Organization XIII
Section 2
Chapter 1: Phantoms
"Kingdom Hearts…where…is my heart?" These words echoed in my ears as I stared into the black sky. These words had been spoken by Saïx, one of my fallen comrades from the first faction of Organization XIII. I had not met many of that faction's members, aside from Xemnas, Xaldin, and Demyx once. As a Nobody, I cannot say how I felt about any of them truthfully. All I can say is that I had quickly received word of the first faction's ultimate downfall, and my faction had not hesitated to move in on their territory. We seized Castle Oblivion and finally The World that Never Was as our own, and had begun our operations a short time ago. As I looked back on the memories I had of the previous faction of Organization XIII, I continued to stare out into the sky.
"Pathetic…" As I whispered this, trying my best to sound as if I were expressing contempt, I heard the enormous doors that led into the room in which I stood creak open. I turned, my hood still concealing my appearance. A similarly clad young woman stepped in. It was Xigoia, #15 in the Organization and a personal friend of mine, or at least we acted like friends towards each other. She approached, pulling her hood back, thus allowing her long crop of brown hair to flow down her back. I turned and pulled my hood back. My hair was also brown, but it was short on the top, and a long ponytail grew from the back. We regarded each other with the best emotional front we could put up, after all as Nobodies we were completely incapable of feeling any real emotion for anything. This was the flaw that the first faction had once tried to fix…only to fail in the end. "What is it, Xigoia?" I inquired.
"We have found Xehanort's old archives." Xigoia reported. I nodded, acknowledging this information.
"Very good. Was there anything of importance inside?"
"Numbers 16 and 17 are looking into it now." She answered. "We should have their data within the hour." I nodded. As #14 and the first member of the second faction, Xemnas the Superior had assigned me to lead this team of the Organization.
"Xalnon, is something troubling you?"
"Why would that be? It's not as if we can actually feel feelings."
"True, but I suppose the fact that you're acting troubled is just the same as being troubled." I forced a chuckle, her words held truth. Perhaps this was the same as true feeling.
"It's nothing Xigoia. Or at least, it's nothing you need to concern yourself with."
Xigoia nodded, smiling understandingly. When she turned to leave, she directed one last announcement to me.
"Oh yes, Number 21 wants to see you as soon as possible. It seems important."
"Understood, I will be with him shortly." Without another word, Xigoia took her leave. I turned back to the window of the highest tower of Castle Oblivion. Another memory entered my thoughts, the memory of a solo mission from which I had returned the previous evening.
The skies of The Radiant Garden were blackened by storm clouds, a light rain falling upon the landscape. An enormous castle stood in front of me, a towering scrap heap of a fortress that I had no doubt would soon collapse altogether. I stared at it for moments, deciding now was most certainly not the time to pretend at any emotion. My mission was simple: to exterminate any remaining nobodies and heartless in the vicinity of this castle. So far, it had been a success. All that remained was the castle itself. I could hear and feel the rain as it pecked away at my hood. Without another moment's hesitation, I pushed open the doors and entered.
The entry hall was deserted, and yet I felt their presence. Warily, I drew my twin gunblades, ready for an eminent assault.
My assessment of the situation proved correct.
From the floor, from the walls and even from the ceiling, countless heartless and dusks appeared, crawling and writhing toward me. Without second thought, I aimed one of my gunblades at the forehead of a heartless and squeezed the trigger. The heartless was thrown backward, vanishing into a black mist. Sensing danger, the other creatures advanced, and I sprang into action. I leapt into the air, firing shot after shot and destroying multiple heartless and dusks. When I landed, I spun in a circle, the enormous blades at the ends of each gunblade slicing clean through the lowly creatures who were attempting to do me harm. I now stood in an open circle, the remaining heartless and dusks circling me like a wagon train.
"Filthy creatures…" I said this with no emotion whatsoever, just as a Nobody was meant to.
"Are you prepared to justify that?" said a voice that, in a strange way, seemed familiar to me. I turned in the direction of the voice, never once removing my hood. On the staircase stood a tall figure clad in a coat that was designed just like mine. The one distinguishing factor was that his coat was white, covered with scraggly black designs.
"Xemnas…?" I breathed, otherwise speechless. Around me, the heartless and dusks began to explode one by one, eventually leaving myself and the mysterious figure alone in the hallway. The figure stepped forward, the space around him seeming to be thrown off balance. Everything around him was pulsing with a strange energy, as if reality itself was about to burst at the seams.
