voidtreckernet | Day Twenty One: Engine Room to All Carriages

Well, I tried to ask big questions. Questions where the answer would matter to me or be important in the long run.

So... what's your biggest question? Or at least, the biggest one the train might be able to answer, since like I said, it doesn't seem to know much about people who aren't on board. Something that the answer would affect lots of other things.

[She looked down at her Keyblade, studying it as thoughts turned over in her head over and over again. Her Keyblade vanished and she squared her shoulders. She looked up at the machine, hood still over her head. She closed her eyes once, then nodded. She was ready.]

"Myself, Axel. Demyx. Roxas when he was here. Naminé." [She took a deep breath. Then she thought and added two more names, for different reasons.] "Romeo. Taiki. Of the ones listed... who of us are actual fully real people and of those who aren't, how close are we compared to each other and real people?" [She asked. She didn't look up at Axel, a little afraid that he'd be upset at what she asked.]

All of those names belong to real people, past and present passengers of the Voidtrecker Express. You are a fully real person, passenger Xion.

Thank you for your questions, passenger Xion.

[Lea doesn't say anything right away, just smiling down at Xion, awaiting her reaction to the train confirming what he's been telling her for quite awhile now.]

[She stared down at her gloves, trembling slightly. It was a little like that time with the potion in the dorm. There was too much all trying to process in her brain all at once. The train wasn't her friend. It didn't matter to the train if she was there or not. Not like Axel who is her friend, or Roxas who is also her friend or even weird Daitu Saïx who was Axel's friend, and for some reason kept trying to be nice to her, because of it. Maybe because of it?]

[She pushed that mentally to the side for now. He wasn't here, she didn't have to think about it now. Thinking about it the whole time since he showed up at Daitu hadn't given her a clear perfect answer, so doing it now would just be running trying to kill the same Heartless over and over again. It was done dropping munny for the moment and the battle was still raging around her.]

[With no reason to want her to do or be or act a certain way, the train said what they had said. They all had reasons, even if she didn't know what they were, for wanting her to think she was a person. The train didn't have a reason, probably didn't know about those discussions, but said it anyway.]

[Wait, how did the train not know about those discussions but knew enough to answer. If she was going to trust that the train knew enough about her to be both honest and correct then she had to start from the thought that it understood her. And those conversations were part of her now. She had been made, at the first, of memories. Lacking Sora's memories now... her memories were her, weren't they? Except if she was a real person, then she was more than just memories in a replica body, wasn't she?]

[The train said Naminé was real too. And that was confusing. Unless she and Xion had both BECOME real? If Xion could, then Naminé could too, she supposed. But did Naminé have a Somebody? Did she know if she did? She couldn't recall at the moment when it was like there were a hundred heartless battling in her mind. And if Naminé had a Somebody, was she like Axel who just was... the same after? Or was she like Roxas who was somehow different from his Somebody?]

[Her Keyblade reappeared and she stared at it. Was that the difference? Roxas had a Keyblade as a Nobody, so he was able to live separate from his Somebody. And she had a Keyblade and was able to be a person... She glanced up at Axel. He had a Keyblade too, but not until after he was a Somebody again.]

[Wait... then what about Demyx?]

[Her Keyblade vanished and she looked down at her hands again, thinking. Axel had told her Demyx was here, but he said Demyx. He called himself Lea now and called Saïx Isa and said those were their Somebody names. And Sora's name was just Roxas' name without the X and all scrambled up. So was Demyx like her and Roxas, in that he was a person now but kept his same name? What would his name even be? Or was he like her that he never had a name before he was a Nobody? Was... Was Demyx also a Replica?]

[She leaned back slightly on her heels as she considered that. What if she wasn't the only one? If Demyx was a replica also and Roxas was different from the others because of the Keyblade... but Axel also had the potential for a Keyblade. Had he hid that from the Organization, based on what he knew at the time about their plans? Was that why he paid attention to Roxas at first?]

[She came down flat on her feet again, trying to remember what Axel had said about when he first met Roxas then wondering if that mattered. Axel lied when he needed to, to protect them. But when he first met Roxas, it would have been to protect himself. She she wasn't sure even if he had said anything if she could believe it. But what he said didn't matter, not really. He was Axel. Whatever he said about why he first started looking out for Roxas didn't matter, what mattered was that they became friends, and because of that, he became her friend too. Best friends.]

[But if that was why Axel was watching Roxas so closely, did Axel even realize it? Or was it like how she and Roxas knew somehow that they were connected even before they knew about Sora or that their powers were linked so that one of them got stronger by making the other weaker? If that was why and he didn't know then... did he know now? He must have. It was too weird otherwise, for her to know something about Axel that he didn't know about himself. He was the one always teaching them, after all.]

