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Whenever he’s afraid he’s making the wrong move, Luxu remembers how proud the Master was of his inevitable success, and continues what he’s doing.
Today he has his elbow set on Xehanort’s shoulder like an oversized parrot, ‘buddy-buddy’ with him, as they sit on the castle ramparts and eat a much-belated lunch together. The sun sets ahead of them in coral shades; pink at the edges, paling inward, with a dead white core. He has — it’s meant to be a sandwich, but the staff cafeteria put the tomato in hours ago and it’s turned to goop. Xehanort saw the mess and refused to take it, opting for crackers from the vending machine.
“Damn, kid,” ‘Braig’ says — he’s Braig, for the moment — and snaps a bite before the goopiest corner falls off, “your mind’s plenty screwy, don’t need to get your body sick on vending machine food.”
Xehanort gives him a sly look. “I would never eat that.”
“Yeah, I noticed: had crackers yesterday, the day before, the day before — thought you were a scientist, can’t you see that’s not a ‘balanced diet’?”
“If I were a ‘real’ scientist, Ansem wouldn’t have thrown me out.” He finishes the last cracker and places his hands either side of him. “Besides. I don’t like tomato.”
Ah. The current problem of Ansem trusting a literal child to run datascape tests, but not a basically-grown man. He’s been 20 more often than most, he knows it’s not the best age for critical thought and good communication, but compared to some toddler that can’t so much as talk to the rest of the research team?
Given a choice he’d’ve been out of there years ago. Unfortunately, Xehanort has No Name and no memories, which means with no guide, the line of succession breaks. Braig is bound to the castle and this research project that makes the Master’s supervisory style look downright organised.
To having pointless conversations about tomato with this man he had, for a while, hoped would throw the kind of universally apocalyptic tantrum that’d bring the Foretellers home. As if. “When we met, before your memory problems, I definitely saw you eat a salad.”
“It could’ve been a different type of salad,” Xehanort says, “they’re too sweet. I can’t stand sweets.”
Really, tomatoes are acidic with a layer of umami. “Remember you eating ice-cream too.”
At that, Xehanort twists and drops Braig from his shoulder, narrowing his eyes further. “I was different then,” he says, unaware of the deeper, literal truth of it, “now I don’t like it. People change.”
Hoo boy; the only person close to knowing how much and the last person Braig would tell the remainder of it. So he eats the final corner of the sandwich and shrugs. “Feels like we can’t have a conversation without you ending it all moody. That’s why he locks you out. Could you smile? Do small-talk? They’re not letting guards in the labs ‘til these trials’re done and we’re not getting further with the lab conversion if you’re stuck here with me.”
“It’s insulting. What I’ve contributed to this datascape experiment goes far beyond what Even and Ienzo have done, yet here I am, exiled to the roof while they document the results under our feet — their names on my papers —”
“C’mon, who cares about paper? When we complete our experiment, the whole world’ll know your name, no citation needed.”
“Not paper,” Xehanort hisses, “a paper .”
It’s like talking to an actual child. Terra, in specific. Under the eyepatch, Braig’s empty socket seeps a viscous, mottled-purple fluid which he successfully ignores between these outbursts. Then Xehanort raises his impetuous new voice or brandishes No Name at an unresponsive terminal, and the feeling oozes back. He covers the patch with the heel of his palm, disguising the gesture as an awkwardly-angled head scratch, and exhales his shaky breath as a sigh.
“Let’s recap:” he eventually says, hand still on his head though he’s stopped with the scratching, “hearts can be split from bodies and keep ticking, but they forget who they belonged to. You had a nasty accident that — ehhh — ‘dislodged’ yours, which is how the whole amnesia sitch happened, but hey, it proved there’s no reason losing your body’s permanent. Could even be it’s got its uses.” Living forever, going where normal humans can’t, he’s no stranger to the possibilities. “We’re gonna see what conditions it takes to split ‘em and stay functional.”
Slowly, like he’s waking from an unsettling dream, Xehanort nods. He stares at the bleached centre of the sunset. It must be blinding, but he doesn’t blink, and his hazel eyes gloss lighter, taking a faint yellow hue.
