Supplicant -- Traverse Town [COMPLETE]
If I ever find you, you bastard, I'm going to wring your scrawny little neck.
Riku did not like Traverse Town. He'd never liked it, really--too many bad memories, too many newcomers who didn't know what the war entailed. He was sick and tired of dealing with new faces, of blank looks when the subject of the Heartless came up. Some people had to be here, he reasoned, to help the new arrivals out--but those people weren't him. He was going to fight in his own way.
And right now, that involved looking for Axel.
If Riku had his way, he'd never even see the redhead, much less seek him out of his own volition. The encounter with Kefka had changed him, though; whereas he normally confined his interaction with darkness to combat with the Heartless, this was a new and different situation that Riku knew he needed to figure out. The man was tainted by Ansem's darkness as much as the Heartless themselves, if not more, but Riku couldn't bring himself to destroy a man who still had his heart, no matter how dangerous he was. If he left Kefka to his own devices, though, the man was likely to cause irreperable harm, with or without his own knowledge or consent. The only solution was to save him from the darkness, the way Riku himself had been pulled back from the brink of annihilation, the way he had called Sora back to fight Ansem at the very end.
Hearts are strong. His would have to be--doubly strong, even, to be able to keep his heart even when he's obviously been so corrupted by darkness. I know this can be done. I just have to figure out how. Riku frowned as he sniffed into yet another nondescript shop. Still no Axel. He knew from the other man's journal that he'd been studying the effects of darkness on the heart, and was sure it would be no easy task to get the information out of him, but to even start he would have to establish communication. That would be damned hard if he couldn't even find the redhead.
"Damn it, Axel," he muttered with a frown, "Where are you?"
Riku did not like Traverse Town. He'd never liked it, really--too many bad memories, too many newcomers who didn't know what the war entailed. He was sick and tired of dealing with new faces, of blank looks when the subject of the Heartless came up. Some people had to be here, he reasoned, to help the new arrivals out--but those people weren't him. He was going to fight in his own way.
And right now, that involved looking for Axel.
If Riku had his way, he'd never even see the redhead, much less seek him out of his own volition. The encounter with Kefka had changed him, though; whereas he normally confined his interaction with darkness to combat with the Heartless, this was a new and different situation that Riku knew he needed to figure out. The man was tainted by Ansem's darkness as much as the Heartless themselves, if not more, but Riku couldn't bring himself to destroy a man who still had his heart, no matter how dangerous he was. If he left Kefka to his own devices, though, the man was likely to cause irreperable harm, with or without his own knowledge or consent. The only solution was to save him from the darkness, the way Riku himself had been pulled back from the brink of annihilation, the way he had called Sora back to fight Ansem at the very end.
Hearts are strong. His would have to be--doubly strong, even, to be able to keep his heart even when he's obviously been so corrupted by darkness. I know this can be done. I just have to figure out how. Riku frowned as he sniffed into yet another nondescript shop. Still no Axel. He knew from the other man's journal that he'd been studying the effects of darkness on the heart, and was sure it would be no easy task to get the information out of him, but to even start he would have to establish communication. That would be damned hard if he couldn't even find the redhead.
"Damn it, Axel," he muttered with a frown, "Where are you?"