Chapter 2: Night Horrors
It was a dream. She was back in that horrible place of darkness. The darkness pressed in on her, heavy and suffocating. The cloaked man was before her. He wanted to rename her, remake her. In her dream, she had a choice, and he was just another transient nightmare.
Ciel awoke with a knife at her throat. A woman, her face hidden by a raised hood, knelt on top of her, her bony knees digging uncomfortably into Ciel's chest. The unknown assailant held her razor-sharp dagger just close enough to Ciel's skin to prickle.
"Rise and shine, precious," the cloaked woman said. Her voice was slightly sibilant and reminded Ciel of poisoned honey. "I've soooo been dying to meet you."
"How nice," Ciel said. Wheezed, rather, as she was having a hard time breathing at the moment. Lack of oxygen had probably woken her. The woman must have been kneeling there for a while; her entire upper body was numb. She looked skinny, but she was heavy as hell. "I'd shake your hand or something, but I can't feel my arm at the moment. It's really starting to get uncomfortable."
"You really are all he said," she said delightedly in a most cold and sepulchral voice, pressing the knife ever closer to the pulsing vein in Ciel's neck.
The younger girl should have been terrified, and in a vague, distant sort of way she was. No, that was a lie, Ciel realized. If she concentrated hard on the elusive fear, feeding and nurturing it, it grew like a parasite until it was almost the full-blown terror she'd felt when he'd found her.
"Would you mind," Ciel enquired in a shaky half-whisper, "letting me up?"
There was a vicious grin in the other woman's voice when she spoke: "But that wouldn't be fun, now would it, precious? Don't you want to play?" A second blade caressed Ciel's cheek, slicing through pale skin.
This freak was obviously mentally unstable. It wasn't unexpected, and the raven-haired girl was starting to wonder if insanity was a prerequisite for Organization XIII. The worst part was that they could all kill her without batting an eyelid. Ciel suspected this latest acquaintance would all too willingly carve her up just for play.
As a third dagger appeared and things were starting to look extra bleak, the door burst open and a unhooded Axel swaggered in. "Oi, girl! Get up and... oh..." Axel halted, halfway across the room. His narrow green eyes quickly made sense of the situation. "I had no idea I was interrupting your favorite past time, Larxene," he drawled, ridiculously small red eyebrows raised. "I'll come back later..."
Ciel turned her head slowly, wary of the knife at her neck, and looked at him beseechingly.
Larxene let loose a howling, derisive laugh that belonged to the Witch of the Wild Woods. They didn't call her the Savage Nymph for nothing. "Oh, stay, Axel. I know how you love to watch."
"As much as I'd enjoy that, I think I should..." He caught Ciel's gaze and then grinned. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Larxene, picking on the new girl like this?"
"Not really, no."
"Hmm, I suppose you wouldn't be."
Ciel raised her eyebrows in a silent plea.
"Marluxia's downstairs," he said blandly and seemingly randomly. "The whole hall smells like sakura."
"Oh?" said Larxene, and she, amazingly, slid off Ciel's chest and walked toward the open door. "This was fun, precious. Let's do it again sometime."
"I'll pass," Ciel mumbled as she flexed her arms and rotated her shoulders. She winced at the pins-and-needles sensation as blood flowed to her deprived muscles. "Thanks, Axel. I owe you."
"Yeah, you do. I like having favors to collect."
"Happily, I believe in returning favors."
Axel started to smile, but his expression changed to one of incredulity and pain when Ciel's fist smashed into his nose. His head snapped back, and his hands flew up to protect his face from further abuse.
"Debt paid in full." Oh, yes, that felt good.
"De 'ell, girl," Axel whined. His voice was muffled as he pinched his nose to stop the sluggish flow from both nostrils. "But de 'ell was dat?"
"You told her where I was, didn't you?" Ciel demanded, folding her trembling arms tightly across her chest. "And then you pretended to help me. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No, I dink you're baranoid," the red-head grumbled. "And if dat's your idea of redurning bavors, I dink I'll consider your buture debts nullibied." He felt his nose gingerly and grimaced.
Ciel shifted guiltily. She wasn't entirely convinced of his innocence, but the fact that he hadn't hit her back worked in his favor. "Oh. Sorry. It's not broken, is it?"
"No, I dink it's sprained."
He said this with such a deadpan expression that the joke fell to the floor before Ciel worked it out and realized she was supposed to laugh. "Oh," she said belatedly. "Haha."
Axel sighed deeply and rolled his eyes. Still pinching the bridge of his nose, he hummed nasally like a priest praying for patience. "For a smart mouth, you've got no sense of humor to speak of."
"Speaking of speech, yours is sounding a lot clearer," she noted suspiciously.
"Nobodies heal pretty quickly. You could ask Zexion why, but I doubt he'd tell you."
Ciel touched her cheek, which was still wet, but there was unbroken skin beneath the drying blood. She whistled, impressed. "That's pretty handy."
"There're advantages to being a Nobody. Like getting free sea salt ice cream."
