The First Day

[Sai]

The effects of the recent heartless and nobody attacks on Radiant Garden were plain for anyone to see. The streets were badly damaged, and many of the shops were in need of repair. The only area that had survived for the most part unharmed was the small square in the center of town where most of the people had gathered during the raids. Along the outskirts and in the residential areas, though... the wreckage was immense.

Was it any wonder that no one trusted him? He was, after all was said and done, a Nobody. He made no attempt to hide this fact, though he did keep away from large groups in an attempt to avoid causing panic. He was roughly six feet tall, wearing a silver robe that for the most part resembled the black organization XIII robes, with the addition of large pockets and the Nobody symbol. His hat was pulled down low, though a few strands of gray hair could be seen covering most of the humanoid's face. One glowing yellow eye peeked through, observing the world with little care for the plight of the people, yet still so intelligent and deep.

He was at the Moogle shop right now. These industrious little creatures had a reputation for creating amazing magical items from mundane ingredients and they seemed a likely place for someone like him to find the one thing he sought. It was even rumored that these pom-pom'ed little things had DEVELOPED the item in question for the Keyblade Master on more than one occasion. Apparently, though, they were not so willing to offer their unique services to those who did not already possess what the Nobody wanted more than anything in the world.

It was a shame, but he couldn't bring himself to say that he was upset. Disappointed, maybe, but by no means angry or sad. He couldn't feel those things any more, and never intended to pretend otherwise like his "friends" in the organization had attempted to. He remembered what it was like to feel; he would not make a mockery of those precious emotions by vainly putting on the air of such things. All he could do at this point was nod politely to the moogles who were not at all shy about voicing how suspicious the magelike nobody looked, and turn towards the old Bailey, walking with his head bowed to keep his appearance mostly hidden under his hat.

"Another dead end..." he muttered to himself, in a voice that was so deadpan and monotone that no stretch of the imagination could possibly find emotion there.

Was he suspicious? Yes. Was he friend or foe... that much is left to be seen. All that could be said with 100% certainty was that he was not attacking anyone right now, nor was he summoning any lesser nobodies to command.

But what could he be looking for?

[Leckseeuh]

[if you don't mind i'm gonna barge into here]

Lexia was roaming the streets, alone, through the streets of Radiant Garden. It was nothing like she'd remembered when she was little - the houses were all worn down, the streets needed mending, and the house she grew up in had no one living there and was the same as it was before. She stuck the finished popsicle stick in her mouth from eating her seasalt icecream, hands in her pockets. She ocassionally needed to hold one of her hands up to the Sun. She was smiling of some sort of fake joy that swelled inside her from seeing home again.

She walked up the stairs toward the Moogle shop to get another bar of icecream. She saw Sai standing there, one of the only inhabitants that looked slightly normal.

Like that was possible in any of the worlds she'd visited.

"Hey, you!" Her curiousity got the best of her. She ran towards him and tapped his shoulder, her smile beaming. "Hi! Whatchu' doing around Hollow Bastion?"

[Sai]

Sai froze in place. He had intended to pass through his day unnoticed for the most part, but a tap to his shoulder signalled the abrupt end of that course of action. He had fully expected that the next action would be a blunt force trauma to the back, shoulders, or head, but what came next was nothing less than suprising (if one could be).

"Hi! Whatchu' doing around Hollow Bastion?"

What a strange question, and in the voice of one no older than 17, 19 max. He slowly turned around, slightly glowing yellow eyes turning to face the speaker. She was shorter than he, with that customary innocent look that came with youth. There was, however, something unsettlingly dark about her. Sai knew it right away. He was one too, after all.

"Hollow Bastion?" he asked in that monotone, deadpan voice of his that betrayed his insistance on not fooling oneself. He looked off to the buildings with mild interest as he continued. "I was under the impression that this town had re-adopted the moniker of Radiant Garden..."

Unsettling eyes fell upon the other Nobody, scanning her... taking in all information in attempt to label her friend or foe. She wore no trappings of the Organization, a mercy considering if he felt one thing, it was guilt for all that the XIII (or by extention, XIV) had endured. Still, that made her a wild card at best. His eyes fell upon the bloodied wrapping on her arm, which he pointed to as if it were merely a lost insect or bit of fallen plantlife.

