Kingdom Hearts fic: Island Territory - Chapter 5 [fic complete]

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 5: The final fight against Heartless. After that, determining what happens next.

Having Covid did knock me down pretty hard, so I just could not get the fic completed by last week. Fortunately, I'm doing much better now!

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Riku had no idea how Heartless coming after them could possibly be good.

“You don’t understand. This thing, it’s dangerous. It’s gotten stronger since it attacked you. It wants Destiny Islands to belong to it.”

“Which is why we have to get rid of it,” Kairi said.

Matter of fact. As if it was going to be easy.

He shook his head. “Which is why you have to run. You should be safe.”

“It’s our job to stop actual monsters from doing harm to anyone on the islands,” Sora said. “We’ve failed; this ‘Heartless’ has killed far too many people here. It almost killed you. We can’t let it kill anyone else.”

“I don’t want it to kill either of you.”

“Letting it kill any of us is not at all the plan.” Kairi had pulled out her phone, tapping out a quick message before putting it away.

“Now we just have to wait,” Sora said.

The three of them eventually moved off the floor and onto one of the couches in his mostly disused living room.

Riku winced a little at his inability to offer much in the way of hospitality; maybe he should have prepared for at least the vague potential that he could have a human visitor at some point.

Of course, even before the whole ‘making his monstrous nature clear’ to Sora and Kairi thing, he hadn’t let himself consider that they would ever actually visit him at home. He’d backed quite firmly away from the idea, actually, as something too dangerous to entertain.

He looked over at the pair of them. They were digging through Sora’s bag which, in addition to the first aid kit, apparently contained an assortment of small weapons. Most were bladed, some were blunt. He couldn’t be sure how much that would help against Heartless, but it was certainly better than them being unarmed.

The idea that Kairi and Sora—the two sweet humans he’d hoped to protect, because they were nice to him when he met them in a bar—were also monster hunters was taking some getting used to. Not as much as it should have, maybe. The relief at the idea they knew vampires were real, and didn’t react with fear and disgust, could have been a part of it.

That was circling back to potentially dangerous territory again.

Riku had to admit he felt better than he had in weeks. Even having gotten pretty resoundingly beaten by Heartless, to the point he’d fully anticipated that he might not survive. The difference that human blood made was difficult to overstate. He could survive indefinitely on animal blood if required, but that was… maintenance. The rush of strength from Kairi’s blood had mostly gone toward accelerating healing, but what little remained was… intoxicating, almost.

Not addictive. He would be perfectly willing and able to go back to the animal blood he’d been buying from the butcher, and certainly wasn’t going to be tempted to hunt any unwilling or unsuspecting humans. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss the feeling.

“Anything else you can tell us about this ‘Heartless’?” Sora asked. “You’ve actually fought it. Multiple times.”

He told them everything he could: how fast it was, how hungry it was, how it could pull away and seem to vanish into ordinary shadows, only to spring back out and attack from a new angle.

Kairi frowned in concentration and dug through a new pocket of the backpack. She pulled out a thin LED flashlight. “Shadows don’t like light.”

“On the other hand, bright light makes the shadows deeper,” Riku pointed out.

“But controlling the light source helps control where the shadows go.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

He still felt unprepared when Heartless came.

This was no instant appearance the way it had been when it had visited him in his dining room. It also didn’t appear with a gentle nudge from the shadows the way it had in the alley a few hours ago.

This time, it was a slow, slinking presence, definitely pushing awareness of itself onto all of them, but in a strangely targeted fashion. It felt like it was near the door, then vanished and reappeared from a darkened corner, then lurked somewhere on the ceiling.

Sora and Kairi both went for their weapons, but kept them low.

“Still feels like being seasick,” Sora grumbled.

“A monster that feels monstrous.” Kairi sounded like she was forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “How delightful.”

Riku wasn’t sad that he was evidently spared that particular aspect of Heartless’ presence. Whatever queasiness it provoked in him was purely due to knowing what it was and what it wanted.

