, cuffing him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, I still like you guys best most of the time. Especially now!”

“Thanks, I think.” He did feel bizarrely reassured. “Are we done yet?”

“I think so! Anything else, Lea?”

“Eh, actually…” Lea scratched his head, bags rattling. “Is there somewhere around here I could grab a binder or two? Like, the clothing kind, not the notebook kind, obviously. Or a wetsuit or something I could cut up, even. Only I’d like to wash this one eventually, you know? They get kind of…manky after a while.”

“Um.” Trust Lea to come up with something Riku hadn’t even considered. “There are wetsuits and stuff at Mari’s?”

“Riku, it’s okay, I’ve got this,” said Kairi. She turned to Lea. “Since Riku doesn’t actually know everything, he doesn’t know that Vera’s Enigma has binders too, actual ones not made of – hey, wait a minute. Were you wearing that this morning?”

“Duh? Even you would’ve noticed otherwise.”

“Lea! We were running around for hours! You’re not supposed to exercise in a regular binder, you idiot! You’ll crush your lungs and die! Did you at least take it off to sleep?”

“Is this just an island thing, wanting to be my mom? I’m not gonna die, Auntie Kairi. Where did you even hear that?”

“Everyone knows that!”

Riku nodded. He had a vague impression that it wasn’t healthy to run around too much wearing anything that compressed your torso, but nothing more specific. Still, he wasn’t about to say that Kairi was wrong, even if she was definitely exaggerating. And no wonder Lea’d been breathing so hard. He was going to have to bear that in mind from now on.

Lea sighed dramatically. “Fine, nosyface. Yes, I took my underwear off before going to sleep, because I sleep naked. Do you want me to go into more detail? Because I will.”

“No, that’s okay!” said Kairi hastily, making a face. Riku suspected he was making a similar one. She recovered faster, though. “Come on, then. I’m coming with you, and you’re going to buy something safe, or else I’ll have to go easy on you, and we don’t want that!”

“I’d be fine with that, actually,” Lea said, but he allowed Kairi to shove him along.

That left Riku alone again. He shrugged and went to get another smoothie.

“Riku, where even are you?”

“Riku! We’re done!”

Tucked into one of the oversized chairs that almost completely hid him from the café window, Riku slurped at his smoothie and turned the page of his new book. They would find him sooner or later. It was practically a training exercise.

Or it would be, if Kairi didn’t know him so well. Within two minutes, she plopped down sideways on his lap and stole his smoothie. “Whatcha got?”

“New Niani book.” Riku tilted the cover so she could see it.

“Ooh! Can I borrow it when you’re done?”

“Of course.”

“Auntie Kairi is awful and I disown her,” Lea said, slumping into a chair with the rustle of yet more bags. He was wearing some of the new clothes Selphie had chosen for him and looked far less uncomfortable and foreign.

“Don’t call me that, Lea-kins.”

“She made me buy sports bras,” Lea confided in Riku, who didn’t know what, if anything, he was supposed to say about that.

“You shush. It’s better for you. You don’t have to wear them when we’re not training.”

“I hate sports bras.”

“You’ve said,” said Kairi serenely.

Riku stole his book back from Kairi and turned another page to avoid having to talk about anybody’s underwear. He didn’t know how Kairi wasn’t blushing. Maybe it was easier for girls? As for Lea, he didn’t seem embarrassed by anything much.

“What’s the book?” At least Lea didn’t want to talk about underwear anymore either. “I didn’t know you read.”

“Of course I read!” Riku said, stung. “It’s an adventure story. There’s a whole series.”

“Riku collects them,” said Kairi.

“You would too if you didn’t just take mine.”

“Adventure stories?” Lea looked at them curiously. “Don’t you feel like they’re kind of flat and boring compared to your life? I mean, you’re heroes of light who defend the worlds from incredible danger. Do you really need to read about it too?”

“…Yes?” Riku looked curiously at him right back. Sure, he’d started reading these before his life had had any real excitement in it, but it wasn’t the same kind of thing at all. Real life was…real, and the books were…not. He didn’t know how to explain it, so he didn’t. “Are you done now?”

