His name is Axel, and his eyes are the green of the grass.
He watches as he watches many things, the fight between nobody and heartless. The dusk versus the shadow, a Sora versus a Roxas, one Xenmas versus Maleficent.
Sometimes he walks with Demyx, the broken musician who was never supposed to survive. He listens to the sitar spawn winding hymns of grief and loss and can't help but think of being stuck in a water storm, the heavy rain battering you to the ground.
They have hearts now.
But what have they truly regained? There is still an emptiness, in the streets and in their minds. They thought that this would fix everything, but it's only seen to cause more problems.
Their leader has become a monster. The only one who could ever pose a true threat to him - Marluxia - was long ago slaughtered, ironically, by themselves.
The nobodies are killing people. They are nothing but vicious animals now, sentience unheard. There are so many, and they all are wracked by a dreadful starvation. To stop them rising up and devouring their masters, Saix delivers them to the other worlds, where they quickly obliterate the populations.
Demyx grieves. "We shouldn't live," he often murmurs. "We are murderers, we are the irredeemable. Nothing can bring us salvation now but a guilty conscience, for all the lives we have inadvertently stolen. All for our own selfish purposes, all for none."
Fate is a cruel mistress, but Axel doesn't let himself start to see it that way. Stoop too low and the waves will fall over your head; the current pulls you to dark depths, the deepest blues of black.
So long Axel has focussed on survival that it's all he knows anymore. You have to chin up and focus on what keeps you real.
Fire.
Roxas used to laugh at Axel, joking about his appearance. Flaming red hair like blood, crawling in to char his scalp, skin and the green kindling of his eyes.
One day he'd wake up and there'd be nothing left on his head but grey ashes, and all the fire of his heart would have gone out.
At least he can die knowing has one.
Roxas, Roxas. Roxas was the beach: sandy blond hair and sea blue eyes, impossibly blue but not quite Sora's. More like Kairi's then anything, really. Roxas was his own person as much as he was a weapon lost in a desire of purpose.
His sea never aged, it just dried up. All at once into sky, sky Sora, as if it had never existed.
Axel loves the beach, but he just can't lie to himself.
Beaches and campfires sound nice together, but fire and water are opposing elements. Roxas would've quenched Axel's spirit, the sea would've. As Demyx would do.
All Axel could ever do was dance on the shore of the beach, and let it feel as if it knew him. He won't ever be able to sink beneath the waves, like Demyx. He can't swim, he can't breathe…
They are at Destiny Island's island every fucking day because they've been cornered by the nobodies, who miraculously can't swim either. Even without them, it's a matter of time. There isn't much food, and their ship has no more fuel. They're stuck.
Sometimes Axel sits with Demyx on the docks dangling their feet in the sea, but other times watches the opposing shore or reminisces after Sora.
Mostly Axel dances, at the sea shore.
His fire may go out, but the green grass of his eyes will live on past his death, and become one with the water like seaweed. He and Roxas, Demyx, anyone who ever fell, all together in perfect harmony.
A blood red sea of fire.