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I owe my return to many. Some of them people you knew.
It seems you’re not as good at winning over people’s hearts as you think.
The tip of Roxas’s keyblade rose, pointing true, and behind his shoulder Xemnas could feel the frenetic power of the moon seeping into the air, cosmic danger radiating in its orbit.
“Ah.” Xemnas’s voice was toneless when he replied to the boy. “I see.”
It was clear to him, now. Saïx had succeeded at long last.
Xemnas had always known, of course, that Saïx wanted more than he could ever give him. Saïx wanted what he could never give him. It had never been any secret to the former Superior that his right hand had conspired behind his back for the length of the first Organization, devising plans upon plans at Xemnas’s expense. Said plans had never come to fruition, however, and Xemnas had not been worried about such ever happening. Not in the old days. Not after Axel had turned his back on his old friend and Saïx had begun to seek whatever fleeting comfort he could with his Superior, instead. Not after Saïx had sworn himself mind, body, and soul to Xemnas and his cause.
Xemnas had deluded himself, thinking that that desperate, magnificent loyalty ever could have lasted towards him in the face of the truth.
Had Xemnas bothered to keep a closer eye on him for this fleeting time they had together in Xehanort’s Organization, he might have picked up more thoroughly on the most recent schemes woven so cleverly by the man who had once been his adjutant. He knew Saïx so very well, after all. He knew Saïx better than he knew himself, which was part of why he had not paid attention. Why he had allowed Saïx to scurry about before blind eyes.
Xemnas knew fully well that the news of his lies, of his betrayal of all Saïx had trusted, all Saïx believed, could only have shattered whatever strange, delicate thing had grown between them. Though Saïx remained his dutiful self in this new Organization puppeted by Master Xehanort, the frigidity Xemnas's hands had once thawed had returned tenfold, and the bed where this replica body laid its head had remained cold since Xemnas's shriveled heart had been brought here through time. No longer did Saïx slip through his door at night to slide under his covers. No longer did he even bring reports directly to Xemnas’s desk; not without the orders of a higher-ranked member. The shadow of a bond that had eased the final months of their Organization, the one they had run side-by-side, was no longer. Nothing remained of the stolen comfort Xemnas once knew.
And Xemnas had done nothing. He always did nothing. Nothingness was all he was and all he had ever been, after all.
The Lord of Nobodies had always been one to prolong the inevitable. Ten years he had spent doing so, delivering lush sermons predicated on falsehoods, conjuring visions of grand plans and mighty schemes that would vanish into smoke when examined too thoroughly. He lied, and it was easy, because he did not feel.
Until he did. He feared that he felt now, and all that he felt was pain.
Saïx had betrayed him. Truly, and ultimately, and finally. And Xemnas could not blame him. Xemnas's own betrayal far outstripped this one, and he had only himself to blame for the knife plunged deep into his back. He may as well have guided Saïx’s hand himself.
In the depths of whatever Xemnas could call a heart, he had known the day would come when the world he had built around himself would crumble. But he did not expect the grief.
He had always been a fool.
It all came to blows, of course. Xemnas’s movements were rote, void of any real determination. He was going through mere motions as he cast Sora, Roxas, and Xion aside, and he watched as Saïx charged, that mighty claymore sending sparks flying as it collided with the pitiful thing Axel called a keyblade. Kairi’s volley, however, came as a surprise; Xemnas did not expect the fledgling keyblade wielder to be so adept. It did not help that his thoughts were far away—back in the grand bed he once had, in the grand room that was no longer his. Back with the man he treasured, the man he betrayed, lying at his side with pale cheek pressed to empty breast.
Only narrowly did he parry Kairi’s keyblade, but he sent loose his thorns instead of facing her in melee. They twined around her and Sora both, as cloying and choking as the sensation bearing down on Xemnas's own chest, and he stared down the interloper, the puppet, and the flame-riddled wretch.
“Now watch… as your friends slowly vanish into nothing.” A cruel smirk smeared across his face, and it was as hollow as the rest of him.
Watch as your friends fall, one after another.
Watch, and do nothing, as those for whom you care are reduced to ash.
Watch, and feel the chasm in your chest crack wider with each severed bond.
Watch as you lose everything you hold dear, powerless to change your fate.
No. Xemnas was not powerless. He simply didn't have it in him to try his own hand at defiance. He never had.
So he would fight alongside Saïx one final time. There would be no words spoken between them. Even if there was anything left to be said, their time had run out. Their hourglass had been tilted on borrowed time for years already, and now the last grain of sand had fallen solidly beyond Xemnas's reach.
Xemnas fought, and he fought bitterly. Fruitlessly. The three keyblade wielders struck him in unison, rending the sigils free, and he only felt the emptiness in himself gnaw wider, a sickening void that seemed to swallow all else he might have ever been able to feel. Had it always been so painful?
Axel, Roxas, and Xion—they had managed it. They had managed to form a bond, a true connection with one another, despite all odds. Despite all the cards being held in the same hands that pulled their strings. They had done what Xemnas could not, and he was not sure if it was envy or resignation that constricted in his throat. Perhaps it was regret.
