Fic: What Remains (1/1): Kingdom Hearts

TITLE: What Remains
AUTHOR: Amet (amet)
FANDOM: Kingdom Hearts
RATING: PGish
SUMMARY: They are what's left of Sora.
PAIRINGS: Hints of Roxas(Sora)/Riku if you squint.
WARNINGS: Er… violence? That's about it.
SPOILERS: Spoilers for the ending of KH1.
ARCHIVED: Fallen Icons
FEEDBACK: Yes please! ^.^
THANKS: To sephyelysian, for the beta and the encouragement. ♥

AUTHOR'S NOTES: So. First fic I've finished in a bit, and it's a little odd, but I could not get the first scene out of my head, and then I had to go and try to give it a point. I'm pretty sure I failed, and there's less kissing than I envisioned, but this is probably going to end up the prologue to a series, so if all goes well that'll get fixed ASAP. ^~

What Remains
A Kingdom Hearts Fanfiction
by Amet

" The words "I am" are potent words;
be careful what you hitch them to.
The thing you're claiming has a way
of reaching back and claiming you. "
                      ~A.L. Kitselman

Anger.

Whoever you are, let Riku go! Give him back his heart!

Surprise.

Kairi... Kairi's inside me?

Resolve.

A Keyblade that unlocks people's hearts. I wonder...

It's cold here.

The Nobody pulls himself upright, balancing on his elbows to wipe at the debris sliding off his chest, kicked there by his Other's companions as they fled. Apparently they were too wrapped up in their own melodrama to notice a newborn being opening his eyes on the world for the first time, busy carelessly flailing in terror.

What does he see in them again?

The Heartless is blinking those ridiculous bugged out eyes at him, swaying on its feet as it stares, tipping its head this way and that. It's waiting. For orders, for a cookie... The Nobody isn't really sure and he hurts a little too badly right now to care.

They are what's left of Sora.

That's supposed to mean something, he's pretty sure of that. Digging through his Other's memories tells him that he was an overemotional little girl over crap like this, but the Nobody is what he is and he just doesn't have that capacity without his Heart. It's gone in all directions now, the Heartless wiggling its antennae at him, the girl fleeing the premises with his esteemed colleagues, the predator walking in the body of his best friend. It's hard to hold on to all the pieces of himself when they're busy walking away, unaware that he even exists and he's torn, unsure what he's supposed to do with himself. He supposes that if he were whole he'd be panicking.

The Heartless is.

It's casting about, head tossing, skittering two steps towards the entrance to the chapel and three steps back towards the door to darkness, the one Ansem retreated through in the body of his hostage. It's showing a surprising capacity for understanding the Nobody knows—not that he has half a clue how—is some kind of transfer from its proximity to him, just like how this close to the Heartless he's almost feeling enough to get angry as it makes its choice and begins to shuffle towards the door, chitinous claws clacking against the floor.

"No."

It halts, tries to turn its head to look at him before it seems to realize that it'll have to actually turn around, stupid Heartless, rocking on its feet in a way that makes the Nobody want to slap it and then smack himself for bothering to get upset.

He finishes brushing off his lap and says simply, "Go to Kairi."

It falters, looking towards the path their companions disappeared down with the other Princesses, glancing at the door to darkness for a long moment before fixing what might be an accusing look on the Nobody himself. It's hard to tell.

"Don't be a moron," the Nobody tells it, "Riku's not in control right now. He'd kill you. Kairi can fix you."

It's still staring.

"So you can help him and everybody else? Hello?" The Nobody tips his head at it. "Remember our friends? Our parents? You are the one who's supposed to care."

But that's the problem, he knows. Senses the distress as the Heartless turns this way and that, antsy as the hunger gnaws away at it but still rational enough around its Nobody to understand that it's supposed to be helping, wanting to save Riku and Kairi and the worlds all at once. It doesn't understand logic, the need to order and prioritize so it doesn’t get trampled before it even begins. The Nobody must do that for the both of them, struggling shakily to his feet to loom over the thing that is his Heart.

"I'll take care of it," he says. "You. Go to Kairi."

He's not sure why, but it works. The Heartless finally turns to leave with a little antennae wiggle that might be a Heartless' way of huffing at him.

The Nobody shakes his head, watching it until it disappears, to be sure.

"Stupid Heartless."

-------

He knows things. That's his function as the Nobody, the Mind and Body left behind when the Heartless come, a symbol of inner strength all tangled up in bittersweet regret. He is what remains, a walking epitaph of memory and loss.

It's probably for the best that he can't feel it.

What he does feel is the drive for completion, for belonging. He's nameless now, with the bigger part of Sora on its way to a Princess of the Heart for reconstructive therapy, and though it doesn't know it—being congenitally stupid, and all—it's about to go on to complete their mission.

And take all their memories with it.