[If the train was right... then an animal could indeed be a person. And what Romeo said about what his situation was and if the train counted by hearts or not... he's a person too.]

[She came back around to what Axel had said in Daitu, that he thought that maybe they had all been growing hearts even while they were in the Organization. If that was right, then that could explain Demyx. Maybe. But did that mean that he had a Somebody sleeping somewhere if he wasn't a Replica? How could she tell if he was one? Even if she asked him would he answer? Would he know? If he knew would he tell her?]

[If the answer were yes, and she found out... what would that even mean? Did it matter if she was the only Replica on the train? Axel had said that there had been other Replicas later... but that was ahead. Of her time. Time...]

[She and Axel were from different times in their own world. Roxas had been from even further ahead in Daitu, but then before Daitu when he arrived here. When was Demyx from? Or Naminé? She needed to ask Naminé when she found her again. Could she ask Demyx? Again... would he answer?]

[Would Axel know? She glanced up at him again, unsure. If he didn't would Demyx tell him if he wouldn't tell her? Would Axel understand why she needed to know?]

[She looked down at her gloves again. Why did she need to know? What did it matter when he was from? They had always more or less ignored each other. He probably couldn't see her face, even here. He probably didn't even want to. Did it matter? Did he have his coat here? Did that matter? She wasn't sure. But... she wanted to know anyway. She wasn't sure why, or what she would do with the information. What more did she actually need to know about Demyx other than the fact that he was here and that they couldn't count on him for missions?]

[Right. He complained and slacked off on missions. Roxas had told her about the missions they had been on together. Demyx never got dusked for that. So maybe he wasn't a replica after all? No... he had to be a regular Nobody because they wouldn't let him get away with it... After all they were ready to Dusk her over...]

[She froze. She stopped trembling even, eyes widening as she paled and her eyes went huge under her hood. Her breath held and she might have been a statue as a thought hit her harder than any enemy ever had.]

[They already knew Xemnas for a liar. Their mission, his plan, what Kingdom Hearts was actually for... What if.... what if those hadn't been the only lies? They were going to dusk her if she failed, if she wasn't enough. Then at the end it was her or Roxas, they were only going to keep one of them. Her whole time with the Organization since she was created... What if Demyx was the evidence she never found? What if he was a replica like her... and he called their bluff? Could it have all been a bluff? Was it possible that they... that they never actually had the power to dusk her or Roxas?]

[Her whole existence until Daitu... all the fear... all the fear of Xemnas even since... all her fear of Saïx.... all lies?]

[The first sign of motion returning was a single tear rolling down her face.]

[All the harm she had done. All the hearts she had collected. All those sunsets where instead of just listening to Roxas and Axel goof around she had upset them all with her fear. All those days she'd been gone, run away from fear that she could have been with them...]

[Her hands clenched, her face turned aside. Her head was swimmy and she was trembling again, but didn't know why. She just knew that if Xemnas suddenly showed up running away or cowering wouldn't be her reaction. She wanted, for a moment to take her Keyblade to his face.]

[Then she stilled again. No. Wait. Think, Xion. That only was a possible answer, and that only if Demyx was a Replica. No... even if he was, he didn't have a Keyblade. Maybe he got away with it because he wasn't supposed to be what she was supposed to be. His being allowed to be lazy and goof off didn't mean that they couldn't have destroyed her. She shuddered. If Xemnas had showed up then and she had been foolish enough to attack him... he would have destroyed her there and then. And Worse.. Axel would have gotten hurt too, trying to defend her. Something came over her like brain freeze from eating her ice cream too fast, but all over her body and without the ice cream. She shuddered. She could have gotten Axel killed by jumping to conclusions.]

[Another tear rolled as she looked down at her gloves, shaking all over. She kept dragging him into her troubles. Him and Roxas. They'd have been better off if she hadn't been created. They fought because of her, even if they couldn't remember her. But they were her best friends. She didn't want to be without them. She knew her selfishly wanting to stay with them, her being unable to make herself go back to Sora from the first had made things so much worse for them on top of all the hearts she gathered in that time. But at the same time, even knowing that...]

[She wanted to stay with Axel. She wanted Roxas back. She wanted the three of them to be together forever. She just... wanted to be strong enough to be the one to protect them instead of needing them always to save her.]

[Would being a real person make it easier to protect them? She stared at her gloves, shaking. How long had she even been real? Had she been real even while they were getting hurt over her? No... No, she couldn't have been a person when she went back to Sora or it wouldn't have worked, right?]

