Rikucent

Rikucent is the friend ship between Riku and Maleficent from the Kingdom Hearts fandom.

Kingdom Hearts
After Riku's desire to see other worlds gets him to embrace the darkness which ends up swallowing his home world and sends him to Hollow Bastion, he is found by Maleficent. She senses the darkness slowly growing within Riku, and takes it upon herself to nurture it. She shows Riku kindness as she take him under her wing, all while promising to help Riku find his friends. However, Maleficent has no intention of having Riku leave her side, since Riku's friend Sora posses a threat to their plans and makes Riku believe that Sora has replaced him and Kairi with Donald and Goofy.

Riku believes her lie and continues to serve her for the promise of power to find Kairi's missing heart, and to become stronger than Sora. When Riku begins to question why Maleficent had him bring her young maidens and shows signs of slipping away from her grasp, Maleficent tells him that she sees Riku as a son and cares about his happiness. Riku doesn't feel the same about her, but he stays by her side for his own agenda of saving Kairi and obtaining the Keyblade from Sora.

Once Riku realises that Maleficent and those like her have been playing him this whole time so that he would summit himself deeper into the darkness, it is too late. A Heartless named Ansem knows that Maleficent would help him to groom Riku into his perfect vessel. Maleficent herself isn't aware of this, so when she sees the possessed Riku in his dark form she is shocked when Dark Riku stabs her in the heart, forcing Maleficent to become her dragon form. Having no more use for her, Ansem uses Riku's body to stomp on her cloak after she is defeated. After Riku breaks free from Ansem, he wants nothing to do with darkness or the likes of Maleficent again.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
When Riku finds himself in the basement of Castle Oblivion, Hollow Bastian is the first memory world he visits. This is the first step to confronting his past and the darkness he has become fearful of. There he comes across the room Maleficent had given him and had finds it to be the way he remembers it. As Riku continues to wonder around his memory of Hollow Bastian, he encounters Maleficent and is shocked that she is alive, until the Maleficent before him revels that she is actually a figment of his memory. Of all the people Riku could have run into he didn't want it to be her, but the darkness steeping in his heart is the reason for their "reunion" and he will only be able to see those who exist in that same darkness.

Riku refuses to accept that, and even though he admits that were was a time when he did want her around, now he wants nothing to do with her or what the darkness has to offer. Maleficent replies by telling Riku that he mustn't forget to add himself to that list, as like she, he is one with the dark. Riku is fine with that, from how he once turned to the darkness to strengthen his weak heart and had hated that weakness like it was his own enemy; while seeing those who embrace the darkness like she does makes it worse. Those words have Maleficent offering to end Riku's suffering with the wonderful power of darkness he has come to hate, as she turns herself into a dragon. Riku manages to defeat her, and then goes after the other Disney villains he remembers to be Maleficent's allies. Riku states to Ansem that he had meant every word he had said to Maleficent.

Other Games
Although Maleficent is able to revive herself and continues to cause trouble in other worlds, she and Riku don't cross paths that much. They meet again in The World That Never Was, but the two didn't interact or speak to each other as she and Pete took it upon themselves to battle the Heartless so Riku's party could stop Xemnas.

Even though Riku hasn't seen Maleficent since then, she has had run ins with DATA-Riku and his younger dark self from the past.

Quotes
"Silly Boy. You're like a son to me. I only want you to be happy."

- Maleficent to Riku; Kingdom Hearts

Fanon
Rikucent is a rarepair in the Kingdom Hearts fandom. Fans of Riku prefer to explore more positive relationships in his life, such as his friendship with Sora or his mentor-mentee relationship with Mickey. Fans of Maleficent tend to prefer exploring her relationship with Pete, as it appears in more games than her relationship with Riku does.

The large age gap between Riku and Maleficent is the main reason people would rather ship them as friends than lovers. Maleficent telling Riku that saw him as a son in order to keep him loyal to her, however, had inspired another group to ship them as mother and son.

On AO3, the ship only has 10 gen fanfics.

Fandom

 * FANFICTION