Title: Have Mercy On My Soul

Author:Akane Arihyoshi

Disclaimer:I don't own Kingdom Hearts, as much as I wish I did, and if you think I actually do own it then you probably have no idea what Kingdom Hearts is, and should therefore be shot. Goodbye, innocent lurker. Enjoy your last moments of life as I go find Xigbar and tell him to hunt you down.

He fell to his knees, sobbing.

This was just so unusual that Zexion appeared in a flash, already sensing that something was wrong, smelling the fear and despair that had joined the scent of the normally cheer-filled room. Awkwardly, he threw his arms around Demyx, pulling him closer in an attempt to comfort him. The blond just sobbed harder.

"Demyx," he said soothingly. "Stop crying, everything is fine."

Demyx shook his head angrily. "It's not!" he cried, trying to move out of the grasp he was held in. His body shook with anger, or sadness, Zexion didn't know, but he tightened his hold on the other, refusing to let him go. "It's not fine, Zexion. It's not," he repeated, giving up in his struggle and falling back into the embrace. "It can never be alright, because we're nobodies, Zexion. We're nothing, and I can't stand it anymore…"

The rage that had been building up inside of him burst out, and Demyx heard himself scream. Zexion pulled him closer, and he let out an angry sob. "All those lectures Xemnas gave us. All those talks about how heartless we all are. How each emotion is a trick, designed to manipulate and kill.

"And you know what? Maybe he's right. Maybe we are just the shells of our former selves. Maybe we are worthless. Maybe we mean nothing. But I sure don't feel like that. I don't feel like I'm a nothing. I sure don't get up in the morning thinking 'Well, time to go spend a day in the life I shouldn't even have doing something that won't affect the world around me, because I don't matter'. No! My actions affect the world around me, therefore I exist. If I were to punch a hole in that wall, the hole would stay there, right?"

Zexion looked up, concerned. "Please don't punch a hole in that wall. Superior would kill you."

"I'm not saying I'm actually gonna do something like that, Zexion, I'm just saying that if I wanted to, and if I did, my action would affect the world around me. And it's a general rule of thumb that if you affect the world around you, you exist, right?"

Zexion pondered this for a moment, intrigued. "I never thought about it like that. You're right."

"Right. So we've established the fact that we do actually exist. If we exist in humanoid form, it only makes sense that we would think. And we do, we can think and dream and imagine, we can know, we can explain, and some of us even have some very brilliant minds. So if we exist in humanoid form, and if we have functioning brains that can think and live, doesn't it also stand to reason that we could have emotions as well?!" Demyx asked, close to hysterics now.

Zexion sighed, and prepared himself to give the usual speech on emotions that every new member had to hear at least twenty times before it seemed to sink in. "Demyx, we don't have emotions. We're humanoid in every other form, but we have no heart, and we have no emotions. We can't feel--"

"That's crap, and you know it."

Zexion blinked, caught off guard. Demyx never swore. Even the use of such a tame word was completely off for the blond. His silence conveyed his shock to the other, and he felt Demyx squirm uncomfortably. "I hate to use that word, but it is. You know it is. It's wrong. We can feel. We can, I know it.

"Demyx…"

"No, Zexion. No. You're usually right, that's true, but on this issue you're wrong. Painfully so. Xemnas is dead wrong, and if you believe him then so are you."

"Demyx," Zexion began lightly, taking Demyx's hand in his and speaking slowly, as if to a child who refused to stop believing in fairytales. "I know you think you feel emotions, but you don't--"

"No, Zexion!" Demyx shouted. "I'm not a child! I don't think I have them, I know I do!"

Zexion held up a finger. "Let me finish. You think you feel emotions right now. We all thought so, at first, but it's just a trick, Demyx. A façade that we hide behind, because we refuse to face the horrible truth, that we are, in fact, heartless beings. Our emotions are just…our defense."

Then the cloaked schemer thought for a moment, trying to fit his train of thought into a simile Demyx would understand. "It's like a fish, Demyx," he said at last. "Like a poisonous fish. That fish, when threatened, sends out a poison that harms everything but itself. The attacker is perhaps lured to the fish because it thinks it to be easy prey, but once the fish is threatened and sends out the poison in its defense, the attacker falls, dead or severely hurt. The poison doesn't affect the fish who sent it out, but it hurts everyone else.

"It's like that with our emotions. We lure in those who would attack us by our actions against them, and then use our apparent emotions as our defense by using them to give logical reasoning to our actions. If you believe that you truly have emotions, you're like that poor fish, Demyx, if the fish suddenly believes that his own poison affects him too. If you think something hard enough, it will come true, and if that fish believed hard enough that his poison would also affect him, it would. But he would die, Demyx. He would die because his body would start to use his own defense against him."

Demyx leaned against Zexion's chest, thinking the matter over thoroughly. "So what you're saying, I think, is that if I believe hard enough that I have emotions, I would start using my own emotions against myself, if unconsciously. I would start to destroy myself from the inside out."

"Yes, Demyx. That's exactly what I'm saying. You would destroy your soul. It's only a trick, Dem, but if you trick yourself, you die."

Demyx laughed bitterly, shaking his head before gazing up at the ceiling. "Then may whatever God would listen to a nobody have mercy on my soul, because if these emotions I feel are tricks, I fell for them a long time ago. If this is just a deadly façade like you say, then I might as well give up on life right now, because even this gullible existence I'm apparently leading is better than the one you describe; the one without a genuine life to live. If this is just a stupid mistake, then may I make a thousand more stupid decisions. If this kills me, it wasn't worth living anyhow.

