Welcome back, everyone! And to those starting this journey anew, please beware it is the second installment in a series. Go back and read Your Adventure Begins at Midday! Otherwise you might be a wee bit lost. Thank you for your interest in my story and I hope you enjoy
Some things to know:
1. While I will try to uphold canon as best I can, the fact is that canon has quite a few holes in it that, as a fix-it fic, I will try to patch up. And there are some notable canon divergences I'm adding in for various reasons, explained below. But the main 'beats' of the KH canon will be upheld for sure until several games from now, it's just that the steps taken to get there might be changed sometimes. Ultimately, the destination is the same.
2. I am going to discuss some hard topics in this installment, like child abuse and mental/emotional abuse. I won't make it graphic, yet this is gonna still get a little dark! The road will not be easy, but a rising sun awaits this journey's end ;)
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Day One
The day she began to exist would not be a day she would look back upon fondly.
She woke up with a start; A shuddering roar of a dream encircled with Light, with chains, with memories that dissolved as fast as they were made. A Dark dream that slid out of her grasp like an eel the moment she awoke and would never be reached again, leaving behind naught but an exhausted fear that coiled itself up somewhere deep within her Heart.
The first thing she knew was that she was thankful that dream had seemed to erase itself so wholly and so quickly, but she wasn't sure of why she felt that way. And the second thing she knew was that, whatever had happened, she had survived.
Survived. An odd word to choose for enduring what her memory would later on insist was simply perhaps five seconds of screeching Light and the feeling of being dragged through a torrent, all within the confines of her imagination—if it could be said to have been dreamt of at all. The girl had survived nothing. She had endured nothing. There was no story to tell.
The third thing she knew, once she had opened her eyes, was the sight of a small expanse of grass at the edge of a woods to one side and tall iron gates on the other. The sun was low, dimmed with the lateness of the day, and made her squint to try and see the two figures at the edge of the clearing embroiled in a heated discussion.
"We've been stalking this backwater dump for weeks, Marly," One of them gritted out. She was strikingly short next to her companion, and her blonde hair was slicked back save for two unruly tufts that stood not unlike antennae. Her grimace was oddly curved into the veneer of a smile, as though she were trying to candy-coat her waning patience. "If there was another nobody, they would've shown up by now. That stupid brownnoser's going to think something's up if we keep hanging around after the last one earlier."
"Let Saix wonder," The other replied dismissively. His long hair was lit up in a spectrum of rosy hues by the setting sun. "Suspicion alone isn't dangerous, acting on it is. And he won't do a thing unless the superior tells him to."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"We have a reasonable alibi, don't we? You and I were found here long before the new recruit along with Demyx and Luxord. This place is a veritable wellspring for powerful nobodies."
The veneer slid away at that as her grimace curdled. "Demyx? A bucket of fried chicken is more powerful than that loser."
"Humanoid nobodies, then," The corners of his mouth twitched into a faint smile. "The kind that's of more use than a lowly dusk."
"Even that's a stretch and a half—hey!" She whipped her head over as she caught sight of the girl watching them, and they made their way over.
The girl couldn't help but draw back slightly at their approach. Their strides looked casual, but almost too much so, and there was an edge to the woman's newfound smile at her that the girl couldn't help but feel something somewhere deep inside start coiling up at the sight of it. A cold tiptoeing down her back.
The girl did not know much; For all she knew, existence began the moment she opened her eyes, and whatever dream she'd dreamed had never happened at all. She did not know what fear was, or memories, or the power that buzzed beneath the surface of her skin. She did not know the storied past of the abandoned mansion whose gates she'd woken up in front of, nor that of the two approaching her, nor even her own. All the girl knew of the world—of her world—in that moment was that it consisted of iron gates on one side and a forest along the other, populated by herself and the two figures who walked as predators, as masters, as the ones whose word would define all.
She got to her feet shakily, her knees as unsteady as a fawn's, and felt her fingers tremble as she tucked strands of blonde hair behind her ears.
