So it's finally back after a long hiatus. For those who have been waiting so long for the next chapter, I'm incredibly sorry for making you wait. Circumstances such as exams and Cracks of the Past made it difficult to concentrate on two fics at once, plus I had to rethink certain things about where I wanted this story to go. I'll say this much, the story may become M rated soon and you'll see why in this chapter. With that said, enjoy!

Chapter X

Senses

Radiant Garden

-Unknown's PoV-

Heavy uneven breathing could be heard as the young woman suddenly came to a stop. Of course she had nowhere left to go what with her destination having led her to an alleyway with a dead end. She had barely even registered where she was going as she ran from the people who had been chasing her, no, people wasn't exactly the correct terminology to describe what she had been running from. It was more like they were monsters, three in total, and even now she could hear their footsteps closing in, slow and casual but each one bringing the impending sense of doom nonetheless.

How had she gotten herself in this situation, one may ask? She really hadn't, it was more like the situation had found her. It was dark and usually like any other night off. It wasn't a school night, so she had wanted to go out with her friends and have fun. After she had, she went back home, using the exact same route she had always done, except that something was different tonight. Maybe it was the chilly air pressing against her skin and making her hairs stand up, or maybe a thought had just manifested her mind that she would never usually think of, the thought of being alone on an empty street with nothing to stop anyone from attacking her. Well the thought had become a reality.

Her body flinched upon hearing the sound of metal scraping against brick. It was slow and deliberate, interrupting the once silent night sky. It approached. The closer it was the louder it became, but she still could not yet see the figure in full, only shadow.

Halfway down the road she had stopped quickly to take off her high heels before continuing on down the road at a faster pace. Still, it was clear that her assailant was faster and eager to claim their prize. They could have caught up to her at any point, she knew that, but instead they had chosen to play with her, possibly out of some sick twisted sense of amusement. In her mind she must have been aware that her chances of escape were slim but if she could have any hope at all, it was that her assailant's sadistic tendencies would somehow work in her favor and allow her to get away. It was these thoughts, no matter how fanciful they may have seemed, which kept her running.

And yet these hopes evaporated as soon as she had come across the dead end. She turned around and backed herself into the wall, tears flowing out of her eyes. The sound of a cleaver being gnawed throughout the night entered her ears once again. All she could think to do was let out one final scream in hopes that anyone would hear and come to her, but she knew that too was unlikely because even if they were able to hear the scream, they would not be able to make it on time.

The figure was now exposed. He was balding man with a look of greed on his face, and though he may have looked human, his eyes were more monster than man. Furthermore, his white vest was coated in crimson stains. She didn't exactly need to have a creative imagination to figure out how these stains came about.

The man let out a cackle that slowly transformed into insane laughter and moved towards her slowly. Sweat formed on the woman's palms from having clutched the handle of her handbag tightly. With nothing to lose, the woman rushed forward and slammed her handbag into the side of the man's head with as much force as she could muster. A deafening smack was heard as the heavy contents of her bag impacted with the man's right temple. His neck seemed to twist at an odd angle along with his head and for a moment he remained frozen in this position. The woman attempted to run past him but the man stuck out his arm suddenly, blocking her from getting past. His neck twisted back slowly to meet her and he greeted her with a maniacal grin. The woman's pupils grew in horror and she let out another scream.

Her shrill yells were shortly silenced.

The butcher laid his hand over his piece of work and gave a satisfied lick of the lips. He ran his hands up and down clearly undecided about something. Finally he settled on a particular part, moved in slowly, and grazed his teeth against the dead woman's leg.

"Hasn't anyone told you not to be picky with your food? We even went out of our way to chase this one. The least you could do is eat the entire thing," said one of the butcher's associates walking up from behind him. He was a tall man with shades, cool and calm with little seeming to bother him. The only possible hint as to the man's true nature lay in the scar under his bottom lip.

"She gave quite the fight. Interesting how she thought swinging a handbag would make you flinch and retreat. Humans are so fascinating," said another associate, a woman this time. Her long, dark wavy hair and green eyes with a seductive gaze gave the impression of a classic beauty, perhaps too beautiful a woman for a town that favored simple. She was currently engaging her curiosity in the woman's handbag, taking each item out and inspecting it. "They indulge in the most trivial of things as well. This girl's diary is full of stories about her and some boy. I might even have a little fun with him."

"You do realize why we're here, yes?" asked the man with the scar while watching as the butcher devoured away at his meal.

"Of course I do. No reason I can't have a bit of fun while I'm here though. It's not every day Master sends us to the human world," answered the temptress. "The question I want to know is why send us to find this Xehanort. What's so important about him that Master would take interest in a human?"

"It is not our place to question His orders. His will is absolute. That said, I have observed species and I can't say I find much interest in them myself. When they are but children the cry and complain when they do not have their way. As they grow, their hypocritical values start to become more apparent. They start to hate and war amongst each other for petty things. It's… pathetic, to say the least."

"Is that so? I find them quite interesting actually. I've seen them forced to commit horrendous atrocities when faced with the possible extinction of themselves or their loved ones. It has even driven some to insanity. What I don't understand is the Master's attachment to this one out of all of them. He must be incredibly special."

"Anyone want some? I've left the torso intact for you," the butcher said in between snickers.

The man with the scar frowned. "Not hungry, and even if I were I'd never be so desperate as to gauge on Hume meat, unlike you."

"And I'm a vegan. Looks like you get her all to yourself," added the woman.

