Disclaimer: I don't own anything I've stolen from including Kingdom Hearts and several other stories and/or franchises. Yeah, I'm not creative enough to write something of my own. So This is to be in no way construed as claiming characters, lines, thoughts, or any other conceivable commodity of another as my own. Yeah, I'm in the clear. I guess

My apologies: Though I spent days on editing it I'm sure I've still left droves of typos, inconsistencies and grammatical errors that my stupid word processor won't help me fix. So, I'm sorry about that in advance.

Forethoughts: I lied. this is the last chapter. I thought it was far too short split in two so I put it back together. It's been nice. It would have been nicer if I'd gotten any feedback hint hint but whatever. Things go how they will.

Chapter 7

"So how'd it go?"

"They fell for it, hook, line, and sinker."

"Excellent. The report?"

"That's where the problems begin. He won 'cause the replica was able to have emotions of a far greater range than I'd show."

"Hearts are always unstable, artificially created or not."

"Too bad, the professor was real close too."

"That's not the worst though."

"I know Aurelia has betrayed us. What should we do?"

"The script didn't foresee this."

"I told you that thing was half bogus."

"Here I was thinking it'd work out like a nice little puppet show."

"That's why I'm the shrewder of us, I planned ahead for this. Although I can't predict the mind like he could but hearts are like an open book."

"That's why you're here isn't it?"

"Yup."

"So what have you planned?"

"She'll be leaving soon so I moved him away, so she wouldn't change her mind. She won't get in our way anymore. One thing I never got was why we never killed him in his sleep."

"We couldn't that's why."

"How's that?"

"His heart."

"Oh yeah, the reaction. So that's why you wanted him to use that."

"So we attacked his heart what now?"

"We haven't broken it yet. His encounters with his past have made him unstable and he probably won't go down the same way."

"I get it, you want to have him handle it."

"Great minds…"

"Don't finish that. We can't start counting chickens before they hatch can we?"

"Too true. Dispatch the orders."

"He's already heard."

"Excellent, things are turning in my favor after all."

"Pardon?"

"You'll see soon enough."

-

X awoke in a dark room, well it was more a great marble box than anything else. He stood up and examined his surroundings. There were no doors no windows and no tunnels like the other rooms.

"I guess ten minutes did hurt." X stated blankly, as he tried to devise a plan of escape. He looked around again, futilely. There was no way out not even a light could be seen and yet sight was possible.

"Just like the dark plane." X recalled the darkness that his eyes could naturally pierce through. He walked around the small room tapping against the walls and floor to see if this was really all that solid. It was, solid as he was. How solid was that anyways? He looked up and tapped on the ceiling curiously. It was the same. He had nothing left to do except wait and think.

He just had sat down when he felt a light through his closed eyelids and looked out. There was a hole in the wall with a hand held out to him. He couldn't see a face or body through the brilliant light. He just blinked and stared out into the now empty space. X tilted his head curiously and stood up. He walked over deliberately and looked out of the hole seeing a huge gale of white whipping past his face.

He just stared and felt the wind blow over him blowing past his room in the middle of nowhere. He closed his eyes slowly to keep out of the wind and when he opened them again he wasn't in the small box he was out in the white winds floating through the seemingly endless abyss. He couldn't think and he couldn't breathe but none of that mattered there was nothing that mattered. Right? He just floated into space calm and serene. After all those battles this couldn't be so wrong could it?

X closed his eyes, this time not to shield them from the wind but from the world outside. This is how it should be no big problems just resting and having no worries. This was just how it was and how it would stay. But wait, this isn't the path this isn't the right thing it seemed to be so but, it couldn't be. There was still something that needed to be finished. What is it? X slowly regained consciousness and reawakened. He was disoriented for a second but son he found himself in a huge space filled with desks and cabinets. It was a huge laboratory, dimly lit and full of a chemical stench.

"That's very interesting." An old voice echoed throughout the hall.

"If I may ask, what?" X asked searching for the voice's origin, however the sounds reverberated clearly on every bit of glassware and bounced off every wall resulting in a large dissonant collection of echoes meshing into one omnipresent voice.

