Kingdom Hearts fic: Island Territory - Chapter 4

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 4: Riku goes looking for a fight, and unfortunately finds one.

(This chapter got way longer than expected, so it's now been split into two. Hopefully the fifth [and for real final] chapter will be up next week. Unfortunately, despite trying to stay cautious, I finally got smacked by Covid, so it's possible it will be the week *after* next.)

---

After Heartless declared its intent to take Destiny Islands as its own, it vanished. Between one second and the next, it had disappeared into the real shadows cast by the weak almost-light from the windows.

Riku drained the mug of unpleasantly-cooling blood. If he’d been human, his hand would have been shaking. One of the perks of vampirism was an inherent reduction in physical reactions.

He had to move away from the windows before long, as the pre-dawn light turned to true dawn and the brightness became uncomfortable. He’d considered blackout curtains, an invention most of his clan took advantage of, but hadn’t gotten around to it. His bedroom was dark enough for him to sleep through the day, and that had been the thing he cared most about. It wasn’t like he would be here long enough for it to matter, now.

He left the mug in the sink, filled it with water, and went to his bedroom to escape the sun. He was tired, and he knew he needed to rest. Vampirism may have shielded him from the physical effects of stress, but that didn’t mean it ceased to matter, and between the confrontation with Axel and with Heartless, he was feeling it.

Unfortunately, he knew there was no way he was getting any real rest. Not when Heartless had provided a very stark reminder that he could appear anywhere at any time. Riku’s perfectly dark room certainly provided plenty of shadows for the monster to use as a door.

It didn’t seem likely that Heartless was going to come after him now. It wanted him worried. It delighted in hunting. If it just wanted him gone, it could have come after him any time before, or done so without what had seemed to be a warning of a sort. Or could have attacked him that morning instead of disappearing.

That didn’t mean the knowledge that it could attack was going to let him sleep any easier.

In the end he did sleep, but not well, and not the kind of restful deep sleep that would have helped. He gave up just before sunset.

Heartless wanted to hunt, and if Riku was on its list of prey, then it wanted him to do exactly what he was doing. He could hide away in his ‘den,’ maybe try to find someone to watch him while he slept. There were vampires who did that. None of his clan mates admitted to it, but it wasn’t unheard of, to have a favorite thrall who could stay awake as a guard during the day.

But even if Riku did that, Heartless would still be hunting. Riku was almost afraid to find out how many new disappearances there would be. Would they ramp up? One per night? More? Would there still be mock vampire killings, or was Heartless beyond that? Would it go after Sora and Kairi, simply for being Riku’s ‘pets?’

None of those answers mattered. Or, really, they did matter, but they didn’t make a difference. If he was going to stop Heartless from hunting, then he needed to hunt it down.

---

That was a goal easier decided on than accomplished. All of their altercations had come because Heartless had decided on them. If it could use shadows to go anywhere it wanted, there was no reason for it to be anywhere someone was looking for it.

He wished he could reach out to the island’s alleged monster hunters. Clearly they hadn’t managed to stop Heartless yet, so he wasn’t sure how good they actually were at it. That didn’t give him any reason to doubt their existence, even if he only had Axel’s word for it. Maybe together they’d have a better chance against Heartless.

Even if he could somehow get Axel to put him in touch with them, he was under no illusions about the reception he’d receive.

Hey, it’s me, the vampire that just moved here. Oh no, the murder victims with bite marks have nothing to do with me. Total coincidence. Want to be friends?

So he was back wandering around the trendy clubs near the beach. Not waiting for anyone this time, more just walking up and down the streets, trying to feel for an increase in the sense of presence in the shadows. Of course, that wasn’t utterly reliable; he hadn’t even noticed Heartless in his damn house until it had appeared. But maybe Heartless wouldn’t be trying to hide out here.

There was still that general sense of pressure, that feeling of potential in every dark shadow he passed. He cast uneasy glances down the mouths of alleys and at darkened doorways, all looking darker in the light of a near-full moon and the copious streetlights. There were no surges of threat, and no glinting lamplight eyes where there shouldn’t be any.

