Notes: I'm sorry, I couldn't resist throwing the legend of the zodiac in here. Or Kyo, either. I'm sorry, I am as big a Fruits Basket fan as I am a Kingdom Hearts fan. Slap me until you're happy
Ansem paced in the library of his castle. His wife had been in labor for almost two days now and he had not been allowed in to see her.
"Damn those midwives..." he muttered, thinking evil thoughts. He immediately shook his head, silently scolding himself for such thoughts. He sighed and collapsed into a chair and grabbed a book off the nearby table. He sat there reading until a soft voice said,
"Master Ansem?" Ansem looked up to see his apprentice, Xehanort standing before him. With his white hair and golden eyes, he was an oddity indeed (even though Ansem himself had golden eyes also). Ansem gently closed the book and indicated a seat in front of him.
"Please, sit." Xehanort smiled and did as indicated.
"Master Ansem, I have news of your latest experiment. Those blocks that King Mickey gave us, they work! They fuse together easily and can be pulled apart without breaking their original shape. Elaeus has just come back from flying our prototype and it works perfectly," his report was filled with pride. Ansem smiled wearily and patted Xehanort on the shoulder.
"Good, good," he said tiredly. Xehanort's face lit up with concern.
"Master Ansem...your wife has not gone out of labor yet?" Ansem shook his head sadly. Xehanort nodded. An akward silence followed. The two sat and stared at one another for almost ten minutes before a midwife burst into the library.
"King Ansem, the baby is here!" she shouted. She pulled on his arm and dragged him to the birthing room. Ansme swore he saw Xehanort laughing.
His wife was sitting there on the bed, her dark red hair damp and her deep blue eyes staring at something far away. In her arms was a baby girl with wisps of fiery hair. Ansem smiled and quietly sat down next to the bed. His wife's breathing was slow and steady and the baby was sleeping in her arms. He turned to the midwife.
"May I hold her?" he asked. The midwife nodded. He gently took the baby from his wife's arms. The baby stirred but did not wake up. Ansem's wife smiled up at him, her frail hand resting on his arm.
"Her name is Kairi, Ansem. Love her for both of us." Her breathing slowed. Ansem's eyebrows started to slant.
"What do you mean?" he asked. His wife laughed softly.
"I'm dying, Ansem." Ansem would've shouted, but he was trying not to wake the baby in his arms.
"What are you talking about? You're fine!" he whispered frantically. She shook her head sadly.
"No, Ansem. My body couldn't take the stress of birthing. My organs are failing and I cannot do anything about it and neither can you," she fixed her husband with a stern look. "Kairi needs you. So don't go off doing something stupid!" Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed even further. Ansem placed Kairi back in his wife's arms, tears in his eyes. She smiled gently before drifting off. Ansem left the room quietly and returned to the library. Xehanort was nowhere to be seen. After an hour, Xehanort returned to the library and kneeled in front of Ansem.
"Master Ansem, the queen is dead."
A four year old Kairi sat on a bench in the castle gardens. She sat playing with a blue butterfly that fluttered about around her hair. The poor thing had confused Kairi's hair as some sort of flower and was trying to find where it was supposed to go to suck the nectar from it. She giggled and swatted at the bug, the sleeves of her royal dress fluttering in the slight breeze. Braig, who had been watching her at play for a while, was amazed at her energy. She had more energy than any other child he had seen and it made him feel older than he already was. But it also made him feel happy, for he loved children above all else. He quietly snuck up on her, his strides long and quiet. He waited for the right moment and then snatched her up into the air. She giggled madly.
"Braig! Stoppit!" Braig just swung her onto his back, where she she sat giggling. She grabbed and tugged on his salt-and-pepper ponytail with her small hands with painted fingernails. Braig grabbed her hand and lowered it into his view.
"Aaaagh! Pink!" he mock shreiked, dropping her hand as if it were a diseased plum. She giggled again and tugged harder on his ponytail. He laughed good-naturedly and placed her back on the ground after plopping down on the bench. Kairi scrambled onto his lap.
"I wanna story, Uncle Braig!" she pleaded. She knew just the tone of voice she needed to get what she wanted and she flaunted the fact. Braig laughed and tousled her red hair.
"As you wish, little princess." Kairi gave him a grin that was missing a couple of teeth. Braig sat and thought for a while. Then, he stuck up a finger and pronounced, "Aha! I know what story I'll tell you. The legend of the Zodiac!" Kairi sqealed with happiness. Braig shushed her, although he was smiling.
"Once upon a time, God decided to have a banquet. He invited all the animals to his house but warned them not to be late. The rat, a tricky and mischevious being, decided to trick the poor cat. He told the cat that the banquet had been held back a day and the cat believed him. The following night, all the animals went to the banquet, except the poor cat, who was asleep in bed, dreaming of a feast that would never happen for him." Kairi was crying as he ended the story.