Lea grumbled, “Stick a fork in me. I hate being alive. It’s way too much work. Can I go back to sleep forever yet?”

“Just one more stop.”

Lea groaned and rested his forehead against the tabletop – then sat straight upright again with a yelp of pain. “Why didn’t you go on your own, then?”

“Because I want to see Wakka too!” said Kairi. “Everyone’s been so busy this summer, and getting busier. It’ll be fun! You can meet more new people!”

“I hate people,” Lea said, but he perked up. “Does he know any more dark secrets?”

Riku chuckled. “If Selphie doesn’t know about it, it probably never happened.” With a few exceptions…he hoped.

“Wakka!”

The redhead was working the counter, but he stepped out from behind it to pick Kairi up and swing her around. “Hey there, Kairi! Where you been?”

“Training!” she said, giggling.

“Keepin’ at it, ya?”

“You know it!”

Lea sidled closer to Riku and whispered, “Are they related or something?”

“Kairi and Wakka? No, of course not.” He guessed he could see how someone might think so, with the red hair, but he couldn’t help feeling amused by the very idea. They were so much a part of their respective families.

“They’re awful touchy.”

Riku blinked at Lea. Was that supposed to imply what he thought Lea was implying? And what business was it of Lea’s, anyway? “…Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not like that. They’re just friends.” He was sure Kairi wouldn’t have hidden something like that from him. Pretty sure.

“Riku, hey, man! It’s been a while, ya? How’s it goin’?”

“Great,” Riku said honestly. Despite everything, he felt better than he had in he didn’t know how long. He and Wakka exchanged friendly punches on the shoulder, then Riku gestured at Lea. “This is Lea. He’s staying at my place for a while.”

Lea waved kind of anemically. “Hey.”

“Nice to meet ya, Lea. Hey, you play ball at all?”

“…What kind?”

“Any kind. See, me and Tidus, we’re coming up with a new sport, callin’ it blitzball. You interested?”

“Could be.” Lea shrugged. “What’s it like?”

“It’s a secret,” Kairi interjected. “They won’t tell anyone about it until they’ve finished all the rules, and that won’t be for forever, because they can’t agree on anything!”

“We’re getting there! One’a these days, ya?”

“Think I’ll pass,” said Lea. “Thanks anyway.”

Wakka shrugged philosophically. “Anyhow, what’re you guys after? Just dropping by?”

“No, actually,” said Riku. “I need a new practice sword, one of the medium-size ones. Kairi broke it.”

“I didn’t! You’re the one who was holding it, so you broke it!”

“You’re the one who hit it!” Riku turned to Wakka. “That makes it her fault, right?”

“Well…”

“Ha! See?”

“And you’re the one who suddenly got freakishly strong! How did that happen?”

Kairi sniffed. “While some people were gallivanting around, I was training. Right, Wakka?”

“My best student. You beat Riku yet?”

“I totally would’ve, if his dumb sword hadn’t broken!”

“Close enough. Gimme five!” They slapped hands; from the ring of the sound, they’d both put a lot of force behind it.

Riku watched with a vague sense of betrayal. “So it’s your fault!” he exclaimed.

Wakka shrugged again. “Wasn’t me made her want to get stronger so bad, ya? Least I could do was give her a couple tips, make sure she didn’t get hurt.”

Guiltily, the thought crossed Riku’s mind that Wakka had probably been a better teacher than he was turning out to be. He definitely was if he’d made sure Kairi didn’t get hurt. And if he’d helped Kairi get that strong…Riku toyed briefly with the idea of giving Wakka the Keyblade and making both Kairi and Lea his problem. It wouldn’t be right, or fair, but still, the thought was tempting.

And as for something else Wakka had said…

“Kairi,” he said quietly as they left the store with a new, guaranteed sturdy sword slung over Riku’s shoulder, “did you start training so hard because of what I did?”

She actually laughed. “Not everything is about you, you know! Maybe I just want to be strong so boys will think I’m cute.”

“But seriously…”

She sighed and turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I couldn’t go with Sora to help you because I wasn’t strong enough. If I got another chance…I didn’t want to miss it.”

