Of Possible Traitors

"There is a traitor among us."

Those were the words Roxas heard as he suddenly appeared into this room. The architecture was similar to The Master's workshop except the chamber didn't have any gears on the walls and in the center of it had a round table with seven seats. There were five people in the room. Ava, Gula, and Invi were all sitting around the table with the former two next to each other. Ira and Aced were standing not that far away.

The Nobody immediately knew that he was in some sort of meeting. But there was two things that were off putting to him.

The first was that Ira had apparently started it by calling out a traitor among them. Why would he even do that. During the last part of his dream he had seen that the five of them were very close to each other. So in what way were one of them a traitor.

Plus openly declaring a traitor was not a logical strategy at all. It could give the traitor the chance to turn blame onto someone else in the panic and succeed in staying hidden.

The second was that he couldn't sense The Master anywhere. With the amount of energy that man was admitting it would be difficult to conceal unless he didn't want to be found.

But from talking to him Roxas could understand that he was very close to his students and wouldn't part from them unless he had no choice.

He didn't know how long had past lunch the last part of his dreams, but he did know that it was probably a good idea to listen to them to get a better idea of what was going on.

"Are you certain? What proof do you have?" Invi inquired from her seat.

With a sigh Ira held out one of his hands. He began to gather energy into his palm before it formed into bright sphere of light. Suddenly it dimmed to reveal a projection of a familiar shape.

It was a Chirithy like the one in the flask, except for some major differences alongside this one being much larger and mature. Instead of the grey fur he saw, it had taken a dark purple hue with it's ears being pink and it's snout and stomach being yellow. It's eye went from being narrow and blue, to spherical and glowing crimson. It had a black purse around it's neck with some kind of sigil on it with a pink cape.

"I found this sniffing around the castle last night. Unfortunately as soon as it noticed me, it disappeared." Ira said.

As soon as he said that the Foretellers grew worried.

"Is that..a dark Chirithy?" Ava inquired. The implication seemed to sink in around the room until a gasp rose out from the side of the table, getting everyone's attention.

"No...it's a Nightmare!" Invi said in shock, breaking her usual calm façade. This caused everyone gasp in shock as they looked over the projection.

"So that's a Nightmare." Roxas said studying the projection up close. The Chirithy seemed to be studying it's surroundings.

It didn't seem malicious or anything like that. In fact it just seemed curious about were it was. Possibly indicating that it had either recently formed or that it was simply surveying the castle. Then as if the projection noticed someone gave its best glare and vanished in plume of darkness, cutting the projection off.

But one thing stumped Roxas was if one of the apprentices were traitors, then how come he didn't sense any change of the balance in their hearts. It was practically the same for each of them. So unless any of them could cloak their darkness then he had no clue that anyone of them is a traitor.

"It's not me." Aced said in an effort to prove that he wasn't the traitor.

"There is an easy way to solve this. If we all summon our Spirits, then we'll know." Gula said. Invi shook her head at that.

"Unfortunately, there are countless wielders in our Unions." She explained. "It would be easy for any of us to summon a Chirithy that isn't a Nightmare. I'm afraid that your suggestion wouldn't help us get to the bottom of this."

'That makes sense' Roxas thought. As each of them had a large amount of Keyblade wielders following them, anyone of them could switch out their Chirithy.

Unless of course...

Ava slammed her hands down on the table getting their attention.

"Yeah, in that case, who's to say that the Nightmare you saw last night belongs to any of us." She said defiantly, trying to crush the doubts that were spreading among the Foretellers. "It could belong to anyone in our Unions."

That was also a likely possibility. They weren't the only Keyblade wielders around there. But there was still something missing from all of this.

"That is highly unlikely." Ira said with a sigh."Do you recall the tool the wielders were given in order to make them stronger? We generally don't concern ourselves with what they have at their disposal. However-" He continued on as he went to take his seat at the table. "I believe those tools were the Nightmare's doing."

