Kingdom Hearts fic: A Broken Chain Can Be Repaired
Aug. 7th, 2020 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mistressofmuses posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
musefic
Summary: The worlds are in danger, and they need Keyblade Masters to fight that danger. Children with the potential to become keyblade wielders are experimentally sent to other worlds, to make the emotional connections that will strengthen their hearts. However, once they've proven they can wield a keyblade, it's far too great a risk to let them maintain relationships with others. There must never be a question of where their loyalties lie.
But some connections are stronger than those who would break them.
This one was initially a challenge, because these three are canonically just the best childhood friends, lol. The event rules suggest either swapping the prompt (i.e. make them no longer be childhood friends) or using the prompt in a different way than canon. I went with the latter. And oh boy, did this one just keep going. (I wanted it to be 1k. I wanted it to be 1k.) BUT I am actually pretty pleased with this one, I think.
Today is also Day 5 of SoRiKai week! Today's prompts are "Domestic" and "Gifts." This definitely doesn't fit domestic, though I think there is an element of characters being given a gift of a sort in this fic. However this very much fits the Day 3 prompt of "Childhood Friends" and the Day 6 prompt of "Reunion," so... better than nothing?
“We are creating Keyblade Masters, not raising children.”
“I understand sir, it’s just that-”
“Just that what? There is nothing more important than that. We are very literally weighing the fate of the worlds.”
“Yes, sir, I do understand that. But they are children. Raising the subjects in isolation has never produced a successful wielder, much less a Master. They need to create connections and relationships to strengthen their hearts. We don’t know why, but without it, they never summon a keyblade.”
“Very well. If this is of such vital importance, what do you suggest as a course of action?”
“I propose we send some of the more promising subjects out to the quiet worlds, the relatively safe ones at the edge, where they don’t have interworld travel capabilities. There they can be raised by adoptive families, and can grow up with mundane children, making those connections. Once they’re strong enough to manifest their keyblades, then we can find them, and bring them back for further training.”
“Sending them to worlds ignorant of the stakes… in some ways even more complete isolation than attempts to raise them in the labs.”
“Yes sir.”
“You may try this method with the five-year-old group. Keep them under close surveillance; I do not want any mishaps.”
A meteor shower. A girl who fell with the stars. Two friends who found her, washed up on the beach. The girl adopted by the mayor himself…
A girl who grew up knowing Destiny Islands was not really her home, but loving it all the same. Half-buried memories of laboratories and libraries. Two friends, became three friends, became inseparable.
“Is there an update on the subject who was sent to Destiny Islands?”
“Yes sir. It’s interesting…”
“Just give the report.”
“The subject—called ‘Kairi’ on the host world—has been under surveillance for close to a decade, monitoring whether she retains the potential to become a wielder. The data is encouraging; she will almost certainly summon a keyblade eventually, and will likely even be a Master in time. But two of her associations, two mundane children, have begun to show potential as well.”
“Mundane children showing potential as wielders? That is interesting.”
“No sir. As potential Masters.”
“Send them a test.”
Three friends, alone on a small island. A monster that lurked in the shadows. Something lunged from the underbrush, a Shadow with claws outstretched.
Two boys, turned to face it before realizing what it was.
Two hearts flared into weapons. One, called Riku, had a keyblade representing the duality of light and dark. One, called Sora, had a keyblade deceptively simple, but with so much potential.
A Shadow destroyed.
More Shadows sent, preparing to surround two too-newly awakened hearts. And a third flared and awakened. The third, Kairi, called forth a keyblade twined through with flowers and waves, easy to underestimate.
The Shadows destroyed. Three friends discovered a strange sort of secret.
“And how did they respond to their little test?”
“It worked, sir. All three have manifested their keyblades. They destroyed the Heartless we released, and were unharmed.”
“All three were unharmed? Surprising. It’s time to reclaim our subject. And we should, of course, acquire the other two. How rare, for one mundane child, much less two, to have even a spark of potential worth our time. Good fortune.”
“We’ll send a team to reclaim the subject, and to acquire the other two new wielders.”
