Kingdom Hearts - Resuming, Returning 8
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is the property of Disney and Square Enix. The Codex Seraphinianus is property of Luigi Serafini. No profit is being made from this work.
Kairi, Sora, Riku; the gravitas of being what they all are is starting to become clear. Everything else, however, is still as translucent as mud.
Even though the references to Re:coded are mostly foreshadowing compared to the blatant ones for Birth by Sleep, I'm just gonna go ahead and say we're at spoilers for every game in the series at this point. I am here to spoil everything! There, you've been warned.
Picks up like thirty seconds after the end of the previous chapter.
Kairi's father was startled awake when he heard someone clomping on the stairs. His first thought was that Destiny Islands had a very poor cat burglar; his second thought was Kairi's safety; and his third was that he needed to go stop whoever this was before they took anything important.
He wasn't a fisherman, so he didn't have a harpoon. And he didn't come from a wealthy enough family to have any heirlooms like old swords or muskets. And being mayor wasn't exactly a life-threatening position, at least not from the human element of the islands. So on his way downstairs, Hiromasu stopped at the supply closet and grabbed a hammer.
In the back of his mind, as he crept down the stairs, he supposed he should look into getting something better. A bat, at least. Maybe a piece of wood with a nail in it.
When he reached the foot of the stairs and stepped into the hall, he saw that one of the library doors was flung open. Hiromasu gritted his teeth, hefted the hammer, took a deep breath, and stormed up to the room.
"What do you think you're--Kairi?"
His daughter was standing at the desk in her nightgown, that horrible keyblade in her hand. She was staring down at the encyclopedia.
She'd called it something else. It was a strange word, one he hadn't heard before.
"Kairi!" he said again, and this time she moved.
"Dad?" she mumbled, looking over at him. She shook her head, and her next words were clearer. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"
He didn't want to hear her ask such mundane questions when still holding that weapon. "What are you--do you know what time it is?!"
Kairi shook her head again. "Uh-uh."
He didn't either. "It's late! You should be in bed! What on earth are you doing down here?"
"I had to read it," she replied. She looked over at the encyclopedia again. "I'm tired of running."
He frowned. "What?"
Kairi smiled faintly. "It's weird. Most of it's not even scary. Like he said, it's just records of places and things."
"Like who said?"
"At least what I could read," she murmured, as if she hadn't heard him. Kairi flipped several of the pages rapidly, moving to the back of the book. "My keyblade can't translate this."
She paused, and then rested a hand on her chest. "Or maybe it's just my heart that can't read it."
"Read what?"
"The language of the dark," she replied.
That was enough. Hiromasu strode up to her and gripped her shoulders firmly, turning her away from the encyclopedia. "Kairi," he said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt. "It's late. Put--put that away. You need to go back to bed."
She glanced down at the keyblade, and nodded once. It disappeared into thin air. Hiromasu shuddered, but didn't pull his hands away. This was his daughter, regardless of whatever madness had associated itself with her.
"Okay," she said, and he finally took a step back. "Sorry for waking you."
"It's fine," he replied, and shooed her up the stairs. Hiromasu followed, and didn't let himself glance back at the library doors.
Later, when he was sure that she was safely back in her room--and hopefully asleep--Hiromasu quietly made his way back down to the library.
He stared down at the encyclopedia, trying to recall what Kairi had called it. Why hadn't he paid more attention? He'd seen how she'd acted odd after saying it--why hadn't he noted it? What a rotten scholar he made.
He picked up the encyclopedia, feeling the heft of it, the fabric of the cloth cover. It was worn in places, from being left in the sand and handled so much--by himself and whoever else had read it, written it--and there was still dust he hadn't been able to wipe off from all those years behind the bookshelf.
He'd felt awful when it disappeared; all those mysteries still locked up inside, untranslated, unknown. Finding it again had been wonderful. How could Kairi have done that, taking it away? She'd known how much he'd wanted to unravel its secrets.
--No, he reminded himself, shaking his head. She said she'd been afraid of it as a little girl. She still didn't like it. He knew that. If it upset her that much, if it was making her want to leave their house, then he would get rid of it.
He ran a hand down the cover one last time, resisted the urge to open it and look at the carefully sketched illustrations, and tucked it under his arm. Then he went to the kitchen and found the matches for the stove.
There was no fireplace in the house, but there was a pit in the land outside the fence, for the annual roast and clambake that the mayor had to host on the summer solstice. He hadn't begun laying up the firewood, so he tore branches off nearby trees and bushes until there was enough to start a decent fire. When it was ready, he ripped pages out of the book to feed it.
Then he hesitated.
He'd avoided looking at the pages as he threw them in--there was no point, he was going to get rid of them, so why torment himself with the sight--but all the same, he'd avoided the last half of the encyclopedia as he tore.
Finally, Hiromasu let the book fall open in his hands. The weight was off now, especially since portions of the front were missing; it settled unevenly on his arm as he flipped toward the back.
Kairi had said some she couldn't read these chapters. But she--she'd been able to read the rest, with that keyblade of hers. It wasn't untranslated anymore; it wasn't unknown. He could--
No, Hiromasu told himself forcefully, closing his eyes. He hadn't been able to understand it because it came from another world. He wasn't going to use another foreign object to try and understand it; he wanted nothing to do with that hideous thing.
When he opened his eyes, about to slam the book shut, he saw that he'd already flipped to the right page. There was the tabula rasa, painstakingly drawn and copied.
