Burning Heart Chapter 7

[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?

7.

It was bright light shining into his eyes that woke Xavier from his sudden slumber. Around him he could hear birds of some kind -

Seagulls?

- as well as waves lapping gently against a beach. As he came to full awareness, he felt the coarse grittiness of warm sand underneath him and the heat of the tropical sun shining down on him. Reaching up with shaking hands, he rubbed the sand and gunk from his eyes and sat up to look around.

Like he suspected, he was lying on a beach, though for the life of him he had no idea how he had gotten there. The last thing he remembered was looking at the portrait of Xemnas in the sketchbook and then nothing.

We are you!

Xavier shuddered and staggered to his feet. As he stood, he felt something in one of his pockets and looked down to see that he had somehow managed to stuff the sketchbook in one. Shrugging it off as unimportant, he looked up and took in his surroundings. He was on a tropical island, and it was apparent that humans were around somewhere, if the walkways, bridges, shacks, and retaining walls that he could see were anything to go by. There were no houses that he could see, though he supposed that they could be on the other side of the island, out of sight, but he felt certain that the island that he was standing on was uninhabited.

Off to his left was a pier, and one small rowboat was tied up to it, which meant that chances were good someone else was on the island with him. Now he just need to find that person so he could find out where he was and, maybe, how in the hell he had gotten there. He began walking away from the water's edge, towards a short retaining wall that held up a walkway around a small pond that was fed by a waterfall.

At first he thought it was an aural illusion created by the falling water, the sounds of some kind of strings being plucked, but even as he moved away from the water, he could still hear them, so he began to try and find the source of the sound. The swirling wind currents around the island caused by the wave action and the high mountain in the center made it difficult to find it, and it wasn't until he started to climb up onto the higher walkways that he found it.

On a high platform between two peaks on the north end of the island, he spotted a lone person with blond hair done up in a mullet and wearing a loose fitting shirt, baggy linen pants,and no shoes. The man was barefooted, and his eyes were closed as he focused on playing the sitar that he held in his lap. He was facing towards the sun, which was beginning to set and would have been able to see Xavier standing there watching him if he hadn't been so wrapped up in his music. He was playing a simple melody that spoke of joy and happiness, yet it had an undercurrent of sadness and loss. Xavier was loathe to interrupt him, so he leaned against the rock on one side of the walkway and waited for him to finish.

After a long moment, the last note died away, and the blond man opened his eyes, which were green. He smiled in satisfaction and went to stand up, but when he did, his fell upon Xavier standing there. The man stared at him in shock for a moment and rubbed his eyes and blinked as if to make sure what he was seeing was real. Then his eyes widened in terror. He dropped his sitar, which hit the wooden floor with the twang of jostled strings, and began to back away. After a few steps, he turned to run, only to meet the sides of the mountain that supported the platform. He spun back around to face Xavier, looked past him at the only path out, and then seemed to make a split second decision. He ran for the only exit, but he tripped on a loose board trying to get around Xavier and would have gone over the railing had Xavier not grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him away from the edge. In response he only backed away back onto the platform, while Xavier wondered what had him so frightened. He was obviously afraid of Xavier himself, but why?

“P.. please...” the man stuttered in terror “Don't hurt me.”

Xavier perked on eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?” Wait a moment, hadn't he just seen a portrait of this guy recently?

“Demyx?” he asked, and the response surprised him.

“Emyd,” the young man said without the fear that he had shown a second before “Demyx was a Nobody.”

“Emyd then,” Xavier replied as he stepped onto the platform, which caused Emyd to back up even further “How do I know you? How do you know me? Who is Xemnas?”

Emyd blinked once and stared at him in bewildered silence for a few moments. “You can't remember again?”

“What do you mean 'again'?”

“Xemnas had amnesia too, though no one but the senior members were supposed to know.”

Xavier was intrigued, and he sat down and made himself comfortable on the wooden platform. “Please, tell me more.”