"As if anyone's ever heard of a vegan demon, hehehehe. Fine, more for me then," the butcher wiped the current blood from his mouth only to replace it with new blood as he tore into the rest of her body.

The woman shrugged. "They always told me I was the avant-garde hellraiser."

-Larxene's POV-

It was strange how the perception of one thing could be different depending on whether a person could feel or not. For Larxene, Radiant Garden had once been a town where she had gone on the most basic of missions for the Organization, collecting hearts and the occasion scouting missions before returning to the castle. For all the time she had spent retrieving information of the place, she had never taken the time to feel it. It sounded weird to think such a thing but now that she had regained her heart she was beginning to see something that she had missed out on.

She first took notice of the breeze, her lips curling into a smile as she took note of the sensation of the feeling: cool and refreshing, it brought back memories of her childhood, sitting underneath the only apple tree of Twilight Town and feeling the howl of the blustery wind singing in collaboration with the green leaves above her.

Even through the light breeze the sun was warm enough to tickle Larxene's face. This sun, which brought its radiance down on all of life, even to those who may not have deserved it… she had read something like that in one of her books but had never really understood it as a Nobody. It made Larxene conflicted. Although she wished she could maintain these feelings, she knew that she had nowhere to belong to now and no home to go back. She was on her own in what she had thought had become a familiar world only for it to have become unfamiliar upon her gaining a heart.

Of course she had thought of staying with Mr Morris for a while longer. Her original intention had been to wait in Twilight Town until she could locate Marluxia or someone else familiar (and though she was reluctant to admit this, even Demyx would have made her happy). As the days passed however, Larxene had become increasingly exasperated and soon realized that it would simply not do to just wait for something to happen. Her best course of action would be to head for the area which was most likely to play host to any revived members of the Organization, and so it came to be that she had arrived at Radiant Garden, in search of friends who were not really friends but was termed such as the result of a desperate hope.

Once again on her way through the town she spotted kids playing, jumping around in puddles made by recently fallen rain. This seemed to be a recurring theme as of late and something that had exasperated Larxene greatly. She didn't even want to start thinking about how much she hated kids, the little cockroaches they were, who, in her mind, resembled unfinished works of art. She would have said that the world would have been so much better without kids but then again, she was once a kid herself. She couldn't have even imagined having them one day even before she had become a Nobody and had lost her reproductive organs. She assumed now that she had a heart however that she had regained them.

And then one of them missed their kick of the ball and the object rolled across the street eventually stopping at Larxene's feet.

"Hey ma'am, do you think you could pass the ball back this way?" Larxene froze on the spot as she heard the question uttered her way. She tried to move her muscles but they chose to ignore her calling. She even tried replying back to the children but the words wouldn't come. On one hand she generally wanted to make these kids' lives miserable by bursting their ball with one of her kunai but such an action would likely paint her as an antagonist in an unfamiliar world. The end product of this was a mere nod of the head and kicking the ball back to its owners rather clumsily. "Thank you!" The kids yelled appreciatively before returning to their game. Larxene's muscles relaxed and she breathed in a little too much causing her to cough. What had just happened? Now she knew that she wasn't good with children but literally freezing on the spot was just ridiculous.

"That was weird," Larxene admitted before continuing on. Perhaps she just didn't feel like being a disruptive force in children's enjoyment today. That's what she would have liked to have thought anyway but maybe having a heart was changing her more than she thought it would have when she had been a Nobody.

It was as if two forces were pushing against each other inside her, fighting for control. She felt dizzy all of a sudden. She leaned against and nearby wall and closed her eyes, blocking out the Sun's rays. She was thinking too much about this, and it was only natural, she supposed. It had been as if a dam had broken in her mind and a flood of memories had poured through without resistance. She had suddenly remembered her past life and why she had been all too glad to be rid of her memories.

She finally opened her eyes again and looked at the alley opposite her. It had been an alley much like this in Twilight Town. One renowned for its strange mysteries though really amongst her peers Larxene had been the only one growing up to still believe in these wonders. She had walked down the alley, placing her hand on each brick as she did so, hoping to find something, anything.

What she found instead was a strange creature, small and black with beady yellow eyes and antennae facing the opposite way from her own which fell backwards. It didn't seem hostile despite its slightly scary appearance. She bent down and patted the creature on the head, watching in amusement as the creature's antennae twitched in reaction to her touch. Its texture was smooth, like that of a carpet and Larxene couldn't help but fall in love with it. To her, it was alone, just like her.

She took off her backpack and delved into it, searching for the leftover food that she hadn't had the chance to eat earlier. She finally found her sandwich and broke it into small pieces before holding it out, but it seemed that the creature had something else entirely in mind other than food, or at least the kind Larxene provided. The next thing she knew, the creature had attached itself to her head and she could see only darkness for the next few seconds, and then nothingness.

And now she was witnessing another horrific event take place for the second time in an alleyway. As she reached its dead end, the stinking putrid smell of blood and guts ensnared her nostrils. The smell was strong, not like anything she had ever encountered before. She had taken biology class and had even dissected a couple of animals. She had reluctantly looked at and smelled each organ as she carefully cut each part away from their container. Even less reluctantly had she read several books with gory descriptions during her time as a Nobody, but this was nothing like the literature she had come across.

Pieces of flesh lay scattered on the ground; dark crimson painted the walls unevenly and… was that an intestine?

Larxene stumbled backwards, her spell of dizziness intensifying by the second. Finally she could take it no longer. It was a very uncharacteristic thing of her but she could no longer hold it in. A sour smell entered her nose. She looked down to see the food she had eaten hours before on the ground.