Luna Diviner: Figment
(rough draft)
A Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Raberba girl
For Isa/Saïx Day, 7 July 2013
Summary: No matter how different he is now, Saïx still can't quite forget the boy he used to be. *temporarily incomplete*
o.o.o
"Are you kidding? We aced it," Axel laughed, waving his ice cream around for emphasis.
"That would imply that we didn't make it back to the portal with only a fraction of HP left, or that we'd managed to defeat more than seven Heartless before finding the boss, or that we hadn't taken over eight hours to find said boss..." I was leaning against the wall of the clock tower, trying to figure out how to write the mission report in a way that made us look good without actually lying. Today's had been no ordinary mission - it had been an assessment of sorts, and thus, a lot depended on the outcome. We couldn't afford to mess this up.
"Man, we kicked it into oblivion eventually, didn't we? And thanks to your OCD, we filled the whole mission gauge and opened every single stupid treasure chest, so YES, Isa, we aced it."
He still insists on calling me by my former name when we're alone, even though we've been Nobodies for two years now. On one hand, it bothers me just the tiniest bit - we're not supposed to feel 'bothered,' we're not supposed to feel anything, but sometimes I wonder. Anyway, it bothers me just slightly because you never know who might be spying, how word may get out. I don't want Axel to slip and call me 'Isa' in front of the others. We have to keep pretending - and he gets it, but sometimes it's like he doesn't get it enough. He 'worries' me sometimes, that empty detached Nobody version of 'worried.'
On the other hand...I kind of like it when he calls me Isa. It helps me remember our pasts, our plans, who we used to be. I used to take that kind of thing for granted, but...it's harder to remember now. My first loyalty will always be to him, though, and I know that his is to me. Nothing will ever be able to change that.
I took a deep breath and sucked thoughtfully at my ice cream, which was starting to melt. I hate when it drips, I need to eat faster. "Okay, I'm going to write, 'Successfully defeated boss-' I put a Heartless categorization record in the footnotes, '-and used remaining time to complete extraneous mission objectives in a careful and thorough'-"
"Yup, that's perfect. Dazzle 'em with Vocab Power and we'll be good to go." He grinned at me. "This is why I always get you to fill out our joint reports."
"What do you do for our solo missions, bully Zexion into doing it?"
He laughed. "Nah, the kid fights back now, and flaming pants can he come up with some freaky nightmares..."
I frowned.
"Anyway, no, I just kinda scrawl out stuff and hope Vexen doesn't whine too much."
"I'm sure that impresses Lord Xemnas exceedingly," I said dryly.
Axel froze for a moment, then glared at me.
"Xemnas," I corrected quickly. "I'm sure that impresses Zebra-sama exceedingly."
Axel didn't let it go as easily as he had the other times. "You keep doing that," he growled. "That is not cool, Isa."
"Sorry, Axel," I muttered. "It's a habit." Kissing up to the Organization's top dog all the time, it's gotten hard to remember, when I'm alone with my best friend, that the groveling is supposed to be fake.
Axel suddenly scooted over and knelt up so that he seemed to loom over me. I think he forgot about the ice cream in his other hand - I snatched the report out of the way before it could get stained by the blue drips.
"That's not my name," he growled. "I'm sick of you calling me that."
It was harder than it should have been. "Apologies, Lea," I said stiffly. The name felt strange to say. Maybe he had a point... "Forgive me, Lea, for failing to call you by your original name, which is Lea, and I promise, Lea, that I shall from now on call you Lea, since you prefer the name Lea, and your real name is, after all, Lea, and I can keep going if you like, Lea, so just keep listening to me call you Lea to your heart's content, Lea, except that you don't really have a heart anymore but you still like to be called Lea anyway-"
He finally burst into laughter. "Apology accepted, Isa, which I call you because Isa is your real name, isn't that right, Isa...?" He settled down next to me - a little too close for comfort, our elbows kept bumping practically every time we moved - but I understood that he needed the reassurance. That was one of the many downsides to lacking a heart, that so much of what had once been instinctive now had to be remembered and deliberately acted upon.
