HanaRose curled up in the corner of the deepest cave, feeling... she wasn't sure what. She seemed calm but inside she was wondering. She looked up, towards the roof of the cavern, lost in darkness. Her blue-green eyes were glazed. She thought over the information she had gathered over the years. It now seemed so little when she thought back over it.
"Keyblade..." she whispered, remembering the word she had read a long time ago. "What is a keyblade?" She sighed and touched her chest, at the point at where her heart would be. Where was her heart? Did she ever had one? What about... "Heartless... Nobodies..." She got up and walked to the middle of the cavern. It was tall beyond measurement, and she looked up into the darkness. She had once read that every time the worlds were on the verge of collapse it was always saved by a boy wielding a keyblade. Some kind of prophecy? She didn't understand. But there was one thing she did know...
XIII
Organisation XIII: Ansem seemed to know a lot about them. They were a group of powerful Nobodies that had had wills strong enough to retain a human form: thirteen of them. She knew the names of the first six even: Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion (the Nobodies of Ansem's six apprentices). Who were they though really? There were thirteen: all gone now. When a Nobody died there was nothing left behind as there was no heart in the first place. The only thing that would survive was memories of them. HanaRose sat back down on the floor. It was a pity. Maybe they could have helped her. She looked at her hands. She knew what she was, but what to do? She didn't know.
"Who am I?" she asked the Darkness. "More than what I appear to be?" She moaned and touched her head. It was beginning to throb. She felt compressed. She had been working too hard, but what could she do. She did not know if it was safe to leave the Caverns. She didn't know if she could get back to work, but she needed to know. There was a computer down here but it could not tell her much. It was all about the Organisation members and it was almost broken through age. HanaRose sighed again. "What am I?"
"Almost makes you feel sorry for her doesn't it?" came another voice: a woman. HanaRose sat up startled. She was sure she had been alone. But it didn't stop there. Another voice replied to the first.
"Very sensitive, Larxene," came the sarcastic response (although this one was male).
"Like you could care either, bookworm."
"Who are you?" called HanaRose, looking around the cavern, to try and see where the voices were coming from. "Who's there? What are you?"
"She can hear us?" came a third voice (another male). "This is truly fascinating. I wondered whether the heart had to be required in order to have such a clear sense of one's past but..."
"Yes. Very interesting, Vexen," came a third male voice, sounding rather bored of him. The one HanaRose assumed was Vexen snapped back in reply.
"Just because you no longer bear any interest in the workings of a heart, Lexaeus, or car any longer about the science of it, does not..."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" another voice groaned. "Nobody cares, Vexen!"
"Which means only that you don't, Number VIII. Besides, Axel, what right do you have to..."
"That's enough." HanaRose shivered slightly at the last voice: male, like most of the others, but with a deadly calm that commanded authority. Vexen lapsed into a silence. HanaRose sat for a time in silence and then finally spoke, unsure of a reply.
"Who are you?" The mysterious last voice replied. His voice was terrifying yet soothing: something was hidden under that calming tone; it was like honey-coated thorns.
"Memories."
"What?"
"Memories that belong to you."
"How?" asked HanaRose. "I don't know you. I don't recognise any of you." Then she saw the shadows.
At first she thought she was imagining them, they were just hovering there in the darkness (a sort of darker shade in the cave) but soon there became no doubt. Six shadows were forming around her in a circle. They were nearly indistinguishable from each other, all clothed in a darkness, but then she began to notice subtle differences. Some were more faded than others and each carried a different object: a scythe, eight kunai knives, a book, a shield, an axe-sword and finally two chakrams. HanaRose looked hard at each, but there was nothing else she could tell from them. For the most part their faces were faded: purely memories that were buried so deep inside her non-existent heart that she had completely forgotten them. The shadow carrying the scythe spoke first.
"Do you know who you really are?" he asked. The voice was so level HanaRose found herself trusting him from without even knowing who he was.
"No," she replied. "I don't. But I want to know. I'm a Nobody, I think... But I don't understand really who I am. I'm not HanaRose, am I?"
"HanaRose is your name, correct?" asked the shadow with the book. HanaRose nodded. The one with the axe-sword grunted in non-interest. HanaRose looked back at the shadow with the scythe. She trusted him.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"I am confident," he replied.
"Then who am I?" she asked. "I have no heart. Who was my Somebody?" She stopped. "You are Organisation XIII aren't you?"
"Yes."
"But you died."
"Yeah, but..." said the woman. "We still are kinda. We're only memories from you."
"But can I bring you back? I need help."
"You don't," said the one with the chakrams. "We can just go."
"No!" she yelled. "I want to know. Tell me! What am I? Who am I?"
"You never had a Somebody," said Vexen. "You were born a Nobody. That is why you have grown."
"But how? Nobodies can't be born..."
"Unless they came from two Nobodies in the first place."
"A child..." murmured the shadow with the book. "That would make sense."
"God, you took a while," said the woman.
"Shut it, Larxene," said the one with chakrams.
"You're telling ME to shut it, Axel?!"
"Both of you," came a voice from the one with the book. "Stop arguing."
"What are you talking about?" asked HanaRose. "Does that mean you know who my parents are?" There was a pause.
"Yes," replied the one with the scythe. "And in the process have been part of this Organisation, without your knowledge, all of your life."
"How?"
"The secret Number XV..."
"Fifteen..." said HanaRose. "But who are my parents?"
"Do you have to tell her?" sighed Axel.
"Do you want to live?" asked the one with the scythe. "I am willing to forgive you, Axel, if the girl can help us."
"And what the hell makes you think I want your forgiveness?"
"Listen here you..."
"Larxene," warned the man with the scythe, and she retreated into mutinous muttering. The one with the scythe looked back at HanaRose (or she assumed so; without a face it was hard to tell). "You can help us." HanaRose looked back at him, finally a flicker of understanding emerging in the back of her mind.
"Are you my father?" she asked. "Are you?" The seconds lengthened and it seemed like an eternity before he spoke.
"Yes," was the eventual reply.
"And my mother?"
"Hello," said a very bored sounding Larxene.
"The child of Nobodies," said the one with the book.
"Number XV..." said HanaRose. "What do I do now?"
"Help us," said the one with the scythe. "You can bring us back."
"How?"
"So you agree?" HanaRose paused and then bowed her head.
"Yes... Father."
"Good," said the shadow, streaking what HanaRose guessed was a hand in front of her name, producing the eight shimmering silver letters of her name. "Welcome to the Organisation..." he said, waving to the letters as they rearranged themselves and he pressed a golden "X" into the middle of the word, revealing a new name. "...Roxenasha: the Graceful Nymph."
