The question of how I was going to spend an entire day without Roxas answered itself: I was going to do some "icky jobs." What are they? Any jobs that required more than a little effort mentally, physically, or both. They also sometimes required cunning, deceit, and a willingness to get one's hands dirty.
I headed straight for the Grey Area. Saïx handed out a mission to Luxord (when was the last time he did anything? He's almost as lazy as Demyx!) and Lexaeus before he took notice of me.
"What is it?" he asked, eyelids barely up.
"I need something to do. Give me a job, any job, but preferably a challenging one."
Saïx narrowed his eyes at me like he couldn't quite believe I'd be eager for anything. To be fair, he had a point: I was usually the last one assigned jobs because I'm picky and stubborn as a mule. Hence, why I often ended up with the icky jobs.
"All right, how about you take care of a little problem for me and clear a few packs of Neoshadow Heartless?"
"Neoshadows, eh? Where?"
"Beast's Castle. Whatever you do, do not interact with the Beast. He doesn't take kindly to visitors, even if they come to clean up his messes for him."
"Got it memorized, boss," I said, pointing to the side of my skull.
"Good. Now, get on with it."
And so, I was off to Beast's Castle.
How to explain Neoshadows: Imagine a bunch of swarmers, but they're bigger, leaner, meaner, faster, stronger, and nastier than their far more numerous, smaller cousins. Taking one down is a chore, slaying several at a time is a slog, but an unspecified number of packs of these things? I barely made it out alive the last time I confronted them, but I owe that to being less experienced at the time. Even so, I knew not to underestimate them — Neoshadows are in the same class of Heartless as Darksides.
Beast's Castle is an imposing cliffside structure. Dark, brooding, menacing — if it weren't already occupied by its namesake, it would've made a far more fitting choice of headquarters for an organization of black-clad Heartless killers than what we currently have. Oh, well. I guess Xemnas just likes sharp contrasts in his aesthetic. But enough about questionable design choices; I'm hunting Neoshadows.
Saïx didn't make it altogether clear just where in Beast's Castle to find the creatures, so that meant I possibly had to sneak into every room to find even one. But I had a hunch that I wouldn't have to do that: Long ago, before the castle fell to darkness and its host turned into a beast, it housed a grand ballroom, easily the largest chamber in the entire building. Once brightly lit, it's said that it's now among the eeriest places to be. The combination of a large, spacious chamber with the oppressive eternal gloom would be enough to turn anyone into a Heartless. Luckily for me, that issue was solved a very long time ago. The only thing I had to do was be careful not to get swarmed by too many Neoshadows at once.
I opened a portal… and found myself not quite where I intended to be. Guess I wasn't focusing hard enough because I ended up in a cramped, dusty old room full of odds and ends. A candlestick. A grandfather clock. Some chinaware. A feather duster. A broom. More than a few of them had strangely… human-like features, but I brushed that aside.
Once again, I summoned a portal. Again, not where I was supposed to be: This room was a bit more spacious. An unlit fireplace to my left. A long table in front of me. Suddenly, I wanted to do the old Beast a small favor, so I lit the fireplace with a snap of my finger. As the light revealed to me, this was the kitchen, judging by the number of rusty knives, pots, pans, and other kitchenware lying around here and there and a stove that looked like it had seen better days.
"Ok, Axel," I spoke to myself aloud. "Concentrate. A nice, big, empty room. Flat floor. Multiple entrances and exits. A flight of stairs, perhaps."
And so, I focused, picturing the ballroom in my mind's eye as best as I could, before summoning a portal again. I really hoped that the third time was going to do the trick. The last thing I needed was to get torn to shreds by a creature possibly even more dangerous than a Heartless.
I always knew the ballroom was big, but no one knew just how big — a chamber so large and roomy that you could fit an entire house inside and still have plenty of space left over. What a grand place it must've been in its heyday. Suddenly, I heard something — the unmistakable "swishing" noise that accompanied the appearance of all Heartless, no matter how great or small. A pair of Neoshadows arose from the floor. Then, four more appeared, eyeing me as warily as I did them. They're a lot smarter than your typical swarmer, more calculating and less inclined to mindlessly charging into death in the hopes that numbers alone will be their saving grace. So, I decided to be a little cheeky with them.
"Shall we dance?" I asked, smiling at them as obnoxiously as possible, at which point I summoned my Eternal Flames. This was shaping up to be quite a fiery ball.