It was the woman who spoke first, and took the girl's chin in one gloved hand as she inspected her. The girl looked towards the crawling ivy, the rays of the sun lighting up spare insects in the air, anything to not have to look into her eyes. "What's your name, sweetheart?" That last word sounded as though it were dripping in acid. "I'm Larxene."
Her name? The girl wasn't sure. She may as well have been nothing. A ghost.
"D-don't…know."
The words were hard to shape. Her tongue felt like a useless weight behind her teeth. The man with rosy hair looked unsurprised.
"I'm Marluxia," He introduced himself, though his expression was critical. What was he thinking? "We'll be taking care of you now. We can be friends," He suggested, and the girl could not deny that while she did not know the word 'friends', the sound of it in her mind took on a pleasant feeling—an echo of happiness. Trust. The knowledge that no matter who you were or where you were, you were not alone. The knowledge that distance meant nothing so long as you remembered one another.
The girl's head still swirled with having woken up, and she blinked past the blackened fuzziness of her vision. It was hard to hear Marluxia's next words past the rush in her ears. "Do you remember anything?"
The girl swayed on her feet. She felt their hands grip her shoulders tightly. A little too tightly.
But she didn't mind that. They were 'friends', weren't they?
She closed her eyes and tried her best to remember anything at all. Even a scrap of that dream that disappeared. And…
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The girl felt a sinking feeling in her abdomen at that. That wouldn't do. She had to try a little harder. She couldn't let Marluxia and Larxene down.
She reached a little more, a little farther. A little further.
And then there was something—if pressed, the girl would only have been be able to describe it like she'd encountered a wall made of nothing but flashing lights and sound; snippets of laughter (a girl with short red hair crouched on a shoreline somewhere with two others: A boy and girl her own age. Friends. The other girl, with unruly brown hair that never stayed put, said something that made her friends laugh and laugh and laugh), of plans made together (that girl again, red-haired and pretty and more loved than she ever knew, told the silver-haired boy and the unruly-haired girl of memories of a home far beyond their tiny islands. A home they would sail to find together).
Memories of the pieces of not just one home ("The home of the heartless, he called it?") but two. Another home whose walls were made with the crashing of waves against sand, populated by a found family whose love was beyond the blood they did not share.
Home. Friends.
She felt a flutter at the thought of those words. For all the girl knew, existence began the moment she opened her eyes. Or, perhaps it began a little before that. Perhaps her life had begun with waking up on a faraway home marked by a strip of sand and so much water, with two friends that looked nothing like the people before her. A family to call her own. A life punctuated by the sound of waves wherever she walked.
The girl didn't know how to say all of this. She struggled to form the syllables she barely knew, and by no means understood. But she did understand enough to say but one word.
"Waves."
"Waves," Marluxia echoed, and brought a hand to his chin. Larxene's gaze went sharper at this, pondering, calculating. And suddenly the girl felt as though she gave them the wrong answer. She felt her face grow unbearably hot as she fidgeted with the hem of her colorless dress.
"Don't put an 'X' in it," Larxene warned him. "Vexen—"
"I know," Marluxia cut in smoothly with a nod, still searching the girl. "Waves, then? In that case, we shall call you 'Namine'."
AXEL
Day Ninteen
As it had turned out, the rambunctious little keyblade wielder had made a move. Several, in fact.
Nobody, and the pun was absolutely warranted, knew for sure what had gone down. Barely a month ago had Xemnas left to go to the shambling remnant called Hollow Bastion to meet with Sora herself, for the purpose of gathering data for Vexen's little pet project that had grabbed the superior's attention, and came back saying nothing of the experience beyond that it was successful. And he hadn't spoken a word of the matter since.
Hollow Bastion. Once known by another name, and once known as Axel's homeworld.
When anyone asked, not that they ever did anymore, Axel rarely had words for his life before the Organization. The new kid, Roxas, hadn't inquired much either after the first few days, what with being too busy trying to gain his footing as a nobody to really question why Axel cut off certain topics suddenly or pretended not to hear certain questions. But the kid was sharp, even when Larxene and Zexion claimed otherwise, and he was sure Roxas would put the pieces together if Axel wasn't careful.
