Rebirth Again

by The guy who never was

Not all nobodies gave into accepting they held no true life. Demyx could do a number of things that made him feel like he could feel for real. One of those things, was being with Zexion.

7. Loneliness and Solitude

Hey, nice to see you. How´s life treating you? Ah. I see. Me? I´ve been constricted with time. Yes, a lot is going on. But not here, only there. Where? Where I am standing, of course. Enjoy the chapter, an OC of importance is coming. Don´t worry; he won´t appear for the rest of RA. Also, plase note though this chapters and a few of the next ones happen in the Bleach universe, but there is no need to know about that as it is of little relevance to the story. Thanks.

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BlackWind92: (Too lazy to write a response) (joke) Too long. Chapters that are too long keep reviewers away, so I think I´ll stick to around 5,000 words per chapter. Thanks for your review!

Ranma Higurashi: ...Yeaaaaah... Enjoy teh chapter! And thanks for the review.

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Disclaimers: I don´t own any of the chapters except for one.

Notes: "Sorry" for talking, "sorry" for thinking.

Rebirth Again Chapter Seven: Loneliness and Solitude

Zexion analyzed his surroundings carefully. The whole world he was at seemed like an enormous labyrinth painted in white, so he made sure to memorize every last turn of it. He also made notions on a towering structure, also painted in white, that seemed to be made of many towers, including one that had barred windows like those of a prison.

It was all calm, after all, until...

"Oh my god my arm oh my god my arm OH MY GOD MY ARM!" the sound of the whines came from the hole of darkness that opened beside him. An instant later, an arm-missing nobody materialized. "There you are, Zexion!" Demyx yelled and pointed at him(well, technically he made the arm that no longer was attached to him point) , seemingly forgetting about "his god and his arm", "why the hell did you make me eat a Paopu fruit!"

"I didn´t," replied the wiser nobody, "you told me to share it with you." Zexion didn´t bother to look at him, not even to see the chopped arm.

"Yeah but... but..."

"Is there something about it?" asked Zexion uninterestedly.

"Well," Demyx said and thought for a moment. "Nope. Nothing at all. By the way, how did you know I was going to appear here?"

"I didn´t," answered Zexion bluntly, still looking at the horizon, "it is mere coincidence."

"Agh!" Demyx snapped, looking terrified. "It´s the curse of the Paopu fruit!"

"You mean that legend?" inquired Zexion, finally placing his eye on Demyx, and lazyly looking at him.

Demyx, stopped biting his nails. "You mean you knew about it?"

"Yes."

"And you still shared it with me!?"

"Yes."

"Why?" he finally said, "I can´t even imagine you standing me all your life..."

"Legends are legends for a reason," he answered flatly, and then added, "they´re false. They´re simple lies of the humans so that they can amuse themselves or find hope. After all, the humans are the creatures that perfected the art of lying."

"Still..."

"What about your arm?" The Cloaked Schemer at last told Demyx. Not truly caring on what happened, Zexion proceded without hearing the musician´s answer. "If you do not reattach it to your body as soon as possible, you will have lost it for good."

"Oh yeah right! Do you have a something to work on it?" Zexion shaked his head and Demyx sighed heavily. Without an arm, he would be useless. Even moreso than before. He would not even be able to play his beloved music, the sole thing that made his non-existance have rainy days instead of hell. The truth is, though he would not admitted, that music made the clouds go away, but it did not made the sun come back. But didn´t really matter now. The empty melodies would become non-existant songs, just as him.

"I do."

Both nobodies turned to their fellow member as he removed his cloak. Demyx´s faced beamed radiantly. "Marluxia!" The Graceful Assasin took out a quite complete medical equipment that ranged from calming drugs to curative plants, which earned him an skeptical look from The Melodious Nocturne. "The hell with that stuff? Why did you bring all that?"

"Perhaps," Marluxia said, "it would be a better question why I am here?"

"...Why are you here?"

"I´d rather not lose two neutral members.?

"Huh?"

"The Organization has been divided in many ways. One of those ways, is the ones who are with me, the ones who are with Xenmas, and the ones who are alone."

"Every Nobody is alone," the Cloaked Schemer thought."And who are with you, might I ask?" he cut in.

