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The sky over Twilight Town burned a deep, bruised orange that cut through the blue in a magnificent burst of color. I should have felt relieved to be here, just sitting on the edge where Roxas used to hang out with his friends. I was thankful I'd finally set him free, but the road ahead still felt completely ruined. Instead of the sanctuary this place was supposed to be, it felt like a prison. The sun—which used to be an anchor that made me feel safe—burned against my face, making me want to hide from the heat emanating from it.
I guess that made sense. Roxas was no longer in my heart. The places that comforted him didn't have a hold on me anymore. But then, where was I supposed to go? I bit my lip, hard enough that the faint, metallic taste of copper ran over my tongue. Destiny Islands was out of reach. Traverse Town had vanished when we woke the sleeping worlds. I wanted to see Cloud, Leon, Aerith, and Yuffie, but they were off fighting a completely different part of this war.
I had no place left to call a safety zone. I had my friends, sure, but I could never let them see me crumbling like this. I was the only one who had managed to keep a brave face through all of this. What would happen to them if I faltered now?
I clenched my fist, digging my nails into my palm until it stung, unable to stop the sudden wave of bitterness choking my throat. I was supposed to have a normal life. It had been snatched away without a second thought, all because of him. Xehanort. The man with those horrible, glowing amber eyes had destroyed countless lives, and no matter how hard I tried to find the good in everyone, he was the one exception. He'd proven it a thousand times over. To him, people were just collateral damage. He would steal your body, your mind, your whole spirit just to reach Kingdom Hearts and wipe out the worlds.
The thought of his malice made my stomach twist into knots so bad I felt sick. I couldn't let it happen. Not after the way he almost dragged me down into the abyss in the dream world. A sharp shiver ran up my spine, freezing me in place. I had never felt darkness like that before—it was heavy, suffocating, and terrifyingly warm. Experiencing it yourself changes things. It made me realize, for the first time, why it had been so easy for Riku to fall back then. The power didn't just hurt. It was intoxicating.
““There you are.” His voice cut through the silence like a knife, startling me out of my downward spiral. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
His shadow fell over me, completely blocking out the glare and offering immediate solace from the feverish heat. I let out a ragged breath of relief, so grateful that he had shown up alone. Just having him stand there calmed my frantic heart, like finding a hidden oasis in the middle of the Agrabah desert.
Before he could see me shaking, I forced my trademark smile to carve across my face, making sure to crinkle the corners of my eyes just right. "Hey," I said, trying to sound casual. “I just needed to get away for a minute, y’know?”
He nodded solemnly, his movements fluid as he dropped down to sit right next to me on the ledge. He didn't close the gap entirely, leaving just enough space between us that we weren't quite touching. Still, I could feel the warmth radiating off him, a quiet hum of electricity that settled the static in my chest in ways I could never fully explain. I was thankful for him. He was always just there at my absolute worst. The years of shared memories, mistakes, and rivalry had bonded us together—closer than any Paopu Fruit legend ever could.
He glanced my way, and I felt a physical shift the second his eyes scanned over my face. For just a split second, a flash of worry twisted his usual effortless façade. Then it vanished, leaving behind a dark, heavy shadow that clouded his green eyes.
Internally, I started frantically rummaging through the corners of my mind, desperate to find a way to convince him I was okay. Or at least that I would be. I had to be.
“You know, Sora,” he started, his voice smooth—like the stones at the bottom of the island springs. “I don’t need you to shield me from your emotions.”
“What do you mean?” The words tumbled out way too fast. I could tell by the messy way they flailed in the silence that followed.
“I’ve known you all our lives. Even now, your tells are exactly the same.” There was a sudden grit to his tone. It wasn't mean or pointed, but it scratched at me anyway, making my insides turn.
I swallowed hard. Now wasn’t the time to succumb to the anxiety that had hunted me from the very start. Riku's reminder of our childhood made my chest ache; the two years that had passed since Destiny Islands fell to the darkness felt more like twenty. It was hard to fathom that so little time had actually gone by since I'd been ripped from the comfort of my home and thrown into worlds I never could have imagined.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. I prayed that even if he didn’t believe me, he’d just let it drop.
“You do.” His voice firmed up, clear and unyielding. He wasn't going to back down until I talked about the storm brewing inside me—a tsunami ready to burst and drag everything down with it.
Internally, I groaned. I was so unwilling to have this conversation. I just needed a single moment to simply be—to just breathe through all the anxiety coursing through my veins. I wished he would just allow me that. Just a minute to process the twisting spiral of events that had brought us to this ledge. All the fucked-up sacrifices we'd been forced to make just to save an entire universe.
