Beast's Castle, Second Visit:
In Which There is an Unexpected Meeting
It was a horribly familiar sensation, something he'd felt only once before: falling, falling endlessly, through darkness and into nothing. No wind on his face, nothing to tell him he was falling except for the sensation of his stomach lurching, and heat that would've been suffocating to anyone else.
Yeah, he'd felt all of this before -- the sick sensation, the drop, the heat. Everything except for the part at the end, where he opened his eyes and found that everything was different.
He really didn't want to open his eyes at all. There was already something wrong with him. The horror, the pain -- the feelings he had felt with such clarity -- were gone, numbed almost out of existence by what felt remarkably like... warmth. Peace. As if--
Axel sat up, sucking in a sharp breath, and forced his eyes open. Fuck, he thought, but distantly, because somehow he wasn't really that surprised to find a face he'd never expected to see again staring back at him.
"Sora," he said, with what he thought was admirable restraint. Inside, even through the numbing calm, it was more like: Holyfuckwhyareyouherewhereishefuckfuckfuck.
The brunet grimaced and took a step back. "Roxas," he said, and the very sound of the name made some part of Axel unclench, "I think you'd better come over here. Man, my head hurts. Or, well -- I guess it doesn't, technically..."
"My head hurts," said Roxas's voice from somewhere nearby, and Axel twisted around to look for him. The younger boy was pacing slowly round the stained-glass platform, expression more curious than anything. And his voice, it sounded -- amused, maybe. Like the calm was getting to him, too. "I thought I was done with this place, you know."
Sora was grinning. Under ordinary circumstances, it probably would've been infectious. "Yeah, me too. I think this might be -- different, though. It's not testing you, anymore." His grin widened, and he turned it to Axel.
"Cute," Axel said, as flat as he could make his voice. "Cryptic, but cute. Where are we? What the hell is this?"
"Man, he does that a lot, doesn't he?"
Roxas ignored both the question and the distasteful expression on Sora's face, but he did stop his pacing. "I think," he said quietly, "that this must be -- my heart."
The air around them shivered warmly, as if it liked that answer. Axel wet his lips, and glanced at Sora. It was hard not to demand, Then what's he doing here? The heart might have been his once, but it wasn't anymore. It didn't belong to him.
Again Sora made a face, but this time he sighed and said, "No. That's not really how it works."
What
Axel stared at him. He said it slowly, and carefully, so that there would be no mistake: "Stay out of my head."
The brunet let out a sigh. "Look, it's not quite the same thing as being able to read your mind. It's just that... this isn't a real conversation. I'm not really here, and neither are you. And this is... kind of a side-effect of that."
"We're not really here," Axel repeated.
"Like you were thinking," Sora agreed with a small shrug. "This is his heart. And not mine," he added hastily. "But I didn't really go anywhere, either. I'm a part of him now. The way I guess he used to be a part of me. He's the -- what d'you call it -- Somebody now. You know?"
He really didn't mean to think anything in response to that. Nothing Sora (or Roxas, fuck) would be able to pick up. But he couldn't help it. The idea of a heart coming with the original Somebody--
--he hated it. Somebodies turned Nobody because they were losers. Idiots who let the darkness in, or poor saps too pathetic to fight off the Heartless. They weren't all noble, heroic types, sacrificing themselves to save nice girls. Most of them were ordinary, self-absorbed people -- people who had been given their chance, and blown it royally. They didn't deserve to come back in any form, let alone share in the heart they'd lost
Nonono, don't think it. Don't think anything. Blank.
Axel forced a smile, nice and easy. Breathing. Normal. Not going to save him from this. "Interesting theory."
Sora was eyeing him resentfully, one hand over an ear. "I think I hate you."
"Well, good," Axel said with a smirk. "I was beginning to think you didn't remember me."
He could feel Roxas's attention sharpening on him; the air that had shivered before with pleasure was very suddenly cold and intent. The question had been answered, but not really; not thoroughly. But Roxas surprised him by looking away again with nothing more than a murmur of, "Castle Oblivion."
There was a slightly awkward silence.
Sora beamed. "Hey, this is pretty cool. You're starting to remember what I remember -- even better than I do, in places! Yeah, that's right... I met him in Castle Oblivion. And that's where..." He trailed away, frowning.
For an instant Axel wanted to ask them -- to ask both parts of Roxas -- how much they remembered. How many of the memories she'd strung together were really coming clear. Everyone had studied the little witch very carefully, but they still didn't really understand how her power worked. She didn't even seem to understand it completely. But he didn't really want to know.
