III.
My body hurts. Every single one of my limbs, appendages and joints aches. My lungs are on fire. And my head is throbbing.
It's bright in the room I am in, sterile. Too white. The light nearly blinds me and I squint, looking at the ceiling through narrowed green eyes.
"You're awake."
I jump, faster than my body wants me to, harder than my body wants me to, and move with zero coordination. I hit the floor, tumbling off the bed, and although it wasn't a far fall, it hurts all the way up to my spine. What the hell?
I look up at the figure the voice came from, and had I not known by the sound that the owner was male, there'd be no way for me to tell what the hell I was talking to. The man wears a black coat that goes down to his ankles, black boots and black gloves. The hood of his cloak is up and hangs so low, I cannot see his face, not even in the overbearing light of the room. He's skinny, almost androgynous in shape, but I guess if I really look, I can kind of see the outline of broad shoulder muscles.
"Hey, don't do that, you're gonna hurt yourself." He sounds whiny, nasally. Like he's got a sinus infection or something.
"Tchh." Is my clever reply, before I leap off of the floor and take off into a sprint. I grab the nob of the door and yank it open, taking off down the hall, but not before I hear him whine to himself.
"C'mon! I'm not the right guy for this kind of job."
I'm half way down the middle of nowhere, in a pure white hall with pure white walls, my pulse hammering in my temples, my lungs screaming. I don't know how this guy hasn't caught me, being bottom heavy with short legs means speed isn't exactly my friend, and with how much pain I'm in, this guy is either in hella bad shape or not trying hard.
I swallow, dryly.
Let's hope it's the former, I don't want to know what this place has in store if he's not even trying to catch me.
I dodge down halls, trying to remember the turns I take. I read somewhere once that if you keep your hand on the wall in a maze, you can get out of it, no problem. I slam my right hand against the closest wall, hoping this is true.
Scouring the depths of my memory, I try to remember what happened that led me here.
Del and Amaya.
She was in his lap, half dressed, his lips at her neck. She begged me to stop, promised this was the first time this had happened, that it was an accident and she'd never mean to hurt me. He was flustered, accused me of being distant, of not being that into him in the first place, of driving him to do this. He wasn't wrong, my heart is racing more now in this empty hallway than it ever had with him.
And that didn't feel right, that was disturbing. I dated him for a few months, I'd been friends with him for years, I should've felt something, right?
Anything?
I don't even feel anything now, with the memories so fresh.
Why? How can I really be that cold?
Sora's ship.
It was right outside the shop, I didn't come from Transmute City, I wasn't a native, and clearly my friends didn't need me anymore. I don't want to admit it to myself, but I know I've outgrown them too. So I took off…
And then?
Oh no. The wing. Amaya must've started a half assed repair before giving up on the Kingdom, making it flyable but unstable. That's why my lungs are on fire. The ship spiraled into a strange, black hole. Into a grey world and then…
I remember waking up in a sterile white room.
I slow to a walk as I look over the hall I'm in. I haven't moved my hand but I must've been running in circles, because despite the non distinct décor, I am certain I've been in the hallway before.
"Fuck." I whisper.
"That's not a very nice word." The nasally voiced guy is standing behind me. I whip around to see him wagging a finger at me. With his other hand, he pulls down the hood to reveal a pale face, sandy brown hair spiked into some odd mullet-mohawk combination and eyes that are the same shade of green as mine. "C'mon, cut me a break, I'm just supposed to be your babysitter." He tells me.
"Fat chance." I rasp back, because my throat is still screaming, but again I take off into a run, vowing to stick to the left. I don't get far before a black swirl materializes in front of me. Damn, Heartless. It is now that I realize I don't have the Godhand on me anymore, and I'm certain it's mullet man who took it. I reach into the pocket of my belt for a grenade or something. There is a gaping, singed hole in it, which I can only assume is from the explosion of my ship.
I am utterly useless.
From the darkness, mullet man emerges and I feel my back hit a wall.
"What the hell are you?"
