Thirteen - divided by - Two
The normal is abnormal.
Upon first glance, there was not anything really extraordinary to take note of. Stray strands of dirty blonde hair, an average jaw build, and angular eyebrows- these were the things that graced Demyx's face.
These traits, along with his self-described seawater colored eyes, flawless skin that had been bestowed upon him by a kiss from the lips of the grand muse Euterpe, and a mouth that produced sounds so heartwrenching that even the apathetic would turn their heads in wonder, were normal. His habits were repetitions of the things he did as a human, his cowardly façade a mirror to his past, and his weapon a memento to the passion he once held in his make-believe heart.
Overall, Vexen believed that there was nothing all that fascinating about Number IX.
Demyx had recently been recruited into the Organization, and all of the members had given him their attention upon his arrival, even if they did not show it. They had not recruited anyone else since Saïx had stumbled upon the Nobody of that boy Lea, and that had been some time ago.
The fact that they were expanding their numbers was noteworthy enough. The fact that they had found a humanoid Nobody outside of the attack that had been made on Radiant Garden three years ago was astounding to one who had a heart to be astounded with.
Now, Vexen did not like to consider himself impulsive as a human, but he was no longer human. Vexen did not have the ability to have qualms with admitting a personal flaw in a human being, and as such he had no qualms with admitting that he had been rash as Even. Even had been rash at times, calculating during most, but when something thoroughly captured his attention he had trouble focusing on anything besides the very entity that happened to catch his curiosity.
That was because whatever it was that was distracted him had fascinated him.
This was the case with Demyx, and that very detail was why he was paying such rapt attention to the younger Nobody.
Vexen was a Nobody. He did not have a heart. He did not have the ability to express emotions, he did not have an actual personality beyond mimicking what he had once been when he was whole, and he was far from human.
He should not have been capable of feeling fascinated.
Yet, somehow, he did. Number IX had somehow found his nonexistent interest and had managed to rekindle it with his presence alone. What he had once considered only a memory was rejuvenated when he looked into Demyx's empty blue-green eyes and saw the reflection of a little boy with the purest of blue eyes, eyes that were only biologically possible with parents that both had the very same color. He saw those tiny blue eyes wander around curiously, taking in everything around the owner of them with a remarkably intelligent interest, and in the memories he had of himself walking by mirrors, he saw those innocent eyes trailed on his back.
He felt the twinge of a heart, and he wanted to know why.
State of Matter
For some reason, magical capabilities are increased upon becoming a Nobody, at least, a Nobody of a powerful species.
The lower Nobodies are capable of magic, but only a limited amount. Nobodies like Dusks can barely do anything beyond move around and follow orders; Nobodies like Creepers were even more inept. It would take the strong investment of a Nobody of a higher rank to stimulate a lower Nobody into developing somewhat potent intellectual abilities, essentially interest in doing something other than just attacking out of pure instinct, and even then some of the lower Nobodies were just helpless.
Xigbar commanded Sniper Nobodies and oversaw their training in combat. Xaldin did the same for the Dragoons, Saïx the Berserkers, and, as he recently discovered, Demyx the newly named Dancers.
Vexen did not have interest in any of the lower Nobodies. He was incapable of feeling interest, since he truly had no emotions to make him feel entertained, but as a technically living creature he naturally pursued things that benefitted his survival.
Teaching a Dusk to extend its arm did nothing for him.
He acknowledged them whenever his experiments happened to overlap with them. He had originally experimented on them when the apprentices of the leader of Radiant Garden first discovered their existence and when he had first become a Nobody. Shortly after that, he realized that they did not serve any real advantage to him and he abandoned study of them, leaving Lexaeus to continue research if he so chose.
Demyx had discovered a budding species of Nobody that apparently attracted him for some reason, and he took to training them on a regular basis, no matter how much he complained about doing so. The Nobodies quickly adapted to his style of attack and began forming differently, using their longer legs in order to move elegantly around during fights, "dancing" to the sounds of battle around them, making orderly moves in accordance to their opponents' positioning.
