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“You- want to remake my heart?” he spluttered, mind spinning as rapidly as it could to process what Larxene was saying, process the things that were roiling in his chest, process the probability of this being a serious threat. Larxene didn’t look like she was kidding. She looked like she was having a grand time, though, which made him… uneasy. A lot about this situation put him on edge. His eyes darted towards Vexen, the only familiar face in the room. Vexen looked… contemplative, but otherwise unreadable. The Riku Replica’s stomach did a nervous flip-flop.
“Well, I think it’d be a wonderful experiment!” Larxene replied, placing a certain weight on the word experiment that made Vexen react, just slightly. “I’d love to see if Namine’s powers are actually capable of making you forget that you’re nothing but a fake.” Her eyes glinted with an excitement that the Replica immediately classified as dangerous. Her smile showed all her teeth.
It pissed him off. “What’s wrong with being a fake!?” he shot back, swiping a hand through the air. His blood boiled again, boiled in the same but still unfamiliar way it had when the ‘real’ Riku insinuated being a fake was somehow worse. He was an improvement on the real thing’s powers! And he was still his own person!
He was enjoying his fumbling steps through discovery of his new life and what kind of person he was. The thought of having that robbed from him because he had a bunch of fake memories crammed into his skull made it hard for him to breathe. Was he… scared? He’d never been scared before.
“What do you say, Vexen?” Larxene asked, ignoring his protest. She turned that dangerous look in Vexen’s direction now. “You did want to test Sora, didn’t you? Then why don’t we give the two of them something to really fight for.”
“I…” Vexen said, but nothing more. He kept staring at the card Axel had handed him.
The Replica swallowed around a knot in his throat. “I- I won’t let you!” he told Larxene, sticking his chin up in the air. He wasn’t sure where defiance would get him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to take this lying down. Why did his voice tremble when he spoke?
Larxene rolled her eyes at him. “Like you get a say. Vexen?” She shot another look at Vexen. “I assume you have no objections.”
The Replica turned to Vexen himself, watching with his heart in his throat. He had no idea how Vexen would respond, and the uncertainty made it hard to breathe. Would Vexen let Larxene get away with this? Would Vexen really throw away everything the Replica was? Everything he could ever be?
Sure, he didn’t have a name. But he was a person. And—
“Please,” the Replica whispered, not yet too proud to ask for help. “Please, Vexen. Don’t let her.”
Larxene laughed and rolled her eyes again, but Vexen…
Vexen looked up, startled. He met the eyes of the child he’d created, and that child looked back at him, terrified. Vexen’s mouth worked for words. There was a… distant look in his eyes, like his mind saw more than just the child standing before him, like he was a man standing on the precipice of a momentous decision—a decision he’d faced before, a decision he couldn’t decide how to make a second, third time.
Larxene moved, then, drawing the Replica’s attention away from his creator. She scoffed and dramatically rolled her eyes again, taking steps towards the Replica. He took a hasty step back. “Whatever,” Larxene groaned. “It’s not like I need your permission either. Namine?”
“Y- yes. Of course.” The girl in the corner of the room who hadn’t moved or said anything once until now responded rapidly, ducking like she was afraid of… what? Getting hit? She flipped her sketchbook open with fumbling hands. It was hard to see her expression, but something in her body language suggested she was about to be sick. The Replica felt he might be as well.
Larxene had said Namine was the one with the memory powers. And that meant—
“No,” Vexen said.
The room froze.
Namine sat, hand caught in the middle of turning to a blank page. She stared at Vexen with wide eyes.
The Replica looked to Vexen, warmth blossoming in his chest.
A foul expression crossed Larxene’s face. Her eyebrows climbed into her hairline, and she turned away from the Replica and towards Vexen slowly. “Excuse me?” she asked, as if she couldn’t possibly believe that Vexen had dared to say no.
“I said no,” Vexen repeated clearly. He drew himself to his full height, and let the card in his hands fall to the floor. “He is my creation, and I get the final say on what is done to him.”
Larxene laughed. “Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you brought him up here.”
Her hand shot out to grab the Replica, but the Replica wasn’t stupid. He jumped out of the way before her hand could close around his arm. He called his blade to him, ready to cut her if she tried again. And try again she did, but she stumbled mid-lunge, like something had caught her by the cloak.
Sure enough—Ice had burst up from the ground around her feet, effectively keeping her in place. The Replica let out a surprised, short laugh at the sight of it.
Vexen caught his attention. “Stay with me,” he commanded, and then he moved.
“Vexen!” Larxene shrieked.
The Replica did as told, keeping his back towards Vexen and his eyes on Larxene. Excitement thrummed in his veins, something hot and electric in ways that even the fast-paced thrill of fighting Real Thing couldn’t compare to. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but it felt… important.
“Axel!?” Larxene tried, but Axel just put his hands up and took a few steps away from everything, looking like he was trying to hold down laughter.
Vexen paused by Namine, hand hovering over her shoulder. “Come on.”
“But—”
“It will be okay, I promise. But we must leave now.”
