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Riku was drifting backward, sliding into darkness.
The familiar surroundings of Destiny Island had blurred into unrecognizable shadows. The trees, the sea and the sands he could have sworn by were all fading like smeared watercolors, stained shades of violet. The sky had blotted into stormclouds. The air smelled electric.
And Riku was falling, the ground slipping out from under his feet.
As his gaze slid upward, without aim or depth, it struck something unchanged.
Sora.
His bright blue eyes had widened, his brows furrowed in confusion, but he stood much the same as he had a few minutes ago, utterly still in the maelstrom of energy. As he noticed Riku, his eyes lit up, and he started to approach.
Riku’s breath caught. He threw out one of his hands.
The winds whipped in his ears. He could hardly say anything, let alone hear Sora’s response, but he willed:
Take it, Sora.
Come with me.
I don’t know where we’re going, but this must be the adventure we were searching for.
But Sora hesitated. He turned his head away, his spiny hair fluttering about his face, eyes peering into the darkness as if already lost.
What was Sora looking for? Riku was right here.
A frigid chill stole down Riku’s spine. He tried to call Sora’s name, but the wind took it.
The last he saw of Sora was his chin moving as he glanced toward Riku once again. But once his eyes reached where Riku had last stood, Riku would no longer be there.
And Riku was falling.
Riku felt as though he peered through a kaleidoscope for answers, scouring between meaningless colors and shapes, optical illusions and tricks of the light.
The one time he’d seen Sora, his strange sword leaving stranger shadows on the ground, he hadn’t even a moment to catch his breath, let alone speak with him at any length. Soon enough, Maleficent was calling after him again, and Riku was slipping through the darkness once more, dutifully falling to the witch’s dais.
He only ever saw Sora in passing. He’d suspected that Maleficent was purposely waylaying them, but how could it happen on every instance? How could he only ever witness Sora in fragments? He barely had a chance to explain Kairi’s condition, let alone all these new worlds they had come across.
...Riku had to focus on Kairi. She was in danger. He had to rescue her. If only he could rely on Sora, as he always had. The two of them, inseparable as long as they could remember, building rafts, spinning dreams, striding in the same direction.
Originally, Riku had thought all he needed was time.
Until the glow of that open glossy window had caught his eye, and he had seen the inside of that tucked-away house.
Until he had come across all those castaways of Traverse Town, in conversation and banter, laughing. Laughing.
Until he had found Sora at the heart of it all, his smile stretched wide across his cheeks, joyful and careless.
Sora wasn’t worried about Kairi.
Riku had figured Sora wasn’t worried about him.
But even Kairi…
Riku had thought Sora wanted to eat the paupu fruit with Kairi. Hadn’t he? He’d drawn all those pictures. Riku had hoped—
Well, Riku didn’t care about what he wanted. But for Sora to spit on Kairi’s very heart? To forget about her?
Maleficent’s verse began to swirl among his thoughts, cold as ever in its clarity.
You're better off without that wretched boy.
Yes. Riku knew. If Sora wasn’t going to help him, then he had to save Kairi’s heart on his own. He wouldn’t abandon her.
But still…
Why would Sora—
Think no more of him, and come with me.
Riku willed himself to.
Sora could do whatever he wanted. Riku wasn’t—Riku wouldn’t keep chasing after him. Sora could make his own decisions. Even if they were selfish. Even if they were hurtful. He would always act to his own whims, and Riku would be left to secure the foundation of their friendship.
Vindication.
It seeped through Riku’s veins and worked into his heart, tightening and tightening his pulse.
The keyblade’s handle was still warm when it landed in Riku’s palm. He squeezed it, and a smile cut across his face.
His destiny. His keyblade.
Even Sora’s friends left him behind. Even they waddled along behind Riku. Some friends, huh?
Finally, Riku had what Sora wanted. Finally, Sora’s attention was on him.
And if Sora hated him, then good. Let him.
At least he felt something toward him.
Darkness was the only path forward.
It surged in a torrent within Riku, power and quickness and instinct. He could parry Sora’s ridiculous sword like he never could before, could disappear just as Sora’s blade swung down and then apparate like a ghost just beyond Sora’s vision. He adored when Sora’s eyes cut to him, and for just a moment, something paralyzed and colorless overcame him.
Riku loved the sound of his name wrapped in Sora’s terror.
