Tainted But Beautiful

Part 3: The Renegades

21. History

Pairings: AkuZeku, Zemyx, AkuRoku, AxDem, minor onesided VexZex, XemSaix

Rated: M

Warnings: Vampires, vampires, vampires...uh, yaoi, AU-ish-ness, abuse, noncon, rape, graphic scenes, character death, OVERALL WEIRDNESS.

Summary: Axel is a powerful vampire slayer who's captured Zexion, a vampire, as his pet. What Axel doesn't bargain on is Demyx, his former student, developing a strong attraction to Zexion...

Notes: I'm back, and I had a smash of a time in NYC! I especially loved all the Broadway plays, but hell, every single bit of the experience was awesome.

I did miss you wonderful readers, though, and so that's why I'm rewarding your patience with a new chapter of Tainted But Beautiful. We're into the third and final part, here. This is a surprisingly short chapter, but it at least has the explanation for DiZ (which I'm suprisingly proud of). And after that explanation you can all rest easy because there won't be any more for a while. All right, I lied...we have some concerning Zexion coming up. But not immediately!

So without further ado, let's see if my skills at exposition through dialogue have gotten any better. That is, commence chapter twenty-one!

Demyx didn't know how long he and Zexion waited in the sitting room, growing increasingly uncomfortable as they sat opposite DiZ and the only other resident of the manor (besides the servants), a young blonde girl named Namine. Namine seemed excessively shy, as she refused to meet their gazes but focused her attention on the sketchbook clasped in her hands. And DiZ...DiZ just kept staring at them with disturbingly emotionless amber eyes. Demyx squirmed under the mysterious man's stare, feeling like a frog on a dissection table.

So he settled for staring at the portraits on the opposite wall. There were many of them in the sitting room, all in gloomy oil paints and depicting either stern-faced eighteenth-century noblemen or gothic scenes of women swooning in the clutches of white-skinned vampires. Rather disturbing, but much less disturbing than DiZ's stare, Demyx told himself.

He was reassured by one factor only--Zexion's hand, tightly clenching his own. The incubus was sitting in the loveseat beside Demyx, one leg neatly folded over the other and resolutely meeting DiZ's stare. Every time Demyx's nerves grew too much, he'd just give Zexion's comfortingly cool hand a squeeze, and remind himself that he wasn't in this alone.

By now, though, he'd become increasingly disgruntled--not with himself, or Zexion, or DiZ or Namine or the ugly paintings, but--with Axel.

Just how long is that bastard taking to wake up, anyway?

When Demyx had awoken with Zexion by his side, he'd drawn open the curtain and seen the sun high in the sky--at least ten in the morning. He'd found a note on the nightstand, telling him and Zexion to head to the sitting room when they were ready--there he'd explain everything. Demyx had woken Zexion, the two had gotten dressed, and followed DiZ's instructions.

When they'd arrived, DiZ explained that he wouldn't start talking until Axel and Roxas joined them. Hence, they'd sat and begun this dreadful waiting game.

It was past noon and Axel still wasn't here. Demyx couldn't believe that anyone could sleep that long. Sure, Axel had been through a lot--but, Demyx thought defensively, he and Zexion had been through even more. All Axel had done was die and come back to life, yet he was snoozing like Sleeping Beauty long after the kindap-victim Demyx and the victim-of-everything Zexion had awoken.

Yesterday, Demyx had been so overwhelmed that he wasn't in a mood to receive any more revelations. Now, though, after a restful sleep and a good meal, he felt refreshed enough to face anything. Including the truth. He was impatient for answers, especailly those concerning DiZ. Who was he? What had he done yesterday? Did he have some connection to Xemnas? Was he dangerous? An ally? Who was Namine? Where were they? What did he want with them? Why did he have such weird fashion sense?

All right, maybe not the last question...

"Zexy..." hissed Demyx surreptitiously to Zexion.

Zexion jumped as if someone had lit a fire beneath his seat; after all, Demyx hadn't spoken to him at all before. "What is it?" he mumbled out of the side of his mouth.

"Uh..." whispered Demyx back, suddenly feeling very self conscious, whispering secrets to Zexion while two others were watching. "Um...what's taking Axel? I mean, it's not like he went through a lot..."

"He died and came back to life," replied Zexion, still in that toneless mumble. "I'd say that would take quite a bit out of anyone, wouldn't you agree?"

