Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and Hunchback of Notre Dame aren't my property.

* * *

Set

* * *

Paris burned. Just as expected, the rain had been only a brief interlude in which those neutral in the conflict could escape to the lands beyond. Now only the diehards, the devout men and women who had grown up in the most beautiful city in the country and who had no children to worry for the safety of, remained behind. Though scattered and disorganized at first, they would not allow the prolonged siege on their homeland to continue without resistance.

Likewise, the soldiers charged with enforcing the new plan to flush out the elusive gypsy girl could now bid farewell to the misgivings of many amongst their number who had been reluctant to risk harming children or older citizens merely caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The brutes among them had had their proverbial leashes let loose, the men who either stood by their oaths no matter how distasteful, and far worse, the men who actually enjoyed it. Discreet as they were deadly, Nobodies prowled the streets looking for victims driven from their homes, and though Sora and Ramza worked hard to stave them off at every turn, they could not save everyone.

Paris burned. With every jaunt from the dwindling safety of the cathedral's bell tower, the two saw more structures around the border precincts crumble into blackened wood and dust. Townsfolk watched and whispered as Ramza Beoluve, infuriated by their helplessness, eventually lashed out at his younger ally and left to find his own solution. Prayers were made. Fires were stifled by Blizzard magic and started anew by soldiers after their foes had left. Hopeful rumors surfaced of a delegation who had gone to the king for help, yet others said they had been turned away. Instead, the onus for their anguish gradually shifted towards the single girl who had inadvertently brought all this about. Esmerelda, the one whose capture could end all their suffering. What was one life compared to thousands, after all? Search parties were formed, and it was not long before the handful of stealthy parlor magicians slinking through the ruin learned to avoid the disgruntled rebels as cleanly as the soldiers.

And still Paris burned.

* * *

Of the many bloody battles Ramza Beoluve had fought in the name of justice and God, many of those had also been battles he hadn't expected until the very moment swords were drawn. Whether it was a well-planned ambush or some splinter faction with a grudge attacking him in a place where no combat had been anticipated, he had learned the hard way that a soldier had to always remain on guard in case of an attack, even in one's own home domicile.

So when the unmistakable sight of Minister Frollo's carriage rode into view, he did not waste time in fleeing from it, nor in preparing to perform a task he hadn't thought to do for another day at least. "You had your chance, your honour", the young noble whispered to himself ironically from behind a tailor's shop that had not yet been demolished by Frollo's wrath. "Now you reap what you've sown, if only so that this country may know the most primitive kind of justice."

Climbing to the roof, and bringing out a crossbow from his pack that he'd purchased only this morning, he would have an open view of the Minister the moment he left the protective enclosure of the carriage. Stopping in the square, he was conferencing with the unit leaders he'd left in the main city, their armored bodies denying him a clear shot, though he offered thanks to various Gods that he hadn't been spotted lying prone on the rooftop yet.

"We've checked everywhere, m'lord", one of the Lieutenants was saying just loud enough for Ramza to hear. "There's nowhere left for her to hide. She is not within this city."

Frollo paused for only a moment, then casually backhanded the overconfident soldier. "Impossible. She would not leave the city. Not when she learned what we've been doing. No, the highest likelihood was that she was hiding in the so-called 'Court of Miracles'. I had hoped that this campaign would have finally exposed that wretched place, but now...", he stalked over towards one of the destroyed structures, crumpling the report in frustration.

Now. Having wandered a distance away from the soldiers, with his back turned to the tailor's shop, Frollo at last presented a target. Starting on his graying hair, Ramza slowly angled his sights downwards to the Minister's spine. The youngest Beoluve drew the bowstring taut with practiced ease. A proper shot would penetrate his dishonorable heart from back to front, leaving him to bleed out onto the cobblestones of the city he had terrorized. And now... goodbye, your majesty.

Frollo began to turn just as the arrow flew, but that should not have made much of a difference, never mind knock the projectile aside and into a shipping crate. Ramza blinked, rose, then blinked again, at once unsure of what he'd just seen. Impossible. That shot was dead-on; I could feel it. Looking down at the guards in the square, he saw what seemed to be a miracle for Frollo followed by a smaller one for him; none of the soldiers had noticed the arrow sitting atop the crate, or heard the wind-whistling noise that indicated a well-strung bow and a user well-accustomed to putting arrows in eyes and throats. All the same, he had been prepared to break and run. Only now he wasn't required to because something had somehow deflected his arrow!

