Summary: It's been nine months. Nine months since Roxas left. Sometimes I still wonder if he's alright. I wonder if he managed to find his way to his next life. I wonder if he managed to find his friend...

Pairings: AkuRoku, RikuxSora

Disclaimer: As much as I wished, no. None of the character, nor the setting belongs to me. Dang, and I really would love to own Destiny Islands...

Child Again

Part 1 - Axel:

Let's face it: Nobody needs a heart to actually feel. Not even us Nobodies. Xemnas can rant all he wants. I don't believe one single word of his stupid theories. Not anymore.

Because right now, I'm scared as hell. And I'm sad. And fucking disappointed. Hell knows I am!

I really thought there would be a 'Happy Ending' for me. Oh well. Roxas always said I was too optimistic.

That's not true, of course. I think I was just... longing for something I could never have. And because of that, I tried to convince myself so desperately, that fate would spare me this ending, that fate would show me one day what it means to be happy, if only I did the right thing.

Ah, well. Right. Wrong. Meaningless words for a Nobody like me. Seems like I started trying to make up for my mistakes too late. Bad karma isn't that easy to patch up. Let alone karma as bad as mine.

I hear something, a quiet noise, a clank. Somebody just dropped a Keyblade. Ah, and there is the hissing sound as it vanishes.

The sound is so familiar...

Roxas is gone. Long live Sora! Hurray!

I laugh, and it hurts. But the fear is even worse than the pain. Ha! No feelings, you say? Fear is a feeling! Take that, Xemnas! Herby I shall falsify every single one of your fucking theories!

By Kingdom Hearts, am I scared!

But I can't stop laughing, even though no sound escapes my mouth. Inwardly the laughter tears me apart. It hurts like hell, but I can't stop. I raise one hand, watch small flames licking at the fabric of my gloves, burning through the black material and revealing even more blackness. Oh, whoops. The fire seems to have been hotter than planned. My hands are burnt, charred, barely recognizable as human limbs anymore. When I clench my hand to a fist, charred skin breaks, and hot blood drops down onto my cloak. Small flames spread to my sleeve, and just like this the fire spreads inside me, crawls through my veins, devours my flesh. It devours me inside and out.

Oh well. I knew this would happen. Limit attacks aren't called 'limit' for nothing. You go to the limit, exploit your potential, put all of your strength into this one last attack. Of course there's nothing left to restrain the element you unleashed. And I guess my element is the most ungrateful there is. Fire can't be restrained. Once unleashed, it's almost impossible to stop.

Roxas always said I was like the fire I control. Untamable. Unsettled. Restless.

But hey, I could think of worse ways to die than being consumed by my own fire. It hurts, but at least it distracts me from the hollow, cold feeling in my chest.

I hate it, this hollow feeling. Yeah, hate! Oh, that is a feeling we Nobodies have mastered! And yes, I'm aware that this sounds like a paradox. I hate not being able to feel? Well, nobody said being a Nobody was easy. Sometimes it's pretty confusing, I tell you.

We can't feel. It's the first thing you notice when you become a Nobody. When somebody loses their heart, their Nobody can't be happy about "being alive". The world turns cold. Everything is gray. You can't be scared, not even when you wake up at the same place where your Other died. It's possible to feel slightly confused, but most Nobodies give up and turn into lesser Nobodies, Dusks, Assassins, Dancers, Samurai, and whatever they are called. The few of them clinging to their memories turn into something like me. They keep their shape, keep the ability to think.

The second thing a Nobody notices is the emptiness. The absence of the familiar heartbeat. Because yes, you can hear the beating of your own heart the whole time. But you only notice it when it's gone. Like so many things in life. Half-life. Almost-being. Existence. Whatever it is we Nobodies do.

But as soon as you realize what happened... you start to envy humans. That's something only few Nobodies understand. They envy humans, who still possess a heart. They envy the Heartless, who steal the hearts. I think envy is the main force behind everything we Nobodies do. A romantic would call it yearning, I guess; the desire to be. But I'm not very romantic. How could I be, without a heart?

Roxas always said I was strange. I was too cheerful, too childish, too passionate for a Nobody. And Xemnas, our good ol' Superior, always freaked out when I tried to abet the younger Nobodies to mischief, or make them laugh. I only succeeded doing that with Demyx anyway, and sometimes with Roxas.

