REASON
"I bet you'd get a kick out of philosophy."
"It's really not my thing."
"Take Descartes. He's so applicable. One can't rely on the senses to determine what's real and what isn't- just because something looks and feels and sounds human doesn't mean it is, doesn't even mean it really exists. Does that sound familiar?"
"In a "twisted for your own purposes" kind of way." Roxas is combative enough to question him, smart enough to understand that when Axel speaks he's either saying everything or nothing, no in betweens.
Axel ignores him. "But we're made real by our awareness of existence, cogito ergo sum, a thinking brain makes us real. Reasoning makes us real, otherwise we're nothing and naught. The mind is more reliable than the senses."
"And the heart?"
Axel laughs. "Nah. I wouldn't know about heart, Roxas."
The library smelled mildly of must and old paper, and somewhere at the back of his senses there was perhaps the long gone hint of ozone burn, a soft sour tinge.
He left his gloves on and ran his fingertip down the spines of the volumes gathered in the S section: alphabetical and orderly, perfectly placed because the few of them who used the space were militant about the books remaining accessible. Scott, Shakespeare, Spenser, Sun Tsu, Sydney -- alliteration made the names blend together a little in front of his eyes.
Axel was not trying to catalogue what he was experiencing. The answer was "nothing" unless he wanted to count the subtle ever present irritation and the nagging feeling that a situation once well in hand had slipped easily through his fingers.
Axel didn't like to lose. This, he supposed, weighing a book of sonnets in his palm, was bitterness. A self-associated feeling, one for himself.
Before he left he put the book back, deliberately out of place. Larxene was, after all, far too dead to raise a fuss.
"The thing about numbers is that they're easy. They don't change. You ask someone what two plus two is, you're going to get the same answer. You don't have that kind of reliability with words." Roxas is sitting on the back of one of the low white couches placed delicately in a semi -circle in the center of the room. His boots rest on the spotless cushions. He's got his hood pulled forward and his elbows rest on his knees, forearms loosely crossed. Beneath the shadow of the hood his eyes are cool and his expression calm and reasonable and detached and utterly frustrating.
Axel shifts, lifting up and then settling again, lying across those heavy boots carelessly with his arms tucked behind his head.
"That's your only reason?" he scoffs, squinting. "You prefer reliability? Where's your sense of adventure? Come on. You've got to have a good solid reason for what you think and what you say." He avoids adding the words "and feel" to the end of that sentence. "Otherwise, Shorty, it doesn't mean anything at all."
Roxas shrugs, and doesn't say anything further, because unlike Axel he seems to feel no need, no matter how creeping, to be understood.
Axel knew what was bothering him.
He paced across the open empty square beneath Memory's Skyscraper, where the smell of magic and metal still lingered heavily, where his feet automatically avoided the droplets of blood that stood out here and there, discolored in the neon light.
The otherworldly hum of more than one aggressive keyblade was distinct here, and almost intimidating. The echo of a fierce battle niggled at his senses and reverberated uncomfortably through his empty chest.
"Fuck," he finally said aloud, because the word was satisfying and it well-encompassed his frustration. "Fuck this, and fuck you."
He was bothered that he was out here at all, following trails as though he had nothing better to do, as though he even needed to search, as though he stood between two opened doors, neither of which led to anything good. He was bothered that something lingered, like smoke after heavy fire, a smell that stuck in your clothes and your hair for weeks afterwards.
The careful paths of potential and possibility that stretched out in all directions now all seemed to lead into the unknown, no place that he felt safe venturing.
Axel's knuckles scraped the dark skyscraper's surface in a sudden flashfire fit of rage, throwing off a shower of sparks that sizzled into the material of his coat and sent tiny wisps of smoke spiraling up. He was calm an instant later.
"You know, this would be a great cue for some dramatic rain."
The sky rumbled, but did not oblige. Typical, thought Axel, and slashed open a doorway into darkness for himself.
