forestcovered application;;

[keybearer]

( PLAYER INFORMATION )



Name: Mega

Contact: megaflamehedge@gmail.com
AIM – derpisms
Plurk - Dorked

Are you over 17?: Yes

Characters in Forest Covered: N/A



( CHARACTER INFORMATION )



Name/Work Name: Riku/”Kai” – for the Welsh meaning, ‘keeper of keys’

Canon: Kingdom Hearts

Canon Point: After his encounter with the Replica in Monstro and receiving Sora’s necklace + letter (see AU info)

AU/CRAU: Both. AU and import from towerofanimus

Age: 15 physically, 17 mentally due to time in-game

History: Canon History

In order to avoid taking up too much space on the app page, I have a synopsis of the first fic in Riku’s universe below. Sadly, I’ve yet to complete the full timeline for the second fic, so I’ll supplement that with a summary that takes place immediately after the first story ended.

Antipode Act 1 Synopsis.

After the events of Act 1, Riku and his friends wandered endlessly for days, until one night they encountered a strange man named DiZ. Though they didn’t trust the man, the group followed him to the safety of Twilight Town, where he informed them of a new threat, a group of Nobodies called the Organization. In addition to providing Riku and co. direction, he revealed that he had salvaged their Gummi Ship, allowing them to resume their travels across the worlds. Thus, after picking up a new weapon for Kairi, Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy prepared to depart. Before leaving, they stumbled upon a mysterious letter, warning them of trouble in Hollow Bastion. So, after some deliberations, the group hurried off to see what the ruckus was about.

Unfortunately, their arrival wasn’t well received. The residents of Hollow Bastion treated Riku with fear and distrust. Even Leon told him to take a hike, which only amplified Riku’s confusion. When he and his friends explained that they hadn’t visited Hollow Bastion since they sealed the Final Keyhole, Leon joined in the confusion. It was then revealed that a Riku lookalike dressed in black had been terrorizing the town along with another boy in black. Determined to set the record straight, Riku and co. hurried into the Bailey, where they encountered a blond boy in a black coat with a strikingly familiar face.

This strange boy accused Riku of being a “replica,” and an argument followed, eventually pushing the boy to draw two familiar, wing-shaped swords. Though at first the boy overwhelmed them with his speedy combo and powerful dark magic, Riku managed to gain the upper hand…

Until he got struck down by another Keyblade.

Thus, Riku’s lookalike finally made his appearance, accusing Riku of being a “Fake” and treating him with heavy levels of resentment. Both he and the blond boy acted as if Riku had stolen the lookalike’s identity and claimed that Donald and Goofy had been brainwashed into thinking that the “Fake” was their friend. It was a confusing conversation, to say the least, and neither Donald nor Goofy took kindly to the lookalike’s accusations. Tensions spiked even higher when the lookalike referred to the blond boy as ‘Sora’.

But there was hardly time to sit and chat. Determined to best Riku without hurting Donald and Goofy, the lookalike trapped Donald and Goofy behind a barrier, leaving Riku and Kairi to fend with the two boys themselves. To Riku’s relief, Kairi managed to hold her own using her newly acquired fire spells, and after a grueling battle, both the lookalike and ‘Sora’ took off. But just to get the last laugh, the lookalike mocked Riku, telling him that next time, he wouldn’t go easy on him.

After the battle, Riku and co. returned to Merlin’s house, where they discussed the matter with Leon’s gang. It started off tense, as Leon finally addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that the Door to Darkness remained open. Fortunately for Riku, Aerith and Kairi stepped in before the conversation grew too tense. From there, they focused on more pressing matters, such as the Riku lookalike and the Organization. Given ‘Sora’s’ words, they deduced that the lookalike was the real Replica. Then, with some parting words, Riku and co. took off to continue their journey. Before leaving, the Fairy Godmother granted Kairi some new magic spells.

While Donald and Goofy searched for new worlds and new information, Riku and Kairi trained at Olympus Coliseum, allowing Kairi to hone in her new spells. However, training came to an end when Donald and Goofy returned with word on Organization activity as well as a world oozing with darkness. Their travels led them to medieval London, in a forest swarming with powerful Heartless. Their combined efforts allowed them to cut through the crowd, and they eventually stumbled upon a castle along with a man named Sir Ector and his son Kay.

Kay and Ector regarded Riku’s group with suspicion, in part due to Donald and Goofy’s appearances and in part due to their ability to vanquish the Heartless. Though Donald tried to pass them off as traveling monster hunters, an argument soon broke out due to Kairi’s fighting skills, claims of witchcraft, and their enchanted weaponry. Though Sir Ector ordered them to leave, Riku and co. soon stumbled upon Merlin, along with a boy named Wart.

In Merlin’s tower, they learned of Organization presence as well as a suspicious amount of Heartless swarming London. Additionally, they learned about Wart’s dilemma, as he struggled between becoming a squire and pursuing a proper education. After an encouraging discussion, they all left for London in hopes of locating the Keyhole.

But, well, life is seldom that simple, and as the gang battled their way through hordes of Heartless, Riku and Kairi got separated. Before long, they encountered a crazy witch named Madam Mim, who used black magic and shape shifting to battle the duo. Using their wits along with Kairi’s new status spells, they managed to slip away from the hag and reunite with Donald and Goofy. Unfortunately, Mim wasn’t far behind.

The fight grew worse and worse as it went on, as Mim cast Silence on Donald to prevent him from using magic, turned Goofy’s shield into a pillow, dispersed Kairi’s rapier into butterflies, and made Riku hallucinate that his Keyblade was a cobra. He eventually snapped out of it, and for a while, the group distracted Mim with talk of Maleficent, while green flames rained from the rooftops. Though Riku didn’t quite realize it at the time, Sora’s Heartless was once again helping him from the shadows.

Then, just in the nick of time, Merlin arrived on the scene, challenging Mim to a Wizard’s duel and eventually defeating her by transforming into a germ. With the fight finished, Merlin’s owl, Archimedes, led the group to the churchyard just in time to see Wart surrounded by a cheering crowd, as he was able to wield the sword in the stone.

The group congratulated Wart—or rather, Arthur—and after saying their goodbyes, they continued on their quest.

After their romp in England, the group wound up in the sandy city of Agrabah through a… less than ceremonious landing, involving the use of the Warp Drive to escape a sandstorm. Upon exiting the ship, they spotted strange gashes in the city’s walls, as if they’d been carved by a giant sword. Heartless roamed the streets, forcing the townspeople to flee, and after yet another fight, Riku and co. spotted a familiar parrot being hassled outside the palace gates.

As it turned out, Iago had escaped Jafar’s lamp, claiming he had turned over a new leaf. Granted, Riku knew better than to trust someone based on word of mouth so, much like Aladdin, he regarded Iago with a mix of skepticism and amusement. A Stop spell from Donald froze Iago and allowed the gang to cart him inside the palace. Along the way, they noticed crowds of citizens taking sanctuary within the palace proper due to frequent Heartless attacks and sandstorms.

In the palace gardens, they locked Iago up in a little cage for the time being and hurried off to Aladdin’s quarters to discuss the situation in more detail. There, Riku learned of a giant Heartless lurking out in the desert, capable of surrounding itself in a giant barrier invulnerable to the attacks of the palace guards and soldiers. The obvious solution was to use the Genie, but as it turned out, he hadn’t returned to Agrabah since Jafar’s initial defeat. Thus, it was up to Riku’s gang to go out and deal with the mystery Heartless themselves. And coincidentally enough, Jasmine soon arrived, warning the gang of the Heartless’ approach.

