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"Well, he didn't..." Even started, before faltering, looking down at her, then glancing at Roxas at her side, and then Lea. "Well... he didn't come back quite right, so to speak," The scientist frowned, speaking over the top of his clipboard, his back to the most important door in all the worlds. Well, one of the most important doors in all the worlds, Xion supposed. It was the most important one to her.
Ienzo grumbled something nearby, not bothering to look up from the keyboard and monitor he typed upon. It sounded akin to them all being lucky, a snide 'thank goodness for little miracles', to which Even tutted and spoke over him.
"- Not that we're overly concerned, that is: these kinds of things are not entirely unexpected, especially given the extenuating circumstances - but, we had been hoping for some form of improvement in his state by now."
Roxas' hand slipped to fit into hers, and it was like it had never left, like it had never had a colder, larger replacement. She gave it a squeeze in return. She'd had a feeling that the news wasn't exactly good, and the fluttering feeling in her belly was unfamiliar and unpleasant. Being confused and lost and left unknowing was… tiring. She was getting pretty tired of being tired - and she knew someone else who must now feel exactly the same.
"What kinda thing are we dealing with here, doc?" Lea - not Axel, Xion had to keep reminding herself, but a habit she had had for her entire short life was tricky to break - tilted his head a little, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. They had all been patient, but Lea especially - a lot of tests had to be done, a lot of results double and triple checked. Lea just wanted everyone to go home together. Thus far, they had been a trio. Radiant Garden was healing, and had become a place of healing if Even and the other Apprentices were anything to go by - but some unsettled part of Xion's mind felt like it was akin to a prison. They hadn't been allowed in yet. Escorted away each time they had tried, kept out in the dark, left knowing someone of theirs was locked inside, waiting to get out. There was a weird, uncanny feeling - the hairs on the back of her neck wanting to stand up - but if she had learned anything over the last little half-year, it was when to listen to intuition and when to let it lay quiet for just a while longer. They were here for an important reason, after all, and this was the furthest they'd gotten.
The Castle That Never Was had always had the scent of absence, of empty space and moondust. Radiant Garden's Castle smelled sterile, of the chemical removal of something that once was, a humanity bleached into ill-meaning obscurity.
"Axel - Lea," It wasn't just her. "I am quite sure you remember those first few days in which young Roxas joined the ranks of The Organization," Even gestured to Roxas himself with his clipboard. "His was a case in which a being with a heart and it's Nobody were at odds with existence. Do you recall his demeanour?"
"Yeah, kinda hard to forget," Lea gave an odd little laugh, one with no real joy in it. "Walked around like a zombie or a robot or something, not saying anything, staring into space. No light in his eyes - it was like no one was home. Why, is that…?"
Even gave a nod. Xion looked up at Lea, and then back up at the man who had made her. Or, one of them, anyway.
"Unresponsive. Catatonic, even, to an extent. Automated."
"Shit," Lea cursed under his breath, rubbed at the back of his neck while he looked away from them all. "He's gonna hate this."
"He'll eat if food is put to his mouth. If told to lie down, he'll sleep. He can walk relatively unassisted if behind someone, and seems able to follow extremely simple instructions if a solution is obvious. Beyond that, well… it might take some time. We're dealing with a husk that hasn't figured out it isn't a husk anymore. He requires some handling."
"Not that much has changed, all things considered," Ienzo commented dryly. Xion looked over her shoulder at him - she had never interacted with him much, and felt rather thankful for that now. Even, at least, had been so far cordial with her and the others - her especially, actually - but he had been brought into the situation by mutual hands, was tasked with creating and protecting: he had continued this task even while its giver was out of action - even if said task was never intended for said giver.
"So," Lea spoke up, tone blunt to cut off Ienzo, determination and frustration alike seeming to bubble to the surface. "We just take care of him. Properly. We can do it," He nodded, looked down at Xion and Roxas, and in the corner of her eye and in the rippled connection of their hearts, she could see and feel Roxas nod, trying to remain steadfast and positive. "He's owed it. Leave him to us - he'd hate being here in any case."
Even gave a frown, but did flip a few pages over on his report, scanned the text and tiny little diagrams of results and findings and whatever else the scientists had to do. "I don't think it would be wise to release him fully into your custody as of yet - he could still be dangerous, unpredictable, you know how hearts are, let alone one such as his - but, I do believe the introduction of prior familiarity and minor adjustments to his current routine would be beneficial…."
"If anything ever got a reaction out of him, it was his routine getting messed up. Usually by me - well, us. Definitely sounds like a job for me and the kids," Lea smiled, and Xion could feel a warmth inside him, that flicker of hope and casual optimism trying its hardest to keep smouldering in his chest. "And I know this old place, even with the rebuilds. C'mon old man, he's been cooped up in here for weeks. Just let us take him for some fresh air, it can't hurt. We'll bring him back. Half an hour, and hour tops. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, then it was worth a shot. Might just make things a little easier down the line."
"Hmm… secure area with designated paths, guards nearby, minor everyday social interaction with little consequence… it may be a valuable venture to take him on a walk..." Even mused, speaking quietly and more to himself than to the trio, eyes roving over his clipboard again.