As nobodies, their existences were severed into two periods: The time before losing their Hearts, and the time after. The former was marked by the memories of feelings—that chilling creep of fear, the quickening of a pulse with rage, with joy—that made everything else nobodies remembered of that time stand out so strongly. But even as the sensations of feelings themselves were torn away, cleaved by the Dark parentheses marking the start of their new lives, every remembered day nearly glowed with color compared to the days gone by now.
And whenever asked about the latter, the time after they'd begun donning the coat…well. Grief was hard to bear, and harder still to put into words.
But that didn't stop some from trying: Saix took up the practice of keeping a journal after the fall, and it wasn't long before there were pages and pages of fine cursive marred with the paths of water drops. If he'd managed to find the right words, Saix had confessed to him once, then the thoughts wouldn't hurt him anymore. Because once a memory was outside of yourself, safely confined within a journal, the worst it could ever do to you thereafter was a papercut. And every pain that was written away was one less pain that coiled tight inside your throat and threatened to choke you when the nights dragged on too long and too quietly.
Some of the other members, most notably the ones who could remember their lives before, took up the habit. But Axel could only fill a scarce few pages with rambling half-thoughts in the first few days of his new life, before snapping the journal shut forever and tossing it somewhere under the mess of his bed. He didn't like the feeling of that pain becoming dulled. Perhaps he was a masochist, or perhaps he was simply nostalgic—as nostalgic as a being without a Heart could be, anyway—but the ritual of returning to those memories had become a strange kind of comfort to him no matter how much they made his teeth grind or his eyes prickle. No matter how much he dug red streaks down his arms and whimpered sounds like Isa and Kairi and Mom Dad Grandma,rattling off the names of his ghosts.
It wasn't long after the start of their new lives that Saix had warned him about holding onto that pain. That picking scabs would only make scars. But Axel had watched the years transform the boy who had once made his Heart dance into a man made of burned bridges and wrong turns, eaten away from the inside out, and Axel wanted no part in it.
And so, Axel held onto whatever trace of feeling he could, even if it was only suffering, and told Roxas the same in his own first few days of life: To hold onto whatever he could feel, no matter what. For such was the only way nobodies truly survived.
And all Axel could do now was pray that Roxas would listen. He'd already watched Isa get changed by that slow poison of time and circumstance, he couldn't bear it if the kid was lost to it too.
But they both had work to do, and while Roxas and most of the other members were still asleep, Axel was making his way to a quiet little meeting marked strictly confidential. And he had made it a point to be fashionably late.
He didn't bother to hide his smirk at the sight of Saix's unimpressed scowl as he walked in. But that smirk died when he'd noticed Xemnas present as well.
He knew what that man could do.
The meeting chamber was empty aside from the three, and Axel's footsteps echoed as he made his way to his chair without further preamble.
"A fine time," Saix muttered sourly.
Damn right, Axel wanted to retort, but not with Xemnas in the room.
Instead, he went with a mild, "So what's this about?"
"As you know, Ansem—the heartless—is no more," As if it hadn't been all the Organization Thirteen could talk about for the past several days, "With all heartless activity amongst the known worlds, and presumably yet-undiscovered worlds, having ceased. The latest intelligence reports suggest the keyblade wielder and her colleagues are heading towards the research site Castle Oblivion, where Vexen has reported an erratic energy signature coming from the basement," Xemnas' eyes instantly focusing on Saix at that was not unnoticed by either of them.
But then again, that was news to Axel as well. "What's going on there? Is that why the mission's been moved up?"
"We decided to change the schedule in hopes of getting ahead of the keyblade wielder," Saix opened the manila folder and flipped through the pages, "For more opportunity to prime the castle's unique environment in preparation to get the strongest retrograde amnesiatic effect we could. You understand how useful Roxas could be, yes? Now imagine having two of him, especially one who we wouldn't have to train, who's already destroyed the strongest heartless we ever recorded. Imagine how much sooner the Organization could accomplish its goals."
("One day he will fall, Lea, just like we did," He spat. "And then he will answer to us.")
Most of Organization Thirteen's members would never call Axel the sentimental type—he had carefully maintained an exterior of barbed wit dealt by an even sharper tongue, with all the distance between himself and the others as much as they kept themselves.
