Interlude I: Him

"Well, fortunately, it won't be long now."

The man shifted, lifting his face just enough to see DiZ from beneath the hood of his black coat. Although the room was dark, the scant light from the computer screens illuminated DiZ where he sat in front of them, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"The photographs bought us some time," DiZ added, pleased.

Maybe they had, but they didn't make sense. Usually DiZ was not one to answer questions in a satisfactory manner -- and usually, DiZ's answers were not ones that his companion enjoyed hearing -- but curiosity compelled the man in black to ask him anyway. "I still don't understand," he said, his voice dark and deep to his own ears. "Why didn't they just go after the real thing to begin with?"

DiZ laughed at him, soft chuckling in the velvet darkness. "What 'real thing'?" he said, mocking. "But it's all just data to creatures with that level of awareness."

"...if you say so." The man in black didn't pretend to understand the way DiZ's program worked, the way there were Dusks inside the computer, the silver ebb and flow of numbers that made up what felt like a real world. Where he came from, computers were few and far between, arcane things only found in libraries or laboratories, and the man in black preferred fishing to reading.

"Now-- if you're finished with asking foolish questions," DiZ said, brushing off the topic with no further care as to whether or not the man in black had understood his answer. Computers were his specialty. "There is still the matter of the redheaded man."

The redheaded man--? The man in black tensed slightly, invisibly in the darkness of the room and beneath the darkness of his coat. "...All right. What about him?"

DiZ tilted his head back, watching the monitors that revealed the blond boy, unconscious on the floor of the place where he gathered with his friends; the unwary observer might think that the monitors were frozen or paused, but it was that world which was paused. "Those of Organization XIII will stop at nothing to see Roxas returned to their fold. This interference is only the first, have no doubt. Of course, as long as he remains within the town, there is little that pest can do to interfere. But nevertheless -- keep your wits about you. Do not let it out of your sight."

"Why don't you get rid of him?" Namine's clear voice cut through the room like a knife. The man in black turned to see her: she was standing by another display, so pale that she caught at the light, seeming to glow as if the only thing in the room untouched by darkness.

Ironic, thought the man, although he wasn't so sure that it was.

"...Pardon?" DiZ said, his voice very calm, but very still. Dangerous.

"Why don't you get rid of him?" she asked again, and turned to look past the man at DiZ. "You say that he's no threat, but -- isn't it safer to not have him here at all?"

"Attempting to do so would be a waste of time and effort."

DiZ always sounded like that, when he spoke to her, taut and brusque; the man in black had often observed, in the last months, that everything about her set DiZ on edge, every action she took and every question she voiced. Namine did not seem to respond to it, and that, too, set DiZ on edge. It was not exactly conducive to a friendly environment.

"I see," Namine murmured. "So the difference really is that insignificant." She turned back to the monitor. "I suppose people like us were never meant to change things after all."

DiZ's lips quirked up, a cruel expression visible in the computer's light, for just a moment before resuming their former even keel. "Indeed."

The man in black could not bring himself to speak to DiZ, to look at him any longer, but something he had tried to cast away long ago stirred when he watched Namine's melancholy resignation. He drew closer to her, and lowered his voice to keep DiZ from overhearing. "Don't talk about yourself that way," he murmured.

"Well, it's true." She lifted her head, looking straight at him (not at his hood, not even past his hood) and smiling a little. "What could be more fitting, for someone who was never meant to exist?"

"Exactly," DiZ contributed with satisfaction.

The man in black tensed, hands hidden in the loose sleeves of his coat balling into fists. He said nothing, but for a moment -- as he sometimes did -- he resented DiZ's presence, his casual cruelty, his nonchalant acceptance of the dilemma that left the man in black so torn and indecisive.

He just didn't know what was right. He only barely knew what he wanted.

"He won't be able to make Roxas remember, anyway," Namine said softly, still watching the screen. Roxas was a crumpled figure, so helpless and small on the monitors. "They never do -- not really."

Not without her help, anyway.

"Right," the man in black said, toneless, and then turned quickly. "Do you-- Are you hungry? It's past lunchtime." Any excuse to get out of this room.

"I could do with a bite to eat, I suppose," DiZ allowed, without looking away from his monitors.

"Then I'll take care of that," the man in black said, stepping towards the door. He paused for a moment, hovering on the verge of going outside, and finally added, "...And you?"

Namine hesitated, then turned to him and smiled again, less sad this time. "Sure," she said agreeably.

"Bring that to the White Room," DiZ said, distastefully, as if the White Room was not a place where anyone would voluntarily venture. "It is time for Namine to show him some more of her dreams."

"...yes," Namine agreed softly. "It's getting late, after all."

The man in black lingered a beat longer with nothing to say, and then turned to head up the stairs.

"Thank you," she called after him as he left, "Riku."