"So, to pick up where we left off," I said, "it seems as if I'm the only one of us who gets any proper mission reports filled in. What would you do without me, Lea?"
"Be bored out of my mind, that's what."
We were inevitably late getting back to the castle, which I'm sure did nothing to boost our dubious assessment scores. Feeling like I was shrinking under the Superior's disapproving gaze, I silently handed over the report and then turned to leave with Axel.
"Where are you going?" Xemnas demanded in that deep, ponderous way of his.
"To the kitchen, because we're starving," Axel said with a defiant tone that made me wince a little. It's always been much easier for me to kiss up to the bosses than it's been for him.
"Don't think so, Flamesilocks," Xigbar chuckled. Why he should be one of the assessors rather than Vexen was a bit puzzling to me.
"Both of you will wait here while we deliberate," Xemnas intoned.
"Whaaaat?!"
"Unless you wanna fail by default and be Dusked," Xigbar said with a wink.
"You people are crazy!"
I kicked his ankle as unobtrusively as possible, needing him to shut up. So much was on the line here, and he was an idiot if he thought this was helping.
We waited, feeling the minutes crawl by. My stomach felt tight with hunger, so I knew it must be worse for my energetic, careless friend. I took out the snack bar I'd never felt like eating on the mission and handed it over; he ripped the wrapper off and started to bite into it, then eyed me. "You got another one?"
"No, but it's fine, I'm not hungry."
He broke the bar in half.
"Really, Axel, I'm not hungry."
"Hearing you lie to me makes me want to punch you." He would have shoved the food straight into my mouth if I hadn't caught it in my hand first.
"...I'm not nearly as hungry as you are."
"Eat it, I don't wanna have to listen to your annoying stomach grumbles."
We were both drowsing by the time Xemnas and Xigbar came into the room again. I jerked a little in surprise at their entrance, Axel lifted his head off my shoulder, and we quickly got to our feet.
"Moonwolf wins," Xigbar announced. "You lose, Red. Toodles!"
We both blinked at him stupidly. "What?"
"Number VIII," Xemnas said gravely, "you are dismissed for the evening, and are to resume your regular duties on the morrow. Number VII, we have further business with you."
Axel and I still weren't moving. Both my body and mind felt numb. "Axel...and I...it was joint effort, the mission-"
"Ooooh, backtalk," Xigbar teased. With Xigbar, though, it was not wise to take chances even with his teasing.
"It's cool, Sai," Axel said quietly. He clapped his hand on my shoulder and opened a dark corridor, then he was gone.
I suddenly felt more alone than I ever had before in my life. My flesh seemed to creep, something was wrong.
"So," I said. I had to try twice before I could speak, my mouth felt dry. "What exactly is my status now, and what new duties does it entail?"
They did not answer at first. Their golden eyes seemed to glow.
o.o.o.o.o
My alarm clock woke me up as usual, but when I finally mustered the strength to roll over and look at the time, I found that it was thirty whole minutes past my usual awakening. "What...?" I reached out and shut off the blaring noise, then double-checked the settings. It was still set for the usual time. Somehow, I had slept through my alarm for half an hour.
I was still so tired. My eyes hurt, too; there was this strange yellow tinge to everything, like I was looking through colored lenses. "Ugh...have to get up, Isa..."
The second time I woke up was because of Axel shaking my shoulder. "Oi, Isa!"
"Mrgh..." I peered blearily at the clock again. It had somehow jumped another hour and a half - I had never slept this late before, not even on vacation days.
"Man, I was looking all over for you, what the heck are you doing still in bed!?" He looked ready to go, dressed in a fresh coat and with his hair perfectly in order.
"Ax- Lea...ugh."
He was staring at me now. "Isa?"
"I'm so tired," I moaned. All I wanted to do was roll over, pull the pillow over my head, and go back to sleep.
"Isa, what's wrong with your eyes?"
"What?" I mumbled.
He was now bending over me, peering into my face from a disconcertingly close range.
"Stop that." I tried to push him away.
"What the heck did Xem and Xig do to you last night?"
I winced. "I don't...remember."
He gripped my shoulder. "If you didn't remember, you wouldn't be wincing."
