Darkness in Zero
Foreword:
Obligatory "spoiler" warning for all sorts of KH things.
"Darkness in Zero" is a "what if" scenario. Since Master Nomura has told us very little about events before Sora's adventures began, I thought it would be interesting to see how the characters developed into the people we came to know them as 'today'. I've used the Ansem Reports (or Xehanort Reports, as it turned out the KHI reports actually were), what little is known of Kairi's back story, and what flashbacks/information were available from KHI, KHIFM, KHII and KHIIFM+ to devise the timeline that the story will follow. I hope something was not overlooked – there was a lot to go through.
I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 1 – Eleven Deadly Sins
"Xehanort?"
The tiny voice did nothing but pass through the mental gears like a smooth breeze. A loose, right hand continued to add a dark shade to a figure etched in pencil.
"Xehanort?"
The sound came with a tug this time, and when the physical setting was disturbed, the young man jumped.
"K-Kairi," he slammed the notebook shut, concealing the evidence from a child that could not convict him of daydreaming, "what are you doing in here? How did you get in here?"
The child, idling at a height somewhere closer to Xehanort's knee than his hip, found herself swept off her feet when the frazzled scientist stood up.
"Grandpa's sleeping— "
"Asleep?" his brow wrinkled together as brown eyes took a careful look into a purple set that glowed up at him.
"—So I came and saw you."
Xehanort bounced the child onto his hip, pivoting on the spot to march her out of a room cluttered with more equipment and formulas that even this scientist knew what to do with some days.
"And you know that you are not allowed in here. Even if your Granddad isn't awake, that's no excuse for breaking his rules," Xehanort gave a look to the ceiling, rolling his eyes in the process, "you know, if Even had found you, he'd have spanked you until your behind turned solid red. You cannot come down here."
"Owie…" the pint sized child wiggled in her position, taking a firm grip on the white lab coat wrapping the man who began a swift ascent up the silver set of stairs, "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, big 'owie'," shaking his head, Xehanort cleared the stairs with a record pace, and continued his march down a short, but barren hall. A flat palm slapped the swivel door impeding his departure, giving it a hefty push as the pair charged through, "Kairi, I'll accept your apology only if you promise me you won't do it again."
"I'm sorry, I promise," the little girl's voice pouted, partially muffled by the collar she'd tucked her face into.
The child's weakened voice stopped him from storming through the basement halls of the great castle in Radiant Garden. Without a word, he pulled Kairi off his side and Xehanort crouched down, placing the red headed girl on her own two feet. After giving a tug to her white and purple-flower dress to straighten her out, he held up a right fist, popping out a pinky finger. He sat down a little lower on his knees to meet her eye to eye.
"I don't want you to get hurt or into any trouble, so do you really promise me?"
That changed everything for the tiny girl.
Instantly, she seemed to forget how much his quick march out of the basement study had made her want to cry. And now, more delightful than having Xehanort's undivided attention, was the chance to make a child's most important type of promise with him.
With a pinky finger that barely wrapped around the man's she was linking with, the child beamed, "I really promise!"
"Good girl," Xehanort's left hand came around, ruffling her hair as she squealed.
Pushing back to his feet, the young man extended a hand for the wayward child to take.
"… Does your mother know you're here?" he narrowed an eye as she quickly took a strong hold of three of his fingers.
"Uh uh," the little girl, shuffling along alongside the body towering above her, "she said that Grandpa doesn't listen to her, so she said I have to say to Grandpa to get lots of sleep because she thinks he doesn't love his bed no more."
" 'Any more'."
"'Any more'. But! Grandpa is sleeping at his desk so maybe he loves his desk more, cause he's sleeping now."
Xehanort could only laugh at that thought, wishing he could rationalize life that simply, "Well, your Granddad has just been really busy, and I know your mother and grandmother are worried about him, but it's just been a busy month. Things are better now. So you can tell everyone that Xehanort says things are a-okay here. I'll take care of your Granddad, don't worry," the scientist gave a wink to Kairi before reaching an arm out for the approaching exit to his master's study.
