Chapter 9: Castle Oblivion

He slowly removed his gloved hand from the intruder's face as the Sleep spell began to take effect. As the stranger's eyelids began to droop, his body in turn began to fade away. It truly was a mystery how this man—Lea, if he was correct—had come to be here in this illusion of what had once been. Perhaps Lea's heart had resonated with another, that there was a stronger bond than he had anticipated. But no, that wouldn't make sense. Everyone should have forgotten. The only reason he himself hadn't forgotten was that he wasn't around to remember in the first place.

Well whatever had caused it, it didn't matter now, because the spell had done its job and Lea was no longer in this world. As he had slept, so he had vanished. Around the hooded figure, the world was silent except for the grinding of the large gears and the flow of water, but he knew that beyond this waterway the nightmare was as asleep as ever. He stood there in the darkness, alone, listening to the gears turn, as despite his best efforts his mind went back to the question for a third time. How? And, perhaps more importantly, who would follow?

"Who was that?"

The shadows concealing his face hid his slight surprise at the voice. The little Nightmare never actively sought him out before, he was always the one to initiate conversation, so why was it doing so now? He turned around to see the creature, about as tall as a Moogle and covered in purple fur. A dark pink cape swished slightly back and forth, as if caught on a nonexistent wind, while its paws gripped a little purse. Its glowing red eyes stared wide, unblinking, up at him.

At first, he was irritated that the little thing would bother him. But soon, an idea formed in his head. If anyone could answer his question, this little thing could. "I should ask you," he said in as level a tone as he could manage. "You said everyone comes to this nightmare here for a reason."

The Nightmare tilted its head as it caught on to the unsaid question. It nodded after a moment's contemplation, the chain from which the purse hung around its neck jingling. "In this world of scattered dreams and far-off memories, everything in this living nightmare has a reason to be here. If he was here, then he had a reason."

He bit back an exasperated sigh. This little monster was his only lead to answer this anomaly, an anomaly that needed to be answered lest everything fall apart. He couldn't afford to rub it the wrong way. "Then what was that reason?"

"What was yours?"

Once more there was silence save for the grinding of gears and flow of water. He narrowed his eyes at the creature, which returned with an unblinking stare that he could swear was drilling right into his heart. Had it caught to his plans? No, impossible. It didn't have nearly enough context. But it probably was suspicious, and he couldn't fault it for that. Unlike the other inhabitants of the sleeping city, he didn't belong here. It was only natural that the Nightmare would come to suspect his motives, why he had been so eager to aid it.

It didn't have the context necessary, and it never would. He didn't answer its question, because he knew how the Nightmare thought. They'd just get into a merry-go-round of questions without any answers between the two, and it could last for hours—well, what felt like hours anyway. This dream had no concept of time.

His ignoring of the Nightmare's question went unnoticed as light splashing footsteps through shallow water announced a third person entering the waterway. The nameless girl appeared, her face just as obscured by the black coat as his own. The Nightmare peered up at her with its red eyes, and she in turn crouched down. She pat it on the head without a word, then scooped it up in her arms and held it close to her chest like a little girl would a doll.

He watched the scene with complete apathy and just as much silence as his fellow black coat. He glanced from the Nightmare to her, and though he couldn't see the nameless girl's face he could tell that they had locked gazes with each other. After a moment she turned away, giving him the briefest glimpse of her silver hair before she began to walk back outside. As they were about to vanish from sight, he let out a mental sigh. And then, as he watched them leave, a thought occurred. A thought, and a growing necessity to know why Lea had appeared.

"Wait." She came to a stop at his voice, though he was speaking not to her but the Nightmare. "There's your reason right there. I have reunited you with the one you missed most of all. You know why I am here. So I ask you again, why had he come here?"

The girl turned around, allowing those red eyes to stare wide at him once again. "His heart resonated with the dream. His own subconscious thoughts and wants dragged him here." There was a pang of nervousness in its voice, which the girl seemed to catch on to as she hugged it tighter to her chest in a comforting manner.

He pursed his lips beneath his hood. Then indeed, his fears had come true. He had heard of such things happening before, though never seen it himself. And if Lea's heart was able to reach out into the darkness of this sleeping world, who else would be able to? Who else could tear down the foundations of what they had built together and ruin everything? He would have to strengthen the Nightmare's resolve, increase the nightmare's defenses. He slowly reached up and lowered his hood, allowing them to take in his appearance as he brushed silver hair so much like that of the nameless girl's out of his face.