Unfortunately, just as they reached the Kurt Zisa Heartless, the gang bumped into the Replica. And, rather than play it smart and focus on the bigger picture, the Replica proceeded to snap at Riku, claiming he wished to prove a point. Throughout the fight, the Replica kept trying to one-up Riku, giving snappy remarks every step of the way and serving as an endless nuisance in Riku’s mind. On the positive side, ‘Sora’ managed to calm the Replica by convincing him to team up with the others for a time.

It didn’t erase all the friction, however, and by the time Riku landed the finishing blow, the Replica exploded with anger. Donald and Goofy tried to explain the situation to Aladdin, which led to ‘Sora’ sticking up for the Replica, telling the others not to talk over his friend. Though Riku tried reasoning with the boy, his efforts were cut short when the Replica revealed Jafar’s magic lamp, wishing to ‘bury the fake in a sea of sand.’

Jafar obliged, but also turned the sandstorm on the Replica as well, forcing him and ‘Sora’ to flee.

Startled by Jafar’s return and the sudden sandstorm pursuing them, the group made a quick escape on the magic carpet, bumping into Iago along the way. Though he tried to snap at them for locking him in a cage, the incoming storm silenced him, and he joined the gang in their escape attempt. With a bit of luck, they managed to slip into an abandoned building at the last second.

Inside, they discussed Jafar, which set Iago into a panic. Though they managed to calm him down, the fact remained that Jafar was a genie now, and with the Replica gone, he could do whatever he wished, within the limits of a genie’s power. Thankfully, just as more sand started to seep inside, Genie made a surprise return, cleaning up the area and joining in the planning procedures. Together, the group split up in search of Jafar, with the plan to destroy his lamp and be rid of him for good.

What they didn’t anticipate was that Jafar had been watching them the whole time, and before long, Iago started trailing after the group, claiming Jafar was out in the desert ruins. In truth, this was all a big part of Jafar’s scheme, as he trapped the gang inside a barrier and used his powers to overwhelm the group, Genie included.

Just when it seemed that all hope was lost, however, the group managed to convince Iago to drop Jafar’s lamp into the lava through some quick thinking. The plan succeeded, but as Jafar’s lamp melted, he knocked Iago down with him.

It seemed as if he had died at first, but then he woke up, for a genie’s power could not kill.

In the end, Iago was forgiven, and the group once again prepared to depart. On the way out, Riku puzzled over the Replica’s motives. Just what was he trying to accomplish? For the time being, he’d have to wait and see, as it was finally time to return to Twilight Town and report their findings to DiZ.

Upon returning to Twilight Town, Riku shared their findings, with a particular focus on the Replica and the Organization’s manipulation of Mim. DiZ found the news somewhat perplexing, but urged Riku to focus on the bigger picture, viewing the Replica as a distraction. After their talk, he dismissed the group, and after their exhausting experiences in Agrabah, they decided to spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Instead, they wound up butting heads with Seifer, which escalated to a Struggle match between him and Riku. However, due to his exhaustion, Riku’s darkness wound up manifesting itself for the first time since he escaped the Endless Abyss. An unintentional blast of Dark Firaga ended the fight abruptly and left Riku in a panic. If his darkness could burst to life under pressure, what did that mean for him and his heart? His friends managed to encourage him for a time, Kairi in particular, and at the end of the day, the three went up to the clock tower to watch the sun set.

After resolving not to push himself too hard, Riku continued his journey with hardened resolve. For the next stop on his journey, he and his friends dropped into a jungle and took on the forms of jungle animals to blend in. The problem was that moving around on four legs made fighting a bit of a problem, and before the gang got the chance to adjust, they got swarmed by Heartless, forcing the group to fight their way through the jungle terrain. Once they finally cleared the crowd, they bumped into a tiger by the name of Shere Khan, who took interest in their unusual use of magic and weaponry.

The gang lied through their teeth, claiming to have come from a far off jungle. Khan didn’t seem to buy into the story, but fortunately didn’t question too deeply, and when asked, he revealed an ape named King Louie as the source of the Heartless. This led them on a romp towards the jungle ruins, and on the way they met up with a panther named Bagheera, who showed them how to properly move in their new forms, and befriended a bear named Baloo. They met a boy named Mowgli and learned of Bagheera’s desire to take him to a “man village,” but their talk was cut short by the arrival of a giant chameleon Heartless.

After the fight, Mowgli got snatched away by a group of Heartless monkeys, forcing the group to hurry to his aid. When they reached the ruins, they learned that an Organization member had swindled Louie into opening his heart to darkness and, unsatisfied, the ape king decided to grill Mowgli for the secrets of fire. With so many Heartless lurking inside, it’d be stupid to barge in blindly, so Baloo decided to barge in singing and dancing, dressed in drag with a silly hula skirt.

It worked for a couple minutes, but as soon as his costume fell apart, all hell broke loose. In addition to whisking Mowgli to safety, the gang had to fight their way through Louie’s Heartless army and battle Louie himself. Riku’s use of fire magic didn’t help matters, as Louie assumed that he and his friends gained their power from Mowgli.

At the end of the fight, Riku had Kairi nail Louie with a Sleep spell, as he’d only been a pawn in the Organization’s scheme and didn’t seem inherently evil. That night, they camped out beneath the trees and constructed a small fire. In doing so, they attracted the attention of a python named Kaa, who tried to hypnotize and eat the group. They scared him off with their magic and weapons, but their troubles had only just begun.

The next day brought a whole slew of troubles, from Mowgli running away after a misunderstanding with Baloo to a Heartless rhino separating Riku from his friends, and a brief skirmish with Shere Khan. They eventually found Mowgli and managed to cheer him up, only for Khan to catch up with them, leading to yet another fight. To turn the tides to his advantage, Riku used a steady stream of fire spells, but in the process, he only enraged the tiger until, at last, he cracked and transformed into a giant, monstrous Heartless.

Through their combined efforts, Riku and his friends managed to defeat Khan, only for a strange jackal with spiky red hair to appear. This mystery jackal turned out to be part of the Organization in disguise, and he tormented Riku by placing the blame on Shere Khan’s transformation on Riku’s actions. When asked about the Replica, he only gave vague answers and hopped through a dark corridor before the others got a chance to attack. Riku tried to follow him in, but his friends managed to stop him.

Their trip in the jungle ended when Mowgli wound up meeting a girl from the man village and following her inside. Riku sealed the Keyhole, and after a cheery goodbye, the gang blasted back to Twilight Town, where they found yet another mysterious note describing the Organization’s plans to push people into the darkness. Moreover, the letter mentioned that the Organization had plans for the Keyblade.

It was too vague to draw any deep conclusions, so the gang made their way back to Hollow Bastion, hoping that Leon’s crew would have some insight. Problem was, some jerk had shut down the power across the whole town and flooded the streets with Heartless. As a result, Riku and co. had to fight their way back into the Borough.

After a talk with Leon, they realized that the Organization probably intended to send Heartless wherever Riku went, and so he and his friends took off to spare Hollow Bastion from more trouble. What they didn’t count on was the giant whale, which proceeded to gobble up their ship.

They awoke inside the whale’s mouth, filled to the brim with wrecked ships. After maneuvering the rubble, they bumped into a man named Geppetto, who was perplexed by Riku’s change of clothes. As it turned out, the Replica had wound up there, too, and had run off with Pinocchio. At first, Riku reacted with a mix of anger and annoyance. Just what did the Replica have up his sleeve, and why was Pinocchio dragging him into it? However, Kairi tried to urge him and Donald not to jump to conclusions, thus the gang all wandered deeper into the whale until they finally crossed paths with the Replica himself.

