~Prologue: The Unspoken Rules
"A multitude of Purebloods were found all across Traverse Town, with a higher concentration around the 2nd District area. Your mission for today is to destroy all of them on sight."
With an automated tone, the man with the steel-blue hair read aloud the mission report in his hands. His voiced traveled across the sparse lounge, only heard by the only other person in the room, arms crossed and rolling his emerald eyes.
"Oh come on, Saix. Not even a simple 'Hello'? I didn't wake myself up this early just for this, you know." The other man sighed tiredly.
"My duty in this castle is to debrief everyone's mission for today. Personal greetings are not required from me." Saix spouted dryly.
The other man scratched the back of his absurdly spiky red hair in response. "Ok, ok, geez. I didn't know having some sort of expression would be so hard for you. I'm on it, sir." his response dripping with sarcasm.
With a simple lift of his hand, the man with the spiky red hair materialized a dark portal from thin air, with black edges brimming around the entrance. He began walking towards it, going through the same motions as he did for the past ten years. However, before he entered, Saix grabbed his shoulder firmly. His golden eyes stared straight into his.
"Remember, Axel," his voice shifted from monotonous to a dark tone, "Whatever you do, do not make contact with her. Even watching her from a distance could jeopardize everything."
Axel pulled away from his stony glare, staring at the pale white floor. "Don't need to tell me twice."
He brushed off Saix's hand and went into the portal.
~Traverse Town~
Stepping out of the dark portal, Axel stretched out into the eternal night sky. The night felt much different from the one in his world. It was much more brighter and inviting and open, contrasting with the dark, gloomy and cloudy sky in The World That Never Was. He looked up at the stars, and mentally counted each one. It was a habit he created when he visited here, as the sky in the other worlds were too dark or hazy.
Five more stars went out, He noted to himself. That's a lot more than usual.
He looked around his surroundings. Looks like he landed himself in the 2nd District, right in front of the gates. Despite the emptiness of the streets, everything looked more cramped and bustling. Not surprising, as more and more people lose their homes these days and wander into this world. But he has to admit, the volume of people coming in these days is increasing. Almost at a disturbing level, actually. Not that it matters much to him anyway.
With only taking a single step, they arrived right on cue.
Black blobs twitched out of the shadows, yellow eyes beading around their surroundings. They were large humanoid monsters, with their long antennas arching back from their forehead. A sly smirk spread on Axel's lips. With deep concentration, intense flames had whirled in his palms, which materialized into metal chakrams. It's time to get to work.
With one swift motion, he sliced up the one on his right, and then uppercut the one next to it. They dissipated into puffs of darkness, leaving nothing else. To the Organization, pureblood heartless are nothing but a nuisance, as they don't leave the one thing they need when they disappear. He leaped again, striking at them left and right, even burning some up with a little fire magic. He threw one of his chakrams at one of the heartless nearby the stairs, but barely missed it as it dove into the ground, turning into a flat puddle. Catching the chakram back easily, he ran towards the blot, preparing to strike. When it rose back into its proper form, he simply made it burst into flames. It was nothing new, as always.
Time went on, and only a few remained in the area. Luckily for him, he had time to spare, and felt like doing a bit of bonus work. Axel readied his attack, aiming to take them all out at once.
But when he was just about to strike, he froze.
The gates entering the First district opened.
Axel cursed to himself, and fled to a shadowed alleyway. He tried to peek a glance at the gates in the distance. Sure enough, the 'heroes' of Traverse Town charged in.
With her leading the offense head first.
Sprinting into action, a trio of fighters stepped in. One was a lanky young man, with a scar brazed on the bridge of his nose and was in a near constant state of moodiness. He held a large weapon, one that seemed like a simple combination of a gun and a blade, and was waiting on standby. The other one was the complete opposite. With short black hair and was constantly bouncing around in excitement, a girl held an over-sized throwing star looked like she just itching to get some action.
And finally, there was the one in the middle. The one Axel had hidden from. Not because of fear, but for her own sake. Standing in the middle was a young woman with intense red eyes. Adjusting the worn out goggles over her head and gripping the whip in her gloved hands, she stood in front and readied her orders.
"Yuffie! Keep those two Heartless on the right busy, if you get in trouble don't hesitate to yell for help!" She ordered the short girl on her right. The girl named Yuffie immediately bounced into action, throwing her massive throwing star at said shadows.
"Squall-"
"It's Leon." The man to her left brooded.
"Sure, stay by my side and be ready to intercept any shadows that come your way!" After yelling her commands, she ran towards the shadows with Leon right behind her. In a flash, she ran up to one of the shadows and punched it square in the face. It skidded across the pavement, and melted into a dark puddle. It darted towards her and leaped out of it puddle, the shadow's claws trying to rip her head off. But in ease she dodges its slashes until she kicked it in its midsection and sent it flying until it got sliced in half by a gunblade.
She went after the next one, and pulled out her whip and caught the Neoshadow by the fountains. Pulling it towards her, she leaped in the air and kicked it between its beady yellow eyes, making it fall on the ground. Before the Neoshadow could act, her grip on the whip tightened, and threw it up in the air, flying towards Leon's direction.