How many hours had he spent tearing his hair out over that page, trying to eke out even the slightest similarity to any of the islands' known dialects? More than he could recall.
It couldn't do any harm to keep this one page. Just for the memories. Just to remind him not to care too much for books over his family. He would put it away, where Kairi wouldn't see it; she wouldn't have to know it was there. It would harm no one.
He carefully creased the page, and then slowly ripped it along the line, trying to preserve as much as possible. Once it was free, he smoothed the dents in the paper out using the cover of the book, then set it on the dry grass and hastily rekindled the fire with more pages. Once that was roaring well enough again, he threw in the binding.
By the time Hiromasu finished burning the encyclopedia, it was nearly dawn. He left the embers to die out at the bottom of the pit, and went back inside, to try and fall asleep before the light arrived.
***
Kairi wasn't in school that day.
Riku could tell she was over the ocean, in the direction of the mainland; and when he checked her house that morning it was empty. But at school neither Sora nor Selphie or the rest of their friends knew what was going on.
He and Sora hung around her house after school, waiting for her to get back. But eventually it got dark and they had to go home.
Riku gave the firepit a long look as they passed it.
But he shoved his hand in his pocket and decided not to mention it to Sora. There was no reason to worry him about traces of shadows, not until Kairi was home; he didn't want to have to talk Sora out of rowing all the way to the mainland just to check on her. That was not going to win her father over to them. And the shadows obviously weren't bad enough that Sora was picking up on them.
Then again, Riku couldn't recall a time that Sora ever had noticed shadows, at least before they coalesced into living darkness. But by that point, they were nearly at Sora's house, and he couldn't figure out how to bring it up without mentioning what he'd felt.
*
A few hours later, the last ferry between Destiny Islands and the mainland had arrived without Kairi on it, and Riku finally told Sora about the shadows.
He got punched in the arm for his trouble.
"Why didn't you say anything while we were there?!" Sora demanded, before jumping out of his window.
Riku followed, landing nearby. "I thought she'd be back by now," he said. Sora shook his head once, and took off down the road back to Kairi's place.
"So...where?" Sora asked, standing at the edge of the firepit. He peered inside. "Hey, this's been used."
Riku frowned and crouched down at the lip. "You're right," he muttered, fishing through the pile of ashes and the remains of charred twigs. "What did he do?"
"Who?" Sora asked, as he jumped down into the pit and began digging deeper into the remains. Riku bit down on the reflexive urge to make a short joke.
"Her dad."
Sora frowned and looked up at him. "Wait, are these those shadows around him?"
"Yeah," Riku replied, and then paused as he pulled out a burnt piece of paper.
"Are they the same ones you mentioned?" Sora asked. "From when he saw the keyblades?" He pulled out a chunk of thin wood and turned it over in his hands distractedly, and Riku set the paper on the ground. "Maybe we should've waited a little longer to tell them," Sora frowned.
"We didn't have much of a choice," Riku said, and held out a hand. "Let me see."
Sora tossed him the wood. "So, is it the same ones?"
"No," Riku replied, staring down at the remains of the codex's cover. "These are worse."
He and Sora sifted through the pit for almost an hour, but they were only able to find a few more pages that had survived. Riku tore off the worst of the charred bits and stuck them in his pocket.
"We oughta wait," Sora said, staring at the fence.
"The last ferry's already come," Riku pointed out. "She's not going to be back until tomorrow."
"Nnngh," Sora muttered, scratching his head. "Still!"
"Don't you have to be up early to help your mom?" Riku added.
Sora glared at the house beyond the fence for another moment, and then sighed. "Yeah, you're right."
*
Riku was getting ready to jump over the wall around his parents' house when he sensed Kairi finally crossing the ocean. He immediately turned around and went after Sora, who was halfway down the road back to his mom's.
By the time they finished arguing about whether to wait around Kairi's house or to go to the docks and follow her and her dad back from there--an argument mainly sparked by Riku's lack of faith in Sora's ability to successfully track people without being caught, which Sora had of course been forced to adamantly counter, with examples of successfully sneaking after Pete without being caught (Riku had interjected that hiding from Pete was roughly as difficult as hiding behind a mountain, which further derailed the matter)--Kairi's boat was nearly back.
Sora vehemently insisted on going to the dock and following them back to prove he could, and Riku finally gave in. They only almost got caught once; Riku refused to admit he was faintly impressed and instead took it as vindication.
The person who'd sailed her and her dad back after ferry hours was a mainlander who was sleeping the night in their house. Lights went on and off in several rooms before Kairi's bedroom light finally turned on. Riku watched the curtains for five minutes to make sure her dad wasn't in there talking to her--he really didn't want another repeat of last month, when he was stuck sitting on the roof for an hour waiting for the man to leave so he could get his pants--before nudging Sora in the shoulder and climbing up to her window.
Riku rapped on the glass while Sora hung from the ledge below. Kairi didn't even bother to glance out her curtain before opening the window.
"Hi," she smiled. Once Riku was inside, Sora flipped up onto the space he'd left and then clambered in himself. "Were you guys just sitting out there?"
"We followed you from the docks!" Sora replied, shoving himself up to sit on the windowsill. Riku leaned against the wall.
"I thought I saw you in the bushes...."
"Ha," Riku said deliberately. Sora made a face at him. He ignored it and asked, "What happened?"