“And you, you’re worried about some notes no-one outside the castle’ll ever bother to read? I get it, ‘it’s not science if you don’t write it down’, but caring about the writing so much you miss out on the actual work is backwards as a tape on rewind.”
“What’s a tape?”
The faster they get Xehanort’s heart out and his real self back in the game, the likelier Braig survives this lifetime. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it, kid.” Standing, he just about gets vertigo, that extra metre of height tipping their perch from ‘acceptably portentous’ to ‘stomach-churningly dramatic’. Whenever he looks for shared traits, bits of his real Master that got passed through the line of succession, ‘monologuing atop tall buildings’ is the most obvious. As long as he focuses on that and ignores who’s doing it he can bear the situation.
Xehanort stands with him, dropping the cracker wrapper onto a gust of wind. It loops across the Radiant Garden skyline toward the quarry on the outskirts of town.
“Shouldn’t litter.”
He turns, face still set in the disdainful look he gave the sun. “Are you going to stop me?”
No. Braig’s not in the business of stopping people. Who knows, that wrapper might be a critical part of the Master’s plan. Fly in the face of a do-gooder at an inopportune moment. Blind them. Light falls, darkness prevails. His task complete. Ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Used to be he’d intervene but around his third life, he got impatient, wondered if maybe every misdeed prevented was an extra year between him and there being enough darkness for the next Keyblade War to play out.
Let it go, let it go. “Whatever,” he says, stepping down onto the walkway. “But you’ve gotta play nice with Ansem. That’s a non-negotiable. Whatever it takes to keep our lab access.”
At last, Xehanort yields, standing alongside Braig and bowing his head. “What was I like?” he asks, opening his mouth no more than he has to.
Wouldn’t they both like to know? Hard to imagine body surfing’s done as many numbers on them as it has, but here they are, chessmaster Xehanort clueless and powerless like he’s been through some sort of reverse-pawn promotion, and obedient Luxu asked to lead. Maybe neither of them’ll make it through this. The darkness the Master saw was No Name dropped in an abyss from whence it would never be recovered.
“Smart,” Braig says, beginning the long, winding walk from the ramparts to the lower levels of the castle.
“What’re you implying?” Xehanort follows.
“You used to know sometimes you gotta swallow your pride to get where you wanna be.”
“Hm.”
It’ll take them a few minutes to reach their posts. Braig is stationed at the entrance to Ansem’s offices, and Xehanort is ‘welcome in the lab as soon as he finds it in himself to apologise to Ienzo’. Dilan’s words, probably politer than the rest of the staff’s. Even had a nasty glare on him after whatever happened, happened.
As they enter the underground tunnels, Xehanort pauses, a hand on the wall. “Flatter their egos until they love us too much to suspect us. That’s what you’re suggesting?”
He might’ve lost his powers and his patience, but Braig’s overseen every footstep Xehanort’s taken since Scala ad Caelum, and he’s been a quick study the whole way. “Then see how they like the Big Reveal.”
There’s no more said between them, but when they resume their walk, they’re both grinning.
♡♡♡
Xemnas throws Xigbar against the wall and pins him there with an ethereal blade below the chin. Careful not to slip it forward, he leans in past his elbow, until their faces are close and their fringes brush. “For a subordinate,” he says, “you’re doing a lot of unauthorised work.”
Xigbar’s throat pulses with a laugh too nervous to emerge. “What?” He summons an arrowgun to hand, though his muscles twitch in longing memory of his keyblade, the security of a weapon he can parry with. “Haven’t I earned a vacation?” It’s been a couple of years. Longer hair, broader features — Terra’s almost gone from that face, but it’s an uncomfortable position to be in anyway. Though he lacks real emotion he can tell from his quickened pulse this position is making him anxious. Or something else. His cheeks warm.
It’s rare for Xemnas to take charge. Nominal subordinate, nominal Superior.
“Who is he? The Nobody you brought home. I didn’t ask for any recruits.”
That’s funny. So funny, he lets himself laugh this time. “We want thirteen. Got us to nine. Four to go…!” Raising the arrowgun horizontal, he uses the shaft to prod Xemnas’ hand out of alignment.