Three young friends. Three no-longer young researchers. It should have been no contest, between three professionals and three untrained targets.
“Why has our subject not been returned?”
“There was… a complication with the extraction team.”
“A complication.”
“The three targets protected each other, sir. Our researchers barely even got close. All three of them really are remarkably strong. And… single-minded. The team attempted to solely reclaim the subject, when they feared that they would be unable to subdue all three. And the other two protected her so fiercely they had to retreat.”
“This is what comes of attachments. We are creating Keyblade Masters, our army. We cannot risk a division of loyalty. Send a larger team, as many as it takes. Bring them, and isolate them. And bring the Anomaly.”
“I believe the Anomaly is calling herself ‘Naminé’.”
“Whatever she calls herself. Despite her failure to become a wielder, she will be useful to us now. It’s fortunate we kept her after all.”
Three friends, finally overpowered. Pulled away from their home. Three cells, kept separate. But they could hear each other, and they shouted, and made promises to each other.
A girl, a subject from the same group as Kairi, but one who failed to manifest a keyblade. She manifested something else.
Naminé, visiting three cells, and apologizing as she used her power to break the memories of their bonds to each other.
The shouting ceased.
Kairi worked alone. She always had. She gulped a potion down, waiting for it to knit torn flesh back together, temporarily safe in the mouth of a cave halfway up a cliff. There were a lot of Heartless in this world.
She’d heard that there were a few teams of wielders these days, sent out in pairs instead of alone. Sometimes she thought it would be nice to have another wielder or two with her. Then she would shake off the thought. She’d had it drilled into her from the age of 15: partners were more trouble than they were worth. She was better off alone, and making any deeper connections would be… frowned upon. And anyway, she was a Master. She shouldn’t need assistance.
Sometimes she thought she felt other presences. Two of them. It was a strange sensation, like ghosts at her shoulder. It was a feeling she’d learned very quickly not to mention to any of the researchers who were in charge of the growing Keyblade army. They didn’t react well.
Still, it would have been nice to have someone watching her back while she waited for the potion to take effect.
You had that once, didn’t you? Of course she knew she didn’t. She remembered her first mission, and if she didn’t have backup then, she certainly hadn’t had it since. But still, there was that hint of a half-remembered dream: of someone, or maybe two someones, willing to protect her at any cost.
Cleanup jobs were not Sora’s favorite. It felt like an admission of failure, even if it wasn’t his failure. It meant the wielder sent to take care of a Heartless incursion hadn’t been enough. Was that their fault, because they should have been better than they were? Or was it the Keyblade army’s fault, because they sent someone to their death?
He picked his way through the churned up snow, following the wielder’s trail. She’d been young, not yet ready to handle an incursion on her own. He’d collect her keyblade if possible, and then get rid of the rest of the Heartless.
He knew the correct answer to his question. Victory in a world was the victory of the army. Defeat was the defeat of an individual. A mark of weakness, a flawed link in the chain they were building. Broken chains. Something about that as a metaphor never sat right with him.
Maybe because if they were truly supposed to be a chain, then they should have been linked to each other. Some were, he supposed. But ever since his training started in earnest at 15, he’d been kept away from any of the other wielders. He’d been told they would hold him back, that he had true potential to become a Master, that having an ordinary wielder to look out for would weaken him.
That wasn’t always the case, was it? The thought wormed its way through his head, and he did his best to stifle it. It called up feelings he had done his best to suppress over the years. That once upon a time, he wasn’t alone. It was an absence so strong it felt like he should be able to touch it: two people who should have been there, guarding his back while he guarded theirs. All of them stronger for it. Ridiculous, of course. There had never been anyone else. He had become a Master, with no one to help him or to drag him down.
But how could you fault your “chain” for being weak when you kept each link separate?
Another flashy aerial move, and the Darkside stumbled.
Riku grit his teeth as his keyblade returned to his hand. Single Heartless this strong were a rarity, even among the missions they sent him on. He shifted so that one of the broken pillars was between him and the Heartless as he planned his next move.