He wandered away from the tourist area, up past the Materia café. It wasn’t one of their live music nights, so it wasn’t as busy as it had been on the night he’d gone there with Sora and Kairi.

Uphill a few streets, then over a few more, and he was walking past Highwind. It would be a lie to say there was no desire to go inside. The chance that Kairi and Sora would be there was vanishingly slim… but he still would have welcomed the chance to find out if they were safe.

His hand went to his pocket. He’d unearthed his phone, gotten it working again. He could send them a text. Wasn’t that what he’d brought the phone out for anyway?

Yes. But only as a last-ditch chance to give them a warning. They knew there was danger, obviously; they’d seen Heartless attack. If they were smart, they’d already left the island, having watched a shadow-creature and a vampire fighting. That would be enough for most people to get as far away as they could.

If they were still on the island, and if his attempts to find Heartless didn’t go well… at least he could send them a message. Warn them, again, to get away, before Heartless took over the island as it planned.

The rest of the people on the island didn’t deserve to be in its path either, but if he couldn’t protect them all… Sora and Kairi were the ones he wanted safe. Selfish was far from the worst thing a vampire had ever been called.

Heading up the hill, several alleys opened up to his right. Then came that flicker of awareness, that slight push-then-pull of Heartless trying to get his attention.

It was the same alley he’d first encountered the monster in, back after he’d first met Sora and Kairi. Where it had first offered him some kind of alliance or partnership.

That’s fitting.

He turned to step into the alleyway. Not all the way; he didn’t want to risk being cornered. It was enough to see Heartless, standing in its disturbing new humanoid form.

The alley was mostly clear of debris, only a few discarded boxes and scraps of paper and plastic, probably brought there by the wind. Heartless didn’t need any objects to cast a shadow—the alley was narrow enough that no light penetrated. It was all shadow, yet Heartless’ darkness was deeper.

Heartless tilted its head to the side, golden disk eyes unblinking.

Blood-drinker come to find?

“I was looking for you,” Riku confirmed.

Reconsider? Hunt together?

“No,” Riku said simply. No reason to waste time.

He shifted his feet just slightly, pushing himself forward and striking out with one clawed hand.

Heartless didn’t respond except to slide sideways away from the strike. It pushed a wave of amusement at him. No real thoughts or words, just a sense that it thought his refusal and attack were of no real concern. Almost cute.

Riku twisted sideways, bringing his left hand out to aim at where Heartless had moved to. Before he could connect, Heartless had moved again. This time it pulled down into the shadows, Riku’s hand striking only empty wall.

The blow from behind knocked him into the wall even harder. He rolled against one shoulder, bringing his arms up to defend. Just in time, as a swipe of Heartless’ hand came down.

At first the contact felt hot, like the burning sensation of a cut. Almost immediately the burn turned to ice. Vampires were always cold, not having their own blood to keep them warm. This was more profound than that kind of chill, like touching the shadow creature itself had been, except the sensation lingered and spread.

Riku didn’t waste time looking at his arms, though he was sure they’d both been wounded. The upside of not having blood was that he didn’t have to worry about losing any. The plasma that filled his veins was thicker, far less of a concern.

He felt his fangs pressing against his lips and snarled. He pushed forward from the wall, throwing all of his weight against Heartless. The sensation was as unpleasant as before, the creature’s body still the wrong texture. Heartless allowed itself to be pushed against the opposite wall of the alleyway, and Riku felt his arm sink into the darkness.

He stumbled back, having to tear his arm free, as bits of freezing shadow tried to cling to his skin. It hurt where the shadow substance had grabbed him, and worse was the sense of deep satisfaction Heartless exuded.

Regret? it asked, twitching motion carrying it closer more quickly than it should have.

Riku pulled his lips back even farther from his fangs in answer, and slashed with his claws again. Right now his only regret was that he hadn’t had a chance to drink actual human blood in a while. Animal sufficed, but human would have given him an edge.