This made him wonder about old questions he had.
How different were Nobodies from one another? What made certain humans take on a different shape upon losing their hearts and kept others from changing at all? He had determined before that the willpower of the human had a huge impact on what form they took, what strength they acquired, and he realized that these traits mirrored each other.
This was what let him know upon Demyx's arrival that he was outstandingly powerful and had an insane amount of willpower.
Magical capabilities increased upon a human becoming a Nobody, and this was especially true in the case of higher Nobodies. The stronger the Nobody was, the larger the increase. Naturally, this meant that humanoid Nobodies were the ones that received the largest increase in magical prowess, and this was evident in the weapons that developed with them. A humanoid Nobody was born along with a weapon suited for its own individual abilities, a proof of existence. This item was an extension of their power and a result from their experience with extensive amounts of darkness. Having it was a true reminder of how powerful a being had to be to withstand so much darkness before giving into it, and it was likewise a very powerful object.
His shield, Frozen Pride, reflected his nature as a human being and worked well as a medium for his attribute, ice magic. He preferred long distance attacks in battle and liked to keep a fair distance away from his foes. With his focus on his ice magic, it only made sense to stay distant, as to avoid being damaged by his own attacks. When he did fight in close range he took advantage of his shield and used it to protect himself while also damaging his opponent.
The other members all had weapons that reflected who they were as humans in some way and were suited for their fighting style. Xemnas, a fighter suited for close-combat, had his extended blades; Xigbar, a natural long range fighter, had his sniper guns; Xaldin, an air magic user, had his light-weight lances.
Demyx had a sitar.
His weapon truly said something about who he was as a human and just how he fought as a Nobody. Someone musically inclined, passionate about the music he created, and possibly prone to lounging around. Someone that fought with long range attacks, preferred to keep a distance from his opponents, but still used his weapon to his advantage when in close range.
This rang a bell.
What also rang a bell was that Demyx's attribute was water magic.
Lethargic and cowardly as he acted, Vexen knew that there was intelligence behind the eyes of the musician. Obviously, not on the level of a man that had studied outstandingly intense subjects for decades before the boy was even born, but there was something there that showed what he was now.
His continual ruse showed that he was manipulative, a trait that strongly suggested that he was the type to form plots for his ambitions rather than merely act on whims alone. The point that he had trained some of the lower Nobodies to perform such effective battle techniques showed that he was a capable strategist on the battlefield, along with showing that he was capable of constructing decently efficient long-term plans, and his persistent behavior showed how strong his will to achieve his goals was, for whatever his goals happened to be.
Water was not all that different from ice. They were the same element, only in altered forms. Ice was solid, water was liquid. One of them had become hardened in cold temperatures to the point that it solidified while the other retained its flowing configuration, moving like the graceful notes put together in a wave from the comprehensive plucking of a string instrument.
Similar all of his old questions, he wondered just how different Nobodies were from one another, particularly when the differences between them were like solid and liquid.
His voice hurts my ears
Demyx did not like people that talked too much. He did not like anyone, technically, but he was not capable of disliking people either.
When he was a human, those that knew him considered this trait odd, but it made perfect sense to him. To him, music was the world. Sound, beat, stride, volume, rhythm- all of them combined together in a harmonious pattern soothed the soul and washed away the negative emotions that collected in the darkest corners of the heart, leaving a person feeling revitalized after becoming exhausted with life.
This was why he disliked those that talked too much. Talking could be refreshing after a long bout of silence, but in a large amount it led to one becoming overwhelmed.
Vexen was prone to speaking. He thought constantly, contemplated the world around him, and had the need to share his findings with others.
That would be great and all, if his voice didn't really... suck.
Vexen, Number IV in the Organization, the Chilly Academic- had a voice that could reach a notably shrill level at the nastiest of times.