"I'm sure we can find a suitable leash and collar somewhere. He's surely used to those." Ienzo chimed, only for his gaze to dart away rapidly, scolded, as Lea turned and shot the young scientist a nasty warning glare. Xion had initially found it hard to believe that the Organization's former number six was but a year or so older than Kairi and Sora, that if life had been different, then Kairi would have been raised alongside this young man - but upon hearing him speak, she could see it now, could hear the immaturity that sat snug and smug beneath the studious exterior. Not that she could really blame him or any of the others for being snide or stunted or socially difficult given all they'd been through, but she could certainly understand Lea's aggression in return - if not, exactly, what he meant.
"Ienzo. How bout you and me play a game real quick? It's called Trip Down Memory Lane. You be you, and I'll be me, us alone, and we'll pretend that the room next door is your favourite dark little dungeon room from Castle Oblivion. You know the one. I'll always have that memorised, and I bet you will too. I'll even give you a couple seconds' head start, just like last time-"
"Lea, that's enough." Even frowned, brows drawn down and eyes sharp. Lea gave a tut and turned back to the older Nobody - older man, Xion reminded herself. All human here now. Even gave a slight sigh out of his nose and tried to proceed. "Let's not get distracted - we have much work to do and you being here is stopping me from proceeding in other endeavours. Now - we have not yet wanted any interference in our study of him because we've been unclear how he might react to stimuli - but everything reported so far has been... minimal. I do think that a careful re-introduction to you three at this point in his recovery could show results, and from there we can see about taking him outside."
"Yesss," Fireball that he was, sunlight and cheer practically radiated from Lea. "Finally. It's been so long, I can't wait for things to be as they should be. I'm gonna have to tell him how many times we tried to bust in here to get him out - man, he's gonna be happy to be free. It'll be just like old times."
"On one condition, however," Even raised an unimpressed eyebrow, calculating eyes bright and dangerous. Xion knew she could trust him, she did, but something about his demeanour would forever be chilly and distant. The nature of a researcher such as he, she supposed. Or maybe it was something historical that she could not place - the way in which he spoke to Lea, knew of him, knew which buttons he might just be able to press. "If you are to leave the Castle, you will have an escort. For safety measures."
"Ugh, yeah, okay, fine, whatever," With a gesture to the door and a huff, Lea waved the notion away, uncaring. "Can we just…? We've waited long enough, don't you think? He's waited long enough."
Xion squeezed Roxas' hand again. She wasn't nervous - but she felt as if she were about to step down a flight of stairs and misplace her foot. The daunting, incoming sensation of loss, somehow, of disappointment. Things weren't normal yet, things weren't as they should be or how they wanted them to be yet. And things might just get a tiny bit harder before they got better.
In her chest, there was an absent spot. She could feel it. She could feel how it didn't feel. In the refractive colours of her heart there shone beams of light from different places, different people, and they all made facets of her - she reflected and amplified and compounded and she was who her friends are. Kairi, blossoming and sunrise over the ocean, pink and purple hues of beach dawn that made up Xion's edges. Roxas, golden and comfortable and close, a natural warmth that swept over and cemented her, made her whole. Lea, hot and low, a sunset that scorched and tinted everything red from beneath, reliable and always able to bring the other colours together. Between them all was a gap; an open space that sunk in, scar tissue that was shadowed in absence, a reinforcement lost and an unspoken support removed: someone was meant to be there, she was meant to feel that he was back. And he wasn't. Not yet.
He had made her, and had given her strength, and then he had vanished. Within her sat a cross-section of shadows in between where everyone else's influence touched and glimmered. A void space, a hollow bisection between people.
And Xion being what she was, she could feel what the others felt. She could sense their feelings, their states of mind, their wants, their memories, their presences. Beyond that door, the most important door in the world there behind Even, was an empty space.
They could try - they couldn't not try - but it was hard to regrow something on blackened earth. Hard for scars to get nerve tissue back. The moon had always observed the sun and stars from a distance, left out in the cold, and to bring it too close too fast might cause peaceful oceans to split - or damage to be done.
Roxas squeezed her hand again. Maybe he could feel her concern. She tried to remain optimistic - hearts were strange, and unpredictable. Maybe one look would be all it took for everything to simply click right into where it should be.
"Radiant Garden has seen many repairs," Even drew her attention again as he spoke primarily to Lea. Lea himself had mentioned that they had grown up together here - Xion had only seen parts of it in passing, the tops of buildings as the gummi ship flew in yet again to drop them off from Twilight Town, the exterior of the castle, the edge of hedges and flower beds nearby. It was vivid and colourful - a far cry from her, and their, previous environments. Maybe the change would do him some good. "Beginning a new routine and reestablishing contact with the familiar could help with the recovery process. Could take him out for some ice cream, perhaps."
Roxas peered up at Lea, gave an encouraging smile - ice cream was never a bad idea. It fixed a lot of things. Might even start to fix a misplaced heart.
"Can't hurt, right?" Lea tried to give a smile, offered a slight shrug. The road had been long and this was a sizable bump upon it. Xion knew how much Lea wanted everything to be just right again, for all of his friends to reunite and be safe and home and okay again. She did too.
"Can't hurt." She agreed, finally speaking and giving a nod, and with that Even turned and opened the door to the observation wing.
"Can't believe that Even made you come along," Lea scowled, glancing over his shoulder as he sat, biting into his ice cream.
