A SHORT A/N: Many thanks to mysteriousguy898 for being my real-life muse. Seriously. Every time I got writer's block he sent me a message. It was crazy.
Also sorry this took so long, I've been working on a (very LONG) other story in KH that I'm going to post in a few weeks, MORE INFO AT THE BOTTOM OKAY NOW READ
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She surveys the room.
Blank.
That is who she is now. Hollow. Shadow. A could-have been and a should-have been and an oh-god-why-hadn't-it-been. She is the possible, the potential , the never ever after. That is her job – to be the prize. To be the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that doesn't exist. To be the unattainable.
She exists solely to be the ghost.
Pale fingers curl over her shoulders. "Lexi," Marluxia breathes; to her credit, her breathing neither falters nor quickens and she does not move an inch but to blink and give him a questioning sideways look. She had been punished for many things – for insulting Larxene when Xandra had been displaying weakness, for speaking to Axel when they had been unsure of his loyalties, for making direct contact.
She will not make the same mistakes again.
"Tell me what we practiced earlier," the pink-haired Nobody hums soothingly, slim face leering unusually close to hers. He sounds oddly encouraging for someone so usually dark, and his expression is too lighthearted to be underestimated. He walks around her in a casual circle, hand trailing across her neck; she neither moves nor speaks, simply averting her eyes from his face. "Come now, we'll even say it together. You are…"
"I am a tool." Her voice is cracked and chipped, as if someone has given it form and chiseled away at it until only the bare source remains; her eyes are curiously untouched, focused unwaveringly on the corner of the blank room.
"And?" Marluxia prompts.
"I am irreparable." Broken, he had taught her, is not the word, for something must be whole before you can break it.
"One more…"
"I am the ghost."
"Good." He tips his chin to her and gives her a polite smile that could easily crush a man with nerves of titanium. "I think you're ready, my dear…the Replica has finished the beginning of the dirty work. You can reach him next."
She is the ghost. And ghosts have but one purpose:
To [haunt].
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And if one becomes a Heartless –
They lose their minds and their feelings. They're consumed by the darkness.
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Don't break him.
I'm not gonna break the toy. I'm not dumb.
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You really are a hero…a heartless hero.
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Not happy to see me? Let me know if I'm getting in the way…you know, of something more important.
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"Why, folks lose their memory here a little bit at a time! Riku's probably just forgotten that the two of you were such close friends. That's all."
"So he just forgot?"
"My guess is that's so."
"I wouldn't bet on it," she says, and the world stops spinning.
She had entered noiselessly – she had no need for the special effects the Nobodies employed. She ghosts along, gliding across the tiled floor, hand trailing gingerly over the walls as the four turn sharply to look at her. She pauses, letting her hood fall backwards and her hand drop. "Riku hasn't been too happy lately," she whispers, shaking her hair out of her eyes.
There is a look in his eye that she doesn't understand. It is as if every emotion he has ever felt – fear, happiness, love, confusion, every damn thing – has been dropped into a blender that's set on Crush Ice and morphed into one piercing blue stare.
People are not supposed to make other people feel like that.
She, specifically, is not supposed to make other people feel at all.
"Lexi," he manages, staggering backwards a step or two; though they didn't leave on the best terms after that last room, she had still been different then…noticeably different. For one thing, she had seemed alive then, but now she is more like an animated corpse, a puppet with invisible strings, and that scares him more than anything he's seen so far. "Lexi," he repeats, taking the time to taste each letter. "Are you…Riku…" He swallows. "What are you talking about?"
"Riku," she hums, voice soft and patient but wrongwrongwrong. "He's been…dull lately. Lifeless." She kicks the air. "Heartless, almost. Except when it comes to her."
Her voice barely carries across the room butt his eyes light up as he watches her. "Naminé? You know her?" he asks eagerly, all concerns wiped from his mind.
Her eyes soften and her voice finally earns its emotion: bitterness. "Of course I do," she says, staring blankly at the floor and pointedly keeping her face emotionless. "Everyone knows her – sweet, innocent Naminé who's never done anything wrong in her life, who sits by the water but never bothers to touch it."
He stares. "…huh?"
When she looks up, her eyes seem to caress him from across the room, and for a moment he forgets Donald and Goofy are still frozen in shock behind him. "Is that why you liked her more, Sora? Because she would always wait for you and I never would?"
He blinks. "But you always waited for me…you always would've…wouldn't you?" His voice is uncertain, trembling almost as much as his hand, which he quickly clenches at his side. "You would've waited for me, just like I would've waited for you, right?"
"Would I have?" she mutters, handing sliding up to clutch at her own forearm. She shows an emotion, finally – a smile, one soft and regretful and angry at everything. "Would I have, Sora? Or would I have left you in the dust while I chased the next adventure? Would I have been just like Riku?"
"Lexi, what is wrong with you?" Donald demands, glaring at her; her only response is to hold the coat tighter.
"You're so naïve, Sora," she says mutedly. "You look at people and you only see the best…but the truth is, we're all a little evil on the inside." Another horrible, angry smile. "All made of darkness, right, Sora?"
"No!" His voice suddenly aches of something she's never heard, and she takes a step back in utter surprise at his sudden determination. "The heart isn't just darkness – the heart is what connects us. The heart is made of light, and it holds who you are – darkness can't control it! And I don't know who you are," he adds, glaring dully as he summons his Keyblade, "but I know you're not Lexi, and you never will be."
And that's what hurts the most.
Not watching the person you love walk away.
Not wanting someone and never getting up the courage to tell them.
It's standing there and pretending to be strong when someone you're almostkindofprobably sure you used to love flat-out hates you.
It's taking it – not like a man –
taking it like a {ghost}.
And what do ghosts do best?
They t.
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She does not fight him.
She simply disappears, a whisper that was never there, a ghost that never existed.
He will see her again.
Soon.
Very, very soon.
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A/N:
HXCBAKSNMNBXCK
THIS CHAPTER WAS ONLY FOUR PAGES OH MY GOD THAT IS SO SHORT JESUS CHRIST I NEED TO WORK SO MUCH HARDER
Okay. Now that that's out of the way…
I have a new game plan for story updating (GIMME AN A FOR AWESOME, PLEASE. Or not. That's cool too), and this one is probably going to be updating every month and a half or so…no fast updates, I only have fast updates for two stories. One of them is also KH, though, so you'll still be seeing me on this section of FF.
I WILL finish this series, though. I've worked too damn hard on it not to.
And this chapter was so short because, well…very little was supposed to happen in this chapter. The real crazy crap comes about chapter 5.