Emyd sat down close by, apparently no longer afraid of him, though his eyes looked very far away. “Demyx was part of Organization XIII. They were a group of Nobodies – beings that had lost their hearts – and they were powerful enough to retain their original form and human thought. Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion were the six founding members, and they recruited the other seven members later on. The Organization's goal was to regain their hearts, at least, most of them were after that. Xemnas had other plans, though I think Xigbar might have known about them. Marluxia figured it out too, and he and Larxene were planning to overthrow Xemnas so they could try and get Kingdom Hearts to get their hearts back.”

Kingdom Hearts... Xavier heard a reedy old voice whisper, and he shuddered.

Emyd kept talking, unaware of the voice or the shudder that it caused, and Xavier noted that his sitar was back on his lap, and that he was plucking at it absently. “But Saïx and Axel were also planning to overthrow Xemnas for the same reasons, and they didn't want Marluxia to overthrow him first, so, on Xemnas' orders, Saïx sent Marluxia and Larxene to Castle Oblivion. They were supposed to give Marluxia enough rope to hang himself, but Saïx also needed to get rid of anyone that would stand in his and Axel's way, so they sent Vexen, Zexion, and Lexaeus out there too. Axel was sent there to get rid of the traitors, and he killed everyone but Marluxia and Lexaeus before he returned to the Castle That Never Was. Lexaeus was killed by a Heartless, and Marluxia was killed by Sora.”

“Sora?”

“The Keyblade Wielder. The Organization needed him to destroy as many emblem Heartless as he could, so the freed hearts would form Kingdom Hearts, but....”

“But?” Xavier did not like the look in Emyd's eyes; something about it made him uneasy. He wasn't going to like what he was going to hear next; he knew it.

“He destroyed the Organization instead. Demyx was the first to die.” Emyd shuddered, and Xavier thought he saw tears in his eyes for a brief second. “Xaldin was next, and then Sora reached the Castle That Never Was. There was no stopping him and his friends after that. He killed Luxord, and then Xigbar died in the Hall of Empty Melodies. Saïx was the next to fall, and then Sora and his friend Riku destroyed Xemnas.”

Xavier shuddered again; battle cries, yells, the sounds of clashing weapons, the hum of Xemnas' Ethereal Blades all sounded in his mind before he shook his head, and they fell silent.

“Was Saïx...” Xavier swallowed heavily “Was Saïx Xemnas' second in command.”

Emyd nodded. “He worked his way up into that position since it would be easier to stab Xemnas in the back that way. Saïx really wanted his heart back, and he didn't care who he had to hurt to get it. I suppose we were all like that. When you don't have a heart, you can't regret your actions. Sora hated him with a passion, and even though Saïx regained his heart like the rest of us, those in charge of Radiant Garden saw to it that Isa was thrown into the deepest, darkest prison they could find, never to see the light of day again.” Emyd shuddered again. “It makes me glad that Sora and them don't hate me like that. Sora's friendly with most of the former Organization members. He doesn't like Marluxia's Other, but he leaves him alone. He's friends with Lea, Axel's Other, and he allowed me to live here on Destiny Islands because my homeworld hasn't been pulled from the Darkness yet.”

“Allowed you to? Why does he have a say in where you live?”

Emyd looked up at him from between strands of blond hair that had fallen down from the mullet atop his head. “This is Sora, Riku, and Kairi's homeworld, and they're very protective of it.”

Xavier chose to ignore that for the moment. “You said 'Other'. Does that refer to the original person? And how did they all get their hearts back?”

“Yeah, your Other is your original self, before your heart was lost. When the heart is taken by the Heartless, the heart becomes an Emblem Heartless, and the body and soul becomes a Nobody. If the Heartless is destroyed, freeing the heart, and then the Nobody is destroyed, the Other is reborn.”

“So all of Organization XIII was reborn?”