"Demyx, number IX, the Melodious Nocturne. I control the Dancer Nobodies and the element of water. And, as of right now I am your personal escort to a meeting in your honor." He says with a goofy little wave of his hand, as though it is absolutely no big deal. As though I did not just wake up in a strange place with a strange man sitting beside my bed.
"I'm not letting you escort me anywhere." I tell him.
"I don't think either of us really have a choice." He tells me with an exhausted sigh. "Trust me, I'd rather be sitting on the sidelines, I don't want to drag you around. This usually isn't my kinda gig."
"Then why are you the one doing it?" I ask.
"Couldn't tell ya." He says with a shrug. "Usually this is Axel's thing. You'll meet him at the meeting, he and Saix were patrolling the city when your ship crashed." These names mean absolutely nothing to me.
"I'm sorry that I crashed, trust me it was not intentional. But I've got munny on me, I'll buy some parts, have it repaired in a few days and then I'll be gone, you'll never see me again." The munny thing is a complete lie, and I have no idea what state my ship is in or if it can even be fixed. But this guy, Demyx, doesn't know that, right?
"You have no idea where you are, do you?" He asks me and I shake my head. "You didn't mean to end up here? You're not using the power of darkness to travel?"
"What? No."
"I knew it." He grumbles. "Well this will be a complete waste of both of our time." He says.
"Then I don't need to go anywhere?" I ask and he chuckles.
"I think we're both outta luck there." He tells me. "Seriously though, can we make this as easy as possible?"
"Are your friends going to kill me?" I ask, because I have a feeling this guy is 100% a doofus, 100% of the time and couldn't lie to me to save his life.
"I doubt it. That wouldn't be normal practice, but then again, you showing up here isn't normal practice." Doubting my death isn't exactly the reassurance I was hoping for, but I also am not stupid enough to be genuinely hopeful. And, I don't have any more cards to play. I don't think I can keep him talking too much longer and I have absolutely zero weapons with me. This is great. Demyx the mullet man is going to lead me to my slaughter.
I follow him, my head down, my hands in my pockets as he leads me down a series of hallways. I try to keep track of what directions he is turning, in case I need to make a break for it, but everything is so plain and white, I know I'll be screwed if I try to run. It all just looks the same.
Finally, we stop at a set of gigantic double doors that must go up at least three stories. Seems rather unnecessary, but I keep my mouth shut. If I'm gonna die, I want it to be saying something a little smarter than 'those doors are tall'.
Demyx walks me through the darkness to what I'm assuming is the center of the room, and I almost think that it is a nice relief from the blinding whiteness. Almost. And then the lights kick on to reveal—surprise, surprise—another white room. This one completely empty, save for a series of chairs. Thrones, it almost appears, all at different heights throughout the room. I count them in my head. Twelve. All but one of them currently occupied by people in the same black robe as Demyx. Eleven men, one woman. Their eyes bare into me.
"I brought the girl." Demyx says, sounding just as doofy as he did a few minutes ago talking to me.
"Thank you number IX, you may take a seat." Says a man with deep skin, glowing golden eyes and snow white hair. Well, at least this explains the number thing, they must all have their own respective hierarchy among the group. Sucks that the person most likely to be my friend is almost at the bottom. "State your name." The man with the golden eyes booms at me. I wrinkle my nose, cuz this is weird and uncomfortable and I hate it. On display like an animal for show, to people who are maybe going to kill me.
"Rueki." I say, resolving to keep my head high. No matter what happens, I'm doing it with dignity.
"And where are you from?" He asks again.
"Nowhere." I say, crossing my arms to my chest.
"Every being in this universe is from somewhere." He reminds me. I roll my eyes and huff. Does it really matter?
"Transmute City."
"That is nowhere." A man with long hair, pulled into a ponytail and an eyepatch over one of his eyes comments, a twinkle in his visible eye.
"It doesn't change the fact that we don't know why you're here, Rueki." A man with silvery blue hair a scar on his forehead, and golden eyes—is this a thing here?—says to me, his voice chillingly calm. I don't know what it is about him, but he looks down at me and I can feel his gaze pierce me. It leaves me uncomfortable and cold to the bone, like an icepick to my spine. Another man is looking at him, a man with red hair and tattoos below his green eyes. He looks at the blue haired man with such intensity, almost as though he is trying to convey something telepathically. If the blue haired man acknowledges the other man's gaze, he isn't showing it.
