Most of the others had memories, personalities. He hadn't accounted for that.

Number VIII and VII had a bond before, when they were people. Their closeness in non-existence reflected this.

IX was obnoxious and lazy, forever plucking away at that instrument of his. He claimed he needed it for his work, only able to control his water clones like the pied piper, their forms dancing madly to the... "music." Begrudgingly, it was allowed.

It hadn't been long since the fateful experiment that created them. He still hadn't memorized all their new names, preoccupied with establishing the Organization and more pitifully, himself. Rather, his lack thereof.

The others had personalities, despite lack of emotion and heart. They had memories.

Why not himself?

All he knew for certain was that he was Xemnas, he was the de facto leader of Organization XIII, and numbers II and VI knew more than they let on.

Had Xemnas been able to feel when he found it, he surely would have felt something beyond his organs tying themselves in knots staring blankly at the empty armor in his former master's office in Hollow Bastion.

Zexion had reported the world to be especially anomalous compared to the others, but it had been that way since the Organization was founded. Since...

He only knew what he was told happened, beyond the few bare scraps of memory he had. He remembered staggering to his feet, head feeling like it was being split open; remembered Xigbar - rather, Braig - shouting at him, calling him a name that made him feel for one fleeting instant. He hypothesized the last scrap of his heart hadn't yet left his body, marking the first and last thing he felt in his short nonexistence - Nobodies can't feel, and he hadn't felt anything since. But he clung to the memory of blind, raw rage at Braig in that moment, the natural extension of his arm in summoning a keyblade and running it straight into his heart.

He remembered opening his mouth to say his name - his real name, but his migraine spiked to a blinding point when he tried to think of what it could be. "My name is Ansem," he ended up murmuring over Braig's heartless husk and it felt somewhat right. It was the only name he could remember, there was an association with 'Ansem' he knew was there but couldn't place. Ansem would do fine, for the time being.

He didn't know who Xehanort was, but one thing for certain was that under no circumstances was he to be called by that name.

There were other memories too, likely, but Xemnas only came up blank when grasping for anything else from his past. Even trying to summon a keyblade after that moment proved fruitless, with countless hours spent attempting to call it back to his hand. They needed a keyblade wielder for their cause, and were eyeing the young boys from the islands as potential pieces to their puzzle in lieu of himself. He hadn't spoken of using a keyblade himself to the others and if Xigbar remembered the incident as well, he never mentioned it.

But that was there, and this was here.

Xemnas knew these... things, undoubtedly. He had to. Especially considering the way his mouth dried noticing the discarded keyblade mounted on the wall next to the armor display. A pinhole was poked in his mind, and–

"Up to spar again?"

"How you're not tired yet, I have no clue. You're a machine, ▓▓▓▓."

"How about a bet? You win, I do whatever you ask. I win, you do whatever I ask."

"...But you always win."

"Oh, so you're admitting I'm the best?"

"Not for as long as I can ▓▓▓▓ ▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ - you're on."

"That's what I like to hear! My ▓▓▓▓▓▓ never stops fighting."

"Oh, shut up."

–Xemnas stiffened as if struck by lightning, half-outstretched hand frozen in place as he attempted to process whatever just happened.

It was hard to breathe. His lungs felt as if they were constricted, despite no emotion stirring within him to cause such a reaction.

This... this was unprecedented.

The scene kept replaying itself over and over in his mind, an echo chamber of a moment that couldn't be his.

It wasn't a detailed... recollection. He refuses to consider memory, because he only had one from before everything and it wasn't anything like this. He knew exactly what happened with Braig, what he was thinking at the time. This wasn't anything like that.

It was a blurry something. The woman's voice was infuriatingly familiar, though what he recalled of her appearance was like nobody he'd ever met. She was significantly shorter and... blue. They had been fighting, friendly sparring but with what, Xemnas couldn't place. No matter how much he tried, he simply could not picture her face. He needed to know, had to know what she looked like. She was... she was something. Something to hi- someone.

