A/N: I started to wonder…I wondered if intent could have something to do with the creation of Nobodies, if the last actions of the Somebody made any difference. Sora's last act was to help Kairi, someone he loved, and I wondered if maybe that intent made Roxas all the stronger. After all, it's someone 'with a strong heart and will' that becomes a Nobody. And if your last act was one of love, wouldn't that make your heart all the stronger? Anyway, this is just another little introspection, but I'm quite proud of it. Please review and let me know what you think!

Warnings: Mentions of rape, blood, violence, etc…and, as always, there's a bit of swearing. Birth by Sleep spoilers, I suppose, seeing as it talks about Lea a good deal…

Dedication: To my own mother, with love. She's my rock, and I have no idea what the fuck I'd do without her. Love you always and forever, Mom.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Kingdom Hearts, and the profit I'm making from this fanfic comes to the total of zero. Title taken from the song "Assassin" by John Mayer, though this fic really has nothing to do with the contents of the song.

Racing Yellow Lights

He had his mother's eyes.

This relieved her, because the eyes were the windows to the soul, and he had her eyes. And surely if he had her eyes, then he would possess a soul like hers as well. No way did she want him to have anything close to resembling his father's soul, even if she knew she would love him anyway. A mother's love was unconditional, but she knew that it wouldn't have stopped her from being disappointed. And she much preferred being proud of her son to resenting him for showing flashes of his father in him.

The man had been one of the last of the ruffian sort that had been cleared out of Radiant Garden under Ansem the Wise's rule. In the last section of the town that Ansem had insisted on cleaning and improving ("Radiant Garden should be seen as a bastion of Light," he said, "And I'm going to put this hollow shell on the map as such."), he had pinned her against a sooty brick wall and raped her. Her tears had stained clear spots on the bricks dusty with soot from a nearby belting chimney, and she remembered the glee she felt upon watching the wall knocked down by construction workers, broken pieces of brick being swept away, never to be seen again.

The man had quickly withdrawn out of her and let her slump onto the ground, not troubling himself as his erratic, stumbling footsteps indicated his departure. And that had been that, he had left her life as quickly as he had forced himself into it.

She had tried to crawl out of the alleyway, not wanting to stay where she was choking on tears and soot. But the pain produced from that rough coupling was too much and she collapsed back onto the ground. She slid her eyes shut, vaguely wishing to not to wake up to the inevitable consequences.

The first time she had woken up with a moan to the sound of whispered voices and the odd sensation of being carried away, but with a rushing sound in her ears the blackness reclaimed her. The second time she came around, she saw a confusing, dizzying swirl of bright lights and blurred, misshapen faces, and she felt fingers pressing into her bruises before her back met with cotton sheets. After the few seconds it took for her to process this, she was lost again, unconscious before her head bumped into the pillow.

The third time her eyes fluttered open, she managed to keep them open to face the kindly couple who had brought her into their home. They had seen her hand, they said, poking out of an alleyway, stretching out as if trying to reach for something. And upon rushing over and seeing her ("You poor dear," clucked the woman), they did the only thing they could think to do and brought her home.

She had known that she was pregnant. Certainly for longer than before the healer had told her so. She felt as if she had known it from the instant it had happened. So she was surprised not at all when the healer made the grave announcement. And just as she had always known that she would be pregnant, she had known that she was going to keep the baby, no questions asked. She never examined her feelings or instincts closely, simply resolving long ago to take them as they were. What did it matter why she wanted to keep the baby? Surely it was better to ask no questions when questions would hardly ever get answered.

It was hard in the ensuing months to carve out a niche for herself and the baby, but when he had been delivered and put into her arms, she had at last been given the confirmation she had sought, that she'd always been right: it was all worth it. It was the two of them against the world, and she was right.

And he had her green eyes. Lea. Her son. And she knew, that even if nothing else mattered in her world, he always would.

Her and Lea against the world, and she knew that she would always be on his side, and in his corner, no matter what.

Her son had wildly spiking red hair that she assumed he must have gotten from his father (she hadn't been able to see with her cheek scraping against that sooty brick wall), but he had her eyes and her soul. Lea was a sweet little boy, really. Exceptionally bright and clever, if she did say so herself, and he did eat all of his vegetables, no matter how much he tried to argue his way out of it. He was never much of a bully, and didn't pick fights—unless he was defending someone else. Like her. Her baby was fiercely loyal to those he loved, and she lost count over the number of fights he'd been in because someone had mouthed off about her in front of him. She knew that it was partially her fault, because he had seen her flinch the first time a child had called her a whore, and Lea was the kind of person who would go out and eliminate the person who dared to hurt his loved ones.

He was too serious sometimes, and she hated seeing him like that.

Other than those times, he was playful and mischievous, very bold and energetic to the point where he could almost be annoying. She still remembered the look of wide-eyed innocence he'd given her when she had caught him playing with matches in the living room. Brave, but with hardly any common sense, she'd deduced.

The only thing that vaguely worried her about her son was his obsession with people remembering him. She couldn't help but fear that it was some kind of manifestation of a deep-rooted problem that she wouldn't be able to fix, not in the least because she knew he wouldn't talk to her about it. She knew he loved her, and he would see that as placing more burdens on her shoulders, and she didn't know how to convince him otherwise. And so she had left the matter alone, learning to laugh fondly at familiar words ("Got it memorized?") while she wondered all the while if that made her a bad mother.