[Her head shot up, eyes going wide again. She had to go back to Sora for their future, the future they remember to happen. But if she was her own person before she did, how could she go back? Would it hurt them worse that she couldn't?]

[She stared up at Axel and realized with a shudder that she... didn't want to. She didn't want to hurt them, and she wanted the future Roxas told them about where they were all real people and all together, that they had been freed from Sora's heart. But if she was real now...]

[She didn't want to go back. She wanted Roxas here, and she wanted the three of them to just stay together. Here. Or in Daitu. Away from Heartless and the Organization. She wanted to learn what it means to be real with Roxas. She wanted to tak about what having a heart meant with Axel. She wanted to find a way to have their sunsets and ice cream again.]

[Another tear rolled.]

[She didn't want to go back to Sora. She was a person now. Did she really have to go back, just to make sure things happened the way Roxas and Saïx said they remembered?]

[Then her eyes went wide and she paled again. What if that was why Roxas was different when he was here? What if she had already broken things by not going back, and that was why he didn't remember Daitu somehow? What if she had already destroyed everything?]

[Her head dropped again, with another tear. Even knowing that she might have ruined it all already... she didn't want to go back. To Roxas yes. To the clocktower, yes. To Sora? No. Her hands clenched again. Never. If she was a person, she didn't have to, right? Even if it made things worse, they could figure out how to fix it right? Or....]

[Or was she just hiding behind Axel and Roxas again by being selfish and refusing to go back? But why did she have to? Why did Roxas have to? If Sora could fix things by them going back to fix him, couldn't they do the fixing and then find some other way to wake up Sora? If she was finally a real person why did she have to give that up?]

[Her shoulders hunched around her ears and she began to shake. Another tear fell as her eyes squeezed closed. She didn't want to disappear into Sora even knowing that she'd be free again after. She didn't know what that would do to all the memories she made since arriving in Daitu. Those where hers. Those were her.]

[Her hands came to her chest and clenched there, as more tears fell. She already gave up herself once. She didn't want to do it again. If she was a Nobody... that was the fate of Nobodies. They didn't really exist anyway. But if she was a person...]

[Her hands went to her face, covering it as her knees gave out from under her, her head splitting with pain...]

[Lea waited while Xion apparently processed what she'd just been told. And waited. And.... waited some more. She glanced from him to her gloves, back and forth, several times. She summoned and then dismissed her Keyblade.

But what she didn't do was say anything. Lea wished she would. It quickly started to get awkward standing there in silence, and aside from first one tear then a few more trailing down her cheeks- which had him resting a supportive hand on her shoulder, expression becoming concerned- she gave him no clue at all what was going through her head.

Even as she began trembling, she still didn't say anything. And with her hood up he couldn't see her expression well enough to infer anything. It was obvious she was overwhelmed, but overwhelmed with what? Happiness? Relief? Sadness? Anger? Fear? Some combination of the above?

When she fell to he knees, he crouched down next to her, keeping his hand on her shoulder and even more concerned.]

...Xion? Are you OK? What's wrong?

[She leaned against him, hands against her hood.] "My head... hurts..." [she whispered, shaking.]

[Lea supports her against him, not quite sure what to do. What was good advice for someone in this situation?]

Just... try and take deep, slow breaths for a bit, OK? And focus on me. Don't worry about anything else for a minute; just focus on me and my voice. You'll be alright.

[She nodded, leaned against him.]

[She was still shaking but she was trying to stop thinking about it all, just for the moment, just until the headache goes away.]

[Lea let her lean against him, putting an arm around her shoulders and gently rubbing her farther arm in a soothing fashion.]

That's it... you've got it. You'll be alright.

[It seems to be helping a bit, at least. Though he opts wait a bit more before suggesting anything else.]

[She closed her eyes and he'd feel the shift when the headache faded just enough that she was nearly asleep, and not the bed time sort.]

[Lea waits til her breathing evens out a bit and she relaxes against him somewhat before carefully getting back to his feet, lifting her up into a bridal carry.]

I'm gonna take you back to the room. You'll feel better after you rest a bit.

[She always seems too, after all. Maybe it takes downtime like that for her to absorb big revelations?]

[She gave a weak nod. She had been afraid she'd have to answer everything now. But Axel was her best friend. Of course he knew her. She let her head rest against him and let sleep take her.]

Day Twenty One: Engine Room to All Carriages

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Warning for angst, introspection, and Kingdom Hearts spoilers/issues.

Also warning for teal deers. XD

lol, yes. That too.

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Good place to wrap?

Re: Good place to wrap?