Ienzo and Elaeus went into the darkness hours ago. It may have been an entire day, perhaps more; the sky has begun playing tricks on me by the time I reach the inescapable conclusion. Frustrated, I walk the perimeter of the computer laboratory. There’s no one here, no materials left, no hearts for me to study. My research is stuck. I’m the only one left, I tell myself as I pace. The last one, the last being of flesh and blood…

You are not, a shadow whispers. Braig’s, I think, a small and cute thing that seems strange to have come from such a tall and loud man.

It’s a relief to think that I’m not the last, though I’m not sure who might remain. I hurry through the castle, looking for someone forgotten and overlooked, a cook, a chimney-sweep, anything. Finding no one, I rush through the garden. The town itself is crawling with shadows.

“Lead me to a heart,” I yell at them. “Show me who’s left here!”

No one.
There’s no one here.
Nothing is here.
Here is not.

They swarm around me, warm and velvet and not at all alive, their shadow-shapes coalescing into and out of forms I recognize. I shake my head. “You said– one of you said I was not the last one.”

You are not.
Not the last one.
Not one.
Not one.
Not.
Naught.
You are not.

And then it comes into focus, the answer I was so close to and so far away from. My heart was consumed just as theirs were. This — I balled my fists, feeling muscles and skin and the memory of a pulse — all this was an illusion. Humanity was an illusion. Flesh was an illusion.

To reach enlightenment, one must abandon illusion.

I close eyes that did not exist, and see the darkness that truly surrounded me. My mind clears and quiets in a way it hasn’t done in weeks. Yes. This is it. I let go.

Ienzo had been screaming for most of a day when Eleaus came to me. How he still had a voice to scream with after so many hours, I could only imagine.

“I’m going to go stay with him.” It was a statement and not a question when Eleaus spoke, but the formalities had faded weeks ago.

“So go,” I spoke plainly. I was close, so close, I could tell I was. I could feel the answer rattling inside me.

“I need you to lock the door behind me.”

“Can’t you get someone else to see to that?” I wanted him to go and leave me, leave me with the shadows, because they had the answers.

“There’s no one else left, Ansem.” I was used to bitterness in Dilan’s voice, or Even’s, but from Eleaus it spoke much more. I could almost taste the recrimination beneath it, but as usual, he said no more than was necessary.

Of course he didn’t realize they were still here among the shadows, that I spoke to them still, so I forgave him the tone and the accusations he never made.

“Then it hardly matters if the door is locked,” I said finally. He turned to go.

At the last moment, I looked up at his retreating form. “He will be lost soon, if he is not already.” It was the obvious, but I felt it appropriate to say something.

“I’m going with him.”

Not long after, Ienzo’s screams ended.

He was sitting on my bed when I finally made my way there after dawn. His eyes were closed and he looked more peaceful than I’d seen him in weeks.

“Even,” I said quietly. His body shifted slightly, straightening, before he opened his eyes.

“It was too cold to sleep in my room,” he answered, and I imagined I heard alone hanging unsaid after it. I nodded and began to disrobe, rehashing the day’s research as he did the same. I sat on the bed and slid between the sheets, moving aside to be sure Even had room.

When he slipped beside me his skin was cool to the touch, almost freezing, and he pulled away from me immediately.

“You’re so warm. No, not even warm, hot. Do you have a fever, Xehanort?” There was naked concern in his voice, he didn’t realize that it was he who…

“I’m fine, Even. How long have you been like this?”

He stared at me, then, and turned away. “It’s been… I’ve been so careful. I thought I could avoid it. I suppose I should go.” Even started to stand up. I want to stay. Whispers I thought I must be imagining.

Why was it easier to think myself insane, for all of us to think of illness instead of enlightenment? It’s fear, just fear, and human nature.

Stay, I whispered, watching the shadows curl around his neck and ears. Even froze in his steps and turned to look at me. His eyes were wide and I felt fear in him. I reached out and my arms didn’t reach him, but my shadow did, pulling him closer.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he choked aloud.

“What sort of man would I be if I turned you out because you helped me.” They must have been the right words, because he relaxed, nearly collapsing into my arms. He was hesitant, but I wrapped him in the down quilt and in myself and my shadow. It was almost painful, to hold him like that.

Even laid his head on my chest and spoke quietly. “I can hardly hear your heart.” His eyes were closed. He didn’t seem bothered by this in the least. I didn’t answer, and his breathing eventually shallowed as he fell asleep.

Unable to sleep myself, I stared at the ceiling and stroked Even’s hair. I was waiting, though at first I didn’t realize why.

Ansem? When shadows spoke, they never hesitated at his name. This is– I feel it.

It’s all right. There was a quick brush of air, and then the weight on my chest was gone like it had never been there.

Dilan was missing.

