Entry tags:

christmas, christmas 07, gundam wing, kingdom hearts, roxas/axel

Title: Photo Negative
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts/Gundam Wing
Pairings: Hints of Roxas/Axel, not really the point.
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 2,734
Notes: Christmas/New year/hey, Siobhan's going to Japan this year!/whatever fic for beckerbell. I'm posting them one by one and this is the first one.
Summary: Once upon a time, Larxene was called Relena.

---

They’re losing.

Relena is sick of war, and so very sick of fighting. Their world has been through so much and she’s strong, she knows she is, but she’s fought so hard for peace only to be confronted by an enemy they can’t win against. All the negotiation in the world does no good in the face of a force that won’t, can’t listen, and an elite force of Gundams is useless when the stream of Heartless is endless and none of their attacks have any effect.

Heero, she knows, is already… dead? Certainly gone. This is nothing more than a last stand.

The point of a last stand is that you won’t go down without fighting, even though you know you won’t win. It takes strength and determination and stubbornness and the kind of desperate optimism where deep down, even in such a futile situation, a part of you never stops hoping for an eleventh hour miracle.

This time, there’s no miracle. Their world is swallowed by the darkness and so is Relena’s heart, but she’s still making her last stand. She won’t surrender so easily: she’s too strong-willed to ever lay down and call it quits. Somewhere, her heart has become part of the teeming darkness, mindless, soulless, driven by nothing but hunger and hatred like the millions of other people who lost their hearts when their world was consumed.

Somewhere else, however, whatever else is left of her refuses to give in. No heart, no feelings, no mercy: a cold, hard shell filled with nothing but the determination to succeed.

Somewhere else, Larxene is born.

~

Relena had been famous for her pacifistic ideals. She had been kind and gentle and always advocated peaceful negotiation over warfare. Of course she wasn’t perfect; she’d made mistakes, some really catastrophic ones, but at least she’d always tried to do the right thing.

That wasn’t to say she never got angry, never hated anyone or wanted to lash out and hurt someone. She did; she was human. Sometimes it was hard in the heat of the moment, having an army at her beck and call and having to remind herself, no. You wanted to prevent this kind of thing, not cause it.

Larxene is the embodiment of all that repressed violence, with none of Relena’s ideals or kindness. She’s got Relena’s strength, but the only thing she combines it with is ambition and sadistic cruelty and that makes her more dangerous than ever.

Larxene remembers being Relena, and sneers at what she used to be. She’d been weak and naïve, and she’d lost. She could have done so much, she could have conquered everything, but instead she’d simpered about peace and harmony, puke, and then she’d been defeated by something stronger, something to which her compassion and principles meant nothing.

The only thing that matters is power.

~

“Won’t that be nice, Namine? Your prince is going to come and save you,” Larxene says mockingly, and smiles, vicious and victorious. “Don’t you feel bad for tricking him?”

Namine’s eyes are filled with misery and guilt, but she doesn’t respond, just bends her head over her sketchbook so her hair falls across her face like a shield.

Namine, poor little princess imprisoned in a tower as bait, pretty little bird stuck in a cage and manipulated into singing for her captors’ gain. Relena would feel sympathy, empathy, two girls forced and imprisoned in the mould of the plots and aspirations of those who surround them.

Larxene finds Namine’s pain amusing, and taunts her cruelly with every opportunity she gets.

~

Kairi has always been outgoing, bubbly and bright. She draws people to her like moths to a flame, fascinated by the light of her heart. She’s the only person as important to Sora and Riku as they are to each other, and she’s the only person who ever could be. She’s happy, well-adjusted, surrounded by friends: her existence, she knows, is something blessed.

Sometimes, though, she used to feel left out. Sora and Riku never meant to, but sometimes, even when they were competing against each other, even when they were fighting over her (or really, when Riku was letting Sora fight over her), part of her felt like they were an unbreakable pair and she was somehow separate. Intruding.

She’d shoved that away, though, and never let it get to her, just like she never let her fear or simmering feelings of helpless futility get to her. She’s strong, just like Relena was strong. She fights even when she can’t win because it’s better than giving in.

Namine is weak, though. Namine is the little girl inside of Kairi who always felt scared and alone and trapped. Kairi would smile and push it away, chase after Sora and Riku whenever they threatened to leave her behind and reach for her own freedom, but Namine does as she’s told, locked in a gilded cage she never tries to escape from until Sora comes to help her. Where Kairi will fight to save herself, Namine will remain the princess trapped in the tower, waiting for rescue.