"Larxene."

"So," The Cloaked Schemer directed a harsh look, "you came here to help us, taking the risk of being punished by Xenmas, for the only reason of us not being particularily sided with him?"

"Far-fetched, huh? Even so..."

"Ouch!" jolted Demyx, as Marluxia began to work on his arm.

"...I don´t think he´ll punish me." Instead of waiting for the next question, he explained, "Organization XIII is on one of its worst crisis. The members that have betrayed, the members that were going to be executed--that includes me--are now working as any other member. Distrust is all that´s left, yet Xenmas can´t be safe for his own sake. He needs every one of us more than ever, and so we have been given freedom. Freedom and doubt. Yes, the Organization is on its worst crisis, and the quick-kill scheme does not help at all. Deploying two members to the front to deal with over 15 enemies just proves it."

"If I had two hands," Demyx said loudly, "this would be the part where I clap. I guess."

After what appeared to be a few hours, Demyx´s arm was once again with him, though it was held with a splint. The three nobodies were discussing their following actions.

"First, we need to know more of the enemy. Most of all, where and how many they are."

"I agree. As Demyx destroyed their Gummi Ship," Demyx smiled, "their only way of following us is through the portals we left, which leads to conclude-"

"They are divided in three!"

"Precisely. Demyx did you bring the Keyblader?"

"Err..."

"I did."

"Then it is a matter of locating where he is, and eliminate the other two groups. I know where Riku´s group is by his scent.

"I have an idea of Sora´s location."

"I have no idea where the other group is."

"Don´t worry, Demyx. It´ll be better if you stay here to rest."

"Great!"

"But, one of us will need to stay here to keep an eye on him, since the shinigami seem to be looking for outsiders to kill them."

"Shini... gami?" repeated Demyx confused.

"It stands for death god. It is the dead tongue of japanese. You should know some considering you also knew Vexen."

"Oooh right! He demanded us to adress him with some of those weird japanese suffixes as they "reflected better the position of the talker". Whatever. But I had always wondered on why there are such languages."

"The theory says the world of light used to be united, and it held many different languages," Zexion interrupted. "Yet one day, a plague of creatures began to eat it away. The habitants of th earth were weak against them as they were divided and had conflicts among themselves. But, as the plague intensified, the different inhabitants decided to unite, and to do so, they took one language as universal and all the other were simply declared obsolete."

"Awesome. But there seems to be more to it than that, right?"

"You asked for the reason of the muliple dead tongues, not an overview of the ancient past. There is, also, too much on that matter to be summarized for our time needs."

"And it seems that these shinigami used to use the japanese as they use the honorific titles," Marluxia remarked. "Our clothes look close enough to their uniform to be overlooked from afar, so I recommend using honorific titles for the moment."

"Sooo... Marluxia-shi and Zexy-chan is it!?" Zexion and Marluxia did not know if Demyx was trying to annoy them, or lacked knowledge on the use of honorific titles. Any way, they did not bother pointing it out.

"Either way, who´ll stay here with Demyx... -san... and who´ll gather info on our enemy?"

"I don´t care."

"I´ll go. But you would help me if you gave me the coordinates of Riku."

"Irrelevant. His smell is already giving me exact directions of him."

"But you can´t detect the ones who are with him merely with scent."

"But it does tell me they are two."

"And I know those two are Yuffie and that mouse," Demyx added. "That pathetic king-wannabe rat..."

"Fine then. I will come back after I gather the info on the other two groups. Zexion, you can detect their location by their scents, rigth?"

Zexion shooked his head and replied, "there are many scents here, and I don´t know their specific scents."

"Lame, Zexy-chan. You spent I-don´t-know-how-much-time on the same castle that Roxas--er, Sora did. But now that think of it you spent even more time with Roxas and he should have the same scent!"

"No. Roxas´s natural scent was covered very soon with the scent of blood. I did not learn hs natural scent."

Marluxia remembered Roxas on his first days with the Organization XIII. The new Nobody held no memories and as such was like a newborn baby. Like blank paper... that unfortunately fell in a pond of ink. Dark, corrupted and selfish ink. It was not long before the paper got dark. And not only did it absorb the ink; it also got wet with blood.