"Dad wanted to go visit his family," she said. "Did I miss anything?"
"It was school," he replied, with a shrug. "I think the teachers gave stuff to Selphie to give to you." He glanced at Sora. Sora looked back at him, and then caught on. He shoved off of the sill and landed on her carpet. Riku looked back at Kairi and asked, "Have you been in the backyard?"
She shook her head. "No, we just got back." Kairi paused, and then frowned at them. "What's wrong?"
Riku pulled the scraps of burnt paper out of his pocket. He flipped through a few until he found a picture of boats sailing in an underground cavern, lit by lanterns with legs. The bottom was charred away, but at least some remained.
He held it out to her. "This was your favorite, wasn't it?"
Kairi took the scrap and stared at it, confused. "This is from...what happened?"
"I think your dad burned it," Riku said. "The firepit's full of ashes, and these." He indicated the rest of the scraps he'd salvaged.
"Dad would never burn a book," Kairi said automatically, staring at the picture. After a moment she sat down heavily on her bed. Riku hooked a thumb in his pocket and set the rest of the pages on her desk. Sora toed the carpet.
"There's more shadows around there, and in here," he added. "What happened?"
"I used the keyblade to read it," Kairi explained, still looking at the page in her hands. "I knew he was upset, but I didn't think...." Her fingers tightened around the paper.
"You read the codex?" Sora asked, surprised.
"I was tired of running," Kairi replied.
"...I don't think you were running," Sora said. "You just weren't ready yet."
"They felt the same to me," she muttered.
Riku sat down next to her. "I warned you," he reminded, as Sora was settling on her other side. "It's been getting worse since we told the truth."
Kairi winced and closed her eyes.
Sora looked at him over her. Riku shrugged once, frowning. Sora looked like he was about to say something, but then he got distracted when Kairi pressed a hand to her chest, and tilted her head down so they couldn't see her face. Riku's frown deepened.
Sora touched her shoulder. "Kairi? What's wrong?"
She was silent for a long time.
Then she swallowed and said, "Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it." Her hand dropped to her lap, and she folded them. "They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts."
Riku's eyes narrowed slightly. She went on. "The darkness spread, swallowing the light and many people's hearts. It covered everything, and the world disappeared."
She fell silent again. They waited.
Riku finally tilted his head; but before he could ask who it was, she spoke again.
"That wasn't nice, Naminé," Kairi said quietly. She unfolded her hands.
Riku brushed her bangs aside. "...That sounds familiar."
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "That's...nnng." He scowled, and then brightened. "Right! 'But small fragments of light survived, in the hearts of children. With these fragments of light, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now.' That's your grandma's story, right?"
Kairi nodded. "It keeps going, about the scattered worlds and the true light behind the door to innermost darkness."
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "'Even in the deepest darkness, there will always be a light to guide you.'"
"Uh-huh," Kairi replied. She let out a breath, and then leaned back, bracing herself on her hands. Sora pulled his hand back. "It seems silly now," she added quietly; but she still didn't quite look at Riku.
"I've heard that last part," Riku said. Kairi blinked, and finally glanced over at him. "Naminé told me it, in Castle Oblivion," he explained.
"Oh," Kairi said, before shifting and reaching up to toy with her pendant.
"Is that what you've been worrying about?" Riku added.
"Kind of," she mumbled.
"...Okay, but what's that got to do with how the islands look from gummispace?" he asked, because that had been a weird question and now it seemed like she was willing to talk.
"A lot of light attracts darkness," Kairi said, stretching her legs out and staring at them.
Naminé and Sora said it was a glowing ball of light, Riku thought, and Ah.
Why hadn't he figured that out sooner? He was the one who'd told her the Heartless were scratching at the door more now.
He'd just gone and ground it in about her father.
"No," Riku said, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Darkness is drawn to light."
"Darkness is created by it," she replied, and pushed the scrap of burnt paper to the floor.
Riku couldn't imagine a world made entirely of light. He wasn't Kairi; he didn't have a heart made of it. He couldn't imagine wanting a world like that. If there ever had been a world like the one her grandmother talked about, it would be a horrible thing. Like the core of the door to darkness.
The true light behind the door to innermost darkness.
Their lights are too bright. It is only natural that they cast shadows on your heart.
"It's not that simple," he said, because he didn't want to believe Ansem.
Kairi fidgeted, and then crossed her legs. "But wanting it to be is what's dangerous, huh?"
"Probably," he replied automatically, thinking of the last couple years, and then looked over. "Why?"
"No reason," Kairi said with a smile, which wasn't an answer, but at least she was looking at him again. She laid her head against his shoulder a moment later, and Riku let the matter drop and tightened his arm.
Sora, on the other hand, was Sora. "I don't really get what you're talking about," he said, half-turning on the bed so he was looking straight at her, "but was something bothering you?"
"Yeah," Kairi said, turning her head to face him, with a faintly sheepish smile. "And I was worrying about it and keeping it to myself instead of telling you two."
Sora nodded seriously. "But you know you don't have to, right?" he asked. "We're back. We're not going anywhere. So you don't have to keep stuff to yourself anymore."
Kairi nodded. "Yeah." She reached out and took his hand.
"Smooth line," Riku said, a few moments later.
"Hey," Sora retorted.
Riku looked over at him with an eyebrow raised. "What? It was a compliment. You don't like compliments?"
