Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kairi's mother said it looked like rain. She remembered, vaguely, a bad shower had been predicted. Their across the street neighbor, Faris, the seafarer that had first gotten the island children hooked on stories about how you could reach other worlds if you believed strongly enough and sailed far enough out into the horizon beyond the large island, had told her at the store that morning when they'd run into each other that there was a storm brewing, one even an experienced pirate wouldn’t want to be out in. Foul winds were not something you wanted to cross, even counting aside magic and portents. Faris had told Kairi’s mom that they and their partner, Bartz, had headed back early from their fishing trip because of what was coming. Both omen and storm should pass in three days by Faris’ reckoning, but until then you wanted to keep to land. Kairi had already been nervous about her planned voyage on the raft with Riku and Sora. This just gave her the excuse to tell them that they needed to delay. Riku sighed through his nose, but he didn't try to argue with her. All he said was that they better make sure to stow the raft further up the beach where it wouldn't wash out to sea without them. Kairi took his right hand in both of hers, an impulsive grab for him when he looked like he was about to storm off, and traced over his life line with her thumbs while staring up at him, searching his eyes with hers for his true reaction. "Please don't be mad. Three days isn't so long to wait, is it?"

She sounded like she was begging. How could he be mad at her then? He couldn't. Not then and definitely not when she grinned and laughed, letting go of his hand to jab him in the chest, shattering the earnestness of the moment, but coming for his heart in a different way. "Don't leave without me. You promise?" He swore to that too.

 Sora came along when Riku left to drag the raft somewhere safe to weather the storm. It was a tough job to do, and one they had agreed to get done as quickly as possible to make it back to the main island before the storm hit. So, naturally, they spent an hour chasing each other around and playing keep away after Sora stole the bucket hat Riku had paired with his raincoat, declaring he needed it more since he'd forgotten to wear any rain gear and Riku's coat had a hood. 

They'd both ended up covered in sand, wet, filthy, and smiling. They'd sat on the beach talking for another hour under the stars before being hit with raindrops and being forcefully reminded of their task they’d let go by the wayside. Sora suggested that they sleep in one of the shacks on play island instead of trying to take their canoes back home. Riku reminded him that if their parents woke up and discovered they were gone, they'd be grounded or at least watched too closely to sneak out again and get to the raft when it really mattered, so Sora had better put all the power he had in his weak noodle arms to dragging the raft and then rowing as fast as possible to beat the storm before rain really started coming down. Riku hesitated a long time before making the decision for them, and his eyes twinkled when he made the taunt, so Sora still found himself biting a grin instead of pouting as expected.

There was no opportunity for Riku to visit the door in the secret place with Sora watching, nor did he want to. Three days and then they'd all leave together.

 The expected squall never came. Rain that night amounted to little more than on and off drizzling. The sun shone the next two days. Riku couldn't help but feel they'd missed their chance. Sora and Kairi both protested that a few days made no difference to the rest of their lives, or at least their school break, running off to the great worlds beyond, but, in unspoken depths of their hearts, all three knew that Riku’s worry had a grain of truth even if it was silly to believe it was their only opportunity.  They had missed something they couldn’t name, and the niggling unease of a missed appointment you were just on the verge of remembering haunted all three.

On day three, Sora got himself grounded. For stupid reasons, he said. He wouldn't share what those reasons were, but he swore that he could talk his mother around in a day or two. 

"With a smile like mine? I never serve a full sentence." 

Riku and Kairi both believed it. They'd give the sun, moon, and stars to Sora if he asked with a smile after all, so why not believe the rest of the world operated on the same principle?

Riku gave him three more days even beyond his promised two. He was starting to get impatient. The whispers in his head still came, as did dreams that seemed more like memories. The door. The door.

It rained each day they waited for Sora to get off being grounded, still not the squall that had been predicted, but more rain than was usually seen that time of year.  The sky was getting restless too. 

Selphie wouldn't shut up about how she thought she saw something moving in the bushes on her walk home. Tidus was more preoccupied with counting all the long shadows cast by trees, buildings, and people even though there was no sun. Riku could only think of the door.

His resistance broke by the end of the week.

 Sora woke up to a loud clap of thunder that seemed like it shook his walls. He was halfway to his window before he realized he was so much as sitting up in bed. He was dressed before he remembered he'd promised Kairi not to sneak out during his grounding. If it were just up to him, he'd have been out the window the first night rather than keep disappointing Riku. 

He couldn't leave during the day or detour on the way home from school. The island community was too tight knit. Someone in town would see him before he got to the docks and stop him. Sora, Kairi, and Riku's parents had been burned before and now usually had a few people alerted when one of the mischievous teenagers was grounded to make sure they followed orders. The night was his chance, but he’d not taken advantage of it yet for Kairi’s sake.

Sora didn’t understand what difference it made how much trouble they got into if they were going to leave the Islands forever, but  Kairi had shook her head in that patient, amused way of hers that allowed her to act condescending and yet not have Sora mind, and clued him in. They couldn't know the raft would make it that far. She was humoring Riku, because that was what you did when you cared for someone, but reaching other worlds on a raft or even getting further than the reef seemed pretty far-fetched. They’d have an adventure, but they’d ultimately fail at their goal and have to come home and face consequences, so they’d better make sure they didn’t leave too much of a mess.

 Sora couldn't help but be disappointed in Kairi’s lack of faith, but he had agreed, no burned bridges. He had a difficult time not putting more priority on not disappointing her than not disappointing Riku. It wasn't always fair, but Riku didn't have the puppy eyes Kairi  did.

He was breaking that agreement now though, and Kairi would have to understand. Riku would be devastated if something happened to the raft after they'd waited so long, and it was really coming down hard. They had moored the boat further up the beach the week before, but nobody knew what the tides had done since, and it hadn't been covered.

 Sora took a minute to grab a tarp from the garage, and then he was off to the boathouse by the docks. There were already empty spots on the canoe racks, but Sora hardly noticed, more worried about getting to his destination and back. The two canoes tied to and slamming forcefully against the dock at play island were harder to miss.

"Riku! Kairi!" Sora yelled to the wind as he searched for his friends. Neither Riku nor Kairi were at the raft, and all of three of the friends were too late to save their ticket to other worlds. The mast was broken, bent at an angle with part on the ground, pressing the torn sail to muddy sand, and large splinters reaching up like a claw toward the sky.

Sora only had a few minutes to mourn before he heard shouting carried by the wind.

"....Trusted you!"

"....All three of us together, but you...."

".....Couldn’t wait! "

Then, he could only hear voices, not even stray words, but he knew exactly who the shouting voices belonged to.

 Sora started running, feet slapping and squelching. A strange shape rose from the sand a few feet ahead, in his path, going from what he'd mistook for a murky puddle to a twitching, bright-eyed, clawed creature, the size of a dog, but formed more like an ant's head sitting on a child's body. A deep aura of dread and despair came with the abomination, multiplying as the creature itself did. Sora faltered a moment before a piercing female shriek reached his ears followed by Riku yelling, sounding as panicked as Sora himself felt, "Kairi!" 

Sora balled his fists and ran shoulder first like a football player through the line of creatures. He felt something catch his leg, a light scratch that blossomed into a stab of pain and a hot trail down his leg as he kept running, proving it hadn't been so light after all. There was a similar rake of pain down his back, three burning lines. He didn't care. There were only two things he cared about, and when he saw them his heart surged and he could have flown, forget continuing to run or break through lines of what had to be the legions of hell.

It looked like Riku had caught Kairi as she'd swooned like a maiden in some old movie. Kairi was held mostly upright, held against Riku's chest by one of Riku's arms, head flopped backward, pale but without any visible injury. Riku bore no wounds or scratches either. He stared down at Kairi with the devoted concern of one of those heroes out of those same movies, water dripping from his hair into Kairi's face as he brushed her bangs away from her closed eyes with his free hand. The monsters gave them a wide berth, but Riku's feet were sunk not in sand but in a dark sludge that radiated around them, and there was another puddle of darkness, a shade blacker than the sky, hanging in midair behind him.

"Riku! Kairi!" Sora knew there were less redundant and more meaningful things to yell, but words left him.

Riku's eyes snapped to him, and a sudden, out of place grin split his face, manic with too many teeth and not the right kind of joy. "Come on, slowpoke! Grab ahold! We're setting sail!" The puddle at his feet twisted up his legs slowly.

"R..Riku?" Sora's voice trembled. The hair on his arms stood up. Something about that smile felt more wrong than the clawed monsters that were hanging back from him now too as he drew closer to Riku.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark," Riku taunted. He reached out the arm not supporting Kairi. "Take my hand!"

Sora tried. He honestly did. He fought against the screaming, terrified voice in his head that warned him this was a trap and surged forward, not moving as quickly as he wanted. The boys brushed fingers. Kairi jerked awake and looked directly into Sora's eyes, seeming to look behind them to see his soul.

 "Sooora.” Her voice came out in a breathy warble. An unseen something pushed hard against Sora's chest, knocking him backward at the same time the dark tendrils tugged Riku and Kairi with him down into the ground with the second dark portal closing in after them.

 Sora almost didn't recognize his own scream, animal-like as it was as he sunk to his knees, tears already in his eyes as he tried to process his friends being torn away when he could still feel the ghost of Riku's fingers. His chest glowed warm, a nonsensical flutter of comfort--a strange biological condolence, though bodies were strange things-- he pushed away.

 A nearby shadow creature, whatever hypnosis had been placed over it before broken now, pounced at the kneeling, grieving boy with claws outstretched, chittering at its fellows to follow. Sora threw an arm up to cover his face, thinking it was the end and almost not caring, only to find himself engulfed in a flash of light and knocking the creature back as it rebounded off an outstretched silver blade with a tip turned and pointed like teeth of a key. 

Sora flexed the hand now gripping the gold handgrip of the odd weapon. He turned and swung clumsily at another creature, rolled to his feet, and started running, slashing as he went, not wildly or as sloppily as his first strike, but still embodying a man possessed as his brain tried to claw its way back to making sense of the world for him.

It was easier to focus on one thought at a time. Get help for Riku and Kairi. Not that he knew who could help or how. He didn't know what happened to them, or even how to describe it or anything else from the last few minutes. Even if he did, who would believe him? No one. Unless the shadow creatures were on the main island as well, which was an even worse thought than being mistaken for crazy.

Sora's wild man run to the dock was interrupted, Sora nearly tripping over his feet as he noticed a door, so familiar but nothing he'd seen before in waking, covering the entrance to the secret place. Warmth surged in his heart again. Maybe it wasn't the synapsis in his brain misfiring or being misunderstood. Maybe his heart was trying to tell him something. 

He found himself detouring, but he barely reached the door and tugged it open, warmth in his chest again (You're on the right path now), before he was swept away in a gale much stronger than even the unseen force that stopped him from grabbing onto Riku.

A wind like no tropical storm he'd felt before battered his ears, his eyes, his body, and Sora blacked out.

Chapter Text

Yuffie was sitting on the wall that bordered the main settlement of Traverse Town when she saw another world go dark.

 Keep your head down was generally a philosophy to live by in Traverse Town, and sometimes you had to take it literally. Looking at the sky when you knew what you were looking at just weighed your heart down. The streetlights weren't kept brighter than they strictly needed to be to light the way for residents out at night even in the poorer districts because of the Heartless. They didn’t care about that kind of light. The only reason fewer Heartless attacks took place during the day was that people were more likely to gather in groups than be rushing places alone when the sun was out.  The streetlights were enhanced so you couldn't see the stars in the sky, and wouldn't notice  how many had gone out since you last tried to count. 

 When you went above the streetlights you undid their work, but Yuffie liked sitting in the shadows in places nobody would ever look for her or expect her to reach. It was the ninja's natural state. She knew to keep her eyes on the streets, looking for shoppers with full bags not paying attention. 

Yuffie knew not to look up, and yet she did anyway, and not with a quick, mistaken glance, but spending ten or twenty minutes perversely stargazing and waiting, thinking about what Donald and Goofy had said about the rapid spread of the Heartless across the worlds, and allowing herself to be distracted from her primary task of shoppers weighed down with more accessories than they needed.

Squall never asked where she got the accessories she gave to Cid to add to his stock, just like Cid pretended he didn't realize he was reselling some of the same accessories multiple times. Aerith admitted to knowing, but she didn't disapprove like Squall would have felt obligated to, which was why Aerith was Yuffie's favorite. She understood you did what you needed to do when you were a refugee. Rinoa wouldn’t have understood in the same way, but she was the only one that might have helped Yuffie with the actual stealing. But, of course, Rinoa was gone.

Yuffie had thought that she would need every bit of her ninja reflexes to actually catch a star blinking and leaving a hole in the sky, but what she saw instead was the star split into two streaks that shot across the sky in different directions, the left taking on a trajectory that looked a little close.

New arrival. That was some luck.

She wasn't sure if she'd say good or bad, but it was impressively against the odds. Only the strongest hearts made it to Traverse Town or other worlds without assistance when their home worlds fell. Even Yuffie, Squall, Aerith, and Cid had a gummi ship. 

Yuffie stood and stretched before eyeing her jump from the wall to a nearby roof to a stack of crates to the ground. 

Time to find the poor bastard.

She'd give them a tour of Traverse Town as long as they weren't too weepy. She hated the weepy ones who had lost family.  Aerith had told Yuffie that she'd been "weepy" for awhile at first too, but she'd been a kid. Yuffie thought adults shouldn't cry. There should be rules. 

As long as the new arrival stuck to the rules and didn't cry, then she'd show them the ropes around town.  Maybe she'd sympathize with them about how the trip across the universe had shaken everything from their pockets. Then again, with losing their home world, they probably wouldn't even notice or care.

Yuffie found the newcomer in the alley. At least she assumed the boy with the enormous shoes and red jumpsuit that would have struck Yuffie as odd if she hadn't seen people arrive in much weirder (togas and full metal armor for starters) passed out on the ground was the shooting star she'd seen. She nudged his side with her foot, calling, "Hey, kid, wake up!" 

When he didn't stir, she crouched beside him and inspected his head for injuries. To her relief, there was no blood. He couldn't have hit his head that hard, or his spiky hair had cushioned the blow. He was soaked--it must have been raining when his world fell--but it was a warm night, so catching cold wasn't even that pressing of a worry. Unconscious but uninjured was the best case scenario. That meant there was no debate over whether to play at being a decent person or play opportunist. 

 She squatted down beside him and rifled through his pockets as quickly as possible, finding nothing but a bit of damp grit at the bottom.  The only thing of possible value she could see on him was a silver crown charm hanging from a chain necklace around his neck. She couldn't feel the buzz of any enchantment on it, but maybe Aerith could do something to spruce the accessory shop’s soon-to-be signature item up. 

"Hey, if you don't mind me stealing your necklace, then don't react." Yuffie gave the boy one last chance to wake up. "Okay, finders keepers it is." 

When she looked back on the night later, Yuffie decided she really shouldn't have kept talking right next to Sora's face as she unclasped the chain around his neck. Hindsight was 20/20.

Sora was lost in a dream already fading before he even returned to consciousness.  Kairi was standing over him, shouting at him to wake up because she had something important to tell him, when he jerked awake to a female face with sharper angles than Kairi's, and much darker hair framing it, taking up a good portion of his field of vision.

"W..what's going on?" Sora's voice was rough like he'd swallowed and choked back up a gallon of seawater. He blinked and frowned, trying to focus his eyes through the pounding in his head and overcome the swirling feeling of disorientation. Who was the girl? Where was the beach? Did he get to the boat in time? 

No, something  had happened to the boat. He needed to remember.

"Oh, shit!" Dark eyes widened and then quickly retreated, along with the girl they were attached to and the ever-present reassuring weight of Sora's crown pendant from around his neck. 

"Come back! That's not yours!" Sora's entire body screamed when he tried to move, and his head swum again. Where was the beach? Where were Riku and Kairi? He was having a hard time focusing, but it seemed like he'd just been robbed. "Riku gave me that!"

Sora took off running, letting his brain catch up when it could and forcing his body to work out its kinks. His feet slapped against stone, not sand. He was certain even in his fogged state that the buildings he was passing weren't anywhere on the island he'd grown up on, much less play island where he remembered being last. He was starting to remember Riku and Kairi disappearing into an inky void, and he soon found himself trying to shut his mind back down. If he let himself actively think about any of that, he'd become paralyzed by it, and he couldn't lose a moment. The thief was fast, and she had longer legs than he did. 

This was what footraces on the islands against Riku ( Riku, where are you? ) and Kairi ( Kairi are you okay?) were training him for.

"I said get back here!" Sora followed the thief through a giant wooden door to the upper level of another, larger square of shops and other assorted buildings. He was almost close enough to grab her.

"Sorry. Wish I had the time to chat, but I don't, hyuk hyuk," the girl taunted him, launching herself over a low railing and disappearing from sight.

"No you don't!"  

Sora placed his hands on the railing and vaulted after her without hesitation, landing feet first in a fountain whose hard bottom hit with force sent shock waves through his legs. Water lapped at his legs below the knee and bubbled into his shoes, saturating his socks.  The thief was nowhere to be found, vanished without a trace as if she'd jumped into an alternate dimension just to leave him all wet.

For a moment, Sora debated flopping right down in the fountain water, as it felt like a fitting expression of his frustration and sudden sinking heart at the idea he might have just lost his only keepsake from his best friend if he really was stranded in a strange world. Then again, if he really was stranded in a strange world, then he may want to avoid soaking his only set of clothes even more.

Sora stepped out of the fountain, shoulders slumping, and sat on the edge. He'd just taken off his left shoe and dumped out the excess water--for what good that would do--trying not to tear up (He'd wanted to see the universe, but his friends were supposed to be with him, and he was supposed to know his mother was safe and he could come back to her one day) when he heard a shout from a side street that had him on his feet again. The giant key from the islands was back in his hand before he'd even consciously registered there might be danger. 

He ran toward the sound of the voice, slightly off balance with one bare foot, and was confronted with a sight almost as scarring as his last moments on Destiny Islands: a man lying prone on the ground while a creature with the same oppressive presence as the shadows on the islands, hiding in a shell of cobbled together armor that almost would have made it look more human if it didn't move with unnatural jerky movements,  bent over him, clawing at his chest with long fingers. The creature's bowed back hid the worst, but there was a sickening slurping sound.  A crystalline, candy pink heart, closer to a Valentine come to life than anything anatomically accurate, floated overhead for a second before it turned dark and another of the twisted soldiers rose from the ground nearby.

Sora screamed, wordless and distressed, but channeling horror into a battle cry as he surged forward, brandishing the strange sword. "Get away from him!"

It was too late. He knew with stomach clenching certainty that it was too late, and he was about to battle over a dead body. Though the body disappeared as he swung the magic blade that had come when he needed it, which was another level of strange in the oddest day of his life. All the same, despite thinking the fight futile, it never occurred to Sora to run and save himself when he saw someone else suffer. 

He blocked a swipe of claws and twisted to strike at the second soldier, who jumped back and disappeared in a puddle of darkness. Turning his attention back to the first and now only soldier, Sora swung  one, two, three times in rapid succession, striking low then high, feeling armor dent and causing the creature to admit a pained cry. He didn't let up, acting on muscle memory but trying not to think of laughing taunts of "Is that all you got?" and potentially throw off his groove, however much he'd rather see Riku's face in his mind's eye than be seeing the soulless eyes shining out of the helmet of the creature looking for an opening to claw out his heart like it had done to its last victim. 

Eventually, another heart floated overhead before dissipating into the ether and another corpse vanished, but this one left only relief. With the battle past, Sora heard ragged gasping, and it took him a second to realize it was his own. He banished the key-sword and sank to his knees, raising hands to hold his head. 

He wasn't granted even twenty seconds to mourn and marvel before four more soldiers came from the shadows. Sora rolled to his feet and his world narrowed again to block, parry, strike. More came and surrounded him. His heart-rate kept climbing as his mind said there were too many.

Then, next time claws came toward Sora, they were blocked by another, larger sword wielded in the hands of a man in black leathers  with a scar across his face. The man then shot a large fireball at another soldier. Sora didn't physically have it in him to be surprised any more that night, but he was grateful for the stranger that had come from nowhere and helped him make quick work of the soldier swarm in the following minutes.

"Thank you," Sora huffed a touch breathlessly, banishing the key-sword once more and hunching over with hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath once they were alone on the street.

"They’ll come at you out of nowhere," the stranger warned in a dark shade of monotone, eyes boring into Sora.

"Yeah, I figured that out." Sora stretched, trying to mentally take stock of his body and finding that, aside from a throbbing in his left shoulder that was dull enough it was probably just bruised, the scratches he'd gotten on the islands, a headache, and his missing shoe that he actually wasn't in bad shape, physically speaking at least. "I'm Sora. I'm...not from around here and I appreciate..." His voice trailed off halfway through the sentence.  The older man was talking over him.

"They’ll keep on coming at you as long as you continue to wield the keyblade." The stranger rested his sword against his shoulder and tossed his long brown hair out of his eyes, somehow making the gesture look intimidating and regal. Sora thought there was something lion-like about him though he could have had that impression put in his head by the necklace he was wearing. 

Necklace. Sora needed to find that thief. Maybe the lion guy could help him out again. He seemed pretty knowledgeable. He knew about the key-sword at least. "Is that what this thing is called, a keyblade?" Sora summoned the keyblade again just to twirl it and rest it against his shoulder like Lion Man. 

"Why would it choose a kid like you?" Lion Man muttered to himself, a distressed furrow appearing between his brows. It was more than a little insulting from Sora's perspective, both being ignored and being called a kid when he'd taken out just as many monsters as Lion Man with his fireballs and gun-sword. 

"I'm not a kid," Sora started off whining, and inwardly cringed. That did nothing but make him sound more childish. He cleared his throat, puffed his chest, and straightened his spine, channeling every knight or pirate captain he'd ever playacted at being.  Lion Man had just implied he was some kind of chosen one. He was  the carrier of the keyblade. He wasn't sure what a “keyblade” was or what it meant to be its carrier, but he could make a weapon appear out of thin air like magic and that should command respect. "And I am the one the blade chose, whatever you think of it." 

He swung the keyblade from its resting place and held it pointed at Lion Man at the end of an extended arm, trying to hold a glare. What was either a bead of sweat or a drop of water falling from his hair rolled down the back of his neck, tickling it, he really had to sneeze, and he kind of just wanted someone to hug him, but he could sustain the intimidation attempt for maybe five seconds longer. He wasn't just some kid. If he had been, that kid had died earlier that night when his best friends had gotten swallowed by darkness and left him alone to fight monsters from hell that ripped out your heart.

Lion Man slowly, deliberately knocked the keyblade to the side with the tip of his own sword, his expression reading like a disappointed parent. "Don't point a weapon at anyone you aren't prepared to use it on. " He kept his sword pointed toward the ground afterward, and beckoned with his free hand. "Now hand me the keyblade before you hurt yourself or someone else."

"What?" Sora backpedaled, voice a screech he soon coughed away again, calling back his glare and dropping into a fighting stance. "There’s no way I'm handing over the keyblade to you!"

Lion Man sighed, long-suffering, and raised his sword. "Have it your way, kid." 

His first swing was aggressive but slow enough Sora was able to dodge easily and pivot his momentum into a strike of his own that hit solidly--with the blunt side. Sora had seen Lion Man twisting his blade and understood this was a game, a test to see if he could show Lion Man not to underestimate him.  Sora danced away, and a fireball chased him, coming close enough he smelled singed hair. That seemed less like a game.

  Sora readjusted his grip on the keyblade and came for Lion Man again, this time with intent. His swing was blocked.  He jumped away to avoid the reprisal. They danced around each other for awhile, exchanging blows that didn't land. Sora began to question again whether Lion Man was toying with him, testing him, or serious in the face off.  

Another fireball came and Sora wasn't able to roll out of the way in time, but he raised the keyblade to block at the last second on some mad instinct, and though it shouldn't have worked, the fireball rebounded toward Lion Man, who had to throw himself to the side to avoid it.  Sora took advantage of his distraction to get in a few free hits with the keyblade, smacking at Lion Man with the flat again. Sora almost had time to congratulate himself on ending the stalemate when Lion Man started to glow. Maybe Sora could still be surprised after all. 

He took a hard hit that rattled his teeth, knocked him back, and carried a mild electric current through his bones.  He tried to recover, but that first strike led to a series of others, and Sora was soon seeing the world swim around him as jelly legs gave out. At least now he knew for certain  Lion Man didn't want to kill him for the keyblade. Less reassuring was that he totally could have. Sora's last grim thought as he lost consciousness was that he hoped he wasn't about to be robbed again. 

As soon as Sora fell to the ground, Yuffie came out from her hiding place. She'd only been watching for about a minute. Before then, she'd been in Pongo and Perdita's, checking in to see if there was anything they needed. If she'd also taken the opportunity to hide a certain necklace inside a certain piano, then that was just a bonus. She'd heard the commotion when she'd slipped back out the door hoping the spiky-haired kid wasn't still hanging around, and kept hidden when she noticed Squall had Spiky-Haired Kid well taken care of. Teamwork made the dream work! Though, when she realized what Spiky was holding in his hand, she gathered Squall wasn't protecting her. 

"Congrats, Squall. You beat up a ten year old." She slowly clapped for him. "Now to see if you can take his toy." If anyone was going to be worthy to hold the key it was Squall. 

"I've told you a thousand times that my name is Leon now." 

She’d remembered, but resented the supposed symbolism of burying Squall with his fiancee. He hadn’t been himself since Rinoa had gone missing, but Yuffie wanted to hold onto the idea Squall would come back one day, so she only followed his wishes when forced. 

Leon was more cautious around the unconscious Spiky than Yuffie had been. There was less kicking too. When he was satisfied, he bent and tried to pry the keyblade from his hands. "And don't make fun of him. He's determined and not a bad fighter."  Leon's hand closed around the hilt of the keyblade, and he lifted it away from Spiky, only to have it dematerialize and reappear resting atop Spiky's chest like a protective pet. "Perfect.  It looks like things are worse than we thought. A lot worse. There's our keybearer."

Yuffie let out the breath she'd held when Leon tried his luck with the keyblade. It had been little more than a longshot and a near idle wish, and she was glad Leon wouldn't have the excuse to take off and go fighting Heartless across worlds, but she was still disappointed on his behalf. Everyone knew how badly Leon wanted to prove himself worthy in some way, and a magic sword that saw into your heart was harder to argue away than if Yuffie ever did find the courage to tell Squall what she’d always seen in him. Maybe she put Squall on a pedestal, but it was only because he was the closest thing she had to an example of why people still believed in heroes. Cloud had also come close, but Cloud had left when they needed him. Squall stayed, even when he’d had the chance to run, even when it was clear he didn’t exactly want to be anywhere, much less someplace that still had Rinoa’s ghost around.

"Do you have a way to contact Goofy and Donald?" Yuffie shifted from foot to foot. Too bad the knight and the mage hadn't stayed in town a few days longer.

"No," Leon shook his head shortly. "We'll have to wait until they swing back this way for a supply run." 

That could be awhile and they both knew it. It couldn't even be certain Donald and Goofy would come back to Traverse Town instead of Disney Castle. The benefit of Traverse Town was to check in to see if there were any new rumors of a keybearer among the diverse, connected population, but Disney Castle would have free supplies, mechanics that knew their ship better than Cid, and would be where to go if they wanted to see if Queen Minnie had any word from the king. All that Leon could do was wait, play the odds, and try to get the kid--their chosen keybearer--a little training in the meantime.

If worse came to worst, Leon could press Cid to build a new gummi ship and send the keybearer out on his own. Looking down at his small, prone form, face twitching in troubled sleep and only one large shoe on his feet, Leon was reluctant to call that anything but a back up plan though. "We'll take care of the keybearer until Goofy and Donald return. Help me carry him to the hotel, and we'll talk about how we're going to convince him to trust me when he wakes up."

"Yeah, about that..." Yuffie pulled a face. "There might be some difficulty with me too."

Leon sighed, already knowing he didn't want to ask for the story. "We'll figure it out."

A few galaxies over, Riku awoke with an unresponsive Kairi in his arms at the bottom of a canyon.  Waterfalls lining the ravine walls appeared to defy gravity for a moment, flowing upwards rather than down, though, after another few seconds passed, Riku would discount his first impression. Overhead, large, flat-topped rocks floated in midair, creating a possible path ahead if Riku could think of a way to get Kairi to travel it with him. Riku craned his neck up and up from where he sat on the ground with Kairi, but there was no end in sight all the way up to a glimpse of pink sky.

"We did it! We really did it! I opened the door and we got to a new world." Awe colored Riku's voice, though he could hear his heart in his ears and he felt like he couldn't draw in full breaths unless he concentrated. It was wonderful and horrible at the same time, a dream realized, accompanied by whispers in his ear that he had traded everything else important for it. He couldn't close his eyes because he saw pieces of the island floating into the sky. Kairi was cold to the touch. Sora hadn't made it through the portal with them. 

"Kairi, time to wake up, slacker. Kairi! Come on, Kairi!" Riku called to her gently at first, then more insistently, and finally with some of the desperation he felt. "Please, Kairi! I'm..." His voice broke and he swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry for what I said, alright? You're only going to hear me say it once, so you better wake up and listen. I need you Kairi, because I need to find Sora so it can be like we all planned, and I don't know if I can do it without you." 

Riku was quickly spiraling out, losing sight of his victory. He hadn't cried since he was six and he wouldn't start now, but he kept talking like he couldn't physically keep the words in. "You know him better these days. You know both of us better, I think. Better than we know each other even though you've been with us less time. It's really annoying actually. Sora and I have always been closer than anything. He...Well, you know things aren't great with my family. But I have Sora.” He hitched and halted his sentences, redirecting and restarting. “ Then you became the Sora expert and...It's dumb." Kairi wasn't waking up, and Riku  was just talking to air. "I'm being dumb and you're missing this rare opportunity to see me act dumb because you're sleeping. Please, please wake up."

