Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the music I use for inspiration. I am not getting any profit from this. And I am so pissed at that.
Prelude – Paint it Black
He had been watching the girl all day. The same blank look as she sat in the middle of her bedroom, staring at her toes as she flexed them. She could've been thinking about what doll she was going to play with next, or what would she have as her snack for the day.
It was as if she hadn't killed his wife yesterday.
His beautiful wife, who never yelled at the girl, who never raised her hand against her, was now wrapped in a white sheet and lying in the laundry room. Even then she had a peaceful smile on her face.
And as the man leered at his daughter from the doorway, his mind raced.
Why did the girl do that to his wife?
Why didn't his wife try to defend herself?
Why did she smile as the girl strangled her with the jump rope?
"Why?" he whispered, not aware that his last thought was spoken.
The girl finally took her attention off her toes and looked up at the man, her eyes wide and innocent. Yes, an innocent shade of yellow. "Why what, sir?" she asked softly.
He clenched his teeth. That girl – no, monster – had stopped calling him Daddy. The day she stopped calling his wife Mommy was…
"Why are you standing there, sir?" the girl inquired.
He refused to acknowledge the fact that the girl was related to him in any way, just like she was doing to him now. "What are you?" he blurted out angrily.
She smiled and opened her mouth like she knew the answer, then closed it and went back to looking at her toes. "I dunno."
"You're a monster," he answered for her. She seemed unfazed by it. "You killed Mommy!"
"She's not Mommy. Not anymore."
"Why?"
"The bond must be severed." Her tone was even and stony. "It must be completely severed."
"Okay, so you've severed it. Now what?"
"It must be completely severed," she repeated in a harsher tone.
He unconsciously backed up several steps, hitting the back wall. The girl no longer sounded like his eight-year-old daughter, but a demon. "But why? We conceived you, gave birth to you!"
"Yes, and now your job is done." She stood up, her pink pajamas contrasting her new self. "It's time to completely sever the bond."
The man laughed bitterly and slid to the floor. The fight in him was starting to die out. "We fed you and clothed you. We put a roof over your head!"
"Don't mistake me for some helpless child."
Knowing that nothing would get through to her at this point, he was left with two options. He could escape. As far as he knew, the girl still had a child's body and he could easily outrun her.
Or he could kill her.
Yes, he'd kill her.
If anyone was going to sever the bond, it was not going to be him.
"Sir."
He snapped out of his thoughts abruptly to find her standing over him, the jump rope in her hands. "There will be no negotiation. The bond must be severed."
One last spark of energy ignited in the man at hearing those words. He scrambled away from her, on all fours at first, towards the kitchen. He needed something to defend himself with! He didn't look back at the girl, who just stood there and watched him. He frantically searched the silverware until he found a steak knife. "I'm not going to just let you kill me!" he proclaimed boldly.
She stared at him unemotionally and slowly walked towards him. Surprisingly, she stopped halfway and turned her head to the laundry room. Part of the white sheet was in her view. She got closer to get a look at the wrapped up body, ignoring the man. The woman's face was invisible to her, but she knew that she was wearing the same smile that she wore in her last moments of life. Then she noticed something lying on the sheet: a simple golden necklace, clean and shining.
The man inched towards the girl with the knife clenched in his hand. The girl seemed to ignore him completely. She picked up and studied the necklace, her eyes full of life for the first time since last week. "I haven't seen her wear this," she told the man without looking at him.
He swallowed hard. She actually sounded more like the child he used to know. The grip on the knife loosened but was not lost. "It was for her daughter," he replied weakly.
"Then why was it here on her body?"
"Because her daughter's not here anymore." Now he sounded like the unemotional one.
The girl stayed silent for a long time, just staring at the necklace. The man stayed where he was, ready to retaliate should she attack. After an eternity of silence, the jump rope fell to the floor. The girl's body shook as she tried to release a tear that didn't come. "Mommy…" she whispered.
The man gasped and dropped his knife in shock. "Nia?"
