Hey there! My name's Paineful, otherwise known as one of the most procrastinating aspiring writers you'll ever meet.

I haven't written anything on in months, but my friend just asked me to write him a XaldinxKairi, so I find myself inevitably returning from my uh...slump. ONLY BRIEFLY.

I understand how unusual this pairing is, which is why I advise you now; if you don't like the concept, please don't read it. As I said, I'm writing this for a friend, and as much as I appreciate constructive criticism (because I truly do), I don't want to be flamed just because I'm trying to do something for someone else. So if you don't want to read this, then don't. If you do, then do. But I already warned you, so please don't get mad at me. x.x

Note: Some of the characters may be a little OOC due to the fact that...well, I'm afraid my RP group may have influenced the way I look at them all. Darn. Well, hope it's decent, anyway.

And I understand I submitted something before this, but I actually wrote this first. I just wanted to start off with the other one because I wanted to work on this one a little more before I put it up.

Oh, and this was originally going to be a one-shot, but in the midst of writing it, I got carried away. I wrote all three chapters in a row (only three of them, since this was a quick request) and uploaded them at once out of...haste, I guess!

Anyway, that's all for the pre-fic ramble. Dedicated to Tai! Love ya, you crazy cook!

When you live in a place so monotonously white, the repetition of a single color can get on your nerves--or it can drive you crazy. Xaldin knew this very well; from time to time, he would walk down the dull, white hallways, staring down at the black fabric of the gloves covering his own palms, his eyes refusing to move off of his fingertips. White was stinging, and painful; black was cool and refreshing.

He rounded the corner of the fifth floor, his eyes still fixed intensely on his gloves. Xaldin reached a hand up to brush the hair--equally as black--from his eyes. The decision was a fortunate one, considering that it saved him from colliding with one of his colleagues; a pallid man with long, blonde hair and slight weariness etched across his face.

Xaldin didn't recoil, nor did he flinch, at Vexen's sudden arrival, although his presence was vastly unexpected. It was common knowledge that the Organization's token scientist spent hours upon hours on end in the basement laboratory, conducting experiments--some with meaning, some without. Vexen wasn't one for socializing, and it was a blatant shock whenever Xaldin encountered him outside of the laboratory, let alone walking along the same hallway as himself.

Vexen cleared his throat. Xaldin raised an eyebrow at him.

"...What?" he demanded to know of his subordinate.

"How lucky I am to have found you so soon," Vexen remarked dryly, shifting a stack of books underneath one of his arms. "Do you think you could come with me for a quick...conversation of sorts? Two others and I request your presence."

Xaldin's eyes narrowed noticeably. He'd initially found it strange to have come across Vexen at all, but now knowing that the scholar purposely sought him out was even stranger still. He couldn't imagine what he would possibly want with him, and "two others"...

It was his own suspicions, or perhaps only curiosity, that compelled him to adhere. "Make it quick," he mumbled indignantly after a brief moment's worth of hesitation.

Gratefully, Vexen let out a tiny little snicker and motioned for Xaldin to follow him down the hall--the direction he would have gone in had he not been stopped by Vexen in the first place. "Now, this may be a bit out of the blue...but I assure you, it's a pressing subject matter."

"Yeah." Xaldin stalked down the hall alongside him, easily towering over his fellow Nobody. "Care telling me what this is about, anyway?"

Vexen came to an abrupt stop outside a door that jutted out from amidst the bare walls out of nowhere. His back was to Xaldin; he turned around, glancing at the Whirlwind Lancer over his shoulder, and Xaldin could have sworn he saw faint traces of mischief in the scientist's olive-colored eyes. "Oh, yes...you'll see in just a moment," he remarked, slipping a pair of non-prescription eyeglasses over his face as he pushed the door open.

Submitting to an eye-roll, Xaldin followed him in.

There were four chairs aligned around the small, otherwise empty room. Two were already occupied--the first of the two by a hulking brute of a man with a mess of thick, brown hair; the second of the two, a shifty-looking man--practically a boy--whose blue-gray hair fell completely over one side of his face. Xaldin stood still in the doorway to survey the both of them. "Should have known..."

Both Lexaeus and Zexion stood up to acknowledge Xaldin's presence among them. Simultaneously, Vexen plopped down in a seat, his legs crossed neatly and arms falling over the sides of the arm-rests.

Xaldin's eyes kept darting over all three of them, bemusement lengthening still; Lexaeus made a move to sit back down, whereas Zexion remained staring. "So he got you to come, after all," Zexion noted with a nod of approval. "I knew you would find our cause a worthy one. Good job, Vexen."