At this point, the music in my head started playing — not Shosty this time, but Tchaikovsky. Everyone has heard of him, right? A waltz-like tune rang out in my ears, led by the strings, which practically groaned and whined as if in desperation. But it wasn't a "proper" waltz; something about it was off, which was perhaps the point. The Neoshadows began swaying, seemingly dancing along to its unusual pattern. Was the music really all in my head? I thought.
We kept this up for some time when, abruptly, the energy of the music shifted. Louder, faster, more anxious, more desperate. As if on cue, one of the Neoshadows lunged forth, moving in a zigzag motion. I countered with my own, shifting in the opposite direction: Every time it ran right, I turned to my right, increasing the space between us; every time it changed course, so did I. The goal was to confuse and exhaust, but the Neoshadow caught onto my ruse and surprised me by moving to my left. Just as it was about to strike, I pulled up my chakrams in defense and held my feet to the floor, blocking its attack. Then, I activated my chakrams, burning but not killing the Neoshadow, which ran away, literally kicking and screaming. That seemed to have prompted the others to give chase, led by two in front.
"Huh, you wanna party?" I teased, hurling a chakram against one of them at full force, striking them dead. "I'll show you a party!"
With that, I tossed my remaining Eternal Flame toward the next Neoshadow, then vaulted for the ceiling, reaching for the chandelier, but missing by a hair.
"Shit!"
As I descended, I re-summoned the Eternal Flames and swung them over two of the bastards in the middle of the pack. Well, damn — now, I was surrounded by them! They really left me with no choice. The Neoshadows were clawing at and piling on top of me, but they didn't anticipate what I did next: I exploded in flames, instantly incinerating half a dozen of them. For a few seconds, I really was a "flurry of dancing flames," fire in human form, which served to disperse the pack into several smaller groups
The flames died down, and I was Axel again, but that transformation, rare though it was, always took a toll on me. The Neoshadows all galloped toward me just as the music gained the greatest intensity, strings screaming, brasses blaring, and drums banging away. Suddenly, I summoned a giant wall of flames; anything foolish enough to pass through would turn to ash. Amazingly enough, four of the fuckers managed to pass through, but not without suffering severe burns. One after the other lunged at me like a cat pouncing on its prey, but each time, I defended myself with my chakrams, shoving them aside like ragdolls to feed to the fire. The music had quieted some, but I suspected my job here wasn't done just yet.
When the wall of fire died down, I was rudely reminded why I was right to be suspicious: There were now more than two dozen Neoshadows lying in wait. Saïx did say packs, didn't he? Why do I always end up with the icky jobs?
"All right, you fuckers, this is your last chance to dance with the one and only Axel!"
I was rather proud of my handiwork: The ballroom was a mess, strewn with the corpses of Neoshadows everywhere. They'd soon fade away anyway, disintegrating into dust. The floor, sadly for the Beast, was another matter — those burn marks from when I summoned my wall of flames were going to stay for a very long time. No amount of washing them was going to clean up the mess I made. I was exhausted, and I could hear the final strands of Shosty's eighth symphony. Perfectly appropriate for the occasion, really — the music sounded as tired as I was. It takes a lot to get a Nobody like me to feel tired, though much more than when I had a heart. That made me wonder: Will I feel more powerful with a new heart, or less? I'd ponder on this question from time to time, never quite managing an answer. I guess this is how Zexion must feel when his curiosity isn't sated. Speaking of Zexion, how was work on that book Roxas and I procured for him? It'd been a few days since we last spoke, reasoning that it was best to leave the cute little nerd to his own devices, but surely he made some more progress in the intervening period. Since I was unlikely to see Roxas at all today, there was no point in returning to the usual spot, so instead, I was going to pay Zexion a little visit after reporting to Saïx.
I opened a portal and returned to the Castle That Never Was.
"Good to see you made it back in one piece," Saïx said in his typically passive-aggressive tone of voice.
"Those Neoshadows just didn't know the meaning of 'give up,'" I said casually. "So glad I'm done with them."
"Roxas is back," Saïx said suddenly.
"Oh?" My ears perked up. "Really? Let me guess: Xemnas is still keeping the lid shut on just why he needed him?"
"Yes."
"Very well. I was planning on seeing Zexion today, but now that Roxas is back, I may make a few adjustments to my plans." Ice cream time, baby!
"I'm sure you will," Saïx replied coolly.
I arrived near the library to see a welcome sight: Roxas sat in a chair in front of Zexion's desk, while Zexion appeared to be multitasking, providing him lessons as he pored over the contents of that ancient tome of his. His slightly pointed ears perked up as if detecting a new presence come near the library.
