Day 151

Distress

Larxene waited in the Grey Area early in the morning, waiting for him to arrive.

"Good morning, Larxene. Did you want a few minutes with me all to yourself?" Marluxia asked, appearing as he usually did near the window.

The woman rolled her eyes. "No. I wasn't waiting for you."

The next person to walk in was rather obvious but he pushed back his hood none the less, revealing his bright blue hair.

"Ikrux." Larxene called before he had the chance to go get his mission from Marluxia.

The boy glanced at Marluxia who gave a nod since he wanted to know her motive as well. He came up quietly. "You need something?"

"Just… How are you? Naminé and I haven't seen you in a bit and… I just wanted to make sure you're not sick again or something so we don't have to cover your shifts." Larxene muttered, fibbing at the last part.

Normally Ikrux would tease her for being lazy or caring about him but he merely glanced away. "I'm fine."

"Oh, uh, okay. Cool, whatever." Larxene grunted. She expected Ikrux to play down whatever was wrong but not so coldly.

"Ikrux, your mission is in Twilight Town, eliminate any Heartless you find until you are off to collect as many hearts as possible."

The boy nodded curtly to Marluxia before stealing one last glance at Larxene and then portaling away.

Before Marluxia could even mention the strange amount of care Larxene seemed to have for the boy, Naminé came in, in much higher spirits then Ikrux. "Larxene..!"

Before the friends could even exchange good mornings, Marluxia gave a cough, getting Naminé's attention. "Naminé, you are assigned to Twilight Town today. A large Heartless needs to be exterminated."

"Oh, alright." Naminé gave a weak wave to Larxene. "I'll see you after work…"

"They're both in Twilight Town today? That's weird. You never send two people to the same world." Larxene grunted in confusion.

"I must keep them close to one another, the Superior and I fully support their friendship, just not yours."

At the town plaza, Ikrux stared up at the clock tower solemnly. It would be so easy to pick up ice cream after work and surprise the two as a sort of apology for not being there the last two days, but he knew he couldn't. He couldn't tell them how badly he'd failed, as if Marluxia wouldn't have let them know already.

"Ikrux!"

He turned to see Naminé running to him, her eyes full of light and a bounce to her step.

"Naminé…" He whispered as she got there panting. "Did you follow me out here?"

Naminé laughed slightly then and shook her head. "No, my mission's here today."

"Huh, mine's here too." The boy replied. "Marluxia never sends two people to the same world unless it's training or we asked like we did before, wonder why he did today?"

"Whatever the reason, I'm glad he did, we've been missing you at the clock tower!"

"I've been missing you guys too… And I'm sorry I ran off on you the other day."

They started unknowingly taking out Heartless as they talked, a habit they now had after so many missions.

"It's okay, I understand." Naminé smiled sweetly.

That smile felt Ikrux with warmth and relief but it soon faded thinking about what she'd seen just before he ran. "You know, there's an imposter out there, some kid wearing our uniform. I was sent to capture him but… I lost. That's why Marluxia was upset."

"Ikrux, it's okay to not win every time, you know." Naminé reminded him. "You don't have to be strong all the time."

"Wish I could be." He replied earnestly, looking up at the sky after he let out a huge breath of air in frustration, thinking: I should've beat him, I should've won against Sora! Where did I go wrong?

"…For today, how about we work together?" Naminé asked hopefully. "We haven't done that in a while."

Ikrux wanted to say yes right away but he bit it back, remembering how helpless he'd been on those team missions. But that face Naminé was giving him… "If that's what you want."

"Giving up already? I thought you were stronger than that!"

Ikrux had repeated that phrase over and over in his mind after first hearing it. It sounded familiar, like it belonged between only him and the imposter, no, Sora.

"Why can you wield the keyblade a-and how can you fight just like Riku?!"

Who was Riku? And why did Sora act like he was some copy of him?

That's not true, I'm the only one who fights like this, talks like this, acts like this. The boy thought to himself. … Right?

"Ikrux, you ok?"

He blinked away the thoughts and turned to Naminé who's stopped eating her ice cream out of concern. "Sorry, I'm spacing out…"

The girl nodded in understanding before going back to her ice cream.

"Hey, Naminé… do… you really think all we're doing here is pointless? That we all already have hearts?"