"Don't worry. No one is going to take her from you, Chirithy."

x-x-x

"Every time I come here it somehow looks even more dreary than before."

Cissnei and Lea stood before the crooked towering spires of Castle Oblivion, the world that sat beneath an eternally grey sky. The Star Shard had only just brought them, and Cissnei seemed a bit on the dizzy side. Lea gave her a minute to gain her bearings while he took it all in.

She was up and ready quicker than he expected. "So this is really it, the famous Castle Oblivion? From all the talk, it's not what I was expecting."

Lea smirked ever so slightly. "I said the same thing my first time here."

"How many times has it been now?"

Lea scratched his head in thought as the two of them made their way up to the entrance. "Three or four, I think?"

Cissnei returned the smirk. "What, you didn't keep track?"

"It all kind of blends together. This place messes with your head." Lea rested a hand on the heavy doors, running his fingers across the familiar sight. He had hoped after the last time that he would never have to come back here, but it seemed like his fate was tied to this world more than he'd have preferred. Fate sure had a sick sense of humor.

"I heard Aqua fixed that."

Lea snorted. "She may have fixed the part where the castle intentionally and maliciously tried to get visitors trapped in an endless maze, but I get the feeling that it still isn't just a harmless architectural impossibility."

Cissnei nodded. "Well, you're the expert. Lead the way then."

Lea tilted his nose up. Yeah, he probably was the expert on this place—was that something to be proud of? Pressing his other hand against the door as well, he pushed with all his might to get the heavy barrier open. It creaked and groaned as they emerged into the white entrance hall.

Like the outside, the inside of Castle Oblivion seemed somehow more dreary. Certainly the contrast from grey sky to spotless white walls didn't feel as blinding for some reason or another, even though the colors themselves hadn't dimmed. It was as if now that it no longer had to safeguard Ven the magic that had been sustaining Castle Oblivion in perpetuity was beginning to waste away.

Cissnei looked around at their surroundings with interest, unaware of the differences from before. She ran her hand along the white walls, lingered on the ceramic flowers, and examined the pattern on the ceiling. Eventually, her eyes turned to the pale golden pair of doors sitting elevated at the far end of the entrance hall. "That's the only way forward?"

"Yeah." Lea moved up the staircase and stood in front of the doorway, but didn't open it just quite yet. He was almost scared to find out what awaited them on the other side, and what he wouldn't give to have Aqua and her Keyblade with them right now. His hand lingered on the handle, fingers wrapped only loosely around it.

"Where are we headed anyway?"

"The basement. That's where Vexen's lab was. What better place to find what he knew?" As Lea spoke he opened the golden doors, and he found with some surprised that on the other side was not a memory room, but a staircase moving downward. His brow furrowed and he looked back over his shoulder at the room behind him.

"Is there a problem?" Cissnei asked. She moved up the steps beside him and peered through the doorway at the staircase that descended into darkness.

"No. None at all." It looked like Castle Oblivion still had a bit of mutability left over. Hopefully no problems would arise from that. Time to see just how much of it remained.

They began their descent in silence, their footsteps echoing around them as the lighting shifted. White walls became blue as they entered the first of the castle's thirteen basements and continued climbing ever lower. No, surely they had to be past the first by now. But how deep were they? The end of the staircase was nowhere in sight, leaving Lea to wonder if perhaps this was all a trick of the castle and they hadn't actually descended at all. Another glance over his shoulder assuaged those fears though; the light of the door they had come through was far off in the distance. So they'd continue to descend.

But the silence seemed to have gotten to Cissnei. She crossed her arms as they moved down the darkness, then shrugged her shoulders, then looked over to Lea. "So, tell me about yourself."

"What, now?"

"Yes now." Cissnei unfolded her arms for a moment and waved her hand in front of them. "Got to have something to break this up."

Lea let out a breath. Talking about and thinking about the past was a bad idea in Castle Oblivion, but if nothing had happened so far then maybe they were in the clear. Maybe he'd underestimated just how much Aqua had done with her key. "Not much to tell, really. As a kid, I got into a lot of trouble with Isa. As an adult, I got into a lot of trouble under Saïx."

"Family life?"

…Huh. Not something he'd thought of in a long, long time. Lea rubbed his neck. "Pretty standard I guess. Both folks worked: Dad was a firefighter, ironically enough. Mom was a…" He trailed off, his mind empty. "…I can't remember. Isn't that pathetic?"

