"Your hands are bleeding." Marluxia finally said. He and Zexion had been walking through cornfields for the better part of the time they had been in the world, and nothing had been exchanged between them thusfar. But the silence was overwhelming, and he was getting tired of Zexion attempting to wipe his palms on the drying, crinkling fronds as he walked through them. The stains they left behind were too obvious for it to be becoming of the schemer. A little pathetic, really.
"I must have scraped them."
"If you die because of some infection..."
Zexion let a cropped sigh from his nose, changing the subject. "Just how do you know where to find us? There are many worlds and universes. How do you track down the remnants of our order?"
"I don't." He pressed two fingers against the shard that bounced against his chest as he walked. "This does."
"It is a detector?" The schemer was absolutely nonplussed. "What, does it light up and flash or something?"
Ironically, Marluxia was equally displeased with this assumption. "No. To know how the Shard works, you need to know how the worlds are connected. This is something our science bypassed as Nobodies, because it didn't apply to us…but worlds are connected as a web. Without darkness, we cannot jump as far as we used to. Instead, we must travel along a certain prescribed thread with prescribed branches. A world could theoretically have only two or three branches, or as many as ten or twelve."
Drinking in the explanation, Zexion stepped over tree limbs and pushed past brambles, trying not to trip. "So…if the worlds are branched, how does this 'shard' know which way to go? Isn't it just random and futile?"
"No," he quickly said. "There is a 'resonance' that happens within each of us. This resonance has to do with the world we were killed in, and the fact that we were all thrown across the universes at the same time. The shard picks up on this resonance (as it is the same reverberation for it, too), and as I move across the web of worlds, it will always choose the world that brings it closer to another reverberation. So I am always moving closer to a world with a remnant member…it's just a matter of searching for them on each world. Obviously this web is large…you're the first one I've found."
Zexion eyes him curiously. "You know quite a lot…"
"I've been searching for three years. I've come across a lot of 'evidence' to support my 'hypothesis,' as Vexen would say…"
So Marluxia really does miss him, Zexion thought. It was strange to think about, surely. He didn't want to think of the assassin as a changed man, though it was becoming harder and harder not to. Of course he hadn't changed; he was still the Cloaked Schemer, minus the cloak. He was still just as he always was, never even missed afternoon tea. Just like he and Lexaeus always did at 3:30 sharp. Sometimes he fancied that Lexaeus, wherever he was, was having tea in some other universe at the exact same time.
The big hand that clenched around the teacup was still for a moment, two moments. The man was staring off into the corner of the room, feeling a little numb at the moment. Cold tea was all that was in the cup by now.
"What do you make of it?" His companion chimed up from across the table. "Thomas?"
Lexaeus looked up, used to answering to that name by now. But he was a quiet man by nature, and simply shrugged in response, finally setting the tea down to the china. "What do I think about the riot? I think it is unfortunate…"
"No," the man across the table gestured with a heavy hand in the direction of the bruise that was taking on a nasty yellow color upon Lexaeus' temple. "The fact that that Luft kid had the goddamn guts to hit you. I mean, come on. He was just a scrawny kid, one of them newsboys…you're an officer, Thomas. And you didn't even do a goddamn thing about it."
True, Lexaeus was one powerful specimen of a man. He was built like someone who had spent his lifetime hammering railroad spikes into the ground nonstop. And part of his strength he was just born with—large hands, wide shoulders, tall frame. And a square jaw that hardened into a rigid line when he was deep in thought.
"They're just children," he said at length. "I don't feel…comfortable."
"They're brats—their riot isn't a worker's riot, it's a children's riot. They don't wanna sell newspapers no more, they don't gotta. N' they be causing trouble up Brooklyn, too. And then look at you: not even moving as an eleven-year old kid beats you over the head with a stick…"
One finger found its way up to press against the bruise. It made a white, burning color flash behind his eyes. Lexaeus couldn't say anything to refute the fact that he had refused to hit the boy back. Not only was he hesitant to use violence in the first place, but the fact that when he looked into Arthur Luft's face, he saw a flash of Zexion behind those rebellious, prepubescent eyes made it impossible for him to even lift a finger.
He pulled his cap down over his forehead to hide the bruise.