Riku was so engrossed in his futile one-sided conversation that he didn't notice the beast until it was so close it could have pounced. There were others who noticed from their own hiding places, though, interestingly, they were both unaware of the other who had come to evaluate  the new arrival. The monster towered over Riku on hind legs, shaggy as the grizzly bear he'd seen pictured in a nature book on the islands, large, sharp tusks protruding from its mouth only half as large or sharp as the black horns that topped its head. Riku had no weapon and no chance to defend Kairi or himself. His strategy would have been to yell and try to scare the beast away. He didn’t deem it likely to work, but some large wild animals that hadn't been exposed to many humans still feared them, or so Riku had thought he'd read. Before he could do even that though, a wall of green fire sprung up between him and Kairi and the beast, one of the unknown observers deciding to take an active role.

"Back, foul creature! You will not harm these children!"  The passionate declaration came from behind Riku. He swiveled his head to find a tall, slender woman with greenish skin in a black robe lined with purple and a horned headdress to match it, holding a golden staff aloft. She would have been a fearsome sight if the context didn't make her look like a darker version of avenging angel instead.

The second, still hidden observer thought it was rather well-played if melodramatic. He didn’t judge theatrics. It was less than what he saw on a near regular basis between Xigbar, Marluxia, and Axel. The interesting thing was that the queen had come down from her castle for this. She must have some kind of magical alert to offworld visitors. Zexion would have liked to know her secret. He’d tracked the smell of the Darkness of a dying world, and then the scent of a strong, pure Light that had at first been masked, up from the tunnels under the lake. He’d assumed the beast had done the same. So either Maleficent had a longer reach in sensing the Dark or a way to know when outsiders entered her domain. The latter could have some upsetting implications to the Organization. Zexion would have to investigate further.

 For now, it seemed most prudent to just remain as he was, observe what he could, and look for an opportunity to Return To Castle. Though Zexion could no longer be sure his presence and the Organization's visits were unknown to Maleficent, there was no reason to risk exposing himself for sure by opening a dark portal when she was so near. Panic was a human weakness born from emotion, and Zexion had been free of both humanity and emotion for a long time. 

Investigation of what powers Maleficent may or may not have could come later after careful consideration of the best methods. For now, there was a show to watch.

A full-bodied roar came from behind the wall of fire the green-skinned woman had stirred into being. The silhouette of the beast could be seen prowling, pacing back and forth for an opening. 

"So they are to be left to you, witch?" a deep voice rumbled. "I will pry them from you if I have to dismantle your castle brick by brick! If you run me off now I will come and take them in the night along with Belle!"

"You do not have the power to threaten me, Beast!" the witch yelled and the fire flared higher. The heat on Riku's face was near unbearable. Riku pulled himself and Kairi away until they were all but resting against the witch's knees as they sat on the ground. "Go while I give you the chance!" The witch lowered her hands, the one not holding the staff coming to rest atop Riku's head in a sign of what was either protection or possession. 

The only response was another roar and the sound of claws against stone retreating.

"I think you just saved my life...our lives," Riku  admitted as the fire faded. He hated being beholden to anyone, but the discomfort was outweighed by how impressive he'd found the display and a wave of gratitude that allowing Kairi to be mauled by a beast wasn't going to be added to his list of regrets.

"Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it?" The witch flexed her fingers, not quite scratching Riku's scalp. "I suppose introductions are in order. I am Maleficent, one of the greater fairies of the Enchanted Dominion and presently the Lady of Hollow Bastion. Who are you and your special friend?"

"I'm Riku and this is Kairi." Riku felt a slight surge of embarrassment despite himself when Kairi was called his special friend even though it was a trivial detail.

"You're not from here, are you?" It was easy enough to tell and Riku knew it, but it sounded like magical discernment when Maleficent said it. "You're from another world. I can sense it on you, and I can smell your potential and that of the girl. You're both very special, aren't you?" Maleficent was half talking to herself, playing with his hair, which, to be honest, was making Riku a little uncomfortable though it was again outweighed by other feelings, this time pride.

"I don't know...” he demurred.

"Ah, but I know," Maleficent cut him off, but kindly. "Come now. To your feet. I'll levitate the girl for you." She waved her staff and a dark portal appeared in front of Riku. The middle cleared to show a tile floor, columns, and a high ceiling. "We'll go back to my castle, get a hot meal in you, and I'll see to your friend." She cocked her head to the side. "What ails the girl? Is she under a curse or merely suffering from exhaustion?" The latter choice was offered like an afterthought, as if Maleficent already sensed something deeper wrong with Kairi just like she said she knew their potential.

"I don't know,"Riku admitted, voice barely above a whisper, as he gently shifted Kairi to the ground and stood to his feet, trying to ignore the pins and needles feeling in his legs and hoping he wouldn't embarrass himself by stumbling because his feet had fallen asleep. 

Maleficent lifted Kairi's body with a motion from her staff. "I am an authority on curses. I can find out what she suffers from and what must be done to fix it."

"I already owe you our lives. I don't know how I would repay you," Riku was already feeling the natural bitterness choke the hope Maleficent's casual offer caused.

"My dear boy, I'm sure there's some way we can think of. Just leave everything to me."

The silver haired teenager followed Maleficent through the portal, and the glimpse into Hollow Bastion’s castle, a place Zexion had once, in another life, called home himself, popped out of existence a moment later. 

The Mistress of Evil had handled the situation masterfully. Beast had made it easy for her, his temper and trouble expressing himself his downfall--just as it had been when Xaldin had observed him being chased away from the settlement of Radiant Garden survivors beyond the Great Maw.  

Zexion had a great deal to report from Hollow Bastion this visit. He couldn’t decide whether he’d put Kairi’s name in his mission notes or leave her as an unidentified being of interest. A strong Light, which meant a potential Princess of Heart, though she didn’t smell quite right for that. The Light was fading, which meant it was more likely she had merely come into contact with a Princess of Heart. Maleficent could conduct that examination. 

Portaling into the castle may have been deemed too risky by the Superior, but information on Maleficent’s plans and movements tended to flow regularly into Organization XIII’s meeting hall by virtue of Luxord’s standing poker game with a certain captain every time the Jolly Roger would dock near Tortuga tavern, an establishment known to cater to pirates from all waters, no matter how strange. If Maleficent had secured another Princess of Heart, Hook or Smee would let it slip. 

There was no hard evidence that the Kairi Zexion had just encountered was the Kairi formerly of Radiant Garden.

Ienzo’s replacement--or at least a jealous orphan once upon a time had seen her that way. A distant relative of Ansem the Wise brought to live in the castle with her grandmother, because a king needed an heir of the same bloodline. The Superior had taken care of her the same day all of Ansem’s apprentices had taken their new forms and Radiant Garden had fallen, that Zexion had been assured of, and he knew The Superior lived to his promises, through practical experience and logical extrapolation, much more reliable than the blind faith Ienzo had once had in his adoptive father.

The girl with the scent of Light on her appeared around the right age and had the same hair color. Easily a coincidence. 

There was no harm in including her name in the report either with that logic. In fact, if Zexion could somehow ensure he could be present when the Superior read his mission report, it could be an interesting experiment to rule out the remote possibility that the Kairi that had once been in line to rule Radiant Garden was not long dead. 

And Zexion hardly ever turned down the chance for scientific exploration.

Chapter Text

Bookshelves as tall as the sky arranged in a maze. Giggles popping like bubbles in the air as a child ran around the corner, fearlessly diving into the labyrinth. 

A white apron with purple flowers. Just an image, but one that came with the knowledge that it would be stiff when you buried your face in it. It was starched every wash, and not worn long enough to lose the feeling of it. 

An angry boy with pewter hair falling in his face. Blue sticky stains on a white coat with sleeves that covered his hands. 

"You're his blood, but you're not his family."

Sand. Everything is sand and particles seep everywhere, under clothes and tasted on the tongue of a mouth that screams without remembering why.

"This isn't my home."

Sora woke up, heart pounding and dreams fading before he could grasp more than the image of sand and home. He found himself in a large, unfamiliar bed with red posts at the corners and thick purple-gray curtains. The mattress was soft enough it filled him with unease. It was like waking up in quicksand.  The rest of the room (wood floor with a large burgundy area rug, gray walls, a red frame with intricate gold patterns around the doors) was equally foreign. He was alone, which he wasn't sure whether to see as a blessing or a disappointment. More disconcerting than his surroundings was the fact that he was barefoot and dressed in a soft white shirt two sizes too big for him and gray pants that were a closer fit but hugged oddly, with his own clothes and shoes nowhere in sight. 

He searched first for exits so he could run if needed (three exits, which he knew had to be significant, but he couldn't think of a conclusion to draw), and then for some orienting detail to tell him where he was or who had brought him there. His eyes were drawn to a picture propped up on the dresser in the corner, and he rose from the bed--sore but not much more than he was any time he and Riku went a few rounds sparring--to see it more closely. 

Three girls in flower crowns sat in the middle of a field of light purple, white, and yellow blossoms and posed for the camera. The snapshot fell somewhere between staged and candid. The girl in the far right corner had her head thrown back and most of what could be seen of it was a wide open mouth that had to be screaming or laughing. She held her flower crown to her head with a hand only half successfully and petals were falling on her shoulders. A light brown braid was swept around her shoulder so it fell across her chest. The girl in the middle was fully posed: hands folded in her lap, slight tilt to her head to show the best angle, smile brighter than her eyes. The only thing that interfered with the careful composition of her area of the photo was the way an unseen wind blew long, dark hair in front of part of her face. The girl on the left had hair the same color, a few shades lighter than black, and a similarly shaped face, but there was enough difference in their features that Sora didn't think they were related. The third girl was caught in the process of saying something, possibly whatever it was that made the girl with the brown braid laugh so hard. She was petting through the disheveled brown hair of a teenage boy who was lying with his head pillowed in her lap. 

The boy had his eyes closed, but the hard set of his jaw and fisted hands said he was resolutely pretending to be asleep, not truly at rest. His bottom lip was split and freshly so, barely crusted if the flecks of red-brown on his shirt were anything to go by. The head and one shoulder and arm of another boy sitting behind the girl on the left with his chin resting on her shoulder could be seen. He held the slightly startled look of someone who had been ordered to smile at the very last moment. His teeth could be seen, but he did not necessarily look happy and blue-green eyes settled below blonde hair appeared to look beyond the camera to whoever was taking the picture. Sora would have placed the photo’s occupants all about a year or two older than he was. Not one face looked familiar, but there was an odd lurch in his chest at the captured moment between friends.

Beside the framed photo lay a handful of what looked like large marbles, two dried flowers (one white, one yellow), and a half-filled page of stationary.

Are you doing well? Where are you? It’s been four years. This is the 89th letter I’ve written, knowing you’re alive.

"Oh, good. You're awake. It’s not nice to snoop, you know, but we can keep it our secret."

Sora startled, not having heard the door open, and stepped away from the dresser and the photo. An older version of the laughing girl with the braid from the photo was standing by the entrance to the room closest to the bed, regarding him with a softly concerned look. 

"How are you feeling?" She left him his space, staying where she was. "Did my cure spell do its job? I have to apologize for Leon. He'll do so for himself later,” her tone had a hint of hardness as if there would be consequences if this Leon did not apologize and he knew it, “but I want to get it out of the way first. He's not very good with people. He never has been. He and Cloud just make each other worse in that regard." She gave a suddenly wistful sigh.

Sora breathed slowly through his nose, processing most, but not all of her words. He understood that the tone was primarily gentle and the speech pattern slow as if aimed at a skittish animal, but he still felt far from reassured. He clenched, unclenched, and reclenched his right hand into a fist, and the keyblade formed, a reassuring weight in his hand. No clouds. No rain that brought the end of the world. Only a strangely kind stranger. The trouble was that she was the third stranger he’d encountered, and he couldn’t help but think of Kairi warning him with a giggle that bad things came in threes. 

The woman breathed a small, “Ooh,” of surprise, looking more delighted than apprehensive. “You really are the one we have been waiting for. I had that hidden in the next room to lessen the risk of Heartless coming for you while you slept.” She tacked on the last bit hurriedly, as if anticipating her intentions in separating Sora from his weapon being mistaken, and then went on to answer more concerns he hadn’t voiced yet. “Leon dressed you. You can change back into your clothes as soon as you want. They’re on the balcony. I used aero to dry them most of the way before laying them out. Your shoes, however, may need a bit longer.”

Sora nodded jerkily, not quite able to force himself to drop his guard, no matter how nice her voice or kind her eyes.

“I know you must be scared…”

“I’m not,” Sora cut her off, insistently.

Aerith smiled softly. “Of course you’re not. What was I thinking? The hero of the worlds isn’t daunted by a few Heartless, right?” She airily waved a hand weighed down by several thin bangles and her smile grew a bit wider, a bit conspiratorial. Squall had never once admitted to being scared when they were younger. Neither had Cloud-- or Seifer for that matter, though Aerith hadn’t gotten the same chance to see if he grew out of it. Yuffie had the same habit now, probably to be cured in a year or two more, taking after male examples more than Rinoa, who had always voiced whatever she felt without shame. 

Zack had never had a problem with pride that way, at least she didn’t think. It was hard to remember details about Zack sometimes. 

Aerith herself rarely spoke about her fears, though her holding back was not denial and had come with age. The things she generally feared would only worry others more if she talked about them without being absolutely sure they couldn’t be prevented from coming to pass. 

“Don’t patronize me!” Sora bellowed, surprising Aerith and even, somewhat, himself by the volume and bitterness of his voice as he snapped. He adjusted his clammy-handed grip on the keyblade and blinked rapidly. 

The doorknob of the door at Aerith's back turned, but she made a mad grab behind her and pulled it shut as it started to open. "I told you to give us a moment! We're fine!" She whipped her head back around, both hands still on the door to keep it shut as it shook a bit, and nodded at Sora, prompting, "We're fine, right?" Leon was still as quick to action as Squall had ever been.

Sora nodded, fast blinks still making it hard to see a clear picture of the room, and then realized speaking aloud was better. "We're fine!" he yelled for the benefit of whoever was trying to force the door open. "Please. Don't talk down to me." He kept the keyblade drawn.

"I won't." The resistance from the other side of the door disappeared, and Aerith released it and stood straight, turning to fully face Sora again, though she still didn’t advance. She didn't apologize for or defend her previous tone, the latter of which Sora appreciated. She may not have meant it to be mocking, but that was still all Sora had heard. She indicated the bed with an arm. "May I sit? I'm sure you have a lot of questions. It might be better if we get comfortable."

Sora pursed his lips, a hundred questions flooding his mind at once just like the woman had predicted. He considered ignoring her as he started in, or insisting she stay where she was, but he gave a minute nod. "Who are you? Why did you bring me here?"

Aerith crossed to the bed, but instead of sitting like she'd said she wanted to, she started to remake the bed from where he'd rumpled the sheets and untucked the corners from tossing in his sleep. Perhaps it was done to show she trusted him enough to turn her back. Maybe it just made her less nervous to busy her hands. "My name is Aerith. I could tell you more, but it wouldn't mean anything right now. You should know already I mean you no harm and neither do my friends. Leon carried you here after you passed out."

"Leon's the one who attacked me?" Sora had to suppress the instinct to help her or say he'd make his own bed. 

"He is." Aerith hesitated a moment. "He was trying to get the keyblade away from you. It attracts those monsters you saw outside, the Heartless. He was trying to keep you safe."

If she thought that would get Sora to drop his guard and dismiss the keyblade, she was wrong. None of what she said made sense to him. He had discovered the Heartless already on the street, attacking someone else. There had been a swarm on the island before he first summoned the strange sword. Even if Leon believed the sword attracted monsters, why wouldn't he explain that and ask Sora to dismiss it instead of trying to beat Sora to death?  "Weird way to keep me safe, throwing fireballs at me." 

"Isn't it?" It didn't make any better of an impression that Aerith took it all so lightly even now, amusement in her voice as she agreed with Sora dismissively.  "I said he was bad with people."

"That's not an excuse!" Sora realized he'd lost his volume regulation again, swallowed, and repeated himself more softly, teeth grinding and fingers itching on the keyblade again as he spread his feet into a wider, more secure stance. "It's not an excuse. "

"You're absolutely right," this time Aerith sounded solemn in her agreement. She wore the right face, angry at her comrade on Sora's behalf, or just for her own sake since she was now apparently the one stuck with making things right,  and regretful of the situation. The bed was made. She sat on the edge of the foot of it, putting herself close to Sora and the keyblade, looking up to lock her eyes to his and baring a bit of her throat as she did. "There's no excuse and you have a right to stay angry, but I am telling you the truth."

"How do you two know about the keyblade?" Sora asked, changing topics. His brain, a moment late, supplied that asking what they knew about the keyblade would have been a better question to ask even if it made her suspect he didn't know much himself. 

"Legends and stories,"she gave a suspiciously sparse answer (though, from her perspective, there wasn’t anything more to say than that) before volleying back a question of her own. "What is your name? I gave you mine. Wouldn't it be easier if we could refer to each other by name?"

"No," Sora shot back immediately, though part of him agreed. Learning names was the first step in making friends. He wasn't sure he wanted to be friends with Aerith though. "Where are we?"

"A hotel in the Second District of Traverse Town," Aerith followed his lead to keep it short and business-like. "Isn't your arm getting tired? Don't you want to sit?"

"No," Sora bit off the word and demanded. "Tell me about Traverse Town, and then tell me about Heartless and the keyblade."

"Traverse Town is....It's hard to explain, but I'll try. The heart of Traverse Town calls out to the hearts of those that have lost their worlds to Darkness, and, if they are strong enough to answer the call, they end up here. You can hear the cry and the answer if you listen hard enough to the planet." At least she could, and Cloud had swore he was starting to be able to hear it too when she had made him practice.

Sora stripped Aerith's words down and separated them into smaller concepts to process. "So, we're on another world?"

"You got it." Aerith's cheerful tone sounded to Sora like being condescended to again. 

"And my world is..." Sora's throat closed before he could finish the question as images of his mother's face and then Riku and Kairi fading away flashed in his mind's eye.

Aerith looked down at her lap, the I'm-proud-of-you smile vanishing. "I can't say for sure, but it's very possible. I'm so sorry. I lost my homeworld when I was about your age."

"So my friends and family might be here in Traverse Town?" Sora reached for hope.

"They could be." Aerith took long enough to answer that it painted a clear picture of her opinion of the odds. "You were the only new arrival found tonight. Yuffie asked around the Districts while you were out."

"Yuffie?" Sora forced the name out, suddenly listless and letting his keyblade drop finally to his side.

"Another friend. She helped Leon bring you back here. Do you feel ready to meet Yuffie and meet Leon properly, or do you need another moment?" Aerith waited for Sora to reply but his eyes were staring past her, unseeing, and no response came, so, though that was its own response, she continued. "I don't want to rush you, especially right now. There's a lot for you to process. I understand. And you and Leon didn't get off to the best start. I know the two of them are very nervous waiting in the adjoining room though, so if you would give a signal so they can come in and see you haven't decapitated me with the keyblade yet, we would all appreciate it."

Sora snapped back to the present. "Could I really decapitate someone with this thing?" He raised the keyblade a bit, staring at the teeth on the blade. It didn't even look sharp, but he'd seen it slash through monsters and make them dissolve into oily smoke.

"I'm not sure. The keyblade is said to reflect the heart of its master. Do you want to decapitate people deep in your heart?" she asked with such a complete lack of judgment that it welcomed Sora to take it as a joke.

"My heart?" Sora put his free hand to his chest for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I...Definitely not."

"Well, that's a relief." Aerith's cheery demeanor bounced back immediately every time she tried to suppress it for a moment. Sora thought in other circumstances he would have really liked her. "You really are our last best hope. It's good to know that you aren't psychotic."

"Last hope?" Sora found his voice choking off again like there was a hand around his throat. "I'm not anyone's last hope, and I don't want to see Leon. I just want to get my clothes and go look for Riku and Kairi."

Aerith opened and shut her mouth without saying anything. Her lips pressed together tightly for a moment and Sora watched her eyes dart from him to the door and back. "Well, I'm not going to force you to stay here," she assured him, though some repressed frustration seeped in underneath her understanding. "At least let me put a regen spell on you, and tell you some of what I know about the Heartless in case you meet them again before your family."

"Friends," Sora corrected her but didn't agree to anything else yet. He just needed a moment to think, and he didn't think he could get it in this room in these strange clothes with a strange woman trying so hard to seem winning and a guy that had tried to fry him waiting in the next room over. 

"Friends can be family." 

"What's regen?" Sora ignored her rejoinder, though, once again, Aerith had given the right answer that would have had Sora eating out of her hand on another day.

"It's part of the cure family. Healing magic."

"You can do magic?" Sora shouldn't have been surprised after Leon's fire and his glowing, the monsters, and the trip across worlds.

"I can. I could even teach you if you gave me some time."

"Are you bribing me to come back?" With the keyblade still drawn, Sora was able to pack more intimidation that his small frame would typically allow him into the affronted statement.

Aerith didn't flinch. "If it works. I’m a good teacher.” Well, she thought she could be. She and Rinoa had mostly figured things out together, both guiding the other if one of them pulled ahead.

Sora sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. "Then I'll come back once I find Riku and Kairi." And that thief that stole his necklace. His heart might say she was the exception that deserved decapitation with a keyblade.  "Will you still be here? Or is this my hotel room?" 

Aerith shook her head, though it wasn't clear which sentiment she was refuting until words followed the gesture. "I should be here. This room is mine and Yuffie's, and the green room is Leon and Cid's. For now at least. We're in between places. You can stay with Leon and Cid tonight if you need a place, and you feel comfortable staying with us." There was another momentary pause, not long enough that it would typically count as awkward, but one Sora felt down to his toes before Aerith pressed on, unconvincing to his ears, "Riku and Kairi too when you find them. We'll find space."

"Thank you," Sora said, because it was polite and for no other reason. He'd show her. Riku and Kairi had to be around somewhere. Nobody had stronger hearts than them. "I'll have to see what they want to do. Riku probably already found a place. They're probably waiting there now and Kairi's bossing him on the best way to cook breakfast...or dinner. I'm not sure what time it is." Sora swallowed the rock in his throat.

"We're here if you need it," was all Aerith said. A green glow surrounded her like a halo, and Sora heard bells and smelled lilies as she sent it toward him. "Regen." She hadn't told the keybearer what she'd wanted to about the Heartless, but every word felt more and more like goodbye, so she figured she'd might as well make sure he was protected if he left suddenly. 

"Because I'm your last hope? You want me to become some kind of hero." It was only a question and not a complete dismissal in the most technical of senses. Loneliness that Sora had been trying to keep contained as a ball in his stomach settled as an ache in Sora's bones. The soothing coolness of the healing magic didn't touch it. 

"Not only that." It wasn't a denial. "I wish it didn't have to be up to you." If she could die to make sure the worlds were saved, she would, though she wouldn’t be in a rush to do it either.

"What has to be up to me?" Sora asked, though, just as quickly, he waved his own question away, keyblade finally dematerializing a second before he did, anticipating he wanted to be dramatic with his hands and knowing he wasn't in danger. "Tell me when I'm back with Kairi and Riku. I want to search before their trail gets colder. Heartless are attracted to the keyblade, but I can also kill them with it. That's all I need to know for now."

"...For now," Aerith agreed reluctantly. "I'll go to the other room and let you change. You can knock when you're done. As I said, Yuffie already asked around about new arrivals, so if your friends do show up, they'll probably be sent here, so there's no harm in staying a few more minutes if you want some food or more information."

"I want to search for myself."

Aerith accepted that and left the room to give Sora privacy. He didn't knock on the door between the rooms after changing like she asked. He went right up to it, and pressed his ear to listen and see if Aerith, Leon, and Yuffie--and maybe this Cid whose name Aerith threw in--were talking about him, but the wood was too thick. He left his borrowed clothes folded messily on the bed, put his feet in squelching shoes, and left through the door to the hall. 

Three hours later Sora returned, disheartened and sporting a large rip in his jumpsuit. Aerith's regen had caused the claw gash that once lay beneath the rip to knit itself together while Sora walked around, but his only outfit was now in danger of becoming a midriff if it ripped further. There hadn't been too many groups of Heartless on the street, though he'd been forced into a corner by a bulbous giant at one point and barely gotten away. It had been then that the soldier who'd left the mark on him had been able to take him by surprise, using the other close call as a distraction. 

No door he knocked on or back alley he explored had any sign Riku or Kairi had made it to Traverse Town though. Sora tried not to take it too badly. He'd learned there were many worlds, just like the three of them had always believed. Riku and Kairi had just been taken somewhere else.  

Nobody could remember seeing his necklace either, but when he described the thief, he'd gotten a few long sighs and longer pauses before denials, which had him wondering if the residents of Traverse Town were completely honest. Then he'd gotten the reaction that had his blood boiling now as he knocked on the door to Aerith's hotel room. 

Are you talking about Yuffie?

He tried not to jump to conclusions. Yuffie could be a common name in Traverse Town, but it seemed fitting considering Aerith's other friend had beaten him unconscious that the thief that stole his necklace was one of the people she wanted him to befriend and play hero for. 

The door opened a slit to reveal the same narrow chinned face framed by dark hair that had hovered over Sora during his first moments in Traverse Town, and laughed at him as it ran off with his only keepsake from home, confirming what Sora had been trying to play fair and pretend not to know for sure.

"You!" he growled darkly, already forcing his way across the threshold as the girl's eyes widened and she tried to shut the door on him, yelling, "Nobody's home! Come back later!"

Yuffie leapt back, trying to avoid Sora as he grabbed for her.  She backed into Aerith, who didn't look alarmed, only disappointed at both Yuffie and Sora, like she already knew the whole story, but had been hoping for a different resolution, something Sora would have to confront her about in a moment. 

"This is all a misunderstanding !" Yuffie placated. "You want your necklace? You can have it. I was getting it cleaned. Part of that welcome wagon service!"

"You will give it back, but that doesn't make it right." Sora materialized the keyblade, but didn't swing it. It was just a show. He didn't actually want to hurt her--though that wasn't true either. He wasn't prone to striking first or causing pain usually, but on this never ending day, he would feel good hurting the girl who thought she could take advantage of him when he couldn't fight back. However, he'd feel bad about it later if it happened this way, and he wouldn't get away with it in the first place. 

"Easy there," Yuffie's voice raised an octave at the keyblade. She backed up another step, forcing Aerith toward the balcony. "I can throw in a shiny gem if that makes us a little more even." 

"And who did you steal that from?" Sora challenged.

"I resent that." Another step and Aerith would be able to open the balcony door and make a run for it if she needed to. Yuffie knew it was nobody's fault but hers if Spiky went a little crazy and started swinging. "I found it in the waterway." She'd given it to Leon, but she was sure she could recoup it for a good cause--like saving her neck. 

"I think I can offer a gesture of good intent you might believe." 

The voice came from behind Sora, and he turned to see Leon the Lion Man standing behind him, half in the hall, not crowding Sora, but trapping him in and entirely too close for the younger man’s comfort level. Leon must have heard the yell and come from the next room through the hall and front door, not the adjoining door, to get the drop on the situation. "If you’d allow it?”

"No sudden moves," Sora continued to growl. The line sounded like cheap bravado, and Sora could hear Riku laughing in his head. He worried he'd overshot to sounding silly, not intimidating, while trying to keep the feeling of upper hand.

Leon laid his sword down on the ground and held up both hands, palms out, to show he wasn't carrying anything else, peaceful gestures easy to recognize even though the empty hands weren't a necessary show, He then reached behind  his neck and unclasped the chain attached to his lion pendant. "This is Griever. I was left at the orphanage with him. He's the only thing I have from my parents or my homeworld, and he’s already lost his mate too. I'm going to give Griever to you to hang onto for as long as you feel you need to." He held the chain out to Sora. "You don't need to forgive Yuffie. I don't know if I would." Yuffie let out an offended huff and Leon gave her a pointed glare before continuing. "You don't need to forgive me either. But you do need to put your keyblade away, and I would appreciate it if you would at least listen to us." He seemed exhausted by the words.

Sora vanished the keyblade. He wasn't sure if Leon was sincere or making up a story to guilt him, but he didn't want the necklace. "You keep Griever. I just want my own necklace." He'd probably have to sell it to try and get supplies at this point anyway. "Nothing's going to make me trust any of you at this point, but I can listen." He moved further into the room so Leon could take his cue to come inside and close the door. 

"You could have had a gem," Yuffie lamented, because she didn't say sorry or thank you even in dire circumstances. She produced Sora's necklace from her shorts’ pocket. She had gone and got it from the Dalmatians' house earlier after carrying Sora to the hotel. Squall--Leon, she had to get used to it-- had told her to. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him look so disappointed in her. 

She hadn't thought about Griever.  Remembering Leon's attachment to the bauble he'd named probably wouldn't have stopped her from lifting Sora's, but she understood why Leon took it so hard. That and she'd pissed off the keybearer even more than Leon had, even though she hadn't known who he was at the time.

Yuffie handed over the necklace, Sora grabbing it roughly and without hesitation. "Next time, hold out longer. I'm Yuffie Kissaragi, the White Rose and the greatest ninja to ever live.  I can teach you some of my moves. I hear you're going to be sticking around to take lessons from Aerith on the green glowy feel goods."

"I'm not staying," Sora piped up.  He had no other plan, but he knew he didn't want to go along with Aerith's. He couldn't imagine relaxing enough to sleep around these people.

"Where will you go?" The brown haired healer barely let him finish his sentence before reminding him he was alone and without resources. 

"I could stay in the gardens in District Five. I saw the tent city, talked to some people. I know that's someplace refugees who haven't found a place yet stay." He was reluctant to reveal that much. He'd be more reluctant still to follow through with the words, but he'd slept outside before and the chance of someone messing with him had to be better than surrounding himself with people already proven to be liars and thieves. And worse. Leon had tried to take his keyblade. Would they still have ended up here if he'd succeeded, or would Leon have left him to die by the Heartless in the alley?