“So it is because of me.”

“If it is, is that a bad thing?” Kairi asked.

Riku looked down at her dark blue eyes and wasn’t sure. He’d wanted to be stronger, and because he hadn’t been, Sora’d had to be strong enough for both of them. He wished Kairi had never needed to find out what it felt like, to want power that wasn’t there. But it was a good thing to get stronger, wasn’t it, as long as you didn’t lose track of the reason why?

“You guys have terrible whispering voices,” Lea said from far enough ahead of them that Riku could’ve sworn he couldn’t hear. “No wonder Selphie knows everything. You’re all incredibly bad at secrecy.”

Kairi blushed and hurried to catch up, which spared Riku deciding what to say. Or, for that matter, what to think.

Lea’s sunburn faded eventually, between time and regular application of aloe (and toothpaste, the remedy Sora’s mom swore by, and who was Riku to argue with her?), and his complaints about the sun, heat, and sand decreased in proportion from “every five minutes” to “every few hours”. That probably counted as improvement.

Riku thought he was, maybe, starting to get the hang of this teaching thing. Not that he ever stopped waking up in a flailing panic of wondering what he was supposed to teach today and whether it was working, but more often than not he actually had a plan once he woke up enough to remember it, and he could definitely see Lea and Kairi getting more skilled. Lea suggested going out to test themselves against real Heartless, and that did make it easier to judge. They were getting better; Heartless that would have flummoxed them a week ago were manageable now.

When Riku thought “they”, he mostly meant “Kairi”: Lea had a lot of experience, even if it wasn’t in the same fighting style, so most of what he had to do was adjust. But Kairi, no matter how strong she was, hadn’t fought for real until very recently. Riku remembered vividly how different it had been, facing for the first time an enemy that wouldn’t stop if he gave up.

They were in Radiant Garden again, doing a favor for Leon and the rest by clearing some of the Heartless back from the town walls. It still bothered Riku, this world, but if he stood close to the wall he couldn’t see the castle, and the others liked it. “It’s my home, you know?” said Lea, shrugging awkwardly. “Doesn’t seem right to just leave it a mess like this.”

“Cleaning your room, huh? Must be a new experience for you,” teased Kairi, but she looked happier too. She didn’t talk about it, and Riku didn’t press her, but he saw her eyes turn distant and seeking whenever they walked through the town.

He shook himself; he shouldn’t be woolgathering at a time like this. They were away from the shelter of the walls, pushing down the vale, and if the others got in trouble Riku had to be ready to help. The Heartless this far out were stronger, and he wasn’t sure Kairi in particular was ready for them, but she and Lea had both insisted.

As if in response to his fear, a bolt from a Surveillance Robot hovering out of reach caught her full in the back, sending her stumbling forward, off-balance, directly into the blow of an Armored Soldier. She dropped to one knee, and if she didn’t get up in a hurry, she might not get up at all.

The air felt thick, as though time were slowing down around him. Riku pushed himself forward, vaulting off a stony outcropping to land directly on the Heartless looming over Kairi. It vanished, and he cut through the next one, and the next, before a gap let him look more carefully at Kairi.

She was injured, but she was on her feet, back in a guard position, a frown darkening her features. “I’m fine,” she said shortly before Riku could ask. “It’s not bad.”

He sent a Cura over her anyway, feeling guilty. He shouldn’t have given in. It was his job to measure their readiness, not theirs.

“Don’t suppose you have another one of those?” Lea called tensely from nearby.

Riku turned: he was keeping the Heartless back with magic, but it wouldn’t last forever. “Will you be okay?” he asked Kairi one more time.

“No problem. I’ve got this.” She shoved at him when he still hesitated to leave her alone. “Go!”

He kept glancing over as he helped Lea clear a breathing space, but Kairi was as good as her word, and he didn’t see her fall again.

It seemed to take forever, as measured by the tension of watching, before the Heartless stopped coming, driven back for the moment beyond this section of cliff. Riku sighed in relief, letting the fear ease away as he threw one last Cure over all three of them. They were okay.

“We need to talk.”

An entirely different kind of fear plunged down his spine at those words. Kairi was looking at him seriously, Keyblade still in hand.

