Chapter Text
Prologue
Perspective – Riku
“You're sure this will work?”
Mickey sighed heavily. “It's the only chance we've got.”
I let my gaze trail over to Meli, still lying prone where I had laid her after Mickey's Sleep spell stopped her in her tracks. That wasn't the answer I was looking for, but it told me everything I needed to know. Unless I wanted her to continue on her darkness-fueled path of destruction – mostly destroying herself – then I had to try.
“Okay. Wish me luck, then.” I pointed Braveheart at the spiked purple orb that was hovering over her.
He gave a nod and a sympathetic smile. “Good luck, Riku. I'll make sure she stays safe on this end.”
A white glow began emitting from both my Keyblade and the orb, growing brighter and brighter, then suddenly vanishing and leaving me in total darkness. The sensation of falling hit my stomach forcefully, confirmed by the air rushing past my face although there were no landmarks to orient myself by. It was a familiar feeling, despite the strangeness of it. I had been through this process multiple times, first during the Mark of Mastery exam, then when diving into Sora's heart. That didn't mean it ever got any more pleasant.
The first thing to appear in my vision looked almost like a picture frame – a giant picture frame, that is, gold around the edges, with an image inside of several children. It was coming straight at me, so I angled my body to the right to miss it, still keeping my eyes focused on the picture. Who are those kids? One was a girl, with long auburn hair in a braid over her shoulder. Her arms were crossed, and she looked to be on the verge of tears. The others were all boys, hemming the girl in so that she had nowhere to run, and the expressions on their faces left no doubt in my mind that whatever they were saying to her wasn't nice in the least.
I was so engrossed in figuring out the image that I didn't see the next one until it was too late. I fell straight through the center of the frame, and suddenly my surroundings were replaced by a fuzzy vision of the inside of a house I had never seen before. An unfamiliar woman towered over me, and I could feel the ghost of her fingers pinching my ear tightly, nails digging into the cartilage.
“Stupid girl,” she hissed. “What makes you think anyone would ever want you? You'd better get the idea of adoption out of your head right now, because you're too old, too ugly, and far too troublesome.”
As quickly as the vision came, it was gone again, leaving me falling through the dark space with only a lingering feeling of shame and self-loathing in my gut. Meli. These were Meli's memories, they had to be. The next one was coming up on the left, and this time I purposely fell toward it. A moment later the same woman was yelling at me, calling me a whiny brat as the echo of a bruise throbbed on my cheekbone.
“How many times do I have to tell you? If you don't want the boys bothering you, stay away from them!”
“But they –” a voice that was not mine but came from my throat tried to protest.
“Don't talk back to me! And next time you get hit, suck it up and deal with it. I don't want to hear about it anymore.” The door to the bedroom I stood in slammed shut, and a lock clicked into place.
I fell out of that memory and immediately headed for the next. I had a terrible feeling that things were only going to get worse the deeper I went, but there was a desperate need churning in my chest to see as much as I could, to try to finally find out for myself exactly what things made my girlfriend the way she was.
The next two memories featured Meli on the streets, and left behind most prominently a innate sense of loneliness and pangs of hunger, along with more shame from the scorn of passers-by and even fellow homeless. As soon as I saw the sixth frame coming, I clenched my jaw and prepared myself to be very, very angry, because I could recognize that tall figure with red hair even from a distance.
“Hey there,” he purred, and above my own desire to gag at seeing what looked like Axel turning those flirty eyes on me, I felt surprise and a sheepish delight flow through my mind. “What's a pretty thing like you doing out here?” His lips turned up and he glanced over his shoulder at a nearby building. “C'mon, you hungry? Of course you are. I'll buy you lunch.”
After that, I could predict the flow of events quite easily, but that didn't make it any easier to stomach seeing it – or feeling it, at least to some extent. I was fortunate that the faint ache of bruises and even one broken bone didn't last longer than it took to fall into the next memory. Meli, I knew, hadn't been that lucky, and the thought made me sick. She had also had to feel the full force of the emotions that accompanied each verbal blow, while I only got a trickle.
“Shut up, I'm so sick of hearing your voice.”
“You realize that you're nothing, right? If I hadn't picked you up and given you my hard-earned money and a place to live, you'd still be wasting away on the street.”
“Look, I work hard all day, and all I want from you when I come over here is for you to kiss me, make me some food, and let me relax and maybe talk about my day. I don't need you yakking about how you feel. I don't care.”
The last frame took me to a night I was pretty sure I knew, despite only having experienced the aftermath of it. I only saw a small portion of the incident with the broom handle now, but I still came out feeling like I should be covered in blood and injuries, and wishing once again that I could have been the one to deal with the monster. I didn't have time to dwell on those thoughts, though, because the next thing I knew, I was landing on some kind of platform, and the very person I wanted to take out my anger on was standing there waiting for me.
Aiden's lips curled into a snarl. “You. You're the one who took her from me.”
“And you're the one who almost took her from me.” My Keyblade was in my hand in a flash of light. “Let's go. I've been waiting a long time for this.”
“You can't break the hold that I have over her. Meli is mine!” The last words came out in a roar as he transformed into a Heartless, fully black and even taller than before, with bright green orbs piercing out where his eyes should have been. His hands were flaming, and he immediately began shooting fireballs at me. I ducked under the first, then swung my Keyblade like a bat and hit the second one right back toward him. It didn't seem to do any damage, of course, only made him switch tactics to one solid stream of fire.
