Somebody
"I feel so much better in my own clothes," Iris sighed contentedly the next day, kicking up one of her legs and admiring her shoe. Izzie chuckled, flipping a page in her book. As Iris lowered her leg, she said, "Seriously. I hated those clothes from Twilight Town. They didn't feel right."
"Well, I for one am glad you have your clothes back. Maybe now you'll stop harassing me," Zexion said, bouncing his crossed foot.
"How was she harassing you?" Izzie asked.
"I can cast illusions. The kid kept making me create illusions of whatever outfit she wanted to wear. She was driving me crazy."
Izzie gave Iris a look. "Iris, that was very rude." She shifted her narrow shoulders.
"I wonder if you can create illusions for Izzie," Xigbar mused from his spot across from the girls.
"I doubt it," Zexion replied. "Larxene's power didn't work on her, and since mine deal specifically with the mind, I don't think it'd even be worth trying."
"You do miss out on a lot of stuff, Iz," Iris told her. She snorted.
"Oh, yeah. Intrusive mind-readers and sadistic illusionists sound really fun."
"Zexion's not sadistic," Demyx said, making the younger Nobody chortle.
"Oh, how well you know me." He replied with a smirk. Izzie cocked an eyebrow at him.
"That makes me feel better." Zexion's expression was placid as he shrugged.
"I have to be devious. I rely on my illusions to disorient and confuse my enemy."
"Heartless can get disoriented?"
"Sure. They have eyes, and they have something like a brain. It's not near as advanced as ours, but they have to have something in order to function."
"And since Zexion's weapon is literally a book, he's gotta have some sort of fail-safe," Demyx teased with a grin. Zexion narrowed his eyes.
"I'm willing to bet that if I whacked you over the head with my book it'd knock you out." Demyx took the opportunity then to dip, spinning on his heel and scurrying to the other side of the Grey Area to hide beside Axel. Xigbar snorted, shaking his head. Iris giggled. Zexion looked after him for a moment, then turned his gaze to Izzie. "So you're really not seeing anything, huh?"
"Pardon?" She replied. Zexion just smiled, shifting himself to lean on his right elbow.
"Ohh," Xigbar said, looking off to the right, at what Izzie only saw as a blank wall. "I see it." Iris, who had been admiring the bracelet on her wrist, looked from Zexion to Xigbar, then followed his gaze.
"How long has that been there?" She wondered.
"What?" Izzie pressed, looking around, confused. Zexion chuckled, lowering his eyes, and whatever illusion he'd created vanished as Iris and Xigbar looked back to Izzie.
"Zexion conjured up an image of himself," Xigbar told her. "I just thought it was another member. How long was it there?"
"A couple of minutes," Zexion replied, lifting his hand. In a plume of dark smoke, a large book appeared and settled into his palm. On its aged, leather cover were three interconnected Organization symbols. He opened it and flipped its yellowed pages until he was a little over halfway through the book, then began reading, his eyes moving quickly over the passages.
"What are you doing?" Iris asked him.
"Reading." She gave him a look, then ghosted to his side to peek into the book. Zexion stuck his thumb on the page he was on before snapping it shut, turning a glare on the child. "Hey!" She whined. Xigbar laughed.
"Don't take it personally, kiddo. He never lets anyone look inside that book. It's for his eyes only." Iris huffed, crossing her arms and moving to plop back next to Izzie, who patted her knee. When Zexion was sure she wasn't going to try and sneak a peek again, he opened his book and continued reading.
"If you must know, I was looking to see if any gift like Izzie's is documented in this book."
"And?" Xigbar asked.
"Nothing. It seems the gift of the shield is unique to the world she's from." Zexion closed his book, and it disappeared the same way it appeared. "You said before you can let your shield down so gifts that affect the mind work on you. Would you mind doing that and seeing if you can see my illusions then?"
Izzie tilted her head. "Why do you want to do that?"
"Just as an experiment."
She studied him for a moment, and didn't see any underlying motive on his face or in his body language. It just seemed that he was genuinely curious. "Well, alright. But keep the illusions benign."