All he spoke of were his experiments and the results that followed those thereafter. He had no sense of the creative. Everything about him was analytical. There was no meaning to his words beyond facts, no spiritual reasoning that the wonder of music could so easily create, and it reminded Demyx of the fact that they were no longer human every time he heard it. The older Nobody's voice was a fluctuating thing, never seeming to stick to portraying a single formerly haughty attitude for more than a couple of sentences. Yet, with all of the change it underwent, his voice still managed to ring with the blandness of purely practical reasoning.
"We are Nobodies. We have no spiritual purpose to live or strive for. We have no emotions, no passions, and no longings. We have no life to live. We are only the shells of the humans that we have memories of. I know that you understand this Number IX, so do not waste my time by telling me that you are feeling depressed."
His voice was logical and very far from melodious.
IV. The products of artists and academics...
He was frequently found in the Grey Area, lying on one of the couches, Arpeggio delicately positioned on his lap. The Grey Area never seemed to be occupied before he came along. It was generally just used as a briefing room, due to Saïx's habit of inhabiting places where there was a good view of the sky and that there was no other purpose for the room. Members would report to the nonchalant berserker, be informed as to what they were doing for the day, and go on their way.
Then Demyx took to sitting in it.
There had been a couch in there before, just to furnish the room, but Demyx found that it was the perfect place to lounge around during his free time. The more time he took to spend in the room, the more furniture seemed to be added. At first, it was a table. Then there came another couch, positioned right across from the original one. The two couches multiplied into four, the table multiplied into two, and statues were added alongside the windows.
He didn't know why, but the Superior seemed to approve of the idea of a lounge room, which apparently came to him upon noticing Demyx's continued routine. The other members took note as well, and they started to spend more of their free time in there, too.
Xaldin reclined on the couch, stretching his stiffened limbs out comfortably, taking up the majority of whatever couch he happened to be sitting on by himself. Axel leaned against the windows in the back of the room by the statues, crossing his arms and resting his eyes. Xigbar stood around and made sardonic conversation with whoever he came across, whether they wanted to or not; generally, not. Saïx actually stirred away from his near-constant presence in the Addled Impasse and would come to stare out of the windows of the Grey Area, which were nearly as large as the ones in the room he favored, more frequently. Even Lexaeus and Zexion would emerge from wherever they happened to be to enter the room, creating intelligent discussions with members they rarely acknowledged, let alone spoke to.
With just a continued habit, Demyx had somehow managed to attract all of the other members of the Organization into one room.
This intrigued Vexen. All Number IX did was sit around and tug on a few strings of his sitar. He sat there, plucking strings on his instrument in an apparently creative rhythm and producing sounds that meant nothing to the ears of someone that could not generate an emotional response to any form of art.
Even so, he sat there, pointlessly plucking the threads of his music. Even stranger, everyone pointlessly gathered to listen to sounds that meant absolutely nothing.
Inspirational to the mind
Demyx had apparently been an aspiring musician when he was a human. This did not surprise him.
All that the boy ever insisted on doing was playing his sitar. He would play it; going through the motions of doing something that had once filled him with an incredible passion, failing to produce that actual feeling, and ignoring the world around him. Vexen looked at him and wondered what it was like to be a human with a hunger to produce fine art. He wondered what it was like to feel a desire to produce the abstract through emotion, and he found himself looking into his memories for some sort of answer.
Even had been a human that wished to know everything in the world. He wanted to know how everything in the world worked, to understand why it worked this way, and this drove him to pursue omniscience above all else. He spent little time doing anything that wasn't for the sake of his experiments or his own personal health, no matter how much he liked to think that he chose to work towards all of this for the benefit of others. Sometimes, he became so lost in his pursuit for knowledge that he forgot those around him, and that was how he had lost himself to darkness.
