AN:

WARNING: Shit gets...kind of intense.

"Hey - up and at 'em, Xikira..."

Xikira sat up slowly, rousing from slumber once again - past midnight. She blinked at Xigbar - no, at Luxu, she reminded herself. She'd spent hours upon hours of the last few days cooped up in her room, combing through every bit of his memories (of his first, earliest life, anyways). Learning, understanding it all - building her arguments for the day she'd deploy them.

"Okay, just let me..." Xikira rolled out of bed and yawned, shaking her head of messy blonde hair. She patted at herself.

"Oooh, got some new drawings out, huh?" Xigbar- Luxu's voice drew her focus, as he strode over to her desk!

Her desk...where she had left all those latest drawings of hers out, in her tiredness lately!

Drawings...from him. From his...!

That purple town with its clocktower. Those adorable Chirithy creatures. That big computer room with all the screens, and the two cloaked figures standing within it. The study room, with that book sitting on it and the man leaning back in his chair...

"They're not- finished- you can't look at them yet!" Xikira raced forward, stumbling, panic in her Heart.

"What's the big deal? They're not..." Luxu trailed off as his eye narrowed down at the papers. At one drawing, and then another...

Xikira stopped behind him, holding her hands at her waist. "T-"

The world suddenly shifted around her, the air compressing and changing, and then suddenly Xikira found herself standing in front of her desk - and Xigbar-?

Next moment, and she felt something hard, cold, and pointy touch the back of her head.

She froze.

"You know..." came the quiet, strained voice, directly behind her (Xigbar- Luxu had used his space powers to swap their positions). A pained, husky voice. "All this time...I thought I actually trusted you. I thought I liked you. Adored you, even. But I walk in here and what do I find?"

"T-they're just drawings-" Xikira attempted.

"They're MEMORIES. MY. MEMORIES!" he hissed, right in her ear, causing her to startle! "This is MY HEAD, MY HEART, THE PERSONAL, PRIVATE SHIT YOU DUG INTO, VIOLATED AND FLIPPED THROUGH, LIKE PAGE AFTER PAGE OF YOUR DAMN SKETCHBOOK!"

"X-Xigbar, please, I-"

A long, harsh breath blew past her ear, fluttering her hair. "How much have you seen?" he demanded. "What do you KNOW?"

"I just- y-you're some immortal person, you've had other families, p-parents, lives, children! And-" Xikira stopped, swallowing hard. God, he was mad, he was so mad and it was scaring her and where had her arguments gone?

"Go on."

"I saw- the same...place as I saw in Lauriam and Elrena's heads, and Skuld's too! But it doesn't make sense, because- are you like a great great ancestor of them or something? I don't- understand that part at all...What I saw..." If she could make him think she really didn't know more than the basics, bare bones, if she could convince him, maybe he wouldn't hurt her. Maybe he wouldn't-

Xigbar let out another ragged breath, but the gun didn't move. "Do you have ANY FUCKING IDEA THE KIND OF DANGER YOU'VE PUT ME IN WITH THESE?" he snarled at her, making her jump again.

"P-please, Xigbar, please d-don't hurt me, please I'm s-sorry, please I love you I love you I'm sorry I'll never do anything like it again I'M S-SORRY I L-LOVE YOU - LUXU-!"

The gun lifted free - and a shot rang out.

Xikira screamed. But...she...stood. She stood trembling, tears falling. Stinging as badly as the streak of burning energy across her cheek now. She swayed on the spot, staring at the purple scorch mark on the wall in front of her - at eye level. Then she fell forward, collapsing over her desk, and all those images she'd drawn...

After endless minutes of uncontrolled sobbing, she finally got up the courage to move. To slowly turn around, terrified of what she might see...

But there was nothing.

Her room was empty.

She turned back to her desk - and saw that all her drawings were gone. Gone in an instant, gone without her even noticing...?

Xikira remained rooted to the spot on quivering legs.

Then she threw out a hand, creating a swirling portal and rushing through it.

He should have killed her.

Her, more than anyone else across the span of history.

Because across his lifetimes, across all these countless millennia, she was the only one to have ever learned concrete, factual information about who he was and where he was from - and when.

Oh, sure, people had come close - he had even sometimes enjoyed speaking vague truths about his life and situation to people's faces of his own accord - but not a single one of them...had ever had anything real. Nothing traceable. Not a name, not a place, not a face, not a time.