He stared at the armor, scouring it as if it could give him answers. Without realizing it, his hand had outstretched to touch where the cheek would be on the armor's helmet. Xemnas withdrew his hand like he was touching hot iron.

He may not have the answers now. But he will, eventually.

Xemnas opened a portal.

From the moment he first laid eyes on the armor - Aqua's, he eventually recalled - his mind as he knew it had been fraying at the seams. The tiny pinholes that had been poked in his mind at that moment ripped at whatever wall held his memories at bay, spilling more and more similar scenarios to that - and some entirely dissimilar to those involving her and that other boy, which he knew solidly were of his days as Master Ansem's apprentice. Rejection of his proposal for the experiment which would ultimately lead to the loss of their hearts, waking up in the square of Hollow Bastion outside the castle. Most curiously, the memory of Braig's arm slung around his shoulder as the man's usually carefree tone dipped into seriousness to ask if he wasn't actually... someone, and it nearly drove him mad trying to remember what he said in that moment.

It's not like he could ask. The others were under the impression he was free of any ties to any life he may have had before, and something in him warned to preserve that lie at all costs.

So Xemnas ignored the fact he was practically being driven insane by memories that may or may not be his - or even have happened at all - to focus on the irritating present that required his full attention.

"Zexion's been keeping him busy since we found him," Xigbar said, striding alongside him. "The little sneak somehow slipped his Recusant and was halfway-"

"How?" Xemnas asked sharply.

"Zexion said he might've stopped identifying with his name. Might not've been intentional since he's the one hurts the most for a heart of all of us, but he had to have realized what he was doing and kept at it."

Xemnas stopped, with Xigbar following suit a step after. "How did he get this far, number two?" he hissed, eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly.

His subordinate gave him a long, one-eyed stare that would've been intimidating if he had the capacity to be intimidated. Xemnas matched it, unimpressed amber eyes meeting Xigbar's sole eye of the same color for a long moment.

"That wasn't a request, Xigbar."

Xigbar shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. "Right, sorry. You... didn't look like yourself for a second there, had to make sure." He jerked his head to motion to keep walking. "He's in one of the cells around the corner here."

Once Xemnas begrudgingly followed him, he continued. "It wasn't like he had Axel calling him Isa again. It was more like... ah, how the hell did the brat phrase it- 'disassociation from his true identity' or something smart like that. He wants to be Isa again so bad, he forgot that's not who he is anymore."

"I see," he said curtly.

"And I get not having a heart sucks, we're all Nobodies here, but you don't see me pretending I have a heart and calling myself Braig."

A muffled cry from down the hall drew their attention to Zexion, who was standing outside a cell with his hand hovering over his lexicon.

"I hope you had a nice chat," Zexion deadpanned without looking away from his illusions. The closer they grew, the more it was obvious that the occupant of the cell was obviously in pain, with labored breathing amidst poorly disguised cries of pain. "His Recusant's Sigil-"

"-Had been shed, yes," Xemnas finished, clasping his hands behind his back as he rounded to survey their traitor.

The boy was curled in a fetal position on the floor of the open cell, hands forming claws clasping his face as ragged breaths escaped his shaking form. He was wearing a blue zippered sweatshirt emblazoned with a crescent moon and casual khaki pants, along with an inordinate amount of belts. The only trace of the Organization's uniform left on Saïx was the gloves; even his shoes had clearly been bought somewhere in Twilight Town.

The teenager made a choked sob at whatever happened in the illusion he was trapped in.

"It would have just been easier to kill him, but Xigbar said it was 'your call.'" Zexion spoke in his usual withering tone, but something dangerous was lurking beneath his usual snarky veneer.

"Lea," Saïx whimpered.

"Release him," Xemnas ordered, looking away from the illusory master and down at the boy having fits on the floor.

"That's your call?"