"More than I remember of mine," Cissnei admitted softly.

"You about to tell me you were homeless or something?" He wasn't insulting about it, but he half expected it given how messed up a lot of the childhoods of people he knew had been.

But Cissnei shook her head. "No, but Turks training starts from a young age. I knew them but barely."

"Turks training, huh…"

She nodded. "Daily routine was waking up just before dawn and training in hand-to-hand, firearms, and espionage until just before sunset."

"Sounds pretty harsh. Any downtime besides eating?"

"Well of course. It was intense training but they weren't slave drivers." Cissnei had an almost nostalgic smile on her face despite the day-long description she had just given. "There was actually a bit of a lax environment despite everything. Our boss was the strict-but-friendly sort, kind of like Ansem the Wise, and he let us get away with a lot. Even using the Bastion funds for vacations."

"Oh really? There's your tax munny at work."

Out of nowhere, Cissnei burst into laughter. Lea stared at her like she had grown a second head. Was it something she said? Eventually she wiped at her eyes and held a hand up to prematurely silence Lea's questions while she caught her breath. "Sorry, sorry. You just reminded me of a conversation we had once, a long time ago. Another Turk said pretty much the exact same thing."

"Sounds kind of grown-up for a little girl to be talking about," Lea noted.

"Pardon?"

Lea frowned. What, was he wrong about her age? Then it clicked. "Oh, that's right. You were already an adult when Radiant Garden fell. Hey, could've fooled me."

Cissnei placed her hands on her hips and tilted her nose up with a smile. "I look good for my age."

"The Realm of Darkness does wonders for one's complexion."

"Lea!"

"Fine, fine. I'll leave you—Oh." There was a door in front of them, one that had seemingly jumped out from nowhere. It had not been visible just moments before, but was now their only way forward.

"A trick of the castle?" Cissnei asked.

"More of its unpredictability at the least. Could be Vexen's lab on the other side, or could be some other part of the basements entirely. No way to know until we're through. But here's hoping…" He gripped the doorknob, turned, and pushed. The dark stairwell was filled with a blinding light that enveloped the two of them, there was a feeling of disorientation, and then the next thing they knew they stood in—an office break room?

A ceiling fan spun slowly above them. Two couches faced a TV which had the volume set so low that it was nearly mute. On one of them, a man in a black suit snored loudly. Another group of people sat around a table playing poker. All of them wore suits as well, though not all of them were exactly well-kept. One man had scrapped the jacket entirely, wearing his white undershirt with the tie untied and hanging around his neck.

Lea scratched his head. "Huh. Guess the castle must've reacted to us reminiscing." It wasn't anywhere he recognized though, so… Lea's gaze flicked over to Cissnei, who stood beside him with an unreadable expression.

The TV suddenly shut off, prompting the sleeping man on the couch to wake up with tired shouts of "I was watching that, Tseng!"

In came another suited man, with black hair slicked back and tied into a ponytail. "Not anymore you're not. We've got orders. Some sort of 'anomaly' has been sighted in town and we need to figure out what exactly it is."

"Isn't that a job for the guards?" a blonde woman asked.

"Normally it would be, Elena. But the nature of this mission means Professor Even has assigned it to the Turks. This may turn out to be more than the guards can handle."

The man on the couch sat up and ran a hand through his bright red hair. "These orders come from that creep show?"

Tseng smiled slightly. "Just for that, Reno, you're on the team. I'll also be taking Cissnei." His line of sight turned to the far corner, where a mirror duplicate of the woman standing at Lea's side had just entered from another door. The past Cissnei stood straight as she heard her name called out, prompting a sigh from the one called Reno.

"There's no need to be so stiff, Cissnei. This is just a recon mission."

But Tseng seemed to disagree. "Actually, I expect full cooperation and—more importantly—safety on this mission. Not only do we not know what we're dealing with, but we're going into dangerous territory."

Beside Lea, the Cissnei of the present sucked in a breath through her teeth. The past Cissnei quirked an eyebrow. "Why? Where is it?"

"The slums."

Tseng's words sent an involuntary shudder through Lea. The slums. He didn't need to specify, Radiant Garden only had one set of slums and it had them for a reason: geostigma. The disease had caused that district to be all but abandoned by both the people and even the government, with Ansem the Wise completely unaware of their suffering, because it was just that deadly and contagious.