Isa was hardly the first person she would have envisioned for her son's best friend. He was rigid where Lea was lax and easy going, cold where Lea was as open as summer sunshine, calm and controlled where Lea was wild. But despite all odds, Isa stuck with her son all those long years, and she soon came to think of them as compliments rather than opposites.

And the first time Lea had ever brought Isa home to meet her, she had seen his nervousness and yearning for approval under the haughty and cold exterior, and so she had given him her warmest smile, and now she ruffled his hair with the same affection she showed Lea.

But those happy years of her life didn't last. They never did.

The last time her world had been shattered was when she'd been shoved into a dark alleyway and thrown into a sooty brick wall with fingers bruising her wrists and chapped lips biting her neck. Now it was being shattered by slow, creeping pollution, and then—

And then by a tidal wave of darkness.

She still remembered that day as the worst day of her life. Last time, the gift of Lea had softened the blow.

But this time, there was nothing but darkness, darkness that took terrible, monstrous forms that leaped upon people, horrible claws tearing into flesh, blood and gore spattering once rainbow-colored streets. Screams filled the air, day had suddenly turned into darkest night. People were running everywhere, trying to flee, trying to find loved ones as they were shoved and flung about by the roiling crowd.

One thought had lodged into her brain, rooted so deeply that even panic couldn't erase it: She had to hold onto Lea and get them out of there. Some people were managing to evacuate, she knew—she had seen a neighbor scoop up their daughter (Aerith, with the pink ribbons in her hair), shouting that they knew where to go. She just had to find them.

She grasped Lea's hand in a death grip as the panicking crowd of people around them shoved and pushed as the darkness nipped at the edges. She saw an orange glow, and smelled the smoke—buildings were burning. She couldn't hear the booms of far-off explosions through the screams and petrified cries.

Lea's face was deathly white, and he was screaming and panicking too.

"Isa!" he screamed at her. "I can't see him! I have to go find Isa!"

When the words registered, her scream was audible even above the cacophony already piercing their ears.

"NO! It's too dangerous!"

She cared about Isa, she truly did, and it broke her heart to think of what might happen to the boy. But Isa wasn't Lea, her Lea that had her green eyes and her soul. Lea was the person she had to save above all else.

But Lea, her precious baby boy, was still screaming, and now he was tugging backwards, trying to make her release her grip on his wrist. "No! He isn't here, I know he isn't! He's trapped and hurt somewhere, I just know it, and I have to go find him, I'm the only one who can!"

"No! I'm sorry, but we have to get out of here, now!" And she tightened her grip on his wrist. She wasn't going to lose Lea. She wasn't. No matter what it took.

Lea tugged harder, pulling sharply against her hold on him. "Let me go! Let me go! Isa! Isa!"

And that's when it hit. A new batch of those dark, heartless creatures came around the corner and slammed into the crowd, engulfing them all. Fresh screams erupted all around, and the horrible stench of metallic blood cloyed in her nostrils. But that wasn't why she panicked. She panicked because Lea, who had been pulling back against her, had been ripped away from her, his wrist slipping from her hold on him. She started screaming as she saw a flash of red in front of her, wide sea-green eyes mirroring the terror screeching in her soul.

"LEA!" she screamed as she felt razor-sharp claws sinking into her skin. "LEA! LEA, RUN!"

Screams were the last sounds she heard in her ears, her precious son's the highest above all the others, and she knew nothing more than cold blackness, and the terrible pain as something was ripped and squeezed out of her…

If it had had eyes, the Nobody would have blinked. Its feelers twitched as it sensed its surroundings, and if such an emotion wasn't meaningless to it, it might have been conveying its confusion. The Nobody recognized to itself that it was in a place unfamiliar to it.

Everything was…was empty…

There was no purpose.

L…e…a…

"I can give you a purpose."

Its feelers twitched again, this time at the unexpected new presence. It had no concept of how much time had elapsed. And now it was noticing the presence of others just like it. Many, many, many more…

"Serve me and my Organization."

Compulsion. Compulsion to obey.

The Nobody and its fellows glided along in the wake of their Superior.

L…e…a…

"The Assassins…" said the slow, deep voice of the Superior.

Assassins. The Nobody twitched at the name, though it didn't understand why. But there were lots of things the Nobody didn't understand, so this bothered it not at all. Nothing ever really seemed to bother it.

"They shall be assigned to the charge of Number VIII."

"Er…right, whatever you say, boss man." The voice belonged to a newcomer, sounding almost nervous. Hair red as fire…

The cold one glared at him.

"You will treat your Superiors with respect."

"Right, right, I've got it memorized."

The Nobody twitched again. Green, green eyes…

"See to it," Cold One sniffed.

"Okay then…hi, I guess."

The Nobody waited patiently with the rest.

"Er…I'm not exactly sure if all of you can hear me, or understand me. Do you?"

The Nobodies swayed.

"Um…"

"We listen and obey, my liege."

The Master jumped at that. "Ugh, wow, that's creepy," he shivered. The Nobody and those surrounding twitched. The Nobody…almost…felt…upset. Upset…that the Master…

The Master was speaking again.

"Right, cool, so you can understand me, so at least I'm not up here just mouthing off like an idiot. Right, so I'm in charge of you lot now. I, uh, don't have anything for you to do yet. So just…chill, I guess. Oh, and you can just call me Axel. None of that 'my liege' stuff. It feels—it's just weird."

The Nobody twitched as Master Axel walked away, still looking slightly uncomfortable.

Axel…

L…e…a…

It would always serve Master Axel, would always be faithful.

No matter what it took.