Chapter Text
Riku stood in the darkness, facing the mysterious door that had appeared in the secret spot of the play island. Just one small decision and he could finally leave the island that had slowly turned from his home into more of a prison. He couldn't stand to be on the island for a moment longer. He needed to get out.
Just open the door, and you’ll finally be free.
He raised his arm to the door knob, ready to twist his hand and pull the door open. But right before doing so, his frantic eyes caught sight of all the small doodles on the walls of the cave that he and his friends had made together.
“We’ll build a raft and then we'll all go explore the outside worlds together! Just the three of us!”
He remembered his friend’s words at that moment, and they gave him clarity.
“That's right.” Riku thought to himself, “We all promised to explore the worlds together.”
Riku's hand fell back to his side. He took a step back from the door, pivoted, and went out into the light.
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On the beach, Riku laid down in the sand, thinking about what he had almost done. He covered his face with his hands and groaned in shame and embarrassment.
He had always been curious about the door, but he had never actually considered opening it. Who knows what it would do? Messing with anything related to the mysterious door that strangely appeared and disappeared at random when you looked away was just asking for trouble.
Riku was itching to get off the islands but he would never in his right mind leave without his friends. He would never purposefully put his friends in possible danger like that.
“It was just a moment of weakness. A momentary lapse in judgement.” Riku reassured himself. Finally removing his hands from his face, he noticed how late it had gotten, the soft orange and red tint of the sun hitting his eyes.
Watching the sunset on the beach was always a favorite pastime of Sora's. He would always drag Riku and Kairi to the shore to watch the sun slowly drop below the horizon.
Riku yawned, and slowly closed his eyes, only planning to rest his eyes for a moment, but he quickly fell asleep instead.
Riku doesn't dream often, but when he does, it's always one of two things. Dreams of exploring the far away worlds with his two best friends right by his side, or memories. More often than not, memories of when two strangers showed up on their small play island, seemingly appearing from nowhere, and disappearing just as fast, never to be seen again.
This time seemed to be a dream of the latter.
Riku could still remember how the tall, brown haired stranger manifested a key-like weapon and held it out for Riku to hold. Promising that the weapon would one day be his when the time came, as long as Riku cherished the ones he loved.
He could even remember the words the blue haired girl had spoken. Making Sora promise to look after him.
Looking back, Riku rolled his eyes and scoffed at that notion.
“Me? Being the one needing to be looked after? Get real. If any of us need looking after, it's Sora, and Kairi and I have got that handled.” Riku thought to himself.
Sora was always the one in their small trio getting into trouble. Falling out of his chair from leaning too far back, even after Kairi had warned him that it would happen. Or the one time he tried to sneak into the teacher’s lounge to take back his test that he didn't realize had a backside in order to finish it.
With that, more and more memories of Sora began to resurface in his dreams. Memories of him and Sora playing together, most from a time before Kairi had appeared on the islands.
These nights where he dreamed of these memories of him and Sora always led to the best nights of sleep. Never feeling fatigued in the morning like he usually would. But unlike those previous nights, this one would not lead to Riku waking up peacefully.
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“RIKU! RIKU!! WHERE ARE YOU!?” Sora's familiar voice called out, voice filled with panic.
“Sora?” Riku responded, sitting up and rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. While searching for where the voice of his friend was coming from, he noticed that the sky had become unnaturally pitched back, unusual for the islands. The night sky was usually filled with stars.
“Riku!” Sora ran over to where his friend was and when he got closer, Riku realized there were tears in his eyes and he was very obviously distressed.
“Woah, Sora, hey, what happened?” Riku grabbed onto Sora's shoulders when the brunette tripped over his feet and nearly fell to the ground from exhaustion when he finally made it to his friend.
“We were looking for you! You've been gone all night! We went to your house and you weren't there, then this crazy storm started and we saw that your boat was gone from the dock so we rowed over here, thenwesplituptotryandfindyouand-” Sora explained all in one breath, tears beginning to well up in his eyes as he got further into his explanation, getting more and more worked up.
“Sora, slow down. Breathe,” Riku tried to lift his friend up onto his own two feet, but Sora just ended up falling to his knees instead, no longer being able to support himself.
“When we made it here, we split up to try and find you faster. Kairi went to check the secret spot first… Then I rushed over when there was a huge shadow that came out from the entrance…. When I got there, there was this weird door…. And Kairi… Kairi…. She was just gone…. It's like she just faded away…” Sora's voice faded off as he began taking in shaky breaths and devolved into full on sobbing after recalling the memory.