"Shut it," Their escort scoffed, commanding voice dry and severe - he then, too, bit into his ice cream. Dilan was a formidable man, especially standing over the four of them from behind like this, but Xion barely paid him any attention; whatever gripe he had with Lea, it wasn't important to her. Sitting and squeezing the folded, familiar hands beneath hers was her only focus. "Should anything go awry, you know I'm able to still collar you both and haul you back in, one-handed each. So just sit your arse still where I can keep an eye on you both." He bit into his ice cream and snapped a chunk of it off with a resounding snap. Xion could feel how narrow his eyes were at Lea. "Either of you so much as look at me funny and it's trouble. Trust both of you less than I can throw you. Brains and brash, even if one of you is neutered right now - he'll always be trouble and you'll always do his dirtywork."
Lea lifted a hand, gestured over Xion's head, incredulous and indignant.
"He's fucking harmless, man."
Dilan snorted but said nothing more, crossing his arms and keeping his lance tucked in at his elbow. Lea sucked on the edge of the popsicle stick like it was acid, nose wrinkled up at the older man, before turning back around - they'd found a nice little ledge to sit upon amongst the flower beds, legs dangling over the edge above the marble tiles, sunlight bouncing in lavender streaks as the clouds drifted lazily above. The fountains sparkled with clear, pure water, and the leaves whispered in the faint, summertime breeze. It was a nice day. A really great day to go out for the first time.
Isa held the end of his popsicle stick in both hands, grip loose and distant. It dripped, blue running down towards his fingers.
"It's melting," Xion prompted, leaning against his shoulder just a little. She squeezed at his hands, tried to prompt him to eat. He had done the same for her, out in the wastelands, between orders from The Real Organization. He had kept her alive in many ways, had given her strength in many ways, and had given her his hand time and time again to anchor her to him and his presence.
That man was gone, now. And Xion had known to expect him to be different, but even so - this wasn't Saïx, and she knew that, but as of right now he wasn't yet Isa, either. It was uncanny. The residents of the castle hadn't yet gotten him his own clothes, and so he had been permitted to wear hand-me-down apprentice apparel: a white button-up shirt, simple slacks, boots. Nondescript and plain. Seeing him in white cotton was a far cry from black leather, and it only added to how out of character he appeared. They didn't fit him right either - perhaps Dilan was particularly scathing because it was one of his shirts, its collar too wide and sleeves too baggy. They had watched through the observation window as Even had gotten him up and ready - Lea covering Xion's eyes at particular moments - and Even had made notes as Isa had gotten dressed. It had all, indeed, seemed automatic. He'd stopped upon getting to the shirt. It must have been a decade since Saïx's body had worn buttons. But, once Even had gotten it over his shoulders for him, Isa had fastened the buttons himself - albeit slowly, glassily, like reanimated dead that had the faintest recollection of the mundane.
He wasn't the capable, independent creature he once was. To see him like this was difficult - all that blade-sharp cunning and savage intellect missing and replaced with mechanical and involuntary unconsciousness.
Like this, she could only think of how scary it must be for his body - for someone that had been a weapon for twelve years to now rely entirely on others, on trust. With his heart back, Isa would be a far cry from who Saïx had been, and Xion knew that - but as he was now, he was already so, so different.
But the worst part was his eyes. Xion knew they would get better, but… she knew the severe gold, the determination and cruelty in that night-animal glare, the daggers-edge and calculating tenacity that had hardly smothered the auric desire for retribution. They were dull now. Cyan, with a tint to them like a seashell or rare stone, but blank and hollow. Zombie-like, Lea has said earlier, no light in his eyes. Xion could only agree. Isa had gone from the shape of a man possessed and hellbent to a man in terrible shape. His gaze went for a thousand miles and then some, unfocused and not seeing.
They had made it this far by Xion taking his hand and him simply following, gait uncertain, pace neutral. Automated, Even had said. Xion could see that too. Everything Isa seemed to do right now was his body working without input, any motion was as thoughtless and uncoordinated as breathing.
He was gonna hate this when he woke up.
There were still some injuries, too. The edge of his jaw didn't need a bandage on it but it was clear that there had been stitches. There was a gap in his eyebrow that was still sealing up with new hair. His steps had been uneven, pain signals surely being sent off in his legs but not reaching a mind that could interpret them. When he breathed in, there was the slightest wispy noise. Saïx had needed to be put down like a feral dog, and the three of them, and Sora, and Kairi, were forced to do a significant amount of harm to this body to get it to stop it's rampage - and realise that the coast was clear, and that it could stop pretending.
Real life had caught up now, a new beginning, but things weren't as they should be yet. Lea swung his legs off the ledge. The sound of Dilan biting into his ice cream came from behind her. Roxas took his jacket off in the sunlight. Isa made the wispy noise as he breathed in.
Xion just felt guilty. Maybe she had caused this. Taken too much of Berserk's unfiltered energy towards the end, struck him too hard in the last fight, been the source of so much contention and contempt and envy that it made the space where Saïx's heart ought to have been too tight and closed off. She didn't know. But she could feel things, her own things, things that the others didn't cause or influence - and right now she felt responsible.
Maybe that was something she had gotten from him, actually. He had always been responsible, for everything, all the time, good and bad. She had felt traces of it before a heart had been in place for him to truly emit feelings. Every time she had held Saïx's hand she had felt responsibility trickling down his arm.
Blue sugar-water dripped down Isa's hands. He raised one idly to his lips, sucked on the knuckle, lightless eyes seemingly on the fountains and waterways ahead. Seemed reflexive, something to avoid the tickle of the liquid sticking between his bare fingers - he had worn gloves for so long, such a sensation must be strange - and when Isa returned his hand downward, Xion made sure to adjust her own hand so that his fit beneath hers comfortably. His ice cream was in his other hand, untouched, but maybe he just wasn't that hungry. Maybe he couldn't tell if he was hungry or not.