"Actually," Xaldin cut in before Vexen could extol over himself, "he didn't even tell me what the hell this is about. Wanna fill in the gaps? Otherwise, I'm leaving."

Zexion and Lexaeus immediately glanced over towards Vexen with their own individual expressions of disbelief. Quietly, Lexaeus raised his hand to his forehead in a soundless slap. Vexen leaned forward in his seat to peer back at the both of them. "Excuse me? You said bring him here," he pointed out with a scoff. "You didn't say how."

"Ten..." Xaldin began to count.

"Well, excuse me right back, Vexen, but I only assumed you were smart enough to employ logic..." Zexion retorted.

"NINE..." Xaldin counted, louder still; his patience wearing thin and impatience rising back to power.

Lexaeus cleared his throat, rising slowly to stand again. "Let us return to our affairs...?" he suggested, possibly the most level-headed of Nobodies present in the room. "Nothing will get done if we don't talk about it first."

Although somewhat hesitant, they all four sat down in their assorted chairs. Xaldin noticed that all three of the others had their hands folded in their laps. Something about the action concerned him.

Lexaeus looked over towards his other two partners in their mastermind plan; both were pointedly staring off in opposite directions, and both looked equally as annoyed with the other. He figured it was upon himself to address the matter at hand, or at least get things started. He cleared his throat once again. "Zexion, Vexen, and I were discussing Kingdom Hearts' development. Zexion made an astute discovery about how fast, or in this case, how slow it's moving."

Again, Xaldin was surprised; but this time, to hear that they were actually concerning themselves directly with Kingdom Hearts rather than merely accepting orders from the Superior. Perhaps they were more secretive than Xaldin ever realized... "You have." It was meant to be a question, but sounded more like a statement due to the dubious undertones in Xaldin's voice, meant to conceal his astonishment.

"Yes," both Vexen and Zexion said--which caused them to throw each other looks of disgust, as if to say "Me first." Noticing the tension in the air growing thicker still, Lexaeus nominated a speaker.

"Since Zexion figured it out, he should go first."

Vexen growled beneath his breath.

"And Vexen can contribute his hypothesis," Lexaeus added on with a nod.

The scholar was appeased. The tactician shifted in his seat, draping an arm over one of the arm-rests and letting his legs slide apart, almost lazily. "All this time, we've been relying totally and completely on the Keyblade master to acquire the hearts needed for its process. 'He's the one who slays the Heartless,' says Xemnas. 'He's the only one whose hands I want this matter residing within,' says Xemnas. Well." He sat up in his seat. "I've been monitoring the hearts that come in at a steady pace. All those corrupt hearts, drifting away from the Heartless from which they were conceived... At the rate we're going, relying on hearts that come from the Heartless, it's going to take quite a few. Quite a lot, I guess I should say."

Xaldin couldn't help but admit to being put off by this idea, even if his confession was made only to himself. Nobodies wanted nothing more than to have their hearts back; to be able to feel again...so that the cold, stinging sensation of emptiness left in the chasm where sentience once dwelled would go away--cease to burden their consciences. So that they could say they existed without the claim being a lie. When you want something as deeply as you want your heart--and if you're missing your heart, you want it more than you've ever wanted anything before--you want it to happen, and fast. "I guess those of us without patience are in for a long wait," Xaldin acknowledged bitterly.

"Yes," Vexen chimed in. It was as if he'd been waiting for the perfect moment to speak and was ready to burst like an over-inflated balloon if he didn't get to hear his voice. Xaldin sometimes wondered if Vexen liked hearing his voice so much that he kept himself away from others purposely so that he could talk to himself as much as he wanted. Who knew with him... "And I do believe I speak for the majority of those present in saying that our patience has long-since run out?" Lowering the fake glasses from his eyes, he peered around the room to get a good look at his colleagues' faces. Lexaeus shifted in his seat quietly. Zexion looked thoroughly dismayed, as if in assent; and Xaldin...everyone knew he had no patience to begin with, or if he did, it was scarce.

"Mm, I'll take your silence as agreement," Vexen informed them all. "In which case..." He moved his books so that they were on his lap rather than nestled under one of his arms. "After more careful observation of Kingdom Hearts on Zexion's part, thanks to a little bit of stealth and a lot of Lexaeus and myself distracting the Superior and his pet lackey from time to time--we came to a thorough conclusion. The stronger a heart, the more...fuel, you might say, it adds to Kingdom Hearts upon its addition to the bunch. Now, of course, a heart filled with darkness such as the hearts that have become Heartless isn't as strong as a heart that's filled with, oh I don't know, light..."

