Seek the Stars

III

Sora paced the tree house since Riku had kicked him out of the Secret Place. Sora knew Riku was trying to get the door there to open, but Sora knew it wasn’t going to. Not without Kairi. The brunette hadn’t told anyone that he had been able to call his Keyblade to his hand a few months ago, figuring maybe he’d always be able to, that maybe he wasn’t needed anymore. But he’d been so wrong. So horribly wrong. And now Kairi was gone, taken by a Nobody. And Riku was trying to access the Dark within himself again to open a Door so they could go after her.

It wasn’t fair.

The Keyblade took away two years of his life for an adventure he’d nearly fucked up and drove him to the brink of despair and back hunting down his lost friends.

“I knew I’d find you up here.” Came Riku’s deceptively quiet tenor voice. Sora turned to look at the taller boy and wondered if Riku knew what Sora was thinking. When Riku didn’t move, Sora quickly crossed the floor and grabbed the silver in a tight hold, forcing a kiss out of him.

“I hate being the hero.” Sora moaned. “I just want to be normal.”

“Unfortunately, the ‘normal’ train left four years ago.” Riku replied, smiling into Sora’s wild brown hair. “We got two years of rest. Maybe we’re just not mean for a quiet life.”

“Maybe.”

“I can summon Way to Dawn, Sora. I know you can call the Kingdom Key. Face it – we’re obligatory heroes.”

Sora looked up into the aquamarine eyes of his boyfriend and heaved a sigh. “Fine. But if I die, I’m blaming you.”

Riku smirked. “Who says you’re going to die?”

“Did you get the Door open or not?”

Riku decided not to celebrate the minor victory. “No. I did, however, open a direct portal to Traverse Town, but I couldn’t hold it for long.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

Riku heaved a sigh. “Wasn’t what I said.”

Sora frowned. “I’m still not leaving you behind.”

“You don’t need to. Not that I’d let you go without me, anyway. What’s the worst someone could do to Kairi?”

Sora didn’t answer that. Riku heaved a sigh and led Sora out of the tree house and back into the Secret Place that seemed to have shrunk in recent years. It was only because Sora had gotten taller, though, now close to six feet in height. His forehead came to Riku’s nose. They emerged into the wide chamber of the Secret Place and Sora watched Riku concentrate on gathering darkness to him. The Keyblade master didn’t say a word as he watched his Dark half call upon power he’d tried to discard and grit his teeth as the portal to Traverse began to take shape. It was stuttering, the portal, as if it didn’t want to open. Riku was sweating with the effort and finally managed to lock the portal in place.

“It’ll close in like ten seconds.” Riku panted out. “The last one did.”

“Then let’s go!” Sora grabbed hold of Riku and ran forward, falling through the portal even as it closed behind them. The pair crash-landed on the hard cobblestones of the square, but no one noticed their arrival. Things like this seemed to be a common occurrence at Traverse so no one ever really paid much attention to who came and who went. The boys picked themselves up and Sora led the way to Cid’s old workshop, long since closed and collecting dust now that the old foul-mouthed pilot had returned to Radiant Garden.

“How are we going to get in?” Riku asked. Sora looked at the taller boy and frowned. Riku looked pale and Sora knew he was hurting.

“Old fashioned way.” Sora replied, grinning. “There’s a door in the back. Come on.”

The pair slowly made their way to the rear of Cid’s shop. Sora tried the knob of the moogle shop above Cid’s. Luckily, the door swung open, though there were no moogles to be seen, and the pair went inside.

“Well, if we have to wait, at least we’ll have shelter.” Riku murmured, staring at the pristine moogle shop. Sora nodded and made for the trap door.

He dropped down easily into the dark and dusty shop of Cid’s and began his hunt. When he found what he was looking for, he called for Riku. Together, the pair examined the old CB radio.

“You sure it’s going to work?” Riku asked the younger boy, holding a great distrust for electronics.

“No.” Sora answered honestly. “But what choices do we have?”

Riku made a noise and reached to turn the thing on. It crackled stubbornly but it didn’t give up, glowing to life as it caught a clear signal. Sora fooled with the knob until he found a working channel.

“Cid? Leon? Anyone in Radiant Garden do you copy? Donald? Goofy? King Mickey? This is Sora, over.”

The line crackled static. Sora tried again. More static. Riku sighed and moved away to look for a light switch or a duster, leaving Sora to try and get them a ride. Sora called on everyone he knew who had accessible worlds, trying over and over. Finally, finally someone responded.

“Sora? Sora! It’s so good to hear you!”

Sora grinned. “Aerith! Oh man, am I so happy to hear you! I’ve been calling out for hours.”

The reply was garbled by static. “–patrol. Do you need something?”

“A ride.” Sora told her a condensed version of what happened.

“Cid is heading back from Traverse Town’s direction. I’ll give him a call and have him pick you up.”

“Great! You’re the best!”