"Not ones from you," Sora replied.
"Right," Riku said, interrupting before he could continue. "No more compliments. Only insults from now on."
"That's what half your 'compliments' are," Sora sulked, and Kairi giggled.
Riku smiled to himself, glad it had worked.
Later, they'd shifted further back on the bed so they were leaning against the wall. Riku had stretched out his arm so it was draped over Kairi's shoulders and half pinned by Sora's head. He was trying to decide whether or not Sora's hair was ticklish enough to be worth moving it.
Kairi had started yawning, and Riku was almost tempted to take the opening to convince the two of them to lie down; but her bed was narrow enough that he didn't think there was a way to do that without someone falling off. And even if that didn't kill the mood, it'd probably wake up her dad.
"...What do you want to do about your dad?" he asked.
Kairi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with the hand not holding Sora's and stared at the ceiling. "...We almost never talk to the rest of his family," she said quietly. "It was really uncomfortable when we just showed up there today. After Mom died...."
Sora made a face in empathy. Riku, whose maternal grandfather had been killed before he was born and who had met his maternal grandmother and most of his paternal relatives only a few times as a child before they died in the huge storm sixteen years ago, had never really known how to deal with extended family. He just stayed still.
She shifted, sitting up a little more. "How bad is it, exactly?"
Riku half-frowned, and then closed his eyes. He concentrated for several seconds; and then he was silent for about two minutes more, trying to put what he felt into words she would understand.
"It's not terrible," he finally said lamely, when she started fidgeting and Sora had poked him in the arm. "There's worse, even here on the islands. The...grief, those scars from losing your mom haven't changed much." He opened his eyes again. "But the jealousy's gotten worse since the last time, after we told them everything."
Kairi exhaled. "You scared me!"
"Sorry," Riku said. "It's hard to translate."
Kairi nodded in understanding, and then yawned again.
"Why'd you want to read the codex right then?" Sora asked, shifting around and making his hair scratch Riku's arm more. Riku was starting to think he was doing on purpose, in revenge. A lame revenge, but still.
"I finally remembered her," Kairi said. "Almost."
Sora sat up. Riku looked at her. "Remembered who?"
Kairi touched her pendant and then summoned her keyblade. "The woman I saw using this."
"Huh?"
"She came to Radiant Garden once, when those things that came before the Heartless were running around. She saved me from them," Kairi said. "She and...King Mickey," she continued, quieter, staring at her keyblade. "I was being chased, and I ran to her, and then he appeared. She put me up on a wall, and then ran back to help him fight. I...gave her some flowers as thanks, and she said she put a spell on me to protect me...." Kairi squeezed her eyes shut. "I remember everything but her name. She told me, but it's the only thing that won't come back. She had really short hair and I remember thinking her clothes were funny because she only had a skirt on the sides, but her name...." Kairi shook her head. "It won't come back."
"Aqua," Sora said.
Kairi blinked. Then she opened her eyes wide.
"Aqua," she breathed. "That's it, she said she was Aqua." She turned to stare at him. "How did you--Sora?"
"Are you okay?" Riku asked.
"Huh?" Sora replied, and then touched his face. He pulled his hand back and stared at the tears on his fingers.
"What's wrong?" Kairi asked, leaning closer. Riku pulled his arm free and sat up.
"I don't know," Sora said, mystified. "I just...feel really happy."
He looked at his hand for another moment, and then scrubbed at his eyes when the tears kept falling. Kairi and Riku watched him, and then glanced at each other; but they didn't know any more than him.
*
Riku and Sora left a while later, when it became clear Kairi was going to fall asleep whether she wanted to or not.
"Any better?" Riku asked, once they'd reached the point where their paths split.
"Yeah..." Sora mumbled, pressing a hand over his chest. "It still feels kind of happy, but sad, too...." He frowned. "But it's really faint."
"Faint?"
"If I try to think about it too much, it feels so lonely and lost that it hurts," Sora said, looking up at him in confusion. "Even the happiness and sadness got submerged again."
Riku moved closer. "It's gotta be someone whose heart's connected to yours." He half reached out a hand. "You don't know who?"
Sora shook his head. His hand had slowly tightened enough that the knuckles were starting to go white.
"Ask Naminé about it, when they've got more sleep," Riku said, and poked him in the back of the hand. Sora loosened his grip. "Maybe it's a lost memory. You can't do anything to help until you know who you're looking for."
"...Okay," Sora said, and dropped his hand.
He shook his head hard a moment later, and finally turned away. Sora started to wave over his shoulder as he moved down the road to his house; but then he stopped.
He turned around a moment later. "Hey, Riku, wanna hang out at my house?"
"Sure," he replied, because it beat staying in his own. Riku considered tossing off a Didn't know we were up to 'Your room or mine?' already to see if it would lighten things up; but Sora didn't look embarrassed. It was like he'd asked without even thinking, because he didn't want to be alone.
Or didn't want to feel lonely.
Riku walked over and slung an arm around Sora's shoulders. "Let's go."
Sora slid an arm around his waist and started walking.
"Who is it?" Sora asked, when they'd passed the road to the beach and were nearly back at his home. He'd pressed his hand over his heart again. "I've gotta get back to them and help."
"We'll find out," Riku replied, tightening his arm, trying to pull the shadows away. "And we'll figure out a way to get there."
"We have to," Sora said.
Riku squeezed his shoulder. Sora nodded resolutely and let his hand fall.