"But hearts withthat much light in them wouldn't become Heartless," said Xaldin, "leaving us with no way that the Keyblade master would slaughter them. There's no way they're becoming a part of Kingdom Hearts."

Vexen's eyes shone for a brief moment, in which excitement seemed to well up in him--or at least, a convincing emulation of excitement, as Nobodies lacked the emotional capacity to experience anything of the sort. "Yes, yes...naturally, a heart like that won't come from Sora's collection. It would have to be added to Kingdom Hearts from an outside source." When silence passed, he added on--annoyed--"I mean us!"

Xaldin was surprised at the talk he was hearing. Along with himself, the three Nobodies present with him had been in The Organization since its very beginning. They were all loyal to Xemnas and followed his standards without questioning, just as their Others were loyal to Xehanort in the same exact manner. "But the Superior said specifically that he wants the hearts to come straight from the Keyblade."

Zexion nodded. "We know."

"..." And then there was silence; the mere idea of this act being a treasonous one instilled discomfort in them all.

"Oh, for the love of--" Vexen sighed and leaned forward matter-of-factly. "Now look here. Xemnas is clearly too stubborn to accept ideas that don't come straight from himself. That's why he would reject the idea if we approached him with it. I have nothing against the Superior; I don't believe any of us do. That's why I think we need to do this in private. It's nothing that will blow all our operations out of proportion; just a little speed boost for the recovery of our hearts..."

"I can't believe any of you three think we can go around stealing hearts and throwing them into Kingdom Hearts." Xaldin had to cut in. He was still astonished. Something as ridiculous as the idea of the four of them masquerading as heart thieves didn't bode well with him.

"Oh, no...not really." Zexion toyed with the zipper on his coat, flipping the metal piece up and down; up and down. "A heart is something sacred. Beings of filth, like ourselves, have no right to subject ourselves to that sacredness again and again. We know well enough not to overstep our boundaries."

"Then what are you getting at?" Xaldin insisted on knowing.

Finally, Vexen could no longer contain himself. "A SACRIFICE, you fool!" He breathed out deeply as one of several books fell from his lap. "Think of it this way, if you please. We sacrifice to the domain of Kingdom Hearts, a heart so filled with purity, so strong in its alignment towards the light...that it will boost the completion of Kingdom Hearts immensely. It may not complete it altogether, but I truly believe a heart like that would significantly speed up the rate at which we regain our hearts."

Xaldin let the entire idea process. "A sacrifice... And when the Superior hears of this? What do you think he'll do, congratulate us?" When he realized he said "us" instead of "you," and took note of the fact that he was unconsciously already including himself in on their tactics, it almost horrified him.

"We know we can't get anything past him," said Zexion. "It's not like that big of an addition can go unnoticed. Not by him... So yes, he will realize something's different, and he will be angry when he finds out that someone went behind his back. But even Xemnas won't undo something like that when he realizes how potent its effects are. He'll put on a charade of indignity, but he won't dare to take away that great of an influence from his precious Kingdom Hearts. So all we have to worry about...is making sure that his anger is directed towards the wrong person, or people, as it may be."

The more they spoke of this plan, the more deeply Xaldin reflected on it. "In other words...don't get caught, and everything goes our way."

"Yes, pretty much," Vexen confirmed airily. "We'll have to make him think someone else tampered with Kingdom Hearts, since I believe he's definitely going to want to kill off whoever did it. All we have to do is blame it on a neophyte--"

"And you think he'll fall for that?" Xaldin asked, trying to find all the plan's flaws in order to come up with ways to negate them.

Vexen narrowed his eyes. "Don't interrupt me, please. Thank you. ANYWAY--"

"Yes, we do," Lexaeus--who had been silent for some time now--spoke up. "An accusation like that can't come out of nowhere. That is why we have to first make sure not a soul can prove we did it, and then make sure there's evidence pointing to someone else possibly having the idea. Such as unusual behavior..." He propped an elbow up on an arm-rest, letting his head rest atop his hand. "I do not like the idea of harming our kin." Lexaeus was somewhat more noble than the others; though he was The Organization's powerhouse, he was ultimately a pacifist of a man, and one who didn't invoke unnecessary bloodshed. He had no concern, nor affection, for his fellow Nobodies, but he believed in doing what was "right" when it involved the extent of them.

"But what must be done...must be done. Sacrifice one or two for the benefit of many others. I fear at the rate we're going right now, Kingdom Hearts can't be complete without this addition."

