Hey guys! Another sorta-fast update! I'm unbelievably proud of myself XD Review please! I really like hearing what you guys think! J
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Emika walked back down the hall and down the flight of stairs to the entrance hall, smiling to herself. Things had gone better than she had expected, and she had learned important information tonight.
"Gah! Look at what you've done!" Demyx cried from further in the house. Emika hurried down the last few steps and hurried to see what was wrong with the seemingly always happy boy.
She wandered trough the house hastily and found herself at the kitchen door.
"Now WHAT am I supposed to do with these? They're completely burnt!" Demyx hissed at someone on the other side of the door. Emika snickered. Demyx seemed to have an entirely different side, and it was nothing like the excited, cheerful side she saw earlier.
"Why was it so important anyways, Dem?" Someone said on the other side of the door. The voice was almost too faint for Emika to hear, almost as if they were whispering, or standing on the far side of the kitchen at least.
"I made them for Emika. You know, the girl who got us this place. I wanted to do something nice for her." Demyx announced, sounding quite miserable.
"Huh?" The other voice added.
Emika put her ear to the door so she could listen to that voice a bit closer, but she still couldn't hear any better. There was just something about that voice…
THUMP
Emika was startled out of her silent reverie by the sound of something hitting the floor in the other room. She pushed the door open and hurried into the room, hands curling at her sides.
"Demyx?" Emika called into the seemingly empty kitchen.
Demyx's head popped up from behind a counter as he smiled. "Emika! Hey."
"Demyx, are you okay?" She walked over to the counter and leaned on the surface.
"I'm good." He said as he stood and wiped what looked like flour off of the front of his long black coat. He began cleaning off the counter and putting things away.
"Here, let me help." Emika said as she grabbed the container of flour from in front of her and took it to the cupboard by the refrigerator.
"Thanks." Demyx called over his should as he grabbed the eggs and put them in the fridge. "Wait. How do you know where everything goes?" Demyx asked once everything had been put away and Emika had begun wiping down a flour-covered counter.
"I'm the one who stocked the house and had it decorated, so I know it almost as well as I know my own." She shrugged as she put the wash rag in the sink and washed her hands.
"Oh!" Demyx exclaimed from the left of where she was standing, "I almost forgot you were in here! Emika, I want to introduce you to someone." Demyx said as he walked to the other end of the room. Emika dried her hands and turned to face Demyx.
"Emika, this is Axel." Demyx gestured to the tall, spiky haired redhead he was now standing next to. "Axel, this is -"
"Effie?" The man interrupted Demyx with a hoarse whisper. Emika's eyes widened as she took in the figure of the man in front of her. She made herself stay completely still as she assessed the situation.
Just don't move. Not yet. It's a daydream, a harsh one at that, but still… It's been so long since I've seen him.
She moved slowly as she thought this, taking a step towards him as her hand reached out as if to touch him. "Lea?" she choked on the words that forced their way out of her mouth.
Axel rushed forward and caught Emika in a tight hug. For a moment, there was no noise at all, but then Demyx coughed awkwardly.
"Erm… sorry to ruin the… moment, but… what?" He stood there completely baffled.
Axel and Emika broke apart, and catching sight of Demyx's dumbfounded expression, Axel began to laugh. Emika smiled almost wistfully. She hadn't realized until then how much she had missed the sound of her brother's laughter. "Ef's my little sister, bubble brain." Axel said a moment later
"Wait, wait, wait!" Demyx held his hands up and walked over to where Axel and Emika stood. "So… Emika is Effie, your little sister?" Demyx walked around the two, looking at them. When he got back in front of them, he stopped moving but continued to stare.
Axel sighed and bent over so that his eyes were level with the younger boy's. "Can I help you, or are you just going to stand there and keep gawking like an idiot?" He asked, tapping the boy's forehead twice.
Demyx swatted Axel's hand away and glared at him. "You two don't really look that similar."
"Well we aren't twins, nimrod. She's got a different mother anyways. We've been over this before. I told you I had a younger half sister, and I've also told you about what happened to my mom. She left my dad and I when I was three, remember? Jeeze you're and airhead." Axel straightened back up and walked across the room to where he had been standing before.
"Well, you ARE both freakishly tall…" Demyx thought out loud.
"Thanks Demyx." Emika muttered with an agitated look on her face. Across the room Axel was searching the floor for something. "What are you looking for Lea?" Emika asked as she crossed the room.
