Reverse Rebirth: Replica
Prologue
"Castle Oblivion Record X. VII. II,
'The Subject' appears to be stable and I am certain that the memory transfer conducted by the Nobody Naminé has been a success. 'The Subject' has not shown any signs of mental collapse and I am confident that my experiment will cause 'The Subject' to behave as expected.
However, prior to the experiment, 'The Subject' showed signs of both physical and emotional instability. I can stipulate that the physical instability is a result of the product being intentionally incomplete due to the project's overarching and regrettable failure. The cause of 'The Subject's' emotional volatility is much more difficult to discern, though I am hypothesizing that the highly concentrated levels of darkness in 'The Subject's' heart is certainly a factor, if not the sole source. Yet I have intentionally instructed Naminé to ensure that the memory transfer procedure will heighten 'The Subject's' emotional response to given stimuli. While this action has increased the likelihood that the 'The Subject' will adhere to my plans by following through with its infallible memories and feelings, it may also become unpredictable if not observed and guided properly. Therefore, I have resolved to monitor it closely until I can be certain that its heart can withstand the levels of darkness imposed on it.
Seconds before Naminé shattered 'The Subject's' heart to begin with a clean slate under my orders, I sensed an unusually powerful use of darkness not previously exhibited by 'The Subject'. Therefore, it will be under observation until I can determine the cause."
The pen hovered with its tip lightly pressed against the notepaper as Vexen read his final sentence, ink beginning to pool in the creation of an overly large period as his eyes eagerly scanned the words. Satisfied with the clarity of his notes, he lay the pen to the side and closed the black, bound notebook. With a quiet sigh of satisfaction, he peered across bony, steepled fingers in the direction of his subject.
Lying beneath a threadbare, white sheet and atop a surgical gurney that Vexen had removed from his usual laboratory and brought to the castle lay a boy. In appearance the boy was approximately fifteen years old, though in actuality he had been alive for less than a week. The boy was slender, though very fit, with definite muscular arcs plainly visible though the thin sheet. Silver hair was splayed about the pillow in mock presentation of a halo. The curves of the boy's high cheekbones, jaw, and brow were delicate, almost feminine, yet the boy was clearly male, though Vexen could only bring himself to refer to the boy as 'it'.
The boy's chest delicately rose and fell with each even breath, as was common with deep sleep. Its full lips were parted slightly, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Vexen watched as eyes darted rapidly behind closed lids, though not in peaceful bliss. Vexen knew that his subject's new memories were in the final stages of taking root and was preparing to awaken.
The sheet, which was tightly tucked around its waist, prevented any sudden movement, though its wrists and ankles were enclosed in metal clamps for insurance. Vexen doubted that the boy would be able to fight the instant it awoke, no doubt succumbing to exhaustion. Nevertheless, he did not want to take any chances with his project injuring him or Naminé. The boy had certainly fought back when forced into this experiment.
Rising to his feet, Vexen tucked a strand of his long, lank, blond hair behind an ear and began to pace towards the boy. To his right he heard a sound of quiet alarm.
Vexen sneered at the source. "No cause for panic, Naminé. I merely wish to check the status of my project. I trust that there have not been any complications?" There was a lingering threat added to his tone to imply what would happen if there had been. This was more for a display of authority than anything else as the boy was easily replaceable and Naminé was far from it.
She only gave a mute nod and shuffled her body in the direction of the boy, whom she was supposed to be watching over. She had positioned her body in such a way that implied she was trying to take up as little room on the chair as possible.
Vexen scrutinized her closely. Sometimes even he, fully comprehending the mechanics of it, found it a challenge to recall that Naminé was a Nobody like himself.
When a living being loses his heart, Vexen reminded himself, the darkness in his heart takes on living form as a Heartless. Yet, if the victim has an unusually powerful heart, the empty shell left behind will continue to live on as a paradoxically named 'Nobody', unable to know any emotions.
However, the bodies of most of these Nobodies became horrifically twisted and mangled beyond recognition. They will have some sense of awareness, yet be almost entirely subservient to a higher power.
There was another possibility. If the person whose heart was torn away once contained a heart of immeasurable strength and purpose, that Nobody would be able to keep their human form. Vexen felt certain that his records were up to date and only knew of fourteen beings to have achieved such a feat. Vexen himself was of course one such Nobody, as was Naminé. Though looking at her, Vexen could scarcely understand why such a lifeless, cowardly, and wholly unremarkable girl had been granted such a high honour. Thankfully, he mused, she was never offered to wear the coveted coat of the Organization Thirteen.
