Prologue:
Day 6: In Which the End Draws Near
The air felt so heavy as Roxas slowly stirred -- it seemed to weigh down on his blood, his bones, his hair, pulling him into the mattress. It took a massive effort to sit up, to swing his legs over the side of the bed. And he moved so, so carefully. His head ached with fullness. Any moment now he half-thought it might spill over. Roxas blinked deliberately several times, trying to clear the Sora from his vision.
The air was so still. The room was nothing but stillness and shadows cast by his belongings against the walls.
Here again?
The feeling of being out of place receded a little as he went about his chores, but he couldn't help thinking of Namine's words -- he was a part of Sora. What if that was all he was? Maybe he was out of place.
"No, of course not," he said out loud, firmly. "I belong here." Then he wondered if his parents were still here, what they might think about this, and then he wondered, where were his parents? He hadn't seen them -- not once -- in all this time.
He stood in the empty hallway for a long minute. If he climbed the stairs, he would find their room neat, impeccable, pictures framing the walls and the bed made fussily. And they would be gone. If they had ever been there in the first place.
Roxas told himself softly, "I'm going to be late." And, first one foot and then the other, he headed out the front door.
All his friends were already gathered in the Usual Spot, talking animatedly. He heard their avid conversation as if through a long corridor, strange and muted, even though they were only a few feet away. They didn't turn to greet him as he entered, and Roxas rubbed the back of his neck, feeling awkward. "Hey," he started, "I know it was my turn to bring ice cream, but I lost my wallet the other day" falling off the Station Tower "so..."
"You're kidding, right?" Hayner said, the skepticism in his voice clear, even though he sounded so muffled. "He did not say that."
Roxas hesitated and then pressed, "Hey, I know your day is ruined, but you can pay for it yourself if you're that desperate."
"I know!" Pence agreed, his grin wide and maybe a bit smug. "I could hardly believe it either! But I swear it's the truth."
"I think you're pulling our legs, Pence," Olette said, giggling.
No, no way. Roxas shook his head, numb, and reached out to clap a hand on Hayner's shoulder, but the words died in his throat as his hand passed right through the taller boy, offering no resistance.
"Come on, would I do that?"
"In a second! I think you'd better have some proof, man, if you expect us to believe a story like that!"
"I can show you!"
The three of them turned and rushed past -- through -- Roxas, straight for the exit, with no sign that they saw him, or that they were worried about his lateness, or that he had ever existed. Roxas stood there, feeling the air hanging heavy and Sora's dreams sloshing around in his head, and... numb. Perhaps he was still asleep. Having a nightmare. It would suck, but he... at least this wouldn't be happening.
There was a strange burst of sound, startlingly loud static after the muted conversation of before, and then a familiar voice said just, "Hey."
Roxas stiffened. Axel. But he didn't turn around. Something was building in his head, some pressure, and it was actively painful to try and think of all the things he should say, the things he should do, the things he should feel... His vision was blurring, and he couldn't even tell if it was from the headache or from tears. Axel could see him.
The redhead paced around him and ducked down to look him in the eye. "I said--" Then he stopped, staring, and seemed to get a little flustered. "Here, I kinda brought you something." The tall man shoved a bag into Roxas's arms, and reflexes made him grab it, even as numb as he was. He glanced down at it. "Eat!"
Slowly, he opened the bag -- there were flavored dumplings inside. Roxas gazed at them, trying to think of when was the last time he'd eaten. He... he should be starving, but even that basic fact of life seemed to have escaped his grasp. He wasn't hungry. But how could he be hungry -- everything that had held his life together had fallen apart.
Roxas glanced up at Axel, who was watching him with... pity. "You okay?"
"Why are you here?" Roxas said stiffly, avoiding his gaze. He hoped it was Axel's fault. Hoped it was something he could do something about.
Axel shrugged a little with a small, rueful smile. "Last ditch effort, I guess." He snatched a dumpling from the bag. "I've got these icky orders to erase you if you don't come back with me..."
That managed to surprise him somewhat, in spite of his pessimistic expectations -- Roxas stiffened briefly. "You mean, to kill me. Right?" He was almost not sure if that would be a bad thing, after what had happened to his life.
