I would know your aura anywhere. You are more than a face, Arden.
[And with that Zenyatta leaves, hurrying to their meeting place with more than a little apprehension regarding just who he might find here. Or what, if he is to take Arden's words at face value. What could possibly have happened to shake his student so violently? But crises of faith are by no means uncommon; it's his psychological state that concerns him the most.
Zenyatta has visited the Tree of Memories before, of course. It is a strange place to be at the best of times, teeming with old emotions dense enough that his last trip left him feeling as though he were swimming in them.
Now, however, he has more to fear than second-hand memories. He approaches warily, senses primed for something, anything, that he might recognise as Arden's soul reaching out to his.]
[There's a substantial twisting in his gut at those words. They mean a whole lot - he's always been obsessively focused on his face, his voice, everything about his body that was derived verbatim from Riku.
Arden's aura ends up coming from a black-cloaked figure leaning with one hand against the tree, hidden underneath a separate aura. It's a literal veil over top of Arden's own, allowing Arden's aura to be seen but its color altered as the semi-opaque illusions of Zexion's power manifest on top of him. They aren't flickering as they were when Arden triggered the power the first time. This was nearly deliberate as he tried to pull out all the stops in his anger to defeat Axel. He'd wanted very much to destroy the man who'd tricked him into killing Zexion himself, sucking the lifeforce right out of him and into Arden himself by utilizing the worst powers of Darkness.
He's so lost that he can't even recognize Zenyatta's approach, shrouded in his own misery as he is. Had Zenyatta met him on his first day in Verens, he would have seen Arden several times as "Riku Replica" adopting a similar distance upon a friend's attempts to reach out to him.]
[Arden was right. Zenyatta's eyes don't immediately catch on the living shadow that he has become, and when they do his first instinct flies instead to Reaper- but no, this one is too small, too leanly built, with an alien glow about it that sets his systems on high alert. Only as he feels beneath, really feels, does the revelation hit him.
Arden.
He moves softly, feet scarcely touching the ground, as though any sound might scatter his student into a thousand pieces. Anything is possible in this world and here, on hallowed ground, he finds himself superstitious and fearful of tempting fate.]
Oh, Arden. [The words heave and sigh out of him, his chest feels heavy with them, he wants to touch the boy's shoulder- but he resists.] Tell me everything.
[Because there will inevitably be an everything. This could not have been a decay; whatever changed Arden's heart came swiftly and fatally as a knife to the throat, and Zenyatta cannot let it go unchecked.]
[He pulls his arms up around himself instinctively, less to protect himself from Zenyatta's touch and more to protect Zenyatta from him.]
This... face... body? This is the man I killed.
[He says the words with the barest of bitter tones. He'd come to terms with what he'd done, or so he thought, but now looking like the man himself again has caused Arden to wonder if he's ever going to be finished paying this price. Talking comes easily at this point, but only because he's so convinced that talking alone won't fix the problem this time.]
His name was Zexion. And I didn't hate him. Worse, I probably hated him the least of any of the people in the Organization that created me. There was another man who convinced me... he said that if I wanted to be better than my original, I had to have a power that the original didn't have. So I... I did kill Zexion. Just, by... taking everything he had in him.
[This is the harder part. He grits his teeth and slams a fist into the tree he's leaning against, that hallowed tree of memories that is as much a symbol of his frustrations as the illusionary body he's wearing.]
And then that man - the one who lied to me and said it would work and told me what to do to Zexion... that man had to show up HERE!
[Of all the sins he expected Arden to bear- and Zenyatta has hardly thought of the boy as innocent, else why would he so desperately need their help?- he had not expected murder to be one of them.
He listens. To the words, the confession: to the ebb and flow of his words, dangerously calm at first, the eye of the hurricane before his shadowy form explodes into kinetic fury. The aftershocks ripple through the air between them and it is a wonder that Zenyatta does not reflexively recoil from them. But he has steeled himself already, so to speak, and after a moment, once the echoes of Arden's words have died away, he moves forward.
Silently, he studies this stranger's face. Older, leaner. Handsome, but in a way that sets him on edge.]
