So after a good hiatus, this fic is back. Where's it been, you ask? Yeah, writer's block really sucks. Let's just say that. It sucks when you plan out a chapter and have no idea how you'll write it. I'd say the saving grace for this is actually the Organization members. They are probably some of the most fun to write because their characters aren't really as fleshed out as others so I can kind of experiment with them. Not that this is a story about the Organization, but having them involved in the story certainly does help smooth things out for me. Anyway, until next time (which hopefully doesn't take three bloody months!), enjoy the chappie!

Chapter XI

Reunion

Radiant Garden

-Sora's PoV-

Sora cursed as his hand accidently bumped against a glass filled to the brim with lotion. The glass fell on to the bathroom floor where it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, the lotion itself covering and spreading across the glass pieces and floor. Sora let the towel in his hands drop to his side, but instead of moving quickly to clean up the mess, he turned to face the mirror in front of him. What he saw in front of him was a face drenched with sweat blurred by a slightly dirty mirror with a missing piece. That missing piece was almost too convenient for how Sora felt. It was as if a piece of him was missing.

A piece…

A hole?

When had he started having these thoughts? Feeling this way? When he looked at himself in the mirror he saw no one he could recognize, a strange sensation for anyone who had seen the opposite for most of their life. He closed his eyes and thought back, though it turned out he really didn't have to think too far back.

It had been a week since he had arrived in Radiant Garden along with Aqua and his friends and if he had been expecting to get back to life as it had been previously, he had been gravely mistaken. This hole, this… essential part of him had rendered him ignorant to most of the world around him. He would stay cooped up in his room for most of the day and during the night he was unable to get to sleep due to the strange nightmares that sought to interrupt his sleep.

The dreams were usually the same. Whispers in the dark, a bright blue flame that wandered around in the blackness… Sora would follow that flame every time, hoping each time that he would finally be able to catch up with it, but no luck there. It stayed one step ahead of him, as if there was a magnet keeping him from getting any closer.

This time it had been slightly different.

Feeling this dismissive force keeping him away, Sora decided to resist and push forward. He had no idea how he had come to do this, but he had managed to somehow get into this magnetic field. It was as if his body was being ripped apart and he forced himself to put one step in front of the other each time. He was only within arm's reach of the flame when his alarm clock woke him up.

The broken glass of lotion had not been the only thing Sora had broken today. He had somehow, out of frustrated, he supposed, and yet unconsciously, set fire to his alarm clock for disturbing his dream. He was now incredibly worried that he may do the same thing if someone were to come into his room to wake him up.

"Sora, is everything okay in there? I thought I heard something smash," Aerith's worried voice came from behind the door.

"Everything's okay. I'll be done soon!" He called back albeit distractedly. He was still absorbed with his image in the mirror. Something had definitely changed within him, but what was it?

After cleaning up the individual glass pieces and the lotion off the floor with a mop, Sora cleaned his face a final time and exited the bathroom. He needed something… distracting to preoccupy his time. He couldn't afford to think, no, that wasn't right, it was more like he didn't want to think right now.

He found these necessary distractions in helping Aerith out with the chores around Merlin's house. Aerith seemed to catch on pretty quickly that Sora didn't want to talk about what he was thinking or what went on in the bathroom but he also didn't want Aerith to stop talking outright either. Any type of silence in the room and Sora feared he would revert to thinking about his dreams again. He certainly couldn't have that. No, instead he wilfully listened to Aerith as she explained how she difficult it had been to assimilate into Radiant Garden after taking it back from Maleficent.

And then Cid came into the room. His brow was furrowed and more pronounced than usual. He scratched his chin thoughtfully and paced around the room, turning direction every few seconds as if he were completely undecided about something. It was certainly the most indecisive Aerith and Sora had ever seen him.

"You going to leave in suspense or are you just doing that for the fun of it, Cid?" Sora asked after Cid had made his fourteenth pass by them.