Aerith laughed. “I’ll see you when you get here, Sora.”

Sora turned to Riku when the radio finally went dead and found his boyfriend staring at a dusty picture frame. Sora sidled over and saw Cid’s likeness grinning back at them. With him were other people, some Sora recognized, some Sora didn’t. “Riku?”

“It feels like I should know them,” Riku said softly. “I never knew my real parents, you know, but it always felt like my life on Destiny Islands was an attempt to keep me away.”

Sora looked from Riku to the picture and back again. “You’ll get to meet some of them. Maybe someone will know your real parents and we can find them after we get Kairi.”

Riku smiled. “Yeah.”

“So cheer up, yeah? C’mon, let’s clean this place. I know where Cid used to hide all his good stuff.”


Kairi paced the room, clasping and unclasping her hands. So she finally knew what Kadaj had meant by ‘another princess’. Naminé. Naminé, her Nobody, was the Princess of Heart of Sunrise Town. And she wasn’t alone. As Kairi sat watching the monitor under Jenova’s careful gaze, she saw Roxas, a boy who looked identical to Riku save for butter yellow irises, a darker version of Sora, Saïx, Demyx, Zexion, Xigbar, Marluxia, and of course, Axel. She met members of the Order, Sunrise Town’s Organization XIII, she supposed and only those who were in residence, like Kadaj, and his brothers Loz and Yazu; Tifa and her partner Diablo; a silent man who simply called himself Vincent; Tseng and Rude; Zidane and his brother Kuja; and the ever mysterious ‘Leader’ who had not offered his name or a glimpse at his face.

She’d spent a few days just trying to adjust and take in everything, getting used to the Order’s pets – the Emblem Zeroes, a canine-like Heartless. One had taken quite a liking to her and Kairi had taken to calling him Bastion, like Hollow Bastion. Rufus had told her Emblem Zeroes usually tried to avoid those not in the Order, as sort of a professional courtesy. But since Bastion seemed to be without a master or mistress, he’d chosen her and since Kairi was a Princess, Bastion had appointed himself her guardian.

Not that Kairi minded. He helped her avoid getting lost in the Palace. “But now I can’t avoid Naminé,” Kairi moaned. “I don’t know the first thing to say to her.”

Bastion whuffed and dusted the floor with his spider-silk tail. Kairi was on her fifth circuit of pacing when the door to the office opened and Naminé eased inside. She put her fingers to her lips when she made eye contact with Kairi and closed the door, quickly locking it.

“What’s going on?” Kairi asked in a whisper.

“My guards think I’m incapable of talking with you alone.” Naminé answered. “They are, after all, male.”

“Of course.”

Naminé moved closer to Kairi and gestured for the mulberry-haired girl to take a seat. Kairi stared at her Nobody in awe. Her hair flowed free, clipped back by a set of blue diamond barrettes. She wore a plain white tank top and pants, and over the tank top was an off-the-shoulders, bottom of the ribcage length red wrap-around that tied at her hips. Her feet were clad in combat boots, and at her hips were two guns. One looked to be an ordinary handgun; the other…

“It’s an Evoker.” Naminé said, smiling.

“A what?”

“An Evoker. I load it with special bullets that summon elemental creatures.”

“Like Sora, with Simba?”

Naminé shook her head. “That’s different. Simba was a lost soul who wanted to go home. The spirits I summon are… well, they’re like gods, I suppose.”

Kairi rubbed her cheek. “It’s one of those things I’ll understand when I see it, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

The girls sat in silence for a long while. Then Kairi got to her feet and paced. “How are you here?”

“I’m not sure myself. The closest theory we have is that since you and Sora still exist, so do Roxas and I. But neither Roxas or I have hearts, so the idea is that the spirit wanted to live so badly it manifested.”

“In shorter words, you don’t have the slightest clue.”

“Yeah.” Naminé sighed. “Pretty much.”

“What do you do here anyway?”

“Besides annoy my protectors? I welcome new arrivals and try to get them acclimated.” Naminé sighed. “And act as referee for Roxas and Kaoru.”

Kairi smiled. “Kaoru?”

“Yes?”

Both girls jumped when the quiet tenor voice broke into their conversation and Kairi turned to stare at the gold-eyed Riku. “You’re Kaoru?” Kairi asked lamely.

That silver head bobbed once. “I’m your Riku’s shadow.” He replied and then turned his attention to Naminé. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Naminé groaned. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“We know that know. How are you feeling?”

Naminé was quietly sputtering, Kairi saw. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Roxas collapsed a half-hour ago and won’t wake up.” Kaoru said without much inflection, but Kairi saw the worried tic in his hands. Naminé was up in a flash, Kairi right behind her with Bastion at her heels, and Kaoru quickly led them down to the hospital where almost everyone who knew Roxas was gathered. Kairi clasped her hands together and prayed that Sora was all right, wherever he was.