Chapter Text
Scene: Destiny Islands, unspecified location – one of the many beaches so very characteristic of the place. Seagulls are screeching, waves are lapping at the shore, the wind is mild and the few clouds in the sky provide little shade from the bright, scorching sun. It has taken a while, but Riku has at last gotten reused to the conditions of his home after returning a few weeks prior. At the moment, he’s spending his time simply lounging in the shade of a tree, not doing much of anything. He’s waiting for Sora and Kairi, whose school schedules are unfortunately different from his own owing to his year more of age. He could be doing his homework instead, but who has the energy for that during the hottest part of the day, really?
Riku seems to be lost in his thoughts: it’s almost like he’s having an inner conversation of some sort, based on the occasional hums of agreement or denial he makes. It’s a lazy scene – up until he bolts upright with a shout of “What?!”, his eyes wide. He stays completely still for a moment as if listening to a voice only he can hear. Then, with a steely, determined look, he opens a dark portal and steps through it with barely a thought to anything besides getting to his destination.
Scene: The Castle That Never Was, the meeting room. No one besides Xemnas uses the official, pretentious names for the various rooms of the castle, and so neither do I. Black-clad figures are sitting on fourteen white thrones of varying heights placed in a circle. They are in the middle of a meeting, apparently about… the meetings themselves?
Naminé, dressed in the same kind of black coat as everyone else, has the floor. “-There are far more comfortable rooms available in the castle. Rooms with enough seats available for everyone, and no one would have to crane their necks just to see the other members.”
Marluxia gasps exaggeratedly, grasping at his chest. “Naminé, how could you betray me like this? Think of the dramatics! The dramatics, Naminé, the dramatics!” It’s just a tad touched up. Larxene is giggling, refusing to take a side.
Naminé holds her ground, addressing him directly. “The convenience, Marluxia, the convenience! Are we waiting for the first actual injury from half the members craning their necks all the time before doing something about this?” She looks around at her fellow members expectantly. Many are nodding in agreement, some of the others clearly thinking.
“The lounge, perhaps?” Luxord comes up with, “There is plenty of room, and the seats are comfortable.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, he gets immediate support from Demyx and Axel, and somewhat more delayed support from multiple others.
Saïx clears his throat. “Perhaps a compromise may be proposed? The weekly progress reports may take place in the… the lounge.” He mutters under his breath, “Are we seriously calling it that now?” before shaking his head and continuing with a carrying voice, “Major gatherings will still take place here.” He turns an expectant look on his leader, most other members following his lead.
Xemnas looks over the gathering of members. When no one else speaks up, he concludes the matter at hand. “This proposal seems… acceptable. We shall have the next meeting in-”
He is interrupted by a dark portal opening in the middle of the room, right in the middle of their circle. Riku steps out of the portal, which closes behind him, and looks around with a slightly wild air before spotting Xemnas. “Is it true?” he asks – or maybe demands would be the better term.
Xemnas blinks. “Is what true?” he inquires.
“Is it true that you unleashed the Heartless on the worlds because of a game?!” The silence left behind by Riku’s half-hysterical question echoes through the room. As his words sink in, every member of the Organization turns their attention to their leader for his answer, their previous conversation now completely forgotten.
He tilts his head, just a little bit, before saying, “That is indeed true.”
What follows is pandemonium. Overlapping exclamations, waving arms, multiple members standing up on their seats – no summoned weapons as of yet, though Naminé has her sketchpad and crayons out and is staring at it intently, her jaw tense and brow furrowed.
“WHAT?!” Zexion of all people shouts the loudest, overpowering even Vexen’s offended shriek. Saïx has frozen completely still, but seems to be simmering dangerously beneath his glacial calm.
“I don’t think anyone put their munny on that,” Luxord says, actually sounding mildly surprised. This comment goes largely unheard in all the noise, though Demyx actually laughs in response.
Both Larxene and Marluxia are seething, but her voice rings out first, “You mean all this is just a game to you?!”
“I did not,” Xemnas’s voice cuts through the ruckus, silencing them all, “say that.” There’s unusual emphasis there, his voice just a tad louder than usual. He might as well be shouting for the effect it has.