And, just like before, the Replica started spouting all sorts of accusations. First he claimed that Riku once again stole his life as well as Pinocchio’s conscience. Then he went on about how Riku tore Sora’s heart out, which hit him with a mix of anger and confusion. Though Riku tried to get a clear answer, the Replica took off with Pinocchio, forcing the others to make chase.

But before long, they hit a dead end and stumbled upon a cage-like Heartless. For a moment, Riku thought about diving in to fight it, but when the Replica started expressing his frustrations, he started to realize that maybe he’d taken the wrong approach all along. The Replica complained about Riku stealing his mission and making him out to be the bad guy when he’d finally gotten a chance to help someone. That genuine desire pushed Riku to step aside, and he allowed the Replica a chance to fight the Heartless on his own. He even let Donald and Goofy join him.

With their combined efforts, the Replica, Donald, and Goofy managed to weaken the Parasite Cage, but it escaped before they could land the finishing blow. Determined to finish his mission, the Replica escaped through a hole in the floor, and Pinocchio trailed right after him. Naturally, Riku and the others followed after them, but when they dropped to the ship deck below, they found that the Replica had already bolted off for Monstro’s stomach, leaving Pinocchio behind.

The group briefly discussed how to assess the situation, but decided to follow the Replica in case he needed backup. When they reached Monstro’s stomach, the Replica snapped once again, claiming that Riku’s kindness was just a way of stealing the spotlight. Trying not to stir trouble, Riku tried redirecting his attention by asking about the Organization’s plans, and he learned that they planned to collect hearts via the Keyblade. As tensions spiked, Riku also got confirmation that the blond boy was indeed Sora’s Nobody and that the Replica had every intent to get his heart back.

The news still startled Riku despite his earlier suspicions, leaving him scared, confused, and speechless all at once. While his friends encouraged him, the Replica started gloating, only to get trapped inside the Parasite Cage.

He tried to put up a strong front, claiming that he could escape himself, but his efforts were useless. Having seen the good in his Replica, Riku decided to dive in and save his copy, thus, he and his friends battled the Parasite Cage until its eventual destruction.

Once again, Riku’s kindness startled the Replica, and he broke into a fit of rage that ended abruptly when Monstro’s insides started to flood. Instead of fighting, he opened a corridor and helped Riku and co. escape back to Geppetto’s boat. There, Riku acted kindly once again, allowing the Replica to escort Geppetto, Pinocchio, Figaro, and Cleo to the safety of Traverse Town. He even let them believe that the Replica was the real deal.

Though startled and angry, the Replica relented and urged Riku and his friends to hurry back to their ship. They made it just in the nick of time for Monstro to spit them back into space, and on their way back to Twilight Town, Riku puzzled over the Replica once again. Goofy deduced that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all, which Donald begrudgingly accepted. At the same time, Kairi complimented Riku for his actions, proud that he put his frustrations aside and acted so selflessly.

Sadly, this momentary peace came grinding to a halt once they returned to Twilight Town. After revealing their latest findings and discussing Sora’s Nobody, DiZ urged Riku to abandon all hopes of aiding the boy, for a Nobody could not feel nor deserve friendship. An argument ensued, and in the end, Riku stormed outside, furious at DiZ’s words. Kairi followed him, and the two decided to go up to the clock tower for a much deserved breather.

There, Riku expressed his fears and doubts. First they had Sora’s Nobody, whose fake memories led him to believe that Riku was an enemy. And then there was the mysterious letter writer, quite possibly Sora’s Heartless, who had avoided them the entire time. Moreover, Riku felt that he just wasn’t able to provide the encouragement Kairi deserved, as he lacked Sora’s upbeat attitude. The future was so uncertain, and he missed Sora so much, but, to his surprise, Kairi told him that he’s special because he’s an individual.

In that brief moment, Riku wondered if perhaps there was something a little more than friendship budding between them, but he set those thoughts aside. There were just too many other issues to worry about. They needed to find Sora, defeat the Organization, and save all the worlds that had fallen into darkness. With so many other priorities, tiny things like love just didn’t matter in the long run.

Still, his venting freed some of the tension inside him, and the two spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about Sora and electing to keep searching until they finally found him. Little did they realize, Sora’s Heartless had been watching the whole time, and when they finally returned to the mansion, they found a simple note that read: “Don’t give up,” along with a black version of Sora’s crown necklace.

At last, Riku had proof that another part of Sora was still out there—and still remembered him.

But when he went to sleep that night, he got ripped from his world and dropped into the Tower of Animus.

Personality: The first thing that sticks out about Riku is his cool, collected attitude. He’s generally laid back, a bit blunt, and a touch arrogant as well. His sense of humor might come across as harsh, especially when he teases his friends, but he generally sticks to playful jabs rather than something truly mean spirited. Back on the island, he'd poke fun at Sora's crush on Kairi and how much he slacked off. And when it comes to Donald, he's mocked him for his temper quite a bit. Teasing is just one of the ways Riku shows affection, and if a friend expressed genuine discomfort, he’d drop it straight away.

At one point in his life, he behaved in an overly cocky, confident manner, and while he still tries to put on a strong front, his confidence has been weathered by his experiences. Between the destruction of the islands, failing to save Pleasure Island, and his ultimate decision to leave the Door to Darkness open, Riku often doubts his skills as a hero. His time in the Tower of Animus certainly hasn’t helped, as he’s had to watch a version of Sora die before his eyes, suffer horrific nightmares involving the death of his friends and his home, and eventually accept the fact that his universe had been destroyed.

Worse, in an attempt to save his friends and allies, he nearly cost them their lives as well as his own. ‘Death’ in the tower is an everyday occurrence, but under normal circumstances, characters’ souls get placed into replacement bodies. Because of Riku’s actions, he nearly risked the destruction of those souls, a fact that continues to eat away at him.

Most people would fall apart under that kind of pressure, but despite his failures and his guilt, Riku has pushed forward to the best of his ability. In the face of dark circumstances, Riku perseveres, and with each mistake, he tries his hardest to get back on his feet and strive to make up for past transgressions. It’s not just about righting his wrongs, but also for the sake of the people he cherishes. Once he came to accept that his friends were gone, he became all the more determined to restore the dead worlds so that he could go back and finish what he started before fate took an ugly turn.

Another key trait of Riku's that hasn't changed is his competitive spirit. Back on the islands, he'd challenge Sora and the other islanders to sparring matches every day and partake in other challenges like racing. While his journey has pushed him away from lighthearted games, this competitive spirit only fuels his desire to succeed. Challenges and goals give Riku a reason to keep fighting, and if someone were to challenge him to something like a race or a spar, you can bet he’d give it his all. While he’s grown past a stage where he might have been a sore loser, he certainly wouldn’t object to a win every now and then.

In addition to his guilt, Riku has other forms of insecurities—namely jealousy. Ever since he was a kid, he admired his friend Sora for his carefree disposition and the way he lives life following his heart. While Riku became restless and unhappy with his life in his small little world, Sora stayed positive, living in the moment instead of worrying about the future.

Riku isn't like that. He's not some cheerful, upbeat hero that goes around making tons of new friends, nor is he the type to go out of his way to befriend complete strangers-- not without a reason, anyway. He does care about his friends, and they mean the world to him, but he's often reckless for the sake of his own ambitions. He opened the door to his world in a desperate attempt to escape, and at the start of his adventure, he completely disregarded Donald and Goofy's mission in order to explore the worlds they visited and, later, hunt down Sora.

It's taken some serious emotional as well as physical challenges in order for his outlook to change.

When he first left his world, he thought that traveling around would be easy. This didn't change once he learned about the Keyblade. In fact, for the longest time, he acted as though he could handle anything the Heartless or Disney villains threw at him. So what if they were tough? He had the Keyblade. To make matters worse, his early experiences across the worlds were quick and easy. He battled some Heartless, dealt with creeps like the Queen of Hearts and Hades, and made it out in one piece. True, Donald and Goofy helped, but he only saw them as nuisances and an excuse to get around.