"The rolling pin that Demyx threw at me." He said as he bent to check underneath the table.
Emika laughed. "He threw a rolling pin at you? What did you do to him?"
"Check the pan on the stove." He said with a smirk as he pulled the rolling pin out from underneath a chair.
She walked over and looked into the pan. She wasn't sure what it had been at some point, but now they were scorched rocks shaped like cupcakes. "Well, that certainly explains the smell." she muttered as she opened the window over the sink to let in some fresh air.
"But you two don't even have the same hair color!" Demyx said in exasperation.
Emika laughed. "You're thinking about this way too hard Demyx. I have my hair color darkened; I don't really like the Candy-Apple Red. Besides," she pulled Axel next to her so they were standing side-by-side, "we have the same hips." Emika said with a wide grin.
Demyx burst into a fit of laughter and fell to the floor clutching his sides as Emika ducked to avoid the rolling pin that had been swung at her head by brother dearest, who's face was now the same shade of red as his hair. Ducking behind a counter, Emika began to laugh, and soon Axel was laughing too.
After a moment, the three of them had caught their breaths and Demyx finally managed to pull himself off of the floor. "Well," Demyx said as he walked over to the trash can with the pan of "cupcakes" and began scrapping them out of the pan with a wooden spoon, "I made cupcakes, but porcupine head wanted to help 'cook them faster' and burnt the living crap out of them." Demyx said, giving up on trying to scrape them out, and set the pan on a counter, stabbing them with his spoon.
Axel walked over and took the spoon from him, putting it and the rolling pin into the sink. "She wouldn't have eaten them anyways." He said as he turned the water on and put a plug in the drain. "She doesn't like chocolate." He turned and grabbed the cupcake pan and dumped it in the sink, cupcake-stones and all. "She probably still would have taken them though; She doesn't like hurting people's feelings." He added as he proceeded to pour way too much dish soap in the sink of water. "She always had the biggest heart of anyone I'd ever met."
"Would you stop talking about me like I died or something? I'm right here. And give me some credit," Emika said with a laugh, "I still would have accepted them as a Nobody. I'd always done it because of my conscience, not my heart. You'd know the difference if you would have ever HAD a conscience." She poked him in the back.
"Well, now what am I going to do for you? I wanted to do something since you got us this place." Demyx said, motioning to everything around him then crossing his arms over his chest.
"Easy. You'll come over to my house tomorrow and we'll bake peanut butter cookies for all of the members of the Organization." Emika told him with a smile.
"The Organization? Well, none of us deserve cookies." Demyx said with a pout.
Emika laughed, "I don't really deserve them either Demyx. I had my own reasons for providing the house. Getting free food wasn't one of my goals. Besides, baking is the best part, don't you think?"
Axel laughed and turned away from the sink. "She's right you know; She wouldn't have done something like this if there wasn't something she was after."
"Hey! I don't always have an ulterior motive!" Emika replied
"Oh yeah?" Axel challenged, "Do you remember that day you came home from school and Saï- Isa was at our house?
Emika glared at Axel. She new exactly where this was headed. "Yeah." she grumbled.
Axel's smile widened. "Do you remember what you did?"
Emika put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes more. "I made his favorite foods and told him he should stay for dinner."
"And?" Axel was practically sang with joy; He had always loved 'reminding' her about this particular memory.
"I bullied you into inviting him to stay the night and proceeded to monopolize his attention the entire time." She said as if she had repeated the line multiple times before, which she, in fact, had.
Axel started laughing again and Demyx wore a grin on his face as well, but seemed otherwise unaware of who they were talking about. Emika wondered if Axel had corrected the name because of Demyx, or because of her.
After a few seconds of comfortable silence, Emika struck conversation with Demyx again. "Demyx, you will come over to bake with me tomorrow, won't you?"
If there had been any uncertainty, it had been dissolved as Emika batted her eyelashes at him. "Sure, Emika" he smiled.
Axel chuckled at how easily he had caved. "Good!" Emika chirped. She walked over to the table and wrote her phone number on a napkin. "That's my number. You should program it into your phone. I'll call at around noon, so be ready to go by then." she said as she handed the paper towel to Demyx.
"Okay, but don't you need my phone number first?" he asked.
