What Lies in Darkness
A/N: yes, this is a crossover. I am just putting it here, since Kingdom Hearts is really just one giant crossover. Besides, who looks at the crossover section often.
Summary: At some point in time in the twelfth cycle of the gods, a plan hatched by the Emperor and Ultimecia went horribly wrong. Now, the warriors of both Chaos and Cosmos are Nobodies, and they have banded together in the hopes of regaining what has been lost. Sora, sadly has chosen to oppose them. BTW, How the Hell can I anagram Bartz's name? Any good suggestions?
Chapter One- Hollow Bastion:
Sora, after defeating Xemnas, was free to travel the worlds until King Mickey called on him once more, and he often had free time on his hands. So, he traveled to many of the other worlds. Little did he know that things had gone horribly wrong in the world called Radiant Garden, his current destination. When he arrived, the world was all too quiet, and Sora was surprised to find that there was no longer heartless in the world, nor anything else in the desolate land.
"Leon? Cid? Aeris?" Sora cried out name after name, to no avail, until a sobbing Yuffie was found. "Yuffie!" He called out.
The ninja looked up, her eyes widened and she practically jumped the way over to him. "Sora! It's you! I was beginning to think that Cid and I were the only ones left!"
"Yuffie, what happened?" Sora inquired, "Why would you and Cid be the only ones left?"
"It's because, young Sora… Once key of destiny…." It was Leon's voice, but when Sora looked up, all that could be seen was a black Organization cloak.
"Don't you guys just stay dead?" Sora cried out in anger that his peaceful life had once again been torn asunder.
"Sadly, it seems that the last Organization is gone, but a new one has risen to take its place…." The man with Leon's voice in a cloak shook his head. "It is because your friends, Cloud, Leon, Aeris, Tifa, and many others were taken from their worlds, and forced to fight a seemingly endless conflict between two gods. But, somewhere along the way, the warriors known as Emperor and Ultimecia brought a horrible force, one known as heartless, in an attempt to end the conflict."
Two more figures came out of Corridors, and one spoke in a voice that sounded awfully like Tifa's began to continue. "What they did not expect, was for the Heartless to attack both sides, and the warriors lost themselves to the onslaught."
And then the other figure finished it off, in Aeris' voice. "However, all of the warriors held strong hearts, and so the shells left behind began to move of their own accord." The speaker removed her hood, to reveal Aeris' face, but her long brown hair was kept down, gracing her thighs with the ends of it. "You call such beings Nobodies, no?"
"Aeris?" Sora cried out, "Is this some sort of sick joke?"
"My name is Xareis. The one known as Aeris died during the Twelfth Cycle of the gods, Chaos and Cosmos. I only wish that I was joking." She gave a half-hearted smile, "Then again, I don't have a heart, so I don't think I could joke anymore."
Sora called upon his keyblade, and looked at her sadly. "If you really are a nobody, then I have to strike you down!"
"I don't think so!" The other female lowered her hood to reveal Tifa's face, but her black hair was up in a bun, with strands of hair coming down the sides of her face. It was held up by two identical pins, with Nobody insignia's on the design at the top. "My name is Xifta, and no way in hell are you going to kill Xareis!" She assumed a fighting position after calling on her studded grey fighting gloves. "You'll have to go through me first!"
"Tifa? They got you too!" Sora was practically hyperventilating. Tifa had been a women of pure light, how could she have fallen so easily to darkness!
The Nobody of Tifa, Xifta, smirked at his horrified expression. "Not just her, Sora. They got Cloud, Leon…" She looked over to the boy with a dangerous smile. "…. Sephiroth….."
Sora's mouth dropped open at the prospect. "But how?" He asked in awe.
Xifta smiled at his question. "It might be a little hard for you to understand, as you obviously lack the maturity to do so, but Sephiroth was once human. He lost his mind back on our home world, and that eventually led to its destruction, he held so much anger, and that anger was his driving force. But without a heart…" Xifta waggled a finger at Sora and then touched the place where a heart was supposed to be in her chest. "Without a heart, he was able to see clearly, and waited long enough to hear the truth as a man known as Vincent Valentine once told me it to be." Yuffie stood up at the mention of the name.
"Vincent disappeared, Teef, you know that." She was screaming at the Nobody, but Xifta didn't seem to notice.