"We still gotta go to the beach sometime," Roxas maybe had followed Isa's vacant gaze to the running water. He spoke idly, quietly, sat at Isa's other side. Xion didn't entirely understand how he had come back - just that the Nobody Isa had been had played his part in making it happen. Any animosity that once was was now no more. Xion, truthfully, could only remember and understand fragments of the last half-year: Saïx had been her eyes, ears, voice and guardian when there had been nothing and no one else. "Always wanted to go to the beach," Their shoulders were touching - Isa slouched. Not like Saïx, who had always sat with a rounded back when in meetings, curled low like a hungry dog turned predator, left outside in a too-small kennel, awaiting an opportunity to swoop. Isa, now, sat with his chin down and back lax, like he'd been finally allowed to relax, a taut cord wearing thin but not entirely cut yet.
"The beach could be fun," Xion tried to smile. She'd thought very much about going to the beach with her friends. She didn't know if Saïx - or Isa, either - had ever been. "We've all always wanted to go together - you'll come with us, won't you Isa? Lots of our friends will be there. I'm sure there'll be ice cream there, too," She leaned forward, tilting and angling herself that Isa would be able to see her through his hair. It had gotten shaggier in the weeks he had been reforming and healing, and she didn't know if any of the apprentices had helped him care for it. The movement seemed to do something, however - Isa's head angled just slightly, subtly, in her direction, even if his eyes remained dull and tired. The fact that he reacted a little, though - he was in there, somewhere, something just needed to happen. "Look," Xion gently took the ice cream from Isa's lax hand before sitting back slightly, holding it up, trying to get him to turn his head a bit more - from where she was sat, one eye closed, the sea salt bar hid half of the former-Berserker's profile, the blue of the ice cream blurring with his hair in parallax. "Same colour. See?"
He didn't react. Xion couldn't help the small frown that came across her. She used to be slightly scared of Saïx - the harsh way he spoke, the words he used, the power he had. She had seen it unfold before her, the second time around, how much of the painful barbs he had in his arsenal had grown there through strife, and how much power he truly lacked - and truly had, working against Xehanort under all of their noses. But she had gotten used to Saïx's face. The hard tension between his eyes. The stressed clench of his jaw. The way his lips pressed together firmly, uncomfortable around the fangs, lest he say something he would truly regret to someone he would not regret saying it to. The stark contrast of skin and nerve-deep scar.
Isa was softer. She expected as much, especially in his eyes and without the tips of his ears being Xehanort's, but in his face too. It was like something pent-up and held back inside him had been siphoned away. Even with a darker tone under his eyes, he looked like he had rested somehow, that the weight of being Saïx had been given purchase for a while and that Isa could breathe again at last, for once. He made the wispy noise again - Xion gently pressed the ice cream back into his fingers, and he took it. She took his hand too, and he let her. He was a person again, against all odds. He looked younger. And even with, or perhaps despite his borrowed clothes and messy hair and flat expression, he looked brighter somehow: maybe Xion hadn't realised how truly haunted a Nobody looked compared to their person, but it was obvious now. Isa looked alive, even if his gaze was a haunted, faraway one.
She had seen Saïx give a flat face a hundred times, yet it was far different from Isa giving a neutral look now - it was uncanny. She felt as if she could miss him.
"Maybe Naminé can do something about this," Roxas looked around Isa towards Xion, at Lea, then up at Isa and back to Xion again, imploring and trying to get ideas brewing. Maybe thinking about their other friends meeting up at the beach had sparked some thoughts - of all the incredible people they knew, surely someone had the ability to help Isa somehow. "All her powers over memories and connecting hearts in place and stuff - don't you think that maybe she could, I dunno, poke around in there somewhere and get him back?"
Xion could feel that gap, that shadowy spot in the multi-coloured glass pane of her heart. Isa was here physically, and - she let go of his hand and as the others watched her, she opened one of the buttons on his borrowed shirt, threading her hand under the fabric: she found his heartbeat, able to touch it's rhythm above his undershirt, to which he reacted minutely, sitting up straighter subtly, breathing in - his heart had definitely found its way back to him, it was indisputably there. She pulled her hand free again and rebuttoned him up. Isa was there, full and in the flesh, his heart was just a bit… murky. It was somewhere deep and away from the surface, so used to being lost in the dark, and she felt her own chest mimic a sinking feeling - if something is pulled up from a sunken pressure too soon and before it's ready, doesn't it like… burst or something? And… if they stitched Isa back together again, filtered through his memories and stuck them back together in a way that they wanted, just because they wanted some version of him back, then he wouldn't really be Isa, would he? Not the real or authentic one. He deserved to be the real one, faults and all, scarred and whole, human and imperfect. It's what he had spent so long working towards - they couldn't tear that out of his hands again. It just wouldn't be fair.
"I really don't know if messing around with his heart in any capacity is gonna be a good idea," Xion frowned in return. "I appreciate the thought, and I'm sure he does too, but… don't you think he's been tampered with enough? I think we just need to give him some time. It's the least we can do, right?"
"Maybe a swift kick in the back of the head will wake him up." Dilan said behind the four of them, offhandedly, to which Lea turned around with a scowl.