"Nope, I've got it already saved into my phone." She smiled as he raised an eyebrow at her. "Come on 'Axel'," She giggled at the alien name, "walk me to my car like a gentleman." She grabbed Axel by the arm and drug him out of the room, calling a goodbye to Demyx on her way out.
On the front porch, Emika hugged Axel again. As she released him and began pulling away, Axel grabbed her wrists. "Effie, I've got something to tell you. It's about Isa. He's here, in the Organization." He spoke fast as a smile grew on his face.
"I know." she said with a small smile of her own.
Axel let go of her wrists and looked at her in disbelief. Suddenly, questions began pouring out of his mouth. "How did you know? What have you been doing? When did you wake up? How did you find the Organization? What happened-"
Emika put a hand up to cover his mouth. "So many questions." she laughed, "How am I supposed to answer any of them if you don't let me speak?" She raised an eyebrow at him, amused.
"Sorry." he mumbled into her hand.
Emika laughed and dropped her hand away from his mouth. "To answer your questions; First, Demyx. He was describing you and Isa to me because he thought there was something 'weird' about the two of you." She wiggled he fingers at him and laughed. "Speaking of Demyx, when you were telling that story earlier, why did you-"
Axel cut her off. "I had a few reasons. Firstly, I almost said Saïx because it's a habit. We were all given new names and he and I both decided it would be best if people didn't know we were… connected in any way. If you haven't noticed, some of the members of the Organization can give off a bad vibe."
"Well your whole 'we don't know each other' plan isn't working. Demyx suspects something. And I have a feeling Demyx isn't the brightest crayon in the box, so there's a good chance the others know something." Emika shook her head in exasperation. Sometimes, Lea came up with the dumbest and most pointless plans. Why would it matter if they knew each other?
"Actually, Demyx is better at reading people than anyone else in the Organization, but he still isn't all that sharp, which brings me to my second reason; Demyx has a really big mouth. Bigger than that old friend of your's, Mo." He smiled as he thought of Mocha, Effie's childhood friend.
"Right. Well, to answer your other questions; I've been doing a lot since I 'woke up'. I've gone through a lot of training, I've been researching things, collecting hearts, and so on; which, by the way, I suspect Xemnas will be talking to all of you about tomorrow." Axel raised an eyebrow at her and she smiled, "Long story. Like I said, I had many reasons for tracking the Organization down and keeping you all close. Next, It's been a little over five years now. I'm not really sure of the exact date; It isn't something I like to remember. And lastly, how I found the Organization." Emika hummed and tapped her cheek, thinking. "Finding out about the lot of you was fairly easy. You're all very messy with your work. How I located Xemnas, on the other hand, took a bit more work. I can't really say what exactly got the results. There was a lot of guessing, patterns, figuring out how he used the Darkness, and tracking the Organization's movements as a whole. In the end, I just sent a few Dancer Nobodies wandering around with a vague letter for Xemnas. I'm fairly sure that all but one had been intercepted by a man named Xigbar though."
"Xigbar? Why do you think he did it?"
"Well, he sent a few letters back with… disturbing content." Emika shuddered at the thought of those letters.
"What did he say? I swear I'll kill him if he-"
"Funny enough, he hardly said anything. Most of them were pictures. Very. Graphic. Pictures." Emika stated calmly as her cheeks got warmer. Axel on the other hand, completely lost it. He began laughing so hard that he was forced to hold the railing so he could remain standing as little tears began to run down his face.
Emika rolled her eyes and tapped him on the forehead to regain his attention. "Axel. Where is Isa now?"
"Huh?" he responded brilliantly, "Oh! Right. At the moment he's out with… Zexion, I think, exploring a new world." He said as he wiped the tears from his face, still smiling.
"They aren't releasing any Heartless, are they?" Emika asked, shoulders tensing.
"No." Axel shook his head. "Exploration missions are just that. The hood stays up and we just look around a bit. They'll take a few notes, maybe some pictures, and then report to Xemnas, and he decides what we do from there."
"Oh, okay." she said, looking at the ground and thinking. "Hey. Earlier, Demyx said you all referred to each other as ranks or numbers or something. Why aren't you doing that?" Emika questioned him, noticing how easily he had called Xemnas by name.
"First off, that 'Rank' thing is a 'first come, first served' thing. And they're a formality, not an all-the-time deal. Secondly, it's a respect thing, which explains MY lack of use for the terms. Lastly, with strangers we feel it's best not to give out too much information on other Organization members. Although, it seems Demyx hadn't quite grasped that point yet if he was describing Saïx and me in enough detail that you managed to figure out that he's Isa." Axel sighed.
