Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ The Perfect Computer ❯ Chapter Fourteen : Hope ( Chapter 14 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Sorry this chapter took so long. I have been searching the internet for information on Kingdom Hearts 3 and the character whose name is Ven, but have come up with very little seeing as KH3 has not come out yet. I wish I could have found more information, for I wish to make this fanfic as true to the KH characters as possible (even though some of them are acting completely out of character). Nevertheless, I will continue with the original plot I had scripted out. Thank you for waiting patiently.
I would also like to state that soon all the chapters of “The Perfect Computer” on fanfiction.net will restored to their original state (chapters 8, 9, 10,and 11), do to the fact that all you reviewers keep telling me that fan fiction does allow more adult-type reading material. However, if my fanfic is deleted from the site again, I will be re-posting it in its edited state once more. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

The Perfect Computer

Chapter Fourteen : Hope


Roxas stirred and awoke to find himself lying on a white bed with a splitting headache. He looked around the white room curiously, as its bare walls seemed familiar. He was immediately cloaked with a mixed blend of dread, hopelessness, and fear.

He looked down at the small cot beneath him. It was old, and squeaked as he leaned up and swung his legs over the side. He then noticed that his clothes were missing, and that he was wearing a rather large white t-shirt that had the number G13-TSC on the sleeve. Roxas’ finger traced the number. The black letters made him angry. He felt violated all of the sudden. He wanted to tear off the shirt and throw something at the walls.

He shook his head, not understanding what he was feeling.

He looked around again. The bed was the only furniture, but a small knob protruded from the middle of one of the walls. Roxas squinted his eyes at it, then pushed against the bed to stand up. He rose to his feet, and instantly stumbled forward as shooting pain ran to his shoulders. Roxas cringed and bit his lip, small droplets of blood falling from where his teeth pierced the flesh. He leaned against a side wall, breathing through the throbbing.

The ache dulled, but did not go away. Roxas walked to the knob and examined it. It was stainless steel, but did not seem to be attached to any door. He lifted his hand and banged on the walls, finding them to be rather thick. He pressed his ear against the plaster and listened. He didn’t know how, but he could hear someone…someone humming on the other side of the wall.

“Hello?” Roxas called.

The humming stopped.

“Hello? Please, if you can hear me, tell me where I–”

“Ven?”

Roxas was puzzled by the interruption but continued. “Look, I really need your help...”

Suddenly the wall in front of him disappeared into thin air, and Roxas tumbled forward, crashing to the ground.

“Ow…” the blond groaned, and clutched his shoulders one more as the soreness returned.

“Oh Ven, it is you!”

Roxas looked up and blinked. Sitting just a few feet away from him was a blond-haired girl wearing much the same attire as him. She was clutching a sketchbook to her breast. Her face was what captivated him though–she had such a elegant face, feminine and radiating with innocence and beauty. Her eyes were the color of sapphires, blue, deep, and warm. Her expression was one of relief and joy, and she looked at Roxas with a tender smile.

Roxas rose to his feet. “Um…hello.”

The girl stood, setting down her sketchbook and ran toward him, and embraced him with slender arms. Roxas was surprised, but suddenly felt rather content and peaceful the moment the girl touched him. It was unnerving to the blond, for he had only ever felt that way in Sora’s embrace. “Um…do…you know me?”

The girl leaned back and looked up at him, her delicate featured curved in confusion. “Know you? Ven, I’ve known you my whole life. There hasn’t been a day when you were not by my side or I was not thinking of you.”

“What? Not one day?”

“No, not one day. Except for just recently, though. Where did they take you?”

Roxas didn’t hear her last question because he was picking apart his brain as he tried to remember who this girl was. She obviously knew him, and obviously they had had a very close relationship of some sort. He then remembered the name he had spoken that day at Leon’s mansion. “N-Namine?”

The girl beamed up at him. “Yes, Ven?”

“You’re…Namine?”

R 20;Yes, you know that perfectly well.”

“No…no, I don’t.” Roxas gazed at the ground, not wanting to meet her gaze.

Namine visibly shivered and stepped away from him. There was silence for a long moment before her soft voice whispered, “Ven…what was the song you always sang to me so I could get to sleep at night?”

Roxas shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Namine gasped, then cast her own eyes to the floor as tears welled up inside them. “You don’t remember anything?”

“No.” His face lifted and he took Namine’s hands in his. “Please, tell me. Why do you keep calling me Ven? Where is this place? Why are you and I here? And why do I feel like I know you?”

Namine blinked up at him, letting the tears roll down her pink cheeks. “You…don’t even remember me?”

Roxas’ heart convulsed in pain at seeing the girl’s torn expression. “No,” he said softly, and embraced her in a hug. He didn’t know why, but it seemed like the natural thing to do.

The girl embraced him back, but then withdrew and led him into the center of another white room, though this one only had a table and another cot as furniture. She led him over to the bed and sat down, motioning him to sit beside her.