"Okay," the child gave a nod that nearly knocked her off balance, "I'll tell Mommy that and that Grandpa is sleeping."
"And the world will be at peace!" with a firm grip of his left hand on a doorknob, Xehanort pushed open the door without a sound.
Barely two steps into the room, he paused, allowing Kairi enough time to toddle in to join him at his side. Sighing, Xehanort took a moment to gawk upon the growing mess in the master's room. Ansem's study had turned into a disaster over the last few weeks, and more paperwork laid thrown out across the room than at any point in during the whole escapade. Suggestions, hypothesis, theories, insights… they were all scrawled out in document after document.
The Darkness of the Heart. That's what they'd labeled the most recent folder. It was literally what they were trying to answer – a far more pinpoint investigation than simply Darkness itself.
Yes, Darkness and Light both existed, and True Light that the world once cradled was lost – no, laying dormant within the Darkness. Yet, it was the Darkness of the Heart that was far more frightening and quite possibly a key. Their paradise, Radiant Garden, could be protected from this outside threat of "Darkness", but the Darkness of the Heart was an internal concern, one that could develop without announcement or forewarning. Because the world was no longer engulfed in True Light, darkness could develop within a heart and no one would know it was happening. It could eventually allow True Darkness to descend.
The Darkness of the Heart in Radiant Garden was not a prevalent factor; it was almost safe to say it was not a 'present' factor. The purest water flowed through this world's veins; it cleansed the soul and everything thrived without hindrance. But, darkness was still a foe, and to ignore it would be the greatest downfall in a near perfect society would face, if those who knew enough to fear darkness choose to sit by idle and not understand this unseen and potential enemy.
Ansem the Wise, ruler and guardian of this utopia, refused to allow his world to fall victim to ignorance.
"Oh boy…"
Xehanort's shoulders sank, eyeing the elder sage passed out soundly with his forehead atop a pile of never-ending paperwork. Nervous eyes glanced around uncertain, before finally stepping forward to the master's desk. The apprentice's hand carefully reached across the papers and fell on the robe-covered shoulder of his superior.
"Sir?"
"Grandpa?"
Xehanort gave a light shake to the man's shoulder as Kairi chimed up.
"Master Ansem?"
The master startled, lifting his head from the desk with a shake and a stifled cough.
Stepping back, Xehanort gave a grin at his mentor, to which the elder man responded with an out of sorts and slightly embarrassed expression. The apprentice had been woken by this great ruler twice in the last week for falling a sleep at his station, and Xehanort felt it was somewhat appropriate that the situation was reversed.
"My goodness…" Ansem the Wise gave a swift tug at his collar, quickly gathering his composure.
Xehanort quickly wiped away the grin, and froze the expression on his face, "Sorry Sir, but something very important came up in the middle of my research."
Ansem covered his young apprentice with an intrigued look, "something important?"
Bending down, Xehanort grabbed Kairi under her arms and swung her off her feet. Carrying her over to the master's desk, he stood her upon it, "The Darkness is a bit perturbed that we've been researching so hard these last few weeks and sent a three foot spy to make sure we don't get too close to solving their riddles."
Beneath the lights of a well-lit study, Kairi threw her arms wide, "Grandpa!"
"Well, well, well, the darkness has gotten devious!" pushing up from his seat, Ansem rose from his napping station, reaching an old hand out to pinch the child's nose, "sending a child to spy on me, how disheartening!"
"We must be getting close if they're getting this desperate," Xehanort laughed.
The squeaking voice of Kairi joined the contagious laughter. Scooping her up and balancing her on his side, Ansem stepped around the disheveled desk, "And how are you today, young lady?"
"Good! I had ice cream!" piped the child as the two men and little lady stood at the room's center.
"Sea Salt?"
"Yeah!"
"Good grief, more people eating that…" Xehanort's hand came to his forehead.
"And yourself, Xehanort?" smoothing over Kairi's hair, the sage glanced over to his apprentice, watching as his brow rose at the question.
