Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. This is a not-for-profit fanwork.

XVI.

Resolution

Lea only had a few hardened pieces of bread. Demyx settled for instant coffee. As it boiled he sat listlessly at the card table. While Demyx had slept off the alcohol, Lea had spread the paperwork out messily in any direction. Some of the pages were coffee stained, though legible. He wasn't sure whether to read them or not; after all, this was Lea's, and none of his business. Demyx cleared a small spot for himself, and text caught his eye.

It was Demyx's handwriting. His own handwriting. Reservations aside, he snatched it. He recognized the header on the paper right away—Organization paperwork.

How did Lea have this?

It was just a reconnaissance report, from several weeks spent on a world he'd remembered as particularly lovely; it had been targeted for its strategic placement in the galaxy. The few clipped, stunted sentences on the report didn't do the place real justice.

There were more. Not just his reports, but others' reports—some of Dilan's, Aeleus's, work orders completed within the castle. Papers about all their second-strand Nobodies. Each had been given a number, but Demyx remembered naming all of his. David. Iggy. Janis. Grace.

316 woke up today. I worked with them for a little while. They really like reggae for some reason. Maybe that has something to do with where they're from? Look into this.

At the bottom of the report was a big "yes" in Saïx's handwriting, followed by, "Get it combat ready ASAP."

He had always hated that, though, and how eventually he would feel the little ping of their loss in his consciousness. It hadn't caused much pain then, but it wasn't pleasant, either. Even with his powers back he still didn't feel that same connection to the hivemind of the Dancers, probably because he himself was no longer technically a Nobody. They must all be human now, he tried to reassure himself. Then again, if they were as fucked up as he was, maybe it was better if they were gone.

At the bottom pile was older stuff, darker stuff. Reports by Xigbar. Planet X fell. Swarmed by Heartless. Barely had to lift a finger. Demyx saw a dozen at least like these. His stomach felt still sicker.

Mixed in were gray file folders of their personnel reports. Demyx saw his and felt his heart stutter. Maybe his true name was in there, or something useful. He snagged the folder and tried to quell his breathing.

The first page was an intake form. It was more or less the same as any of the second strand Nobodies, with sparer information. His number was listed first, in Roman numerals, not Arabic like the rest. His given name was listed, but the small box was blacked out, with "redacted" handwritten in white. He held the paper up to the light, trying to see the printed letters through the marker, but the ink was completely opaque. Like a lot of things.

His chest began to ache. His homeworld info had received similar treatment. His power, weapon, and skillset was listed, and there was an unflattering picture of him at the beginning, zombie-eyed and shorn-haired, face still childish. There was only one small piece of information that was new to him. His birthday, October 19, and the birth year, telling him for the first time that he was nineteen years old. Nearly twenty.

"Nineteen." He felt so much older than that, a million years old really.

At the bottom were yearly reviews, written in pencil by Saïx.

The first year—Nine has proven to be a capable worker—when he sets his mind to it. He has an incredible potential for laziness. His power still grows, as does he. With proper discipline he'd be a perfect member yet. The second and third years listed a clear decline in his work ethic, and Saïx's aggression became less and less veiled. Absolutely USELESS. Lazy. Incompetent. Complete and utter waste of resources.

Then the fourth year, right as Sora had destroyed them all—Terminated. DOD 6 March. Three months ago. He'd only been conscious since April. How much time had actually passed? He'd known he'd lost some time in recovery; he hadn't realized just how long. It was true that time flowed differently on all worlds, but he didn't buy it. Something wasn't adding up.

Demyx's hands were shaking. He set the reports down and tried to fix them the way he had found them. He realized that the kettle was whistling loudly and had been for some time, worsening the stabbing pain in his head.

He drank the coffee down too quickly and nearly scalded his tongue. He left Lea's house, walking fast even though his legs complained, and headed back to the castle.

The hangover mostly abated after he ate something and bathed. He was so sore he could barely raise his arms high enough to get a shirt on. He couldn't figure out what to do now and loitered for far longer than he should in the kitchen, trying hard not to think about the reports, and the lies.

"Good afternoon, Nine. I thought you had spent the night at Lea's. How did it go?" Ienzo asked. He started to make himself some tea.

"Oh. Good, I guess. I'm pretty sore."

"I would imagine. Might I join you?"

"Uh, sure." He paused. He tried to find the steely sense of resolve he had felt that morning. "I have something to tell you."

"What would that be?" He stirred his tea calmly.

Demyx's throat was dry. He forced a laugh. "I, um. I want to fight."

Ienzo went still for a moment. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I want to fight. This. I want to help."

"You… you do?" He spoke slowly.

"Yes." He laughed again, as hysteria twined into him. "Oh, fuck. I got pretty drunk last night and I guess I had some sort of epiphany."

"You're sure," Ienzo said. "I know in vino veritas, but perhaps… perhaps it was just a passing impulse."

"That's the thing." His eyes were tearing up again and he blinked it away. "It's been a while since I felt this sure."

"…What if this is what he wants?" Ienzo asked.