But as time went on, his perspective shifted. First, he found out that Sora'd "befriended" Maleficent, thinking she was one of the good guys. Then he found out about the Keyholes and just how important they were. Even then, he tried to stay cool, acting as though he could handle everything...

Until his carelessness lead to the destruction of another world, and countless hearts fell to the darkness.

As mentioned above, Riku’s tried to move forward, especially after his life in the tower. And as far as Donald and Goofy go, he’s long since learned to appreciate them as friends, and after two years in the tower, he misses their silly antics just as much as misses Sora and Kairi. He’s grown as a person, shifting from a fairly selfish individual to someone who can see the bigger picture, connect with others more easily, and will almost always fight for the sake of others. He’s just had a few slip-ups along the way, as his dedication to Sora and Kairi sometimes wage war with his duties as a Keybearer.

He’s not about to go around and befriend everyone without question—Riku isn’t Sora, and after seeing Sora get manipulated at the hands of Maleficent and after being tricked by Riki in the Tower, he has a much stronger tendency to scrutinize strangers. He’s not so aloof that he’ll push people away, and generally he still makes friends easily, but he won’t follow every word he hears blindly just because of his morals and ideals.

Still, earn his trust, and you’ll have a friend for life. Though he's not the sort to preach about the power of friendship, he'd go to great lengths to protect the people he holds dear, even if it means making the wrong choices. This is reflected in the AU a bit differently. Instead of working with the villains, Riku simply wasted a lot of time looking for Sora instead of focusing on the Keyholes. His loyalty to his friends was also what prompted him to leave the Door to Darkness open, as he feared that closing off the walls of the worlds would prevent him from finding Sora at all.

This made the situation with Sora's Nobody incredibly difficult. It was bad enough when Sora worked with the Disney villains, but thanks to XIII’s false memories, Riku faced yet another moral dilemma. Should he have destroyed the Nobody due to his Organization status, or found a way to fix his memories and find his heart? Presently, Riku refuses to destroy the Nobody, holding firmly to his promise against all odds. Even after his time in the Tower, he refuses to consider eliminating XIII, and after meeting Roxas in the tower, he’s willing to look at Sora’s Nobody as a distinct individual, much like he views his own Replica.

And that’s the key thing, really. Time in the tower has given Riku a healthy dose of perspective. By meeting people from the canon reality as well as forming new friendships from far off worlds, he’s come to reevaluate the circumstances at home, at least a little bit. He knows about Xehanort, he knows about the path he could have walked, had he let darkness consume him. He knows what it’s like to suffer true, genuine loss, and while it still sometimes eats him up inside, he knows that he should cherish every moment he spends with his friends, because there’s no telling when disaster will strike.

Still, as cheery as that sounds, his time in the tower has brought on some negative changes in his personality as well. Because ‘death’ is an everyday occurrence in the tower, he’s become rather desensitized to pain and injury. He’s also become even more prone to recklessness than before. Riku has always had his impulsive moments, but due to the dire circumstances in the tower, he’s done wild things like diving down an elevator shaft to infiltrate the administrative levels. He lived the descent, but his stubborn desire to succeed remains in full force, and he’s also gained a much stronger distrust for authority figures… which will probably serve as a double-edged sword, given his servitude to the witch.

Tight spaces leave him uncomfortable due to being crushed to death by a twisted Halloween costume and facing off with a tower administrator within a cramped, free falling elevator. And while ‘death’ is common in the tower, recent events have given him a true fear of his own mortality and that of those around him. He’s terrified at the possibility that he may not get a happy ending for his universe, terrified that everything will fall apart.

Riku also has moments of loneliness due to spending so much time away from the people from his own universe. Though he made new friends to fill the void, being surrounded by so many people from the canon ‘verse and other alternate realities left him feeling out of place for the longest time. He’s recovered, but there are still moments where he longs to talk to someone about his experiences back home—people who will understand his perspective on a more personal level.

And to top it all off, he has yet to fully conquer his darkness. It’s not that he views darkness as wholly bad—unlike some people in the Kingdom Hearts universe, this Riku honestly doesn’t care about light and darkness as a whole. He’ll forge his own path and fight for the greater good because it’s the right thing to do. Still, while he knows darkness is a natural part of every heart and that he shouldn’t try and suppress it, he also knows what can happen if one lets their darkness run wild, and whenever his darkness manifests, he fears that he’ll lose control. Hell, it’s already happened a few times in the tower.

Still, in spite of his fears, his loneliness, and guilt, Riku remains a brave individual, a dedicated friend, and while flawed, a hero in his own right. He just has a few hurdles to overcome before he truly and finally reaches his full potential.

Debt: Essentially, all of Riku’s failures can be compiled into one huge, heaping debt. He caused the destruction of Destiny Islands, failed to save Pleasure Island, left the Door to Darkness open just to keep a promise… and he also was incapable of stopping his universe’s destruction at the hands of Ruana. Add that to his recent guilt from nearly killing his friends, and Riku has plenty of reasons to work under the witch.

More than anything, he wants to ensure a brighter future for the friends he failed and for his own universe. Thus, in exchange for his work, he would like to see his universe fully restored to the way it was before Ruana eradicated everything.

Suitability: Riku won’t be happy about the servitude, but given his heavy burdens from back home and in the tower, he’s willing to put up with it. After spending two years in a tower filled with psychotic administrators, monsters, and death traps, this new world will feel like a breath of fresh air. And after enduring experiments, games, and other trials, he’ll view work as a cake walk by comparison. He may not fully trust the witch, but at the same time, he’s willing to take whatever risk is necessary to ensure his universe’s safe restoration.

Previous Game Info: Riku awoke in the Tower of Animus, trapped in a brief state of sleep paralysis. When he awoke, he found himself in a strange dormitory room with a vague note that claimed that his world got destroyed and he was ‘saved’. Little did he realize, there was truth behind the note, as a virus had swept across the multiverse, destroying all life on the affected worlds, right down to the tiniest microbe. In each affected world, a single soul was saved, transported to the tower, and outfitted with a collar filled with colored fluids.

Riku learned about alternate worlds from the start, as he encountered Xion upon exiting his room. After a brief misunderstanding, he learned that there was another Riku in the tower and that Xion came from a world where a very different sequence of events transpired. He learned that people came from different points in time, met a Sora from a dimension far removed from his own, and encountered Ven, a boy with a striking resemblance to Sora’s Nobody. Thus, from the very beginning, he came to expect doppelgangers, lookalikes, and heaps of confusion. But this first outing in the tower hardly prepared him for the dangers to come.

It didn’t take long before he met his double from the canon universe, who would later become one of his closest friends and allies. Like with the others from the canon universe, he found his double puzzling at first, as he wore the Organization’s coat and wielded Soul Eater—a weapon he had come to associate with Sora. In their first conversation, he learned that Sora could have been changed back from a Heartless if he had just stuck around a little longer. This news hit him hard, and it left him wondering if his own foolishness led to Sora’s continued existence as a Heartless. This would nag at Riku for a while, but as time went on, the general danger of the tower began to grab hold of his attention.

Between weird power fluctuations in the tower, monsters roaming the halls, and floors designed as living death traps, Riku was forced to stay on guard at all times. Fortunately, he managed to escape that month’s game, Hitori Kakurenbo, which put residents through a gruesome game of hide and seek involving killer teddy bears. However, his OU counterpart and Naminé got dragged into the heat of it and with their deaths broadcast over the network, he along with OU Sora and Xion decided enough was enough. Together, they tried to break in, but when monsters attacked and overwhelmed them, they had no choice but to retreat.