"You won't find me, I've set up this lab to protect me and my research. To answer your rather stupid question. You are interesting. I gave you what your mind wanted most, inner peace and somehow you rejected it. Hardly a common response, a Nobody has no heart to counter the mind and soul, so what was it that made you come back?" The voice once more echoed.

"I have things to do." X realized who he was talking to that moment. "Professor, I think it's surprising that you'd be so linear. They once called you the greatest in science and philosophy and yet you don't see that there is no one thing I want, no one thing I can want. I think I'll show you the blank spots in your research." X drew both swords and shifted his gaze around for any sign of movement.

"Pity. I thought I'd be able to live longer if I'd allied with them. I guess ether way I'm finished at this point." The Professor sighed to himself. "I guess I'm in for an excellent challenge. Now I can test both my theories of psychology and Nobodies at once."

"I guess you are in for a challenge." X replied waiting for movement. "But, so am I." Suddenly there was a clatter that quickly echoed through the whole room. X looked over and a stool had fallen over. X quickly looked around, again to find nothing. He was never sure of how the professor had always finished off his adversaries without so much as meeting them face to face. But now he had a vague idea of what had been going on.

"So you think you can trap me and kill me." X yelled unnecessarily loudly. No answer. X suddenly had a brilliant idea. If you can't locate your enemy destroy their hiding spot, it was as simple as that. X crossed his blades. "Reverse Potential." As he spoke there was suddenly a flash of light. The next moment the lab lay in ruins X glanced about for his opponent.

"Not even close." The professor stated shortly. X knew now his opponent wasn't even in the same room as him. X was getting closer though.

"You can't hide forever, you're not as smart as they praise you to be." X said with a small iciness in his voice.

"Who's hiding anymore?" The Professor stepped out of another adjoining office.

"You accept your fate? Or do you just want to fight straight up?" X asked cocking his head to the side casually.

"I want you to show me the so called gaps I've in my research." The man was and old wizened one with a fair amount of wispy gray hair and a once white lab coat stained in what seemed to be blood.

"Alright then, this is where it really begins." X leapt forwards slashing at the man. Suddenly he was looking about a meter to the right of where he had been about a second before. He looked around completely bewildered.

"So, what now?" The old man asked with a superior tone. X turned to his smirking adversary and disappeared. Half a second later he reappeared behind the professor and made another strike. Again, he ended up turned around without any memory of making the move. X was beginning to wonder if he was in fact fighting the professor and not some illusion.

"Alright I'll give you this much you're making this difficult. But you missed something." X grinned a bit and slashed horizontally across the entire area near the professor.

Clank.

"I was right. This was not illusion, but a alteration of perception." X looked at the dumbfounded professor with a confident smirk. The only thing separating his blade and the man was some manner of floating weapon.

"Amazing! You discovered what I was doing in just two moves." The professor, instead of being fearful or angry he was joyous at this.

"What, you wanna congratulate me or fight?" X glared at where the professor should have been were his vision not skewed somehow. The Professor was now surrounded by seven other floating implements of varying size and shape. Though, they all bore the same insignia and had similarities in composition and design.

"So what do you think of my assistants?"

X stood in shock for a moment before he grit his teeth and spoke. "No… You didn't… Not even you could have done that to them. They looked up to you and this is how you repay them?" X lowered his head and gripped his blades tighter.

"Tell me the truth, are those the old lab techs that worked under you? The ones after 'it'." X asked already knowing the answer.

"They are one in the same. Come now, you can't feel anything. Why should you care if I gave them these new forms at all?" X just glared at him, brooding.

Sudden;y he said. "I should care, because whatever I feel or don't, what you did was and still remains wrong. Everything should decide for itself what happens to it. Even a Nobody like me. I may be messed up and maybe everything else is messed up too, but that still doesn't give you that right to do as you please. You can't 'fix' everything with science and research. Everything has limits, you should know yours." X had no true tone, but anyone who heard could swear he was angry.

"Silly boy. I gave them what they wanted. They chose this path. You could never understand the feeling of devotion and admiration they felt for me."

"They wanted to die? They wanted to spend eternity as mindless, heartless, disembodied slaves?" He said, his voice still even and soft.

