LS5: So I'm back. Here's the next chapter!
Rantixoas chapter 2
Saïx materialized from a black corridor in his chair, sitting below his superior with a solemn stare. (hey that rhymed)
"He has awakened," he stated simply.
"Good," Xemnas smiled, otherwise not acknowledging the Luna Diviner. "Bring him to me. Make sure he knows his place."
"And his number?"
"In any other case," Xemnas mused. "He would be number XV. But, taking account of the fact that he is HIS nobody, and without taking account of the puppet, I suppose we should have him be... number XXXI."
"Yes, superior," Saïx said dutifully before disappearing in a shroud of black.
3-3-3-3-3
"Rantixoas?" I asked with curiosity, to which he nodded simply. "Why Rantixoas?"
"I'm supposed to jumble up my original name and put an "x" in it, right?" he asked, his eyes going back to the sunset, though his grin never faltered. "I just did that with my old name."
"Okay," I muttered. I'd actually never noticed that. Where could my name have come from? What was my "original" self's name? How did he know so much more about nobodies than me?
Suddenly, he turned his nose to the ground far below and frowned.
"More trouble," he murmured.
"What?" I barely had time to ask before he propelled himself off of the clock tower. I gasped as I watched him fall, down, down, down to the ground. Just when I thought he was going to be a splat on the cobblestone, a dark corridor opened beneath him and he vanished.
Just then, Saïx appeared from his own dark corridor right next to me.
"Roxas," he said, hiding undertones of disgust poorly. His height and mine were like, continents apart, which didn't help the fact that his voice intimidated me.
"Um, yeah?" I asked, flinching when he blinked.
"Have you seen a black figure today, about your height?" he asked me.
Racist, I thought to myself.
"Uh-huh." I responded dumbly. "Back at the castle."
"Since then?"
I don't know what made me do it, but I shut my mouth and shook my head no almost automatically. He paused.
"Alright," he said, his expression suspicious for half a second before becoming neutral. "Be back before tomorrow."
I nodded as he left, not letting out the breath I only just realized I'd been holding until the corridor from whence he came disappeared.
"Thanks," he said, dropping from his perch directly above me. Lucky for us, Saïx hadn't looked up.
"Sure," I said, an odd feeling crossing my mind as I looked at him.
"I don't like the looks of that guy," he told me, his mouth unmoving when he spoke, as though it was just there for decoration. "You shouldn't either."
"What?"
"I don't exactly get the feeling that he's a warm and cuddly guy," he responded. "I can't help but wonder what's in your future with him."
"..."
"Sorry," he laughed nervously, his mouth opening as he did so. "We've hardly just met, you and I. I'm not making any sense, huh?"
"No less sense than when we first met, though," I told him with a grin. He laughed once again, a full, hearty laugh. Somehow, even with the double voices, I couldn't find it creepy so much as... well, normal.
"So, Roxas," he looked to me as he finished laughing. "What are you doing up here?"
"I come here every day after my mission," I told him, finally sitting down. Usually, with things like the heartless or Saïx, I can feel hostility. But this guy, I'd never felt any directly. Even when he fought the dusks, it was more of him just protecting himself than outright violence.
"I come here when I finish work, too," he said.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Well,"he sighed, and his mouth moved this time, with only one voice. My voice.
"Mostly I'm just looking for a home."
"Um..."
"Oh, that?" he smiled and laughed once more. "Sorry. This is more your voice than mine, isn't it?"
"How are you doing that?"
"Most of the time I talk with my mind," he responded, this time unmoving. "But when I do that, my... friend talks with me."
"Your friend?"
"It doesn't matter," he shook his head. "But you come here every day, right?"
"Y-Yeah."
"Well, we'll just have to meet up here at the same time tomorrow," he said decisively.
"Wait, you're leaving?"
"Your friends are coming soon, right?" he stood up on the ledge, something I thought nobody would ever be stupid enough to do. "I don't wanna bore you guys."
"You won't-"
"Tomorrow, alright?" he asked, turning around and spreading his arms.