"Are you injured?"

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia giggled a bit, not at all disturbed by him. She kept a smile plastered on her face and her eyes sparkling with happiness. She looked at him up and down, knowing the cloak that the Organization donned and that his cloak was unmistakably similar. But she didn't find him intimidating at all, just a friend of sorts.

"Oh yeah, Radiant Garden. It's been so long since I've seen this place I forgot it was called that!"

She put her fingers under her wristband and pulled it, letting it snap back.

"Are you injured?" He asked, pointing to the ribbon on her arm. She still smiled wide.

"What, this? I was." She explained, stopping the snapping of her wristband and fiddling with the ribbon.

[Sai]

Was. Past tense. That was good, though it did little to help determine if she meant ill or not. She was a Nobody, but with such a wide grin and happy demeanor it meant that she was pretending, and she had to know it because the lack of a heart was NOT a condition one could simply ignore or mistake as something else. It was an overwhelming sensation of emptiness that tended to drive people insane with the weight it carried on one's soul. Some were strong enough to maintain themselves and make a plan, like himself, but none could look into the void and simply smile.

So, knowing that she was covering something up made her suspicious to begin with, add to that the fact that she seemed so upright about speaking to strangers and even the dullest person would be slightly alerted. Sai, however, had no reason to react harshly just yet. He merely nodded in response to her clarification, and spoke again.

"Do you remember how?" he asked. It was important. If she remembered HOW she was injured... maybe she could remember something else... the whereabouts of a certain heartless...

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia scratched her head, setting her other hand on her hip. She had a clearly thoughtful expression on her face, humming a bit. "I've gotten hurt a lot. But I dunno how I bleed since I have no heart." Her smile drooped down a bit. It made her disappointed how she couldn't feel, but was so close she could pull off pretending that fooled most. It mainly made her dissappointed how she lost her heart.

She pointed to the scar on her forehead, and then the one on her cheek. "I've had these since I was little. And then this -" She pointed to what was behind the bandage, a scar that covered the width of her arm that had faded in time. "I got this from a Heartless. That's the one that made this bloody." And then she pointed to the bandage she moved down.

"Why you wanna know?" She said, tilting her head and humming.

[Sai]

If it was sympathy the girl was looking for, it was regrettable, but Sai could not provide any. She spoke of how she was often injured and while most would take pity on the girl, Sai merely took it as passive information, nothing important. What did catch his attention was that she spoke so casually about not having a heart. He looked around when she mentioned it to see if any of the bypassers and standers-by grew tense. None did. She was apparently good at blending in... or the people here were astonishingly bad at feeling for one another.

Sai tilted his head slightly in curiosity when she mentioned the heartless. It was a tragic, but all too common story. The Heartless, while being creatures made of darkness surrounding a stolen heart, had no compassion nor sense of morality. They were monsters, plain and simple. So, when they chose a target, say a little girl, they didn't show mercy nor did they spare any quarter. Sai would cry if he could feel anything.

"Sorry," he said, though it was the furthest thing from the truth. He didn't care in the slightest. "This Heartless..." he asked, gesturing to the scar that was all but there. "It didn't happen to look like myself, did it?" he asked, the slightest tinge of what might be misconstrued as hope in his voice.

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia smiled a bit brighter. "It's fine. It doesn't stop me from moving!"

Then she looked at Sai when he asked if the Heartless looked like him. She knew it was a swarm, the swarm that took her Heart, but she used it as an excuse to look at him and see if he was harmful. She examined him as if a dog was, minus the sniffing and licking and whatever a dug does, although her nose seemed to crinkle sometimes.

"Nope. Not at all." She sort of tilted her head and looked at the face under the hood, just catching a small glimpse and smiling, moaning a bit in a happy tone. Lexia had no idea why and she didn't care, but kept her arms crossed and weight shifted on one leg.

[Sai]

Sai nodded, though he was somewhat thankful that his appearance was mostly hidden behind his hair and that crimson scarf he wore over his lower features. He never was particularly fond of having his face seen, even when he had a heart. Granted, now he hardly cared but it was perhaps the only homage he paid to his former self.

"That is... regretable..." he said in that usual deadpan voice of his. "If you happen to come across one that does, be sure to alert me..." he looked off, almost as if expecting to see what he was seeking right there even though he knew all too well it wouldn't be a simple matter of "oh, there's one!"