"My ship crashed. A wing came off of it and the repair that was done on it was a complete hack. The shop didn't have the right parts and the girl doing the work was too distracted by her boyfriend." Never mind the fact that it was my shop and the boy she was distracted by was my boyfriend.
"This explains nothing." A man with black hair and some hefty sideburns says. "No one has entered this world by accident before."
"Lucky them." I can't hold that back, my stupid mouth got carried away. The red haired man cracks a smile and it's the first warm feeling I've experienced in this world. Maybe there's hope for me. "Look, I don't know where I am, I got here by accident. I promise. I already told Demyx, just give me a few days, I'll fix my ship and be gone, I promise." I insist.
"You don't seem to understand, Rueki from Transmute City. This world is not a ship stop like your world is. This world isn't even on the map for those not traveling through darkness. So how could you, of all people have ended up here?" The man with the white hair asks and I raise an eyebrow.
"What does that even mean? I traveled by Gummi Ship, like most people?" It sounds more like a question that a statement and a blonde woman, the only woman in the room lets out a high, almost musical giggle. I'm transfixed by the sound of it.
"Awwe the little princess got lost on her adventure and doesn't know how to handle herself around the bad guys. You'd be precious if you weren't such an idiot." She snaps, leaning back into her hands, and for a second, I think I could slap her. Just a second because there's something in her icy blue eyes that scares me just a bit.
"I can promise you guys, I want to be here as little as you want me here. There was a traveler in my world, he crashed this ship, it got a half assed repair job and he took off in another ship so I borrowed his ship." I say. "I don't know what the hell he was using to travel, darkness or whatever, but I can promise you, this is all just a mistake."
"Tells us more about this traveler." A man with blue hair, covering one of his eyes leans forward in his seat. He's younger than the rest of them, with the exception of the girl or Demyx, maybe, both of whom look to be about my age.
"Just some kid." I lie straight through my teeth, because Sora was good to my world. He saved me and the people that might have once been my friends, he's a good kid and according to the girl, these people aren't good people. I'm not ratting out the mere existence of the Keybearer. And maybe if I play dumb they'll be inclined more to just let me go. Maybe. "I dunno, he didn't stay long."
"And why were you so desperate to escape your world that you took off in a damaged ship?" An older man with pale hair and strange, green eyes asks me, with a look that is unsettling. Not for the first time today, I feel like a science experiment on display.
"I…" I'm caught off guard on this one. Damn, can't play dumb here. I try to come up with the most feasible lie, but I know I'm taking too long, they're not gonna believe me. I heave a sigh, mouth coming into a pout. "I had some friends that stabbed me in the back. I couldn't be around them anymore. We'd always talked about seeing other worlds, I figured maybe it was time for me to do just that." I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, disturbed by how void of emotion my voice sounds. Nothing, still no pain, no agony, not even the faintest trace of annoyance at catching my boyfriend and my best friend going at it. It feels like nothing more than a mild inconvenience, a stubbed toe is worse than this.
C'mon Rueki, there's gotta be something.
"Welp, I believe her. I don't think she's a threat. Just some girl on an adventure gone wrong." The redheaded man shrugs, and the way he looks at me is perhaps the most disturbing of all. Even from his throne I can see it in his eyes, he believes me, he trusts me. And he doesn't even know me.
"Whether or not she's believable is besides the point." A burly man with spiky brown hair says. "What's most disturbing is how 'some girl on an adventure' was able to find our world. Tell us, was there anything strange about this traveler that might lead you to believe he was traveling by darkness?"
Yes, definitely. "No. Like I said, it was just some kid." Who might or might not have power over a magical weapon with an affiliation to the light. Well, I guess I gave a half truth. There is no way Sora would be traveling by darkness.
"Umm, she did seem pretty scared of me, guys. I think Axel is right. I don't think she means us any harm." Demyx says and I make the decision in my head to stick with him, or possibly this Axel guy. Some allies right now would be awesome.