"Wait!" I tried, but he'd already fallen backwards, doing the same as before- falling before disappearing at the last second. "I wanted to talk for a little longer..."
"Hey, Roxas," Axel said, coming around the corner, jolting me out of my sadness. "You talkin' to yourself?"
"N-No," I said, glaring at him. "You're late again."
"Am not," he defended himself. "I'm just..."
I stared at him, cocking an eyebrow.
"Alright, I'm late," he relented. "But I come bearing gifts."
He held out a Sea-salt Ice Cream, and I took it without a pause.
"Yup, this and about five thousand munny should buy your forgiveness," I said, chomping down into it.
"Hey, come on!" he laughed, which of course led to me laughing.
3-3-3-3-3
"Finally alone..." he murmured, walking through the sky-lit trees to the old mansion on the edge of town. "Man, this is a small world..."
The old mansion's gates were, as always, locked. But nobody ever came here, so he was safe for the most part. The heartless wouldn't bother him, and the nobodies would probably leave him alone after the scene he caused at their castle, IF they found him that is.
"Found you."
Crap.
"What do you want, Isa?" he asks, turning to the nobody, his mind speaking.
"I don't go by that name anymore," he responded, his expression cold and unfaltering. "How do you know it?"
The less he actually knows about me, the better.
"Oh, you know," he shrugged with an abnormally large, toothy grin. "Lea will tell you anything if you torture him enough."
"No, actually, I won't," another, somewhat annoyed voice said from behind him, causing him to turn and see Axel.
"You've been doing some research, haven't you?" Saïx asked calmly, not moving from his spot. "You've been watching us."
"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't," Rantixoas responded, standing in such a position that he could watch both of the people watching him.
"So on top of killing our dusks, you're stalking us?" Axel asked with a look of disgust.
"Shouldn't you be with Roxas right now?" he asked, a glare besetting his onyx face.
"Told him to go on home," Axel told him. "That we had a deviant to either pick up or beat down."
"Depending on whether or not you're willing to cooperate," Saïx continued. "It's either you join us- or join the dead."
He pretended to mull it over. "Will I get a cool coat?"
"It's uniform, man," Axel laughed at the boy's supposed willingness.
"But then in the Summer it'll get really hot..."
"Look, boy," Saïx glared harshly at Rantixoas. "Are you joining or aren't you?"
"Chill out, big guy," Rantixoas sighed. "I like to take my time on these things. Will there be people for me to kill?"
"What?"
"Well, I can't live without my daily slaughter," Rantixoas said as if it was obvious, licking his invisible lips with a dry, pale tongue.
"Um, you can kill heartless," Axel said, caught off guard by the sadistic statement.
"Not good enough," he said with a grin and a wag of his lengthened claw. "They just don't bleed."
Visibly disturbed by the comment, both organization members stepped back.
"I mean, you know how it is," Rantixoas went on, getting really into the lie as his eyes shined yellow. "When you just get that scent that makes you wanna go berserk... and then, oh lord, the taste of it..." His fanged grin would've petrifiedXemnas himself.
"We don't go out of our way to murder innocent people," Axel said, off his guard.
One chance.
He moved faster than the speed of DARK, his hands and feet jetting him away from his interrogators.
"Hey!" Axel called after him, reacting too late to catch his darting figure. He cursed himself at his own failure, but Saïx simply shook his head.
"There are better times and better places," Saïx sighed, looking up. "Though it's safe to say he won't be cooperating."
"So we're just going to kill him?" Axel asked.
"You think it's safe to have something like that running around?" Saïx asked, turning to RTC.
That's not it. I know and you know that that was a ploy. Axel turned to do the same thing, pausing for a second before stepping through the corridor.
3-3-3-3-3
"This city..." I murmured, walking down a street to an enormous skyscraper. "I can't help but feel horrible vibes here."
A place where nobody but nobodies lived, a sort of ghost town below a castle. A town blanketed with darkness, accented by a blue hue. The rain didn't stop pouring, no matter the time of day, and the moon never set or rose.