Right now though, the Nobody has the full advantage of fourteen years worth of knowledge. Funnily enough, he's pretty sure he already has all the answers now that he's gained enough detachment to puzzle it out, but pieces need to be put into place, players nudged to their cues, events set in motion. The rest of his Other's crew is a little too oblivious to trust with that.

There is only one person he can rely on when he forgets. Even if it's complicated.

He catches up with the thing calling itself Ansem inside the door to darkness, herding a Behemoth into position to jump anyone stupid enough to follow the Seeker of Darkness inside. It blinks at the Nobody sleepily and veers away, recognizing a danger it can't just fry and trample over like so much debris. Heartless know instinctively not to mess with their betters.

"Playing with your animal friends again?"

The man-thing turns with one hand still on the Behemoth's heel, a flurry of coattails and long hair, looming elegantly in that way only the overconfident and possibly insane can manage. Its face scrunches in distaste as it recognizes the Nobody for what he is, the antithesis of everything the Seeker of Darkness covets.

The sneer is expected when it comes. "You again. I would not have thought it possible, but you've gone and done something even more foolish, haven't you?"

"One Heart makes people stupid enough," the Nobody says, "Two is just asking for it."

Not-Ansem turns away almost violently, saying, "And now you're a disgusting creature. I was right. You understand nothing."

It's difficult not to recoil hearing such nonsense from a freak among monsters, the man-shaped Heartless who still claims to think independently of his emotions as its every action proves it wrong. The Nobody can see its "master plan" and it is far from brilliant, riding on some intuitive need to sink into darkness like all other Heartless. He could have told it a thing or two about understanding that would have sent it into a defensive frenzy.

But this is not the time.

The Seeker of Darkness paces towards an exit forming in the opposite non-wall, a huge, pawed hand reaching out to access the door.

"You're hardly one to talk," the Nobody calls after it, trying to bring it back, hands clenching into fists at his side, "Xehanort."

It's a gamble, a stupid one that could tip them into the battle the Nobody is fairly confident he would win if he had the actual time for it, but as he doesn't he can't afford to find out. He can sense his Heartless moving towards the gates where Kairi and the others wait to welcome it with open arms and well meaning ignorance of the parts of him they leave behind, and he knows it won't be long now. The need is stronger here, so close to a piece of himself he's about to lose again, and though the Heartless in front of him is an overemotional abomination he can still smell the boy beneath, familiar and comforting in this nowhere place.

This close he wants so badly it hurts.

"How do you know that name?" Xehanort's Heartless asks, Cro-Magnon features pinching with rage. "No one save my inept counterpart remembers our true name."

"The Heartless know you," the Nobody says, shrugging just to be annoying. "More importantly my Heartless knows you, so I know you. What's the big deal, anyway? It's not like you're going pull a Rumplestiltskin and disappear when we figure it out." He pauses, faking a smile. "That would be too easy."

The smile that spreads across Xehanort's Heartless' face is its own special brand of creepy, wide and toothy as it saunters back towards him, circling the Nobody as though it's inspecting its prey. He holds still only by the grace of knowing that cockiness is going to get it flattened real soon, barely resisting the urge to summon the keyblade and slam it into the goon's stomach.

"Perhaps I was mistaken," Xehanort's Heartless says, purring into his ear in a way that makes him shudder, familiar scent twining with an unfamiliar darkness. "It seems the Dark Keyblade did you a service, unexpectedly insightful as you are."

"I'm so glad you approve," the Nobody sneers, "Now let me talk to Riku."

"The boy?" Xehanort's Heartless steps back to get a better look at him. "Now why would I want to do that?"

"Because the Heartless you command ally themselves with whoever's strongest and I'm pretty sure I could clean this floor with your butt in five minutes or less," the Nobody says, crossing his arms over his chest, though he knows he's not terribly imposing. "You want to try taking on me and your own army just to waylay a ten minute conversation?"

The smile flattens out into a smirk, burbles into laughter. "Running out of time? I hear Nobodies have very limited shelf lives." Xehanort's Heartless paces away, turns to find him still glaring stonily and heaves an unnecessary sigh. "Oh alright, stop fretting. Perhaps your pathetic attempt at comforting yourself will make an amusing distraction for a few moments."

He raises his hands, then pauses, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Still, what if Riku does not wish to speak with you? You are not the friend he remembers."

That doesn't hurt, because if he lets it hurt he's playing into a Heartless' hands and just no. He'll freak out when he hears that from Riku, not this thing that just smells like him.

"You let me deal with Ri and worry about what you're going to do when my Other is restored," he snaps. "He may be hopeless, but he hits pretty hard and if you wanted him to give up you picked the wrong body to crawl into."

