Kingdom Hearts fic: Sightless

[mistressofmuses]

It's August, somehow! That means it's time for AUgust, a challenge structured around a different Alternate Universe prompt for every day. (I last participated in 2020, and had a lot of fun with that!)
I had good intentions of trying to work ahead and get some things completed in advance, but predictably I did not end up doing so, alas. So I'll try to write a fic a day for as long as I can, but we'll see how it goes!
The prompt for Day 1 was "Sightless."

---

Sora and Kairi provided a sort of calibration for whatever this sense was. The brightest lights he’d ever encountered.

He still opened his eyes when he woke up. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, yet it remained automatic; some reflex he just couldn’t quite excise.

It was why he’d returned to wearing the blindfold when he had to leave the house. It made some people uncomfortable either way, but he’d rather they shied away from the blindfold than from his staring, sightless eyes.

It wasn’t like he’d gotten nothing in return, though he still couldn’t answer whether he thought it was a fair trade. Whether it was worth it. Most days it seemed like it might be. He got around fine enough, learning the ways in which he needed to adjust. And if anything ever happened here again, darkness threatening to overtake their world, he’d be ready.

Had it been the time he spent trapped in the dark? He thought it might be. Seeing nothing for so long, trapped in the true opposite of light, locked away from even a hint of it. This was like… becoming some sort of blind cave fish, adapting to the ways in which sight had become unnecessary.

Or had it been seeing the light from the heart of the worlds? Light and brightness just as absolute as the crushing dark from behind the door. Had that burned out his ability to see anything else? He’d probably never know for sure.

He pressed his head back harder into his pillow, and let out a long, slow exhale, centering himself. Then he reached with that new, extra sense. Not additional, since he’d lost one to gain it, but it was certainly something different.

There was physical warmth pressed to each of his sides, and as that new sense awakened, the warmth blossomed into light. Sora. His arm was curled up over Riku’s shoulder. The warmth already felt like the touch of sun, and the bright glow only added to that impression. Kairi. On his other side, Kairi’s arm was twined around his, the light from her just as dazzlingly bright.

They provided a sort of calibration for whatever this sense was. The brightest lights he’d ever encountered.

He’d sensed other bright hearts since; plenty of Island denizens were perfectly wonderful. It was ordinary and completely human for people to have a mix of light and dark with them. Sora and Kairi were simply, as in so many other ways, special. Exceptions to the rule.

He took one more deep breath, turning the sense within. He was… perhaps also an exception, but not the same way the others were. For him, the light and dark were held in balance. Not quite like he saw in most people, where the levels varied and mixed. In him it was more… deliberate.

Every day he looked again, terrified of finding that the balance had shifted in a way that could become dangerous. He’d allowed that to happen once before. Never again. If there was even a hint that the darkness was growing, absorbing or taking over the light…

Well, he wasn’t sure what he’d have to do, but he couldn’t let himself become a threat to the Islands again. And certainly not ever to Kairi and Sora.

The worry could be put off another day: everything “looked” the same as it always did.

The self-examination was finished just in time, as both Sora and Kairi started to shift, coming closer to their own wakefulness.

Well, if having them wake up beside him was part of what he’d been granted in exchange for his sight, at least that was something he’d never regret.