The Way We Were

The heart was a strange mechanism. Twisting and bending in every conceivable direction, influencing illogical decisions and, ultimately, ruling over the entire being, it was a cruel and beautiful instrument that was not to be taken lightly.

It never ceased to amaze him, all the things a heart could do. As Isa, he had experienced firsthand the strong emotions such a simple tool could evoke, taking him from happiness to despair in a mere instant. The loss of his parents had been the hardest blow, one he fully expected at the time to never recover from.

After Esme took him in, Isa remained deep within the shell he had built around himself. Nothing seemed to interest him, and the reasons to smile dwindled until they didn’t exist anymore. He didn’t have any friends, nobody to talk to about the deep pain he felt in that accursed heart of his. His foster mother did the best she could, but even she became disheartened after months of trying. She couldn’t save him, and for a long time, Isa thought nobody could.

Then Lea came along. He had been passed along from foster home to foster home all his life, an orphan from birth. When Isa learned of this from Esme, he expected the boy to be just as sullen as himself. He was surprised when they met, and found him to be a very cheerful person. That bright smile always plastered on his face, the childlike way of dressing, and even that stupid spiked hair proved to be the best thing that had ever happened to Isa.

With Lea’s help, Isa began to smile and have fun again. The two quickly became best friends, and for the longest time you couldn’t find one without the other.

Then he met Xehanort.

What began as a lucky meeting in the rain soon turned into much more. Isa and Xehanort began seeing each other more often. A chance encounter here, a visit there, and they soon became close friends. Lea was left out most of the time. Isa felt guilty for it, but he couldn’t help it that he liked spending time with Xehanort more. Lea was a great friend, but he and Xehanort had so much in common it was scary. They could talk for hours, long vivid discussions about nothing and everything.

Inevitably, what began as a close friendship manifested into much more.

They had stayed out much too late that night, so wrapped up in conversation that they didn’t notice the time. Xehanort had offered to walk him home, and Isa had accepted, eager to spend as much time as possible with his friend.

When they reached the house, Isa turned to say goodbye and found a pair of soft lips meeting his own. His heart fluttered, that traitorous object, and he had to wrap his arms around the other boy’s shoulders to keep his knees from buckling. He had never stopped to consider his own feelings before, the reason he had been so drawn to Xehanort, but in hindsight it was all too obvious that this was what he wanted.

When Xehanort asked Isa to become an apprentice under Ansem, the blue-haired boy was all too eager to say yes. It was only after he found out that he and Xehanort would probably not be working together that he began to feel nervous. He didn’t want to be around people he didn’t know, least of all the cold inhabitants of the castle. So he begged Lea to join with him. The redheaded boy was surprisingly easy to convince. A very short time later, they moved to the castle.

Isa soon discovered that his fears were unfounded. It seemed like Xehanort was always around him, in one way or another. Working on an experiment with him, helping him carry things…even at night, he was always around. At first, Xehanort would sneak into his room after everyone else went to sleep. Eventually, however, the secret came out in a rare moment of indiscretion. Isa didn’t know how Xehanort managed to coax him into having sex on a lab table after hours, but the resulting smashed beakers and the very loud lecture from Even convinced them both to never do it again.

With their secret exposed, and when nobody seemed to care, Isa practically moved into Xehanort’s room. His own room became simple storage space for his clothes, and occasionally a good place for a catnap in the middle of the day. At the time, Isa had been on top of the world, convinced nothing bad could ever happen to him with Xehanort by his side.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

After they finished with their work for that day, Xehanort wanted his help with a personal project. He hadn’t thought anything was strange about it. Even when Xehanort manifested dark energy in his hands, the warning bells didn’t go off. The white-haired boy hadn’t meant to hurt him, after all, he simply wanted to show off his new ability. Unfortunately, Xehanort wasn’t able to control it, and the energy all but attacked Isa.

He blacked out, and came to several hours later in Xehanort’s room. The older boy was sitting beside him, yellow eyes brimming with concern. At the time, Isa simply thought it was because Xehanort cared about him that he was worried. It wasn’t until later that he discovered what had happened.

When Xehanort finally let him near a mirror, several days after the incident, Isa could not believe it was his reflection. The harsh yellow eyes framing the ugly x-shaped scar, pointed ears, and jagged teeth were a shock to say the least. He barely looked like himself anymore.

The changes weren’t only physically, he came to realize. He discovered that feeling emotions became…difficult. He couldn’t explain the emptiness that seemed to resonate throughout him, the sheer force of will it took just to feel a shred of happiness. Even in Xehanort’s presence, the joy he used to feel was so diminished that it almost wasn’t worth feeling joy at all. What had happened to him? Would he be this way forever? Would he have to leave everything he had cared about and treasured behind in the wake of this accident? Day by day, the questions grew, until he couldn’t ignore them anymore. He had to tell someone about this.

