Carnage
Author: Xanthos Samurai
Rating: R
Warnings: Lots and lots of blood and violence, also some language, bloodkink and cannibalism. No spoilers that I can recognize and nothing too sexually explicit. Just a lot of blood.
Disclaimer: There would be some serious coatsex going on if I owned this game.
Feedback: Craved like a Nobody craves hearts.
Notes: Written just because I wanted to write something dark, violent, disturbing and bloody and set it in the Kingdom Hearts universe. I also happen to love Xigbar and Xaldin and think that they have a long history together. I know that this perhaps doesn't match up exactly with their characterization in the game, but… I happen to like them better this way. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy!
Like strikes of lightning, Xigbar's sudden flashes of rage would come almost without warning. All of the members of Organization XIII were well aware that the second-in-command was the most unpredictable of all of them, even despite Saix's animalistic tendencies and Axel's sometimes bizarre habits. Those of them who had known him in "life" could recall that he had always been… spontaneous. When being polite, most of them had referred to Xigbar as having "issues." But Xehanort, who hadn't cared enough of Xigbar's opinion to be tactful and Zexion, who could smell the sniper's madness, both named Xigbar for what he truly was: insane.
Every member of Organization XIII was silent as they watched Xigbar suddenly stand up in the middle of a meeting and walk out, paying no mind to the fact that he had just interrupted Xemnas. For any other member of the organization, showing such disrespect to the Superior would have resulted in severe punishment, but Xemnas merely flickered his orange eyes at Xaldin, his second in command.
"Make sure he doesn't endanger our organization."
Xaldin stood, inclining his head slightly as he did. He was usually the one sent on the fool's errand of getting Xigbar back into a state where he could be trusted not to kill any of the other Organization members. Eleven pairs of eyes were deliberately looking away as he walked out of the meeting room.
Traverse Town was Xigbar's favorite place to hunt. It was a town full of vagrants, pariahs and the lost. People generally didn't notice if one of their own vanished without warning into the ether. He loved perching atop the clock tower, the neon lights dancing across his face and vanishing into the blackness of his cloak. It was only a matter of time until one of them came by. This was the other reason that Xigbar loved Traverse Town best of all. Despite the fact that they had perfectly good hearts, the people here acted as if they had forgotten about them. Drunk and disillusioned with being lost, they refused to acknowledge that they still had the greatest asset that they would ever possess.
Xigbar hated them for it.
They don't deserve their hearts, he thought. His brain squirmed like a fly in a spider's web – his thoughts were only just coherent enough to form sentences. Xigbar's madness had long afflicted him. It showed in his eye and the fine lines around it that had come from squinting down the barrel of his arrow rifle. It showed in his smile and the faint bloodstains on his teeth.
One walked by, a young woman in a long striped skirt. Xigbar didn't even bother to aim before he fired.
Xigbar's hands trembled as he fisted a hand in her long brown hair and lifted her up off the ground. She wasn't dead – yet. Only stunned. Still warm. Xigbar pressed his bared teeth to her neck. She smelled like coffee and vanilla and woodwork.
"Not here not here not here," he hissed to himself, more as a reminder. If the Superior found out he killed her here, he'd probably kill Xigbar outright. The Superior had a short temper and an even shorter memory regarding the debt he owed to Xigbar. The Freeshooter didn't think that he should take the chance of relying on the Superior's good graces to keep him alive this time.
Xigbar could hardly control himself as he opened the porthole. It took only a few seconds to get to the other side of Traverse Town, but to Xigbar it felt like an eternity. The other side of Traverse Town was impossible to get to by normal means, but the porthole could take him anywhere. It was a huge field where it was always night and the grass rose high and untamed nearly to Xigbar's waist.
The woman woke slowly and with a small moan, sitting up in the tall grass and holding a hand to the back of her head.
"What the…? Where am I?" She looked around wide-eyed.
"Start running."
With a start, she twisted around and stared behind her. A man in a black cloak was there, a twitching grin on his face.
"What?" The blood drained from her face and a growing dread rose in her chest.
