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Kairi was tapping her foot on the grass, already growing impatient. Yes, time passed unconventionally here; yes, Merlin hadn’t given her an exact time to expect company; yes, she had probably only been waiting about fifteen minutes, but this was Riku! She hadn’t even seen him once since arriving here for training. All Merlin had told her and Axel was that they were being given a day off, and that their new clothes from the good fairies were being delivered by Riku and the king.
Axel had shrugged off her half-hearted offer to hang out, clearly recognizing that she wanted time with her friend. “My bed is calling my name and I have sleep to catch up on, anyway,” he had said with a yawn and a stretch before returning to his room. How he managed to waste so much of his free time sleeping, she would never understand. How could anyone, when there was so much to do?
The door that Merlin summoned as a portal between this space and the outside world was broad and ornate, made of a reflective metal that let light ripple and bounce off in a hypnotic way. Kairi was staring it down, as if maybe glaring at it would make him arrive quicker, when the handle finally turned. Riku pushed the door open with his shoulder, hands otherwise-occupied. He let it squeak shut behind him, and when he saw her waiting for him he broke out in a wide grin.
“Sorry it’s just me. Mickey stayed behind to talk to Merlin and Sora is already off again,” he said as he approached her, laden down with two suitcases. She knew her new clothes would be in one of them, and she was excited, but not nearly as excited as she was to see the boy carrying them.
“Dummy, as if ‘just you’ could ever be a disappointment,” Kairi scolded before leaping towards him with a shrieking laugh, not a care for the well-being of luggage he had to hastily drop to catch her. He spun her around to keep their balance and she smiled against his neck, delighting in the weightless feeling of being securely in his arms. When her toes touched ground again, he kept his hands on her waist, letting their reunion hug go on just a little longer. Kairi pulled back a little, her hands unwinding themselves from around his neck to grip his arms instead.
“I want to show you everything I’ve learned! Will you stay just a little while? Just one spar!” she begged, squeezing his biceps. Fighting nothing but Axel and floating furniture was going to stunt her growth; she wanted to see what she was capable of against a real opponent... even if she knew how likely Riku was to go easy on her.
“I’m yours for the whole afternoon.” Riku picked up the suitcases from where he had dropped them in the grass before following Kairi, who had already begun to lead him down to the sparring arena they had set up.
As they made their way through the cleared out path that wove between the trees, Kairi took the opportunity to watch Riku blink owlishly as he took in the surroundings. She remembered feeling the same; the vivid, dream-like colours and textures here were a little disorienting at first. He seemed to be adapting to it pretty quickly, though, and when he caught her looking at him he just tilted his head with a smile. The forest breeze rifled through his hair, shorter than she remembered it being the last time she saw him.
“How long has it been on the outside?” Kairi asked, reaching over to tug the smaller of the two suitcases from his grip. “I feel like I’ve been here for months, but Merlin keeps dodging the question.”
“I’m definitely not the one to ask. In the Realm of Darkness time passes a little... screwy,” Riku said, gesturing vaguely with his free hand. “For me, it’s only been a few days since I last saw you.”
Kairi bumped their hips together. “So then if we keep this up long enough does that mean I’ll be the oldest one?”
“I don’t think we’re going to measure it that way, princess,” Riku teased back, tousling her hair almost hard enough to push her over. She would have to get him back for that.
She picked up her pace so that she could step in front of him, walking backwards, and poked him square in the chest. “That’s guardian now, mister hot-shot keyblade master! Not just a princess,” she said, letting a bit of her old bratty tone soak into the words.
Instead of throwing more banter, a shocked pink crossed Riku’s cheeks. She grinned, scrunching her nose up at him before falling back to his side and swinging the suitcase playfully as they continued to the sparring grounds. If Kairi was lucky, nobody would ever tell him that he blushed like a ripe peach and risk making him self-conscious about it. And if she was really lucky, she would get to see it as often as she wanted for the rest of her life.
They eventually reached a clearing where Merlin had marked a wide circle out of chalk. The treeline had picked up their roots like ladies in long skirts and retreated back a dozen yards away from the white line, something they learned after enough smoldering casualties from Axel’s reliance on fire magic. There was nothing but dirt, which her knees had become painfully accustomed with.