"If she's afraid of you she either is a fantastic liar or completely innocent, being that you're the most incompetent among our ranks." A man with pink hair says in a voice smoother than silk. It takes me a minute to realize he just insulted Demyx.
"Hey, I did a good job watching over her!" Demyx insists.
"Watching over a comatose girl is nothing to be proud of." The pink haired man says again.
"Enough of your squabbles, Marluxia, Demyx." The white haired man says, and although I got the feeling he was in charge from the beginning, I am now certain. "I also agree that this girl is nothing of importance." He nods and I glare. Wow, fuck you too dude.
Ugh, I need to set my ego aside, being 'nothing of importance' to this group is probably a good thing.
"What shall we do with her, Superior?" An English accent sounds off from a man with closely cropped blond hair. "Such a funny thing that her fate rests in our hands." He says, almost as though something about it is ironic. I must be missing the joke.
"Like I said, I can leave as soon as I'm done repairing my ship.."
"Your ship is beyond salvation. When Axel and I found you, you were lucky for his presence. Were it not for him, you'd have been engulfed by flames, just like your ship." The blue haired man with the scar—Saix, I'm assuming from what Demyx said—nearly barks at me and I wrap my arms around my waist, almost as though they can protect me from him. I don't like him. I really don't like him.
"Oh…" Is the weak response I have to offer. The girl cackles at me again, and I'm sure my patheticness is quite amusing to her. I look to Demyx, to Axel, because despite not knowing them, they're the only ones that seem like they wouldn't take any pleasure in my demise. Maybe my weakness will be endearing to one of them?
"Awe, c'mon guys, let's just cut her loose. Open up a portal to somewhere and drop her off." Demyx insists, thank Twilight.
"We can't just let her go, you bumbling idiot, she knows too much." The pink haired man says.
"Awe man, you kids and your name calling. Slow your roll, Marluxia, she doesn't know squat. She just woke up." The man with the eye patch waves his hand. "You're not thinking of the big picture if you wanna get rid of her."
"That lovely little weapon of hers was quite a rarity, I agree with you, Xigbar, this girl could be useful." The man with the short hair says and my eyes widen.
"So you did take my Godhand." I grumble.
"Someone of your stature is hardly fit to wield such a powerful weapon." Sideburns says to me.
"Besides, couldn't have you coming after us with that thing, got it memorized?" Axel asks me and my stomach does a weird backflip. How is he so nonchalant? How are all of them so nonchalant as they discuss my life.
"I don't trust her, Superior. Harmless or not, she appears far too unpredictable and unhelpful for our cause." Saix says, looking over me with narrowed eyes. My stomach does a different kind of backflip when he talks.
"Can you fight, Rueki?" The man who looked at me like a science experiment asks and I nod.
"Obviously, or I wouldn't try lugging that damn claw around with me." I say and the woman giggles again.
"Ooh, ya know, I think this one might be fun to keep around. She's feisty, she'll be a joy to play with." I'm both a little aroused and a little horrified at what playing with me entails to her.
"I'm an Alchemist, too." I say. "Whatever you guys need, potions, elemental stuff, I can synthesize it all, I just need materials and you know, my Godhand."
"Oh you certainly won't be getting that back any time soon." The man with hair covering his eye tells me.
"We've got the whole elemental thing down, kiddo." Eyepatch—Xigbar—says to me. "C'mon Xemnas, she wants to be helpful. Let's see what she can do." He says to white hair, who looks over me.
"Very well then, Rueki. I agree, if you are looking to help our cause, we would be more than grateful to you." Xemnas nods at me, his voice incredibly calm, despite everything. "However, I agree with Saix on the fact that you are an oddity, unpredictable. For the time being, you will be required to be under constant supervision by one of our members."
"I'm not a child, I don't need a babysitter." I insist, though that probably is a bad idea and I probably should just be grateful. I really need to figure out how to control my damn mouth.
"Having a babysitter keeps you alive, Rueks, got it memorized?" Axel asks me. What a fucking tragic nickname, maybe he and I can't be friends after all. "Anyway, when do I start?" Axel asks, as though the job is automatically his, and based on what Demyx said, it might very well be.
