A/N: On with it.
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts (c) Square Enix and Disney.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
XI: Nobody from Somebody
--------------------
She hurriedly drew the white curtains shut, holding her breath.
But then again, it was three in the morning! How could she expect them to be out at this time of the morning! There she was, staring at the perpetually twilight sky, and minding her business in general (no, actually, she was refining her Plan, but she'd rather no-one knew of said plan), when someone yelped so loud it could be heard from behind the windowpane.
That someone being Pence, Hayner and Olette behind him.
"I'd have to chain that..." she said exasperatedly as she stomped through the white room, which was once hers, and was, technically, still hers. All her sketches were still on the walls, and she cringed at the sight of something that looked straight out of preschool. She really drew badly when her memories were as blank as the white walls. Good thing she has, at least, something of Kairi's.
Sighing, Naminé portalled out of the room and into the Mansion basement. This Plan was going to take a long time.
---------------------
Blink. Blink. Blinky-blink.
Xemnas shook his head violently and paused to stare at the dent in the wall his head made. One glance at the scene in front of him made him want to bang his head again for good measure. He slowly stood up and stepped shakily up to his own bed, careful not to step closer than absolutely necessary to the Dark Keyblade that sparkled innocently in the moonlight.
On said blood-drenched bed lay a very dead Wielder, brunette hair spread out on the pillow, hand dangling limply over the side of the bed. Xemnas fought the urge to retch (from the sight itself---and the horrifying amount of bleach he'd have to use to get his bedsheets white again) as he turned away from the grisly sight.
Sora killed himself. The reality hit him like a brick-no, maybe a twenty-foot tall brick wall. Hm. Anxiety gripped him; he wanted to wail what about Plan II-B? and scream like the demented Nobody that he really was, but he decided that the sooner the Organization knew about this, the better.
Oh, and of course, the sooner he got to launder his bedsheets, much, much more better.
This was going to be one hell of a meeting.
---------------------
"Xehanort!"
A scream echoed throughout the Castle That Never Was, and from the way it jolted Xaldin awake, it was definitely not good. Also, from the way one of Xigbar's bullets crashed through his wall and right into Vexen's (who had yelled in complete abandon), he wasn't the only one who was in a horrible mood.
Cursing, he summoned his lances and portalled out, his dream of a little redwine-haired girl not exactly comforting.
--------------------
"Marluxia."
He blinked his eyes sleepily at the figure silhouetted in the doorway. "Zexion? It's four in the morning. I've not been informed of any mission this early."
"Urgent meeting." Zexion tried futilely to brush the hair out of his face. "Xemnas says now." The door shut; and the darkness engulfed his room once again.
Marluxia froze in mid-yawn as he remembered something. Number Six has the right side of his face hidden by his hair. However, he was absolutely positive the Zexion that had woken him up has a cascade of blue over his left.
Muttering something about weird things and fertilizer, he portalled out, trying to clear his mind free of the dream he had been jolted out of--a certain brunette and redhead's reunion.
Man, his head hurt.
---------------------
"Larxene, shut the hell up!" Axel mumbled, trying to block out his roommate's voice. What was it...three in the morning, and she conveniently decides to practice her battle cries at this ungodly hour (and on another note...why did she have to use the Superior's Other name?)
She screamed again, making sure that any intention of falling asleep would be chased away from Axel's brain.
Infuriated, Axel threw his pillow at the silhouette of the blonde, who was currently sitting up in her bed. He was still too groggy to get up and activate the Materia that usually illuminated his room, so he summoned his chakrams instead (and resisted the urge to throw them at number Twelve, really, a good night's sleep had been ruined). "Cripes what the hell is wrong with---"
His words died away as Larxene flung four kunais to each four orbs of Materia (and bathing them in blinding white light--official color of the World That Never Was) spread across the room. Or rather, Arlene, her Other.
She had taken to burying her face in the pillow he had thrown at her, but it did nothing to hide the long, silky waterfall of gold she had for hair. She still had her bug feelers, albeit longer and somehow...more docile.
"Don't look at me, don't look at me--" she was chanting into the pillow, her usually snappish tone muffled in the cotton-filled square of cloth.
"Uh, why did you scream 'Xehanort' at three in the morning?" Axel asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
Larxene's ears (or what was visible through her hair) turned bright red as she hugged the pillow tighter. He flinched--it was his pillow she was hugging, and he certainly didn't like it. Screw the fact that he had actually kissed her earlier; he's officially blaming it on the fifteen shots of hard alcohol he had downed.
"Don't ask." She said sharply into the pillow.