Only Saix may have said otherwise, once. Once.
But Axel, while he'd never met Sora in-person, knew enough about her to be less than cozy with this plan. The kid was fourteen, estimated to be a biologically a year younger than her nobody—Fourteen, isn't that the age Kairi would be now if she'd survived?—who was already a little too young to be going on missions for Axel's liking despite his own history. A whole year younger just didn't seem right at all. Even if she had already proved herself.
"But as for the energy signature, we're not sure. It's not localized to any one area, just to the basement levels as a whole. Vexen is currently studying it as best he can, and has requested the other former apprentices to assist him."
That explained the interesting roster.
"I don't know. If I remember correctly, you were a little more accomplished with the technical side of things than I ever was."
Saix blinked. A ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth, the first anyone had seen in years.
"That is not why you were called in," Xemnas said. "We have a special task for you."
"Oh?"
"Y-yes," Saix flipped through the pages again and hid his faltering voice by clearing his throat. "I've noticed…unusual activity coming from certain members. And we have agreed that it must be investigated."
"If you haven't noticed, we're all a little unusual here. We're nobodies."
"This goes beyond mere idiosyncrasies," Saix replied, "Did you not notice Vexen's discontent at our appropriating Xion? Not to mention his choice to independently reopen the long-defunct replica project in general."
That wasn't that strange. Vexen did that sort of thing quite often. Xion hadn't done much of anything yet beyond just stand there, but probably just seeing one of his experiments even mildly work in his favor only to be taken away was enough to make the reaction understandable.
"So the man finally makes something that works and it's taken away, I'd be annoyed too."
"Xion could be quite useful for the Organization, same as Sora. Imagine what she could do for one member, never mind all of us," Like what, Axel supposed inwardly, do her best impression of a coat rack? He'd never understood their interest. The girl was a total blank slate. She hadn't even shown them her face. "Remember the original plans for the replica project?"
What had started as a study in what vessels the Heart was willing to reside in had snowballed along with the apprentices' other experiments in the beginning, into the replica project. Grand plans for easily manufactured servants, assistants in missions, whatever you could think of. But then the newly formed Organization Thirteen had discovered the dusks, and the replica project had been set aside. Until Vexen.
"I do."
"Think for a moment what enough replicas could become, now that Vexen's figured out how to make them work. A personal army. We don't know how much he's been able to program Xion yet, but we can only hope our timing was fortuitous enough to cut him off before he could create something truly dangerous. You know she was made with data collected from the superior's encounter with Sora."
"In that case, what's stopping Vexen from just making another? Now that he's already made one."
"Insufficient data," Xemnas said.
"We've found from the confiscated research that creating a functional replica is only possible when data of whoever is to be replicated is gathered firsthand. Attempting to use the same data twice doesn't work, for unknown reasons, and attempting to make a replica of a preexisting replica only results in corrupted data," Like a game of telephone, Axel imagined. Saix went on, "We've distracted him so far by directing him to stay in Castle Oblivion for now until you can go there with the others to investigate. But Vexen was not the only one."
And Axel already had an idea of who he'd bring up next. It was impossible not to notice those two withdrawing from the others and going AWOL more than usual. "Marluxia and Larxene."
"Precisely. Xigbar has reported that they've been lingering around the gates of Twilight Town's abandoned mansion, same as where they and Roxas first appeared, and very little of what he's reported has sounded harmless. There is undeniable talk of mutiny between them and it must be silenced."
"Silenced?"
Saix nodded. "It is why we're sending them to Castle Oblivion, and you as well."
Well, then.
"And I suppose you're wanting me to do the dirty work?"
But Saix shook his head. "For now we only want you to keep an eye on them. As suspicious as they are, Vexen, Larxene, and Marluxia are still of use to the Organization until the mutiny is confirmed, and if they turn out to be of no harm then their help will be invaluable to subduing the keyblade wielder. And you as well."
