Sashiburi danaa: (Long time, no see) Yeah, Ein (my lapdo-er, laptop) had viro-lepro-plague, so I had to spend the weekend backing up my files, then wiping the hard disk clean and reinstalling everything. He works fine now, but the backups I made were corrupted. I managed to rescue the outline for MoN and related materials, but I lost the actual word file for it, so although most all chapters are published, I lost what little I had already written of chapter 25. But it's all fine now, and here's the next chapter. Also, I highly recomment the anime "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi" to everyone; it's friggin' great. Additionally, Aloria recently made some KHII music videos that you can view on YouTube, and they're pretty good. One's serious, the other's a comedy. Something infinitely funny about Saix wanting to be a lumberjack. I would pay to see him sing the whole song.
Chapter 25: The Truth Revealed
Xatheron sputtered and coughed up blood as he stared with shocked wide eyes at his assailant. Roxtarit merely tilted his head curiously as he eyed him from behind his white mask. The only sound was the hissing sizzle as blood drained down his burning weapon, filling the air with an acrid smoke that left the salty iron tang of blood on his tongue.
"Why?" gasped the Superior, staring up at him with disbelieving eyes. "Why would you betray us?"
"Aw, jeez," muttered the Burning Enigma, shaking his head and holding it in one hand, as though he was disappointed. "You just don't get it, do you? Man, I thought it'd be obvious by now. You guys are seriously pathetic. Back when I originally joined, it was practically the Organization's official pastime to figure out anagrams. But from your surprise, I guess you dimwits never tried it, huh? It's so obvious!" He laughed hard, throwing back his head and then kicking the dark sorcerer off his chakram, the man slamming hard against his throne, splattering its white face crimson with blood. "Just take out the X, rearrange it… 'Roxtarit' spells 'Traitor'. How much more obvious could it be? You guys are totally blank with a capitol 'B'. I mean, Kensuke's the only one who figured it out, and he doesn't really count, you know?"
"But…why?" asked Xatheron before coughing wetly, spraying the front of his black cloak with blood. "Why would you do this?"
"Hey, mistress's orders," he replied flippantly, shrugging his shoulders.
"Who..?" murmured Xatheron, stumbling to get to his feet, and then falling back .
"You sure ask a lot of questions," noted Roxtarit, spinning his weapons around on his hands. They stopped as he grabbed them suddenly, bringing them up into position. "Now die."
"You can't kill me!" shouted the Superior desperately, scrabbling at his bloody seat to try and get up. "Do you know who I am? What I am? I'm No Heart! I will not be denied! You can't possibly kill a being like me!"
"Yeah, you're right," admitted the masked assassin with a shrug. "I'm not one empowered to destroy No Heart's earthly vessel. Unless, of course, his next incarnation is already present."
"What do you mean?" he asked, normally calm eyes wild with alarm and panic.
"He means me," said a smooth, confident voice from the shadows. A young girl with long, almost white blonde hair walked out, revealing herself and her cold blue eyes. Emeline smiled. "Hello again. This time, I'll make sure to kill you."
"As you know, I am a Heartless," started Anya softly. She paused, looking from face to face, and finding their attention fully on her, she flushed a little and continued on. "That would imply that I have a Nobody also. While running away from Emeline, and also helping Daxtin, I've been searching for that person. I know who they are now." She stopped, silence filling the air as they waited for her to speak. "Emeline isn't my sister. She's my Nobody."
"But you two are nothing alike," commented Kairi.
"Neither are Daxtin and I," replied Diant with a shrug.
"Wait, that doesn't make sense," interrupted Daxtin. "I mean, if she's your other half, or from her view, you're her other half, then why would she let you run around free? Wouldn't she want to capture you and make herself whole?"
"First of all, I'm nothing like her because she created me that way; she wanted a subordinate, not another contender. Secondly, she separated herself willingly," explained Anya.
"Is that possible?" questioned Kir curiously.
"And why would she?" asked Daxtin.
"For what I'm to tell you to have any perspective," started Anya, "I'll first have to make clear what she is. What I am. What we are. Emeline and I, we aren't normal beings. We aren't just a girl who happened to be separated. You see, our true name… our true name is…"
"Xenthora," murmured the masked Nobody in mild surprise, looking over at her. "Didn't think you'd actually show up in person."
