Absent Silhouette

An Absent Silhouette (アブセント・シルエット, Abusento Shiruetto) is a "ghost" version of a member of Organization XIII who had already been slain. It appears as an extra set of challenges in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+. Whenever Sora challenges an Absent Silhouette to a battle, the Absent Silhouette takes the form of the slain member it represents and fights him. There are five Absent Silhouettes in total: Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Marluxia and Larxene. All of them died in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

At first, the Absent Silhouette looks like a sphere of darkness with nothingness and the slain member's element circling around it; a picture of the slain member's weapon is also featured in the center of the sphere. When Sora accepts its challenge, it warps Sora, Donald and Goofy to wherever its member was last fought, with the exception of Marluxia's, which is the area of the second to last battle against him. There, it challenges him to an extremely difficult battle.

An Absent Silhouette usually bears a different fighting style than the member originally exhibited in Chain of Memories. For example, Larxene often threw her knives and Zexion created copies of himself using the stolen skills of his opponent. However, in Final Mix+, 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:

• Zexion - Cave of the Dead (Inner Chamber) in the Underworld (Olympus Coliseum). It 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. Zexion's sphere has no actual element swirling around it, but instead his lexicon fades in and out, supposedly in illusion, his element.
• Larxene - Isla de Muerta Rock Face area in Port Royal. It appears second, materalizing when you arrive at Isla de Muerta.
• Lexaeus - The Sandlot in Twilight Town appears third, after defeating the Nobodies in the area.
• Marluxia - appears,fitting of his element, in Beast's room in Beast's Castle appears fourth, after the Beast decides to join you and defeat Xaldin. This sphere is notable in that before Marluxia himself appears, it is seen through two different camera views at once until both cameras focus on the same point.
• 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 respectively. The recipes are:

• Zexion - An accessory, Shade Archive;
• Larxene - An armor, Shock Charm.
• Lexaeus - A staff for Donald, Centurion;
• Marluxia - An accessory, Full Bloom;
• 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. Like in Chain of Memories, these members were not given English voice actors for the English audio track used for Final Mix+.
• The voices of the Absent Silhouettes sound exactly like their Japanese voice actors in Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories. They were, in fact, voiced by the Japanese cast, since the end credits quote the names of Larxene's, Marluxia's, Vexen's, Zexion's and Lexaeus' Japanese voice actors.
• It is never explained why the Absent Silhouettes are fought where they are. One possible reason is that four of the five battles take place in worlds not present in the game. Another possible explanation is that they are placed in worlds that have no purpose after they are locked, and by placing Absent Silhouettes in the said worlds, they become more visitable. Another possibility is that they only appear where another member of the Organization has appeared, which is true for the four of the five locations (Demyx appeared in the Olympus Coliseum, Luxord appeared in Port Royal, Roxas, Axel, and Saix appeared in Twilight Town, and Xaldin appeared in Beast's Castle). However, the merchant in Agrabah said that his riches were brought from a man in a black coat, which is then interpreted by Sora to be a member of the Organization.