The girl looked in his eyes in response to his name, with eyes full of fear. "I don't know what to do!"
Tears ran down the man's face and held out his arms to hug her. The anger and fear were all gone. His daughter was back! "I'm here, Nia. Daddy's here!"
"NO!" She stumbled back and glared at him. "Don't call me that! I'm not your daughter! You're not my father!" She pointed at the body. "She's not my mother!"
"But—"
"I'm not human anymore!" She ran past him and out the front door, the necklace still in her hand. The man stayed where he was. She had forgotten about severing the bond.
Girl's POV
It was too weird. It was so cold outside, and there was snow everywhere, but I didn't really feel cold. Or was it that I felt cold but it didn't bother me? I wasn't wearing shoes but it didn't bother me.
Why did I kill that woman?
Why didn't I kill that man?
Who was I?
What was I?
I needed to think!
I stopped to do that, in the middle of the park across the street from the house. I didn't feel so tired. My senses were so dull. It was like I wasn't all there.
I didn't even notice that I wasn't alone in the snow covered field. That proved that I wasn't all there, if I didn't notice a man wearing a black cloak and standing in the middle of a snowy field.
The cloaked man (or boy since he was kind of short) stood a few feet from me. "If you're running away from home, you should try running a little further than across the street. And dress a little warmer, or at least get some shoes."
I stared at him, just a little annoyed. He was being too calm about this. "I'm not running away."
"Yes, you are. You're running away from your problem." He pointed to the house. "The problem that you left alive."
My butt hit the snow like his declaration had physically hit me. Did he know about this? "Do I have to kill him?"
"The connection must be severed completely."
He knew! So was he here to help me? Or to punish me?
"I don't know what I am anymore. I feel like a different person, something not human. But I also feel like the old me, you know? Like I'm in the middle."
"It's a natural part of development, but you wouldn't have been feeling this pain and confusion if you've had severed the bond." He squatted so that he was more level with me. "You've already passed the point of no return. There's no use trying to back out now."
I covered my ears, hoping that he would just go away and leave me alone. "Stop it. Stop it! I don't even know what's going on!"
"Of course. This sort of thing doesn't exist in your world." His footsteps crunched as he walked to my side and squatted again. "You were never human."
I hugged myself. That hurt me a little.
"You were born human-like, by human parents. You were indiscernible from other human babies, form or behavior. But as time passed…" He put a hand over my heart. "You lost this, little by little."
"My heart?"
"Your emotions and human morals, or symbolic heart. You've noticed this, haven't you? When was the last time you laughed or cried?"
I looked at my bare feet. I couldn't remember. "When will I lose it completely?"
"When you completely sever the bond. To sever the bond means to sever the last thing that makes you human, your human parents. The link between your heart and theirs." He pulled my arm away from my chest and looked at the necklace that I still held. "But you don't want to do that."
"It was so easy to do that. But earlier, I started to remember that woman and how nice she was to me. She didn't fight, even when I killed her. She knew, didn't she?"
"Yes. A mother truly knows her child. She wasn't from here, so she knew things like you existed. But you must understand." He took the necklace from me. "Those people mean nothing to you. They were just your path to the world of the living."
"No. No, they weren't!" I snatched the necklace from him and stood up. "I don't know about that man, but that woman loved me! She knew what I was and she still loved me! I don't want to think of her that way! She's my mommy!"
I hadn't seen his face yet, and he probably wasn't going to show it to me. But I still wanted to see his face as he chuckled. "How old are you?"
"Eight."
"And yet you sound like an immature adult. Your mind really has matured, but you're still human in a way."
I felt my face warm up but I was sure I wasn't blushing. "Being human isn't bad."
He shrugged and stood up. "I've been wasting time here, human monster, so I'll just give you the options and go. The first is to go back to that house and sever the bond like you were supposed to do."
"No way!" I shouted immediately.
"I knew you were going to say that. Pity. I really didn't want you to have any more trouble. The second is to leave him alive and come with me. The bond won't be permanently severed but you'll be too far away for it to matter. That way you won't have to shed any more precious blood." He finished that last sentence as if he was annoyed by it.