Calm, he instructed himself upon feeling his frustration grow. There must be a reason. Maybe he has some kind of magical protection. Whatever the case, a second arrow would only be tempting fate. Instead he sat back and watched the Minister stalk back towards the cathedral, watching closely for signs of such a barrier.

"It was all so simple when she was trapped in here", Frollo was musing in genuine-seeming regret to a Lieutenant. "We had every entrance guarded, did we not? Men at every door and alley?"

"We did, sir", the Lieutenant offered. "No one came in or out of the cathedral that night without us checking them."

"There was no possible way she could have escaped", Frollo echoed back hollowly. "Unless..."

Unless?

"Unless?", the Lieutenant repeated back quizzically.

Staring up at the cathedral's mighty towers, Frollo made a move into absolute calmness, actually handing the soldier his plush black hat. "A moment, Lieutenant. There's something I need to check on. Alone."

Oh crap.

* * *

Delita Hyral drifted through a chaotic land of dreams, dimly aware of his situation but unable to do anything about it. In one sliver of mind's eye vision he was eating deliciously sweet corn of the kind the Beoluve family chef used to make for them, the next he was standing there with a sword rammed through his guts and out the other end, Sora holding onto it and grinning with Algus' most devilish face. The next it was he who was performing murder, striking down a priest he did not recognize before the corpse transformed into that of his sister's.

No, he told himself, trying to steady himself against the whirlwind of images and feelings. It wasn't a sword. It was an arrow. Yes. That was it. Someone had shot him with an arrow. There had been fire, and then water. Blood and anguish. Darkness, then light and light-headedness. He willed both eyelids open the second he could feel them again.

He was in some kind of stone pantry, covered in a thin blanket and a gauze pouch beneath that to stem the wound that was so dangerously close to his heart. Sitting up, he immediately realized that there was little beyond the wooden flooring he rested upon but a long drop to the floor below, with only the ceiling beams walkable. Only the dimmest rays of light reached him from the windows, telling him that he'd been out of action for almost an entire day if not more.

He was about to stand and test how bad his wound was, when he heard frantic footsteps from below followed by a familiar voice: "My apologies, dear boy. I have been very busy as of late, and allowed our sessions to slip."

Delita scowled, eyes bulging. He could never forget the voice of the man who had gotten him where he was now, nor his upturned lip or nose, so very much like Algus... As tempting as it was to pounce on the object of his vengeance, he was still injured and weaponless, and did not know who's side this frenzied-seeming bellringer was on as he rushed to a dusty cabinet to fetch some food. Alternately hoping and dreading that Minister Frollo should look directly up and left from his seat on the lower floor, the ex-Captain crept back to simply watch and listen.

"Your home seems somewhat less... Organized than your usual. Has someone been bothering you?"

"Oh no, no, they weren't bothering- I mean, they didn't bother me. There was no one else here. Just me." There was an unmistakable feeling of dissonance with that second stammering voice. As ugly and animalistic as the hunchback of Notre Dame looked, he had a voice and manner like that of a child. A very, very frightened child, at that. One who was trying desperately to conceal a misdeed from a concerned parent.

"You're not eating, boy."

Though the hunchback remained out of his sight now, the scarfing noises were unmistakable. Unmoved by the act, the Minister sat up from his chair and strode over to a suprisingly detailed-looking town model, complete with a great many wooden duplicates of the peasant folk. Unable to hold his curiosity, Delita inched closer to make out a detailed brown piece that Frollo was suddenly examining with great interest.

"Isn't this one new?", Frollo asked fake-innocently as he ran fingers over the model. "It's awfully good. It reminds me very much of the... Gypsy girl."

A long pause answered, not a sound from Quasimodo though Delita knew his terror to be all-consuming. In a single motion as he spoke, Frollo brought the girl's model down on the table hard, impaling it on his long knife. "I know. You helped her ESCAPE. Now all of Paris is burning... Because of YOU."

So that's how she got out, Delita realized with a start. Frollo should have been more careful where he hid his dirty little secret. Of course, nothing could get him to admit that. Prior experiences combined with the fury the Minister was now unleashing on the subject of his wrath had taught Delita that Claude Frollo was a seasoned expert at deflecting blame, on par with a great many nobles. In the meantime, the hunchback was struggling to even whimper a reply; it was not hard for him to imagine the boy in tears. "She was kind to me, master."

Wrong answer. No longer content with only maiming the Esmerelda doll, Frollo turned his strength towards wrecking the entire display in a tempestuous wrath such as Delita had only ever felt within himself, not seen. "YOU IDIOT!!", he thundered, bringing down the mock-cathedral's walls with but one blow. "That wasn't kindness, it was cunning! She's a gypsy! Gypsies are not capable of real love! Think, boy! Think of your mother!"

