Absent Silhouette



An Absent Silhouette is a "ghost" version of a member of Organization XIII who had already been slain. It appears in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+. Whenever Sora challenged an Absent Silhouette to a battle, the Absent Silhouette would take the form of its slain member and fight Sora.

At first, the Absent Silhouette looked like a sphere of darkness with nothingness and whatever the slain member's element was circling around it. A picture of the slain member's weapon was also featured in the center of the sphere. When Sora accepted its challenge, it would warp Sora to wherever its member was last fought (except Marluxia's, which is the area of the second to last battle against him), and challenged it to an extremely difficult battle. There were five Absent Silhouettes: Vexen, Larxene, Lexaeus, Marluxia, and Zexion, who all died in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Zexion's sphere had no actual element swirling around it, but instead his lexicon fades in and out, supposedly in illusion, his element.

An Absent Silhoutette usually bears a different fighting style than that of the member whose form is taken. For example, Larxene often threw her knives and Zexion creates copies of himself using the stolen skills of his opponent. However, Larxene's Silhouette favors using copies of herself for speedy attacks from all directions, and Zexion's favors trapping his prey into a dimension within his weapon, a lexicon.

Their respective locations are:
 * Marluxia - Beast's Room in Beast's Castle Appears fourth, after the Beast decides to join you and defeat Xaldin. His is notable in that before Marluxia himself appears, one Silhouette sphere appears as usual, but then another appears beside it before the two fuse to create Marluxia's ghost. Why this happens remains unknown.
 * Larxene - Isla de Muerta (Rock Face) in Port Royal Appears second, appearing when you arrive at Isla de Muerta.
 * Lexaeus - The Sandlot in Twilight Town Appears third, after defeating the Nobodies.
 * Zexion - Cave of the Dead (Inner Chamber) in Underworld Appears first, after escaping Hades. After Demyx's "battle" in the same world, a brief cutscene commences in which he explains to Sora about the Absent Silhouettes.
 * Vexen - Merchant's Shop in Agrabah. Appears last, when the shop changes.

It is also suggested that the Absent Silhouette is a type of Nobody, since it appears in the same fashion a Nobody does.

Rewards
Once an Absent Silhouette is defeated, Sora gains a Vanished Vision and a recipe. The recipes allow Sora to synthesize accessories that are similar to the weapons wielded by the Absent Silhouettes, with the exception of the recipes obtained after defeating Lexaeus and Vexen, which instead lead to weapons that can be wielded by Donald and Goofy. The recipes are:
 * Marluxia - An accessory, Full Bloom.
 * Larxene - An armor, Shock Charm.
 * Lexaeus - A staff for Donald, Centurion.
 * Zexion - An accessory, Shade Archive.
 * Vexen- A shield for Goofy, Freeze Pride.

Trivia

 * The Absent Silhouettes do not say any words at all; instead they simply grumble, grunt, laugh, and cry out whenever you hit them or when they perform their attacks, similar to the English version of the original Chain of Memories. This mostly due to the fact that, like Chain of Memories, these members were not given English voice actors for the English audio track used for Final Mix+.