Genre: AU, fantasy

Pairings: Sora+Kairi

Warnings: Memory loss, peril, action violence

Disclaimer: Don't own nothin' but these words

Eventually, the rift went dormant, the Heartless pausing in their endless flow into Earth. Sora wasn't naïve enough to believe the Darkness had spewed all its Heartless, but he was grateful for the reprieve. He found it with ease; of all places on Earth, it was the only one that felt like a hive of festering evil.

"I had never seen the Darkness before," Kairi murmured, her red-brown eyes gazing into the rift with fascination and horror.

Riku and Kairi flanked Sora, and the young Key of Heaven stood with his wings flowing down his back, one gleaming white, the other dead black. Riku's silvery wings were extended, as well, and a faint aura of blue-green light surrounded Kairi. Sora only had a very vague idea of how to seal the rift, but Maleficent had assured him it wouldn't take much in the way of skill.

It was still strange to think of her as his aunt. It was strange to think of her at all. But the Queen of Darkness—or the Queen of Hell—wasn't anything like he'd been led to believe. She didn't strike him as pure evil. She struck him as a scheming, clever, cunning woman with an agenda, but not necessarily evil. Definitely embittered and vindictive, but those words were not synonymous with evil.

And Maleficent had said something to him before he left Hell, something that had forever changed how he viewed her.

"You look so much like Arielle," she had murmured, reaching out one hand as though to touch his face. She dropped it before it got halfway.

Sora had no memories of his mother, but he wished he knew why she'd left. And where she'd gone. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he held his hands out at his sides, taking a deep breath. Riku took the right one, and Kairi took the left one. His wings spread out as if in battle stance, and nearly simultaneously Riku's mirrored him. The aura around Kairi deepened to true color, spreading to encompass all three of them. The warmth seeped into Sora's core, a shining point of reassurance and comfort. He could feel her power, feel the energy seething inside her, and it was endless.

With Riku and Kairi both lending him strength, Sora took a deep breath. Never before had he attempted anything like this. Before he'd fallen, he'd never even left Heaven. I hope this works. "All right," he said aloud, "let's do this." And he sent their combined power spiraling into the rift.

o0o

There is a hate burning here, a roiling emotion more tumultuous than storm-tossed seas. Unpredictable, vindictive, malicious, and bitter, it lashes out at anything it touches. It strikes to overpower, encompass, and destroy. It wants nothing more than to turn everything to the same wretched black that rots away its core. It hates. It burns. It seethes. It hungers. It wants something to fill its need. It wants something to understand why it hates so much. Why it feels so angry. What caused its anger.

It is a timeless rush into oblivion, a mindless falling toward an unseen fate. It devours all it touches, because the hatred it feeds upon is the only thing that makes it feel alive. The only thing that soothes its fiery hunger. Sometimes it makes the hunger worse. But it feeds anyway, because it knows otherwise it will vanish. And it does not want to vanish. It wants to survive. It is afraid of disappearing.

So it turns its fear into destructive raging. It revels in the terror, pain, and despair of the many victims who have fallen into its inescapable clutches. Some come willingly. Those it devours with gleeful abandon. Those make it stronger. And ready to hunt again. For its hunger never truly abates.

It feels it. It feels the touch of bright, overwhelming power. In the open wound it created, spilling out like poisoned blood, something is spilling in. The light frightens it. But there is still something familiar about it. It realizes this inward rush of power is not trying to destroy. It is not flooding in with immense pressure as though intent on scouring it away. It is simply washing inside with a sort of curiosity, a desire to understand. And it knows this.

The Darkness eagerly rushes forward, unhesitant as it accepts this intruder, this intruder that feels familiar because it is part of the Darkness. It has accepted the Darkness. It does not fear the Darkness. It makes a promise that the hunger will finally go away. That the Darkness will no longer have to be afraid.

o0o

Sora's eyes opened wide, but he saw nothing. He stared straight ahead in stunned disbelief, unable to move as the Darkness flowed along the power he sent into it, coursing deep into him, gleeful and almost desperately curious. This had happened to him before when he was trapped in its inky black coils. But there was a huge difference now.

It was not trying to devour him. It was merely exploring him, eager to find out what he was about. It bent whenever he pushed, yielding whenever he demanded. The Darkness was obeying him!

"Sora," he dimly heard Kairi breathe, "it wants to be part of you! It is actually asking you to . . . tell it what to do!"

He was beyond speaking, or he would have confirmed that. In fact, anything at all was beyond him. He could distantly feel his body trembling wildly as the Darkness flooded through him, skittering across his consciousness. When it pressed too hard, he instinctively pushed it away, and it went without hesitation. I can't . . . I can't . . . what is this . . . I've never . . . what . . .

"Sora . . ." Riku's voice came from very far away.

And then, it was done. The Darkness seemed satisfied with its exploration, and it fell still within him. It was still very much there. It felt as if an entity of burning ice had taken up residence just beneath the surface of his skin. It did nothing more than that, simply staying with him. When Sora gave it an experimental push to see if he could make it leave, it resisted like a petulant child that would not let go of its mother's apron.

"Can—" he began, finding his throat too dry to go on. Swallowing thickly, he looked at both Riku and Kairi. "Can you feel that?"

They were both staring at his hands they held in their own. Both looked as shocked as he felt. Apparently they could.

Kairi recovered first. "I've never . . ." she tried. "Never have I seen the Darkness act like this. It's almost like . . . I don't even know what it's like."

"Does it hurt?" Riku asked, finally meeting Sora's eyes.

"No," Sora said slowly, "but it's not entirely pleasant. It's the Darkness we're talking about. It feels . . . cold."

"Look at the rift," Kairi whispered, effectively capturing both their attentions.

Where once had been a veritable chasm of writhing Darkness, now was a sluggish cavern. A layer of glimmering white spread over the top like a delicate gossamer veil. The Darkness did not in any way try to push at the light, break free, or escape. In his mind Sora felt it was simply waiting now, ready to follow his lead.

Sora realized he was utterly exhausted. So much so, in fact, that he wasn't sure he could walk away from this spot without collapsing. What happened next was something he would eventually learn to control. The Darkness reacted to that as though it were an unspoken command. A hole appeared in the air with a sound grating to the ears, and the Darkness pulled the three of them inside itself. The hole vanished. Moments later a hole of light appeared in the blackness, and the Dark pushed them out in an entirely new place.

The house, Sora realized with a kind of numb shock, where Riku had taken him and Kairi what felt like forever ago. His knees buckled. Riku and Kairi caught him, helping him into the house. It had become their unspoken meet-place on Earth, so Cloud and Aerith were already there.

Cloud immediately scooped his brother up and carried him to one of the bedrooms. "What happened?" he dimly heard his brother ask the other two.

"We . . ." Kairi said slowly, "we don't really know."

Come, come, come . . . the Darkness whispered. Here, here, here . . . tell us . . . tell us . . . your plan . . .

Sora couldn't fight it any longer. His eyes slid shut and he fell into a deep, unforgiving sleep.