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As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness!
Marluxia, the Graceful Assassin (優雅なる凶刃 Yūga-naru Kyōjin?, lit. Graceful Assassin's Blade), is the Nobody of Lauriam, 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, bombard the opponent with flurries of petals, and to attack opponents with his massive scythe. He commands the Reaper Nobodies.
Originally discovered by senior Organization members Xigbar and Xaldin, Marluxia is the mastermind of an internal rebellion in the Organization against Xemnas, planning to use Naminé's unique powers of memory manipulation to turn Sora into his puppet and claim the power of the Keyblade as his own. However, thanks to Axel's meddling, Marluxia's plans were thwarted, and he was ultimately destroyed by Sora after a climatic showdown.
Despite his treacherous actions towards the Organization, Marluxia was later brought back to serve as a member of the real Organization XIII. Along with Larxene, he was tasked with overwatching the New Seven Hearts should the Organization’s plan with the Seven Guardians of Light go awry, with him particularly overseeing Mother Gothel’s imprisonment of Rapunzel in the Kingdom of Corona. He would later participate in the Second Keyblade War, and would vanish yet again after his defeat.
Marluxia makes an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and is a playable character in Mission Mode.
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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 takes great pride in his appearance. 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 many 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, continuing his plans to overthrow the Organization even after Axel's betrayal and the death of Larxene. He is a very adamant member of Organization XIII. Marluxia believes that he deserves more respect than he is 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.
When he becomes a Seeker of Darkness, Marluxia seems to have more confidence in Xehanort's plans for restoring the balance between Light and Darkness, hence his desire to protect Rapunzel, one of the Seven New Hearts. But when he ends up being eliminated by King Mickey and Sora, he will simply thank the latter for "rendering" his old life.
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A tall, elegant Nobody 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 Game Boy Advance version of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories this color was more muted, appearing closer to light brown. Marluxia's eyes are blue and his lips are pale pink.
Marluxia is usually surrounded by cherry blossom petals, which symbolize the transient nature of life and death in Japanese culture. Marluxia drops these petals whenever hit during battle, and fades in a flurry of petals when he is destroyed.
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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's petals are seen clearly when he samples Sora's memories
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 Nobody form, he can attack with his scythe normally, or use it to slash at an enemy from across a distance using energy waves.
Despite his arrogant nature, Marluxia has proven to be one of the most powerful members of the Organization XIII, with his skill and power being enough to fight Axel to a stalemate and challenge Sora. With his command of flowers, Marluxia can create a clone made of petals, send a flurry of blossoms at his opponent, and in Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, Marluxia uses a sleight in which he creates a powerful shockwave by hitting the ground with his scythe. Like most 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 in 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 "Restore 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, can surround Sora with thorns that explode after a short time, and can hover above Sora attacking him with his scythe while making pillars sprout up from the ground and deal damage to Sora.
The manga version of these battles differs from the version of the Chain of Memories games. In it, 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 is sometimes seen holding a rose.
In the original Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the real Marluxia is only fought once, unlike most of the main antagonists like Ansem and Xemnas, who must be fought many times before they are finally defeated for good.
In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Marluxia has a Limit Break called Bloom-Out. During Bloom-Out, Marluxia begins to charge an 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. During the initial portion of the Limit Break, with a perfectly timed button press, Marluxia will be surrounded in cherry blossoms and may instantly kill any weaker enemy hit by the attack.
During Marluxia's Final Limit, Marluxia teleports before the attack, and his swing is much faster and covers a much larger area, followed by the release of a large, crescent-shaped projectile.
In Kingdom Hearts III, Marluxia shows a remarkable amount of skill in wielding darkness, as he proved more adept in creating heartless than Xigbar, able to turn the lingering essence of Mother Gothel into the Grim Guardianess whereas Xigbar only created a Storm Ride from a complete being. Along with that, he could power himself and his scythe with energy and then maneuver through the battlefield, slicing through all in his path, before unleashing a large zone of darkness that causes petals to emerge from the ground.
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 fly around the battlefield, causing heavy damage to anyone who cannot dodge out of the way.
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- All of Marluxia's boss themes are named after his overall concept. The first one, "Graceful Assassin", is also the name of his title. "Scythe of Petals" obviously refers to the weapon he uses. Finally, "Lord of the Castle" refers to his status in Castle Oblivion.
- Originally, Marluxia was planned to be female, but this idea was scrapped during the creation of the game so that both traitors were not female.
- Marluxia was given the nickname "Marly" by Demyx.
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