"So," he said, before Sora could get any funny ideas about doing more than glancing at him with interest, "why are we here?"
Both boys blinked. Sora frowned, and Roxas's eyes turned distant. "...Drive," the blond said, soft, and instantly the brunet agreed: "It's a Drive."
"...That's not as helpful as you think it is," Axel told them.
Sora chuckled ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck. He said, "Sorry. I don't know how else to describe it. It's... a Drive. He's taken you into his heart." His eyes flicked up to Axel's face, briefly intent. "I don't know any more than that. It's never happened to me before. But it feels... Good. Strong," he amended thoughtfully.
"Well," Roxas replied, terse and definitely not looking at him, "when does it end? Because Axel's having a bad day and needs to go kill someone."
"That kinda depends on you two," Sora said, and stepped away from both of them, but Axel was pretty sure he'd gotten most of the attention. "There's probably something you should ask him. Don't you think?"
Axel met his eyes, and tried not to die inside oh fuck why. "Something?" he repeated.
"You know what I mean," the former Somebody said lightly. His eyes were so bright, fixed, so much like Roxas's. "Don't you?"
The atmosphere was incredibly soothing -- warm -- reassuring. Axel grit his teeth anyway. "...Maybe. But maybe this isn't great T-I-M-I-N-G."
From the corner of his eye, he watched as Roxas's mouth opened and then closed again. He tried again: "You could... just ask. We don't have to talk about it here." Interestingly, by the time Axel turned to look at him directly, he was staring off in an entirely different direction.
"Well, thanks. That's great," Axel told him, and not at all sarcastically. "So, I could save this for a more private moment. Don't you get it? He already knows exactly what I'm going to say. He could tell you as easily as I could."
And already Sora was protesting, "Actually, I really can't. It would kind of defeat the whole purpose, so--"
"Not really the point I was trying to make," Axel drawled, cutting him off. He turned back to the other boy -- the important boy. "You see? There's no privacy here. No reason to wait for a better moment."
Roxas frowned, and then -- seemed to shrug it off. "Fine," he said. "Then tell me. Maybe he's wrong -- maybe this... whatever it is will end without you having to say anything. But..." He hesitated, and lifted his head, meeting Axel's eyes for the first time since they'd arrived in this strange place. "But I'd kind of... like to hear it."
Well, fuck.
He took a deep breath, and dropped down to sit on the stained glass, not looking at either of them. Maybe -- it'd make it a little easier.
It wasn't as if the kid was wrong. He really did... want to know. At least, part of him did.
"Don't worry," Axel murmured, tracing a corner of the abstract pattern in the glass. "It's not a complicated question. More like idle curiosity..." The pattern was so bright. Soothing to look at, in the same way that the air was soothing to breathe. The longer Axel gazed down at it, the easier it was to say those horrible words. "What's it like?"
"Axel...?"
There was something eager, or maybe only expectant, in Roxas's voice. Like he'd been waiting for this question. And of course he had -- it was the obvious question, the one any Nobody turned Somebody would have braced himself for long ago. Axel found himself smiling faintly.
"What's it like to have a heart?"
Everything seemed to have gone very still. Sora was faraway, irrelevant; Roxas was silent for a long moment. At length, he asked, "Why didn't you say something before?"
His smile was widening, somehow. "Good question," he replied, his own voice curiously light. "I guess it didn't... seem all that important. I gave up on getting my heart back a while ago." Axel smirked, but mostly to himself. Wasn't that the truth. "It didn't seem real. Just -- some stupid F-A-I-R-Y-T-A-L-E the grownup Nobodies tell their kids to help the little tykes sleep at night. But you managed it." And he still wasn't really sure how he felt about that, whether he even felt anything at all. "Hard to know how to react to that. But hey! Your other half wants us to bare our souls, and I guess I'm kind of curious."
Sora studied him for a moment, then said, "You're such a liar."
Before he could put any of his more threatening thoughts into words, Roxas had moved between them, hands up in the air. To Sora, he said quietly, "Hey. He really wants to know, doesn't he?"
"Well, yeah. But--"
Roxas smiled, soft. "It feels like... before, there was always something keeping me from feeling. Like a wall of logic -- and I could feel, but first I had to get over that wall. If Larxene was being a bitch, I had to tell myself that I should be angry before I could be. If Demyx went out of his way to get me something, I had to tell myself to be pleased or grateful. And -- and now it's like that wall is gone, and there are all these reactions and feelings that I can't even acknowledge before they're trying to get to the surface."
He shook his head, raked his hands through his hair and then closed his eyes.