"I didn't kill them. You said it yourself, that I didn't. Even I'm not that heartless, but I suppose you are. I gave them eternity that is what they were truly after, not some fairy tale. I understand them in a way no one else could. To them I was god and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic. I can't choose what my followers thought, I can only give them means to accomplish their goals."

"So that's how they chose to serve you, as tools instead of colleagues."

"They were always tools. But, now I have the most precise of control over them. We are now one, the greatest minds all melded together under the rule of the most superior. I have proven that beings can work together perfectly under optimum conditions." X considered their conversation at this point over and leapt forwards. He clashed many times with the assistants. However he couldn't move around properly with everything about a meter to the left.

He had to take extra time with each movement, which left him open to attacks from every side. The assistants moved around through the air with such unity it was as if they were all appendages of one greater being. No, that's exactly what they were, they had given up the one thing even a nobody had, individuality. Their thoughts were one, no, there was only one train of thought to begin with, the Professor's. The arms just moved by airborne nervous signals. They were little more that remotely controlled toys.

"You deceived them. They thought they'd be a part of you now they no longer exist." X spat as he was pinned against a wall by the floating 'arms'. He was spread arms out and body draped over the wall, his feet only just centimeters off the ground.

"I did no such thing. They exist. I have their memories and personalities on file. If I so chose I could easily create them again, just as they were." The Professor walked over slowly.

"No. Your so blind to anything you can't directly explain. It's not just bits of data that comprise things it's something else. If you can't even grasp that simple concept, then you're the stupidest man in history." X 's accusation obviously angered the Professor because a rain of blows came from the assistants the second he'd finished.

"Actually your wrong, data is the only thing that makes up this world. Everything has set parameters and as much as we'd like to think otherwise we are just like simple task machines. We cannot solve age old questions and we cannot learn from mistakes."

"You're the one who is wrong. Data, can only have preset responses and so many dimensions. A person, no, even a Nobody like me. We can grow and change, we can exceed our original set of skills and behaviors. We can improve and grow while machines can only become obsolete and outmoded. We're not as simple as any machine--Ugh!" X was struck across his head as he finished.

"If you're so smart why can't you learn to shut your mouth." X went limp with the next blow. The Professor smirked in X's face and made to walk away. He began to walk back to his office. Not a second later there was a crash. All the assistants lays on the ground broken into thousands of pieces. The Professor stood in shock for several moments, that was the final gap.

"That's what you never understood. I guess now you never will." X lunged forwards off the wall and drove his blades straight through the Professor.

"Aaaaagh!" He howled on the floor writhing in pain. Soon his convulsions lessened and he had just enough time left to utter his final words. "I never could find it, I understand now why. It's not…" He trailed off as his body gave out. X dismissed both blades and looked down at the crumpled form that was the Professor and thought to himself.

"Why could he only get it now? Does death really explain why?"

-

X's questions went unanswered. Soon he decided no one could ever really understand another in such a complete way that they would have the exact same ideas and views. It's overcoming the differences and seeing them not as flaws but facts, that's what the Professor never got. Was it now that he understood it? Maybe, maybe not. X left the lab and traveled up a flight of stairs. He felt oddly light and didn't feel hurt at all even after the constant battles he'd been through.

Something was off. It couldn't have been Nose Rag or could it? X quickly pushed the thoughts out of his mind as he reached the top of the stairs and burst through the door leading into some manner of unlighted office or library. Though it wasn't by any means a normal office. For one, it had smooth marble colored floors covered with lab equipment of varying size and function. All leading to a rather large desk and a swivel chair facing towards the great windows. This was the top floor. The castle was now empty save for the two souls in that room.

"You certainly took your sweet time getting up here." The chair at the far end of the room turned about revealing a middle aged man in a graying suit with a matching tie and he pulled on some pure white gloves as X entered. He smiled broadly revealing yellowing teeth and X could've sworn that he smelt decaying flesh. The jolly looking man had his hands replaced on the great plush armrests of the large swivel chair. And in his left hand he gripped small journal. He got up slowly and brushed off his head of thick gray hair. Then he looked at X expectantly.