Emyd nodded, and then he glanced over at the sun, which was just a sliver of red light barely visible on the horizon. “Look, it's late. I have to go home. The town is on a nearby island, but you can't come with me; someone might tell Sora that they saw you, and he hated Xemnas more than he hated Saïx. If he hears that Xemnas' Other was in his hometown with me, he'll make us both wish we were never born. Come with me.” Emyd stood up, and his sitar vanished in a cloud of watery bubbles.

What the hell was that? And how in the hell did he do it?

He walked past Xavier onto the walkway, and went down the ladder to the ground. Xavier hastened to follow him, and the sitar player led him aside the small pond to a smaller cave that was concealed by brush and clinging vines. The pair walked down a short tunnel, which widened into a cave formed out of the rock with a sandy floor. The walls were covered with chalk scribbles and drawings, and on the far end of the room was what appeared to be a door. There were remains of a fire in the center of the floor, as well as a sleeping bag and simple tent.

“I stumbled into this world by accident.” Emyd explained as he picked up the sleeping bag and shook it out. “Sora was still out going around the worlds, and local children found me here. The adults tried to get me to come into town, but I was too scared; I didn't know how far the Organization's reputation had spread, and I was scared of what they would do to me. Since they couldn't convince me to come into town, they brought me these to use. Sora later came home and convinced me to stay in town, but I left the camping stuff here, because sometimes I lose track of time when I'm playing my sitar and spend the night here. The kids know the stuff is mine and don't mess with it. You can stay here, and tomorrow, I'll come back and bring you something to eat.”

“Why are you helping me?”

Emyd paused in his checking of the tent, and he sighed, and his shoulders sagged. “Saïx may have been mean and nasty, but Isa doesn't deserve what they're doing to him. Axel did many nasty things too, but Lea is friends with Sora. It's not fair, and I'd like to think that, even though Xemnas calmly sacrificed all the Nobodies in the Organization, his Other is not so bad either.”

“You've seen Isa.”

Emyd nodded. “Yeah, the others and I were shown him so we knew what would happen to us if we tried to hurt anyone again. It would have been nicer if they had just killed him outright.” Emyd shuddered suddenly, and then straightened up and turned to face Xavier like nothing was amiss. “Okay, I'll be back tomorrow morning.” he said brightly, and then he walked out of the cave, leaving Xavier alone in the rapidly deepening gloom.

******

“Ah Kingdom Hearts,” said the same old man that he had seen in the mirror as he eyed Xavier like he was a particularly interesting animal in a zoo. The feel of that gaze of him certainly did make Xavier feel like he was trapped in a cage somehow, with no escape from it. “So you succeeded. Yes, that is very fortunate. It means that you can do so again if you were to try it.”

Xavier wanted to back up a few steps to get away from the creepiness that was the old man's orange eyed gaze, but his feet were seemingly frozen to whatever it was he was standing on. He certainly couldn't see anything around him other than an endless expanse of nothing. “What is Kingdom Hearts? And why would I want to try getting it?”

“Because it is power, my boy! It is what I was after the entire time! I needed Kingdom Hearts to make sure I survived, but Terra stopped me, but now we can still succeed! You can summon it easily with my keyblade, once you learn how. Or,” He smiled an oily smile that made Xavier's skin crawl and took a step closer. “you can let me... remind you. All you have to do is surrender control to me.”

“No!” Xavier shook his head emphatically “You're out of your mind if you think that I would let a crazy old man like you take control of my body!”

“And yet you have control of my heart.” the old man responded with an eager lift of his eyebrows “What were to happen if I were to take back what is mine?” He took a few more steps forward, and Xavier felt his heart wrench as though it was trying to tear it itself out of his chest, and through a haze of pain and agony, he saw the old man's eyes come alight with triumph and greed.

“Leave him alone!” A dark haired blur streaked up from behind Xavier and collided hard with the old man and shoved him away. The old man snarled in sudden rage, and Xavier felt something akin to an electric shock when his rescuer turned back to face him.