"Yeah," Axel said, staring at the dumpling dejectedly. "But I don't wanna."
Why he would care one way or another, Roxas couldn't begin to understand; but Axel had implied it, hadn't he, and Namine had outright said it. I had to draw at least one...
Slowly, he said, "We're best friends, aren't we?" It's half an explanation, half just trying it on. Maybe if it's true... This could replace what he had, in some way. Or he could try.
Axel half-jumped, saying quickly, "You-- You remember that?" Roxas stared at him; those green eyes were wide and excited. Then the redhead seemed to pull himself together. "Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. Man, and I was getting all worked up over this, too. So you remember now, really? You know who you are?"
Roxas shook his head a little, awkward. Stupid to think -- it just wasn't the same. Axel didn't fit into his life like... like they did, Hayner and Pence and Olette. "I didn't say that."
Axel paused, and they stared at each other, confused and disappointed.
"Am I," Roxas asked softly, "not allowed to exist?" He just kept thinking about that sad, almost reluctant confession. If anyone could answer that objectively, maybe it would be--
But Axel laughed sharply. "What? That's what you ask me? After all this time apart?" He shook his head, hard, and the amusement died as if it had never been. "But I guess that kills the nice little illusion that you remembered who I was."
A bizarre part of Roxas wanted to apologize, even though he couldn't imagine any of this was his fault. They were both so -- incredibly reluctant to keep moving forward.
Axel tossed aside his dumpling, and murmured, "It's not too late, you know. You can still come with me."
So it's going to be a fight after all. Roxas dropped the bag of dumplings, letting the little packages sprawl out on the floor of the Usual Spot, and as he sank down the keyblade appeared in his hand without his thinking about it, as naturally as if had always been there. There was no point in struggling against the madness that had taken hold of his life -- but he couldn't stop, either. Not as long as it was within his power to struggle.
The appearance of the keyblade transformed Axel; he tensed like an animal and snarled, "You idiot!"
"This is my life," Roxas snapped back at him, more anger than he's ever known he possessed welling up suddenly. Who did this bastard think he was? How dare he?
"This? This?" Axel flung out an arm, waving at the Usual Spot. "This is your life? Let me tell you something, Roxas: this isn't real." A chakram whirled into his hand and spun across the room in a deadly arc, crashing into an end table and causing it to burst in a shower of splintered wood and old photographs.
Roxas felt his eyes widen in horror, and he cried out, "Stop it, what the hell are you doing?!" He threw himself at Axel, swinging the keyblade at his head with lethal speed, but the other chakram was there, blocking it and wrestling his wild strike down almost effortlessly.
"It's not real, Roxas!" the redhead hissed. "This is a program -- DiZ made all of it up!"
"Shut up!" He was so angry he couldn't even see, couldn't think, there were tears in his eyes again and he didn't want Axel to see them. He twisted away and shoved the taller man back, then turned to the broken end table and gently knelt to pick up a photograph: this one, when they all went to the beach that one summer--
But he wasn't in it. Hayner was standing by himself. But that wasn't right, Hayner was leaning on him in this picture, and Pence was laughing because Roxas had just dropped his ice cream, but -- Roxas wasn't in this picture.
His memories weren't real.
"I know it's not pretty. Heh, I've got more an idea of what this must be like than you'd think," Axel was saying, from behind him. "But this isn't you. Try to remember that, right?"
Roxas said numbly, "Shut up." His fingers tightened around the keyblade, on the photo, crumpling it. He couldn't look at it anymore. It was a lie. Everything was. There was nothing real in his life. He spun around and glared fiercely at Axel, raising the keyblade.
Axel was responsible, too. If he wasn't involved in creating the lies -- at least he was part of the breaking of them. And someone was going to fucking pay for this.
"You're Roxas," Axel insisted, not moving. "Number XIII. Remember? The one chosen by the keyblade. You're so much more than some -- little boy!"
"Shut up! This was the only thing I had." He had to choke back the rest of the words, the furious and despairing tirade that threatened to spill out over his tongue.
Axel's features went slack and expressionless. "No. It wasn't." Both chakrams were in his hands again, and his lips curled around the low, intent words: "You'd better not regret this."