There was really only one thing to say. “Um. Okay?”

“Am I being talked at too, or - ?”

Kairi waved Lea off. “Go bother Scrooge or something. We’ll meet you in town. And no eavesdropping!”

There were worse ways to make sure Lea wasn’t listening, Riku thought as he watched him walk back up the slope, than to do your talking in the middle of an open plateau with nothing to hide behind. He swallowed. “What is it?”

Kairi bit her lip, not saying anything for three terrifying breaths, and then the words all spilled out at once. “You need to stop treating me like a little kid.”

“What? Kairi, I don’t! I know you’re not!”

“Then, I mean stop treating me like I’m…fragile, or like I don’t know what I’m doing. I know you don’t mean it,” she added hastily, “but you keep hovering over me like the world’s going to end if I scrape my knee, and it’s not fair.”

“I don’t – ”

“You do, and it’s,” she looked down, twisting her Keyblade between her fingers, “it makes me wonder, if you don’t think I’m good enough, why are you training me in the first place?”

Riku was pretty sure this was what being stabbed felt like. “Kairi, I’m not – I don’t – of course you’re good enough, you’re amazing.” She was coming ahead by leaps and bounds, even he could see it, and he didn’t really have anything to compare it to, but he knew she was doing better than most people would, probably better than he would have.

“But – ” Kairi drew a long shaky breath, and Riku could hear tears, he was making her cry. Forget Keyblade Master, he was the worst friend ever. “Today, I know I messed up, but I could’ve handled it. Lea was the one who really needed your help, and if you leave him to take care of me every time, it’s not fair, you know? To either of us.”

Was she right? Riku thought back. Everything was distorted in memory by his emotions, but when he really tried to ignore them, Kairi might have been able to recover. He’d been too scared to wait and see. And Lea really had been in trouble, with so many Heartless around him that he couldn’t take any one of them out without being piled on by the rest. It had worked out, he’d been able to help them both, but what if it hadn’t? Would it have been his fault?

He had to think like a Keyblade Master, not like a friend. From there, the answer was obvious. “…You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Kairi.” She deserved more than that; as little as he liked admitting to his fear, she deserved to know it wasn’t her fault. “I…I’m scared, that you’ll get hurt and it’ll be my fault.” Again, he didn’t have to say. She knew.

She smiled, still wobbly but getting better. “It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared too. But…I want to get better fast, so nothing bad does happen, and I have to push my limits to find out where they are, you know? So, let me, okay?”

“I’ll try.” He couldn’t promise to succeed every time, and he wasn’t going to make a promise he would break.

“That’s good enough!”

It really wasn’t, but it was the best he had. As they turned back toward town, Riku said the first thing in his head. “Do you think I should apologize to Lea, too?”

“Nah, you’d both hate it. Just pay for his ice cream or something. He’d forgive anything for ice cream!”

“We’re going to try something a little different,” said Riku.

Lea looked around. “Is this the part where you murder me and bury me in that little cave? Only I can’t help but notice Kairi’s not here, and if you were looking for someone to swear to an alibi, she’d be your first choice.”

Riku rolled his eyes. “I promise, you’re safe from me. Kairi had a thing.” He waved his hand vaguely. He didn’t know the details, but Kairi would probably tell him all about it tomorrow.

“And you let her get out of training, just like that? She’s so your favorite.”

“If you had any friends, you could ask for time to go see them,” Riku pointed out. It wasn’t his fault Lea was…Lea. (It was kind of his fault Lea didn’t have any friends, though.)

“You’re still not my mom, got it memorized?”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think you’ll like this: Strike Raid.” To demonstrate, he summoned his Keyblade and threw it at the nearest palm tree, leaving a tendril of his will in the blade to call it back to his hand like a boomerang. Sora could get more than one strike, but Riku couldn’t seem to find the trick of it. Once Way to Dawn was back in his hand, the momentum broke.

“I think it’s more suited to your typical style,” he continued awkwardly, “since the chakrams are at least partly throwing weapons, and all…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Lea said. “So are you going to show me how to do it, or what?”