Well...Demyx had to admit that did make sense.

Still, it didn't do anything for his impatience. Just before he felt like getting up and kicking over objects and maybe even ripping paintings from the walls out of frustration (or perhaps just for something to do), the door to the sitting room clicked open--and Axel stepped in.

Demyx was startled by how--different--the older slayer appeared. Before, he'd sauntered with such confidence, smirked like he knew every secret in the world and how to exploit them. Now, he was walking, which rather broke Demyx's brain, because he realized he'd never seen Axel walking for real before, in such precise and measured steps. Instead of cut across by a smirk, Axel's face was flat and serious; even the ever-present teasing light to his green eyes had vanished. Nor did he sweep his eyes around inquisitively, surveying the scene spread before him and searching for an advantage to exploit; he kept his gaze focused, directed in a single point of purpose at DiZ.

Axel had changed too, Demyx realized. He, too, had matured.

Once again, Demyx wasn't sure if he liked this new Axel or not.

Axel was followed by Roxas, his steps so light against the carpet that Demyx hadn't heard them. He kept his head down, so Demyx couldn't see his face, but something seemed different about him, too. Well, of course he's different, he's been half-made or whatever! He could see that in Roxas' new unearthly pallidness, in the claws at the tips of his fingers, in his noiseless gait. But more than anything...Roxas seemed more solemn, carrying around a heavier air. Much like Axel.

He's changed too. We all have changed, after everything that happened to us. For better or worse, I can't say. All I know is that we're different.

"So? Don't hold back. Tell us," said Axel coldly.

"Have a seat first," said DiZ. "Then I will tell you, Axel La Monte."

"Tch." Axel twitched, and for a moment Demyx thought he was going to be his usual contrary self and refuse, but Axel then stepped into the room and hurled himself into the couch perpendicular to the loveseat. Roxas quickly followed and sat soundlessly beside Axel.

"So." Zexion spoke. "Are you going to answer our questions?"

"What questions do you have?" said DiZ, his rich voice rumbling through the room.

"How about," said Axel, "for starters, who the hell are you?"

"I do not believe that is your real name," said Zexion.

"Do you now?" DiZ blinked for the first time; Demyx responded with a startled blink of his own. "But I suppose that's natural...a vampire would understand about hidden names."

"Can you stop talking in riddles and cut to the fucking chase?" growled Axel.

Demyx tensed; this DiZ man was such a foreign entity he didn't know how he'd react to being insulted. Would he--kill--Axel? It was more than clear that DiZ had the power to, after all... And as much of a bastard as Axel could be at times, Demyx didn't want him to die just because he wouldn't stop being rude!

But hey, he can just come back to life... thought an irreverent part of the slayer.

All of Demyx's worrying was for naught, though, as DiZ didn't seem to care at all about Axel's rude tone. He said, calmly as ever, "Certainly. You are right, Zexion, that my real name is not DiZ. I am...or rather, I was...once known as Ansem the Wise."

Demyx was quite sure his jaw had fallen open in surprise. Axel reacted in just as extreme a manner, hurling himself back against the couch and unleashing a peal of derisive laughter.

Zexion looked grouchy. "I assume that name has something to do with vampire slayers?"

"Yeah, sure," said Axel, while a worried-looking Roxas helped steady him. "Ansem the Wise was once the Grand Master of the Slayer Society. Like, two hundred years ago. He was known for being one of the best. Served for some twenty years...but he's dead. I mean, not even 'disappeared so they assumed he died' dead. Like, 'died and held a funeral and everything' dead. Got it memorized?"

Demyx winced. Not that phrase again...

But he knew. Of course he knew who Ansem the Wise was. He was the first name every student slayer learned--the great Grand Master who had helped institutionalize vampire slaying, bringing together all the disparate families, hunters-for-hire, and syndicates into a single Society. He'd taught individualistic slayers how to work together in teams, and thus increase the amount of vampires they killed. In a way, Ansem the Wise had been the first to introduce the concept of slayers killing vampires not for personal prestige or as a competition, but for the greater good of humanity.

"You can't be him," Axel was saying, glaring at DiZ. "He's dead."

"So were you, as I recall," said DiZ dryly. "And you believed Xemnas to be dead."

