After his apparent death in Castle Oblivion, Zexion lived on--as a shadow of his former self, still living, though not what you'd usually call "life." Stripped of nearly all his power--not to mention his physical form--by the Soul Eater held by Vexen's Riku Replica, Zexion drifts throughout the various worlds and watches the events taking place.

These are the thoughts of Zexion.

Darkness in Zero

Ansem the Wise, Ansem the researcher, Ansem the great sage-king...

Hmph. More like Ansem the foolish, Ansem the scared little boy. It was his fault all of this happened in the first place. What kind of man is still afraid of the dark well into his adulthood?

That's how it all started, after all. First he discovered that the heart contains two forces, usually in small and evenly-balanced amounts. Out of the old traditions of his race, he named these forces "Light" and "Darkness." We should have known, at that point, that Ansem, our leader, was a fool--why cling to the myths of the past? We were scientists, not theologians.

But the old man never could throw off the superstitions of the past. The discovery of this "Darkness" disturbed him--he likened it to the "Darkness" of the ancient myths. The rest of us all knew that this "Darkness" of legend was simply a euphemism for evil, not referring to any true physical or spiritual energy--but our leader ignored our words.

It was I who first suggested that we should study the Darkness, hoping that what we found would eliminate his irrational fear. All of the initial tests proved that the opinions of our leader were false, and that the Darkness was no more harmful than any other form of energy yet discovered.

But our leader was a fool. He ignored the results, claiming that the experiments were flawed, that if there was more Darkness present we could see its ill effects for ourselves. It was at this point that everything began to fall apart.

He became obsessed with proving that the evil "Darkness" of superstition and this newly-discovered Darkness were one and the same. The experiments became more and more dangerous, and less respectful of those who had donated their hearts to our cause. We had always performed the experiments as if we were performing them on an intelligent being, or the world's most valuable treasure--now, our leader was treating the hearts he experimented on as if they were insects, worth nothing and easily disposable.

"Maybe if he treats 'em like bugs, they'll turn into bugs and crawl away."

That's what Xigbar--though he was Braig at the time--said when I first brought up my concerns. It doesn't seem so funny anymore, now that it has essentially come true. It was that one last experiment that threw everything out of balance.

Rather than simply experimenting on a heart's Darkness, he amplified it. And like all forces of nature, Darkness in excessive quantities is a powerful engine of destruction.

But even then he refused to see the truth through his fog of superstition. He blamed the transformation of his test subject's heart on the Darkenss, not the fact that he had amplified that Darkness to completely unnatural levels. He ignored the fact that, in the process of his experiment, the heart had been removed from its body. All of our previous experiments left the heart intact.

It was my fault as well--I suggested that we study the Darkness first, hoping to dispel his fear, but that was a mistake. Perhaps I should have pointed him toward the Light instead--then things may have turned out differently.

Or maybe, in the long run, they would have been mostly the same. If he had chosen to amplify the Light rather than the Darkness, the result would have been similar--and just as destructive as any Heartless. I have seen proof of this now, in my ghostly travels throughout the worlds.

"Darkness in Zero." "DiZ." That's what he calls himself now, ever since Xehanort stole his name in one of his first of many moments of insanity. It's a bit ironic, that the one who once feared the Darkness now gladly hides his name behind it.

Only a fool assumes good and evil are composed of anything more than the thoughts and actions of the individual. Evil is neither Dark nor Light, or any combination thereof. The potential for evil exists in us all--in Ansem, in the Heartless, in the young Keyblade wielder, and even within myself... no living being is truly free from its temptation, nor truly consumed by it.