It was the dark haired, blue eyed young he'd seen in the mirror, the one that resembled him so much.

“Xavier!” he yelled as he pushed the furious old man away “Don't let him win! Don't let him take control of you! If you want to ever see your family again, do not let him have your heart! I will hold him back as long as I can, but you must find a way to separate him from you! Do you understand? I can't hold him back forever, so you must find a way to force him out of your heart, or he will take control of you again and destroy everything and everyone you hold dear, like he did to me!”

Xavier felt himself being drawn backwards away from the two men, and the younger one shouted one last thing at him. “Don't use your keyblade! Using it allows him to get a firmer grip on you! Use mine instead!” The old man snarled something again and threw the younger away from him, but he was unable to reach Xavier as he vanished into the waking world.

******

“Hey!” An insistent voice fell on his ears, accompanied by the feel of someone shaking him. Xavier was startled awake, and a frightened yelp was heard as he opened his eyes and looked around. He was lying on the sleeping bag in the little cave that Emyd had shown him, and Emyd himself was sitting on the sandy floor on the other side, his green eyes wide with shock and fright. The reason for that soon became clear when Xavier saw that his left arm was extended, and he was holding a keyblade, pointed at Emyd threateningly. He had just enough presence of mind to note that it wasn't the one he had been using, before he dismissed the weapon and dropped his hand.

“Emyd?” he asked as guilt flooded his heart “Are you alright? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do that!”

Emyd stared at him for a moment longer, and then he shook his head. “I'm okay. I was worried.” he said as he gnawed on his lower lip “You seemed to be having a bad dream, but I couldn't wake you up. And then you woke up and you had that keyblade pointed at me, and -” Emyd's face suddenly brightened. “Hey! That means you are a keyblade user! That means I win the bet! Ha! I finally won a bet with Luxord!” His face sobered abruptly. “Too bad, I don't know where's he's at to collect. Damn, there was a lot of munny in that pot.”

Xavier raised an eyebrow; was this kid bi-polar or something?

Emyd sighed. “Anyway,” he said, suddenly cheerful again “I brought you some breakfast.” With that he handed over a small tin of blueberry muffins and a thermos of coffee. As Xavier dug into the food, Emyd sat down against the wall and began to chatter away about various things. Xavier listened with half an ear, until he heard a certain word.

“...keyblades hurt when they hit you, and...”

“Wait,” Xavier said around a mouthful of muffin “What can you tell me about the keyblades?”

Emyd shrugged. “Only what Xemnas told me. Those that wield the keyblades can either save the worlds or destroy them. They can open any lock, but they can also seal the worlds' keyholes, preventing the Heartless from getting to the worlds' hearts and devouring them. The Heartless though use the keyblade as a beacon, and no matter where they go, keyblade wielders area always being followed by them.”

“Are there many keyblade wielders?”

“Right now there are seven that I know of, no wait, eight, since you're one too, but that's all.”

“Who are they?”

“Sora, Kairi, and Riku are the three that live here, when they're not looking for Xehanort.” A weird look crossed Emyd's face then, like something had just occurred to him, but he continued on without stopping. “Roxas -”

“From the Organization?”

“Ummm, yeah, he travels with them sometimes, and so does King Mickey: he's another one. Aqua and Ventus are also looking for Xehanort...” Emyd trailed off, and he looked at Xavier, who had paused in eating. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Xavier.”

“I thought Xemnas' Other was named Xehanort.”

Xavier shrugged. “Maybe I'm not Xemnas' Other. I certainly can't remember. Xavier is the name my adoptive parents gave me.”

“No, you're definitely Xehanort. You looked so much Xemnas, it's creepy. You're a little thinner and less built than him, and your hair is slightly different, but other than that you look just like him. Oh, and you're eyes are brown instead of orange, but that's probably because you aren't in touch with the Dar-” Emyd's words were stopped abruptly, and his eyes widened in horror as he clapped his hands over his mouth.

