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In Hollow Bastion, Sora remembers Riku.
Or—he thinks it's Riku. Riku's never still enough for Sora to really look him over.
As soon as he shows up on the other end of the room, he wields his keyblade—the perfect twin to Sora's—and starts running.
At first, Sora thinks he can fend him off. He batters Riku with his own keyblade, striking him with all the force he can muster. He rolls around Riku's attacks, ducks and weaves, and smacks him to the ground. The Beast looms over him like a shadow, rampaging him with claws and teeth. They hit Riku again and again and again, until either he stops moving or he flees.
There's something eerie in the way he lies still, though, nearly like a stringless puppet. Sora doesn't like it. He'd prefer for Riku to run away, to escape.
But the thing about memories is that crushing one doesn't make it go away.
Riku keeps coming back. There's no rhythm to his appearances. Sometimes he shows up; sometimes he doesn't. He's so strong—He hits like a falling tree. It's endless. He exhausts Sora so much that Sora discovers his usual courage around the Heartless waning. He sees Riku and he starts turning the other way, racing down the hall from whence he'd come.
And if he's really unlucky, despite running away from Riku, he'll enter the next hall and slam straight into Riku's side.
Caught unawares, Sora's easily thrown to the ground.
Riku loves cornering him. If he can make Sora as small and helpless as possible, then Riku will take every opportunity. He never defeats Sora, never hurts him to the point where Sora's vision blurs and only a healing spell from Donald can rescue him. But maybe that's what Riku likes is the fact that he can make Sora feel powerless. He seems to enjoy it, smiling wickedly as he pins Sora to the wall with the very same keyblade as Sora's own.
If Riku wins, he dissipates after touching the edge of his keyblade to Sora's chin, his awful smile the last thing Sora sees.
A small voice in the back of Sora's head whispers, He could kill me if he wanted to.
But what Riku enjoys is the thrill of weakening Sora again and again.
The next time he darkens the encroaching hallway, Sora shouts, “Why won't you leave me alone?!”
Riku doesn't say anything—he never does—just smiles his phantom grin and draws closer.
But Goofy, at his side, ventures, “Wasn't... Was he your friend once, Sora?”
Sora's head hurts. He's forgotten so much. He thought Riku was supposed to be important, but now he doesn't know. Now he sees Riku and the only thing he feels is terror.
He whispers, “He's going to hurt me again,” and he calls out to Beast. The Beast manages to corner Riku as Sora runs, again.
He squeezes his eyes shut, breathing hard. If he can just—If he can just get out of Hollow Bastion—then Riku will leave him alone.
Sora doesn't remember why Riku was so important to him. He's been reduced to a ghoul, something to haunt Sora with. Sora can't remember anything good about him.
Maybe there's nothing good. Maybe there's just this: Sora's adrenaline, and Sora running in the opposite direction.
The Riku in Destiny Islands stops Sora cold.
His sea-green eyes are so—clear. Bright. Sora doesn't remember that from Hollow Bastion. He just remembers Riku's snarl, and the pain that came from his bared teeth.
But this Riku glances sidelong at Sora when he holds up his keyblade. Riku asks, “What are you doing with that, Sora? Did you want to train?”
Train...
Hesitantly, Sora puts away his keyblade.
His heart's tempo picks up speed as he stares at Riku. He can't remember what Riku was to him. Someone... Someone... Someone he was... looking... up...
It's no use. Sora tries to pull up the memory, and the scene is blank. There's nothing there.
But he feels a faint flicker of warmth as he regards Riku. Maybe Riku didn't always scare him.
Maybe there was something...
Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning arcs through the sky, and both Sora and Riku freeze. The sky was a perfect, carefree blue, but suddenly it's mottled with clouds, tingeing everything in a hazy purple.
Sora turns to Riku, and he's dyed in shadows, his expression sharp, hooked.
He holds out his hand to Sora, but when Sora rushes toward him, Riku disappears. Sora lashes out, but when he tries to grip Riku's shirt, he feels nothing. Riku's gone.
He can't even save this memory of Riku from the darkness.