"...I don't feel like myself," he said in a low voice. "And I can't help wondering, is it because of what's happened to me, or is it because... I'm Somebody?"
Axel took it in, and realized that he wasn't surprised. That was more or less what he'd thought Roxas would say, and another part of -- why he hadn't asked before. He wet his lips, and shoved ahead. Time for the harder question, the one he wasn't sure of the answer to. "Do you -- hate it?"
Do you hate it, the way I think I would?
The blond shot him a slightly sharp look. "No. No, of course not. Everything was..." He seemed to struggle with the words. "Everything was easier before -- simpler. But I don't hate it. How could I?"
And then he smiled again, soft like before but stretching all across his face, and Axel couldn't help thinking that this must have been what happiness looked like.
"Well, that's a relief," he said, not sounding like himself at all -- too rough, too... he wasn't even sure. "I mean, it's a little too late to do anything about that whole merging-you-two-together thing, and I really didn't want to have to feel bad about it."
Sora said, "Believe it or not, that was a lot more honest."
"I really will kill you," Axel told him pleasantly. "I'll find a way."
But there was a restraining hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up, he found Roxas looking down at him affectionately. "Thank you," he murmured. "For getting me to feel."
"...Sure thing," Axel replied. He felt his lips twist. "Just returning the favor, I think."
All around them, the air shivered warmly in response, and Sora went very still, suddenly alert. "See," he said, "that's what I'm talking about. Good, I thought we'd be in here forever. Okay, I guess it's now or never. Roxas--"
The floor was shaking and Axel couldn't get to his feet, but above him Roxas was turning to look back at the other boy, a curious frown on his face. Everything was getting very bright, and Axel could barely make it out when Sora reached into his pocket and then grabbed his Somebody's hand, forcing something into it.
"Take this," he said. It was too bright to see his face, but he sounded urgent. "It's important."
"Wait," Roxas protested. "What is this? What's--"
"--happening?" Sora laughed quietly. "Exactly what's supposed to happen. He asked his question, and now..."
The light swelled, and everything went completely, blindingly white.
"...now..."
Axel forgot the stained glass trembling beneath him, forgot everything in a rush of heat, but the words came anyway, echoed deep inside his empty shell.
Now, you're in Drive.
The feeling was impossible to accurately describe. He knew he was awake now -- the light had faded, and they certainly seemed to be back in the Beast's courtyard. Rain was falling, and he thought it had been before, but he could hardly feel it. Everything still seemed distant, soft and fuzzy and unimportant, like it had inside -- inside of Roxas's heart.
Except that this time he could still feel the Assassins, there with him, alert and healthy and powerful in spite of what the Berserkers had done to them, shivering with readiness to do anything he asked of them. If anything, he thought the bond felt... stronger now. Purer. More focused.
The witch was protecting them, he could see her pale face through their eyes, her hands up and faintly glowing, the rush of wind magic all around them; they were safe, thanks to her. Distractedly, he thought, I'll have to thank her--
But Roxas was there, too, and Axel found that he was suddenly intensely aware of the younger boy stepping forward, flexing muscles, calling the keyblade to him -- could all but feel the hilts shimmering into his own hands. The empty place where his heart should have been constricted, humming with power he shouldn't have had.
A new wave of Heartless had come, maybe drawn by the light show of Roxas's strange heart, and there were more of them this time, all the larger variety that populated the streets of the dark city in Never Was, and Axel knew he should have felt apprehensive -- there were so many of them -- but all he felt was an utter, unshakable confidence.
"Axel," came Roxas's voice, outside but inside him at the same time, and he felt his head snapping up, turning very nearly without his consent to meet blue eyes that were all but glowing.
And he couldn't speak, could hardly move, the air was made of molasses or worse, but Axel thought it, and somehow he knew it would be heard. I'm here.
The blond smirked, small and faint, and then he was in the air, moving faster than Axel had ever seen him move before, taking flight and spinning his keyblades in a way that seemed strangely familiar, so much like--
--and then the keyblades were on fire, wreathed in it beautifully, and he was wielding it as though it belonged to him, guiding the flame in a gorgeous wide arc that spread outward all over the courtyard and sent the poor Heartless scurrying for cover.
It did them no good; Roxas was simply too fast, too ruthless, and the fire chased them, he chased them, striking with blinding speed and killing them one after another.
He was almost too fast, too frenzied -- almost but not quite out of control -- and in any other situation it might have been frightening. But when Roxas turned back, ash and dark vapor where his enemies had been, Axel saw that he was grinning. A little dark, a little manic. It wasn't a nice smile.