Words pressed into his head again, the familiar itching hiss across his mind.

Still keep pets?

Riku’s gaze darted back and forth, trying to be ready for wherever Heartless was going to come from. The presence had shifted again, as if it were waiting below the floor.

All prey the same. Or do you still think ‘victims’?

“The people here are not prey,” he said, hoping to goad it into showing itself.

“There!” Sora shouted, swinging a telescoping baton up at the materializing shadow.

Heartless avoided the attack easily, physical form moving around the strike in a way that looked effortless.

Fortunately, the way it moved put it right where Kairi was ready to slash at it with her short knife. The thing looked more like a dagger than a modern knife: Riku thought those had been out of fashion for quite some time.

Her strike landed, provoking a hiss from Heartless as it twisted away. It didn’t slow down.

Riku took advantage of the momentary distraction to throw himself into the fight, claws out and braced.

The hit was good. The feeling of his claws sliding through the darkness that made up its flesh was no less revolting and bizarre this time around. His fingers immediately began to freeze, taking on the impossible cold of the thing’s infinite shadow. He jerked his hands back, flexing them.

He didn’t have circulation as such, but the blood Kairi had given him was still helping him to heal faster than he’d been capable of since before he’d reached Destiny Islands. He was able to shake the cold off.

The three of them fell into an almost surprisingly successful pattern, where Sora and Kairi herded Heartless into a position that left it open for Riku to provide a harder-hitting attack.

He’d gotten in a good three or four substantial hits on it, though it didn’t seem to be wearing down significantly. It certainly wasn’t shrinking away the way it had the night it had last attacked the three of them.

Then it lunged unexpectedly toward Sora as he pulled back to ready another strike. The baton clattered out of his hand, and Heartless crushed him backwards into the wall with a painful sounding crack.

Riku and Kairi both froze.

Your ‘victim,’ just my prey, the thing said, tightening a hand around Sora’s throat.

Kairi fumbled for something and then raced forward, getting her hand up and under the part of Heartless’ form that served as its ‘head.’ A second later, he heard a click, and Heartless let out a shriller hiss than before, and flickered backwards in a retreat.

Riku saw what she had in her hand: the too-bright LED flashlight she’d pulled from Sora’s bag.

Light made its own shadows, but a blast of it directly had pushed the shadow back, just like she’d predicted.

Sora slid down the wall, and got shakily to his feet, reaching up to rub at his neck. Kairi stood between him and Heartless, flashlight aimed at the floor, casting a wider circle of protective light.

There was a sound from outside. A voice, not shouting, but singing. It drifted in through the front door, open a crack from when Sora and Kairi had come inside. Even so, the sound carried strangely.

That, combined with the strange clarity of the note, was enough for him to immediately identify it. A siren’s song. Demyx?

Kairi stood up a little straighter, the flashlight not wavering in the slightest. “About time.”

Heartless paced at the edge of the light. Before it could try to retreat completely into the shadows, Riku rushed in close. He didn’t know what Demyx was doing here, though Kairi’s lack of surprise gave him some idea. But backup would do no good if Heartless escaped from them now.

It was a bit of a surprise to discover how completely his feelings had turned around in such a short span of time. It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d been certain the only chance for survival was to abandon the islands. That he’d been resigned to his own death.

Now he was thinking about truly getting rid of Heartless. Like that was a fight they actually had a chance to win.

Heartless slid sideways, the weird stuttering motion bringing it closer, within Riku’s guard. Riku twisted away before it could get its claws into him. Sora and Kairi took advantage of the distraction he was providing to get out the door.

Riku backed toward the door himself, trading attempted blows with Heartless, slowly moving them out onto the front porch of the house.

The singing was louder outside. There weren’t any words to it that Riku could recognize, but each note was so piercingly clear it sounded like Demyx was singing right into his ear.