He connected with Heartless, claws cutting through the darkness like they had before. But instead of Heartless sinking in on itself, or shedding pieces of shadow, the gashes simply resealed themselves behind his claws.

As Heartless barely reacted to the strike, Riku was faced with the terrible worry that this had been a very bad idea, the kind of mistake he would only get to make once.

He grew less careful. The pain of the cold in his arms was almost unbearable. This was turning from a confrontation over territory into a fight for his life, and he took every opening he could, to strike and slash and shove.

Most of the hits landed, just to little or no effect.

Heartless dropped low, sinking down into the shadows on the ground, then lunging upward in a too-fast flicker toward Riku’s stomach. He twisted away at the last second, so instead of a direct hit to the center of his belly, Heartless hit along his side, pressing forward with shadow-claws extended.

And through.

Riku collapsed. The excruciating cold didn’t hide the pain of having had the shadow driven through his side. Where his side used to be; he knew that part of his flesh was gone.

He tried to push himself upright, to at least stand back up, and he couldn’t.

One more of Heartless’ jerking movements, and it had knocked Riku backwards, one clawed hand poised at his throat.

Vampires were not as immune to beheading as whatever Heartless was.

Heartless pressed down. No kill yet. Watch what happen to territory. Mine/ours now.

With one swift, sharp movement, Heartless’ claws sliced along his neck. It hurt, but didn’t sever his head.

And Heartless disappeared back into the shadows.

---

It wasn’t easy to track an injured vampire. It was especially difficult when going through city streets, where so many other people had been before and since.

Kairi and Sora were stuck looking for every possible, minuscule sign they could find.

There’d been a fight in the alley, the same one they’d first seen the shadow creature in. They hadn’t witnessed the fight itself, only the aftermath.

Vampires didn’t bleed, but they did have a small amount of clear, plasma-like fluid that served a similar function, keeping them looking and feeling relatively human-normal, if pale and cold.

There was a lot of that clear fluid in the alley. Way too much of it. Not that they were experts on vampire physiology, but they knew more about it than the average non-vampire. There was enough of the clear fluid, drying in a thin layer on the ground of the alley, to be of deep concern.

Kairi tried not to obsess over the math of it. If it had been human blood, she’d know how much meant the person it had come from had died. The not-blood from a vampire was thicker, and there was less of it. How much less? What percent of it could Riku lose? Especially if he hadn’t been feeding?

Every new bit of the fluid, dripped on the ground, smeared against a wall, provoked mingled relief and worry. More not-blood lost, but it meant Riku had gotten that much farther.

The trail they were following headed very deliberately uphill, away from the city proper. Once it hit older, narrow, tree-lined streets, it got much easier to follow, with fewer branching paths. They were able to speed up into a jog.

This was the area Kairi had assumed Riku’s house would be. Mostly older properties, hidden away out of sight, where it wouldn’t draw undue attention for one to be vacant. She even remembered ghost stories told on the playground as a kid, featuring houses hidden back in the jungle.

Sora’s phone flashlight glinted off another set of droplets on the ground, and another streak on a large leaf reaching out over a narrow pathway that branched off the street they were on.

“We’re catching up,” he said, turning onto the narrow dirt path and picking up the pace.

“Good,” she said. Sora was right; the drops were getting wetter, which meant they had to be getting closer. And if Riku was still ‘bleeding’, then at least they knew he was still alive.

Kairi’s own phone was in her hand too, using both flashlights to ensure they didn’t miss anything. Then it buzzed.

Sora faltered, looking down at his screen, so he must have gotten a message at the same time.

She didn’t stop, though she did slow enough to look. A text, from Riku, sent to both her and Sora.

You need to get off the islands. It’s dangerous here. I’m sorry. Run. That monster is still here.

“Yeah, we know,” she said out loud.

“We’re working on it,” Sora said.

Where are you? she texted back. If he could just tell them, rather than them having to go on this terrible treasure hunt…

But there was no reply. She tried to call, but he didn’t answer that either.