It was coming back to me a little, in bits and pieces. I didn't want it to. It hurt. It still hurt, deep inside my chest where I couldn't reach. "Ax- Lea...I don't...feel well..."
His eyes narrowed. He went over to my panel collection and dug out an Elixir, then brought it back to me. "Drink this."
He had to help me at first, but eventually I managed to swallow the whole bottle. I sat up in bed, feeling fresh and energized - yet that strange gold tinge still hovered at the edges of my vision, and the deepest ache lingered, as if it had settled in the empty space where my heart used to be. "Thanks, Lea."
He was watching me unhappily. "Your eyes are still yellow. And your ears..."
I frowned. "My ears?"
I wasn't expecting him to reach out and touch one of them. "Sorry, Isa, but I'm not digging the Legolas look on you."
"What in the worlds are you talking about?" I realized what he meant when he got me in front of a mirror. I stared at my reflection, one I only half-recognized. The eyes staring back at me could have been Xemnas's or Xigbar's, they were the exact same color. The ears were pointed, like an elf's. Not mine. They'd changed me.
"Axel," I said slowly.
"Yeah?"
"...I'm glad you failed the test."
One month later:
Meeting on the clock tower after work, ice cream in hand. Talking about the usual trivialities.
"You were in Halloween Town today, right?"
"Yes."
"How'd it go?"
"Well."
He laughed. "I can tell you're in a talkative mood today, Isa."
I wished he wouldn't call me that.
"Were you able to steer clear of Christmas Town?"
"That's not even an issue anymore, Axel."
He frowned. "You're doing it again."
"Stop being childish, Lea is gone. We are working to get him back, but in the meantime, I shall address you as who you are, which is, at the moment, Axel."
He kept gazing at me sullenly. I took a bite of ice cream, wincing a little at the excessively salty taste. Whoever had made this batch had not gotten the recipe quite right. "So," I finally said, "how many emblem Heartless did you eliminate today?"
"I don't know. I don't care."
I frowned. "You'd better remember for your mission report, at least."
"Isa, you're kinda ticking me off right now." Glaring at me, he crumpled his report into a ball and held it out as if threatening to drop it off the clock tower.
"You have no heart to get 'ticked off' with, and honestly, grow up."
He got to his feet. "I'm bored. I'm gonna RTC."
He was gone. Finishing my badly mixed ice cream alone seemed pointless, so I did not linger, either.
o.o.o.o.o
I woke up in the dead of night, sweating and shaking from more nightmares. I lay rigidly for a long time, then I finally managed to force myself out of bed and into the Proof of Existence.
Axel's Assassins were not as benevolent toward me these days as they used to be, but they did not make much effort to harass me as I crossed the room. I shook Axel's shoulder. "Lea. Lea."
He awakened reluctantly, looking up at me with a sort of disgruntled affection. "Can you, like, just not be a jerk to me so you won't keep having to come in and apologize at two in the morning?"
"...I'm sorry..."
"'S okay, Isa," he mumbled sleepily. "I just went to bed an hour ago, so leave me alone, 'k?"
"All right... Lea, forgive me."
"Yes, I forgive you, but you're being annoying, okay? Go to sleep."
"All right."
"Okay."
"Good night."
"'Night."
"...I'm sorry."
"Yes, Isa, I know."
One year later:
I'd never given Vexen enough credit. Organizing missions was difficult work.
Zexion and the new one, Number IX, were having a noisy disagreement in the library, so I moved to the dining room. I had been working for about twenty minutes when Axel came in with his meal. "Well, long time no see."
"Hello," I said absently, trying to concentrate. I had one finger resting on the rewards chart to keep my place; the pen in my hand hovered over Xaldin's mission report, checking off opened treasure chests and mission objectives. He was usually pretty thorough and his reports were among the easier ones to process, but I was still new at this job and the details were not second nature to me yet.
"Hey, Isa."
"Hm?"
"I was bored out of my mind again."
"What?" I said, wishing he'd be quiet and let me focus.
"What's with you not making it to the clock tower again?"
"What's with you being so obsessed with ice cream?" I grumbled.
