About
Riku is Sora and Kairi's best friend and an original character created by Tetsuya Nomura for the Kingdom Hearts series. Nomura has stated that Riku's name can be seen as "land"; the Japanese on'yomi pronunciation of land is riku . Riku is voiced by David Gallagher in the English version and Mamoru Miyano in the Japanese version. He is playable in the second story mode of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and as a world-specific ally in Kingdom Hearts II, wherein he is also briefly playable during the final battle when Xemnas incapacitates Sora and traps him in an energy field.
At the beginning of the series, he is 15 years old and lives on Destiny Islands with his friends. When their world is attacked by the Heartless, the three are separated. Riku ends up at Hollow Bastion where he is found by Maleficent. Under her influence, Riku turns on Sora and searches for a way to help Kairi. Riku eventually becomes possessed by Xehanort's Heartless, with his heart sent to the realm of darkness where he meets King Mickey and aids him in helping Sora seal the door to the realm of darkness.
In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Riku awakens in the basement levels of Castle Oblivion, and begins traversing to the ground floor. Along the way, Riku confronts the remaining darkness in his heart and a Replica of himself, and also encountered DiZ, who has been overseeing his progress. After being reunited with King Mickey, Riku reaches the top where he finds Naminé as she attended to a sleeping Sora, offering to seal his memories. Riku turns her down as he chose to find a balance between his light and darkness, defeating what remained of Xehanort's Heartless.
While capturing Roxas in order to make Sora complete again, Riku uses the power of darkness at the cost of becoming a physical manifestation of Xehanort's Heartless. By Kingdom Hearts 2, trapped in that form even after leaving DiZ, Riku helps Sora in secret and never showing his face, not wanting Sora or anyone else to discover what had become of him. Riku returns to his original form with the destruction of a machine intended to convert Kingdom Hearts into data. Afterwards, Riku and Sora battle and defeat Xemnas. In the end, they end up on a dark beach, and discuss how strong their friendship is and how much each of them wanted to be like the other, before a portal opens to Destiny Islands. The two use the portal and are sent home.
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