But Xikira...had everything. Because she had gone into his own head and seen it with her own eyes. Through his own eyes!

She. Knew.

And her knowing...the risk to everything that her knowledge brought...that everything would come crumbling down, right when there might be a real ending in sight to this long vigil...

And how many people had he watched die? How many had he stood back and watched die, when he'd damn well had the power to save them - easily?

How many lives had just...passed him by due to sheer natural facts of life: accidents, murders, aging? Things that had nothing to do with him.

So why hadn't he killed her?

Why couldn't he do it?

Yeah, he could tell himself it was because he'd lost his cool, truly panicked for the first time in a long time - but...he knew that wasn't quite right. Yes, it would have been a sloppy, horribly dangerous thing to just off her right in her room, in the middle of the castle (the suspect pool would be very limited, suspicions and tensions would be running wild, and he might not even make it out of it above board)...but...

He should have done it anyways and taken the risks. Because the risks of leaving her alive with all that she knew...every second she was allowed to live with that in her head... She had said his true name out loud, for fuck's sake! If anyone had walked by and heard that-!

And who the hell knew if she wasn't tearing through his mind right this second? He knew how her powers worked - you didn't feel it, you didn't know, unless she made a spectacular screw-up while messing around in there. Hence why he hadn't known for however long she'd been doing it so far!

And yeah, he wasn't blind to how much of a fucking hypocrite it made him to be so up in arms over privacy and personhood when he was the guy who'd taken over life after life, body after body, for his own ends. Even still...his Heart and emotions were what they were about it.

And he was pissed, and afraid, and he had no idea what to do about her.

And, yes, he was hurt too. He felt betrayed.

And he knew it was also sheer hypocrisy to feel that way toward her too, considering he was the one who'd been lying his ass off for literal millennia - to her, for every day he'd ever known her. Keeping secrets from her, for every day he'd known her.

Even still...these feelings in his Heart wouldn't go away.

He had to kill her...

So why was he just sitting there on his bed, doing absolutely nothing about it?

Why hadn't he done it?

He could say he needed her to keep helping Skuld recover. He could say...that maybe she was using her powers on him right that very second, manipulating his Heart so that he wouldn't want to go and kill her. So that he'd be incapable of it. Chaining him down like a dog, a pet...her pet...

Dammit, you know that's not true...

She was a kid. A kid with a lack of understanding of boundaries, of socialization, and she was good. She was kind, and fierce, and she thought she loved him.

Or maybe she truly did.

Either way...this was curiosity, it was childish, not malicious.

And maybe...with a cool head...they could reach a resolution here that didn't involve having to end her existence. After all, he had let people walk away from him before with inklings of knowledge about himself. True, only ever in the vaguest sense of "This is some mysterious entity possessing someone", and it wasn't as if anyone could have ever used that information against him - because in the end, what did they really know? Beyond the surface level of a clue? Not a thing. But Xikira...could he possibly let her keep living with all the factual, direct knowledge she had on his identity and history? On his mission, his future goals? In such a scenario, he had never once imagined himself not immediately ending that person's existence to protect his own secrets...

But now that it had actually happened, now that it had happened with Xikira, he...

So, what was the right action to take now? Where did he go from here?

Well...he had to try. To try and resolve this situation without killing her. That much was plain and obvious to Luxu's Heart.

That was, if she was even willing to talk to him after he had just...

After he had held her at goddamn gunpoint, threatened her, almost killed her! Terrified her little Heart beyond anything in this World so far, and probably broken her trust and faith in him forever!

As if she'd ever even want to see his face again, let alone speak to him again!

But he had to try.

For once, he would step up, step out, and find another way.

Because he did not want to kill her.

And he'd try anything to avoid it, he realized suddenly. Even if it might carry even more inherent risks.

Because it wasn't practical, it wasn't logical, it wasn't even about protecting his own secrets held for millennia now...

But because...

Luxu stood, and portaled directly back into Xikira's bedroom.

He found it empty.

He stood there, a true feeling of emptiness inside him.

But...relief, as well.

Maybe if anything good had come from this incident...it had been that it might have finally pushed Xikira into leaving the Organization forever. Into going to live a free and normal life out in the worlds - and to live it with far, far better people than a guy like Luxu.

But even so...

He still had to track her down, and talk to her one last time.

Because his damned, sentimental Heart would settle for nothing less.