"I decided to oversee things personally," she replied softly as she walked over. She looked down at the injured and bleeding form of Xatheron and smiled viciously. "You look so pathetic. If you were anything more than a tool, I'd have written a better ending for you. I guess this'll have to do then." She turned back to Roxtarit then. "Are you still wearing that ridiculous mask? Take it off."
"Huh? Oh, sorry," he apologized, reaching up and plucking the white façade off with one gloved hand. He shook out his hair and took a deep breath once it was off, grinning widely as he gazed about with luminous green eyes. "Got used to it, but it's nice to feel the fresh air now."
"That's better," commented Emeline approvingly, "Axel."
"Xenthora?" they asked in confusion.
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded the impatient Diant.
"It's an anagram," replied Daxtin calmly, folding his arms before his chest as he thought it out. "If you take out the 'X', it spells 'No Heart'. Just like Xehanort."
"Or Xatheron," added Kairi.
"That's right," nodded Anya solemnly. "Emeline, that is, Xenthora, is No Heart. That's why she seeks Kingdom Hearts. She thinks it will make her whole or something. Even if I'm combined with her, we're still just No Heart. An incomplete being. So, instead of struggling on her own, she created the current Organization XIII, or rather, shaped its being from the shadows. While they manipulated Kir into destroying the Heartless and freeing the hearts for them, she manipulated them into creating Kingdom Hearts for her."
"And where do you come in?" asked Diant suspiciously.
"She needed an agent that would be directly on her side, so as to destroy the Organization once she's done with it. In her eyes, I'm just another tool, not her other half. She's tried this before, but each time, for various reasons, her creations… that is, my incarnations… have gone awry, or somehow failed. Whether they lacked the will to live, or they submitted to their nature as a Heartless and became useless as a piece in her game, the previous incarnations were failures. She told me that I'm the seventeenth one." Anya paused, and then sighed. Looking off to one side sadly, she drew a breath and then continued. "That's why I have no memory before the moment when I was running to escape her. Because that's when I was first born. She'd created no memories for me, other than the knowledge of who and what I was, and that she was my sister. Looking back, she's been carefully manipulating me, prodding and pushing, nurturing and pruning me to grow to be the weapon capable and willing to destroy the Organization."
"So if we stop Organization XIII, we'd just be helping her?" asked Kairi in a stunned voice. Anya nodded sadly.
"It still needs to be done," asserted Kir, his face surprisingly serious. "Even though every Heartless I slay helps the Organization, I can't just let them run free. Similarly, even if Emeline, or rather, Xenthora, wants us to destroy the Organization, we still need to stop them."
"Okay, so this has all been a game of manipulation," summarized Daxtin. "The Organization has been using Kir, and they played on Diant's guilt to get him to join their cause. Additionally, they tried to use Kairi to further manipulate Kir. Before that, Kairi got swept into this practically by chance. And Anya is Emeline's avatar in the world to catalyze the downfall of Organization XIII." He paused then, and looked straight into the young girl's eyes with his piercing gaze. "Then why am I here?"
She looked away, her eyes downcast and sorrowful. "That's the one thing I didn't want to have to answer," she whispered softly. "Daxtin, your whole life is a lie."
"What…what do you mean?" he asked, stumbling over his words in his shock.
"All your memories. Everything about you. It's a fictitious personality and past written up by Emeline to occupy you in Twilight Town until she needed you. As a Nobody, you've existed for only two months, maybe three at most. You were created after Diant succumbed to Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and he was lost to the darkness. All your memories of growing up in the orphanage and playing with friends except among the past few months were completely fabricated. The other people in your life had their minds rewritten by Emeline to accept your presence. Had you questioned them, they would realize that they didn't have any memories about you before a few months ago, though they'd assure anyone who asked that they'd known you since you first were found by the orphanage as a small child. Emeline overwrote any memories you would have had as Diant and instead made you a citizen of Twilight Town so she'd know exactly where you were until she wanted you. You see, the other reason I've succeeded this time, as opposed to past incarnations of me, is because of you. Once or twice before, other Anyas that she created from her darkness did indeed realize their full potential and power, as I have, but still were not enough to destroy the Organization. This time, however, she will succeed. Somehow, you're special."
"What do you mean, special?" questioned Daxtin.