Over the course of March, more residents joined the Tower, including Kairi, an AU Version of Xion, Master Xehanort, and Vanitas. With each encounter, Riku found himself both fascinated and perplexed. The AU Xion particularly baffled him due to her shared appearance with Sora, and after their first meeting, he revealed his findings to the other Xion and learned the truth behind her existence. Later that month, Riku got caught in his first tower experiment, when his collar fluid changed from blue to orange, causing uncomfortable power fluctuations that pushed his darkness out of control.

This put him under a lot of stress due to his fear of his own dark power, but with some encouragement from OU Riku and Ven, he managed to quell the inner storm for the time being. Later that month, he attended a friendship affirmation party, which provided a brief reprieve from the tower’s terrors and acquainted him with Suzaku, who would later become a friend and ally.

April brought a great deal of stress, between Xion’s kidnapping at the hands of Vanitas, the news that Master Xehanort held ties to ‘Ansem,’ and the attempted mission to save Xion. In the middle of the month, a question popped up on the network, asking what characters feared, and at the time, and Riku answered, not knowing the terror he’d brought upon himself. Come May, he got thrown into a Hunger Games style labyrinth, where all participating characters were forced to kill one another until only one survived.

Along with Riku, OU Sora joined the fray, and the two worked hard to survive the grueling conditions, including disabled powers. Unfortunately, neither survived in the end. Sora died at the hands of Ganondorf, and though Riku tried to avenge him, he was swiftly overwhelmed. Upon dying, he was faced with the horrific image of Kairi with her chest cut open and her heart exposed, an image that would continue to haunt his dreams for some time.

The man behind the Labyrinth was none other than Jason, one of the tower’s administrators, and Riku grew to quickly despise the man with every fiber of his being. From the very first time Riku saw Jason on the network, he noticed a clear lack of detachment. Jason saw tower residents as lab rats instead of people, with no regard for their safety and well-being. Jason also claimed that the worlds were indeed destroyed, a fact that Riku would continue to deny for well over a year.

The next few months were relatively light for Riku, beyond the general tower dangers. At the tail end of July, he and countless others got trapped within a world of dreams. These dreams consisted of flashes from Riku’s past and manifestations of his fears—namely, the fear that his world was indeed destroyed and that he himself was to blame.

Others entered his dreams, learning a bit about his history, and in turn, Riku saw the reams of others, including his double, wherein he learned of the path he could have walked, had he let the darkness consume him.

He would later have to face his fears yet again, when manifestations of characters’ repressed selves took on physical form as Shadows. Despite warnings over the network, Riku refused to accept his Shadow, which embodied all his negative traits—his darkness, his bitterness, his fear, and his loneliness. It got to a point where his Shadow transformed into a monstrous Heartless, leaving Riku completely drained. Though he got rescued in the end, he still struggled to accept these repressed feelings for quite some time.

Not that he had much time to dwell on it. In addition to the Shadow incident, September brought yet another experiment in the form of a body swap, and Riku had the unfortunate displeasure of switching forms with the Vanitas from his universe. Though it started out as a simple case of mistaken identity, by the end of the first day, Vanitas’ memories started leaking into his consciousness, and it only got worse from there. As time went on, the memories started muddling his sense of self, coupled by coughing fits, power fluctuations, and blurry vision. As it turned out, all affected parties would die if they could not figure out a way to return to their proper bodies. Thankfully, a cure was found in time to escape a gruesome fate, though the memories still lingered and Riku’s hatred towards Jason only grew.

October also gave him a first-hand experience with Ruana’s “Games,” as the tower’s head admin forced characters to don ridiculous costumes and collect candy. The catch was that failure risked death. And, as luck would have it, Riku wound up among the dead. His consolation price was a strange, over eager dragon with the ability to eat his nightmares. This dragon would become a lasting companion, and he would later learn that the critter was called a Dream Eater.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on his new pet as a new floor appeared in the tower—a graveyard which displayed the names of those who had left the tower on tombstones. It filled him with a deep sense of dread, as his fears once again haunted him. What if those who left the tower had died? Why else would gravestones appear? And if not, why would they even think to use a cemetery to commemorate the departed? It also brought back his feelings of loneliness, as, aside from Vanitas’ short appearance, he had nobody from his universe and was left surrounded by familiar faces who couldn’t fully relate to his struggles.

Still, he tried his best to press forward, spending time at Christmas parties and sticking close to the few friends he had. December brought harsh temperatures and very little supplies, but come January, his life grew just a little bight brighter with the arrival of his Replica. Yes, despite their rocky relationship, Riku finally had a familiar face to relate to and a small sliver of hope that his world had in fact survived. As such, he tried his best to help the Replica, putting a good foot forward despite his usual abrasive attitude.

Little did he realize, life in the tower would soon change forever. It all started when a vast influx of visitors came in from a parallel world called Hinoto Ri (destinystrings crossover), including an alternate version of Kairi. Though she wasn’t the Kairi from his reality, this gave Riku a faint ray of hope and briefly filled the void left by her absence.

A Q&A with the admins left many residents in the tower frustrated, as they reiterated tales of the worlds’ destruction. The administrator Dax tried encouraging the residents, promising that they could find a way to restore the worlds, but his encouragement hardly helped once a dark mist set over the tower, sparking feelings of paranoia that set Riku against his friends. His darkness surged out of control, forcing Terra, his Replica, and a boy named Chaos to soothe him. This was hardly the end of their struggles, either.

After a string of events leading up to an attempted coup, Dax wound up killed and eaten by Ruana, sending the tower into a period of doubt and despair. With Dax gone, the tower residents lost one of their only allies, and for a time, the situation seemed utterly hopeless. During this time, a number of revelations came to light, including the fact that the characters’ bodies were artificial and that every time they died, their souls got placed into replacements, further proof of how little control they had over their own lives.

Hopelessness gave way to fierce determination over time, and Riku was no exception. Though Dax was long gone, his legacy lived on in the form of letters and a collection of chips, which he requested the residents to spread throughout the tower. Determined to make a difference, Riku joined in, spreading chips across the tower despite the dangers lurking throughout. Once everything was in place, the tower abruptly lost power, and the truth behind the tower came out at long last.

Not only were characters’ bodies artificial, but they were wireframe constructs. Their powers were nothing more than smoke and mirrors produced by a so-called glamour system. Riku never had his Keyblade at all. Kairi’s charm and Sora’s necklace were simple film duplicates. Everything was under the control of the admins, and this news shocked Riku, leaving him with a feeling of vulnerability and helplessness. To make matters worse, it was revealed that the shortage cost the power a great deal of power and the characters only had a year to find a solution, lest they risk death or being left to wander their dead worlds for all of eternity.

But rather than lose hope, the residents of the tower continued to take action. The next month, Sephiroth arranged a collar fluid boycott, as every week characters were required to check in and get their collar fluids changed. Fearing what happened during the power fluctuations the previous year, Riku refused to participate, but as it turned out, there were no detriments to the boycott at all. In fact, those participating served to anger Jason, who later called out to the rest of the tower, chiding them for their ‘learned-helplessness’. Furious, Riku decided enough was enough. Sitting around complacently would accomplish nothing, so he pushed himself to take action.

As a result of the boycott, more secrets came to light. First, it was revealed that late at night, a period of time suspension occurred, where retrieval units would enter characters’ rooms and remove all real objects to replace them with film. Characters gained consciousness during this time, only to find their bodies moving on autopilot and performing menial tasks for the admins. Riku was no exception.

