Marluxia

Marluxia, the Graceful Assassin (優雅なる凶刃), is Rank XI within Organization XIII, the lord of Castle Oblivion and the main antagonist of Sora's story in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. He controls flowers, and uses his control to command beams of destructive energy from flower-themed minions and attack opponents with his massive scythe.

Originally discovered by senior Organization members Xigbar and Xaldin, Marluxia is the mastermind of an internal rebellion in the Organization against Xemnas, and the final boss in Sora's story of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Marluxia makes an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and is a playable character in the mission mode.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
No. XI MARLUXIA

''In the arc of his scythe, flowers grow and all else perishes. His pretty face hides ugly motives.''

Weapon: Scythe

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Lord of Castle Oblivion and a member of the Organization.

In a move to bring the group under his control, Marluxia used Naminé to overrun Sora's memory and tried to claim the power of the Keyblade.


 * Reverse/Rebirth

No. 11 in the Organization.

Marluxia lured Sora to Castle Oblivion in hopes of using his power to seize the Organization.

''He ordered Naminé to alter Sora's memories, and fooled Vexen into challenging him. All was going according to plan, but Marluxia's scheme dissolved when Axel set Naminé free.''

Marluxia was ultimately destroyed by Sora.

Kingdom Hearts II
''Formerly Organization XIII's Number XI. He has been eliminated. ''

''He plotted an Organization rebellion and tried to seize the power of the Keyblade, but Axel's betrayal led to his destruction. ''

Meeting Roxas
Like other members of the Organization, Marluxia aids Roxas on at least one mission. On the first, he teaches Roxas how to fight, and witnesses the power of the Keyblade, encouraging him to plan a way to acquire that power for himself. On the next, he helps Roxas fight some Weed Plants by The Old Mansion in Twilight Town. Later, he is assigned to Castle Oblivion with the other members.

Before Axel leaves for Castle Oblivion, it is revealed that Saïx knew about Marluxia's plans to overthrow the Organization. That is why he sent them and the other "suspicious" members to Castle Oblivion, along with Axel who was given the orders to eliminate any of the members that planned to overthrow the Organization.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
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 * [[Image:Marluxia.jpg|thumb|Marluxia as seen in Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories]]

Dissent in the Organization
Marluxia, working with Larxene and Axel, plots to overthrow the Organization. They formulate a plan to use a young girl named Naminé, who has a mysterious power over memory, to deceive Sora into thinking he had sworn to protect her, and then have her use Sora to help them defeat the senior Organization members. This plot stems from a rivalry between some of the younger Organization members and the original six core members. Vexen, Larxene, and Axel all do their part to feed Sora with information and lure him further into the castle. Each of them fight him on their own, although none of them use their full strength and throw the fights. They also make use of Vexen's Riku Replica to compete with Sora for Naminé's loyalty.

Marluxia and Larxene eventually learn that Vexen has been reporting back to Zexion regarding their revolt. After Vexen loses control of the Riku Replica, Marluxia pronounces his project a failure, and after Vexen arrogantly protests, claims that his mastery over Castle Oblivion allows him the authority to do so. Marluxia threatens to tell "the Superior" of Vexen's failure, but Vexen pleads with him not to do so. Marluxia agrees not to if Vexen eliminates Sora. Although confused by the order, Vexen agrees, and heads Sora off in the Twilight Town world. He fights Sora for the second time, but is again defeated. Before he can reveal Marluxia's plans to use Sora, however, Axel destroys him on Marluxia's orders, making Vexen the first Organization member to be eliminated.



Failure of the Plot
Axel's assassination of Vexen allows him to gain the full trust of Marluxia and Larxene. As Sora nears the top floors of the castle, Axel is left alone with Naminé to keep watch over her. Instead of keeping an eye on her, Axel allows her to escape, freeing her from Marluxia's control and ending her continued restructuring of Sora's memories, effectively ruining the plot to manipulate Sora into fighting the Organization. This prompts Larxene to attack Sora shortly after he defeats the Riku replica for the final time, but she is killed in the struggle, leaving only Marluxia to carry out the plot.

Marluxia then confronts Axel about his betrayal, to which Axel replies that Marluxia is in fact a traitor to the Organization, and that Larxene paid the price for her own disloyalty. He then threatens to kill Marluxia, but Marluxia seems unfazed by this, stating simply "You can try." The two then engage in battle, with Marluxia displaying an eerie speed. While they both attack one another powerfully, neither takes any actual damage and appear to be equally matched.

Marluxia makes Naminé appear in front of him, apparently as a shield to prevent Axel from attacking him further, but Axel laughs it off, saying he's willing to go through Naminé to get to Marluxia. Marluxia, however, tells Sora (who had just appeared in the room, much to Axel's surprise) that Axel was willing to hurt her and vanishes with a laugh, leaving Sora and Axel alone. Axel sneers at Sora for having become Marluxia's puppet after all, but Sora resolves to eliminate Marluxia right after he finishes Axel. The two fight, and Sora comes out the victor, but Axel escapes death and vanishes.