Kairi doesn’t let herself be left alone, but all Namine has is her loneliness.

~

Axel’s edges are sharp and bright like the jagged edges of broken glass, slicing your palms when you hold it wrong. Relena had a gift for getting through to people, though; even if she’d been wary of him at first, once she’d learned how to see through him and had understood him, she’d have been moved by his desperate devotion to Roxas.

Larxene is everything Relena isn’t, and she hates him, hates his careless laughter and mockery and hates, more than anything, the way he feels about their newest member. Roxas. Number 13. They don’t have hearts, they’re not supposed to be capable of love or emotion, but Axel wears his non-existent heart on his sleeve and she hates it, hates him, hates them for feeling anything and she wants nothing more than to rip what they’ve got apart and destroy it.

“You’re not going to let any pesky personal attachments get in the way of your duty, are you?” she asks slyly when they get ordered to the Castle Oblivion, and slides her nails across his scalp, catching at his hair in a way that could be affectionate if it were anyone else but coming from her is a clear implicit threat. “You do seem awfully fond of Number 13, you know.”

“As if,” he scoffs, and rolls his eyes, but there’s a flash of fear and she catches it, cherishes it, revelling in the feel of sticking the knife where it hurts and twisting. “We’re Nobodies, moron. We don’t have hearts.”

“It’s good you don’t feel anything then, isn’t it?” she purrs, and laughs, childish and cruel, as her fingers tangle painfully in his hair with a sharp tug. “The thing about weaknesses is that they can be exploited.”

She laughs as she walks off, high and childish and cruel as Axel glares daggers at her back but can’t do anything about it. Not now, not yet, not ever (she thinks).

Relena knew how powerful a motivator love can be. Larxene doesn’t care, and doesn’t pay any attention to the dark, calculating look in Axel’s eyes.

She’s orchestrating her own downfall.

~

The man Axel had been was serious, quiet and dutiful.

Everyone had trusted him and relied on him and he’d always come through, but he never smiled, and he never let anyone close enough to make an imprint on him.

Axel takes nothing seriously, mocks everything, laughs at the universe like he’s the only one who gets the joke. He never takes on any responsibility he doesn’t have to, and he doesn’t care about anything or anyone.

Except for Roxas, that is.

It’s ironic, really, that it took losing his heart for Axel to ever learn how to give it away.

~

Demyx reminds her of Duo, sort of. Just a little, just his good-natured smile and the way he tries to make people laugh and plays the clown; that’s where the resemblance ends. Duo may have goofed around a lot, but he was never a coward, and he had never been a child, even when he was one. Demyx, on the other hand, is still like a little boy, naive and easily scared.

“Aw, poor widdle baby,” she coos, mock pouting as she tosses the broken remains of his sitar at his feet. “You shouldn’t leave these things lying around! Accidents happen, you know.”

Technically he’s her senior, number 9, but he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to her.

He stares at her for a moment, with wide, hurt eyes, and then deflates. “Aw, man,” he whines, “That was my favourite.”

“Do you want me to make it up to you? Do you want to play, Demyx?” she asks sweetly, with the glint of steel as she fans her knives between her fingers, and Demyx turns pale, shaking his head and backing away.

“N-no, that’s cool, I’ll just… um… never mind!”

Being mean to Demyx is like kicking a puppy. Larxene crushes him beneath her metaphorical heel and laughs.

~

When Demyx was Somebody, his world had been suffering under the rule of a despot who stifled all opposition and executed those who dared to defy him. He had been the leader of the rebellion, famous for his bravery and willpower, never bowing from his principles despite the odds against him.

On the inside, though, he’d been terrified, knowing in all likelihood he would die the painful death of a martyr. He wasn’t stupid; of course he’d been afraid, but he’d suppressed it, refused to let it show or control his actions, because he couldn’t afford the weakness and he was determined to do what he thought was right.

In the end he’d been betrayed by one of his most closely trusted generals, and had been among the first sacrificed to the Heartless.

He stood up for his beliefs, and it got him killed.

Demyx does what he’s told. It gets him killed anyway.

~

Roxas, on the other hand, almost reminds her of the way Heero was when she first met him. He’s silent, locked within himself, fully focused on completing his missions, and he treats connections with others as unimportant, irrelevant.

That doesn’t seem to put Axel off, though, because he’s nothing if not obnoxiously persistent— and, for that matter, persistently obnoxious. Roxas tolerates him, though which is more than he does for most people, so who knows? Maybe one day all that hard work being a nuisance will pay off and Roxas will let Axel in. (She’s not going to be there to see it when it does.)