"Well it ain't probably nothin' you should be concerned 'bout. Just some strange occurrences that've been happenin' around the town lately have got me on the edge of my seat. Just today it was reported that another body has been found in an alley, the third this week."

"A body?"

"A CORPSE, MAN! A CORPSE. I shouldn't have to tell you that much for you to be able to figure out what I meant," Cid replied. "Still, I think you might be bad luck. This has been happenin' ever since you and your friends arrived here."

"Surely you aren't suggesting Sora has something to do with this, are you Cid?"

At Aerith's raised brow, Cid laughed. "Now wouldn't that be somethin'? Of course not. Just a funny coincidence really."

"These dead bodies that have been appearing… they're all done by the same person and you haven't even caught them?" Sora pressed, eager for more information. "They didn't leave any evidence behind that could lead to them or something?"

As he read the newspaper aloud, he inwardly questioned to himself why he was becoming so obsessed with these murders when he had found little interest in anything else since arriving in Radiant Garden? Had these deaths ignited some fervor within him? Was there something even right with him in the first place to get excited at the thought of these strange events? Definitely not, there was no way anyone could argue that it wasn't strange.

"Cannibalism? There's someone going around killing and eating body parts? This is disgusting!" Sora said after finishing. He gently placed the paper on the table, much against his initial thought which was to rip the paper into pieces in anger.

"Just makes your blood boil, don't it? All of them women ages seventeen to thirty, none the wiser that their lives are about to be ended in an instant-"

"Cid," warned Aerith.

Cid let out a grunt before continuing, "Something like this has never happened before in this town unless you count the Heartless and this certainly ain't no Heartless. All of the restoration committee have their hands full dealing with the situation but we're not making progress we're satisfied with yet. We're not even sure if the culprit we're dealing with is just one person."

Sora said nothing for a moment, but instead continued to stare down at the bold black letters on the newspaper in front of him. He knew Cid had meant it as a joke, and yet Sora still couldn't help but wonder, was it really all just a coincidence? As much as he wanted to dismiss it as such, something deep inside told him it was not, and if it really wasn't one then…

"I can help!" Sora declared suddenly with a grin.

"Pardon?" Cid asked.

"I said I can help. We can help. Me, Riku, Kairi, even Aqua now that she's back. We can all pitch in if you'll let us help," Sora said.

"But Sora, are you sure? With Xehanort coming back, we wouldn't want to distract you with our problems. We can handle it. I promise," Aerith tried to assure him, but Sora shook his head.

"Stop right there. It's no problem, seriously. We've helped each other out so much in the past and I don't see why we can't continue that into the future. As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough help their friends out. Xehanort can wait. Besides, I'm like you guys. I can't let this go, no matter what and I know I'd feel bad if I just ignored it."

Cid walked up to Sora and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. With his other hand, he lifted his goggles up slightly with his thumb.

"I like you're style, kid. You know, you did give him a membership card a while back, Aerith. He's technically one of us," he said.

Aerith nodded slowly and clasped her hands, swaying about from side to side. "I suppose we can't refuse help now, can we? Alright, I'll go tell Leon." Aerith made for the door, twisted the knob and pulled, opening the room to the natural light outside. For Sora, he hadn't seen it or by extension been outside in quite a while. As the fresh breeze entered the room, he felt as rejuvenated and enthusiastic as he had been at the start and middle of his Mark of Mastery exam. Aerith was about to leave, but she stopped and turned around to look at him. "Oh, and Sora? Welcome back."

-Larxene's PoV-

After navigating through a maze of corridors, Larxene finally found herself at a door with geometrical patterns engraved on it. After exploring most of Radiant Garden, she had intentionally left Ansem's castle for last. On her first, and funnily enough, last mission to Radiant Garden, she had come here with Lexaeus (or "Mr. Introvert" as she tended to call him) and had learned that he along with the original founding members had woken up in the castle as Nobodies. As little as she cared for the Organization, she couldn't deny her craving for any sort of ties to stave off her loneliness.