"He is immortal, and will certainly join our cause if we could just find him. And now, Yuffie, the point of my visit. Join us in the ranks of the Organization. We could use the help. The same applies to Cid…." Xifta's eye's left Yuffie and then came to rest upon Sora's form. "And to you, Roxas. I know that you can hear me. We can help you get number XIV back. Wouldn't you like that, Roxas? To be with Axel and Xion once more?" Sora could feel the Nobodies pain at the mention of this, 'Xion's' name. Then he felt the odd sensation of Roxas coming out.
"Xifta, Xion died a long time ago, more than a year now. Are you so sure that you could call her back?" Roxas appeared hesitant, but his eyes displayed the remnants of hope. Xifta smiled in a way reminiscent to her Somebodies to Cloud.
"It's possible. After all, Xion is also inside Sora, she has been with you the entire time. If you could get Namine to unleash the chain of memories connected to her, then we could use a dusk to give her a form once more." Her fake smile widened, as she could no longer feel. "Not only that, it would appear that there is another locked away inside your heart, Sora. Got some kind of party going on in there?"
Roxas looked genuinely surprised at this revelation. "You mean, this whole time…?" Xifta nodded.
"Yes. She is there."
"Then…. Yes. For Xion." Roxas' voice cracked, and he disappeared into Sora's body.
"Xifta. Xareis. I leave this to you." The only hooded figure commanded the two girls.
Xareis let the remnants of her somebodies smile dance across her features. "Whatever you say, Nexol."
The girls closed in on Sora as the one known as Nexol disappeared into the corridor of darkness. All Sora knew beyond that moment was the blank feeling of unconsciousness.
XXXX
When Sora next awoke, he was lying next to a cloaked girl with green hair kept into a pony tail held up with a pink ribbon. She was apparently sleeping, holding a tiny Organization Moogle in her arms. Sora was surprised at the peaceful expression across her face. Even Nobodies could escape the horrors of the world in sleep. She stirred when Sora accidentally coughed. "Mmmmm? Oh, you're awake." The girl was flustered when she noticed his curious stare. "Ummmm…."
"What? Why didn't you just kill me?" The girl made a face of horror at the thought.
"Why would we kill you? We finally escaped the cycle of the gods, can't we just have peace? Sure, we lost our Hearts, but that doesn't mean we lost our dreams! Without our dreams, we would be simply lifeless shells…." Sora could see the Somebody of this girl, she had to have a strong resolve to end the fighting if she carried it over to her Nobody.
"What's your name then?" Sora inquired as he sat up from the hospital-like bed. He wanted to know this strange Nobodies name, she reminded him a little of Naminé.
"Uh….. I'm…. Raxret. Number VI. The peacekeeping destroyer." She spoke to him in clipped sentences, as if trying to keep up an emotionless façade, though she shouldn't have to. She was a Nobody, emotionless was practically in the job description. "But why did you think we would kill you? We aren't monsters…. We are people who made a mistake, and we just want out hearts back. Your Nobody also has something to gain here. The one known as Xion."
"But, you aren't supposed to be good, nothing should be the same as evil! I mean, look at what the original Organization did…." Raxret rolled her eyes, but her shoulders displayed her hurt quite obviously when they hunched over, and her loose grip on the Moogle tightened.
"And what is it they did, Sora?" She asked in her soft voice. Sora found himself at a loss for words, and he decided to keep his big mouth shut for once.
"Raxret?" A different voice called out to his visitor, one that he couldn't place, but his current captor did.
"Ah! Nexulth!" Raxret stood up, still holding on to her Moogle, when a little boy, maybe three or four years younger than Sora, with blond spiky hair in the front, and a ponytail trailing down his back walked into the room. "Why are you here?"
"Well, Irxifon asked me to check on you, and said that another should be here soon to take your place in guarding the Keybearer." Raxret almost smiled at the mention of the other Nobody.
"Irxifon is always looking out for us, isn't he? He reminds me so much of his Somebody, Firion…. It hurts me sometimes that he won't see his dream, but then again, it's only shadows of pain that once existed." She trailed off, and Sora felt sad, realizing that these poor people had simply gotten tied up in something far beyond them. He shook his head. No! I can't start to sympathize with them!
