Chapter Text
Sora, Donald, and Goofy raced through up the spiral staircase, panting as they climbed. So. Many. Stairs. What was that Riku kept muttering about stairs and the Geneva Convention, whatever that was? Because Sora was starting to feel like he was right. Whose idea was it to make giant staircases like this, huh?
Cresting the stairs, Sora stopped in his tracks at the sight of Kairi - his sister - just lying there on the ground. Motionless. “Kairi!!” he shouted, racing over to her prone form. She had to be okay, she had to be! “Kairi! Kairi! Open your eyes!” Sora begged, shaking his sister.
“It’s no use.” Two voices spoke at the same time, one of which Sora clearly recognized as Riku’s. Sora turned around, glancing all over for any sign of his brother, before finally spotting him sitting on the piping above the Keyhole. He had the wrong keyblade, which was weird, but that was definitely Riku, down to the protruding ribs and disheveled hair. Sora didn’t see anyone else though, so what was up with the other voice? “That girl has lost her heart. She cannot wake up.”
“Gir- who are you?! And what did you do with Riku?!” Sora demanded. There was no way Riku would refer to their sister so dismissively. This was a fake! One who couldn’t even get the voice right either!
“The Keyhole cannot be completed so long as the last Princess of Heart still sleeps.” The Riku imposter continued, still speaking with what must be his voice intermixed with Riku’s. He jumped down from the piping above the weird keyhole thing where he’d been sitting to gently float down to the ground.
“A princess…Maleficent called Kairi that too, when Destiny Islands fell.” Sora said, before scowling at the imposter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not letting anyone hurt either of my siblings anymore! Now where. Is. Riku?!”
“He sleeps, much like she does.” the Riku imposter said, and what? “His heart slumbers in darkness, whereas hers…slumbers in yours.” The imposter whipped his keyblade out to point at Sora, and a strange, crackling pain erupted in his heart in time with a bloom of pale red light above it. Sora fell to his knees with a cry of pain, one hand supporting himself on the ground while the other clutched at his heart.
“Sora?!” Donald shouted.
“What’s- what was that?!” Sora demanded, looking up at the imposter with a snarl on his face.
“Don’t you see? Your sister’s heart is responding to the keyblade. It has been there all along.” the Riku imposter told him. Sora just stared blankly in response, trying to process what it was he’d just heard.
“Kairi’s…inside me?” Sora murmured, before shaking his head. “And just who are you, huh? You’ve told me where Kairi is, now what about Riku?”
“I am Ansem, Seeker of Darkness.” the Riku imposter - who was Ansem apparently, great - said. “As for Riku, I told you before. His heart slumbers in darkness now. It will not wake, not until I allow it.”
“You- then where is he?!” Sora demanded, the Kingdom Key answering his call as he got to his feet. Donald and Goofy were quick to bring out their own weapons behind him, ready for a fight. Ansem gave them all a condescending look, the expression jarring to see on his brother’s face.
“Right here.” he said dryly, and what?
“What do you mean, right here? Where is he? What did you do with him?!” Sora growled, not in the mood to play games.
“Oh for- must I spell it out for you, you dim-witted boy? What the boy sees in you, I have no idea…” Ansem groaned, before jabbing a thumb at his chest. “He is right here! This is his body!”
Sora froze. His…body…
“Get out of my brother!!” Sora roared, brandishing the Kingdom Key threateningly. “That’s not yours! It’s his!” That was Riku’s body, and Sora wasn’t going to let this loser take it from him. Not when it was the one thing given to his brother when he'd died, so that he could live again! “I won’t let you take it from him!”
“Yeah! Give it back, or we’ll make you!” Donald growled.
Ansem merely raised an eyebrow - Riku’s eyebrow. “Oh? And hurt your brother in the process?” Sora hesitated. Ansem was in Riku’s body, so, so…how was he supposed to get him out without hurting Riku?! “I see you understand. Finally. Now,” Ansem said, pointing his keyblade at Sora, “I shall release you, princess. You will complete the Keyhole with your power, open the door, and lead me into everlasting darkness!”
“Shove off!” Sora snarled. “There’s no way I’m letting you take Kairi’s heart!” Ansem sneered, raising his keyblade, before pausing.
“Defeating you in this form would be…distasteful, at best. No, you will be fighting me.” he decided, and before Sora could figure out what on this green earth Ansem was talking about darkness burst out from around him, transforming Riku’s body into that of an adult man. One with darker skin than Sora or Riku, long silver hair, and amber eyes, who wore a long black jacket unbuttoned at the front, held closed by a clasp in the shape of the emblem all artificial Heartless were tattooed with.
“Riku!” Sora shouted - what had this guy just done to him?!
“He’s fine. It is merely a spell to change his form to mine, he’ll go back to normal once I leave.” Ansem said, Riku's voice no longer intertwined with his as he waved a gloved hand dismissively, before giving Sora a wry look. “Or would you like the last thing you see to be your brother’s face as I finish you off?”
Sora just gritted his teeth. Where did this guy get off, messing with Riku’s body however he liked?! Even if he had to admit it would be easier to bash this guy’s face in now that it was his own and not his brother’s.
“Sorry Riku, but you’re gonna have to deal with a few bruises.” Sora hissed apologetically, before leveling the Kingdom Key at Ansem. “Bring it on, loser! None of us are letting you anywhere near Kairi’s heart!”
~*~
Ansem staggered back, a look of abject disbelief on his face for a fraction of a second before it disappeared.
“You do realize your sister will never wake up unless her heart leaves yours, correct?” the man asked. Then out of nowhere he tossed his own keyblade towards Sora, the weapon clattering on the ground in front of him.
“Wha…?” Sora gaped, just as stunned as Goofy and Donald were at Ansem’s abrupt decision to disarm himself.
“Not only that, but you cannot close a Keyhole that is incomplete.” Ansem continued, before smirking at Sora. “So, you must choose. Either let the Heartless flood into the worlds from an incomplete Keyhole…or finish it yourself.”
“What are you talking-?” Donald started, only to cut himself off as Sora picked up Ansem’s discarded keyblade, flipping the blade around so that it pointed at his own heart. “Waaak?!”
“Sora! What are ya doin’?!” Goofy yelped, a look of horror on his face at the action. Sora turned his head to glare at Ansem, who was looking at him with an expression of sadistic amusement, that Sora was willingly doing what he’d just been fighting Ansem to stop from doing to him.
“Donald, Goofy…sorry.” Sora said, giving his friends a bittersweet smile. “And, Riku most of all. I guess I can’t keep my promise.”
“I just…what if, after I fall asleep and open my eyes again, everyone and everything I love has disappeared? I know it’s not true, I know I’m not dying again, I just, I can’t get it out of my mind. I can’t.”
“Then I’ll make you a promise! When you wake up in the morning, I’ll still be here! I’ll never disappear on you, not ever!”
“Sorry, Riku. Looks like Kairi will be the only one left to remember.” Sora murmured, before stabbing the keyblade into his own heart. He felt the weapon dissolve under his hands, the hearts it had been made of flying back to their own bodies. And, he felt Kairi’s heart, flying out from his own, returning to where her body lay behind him.
And then…he was falling. Falling, falling, down into the dark. There was only darkness; not a shred of light to be seen. Was this what Riku had felt, when he died? This endless abyss, with no light to be found? He didn’t know. But, he guessed…soon he would.