Burning Heart Chapter 6

[eiahmon]

Title: Burning Heart
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Disney and Square owns it all; I only wish I did. Why in the hell cant I come up with these wickedly cool characters and twisted plots? Why?
Summary: Nomura has stated that now that his Heartless and Nobody have been destroyed, Master Xehanort will be reborn. What if he is reborn, but not in the way everyone thinks?

6.

To Xavier it seemed as thought he had walked for hours through the cold, pouring rain before he reached the shelter of the white castle. He had encountered more Heartless on the way, and he was shivering from the cold and exhaustion by the time he stepped into Nothing's Call -

How do I know what this room is called?

- and looked around at the stark white interior. He dragged his dripping hair back out of his face and shuddered as he pushed his aching body forward.

I need to sleep.

Without thinking about where he was going, he walked out of Nothing's Call and through a maze of corridors and rooms that would have gotten him hopelessly lost had been paying attention. As it was, he was barely aware of anything until his feet came to a sudden stop in front of a single white door. With a resigned sigh, Xavier opened the door and stepped into a plain bedroom, decorated the same as the rest of the castle. There was a single unadorned window looking out over the Dark City -

Kingdom Hearts? Shouldn't it be there?

- and a single bed in the middle of the room. The bed was covered in dust and looked as if it hadn't been touched in quite some time, but to Xavier it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He stripped out of his dripping wet clothes, wrung them out as best he could, and hung them up on various odds and ends sticking out of the walls. He then shook the dust off the bed's sheets and blanket as well as he could and climbed in.

Why does this feel so familiar?

He was asleep within seconds.

******

He was in a room. Its size could not be determined; any walls, if they were there at all, were swallowed up by the shadows around him. A single white light shone down from above him, but he could see no source for it when he looked up. Just within the radius of the light were five, free standing floor mirrors, and each one had a reflection, though when he looked closely, four of them were not him. The first looked like him, but something about the person looked... off.

It appeared to be him, same tanned skin, same white hair, same brown eyes, and he was wearing a white lab coat over a white shirt and a gray vest, a purple ascot, black pants, and black boots. In the eyes he saw the same look that he saw whenever he saw his face in a mirror, the look of confusion, of questions unanswered and answers unknown.

In the next mirror was someone that looked similar to him; the build was heavier and more muscular, and the hair was styled differently. The biggest differences were the long black coat, and the bright orange eyes, which stared into his own with an emotionless gaze.

The next one was staring back at him with undisguised hostility. Its hair was the same as his own, but the eyes were orange, the skin was darker, and the clothes were very different. It (he?) wore a black and gray coat that reached down to the calves over a white vest that exposed its muscular chest, black pants, black boots, and white gloves.

The next mirror held an image that looked very different, at least at first glance. It held an image of a young man, almost a boy, with messy brown hair and bright blue eyes. It wasn't until Xavier looked closer that he realized that the boy did resemble him a great deal. The face was younger, but the shape and structure were nearly identical to his own. Were the two of them related somehow? The blue eyes that were looking back at him were filled with emotion: anger, betrayal, hate, but he could see, behind the negativity, sadness and a desperate longing. It seemed like quite the long stretch of time before he was able to tear his gaze away and look closer at the last mirror.

Staring back at him with a look that made his skin crawl, was an old man. His was bald, with a short, white beard clinging to his chin. He was wearing a similar outfit to the third mirror, only instead of a vest, he was wearing a button down shirt, and the bottom half of his coat was a darker gray. His ears were pointed, and his eyes were a bright orange, and they looked at him with interest. Xavier felt like a bug under a microscope as he backed away until he was standing under the light again.

Who are you? he wondered, and he was startled when three voices answered him, though he could have sworn he had not spoken the question out loud.

We are you!

And... He hesitated, not sure that he wanted to know. Who am I?

This time, the old man and the brown haired boy, neither of which had answered his first question, responded:

You are us.

******

Xavier sat up in the dusty bed, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. What the hell had that been? He drew his knees up to his chest and held his face in his hands for the longest moment, while he tried to make sense of his dream. Five reflections, four of which resembled him in some way. The fifth did not bear thinking about. Something about the old man frightened him, but he did no know why. The old man's gaze had felt... threatening.

Xavier couldn't help the shiver than ran through him.

As he caught his breath and his heart slowed to normal, he threw the blankets back and stood up, shivering again when his bare feet touched the cold floor. He quickly checked his clothes to see that they were still slightly damp, but they would have to do, and he shivered again as he dressed himself. He cast his eyes around the room and spotted what appeared to be a closet door on the far wall, so he walked over, hoping to find something to put over his clothes until they finished drying. He opened the door to see that it was indeed a closet, but the only things it contained were a few black leather coats, and a single pair of boots. The room suddenly rocked to the side for a moment, which forced him to lean against the door frame or risk falling over, and he pictured Raliaum again, standing with his scythe over his shoulder, wearing the exact same style of coat. The dizziness worsened when he reached out to one of the coats and was able to plainly see the tag on the back of the collar, with a name stitched into it.

“Xemnas,” Xavier said weakly, as his legs wobbled and threatened to fold underneath him.

You really cannot remember! You have no idea who I am, who YOU are!

