Disclaimer: Honest, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Just this story, people, that's all…(And I wish I could say Roxas was mine too…)
Chain of Hearts, Chapter 12: World That Never Was (part 1) By Nagori KirashiSora, Riku, Hayner, Donald, and Goofy all stepped off of the ship and found themselves standing in a vastly familiar surrounding. Sora, Donald, and Goofy all remembered the place quite well, as did Riku, though Hayner was new to their environment.
"This is the World That Never Was," Sora said, looking around. "I remember this place."
Hayner also looked around for a moment, then wondered why in the world a place would have such a name.
When he turned to ask Riku, the reply he got was, "Pretty strange, isn't it? This world was created by the Nobodies."
"How d'you create a world?" Hayner asked in disbelief. Deciding he didn't want to know, he just walked alongside Riku and Sora silently as they led the way for the other two party members through the darkened streets.
"There's another thing I remember," Riku said. Sora noticed his friend was looking into the sky, and the memory of a large, heart-shaped moon flourishing with light in the midnight sky came into his head. The last time he had seen it, it was bruised-looking and dying. Since they had left it, it had barely patched itself, and although to Sora's surprise it was still there, it was now so faded that one had to look closely before even noticing it was there. The amount of light resonating from it was now nearly nonexistant, a sad comparison to what it had declined from.
Unless it had reformed after disappearing completely, which Sora hoped wasn't the case.
"Kairi told me they're trying to finish bringing back Kingdom Hearts," he said to the others, his voice lowered as they turned a corner. "She said they're going to bring back Xemnas to do it."
"Lazy…that's what they are," Riku said. "They're just going to leave all the work for the tough guy."
"I don't think Xemnas would mind," Donald said. "I wonder what they want with Roxas, though."
"I don't know," Sora replied quietly, then noticed two taller figures talking to eachother around the corner. He held out his hand as a sign for the others to stop, and they did. When he dared to sneak a glance around the corner again, he recognized both Saïx and Larxene as they conversed quietly.
"I still don't get it," they could hear Larxene say. Her voice was hard to hear from where Sora stood, as loud and annoying as Larxene's voice was up close, though with the others holding their breath, he could still make out what was said. "Why should I miss it while everyone else gets to go?"
Saïx was seen sighing.
"You won't miss it," the leader told her. "There's going to be two meetings…you, Lexaeus, Xaldin, Vexen and Xigbar are going to be on first patrol. I don't want those kids sneaking in here without me knowing it while I'm in the middle of some stupid conference with you lowlifes. Now, be patient for once, and I'll tell you when it's time."
"Figures," Larxene said, rolling her eyes beneath her thick lashes and turning her back to him before disappearing altogether.
Sora couldn't make out what Saïx muttered to himself, but from the sharpness of it he was pretty sure it wasn't a kind statement. He held his breath for another moment, then watched at last as Saïx also disappeared to go patrol another area, for all he knew.
Letting his breath out, Sora relaxed and rested his back against the wall they were next to. The others did the same.
"Is it safe to move on yet?" Riku asked Sora quietly, and he received a quick, serious nod in response. Then, moving in a line and making sure to keep close together, they all began to carefully move through the unlit streets in search of both friend and foe.
-,-,-
"Naminé!" Kairi gasped gratefully as she was flung forward into the tiny room. Vexen swiped his hands together carelessly as if getting the dust off of them, then backed into the swirling vortex he had come through. The portal that they had arrived from disappeared almost instantly.
Kairi ran over to her blonde double, and both embraced thankfully.
"Wait," Naminé said, taking Kairi by the shoulder and pushing her back slightly so she could stare into Kairi's eyes. "Why're you here? They got you too, then?!"
"Yeah, but…" Kairi sighed. "It's alright, I know Sora's coming for me anyway. He'll save me."
"I don't know," Naminé said. "I think Saïx is up to something. He's going to use Sora and Roxas, I think. He hasn't told me much of why, and what he has told me…I don't know if I should believe him…"
"So don't," Kairi confirmed softly. "There's nothing we can do right now, is there? All we can do is wait."
"No, but I think I might know something I can try," the blonde said, reaching over and grabbing her sketchbook. "You think I should try it?"
"Try what?" Kairi asked curiously, watching her identical twin as she flipped through the pages of her sketchbook. "Are you serious?"