Namine got to her feet. Vexen opened a dark corridor in front of her and gently ushered her through, while the Replica watched their backs. Larxene was still struggling with the ice, cursing up a storm and yelling at them, while Axel continued to not help her. The Replica was grinning as the darkness grabbed him and the corridor closed.
They remained in the corridors longer than the Replica was used to, which must have meant they weren’t staying in the Castle. The thought was exhilarating. He’d never seen other worlds before. He wanted to ask where they were going, but Vexen looked like he was a mile away, so maybe he should wait. He wanted to say something to Namine, who was all hunched-shoulders and hugging her sketchbook to her chest, but he wasn’t sure if he had any words that would make her stop acting like she was walking to her death.
“Are we… running away?” Namine asked suddenly. Her voice was as small as she was.
Vexen hesitated before answering. “Yes,” he said. He made a noise like he was going to say more, but then he didn’t.
“But Marluxia and Larxene—”
“I know,” Vexen said. “I know.”
“Will they follow us?” Namine asked, and this time her voice came out more like a squeak.
“Hopefully not soon,” Vexen replied, curt. His face scrunched up like he was regretting a few things, but then he turned and looked at the Replica. The Replica wasn’t sure what Vexen was looking for, as Vexen’s eyes scanned his face, and honestly the Replica wasn’t sure what he hoped to convey to Vexen in return, but… Something about the silent exchange seemed to put Vexen at ease. He let out a slow breath. Nodded to himself. He seemed more certain, now.
“Maybe I should go back,” Namine whispered. “Without me the- the two of you could probably—”
“Not an option,” Vexen told her.
“But…”
“You’d get lost in the corridors anyway, at this rate,” Vexen said. “Come on. Not much further.”
They arrived in a… library. It took a moment for the unused knowledge buried in his brain to put a name to the shelves of books that surrounded them on all sides. It was an elaborate place, two stories, the shelves like a maze. And there was so much color. A green carpeted floor, red oak shelves, and the spine of every book a separate color of the rainbow. Of course, the Replica knew that Castle Oblivion was an outlier, and this was normal for most worlds, but knowing was a lot different than seeing.
He took a few moments to marvel at it, then remembered that he still had barely any idea what had just transpired, and that he would like to better understand. He turned his attention away from the towering bookshelves and to the people he’d arrived here with. Vexen stood by the table in the corner under the window, one hand resting on it. Namine stood a respectable distance away from him, still hugging her sketchbook, her eyes cast down. Had she ever been outside of Castle Oblivion, the Replica wondered. He didn’t think she had, and yet, she wasn’t acting like it.
It troubled him, but there were more important things to ask right now.
“So… we ran away?” the Replica asked. Saying the words made his blood pump with excitement, glad to be taking part in something that seemed so much bigger than him.
Vexen looked up at his words. When Vexen saw that the Replica’s eyes were on him, he quit leaning on the table immediately. For a moment, his face suggested he was wrestling with a million different problems, but within a blink it had settled into something more stonelike, unreadable.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m not sure it will have any consequences for you, but for me and Namine…” Vexen stopped there, and he sighed. Namine hugged herself a little tighter. “We should be safe here, at least for the time being. A few hours to rest, and discuss some things.” His mouth was open to say more, but Namine interrupted him.
“I should go back,” she said, her voice trembling as she spoke. “I really should.”
The Replica turned to her, surprised and too unaware of what they had escaped from to understand why she might say such a thing.
Vexen looked like he understood, though.
“No,” he said, firm but patient.
Namine fidgeted uncomfortably. “If I don’t, Larxene—”
“Neither she nor Eleven will harm you, as long as I have any say in the matter,” Vexen assured her. Kindness warmed his voice, at least a little bit. There seemed to be a weight in his reassurance that the Replica couldn’t even begin to fathom.
Namine seemed confused by it, as well, though perhaps for different reasons. She looked up at Vexen at his words, and studied him, not that whatever she saw on his face seemed to change her mind much at all. She ducked her head back down before she spoke again, stammering:
“I- I can’t just leave Sora, th- though,” she said. Something in her voice suggested she hoped this would let Vexen allow her to return. “He only has- has half his memories and th- that’s all my fault…”
Vexen squeezed his eyes shut. Took a careful breath. “I’m… working on the Sora problem,” he told Namine. His tone became stern. “But I intend to find a solution that doesn’t involve you setting foot back into that Castle. I didn’t bring you all the way here just to have you turn around and throw your freedom away.”
Namine flinched at that. Seeing it, the expression on Vexen’s face wavered, for just a moment. He pulled a chair away from the table, gesturing towards it. “Come, sit,” he told Namine.
Namine did as told, and Vexen sat down in another chair next to her, fussing over the bruises on her arms. He was silent as he worked, looking grim. A soft sensation of magic wafted across the room, and the Replica watched, a little lost, as Vexen wove healing magic around Namine. She murmured a thank you when he was done, but looked more queasy than grateful.
Vexen sat back in his chair. “Now, for the next order of business,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair, then looked at the Replica. “You need a name.”