Poor Demy. He really thought he had a heart.

Whatever. Xemnas also didn't like it when I pointed out to him that he was pissed at me, which clearly is an emotion.

My theory is: Nobodies can feel. And I'm not talking about physical things, like pain, or lust... Physically, we are complete anyway. No, it's the emotions, which are supposed to be missing altogether.

I think the emotions are there. Just... extenuated. All the biochemical shit is still there anyway. Hormones and stuff. Nerves, which transport pain signals to our brain, even if the pain is not as strong anymore. It's just... the most reliable sign of feeling is the heart. We're happy, and the heart beats faster. We are sad, it beats slower. We are angry – fast. We are relaxed – slow. We are in love – fast.

But we don't have a heart, and thus we think we can't feel emotions anymore. How are we supposed to know if we're excited when there's no fast pounding in our chest telling us we are?

But right now I know I'm scared. I know it, because my stomach clenches and my body tries to curl up, despite the pain I'm feeling. Fear is an emotion. Like sorrow. Sorrow, which is choking me and making me want to scream all at once.

If only I could scream. Scream and squirm and rage because of the pain torturing me, physically as well as emotionally. But I guess I'm too weak for that already.

I hear footsteps. Somebody kneels down next to me.

"You're... fading away," Sora says, and even his voice reminds me of Roxas. I look at him, even though it hurts to move my head. Kingdom Hearts, it even hurts to move my eyes!

"Well, that's what happens when you put your whole being into an attack," I reply, and I hope my voice doesn't show how much talking hurts. I watch as lone flakes of ash and smoke raise from my burnt clothes, and I wonder if it's not only my clothing, but also my skin which flies away there. Yuck.

"You know what I mean?" I continue and try not to show how much it hurts. The fire inside me spreads; it feels like my blood is boiling. Not very pleasant. Not even for me. "Not that Nobodies actually have beings... right?" I joke, and I smile, even though I don't really feel like it.

Sora doesn't seem to like the joke. His eyes... Roxas' eyes, they are so sad...

But Roxas never looked at me like this. With his big, wonderful, beautifully blue eyes...

He was always the most emotional Nobody in the Organization. Not even me, not even Demyx ever measured up to him. But he always tried to suppress his feelings, unlike us. We always tried to feel anything so desperately. He tried to be like us. He tried to be what he thought was normal. How should he have known we weren't exactly normal? How should he have known all of us were a sin against normality, a perversion of every law of nature there is? He didn't know better. He didn't know humans were supposed to feel. Nobody ever bothered to tell him. No, just the other way round. Every Nobody in the Organization seemed to hate him, because they knew he had something they could never have: A heart. So he hid his feelings under this cold mask that I hated so much. He was pretty good at that, too.

I was the only one who knew how much his feelings hurt him, I think. I tried to tell him so many times… I tried to make him understand he wasn't a freak, like he himself believed. I tried to tell him he was special, in a good way. I tried to tell him, but he never listened to me. I tried to show him, but in the end he just walked away. If only he knew how much it hurt me when he left...

"Nobody would miss me."

I can still hear his words. If only he knew how much it hurt me... Had I had a heart, this one sentence would probably have broken it. I would… I did miss him. Hades, how much I missed him. I don't even want to think about how it would've felt had I had a heart. It was already horrible as it was. He was the only one who ever made me lose control with nothing more than four words and the sad look in his beautiful blue eyes. I never lost control like that before. Despite my elementary orientation, I always managed to keep my cool, even in the most heated battles, even during the most dangerous missions Xemnas threw at me, his trusted assassin. But Roxas… he made me lose it, and he never even knew!

To watch him as he left my quasi-almost-half-life… To look into his eyes without seeing even the smallest trace of recognition in them. To hear him call out for those kids he thought to be his friends in DiZ' simulation, not for me... not for me... I was his best friend, I was the one he should have cried out for, but DiZ took that away from us.

Feeling hope well up inside me when he said we had been friends... hope he would remember our evenings on the clock tower, where we ate sea-salt ice cream and talked endlessly... And then feeling this hope shatter when I realized he didn't remember.