"Um, hello, it's our thing we've been doing for the past three years? Go to work, come to Twilight Town, eat ice cream on the tower, because we're best friends?"
I sighed. "I'm busy these days, Axel."
"Too busy for me?" he said angrily, as if he could still actually get angry about anything anymore.
"I received a promotion, in case you forgot."
"How can I forget when you never shut up about it?"
"Are you pretending to be jealous or something?"
"Am I pretending to be jealous," he repeated in a scoffing tone.
"I should get you a promotion, as well..."
"I don't want a promotion! You know what I want, Isa? I want my friend back!"
I slammed my hand down on the table and glared at him. "Axel, how many times must I tell you that as long as there's a possibility of anyone overhearing us, you must call me by my proper name now. We're just as much friends as we ever were, but things have changed. We aren't children anymore."
"I liked you better when we were!"
"And don't be selfish, either. Promotions are not for your own sake - you ought to remember why we both need to perform well in this Organization."
"You know, SAIX, I'm starting to wonder about that. What's the point, anyway?"
I stared at him. He had to be joking, but he was not giving any of his usual indicators.
"I mean, all this hard work and skulking around, it's not fun at all and it's not even helping, anyway. We're never gonna get our hearts back at this rate. I'd seriously rather just hang out with you after work every day and put up with the rest. There's no point to living anymore..."
"...This is exactly what we've been fearing would happen. I know it's difficult to resist the sense of apathy, but you must, Axel. Our hearts were valuable. Anything we can do to get them back is worthwhile. It may not be 'fun,' but keep in mind that nothing is 'fun' for us, nor can it be until we are human again."
"It was fun eating ice cream with you in Twilight Town," he said quietly. "It felt weird that my feelings were so different than what they were supposed to be, but...I think they really were feelings, Saïx, even two years after we lost our hearts. But now, even those half-feelings are gone. All I wanna do these days is lie in bed and sleep until I die, and the only thing that makes me think it might be worth getting out of bed is remembering the taste of ice cream, and how we used to laugh as the sun set."
I sighed. "Why can't you just trust me and do as you're told, Axel?"
"Because I'm not you! Since when have I ever done anything anyone's told me to do?!"
"You used to obey me."
"I never OBEYED you, jerk. We were friends, partners. We did stuff together because we always agreed on everything, and even when we'd get mad and bite each other's heads off, we still had each other's backs, you know? We played to each other's strengths. But the way you've been ordering me around lately, like I'm some kind of robot you only care about because I'm useful sometimes, when the rest of the time you keep brushing me off like I'm annoying you-"
"Like right now, you mean?"
"Gah, forget it, Saïx!" He grabbed his mostly-uneaten food and stormed away.
I sighed and went back to work, but the encounter still weighed on my mind. He was right, we were supposed to be partners, yet we'd been clashing more and more lately, and not in a 'fun' way. If I didn't know better, I would call it 'frustration,' the expressions on his face and the displeasure in my own- not my heart, of course, but whatever part of me was left to formulate opinions. We didn't seem to be connecting as well as we had used to, and that was wrong...
o.o.o.o.o
Once I was comfortable with my new duties, I set about the task of raising up Axel as I had promised. It didn't take much longer than a month. I knew it was a good thing, so I didn't understand why Axel looked the way he did when we presented him with his own promotion. Actual delight or satisfaction would have been beyond him, but not only did he not even bother to feign it, he actually looked...displeased. He snapped off some angry, sarcastic remark rather than thanking us, so I was relieved- that is to say, I was able to relax more when he eventually did set off on his first assignment, and when he returned successful. At least he wasn't going to fight me hard enough to break our alliance.
"How did it go?"
"Fine," he said. It was strange how blank his expression was, and how dull his voice. He was sprawled on his bed playing a video game without a trace of his usual exuberance.
I waited, but he did not volunteer more information. "Just 'fine'? There were no problems?"
"My mom would've burst into tears and disowned me if she'd been watching," he remarked.
I was not sure what to make of this. "I thought your mother was destroyed along with the rest of Radiant Garden."
"Yup."
"So...?"
"So no one was around to watch me become a monster. Just you and the bosses here at home, so freaking proud of their little pet murderer."