“He’s okay enough to text,” Sora said. “Let’s go!”

She nodded, and followed and he resumed running.

There was at least some sense of elation, pushing through the bone-deep worry. Riku had reached out to them directly again.

Axel had played middleman for him, telling them that just as Roxas had asked him to tell everyone to watch out for shadows, now a vampire wanted to pass on a warning about a monster in the shadows, too.

Of course, Riku hadn’t given him anything so helpful as an address to find him at or anything. Axel had, however, broken down laughing about the fact that the vampire had asked Axel to pass that information on to the island’s monster hunters and to Sora and Kairi specifically.

Yeah, sounded like there was going to be a more up-front conversation with him in their future.

She bit her lip. It was going to be okay, because they were about to have a chance to have that conversation, imminently. Better late than never.

The pathway was getting more and more overgrown, huge leaves of tropical plants pushing in almost far enough to hide the ground from view. It provided a disturbingly good view of the trail they were actually following, fluid shining on the edges of too many of those leaves.

The path led to a wrought iron gate. It was very classic, complete with spear-like points discouraging anyone from attempting to climb it. The fence to either side was much the same. Fortunately, they didn’t have to force their way over, because the gate was open a few inches, like whoever came through hadn’t had the strength to shut it.

Kairi pulled up her phone, sending a quick message to Axel.

The not-blood was dripped evenly every few feet from the gate, up the overgrown drive to the house.

The house looked the part of a hereditary (or whatever passed for similar) vampire’s mansion. Old fashioned and ornate, slightly run-down, but in a way that was aesthetically spooky rather than shabby.

“Good to know he commits to the whole vampire vibe,” Sora said, staring up at the two-story house.

“He does that,” she agreed.

The rest of the yard was overgrown and tangled, with the remains of cultivated plants battling against overgrowth from the surrounding jungle.

The not-blood spatter led up the short set of stairs to the porch, and then the front door. The amount of it coating the door handle was disturbing to touch. Still wet, the thick fluid clung to her fingers as she pushed the door open.

It was dark inside. Sora pulled his phone up to try and light the way.

The inside of the house matched the outside; old-fashioned, but more classic than outdated.

Riku was in the second room they reached, a living room that looked barely lived-in.

He had collapsed against the wall, a smear of the clear fluid across the floor making it clear that he’d dragged himself there. He was sitting upright, but looked like he could have fallen sideways at any moment. His clothing was torn, as was the flesh underneath. Wounds at the sides of his neck, across his forearms, and most sickeningly a part of his side that just seemed to be gone, all glinted in the indirect light from Sora’s phone.

Both of them raced to his side. Kairi’s knees cracked against the hardwood floor, and Sora knelt next to her.

“Riku?” she asked.

He looked up at both of them, like his eyes wouldn’t quite focus. His gaze tracked down to his phone, still grasped loosely in one of his hands, listless at his side. It was almost amazing that he’d managed to get a completely coherent text out to them the way he had. He was in bad shape.

“I told you to go.” The words came out slow and cracked.

“And here we are,” Sora answered. He’d propped his phone up, the flashlight reflecting off the wall to provide them just enough light to see by. He was already busying himself with pulling things out of his bag. She saw the first aid kit.

“You’re badly hurt,” she said. Almost certainly unnecessarily, but she wasn’t sure if vampires went through something like shock the way humans did. “Let us help.”

He shook his head, silver hair barely moving over his shoulders. “Dangerous. You should go.”

“You are in danger right now,” she said.

He tried to push himself away from the wall, but didn’t get far. Another trickle of fluid dripped from his side.

Sora crowded close, preventing any further attempts at getting up, and pressed a folded pad of cotton cloth against the wound.

Riku hissed a sharp inhale, but said nothing.

“When was the last time you ate?” Kairi asked.

That startled a breath of something that could almost have been a laugh out of him. “Haven’t you seen the news?” he choked out.

Sora pressed a little harder on the pad at his side. “And here you are, making jokes.”