He's expecting another retort, but what he gets is a haughty toss of the Heartless' head and an explosion of magic. He's reaching out to catch Riku before his friend can fall and coincidentally before he can remember that Riku outweighs him by enough poundage to make his attempt at holding the other boy upright just this side of futile. They go down in a tangle of limbs, the Nobody just barely managing to keep Riku's head from cracking off the floor, painfully rearranging his own limbs into something resembling a sitting position beneath his friend's weight, cradling as much of Riku as he can.

He's clinging and he doesn't care, because he feels like this, with this person he's known so long he's not really sure how to function without Riku there to tell him when he's gone too far. He's done alright with Donald and Goofy pinch hitting, but now he's alone, unsure of himself without a ballast and this—this abortive moment in the middle of a hole in the world makes him feel like he can breathe again. It hurts and soothes and breaks him all at once, and he knows this is what it feels like to have a Heart.

He spreads his hand over the Heartless symbol on Riku's chest, thick material trapping the warmth of Riku's body just out of reach, and tries not to think about it.

Riku's eyes are slitting open, a hand fisting in the fabric of his jumper, tangling in the chain of that too-dorky necklace Sora always wears. "Who are you?"

Good Question, he thinks, almost hysterically, on the verge of waxing philosophical and he doesn't have time for this.

Instead he says, "When I was six you put Paopu mush in my shoes to teach me a lesson about exposing our friends to the threat of girl cooties after I made the mistake of inviting Selphie to play hide and seek." He smacks Riku's shoulder for good measure. "I smelled like sugar for a week, you jerk."

Riku tries to sit up, squinting at him. "Sora? Are you--?"

"Really here? Okay? Yes and no," the Nobody says, forcing his friend back down, taking his hand to sooth the rejection he can sense in the tense lines of the other boy's body. "I think I'm like an echo. A reflection of Sora, but not the whole of him. Understand?"

"Not really."

"S'okay. I don't really get it either, mostly it just hurts where my Heart decided it would be a good idea to stab us. Not like he has to deal with the aftermath, stupid Heartless."

They sit in companionable silence for a moment, the Nobody plucking at the sleeves of Riku's suit, a little amazed that his friend isn't putting up more of a fight. It's just another sign of how wrong things have gone that even cold comfort is still comfort. Finding the seam where the glove begins, he yanks it free, twining his fingers around Riku's sweat slicked hand.

"You should go," Riku says, after a long moment where he can't seem to take his eyes off the latticework of pale and tanned skin, fingers laced and pinching a little when the Nobody's hand clenches over his friend's. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not exactly safe to be around right now."

"He won't bother us," the Nobody says quickly, before Riku can start physically shoving him away, "Not until it happens."

Riku clings tighter. "Until what happens?"

"My Heartless." The Nobody tightens his arm around his friend. "Stupid Sora used the Dark Keyblade to get Kairi's heart out of us and in the process, he let loose ours. It's running towards her right now, and when it gets there? She'll fix it."

"Fix it?"

"Into a whole person. Or what passes for one with a new body."

"Kairi's a magical princess, right. I forgot, what with how insane it sounds." Riku reaches to yank the other glove off, half pulling the Nobody over him as he struggles to maneuver without letting go of his hand, reaching up as soon as he's done to scrub the heel of it over his eyes. "And Sora's the hero with the magical sword, so I guess that makes me the monster." He looks up, eyes suspiciously bright. "Where does that leave you? When your heart is... fixed?"

"I'll forget," he replies, and he doesn't know why he's telling Riku this, hasn't got a plan beyond these moments anyway and maybe he's no better than his Heartless, letting the hollowness in his chest make him linger here. All he knows is that he feels better, not whole, but better with Riku sulking in his arms, making those stupid pouty faces he always denies after he's done being a sore loser.

The Nobody smoothes a bit of hair back from Riku's brow, fingers lingering at his temple when he feels his friend relax. "You're not a monster, Riku." He smiles at Riku's incredulous look, amused—amused!—that he can actually feel it. "A major jerk sometimes, yeah, but you haven't grown horns or fangs or anything." He fingers the skirt at Riku's hip. "Just really bad fashion sense. I guess that's evil for ya."

Riku stops pouting long enough to snort at him, settling back against the arm around his shoulders and saying almost casually, "Why aren't you mad at me?"

"I was," the Nobody says, huffing as Riku looks away. "C'mon, man, you ran off on me, jerked me around, hid Kairi when you knew I was looking for her and what you did to me and Beast earlier? Beyond harsh."

"And now?" Riku asks, voice even though he looks like he's going to be sick.

"He's hurting you," the Nobody says, quietly, like he's afraid to summon Xehanort's Heartless with a mention of his existence. "And you know, I realized when he was giving his villain speech earlier that you've always been kind of tactless."

"Thanks," Riku mutters.

