Zanna fled to the locker room, ignoring the calls of Coach Clayton to return to the basketball courts. 'What the hell am I?' she asked herself as she changed into her regular clothes, taking her backpack out of the locker and slamming it afterwards. Slipping into the hallways, she crept into one of the girl's rooms and stared at herself in the mirror. She still looked like the same girl; short purple hair, usually in her cerulean eyes, which were wide with some measure of panic. There were some shadows under them, but then she'd had a rough first few days at this school. As she stood there trying to figure out what had happened in gym, the bell rang.
Walking towards the entrance and exit of the school, she saw Dimitri talking to a bandaged Reno. Still kind of embarrassed by what she'd done in gym, she ran ahead into a group of kids. Mordy saw her as she rushed into the crowd, and jogged to catch up to her.
"Hey Zanna, in a hurry or something?" he said, coming up behind her.
"I . . . well, I should go home and get ready for dinner with Isaac and his uncle." She stammered out.
"Really then? Suppose you shouldn't be late for your date." He said, nudging her shoulder with his own.
"I can not believe you just said that." Zanna blushed.
"I say a lot of things people can't believe." He laughed. "Some of them they don't understand."
Zanna laughed and shook her head in disbelief. No wonder Isaac kept him around, he had the best way of getting people to forget their problems. She knew she couldn't tell Isaac what she'd done to Reno though, at least not at dinner. That would be rude, and she had no idea how his uncle would respond to her talking about strange blasts coming from her hands when she got annoyed. In her musings, she didn't see Mordy look behind him at Dimitri and Reno.
"Hey, what happened to Reno, do ya know?" he asked her.
"It's . . . it's hard to explain. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she said, running off again.
Mordy stopped where he stood, wondering why she would be so skittish all of a sudden. He waited for Reno and Dimitri to catch up to where he was.
"What happened to you, dude?"
"That bitch. She's one of us." Reno glared at her retreating back, holding his head with one hand.
"She what?" Mordy stared in shock.
"She's got some sort of energy blast. It threw Reno three quarters of the way across the courts and into the opposing basket's pole." Dimitri told the shorter boy.
"Where's Isaac?" Reno demanded.
"He went home early, something about getting things set up for dinner."
"Fuck! He needs to be warned." Reno said, turning towards Isaac's house as he left the school.
Mordy and Dimitri looked at each other and followed behind their friend.
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The small blonde girl looked around, taking in the changes made to the islands since she'd last been here. Sure, she'd been part of her Other at the time, but this time it was her turn. She'd felt the call from the book she'd sent on, and she was sure her friend would have felt it too. He was always slow to get things done lately, especially since he had to work at separating and becoming younger at the same time. It was part of her requirements when she'd asked the shadow-walker to add one thing to his book. She and the boy had to return in the same form as when they'd be reabsorbed, the moment that a member of the Organization touched the book after his death. That was why she had to be the one to send it on to the woman, anyone else capable of it would have triggered it too early.
Nobody noticed the slight girl as she walked down the streets, headed towards the place the call had come from.
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Zanna hummed happily to herself as she changed, glad to have gotten permission from her mother to go to the dinner. Slipping on a cute tee with a silver heart on it, she looked at the ensemble in her mirror. The slightly faded black flares matched well with the shirt and her black boots. Throwing a black puffy hat on her head, she grabbed the Lexicon without thinking, and headed out, address already memorized.
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Riku glared at the backs of the three boys as they walked away. He didn't like the crowd that Isaac hung out with in the first place, much less when they dropped by unannounced ranting about how they needed to warn him about some girl. He was having a hard enough time coping with the fact that he was raising Zexion, he didn't need to have the added stress of worrying about some new girl, when the one that Isaac seemed to like was going to show up soon.
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Continuing on her search for the schemer's book, Naminé checked in on Roxas through Sora's memories. He'd finally separated himself from the now older man. She'd left the suggestion in his own memories that he should enlist in the local high school once they were called. She may have to as well, if the Organization member had taken the Lexicon anywhere with them tonight. Looking at the two story building she'd stopped in front of, she listened for any sounds of people inside. There was one light on upstairs, but she figured she could get in without bothering whoever was up there.
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Holding the tome to her chest, Zanna nervously knocked on Isaac's door. Briefly, she considered fleeing before the door opened. Isaac smiled at her, backing up to let her inside. He had changed as well, and was wearing a blue and white plaid shirt, open, over a dark blue tank top with dark denim shorts.
"I'm glad you could make it Zanna."
"I was almost worried that I wouldn't. My mother can be a real pain."
"I can imagine. I couldn't say I understand, because Uncle Riku treats me well. Speaking of which, I should introduce you."
Zanna nodded, and put the Lexicon down on the coffee table as Isaac led her to the kitchen, where Riku was still cooking.