“We have seen the news, thank you. But when was the last time you ate?” She reached over toward the first aid kit.

He tried and failed to snarl. It didn’t even come off as an attempt at a threat. It did show off a nicely pointed fang. “But you saw me.”

“And you’re not answering my question.”

“We did see you,” Sora said. “Saw you protecting us from something that seemed way more like it wanted to kill us.”

“Heartless.”

“Is that what the shadow thing is called?” Kairi asked.

He nodded, if the barely-there movement of his head could be counted as a nod.

“Great. And that’s what did this to you?” Sora adjusted his hands again, grabbing more of the cotton, and pressing harder. “This is bad.”

Another of those head-jerks.

“Nice to have a name to put to the thing we need to kill,” Kairi said brightly.

Her fingers closed on the case they kept a very sharp and very clean blade in. She popped the lid off the case and pulled the knife out. Almost more of a scalpel, really.

She took a deep breath. “Riku, can you tilt your head back just a bit?”

It seemed like his head wanted to slump forward, but he knocked it back against the wall.

“Great,” she said. Then she pressed the tip of the blade to the thin skin at her wrist. It was sharp enough that the cut barely hurt, and the blood welled up instantly.

She held her bleeding wrist to Riku’s mouth. At first his lips were closed tight, the red running down his chin, extra shocking against his pallor.

“Please,” she said, pressing harder.

Then his mouth opened, his lips sealing around the wound as he swallowed.

She sighed in relief. If anything was going to help a vampire recover, it would be fresh blood. She’d been a blood donor before, if not exactly this… direct.

“I know the wrist is cliché,” she said. She carefully set the knife back in its box, and used her now-free hand to help her balance. It was a bit of an awkward position to crouch in.

“Not as cliché as a bite on the neck,” Sora laughed.

Was that a hint of a blush on Riku’s cheeks? Hard to say, given his general ghost-pale look and the low light, but she desperately hoped it was. Enough blood in his system to create visible reactions like that could only be a good sign.

“Hey, neck bites at least require buying us dinner first.” She winked at Riku. He obviously saw that, because he shut his eyes and tipped his head back like he was exasperated. He didn’t stop drinking though, which she was glad of.

“Well, that’s a little weird,” Sora said, shifting his hands just a bit from where he’d been trying to hold Riku’s side together.

She didn’t have the best view from her angle, but she still saw what Sora meant. The flesh was starting to regrow under the pad Sora was holding against it, a strange time-lapse effect of skin pushing in from the sides of the wound.

Riku reached up with one hand and gently grasped her arm, holding it more tightly to his mouth. Not that she’d planned to move, but it seemed like another good sign. The gashes on his forearm and the slices along his neck were closer to her than the wound in his side, and easier for her to see. The bloodless gashes were still slick with whatever he had instead of blood, but in the deepest center of each cut, there was a faint trace of pink. The cuts themselves were knitting together, sealing from the ends toward the middle. Not as dramatic as his side, but still almost mesmerizing in a bizarre way.

The pink must be my blood, she thought.

Part of her wished she could take notes, but she made do with trying to commit the look of it to memory. This could be their only chance to really study the process. It was fascinating, something she was willing to bet few people had ever gotten to watch happen.

Still, she’d much rather that Riku never be endangered or hurt that way again, even if it meant they never got to study vampire healing so closely again.

The idea that it was her blood prompting the entire process was a weird thought. It was also a comforting one, because at least she could see that she was helping.

She didn’t know exactly how much blood Riku had gotten. At least so far she didn’t feel any worse than she did from donating blood in the ordinary sense. Until it started causing an issue for her, she wasn’t going to stop him.

Sora put the wadded cotton down. It was wet, but Riku’s side had almost entirely healed over. The cuts she could see on his arm and neck were closer to scars at this point, and she was fairly certain even that would fade to nothing soon.

The healing wasn’t one hundred percent, but Riku gently tugged at her wrist, pulling it away. The last brush of his lips around the cut felt like a kiss. She shivered.

