[open]

[dreamprotector]

Who: Riku (dreamprotector) & OPEN
What: Riku wakes up after three days in stasis. Somehow the world seems different now.
When: 7/11-ish, before the next wave of awakenings
Where: Thesa station
Warning(s): KH-spoiler for 3D and 0.2, Kingdom Hurts is its own warning?


[ A – Destati ]

[Awaking is a sluggish process (or at least that's how it feels like), a feeling as though someone glued his eyes shut and put his body into ice water while he was sleeping or something. He recognizes the station as he stumbles through it, but it and the life he's lived here for months almost seem like a distant dream now.

(Dreams can be so very deceiving; Riku knows that for a fact.)

It must have been real though… and now he can't help but wonder how much time has passed since he fell asleep again, if Sora, Terra and Axel (Lea?) are still awake as well– and then stops when he passes by a monitor showing the frozen El Nysa, shivering involuntarily at the sight of Yversai's large undead form, then frowns.]

…Well, I guess it hasn't been that long if he's still around.

[…Unless the Natha somehow have taken months being unable to fix this. So yea, he really needs to track down a date. And/or people. Whichever comes first. If he only wasn't still feeling so damn shaky on his feet…]


[ B – Sweet Spirits ]

[After having assured himself that no more than a few days must have passed, Riku is making his way to the mess hall right after making a short stint to his room in the station – he doesn't have the suit case with the new set of cloths that Master Yen Sid had gifted him with anymore, hasn't even gotten to see them yet, but at least his younger self was smart enough to keep a set or two of wyver-styled threads around; it really is time for a change after all.

Dressed in comfortable black and red cloths, a little taller and without the blindfold he looks probably somewhat different to anyone who knows him – even his body language seems to have changed into something a bit more self-assured, tension drained away into what appears to be the casual arrogance of a teenager.

What really may or may not catch one's eye when he enters the mess is his companion(!?), the colorful bat flitting around the room before settling comfortable on Riku's shoulder after he gets his share of alien food. Riku really can't help but grin as he feeds small bits of blue potatoes and green jelly to the curious bat, laughing lightly as he pulls a face.]

Yea, I know. The food here doesn't quite satisfy your sweet tooth, huh? Well, it can't always be candy and ice cream, Highwind.

[The bat makes a low sound of regret, but then trills as Riku reaches up to rub his chin, eyes changing from yellow to blue. Then he pushes off of Riku's shoulder, fluttering away to see who else is in this strange new place! Maybe he can make a new friend!!! :D]


[ C – Hold Up Your Wildcard! ]

[ooc: Riku is around Thesa station and may or may not be visiting the Stasis Unit a lot more than usual, so come at me! Or maybe contact me on plurk (iceyly) and we can work out something if my prompts above don't work for you! :3]

Comments

[icingonthecake]

Axel will have you know Axel's jokes are very funny, okay.

Right! Legs. He looks down and sticks one leg out, rolling his ankle.

"Oh, thank Light," he says with exaggerated relief. "Still got legs, I'm good."

His jokes are totally funny and you shut the hell your mouth.

Reaching one arm across the front of his chest and pulling on it to stretch his shoulder, Axel looks at Riku with eyebrows lifted.

"Hm? Mm... I guess he kind of gave me the cheat sheet version?" he ventures. "Sora's not exactly the most organized storyteller, I'm sure you can attest to this." He switches to the other shoulder and grimaces a bit. They really need to make these pods more ergonomic. "He told me that even though I died I somehow get better, which is pretty cool, I won't lie. He said I get a Keyblade and start training with you guys. Also pretty cool, honestly, I can get behind that. He said I saved him from getting possessed by Xehanort?" He furrows his brow a bit. "I mean... yeah, that sounds like something I'd do. In the flashiest way possible. But has Xehanort actually started like bodysnatching people?" He shakes his head and lets his arms fall to his sides. "That's just... weird. And creepy. Even for Xehanort."

[dreamprotector]

Maybe to people who have lived less than seven days.

Riku just nods in agreement – he's had to sort through a lot of Sora's story telling after they had gotten home from fighting the Organization the first time, so he knows that Sora has the tendency to jump ahead to the things that he considers important... and leave out some things that are needed for the story to actually make proper sense.

He grimaces when Axel mentions the body stealing – yea, that was indeed a thing – and then adds: "Yea… he was actually planing to do that to the lot of you; it's the true reason behind the Organization XIII."

So yea, congratulations Axel-Lea. You definitely dodged a bullet there.

Anyway. Riku turns slightly nodding towards the end of the corridor.

"Let's go somewhere more comfortable and I'll catch you up on all of that."

He has no particular desire to have this conversation in the middle of the stasis unit. Also, Axel may or may not look like he could use a chance to sit down.

[icingonthecake]

Rude.

Axel stares at Riku a moment then, but somehow he can't be as surprised as he wants to be. He always knew that Xemnas hadn't been telling them the whole truth--or even half--but while the bodysnatching angle is a bit of a surprise, he realizes he probably should have connected those dots. Xemnas, with his gold eyes and silver hair and weird pointy ears. Xigbar, with his gold eyes and silver-streaked hair and weird pointy ears.