"Don't you have some kitten to go drown somewhere or something? Jeez."
"Not until four."
While Xion did not have a connection whatsoever with Dilan, and had never fostered any kind of kinship with Xaldin, she could still sense a potent distrust and disarray within him - resentment. Deep and gnawing resentment, the kind of distaste a man gets towards one who had a position he desperately sought. Even against his better judgment. Saïx's role and placement and responsibilities were burdens no one should ever have envied, and Xion was sure there was more to it that she would ever really perceive or understand. But she could tell enough that Dilan was bitter, more bark than bite, merely stewing and simmering whilst there was no pushback.
If Saïx were as he was - if Isa were awake - Xion had no doubt his toxic tongue and ability to seek out weakness and insecurity like a hungry bloodhound ready to shake prey to death would be on full display.
She wasn't even sure if Isa knew he was outside right now.
"Some kind of fight might not be a terrible idea, though," Roxas continued. "I'm just saying - maybe if we start slow, pretend to swing towards him and lightly spar, muscle memory will kick in and he'll react, wake up a little. We've all fought with him before, at least a couple times, and it's something he knows. We don't have to be aggressive or anything, don't have to aim for his throat or be fully trying to do any damage, but, doing nothing since he woke up hasn't helped him get back, so maybe doing something active will spark a connection somewhere."
Sparking connections - it was because of Isa - Saïx - that Roxas had been able to fully form a way back. Saïx's cunning and stratagem had made it so Xion was in the right place at the right time, taking in strength and able to start remembering her own heart too. Xion understood Roxas on a deeper level than most, and things would always be that way - and in this moment, she understood especially. Roxas wanted the guy who helped them to be okay. Xion wanted that too. Whatever history had once been between them, Saïx had more than made up for it: and was now paying the hangtime price as Isa now.
"I volunteer." Dilan spoke up again.
"What if he just immediately goes Berserk?" Lea huffed and ignored Dilan, speaking louder than necessary to block the apprentice out of the conversation. He twiddled his now-empty popsicle stick in his fingers in anxious thought. "Can't have him wrecking the place. At least like this, he's docile. As I said, harmless," He shot another look backward at Dilan, who Xion was sure was watching them like an overpreened hawk. "At least right now he's… y'know. He's okay. If we set him off and he rages out, how are we gonna subdue him again? Beat the snot out of him, get him locked back in the castle, make him wish he never got his heart back? Nah - fighting's not the way, not now. Whether we hurt him or not, I think we're gonna do more harm than good if we start pushing him around. You know how he holds onto grudges - Berserk would only get more mad if we started something now, well-intentioned or not."
She could remember, back in The Organization. The castle and its infinite monochrome walls, the endless back and forth, and the constant pressure in the air that only grew and grew. Wherever Saïx walked, a shadow had rippled the air around him. Berserk had always been a presence that lurked just beneath his cracked surface, magma that bubbled low and peeked up out of the seams now and then. If her heart was a glass pane made of many different shards and colours, Saïx had been metal bars, cold and restrictive, with a barely-slumbering thing held down forcibly. Berserk was a part of him, a dangerous and self-sabotaging part, but an integral one, one he could not be without, Saïx or not, Isa or not. Upon her return, on his return too, it had been there - out in the wastelands, not only lying in wait beneath the thin film of lost humanity but pushing against it, desperate against the moon and fate itself, leaching into her, reaching out to her, pairing them together for power shared in defiance and vigour made rampant against Xehanort's tide. Xion was familiar with Berserk - the way it seethed quietly behind one's teeth, the way it caused almost invisible heat-mirage in the atmosphere with its sheer desire, the way it itched and crawled and burned to be seen, the want to tear and be unleashed, to run and not look back, to lash out wide and be unafraid of what may get caught in the crossfire.
Isa sat next to her. He was harmless.
Wherever Berserk was, it wasn't here. Maybe it slept, maybe it too hadn't yet found its way fully back, but whatever was happening, Xion could only feel absence. Isa was physically present but had all the weight of a ghost.
She shook her head. "Berserk's not back yet."
There was perhaps a minute of extended silence. Isa's ice cream dripped onto his fingers. Lea made an accepting noise after a moment. "Mm. Alright then. Still: I don't think pushing him into combat's a good plan."
If Isa's heart was rising to the surface slowly, in its own time, then Berserk would probably follow. It was very possible that Berserk would surface first, but… Xion knew there would be warning signs if something happened. She would just have to keep an eye on him, watch over him as he did for her.
"You've had your hour," Dilan spoke up from behind them again. Xion wanted to turn and frown up at him, but bit her tongue. The apprentices would look after Isa, right? They wouldn't hurt him, even if they didn't really like him: it was because of him that so many people were okay again now. They'd… they'd keep an eye on him for her, wouldn't they? Even would, at least, hopefully… "Time to return him. And before you argue otherwise, let me remind you not to push your luck more than you already have."
Lea shook his head, but managed a sardonic smile. "Real eager for that kitten appointment, huh Dilan?"
"With the resident director of punishment out of action for the foreseeable, I suppose it only fits," Xion did not see it, but she knew that Dilan nodded towards the back of Isa's head. She then caught him in the corner of her eye stepping forward, the toe of his boot nudging the small of the former Diviner's back. "Look alive, VII. Time to move."