"Uncle Riku, this is my friend Zanna."
The silver haired man turned, wooden spoon in hand and grinned at the girl.
"Nice to meet you! I heard . . . well, I don't get much out of Isaac nowadays, but based on what I've seen when he did tell me about you, you must be something special."
Zanna blushed and looked away as Isaac glanced at his guardian with a frown.
"Oh, loosen up Isaac. No room for being so serious on the islands." Riku laughed, turning back to the sauce he was cooking.
"Your uncle sounds like more fun to be around than my mother." Zanna giggled as she and Isaac went back to the living room.
She picked up the book before sitting on the couch. Isaac sat a foot or so away from her.
"Well, you're gaining ground fast in the group." Isaac said, to break the silence.
"Oh not hardly. I mean, yeah, I talk to Mordy and Jericho, and Thane is fun to talk about art with, but I have so many people to still get to know."
"You're still getting respect from most of them, which is more than some people can claim." He looked over at her.
"I guess so . . . I don't think I'll ever get Reno to like me though."
"He's like that with everyone. Ember had a lot more to go through than you are to get him to even talk to her politely. He'll eventually warm up to you." They both chuckled softly.
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Inside the house, Naminé tried to get a further sense of where the Lexicon was. It was harder this close to the site where an Organization member had touched it, but as it was confined to somewhere in the house, she felt confident that she'd find it. Silently climbing the stairs, she noted that there was a strong feel of it both behind a closed door, and further above her. Looking up, she saw a set of trundle stairs in the ceiling. Hoping that it was still in storage, she pulled down the stairs and climbed up, closing them behind her.
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Reno held his throbbing head in his hands, elbows resting on the table as he waited for the others to get to the coffee shop. He'd had Mordy and Dimitri call the others to talk about what he'd recently found out. The shorter boy had given him a painkiller for his head, but it still hurt.
"What happened to you?" Dylan asked as he slid into a chair across from the aching redhead.
"What happened to me is why I called the meeting. When everyone is here, I'll tell you."
"Must be serious."
"Yeah." He drew the word out, irritation staining the word with the implications of pain and anger.
The rest of the group came into the shop in small groups of twos and threes, wondering what was so urgent.
"This new girl, Zanna, has got to go." Reno started.
"Oh, really Reno. Just because she called you a gay pedophile is no reason to get all worked up." Thane smirked, holding Ember on his lap.
"She threw me into a goddamn basketball post with her fucking energy blast, Thane!" Reno yelled, shooting to his feet.
Many of the members shied away from Reno's outburst. Jericho, Thane, and Ember looked the most stunned. Some of the other customers stared at the group, wondering why the skinny teen was yelling.
"Calm down, Reno!" Mordy hissed.
He sat back down, once again holding a hand to his aching head, avoiding the looks of censure from Mordy and Rupert. The group remained silent for a while, considering this new development.
"What were you doing to her?" Jericho asked quietly.
Noticing the sound of Jericho's voice, Dimitri, Devin, and Bastien all looked out the window to see what the moon looked like. They glanced at each other with some alarm as they saw that it was nearing full. He was always at his most dangerous when the moon was full. Some of them called it his 'lunatic' side, some tried to ignore it. It was dangerous, however, for Reno to push him at this late in the lunar cycle. Reno glanced at Dimitri, to get an idea of how careful he needed to be. The larger boy just shook his head slowly.
"I wasn't doing anything different than what I do to any of the girls in gym class."
"You sparked her?" Jericho's eyes narrowed.
"Even that's not enough to write off what she did to me. A little spark does not equal being thrown into a steel post."
"She did not know what Isaac was capable of. It freaked her out when she did find out. How do you think she responded to what she did?"
Reno stared at the younger boy.
"She . . . didn't know that she . . . was like us?"
"No." he said, with what seemed like waning patience.
"I think we're all surprised." Thane offered.
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"Hey, come on in and eat." Riku called from the dining area in the kitchen.
Zanna and Isaac stood and went into the kitchen, with Zanna still carrying the tome. She set it to the side of her plate as she sat, not noticing Riku looking at it with some curiosity. The older man didn't say anything about the book though, and served the parmesan chicken while making small talk. The conversation ranged through school, family, and friends, among other things before Riku finally had to ask about the book that she'd brought.
"So, you like old books or something?" he asked, nodding at the tome next to her.
"Oh, I found this in my attic. It's apparently left over from my mom. Too bad I never knew her. It kind of . . . tingled or something when I picked it up."
"Tingled?" Isaac asked dubiously.
"Yeah, it's hard to explain exactly. I haven't yet tried to read it, but it's such a nice looking book. I thought it would be nice to share with another bibliophile."
"May I look at it?" the older man asked, returning from putting the plates in the sink.
"Sure thing."
