Yuffie creeps up on her target, her heart beating faster by the second.
Bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bumpBa-bumpBa-bump...
Freaking hell, her heart beating the Jaws theme song. Nice.
Geez, shaddup already, will ya? Ninjas don't get nervous. She winces. Oh my gawd, I'm so lame that I yell at my heart. Alright, I vow to stop talking to myself from here on out.
With her promise in mind, she inches closer and closer until she can peer around the rock. It barely takes a second before her eyes zero in on her prey.
Whoa...
Bubububububububububu...
Her heart's beating so fast that it almost sounds like one steady long note of pulsing.
She doesn't know why she's so surprised. When she had first spotted the black cloak, she had immediately recalled the time when she had followed Leon and Sora and learned of the Organization. At the time, she had imagined all the faces under the cloaks to be evil old men, someone like Cid except with evil gothic makeup and some long hair. Yet when she's sees this man...she can't help but think...
"He's so young..."
She feels hot air on her hand and gasps, realizing she had spoken out loud. In panic, she glances over to the Organization member, checking if he had noticed. Luckily, she finds the man to be looking around curiously at the surroundings, oblivious to his watcher. She lets out a sigh and continues to observe him.
Well daaamn. That has got to be the weirdest hairstyle she has ever seen, and that's counting Sora's and Cloud's. Seriously, who had a mullet nowadays? It was so outdated, out of style, and...lame. Besides, what happened if you ran out of hair spray? How do you keep it up? How did you style it...
Alright, Yuffie. No getting off track. And ack! No talking to myself! Yourself? Whatever! Concentrate! Focus! Yarrr...
She decides to test his reaction. Picking up, she aims it carefully and...
WHAM!
"EEYAK!"
His cry echoes through the clearing, reverberating.
..Eeyak!
...eeyak!
Yuffie cringes, her shoulders hunching up in pain as her mouth opens in a silent 'ow'. Damn...How could a guy possibly scream that loud? (And she that that she was loud.) He sounded like a freaking girl, and she hadn't even thrown the rock near him!
The guy starts muttering to himself as he cautiously looks around him.
"Alright Demyx...it was nothing. Just...a bird! Yeah, a bird!"
This guy was a coward. How did a wimp like him get into Organization 13...?
Twitch.
"AUGH!"
FWOOOSH!
The poor heartless that had accidentally walked within seeing distance of the guy's (Demyx?) peripheral vision was now currently bits and pieces of shadow, courtesy of a big pillar of water that was spouting out of the ground.
Ooookay, it was a powerful wimp. But a wimp, nonetheless.
Right. Note to self, don't underestimate wimps, especially if they're in Organization 13. ...And I give up on trying to not talk to myself.
Yuffie reaches for her shuriken, a not-really-all-too-clear strategy starting to form as she gets ready to confront him. But then, just as she's about to attack, she hears a little voice, deep in her mind, calling, "Oi! Go get Leon! You might need some backup!"
She stops, realizing that this might be true (Keyword: might. For Yuffie was great and almighty). She turns around, about to go back to see if she could someone to help within in the raging heartless when her foot gets caught on a rock...
Whooossh...
And suddenly, the sky seems to be getting far away...
Bam!
"Yeeoow!" She screeches as her butt hits the floor. Damn her and her klutziness...She was a ninja! Ninjas don't aren't clumsy, and they certainly don't fall down flat on their...oh crap.
A slightly unsure, but concerned voice comes from behind her.
"...Err...Are you okay?"
Oh crap. Organization 13 member. Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcraaaaap...
She immediately zooms up and turns around to face the guy, her hand pointing at him accusingly. (She shall now totally ignore the fact that her face is lighting up with embarrassment. Yes she shall.)
"Don't think you can fool me with your kind act!" She threatens as she gets her shuriken in her hand. Her feet slides back in a battle stance. "The Great Ninja Yuffie is fooled by no one!"
Letting out a cry, she begins to attack, throwing her shuriken at him...which totally misses to her dismay. Damn moving targets They were so much harder to hit.
The guy lands on his feet after jumping back, and looks at her with a cheerful grin.