He started training seriously at 16, and became a keyblade Master at 17, the youngest ever to do so. And in the four years since, they sent him on the most difficult missions, the ones that even their other Masters couldn’t be counted on to complete.
Shouldn’t you have backup? He ignored the persistent thought. He’d never had backup, so how could he feel like it was missing? It did feel like it, though. In five years of training, he had to readjust every strategy in his head, reconfiguring his plan of attack for himself alone.
Every time he looked at a fight, his instinctual response was to plan for where three of them would be. How he could use his speed and strength to draw fire, while ???? used his steadier, persistent style to help bring the enemy down. And ????? could use the strike and retreat style that she’d always excelled at, hitting an enemy where it was most vulnerable, and then getting out of harm’s way before it could retaliate.
And then he had to reorder things in his head, because he was alone. He’d always been alone. At 16 he’d been told that he could never form attachments to anyone else, could never rely on anyone else’s strength. He lived up to that expectation.
And he never told the researchers that he felt like he was supposed to be part of a team. At best they would have laughed. At worst… Better not to risk it.
The Darkside lashed out, like any wounded animal backed into a corner, but Riku avoided the strike, and the shadows that trailed it. Another strike of his keyblade, directly into the center of the thing, and it was dissolving into wisps of darkness, leaving the ruins empty once again.
In three separate worlds, three Keyblade Masters completed their missions, and opened their comms to accept the next mission assigned to them.
In Hollow Bastion, the castle rising above everything else in its world, Naminé glanced nervously over her shoulder. She wasn’t supposed to be in the lab at all, much less at the computer where communications to the field were sent.
She tried to keep her disobedience to a minimum. She wasn’t even a wielder, which made her somewhat expendable by default. Her oddly manifested power made her useful enough to keep, but she didn’t know how far she could push her luck.
She’d only ever committed one other major infraction, and it was for these same three.
Five years ago, the researchers told her to remove their attachments to each other. She did as she was told, breaking the chains that held their memories of each other together. If she simply broke them, and did not remove them… Who could tell the difference?
The screen lit up as all three accepted the mission they’d been sent. That she’d sent.
Then she selected an option from an obscure sub-menu for all three of them: Disconnect. If they tried to send a message to the lab, or the lab tried to contact them, it wouldn’t go through until someone reconnected them.
Good luck, she thought.
A broken chain can be repaired.
Kairi steered her gummi ship to a smooth landing in a small clearing between the trees. It had its own minor camouflage, but landing it away from potentially prying eyes was always best praxis. Not that anyone would be looking. This was one of the isolated worlds; they’d had no warning about the Heartless, and should be too intently focused on the attacks to worry about anything else.
It was hot and humid outside of the ship. This was a mostly tropical world. For a reason she couldn’t guess, that relaxed her.
She kept her keyblade at the surface of her mind, and stepped into the trees.
Sora flew his gummi ship down toward the island mountain. It looked like there was a clearing nearby. But as he approached, he saw a tell-tale distortion over the ground. There was already a gummi ship there.
“This wasn’t supposed to be another cleanup,” he muttered to himself.
He tapped his comm to open a channel back to the lab. “Hey. Has this world already been assigned? It looks like there’s a gummi ship already landed.”
There was no answer.
“Hello? This wasn’t flagged as a cleanup. If it is, can I get the files for it?”
Still nothing. He looked at the comm and frowned. The connection was usually close to instantaneous, but instead his comm was giving him the symbol for attempting to connect. And then almost immediately a readout: Connection failed. Retry?
He tapped at it, and it tried and failed a few more times. He shook his head. He hated cleanups, and this time he didn’t even have the files about where the lost wielder had gone.
There was just enough room for him to set his gummi ship down next to the other one. He emerged into the warmth and humidity.
“Feels like home,” he said out loud, and then stopped. Home was a lab in Hollow Bastion, nothing like this place. He shook his head. It was a long day already.
Riku scanned the island from above, looking for a place to set down. He saw a likely looking clearing, but…
“What the hell?”
There were two gummi ships already in the clearing, minor cloaking easy to recognize.