To stand in front of him, my chakrams in my hands, his keyblades in his, like we had done so often in our training sessions... To know he finally remembered who I was, what we had, and still wanted to go again. Away from me.

Yes... good thing I don't have a heart. He would have broken it so many times...

"Anyway, I digress," I say, and I hope Sora doesn't notice my charred hands twitching. It hurts, it hurts so much... Does this pain ever end? "Go, find Kairi. Oh, almost forgot... Sorry for what I did to her."

"When we find her, you can tell her that yourself!" Sora cries, then presses his lips together in this cute, stubborn way Roxas always did as well.

Poor boy. He must blame himself for this. Even though he doesn't know me, even though I was his enemy, even though I played with him, used him, even though I kidnapped his girlfriend, he feels responsible for me. Maybe it's Roxas speaking. I want to believe it. I want to believe he felt so much for me, that even Sora is able to feel it now.

"Think I'll pass," I reply smiling, and inwardly I cry out of pain. I thank all gods, who would listen to a Nobody, that at least the skin on my face isn't peeling off yet. I don't want him to know how much it hurts. Because I still want to believe Roxas is somewhere in there and sees me. And I don't want him to suffer even more because of me. "My heart just wouldn't be in it, you know? Haven't got one," I try to joke again, and against my will I have to laugh. It tears me apart, and I can feel the fire burning in my lungs. It's getting harder to breathe. And I still laugh. Crazy.

"Axel, what were you trying to do?"

Hm. Yeah, what?

"I wanted to see Roxas," I hear myself answer, and for someone who hasn't got a heart, that sounded pretty sappy. But it's the truth. Why keep it a secret anymore? I'm dissolving into smoke and ashes here! And maybe... maybe he can hear me. Maybe... maybe I can tell him this way… "He... was the only one I liked. He made me feel... like I had a heart..." I smile again, despite everything. It's funny, but somehow... it's not so bad anymore. The pain, the fear... it's not that bad. I did the right thing, and it feels good. "It's kind of... funny... you make me feel... the same." Because you're Roxas. Because I can see him in your eyes, even though he doesn't recognize me again.

Stupid. He really thinks someone like me gets a second chance. "Let's meet again in the next life." That little fool. He really believed me. He is way too innocent for his own good. This is his next life, he lives on in Sora. For me... this is the end. I can't really move anymore, my vital organs are probably burnt already, and darkness starts to invade my vision. Everything around me turns gray, and the hazy light around us seems dimmed. It's hard to keep my eyes open. Liquid fire burns in my veins, and the smoke rising from my clothes grows heavier. It reeks of burnt flesh, a smell I recognize all too well. The fire gets through. More ash parts from my body, raises, is blown away by a breeze I'm not able to feel anymore.

"Kairi's in the castle dungeon," I rasp out, forcing air down my lungs. I raise my hand and bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming. I hope he doesn't notice the burnt skin under the black material of my gloves. It's not a pretty sight. "Now go," I gasp, and then my voice fails me. I can't breathe. I know my lungs have to have collapsed, but I refuse to gasp for air like a fish on land. I suppress the impulse and concentrate on opening a portal that will bring Sora to the World That Never Was. One last time I call on the shadows, push aside reality to form a gateway between the worlds.

Then everything turns black. The last thing I take with me into the darkness is the sight of big, unbelievable blue eyes filling with tears, and the sound of my name uttered with a warmth I never heard before. And for a moment brown hair turns to golden, and I know...

... This was worth everything. Roxas is alive, and he remembers me. All this... was worth it... if only I can save him.

Author's Notes: What's that? Beutelmaus wrote another fanfic? Yes, yes she did. Because that damned scene was way too short in the game!

It was actually German, and this is kinda the word-for-word translation, so please forgive if some sentences sound a bit weird... The translation itself was done during class, and it's hard to concentrate if that damn guy in front of the class doesn't stop talking! Gawd!

This fanfic was actually written for a contest, and it was planned as a oneshot, but I decided to continue it... and I'm gonna post it here, because right now I'm not able to continue Perfect Match. Maybe after the holidays... Maybe. Well. I hope at least some of you read this... If you do, please review! Reviews brighten my day!