Author's Note: And now, What Comes After is officially longer than The Thoughts of Zexion (the prologues and ToZ's preview-thingie don't count)... and it's not even finished yet!


Chapter 47

Roxas had wandered all throughout the castle, peeking into rooms here and there. Most of them weren't much different than how he remembered them--the junk lying around in them had undergone ten years or so of decomposition, but other than that, it was about the same.

Xigbar's old room was almost in even worse shape than his was--there were old, half-rotting clothes piled on the back of a chair, a few old, rusty guns in a rack on the wall, dust everywhere, empty cigarette packs and beer bottles littering the floor, and a spare eyepatch hung carefully on one of the bedposts in case his original one was ever damaged. Just barely visible from underneath the bed was Xigbar's stash of porno magazines--now probably worthless, as they had apparently become the home of a family of cockroaches and were riddled with holes where the roaches had eaten bits of the paper away.

Xaldin's room wasn't much better. The clothes were spread out all over instead of all piled neatly on a chair, but the rest of the room wasn't quite as nasty--but still, it obviously had not been cleaned in a long time. The dark greenish carpet of the room was barely visible through the coating of dust, and hanging on the wall was Xaldin's old training spear--from his days spent in the Land of Dragons. The spear now looked even more ancient than it already was, covered in dust and old spiderwebs.

Roxas skipped the rooms belonging to Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion--he was afraid that he might wake them up, as it was still pretty early in the morning. Lexaeus was usually awake early, but he wasn't sure if either of the other two would still be in their rooms or not--so he just walked on by when he came to those rooms.

Saix's room was one that he had never seen during his time at Castle Oblivion, and for good reason--Saix was crazy. If he went in there while Saix was around, he might be walking into a berserk elf sitting in his room with nothing better to do than strangle the first kid who showed up--or worse, he might walk in on Saix and Larxene. Roxas shuddered at the thought of it.

But now, Saix had been dead for years--meaning that his room was probably a little safer to wander into now. Roxas peeked in and looked around, finding the room surprisingly clean. There were no clothes all over the floor, though there was quite a bit of dust and a few suspicious stains on the bed and in various places on the carpet. There were also some scratches on the walls resembling clawmarks--he thought it was probably better not to guess how those had gotten there.

Axel's room, unlike the rooms of the older members, was a familiar-looking one. There was a coating of dust over everything, just like in all of the other rooms, but other than that, it looked just like how he had remembered it. On one of the walls was a framed picture of a volcano erupting, which Naminé had painted for him during her stay in the castle. The heater in the corner of the room, always set to around eighty degrees rather than the usual temperature, was still there, but it had become so clogged with dust that it no longer worked. There were dirty socks all over the place--though, unlike Roxas, Axel was a bit better about putting away the rest of his clothes. It was just those elusive socks that always seemed to end up on the floor, regardless of anything else.

Demyx's room--probably the single room in the castle that had been cleaned less often than Roxas' own room was. The room had at least a quarter-inch more dust on its floor than the rest, probably thanks to Demyx's promise that he would clean his own room rather than having Zexion, the janitor, do it for him. Socks and clothes were everywhere, most notably a pair of underwear that had been stuck ontop of a lamp next to the bed. The room's walls were painted blue, with scenes of fish and seaweed added on here and there. Demyx and Naminé had worked together to decorate the room, though they never did have a chance to finish before Naminé was taken away from the castle.

Larxene's room... now that would have been a scary place, if Larxene were still around. Roxas was only just barely able to convince himself to enter the room--Larxene was even scarier than Saix, mostly thanks to the fact that, while Saix would usually just ignore him, Larxene would actually go after him and attempt to "play" with him. The scary thing, of course, was in exactly what Larxene's definition of "playing" with someone was--from what he had heard, it usually involved a bit of stabbing and a whole lot of insults. Fortunately, Axel or someone else would usually save him before Larxene had the chance to do much of anything.

