A/N: Here it is, the long-awaited Sora chappie! Yay! XD
(Waving hand like a Jedi) You want to go listen to Malice Mizer… You want to hear Gackt's awesome voice… You want to hear the wickedness that is "Le Ciel"… Muahahaha!
-The Not-So-Pretty End of Sora-
Sora awoke in an empty room. Looking around, he blinked. The room was small, with a peaked ceiling. Exposed wooden slats in the walls and rafters gave the room an eerie feel, as did the spider webs hanging from the rafters and corners. Sora shivered as a draft floated in through cracks in the walls. He stood and looked out the grimy window. He could see nothing but dry, dead grass and a skeletal tree.
"Where am I?" he asked aloud. There was no reply but the howling of the wind. Sora shivered again and headed to the door. He gave it a cautious shove, and it slowly swung open with a loud screech. He stepped out and looked around.
He seemed to be in a child's room. There was a crib in the corner, a mobile with stars and moons, a rocking horse, and various other things hinting at the very young. However, everything was covered with dust and cobwebs. Sora turned and discovered the door he just left through was hidden behind a bookshelf.
Suddenly Sora got a tremendous thrill of foreboding. He immediately felt like he wanted to turn around, wanted to get out of the room. For a moment he didn't know why. Then an overpowering sense of death struck him. He started shaking uncontrollably, fearing everything in that somewhat sinister excuse for a child's room.
He forced the sensation back and slowly advanced to the crib. Fighting back a feeling of mingled dread and revulsion, Sora peered over the bars. He stumbled back with a cry.
The grinning skull of a baby stared balefully up at him. The child's skeleton was tucked into the covers as if it had died in its sleep. Sora chanced a glance back at it and fought the urge to gag. A spider was crawling out of the eye socket.
Sora stumbled out of the room and to the door. He forced it open, rusty hinges squealing in protest. He hurried down the stairs, but halted on the first landing. He could hear voices.
"Mummy, the baby's dead."
"What? Why?"
Sora peered into the room. A girl and a woman were staring at each other. The woman wore Victorian era clothes, the little girl looking slightly sinister, clad in a plain black dress. Her hair was black too, black as coal. Her skin was deathly pale. The woman looked slightly panicked, yet also disbelieving, as if she wasn't sure she believed the girl.
The girl appeared to think for a moment, then she spoke again. Her voice was high and girlish.
"Because I killed it," she said. "I put things in its bottle."
"Oh, Lord… no…" the mother jumped up and passed the girl. She dashed up the stairs…
…And passed through Sora. Sora gasped. It was like walking through a freezing mist.
"She's dead too."
Sora jumped at the voice. He turned and saw the girl gazing at him. Her eyes were as black as her hair, twin empty pits.
"What do you mean?" Sora asked cautiously.
"I mean just what I said. Everyone in this house is dead. You will be too," the girl said. "Come."
She turned and started to leave the room. Then, realizing Sora wasn't following her, turned back.
"I won't bite you," she said.
Sora followed. Whether she was trustworthy or not, the girl could give Sora information.
"Where are we? How did I get here?" Sora asked.
"You're in my house. And my house is like punishment. The one who controls this house decides who comes here. But the thing is, if you're here, you'll never leave." She turned to Sora. "I am Lucy. I killed my entire family. Have you ever heard of Lizzie Borden?"
"No."
Lucy smiled. " 'Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one,' " she said in a singsong voice. "I killed my family. I was trapped in this house, forced to watch as it falls down around my ears. But I don't mind. I get to relive when I killed my family every day of the week." She smiled eerily at Sora.
"But I was found. The one who found me commanded legions of darkness, and he freed me from my curse," she continued. "Of course, he sent you here, so I guess I get to kill you now." She pulled a large axe out of nowhere. "Start running."
Sora panicked. He whipped around and ran as fast as he could. Behind him he could hear Lucy slamming her axe into the wall as she walked along behind him.
"Oh, I get to kill someone again! That's marvelous!" she sang cheerily behind him. Sora tried to run faster, but caught his foot on a piece of rotting carpet. Lucy caught up and stared down at him.
"That's no fun. I refuse to kill you until you've run for at least ten minutes," she said, pouting. Sora scrambled to his feet and ran again. He looked around for a place to hide. Spying a closet, he yanked the door open.
A worm-eaten corpse fell out on him.
Sora screamed and backed away. Lucy's voice echoed through the hall to meet him.
"You must have met Papa."
Sora ran again. In a state of shock, he ran hard through the house. He slammed into the rotting basement door. It gave way under him, and he nearly tumbled down the stairs into a seething mass of Heartless.
Sora yelped. He backed up and froze as he felt the edge of Lucy's axe pressing into his back.
"Well, you're in a dilemma," Lucy said, sneering slightly. "You can go this way and be killed by me, or you can go that way and, should you make it past the Heartless, face the one who sent you here. What'll it be?"
"I'll take my chances with the Heartless!" Sora yelled before jumping into the mass. Immediately several Shadow and Soldier Heartless swarmed on him, slashing at him with their claws. Sora summoned the Keyblade, and lashed out at them, knocking them aside. More swarmed forward to take their place, and Sora batted them away too. But they kept coming.
Sora fought for the better part of an hour. But for every Heartless he defeated there were three more to take its place. He started to despair of ever getting out.
Then the Heartless abruptly disappeared. Instead, there stood a lone man. Lucy stood next to him, her hand in his.
"Sora, I believe you two have met before," she said, hugging the man's arm. "Of course, you won't be so lucky this time…"
"Be calm, Lucy," Ansem said. He ruffled her hair fondly. Then he looked at Sora. "Have you noticed anything odd about this child, yet?" he asked.