"Poor kitty..." she whimpered. Braig smacked himself on the forehead, reallizing how stupid he was for telling that story. He should have known that she'd cry.
"Shh...I 'm sorry, little one..." he soothed. Kairi's tear-filled blue eyes stared up at him.
"But the kitty, he never got to go to the banquet! And now he's sad..." she whimpered. Braig shook his head and smiled.
"He's sad because you're crying, little one!" he whispered. The girl sniffed and wiped a pudgy hand on her red-splotched cheeks. Braig grinned and grabbed her around the middle. He stood up and ran around the garden, Kairi giggling as she flew through the air, wind drying her cheeks. When Braig finally collapsed onto a grassy hill under a sakura tree, Kairi was just as happy and energetic as she had been before he had told the story. That was another trait that Braig envied of her. She could forget her worries and sorrows as quickly and smile. Braig, however, held onto every sorrow. And each one weighed down on his shoulders like a lead weight strapped to his back.
"Uncle Braig?" she said, her childish voice came from somewhere near his left ear.
"Nnn?" he murmered, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the pleasant weather. A small hand touched his face.
"Do you like kitties?" Braig opened one eye slowly and looked at Kairi's face. She was smiling, but there was something else hidden behind it. Concern, maybe? Or possibly fright?
"Of course," he reassured her. Her smile grew wider.
"What color kitties do you like?" she asked softly. Braig grew suspicious. He knew that Kairi's pet cat had grown very fat lately...
"Well, orange, I guess," he replied. The little girl's smile spread to her ears.
"You stay. And no peeking!" she reprimanded him and ran off toward the entrance to the castle. Braig smiled as he saw her little legs moving so fast as she toddled along the path.
Braig was Ansem's apprentice, but since Kairi's birth, he had been much more of a babysitter. She had been with a wet nurse for a while, but after she had grown, she had no real playmates. The servants' children were all much older than her and either ignored her or bullied her. Ansem loved her and cared for her, but his kingdom had fallen apart after the queen died. He had very little time to spend with Kairi and she wandered the castle, alone and friendless. Ansem decided to assign Ienzo, his apprentice with the most patience, to watch over her, but Ienzo was horrible at it. He tried, Braig knew he did, but no matter how patient he was with the child, Kairi just was too much for him. He had burst into Ansem's study, begging Ansem to give him another assignment. Ansem, laughing all the while, gave the job to Braig, whose scientific talents were not needed at the time. (He was a master at astrology, but he was not so great at everything else.) Braig was happy to take the job and had been Kairi's playmate for the last year and a half. They made an odd pair. Braig, a tall, lanky scientist with an eyepatch and a deep scar holding the hand of a small redhead with mischevious blue eyes and scrapes all over her arms and legs from her constant tripping and falling. Braig chuckled as he thaught of how Kairi had sprained her ankle two months ago. She had fallen from a tree she had been climbing her ankle had been strained severely. However, she never cried. She just sat like a lump in Braig's arms when he had picked her up and carried her to the castle doctor. She did cry, however, when the doctor told her that she wasn't allowed to walk for another week.
Something landed with a 'FLUMP' next to braig. At first, all he saw was red hair brushing over his face. Then, an orange paw came into view, pawing at his scar. Braig jumped up, knocking the little orange kitten onto its rump. Kairi was kneeling next to the kitten, her blue eyes wide with concern. OOc// I'm sorry, but right now, I'm watching the death of Axel on my t.v. and I think I'm going to cry. I did, you know, the first time I played Kingdom Hearts II. I cried and my friends thought I was psychotic, crying for a character in a videogame. I can't help the fact that they're just a bunch of heartless...no, I won't say it. It's too painful. I'm sorry for this disruption.
"Uncle...you don't like him?" she whimpered. Braig smiled in his bemused fashion and shook his head.
"I love him, he just scared the daylights out of me!" Braig gently picked up the small kitten and glanced at its red eyes. He plopped it into his lap and petted it under its chin while the kitten purred contentedly. Kairi beamed.
"His name is Kyo. You take good care of him!" she scolded him, her little finger millimeters from his nose. Braig grinned back.
"I promise."
Braig sighed as he collapsed onto his bed. Kyo, the kitten Kairi had given him a year ago, was curled up on the bed, purring.