After a discussion with John Egbert, he learned that there was a way to remove collars from their bodies using a stylus and a code. Later, when a wide-scale infiltration of the administrative levels began, Riku made it his goal to find the styluses in hopes of finding a way to unlock true powers. Additionally, he began collecting and hiding real weaponry and armor, as he could no longer rely on a film Keyblade.

During the infiltration, he along with Sora, his double, John, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and a boy named Naoya dived down the elevator shaft, and thanks to some help from Riku’s Ryu Dragon and the Homestuck kids’ Pokémon, they made it to the admin levels in one piece. Sadly, the retrieval units overwhelmed them, forcing Riku and some of the group to act as distractions to ensure the safe recovery of the styluses. Though he once again faced death, he accepted his fate, no longer feeling shackled by the admins’ power.

In addition infiltrating, Riku joined an effort to research the collar fluid canisters collected during the boycott. Eventually, they would discover a way to unlock their true powers through a replacement collar fluid, placing them one step closer to defeating the admins.

But it wasn’t all smiles and roses. In August, an explosion in the elevator shaft allowed strange creatures called Shadow Children to reach the tower’s upper levels. These strange creatures spoke with the voices of friends, enemies, and family from characters’ destroyed worlds and taunted the characters by reminding them that they had failed to save their worlds. Riku was forced to face twisted versions of Kairi, Donald, Goofy, Sora, and countless others, all blaming him for their deaths. At long last, he was faced with near-conclusive proof that his universe was indeed destroyed.

But in a way, this only fueled his desire to defeat the admins and save his home. Thus, despair transformed into determination.

As time went on, explosions within the tower became quite frequent for reasons then unknown. Was it Jason? Was it a third party? Was it one of the residents? Nobody seemed to know. In December, a group of chipped retrieval units revealed themselves to the residents, cutting off the administrators’ power and creating a secret floor safe from admin surveillance. Jason was less than pleased by their actions and tore open a void in reality that allowed strange, plague doctor creatures to run wild through the tower. The problem only escalated when Jason made an appearance in his de-glamoured form.

Riku was among the group leading a charge on Jason, but although he and the others fought valiantly, they were overpowered. Thankfully, another admin named Zo managed to disable Jason’s power, allowing the residents to at least injure Jason before he made a swift escape. The hidden floor was successfully completed, and after another string of explosions, it was revealed that they were Jason’s doing.

January also granted characters a supposed opportunity to restore power to the tower. The administrator Riki offered to hook them up to a machine and use a little of their soul energy to buy them more time. Continuing his trend of taking action, Riku joined in the effort, finding himself in a strange, black void. In the end, Riku and the other characters regained consciousness through contact with a strange mirror, which overwhelmed Riku with every single possible path his world could have taken, including his own future, the canon future, and a steady stream of possibilities that flew by so fast, he was left overwhelmed. To top it all off, he was unable to use his powers for a month, forcing him to sit on the sidelines for some time.

With Jason’s betrayal out in the open, Ruana decided enough was enough. She arranged a game set in the labyrinth which eventually led to Jason’s death.

One would think that with Jason gone, life in the tower would improve, but after a group of residents hacked Dax’s personal files, it was revealed that Riki had never intended to use the collected soul energy to save the tower at all. He had deceived everyone, and worse, it was soon revealed that Ruana was the source of the virus.

Furious, Zo’s power surged out of control, catapulting a number of residents outside the tower, Riku included. Without the tower to sustain them, they had a limited time to hurry back before they died—permanently. Outside the tower, they dealt with the surrounding death and decay, but on the way back, Riku and a man named Capell took a short stop inside an abandoned house and took back a book in hopes that they might be able to decipher its contents.

In the end, it proved to be nothing more than a silly romantic novel, and so Riku moved on to more important matters, namely, stopping Riki from using the machine for his own nefarious purposes. He along with a large infiltration group went down in an effort to commandeer the machine for themselves. But what seemed like a simple hacking effort soon led to life-threatening danger, from metallic tentacles to power outlets protected by magic-reflecting barriers. Riku was among the many fighting to break into the outlets, and together, he and Xion broke the protective coat and pulled the final plug. The machine was repurposed by the chipped retrieval units, and it finally seemed like things were looking up.

But it was hardly over. Soon, Aria and Zo appeared to the residents, gravely injured, forcing a group to escort them up the steps to safety, while dangerous, adapting retrieval units followed in hot pursuit. Riku was among them, and though the trip was long and fraught with danger, they succeeded in reaching the secret floor, only for Riki to appear in his true form in an attempt to break inside.

His true appearance was a massive, metallic skeleton with power over the tower itself as well as electricity. A large group of residents tried to fend him off, even knocking him out of the tower, but Riku soon learned from England that the only way to properly defeat Riki was to push him into the elevator, cut the wires, and send him crashing down to the ground floor.

Thus, Riku led the charge alongside a small group, pushing Riki into the elevator and sending it on a dangerous plummet to rock bottom. Trapped in cramped quarters, they were forced to deal with Riki’s command over electricity and ability to meld the walls of the elevator into metal spikes. Fortunately, they got to the bottom without casualties and managed to force Riki out the door into a spotlight that led to his death.

But because they forgot to destroy the body, Ruana was able to devour Riki and gain his power. The doors slammed shut, and in a panic, Riku tried to open a dark corridor to pull his friends to safety. This let the spotlight in, and it shone over Riku and the others, and for a brief moment, it seemed like they were really, truly going to die.

Ruana used her power to spare them, and after a heated argument, she rendered the gang unconscious. Because we are still in endgame, this is where I plan to take Riku. Because his actions nearly killed his friends and allies, he will be in a vulnerable enough state to aid the witch. His guilt will be at an all time high, making it easy to rope him into a contract.

--CR--

Castmates:

OU Riku: Oddly enough, Riku’s closest friend in the tower was… himself. Yes, they may both have been Rikus, but they each came from differing circumstances, each with their own struggles. The two shared experiences and came to trust one another, participating in infiltrations and battles against the administrators, just to name a few examples. Perhaps it’s because they are both Riku at their core that they were able to get along so well.

OU Sora: Encountering Sora was an odd experience for Riku, as when he first came to the tower, he had only directly encountered Sora’s Nobody since he gave up his heart to save Kairi. This Sora came from the moment the islands disappeared, thus he lacked the harrowing experiences of Riku’s Sora. Thus, in a way, this Sora became an emotional crutch. A reminder of a time long past, and even if he wasn’t quite the same, Riku still shared the same fondness towards Sora as the one in his dimension.

OU Xion: Although Riku didn’t get as close to Xion as he had hoped, the two shared a mutual trust, having worked together to face conflicts such as the administrator Riki. Riku would consider her a friend, and in a way, he regrets not getting to know her as well as he could have due to his own stubborn habits getting the best of him.

AU Xion (“Fey”): Puzzling, to say the least. This Xion looked identical to Sora, making for an awkward first impression, but the two remained on friendly terms during her stay in the tower.

OU Kairi: Like OU Sora, Riku came to see this Kairi as a sort of surrogate for his Kairi, but at the same time, being around her only reminded him of the fact that his Kairi was quite possibly dead. She was there when his Shadow confronted him in the tower and saw his fears and doubts come out at full force, and when she left the tower the first time, it hit hard, as he discovered her departure by stumbling upon a grave stone. She came back later and left once again, but by that time, Riku had accepted it as the way of the tower.

AU Kairi: A Kairi from a reality where she was the Keyblade’s chosen wielder, Riku came to regard her as a friend. The differences in her reality intrigued him, but seeing a Kairi who was a competent fighter reminded him of his own Kairi. His biggest regret was not getting to know her better before she left.

