During CoM. When Riku killed his clone, the clone's heart returned to darkness; however, he had absorbed Zexion before his death. With the power of a Nobody, can the Riku Replica really be killed? And what about Zexion? Companion to "Darkness Rising". Darkness Falling by Jade Rhade So this is where your heart goes. You lay there, alone in the dark, for a thousand years, and then you finally open your mouth to speak. You don’t know where you are; to you, all is starless night. Words die unspoken on your lips before they have the chance to form. They die before they have the chance to be revealed and live. Rather like you. An age passes there in the dark; you can remember how to blink though it makes no difference. There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard; there is nothing to be felt nor tasted; the only sense you seem to possess is your sense of smell. Your nose is filled with the overpowering scent of the darkness holding you close in its loving embrace. You smother there for another five thousand years, until you remember a name; Riku. You try it on for size, yet it fits uncomfortably and you discard it as inconsequential. You remember another name; Zexion. This one fits better, but it still feels as though something is missing; as though Zexion is only a part of you, and your true name remains undiscovered just beneath the surface. You remember how it was to die. After a hundred years, you hear a voice rise from the darkness and crash down upon your ears. Chapter I “Wake up, you.” A booted foot jabbed hard into the boy’s side, eliciting nothing more than a groan from the prone figure. “Weakling!” The cloaked man delivered a harsh kick to the boy’s kidneys. “Fake!” He drew his foot back for another vicious blow. The boy rolled over and evaded the hit, catching the hooded man’s foot and twisting him into the ground; though whether it could be consider a ground at all was questionable. The boy rose to his feet and shakily surveyed his surroundings. Night, as far as he could see. The surface on which he stood felt loose and grainy, almost the texture of what he imagined quicksand to be; it seemed as if one false step would send him plummeting forever into an endless abyss. The boy turned in a circle to see in every direction until his gaze fell once again upon the cloaked man, the only thing to be seen in this empty realm. “Who... are you?” he asked haltingly, still unfamiliar with this concept called ‘speech’. “Where... am I?” “You really don’t remember,” the cloaked man didn’t sound surprised as he stood and threw back his hood that had been masking his face. “I should think that someone you absorbed would leave a stronger impression.” “Absorbed?” the boy repeated, as if tasting the very word itself. He stared into the man’s one visible eye, noting his antagonist was little taller than he was; the other eye was hidden by his thick, steel-indigo shaded hair hanging over it. “In the most literal sense,” the man replied. “Zexion...” the name turned into a hiss, and unbidden, a weapon with a blade like the wing of a bat appeared in his hand. The boy regarded the sword for a moment, then held it in a guard position he didn’t remember learning. “I killed you.” “Correction,” Zexion held up a hand, seemingly unconcerned at the sudden emergence of the weapon. “You absorbed me. Not the same as killing, I assure you.” The boy paused and looked down, silver hair falling over his cyan eyes. “I remember...” he said slowly. “Axel told me that I would become,” the sword disappeared as his fists clenched and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as if to block out the memory, “a real person...” the boy finished in a hoarse whisper. “A lie, of course,” Zexion crossed his arms and looked off to the side. “The Flurry of Dancing Flames is quite good at manipulation, and you, desperately grasping at straws, accepted his words blindly without question. The boy didn’t answer, feeling his fingernails bite into his palms. “So then you go and get yourself killed by Riku,” Zexion continued without regard for the boy’s feelings. “You were so confident because you had stolen my power. Though that was indeed the case, you had no way of using it.” The Cloaked Schemer adjusted the glove on his right hand. “So now both of us are in the realm of darkness where we belong,” he added with an indifferent air, pulling the glove tight. “So I guess my heart didn’t disappear completely,” the boy muttered. “If Real Thing’s heart is going to the same place mine is, then I suppose he’ll be along eventually.” “Not even close.” Zexion wiggled his fingers and made a fist. “Riku’s not going to die any time soon. He defeated me, after all, and the rest of the Organization is barely up to my standard.” “I defeated you,” the boy stated under his breath. The Nobody looked at him with scorn. “Did you honestly think that I just allowed you to beat me?” “What do you mean?” the boy’s cyan eyes narrowed. “You did exactly what I wanted you to do.” Zexion dropped down into an