He wasn’t. Once they’d finally made it out to the front yard itself, he was able to spare a glance and see that the siren was at his front gate, leaning on the gatepost.

The siren gave him a jaunty wave. “Nice house!” he called. Even those words were sung rather than spoken.

Riku would have answered, but Heartless slipped forward with a hiss, and his attention was forced back to the fight. Being outside provided a wealth of shadows for the monster to use. It was a full moon, so it wasn’t the darkest possible night, but every slight rise in the grass, every rock and plant and branch cast shadows. A cloud skittered across the face of the moon, providing a new play of light and dark on the ground.

Heartless darted between the pools of darkness, slashing out with wicked claws. A few strikes connected, and Riku winced at the burn-then-freeze sensation, even as the damage healed quickly.

Sora and Kairi were over near Demyx, and Riku was just fine with that. They could stay back, and what passed for safer.

“I can’t believe you’re the first one here,” Sora said.

“What’s the saying, ‘the sooner I get here, the sooner I can leave?’” Demyx answered, still singing the response.

Kairi laughed. “We appreciate you making an appearance.”

The song increased in intensity then, the notes growing sharper, while also strangely… lilting. It was the kind of thing that should have felt contradictory, yet didn’t. Like water, flowing smoothly, yet sharply cold.

Heartless stepped into a pool of shadow, and Riku recognized that it was about to use the shadows to jump from one place to another. He readied himself to follow wherever it went, hoping it wasn’t about to retreat entirely…

And nothing happened.

It let out a hiss and a crushing wave of frustration.

Riku glanced back to Demyx and saw his mouth quirking up in a smile as he continued to sing. Sora and Kairi had taken up defensive postures in front of him, clearly ready to ensure nothing interrupted him.

The language of the song wasn’t one Riku could even begin to recognize. For as long as he’d known of sirens, and the sometimes-frightening amount of control they could exert over people, he’d never known of them having control over shadow. Then again, well-practiced sirens could allegedly control the weather too, or even the sea itself. Maybe they could control more than just that.

More sounds echoed on the path up to the gate. At least three people running, feet pounding on the pathway, all breathing heavily.

The three people who arrived weren’t familiar, but Riku couldn’t concern himself with introductions.

Heartless channeled its frustration at the shadows’ inaccessibility into a furious series of attacks. It abandoned parts of its humanoid appearance, reaching for Riku with too many arms and claws.

Riku kept himself between Heartless and the others. Kairi and Sora were certainly ready to defend Demyx, but Riku didn’t want them to have to. He needed to defend them.

Then, abruptly, Heartless switched its focus to the three newcomers, as if it had just noticed them.

Its frantic movements slowed, back to the strange liquid grace it could sometimes have. Its thoughts broadcast loud, not targeted.

Xion, construct. No-heart/girl-thing. Come help. I/we take hearts. Consume hearts, learn what it is to have heart inside you. Help me/us. We take islands together.

The dark-haired girl standing in the middle of the three—Xion, apparently—stood very still for a moment.

There was half a breath where Riku was calculating how to split his attention between two targets, when the woman smiled and said, “Still no.”

Heartless twitched away, seeming to flail for a moment between the people present.

Riku edged toward Sora and Kairi as Heartless moved. He curled his own fingers into claws, ready to strike.

Sora put a gentle hand on his arm. “Just a minute.”

Heartless turned its focus toward the young man in the group of three.

You, Roxas-copy-unreal-doppelganger. I/we can help be real. Do what copy/unreal/doppelganger meant to do. Kill other/original, I/we take heart, you become original/real. Help me/us, take island. Be death omen, meant to be.

“Yeah, but I don’t really want to kill Sora. We’ve worked things out,” the man said.

The idea that this Roxas could be a doppelganger for Sora was the kind of information that would ordinarily have shocked and horrified him. Now that he knew, he could see the resemblance. Their hair was different, but their faces, their eyes…

Riku had never encountered a doppelganger before; they were rare things. Anyone who did meet their own doppelganger didn’t survive the experience, and yet here he and Sora both were.