At Lea's side, Cissnei looked suddenly very uneasy. "Hey, you okay?"

"We need to move."

"What? Why, do you remember what this mission was? What happened?" Around them, the break room began to ripple. The memory was shifting, to when and where Lea wasn't sure. He caught sight of what seemed to be a rundown church before Cissnei caught his attention.

"Now, Lea!" She grabbed Lea by the wrist and hurried over to a new door that had appeared in front of them. Lea barely recognized her, her composure had completely fallen and she seemed absolutely sick to her stomach. Whatever this memory was, it was one she didn't want to relive. And honestly, he could respect that.

As light filled their vision once again and the door shut behind them, Lea and Cissnei found themselves in a small room that was unmistakably natively Castle Oblivion and not an illusion. The cold white walls could attest to that, let alone the Nobody sigil emblazoned on the bookcases.

And there were a lot of bookcases, with even more books. Books with covers every color of the rainbow, both sitting within the cases and scattered across the room whether it be on the floor or on the nearby desk. The desk sat before a window that opened up to the grey sky, reaffirming that, indeed, this was really Castle Oblivion. Lea moved over to the desk and picked up the first book he could get his hands on. A name caught his eye on the inner cover: Vexen.

This was it, Vexen's home away from home deep in the basements of Castle Oblivion. Some books were scattered on the ground, just as they had been when Lea had last been here and found notes on Naminé. Now he had to hope his luck would pull through again and he'd find what he was looking for a second time.

Lea looked back at Cissnei, whose eyes lingered on the door they had come through with an uneasy look still on her face. Lea cleared his throat and then picked up another journal. "Hope you like digging through journals, Cissnei. Fun times."

Cissnei's attention turned to him. "Y-Yeah. Feels like that's all I do these days."

"That's right, we got a journal-diving expert over here. Teach me your ways."

Cissnei finally cracked a smile, which relieved Lea. "Well, I'll try. Let's see if we can get it through that thick head of yours, though."

"Hey, watch it!" Lea sat down in Vexen's chair and began flipping through the first of many journals. "Look for any names you don't recognize. Vexen was all about notes; if he ever met my missing friend, she's in here somewhere. And while we're at it, anything on Replicas to help against Garland."

"Yes sir."

Cissnei got right into it, digging through Vexen's journals like a professional. Lea'd been joking around but evident she wasn't kidding, she must have been doing nothing but that for a while now. On the other hand, Lea found that in the time it took him to dig through one of the many books Cissnei had gone through two. She had it down to an art form. And while Lea's dedication never wavered, his mind did wander a bit. Perhaps due to Castle Oblivion's nature? Whether that or not, he soon found his thoughts turning to the Riku Replica.

That poor kid was something else. He had come to form a sense of self all on his own, separate from the false memories of Riku, something that Axel thought was impossible from what he knew of the Replica Program. But then, the Replica Program had surprised him before. The Riku Replica's ability to absorb power from others like it did Zexion? He had no idea Vexen's creations were capable of something like that. It made him wonder just how far the project could have gone if the Organization had followed through with it. In fact, why had they stopped again?

Lea had some vague memories of a meeting in the Round Room one day, where Saïx had confronted him about the impossibility of Replicas gaining sentience. He'd not responded. That sense of self… Lea felt a twinge of pain in his heart. He was wrong to use the Riku Replica as a tool the way he did. How is a man-made puppet any less worthy than a Nobody that was never meant to exist at all?

Perhaps it was a stroke of luck, or perhaps this train of thought was somehow affecting the book he had chosen to read, but as Lea flipped to the next page his eyes caught on something interesting.

Research Entry 326
The Program is largely on target. No. i, my finest Replica, has proven an even greater success than anticipated. I intend to take the other vessel—judged unfit for number status—to Castle Oblivion, where I will subject it to further testing. One thing is clear: could these Replicas not be classified as a special sort of Nobody?

"No. i…" Lea repeated to himself. This was unfamiliar to him. There was another Replica besides Riku's? Why had he never seen this one before?

"You find something?"

"About the Replicas, yeah, but it won't help with Garland."

"Let me see." Cissnei placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned down, looking at the journal from behind him. Her eyes narrowed at the entry that Lea pointed out to her. "You've never seen this?"