"In the meantime..." he said, turning away from the girl to start walking towards the old bailey once more. "I have something to look for..." he muttered, barely audibly.

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia scratched her head once he walked off. She thought for a minute, and before he could get too far, she ran after him.

"I could help you!~" She near yelled with joy in her voice. Her smile stretched across her face and she pumped a fist in the air. "What're you looking for?" She didn't even think if it were to be something personal, she just wanted to help.

[Sai]

"I very highly doubt you could..." Sai said, not trying to be mean but probably coming across so with his blunt nature. He kept walking, knowing she would keep stride if she so desired.

"I'm looking for a keyblade and user..." he answered, stopping in that courtyard just before where the labs began. He looked out over the fields towards that twisted castle in the distance. "And my heartless. Doubtless you already know what I am." He looked over to her. "Seeing as you are one as well."

He looked back to the castle, part reminising part elaborating. "The Organization didn't believe in my ideas, so they rejected me, but my hypothesis is sound. With a keyblade available to me, I could find my heartless, my SPECIFIC heartless, and finally re-unite. There's no need for mass Heartless murders that do little more than destroy any chances their corresponding Nobodies have of redemption... There are millions of Heartless, yes, but one knows their heart when they look upon it. I will find mine. I will be whole again."

A moment of compassion came to him as he looked over to the female, eyebrow lifted. "You could be too," he said simply before falling utterly and completely silent.

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia walked closer to him and set a hand on his shoulder, a little hesitant. She smiled at him, shaking his shoulder and laughing a bit. "Maybe I could help you. That could probably make you smile for once. I remember having a heart, that's when everyone I loved was around. Now they're sort of, gone.." She said in a happy tone, that dragged onto sad and melancholy.. She dug in her pocket, pulling out a few bottles of potions and setting them in his hand. "Just in case you don't want me tagging along."

[Sai]

Sai looked at his hand, where the few items were. He didn't seem affected one way or the other about them, which wasn't suprising at this point. He looked up to her once more, and spoke clearly.

"It isn't a question of want or not. I strongly suspect even if I forbade you to follow, your strong will would demand otherwise. It is... a regrettably all too common trait in our kind... especially in those who were turned at a younger age." He looked at the items again, weighing them lightly before slipping them into his side-pouch, a bag with near-infinite holding space adorned with the nobody symbol.

"I will warn you, however, that the enterprise I am endevouring toward is a perilous one. Heartless are constantly on the move, necessitating a continuous motion from myself as well. Further, I cannot even proceed further until I have claimed what I seek first. The Keyblade."

There, it was out. This Nobody, who had not even revealled his name, was looking for the keyblade. Others before him had done the same, and their antics had caused the damage that was all around them. But was this one like the others? Was he willing to destroy anything and everything in his way to acheive his goals? Sinister questions need be answered before one could proceed forward with him.

Then again... one could simply not care.

[Leckseeuh]

Lexia coughed to clear her throat of nothing that was there and giggled behind it. He was completely true - even if he did say no and that she'd die right as she stepped out onto the battlefield, she'd go. Because dying would be an awfully great adventure.

Anyways, she stopped coughing and looked at him again. "Keyblade. How come I've heard of that before?" She sighed and kneaded her chin for a second. "Oh yeah. Anyways, I'mma join you!" And yet again, she smiled like a child in a candy store.

[Sai]

Sai nodded, acknowledging her intention to follow as well as her belief that she had heard of the item he was seeking before. "It would not suprise me if you had..." he muttered, then lifted a hand to the collar of his overcoat and pulled out a piece of paper. He held it up for her to read.

--KEYBLADE NOTES #13 HAS BEEN ADDED TO RECORD--

"Others have sought it as well, and the events which have recently transpired here greatly involved the keyblade masters. However, I cannot find them as they've left their abode and are currently who-knows-where. The only options left to me now are to either find a new keyblade master, or create one myself. This note is the only clue that I have, and without the others, I can only begin to guess at what Xemnas discovered..."

He pocketed the notes once more, then looked to the girl. "I have reached something of an impasse in my search. With no clues as to where to go next, I'm afraid I am open to options on my next move..."