The Organization Thirteen, or XIII, was comprised of thirteen Nobodies who had maintained their human form. They served reverently under Xemnas, their Superior, who had given them each their new names and permission to wear the cloak. Within the Organization, Vexen was ranked fourth and although the numbers represented seniority, Vexen considered it a worthy achievement. Certainly he felt that he deserved far more respect than the others who came with him felt inclined to give.
He had been joined at Castle Oblivion by two of the original six, Lexaeus and Zexion, whom he respected well enough, in addition to three unruly neophytes, Axel, Larxene, and Marluxia. Vexen often wondered what his esteemed Superior had been thinking to invite such dangerous lose cannons into such a covert and influential operation. Despite his reservations and protests, Vexen knew it would be impetuous to step out of line and question the highest ranked Nobody of them all. Despite this, Vexen maintained one eye watching over his project's progress while keeping the other one tightly trained on their antics.
Bored with examining his project, which had been motionless for over a day, he turned towards Naminé. She sat on her chair with her hands folded like wilted flowers across the cover of a sketchbook. She made no move to open it. Set against the white marble of the room, Naminé seemed even more pale and frightened than usual. With her white dress, light blonde hair, and startlingly blue eyes, she almost disappeared from the room entirely. Vexen knew that she wanted little more.
Despite his distaste for the girl, Vexen could not deny her usefulness to the Organization. Naminé was had a mysterious power that enabled her to remove the links that bound the chains of one's memory. In doing so, she could completely rewrite a person's identity or destroy their heart completely. The uses of this extraordinary ability were innumerable.
Yet her powers had a limitation – Naminé could only manipulate the hearts of those connected in some way to the Keyblade bearer, a boy by the name of Sora. However, as Sora's journey allowed him to touch many hearts, this problem had not yet arisen.
Fortunately for Vexen, his project was connected in the purest way to Sora's closest friend and rival Keyblade wielder, Riku. In fact, the boy was originally deemed an utter failure until Vexen realized that it could be used to test Riku's abilities as well as verify the results of Vexen's program. Yet, despite granted the boy devastating control over the forces of darkness, it still fell to Riku.
Despite everything he had given the boy, it still collapsed to a young man who could scarcely handle the darkness within himself. Furious with the boy's failure, Vexen was more than prepared to scrap the project entirely when a new direction was prepositioned to him: alter the boy's memories so that it would believe itself to be Riku in order to experiment with Sora's strength. Terrified by the prospect, the boy had protested, but Vexen, Larxene, and Axel managed to subdue it into unconsciousness. Then Naminé was able to begin her work.
Naminé was the only one of the four who seemed uncomfortable with their actions. As Nobodies, they were unable to feel any sort of remorse or compassion for the boy as it struggled and pleaded in vain for freedom. Naminé should not have been any different, yet Vexen recalled how the girl's eyes had fallen downcast, unable to bear looking into its eyes as it screamed for her help while she instead crushed its entire existence. Perhaps, he reasoned, it had to do with whose Nobody she was.
Looking back at his project, Vexen's lips curved into a scowl. Because the boy was created to wield a Keyblade and unable to do so, despite the otherwise perfection of the project, it was previously deemed a failure and therefore left unnumbered, it was more or less indistinguishable from the exterior. Only projects that were able to fulfill their purpose, such as his most recent creation, No.i, were rewarded with numbers.
Looking back, Vexen rationalized that he ought to have marked the boy the moment that it and No.i had encountered each other. Only moments after its creation, No.i had followed Vexen, hooded and silent, past the rows of slumbering experiments. Barely conscious, it had paid each one no heed until it had reached the boy now lying on the operating table. No.i slowed for the slightest second, laying its hand atop the boy's forehead before continuing on without a word. This simple action, whether it was intentional or merely a coincidence, was enough to intrigue Vexen's inquisitive mind. It was therefore because of No.I's interference that Vexen had decided to bring that boy in particular to Castle Oblivion, despite its failed status in hope that No.i had somehow noticed something he had missed.
Vexen scowled at the oversight – had he known that the project was going to go in this unprecedented direction, he would have taken precautions in order to better label his work.