"This is no job for you, Axel." Saix snaps.
"You have plenty of other missions you need to complete, number VIII. Now is not the time for you to focus on chaperoning. Number IX, however, you have no current missions on the docket." Xemnas says and I look to Demyx.
"Me? Oh, I dunno, this doesn't really seem like the kind of job for me." Demyx shakes his head. Dammit, mullet man, help me out. If Axel's not gonna babysit me, it's gotta be Demyx.
"Are you not competent enough to watch over someone who is a foot shorter than you?" Marluxia snorts and jeez, he must really hate Demyx.
"No, it's just, she's uh…spunky." Demyx says and I want to tell him I'll behave for him, but I'm also over the whole 'looking weak to save my own skin' thing. I'm already gonna live, what's the worst they can throw at me? My eyes instantly wander to Saix. Oh please, no.
"I'll watch her. After all, we girls have gotta stick together." The blonde woman looks at me as though she is a housecat and I'm an unlucky mouse.
"Watching over her is not an optional mission, number IX." Xemnas tells Demyx, who instantly sulks, but I breathe a sigh of relief. "My comrades, you are all dismissed. We will have another meeting in a few weeks time to discuss what to do next with our dear new, ally." Xemnas makes direct eye contact with me and under his golden gaze, I begin to wonder if death would really be worse than this.
My new room is as sterile and white as the room I wake up in. The only reason I know it is a different room is the fact that there is a dresser and a chaise in it along with the bed—which was the only thing in the first room, if memory serves me right. There is absolutely zero here for entertainment. Apparently there is a library somewhere in this place—The Castle That Never Was, inside of the World That Never Was, how creative—but I am not to go in it. Why? Because apparently Marluxia likes to spend his time there and Demyx would rather not be in the same room as him.
"It's like I'm his punching bag or something. He's always got such an attitude, like he's better than me." Demyx tells me one day, as he plays music on his sitar. He's good at it, really good and most evenings, he's kind enough to play me to sleep.
"He's a douche, that much was pretty clear at the meeting." I say, drawing transmutation circles with my finger into the comforter of my bed.
"Yeah, most of the guys here kind of suck, I usually just keep to myself, play my music." He tells me. "But uhh, it's definitely nice to have you here!" He tells me and I snort on a laugh.
"Dude, you don't need to blow smoke up my ass." I tell him.
"I'm not, you haven't really been directly mean to me yet." He confesses.
"And I promise not to run off on you again." I tell him and he looks at me, skeptically. "Seriously, you're probably the only one I wasn't afraid to get stuck with. Other than that redheaded guy, Axel, right?" I ask and he nods.
"Yep." He tells me. "You know, it's kinda weird, I looked to see what kind of missions Axel was slated for, and there wasn't really anything. A couple small scale ones, but like I said, usually taking care of new members and showing them the ropes is his job. I don't know why they gave it to me."
"Maybe because I'm a prisoner and not a member." I grumble and Demyx chuckles, a pleasant musical sound in contrast to his nasally speaking voice.
"Maybe." He agrees. "Maybe they think he'll be a bad influence on you. He's unpredictable, apparently you're unpredictable too." He reminds me and I snort.
"Only unpredictable when you don't know me." I say. "Is that Saix guy always so…cold?" I ask, unable to come up with a better word.
"Oh yeah, most of the time he's the most heartless one of all of us. Not that any of us have hearts." He says, and I think it's a strange metaphor, but whatever makes him feel like a more badass villain. "He's got control of the moon though, or rather it has control of him. You catch him in a bad phase and he'll go berserk on you." He warns me and I scoff.
"Wait, what do you mean the moon controls him?" I ask.
"Well we've all got control of an element." He says and I blink. "What did you think I meant when I said I had control over water?" He asks.
"That you were really good at holding your pee?"
He doesn't stop laughing for seven and a half minutes.
The man with short blond hair stops by one evening a week or so later and I quickly learn that his name is Luxord and that he would have gambled away his limbs already if he didn't have uncanny good luck.
