"Remember… we're doing this to be together. Always." My head was buried in the crisp linen of Mr Slater's shirt, sobbing, silently into his chest. He didn't complain as he hugged me intimately back with one arm. The other arm was over my shoulder, pointing at the heart, slowly turning. The heart revolved with it.
I'd pulled myself mostly together, and turned round, with a mighty sniff, still leaning on Mr Slater's front. He continued to do whatever he was doing with the raw golden heart floating, but I couldn't understand. The heartless nearby were slowly being drawn to the heart, gravity an irrelevant factor, as the invisible force sucked them into the golden black hole. He tried to explain.
"I have two hearts, remember?" He whispered. "This gives me a certain amount of power of them…" I still didn't understand, but what I did understand was that the magnificent gold I once saw was now corrupted by the darkness of the heartless, as their ensnared hearts became one with the original. It mutated further, becoming a revolting black creature, sans distinct form. It was horrifying, and as all the nearby heartless creatures were sucked into the gaping shady mass still in its centre, Mr Slater ushered me away into the second district, out of harm's way.
"That thing is volatile. It will not care whether or not we have hearts, and will attack us tenaciously if we are seen." I looked into his eyes.
"You shouldn't have done that, sir." I said, slowly, my eyes still watering.
"The girl? I'm sorry, Demyx. It was the only way I could create that heartless, and without it, we have no means of drawing Luxord out, because he will only hunt or us, or a creature with a great deal of hearts." I sniffed my nose, lest the obvious sign of immaturity came trickling down my nose. "Do you understand? When we've done this, if you want, we can find that girl. We can find her nobody, and bring her her heart back."
"I'd like that, Mr Slater."
"After all, that's what should be done." He muttered darkly, and rubbed his hand over his chest. I understood his hurt: I more than knew the pain of being cruelly rejected by Luxord.
We kept watching from afar, watching the putrid creature, about thrice my height shamble around the third district, looking for more hearts. It was new, and couldn't understand more than a newborn baby.
It took almost an hour, but I didn't mind. I just stayed there, my arms around the taller man, and being kept in return. Mr Slater kept telling me how perfect everything would be when the Organization would let us alone. I let him. All that stood in our path was the ten members. If they stayed there, we would plough through them.
Suddenly, Mr Slater let go of me. I understood what that meant, without needing to be told. A member was here, and when Mr Slater took a wolfish grin and glint in his eyes, I knew exactly whom it was. But we couldn't go yet. The whole brilliance of Mr Slater's heartless plan, no matter what it entailed, was that the thing that drew him out would defeat him, also.
"How do you know?" I heard an inhuman roar of anger in the distance, knowing that Luxord was attacking the monster.
"His heart has been listening for him." He held his chest again. "He is fighting it." He kept up the commentary for a few minutes, and I left him to it. Suddenly, his face fell, a look of amazement and irritation combined on his face. "He's defeated it! Quick!" Whilst he drew his gun, I pulled my sitar from nowhere, and we dashed back into the Third District.
The massive murky being was on the floor, writhing angrily, slowly dissolving. As the final pieces of its body vanished, the huge golden heart began to float to the sky, and the hooded figure looked up, a deep laugh filling the air. It ceased as Mr Slater jumped down from the high balcony with impossible grace, me following with a portal. The heart stopped where it was, trapped in a soap-like bubble, still high up, perfectly still.
"I'm sorry, Luxord." My ally said, pointing the gun at him with two hands. "That heart won't go to waste."
"I don't a heart from you." He stated, flatly, not surrendering, summoning the two massive playing cards after pulling his hood back.
"I don't want you to have one." Was the response, and the bullet missed the blond head by inches. But if Luxord was smiling, he wasn't when a volley of solidly packed water-bombs from me (I'd just played a quick quartet of low-pitched notes) flew in his direction, and knocked him back into a wall. Luxord tried to summon a portal, but it vanished, quickly.
"Whoever's possession it is in, this heart came originally from you." Said Mr Slater, closing in slowly, still pointing the gun at a worried Luxord's chest. "You can't run away from it. You can't run away from us, not again. I offered to give you the heart back, but you refused to take it, and ran from it. But now… I'm not going to let that happen." He began to squeeze the trigger, but I, next to him, said.
"Give me his last seconds," and he nodded, keeping an eye on his prey. "Luxord. You deserted Mr Slater, and you deserted me. After we both stuck our neck out for you – I could have insisted that it was with you I discovered my heart-"
"You don't have a-"
"You know I do!" I roared. "Together… we knew the other, we loved the other. But no: not now. Mr Slater respects me. Mr Slater won't give me up. And now… Mr Slater is going to destroy one of the barriers that block us from the other. No hard feelings, Luxord. I spare my feelings for those who can understand them." I turned back to Mr Slater. "Do it, sir."
"No, don't do it, 'Mr Slater."