The other woman spoke. “Two perfectly unique and different people don’t need to worry about which one is the original or not.”

Heartless twitched away, back toward a pool of shadow by one of the overgrown rose bushes, but Demyx was still singing, and the shadows didn’t open.

“No attempt to sway me?” the other woman asked. “I’m almost hurt.”

She stepped forward. She was pretty, blonde, wearing white that almost glowed in the moonlight.

Riku wanted to stop her from getting any closer, but Sora’s hand tightened on his arm another fraction, so he waited.

Heartless stared at her, unblinking gold eyes seeming wide.

Do… I/we… know you? The thought was hesitant in a way Riku had never heard from it before.

“Do you?” the woman asked.

Riku felt the crackle of magic, like the fizz of static electricity. The girl was a witch, and she was doing something.

This collection of cryptids was growing stranger by the minute, and Riku didn’t know how he was meant to react. If it wasn’t so clear that the only harm they meant was toward Heartless, he’d probably feel pretty threatened. A siren that could control more than people, a witch, a doppelganger…

I/we… you… Heartless flailed, actually backing away from the girl, who was stepping very slowly and carefully across the grounds.

“It won’t matter whether you know me or not,” she said.

The islands… could be ours… help… it continued stuttering strangely over the thoughts it pushed out, like each word was an effort.

“The island is ours,” she confirmed. “But not yours.”

Yet more sounds came from the jungle on the other side of the fence. A growl, and the crash of something large running through the underbrush, followed by the sound of ordinary footsteps on the path.

“Look who’s the last to arrive!” Roxas called.

“I just know how to make an entrance,” Axel quipped.

Axel wasn’t the only one on the pathway. Behind him, something hulked in the underbrush, a low growl carrying.

Riku saw bluish fur in the moonlight, and a lupine face with a pair of scars in an “X” between golden eyes. The growl grew more insistent, then the werewolf paced away along the outside of the fence, disappearing back into the thick vegetation of the jungle, though Riku could still hear it.

A werewolf. Are there any monsters Destiny Islands doesn’t have?

“Saïx will make sure that nothing tries to make an escape over the wall,” Axel said conversationally. “He’s very fast.”

The light, almost teasing tone dropped like a mask as he turned his attention toward Heartless. “But I don’t think it’s going to have the chance to try.”

The creature was crouched low, twitching and flickering back and forth. Occasionally it reached for a shadow, letting out distressed-sounding hisses when they remained closed to it.

Riku might have felt sorry for it, if it hadn’t taken such glee in the thought of how many people it could kill. How much effort it had gone to in order to destroy the lives of those living on the islands. How many people it had killed.

Everything was quiet except for Demyx’s quiet singing, which faded easily into the background. Sora’s hand slid away from Riku’s arm.

Sora and Kairi both stepped forward, and Riku was quick to follow. Cornered animals were considered dangerous for very good reason, and Heartless certainly had to feel cornered.

Heartless stuttered backward, away from them as they approached. Then it flung itself forward, claws out. Sora swept his baton in a sharp arc, knocking it out of its leap and sending it to the ground.

Its form lost more coherence, growing less humanoid and more amorphous as it oozed away. It didn’t get far, as Kairi lunged forward, silver dagger in hand, slicing directly across it, before she danced back out of easy range.

The shadow was slow to reform behind the blade’s cut, folding in on itself again the way Riku had seen before. It paused for a moment, seeming to try and gather strength before it bolted to the side, rushing for the wall, just like Axel had suggested it might.

Sora took off after it, but the pursuit was unnecessary.

Axel snapped his fingers, and multiple small flames sparked to life. With a flick of his wrist, they darted out, forming a semicircle in front of Heartless’ attempted escape.

“You warned us all about this thing, Riku,” Axel said. “Are you ready to get rid of it? How about you, monster hunters?”