Look at me, and don’t you dare look away.
Make me your monster, Sora.
Riku’s strength thrust upon Sora’s, and Sora kept wavering, falling back, his breath weakening. Riku almost wanted to kill him, it felt so good. Dominating. Commanding Sora’s vision like he never could before. Where were you? Where were you when Kairi needed you? Where were you when I—
He had known not to place all of his trust in Maleficent. Someone who had sworn herself to destroying worlds couldn’t possibly understand Riku’s desire to save something so paltry as one single Heartless.
But this power… He could harness it. He knew he could. Look how Sora knelt before him, gasping for breath, the sweat streaking his cheeks and rolling down his chin like tears.
When Riku laughed, he didn’t recognize his own voice.
Deeper, darker. Blade-sharp.
This was good, too, he thought. Sora was listening to him. Sora would—Sora would finally help him, if he could just—
Just…
But he found he did not want to stop. He did not want to explain himself to Sora any longer.
He just wanted…
His sword arm was twitching. He was raising his weapon again, pointing it at Sora.
Sora sprung to his feet and blocked the blow before it could pierce him.
Riku tried to strike at him again, but his vision had begun to darken. The shadows were elongating, colors losing their texture and depth.
Sora was…
Sora… Sora…
He wanted… He… Sora…
Was Riku dead? The mouse hadn’t made it clear.
Part of him still existed inside the cage of his body. Could pull at Ansem’s conscience, could try to twist it. He sensed that other conscience against the very vestiges of himself, whatever was left of Riku.
But the rest of him existed in this place leached of values, somewhere between the dark and the light. He could see his own hands spread out before him, but perhaps this was an illusion, something to sate his displaced mind.
…so the darkness had consumed him. He had thought to use it, and he had been used instead.
A coldness hollowed out Riku from within.
He wished…
He thought of Sora, and a fleeting warmth bloomed in his chest.
Riku tried to push the thought away, but he was so tired of tamping down on the impulse.
He thought of Sora, and the lightness touched him, quivering and sweet. He thought of Sora, and he saw pinks and blues and moonlit yellows. He saw twinkling stars. He saw the sun. He saw Destiny Islands. He saw home.
Riku opened his eyes, and he saw ruin.
He wished… He shouldn’t have left everything to Sora. And Kairi—Guilt stabbed him, raw and puckering. He hadn’t done nearly enough for Kairi. He could only hope the husk of her body hadn’t been ravaged, too. That her fate didn’t become his.
“Riku.”
Someone was calling for him. The mouse, Riku thought.
He hoped, blindly, that this wasn’t the end of his tale. That he hadn’t gone to all those worlds and seen all those possibilities just to end in this one.
He missed what he’d always had. The sea lapping at his toes. The warm sand. The sunsets on Destiny Islands. All those worlds, and none of them withstood Riku's memory like the way the sun had melted into the ocean in his childhood home, brimming along the horizon.
His friends. Sora. Sora.
The door at world’s end needed to be closed on both sides.
Riku’s muscles strained as he curled his fingers around the frame and pulled. From close behind him, he could hear the mouse squeaking as he fended off the shadows.
Riku looked up, his teeth gritted, and he saw—
Sora.
Sora stared at him, his blue eyes frozen. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
Riku cracked a small smile. “Come on, Sora. It has to be closed on both ends.”
“Riku—”
His heart ached at the catch in Sora’s tone. But Riku did not waver.
Finally, Sora scrambled forward, shoving his full weight against the door. His companions scurried after him, pushing and heaving and sweating.
Riku’s hand slipped.
For a bare moment, it fell through air, then skimmed Sora’s.
Their fingertips kissed.
Riku paused, stunned. Sora was so—alive—his warmth as gentle as the sun’s rays—
And Riku, he reminded himself, had a job to do. He had to close the door.
Still, his eyes shifted as his body—or what was left of it—pulled at the door. He watched Sora’s face fall as Riku slipped backwards, the door’s shadow slicing through him.
Soon, he could only make out one of Sora’s eyes, and then just their hands, all that remained in the crack between the doors.
Then Riku’s slipped free, and Sora pushed, and the door thudded shut with the finality of a gong.
The shadows shifted, settling, and fell complete around him and Mickey.
Riku clutched his last memory close, of Sora’s bright-sky irises and the utter warmth of his hand.
For he was fading, fading into the darkness…