Xigbar’s eye is sharp where he’s staring at his leader, but his voice is almost gentle as he responds, “Then what did you mean, Xe-Dude? You gotta explain if you want us to understand.”
“I…” Xemnas hesitates for a moment before nodding to himself, “I do believe it will be easier to show you.” He warps down to the floor before stopping in front of Riku. “We shall return to Radiant Garden.” Riku nods like he already knows. There’s muttering amongst the members as they slowly follow their leader down from their seats.
Before they can get to leaving via a portal, Lexaeus points out something important as he stares down at their ‘intruder’, “Riku. Why do you not have your cloak?”
Riku freezes for a moment before looking embarrassed. “Uh. I was in such a hurry to get answers I… completely forgot about it.”
Zexion sighs. “Of course you did.”
Roxas perks up on hearing this and starts bouncing in place. “Can I? Can I?”
“Get him a cloak? Sure, go ahead,” Axel responds before anyone else has a chance to.
Roxas grins, looking a lot more lively than when Riku saw him last, and claps his hands once. A lesser Nobody – more specifically, a Samurai – appears before him. “Hey, go get Riku a cloak, okay?” The Samurai responds by bowing and warping away, leaving the humanoids to stand there a little awkwardly.
The silence doesn’t have time to settle before an impatient voice rings out, “Hey. Hey, Riku. Remember when I promised to have my own name the next time we met?” Fourteen thrones there may be, but fifteen were seated upon them, Riku’s replica having shared Roxas’s seat. Now he’s staring at his original with a half-challenging, half-elated grin, clearly dying to get around to declaring his name.
Riku looks briefly surprised, but then nods. “Let’s hear it, then,” he says with a small smile.
The replica stands straighter, punching his chest in a frankly ridiculous show of dramatics. “I’m not afraid of the Darkness… and I’m not afraid of the Light! My name… is Ray!” He gets a smattering of polite applause from the members inclined to give it and not already sick of having heard that introduction, and more enthusiastic clapping from Roxas and Naminé.
Riku mulls it over for a moment. “…It’s a good name. Suits you,” he decides. He then gets a black coat thrown at him by the returning Samurai. “Oh, thanks,” he says before quickly putting it on.
“Good work!” Roxas is also quick to praise the Samurai. Nobody body language can be a tricky thing to interpret, but it appears pleased by the response.
The vast majority of Organization members remain tense, even if the worst of it has been calmed down. Vexen speaks up now, sounding slightly strained. “Well. Now that that’s settled, I for one would be interested in getting those answers we were promised.” Xemnas nods and opens a portal. He goes through it without pause, followed by everyone else.
Scene: Hollow Bastion / Radiant Garden, the computer room within the laboratory. The place looks like it hasn’t been disturbed in a long time. There’s a number of cobwebs around and everything is covered by a layer of dust. Not for long, though, as Xaldin sweeps it all up in a minor hurricane and deposits it in a convenient trash can. The other apprentices appear to have momentarily frozen in place even as Xemnas calmly walks up to the computer set up in the room. Everyone else is looking around curiously, never having been here before now.
“What’s this place?” Roxas asks, voice full of wonder.
His question goes unanswered by the older Nobodies, however, as the apprentices not called Xehanort at any point share more or less bewildered looks with each other. (“It’s a laboratory,” Ray says with authority.)
“We forgot,” Zexion says, sounding disbelieving, “about Tron.”
Demyx immediately has his attention piqued. “Who’s Tron?”
“Or what. What’s Tron?” Larxene adds, possibly just to be annoying. Not necessarily, but it’s always a possibility with her.
“Tron is a program,” Xaldin says before being angrily cut off by Zexion,
“Tron is a friend, is what he is!”
Vexen clarifies, “A very advanced program, to be sure, though expecting fully human behaviour from him might be overstating his capacity a little.” When Zexion’s angry glare moves to him, he holds his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say he wasn’t a friend.” Zexion appears mollified by this.
“He may well be capable of developing further than his initial programming,” Xemnas says from where he’s inputting commands into the computer interface. (Specifically, he’s inputting the passcode for an override – while he’s entirely silent on the matter, a voice in Riku’s head is quietly reciting “…But they all share the same sky…” as he watches.)
“A distinct possibility,” Lexaeus allows.