"Have you been a good prisoner, Rueki, love?" He asks me and I roll my eyes.
"The best. Probably should let me off on good behavior."
"Now that's an idea. Shame the Nocturne here hasn't been able to take you on a mission, give you a chance to prove yourself." Luxord says with a shrug.
"That wouldn't be intentional, now would it?" I raise an eyebrow. Luxord shrugs and sets a stack of playing cards on the bed between the two of us.
"I'm number X Rueki, I'm afraid I'm even lower down the totem than our friend Demyx, so to speak. I'm afraid I'm as lacking on information as he is." He tells me, cracking his knuckles.
"Don't let him fool you, Rueki." Demyx tells me. "He may be number X, but he's always scheming something." He says.
"That's unfair." He says to Demyx. "I've never been accused of scheming."
"Well uhh…maybe that's not the right word." Demyx says, scratching his chin. "Well you're always busy with something that only you, Saix and Xemnas ever seem to know anything about for some reason." He says and Luxord's carefully neutral expression breaks into a smirk.
"Now that, you are correct about." He says. "But dear Rueki here has no need for useless information about what I get up to, lets not bore the poor girl to death." He says.
"That's sufficiently been done." I say. "I'm getting serious muscle atrophy here." I pout and Luxord chuckles.
"What does number IX have you doing for fun?" He asks and I shrug.
"He tells me stories. Plays music." I say.
"You poor girl, we must get you a hobby." He says.
"She keeps asking about the library but you know who likes to hang out there." He sighs and Luxord chuckles.
"Still quite scarred from when you found Larxene and Marluxia defiling one of the book cases?" And honestly, I don't even wanna know the story behind that one.
"I mean I clearly can't even navigate my way around the castle, Demyx can attest to that. What's the harm in letting me go by myself? I'm sure Demyx has a lot better things to do than tell me stories." I say and Demyx shakes his head.
"Definitely not, this is my kind of mission, keep signing me up for this type of thing." He says. "Besides, we still 'can't trust you' yet." He says with air quotes.
"What about you, Nocturne? Do you trust our houseguest?" Luxord lifts an eyebrow as he looks at me.
"Sure. She's too afraid of Saix to run." Demyx says with a shrug and I shoot him a glare.
"Dick, I told you that in confidence." I snap and Luxord chuckles.
"Well then, perhaps we'd best get Demyx a mission you can tag along on." Luxord tells me.
"Perhaps." I roll my eyes. "That's not very promising. So I get to sit around until then?" I ask.
"That depends." He tells me.
"On what?"
"Do you play Black Jack?"
Demyx gets assigned a mission. The worst type of mission apparently, because Larxene, the woman cackles at him and calls him 'the Heartless Wrangler'. Demyx groans something about it always being him and drags me outside.
It rains the entire time we are outside, me without a weapon, sitting on the side of the castle while he fights the mobs of Heartless that keep trying to flock inside the castle to get out of the rain.
"You know I can help you, right?" I shout to Demyx, through the booming thunder and pounding storm.
"No you can't you don't have a weapon!" He shouts back at me.
"Tell me where my Godhand is and I'll go get it." I insist.
"Rueki, no offense, but I still like having the skin on my shell."
I huff and throw myself against the side of the building. My back screams at me for days.
I have lost seven rounds of Black Jack and three rounds of Chess to Luxord today already. I'm in the process of losing another.
"I thought you said you were good at chess?" Luxord all but laughs at me.
"Is luck your element? Is that what this is?" I ask, running a hand through my hair.
"Luck isn't an element, Rueki, doll." He tells me. "Time is though. And that's mine." He knocks my Queen off the board and I pout.
"Time isn't an element. Neither is the moon." I say, remembering what Demyx said about Saix. "Aren't there only four? Earth, Fire, Water and Air?" I ask and Luxord smirks at me. "And lightning I guess is it's own elemental magic. And ice. And light. And darkness…" This isn't going exactly where I want it to.
"You'll break dear Xigbar and Marluxia's hearts." He laughs at me and I raise an eyebrow.