Vanitas (AU and OU): Whether AU or OU, Riku hated Vanitas tremendously. Seeing him as a truly despicable person, Riku was all the more unsettled by his physical similarities to Sora. During a body switch event, Riku wound up swapping bodies with the Vanitas of his universe and wound up absorbing memory and personality traits, which only strengthened his hatred.

Roxas (AU and OU): Roxas came and went many times in the tower, but each encounter baffled Riku. The Roxas of his universe held onto the identity of Sora, albeit with fake memories, so seeing versions of him with their own identities threw him for a loop. He got along with the first Roxas well enough, but because he was sort of a revolving door, Riku never got to know him as well as he would have liked.

OU Ventus: Riku and Ventus got along quite well, and in a way, though their initial encounter threw Riku off guard. Once he adjusted to the fact that Ven was not Sora, he came to appreciate his upbeat attitude.

OU Aqua: Like Roxas, Aqua was a revolving door. Meeting her fascinated Riku because he vaguely remembered her visiting the islands when he was little, and while he didn’t get to know her all that well, he respected her skill as a Keyblade wielder as well as her friendly, caring personality.

OU Terra: Riku was… excited, to say the least, when he met Terra again. The two hit it off quite fast, although Terra was taken aback by how much older Riku was. Sadly, Terra left rather quickly, but just getting to see him after ten years was a treat.

AU Terra: Likewise, Riku enjoyed the time he spent with the older Terra, looking up to him due to his prowess as a Keyblade wielder.

AU Riku Replica: After Vanitas’ departure, Riku was left as the only being from his dimension… and then his Replica showed up more than a year later. Just like back home, the two had a rocky start, but much like he did in Monstro, Riku tried to smooth out the rough spots in their relationship, and the two came to at least tolerate one another. Sadly, the Replica left, and with the news that Ruana could eat the souls of people left on their dead worlds, Riku has been worried about his copy ever since.

OU Master Eraqus: Eraqus didn’t stay very long, but Riku found him very fascinating, as the idea of Keyblade Masters was so strange to him. Through Eraqus, Riku learned a little about the history of Keyblade wielders.

OU Master Xehanort: Riku initially regarded Xehanort with intrigue, viewing him in a highly positive light overall. However, as time passed, he grew steadily more suspicious of Xehanort, particularly after he trapped people in a dream-like state. Still, Riku never grew to hate him like he did with Ansem, so there’s that.

OU Riku Replica (“Ira”): Due to the experiences with his Replica, Riku tried to treat his OU copy with a similar amount of respect. And, thankfully, it worked in his favor, as the two got along fairly well, certainly without the friction of the AU Replica. Riku would like to think of him as a close acquaintance if not a friend, though he’s not sure if Ira would say the same.

OU Naminé: Naminé fascinates Riku, as he only ever heard of her back home and never properly met the girl. He found her very pleasant to be around—sweet, if a bit soft spoken, and she was among the few who dived into Riku’s dreams. He considers her a friend, even if she’s not as close as some of his other companions.

Terra-Xehanort: A perplexing individual, to say the least. Riku found his similarities to Terra off-putting, as his different hair and eye color, coupled with amnesia and strikingly different personality left him puzzling over Terra’s overall fate. They never got particularly close, and Riku found his desire to aid Jason… troubling, to say the least. All in all, he was an enigma in Riku’s mind.

AU Xemnas: The Organization’s superior, Riku never formed a deep bond with Xemnas. During his brief tenure in the tower, Riku still found himself fascinated, and there was no denying Xemnas’ intelligence. Still, like Terra-Xehanort, his appearance was off-putting, especially since he’d never actually seen Xemnas’ face back home. That combined with his status as the Organization’s leader has left him cautious at best.

Panfandom CR:

Enoch (El Shaddai): Enoch was ultimately a very positive presence for Riku. Always friendly, always understanding, he is one of the few people Riku opened up to even when he was distancing himself from others. The two also fought together against Riki near the end of Animus, thus Riku feels a certain comradery towards him.

Yukiko Amagi (Persona 4): Yukiko was one of Riku’s newer friends in the tower. Not only did she have a fairly positive attitude, but she was among the group fighting for control of Riki’s machine and later Riki himself, making them comrades as well. Riku doesn’t know a ton about her world, but they briefly discussed the similarities between Heartless, Nobodies, and Shadows.

Colette Brunel (Tales of Symphonia): Another early friend of Riku’s, he was endeared by her upbeat, bubbly personality from the start. Most of their time spent together was rather light and sometimes frivolous, such as one incident where the tower filled with snow, but she was also among the people who discovered him at the graveyard and offered

Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss): Riku’s experience with Luke is an… interesting one. When they first met, Luke was a loud, brash, and fairly rude individual whom Riku regarded with a mix of amusement and a tiny bit of annoyance, though they were generally on friendly terms. Later, Luke returned to the tower with a haircut and far more maturity, and he and Riku shared a conversation about replicas, during which Luke was fairly open about what he was. He would have loved to see more of this Luke, but his time in the tower passed in the blink of an eye.

Sayaka Miki (Madoka Magica): Sayaka was one of Riku’s first friends in the tower, and he admired her for her spunky attitude. She was one of the people who always faced Jason with fire and sass and was among the group who suggested that everyone submit requests for Jason to get punched in the face. Little gestures like these endeared her to Riku, even if she was a little bit reckless.

Kyoko (Madoka Magica): Riku never got particularly close to Kyoko, but she was among the group that fought with Riki inside the elevator, and it was thanks to her power that they were able to restrain Riki long enough to reach the bottom. Thus, Riku feels a deep sense of gratitude toward her as well as a heavy amount of guilt. After all, he nearly killed her, just like the others in the group.

Diarmuid (Fate/): Like Arturia and Zelda, Riku regards Diarmuid with a great deal of respect. Unlike Arturia and Zelda, Riku got to know him much better. Riku found Diarmuid a very pleasant man to talk to, intelligent and wise. Together, they were among the first to start gathering real weapons after they learned that the armor and weapons carried by monster were not constructed from film. They also shared a number of heavy conversations, from talk of the admins to some of Riku’s struggles and woes,

Tetra (Legend of Zelda): Most adorable pirate ever. Prior to meeting Tetra, Riku’s only experience with pirates consisted of a blowhard with a hook for a hand. But unlike Captain Hook, Tetra was not only friendly, but feisty and full of confidence that made her a lot of fun to speak with. While he questioned how a kid her age could take on piracy, he was willing to set his questions aside. After everything he’d seen back home, a kid pirate was actually pretty tame.

Zelda (Legend of Zelda): Though Riku never got particularly close to Zelda, he admires her for her bravery and her dedication toward fighting against the admins. She was one of the founding members of the Fellowship and later Pandora, and even if they never bonded too deeply, Riku regards her with a great deal of respect.

Arturia (Fate/): Like Zelda, Riku views Arturia with a great level of respect, and for similar reasons. She was one of the more active individuals fighting against the admins. She helped coordinate the spreading of the microchips that would eventually lead to the revelation of the glamour system, which would change how Riku viewed his time in the tower. She was pleasant to talk to, and Riku wishes he could have gotten to know her a bit better. Still, whenever a wide tower crisis arose, she was one of the first people to take action.

Ganondorf (Zelda): Riku hates Ganondorf for what he did to Sora and never let that grudge die. His grudge only intensified when Ganon shrouded the tower in a facsimile of the dark world, forcing characters to go through dangerous dungeons and battle against horrific monsters. Despite his hatred, however, Riku was willing to join in the infiltration effort and fight against Jason, both of which were at least partly spearheaded by Ganon. If given the choice between him and the admins, Riku would begrudgingly admit that Ganon is the lesser evil.