XXXXX
Raxret was looking down at her beloved Moogle, her somebody, after all, had enjoyed them so much, loving especially to stroke their soft fur, and it was a tiny reminder as to what she was fighting to regain and protect. When she looked up, Nexulth's hand was reaching out for her to take.
"Let's go, Raxret. It's not like he could go anywhere. I believe that Iraclex will be here soon." At the mention of the name, Raxret shivered. She had once enjoyed the company of the Somebody of the mentioned, but the nobody was often hard to deal with, and constantly held up shields.
She took the young knight's hand, and he lead her out of the room. But still, she felt the overwhelming urge to say goodbye to the brown haired captive. She followed it, as it was the thing that put her above the heartless. "Uh, good luck! I'll see you again soon!" And with that, she and Nexulth ran out of the room.
XXXXX
Sora was alone now, and even the young Nobodies company had been better than this crushing silence. Then, he heard the tell-tale foot falls coming from down the corner. From the sound of it, the approaching figure was female, he could tell because of the clicking of her shoes. She slowly entered his room, and Sora wasn't surprised to see that the hood was up.
"Who are you watching?" The voice was commanding, and Sora immediately looked away from her.
"No one, I guess." The annoyed tone in Sora's voice evoked a small chuckle from the figure, and he still wasn't surprised when she took the place Raxret once sat. "So I can assume you're Iraclex."
The Nobody scoffed. "That is an obvious one, it's just as if I could assume you are Sora."
"So…. Iraclex, what's going to happen to me? I mean, am I going to die?" Iraclex sneered, Sora could see her mouth, but that was it.
"I do believe Ter… Wait, nobodies now, Raxret already asked you this, Why would we kill you? We would defend ourselves should you attack us, and the Nobodies leaning more to the chaos side of things would do so happily, but we need a keyblade warrior to collect Hearts. You, by all means, probably are just biding your time until that king of yours gives you the order to send us all back to nothing." She gave him a shadow of a smile from underneath her hood. Before returning to a mocking sneer. "Well, dear, I sure as hell not gonna return to nothing without a fight. Besides that, who actually would want to return to a Somebody who, by connection, killed the almost love of your life? Xion meant more to Roxas than anyone could have possibly understood, and Diz, Riku, and Naminé all thought that since she was a Replica, she didn't deserve to live. They thought that and worse for Nobodies. I can see why Nobodies deserve to hate you, even though we lost emotion a long time ago, but I really don't understand your petty vendetta towards us! Why do you think so lowly of us!" Her gloved hands hit the bed with enough strength to almost punch a hole through the mattress.
"Iraclex…." Xareis' soft voice broke the harsh tension between Sora and the cloaked Nobody, and Iraclex turned and swiftly walked out of the room.
"What was that all about?" Sora asked, exasperated with the situation.
"Do not think too badly of her, Sora. After all, she was once persecuted for becoming an almost slave to a higher organism, then ruthlessly hunted down because she was a chosen warrior of Cosmos. And now, once again, you hate her for something that was never a choice for her." Xareis looked at him with eyes that were almost sad. Sora had to remind himself that she was a nobody, enemy of the kingdom of light. His enemy. "I believe no one has answered your question today. We will be removing Roxas in the same way he was made. When you unlocked your heart to save Kairi, you two created the beings called Roxas and Naminé."
Xifta walked into the room, "Well kid, if you did it once, surely you'll do it again?" She gave a smirk.
Xareis rolled her eyes at Tifa's nobody. "No, we just need Roxas to unlock the second heart inside you, that will get us in the favor of the Keyblade master called Aqua, if Zack told me correctly." She smiled to herself at his mention. "I want to speak to him again…. So, so badly." She shook herself out of the memories. "In the unlocking of that heart, the Keybearer called Ventus' heart will be released, giving Roxas and Xion a chance to escape. We have already contacted Naminé, and she has unraveled the chain connected to Xion."
Tifa decided to hit it home. "And so, that is four Keyblades for us, two for you, and only one still missing."
But only one thing stood out to Sora. "There is more than one Keybearer?"
A/N: I need help with a couple of names, Can you give me some good anagrams of the names below?
BARTZ/BUTZ: Both are acceptable
EXDEATH
CLOUD OF DARKNESS: Shorten it to darkness or Cloud if necessary.
Thank you in advance, I appreciate the help.