Lea became the perfect candidate to tell. He couldn’t tell Xehanort, because he didn’t want the older boy to feel guilty about what happened, and he didn’t know anyone else at the castle well enough. He approached his red-haired friend late one evening, well before Xehanort was done with his experiments. They hadn’t spoken in months, and Lea was surprised, but seemed happy enough to go with him. He wished he could feel envy at the ease with which Lea expressed his emotions, but could only conjure up the dull apathy he was growing so accustomed to.

He tried to tell Lea about how difficult it was becoming to feel things, how he wished he could feel fear at the crushing apathy weighing down on his mind, how every passing day seemed to ring more and more meaningless until he was almost certain he was going to go mad. But his friend wouldn’t stop pestering him with questions about trivial things, such as his appearance, so much so that he couldn’t get a word in.

It was as if a switch were flipped. The emotional block in his mind lifted, letting the anger pour into him. He exploded, screaming and cursing at his friend so vehemently that he almost scared himself. Lea’s expression of fear made him giddy, and soon he had lost himself to anger. For one hopeful, amazing moment, he felt like his old self again, the apathy falling from his shoulders like a loose coat.

Lea fled, and he soon learned that these effects were only temporary. With the subject of his anger gone, it cooled quickly and soon turned back into the same damn apathy he’d felt before. He wished he could feel sorrow. He wished he could cry over what he’d lost.

Xehanort soon found out about the incidents with Lea, as did everyone in the castle, and forced the truth out of him. When he told Xehanort the story, the embrace he received felt cold and hollow. Still, he embraced back fiercely, desperately trying to remember what it was like to feel safe and loved…it felt like a far-off memory of something he could never retrieve. Maybe it already was.

Several days later, the white-haired boy told him of an experiment he was conducting that could reverse his condition. Though he was more than willing to participate, he decided to ask Lea to join him. He hadn’t spent any time with the redhead since he practically attacked him, and he wanted Lea to see him turn back to normal.

It occurred to him that something was odd when he walked into the room. A machine large enough for several people to fit into was filling up the space of the abandoned lab room Xehanort had chosen for the experiment. That in itself wasn’t odd; the strange thing was that the machine was already filled with people. He recognized all of them: Braig, Dilan, and Aleus, the somewhat intimidating castle guards; Even, a scientist with an eccentric streak they had worked with several times before; and even Ienzo, the youngest apprentice at the castle, who had been taken in by Ansem after becoming an orphan. When he asked Xehanort why they were there, the white-haired man just said to trust him. So he did, because he knew it was something he would do.

He led Lea into the machine, stepping inside amongst the others. It was pure white, making it seem much bigger than it actually was. Still, it was cramped when he and Lea squeezed in and shut the door, huddling against the far wall to avoid touching the others. A few moments later, a loud whirring sound could be heard, and he noticed the visible signs of fear on Lea’s face. He forced a dull, lifeless smile onto his own in an attempt to reassure his friend.

Then, the world went black.

--

Saix strode down the long white corridor, soft black boots barely making a sound on the cold tiles beneath him. It was late, well past the time most members were asleep, provided they weren’t on a mission. But for Saix, it was normal to be awake this late. It was his nightly ritual, one he didn’t dare break.

The large white door in front of him offered no obstacle, though it had long ago stopped functioning as a regular door. Instead, a dark oval appeared in the very middle, revealing the room beyond as Saix stepped through without breaking stride. Using his dark powers was as effortless as breathing. Sometimes he wondered how he ever got along without them before.

“You’re late,” Xemnas said from his white desk chair, looking up from some papers he was shifting through.

Saix said nothing, instead pulling a small manila envelope from the inner folds of his coat and offering it up to the white-haired man. Xemnas took it with a small smile.

“Ah…you’ve been busy.”

“It took me several days to collect it all,” Saix said in his monotone voice. “Axel was much cleverer than I realized. He tried to hide them before he left. He failed to realize that I know this castle like the back of my own hand.”

“And you’re sure this is all of it?” Xemnas unhooked the clasp and opened the folder, pulling out sheets of white paper. “We don’t want any stray papers floating around confusing our guest.”

“All pages are accounted for,” Saix confirmed.

“Good.” Xemnas wound the papers back up and handed them to his subordinate. “Burn them. Make sure they’re reduced to nothing but ash.”

“Is that really such a good idea?” Saix asked, tucking the package back into his coat and settling it snugly against his chest. “We may still need this information. It’s too useful to just destroy.”