His last statement hit Xaldin--hard. He drew in breath silently. "Then let's do it." Then it dawned on him that no one mentioned whose heart they would be sacrificing for the cause. "Where do you expect we'll find a heart that powerful?"

"It's the heart of someone we knew once, actually..." Zexion laced his gloved fingers together, his gaze drifting off. "Or rather, people we came from once knew her. Even if only vaguely."

Xaldin thought he saw where Zexion was going with this. "I see."

Zexion nodded anyway. "The Last Princess of Heart. That's where we'd like for you to come in. You, among the four of us, are the best at acquiring something and keeping it in your possession. So we're trusting you with the task of capturing the Princess."

Xaldin, if he were drinking something, would have spit it out in protest. "Say that again," he demanded after his eyes shot wide and subsequently narrowed, "because unless I'm mistaken, I was only let in on this plan a few minutes ago, and now I'm doing the dirty work?"

"We all have a part to play in this," said Zexion. "Lexaeus will guard the place in which the hostage is kept until the time comes for us to use her. No one ever suspects a thing from him, so no one will want to go checking around to see what he's up to. Vexen is going to devise a means with which to extract the heart from her frail body--else we'll just throw her into Kingdom Hearts in her entirety, see how that goes--and I, myself, will be the one to distract Saix from his post. It's only fair that we all play a part in this, and your part will be the one to kick all following events into gear."

Xaldin couldn't argue with logic like that. "Got it... So where do I go to retrieve her, and how do you explain my absence from the castle?"

"We'll just have to claim you're scoping out worlds," Vexen input thoughtfully. "It's not too out of the ordinary, and you'll be back so quickly that no one will think otherwise. And believe you me, we do intend for this to be a quick procedure...or at least, the capture part. The rest, as VI said, will all follow. As for the place where we expect you to find our little girl...that would be the Destiny Islands."

Xaldin stood up. Zexion raised an eyebrow at him. "And you're going...where?"

"I'm starting the mission." His eyes, deep as they were, burned with a mixture of determination and annoyance; both accelerated by aggression. "You do have everything planned out so we can just start now, right?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" Vexen hastily assured him. Crossing one leg over the other, and looking--for all the world--like a pompous monarch on a makeshift thrown, Vexen waved Xaldin dismissively out of the room.

X X X

It was already nighttime on the islands. Kairi barely noticed; just as she didn't notice the cold air wrapping around her bare arms. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, darkening as it was; her mind, filled with thoughts too deep for the rest of her to keep up with--thoughts that kept her confined to where she stood out of complexity.

Every day, she came back to this same spot on the childhood island, eagerly awaiting the return of her two best friends. Her hopes were high with the beginning of the day, and by the end, even though they still hadn't returned, her hopes never deflated. She would remain loyal to the both of them; confident in their will to come back to everything they held sacred in one another.

Kairi never doubted for a second that Sora and Riku were coming back.

But right now, her thoughts had drifted away from the two she held dearer to her than anything. This stray from her usual thought pattern was a rarity, but one that tended to happen every once in a long time. Its approach was inescapable. When you lie to yourself so long about something so undeniably true--so much so that it's a deep part of yourself and aided in creating the person you now are--the lie eventually bites at the back of your mind, practically begging for you to pay attention to it; to acknowledge its existence. Such was the case now, as Kairi reflected on her childhood prior to arriving on the islands and meeting Riku and Sora.

Kairi's arrival on the islands--she couldn't even remember how long ago it was, although it felt as if it were only yesterday--marked excitement and wonder in both of the boys who would go on to become her best friends. The idea of someone coming from another world, far from and unlike their own... It was material enough to feed most children's fantasies. But time and time again, when either of them would ask her what her home was like, or how she got to the islands in the first place...Kairi lied.

"I'm sorry. I really don't remember--anything at all."

So trusting and so innocent were both of her friends that they believed her. They didn't doubt her for a second; for, the three of them had established an instant bond, stronger than any connection Kairi had ever thought to be possible before. And it was because of that trust--that deep, intense connection their hearts shared--that Kairi felt so guilty for lying. Even in the very start of their friendship, when she was only beginning to know the both of them.

That guilt eventually built up when her heart became separated from her body and fled to Sora's own heart. She tried to show him flashbacks of her childhood--visions, no matter how insignificant, that proved she knew, all along, who she was and where she came from, and even what was going on in Sora's struggle against Ansem. It was hard to share details of such things when she had no voice of her own with which to do it at the time, but she'd tried her hardest...and she truly believed it got through in the end. She didn't know for sure, since her reunion with Sora was short-lived and her reunion with Riku, as sad as it made her, was virtually nonexistent...but she had clung to the hope that her friends somehow both now knew the truth and forgave her for lying all along.