"You only have three seconds left. Start running." Xigbar's smile remained plastered across his face as he reached for his arrow rifle.
The woman struggled to her feet and grabbed her skirt, holding it up so she could run through the grass. She panted heavily, knowing that there was no escape from the grinning nightmare waiting for blood behind her.
"Three… Two…" Xigbar whispered to himself, forcing his trembling body to remain still. Not yet. Not yet. "One."
The woman screamed as he appeared upside-down in the air in front of her. She tried to duck to one side, but one black-cloaked arm darted out and grabbed her throat. He squeezed the life from her as he gracefully landed feet-first in the grass and tossed her easily down to the ground.
"No… No!" She gasped helplessly as she began to crawl away.
With utter savagery, Xigbar fell upon the woman like a wild animal. His trembling hands feverishly tore at clothing and skin. A knife appeared in his hand and he sank it to the hilt in her throat. The hole hissed and gurgled as blood foamed up in it, driven by the air rushing through her windpipe and across the wound, a testament to her last pitiful attempts to breathe.
After that, the killing became messy.
Driven into a frenzy by the sight of blood, Xigbar sank his teeth into the pale skin of her chest. He clenched and ripped, exposing the raw, still-twitching muscle beneath the thin outer covering. With mouth and fingers, the madman pawed and tore through the meat until it was little more than a bloody pulp. Bone obstructed his way, but not for long. It splintered easily under a blow from his hands. Xigbar pushed it aside and paused with a sharp, delighted intake of breath as he uncovered what he had been looking for.
The heart lay within the cradle of mutilated flesh, still pulsating slightly. Blood was rapidly filling the cavity that Xigbar's ravishing had created. The Freeshooter stood still for several moments, looking down at the sight with one madness-rimmed eye. There it was – the object to which his life had been dedicated. And for what? What had the purpose of his dedication to hearts been? A lifetime of misery only to ultimately lose his own and become an empty shell.
In truth, Xigbar cared little for the moral and psychological ramifications of losing his heart. All he knew was that it had been his own and he had given it to no one. It had his been his and his alone. Then, it had forcefully been taken from him.
"One heart is just as good as another…" whispered Xigbar.
Her heart slid down his throat easily, like a warm, sticky fruit. Blood dribbled down his chin as he swallowed and he could feel the organ still pulsate as it descended.
Like a contended child full of sweets, Xigbar sat back and began to lick the remnants of blood from his slick, gloved hands. A pleased chuckle occasionally bubbled in his throat.
From some distance away, Xaldin sat high in the boughs of a withered, leafless tree and watched the entire spectacle with grim apathy on his features. The wind blew through his cords of hair so that they writhed down his back like snakes. It was always like this, although he hadn't seen Xigbar so savage in quite some time. Maybe in life Xaldin would have been shocked by Xigbar's actions, but not having a heart tended to change a man's perspective on a lot of things.
After several minutes, he seized a lance out of thin air and jumped lightly down from the tree. The grass crunched under his boots as he strode through the grass over to where Xigbar was still enjoying his kill.
"Have you had your fill yet?" He asked.
Xigbar paused in his feast and looked up at Xaldin out of the corner of one bright eye. The moonlight shimmered eerily across the grey streaks in his hair.
"Care to join me?" The sniper hissed, flashing a bloodstained smile up at Xaldin. "I know you miss the blood, just like I do."
There was a long pause before Xaldin grunted a negative at him. It pleased Xigbar to hear that Xaldin hadn't completely forgotten his true nature.
"It's no fun fighting the Heartless or the Nobodies, is it?" Xigbar dug his gore-encrusted fingers even deeper into the woman's slick, warm remains. "There's no blood, no open flesh. Just a poof and a flash and they're gone. It's not real fighting at all – all pretend. It's like fighting ghosts. But you know all about fighting ghosts, don't you? Your own ghosts, anyways."
"That's enough." Xaldin growled tersely, much to Xigbar's delight. He loved knowing that he could still hit Xigbar's sensitive areas. Xaldin held up his lance. "Come on, Xigbar. Superior wants you back."
"I'm sure he does. But I'm not done yet."