He obeyed. Isa stood, slipping from the ledge to say upright, arms down limp at his sides and head lowered slightly. Even had been right, he did still follow orders. Once he was awake again, Isa was bound to hate that fact. He turned, a stiff and unguided half-moon in Dilan's direction: before stopping.
Xion looked up at him, watched his face, watched the way he had to be thinking even if nothing showed and even if he didn't look at her at all.
One hand came up. Without turning his face to her, without even a glance or a hint that he truly perceived or acknowledged her, Isa lifted his hand towards Xion, fingers relaxed and wrist bent openly - an offering of his half-melted sea salt.
He could have just dropped it. Left it where he was sat. Taken it with him to Dilan. But he handed it to her, her specifically. He knew it was there. He knew she was there. He was aware that she had put it there for him in the first place, and Xion bit the inside of her lower lip with teeth much sharper than they used to be as the faintest flicker of blue found a place in that void, that gap between people in her heart. The tiniest flutter of progress. She and he were alike in some ways, one of which being a desperate focus on the way forward, and this was a small yet significant step. Isa was giving her something - it was not some automatic gesture, more than simply handing her something he could not process. It was a sign. A signal. His instinct was to give to her, hand to her something sentimental and blue, leftover and symbolic.
Not but a few months ago had he done such things to give her strength, let echoes of Berserk find a home in her veins. Something stirred somewhere, as faint and deep as a fauntline in the earth. Isa's ice cream was melting.
She took it. Smiled up at him even if he didn't, couldn't, look at her.
"Thank you, Isa."
He didn't respond, but she didn't expect him to.
"It was really good to see you again, Isa." Roxas added, more in front of him than Xion was, but Isa didn't look up at him either.
"We'll catch you again soon, okay?" Lea stepped closer, getting a hand upon his friend's shoulder and guiding him around the ledge, back up to his keeper. "Don't go running nowhere. Won't work, you know that. Head down, like always, just bear with it all a bit longer. I'll bring you back home. Made you a promise, right?"
The cracking of Lea's smile into something hurt and tragic and hidden was obvious as Dilan assumed command. Isa was his dull and silent shadow, appearing uncharacteristically small beside the former number III, and Xion could feel the ache of a history she didn't know repeating thrumming in her chest from Lea's colours in her panoramic heart.
"I'll take it from here." Dilan's tone was simple, blunt, and left zero room for argument. "The three of you may return to one of the local bunkhouses if you intend to remain in this world overnight: there are always plenty of beds in Radiant Garden for those temporarily lacking a permanent residence."
"Yeah. I know." Lea said flatly, and he looked and sounded like Axel all at once again. "We caused that."
Dilan gave little more than a pithy and dismissive tch before turning on his heel and striding back towards the castle. Isa hovered for a half-second, seemingly stuck, before some automatic part of him recognised that he should follow, and follow he did, not only silent but soundless, his footfalls as heavy as a spectre upon the marble. Xion didn't think such authority was needed to command him - but Dilan probably just liked having something over the former second-in-command. She couldn't blame anyone for being bitter towards Saïx, for what he had done, how he had been… but she could certainly be grumpy about how the people who Saïx had worked alongside to help others get away from the war and fix everything were treating his human counterpart now.
"I think that jerk was happier without his heart." Lea sneered towards Dilan's vanishing silhouette. "Ugh. Well. Maybe some sunshine and company did some good, huh kids? It was worth a shot. And we can always try again tomorrow."
Sunshine - Saïx must have gone from a lifetime in the dark to a blisteringly painful time in the graveyard. Light must feel so foreign to him - maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that his heart would need to adjust to something so new. Light had done nothing but score him before, hurt him, beat him into submission. Daytime wasn't so much as an old friend as it was a stranger everyone was pretending he knew.
"Tomorrow." Xion echoed. Tomorrow. For a whole day to pass - would Isa be able to recognise time slipping away from him? For tomorrow to break, the sun would have to set… and so the moon would have to rise. Night would fall across Radiant Garden. The stars could come out.
Xion had an idea.
The moon was big and full over Radiant Garden, and Xion had learned to blend in well enough with shadows stained blue.
"You're much better at breaking into this place than he ever was,"
Aaaaaand she had gotten caught anyways.
She'd done pretty good, all things considered! Snuck by Aeleus as he marched from one outer door to the next, scurried down the corridors having remembered which way Isa's observation room was, and had intended to creep through the password-protected door, having the pattern memorised from watching Even tap it in earlier - only for a face to look up in the dark, lit from a computer monitor, its expression one of complete expectancy.
"….Isa used to break in here?" Xion asked from her place, stood small and nervous in the doorway. It didn't sound like she was being scolded - if anything, Even sounded impressed - but still. She was trespassing in somewhere very protected and potentially very dangerous. She hoped maybe following the scientist's laid-out line of dialogue might just break whatever ice she had just bumped right into.
"Oh yes. When he was about your age. Or, well," Even looked at her, made a vague and uncertain gesture with a hand. "Something there about. I take it that there is a reason that you've decided to creep in here, right in the middle of the night, young lady?"
Even leaned back in his chair, head tilted, an eyebrow raised. He felt… approachable. It was an expression that teased a similar edge to one she could vaguely remember Saïx involuntarily making towards her during their time in the wastelands… something interested, open - almost fond. She padded closer, weaving around the desks and machines to where Evan sat.
"I had a thought. An idea. And I couldn't just sit around and not try - I need to be responsible and do what I can, no matter what."
That raised eyebrow inched further upwards.