Sora looks up at the howling sky, the pale lilac lightning, the sharp, cold rain. The droplets trek down his face like tears.
A shudder overcomes Sora. He remembers this place. He remembers—He remembers—
His gut twists. He feels sick. Something terrible's about to happen. Mom—His mom—
But before he can run to her, an utterly massive black shadow lands on the other end of the clearing, cutting off Sora's exit.
Mom, Sora wills, Mom, please be okay, but now the Heartless is raising one gargantuan hand, pure darkness radiating from its fist, and Sora has to fight.
Sora always has to fight.
There's no end.
The next time Sora enters Traverse Town, the calm of it ensconces him. His heart finally starts to ease.
He has to wade through much-weakened Heartless as he searches the twilit city. They're so small Sora can bat them away with his keyblade. It makes him realize how much stronger he's become as he's been forced to battle his own memories in this gauntlet toward the top of Castle Oblivion. He's—changed, since he started this journey.
He's forgotten more. He's remembered Naminé.
He's tired. There's no rest in this palace, only more stairs to climb.
But eventually, he comes across a flat rooftop in the city, and there, Leon's perched, his gunblade sheathed as he gazes out over Traverse Town. He startles upon seeing Sora, then gestures toward him.
Sora has to scrabble his way up a building's scaffolding, then jump from rooftop to rooftop until he's reached Leon's side. By the time he makes it, he sees Aerith is also seated beside Leon.
That's one of the creepy things about Sora's memories. Sometimes they don't make sense—people just appearing where they weren't before. His brain trying to patch in holes.
But, whatever. Sora's just glad to see them. He purposely sits down between the both of them, and the relief pools over his shoulders at having two older people at his sides. Friends. Sora wishes he could take Leon and Aerith with him through the rest of Castle Oblivion. Maybe then it wouldn't feel like he was stuck doing everything himself.
Leon pats his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
Sora glances at him, then at Aerith. Then he lets his gaze fall to the street below. There aren't any people in Sora's memories of the town, only Heartless that wander around like hapless shoppers with no stores to go into.
Aerith touches Sora's other shoulder. “It's not easy, is it?”
“No,” Sora admits.
He's relieved that his memories of Aerith and Leon are still here. He was worried they wouldn't appear, like the memories might just dissipate. Like shadows.
But they're still here. Still his friends.
Sora wobbles.
The words come pouring out of him in a deluge.
Riku. Hollow Bastion. Destiny Islands. His memories. The strange people in the black coats. His unending exhaustion.
“It's like,” Sora finishes, “there's nothing good left of Riku. Just the bad things. I-I got to the end of the twelfth floor, and I just couldn't do it.” He kicks his feet, hanging over the edge of the roof. “I came back down here.”
Aerith wraps an arm around Sora. Sora lets her, leaning into the touch. If he remembered his mother, maybe Aerith would remind him of her. Still, the warmth of her soothes him, even if she's only a figment of a girl Sora once knew. Aerith and Leon both must have been pretty amazing people to him.
He thinks he lost his family, before he came to Traverse Town. He doesn't remember why. But the comfort he feels around Aerith and Leon—it reminds him of a family he can't picture.
Quietly, Aerith says, “Perhaps there are good parts to Riku, but you can't see them. Memory is a fickle thing, Sora. A very bad memory can sully even a multitude of positive ones. Riku hurt you, so all you can remember is the pain.”
Sora's eyes grow slick. “So, it's me hurting myself, not Riku? It's just my memory of him?”
Leon cuts in. “He did hurt you. That memory, of him, hurting you, must be the root cause. And I'm guessing you didn't have a chance to talk things out with him. Now, your only option is to fight.”
Sora sighs. “But when I beat him, he doesn't go away. When I lose, he just comes back later.”
Aerith chides, “You can't win against a memory. But maybe he has something to share with you. Maybe that's why he keeps chasing you.”
Sora sniffs. “He sure didn't act like he had anything to share with me.”
“Perhaps,” Leon muses, “he doesn't know how to. And you don't, either. All you know how to do is fight.”