"Master Ansem, how many times do I have to tell you: 'I'm fine'," he gave a light shrug of his shoulders at that, "if anything at all comes up, I'll talk to Even, if not you first. Worry about your granddaughter this afternoon, not me."
Xehanort could provide no amount of reassurance that would satisfy Ansem the Wise. It had been three weeks since they'd started to implement the experiments on the willing participant. The orchestra of seven scientists had agreed: Xehanort's heart had sealed away part of his life. A part he had no realization or awareness of. It was as though he'd woken up in the middle of life one morning with no knowledge of himself, this world, or anything around him. What had been going on at that point in his life, no one could provide the answer to. But it was clear, his 'life' needed to be mended before anything else could be done for him.
His caretaker, Ansem the Wise, made certain of that he would make it through. Shortly there after, Ansem extracted the 'Xehanort' name from this white-haired teenager dropped on Radiant Garden's doorstep.
And while Xehanort recovered from his injuries, the young man absorbed Ansem's every word like a sponge. The he thrived off everything he was told, and could recall the knowledge weeks later at the snap of a finger. Ansem's most senior apprentice, Even, made a passing comment that it was as though everything they told him became second nature – almost like the information had been part of Xehanort's knowledge base all along, just simply locked away with the years of lost information.
It was then that the research of darkness turned to investigate the heart, and eventually the darkness within the heart. Were Xehanort's memories locked away in the darkness of his heart? Ansem invited Xehanort to join his apprentices, which later grew to an apprentice core of six.
Years after Xehanort had been taken under Ansem's wing, he'd risen to the ranks of most respected apprentice.
And when the opportunity came up to initiate experiments to delve deeper into the darkness of the heart, Xehanort volunteered without hesitation. Everyone agreed that his memories may be locked away in the darkness lurking in every heart, and because it was such delicate and dangerous territory to traverse into, it was the only area of the young man's heart they had not explored.
He was the perfect test subject.
What bothered Ansem though, was not venturing into the darkness of the heart, but venturing into the darkness within Xehanort's heart. Time and time again, the young apprentice defied his logic, and showed signs of expanding far beyond his current means. There were times where Ansem would only admit to the man in the mirror that his apprentice's potential unnerved him.
Something was locked away, but for what reason?
However, Xehanort's thirst for himself overcame Ansem's hesitations, and the psychological experiments digging into the heart were initiated. They were never mentioned outside of the circle of seven men, there was no reason to concern the remainder of the Radiant Garden.
And Utopia watched, unknowingly, while the foundations for ignorance were laid.
"We have a guest!"
The three sets of eyes turned over their shoulders towards the voice that had emerged from the doors Xehanort had crossed through with Kairi earlier.
"Braig!"
A grin crossed the war-torn face of yet another of Ansem's apprentices and Kairi provided the wide-eyed, cheerful greeting to the white-coated scientist.
"Hey there chickie, not often we see you down here," the man sauntered across the room, stepping through the clutter as though he had the floor mapped out in his mind, "special occasion?"
"She just stopped by to say 'hi'," Xehanort gave a light wave of his hand to the additional body in the room.
With a monstrous, lunging step, both of Braig's hands landed over Kairi's head and did their best to displace as much of the child's short-cut hair that they could, "Here's a Hi from me, kiddo."
The men laughed as Kairi shrieked at the attention, but Xehanort's voice was cut short when Braig's hand came down on his shoulder.
"Master Ansem, I need to borrow this guy for a while. I have a few things I need to clear up with him from trials this past weekend."
Smoothing the child's hair, Ansem gave a hesitant look to his two understudies, "You know I prefer to be party to discussions about these matters."
Braig swished his hand through the air, dismissing the concern his master attempted to express, "It's nothing major, just dotting I's and crossing T's. It should only take a few hours and you can take your granddaughter home."
"Grandpa can see my new dollie!" Kairi bounced in the man's arms.
"No offence Sir," Xehanort's words were accompanied by folded arms and a reassuring grin, "but you can't be Mother Hen all the time, and that includes my experiments as well."