“What?” Xavier asked impatiently “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing!”

“Emyd....” he growled, and the blond let out a frightened squeak as he tried to scoot even further away.

“You have NO idea how much you sounded like Xemnas then.”'

“What are you not telling me, Emyd?” He leveled a glare at the sitar player and was rewarded when his face crumbled along with his resolve.

“Okay!” he squeaked “I'll tell you! Just promise to stop looking at me like Xemnas did whenever I screwed up a mission!”

“Then start talking.”

Emyd sighed. “Even after we regained our hearts, we kept our Nobody powers.”

“Nobody powers?”

“Nobodies aren't supposed to exist, but they did, and they broke the rules of the universe by doing so, at least that is what Vexen and Zexion said.” He trailed off and Xavier leveled another glare at him, which caused him to squeak again and continue. “All of them had powers of some kind. Demyx could control water, Xiggy could control gravity, and Marluxia had power over nature itself.”

Well, Xavier thought, that explains the cherry blossom petals. “What could Xemnas control?” he asked.

Emyd swallowed thickly. “Nothingness.” he whispered.

“Nothingness? How does one control nothingness?”

“I don't know.” Emyd replied, still speaking in a hushed whisper “But he was the most powerful of the Organization, and everyone else held him in fear and respect. None of us wanted him truly furious with us.”

“Was he cruel?”

“No,” Emyd shook his head. “but he was strict, and he could be dangerous if something or someone made him furious. He was angry with Demyx several times, but at most he would chew him out and have Saïx assign him the suckiest missions in existence. I never saw Xemnas furious, but Luxord did once. He wouldn't say what happened exactly, but he came back to the castle pale and shaking, and all he would say was that it hadn't been a pleasant sight. They all knew that Xemnas could be dangerous, but to learn that he hadn't cared about them at all was pretty tough.” The blond grinned suddenly. “We were like a big family, a bit on the dysfunctional side, but we looked after each other, but then...” He trailed off again, and that time, a glare didn't do any good.

“What happened?” Xavier asked after a long moment of Emyd staring at nothing, his mind far away.

The blond sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “Xemnas happened. Marluxia, Larxene, Saïx, and Axel figured out that he wasn't out to get their hearts back, and they set up their own plots to overthrow him. Things fell apart from there.” He shook his head, as if he were shaking off old memories “You had better leave soon. Sora and company could return at any time, and if they see you here, you'll end up with quite the fight on your hands. I recommend that you pay a visit to Radiant Garden.”

“Why?”

“Even and Ienzo are there, and they are the ones most likely to know where you can find Naminé.”

He saw a picture in his mind of a small girl with white blond hair.“Who is Naminé and why would I want to find her?”

“She was a Nobody too, and she kept her powers after gaining a heart. Her power is over memory, and she might be able to help you.”

“So Radiant Garden it is. Now I just have to figure out how to get there.”

“I can help you with part of that.” Emyd stood up and gestured with his hand, and a large black portal just like the one that Raliaum had thrown him through appeared. “That will take you to Radiant Garden, but be careful. Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion were all from Radiant Garden, and Xehanort was directly responsible for its destruction. People won't be too thrilled to see you there.”

“Yet you're telling me to go there.”

“If you want answers, you'll have to talk to Naminé, and if you want to talk to Naminé, you'll have to talk to Even and Ienzo, and if you want to talk to Even and Ienzo, you'll have to go to Radiant Garden.”

Xavier sighed. “Fine.” he said and stood up and walked towards the swirling portal, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his heart it caused.

“Good luck, Xavier.” Emyd said softly with a small smile “I hope you find your family.”

Xavier managed a wry smile in return. “Thanks.” Then he walked into the swirling blackness of the portal.

Chapter 6 – Chapter 8
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