So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be.
The tabula rasa
Kairi's picture
Kairi, Sora, Riku; the gravitas of being what they all are is starting to become clear. Everything else, however, is still as translucent as mud.
Even though the references to Re:coded are mostly foreshadowing compared to the blatant ones for Birth by Sleep, I'm just gonna go ahead and say we're at spoilers for every game in the series at this point. I am here to spoil everything! There, you've been warned.
Picks up like thirty seconds after the end of the previous chapter.
Kairi's father was startled awake when he heard someone clomping on the stairs. His first thought was that Destiny Islands had a very poor cat burglar; his second thought was Kairi's safety; and his third was that he needed to go stop whoever this was before they took anything important.
He wasn't a fisherman, so he didn't have a harpoon. And he didn't come from a wealthy enough family to have any heirlooms like old swords or muskets. And being mayor wasn't exactly a life-threatening position, at least not from the human element of the islands. So on his way downstairs, Hiromasu stopped at the supply closet and grabbed a hammer.
In the back of his mind, as he crept down the stairs, he supposed he should look into getting something better. A bat, at least. Maybe a piece of wood with a nail in it.
When he reached the foot of the stairs and stepped into the hall, he saw that one of the library doors was flung open. Hiromasu gritted his teeth, hefted the hammer, took a deep breath, and stormed up to the room.
"What do you think you're--Kairi?"
His daughter was standing at the desk in her nightgown, that horrible keyblade in her hand. She was staring down at the encyclopedia.
She'd called it something else. It was a strange word, one he hadn't heard before.
"Kairi!" he said again, and this time she moved.
"Dad?" she mumbled, looking over at him. She shook her head, and her next words were clearer. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"
He didn't want to hear her ask such mundane questions when still holding that weapon. "What are you--do you know what time it is?!"
Kairi shook her head again. "Uh-uh."
He didn't either. "It's late! You should be in bed! What on earth are you doing down here?"
"I had to read it," she replied. She looked over at the encyclopedia again. "I'm tired of running."
He frowned. "What?"
Kairi smiled faintly. "It's weird. Most of it's not even scary. Like he said, it's just records of places and things."
"Like who said?"
"At least what I could read," she murmured, as if she hadn't heard him. Kairi flipped several of the pages rapidly, moving to the back of the book. "My keyblade can't translate this."
She paused, and then rested a hand on her chest. "Or maybe it's just my heart that can't read it."
"Read what?"
"The language of the dark," she replied.
That was enough. Hiromasu strode up to her and gripped her shoulders firmly, turning her away from the encyclopedia. "Kairi," he said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt. "It's late. Put--put that away. You need to go back to bed."
She glanced down at the keyblade, and nodded once. It disappeared into thin air. Hiromasu shuddered, but didn't pull his hands away. This was his daughter, regardless of whatever madness had associated itself with her.
"Okay," she said, and he finally took a step back. "Sorry for waking you."
"It's fine," he replied, and shooed her up the stairs. Hiromasu followed, and didn't let himself glance back at the library doors.
Later, when he was sure that she was safely back in her room--and hopefully asleep--Hiromasu quietly made his way back down to the library.
He stared down at the encyclopedia, trying to recall what Kairi had called it. Why hadn't he paid more attention? He'd seen how she'd acted odd after saying it--why hadn't he noted it? What a rotten scholar he made.
He picked up the encyclopedia, feeling the heft of it, the fabric of the cloth cover. It was worn in places, from being left in the sand and handled so much--by himself and whoever else had read it, written it--and there was still dust he hadn't been able to wipe off from all those years behind the bookshelf.
He'd felt awful when it disappeared; all those mysteries still locked up inside, untranslated, unknown. Finding it again had been wonderful. How could Kairi have done that, taking it away? She'd known how much he'd wanted to unravel its secrets.
--No, he reminded himself, shaking his head. She said she'd been afraid of it as a little girl. She still didn't like it. He knew that. If it upset her that much, if it was making her want to leave their house, then he would get rid of it.
He ran a hand down the cover one last time, resisted the urge to open it and look at the carefully sketched illustrations, and tucked it under his arm. Then he went to the kitchen and found the matches for the stove.
There was no fireplace in the house, but there was a pit in the land outside the fence, for the annual roast and clambake that the mayor had to host on the summer solstice. He hadn't begun laying up the firewood, so he tore branches off nearby trees and bushes until there was enough to start a decent fire. When it was ready, he ripped pages out of the book to feed it.
Then he hesitated.
He'd avoided looking at the pages as he threw them in--there was no point, he was going to get rid of them, so why torment himself with the sight--but all the same, he'd avoided the last half of the encyclopedia as he tore.
Finally, Hiromasu let the book fall open in his hands. The weight was off now, especially since portions of the front were missing; it settled unevenly on his arm as he flipped toward the back.
Kairi had said some she couldn't read these chapters. But she--she'd been able to read the rest, with that keyblade of hers. It wasn't untranslated anymore; it wasn't unknown. He could--
No, Hiromasu told himself forcefully, closing his eyes. He hadn't been able to understand it because it came from another world. He wasn't going to use another foreign object to try and understand it; he wanted nothing to do with that hideous thing.
When he opened his eyes, about to slam the book shut, he saw that he'd already flipped to the right page. There was the tabula rasa, painstakingly drawn and copied.