Another long silence was his reward, and Frollo's voice dropped back to less biblical levels, though it had lost none of it's menace even as he attempted to sound gentle with his pitifully cringing pupil. "...But, what chance would a poor boy like you have against her heathen treachery? Never fear, Quasimodo. She'll be out of both our lives soon enough... I know where her hideout is now. Very soon, this will all seem naught but a bad memory. Then the rebuilding can begin."

With that, he departed. The ex-Captain waited a good minute to ensure he was out of earshot before descending down to the hunchback's main floor. Pieces of models now littered the table, and the Esmerelda figurine lay burning near a candle, barely recognizable as the willful maiden who had stood up at the festival so long ago.

"You!", Quasimodo acknowledged as he looked up from the fires consuming his latest work of art. "Get out of here!" As he'd expected, the bellringer's eyes were swollen in grief, his hair a tangled mess and his cheeks a scarlet red from the recent abuse. Trying to ignore his pity instincts, Delita stared at the remnants of the doll with him. "You can't be serious, kid. You're going to just let Frollo waltz into the Court of Miracles and catch her?"

"I'd only make things worse", the hunchback told him glumly. "She can take care of herself."

"I thought you loved her!"

The jibe at least stopped his obsession with the figurine, and caused him to glare back at him. "Why do you care? No. It doesn't matter. Frollo is my master; I must obey him."

"The credo of the coward", Delita accused him in disdain, for the hunchback had struck an issue very close to his own heart. " 'Follow your orders, and don't question them. Kill who we tell you to. It won't be your fault, because we're the ones who ordered you to do it.' Pah! It's because of that mindset that this World's in the sorry shape it is, everyone just content to let the damned aristocrats decide for them." Looking about the belfry, he saw no sign of his weapon. "Now then, show me where you hid my sword; maybe you'rewilling to let Frollo slaughter innocent people, but I'm not."

Quasimodo wordlessly walked over to the pantry where the food was, lifting aside a board at the back to pull Delita's sword free. "You're not the only one who's asked me this, Captain", he claimed as Hyral hitched the holster's handle back onto the latch on his belt, testing to make sure it wouldn't fall. "I saw their faces at the festival, just as you saw mine. It's going to be a long time yet before I'm going to risk going through that horror again."

Unmoved, he took back the tunic he'd worn beneath his now-lost golden armor, thankfully feeling only a twinge of pain as it pressed the gauze tigher against his wound. Hopefully it wouldn't prove a nuisance at a critical moment. He regarded the hunchback with pity now, not anger. "Then you allow your fear to control you, and place at risk one of the only people who accepts you for who you are. As to your 'duty', I think you have a madman, not a master."

And so, he now departed as well.

Alone. Again.

Quasimodo knew he was alone. For some odd reason, his other friends never appeared when he was with someone else, instead disguising themselves as motionless stone gargoyles. He could even hear the voices of his other friends echoing in his ears: encouragement, interest, witty commentary, praise. But for once, the eternally-bickering trio was united in a desire to see their friend go to save the wonderful woman who had broken so many of the bonds that held him capitve already.

"What am I supposed to do?", he demanded of the breeze, now eager to vent some of the anger he'd just been on the recieving end of. "Just what am I supposed to do?! Go down there, slay a dragon or two and rescue her so the WHOLE town will cheer and let flower petals rain down on the city? She has three good men to choose from. Ten. A hundred. A thousand. They're whole. Complete. Normal."

None of his friends answered. They were so... Quiet these days. The idea that they would speak up less now that he had friends outside the bell tower was not new to him, but still it frightened the bellringer to his very core. Heaving a great gasp in hopes of expelling the fear that held his legs, he gazed out over the city. The fires had returned in smaller numbers once the rain had stopped, with the highest concentrations not far from the cathedral. He could take to the rafters to escape the sight of it. Ring the bells as he'd done all his life. Crawl back into bed to forget his troubles and let all this terrifying madness resolve itself, in hopes that it would all be better in the morning.

Or he could fight this fear. He could tell without words which way his friends wanted him to go.

Scowling in contrast with their expectant faces, he reached for his large travel cloak. "I must be out of my mind."

* * *

"Alright", a thickly accented voice called out. "You can take off the blindfold now."