"I don't care what he wants! I…" He took a deep breath. "I can't just sit on this guilt and do nothing."

Ienzo looked down. Demyx couldn't read his expression.

"I found my birthday," he said more softly. "October. I'm nineteen."

"I know." Ienzo smiled weakly. "I forget that little more than a year separates us."

He wondered if he should tell him the rest. "Lea has… Lea has paperwork. From the Organization."

"I'm aware."

"That means he's gone back. How has he gone back without getting killed?"

"We didn't want him to go back. This was during Sora's Mark of Mastery. He's brought back useful information. I was hoping… that he could find some sort of clue, about our conditions. But it all seemed paltry to me. Accounts. Reports. Pittances of things that we already knew." Ienzo hesitated. "We had almost wanted him to surrender to them; to be a double agent. But that was before he started screaming his alignment from the rooftops."

"Are you fighting too?" Demyx asked. "Have we… have we all…?"

"Yes and no. I'm trying to gather as much as I can, as fast as I can. I don't think we'll be much use until we're all healed. If we're not, he could use that against us." He set down his mug and looked Demyx in the eye. "There was a thought, at the beginning, to make you the double agent."

"Ten already thinks that's what they're trying to do, by fucking me up," he added. His voice was steady but he was faint.

"You have to admit there's some appeal," Ienzo said. "Your powers are returning rapidly. You're skilled at gathering intelligence. Besides, there's little the other side doesn't know. If we sent you… let you drop some few spare things… maybe we could get a return."

"I don't think I could get them to trust me. I never could find out what was going on in the Organization."

"Perhaps not. But you have the will to, apparently, when before you didn't."

Demyx stared at the table and traced the woodgrain. "…You mean go to them. Beg for mercy, to be healed… and then be among them."

"…Yes. That was the basic plan."

His heart clanged in his ears.

"Obviously this would be after you became considerably stronger. And they need you to mend the town. If our other plans proceed at the predicted rate… Perhaps… in the fall, sometime."

Demyx laughed. "Happy birthday to me!"

"You should tell the committee of your… change of thought. Just so they're aware."

"…I feel dizzy, Ienzo." His hands trembled. "Is this a stupid thing to do?"

"I do not know, Nine. I really don't."

He hunted in the storage room for useful things. His heart still hammered against his ribs. He needed to fix the guitar, to get his mind off of all this. Otherwise he thought he'd throw up.

He needed wood, for the fingerboard. The leg of a chair or dresser would do. It would need to be cut, sanded down, and finished. There had to be sandpaper and finish somewhere… even if it was ugly, it would do. And something for frets. Even if he found tape he could cut it. Pegs… maybe there was something among the lab equipment that could work?

The hardest would be strings. He'd probably have to buy or trade for them. He only had the measly amount of money that had been on his person when Sora had killed him. But Heartless had some money… When he could fight better he could go after them.

He found a songbook on the floor, waterlogged and half chewed by mice. He held it gently in his hands. This must have originally accompanied the guitar; it wasn't far from it. The pages were brittle and swollen. The first few pages detailed the parts of the guitar. The tide of his excitement caused him to flip through page after careful page. Even though the tablature might as well have been runes for all he understood, he could learn, right? There was still time. At least, for now—

But he didn't find much of anything else. If there was anything good, he didn't come across it in his search, and he searched for some time. Was there anywhere else he could look? Would the sitar ever get back to him? Or would he just be like this—so weird and so fucking numb all the time—until this war inevitably killed him? If Sora had been able to cut him down so easily when he was at his strongest, what about the other vessels? What if this meant more than espionage? And if he got caught by them? Would any of this actually be worth it, in the end?

He gave up after sundown, and found it hard to get much sleep, a sick stinging anxiety keeping him up most of the night.

The next day a note for him arrived from the committee, calling him back to work. He'd only been away a few days but it felt like so much longer. He followed the path deeper into town, with the weight of the knife steadying him.

Demyx arrived where they'd told him, near the castle. A massive crane had been set up, and new stone connected the old aqueducts with the rest of the town. He saw Cid sitting inside the cab, yelling indiscriminately, but it was too hard to hear because of the noise.

"Oh good! You're here!" he yelled at Demyx when he saw them. "Do you like this new setup we've got?!"

"What are you doing?"

"What was that?!"

"I said, what are you doing?"

"Hang on, I'm coming down!" The engine stopped rumbling. Cid climbed down and checked his ears. "Post-industrial piece of shit," he explained. "But it's what we've got. We always had plans to build out the aqueduct. With this place mostly in ruins, we've got to get this going before you can step in fully. Those repairs we did earlier were to try and connect the old system to the new. I'm afraid to say that today, you're more an extra pair of hands than anything."

He was still so sore he wasn't sure he'd be much use. "Uh… okay."

"Yuffie and Leon are up top, patching everything up. I'm guessing you don't know much about masonry."

Reconnaissance had supplied him with a weird amount of knowledge for all sorts of things. He'd studied far too many industrial parks. "…More than you'd think."

"Then up you go. Careful on that scaffolding." He gestured to wooden supports built up some few stories in the air.