“We’ll take our chances with that.” Xemnas pulled the zipper down on his coat, revealing a simple black shirt and pants underneath. “It’s more important that our young Keyblade Master never discover it.”

“I fail to see why that would be bad,” Saix argued. “I feel that he would be more vulnerable if he were to learn his true identity. He might be more willing to do what we want.”

“But if he isn’t, there is no taking back that information once he’s learned it.” If Saix didn’t know better, he could have sworn he heard a touch of impatience in his Superior’s voice. “I don’t want to hear another word about this. I want you to destroy that information tonight. Understand?”

“Yes,” Saix muttered, keeping a wary eye on the other man approaching him. An emotionless smirk decorated his face, which was almost never a good sign. He was already flat against the large door, and felt himself pressed flatter still as his Superior’s body came in contact with his own.

“Now, let’s stop talking about business.” Saix felt warm breath and lips ghosting over the sensitive skin of his neck. He leaned his head back and sighed, though it was a sigh of resignation more than anything. No matter how many years passed, or how many times they did this, he still expected the excited flutter that started in his stomach and spread throughout his entire body. He still expected the heat, the cloud of passion that fogged his brain and made his legs go numb. He still expected to feel something, anything.

But there wasn’t anything left to feel. Ever since Xehanort took his heart and turned them both into these empty shells, sex was simply a ritual. Something to do so they could pretend things were normal. It was tiresome, and he didn’t want to continue with this farce any longer. Certainly not with the man—or what was left of the man—who made it impossible for him to feel in the first place.

“I’m going back to my room,” Saix said, pushing Xemnas away just as the man was trying to undo his coat. The Superior shrugged, but didn’t protest as Saix left the way he came and made his way quickly down the corridor.

As soon as he was safely back in his room, Saix felt in his coat for the envelope and tossed it on his neatly-made bed. He stared at it like it was a poisonous snake, wondering what he was going to do with it. He couldn’t just burn it like the Superior wanted him to. The information was far too valuable. Xemnas was a fool to think that getting rid of it was the best idea.

The blue-haired man sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and pulled the envelope onto his lap. He undid the clasp and ruffled through the papers until he found what he wanted.

It was a picture of himself and Axel, back before they had changed their names. Axel had kept it in his journal all this time and he’d found it while clearing away the traces of the redhead’s existence. It was strange, staring at himself from so long ago. It felt like a different person, like a stranger was staring back at him from behind the lens of time. In a way, it was. Things had been so much simpler back then.

He set the picture aside and pulled out two other objects: short, thin books, immediately recognizable as Roxas and Axel’s journals. Axel’s barely had anything in it. His small, messy handwriting filled the first ten pages with every thought that entered his mind. Of course, it may have been more of a novelty back then. After that, there was nothing but a few quick scrawls, some doodles and, eventually, nothing. Roxas had been a bit more diligent, filling his with carefully looped handwriting, information about every strange occurrence that had happened to him and even trivial things like eating ice cream with Axel.

This was the journal that Saix knew it was beneficial to keep. His thoughts were Sora’s thoughts. It would take getting inside those thoughts to get what they wanted. Xemnas didn’t understand. He thought threats could control the Keyblade Master. Maybe he was right, but they would never reach their goal with that method. They needed Sora on their side, as impossible an idea as that seemed.

Saix set Roxas’ journal aside and picked up Axel’s, paging through it. There were rantings in the beginning about how awful it was not to have a heart, how he couldn’t tell day from night anymore, how he never got enough sleep…trivial things. It was easy to tell when Roxas showed up, because Axel wrote things like “Going to have ice cream” or “Heading to the clock tower.” A few doodles littered the pages, chakrams and stars and even a few keyblades. Then a few blank pages. Saix thought that was the only thing left until he came across a page with two lonely words at the top: “I’m leaving.” That was nothing special; after all, the fact that he was sitting here reading this was proof enough that Axel had been good on his word. There was something strange about the page though; it was wrinkled in places, as if Axel had flicked water over it.

Or as if he’d been crying.

He tried to banish the thought, telling himself it was impossible, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered. Could Axel have found a way to regain his heart somehow? Could he have figure out how to restore his emotions, and actually feel things again? Like sorrow? And even happiness?

No. It was impossible. The Organization had searched for years for a method to regain their hearts. Kingdom Hearts was their only hope. There was no other way, or they’d have found it. There was no logical way for Axel to have regained his heart, especially without them noticing it.

Saix gathered the two journals and slid them back into the envelope. After a slight hesitation, he slipped the picture back between the pages of Axel’s worn journal. His glance shifted to his fireplace, filled only with ash from his last fire. He stood up, took one step toward the fireplace, and then turned to his desk. He placed the envelope in the top drawer and locked it.

He had a hunch he would need it someday.