Saix, who had been standing in his usual spot and pretending to go over a report from Marluxia, glanced up. He'd seen some of the visions Zexion came up with, and it made him a little nervous for Izzie to lower her guard enough to let him through. He kept his mouth shut, though. Zexion smiled.
"Of course."
Izzie pulled herself to her feet and walked to the middle of the room, about ten feet from Saix, and Zexion followed. Iris moved from the far couch to sit on her knees next to Xigbar, who was turned to watch. Axel and Demyx also turned. Saix lowered his clipboard, his mouth set in a thin line.
Zexion waited as Izzie lowered her head, and after a few moments, the orange haze expanded from her, flaring out a couple feet from her body. She looked up at Zexion.
"Okay, give it a shot." Zexion lifted his hand, waving it. To everyone else, he conjured a clone of Izzie, standing just outside the perimeter of the shield.
"See anything?" He asked.
Izzie narrowed her eyes. "I see a silhouette, but not much else. Hold on." Her shoulders heaved as she took a deep breath, and her shield ballooned further out, encasing the clone and also swallowing up Iris, Xigbar, and Zexion. She felt when the high energy and cheerfulness of Iris along with the serious, apathic tone of Zexion and the laid-back and cocky attitude of Xigbar flowed into her. She let out a breath. So his swagger ran deep.
She looked back up, and this time, she could see that the silhouette had taken better form, but it was still fuzzy. She couldn't make out any defining details-besides that the figure was feminine. She flared her shield out even further, consuming Axel and Demyx. Axel's energy was warm and open, with a twinge of guilt, and Demyx's was carefree.
Axel watched the shield as it pushed back toward the last person in the room, and the moment it touched him, Axel saw Izzie stiffen, a look of agony washing over her face as a gasp hitched in her throat. He frowned. Zexion, believing her reaction was to the illusion, said, "Do you see it now?" Izzie swallowed thickly, and lied smoothly.
"Yes. It surprised me." While she could now see that the mirage was of herself, it didn't leave much of an impression on her. It might have if her heart and mind weren't being flooded by misery. Saix's deep-seeded emotions were wreaking havoc on her, beating her internally as she struggled to hide it.
They were so much worse than before. The first time, the pain they caused her, while excruciating, was more diluted. That time, it was a constant stream of torment. In a way, that was better; it gave her time to get used to the feeling. Now, it felt like someone was inside her heart and stabbing it, punching it, and beating it with a crowbar all at the same time, just tearing it to shreds and making a deep throbbing pain echo throughout her entire body. The anguish it was causing her now was comparable to the feeling of being burned alive, and she had no idea how she was managing to stay quiet. She wanted to scream. She wanted to fold to the floor and cry. How could Saix live like this? He had to know. There was no way he couldn't.
Unable to bear it anymore, Izzie snapped her shield back into herself, the strange, low but still loud sound it created from being moved so quickly making everyone else start. As it retracted back into her body, the illusion of herself disappeared along with the internal pounding Saix was unknowingly giving her. She looked over her shoulder at him, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth. She was torn between running over to him and throwing her arms around him or leaving the room. He looked to her.
"What?" She turned her eyes away.
"Nothing."
Iris hopped to her feet and skipped over to Izzie, taking her hand and gazing up at her meaningfully. "C'mon. I wanna see what else you brought back." Izzie let out a breath and nodded, and the girls left the Grey Area.
Xigbar turned back around and reached for a magazine on the coffee table and Zexion walked back to his chair, conjuring his book again. Demyx summoned his sitar and began tuning it, and Axel approached Saix.
"What did you do to her?" Saix blinked, looking up at Axel from the papers he was reading.
"What I do to her?" He repeated, confused.
"Yeah. You didn't notice? When her shield touched the rest of us, she didn't really react, but the second it touched you, it was like you might as well have sucker punched her." Saix frowned deeply.
"I didn't do anything to her. What could I have done to her? She was ten feet away from me."
"I guess that's true," Axel murmured, his hands on his hips. "But it was weird. She looked like she was in pain." Saix sighed.