Death
Sora pursues Marluxia into his inner chambers. Marluxia orders Naminé to completely erase Sora's memory and destroy his heart, hoping to rebuild him into something more of his liking afterwards. However, Naminé, remembering Sora's kindness towards her, flat-out refuses the order, even when faced with the death penalty. Marluxia is perplexed when Sora orders Naminé to do so for her own safety, and even more so when the revived Riku Replica attacks. Confused and irritated that Sora and the replica would accept their memories of Naminé with the full knowledge that they are lies, Marluxia attacks them. Sora destroys Marluxia, but finds that the real Marluxia had been hiding in a back room and that his opponent had only been a copy. Sora advances into the final room to confront Marluxia, who has combined with a large machine-like Nobody and large angelic-like Nobody (possibly the embodiment of Marluxia's power), wielding a power Sora and his friends can sense through the doorway leading into the chamber. Sora defeats him again in the storyline's final battle, with Marluxia trying to reach Sora but then fades, making Marluxia the fourth Organization member to fall.

Appearance
A tall, elegant man with feminine features, Marluxia wears the basic Organization uniform of a black cloak, black boots, and black gloves. His hair is shoulder-length and rose pink with ruffles, though in the Gameboy version of Chain of Memories this color was more muted, appearing closer to light brown. Marluxia's eyes are blue and his lips are pale pink.

Personality
Marluxia is quite deceptive in nature. He makes an attempt to rebel against the Organization by using Sora as a puppet to accomplish his goals. Personality wise, he is often portrayed as very arrogant and vain. For example, when Axel confronted Marluxia regarding his betrayal to the Organization, he only taunts Axel and leaves Sora to fight the latter. Like Xemnas, Marluxia has a habit of being overly dramatic and giving long speeches. He also takes great pride in his appearance. This is evident by the sakura petals that he often has surrounding him. He also flourishes his weapon after striking with it, occasionally leaving himself open, fitting his title in the organization. During battle, he uses unique tactics like a death counter to represent his devious personality. Also, it seems that by his tone of voice, which is dull and monotone, that Marluxia doesn't pretend to have emotions, like Xemnas or Saïx, and sticks to his true emotionless nature. However, he does smirk and laugh at some points. Most importantly though, Marluxia seems to have an obsession with his superiority over the other Organization members. As the lord of Castle Oblivion, Marluxia has the ability to keep other members of the Organization under his own judgment. He even manipulates Vexen into fighting Sora by using Vexen's fear of Xemnas against him. Even though most of Marluxia's personality traits are negative, he does have a few positive aspects. Some of these include his devotion and persistence to succeed in his goals. He's a very adamant member of Organization XIII. Marluxia believes that he deserves more respect than he's given. All in all, Marluxia is a very egotistical, manipulative member of the Organization, who would stop at nothing to overthrow the Organization and become superior.

Fighting Style
Marluxia fights using the attribute of Flower and wields a large, rose pink and dark green scythe. The petals he commands have the appearance of cherry blossoms in the Game Boy Advance release of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories but have been changed to resemble rose petals in his console game appearances. Marluxia has two forms in the original Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and three in the Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories remake. While in basic human form, he can attack with his scythe normally, or use it to slash at an enemy from across a distance using energy waves. With his command of flowers, Marluxia can create a clone made of petals, send a flurry of blossoms at his opponent, and in Re:Chain of Memories, Marluxia uses a sleight in which he creates a powerful shockwave by hitting the ground with his scythe. Like the other Organization members from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Marluxia moves by levitating. In the remake, he can also teleport freely. This is also the only form which he is constrained to the use of an actual deck.

In his first final form, Marluxia makes use of his mechsuit-like Nobody to slash at Sora with its scythe arms, or charge him and cause massive damage upon impact. He can also summon three petals to fire pink rays and fire blasts of energy from the bottom of the contraption. In the remake, the Nobody is also capable of harnessing darkness with which it can shroud the whole field.

Marluxia's additional final form in the PlayStation 2 remake brings Marluxia and Sora into combat upon a larger version of Marluxia's phantom mech floating in a starry-night environment surrounded by circulating rings. A large angelic Nobody stands behind him wielding a gigantic version of Marluxia's Graceful Dahlia. Marluxia is held immobile during this fight by Nobody thorns and is, therefore, unable to dodge most attacks.