He tapped his comm. “Send me a new assignment. There are already two gummi ships here.”
No response.
“I don’t do cleanups. Send me a new assignment.”
Still nothing. He glared down at the ships, like they could help to explain.
If there were two gummi ships, then it had probably already been a cleanup. And if they’d sent him, maybe it was because the first cleanup had failed, too. In which case, the assignment should definitely have been flagged, and should have come with additional files.
“Will you at least send me the intelligence files for this world?”
When even that went without answer, he glanced at the comm. Connection failed. Retry?
He rolled his eyes. The day was getting better and better.
Kairi went to the town that sprawled down the majority of the island to find out more information. She was good at bluffing her way through interactions. Some worlds were easier than others; if it was a world where “monster hunter” was a viable job title, the recon part of the job would be cake.
That wasn’t the case here, and local authorities often had badges or papers to make it official, but a few vague claims about being a researcher and enough confidence got her through. She even wound up seeing the mayor, who gave her all the information she needed.
The interaction gave her what she was looking for, but had left her uneasy. The man had kept looking at her. In the end he just said she “reminded him of someone,” and she’d brushed it off as a coincidence.
Now she was headed toward one of the smaller islands off the shore. According to the mayor, the very first reports of anything strange had come from kids playing on the island. No casualties among the children, but there had been some in the houses at the edge of town since then.
Rowing a boat out to the small island felt almost natural, despite being the first time she’d ever had to do so. It would have been too much trouble to go back for her ship.
Without files to point him in the direction of the first wielder, Sora had to find out where they’d gone. He headed to the town he’d spotted from the air to start asking some awkward questions about any strangers who may have visited recently and then disappeared.
He got several shrugs and dismissals, but then finally got, “Oh, are you another researcher?” as a response.
Sora frowned. “A researcher?”
“Are you investigating the monsters?”
“…Yes. You said another researcher? So you met my, er, colleague?”
“She headed out to the play island just an hour or two ago.”
An hour or two? That had to be wrong. A cleanup couldn’t be called in that short a time. Which meant he was probably being pointed toward an actual researcher. Some poor mundane scientist about to get killed. Still, a lead was a lead.
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
Riku continued to circle for a while in his gummi ship, trying to find an alternate landing space or a hint as to where the Heartless might be gathering.
Storm clouds were gathering over a smaller island, close to the main one. And within the clouds, he could see whorls of deep purple. That at least answered the second question.
He had to get down there.
Kairi pushed as much of her discomfort to the back of her mind as she could. She knew this island. There was no way that could be true, obviously. But it didn’t change the fact that she already had a map of it in her head, that it was second nature to stroll up the dock and across the beach. To glance up at the waterfall, and know that there was a hidden cave back there. To look out at the bridge connecting an even smaller island, and expect to see a flash of silver hair by the single paopu tree. What the hell is a paopu?
Shadows swarmed at her from the undergrowth around the waterfall’s pool, and even that seemed familiar.
Where are they? But she didn’t even know who “they” would be.
The Shadows were easy enough to get rid of, despite their numbers. A quick lunge into the thickest group of them destroyed a few and split the rest up. Then it was just a matter of picking them off in ones and twos.
The world’s heart had to be around here somewhere.
Lightning flashed, and thunder cracked overhead. Kairi looked up, and within the dark storm clouds she saw hints of purple, quickly revealed and then hidden again. Not a natural storm.
She readied her keyblade, and waited for whatever was lurking to come to her.
Sora was halfway to what the man had called the “play island” when the storm hit. He rowed faster, resolutely ignoring how familiar the motion felt.
In the clouds he could see something beginning to take shape, coils of darkness looping in on themselves, impossibly vast. A Heartless, but one far bigger than he would have expected for a world as distant as this one. How could a target this small require something like that to take it down?
No wonder the first wielder had been overpowered.
But… he saw a figure standing on the beach, red hair whipping around her in the wind, and… a keyblade raised.
Why had he been sent on a cleanup run if the first wielder wasn’t dead?