"You'll bring the Heartless. The gardens don't have the magical protection the interior of this hotel does. If you endanger the other displaced people in District Five, I will have to take action." Leon's steady voice promised another fight, but one he'd not take any joy in. Aerith had tried to say something soft and convincing at the same time, but she tapered off when Leon spoke over her.

"I won't summon the keyblade."

Leon set himself to argue, but this time Aerith cut him off. "Your friends and family aren't in Traverse Town, but you still feel they're alive, don't you?"

 Sora blinked at the abrupt subject change but nodded. 

"Our friend Cid could work you out a deal for a gummi ship to get off planet, but that's going to take him some time, and he'd want money for it or something in exchange unless you were a very close friend," Aerith spoke more and more quickly so Sora couldn't interrupt, transparently trying to sell him on her idea. "You're going to need a job. I'm sure you could find something on your own, but it would be so convenient if you could find something instantly with Cid at the accessory shop, or Leon on new construction for the Sixth District, wouldn’t it? And it would take a lot less time to make the money to pay Cid if you had free meals as well as a place to stay. Again, you could do for yourself on your own, I’m sure, but there are a lot of people trying to get off planet and look for remnants of their homeworlds once they discover the possibility. Now that the lanes between worlds are open, it's open season. Cid probably has a list of people who want him to make a gummi ship for him. It's the only way between worlds for normal people, and not many people know how to make them. Cid is the only one I know of. If he doesn't see you every day, he might forget to put you at the top of his list for your important mission."

"Cut throat." Yuffie looked at Aerith like she'd hung the moon.

"You're trying to manipulate me again," Sora ground his teeth.

"If it works." Aerith smiled with teeth and tossed her braid behind her back. Sora was no longer sure whatever she was laughing at in the old photo on the dresser was all that funny after all.

"I'll stay for now." It was the practical choice, but as soon as he could be, he was out of here.

Chapter Text

"Oh my, that was a rough landing!" Widened eyes one shade darker than Sora's, the metric against which Riku measured all blue, blinked dazedly. Alice remained on the floor of the golden cage that had recently housed the Queen of Hearts' croquet mallets before the card soldiers had set them free to prepare the jail, legs splayed awkwardly, rubbing at a dirt spot on her pinafore that seemingly concerned her more than the fact that she was confined to a birdcage. She was similarly unconcerned with the silver-haired hero that had just knocked her prison down from where it had been hoisted in the air above the queen's throne, and the small, floating girl now hovering around the cage door trying to let her out. "I may bruise in a very unladylike place."

"I'm sorry," Riku voiced the apology with a rise at the end almost like a question, not remotely approaching remorse as he waved Yuna away from the fairy's attempts to pick the lock and gave it a few hard whacks with his sword. "We needed to act as quickly as possible. The queen may be back soon."

"I don't think so. She usually spends ages inspecting the rose garden. It's the hedge mazes, you know. I expect even she doesn't know the right way through. And those funny little creatures that have shown up recently make everything take even longer." Alice remained airy and almost distracted, impatient but without anxiety tightening her expression, as if she merely felt she had been still long enough and not because the queen and the cards could come back any moment to fulfill the threat of cutting off her head or the monsters she called funny little creatures could wink into existence and tear the teenager trying to free her to shreds in front of her eyes.

"What do you have to offer us in exchange for your freedom?" Yuna slipped through the bars and hovered in front of Alice's nose, derailing the conversation.

"Not the time, Yuna," Riku chided the fairy as he pried open the cage door. Just like it hadn't been the time when they were doing reconnaissance on how to get close to the little blonde girl Maleficent had sent them to retrieve, and his so called assistant had gnawed off slivers of the giant acorn in the forest until she towered over him so she could go around kicking rocks and jumping on stumps with the explanation that was how you got the best goodies.

"It's always the time for treasure!"

Riku had only known the fairies of Hollow Bastion for a short time, but he'd already heard this kind of sentiment enough times that the sigh he answered it with was as long suffering and weary as any he would have given Sora or Kairi and several touches less fond. 

He'd taken an immediate shine to the small, flying girls that nested in the room Maleficent had given Kairi as soon as they'd glided down from a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling where they'd been conversing with a spider, growing from thumbnail sized to house pet, and declared Kairi the most valuable addition to their hoard they'd ever seen,  vowing to guard her for the "boss." That feeling had solidified when he'd witnessed them doting on her: Yuna telling Kairi stories at night, Rikku trying to coax her body to eat or even swallow water, and Paine viciously attacking a shadow that snuck in under the door as Riku had closed it coming into the room on one of his first visits, shredding its antenna with her razor-edged wings before Riku even drew the sword Maleficent had given him. 

However, that didn't make things like Paine ready to take his hand off whenever he gave in to the impulse to hold Kairi’s hand or stroke her cheek when he checked in on her in the evenings, Rikku following him around just so she wouldn't miss an opportunity to pretend she thought someone was calling her when they addressed him or vice versa, or the obsession with prizes and treasure all three of them shared any less annoying. Exacerbating this was the fact that Riku had his suspicions that Yuna was sent along with him not as support, but as a spy to make sure he stayed on mission when she couldn't even do the same.

Captain Hook had been the one that told Maleficent about Alice. The blonde girl had been a guest aboard his ship for awhile after he'd rescued her from the ancient, evil, immortal boy king that ruled over his home planet before he lost her to a dark portal. It had taken time for him to find what planet the girl had ended up on, but he'd been planning to send his crew on a recovery mission when Maleficent had volunteered Riku's services instead. 

Maleficent had lessened Riku's resentment at being talked about like he was a pawn to command by how swiftly she'd silkily tacked on an, "If you would agree to it, my dear boy," that at least gave the illusion that he was able to say no, even if the shelter she'd provided him and Kairi, the shining weapon she said was a gift, magic lessons, and the trust in inviting him to sit in the last two nights her rather eclectic and imposing group of friends showed up, all presented an obligation that made refusal seem less simple. Riku had agreed without caveat or hesitation, but had asked Maleficent later how well she knew Hook and for how long.

Riku had been easily impressed by the pirate captain that seemed to have stepped directly out of his and Sora's childhood imaginings at first, excitement at meeting a live pirate warring with the heaviness in his chest and dryness in his throat when he imagined Sora unable to hold back his glee, begging to be allowed to try on the captain's hat and asking far too many embarrassing questions he should know better than to ask about his missing hand. The longer Riku spent around Hook, however, the easier it became to spot barely cloaked malice in his eyes and holes bigger than shot cannon balls in every story Captain Hook told.

The Mistress of Hollow Bastion hadn't taken offense at Riku's questioning, but, rather, had smiled affectionately at him and complimented his ability to judge character. Hook, Riku discovered, was an ally almost as recently forged as Riku's own relationship with Maleficent, one of many contacts she had across worlds suffering from the Heartless invasion looking for a way to control and harness the power of the world destroying creatures for a better purpose, but not one she herself had much faith in or affection towards. 

"His intentions toward the girl, and, moreover, his true motives as a whole, are as difficult for me to scry as a stone dropped in an ocean trench," was how Maleficent had put it, and while Riku's more cynical side supplied that he could have said the same thing about her, those were the thoughts he brushed aside. Maleficent was working on finding Sora for him and on breaking the curse over Kairi, and giving the two most important things in Riku’s life back to him would make up for any other sin or flaw. 

Every day after magic lessons, there would be a different spell or catalyst tried on Kairi, words spoken in lost tongues, fingers pricked with thorns from magic branches, and talismans laid on her forehead. True love's kiss had been suggested first in a superior, indulgent tone. Riku had huffed his dismissal of the idea, but once Maleficent left the room, he'd tried on the first night. 

He could have sworn it worked for a moment, color coming back to her cheeks and lips slightly parting as if in exhale as the room filled with the disembodied sound of crystalline, joyful, innocent laughter in two voices, but all signs faded in the next breath, leaving the feeling that it had been a hallucination brought on by grief and lack of sleep. It was the only move he had to try on his own, and, whether it had come close to magic or not, it hadn't worked in the end.

Maleficent was necessary and she was trying. Kairi was most important at the moment. Once Riku had her back, then they could reassess the situation together. Hopefully, by then, if Maleficent hadn’t found Sora already, Riku would at least be able to open dark corridors on his own. He was getting closer every day. He knew there was more to Maleficent, her castle, and her friends than what he'd been told, but the counterweight remained for now.

Maleficent was the lesser of evils at the very least, and that was why Riku agreed with her true plan. She suggested he bring Alice directly to the top floor of the castle where she would arrange a safe place for the young girl where they could hide her from the queen that wanted her head they'd saw called forth in magic images even before Riku was portaled to Wonderland and met her in the flesh, the infamous feral Pan who wanted her as a tribute and eternal playmate, and Hook himself until they could ascertain what he wanted and who Alice herself wanted to go with.

"I have a bit of biscuit left in my pocket." In the present, Alice was bargaining with Yuna when Riku needed them both to move.

"Deal," Riku accepted on the fairy's behalf, tone daring Yuna to test him and try to renegotiate. "Yuna, move aside so Alice doesn't feel threatened, and open us a portal. Alice, I'm sorry I don't have time to explain, but I promise we'll take you somewhere safe, safer than Wonderland at least."

Yuna's entire body contributed to expressing her exasperation, floating feet kicking in tantrum as she glided away from Alice with balled fists and a truly put upon distress screwing up her face as she declared Riku, "Utterly hopeless," as she complied with his orders. The portal Yuna summoned was small enough Riku could maybe throw his sword through, and he took it as another test that he'd have to concentrate on the tear in reality and focus on the Darkness within himself and in the world under his feet to widen it like Maleficent had taught him.

Alice climbed out of the cage, but still seemed hesitant in her own dreamy way. "You did quite enough explaining when you jumped off the top of that hedge, hit my cage down, and told me you were Riku and here to rescue me. I feel like if a matter is explained too much, it loses all its charm and becomes only a set of facts. And is there anything more sad than a set of facts?" Riku was glad she didn't pause more than a moment and wasn't expecting an answer. "I don't want to know if it's safe. I want to know if it's fun. I was safe at home, before Neverland and Wonderland. What land do you offer?"

Riku didn't have time for this, but he pressed his ire down and adopted his most coaxing conspiratorial tone. "A land of secrets I haven't discovered yet that we can explore together."

"And treasure!" Yuna contributed. Riku reminded himself that she couldn't help it. Yuna, Riku, and Paine were closely related to pixies as Maleficent had told it, a distinction Riku didn't understand until Maleficent had clarified that they could only experience one emotion or thought at a time and it consumed them fully.

"Wonderland lived up to its name for awhile, but its ceiling is too low. I don't want to live locked in a box."

"Hollow Bastion has a big horizon. You won't be caged there."

Alice put her hand in Riku's, so she must have been satisfied by his answer--or her self preservation had kicked in. The silver haired boy pushed at the portal. At first nothing happened, so he took a deep breath and thought of Sora alone and scared on some faraway planet and Kairi cold as the dead and unaware that they'd ever left the islands. Dark thoughts powered the rip in reality. Riku’s failures and his anger at himself for not being good enough to protect his friends made the ring grow.

"Oh! How do you do that?" Alice cried delightedly as Riku pulled her through to the swirling dark tunnel. The castle at Hollow Bastion could be seen through another portal in the distance. "I wished so hard after the queen accused me of bringing monsters to her kingdom and locked me away, and I just couldn't get it to work."

"Didn't you get to Wonderland that way?" It was difficult for Riku to concentrate with unseen claws coiling around his throat and snatching at his clothes, demanding he relinquish payment for the dark corridor. Yuna landed heavily on his shoulder. causing him to let out a soft grunt, though he bit back his readied protest when she whimpered, and let her sit and curl against his neck. He looked askance at Alice, who, oddly, didn't seem bothered at all by the oppressive darkness. Where his hand gripped hers was the only warm spot on his body.

"No, I just followed the dog." Alice giggled as if Riku's assertion had been silly.

Riku let a sigh of relief escape him as the pressure weighing against him dissipated as he stepped through to the green carpet of the Hollow Bastion castle chapel. He released Alice's hand when he saw she was on safe ground. Yuna pitched forward off his shoulder, but caught herself before she fell much more than a foot and zoomed up toward the ceiling, turned a somersault, and then shot toward the door without so much as a goodbye or a thank you. Fairies. The portal closed with a pop, cutting off the corridor to Wonderland.

"What dog?" Riku should have known better than to ask expecting a reasonable answer, but Alice did act like he should know.

"The dog that appeared in the ship's hold," Alice continued to sound scolding as she took in the stone walls and bird-beaked statues lit by the glow of green fire. "It was such a sweet orange dog. I wonder what happened to it. I lost it in the lotus forest. It could have turned into the rabbit, I suppose. I met him soon after." She extended both arms and whirled around in a circle, eyes trained on the ceiling, only to stop so abruptly she swayed and windmilled her arms yet more to stay upright. "Oh!" Her head snapped toward Riku, face guilty.  "I believe I owe you a biscuit." 

"You keep it," he urged, "Or give it to Yuna when she comes back."

"Are you sure? It's magic, you know. It could come in handy." Staying true to what Riku had seen of her thus far, Alice spoke earnestly, but her attention wandered, as did her feet. She was on the far side of the room by the stone altar, gazing up at the golden gilded steel frame sculpture on the wall above it by the time she was on the third sentence. She whirled again, only a half turn to address Riku, and pointed upwards, though other questions tumbled out before she referred to the deformed elongated heart emblem on the wall in a clear attempt to get as many outpourings of her curiosity settled as possible before she forgot. "Unless you have magic food and drink here as well and it's not special. Is there magic food here? Do I need to watch out for it at tea? Is it tea time soon? You do have actual tea at tea time, don't you? Because Hatter was good company, and I don't begrudge Dormouse her home, but I am quite peckish. Are there any rules or riddles I need to know for tea time?  I do know my recitations, but the  borogoves did more than mimsy and it got more confusing the longer I stayed in Wonderland, and that was before the claws caught and the rest. And speaking of claws and jaws and those terrible little fellows that kept melting into the ground that got me blamed for ruining the queen's rose garden: they were wearing that symbol up there. Those bandersnatches weren't from here, were they?"

The tidal wave of words washed over Riku, knocking his headache away as they crested instead of worsening it. Without the threat of danger looming over them, Alice's easy excitement and distraction--and her apparent propensity for rambling-- struck several familiar chords that wrung a genuine smile that only strained slightly in its forming from him as bittersweet feelings nested in his chest. He took a second to process and strip away the verbal detours that could be ignored, then counted off the answers in his head as he gave them, mentally crossing off questions.  "Maleficent, our host, has all the magic we could need, but the food I've been served here so far is normal. Good, but no magic to it.  We can have tea if you want it. Anything you want." She should have something more substantial than tea, especially since she'd admitted to being hungry, but he wasn't going to press her about it. "No riddles, just ask." He took another thought collecting pause. "The Heartless are a long story, maybe better left to Maleficent." 

Alice pursed her lips and stared at him evenly for a long, silent second that had Riku expecting argument and suspicion about the heartless sigil, but ended in the pronouncement, "I want a hot air balloon. We can take a picnic on it."

This time a short laugh of surprise was Alice's reward. "I'll see what I can do."  Alice needed to work on her priorities and self-preservation instincts, but the light and life that radiated from her was hard to resist. It reminded Riku of Kairi almost as much as her scatterbrained enthusiasm recalled Sora. 

Riku glanced toward the door. Yuna hadn't said anything, but Riku suspected she'd gone to tell "the boss" they were back and Maleficent was on her way to meet them even as he and Alice spoke. It wasn't that he didn't feel like he could ask what was on his mind in front of her. Anything Alice told him about her circumstances or past dealings with Hook he was sure to pass on,  along with how she'd really been led to Wonderland by a force beyond a simple portal, but there was an urgency he couldn't explain that made his want to establish they were still alone before he broached the topic. "Before the orange dog, on the ship. How did you get along with the captain and the crew?"

"I liked the Cheshire Cat better." Alice was all of a sudden coy, and Riku struggled to interpret it, though the way her smile faltered was a clear enough signal if taken separately. She made another sudden sprint, brushing past Riku for the open door and hall beyond it. "I'm going to go explore until you get the picnic together."

Riku had no sooner turned to follow her when Alice gasped a soft, "Hello," as she skidded short of running headlong into Maleficent. Alice fell into a deep curtsy, dipping low and holding her skirts out wide, but keeping her back straight. She was deferential in every way, except perhaps the way her eyes remained upraised, locked onto the greater fairy's face, performing some analysis Riku knew she'd either blurt the results of immediately or keep locked away until the end of time with no in between. 

"Hello yourself, my dear," a flash of a gratified smile flickered across the Lady of Hollow Bastion's face, and she even dipped slightly herself, though it wasn't even as much movement as the ripple of her billowing sleeve from throwing her arm out to the side as she returned the curtsy. "I hope Riku made your trip pleasant?" She looked to the boy as she spoke to the girl, and raised a brow at him. 

Riku shrugged noncommittally, and tossed his hair out of his eyes. Alice, however, beamed and nodded vigorously, bafflingly standing on the formality she'd arbitrarily decided to adopt and staying sunk in her curtsy. "I can already tell he's going to be great company. He stole me right out from under the nose of the Queen of Hearts and saved my poor head so I didn't need to chase it blindly as it rolled around the gardens."

Maleficent's gaze was soft when she looked back to Alice, and her voice was a near hum that Riku recalled from their first meeting. "My, it sounds like he cut quite a heroic figure." Riku couldn't tell whether she was doting and indulging Alice or praising him, but he felt a prickle of pride all the same. "I'm glad I sent him when I did."

Alice wobbled slightly and bit her lip, looking alarmed for a moment before collecting herself to give a response that sounded more rote than genuine. "Thank you..." She glanced at Riku as if she needed a confirmation from him, "...Mrs. Maleficent?" Riku nodded to her to indicate that, yes, she was talking to the host he'd mentioned. " Or Queen Maleficent, your majesty?"

"You may rise," Maleficent urged her gently. "Such good manners. Most children aren't taught so well these days."

"I try to remember my lessons when I can," Alice interjected so swiftly it could have been considered an interruption, but Maleficent's pleased near gloating look didn't dim in the slightest. 

"You may call me Mistress Maleficent if you would like to use a title, but you may refer to me only by name if you wish. We are at an awkward advantage. I know your name and I see you've been told mine, but we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Maleficent, lady of this castle by circumstance, not birth or inheritance, one of the greater fairies of the Enchanted Dominion, sometimes called witch by those who do not understand the magic of fairies."

"I'm Alice Pleasance Liddell. Simply, Alice," Alice replied, looking almost as taken by Maleficent as the fairy was by her. "May I ask a question, ma'am?"

 It should have rankled Riku that Alice had been so suddenly tamed and showed Maleficent respect when he would have thought a few minutes ago that it was beyond her, but it all came as a relief of a worry he didn't even know he carried instead.

"Of course, Child."

"Why are you so much larger than Yuna? I thought she was a fairy too. I was quite excited to meet her. She left before I got the chance to say so and to ask if she ever made rings of mushrooms under the moonlight."

"Aren't you charming?" Maleficent's laugh was like the slide of silk. "I am older and more powerful, as well as a slightly different type of being. You'll see more of Yuna and meet some friends of hers later. They'll be seeing to your needs and helping you decorate your room however you want. You'll have to ask them about the mushroom rings. It wouldn't surprise me, though I believe they prefer unpoppable bubbles that play old happy memories."

"How fantastic!"

Alice rattled off questions about the bubbles and magic, melting into comfort with Maleficent, but Riku stopped following. He found himself distracted wondering if Yuna, Rikku, and Paine being promised to help Alice settle in meant the trio wouldn't be watching over Kairi any longer. It was a depressing thought that Kairi might be left alone just because the castle had a new guest, especially when there were three of them to split duties. As long as it was a temporary situation to make Alice welcome and make sure she was properly hidden from Hook, Riku wouldn't hold it against anyone, but he couldn’t know that was all it was.

This led to other wandering thoughts for Riku of whether Maleficent had gotten anywhere trying to scry for Sora while he was gone, what was taking so long, and whether he had to worry about the search being pushed to a lower priority like Kairi seemed to be if Alice needed Maleficent's help to find friends or family the Pan had stolen her from. 

When he tuned back in, hearing a "Come, Hero," that startled him back to the present, Maleficent had a protective and guiding hand resting between Alice's shoulder blades and the women were wandering away. 

Riku caught up in a few strides, not sure where they were headed, but finding being left behind unacceptable, trying to hold onto the name of hero as a point of satisfaction not a suspicion he was being mocked in some way--if not by Maleficent directly, then by some even higher power heckling him. He was sure he'd helped Alice, but what was the point if he wasn't getting any closer to being able to help the ones that truly mattered?

***

Far away, Sora was feeling similarly frustrated. 

Cid told him he was a natural with gummi blocks, which would have seemed like transparent, empty flattery considering how his first erratic, squashed together attempt at a wing had to be disassembled after it caused the entire ship Cid had been working on to lean precariously to the left, on the verge of toppling over and crushing Sora beneath it. However, Cid Highwind had proven himself as the only party willing to be completely honest with Sora at all times to the point of being far more likely to refer to Sora as "brat with whistling wind between his ears" than "the keybearer." albeit in an affectionate tone. Though the honesty that had truly caught Sora was Cid’s habit of calling out conversations talking about Sora as if he wasn't in the room--something Aerith and Leon still lapsed into doing occasionally. 

So, it was deduced that Cid sincerely thought Sora's ability to think outside the box, enthusiasm, and how quickly he was able to catch onto new concepts when they were both broken down for him properly and he was forced by threat of a cigarette burn to the middle of his forehead to listen to instructions, all made him a good assistant. Still, Sora didn't see what good being able to tell the best placement of fins and thrusters to make a ship that didn't sacrifice speed or style was if Cid kept him working on ships he had no intention of letting him borrow.

"When do we start flying lessons?" Sora tried valiantly not to let the question take on any qualities of whining as he leaned against the side of the ship in what he hoped was a casual, cool manner and not a graceless slump during a work break. Cid didn't have any time for whiners. Sora had been warned, and he respected the warning. He respected Cid as a person a lot more than the others. It had made a good first impression when he'd come back from work at the accessory shop that first night, asked for someone to introduce him to Sora, and then, when they hesitated too long and Sora introduced himself, proceeded to spend the better part of a half hour laying into his friends for "not even getting the kid's gah-damn name" before "laying the weight of the mudder-licking universe on his shoulders" and moving on  to insulting everything from Leon's hair to Yuffie's laugh, all while keeping a long toothpick balanced in the corner of his mouth without dropping or swallowing it.

"Leon's taking you out after lunch," Cid shared carelessly, striking the top of a bottle of beer against a blade of the propeller he was standing by to pop the cap off. He waved it in Sora's direction. "So only one of these, and don't tell Leon I gave it to you."

Sora only hesitated a moment before taking the offered bottle. He'd refused the last time Cid had brought him a beer, citing the fact that he was fourteen. Cid had countered that fourteen was about the time to start lightly numbing yourself to the world. He hadn't seemed to genuinely care either way, drinking both beers, and making a dismissive comment about just asking out of politeness-- because if Sora was old enough to fight Heartless he was plenty old enough to drink. So it wasn't as much worrying about offending him or wanting to impress, as curiosity he couldn't fight down a second time that had him accepting the drink.

 Maybe it was a little bit the idea of Cid seeing him as an equal, but he'd only admit that as one of many factors, and he certainly wouldn't say that Cid declaring, "There's the rebel spirit coming out," approvingly made his heart soar.

Sora took a swig of the gold-brown liquid as Cid uncapped a second bottle for himself, and immediately spit it back into the bottle on reflex, pulling a face at the sour, grainy taste that clung to his tongue even though its contact with the uncomfortably warm and flat liquid had been brief. "Urk! I think mine is spoiled!"

Cid howled and Sora flushed, silently berating himself even though he truly couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy beer if it was supposed to taste like what he'd just put in his mouth, but the older man put a stop to the spiral with a hard clap on the back. "Spit in it an extra time for good measure, and I'll give it to Leon when he shows up."

Sora found himself grinning. "That would be mean." 

He growled deep in his throat trying to dredge up the worst phlegm he could, and spit it into the bottle without giving it another thought. He twisted the bottle in his hands after, looking at the contents critically to make sure there was nothing suspicious looking about them. 

"Why is Leon taking me flying instead of you?" Sora didn't pout, much like he didn't whine.

"He's still trying to bond with you. That, and he has some business on Olympus.He’s trying to drag Shit-For-Brains back to Traverse Town."

"Yuffie? I just saw her earlier today." The flaw in Sora's delivery was sounding like he was barely holding himself back from laughing before half the words left his mouth and looking far too pleased with himself after whenever he thought of a quip.

Cid let out an appreciative snort, and raised his beer in a cheers motion all the same. "You're alright, kid." 

The older man ruffled a hand through the hair on the back of his head, messing it up rather than smoothing it down if that was the supposed intention behind the nervous tick. " Naw, there's another weirdo in our bunch of misfits that got a bug, stole our gummi ship, and took off awhile back." A long sigh, more old sadness than old embers of anger or frustration, interrupted him. "We only just got news of where he ended up. Being a naturally forgiving man, I'm only going to kick his blonde, spiky ass into next week instead of next year when Leon drags him back." 

 There was tenderness underneath the threat that caused Sora to want to kick some blonde, spiky ass himself on Cid's account. The gummi mechanic was really more than any of the others he met in Traverse Town deserved. Sora had been able to form a better opinion of them, getting to know them a bit and see the softer hearts and brave souls behind what first seemed like only selfishness and ruthlessness, but he still thought Cid was on a different level, and he was certainly too good a friend to this unknown runaway. 

 "I'd go myself, but he wouldn't listen to me," Cid continued his musings. "Won't listen to Leon either, but Leon himself doesn't listen to anyone unless he wants to." An even fonder look entered his eye. "Aerith would have a chance. Aerith can win over anyone." Sora scoffed disagreement and the softness faded from Cid's face, replaced with amusement. "..Except for you of course. Blemish on her perfect record, that's for damn sure." Cid almost seemed proud of this, despite how much more it would have made sense for him to be concerned about Sora's continued lack of trust toward Aerith in particular and refusal to be drawn into any conversation with her outside of magic lessons.

"We're talking about Cloud?" Sora reoriented the subject before Cid could think better, and use the fact that he was the one Sora was most likely to listen to as an opportunity to work in some wheedling comment about lightening up  and submitting to Aerith's high fives and attempts to befriend him. 

"Yeah." Cid seemed mildly surprised Sora knew the name, and Sora felt nonsensical guilt spike through him. He didn't shut out the others that much and just steal their food and Leon's bed.

Though was it stealing when he now had a clearer picture than ever that Leon and Aerith at least clearly expected him to go out and die for them? Not fight and succeed, but die .  Every spell learned or sparring session was given with the attitude that at least he'd last a week instead of a day. Sora saw the truth. Leon wasn't as difficult to read as he seemed to think himself.

"Leon told me about Cloud," Sora volunteered. "Not much, just that he's another of your children saved from Hollow Bastion."

"Children?" Cid sputtered and spat flecks of beer, choking mostly on air. "...Gah-damn...I don't..." He tapered off to a mutter. "If I'm their dad does that give me the right to put them over my knee for saying shit like that?" 

"You rescued them from the Heartless. They'd all be dead if it weren't for you." It wasn't Sora's bias talking. Those had been Yuffie's exact words when she and Leon had switched off telling him about the fall of their homeworld, and Leon had let out an agreeing grunt that meant he thought the same.

"That's a dramatic way to put it." Cid had settled into looking truly displeased, and Sora wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong. Maybe it was just painful still to think about how many people hadn't made it off his homeworld and how easily his friends could have been among them. Sora could sympathize. 

"It's what they said. They said some other stuff too, but we can talk about something else." Sora looked down at his beer and wished that, as bad as he knew it tasted, he hadn't spit in it so he could drink it now and have something to do for a few minutes.

"If you have questions, you are free to ask them," Cid offered noncommittally.

"I don't know if it's questions..." Sora trailed off before finishing his thought.

"Don't waste your time with condolences, even if I do appreciate the thought. There are better things to waste time on if you're flapping your lips, and you've been through the same thing at much younger than me. So take your sorries right back, 'cause I'd say more, and then use them for some action."

"Maybe that's what I want to talk about, the action," Sora admitted. He couldn't seem to get his voice to go above half volume. He picked at the label on his beer bottle absently.

"Go ahead," Cid said after a pause with the air of a condemned man being led to be hung by a noose.

"Well," Sora took his time. " They told me about Maleficent, the witch that created the Heartless and infested your world with them. They said she'd probably been to my world too. They also told me about your world's king, Ansem the Wise, how he'd been studying the problem and he'd come up with a solution."

"The Ansem Reports," Cid confirmed, looking mildly relieved but still cautious. "I knew Ansem-- as much as anyone who didn't live in the palace or serve in the guard did, anyway. He commissioned me to service his gummi ship when it needed it. I was the one who built it for him in the first place, and who figured out how to produce more of the blocks after he gave me one to study." He spoke so casually it wasn't even so much like bragging. "About a week before the world fell, he told me he'd come close to the solution for everything, and it was in the newest volume of his reports. He was a scientist at heart. He'd been collecting observations on different phenomena for years. Some he published, some he kept for himself in his library."

"Did you believe him?"

"I believed in him more than I ever believed in anyone except myself. I think he meant it when he said he'd figured out the Heartless, yes, and it was in that report. He didn't have time to publish it or put a plan into action before the world fell though, and now his research is lost."