We didn’t notice immediately. I’m loathe to admit it, but all of us were caught up in our own projects then. If he wasn’t in the laboratory, then surely he was in the library, or the gymnasium, the chapel, the garden… it was a large castle.

Elaeus was the first one to mention it, and it was like breaking ice. Nobody could remember seeing him. Braig appointed himself his brother’s keeper and made a thorough search of the grounds. He found nothing.

“Could someone have attacked him?” I asked Braig later.

“As if! He’d kick their asses. No, something weird’s going down.” He was sitting with his feet were up Ansem’s– my desk, but there was a nervous tension around him. Braig was nervous. That simply was not natural.

I went to my room that night still worried. I sat with eyes closed and let the shadows creep close to me, as they’d been doing since I opened the door in the basement. They were cold velvet against my skin, but any comfort was welcome. Even was so, so busy. We all were, now that Ansem the Self-Important wasn’t there to hold us back. The last thing we needed was another loss.

“Ah, Dilan, where are you?” I murmured, thinking of the knowledge the Dark was said to give. Perhaps it could guide me now?

“I am here,” came a whisper. Dilan’s voice, but faraway and forced. As if he were struggling to speak at all. I felt something move and opened my eyes, half-expecting to see him there.

There was only a heartless, one of the natural ones, but taller and somehow more humanoid than the shadows that I’d been seeing in the corners. Only…

Then he bowed and I understood. This was Dilan.

This was a surprise. It shouldn’t have been, considering how much we pushed into the Dark, but it was nonetheless. It was… worrisome. It should have been, at least, though I didn’t actually feel worried. I did feel a trill of elation at having recognized him, having been answered by the Dark, and then the expected guilt at feeling that thrill. To think that he’d been reduced to this and still he bowed to me!

Still, the loss of Dilan was nothing to take lightly; he was a good researcher. At the very least, Braig was not going to be happy.

I shouldn’t keep him waiting. I stood.

Dilan’s heartless started to follow me, but I stopped him with a gesture.

I stopped him! But no, it was not appropriate to feel… or at least, not appropriate to show it. So many feelings, so little time.

Still, they would keep. I left my room in search of Braig.

This — I didn’t plan for this.

“I’ve taken… steps. I think we can all agree this is necessary for Ienzo’s safety.” Elaeus won’t look at me, but the others nod in agreement. I placed the heavy lock on his door myself. The concern was not that he spoke to thinks unseen, we could deal with that quite simply. No, the problem is that his state is spreading outward from himself. Anyone who remains near him begins to share the visions.

Is this cruel? Likely.

“If we are to cure him, the rest of us must remain in control of our senses.”

That’s true, as far as it goes. But in truth, I’m worried I won’t be able to tell his illusions from my own.

“What — what are you doing?” I entered the library to find Ansem bent over my desk, the lock broken and the drawer pulled out. My papers were spilled across the top and he was shuffling through them.

“What am I doing? Xehanort, what is all this? I told you, all of you, to stop this madness months ago.”

“This isn’t madness! This is progress!” I shouted, grabbing at the papers.

He flung a handful of pages at me, disgust pooling on his face. “I gave you an order. I don’t ask much of you, only that you defer to me when–”

“When you give up.”

Ansem ignored me. “For that matter, why are these called ‘Ansem Reports’? I won’t have you using my name.”

“You certainly haven’t done anything worthy of a great name lately,” I baited him, but he didn’t react. “You don’t want me to unlock my memories or my life. Fine! I’ll take yours. You can’t treat me like a child anymore!”

“I will treat you in whatever way I feel is appropriate, Xehanort. This is my home, my realm, and my resources that you use so freely. I fear you’ve already gone too far.”

“You fear? Oh, yes, you fear me. Is that not the true reason you stopped? You think you know what’s in my heart, and you’re afraid I’ll find out what it is.”

I waited, wanting him to say something, but he only stared at me. No, not at– past me. I felt my shadow behind me like stagnant air, humid and oppressive. I didn’t turn.

I didn’t want to ruin such a lovely moment.

“What have I done to you?” he said quietly, then shook his head and corrected himself. “No, Xehanort, what have you done to yourself?”

“Are you afraid of what I’ve become?” I asked as I approached him. “Or are you afraid that this is what I’ve always been?” He backed up quickly, running into the desk, and I pinned him down with my weight.

“So this is the price you pay,” he murmured, finally meeting my eyes. I wondered what he saw in them.

“Yes, I pay it. You told me, when I first began with you, that knowledge came with a price. You can’t tell me now that the price is too high. You started this!”

“And I regret it,” he said, trying to pull his hands from my grip.

“You started this and I am going to finish it! I will go further than you dreamed.” I laid my knee on his pelvis, leaning over him, and he winced. I smiled a bit, to see genuine fear in him finally. Fear he couldn’t deny. “This is a price I pay willingly. I was willing when you started it, I was willing when Ienzo pushed you farther, and I’m going to go as deep as I have to.”