Taking a firmer grip of the wiggling child, and releasing a sigh, Ansem gave a reluctant response, "There are times when I do not want any of you to be correct. Sadly, this is one of them."
Braig laughed, "I have one mother, and that is quite enough, thank you!"
"Very well," Ansem the Wise's voice carried with an amusement that echoed off the marble ceiling dome above his study, "go fly off from my nest and be sure to be back by curfew."
"Curfew?" Xehanort's expression contorted.
"One out of Two ain't bad, I suppose," Braig gave a wink to Xehanort, grabbing him at the upper arm, and wiggling his fingers at Kairi for a farewell.
Without another word between them, both the master's and child's voices disappeared as the two men vanished behind Ansem's heavy study door and Braig shot a curious look to his associate, "Did you have a curfew way back when?"
"Hah, no," Xehanort strode forwards, sliding his hands into the pockets of his long, white lab coat, "besides, before I got into this, anything I was old enough to do closed before ten o'clock."
"You're making me feel old, boy."
"Boy?" Xehanort scoffed, more amused than offended, "I swear some of you still treat me like I'm seventeen."
"Hey, there's a few of us who can date ourselves to you," Braig rolled his eyes at the thought, taking a few hasty steps to catch up to the apprentice wandering ahead, "It's like a magazine headline: 'Where were you when the unknown soldier appeared!?' Something like that, anyways."
Perhaps it was always how Braig presented himself that left Xehanort laughing at nearly everything he said, "You make me sound like a circus. So, where were you?"
Braig stopped, his arms folding across his chest as Xehanort's pace slowed, glancing over his shoulder.
"Asleep."
"You were asleep?"
Shrugging, Braig picked up his stride once again, "Trying to sleep. I had the worst hang over. But, we had to commemorate one of the finest hunting expeditions in the last twenty years somehow."
Xehanort's head rolled to the wayside as he returned to the forward march from moments earlier, "You, Sir, have never changed."
"Now, that's the way you should address your elders all the time!" the man's hand slapped over the shoulder of one of the most aspiring minds to ever grace Radiant Garden.
And their conversation fell into dead silence.
Without another word, they diverted into an alternate hall, walking in uneven rhythm through a lengthy, winding corridor. Both men's feet echoed with a dull sound off the metallic surface they crossed.
"Actually," Braig's voice rose, "we have a little problem."
"Problem?" Xehanort slowed.
"Maybe."
The younger of two men frowned, knitting his brow together, unimpressed that he may to have to dig to get information.
"And it could be a big problem. I've never seen Ienzo quite so… how should I say… frazzled, I guess," Braig's hand came to his chin.
"… About?"
Flicking his hand, Braig encouraged the companion to keep walking with him, "He had to do some modification to the disposal room about an hour or so ago. The balance of the heart within it changed."
Xehanort's pace quickened; this conversation was not in relation to the experiments Ansem had conducted on him, but the experiments Xehanort himself was conducting.
Ansem the Wise, though they all acknowledged him for his insight and intellect, was reserved when it came to investigating darkness within the heart. He withheld his power, his knowledge, and abilities leaving only mediocre experiments to fall into place, according to Xehanort. Every aggressive action Xehanort proposed was rejected by never-ending concerns.
This was safe, Xehanort insisted. If you were to understand the darkness, you couldn't be afraid of it. You had to make it stand next to you. It may even be possible to have it bow at your feet. The darkness can sense what is weak, and that's what it targets.
And, unbeknownst to anyone, he would attempt to prove this.
Yet, as the hearts of men crumbled in a room locked and hidden away from his master's eyes, the revelation came about that the heart was, in fact, weakest to the darkness. Darkness could be extracted from a person's heart more times than not, but what remained was frail, brittle and unstable. You could not create a strong, pure heart – to obtain something like that, it would have to have been devoid of darkness from the very beginning. Of the ten men that had fallen from experiments in darkness, not one of them had a strong enough heart in which to cultivate darkness. Darkness simply consumed them, and the heart collapsed within the body.