His memories gave him no recollection of a feeling that explained what it was like to express his experiences through artistic outlets, and he found himself glancing at Demyx with the memory of wondering what it was like to share the morals of his heart with others, beyond facts presented in empty scientific conclusions.
There isn't any rhythm.
Vexen was formerly the academic type.
That was what Demyx thought when he first met Number IV.
His human must have been someone that liked to pursue the factual and the things that could be explained instead of the things that made one artistic. He was a proud man that disregarded the worth of others that did not pursue things similar to him, only paid attention to those that were necessary for him to pay attention to, and felt nothing for the things that he could not understand with his mind alone.
It was a very a presumptuous thought. It would have been a very presumptuous thought if he were capable of having thoughts with emotional connotations.
If he were capable of being presumptuous he would have stopped right there in his thoughts and would have just ignored the man. If he were capable of being presumptuous he would have lost interest in him altogether due to his disinterest in those that were not like-minded and would have moved on to something else.
If he were capable of being biased he would have overlooked the fact that the man was a man, and he had to be more than just an egotistical scientist. He would have overlooked that the man was wizened, and that meant that he had to have experienced the hardships of life to the point that he understood them on an advanced enough level for him to make peace with them. He would have overlooked the fact that he was a person with more complex thoughts and feelings than he would have given him credit for otherwise.
He would have overlooked that the man had a heart, and that it was capable of bleeding.
The world runs in the blue allele
Vexen could tell what eye color Demyx's parents must have had just by looking at him.
They had blue eyes.
One of them had a notably stark shade of blue while the other had green mixed in. That was the only way that Number IX's eyes could show such an evenly distribution of blue and green. One parent's eyes were distinct while the other held a mix of colors, creating a grouping of pigments that clustered together to form a color closer to the in between rather than the clearly defined.
He could look into his oceanic eyes and see that brown was not found on either side of his biological family. He could look into those eyes and tell that green was as deep as any iris would go in the generations of people before him.
Yes, he could look into the eyes of Demyx and see an entire family of people that had been left behind, all with blue colored eyes.
The air is moist.
It was rare for The World That Never Was to feel cold. It was normally temperate, cool enough for those wearing coats to feel comfortable and warm enough for those wearing light layers of clothing to avoid feeling chilly.
The only strong memories he had of cooler temperatures were from when he was a young boy in Radiant Garden. It was a bit colder then, and the winters of that time were the only where he had to wear a heavier coat. All other times throughout his life he could remember himself walking around comfortably in a lab coat with formal clothing underneath, never feeling bothered by the rays of the sunlight pressing upon him.
The air seemed to be thick with moisture, and for once he actually felt physically uncomfortable in his coat.
The others all remarked on this as well, even Zexion, and they wondered just what weather was to come. Rain was notably common weather in this world and clouds always hung in the air somewhere. One found shelter from the droplets in the alleys of the many buildings in the oddly constructed world, and many of the skyscrapers had extending roofs over their entrances that covered those that entered them. It was not often that they had a day where it was not cloudy and not rainy.
It was not very often that the air felt moist and the stars were completely visible in the sky.
It was not very often that Demyx was to be found out of the Grey Area or his room when he was not on a mission.
He was outside. Vexen noticed him from a window in the library and debated on calling him back inside to do work that needed to be done by someone since he seemed to have the free time. However, something stopped him.
The academic continued to look outside the window, ignoring the contagious feeling of moistness that the window itself seemed to hold, and stared at the younger Nobody.
He wasn't playing his sitar.
He was sitting on one of the lower platforms outside, staring up at the sky.
It was the calmest he had ever seen the younger Nobody act.
His legs dangled lazily above the giant abyss that resided beneath the castle, and his hands were positioned behind, palms pressing against the surface of the metallic floor. His hood was up for once, and Vexen could tell that he had zippered his coat tighter than usual. His shoulders were uncharacteristically straight instead of sluggishly slumped, and his chin was pointed into the air as he directed his face towards the starry sky above him.