"Number 14…Xalnon, the Peacemaker. It's good to see you again." Xemnas replied. He too was hooded, lending a small degree of uncertainty to my assumption of his identity.
"This doesn't make any sense…I thought you were destroyed." Xemnas made no response to this statement. "What are you doing here?"
"You ask far too many questions. But then, I suppose that's why I placed you in charge of intelligence." Xemnas retorted. "I cannot explain why I am here…but I cannot allow what you have done to my legacy to stand unpunished."
"Legacy? These worlds have been damaged, I'm simply trying to repair them." I answered coldly. Xemnas chuckled at this.
"The let us see if what you have attempted has been a successful venture." With that, Xemnas took to the air, his telltale aerial blades boiling forth from his palms. I poised for attack, aiming a gunblade at him and firing. Xemnas disappeared before the bullets reached him, reappearing behind me and swinging a blade at me. I held up one of my Gunblades and deflected his attack. Using the brief opening I had, I struck with my second blade, clipping his hip. Xemnas disappeared again, reappearing a few yards away.
"What were you hoping to accomplish? Didn't we try to tell you that your efforts to become whole were in vain?" I questioned, still emotionless.
"You say that only because you have not seen what I saw, you have not felt what I felt, nor can you imagine what reality has shown me." Xemnas replied, removing his hood. I raised a confused eyebrow when I saw what lay under his hood. Amidst the rippling, fractured fabric of reality that lay in his physical wake, Xemnas' head was merely a wisp of air, a thin outline that seemed to incarnate nothingness itself. "You will never know the truth…until you experience it for yourself…" With that, Xemnas disappeared, this time for good. I lowered my Gunblades, thinking about what Xemnas had just said.
"Truth…what truth?" I holstered my weapons and left, conjuring a portal and returning to The World that Never Was.
The door opened, and I stepped into the dark chamber. Inside, the room was alive with technology. Indeed, this room was not a room, rather an enormous super computer. "You wanted to see me, Kraxim?"
"Ah yes, Xalnon…please come in." The figure whom I had addressed, Organization XIII member number 21, Kraxim: The Oracle, stood in the center of this fortress of cyberspace. When I say stood, I truthfully mean floated. His eyes were pure white, and it was as if the computers were a part of him, and he was part of them. Kraxim was our primary information and records operative, he had never been sent into the field, however he had provided us with an enormous bounty of useful data that had served us well in previous matters. "As you can see, Section 1 left us quite a mess to clean up." The Oracle stated matter-of-factly.
"You don't have to tell me that."
"Of course not. Now, about my calling you here. I just received a rather baffling report from Number 20, it appears he ran into some problems while staking out Olympus. I have a mental image of what it was he encountered. Projecting now." As the image appeared before me, I noticed something very strange. Xekim: The Fiendish Monarch had been sent on a reconnaissance mission to Olympus, in order to track the remaining heartless and nobodies therein. However, what he had faced there took me by surprise, to say the least. There, before his eyes, stood a figure almost identical to the apparition I had encountered in Hollow Bastion. However, rather than Xemnas' aerial blades, this figure held and enormous playing card in one hand, and was surrounded by Gambler nobodies.
"Number 10, Luxord: The Gambler of Fate…this isn't possible. It makes absolutely no sense!" I stammered, completely confounded.
"My thoughts exactly. I am currently looking into Ansem the Wise's research data for any clues, but so far nothing has come up."
I continued to stare at the image. "This is very strange, I faced a similar apparition last night."
"Yes, I have visual record of that as well."
"Kraxim…do you think it's possible for a Nobody to be…resurrected?"
"Not likely. Resurrection implies bringing back to life, and life implies existence. Thus, it doesn't strike me as probable that one can be resurrected if one never existed to begin with." I stroked my chin, looking closely at this image of Luxord. Like Xemnas, he too had his hood up, so the only visual identification present in this image were his weapon of choice and the Nobodies surrounding him. "What shall I do, sir?" Kraxim asked.
"I will debrief the rest of Section 2 on this matter as soon as possible. Assemble the team within two hours so I can ready my report. And keep searching…perhaps Ansem the Wise had some information we can utilize in all this."
"Acknowledged. I'll contact everyone immediately."
"Thank you Kraxim." I said, turning to leave. "By the way…"
"Yes?"
"Have you ever thought about actually leaving that room?" Kraxim looked at me as if I were an unfamiliar species.
"What do you mean, leave the room?" I sighed.
"Never mind." I said, closing the door.