Xemnas landed at Saïx's side, and he was still as stone, saying nothing as the three friends spoke of the bonds that held them together. His chest rattled with tangled knots of feelings he did not understand, and all of it culminated in nothing but ache. That was all his shallow, stunted heart seemed capable of containing.
Saïx, just behind his shoulder, was so calm, for being berserk. A clever animal on a leash that had always been too short. No, that did not do him justice—he was a man , strong and stalwart, who had learned to control chaos just as well as he was controlled. Xemnas wondered if he was thinking about running. He wondered if he was thinking about the past, or the future, or merely the here and now. He wondered if he was imagining bringing his claymore crashing down over Xemnas’s body instead of facing the fight that awaited him.
Xemnas could not bear to look him in the eyes. He could not bear to hear, to see anything more. He was ready for everything, for all things, to be over, and he could not care which way it all ended. It was over—there was nothing left for him here.
In the blink of an eye, he had Kairi in his grasp. Petulant little thing. And yet Sora so loved her.
Love, by design, was alien to Xemnas. A man, a creature like him could not feel love. Could scarcely imagine what it was like in its pure form.
But he knew it existed. He knew the grip it held on the human heart.
He knew of its dim echo. A haunting refrain of comfort that he could almost hear; a siren’s song, the words of which he could not quite make out. But it was not for him. It had never been for him. And he had been a fool ever to dance with even the vaguest notion of it.
Xemnas was to lose all of them again. His companions were already falling around him in this life as they had in the last, struck down as he stood by and allowed it all to happen in the name of the greater plan. Saïx was to be no different. That had always been the plan, in the end. Though Xemnas supposed he had already lost Saïx for good the moment his deception at last came to light.
His grip was a vise on Kairi’s arm, and he did not look at his Berserker, at his Luna Diviner, at the source of his ruin. Xemnas could not blame Saïx. But neither could he face him. And neither could he remain here and watch whatever fate was to befall the man his innate design dictated he could not love. The man with whom he had found the only twisted, broken semblance of love he had ever known.
He was a coward, and knew he himself would die a coward’s death. But he would hide the raw wound seeping in his chest by inflicting it on those who had sent the last pieces of his delusions shattering.
Kairi was loved. Kairi was cherished. Kairi would be chased after, her rescue of tantamount importance.
And Kairi would be killed. They would lose her, as Xemnas had lost everything.
He dragged Kairi through the portal, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw one final flash of radiant blue.
They would lose her, as Xemnas had lost him.
Vanishing through the corridor with his empty words and final threats, Xemnas handed the girl off to Xehanort before taking up his place for the final clash. A wretched dog bringing a toy back for its master; that was all Xemnas had become.
Xemnas had considered himself mighty, once. A king, a god, Lord of his own realm of Naught and Nil. But here on this flat, dusty plateau alongside his Other and the Xehanort of the past, he felt like less than he had ever been. He did not care any longer what happened to Xehanort, neither the elder nor younger; he did not care what happened to his Other; he did not care what fate might befall himself, or this world, or the worlds beyond. He could not care—not when the pit at the very core of his being seemed only to yawn wider with each parried blow, its blackened edges burning with every strike of the keyblade against him until he was all but consumed from within.
The pain of his body was nothing, even as he felt it beginning to fade around him. Far worse was the wretched throb of feeling that made his very bones seem too heavy, the way his chest felt split apart to reveal a new emptiness over which he had no dominion. Far worse was this sense of isolation, crushing and absolute, settling alongside the knowledge that it was by no fault but his own.
Physically, Xemnas could have kept fighting. It was his will that left him first. When his body began to fray, it was less due to Sora’s blows, and more because he had finally given up. His body still had strength; he was not fighting for breath, his legs were not threatening to buckle, his bones were not broken. Perhaps it was his heart itself—pitiful, starved thing it was—that had simply given out.
He looked to the three keyblade wielders before him, and he knew that he had only moments left before he succumbed to this relentless ache. Creeping at the edges of his failing heart, he wondered if there might be any relief for him, too, once he was gone for good.
“Bested… yet again.”
Xemnas gazed down at his empty palms, the leather still warm with the heat of the blades he no longer had the strength to summon, and he thought of all those hands had and had not done.
They had wounded. They had scarred. They had controlled.
They had caressed. Brushed hair away from sleeping cheeks. Memorized the curve of another’s lower back.
None of his tenderness, however, wherever it had lain in some indecipherable place between the realms of falsity and earnestness, would ever have been enough to cleanse his hands of the scent of blood and betrayal.
“I know that you have a heart.” Sora’s voice interrupted the haze of Xemnas’s fading thoughts. “What do you feel? Was it worth it?”
No. It was not. And Xemnas would die with that sting of hollow failure.
“I feel… the emptiness where my companions once stood.” His hands clutched close at his chest, and for the first time in so very long, the Nobody King felt small. Deep inside his breast, far beyond any physical strike he’d taken from a weapon, Xemnas hurt, and he knew it was a fatal wound of his own making. “I took them for granted. And now I have… nothing.”