That already didn't make sense to Sora. Why couldn't Ansem have shared his findings that moment with Cid or any other time in the days that followed? Maybe he had told someone. Maybe he really had been working on a plan. But shouldn't he have shared at least that much or more specifics with his people? And if the situation in Hollow Bastion had been bad for a long time leading up to those last days like Leon had said, long enough there was time for scientific study--which seemed a much different situation than Sora had seen on the islands--then why hadn't there been some kind of other defense or escape plan sooner? If Ansem the Wise had a gummi ship, and Cid knew how to make them, why weren't they being mass produced before they lost their planet? 

Sora held those questions back for the moment in favor of one other though. "Have any of you looked for his research?"

Cid looked at him like he'd grown another head, and Sora pushed on, unable to keep a nervous quaver out of his voice. "Leon and Aerith have both told me that the keyblade, my keyblade, is the only effective weapon against the Heartless, and the only way to seal the hearts of the worlds. When I'm trained I'm supposed to go to every world the Heartless have spread to and..." 

And it was an honor. And he'd always wanted to be a hero. And he couldn't wait another moment and leave people suffering. And it was too much responsibility. And they were planning on sending him alone, one against millions. And he was fourteen years old and he didn't want to die.

"Listen, kid..." Cid's face was troubled enough Sora knew some of his thoughts were showing through. 

Sora didn't get to know what comforting or possibly empty words Cid had, because another voice cut in. Leon's.

"Are you ready to fly?"

Sora forced himself to perk up and squash his darker thoughts down. "Sure am! And I have a present for you!"

***

“Rise and shine, lab rats.” Xigbar’s voice echoed hollowly off the walls of the catacombs Luxu had used as a base of operation long before Braig or Xigbar had existed. Though the boom of his voice (the voice for this lifetime at least) was less satisfying than the repeated clang, clang, clang of the fox head ring he wore on his right pinkie as he struck it against every bar of the cells he passed, those on the right side of the hall at least, as he trailed his hand casually against the borders between confinement and freedom.

 There was near the same level of acknowledgement from empty cells as occupied ones. Any interesting responses had been bled from the denizens of Luxu’s underground retreat, along with hope, long ago. He’d preferred it when they had a little fight in them. The subjects seemed hardly worth observing anymore. Sometimes he doubted that he’d removed the right ones from history. His little menagerie no longer looked like a collection of those that could send the path of the universe off course if left unchecked according to the book of prophecy, and specimens too special to let Ansem and Amnesia Boy (the tough guy who thought he had invented body hopping) have their way with.

On the bright side, his long-term guests had turned into people he could really talk to–or talk at, as it often went. It was therapeutic to be able to be completely honest sometimes when just about every time you’d opened your mouth in the past five hundred years you did it to lie. The catacombs had always been intended to be a safe space for Luxu to retreat to, and its beaten permanent residents made it complete. It wasn’t like anyone he’d kept around this long without releasing them back to history was likely to ever have a chance to talk to someone on the outside ever again.

There were three significant exceptions of course, those who were needed in a time and place they hadn’t been born in, but they were going to have other concerns than sharing the grand story of the many lives of Luxu.

“Today there’s actually cheese in the maze. It’s someone’s lucky day.” 

Subject E. Subject Y. Subject X. 

Duds.

A pair of eyes regarded Xigbar warily. Focused. Probing. Tracking his every motion. Someone looked alive, and more surprisingly, alert. There was no sound and little movement other than the darting eyes half obscured by a curtain of white hair, but it was a watchful silence. If Xigbar’s ring struck this cell’s door, the finger might not remain intact. He appreciated that. 

“Subject S. Sephiroth Crescent.”

“Don’t give me the human’s name.” Sephiroth’s voice was gravelly from lack of use, and words came slowly, but his mind was sharp. He knew who he was, and who he wasn’t.

Xigbar chuckled. “Strange priorities, kid. I’m offering you your freedom.”

Sephiroth’s slit-like pupils dilated. “Are you? All you said was a name.”

“If you agree to do a favor for me.”

“I won’t kill you where you stand, and end your long life.”

“You kill me? As if.” Someone hadn’t been listening. If Xigbar was struck down, Luxu would just move to the next body. That being Sephiroth’s body might disrupt some plans, but Luxu had made worse situations work in his favor in the past. Sephiroth wasn’t as amused by his bluff as Xigbar was. The maniac actually thought he had a shot. “Do me two favors then. My life and one other.”

“One other to save or to take?” Sephiroth asked, like the answer would matter, as if he could still afford scruples after more than a decade out of the sun.

Xigbar’s teeth snapped together with an audible click as he flashed a proud smile at Sephiroth finding the right question.  “Yes.”

When it came to keeping history on track, it was always both.

Chapter Text

The cloud of smoke hovering over the table formed itself to show a silver haired young man climbing rocks at the bottom of one of the ravines that littered the broken landscape of Hollow Bastion. He was smiling as if he'd just thought of something funny, and though the moving picture of the youth had no sound associated with it, when his mouth opened and lips moved a few moments later, anyone watching knew he was sharing the joke. He was a far cry from the similar looking boy who had been exploring the same areas a few days ago, now unburdened by the worry that had been weighing on his shoulders, at least for the moment, having found someone to share it with. He reached a hand down beyond what the picture showed, and when he pulled his arm upward a laughing younger girl with long blond hair and two small fairies furiously tugging on the back of her collar to help lift her came into view.

"Riku and Alice are getting along better than I would have thought." As was becoming habit she didn't realize when she spoke of the boy, Maleficent sounded maternally pleased that her protégé had made a friend, though she would assert the association pleased her for more complex reasons.

"He's still a child, and children are all the same." The curl of Hook's lip as he let the dismissive words fly said exactly how little he thought of children. Maleficent wondered what the man had been like when he was growing up, and if he even remembered it or thought he'd sprung into the worlds fully mature. Humans were so strange sometimes. She supposed Hook could be given a certain latitude though. From what she'd gathered, he'd lived hundreds of years in his current state of stagnation, captaining the Jolly Roger and locked in battle with Peter Pan.

Hook was ignored, not just by Maleficent, but by the entire table.

"He's feeding on her light. You can almost see it drifting from her to him to cut through his darkness," Maleficent remarked, purposefully falling into the detached fascination of a scientific observer.

"That's just how men are, Sweetness. Suck the life right out of you just like that." Usula simpered, then barked a laugh at her own quip, slapping a tentacle against the floor with a sharp crack that was in some way supposed to imitate how quickly a man could absorb a woman's light.

"Quite," Maleficent let the corner of her mouth quirk upwards slightly, indulging the joke and reinforcing the hierarchy, at least today's hierarchy. Ursula was worth acknowledging, but Hook wasn't for what, on the surface, was a comparable generalizing statement. "But this Light does not diminish from being shared. Look how brightly Alice shines." Maleficent knew most of those who stood assembled couldn't properly see it like she could, especially not through a scrying image, but Alice was blinding. It made the Darkness hunger, but also quake.

"Yeah, yeah, it's like Apollo when he parks his chariot too close," Hades dismissed, "But from where I stand you got two problems there. One," Hades summoned a small flame in one palm. "The Light may not be diminished, but all that carefully cultivated Darkness we've been helping Broody with?" He snuffed the flame out. "Progress ruined. Poof. Zap. No more. Then, Problem B." He stoked the flame again. "Having the Princess of Heart go free range doesn't seem like the safest plan. You got to get that flower under glass, Mal, Honeycake. I am begging you. Remember what happened to the last one? We got back an Angel Star and a Bad Dog, and what does that get us? Zilch!"

The term of endearment had Maleficent's raven squawking his displeasure from his perch on her shoulder before the great fairy even addressed it herself. She gently petted the feathers of the side of his head with two fingers. "Calm yourself, Diaval. He's not used to getting burned when he plays with fire. He doesn't know what he risks." 

She was curious to see how Hades' quick temper responded to being talked about as if he couldn't hear conversations being had about him to his face, but she didn't pause long enough to make it obvious she was provoking before addressing his concerns. "Darkness can mean many things and take many forms. Riku is being enhanced, not weakened. Unburdening him of some of the sadness and anger does not cut him off from being able to access the powers I have unlocked for him. He doesn't need that kind of darkness to be part of the Dark, and after a certain point it's no longer useful for controlling him either. Hope can open more roads if you hold it out after despair. Not all of us like our underlings eternally miserable. It can hinder their productivity. As for the latter, patience, Hades, all is according to plan. I plan to have Alice and Belle both locked away before the end of the day, and not to have to hide it from Riku or risk his objection. He'll agree it's for their own good. "

"Now that would be a trick," Hades expressed his skepticism, ignoring most of Maleficent's points to scoff at her overconfidence about her ward.

"It will be," the fairy assured him, taking up the mantle of the challenge as her eyes frosted over with distaste that she would be doubted in the first place. "It is time we clip their wings. The case was..." Maleficent hesitated a moment, trailing a finger in an absent repeated ring around the top of the bulb of her staff, "Different with the sorceress. We were unsure whether she was destined to be one of the guardians of the Light. We needed to give her space to grow, as we had to with Belle until her selfless love for that wretched Beast purified her heart."

Rinoa was one of Maleficent’s more significant regrets in the last decade. She’d been such a promising talent with no idea of her worth--the easiest type of servant to mold. 

"Yeah, yeah, it's a whole trial and error thing," Hades waved dismissively. "Break a few eggs. Lose a few princesses. Not like you were the only one." He cast a significant look across the table at Oogie Boogie.

The sack of bugs raised what passed for his hands defensively. "Hey, hey, hey, that Rosa doll was dying when I got her."

"And yet, she could have been saved if I had been told about her desert fever in time to treat her," Maleficent joined Hades in judgment.

"How was I supposed to know bone white and clammy weren't normal outside Halloween Town? I thought it was a cute look on her," Oogie whined. "The little one, the backup, was green and she was fine until the sea serpent ate her... which happened on Hook's watch." He hissed like a snake in the captain's direction, and got a hook waved at him in what was surely supposed to be an obscene gesture hard to carry off without fingers in return. 

"The two before that were both brought in sleeping like the dead." Oogie gestured toward where Snow White and Aurora rested in their capsules to prove his point, "The Kairi girl too. It's just bad luck that mine was broken. Humans are too delicate. If you had just let me take her bones to the graveyard in my neck of the woods, we might have been able to salvage it when she was fresh."

"Sure, the pallor of the dead is nothing a little lipstick and rouge can't fix, and the taste for flesh that the reanimated develop? We just put her on a diet," Ursula backed Oogie up with a twist to her mouth that was equally likely to be mocking or an attempt at a supportive smile.

"We don't need to dwell on the past." Maleficent interjected before Oogie could accuse the sea witch of making fun of him.” Alice and Belle will be secured. The princess of Radiant Garden, Cinderella, Snow White, and the Briar Rose are all ours. Jasmine will be ours soon enough, and Jafar has promised she is a perfect Light. When we have the seven, we will be unstoppable." 

Maleficent did have some concerns about Riku's Kairi. The nature of her enchantment was a different magic than had been on Snow White or Aurora. It may be enough to disrupt their plans, but that was a problem to deal with once they had the rest of the Lights, if it even turned out to be a problem in the first place.

"And while we're waiting on Royal Vizier Tall, Dark, and Creepy to deliver our final piece, I have a solo project to return to." Hades pushed himself back from the table. "You aren't the only one making new friends, Mal-Mal Baby. I've got a little storm-Cloud that is going to make my skies clear up waiting for me back in Thebes, ready to compete in today's tournament and mop the floor with Jerkules. I think this one may actually stand a prayer. He's got the Darkness full strength...and a bat wing." 

Hades continued to talk a mile a minute, volume waning as if he was really only concerned with performing for an audience of one, himself, fixated on the sound of his own voice. "I don't know what's up with the bat wing, and at this point I'm afraid to ask. Did he always have the bat wing? Is it part of the outfit? It makes a statement. I'll give the kid that. Pledged his allegiance just on the chance I knew where to find his little friend Zack." 

He leaned into Hook who leaned away. "I'll keep my end, have a little poke around the Underworld when I go to taunt my dear nephew, but there are so many stiffs down there, and none of them feel up to chit chat. So it's going to take a millennia or two. By then, Ol' Cloudy is down there himself and no longer needs my help with a reunion."

"Yes, you've spoken of Cloud before," Maleficent didn't offer any more encouragement than that. Hades had talked up the new arrival on Olympus already that day, proving his insecurity that Maleficent had found a useful tool in Riku that he needed to shout louder about his own discovery that, surely, was no match for a god. Perhaps Hades would shut his mouth for a few minutes when Hercules broke his new toy. 

"Go see to your nephew's demise by all means, Hades." Maleficent rapped her staff sharply against the ground three times and the image over the table changed to the interior of a gummi ship. A man with unkempt brown hair long enough it curled over the collar of his black jacket was piloting, while a teenage boy with similar coloring and lack of care for corralling gravity defying hair spun the co-pilot's seat in circles and flapped his jaw while making animated hand gestures. "You may want to hurry. The keybearer is on his way to your Thebes."

"Has-a-what-now?" Hades blurred words together incomprehensibly, smug look giving way to a slackened jaw, then a terse frown and brief flame up of his hair when Ursula laughed at him being taken off guard. The flames cooled back to a flickering blue coif as he reassembled a mask of superiority. "Not a problem. I'll just have Cumulus form a welcome and chop him off at the knees. Great opportunity for it, now he's separated himself from the gaggle. Only one protector riding his back, and that's easy. A little 'Leon, I'm here for Zack because I'm honor bound but the only one I really want to play Patrocles and Achilles with is you' to appeal to the ego here, a little stab stab there, and we're done."

"I'm afraid that won't work." Maleficent replied mildly, keeping partial attention on the image of Sora and Leon even where it compromised her ability to stare Hades down.

"You're right. Too many words. He'd never buy it. We'll just cut straight to the stabbing. I'll make sure Cloudy With a Chance of Rebellion signs a contract he can't reverse before they land."

"Naturally. Have your stooge take care of the obstacle," Maleficent paused significantly, relishing in the rapt attention the room's other occupants were paying the exchange and the palpable hunger to see either her or Hades taken down a peg. None of them cared which as long as they saw someone be outmaneuvered and thus reveal a weak underbelly to be shredded. Such was the nature of alliances like theirs. "I'm sending Riku to meet Sora when they land, however."

"You think the kid is ready to kill the keybearer?" Shadows of a smirk were returning to Hades' face as he geared up to mock the idea.

"No, I think he can bring the keybearer back here."

"And then we kill him!" Oogie interjected, rubbing what looked more like pointed fins than hands together as a beetle crawled out of the yawning, mouthlike opening of his sack and toward his painted eyes. "Let me do it. I've been so hungry lately." He threw his head back and cackled, tossing the blue backed beetle into the air and catching it back in his sack mouth. A loud crunch followed.

Maleficent's lip curled in distaste as her fingers circled the top of her staff again. "No, and then we use him. The keybearer's power is legendary, as we all know. We all agreed snuffing it out before it can be used against us was vital to our plans. To that end, we have monitored the keybearer's progress since I found him on Traverse Town, and we've been waiting for just such an opportunity as today..."

This time it was Hook who interrupted with, "Get on with it." The impatient statement clipped off quickly as the pirate captain held himself back from calling Maleficent a wench. He did not want to die today. As it was, the glare she shot at him as she smoothed Diaval's feathers again as if holding the intelligent eyed raven back was of the force to reduce stone to dust.

"We've been thinking too small. The legends don't just speak of keyblades of Light, but those of Darkness as well. If we could corrupt the keyblade that can lock and unlock the heart of a world to Darkness, then that is a force that may be just as great as the promised Kingdom Hearts. The keybearer is isolated. We've seen him sad and lonely. We've seen he doesn't trust his new companions, and we have the perfect leverage over him." 

She could see Oogie was considering it. His bugs had stopped chittering, which was usually a good sign. The others looked more skeptical. Hook and Ursula shared a look that Maleficent had trouble reading. It was not a team-up she'd expected, but judging others made quick allies.

"If I may be the first to voice an objection?" Hades asked with calculated politeness that typically meant he either knew he held cards up his sleeve or that a tantrum was near. He smoothed a hand through his flames as if slicking back hair. "You can't even get Riku to open a portal yet, and you think you're going to get Future-So-Bright-Gonna-Need-Shades who trips the same alarms as the potential Princesses of Heart to fall to the Dark?  And your big plan for leverage is the power of friendship?" 

Agreeing rumbles started to circulate the room. Maleficent was losing ground fast. "Maybe," Hades gestured with both hands, gaining confidence and thus viciousness in his smile, "Maybe Keykid and your little protégé can be used against each other. Maybe they could also be stronger and smarter together, and that’s the last thing we need. Maybe the keybearer lays a little smooch on their princess and it’s true love." Hades spat distaste. "The problems keep multiplying. Soon, we have a mutiny on our hands. They're freeing princesses, staying out past curfew, just being awful teenagers."

 Hook let out a pained noise at the last word that punctuated Hades' speech. “Teenagers!”

"We have a plan that's working. You said yourself that the princesses are almost gathered. Let's just kill the boy," Ursula's urging was more coaxing to counterbalance Hades' arguing.

The Lady of Hollow Bastion blinked slowly. "Very well. We'll kill the boy." Maleficent's tone was even and face impassive. There wasn't even a clench of her hand on her staff or the swirling of green flames. Nobody believed the instant retraction of her proposal, and, sure enough, after another slate clearing blink and pause, Maleficent continued, "We'll have Riku bring him back here. None of you would argue that he should be able to convince his friend of that much as long as Cloud is able to keep his minder distracted in some way, correct?"

 Maleficent didn't pause for a rebuttal and none came to interrupt her. "He'll be more easily taken care of beyond the possibility of interference by Hercules, the Lion's Heart, or even Hades' little tool if he decides to go rogue when forced to confront that service to the Underworld could include killing children. The first sign of dissent, of the path I suggested not proving superior, and we can kill him and Riku both. I offer them to you, and my vow that if the keybearer's Light cannot be dimmed, that I will take it as a sign that perhaps I am not qualified to lead these war rooms and should keep my opinions to myself."

The last of her words sweetened the deal beyond what any at the table could resist. Agreement to the terms rippled from one to the next.

"It's your funeral, Honeycake," Hades was the last to agree. He could only hope the words became literal.

***

The cloudy image hovering over the table in Maleficent’s castle could not properly convey the deep boredom the keybearer the council was so wary of felt at that moment. Leon had taken over piloting the ship yet again. He had done so abruptly, and not as politely as Sora thought he could have, every time. It involved shouting, "Enough!" and practically shoving Sora out of the pilot's seat. Though, perhaps how hard the push had been this time was the fault of Sora having just sent the ship into another accidental barrel roll, and it had been more a slide and fall than rough intent. The time Sora actually spent flying was greatly eclipsed by the times he was sentenced to the second chair, repeated lectures about safety, and repeating back everything Cid had taught him about piloting. Then there were long stretches where Leon just piloted silently before insisting Sora take another turn at the helm just as abruptly as he'd batted him away.

Sora was beginning to think that his so-called flying lessons were an excuse for Leon to kidnap him. The first clue had been when he learned their planned flight was not an hour jaunt, but a three day journey one way that passed by other planets on the way to this Olympus place, and they didn't have plans to stop on the way. The second was that Leon's instruction had first been constrained to, "Cid taught you what buttons do what, right? Go ahead and fly," and he seemed put out when more than that was necessary. 

Sora hadn't yet gathered enough information to say whether Leon was taking him far away to kill him because he was more trouble than he was worth; as part of some kind of test to see if he was ready to take up this full mantle of keyblade wielder that everyone kept talking about, which had pretty good odds of achieving the same result as the first option; because he was planning on stranding Sora offworld and forcing him to start sealing keyholes whether he was ready or not; or whether it was just some escalation of the forced bonding attempts. It didn't occur to the younger man to consider Leon just wanted backup in going to recover Cloud, or that the older man may just be trying to be nice, giving Sora an opportunity to search another world for Riku and Kairi under supervision.

They were in a silent stretch now. Sora was technically supposed to be manning the weapons, but they'd had a quiet flight so far, suspiciously so, to the point where Sora was tossing around dual theories. Either Leon and Cid had been exaggerating how many Heartless ships were waiting in the routes between planets, or they were being vaporized before they got close under the power of the permanent, intense thousand yard stare Leon wore when he piloted.

 The novelty of space had started to wear out-- something the Sora of yesterday would have been appalled to know the present Sora was thinking.  There were only so many hours you could fill marveling at what seemed to be the same view of the same constellations with no sign you were closer to any goal, especially when you were with someone who wouldn't answer any questions or engage.

"Why are there green shrubs in space? How are they surviving without atmosphere?"

"Don't know."

"You don't know how they got there or you don't know how the space plants are surviving?"

Noncommittal grunt.

"Who put those rings up? Are they ruins of space stations?"

Grunt.

"What is that group of stars called?"

"Stars."

"The stars are stars? Riiight. Want to name them with me? I think they look a bit like a top hat so I'm going to call that the Habberdasher Galaxy. What do you think?"

"Flying."

"You want to call it the Flying Galaxy? Why?"

"I'm flying the ship."

"Oh. Are there any habitable planets in that cluster?"

Another grunt.

"You aren't very talkative, are you?"

"...Whatever."

"You know, Aerith would be disappointed in you. Aren't you supposed to be winning me over? You should be friendlier."

"Don't need to talk to do that."

And so it had gone, with Leon, in Sora's reading of the situation at least, either too embarrassed that he didn't know the answers to every question to even engage in speculation or try to remember a time when he'd found everything interesting, or conserving words like they were a limited resource he might need later. Sora eventually needed to resort to slightly underhanded techniques.

Before Leon had flopped down in the co-pilot's seat when he first entered the ship, he'd fastened something on the dash between the chairs, high up just under the viewport. It was a photo more aged looking than the cluster that decorated Aerith's dresser back in Traverse Town, though that may have just been a side effect of it being black and white with finger smudged edges that spoke to it having been handled a lot. There was only one figure in the photo, a man about Leon's age, perhaps  a few years older, but still youthful, dressed in a suit of armor with the helmet held under one arm while the opposite arm held an oddly blocky sword down by his side. The dark hair that fell across his shoulders and down into his eyes was long enough that it was a matter of curiosity how it would fit under the helmet without getting in the way if it wasn't tied back or put up into some style, and the glint of an earring that stood out as not fitting with the knight aesthetic glinted in one ear. His smile was relaxed and his eyes held a private joke. The smile wasn't familiar but the shape of the face and its features were.

"Is this your dad?" Sora asked, grabbing at the photo for a closer look. It refused to budge and nearly tore before Sora realized Leon had stuck it in place with a strip of gummi.

"Don't touch that!" The ship pitched to the side as Leon took his attention away from the helm to bat Sora's hands away.

"Ten and two," Sora sing-songed with smugness, his urge to apologize for not paying close enough attention to see he couldn't just yank at the photo vanishing in a flash. He wasn't going to rip it. He'd realized his mistake in time. He wasn't some oaf that ruined everything he touched. Still, Sora didn't try again. The picture was obviously special, and the fact that Leon didn't display it all the time but wanted it with him when he was traveling worlds, was an indicator it meant even more. Leon didn't bother with many possessions. His side of the room back in Traverse Town was nearly as bare as Sora's, and the younger man had a feeling that it wasn't just because Leon still saw Traverse Town as temporary. Sora wouldn't taunt him with or risk damaging what Leon did have.

Leon gripped the wheel hard and refused to respond to the original question. Sora assumed he'd forgotten and repeated, "Your dad? The picture? Is it your dad?"

"No." Sora was just resigning himself to having to carry on pressing Leon for information, trying out different questions until he got an answer more than one word, when Leon added, "He's an actor. Laguna Loire. It's a publicity still from a movie Scrooge McDuck used to show in the garden square every year."

Sora balled his fists and willed his mouth to stay shut, giving away only a brief hum of interest. He felt like a hunter sneaking up on a wild animal, trying the tactic of leaning into the pauses and just giving Leon more room to speak.

"It was about a keyblade wielder. The movie." Stringing too many words together in a row appeared almost painful to Leon, and Sora wondered who had silenced him in the past. "That's where we got the legends from, Aerith, Cid, and I. I'm not sure Yuffie remembers. They stopped the yearly showings when she was really young. Years before Maleficent came. I only half remember it myself. I wasn't obsessed like Seifer was." 

For all the other words that fell like tumbling stones and broken glass from Leon's lips, the name Seifer and his obsession were granted a softer tone, softer eyes. It wasn't a chest warming softness though, but one that caused a sudden heaviness to come into the air. 

"He could quote the whole thing. He probably still would have been able to now. He was going to be the keybearer. Protect the world. It was a silly dream of his. He told me it was romantic. That was right before he shoved my face in the dirt for telling him he was lame. Lamer. He said I was a lamer for thinking lamer was an insult. Then he never stopped using it."

Sora didn't want to interrupt when Leon was opening up, but something like dawning horror had broken through the melancholic mood Leon was casting. "All your lessons on my duty as the keybearer were based on a movie? You were going to send me out to fight demons alone because of some film you used to watch as a kid? A lame movie you didn't even like?" Sora could feel curses building up in his throat as his eyes near bugged out of his head. "Was this a historical film at least?"

"It was billed as fiction. Now we know better." Leon was unfazed to the point Sora wondered if he was even cognizant of how upsetting Sora had found his words. "So many details are lost. I would have paid more attention if I knew lives would count on it."

"What the fuck?" The rhetorical left Sora as a disbelieving exhale.

Leon continued to ignore him, eyes on the stars. Silence reigned for several long moments. Shaken from what was, from him, an overshare even without the part that alienated the keybearer yet again, Leon decided that saying nothing more was the best option.

Sora fumed silently, warring with the desire to ask more questions and the instinct to throw Leon out into the vacuum of space. "Who wrote the movie? Who else was involved in it?" He put effort into being as terse as possible so satisfying his curiosity and assembling information that may help him with his destiny, if it even existed, would not be mistaken for willingness to accept and forget that Leon wanted him to die because it made a cool scene in a movie.

"I don't know."

"Don't know or don't want to tell me?"

"What would you be able to do with the information? Everyone involved in the movie would be dead now."

"You were on Hollow Bastion and you're here. Didn't any other gummi ships escape? Didn't..."

Leon cut him off mid-word with a sharp, "No," that called the matter settled and closed off to arguments. "The king was the only one who owned gummi ships. There were only two and only one made it to Traverse Town. The other crashed. I watched it."

"I know, I know. High stakes coin flip.”  Aerith had told him that story. Two ships. One still under construction. There was a coin flip for who would take what ship. They knew the half finished ship wasn't likely to make it, but it was that or stay behind on a doomed planet. It was pretty chilling, though in the way of all ghosts stories, where it felt too wild to be believed, like it may have started out as true, but gotten twisted in retellings.

Sora had tried to get Cid's version, asking him about the names Aerith had used, and all he'd gotten was "Setzer Gabbiani was a tough son of a bitch but none of us are invincible" and a few mutterings about "poor kids" that had went down with him.

"It wasn't a coin flip. They drew from a deck for the high card. Cid got an eight. The other pilot drew a king, but it was the king of hearts. Suicide king. He said it was fate then and claimed the broken ship even though he won."

It sounded like embellishment, but Sora wasn't callous enough to anger the dead--or the living Leon--by saying that sounded like a good idea for a movie, no matter how bitter he was at the moment. "But ships other than the king's and its back up? Someone had to have given Ansem the blueprints he gave to Cid. And didn't anyone else, you know, show up in Traverse Town even without a gummi ship?"

"Cid, Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie, Rinoa, and I were the only survivors of Hollow Bastion." Leon was firm, perhaps for his own sanity. "Now there's even less."

Sora wanted to keep pushing, but the grinding of Leon's jaw said it was useless. He switched topics or at least tactics. "Why do you have the picture of the actor if you didn't even like the movie?"

"It belonged to Sis." No further context was provided. This too was a statement beyond argument. It had belonged to this Sis and apparently that made the photo sacred.

"Your sister?"

Leon shook his head. "An older girl in the orphanage, though she'd lived with my mother, Raine, for a time after her own parents died until Raine died too, and she acted like she thought she was responsible for me, so it was almost like it."

"Was she a fan of the movie then?"

"Something like that."

Sora wasn't in the mood anymore to coax out words from Leon one by one. There was more of a story there, but Sora hadn't heard a story he liked from Leon yet.

Maybe it was a law of inverse need at play, but Leon didn't stay silent for long before offering another disconnected piece of the puzzle. "Sis...Ellone disappeared when I was six. It was shortly after Aerith got adopted. I was told Ellone was adopted too, but she'd left in the middle of the night. Her stuffed moogle was still on her bed and that photo was underneath it. I knew it was a lie. She was just gone."

Sora couldn't help himself. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know." Other than a flash of grief in Leon's eyes so brief it could have been imagined, there was no more feeling attached to this uncertainty than Leon not knowing who else was in the keybearer movie. "That happened sometimes. People disappearing in the middle of the night. Ones that wouldn't be missed, that had no family. Then it stopped. Then it started happening again years later. I made myself strong enough that I would have a chance against whoever tried to take me. Seifer made himself louder and more obnoxious so he'd get attention. You knew when Seifer was in a room and when he left it."

Sora couldn't absorb the enormity of children disappearing regularly and it just being a part of life. Not all at once. He stared at Leon, waiting for a punchline that didn't come, then stared at his hands until he'd processed enough to form a coherent question. "Didn't anyone look for them?"

"There were rumors. Lea and Isa, these two boys I went to school with, said there were prisoners in the castle. Nobody that worked there ever saw evidence of that. Cid went to the castle. He would have told me. And Isa and Lea also claimed to have met a living keyblade wielder, so they weren't exactly trustworthy."

"A living keyblade wielder?" Irritation surged again, battling confusion and sympathy for dominance in Sora's reeling mind. "You didn't think to tell me before?"

"It was a rumor, and not a very credible one."

"So was I before you met me! So was the thought of other worlds when I lived on Destiny Islands!"

"Fair point," Leon allowed, then lifted a hand from the helm to point off through the viewport. "Olympus, coming up. Make sure you're strapped in for landing."