The ethereal blade disappears, but Xemnas doesn’t retreat. “And why... do we want thirteen?” He’s uneasy. Tends to be, when Xigbar reminds him of the forgotten phases of their plan. It’s as if he picked a hand of cards for a fortune teller, and despite being the person to lay them on the table and decide the order of play, there’s no chance of him finding out what each is until its predecessor is flipped, reading complete.
Neither of them like it, but it’s not changing. It is as foretold. By Xehanort. By some greater, older force. Whichever. “Thirteen darkness, seven light,” Xigbar says, “for the χ-blade.”
“As I am, I cannot wield a keyblade. You know this.”
“Nah, not like that. Like ‘chi’. Like the Greek letter. Like an ‘X’. It’s a whole other situation. Before you lost your memory you were real into it.” Out of habit, he whirls to Xemnas’ side and slings an arm around his neck, pulling them close together. “It’s a sore subject for everyone, you losing No Name, but any decent soldier knows where to get a new sword. You’re no grunt.”
He tolerates the gesture, folding his arms. “Go on.” His broad shoulders shift inward, and it’s not from Xigbar’s weight.
“Get thirteen recruits. Wait until we’ve got seven do-gooders to deal with. Lure ‘em to the Keyblade Graveyard, and ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, we’ve got a χ-blade that anyone with two hands can wield. Anyone with any number of hands! Y’know, if some kind of accident happens.” He taps the eyepatch.
It makes Xemnas curl further into himself, eyes glazed, paler yellow. No-one would accuse the Superior of being weak, but there’re chips in his armour that a dedicated chisel can get through, if you know where to hammer it. However his face ages and whatever colour scheme he turns, the facts of being a Nobody mean there is a lot of Terra in him. Failures he can be made to contemplate. Insecurities and desires to be exploited.
“It’ll —” Xigbar releases his shoulders, hands trailing along his back until they’re fully separate from each other “— run alongside the heart collection scheme. Whichever’s doable, we do, you dig?”
Rather than answer, Xemnas proceeds from the room and onto the adjoining balcony. The contrast between the empty nighttime sky and the sheer white of their new castle is painful, whatever kind of vision you’ve got. The only relief is the grey pattern etching down the outer wall, and the burgeoning heart-moon above.
Kingdom Hearts is small. Dim, as though a cloud is lingering in front of it, smothering its light. Underwhelming. Yet oh so critical to Xemnas’ preferred plan.
Xigbar saunters through to view it with him. “We’re not talking hypotheticals. You set this in motion before ‘you’ existed. Don’t shoot the messenger, ‘specially when he’s got a return-to-sender.”
He ponders over the railing, no longer looking at their novelty lamp, but into the abyss below, dark from swarming Heartless, his features heavy with thought.
This is ridiculous. “What’s wrong? Feeling out-of-control?”
“We don’t feel.”
“Off-kilter? Outta alignment? ‘Cause of orders you can’t understand? Whatever. That’s how it goes. And when you get given ‘em you can either obey and have the satisfaction of knowing what the Master asked for when the others don’t, or be worthless to everyone higher and lower on the chart.”
“We will do what’s best for the eight of us. Complete that —” he gestures at the sky “— and fill our empty chests.”
“If we were gonna recomplete, why split us? You did it.”
He flinches and shows the side of his eerily blank face.
“Forgot about that too?”
Lurches toward Xigbar.
“You in there, Xehanort?”
He grabs the air between them like he’s expecting his arms to extend another foot, some phantom set of hands to grab Xigbar in his stead.
When nothing comes of his gesture, he eases back against the railing and lowers his arms.
Draping himself over another section of the railing, Xigbar smiles and shrugs. “I get it. Someone's inside you. Kept quiet until you lost your heart, now they're screaming. Don't even have the decency to use their words and tell you why.” He looks over his shoulder to check Xemnas’ reaction. “If they're causing that much trouble, are they worth listening to?” he says, knowing full well there's no-one in their world who isn't trouble incarnate and part of getting by in it is picking which nightmares to keep in and which to kick out.
What'll it be, Superior?
“His name is Terra,” Xemnas says, “you've spoken of him.” He splays his hand over his chest. “He wants to go to Hollow Bastion, to visit the armour. It reminds us of our friends.”
