#Quadratum

[luxmoogle]

New. Year.

[melasy]

[venwayfinder]

“I found you!”

[tharkflark1]

Happy 22nd birthday Kingdom hearts!!!

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

no but Sora's death is so much more fucked up than just dying. He didn't just fade or cease to exist, he joined the realm of fiction.

He's not just dead, he's not just faded (you can fade into darkness), no he is no longer even real. Its not that he doesn't exist, its that he has become no more than a concept, a creation of another. Fiction exists within one's mind, so Sora now exists only as someone else's concept of him.

Like, say, Riku and Kairi's perhaps? I think Melody of Memory ends the way it does for a reason. Sora has passed into the realm of fiction, and fiction is merely someone else's conception of a universe, meaning the Sora Riku and Kairi were attempting to reach through memories and dreams is merely that - the manifestation of their own versions of him. I think this is why Kairi was able to reach Sora to protect her in the end of melmem, and why Riku's dreams reached out to Sora to show him Quadratum. If Sora no longer exists as someone who is real, then his friend's beliefs about him are what is currently constructing him.

To become fiction isn't just to cease to exist, its to have never existed. It is to be known only through other's ideas of you.

Something which is fiction has never existed. Fiction can be based on reality, but the fictional version never existed.

i've been having these weird thoughts lately, like is any of this for real? or not?

[holleighgram]

Kh4 finna be lit

[kyzveryown]

I wasn't expecting KHIV news right after KHML's cancellation but here we are. Quick thoughts before I check out for the night:

— Are those supposed to be Neo Heartless in the top image?? They look like something straight out of an eldritch horror. I love it. — I'm feeling the updated looks. They look much more like Final Fantasy characters now (not that they didn't prior to this). I know some people aren't going to like that but whatever. — Is that a star shower above the Kaiju Neo Darkside, or an ultimate being activated? Maybe it's being attacked by someone. — Seems like the golden/silver chains are going to be a mainstay for combat. Makes sense considering most of the Guardians of Light's powers involve chains to some extent. — There's a phone...for some reason. I wonder if we'll be able to use it. Could be a way to communicate with other characters we haven't seen or met yet. Or a way to communicate back to the KH universe. — Why does Strelitzia look stressed out? lol. — Sora, please walk into the light. — Epic Mickey.

[corfidbizna]

KHIII Final Chapter (Eng): https://www.mediafire.com/file/zyu4h1h9ajyoky7/KH3_Ch40.zip/file Chapter List

The finale, after all this time. No Re:Mind, but we got a little bit of secret video in here. >: ) Thank you for reading~

[starfiresky]

Sora: How do you know so much about me?


Streliztia: I played all the games. *pulls out all-in-one KH disk* I’m a big KH2 fan.

[lightwithinthedarknessu]

Just couple-y things 💞🏙️

[veloxfox]

My artwork for Kingdom Hearts' 22nd Anniversary! :DDD

I know I'm pretty late (As always)- but it's mostly because I tried painting for the first time for the background, and I really love how this turned out. So it's ALL worth it :3 ☆

[luxmoogle]

Bravery Required 999 ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

[phoenix-downer]

Kintsugi

Chapter 1 - A World Without Color

Summary: Sora searches for a way home while Kairi looks for clues to Quadratum. They are both broken by his disappearance, but the journey to reach each other creates something beautiful from the pieces. KH4 SoKai pining, angst, romance, and fluff.

Written for Valentine's Day 2025 as a celebration for posting my hundredth SoKai story on AO3! 🥳 Thank you all for voting in the poll and for all the support over the years ❤️ This story turned into a five chapter one, so I'm posting the first chapter today, the second chapter on Valentine's Day, and will post the remaining chapters once a week on Fridays.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

Life was just different shades of gray and brown now.

Quadratum was the biggest, most bustling place Sora had been to yet. People were everywhere—milling around on sidewalks, filling stores, spilling out of cafés, swarming in and out of stations, crossing streets—and yet never had he felt more dead inside. Alone in a sea of people because he didn't belong. The people around him were living their lives, but for him, this was an afterworld. A life of death. The place he'd been sent as a punishment for abusing the Power of Waking.

No wonder he never felt like smiling. Or when he did, Strelitzia always said it was sad and never reached his eyes. A hollow, broken smile, because that was what he was. Hollow, broken.

She understood though. When you'd had everything ripped away from you, all the people you loved torn from your life just as you were torn from theirs, it was hard not to be hollow and broken.

As he exited Shibuya Station and let himself be carried along by the throng, the fingers of his left hand twitched. He'd heard about people having phantom sensations from limbs that were long gone, and maybe this was something like that. Only his phantom sensations were from someone else. Her absence hurt most of all.

He made his way to the largest crosswalk in Quadratum and wondered, for the millionth time, if things might have turned out differently somehow. If he could've made some choice to save all of them, to save her, and not doom himself. But no, this had been his fate all along. He just had to trust that each step forward was a step closer to home.

What he wouldn't give to see her again in the flesh. She constantly haunted his thoughts and dreams. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured she was there, a smile on her radiant face, the sunshine in her hair. Even in his dreams she couldn't hear his voice, and he inevitably had tears in his eyes when he woke up. He missed his friends, too.

But it was like Strelitzia had said: if their loved ones could live out the rest of their lives happily, she and Sora could be at peace. Not happy, not smiling, but content.