Suzaku (Code Geass): One of the first friends Riku met in the tower, Riku and Suzaku got along well from the start. As time wore on, they didn’t see each other quite as much, Riku still respected Suzaku and enjoyed talking to him whenever he got the chance. Though I’m pulling him from before this moment, Riku would later find Suzaku on his dead world and help him return to the Tower, and together they’d team up to face Ruana in the final battle.

John Egbert (Homestuck + Route 29 Import): To Riku’s surprise, John already knew Riku from another world—a world full of creatures called Pokémon. Though this confused Riku at first, he connected with John in the blink of an eye due to his upbeat and easygoing personality. John was among Riku’s infiltration group, alongside his friends Rose and Dave, and it was John who informed Riku of the styluses as well. He came to trust him quite a bit and was sad to see him go in the end.

Minato (Persona 3): Like Kyoko, Riku and Minato never got super close, but Minato was there when Riku was being tailed by modified retrieval units, and he was there during the Riki fight, all the way down to the ground floor. Without his help, they may not have succeeded, and to that end, Riku feels he owes Minato a great debt. Like the others who went to the ground floor, Riku also feels a great deal of guilt for nearly causing Minato’s death.

Inventory: Riku had his Keyblade, Kairi’s lucky charm, a blackened version of Sora’s necklace, the clothes on his back, as well as his companion, a rather goofy Ryu Dragon.

Abilities, Strengths, and Weaknesses: Since he's the Keybearer, Riku has his share of abnormal abilities. The most obvious is his Keyblade, a sword-like weapon he can summon at will and use to lock or unlock just about anything from chests to Keyholes in worlds. It can also be equipped with a number of Keychains that change its shape and power.

Additionally, the Keyblade allows him to use an assortment of elemental magic including fire, blizzard, aero, gravity, thunder, cure, quake, meteor, and stop. Each of these spells is powerful, as he's worked them up to the third level (*ga). Thanks to his Ryu Dragon, he also picked up additional skills, such as the highly destructive Mega Flare. However, their use requires MP-- in other worlds, he can't spam magic constantly and must recharge every once in a while. Beating up foes or taking damage helps, oddly, but the fact remains that heavy magic use can leave Riku weak. More on that when I cover the weaknesses.

After opening his heart to darkness, Riku also gained the potential to use darkness-related abilities, but he has yet to fully tap into these skills. Some of the attacks include…

· Dark Firaga: Riku shoots a flurry of dark flames from his palm and/or Keyblade. This is the simplest dark ability.

· Dark Aura: Riku’s most powerful attack, but one he has yet to perfect. When using dark aura, Riku dashes across the field at blinding speeds, slicing through foes from all directions, then leaps into the air and slams his weapon into the ground, creating an explosion of dark energy.

· Dark Splicer: Riku slashes his foes, hitting them with Stopga, and rapidly teleports, delivering a flurry of rapid slashes. This move can be used against multiple enemies.

· Dark Break: Riku leaps into the air and attacks enemies above, striking several times.

· Dark Impulse: Riku knocks foes into the air, then strikes them into the ground. This attack can hit multiple targets.

· Dark Maelstrom: A spinning attack infused with darkness.

· Dark Barrage: Riku throws multiple duplicates of his Keyblade at enemies, cloaked in darkness.

Additionally, he can use special abilities in battle. Here is a list and a brief overview of what they do:

• Sonic Blade - Slash an enemy while rushing past. Select follow-up attack at right time for a combo.
• Ars Arcanum - A formidable attack. After a combo, select follow-up attack again for a double combo.
• Ragnarok - After aerial combo, select follow-up attack at right time to unleash Ragnarok.
• Strike Raid - Hurl the Keyblade at an enemy. Select follow-up attack at right time for a combo.
• Sliding Dash - Riku does a quick slide, pulling himself near the enemy and damaging them.
• Vortex - Close the distance to nearby enemies with this powerful spinning attack.
• Aerial Sweep - Leap at an airborne enemy and strike a mighty blow.
• Slapshot - When facing more than one enemy, Riku swings his Keyblade with a large arc and finish it with a upward thrust.
• Counterattack - Strike back after parrying an enemy blow. Successful counterattacks restore MP.
• Blitz - Strike enemies ahead of him with a powerful finishing combo.
• Zansetsuken - Riku holds Keyblade vertically reversed and strikes through enemy, very powerful finisher.
• Ripple Drive - When several enemies surround Riku, this ability knocks them back.
• Stun Impact - Riku strikes his Keyblade downwards, creating a small explosive sphere protecting him and stunning nearby enemies.
• Impulse: See dark impulse, minus the darkness.
• Maelstrom: See Dark Maelstrom, minus the darkness.
• Barrage: See dark barrage, minus the darkness.
• Leaf Bracer: Protects him while healing.

Lastly, he has the ability to glide and jump higher than the average human. These require no MP and can be used at any time.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of power… but what about his weaknesses? Well, first of all, Riku is only human. He’s athletic, fit, and has a great deal of fighting experience and magic under his belt, but at the end of the day, he’s still limited by his physical form. While muscular, he’s a teenage boy, meaning that a larger foe could potentially overwhelm him. Heavy use of magic also drains him, hitting him with heavy fatigue if he’s not careful. Mega Flare in particular requires caution because it’s such an immensely powerful move. While it’s doubtful that he’ll have to go all out in Forest Covered, life in the tower has pushed Riku to accept fighting as an everyday occurrence.

Because he grew in the tower, being reverted back to his fifteen year old self will be… awkward, to say the least. He grew about a foot over the past two years, so suddenly shrinking will require him to adjust. His center of gravity will have changed ever so slightly. His muscle mass is different, and he’s much easier to knock around by comparison.

But by far, Riku’s biggest weakness is his darkness, which he has yet to fully accept. He’s tapped into it enough to create portals, but due to his fear of losing control, that power becomes a double-edged sword. When under heavy amounts of stress, that darkness tends to manifest quite strongly. When pushed to exhaustion, it explodes at full force. He has yet to gain proper control of this power, and as a result, many of his attacks are dangerous to others and himself.

Should I canon update him to later in his story, he will eventually begin to gain control over his dark powers, striving to use darkness without shunning the light. He sort of has an idea that this is the right path due to his time with the other Riku, but he has yet to fully put this knowledge to good use.

As far as mental weaknesses go, Riku is riddled with flaws. He’s impulsive, and his time in the tower has only intensified that flaw, as his desperate circumstances pushed him to take significant risks. The fact that death was such a common occurrence certainly hasn’t helped, as, barring the incident with the spotlight, every other brush with death involved his soul being squeezed into a brand new body. After a while, it became a regular fact of life.

Though Riku has learned to open up a little over time, there is still that tendency to internalize. He’s overly introspective and worries far too much about the future to a point where he misses out on the present. His experiences in the tower have also left him with a great deal of guilt. Riku feels as though he has made way too many mistakes, both at home and in the tower itself, from his period of learned helplessness to nearly killing his friends. This has left him with a tendency to second-guess himself, and while he can and does overcome it on a number of occasions, there are still moments where doubt eats away at him, and he may need the support of friends to put him on the right track.

As for mental strengths, I’ve already mentioned that Riku is a fiercely loyal friend. He’s stubborn to a fault, and while this can lead to him making reckless choices, it also allows him to persist, even with his doubts and his guilt. When push comes to shove, Riku will get back on his feet and fight until it kills him. Additionally, he’s quite clever, and when he isn’t clouded by anger, he has a tendency to watch his opponents carefully rather than leaping in blindly. While not extremely outgoing, he’s still fairly friendly, if a bit sarcastic, and if a friend is upset, he’ll at least try to lift their spirits. Results may vary.

( SAMPLE )

Characterization Sample: Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, Sample 4