The wiry man flung his whole body, flung himself at Roxas like a feral creature, and Roxas braced himself in an instant, prepared to block the attack that never landed. When the brutal collide didn't jar him from his pose, Roxas glanced up.
Axel was motionless, frozen mid-swing, not even breathing. Not a single hair moved as Roxas approached him, circled him in confusion. "He's... stopped."
But more than just Axel had stopped; everything had. There was no breeze, no movements from the photographs on the ground. It was as if the whole world had been paused, except for Roxas.
There was a loud sound that sent him spinning out of pure survival instinct, some invisible intercom crackling to life, and then a voice boomed, "Roxas, you must come to the mansion now. Hurry!"
And then there was silence again, achingly loud silence. Roxas looked around, feeling deflated, drained and tired. He couldn't help feeling like some closure had been stolen from him -- his anger draining away into incongruous disappointment. He'd wanted the fight. The fleeting moment of triumph or the ending of it all. But even that...
"At least it's almost over," he told himself dully.
He hoped -- with the same instinct that kept the keyblade in his hand, that made it answer his call when he needed to fight -- that there would still be something left of him when it was done.
When Namine arrived in the Usual Spot, she found Axel unmoving, as if still frozen, but bent with something like despair. A pair of Assassins circled in the air around him, listening as he said, "I guess... that's it, then. Heh. I get it now. The Roxas I knew--"
Then all three of them seemed to stiffen at once, turning around as Namine took a step forward. "Axel," she said urgently, and then flinched back, clutching at her notebook, as he lifted a chakram to attack her. "That won't help him, Axel."
"Oh yeah?"
He hadn't attacked her yet -- she was only a digital projection, of course, and it wouldn't so much as hurt, but it was something that he hadn't attacked her yet, probably especially knowing that there would be no consequences for it. Namine licked her lips and said softly, "You need to stay together right now. This could be your last chance..."
"What, to kill him?" he snarled. "He's made it quite clear he'd rather let that son of a bitch break him down than come back with me." He hurled a chakram into the wall. "He'd rather have this, cling to his comforting lies!"
"He'll remember," she told him. "I gave him back the memories."
Axel laughed thinly, his tall body curving forward again miserably. It was such a convincing display of unhappiness, she couldn't help thinking. So much more emotion than she'd ever seen from DiZ. "Right, sure you did. He knows we're supposed to be friends, but it didn't mean a damn thing to him."
But she knew her work, better than anyone -- the one thing no one else could control. Namine said confidently, "The memories are there. Layered... under all the memories of Sora, and the memories of his life here. Deep down where he doesn't know he remembers them. But I gave them back to him."
Axel looked up at her, slowly, his features drawn but perhaps with some spark of awareness, finally. "...why would you do that, little witch?"
She glanced away, not wanting to let him see the weakness that he had been trying to dig deeper into her all along. "I couldn't let it end like this. If existence really is better than nothing... his real memories must be better than what he only thought he had."
Axel was starting to straighten slightly. "Yes," he agreed, eyes narrowed. "But isn't that going against what your puppetmaster wants?"
Namine was not about to tell him, but even though DiZ had been correct about what Sora needed to become whole again, she had no faith that he was interested in a solution that didn't require the obliteration of all Nobodies. And surely that attitude was wrong.
"If Roxas had a heart," she murmured, "do you think he would he still be himself? The... 'Roxas that you knew'?"
"Of course," Axel responded instantly. "Why wouldn't he be?"
Namine tightened her lips, and she didn't say anything for a long minute. She would be betraying DiZ, but more importantly, she would be betraying Riku and Sora. Axel was no friend of hers, not like they were, and he might never thank her or think of her as anything more than a witch who had almost ruined everything. But... There was a bond between herself and Roxas, a kinship that went far deeper than what she felt for Riku, or even Sora -- ingrained so deep from the moment of her creation that maybe nothing could separate their fates.
And if she could save him, then maybe...
"Axel," she said finally, "I have an idea."
He searched her expression with those eerie green eyes, and then he smiled -- perhaps not the most convincing smile, but a smile nonetheless -- and asked, "What did you have in mind?"
NEXT >>> Prologue (Part 14)