Vexen let his eyes wander up towards the sky and moved them towards the direction that the boy was looking at, searching for what had left him so transfixed.
Then he noticed it.
Up in the northern section of the sky was a selection of stars that were farther out than most of them. It was almost never possible to see any of the stars, any of the other worlds, from The World That Never Was, but tonight was an exception. Tonight, the light of other worlds were visible, and they were lied out without a single cloud to hinder their glow. To the west, he could see what he instinctively knew was Radiant Garden, Hollow Bastion, and a memory of home seemed to work its way into his mind.
Then he remembered that the other Nobodies were capable of identifying the hearts of their home worlds, and that they could subconsciously pinpoint their locations.
Demyx was staring past the far out stars that glittered in the northern section of the sky. He was staring out at a place where there seemed to be a hole in the pattern, a hole in the image that all of the stars together seemed to create, a hole that marked the place where his home world had formerly resided.
It was not very often that Vexen could look at a member of the Organization and see an important fragment of what had once made up their heart.
IX. ...don't mix.
"Hey, welcome to the Organization kid. My name's Xigbar, No. II. Now, what nickname should I give you...?" Xigbar trailed off, his booming voice defogging the ever-present silence of The Castle That Never Was.
They were standing in the center of the Grey Area, and this was the first time that Xigbar had entered the room while he was in it. He had been hanging out in here recently and the only one who really came here that often was Saïx, who he was now referring to as X-face in his assigned diary, in order to meet up with the members that would be receiving assignments from him in the mornings.
Well, the morning part was debatable, but many things were debatable in a world that was constantly night.
"Err; I already received a new name." He responded, rubbing the back of his head in a friendly, but uncertain manner. "It's Demyx."
Xigbar continued to look him up and down, his single golden eye observing every inch of his body. Demyx thought that it had been more yellow when he saw this Nobody for the first time at his introduction a couple of weeks back, but he decided that he could have been mistaken. They seemed to be a bit more amber. In fact, every time he would see him from thereafter, they would seem to be even more amber.
"I know. I wasn't talking about that, brat." He said, and the scratchiness of his voice made Demyx flinch. "I give everyone around here a nickname or two when they join the Organization. For example, I call Axel flamesilocks and I call Zexion bookshelf."
Demyx snorted.
"Flamesilocks for Axel I understand, but bookshelf?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Long story." Xigbar shrugged. "Zexion has always been short, and he's a big-time bookworm. There was this time when he climbed up pretty high on a bookshelf to reach a book and became trapped inside a shelf for a couple of hours. No one noticed he was up there because he was so small. It was like he actually became a part of the bookshelf."
"Seriously?" Demyx questioned, changing his tone to form fake sympathy. "Ouch. Didn't anyone hear him when he shouted for someone to help him out?"
"No."
"Why couldn't they hear him?"
"He didn't speak back then."
"...oh."
"Yeah; he was pretty young back then. He never really spoke as a kid, even though Vexen always said that he could. I admit that I thought he could have been a mute for a while, before he started to speak with Lexaeus. Then it became obvious that he could. Vexen was watching him that time. He always wandered away whenever he knew he was supposed to be with Vexen." Xigbar explained.
"Vexen?" Demyx repeated, raising his eyebrow again.
"Yeah, he would always ignore what Vexen told him to do if it wasn't anything important." Xigbar said, gesturing his hand towards the direction where Vexen resided in the castle. "Ironically though, he listened to him more than he did anyone else. Whenever he would wander away, Vexen would always be the one to find him. None of the others knew where to look as well as he did. Even Xemnas had more trouble finding the little rascal than him, and that's saying something."
"Huh." Demyx said, letting new thoughts of the ice-wielder begin to churn in his mind.
Xigbar paused for a moment, and raised a hand to his chin in apparent contemplation.