"Do as I ask."

"Alright." Zexion flipped to another page in his lexicon and after a moment, Saïx was gasping for breath, but recovering from whatever nightmare had been inflicted on him by the boy.

He coughed and curled up more, visibly shaking as he recovered. Xemnas tilted his head at him and despite being wordless gesture, Xigbar obeyed with his usual roguish grin and circled around to grab Saïx by the roots of his hair and dragged him up to his knees to face his superior. His face was dirty and streaked with tears, teal eyes puffy and red; but as soon as he realized the gravity of the situation, his face steeled the best as a seventeen year old could.

"Number seven."

Saïx didn't respond, only tipping his head back thanks to Xigbar's tight grip with a rebellious look on his face.

"Since our first day, I've tolerated your childish actions, but it seems like entertaining that was nothing but a mistake," Xemnas said, carefully examining any trace of reaction in the younger boy's face. "It's time you learn the truth of our existence."

He slightly leaned down closer to Saïx's face and spoke, enunciating as clearly as he could. "We. Have. No. Hearts. All we have are memories of when we did, and pretend we're who we used to be. You are not Isa, Isa died with the true name of Hollow Bastion. You are Saïx, you're a Nobody."

"I am myself," Saïx finally spoke, venom spitting in his voice. "And I have no obligation to involve myself in this Organization."

"Your obligation is the emptiness in you," Xemnas said, "And you are nothing. I am nothing, none of us truly exist."

"And how exactly are we supposed to change that?!" Saïx struggled against Xigbar, trying to lean forward. "We have no plan, we have no way to get our hearts back! If I have to live like this, I want to go home and try my own methods to get my heart back."

Xemnas froze, but Saïx continued without noticing anything was off with him. "And you really have no way to keep us besides this mark in our names, do you? It's just a way to keep us under your thumb while you stall because you have absolutely no idea what you're doing! And you know I'm right, don't you?!"

He was seeing double, like a crocodile seeing both above and below a river's surface. Saïx was there, shouting at him, but so was she - Aqua - shouting at him to return what he'd taken. They were uncannily similar in that moment - blue hair in a wild halo with righteous fury written across their faces, blue eyes alight with intention to follow up on their words.

"My name is Isa, and no amount of being called Saïx or your little friend's nightmares are going to change who I am!"

Something in the way he said it was just reminiscent enough to snap two pieces into one, and something in him recognized the turning point before him.

But he had no heart, and thus had no reason to hold himself back.

"You may be right, in your case," Xemnas murmured, and he saw Xigbar cock an eyebrow in the edges of his vision. He ignored him in favor of Saïx. "You'll learn to accept your name and your place in the Organization. But until then, we'll have to settle with a physical reminder of what we are and what we do."

He summoned his ethereal blades, glowing with a soft blue light and quietly humming with barely-contained energy - and it was clear that all present understood his intention without saying. Zexion, though hardly twelve, barely reacted; but Xigbar's smile grew wide in anticipation, jerking Saïx's head up further for a clearer target as the younger boy struggled against him.

"Just who were you before?" Saïx made out, struggling to speak with the angle his head was held at, terrified teal eyes never leaving the humming twin blades. "Who were you that makes this an easy conclusion to make?!"

"Why don't you find out?"

And then he was screaming.

Xigbar held him there for a moment before letting the boy fall to the ground and stepping around the writhing body of the teenager they'd just maimed. "Did you-"

"No." Xemnas watched Saïx, screams echoing in his ears. "I don't know why I said it."

"Ah, right," Xigbar fell quiet for a moment. "You know, before all this you showed me a good way of uh, getting people to agree with our ideals. I could change his mind that way, if you want."

"Do it." Xemnas turned away and began walking back the way he came, his duty over and visions of a screaming woman plaguing his mind. "Make sure he never leaves again."

He couldn't see his face, but he was sure Xigbar was grinning.

"Can do, boss."