Xigbar, however, has clearly caught onto something. “Sounding much more sure than that theorising we did back in the day, Xe-Dude. Wanna share with the class?”
Xemnas pauses for a moment. “It is- all part of the same whole.” With that, he inputs the final few keystrokes, and steps back. The computer makes a loud-ish sound, all the lights on the console going out before lighting back up, one by one, in increasingly complicated patterns.
For a moment, everyone’s watching quietly. Then, Ray asks, “So, is this supposed to explain something?” He’s backed up by a number of unimpressed neophytes nodding in agreement and mumbling to themselves.
“A full reboot takes minutes. Not much to do but wait until it’s complete,” Xaldin says, his arms crossed.
“Indeed. Undoing the changes made during our… initial exit from this world will take some time,” Xemnas responds. He looks like there’s more he wishes to say on the subject, but gets no further before being disrupted by noise from outside the room.
The Nobodies (and Riku and Ray) look at each other, but don’t have time to take action before the door to the office opens and Ansem the Wise barges into the room with a bark of, “Now what is going on-” before catching sight of the number of black-coated figures in his lab and stopping in his tracks in surprise.
Zexion immediately turns to him, wide-eyed and beseeching. “Master Ansem – we forgot about Tron!”
Ansem blinks, seemingly given pause. “Oh. So we did,” he finally says.
He’s then followed in by Leon, who looks around with casual interest. “Hmm. Cid’s going to want to see this,” he says.
“I imagine he would,” Ansem comments – at the same time as Zexion says,
“He had better not damage the system!”
Leon sounds almost amused as he responds, “He’s really not the one you need to worry about in that regard.”
Ansem shakes his head. “Now, as I meant to ask – what, pray tell, are you all doing here?”
“Xehanort is coming clean, that’s what’s happening,” Xigbar says before anyone else has a chance to.
Ansem’s eyes narrow slightly as he turns his attention to the apprentice in question. “Is that so? I must admit, I am very interested to hear this as well.”
“You and everyone else,” Marluxia says softly enough not to be distracting. Naminé nods in agreement.
Xemnas looks back at Ansem impassively. “I understand. I ask only for a little more patience. The system should be ready to use soon-” The computer system makes a different, short sound. Xemnas turns to look at it intently. “Ah. Right now, actually.” He presses a few buttons more, then says, “Hello. This is user… Xehanort. Has the system restore been successful?”
In response, a voice rings out from the computer’s speakers: “Confirmation: the system restore has been successful.” There’s a brief pause, after which it continues, “I take it the plan has changed?” This seemingly innocent question is met with surprise and much muttering by everyone not already in the know. The apprentices and Ansem, in particular, look like they have a lot to say about this, though they focus on listening for now. Saïx’s eyes flash, though he stays quiet.
Xemnas ignores this reaction, simply responding with, “It has, yes.”
The voice, presumably Tron’s, responds after a beat, “I see. That is… unfortunate. I did wish to meet Sora…”
“Sora?!” The response is immediate and unsurprising. Nearly everyone in the room jolts, and the quiet conversations already going on increase in intensity. Some of them are louder, some more animated, but no one so much it forces the attention on them. Roxas demands answers from Naminé and Ray, who do their best to acquiesce.
Riku jolts – in a different way from the others – before glancing at his watch. “I… should go get him, actually. And Kairi. They deserve to hear this.”
Xemnas nods in agreement. “You should. This concerns them as well.”
“Remember to get Sora his cloak, okay?” Naminé quickly says.
“I will,” Riku assures her.
Before Riku can take his leave, however, Xemnas interrupts him one more time. “Before you go – I will need to acquire the games. Have you…?”
After a brief pause, Riku’s mouth moves, and it’s his voice that comes out, though he’s not the one saying, “I haven’t moved them. If you haven’t either, they’ll be…” He shudders ever so slightly afterwards.
Xemnas nods slowly. “Exactly where we left them,” he finishes the thought.
Riku shakes his head. “Right. I’ll be back soon.” With that, he creates a portal and goes through it.
Marluxia observes quietly, “Games rather than a game changes the connotations rather a lot, doesn’t it?” Those close enough to hear appear to agree with the sentiment.
“This just keeps getting more interesting,” Luxord comments.