"You know, it's not nice to attack people without warning." He chides, as if talking to a child. "By the way, I'm Demyx. Hiya!"
For a second, she's thrown off beat.
The guy's freaking crazy. Really.
"Shut up!" She yells, running forward in an attempt to best him in close combat. "I don't care who you are! Hurry up and fight!"
"Whoa!" The Evil Annoying Moving Target (as Yuffie has now dubbed him as) cries, jumping out of the way of yet another attack. He scratches his head sheepishly. "But I don't really like fighting..."
Once again, Yuffie finds herself freezing in shock, in amazement, in annoyance at this annoying NOBODY. There were just so many things she wanted to answer that with...
"So you just send your Heartless flunkies to do the job, then?"
He shrugs, completely unaffected by her taunt.
"They're just pieces of darkness." He says flippantly, waving off the matter with his hands.
What...?
He's right...but...
When he said it like that...it just...
Sounded so wrong.
It sounded...so prejudiced.
So absolutely wrong, IT'S NOT RIGHT!
She never thought that she would feel bad for the Heartless, out of all things.
Yet...as she hear them being talked about like this...
She almost feels mad.
Scratch that.
She is mad.
"How...why...You bastard!" She yells, charging at him. "The Heartless were people once! How...Even if they are darkness now...How can you just treat them like that?"
It only maddened her further to see him easily dodging and jumping out of the way of her every attack.
"Hey! Aren't you the ones who are destroying them?" He says defensively.
"Yeah, but at least I'm not sending them to their deaths!" She responds back, not letting down. She continues to attack and attack...C'mon, she's gotta be lucky sometime. "What's your goal? What do you hope to accomplish by sending the Heartless take over this world?"
The guy raises his arms in defense, waving them about while still continuing to dodge.
"Hey, you've got it all wrong! We're just..." He pauses, a sly smirk crossing his face. "Nice try, but you're not getting any information out of me!"
Why. The. Hell. COULDN'T SHE HIT HIM!?
"What? So you deny sending the Heartless to take over Radiant Garden?" Yuffie goads, trying to see if she could milk out some information while she was attempting to attack.
Demyx pauses, and for a split second, Yuffie almost hit him.
She grins at his reaction, and continues to talk.
"What about Twilight Town? Was that an accident too, then?"
This time, he spasms, he stumbling back as his eyes stare at some unknown scene playing on the ground. His breath somehow seems more shallow, more short.
Yuffie prepares her shuriken for her first and final hit.
"Well...It looks like you heartless Nobodies do have a conscience after all..." She mutters to herself, but loud enough so he could hear.
And then, with all of her strength, she strikes down...
CLASHOOM!
...Wha...
She's flying...through the air...
Oh crap.
Only due to her ninja reflexes is she able to land on her feet. Her head snaps up, looking for her opponent when...
She sees him.
"...Who..."
A dark shadow adorns his face in darkness, his expression suddenly cold and chilling. His former sea-green eyes seem to have lost their light, leaving only dark depths of the unknown. He holds an unfamiliar claymore-looking weapon expertly in his hands. And that stare of his...
...Was it the same man?
What a scary face.
She couldn't believe it.
"Who are you?" She whispers in half-horror, half-shock.
The grin that appears on his face sends shivers up her spine.
"That's right, little girl..."
Clang!
Just barely in the nick of time was she able to left her weapon against his. Her arm shakes against the pressure of his attack.
He was so close that she could feel his warmth radiating off him...(Nobodies have warmth?)
"...Don't presume to know me." He whispers to her softly.
And then he starts to attack.
It took her less than a minute to realize that she was fighting a losing battle.
What happened to that wimp from before? The coward who was scared of a mere Heartless?
...She didn't want to know, she realizes after thinking.
"...Done already? What happened to all that "Great Ninja" stuff you were talking about earlier?" He calls from the across the clearing, clearly taunting her. Yuffie forces herself to get up, despite the pain in her legs and back and ribs and arms andohmygawdthepainwouldnotstoooop!