A strange note of pain entered his voice when he said Xemnas's name, but it vanished as soon as Demyx heard it, like frost disappearing under the rising sun. Zexion seemed to have noticed it too, because he tensed and clutched Demyx's hand even more tightly.

Not that Demyx minded...

"But you had a funeral--" Axel protested. "You have a grave--"

"There is nothing buried in the grave," said DiZ. "I faked my demise."

"Huh? Why?" yelled Axel. "And why are you still alive now? I mean, it's been two hundred years!"

DiZ sighed, a weary sound that seemed to contain the hardship of centuries. Demyx trembled hearing it, and tightened his grip on Zexion's hand. The incubus responded with an encouraging squeeze.

"It is...a complicated story," sighed DiZ. "There are facets to it that not even I understand. Yet I believe that after two hundred years spent piecing together information, watching and waiting, always waiting...I have been able to fill in most of the gaps to form a relatively plausible history."

Axel twitched, looking impatient. Demyx was starting to become impatient too--all this DiZ person was doing was hedging! He wanted to know, this instant; he couldn't handle the curiosity anymore, blazing hot like the sun in his chest.

"You must understand that two hundred years ago, at the height of my leadership," said DiZ--Ansem the Wise?--, "vampire slayers were far better organized and had far more of an identifiable hierarchy than they do nowadays. We had a system of assigning young slayers mentors from outside their family. Similar, I suppose, to the way that you mentored Demyx."

He nodded at Demyx, who flushed for some reason, feeling embarrassed at being under DiZ's scrutiny.

"Although we did try to ensure that there was more than a three year age difference between teacher and student..." continued DiZ. "As I aged, much discussion abounded as to who was going to be my student. He would have to be a slayer of utmost potential, of course, and from an appropriately high-ranking family..."

Zexion said, his voice tight and strained, clinging even tighter to Demyx's hand, "Xemnas."

Demyx jerked, and Axel swore out loud, while Roxas's eyes widened. DiZ seemed unperturbed by their reactions, though Namine shuffled a little bit backwards, looking nervous.

"You are correct," said DiZ flatly. "Xemnas came to me at the age of fourteen, scion of an Algerian family and already one of the more talented vampire slayers in the Society. I did not know, initially, that his abilities came from vampiric blood. His family had kept it a careful secret, knowing that they would most likely be punished for committing such an action. As they should have."

A darker, almost vengeful, note entered his voice with the last sentence. Demyx shuddered hearing that heavy dark emotion, even though he knew it wasn't aimed at him; it was the closest he'd heard DiZ getting to angry.

"Of course, I was not aware...how could I have been? No one could conceive of such a thing. I just believed Xemnas to be exceptionally talented. He was a quick learner, always eager to prove his worth. He absorbed my lessons like a sponge and stayed up late in the nights, long past when the last lamps died, reading slayer histories and manuals. But he was always best at the physical aspect of slaying. By the age of eighteen, he'd slain more vampires than many accomplished slayers had.

"Xemnas left my tutelage at the age of twenty-one, but I continued to follow his progress. I--I did so many things for him..." The note of pain returned to DiZ's voice, causing Demyx's heart to tremble in sympathy. "Looking back, I can hardly believe it. I pulled so many strings, eased so many restrictions--I helped raise him to his high position. By the time he was twenty-five, largely because of my recommendation, Xemnas was made a master slayer."

DiZ stared to the side, his robe shifting around him. The abjectness of his pose, the way he slumped his shoulders, stirred the stroke of a memory in Demyx--one of his own grandfather, slumping in his favorite rocking chair in the tenement kitchen and patting the five-year-old Demyx on the head, sighing about everything he'd lost, the chances he'd missed.

Demyx blinked hard and tried to swallow past the restriction in his throat. Zexion gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

After an uncomfortably long pause in which silence hung like a dust-laden shroud in the room, DiZ resumed his tale. "We were more than teacher and student. We were--we were the closest of friends. I had such high hopes for him. I even--I even told him that he could be Grand Master someday. What a fool I was..."

"Then Xemnas disappeared," said Zexion, his tone perfectly flat and emotionless. "The other slayers assumed he was dead, but you..."

"I had already begun to suspect something was wrong with him in the year leading up to his supposed death," said DiZ. "How his eyes would sometimes acquire a feral light...how he flinched from strong sunlight...how he took care to avoid smelling blood. I suspected, but did not know exactly what--until the day after his 'death', his parents approached me. They flung themselves at my feet, begged for forgiveness...and then they explained to me what they had done."