How many hours had he spent tearing his hair out over that page, trying to eke out even the slightest similarity to any of the islands' known dialects? More than he could recall.
It couldn't do any harm to keep this one page. Just for the memories. Just to remind him not to care too much for books over his family. He would put it away, where Kairi wouldn't see it; she wouldn't have to know it was there. It would harm no one.
He carefully creased the page, and then slowly ripped it along the line, trying to preserve as much as possible. Once it was free, he smoothed the dents in the paper out using the cover of the book, then set it on the dry grass and hastily rekindled the fire with more pages. Once that was roaring well enough again, he threw in the binding.
By the time Hiromasu finished burning the encyclopedia, it was nearly dawn. He left the embers to die out at the bottom of the pit, and went back inside, to try and fall asleep before the light arrived.
***
Kairi wasn't in school that day.
Riku could tell she was over the ocean, in the direction of the mainland; and when he checked her house that morning it was empty. But at school neither Sora nor Selphie or the rest of their friends knew what was going on.
He and Sora hung around her house after school, waiting for her to get back. But eventually it got dark and they had to go home.
Riku gave the firepit a long look as they passed it.
But he shoved his hand in his pocket and decided not to mention it to Sora. There was no reason to worry him about traces of shadows, not until Kairi was home; he didn't want to have to talk Sora out of rowing all the way to the mainland just to check on her. That was not going to win her father over to them. And the shadows obviously weren't bad enough that Sora was picking up on them.
Then again, Riku couldn't recall a time that Sora ever had noticed shadows, at least before they coalesced into living darkness. But by that point, they were nearly at Sora's house, and he couldn't figure out how to bring it up without mentioning what he'd felt.
*
A few hours later, the last ferry between Destiny Islands and the mainland had arrived without Kairi on it, and Riku finally told Sora about the shadows.
He got punched in the arm for his trouble.
"Why didn't you say anything while we were there?!" Sora demanded, before jumping out of his window.
Riku followed, landing nearby. "I thought she'd be back by now," he said. Sora shook his head once, and took off down the road back to Kairi's place.
"So...where?" Sora asked, standing at the edge of the firepit. He peered inside. "Hey, this's been used."
Riku frowned and crouched down at the lip. "You're right," he muttered, fishing through the pile of ashes and the remains of charred twigs. "What did he do?"
"Who?" Sora asked, as he jumped down into the pit and began digging deeper into the remains. Riku bit down on the reflexive urge to make a short joke.
"Her dad."
Sora frowned and looked up at him. "Wait, are these those shadows around him?"
"Yeah," Riku replied, and then paused as he pulled out a burnt piece of paper.
"Are they the same ones you mentioned?" Sora asked. "From when he saw the keyblades?" He pulled out a chunk of thin wood and turned it over in his hands distractedly, and Riku set the paper on the ground. "Maybe we should've waited a little longer to tell them," Sora frowned.
"We didn't have much of a choice," Riku said, and held out a hand. "Let me see."
Sora tossed him the wood. "So, is it the same ones?"
"No," Riku replied, staring down at the remains of the codex's cover. "These are worse."
He and Sora sifted through the pit for almost an hour, but they were only able to find a few more pages that had survived. Riku tore off the worst of the charred bits and stuck them in his pocket.
"We oughta wait," Sora said, staring at the fence.
"The last ferry's already come," Riku pointed out. "She's not going to be back until tomorrow."
"Nnngh," Sora muttered, scratching his head. "Still!"
"Don't you have to be up early to help your mom?" Riku added.
Sora glared at the house beyond the fence for another moment, and then sighed. "Yeah, you're right."
*
Riku was getting ready to jump over the wall around his parents' house when he sensed Kairi finally crossing the ocean. He immediately turned around and went after Sora, who was halfway down the road back to his mom's.
By the time they finished arguing about whether to wait around Kairi's house or to go to the docks and follow her and her dad back from there--an argument mainly sparked by Riku's lack of faith in Sora's ability to successfully track people without being caught, which Sora had of course been forced to adamantly counter, with examples of successfully sneaking after Pete without being caught (Riku had interjected that hiding from Pete was roughly as difficult as hiding behind a mountain, which further derailed the matter)--Kairi's boat was nearly back.
Sora vehemently insisted on going to the dock and following them back to prove he could, and Riku finally gave in. They only almost got caught once; Riku refused to admit he was faintly impressed and instead took it as vindication.
The person who'd sailed her and her dad back after ferry hours was a mainlander who was sleeping the night in their house. Lights went on and off in several rooms before Kairi's bedroom light finally turned on. Riku watched the curtains for five minutes to make sure her dad wasn't in there talking to her--he really didn't want another repeat of last month, when he was stuck sitting on the roof for an hour waiting for the man to leave so he could get his pants--before nudging Sora in the shoulder and climbing up to her window.
Riku rapped on the glass while Sora hung from the ledge below. Kairi didn't even bother to glance out her curtain before opening the window.
"Hi," she smiled. Once Riku was inside, Sora flipped up onto the space he'd left and then clambered in himself. "Were you guys just sitting out there?"
"We followed you from the docks!" Sora replied, shoving himself up to sit on the windowsill. Riku leaned against the wall.
"I thought I saw you in the bushes...."
"Ha," Riku said deliberately. Sora made a face at him. He ignored it and asked, "What happened?"
"Dad wanted to go visit his family," she said. "Did I miss anything?"