“I do,” I conceded softly. I gave in mostly because I just couldn't handle him leaving; I needed his presence right now. He acted like a beacon in the eye of the storm raging within me, guiding me through the suffocating ups and downs.
“Talk about it then.”
The bluntness of his words almost amused me. I’d always looked up to him for that—for how easily it came to him to just be honest about what he was thinking and feeling.
“I don’t know how.”
Saying it out loud felt heavy. That was a truth I had been running from for so long now that running had become second nature. How was the goofy, unserious kid from the islands supposed to open up about something this deep? Especially when I hadn't even had the chance to understand what was happening inside my own chest. It was an internal turmoil I couldn't even find the words to describe. A brutal series of events that should never happen to anyone—let alone a sixteen-year-old kid.
He paused for a moment. I could see some kind of decision churning behind his green eyes—the exact color of the palm trees back home. So many things about Riku brought memories of our island rushing back to me. Every time I looked at him, I longed for the absolute simplicity of the wooden sword fights we used to have on the beach.
He shifted closer to me, completely breaking the small buffer of space he’d left between us. He let his arm press firmly against mine. It was the most grounding, calming sensation I could have asked for in this moment. The truth hit me all at once: I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the entire ocean of worlds, and I didn't want to be with anyone else but him.
“Yeah. The whole situation is pretty fucked up.” His words came out in almost a whisper. It wasn’t often he let his voice soften like that.
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “It really is. How the hell are we supposed to do this?”
“Beats me.” The familiar, steady power behind his voice returned, and it made me feel a little braver just hearing it. “I feel like ever since this whole thing started, we just keep having to trudge through the mud.”
I nodded, staring down at my shoes. “Yeah. Even when I was asleep in that pod and my memories were completely gone... I was still dreaming about Roxas. I was still fighting to prove that he was a real person, too. It feels like I've never actually stopped fighting.”
I leaned into him, finally allowing myself to be engulfed by the comfort he offered. I felt him stiffen in surprise for a fleeting moment, but then he melted into the contact, anchoring his weight against mine.
“Because you haven’t.” he murmured.
His words were simple, but they struck me with a sudden, bruising clarity. I really had never allowed myself a single moment of rest. Even when I woke up from that pod, I’d jumped straight into fighting the next big threat, never pausing to catch my breath. It was excruciatingly exhausting. The endless war had been grinding me down bit by bit, until I was nothing but a weak impersonation of the bright, happy boy who used to run the beaches with his friends. It had happened so slowly that I hadn’t even noticed the decline. I wondered if anyone else had taken the time to stop and see that I was slowly falling apart under the pressure.
“Sora, you know this battle is optional, right?” His voice dropped back down to a hushed echo, sounding as though he’d barely managed to muster the strength to say it out loud. “I mean... this isn’t your war. You’re just a kid. You can walk away.”
I froze, tensing against his shoulder, my breath hitched in my chest at the words that had left his mouth. Ever since Riku had returned to the light, he’d been fighting fiercely to protect the balance of the worlds. He knew just as well as I did that backing out now, right before the final clash, wasn’t a real option. We had been chosen by the Keyblade. We were brought here by the forces of light to protect the worlds from the total destruction Xehanort threatened to rain down on them.
“It’s not though,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Not really.” The stakes were just too high for me to back out now. “I could walk away, Riku, but it wouldn’t feel right. I’ve dedicated too much of myself to this. I need to see it through. I can’t just run away from it—not this late.”
The look on his face told me everything I needed to know. He was genuinely praying I would say yes. He was begging me to walk away. But I couldn’t. We weren’t those reckless kids on the beach anymore, and he couldn’t keep throwing himself in front of me to shield me from every single oncoming danger.
“You’re right,” he murmured. His voice was doused in the exact flavor of worry I knew was flooding his brain.
I stared down at my lap, wishing with everything I had that I actually possessed the strength to walk away. I wished I could take that heavy burden off his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” the words slipped out of me before I could stop them.
I wasn’t actually sorry for choosing to fight. I was just sorry because I knew my choice was breaking his heart.
“Oh, Sora.” Riku forced his cool, unshakeable façade back into place. The words came out in his normal, steady tone, though it completely lacked the backbone of his usual confidence. “I just wish you’d stop worrying about everyone else for one second and focus on yourself. You keep running around the worlds, without a single care for what happens to you.”
His hand clumsily found its way to my shoulder, sending an unexpected shock right through my chest. I was in awe of how completely vulnerable he was being with me. This was a side of him he rarely let anyone see.
My gaze met his, and his jade-green eyes pierced right through me. It felt like he was desperately trying to memorize my features—as if he believed that if he looked away or let go for even a second, I would dissolve into the fiery-orange hues cutting through the Twilight Town sky.