The vengefulness had reentered his voice, and he sat up straighter, his back rigid as a wall. Demyx could no longer connect the fierce, red-wrapped figure before him with the sad old man his grandfather had been.

"I didn't know what to do with them--nothing like this had ever happened in the history of vampire slaying. Their crime was one deserving of execution. Instead, I forced them to travel with me across Europe, searching for Xemnas. We found him in St. Petersburg, having just taken control of the Russian Coven. Undeniably a vampire."

"You fought him?" said Axel, his eyes wide.

DiZ nodded. "The three of us battled against Xemnas--no, the monster that Xemnas had become. He had the full force of a coven behind him, but insisted on facing us alone--his parents and his mentor. Even then, he was...he was too much. He slaughtered his mother first. Then his father. All the while, he taunted them for turning him into what he was now. Then, only I was left...

"We fought for the entire night. It was a close one--I had not become Grand Master of the Slayer Society for no reason. Yet I had mentored him, taught him everything he knew, and he was younger and more vicious than me. His transformation had also made him more powerful than he had been previously. He...he defeated me. Yet he did not kill me. Oh, how I begged him to do the deed--to let me die in repetence for letting him become this monster.

"But he chose to leave me alive. I still do not know why. It is the one thing he has ever done for me that I am thankful for. At the time, of course, I wished to die myself. I crawled through the blood of his parents, searching for a weapon with which to kill myself--but when I found his father's blood-stained knife, I could not bring myself to end my life. How could I, when Xemnas was still alive and only growing more powerful? I was the only one who could stop him. It was...my duty. So instead of stabbing my heart with the blade, I ran it over the palm of my hand, let the blood of Xemnas's parents mingle with my own."

"Huh? What?" Axel's eyebrows were twitching. "Why?"

Those three words summed up perfectly how Demyx was feeling.

DiZ didn't seem perturbed. "I did not know why I did it, at the moment. I believe it was because...well... I despised Xemnas's parents for letting their ambition create a monster, but I had been friends with them once. And no one deserved to die like that--their throats torn open by their own child. It was the best way I could avenge their deaths, letting their blood cycle through my veins, giving me their strength. Adding their griffin's blood to my sphinx blood. It was a dangerous gamble, and I remained horribly sick for days as my body adjusted to the new blood--but when it was all over, I found I had all the abilities that they had once had.

"That gave me an idea--but one I could not carry out as I was, the Grand Master and a public figure. So I staged my death. It was not hard--by slayer standards I was positively elderly at fifty-five. After my funeral, I retreated to the vast frontier that was the United States in those days. There, I could experiment in peace."

"Experiment..." Zexion let out a sharp intake of breath.

"You have the blood of a lot of kinds of--of those creatures in you? Don't you?" said Roxas, his eyes wide. DiZ nodded stiffly.

"It was difficult, tracking down sources of mythical blood--I had to throw aside the ethics that had guided me as Grand Master to lie, cheat, and bribe my way to blood. But I had to do it. I reasoned that if Xemnas's strength came from his blood, then I would become even more powerful using many different sources of blood. I gave myself a phoenix's longevity--" He smiled bitterly at Axel "A dragon's strength, a unicorn's fleetness, a fairy's magic, a manticore's ferocity, a lich's command of darkness..."

"That's not possible," said Axel. "You'd die if you mingled so many different kinds of blood in your body."

"Yet I am here, speaking to you," said DiZ, a slight sardonic lilt to his voice. "You are right, though, that it has not been easy on me. Why do you think I keep my face hidden? The experimentation has--has mutilated me. You would see a monster beneath the mask. I had to become a monster to defeat a monster. To immerse myself in darkness so I could destroy that very darkness. That is why I shed my old name and became DiZ. Darkness in Zero."

The mouth visible through the bandages twitched up in a smirk that didn't reach his eyes. Demyx's heart hammered; he couldn't think of anything to say. This was just--so much. Over the past two days, he'd learned more than he ever had in his lifetime, and it was making his head spin.

"So...um..." He struggled to piece together the information he'd just learned. "You've been--all this time--you've been working in the background? Working against, um, Xemnas and his bunch?"