Axel fought the urge to cringe, and desperately tried to come up with some protest that wouldn't be misread as rebelling; Tensions seemed high enough with Saix and Xemnas as it was, and if they saw that he didn't agree with the concept then it'd be just as likely that they would send someone to investigate him. But unfortunately, it seemed the silence was enough to tip them off.
"We will not tell you to do anything until the time is right. For now, just investigating is enough," For now. "Remember, Axel; Above all else, we must secure the keyblade wielder."
("And then he will answer to us.")
A heavy look passed between the two of them, and Axel was the first to look down.
Long ago the two had sworn a duty in the ruins of a home. And in the dying light of a sun that would not set for ten years henceforth, surrounded by the Dark and the dead, two boys had made a promise.
A promise to protect. But this was not a promise to protect the living, for the living had gone away. No. This was a promise to protect that which once was.
A promise to protect a memory, and to uphold it.
A memory of parents and a grandmother. A memory with bright red hair, and a Heart of nothing but Light.
He'd never know what could have been if she had been just like anyone else. Whether the experiments would never have gone that far, and they'd still have a home with its namesake radiance. Or even, if little else, that she'd be right here beside him wearing a coat and a number too.
He would never know. But he did know how many others had so much to lose if the man who sat between them was not stopped. And, unfortunately, the only idea he had of how to accomplish that was to involve the help of a certain girl with a keyblade.
Yet he decided then that he would do it on his own terms. Not Saix's, and definitely not Xemnas'. No. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
"I understand," Lea said, and let the Dark snake up around him to take him back to his room. He had to get ready.
NAMINE
Day Twenty
"Now, let's be gone," Marluxia declared, as his fingers formed a clawing gesture towards the air. She was about to ask what he was doing, until she felt it: the faintest sensation of unease at the edge of her senses. Namine almost wouldn't have noticed it if she weren't so focused on all the newness inside and out. And then black trails followed his fingertips.
That blackness…there was something unnatural about it. Something living. It was a blackness far unlike the color of Larxene's and Marluxia's coats, with no shine beyond the trace of blue light reflected on Marluxia's fingertips in the sunlight. And then the blackness grew into something resembling a hole in the air.
Larxene snickered at her. "This is only the beginning of what Darkness can do."
Only the beginning? Even this was already frightening, though Namine hadn't seen it do anything wrong yet; For all she knew, this Darkness did nothing beyond move them from place to place and that was all.
But that same chill crawled up her spine again, making the mild warmth of the sun seep away as if it were never there, and Namine knew without asking that this Darkness was no good.
By then Marluxia had already stepped through into the hole, and Larxene had one foot in while looking back at her with a raised brow. "Well? Come on."
Namine paused and took one last glance around the clearing. The trees, the light beaming through. The rusted ancient gates to the mansion—what was that?
She jumped slightly as a movement caught her eye from just behind the brick walls of the gates, but when she looked again nothing was there. The movement was almost humanlike.
"What's got you riled up?" Larxene said, and Namine struggled to respond. Both from lack of courage and lack of words. "Ugh, whatever. Just come on, it was probably a bird or something."
Namine shook her head at herself, and bit back the reflexive guilt with a shudder as she stepped through.
The days felt as though they passed in a blur of endless white walls. Larxene and Marluxia had shown her to her new room that they were kind enough to give her after they arrived into Castle Oblivion through that Dark portal, but Namine hadn't seen much of them thereafter. They said they had to go to somewhere called 'work', and to not explore much, but eventually Namine had grown too bored to stay in her room alone for hours anymore and wandered out whenever Larxene and Marluxia were gone.
She felt bad about not listening to them as much as she should. And she especially felt awful about wandering around behind their backs like this. Namine didn't know much about what having friends was supposed to be like, but she was sure not asking for permission wasn't okay, even if it was just walking outside her room.
Larxene and Marluxia had also tried to teach her how to use the Darkness, that as a 'nobody' she'd be able to use it automatically, but Namine just couldn't stand the feeling of it. And Namine felt awful about that failure as well. Yet even when Larxene grabbed her hand to guide her movements, even where the places where Larxene was holding onto her prickled silently under the skin, and then less silently as Namine's failure continued before a small crackling preceded a burning smell when her hand pinkened.