Sora clicked the harness into place, the action taking longer than it should have when he refused to break accusatory eye contact with Leon and was reaching blindly. “What possible reason could you have for not sharing everything with me?”

“I don’t like to talk about the past. Talking about people in the past tense I like even less.”

“Not that!” Sora protested, a bit stunned he even had to clarify. “I could care less about Seifer and your sister."

There was barely a ripple of emotion on Leon's face. His interjected reply was monotone as he guided the ship in its descent. "Couldn't."

"What?" Sora found himself copying the tone, not to mock but because at every turn Leon brought him up short. Was he really correcting grammar right now?

"You couldn't care less." It turned out that he was.

"No, I definitely still care, even though you don't deserve it, so I actually could care less," Sora huffed, anger stoked that he couldn't enjoy his first gummi landing and take in the sights of the new world properly for this argument. "But if we're supposed to be on the same side, you need to tell me everything you know about the keyblade and other people who had it, even the rumor. It's all rumor! How are we supposed to build trust or whatever when I keep learning you're holding stuff back?" 

Leon finally deigned to make eye contact and that's how Sora realized he had missed touchdown completely. "On the way back, we'll start over. I'll tell you everything I know." No apology but no excuses. Sora wasn't sure if he appreciated the latter enough still to keep ignoring the former.

"Everything?" Sora extended it like a second chance.

"Down to the stories I know Seifer made up himself," Leon vowed. He flicked the switch that extended the gummi ship's shields into camouflage. "Now, some ground rules for exploring Thebes." He ticked them off on his fingers. "One, don't mention you're from off world. Try not to even talk to the locals if you can help it. You don't have the experience I do knowing what to say and what not. I don't want you to get yourself into trouble. You could end up as someone's prophet or blood sacrifice around here depending on how they interpret what you say. Don't go beyond the city walls. Don't..."

"Aren't we going to be sticking together?" Sora broke in with more urgency than he would have expected to feel considering he was still upset with Leon. 

"I thought you might want to look for your friends while I ask around about Cloud."

"And we can't do that together?"

"We could," Leon was reluctant, but Sora couldn't tell why since, like usual, Leon wasn't very forthcoming on the larger picture. 

If Leon had communicated his thoughts better, if he had said that he thought he was doing Sora a favor by offering to give him space and showing him trust in sending him out alone, maybe they could have avoided what happened next. Leon could have even taken a different tactic, and explained that he wasn't quite sure what he might find when he found Cloud--what the situation might be or how willing Cloud would be to listening to his bids to come home to Traverse Town. He could have framed it as keeping Sora safe, or made a comment about Cloud being even more cagey, untrusting, and unpredictable than Sora himself and not likely to talk unless Leon was alone.  Leon could have been even more honest still, admitting how out of his depth he felt, that he neither knew Cloud's full thought process for leaving in the first place or what argument he should use to convince him to turn back, and he really didn't know why the others were convinced that he was the one that needed to come. He wasn't trying to get rid of Sora. He felt like he'd already messed things up with their ride out to Olympus, and let Aerith down when she had been so sure that Sora needed to go on the journey with him--calling it his fate, the next step of the journey according to the planets. He only saw the failure, not how his promise of transparency could have been the first steps to turning things around with Sora, and going off alone now only made it look like he was hiding things again, and abandoning Sora in a potentially scary new place after mentioning blood sacrifices. 

 "Is that what you want to do?" was all Leon said in place of all his other thoughts, putting it on Sora's shoulders, asking the fourteen year old for guidance for them both. 

Sora struggled out of his restraints, clumsy in another flare up of irritation, and leapt to his feet. "No, forget it. I'd rather go on my own. When and where are we meeting up?"

"Back here on the ship before sunset. Hopefully, I'll have Cloud with me. " Leon hesitated, second and third guessing himself.  "Sora..." He sighed heavily, but didn't voice any follow up to the name even after a long pause, struggling with how he wanted to continue.

Sora's patience ran out before Leon landed on words to use. "...Whatever." The keybearer shook his head as he went for the gummi hatch.

Sora blinked in bright sunlight, blinding after the dark of space, as he exited the ship and threw an arm over his eyes. The sky was almost as vivid blue as the islands Sora had grown up on, dotted with pink tinged clouds so fluffy they nearly appeared solid. Relief came before Sora's eyes fully adjusted as one of the marshmallow-like masses shifted in front of the sun. As the world came into focus, Sora took in a mosaic of small tiles in blues and grays under his feet, a winding path implied even though technically the space the ship was parked in was a large empty square. A bench and two large, decorative pots were the only other occupants of the square. There were stairs going up and stairs leading down. 

Sora was saved from picking a path as Leon exited the ship and headed for the downward stairs without any further attempt at speeches.

The upward path took Sora to another empty and unnervingly quiet courtyard, this one with tall, free standing white pillars whose purpose he could only guess at. He couldn't help but be disappointed at the loneliness of it after being prepared for a bustling city. He resolved to only go one more level before turning around and following Leon. 

The next level was more of the same at first glance, cold stone and empty spaces, but as Sora's eyes scanned up more pillars he took in a figure that seemed more like a phantom for all he'd dreamed of it, crouched atop the marble. Riku, still dressed in the same sleeveless yellow  shirt Sora had last seen him in. 

Riku sprung to a standing position, so quickly and smoothly it reinforced the impression he was a mirage, effortlessly balanced on the small space. He jumped down, landing lightly on his feet before Sora's wordless yell that was supposed to communicate a warning about breaking his ankle was even finished. The relief and affection on his face when they came eye to eye was luminescent and that pointed to a daydream as well. Riku always held back these days.

"There you are, Sora. I've been looking everywhere." His voice was sun soaked sand and the waves of home.

Sora's voice was broken hope. "Riku?" He stepped forward and raised a hand to brush the back of his fingers against Riku's cheek. He felt so real that disappointment constricted Sora's lungs thinking how bad it would be when he woke up back on the gummi ship with Leon. The now familiar periodic surge of warmth in his chest that didn't match his emotions sparked and spread.

Riku returned the gesture, still solid and real, causing Sora's heart to speed and the warmth to grow even more, pulsing like a lighthouse beacon. "I'm here."

"You're here," Sora near echoed, giving in and throwing his arms around his best friend.

Riku held him back more tightly than he'd allowed himself since they were young, eyes misting. They stayed just that way for several seconds.  The worst was over now. Things could only look up from here.

Chapter Text

Sora couldn't bring himself to stop touching Riku to confirm he was real.  After the hug, it was pinching his cheeks and pulling at the corners of his mouth to force a smile. Sora fully expected to be brushed away, but, instead, Riku let himself be manhandled, and even let his mouth grow into a natural smile like Sora had put it there. It wasn't like what he was used to from Riku, but Sora didn't see it as a negative in the slightest. 

The reaction made him bolder, and his hands left Riku's face to brace one beside the other on Riku's chest, trying to feel for his heart beat, the reassuring steady thrum that proved the Heartless hadn't gotten to his best friend soon found, but Sora not soon to draw away. The gesture carried a lot less of the aura of goofy fooling around that the face pulling had, but Riku once again didn't tell him off, and when he repeated his best friend's name in a pleased, wondering tone for what had to be the fifth time within a minute, "Riku!" was met with a similarly reveling "Sora" that communicated a lot more then either boy could have if they tried to be more verbal. Neither was really that good with words. 

"Have you been in Thebes since...the whole time?" Sora only slightly stumbled over the question, sure the stutter would be worse if he talked about their home as gone.

"No, I just got here." Riku gently moved Sora's hands from his chest, but didn't let go right away, lingering and exposing vulnerability as he ran his thumbs along the backs of Sora's palms. 

Holding hands wasn't that foreign of a gesture. It was just a habit that had largely fallen away as they had gotten older, started racing instead of pulling each other around, and teasing each other instead of reaching for comfort when one of them was scared. All the same, this was different even from other rare times they’d forgotten themselves. This time it made Sora very aware of his heart in his ribcage. It didn't beat faster-- it was still matched to the rhythm he'd felt in Riku's chest-- but there was an increased consciousness of the organ to the point Sora thought he could feel the edges of it and the path of his veins through his body as blood surged through.  

"Me too. Where's your gummi ship? Is there anyone with you?"

Riku suddenly tried to jerk away like someone was watching and he had to posture--at least that was Sora's immediate, unvoiced thought. Sora resisted, grabbing on tight, then twisting his hands when he knew Riku got the signal not to move and twining their fingers together. 

"The last time I didn't hold on, and we ended up separated," Sora supplied.

Riku tossed his hair like he was trying to shake it out of his face (or cover it so Sora wouldn't see the flushing of his regrettably pale skin, harder to pass off as heat exertion or sunburn than at home) and laughed with the same superior air he did when teasing Sora about paopu fruit--acting, hardened, normal Riku--but squeezed Sora's hands instead of trying to extract them. "You should try that line on Kairi."

"Kairi!" Sora's distressed exclamation and widened eyes made it seem like he'd just remembered their other best friend, and Riku wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or charmed by Sora's eternal propensity to be fully consumed by one thought at a time. "Were you able to keep her with you? Do you know where she is now?" Sora snapped his head around like he thought she was likely to pop out from behind a nearby pillar.

Riku pulled his hands away, and this time Sora let him. "We both ended up in the same place," the older boy began but couldn't finish.

"But?" Sora only made it harder to say what needed to be said when his blue eyes were too perceptive, and his perpetually cheerful voice wavered on the single word, cutting it into a shrill alarm when it rose at the end. Riku turned his back and walked to one of the stone benches that lay beyond the pillars. Sora followed, preparing himself for worse news with every step. "You didn't lose her afterward, did you?" Asking if she was still alive would threaten to give fear too much power.

Riku sat, his feet planted on the ground. Sora sat beside him. He was only a few inches shorter, and his feet should have hit the ground too, but he'd purposefully sat as far back on the bench as was possible so he could swing his feet to work out his nerves while looking carefree. Sora stared out at the clouds. Riku used Sora's shoes as a point of focus. Back and forth. Back and forth.  "She's back at the place I just left. She's fine...physically. But she won't wake up."

"What do you mean?"

Riku wasn't entirely sure how he could be more clear. "She's under some kind of curse, like a fairytale."

"Are you sure she didn't..."

"I didn't let any of the Heartless near her," Riku picked up Sora's meaning without needing him to finish his thought.

"I know you wouldn't if you had any power," Sora was firm in asserting he never doubted Riku's protective instinct or ability.

"They never got close," was snapped and it sounded like a vehement 'it's not my fault,' an answer to an accusation Sora had already established he wouldn't make.

Sora's cheeks puffed and he nearly snapped at Riku in return, but opted instead to let out a long, hissing sigh and ask, "Is there someone with her now?"

Riku nodded, making sure Sora was looking at him before he did, still braced for Sora to take out his worry on him.

"Good. I'm glad you two haven't been alone. I found some...people too." Sora had been going to say 'good people,' but found himself faltering again.

"I saw the guy you arrived with." It sounded like an indictment. Sora couldn't wrap his mind around just what he was being accused of, though he didn't try very hard, finding it more pressing to huff and ask his own offended question.

"You were watching? Why didn't you come out and say something right away?"

"I wanted to see if I could get you alone first." Riku smiled with his eyes, and that made it a valid answer instead of a suspicious one.

"You can trust Leon," Sora assured his friend. Shyness couldn't be a problem. Riku had never been shy in his life. It had to be mistrust. Though if Riku wasn't sure whether Leon was to be trusted, it still didn't fully explain him hanging back. He knew he could trust Sora. Hadn't they learned about this in school? Commutative property, or... not that. That was a numbers thing. Something, something association. Innocent by association didn't sound right, but it felt right to Sora. If he saw Riku being friendly with someone after all, he'd know they had to have passed Riku's test and had to at least seem like a decent person. "He's not so bad once you get to know him. Are any of your new friends here?"

"I don't have new friends." Riku bristled at the idea, typical Riku these days. Sora counted himself lucky that he was still considered Riku's friend, and, more still, his best friend. "Just people that have helped me and Kairi. We're not buddy, buddy like you and Leon ."

"Buddy..." Sora blinked confusedly as if the word had suddenly become foreign, imagining Leon's scowl from the silent patches in the gummi ship. "What? You don't know what you're talking about!" A laugh and a smile were mixed with letting his incredulousness show in order to soothe Riku. He was acting really weird about Leon, but Sora knew he got moody sometimes when Riku and Kairi did things without him too. It was some kind of fear of missing out. 

Sora knew what to share that would eclipse everything else though. "Though he has been teaching me to use this better." Sora launched himself off the bench as he spoke, spun to face his friend, and summoned his keyblade, slashing it through the air. The angle wasn't quite right to catch the sunlight on the blades and dazzle Riku's eyes, but Sora was pretty sure he looked like a dashing hero.

He was only treated to Riku, struck mute and unguardedly impressed for a moment, before his friend surged forward himself and grabbed for the handle. "Let me see that." 

It was more demanding than Sora would have liked, almost like he was being accused of stealing it, and Riku could have stood to add a "please" in Sora's opinion, but he handed the keyblade over, smugly anticipating Riku's shock when the blade disappeared on him, and returned to the one true wielder.

The keyblade wasn't in on the plan this time, however. It obeyed Riku like it hadn't Leon any time he'd tried, and behaved as Riku danced back and carved patterns in the empty space between them, reciting in a barely audible awed whisper, "In your hand, take this key. So long as you have the makings, then, through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be." 

The words sent a wave of goosebumps up Sora's arms. "Where did you hear that?"

The interruption wasn't enough to fully break the spell, though Riku's attention shifted from following the arc of the keyblade through the air to looking Sora in the eye. "No ocean can contain us.  No more borders around, or below, or above. So long as we champion..." The thought seemed unfinished, but Riku trailed off. His eyes looked fevered. It was the same manic edge they'd had the night the dark portals took him and Kairi away from Sora. 

Sora made a grab for the keyblade, and Riku didn't resist, passing it back. "All of that, but I will be the champion." Leon would have been pleased to hear him accepting his destiny so forcefully. "Now, what was that?"

"An old secret," Riku smiled, cocky yet genuine. 

"I didn't think we had secrets," Sora pouted, hurt, but more so calculating. He knew what effect his sad face could have. Riku had proven not to be immune.

An arch look said that Riku was perfectly aware of what he was attempting, but Sora got the result he wanted anyway. Riku nodded back to the bench and sat down. "Do you remember that day when we were little…” He backtracked a moment, interrupting his own thought to qualify the timeframe before he identified what made the day special, “It was only the second or third time your father had rowed us out to Play Island where it was just us. He let us run out of his sight, and we met a stranger even though there was no other boat at the dock?"

Sora searched his mind, frustrated when he couldn't immediately call to mind what Riku framed as a defining experience. "I remember Wakka and Tidus laughing, and saying we made it up to scare them," he spoke slowly as he started to piece together recollection, "but trying to picture the stranger....gets all fuzzy. It happened more than once though. There was the blue lady, and then a man looking out at the water. Different days."

He was somewhat mollified by the widening of Riku's eyes in the second before he leaned back and looked up at the sky. Riku had forgotten the woman. He seemed to remember now though, running a hand over his face that obscured a few words mumbled to himself before he admitted as much out loud, not in so many words, but in his tone at least. "You're right. I was talking about the man. He had a sword like-" 

Sora thought he heard the "y," but Riku stopped before saying "yours," leaving a cold prickle to dance across the skin of Sora's arms and a sour taste in his mouth at the implied denial that the keyblade was his and his alone. The knee-jerk reaction made him feel silly. Why get possessive now of something that, despite the times it had saved his life, he counted as a burden? 

Then again, why did Riku shy from admitting the keyblade belonged to Sora? Sure, Riku could hold it, but Sora was the one who could summon and banish it at will. It obeyed him. He was the master of the keyblade, not Riku. 

"He had a sword with teeth like a key," Riku continued, not appearing to notice Sora struggling with himself. "He told me there was a bigger world outside our small one. He gave me the key to hold, and he said that verse. He told me I was going to leave the islands one day and be a hero, just like him, but if I told anyone, the magic would wear off." Riku tossed his head like he was flicking hair out his eyes again and ended looking at his hands resting on his legs, which meant he had to be afraid he was blushing, though Sora didn't see it. "I think that part was just one of those things you tell little kids to make sure they keep a secret, but the rest turned out to be true."

It was odd, to be floating on air about seeing Riku one moment, and the next to want to make a cutting remark about Riku getting a big ego thinking he's a hero already and pass it off as a joke. Sora didn't give in to the impulse of course. One moment of hard feeling didn't outweigh the weeks of worry that Riku was dead, and he couldn't stand the thought of fighting. And he knew it would be a fight if he challenged Riku's ego, even as a joke. Riku always had to be first place, the victor, the special one.

It didn't bother Sora usually, just like it didn't bother him that Riku got weird about things happening without him. Seeing him grab the keyblade and not even ask about how Sora had called it or trained with it was different somehow, and the revelation that Riku had kept something so important from him for most of their lives, even while they were working on the raft, only made it worse.

However, it helped that there were bigger revelations to distract from the moment of bitterness. 

"That was the keybearer." Sora's chills returned, but this time he was left buoyant and not sick. "You met the keybearer."  Sora's mind reeled in awe and questions flooded his mind, threatening to tumble out of his mouth, though he held himself back, prepared to first explain to Riku just how special his special secret was. 

As it turned out, Riku was ahead of him once again. Rather than surprise, the sheepish smile Riku had been wearing when he talked nostalgically of meeting the stranger turned into a slightly condescending one. He'd probably had a secret conversation with Aerith too where he'd been brought up to speed on everything. The real reason he couldn't talk to Leon in front of Sora probably was because Leon would recognize him.  "I met one keybearer. There are others."

Sora pulled his bottom lip to the side and hmmed doubtfully, looking carefully at Riku's eyes to assess whether he was just pulling his leg.  "I don't know what that guy told you about the keyblade, but you may have misunderstood or forgotten. It has been awhile. There is only one master of the keyblade. He's kind of a big deal."  Sora couldn't help the pride that slipped into his voice. "The one that calls the keyblade is the guardian of the universe." 

He turned away from Riku, stretched out his arm and summoned the keyblade once more, this time just holding it still. He meant to glance over and see what Riku's reaction was this time, but he found his gaze pulled in by the Kingdom Key. "He has the fate of all the planets on his shoulders. It's not just an adventure. He travels from world to world because it's his duty." 

That's enough, Sora thought to himself. He banished the blade once again, and wiped his hand off on his thigh.

"But he doesn't need to do it alone. There's more than one master," Riku's contradiction was gentle, and Sora didn't feel as annoyed as before, especially when Riku raised a hand carefully as if Sora was going to skitter away like a cornered animal and laid it on Sora's shoulder with a solid pat, though there was another spike of frustration at his friend's stubborn ignorance. Riku just always had to be right, didn't he? 

Riku pressed on, more excited "I thought there was only one master too, but when Maleficent...the one that's been helping me and Kairi...the friend that took me and Kairi in...'' Riku said the word "friend" as if it were new vocabulary he might need to look up the definition for "...showed me where you were, she told me how you wielded the keyblade, and she explained about how there used to be a whole order of keybearers. Like knights from a story. She said there was once a whole society of them." 

Riku could still feel the phantom sense of her bony fingers with their long, tapered, clawlike fingernails resting on his shoulder as she leaned down and whispered into his other ear how Sora might be able to show him how to manifest his own keyblade (little did she know he'd already been passed the right to carry the weapon if he could only figure out how to access it) and she could help them both train to wield greater power and control the Heartless together. 

He jerked his own hand back from Sora's shoulder, mood dimmed slightly when Sora's brows knit further and frown deepened at the idea of sharing a destiny across the worlds. Riku knew it was what he had always wanted, and he thought Sora had felt the same. 

"You've been staying with a woman named Maleficent?" Sora asked with the same barely withheld disgust Riku imagined he would have had if the question had been whether he'd been living with horse sized cockroaches. "She wouldn't happen to be a witch, would she?"

It wasn't the takeaway Riku had expected Sora to have, to say the least. "Sometimes she calls herself a sorceress, but she's a fairy, one of the oldest and most powerful of fairies. She has a castle she's been letting me and Kairi stay in while she works on breaking the curse over Kairi. She gave me a sword and taught me magic. She's done as much for me as Leon has for you." Once again, Riku couldn't say Leon's name without a bitter, mocking tinge, even when focusing on something else. "How do you know her?"

"I know she's evil," Sora scoffed. He knew Riku had asked how he knew her, not what he knew about her, but some facts were more important to communicate. Plus, he suspected Riku wouldn't listen if the first word out of his mouth was Leon or someone else's name. Sora's voice turned urgent as he went on, and he vacillated repeatedly between fixing Riku with an imploring stare and glancing toward the stairs he walked up and back toward the gummi ship he'd left behind. "She's the one that called the Heartless and destroyed Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid's home, Hollow Bastion! She probably put the curse on Kairi! She's bad news. We have to get Leon. You know where Maleficent is and Leon can help us slay her."

"What are you talking about 'slay her?'" Riku dug his heel into the ground, leveraging and pushing himself away from Sora, scooting over and putting distance between them on the bench, absolutely horrified. He'd thought about killing, as an abstract or an extreme of what he would do to follow his vow to protect what mattered, but Sora, who had always been so innocent and idealistic, talking about murder with casual conviction was not easy to swallow. "She's not a dragon! She's a person...kind of." The passion of his speech only faltered for a second as he struggled with humanity versus personhood in a fae. "And she's been taking care of Kairi! You forgot about Kairi until I mentioned her name!"

The accusation hit Sora like a punch to the face. His gut instinct was to lash out in the same way. "At least I never would have passed off Kairi to a stranger!" His shout echoed in his ears along with the pound of his heart. 

Riku didn't say anything. He clenched his jaw and inhaled sharply, but he didn't even indulge in his nervous habit of making a fist and releasing it (Sora had asked him about it before. He said he was taking emotions and letting them go). 

Sora knew the stunned, angry silence wouldn't last long, and he was struck by the heart-freezing fear that Riku would leap up and run away or disappear to where he couldn't follow in front of his eyes again, making him lose his two best friends and last lifeline all over again. "Riku, listen to me," he pleaded, sliding back toward Riku. He'd apologize next. He'd beg. He needed to make Riku understand the stakes though. "Maleficent's the one who commands the Heartless."

Sora was prepared for defensiveness and pushback. Instead, he saw some of the stiffness ease its way out of Riku's shoulders as they sunk down a fraction and the stressed tendon in his neck slip out of obvious sight, nonverbal signal that Sora had effectively communicated that he was just worried because he loved Riku and Kairi both so much, and that Riku accepted it.  For a moment, their eyes locked and both apology and acceptance on both sides was confirmed. Then Riku's gaze drifted down and to the left for a moment. The gesture looked furtive, guilty, but when his teal eyes met Sora's again, uncertainty was gone. 

"Do you trust me?" Riku asked, softness of his voice making the non sequitur come across like manipulation or trap, which it was, as much as Riku would have denied it or called it necessary. Maleficent did have some measure of command over the Heartless, but the truth was more nuanced than her calling them for destruction. He was sure Sora would understand if he met her. And, at the end of the day, Maleficent meant a safe place for the two of them and Kairi with access to resources Riku was sure Leon didn't have. 

Sora willingly walked in and let the steel snap. He wasn't going to fail to take Riku's hand again. "More than anything." 

"Maleficent didn't bring the Heartless to Hollow Bastion and she didn't want it destroyed. She's all that's holding the Heartless back from devouring the world completely even now." Riku didn't have as much faith that Maleficent was a force for good as he was trying to convey to Sora, but he at least believed that. He'd seen some of the swarms in the valleys. "Meet her with me. See for yourself."

"Hollow Bastion still exists?" Sora reeled. Did that mean Destiny Islands might still be out there too? Did Leon and the rest not know, or, had they been keeping more secrets and telling more lies to try to get him to trust them and follow the plan they had for his keyblade? 

Sora was suffering, not having time to process one revelation before the next came. It was going from the Heartless appearing on his island to waking up in Traverse Town and chasing Yuffie for his necklace all over again. Riku reappeared. Riku had met a keybearer. There could be more than one keybearer. Riku and Kairi were allied with the witch who had destroyed Hollow Bastion, except she was still trying to save it.

"Come with me and see," Riku reiterated. He was becoming animated once more, like their near tiff hadn't happened. "See Kairi. Talk to Maleficent. There are others too. Alice! You'll like her. I saved her from a queen who wanted to cut off her head."

"You what?" Sora gaped as one more revelation was heaped on his head.

"It's a long story," Riku demurred, "And I can tell it to you tonight. We can sit in Kairi's room so she can hear it again too."  

Sora wanted to say he didn't need more bait. The three of them together again was all he wanted. 

"I'll find Leon." Sora knew saying it wouldn't go over well. Telling Leon he was taking off for Hollow Bastion with Riku would go even less well, but he couldn't just disappear. "We don't need to take him with us," he added quickly to head away the return of the slaying misstep, though he wasn't completely sure he could avoid Leon coming. Even if they took Riku's gummi ship, Leon would be able to follow. "But if I never show up to meet him at the gummi ship tonight, he won't know what happened, and he'll worry."

Riku subverted Sora's expectation once more and didn't bristle at Leon's name this time. "When are you supposed to meet him? Go with me now, and come back with proof that Hollow Bastion still exists and Maleficent isn't who he told you she was."

"How? I didn't see any other planet on the flight here, and Leon would know if Hollow Bastion was that close."

"You flew?" Riku's familiar cocky attitude was back. That was the true sign they were okay. "I took a more direct route." 

He sprung to his feet, waved an arm, and opened a rip in the air by the pillar he'd been standing on when he'd first called to Sora, a cold, dark gateway, small at first but growing quickly from the moment it popped into creation.

"What's that? It looks like what took you from the island, only not as... grabby." The portal may not have had the physical pull of the black hole it resembled, but Sora was drawn nonetheless, finding himself on his feet and about to stick an arm in it when Riku stopped him with a chiding call of his name that had him turning his head toward his friend to pout at him, waiting for an explanation. Riku had clearly been trying to impress him. He was impressed. What more did he want?

"You don't know what it is, and your first instinct is to touch it?" Riku's exasperation was infinitely fond.

"It's a shortcut to Hollow Bastion. I do listen sometimes," Sora shot back, happily self-deprecating. He reached a hand toward Riku, pitched his voice low, and injected a near insufferable level of smugness into, "Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark. Take my hand."

"Dork," Riku grumped, though his dancing eyes looked anything but put out. He put his hand in Sora's, squeezed, and reversed their roles, pulling Sora through the portal. There was an adjustment as usual, like jumping into a cold pool with no bottom, just more room to sink, but the darkness didn't tear at Riku like it once did. It pushed against him much more gently, passing by (passing through, burrowing in to stay) with no resistance, whispering to him instead of shouting at him, calling him horrible names in voices both familiar and foreign that by now seemed almost like terms of endearment for the darkness's new favored son. 

Sora, on the other hand, gasped what sounded like a death rattle as a full-bodied shudder worked through him. Waves of dark mist buffeted him, not as much trying to push him back as seeking his open eyes until they were squinted closed, pulling at his mouth, and coiling around his body like a snake. His grip slackened, and Riku tightened his own, pulling Sora onward, mumbling assurances. 

"Stay with me. You have to keep moving and fight through it. Don't give up on me now, Sora. You may be Mr. Second Place, but I never knew you to be a quitter."

Sora's eyes shot back open, and instead of taking advantage, the dark fled. Riku didn't see it, and it wouldn't be until Sora's hand in his started to radiate with a warmth that had nothing to do with body heat that reminded him of walking in the dark with Alice that he would feel the evidence of the darkness suddenly repelled. "I could never give up on you!" 

"That wasn't what-" Riku swallowed around an abrupt thickness in his throat. "I know. Thank you for believing in me still." The dark's imitation of Sora's voice fell silent, stifled by the real thing, power stripped away, though other calls remained. 

Sora had the unvarnished truth, "I don't know how not to," spring into his mind, but before the words could leave his mouth, they died on his tongue as they emerged from the tunnel into a high-ceilinged, windowless room dominated by a stone table, at once foreboding and familiar. There were carvings high up on the wall, obscured by shadow, indistinct like the dark basil green patterns on the tile underfoot.

“Woah! Neat trick!” Sora turned on his heel, performing a small turn in place he was too manly to call a twirl to take in the whole room and watch the portal disappear. “One new world, no waiting!” His heart contracted in his chest, and the foreboding feeling intensified for a moment, but he fought against it, acting increasingly cheerful.

Riku pulled out one of the chairs from the table, further than it seemed he would need to sit down, intention becoming clear when he kicked his feet up on the table, purposefully defiant and insolent lord of the castle, or playacting as such. Show off. “It’s no big deal. Shame everyone’s left. There was a meeting going on before with some representatives from other worlds that believe in Maleficent’s work. I wanted you to get their recommendations too.” 

Truthfully, it was probably a good thing Sora wouldn’t be thrown in with Ursula, Hook, Jafar, or Oogie Boogie right away. Maleficent’s colleagues weren’t exactly the most assuring assembly. Riku still had his doubts about what their mission actually was. It would have at least been more voices, older voices too, all saying the same thing though. 

Of course, that couldn’t be helped. Sora would just have to take his word and Maleficent’s. If he was lucky, Alice, Belle, and the smaller fairies would be inclined to add a few reassurances. The fairies would at least. They loved The Boss.

“What work?” Sora drifted around the room, hand hovering over the back of each chair at the table as he passed as if he was trying to find where he might want to sit by absorbing and analyzing the aura left behind around each one, which wasn’t so far from the truth. “You said Maleficent is holding the Heartless back from the heart of this world. Are you saying she’s saving others too?” 