The Nobody tugs at his hair. "The point is, we're still friends. And you know why? Because you never mean any of it. So when you were suddenly all rawr with a vengeance, it might have tipped me off that something else was going on. You've been acting all weird anyway—one minute you're smacking me over the head and the next you're helping me stop the monster you summoned. It doesn't add up. I just... I guess I wanted someone to blame for all this. If there's an uber-villain then all I have to do is beat him and this all goes away."

"There is an uber-villain," Riku says, tightening both hands over the Nobody's. "And he's inside me, because I'm an idiot and let him in. You're going to have to kill me to fix this."

The Nobody's throat tightens, swallowing harshly at the pleading look that just doesn't work on arrogant, unflappable Riku's face. He's sure that in Riku's worldview right now that makes all kinds of sense, maybe even seems kind of poetic given that he did set these events in motion. But the Nobody can see it all—the door to their world opening for the first time when they were too young to know any better, the birth of the abomination inside Riku and the plan that hatched when it sent Kairi to test them both, the Other rising in the darkness, a Nobody like him who is more powerful than the Seeker of Darkness could ever imagine. Dusting "Ansem" is a step in the right direction, but it won't stem the tide of encroaching darkness, only shore it up for a little while until the denizens of light can get their act together.

And that? Is not worth his best friend's life.

"Okay, that?" the Nobody says, "Is not going to happen. There's another way."

Riku's struggling to get up again. "You can't know that! You just—"

"Can too! There's always a better way. You just gotta have a little faith."

Riku looks horrified. "You know that 'friendship is mightier than the sword' crap is crap, right?"

"Kicked your butt," the Nobody says. "Not that the keyblade didn't help, but still. I need you to listen to me for a minute, okay? Really listen, because I came down here for a reason and there's not much time. Can you do that?"

"What are we, back in kindergarten? Yes, I can follow directions."

"See, now you're back to being a jerk," the Nobody teases, the sentiment alien on his tongue as he laughs, leaning closer. "I'm glad you're feeling better," he says, with an earnestness that's strange and oh, his Heart must be getting close now, he can feel it overflowing.

"Sora?" Riku is saying, pulling the Nobody around to face him with a hand on his chin. "Hey! Don't space out on me!"

The Nobody knows Riku really means "What's wrong?" and that he's probably terrified. He'll deal with that when his vision stops graying out around the edges. He wonders faintly if the Heartless is in Kairi's arms already or just reacting to being near her the way he's reacting to Riku, fever bright emotion overtaking them both with an intensity only a Heartless can manage, with nothing but feeling to cling to. It hurts. It isn't fair, he's not ready, and why does he even care?

He's supposed to be the calm one.

He swallows hard, forces a half-smile to calm the boy in his arms and manages to grit out a semi-complete sentence through clenched teeth. "Listen. Soon. When this is all over, something's going to happen. Vague, right? Deal with it, 'cause we don't have time for details."

"Sora--"

"No," he snaps, struggling to breathe, to hold on, to feel enough of his surroundings to ground himself a moment more. "Look, I know what you're thinking and just no. You are not going to die out here! You can't die out here, Riku, because when the time comes I need you to fix this!"

"Fix--?"

"Me! I need you to fix me."

That shuts Riku up faster than the Nobody thought possible, convenient now that he's starting to gray out entirely.

"There's not much time, so just listen for once," he snaps, yanking Riku forward with a fistful of hair for good measure. "This story? It's not a straight shot hero's journey, okay? It's got a sequel. We all have parts to play, even you, so don't go dying on me when I need you. Don't give up. If you can't stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to do it for you, do it for me. You owe me."

They stare at each other for a long moment as the Nobody's vision flickers, reality bending as his Heart changes into something else entirely and he feels, the knowledge of what he's about to lose so painful he actually feels sorry for dumping this on Riku for a moment before the world slips away.

There's nothing he can do about it now.

-------

It's cold here.

There's a stale breeze ruffling his hair as he steps through the door, glancing around in a moment of almost-déjà vu as he notices the mechanism holding the door he's come through—Heartless shaped, and isn't that ironic? The Nobody doesn't much care, knows he's not supposed to and that leaves him at something of an impasse with nothing to motivate him to move. The emptiness pulls him forward anyway, a motivation unto itself towards something he needs but can't quite name, like struggling for a word on the tip of his tongue.

He thinks he had it, but now it's gone, pieces of himself scattered in every direction.

"It was a good plan."

The girl in the corner is small, curled in on herself in a pile of debris, a bright spot of pale blonde and paler skin against the darkness of the room. He thinks that he should know her, that he should know this place, but he can't quite muster the will to wonder at it for more than a moment, crossing his arms over his ridiculous clothes—who chose them, anyway?—and watching her until she speaks.

She considers him for a moment before raising an arm, palm up and open, darkness blossoming in the empty air in front of her into a doorway. "You should go now."

He doesn't bother to object. He knows instinctively that there's nothing for him here.