“To start off–your name is Ven. My name is Namine, and I am your younger sister.” She paused to see if Roxas was listening, then continued. “We are in the cell chambers of the Diamond Wing scientific labs. We are, for lack of a more humane term, their lab rats. We came from the Destiny City Orphanage, just two weeks before you were to turn eighteen and get us out of that hellhole. However, the orphanage seems like paradise when you compare it to this place.” Namine waved her hand for emphasis. “The Diamond Wing suits adopted us. They promptly locked us in these white walls and performed a series of tests on us.” She turned to Roxas and looked him straight in the eyes. “Do you remember the tests, Ven?”

Roxas closed his eyes and delved into his subconscious. Blurred memories of intense agony and anguish came to him. He vaguely remembered people touching him, needles being shoved into him. He remembered scars across his back and shoulders, remembered how his body suddenly began to change.
“I…can…but not clearly.”

“Good. It’s better that you do not remember.” Namine smiled sweetly and placed a hand on his cheek.

Roxas cupped his hand over hers. “I…remember them hurting you…I remember that–”

A finger gently was placed on his lips. “Especially don’t remember those memories.” Her blue depths grew darker, more haunted and mysterious.

Roxas was concerned, but let it slide. He had a sinking feeling Namine was right, that he shouldn’t remember the actions that went on here. “What are they trying to do with us, Namine?”

“They…they are trying to make a persocom that is able to act and feel like a human. But that’s just another way of saying they are trying to make a superhuman robot.”

“Why…why do you say that?”

Namine looked at him, her warm eyes suddenly cold and void of meaning. “Because, Ven, we are the only human experiments still alive. Everyone else is dead.”

“Everyone?”

She shook her head. “You don’t remember Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, or any of those guys?”

Roxas shook his head. “How long have they been doing–” He was cut off as his shoulders contorted in pain once more. He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into the mattress.

Namine’s cool hand was on his shoulder. “They did it again.”

“Did what?” Roxas asked.

Her frail hands gently began moving his shirt up and over his head.

“Wait! What are you doing?!” Roxas stuttered as he tried to pull the shirt back down.

“Calm down. You need to see,” Namine soothed.

Roxas, at her words, calmed and allowed her to remove his shirt. He was glad he had, for he found three small red puncture marks on each of his shoulders. “What–what are these?”

“They are scars, from where they took your bone marrow,” Namine explained before pulling at the collar of her shirt to reveal her own shoulder. Five red marks could be seen in a horizontal line on her flesh.

Roxas gazed at her in horror. “Namine...”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt at the moment.” She smiled reassuringly.

Roxas grasped her hands once more. “Don’t worry, Namine. Soon we’ll be out of here. I promise.”

“Ven, we’ve tried to escape from here, remember? It doesn’t work. We are trapped here.”

“No. You asked me where I had been all this time, right? Well, I was out there. Out in the real world. I met some people and–”

“You met people?!” Namine exclaimed.

“Yes, and they’re going to help us. I just know they must–”

“Did you kiss anyone?”

Roxas stopped and gazed at her. “Kissed anyone?”

“Yes, please tell me.”

“Well…” Roxas was about to answer when he saw fear flicker across Namine’s eyes. He didn’t know why, but he soon found himself saying, “No…I just found some friends.”

Namine sighed, and touched a hand over her heart. “Thank goodness. If someone had kissed you, you would have instantly fallen in love with them.”

“Is…that a bad thing?”

“Well, no, I suppose. But it would have been a false love, not true love.”

Roxas took his hands away and let them lay limply in his lap. A false love? Was he truly not in love with Sora? Was he being forced to love? It took all his restraint not to scream. “I…I found some friends, as I was saying. I’m sure they will be here soon to save us.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because–”

A loud buzzing filled the room and suddenly Namine clapped a hand over Roxas’ mouth.

“Go, get back into your room. Quickly!” she whispered harshly into his ear.

He did what she said without question, and no sooner did he make it to the safety of his room, the wall separating their rooms reappeared. Alone, and surrounded by quiet once more, Roxas gazed at the wall with troubled eyes. He wondered what was going on behind that wall. What was happening to Namine?
What torture was she going through? And how could he be so powerless to help her, powerless to even help himself?

He stalked over to the bed and sat down, glaring at the white tiles beneath his feet. He clutched the metal bedpost bar in frustration. He didn’t want to be here, he wanted to be back home. Back with Sora. And now, just when he needed hope the most, he had to find out that he possibly was not in love with Sora…that it was just a simplistic program and not his true feelings.

He clutched his chest in pain, though it was not his shoulders that were hurting–it was his heart. The vital organ was twisting in his chest, as if it too were screaming. Roxas hung his head.

“Man strives to increase his intelligence. But how far is too far? You and I are products of that intelligence.”

“I’m not understanding what you are saying. If I’m not a persocom…then what am I? Am I human?”

“No.”

“Then tell me!” Roxas growled. “This is very important to me, so stop playing little mind games and just say it!”

“Why is it so important?”

