Author Notes: Well, this is the first of a collection of one-shots to do with the Organization; mainly the original six before they became Nobodies. I know that things like this have been done before, but hey. The general idea itself isn't original, but hopefully the plotlines will be. And it won't be just one big story, either. These are one-shots that I've grouped together for convenience.
Originally this was just going to be about the original six... But then, I decided to do the whole orgy. Well, hey, why not? 8D
Thank you to zexions . emo . girl for letting me use her title, Cut Up Angels. Just in case you were confused; this isn't a copy of her story, or anything. I thought it was a beautiful title, and I really wanted to use it for something; if only to be able to brag to my friends how I was writing a series of one-shots called "Cut Up Angels". Isn't it beautiful?
Oh, I guess I'd better put summaries in as well...
Summary: It was just another thing the Neophyte had taken from him. After all, why should he be allowed to love and be loved in return?
Eh... Bad summary... But I can't think of anything else to summarize it with... .
Anyhoos, here we go! 8D
[cut]UPangels
.Xehanort.|.Neophyte.
or
[.Ghost.]
His memories wavered, falling through his fingers. They drifted around him, distant, unfocused, but close enough to frustrate him. He'd run to them, stretch his arms out to them, but his small hands would close around nothing but air and darkness.
He scowled, his once childishly cute features dissolving. His eyes burned with frustration, anger. What was he doing? Who was he? How did he get... wherever he was? So many questions, no one to answer them for him.
It made him feel weak. Knowledge is power, after all. Therefore, the absence of knowledge must be the absence of power, and he hated feeling weak. Not that he remembered ever feeling hate before now.
The rain dampened his hair, got in his eyes and trickled down his face. It soaked his clothes, made them stick to his skin and chilled him to the bone. He knew he would die if he stayed in the rain for too long, but he had nowhere to go. At least he wouldn't remember dying. Hypothermia was merciful and rocked you to sleep before its icy fingers wrapped around your body and you knew no more.
It would be just another memory snatched from him and thrown away into the wind.
He shivered, wrapping his arms around his body and ducking underneath a tree. The rain didn't pelt nearly as hard here, attacking the leaves and branches instead of his meek form. He clutched his sides as though he were trying to hold himself together. And maybe he was.
"Be careful, now. You'll catch your death in all this rain!"
Voices filtered through the dark rain, reaching his ears in fragments. His eyes shifted through the night, trying to find a face for this new voice. They searched out a figure leaning against a building, one of the only ones that stood tall. He watched as the figure moved to make way for a second, both their features distorted by the rain.
"Thank you for your concern, but I'll be fine," said the second voice. It was muffled, and would have be hard to hear, but his starved, orphan ears picked up each and every syllable he spoke, his mind trying to match it to a ghost memory of a father.
The first voice laughed. "I pity the soul that's caught out in this weather!"
There was no reply from the second voice except for a few indistinguishable mutters. He strained his ears to hear, but no matter how hard he tried, he heard nothing. Then the second figure turned, shook out an umbrella and walked briskly into the rain, bending against the wind.
He was moving in his direction, but the boy didn't think to move. His teeth chattered and his legs shook. He couldn't move. Not really. He sat underneath the tree and watched as the figure walked his way.
The figure ended up tripped over his legs, pushing the boy into the ground, the scent of wet earth filling his nose. He glanced sideways and saw that it was a man. A man with mid-length blond hair who wore some kind of white suit, or lab coat.
"A thousand apologies!" The man exclaimed, picking himself up and offering the boy a hand. The boy looked at it, then took it, feeling the warmth from his hand seep into his own, wet one. "You must be freezing!" He exclaimed again, seeing the boy for the first time.
The man's eyes took in his shivering form, how his hair stuck to his face and neck, and some strange urge to protect him drifted into his mind. "Come, come," he said, offering him his hand. "I'll take you to my home, get you warmed up again, and then we'll see about getting you back to your own home. Would you like that?"
The boy looked at the man's hand. A few ghost memories of another hand, a slender, female one drifted through his mind before filtering out into the darkness, like all the others. His small fingers connected with the blond man's hand, and he nodded.