She shook her head. "Advantages that outweigh the lack of emotions and—sea salt ice cream? Is that—oh, haha."
"I swear, you catch on slow. The advantage is never having to be fooled by your heart. Because you don't have one. All you've got is good old rationality." He tapped his temple to make his point.
"Rationality? But you're all insane!" It just came out. She hadn't meant to say it so frankly.
Axel sat down on her bed without an invitation and crossed his legs like he was meditating. "Sometimes I wonder if that's true. But you've met some of our worst. Me and Roxas, we're normal." He paused, noting her dubious expression, and added, "Relatively speaking."
Ciel shook her head and kept shaking her head when Axel started to nod. "I don't want to be a part of this. How hard would it be to run away?"
The older Nobody traced the trail made by the rubies of her blood that had fallen onto the white sheets. "Very hard. You'd die. I know, because I'd kill you."
She laughed then, a thin, brittle sound.
"No, I'm not joking, Lexci. I eliminate the traitors of the Organization, and if you run away, a traitor is what you are. Besides, what would you do if you left? You don't belong anywhere; you aren't anyone."
She bit her lip and looked down at floor because she couldn't meet Axel's cold emerald eyes. She didn't even correct him about her name. That part didn't matter compared to his other statements. "All right," she said softly.
Axel drew an X in the air over her heart—or where her heart would have been if she weren't a Nobody. "Come on," he said, sounding almost kind. "I still have a lot to teach you."
"Fun," muttered Ciel.
"Not for me," Axel snapped.
Ciel stared at the back of his spiky-haired head as she followed him down the halls. He was so hard to read, swinging between kind and cold, human and Nobody. She wondered if that were truly his personality or if it were simply calculated to throw her. "Why couldn't I have just died?" she wondered aloud. "Why'd I have to get reborn as a Nobody with this terrifying bunch?"
"You're as bad as Roxas," Axel said gruffly without looking at her. "I'm not interested in your introspective emo ramblings."
On cue, Roxas—Ciel recognized him by his angry, insistent stride—turned the corner and stopped when he saw Axel leading Ciel around. His hood was up, so the girl couldn't see his eyes, but she felt him determinedly ignoring her.
"Good morning," she greeted, and she received a curt nod for her troubles.
"Don't be so stiff, Roxas!" Axel cajoled, sliding behind his friend and kneading his shoulders. "This one's not like Larxene; she won't eat you up when she's finished with you." He gave Roxas a little push forward. "Say hi."
"Cut it out," Roxas sighed, shrugging off Axel's bony hands. He turned his back on Ciel to face his fiery-haired friend. Without bothering to lower his voice, the young man said, "I heard you were still squiring the new girl around, so I came to tell you that Larxene offered to take over her training."
Axel smirked at Ciel, whose eyes had widened with dread at this statement, over Roxas's shoulder. "Did she, now? How special for you, Lexci."
"It's Ciel," she corrected.
"Tomato, tomahto," he responded, flicking his thin wrists dismissively.
Roxas demanded, "You're not giving her up?"
"I think we have a duty to keep our buddy from Larxene's little knives."
Roxas sighed. "If you say so." He did a 180 so he was facing Ciel. He still looked suspicious, but now his posture was hesitant and nervous, too.
Ciel tried to smile. She wouldn't hold the fact that he evidently thought she wasn't worth their time against him. "Hi."
"...Hi," he said reluctantly.
Ciel stepped forward impulsively, her fingers catching Roxas's hood and bunching up the material as she started to push it down.
Roxas leapt away like she had the plague, his movement knocking the heavy black cloth down. A mess of spiky blonde hair jumped up, standing on end just as stiff and tense as the boy was. His pale face went taunt. His sapphire eyes pinned her down like an insect under a microscope, determined to dissect her.
Ciel held up her hands, backing away from the angry frustration she saw on his face. "I can't stand the secrecy, and..." she said, trying to explain what had possessed her to act and trailing off when she realized Roxas wasn't listening.
Roxas yanked the hood back up around his ears. "Don't," he warned her in a shaking voice, "do that again."
"Sorry," she said, tucking a stray lock of black hair behind her ear nervously. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Are we good?"
Roxas didn't reply. He simply stomped past her and disappeared around the corner.
Ciel turned to Axel helplessly.
"Fascinating," her guide murmured, staring after the blond thoughtfully.
"What is?"
His green eyes jerked back to her, and Axel smiled as sincerely he always did. "To hazard a guess, I'd say you are to Roxas as Demyx is to me."
"Demyx? Is that a person?"
"I wonder." Axel clapped her on the back encouragingly and steered her down the hall. "Pray you never find out."
Welcome (Back)!
Larxene creeps me out. So do Marluxia and Xemnas. So does Saix. They're a creepy group. I'd write them out of the story, but that wouldn't be realistic, would it? Not that KH is realistic. And I love it for that.
I'm not really happy with chapter 2. It's more plot building than actual plot, and I hope chap 3'll bring some action, but we'll see. Dunno when it'll be out either.
Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing! Reviewing on the last chapter, I mean. I hope on this one, too? :)