Chapter Text
Riku couldn't sleep. He stared at the ceiling, covers half on, watching the fan slowly turn above him. It was late, silent but for the crickets sounding through the open window, and the quiet felt utterly agonizing. Up until a mere week ago, Sora's snoring from the downstairs couch had drifted up the staircase to fill the house like a cacophonous serenade. Kairi was a much quieter sleeper – she was about twenty feet to his right – but he knew she was still there. With just the two of them, this home felt abandoned. Lifeless. Alone.
Sora wasn't gone for good, of course. Riku refused to believe that was the case. He had every intention of finding him, dragging him back home. Hell, he'd do it on his own if he had to – not that any of the Guardians of Light would allow that. Yen Sid's attention was turned towards distant worlds, forgotten or slumbering, to every corner of the realms of light and dark and everywhere in between. As soon as he found Sora, the Guardians would retrieve him. And even if the old sorcerer couldn't locate him, Ventus and Roxas were conducting their own searches, reaching out with hearts tuned to Sora's after the time they spent as a part of him. It was only a matter of time.
And yet Riku couldn't sleep. He didn't used to be this much of a night owl, but nowadays it was a coin flip if he could even get close to slumber before the outside crickets turned to chirping of early birds right before sunrise. Riku couldn't explain why, not even to himself, but something about the night made him anxious, restless, full of reckless compulsion. Scratch that, he knew exactly why. It was innate, a truth his heart had accepted beyond his own ability to articulate it.
He sighed, throwing the covers off and grabbing his jeans and jacket from the bedside chair. A post-midnight walk didn't always help, but it was better than simply waiting till morning. Riku was about to open the door, hand on the knob, when a sharp crackle echoed through the room from behind him. He froze, the smell of ozone filling his nose. It was as if a shadow passed over his perception, the record of his life skipped–
–a beat and Riku slammed his eyes shut as sunlight smacked full force into his face. When he finally opened them again, he was greeted with the sight of a blue ocean stretching for miles into the horizon. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but a fairly unwelcome one considering the circumstances.
"What the hell?" He felt a cold chill up his spine, and turned to confirm his suspicion: he was on the shore of the second island. In the middle of the day. Somehow, he had lost about seven hours and moved five miles across open ocean.
Riku started to walk back towards the dock, his mind racing. Could he have traveled through time or slumber without realizing, accidentally made use of the power of waking somehow? A quick glance to his clothing removed both of those possibilities. He was still dressed in the clothes Yen Sid had given him, the outfit he had worn during and since his final encounter with Xehanort. He wasn't acting as a Dream Eater, but that still didn't narrow–
There was someone in front of the dock, facing away from him. Riku stopped moving, staring at the figure. No, not someone, not exactly. Its skin was dark grey and washed-out, a hollow facsimile of a boy, in a dark jacket accented in sickly greens and yellows. With a barely a motion, Riku called his keyblade, Braveheart flickering into existence. The figure jolted to life, as if just now noticing his presence. It turned, the symbol on its chest now plain to see: a dark purple heart and sharp bat wings. A dim blur enveloped its hand, forming into a winged sword Riku knew only too well, a blade he had previously discarded.
"You're a Nightmare," he said, the figure cocking its head slightly, staring at him with its neon yellow eyes, "any reason in particular you look like me?"
The Nightmare raised its weapon silently, pointing it at Riku.
"Guess that's as good an answer as I'm going to get." He began to slowly circle his doppelgänger, Braveheart raised, ready to strike as soon as his foe moved.
The Nightmare Riku's feet smacked against the sand, rushing towards the keyblade master in a full-on blitz, Soul Eater lowered and dragging a shallow line in the sand, its wielder crossing the distance between them in seconds. With a distorted grunt, it swung the dark blade towards Riku's chest; slicing through thin air and stumbling, off-balance, as Riku pivoted away from the strike and slammed Braveheart into the Nightmare's back. His foe didn't stay down long, pushing off the beach into an overhead slash – parried – and jumping backwards, barely deflecting Riku's two-handed counterattack. It raised its offhand, black flame leaping to its fingertips, but couldn't even point the spell towards Riku before Braveheart's tip collided with its chest and sent it hurtling into the shallow surf.
"I don't know why you thought this would be a good idea," Riku said as the Nightmare struggled to its feet, "but you should know that no one has more experience fighting himself than me."
If the Nightmare heard, then it refused to respond, rushing towards Riku with the same blind aggression. He gripped Braveheart, tensing for another step in this matador dance, when a burst of heat from the corner of his attention threw him. Another foe? His eyes flickered to farther down the beach, away from the Nightmare charging towards him. Too late, Riku realized his mistake, the tip of Soul Eater worming past his guard, now inches away from plunging into his chest.
A blur of grey and pink and a distorted wail. The dark blade fell into the sand, its wielder inexplicably no longer holding it. Riku tracked his foe's location through the now splintered dock to about ten feet down the beach, next to another sprawled figure with similarly washed-out skin and a pale pink dress.
"Riku!" came a familiar shout from behind. He turned to see his best friend running towards him, grinning from ear to ear, her keyblade slipping out of her fingers and back into nonexistence.
"Kairi?" He dismissed Braveheart, catching the girl in a tight hug as she rammed into his chest, nearly knocking the air out of him. "What – hey, let a guy breathe – what exactly are you doing here? Did you follow me?"
"Follow you?" She let go of him, giving him a quizzical stare. "I just woke up..." Kairi trailed off, blinking in thought. "We fell asleep in my dad's house, on the main island, how did I end up..."
"I don't think we're actually awake," Riku said, pointing over his shoulder at the limp bodies of their foes. "Those are Nightmares, Sora and I ran into a whole bunch of them in the sleeping worlds during our Mark of Mastery exam. They inhabit the darkness of sleep the same way the Heartless inhabit the darkness of waking."
Kairi nodded slowly. "But if we're dreaming, then why are we on the island? Didn't you say the sleeping worlds had fallen far into darkness? Does that mean–"
"I don't know," Riku said, quickly, heart skipping a beat at the implication of their home being dragged back into the depths of shadow. "But at the end of our exam, Xehanort trapped Sora in a deep sleep to try and invade his heart. Maybe someone's done the same to us."
"Couldn't you and Sora summon Dream Eaters after you woke up though? Maybe these are just Nightmares that have escaped from the sleeping worlds."
"Maybe, but that doesn't explain how we ended up on the beach in the daytime."
Kairi shrugged. "Sleep walking?"
Riku chuckled. "I don't even remember falling asleep."
She opened her mouth to respond, but her gaze drifted past him and her expression hardened. "We'll figure it out later. Our company just came to." Destiny's Embrace formed in her grasp, Riku turning to see their two doppelgänger rising again.
"A Guardian's job is never done, huh?" He summoned Braveheart, tossing it from hand to hand. "Think you can handle your lookalike?"
Kairi scoffed. "I'll take care of both of them, just back me up. Aqua's been teaching me a few new tricks, you'll finally get to see what I've been working on." Riku felt his hair stand on end, lightning curling around Kairi's keyblade as she raised it to the heavens. "Thundaza!" A brilliant cascade of voltaic fury descended upon the two dark beings with a deafening roar, before the clash of keyblades once again eclipsed the quiet lapping of waves against the beach.