CHAPTER X
Only Shattered
(NOTE)
You all know how much I like to spew out characters, don't you? Well get ready for this chapter. As far as the last one, pay close attention because it's going to twist the plot in a whole new direction for a couple of chapters. Disclaimer, I don't own anything because my daddy won't buy me Kingdom Hearts. But I do own the Ocs.
Quince: Uhm, you don't own me.
Me: I can dream, can't I?
Igor Lollipop: pulls Quince out by the ear
(/NOTE)
"Imagine," a young girl with dishwater blonde hair spoke into nothing. Nessa stood behind her in Neverland, invisible to all around her except Roxas and the girl. Her eyes seemed almost darker than Nessa's, but she looked more like a normal girl. She wore glasses, a shirt and skirt, and slouched a little where she stood, "if you could give the Nobodies a body of their own, and the Heartless a heart." she was smiling behind overgrown bangs, and turned around to face Nessa.
"Who...?"
"It'd be great, wouldn't it?" she laughed. The girl sighed as she looked at the ground, "Without a Nobody, though..." Her head lifted back up to meet Nessa in the eyes. They looked very similar, Nessa only with lighter hair and eyes... eyes that had seen too much too young. Nessa's posture was that of a hero, and the girl's was that of a normal, teenage student's. In a way, Nessa was envious of the girl without even meeting her before.
"A Nobody?" asked Nessa, trying to pick out small differences between the two of them. Maybe the other girl's lips were fuller, and her skin less perfect. Maybe her voice was a little deeper. There wasn't much else.
"I've lived," she said, ignoring another statement from Nessa, "for sixteen years without a Nobody, without a Heartless," she stopped, and her eyes drifted towards Nessa's torso, "without a Heart."
Nessa's eyes widened, "You're my Almost Somebody?" It would make more sense than anything if she was.
"I guess," she laughed, and put her hand to her chest, "I'm the Heartless now." she scratched the upper part of her head, "At least I got something."
Roxas stared at this patiently, everybody around him wondering what was going on, and Peter Pan becoming more impatient by the second.
"I thought I was living a normal life," she laughed, "I was sent to Azure Daybreak by Marluxia... an alternate Azure Daybreak... where I had a family and friends. Charity... but up until a year ago, I've been in The World that Never Was. Waiting for Marluxia to come back, waiting for an explanation. And now..."
Nessa felt something at the pit of her stomach. Guilt, was it?
"That's what happened to me." Roxas mumbled, recalling the days that he 'remembered' as being Hayner, Pence, and Olette's best friend, doing everything with them. All it turned out to be was him being sent to an alternate Twilight Town by DiZ to prevent him from going to find Sora while his memories were being restored.
The girl laughed, "A whole year I've been watching you. Captured by that pathetic excuse for a new Organization, fallen into the darkness, and I laugh. I laugh because you went through all of this and you had no idea for your whole life that you were only a Nobody...!" She laughed louder, but it seemed fake and forced. Nessa should have felt afraid of this girl, but she felt sorrow and pain just from watching her. She wondered if she felt anything without a heart. "But sometimes," she stopped, "I cry. I cry because you're living the life I should have been."
"But, why can't...?"
"Why can't I go with you?" asked the girl, "Somehow I'd rather see you wander lost in the Darkness. Once a Nobody with a heart has her heart tainted, she doesn't come out until her 'Almost Somebody' returns to her, right?" she asked. She received no answer from the girl, "Almost..."
"Sada, that's enough." Marluxia appeared next to her.
"Marluxia!" Roxas gasped. The rest of the group looked around for a minute, their eyes distracted from the scene.
"Where?!" asked Sora.
"He's over here!" Roxas said, "Right... he's probably invisible to you right now."
"Show yourself!" Kairi demanded, receiving nothing in response. She felt utterly stupid after this little scene.
"I'm not through with her!" the girl named Sada hissed. She did not scowl at Nessa, but simply looked at her, defenseless looking.
"Sada, we have to go. Any more contact with this girl might send you two together." Marluxia urged her.
"If you insist on living it," she finished as she turned towards the black portal that Marluxia had recently summoned, "Take better care of it." Sada and Marluxia disappeared inside of the black abyss of a portal, and Nessa looked down at her own feet.