"Not as actively as I would wish," said DiZ, shaking his head. "Mostly, I have been watching and quietly taking stock of Xemnas's activities. I cannot move against him without followers or resources, neither of which I had until recently."

He glanced at Namine--Demyx blinked in surprise at the emotion in that glance. Not DiZ's earlier harshness or bitterness, but something almost tender. Like the way Demyx's grandfather had often glanced at him...

Why the hell am I suddenly remembering all this? I thought--I thought I'd left it all behind, that night--

"Recently, I chanced upon this manor--the residence of my last remaining descendants," said DiZ.

Namine flushed, looking a bit embarrassed, but managed a nod. Demyx stared at her, bug-eyed, unable to see any resemblance between her and the solemn red-robed man standing beside her. Then again, DiZ had said he'd mutilated himself beyond recognition...and there were two hundred years separating them.

"Namine's parents were killed two years ago by a vampire attack," DiZ went on. "I moved in then, and have since made it the base of my operations."

"Some operations," said Axel, his tone cutting. "So you've got a little girl as your only follower and some manor as your base. Obviously, you're prepared to take on Xemnas no problem."

Once again, Demyx felt the urge to warn Axel to act a little more politely, but when DiZ spoke, he didn't sound perturbed at all. "I am aware of that."

"DiZ has been spending all his time searching for people he thinks will help him." Namine spoke for the first time, startling Demyx. "It hasn't been easy..."

"I needed slayers that were not only strong but unorthodox as well," explained DiZ. "Most slayers cannot fathom that so many covens would aggregate under the leadership of a single vampire. That isn't the way they were taught covens worked."

"Covens are supposed to be entirely independent and constantly in competition," said Axel, reciting a lesson familiar to Demyx.

Zexion coughed behind his hand, though Demyx suspected that was to hide a laugh.

"As Zexion can attest, that has not been true for at least two hundred years," said DiZ. "Most slayers cannot conceive of such a thing, however. Nor would they like knowing that Xemnas was once a slayer as well--or even more shockingly, the fact that he would ally with werewolves. I watched, I waited, I bided my time until I could find enough slayers who met my requirements..."

He looked up and cast a bitter smile to the four assembled vampires and slayers. "I did not imagine, of course, that two of you would be vampires."

Roxas convulsed and buried himself deeper into the couch with those words; Axel rested a hand on his shoulder and glared at DiZ.

"Are you trying to say you want us to--to fight in your fucking holy war?"

Only Axel would use the words "fucking" and "holy" in such close proximity, thought Demyx with grim good humor. The humor slipped away, however, quick as the sun disappearing behind a cloud. He couldn't think sardonic thoughts when there was so much tension humming through the air, so much he could have choked on it. What Axel had said cut to the heart of the matter--what was going to happen to them from now on.

DiZ said, his eyes hard, "You do not have to if you do not want to--but let me ask you this, Axel: do you want to see Xemnas defeated?"

Axel growled and slouched in the couch, averting his eyes and mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like "cough blackmail cough". Roxas, however, sat up straighter, resolve flashing in his blue eyes, and said in a voice so fierce Demyx didn't reocgnize it for an instant:

"Of course we want to defeat him. There's nothing--nothing--I want more."

DiZ blinked, looking surprised, but when he spoke he sounded calm as ever. "Well. What do you have to say to that, Axel?"

Axel's mouth twisted; he looked like he was going to say "Shove it up your ass," but instead growled, "All right, all right...I do want to kill that bastard anyway--but I'm not doing it for you, got it memorized?"

"Yes," said DiZ calmly. "You are doing it for Roxas and Demyx."

"I didn't--" sputtered Axel.

DiZ talked over Axel. "That is what especially makes you--all of you--so remarkable. You are...selfless." Another bitter smile convulsed across his face. "Unlike me. I will not dance around it--I only want revenge for my own selfish reasons. But you...you fight not for yourselves. Not for glory. But for each other."

Demyx felt his face grow hot; it was just so odd being praised by--by Ansem the Wise of all people! But he thought that what DiZ was saying felt right. Hadn't he stood up to Xemnas to protect Zexion? And hadn't Axel and Roxas returned the favor for him? And Zexion...

Zexion had done so much, all for Demyx's sake. He tightened his grip on the incubus's hand, and drew him closer. Zexion stiffened at first, but the leaned into the gesture, resting his head on Demyx's shoulder.

