Forward From Within
Moon Is Not an Element
A/N: I'm sure all my readers were hoping for a new chapter of Silver Linings. I am, too. But I came up with this idea while on vacation, and since I was two states away from my laptop at the time, I had to get this done as soon as I got home.
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Even back when he was Isa, the blue-haired Nobody known as Sai'x had always idolized Xehanort. So cool, so calm, so powerful...even though he had amnesia, nothing seemed to faze Xehanort. He sneaked into the castle at Radiant Garden to see his role model, getting caught in whatever failed experiment had stolen the hearts of all of Ansem the Wise's apprentices. The memory of that incident was fuzzy for all of them.
So when he woke as Sai'x and was offered a position as Number VII of Organization XIII, of course he accepted without question. At first, he and the newly-renamed Axel had their suspicions of Xemnas' intentions in trying to get Kingdom Hearts. The two of them agreed to ingratiate themselves to the Organization and assume key roles to get more information. Axel became the Organization's internal enforcement, which was a nice way of saying he assassinated any members of the Organization that fell out of line. Sai'x became the taskmaster who delivered orders from Xemnas to the rest of the Organization.
As time went on, Sai'x lost his doubts about Xemnas. Nothing he saw indicated that Xemnas' intentions were anything but for the good of all Nobodies. As the Organization grew, the Superior even started referring to the group as "friends". Suspicion was not in the limited repertoire of feelings Nobodies could have. It must be true - Xemnas said so.
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The Organization swelled with new members, each of whom had to submit to the orders handed down from Xemnas by Sai'x. Getting the neophytes in line was sometimes difficult, however. Every time a newcomer joined Organization XIII and learned that the element Sai'x controlled was "moon", they couldn't believe it. How would one use the moon as an elemental power?
Their doubts were generally put to rest the first time they saw Sai'x in combat. He often took advantage of his position as the Organization's taskmaster to "assign" newbies to spar with him for a mission, after which their injuries were handled by paying the Organization's Moogle for healing items out of their own pocket. None of them could handle his devastating barrage of berserker tactics. None of them could beat him before he gathered enough power to invoke the rage.
None of them realized that Sai'x didn't control the moon to do that.
Sai'x's power had always been tied to his berserker rages. After a short training course to determine his element, the first likely answer was "wrath". But how could a Nobody, void of a heart and emotions, feel such powerful rage that it overrode his thoughts? Xemnas considered it folly, and so Sai'x did, too. Instead, he listed as his element the one thing that brought that unthinking state upon him most effectively.
The moon was such a vicious tease. Even in the darkness of night, it shone down with its gentle light, but it hung in the sky out of reach. It did not react to the suffering and longing of those below. To creatures of Darkness and those who teetered over the void, the moon was a symbol of hopelessness and injustice.
The Organization's goal was to create an artificial moon called Kingdom Hearts, and this was even worse for Sai'x. The heart he longed for was in plain sight at all times, even when the sky was covered in clouds during heavy rainfall, but the so-called Luna Diviner couldn't reach it. Just a short look at Kingdom Hearts easily put Sai'x into a berserker state, even if he had just finished one. This helped bolster the ruse that the moon was the source of his power, but it was merely the source of his rage.
Sai'x's Berserker servants didn't bother hiding the source of their power, but their rage couldn't be discerned on their featureless faces, so no one but their direct master noticed that their rages were actually an example of rage. Sai'x himself subconsciously ignored it, even after he noticed the fact. He was unwilling to face a reality that contradicted Xemnas' word, even if it brought the blue-haired Nobody closer to the heart he yearned for.
Ever the cold tactician, Sai'x made sure never to get into combat out of view of Kingdom Hearts. When Sora invaded the Castle That Never Was, he waited in the Addled Impasse above the Organization's lounge, where the whole wall was a giant window that prominently displayed the moon. All he would have to do was glance backwards to go berserk. When he came back to himself, the Keybearer would be broken in half at his feet...or so he thought. By avoiding the truth of his power, he ended up with far less of it than he could have had. Sora overpowered him as Roxas had done a year before, but this time he delivered the killing blow.
Sai'x woke in Xemnas' presence once more, and accepted Xehanort's heart with all his newly-restored gratitude for Xemnas' boon of "reviving him from the dead." At that point, the man known as Isa truly ceased to exist.
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A/N: So, what kind of lame element is "moon", anyway? Answer: it isn't one.
Yes, I know 358/2 Days had "moon" as the element that causes the Silence status ailment, but I think about that game as little as possible. It was a mess. Even in-universe, the general consensus of the characters regarding those events was basically "Let's never speak of this again." They even went a step further and forgot it ever happened.