“His friends.”
“Am I not him, at least in part?”
Hopefully not. Xigbar punches him jovially in the shoulder. “Gonna change your name to Raxert?”
The gambit works. Xemnas falters. “No… he matters little. But he is hard to ignore.”
Continuing the conversation is a risk. End it while he's at an obvious loss. Xigbar straightens and turns for the door. “Welp. While you're figuring that out, I'll be showing Demyx around. Could put him on laundry duty if you're still not sure he's useful. Got water powers, y'know.”
No response. Looking at Kingdom Hearts again. Hasn't stopped clutching his chest.
Okay. Peace, Xemnas. Some people have work to do.
♡♡♡
Out of breath, Xigbar tucks himself around the side of the palace. Has he lost them? There's explosions and shouting inside. They're stalled, at least. His lungs can have a moment.
He wasn't meant to run into the kid and his mascots yet, but there're only so many important places this side of the universe, and if Xaldin and Demyx had their moments his was coming sooner or later. Relax. Loosen those muscles, wipe that sweat. It's Winter here. Nothing to get hot and bothered over.
His coat's sticky inside but if he opens it he'll get frostbite. Does he care? He never cares. Pulling the tab he unzips to his waist. Airs himself out.
This body's getting on but he can't swap it out until No Name passes to its next bearer. Luxu’s spent years intertwining his current existence with Xehanort's. Literally. His remaining eye symbiotically gold. Lose it — Braig — Xigbar — it's all a waste.
However disgusting this is he has to continue. Up goes the zip, and he pulls himself from the wall.
The Land of Dragons. Red and yellow, broad courtyards, rooftops at a shallow tilt, a faint frost on every flat surface. Outside this walled complex is a moat, and then a low city reaching out in every direction. It'd take hours to escape on foot, but he's liking the solitude.
He walks up a flight of stairs in the direction of a side-gate. The slush parts for him. On occasion, his feet slip on an iced tile, away from his legs, and he's forced to split the fabric of reality to bring himself in line.
The main entrance to the palace is several courts behind him, through a garden and past a few galleries, when he hears a Heartless clanging down from the sky to do battle with the kid. It'll be a clean getaway, sweaty clothes aside. Find the perimeter, zip to the top, maybe take a dip in the Tongzi River, portal home once he’s refreshed.
Except — there had to be a complication — in the following, tree-lined corridor, between him and the outer wall, he can see another black coat.
Who might this be? “If you wanted this world so bad you shoulda called dibs,” Xigbar calls.
The black coat startles and whips to face him, but they don't remove their hood. Their shoulders are a little too broad to be any of the remaining Organisation members, except maybe Xemnas, and he never runs anywhere.
Willing open the space beneath him, Xigbar drops through, and falls onto the pavestones at the opposite end of the corridor. No escape. Unless the black coat opens a dark portal. Which they could. Not that it'd matter. They're only important while they're in his way.
“Which are you?” the black coat says in a curiously familiar voice.
To test them, he steps closer. “Numero dos. Niban. Number two. Xigbar. The Freeshooter,” he says, “what about you?” Two options to test. “Xehanort? Riku?”
The black coat is stunned.
Breaking apart a smaller piece of space, Xigbar sticks his hand forward and has it appear next to their head. In a quick scooping motion he removes the hood.
Not Xehanort, but despite the ditzy expression there's a resemblance. Here's where his Heartless — and Riku — got to. Fresh surprise keeps him from moving.
Xigbar reconnects his arm and puts his hands on his hips. Pacing around with a wicked grin he waits for a reaction. A real reaction. Might be he's waiting for nothing. But the heart of a melodramatic hellion like Xehanort plus a runaway teen oughtta equal a great show.
The hood stays down. Riku shivers — not from the cold. He grits his teeth. “What about it?” he asks, tone too irritable to be anyone but a 16-year-old boy. A sword flickers into his right hand, dark patches forming into solid yet otherworldly metal.
To keep him on his toes, Xigbar reverses his personal gravity and paces into the air, hanging from an invisible ceiling like a bat. “Just checking you’re not the Superior. Like the look! Reminds me of him.” Still upside-down, he matches eye-level and circles. “How're you liking the look?”