Sora shook his head. Ansem smirked, and took Lucy's axe. Still watching Sora, he made a swift cut on the child's arm. Sora gasped. Darkness oozed from the wound, sizzling where it hit the floor. The wound closed up quickly.
"She's part Heartless," Ansem said softly. "Her parents knew, of course. They were shocked when their firstborn daughter was born without a sound. She never cried, and never has. Her parents tried to raise her like a normal child, but she was always taking small animals and tearing out their hearts. And when her baby brother was born, she took a dislike to him almost instantly."
"The parents were delighted to have a normal child, and started to ignore Lucy. Then she decided to kill them. So she put poison in the baby's bottle, smothered her father, and killed her mother with the axe you see before you." Ansem returned the axe to Lucy. "But she was cursed to stay in this house somehow. I found her, and, realizing the type of curse on her, freed her. And then I sent you to her."
Sora was terrified now. Ansem bade Lucy to stay put, and advanced towards Sora.
"She chased you here, where she knew I waited for you. And now I get to kill you!" Ansem summoned his own weapon, and lashed out at Sora. Sora only managed to block just in time. Even so, he could not prevent himself from falling against the wall. He ducked. He felt something rush by his head as Ansem's weapon embedded itself in the concrete wall.
"Oh, do kill him, Ansem! Cut his head off!" Lucy cried gleefully, clapping her hands and jumping up and down.
Ansem spun, swinging the other end of his weapon down in front of Sora's face. Sora screamed. Ansem's weapon had taken off his hand.
"You need to be faster, Sora!" Ansem taunted, pulling his weapon out of the floor.
Sora's mind was in a fog. He couldn't grasp how he'd gotten in this house and how Ansem was still alive. As he made another painful dodge, Sora tried to figure it all out. Unfortunately for him, it was too distracting. Ansem's weapon sliced through his arm.
Sora screamed again, falling to his knees as he tried to staunch the blood flow. Behind him, Ansem grinned.
"Lucy, dear, would you like to hurt him in some way?" Ansem asked. "Or, better yet, why don't you show him your latest two victims?"
"Yay!" Lucy ran to the shadows of the basement and returned dragging two dead bodies. She set them down in front of Sora.
Sora glanced at them. He very nearly fainted.
Kairi's headless body rested before him. Riku's body lay beside it, a slash in its throat and an ugly wound on the chest.
Sora felt helpless rage consuming him. He struggled to his feet and launched himself at Ansem. Ansem sidestepped him easily. Sora spun around and swung his Keyblade wildly, blindly hoping to hit Ansem. Ansem laughed in his face.
"Stop… laughing!" Sora screamed. He lashed out again, hitting nothing but air.
"You do know it's not exactly a good idea to fight when you're mad? You might make a mistake," Ansem said scornfully. He stood several feet away. Then he grinned and disappeared.
Sora stared around wildly, senses on edge. He cried out as something embedded itself in his stomach. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He looked up through darkening vision at Ansem. Ansem grinned at him and ripped upwards. Sora was flayed open from stomach to head.
Ansem stared at Sora and the immense pool of blood forming under the corpse.
"You'll release me now, won't you?" Lucy asked, sounding for the first time in her life like a nine-year-old girl. "You said you would…"
"Of course, Lucy," Ansem replied, eyes softening as he turned to her. She ran to him and clung to his waist. Ansem gently wrapped his arms around her, muttering indistinct words under his breath. Soon Lucy started to grow limp. Her eyes started to close, and she sagged against Ansem. Her grip loosened and she began to fall. Ansem caught her and gently lowered her to the floor. "Good bye."
"Good bye, Ansem…" And with that the Heartless child finally died, finally at peace since she'd been born.
Ansem stared at her body for a moment, then summoned two Neoshadow Heartless.
"Go bury her body in the backyard, under the tree," he instructed them. "Be careful." Had the Heartless noticed, they would have realized his voice sounded constricted. The two Heartless picked up Lucy's still form, and carried it away. Ansem sighed.
"I think I'll spend the night at Sephiroth's… then I'll go see Reivanlocke," he murmured to himself. There was something strange in his manner, as if something within him had been broken.
-
"So why didn't you let her live? She sounded like a right trip."
"I promised her, Sephiroth. I told her I'd release her once I'd killed Sora, and you know I never make a promise I won't keep."
Ansem and Sephiroth were lying side by side in Sephiroth's bedroom, Sephiroth holding his lover close.
"Did you know you would miss her this much when you promised that?" Sephiroth asked, running his fingers through Ansem's hair.
"…No." Ansem closed his eyes and cuddled closer to Sephiroth. Sephiroth smiled and shook his head.
"Ansem… my love, when will you ever learn to trust your emotions and not ignore them?" he asked softly.
Ansem gave a quiet chuckle. "I do," he replied. "If I didn't, do you think I would love you as much as I do?" Sephiroth smiled.
"Who knows?" he murmured as he pulled Ansem atop him. Ansem grinned, then kissed Sephiroth.
"I don't," he replied as they parted. "I do know this, though… you are the only one for me. Never fear, for I will never leave you. You are indelibly engraved in my heart, and there you remain, forever and a day."
"And I would never wish to be anywhere else," Sephiroth said as he switched off the light.
-End part four-
A/N: Okies, one chappie left! XD
Anyway, Lucy! Yes, I love Lucy. She's this weird little OC I came up with around last Christmas. If you want to see what she looks like, go to my deviantART site. Link in me bio. She'll be buried down in the gallery somewhere… (Shrugs)
Ah, poor Ansem! XD It's just so much fun to toy with his heart! …Did I say that out loud? (Evil grin)