"I haven't even got started!" She yells back, immediately coughing after she finishes speaking.
Riiight. Go put on that bravado, Yuffie! That'll certainly make things better...
She prepares herself for his next attack, when suddenly he lets his stance drop. With a nonchalant look towards the sky, he begins to talk as if speaking to a familiar friend.
"Have you ever thought that...that maybe...just maybe...the Heartless are good for the worlds?" He asks, leaning casually on his weapon. Yuffie bristles.
How dare he...How dare he insult her so casually as to even put down his weapon!
She practically feel the anger pumping in her veins when—
Splash!
Pillars of water surround her, making any movement impossible. She looks around, seeing if she can find an opening.
"Whoa, chill girl." He says, and for a moment, the wimp is back. Then he smirks, and that flash she had seen is gone. "I just asked you a question."
She glares at him.
"Don't call me a girl." She growls out. "I'll have you know that I'm a woman!"
He raises an eyebrow before letting out a sigh.
"Yeah yeah, thirteen's the new age for adulthood, I know. (Yuffie for a moment wonders if maybe she runs fast enough, she can get through the prison and attack him before he can reacts.) Still, I asked you a question. It's only polite you answer."
She looks around at the water, and then at him.
"...No, I have never thought that the Heartless might be good for the worlds." She says, totally deadpan. Who knows, maybe if she stalled him long enough, Leon might come. And she might even get him to reveal the Organization's plans.
Demyx grins, pleased that she answered without much trouble.
"But if you think about it...the Heartless really do have their benefits." He says with the air of an lawyer laying out his argument.
(Says the guy who can control them.)
Yuffie wonders if she should sit down for this.
"For one, it's weeds out all the weaklings. Cause any person who can't even fight or come to terms with his darkness doesn't deserve to live anyway." He claims, talking as if this is all obvious information that people should know.
Yuffie bursts out, cutting off what he is about to say.
"Everyone should deserve to live! You have—"
His face is so cold
She shut up.
With a satisfied nod, he continues on.
"Then, going along with point one, the people who survive are forced to become stronger. So then, in the end, it all becomes good because the despite the loss, everyone ends up becoming stronger, you know?"
He looks to her for confirmation.
She just stares back at him, totally horrified...horrified...
...horrified at how it made sense.
It made perfect, logical sense.
...Wouldn't the world be better off stronger?
More united?
Yes...it was true...
It would be better...
(Would it be? Would she trade strength for the lives of all the friends she lost?)
(Would it be?)
(...Would it be?)
She can't believe it.
It seemed so wrong...
The logic made sense, yes...but...
...but...
NO! It's wrong!
...she didn't wan't to believe what he said was right.
...she wouldn't believe what he said was right...
No.
It wasn't.
"No...you're wrong..."
She doesn't know she's talking out loud. She's only muttering to herself, unsure...yet she knows what she says is right. She knows.
He listens anyway, silent.
"Because...even if people were overcome by the darkness...it doesn't mean they're gone. It doesn't mean they didn't exist...We still remember their deaths..."
Her eyes seem to sting, though for all she knows, it might be just the water spraying droplets into her eyes.
"...Even if it made us stronger..."
She looks up into his eyes, almost in a trance.
"...Is it still wrong to wish for people to survive?"
A wind blows through the area.
The dust rises.
And the dust settles.
How anti-climatic.
The water pillars came down, though Yuffie barely notices. She's just staring...
Staring...
What a sad face.
Was is the same man?
...She couldn't believe it.
"People can't exist without hearts, huh..."
It's a mumble that barely fills the air.
He gets off his weapon, and turns around, his back facing towards her. He looks at her from over his shoulder.
She can barely him over the void of nothing.
That void of dead air.
"...Is it so wrong to wish to exist?" He looks down, a nostalgic smile on his face. "Must you humans make things so black and white?
He turns his head forwards, and with a flick of his hand...
...He's gone.
Into Darkness and never coming back.
Even yet, Yuffie finds herself continuing to mutter, whispering into empty air.
"...But...You're a nobody! You...You don't have emotions..."
She wonders who's she talking to.