"... What am I doing here?" I asked myself, sitting down below the skyscraper, leaning against the door. "The only reason I'm ever here is to avoid threats like those nobodies that've been hunting me..."
It wouldn't be a problem if you let me help like last time.
No. You're too ruthless.
And YOU'RE too soft.
I sighed. For those of you who're wondering, I'm not insane. I'm simply a nobody that can carry a two-sided conversation with his own psyche.
... Oh God, I am crazy.
Can a nobody be schizophrenic? I think I must be...
"Well, there you are," a familiar voice said to me, making my head turn.
"Lea?"
"No, no," he sighed. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"
"Um, yeah," I muttered, looking back to the ground. I didn't feel any direct hostility, so he wasn't here to kill me. "What are you doing here?"
"You should ask yourself that question," he retorted with a grin. "I don't like this place much myself, but it's a home."
"That's nice," I muttered, standing, not bothering to laugh at the irony- I HAD asked myself that question, less than two minutes ago. "Well, I'll just go now."
"Hold up, kid," he said, his eyes following me, though he himself didn't move. I paused.
"What is it?"
"You're voice has changed," he noted. "That telepathy thing was just you trying to freak us out, wasn't it?"
"So what if it was?"
"Just wondering," Axel said defensively, holding his hands up.
"Why are you really here for?" I asked him, turning around. "You aren't here to make small talk, I know that much. What do you want from me?"
"Well, frankly, you're going to be killed if you don't join the organization," he told me, now serious. "If you don't want to die, you should really reconsider your decision."
"Why are you offering me this chance?" I asked, not letting on whether or not I'd take it.
"Roxas may have had something to do with it," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "Said you weren't all bad, that you made nice company. Why do you act differently in front of him than you did Saïx?"
"Because he wasn't preparing to kill me," I said honestly, walking towards Axel slowly.
He stepped back.
"You don't trust me," I prodded with a frown. "You're afraid of me."
"I don't know you," Axel responded. "I can't trust someone I've never met." I stopped my advances.
"Then you know how I feel," I told him. "I can tell when somebody wants me dead. But just because you don't want me dead right this second doesn't mean I trust you. You've got some ulterior motive, something up your sleeve. You aren't offering me a chance out of the goodness of your heart."
"I don't have a heart," he told me with a frown. "You don't either."
"That's where you're wrong," I responded. "I have a heart."
And with that, I lunged towards him, claws and fangs bared. His surprise was evident, though it didn't hold him back. Drawing a pair of red and white chakrams out of nowhere, he blocked my hands. I let out a feral roar as I opened my mouth beyond proportion, darkness bursting from my throat. He was thrown backwards as he cried out in pain, skidding to a stop a few feet away.
"Listen to me!" he shouted, holding his chakrams above his head. "All I want is for you to be safe!"
"Why?!" I asked, darting in a zigzagged pattern towards him. "Why would you care about me?!"
"Because you're alive!" he responded, jumping over my head as I barreled through the air in which he'd just been standing. I snarled, watching him land.
"You're telling me you've never harmed an innocent life form?!"
"Not intentionally," he conceded, guard up, though in no way aggressive.
"I... I don't understand," I muttered, slowly rising from all fours to two feet. "You don't have any real reason for letting me live..."
" ... If I'm truthful, it's because of Roxas," he sighed. "He doesn't know that I was sent here to kill you. That was the original idea, but where's the harm in just bringing you back if you join, eh?"
"...Isa," I averted my gaze. "Do you trust him?"
"I've known him for a long time," he responded, his chakrams disappearing as he walked towards me. "I kinda have to."
"... He's the only reason I'd want to say no," I admitted, looking down at the ground. "I need a solid home."
"Then you're coming?"
"... Yeah."
"Well then, c'mon," he ordered, pointing towards the castle. "Let's go. I never caught your name, by the way."
I followed him as he turned towards the castle, me following close behind.
"It's Rantixoas."