From his stationary position, Marluxia fights mainly by commanding the Nobody, who can create shockwaves, shoot a sweeping laser, blow gusts of wind that prevent Sora from moving forward, and create a whirlwind that scatters all of Sora's cards, including his reload bar. Sora must then pick up the cards in order to reclaim them, including the reload bar. Marluxia's most notable sleight however, is that in which he shoots Nobody thorns that triggers a countdown timer similar to the recurring Final Fantasy spell 'Doom', in which, if the counter reaches zero, the fight is instantly lost. He can also trigger the one rotating ring around the battlefield, causing it to fire lasers from all directions in addition to reusing the ray-shooting rose petals.

In Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Marluxia returns in an optional battle with new tactics. He begins the battle by whispering in Sora's ear, which causes a countdown timer to appear above Sora's head based on his current level, similar to the hit point condition of the Titan Cup, and then spends most of the battle attacking Sora relentlessly with his scythe, with each hit depleting the timer by one, though causing no additional damage.. If the timer reaches zero, Sora loses the battle, but the timer can be increased by using the reaction command "Rob Count", in which Sora grabs Marluxia's scythe, knocks him into the air and hurls the scythe at him, adding thirteen points to the counter. Marluxia also can conjure black circles which cover most of the floor and deal damage to Sora's HP, but leave the death timer unaffected. Marluxia also wheels around the floor swinging his scythe, and can hover above Sora attacking him with his scythe while making pillars sprout up from the ground and deal damage to Sora.

The Chain of Memories manga shows Marluxia using somewhat violent plant-based powers; he uses thorny vines to restrain Naminé in a manner similar to crucifixion, and summons a Venus flytrap that captures Naminé, Donald, and Goofy and nearly devours them.

Weapon
True to his title, the Graceful Assassin, Marluxia wields a large, elegant looking Scythe called the Graceful Dahlia in battle. The handle of the Scythe is a pastel green color, and the blade is a rose pink. This evokes an appearance of a plucked flower. The connection between them is yellow and resembles pieces of the Organization logo. Marluxia attacks with wide slashes and spins. He can also turn himself and his Scythe into a lethal pinwheel, and flies around the battlefield, causing heavy damage to anyone who cannot dodge out of the way.

Playing as Marluxia
In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Marluxia uses his large Scythe to fight as a focus fighter, attacking in wide-angled, quick swipes that focus on a single enemy, yet keeps surrounding enemies at bay as well. Via the Gear System, Marluxia can be customized along with all other playable characters, using wide-angled attacks that focus on single enemies, keeping both surrounding friends and foes at a distance. Bloom-Out, Marluxia's Limit Break begins with a charge attack while a large black ring forms around him. Once the attack finishes charging and the black ring is completely formed, Marluxia swings his Scythe multiple times over a large area on the black ring. With perfect release timing, Marluxia can instantly kill any normal enemy regardless of remaining HP. During Marluxia’s Final Limit, he swings his Scythe more frequently, and each swing is followed by the release of a large, crescent-shaped projectile.

Quotes
"Along the road ahead lies something you need. However, in order to claim it you must lose something that is dear to you."

''"To lose and claim anew, or to claim anew only to lose..."  "None of us wants to be suspicious of a comrade.''"

"Vexen has clearly committed a treasonous act against the Organization. You must eliminate the traitor."

"That would be an unfortunate denouement."

"What to do? Your hero is soon to be wiped from existence. But I believe there is a certain promise that he made you. Isn’t that right, Naminé?"

"Rejoice, Naminé. The time is near for you to meet the hero that you’ve been longing for."

"The Keyblade's power...How I've longed to make it my own!"

"Imbeciles... You would knowingly shackle your heart with a chain of memories born of lies? You would be one who has a heart yet cast aside your heart's freedom? You turn from the truth because your heart is weak! You will never defeat me!"

"I've been entrusted this castle and Naminé by our leader. Defying me will be seen as treason against the Organization."

Trivia

 * Nomura has stated that Marluxia was originally intended to be a female character, which may explain his association with the color pink, the power of flower, and his feminine-sounding name.
 * All of Marluxia's scythes are the names of flowers along with some sort of descriptive term, with the exception of his Joke Weapon, Stirring Ladle, considering it isn't a flower.
 * In the manga, Marluxia does not use alternate forms and is easily killed by Sora in the first battle. He is also surrounded by flowers or flower petals a good deal of the time. And he is sometimes even seen holding a rose.
 * Marluxia is one of four Organization members to have his own battle theme. The other three members are Roxas, Xemnas, and Xion.
 * All of Marluxia's boss themes are named after the overall concept of Marluxia. The first one, "Graceful Assassin", is also the name of his title. Followed, is "Scythe of Petals", which obviously refers the weapon he uses, then, "Lord of the Castle", referring to his status in Castle Oblivion.
 * Marluxia's association with cherry blossoms can be attributed to Japanese folklore, in which cherry blossoms can symbolize transient nature of life and death.