"We dohave hearts, Zexion. We do! We have to, because a life isn't worth living without a heart to give it some meaning."

And with that, Demyx fell silent, clutching at the front of the other's cloak as he sobbed. All Zexion could do was try and comfort him, but as he held the other boy he spoke lightly. "I'd trust you with my life, Demyx, but this time…this time, you can't trick me."

And though Zexion felt something inside him break, he knew that he never would go back on those words, he never could. As long as he lived, as many times as Demyx asked, pleaded, for him to change his mind, he remained strong, always answering the same.

"You can't trick me."

And even though it broke Demyx's heart to hear it, he tried over and over until it became almost like a joke between them, hearing those words over and over, never wavering in his quest, determined to save his friend from his chosen life of meaningless emptiness. "We do too have hearts, Zexion. We do."

-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-.:.-

"Hey, you guys are looking lively."

Years later, Demyx found himself facing Sora. Again. That little brat with his keyblade. So rude, too. As far as Demyx could remember, Roxas was fairly polite, but his Other sure wasn't. This guy was all insults and sarcasm, and his companions were even worse. The stupid talking dog hadn't even greeted him before accusing him of a crime. Granted, he had committedthat crime, but a quick 'hello' would have been highly appreciated. The little duck hadn't spoken to him yet, but that changed quickly as Demyx was yet again yelled at by a talking animal.

"Scram!" the duck screamed, and Demyx took a moment to translate this. The accent the thing had was terrible, and Demyx almost pitied Sora for having it as a traveling companion. Sora took a step closer, observing the nobody carefully.

"Didn't we catch you messing around in the Underworld?"

Yes, Sora, Demyx wanted to say, And while I'm at it, let me compliment you on your intelligence level. It must have broken the scale, I doubt they've ever had to count below zero before for an IQ…

But Sora went on. "How'd a wimp like you get into Organization XIII?"

Demyx did a little dance, mocking fear. He had been underestimated so many times that it hardly bothered him anymore.

"I bet you can't even fight," Sora said haughtily, folding his arms across his chest. His pet duck seemed to agree with him.

"Yeah! But we can!" it said, shooting its little body forward as it attempted to make its message's intensity clear.

Demyx threw out his arm in a second, pointing at them accusingly. "You shouldn't judge anyone by appearance," he said, shaking his head slightly. The three others summoned their weapons. The melodious nocturne almost laughed. Just how paranoid were these freaks? He hadn't even pulled out his weapon, he'd just pointed at them. What did they think he was gonna do?

He pulled his hand back to his side as he leaned backwards, unconsciously swaying a bit in a sort of dance. Then he abruptly turned and put his face in his hands. "Oh! I told them they were sending the wrong guy…"

Behind him, he knew Sora was staring at his back incredulously. "Who is this kook?" he heard him ask his companions. The dog spoke first.

"Remember, the Organization's made up of Nobodies," he said smartly, as if what he'd just said made any sense in context.

Sora, what with his Attention Deficit Disorder from hell, immediately launched off on this second train of thought. "Right-- no hearts!" he said quickly, as if he had only just remembered this small detail. Who knows, he might have only just now figured out that Demyx was a nobody.

Demyx almost burst out laughing. This kid was as dumb as a brick. Did the keyblade ever choose a loserthis time. Sora had the intelligence level of a rock, and he was so slow on the uptake that Demyx doubted he would ever have figured out Demyx's status if he hadn't been helped. Instead, he straightened up and turned around.

"Oh, we do too have hearts. Don't be mad…" he said, remembering the moments he used to say those exact same words to Zexion before he had died, and smiling a bit at the memories as he recalled the comeback he always received--

"You can't trick us!"

But…this time, it wasn't Zexion, and the phrase wasn't quite right. This time, it was the duck speaking, and he used the word 'us', which Zexion had never done. This time, it was said in a challenge, used to intimidate and demean, instead of in the almost bored tone Zexion used that implied how utterly repetitive he perceived it as being. It wasn't Zexion this time, because Zexion was gone, and he would never come back. Demyx turned around again, frowning, before whirling around, arm outstretched, to face the trio, all cheerfulness gone as he glared.

"Silence, traitor," he said coldly. Sora looked shocked at this change of attitude, but never seemed to consider that it might have been his fault.

And then Demyx summoned his weapon.

Author's Note: You know, I've always thought the mark of a good writer was someone who could write any situation, regardless of how thoroughly unlikely it may seem, or how totally unoriginal it is, and write it well, like it was highly likely and extremely original. So I gave myself a challenge. I thought to myself "What, in the entire Kingdom Heart's Organization XIII, is the most unlikely thing you can think of at this moment?" and I thought "Demyx, crying." and then...well, I started to think about when Demyx dies, and I watched the scene again, and I watched him very closely, watched every expression on his face...and some of them didn't make sense to me, because he looks really sad in a few, especially after he says one thing that was really quite cheerful, so I wrote his past for him to explain it to myself. Heh.

And I included a bit of Sora-bashing, because...well, he bludgeoned most of the Organization to death with a blunt object in the name of justice and light. That's not cool.

I don't know if I wrote this well, so I don't know if I did my challenge very well. That's where you guys come in. Tell me how I did, because it makes me a better author if I know what you like and don't like.

Akane