About time, Sora couldn't help thinking as his vision began to clear. Ignoring the fact that it had taken a fair amount of time to persuade Esmerelda to take him to her home in the first place, the trip had felt longer than a trip through the entirety of the Pridelands while blindfolded and tied up and unable to tell where exactly they were going. Worse, no one had dared speak a word for fear of giving them away.

He had not exactly expected a paradise, but as his vision cleared and the ropes loosened he felt deflated. Little more than a vast collection of colorful tents, the orange-bricked, underground vault that Esmerelda's people ironically named the Court of Miracles seemed inappropriately small and shabby compared to the incredible structures he'd seen in the rest of the city. "It's not much", Esmerelda cut in, echoing his own thoughts, "but it's home. And no soldier will ever find us here. Consider yourself privilieged- I'm sure Clopin's going to yell at me for bringing you here later."

Standing, he considered the people milling around him in similarly colorful garments, far more of them than he'd seen managing the festival or during the exodus. It was, after all, the people who made a town- and by association a World- what it was, not impressive architecture such as the Palace of Justice or the cathedral. Esmerelda were sitting off to one side with two men, one of them holding Sora's blindfold while Djali absently butted the stranger's legs. "Didn't you say Clopin was the one who first organized all this?", he asked curiously.

She nodded. "That's right, Sora. When we first met. I'm surprised you remembered that with all you've been through lately. I'm not positive, but it was around twenty years ago- after a high-profile gypsy murder - when he and several of the other leaders first got the idea that we would need a safe haven if the clergy's movement to destroy us kept building power the way it was back then. Unfortunately, he's the only one of the founding members of the Court who is still alive today."

"I'm sorry", Sora blurted out. "I just find it kind of hard to believe this has been going on since before I was even born."

"Don't be", she consoled him. "I wasn't born when they started this either. It's not just gypsies, of course. Anyone who is unfairly persecuted by the church or the nobility is welcome here in the Court of Miracles, so long as they take an oath of secrecy, and avoid travelling outside without a chaperone for their first two years."

"And no one's found you out yet?"

She glanced over to a tent where a man was reading a book aloud to several orphans. Sora followed her gaze. "We have our ways, as I'm sure you've noticed. I grew up learning most of my trade here, under Clopin and Lady Relena."

"Right", Sora nodded, reminded of his mission. "Speaking of, do you know when he'll be able to receive us?"

"Soon, I hope", she replied, gesturing to a large turquoise tent with gold strings and various emblems. "Just please stay quiet until he's ready to help you. This is a very sensitive issue for him. Be impatient or rude, and he just might turn you into a toad."

"Um... Got it." He hoped she was kidding.

Sure enough, the gypsy leader Clopin was already engaged in multiple simultaneous conversations with his subordinates, as they stepped into the tent. Each one wore robes of different color hiding most of their faces from casual observation. Above, a collection of a dozen silver bells on ribbons occasionally punctuated the clamor with a ring from someone brushing against them. Behind the jester, a great many pouches of unknown materials lay without labels, the majority of it seeming to be various powders and tonics.

Dealing with so many other people did not do a thing to cloud the jester's unmasked eyes, nor prevent him from rising from his stool and shrieking "Desole-e-e-e-e-e!" in the loudest voice Sora had ever heard him use. Just as it had when they first met however, the shout was not of rage but embarrassment. It only served to make the other gypsies back off as he lapsed into a torrent of crazed-sounding words Sora didn't know, only stopping when Esmerelda held up one slender finger to her lips.

Calmer now, Clopin shared one last gaze with each of his subordinates before propping both legs up on his circular tablecloth like an impudent schoolboy. "Apologies, gentlemen. We'll have to continue our business another time. If something comes up, speak to the purple frog." Some of them followed this advice and left his tent, but a few others lingered as Clopin folded his gloved hands into a steeple the height of his head. "So. Monsieur Sora. Mademoiselle Esmerelda tells me you are in dire need of knowing how the Lady Relena met her fate three years ago."

Seeing Esmerelda give him leave to speak, he nodded. "Everyone else is too scared to say much of anything", he explained slowly. "But I haveto know the truth before I move on to another World; Aqua told me so. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to come back to this one after I leave it, since I don't have a Gummi ship with me. Please, Clopin. I have to find my friends. Any information you've got would help."

The jester's pallid eyes drooped in response, and for a moment he believed Clopin had put himself to sleep somehow rather than answer his question. Finally, he rose. "It would be best, monsieur Sora, for you to witness that for yourself." Sidling over to the left rack, he removed one of the pouches and pulled its drawstring. Though it looked the same as all the others to Sora, some of the lingering gypsies regarded the powder with concern and suspicious mutterings. Clearly, not all of them were as trusting of the spikey-haired stranger as Esmerelda.

