Shattering

He sits amidst broken chains, their links scattered across the endless abyss of his mind. There is nothing else here, and there is nothing he can do. He cannot move, he cannot speak, he can do nothing save stare out his hollow eyes at the blank world beyond. 

Blank beyond and blank within—there is no escaping emptiness.

He hears words but cannot understand them, flowing over him as senseless as the tide. They buzz, irritating, like the insects from the Islands. Not that I'd know anything about them.

Still he finds the memory, picks up the piece of fragmented chain and smooths it out. It takes the shape of paper, although its edges are sharp like glass. He should be more careful, but he doesn't particularly care if he cuts himself. Does he even have the ability to feel pain, or is the agony of sensation merely an illusion foisted on him like everything else?

If he did feel pain, would it matter? No one cares if the puppet aches as it tangles. No one cares if the toy hurts as it breaks.

The memory comes to him as he rubs his thumb along the paper; a beach at night, two boys and a girl. Him, Sora, and Naminé all siting on the sand. She's drawing, unperturbed by the insects that bother the boys. Maybe it's their energy that attracts them, blood thrumming, heart thundering as wood beats against wood.

Maybe it's because Riku and Sora are real and Naminé is not. He can only guess because it's not his memory, and more than that, it isn't the same memory the real Riku had. It's changed, tainted with unreality, twisted by desire.

He folds the paper until it's as it was then lets it fall. It's silent as it hits the ground, rejoining all the other broken links of chain. He doesn't need to sort through them, sift between real and fake. For Sora, this would be a nightmare—trying to find which pieces belong and which don't. For a replica though, this is nothing. He was 'born' less than a month ago, and all that is real to him is contained in a single link.

I am a replica. The memories I have are not mine. The only truths I have are two; I was not afraid of darkness, and I wanted to be better than the real me. But I lost, and then—

That's it. There is nothing else. The memories he knows are false were made real just after that, against his desire, without his consent. Naminé made him loyal. She made him hate Sora, made him hurt for himself and for her, and erased his first and only desire. Erased his encounter with his other self.

But then, how much of that was planted too? Was it natural for a replica to desire strength, or was it the pieces of Riku he'd been built from that made him want it? Or was it Vexen's input? It would not be strange for him and his allies to make him as he was—a tool seeking desperately to usurp the original.

Or was he mistaken? Was he even made here? Where was he made? Who was he made by? How? Why? What was the point of it all?

He's strangling, choking on nothing. When did he get on his side? Why are his hands in his hair? Why can't he breathe? He should be breathing, but he isn't, can't, and all the world is silent except for that distant buzz. He wants to be anything but this. He wants to claw himself out of this body and become someone else, but there isn't anyone else for him to be. He is nothing but a shell filled with copied things—broken once, broken twice, and left shattered to stare at the emptiness that remains.

And if I became someone else I would still be a copy. I would still be a replica. I am a Riku, but I am not Riku, nor can I ever be anyone else.

He laughs, but though it reverberates through this place he cannot hear it. Everything is funny but he cannot say why. Why am I miserable? What good will it do me? No one cares. There is already a Riku, and for all his cowardice he is a better person than I will ever be. He is more real than I will ever be. I am just a replication of the parts of him that hurt—the hurt he gives others, the hurt he is given from others, and the darkness. 

He was so proud of that darkness. Now all he feels is foolish. How silly, to be proud of a thing he never mastered. Even if he tried to do so now, it would still be a lesser version of Riku's strength. 

I will always be a lesser version of Riku. Who would pick me over him? Sora, Naminé? No, no one would choose me. I have nothing to give, nothing to share, nothing to love. Even a Nobody like Naminé is more real than I am...

Voices. He can hear them now. There is a conversation happening just beyond his catatonic body. He does not know if he will move again, if Naminé will decide he is worth the effort of piecing back together. As it is perhaps she won't, and he will be left with little more than the ability to see, hear, and wallow in his own empty shell.

Yet the emptiness out there is the same as the emptiness within. The ability to move, to speak, to imagine pain, will not change the fact he is an imitation—a poor one. And a poor imitation is worth less than nothing. Larxene was right about me, wasn't she?

He can barely remember her words, chooses not to. Instead he listens for distance voices, his only reprieve from the jagged thoughts in his head. Sounds become words, and distant figures come back into focus as he peers out at the white room beyond.

Naminé speaks. She tells Sora of her lies, of the memories she planted within him. She's like a ghost, only half there, painted in pale and bitter colors. Something in Riku aches to reach out, to hold her. Their friendship is imaginary, and any promises he made to protect her were as false as the rest of him. His memories of Sora were the same, the warmth of the bond he shared with the real Riku soured as it was passed to the fake. All the feelings he has for him are twisted; abandonment, betrayal, the desperate desire to protect a friend turned to anger by perceived rejection and neglect, by envy. All the sweetness that lingered inside the real Riku is gone and the replica is bitter, so bitter.

Still, he longs. Despite knowing it is false he wants those memories, that sweetness beyond his grasp. He wants to play on the beach with Sora, compete to see whose victory Naminé will capture with her art. He wants to wade out into the water, wants the wind to dance through his hair as the three of them sit and watch the sunset and shooting stars. He wants to be real, to stand by both of them. He doesn't really care anymore, if he and Sora both made a promise to Naminé, if they both received a star charm from her. He just wants to be together and whole and real.

Choose me. Make me real. Choose me.

But they won't. Sora acts on his feelings, his kindness, and both will tell him to protect Naminé. Even as a replica Riku knows that Sora will keep his promise, that though he understands it was fake, the feelings, the need behind it was real. There is a measure of falsehood in all realities, after all, and if Sora perceives her suffering, he will respond to it. Riku can see him doing so now, listening to Naminé share her pain.