"Here, I don't know if this'll work," Naminé said hesitantly, then arrived at the page that begun her series of sketches that had traced out Roxas and Sora's false memories of eachother. Carefully at first, then quickly as if to let out the vengeance she felt towards the sketches, she tore the first sketch from the book and, holding it in front of her and pinching her fingers closely together at the top of the paper, she slowly ripped the paper in two.
"Are these some of your memories?" Kairi asked. As she looked at the two halves of the once-whole sketch drifting to the floor, she felt a small pang of regret that such a detailed drawing had gone to waste. It looked as if she could actually touch the waves that Naminé had depicted with nothing more than colored pencils.
Then Kairi noticed a slip of paper lying nearby, and when she compared the drawing's two halves to the slip of paper and what was written on it, the feeling of regret disappeared instantly.
"Want me to help?" she asked, and Naminé nodded with a smile.
-,-,-
Roxas was strolling along the dark, unlit street by himself, patrolling the area as it was his turn. Suddenly he stopped in mid-step so that one foot dangled in front of him before lowering to the ground. He bowed his head in thought.
That memory…was disappearing.
"That's stupid," Roxas said, rolling his eyes to himself. How could he feel a memory disappearing? If it were disappearing, he wouldn't have remembered it.
Just then he jolted as an image in his head was ripped in two before disappearing. No trace of it remained, not even the part when it had been torn in half.
"That's strange," Roxas said to himself, when suddenly he began to feel his emotions returning. He cussed at himself for letting such a stupid illusion in his head be enough to provoke feeling from him. Emotions were a weakness, and he figured Saïx would be furious if he found out Roxas even had any feelings to start with.
A slight mist of sweat came on his forehead, the first of his emotions being the fear he felt of what might happen should he let whatever heart he once had get in the way.
He walked around the corner while brushing one hand through his bangs in an attempt to calm down. Suddenly Roxas stumbled backwards in surprise after nearly running into someone, landing on the ground with a short cry.
He wondered if this wasn't much of why his feelings were returning.
It was his least favorite group of people. Or so he hoped they were, and would remain…and the look of shock on Sora's face alone was enough to make him sick.
"Roxas, are you okay?" Hayner asked instinctively before remembering they were enemies. Hayner's mouth hung open for a moment as he tried to figure out how he should be acting towards his former best friend, when finally he just locked his jaw tightly and glared down at the black-dressed blonde.
"Why do you care?" Roxas said, glaring back and wiping the side of his face with the back of his hand so that he turned his head slightly before standing. When he was back on his feet, he crossed his arms, turning a shoulder to the group while looking away from them as well.
All his former friends were there, it seemed, right when his feelings were starting to get the best of him again. Talk about inconvenience.
"Roxas, c'mon, please," Sora said, after deciding this was real. "Why were you even mad at me again? What did I ever do to you in the first place? Don't you remember all those times on Destiny Islands—"
"Woa, woa, too many questions." Roxas spoke in a careless tone, holding his hands up as a sign for Sora to stop. Then he said sharply, "One at a time. Psh, it's the least I can do before I kill half of you."
"Roxas," Sora said, taking a step forward. His face was darkened with sadness as much as it was by the lack of light that filled the streets. "Please come back to us."
"Oh, 'courteously differential', I see," Roxas said sardonically, rolling his eyes as he turned away once more. "Why should I listen to you? One good reason, I dare you."
Sora was quiet for a moment, hanging his head. Hayner was just about to speak when Goofy and Riku both put an arm in front of him to silence him.
At last the dejected brunette replied, "I don't have any, alright, Roxas? It's your choice if you don't want to be with us. You can go if you want."
"Sora—!" Donald said, taking a step forward before he stopped himself, deciding with a hesitant expression that maybe the Keyblader knew what he was doing after all.
Roxas was beginning to fall for Sora's technique. The fair-haired Nobody was currently deep in thought, when at last he turned and looked at each of the others in turn.
"And so what will I gain by joining you guys again?"
"…Naminé?" Hayner offered, surprising himself with the suggestion. He shrugged his head to one side while he spoke, as if unable to think of anything else.
"She'll come if she wants to," Roxas replied. "Unless she forgot like I did how to use her powers. Besides, I like who I am now; I don't want to give this up again."
Now Riku stepped forward. The tall boy sighed, then smiled slightly and held out his hand as if motioning for Roxas to take it. The hesitancy was clear on Roxas' face as he too finally reached one hand forward, and when they grasped hands, he gasped.