"Wat kind of bullshit elements do they have?" I ask.
"Space and Flowers."
"Flowers are not an element."
It's been exactly eighteen days since I became a prisoner here. I think to myself that I should be etching tally marks on the side of the castle as I sit and wait for Demyx in the rain.
There are so many damn Heartless
"You mean you caught your boyfriend cheating on you with your best friend?" Demyx nearly gasps, quite scandalized.
"She must be quite the prize for him to toss you to the wayside, so to speak." Luxord says.
"She is very beautiful." I agree. "But he was kind of a whiny brat. She did me a solid, taking him off my hands." I shrug.
"Are you sure you have a heart?" Demyx cackles at me and Luxord elbows him sharply. I raise an eyebrow but no one says anything more to me. I begin to wonder just what I don't know about this Organization.
I'm sitting on the floor, beside Demyx's throne, waiting for this meeting to mean something.
"Can you play Black Jack with Luxord today?" I call up to Demyx, who snorts.
"You don't wanna lose again?"
Xemnas and Saix appear in their thrones.
"Axel." Xemnas calls. "Bring him in."
Axel enters the same doors that Demyx and I entered almost three weeks ago. I almost have an aneurism.
A boy stands next to him, about the same height as me with sandy blonde hair and eyes as blue as the ocean.
He could be Sora's duplicate.
"Today is a very important day." Xemnas booms from his throne as I look desperately at the boy, trying to get him to make eye contact with me. If he looks at me I'll know, I'll really know if he's Sora. "Another comrade has decided to wear the coat. I'd like you each to welcome our number XIII, Roxas, the Key to Destiny." No way the key thing can be a coincidence. No way. What the fuck are these people?
"Key to Destiny?" Demyx pipes up and I want to personally thank him for being on the same wavelength as me, even if unintentionally.
"Roxas wields the Keyblade." Xemnas answers and I must be dreaming. No way. Sora is the Keybearer. Nothing Amaya or Sora told me about the Keyblade stated that more than one person could wield it… "And he makes our ranks complete. We have fully assembled into Organization XIII."
I squint my eyes, looking over at the boy, Roxas. He's Sora. I swear, he looks so much like him. And yet, when I cock my head to the side, he looks so unlike Sora and so incredibly sad that there's no way that face can belong to the same boy. He looks up, his eyes locking onto mine and there is absolutely no recognition. Axel looks in the direction that Roxas is staring into and makes eye contact with me. His gaze lingers as though he is trying to figure something out—the exact look I thought Roxas might give me. I look down, wringing my hands.
What the hell happened to Sora and why does this boy look so much like him? Why does he have the Keyblade?
Saix finds Demyx after the meeting—which means he also finds me—and looks at me in a way that makes me want to find a hole and die in it.
"You have a mission, number IX." He says. "And a chance for you to prove yourself, Rueki." I don't like how he sounds when he says my name, as though I am something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"Awe man, I was hoping we could take the rest of the day off." Demyx sighs.
"Perhaps you'd rather spend the rest of the day chasing Heartless away from the Castle?" He asks.
"Definitely not, we'd love to go on a mission." I say and Saix's eyes narrow.
"I believe the Nocturne can speak for himself." He says, in a voice colder than ice.
Demyx takes a note card out of Saix's hand and leads me away.
"Huh." Demyx looks over the notecard as he has a hand on my shoulder, directing me away. "I haven't been to Hollow Bastion in months." He scratches his head.
"What's a Hollow Bastion?" I ask and Demyx gives me a sly look, shoving the card into his pocket. I am mildly disarmed.
"It's a…well you'll see when we get there." He says and with the wave of his hands, opens up one of those big, dark portals I've become accustomed to traveling with him. I'd rather we just exit the castle through the giant doors, like normal people. I don't know how he does this, but according to him, it's a trick everyone in the Organization knows, and I am a bit too afraid to question it. I pout.
"I hate traveling through the darkness." Black claws reach out to grab us as we walk. Dusks follow us around with their slow, distorted movements. Demyx walks past them, whistling, as though he doesn't even notice. "What's our mission supposed to be?" I ask.