So this was how it was gonna be, huh? He'd be hurting her without even touching her? His eyes ran over the report in his hands without taking a single word in.
The clock over the desk in Saix's office read twelve-oh-two, and he still wasn't anywhere close to being done with his work. He kept going back to what Axel said earlier. He had exactly zero idea what he had done to cause Izzie pain, but he knew that Axel wouldn't lie about something like that. So zoned out he was that he didn't even realize the words he'd been writing down were turning into incomprehensible scribbles.
"Dammit," He growled, flipping over his pencil and scrubbing the eraser over the paper. The eraser smudged the graphite, making thick black streaks appear, and Saix groaned, dropping his head onto his arm. This was so unlike him. Nothing ever distracted him this much, nothing, and if he allowed this continue on, he'd be in for an earful from Xemnas. Slowly, he lifted his head. He had to talk to her, find out what he had done to her. He shoved back from his desk and strode to the door, swinging it open.
"Oh," He mumbled when he saw Izzie floating by. She stopped and turned to look at him.
"Taking a break?" She asked, smiling at him. Her demeanor was as sweet and happy as it always was, which made Saix feel even more wretched. He shook his head a bit.
"Actually, I was going to look for you," A shocked look crossed Izzie's face.
"Me?"
"Yeah. Can you come in for a minute?"
"Uh…sure."
She glided past him into his office, and he shut the door behind her, his hand lingering on the doorknob as he turned to face her. She had moved to the wall on the right of the desk, and was fiddling with a paperweight. He took a breath.
"Axel said that when your shield touched me earlier, you acted like you were in pain," Saix said. Izzie's head jerked up, her shoulders stiffening.
"I'm gonna kill him," She grumbled, so low that he couldn't hear her. He continued.
"Does it hurt you to shield me?" Izzie looked over her shoulder at him, seeming to debate on telling him, then sighed.
"Let's sit," She said, moving to sit perched on his desk. He gave her a look.
"Don't sit on that,"
"Focus, Saix."
Narrowing his eyes, Saix let it drop for now and sat in the desk chair, swiveling it so he was facing Izzie. She took a deep breath, her shoulders heaving.
"I have been told my shield feels warm, safe. Like whoever is in it feels calm and protected. Do you feel that way when it's around you?" He nodded silently. "Well, that's because it's connected to my heart. There aren't many things about myself I like to brag about, but my ability to love hard and my compassion are a couple of the few. My shield is directly linked my strong ability to compassionately love the people around me. Typically, those of us with the gift of the shield are like this. To that end, those I shield feel the deepest parts of my heart…and I feel the deepest parts of theirs."
Saix frowned. "What do you mean?"
"My shield is like a cable that connects my heart with the person I'm shielding. I'm able to feel what's inside them. And I've discovered that if that person doesn't have a heart-" She gestured to him. "-then I feel…everything they should be feeling, and everything they've ever felt. When I shield you, everything that's inside you flows into me like a dam that's been burst. The first time I was completely unprepared because, well, I didn't expect you would have any emotions to offer. And then I got punched in the face. And since I thought there was no possible way it could've been worse, I thought that I knew what to expect, but today they were somehow stronger. Despite what you've been told and what you believe, there are feelings inside you. But they're so deep and so repressed that you don't even know they're there. And they're mostly all negative. Sorrow, rage, fear, jealousy, hate…But then there's this tiny, little thing that's positive. But it's so small and with all those negative emotions swirling around I can't pinpoint what it is. That's the reason I look like I'm in pain when I shield you. I am in pain. I'm feeling what you're feeling, and you're feeling pain." When she finished, Izzie brought her eyes up to look at Saix, and she saw that his face was blank. She decided to wait until he spoke, her body perfectly still with uncertainty.
"I…really don't know what to say about that," He mumbled finally. "I don't notice any pain."
"You might not," She replied. "But, don't you think that the reason you're so…unpleasant, most of the time is because some part of you does know you're in pain?"
Saix sighed a little, shaking his head. "I can't-"
"Don't say that you can't feel," Izzie warned.
"But I can't."