"Take better care of it?" she asked herself, and looked up at Roxas, "I'm never getting out of this place, am I?" she asked.
Roxas sighed. He lived almost a half-life between the Dark realm and Sora's life; not belonging much in either one. "You will." he reassured her, although he wasn't all that sure himself.
"Will what?" asked Peter Pan, getting very irritated by this time.
"Nothing, let's go." Roxas suggested. Sora nodded, and led his way through the ship with Peter by his side.
xxxxx
"I told you, you can't see her. In order to make her a new member of the Organization you can't get near her." Marluxia growled at Sada, who was now crossing her arms and looking upward at the ceiling of the ship.
"Somehow I think I would have rather lived that fake life at Azure Daybreak." she muttered, but laughed slightly to herself, "They think it's been destroyed..."
"Sada, listen to me," he mumbled, and Sada looked up at the man, "They're still after unlocking Kingdom Hearts. They're sure that once they do, all of their problems will be over. They don't know that whether or not the Dark and Light wielders are neutralized, the Heartless will never stop coming and worlds can never stop being unlocked. This is because Kingdom Hearts is a state of mind. It's what you make it."
Sada nodded, "I know, and since there are heartless people in every world, even if they think they've destroyed them, they'll keep coming, yadda yadda yadda. But what does this have to do with my Nobody?"
Marluxia sighed, "Having her in the Organization, we can mess with their minds. They'll break seconds after we do."
Sada sighed, "I wish no misfortune upon my Somebody," she admitted, trying to sound important, "I want my life back."
"And once Kingdom Hearts is unlocked, the worlds will be restored, whether or not they were permanently gone, and Azure Daybreak will be back." he told her.
"I don't get it. I thought we don't want them to unlock Kingdom Hearts." Sada threw out.
"We don't want them unlocking Kingdom Hearts," he smiled darkly, "we want them dead."
Sada laughed only slightly and adjusted her glasses, "Whatever it takes to go back home." She looked out the window of the ship and across the long, raging sea. "Just to go back home."
xxxxx
"Nothing." Sora mumbled as they checked the last room around them. It seemed like each one was swarming with Light and Dark wielders, all of which they tried their hardest to avoid, even though they all seemed like they thought they were fighting them.
"There's still the captain's room left." Peter suggested, determined.
"There? I'm not too sure." Nessa said to herself and Roxas.
"Nessa isn't too sure about going in there." Roxas told them.
"I swear, it sounds like you're talking to an imaginary friend." Kairi laugh, "It's funny. But why does Nessa think that?"
"She says... the captain's 'anything' in a Pirate movie is always off-limits."
"That's Nessa alright." Charity laughed. She tried to smile at where she thought Nessa might be. Missing her by a mile whether or not, Nessa smiled back at her.
"We don't have another choice." Sora stated. He suddenly felt a pressure in his pocket, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he shouted, and looked down.
There was Mr. Smee, holding the keychain of The Blue Hour. Obviously unable to speak a word, he threw it behind him and begged Sora not to hurt him. Not to Peter's surprise at all, Captain Hook was standing in front of his cabin, smiling evily.
"And now I shall give this to its rightful owner, Marluxia!" he laughed.
"Since when are you in on it with Marluxia?" asked Kairi, surprised at how much she sounded like Sora at that very moment. She was obviously hanging around him too much.
"Since he offered me a brand new ship!" he laughed.
"Wow." Peter said. He shook his head, and then took out his specialty sword, "Bring it on!" he offered to him, only making the captain steamier.
xxxxx
"The power of the Nobodies!" Estelle exclaimed. Axel, in the meantime, only watched from the sidelines, and if a careless Light or Dark wielder ever tried to kill him they would be down in seconds.
"And what a power it is." he murmured, his own fingers flickering with fire as he tried to pass the time.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Estelle, momentarily taking her eyes off of the battle.
"Nothing," Axel sighed, "but don't be surprised if you ever feel empty."
Estelle raised an eyebrow.
"The more you're around Nobodies, the emptier you feel. Simple as that." he murmured, "Unless, of course, it's your Nobody."