Honestly, Larxene doesn’t care. Relena would have been drawn to him, to his mystery and cold, empty unhappiness, to his missing past and his inability to connect with others. She would have wanted to help, would have wanted to understand. He holds no interest for Larxene, however; whatever his weaknesses are he holds them close, armoured like the Samurai Nobodies he commands, and there’s no soft underbelly for her to slice at. Annoying him too much just leads to a fight, and his keyblades hurt— Larxene isn’t interested in a fight she can’t win.

Roxas is boring, really. Sora is far more fun to play with.

~

Sora throws himself into things whole-heartedly, without thought or fear for consequence, and he does this with love the same way he does it with everything else. He ignores the part of him that got hurt when Riku betrayed him, when Kairi disappeared. There was a niggling voice at the back of his mind reminding him that trusting someone, loving them that much, only leads to pain, but Sora has always gambolled on blind faith, and he didn’t listen to it: he knew that one day he’d get Kairi and Riku back, and he was right.

Sora refuses to close his heart off, and keeps giving himself and his affection away easily, but Roxas is the part of him that got burned, that didn’t want to trust too much or too easily. He doesn’t remember the feelings of loss, but the wariness is there, a constant hum of tension and suspicion holding him apart from everyone.

By the time Roxas has started to learn slowly how to let others in, his time is already up: they’ve travelled full circle and he’s Sora all over again.

~

Relena never sought power; it just happened to her, not entirely with her consent. In the start, she hadn’t even wanted it, and in the end, it was something she took on not for herself but in order to achieve peace.

Relena was an idealist.

Larxene, on the other hand, is ambitious, ruthless, and power mad. She doesn’t want peace or order or control; she wants to crush them all, she wants anarchy controlled by her, she wants to rule the universe with an iron fist.

She’s going to use Marluxia and Sora to stab Xemnas in the back, and she’s going to reign supreme over a tyranny of fire.

“You will go to the Castle Oblivion,” Xemnas orders her. “Number 11 will be in charge.”

“Yes, master,” she tells Xemnas, while on the inside, she’s already planning his demise.

Larxene is no pacifist. Might means right, so far as she’s concerned, and in her eyes she’s stronger and more cunning than all of them.

Xemnas is not deserving of her subservience. No one is; she was born to be queen of the world.

~

Most of the Nobodies who retained human form were greatly altered from their Somebody, both physically and in personality.

The first six threw away their hearts wilfully, however, purposefully forging themselves anew into Nobodies. When Xehanort became Xemnas, he was still the same person, only magnified, stripped away, until nothing but the hubris and obsessive need to be recognised by his former master remained.

Xehanort was warped by arrogance and dangerous, childlike resentment, killing off who he had been for the sake of his own pride.

When Xemnas dies, the real Ansem has already fallen and will never acknowledge him the way he so desperately craves. He dies with nothing, shunned by the master he once so greatly admired and with the remnants of his aspirations lying in tatters at his feet.

Xehanort died for his ambitions, dies for them again as Xemnas, but it brings him nothing but ruin.

~

She laughs, and laughs, and laughs. Pathetic. They’re all pathetic, chained by slavish affection, by fear, by resentments over their former lives they can’t let go or a driving need to know who they were, as if it matters. She’s not like that. She’s strong, and she doesn’t need love or security or revenge or a sense of belonging. All she needs is power.

~

In the end, it’s not Roxas’s Somebody and his keyblade that finish her. She thought for a moment there it might be; he’s not bad. Not quite a match for her yet, but with his little friends and his ridiculous passion for Namine, the girl he doesn’t know but oh, how he loves her (how he’s been tricked into thinking he loves her— Larxene laughs, Larxene always laughs) might have given him the extra edge he’d needed, if she’d let herself get careless.

She didn’t let herself get careless, of course. She’d had he and Namine cornered, taunting them both, but then Axel had been more than happy to strike the finishing blow, to take out the traitor to their cause.

So often in tragedies, misfortune is the result of one’s own innate faults, driving home the moral of the story. The blame for Larxene’s death certainly lies ultimately with her, whichever thread you follow back to its source.

It’s not a tragedy if no one will mourn, though.

~

Relena died for her people, a people who loved her. She died an unhappy death, losing everything that had been dear to her, but she’d lived first. She died for those she cared about, for her cause, a martyr, for her country. She’d been somebody, somebody real, somebody who mattered.

Larxene is everything Relena never let herself be, and when she dies, she dies for no one, for nothing, a traitor, alone.

Nobody.