[72]

[rubyd.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [72]Desperation
Title: Orders
Words: 258
Characters: Roxas, Saix
Notes: I would imagine Roxas had many reasons for leaving the Organization in the first place. This is one of them.



They were simple orders:

One, send the Heartless to create more Heartless.

Two, kill them and release the captured hearts. From there they will arrive to the World That Never Was.

Sometimes, Roxas gets stuck on step one.

He walks the small village, "sizing it up" as Axel puts it. Usually people are asleep at this time of night, but here he stops in front of an opened window. There is a child there, wide-eyed, and star-gazing.

"Who are you?" asks the child, staring at him.

"I'm No One," he answers from within his cloak. "Go back to sleep."

Roxas walks away before seeing if the kid really does or not. Circling the town once more, he reaches the rendezvous point and his partner on the assignment – it's Saix tonight.

"And?" Saix asks, simply, and surveys the area with narrowed eyes.

"They're asleep," he says, voice impassive.

"Good." As Roxas watches, VII raises a hand and snaps his fingers, like a master calling his servants.

*

Once the screams have settled, they approach what is left of the village: several dozen new shadows creeping the ground. Their yellow eyes swivel towards them, antennae twitching.

A Shadow wobbles to them. The Heartless makes a sound, quiet, like skin rubbing against cloth. It is no different from any other – all of them are the same, same height, same sizes, same hunger, but XIII pauses.

"After you," says Saix, and Roxas isn't sure if it is sarcasm.

He raises his keyblades.

They are Nobodies, but every beat of his real heart carries a weight he can't name.