He exhaled and climbed diligently. His arms were jelly by the time he got up top.

"Thanks for showing up," Yuffie said, voice bitter. They were both kneeling down on the highest part of the scaffolding, spackling on a thick gray mortar over cracks in the stone with trowels. They were getting nowhere fast. "Pick up a trowel and get to work."

"There are some tools over there." Leon gestured to a toolbox sitting just behind them, near a few bags of dried mortar. "You might want to grab a pair of work gloves."

He did so and returned. He could already tell this would be painful, tedious work, but he was already here, and if he was going to work with them, there would be a lot more painful, tedious work coming. It would have to be worth it, he told himself. Maybe there really was a way for them to heal him. Maybe they hadn't found it yet. If Aerith and Ienzo worked together…

For a while they built in near perfect silence, laying and cementing stone in the hollows between reclaimed pieces. Very quickly a burn set in his arms and he had a feeling time was passing a too slowly.

"Why not just use pipes?" Demyx asked. He rolled his shoulder to try and ease the pain.

"We don't have any," Leon said. "We've got to work with what was left from all the other destroyed districts. This will all hold up better, eventually."

More silence. The pain had him near tears, heaving bricks to and fro, but he forced himself not to complain because Yuffie was right there.

"Lea told me he was teaching you to fight," Leon said.

Yuffie peeked through her bangs.

"…I guess that's true," Demyx said.

"It's reasonable. You shouldn't wander unprotected. Nobody should." Leon wiped the sweat from his brow. "He told me you were interested in standing with us."

Yuffie looked up fully. Her gaze was bemused, but uncomfortable.

"We'd be happy to have you," Leon continued.

"How would you trust him?" Yuffie asked. She scoffed. "How would you know he wouldn't…"

Leon gave her a look. "Wouldn't what, Yuffie?"

"I don't know. They hurt people. You hurt people. What about the Thousand Heartless?" Her tone was sharp and she spackled a bit more harshly than necessary.

"They sent me there to die," Demyx said. He tried to make it sound matter-of-fact, but he was starting to get pissed. "They wanted Sora to kill me and he did and that's that."

"But say you had stopped him—"

This again. "But I didn't." The sun was beating harshly on his face. "I never had a fucking chance."

"Yuffie. Stop. Please." Leon's tone was sharp.

"I've gotta get out of here. I'm gonna go help Cid." She slipped down the scaffolding and was gone.

Demyx's stomach hurt. He took a deep breath.

"Yuffie holds a grudge," Leon said. "I'm guessing you already figured that out."

He didn't know what to say. He was so mad he could practically see red. "I'm trying to do the right thing. Does she think I don't know? Does she think I don't feel that way all the time?" The mortar was cool against his hands.

Leon nodded. "I understand it was… complicated."

More silence. The pain in his arms was grounding. When they broke for lunch he sat off by himself, dangling his legs on the scaffolding and trying to find some flavor in his pathetic sandwich. He felt footsteps and weight next to him and saw Yuffie with her plastic container. "Going to yell at me some more?" he asked. He would get up and move, but his exhaustion rooted him to the spot.

"No." Her voice sounded forced. "I came to—ugh—apologize."

"What, did Leon make you?"

She shrugged. "Did they really want to kill you?"

He had no more appetite. "I was terrified," he said. "We were all dying. Half of us were gone. I never cared for their cause, I just did enough work to save my life. I don't think anyone thought the fake Kingdom Hearts would work but we were desperate. Xemnas, he… he said the whole time that this was the answer. We didn't know how to be whole again. You don't know what it's like, Yuffie, the emptiness, it's just this huge… void, inside, gnawing like, these little weird half pops of feeling coming in now and again." He touched his chest and prayed he wouldn't start crying.

She didn't say anything. She looked vaguely pained.

"When they gave me that order to face him… I think they saw me as a burden. Like if they put me there I could buy them some time to make a better plan. I don't know why I didn't just run." A pause. A hot wind had kicked up. "How can you think I'm so bad when you have no idea how you'd act in the same situation?"

"Fuck that." Her tone wasn't as heated as usual, though. "Have you seen a world fall? All the chaos… the bloodshed… knowing that most of them won't get out? Knowing that they'll die, or they'll become Heartless? Or worse?"

Planet X fell. Xigbar hadn't even given the planet a name. How many stories and songs had been lost? He'd seen the reports, heard the whispers of the lesser Nobodies in his consciousness as they reported to him, the fire, the fear, the screaming, waves and waves of boiling darkness. A sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes. "Yes. I have."

"It's how my dad died. I'm sorry. I can't see the shades of gray in this situation." She looked away from him, out onto the rest of the town.

He could hardly believe it. A human conversation. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. I know that I probably did."

She slumped forward. "Me too. Shit. I always wondered if I could have done more when this place fell. All I could think about was… running."

"You were in danger. It was the instinctual thing to do."

"Maybe someone else should have gone in that ship instead of me. Maybe I should have stayed with my dad." She closed her eyes. "We're going to be working together for a while. Let's at least put up with each other."

This day was too fucking weird. "I can do that."

Sorry for the late update.