Shocked by what Sora had said, Riku kneeled down to the ground as well, putting his hands on each of Sora’s shoulders in comfort and reassurance.
“Hey, Sora, look at me,” Sora’s blue eyes, tears still streaming steadily down his face, lifted up to look Riku in the eye. “Everything's gonna be okay. She’s got to still be around here somewhere. I'm sure of it. We’ll find her. Together."
Sora's eyes gained a bit of light at Riku's rare words of comfort. But before Riku could say more, in the corner of his eye, he spotted a small back creature twitching behind Sora's back. The creature made eye contact with Riku and it raised its arm in preparation for an attack.
“Sora, look out!” Riku’s body seemed to move before he could even realize what's happening. Like it was instinct. The moment he needed it most. When the moment came for him to protect the one who matters to him most.
The shadowy monster faded away, and a heart seemed to float up and away from where the beast once was.
Both Sora and Riku himself stood in shock at his actions. Shocked by the weirdly key shaped weapon that had manifested into Riku’s hand.
“Riku? What is that?”
An echoing voice in Riku's head seemed to answer the brunette's question.
Keyblade…
“Keyblade…” Riku whispered, repeating what the mysterious had said.
But before any more questions could be asked or clarifications to be given by the disembodied voice, the ground began to tremor and shake.
Both boys fell to the ground at the sheer power and suddenness of the tremors. They looked around and noticed all the small shadow monsters running towards them.
“Sora! Get behind me!” Riku orders, guiding Sora behind him with one arm, holding his newfound weapon at the ready in the other.
But the monsters seemed to ignore them, instead running towards the middle of the small island. A puddle of darkness appears where the small monsters are running to. In such a short amount of time, the puddle grew into a lake, larger and larger as more of the shadowy creatures entered the darkness.
“Are they… combining?” Sora asked in disbelief, holding on tighter to his friend's arm. Riku clenched his teeth, not liking where this seemed to be going.
And Riku was right to be worried about what the monsters were doing. From the lake of darkness, an even bigger beast arose. It rose higher and higher until it was even taller than any building that Riku had even seen before.
“Sora, stay here.” Riku began to slowly walk forward, towards the beast. He knew what he had to do. He had to protect him.
With his resolve steadied with the need to protect, his walk quickly turned into a sprint. With his speed, he lept into the air to attack the beast. With the first hit made, the beast began to attack as well.
The beast swung at Riku, its arm nearly being able to sweep across the entirety of the remains of the island. Luckily, Riku rolled out of its range. Then, it raised its giant hand into the air and slammed down, creating a large shockwave that nearly knocked Riku off his feet. From where his fist landed, more of the original small shadow monsters reappeared.
Before Riku could begin swinging his keyblade at them, a rock hit the one standing right in front of him, turning the creature to dust and its heart rising up and fading away.
Riku turned around to see where the rock had come from. There he saw Sora, who was holding an armful of debris from the collapsing island.
“Riku! You handle the big guy! I'll deal with the little ones.” Sora shouted as he began throwing more bits of debris at the shadow creatures, all hitting their mark and defeating the monsters, “There's nothing we can't do! As long as we work together, right Riku?”
Confident and reassured by Sora’s back up and words of encouragement, Riku grinned and turned back to the giant shadow beast, readying himself for its next attack.
The beast made from the shadows was tremendously strong and large, but its downfall was its speed. And Riku fully intended to take advantage of that weakness.
After every swing and miss, the arm would pause before returning into the air, out of Riku's reach. That momentary pause would be when Riku would attack.
This cycle of dodging and attacking continued for some time. Riku was beginning to feel fatigued, his movement more sloppy and his attacks more desperate.
But right as the arm was heading back into the air, when Riku felt he wouldn't be able to successfully dodge another attack, Riku jumped up and gave out one desperate final swing of his keyblade, the beast staggered.
The shadows began to fade, and just like with the small creature Riku had first defeated, a heart rose from where the beast was.
“Is…is it over?” Sora asked, cautiously, not wanting to celebrate too early.
As if answering the boy’s question, the heart faded and seemed to turn into a vacuum of darkness, sucking up all of the surrounding bits of what was left of their once home.
Sora and Riku both quickly ran to something to hold onto, not wanting to get taken away by the darkness. But one of Riku's greatest fears began to unfold as he heard his best friend shout his name.
“RIKU!” Riku looked to see his best friend being sucked up into the darkness, Sora’s hand reaching out to Riku.
“SORA!” Riku reached out to Sora's hand, but it was already too late. He was already too far gone. In a split second decision, Riku let go of the root he was holding onto and went after Sora.
Into the darkness.