“Ready to show off?” Riku smiled, setting the suitcase he was holding down on the ground a safe distance from the ring before summoning his keyblade. Unexpectedly, he didn’t summon the keyblade she had always seen him use. In a strange way, Riku seemed caught off guard by it, too, like he wasn't used to it. She raised an eyebrow at the very familiar token dangling from the end.
“That’s new... Not just a keychain, is it?” Kairi asked, curious, stepping forward to get a closer look at it once she had discarded her own suitcase. She reached out before stopping herself at the last second, confronted by the intimacy of the moment.
“No. Way to Dawn, um, broke. Had to get a whole new keyblade.” The toe of Riku’s boot dug into the dirt as he held it out for her to see, distracted and self-conscious.
She looked back and forth between the unfamiliar keyblade and the conflicted expression on his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, neither of us got hurt. Just didn’t know they could do that... don’t know what it means,” he swallowed hard and looked down at the new keyblade rather than meet her eyes.
Kairi laid her hand over his wrist, gently pushing it down until the blade rested at his side, before stretching up on her toes to cup his cheek. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean what you’re telling yourself it means,” she whispered, not letting him look away. His eyes were always so honest. “Now, why don’t you show me what you can do with it?”
Riku gave her a quiet, grateful smile, leaning into her hand briefly before stepping away from her. He tilted his head, gesturing to the sparring ring a few feet away, and claimed one side of it before waiting for her to join him.
Kairi stepped over to face him on the opposite edge of the ring, summoning her own keyblade and giving the air a few careless swats to burn up some nervous energy. She waited to see what Riku would do first, hoping to at least attempt to make some observations before running in swinging.
He drew back into his usual overhand stance, and even though she had teased him for it all these years, suddenly being on the receiving end of it with a very lethal and dangerous weapon in his hand nearly made her second guess all of the effort she had sunk into training here. She was going to have to face opponents a thousand times scarier than Riku, though, so she grit her teeth and pushed off on her heel, opening with a wide strike that he easily blocked, holding his keyblade against hers.
“Is that it?” he laughed, bearing down against her keyblade until her knees buckled. She pushed back with an irritated grunt, her hi-tops struggling to make purchase in the soil. That suitcase better have some practical boots in it, she thought. She pushed harder, giving it all she had, and to her delight it looked like he had to put some real effort into holding her back.
That was, until he let go and quickly stepped to the side, leaving her vulnerable to sprawl face-down in the dirt with all the momentum she had built up. Kairi whimpered, pride bruised more than the rest of her, and gave his shadow a sour look when it crossed into her line of view.
“Sorry! Sorry, it was just too easy,” he laughed, reaching a hand out to help her back to her feet.
“You ass,” she shot back, but took the proffered hand anyway with a giggle, dusting the debris off her dress.
“If someone is going to have to teach you not to be left open like that, I would rather it be me,” he said, and as light as his tone was she could feel the tense undercurrent rippling below the surface. They were facing danger soon. She had to be prepared. She had to prove to him that she was prepared.
“Again,” Kairi asked, moving back into position. “Please, I can do this.”
He nodded, and she attacked. Her next opening strike came from across like she was swinging a bat, aiming to hit him in the shoulder to disarm him. He parried again, but she could tell that the angle was an awkward one for him, and kept the knowledge on the back burner for later.
She barely managed to avoid the thunder spell he threw at her next, and it left the smoky taste of ozone in the back of her throat and a shiver than make her scalp tingle. The only other offensive spell she knew to expect from him was fire, so she proactively called up a water spell and held it defensively in front of her, ready to use it in a wide splash in his direction if he tried either. Riku raised an eyebrow and seemed to decide to humour her, drawing out a crackling orb of dark fire and pitching it at her like they were playing catch. She doused it in water at the midpoint between them, scowling. Now, that just wouldn’t do.
Magic had worked well for her so far, and managed to come somewhat-naturally, but physical hits were what she really wanted experience on. She went low, hoping to swipe Riku’s legs out from under him, but he was quicker on his feet and knew how to stay out of her way. He caught on, and they locked keyblades when they both tried to strike at the same time. They fell into a pattern that reminded her of the play-fights she used to sit out on – smacking weapons together only to back away and try it again from another angle, aiming to disarm the other person. Sometimes their aim faltered, and he called out an apology when a strike accidentally managed to connect with her elbow, smarting the nerves up and down her arm.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to really try,” she insisted, shaking the tingles off, “I need as close to the real deal as I can get.”