"You know what, I'm just gonna' call you Demyx for now. Something better will come to me eventually." He said and turned away from him. He raised his hand and waved back at him as he walked away. "See ya'."
With that, he used his magic to teleport away and unknowingly left the ninth member of the Organization to his new thoughts on the fourth.
There are similarities in the fundamentally different.
Vexen remembered Ienzo to be a little boy. His hair was a unique hue of grey, looking to be bluish in certain lighting, and wondering how he had inherited such a shade had given Even something to do in moments where he was not preoccupied. It was always very messy, and he had insisted on the boy getting a haircut several times in the beginning, before he realized that he preferred his hair that way. The child loved to learn and craved knowledge just as much as he, which promptly led to the growth of a bond between the two of them.
Ienzo did not talk as much as Even would have liked, but it gave him plenty of opportunities to educate the boy without interruption. It also gave him someone that would both listen and absorb what he said.
Zexion was definitely not Ienzo.
After becoming Nobodies, he spent just as much time with Zexion that he did with Ienzo, but it became different. He no longer spent time with him because he enjoyed the boy's company or felt responsible for his wellbeing- he spent time with him out of habit. With all the time they had spent together as humans, they were naturally drawn to each other, but only due to the routine they had. They no longer felt the way they did about each other when they were human. They felt nothing. All they had were memories and a few habits that had managed to stick.
Zexion was not Ienzo, just as Vexen was not Even.
Yet, there were times where he had to remind himself that Demyx was not Ienzo.
Maybe it was because of his eyes, his teal colored eyes that sometimes reflected blue. Maybe it was because of the shaggy hair that dipped in front of his face occasionally, falling over his right eye. Maybe it was because he was the one that had found Demyx and had added the obligatory X to his name.
Despite the fact that he saw both of them on a regular basis, he never made the connection between the two of them before.
Demyx and Zexion were relatively the same age. The body did not stop aging after one became a Nobody because no matter how warped their existence was, Nobodies were living organisms. Axel and Saïx were going through puberty with relative averageness, except that Axel's body was becoming abnormally skinny as he grew taller. The pre-pubescent Nobodies had similar heights, but Demyx was a couple of inches taller than Zexion. They were hitting growth spurts at similar times though, with Demyx continually showing that he was to eventually going to grow to be the taller man of the two.
Both of their hair was unkempt, but Demyx was starting to style it upwards into a mullet, for some reason that was only obvious to him, and Zexion's only grew a bit longer as he continued to keep it over his eye.
Vexen never really realized how young Demyx was before he made the comparison.
He had to have been physically younger than fifteen. Radiant Garden was destroyed three years prior to his recruitment, and he had been quite young then. Now that he thought about it, he realized that Demyx actually could be younger than Zexion. Ienzo was ten years old when he lost his heart. He was thirteen when Demyx joined, and Demyx didn't look like he was close to hitting puberty back then. Thinking it through, Vexen realized he could calculate his age, but he saw no real practical reason to.
Instead, he estimated that he was in his teens and observed that he still had the haunting eyes of a child that he remembered on the face of a different boy.
This is all fascinatingly wrong.
He looks at him and feels an odd pang in his chest.
He looks at him and sees the image of bright blue eyes flash in his mind.
He looks at him and observes eyes that are colored like the sea instead of the garden sky he so clearly remembered.
A face appears in his memories that he knows has long since morphed into something else, but he finds that he cannot see the morphed face all that well, try as he might. Then he looks at the face with the oceanic eyes and remembers the sky of Radiant Garden, so different from the sky of The World That Never Was, so much like the eyes of Zexion.
The chain of memories that once laced throughout his heart only remain a reminder as to what once was, but for some reason they grew stronger when he thought of Demyx.
Emyd was a musician. He was laid-back and driven by artistic dreams. He valued passion above all else.
Ienzo was a scientist. He was serious and driven by inquisitive ambition. He valued knowledge above all else.