Riku was very, very ready to get rid of Heartless. Judging by the looks on Sora’s and Kairi’s faces, they were too. All three of them stalked forward toward it.

Heartless looked… pathetic, almost, cowering in a circle of flames. It was trying to shrink into itself further, withdrawing from the light, but the only place for it to go was toward the three of them.

It forced out one last push of desperate thought and feeling, a wordless begging for it to be allowed to go.

Riku held up one hand, claws bared. “This territory is not yours, and it never will be.”

Kairi spun the silver knife in her hand, and Sora raised his baton.

“These islands are ours. All of ours. And we will always protect it from anything like you,” Kairi added.

All three of them striking Heartless at once dissolved it into wisps of shadow, almost immediately burned to nothing in the light of Axel’s fire and the full moon above.

---

Wayfinder definitely had a completely different vibe than Highwind. Riku had picked Highwind because it catered to locals, and was busy without being overly so. Wayfinder was clearly aiming—and succeeding—to attract tourists coming in off the boardwalk and a younger, more energetic local crowd.

The ground level was already starting to fill, if slowly, a few brave dancers already out on the floor, moving to the electronic music.

Riku skirted the dark dance floor, moving to the stairs that led up to the open rooftop.

The view from there was excellent. The rooftop had only a low wall topped with a waist-high railing, allowing an unobstructed view of the beach and the open ocean beyond. Sunset colors were just starting to fade along the horizon, with the first few stars beginning to appear.

He wished that he didn’t feel nervous, walking up to the rooftop bar. It was ridiculous at this point. Even more ridiculous was how many of the nerves dissipated when he saw Sora and Kairi, already seated at a table near the opposite side from the stairs.

He wasn’t surprised to see them, considering they were the ones who’d invited him to meet them there. It was still a relief to see them.

Riku carefully slid between other tables, some occupied, some not. Of course Sora and Kairi noticed him before he reached their table, both greeting him with friendly smiles, sliding out an extra chair for him.

“Starting to feel like I’m always running late,” he said, half-joking.

“Or we’re just so excited to see you, we can’t wait around to be fashionably late,” Sora answered. “Glad you made it.”

“We just wanted to make sure and claim a table,” Kairi said. “They’ll be in high demand in another half hour. We haven’t ordered anything yet, though the specialty cocktails are well worth the trip.”

“I guess I’m not too late, then.”

“We figured you might have to wait a bit longer, actually.” Sora glanced toward the horizon, where the sun had just finished setting.

He shrugged. “As long as I don’t spend much time in direct sunlight, I’ll be fine.”

A moment later, he asked, “Any signs of Heartless? It’s really gone?”

“Nothing we’ve seen,” Sora answered. “You?”

He shook his head. “The shadows are quiet, in a way they haven’t been since I arrived here. Even before Heartless made itself known, I could still sense it. But now the shadows are just… ordinary.”

“Can’t say I’m disappointed by that.” Kairi lifted a mostly empty glass of water in a toast.

“It seems like it should have known better than to try to take Destiny Islands. A place with so many cryptids per square foot seems risky to try and take control of. Then again, I had no idea how many there were.”

Sora grinned. “Well, you have met most of them by now. Or at least the ones we know.”

There had been formal introductions to all of them—even the werewolf, Saïx—after Heartless had been defeated.

“Do the cryptids here keep themselves secret on purpose?” he asked. “Other than Axel, at least.”

“It’s not completely deliberate,” Kairi said. “At least not beyond just that general desire to be left alone, and of course to keep humans from recognizing them. Even that’s not so much a demand for solitude so much as it is for peace. Once they know someone isn’t going to make things difficult, they’re pretty friendly. I think we’re all perfectly happy for this to be a… sanctuary of sorts.”

Sora looked very directly at Riku. “How are you doing? Recovered from the close call with Heartless?”

There was a bit of underlying tension that Riku wouldn’t have expected from a fairly simple question.