Rolling underneath the flames, I threw ice with my left hand, then stood when his attack faltered and pummeled him with the edge of my weapon. He took several hits before getting one in on me. Leaping back, I shook out the arm he grazed with a hiss, then shot Blizzaga again.
The next several minutes of battle continued much the same. I barely dodged most of his fiery attacks, occasionally coming a little too close for comfort, but was able to land most of my own. Toward the end he began to get desperate, adding in a new move where he shot streams of fire from both hands at once and spun in circles, and that one was hard to avoid. But I had no doubts that I would come out of this victorious. There was no other choice. Meli needed me, and Aiden needed to pay, even if it was only a memory of him.
At last he let out a screech, his entire body bursting into flames, and when the fire had dissipated only a flickering image of regular Aiden was left. He dropped onto his knees and looked up at me with a sneer. “She'll never be free from the darkness.”
I dismissed my Keyblade. “Yes, she will. I'm going to make sure of it.”
He vanished, and an instant later the floor beneath my feet gave way. Flipping myself over in the air, I looked for the next frame, bracing myself for what I might see. However, I certainly wasn't prepared for it to be me.
“Stop it!” I could feel my body running, felt the surge of magic just before Sorrow's Promise appeared in my hand. But my focus was straight ahead on my real self, in Ansem's form, watching with disinterest as the Guardian Heartless crushed Roxas in its fist. I wanted to look away. I didn't want to have to see this moment that up until now I hadn't been able to recall, but this was Meli's memory and I, unfortunately, couldn't alter it. As soon as I got close, ready to drive the Keyblade into the Heartless, Ansem's arm lashed out without even a glance in my direction, not only stopping me in my tracks, but knocking me backwards into a seemingly never-ending tumble across the pavement.
I came out of the memory and back into a free fall. This time, the pain of betrayal in Meli's chest was outweighed by shame that was all my own. We've moved past that. She forgave you, remember?
To my simultaneous relief and dismay, the next memory was not of me. It was of Saix, instead, as were all the following ones. First came the moment she was actually kidnapped, pinned in the snow, then overtaken by Dusks in the In Between. That got my blood started boiling, but mainly because I knew some of what came next.
“This device has ten levels. That was Level One. Shall we continue, or did you have something you would like to say?”
I had gotten used to the milder version of pain I would feel in these memories well enough by then that I had a good idea of just how painful the real thing had been. Besides, having my body fall to the ground while a scream wrenched its way past my lips, and promptly emptying my stomach afterward was a pretty good indicator, too. By the time I fell again, I wanted to throw up for real.
“This is not where I left you. I told you to sit in the shed and not move, and I told you there would be consequences if you did not obey.” Saix's face never lost its stoicism, and his voice never rose, but the harsh grip that pulled at the roots of my hair, forcing me to look at him as my organs burned inside of me, spoke of fury. Just as the sparking in my veins reached my face and I thought Meli would surely pass out, the memory dispersed.
My one thought as I fell toward the next was, I sure hope that I get to fight him next.
Lucky for me, I did, though only after having to go through more memories of torture. The last one before the platform appeared took place right before we had finally freed her, when she had been forced to watch Saix fight Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Once I touched down onto solid ground, I wasted no time with introductions before charging straight for the Nobody, roaring out all of the pent-up remnants of rage, fear, and pain from both myself and Meli.
He was a much tougher opponent than Aiden had been. Even though there was no moon around, this was a memory, and apparently Meli remembered him having his full powers. Waves of blue light rippled across the floor, threatening to knock my feet out from under me. Leaping and rolling out of the way, I made my way to where Saix was hovering and met him in the air, trading blows back and forth before he finally was able to knock me back to the ground.
I was barely back on my feet when a claymore pierced the ground right where I had just been. Automatically I grabbed it, yanking it up and looking for the first opportunity to send it hurtling back toward him. I didn't miss. Saix hit the ground, too, and the blue lights vanished. This was my chance to really fight him, so I ran immediately back in. A few Thunder spells – which I couldn't resist casting to give him a taste of his own medicine – and many blocked and landed hits for both of us later, Saix fell.
“Her darkness is immense. It has taken over every corner of her heart. Do you really think you can bring her back now?”
I met his eyes evenly, breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight but refusing to let his glare or his words cow me now. “Yes. I do. Darkness may be strong, but the light and my love for her are stronger.”
When he disappeared, I hoped that would be the end of it. But the platform broke underneath me once again, and there were more frames appearing in the distance. As soon as I saw the image in the first frame, I knew. Of course. Aiden and Saix were just the beginning. The next several memories spanned the last few months, starting with her very first panic attack. I finally got a glimpse of what it had all been like from Meli's perspective, how much she had wanted to be strong for once, and how it had felt like that was exactly what no one was letting her be. Why didn't you talk to me? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't, not with the voices from her past still echoing in my mind, telling me that I was whiny and worthless and that no one wanted to hear what I had to say. Not when I had just watched her make an attempt at opening up, telling me that she felt like she was dying and that she thought I'd understand, and I had done nothing in reply but berate her for her choices.
I'm sorry, Meli. I understand now. I just hoped I was going to get the chance to tell her for real, when all of this was over.
Another platform was approaching below me, but this one seemed different. It was bigger, for one, and there was no enemy waiting to fight me. Instead, I spotted a small figure curled up on the far edge, their face buried in their knees.
“Help! Please, someone help me!”
“Meli!”
Her head came up at my call, and I could see tears shining on her cheeks even from a distance as I got ready to land. My heart filled with determination and hope. I won't let the darkness have you. We're gonna get out of here, together.