She clutched at herself tightly at the thought. Namine's friends only wanted what was best for her. And Namine would just have to get over her stupid, worthless fear of the Dark soon. Her friends depended on it.
She was wandering a little farther, now. Down some stairs, around the hallways. Namine sighed as she passed yet another pale vase on an equally pale table, both as featureless as could be. Where was all that color she saw in the memories of the girl with red hair? The blue of the sky, the green grass. Pink and lilac seashells dotting the shore. Namine almost was willing to suffer the feeling of that cold Darkness again if it meant she could go through a portal back to that place she'd first woken up in. In front of the decrepit mansion's gates.
But she didn't dare. That would be running away. Her new friends had given her so much, had given her words and a place to stay and even a name, and Namine refused to betray them like that.
Namine gave a start as she stopped and glanced around, realizing she didn't recognize where she'd wandered off to now. How many stairs had she climbed? Or had she descended them? What doors did she go through?
Namine tried rounding the corner, and felt dread at the sight of countless more doors down the latest hallway. She had to go back to her room before her friends found out what she'd done.
She bit her lip as she looked back towards the empty corridor, and then turned back to the hall. Without any better ideas, Namine decided to simply try every door to see if they'd lead the way back. If she tried every door in the castle, at least one of them had to be the door to her room, right?
Namine tried the first one. Locked. Second. Also locked. Third was unlocked, but the room was completely empty save for those same shadows faded to lilac by the overwhelming brightness. Fourth, locked. Fifth, sixth, seventh…
Locked, locked, locked.
And then came the eighth door, that opened to what looked like a small office. A desk was shoved to one wall with the chair pulled out, and stacks of papers were piled atop it. Cabinets lined up above it as the other wall had a large white slab marked with colorful streaks of erased letters and numbers and all sorts of symbols that Namine recognized a few of as belonging to math, but she could only recognize the pluses, the minuses, and the equal signs. All the rest were foreign.
But that didn't matter. Because so many of them were in color.
A bright red diagram for something was sketched out on the left side, with orange and green and violet crescents all along it. Some sort of an equation that was more letters and strange symbols than numbers was in bright blue. And halfway erased behind it all were smears of countless colors that practically glowed against the walls.
Namine stepped closer to the slab to see the colors closer, walking into the room entirely now, and then that's when she saw it.
In the corner, stacked taller than she was, were plastic bodies.
She jerked back and felt herself back up roughly onto the desk, and felt dread at the sound of the papers beginning to fall over and scatter to the ground with the desk's dulled screech against the floor. No, no! This was too loud, far too much noise, and Namine had to get out of here before her friends might hear it and see her out of her room and making such a mess—
"Who are you?" A new voice shouted, "What are you doing in here?"
Namine gasped as she spun to see a man glaring at her, his hollowed cheeks and long dishwater blonde hair only amplifying his expression. And behind him, lying on a table, was another plastic body spread out and hooked up to wires. Several screens were mounted around the table.
Oh, no. She'd been caught.
"I-I'm sorry," She begged, trying to back out of the room. "S-sorry, sorry—"
"Get out!"
And she tried, but Namine only succeeded in running into somebody else. She could feel her insides start forming knots in fear and quickly stepped back and kept her head down. The phantom pain of thorns and lightning crawled up her wrists. Marluxia had found her, she was sure of it.
But it was not Marluxia's voice who asked, "What's going on here?"
And Namine slowly looked up to see an unfamiliar head of bright red hair looking back with confusion.
"Axel," The man replied with barely restrained irritation, "I didn't expect you to be here so soon."
"Mission got moved up," Axel shrugged. "Haven't the others already arrived?"
"Not that I know of."
"Wow, was I the early one for once?"
"For once," The man gritted out, "You were. Now can you get that girl out of here? I have work to do."
"And what kind of work would that be?"
Namine got the sense that Axel was enjoying irritating the man, and it seemed the man knew it too. He scowled more.
"The kind of work I can't get done with children crawling underfoot! The data's already compromised, now get out! Both of you!"
