[ The very moment that his body unsnags itself on the sharp talon of shock is the moment everything explodes into smoke around them; Riku gets a breath of it for the reflexive gasp he'd made at the sound and coughs, coughs again. It sets off a chain reaction, jerking where he's pinned to the ground, caught between the instinct to get the smoke out of his lungs and the necessity to get his head and heart around what he just thought he witnessed.
How sad. He hears that voice beyond the choking smoke, insincere and gloating, You are too late.
That rips a yell out of him, strangled, a little thready for the smother of the smoke, but no less animal and raw. He takes his grief, the great and awful hollow of despair yawning in his heart and dumps that strength into his limbs and for a moment- for one moment, Riku manages to lift Bruce's weight off his hip by the hand fisted in his shirt.
He pivots, it doesn't matter if his hip still remains caught, he twists around to knock Bruce's back into the floor. The cloud begins to clear to the flash of unmitigated rage in Riku's teal glare, eyes streaming from the stinging smoke, and it's a desperate scrabble to get his knees under him and his hands around his throat. ]
YOU!
[ He could have saved him. He could have stopped him. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't have lost his last best friend.
Riku is well past caring about why, when he doesn't see a future past however many minutes it takes to hurt his opponent just as deeply. He is one bent line of fury bearing down on Bruce, the toes of his boots, his knees carving shallow furrows in the dirt as he scrambles for a hold that will pin him down or throttle him, he's not picky.
Wet drops hit Bruce's jaw, briefly hot against the blood cooling on his exposed skin.
Kairi drowned. That was her fate, some preventable and tragic accident, unfair in light of a life spent by the water. But Sora... he could have done something. What good was any of this if he couldn't save even one of them?
And Bruce, he doesn't stop fighting, which is why he pulls on him in one sharp yank and knocks him hard against the ground again, to rattle, to stun. ]
He was-
[ Was and that's the worst part, the finality of a word, his breath hangs up in his raw throat, a hitch. The next word is hard gravel squeezed out through his gritted teeth, the three following it are the dregs of his emptied lungs, quieter for it. ]
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How sad. He hears that voice beyond the choking smoke, insincere and gloating, You are too late.
That rips a yell out of him, strangled, a little thready for the smother of the smoke, but no less animal and raw. He takes his grief, the great and awful hollow of despair yawning in his heart and dumps that strength into his limbs and for a moment- for one moment, Riku manages to lift Bruce's weight off his hip by the hand fisted in his shirt.
He pivots, it doesn't matter if his hip still remains caught, he twists around to knock Bruce's back into the floor. The cloud begins to clear to the flash of unmitigated rage in Riku's teal glare, eyes streaming from the stinging smoke, and it's a desperate scrabble to get his knees under him and his hands around his throat. ]
YOU!
[ He could have saved him.
He could have stopped him.
If it weren't for you, he wouldn't have lost his last best friend.
Riku is well past caring about why, when he doesn't see a future past however many minutes it takes to hurt his opponent just as deeply. He is one bent line of fury bearing down on Bruce, the toes of his boots, his knees carving shallow furrows in the dirt as he scrambles for a hold that will pin him down or throttle him, he's not picky.
Wet drops hit Bruce's jaw, briefly hot against the blood cooling on his exposed skin.
Kairi drowned.
That was her fate, some preventable and tragic accident, unfair in light of a life spent by the water.
But Sora... he could have done something.
What good was any of this if he couldn't save even one of them?
And Bruce, he doesn't stop fighting, which is why he pulls on him in one sharp yank and knocks him hard against the ground again, to rattle, to stun. ]
He was-
[ Was and that's the worst part, the finality of a word, his breath hangs up in his raw throat, a hitch. The next word is hard gravel squeezed out through his gritted teeth, the three following it are the dregs of his emptied lungs, quieter for it. ]
Everything I had left!