They passed through the door and were in a dimly lit yet modern hall. Wires and pipes ran all through the walls. It was damp and there were several puddles on the floor. The place was like a labyrinth but they kept walking, once they thought they had found the end but they were actually back at the begging. But soon they found the exit. This door was newer, but it was clear it had not been opened it quite some time. Leon shoved his way in and drew his blade as a precaution.
The door let out into a large circular room that was full of book shelves, most of the books were on the floor and the shelves on their sides. On a part of the wall was a large portrait of a man who was clearly Xemnas, their leader, as a younger man. The others merely glanced at the picture and Nuxula and Roxas tried not to linger on it for long. They all passed through the room and into another hall, this one was shorter and let out to another room. This room was more high tech and was full of monitors and computers, and a large portal.
Nuxula's and Roxas's eyes locked on the main computer, they could tell this was the one, it was the largest, and had the most functions. Leon sat down at the chair in front of this computer. Not good! Nuxula screamed in her mind. She didn't want Leon to get the file they wanted. She did the first thing that came to mind. She raised her arm, only a little, and called forth a dozen of her nobodies.
Suddenly twelve Garden Nobodies appeared in a circular formation around the party. The group gasped as they popped up. Roxas, catching on, summoned a dozen Dusk Nobodies, his group to command. The nobodies danced all about, waiting for the word of their masters.
"Those are the monsters that killed Yufie!" Aerith yelled.
"Nobodies." Merlin agreed. They all gave him a quick glance. "I'll explain later." He raised his arms and fired a bolt of lightning at Dusk. The creature easily hopped around the shot.
Nuxula gave a silent command for the nobodies to dash out of the room. The creatures instantly obeyed, and all the nobodies fled. They all moved to chase them but Leon held up a hand. "Roxas, Nuxula, stay here in case others arrive, you don't know how tough these guys are, we got 'em." Without waiting for an answer Leon dashed out of the room to follow the others, leaving Roxas and Nuxula alone. Perfect.
When he was sure that they were gone Roxas slid into the computer chair and tapped the key board. The computer came to life and the monitor activated. It showed a blank screen with a box for typing i9n.
"Sea salt ice-cream." Roxas said as he typed it in. The screen flashed to life, on it was a long list of words, names. "This is it." Roxas whispered. He and Nuxula stared for several moments, in awe, they were not quite sure why. As Roxas scrolled down they saw two names of particular interest. Sora and Yufie. As he went farther down he saw the names of all of the members of the restoration committee, they all had to die.
When Nuxula realized that they would have to kill their new friends, she felt… nothing. She nodded. "Call more Nobodies." She said. She herself called forth another dozen and sent them in the direction of the group.
"What now?" Roxas asked as he summoned a dozen as well.
"Wait till they die."
"What if the nobodies fail?" Roxas asked uncertainly.
"You should know more than I do about their power, calm down." Nuxula reassured.
About a minute later, however, the group reappeared. Leon dashed to barricade the entrance.
"Leon, what is that going to do if they appear in here?" Cloud asked. "We gotta move. His giant sword was in hand. Then something happened that no one expected.
Nuxula took a deep breath and in a second sent her whip speeding towards the unprotected Aerith. Cloud, the quicker, was there and batted the spiked orbs away. Nuxula recoiled and struck again, this time she took a bite out of Cloud's ankle.
"What's going on?!" Leon demanded, his blade was poised at Nuxula.
"I'm sorry." Roxas said, his voice was heavy. He cast a spell and a translucent orb appeared. Suddenly, Aerith was pulled forth and stuck into the orb. "Drop the weapons or she dies!" Roxas yelled.
Leon, Cloud, and Tifa scowled as they dropped their swords to the floor with a clang. Merlin placed his hands at his side, very still. Without taking an eye off of them he pushed a button on the computer which printed the document. Nuxula proceeded to grab the three sheets that were printed.
"Why?" Leon asked.
Roxas looked at him, into his eyes, they gave away nothing. Roxas screamed and threw his Keyblade to the ground. In this moment Merlin took the opportunity to blast Nuxula's weapon out of her hand, and he summoned both her and Roxas's weapons to his hands. He also focused on the orb Aerith was trapped in and it disappeared, she ran to the others.
Nuxula looked to Roxas, he was on his knees on the floor, crying, crying? What was he doing, trying to lower their guard? If so he should have kept his weapon, but no, that wasn't it at all.
"Why?" Leon asked again. "What are doing here, who are you? Heartless?"
Roxas laughed and rubbed the tears from his eyes as he stood. "We were sent to infiltrate your group, steal the information from this computer and kill you all." The group, as well as Nuxula stared at him. "And we would have been able to do it too."
"Then why didn't you?" Asked Cloud.
"Because, as odd as it sounds, when it came down to it… I couldn't do it. I've killed before, we both have, with no problem, but you, for me at least, were different. You were kind, genuinely so, not like others, What Xemnas wanted us to do… I couldn't." Roxas's voice began to crack slightly as the tears started back up.
Nuxula merely stared and gawked at the truth in his words, deep down; she felt the same way, about all of it.
Leon scratched his head, this all too strange. "Start at the beginning."
Roxas told him everything he knew, about the organization, about Nobodies, about stealing hearts, about their mission everything; he had thrown himself at their mercy. Nuxula even threw in a word or two to his explanation, he had very little to add.
"That's why you two seemed so familiar to us." Leon said, in awe. "You are the nobodies of Sora and Yufie, you must be, there is no doubt."
These words made sense to them both. That's why they couldn't do it, they were their friends.
"What now?" Asked Tifa, to no one in particular.
"Well…" Merlin began. "I will contact my colleague, Yen Sid, he has been studying heartless, and told me that he suspected the existence of nobodies." They all agreed with him. "I will go then." And in a puff of smoke, he was gone, the weapons he had taken from Roxas and Nuxula were now on the floor, no one moved for them.