Riku mimicked his stance. “Are you going to get your Keyblade out, or what?”

“Gimme a sec.” Lea twisted his face into a very strange expression, but his Keyblade dropped into his hand after only a few seconds this time. It still wasn’t perfect – unless he was faking the effort, which Riku wouldn’t put past him – but he was getting steadily better.

“Okay.” He paused to get his thoughts in order. He felt like he spent half his free time trying to work out how to explain things he’d never put into words before. “What you have to do is throw the Keyblade – ”

“Duh.”

“ – But when you do, don’t…let go of it, with your mind. Keep your focus on it, like you do when you’re summoning it, and right when it hits the target, call it back to you, but gently, so it doesn’t disappear and reappear, but flies back to you.” He thought that covered everything, but even if it didn’t, maybe he would be able to tell in practice what was missing.

“Oka-a-ay…” Lea certainly sounded dubious. But then, he sounded dubious about most things Riku said.

“Give it a try.” He didn’t expect Lea to get it the first try, but he might surprise him.

He didn’t. Lea stood frowning for a moment, then hefted his Keyblade and flung it sideways against a tree. It hit, but there it stuck, listing sadly to one side. Lea huffed out an annoyed breath.

“Try again,” Riku said steadily. He would give Lea a few more tries before adding more advice; he might get the hang of it on his own. When Lea started to trudge over to the tree, though, Riku stopped him. “Call your Keyblade back from here.” That would give him more practice at something he badly needed to work on, and having that practice might make Strike Raid easier to master.

Lea rolled his eyes and stuck his hand out in front of him like he was shaking hands with someone he didn’t much like. It took less time than before for his Keyblade to answer the call, though.

After three more tries with the same level of success, Riku said, “Keep your eye on it as you throw, and after. Don’t lose that connection. And visualize where you want it to go after it hits. It won’t do it on its own.”

“I would never have guessed,” Lea grumbled. He pulled his arm back, threw…and this time, his Keyblade rebounded off the tree instead of sticking in the groove. It thumped to the sand almost immediately after, and Riku wasn’t absolutely certain it hadn’t just bounced, but it might be a start. From the way Lea’s scowl brightened, he certainly thought so. “Did you see? It moved!”

If Riku let him, he would stop with this, and then he’d never get anywhere. “Try again, all the way back to your hand this time.”

Lea’s face fell again. “Yeah, yeah, no rest for the wicked.”

He kept on, with Riku guiding him as best he could, but he never seemed to get farther than a half-hearted rebound. Lea got bored easily, too: after a few more failures, he started punctuating every attempt with a plea to do something else, and his form got sloppier and sloppier.

“Are you even trying?” Riku asked, exasperated, when Lea’s throw (more of a toss) missed the tree entirely. If Lea didn’t want to learn enough to pay attention, what was Riku supposed to do then?

“Yes I’m trying!” Lea shouted, startling Riku. He flung his Keyblade to the ground and glared at it, fists clenched. “I’ve been trying all day, and it isn’t working, okay?! This is stupid, and you’re stupid, and I quit!” He turned toward the docks.

For a sickening moment Riku thought this was it. He’d failed as a teacher somehow and would have to explain to Yen Sid that he’d been bad enough to drive away his student. Then he shook off the cloud. He could salvage this somehow. He had to. “Lea – ”

As if he’d just been waiting to be interrupted, Lea spun on his heel. “It looked like a good idea at the time, alright? Get the Keyblade, save the world, blah blah blah. And hey, great joke, right? Watch Lea try to wield a Keyblade! But it’s not funny anymore. You do all this stuff like it’s easy, but it’s not, do you have it freaking memorized?”

Riku rocked back on his heels. That outburst sounded like it had been building for a long time. He didn’t even understand half of the problem, let alone know how to fix it. He guessed. “You’re not a joke.”

“Then what am I even here for, huh? To make the student you actually care about look better by comparison?”

“What – Lea, no, that’s not true!” He was still paying more attention to Kairi, he knew he was, but she had so much to catch up on. He wasn’t neglecting Lea…was he?

Was he?