Fate is often cruel, my student. I cannot claim to understand it, or the whims of this world. But together they have conspired to bring that man here, and they will have done so for a purpose. [A pause. He wishes to continue on that train of thought, but he senses that Arden has not fully unburdened himself. Put a pin in it. Return later.] You met him. What happened then?
[There's a chill that comes up at Arden's feet, effectively pinning him in place while Zenyatta tries to look at 'Zexion' better. Like Arden's own guilt is helping prevent him from running away as he answers Zenyatta's question.]
I tried to kill him too.
[And, to his shame, his biggest frustration right now was that he didn't even 'finish' that battle. He ran. He didn't lose, or win, he just cut it off to deal with his own pressing visual issues.]
I attacked him, and the more power I tried to use, the cloudier my vision got, until...
[He lowers his head then, making the long bang that is Zexion's signature look hang forward too.]
It happened again - using that power I stole causing this to happen. I knew the risk, I just wanted to kill him so badly... After I realized - about how I looked - then I came here.
[It is as Zenyatta feare- no. Not feared. Expected, that demon of a word, heavy with the weight of his knowing. Arden's shame is palpable even before his head falls; stifling, even, until he almost feels his chestplate constrict in sympathy.
Zenyatta waits for him to finish. Then he nods, and takes a small step closer. He's near enough to touch him now, but he resists, again, and speaks instead.]
There is nothing I can tell you that you have not tortured yourself with already. [Soft. Quiet. He sounds as though he's soothing a wild animal.
With the lightest turn of his hand, he summons a ball of omnic energy for Arden. It hovers uncertainly between them, casting a golden glow across Zenyatta's chrome and Arden's borrowed face.]
Do you know why you came here, Arden? Why you called upon me?
[His voice makes it clear that he does, even if his student does not.]
[He has the decency to raise his head and look at the ball, unsure what it is and near tears, bus attention wholly focus on the orb in the hope that maybe it'll draw his attentions away from everything he's going through just now. He stares at it for a long few seconds, and then shakes his head with a purse of his lips.
His mouth is so dry and he balks a little at the sound being so different - even by Zexion's standards - when he tries to speak again.]
There's more someone should tell me. [He's insistent in tone, yet quiet in volume.] I know I should regret feeling that way, strong enough to want to kill, but I can't. He didn't care what he did to me! He said he wasn't sorry for what happened.
For lying, for leading me on, for treating me the same way all the rest of them treated me - like a puppet. He doesn't deserve a second chance to ruin someone's life...
[But as he says the words, 'second chance' comes back to haunt him in Sora's voice He never felt like he deserved a second chance either. More like he's just been riding a winning lottery ticket he didn't earn and he knows it. Sora had the benefit - sort of - of having forgotten what Arden did when he offered friendship. Arden hadn't forgotten Axel's deceits.]
[Arden looks and sounds wretched, but his own concerns are more spiritual than physical. There is only so much physical comfort Zenyatta know his orbs can offer to a troubled heart, much less an unreceptive one. Too much more of this and he knows the boy could rip himself apart.
The worst of it is that his feelings are so natural, so raw and understandable. The greatest challenge of all, he knows, is also the greatest affront: the acceptance the apology that is never offered.]
He has mistreated you most terribly, my friend. [The orb at Arden's shoulder hums in melodic sympathy, ringing as if to punctuate his words.] I could not expect you to forgive him so quickly, not least of all while he is unrepentent. But...
[But Arden knows what Zenyatta is going to say.]
But everyone deserves the opportunity to change, no matter how appalling their crime. [He raises a hand to place on Arden's borrowed shoulder, half-suspecting that it will phase straight through his body as if through a cloud.] I- we- will not allow him to do harm to others as he has done to you. But justice is defined entirely by the hand that claims it; we do not seek to punish, but to prevent, and to lead by example.
[And, warmly, with as much affection as he can muster, he adds:] You have been nothing if not a wonderful example, my student.
[Zenyatta's hand actually touches solid material, because Arden's
more or less resized Zexion's body to fit him as part of the accidental
illusion-dunamis blow up. The physical contact - while unwanted at first,
due to being just that anxious - leaves a puff of mist in its wake, and the
puff remains while Zenyatta speaks.