“Deeper into madness.”

“Then so be it.” I let him go and he ran for the door, but Braig and Dilan were waiting.

I laughed. “Let’s take him downstairs. I have one experiment that’s just been waiting for the perfect subject, Ansem. How would you like to be the first sage in recorded history to see the realm of nothingness?”

I couldn’t sleep.

(Yes, again, Even, I don’t want to deal with your sarcasm right now.)

I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t concentrate. I found myself staring at the ceiling in my room and I couldn’t even think properly. It was as if something was just out of earshot at every moment, whispering to me or speaking, and I couldn’t make out what.

I got up. I went walking.

The heartless we keep in the lab? They’re not just in the lab. Lords only know whether they’re the same ones or if there are more in the castle, but I saw them plainly as I wandered. Those yellow eyes are unmistakable, and the gentle click of claw on stone. There were so many they lined the hallway as if they were an honor guard.

(I don’t think hunting them will help, Dilan, they multiply like guilt.)

I walked– I was lead– I found myself in the servants’ passages. The stairs there are smaller, cramped, darker. They seemed to go on much longer than they should.

Have you ever seen it so dark that you could see shapes? It was that sort of darkness as I descended, the velvety thickness that the heartless seem to be made of.

(No, Braig, that was not innuendo. At all.)

There was a door there, at the base of the servants’ stairs. I don’t know why, I only knew what to do with it.

(… Yes, the keyblade again. It’s not an obsession, Ienzo, it’s a course of inquiry.)

It came of its own accord and there was light enough that I winced, and a clicking noise that seemed to bounce off the stone walls. The door swung open. The whispering was louder, and it was welcoming. I stepped into it, and I could almost feel my memories in there, tangible and just out of reach.

And then I was up here again.

(Don’t give me that look, Elaeus. It was not a dream.)

I think we can take this research to the next level. I think we have to. And I think I need to be the next subject.

“What have you got there, Xehan?” Ansem asked, looking over his apprentice’s shoulder. Rather than answer, Xehanort picked the book up and showed him the cover.

Ansem shook his head. “Those are fairy stories. For children.”

Xehanort pursed his lips. “I think there’s more to them than that. Look, I’ve made a list of the themes that repeat… the princess. The knight-prince. The wicked usurper-mother.”

“Archetypes are just part of the psyche,” Ansem said, letting a drop of blue ice cream drip onto Xehanort’s notebook. The apprentice hurriedly wiped it away.

“I don’t think they just pop up out of nowhere, though,” Xehanort insisted. “It’s the mind recognizing something that’s real.”

“Princesses are just princesses.” Ansem folded his fingers around the now-empty ice cream stick.

Xehanort shook his head. “Not here. Not in this, I don’t think so. Your daughter, or maybe your granddaughter, we could–”

“No. Xehanort, this line of research is getting dangerous. I want you to stop.”

“What? No!” Xehanort stood up, pushing his chair back. “No, you can’t, this is going to work. We could learn–”

“You will not involve my daughter or my granddaughter. That’s final, Xehan, and your reaseach is poppycock. We’re not worrying about keyblades or knights or princesses or whatever other legends you dig up. We do adult work here. Our area of research is hearts and darkness and nothing more. Is that understood?”

Xehanort fiddled with the zipper on his labcoat and sighed. “Yes, my Lord.”

“Good.” Ansem turned to leave, sighed, and turned back. “Remember, Xehan, you need to maintain your focus in science. One line of research at a time. You’ve invested so much in the darkness already, you shouldn’t pass that off for the next clever idea that strikes your fancy. Follow through this, and then I’ll consider a more formal proposal.”

Almost smiling, Xehanort thanked him, and Ansem left the room. He realized that his master was right. There would be time for princesses later, and if the research into darkness provided the results they expected, he wouldn’t need a keyblade to unlock his own heart’s memories.

I jumped when Even walked into the lab.

“What are you doing up this late?” I asked, reaching for my tea and finding the cup empty.

“… It’s morning,” he answered, pointing to the window at the far end of the room.

I blinked. “Oh. So it is.”

“Do you ever stop moving? Or, you know, sleep?”

“Yes,” I answered defensively.

“In a bed?” Even appended.

I didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer, and not only because the answer would have to be “sometimes.”

“You should try it some time. I’ll show you how it works,” he said joining me at the worktable and peering over the words in my notebook. I thought about what he’d said and snickered. He looked at me oddly for a minute before blushing.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” he insisted.

“Of course not,” I smirked.

“I didn’t.”

“Does that mean you’re not offering?”

The red on Even’s pale cheeks deepened. Before he could answer, Elaeus walked in with the breakfast tea and the rest of Ansem’s students followed close behind.