Estelle laughed, "I don't have a Nobody. I'm sure everything will be fine."
Axel laughed, "I'm sure. Too bad Sora and the others are going to unseal Kingdom Hearts before either side will win."
"What makes you so sure?" she wondered aloud, summoning a Berserker to go attack a Dark wielder as if she hadn't heard him the first time.
He smirked. "They have Roxas."
"What?" she asked, looking up at him.
He laughed lightly, "Nothing." Bending down and kissing her on the cheek, she stood there frozen as he disappeared into a dark portal.
"Wait!" she shouted angry, flustered, and confused. She just barely made it through the portal before it closed, leaving the Light wielders to get by on their strength instead of her Nobodies. She found herself in an odd house in a world that she had never been to. Standing around her were Axel, three men and two women, and a very old man who was dancing around like an idiot.
"That's Estelle." Axel told a man with blond hair, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall they were by.
"The Light wielder general?" he asked. Axel nodded.
Estelle growled, "So that was to lure me here?" she asked, looking at Axel.
He raised his hands in mock surrender, "Friends with benefits?"
Her face screwed up in anger, "Enemies with nothing!" Her Light keyblade appeared in her hand, and she ran towards Axel with all her strength. Axel refused to ready his chakram, but he did avoid almost every attack thrown at him.
xxxxx
"Peter Pan, surely I will not lose again!" Captain Hook laughed.
"I don't even get how you got out of that alligator!" Pan remarked, blocking yet another one of his jabs.
"It took persuasion," he responded, "I lived in there for a while eating its eggs and living as Ravello the Circus Master. I found my way out and put on my coat and suddenly remembered who I was!" Author's Note: For once, I'm not making somebody totally out of their mind. Read Peter Pan in Scarlet and you'll figure out what I'm talking about.
"Then I guess, goodbye, Ravello." he murmured both unnerved and disoriented as he knocked him off of the ship. The keychain practically jumped out of his hands and into Roxas's. Peter Pan totally expected him to arise back up as some Heartless, but surprisingly, he stayed in the water.
"It won't keep him away forever, but it should give us enough time to find Marluxia." Quince mumbled as he dangled his upper body off of the ship, taunting Captain Hook.
Kairi ran up to the door, and tried to open it. "Locked." she muttered.
"Kairi, have you forgotten already?" laughed Sora. He pointed Kingdom Key at the door handle, and the lock popped.
"Oh. Heh. Right." she said, smiling and flipping her hair back as they ran inside.
Unnerved by the sudden interruption, Marluxia and Sada both turned towards the door, although Sada was only visible to Nessa and Roxas.
"Marluxia!" Sora yelled, "Where's Nessa's Almost Somebody?"
"She's gone," Marluxia smiled, "I got rid of her."
"He's lying!" Roxas yelled.
"Shut up, thirteen!" he yelled, still quite used to calling him by his number. With a flick of his wrist, vines from what could have been a tree sprang out from the deck of the ship and wrapped themselves around Roxas's mouth, silencing him.
"Lying?" asked Kairi.
"Take a look around," he said, "she's not here, is she?"
"Well," Sora's face screwed up in concentration, "since she'd be an Almost Somebody, I guess we'd be able to see her."
"Exactly." Marluxia smiled.
Sada muttered darkly to herself, "Sure, Marluxia, tell them I'm destroyed so they'll give up on Nessa and she'll join the Organization. That'll work."
Quince found his fists clenching and his eyes firing up at this. He wasn't one to have a short temper, but this bubblegum-haired individual was really starting to mess with his sanity, "Don't lie to us! Where's Nessa's Almost Somebody?" he asked.
"A bit hot-headed, are we?" he laughed. "Liked Axel, oh, his fate was so tragic..."
"What?" asked Roxas, his hands shaking.
"Axel's gone, too." he laughed. "Dead by the hands of Estelle, no doubt. As I'm sure the rest of that restoration committee is by now."
"Shit!" exclaimed Sora, "We've got to get back to Hollow Bastion."
Meanwhile, Sada and Nessa were having a conversation of their own.
"They're really believing this bull." Sada sighed to herself, more amused than she should be with the shapes she could find on the wood of the ceiling.