She took a deep breath and gave the door a push to reveal what lay behind it. It was a small circular room that was riddled with books scattered across the floor, mind you, no book that Larxene would ever dare touch. Along with them were a few shattered pieces of glass lying on the floor. If anyone inhabited this room, then they were quite the messy person.

Her attention then turned to a portrait that was lying on the floor and leaning against the wall. She recognized the face instantly though at the same time it still seemed quite different. It was the face of her former superior, or she supposed this would be his original self, given that she was sure Xemnas was the type to pose for paintings.

"Ew, get that thought out of your head right now, Larxene. Still, to think I'd have stumbled across the superior's shame. I've got to stop calling him that as well. He's not my boss anymore," Larxene told herself with a chuckle.

"Oh, it's you."

Hearing the familiar chiding voice of a certain scientist, she turned around to see Vexen standing in front of a hallway she was sure wasn't there when she had entered.

She placed a hand on her heart and pouted. "Vexen, I'm offended. Here we are with our own hearts and you still treat me as an inferior. You're little number four excuse is not gonna work now, is it?"

"Hmph. Even. It's Even now," he corrected without looking at her.

"Ah. Well nice to meet you, Even. I hope we can be good friends. Now be a good boy and fetch me something to eat. I'm starving," Larxene said.

"You consider us equals only to order me around a few seconds later? Do you have the memory of a goldfish? Besides, you still have yet to introduce yourself," Even said.

"Larxene. It's just Larxene," she said briskly. "That said. If you really wanted to know, I'm sure you of all people would have found out by now."

"You know me well, as much as I hate to admit," Even said.

"You lay all your cards on the table. You're surprisingly easy to read. Speaking of cards, I've had enough of those for a lifetime," Larxene said. "Is anyone else with you?"

Even nodded. "We all seemed to wake up at the same time. Aeleus or Lexaeus as you know him, Dilan or Xaldin, Ienzo or Zexion, and Lea or Axel. Braig and Isa or Xigbar and Saix who also should have been there are nowhere to be found. Lea's out looking for them."

"And I was so looking forward to our reunion. Instead I get Mr. Grumpy, the silent knight, Rage Against the Machine and Book Boy. Talk about a frosty reception, no pun intended," Larxene said.

Even eyed her with a look of annoyance for a few seconds, which was great for Larxene because in the Organization she usually found that her pleasure derived from torturing members like Vexen and Demyx.

Larxene shooed him away with a hand. "Why are you standing there with that stupid look on your face? I think you could be more beneficial to society by giving me something to eat."

Vexen huffed out loud before turning heel and walking past her to the door she had just come from. The door soon closed with a click, leaving Larxene alone once more. She called out Zexion, Xaldin and Lexaeus' names, forgetting to use their unscrambled names but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. No voice responded back to her so she assumed that they were in a different part of the castle.

With a chance left so open to her, it would have been a shame if she didn't poke around a bit. She first examined everything in the room she was already in much closer detail. She bent over and read the small gold titles on the spine of a few of the books in the bookcase.

"A Budding Heart: The Material and Immaterial. We also have A Guide to Cultivation in Living Organisms. Oh my, Xemnas. Is this what qualifies as bedtime reading for you?" Larxene tried to withdraw from the books but the word 'Organisms' kept her eyes glued to them. She remembered back to horrible sight and stench of what she had been sure was undoubtedly once a person. She tried to quickly shake the grotesque image from her head but naturally this made her think of it more. She just had to ask Even when he came back if there were any vicious dogs inside Radiant Garden, and yet all her knowledge of dogs told her of none she knew that ate humans inside out. There was no dog that left a body so twisted and mangled, the whiteness of their ulna sticking out of their elbow. This was the stuff that was usually caused by spontaneous combustion and yet there was too much of the body left to even conclude that such a thing had taken place.

It was the sound of the door opening and closing again that finally forced her to turn away. She had been expecting Vexen but what she got was someone else entirely.

"Oh, it's you," Larxene muttered coldly.

"Now that's not a very nice way to greet someone, is it, Larxene?" replied Lea with a smirk befitting of a traitor.