... Saïx. With his gold eyes. And weird pointy ears. He'd noticed the shift from green to gold in his old friend's eyes, but hadn't really thought much of it. He'd noticed the odd elongation of his ears. He'd somehow just assumed it had to do with being a Nobody, and figured he would eventually go through the same visual transformation.

Hearing Riku drive the true point home in so few words, though, sends a chill up Axel's spine, and he doesn't bother to hide the full-body shudder that shakes him as he realizes he very well could have gone through the same transformation, and that was the original plan. Dodged a bullet, indeed.

"S... sure," he says, his voice tight and his posture awkward. Axel may have been asleep for a few days, but he's suddenly exhausted all over again. "Ah... lead the way."

[dreamprotector]

Riku holds the stare, a flicker of pity in his eyes. It must be hard to take in that particular kind of betrayal, he thinks, to realize that loyalty (however strong or weak towards the end) was always to be rewarded with the erasure of one’s very self.

He isn’t sure how he’d react himself to it, but he is glad that he isn’t in Axel-Lea’s shoes.

Anyway, it’s time to get somewhere more comfortable, so he takes the lead to get the two of them out of the stasis chamber, nodding to himself when he finds one of the small lounges unoccupied.

“This should do.”

Once they are inside and he is assured that Axel-Lea is actually sitting down, he runs a hand through his hair as he starts:

“After you helped Sora-” and died, he doesn’t say but well, does he really need to anyway? “-he went on into the World That Never Was and from there to the Castle. Naminé and I went there with DiZ– Ansem the Wise. He wanted to do something about Kingdom Hearts and the two of us wanted to get to Kairi so that Sora could focus on fighting the Organization.

Sora took on Xigbar while we set her free, and after that he dealt with Luxord and Saix.”

For a second, he debates just how much he should go into detail about what else had happened – about Naminé and the way she had slowly faded back into Kairi (too painful), about the reunion between him and Sora (too personal), about how DiZ had sacrificed himself and maybe atoned just a little for what they had done to Roxas (very complicated?)…

Finally he decides on:

“When we caught up with DiZ and the King, Kingdom Hearts had already been drained by about half. DiZ tried to send us away before his machine exploded, I managed to keep everyone else at distance, to shield them from the Light… it must have worked somehow because when it exploded, it somehow cleansed me mostly from taint the Heartless had left behind.”

His hand comes up to rest against his heart… it’s still there, he knows. It will always be there… there will never be any denying that Xehanort had touched his heart. But he’s trapped that taint rather than to let it fester…

(“And a boy who’s immune to Darkness is of no use to us,” the young Xehanort had said before unleashing Chernabog on Riku, and only remembering that Riku thinks: Good. The more of a thorn he manages to be in any Xehanort’s side, the better.)

Anyway…

“We went to confront Xemnas after that.”

[icingonthecake]

Axel sits down on the edge of one of the couches, fidgeting a moment before he found a comfortable position. There was just nothing comfortable about anything, right now, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he'd been sleeping in a hard metal pod for a few days. He can't help but smile a little at Riku's deft bypassing of the ugly truth. Riku's a good kid. For all his stoic severity and penchant for all work and no play, there's a kindness in him Axel appreciates. He hasn't been on the receiving end of much kindness in the past twelve years or so.

"You can say it," he chuckles. "I died. It happened, there's no sense dancing around it." He holds his arms out to his sides. "I mean, we established I've still got legs, so it's okay, I've already worked my way through the denial stages, I guess." He lowers his eyes and stares down at his lap a moment, then rubs the back of his head. "I'm glad you guys were able to get Kairi out safely," he says quietly, contrite. He looks up again, meeting Riku's eye briefly before glancing away again, like he can't bring himself to actually hold eye contact. "I hope they didn't hurt her or anything," he says, and threads his fingers together. "I went back, you know? To try and get her out of there. But Saïx took me out before I could get her free." His hand moves to his right side, where Saïx's Claymore had cleaved straight through him, and he's not sure if the ache that meets the contact is real or just in his head. He'll have to check for a scar later.

He looks at Riku with a watery sort of grin then.

"That's good," he says. "That creep's face didn't suit you at all. I mean, I never actually dealt with his Heartless form, but he still looked like... you know. Him."

He had only met Xehanort the Apprentice briefly before the fall of Radiant Garden, but despite Xemnas being an anagram of Ansem, it hadn't been hard to figure out whose Nobody he'd been. When Riku had introduced himself as Ansem, though, that day on the beach, Axel had just laughed loud and hard at the absurdity of the whole thing, so much that his already bruised ribs had ached all the more for it. It was like double-layer encryption or something--a kid taking the face of a guy who took the name of some other guy. (I'm the dude that's playin' a dude disguised as another dude!)

He shifts a bit where he sits, then folds his arms and harrumphs.

"Well, I hope you guys kicked his ass good," he says sternly. "Wish I'd gotten the chance, myself."