"Fine, fine," Axel sighed and steered her back into the hallway, before closing the door behind them. "Old prick. Don't worry about him, he yells like that a lot when it comes to his work. Or anything at all. Now, who are you?"
And he said that as if it weren't any bother that she'd wandered into a lab that was clearly off-limits, made a mess in the aforementioned lab, made that man who seemed to own the lab angry, compromised that man's data—whatever that may mean—and most of all, ended up with having to have him help her.
Axel wasn't mad at all. Not even annoyed. What was going on?
The quiet dragged on and Namine realized she was supposed to answer. "N-Namine. Sorry."
"Sorry for what? Vexen's never been much fun even in the good times, he'd be pissed even if you sneezed down the hallway from his lab."
"Um," Namine wasn't sure what to say.
"So, what are you doing here? It's easy to wander around and find Vexen's cave, but Castle Oblivion?"
She wasn't supposed to be here, was she? Namine fidgeted with the hem of her dress. That would make sense if she wasn't supposed to be here, considering her friends told her not to wander off. She gnawed her lip at that reminder of Larxene and Marluxia. In all the ruckus of the lab it left her mind. They'd be extra angry if they found her wandering around with Axel, wouldn't they?
"I, um," If Namine had any idea of what to say before Axel asked that question, now she was at a loss for words. She couldn't mention Larxene and Marluxia, they'd be furious that she ratted them out. If they weren't supposed to bring her here…that made it even worse. Not only were they kind enough to give her a room, but they did it under the risk of getting in trouble? That was too much sacrifice for the likes of herself. She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve them.
She could try asking Axel to help her find her room, but even if he was willing, then she might be getting him into trouble too. He'd already been so nice as to help her get out of the lab and away from Vexen for nothing in return, she couldn't ask for more. But she was still lost. And she was still lost in a place she wasn't supposed to be, and Larxene and Marluxia could be coming back at any time.
Namine wrung her hands over and over and didn't know she was about to cry until she felt her cheeks grow wet.
And now she was crying in front of Axel. As if this couldn't get any worse.
Her friends hated her crying the most.
"Hey, wha—" When she didn't respond Axel had angled over slightly and saw her face. "Crap, now I should be sorry. Didn't know that would freak you out—Hey, really, what's wrong?"
"I-I-I couldn't find my room," Namine tried her best to not stammer, but failed. "I'm so sorry. I c-can't find my room."
"That's all?" Axel looked concerned. Why was he still not mad? "Hey, really, it's alright. We'll look for it together, okay?"
Lightning prickled under Namine's skin again as she took a shuddering breath and murmured, "Thank you."
Axel, thankfully, didn't say a word of Namine's (stupid, so stupid) overreaction to his question, nor did he say a word about her crying even when she continued to wipe at her face as they walked through the castle. Instead, all he talked about were funny stories of Marluxia's and Larxene's coworkers. That was new. Namine didn't know her friends had other friends.
But it made sense, didn't it? Of course she wasn't their only friend. She was silly for feeling let down at the revelation that she wasn't of as much importance to them as she thought she was.
"So Xaldin didn't give a damn and went ahead and stole some of Marluxia's roses anyways to go woo some girl with—" He grinned at her surprise, "—I have no idea who. Probably just another chick he met on a mission. But Marly was pissed! He'd been cultivating those roses for a while by then and obviously he wasn't cool with the invasion of his space too. So, to none of our surprise, when Xaldin finally came back several days later and went to bed, he woke up with this awful rash. Marluxia had left some poison ivy in his sheets long enough for their oil to seep in!"
Namine laughed. She didn't know about this side of her friends. It was nice to hear about.
Axel went on, "Saix was pissed about it too, of course. So much so that he sent Xaldin out on yet another mission immediately thereafter and lowered both Xaldin's and Marluxia's seats by what had to be six feet as their punishment—"
"Namine. There you are."
Marluxia.
Any laughter she had left immediately quieted at the sight of both him and Larxene standing in front of the opened door to her room. Namine had been caught.
"Guess we found your room," Axel said uncomfortably, and she could feel his eyes narrow at her change in mood before looking back towards Marluxia and Larxene. Neither of her friends were happy.