"Never. I never met this no. i—never met any Replicas besides Riku's. I didn't think that Vexen had even made complete ones besides that." But even as the words passed his lips, Lea faltered. He knew it to be true, but still felt like what he had said was a lie. With a grimace on his face, Lea turned his full attention to the book, scanning through Vexen's stupidly neat handwriting with unprecedented speed. There were comments here and there about Roxas, giving Lea a timeframe for all of this. Roxas had only just joined the Organization at the time this was all written.

As he continued to scan through the journal, a sense of unease was working its way into Lea's gut. Any rational man would realize the Riku Replica wasn't unique, but to know that there had been another completed one… It could be just as dangerous and prone to violence as Riku's was—not that part of that behavior wasn't Lea's own fault. But still. If this Replica still existed, then they had to—

Lea's blood froze solid.

Vexen's journal dropped from his lap. With shaking hands, Lea lifted it back up. No, no. No! This was impossible, this didn't make sense. The entry he was staring at was an absolute possibility. It couldn't be here, someone had to have added it after Vexen's death. I'd have known if it had been in the castle.

Cissnei looked over to Lea, concern on her face. "What is it?"

Lea took in a breath. "It… It says that no. i was brought to the World That Never Was. Was given a coat, a name…was put into Organization XIII as its fourteenth member." Lea flipped the page and ran his eyes along the next few days' worth of writing. After some studies on Naminé from when the Organization had first found her, all of it—from here to the end of the book—was about No. i: its behavior, its interactions with Roxas, and even its interactions with himself.

"'The Replica shows interest in the Keybearer's Nobody, inasmuch as a Replica can show interest,'" Lea read. "'The boy is still only barely more self-sufficient than a Dusk and follows Axel around everywhere. For his part Axel humors the Replica, speaking to it as one would a small child and pushing Roxas into conversation with it." Lea looked up at Cissnei with wide eyes, his hands trembling. "Cissnei, I don't remember any of this."

Cissnei slowly put down the book she had been searching through. "Like you don't remember the friend we're looking for?"

It all clicked into place. Lea dropped Vexen's journal to the floor and laughed softly as he leaned back in the chair with his hand rubbing his eyes. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. "That's it. That's the goddamn answer, isn't it?"

Cissnei moved a step closer to him. "Isn't this a good thing? You got what you were looking for. You were right, Vexen had notes on your missing friend."

Lea shook his head without looking at her. He stared at the ceiling above him. "That's just it, Cissnei, we didn't. My missing friend—as far as Vexen's concerned, she's a tool. These notes don't have anything about who she was! How am I supposed to know what her favorite food was? Favorite genre of music? Did she get along with Roxas? What did she dream of doing when we got our hearts back?" He fought back tears. He was not going to cry at this, not like this. "And what was her name? I don't even have her goddamn name because Vexen was an emotionless bastard! We don't have anything!"

"Lea, calm down." Cissnei grabbed his shoulders from behind. "Deep breaths, okay? We're not done here. We're not. This castle was never going to be our final stop. You and I on an adventure to find your friend, remember? You're going to remember her, we're going to find her wherever she is, and then we're all going home together."

Lea let out a shaking breath. "…Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

"It'll be hard to remember I'm sure, but you're not going at it alone. Alright?"

He smiled and, tentatively, placed his hand over hers. "Thanks, Cissnei." Then in a flash Lea was back to his old self. "Don't suppose you have any experience like this to give me any pointers, though?"

Cissnei shook her head. "I'd say I'm more interested in forgetting things. But maybe they're two sides of the same coin, huh?"

"Right." Lea stood up and dug into his pocket for the Star Shard. "Well, we have more of a lead now than we did when we arrived, at least. I know she was in the Organization, and I know she was part of the Replica Program. That's a start."

"It is. Where to now?"

"Now?" Lea bounced the Star Shard up and down in his palm once. "That world Sora told us about, I suppose. We'll look for this Josh guy and see what he knows about bringing people back."

Cissnei extended her hand out over the Star Shard in Lea's open palm. "And if that doesn't work?"

Lea grinned at her. "Then there's a whole wide universe out there for us to search. We can't let Keybearers have all the fun."

With both of them holding onto it tightly, the Star Shard flared to life. Bright blue light enveloped Lea and Cissnei, brightening Vexen's study for a split second before it shout out the window like a comet and flew into space in a zig-zagging pattern. As they made way for parts unknown, one thought was on Lea's mind.

We're coming.