The city below is hideous. Argon for blood, buildings like black teeth in a mouth that never closes. It breathes night. It tastes movement. Full of Nobodies. Uninhabited.
Overhead, bright Kingdom Hearts is an eye staring inward; a scrying mirror in the hands of zodiac witches, a droning curse, a sigil against vanishing. Xemnas said it would return their hearts to them, if their hearts could indeed be found. Strange of him. Promising them all hearts, having seen only his own, having never spoken to it. Saïx said that to him once: (how strange of you.) The words seemed insolent but he said them because they also seemed true. And Xemnas only smiled at him, meaninglessly. As he always did.
Now it seems stranger, more menacing somehow, though Xemnas himself has withdrawn into a passive state, wanting only to be alone and to watch Kingdom Hearts take form. Saïx wonders what he will do with the hearts of the others, the ones who have been dispelled by the hungry cast of light. Where will he put Axel's heart if it comes to him? Will he keep it? Will he throw it back into the dark?
Doubt is not easy to manage when its limits cannot be felt, when it is a dark shape in a dark space. As Kingdom Hearts crystallizes, bright overhead, Saïx thinks there might be more empty space inside him than there is real awareness. The black hollows are always sinking deeper, like cold rivers running with numbness and subtraction.
He could turn traitor. Axel did. It would be easy. There is no such thing as fear or loyalty, not for him, not anymore. Without knowing his own intentions, Saïx approaches Xemnas on the white shelf of a castle suspended above no world at all. He says: (what if my heart never comes here? What will you do then? You promised a heart to me.)
And Xemnas smiles at him, meaninglessly. He says: (I did. I did promise you that.)
He did. He promised all of them.
Xemnas says: (you can have mine. It is near. When Kingdom Hearts is ready, you can have it. Yes?)
Saïx is a cancelled thought, a star scratched out of the sky. He thinks he might be shaking and hungry, might be starved, might be manic. Softly he says: (yes.)
Bright overhead, the lure above the angler, Kingdom Hearts might blink.