While Arden still mulls over the words themselves and how they apply to
Axel, there's one thing that clicks over in his mind. 'Everyone deserves
the opportunity to change, no matter how appalling their crime.' Including
his - Zexion's death at his hands, and him attacking Axel basically out of
nowhere. Those are his major crimes just now. And even if he can't quite
forgive Axel for his, Zenyatta's trying to reassure him that further crimes
can be stopped... including misdeeds from himself where he's been misled.
Slowly the puff of smoke moves outward from Zenyatta's hand, starting to
reveal the boy underneath the black cloak, but 'my student' triggers the
rest of the reversed transformation. There Arden stands, still sullen and
unsure of his current situation, but in his 'normal' replicated body again,
instead of Zexion's.]
Master...
[He's not fully convinced, but he knows Zenyatta and Sora feel that
way about him - that he deserves another chance, to be Arden instead of
Riku Replica, and for now he can try to cling to that.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[And with that Zenyatta leaves, hurrying to their meeting place with more than a little apprehension regarding just who he might find here. Or what, if he is to take Arden's words at face value. What could possibly have happened to shake his student so violently? But crises of faith are by no means uncommon; it's his psychological state that concerns him the most.
Zenyatta has visited the Tree of Memories before, of course. It is a strange place to be at the best of times, teeming with old emotions dense enough that his last trip left him feeling as though he were swimming in them.
Now, however, he has more to fear than second-hand memories. He approaches warily, senses primed for something, anything, that he might recognise as Arden's soul reaching out to his.]
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Arden's aura ends up coming from a black-cloaked figure leaning with one hand against the tree, hidden underneath a separate aura. It's a literal veil over top of Arden's own, allowing Arden's aura to be seen but its color altered as the semi-opaque illusions of Zexion's power manifest on top of him. They aren't flickering as they were when Arden triggered the power the first time. This was nearly deliberate as he tried to pull out all the stops in his anger to defeat Axel. He'd wanted very much to destroy the man who'd tricked him into killing Zexion himself, sucking the lifeforce right out of him and into Arden himself by utilizing the worst powers of Darkness.
He's so lost that he can't even recognize Zenyatta's approach, shrouded in his own misery as he is. Had Zenyatta met him on his first day in Verens, he would have seen Arden several times as "Riku Replica" adopting a similar distance upon a friend's attempts to reach out to him.]
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Arden.
He moves softly, feet scarcely touching the ground, as though any sound might scatter his student into a thousand pieces. Anything is possible in this world and here, on hallowed ground, he finds himself superstitious and fearful of tempting fate.]
Oh, Arden. [The words heave and sigh out of him, his chest feels heavy with them, he wants to touch the boy's shoulder- but he resists.] Tell me everything.
[Because there will inevitably be an everything. This could not have been a decay; whatever changed Arden's heart came swiftly and fatally as a knife to the throat, and Zenyatta cannot let it go unchecked.]
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This... face... body? This is the man I killed.
[He says the words with the barest of bitter tones. He'd come to terms with what he'd done, or so he thought, but now looking like the man himself again has caused Arden to wonder if he's ever going to be finished paying this price. Talking comes easily at this point, but only because he's so convinced that talking alone won't fix the problem this time.]
His name was Zexion. And I didn't hate him. Worse, I probably hated him the least of any of the people in the Organization that created me. There was another man who convinced me... he said that if I wanted to be better than my original, I had to have a power that the original didn't have. So I... I did kill Zexion. Just, by... taking everything he had in him.
[This is the harder part. He grits his teeth and slams a fist into the tree he's leaning against, that hallowed tree of memories that is as much a symbol of his frustrations as the illusionary body he's wearing.]
And then that man - the one who lied to me and said it would work and told me what to do to Zexion... that man had to show up HERE!
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He listens. To the words, the confession: to the ebb and flow of his words, dangerously calm at first, the eye of the hurricane before his shadowy form explodes into kinetic fury. The aftershocks ripple through the air between them and it is a wonder that Zenyatta does not reflexively recoil from them. But he has steeled himself already, so to speak, and after a moment, once the echoes of Arden's words have died away, he moves forward.
Silently, he studies this stranger's face. Older, leaner. Handsome, but in a way that sets him on edge.]