I seriously considered taking that option, but something stopped me. "I can't leave him. He might've tried to kill me, but he still cares about me."
The cloaked boy sighed and rubbed the back of his hood. "So I really did have to go to option number three," he said to himself. "Guess I owe him ten bucks."
"Who are you talking about? And what's option three?"
He reached in his wide sleeve and pulled out a glass tube filled with black ink and a small paintbrush. "I seal you." He chuckled again when my eyes widened. "I'm not sealing you to anything. I'm sealing you yourself. I'll stop the changes from happening."
"I'll keep my heart?" I asked in excitement.
"What's left of it. The seal won't be seen by normal humans. It won't rub off or wash off. So will you take this option?"
I nodded, feeling a muted happiness. "So how do you seal me?"
"Just let me work." He opened the vial and dipped the brush in the ink. Then he silently started painting on my neck. I shivered at the sensation; I could still kind of get ticklish. I stood still as he painted some kind of pattern around my neck. "There. Don't worry if you don't feel anything. You're not supposed to. While you're sealed, it may be a good idea to start talking like a normal human kid, just to save you the trouble of being labeled a nerd."
"Thank you. Um…" I fidgeted around, trying to sort out all the questions I had for him. "Are you like me?"
"Not telling," he answered nonchalantly.
I puffed my cheeks. "What were you here to do?"
"My job was to kill you, if you got out of hand during or after the murder of your parents."
Not surprising. I am a murderer right now. "If I'm that dangerous, then why did you give me the chance to live here?"
He put his arms on his hips and leaned forward. "I guess I didn't want you to be sad. But at the same time, I was hoping that you would accept what you were and prove my friend wrong. It makes my job much simpler when human ideals aren't in the way."
"I have so much to ask you, like what I am exactly."
"Why are you so concerned? You want to be human anyway."
"Can I at least know your name?"
He nodded. "It's Roxas."
I raised an eyebrow. "What kind of a name is that?"
"Holy crap, you got a lot of questions. Look, if you're that curious about everything, come with me." He held out a gloved hand.
I frowned. "No thanks. I don't have to worry about that anymore."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. See ya, kid." He turned his back to me. "By the way, what's your name?"
I smirked. "It's Nia."
He didn't have a snarky comment for that. "I like that name. You should keep it."
"Thank you, I will." I ran back to my house to face my father.
Third Person POV
The boy watched her go in the house before groaning loudly. What a stupid thing to do! I'll never hear the end of this! And the boss is going to kill me if he finds out I let her live on this world!
The cocky voice that he heard didn't make his mood any better. "So you lost the bet. Again."
Roxas yelled in frustration and whirled around to face his mysterious partner who was clothed in a similar outfit. "Dammit, Axel! Don't rub my face in it!"
"You knew you were going to lose. They never want to get up and leave what they've known all their life. That's why we usually drag them back with us." He removed his hood and ran a hand through his red hair. "And you had to make that girl's life worse."
"The seal will work."
"For ten years, tops. Even less if the kid experiences some kind of trauma. Then the boss'll find out, freak out, and send us back here to kill her because she transformed fully and couldn't control herself."
"Tch." They stood together in the playground a little longer, Axel whistling while he scooped up some snow and started shaping it in a snowball. Then Roxas spoke again. "She looked a lot like Kaori. The boss will be even more disappointed that we didn't get her."
"Yeah, Kaori was a good friend of his." More silence. "You get to tell him that we didn't get her."
"It was partly your mission too!"
"Yeah, but you insisted that I stay back and let you handle her. Which worked out fantastically, by the way."
"Stop rubbing it in!" I kicked his leg and walked off. "Such a dumbass!"
"You're in one of your moods again. Wanna stop for ice cream?"
"Whenever you're ready."
"Not yet." The older male smirked and threw the snowball he was holding, smacking the back of Roxas' hood. "Okay, now I'm ready."