Xavier moaned as it felt as though someone was inflating a balloon inside his head, trying to make his skull burst under the pressure. He pushed himself away from the closet, and staggered out of the room. The dizziness began to abate once he was out in the corridor, and he leaned against the wall while he waited for it to pass.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked himself as he stood there “Who am I?”

I need to get out of here.

He pushed himself away from the wall and began walking through the deserted, silent, corridors, hoping to find his way back to Nothing's Call, but he could only barely remember how he had gotten from there to the bedroom he had used, and he could only hope to stumble upon it by accident. Using his keyblade to create a portal so he could leave that way simply never occurred to him.

So he wandered the castle, and he ran into many strange rooms, a laboratory, a large open room with a small platform halfway up the wall -

Hall of Empty Melodies

- a prison of some kind, a large open staircase, fashioned from glass and white metal, as well as several mundane rooms; more bedrooms, a kitchen, a library, a living room, and bathrooms. He walked through a door in the Hall of Empty Melodies, and down a walkway high up outside the castle -

Naught's Skyway

- to a mezzanine in the Hall, through a door, and down a short narrow corridor to a room that sent him reeling in shock.

At first he though he had wandered into a graveyard; the oddly shaped room certainly had the look and feel of one. Twelve panels on the floor were arranged aside a center pathway, and when he walked up to them, he could read words carved into what appeared to be broken tombstones at the head of each panel. He slowly walked through the room, looked at the panels, all of which were glowing blue, and read the names engraved into the broken stones.

“Number VIII,” he read off of the one in the bottom row, far left “The Flurry of Dancing Flames.” On the softly glowing panel was an image of a strange spiked wheel, and he knew with a certainty that Axel could use his chakrams with deadly skill.

Axel?

He walked down the row: The Melodious Nocturne, The Gambler of Fate, The Graceful Assassin -

Raliaum...

- The Savage Nymph, and The Key of Destiny.

Xavier cocked his head and looked at the panel for the Key of Destiny. The style and design were very different from his own, but the panel clearly showed, crossed over one another, two keyblades. He knelt down to take a closer look; yes they were definitely keyblades, though they were of a much simpler design than his own. Maybe this Key of Destiny, whoever that was, was one of the ones that Hayner Pence and Olette had told him about?

Filing that away for later, he returned to the center path and walked up to the next row: The Chilly Academic, The Silent Hero, The Cloaked Schemer, and The Luna Diviner.

Saïx?

The next row up only had two names: The Freeshooter, and the Whirlwind Lancer.

I know these people... but how?

Leaving the depressing room behind, Xavier shook his head and walked up the center isle to the open doorway at the end, up a narrow staircase, to -

Naught's Approach

- an exterior passage that allowed him to see the Dark City below. He paused to look around and spotted something lying on one of the sloping ramps that made up the area. Curious, he walked over and picked it up.

It was a sketchbook, dusty and worn, the pages brittle and dry with age. Each page was filled with colorful drawings, some done with crayon, some done with pencil. Xavier absently sat down on the cold floor and started flipping through it. There were several drawing of the castle he was in, a few of a second castle with white halls and gray accents, quite a few of a tropical island with palm trees, and a sun shining on the gently lapping waves, but it was the last set of drawings that caught his attention.

They were a set of portraits, thirteen in all, and they each had a number, a name, and a title on them. They were in reverse order, with number thirteen being the first and number one being the last. The first was a blond boy, carrying the two keys that Xavier had seen on the panel in the Proof of Existence.

“Roxas,” he read out loud “Number XIII, The Key of Destiny.”

The next page held a portrait of a blond woman, with small knife like weapons held between her fingers. She was a beautiful woman, but something about her seemed dangerous and sinister.

“Larxene, Number XII, The Savage Nymph.”

The next portrait made him start in surprise and blink his eyes a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, because looking up at him from the paper was Raliaum, the man he had met just after leaving Twilight Town, complete with the black leather coat and the pink bladed scythe.

“Marluxia, Number XI, The Graceful Assassin.”

He quickly looked through the next few portraits, suddenly seized by a sense of urgency, for what reason he did not know.

Xemnas!

He skipped past the portraits of The Gambler of Fate, The Melodious Nocturne, and the Flurry of Dancing Flames. Number VII, the Luna Diviner, made him pause however. Staring back at him through yellow eyes was a blue haired man with pointed ears and carrying a massive weapon of some kind. It looked like a cross between a sword and a club.

“Saïx?” he whispered, as he stared. Saïx was... Saïx was his second in command – command of what? - but Saïx was dead! They all were, including....

Xavier hurriedly flipped through the portraits, past Zexion, Number VI, The Cloaked Schemer,

Oh god, Ienzo.

Past Lexaeus, Number V, The Silent Hero,

You were right, Aeleus...

Vexen, Number IV, The Chilly Academic

I'm so sorry, Even!

Xaldin, Number III, The Whirlwind Lancer,

Dilan...

Xigbar, Number II, The Freeshooter,

Damn it, Braig!

Until he reached the last portrait.

“Xemnas, Number I, The Superior of the In-Between...”

Looking back at him with emotionless orange eyes was the person he had seen in the third mirror in his dream.

We are you!

Pain exploded in his skull, and Xavier screamed in sudden agony as he grabbed his head, as though he was trying to hold it together. Naught's Approach titled crazily, and he realized that he was falling to the side as darkness swallowed his vision, and he passed out.

Chapter 5 – Chapter 7
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