In these final moments, he felt keenly every wasted day, every dismissal, every devaluation of the company he once kept. Kept them he had; all tools he held in his palm, disposable, expendable, usable. But strongly now, stronger than he had ever braced for, he missed them. He felt each of their losses twinge away at the raw wound inside him, and he felt regret no matter which inner corner of himself he now faced. At every turn, he had done wrong. Had chosen wrong. He supposed it was only fair for him to finally pay the price he had meted out to so many others.
But it hurt. He was alone, and it hurt.
“My first surge of emotion in years… for as long as I can remember…” He had never heard his own voice shake. He had never felt this tightness in his throat, this threat of burning in his eyes. There was so much he had never felt. So much that he would never feel. “And it’s… loneliness.”
The admission felt like it had been ripped from him, the last word ragged with long-forgone emotion. He had always been withdrawn from most of his rank and file, but he had never known what it was to be truly alone. To have no one at his side, willing or otherwise. He did not fully understand why, but it frightened him. The loneliness was agony, and he wondered if it was that agony that would ultimately kill him. A fitting end, he supposed.
All too late, he thought of his former members, the others he had called his friends . Even back then, he had had favorites.
Xigbar, cocksure and clever, the closest thing to a true friend Xemnas had ever had. He, at least, did not seem to have fallen yet; Xemnas could still feel the flittings of his sigil tug in his chest. He wondered selfishly if Xigbar might feel it when Xemnas faded away, instead. If he ever considered Xemnas anything more than just another gilded pawn in greater machinations.
Luxord, ever dependable, one of the few who seemed natural at intuiting when Xemnas did and did not have interest in carrying on a conversation. Even with the power Xemnas had imbued him, however, Luxord had been defeated. Perhaps Luxord might one day find himself recompleted, should Master Xehanort fail just as Xemnas had. Xemnas found himself hoping so, even if he would not be around to see it.
Even the ones whom Xemnas had favored less, he thought on fondly, here at the end. Xaldin, Vexen, Zexion, Lexaeus—he had known them all for so long, yet appreciated them so little. His fellow apprentices, individuals whom he had thought of himself as so far above; yet without them, he would have been nothing. Demyx, too, Xemnas had always known possessed incredible latent potential, though he had never coaxed it out in full. He now respected the lengths Demyx went to in the name of self-preservation. And for all of their schemes and attempted coups, Xemnas could only admire the fervence with which Marluxia and Larxene took their fates into their own hands.
And then there was Saïx. His Saïx.
Xemnas had felt the precise moment when he faded, had felt that little crystal of connection within him shatter. He wondered how it had happened. Had his former friend struck him down, left his broken body in the dust? Had Saïx been able to make his true goals known in his final moments? Had he spared any thought for Xemnas, there at the end, knowing they would never see each other again? If he were recompleted once more—would Xemnas be anything but a nightmare in his memory?
As the edges of his body frayed, Xemnas wished he had not run. He wished he had spoken to Saïx one final time, even if all was far past the point of being too late. He wished he had told him that the nearest thing to happiness that Xemnas had ever known were the hours spent in his company, and that not everything Xemnas had said and done was false. Each kiss pressed to Saïx’s temple, each time Xemnas had drawn him close, tangling their limbs together, it had meant something, and Xemnas wished he had told him so. Though perhaps it was better this way. Saïx had suffered enough by Xemnas’s tongue.
Xemnas wished he had better been able to see what was once his. What could have been his, had he been less of a fool. He wished things had turned out differently. But wishing did nothing, and to nothingness he would return.
A sardonic smile flickered on his lips. “Do you see?” He turned away from the warriors of light, back straight, body poised and upright even as it was falling apart from the inside out. “A heart is just pain.”
Sora spoke to him softly. He did not need to. He ought to have finished him off then and there with one final, well-deserved blow. But instead, he quietly said, “Pain is being human, Xemnas.”
“Really?” Xemnas looked over his shoulder back at Sora, and a dim fragment within him remembered being in his original body, being a young man loyal to nothing more than he was to his friends—his family . Xemnas wondered if any part of him would return to Terra after this, or if he would disappear from this world for good along with the other splinters of Xehanort. If by some miracle any of himself did remain, Xemnas wondered if there might ever be the slimmest possibility of a second chance. If there was any amount of good that could ever cleanse him of the monstrous acts of his past.
He supposed it was mere wishful thinking. But that was what humans did, was it not?
He did not think he made a good human.
“It must take…” He looked up at the darkened sky, knowing that his time had finally come. “Incredible strength.”
The Lord of All Nobodies let go, this puppeted body fading away at last. The plumes of darkness dissipated on the dry wind, and Xemnas was gone, just as though he had never stood there in the first place.
But a burgeoned heart drifted somewhere along the edges of death and sleep, clinging to the memories that had forged it: the pain, the regret, the loss. The bonds that had almost been. The bonds that once were.
That last little piece of him, nestled there in the dark, faded and frayed, but it never forgot.