"After studying you, she found something odd: you weren't like other Nobodies. While Nobodies act like they have feelings, they can't really have emotions, as they have no hearts. It's simply impossible. What happens is that they act on memories of emotions, thereby appearing to have feelings. For instance, if you punched a Nobody in the face, he would, by memory, know that this sort of action would make him angry, and therefore, he acts angry. Despite this, it isn't true anger, just the subconscious simulation of anger as based on their knowledge and memories. However, when Emeline rewrote your memories, she entirely wiped your brain down to the motor functions and language skills. You should have had no memories of your feelings, and having no heart, should have been as good as emotionless. Despite this, after a first numb, if slightly confused day, you appeared to be a normal person. You showed emotions and responses normal to humans. Originally, she hypothesized that you were just learning emotions from those around you, but you were picking up proper usage and expression at an extraordinary rate, along with expressing emotions that she knew you hadn't witnessed. At times, it almost seemed like you had a heart. After my arrival, once you left Twilight Town and met Kairi, you've begun to show an even more wide variety of emotions and reactions. When she told me this, in her palace on Kami, she noted that she hesitated to still classify you as a Nobody. There is no doubt in her, that is, our mind that with you, the downfall of the Organization is assured. The truth is she's afraid of you. From the beginning, everything has been carefully planned and orchestrated, but you're a wildcard that's been thrown into the mix. If everything follows plan, then the Organization forms Kingdom Hearts, we destroy the Organization, and then she comes in, reabsorbs me, takes Kingdom Hearts and then becomes the ultimate power. Everything is carefully calculated. But if there's anyone who can stop her, it's you, Daxtin." She looked up at him helplessly, her eyes wide and watery. "You may have to destroy me, when the time comes. But you can't let Xenthora win. No matter what. You're the only one, Daxtin. I'm counting on you."
The boy paused and backed away, his head spinning from it all. It seemed all so unbelievable, yet it all made sense. After all, if he was Diant's Nobody, how could he possibly be more than a few months old? He couldn't possibly have lived his whole life in Twilight Town. So all his memories, even his concept of who he was, was fake. Did that mean his feelings were fake? His friendship? How he felt about everyone? About Kairi?
He looked about from one face to another helplessly, trying to find answers hidden in their faces. Anya's was sorrowful, downcast as if ashamed at what she had told them. Kir's was a little confused, but determined nonetheless. Diant's countenance was distant, a forced blank expression that betrayed no emotion as he dared not show any joy at knowing his Nobody was just that, yet not truly feeling any pity for him either. Then his eyes came to Kairi. His expression was lost, pleading for an answer. She stared at him a little sadly, and then stepped towards him and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. And then she smiled.
Daxtin smiled back.
"Right, then," he said confidently, straightening up and starting off across the walkway to the opposite door. "I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I'm going to stop Organization XIII, and I'm going to stop Emeline too, no matter what. Let's do this!"
Emeline stared coldly at the bloody mess that had once been Xatheron. She smiled with satisfaction.
"Now, for your part of the deal, witch," hissed Axel, turning his hard emerald glare on her. He held his burning weapons out to the side loosely, ready to attack. "Where's Roxas?"
"Hmm?" she murmured quietly. "Whatever made you think I have Roxas?"
"You bitch, you promised to give me Roxas!" he shouted angrily. "You showed him to me, you said you had him!"
"Oh, you mean this?" she asked mildly, raising a hand. A tall piece of paper materialized between her fingers, displaying the picture of a young blonde boy in white clothing. Axel almost leapt forwards, stopping only as she raised the picture away warningly. Smiling, she the looked up at it before snapping the fingers of her other hand. The picture faded, and then the paper disintegrated into flaky gray ashes that drifted down like snow. "It's just a picture. Did you really think I had him? The fact that I found your soul, floating around in the darkness after five-hundred years was by pure chance. I didn't find you side by side with your precious Roxas," she sneered. "All I did was peek inside your head before waking you up to see what your most precious memory was, so I could know what to motivate you with. That how I found out about him."
"So… you mean…" he sputtered in a shocked voice.
"Yup. I don't even know who Roxas is, much less know where to find him," shrugged Xenthora. She looked at him, and then laughed, a short contemptuous bark rather than her regular lilting giggle. "You look pathetic. But it's not surprising. You've killed and destroyed and fought all for me and only to find that I never had what you wanted all along. It's almost tragic." She smiled wickedly then. "So let me put you out of your misery."