Kingdom Hearts II Riku-why a weapon?

I was thinking this for quite some time. I was wondering why Riku got a weapon. I can't remember Riku ever getting a keyblade cause it chose him.
Why him?
He got a way 2 dawn for no reason, pretty much.
When he was a replika, how come he got a weapon?
When he became Ansem, how come he got a keyblade?
It was really difficult for me to try to understand this, and pretty much the only weapon Riku was rightfully his, was a toy sword in Kh 1.

 

Riku never became a replica..a replica was made of him.

And like the Keyblade,other weapons may choose their masters.

 

To explain how Riku got Way to the Dawn, we have to go back to the first Kingdom Hearts game and asked ourselves, how did Riku get the Soul Eater? Maleficent made Soul Eater for Riku out of his inner darkness. So after CoM, when chose the road to dawn, we can only sumise that he got Way to the Dawn around that time.

But how, you might ask, when you fight him on the mountain in the second game he has Soul Eater. Well I would guess that like Sora's Keyblade, Riku's can change form. He might have just taken off the chain when he was turned into ansem. He put it back on some time after that.

 

Riku had received Soul Eater from Maleficent, I believe. He ended up on Hollow Bastion after he left Destiny Islands and encountered her. It is after this point, when he meets Sora in Traverse Town we see him with it. Maleficent knew of his importance and that he was a Keyblade Wielder, meant for the Kingdom Key even though Sora had it. However, she never told him this. Instead she gave him Soul Eater to probably 'help' him along his journey to find Kairi and manipulate him.

Way to the Dawn is Soul Eater but awakened as a Keyblade. It may have been a Keyblade in dormancy since it appears also in Birth Before Sleep in the trailer quite clearly. It is hypothetical at this point but I theorize that the weapon when the Keyblade Wielders were obviously dealt with in the past, that it went into a state of lesser magic and such waiting for a proper owner. In KH2, Riku no longer gripped the Darkness or was afraid of it and became Twilight. The Keyblade then was re-emerging and probably completed when Ansem (DiZ) shot at Kingdom Hearts and it exploded. His sacrifice for his friends and guarding others, taking much of the blast altered him out of 'Ansem' Form and the Keyblade was back at full power. Riku was still a Keyblade wielder, whether or not he lost his connection to the Kingdom Key. So, I'm pretty sure Way to the Dawn aka Soul Eater, being with him for so long and going along his journeys awakened in a sense to link with him and the coup de grace was the explosion of the faux Kingdom Hearts.

Riku was never a replica. Riku Replica, aka Repliku was a creation by Vexen and was in Chain of Memories. He also died in that game at the end in Riku's story.

Hope that clears it up for you.

 

One thing ill say before I start: Darkness is not evil. That was acknowledged in the end of kh2 by Mickey and Riku. HOWEVER, people can be evil.

Although Ansem (Xehanort's Heartless) was evil, he still weilded the power of darkness. The relationship between Ansem and Riku was symbiotic. Ansem had the power to fully control Riku, but Riku had the power to fully control Ansem. Because of this relationship, Riku gained Ansem's darkness. Ansem already had a weapon of his own, and Riku gained a modified version of it. (Souleater is -as it would seem- only half of Ansem's true weapon which we can see when he goes giant mode in kh1.)

After CoM ended (Riku's story I mean) Riku vowed to walk the path of twilight. The road to dawn. No one really knows what happened but some say that because he made this vow, Way to the Dawn keyblade became available to him.

There are 3 types of keyblades: The keyblade of the Realm of Light (in Sora's possesion)
The keyblade of the Realm of Darkness (in Mickey's possesion)
The keyblade of darkness itself...(or twilight...im not sure which...i think its twilight) (in Riku's possesion)

To be honest, I dont really know why he got Way to the Dawn...but I hope that helps somewhat.

 

WOW.

They all helped alot! That definately helped, and cleared things for me. Thank you all.