Riku seems to take it as a direct challenge not to touch his hood, clenching his free hand to help him to ignore his obvious discomfort. His eyes emote too much for his stern face. “It is what it is.” He wishes it wasn't.
Flipping onto the pavestones and landing with his feet together, Xigbar laughs. “Happens to the best of us, kid. Think I wanted to be —” is there anything good about his current identity? “— a Nobody?”
“I can put you out of your misery,” Riku says, sweeping his sword to a higher, usable position. He pushes through the discomfort to (unthreatening) anger.
Wow. Look at the kid go. “Nah. Life's a precious gift, wouldn’t want either of us to toss it when we’ve both got work to do.” He doesn’t bother summoning his arrowguns. “Course, if you wanna head back inside, say your goodbyes to the kid, after that we could totally —”
Disappearing his sword in another plume of purple smoke, Riku raises and half-folds his arms. His shadow boils behind him and a humanoid shape bursts through the liquified ground. Rising above his back and flexing its ink-black arms, the shape — the Guardian, huh, been a while since he saw it — takes a moment to assess; the opponent, the corridor, the snow piling around them.
“— throw down?”
Forcing its arms forward, the Guardian roars against the bindings on its mouth, and tries to slam Xigbar into the ground.
It catches him and tips him midway over but he catches himself in turn, opening a hole through the pavement to fall on a snow pile by the rear wall.
As the Guardian turns around, unspooling its tail so it can leave Riku’s side, it taps below its right eye then makes a slicing gesture across its left.
“As if,” Xigbar says, whirling onto his feet, “not losing both.”
They stare at each other as they ready themselves for the next clash. Whether the Guardian needs to breathe or not, its chest rises and falls around its huge heart-shaped hole, a steaming gap between its massive teeth. Whoever put the gag on it did everyone a service. Seems like the kind of pet that’d bite.
He draws one arrowgun, because there’s still no chance a Heartless is worth two. Planing it to the best level, he clicks a bolt from the quiver into position and cocks it for release. Drawing his rear foot through a thin patch of snow behind him, he slits a portal from the wall to the entryway. Here’s how it’ll go: Guardian charges, he evades, then takes the shot from behind. Head’ll be safest. Core’s usually what he goes for but with a big ol’ hole in place of its vital organs he’s not sure what he’d target.
The Guardian charges, purple spit and groping hands.
Xigbar drops.
But the Guardian sinks back into Riku’s shadow as he does, so when he reappears and shoots the bolt hits thin air. Sloshing out of cover like an upturned bathtub the Guardian surges toward Xigbar and grabs his ankles. It dangles him upside-down, grip so tight his leather boots squeak against its fingers.
He drops the arrowgun. It collides with the ground and disappears. “Ohhh, please, Riku, don’t take my lunch money,” he laughs, sure he can escape but too stunned by the grab to remember how. “Think you’ll get rid of us with a bit of bullying? Grow up.” Maybe he redirects a punch to knock out some of those creepy teeth? While it’s wounded, he’ll run.
“I have to get out of this world,” Riku says from behind the Guardian.
“Could’ve just said so. We’re both scared of Sora. No need to feel embarrassed…!”
Glancing back and forth — from the exit to his captive, the exit to captive, exit captive — he responds with a simple “hmph.” He goes for the exit, while the Guardian stays in place, its tail stretched like an oil trail from a leaking car. As he comes clear of the fight a fresh patch of purple blooms at his feet and unfurls around him. There’s the dark portal. He can’t leave without his Guardian though, can he?
What’s he got in store for old Xigbar? Who’s too curious now to retaliate, though his ankles are getting sore. He clears his throat. Don’t you forget about him.
Refusing to turn around, Riku raises his hood and steps through the dark portal. In the moment before he disappears from sight, he gives the Guardian a command. “Drop him.”
It eagerly obeys. Tensing its arms and raising him like a test-your-strength hammer it beats him forehead-first against the tiles. There’s a hideous concrete-on-skull crack. A flutter-thud of his body and clothes trailing behind. Stars blinking out. Hot red. Ice white.
Xigbar loses consciousness.