"Quince knew better." Nessa argued back to her.
"Not better enough." Sada said sadistically.
"Why are you such an asshole?" Nessa found herself prompted to ask, earning herself wide-eyes from Sada.
"Don't you ever call me an asshole!" Sada exclaimed, who seemed to have a temper as well.
Temper, attitude, slightly weak-looking, this girl was beginning to remind Nessa way too much of herself for her own liking. "Marluxia's the one that's not letting you re... er, unite with me, isn't he?" she asked as calmly as she could.
Sada rubbed her left eye and looked upward, "I'd say so. But I'm not allowed to tell you, am I?" she asked her, but smiled.
"He wants me in the Organization, huh?" she asked.
Sada laughed, "I'm not allowed to say."
Growling, Nessa shouted, "I'm not going back to the Organization!"
Marluxia heard this just as the group left. "I beg to differ." he told her, and quickly sealed the room with just a wave of his arm.
Nessa charged at him, but he dodged easily.
"A Nobody that cannot be seen no matter how much they try is very rare," Marluxia said, "and only occurs when the Nobody was a Nobody from birth, born without a Somebody. We could use you in the Organization."
After Marluxia evaded every attack she threw at him, Nessa decided to hear him out.
"I get nothing out of it. My friends get grief, and..." she thought back to what Riku said to her.
"If I'm supposed to come back, I will. I can promise you and everyone else that. Just go and find your Almost Somebody. If things are meant to work out, they will. I've learned to trust fate."
"If I was supposed to be in the Organization, I would have stayed the last time." Her sword now was shaking in her hands, and Marluxia laughed out of amusement.
"I'll have to persuade you by force then." he told her. Just these words sent a chill down her spine. If he was this good at evading moves, and the last time when Quince, Charity and Roxas battled him he just barely lost strength, what would it be like to fight him one-on-one?
She gulped down whatever was in her throat and ran at him with her sword.
xxxxx
The house was a complete mess. Furniture that once nicely decorated the area around them was now sprawled across the floors, photos hanging on the wall had been destroyed and there was blood almost everywhere. It couldn't have possibly been from Axel, but they were worried for the committee.
"Tifa!" Sora shouted as they saw the woman stumbling from behind the wall of the hallway. They ran up with her and helped her to the couch, which Quince took a minute to place upright on its legs.
"Tifa, what happened?" Kairi asked her as she sat down next to her. Putting her hand over her head, there was blood gushing from an open wound.
"Estelle. Light wielders." was all she seemed to be able to manage.
"Here?" asked Sora as his eyes widened to be the size of Dan Gerber's ego, "In Hollow Bastion?" Author's Note: The Dan Gerber's ego thing was a band camp joke; every time we did stretches before we marched, we would have to make circles with our fists while we held our arms outward. It was always, 'size of a grape, an orange, a watermelon, a pumpkin, Dan Gerber's Ego', and Dan Gerber's Ego was always the biggest. XD Sorry. Done now.
Tifa nodded.
"Are the others okay?" Roxas asked her calmly.
Slowly, her eyes widened to be almost the size of Dan Gerber's ego, and she struggled to stand, "Cloud..." she murmured.
"We'll check on them," Kairi comforted her, and pushed her back down lightly, "Where are they?" she asked.
"Back room." Tifa told her.
Kairi nodded and ran back with Quince.
Cloud was lying on the bed of the back room, his breathing was staggering and he was sweating hard. Aerith and Leon, who seemed to suffer minimal damage, were kneeling at his bedside and muttering words of comfort at him.
"What happened? Is Cloud okay?" asked Kairi, as Quince reached into his pocket for a potion, himself almost as worried.
"Hanging in there," Aerith told them, "Estelle is very strong." she admitted, but not in the least bit sheepishly, "I want you all to be very careful when you battle her."
Quince threw the potion over Cloud's head, and he regained strength, "How's Tifa?" he asked them. He was still bleeding pretty badly and had a black eye that probably wasn't caused from any Keyblade that Estelle could have had.
"She's fine," Kairi assured her, "a little better than you are now, and they're giving her potions is my guess." she tried to comfort him.