easy crouch, steepling his fingers and resting his chin upon them. “I wanted a heart,” he said after a moment’s pause. His tone was strangely musing. “I thought that perhaps I could take gain control of you from within, and somehow seize your heart for my own.” He glanced up and met the boy’s eyes. “I admit; it was foolish curiosity on my part, but after years of being the Organization’s willing test subject, this was simply another blind leap forward in the pursuit of knowledge. “However, I was not given the time to implement my theory, and now in hindsight, the gamble was quite hasty on my part. I should have killed you as soon as that damned traitor Axel had left the room, then returned in disgrace to report to the Superior.” He voice remained simply musing, as if dispassionately narrating the story of another. “In any case, I did not, so now I am here.” “I thought when a Nobody died, they returned to darkness,” he stated. Zexion’s eyebrow rose. “Indeed. You know more about us than I gave you credit for.” He pointed to the boy. “You and I are connected. Your heart remained despite the darkness, so therefore, so did I.” “So we’re both dead.” “Actually, I doubt it.” Zexion sat down cross-legged. “You’ll have to explain that one to me.” He sighed and rested his chin upon steepled fingers again. “You absorbed my power, so I became a part of you. Therefore, when you died, you faded into darkness like a Nobody; however, your human heart remained strong, preserving us here. My power will allow you to use the darkness without fear of loosing your heart completely, Riku.” The boy’s head snapped up, fury glinting through his cyan eyes. “Don’t call me by that name,” he growled. “I am not him.” Zexion paused, then nodded slowly. “Even your very name is only borrowed. Your appearance, your speech, your memories and your awareness... the very things that define a human are naught but copied data. Even you heart is not but a replica.” “I didn’t ask for this life.” The Riku Replica fell to the soft ground and sat across from the Nobody. “I didn’t ask to be created in his image.” “None of us get a choice in whom we shall be. All we can truly choose is what we shall become.” Zexion reflected upon his words and chuckled softly. “I seem to have become rather philosophical in my new half-life,” he murmured to himself. He glanced with one bright eye at the clone of the boy known as Riku. “If you truly want to become your own person, you must stop living in his shadow.” The clone looked bleakly down at his hands. “How?” he asked hollowly. “You said it yourself; all I am is borrowed data. I can’t have a life for my own while Real Thing is alive.” “First, you need to stop thinking of yourself as just a copy.” Zexion studied the boy’s face. “You need a name.” “Oh, well, that’s easy,” he retorted sarcastically. “I’ve got several lined up; Clone, Facsimile, Doppelganger,” he counted off on his fingers, pausing to take a breath. “Fake, Copy, Replica, Simulacrum, Abomination, Travesty-” “Travis,” Zexion interrupted, raising a hand to stop him. “Your name will be Travis.” He nodded once as if that settled things. “You can’t just name me like I’m some kind of pet!” the clone of Riku protested. “You don’t own me!” He paused and thought about it. “Travis,” he repeated slowly. Somehow the name didn’t seem foreign, settling down upon his shoulders like a well-worn mantle. He met Zexion’s gaze and returned the nod. “Heh. It’ll do.” The two sat there in silence; the Nobody patiently waiting for the newly named Travis to organize the memories of his short life into coherent order. Finally, he looked to Zexion. “Number Six, the Cloaked Schemer. Why are you here helping me? If we are not dead as you claim, logically we should be able to leave this place through portals of darkness.” “You think I have not tried that?” Zexion sighed. “We are connected. Where you go, I have to follow.” “You forgive me if I don’t take your word on that,” Travis replied, standing and opening a portal of darkness for himself. He took on step forward and cried out in pain, falling to his knees and clutching his chest. He stumbled backward, falling to the ground with a pained gasp. “My... heart!” he managed. “It feels like it’s going to explode!” Across from his, Zexion was on his hands and knees. “I told you,” he wheezed, hand pressed against his heart. “I told you.” He coughed violently and sat back, massaging his chest. “Neither of us... are strong enough... to live without... the other.” Travis nodded quickly, fist tight against his own chest in an effort to calm his frantically beating heart. “At least... not yet.” He looked to Zexion. “If we leave... together, will we still be... separate?” “I doubt it.” The portal of darkness remained as though mocking them with the promise of escape. “I’ll most likely... be absorbed... into you again.” Zexion took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Don’t ever do something like that again.” “No problem,” Travis replied, flicking his silver hair over his