♡
♡
♡
There’s a rack of flasks high on the Master’s wall: conical, pear-shaped, round bottom, volumetric. They’re all empty, and there are no alchemic experiments going elsewhere in the lab. The rack might be a ridiculous piece of forethought, step fifty of a plan that’s yet to reach step two, or it might just be decoration to impress the other apprentices.
Left with a dusting cloth and no instructions, the Master’s intent for Luxu is clear: keep the rack clean regardless. He takes it from its shelf and sits at the center table with it.
The round bottom and the pear-shaped are large enough that it’s easy to get his fingers in, wipe the neck of dust, and then push the cloth the rest of the way inside where he can twirl it to sort-of sweep the bottle proper. The conical and volumetric are trickier. The cloth is too thick to press in and his fingers are too wide for the necks. Finding a tissue and a piece of wire instead, he wraps the tissue around the wire, then presses it in until it hits the bottom. Finishing with the rack itself, the task is done within a half-hour.
Setting it back on the shelf, Luxu takes a momentary breath; a moment is precisely how long it takes for him to realise he’s been booked for four hours of lab work this morning. What else does the Master want done? Research, or more cleaning? There are so many stacks of paper and pieces of equipment around the lab, making the space feel cosier than such a generous stone room should. Every other vessel has fluid or plasma or a prototypical lifeform inside: those can’t be dusted, they’re works-in-progress. He’s learnt from a few friendly disagreements that the Master’s writings have a 1:1 chance of being innocuous novelty projects or catastrophic secrets from the future; it’s safer not to touch any of them.
Research, then. This is a research opportunity. Just last week the Master shared his plans for Chirithy and suggested Luxu devise alternative uses for a spirit assistant. Call it unscientific, but so far his work on the project has been several heavy-stock pages of drawings, a menagerie of animals with fantastical traits — owls that function as night-lights, elephants with a constant stream of water tucked in their trunks. He lives in an age of fairy tales. Any dream can be given form if a suitable skeleton is made for it. As long as he’s in this lab his imagination is boundless.
Finishing the newest page — a twisty little lizard that can enter spaces too narrow for human hands — he slips the whole set from the spiral binding of the sketchbook and clips it on a line over his desk. Eight sets of colourful eyes look back at him in his dreary lab gear. It’s no painter’s workshop, despite the Master’s rainbow array of in-use test tubes, so Luxu has made do with a mismatched set of coloured pencils. The animals’ palettes clash in a charming, childish way.
He smiles at his work.
There’s movement at the back of the room, out-of-sync with the gears in the walls. The door struggles against its latch, until with a satisfying click, it comes loose. Someone else in a black coat enters, belatedly rapping on the door frame. “Honey, I’m home!” the Master calls, heaving his legs the last step up from the tower stairs.
Standing and turning, Luxu positions himself in front of the drawings to prevent them being judged prematurely. “Master, good afternoon,” he says, “I’ve cleaned the rack and progressed our work on spirit assistants.”
The Master shuts the door behind him to deny the rest of the world his wisdom. Always meticulous about who knows what and when. Luxu assumes he’s privy to more experiments than the other five apprentices, but he’s been on the other side of the keyhole enough that he can’t confidently say. “Huh. Thought you’d do the other glassware too. What do they say about assumptions, though? ‘To assume makes an ass out of you —’”
“‘— and me,” Luxu ruefully concludes, “would you like to see?” He slouches to hide as much of the paper as he can without posing too unnaturally.
“Sure.” He approaches, and without waiting for an explanation, takes Luxu’s shoulder to move him aside.
Luxu obliges. “They’re meant to help with specialist work, like mining, or firefighting.”
Running his gloved hands over the papers, the Master stops at the owl. “Cute,” he says. He strokes it absently. The line wobbles. The drawings rustle against each other. “Very, very cute.” Pulling it by the lower edge without undoing the peg, it pings free, and the remaining drawings bounce for a few seconds after. “Do miners like cute? Do we know? Because if they don’t like cute this isn’t gonna be very useful.”
The line stills with the elephant hanging at an angle. Luxu straightens it. “What should it be, then? Wasn’t the Chirithy concept supposed to use cuteness to encourage people to bond with them and trust them?”