"Ah, Axel, good to see you again," Zexion greeted me in his typically polite manner. "But I take it you're here to see Roxas?"
"Not exactly," I countered sheepishly. "Actually, I came here to see you, but Saïx surprised me when he said Roxas came back. I wasn't expecting to see him with you."
"Hmm," Zexion nodded solemnly. "And you came here to inquire into my research?"
"Yes. By the way, how've you been, Roxas? Sorry for ignoring you like that."
"It's ok, Axel. What matters is that we get to see each other again. Sure felt like forever with Xemnas."
"Well, it was for something important, and the Superior sure likes to take his time if he thinks it needs to."
"Yeah, I suppose so." I conspicuously avoided the question on my mind regarding Roxas: Why did Xemnas take him with him?
"Anyway, gentlemen," Zexion interrupted tentatively, consciously trying not to appear rude. "Apologies for the haste, but I made a lot of progress that I will need to report to Saïx and the Superior, so I can only provide you a brief summary of my findings to you."
"That's no problem," I reassured him. "Shoot."
In a nutshell, the first few chapters of the old book detailed just what the Heartless really were. They were not, as we'd been led to believe, the physical manifestation of our inner darkness; they always existed outside of us, distinct and separate from living things. The Heartless are both attracted and repulsed by light — they seek it out like moths to a flame, but unlike the moths, they want to snuff it out wherever they find it. Hence, why they steal people's hearts — so that they can destroy them. That gave a whole new meaning to the term "release" that we'd been using to describe defeating Heartless with the Keyblade: Roxas wasn't releasing the Heartless, per se, but the hearts they stole and diverting them to Kingdom Hearts. The book went as far as to argue that we ought to call these creatures "heat thieves" since that more accurately describes their purpose, though it did concede that the name "Heartless" has stuck.
But the most provocative claim was that these heart thieves were, in fact, artificial constructs, having only existed for a few years at the time of the volume's writing.
"Furthermore," Zexion explained, "the Heartless have a 'guiding hand' seemingly systematically directing their actions. A leader, perhaps a sentient, nay, a sapient Heartless among them?"
"Uh, you kind of lost me at 'sentient' and the other word," Roxas said self-consciously.
"He means a human-like Heartless," I said. "A Heartless that can somehow think and act on its own like we do."
"Really? That sounds… so weird."
"Well, in a universe such as ours," Zexion said, "anything is possible. We are not even supposed to exist, yet here we are, existing, plainly in defiance of the natural order."
"What do you mean?" Roxas asked, puzzled.
"Wait, do you mean to tell me no one has yet informed you what we are?" Zexion asked, apparent shock written all over his face. "We are Nobodies…" And he went onto explain using some weird analogy about a cat in a box that's somehow both alive and dead at the same time because the box is unopened and that the uncertainty over what's inside is the reason why the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. I explained it as standing over a line with each leg on either side of the line, one side representing existence, the other non-existence.
"Since we're right on the line, and our legs are on both sides of it, we Nobodies both exist and do not exist. Remember that Aladdin kid?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember how he mistook you for someone who may no longer exist? At the moment, we existed to him, but we no longer do now."
"I… think I get it," Roxas said, not convinced by his own words.
"Yeah, you'll understand this with practice."
"Indeed," Zexion nodded. "Anyway, I have to go present my findings to the higher-ups.
"Good luck," I said, giving him a tongue click and a finger gun. For a split second, I thought I spied a blush, but Zexion quickly passed through a Corridor of Darkness before I could confirm it.
"So, Roxas, you up for some ice cream?"
"Why?" That was sudden.
"Why? What a silly question! Because we're friends? Are you all right? You're acting a bit like a zombie?"
"Am I?"
"Well, yeah. From my perspective at least, you are. But let's not fret over that."
"Yeah, you're right. Let's go."
What a strange response. Why? What have we been doing these past six days? What exactly did Xemnas do with Roxas? Or to him? So many questions — they just might spoil my appetite if I keep this up.
There wasn't much to talk about at the Clock Tower — Roxas was almost certainly "not at liberty" to talk about his day with the Superior, and I was not in the mood to talk about killing a bunch of Neoshadows, which Roxas hadn't met yet and hoped he wouldn't have to. So, the end of our day was a quiet one, the only sound accompanying us that of the wind and the faint strumming of a guitar somewhere in the distance, with a pretty sunset for good measure. Ah, this is the life.