Riku seemed to agree with that, and she couldn’t help but regret it just a tiny bit, because he doubled-down on trying to knock her keyblade away. Every time she tried blocking him exposed a glaring weak spot, and several times she wound up flat on her ass, unable to stay upright.
“How come you block like Sora?” Riku asked when she failed to deflect another hit, struggling to get enough weight behind her block. “Stupid question,” he continued before rephrasing, “I know why you block like Sora. How come you’re stilltrying to block like Sora?”
“Because I’m trying to not get hit?” she replied, shrugging her shoulders and waving her keyblade out like it was obvious.
“No, I mean you don’t have the right centre of gravity for that to work. Have you not been taught any barrier spells? I think you’ll have better luck with that.” He put his hand on his hip, tilting his head as he analyzed her, and she couldn’t help but bristle at the scrutiny. She couldn’t take it personally, though, and the opportunity to learn something useful was worth any damage he did to her ego. He was never particularly mean to her, anyway.
“If it’ll keep Axel from singeing my hair then I am begging you to teach me,” she joked, and smiled when it got a chuckle out of him.
“Okay – come on and hit me, as hard as you can,” Riku told her, his free hand crooking in a cheeky come-here gesture as he fell into his ready stance again. She knew he’d block it anyway, so she went with strength over style, jumping up high and striking down from overhead with the teeth of her keyblade face-up. Thankfully, instead of cracking his skull open, it collided with the glossy, reflective barrier he threw out. Kairi landed in front of him, and he kept it up for her to examine. She rapped her knuckles against the interwoven hexagons, tilting her head to watch the iridescent purple of them catch in the warm sunlight.
“Pretty fancy,” she remarked as he dropped the barrier, the tiles of it sparking bright before disappearing.
“Pretty sturdy,” he clarified. “This should work a lot better than what you were trying to do.”
“You gonna show me how it works, then, or am I just supposed to guess?” Kairi asked, grinning when his response was to dismiss his keyblade with a smirk.
He stepped behind her. “It’s going to feel a little like Aero, but more... solid?” he tried to explain, reaching his arms around so that his hands rested over top of either of hers where they gripped the hilt of her keyblade.
“... Okay?” She gently bumped against his jaw, encouraging him to continue. Even if she didn’t understand right away, she would get it eventually, right?
He squeezed her hands gently, and she couldn’t help but imagine they looked absolutely ridiculous together, with his chin resting on the top of her head, fixing her stance like he was just teaching her to swing a baseball bat. With one firm step forward, the barrier flashed up around them, breaking when he lifted his foot again. He demonstrated a few times, until she got the hang of how it worked.
“So, is the sassy little stomp actually part of it, or is that just some Riku-flair?” she teased with an elbow digging into his ribs. He snickered behind her ear, the spot sensitive and ticklish and a shiver ran up her spine as she giggled back.
“It’s probably not necessary,” he admitted, “good for grounding, though. And don’t forget to extend it behind you, or you’ll just wind up with a shield. That’s useful sometimes, but this is safer.”
Kairi knew Riku was a good teacher, and that he took his role as the oldest of them seriously, but this was an unfamiliar situation for her to be in with him. She soaked up everything he gave her like a sponge, determined to put it to good use and show him she would be worth the effort.
He gave her shoulder a friendly pat as they separated, satisfied that she had seen enough to recreate the spell. He didn't say anything else to prepare her, but they shared a wordless nod before he struck. Kairi threw her arm in front of her, squeezing her eyes shut. “Please work,” she whispered, and when she opened her eyes the remains of her barrier were fading, having done their job and stopped his strike.
"Perfect!" he said, and she couldn't help but glow at the praise. She used his distraction to her advantage, whipping an aero at his feet to try tripping him as she went in again for his shoulder. Riku evaded it by the skin of his teeth, stumbling over the whirlwind that kicked dust up around them.
“You’re getting the hang of magic faster than any of us, but you’re still using your keyblade like it’s only a weapon,” Riku observed, and she barely managed to block the hit he punctuated it with.
She spun around as the barrier dissolved, careless of her blind spots, and tried to gather some force behind her next swing. “Well what else am I supposed to do with it?” she batted back incredulously, not at all surprised when he parried it, and then jumped back to put a fair amount of space between them.