Yet, with all of this in mind, Vexen somehow looked at Demyx and did not see him. He would look at Demyx and he would see the reflection of two little blue eyed boys instead of one.
Rain, rain, go away-
Vexen was to leave for Castle Oblivion soon, along with some of his former apprentices and some of the most recently recruited members.
It rained the day before he was supposed to go.
Vexen had never had any fascination with the weather; as a human he was accustomed to the sunny days of Radiant Garden and took little note of weather changes that were, while atypical, not a phenomenal occurrence. For some reason though, he decided to go outside and stroll in the rain, for whatever good that would do him.
Strolling was not usual of him.
Strolling was purposeless. It provided him no benefit other than a small amount of exercise and put his health at risk for moving about in unfavorable weather conditions. He wondered if the reason for why he chose to take this stroll was due to a random urge to mimic the feeling of impulse he had as a human.
He had taken walks when he was human when Ienzo had hit a hyper stage where he wanted to wander around outside the castle almost constantly. For being an indoor-oriented person, Ienzo had a remarkably strong desire to roam outside.
Even had found the walks refreshing; Ienzo's wandering didn't bother him as much as he said it did, until the point came when Radiant Garden became dangerous.
Reminiscing a bit more than he usually did, he didn't bother to make a set direction that he would go in. He would be able to just warp back to the castle anyhow. The other members were probably resting before they had to make their venture, and he had decided that he would do the same.
Vexen looked up at the familiar sound of a Corridor of Darkness being opened, and he looked towards a building where Demyx suddenly appeared.
He was panting and bent over, resting his hands on his kneecaps. His breaths came out with a raspy noise, a noise that reflected his deepened voice, and his hood was partially falling down the right side of his neck.
"Number IX?" Said member jumped into the air with a particularly pathetic squeal. "What are you doing?"
"Oh..." Demyx said in his false high-pitched voice, still sounding out of breath. "Larxene... huff... Grey Area... didn't like... huff... my singing... chased..."
"Ah." Vexen sounded, needing no further explanation. The second latest member of the Organization often acted with an angry persona, and she was known for commonly abusing members she deemed unworthy of respect, mainly Demyx, along with her incredible speed. Having escaped her was a feat.
Demyx wiped sweat from his forehead and tilted his head towards the sky. Vexen watched indifferently as the heartless man before him let the rain fall down upon his skin, his angular eyebrows twitching when droplets landed on his eyelids.
Demyx was rather tall. Not remarkably so, but had grown to be about six feet when he stood upright. His sitar looked much more fitting now that he had achieved the height that the instrument was suited for.
He had developed the habit of forcing his voice to come out in a higher pitch after it had deepened. It suited his cowardly act better than his natural, low voice did, and it created a better affect when he attempted to manipulate humans into believing his ruse. His voice hadn't deepened extremely, but it had developed into what the young man would have considered to be a nice signing voice if he were capable. It had an easy rhythm to it, and he assumed that it produced a pleasant sound for a person with a heart to listen to.
Vexen turned away from the younger Nobody and lifted his hand, using the darkness to create a Corridor of Darkness. Demyx jumped comically behind him in false surprise, but Vexen was used to Demyx's behavior.
"Get some rest, Number IX. With nearly half of the Organization leaving for Castle Oblivion tomorrow you will have double the amount of missions that you are used to having." He said.
"Aww, really? Oh man, I didn't think of that. This bites." Demyx whined, and Vexen didn't have to turn around to know what the childish expression on his face looked like.
"Like I said Demyx, get some rest."
"Oh alright..."
Having heard his response, Vexen walked into the Corridor and started to make his way back to the castle. While he had never encountered much of it, the rain brought him memories of when he was calm. He didn't know why it did that. Vexen, no, Even had been a man that was all about knowing everything he could. He didn't know why that was, even when he was actually like that as a human being he didn't know, and it had always made him wonder in his most philosophical moments as to why he felt the need to learn everything that he could.