A blank mind, surrounded by hatred such as the Organization´s. It was a matter of time for Roxas to become as Saïx--until Axel showed him another way of life.

Yes, Marluxia knew quite a lot about that--it was, after all, his plan to make Sora like Roxas. A clay to be shaped by its surroundings--in his plan made to shape him as his weapon.

"Enough. I will start looking for the two groups."

The two other nobodies nodded and so their brief meeting was over. Marluxia went ahead to fulfill his assigned duty.

"Stop it, right there!" The high-ranked shinigami ordered, as soon as he saw the intruder. "On behalf of the 2th division of the Gotei 13, we claim your life Ryoka!" the shinigami anounced, and the bunch of shinigami following him screamed with vigor.

The ryoka let out a sigh, and turned. "Bla bla bla. Bla. That´s all I hear from you losers. You´d guess the death people would be more interesting, but alas! They are as boring as your average living guy. Oh well."

The man had black hair, combed to the rigth just at the level of the eye, with a few shorter strings going to the left. The back of his hair was a few centmeters from reaching the shoulder level. He wore a white cloak, which hid a tatto of an eye on his chest. His skin was fairly pale, as well.

A few explosions and a few screams were heard.

The man walked away, humming an old song he had heard during his favorite massacre. His personal song theme, he considered. The drops of blood slided down his face. "Yep, dead guys are the same as living guys. But I can´t say I don´t enjoy this."

Meanwhile, Zexion and Demyx were looking at the sky in silence. "Tell me, Zexion, how do you cope with all that loneliness?" The blonde nobody asked to break the tensing silence.

"I don´t. I am not lonely."

"Yes you are!" Demyx raised his voice. "You are always alone, you never talk to anybody, and...!"

"Solitude," Zexion replied calmly.

"Huh?"

"You confuse solitude with loneliness. Loneliness is simply the undesired solitude, that is true, but they are two things the opposite."

"Hey," Demyx said unimpressed, "loneliness and solitude are almost the same."

"Solitude is," Zexion´s eyes narrowed, "the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."

"False. Loneliness is the anxiety that you don´t matter at all," Demyx countered. His eyes unwillingly turned from the sky to the Cloaked Schemer

"Everyone comes into existence alone, lives as a separate being, and ultimately dies alone."

Demyx closed his eyes. "Amazing, but your coldness still amazes me. BUT," Demyx got up, opened his eyes and closed his fist, "we didn´t come into existence, we are not beings, and we have died already! We are the non-living proof that loneliness is not eternal!"

"Fool."

Demyx grinned. "Pessimist."

"There!"

"Shit." Demyx turned slowly while Zexion turned normally. Both were relieved to find that they hadn´t spotted them, but rather a man dressed in white. The shinigami attacked him relentlessly yet all they could achieve was getting blowed. He, on the other hand, simply smiled confidently and mocked them.

"Come on, anyone in Hollow Bastion would be more fun!" He said, as he blowed up a blue haired shinigami´s leg. "Specially now that they are having their little personal war over there." Another Shinigami threw himself at him, but he simply grabbed his head with his hand and inserted a finger on his ear. The blood came out of the ears and eyes, almost as tears. "But that´s not the point! The point is that even my brother was more fun than all of you, and that´s not saying much, really."

"We better relocate."

"W-why?" Demyx suddenly had a headache, so he wanted to lie down and sleep.

"Because," Zexion pointed at the man with the white cloak, "he is the kind of person who will kll anyone, and we are not in our best condition. Also, he seems to know about our operations, based on him knowing our recent... war on Radiant Garden."

"Oh, that´s right. It´s not Hollow Bastion, it´s Radiant Garden. Silly me," the white-cloaked man snapped out of nowhere. He looked up to Zexion and Demyx with a smile and ran his hand through the back of his hair. "Pardon my stupidity."

"Shit shit. He´s seen us! What do we do!"

"Relocate."

"What about Mar-" before he could finish, Demyx was brought into a dark passage by and with Zexion.

"Wait," the white-cloaked man took a nearby shinigami and threw him to the wall where Zexion and Demyx were standing. The shinigami exploded and the wall ruptured, but the nobodies were already gone. "You haven´t even heard my name!"