He could feel it himself; there were definitely dark powers in Riku. It was more powerful than anything Roxas had imagined back when it was all just a story being told on the beach, and it surrounded the tall friend like an invisible aura. By touching hands, Roxas had felt it like a sixth sense. He had no idea the darkness was this strong in their friend. It was like a plague that was begging to draw them both in.
"You can keep your powers for now if you want," Riku said. "But eventually you'll end up like me, trying to get rid of them."
"No, nu-uh," Roxas denied suddenly. "I never will."
"Fine, then don't," Riku said slyly, taking a step backwards so he was no longer right next to Roxas. "But will you join us anyway? I'll tell you what you'll gain."
"What's that?" Roxas said, looking at them as if expecting a lame answer.
"Us," Sora said.
Roxas looked away, then thought in his head, 'I was right, lame answer. But still, not bad…'
Sora and the others held their breath while they waited for Roxas to reply.
Then they all frowned as Roxas rolled his eyes.
"You losers, I'll think about it," he said to them. "Anyway, who feels like babysitting for me?"
"Roxas, don't you dare—" Sora began, having been able to read the blonde's thoughts, but his darker side was already grinning at him over his shoulder and walking away as a group of sleek-looking Samurai appeared.
"Just a few pals to welcome you home," Roxas said smugly before disappearing, and Sora was left to fight the creatures without the help of his other half. It took the group of five a total of only a few seconds to conquer the enemies Roxas had left them, though Sora did not feel the victory in their vanquishment.
He only wished his other self would hurry up and make up his mind.
-,-,-
"Okay," Naminé said, turning to Kairi as the last of her sketches drifted to the floor in pieces. "The false memories are gone."
"So they'll forgive eachother now?" Kairi asked hopefully. She leaned forward, waiting for the blonde's reply.
"Not necessarily," Naminé said, staring down at her drawings. "But it should be easier for them now."
"What if, now that they don't have these memories, they don't remember why they're mad at eachother?" Kairi asked, worried. "Then they won't be able to forgive eachother because they'll have nothing to forgive!"
Naminé thought about this for a moment as she continued studying her destroyed artwork. At last she grabbed the sketchbook. It was much lighter, now that a fraction of its sketches were gone.
"It's time I draw them a message of my own, then," Naminé said, and Kairi sat back to watch.
"What're you going to draw, then?" the reddish-haired girl said, and Naminé took a moment before responding.
"I think…" She paused for another moment, then said to her somebody, "I'm going to draw my own memory…and make it into Roxas' memory."
"Will he know it was really your memory, then?" Kairi asked. "Like…what if he thinks it really was his own?"
Unable to answer this for sure, Naminé forced a smile and turning, said, "You ask a lot of questions."
"When I feel like it, yes," Kairi answered innocently, revealing the same smile. "Sorry."
'It's okay,' Naminé replied in her head just to see if she could, though the look on Kairi's face said that she had. To themselves they both wondered if Sora and Roxas had already discovered a similar ability. Kairi, who had seen the trauma inflicted on Sora after the two boys' separation, decided they must have.
'You think that Sora and Roxas' separation was that different from our own?' Kairi asked in her head, trying out the strange new way of communicating as Naminé worked out her sketch.
"I think it was worse," Naminé replied vocally, finding that conversation outloud was much more reassuring.Kairi nodded in agreement, and both sunk into silence as the pictures in Naminé's sketchbook began to take form.
-,-,-
Zexion, Saïx, and several other Organization XIII members were wandering the street area when Zexion's eyes stared off suddenly, his mouth opening once then closing as he glanced around in thought. He looked as if he were listening hard for something, but in reality he was picking up the scent of Sora's gang.
Saïx noticed the expression on his face, then came over.
"Intruders, have we?" the tall, cobalt-haired leader questioned deeply. "Is it Sora?"
"Yes," Zexion replied after a moment. He continued to stare off into space, only his nose twitching occasionally as he rubbed his chin. "And those two foul friends of his who follow him everywhere, as well as Riku. I'll bet the Scentless One is with them, too."
"Well, then," Saïx said partially to himself. Raising his voice enough to confirm he was still talking to Zexion, he asked, "Do you still think we can gather the rest of the Organization in those two meetings without inviting Roxas? If so, then now is the time. Now, when Sora is just arriving and we still have time."
Zexion, who was beginning to figure out part of Saïx's plan already, only glanced over his shoulder and said, "I thought you had that little blonde girl with you. Isn't she around here somewhere? We can use her."