shoulder and levering himself off the ground. “We’ll go together.” He offered the Nobody his hand. Zexion’s gaze darted between the boy’s outstretched hand and his cyan eyes. “You should hate me for all I’ve done to you.” “We’re stuck with each other, right?” Travis shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Until we get stronger, we’ll have to spend all our time together. We can go back to hating each other once we can go our separate ways.” He extended his hand again. “Truce?” A small, genuine smile flicked across Zexion’s face for the briefest of seconds, and then he reached up and allowed Travis to pull him to his feet. “Truce,” he conceded. “I still hate you, you know,” the clone remarked as the two entered the portal. “Good, because I still hate you.” Travis smiled wryly. “Then we have something in common. By definition, that should make us friends.” -xXx- He emerged from the portal and abruptly covered his eyes with his arm, cursing. “Zexion, what that hell-?” “That would be the sun.” “Can’t you turn it off?” “No, I’m afraid that it’s a bit too far away.” Zexion sounded amused. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Being exposed to the light after spending your entire life in darkness.” Travis gingerly peeked over his raised arm, blinking tears from his cyan eyes. What he saw left him speechless. He stood alone on a beach, waves gently rinsing the last clinging tendrils of darkness from his black boots. A balmy breeze blew his silver hair across his face; his kama drifted gently behind him. The soft light of the sun warmed his face as he stared out over the ocean. He looked from side to side, searching for the Nobody whose voice he could clearly hear as if a lover breathing in his ear. “Zexion?” Travis turned in a complete circle. Beach, town, more beach, ocean; no Zexion. “Where are you?” “Here. You absorbed me, remember?” He sighed dramatically. “I am now naught but a voice-” “Oh, shut up.” Travis impatiently turned back to the town he had seen not too far away. “So where are we?” Zexion chuckled softly. “Of all the worlds you could have randomly chosen, we end up here. I think this is what they call irony.” “What do you mean?” “This is Riku’s homeworld,” Zexion said wryly. “Welcome to the Destiny Islands.” “Huh. So now what?” Ever practical, Travis began to plan his next move. Zexion being Zexion, he had already prepared several contingencies already. “We’ll stay on this word for a few days to establish our presence, then move on. We’ll be safe from retribution for a while, as the Organization is doubtless going to be in need of, pardon the pun, reorganization,” he explained. “Most likely those still remaining in Castle Oblivion have been slain, and it will take the Superior some time to restructure our Organization. Then he will send Trackers after us- more specifically, me. I’ll have to gain the necessary strength quickly-" he paused. “Are you even listening to me?” “Uh, Zexion...?” Travis sounded alarmed. “Who is that, and why is she staring at me?” His cyan eyes were wide with suspicion as he stared blatantly back at the auburn-haired girl. “She looks vaguely familiar.” “Oh dear...” “Riku!” the girl shouted, a wide smile crossing her face. She dropped her purse to the sand and ran toward him. Travis took a step backward, panic crossing his face, but she stopped short and gazed up into his face. Confused, he looked back, his eyes roving her body; plausibly searching for any concealed weapons. She was wearing a school uniform with the sleeves rolled up and the skirt far too short to hide any form of weapon. His attention was directed back to her large blue eyes as she spoke. “Riku...” she stood on tiptoes to meet his eye-level. “You... you’re home?” She sounded almost bewildered. “It’s really you?” “Uh... yeah,” he agreed as it suddenly clicked; Kairi, one of Real Thing’s best friends. “Who else could I be?” he added as a precaution. “So... you escaped from the darkness okay?” He nodded uncertainly, and she lunged forward, almost knocking him back into the ocean. “Ahh!” She had his arms pinned so he couldn’t summon Soul Eater, what was she- Kairi giggled, wrapping him firmly in a hug. “I’m glad you’re back, Riku.” She buried her face in his chest. “You’ve finally come home.” “Uh... yeah,” Travis repeated, awkwardly returning her embrace. He closed his eyes and rested his chin atop her hair. “I’m home,” he whispered. A/N: For lack of a better word, I’ve adopted the word kama to describe the half-skirt worn by the Riku Replica. It’s the word used to describe the half-skirt worn by the clone troopers in Star Wars, and I thought the description apropos. Let’s see how many times I can use variations of the word ‘describe’ in a single paragraph. :P "Travis" was the first true name given to the Riku Replica by my good friend/beta reader Random Idiot. This is the companion piece to "Darkness Rising", the link to which is in the description at the top of this page. As always, comments are greatly appreciated. Chapter II
