She had died.

If there was one thing Larxene was absolutely certain about, it was that she had died. She had felt the searing pain of the Keybrat's blade biting deep into her flesh; had felt herself dissolving into nothingness. She had died, hadn't she?

So why was she still alive?

Maybe she wasn't. Maybe this was that 'heaven' place some of her victims had babbled about before she cut out their tongues.

"Wake up, you useless whore," a familiar voice spat. Vexen. She tossed a bolt of lightning in his general direction- okay, so much for heaven, whatever that was exactly. This was more like her own personal hell: trapped for eternity with the cranky elder.

"Useless, says the one who made that dysfunctional little boytoy," another voice spoke up in her defence (though she never had needed to be defended, she appreciated the gesture). Larxene opened her eyes just in time to see Axel wander into her field of vision. Vexen's eyes widened in… heh, fear? Impossible, but things were now looking up. And there were, of course, more pressing concerns, such as-

"Hey, old man," she snapped. "What the hell is going on here?" Slowly, she pushed herself into a sitting position. There was no pain.

Axel shrugged, grinning as always, and replied even though she hadn't addressed him. "He tried explaining earlier- something long and full of science babble. 'Blah blah cards blah blah life essence blah second chances blah make the most of it that means you Axel!' Kinda boring, really."

"I am not boring!" Vexen said hotly. "And it is thanks to me you are alive-" at this point Axel raised his hand- "okay, except for you, you insolent whelp!"

Larxene tuned them out. There would be time for her to join their bickering later, but right now she wanted to figure out why exactly she was still alive. Vexen obviously had something to do with it, and the cards, but how? She pulled the card with her likeness on it out from one of her many pockets and studied it intently. It increased her speed, that much she knew, but what else did it do?

"It is sort of like one of those things in that book series Demyx brought back," yet another voice murmured from behind her. She whirled only to come face to face with Zexion, who was apparently ignoring her yet answering a question she had yet to voice. And using words she actually understood while he was at it. "The… what was it… Horcruxes. Fragments of one's soul embedded in an object, so that a person cannot die while the soul fragments remain." He nodded as if this all made perfect sense and walked over to join Lexaeus, who was standing in the doorway watching Vexen and Axel argue.

Horcruxes, huh? Yeah, Demyx had muttered something about that when she'd asked him if the books were any good. They hadn't been. Not enough violence. It made sense that Zexion would have read them, though- he read everything any one of them brought it.

Well, that was one mystery solved. For now. Actually, she just didn't care anymore, now that she sort of knew how it worked. So Larxene tuned back in to the conversation just in time to hear the newly appeared Marluxia ask "So, what do we do now?"

Finally, a question she could answer. "Isn't it obvious, Marly?" she drawled, smirking as she stood and prowled over to his side. "We're supposed to be dead. We do whatever we want."

Yes. That would be a good plan…