It was an exciting prospect, someone other than him being both willing and able to take up the role of savior of the worlds--at least, Sora chastised himself, exciting when it wasn’t Riku trying to steal the keyblade. He still didn’t understand what had made him react the way he did. Riku had even talked about going together, and, outside of the heat of the moment, Sora really liked that idea, even if it did end up with him being Riku’s sidekick once again.

“She’s trying to,” Riku confirmed, not stretching the truth too far in his mind from the facts he knew. He pulled his feet from the table, and stood even though he’d barely had a moment of staged comfort that was anything but. “Let’s go find her. We can start with the library, and maybe you can grab something there to take to Leon to show there’s some civilization here at least.”

“The Ansem Reports,” Sora murmured aloud, more than half for his own benefit. The building they were standing in could be Ansem’s castle, and the library his library, so the reports Cid thought were so important could be here.

“The what?”

“The ruler of Hollow Bastion, the old ruler, I guess, was a guy named Ansem, and he supposedly wrote a manuscript on how to get rid of the Heartless.” Dots suddenly connected in Sora’s mind. “Do you think that’s how Maleficent stopped the Heartless from consuming Hollow Bastion completely?”  There were still a lot of questions, including why Maleficent had been on planet in the first place, and what had brought the Heartless if not the great fairy, but Sora thought he may have just answered one.

“I think it’s more her own magic,” Riku answered. She'd been honing some measure of control over the Heartless, just like Sora’s new friends had said, though Riku still didn’t feel like it was the right time to reintroduce that theory from his angle. “But you could be right. I bet the library has the reports at least.” 

Riku led Sora out of the war room. Every new hall and room seemed to enchant Sora for a long moment. He was inclined to stare at fixtures Riku had taken for granted, attaching meaning to the details, though Riku couldn’t guess what those meanings were, and Sora didn’t seem inclined to explain. “It was blue and purple once upon a time,” was the only intelligible sentence said aloud, and Sora’s eyes were glazed and voice dreamy when he said it. There was no elaboration. 

The lift stops and paths along the ledges running outside the walls of the castle found Sora more lively, eyes darting instead of staring, lips bitten as if he wanted to start asking questions, but was still concerned he was dreaming and didn’t want to risk poking the wrong detail and waking up.

They nearly made it to the library before a pink and blue blur flew at Riku’s face, taking his temples in its tiny hands and shaking his head. “You’re a million hours late. I was worried.” Yuna. Riku tried to free himself, but the small fairy held on while he tossed his head, not getting the hint.

“I was not gone a hundred years. Do you know how long a million hours is?” he huffed back. He should have introduced Sora, and planned to in a moment. He had to address Yuna’s dismay first though, or he knew she wouldn’t be able to follow along with the topic change. One thought at a time with pixies.

“Alice is hurt.” Yuna, on the other hand, had no such concerns about verbal whiplash.

“What happened? How hurt is she? Is she going to be okay?” Sora was the one to interject, face contorted with worry over a name he’d only heard once that belonged to someone he’d never met, beating out Riku, who’d processed more slowly and hadn’t even gotten out the word “what” before Sora steamrolled over him.

“She trapped me and Rikku under a basket and ran off on her own. A group of Defenders almost got her and Belle! It was only thanks to Paine that The Boss got there in time! Maleficent was like pssh ssss sha-bow!” Yuna let Riku have his face back in order to pose and mimic Maleficent shooting exploding fire out of her staff, and Riku felt his heart finish its leap up into his neck. 

“Where are they now?” Riku chose his words economically as he ordered his pulse to come back down. Yuna said Maleficent had gotten there in time. Alice and Belle would be fine. Whatever injuries they had sustained, the fairies would be able to heal them, or Maleficent could call Ursula. That didn’t answer how Alice and Belle had gotten within range of a group of Defenders, but that was a question that could be asked once he was able to see Alice and Belle were alright with his own eyes, and he'd surely get a clearer answer from Maleficent than he would from trusting Yuna to tell the story.

"East wing. Third floor. Alice's bedroom," Yuna confirmed, as Sora asked what a Defender was. 

"Heartless," Riku answered Sora with the only word needed to see the full import of what a near miss the girls had dawn in those blue eyes Riku loved. He hit the crystal to change the direction of the lift stop, and stepped back on the platform, trusting everyone was on the same page and would follow without him needing to tell either of his companions they were headed to see the injured girls. Yuna got a nod as thanks for filling him in on the situation. 

"You must be Sora." With her mission accomplished, and Riku heading back to Maleficent with her, Yuna was able to focus on other things. She flitted over to Sora and made a full circle around his head, sizing him up. "Riku talks about you a lot." Sora passed inspection, and she favored him with a warm smile and a wink from her green eye. "You're just as cute as I expected."

"I'm cute?" Sora flinched back ever so slightly, surprised almost to the point of nonsensical dismay. 

"Almost cute enough to deserve our treasures," Yuna assured him, "But first you have to pass three tests." Riku tapped his hand against his leg, a tense, nervous gesture, and shook his head at the pixie, though Yuna ignored him. "Paine, Rikku, and I have been discussing them." 

Sora looked to Riku for an explanation, but he looked stiff and upset enough Sora wasn't sure he was listening. "Treasure? You helped her with tests?"

“Not that Riku,” Yuna giggled. “The other Rikku, my cousin. This Riku’s one of our prized treasures you’re winning.”

“You can’t claim living people,” Riku grumbled. It had been one thing when Yuna, Rikku, and Paine had claimed Kairi as part of their hoard, and he could just take it as them promising to look after her closely. Claiming him as a spoil of battle was embarrassing, and made it more difficult to ignore the stranger implications of taking the idea of treasured friends to a literal place.

Overlapping him, Sora protested, “He was mine first!” then seemed to hear both his own words and Riku’s and contradicted himself. “People don’t belong to other people!”

“You’ve failed the first test,” Yuna let a dismayed sigh escape her, then flew off the lift before it halted at the next stop, leaving the boys to trail after her.

"That's not fair! I wasn't ready!" Sora yelled as he jogged to keep pace, shoes thwapping against the stone and tile. “You have to give me another chance to win!”

Riku kept his stride slow enough to satisfy his ego, and to give himself a moment where he didn't need to worry about Sora's eyes watching every twitch of his face just to breathe and think. He should be feeling a lot of the worry and weight resting on his shoulders lift right about now, even with the girls hurt. He'd found Sora, and that could be the key to breaking the spell over Kairi as well. They were all together at last, on a new world, just as they'd planned. 

Riku couldn't help but feel the fight wasn't over though. Sora was planning on leaving, going back to Leon and his other new friends. The plan was to tell them about the real fate of their homeworld, yes, but what after that? Would Sora come back? Why should he when it would make more sense to stay on a world where keeping the Heartless at bay wasn't an ongoing daily struggle? Would he expect Riku and Kairi to come to Traverse Town with him? Would that even be so bad?

Riku wasn't ready to give up Maleficent's help and knowledge. Whatever tricks Sora's new friends had; they weren't anything like Maleficent's surveillance magic, or they would have known that Hollow Bastion still stood. They didn't have near instantaneous travel. They weren’t truly connected to the other worlds. 

Then there was the prejudice they had about controlling the Heartless. Was that sort of power really a bad thing?  What would they think of Riku if he still wanted to learn? Would they try to put a wedge between him and Sora? Would they deem that he was a monster to slay too?

Riku couldn’t let that happen. Honestly, he’d feel better if Sora missed his meeting with Leon entirely, or if he could make him forget it somehow. Now that Sora had set foot on Hollow Bastion, Riku didn’t want to let him leave unless it was on his terms. 

It sounded selfish, put that way. Like he was caging Sora or trying to control him, the same way he would hate happening to him, exactly what he had promised wouldn’t happen to Alice. Of course, what had Alice done with her freedom to almost die? He didn’t want to oppress or restrict. He just couldn’t lose Sora, and he could see a clearer, bigger picture of what was important. 

He’d fight to protect what mattered, if it came down to it. Leon should hope it didn’t.

***

Jane left behind bloody footprints on the forest floor. She’d be easy to track, but there was no time to waste trying to cover her path when it was a futile gesture to begin with. The monster that had taken Clayton’s form and his invisible steed had been able to track Tarzan through the jungle and keep close on his heels, untiring until the protector of the apes had collapsed from exhaustion. Jane knew she was only alive now because the creatures had gotten distracted feeding on Tarzan, and that her only hope now was to make it to the cover where she’d stashed her gummi ship behind a waterfall--and pray that it hadn’t already been found by the smaller monsters or the gorilla before them and been disassembled. 

The world Jane had come to study, and stayed on for love, was done for. No miracle was coming. The only way it would live was if she did, and was able to tell the story.

She didn’t feel the shotgun blast that killed her. It wasn’t clean, but it was quick, which was a kinder fate than befell the heart of Deep Jungle as the planet was left without its champions to be choked by Darkness.

Chapter Text

Rikku admired the tableau The Boss had set up as she flew a circuit patrol in the rafters, sweeping up small dust clouds in her wake on close passes and trying to avoid disturbing spiderwebs. Native animals had a hard enough time in Hollow Bastion without more obstacles. Alice and Belle were both unconscious, though they would need another shot of sleeping potion soon if Riku and Sora didn't walk in within the next few minutes. It wouldn't do for Mr. Hero to talk to them before first impressions were set. The mistress had worked hard on the Princesses of Heart artfully arranged like wax dolls on separate hard, flat beds that more closely resembled tables in Maleficent's study, and that work deserved to be appreciated.

Alice, small on the operating table so much longer than she was, dress dirtied and torn and bow lost so her hair fell to curtain her eyes and made her look even more vulnerable than usual, was on her side, more on her stomach than not, so the claw marks that spanned her bared back where a large square of her dress had been cut away with scissors were on display, one arm dangling limply over the edge of the table. The claw marks were glowing green at the edges, time-released healing magic knitting them slowly closed and making sure any damage was properly reversed down to the molecule, rather than the rush seal of a cura on the fly or the little better than placebo effect and caffeine shock of a potion.

There had been progress enough that new pink skin could be seen at the edges, but it was also easily discernible just how large and deep the marks were. Shadows couldn't make marks like that, and most of the larger Heartless didn't use claws. Defenders used their shields, mostly, and that's what Alice had been cornered by...unless you thought she found the beast that had terrorized Riku and Princess Kairi when they'd first arrived. The marks had indeed been made by a replica of Beast's claws after Alice had been brought back to the castle, but she'd been unconscious for transport too. The gash on her forehead and bruising surrounding the broken skin were legitimately from the Defenders, and a head wound did make details fuzzy, especially when the bearer was prone to a fuzzy thought process to begin with.

When Alice woke up, she probably wouldn't be able to contradict with any authority that Beast hadn't turned on her. He'd been there. Paine could remind her he had been there. If Alice said he had been trying to protect her and Belle from the Defenders, it didn't have to lead to an argument. It could have looked that way. The wild Beast would fight anything and everything.

Belle looked less seriously battered, though possibly more bruised if you looked at her arms and legs. Her face was frozen in a pained expression even in sleep, and her breathing labored. An aura of magic with a different scent than Maleficent's own surrounded her. She'd been hit with some nasty spell by a Wizard Heartless, a status effect outside the usual-- which was another half truth-- and the greatest of the great fairies quite clearly was now working tirelessly to save her. Ideally, she would reach a turning point right as Riku and the Keybearer walked in.

"I think I did a good job," Rikku practically preened as she descended to take her part in the treatment, the all important hovering by Belle's face and dabbing her with a cool cloth. Maleficent didn't pause in her incanting over the unconscious Princesses of Heart to offer any reply, which only made the smaller fae's next statements delve into more obvious fishing. "It really wasn't easy convincing Belle to run off into the caves. Yunie barely had to say a word to Alice. The hardest part there was getting her to think trapping us under a basket was her idea. I had to use all my acting skills."

Maleficent pursed her lips, and the sour lemon expression caused Rikku to reflect that, perhaps, since the boss had already sensed Boy Hero Riku's return portal and sent Yuna to bring him to the lab, a hush order was already in place about just how the princesses had gotten into their current state.

The Mistress of Evil flexed her fingers in a dismissive gesture and Rikku nearly shot back up to the rafters with fear of being swatted, until the boss's momentary ire seemed to melt like a failed blizzard spell all in one breath.

"You were a concerned friend telling her the truth," Maleficent corrected gently, before reiterating the story Rikku was supposed to tell once more, urging memorization. "It was no pretense. Alice decided to hunt the beast Riku had told her stories of. She trapped you and Yuna and ran off on her own. When Belle heard your shouting and freed you, and you told Belle what happened, she ran off as well in some misguided concern for Beast's wellbeing."

"Right," Rikku nodded along. That was what had happened, at least somewhat so. "I had to really exagger...plain... explain in detail how dire the situation was." She practiced, and it became more and more true. "I was so worried for Alice. I wasn't thinking. I can't really visualize long-term, not even long enough term to think of how it would effect..." She screwed her face up, and, then, when it didn't seem demonstrative enough, curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and beating her wings harder to stay afloat. "I think it was my fault Belle got hurt." 

Rikku focused on sounding as pathetically mournful as possible, and, like a comforting wave, that was all she could feel. Humans were so unlucky to have to experience conflict within their own bodies and minds. "I just wanted her to run to get help. Her legs are longer. I didn't know she'd go into the caves herself, and then I didn't know whether I should go after her or go get you and..." She didn't so much as allow an edge of hysteria to cloud her frantic words as fail to keep the escalation of the emotion she was creating in check as her face and arms turned cherry red. "It is my fault!"

Rikku felt herself scooped into a hand she hadn't noticed the approach of and gently raised. Her first instinct was to flail and fly away, but hearing the voice that went with it she slowed her wing beats and sank into the palm. "It is nobody's fault more than any other's." Maleficent's voice was a soothing, convincing purr. Rikku fell into the spell of Maleficent's reassurances (How perfect she was without even practice!) as she came down from her momentary fit and began to adapt reality and her reaction again.

It had been sad what happened--however it had happened--but The Boss would make it better. Rikku leaned her head against Maleficent’s thumb, and shook her head at intervals as expected.

"Is it mine for not taking the responsibility to set boundaries or making sure young Alice understood the severity of the dangers outside the border of the castle and Belle all the different forms it took? Is it Alice's for her curiosity or Belle's for her soft heart? Is it our other Riku's for teaching Alice how to manipulate the crystals and lifts, and the quickest routes through the caves? By being such a good guard that Alice thought the Heartless easily slain? It is not your fault.” Maleficent raised her voice slightly, encompassing more of the room, and the pixie she held in her hand realized that the Boy Hero and his keybearer friend had finally joined to see the show sometime during what she thought was the dress rehearsal. “It’s not either of your faults. You must believe that."

There was a dismissive grunt that brushed aside Maleficent’s assurances. “What happened?” Apparently someone couldn’t remember their manners when they were worried. Riku approached Alice’s table, hands balling to fists at his side when he stopped. Angry boy. Though he might have just been trying to stop himself from reaching.

The keybearer hung back near the door. Yuna buzzed around his head and whispered something Rikku couldn’t quite make out to him, patting his hair down, though it sprung back as soon as she did. He had kind eyes. Rikku could believe he was a savior of worlds.

“Alice went to hunt our friend the beast,” Maleficent answered while Rikku realized too late this was supposed to be the time for her to repeat her story. 

Rikku was still tired from her first performance though. The heroes probably heard enough and she didn't need to worry about it. Besides, if she was going to give her dramatic reenactment, the the big people had to be quiet long enough for her to do it, and they were usually much more apt to ignore her and talk to one another once they started.

“Why? Was it prowling around the gates again?” Riku asked tersely. He was so tense and he was making his friend sad too, or the princesses were. It meant the plan was working, but Rikku itched to tell them that it was all a game to make this heavy part shorter.

“I think she wanted to impress you,” Maleficent answered him gently, though the implication seemed to land heavily on Riku’s shoulders. She raised her hand, prompting Rikku to fly off, which she did reluctantly, and shot the keybearer a wan look. “I’m sorry not to be a better host, and have a proper reception for you. All of us have been awaiting your arrival eagerly, Sora. I’m glad Riku was able to bring you here without trouble.”

“You were?...I didn’t expect...I wouldn’t need.... You were busy. Yuna explained. Is there anything I can do?” Sora stuttered and shifted what he was saying, seeming almost to talk over himself at the speed he changed approaches. He shuffled a few steps into the room, still hanging back.

“Nothing at this stage. They’re healing. The girls will be fine.” Maleficent said it as much to Riku as to Sora. “They just need time to rest and let the healing magic do its work. We can move elsewhere.”

Sora nodded and stepped to follow Maleficent as she glided toward the door, somewhat subdued and easily trackable at the moment. He thought to suggest the library as a destination, like he and Riku had talked about, since searching for Ansem's journals to take to Leon and the rest had to be a priority, but the vivid picture of the library that his mind summoned when he thought the word, and intuition that felt more certain than a hunch that the reports were stuck there in between other books and not in some private chamber or lab made him quiet. When Aerith or Yuffie talked of their home world, it wasn't of this castle--and Cid only mentioned the gummi ship handar--and, while Sora had a vivid imagination, his musings weren't usually so mundane (if a castle with magic lifts that seemed to rest in the sky could be called that) or specific.

The fairies followed too, but Riku didn't budge. "I told her not to go outside without me. She knew I would be back soon, with Sora. I don't understand why she would do this--or why Belle would follow her."

"You made her feel safe here. Even when you met the Heartless, you kept it an adventure for her. That's not a bad thing." Maleficent looked at him with pity, and Sora winced internally. Riku had never borne compassion well when he was on the receiving end.

“I didn’t say it was.” Riku’s hackles rose on instinct, easily visualized as literal (little, fluffy hissing cat with fur on end Riku--these were the things Sora’s imagination were good for). “Are you trying to imply it is my fault?”

“I just got through telling Rikku that assigning blame is useless. You may have heard it.”

“That is what you say, but what you aren’t saying…” Riku’s voice drifted to inaudible before he could finish his accusation with the redundantly worded “says more,” that sounded like nonsense talking in circles.

Sora’s natural instinct was to act as peacekeeper and intercede--he hadn’t read anything beyond the surface level in the witch’s words, though he didn’t know her like he knew Riku’s tendency to take everything personally-- but he cautioned himself to watch and see.

“Alice is impulsive, stubborn, and has a contrary streak that makes her prone to seek out danger. Her actions were ultimately her own. The Gullwings were with her, and yet she determined to leave on her own. Short of predicting the future and locking her in her room before she decided to leave it, she would not have been stopped, and perhaps even then it would have only made her more resourceful. Please, Riku, let us leave the topic now.” She gripped her staff tightly, fingers turning a lighter shade of ghost green. “I have spent a great deal of my energy today, and I don’t feel up to arguments.”

She was tired, she was tense, and even though Sora was currently more sensitive to condescension that he might have previously taken for granted as something you sometimes needed to put up with from older adults who would always think they knew better, her obvious attempt to keep harshness out of her tone made her more human (so to speak) and sympathetic. She was clearly worried, and everyone here seemed to look to her for answers--and everything else. Not to mention the healing magic. Sora himself had only just mastered the weakest whisp of a cure spell, and that made him feel like he'd gone a few rounds sparring with Wakka and Tidus two-on-one.

Sora reached for Riku, not committing to reaching for his hand or patting his shoulder until he had awkwardly compromised and squeezed his bicep briefly to get his attention, then let go, shooting him a pleading look that seconded the request not to start arguing. Riku gritted his teeth, but gave a vague, brusque nod that encompassed them both. 

"I'm sorry." Sora was genuinely surprised to hear the words, even said grudgingly, from Riku.

Maleficent melted into a fond look. "Dear boy, there's no need for apologies. When something happens to one of our own, no matter how newly we were acquainted with them or how certain their recovery, it is hard on us all. But Belle and Alice will recover, and there is plenty to celebrate right now too. Like Sora's arrival." If there was anything suspicious in Maleficent's behavior in Sora's eyes, it was how quickly she was able to turn from concern to a smile, a little too slick, but that too was something that was often just an adult habit, trying to keep a brave face. "I do hope you'll be staying with us."

Yuna and Rikku echoed her, shouting their own invitation as they buzzed around, while Riku made his chip-in a challenge, like he made everything. "Are you?"

Was he going to stay? Sora didn't know. He wasn't going to let himself be separated from Riku or Kairi again, so it was a decision they'd have to make together. 

"I don't know yet."

Sora had been prepared to interrogate Maleficent thoroughly, and he still would, gladly, when an opportunity presented itself, but it was already becoming easier to see her as Riku had described her, taking in lost souls doing what she could to stem the tide of the Heartless, the same as anyone on Traverse Town, than as the figure from Leon and Aerith's stories, but even aside from concerns (or lack thereof) of Maleficent's trustworthiness, Sora couldn't help but think Hollow Bastion hadn't exactly made a good argument for itself yet as a safer place to call a temporary home than Traverse Town. 

"Of course," Maleficent allowed. "When we saw you, we saw you had other companions, and, I assume, other lodgings. You're more than welcome here for however long you want to stay, but I wouldn't think to try and keep you. Either of you. Riku knows that." She looked back to meet Riku's eyes and see his nodded response. 

The smaller fairies protested that, if Riku left, he'd forfeit all the treasure to them, which Sora found slightly disconcerting, since Yuna had referred to Kairi as a great treasure earlier.

Sora wondered what Maleficent and Riku had discussed before Riku came to find him, but he asked the more pressing, less intrusive question. "When you saw me? What do you mean?"

"You didn't tell him how you found him?" Maleficent aimed the question at Riku.

"I told him that you told me where he was," Riku defended himself.

"But not how you knew," Sora clarified. "You saw me...like in a dream or a vision?" Knowing more about what powers Maleficent had was more than a curiosity.

"No, in the waking world. I was able to scry your location--a certain magic I know to see those far away, though the spell works quicker and more surely if I have something that belongs to the subject I'm trying to reach. I'll show you later, if you'd like. I assume you want to see Kairi first?"

"We're almost to her tower," Yuna interjected helpfully. 

"She has one of the best rooms in the castle," Rikku offered.

Sora had wondered, vaguely, where their little party had been headed. Directly to Kairi's side was exactly where he wanted to go, and he voiced it eagerly, if not particularly articulately, with an exclamation that was more just agreeable noise. "Yeah-huh!"

"You'll stay with him, Riku?" Maleficent's next utterance was also not a question.

The pixie that shared Sora’s best friend’s name answered affirmatively before the boy.

"Is there somewhere else I'm needed?" Riku volleyed back. There was weight to it, some kind of deeper meaning or shared understanding rather than the reply being idle, and Sora felt another pang of not-quite jealousy being left out of whatever it was. 

"Not immediately." 

Definitely, something was going on. Riku appeared almost as frustrated by Maleficent's cryptic reply as Sora was, however, which was at least a bit reassuring. 

"Which means?" Riku pressed.

" Jafar may need some help on Agrabah, but, for now, he wants to try and handle the Heartless situation without offworld help--and I'm inclined to let him." Maleficent had the reluctant, disappointed air of a dinner party host that had walked out to announce the first course was ready, only to find the guests whispering about their dirty laundry. "They haven't come near the city. He has his own magic, you've only just reunited with Sora, and we are still dealing with our own possible security breach. I'll make sure to check in on him later, and keep you updated."

"Thank you." So far, one of the biggest changes in Riku that Sora had seen was his manners.

"Are you sure?" Sora asked, wide-eyed. He'd seen the Heartless viewed as a manageable threat on Traverse Town--though he'd also seen someone die in front of his face, which he still couldn't see as acceptable damages--and talked about as wild animals kept outside a border that afternoon on Hollow Bastion, but he'd also seen how quickly Destiny Islands had been overcome. "I could help. I'm the keybearer." When it was his own decision rather than something he was told he had to do (and die for), the whole destiny thing was easier to embrace. And he didn't want anyone else to suffer.

"Do you know how to lock the hearts of worlds?" Maleficent had stopped their caravan's progress and her eyes held an interest that bordered on predatory. It was mildly disconcerting, but it also wasn't much different than Leon sometimes looked at the keyblade.

"No," Sora admitted, "But Riku and I could at least help with evacuations." Especially with Riku's portal trick. 

"Evacuations." Maleficent appeared almost amused behind her disappointment at Sora's lack of super world saving powers as she repeated his offer. "If it comes to that, your help would be appreciated with evacuations, I'm sure. I'll look into the situation sooner rather than later if it will ease your mind. Please, don't let it trouble you. There have only ever been a few stray Heartless spotted out in the desert. Your concern for today should be yourself and your friends. Are you hungry?"

Sora blinked with the abrupt subject change. He hadn't given it any thought, but his stomach responded on his behalf, stirred into an affirmative growl. "You don't need to go to any trouble..." he still tried to argue.

"Nonsense. I still have energy enough to prepare something suitable. If you do decide to leave us, it won't be with any reason to call me a poor host."

Sora prepared a sincere thank you, fighting against the urge to make it more flowery than he had the vocabulary for when he knew a simple thanks was good enough--and, moreover, was still trying to remind himself not to be comfortable with the great fairy. There was no wonder that Riku's manners had improved. There was an air about Maleficent--some aroma of age and dignity mixed with strong magic--that made you want to show deference. Another thought gripped his mind before he could express his gratitude, however. “If I eat something that you made with your own hands, does that mean that I have no choice but to stay?”

Riku worked his jaw and Sora knew what he was thinking. Would that be so bad?

Sora didn't think it would, but that wasn't the point. The point was choice.

“No, child, whyever would you think that?” Maleficent's hand fluttered near her heart and her brows raised toward her headdress, making a portrait of innocent surprise.

“Because it would be food from the fae," Sora explained. 

Maleficent laughed then, but not cruelly, not making fun of him or a misunderstanding, but indulging and congratulating, “Clever boy. I feel sorry for whoever thinks they can trick you easily." If there was a twinge of irony in her tone, it sailed over the head of the clever boy, though his more cynical friend read it in, whether it was truly there or not. Fortunately, Riku was all for whatever tricks were to be played on Sora, as long as they worked toward the cause of keeping him from going back to Leon. "No such restrictions apply in this castle. I may be the caretaker of Hollow Bastion for now, but that doesn’t qualify it as a faerie realm. There’s a difference between being granted rule and having the total power of dominion when it comes to old magic.” 

Sora absorbed her explanation without fully understanding it, though he supposed that was the point, that he didn't understand correctly. He didn't have a problem facing that there were things he didn't know that seemed apparent to others. It was enough that Maleficent had answered his question and seemed willing to fill in the gaps, if he wanted to learn. "Oh, in that case, yes, please."

"I'll bring it to the council room. I'm afraid the formal dining room is not prepared for guests, and I have it set for scrying, so I can show you how I can track people across worlds while we eat. It works the best when there's a talisman, something that belongs to who you want to see to help channel the natural powers or to seal the contract of the search. Without, it can take far longer to clear the fog, but a few drops of blood and I can search for your family, if you wish. See if they made it to another world."

She talked contracts, but no payment or expectation for him. Sora shouldn't have lost faith in basic kindness. He tried to remember to be suspicious, and a small part of him did try to warn the rest abut the dark power that controlled the Heartless asking for his blood, but the Maleficent he'd expected to meet was hazier and hazier in his mind already. "I'd like that very much." 

He missed his parents. He just wanted to know if they were alive. He wouldn't give Maleficent anything she couldn't have taken easily. He still had his guard up. He was a clever boy, after all.

"Take your time," came Maleficent's parting words, aimed at them both, and Riku seemed to get more out of them once again. 

Riku opened the door and Yuna and Rikku flew in over Sora’s head while he was still overcoming leaden feet and pounding heart. Seeing Kairi again had been tied with seeing Riku or his parents as the chief thing he’d wanted for weeks, but, having the moment come and being given an idea of what he could expect to find, Kairi unwakeable and cursed, there was a wild and scared part of him that wanted to run after Maleficent and avoid it. But Sora called Riku’s name so he’d turn his head back, and blue-green eyes gave him courage.

“Yeah?” Riku asked, more free to put an edge in his voice now that Maleficent had drifted away, but still politer than he might have been usually. What’s the hold up, coward?

“Nothing.” Sora smiled at Riku like he wasn’t weighed down by the weight of several worlds, holding it in place until Riku smiled back and mumbled that he was a weirdo to cover it, and walked past his friend into the strange room as Riku held the door.

The scene that greeted him was much better than Sora’s imagination in some ways. Kairi’s lips weren’t purpled. She wasn’t as pale as he expected. Her color was good. There was no mistaking her for dead. She looked vibrant, healthy. And she was cared for. That much was obvious in how her hair was brushed to shine like Kairi herself didn’t even do when she was awake, and in the flowers and herb bundles and trinkets set around her on the massive bed. Not to mention how Yuna and Riku were already fluffing her pillow while a third fairy Sora hadn’t been introduced to yet was brushing her hair yet again, telling her how “the heroes are here to wake you up.”

"You heard her," Riku half taunted Sora, his tone another familiar assurance, whether it was meant to be or not. "Kairi's waiting for you."

Chapter Text

Sora knelt by the bed, and the pixies immediately took flight for the rafters like a flock of startled birds. It would have been easy to take offense or wonder what he'd done wrong, but as he saw Yuna whispering to the third member of the pixie trio as she and Rikku guided her to a corner of the ceiling, he decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were just trying to give him space--which was a nice gesture, even though space was the last thing he wanted really. He wished he could reach for Riku's hand again without risking a sneer and a taunt. And maybe he could. Riku had been softer today. More open. His current crossed-armed stance didn’t look like it though.

Sora brushed the backs of his knuckles gently across Kairi's cheek. She wasn't cold to the touch, but there was a profound aura of emptiness attached to her, some halo that marked her body as unoccupied and not just sleeping, even as Sora's fingers trailed lower down to the side of her neck to feel that her pulse was still giving occasional thumps. 

"I made it, Kairi. I finally made it back to you and Riku," he murmured, taking in a deep breath and filling his lungs with a sharp, bitter herbaceous stench from the pultices laid out around his unconscious friend. 