Zanna handed the book to him, noting that it got heavier as he touched it. Since the previous incidents of the strange power hum and it's uncanny lightness for it's size, she didn't bother trying to figure out the whys of the book's oddities. Riku didn't try opening it, already worried that it was the infamous Lexicon that may just awaken Zexion's memories in Isaac, but looking at the cover alone told him enough. If this wasn't the real thing, it was a highly convincing copy. He could only hope that it was a copy. Knowing that asking Zanna about the book would give Isaac more hints as to who he was, so he kept his mouth shut.
"It is a very nicely bound book, you should keep an eye on it. Someone might think it's something like the sixth Organization member's Lexicon and steal it from you." He said, handing it back to her.
"Huh, never thought of that. They started talking about the Organization in history today. Something about some of the Turks from another world being the others of some of them or some such. I've heard of the other worlds that some people went to back then, but other than that . . ." she drifted off.
"Ah yeah, the Turks. They never became heartless, nor did they even come to this world. Only Cloud, Leon, and that group did." Riku laughed "I should know, I met them. Everyone thought Sephiroth was my father."
"Sephawhatnow?"
"Sephiroth." Isaac answered for the man. "He was one of Cloud's main antagonists on their world, and he continued here. Much like my uncle, he's got silver hair and teal eyes. That I think, is the only reason they called him my uncle's father." He laughed shortly.
Isaac could not deny that he wanted to read through the book that Zanna had brought. Something about it drew him to it, as though he felt it should be his. He didn't want to frighten her away again by demanding it though, there were too many weird coincidences surrounding her that needed clearing up. He also couldn't ignore the attraction he had to her, even if he refrained from showing it. It kept him in control, which is where he liked to be. It always seemed that his luck ran thin when he wasn't in control.
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Finding the box that she'd sent to Ais' sister, Naminé opened it to find the contents had been shuffled about, and that the Lexicon had been removed. Sighing softly, she went back to the trundle stairs and listened for a minute before lowering them slowly. It was always harder to control the sound of something falling than something being brought down to your level. Looking around, she saw that the person inside hadn't noticed the stairs coming down on their own, and descended softly. After putting the stairs back in place, the young Nobody silently entered the closed room that she'd felt the mark of the Lexicon coming from. It was obviously the room of an artist, with drawings pinned to the walls, and bookshelves crammed with sketchpads and art theory books. There was also a bookshelf full of an eclectic assortment of books.
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"Thank you for a wonderful meal, and a lovely time Mr. Riku." Zanna smiled as both Riku and Isaac walked her to the door.
"Just Riku is fine, unless you want to call me uncle too." The man laughed.
"Oh, but what would Isaac say if I were to start calling you uncle too?" she laughed, forgetting to hide the slight blush.
Isaac just put his hand to his face and shook his head, causing Riku to laugh some more and Zanna to giggle. Waving one last time, she told Isaac that she'd be sure to bring the book with her to school tomorrow, so he could have a chance to look at it. As discreet as he'd thought he'd been, she'd noticed him eyeing her book with interest. The hand in front of Isaac's face dropped suddenly, and she saw a bit of surprise in his visible eye, and a hint of a blush. She managed to calmly grin and walk off, even though she was squealing happily inside her mind at getting a blush out of the boy.
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Mordy walked with Dimitri away from the coffee shop where they had all met up to talk about the incident with Zanna and Reno in gym.
"So now what? Isaac is going to be pretty upset that he wasn't the first to know about it." The shorter boy started.
"I think not being the one to be thrown against steel posts would make up for it pretty well."
"Good point. But he'll need to know soon. We can only hope that he comes in earlier than she does. Heck, I'll even come in early just to tell him if I gotta."
"Such a sacrifice you make." Dimitri said as he looked at his friend.
"Very funny." Mordy glared at him.
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Naminé looked up as she heard the door open.
"Who are you and what are you doing going through my stuff?" Zanna asked, putting the Lexicon on her nightstand.
"You have something of mine in that book." The blond murmured, getting up from where she'd been kneeling on the floor.
"What? This book is from my mother, how could there be something of yours in here?"
"It's a long story, and it involves the Organization. I sent your mother that book. Inside it is one of my sketchbooks that has important information."
"No way, you're too young. You can't have sent my mom this book. And what does this book have to do with the Organization?"
"You haven't yet awakened then, Naxzan. It won't be long. Xemnas is already plotting. You have to find the others, they'll help you understand. Or more accurately, remember."
Opening the front cover of the Lexicon, the blonde removed a sketchbook from the pages and disappeared into what looked like a swirling black portal. Zanna stared blankly at the portal as it shrank into nothingness before passing out onto her bed.
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The next morning, Isaac saw a very tired looking Mordy waiting for him with Dimitri at the front of the school.
"You're here earlier than usual." He commented, amused.