“Once you stop treating it like it’s only a weapon and start treating it like a part of yourself instead it just... starts to behave better. Trust me,” he said, earnestly, and lowered his stance while he waited for her next move.
Something about it gave Kairi an idea, even though she was pretty sure it was a stupid one.
She did trust him, though, so she took a few more steps back before she dug her heels into the dusty ground, tilted her head a bit to the side, and focused on a patch of sunset gold sky above him. Relaxing the iron-tight grip she kept on her keyblade, she rolled her shoulders, slowly breathing out just once before throwing it as hard as she could.
Not at him, though that might have been what he expected as his barrier flashed up out of the corner of her eye to avoid what he assumed was a strike raid. Her keyblade avoided him entirely, hurtling through the air right where she intended it to go, a dozen feet above his head. She shut her eyes tight and reached, letting something she didn’t fully understand yet pull her body to it. The universe popped like a tight soap bubble around her, more disorienting than she had prepared for.
Kairi yelped, the sound drowned out by the sharp ringing in her ears, barely managing to catch the handle of Destiny’s Embrace before gravity got the better of her. Falling down felt more like falling up as her stomach flipped, and she braced herself for an inelegant landing.
Riku’s arms weren’t much softer than the ground, but they were much nicer to tumble into. When she opened her eyes their noses were inches apart and he was staring at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed like she was crazy, and she supposed that maybe she was. She tipped her head back and let a laugh burst out of her, loud and carefree, and kicked her feet back and forth. Her keyblade trilled as it dematerialized from her dangling arm.
“Hah! Just you wait, next time you visit I’ll have that down to an art form!” she cried, punching the air once before he set her down, stabilizing her with a steady hand on her shoulder while the world slowly stopped spinning.
“I believe you. You’re gonna beat Sora to that master title if you keep that up,” he laughed, squeezing once, and the confidence in his voice warmed Kairi to her core.
“Is that a challenge? I’ll give him a run for his munny,” she teased back, lifting both her arms up in a deep stretch that cracked an ache in her spine from the ungainly leap she’d attempted. Practice would just have to make perfect on that one, but she wasn’t looking forward to the bruises she was sure she’d be sporting once he was no longer there to catch her.
“You would have gotten me with that if it worked, so I say you win this one,” Riku said, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Oh, you go too easy on me,” she replied with a gentle shove. “You have a little more time, right? The sun doesn’t actually set here, but it’s nice to go and look at for a while at the end of the day.”
He nodded, and let her boss him around a little longer as she tugged him up the hill.
Kairi took the opportunity to quietly reflect, rather than continue the playful teasing that had coloured their day together. All of her training was getting her somewhere, and she was better than she was when she started, but she couldn’t help but worry that it still wouldn’t be enough. She knew that there was a light, a love, that curled inside and between the three of them like a ribbon, tying them together and keeping them connected. She didn’t want to rely on only that to stand by their side, though; she had to earn the right to fight beside them, lest she be used by their enemies again. Never again. She was putting her foot down. Everything Riku had just taught her would help with that.
The trees thinned as they approached the cliff she and Axel had made their lookout. Riku let out a low whistle at the panoramic view, and followed her to the outcroppings of stone that acted as their unofficial benches. They sat next to one another, only a few inches apart, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
Clearly, Riku had been taking the walk between here and the sparring area to reflect, too. Reaching his hand forward, he pulled out his keyblade again, as if to prove to himself that he still could. He held it out in front of himself, studying it intensely.
Kairi looked at the new keyblade again, admiring the way it caught and reflected the endless glow of this world’s sunset, and thought about what he told her earlier, about keyblades being an extension of self.
“It’s okay to change, Riku,” she said, hoping it was the right thing he needed to hear.
He bumped their shoulders together playfully as he dismissed his keyblade with a thoughtful sigh, “That means a lot, coming from you.” The side of his hand brushed against her own when he set it down between them, warm and solid in a way that overwhelmed her even after all the touches they’d shared that day.
She turned away and ran her hands through her hair, pulling them back with a grimace when she found how sweaty it was. “Eugh, look at me, I think I need to just give up and cut it. Axel keeps stealing my hair ties,” she groaned, wishing she had something to tie it up with.