"And you, especially, Zexion."

Demyx jumped when he heard DiZ addressing Zexion. The vampire blinked, pulling away from Zexion and facing DiZ. "Yes?" he said in a tone of polite disinterest, though it held a slight edge.

"I have--until I met you, I had never thought of turning to a vampire for an ally," said DiZ. "After all, I am a vampire slayer. But you, a mere incubus, stood up to the Superior of the Coven of Thirteen. I have never witnessed such a sight before. I won't easily forget it."

Zexion didn't respond to this, but it seemed to Demyx that he held his head a little higher.

DiZ continued, his tone becoming gentler, "It must have been impossibly difficult--I know how tight the bonds of coven loyalty can be--"

"It was not," said Zexion, his voice quiet as a wingbeat. "I did what was necessary. For Demyx."

A little giddy sensation, like a newborn butterfly, leapt up Demyx's stomach. He'd never have imagined Zexion to say anything like that, especially when Zexion continued to deny that their relationship wasn't romantic. But it wasn't love Zexion was speaking with. It was something different, stronger. More real.

Once, during one of the periodic gathering of vampire slayers which Axel used to always take him to, Demyx had witnessed two elderly (that is, upwards of forty) slayers, one covered with scars and the other missing a leg, greeting each other with an embrace and exulted laughter. Back then, when he'd seen it, he'd felt a tremor of emotion he hadn't understand then--but understood now. It'd been camaraderie, the bond between two veteran soldiers who'd seen every battle together, that had driven them to such an emotional reunion.

He'd achieved something similar with Zexion.

DiZ laughed, astonishing Demyx--he almost fell off the couch but Zexion caught him in time. Still, DiZ had never laughed before and his laugh was creepy as hell. It sounded like the way Demyx had always imagined Jack the Ripper to laugh: a serial killer laugh.

Mercifully, DiZ terminated his laugh afer only a few peals. He said, facing Zexion, "Marvelous. I don't think you quite understand how special you truly are, Zexion."

"Do not talk down to me." Demyx had to admire Zexion's daring--his and Axel's both. Demyx certainly would never have the nerve to talk back to Ansem the Wise like that!

DiZ smiled slightly, but much to Demyx's relief didn't laugh. He said, "You are sensitive to being patronized?"

"For obvious reasons," said Zexion icily.

Axel cleared his throat; all eyes whipped in his direction. He sprawled like a lion against the couch, glaring a challenge at DiZ. "You know, why don't we stop waffling around and cut to the chase?"

Axel was pretty good at this, Demyx thought, which didn't make sense since Axel was a person who tended to walk gingerly around unpleasant truths like landmines. Like that time, the time two years ago when he and Demyx had first--

Demyx squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the memory, and tightened his grip on Zexion's hand.

"Of course," said DiZ. Demyx started wondering if anything would ever set him off. "You are right that I am asking the four of you to fight against Xemnas--but not for me. You said it yourselves: You all want him defeated. All I am asking, then, is for you to join with me in it."

He continued, his eyes flashing. "You do not have to give an answer immediately. I know you're all overwhelmed by everything that has happened to you."

I'll say, Demyx thought, but wasn't flippant enough to say it out loud.

"Your point being?" said Zexion.

"All of you may rest in the manor," said DiZ, "until you feel ready to make a decision. Once you do, we must act quickly--but right now I am not in a hurry."

But there was an edge, an undercurrent to everything he said, to the way he moved, like the dim halo of light around a solar eclipse. He was impatient, and though he would never let it, he did want them to make a decision in the affirmative as fast as possible, so he could finally move ahead with his two-hundred-year-old grudge and take down his turncoat student...

Still, thought Demyx sourly, DiZ had waited for two hundred years. Surely he could wait a few days more!

Because even after the day spent resting, he still didn't feel well enough to strap on his weapons and go out and face Xemnas and the whole damned Coven of Thirteen. His old injuries, even if they'd been tended to, were still aching, and his head was spinning from learning all this new information. Ansem the Wise...alive...mutilated...living for revenge... He needed another day--at least--to process it.

Axel (who seemed to be making the decisions for all of them...) seemed to agree. "I think that'd be wise. We need..."

For some reason, he and Roxas exchanged glances, before Axel continued. "...time."

Zexion jerked his head in a nod, and Demyx said, "Yeah...give us a bit."