He rowed faster, as the coils began dropping below the clouds, the Heartless descending.
Eventually Riku settled on a water landing. It was far from ideal, but the Heartless storm was growing stronger by the second. He could see whatever the creature was, something long and coiling, taking form.
With the storm going, there was a non-zero chance that the waves would do something to his gummi ship, but he did his best, landing it and anchoring it on the far side of the smaller island. The waves were always a little quieter there. He shook his head. He couldn’t know that.
He also didn’t want to have to swim back to the side of the island that the Heartless seemed to be targeting, but fortunately he knew of a path that would take him right to the beach. He shook his head again. He must have spotted it from the air without consciously noticing.
This Heartless was vast, and likely to take every skill he had. Especially if it had already taken out two other wielders. Riku readied his keyblade.
The Heartless dropped out of the sky one coil at a time, landing in the water. It was nominally like a sea serpent, black and purple undulating through the water, the motions almost hypnotic. Narrow gold eyes sat at the front of a featureless, vaguely reptilian head. But even as Kairi watched, that featureless face split open, lower jaw dropping down to reveal jagged teeth somehow even blacker than the rest of it.
Shadow shouldn’t be sharp, but Kairi knew well that it could be. And one sufficient bite from this thing would be the end for her.
One of its coils pulled up out of the water, deceptively slow until it flashed toward her, threatening to knock her to the sand.
She got her keyblade up in time to help deflect it, and hopefully do a little damage in the process, but even as that coil was forced back, another was bearing down on her from behind. She still avoided being knocked down, but it was a nearer miss than she liked.
A low growl came from the Heartless’ direction, as it reared its head back to strike.
A keyblade came from somewhere off to the side, flying in a perfectly executed Strike Raid that sent it spinning into the creature’s head, before arcing back to its wielder. The Heartless jerked back, and Kairi turned to look at who had just joined her.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked.
“I’m Sora, who are you?”
“Kairi,” she said, voice clipped. “I was the one assigned this world, what are you doing here?”
“I was assigned this world, apparently because they thought you had failed.”
“I just got here!” she snapped.
Then they were done speaking as the sea monster Heartless recovered from Sora’s Strike Raid, and swept one of its massive coils towards them both.
This time Kairi jumped instead of just deflecting the monster’s attack. She landed on top of the coil as it continued to move, and used the new height and momentum as leverage to get higher up, turning one strike into a rapid Final Arcanum flurry against the Heartless’ neck and back. Then she pushed back off, landing easily in the sand, out of its immediate reach.
Sora had been wrong about one thing; she was not just some wielder he’d been sent after; she was clearly a Master.
Not to be outdone, Sora rushed at one of the loops of the Heartless’ body that was still in the water, focusing a blizzard spell to hit at the same time as his keyblade, pinning at least that part of it in place as the water around it froze.
“Not bad!” he heard from the beach, as he retreated back towards Kairi.
“You too.”
The Heartless thrashed, obviously angered by the two-pronged attack. More of it reared out of the water, the massive coils of darkness crashing to the beach around them. The thing looked big enough to wrap the entire island.
One coil was coming for Kairi, and Sora lunged up underneath it. She never was as good at watching her right side as she should have been. We worked on it over and over…
Her gasp seemed out of proportion to what he’d done, but when he looked at her, she looked shocked.
He didn’t have time to ask why, just attacked the Heartless again, trying to keep up a steady rhythm to push it back far enough to give them room to work.
Riku emerged from the other side of the island to the clubhouse, connected to the bridge out to the paopu island. What the hell is a paopu?
It was slightly higher ground, letting him see just how massive this Heartless was. It was a sea serpent, all but surrounding the entirety of the island. And it had two figures that it was targeting on the beach.
Civilians, he assumed, but then saw that one of them had a keyblade, and was driving the monster back by inches, forcing it away from them both. And then the second figure was in motion, rushing toward the monster, not away. Her arms were raised, and he saw lightning reflect off of the metal as she raised her own keyblade. She completed a complicated but effective twist, forcing the blade into the creature’s body and cutting sideways. Then she disengaged smoothly, and was away before the thing could stop her.