"Who are you talking to, anyway?" He snapped, annoyed. "Me? or my damn pillow?"
"Hey, answer--oof!" A soft fluffly thing hit him in the face, and he stared indignantly at the blonde, who returned his gaze. Who, in his opinion, looked absolutely beautiful.
That was the alcohol. Okay.
"Look at me!" she whined, spreading out her palms (not that Axel wasn't already looking, but let's spare him the embarassment of beng caught staring) on the bedsheets. "I---I look like my Other--"
"No duh." He ducked just in time to avoid three kunais in the head.
"A-and she's--oh, her memories are overwhelming..." She trailed off, her frightened tone of voice making him scared. Larxene had never once showed any sign of fear, and he was sure she'd never will.
Fear...
blonde shifting to red--
thalassa shifting to a fruit--
Naminé shifting to Kai--
He yelped as the Superior suddenly appeared of a portal in the middle of the room.
"Superior? What did you kill this time?" He asked loudly, uneasily eyeing Xemnas' blood-soaked coat (not that he'd see it--he knew it from the way blood dripped on the marble floor). However, the silver-haired leader was busily engaged in a staring match with Larxene, who looked like she was trying to glare his head off.
"Come off it Larx!" the pyro yelled. Larxene blinked and gave a frightened squeak. Xemnas cleared his throat.
"We have a problem."
--------------------
"We're back."
"You're home."
Roxas' eyes snapped open. Jumping to his feet, he immediately portalled out, not noticing that another certain blonde, supposed to be sleeping, was gone.
He had far too much on his mind right now.
--------------------
Loud, insistent, and absolutely irritating knocks on the door made Saïx very angry, Demyx was well aware of that. So was Luxord. That was exactly why they had thought of awaking Lexaeus first (he made a very good shield come training time). So he and the gambler were now standing behind the Silent Hero, pretending they were his guards or something, but all off them knew full well it was the other way around.
Saïx was very scary when he was angry. Yes, he was.
"Saïx! Wake up!" Lexaeus hollered before sighing at the futility of it all. "Why don't one of you two just portal inside and shake him awake?"
"And get killed?" Demyx said unbelievingly. "Are you insane?" Luxord nodded in agreement.
Number Five shook his head. "Whose anger would you rather face--Saïx's or the Superior's?"
They fell silent.
"I knew so," the hulking Nobody said exasperatedly as he summoned his tomahawk, supposdly intending to break down the berserker's door with as much noise as possible. "Sa--"
"I'm up, I'm up..." The door swung open into a faceful of bleary-eyed, blue-hair-rumpled, teary-faced Nobody.
Demyx choked and gave a frightened squeak (he also clutched the back of Lexaeus' hood in fear, which the irritated Nobody jerked back. He thus settled for clutching Luxord's sleeve in case he needed a shield) as he stared at the berserker. Teary-faced was something that had never been used to describe Saïx before, and he clamped a hand over his mouth to stop the adjective from slipping out and becoming the cause of his untimely Fading.
However, Luxord had other ideas, seeing that he had started laughing under his breath. "Have you been crying or--"
"Don't ask." Saïx growled, the claymore summoned in his hand adding to the effectiveness of his growl.
"Can do."
Silence blanketed over them again, Luxord and Saïx glaring (in the gambler's case, razor-sharp cards, and in the berserker's case, razor-sharp claymores) at each other. Demyx inched slowly away from the two in case they caught fire or something.
"Let's get to the meeting room now, shall we?" Lexaeus' tired voice cut across the silence.
--------------------
"Can somebody please get number Thirteen here and---"
Snarling, Roxas brushed himself off. He had sprinted through the Corridors (got lost two times: he mistakenly turned into a horde of stampeding gazelles on the first, and he portalled into the middle of a Radiant Garden classroom at the second try. Thankfully, he had gathered his senses enough to remember where the Meeting Hall was) in his hurry to get here, his mind racing with a million questions.
He looked up. Axel was standing shiftily against one wall, eyeing Larxene next to him, who was currently muttering nonstop under her breath. Roxas' eyes widened as she turned around to say something to Marluxia on her left; her now-waist length hair had been tied back. Marluxia nodded and talked animatedly back.
Was it just him, or was Zexion staring at Larxene?
Whatever he had something much more pressing on his mind. The door behind him clicked and he whirled around to see a blood-drenched Xemnas.
Roxas felt like fainting.
He had been jolted awake by a shot of excruciating pain through the chest, right where his heart was supposed to be. He didn't have any kind of wound or anything else that would've merited such pain, so he supposed it was Sora's pain he was sharing. For a Somebody to feel that much pain, however, was deadly.