The Replica blinked. “Oh,” he said, a bit surprised. He knew, of course, that this was important. But in all the excitement of everything else that had happened today, it hadn’t crossed his mind as something important enough to get right now.
“Forgive me for not solving this problem sooner,” Vexen continued. “You really deserve better than that.”
“It’s okay,” the Replica said, not understanding the weight that Vexen felt sitting upon his shoulders for this mistake.
Vexen let out a helpless laugh, the laugh of a man who was having to cope with the realization he’d created two children but only bothered to think of a name for one. That, the Replica did not understand, either.
“I’m sorry,” Vexen said, voice full of both mirth and pain. “Because I still don’t have a name picked out for you. But… I suppose, it is your name. You can choose whatever you’d like.”
The reality of that was so profound that it winded him, just a little bit.
“I… I don’t have any ideas either,” the Replica admitted, laughing a little. He felt kind of bad for being so at a loss. “It hadn’t even occurred to me.” As a thing he needed, yes, but as a thing he got to choose?
“Well,” Vexen gestured to the library around them. “There’s probably a million books on these shelves. They’d be a start.”
The Replica turned around to consider them, but didn’t get far because Namine cleared her throat.
“Actually, um,” Namine said. And then she waited. And she waited. As if the expectant silence was not enough of an invitation to speak. Finally, she seemed to get the idea, though, and she continued: “Um. Um. If it’s names, then, well, I might have something that will help? Hang on.” She opened her sketchbook, and with a pencil she must have brought with her started scribbling something down.
While she was doing that, the Replica cleared his own throat. There was something else important to attend to. “Thank you, by the way, Vexen,” he said. “For, you know… not letting Larxene shove a bunch of fake memories into my head.”
He felt a little bad that apparently denying Larxene had resulted in this much trouble, but also that just made him appreciate it all the more.
“Oh,” Vexen seemed a little surprised for a moment. “It was nothing,” he said finally. “As fascinating as Namine’s powers are, they aren’t just a toy to fool around with. And she is much more than a tool to be used.” This was obviously directly pointed at Namine, and she hunched under the weight of it, but didn’t stop writing for more than a second. Vexen met the Replica’s eyes, and with a surprising warmth, also said: “So are you, despite how unorthodox your existence may be. Forgive me for treating you otherwise.”
The Replica shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He didn’t think Vexen had that much, if at all. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It… really is,” Vexen argued. “But I suppose I’m glad that you aren’t upset.”
The Replica smiled, the motion tugging easily at his lips. There was something easy and light about this moment, something floaty in his chest. He had only been alive a day, but he wanted to capture this memory forever, the way the light filtered through the tall window, reflecting off Namine and Vexen’s hair both. He wanted to remember the gentleness on Vexen’s face, the look of a man who was finding he regretted less things than he expected to. He wanted the light in Namine’s eyes as she cleared her throat and looked up from what she was doing to grace her face forever.
“Um,” she said, and when she saw him looking at her she cleared her throat. Held her sketchbook out to him. “Here.” There was something eager in her expression, something burning under her skin that he wanted to see more of.
He took the sketchbook from her, and looked at what she’d written for him. It was a list. Of names?
“What’s… with the scribbled out ones?” he asked, eyeing her.
She blushed. “Um. Those are, uh, taken,” she said. She looked embarrassed, but it was absolutely an improvement from looking like she was going to vomit any second. “I wrote them down before I remembered.”
“Where did you get this list?” Vexen asked, skeptically. He tried to peer at it, but in the Replica’s hands, it was out of his line of sight.
“It was in the library,” Namine answered. Her voice was a little louder than it normally was.
“Castle Oblivion doesn’t have a library,” Vexen countered.
“Yes it does,” Namine argued. “I only was able to ever find it once, but there were a lot of rooms like that in the Castle. And, um. Anyway. There was this book lying on one of the tables, and tucked in the front pages was a list of names. I… think I remembered most of them.” She spoke with a kind of breathless certainty, something close to excitement. Like she was speaking of a cherished memory.
The Replica made himself pull his eyes away from her face and looked at the list again. Curiosity made him squint at the scribbled-out names, trying to decipher them. The first looked like it might have said Aqua? He couldn’t make out the second.
“These are the only two that are taken?” he asked, looking up at Namine again. When she looked confused, he elaborated: “I mean, I don’t really wanna copy someone else’s name, you know?” He was already copying enough.
“Oh,” Namine said. She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I’m sure it’s only those two. Only three people have seen this list, I think.”
“Three?” Vexen asked.
Namine went rigid. “Yes,” she said, and nothing more. Something about the way she answered made the Replica think she wasn’t talking about any of the Organization members. Weird.
He looked at the list again, really looked at it. He tapped his toes against the ground as he considered each of the names, rolling a few quietly around on his tongue. He wasn’t sure if he was really fond of any of them, but then—
“Oh,” he said. He tried the sound of it on his tongue one more time, then nodded. It seemed to… pull at him. “I think I got it.”
“Yes?” Vexen prompted.
Namine’s eyes burned with excitement.
“Nova,” he said. “I want my name to be Nova.”