"You speak Sanskrit in your sleep," Roxas says, almost curious. Axel lifts his head from the Dusk he's whispering orders to and turns with a wary sort of look on his face, because being informed of things he didn't know about himself is unnerving. Roxas stands there, small and shrouded in his black coat, arms loose and neutral at his sides. He doesn't repeat himself.
"How do you know it's Sanskrit?" Axel says after a momentary pause. "Could be anything. Could be gibberish. I'm certifiable, you know, maybe you need to see about getting me a nice straightjacket-"
"What's 'argh-rar-tee-ee'?"
Axel manages not to wince at the pronunciation. "Aaratii," he says, and he gives Roxas a look that he knows holds nothing of whatever strange bond they've come to share, nor of mercy or of any kind of friendliness at all. "It means to plea for help." He does not elaborate that it isn't a proper conversational form, that the word is unconjugated or that he knew the answer to the question the moment he heard the first mispronounced syllable. He feels exposed and raw and not at all like having this conversation right now.
Roxas is looking back at him, measuring the weight of what might happen should he push this matter further, and there is silence between them for a long moment before he finally shrugs, in a dismissive fashion, and says, "All right."
Axel turns back to his task without another word, and listens to the sound of Roxas' footsteps fading down the corridor.
"I don't know where he is," he said, turning, making eye contact but offering no expression. "And even if I did, I'm not his keeper. If he's a traitor to us, then I'll kill him. Isn't that what any one of us would do?"
"Isn't it?" Xemnas smiled in a way that wasn't a smile at all. "I don't suppose you'd have any reason not to. As we are, we have very few reasons that serve anybody but ourselves. No..." He paused, carefully selecting his next words, "...selfless motivations."
Axel ignored the momentary twinge of frustration at the subtle outmaneuver and examined the potential endings to this conversation. His instincts murmured danger in lazy undertones.
"What do you want from me?" he said, just enough aggression to let the Superior know he wasn't in the mood to be bullied, but not enough to be a serious authority challenge. A scuffle over the position of alpha dog was the last thing he needed right now. "I think you're more than assured of my loyalty."
The two of them allowed the lie to settle comfortably between them. Axel knew his loyalty was worth shit and Xemnas had known it from day one, but they played at it anyway, because both of them knew that any weapon worth having was still capable of cutting its wielder if mishandled.
At last Xemnas said, mildly indifferent, "Find him. Kill him if he resists you. I'm sure you can handle it, Number Eight. That's an order. Motivation enough for a Nobody."
Axel knew he was being mocked, knew that Xemnas knew that their stray unlucky number was far more than a match for him, and understood that it didn't matter if he succeeded in this mission or if Roxas killed him. Xemnas would have something he wanted, either way.
He was darkly pleased by his own ability to keep his expression perfectly straight and unaffected. No words were needed.
Perfect understanding, on both sides.
Axel left.
There is a keyblade against his chest, and he feels nothing but a vague annoyance at the inconvenience, at being bested, aware that his opponent is faster, more powerful, and has the capability to kill him without remorse.
"You lied to me." Roxas is monotonous and calm, but there's an oddity to his eyes that Axel doesn't quite understand. He knows it's an emotion, but he doesn't know the name, and he spends a moment or two frantically running through the few he's familiar with: Anger, pleasure, irritation, disappointment- that last one sounds close, but the first one does too, but it's like calling a sunset red or orange or yellow, when it's all things, and there are different, fancier names for those colors that burn at your eyes.
"Yeah," says Axel, nodding peaceably, because it's true, he is a liar.
"That's great." Roxas' lips press tightly together when he's not moving them to speak. "That's great, it's really great. Thank you. You knew about him all along and you never told me."
I didn't want you to die, Axel thinks with mild surprise. Of course it's a selfish want, but for a moment it catches him off guard. He thinks of orders from above that put that sentiment in his best interest, he thinks of Xemnas wanting their thirteenth member and his dual keyblades, he thinks of what this boy looks like when he sleeps and how very, very easy it is to pretend he can hear a hollow echo of life within himself when they're pressed together. He feels a momentary flicker of self-loathing for that last thought.