Dancing about the tent with some of his usual jovial energy, Clopin released a handful of the powder into the outstretched palms of everyone present. "I thought so. More of us here should make it easier", Esmerelda whispered once she'd recieved her allotment of powder, moving in beside Sora as they formed a loose circle and joining hands with him. "When he signals you, crush the powder."

Still not quite comprehending what all this ceremony was about, he waited until the candles had been put out and Clopin began to turn his own powder into gaseous form, crushing it all with one tightening of the palms as if making a snowball, all while reciting more incantations the Keyblade master could not understand. Around the circle, the others followed suit, followed closely by Sora and Esmerelda. "Breathe in", Clopin intoned, for once all business in this ritual. "Close your eyes, and turn your minds back to that day, three years ago. Farlem..."

Sora might have waited one, two, even five minutes for a result while breathing in the vapor, but he was not disappointed. When his eyes could not longer stand being scrunched tight, he opened them to realize that they were no longer in the tent, no longer in the Court of Miracles at all. They were back in Notre Dame square, untarnished by the fires and ransacking so recently visited upon it. However, just like now there were a great many soldiers about. Some were holding back an unruly crowd of peasants and some were slacking off, but the great majority of them were gathered around a large wooden stake that reached to the cathedral's second floor, surrounded by jagged pieces of wood that they were lumping together in a rising pile.

In the center of that pile, tied to the stake, a voluptuous woman in gypsy tunics of rose and white lay roped tight with a black zipper hood obscuring her face however much she thrashed against it. Right on cue, Minister Frollo arrived in his carriage and all the slackers hurried back to their posts even as the crowd became even more desperate to break through the protective cordon.

"Horrible", was all he could think to comment, only then realizing that the rest of the circle still had their eyes shut in concentration, with Esmerelda steadfastly refusing to let go of his hand. She could, however, talk to him. "Don't move", she warned him wistfully. "This is a memory. It already happened. Nothing you do can change it." Demonstrating her point, a soldier then walked directly through him to present Frollo with an unlit brazier. The Minister had changed very little over three years, though his skin still bore a light shade of pink instead of the deathly gray hues Sora knew it would become. He grimly stepped right through their circle, towards the stake and the woman bound to it.

"Citizens of Paris!", Frollo announced commandingly over the din of angry accusations the crowd now hurled at him. Strangely, the people of the city seemed more opposed to him than they were in the present time. "We are gathered here today to exorcise an unholy demon in our midst. By the authority granted to me by the will of our Lord, the gypsy witch Relena is hereby charged with practicing the forbidden satanic arts, teaching others those same arts, theft, seduction, drug trafficking, and impersonating a member of the clergy. How do you plead?"

Relena's response was muffled by the stifling hood, and Frollo beckoned one soldier forward to remove it, undoing the zipper. Yet even as he did so, the image began to slide out of focus, the remembered sounds fading away into random ones, and the sight of the long-dead woman's face banishing all other images including Frollo. Lost in unthinking, instinctive anger, Sora saw several of the gypsies in the circle fall back clutching their heads, but his attention was all for the face of Relena, even as his own mind twisted her face and hair into the garments, setting, and demeanor that he knew all too well from his own dark nightmares. He could even hear her laughter, her voice, that cloying, sadistically amused voice that served only to mask a depthless cruelty towards others...

So you are really are a hero. A Heartless hero.

Oh, does that hurt because it's the truth?

Did you forget? I'M a bad guy, so you'll have to go through me!

Heeheeheehee... You're so much fun to watch!

Oh well. More pain for you means more fun for me!

"Mon dieu", Clopin finally managed as he stood up in the tent again, the fastest of the gypsies to recover from the nightmare vision assaulting their minds. "What was that all about?"

"That woman is not Relena!", Sora answered him, eyes stretched wide with fury and shock of his own that only grew as he sank deeper into a tide of painful memories. "She's Larxene!"

* * *

Justice is swift in the Court of Miracles

I am the lawyers and judge all in one

We like to get the trial over with quickly

Because it's the sentence that's really the fun

* * *

M: Not sure how much of a reveal this is, given that you've had plenty of hints and another story was published recently with Larxene's original self as 'Ralene'. Bad timing, that's all. All the same, I'd really appreciate some feedback or commentary now, if only to insure I'm not writing at thin air. Plus I think I like the next character the best so far, so drop me a line.