Their fighting styles haven’t changed. Just like always.
Who? I don’t know them.
With a leap from the bridge, he was able to join them in a matter of seconds.
“And who are you?” Kairi asked, as a third keyblade wielder rushed up from the other side of the beach. Though if the pattern was holding true, he was probably also a Master.
“Riku. I was assigned this world.”
“Oh, perfect!” Sora laughed. “Another one!”
“What?” the newcomer—Riku—snapped.
“Apparently there was some malfunction, because both of us were assigned to this world, too.”
Riku spun and cut upwards with enough force that the Heartless withdrew that particular stretch of itself. “Well, the two of you can retreat and go back to your gummi ships,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Kairi let out a single laugh. It probably sounded a little insulting, but really. “Magnanimous offer, friend. But-”
The Heartless send a lashing loop of its tail toward them, aimed directly at the spot between Riku’s shoulder blades.
She’d intended to say something about how she was there first, so if anyone was leaving it should be the other two, but instead she lunged forward, jumping up and using Riku’s shoulder as a gentle push-off point so that she could intercept the attack.
The Heartless drew back, bleeding shadow from the wound she’d dealt.
She landed in a crouch behind Riku. “Are you ever going to learn to watch your back? What if we weren’t here?” The words tumbled out before she’d even thought about them. But as soon as she spoke them, she turned back to him. His look of wide-eyed shock probably matched her own.
Two ghosts at your shoulder.
Sora was still trying to drive the Heartless back with a steady rhythm of strikes and blocks. He kept half an ear on Kairi and Riku, enough to hear Kairi’s strange comment. She obviously hadn’t known Riku, so what kind of question was that to ask him?
He was always as bad at watching his back as she was about letting things get too close on her right…
He did his best to ignore it. He called up a thunder spell at the Heartless’ face, just in case it was starting to get any ideas about lunging in for a bite.
Then it was withdrawing, pulling itself back out into the water.
A Heartless retreating was just regrouping, which wasn’t always a good thing. Even so, at least it gave them a bit of breathing room.
This was the team Riku had been coordinating strategy for in every fight for the last five years.
He could use his speed and strength to draw fire, while Sora used his steadier, persistent style to help bring the enemy down. And Kairi could use the strike and retreat style that she’d always excelled at…
The ease with which that thought settled felt right in as many ways as it felt wrong. He could worry about it—or not—after this Heartless was out of the way.
“Hey, that thing just retreated, but it will be back any second. Sora, can you keep doing what you’ve been doing? Just wearing it down?”
Sora nodded, brushing spiky hair back out of his face.
“Kairi? Think you have a Final Arcanum strike in you?”
“Used one earlier, but I could probably do another.”
“All right. Once it comes back up out of the water, Kairi, target it on one of the coils close to the head, but not the head itself. Sora, you go after whatever is easiest to reach. As soon as it directs attention toward you, I’m going to go for its head.”
Kairi did as Riku suggested. She worked alone and should probably have balked at someone telling her what to do. But it was a solid strategy. And more to the point, nothing about Riku coordinating a plan of attack seemed strange.
The serpent Heartless reared back up, and lashed out at them with more fury and speed than it had the first time. She let Sora help deflect a couple of strikes aimed at her, and then when he continued to push forward, she circled closer to the head.
Not too close, but close enough to draw its attention very thoroughly. This time she didn’t jump up, since she wasn’t aiming for the throat, which made it even easier to land the Final Arcanum strike.
The Heartless was bleeding shadow in thick, clinging wisps now. As it turned its attention toward her, Riku came in from its far side, with a running start. Sora crouched down, letting Riku use him as a springboard to leap high and drive his keyblade into the Heartless’ eye.
It fell, continuing to thrash even as its body dissolved into nothingness.
Between one strike and the next, Sora’s target lost form, his keyblade suddenly sinking through darkness no more substantial than fog.
The Heartless vanished. Riku and Kairi had already disengaged, standing on the beach, staring at where the Heartless had been. Sora joined them.