"Right," Saïx said, thinking. "Why don't I leave that up to you? I'll start with the first meeting after you get back, and if a diversion hasn't appeared for Roxas by the time I start, I want you to take care of it and you can just make the second meeting. Bring Kairi to me first, though; I want her somewhere where Sora can't find her. He's going to walk into my trap this time."
New to the idea that there had even been a last time that had anything to do with Saïx, Sora, and a trap, Zexion shook his head to himself and disappeared. Saïx had noticed the scathing look of suspicion on what he thought to be his minion's face, though he did nothing about it.
Instead, deciding that patrol duty was too ammateur for his own taste, he disappeared so he was at the topmost platform of the castle, staring into the sky where the seething shadow of Kingdom Hearts clung as if at death's door while waiting for more hearts to make it complete.
"And so it will be," he vowed to himself silently. "But I'm not making the same mistakes as Xemnas did. He the master of Nothingness will bring it back for me…then I'll finish him myself."
-,-,-
"Sora, look out!" Riku whispered sharply, pulling his friend out of the line of view as a tall, hulking figure wandered through the street ahead of them. Sora struggled to be let go of.
"Hey, I can take him, geeze, Riku," Sora said. "You have to quit worrying about me so much."
"D'you wanna save Kairi or not?!" Riku hissed, then added in the same cutting voice, "We have to save our strength. Once we take down the Organization's strong-hold, then we'll be able to—"
Riku was cut off by a fit of quack-like squabbling noises that were coming from Donald. When he looked up to see what on earth had set him off, he noticed that the tall figure was looking in their direction over his huge shoulder, grinning with a twisted, deformed smile that gave even Riku the chills.
And yet only Riku knew the potential that hid behind the nerve-racking smirk.
"Oh, God," Hayner said quietly while backing away. "I don't think I'm ready to take him on yet!" Despite his words, Sora noticed, Hayner was already clenching his knife in one hand. Its blade continued to shine its strange scale of grays, glistening from black to white along its metalic coat, despite not having any light that was being cast upon it.
Riku's words continued to drift around in Sora's head as the tall figure began to approach, now dragging something large that was leaving a heavy trail of sparks behind himself. At last Sora turned to them with his Kingdom Key in one hand, and he said loudly, "Here, I'll hold him off. You guys go ahead and find Kairi."
"No way!" Donald declared, followed by similar protests from Goofy and Hayner.
"Sora," the tallest one said. "We can't leave you here by yourself."
The figure was drawing closer.
"Yeah," Goofy agreed. "Gawrsh, we've been through so much together. How could we leave you now?"
Sora was growing more tense as each passing second flew by. Any second the figure would be right next to them.
Suddenly, making his own choise to try and earn a head start, Sora dashed out ahead of the group just as the massive figure swung an equally large weapon at him almost in slow-motion. Thanks to Roxas' description of all the Organization XIII members back when they were at the island, Sora figured out that this must have been Lexaeus.
Dodging the attack himself with a swift dodge roll, the massive weapon made contact instead with the side of a building. The other friends stood back wearily as the ground vibrated. The great Tomahawk weapon returned to the hulking Nobody's grasp.
"Sora, we're coming to help you!" Riku yelled, beginning towards the two fighting just as the gigantic enemy swung his weapon with massive strength at Sora, who needed all of his strength just to keep from sinking to his knees beneath the weight of the great weapon alone.
Sora realized suddenly that his friends were actually still waiting for him, and though he shook and felt the ground pressing up as he began to lose the test of strength, he still managed to turn his head and yell, "Go, find Kairi!"
"Sora, we're not leaving you—" Donald began.
"GO!!"
Riku as well as the other three friends stood helpless for a moment. At last Riku said to them quietly, "C'mon, let's get out of here," and not removing his eyes from Sora as his friend's battle waged on, he motioned for them to follow him towards a different street.
"I can't believe we just left him!!" Hayner said, nearly out of breath as they continued running. Despite his lack of oxygen, however, not even emphyzemia seemed like it would have been enough to stop him from yelling at Riku. "What were you thinking?!"
"I wasn't," Riku said back, slowing down. They each lowered their pace to a walk, and he continued. "Sora wanted us to go on. Maybe he feels like that fight was his responsibility. Or maybe he's testing himself again. Whatever it is, it's what his heart was telling him to do."
"I think he was just trying to protect us," Goofy said thoughtfully. Hayner was heard sighing.