"It was school," he replied, with a shrug. "I think the teachers gave stuff to Selphie to give to you." He glanced at Sora. Sora looked back at him, and then caught on. He shoved off of the sill and landed on her carpet. Riku looked back at Kairi and asked, "Have you been in the backyard?"
She shook her head. "No, we just got back." Kairi paused, and then frowned at them. "What's wrong?"
Riku pulled the scraps of burnt paper out of his pocket. He flipped through a few until he found a picture of boats sailing in an underground cavern, lit by lanterns with legs. The bottom was charred away, but at least some remained.
He held it out to her. "This was your favorite, wasn't it?"
Kairi took the scrap and stared at it, confused. "This is from...what happened?"
"I think your dad burned it," Riku said. "The firepit's full of ashes, and these." He indicated the rest of the scraps he'd salvaged.
"Dad would never burn a book," Kairi said automatically, staring at the picture. After a moment she sat down heavily on her bed. Riku hooked a thumb in his pocket and set the rest of the pages on her desk. Sora toed the carpet.
"There's more shadows around there, and in here," he added. "What happened?"
"I used the keyblade to read it," Kairi explained, still looking at the page in her hands. "I knew he was upset, but I didn't think...." Her fingers tightened around the paper.
"You read the codex?" Sora asked, surprised.
"I was tired of running," Kairi replied.
"...I don't think you were running," Sora said. "You just weren't ready yet."
"They felt the same to me," she muttered.
Riku sat down next to her. "I warned you," he reminded, as Sora was settling on her other side. "It's been getting worse since we told the truth."
Kairi winced and closed her eyes.
Sora looked at him over her. Riku shrugged once, frowning. Sora looked like he was about to say something, but then he got distracted when Kairi pressed a hand to her chest, and tilted her head down so they couldn't see her face. Riku's frown deepened.
Sora touched her shoulder. "Kairi? What's wrong?"
She was silent for a long time.
Then she swallowed and said, "Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it." Her hand dropped to her lap, and she folded them. "They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts."
Riku's eyes narrowed slightly. She went on. "The darkness spread, swallowing the light and many people's hearts. It covered everything, and the world disappeared."
She fell silent again. They waited.
Riku finally tilted his head; but before he could ask who it was, she spoke again.
"That wasn't nice, Naminé," Kairi said quietly. She unfolded her hands.
Riku brushed her bangs aside. "...That sounds familiar."
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "That's...nnng." He scowled, and then brightened. "Right! 'But small fragments of light survived, in the hearts of children. With these fragments of light, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now.' That's your grandma's story, right?"
Kairi nodded. "It keeps going, about the scattered worlds and the true light behind the door to innermost darkness."
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "'Even in the deepest darkness, there will always be a light to guide you.'"
"Uh-huh," Kairi replied. She let out a breath, and then leaned back, bracing herself on her hands. Sora pulled his hand back. "It seems silly now," she added quietly; but she still didn't quite look at Riku.
"I've heard that last part," Riku said. Kairi blinked, and finally glanced over at him. "Naminé told me it, in Castle Oblivion," he explained.
"Oh," Kairi said, before shifting and reaching up to toy with her pendant.
"Is that what you've been worrying about?" Riku added.
"Kind of," she mumbled.
"...Okay, but what's that got to do with how the islands look from gummispace?" he asked, because that had been a weird question and now it seemed like she was willing to talk.
"A lot of light attracts darkness," Kairi said, stretching her legs out and staring at them.
Naminé and Sora said it was a glowing ball of light, Riku thought, and Ah.
Why hadn't he figured that out sooner? He was the one who'd told her the Heartless were scratching at the door more now.
He'd just gone and ground it in about her father.
"No," Riku said, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Darkness is drawn to light."
"Darkness is created by it," she replied, and pushed the scrap of burnt paper to the floor.
Riku couldn't imagine a world made entirely of light. He wasn't Kairi; he didn't have a heart made of it. He couldn't imagine wanting a world like that. If there ever had been a world like the one her grandmother talked about, it would be a horrible thing. Like the core of the door to darkness.
The true light behind the door to innermost darkness.
Their lights are too bright. It is only natural that they cast shadows on your heart.
"It's not that simple," he said, because he didn't want to believe Ansem.
Kairi fidgeted, and then crossed her legs. "But wanting it to be is what's dangerous, huh?"
"Probably," he replied automatically, thinking of the last couple years, and then looked over. "Why?"
"No reason," Kairi said with a smile, which wasn't an answer, but at least she was looking at him again. She laid her head against his shoulder a moment later, and Riku let the matter drop and tightened his arm.
Sora, on the other hand, was Sora. "I don't really get what you're talking about," he said, half-turning on the bed so he was looking straight at her, "but was something bothering you?"
"Yeah," Kairi said, turning her head to face him, with a faintly sheepish smile. "And I was worrying about it and keeping it to myself instead of telling you two."
Sora nodded seriously. "But you know you don't have to, right?" he asked. "We're back. We're not going anywhere. So you don't have to keep stuff to yourself anymore."
Kairi nodded. "Yeah." She reached out and took his hand.
"Smooth line," Riku said, a few moments later.
"Hey," Sora retorted.
Riku looked over at him with an eyebrow raised. "What? It was a compliment. You don't like compliments?"
"Not ones from you," Sora replied.
"Right," Riku said, interrupting before he could continue. "No more compliments. Only insults from now on."