"To tell the truth, Axel, I don't really know what you're going on about. You had a job to do, and apparently you completed it successfully. What do you want from us?"
"What do you want from me?" he burst out suddenly. "I just killed someone in cold blood today, Isa! Walked up to him and slammed a flaming chakram into his chest! I watched him fall at my feet and die! Am I supposed to be jumping for joy now?!"
"Of course not. You're not supposed to feel anything, including joy or guilt."
"That's right! I have no morals now, but I do have superpowers, so I can get away with anything. You know what they called people like that in our old shows and comic books, Isa? They called them bad guys. I'm a bad guy now, Isa. And you are, too. Because you told me to do it, and now you're standing there looking at me like you're not disgusted with either of us at all. This is all just a game to you, just some way for you to manipulate your way to what you want so you can win. People's lives are just a bunch of chess pieces in your fun little egocentric game, right, Saïx?"
"...Sometimes, Axel, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Get out of my room."
I sighed and did so.
Axel dutifully carried out all his assignments, but something about his performance still made me uneasy. Since he seemed to get so volatile around me these days, I tried to avoid most direct contact with him while simultaneously observing him carefully. I finally decided that the best way to describe it would be to say that his personality was changing... He finally started to act like the Nobody he was. His expression rarely changed (except when he was pretending to be angry with me), and his voice now contained little inflection. He went about unsmiling and speaking in a monotone. For some reason, this displeased me.
That, however, was a matter of personal preference; more alarming was the fact that he seemed to be eating less, and losing weight as a direct result. I noticed that he spent less and less time in the kitchen and dining room, and unless he was sneaking food when I didn't notice, he seemed to be falling into a habit of skipping meals. This would not do at all.
"Axel. You need to eat."
"I'm eating," he mumbled, eyes fixed on the TV as he took another potato chip out of the bag next to him and put it in his mouth.
"That is not food. That is nothing but sodium and grease."
"You're not my mom. Lay off."
*temporarily incomplete*
Author's Notes: Short version - I'm gonna make a note in the "Pairing Days" section of the sticky entry / "home base" post of my LiveJournal that this fic is incomplete, all right? For you guys on MMO and devART, the link is . #pairingdays
Whenever I am able to finish drafting this story, you'll be able to tell when you check that section of my Web page.
Long version - Okay, so. I started writing this fic a year ago, and meant to post it on 7 July 2012. I failed to finish it in time. A whole year rolled around, and I realized that I now had a second chance to try to finish this fic and post it for Isa/Saïx Day. I FAILED YET AGAIN. :ohnoes: Isa hasn't even shown up yet, argh. I'm frustrated and super-busy, there's still way too much to write and no way I can finish it before midnight tonight (I try not to post things on Sundays); and though I would usually try to post it the day after my Sabbath, in this case, that is Saïx/Axel Day, which I have ANOTHER fic planned for, so it seems too much like cheating, especially since this fic has so much AkuSai in it already. orz Being addicted to Pairing Days is a pain.
So anyway, to sum up, this was intended as my Isa/Saïx Day 2012 fic, and ended up being my Isa/Saïx Day 2013 fic. It's also obviously incomplete, so I will indicate that in my LiveJournal so that you guys on FFN will have a way to tell when I actually do complete it, since it's very possible I won't update with the second half as a new chapter. (I think that MMO and dA readers will get notified, though.)
Ftr, I wrote that stuff about Axel's weight loss the other day (long after Fire & Moonlight: Eat [real edition]), but most of this story was written LONG before "untitled"! This fic and "untitled" share a similar concept as far as Saïx's 'initiation' is concerned, but...see, the method in the other fic was literal, whereas in this one, it's figurative.
As another way of saying it, KH3D was released on 29 March 2012; ever since then, I have not been able to stop thinking about what Xehanort did to Isa/Saïx; I wrote much of this fic in July 2012; the idea still kept turning over and over in my mind until I finally wrote an extreme form of it as "untitled" in May 2013. But Figment really did come first even though it was published after "untitled," you know?
Infamousplot broke my heeeaaarrrttt, theorizing that Saïx is the one who got Axel that horrible assassin job... X(