It wasn't as if the details she'd been hiding were so mind-shatteringly important that keeping them a secret was a mortal sin against humanity; in fact, she thought that what she'd hidden from Riku and Sora was largely unimportant, the only reason for hiding it having been to escape her own sorrow towards what had once been. But Kairi loved Riku and Sora so deeply that she felt they were her all and everything, and that hiding even one detail of something that was significant to her was the same thing as denying the love she had for them at all. And so, her determination to give them insight on her past, or at least make it up to them that she'd smothered it, had risen to enormity and overcome her.

But now was one of those moments when she wasn't certain if either of them got the extent of her message. She didn't know for sure that either one of them could hear her say "I lied. I lied, and I'm so sorry." And since she was still waiting to see the both of them again--a wait that felt so long and painful to her, despite her strenuous optimism that it would one day come to an end--the thought that a lie still dwelled there in the space between her and her friends pained her immensely. So every now and then, when she found herself unable to escape thinking about it...it welled up and swallowed her whole.

That was why she wouldn't budge. Not even when a rift tore through the air behind her, and out stepped Xaldin.

On the other hand, Kairi didn't even know he was there. Whoever he was, he came very quietly, or just quietly enough that a person lost in a trance-like state of rewinding guilt couldn't detect his arrival. The only thing that made his presence apparent to Kairi was when a spray of tiny raindrops hit her elbow, causing her to shiver and realize it was close to raining--and she still wasn't home. The realization caused her to tilt her head up and stare around, almost in a post-reverie state of shock, and when she noticed a warrior with braids of long hair and a quiet, fearsome kind of silence to his face, her eyes widened and she stumbled backwards, tripping over herself.

Kairi felt that the kind of reaction she had to his arrival, no matter how unexpected and terrifying it was, was unkind. She pushed her hands into the sand to stand back up, promptly brushing herself off and forcing a default smile onto her face. "I'm sorry," she apologized kindly, a nervous laugh following. "I didn't know anyone was there--"

But that, in itself, was suspicious. Nobody really came to this island except the children who used to play on it; an adult hadn't set foot on its sands in what Kairi believed to be years. Not to mention this kind of adult, who looked particularly suspicious in his long, black coat and aggressive exterior.

Once she found herself realizing she was thinking negatively of this stranger, Kairi scolded herself for--again--being unkind and felt instant guilt that she'd assumed the worst without any real basis to her assumption.

That was when he grabbed her roughly by the forearm and jerked her forward.

On instinct, Kairi yelped, her eyes widening and panic coursing through her being. "Please let go!" She fiercely tried, with all her strength, to withdraw her arm from his grip, only to find out that the man was incredibly strong. Kairi should have known...

"I'm afraid not," the man retorted, opening a new portal in the air before them. "I need you for something. Come on."

The portal's appearance bewildered her. If she hadn't known to begin with, she knew now that this was no ordinary occurrence. Holding a hand to her mouth, or whichever one was free, she turned towards the terrifying stranger in vain, only to find that she was met with an air of shocking familiarity; or half-familiarity, as it were... She couldn't quite place it, but it felt like she'd seen this man before, in the distant past--but then, it felt like she'd seen only half of him, or better yet...this was only half of the man she'd seen. The momentary lapse into familiarity froze her to the spot, which--in turn--froze the man as well, for he was too busy observing her confused attempts to recall why she suddenly seemed to know a part of him.

Carefully, she began again to speak. "Who...are you?" she asked timidly, as if afraid of the answer to follow, but curious nonetheless.

Her deliberate interrogation, modest and wondrous, made his ordinarily intimidating expression freeze momentarily in place as he surveyed her. She seemed to bend under the strain of his studious gaze, although she tried her hardest to return it.

Kairi's arm finally relaxed in Xaldin's hand, which served as a jolt back to reality. Purposely, he tightened his grip around her thin arm, causing her to wince without sound at the sudden pain. An inhuman smirk lit his face as he dragged her forcefully through the open portal.

"Nobody you know."

Yay. I know it's dumb, but I can't pass up the opportunity to write a request fic for a friend. Anyway; if you've made it this far, thanks for reading, and sorry for wasting your time! Oh, and any constructive criticism--like if you see something that you think could be worked on, or whatever--is always appreciated. Although the rest of it's already been written, I still am grateful for any help I can get with my writing, such as suggestions for fixing mistakes, or anything like that.

Note to Tai: I sincerely hope I haven't killed you with boredom. x.x

Take care!