"…fascinating," Even murmured, more to himself than to her. "Would you be willing to make a deal, of sorts?"
If it got her closer to Isa - "Let's hear it."
"I shall turn a blind eye to whatever escapade you are attempting tonight - so long as nothing violent or destructive happens. Do whatever it is that you intend to do, but be quick and do not take him far from his room. I will feign ignorance and unlock the way, lest you wake Dilan up. I shall not tell Master Ansem or the others a thing about you being here this late and this unsupervised."
Xion narrowed her eyes at him - both due to the dark versus the glow of his computer, and because of the lack of balance in the proposition. She technically didn't need Even to be compliant - the wonderful thing about a Keyblade was how helpful it was to be against impenetrable barriers, how it allowed someone to reach another despite what locks may lay in wait - but the less trouble she got in, the better… probably. Wouldn't hurt to have Even be on her side - historically, things had worked out for the better when he did his part. She could give whatever was needed of herself if it meant that her friends were made whole again.
"And what's in it for you?"
Even's mouth quirked into a smile. In the daylight, it might have looked human. "Allow me, once our current projects reach a lull and we all have appropriate time, to conduct a few studies on you. I am terribly curious as to how much you have taken from those connected to you. You've excelled practically all of our expectations - I would be remiss not to analyse your potential. For science, of course, if not my own ego."
Well… it didn't seem like a bad deal. A few hours of being poked and prodded at was nothing new, and if anything it was fair - Isa was probably getting inspected just as much while he was here. She was pretty used to the semi-invasive nudges to test her limits and figure out her patchwork identity: she had no real qualms about such a thing happening again, Even made for a thorough but fair and familiar analyst. If Xion had to come back to have her powers tested and heart looked at, at least she would have Isa's hand to hold this time.
She nodded.
She must have exhibited some kind of behaviour that piqued his interest, said something in a certain way that reminded him of someone - but it hardly mattered. She had one goal right now, and it was to help her friend out of this place. Or at least letting him get a glimpse of the sky.
"Very good," Even nodded in return and turned to his computer, typing something. "I am sure he would be highly interested in the results as well. Off you go then, and be quick and quiet about it."
Xion didn't need to be told twice - she scurried past him before he could change his mind, no takesie-backsies on their deal, and as she reached the door to the observation wing, the panel to the side flashed green in response to Even's keyboard clicks. This castle was not quite the euclidean labyrinth the one That Never Was had been, but it was still a maze of security doors, twisting tunnels and ceilings intersected with repetitive pipes. But what mattered was her goal, and getting to it efficiently, no matter what it took.
The corridors were endless and dark and her quick little footsteps echoed once each set of doors shut behind her - the observation wing felt desolate and constricting, like something from a strange dream. Windows into each room shone glossy and inky in the low light, and Xion counted the doors until she got to the room she knew was correct. She paused before going straight in - leaning to peer through the observatory window, hands cupping her eyes so she could squint into the darkness.
There was a silhouette sitting up in the bed. Somehow, he knew. The room was windowless to the outside world, no moonlight and no fresh air, yet some part of him must have been able to tell that the moon was full tonight. There was no glow or light within the room, no signs of Berserk being the one awake whilst the body was inert, and Xion couldn't feel anything in the air, but she knew he wasn't simply sleeping whilst sat up. She turned and glanced down the corridor - at one end there was a sharp left-hand turn, and Lea had mentioned a balcony out that way somewhere… she didn't know if direct moonlight would do anything to him, she had no idea if it was what he needed, but just… she had to try.
Saïx had taken on so much power in their last fight. Kingdom Hearts had been so oppressively, ominously over them, closer than he had ever dreamed of it being, and had filled him to the brim with blind might and caustic fury. In all honesty, she was surprised he had died so quietly - part of her had anticipated Saïx erupting into fire so bright that there was nothing left for Lea to talk to. He'd gone peacefully; all that strength draining away and leaving him. Maybe all of this quiet aftermath was his connection to the moon having been burned away, maybe he was more of a shell now than before, full of the heart Kingdom Hearts could never give him but severed from the waves of exhilaration it had once laid upon him.
Somewhere, at the base of the back of her neck and in the soles of her feet and in the palms of her hands she could feel a crackle. A crinkle, a static charge, an ember left low. There was still some something in her. Moonlight borrowed from what was once Isa's body, simmering minutely under the glass pane of her heart, a spark of blue that had nowhere to connect to. It's why she had known it was a full moon tonight before she had looked - she just knew, she could feel it.
Maybe… if she could take, then maybe she could give back, somehow, someway. Maybe Berserk needed a jolt to wake up, maybe Isa just needed to see that this world was beneath a round moon, maybe he just needed time to breathe with someone safe nearby. Whatever it was, she would figure it out. She had to.
When she opened the door to his room, his chin lowered. Ducking his head just slightly, almost like some part of him felt as if he had to be small, or that he had been caught doing something incorrect. Even had said earlier that he would lie down and sleep if put to bed, but here he was, awake. Xion found it hard to believe Saïx had ever slept before, she couldn't recall a single time that he had ever been in his room or office for anything other than work that should not be disturbed, and she had no recollection of him ever at rest upon her return. Maybe the apprentices had put him to bed whilst he himself didn't actually want or need to be there. Maybe he just lay down simply because he was told to do so. Maybe right now he didn't know any better. Maybe it had been so long since he had slept that he had forgotten how to do so.