Would they put poison ivy in her sheets too? Or would her skin turn bright red from lightning instead?
Namine didn't know. But she knew it wouldn't be good.
And she knew that whatever happened, she deserved it.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
HEY EVERYBODY! Hello to everyone both new and returning! I have no excuse for the delay! I'm so sorry! And the illustration shall be coming shortly, as well as one other for YABAM, so hopefully that can be reparations for my lateness!
So! For those new and returning, you may be wondering what I've got in store for this one. And there's only so much I can give away without giving too much, but for a (very) basic list of things: For starters, I will be going into detail on the fall of Radiant Garden! Canon never really talks about it much, which is an enormous disappointment considering that it more or less jumpstarted the Kingdom Hearts story as a whole (after all, it indirectly/directly led to the formation of Organization 13 and Kairi ending up on Destiny Island, which sort of led to Riku opening the door, which led to Sora getting the keyblade...butterfly effect, y'all. And barely anything is said of it!) Sooo...I'm going to organize my own ideas of it according to the swiss cheese of KH canon and fill in the blanks where necessary, as well as wind in my own ideas here and there for headcanons and imagined backstories where there's none to be found.
But wait, there's more! Since I'm still pissed about Nomura ditching the Final Fantasy part of KH, I'm going to try to fix that too. Unfortunately, as the FF cast of KH is currently corralled to Radiant Garden and is busy fixing it back up to its former glory, they won't appear much and not for long. But they will appear, and they will definitely come into importance in KH2 for sure. You'll see. I'm so excited about covering KH2, you guys ٩( ᐛ )و A lot of influence from FF7 is going to happen in this fic! A lot of sadness and character development and increasingly warm slow burns are going to happen in this fic! A lot of everything is going to happen in this fic!
And with that said, thank you again! Thank you for returning, and thank you for even just poking your head in and looking around, if you're new to this story. It means a lot! ٩(❛▿❛✿)۶
NOTES:
1. So in canon Xemnas totally knows about Namine and therefore knows what she's capable of, which makes no sense at all that he'd leave her with proven liabilities like Larxene and Marluxia (You don't hand an atomic bomb to your enemies even if you know they're going to kill themselves with it, right? Because there's a good chance that bomb's gonna kill you too). And when we learn about the Mark of the Recusant (at least, I think that's why all the members had 'X' in their names, it would be too useful)(all canon says is that it's inspired from the X-blade), it just seems even silly that Xemnas would leave her with a name like Namine, and leave her completely untrackable beyond the reports of whoever sees her regularly while she's still in the hands of known traitors.
The more I think about how things between the Org13 and Namine went down, the less the writing holds up. There's little sense, even considering the possibility that Xemnas did want her to indirectly lead to several members' deaths with what happened (and maybe eventually his own death? based on what he said at the end of KH3). Without the Mark of the Recusant he wouldn't know her location, and that combined with her powers there would be a certainty of shit hitting the fan. It would be better for Xemnas to have kept a tighter leash on her by giving her a name with the Mark of the Recusant in it to keep her trackable, take advantage of Namine's pushover-with-longing-for-friends-but-also-anxious/depressed nature by turning her against the organization's enemies, and maybe even trying to use her to get himself free of MX's and the true organization's plans (and maybe over time Namine could slowly come into her own and get more confident, and planning and executing her own goals? IDK).
But that's an idea for a whole other fic I'm too lazy to write, cuz it'd change things throughout the series way too much for me to work it in with what I already got planned. Sooo…I'm just rewriting it so that Xemnas never knew of Namine's existence. It's easier and this way I don't have to change Days and CoM too much since they're some of the better written games in the series.
2. I'm sorry, Larxene and Marluxia are my favorite Org13 members, but it's canon that they abused Namine :( And we know at least Larxene hit her. They're fabulous but they're evil :( :(
3. This fic will be divided into two halves! CoM, followed by Days, with an intermission chapter in the middle. Otherwise all the POVs I'm going to follow will get super confusing!
4. To note, there will be some worlds added/swapped! To ease Days' tedium, and for character development!
Thank you all once more ( ˊᵕˋ ) it is good to be back.