“Because…because…the sooner I find out what I am, the soon Sora will…will…” Roxas closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

The memory was clear and vivid. Cloud’s facial features, his words, the pain Roxas had felt at that moment. Roxas took in a shallow breath. If it had hurt so much back then when he though Sora would not love him…

He opened his eyes and gazed down at his hands. Back then, Sora had not loved him, but now he did. Sora was his and his alone, just as Roxas was to him. He cupped his hands together and placed them over his chest. He could clearly feel the rhythmic beat of a heart, and the warmth coming from it was comforting to his soul. He then opened his palms and gazed at them. So what if he was a persocom, or a human, or a steel angel, or a….whatever the hell he could also be. The most important thing to him was that Sora loved him, and he loved Sora. He did not care if his love was fake or real, the point was he was feeling it, and happy to feel it.

Roxas fingered the red marks on his shoulders, and got a sinking feeling as his fingertip brushed over the burning dots. He couldn’t explain it, but it was almost like his subconscious and body had already come to terms with something he had not fully recognized yet.

He looked up at the ceiling of his white prison and frowned. “Sora…I believe in you. Please hurry.”

Roxas nearly fell out of his bed as a tray was set right at his feet. The blond looked up from the covers to see a man who had fiery red hair and was wearing a white lab coat. Roxas stared at the man for a moment before saying, “Hey…you’re that guy from the video game.”

The red-headed man beamed. “So, you remember me.”

Roxas slid out of his bed and retreated to the corner of the room. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

“My, I see those vitamin tablets we give you are working. Nice physique.”

Roxas blinked and looked down, just then noticing he was still naked. He grabbed the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around himself. The red-haired man only grinned. “Why are you here?”

The man pointed a finger at the tray of food left at the and of the bed.

Roxas glanced at it. “I will not eat anything you give me.”

The men waved a hand. “Ven, you should know I don’t give you the tainted food.”

Roxas raised a brow in puzzlement. “What?”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot that Saïx erased your memories before you escaped.”

“I…escaped?”

“Yea h, gave Saïx a pretty good fight, too. But don’t think you can escape again. Old blue head’s got you sealed up pretty tight.”

Roxas didn’t respond to the information, he only said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Just to refresh your memory, Ven, there are two members of this company who’re being forced to cooperate: Demyx, and myself.”

Roxas did not answer, he only looked down at his feet.

The red-haired man sighed and sat down on the cot. He took a sample of food from the tray. “Come on, eat. I know you’re starving.”

Roxas hesitated, but eventually walked over to the cot and sat down as well, taking a slice of the apple. “Roxas.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Roxas.”

The man gazed at him then shrugged his shoulders. “A name is a name. Mine’s Axel. Got it memorized?”

Roxas looked up at the man next to him in bewilderment. “What?”

“Got it memorized?” Axel repeated.

“Axel is a pretty easy name. Why do I have to memorize it?”

Axel gazed at him for a moment, then stared at the piece of orange in his hand. “You know, I have no clue.”

They both laughed then, not really knowing what they were laughing at. Still, they laughed.

Roxas sighed and leaned against the wall. “So…you’ll help me…get out of here?”

Axel shoulders fell. “Roxas, don’t ask me that.”

“Why…are you being watched or something?”

Axel lifted a mocking eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Roxas’ face fell and he laid his chin on the top of his knees. “But…if the chance arose…?”

“Again, don’t ask me that. You don’t remember, but I’ve told you this many times. If this whole thing is revealed, everyone is going to pay whether they wanted to be a part of it or not.”

“So, you’re covering your ass.”

“Hey, I’m the one who accidentally let you escape in the first place,” Axel growled.

Roxas flinched at his tone. “I’m…sorry.” He decided to not press the issue any further. If he was going to get out of this hell once more, then he would have to hope for Sora. Him talking to old acquaintance about escape would only arouse suspicion. He brought the apple to his lips, nibbling at it bit by bit.

That night, Roxas awoke to find Namine crawling into his bed.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t feel well,” Namine whispered, her cheeks looking rather pink. “They gave me some weird drug and now…my hips hurt.”

Roxas’ brows furrowed and he invited the blond girl under the covers. Since she was his sister, he only supposed they had slept together before. “It’ll be okay,” he consoled, wrapping his arms around the girl.
Namine snuggled into him, her head buried under his arm.

“Sing me a song, Roxas,” she pleaded.

Roxas nodded and thought, but only one song came to mind. He closed his eyes and took a breath.

Roxas didn’t need to finish the song, for Namine was already asleep. Roxas smiled down at her peaceful face and laid his own head down next to hers. “I promise this will all be over soon, Namine,” he whispered, before closing his eyes.

~T his Chapter was beta corrected by Airen

A/N: Thank you for reading. Also, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. Some of you reviewers seem confused about aspects of the story.

Riku & Namine: Please stay tuned for chapter fifteen!

Sora & Roxas: The thrilling conclusion to The Perfect Computer is only a few chapters away, so keep your eyes peeled for the next section to the story.

Axel: Don’t forget to review! Got it memorized?