Lea might be older than him, but right now he didn’t look it. He was standing, arms crossed and scowling, in a posture Riku was all too familiar with. He hadn’t been bored, Riku realized; he’d been frustrated, and Riku had just made it worse by assuming he hadn’t been trying.

He had been neglecting Lea. He was the worst teacher ever.

He couldn’t take his mistakes back now, so he would have to fix them, somehow. Riku took a steadying breath and tried to think. “It’ll come, I promise. It just…might take a while.” Longer than he’d expected, longer than he’d assumed, but… “I couldn’t even use my Keyblade for a long time.” The memories of that time and who he’d been crowded around, but they didn’t hurt as much anymore. He was past that. He was okay.

Lea huffed, but he uncrossed his arms and quirked a smile. “Yeah, but you wanted to.”

“You don’t?” Riku blinked, startled. Could you even wield a Keyblade you didn’t want?

“Well, you know…not really? It’s a nice toy and all, lots of perks, but this whole sword thing, it’s not my style. It’s just not cool anymore, since they started letting all these snotty kids in.”

“I’m not a kid,” Riku said reflexively, but he relaxed. This was normal Lea; he could handle this. They’d worked with the Keyblade enough for one day, if Lea didn’t enjoy it for its own sake. He owed Lea a chance to do something he was good at. “Hey, you know what would really surprise Kairi? If you tried something other than fire magic for a change.”

Lea grinned. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, have you ever tried gravity?”

Kairi threw her Keyblade at him when Lea jerked her off her feet unexpectedly, even though the spell didn’t last long, but it was worth it. She’d been getting overconfident again anyway.

The day had gone bad before it had even really started. Riku had woken up inexplicably cranky, like he had a pebble in his shoe before he was even wearing shoes. His parents had left a note on the kitchen table expressing vague concern about Lea’s continued presence in the house (if they had bothered to investigate him half as scrupulously as they would have investigated a journalistic source, they would have been more than vaguely concerned about how he didn’t appear to exist in Destiny Islands records, but of course they hadn’t). They had been out of eggs. Lea had used Riku’s shampoo again.

And now they were supposed to be drilling, but Kairi kept blocking when she was supposed to dodge, and Lea still didn’t have the hang of Strike Raid but that didn’t stop him from trying, or perhaps at this point he was just throwing his Keyblade at her, and Riku was completely fed up with both of them.

“Stop!” he said as Kairi stole Lea’s Keyblade the next time he threw it and started dancing around laughing. “Just – stop it already!

“Are you even trying? This isn’t a game, Xehanort won’t go easy on you if you’re not ready, do you not get that? Or are you just interested in playing around with your Keyblades instead of doing any work? Do you even care?”

In the sudden silence his voice seemed to echo back to his ears.

Kairi gaped at him. Lea gaped at him. They both looked identically confused and even identically hurt. The hot anger Riku had been feeling cooled in an instant into a solid lump that settled in his stomach.

He hadn’t meant that. No, that wasn’t true: he had meant that, even if only for a moment, meant every word as he’d said them. Despite knowing how hard Kairi had been training to catch up with them, despite knowing how frustrated Lea got with the Keyblade techniques, he’d let himself wonder if there was any point to teaching them at all. And then he’d let himself say it aloud.

All he wanted was to run, to escape from his own words, but it didn’t work that way. Besides, there was nowhere to run to. What was he supposed to do, go hide in the shack?

They might get on better if he did.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said numbly. “Sorry.”

“Sure you didn’t,” said Lea. It would be him, poking, prodding, never willing to leave Riku alone (or let him get away with anything). “Sounded like you meant it.”

“I didn’t,” he repeated as though that would make it true. “You’re doing fine.”

“ ‘Course we are. We’re perfect. You’re the one who’s not doing fine around here.”

The worst thing was that he was right. “…Yeah. I’m gonna – you keep sparring, or whatever. Or don’t. It’s up to you.” It wasn’t dignified to run for the boats, but his dignity was pretty well dead anyway, and he couldn’t stand being on the beach one minute more.

“Hey! Riku!” There was a muffled commotion behind him, but he didn’t turn around. Whatever it was, Lea and Kairi would handle it better without him.