Naminé paused for a moment before responding, not meeting his eyes. "… I'm not really sure about the hearts, don't know if I'll ever be but… I know this job isn't pointless. Because even if we already have hearts, I met you and Larxene here, and the rest of the Organization."

"Still, I feel… like I shouldn't even be here… I keep having weird dreams and visions. Some are good, I'm a hero with a great purpose and my keyblade. Others are awful, my body is empty, I can't move, I can't speak, all I can do is watch as these strong kids who feel so familiar just… abandoned me. What if I mess up so bad, the Organization decides to cast me away too?"

"They'd never do that, Ikrux! Auxdrgn told me herself: we're precious to the Organization and to her!" Naminé insisted.

Ikrux muttered bitterly. "I don't want to be here because I'm just a wielder. I want to be here because I'm strong and worth it. I want to be here because I'm just…me, not a spare of you." Or that Riku kid..

"Ikrux…" Naminé whispered but the boy was already walking away.

She waited for a while, thinking about his words. Had he always felt he was a spare to the Orginization? Like he'd be abandoned by them once their work was done? Then again, it was Organization XIII, and he was Number XIV…

"No Ikrux again today?" Larxene asked as she slid down beside her, interrupting her thoughts.

"Actually… you just missed him."

Larxene frowned at seeing Naminé's face before giving a sigh. "Look, guys are simple. Especially heartless guys like the ones we have."

"How'd you know I was thinking about him?" Naminé asked in slight surprise.

"Because ladies sorta just… know those kinds of things. We're a bit more complex compared to the guys."

"Larxene, if guys are so simple… I guess that's why Ikrux hasn't been with us… He would if he knew how we felt, right?"

Larxene wasn't so sure.

Day 171

Love

After working with Luxord in Olympus for a few days in a row, Naminé grew even more interested in playing cards with him. It was much more interesting than the training Phil made her do every time they met.

"So you followed a talking rabbit… with a pocket watch?" Luxord muttered in slight interest. "These worlds like to throw you plenty of wild cards, little one."

"I don't recall today being a vacation day, Naminé." Marluxia scolded, clicking his tongue in what was close to annoyance.

She winced before grabbing her mission summary.

When Naminé arrived, she immediately heard a roar of anguish and knew it could only be the Beast. Despite knowing her cover may be blown, the girl couldn't resist running to the source of the noise.

Before she could even reach the harmed Beast though, a ginormous Heartless appeared, clearly the one that had beaten the Beast.

She fought the Heartless for a long time until she was about to deal the final blow. She prepared herself…

Suddenly a piece of earth hurtled into the monster, defeating it.

Naminé blinked in suprise before glancing down at her keyblade.

"I hope you don't think you did that."

She gave a yelp before Lexeaus took a hold of her, hiding them from the sight of the Beast who had yet to see them.

Just then, a beautiful maiden, Belle, ran out to the Beast. She knelt down, looking incredibly worried for her protector. "What happened?! Are you alright?!"

"Belle…" The Beast grunted, struggling to stand, "Get back inside… It's too dangerous."

Belle shook her head before catching him with a suprising amount of strength, able to support him. "You're coming with me! The Heartless are gone so you can stop now! … If something were to happen to you, I don't know what I'd do…"

"Belle... I couldn't bear to see you...or the others hurt. I don't want to lose you."

"I'm right here."

Naminé watched the two embrace and realized the truth. The rose wasn't the thing the Beast cherished the most, it wasn't the thing he was trying to protect. Belle was. "…Lexeaus… You said he cared for the rose more than anything but… he still cares for Belle even more. Why?"

"Simply put, they love each other."

"Love?" Naminé asked softly. What did that mean?

"It's an emotion as well as a great power, one that ignores and outweighs all others, in my memory. Therefore, it is only a power to weaken."

The girl watched him go before thinking to herself, That doesn't explain where love came from though, and it doesn't explain what it is either, just what Leaxeus thinks about it…

Ikrux wasn't there again…

Larxene smirked at seeing Naminé staring at her. "Why are you looking at me with such a dumbfounded face?"

"It's just… Larxene, do you know what love is?"

The woman immediately looked disgusted as if she'd said a bad word. "Ew, why do you wanna know?"

"It came up in a mission today so I want to know what it is."

She glared away from Naminé's pleading face before she sighed. "Love's when you.. care about someone more than yourself. You'd be willing to do anything for them, even if it means getting yourself hurt… It's even dumber than the other emotions with how… how pointless it is."