"Don't worry," Riku said to them. "If anyone else here knows Sora as well as I do, then they know he'll be just fine. Trust me. Now let's go find Kairi, just like Sora asked us to."
-,-,-
Sora was beginning to feel rain sprinkling down on to his cheeks as sparks scattered onto the ground as well. The fight he'd had with Cloud was like nothing compared to this, and his breath was heavy before it had even begun, it seemed. Everything was dark, like a black room with the lights shut off. Whenever his eyes began to adjust, another burst of lightning would come and blind him once more, making everything black again. It was beginning to seem hopeless.
Yet he fought on.
Lexaeus was a monster; a huge, beastly Heartless with unlimited strength. Dark violet lightning flashed in the background, lighting up Lexaeus' face and revealing the merciless expression on it right before Sora felt himself being flung backwards.
Before Sora even landed, he already had the wind knocked out of him. His weapon slipped from his hand and clattered nearby uselessly, and he could almost hear the grind as parts of his limbs made contact with the rough pavement.
Sora wasted no time, however. Before he had even quit moving, he grabbed his Keyblade that he had dropped when he fell, then bolted back towards the giant, his teeth grinding together as he exhilirated himself past his own personal limits.
Sora thought he could hear his enemy laughing at him, but that might have just been the thunder in the background.
"Come with whatever you can," Lexaeus said in a deep, beastly voice that sounded as if it weren't used very often. "It does no good. Your story ends here, boy."
"You wish!" Sora said, gritting his teeth together in determination once more. Rain whipped at his face as he dashed towards the shadowed figure before him, holding his Keyblade in front of him.
Suddenly Sora tried pulling one of his favorite moves, which was to change his direction and attack from afar with Strike Raid. Sora managed to hold it out as a chain of attacks, and just as he bounced the Keyblade in his hand to use the move for the last time, both he and his weapon filled with even more energy for the finishing move to his combo. At last he unleashed the move Judgement and hurled the Keyblade at Lexaeus with a speed that would have sent most opponents flying.
But Sora's mouth dropped slightly when he saw what happened next. Lexaeus caught the Keyblade as if it were a boomerang, then held it in his huge, brute-like hand. Another deep laugh was heard, and this time there was no mistaking it.
"Hey, you—!!" The only thing Sora could make out on the huge enemie's face was a grin that was forming, and then he noticed a dark liquid falling from the hand that held Sora's weapon captive. The Keyblade had cut or broken his enemy's palm, but the massive giant didn't even seem to notice, and just flung the Keyblade back at Sora at a deadly speed.
Seemingly helpless, Sora held his hands in front of him and stumbled backwards, but he found the Keyblade reappeared in his hand before it had a chance to hit him. Still, it was a delay, and by the time Sora looked up, there was the silhouette of another attack being swung and aimed right in front of him as though in slow motion.
"No way!" Sora said angrily, holding out his Keyblade so it blocked the immense weapon from hitting. His Keyblade protected him as his opponent swung the weight of the weapon into him. "I'm not falling for that!"
"No?" Lexaeus asked almost smugly, holding up his Tomahawk locked with Sora's Keyblade so suddenly that Sora stumbled forward, no longer having his enemy's endless strength to lean against.
Sora's eyes grew wide as he realized how exposed his back was, and he looked up, expecting his enemy to bring the great weapon down and crush him. However, Sora panicked when he saw nothing, and before he had time to react, he felt the huge crushing object that Lexaeus was fighting with as it swung into his side instead. He was sent tumbling head-first onto the wet ground.
The taste of blood was now strong in his mouth.
"Oh, why don't I help you up?" Lexaeus said, stepping over to Sora before the strong-willed boy even had a chance to recover himself. He grabbed onto the teenager's left wrist, then wrenched it and yanked Sora onto his feet so fast that he had his breath nearly taken from him again.
"Ow, what the—!!" Sora stalled and grasped onto his own wrist. It was pulsing with pain as he held it beneath his fingers tightly. Lexaeus threw back his head and laughed, provoking more thunder in the sky before the tall enemy aimed another attack at Sora. The gigantic weapon slammed into Sora's side, sending a wave of shock and anger through Sora that he was allowing himself to lose so easily, or so he felt.