“Do you want me to help? I’m happy to return the favour.” Riku offered, and when Kairi raised an eyebrow at him he grinned and made a snipping motion with two of his fingers.
“Are you planning to stay that long?” she asked.
“For you? I’ll make time,” he said, and the words settled warmly over her. Since the worlds first opened up to them, they hadn't had enough moments like this.
She reached up to ruffle her fingers through his hair, the strands shorter and tidier than they were the last time she had seen him. He hadn’t brought it up, so she hadn’t asked yet, despite her curiosity. “Looks like you managed to make time for yourself for once,” she gently teased. The first cut, the one she had helped him with, had been pretty rough, but she thought this one was more flattering.
“Yeah, that... I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know how to explain anything that happened today, honestly,” he replied, fidgeting a little as he smoothed the back down in a self-conscious way.
He was quiet for a moment, clearly chewing on a thought, serious enough that she knew not to push him until he was ready. He was looking out at the sun, where it rested half-buried in the horizon, but she was looking at him, waiting.
“Hey, Kairi? Naminé is with you, right?” He finally asked, nervously drumming his fingers on his leg as he glanced over at her.
“Oh, do you need to talk to her? I don’t know... how.” Now was Kairi’s turn to not know how to explain things. Naminé was a constant warmth inside her, but she wasn't... conscious. Kairi ached to talk to her, to ask her questions, to get to know her properly, but instead all she had was a box of fuzzy memories and confusing feelings and a heavy sense of grief, and she knew none of it belonged to her — things that weren’t fair for her to claim as her own.
“No,” he started, before he awkwardly corrected himself in a rush, “I mean, not that I don’t want to talk to her, that’s just not what I was getting at. She’s not... present?”
Kairi shook her head, looking down at her lap, “No, not that easily. It’s like she’s sleeping. She’s just... feelings. Ones that aren’t mine, but are here with me anyway. I'm keeping her safe.”
Riku, unexpectedly, reached out for her hand, laying his over top of hers with a soft squeeze. Before she could react, he had pulled it back like he’d been burned. He flexed his fingers out before clenching them in a fist and jamming them under his leg, as if to stop himself from doing it again.
“What do you know about Castle Oblivion, then?” he asked, looking down at her hands instead of her face, his expression too difficult for her to read.
She screwed her eyes shut and tried to gently skim through memories that weren’t for her to see, mentally apologizing for the intrusion.
“That she hated it there. And I can almost picture what it looked like, the white walls. The emptiness. There were other people... or, other Nobodies, I suppose, and then Sora, and...” she trailed off, eyes snapping open.
“And a replica,” Riku continued, filling in for her where she didn’t have the word, “of, um, me.” She tilted her head, waiting for him to explain more, and he shrugged.
“I defeated it, but we found each other in the Realm of Darkness. Helped me out when Mickey and I got into some trouble. We’re kind of... sharing, right now. A body. But not like you and Naminé,” he clarified, and she wondered just what he meant by that before he awkwardly cleared his throat, “like I said, weird day. Sorry.”
Kairi looked away, gaze unfocusing on the tree line as she accidentally stepped into a snapshot of a memory, a motionless and broken body on a cold white floor, layered in uncanny familiarity that made her skin prickle. “Weird day...” she echoed. Still didn’t actually explain the haircut.
“This feels familiar,” Riku said to change the topic, a cheerfulness to his voice that contrasted with her memories of the evenings they spent after working on the raft.
“I always wondered what more you were seeing when we would watch the sunset,” she whispered, reluctant to break the moment, “I could tell you were aching to leave.”
Riku’s response was a pensive hum, and when she glanced over his eyes were closed, like he was fitting himself back in the memory like a well-loved jacket.
“You know, if you think about it, our spot didn’t really even face ‘outward,’ like where the raft was? The main island was right there,” he breathed out a laugh, giving his head a small shake. “I saw the horizon like a challenge, but... it never occurred to me until after all this time that I was always looking back towards home.”
Kairi scooched closer until they were pressed together hip-to-hip, resting her head on his shoulder and letting her little finger overlap with his like a promise. Riku would leave her when the king called him back, and she would have to resume her training, and then soon they would all be facing things she couldn’t even let herself start imagining yet. She closed her eyes, letting the breeze kiss her cheeks. No matter what they did, no matter what happened to them, home would still be waiting for them after it all.
She knew they would always be able to go back there.