He shifted his thumb over the cut, squeezing just hard enough to help stop the bleeding. Even with that, the cut barely stung.

“Better?” she asked.

He swallowed. There were still drips of blood on his face, now drying. It should have made him look monstrous. It didn’t. His eyes were wide and strangely unguarded. “How did you…” the question trailed off, like he didn’t know exactly what he was trying to ask.

“Know you were a vampire? Know blood would help? Find you?” Sora offered.

“Yes. Well, I know you had to know; you saw me. But you seem… fine with that.”

Kairi sat back, ready to start answering, but her head swam. “Oh. I feel that.”

Sora dug a candy bar out of the bag. “Not quite cookies and juice, but…”

“Perfect.” She gently reclaimed her wrist from Riku, so she could unwrap the candy and get a bite.

The cut had mostly stopped bleeding. Sora pulled out a bandaid from the first aid kit and she held out her wrist for him to bandage.

Riku waited while she ate, taking advantage of the opportunity to clean the smeared blood off of his face.

One more bite of delicious sugar, and she was ready to answer Riku’s multiple questions.

“We found you because you were doing your version of leaving a pretty dramatic blood trail for us to follow. And the spooky haunted mansion really isn’t terribly subtle for a vampire’s home, honestly. The blood thing wasn’t much of a stretch. You’re a vampire, vampires drink blood, right? We figured you weren’t behind the so-called vampire murders, which meant there was a chance you hadn’t actually had any blood in a while. Have you?” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“Uh, animal blood. But human is…”

“Better?” she guessed. “Makes sense.”

“I feel like you’re dodging around the biggest of the questions,” he said.

Sora shifted so that he was leaning against the wall next to Riku. “So, we maybe have a couple things to confess as well. Seems like maybe none of us were completely honest when we met each other. Maybe we should try again.”

Sora held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Sora. This is Kairi. We’re monster hunters by trade.”

Riku drew his knees up to his chest and tipped his head forward. He groaned.

“Nice to meet you,” Kairi said dryly.

When Riku didn’t look up, Sora said, “I… hope it’s fairly clear right now that we aren’t here to hunt you.”

Riku groaned again, but did finally sit more upright. “Axel told me. He told me there were monster hunters on the island. I kept wondering when and how I’d meet them, and how I could be sure I didn’t give them a reason to jam a stake through my heart. They were you?”

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you,” Kairi said. “It always seemed awkward to just… bring it up. We hoped taking you to see Demyx would make it clear we were okay with the… non-human. As long as they’re peaceful.”

“I thought you just didn’t know he was a siren.”

Sora laughed. “Too subtle again.”

“We’re perfectly happy for non-humans to live here. Destiny Islands is a wonderful place. As long as you aren’t planning to hurt anyone else who just wants to live here, we welcome you staying. We haven’t… done the best job at keeping the island safe. But that is what we want.”

“Those murders…” he said.

“Were meant to look like a vampire was responsible,” Kairi said. “But no vampire would go to the trouble of biting someone just to let them bleed out completely. Why hunt and not eat?”

“I thought there was no way the island monster hunters would believe me,” he said. “I was sure you’d want to kill me.”

“Not you,” Sora said. “But Kairi is right: we do want to keep these islands safe, and right now they aren’t. We don’t want to hurt you, but there is something here that we need to get rid of.”

Riku sat up like he’d just been jabbed. He turned wide eyes on them. “You need to get out of here. The thing that is killing people. It could be anywhere. The islands aren’t safe. You should run, get away before it comes back.”

“Heartless? The thing that attacked us before? That did this to you?” Sora asked.

Riku nodded. “It’s gotten stronger. It wants to take the island as its own hunting ground, and it’s not going to stop.”

“It’s already attacked you. And it’s going to keep attacking other people on the island.”

Riku nodded. “You could still get away. If it realizes you’re here, it could come back. It’s… angry at me. Wants me hurt. It will come after you if it discovers you’re here.”

Riku looked surprised when she and Sora exchanged a look

The two of them said together, “Good.”

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