"Oh, if only I could be so easily made happy as you," he sighed. He ran his callosed hands over the cat's orange fur. He had just come back from Xehanort's labratory and had witnessed the removal of Elaeus, now Lexaeus' heart. Oh, how he had screamed. And Xehanort had just sat there, scribbling notes down on that goddamned notepad of his. Braig wanted to remove Elaeus from that machine, to take him away from that horrid machine, but he didn't have the strength. So he sat there and watched as Xehanort fucking killed Elaeus! Kyo meowed in annoyance and Braig reallized that he had been squeezing the poor thing. He let the cat go with a sigh, and watched as Kyo slunk off. Braig sighed when he reallized that Ienzo was next. Ienzo, who was barely a man, and as innocent as they came. Xigar began to wonder why Ansem the Wise hadn't reallized what a monster Xehanort was. He sat there, thinking dark thoughts when he heard a soft knock on his door.
"Uncle Braig?" Kairi's soft voice called, muffled by the door.
"Come in," Braig replied wearily. The girl stepped in slowly, her new purple skirt that she had gotten for her fifth birthday from him on. Braig smiled as he saw this. "You're wearing your skirt." Kairi grinned sheepishly.
"It was a nice present. I like it," she stared at her shoes shyly. Braig nodded. It was a nice present. He had charmed the skirt so that it would always fit her, no matter how big she got. Which she was doing a lot of; at the rate she was growing, she'd be half his height soon.
"What did you come for?" Braig asked. Not annoyed, just curious. Kairi blushed.
"Well, umm...Xehanort told me that you'd be going on a journey for a while...so I thought I'd say goodbye," she muttered. Braig jumped at this. He knew that Xehanort planned to remove his heart, too, but he was going to be the last. At least that was what the bastard had told him... Braig sighed.
"Yes, Kairi, I'm afraid I'm going to be away for a long time," he said, pulling himself off the bed and going over to Kairi. He gently wrapped his arms around her. He felt her body shudder with sobs.
"I'll miss you..." she sniffed. Braig tightened his arms around her.
"I'll miss you too," he replied, his voice teary. She wrapped her arms around him and they sat there for a while, Kairi sobbing and Braig trying not to sob. There were footsteps and a lound knock on the door.
"Braig, it's time," Xehanort called from the door. His voice sounded different. Deeper, and tinged with a carelessness that made Braig cringe. Braig gently unwound himself from Kairi's grasp and opened the door. Xehanort stood there, dressed in a black cloak.
"Kairi, it's time for you to go, now," Braig said, never moving his eyes from Xehanort's face. Kairi obeyed silently, passing between the two men like a shadow cast by a flickering candle. After she had gone, the two stared at each other, amber eyes glaring at amber eyes. Braig's lip lifted in a feral snarl.
"You said I had a least a month," he growled. Xehanort shrugged nonchalantly.
"The situation's changed. We're opening the door now; the doddering old fool is out of the way," was the calm reply. Braig's snarl grew more feral.
"What have you done with His Majesty?" he snarled. Again Xehanort shrugged.
"Ah, got rid of him. It's nice, not having a heart. You don't feel guilt as you send someone to rot in the Dark Realm," his amber eyes betrayed no emotion at all. He turned and laughed coldly at Braig's astonished face. "I kept my end of the bargain, Braig. You're the last." He motioned for Braig to step into the hallway. Braig didn't budge. Xehanort sighed. "Braig, if you don't do this, there is the chance that you will die. I do not want that to happen." Braig stubbornly stayed put.
"No," he said. Xehanort's eyes lit up with what might have been fury...if he could feel. Braig shook his head. "I'm not going to...not yet. Give me time...a couple of hours." Xehanort's face relaxed into a mask of feigned confusion.
"What do have to gain by this?" he asked. Braig looked past Xehanort and into the hall, where Kairi sat, listening intently to every word.
"The love of a child."
He knew that he would fade as soon as he faced the keyblade master. He knew that there was no way to stop him. But still, he offered to be the first to face the kid...Sora was his name. He offered to face the hero of light because he also knew of the girl who the child was in love with. The child Xigbar had loved in a different way, a long time ago. So he waited while Saix gave his sermon, waiting not for the spiky haired hero, but a red haired girl with sparkling blue eyes. And he saw her. He saw her there, fighing off hoards of Heartless. He felt some longing to help her, but he brushed it aside. He couldn't feel. So he faced the hero. He taunted him and threw confusing remarks at him. All for Kairi. All for her. And when Xigbar had been defeated, when he was fading in the Hall of Broken Melodies, he knew that he couldn't feel. So he laughed bitterly and said, "Wouldn't you like to know..." but he was not looking at the hero. He was looking at the girl who was so familiar, yet so foreign. He knew he couldn't feel...Couldn't he?
The almost sorrowful look of the Nobody as he faded away unnerved Kairi. Fleeting thoughts of an orange cat, the scent of sakura, and amber eyes filled with love flew through her brain. Her last thought was of her old purple skirt that she had finally outgrown in the last year. She shook her head and laughed. Why was she thinking about her silly skirt when she and Sora were finally together?