Charity walked in, "Bad news."
xxxxx
After struggling with Marluxia for an hour, Nessa was sure that she was going to break at any moment. Marluxia got closer to her, and kicked her in the stomach hard. Gagging, she looked up at the man, her eyes tearing from the pain.
"Are you ready to join the new Organization?" he asked her.
She coughed, and blood dripped out from the very depths of her throat. Without answering, she somehow managed to break through the barrier of the room.
"Damn!" Marluxia exclaimed as he rushed out of the room.
Sada, however, stayed sitting down in the captain's chair as she had been for the entire battle. She sighed and leaned back, looking at the ceiling.
"Only a matter of time." she said darkly to herself, and holding up her hand. It was a bit upsetting that she could see straight through it, but only a bit. "Maybe I'll re-think this."
xxxxx
"Potions aren't working, we've tried everything," Charity seemed to plea as they all rushed to go see Tifa. She was now breathing heavier and faster, almost as if her heart would explode out of her chest at any given moment.
"She can't be giving into the darkness, can she?" asked Leon.
"That's impossible. It was Estelle that stabbed her." Aerith said.
"That Keyblade," Kairi started, "You don't think it's going to send her to the Realm of Light, do you?" she asked.
"That's where she said she was going." Axel mentioned as he walked into the room, obviously not as full of piss and vinegar as he usually was.
Tifa's eyes were tearing up, "Light." she murmured.
"A realm of light?" asked Sora, "but the door to the light took Riku and myself back home!"
"That was only the door to the light because you wanted it to be," Axel explained to them, "that was simply your way back home from Kairi's want to have you back there."
Something dropped in Sora's stomach as he heard this, and probably in Kairi's as well as she turned to look at Tifa, her face bright red.
"The light's just as dangerous as the dark." Charity decided, earning a nod from Axel.
"Exactly."
Cloud couldn't bear to watch this anymore. "If I can't be your light," he muttered, "I'll have to be your darkness." He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Tifa's eyes only grew wider to relax a second after. Her breathing quickly slowed to normal, and she lay on the bed with her eyes closed almost as if she was in a deep sleep.
"Aerith!" Leon called. Aerith ran out of the door, very unlike her, only to be followed by Leon and Kairi, who had experience talking to her before.
"What happened to Estelle?" asked Sora.
Axel smiled, "Well, obviously she'd survive in the realm of Light. But as long as she's in the Light and Parker's not in the Darkness, I'm not too sure we can let her stay in there. Roxas and I should pass over to the realm of Light and take care of that."
"You can do that?" asked Charity.
"We can pass there just as easily as we can pass into the darkness." he told her.
Roxas looked at the rest of them, "Nessa hasn't been here."
"What?!" Charity exclaimed.
"Nessa's not here. I think she's back at Neverland." Roxas said. He was obviously just as worried about her; he had almost become like an older brother to her since she was in the Organization the year before.
"It's decided then. Quince and I will go over to Neverland, and you two go to the realm of Light." Charity said.
"What about me and Kairi?" asked Sora. It was odd; being the one that was being given orders. As if he wasn't quite as dominant in his attitude as he used to be.
"Stay here and take care of Tifa and the rest."
"I'll go with you." Leon said, walking back into the house. He was obviously kicked out of the girls' conversation so they could talk alone. He brandished his sword behind his back and looked very important, although seemed the total opposite for Charity.
"Great," Charity sighed happily. Meanwhile, Roxas and Axel stepped through a portal that looked almost like their darkness portals, but it was white with red swirling through it; much different than what we're used to.
Cloud stood up and looked at the three, "I'm going too." He held his giant weapon in front of him and looked back at Sora.
Sora nodded; he didn't need any more people than Kairi and Aerith, anyway, to take care of Tifa.
"You just healed." Leon told him, but Cloud waved him off quickly. About to leave the house and enter the Gummi ship, Cloud looked at Sora from the doorway. He said words that brought back only too much to Sora as the door closed in front of him.
"Take care of her."
Author's Note: If you don't remember, that was Riku's last words to Sora when the door to Kingdom Hearts was closing on him. :3 So, the plot thickens. XD Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, and thanks for reading. :