Her room, however, wasn't particularly scary. As long as he avoided the closet in the back, where she kept her collection of torture devices, the room didn't look much different than any other. Well, maybe it did--the walls had been painted with a mixture of pink, red, and black, with strange swirls and patterns added on in other colors here and there. Unlike Saix's room, there were no visible stains on the bed or carpet, but Roxas still couldn't bring himself to sit down on the bed (regardless of how soft it looked.)

Marluxia's room, oddly, seemed to still be inhabited. The layer of dust was gone, and the bed's sheets were messed around a little, like someone had just gotten out of them not too long ago. The flowery decorations that Marluxia had always liked had been partly left in place and partly removed, with those that were taken down being replaced by pictures of several green-haired people and an odd symbol that he didn't recognize.

Luxord's room, also, seemed to have been used recently. He figured that it must have been the silver-haired man, Otonashi, who had been there when he first arrived the day before--he couldn't imagine someone like him staying in Marluxia's flowery room, anyway, so Luxord's had to be it.

And once Roxas had finally finished his quick tour of the castle, he headed back down toward Vexen's lab to wait for everyone else to wake up... so he could say goodbye to them once again before he set off to re-open the Door to Darkness, as Naminé had asked.


Riku stood, frozen by shock, as the man that he spent nearly two full years fighting--who he was sure was long dead--stood just a room's-length away from him with his arms crossed, smiling.

"Surprised?", Xehanort asked, "You should be. I was a bit surprised I survived this long, myself."

"But you... you're supposed to be..."

"Dead? But of course," he answered, "I should have been dead long ago. None of my many enemies, over all the years I have lived, ever expected me to live. There were points when even I thought I would die... yet I live on, even now... over eight hundred and forty years after my birth."

Xehanort floated up off of the ground, traveling across the floor and stopping directly next to Riku. He began to lift his Keyblade to strike, but the dark-skinned man motioned for him to stop.

"You have no reason to attack me," Xehanort said, grabbing onto Riku's weapon and pushing it away from him, "You are not my enemy, Riku... not now."

"Oh no, I'm not falling for that again," Riku said, jumping back away from him, "You're just trying to possess me again, to control my every move... I should have known."

"Believe me, Riku," Xehanort said, "I have no interest in possessing little boys anymore. My own strength is quite enough."

"That's what you say now," Riku continued, "But I bet you'll be back to your old tricks just as soon as I let my guard down. I'll never let that happen again."

"Keep your Keyblade ready if you want," Xehanort said, taking a few steps away from Riku, "I have no reason to attack you, so long as you do not attack me. Like I said, you are not my enemy."

"I still don't see what you mean," Riku said, "You were my enemy the last time we met. What's with the sudden change of heart?"

"Ah," Xehanort said, smiling again, "I thought you'd never ask. You see, I am not exactly the same person I was the last time we met."

"You don't seem any different to me," Riku said, holding his Keyblade out in front of him. That wasn't the whole truth, actually--Xehanort did seem a bit different now. For one thing, he hadn't yet said the word "Darkness" even once, and his Guardian Heartless, which usually followed behind him everywhere he went, was nowhere to be seen.

"Sit down," he said, motioning toward one of the empty couches as he walked by it, "I have quite a story to tell you, Riku. A story of my past... your past... and our future."

Riku stood still for a second, but when Xehanort sat down on the other couch and got into a comfortable position, he went ahead and sat down as well--though he still kept his Keyblade ready, just in case.

Just then, however, Riku jumped up from his seat once again. Heartless had begun to enter the room from every hole in the floors and walls, as well as from the other rooms of the house. He gasped, turning toward Xehanort and readying his Keyblade.

"I knew it! You were just getting me to sit down and get eaten!"

"No, you fool," Xehanort said, standing up and teleporting over toward Riku, "They are no threat to you. Sit back down and listen to my story."

Riku watched the Heartless carefully for a minute, still holding up his Keyblade and ready to strike, but eventually he decided that it might be better to just go ahead and sit down. After all, the other Heartless he had seen here so far didn't seem like much of a threat--would these be any different?