Aerith snorts. “You're just like Leon.”
“Hey.”
“Am I wrong? When have you ever approached a conflict without your gunblade in hand?”
“That's not... I don't always do that.”
Aerith gives Leon an appraising look that makes Sora laugh. Flustered, Leon reaches over and ruffles Sora's hair, hard enough that Sora can't make out the expression on his face anymore.
After Leon's done being embarrassed, he lets his arm fall, and then it's him and Aerith both holding Sora. He feels safe in a way he hasn't since... since... before all of this. (He doesn't remember. He's sick of not being able to remember. What is happening to him?)
He doesn't know if he's making a new memory, or maybe just rewriting an old one. But he thinks he needs this, all the same. He needs to know that he's not alone, even when he can't grasp onto his own core memories. Even as he feels himself slipping away.
It's like Aerith can see through him. She smiles a little sadly, and she says, “It's just like that. Making an old memory new. That's what you can do.”
Making an old memory new...
Sora doesn't know why he came back to Hollow Bastion. He's already cleared the floor. He didn't have to return to it.
But he's only ever seen that form of Riku here. And he's not in Destiny Islands anymore, now that it's been destroyed.
Sora doesn't have to tread far. He enters a third room, and there's Riku, darkening the far corridor. Like clockwork, he rushes at Sora, brandishing his twin keyblade. Sora's struck by a faint but solid memory, one of Riku snatching Sora's own keyblade out of his hand and taunting him with it.
Then Riku is upon him, baring his teeth, his face a mask of cruelty.
But it's just one mask, Sora tells himself. It's only one side of Riku.
It doesn't look like it, when Riku's rushing at him, when Sora has to sidestep him.
Riku's sword stabs into the ground, and Riku's forced to pull at it from where it's lodged between the tiles. His muscles bulge out as he tugs at the handle. So strong. So cruel.
Sora watches him, and suddenly he's trembling.
His heart's frigid in his chest. He can't breathe quickly enough.
He's scared, he's scared, he's scared.
Riku's going to hurt him. Riku always hurts him. Riku hates him. Riku wants to kill him. He won't stop until Sora's dead.
Shakily, Sora breathes in. That's—That's the bad memories, he tells himself. But as he looks at Riku right now, all he sees is the bad memories.
But now Riku's got his blade freed, and he's aiming it at Sora again.
Sora's heart twists. All he wants is to—
Riku's running at him, grinning madly.
Sora bites his own tongue. Lets the pain steady him.
Then he sprints in Riku's direction.
Narrowly, he swerves around the sharp edge of the keyblade. And he holds his arms out, and he wraps them tight around Riku.
Holding him in place.
Riku's limp at first, confused, but in another moment he starts to pull against Sora, wrestling.
But Sora holds on tighter. Tighter.
Maybe it's the strength of his heart, or maybe Riku doesn't have a script for this. Because he stops struggling quite so much, and it becomes clear they've reached a stalemate.
Sora's eyes glisten. His breath hitches when he says, “This is all I wanted.”
He tucks his head into Riku's neck. His scent overwhelms Sora, of sweat and a hint of the ocean, and something warm, something pure Riku. This is a memory Sora still has. And it's painful, just how familiar it is.
Riku was one of the most important people to him. Once.
Sora... Sora still needs to find him. That's right. He told himself he couldn't go home yet until he reached the other side of the Door to Darkness. Until he and Riku had reunited.
Riku's memory falls limp. Sora falters, then lets go. He steps back and watches as Riku dissolves.
Something about it hurts. No, this isn't the real Riku, so it doesn't matter if he disappears. But it's still a part of Riku that Sora knows. Knew.
Does this mean he'll go away forever now?
...Sora doesn't know about that.
But Sora's heart has grown heavier, with a weight that feels meaningful. He's sadder, yes, but maybe a little freer, too.
Looking away, Sora rubs his eyes, breathing slowly. He focuses on the rise and fall of his lungs. Alive. He is so, terribly alive.
Sora lets his hands fall to his sides. He grips his keyblade, and he continues up the next corridor.