People who had died in Castle Oblivion would've recognized it.
The courtyard was clear now, and Roxas landed with feline grace, eyes darting back and forth, looking for more targets. He was restless, and Axel could feel it shiver over his own skin -- another enemy, a bigger enemy, a challenge, herenowimmediately
He'd always known the one they called the Key of Destiny was deadly -- and yes, even predatory -- but not quite like this. Light did not burn itself out the way that fire did, consumed nothing and so never hungered this way. Seeing his own element in Roxas was... strange. There, that little tremble in his left hand, the nervous energy that made him spin the black keyblade and then dart across the courtyard, just to keep moving -- him, his breath on the embers to keep them burning, inside Roxas's heart.
"We should -- move," he was saying tersely, glancing back for the witch/Namine. "Get inside. Find Xaldin."
She was startled, and her barrier flickered but didn't, to her credit, die. "Roxas, wait -- what is this? What happened?" Through their eyes, he could see her grasp for her own chest, and he wondered if she felt a little of it, too. "You and Sora..."
"Magic clothes," Roxas replied, short and simple and not really helpful. His attention was on the door, the castle, Xaldin somewhere within. "I'll explain later. Come on. We have to go kill someone."
"Kill someone--" The witch stared at him, and then seemed to put it together. "You mean Xaldin." Her eyes darted to his face, and Axel had the sudden feeling that she would've liked to say this in private, but she didn't have that privilege. Not with them like this, not with Roxas this antsy. So she braced herself and said it anyway. "Are you really going to make this a personal vendetta against Organization XIII?"
The strangest part was that he felt something in response to that, but Axel had less than an instant to process the bizarre sensation before Roxas was spinning to face her, teeth bared. "Yes," he snapped, and then stopped himself. "No. I -- we don't have much choice!" Roxas shook his head, took a deep breath, and glanced back at Axel curiously, then pushed forward, less irrational. "If Saix did this on his own, then... we'll deal with that. But if he's not..."
He bit his lips, spun both keyblades, and Axel could feel his frustration, their frustration. "Bastards! Why can't they just trust me. I wasn't going to stop killing Heartless, they don't have to do this anymore! They didn't have to do any of this," he added harshly, and Axel knew he wasn't talking about the damage to this small world.
Namine/the witch flinched back, and opened her mouth to respond, but Roxas wasn't waiting for either of them, was already halfway to the ornamental front doors -- and he couldn't walk, but he was following anyway, dragged across the cobblestone but fast and smooth like silk over glass: frictionless, gliding, there but not there at all.
There was a loud crackling noise, and he heard the witch cry out. His Assassins had thrown themselves against her barrier to follow, and he couldn't look back, but he knew what they wanted, could hear their voices echoing in his head.
We don't hurt anymore, let us fight.
She couldn't hear them, so she was struggling to keep her wind magic strong, but Roxas jerked to a standstill and turned around. "Namine. Let them go."
Axel still didn't quite understand what a Drive was -- but he knew that Roxas could use his fire, heed the voices of his soldiers. It was closer than he'd ever been to anyone, in either of the lives he'd only half lived. If not for the numbing calm, he probably would've felt kind of--
--violated.
The witch stared at first Roxas, then him, but she released the Assassins, and hurried after them as they slithered free. "Roxas," she said softly, "I don't think this..." She stopped herself, bit her lip, and looked at him again.
Roxas gazed at her for a beat. He smiled. "Don't worry. It's hard, but I am thinking clearly. We won't -- hurt Xaldin, if we don't have to. I don't want them to fail. But I'm not going to be anyone's pawn. Not Xemnas's -- not DiZ's -- not even King Mickey's. I'm the only one who gets to decide what I do with my life."
That silenced her, even made her look -- guilty. One of them immediately felt terrible. But Roxas was firm, in spite of it.
"This is what needs to happen," he said. "And quickly. I think... I'm a lot stronger like this."
The witch/Namine met his eyes, then lifted her head, looking back. Watching the Assassins circle overhead.
Finally, she nodded.
"You're right," she murmured. "This is what needs to happen."
She'd surprised him again, Axel thought distantly, as they turned back to push the door open together. Again he'd forgotten how strong she was.
And thank god for that strength, because when he saw the room full of Heartless, Roxas's only response was another broad feral grin. He felt invincible, but he wasn't, and until the Drive ended, until Axel could move again, someone else would have to be there at his back, keeping him alive on the off-chance that Xaldin didn't feel chatty.
NEXT >>> Beast's Castle, Second Visit (Part 3)