The man smiled down at him. "I am Ansem the Wise. What's your name?"
Ansem the Wise? The name sounded familiar to him, but he couldn't figure out where he'd heard it before. Another lost memory. He hid a scowl, and smiled instead. "Xehanort," he said.
It was a fake, a lie. A name he made up and gave this shadow of him that walked the earth. After all, with no memories, he could find no purpose for his existence. And without that, it was the same as being dead.
Xehanort. No heart, no memories, nothing that made up his soul.
Xehanort. Another. Another chance to love, to find a purpose to exist. Another chance to make new memories. Another chance to live, with the man that called himself Ansem the Wise.
.Xehanort.|.Neophyte.
His eyes watched as Ansem walked through the door, carrying the limp form of a child in his arms, followed by the bulky form of Aeleus. They narrowed as the child stirred, his mouth muttering words he couldn't hear. Ansem looked down at him, lovingly, protectingly, like he had when he'd walked through that door.
Xehanort saw himself projected in the boy, and something new burned through his body. He was jealous of this new arrival, how Ansem's eyes diverted away from him. He was angry at Ansem for doing something spontaneous and random.
No. He'd felt these things before. This went deeper than that.
He hated him, he realized. Hated this boy for being dragged into the castle, hated how Ansem's eyes were only for this new boy. Such a sudden, intense hate, and it only grew over the days that he stayed, intensified when he learned that he wouldn't be leaving. Instead, this new boy would be taking up studies like the rest of them.
When he'd arrived, he'd been nursed back to health by Ansem himself. Ansem had taken him in, began to tutor him, and realized that his mind was bright and ready to learn. It greedily sucked down any and all information that Ansem offered him, and after some time, he decided to make him his apprentice, like four of the others that lived in the castle.
It was very much the same for the new boy; the Neophyte. Xehanort refused to call him by his name, which he'd learnt by shamelessly eavesdropping outside the Neophyte's door that first night. Ienzo, Aeleus had called him in a voice that was much like an older brother would sound. Even the fellow apprentices were being roped in by this Neophyte.
He watched as the Neophyte took roots in Ansem's heart, making the man smile whenever they met. The Neophyte never smiled, though. Like some unknown tragedy had taken away all will to smile or show signs of happiness. He'd tried, once, but his lips trembled before anything akin to a smile could appear and he'd started to cry.
Xehanort began to stalk him obsessively. Wherever the Neophyte went, he followed. He hid in the shadows, behind shelves and underneath desks, wherever he could see the Neophyte but the Neophyte couldn't see him. And suddenly, whatever could go wrong around the boy, did.
Shelves full with books toppled and missed him by inches; tubes holding strange chemicals spilled and broke around him; doors and windows locked themselves randomly; and he found himself tripping up on surfaces that were flat a second ago.
The Neophyte would notice nothing. He couldn't see the jealous teen that stalked him in the corridors, befalling havoc around his ears. No matter how hard he tried to see, all he'd see was perhaps the flap of a coat, or a sideways view of a body leaving the room.
In the end, all he could do was conclude that he was being haunted by a ghost.
Ghost, indeed. The only thing that haunted anyone was Xehanort's jealousy of someone who had taken the attention away from him.
In Xehanort's mind, only one of them could remain in the castle. Ansem would not have enough attention for the both of them, and so it became war. A war that the Neophyte never even knew he was fighting.
So as long as the Neophyte was around, Xehanort would keep fighting. He would keep being the ghost that hid in the cupboard, behind the door, maybe even underneath the bed. He would keep going and going, until there was only one of them left. Even if the other faded away into nothingness. Nothingness didn't bother him anyway. It wasn't like they weren't friends already.
He'd been nothing but Nothing until Ansem had found him and begun to love him. Now that Ansem's love was waning, he was becoming Nothing again.
[cut]UPangels
End Notes: Was that... okay? I was a bit worried about putting this one first, since it wasn't exactly the best, but it's too late now, I suppose. I've already done it.
Anyway, the next one will probably Ienzo... Because I like Ienzo. ...Review? 8D