"… Have you ever loved someone, Larxene?"

Larxene scoffed in embarrassment, there were some things she couldn't admit, not even to herself. "No, not in either of my lives."

"Well, I don't know about my past self but as for now…" Naminé scooted closer to Larxene. "I love you and Ikrux."

"Pretending we can actually love, which we can't…" Larxene muttered. She whispered the phrase of care back so fast, Naminé barely heard it. She was blushing hard and immediately got up and walked away, not wanting to believe she had actually said it, because love was even worse than friendship to her. "That's our little secret, and you take it to your grave, got it?!"

Naminé made the usual motion of placing a finger to her lips, a big smile on her face.

Day 172

Sketchy Slumber

The next morning, Naminé was surprised but not disappointed to see Demyx. "You're never up this early!"

"Only cause I've never been assigned to work with you, early bird…" Demyx yawned sleepily, stretching.

It was at that moment she heard the jangle of the keychain and saw her sketchbook in his hand. Ikrux and her had decided to trade off who would make a drawing each day but he usually gave her the sketchbook directly in the morning, or outside her door like he'd done recently. "My sketchbook… Why do you have it?"

The man realized what it looked like and quickly gave it to her. "I'm no thief, Nami! Xemnas found it on Ikrux and wanted me to give it back to you."

"But I gave it to Ikrux to use!" Naminé insisted, thinking Xemnas must have thought the boy had stolen it from her.

"Well he couldn't exactly use it when we found him, passed out and all. Mission against a huge heartless went really bad for the little dude."

"Ikrux!" The girl yelled, turning to race to his side but she ran right into Marluxia. "L-Let me through!"

"You've done quite enough to the boy already, Naminé. Besides, you have a mission to do." Marluxia reminded her coldly.

"Done enough…? What are you talking about?" Naminé asked, stopping her attempts to get around him.

"You overwhelmed him too much with all your talk of hearts, emotions…caring about him. Your conspiracy theories about them all have gotten out of hand, if you know what's good for Larxene and Ikrux, you'll stop filling their heads with your nonsense."

All she cared about was the fact that she'd supposedly done this. Ikrux was asleep… because of her? "… I… won't mention any of it again…"

"Be sure you don't." Marluxia smiled. For whatever reason, Xemnas didn't want her talking about such things.

After the mission with Demyx filled with the man yelling at her to slow down as they chased that strange rabbit in Wonderland, Naminé sat on the clock tower alone until Larxene came, sitting down beside her.

"Ikrux is in some sort of coma…" The girl whispered.

Larxene scoffed, looking annoyed. "Yeah, Marluxia made sure I knew about that."

They were quiet for a few moments before speaking again.

"I hope he wakes up soon."

"Me too."

They began their ice cream before Naminé suddenly asked a peculiar question. "Do you think Marluxia hates me?" I mean, I've been hurting you, so he must hate me, she thought.

The woman looked over with her eyebrows raised. "Hate's an emotion, so Nobodies can't have it, remember?"

"Oh, right." Naminé whispered, realizing she'd once again started talking about emotions, deluded fantasies that harmed her friends according to Marluxia. She quickly changed the subject. "Marluxia told me I was the reason Ikrux is asleep… because I talked too much about my thoughts."

"He what?" Larxene hissed, snapping her head to the girl. Marluxia was terrible enough to the girl already because of his jealousy but now it seemed he was going out of his way to harm her. "I'm going to have a word with him, he doesn't get to say that!"

Marluxia didn't even flinch when the knife hit the wall beside him. He turned with a sigh. "You're always so uncivil."

"You're one to talk!" Larxene spat, marching up to him. "You told Naminé she was the reason Ikrux is asleep, just because she gave her ideas on something you don't approve of, just because I'm with her more than you now?! Seriously, what is wrong with you?!"

"I told her the truth." Marluxia glared back. "She is the reason he's asleep. Perhaps I just wanted to shut her up about the feelings and heart talk, it's giving you silly ideas… But she is still the reason Ikrux sleeps either way…"

Naminé sat at Ikrux's side, finishing her drawing for the day. "Ta-da…"

He had no reaction to the funny image of Demyx chasing after the rabbit, of course.

"I'm sorry I did this to you, Ikrux…" Naminé whispered after giving a sigh, laying her head down on the bedside. "Please, wake up soon…"

The two were able to sleep in peace, if only it could stay.