He was supposed to be past this, he berated himself, digging the oars in more forcefully than was really necessary or helpful. He was supposed to be better now than the boy who said things like that to his friends. He didn’t like that boy. No one did. He’d blamed it on the darkness once, but he’d always secretly known better. That was him. Just him. He lost his temper with his friends. He got impatient too easily. He turned cruel when things didn’t go as he’d imagined.

He’d thought he was better. He was supposed to be better. He’d been careful, and then he hadn’t lost his temper…and then he’d stopped being careful. Riku tied his boat off and ignored the angry shaking of his hands. No matter how much his hands wanted to, he wasn’t going to punch himself in the face. That wouldn’t help anything.

Maybe nothing would. Maybe this was one of those things that just couldn’t be fixed. He was a terrible, horrible teacher and there was nothing to be done about that but try to find someone else to teach them before it was too late, before he got them killed.

He flopped onto his bed with his house slippers still on. How was he going to tell Yen Sid? Some Keyblade Master he was; he couldn’t even teach right. Yen Sid should’ve made Sora a Master, the way it should’ve been. Sora wouldn’t yell. Sora would know what to do. (Sora would fall asleep on the beach, Riku’s memories whispered. Sora wasn’t good at staying on task himself, let alone making sure other people did.) Sora always was everything Riku couldn’t be.

“Riku, open up! This is an intervention!”

Riku buried his face in his pillow. He didn’t know what Lea wanted, and frankly he didn’t care. What was he going to do, talk to Riku about his compulsive being-a-massive-jerk problem? Riku was already fully aware.

“You better not be naked, because I’m opening the door now!” At the sound of Kairi’s voice, Riku flailed himself into a sitting position. Kairi didn’t bluff. Fortunately, the only piece of clothing he was missing was a slipper, which had gotten lost around the foot of the bed at some point in the last few hours.

“What if he was naked?” Lea said as Kairi opened the door.

“He’s not. See?”

“But what if? What were you going to do then?” Lea winked obnoxiously. “I think you were hoping to get an eyeful, if you know what I – ow!”

Kairi smiled as though she hadn’t just kicked him in the shin. “Hi, Riku!”

“…Hi?” She didn’t look angry, but she should be. Riku had long ago given up on asking his friends why they were in his house. The answer never helped.

“Riku, this is an intervention,” Lea said with a credible attempt at a straight face. “We’re your friends and we’re concerned about you. It’s time to admit you have a problem. A…what was it again?”

“A trying-too-hard-to-be-perfect-and-beating-yourself-up-when-really-you’re-doing-just-fine problem!”

“Yeah, that.”

“So! We’re having an intervention, where we come to intervene with you hiding in your room and making sad bunny faces.”

“For the last time, I don’t look like a bunny when I frown!” He wasn’t sure where Tidus had even come up with that, years ago, nor why it had stuck.

“Sa-a-a-ad bunny faces,” Kairi repeated. “Which you shouldn’t make, because honestly, Riku, you’re a really good teacher. And I know things have been kind of crazy, but I never really got you a present for making Keyblade Master, so here!” She shoved something into his hands.

Riku looked at it. The package bore all the signs of a hasty wrapping job, including the bow that was already falling off. It was unlike Kairi to be so careless. He tore it open.

The mug inside was an eye-searingly bright yellow, on which blue letters had initially proclaimed “WORLD’S #1 TEACHER”. Someone with slightly different shades of paint had moved the apostrophe. He loved it instantly. “Kairi…” It was just a stupid mug. He didn’t know why he was blinking so fast, why his eyes wanted to well up.

“It says you’re the best, and the mug wouldn’t lie to you, so it must be true. So no more brooding, okay?”

Faced with an argument like that, what was he supposed to say? “Okay.”

Kairi hugged him, trapping his hands and the mug against her stomach. Guiltily (he wasn’t supposed to need comfort so much) Riku tucked his forehead into the crook of her neck and breathed in the familiar smell of her shampoo.

Lea coughed loudly. “Not to interrupt a moment or anything, but voyeurism isn’t really my thing, so I’m gonna go snoop through your desk now, ‘kay? ‘Kay.”

