Ienzo's lips press together, fingers curling slowly toward his palms without forming a fist. His thumb shifts across the tips of his other fingers, almost as if silently checking each digit is still there.

Is he teasing at the absence of Even, of Braig? Of memory and mind and... all else that's been steeped in Xehanort's influence over the years, stained.

It's infuriating, that doubt should be allowed to take root. That silences can only stretch out for so long, and that the ghost at his back does not simply vanish as soon as he came.

"A fascinating conjecture." Ienzo finally replies, clipped and curt, teeth connecting. The air seems stale and thin, and it tastes faintly like ozone under his tongue.

I will never go back. No, I will never be yours again.

He wishes he had more physical resolve, more weight to plant into the floor, more solid firmness to his limbs. That he was built like his compatriots, sturdier stock, unmovable.

His heart feels so terribly fragile, and so wildly over-responsive, stuttering hard against his ribs. There's so much he dares not think, lest Xemnas reach in and pluck his thoughts clean out of air, unveiling plans.

Shaking his head, the edge of Ienzo's lip curls beneath his bangs, contemptuous. "How could there be?"