"The bangles?" Ava questioned. "I know when they're equipped they have the power to collect dark energy, but I thought we all agreed that was okay."

"Collecting is fine. But using that power is the equivalent of using the power of darkness." Ira said sternly, causing both Gula and Roxas to sigh.

The Nobody knew about the constant persecution of those who use darkness. While it's power is usually destructive and has a nasty habit of consuming those who channel it or turning them into Heartless, the power of light could be just as destructive and almost as dangerous as the darkness. Still as someone who was rejected from both sides since his birth, he thought the whole prejudice on both sides was idiotic. The worlds were made of both the light and the darkness. Both existed in a balance that had been in existence since way before the worlds were split. Of course it was constantly being disrupted, but the balance was always restored in some way in the end.

"It's a brilliant plan." Gula said, snapping the Nobody out of his thoughts. "Everyone knows that Spirits look the same, and that there are wielders in spades. There is no way to tell." He finished while shaking his head.

Roxas suddenly felt a small pulse of energy from Ava. It vanished a second later.

"Oh no." She said worriedly. "Everyone has already equipped their bangles."

Aced had enough and slammed his hand down onto the table to get the other Foretellers's attention.

"So what now? How do we find out who is behind this?" He asked with an irritated tone.

"Seeing as how those bangles couldn't have been acquired just by anyone. I believe it was one of us in this room." Ire said, causing the Nobody to facepalm.

"That wasn't a smart move." He groaned out.

If there truly was a traitor amongst the Foretellers, then he or she would be more careful not to leave anymore clues behind.

"No, Ira. I respectfully disagree." Invi said. "What proof do we have that the bangles are tied to the power of darkness, or if a Nightmare is to blame. We shouldn't jump to conclusions."

It seemed like she was the most sensible one here at the moment.

"Some leader you are Ira." Aced said, shocking the others as they turned to face him. "You managed to plant seeds of doubt in all of us with that speech." With that Ira turned to face him, his expression stoic. "What? Did you expect the traitor to give themselves up with that accusation of yours?"

Throughout Aced inquiring Ira's mouth slowly turned into a frown which only grew and grimaced at the end, showing that the bear masked Foreteller was correct.

"That was foolish." He finished.

Roxas couldn't help but agree with Aced's reasoning for the traitor, but frowned when he sensed something in his heart.

Aced's heart was starting to grow dark. It was faint, but it was there. It was an especially foul kind of darkness that he has never sensed before, but he knew what it was.

Envy. Aced was envious of Ira for something and Roxas had to guess it was because that he wanted to be the leader of the Foretellers.

"Aced, that's quite enough." Invi said.

Aced just huffed at that and turned to face the door way.

"It looks to me like the Master has made the wrong choice." He said as he began to walk away.

"Wait." Invi said as she got up from her chair. "Where do you think you're going?"

Her question fell on deaf ears as he silently stormed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

As the room went silent, Roxas managed to piece together an idea of what has happened between the dreams.

The Master disappeared for some reason and had left Ira in charge of the Foretellers with Aced as his second in command. It might have also been some time after the dream he had yesterday as Ava looked to be the same age as when she was with Hikari.

But there were some parts that were still missing to get a full idea of what was going on. Like why did The Master disappear? Was there truly a traitor among the Foretellers? Whatever happened to The Master's final apprentice?

Roxas would've tried to figured out more about what was going on, but he felt like it was probably best to either wait to see if there was anymore to the dream, what any future dream might hold, or talk to Ava or The Master when he got the chance.

Gula got up from the table and dusted himself off.

"I think we are done here." He said before he faced Ira and Invi. "I'll trust that you'll keep all of us informed."

With that he waved them goodbye and proceeded to exit the room. Halfway to the door Ava got up from her seat."

"I hope..." She trailed off sadly. "I hope that we can all resolve this soon..."

With that she followed Gula out of the room and closed the door behind her, the room then faded to black.

(Chapter 14 end)