"Yeah, you are." The razor edge of the lance seemed to cut even through the moonlight. "Let's go."
Xigbar's movements were too fast for Xaldin to counter and he cursed the insane man's speed not for the first time. He had barely even begun to move when he felt something at his back and heard a click beside his ear.
"Don't try it… I'm crazy enough to shoot, you know." The combination of Xigbar's warm breath on the back of Xaldin's neck and the cold pressure of the barrel of the arrow rifle at his left temple made his insides rise up in turmoil. His long fingers twitched around the shaft of a lance.
"You're not crazy – you don't have a heart." Xaldin told him from between his teeth. "You don't have emotions, just like the rest of us."
Xigbar chuckled and moved forward to press his teeth against the back of Xaldin's neck. "Madness isn't in your heart, Xaldin. It's all in your head. And if you really think about it, am I really that much crazier than any of us?"
The Freeshooter's free right hand snaked up to grab Xaldin's chin. The blood made Xigbar's gloved fingertips slick against Xaldin's skin.
"You're not crazy – you're mad." Xaldin felt the muscles of his back and shoulders tense as Xigbar ran his tongue along the slice of skin just above his robes. How did he make that feel so intoxicating?
"I don't hear you complaining," breathed Xigbar, just before he sank his teeth into Xaldin's shoulder.
Xaldin's sharp intake of breath was Xigbar's opportunity to slide a few bloody, gloved fingers into the lancer's mouth. The taste of blood and the rich leather tempted Xaldin's tongue. He knew he shouldn't – it was what Xigbar wanted. But… But…
The tip of his tongue curled around Xigbar's fingers almost without his consent, but the rich flavor of blood made him forget it instantly. It had been so long since he'd had blood from battle splashed on his face. He didn't crave it, like Xigbar did, but something about it hearkened back to when they had been alive, had been human, back to when blood had flown through their veins as well.
"I was right." Xigbar hissed into Xaldin's ear, a note of savage delight in his voice. "You miss it too. You miss being human. You miss being able to enjoy this. I know."
A growl rumbled in Xaldin's throat and Xigbar's sticky fingertips pressed harder against the taut skin of Xaldin's jawline as the lancer sucked the essence of their lost lives off the glove. Xigbar was fully occupied with abusing the back of Xaldin's neck with his teeth, but his hold on the arrow rifle at Xaldin's temple never wavered.
Fortunately, Xigbar had been so entranced that he didn't notice Xaldin maneuvering one end of his lance so that it rested against the ground right behind Xigbar's foot. The lancer's affinity for wind was apparent as he suddenly whirled away from Xigbar and shoved the taller man back. Xigbar's heel caught on the lance and he fell back into the grass amid the flutter of his grey-streaked hair. Two of Xaldin's lances pierced the sleeves of his robe as he hit the ground, effectively pinning him. Xaldin placed a foot on Xigbar's chest and looked down at him impassively as he grabbed one of the lances in each hand.
"It's time to go home, Xigbar."
"Aren't you going to come down here and fuck me?" Xigbar smirked up at him.
"No."
"Then let me up and I'll do you. You win either way."
"No." A third lance appeared in midair and maneuvered itself so that the blade slid flat against Xigbar's right cheek, under the strap of the eye patch. "Behave or I'll slice it off."
"You wouldn't do that," Xigbar hissed up at the lancer. One look into Xaldin's impassive face told him otherwise. For a moment, he looked enraged, but then his expression changed to a smirk.
"Mm," he laughed. "That's the you I remember. You never let me get away with anything, you fucking hardass."
"I made a promise in blood." Xaldin didn't move. "Let's go home."
The meeting had long been over by the time the two of them returned to headquarters. Various Organization members wandered the halls and watched with expressions that ranged from pure curiosity to a knowing smirk as Xaldin marched Xigbar towards Superior's office. The crusty, dark red stains on Xigbar's robes and the bloody fingerprints on Xaldin's face told most of them all they needed to know. They would each retire to their chambers that night, thinking of their own lust for the red liquid and the part of them that went with it, the part of them that they had all lost.