"Very well, then," said DiZ, standing, his robe pooling around him like a bloody waterfall. "Go, then. I have--business to take care of."

Demyx almost wanted to say something sarcastic about how DiZ didn't seem to have anything to do except brood about revenge in the manor, and Axel's mouth moved as if he was going to voice a snide comment, but he seemed to think the better of it after glancing at DiZ. Demyx could understand why. There was a sort of horrid weariness to the way the man was standing; he reminded Demyx of a statue weathered and overgrown with moss, or the rusted and barnacle-crusted hull of a decommissioned battleship. Someone ancient and tired, yet undefeated.

"Go," he said again, his voice quiet.

Namine stood to join his side, clutching her sketchbook to her chest and keeping her eyes averted. Still, the stiff set of her shoulders seemed to suggest what DiZ had stated--that Demyx, Zexion, Axel and Roxas had best get out as soon as possible.

Demyx cast one last glance at the two of them, the old man and the girl, before following Zexion out of the room. His heart and head both felt heavy, as if they'd been stuffed with stones. He could understand, now, when people said that knowledge hurt.

But it's better to know and hurt, than to not know and be happy, he thought grimly.

"DiZ..." said Namine quietly after the door shut behind Roxas, returning the sitting room to the silence that usually hung thick as dust over the manor. "Do you...do you really think they'll--they're the ones?"

"If they are not, then who else could be?" said DiZ, shaking his head in the curious resigned way that always caused pity to tighten in Namine's chest. He stepped forward to examine the largest portrait on the wall--one that Namine had sat in front of for days on end, trying slavishly to reproduce. Her parents, hand in hand, smiling. It had been commissioned only days before their deaths, and was the last--and therefore fondest--memory she had of them.

DiZ rested a gloved hand tenderly on the edge of the painting's gilt frame. He hadn't known her parents well, having spent only a week with them before their deaths, but Namine knew that their memory weighed heavily on him. Like the memory of what he'd done with Xemnas, and the memories of the other vampire slayers he'd tutored in the two hundred years since only to watch them fail.

She wondered, sometimes, how he could live like he did, constantly haunted like a fugitive by memories acquired over two long, painful centuries. He had to be stronger than anyone to do it.

"Truthfully..." sighed DiZ, gazing at her parents' shining painted smiles. "Truthfully, Namine, I have grown tired of waiting. So tired...so you see, to me, it does not matter if they are the right ones."

He spun to face the door, his cloak swinging in a curtain of red. Folding his arms, he said, "They must be the right ones. They have no choice."

Namine nodded; she could understand where he was going from, even if she didn't like it. After all--they were all so young. That boy, Roxas, he couldn't be any older than her and none of them seemed old enough to be given this sort of responsibility. They were being forced to fight a grown man's war, for the sake of his grudge.

But what else could she do? She couldn't help DiZ; her own skills were lackluster, since her parents had believed more in her living a happy life than in following their footsteps. Like it or not, there wasn't a thing she could do for them.

DiZ's revenge was close, and he wouldn't let anyone's hesitation stop him now.

I don't know if anyone will catch it, but Namine's parents are supposed to be Sora and Kairi. XD I know, but come on, canonly, she basically is like their messed-up love child. No, I do not have a problem with SoKai, so long as you throw Riku into the mix and have a happy threesome.

Again, I can't promise when the next update will come up (because tomorrow I am commencing serious work on that novel), but it'll (hopefully) be reasonably soon. Here's a tantalizing little teaser from what I have written of chapter next, "Execution":

"Urgent." Demyx tried to think about what would register for "urgent" on DiZ's radar, and a tremor coursed through his body. He envisioned a mob of vampires surrounding the manor, or, heaven forbid, Xemnas finally finding their location, or a million other doomsday scenarios. Glancing at Zexion, he saw that the incubus's face was drawn closed as a curtained window, his expression unreadable. Was Zexion thinking the same thing? Or maybe he was thinking that Demyx was being an idiot as always, or wondering whether to have type B or type O blood for lunch. Demyx didn't know.

Well, it's a bit humorous, now is it? Anyway, keep reading and sending those awesome reviews in my way. You readers are the best, and I know I say a variation of that in every chapter, but I mean it with all my heart! If it wasn't for your support, this project would have folded a long, long time ago. So congratulate yourselves a ton.