"S-scary..." one of the shinigami murmured.

"Was it necesary to use him to blow up the wall instead of exploding the wall directly? No. Was it more entertaining? Yes, it was!" The still unnamed man answered himself. "What, are you still here? Look, I admire your insanity and all that, you guys are being awesome for not escapng despite your obvious lack of any skill or style whatsoever but I´m getting tired of blowing up flies with a bazooka so let´s get over with this."

"Who was that dude?" Demyx inquired rhethorically.

"I am not sure, but he´s going around killing anything he sees."

"Marluxia!" Demyx let out surprised. "...-shi."

"Time for us to decide who goes with who."

"Yeah guys. Don´t worry about the guy with the pasted arm. Go ahead and send him to fight without even a how are you?´." Demyx snapped with sarcasm.

Marluxia turned to him and answered, "how are you?"

"Fine! My arm´s going great, in fact. It´ll work enough for a fight." Demyx announced with a big smile on his face.

"Then," Zexion cut in out of nowhere "we should stick with the ones that already saw us; it will be better for them not to know who is on this mission."

"Oh shit. You wouldn´t say that if you had emo-keyblader rat-keyblader and hyperactive-ninja against you!" instantly thought Demyx. Without noticing, he uttered "but then again..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

"As I was saying," Zexion reassumed, "objections?" Zexion´s visible eye turned to Demyx accusingly.

"Nope... none at all. But I will say you sent the wrong guy. Not only Axel has got catchphrases memorized." He answered. "But then again I wouldn´t like the Organization losing its two best members just for me, right?"

"You have to be desperate to send Demyx to fight Riku and the king," an unemotional voice said.

The three nobodies turned to find the second-in-command. "Saïx," said both Marluxia and Zexion. Saïx!´ was what Demyx exclaimed.

"I suppose you are here because of me," Marluxia correctly concluded.

"Precisely. However, you are spared from death."

"Saïx showing mercy? I thought I wouldn´t live to see that."

"If it was in my hands, I would have killed you the moment you entered in my eyesight. I have, however, orders not to."

Marluxia smirked. "Saïx hates me. Oh but that is right, he can´t. Because then he´d have emotions. And then he would be breaking his beloved master´s belief."

"I don´t know what the Superior sees in you."

"I don´t know what you see in the Superior." Marluxia and Saïx were face-to-face now. "But I do know some things. He appointed me to the Castle Oblivion, he saw my beliefs colliding with his, and ignored it, and he has seen me betraying him and dissobeying him multile times, and even so hasn´t harmed me in any way. Sure you are his second-in-command, but even you know you are insignificant to him, and you are justifying your pathetic, pointless existence just by acting as the living proof that he is right in his no emotions´ lies. You are-"

"Our superior, and a notorious addition to our chances of success," Zexion interrupted. "I guess you will help us, as otherwise you would not be here. Aid Demyx."

"No." Any spark of rage Saïx had was now gone. Instead of expecting to be asked, he justified his answer, "my orders are to supervise number eleven (proving he is not worthy of the Superior), thus I can´t possibly be paired with anyone but Marluxia. But also of note is your low fighting capabilities, Zexion. I seriously doubt you can defeat the keyblader, less to say with Cloud and Leon."

"Who are Cloud and Leon?" sputtered Demyx after a long time of silence.

"The blonde dressed in black and the brunnette with a gun-sword."

"Oh."

"..."

"..."

"Zexion, I am still waiting for an answer."

"If it is necesary," he simply told them.

Demyx´s eyes went wide, "Who... what is that?"

It was a cloak floating on the air wihtout physical, with the exception of a red glowing orb.

"It is Axel´s gift. And... my heart."

"You mean..."

"Yes. It is my heartless. Curious isn´t it? It is so close, and yet so distant."

"Well, it must be awful to like, have something you have longed so much so close, and can´t be able to obtain it. That´s for sure."

"We still..." Marluxia reflexed, "...haven´t decided who Saïx is going with. Sure, his mission is to follow me (like a shadow), but we need him to follow Demyx in order to succeed with our mission."

"The mission is not yours," thought Zexion.

"This is going to take long." Demyx said rather absentmindedly.