"That's what half your 'compliments' are," Sora sulked, and Kairi giggled.
Riku smiled to himself, glad it had worked.
Later, they'd shifted further back on the bed so they were leaning against the wall. Riku had stretched out his arm so it was draped over Kairi's shoulders and half pinned by Sora's head. He was trying to decide whether or not Sora's hair was ticklish enough to be worth moving it.
Kairi had started yawning, and Riku was almost tempted to take the opening to convince the two of them to lie down; but her bed was narrow enough that he didn't think there was a way to do that without someone falling off. And even if that didn't kill the mood, it'd probably wake up her dad.
"...What do you want to do about your dad?" he asked.
Kairi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with the hand not holding Sora's and stared at the ceiling. "...We almost never talk to the rest of his family," she said quietly. "It was really uncomfortable when we just showed up there today. After Mom died...."
Sora made a face in empathy. Riku, whose maternal grandfather had been killed before he was born and who had met his maternal grandmother and most of his paternal relatives only a few times as a child before they died in the huge storm sixteen years ago, had never really known how to deal with extended family. He just stayed still.
She shifted, sitting up a little more. "How bad is it, exactly?"
Riku half-frowned, and then closed his eyes. He concentrated for several seconds; and then he was silent for about two minutes more, trying to put what he felt into words she would understand.
"It's not terrible," he finally said lamely, when she started fidgeting and Sora had poked him in the arm. "There's worse, even here on the islands. The...grief, those scars from losing your mom haven't changed much." He opened his eyes again. "But the jealousy's gotten worse since the last time, after we told them everything."
Kairi exhaled. "You scared me!"
"Sorry," Riku said. "It's hard to translate."
Kairi nodded in understanding, and then yawned again.
"Why'd you want to read the codex right then?" Sora asked, shifting around and making his hair scratch Riku's arm more. Riku was starting to think he was doing on purpose, in revenge. A lame revenge, but still.
"I finally remembered her," Kairi said. "Almost."
Sora sat up. Riku looked at her. "Remembered who?"
Kairi touched her pendant and then summoned her keyblade. "The woman I saw using this."
"Huh?"
"She came to Radiant Garden once, when those things that came before the Heartless were running around. She saved me from them," Kairi said. "She and...King Mickey," she continued, quieter, staring at her keyblade. "I was being chased, and I ran to her, and then he appeared. She put me up on a wall, and then ran back to help him fight. I...gave her some flowers as thanks, and she said she put a spell on me to protect me...." Kairi squeezed her eyes shut. "I remember everything but her name. She told me, but it's the only thing that won't come back. She had really short hair and I remember thinking her clothes were funny because she only had a skirt on the sides, but her name...." Kairi shook her head. "It won't come back."
"Aqua," Sora said.
Kairi blinked. Then she opened her eyes wide.
"Aqua," she breathed. "That's it, she said she was Aqua." She turned to stare at him. "How did you--Sora?"
"Are you okay?" Riku asked.
"Huh?" Sora replied, and then touched his face. He pulled his hand back and stared at the tears on his fingers.
"What's wrong?" Kairi asked, leaning closer. Riku pulled his arm free and sat up.
"I don't know," Sora said, mystified. "I just...feel really happy."
He looked at his hand for another moment, and then scrubbed at his eyes when the tears kept falling. Kairi and Riku watched him, and then glanced at each other; but they didn't know any more than him.
*
Riku and Sora left a while later, when it became clear Kairi was going to fall asleep whether she wanted to or not.
"Any better?" Riku asked, once they'd reached the point where their paths split.
"Yeah..." Sora mumbled, pressing a hand over his chest. "It still feels kind of happy, but sad, too...." He frowned. "But it's really faint."
"Faint?"
"If I try to think about it too much, it feels so lonely and lost that it hurts," Sora said, looking up at him in confusion. "Even the happiness and sadness got submerged again."
Riku moved closer. "It's gotta be someone whose heart's connected to yours." He half reached out a hand. "You don't know who?"
Sora shook his head. His hand had slowly tightened enough that the knuckles were starting to go white.
"Ask Naminé about it, when they've got more sleep," Riku said, and poked him in the back of the hand. Sora loosened his grip. "Maybe it's a lost memory. You can't do anything to help until you know who you're looking for."
"...Okay," Sora said, and dropped his hand.
He shook his head hard a moment later, and finally turned away. Sora started to wave over his shoulder as he moved down the road to his house; but then he stopped.
He turned around a moment later. "Hey, Riku, wanna hang out at my house?"
"Sure," he replied, because it beat staying in his own. Riku considered tossing off a Didn't know we were up to 'Your room or mine?' already to see if it would lighten things up; but Sora didn't look embarrassed. It was like he'd asked without even thinking, because he didn't want to be alone.
Or didn't want to feel lonely.
Riku walked over and slung an arm around Sora's shoulders. "Let's go."
Sora slid an arm around his waist and started walking.
"Who is it?" Sora asked, when they'd passed the road to the beach and were nearly back at his home. He'd pressed his hand over his heart again. "I've gotta get back to them and help."
"We'll find out," Riku replied, tightening his arm, trying to pull the shadows away. "And we'll figure out a way to get there."
"We have to," Sora said.
Riku squeezed his shoulder. Sora nodded resolutely and let his hand fall.
So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be.
The tabula rasa
Kairi's picture