He noticed a symbol drawn on the hollow of her throat. Sora smeared his fingers through the still wet, somewhat sticky pigment she had been marked with, disrupting the lines and then erasing them entirely as he wiped more insistently without thinking to ask what the rune was supposed to do or if it was safe to tamper with. It hadn't seemed to be hurting her. Sora didn't doubt that, whether the symbol was from Maleficent or had been drawn by one of the castle's smaller residents, they were trying to help, but it didn't seem right to Sora. Whatever magic it had been trying to work felt cold.   Nobody else in the room objected to it being gone.

"Your new friends said that you were waiting for me to wake up. So you can do that now," Sora rambled without knowing the purpose of it.  "I knew you were a lazy bum too, but you're scaring them." He batted a bundle of herbs off the side of the bed, and Riku bent to pick it up, but he didn't return it, instead starting to nervously shred it in his hands. "You're scaring me ," Sora admitted, half to Kairi, half to Riku, whose eyes looked older than his grandfather's as he stared over Kairi and Sora's heads at the wall as his fingers continued to turn the spell sachet into confetti. 

"Wake her up," Yuna demanded from the roof beam, heckling like a dissatisfied audience member at a circus without elephants.

"I don't know what to do," Sora admitted. He didn't intend to sink down or duck, but found his forehead hitting the soft sheets of the bed as he shakily breathed in more herbs. He felt a slight weight on the top of his head as fingers weaved into his hair, and it took all Sora had not to let the simple comforting gesture from Riku tip him over the edge. "Tell me how I'm supposed to save her."

One of the last things he expected to hear was a chipper, high voiced, "Kiss her of course!" followed by two other small voices taking up the chant as well. "Kiss her! Kiss her!"

"Riku already kissed her, and it didn't work, so now it's your turn."

Sora's head snapped up and Riku's fingers dug in more harshly, pulling, even though Sora didn't think it was him or his hair Riku was reacting to. "What?" 

"True love's kiss breaks some of the strongest spells!'' The rafters crowed some more. 

The pixies were practically in raptures, and the oppressive sadness was starting to be pushed out of Sora's mind as it was replaced by a different type of distress he couldn't quite pinpoint beyond the activated fight or flight, a kind of mortification paired with disappointment where he would have thought there would be outright hurt at Riku kissing Kairi without telling him. Sora craned his head up to look into Riku's eyes, asking for some kind of clarification or confirmation.

"You need to kiss her." Riku repeated the fairies' instruction in a dulled but firm monotone as his fingers slipped out of Sora's hair. He shuffled his feet, a small gesture that seemed like he was merely shifting his weight, but one that carried him a bit further from Sora, creating a gulf. The toes of his shoes continued to scuff around, grinding through the remnants of the herb bundle he'd been shredding and dropped on the floor when he'd reached out for Sora. "That's what's going to wake her up."

"What? No!" It wasn't a rejection of the idea of kissing one of his best friends. Sora hadn't even gotten as far as thinking about that...that day...while he was in that current room of the castle. It was a rejection of the concept. He'd read storybooks before when he was younger,  and he'd learned enough legends had the potential to be true by now with what he'd seen over the last few weeks, but he couldn't reconcile this particular fairytale cure being presented as fact in the current moment in such an ambush fashion.

"Yes. True love's kiss." Riku balled a fist like he was trying to crush his own escaping words, then let it go like he was scattering the debris with the rest of the trash on the floor. "That's why I brought you here." Mooning, betrayed widening eyes from Sora had him immediately amending. "Not the only reason of course, Fish Face. Maleficent thinks it....it," Riku stuttered and shifted even farther from Sora, before continuing defensively, "It's powerful magic. It may be the only magic that can reach her."

Sora sat back on his feet and dropped his hands into his lap, not consciously withdrawing from Kairi any more than Riku was consciously scooting away from him. His neck continued to crane, not allowing Riku to look away from him. "You think I could be that?" His voice held more of accusation than hopefulness, though some bubbles of positive feeling were rising from his stomach, just as churning and fluttering as nervous butterflies, as he started to let himself consider that he really could save Kairi that easily. "That I think of Kairi that way, and she... You think that? Really ?"

"He does. It plagues him," the blonde fairy that shared Riku's name tried to answer for him and Yuna quickly clamped both of her hands over Rikku's mouth.  Sora and Riku both ignored the interruption.

"Don't you?" Riku turned the question back around, tone just as full of recrimination as Sora's had been. "Wasn't it starting to be like that?" 

Sora broke eye contact with Riku in favor of glancing back to Kairi's inert body as if he was checking to make sure she wasn't eavesdropping, or he was waiting for her to join in with her own opinion. He shook his head like he was denying blame even though something sparked in his chest at the idea if he was honest.  He shook his head again. Pride didn't let him say that it wasn't like that because he couldn't see why Kairi wouldn't favor Riku. Pride and the bit of him honest enough to say that were a few other reasons why it wasn’t like that with Kairi, none of which he wanted to answer questions from Riku about. "No."

Riku hissed out an exasperated breath. Sometimes Sora was a smooth rock wedged in soft sand. Kairi seemed to be able to unfailingly be a gentle wave nudging softly until the rock came loose on its own time. Riku had a harder time not just prying the stone up all at once out of the muck and then chucking it for good measure, but there was nothing to be gained from upsetting Sora when he was trying not to have him run right back off to Leon at the first chance.  "I'm not saying you have to get married overnight. Just...give it a try. A quick peck."  He bit back a jab about it being Sora's only chance to kiss someone even half willing.  

"It has to be more than any old kiss,” the ceiling jibed. Riku wished the fairies would just lay off and stop making things more difficult with their interjections.

Sora waved wildly toward the ceiling. "That's the point."

"So you're saying you don't like her?" Riku scoffed, and the derisive noise hurt coming out. Why was Sora avoiding the truth now when there were stakes to the game beyond just the feelings?

Sora looked down at the ground again and rubbed at one of his knees, massaging out the pins and needles from kneeling on the floor. Coward as usual.

  Riku made a helpless, frustrated gesture. "I just want her to wake up. That’s it. Don't you want her to wake up?" It was a quick spiral as his chest tightened and the air sucked out of the room. "This could be her life , and I can't be responsible for that!" His voice took on a mildly hysterical edge and darkness haloed around him, slick  tendrils that fanned out then doubled back in to lap at his face before absorbing back into his skin. "I don't care about the rest anymore." The lie came out easily, but would be hard to defend. He cared too much, and, before they had left the islands, he had been getting worse every day at hiding it. But it didn't matter now how he felt, just how Sora and Kairi felt and if it would be enough to save Kairi. He'd faced up to it, so Sora had to too. " I just want to know all three of us  are going to be okay," he begged, "and then, you two can go off and leave me. "

"I wouldn't leave you. " Sora's voice was soft but vehement.

"That's not my point,' Riku dismissed his friend's claim, but found himself standing nose to nose with him before he finished. He'd hardly ever seen Sora move that fast even when they were racing.

"I wouldn't leave you ," Sora repeated the words even more forcefully, pushing at Riku's chest. " I am never leaving you again.  Wherever I go, you're coming with me." Another push and Riku stumbled, the backs of his knees hitting the bed. "Both of you." The third push was a light tap, but it came close enough to the second, Riku still found himself sitting on the edge of the bed so he didn't fall on it completely and crush Kairi's legs.  "We were always going to stick together. It's not my fault that I couldn't hang on to your hand." Sora spun on his heel, free to move around now that he'd communicated that Riku had to just sit and listen, however he spun immediately back around without actually stepping away.  "I mean....technically it is my fault. I wasn't strong enough, but I tried. I looked for you. I was searching for you too." He leaned in, crowding over Riku. "It's not fair for you to act like I got separated from you on purpose."

"That's not what I meant," Riku risked arguing even though Sora just glared. It had been worth a shot to cut him off before he got too worked up. 

Then Sora shut him back up with more than a glare. " You were the one that went to the raft without me . Did you and Kairi plan to meet up there? I had figured she'd followed you like I did, but it would make a lot of sense to cut the dead weight." Sora had only wanted to make a point about how Riku sounded by showing how easy it was to twist any action, but, as the words were leaving his mouth, insecurity started to rush in.

Riku's mouth fell open, more out of shock than an attempt to defend himself  against what he saw as a wholly insane accusation. A thin curl of darkness fell from his parted lips instead of words and floated into Sora's as he continued to speak, finding a receptive new home to take root in with an indirect kiss.

  "Is that why you think we would leave you? Because that is what you two were going to do?" There was a slight quaver of doubt in Sora's wild charges, but it wasn't clear whether it was doubt in his words or more manifestation of doubt in his relationship with Kairi and Riku.

The pixies gasped in time, ever the attentive audience.

"You think I would do that?" Riku's rejoinder wasn't really a question. Either the accusation had been meant, or it had been a bald, low attempt to hurt him. Either way, it showed how little Sora thought of him. It proved Riku's fears correct.

 Sora hadn't seen such a winded, pained and intensely betrayed look on Riku's face even on the rare times he'd managed to fight dirty enough to knock him on his butt when they sparred. "No." Sora's voice was immediately small again, as if he'd had the wind knocked out of him too, and made no impact, even though he meant the sentiment much more than his previous words.

" I'm not the one trying to deflect a guilty conscience." Riku stood and paid Sora back for pushing him earlier with twice the force. "Kairi tried to get you to leave me behind on the islands. I heard you two talking. I know ." He pitched his voice high in a mockery of Kairi's as he bitterly re-enacted the offer that she'd made to Sora. "Let's take the raft and go, just the two of us."

Murmuring broke out in the rafters. 

"She was joking." Sora insisted, rubbing at his chest.

"Was she?"

The words hung for too long. Sora missed his opportunity to stand firm defending Kairi's intentions with any authority.

"If you were listening, you know that I didn't agree."  It was important to note, but it wasn't the same as the offer never having been real in the first place.

"Didn’t part of you want to?" Riku zeroed in on the question as fast as if he'd planned to get into this conversation from the beginning, daring Sora to deny it.

"I wouldn't do that to you." This time Sora gave his answer with both the speed and conviction necessary to build a convincing case. "I care about you too much. And the raft was your idea."

"You care about me too much. Yeah, I know." All the barely restrained angry tension bled from the room, but sadness and bitterness still colored Riku's words. "But it's not the same way you care about Kairi and she cares about you."

"No, it's exactly the same." Sora blinked, feeling slightly off balance still, the rapid shifts in mood leaving him almost physically dizzy. 

Riku flashed a mocking look full of teeth, but it was more grimace than snarl. "You're so immature." He fluttered a hand like he had been going to push Sora again, but changed his mind before it happened. "We're right back where we started. You don't feel about me like you feel about Kairi. You just don't."  

And she sure as hell didn't feel the same way about me as she did about you.

"I do ." Sora was tired of getting mad, but it was even more frustrating than usual that Riku wasn't listening to what he was saying. He took a deep breath to steel his nerves enough to put it in the clearest words he could. "I love you. If you want me to say I love Kairi, I love you too."

The pixie cooed and gushed from their viewing spot. Riku mumbled curses, his collar and his cheeks taking on a sunburned hue that usually meant Sora had ticked him off pretty badly, but, there, everything was on the table.

Riku made a noise that honestly sounded like a wounded cat, a long, slow, low howl and he tugged his earlobes in a gesture that made him look like a child having a temper tantrum, but the redness faded. "I know you love me. I love you too."  The sentence made his tongue dry and his eyes sting. Everything he wanted, yet so far from it. 

Sora felt that warm glow consuming his heart again and felt his mouth stretch into a smile, but the happiness didn't sink in too far, because Riku's face said he still didn't understand, and Sora was going to have to keep repeating the same hard to say words in different ways.

"We're like brothers." Riku forced himself to say the words, and Sora screwed up his face trying to press down the urge to reject the notion, because "like brothers" wasn't any less of a way to love; "like brothers" Sora would agree to if that felt right to Riku and he'd be the best brother. It was just that Sora didn't think Riku actually meant what he was saying. "But you want to share a paopu with Kairi."

"You are the one that said that."

"And you and her are the ones that drew it on a cave wall." Riku still had venom left, but he was losing power.

"I'd share a paopu with you too," Sora near whispered, wondering how he'd ever escape the circle of this conversation.

"It's not the same."

Both boys thought they were best friends with the most dense person in the entire universe.

"I'll kiss her," Sora agreed suddenly with the air of someone locked into a deal that they found far less pleasant. He just wanted this conversation to be over, and he was still getting over the feeling he’d been tricked and Riku had been happy to bring him here mostly because he saw him as a way to bring Kairi back and not for his own sake. "You're right. I care about her, and I maybe have a little crush on her that's been there for awhile, and there's nothing I would want more than for that to be magic enough." The run-on thought came out in one long breath, and Sora couldn't shake feeling it as a defeat, not a relief to say out loud, despite being sincere. "So, I'll kiss her, and I hope that you get to tell me I told you so."

Riku sucked in his bottom lip and nodded solemnly, not feeling any break in his headache from Sora's sudden shift away from pigheadedness. "Thank you." Another thing that hurt to say and to hear at that moment of time in the context.

Riku moved so he wasn't in the way, exactly what he'd been trying to do since they first entered the room. 

Sora leaned over the bed, then changed his mind and knelt beside the bed, then realized the distance and angle weren't right and stood up again so he could lean over.

  He paused a few inches from Kairi's face. Her nose looked weird from such a close angle, and he was really glad her eyes were closed. 

"Don't watch me! It's weird!"  Sora ordered, hyper aware of the sensation of too many eyes trained on him. 

There were groans from the ceiling but the pixies all covered each other's eyes, and Riku snorted softly but turned around. 

"Do you want me to plug my ears and hum too, so you can confess your budding love directly to fair lady while you’re at it and not be overheard?" 

Riku's cocky lilt said he was feeling like himself again. Sora wasn't relieved or amused. 

"Shut up." 

Riku didn't obey. "Just make it better than you did for me. You're pretty crappy at love confessions from what I've seen so far."

"Maybe you should show me," Sora taunted. He didn't pick up on Riku's sharp, pained inhale. Unaware he almost prompted another untrue denial and then argument, Sora continued, "You can use the mirror, because we all know your truest love." 

It was easy to drift back into familiar patterns, but it wasn't as fun to tease as Sora tried to make it sound.

"At least my love is pretty. I feel sorry for Kairi." Riku kept the banter going.

"Can we look now?" the rafters whined.

"Not yet." Sora nodded to Riku even though his back was still turned. "Almost."

Sora closed his eyes too, and closed the last bit of the gap. Lips pressed in too tight a line nervously bumped against an unresponsive mouth. Sora felt nothing but a slight disappointment. He tried again, this time with an exaggerated pucker and lingering smack. The third time he forced himself to relax, and it was both the best and worst one, because, for a second it almost felt like a real kiss. He was able to think beyond the awkwardness and doubt, to just be natural and imagine how he would kiss Kairi if she was actually there to tell him she wanted to kiss him too, if kissing her was his idea in the first place. He let himself be happy about it. He allowed his heart to be giddy and his mind to wander to mentally starting to list all the reasons he did like Kairi. There was a moment of electric shock that time, maybe some mythical spark or maybe magic in the only context where that was a more mundane option. He could have sworn Kairi's lips actually did move to mold better against his for just a moment, and he pulled back almost sure she would open her eyes, only to see a stone face and be hit with the same feeling he had when he'd first studied it. 

Kairi was gone, and a kiss wasn't going to bring her back.

Sora slammed a fist down on the sheets next to Kairi. The thump was too soft to properly convey his frustration.  "I'm sorry." The first one was just for her. Then he raised his voice. "I'm sorry."

He didn't stand up until he felt Riku touch his shoulder and one of the pixies land on his head. 

"Did you believe hard enough?" the pixie Sora didn't know the name of asked. Yuna shushed her loudly. “You need to believe if it’s going to work.”

Riku swatted them all away even though he looked like he wanted to ask Sora the same question as he helped him to his feet. "I shouldn't have forced it," he apologized instead. "We should go meet Maleficent for dinner now."

Disappointment from all parties still hung heavily in the room. There was the idea that they could come back later implied.

Sora nodded, but when Riku turned to go, he grabbed his wrist.

Riku raised an eyebrow.

Sora pulled his mouth all to one side.

"Fly ahead and tell the boss we're coming. Make sure she doesn't need any help." Riku caught the signal and ordered the pixies away from where they had already returned to fussing over Kairi, making sure Sora hadn't disrupted any of the bundles around her besides the one he had destroyed. 

The pixies obeyed, and once they were alone, Riku didn't wait before asking. "Are you going to try another kiss right away?"

Sora wanted to. He could easily have a redo first kiss that actually was fully his own decision. He'd grip Riku's wrist more tightly as a warning not to move, then put his other palm on Riku's cheek. Nod and sure up his nerve.  Play it cool as he asked,  "If that's alright."

Then he'd lean up on tiptoe and kiss Riku. Riku would grab his waist and pull him closer. He’d finally understand that Sora knew exactly what he was saying. He knew his own mind and meant it when he said he cared for him and Kairi both in the same way. That’s what made sense. No competition. It was supposed to be all three of them, just like their plan, building the raft.

That or Riku would jerk away, disgusted, or laugh in his face, or push him again. 

That or they wouldn’t even be friends anymore after because Riku thought Sora was his brother, and now he’d not only failed to save Kairi but then betrayed his trust by trying to make their friendship something it wasn’t. And things would never be right again.

So Sora didn’t risk it. It felt as wrong as his first attempt at kissing Kairi awake, this backing down and shaking his head. “No, I’m not going to try again.”

Riku took it in stride, or at least seemed to. “We’ll come up with something else. Maybe the next counterspell Maleficent tries or the next trinket the girls lay out will work.”

“We don’t give up,” Sora urged like it was a pledge. 

“Bold claim from a guy I have seen fall asleep in the middle of a sentence,” Riku teased with a smirk, and Sora once again had to fight with himself not to kiss him.

“Shut it,” Sora warned. “We’ll save the worlds and Kairi too.”

“All the worlds?” Riku seemed amused by the idea.

“Yeah, I have the keyblade. I told you that’s my job. And you can hold it too, so you have to help me.” 

“You don’t even need to ask.”  Riku gave a slight huff a moment after his sentence concluded, like he had thought of more to say, but then withheld it, and Sora could only assume it was either supposed to be an assertion that the roles were reversed, Riku the hero (He’d taken the pledge after all, he’d remind Sora again) and Sora the spare,  or he was going to play the realist and say saving the worlds was still beyond them.  Sora just kept being reminded that, unlike on Traverse Town, nobody here was asking anyone to march on a suicide mission just because he could summon a key.  

Sora thought of Alice and Belle healing downstairs. He was sure they weighed even more heavily on Riku's mind since he knew them. "But we don't need to go right away."

"We'll at least eat first, then we can go out world saving," Riku tossed back lightly, habitual smirk rising again, though it didn't reach his eyes.

"Leon will be happy." Sora felt obligated to bring him up, to remind himself that he did have other people he was responsible toward, even if nowhere near the same level, even if it was already easy to start forgetting and write off Traverse Town as a bad dream. It seemed it had to be, if Riku wasn't there. 

 Just as much as his family, he hardly had any memories where Riku wasn't present, and memories made separately didn't seem to matter until they could be made into stories to share; which would appear like a dire, pathetic, obsessive way to think of it, but it wasn't like he didn't have an identity outside of Riku, just that when Riku was there it was like a picture coming into focus. 

He was in focus now, and once Kairi woke up, everything would be perfect. That was the missing piece you didn't know you needed until it came, the same revelation that Sora had been trying to communicate before, just a different form of it. They were supposed to be a unit. 

But just having Riku came pretty close. They had started out as a duo after all, before they’d met Kairi.

“What did you want me to send the fairies off for? Did you have something you needed to tell me?” Riku brought Sora out of his thoughts, ignoring the mention of Leon entirely, still being weird.

“I needed a moment, just me and you." The truth was better to stick with. Lies got confusing. 

"And Kairi," Riku asserted her presence firmly, but when he saw Sora frown in response, he let it drop even though Kairi was there. He'd kept her safe. She was just sleeping, not gone. "The fairies can be pretty annoying, I know."

"They're alright."

There was a lingering moment of silence, and Riku was about to prompt Sora about leaving, or at least tell him to spit out what he really wanted to say, when Sora broke the silence again. "You know I'm staying here." He knew he should take more time with the decision, but he couldn’t make himself bother when, if Riku would take him going back to Traverse Town as Sora trying to leave him, there was no decision at all. 

Staying was the smart choice, but Riku was relieved Sora had come to it officially and he could stop worrying. "I'm glad I won't need to kidnap you."

"Cid, Aerith, Yuffie, and Leon should come here too," Sora formed the words slowly, a bit reluctant, but trying to puzzle out what was best. "This is their home," Sora started to list reasons before Riku could find arguments against or tell him he was worrying about the wrong things.  "And we should have as many people who want to fight back against the Heartless working all together." Though the people he'd met on Traverse Town hadn't actually been doing as much fighting as just waiting. "You said Maleficent was already working with others. She mentioned a Jafar?  We can all work together. Your friend Alice too when she wakes up."

Riku's face soured and Sora knew he'd misstepped. "The people who had you thinking that you should slay Maleficent on sight?" The scorn was not as deep as it could have been.

Sora winced. He'd forgotten about the "slaying" incident already.  He couldn't blame that for sticking in Riku's mind, but he should know  best that Sora got carried away sometimes. At least he hadn't told Riku about Leon attacking him with a sword the first time they met, so he could still have a chance of convincing Riku that his friends were more rational sorts. "We'll explain they were wrong. They think Maleficent brought the Heartless to destroy Hollow Bastion, so if we show them how she's trying to help the worlds, that she's kept their world intact, they'll have to rethink everything. Just like I am." They'd just maybe hold off a bit and be careful how they made introductions so nobody got skewered. 

"Not everyone is as open hearted as you."

Sora's instinct was to refute being called soft, but Riku didn't say it like he was judging it. He said it like it made Sora better. 

 "We'll be careful," Sora offered like they had ever been so before.

"Right." Riku drawled the word. 

"We'll ask Maleficent's opinion too. Follow her lead, " Sora chirped, though, to his surprise that idea brought out almost as skeptical an expression in Riku as the first suggestion to just bring everyone to Hollow Bastion. "Is there a reason we shouldn't?"

Riku ran a hand through his hair and ruffled the back. It was a gesture that suited Sora more than it did him. "Ah...no. No reason." The hesitation continued to be suspicious. Sora filed it away, but didn't prod further. "It's a good idea. I was just surprised. We better get to the council room. The food is probably getting cold."

"Couldn't Maleficent keep it warm with magic?" It wasn't that he was delaying rejoining Maleficent–consciously at least. It just seemed like a valid point.

"The girls will come back for us soon. They are probably wondering why we didn't follow them. Don't want them to think we're plotting against them."

There was nothing that said Riku wasn't just joking, so Sora made the conscious decision to take it that way instead of stumbling into another argument by asking why Riku seemed to be warning Sora off now that he had decided he might trust Maleficent and the other fairies.  "Wouldn't want that." 

Sora nodded toward the bed and raised the volume of his voice. "See you later, Kairi! I'll eat double for you!"

"He'll eat double anyway. Don't worry. I'll fill in for you as babysitter and make sure he doesn't choke." Riku sounded sadder than his teasing words, making Sora feel like he couldn't win. It upset Riku to act like Kairi wasn't there, and it upset Riku to talk to her.  

"I'm only at risk of choking when someone makes eating a challenge because he can't go an hour without winning something." Sora punched Riku in the arm and was rewarded by a short laugh.

"Then we can just race to the meal, not race to eat it."

"Deal, but I don't even know the way to....Wait up!" 

Sora ran after the cheater that only waited to hear the word “deal” before taking off.  Kairi was wrong. Riku wasn't changing. They were just who they always were and would be. They'd show her when she woke up.

There was probably something deep to say about running along at Riku's heels, dependent on following him and never quite able to get ahead, but Sora just embraced the carefree rush of being able to stretch his legs and feel self-made wind against his face, sprinting just for fun. He leaned against Riku during their timeout on the lift between floors and made a show of breathing hard and whining until Riku put him in a headlock. 

"One hundred and twenty to four?" Riku proposed.

"Come on, it's at least ten on my side, even if you don't play fair."

"I play fair. You have terrible reflexes."

"You know where we are going."

"So do you. It's where the portal dropped us when we first arrived."

Sora was going to protest that there was no way he remembered all the twists and turns they'd made that afternoon, but he was too busy trying not to fall over as Riku dropped him, off and running again as soon as the lift stopped.

They were both tired and breathing hard for real by the time they skidded into the council room less than a second apart.

"One hundred and twenty to four." Sora groaned his defeat.

"It's good to see your spirits are still high," Maleficent greeted them, her expression indulgent. " Yuna told me your friend yet sleeps despite your best efforts."  She didn't extend any judgment or any coddling assurances. 

Riku grunted a nonverbal acknowledgement that she had heard correctly--or a denial that he'd sunk so quickly to having fun when they'd failed again to wake Kairi and Alice and Belle were injured--as he slid into one of the empty chairs at the table.

"She's not sleeping. I don't know what is going on, but she's not asleep. It looks like it, but it's...different." Sora corrected, too cheerful for the subject (It would be easy to sink into sadness again about failing to rouse Kairi, but he’d decided to be strong and try to stay on the difficult path of holding onto the good feelings from his race with Riku), as he took his own seat and looked out over the food laden platters that littered the table. Food for an army, catering to a variety of tastes from simple sandwiches to plates of flaky fish to pastries to a bowl of what looked like tiny technicolor eggs. Sora supposed that, when you were using magic, you could  afford to go overboard. "Thank you for all of this." He reached for a tower of rolls. He knew there was no reason to feel optimistic, and maybe soon he'd come back around to realizing he didn't yet know the "how" yet for bringing Kairi back, but he and Riku had agreed to save her, so right then it seemed inevitable that next time they wouldn't fail, and that maybe the first step to a clue on the "how" was focusing on the fact that they might be looking at a different type of spell than Riku and Maleficent kept saying it was. 

"Have you encountered a sleeping curse before?" Maleficent steepled her hands and leaned forward. She didn't seem to be interested in eating. 

"No," Sora admitted around a mouthful of bread. "Buf I jus'..." He let out a cough and Riku gamely smacked him on the back before starting to butter his own roll. Sora swallowed. "I just didn't feel like she was sleeping." Saying she felt like she just wasn't there made it seem like he thought she was dead, so he changed tactics so he wouldn't have to explain that part. "How did she get cursed anyway? It had to be the Heartless, right?" He wasn't planning his words until they were already out of his mouth. That was how it went sometimes; it was easier to make associations and untangle thoughts you didn't even know were in your head when you just let them come out of your mouth. It got him in trouble just as often as it helped, but it was guaranteed to have some effect. 

Riku's face said that this was a get in trouble moment. Sora hadn't forgotten how adament Riku was that no Heartless had gotten near Kairi, and he didn't want Riku to think he was trying to blame him again, but there was an important thought still trapped somewhere, and Sora didn't want to lose it, so he continued to talk, hoping to outpace the trouble. "They didn't take her heart. I've seen what happens when they do that." He'd never be able to forget. "But they had to have done something else." He was close to a point, but he felt it slipping away. "Maybe it is a sleeping curse, but a weird Heartless one and not one you stop with true love's kiss. Do Heartless cast magic different from other kinds of magic? Is there a way to nullify all Heartless spells?"

There. Maybe he came up with a good point after all. Maleficent looked impressed, and so did Riku for that matter. 

"There is no one method that invalidates all magic, not against curses already cast at least, but you may have given me a new avenue to research." Maleficent reached and plucked a single grape from a bunch balanced atop a pile of fruit, twirling it between her fingers before she bit into it. It was evidence more than tone or expression that hearing Sora theorize had energized her. 

So she does eat. 

Sora shot Riku a smile, which his friend returned with less strength, but returned nonetheless. "We can look for more information too, me and Riku. See if there's anything in the library. I'm going to be staying here." He thought he might as well say it instead of pretending he still hadn't made a decision. "So if there's something else you need, I can be there, but I want to look through the library for..." He debated only an instant about how much to reveal his hand before forging ahead with rapid words and enthusiasm. "Cid--he used to live here-- told me about how the former ruler of Hollow Bastion was a scientist and had reports written about the Heartless. So I want to try and find those. And they might have something about Heartless curses."

Maleficent did not try to hide her glee this time as she listened. "I wasn't expecting such a ready research assistant."

"I've never seen him so excited about books," Riku observed wryly, but his smile was growing too.

"It's important," Sora defended his overexcitement sheepishly. 

Important enough that you are forgetting about interrogating Maleficent. 

But everything he’d seen since walking through the portal from Thebes reinforced the idea that Maleficent had good intentions. If something bad was going to happen, it would have by then.

"I'm so glad you realize it is." Maleficent's proud look had a near maternal edge. "I don't truck with the type of magic Heartless may be able to cast, but I can give you hands-on lessons on what I know of magic that can manipulate and control darkness and the creatures that live in it."

The magic that had seemed so evil and terrifying when Aerith or Cid had spoken of it, now seemed exciting. Sora's eyes lit up. Not just his eyes in fact. The child radiated a glow of purity to begin with for those that could sense such things, yet, there he was, shining most brightly at the thought of offering himself to the dark. The most willing sacrifice that Maleficent barely had to lead. Hades was going to regret betting against her. 

"Can you teach me to make portals like you did Riku too?" Sora had all but forgotten about the food. Riku put some fish on his friend's plate and then took some for himself, working silently without interrupting the conversation. 

"Of course." 

Riku thought of an interruption worth making. "Maybe Alice can join lessons. She needs to learn how to defend herself better." 

Maleficent's face fell into a pitying mask. "I am not sure she has the potential, I'm afraid."

"We should try," Riku pressed. 