"Well try telling me that when it feels like someone is tearing my heart apart. Tell me that when all I can hear are the tortured screams coming from you. I know what I channeled from you was real and not something I made up; I mean, there was no way I could ever have created all that misery. That has to come from years and years of suffering and grief. It was you, Saix."
"Fine!" He snapped, making Izzie start. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, lifting a hand to rub at his face. "You're right. You always are, and that's one of the most annoying things about you." Izzie crossed her arms. Saix lifted his head, and she could see the mask he constantly wore was gone, leaving behind a tired-looking man. "I spent a long time wrestling with my demons before I learned the best thing for me was to lock them away, to not think about them. I've become very good at repressing everything. I had to. If I didn't, I wouldn't have survived this long."
"But Saix, repressing one's emotions makes everything worse," Izzie told him.
"What could I have done about them?" He asked her. "Who could I have talked to? For two years Axel and I were the only newest recruits to the Organization. Do you think I could've talked to any of the others?" As he spoke, he turned his eyes away from her, his fingers clenched tightly around the arms of his chair. "And I couldn't talk to Axel, either. He had his own issues to work out."
"So the best option was to let it fester?"
"It was the only option."
Izzie let out a breath, resigned. She didn't know how deep his scars ran, and getting him to tell her this much was like pulling teeth. She knew she shouldn't push, but it was so frustrating. All she wanted was to help him.
"Do you know my real name?" He asked suddenly, making Izzie's gaze snap back to him.
"Your…real name?" She repeated. Saix nodded.
"You didn't notice that all our names have X's in them? That's not just a coincidence. When we first come into the Organization, Xemnas renames us. My name is not Saix. It's Isa." Izzie stared at him, flabbergasted.
"Isa…" She whispered. Saix's lips twitched, like he wanted to smile.
"That doesn't mean you can call me that now, though. I don't want to be called that until I'm human again."
"Then why did you tell me?" Izzie asked, confused. Saix met her gaze for just a moment before he looked off at nowhere in particular.
"Because. I'm going to tell you why I am the way I am. When we were human, Axel and I were best friends, and in the world we lived in, there was this huge castle. The leader of our world, Ansem the Wise, lived there along with his apprentices. We didn't know what exactly they studied or what they did, but because of the way he ruled, our world was very peaceful. Most everyone was happy. But by night, we could hear screams coming from the castle. Human screams. It was enough to make two kids like us curious."
We attempted a number of recon missions, but more times than not we'd get caught and thrown out. On the rare occasion that we did manage to sneak in without being caught, we would head right for the dungeon, where we could hear the screams at night. We thought we were lucky, because the dungeon was always devoid of guards or apprentices. But now I realize it didn't make sense-that was where we heard the screaming every night we weren't there. They had to have known we were there. But we were kids. We didn't know better.
On one of our explorations, we met someone down in that dungeon, a girl. She didn't remember anything about herself or how she came to be locked up there. Even kids like us knew that keeping anyone locked against their will wasn't right, so Axel—Lea-and I decided we'd apprentice to Ansem the Wise to rescue her. Again, we should've known something was wrong when they accepted us into the program even though we had been thrown out numerous times before, but when we heard we were accepted, we didn't even think about it. We immediately formulated a plan to get that girl out.
However, a few days after we began training, everything changed. The man who would become Xemnas overthrew Ansem the Wise, and the apprentices that would become Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion cast away their hearts and became what would be known as Nobodies. Lea and I saw the moment it happened, and went to warn everyone who could get out of the castle to leave before hurrying to the dungeon to get the girl. While I was watching the corridor to make sure our escape route was clear, Lea shouted,
"She's gone!" I whirled around to face him.
"What?"
"She's-she's gone! There's no one in any of these cells!"
I ran over to the cell the girl was normally in to find that it was indeed empty. "What the hell?" I muttered. "She was in there yesterday, wasn't she?"
"Yeah!"
"Well where do you think they could've moved her to?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Lea and I both jumped at the unexpected voice behind us, and spun to face it. Two men stood there, dressed in what would become the Organization's signature cloak, hoods up so we couldn't see their faces. Lea and I pressed ourselves back against the door of the cell.