He nodded. “You can thank Kairi for it.” His eyes flicked toward her, making it clear he thanked her for it. “That er… ‘donation’ was probably the only thing that let me recover as well as I did. Enough to win.”

“Does that mean you’ll be sticking around, then?” Sora’s voice sounded hopeful.

Riku was a little taken aback by the question. Now that he knew the monster hunters of the island weren’t going to immediately run him off, he hadn’t really been considering otherwise. “Well, I’d hoped to. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is!” Kairi answered. “Though if so, are you going to need a steady blood supply?”

Riku shook his head emphatically. “No. I’ve got that taken care of. I told you, I have animal blood. It’ll work well enough.”

“But you said human was better, right?” Sora asked.

He shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I’m not going to hunt here. I wouldn’t. Even if I would, I hope you don’t think I’m stupid enough to try.” He hadn’t expected an accusation, and it hurt to hear.

Kairi and Sora shared a look, and then Kairi rolled her eyes.

It was Sora who said, “I think she was more asking about… living donors.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she added. “Even when you weren’t exactly prepared, even under those circumstances.”

“I mean, you were on the brink of death or pretty close. If even then you were able to keep from taking too much from her? It seems like you’d be extra trustworthy the rest of the time.” Sora settled back into his seat, exaggeratedly casual.

Kairi was equally casual when she added, “Might have to figure out the logistics, but between the two of us, it seems like we could at least help.”

About the only thing he would have expected less than an accusation that he would start to hunt on the islands would have been what was starting to sound very much like an offer.

Riku stood up abruptly. “You probably need food.”

Was it awkward or just reciprocal to bring them food when they seemed to be offering him the same? He wasn’t sure, but it at least gave him something to think about while he approached the rooftop bar.

Gold-toned lights strung over the roof space winked on as the last remainders of sunlight faded. More groups had wandered up, clustering at tables and in twos and threes along the rail, looking out at the ocean.

A friendly bartender with a nose-ring took his order. Three of the specialty cocktails that Kairi had mentioned—Thalassa Charms was apparently what they were called—and several skewers of grilled fruit seasoned with some sort of salty-sweet-spicy mix. They smelled good on the small grill back behind the bar, even to him.

He paid, tipped, and the bartender waved a staff member over to help bring the food to the table.

He reclaimed his seat, and the waitress set the cocktails and the plates of fruit down on the table, telling them to enjoy and flitting away to other tables.

“Thank you for the drinks,” Kairi said, holding hers up to him.

Sora mimicked the motion, and Riku joined in the toast.

“Of course,” he said. “Thank you for… all kinds of things.”

The ‘Thalassa Charms’ were definitely pretty to look at, layered attractively with shades of blue, green, and pink. One sip revealed that they were powerfully alcoholic, if quite sweet and refreshing. More exciting than a vodka tonic, anyway.

“And thank you for the food, too,” Sora added, an interestingly sly note creeping into his voice. “I guess you want the neck bite after all.”

If Riku had still been taking a drink he would have been in danger of something very undignified. As it was, he was sure what little color he had must have all flooded to his cheeks.

Kairi giggled, though not unkindly. “That was the deal, right? You buy us dinner, if you want to go for a bite on the neck?”

He took another sip of the cocktail, as if he could hide behind it. That had not been what he was thinking about, even if he had been thinking about wanting to feed them.

Kairi grinned, somehow sharp even without fangs.

Sora leaned forward over the table. “So is that a yes, then?”

“You feed us, we feed you? Seems like a fair trade, right?”

After one more second of hesitation, he nodded. If they were freely offering, if they were glad he was going to stay…

“Excellent!” Kairi said, raising her glass again. “To a much better start to your time on Destiny Islands!”

As Riku clinked his glass against Sora’s and Kairi’s, he somehow ridiculously thought of the silly tourist mug he’d bought: Find your destiny on Destiny Islands! It was a little soon to tell, but he was starting to feel like he had.

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