"We will," Sora answered the same time as Maleficent even though it wasn't his assurance to give.

"But if she doesn't have the potential for magic, and she can't pick up a sword, she will have to remain confined to the castle," Maleficent continued with the terms of her agreement. 

"She won't put up with that," Riku pointed out. "We saw that today."

"Then we will have to come up with a solution where she can remain safe that she cannot object to. I will not let those under my protection put themselves in danger I cannot trust they have a possibility of getting out of."

Sora once again saw how much Maleficent cared. 

Maleficent let the problem settle in and left it for Riku to continue to try and come up with a more viable solution. More bait could be sprinkled later. She'd promised  that the princesses would be subdued that day, and they were. She promised that Riku and Sora would be the ones to suggest the princesses of heart be put under her own version of the sleeping curse until they found a way to open the heart of Hollow Bastion, and that would come to pass too, in time. She hadn't told her allies they could hold her to both conditions being met at the same time.

"You were going to teach me how to track people with magic too," Sora restarted the conversation as he speared the cod that had mysteriously appeared on his plate. 

"She was going to demonstrate finding and watching people on other worlds for you," Riku cut in. "She hasn't even taught me how to scry yet." 

"I can teach you both, if you have the aptitude," Maleficent settled any jealousy or accusations of favoritism before they could arise. "But, yes, for now a demonstration."

"You needed blood to try and find my parents?" Sora was ready to cut his hand with a steak knife before Maleficent even had a chance to ponder if she should explore how far his budding blind willingness to be helpful to her extended. 

"Perhaps later if you can stand the delay." Maleficent waved a hand and the knife removed itself from Sora's grip and flew to rest a few place settings away. "Blood based magic does not typically mix with a polite meal."

Sora easily agreed. He didn't have the same feeling about his parents like he'd had about Riku and Kairi still being alive even when they hadn't been found on Traverse Town, but as long as his fears weren't confirmed he could pretend they were just that. "Later then. When I come back from meeting Leon." He realized that he probably should catch Maleficent up on what he'd decided with Riku. "I have to meet one of the friends I met on Traverse Town, and tell them I'm staying here. I need to tell them that ‘ here’ still exists actually, and what you're doing to keep the Heartless at bay." He opted not to tell Maleficent what Leon and the others thought about Hollow Bastion's destruction. "They're all from this planet."

"How wonderful! Too many of the residents here fell when the Heartless came in waves. It's good to hear when some are thriving. They're welcome for a visit of course," Maleficent offered magnanimously. "I knew at least one of your friends had called Hollow Bastion home even before you told me about your Cid. You know a healer?”" She hesitated over a way to describe the flower girl as if she did not know exactly who she was.

"Aerith," Sora supplied. "How did you know?"

"She’s how I found you." 

The statement raised a bigger question than it answered. She’d explained before that her tracking worked best when she had something that belonged to who she was trying to reach; Sora had just assumed Riku had been the key to tracking him.

Maleficent held up a finger to forestall Sora asking anything, scooted her chair back from the table, and crossed to a cabinet that just seemed to appear in a dark corner of the room Sora had been sure was empty before. She came back to the table with a selection of what looked like cheap baubles: a glowing red stone on a heavy chain, a flower shaped pendant hung on black cord, and a thick ring with a familiar looking lion engraved on it hanging from a thinner silver chain.  Sora couldn't stop himself from grabbing for the last even as Maleficent was still explaining. "Over the years I've collected many abandoned belongings of former residents of the town that used to lie outside the gates of this castle. These are only a few. Sometimes I still check to see if there are any survivors nearby that need my assistance. I usually don't interfere if they have moved on to a life off planet..." She paused as Sora grabbed for the ring a second time, and dangled the item in question closer to him. "Is this something you recognize?" 

"It's Griever," Sora explained, aware it wasn't really an explanation. "Erm, I think this belongs to one of my friends, or a friend of my friends. It has the same design as something I’ve seen him wear. Can you do whatever it is that you do to see the owner?"

"What luck!" 

Sora didn't notice the way Riku's eyes narrowed, and Riku didn't call out any suspicion that Maleficent's delighted surprise wasn't genuine.

Maleficent put the other trinkets aside and placed the lion ring on its chain on one of the empty plates from an unused place setting, which she then moved toward the center of the table, banishing serving platters into the void with her magic to make room.  Enchantments were spoken and green smoke flowed and then condensed into a ball above the plate. The fog cleared and several images flashed quickly. A gravestone on a grassy hill. A darkened cave where something with gold eyes, white horns, black feathers, and a red coat slept bunched into a ball in a corner. A tall man with dark hair seen only from the back looking out a floor to ceiling window at a field of stars. An arena where a man in black clashed swords with a shorter figure with his face half obscured with a scarf and a bat wing protruding from his back. 

The rest of it was confusing, but Sora knew one of the men in the arena. "That's Leon!" 

The picture was already fading by the time Sora called out. Maleficent frowned at the fog that had once again started to dance. "I'm sorry that was such a poor showing. It seems the ring can't decide its master."

"It's Leon's," Sora insisted excitedly. "It belonged to one of his parents." That was probably the grave. "And some other people I guess. I can bring it back to him." It might even put Leon in a better mood for listening to him about Maleficent.

"Please. Take it." Maleficent made a gesture, the fog left the table, and the ring ceased to thrum with magical energy.  She floated the ring and chain toward Sora."I think it will make a nice gesture." 

"Yeah, jewelry goes over better than flowers or chocolate if you're trying to soften the news you're moving out." Riku pushed what remained of his fish around on his plate, a slight furrow in his brow. Maleficent had some kind of ulterior motive with the ring. He could practically smell it on her. Besides, they'd seen Leon when they were watching Sora with Aerith. Riku hadn't remembered the lion necklace, but he could bet Maleficent had seen it and knew it matched one of the trinkets in her collection. She'd brought the ring out on purpose. He didn't like the idea that she thought she could manipulate Sora, or why she thought she needed to, why she'd revert to that type of behavior when everything had been progressing so well just with genuine offers of help, when, as far as he’d been able to tell, she’d been as legitimately charmed by Sora as he had been by her. But if he questioned her in front of Sora it could ruin the good will that had been built up. So it came down to what he thought her game would lead to. 

He speared the bite of fish he'd chased around the perimeter of the plate. Maybe he was thinking too much and she just wanted Leon to have his lost property.  She was connected enough that she probably knew of the rumors that she'd caused Hollow Bastion to fall and knew Leon would never accept a gift he thought came from her, even indirectly, so it had to be Sora's idea. It was a plausible conclusion. Maybe he could just convince himself that was it. 

"What time are you supposed to meet Leon again?" Riku asked, putting aside his inner dilemma as solved.

"Soon?" Sora wasn't sure how sunset matched up on another planet. "We kind of just saw he was busy, but we know he's at the arena thing."

"The coliseum," Riku supplied.

"Yeah, we could just meet him there." And get it over with was implied. Sora turned back to Maleficent with earnest eyes. "If we can be excused from the table?"

Maleficent wore a preening look like she had with Alice's formalities. "So polite. Of course, child." She opened a portal for them.

"We'll be right back."

***

A blinding beam of Grecian sunlight reflected off the tip of the massive, bandage wrapped sword in Cloud's hands as he raised it above his head, dazzling Leon's eyes, and he barely got his own blade up to block in time. Momentum and gravity were on the blonde man's side, and Leon felt the burn in his shoulder as sparks clashed between the blades. 

"You're slowing down," Cloud jeered. The strain of worry that ran under his bravado was something only someone who was used to listening closely for subtle currents in his voice would have been able to catch. The past three times Leon had pivoted out of the sword's path before the downswing.

 Cloud was doing the best he could to hold back and slow down without being obvious about it. They had to put on a good show after all. His hold was clumsy, his footwork sloppy. He'd set himself back to acting like when he was a stick-armed and untrained runt that could barely lift a sword, much less use it to its full effect, but he was still about to take the upper hand through endurance alone. 

Cloud had lost track of how long they'd danced around each other, trading blows enough to keep the crowd invested, neither willing to draw blood until forced, but both incapable of giving up and allowing the other to win, but it didn't matter in his current state, fueled by the darkness Hades had infused his body with when they signed their deal. He could last all night. Leon wouldn't, but Cloud hoped his old friend would take a knee before he was compelled to stop playing and leaving openings, and just put a sword through his stomach.

Leon leapt back and fired a ball of flame at Cloud's chest, or, rather, where Cloud's chest would have been if he wasn't already a golden streak warping past his friend and opponent to pop up behind him. The fire was supposed to be a-literal- smoke screen that he'd swing through with a sweeping cut, but the rush of air and static shock zap of magic as Cloud passed by warned him to reverse his spin and get ready to block another blow, this time angled low. "And you're not even breaking a sweat." 

This time Cloud was the one to break and dodge, leaping into the air, wing on his back, not near strong enough for flight, flapping all the same, giving the impression it aided him with extra altitude.  Leon slid forward and struck, turning his blade to hit with the flat and bruise not impale as Cloud came down to earth. "Interesting accessories too,” Leon jabbed pointedly.

Leon's blow hit, but Cloud didn't appear to feel the effect of the impact that should have had him staggering, not even knocked off course as he slammed his sword into the ground with unnatural strength, cracking the stone tile floor of the coliseum arena and sending shock waves out that Leon felt in the bones of his legs and up to his hips.  Cloud let himself appear dazed too, like the maneuver had backfired, a reasonable assumption since even the demigods of the planet they stood on sometimes miscalculated and found themselves dizzied by their own shows of strength. He left Leon an opening and was rewarded by a blow to the back of his head that made his off-balanced act legitimate. He grunted and swung wildly. "Whatever you’re thinking, I did what was necessary." 

"For what reason? What are you trying to accomplish here?" Leon hadn't been sure just what to expect on Thebes; he'd sent Sora away because of it. The current scenario hadn't made his list of possibilities however. He knew what Cloud had come to this place in search of, but he couldn't fathom a reason for him to be playing gladiator in the coliseum that he couldn't divulge and that wouldn't be equally served by Leon winning the tournament if some clue was on the line as a prize beyond the cup. There was no reason for Cloud not to involve all of their friends, or at least tell Aerith. Leon could understand not wanting to get her hopes up, but if Cloud had found any recent evidence about Zack’s disappearance, she should have been the first to know.

"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to." The Buster Sword left a blue, glowing trail as it swung left to right, then in a circular arc. “I’m not coming back without him, Leon.”

Leon blocked twice and parried, cutting a shallow rivet little deeper than a graze across Cloud's arm just above the golden gauntlet he wore with the very tip of Shear Trigger. It could have been a miniscule misjudging of distance or a carefully controlled warning that he was done playing. "Then Zack is back on Thebes?"

"Or under it." 

Cloud's blade carved a deep arc, responding to Leon’s breaching their unspoken agreement, but it would take Leon a moment to realize blossoming blood was staining his white shirt. 

"Under it?" Leon cared more for making sure he'd understood Cloud's meaning than for how deep the gash in his chest was. "You're chasing bones now?" Cloud's flippancy was what had half convinced Leon that he'd misunderstood, but he ended up mirroring the disrespect in his tone. 

"I'm doing what no one else can." Cloud's unnaturally blue eyes were looking into Leon's trying to impart something more than his words one second, and he was back behind him the next, kicking his legs out from under him.

The green halo of cure magic and the tinkling of bells surrounding Leon followed him to the ground, but so did Cloud's sword pointed at his neck.

 "Am I supposed to know what that means?" Leon did his best to look nonplussed at his predicament. He wasn't going to yield, and he knew Cloud wasn't going to take his head off--though he was vaguely aware of the goatman that was running the Games attempting to run out with a white towel on his behalf and being knocked back by the blue, spindle-fingered hand of a tall god with pointed teeth and gas fire hair. There were other issues more worth his worry or even fear. 

What trouble had Cloud gotten into and why was he so adamant in facing it alone? Why did he just get stronger the more they fought? And what in all the worlds was growing out of his shoulder?

"Yield." Cloud's mouth spat the word while his eyes pleaded. He pressed down with his blade enough that rolling away wasn't an option.

"Why didn't you warn me before you left for Thebes?" Leon was aware that, despite keeping the emotion out of his voice, he probably came off whining and sentimental, focusing on himself when Cloud hadn't told any of them and had stolen the only flight ready gummi-ship Cid had at the time, and putting why Cloud had left in the middle of the night and hadn't checked in for weeks ahead of asking what devil's deal he had made (a literal one, Leon would confirm his suspicion of later). 

"I knew you weren't strong enough for the journey. When it was your turn, you gave up."  So it seemed Cloud was going for his throat after all. 

A guttural noise emerged from Leon's throat as a glow of magic lit his skin, but before his spell was released, a mighty roar, the quake of something massive hitting the stones of the coliseum floor, and the crash of a pillar being toppled broke his focus. "You got to be kidding. Hades sent the fucking dog?" were the last words Leon heard before Cloud took advantage of the distraction and struck Leon's temple hard enough with the flat of his sword that he blacked out.

Leon dreamed of the day he'd sold Rinoa's clothes to the moogles in the first district despite Aerith telling him he'd regret it and Yuffie complaining that she should have first dibs. This time, when Cid was the only one to support his defense that extra munny was more useful than some rags just taking up space that didn't belong to anyone anymore, instead of half grunting his thanks and passing by to shut himself in the bedroom not to emerge for three more days like he had in real life, in the dream he slammed a fist as hard as he could into Cid's jaw only to find the bruise rise on his own face. The scene faded to Aerith waking him in the night over a month after he'd cleaned out the clothes and four months after the Heartless attack where he'd lost Rinoa to tell him she was so sorry but Rinoa was gone as if she had just died that day. He saw a day ten years before, yelling for help but being sure he'd only attract the notice of Heartless, leg pinned under a piece of rubble until Cloud and Raijin lifted it away. Raijin ran off, but Cloud let Leon lean on him and pulled him along, knowing it might cost him a spot on the only life boat off their dying planet.

Leon came back to the waking world to find himself propped up against one of the cauldrons (Braziers? Or was it only a brazier when you used it for cooking?) at the far end of the courtyard outside the coliseum arena. The metal was cooler against his back than it should have been, which meant the fire was out. There were loud voices coming from multiple directions, the loudest shouting that there would be no more Games today due to loose dog, but Hercules was puppy wrangling so the Phil Cup should not be delayed. Leon's head felt worse than the time he'd been goaded into a drinking contest with Cid, but he didn't seem to be any worse for the wear otherwise as he took a quick stock of his limbs.  There was still light enough to see, but the reddish-orange of the sky said he should be heading back to the ship to tell the kid they might be staying another day.

He wasn't letting Cloud off the hook that easily. 

Leon felt around beside him for Shear Trigger, and grabbed on to a yellow shoe instead. His eyes panned up to confirm the owner. "Sora." So he wouldn't need to make the trip back to the ship after all, and Shear Trigger was in the boy's hand, so that was another mystery solved.

"Where's Cloud?" It was a stupid question. Sora wouldn't even know Strife unless he'd been watching the fight in the arena--which Leon hoped he hadn't been witness to that embarrassment. But Leon was still coming back to himself and it was the question on the forefront of his mind. 

"Blonde guy with the gold claw? He's gone." It wasn't Sora who answered, but another boy, an inch or two taller, with long, unevenly layered silver hair, wearing a bright yellow shirt and blue waders that made him stick out as an off-worlder.  

"Who are you?" He regarded the stranger with a not insignificant measure of suspicion until Sora confirmed a best case scenario.

"This is Riku." Sora said his name like it was the answer to any problem plaguing the universe.

"Glad to see you're alive. I'm Leon." He truly was happy for Sora, but he also hoped they'd overlook that he couldn't summon the will to much sound it. 

He didn't ask about the other one, Kairi. He had enough sense to maintain a little tact. He was working on it at least. Sora seemed to be holding up okay, so there was a chance it was good news even though she wasn't standing there with them. Or it could be that his relief at finding this Riku balanced out finding out the girl hadn't made it. 

"Sora's told me a lot about you." The white haired kid gave a polite response. Nice, but Leon didn't care much about small talk at the moment.

"That's a lie," Sora snorted like it was an involuntary reflex to imply at every opportunity that winning him over was yet another task Leon had failed at.

Leon ignored the bratty aside in favor of a more important mission. “Where did the blonde guy go? What direction?”

“No idea,” Riku shrugged. There hadn’t really been a direction. The blonde stranger had already been stepping through a portal as they had been arriving. “He just left.” 

Leon waited to see if Sora had a better answer, but none came. He’d have to ask around once the courtyard calmed down a bit. He moved on to questioning his newest responsibility. "You aren't dressed for Thebes."

"I must have missed where everyone else was buying their black leather and fur trim." 

Riku was certainly Sora's friend. Leon had to give him the point. None of them were dressed for the planet. However, there was one key difference still. "Have you been living in the city since your island fell?" One would think he'd have picked up some local clothes after a few days.

"Nope," Riku answered immediately, but didn't elaborate. He turned to Sora and the two boys shared a hard to interpret look. Sora shook his head.

"Where then? How did you get here?" Leon started to stand and found gray spots invading his vision. He cast a cure spell and tried moving again, this time successfully. He held his hand out toward Sora for Shear Trigger, but the younger man didn't catch his signal.

"You're going to have to keep an open mind, and listen to everything we have to say, because...it's a lot ." Sora stepped back and tucked Shear Trigger behind his back as he spoke, which put what Leon had assumed was obliviousness a moment before in a new light.

"I'm listening," Leon assured both boys, nodding to Sora and then to Riku, though what he was really doing was tensing as he tried to run through possible scenarios in his mind so he'd be ready to control his reaction to whatever the story was.  “A lot” seemed on level with the rest of his afternoon, but a teenager's idea of a lot was not usually as dire.

"First, we have a gift for you." 

Leon hoped it was Shear Trigger, because he didn't want to demand that Sora give him his gunblade back and make a bigger deal out of it than there needed to be, but he was already close to that place. 

Sora stuck the blade in the ground as he fished in his pocket. Leon would have  said it came across as a test to see if he would dive for his gunblade if he thought that Sora had a scheming bone in his body. The kid was a bit of a brat, sure, but mind games weren't his style. Leon fought his instinct and held back all the same. 

Sora drew what first looked like little more than a silver string out of his pocket. It took shape as a woman's necklace; a simple chain but still a decorative one, too thin to hold materia or most other magical accessory, silver links that in no way set it apart from countless others. Even when Leon saw the ring-- thick and bulkily, traditionally masculine as the chain was delicate and a darker metal or a tarnished one, twisted and rough edges instead of smooth and reflecting the light --swaying slightly back and forth like it was meant to hypnotize as Sora held the chain up high, Leon refused to actually process what was in front of his eyes at first. 

 Griever. His most faithful companion since birth. The symbol he'd drawn on every one of his meager possessions, superstitious protection as well as marking what was his, the property of the boy with a family crest but no family. 

The ring and the chain came closer, swinging in his face--or near his chest at least--and Leon's face remained as blank as the lion head pendant around his neck (also Griever, though a more clever child might have decided that the lions on the two pieces of jewelry he'd been left with at the orphanage were brothers or a parent and child and named them differently instead of referring to them interchangeably) until Sora grabbed his hand with his own free one, turned it palm up and dropped his gift in it: solid, cool to the touch, and impossible to ignore.

 Impossible full stop. 

There was a copy of Griever the ring in a lockbox in a drawer back on Traverse Town, but this was the original, nose worn and fangs sanded off from where Leon used to rub his thumb along Griever's face as he talked to him when he was lonely.  Leon hadn't held this Griever since he'd slipped it on Rinoa's finger. He'd insisted she keep the original, and Cid would make a copy for him (He didn't have much of value or meaning and he wasn't good enough with words to express verbally just how much it meant that Rinoa had chosen him). The ring had fallen right back off. Rinoa hadn't wanted to risk resizing, so she'd worn it around her neck.

"It looks a lot like your pendant and the patch on your jacket...and the charm on your sword," Sora prompted. "Griever. I recognized him." He was waiting for some thanks. "I thought it might have belonged to you." And then he'd had it confirmed, but Sora thought that detail could be shared later.

There was still a long, dark brown hair caught and twisted in between chinks of the necklace chain. Leon couldn't stop staring at it.

"Where did you find this?" Leon's hand curled into a closed fist, hiding Griever from view. His voice was a pathetic, choked, quiet thing. Leon worried that he didn't sound commanding. Riku worried that Leon sounded like a wounded, cornered animal.

"It was found on Hollow Bastion," Sora said the words calmly and slowly, giving time for each one to sink in. Sora was proud of himself for his careful wording. He didn't say that he'd found it when he'd just recognized the lion. He didn't lie, but he also didn't immediately blurt Maleficent's name.  They had to get Leon used to one thing at a time, and they were already starting from an odd place. Leon's reaction to the ring was simultaneously, paradoxically both a lot smaller and a lot bigger than Sora had anticipated.  He'd expected more overt surprise or happiness and then curiosity. 

Leon's fist tightened. He felt a fire in his chest flare that matched the fires he'd seen as Flame Cores and Crimson Jazz jars burned down the south quarter of the town he'd  grown up in.   "What kind of game are you playing?" His voice didn't gain a decibel of volume, but it snapped taught, and the two boys facing him near flinched at the whip strike. The volume came after. "Answer me!" 

What did they have to gain by pretending they had been to Hollow Bastion?

Riku put a  warning hand on Sora's shoulder. He needed to be careful how he played this. For his own part, Riku knew just how quickly he could push Sora behind him and position himself as a shield. Leon's weapon was still sticking out of the ground instead of in his hand, but that didn't mean he was unarmed. 

Sora shook off Riku's hand and stepped in front of him instead. In his opinion, everyone was getting too tense without need. Leon was just confused. It was understandable. There was no need for Riku to be gripping his sword like he was and watching Leon so warily, and Leon needed to take a few deep breaths because he was looking purplish. 

 "There's no game." Sora spread his palms wide but kept his arms by his side, shoulders sunk down, trying to reverse the rigid, closed off and puffed up body language the others were expressing. "I know it's hard to believe. I shouldn't have just blurted it out like that." His eyes flicked toward Leon's gunblade, which was a mistake because then he saw Leon's gaze follow him and his hackles raise further.  Sora forced his eyes away. "I'm sorry."  Apologizing wasn't his favorite thing, even though he could see where he misstepped, but he wanted to defuse whatever friction he could. "But I can explain...Or Riku can explain better..."  

Sora cast a look back to his best friend, only to be refuted with a shake of the head. Riku was ready to summon the darkness to open a portal if Leon blinked wrong, but he didn't want the responsibility on him if the conversation went sideways. He now knew what game Maleficent was playing, and he was starting to calculate how to win. It was chicken. He just had to not strike first.

"Explain." Leon's two syllable demand was cold.

Riku nudged Sora in the back, halfway between a push and a pat of encouragement. "Just keep it simple." 

That was what Sora had been trying. He didn't know why. Nothing had been simple since the Heartless had come to Destiny Islands. 

"Your homeworld wasn't destroyed." Sora felt that had already been as good as said, but it stood repeating to try and help Leon process that he was hearing good news, not news to look furious about like he seemed to think. "Not completely."  A little tempering of expectations might help for down the road though.

Sora paused intentionally, leaving room for Leon to ask questions, but none came. Sora could have sworn he could hear Leon breathe (forcefully, like an animal about to charge) he was so stony silent. 

Riku felt bad for leaving Sora to hang on his own a few moments before, and chipped in to help his friend out. "That's where I've been staying. I'll show you, if you calm down."

Leon had rarely been accused of being overemotional. Not since much earlier days. He thought that he was plenty calm for the current situation. 

"You're lying. To my face. Trying to trick me by appealing to some pipe dream." He went back to quiet to show just how calm he was, though his eyes raged with the wrath of the lion he embodied. "Or you're just being cruel."

"I'm not," Sora protested, genuinely hurt that Leon might think so despite the differences they had.  That was all he had time to say before he was interrupted.

Leon raised his fist, silver chain sticking out both sides, and shook it. "This was last seen around the neck of someone that died in a Heartless attack on Traverse Town. Do you care to explain that? Where did you find it? Who gave it to you?" Leon was teetering on his limit. It was a wonder he hadn't fallen off the edge yet. "You can't threaten me." His fist reared back a hair, and for a second, he looked like he was going to throw the chain at Sora. Maybe for a second he considered the power it would have as a gesture to show he wasn't going to be haunted by the past. Leon called his own bluff and pocketed Rinoa's Griever necklace. 

"You said earlier that you were going to listen to everything we had to say and not to judge. Can you repeat that promise for me?" Sora pressed. It was a simple request, yet a bit too far, stalling instead of giving answers and pressing for promises that cast an ominous shade on what those answers could be.

Leon reached for Shear Trigger. He'd ask himself (Interrogate himself. Berate himself. Blame himself) over and over in the coming days and months why he did it. He wasn't thinking of using it. He was angry, but not that blinded to try and cut the keybearer--and a child keybearer at that.  It was an instinct born of a need to conquer the feeling of being put so helplessly off balance, coming from Cloud oozing darkness and spouting cryptic phrases about going to extremes to being handed what would seem like a murderer's taunt by what was supposed to be the champion of Light.  It was stress burning out all higher thinking and falling back on the one thing he knew he could do well. It was the need for the comfort and security to have a weapon in hand. 

 Riku, however, justifiably took it as aggression. He swept forward and around Sora, rotating their positions so Sora was behind him like his first instinct had been. Sparks flashed and Riku found the square hilt of Sora's keyblade in his left hand while he raised his sword with his right. 

Leon's shock translated itself as a wordless yell that came off more confrontational than he intended. He raised Shear Trigger, blocking a blow that wasn't coming with the blade braced diagonally across his face. 

Riku shifted his grip on both weapons, but didn't make the first move once it was clear Leon wasn't.

Leon lowered Shear Trigger, but not all the way.

"Stop!" Sora cried helplessly. He didn't understand how or why things were escalating so quickly. This wasn't what he wanted. He didn't know what was possessing Leon to act like he was. He'd promised to listen. Showing him the ring had been a mistake, but Sora had to think that he was missing something that explained why it warranted such a reaction. Leon had mentioned it belonged to someone who had died on Traverse Town, but that didn't make sense. It belonged to Leon and had been left on Hollow Bastion.  Leon had appeared in the scrying glass. There had been a grave too, but green hills and sunshine weren't hallmarks of Traverse Town. And apparently now Leon was saying that there had been multiple people running around with lions nearly identical to the one he'd talked about as so special.  "Can you both just back off?"

Neither Riku nor Leon did. They stayed at a standoff. but at least nobody was actually attacking anybody.

"If Griever isn't one of a kind, then the ring could belong to anybody," Sora reasoned.  Leon didn't even seem to be listening anymore.  "We're not lying.  Hollow Bastion is out there." He might as well be talking to a wall. Leon only had eyes for Riku and the keyblade now that it had appeared.

Sora changed his target. "Riku, open a portal." They could show Leon, or they could leave. Sora wasn't sure what he'd want to choose at that moment, but those were the two options he saw left.

"Not until I know he's not going to rush us." Riku twirled his sword, showing off for the need to burn a little excess nerves. The keyblade vanished from his hand and appeared in Sora's.

"Now. Please."

"A portal?" Even with a sword still pointed at him (Nevermind that Leon had brandished a weapon first and they were probably just scared) and everything that and the bizarre dip into psychological warfare said about the mindset that Sora and his friend were in, Leon still hoped for some tech he'd never seen, like the gummi ship warp gates Cid was working on. He'd let himself be soft with Cloud and that had given Cloud the opportunity to slip away. If he saw evidence that the white haired boy was dabbling in darkness, he couldn't repeat his mistake.

"Not like the Heartless pop up through," Sora assured Leon as if he could hear his thoughts, choice of description working against him. "Just magic. Like any other spell." He continued to explain in short, rushed sentences. "There's a tunnel you have to walk through. A short one though. Then you can be anywhere you want to be." He left out the part where you felt like your head was going to explode as you walked through the tunnel. He left out the darkness. Leon wasn't meriting full disclosure until all weapons were lowered.

"It's not like any other spell. It's seriously corrupting magic. If you go through a dark portal, the chances of you emerging the same are slim." Leon didn't hold himself solely responsible for how little Sora still understood. The keybearer hadn't been a very willing student, but Leon was still trying to give him a chance. 

"Your friend left through one." Riku's defiantly raised chin as he made the association dared Leon to continue to condemn them. 

Overlapping Riku's words of challenge, Sora persisted in vain to try and urge Leon toward keeping an open mind since softening the details hadn't worked. "Not that slim! I've done it twice today. You hold onto the Light. Good people have nothing to fear."  Incidentally, that seemed like another indication that Maleficent's intentions were good, that she and the pixies could use the portals on a regular basis.

The dual assault of further confirmation Cloud was messing with powers he had no business with and the keybearer casually admitting to willingly corrupting his soul as soon as Leon turned his eyes away set cracks deepening in the already fractured man. Sparks crackled up and down Shear Trigger. "Sora, step away from Riku. Get behind me."

"What? No!"  Sora wished he'd advanced in his lessons with Aerith enough to cast a barrier.

An avalanche of events unfolded quickly from there. A swirl of darkness flowed out of the center of Riku's unoccupied palm and coalesced into a ball above his hand. Leon stopped waiting on additional signs he should act and struck to cut him down. Sora air-stepped forward, instinct taking over where conscious skill had not yet reached, and blocked Leon's blow, the impact jarring his shoulder. Riku threw the dark ball out of his hand and it widened into a door of darkness. He didn't waste a second yelling that it was time to go; he just grabbed Sora around the waist and pulled him toward their exit. Leon surged forward again--to strike or to grab for the keybearer or to follow into the dark because it was the only way forward if the worlds' last hope was vanishing--and was rebuffed once more, this time by an only half intentional kick to the face as Sora was half dragged into the portal.

The dark window closed. Just like that, Riku and Sora were gone and Leon was, once again, alone.