"Come now you must have something to say." The man waved his hand and opened up his odd book. "Let's see… Oh yes. You say "This is the end." Go on say it." The odd man prodded as he pulled out some reading glasses.

"Why would I say that?" X asked confusedly.

"I certainly wouldn't let you get all this way without it being the end, would I?"

"I don't know. People do some strange things, don't they Nemo. Not that either of us could qualify as such. But. I'm sure you understand me." X explained courteously, even going so far as inclining his head in a slight bow.

"Ah! That's why I never liked your section. So insubordinate, so confrontational." The man said in a tone of voice similar to that of a grandfather chiding a child.

"I thought it was more the lack of heart. But whatever, let's get this over with. I may have eternity to wait around, but I can't say you have as free a schedule." X drew both his ocean blue and blood red swords and pointed them threateningly at Nemo.

"You're right. Final battle, round one. Begin." He flipped quickly through the pages and started reading intently. Instantly, X quickly flicked his wrist and a paper thin ribbon of energy began to rip through the air towards Nemo. The middle aged man stepped of to one side without even looking up.

"What, how could he? Reverse Potential, can't be seen straight ahead in that form. Did he somehow predict it?" X's mind was racing with thoughts of how it could've happened or how he'd made a miscalculation.

"Only one choice, try something else." This time X lifted his heart blade and dashed forwards. Nemo stepped back evading the attack. X continued his vicious onslaught, however, Nemo evaded each and every attempt at a strike without so much as looking up from his book once.

"Come now. That can't be it. I'm just getting warmed up." Nemo teased.

"Fine with me." In fact X was truly shaken. His best efforts proved useless. This time he began an extended campaign of disappearing and reappearing at an alarming rate. Nemo just stood in the middle of the room reading. Just as the aging man yawned X came up behind him and ran him through. Or at least that should've happened. His heart blade shattered when it touched Nemo's hand the latter of which stood in between X and Nemos' head.

"How?" X stood there totally shell shocked. Nothing could do such a thing. There was no feasible way, and yet that's exactly what happened.

"What is it my boy? You seem confused. You can never trust a heart, you should know that best of all." Nemo chuckled to himself. "He was weak. It just shows. Allen was never the strongest and yet you relied on him. His feelings made him weak. His regret and guilt made him brittle-"

"I did this. I pushed him to far." X interrupted looking down at the hilt that once held his heart and his other.

"Yes. You did. You expect anything from a human and you get killed." With this he thrust his hand into X's left shoulder.

"Guaah! You bastard." X grabbed Nemos hand and stopped it from going through his entire shoulder. But, the damage was done. X tried to move his but it didn't respond. X dropped to his knees after a well placed punch to his gut.

"You are just a failed experiment. We created you to be the ultimate warrior. You defected once before, but you were subdued by your falsified emotions. I thought erasing your being would solve this, but you created a new persona this time. Xemnas always tried to push clearly failed experiments in hope of fixing the problem and Seagle was too sentimental and moral.

"You, you just can't stop yourself from trying to exist. You may not want a heart but you still try to be human. It's pathetic, honestly." Nemo drove his hand into X's back leaving another fountain of blood and another suppressed gasp of pain. "You're so naïve, this organization won't go down if I'm defeated, that's why you came isn't it?" The flood of information wasn't helping his already pained and muddled thoughts. X looked up from the ground and spit on Nemo. He didn't know why but he did something made him. Maybe it was the false emotions, maybe it was him trying to be something he wasn't either way he didn't care.

"No, I came to make things right." X choked out through the blood welling up in his throat. So this is death. "I'm here to make sure you never make people die, the way you did…" X could barely breathe anymore. Now or never. Suddenly there was another tear of flesh and splash of blood. The long battle was finally concluded.

"Huk- kugh- hak- sie-- d-amn y-you." Nemo gasped in short staggered at almost a whisper before plummeted to the floor with a knife stuck in the back of his head. X struggled to his feet and pulled out the remainder of his old heart blade out of the evil old man.

"Thanks." X said looking down at his retired weapon. X closed his eyes as his wounds let flow his soul and mind. Neither lingered long.

"This isn't what I expected." X felt his damaged numb body collapse with his last bit of consciousness, but there was no pain just a slight pressure and then…