She stepped towards the foot of his bed. The blanket sat around his hips and he lowered his head further, bare-armed, still in that borrowed undershirt. His hands slowly slipped from his side to be lax in his lap, one atop the other.
Maybe he could sense that little glimmer of moon in her. Maybe this was almost like a quiet reverence, an obedience to something he felt was forever above him, over him. Maybe whatever spark of his was within her was the last remnants of Kingdom Hearts, the dregs of a divine power, a tether to the past. His breathing made the wispy noise again.
She placed one hand over his, stroked the damaged skin across his knuckles with a thumb. It was a motion he had done once to her before, just before everything ended, and if Xion hadn't known better she would have said that he had done so out of nerves. She understood that - that fluttering feeling in her stomach was still there, the drop, the loss, the feeling of something being bad before it could be good. She supposed that maybe it was a reflection of the newly-formed person before her: having to be bad before becoming good. The spark of Berserk inside of her missed something deeply. She squeezed his hand.
"Isa, it's a full moon tonight. Wanna go see it with me?"
He turned, legs slipping from their criss-cross position to the side of the bed, hands falling from hers and back to his side. Xion couldn't see his face fully in the dark, but assumed that his head was still lowered, docile, harmless. She wished the unsettled feeling in her stomach could go away - Saïx had never been harmless. He had always been dangerous, even when protective. He wasn't himself now - which was the point, she supposed, he was Isa now instead, but even so. All of his edges had been not just sanded down smooth but worn down to nothing.
If you had asked her a year or so ago, she probably would have said that she never wanted to see Saïx be sharp towards her ever again. That she would do anything for him to be quiet and harmless. She probably never would have anticipated missing someone like him.
She didn't take his hand as she led the way - an experiment of her own, she reasoned, to see if he might lean forward to find her in the dark, find her hand himself, reach for a connection. Even if it were for safety and out of instinct rather than knowing it was her, it would have been nice. But he merely followed, obedient and silent, as she closed the door behind them and escorted him down the halls. She could feel that sensation again, the hairs on the back of her neck wanting to raise. He had shadowed her a hundred times before, eyes cruel and piercing, watchful and scathing and chaperoning. What made her hackles invisibly raise however was not that his gaze was cruel or cutting: it was that she couldn't feel it at all. He was still vacant, following blindly, simply reacting to the command of a tiny mote of light. Tethered like a lost dog, simply following a trail.
That was okay. It would be okay. It would just take time. He'd find his way back. She could guide him to wherever he needed - or wanted - to go.
The door to the balcony was unlocked when they approached - did Even somehow control that too? - and so Xion opened it for Isa, stepped aside so he could go first. She was just curious, more than anything, if he would step forward without being guided. She had spent an amount of time observing him before, learning from him - he might have changed, and time might have flowed in passing around them, but some things would remain the same.
Xion let Isa out - did as he had done for her and gave him safe passage to the comfortable and familiar, to the outside world.
The moon was big and full over Radiant Garden, and Isa looked up at the night sky. He stepped forward through the door Xion held open for him.
Unguided, it was as if he were sleepwalking - steps slow and methodical, as if planned in advance and then forgotten again, all while Isa faced upwards for the first time that day. He did not lean on the railing, did not get too close to the edge - he simply stopped once fully stood in the moonlight, looking up towards the parting in the clouds, the rich blue gradient of midnight sky.
His back faced her, as it had many a time before. She could not see if there was light in his eyes, reflected from the moon or his own. She couldn't see his face, just as he had not seen hers for months on end. She couldn't work him out, couldn't understand what she was missing - and maybe they had always been this similar.
Xion had never seen a baby deer - she had heard they were cute, and had memories of Sora knowing the spirit of one, distantly - but she approached Isa from the side as if he were one, a thing that would be spooked and bolt if there were too loud a noise, too rough a presence. That a moment of realisation, of recompletion, might cause him harm or fright, that a potential clicking-into-place of missing memories due to her presence might make him crumble to his knees one more time. She took her place at his side without a word, looking up at the sky with him. She heard him breathe in through his nose, a breath that was long and more than just for function but with intent, drawing in as if he'd remembered how to do so, as if there were something in the air to savour. The night was cool and glossy, the faintest breeze making their hair swish on their shoulders, the faintest sounds of life in the distance coming from the newly-built town. The wispy noise was faint. Still there, but lesser, lighter.
Xion closed her eyes. Maybe if it rained. She could remember so much rain in The World That Never Was, a constant pressure in the air that just never stopped. The air in the Graveyard had been painfully dry, scented with death and decay and a history none of them fully understood. And here now, back in Isa's homeworld, it was just neutral, bordering on faintly humid as underlying heat drifted upward, summer threatening to crest in the night. Maybe Isa didn't feel like he was home yet, because home for so long had been so different. Maybe this wouldn't ever feel like home. Maybe nowhere would. Maybe even with a round, full moon the sky would always feel empty in comparison, and maybe Isa would be burnt out forever now that he didn't have to be running at full force anymore, and maybe he missed the rain. But the air here tasted clean and crisp and the breeze was nice. It wasn't oppressive in any regard, just open and dark, dark blue, crawling all the way to the distant horizon.
Here, they were cut off from the world, just the two of them, moonlight but a refreshing trickle through the clouds.
Xion took in a deep breath through her nose.
A hand slipped around hers and held. Stroked with a thumb.
She squeezed.
He squeezed back in response.