Would there end up being no way to understand how darkness functions within a heart?
"How does the balance of a heart consumed and collapsed by darkness change?"
"That's what we wanted to know," Braig offered no more than that.
"I don't understand what you're going on about."
The two men drew to a halt in the middle of the corridor, and Braig placed his hand against the chilled wall, releasing one of the entrance doors to a basement section unknown to their master.
"You should take a look for yourself."
Xehanort hesitated a moment before heading in. His companion's words had sent a chill down his spine that he had been unprepared for. It was not very often he entered into his own research laboratory concerned about the contents of what he'd find.
But, he could not afford to be afraid of the darkness.
At the bottom of the staircase, Xehanort stopped – the eyes of the additional four associates fell upon him.
"Where the hell have you been?" Even's voice lashed out at the arrivals.
"We're all in here?" the comment fell from Xehanort's lips with mounting concern.
Braig slapped the stalling apprentice in the back, "Yeah, it's a big ole part-ay, and you're the guest of honour, young Sir."
"Braig, how can you even make a joke like that at a time like this," Dilan turned over his shoulder, snapping at his associate's laid-back behaviour.
Rolling his eyes, Braig gave little attention to the stressed companion, "I'm lightening the mood, we've been treating it like the world is coming to an end."
Ienzo's hand slapped to his forehead, "It could very well be. Xehanort, you're going to want to take a look in the disposal chamber, I don't know what is going on."
The scientist, who had barely traipsed into a room saturated in a stressful aura, stepped towards the metal doors of a room they had labeled "disposal" – for lack of a better term. It was the room he'd asked Ienzo to create in order to house the failures caused by experiments on the heart; the ones that Xehanort had spent a desperate and frantic string of days and weeks trying to revive without success.
"What did you do to the door?" Xehanort narrowed an eye.
"The twerp sealed it magnetically before the bloody things could escape, that's what he did," Even pointed a finger at the youngest of apprentices in the room, only to receive a bitter glare from Ienzo in response.
"What else was I supposed to do? They merged with the floor like a shadow or parasite. They were going to sneak out under the door if I didn't do something."
Standing before the reinforced structure, Xehanort slowly turned over his shoulder to look upon his associates, "Open it up, I want to have a look."
"Congratulations Xehanort, you get the Bad Idea of the Day award! I think I should pin that one on your ass."
"Shut up, Braig," Dilan blurted with a slap upside the head for the man before returning his attention to Xehanort, "just look in from the observation deck."
"No, that won't do," Xehanort turned, surprising his companions. There were very few times his eyes lit up with such a child's curiousity, "I want to see it clearly."
"'They', you mean," Even corrected, "there's more than one of 'em. I stepped in there and nearly didn't get out."
Xehanort's expression tightened, growing more desperate to know what had his companions up in arms, "Either way, I still would like to— "
The man never finished his sentence – spinning sharply on his heals as Ienzo released the sealant on the door.
"If they escape, you have to find some way to catch them. I am not responsible," the youngest of six apprentices said flatly.
"Be careful," Elaeus slowly folded his arms across his chest, "you don't know what they are."
"None of us do," with a firm grip, Xehanort took hold of the chamber door handles, "that's what makes this exciting."
Even threw his hands up into the air, "Exciting? This is not a game, young man!"
Xehanort grinned, pushing into a room congested with cold, stale air, "Sometimes, I beg to differ."
Clearing the entrance, the man's arms fell to his sides, allowing the doors behind him to swing shut with a monstrous echo. Xehanort never imagined he'd wish he'd installed lights in this room. The room was not much more than a metallic canister, the only light gracing it came from the observation windows above. The man travelled no more than three feet from where he'd first entered.
The thunder brought on by the closed doors did not seem to vanish.
Why was there was no one here…?
The chamber was empty. How could this be? He'd placed people in this room himself.
The sounds of the scientist's shoes and friction of his pant legs grew into the room as he stepped away from the safety of the exit and the pounding of his pulse slowly developed between his ears while trying to put fear aside. Literally, he'd closed himself in a disposal room destined for darkness.
