Author's Note: I suppose this is really a mild AU, but I started writing it before I knew that. This is a birthday gift for Dora. Perhaps I'll have finished it by her next birthday. Standard disclaimers apply.
Missing Piece
Sleeping with the televisionand all the lights on
One of us is leaving soon, but
we're both already gone
Stuck at the lost and found
we watch things disappear
Looking for the Missing Piece, but
it was never here
— Lost & Found, Adrienne Pierce
Part One:
To be honest, Axel didn't recall what his orders were that day. But the orders were coming from Saïx, so he was just going to use his imagination. Stirring up trouble, unleashing Heartless, and then killing anyone stupid enough to stand against him with his fiery chakrams of death.
If those weren't the orders he was actually given, then it was all Demyx's fault. (The guy liked to pretend that he was harmless and a bit of a idiot, but Axel could tell the truth. If pressed, the self-proclaimed "Melodious Nocturne" was just as dangerous as the rest of them.) Demyx had read the orders off of one of his note cards, said that they picked the wrong guy for the job, and then vanished into a portal.
"Wise move, buddy," Axel muttered, but even he couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.
So anyway, there he was in the middle of a big town bustling with loads of folks just going about their normal day, worrying about whatever it was that people with hearts worried about. (Axel knew that his Other, Lae, had been concerned about a great number of things that he could no longer really understand, like family and love, and other indoor sports.) Sometimes it made him curious about what he would be like with his own heart, once all of the plans were laid to rest.
But that was really beside the point. The point was that he was in the middle of one tiny, boring little world with no major stains of darkness, and he had orders (perhaps) to wreak some freaking havoc already. Major signs of darkness would attract the kid who carried the Keyblade, and then he would slip out of sight, unnoticed (Nobodies were good at that—no one pays attention to a nobody unless they raise a fuss) and return to the castle in The World That Never Was.
But really, where to start? There was some sort of competition going on down at a place called "the sandlot," and it must have been a big deal to the denizens of the place, because they were raising hell over some kids with blue padded bats beating on each other. Axel stayed in the background for a while, watching the crowd. Sure, there were people who could be tempted into darkness, but that was someone else's shtick.
What else was there to do? Axel was bored as hell, so he unleashed a horde of Heartless into the center of the mess. Oh, then things got a little more interesting. Screaming, confusion, people losing their hearts by the dozen. Lovely, even if it didn't have enough oomph for him, personally.
He watched with one eye scanning for trouble, the other scanning to see if anyone would try to stop the carnage. Usually there was at least one or two stupid idiots who—oh yes, there was one right there.
He stood, almost calm in the mass of screaming and wailing and dying, eyes unwavering. He was dressed in what Axel assumed was the usual fair for the folks in this particular world, a blue stick of something resembling ice cream in his hand. Then there was a flash of light, and Axel would have gotten nervous had he been in possession of a heart.
The blasted boy had a keyblade where the ice cream had been.
Carnage again, but of the other sort. Shadows breaking apart, hearts flying, the usual. The kid kept bashing away, hacking one Heartless away after another with that odd expression on his face.
Axel took stock for a moment, searched through his limited memory of human facial expressions. No, it wasn't boredom. Boredom was easy to identify. Determination? Perhaps, but he wasn't sure he really got that vibe from him. It was more like the kid was empty inside (something Axel identified with on a very basic level) and beating the crap out of the Heartless was the one thing keeping him from breaking apart.
That was the Keyblade Master? Axel tried to remember the description he'd heard. Short kid, big feet, spiky hair, kind of smug expression? Well, except for the smug expression, the kid fit it to a T.
The battle lasted ten, maybe twenty minutes. Then, in the same abrupt fashion the Keyblade had appeared, the ice cream was back in the kid's hand. He nibbled at it absently as Axel approached him.
The kid turned to him with wide, vacant blue eyes. He was, at the oldest, thirteen. He seemed to look Axel's coat over, then stared directly into the shadows Axel knew were covering his face.
"All right, Keyblade boy," Axel said, and tossed the hood back. "And how might you be doing?"
The kid looked down at his ice cream. "Dunno," he replied. Then he looked back up at Axel and handed the stick to him. "Here."
"All right," Axel said again, but with a little more caution. He'd never seen the Keyblade Master before, and he'd always kind of assumed that they would battle it out to the fiery end if they ever met, but this was something else entirely. He examined the ice cream in his hand, then with more caution than he could recall ever displaying, he took a tiny little lick.
It was disgusting.
He expected the kid to laugh at him and the face he made at the taste, but all he got was more silence. "Geez, kid," he complained, "ice cream's gotta be sweet! What kind of flavor is this?"
"Sea salt," the kid replied.
Axel shook his head and handed the ice cream back. "This is some kind of town," he muttered. "Strange kids, that whole Struggle thing, and now this."
"I like it," the kid replied. "I think." He tilted his head to one side, regarding Axel with that creepy stare. "Who are you?"
"I'm with this group," Axel explained, not even really knowing why. "We're called Organization XII. My name's Axel. Got it memorized?" He let his hands fall to his sides, ready to grab the chakram should the kid pull the Keyblade out again. "I'm a bad person. What about you?"
"Me." Something with the conversation wasn't lining up. The kid should have sounded surprised, Axel knew that. Or angry. Or something. But he just looked down at his hands, wrinkled his brow the tiniest bit and then mumbled, "I'm nobody."
And then it all suddenly made sense. The fighting, the strangeness, the vacant expression when he should have been looking smug. The Keyblade Master had fallen into darkness! How interesting! Axel laughed, and that finally got a reaction out of the kid. He looked up from his hands, expression one of vague confusion.
"That's okay," he assured the kid, throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him close. "I'm nobody, too."
To be continued...