He stepped onto the crossing. A light rain had fallen earlier, and the street was still wet. Puddles reflected the flashing neon lights above. He really missed Destiny Islands. He missed the feeling of sand between his toes and ocean spray on his face and sunsets with no buildings blocking the sky or stars. He missed home.

A loud scream tore through his thoughts. His Keyblade instantly appeared in his hand. His senses honed in on the source of the scream. Sure enough, a giant Darkside had appeared about 20 feet away from him. Everyone stampeded away from it when he needed to go toward it. They carried him along like a riptide back towards the station. He wasted precious time fighting the current until enough people recognized him to shout to the others to let him through, it was the boy with the Keyblade.

The boy with the Keyblade. They didn't know much about him or his past, but they knew what he could do.

He had no idea where Strelitzia was, so he'd have to fight this thing alone. Oh well. He'd done it before. He could do it again. He raced toward it, determined not to let it hurt anyone else. Even when he didn't know what else to do, he could always help.

He hooked Kairi’s lucky charm onto the chain of his Keyblade. Right as he was about to launch himself into the air, a flash of silver caught his eye.

No, it couldn't be. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him. He was just imagining his best friend was here, racing toward the Darkside with his Keyblade in his hand.

“Riku?” he called out, not believing his own voice.

Riku skidded to a halt. He had on a new outfit, and Sora could've sworn he’d gotten even taller somehow (no fair!), but it was really him.

Riku smiled. He actually smiled. “I figured I'd find you here,” was all he said, skipping any greetings. “People needed help, so I knew you'd come running.”

“But how? How did you make it to Quadratum—”

“I'll explain later.” He nodded towards their enemy.

"Right.” Sora couldn't let himself get distracted, no matter how badly he wanted answers.

Even though it had been more than a year, he and Riku still fought together like it was second nature. They used a lot of old tricks as well as a few new ones. Working together, the Darkside didn't stand a chance. They beat it in record time, and it dissipated into smokey oblivion.

Before Riku had even had a chance to banish his Keyblade, Sora threw his arms around him. Riku just chuckled and awkwardly hugged him back.

“I promise I'm really here. It's really me.”

“You're not dead, right? You didn't have to die?”

“Nope. Kairi and I figured out a way to safely get me here.”

Sora pulled away, hoping against hope. “Kairi? Is she here with you?”

Riku’s face fell. “I'm sorry, but no. She wanted to train more. She didn't feel like she was ready.”

Sora felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. “That's crazy. You should've seen her fight Xehanort with me. She was incredible.”

“I'm sure she was, but you know how she is. After what happened, she was worried about being a burden. So she wanted to train again. Get even stronger.”

The blood drained from Sora’s face. “She doesn't still blame herself for my death, does she?” He'd tried to reassure her before he disappeared that it wasn't her fault, and in his dreams he tried to communicate the same thing with heartfelt gestures, but it sounded like she still blamed herself, even after an entire year—

“You'll have to ask her that,” Riku said. “I know she's dying to see you.”

Sora pulled the lucky charm out of his pocket and stared at it. “I'm dying to see her, too.”

Riku's expression softened. “I know.”

Bitter disappointment mingled with the happiness and relief he felt at being reunited with Riku. He was grateful to see his best friend again, but it would've been even better if Kairi had been here too.

Still, he'd make the most of it. Riku was here and that was something worth celebrating. He put the lucky charm back in his pocket. “That's okay. I know I'll see her again soon. Come on, let me introduce you to a new friend of mine.”

Riku just chuckled and shook his head. “Of course you've already made more friends.”

“Hey, it's me.” He put his hands behind his neck and grinned. “Would you expect anything else?”

“No,” was his best friend's wry response. “You'll only hear me say this once, and I'll deny it to anyone who asks, but I did actually miss you, you know.”

“I missed you too.” He'd missed them all, so much. But this was the start of something good, he was sure of it. More reunions would follow. And he would never take a single moment spent with any of his friends for granted ever again.

And when he saw Kairi again? He had been shy and hesitant before, but he wouldn't hold back anymore.

————————————————————————

A/N: I'm going to briefly quote Wikipedia to explain the title:

"Kintsugi (Japanese: 金継ぎ, lit. 'golden joinery'), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum…As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”

The phrase, “Nothing is whole, and nothing is broken," from the song Sanctuary by Utada Hikaru (the theme song for KH2) reminded me of this concept, so I decided to use Kintsugi as the title of this story.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!

[venwayfinder]

“You’re really here!”

(Credit to the artist! https://www.pinterest.com/pin/323414816989595348/)

[tharkflark1]

Its Quadratum!Bumpis and momo time ft/ Riku, sora, and yozora in the corners

[forgotten-lumis]

Y’all ever notice how like- the new KH logo looks like the font they always use on the side of the boxes. Aka- the “Other Side of Reality” (aka our world-)

Idk I just think it’s neat

Comparison photo:

(Note: the new boxes for the release in America atleast did change the font to this more boxy one in newer releases, (you can see how Days and Re:Coded for DS are the same since they’re older)

but the Japanese boxes have been consistent with that font as far as I can tell. I looked around on the internet for a while but it’s surprisingly hard to find pictures of just the sides of video game boxes…)

Ex: Japanese box for Kh3

So yeah… just thought it was interesting.