"Squall!" She warned him, and like clockwork he turned at her direction and sliced the Neoshadow in the air with his large gunblade.
In an almost automatic rebuttal, He shouted back "For the last time, it's Leo-Look out!"
Without warning, the heartless behind her punched out the back of her head, making her almost collapse on the ground face front. Yet before it could do any more, a throwing star sliced up the Shadow into smoke, and returned to its bubbly owner.
"Heyyy! Are you alright there?" Yuffie yelled as she ran towards her.
Tending to the back of her head, she nodded slightly. "Yeah, I think I can walk it off. Thanks though, Yuf. You really saved my bacon there."
Yuffie responded with a nod and a smile. "Don't worry about that."
Resting his gunblade on his shoulder, Leon scanned the area around him. "All clear. Looks like we're done for the day."
With a cheer, Yuffie jumped for joy, while Leon stretched out his hand down at the fallen woman. "Well what do you know, you actually lead decently today, Esther."
Rolling her eyes, Esther firmly grasped his hand and got back up on her feet. "Decently? Please, that was a pretty good job there."
"Yeah, except for the fact you got knocked out from that last heartless." Leon mused. "But hey, at least you didn't fall into a trash can like last time."
"H-HEY!" Esther flustered around. "T-That was an accident and you know it! Besides, last time the heartless was the size of a HOUSE! How could have I dodged that thing?!"
" Oh, I remember that! It was sooo funny! You smelled like rotten eggs and meat for weeks!" Yuffie giggled.
In a huff, Esther crossed her arms. "Sheesh, what do I gotta do to get some respect in here?"
"I don't know, actually be good at your job?" Leon answered.
"Hey, zip it, Squall." She huffed again.
"It's Leon. LEON!" He yelled in an annoyed tone. She then quickly responded with a "Gesundheit."
Despite their bickering, the group eventually just started to laugh, realizing just how silly and stupid this whole conversation turned into.
In the distance, Axel still kept glancing at the group nearby the gates. It was odd seeing them laugh like that for no reason, even after bickering and arguing just a second before. Yet he kept watching, specifically at Esther. How she joyously laughs away their troubles, getting along with the others. Unknown to himself, he let out a smile.
It's good that she's still smiling, He thought to himself. It's good that she still has a heart.
"We should probably head back. Cid will yell at us for staying out for so long here." Leon said. "Since Esther lead today, I guess I'll be the one leading the team the next time we have another attack. Is that fine?"l
"Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Can we go now? I don't want to miss today's dinner. Aerith's gonna try cooking for today!" Yuffie began to drool.
Leon glanced at the drooling girl with a snide. "Of course you would think about that first."
After giving out a little laugh, the team went back towards the first district. Hearing them going back, Axel's head stared out at the group, just to see Esther one last time. He strained his neck to get a good glimpse of her. How long has it been since he last saw her?
However, when he tried to look at her closely, a branch had snapped under his foot. It was loud enough that it caught Esther's attention, and turned her head at his direction. Axel quickly hid away from her sight, avoiding her ruby red eyes that scanned around the district. She was about to walk towards the source of that noise, but was soon distracted by another one.
"Esssthherrr! What's taking so looonng?" Yuffie popped her head out from the gates. "If you don't hurry up, you're gonna miss dinner! Aerith said she got some meat today!"
In an instant Esther swerved back to the gates. "You serious? Oh man, hold up!"
As she ran towards the gates as they slowly closed, Axel opened another portal back to the castle to report back on his mission.
~Castle That Never Was~
"So, how was the mission?"
Immediately when he returned, Saix stood across him, arms crossed patiently.
"Went off without a hitch." Axel smirked. "Even got some people to clean up some of the dirty work that remained."
"And her?" He asked.
For a moment, Axel hesitated with responding, almost not looking at Saix in the eyes. "...She's doing great, maybe even better than before."
With a sigh, Saix's face almost looked like it softened in relief for a moment, but quickly turned back into his stony glare. "You are now dismissed."
"Yes, sir." he muttered under his breath, and went back to his room like always.
Since the day they lost their hearts, they made three rules to themselves that they swore to follow.
The first one was to stay loyal to one another, no matter what happens until the end.
The second one was to stick with the plan and never try to deviate from it.
And the third, was to never let her know that they exist.
Because she was so much better off now than before, and finding out that her two best friends turned into heartless monsters was something that she was better off not knowing.
AN: After years of not writing anymore, I've decided to take another crack at it.
TBH this whole fic is really just me writing out these dumb ideas I had for years, and it might not be really cohesive
This fic will jump around with the timeline, but it will make sense
Before you complain, yes this fic has an OC, but she's not paired with anyone. If anything, this fic will likely have some hints of akusai and thats it.
But thank you for reading this! Reviews would be plenty helpful as I havent written in so long so I'm gonna be a bit rusty haha
If someone can point me to a good beta that would be really great please and thank.