"You two are the ones that snuck in all the time, right?" The man on the right said. "Did you think we were that stupid? We knew you were up to something." As he spoke, I scoped a possible way to get away from them. It was a matter of getting around them, and hoping we could run faster than they could.
"So, what should we do with them?"
Not willing to stick around to find out, I grabbed Lea's hand and took off for the door, pumping my legs as hard as I could. We ran around the corner and dashed down the corridor, heading to the stairs that led to the first floor of the castle. However, when we came to the stairs, we found the door leading to them was closed and locked.
"No! No, no, no, no!" Lea cried, pounding on the door as hard as he could. I threw a frantic glance over my shoulder and saw that the two men were coming down the hall. A few feet in front of them were another set of corridors, one going to the right, the other to the left.
"Lea. We have one shot." I muttered. He turned, glanced at me, then saw what I was referring to.
"Which way?"
"The left. One, two…" We had about twelve feet between us and the men, and nine feet between us and the corridor. We couldn't afford to botch it. "Three!"
Lea and I took off toward the men, who lunged toward us at the same time. I realized quickly that only one of us would be able to make it around the corner before they reached us, and I glanced over to Lea. Right before we reached the crossway, I slammed my shoulder into Lea, shoving him to the left and down the corridor. He stumbled, but stayed on his feet as I was snatched up by one of the men.
"Isa!" He screamed.
"Go!" I yelled back as I struggled against the man trying to throw me over his shoulder. I punched and scratched at his face, ramming my feet into his stomach as the other man began down the hall for Lea. "Go! Just get out of here, Lea!" He stared at me for a moment, then whirled on his heel and dashed down the hall. The man who wasn't trying to restrain me continued after him, but the other man said,
"Let him go for now and help me with this one!" I continued trying to shove away from the man's iron-tight grip, kicking, punching, and biting, until the other man took hold of my legs, restraining my lower half, and they carried me back to the dungeon.
I was thrown into a cell, my breath knocked out of me. The only light came from the hall outside. I scrambled to my feet and slammed my hands against the bars, where the two men stood, the one who caught me rubbing his face.
"Damn. The kid's got hands."
"He does show promise. For now, let's get the other one."
"Why are you doing this?" I shouted, my heart pounding against my chest and anger making my arms shake. The man who hadn't caught me turned back to me.
"We have a mission to complete." Not saying anything more, he turned and exited the dungeon, followed by the other man. I hoped beyond hope that Lea had found a way out of the castle.
But in the next twenty minutes, the thing I had feared worst came true as he was dragged into the dungeon, kicking and screaming as I was, and tossed into the cell across from mine.
"Lea!" He rolled from his side onto his bottom and clattered to his feet, wrapping his hands around the bars on his cell door.
"Isa! You're alright!"
"For now," I replied.
"For now indeed." The low voice came from behind me, making both Lea and myself gasp. I spun to face him, one of my hands shaking the cell door to find that yes, it was still locked. I had no idea how he got into my cell without me noticing. His hand clamped down on the back of my neck and shoved me to the center of the room.
"Leave him alone!" Lea yelled.
"What are you gonna do?" I asked him, backtracking a little.
"You have remarkable power inside you," The man told me, taking a step toward me when I stepped back. "But you keep it buried deep, so deep that you don't even know it's there. You must be broken in order for that power to come forth." He flexed his right hand, a long, cylindrical, glowing red blade appearing. I inhaled sharply, my shoulders stiffening to my ears.
In the next moment, all I saw was red, a force sending me hurdling to the ground, a sharp, burning pain singing out from just above my left eyebrow to just below the right side of my nose.
"ISA!" I had never heard Lea scream like that before in all the years I knew him. His voice was distressed, filled with horror, and cracked from how loud he shrieked. I blinked, my head swimming as a hand subconsciously went to my face. Something warm and wet squished between my fingers, and when I pulled it back, bright red stained nearly all of my palm. Blood dripped from the newly formed cut onto the concrete floor, and when I looked back up to the man, he struck me the other way, knocking me to my other side. "STOP! STOP IT! ISA!"