I wished he knew how agonizingly hard it was for me not to just run away with him right now.
“I care what happens to me,” I managed to choke out. The intense look on his face was making it impossible to think straight, wrapping my brain in a fog that left a numbing sensation coating my mouth. “I just care about what happens to everyone else—to you—more.”
I watched about twenty different emotions flash across his face, all of them laced with an undertone of deep confusion. Maybe he'd never fully understand the lengths I would go to for the people I held dearest.
We sat in a long, stretching silence. The distant hum of the clock tower train faded into the background as the blazing heat of the afternoon finally began to cool. I could see in his expression that he was still trying to find something to say, but the words kept escaping him. It was the exact same way the words always escaped me, every single time I looked too deeply into his eyes, or whenever his touch lingered just a second too long.
He stood up just as fluidly as he had sat down, turning back to offer me a hand.
“C’mon,” he said shortly. “Let’s get back to the inn.”
I stared at his outstretched palm, completely paralyzed by my own indecision. I must have hesitated a second too long, because before I could make up my mind, Riku reached down and gripped my hand tightly. With a sudden, firm yank, he pulled me upward.
My feet glided off the stone ledge, but I lost my footing, clumsily stumbling straight forward. Before I could catch myself, my face slammed right into his chest. His arms instinctively wrapped around my waist to steady me, locking me against him.
Damn. I forgot how good it felt to be held by Riku.
Blood rushed to my cheeks instantly. Panic spiking, I scrambled backward, breaking the hold as fast as I could. I was absolutely mortified—not just by my own clumsiness, but by the dangerous thought that had slipped through my head before I could stop it.
I suddenly found myself longing for those quiet nights on the islands. The nights we’d spend curled up together by the campfire, talking until dawn about traveling to other worlds. That dream was our reality now. But this wasn't what I had pictured at all. Instead of exploring, I was fighting a war that was never supposed to have anything to do with me—until it did.
He stared at me in shocked silence, looking exactly like a child whose balloon had just flown away—the thing he wanted most was right there, but completely out of reach. I looked down at my boots. For the first time in my life, I realized his feelings mirrored mine perfectly. I'd had absolutely no idea he felt the same way about me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words escaping my lips before I could choke them back. I could feel the sharp sting of tears welling up in my eyes. The absolute last thing I wanted to do in this world was hurt him, and yet here I was, doing exactly that.
Before I could spiral any further, Riku stepped back into my space. In a flash, his fingers were under my chin, gently but firmly tilting my face up to force me to look at him.
When our gazes locked, his face was only inches from mine. My stomach twisted into frantic knots, and my heart hammered so wildly against my ribs I was sure he could hear it.
“Stop apologizing,” he ordered, his voice short and completely breathless.
I bit my bottom lip to suppress another automatic apology. The moment I did, I saw his eyes drop, his gaze anchoring right on my mouth. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but heaven knew I didn’t possess the courage to cross that line. Instead, I just watched him, the agonizing feeling of longing tearing through me like a tidal wave.
“Coward,” he murmured, a faint, familiar mockery tracing his voice.
Then, he closed the remaining distance, pressing his lips firmly against mine.
I knew in that exact second that there was absolutely no one else in the worlds I would rather be with. A strange, addictive electricity buzzed through my veins as I finally pressed my lips back against his. They moved together in a synchronous dance, causing the flush on my cheeks to deepen and send a wave of pure heat spreading all the way down to my fingertips.
My arms instinctively found their way around his lanky frame, pulling him flush against me as if I could pull him inside my own skin.
But then, he broke the kiss.
The sudden separation left me with an immediate, terrifying feeling of emptiness—a vacuum that threatened to drag me straight down into a dark void. It was scary how fast it hit me. It was like his mouth had been the exact oxygen I needed just to keep moving, and without it, I couldn't breathe.
“Fuck.”
He broke the silence in a crude, blunt way that only he could truly pull off.
“Agreed,” I managed to squeak out, my entire body still buzzing from the overwhelming electricity his lips had left behind.
“Sora, whatever you do... please just take care of yourself in this fight.” He reached out, his hand gripping the back of my neck to keep me anchored. His voice trembled in a way I had never heard from him before, raw and completely unguarded. “I don't know what I would do if something happened to you.”
I didn’t blame him for being scared. I was absolutely terrified of what was to come, too.
“Ditto,” I whispered.
The words completely evaded me, leaving me feeling totally inept in his presence. But looking up at him, with his hand warm against my neck and our breathing finally slowing down together, I knew it was enough. The noise in my head was gone. For tonight, the war didn't exist. There was nowhere else in the worlds I'd rather be.