“I dunno,” the Master says, “cool? Edgy? Stylish? What do miners like? Aside from mining.”
They stand together in quiet contemplation, differentiated only by their posture; the Master’s shoulders pulled proudly back and his hood almost tipped from his face, while Luxu hunches with a thoughtful hand over his mouth.
Until the Master snaps his fingers. “Eureka! I’ve got it!”
“Oh?!” Like a nervous pendulum, Luxu swings forward onto his toes, then back onto his heels when he realises he’s too close.
“We pretend that miners don’t exist! We give the design to someone else. Maybe kids who’re scared of the dark? Easy.”
Of course. The Master cares about the integrity of his experiments, to the point he’d rather change who’s involved in them than what they are. It takes someone malleable to stay in his good graces, in his presence, working in his name…
He slaps the owl drawing on the desk, knocking a few loose pencils to the floor. The soft graphite chipping on the bricks shouldn’t be so sore on Luxu’s ears, but it is; resounding woodenly through like the warning signs of a headache. Soon the beaded drawstrings for the Master’s hood are clanging about louder than a cathedral. He stretches for the lizard drawing, his robes sandpaper shrieking across hard stone, and he repositions his feet in thunderous blasts.
Massaging his forehead to get the sounds out, Luxu’s fingertips come away wet with his own fast-flowing blood. He winces, less discomforted than disgusted, and tries to rub it clean on the palm of his gloves.
But the Master is there to comfort him. Taking him in his arms, he wraps a hand around the back of his aching skull and clutches it tight. Every nerve that was raging with pain goes numb with euphoria. What he hoped for is here to have him. The only fairy tale he never believed in. “What do you like, Luxu?” the Master asks, sonorous and clear, “why’m I still here?”
Then, despite the mess it’ll cause, the Master of Masters leans in and pushes his unseen lips to Luxu’s, bent over him so their foreheads smear together, swapping spit for spit and sweat for blood. It’s a forceful move, but not forced. A wheel turning the rudder of a ship. One designed to lead and the other designed to follow. Luxu relaxes into it. Someone who knows how to handle him — at last.
He could stay here forever, if the Master stayed with him.
The kiss ends. They separate.
It’s not as if they can go any further. Luxu never saw what he looked like under the coat. There’s no face to picture smiling at him, and no hands to imagine touching the rest of him. He never got the basic intimacy of knowing a real name. He’s left propping himself up with the desk, legs weak from denial, skin gross with fluid. “If I keep going, until I reach the end of the book,” he says, “we can be together.”
The idea amuses the Master, has him curled over with laughter. “I liked you ‘cause you did what you were told. Same with the others, true, but if I said to them ‘Ira! Keep an eye on that keyblade for a few centuries!’ — geddit? — they’d fail halfway.”
Being with the Master is so much easier than anyone else. You know who you are, why you’re there, what you’re doing, where you stand. Perhaps you’re not standing, you’re bent in supplication, but it’s simple. Clean-cut. “You’re bad to us, aren’t you?”
“Terrible,” the Master says with an audible grin.
“But I’ve tried a lot of options, and you’re the best I’ve got.”
“If you say so.”
If he’s not, what has Luxu spent his lives doing?
♡
♡
♡
Xigbar awakens surrounded by red snow. He pretends it’s shaved ice full of strawberry syrup. The sticky substance over his brows, too. A whole lotta strawberry syrup. Cool.
Ignoring the crushing pain in his forehead he sits. Pauses at that for a while. Cross-legged, hem of his coat not quite covering beneath him, so his thighs get damp. He’ll get to his feet when he’s ready. If he does it too soon he’ll vomit everywhere. Matcha shaved ice! Open an ice-cream shop while Sora’s around and use it as a ploy to get Roxas home. Wow, he’s smart when he’s concussed.
Okay, stand up, walk a few steps, then he can summon his own dark portal and get out. Sky’s gloomier than it was. He’s been here a few hours. What if the Organisation’s been worried? Reach the throne room to find Xemnas waiting teary-eyed. ‘We thought you were dead!’
No-one’s been given a funeral. Fair when you consider the ‘dead’ might be arising on some other world as a human, but uncanny for the people left behind. Tombstones appear at the top of the castle and they’re not allowed to mourn at them. When you’re out you’re out.