They jerked apart. Riku suspected he was blushing, but he was distracted by yelling at Lea, “Hey! Get out of there!”

“Come over here and make me, why don’t – are these all lesson plans?” Lea turned around with a pile of paper in his hands. Riku could see his own writing, neater when he’d been fully awake and pleasantly excited, messier on late nights and bad days like this one. “I was just going along with this whole thing for kicks, but Kairi has a point. No way this can be healthy.”

“Give those back!” Riku leapt for them, but Lea lifted them above his head in time, laughing.

“Nope! No more enabling your problems! In fact – oops! Would you look at that! What a shame!” In his hands, the scrawled notes flared with light and then crumbled to a handful of black ash.

Riku saw red for the second time that day. Those were his notes, the product of hours upon hours of struggling to come up with some plan, any plan, that stood a chance of working. How dared Lea destroy them? He opened his mouth to say so, but what came out was, “I need those!”

“You really don’t. You’re a good kid, Riku,” Lea said, ruffling Riku’s hair, of all things. “You’re doing fine, F-I-N-E. Get it memorized already.”

He whacked Lea’s arm away. “I’m not a kid.”

“Too bad, ‘cause Kairi made me get a present for a kid, but a grownup I’d have to get an actual apple.” He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out as indifferently as Lea could pretend to be.

Riku took it. It was an apple, too look at anyway, but when he held it he could tell it was a box, just shaped like an apple. Holding it well away from himself in case of firecrackers or fake snakes, he opened it and looked inside.

“A little bird told me you like caramels,” said Lea. “And hey, I’m in favor of shutting you up whenever I can.”

Riku ignored him in favor of unwrapping one of the candies. He would have to rewrite his notes later, and come up with something annoying to do to Lea in revenge, but for now, he had candy, he had friends, and he could believe he really was going to get the hang of this sooner or later.

“Mickey?”

“Yes, Riku?”

“How do you know…if you’re doing okay? At teaching, I mean.” No matter what Lea and Kairi said, Riku still wasn’t sure.

Mickey chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry. From the looks of things, you’re doing just fine.”

Down below in the streets of Radiant Garden, Kairi and Lea were cleaning out another Heartless resurgence. Riku kept half an eye on them, in case he was needed, but no more than that. Warmth filled him at the King’s words, like his students were a project Riku could take some part of the credit for. But still… “But how do you know, for sure?”

“You don’t, not really, the way you mean.”

“Not ever?”

“Not completely.” Mickey smiled at Riku’s expression and went on, “It’s like raising children, I hear. People change so much; how can you expect to know for certain how their stories are going to turn out?”

“They’re not my kids,” Riku said, making a face. Lea was older than he was, and as for Kairi…that would just be gross.

“No, but you’re responsible for giving them some of what they need to survive in the world. That’s the same. And you want to guide them. That’s the same. And sooner or later, you know you won’t be able to. That’s the same, too. So just the same, you have to teach them not to need you, and it’s not easy. You just try your best to do right by them.”

“I know that, but – how can I tell when they’re ready? When they don’t need me?”

“Well, you can give tests, and you can do like you’re doing and let them try on their own but still be there to help them out if they need it. And then, when it’s time, you let them go on their own, and you hope they’re ready.”

“But – ” Riku folded his knees up and leaned his forehead against them. “What if I’m wrong? It’s Xehanort. What if I can’t get them ready in time, and they get killed and it’s my fault?” He’d been worrying about that for a long time, but Mickey was the only one he felt he could say it to, straight out. What if he got his friends killed through not being a good enough teacher?

“I believe in you. And you won’t be alone, you know.”

“But – ”

“You can’t know for sure until it happens. I’m sorry. I wish there was a way, but there isn’t. You just gotta believe, in them and in yourself!”

“I’m not very good at that,” he admitted to his knees.

“It’s scary, I know. And it never really stops. But if you do your best and care a whole lot, you might end up with something wonderful.”

“What’s that?”

“You might get to see your students grow into fine people, teachers with students of their own. That’s when you know.”

“…Mickey? Thanks, for everything.”

“Aw, shucks.”