And judging from the expression on Xemnas' face (and the horrible bloodstains on his clothes---and the shocked faces of his comrades) something was wrong.
His heart skipped a beat as all the possibilities of what could have happened raced through his head.
Since when did he have a heart to skip a beat?
"Tell me he didn't just do what I think he did," he said in one breath desperately. "Tell me he didn't just go and---"
The meeting hall broke into conversations and whispered exclamations, and Xemnas looked visibly shaken.
Roxas stared at him, a lump forming in his throat. "Oh hell he didn't--"
The silver-haired Nobody spoke in a voice so quiet it had the effect of shutting all the Nobodies up. "The Knighting had gone wrong."
Larxene spluttered indignantly. "B-but all the King had to do was to tap both of them with a stupid sword!"
"No. Settle down."
"But Sora's hurt!" Roxas yelled at him, Oathkeeper coalescing in one clenched fist. "We have to find him!"
"Sora's injured?" Vexen said incredously, staring at Roxas unbelievingly. "How, I ask, would you know that?"
"He's my Other for crying out LOUD!" he roared, frustrated at their lack of concern for the guy who brought them back from the darkness. "HE COULD BE DYING, BLEEDING HIS GUTS OUT SOMEWHERE AND WE'RE HERE WONDERING HOW THE HELL I DAMN KNOW! WE HAVE TO--"
"No we don't." Xemnas cut across him smoothly. "Sora Hikari is already dead."
A collective gasp ran across the room.
"You're joking," Axel asked weakly, collapsing into a vacant white chair.
"Do I joke about things like these, Axel?"
"N-no," the pyro replied in an even weaker voice.
Roxas fell to his knees, tears blurring his vision and dropping onto the pristine marble floor, the Oathkeeper clattering forlornly beside him. He felt like screaming. The general atmosphere of the Hall suddenly became much more quiet (punctuated by a few sniffs and the occasional sob--and Roxas had no intention whatsoever to find out who, for fear of being scarred for life).
"Cripes!" Xigbar suddenly exclaimed. Roxas gritted his teeth and stared at the eyepatched Nobody, who was looking quite frustrated with himself. "I'm a Nobody, I'm not supposed to feel anything! Why am I feeling so...so frickin' sad right now!"
Roxas stared at him. He was actually right. He wasn't remembering anguish, he was feeling anguish. Whatever. First things first. He turned to the Superior. "Why and how?" he asked in a surprisingly even voice, ignoring the sobbing that sounded suspiciously like Demyx.
Xemnas sighed and walked over to the nearest Nobody-free chair (which was, surprisingly, very few, seeing that all his fellow comrades had already sat without him knowing), leaving him, literally, the last man standing. "Let me begin at the beginning..." (at which Axel rolled his eyes, of course you had to start with the beginning, why call it begin?)
"The Knighting of the two Wielders Riku and Sora was no ordinary induction, King Mickey had made sure of that. He intended to bind them to the realm of light."
Zexion snorted. "That'd kill Riku."
"Yes, it would. If it went the way it was supposed to be. I tried to talk the King out of it, but because of legendary Wielder stubborness (Xemnas shot Roxas a look), he didn't budge. So he went ahead."
"Why would it kill Riku?" Marluxia asked interestedly, looking over Larxene's shoulder (and ignoring Axel's glaring).
"Darkness is an integral part of his heart," Zexion explained, saying more words than he would normally use in a month. "Binding to the realm of light banishes darkness within, and doing so to Riku would be like ripping his heart in two."
"Mhmm," the brunette nodded thoughtfully to himself, whispering something in Larxene's ear.
"Back to the story," Xemnas continued. "He transmuted the Dark Keyblade and used the Seven Princess's powers over light to make the oath binding. However, one of the Princesses' touch had been tainted by darkness, and the Knighting had no effect on Riku. In Sora's case, the King released his Antiform, the dark side of his heart."
"Antiform, I suppose, rampaged, and injured Sora to within a few inches of his life. The King and I arrived just in time to stop him from ripping out the Wielder's heart completely, and I brought the Wielder here to the Castle alive."
"You didn't kill him, did you?" Marluxia asked conspiratorally.
"No." Xemnas said in a very dangerous tone (one that clearly stated 'If you say another word I'm going to kick you out of this Castle'). "Sora was intent on getting rid of Antiform, so he killed himself."
The room fell silent.
"Oh." Saïx shrugged. "Then why is Roxas still here?"
Vexen joined in the conversation. "As far as my studies say, when an existing Other dies, his Nobody fades with him."