Naminé hasn't told him the whole truth though. She saves it for after the battle, perhaps, the choice he has to make. To be rebuilt as he was Sora will have to surrender who he is now. To find is to lose, to lose is to find.

Sora won't choose the person he is here. He won't choose Naminé, or Castle Oblivion, or him. Even Naminé won't choose him. She cares more for Sora, and he's certain the real Riku is far lovelier and stronger than him, with so much more time to grow. Comparing the two is like comparing a pale blossom to a white paper flower, the latter torn and ripped so many times it no longer resembles itself.

Sora is her hero, not him, and the real Riku has everything he has while being better, kinder, more.

He does not know how long a ghost can linger, but still he thinks she will meet others who she will love. She is kind, after all, just used as he was—as a tool by people far stronger, crueler, and more callous than she could ever be. He does not doubt there were desires hidden amidst her lies. How could she not like the idea of Sora's care, of Riku's care, of being someone worth caring for? But he cannot see how that makes her cruel. A girl can do cold things within cold walls at the will of cold people and still be warm, after all.

How could anyone hate her for that? How could he?

He couldn't.

Still he wonders if anyone will ever choose her. He can see the pain in her face, hear her plea; choose me, choose me, even as she tells Sora all he knows is a lie of her creation. Choose me, choose me, forgive me and choose me.

Maybe she hasn't told him the choice he has to make so she can keep dreaming. As someone more real than Riku is, maybe she still has some hope there is one.

But there isn't. There is no choice. There is only a question with a single answer.

Riku looks inside again at all the broken links and empty darkness that surround him, and laughs. There is no joy in it, nor any light in his artificial heart, save when he hears Sora encourage Naminé to care for him before he goes. Somehow, that brief moment of kindness fills him up. He wishes he could cry.

He is beyond tears though. Can replicas even cry? He doesn't know. Maybe there are better replicas than him that can. Someone else I am worth less than. Someone else for others to choose first.

I suppose someone has to bear that burden, he thinks, as Naminé sits down beside him. Her fingers caress his face, then reach into his mind. She tries to tidy all the shattered pieces, hiding none despite the fact that most are fake. That's kind. At least this way he can remember what the night looks like, how the stars shine so beautifully even though he's never seen them. He'd rather remember something pretty like that than the white, white walls he does know.

Eventually she puts enough of him together that he can move. He blinks, then rises, slow and shaky. She's trembling too. Is she afraid? That's fair. He's always been aggressive, even before she changed him, although when he goes reaching for the reason why he's like that he can't find it.

Was it just who Riku was or was it always a part of me? And why aren't I angry now?  Did she meddle when she put me back together, or does knowing what I am simply change who I am?

Something aches in him. Does it matter if he changes or grows if he's still just an imitation? And self-reflection isn't anything special. I'm sure the real Riku's done it, and better than I ever will. He wonders if others compete to see who grows best as a person, or if that's a failing unique to replicas that he must deal with.

"Riku?..."

He blinks again, brings the world back into focus and sees Naminé, hands in her lap, shoulders slumped as she curls in on herself. "Yeah?" He says.

"I'm so sorry."

Her voice is pained, but then it always is. If there's anyone out there as sad and lonely as her, he hasn't met them. He doubts he ever will. "It's okay. I get it."

"That doesn't matter. I should never have hurt you the way I did. What I did to you...and then to do it again..."

"I was going to hurt Sora," he says. "You chose to protect him. I don't—I don't think that was the wrong decision." There were so many reasons why, so many that went beyond the simple fact that Sora was real and he wasn't. Sora was kind and Riku was angry, bitter, jealous. He was the worst of the real Riku, and nothing more. "I'm glad, in a way. Now I can see myself for what I am, and I never would have been able to do that if you hadn't changed me. Besides, your choices kept you safe. That matters, Naminé."

"Riku..." Her voices wavers. He says nothing for a moment, then reaches into his hidden pouch. Empty. Yet the action draws Naminé's gaze and when she holds out her hand he responds, lets her place whatever she's holding in his own.

The star charm. 

"It's yours," she says. "I took the memories from the original and split them so Sora could take the card, and you the charm." She says it like she doesn't know why she did it, and maybe she doesn't. "I just thought you might want it."

The charm is crushed, but it's endured. Just like my promise to protect her, he thinks. He wonders if it would be presumptuous for a fake person to take their fake promises and make them real, make them better, but he wants to. He wants to make a real promise to her from the ashes of his old one, using what he now knows, what he now understands.

There were three of us once, making promises, but now we're...

"Naminé," he says.

"Yes?"

He could ask if she thinks Sora will choose her and him. He could lay out all the reasons why he won't. He could tell her how they were never three, or two, and how all of them are barely 'one', barely people in their current states. There's no desire in him to be spiteful though, at least not to her.

He clutches his charm close. Is this friendship, love, or something else? What is it, when you understand someone's pain so well that you'll do anything you can to protect them from it?

He doesn't know. It doesn't matter either, since he doubts he's strong enough yet to be of much use to her. Still, he'll try, and maybe one day he'll be able to stand against real threats and win, fight the real Riku and come out victorious. Maybe he'll lose himself to madness and despair and try to kill him instead, or better, perhaps he himself will...

But not yet. Naminé is still in danger and he has to do his part. Even if sometime soon her loneliness will grow, he hopes for now, and perhaps some time in the future, he will be of use to ease her pain. No one deserves to suffer so, least of all her.

So he takes her hand in his free one and smiles, says, "I'll choose you, Naminé. I'll protect you. If there's something I can do for you, something I can give you, I'll do it. I'll put you first every time."

And he will, he thinks, because no one deserves the pain of knowing no one ever will.