Suite 1: Water, Movement 1: Prelude

I am No. 9, Demyx.

This book is writing itself in my room, as I dictate with my mind. I mean, how cool is that? Here I am, worlds away, while this faithful little magic does what it can to preserve what little of me I might be able to leave behind. Because today is the day I somehow know I will meet my end as Demyx.

How do I know? I'm not quite sure. Just a feeling, no, a mood, no its not even that, its...how the heck do I even explain this in a way that...that...you know what I mean, we don't have hearts. But yeah, its such a morbid thought. But one that I somehow know will come to pass.

Will I vanish forever? Will I ever find my heart and be able to go back to the world I loved? What comes after the darkness? I don't know, I don't know, and I don't know. But then again, does any of us really know? I mean, seriously, is there even something after the darkness?

But anyway, just a couple days ago, ol' X-face told everybody that Roxas had to be hindered from getting to Kingdom Hearts in pretty much any way possible. So that leaves me, Xaldin, and Xigbar to go out for the dirty work while the Superior, X-face and Luxord hold down the home front. It was unanimous that Xaldin would go to Beast's Castle. Neither me or Xigbar was willing to play piper to that brute. Then that Freeshooter and I drew straws, and the lot fell to me to mess around in...what was that place called again? The underworld, right. That, and to meet the heroes in Hollow Bastion.

I told him. I wasn't the right guy for this job! Xigbar probably has that annoying smirk on his face right now, he KNOWS that he was, and is, more suited for the job that I got. He has a big advantage over me, if he'd been the one picked for the job! He was a bit closer to Roxas than I was, so he knew his fighting style much better, plus he's got whatever inside info from the Superior that comes with being No. 2.

But, no use complaining now...I'm here already, here in Hollow Bastion, supposedly the official birthplace of the Organization. How ironic it seems, to go to a birthplace to die. But you know, I'm tired of being a Nobody. I don't want to always have to be teetering on the edge, not knowing, and striving for nothing. Why should I have to do these things if Kingdom Hearts wont be completed with my efforts ? I try to pep myself up with the facade of carelessness, but I have no purpose here in the Organization. So I don't mind fading away. (But do I really want to? That's a question I'm not sure how to answer.)

And now here I am, waiting. Waiting for Roxas and that circus of his, waiting just so I can be finished off.

I almost didn't write this book. I drowned the ink off my diary when Saïx gave the order. I wanted to disappear off the face of the earth...but now, apparently, I've changed my mind. I couldn't bear the thought of never being remembered.

This book contains all of my diary entries, and is a full account of all my memories. Even those before I became a Nobody.

I don't have much of a care for the Organization. Ask anyone, except for maybe the Superior, who saw something else in me. But I wasn't always like this. I had a life before too.

Wait, here comes Roxas. I'll make my entrance now. He looks...different. Him and his friends, that dog and that duck, stop when they see me. As soon as I exit the corridor of darkness I'm about to lunge at them. But a thought stops me. This is Roxas. Why should I have to be the one to kill him? (Even if I know I can't?) We're trying to bring Roxas back, right? So maybe I should treat him like he's still with us?

"Hey, you guys are looking lively today." I say the words with ease, but they sounded empty. After becoming a Nobody, all of my words sounded empty.

Roxas let down his guard just a bit. Was I making progress? I couldn't exactly tell. "Hey," he said, "Aren't you the guy who was messing around in the underworld? How'd a wimp like you get into the Organization?"

Ow, that hurt. "Oooh, oooh." I leaned back, offended.

Roxas crosses his arms. "Ha. I bet you cant even fight."

"Yeah!" His duck friend says with his unbearably squeaky voice. "But we can!"

Again, I speak the first thing that comes to mind. "You shouldn't judge anyone based on appearances."

As Roxas and co. spring into a battle stance, and I see that Keyblade materialize, the Keyblade that would banish me to the darkness, I flinch horribly, even to the point of turning around and almost running away. But I stop myself. "I told them they picked the wrong guy..." I muttered. When did I become such a coward? I didnt used to be like this. Never. Lazy, sure. But not a coward.

"Who's this kook?" I can hear Roxas say behind me.

"Remember," says another voice, that dog's. "The Organization is made up of Nobodies."

"Right," Roxas says. "No hearts!"

"Oh we do too have hearts," I turn back and say. Just not the kind you're thinking of. If the plan works, the plan where I die and Sora gets lured to the Castle that Never Was, we'll have Kingdom Hearts. I almost chuckle but the seriousness of my existence on the line, I can't seem to. "Don't be mad."

"You can't fool us!" That annoying duck.

But now I realized something. Roxas didn't remember? The Organization has always pressed that upon us. We. Don't. Have. Hearts. The fact that he didn't remember...also, I'd seen something in his eyes, something that had been suppressed, even nonexistent, while he was with us in the Organization.

Fire. Passion.

Something seemed to move me on its own. I turned suddenly and pointed an accusing finger at Roxas. Because he wasn't Roxas. He'd found his heart. This was Sora.

"Silence, traitor."

He had found the very thing that I had wanted to regain for so long. A heart.

If I could've felt hate, I would've felt it now. I would've felt it in the power coursing through me, in the light and bubbles that signaled the arrival of my beloved sitar materializing in my hands. I would've felt it all. Anger, hate, jealousy, envy. I wanted to. I wanted to with all my being.

But I can't. I'm a Nobody. I don't have feelings. But there was once a time when I did. Ths body has been changed twice in its life. The first, it was changed into a human. And the second, it had transitioned into a Nobody.

But before all that, I was a merman. I lived in a great underwater kingdom called Atlantica. If I could, I would go back.

I am called No. 9, Demyx.

But before that, my name was Myde.

This is my story.