Immediately after he--and Xehanort--sat back down, the tiny Heartless began to climb up onto the two couches, piling on all over and occasionally attempting to crawl onto Riku's lap. He shoved them away, causing them to squeak at him in annoyance before trying to get back on again. Eventually, after pushing the small Heartless off of his lap three more times, Riku finally just gave up and let the little critter stay where it was.

"See? He likes you," Xehanort said, while smiling slightly and petting a small Heartless of his own, "The little ones like sitting on people's laps, as you can see. Like I said, these Heartless are no threat to you--they are not the mindless insects that you are used to. In this world, saturated in Darkness, they have developed intelligence..."

He pointed over to a stairwell, leading up to the next floor of the mansion. There, several small Heartless seemed to be playing--something that the larger varieties, which Riku had seen before, never did. Occasionally another one would come sliding down the bannister, almost in the same way a young child would do--or try to do--if given the chance.

"Now," Xehanort said, lifting the Heartless-symbol paperweight and grabbing several of the letters beneath it, "Where were we?"

"Your story," Riku said, "You wanted to tell me something about your past, and about the future."

"Yes," the dark-skinned man answered, "A long story, if I were to tell the whole thing. Let's just begin with one simple fact--the monster that now threatens all of existence, Gil-Neithev, was the same being that I once defeated, with the help of several others from my tribe."

"Yeah, that's what Dorga told me," Riku said, looking down at the small Heartless that now appeared to be asleep on his lap, "You sealed away Gil-Neithev a long time ago... but now he's out again. Right?"

"Correct," Xehanort said, "And since you already know that, I suppose I can skip ahead to the more recent past. I do not remember everything clearly, even now, but..."

He shifted slightly in the chair, putting down the letters on the table once again, and then picked up the Heartless-symbol paperweight, holding it up toward Riku.

"...I do remember one thing," he said, "I remember when I lost my mind... my memory had been erased from the aftermath of the war with Gil-Neithev, and I had been taken in by a team of scientists on another world. They attempted to return my memories... but they failed. Miserably."

"Scientists, huh... you mean Ansem the Wise and his apprentices?"

"Of course," he answered, "Only the greatest scientists of their world, or perhaps of any world--at least at that time. They tried to return my memory, but all that truly returned was my affinity for Darkness... and without any knowledge of my past... nothing prevented this affinity from growing into an obsession. That, and the increasingly-more-dangerous experiments... drove me insane. I then began experimenting further... on myself. I removed my own heart... became a being of heart alone, saturated in Darkness--a Heartless."

"And after that, you tried to destroy everything," Riku said, "Sending Heartless everywhere, possessing me and controlling me to fight against my own best friend..."

"I was insane, Riku," he said, "My ability to distinguish between right and wrong was shattered. In my insanity, I believed myself to be saving the worlds, not ruining them--that strange place that existed before the Door to Darkness, composed of what was left when so many worlds were devoured by the Heartless... I believed that to be the true form of the World of Light, what it had been before being splintered by Gil-Neithev's power."

"And then?"

"That--at the last battle with Sora--is where my memory stops being clear," Xehanort said, standing up, "Or, as I should say, Naminé's reconstruction of my memory."

"Wait... she's part of this, too?", Riku asked, also standing, "But... she combined with Kairi again... and--wait a second. There's still one more thing you haven't told me."

"And what would that be?"

"How did you survive after Ansem's machine overloaded?", Riku asked, "Every last bit of your existence was purged from my body. You were gone. I couldn't even open the Dark Passage anymore--every last shred of you was gone."

"Gone from you, that is," Xehanort said, "You are correct, I was removed from your body at that point. But, do you honestly believe an explosion of hearts to destroy a being composed of nothing but a heart?"

"You mean..."

"Yes, Riku--that explosion hardly killed me," he continued, "In fact, I was closer to death before that blast than I was afterward. I was crippled even then, of course--it seems that you and Sora came even closer to destroying me than even Gil-Neithev had."

"But I recovered from that, and managed to overcome it--just as I have overcome each other hurdle in my life. And you, Riku--you are no different. We both share a will to live greater than any other, sleeping somewhere deep within us, passed on by the great tribe we both descend from... the ancients of the World of Darkness."