Xikira needed to do something drastic.
It was nice being with Xigbar again, and it was nice getting to know and help Skuld - but every day she stayed, every day she killed Heartless, she was helping along Xemnas's plans!
She had to do what she'd vowed to do, and then get out of here.
With him! She wouldn't accept anything else! Even if he didn't see it, even if he said he didn't want to leave - because he so clearly did!
So then...
She needed to know his full picture. She had to know him - understand him - truly. In a way she never had before, as she now realized since meeting Skuld, really...
She had to find something in him, a reason, a goal, a memory...to convince him with. She had to see...feel...who he really was inside. What was going on in his head - just like with Axel. All those hidden depths she'd never imagined.
Xikira glanced at her bedroom door. She went to her desk and sat down, pulling up her sketchbook and flipping it open to a blank page. She took up a pencil...and she put its tip to the page.
She breathed...and searched for Xigbar's presence.
The connection was easy to find - pulsing, glowing, in the dark of her mind's world. She followed her way across it for the first time, and burst into a world of light. What she found there...She didn't understand, not at first. It was everywhere, it was too much, too different. Nothing seemed to have a rhyme or rhythm. She kept going, kept sifting through it all, finding more and more - sensations, feelings, sights and sounds and smells - and then she began to understand.
And she began to understand, as well, that it would take her...years to fully explore all that was within Xigbar's head. Even if she had centuries, even if she devoted every hour of every day to the task...she'd barely scratch the surface. So she didn't try.
She went down the chain, from one link to the next, memory to memory, life to life, backwards and backwards and further and further in what seemed like an endless blur... Until she recognized a familiar place. But it didn't make sense either. It was the same purple town with the clocktower as she'd seen in Lauriam and Elrena's memories! And from Skuld's. What...did this even mean? Was he...?
She began to explore this place, all the memories associated with it, and it was...a lot more manageable. Just this small section of this...unimaginably long life that Xigbar had lived.
And there, in that beginning, she found a boy, an identity - a name.
Luxu?
"Hey, is it safe to come in, princess?"
Xikira released all those threads from her grasp and returned to the surface of reality!
Awareness!
She breathed quickly, brushing at her hair.
"Yes!" she called out.
The door opened, and Xigbar strolled in.
No...Luxu, she thought with wonder.
"What's up, kiddo? Getting in some new drawings today?" He glanced at her desk as he sidled up next to her.
"Yes," Xikira said casually, glancing down at her sketchbook. She flashed him a smile. "I was just thinking about what to make this time. I think I want to try something...creative again. Imaginary. Something totally made up."
"I'd be interested to know what your little mind could come up with."
"Me too. Just...nothing's come to me yet."
"Need some help? I've got plenty of life experiences, ready and waiting to fuel a sense of imagination on your behalf."
Xikira eyed him, reflecting on his words - on what she'd just seen. She grinned. "Because you're so old, right?"
"Haha. That's right. So let's do some quick brainstorming here, see what we can come up with together."
"Okay."
If nothing else, all of his old man jokes suddenly made way more sense to her. She just never could have imagined how old he really was.
Or...how tired he really was.
He was...too tired to stop.