After tumbling to a painful stop nearby once more, Sora looked up towards Lexaeus with his eyes still blinded by darkness, then sucked in his breath and bolted towards his Keyblade. He dove through the air, grabbed it, and landed in a frontwards roll before landing back on his feet. The second his shoes made contact with ground, he launched himself at an amazing speed towards Lexaeus, holding his Keyblade out. Fury was pounding inside of him now, adrenaline being his body's main motive besides Kairi to keep going.
When Lexaeus looked up, unable to keep up with the young, agile fighter's tactics, he was barely able to see the shadow of Sora's figure appearing above his left side before he was knocked backwards by a devastating blow to his side. Sora pushed his weight off of Lexaeus' shoulder using his feet, using the tall enemy like a wall to rebound and land almost fifteen feet away, where both began a stare-down.
'Those were some pretty hard moves,' Sora thought in his head, not even daring to blink as he held the Keyblade in front of him and braced himself for an attack. A deep gash just below his eye was pouring down the side of his face, mixing with the rain that still fell down in streaks as they continued to lock eyes furiously. '…But they seem like they barely did anything to him. What's going to bring this one down?'
More thunder crashed as they aimed at eachother once more.
-,-,-
Roxas was walking down the dark alley by himself, only in the company of another Samurai whom he was pretending was his acquaintance. He spoke to it occasionally, though it made no reply. Rain had been falling for some time now, though it wasn't much more than a normal drizzle at the moment, so it didn't bother him. Roxas still left his hood down, and were it not for his spiked blonde hair, he would have been almost invisible in the blackness that filled the streets. An occasional neon light, usually of the blue color sceme, reflected itself off the many puddles forming on the ground, their images rippling from raindrops and from Roxas stepping through them.
"So, you think I should go back and join those hopeless cases?" Roxas asked his silent follower casually, receiving no reply yet not expecting one, either. "You know, they don't have a chance without me."
He still received no reply from his so-called "acquaintance".
Just then, a memory began to come to Roxas, but for some reason it didn't feel like his own. It felt as if he were having someone else's dream, and the more it came to him, the more he began to realize whose memory he was experiencing.
Suddenly Roxas was Naminé, looking through her eyes as she cowered in the corner from a tall figure. Then he was sitting on a chair by himself in a lonely room; the same one, he suspected, as he drew a picture…
A memory.
The entire thing was coming together, and he could barely feel the same tear roll down his cheek as Naminé had felt when she had been conjuring the false memories. When Roxas touched his cheek, however, he didn't think it felt wet. He cursed when he realized it was because he was wearing gloves.
Suddenly his gloves, his long sleeves, even his entire leather outfit felt restraining, like it limited him from the sense of touch, of softness. Rather than tearing them off of his hands, however, he only stood still as more of Naminé's memory came to him.
Now he was glancing over a piece of paper, reading its detailed instructions. They sounded incredibly familiar, and then they were compared to the picture he felt as if he himself were drawing.
"Hey, wait…"
That's when it finally dawned on him. Naminé hadn't been lying.
She had made up those memories, and though he couldn't remember what they were, by feeling as if he had read the paper Roxas was starting to remember what he had thought them to be.
"So none of it was real?" Roxas asked his Samurai, turning. Though the sleek gray warrior still had no comment, Roxas nodded to himself as if he were receiving a detailed explanation. None of it was Sora's fault.
So why, then, had Naminé drawn those memories? Did it have to do with those instructions?
Those memories had made them both turn on eachother…Made Roxas rejoin Organization XIII…All like a carefully layed-out plan…
"…Sora!"
Roxas suddenly began to run in the direction of where he knew Sora was, then remembered he had the ability to create a portal.
Using his dark powers that he had been able to control since the day of his creation, he disappeared in a swirl of blackness, after Sora.The Samurai Nobody was left by itself in the rain, and eventually it, too, disappeared.
-,-,-
"Saïx," Zexion said, returning with a truly petrified Kairi slung over his shoulder. She was beating on his back, though it did no good. "Roxas' scent…it's approaching Sora's. I suspect we won't need a diversion for him any more."
"Good, excellent, let those two come together, and let them take their time," Saïx said, then gently lifted Kairi off of the younger member's shoulder and onto the ground. Zexion rolled his shoulder in a circle several times as if stretching it out. "Then we can get on with the meeting. I'm still planning on having two of them, so that way we can still keep an eye out for Sora—but let's not be too harsh to the little princess."