The Superior doesn’t understand the concept of a ‘noble sacrifice’, just the inconvenience of the empty chair left behind.
Do as you’re asked.
Earn the same memorial as the traitors.
All this to say; Xigbar oughtta go home and be useful. He struggles from step to step. His legs wobble, slip, slide. As they do, his vision swings, and he feels sicker. Flailing like a drunk at a concerned bystander, he gestures the dark portal from the tile in front of him. There’s a sucking sound as a bit of melted snow passes through the cosmic sinkhole.
Keeling over into the darkness, he laughs, confident his bed will catch him on the other side. If it doesn’t? Just another crack on a fractured shell.
♡♡♡
It would be awesome if he could go a few decades not being stabbed with a keyblade. Unfortunately, Xehanort has other plans. Plans he finally remembers unprompted, which is good, but not as good as not being stabbed would be.
Xigbar slumps into the lounge, coat draped over his shoulders, barefoot, in loose black jeans. It’s like someone performed major surgery and forgot to suture him together afterwards. Until his skin stops searing at the slightest touch he’s not wearing a shirt. There’s no HR in the new Organisation but if there was ‘stabbing an employee’ would probably out-bad ‘half-dressed in the workplace’ in a mediation meeting.
Slumped in the largest armchair, Xehanort awaits. Classic edition. Bald, bearded, oversized gloves and overembellished coat. He taps his fingers on either arm and stares. “So eager when we awoke,” he says, “where did your enthusiasm go?”
“Where’d you think?” Xigbar groans, stretching himself over the couch and staring at the ceiling. The World That Never Was… it’s been less than a week since Sora stormed the place and wrecked everything, but here they are, like nothing happened. The castle should feel empty with only the pair of them and Saïx in it: luckily, they’re also back to not feeling.
Crossing his legs, Xehanort can’t resist a smug little laugh. “Braig’s half the person you are. Slow, limited, incapable of traversing the dark corridors —”
“Say it when I can move without my chest killing me.”
In the rooms above them, Saïx can be heard scrambling about, striking his fists against the furniture and his head against the walls, his mind overtaken by the pain. A chest-of-drawers or a bookcase slams over, smaller objects landsliding after it. Then onto his balcony he goes, to howl at their missing moon. It’s funny — even to a Nobody — that someone that messy ever thought he’d take second chair. Saïx tries to play the long game but if it runs even a second longer than anticipated, he loses it. Loudly.
There’s a break in Saïx’s breakdown. Xigbar and Xehanort lower their gazes and share an unimpressed look. He’s a body willing to work. This must be tolerated. For now.
“Didn’t wanna grab anyone else? Bet I coulda sweet-talked Dilan.”
“We couldn’t wait for him to regain consciousness,” Xehanort says, “and likewise, we cannot spend long in this castle. Until the Organisation is closer to completion, we are too vulnerable to risk discovery.” He strokes his beard and ponders. “Of course, when your heartburn has passed, the pair of you are welcome to visit Radiant Garden and negotiate with whoever you like.”
“Naaah.” Xigbar waves the proposal away, though the gesture inflames a strip of nerves below his collarbone. “Not that confident. ‘Sides, they like me, but they don’t trust me. Unless you got a bribe to offer ‘em?”
Hand settled on his chin, Xehanort’s face goes blank. “If they can’t find some intrinsic motivation to complete our work, they can’t be involved. That was what doomed our prior attempts. Too many ambitions besides our own.”
“‘Our’ own? Don’t forget what I’m here for."
“No Name,” he says, “yes, but I won’t be done with it until I’ve claimed the χ-blade, and the χ-blade won’t appear until this work is complete.”
“Just making sure your memory’s okay. Had some bad experiences.”
“ Xigbar ,” he purrs, dangerously affectionate. The tone he used with Vanitas, and Terra, and Eraqus before them. Standing from the armchair he navigates around the coffee table to his side. “After all this time, how could I deny you your reward?” He stays on his feet, hands clasped behind his back, otherwise unmoved.
And trying his best to sound like he believes, Luxu repeats: “how could you?”