Author's Note: I encourage all of you lovely readers to go check out this awesome picture on Deviant Art that inspired this story. It's a wonderfully sad piece of art. It's called "Loss of Red" by ShadowCloak.

Rated T because Saix has a wonderful way with words.

"Axel is dead."

I felt three pairs of eyes swivel in my direction. I chose to ignore them.

When they realized that I wasn't going to give them a response, Xigbar and Luxord broke into a conversation regarding hearts and morality bullshit while Xemnas silently looked on above us.

"He put something that doesn't exist on the line...and probably won." Luxord's voice brought me back from my thoughts. "Obviously a cheater."

I wanted to punch him in the mouth. I could feel Xigbar's eyes on me again. Why couldn't they leave me alone?

"It doesn't matter." I hiss, giving them their coveted reaction. "All he got was nothingness. Axel couldn't stand living without a heart, and was killed by getting close to one."

"Why Saix, it almost sounds like you harbor a resentment towards your old pal." Xigbar quips, grinning at me. I say a mental 'fuck you' towards him.

Luxord begins shuffling his godforsaken cards and Xemnas is still watching us like a gargoyle on the roof of a church. I can't take this much longer, they are all driving me insane.

"He was weak." I spat, finishing my thoughts in hopes of ending this meeting.

"But some things awaken through weakness," Xemnas says, speaking for the first time since he said those three little words. "You see, when Axel was with Sora, perhaps he awakened too."

His gaze lingered at the chair directly across from him. Roxas's chair.

Roxas. Just saying his name makes my blood boil. If it wasn't for him, perhaps Axel and I would of still been friends-

No. I shake my head. There was no friendship between us. You're dead to me, in the metaphorical and now the physical sense.

But then why did I feel like this? "Ha," I laugh inwardly. "Feel. Good one, Saix."

Xemnas dismisses us. I'm the last one to leave.

I portal into the one room that will justify the Superior's claims. It's not that I didn't believe him, it's just, well...

Okay, I didn't believe him.

The Proof of Existence is not the most happy room in the Castle That Never Was. Granted, no room in this castle was happy, but this one was always the worst in my opinion. Xemnas claimed that the purpose of this room was to mark our existence, to prove that we had outsmarted nature by outright living.

It had always felt more like a graveyard to me.

I walked up and down the red-stained rows that marked our fallen comrades until I approached my own marker, glowing with a faint blue color. I had to will myself to look over towards yours.

Number eight. The Flurry of Dancing Flames. It's sort of funny in a way. Red is the color that I associated with you the most.

Except for now.

The red glow from your grave (marker, I hastily note to myself), blinds me. I stagger away and somehow manage to conjure up a portal. My mind feels foggy and I haven't the slightest clue as to where I'm going until I step out from the other side.

Oh.

It's your room. Of course.

Something moves out from the corner of my eye. I turn around and see the dusks flaying to and fro, carrying things in their long spindly arms.

Your things.

I angrily rush forwards and snatch the object from the arms of closest dusk to me. It's your notebook where you kept track of missions and thoughts, trying to hold on to what little life you had left.

"Get out of here!" I snarl to the dusks, who have begun to conjugate around me.

"Master's orders." One hisses in my head.

"I don't give a damn about the master or his orders. Get out or I'll make you get out." My claymore materializes in my hands instantaneously.

The dusk that I snatched the notebook from shrugs at his pale comrades.

"If he wants to face the master's wrath, so be it." They throw your belongings into a careless pile and slither out the door.

I walk over to the pile and pick up the object on top. One of your spare coats.

I automatically reach it to my lips and give it a simple kiss.

A kiss of goodbye.

I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I hate you. You're nothing to me. And yet I can't stop myself.

The phrase that you used to say to every new person you met pops into my head.

"Let's meet again, in the next life." I murmur into the soft leather folding of your coat.

"Lea."