Had Kairi been anyone else, she may have struck at Saïx, but being who she was, the idea never even crossed her mind. She only backed away precariously, looking up at them with her pure lilac-blue eyes. Saïx laughed a deep menacing chuckle, meeting eyes with Zexion who only shook his head as the taller leader grabbed firmly onto Kairi's arm, causing her to nearly scream for him to let go.
"I'll drop her off where she needs to be," Saïx said, no longer laughing but speaking with a more devious tone of voice. "I'd advise you that you meet me as well as the rest of the Organization at the top of the castle either now or in ten minutes, and if you're not there…well, if you are there, you'll learn why it is I don't need you. So I advise you be there at one of them."
Zexion only shook his head again at what he thought to be Saïx's over-confidence as a ruler, then disappeared to go join where the meeting would take place.
"Why are you—?!" Kairi was still struggling, and Saïx replied to her only as if it were an afterthought.
"You're not on a need-to-know basis, young lady," Saïx said to her in a lax, indulging voice normally used on a child. "Now let's go; I think it's time for you to take a little time-out."
-,-,-
Naminé concentrated on the same spot with all her might. She'd already written a farewell note and left it on her chair, but now all she had to do was remember how to get out of this place. There was no door in the room, except for one that didn't even shake when she tugged at the handle. And now that Kairi was taken, there really was no point in staying.
"C'mon, darkness, you were there once before…"
The pep-talk didn't seem to do much good, until suddenly a black portal began to form.
"Yes!" she exclaimed to herself. Estatic that she believed herself to have made it work and edgy from sitting around and waiting, Naminé lurched herself through the portal before she even had a chance to see the one that had really created it and had just stepped into the room from the other side.
"Hey, girl, I've got something for you—" Xaldin stopped as he realized there was no one there. The apple he had been tossing up and down was now still as he held it in his hands and glanced through the note that Naminé had left on her chair nearby;
"Dear Organization XIII,
My stay with you has been charming, to say the least.
However, I think that you are all disgusting pigs.
Good bye."
The note was signed by Naminé herself, who had made sure to trace over her signature several times to prove it was her. Next to the note that was stood upright on her chair were two apple cores; while one was slightly tanned, the other was truly gross-looking. It must have been at least several days old.
Starting as a growl at first, then leading to a full-fledged yell, Xaldin roared furiously outloud, then hurled the apple onto the floor so hard that it became no more than a juicy pile of mush. Going over and grabbing the note, the infuriated watchman made sure to step on the remains of the apple lying on the floor before he disappeared back through his portal.
The room was left empty.
-,-,-
Roxas appeared in the dark street where he hoped to find Sora and friends. Instead he was greeted by the battlecries of both his brunette duplicate as well as one of his fellow members, Lexaeus. Followed by their cries was the clang of metal, and suddenly Sora was lying at Roxas' feet.
"…Roxas?"
"C'mon, you gotta get up," Roxas said kindly yet firmly. He began to pull Sora up using the boy's left hand, but a painful cry from Sora changed his mind and Roxas took his right hand instead. As soon as Sora had stood, Roxas yelled, "Hey, look out!"
Lexaeus, who had been standing right behind Sora like a brick wall, suddenly had two deep gashes across his chest that formed a deep, bloody X that carved itself far past the center of his chest. Both Sora and Roxas stood with at least one Keyblade in hand, and their eyes met for a moment before turning back to the brute of man before them.
"Roxas, you…really are a…" Lexaeus said, staring down at his gory, fatal wound furiously as he spoke. He began to sink to the ground slowly.
"I'm no traitor," Roxas said as Lexaeus sunk past his eye level. "I'm just a friend, and I'm doing my job, so shut up."
Sora glanced at Roxas wearily as Lexaeus sunk to his knees like a fallen warrior, the ground beneath him already stained both red and black beneath the dim neon lighting above where they stood. At last the massive opponent disappeared into a wave of black smoke. Even the ground showed no trace of his defeat after a moment as the rain continued to bathe the paved earth, cleansing it free of all signs of hatred.
"Roxas, you really came back," Sora said at last. He stood awkwardly and grasped onto his left wrist tightly. Deep injuries both above his right elbow and below one of his eyes leaked a crimson red, and Roxas regretted not having any potions on him. Neither injuries, however, could take away from the gratitude in Sora's expression.
"How could I not?" Roxas said, then looked away. "Just…thank Naminé."
"Uh, again?" Sora managed to laugh, and Roxas did as well as both started slowly together in the same direction as the last of the friends had been seen headed towards.
-,-,-,-