Xemnas sighed exasperatedly. "As far as I'm concerned, the Wielder's as dead as anyone with a Keyblde sticking out of his heart as anyone else. I know of no way he could survive what---"
Roxas had tuned out all the Superior's next words as he bit his lip, horrified, working out what Sora had done.
"He stabbed himself with the Dark Keyblade?" he burst out.
Xemnas eyed him, gaze unsettling. "Yes, he did, before my very--"
"Hell no.." he whispered fervently to himself, bringing a hand over his chest, ignoring the Superior calling out his name insistently.
Roxas knew full well what had happened when Sora had first stabbed himself with the Dark Keyblade. Naminé had come into existence when Kairi's heart left Sora's, and not soon after, Roxas, when Kairi released Sora's heart. Panic started to flood his mind. He didn't kill himself, the idiot. He only released his heart. That was why Roxas was still standing there, frying his brain cells thinking of how he still existed.
But then, that spurred a lot more questions. Like where Sora's heart ended up. Like where his new Nobody was. Like whether Sora himself was a Heartless or---
"His Antiform!" Roxas yelled suddenly, the Oblivion and Oathkeeper clenched once again in his shaking hands.
"What is it?" Xemnas stood up (as did all of the other Nobodies, the sight of the normally-brooding Roxas going berserk was something they had too see), alarmed. "His Antiform is dead along with Sora."
"He didn't kill himself, Xemnas!" he said in a high-pitched voice, grabbing the front of the silver Nobody's coat frantically. "The Dark Keyblade releases hearts! It doesn't kill!"
"Crap!" Axel shouted suddenly, making Larxene beside him jump. "Roxas' right! Sora's Antiform is on the loose!"
"Not to mention his heart is on the loose!" Demyx yelled right after, summoning his sitar. "His heart!"
At which the meeting room burst into activity, weapons being summoned one after the other. Xemnas definitely looked panicked, he apparently was too distraught to think of that obvious thing. "Silence!" he bellowed, sabers suddenly hovering around the room, ready to implode at any minute.
"Xaldin, Lexaeus, Saïx, Axel, Marluxia, Larxene and Roxas, with me, we hunt Sora's Antiform down. The rest, follow Xigbar and claim the Wielder's heart!"
"What about his new Nobody?" someone asked, voice unrecognizable in the babble that followed Xemnas' instructions.
"We worry about that later. Weapons at the ready," they all tensed, waiting for to go signal that never came.
The door clicked open.
"Is anyone in here?" Sora poked his head in, and his sentence was cut short, probably from the stares they were all directing at him now. "Okay. Is this a bad time?"
Roxas slowly backed away and tripped on a lance.
--------------------
Naminé hummed to herself as her fingers tapped nimbly on the keyboard. Xemnas had certainly ravaged this place fairly clean, but there was still things he hadn't touched. Like the memory-rearranging amplifier software she and Riku had created together.
Good thing, because it made her Plan so much more easier.
----------------------
"I take that this is definitely not a good time."
Roxas stared at the figure that had thrown the door open. He couldn't help but stare, from the bloody sneaker-prints on the white marble (well, one of them would have to clean that up later, and he had no intention to be that poor Nobody) to the tips of bloodstained brunette hair.
"You should take a bath," Axel's voice cut across the silence, diffusing the mood slightly (judging from the way snickers echoed off the walls). Slightly being the word of choice. The pyro stared funnily at Xemnas. "Superior, I think you just made a very serious understatement."
Snickers again.
Sora grinned widely. "Sorry for the mess. I'll clean it up later--"
"Sora. Uhm." Roxas stammered, not able to take his eyes off his Other. Now he knew where Antiform was. The left half of his face looked like it had been dipped in black ink, and a streak of black crossed the bridge of his nose. In fact, the left half of his body seemed to have been bathed in black and his mahogany-brown hair hid strands of ebony among them. An eye, glinting sickly-Heartless yellow, stared at them from under black strands. He was, literally, half-Antiform.
The brunette tilted his head at them (scratching the back of his head with a razor-sharp-nails-tipped hand) as he walked inside and closed the door with an ominous thud. "I can explain."
"Please," Xemnas said weakly, gesturing to the chair he had just vacated earlier.
Sora declined the offer. "Uh, okay. Where should I start?"
"Maybe with the fact that you're half-Heartless would help?" Roxas ventured. Sora walked and stood next to him, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Okay, with that. I was half-delirious with pain, okay? It didn't occur to me that the Dark Keyblade wasn't exactly the suicide tool of choice. So anyway, I stabbed myself, and then released all thirteen shards of my heart, I suppose, to you guys, seeing that you are the closest--"
"Question!" the pyro raised a hand. "If I may ask, how exactly did your heart get broken into exactly thirteen shards?" he asked shrewdly.