Marluxia frowned slightly. "That is exactly the point. We can´t take long with this, we have to make a choice now!"

"..."

"..."

"...Why don´t we vote it?" Demyx proposed shyly.

"No point . You are three, I am one. Fine, your mission does take priority over mine. But I want Marluxia to have a description with proofs of his assignment."

"There is no other choice, is there?" Marluxia took a few seconds to watch the blue sky. "Fine."

The four nobodies opened the portals and entered them. As the portals closed, a man threw himself to one. The portal closed in front of him, and he fell flat on his face. "Fucking no way... grr..."

Riku pressed on forward, trying (and failing) not to pay attention to the loud ninja´s rants.

"Hey, stop ignoring me!"

"Wonder how´s it going in Radia-"

"We´re lost, aren´t we!?"

"Did anybody else-"

"You´re hopeless."

"She won´t let me finish a single tho-"

"Why am I even following you...!"

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP ONE SECOND!?" Riku exploded, "I don´t know why you are following either, but please, if you´re planning to leave, please do!"

"You don´t have to be so noisy!" Riku hit his face with his palm. "Fine, I´m leaving now. You reaaally should be more like Sora, he´s much better than you. Even Leon´s-"

"Oh, just leave."

Yuffie sticked out her tongue, turned and left turning left at the end of the corridor. King Mickey extended his arm as if to reach her, and then gave Riku a dissaproving look.

"We´ll be better off without her."

Suddenly, Yuffie´s voice formed a scream, grabbing both keybladers´ attention. Yuffie reappeared in their sights and disappeared as quickly, leaving only a passing "run!".

Before they could react, dozens of Shinigami were persecuting them, one of them recklessly shouting over and over "Ryoooooookaaaaaa!!!". Soon, they catched up with Yuffie, but all they could think of was escaping. And how the lead Shinigami´s throat didn´t dry out.

After a few minutes, Riku got tired and fired a black fireball to the wall. The wall crumbled cutting off their persecutors´ path. Panting, Riku amassed breath and said, "it´s all your fault."

"Oooookay... not even I am THAT pathetic," a voice echoed from over them. All of them tlted their heads back as much as they could. Two figures stood there--one shining with a smile and one with a dark luster due to his penetrating eyes.

"Going thru the roofs... why didn´t we think of that?"

"Gee... I don´t know... why didn´t you think of breaking the wall before?"

"Shut up," Riku said firmly. "At last time to get rid of some stress." The grin in his face grew considerably.

"What stress? You haven´t done anything since you killed Organization XIII."

"Do you have to question every damn thing I say?" the silver-haired keyblader asked defeated. His eyes took a sharp look rapidly. "Stress comes from more than just battle."

"Yeah, but it´s not nearly-"

"Should we let them end their discussion?" inquired Demyx rubbing the back of his head and staring casually at the battle of words.

"No," Saïx replied.

"Hey, you could make senten-"

"We´d better eliminate them ASAP,"the blue-haired nobody interrupted.

A water bullet flew invisibly to the naked eye to Riku´s feet, who fell to the ground without realizing what had happened. Demyx smiled widely.

"ASAP? EZ!" Demyx loudly said, his haid tilting from side to side and his hand making a "peace sign". "By the way... what does... what does ASAP mean?"

"As Soon As Possible."

"Oh. I thought it meant AS Awesome as Possible."

Saïx looked toward Demyx, eyes wide and then sharp. He summoned his Claymore.

"Hey, hey! No need to reccur violence!" Demyx defended himself nervously.

Saïx didn´t twitch.

"Come on Saïx please don´t kill me I´ll shut up I promise please please!" Demyx pleaded on his knees.

Suddenly, a strong wind blowed from behind Demyx, making his and Saïx´s hair dance, and a man appeared. This man wore a black outfit tore from the left side of the back... from where a bat wing emerged.

Saïx immediately turned to face him, but Cloud´s eyes ignored him as if he wasn´t there at all, and fixed on someone else. "Sephiroth!"

The being with silver hair looked at Cloud, confused and pained. "What... are you talking about?"

"Ran out of mental tricks?"