More blood fell to the floor with the new cut overlapping the original, going from the top of my right eyebrow down to the bottom of the left side of my nose. An X-shaped cut now marred my face. I barely had time to process what just happened when the red weapon disappeared and was replaced by a rather menacing-looking Keyblade. The man pointed it at me. Across from us, trapped behind a locked door and unable to do anything but helplessly watch, Lea was losing his mind. Screaming, slamming his hands against the bars, begging him not to hurt me anymore…
As I stared up at the unknown man's face, he pulled his arm back, then thrust forward, pushing the tip of the Keyblade into my chest. I gasped as my entire body went uncomfortably numb, from my heart all the way to my scalp and down to my toes. He pulled the Keyblade from my body, and with it, came a glowing, red and pink heart. My heart. I slowly folded to the ground, my vision becoming blurry as my consciousness slipped from me. The last thing I heard before passing out was Lea screaming my name.
"That was my last day as Isa," Saїx said, his voice low. "When I woke up next, I was this. So was Lea. And, that's why I'm so mean and cold. The guilt and rage and fear and grief were too much, so everything but the emergency services of my mind shut down." He turned his head to look at Izzie and saw she was staring at him, her big eyes shining with tears. "I didn't tell you this to make you cry, you know."
"Who wouldn't cry after hearing something like that?" She whispered back. "Saїx, nothing like that should ever happen to anyone, let alone a child. I'm-"
"I don't want to hear you say you're sorry," He cut her off smoothly.
"But-!" He cupped his hand over her mouth.
"It happened, Isabella. It's the past, no one can change it. But in completing the objective we have, I will be human again. That's what we're trying to do." As he lowered his hand, Izzie said,
"That's what you're all gathered here for? To become human again?" He nodded.
"Yes. And when I am human again, I'll be able to give you what you want."
"But I don't want anything from you."
"Yes, you do. You might not realize it, but you want me to magically be able to love you, to cherish you, or at least care about you. But I am completely unable to do that, Isabella. I never loved someone like that. I have nothing to go on." Izzie remained quiet, and Saїx said, "I don't have any contempt for you, but in order for you to mean something to me, I have to be able to feel."
"Alright," She replied. "Then let me ask you something: if I went home right now, if you never saw me again, how would you react?" Saїx opened his mouth, then closed it. As he thought about that, of Izzie going home and out of his life, even if it was for a little while, he found that he loathed the idea entirely. He didn't even do much with her. Just seeing her every day, hearing her voice, was enough to keep him satisfied. It was like she filled some hole inside him that he didn't know was there. He felt…complete with her around.
But something got in the way of him telling her that. Instead, he scoffed, and stood up, walking to one of the filing cabinets across the room and yanking open one of the drawers. Izzie sighed.
"For God's sake, Saїx, swallow your pride for once, will you?" She groaned as she ghosted over to him and slammed the drawer shut before he could get what he wanted. He wasn't even sure what he opened the drawer for. Still, he yanked himself up so he was standing straight and glowered at her. "You're so stubborn," She told him. "But even you not answering me is your answer. You wouldn't like it, would you? You would hate being away from me with every fiber of your being, wouldn't you?"
"Yes." Izzie blinked, floored that Saїx actually admitted it.
"You want an answer? Fine. But you're not gonna get this out of me a second time, so listen close. You annoy the crap out of me. You don't just leave things alone, you push and push and push and piss me off. All the time. But at the same time, yes, I like seeing you. Yes, I like it when you're around. Yes, I would absolutely hate every second you were gone. I don't want you to leave. Ever." Izzie stared up at him, gob smacked, and completely unable to respond. Saїx glared down at her, looking very awkward and angry, red dying his cheeks. She had half a mind to say he was cute, but she had a feeling he'd start throwing punches if she did, so she just smiled sweetly.
And then, before he could even register it, she jumped up on her tiptoes and planted a small kiss on his cheek before turning and streaking from his office. Saїx blinked, a warmth spreading through his chest.
What on earth was this girl doing to him?
…