Sora shrugged. "I can tell you Kai broke my heart, but I can't tell you why thirteen."
Vexen whipped out his trusty Sharpie fine-tip and started scribbling on the marble table, ignoring the disapproving glare of the Superior as he did so.
"Anyhow that happened. When I released my heart, I was supposed to turn completely Heartless, wasn't I? Well, there was a problem," he jerked a thumb towards Roxas.
The blonde stared at him with dawning comprehension on his face. "You already have a Nobody."
"Yes, I do," he nodded thoughtfully (altough the effect was ruined by the blood), tapping his chin. "A new Nobody can't be created, I suppose. Only one Nobody per heart, I think. So I think Kingdom Hearts had to do something...I released my heart, or a part of it, to Roxas."
"So technically that means--" Vexen started. Roxas finished his sentence for him.
"You're the Nobody now."
Sora nodded enthusiastically. "And half-Heartless. Don't worry, I have him under control. I think so." he added in a not-so-confident voice.
"Okay, I get it," Xigbar said loudly, leaning on the backrest of Vexen's seat. "That's why we can actually feel."
"Yep, because you have my heart."
"Why do I get the feeling," Marluxia asked, "that you're actually happy about this?"
"Because you got what you want, didn't you?" Sora smiled, running a clawed hand through his spikes. "You have my heart. Not to brag, but it's the most powerful tool Kingdom Hearts has to offer."
--------------------
Larxene bit her lip as the Wielder answered the questions Vexen was currently bombarding him with. She drew her hair over one shoulder and started absentmindedly playing with it.
They really got what they wanted, didn't they? They could feel, even if it's just the shards of another's heart. It certainly was as effective as a whole one. The incomplete feeling that was still present (whatever--it was still only a shard), but she had long gotten used to the void that was her heart missing.
Then why was she frightened?
She ignored the discreet glance Zexion had sent her way. He had been like that ever since they had entered this meeting hall.
"It's like a breather, you know, until I find you guys your own hearts---" Sora was saying.
"Ah. So that is the reason why I have dreamt of Princess Kairi on a pirate ship of some sort," Vexen replied, scribbling furiously on the marble table once again. Sora (or rather, the right side of his face) blushed furiously. Larxene reminded herself that the Wielder was the one who was only remembering how to feel now.
"M-maybe because she was the one who broke my heart, so that's why thirteen shards of memory--"
"Maybe. I do have to conduct an experiment."
She let her gaze wander over her fellow Nobodies---
Were they still Nobodies?
--and pursed her lips. She was the first to change. She met Zexion's eyes and blushed, turning away instantly, noticing that his bags were now on the opposite side of his face.
Was she still Larxene?
That was a question she had trouble answering.
When Nobodies got a heart, are they still themselves? Or do they turn into their Others?
Tears formed at the edge of her eyes. No, she definitely wasn't happy. She didn't want to turn back into Arlene. She was number Twelve of Organization XIII, the Savage Nymph, and they were her family. She threw kunais, controlled lightning, and was a sadist. That was the image she had clung to desperately for the need of having her own life.
She was Larxene, and always, and forever will be.
"Larx?" Axel asked beside her, brushing the curtain of flaxen hair that hid her face from his view.
"I don't want to change," she said softly, unable to stop the tears rapidly dripping from her eyes, for the first time, heartfelt sadness blurring her vision. "I don't want to become somebody else. I want to be Larxene."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: That was a question that's been bugging me for the longest time. What would happen if Organization XIII really did get hearts, hm?
Why was Zexion stealing glances at Larxene? You should've guessed by now. What is Naminé's grand Plan? I'm not telling, what kind of author would I be if I did?
Sorry if the chapter has less humor and fluffiness (okay, so it was nonexistent) than usual, yes?
I haven't typed the next chapter yet, and have no idea how to write the story, so no quote yet...I'm such a lazy girl.
Thank you to darkdude71(evil, yes, evil), Maux (II-B is ruined, that I can say), Skitty 2004 (Ah...Sora just won't die, won't he?), Ellie0223(don't cry. Sora, I think, has more lives than a cat), Teh Pwnful Kiwi(magically? no. Stupidly? yes.), hikari-aozora (he just -won't- die!), Namine's Heart (ohh...how my heart jumps with joy).
Hey! It's an author's note! -sticks out tongue-
Sorry. I want to rant a bit. PLEASE REVIEW. Please? So many hits, and less than 10 review! -sobs- Go on, click the little purple button. You know you want to. XD