At the sound of a banging fist coming from an observation window high above, Xehanort jumped, glancing up at Even. It was when his gaze returned to the room that he saw the shadows upon the floor move – had they always been moving? With stutter steps left and right, he avoided the blotches that moved around him. Finally, in mid-movement, the man's body froze. His startled gaze shot wide – even with his own eyes, he could not believe what he was witnessing. Quicker than he could have believed possible, the shadows staggering out of the floor took a three-dimensional, physical shape. Nowhere in this scientist's mind was an explanation fitting for what he was witnessing.
Xehanort backed himself into the chamber wall.
Never had he seen such a creature – a tiny, black, stumbling being approached him with a swiftness he had not expected from something so clumsy looking, and the scientist scrambled away.
There were four, six… nine?
They all rose from the floor and approached him with aggressive speeds. He darted away again, and again, trying to ascertain what on earth he was dealing with. The young man's heart raced. These things reeked of darkness; this room was filled with it, yet he knew – almost instinctively – how to step away from all eleven.
Eleven? May it have been a gut feeling or just simple intuition, but something within Xehanort told him that these creatures were related to the room's human inhabitants. If these creatures represented the previous tenants of this container in some way, then there had only been ten people in here originally.
A discrepancy of one.
Although the dance Xehanort performed to avoid the creatures flowed naturally, a rising concern led to the man taking a direct line for the door – he had no answer for why this room stank of darkness or to how an eleventh had ended up in the scene. Leaving the creatures behind in his wake, Xehanort threw his hands against the exit doors and exploded from the room. Tumbling to the floor upon hands and knees, the man took a moment to catch his breath, listening as the doors crashed shut behind him.
"Barrier!?" he gasped.
"Done."
"Why were there eleven?" Xehanort blurted as Ienzo's magnetic seal solidified.
"We have no idea," Elaeus responded, "but ten of them appeared when we entered the room, and then attempted to follow us out."
"They merged with the floor and would have slipped out unless we further secured the room," Ienzo added.
"I offered the creatures one of our trial subjects, and it distracted them long enough to get Even out and the barrier erected," Dilan cast an eye upon Even as the eldest of the group rolled his eyes, "And by the time we'd looked in again, the man we had left to them had vanished without a trace."
"It was as though the creatures devoured that poor soul," Braig nodded, his gaze falling back upon Xehanort.
"And the bodies of the others?" Xehanort's gaze ran around the room.
"Vanished, without a trace," was the response.
"Is that it…?" with the eyes of his companions cast upon him, Xehanort rose to his feet, turning to look upon a chamber that once represented a gut wrenching failure in all of their lives, "Is that what happens to the darkness in a weak heart?"
There was no response for such a theoretical question, and Xehanort pointed a finger to the door, which now lead to a crowing and disturbing achievement.
"This is what I created!?"
To Be Continued…
Author's Note:
Imagination gone wild. Most pertinent information was covered in the foreword.
I don't have any evidence to support a relationship between Kairi and Ansem the Wise, but Kairi was a resident of Radiant Garden, and a Princess of Heart. Whether or not she was an actual "princess" in title, I don't think we've been told. If she were a princess in title as well, that would make her related to Ansem the Wise, since he was the kingdom's ruler. Kairi had memories of her Grandmother in KHI, and the woman possessed a great deal of knowledge about the history of Light and Darkness – it'd make sense that she'd have some relation to Ansem the Wise. I thought it would be interesting if Kairi played a part significant enough for Xehanort to have chosen her to be sent to another world (asper KHI Ansem Report 11).
Xehanort, at the moment, is pre-darkness. I would expect that his personality would reflect something more jovial. Riku turned into a cold zombie for Maleficent before his head came out of the clouds, I would suspect Xehanort was pretty amicable himself before he became lost.
I know the KHII Ansem Reports spell some of the names differently than I did, but I liked the spellings that matched the Org XIII anagrams.
That's all for now.