It was far less difficult to infiltrate the nonexistent Twilight Town than he might have thought; Axel supposed it had to do with being only half-existent himself, in a symbolic sort of way. He spent a few hours exploring the layout, whispering soft and persuasive to his silvery servants, who were all too eager to do his bidding. He made no effort to curb their potential lethality. Roxas could more than handle a few lesser Nobodies.
And besides, there were more important things to focus on.
Roxas didn't remember him. Or himself, for that matter. A single round against him proved that. Roxas wielded the single Keyblade he'd managed to summon like it was a stick he'd picked up from the ground, something blunt and heavy.
Axel was more frustrated than anything else, and he vowed silently to do his very best to set fire to the interfering old man who he knew was responsible.
Later he crept away to one of the town's high towers to observe and lick his wounds, and he watched Roxas huddled together with a group of kids who looked about his own age, and he was unable to prevent a sneer from crossing his face.
"They're about as genuine and real as you and I are, Roxas," he murmured aloud. "Try not to get too attached, okay?"
The Assassin perched on the ledge next to him turned a sleek silver appendage like a head to regard him in confusion.
The Keyblade is warm and still humming against his chest. Axel says, "Just doing my job," because it's at least partially true, and maybe he's learning his lesson about lying to people who can unlock anything they want, even the empty rooms of a heartless creature. Fire consumes and wants for itself, but the power of the key, with its ability to open to new and unfamiliar things, is beyond him.
Roxas snarls. Axel supposes that emotion he thinks he's been looking at is probably just the white beast of power lurking within him. It's disappearing now, sliding away like a tiger through bamboo. The pressure of the keyblade against his body disappears suddenly, and Roxas steps back, small and furious and not in the slightest pathetic for his size nor his looks. There is something terrifying and majestic about him and Axel opens his mouth for a moment to remark on it, then closes it again, because at the moment he likes living. Instead he watches Roxas' nose wrinkle at the sudden overpowering stench of firesmoke, and Axel grins helplessly at his own inability to control it.
"I'm leaving to find him," Roxas declares, clenching his fists. The keyblades disappear like so much mist and darkness and the instinctive fighter in Axel tenses to pull fire and chakram out of the endless night. The weight in his stomach holds him back and it has a name but he doesn't know it and there's a coldness at that word, leaving. He feels his hands clench, and leather squeaks around his fingers.
Afterwards he was pretty sure he hated Sora, enough to want to wrap his hands around the boy's throat and squeeze until things popped and snapped and the life left his very familiar eyes.
Later still, he thought he'd probably kill anybody who tried such a thing.
There was no reason why.
He doesn't think about it. There's no need. He doesn't worry about it, nor does he fear it. Axel has spent his existence seeking out vantage points and pathways to what he wants, mowing over whoever dares to get in his way. He does not fully know what it is he wants at this moment, but he does understand that there are only two ways to go, two paths, two doors, backward or forward, emptiness or meaning.
"Watch this."
He is choosing forward.
In the aftermath it grew quiet in the void, save that ever present bone-scraping hum of the keyblade, no sensation but the reflection of Sora's light against his face, and Sora's sudden, unexpected grief. Axel supposed the sadness could have belonged to someone else, but he wasn't going to hold out hope. There wasn't any need for that.
It didn't matter that he was dying, because he'd known all along that he would eventually. It was a matter of time, and place, and motivation, and all in all Axel was pretty pleased with his reasons.
It was kind of funny, really. He couldn't stop laughing.
"'Naught loves another as itself, nor venerates another so; nor is it possible to thought... a greater than itself to know.'"
"And what does that mean?" Roxas asks, and he's almost smiling.
Axel just shrugs, and closes his eyes again. "It means nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Mmhm. Nothing at all."