Cloud flew to him, decision burning in his eyes. King Mickey got on the way, but was knocked aside easily. Cloud finally got on his feet, on front of the silver-haired male. "Stand up, and let´s end this."

"Cloud!" a female voice got his attention. Yuffie´s eyes met with his. "What are you doing?"

"Ending a war," The blonde replied.

"What´s going on?" Demyx seemed to be more than confused.

"Organization XIII! You´re behind this aren´t you!" Demyx turned to watch two brunnettes on the side of the wall contrary to where his objectives were.

"What do you mean "this"?" Demyx inquired bewildered.

"Cloud!" was the only answer he obtained from Sora.

"I don´t know about that. By the way, where´s Zexion? He´s supposedly assigned to you.

Suddenly, another thing catched Demyx´s attention. "Saïx, where are you going?"

Saïx didn´t face him as he said, "the two of you will be more than enough ot handle this."

"Hey Saïx, what do you mean "two"? Hey, hey!" But Saïx was already lost into the passage of darkness. Demyx overlooked Cloud and company.

Cloud was attacking rlentlessly, but all his "opponent" did was defend, and was already on his back; Yuffie stood there, frozen, and most likely thinking what to do; and the king laid knocked out cold on the floor.

Then a wall exploded, and after the dust cleared, a man dressed in white appeared. "Finally," he said and pointed at Demyx, "I find you! Do you have any idea of how many walls I´ve had to blow up and how many steps I´ve had to take just to reach you! ...´Cause I lost myself in this maze! ...Or something like that..."

"Who are you?"

"Just a good friend who´s here to bring death called Aaron," Aaron said with an innocent expression.

The Keyblader got up on one foot and threw himslef to Aaron. Aaron made a snake-like move, and evaded the attack. The keyblader fell on his knees, blood rushing out of his forehead like a fountain.

Riku was dead.

Everybody was at loss for words and actions, except Leon and Sora who could see nothing. Aaron walked slowly to Riku´s corpse, and touched it with his finger repeatedly as if to check if he was alive. The self-proclaimed bringer of death moved away from the corpse, whistling. Behind him, Riku´s corpse exploded. Aaron grinned madly.

"Why...?"

"Hey, don´t be so dramatic," the homicidal man complained. "After all, death IS tragic; but life is miserable!"

"It... It can´t be..." Cloud´s eyes were still fixed at where Riku had been. "Sephiroth..." he said as his head turned to see Aaron, "death by someone else!?"

"Yes, we look at death from the selfish side, we´re all like "That guy died. Oh, it's so sad." Why is it sad? He's away from all the pain that's here on the world of the living. At the worst, he's just somewhere quiet, no nothing. At best, he's an angel... or he's a spirit somewhere. What is so bad about that? If you can think of it that way, then death is life and life is death, isn´t it? Life is a prison! And death is its own reward!"

"If you´re like that, why don´t you kill yourself!?" Yuffie told him slightly hysterical.

"Each and every one of us is dying the most painful death known only as life. I simply haste the end, and stop the pain," Aaron replied, his sick smile growing wider and wider, "if I stopped my suffering I´d leave many more here. No, I am by far too philantrophistic for that. But then of course, philantrophy is one more of the futile inventions by the thinking creatures to miserably justify their existance..." he took a small pause, apparently to reflex, and proceded, "...but seriously, my only sin is using their deaths to relieve my own pain; two birds in a shot."

"But-"

"Death and death alone gives meaning to life and this meaning is entirely negative! Ask my good brother if you don´t believe me."

Somwhere on the roofs, Demyx´s headache returned.

End of Chapter Seven

Okay, Aaron is seriously bizarre. But awesome! He´s THE nihilist. As I said before, you don´t have to worry too much about him taking too much of the story; after we´re done with bing on Bleach, he won´t appear in RA again. He´ll, however, appear with a much larger role in Keys to Chaos, though. If anyone will actually get interested in that little sequel of mine.

Also of note; when I get 50 reviews in total, Ill post what´s going on in Radiant Garden at the time. It can fit almost anywhere, so there are no worries.

Many references yadda yadda, see you at the next chapter!

Preview of the next chapter

Two strangers. One of them is insane. The other one is crazy. Both of them are something, but it is not important what. What is important is, what will happen?