“So,” he said, at a complete loss for what more he could say. The three of them fighting together had felt natural in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t have. He was never supposed to rely on anyone else. But neither of them had held him back in this fight. He’d been better. They’d all been better.
“We need to find this world’s keyhole, and seal it up,” Riku said. “Before anything else decides to attack.”
“It should be around here,” Kairi offered. “This island is where the Heartless started appearing, according to the locals.”
“The cave,” said Sora. “By the waterfall.”
“How… do you know about the cave?” Kairi asked.
“How do you?” he countered.
Riku looked… upset, almost. But he just said, “The cave it is.”
Riku also knew that there was a cave by the waterfall. And that he couldn’t pretend he’d somehow seen it from his gummi ship.
Kairi led the way. The cave entrance was low, requiring that they all duck to get through the passage. The temperature dropped fairly drastically, though not unpleasantly, as soon as they were through the entrance. Kairi stepped out into the wider cave room from the short passage… and stopped.
Sora was behind her, and Riku behind him. He rolled his eyes. “Move, please. This isn’t the most comfortable.”
Finally Sora reached up and gave her a gentle push at her shoulder to get her to stumble forward.
She turned back and Riku caught a glimpse of her face, and saw that she was… crying. She had a hand over her mouth, and she was crying.
Sora stepped into the cave after her, and he made a strangled sound in his throat as soon as he was through.
Riku followed, about to ask what was wrong with both of them, when it hit him, too.
The cave walls were covered in etched children’s drawings. Many were abstract, little swirls and stars. But in pride of place, were three faces. Their faces. And Riku remembered the day that all three of them sat in here and etched them. He remembered helping Sora get Kairi’s hair just right. Widening Sora’s smile in the drawing Kairi was working on. Rolling his eyes when they argued over whether their drawing of him should be smiling or look angry. (They’d chosen a smile, turned up just a little more at one side than the other.)
And then he remembered everything else. Walking along the beach during a meteor shower as a child, and finding a girl on the shore. Spending years, the three of them, inseparable.
They’d been in this same cave the first time all three of them had kissed. When they’d decided that no matter what, they would stay together, all three of them, because they loved each other more than anything.
He remembered the Shadows appearing, the first time he’d summoned his keyblade… People coming for them, kidnapping them, separating them…
“We promised to stay together,” Kairi’s voice sounded strained and broken. “We promised.”
“And they made us forget,” he said. His own eyes were burning with tears now. Sorrow, and grief, and rage. His keyblade wasn’t in his hand, but suddenly he wanted it to be.
Then he was being all but tackled by both of the others.
Sora was holding onto him like he thought he would disappear if he didn’t. Riku thought he maybe felt a rib creak, but he wasn’t complaining. Kairi wasn’t holding quite as tightly, though her arms were looped around his and Sora’s necks, so he was a little grateful she was letting them breathe. Sora let go with one arm so that he could wrap it around Kairi instead.
He let all three of them collapse in a controlled fall to the side on the soft, fine sand on the floor of the cave. He gathered both Sora and Kairi closer, and just held them. Kairi sobbed quietly against his shoulder. Sora wasn’t crying, but was just murmuring their names over and over.
“I know they wanted us to forget, but I don’t think I ever did. Not really,” Kairi said. “I knew you were gone, and I pretended I didn’t, but I knew.”
“Me too,” Riku said into her hair. He kissed the top of her head, then Sora’s.
He didn’t know if that was welcome. It had been years. It was like they’d been apart for five years, and like five years ago had somehow just been yesterday.
But apparently it was, because both of them twisted to kiss him on the cheeks, and then the corners of his lips. Then each other.
“They aren’t going to get away with this,” Sora said. “Right?”
Riku swallowed. “No, they won’t. They want us to save the worlds, to be part of their army. Well, the worlds need saving. But I’m done with them.”
Kairi fumbled for her comm, and threw it to the side, where it crashed into the cave wall. “Me too.”
Sora and Riku both followed her example.
“The three of us together,” Sora said. “Just like we promised.”