He grabbed a scalpel off one of the lower shelves of the table. Naminé's eyes widened, following the knife's path as Vexen lifted the boy's head in his hand. He ran his thumb down the back of the boy's neck, intending to carve a marking at its base. His fingers lightly scraped over something rough and he stopped abruptly. The boy should have been unblemished, pristine, yet someone had already marked it.
"What?" Vexen's eyebrows knitted in frustration and concern while lifting the head higher to peer at the marking. Scowling under his breath and cursing whoever had been brash enough to mar his project, he brushed away hair to reveal what was hidden. Unable to make it out, Vexen pressed against it with his thumb to better feel it.
At once he felt a searing, burning pain against his fingertips. His senses were assaulted by a powerful surge of darkness – one that he recognized immediately. It was the same sensation that took over the room seconds before the boy had been put to sleep.
Crying out in alarm, Vexen abruptly dropped him. The boy's head fell against the table with a clatter.
"Ow," mumbled the boy with a pained wince, having been jostled awake. Vexen froze. Clear aqua eyes fluttered open beneath thick, black lashes as pupils rapidly contracted in response to the light within the room. The boy's eyes darted as it glanced around in bewilderment. Vexen could practically see all of the neurons in its brain firing to process the new stimuli.
Faintly it began to struggle against the bindings, more out of confusion than any desire to break free. After a moment, it relaxed in apparent exhaustion.
Vexen's sighed. It would be a few hours before the boy would be able to fight back, giving him ample time to set up the scenario he had in mind.
Suddenly the boy stiffened as if it heard something. Vexen knew that it was using one of its inherited gits – the ability to identify others by their distinctive 'scent' of mingled darkness and light. But Vexen knew the boy was not interested in his creator.
Vexen could scarcely breathe. He could mark it later; now was the time to see if all of his work had been in vain.
"Naminé?" a small smile spread across the boy's features as it said in a whisper that was overcome with emotion, "You're here. I finally found you."
Naminé shrunk back as if burned and the boy continued to smile as if it had not noticed.
Vexen fought a grin. The project was a success. The boy had been given all of Riku's memories with two adjustments. The first was that it would see Sora as a rival, an enemy even, in order to further test the Keyblade wielder's abilities. The second was that it would possess an overwhelming and all-consuming devotion to Naminé, a girl who should have never been in those memories to begin with.
Vexen cleared his throat and cupped the boy's chin to force its eyes on him. He ignored how the boy recoiled from his icy touch and said, "It is time you awoke, Riku."
The boy's eyes narrowed menacingly as he surveyed the face above him, though Vexen had noted the subtle shift in its features upon hearing his last word. It recognized its name.
"Who are you?" it commanded rather than asked.
"Vexen," he answered curtly, disgusted that the boy would even think of giving him an order. "And it would be in your best interests to show me some respect."
All he received in response was a roll of the eyes and a smirk. Too tired to continue any longer, the boy sank back into sleep. Naminé breathed a sigh of relief.
Vexen scowled, suddenly desiring nothing more than to abandon all reservations and slap the insolent child across the face. This was his project and he would not be undermined. He took enough abuse from Axel and the others, but the audacity of the boy, who owed him its entire existence, was almost too much.
He hurled the scalpel next to the boy's head with more force than necessary and huffily returned to his desk. Vexen flipped open to a crisp new page of his notebook and began to make notes of his observations.
"Castle Oblivion Record X .VII. III,
'The Subject' has responded as I had anticipated to the stimuli. The relationship with Naminé has been established and the project will undoubtedly continue forward as expected. When interacting with Naminé, she responded with disgust to its presence, though 'The Subject' took no notice. The memories I have selected to impose on 'The Subject' will ensure that its actions will be perfectly align with my goals. It has no sense of identity beyond what I have allowed it.
The marking on its neck will require further investigation at a later date. But for the moment, I can conclude with confidence that 'The Subject' will to serve the Organization and fulfill its purpose without interference."
The boy was, after all, only a replica.
Hi everyone! This is the prologue to Reverse Rebirth, a story I have wanted to write for some time now, that will follow an alternative ending to the Riku Replica's story in Castle Oblivion. I wanted to make it accessible to people like me who have played every single Kingdom Hearts game the moment they were released as well as people who are just becoming interested in the series and might need some concepts explained.
I hope the prologue was good enough to attract some interest (this is my first published story) and I will try to have the first chapter up within the next week. Have a great day!