Looking back on it, Vexen realized that Even didn't know a lot of things.
Flash forward to today, a decade since he had become a Nobody, he still didn't understand the psychological reasoning for being the way he was. He couldn't understand himself then, and he couldn't understand why his heart was the way it was, which drove him to study it.
He didn't know the ways of his heart.
He didn't know why the rain, why water in general, had once made him so calm.
He didn't know why he felt some sort of instinctive need to go out of his way to make sure that upon his departure, Demyx would be alright.
It's music to my ears.
He was playing his Arpeggio in the Grey Area one morning. On this morning, he was not wearing his gloves. They sat to his right on the couch armrest, temporarily forgotten as he masterfully strummed the strings of his sitar, focusing on the sensation of physically feeling the strings against the bare skin of his fingers.
He did not stop practicing when he lost his heart. He continued on learning despite that, steadily making progress as he grew older and as time passed. His songs grew to be more expansive, his tones began to vary. However, the emotions that he wished to express did not come to him.
It wasn't the same.
It was never like how he remembered it to be.
He did not feel joy upon successfully learning a notably difficult composition. There was no frustration when he could not seem to play a certain song the way he wanted to. Resting his fingers on the strings of his sitar no longer calmed him the instant he did so.
It truly was never the same.
No matter how much he wished to change it, how much actual effort into making himself believe that it was possible to do so, he didn't think that it was possible for him to regain his heart. His heart was everything. It was what gave him passion. It was what gave him happiness and grief. It was everything to him. Without it, he was nothing. He was nothing but the memories of a human that once was, but no longer was anything.
Demyx was not Emyd. He could not direct his emotions through his music, exert the pain he felt by producing sounds to describe it.
He could not feel the pain he should have felt.
Yet, for some reason, he felt the twinge of a heart.
He had felt it earlier on, when he had first become a Nobody. He had shrugged it off, believing it to just be a physical memory of what it was like to have a heart beating away in his chest. He ignored it, but it always came back, at some of the most random of times.
Now was one of those times.
The members that had been sent to Castle Oblivion had perished. All of them except for Axel had ceased to exist. Larxene, Marluxia, Zexion, Lexaeus-
Vexen.
He didn't know why he couldn't get this out of his head. He had no explanation for why it was still there. He thought of all of them, of all of the times that he had interacted with them individually and how he felt- how he thought he felt about them. He had to tell himself that he did not feel anything in order to convince himself that he was not feeling anything towards them. All of the things he thought he was feeling were just memories. He was a Nobody; there was no way that he felt any kind of grief about what happened.
Yet, he was still sitting there thinking about them.
He thought that he felt something towards them.
There was pain; sadness. He couldn't describe what had suddenly overcome him. The false sensations were so complicated that it was like he was actually feeling all of this, but he knew that he couldn't have been. He was nothing. He felt nothing.
He couldn't be grieving.
He knew he wasn't grieving.
Yet, he was still sitting there thinking about them, thinking about feelings he thought he shouldn't have.
The twinge in the place where his heart should have been started up again, and he raised a hand from his sitar to place it on his chest. The twinge was always there. It wouldn't go away. He felt as if there was some sort of pang when he thought about those that had gone, all of things that could go wrong to come, and he felt a shooting pain when he thought about their eyes.
Eyes were like windows to the soul. Tears fell from the eyes of someone in pain, eyelids crinkled when one wholeheartedly laughed, and people could look so peaceful when they just let their eyes close shut.
When he thought about eyes, he actually thought about Vexen's. He had never told him, or let it be implied at all, but he still did. It had been that way since he had joined the Organization all of those years back. He didn't know why, but the more he thought about eyes, the more he associated them with Vexen's deep green irises. Even now as he acknowledged he would never see those eyes again, he couldn't stop thinking about them and the person they belonged to.
Whenever he looked into the eyes of Vexen, he was reminded of what it felt like to have a father.