Fate is often cruel, my student. I cannot claim to understand it, or the whims of this world. But together they have conspired to bring that man here, and they will have done so for a purpose. [A pause. He wishes to continue on that train of thought, but he senses that Arden has not fully unburdened himself. Put a pin in it. Return later.] You met him. What happened then?
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I tried to kill him too.
[And, to his shame, his biggest frustration right now was that he didn't even 'finish' that battle. He ran. He didn't lose, or win, he just cut it off to deal with his own pressing visual issues.]
I attacked him, and the more power I tried to use, the cloudier my vision got, until...
[He lowers his head then, making the long bang that is Zexion's signature look hang forward too.]
It happened again - using that power I stole causing this to happen. I knew the risk, I just wanted to kill him so badly... After I realized - about how I looked - then I came here.
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Zenyatta waits for him to finish. Then he nods, and takes a small step closer. He's near enough to touch him now, but he resists, again, and speaks instead.]
There is nothing I can tell you that you have not tortured yourself with already. [Soft. Quiet. He sounds as though he's soothing a wild animal.
With the lightest turn of his hand, he summons a ball of omnic energy for Arden. It hovers uncertainly between them, casting a golden glow across Zenyatta's chrome and Arden's borrowed face.]
Do you know why you came here, Arden? Why you called upon me?
[His voice makes it clear that he does, even if his student does not.]
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His mouth is so dry and he balks a little at the sound being so different - even by Zexion's standards - when he tries to speak again.]
There's more someone should tell me. [He's insistent in tone, yet quiet in volume.] I know I should regret feeling that way, strong enough to want to kill, but I can't. He didn't care what he did to me! He said he wasn't sorry for what happened.
For lying, for leading me on, for treating me the same way all the rest of them treated me - like a puppet. He doesn't deserve a second chance to ruin someone's life...
[But as he says the words, 'second chance' comes back to haunt him in Sora's voice He never felt like he deserved a second chance either. More like he's just been riding a winning lottery ticket he didn't earn and he knows it. Sora had the benefit - sort of - of having forgotten what Arden did when he offered friendship. Arden hadn't forgotten Axel's deceits.]
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The worst of it is that his feelings are so natural, so raw and understandable. The greatest challenge of all, he knows, is also the greatest affront: the acceptance the apology that is never offered.]
He has mistreated you most terribly, my friend. [The orb at Arden's shoulder hums in melodic sympathy, ringing as if to punctuate his words.] I could not expect you to forgive him so quickly, not least of all while he is unrepentent. But...
[But Arden knows what Zenyatta is going to say.]
But everyone deserves the opportunity to change, no matter how appalling their crime. [He raises a hand to place on Arden's borrowed shoulder, half-suspecting that it will phase straight through his body as if through a cloud.] I- we- will not allow him to do harm to others as he has done to you. But justice is defined entirely by the hand that claims it; we do not seek to punish, but to prevent, and to lead by example.
[And, warmly, with as much affection as he can muster, he adds:] You have been nothing if not a wonderful example, my student.
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[Zenyatta's hand actually touches solid material, because Arden's more or less resized Zexion's body to fit him as part of the accidental illusion-dunamis blow up. The physical contact - while unwanted at first, due to being just that anxious - leaves a puff of mist in its wake, and the puff remains while Zenyatta speaks.
While Arden still mulls over the words themselves and how they apply to Axel, there's one thing that clicks over in his mind. 'Everyone deserves the opportunity to change, no matter how appalling their crime.' Including his - Zexion's death at his hands, and him attacking Axel basically out of nowhere. Those are his major crimes just now. And even if he can't quite forgive Axel for his, Zenyatta's trying to reassure him that further crimes can be stopped... including misdeeds from himself where he's been misled.
Slowly the puff of smoke moves outward from Zenyatta's hand, starting to reveal the boy underneath the black cloak, but 'my student' triggers the rest of the reversed transformation. There Arden stands, still sullen and unsure of his current situation, but in his 'normal' replicated body again, instead of Zexion's.]
Master...
[He's not fully convinced, but he knows Zenyatta and Sora feel that way about him - that he deserves another chance, to be Arden instead of Riku Replica, and for now he can try to cling to that.]