"Take a book from a wizard and scatter the pages from it." Demyx says with a shrug.
"That sounds…underwhelming." I say.
"My kind of mission. I can send a few Dusks in and they'll gather the book up for me. We can get ice cream, we don't need to do anything." Demyx beams at me. I've pieced together from our trips outside to wrangle the Heartless that the Dusks seem to be the pawns of the Organization, something the members can summon at will. Again, the less I know though, the better.
"How the hell am I supposed to prove myself?" I ask and he raises an eyebrow.
"Do you want to get the book from the wizard?"
"I would if I had a damn weapon." I huff. He snickers at me and tucks into his pocket, pulling out a handful of synthesis items and a marker.
"Think you can work with these?" I definitely can. I snatch them up and shove the items into my now mended pocket while I draw a Transmutation Circle on each of my hands. "What does that do?" He asks me.
"It gives my energy a portal, so to speak. Even combining the items is useless without energy—my energy." I say
"Aren't you gonna wear yourself out?" He asks and I shrug.
"Not with only enough to make three or four cluster bombs." I tell him. We come out the end of the tunnel to a world, filled with waterfalls and flowers, and yet, there is still enough concrete and merchant shops that it resembles Transmute City. I look around, taking everything in. Well holy shit, another world. True I crash landed in the World That Never Was, but outside of the castle, I've seen almost nothing. But this? This is something. "It's what Transmute City would look like if it was actually not cold and miserable all the time." I say.
"Does it look familiar to you?" He asks and I lift an eyebrow. What a weird question.
"No? It's nice though. It's cool. Now I've seen two more worlds than Del and Amaya." I smile at him. He gives me a very half assed laugh and I sigh. "Where's this wizard supposed to be?" I ask him.
"There's a house not far from here, you'll know it when you see it." He tells me. Utterly unhelpful, but whatever. I take off at a run, beyond excited to have some time out again. I feel the sun on my pale skin and I want to cry. It's not raining. It's not super cold here either, it's actually pretty nice, and I get to stretch my legs. Maybe I should've taken Demyx up on his offer to kick back and eat ice cream.
I find the house faster than I expect, it's a tiny shack and once again, I am reminded of my home. The door is unlocked, no one is home and the book is on a wooden table. This is too fucking easy. I look around the room. Seriously, there's no one here. Is this a trap? I snatch the book up and tear out every single page. Something about this feels dirty, but if this amounts to my freedom, then I honestly don't care.
"Hey!" Fuck. I spin and a man with dark hair wearing black leather emerges from a room.
"You're not a wizard." I say to him and he squints at me, pulling a gun? No a sword? Out from behind his back.
"Who are you?" He asks. Damn. I grab a handful of items out of my pocket and create a cluster bomb, throwing it to the ground and it explodes in a blaze. I break out into a sprint, the pages tucked to my chest as I hear the man shouting at me.
"Leon? What the hell happened?" A female voice calls out, but I don't stick around long enough to see who the woman is.
I find Demyx exactly where I left him, two ice cream bars at hand, but I don't waste any time. I grab him by the arm.
"Rueki—hey!" He chokes out as I nearly take him to the ground.
"Portal, now! The wizard has friends who wear leather!" Demyx, for all of his goofiness, waves his hand and opens up a portal. We race inside as I hear someone call out:
"Stop! Thieves!"
We catch our breath when the portal closes behind us. I've got a stitch in my sides but at least my lungs aren't on fire anymore.
"What the hell kind of mission was this?" I ask and Demyx laughs.
"My favorite, I didn't have to do anything. Wanna tag along on my missions forever?" He asks and I flip him off.
"You're the worst. And I hate you."
"Which is why I dropped your ice cream bar, not mine." He grins at me. I sigh flopping down in the portal. For some reason, the Dusks and the claws don't bother me as much right now. Probably because I'm spent.
"I better get major bonus points for this." I sigh.
"You get all of the bonus points…And I'll put in a good word to Xemnas for you." Demyx says.
"Let's hope it gets us somewhere."
It does. One unsupervised visit to the library coming right up.