The two stared out at the street.
"Axel?" Emika broke the silence with a whisper.
"What is it?" he asked, not turning away from the street.
"Do you still… remember?" Emika looked down at the toes of her boots.
"What do you mean?" He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
"From… before. Some of my memories; I know I'm missing them. I can feel it. It's like an extra emptiness, except… I don't know." She shook her head. "It hurts more than not having my heart. It's like everything else is gone too."
"Yeah, I remember everything." He turned to her and leaned against the railing.
Emika sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."
Emika's phone buzzed and she jumped. Axel laughed at her as she pulled it out of her boot, remembering how she had always told him had been great for holding things such as tampons, much to his horror. She scowled at Axel for laughing at her as she opened the message and read through it quickly.
"Sorry Lea, I've got to go, My mom needs some help with a few documents that she found." She said absentmindedly as she tucked the phone back into her boot.
"Mom?" Axel repeated, clearly confused.
"Um, yeah. The Yamaboshi's are sort of like a family, where as the Organization is like a… business of sorts. Lady Yamaboshi is the youngest Yamaboshi who, only quite recently, got her heart. She's always been like a mother to all of us. She's more of a mom to me than my own mother ever was, at any rate." Emika said quietly.
"So… how many Yamaboshi's are there?" Axel asked.
"Well… right now we've got seventeen who are still Nobodies. Five of them are too young to control any Heartless stronger than a Shadow. The youngest just turned eight, so we've just started some of the basic training. She likes playing with the Shadows though." Emika smiled, thinking of how she had been playing with on that morning at breakfast.
"Eight?" Axel exclaimed.
"Yes. The Organization's doing." Emika said somberly.
Axel had a horrified look on his face. "You mean.. we-"
"When the Heartless are let out of the Darkness without any reign at all, they help the Darkness consume anything and everything. They're like animals; They don't have consciences. Xemnas is aware of that, and if he's wise, he will soon begin taking the steps to correct the mistakes he's made." Emika said, using a strangely comforting tone to say something so dark.
"How'd she do it though? Her spirit… how was it strong enough at eight?" Axel's tone was approaching hysteria.
"Axel. Calm Down. Now." Emika said firmly as she grabbed his shoulders. "She's being taken care of now, and that's what matters."
"I just… I don't get it." Axel shook her shoulders off and ran his hands through his hair.
Emika stood there and watched him for a moment, reading his movements. He was clearly upset by this, but there was another reason he was so distressed, and she knew she would have to do something about it. Emika stepped forward and hugged him. "She's special." She said into his chest.
After a moment, she pulled away and walked back down the steps. On the last step, she paused, back facing Axel, and spoke quietly, "She was four."
"What?" Axle hadn't heard what she had said.
Emika turned to face him. "When she was Awakened, she was four. I was the one who found her. She was crying, calling for her brother. She calmed down when she saw me though; I think she was just afraid that she would be all alone." Emika looked at the ground. Axel stayed silent as a tear fell to the pavement at Emika's feet. "Her hair…" she murmured, "it's blue." She sniffed and turned, crossing the yard to her car. She opened the door, and just as she was about to climb in, Axel's voice stopped her. "It's… don't tell me… it's Liddy?"
Emika looked at Axel. He was gripping the railing hard. Emika nodded once and got into the car, closing the door softly. "Please take me home." she said to the driver as she put her seatbelt on.
As the car began pulling away from the curb, Emika looked out the window. Axel was still standing there, staring at the ground, shaking and gripping the railing. Emika closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She knew that he needed the confirmation. She convinced herself that tomorrow, he would wake up and realize it wasn't the end of the world. At least now he knew where she was, and that she was safe.
The only thing that Emika wanted right now was a cup of hot chocolate, and a chance to take a look at those papers her mom found.
A/N: Whoops! That chapter was a LOT longer than I had intended it to be. Anywho, I bet you're wondering about this other OC, huh? No, it won't be some creepy "side Axel/OC" thing. She's 8. But I know you were thinking it XD
P.S. Reviews are fantastic. You know why? Reviews = Happy Haley (Tis me!) = Eager to write = faster updates.
How quickly would you like to meet Liddy? :3
~FanaticFeltonFan
