A Heart Stained With Hate

[Seeker of Retribution]

He languished his new found biology within a realm of holy darkness. encompassing the landscape with a native presence that both comforted and unnerved him. Here, he rested. Here, he waited. Here he revealed in his victory at Twilight Town. Here, he hated. It was a profound and infuriating sentiment that inhabited him. No, inhabited was the wrong world. Hayden sat with his arms and legs crossed, his armor as his skin and face as he attempted to think of the proper word. It came to him in a flash, a solitary exception to the nature of the world around him.

He embodied that hatred. It permeated him, sustained him, and in empowering him was he marked by it, a deep internal mar cutting down whatever portion of his mind still retained its human qualities. The Seeker lifted his head in contemplation, reflecting on his mental state. It had been deteriorating rapidly, and he was not sure of the exact reason though if he had to guess it was the hunger.

Yes, the hunger. Something all Heartless must be facing. While they had no stomachs and did not need to eat to live, they all possessed the drive to devour hearts and make them into more of themselves. Hayden had not moved since Twilight Town. It had been quite some time, with himself voluntarily removed from the Realm of Light. With no access to Hearts, Hayden was not able to fulfill his most primal urge. He was not able to procreate, primarily because he had been resisting the notion. Despite the desire to feed being strong, his training as a Keybearer still took hold of his being and compelled him into an active resistance.

He no longer had a place with those from the Realm of Light, he felt. His body seemingly agreed with him. It wasn't that he had committed heinous crimes and that he felt that being alone in the darkness was a suitable punishment at all, but two simple reasons compelled him to solitude. The first: the Realm of Light, for lack of a better word, caused him to itch. All the Hearts around him made his mind numb and fuzzy and he slipped farther and farther into a trance. It was almost as though the Hearts sang to him. A gentle hum from the chests of the unsuspecting sheep that flocked about him, a soft calling to be released. It was unnerving.

The second reason applied solely to his Heartless brethren in the Realm of Darkness. Between Ophelia and Lenneth, he felt them far too consumed by their most basic of urges. In Ophelia's case she was a power hungry nutcase. In Lenneth's variation of the same tale, he seemed crazed for sexual interaction. Was that his destiny? The eventual decay of his human mind until only something basic remained? The darkest part? Hayden did not show much emotion visibly that was not useful, strategic or otherwise advantageous in some regard. Yet, the Heartless visibly shuddered from beneath his armor. He did not feel cold, but a chill traveled down his back.

For the first time in a while, he stood. The armor was not rusty, but it was caked in dust. It groaned as the joints rubbed against Hayden's strength, the Seeker standing as he surveyed the Realm of Darkness. He was not wholly gone yet. Hayden the man was still in control of the Seeker that he had become. The darkness that ate gradually at his mind had not fully stamped him out. He had a goal as well. He had to wait until Hikari revealed himself once more and finish what he had began.

So Hayden started to walk through the Realm of Darkness. He waded through the waters, the land, and walked. His presence was a vast disturbance to the lesser Heartless that observed or felt it, and they began to wander in the same direction as he. Hayden did not notice them trailing behind. He was turned inward, only occasionally drawn outside of himself to navigate some treacherous terrain. The Realm of Darkness was vast, and Hayden would travel it until such a time that he would decide to return to the Realm of Light and subdue the itch. He had decided. Or rather, his hate had decided.

The Seeker would feed. The only heart that could suitably sate this hunger was Hikari's. If Hikari wanted Disney Town back, he would venture either to the End of the World, or the Realm of Darkness. Either way he risked a trip into the Spider's Web, and what truly clever spider chased its prey, or set upon it immediately? There was some satisfaction to be had in watching a bug writhe in a web, balance by disappointment when it escaped. Yet, there was no embarrassment or risk when or rather, if it would in this particular case.

Within Hayden the hive mind droned in his head. Hours passed, but Hayden only noted seconds. Time flowed oddly in the darkness, in this place where perception was warped and clouded. It was because Hayden had relied too much on Human sensation before, and not enough upon his connection to this dark world. At the end of his journey, he stood on the Dark Shore and gazed into the horizon, unsure of why he would have found himself on this particular beach. It stirred up long faded memories of a childhood home, decayed and dulled by time and training.

There Hayden stood, remembering the Destiny Islands. Maybe... maybe just for a day he should visit the Realm of Light. Maybe it would help him cleanse the hate from himself. Perhaps the Seeker should, for just a moment, return home. The home he hadn't seen in seventeen years. His contemplation rendered his movement null. Behind him stood another sea- one of Heartless. Shadows and the like, some far bigger and unknown forms dotting the mass as it stretched back into infinity. The feeling in the back of his mind swelled as he gazed at the Ocean. For the first time that he could recall, Hayden felt a profound sense of longing.