"There's something you gotta know about your girl dude." Mordy yawned "I can sleep in homeroom to make up for it. She's like us."
"Like . . . us?"
"She has some manner of energy blast – it threw Reno against a basketball post yesterday." Dimitri told him.
"An energy blast? Like Naxzan's was rumored to be?"
"It was purple, and fairly powerful. She could probably hold her own against any of us." The larger boy confirmed.
Zanna did not notice the small group talking in front of the school, as she was trying to read the Lexicon while she walked. Every now and then, something would twinge in her head, and some little detail would occur to her, like a memory, but not. At one point, she stopped nearby them, trying to connect the link that teased her on the outskirts of her memory.
"No, not . . . it's . . . zi . . . ugh." She put her hand to her head, then glanced over at the group, who was watching her.
"Holy-" she put her hand over her mouth.
"What?" the three boys asked her at the same time.
"Um . . . you should try purple streaks." She said, pointing at Mordy before fleeing to homeroom.
Mordy and Dimitri looked at each other, confused, as Isaac watched her run off with the book. Shrugging, the short black haired boy pulled the long ponytail over his shoulder to look at it.
"You think?" Dimitri just shrugged. "Yeah, I'll give it a shot. I do like purple anyways."
Isaac just followed after the girl, intent on finding out what she'd been trying to figure out. Once he caught sight of her, he entered her mind to see if he could find out that way. What he saw surprised him. The subconscious blocks that he'd seen before were cracking, and she was trying to break through them on her own. Withdrawing from her mind, he caught up to her.
"Are you okay, Zanna?" he asked.
"Um, yeah. Well, maybe. Do you know of any blonde girls dressed in white that disappear through spiky black portal things?"
"If it were a few decades ago, I'd say it was Naminé, but she's since been reabsorbed into her Other, who's aged since then. She shouldn't be a young girl, even if she's separated again."
"Whoever she was, she said something about being around the right people would help me remember something. Also that someone named Xemnas is plotting, that I had one of her sketchbooks, and she called me Naxzan."
"That's a lot to dump on someone." He said, writing rapidly in his journal.
He couldn't believe that someone remarkably like Naminé had contacted her, and that Mordy's connection of Zanna to Naxzan had apparently occurred to another person. Unless . . . maybe she was Naxzan reborn? And if she was, who were the other members? As if he didn't have enough to figure out about the girl, another shows up and complicates things more. And even if the girl was the fourteenth member reborn, it would raise up more questions than it answered.
"Yeah. I figured I might be able to understand what she meant if I read this book, but it's hard to understand. I think it's in some sort of code sometimes, but others I can read it just fine. And it seems to be triggering something in my memories."
"Oh, is that what you were trying to figure out earlier?"
"No, it's something . . . ugh . . ." she put her hand to her head again "it has something to do with the name I called Reno. There's something there, but I can't get at it." She paused, and interrupted just as Isaac was about to say something. "Wait, you said you could help with subconscious blocks, right? Maybe that's something you could help me with."
Zanna dragged her desk back towards the group's area in homeroom. Settling it next to Mordy's seat, she continued her conversation with Isaac. At this point, Mordy's desk was the only one between hers and Isaac's.
"I can try, but I sometimes can't get in to hidden parts of people's minds, to be honest." He told her, sitting in Mordy's seat so that he'd be closer and access would be easier.
Turning to face her, he probed into her mind, headed for the subconscious blocks that he'd sensed earlier. Seeing his friend in his seat, Mordy just shrugged and fell asleep in Isaac's seat as the older teen worked on getting into Zanna's subconscious mind. As the rest of the group in that class showed up, they looked at the pair oddly, wondering what exactly they were doing. Even through their wondering, they knew not to interrupt the junior when he was in the middle of something that seemed as intense as what he was doing, whatever it was. Just before the bell rang, Isaac withdrew from Zanna's mind.
"I tried what I could, but everything else will have to come naturally. I think there are some truly interesting things hidden in there though. Perhaps even some answers to questions I have."
"Speaking of questions, what's a Xigbar?"
Isaac stared at her in shock for a few seconds, then slowly started laughing. He hadn't intended to laugh at her question, as her knowledge of the Organization was minimal at best, but the implications that one of the members was a thing as opposed to a person was positively hilarious to him. Granted, Xigbar was one of the stranger members, but it was still hilarious thinking of him as an it. As he continued laughing, more of the group looked at him oddly. In all their years of knowing him, which was a lot since they'd grown up with him, they'd never seen him laugh so hard. Thane and Jericho grinned, the latter waking up Mordy to see how Zanna had affected their sometimes all too serious friend. Thane flashed a thumbs up to her over his friend's shoulder.
"I'll have to tell you in art class." He said, still laughing as he walked off to his next class.
