(A/N) Oh dear, what to say? What to say? Well this is my first Kingdom Hearts fic. I'm working through the first one a second time and I'm gnawing away at CoM little by little. But for what I haven't played I know from my little brother. Because of him I know the story inside and out and the concept caught my interest. I was there when he played the scene where Axel died and I thought, "That can't happen!" So basically this story was inspired by that one moment. I'm giving Axel a life before Organization XIII. It's been done before, but never like this. So, wish me luck and tell me what you think. And even though the first couple of chapters are mostly setting up Axel and Takiren's story, there will be plenty of other romances here. Like Kaiora, Sqinoa, Cloudifa, and others. BTW, just thought I'd mention that this story begins during KH1 just shortly after the locking of Hollow Bastion. Or at least, that's the recognizable part where it officially picks up. Props to anyone who recognizes the three men in the opening sequence.
Disclaimer: If I actually need to say anything here to be understood than you make me sad…so be it! If it's on this site then of course I don't own it!
One Kiss Before The Sun Sets
Chapter 1: One Blaze of Glory
Fear. Fear is a funny thing.
Lea had thought he'd known fear. In the war between the houses he had been part of a special forces dispatch. He had seen death up close. He had seen friends die. He had killed. But the thing was, he was beginning to learn that he didn't know the first thing about fear. Lea had never gone into a fight that he knew he would lose.
"Hey, Lea, do you believe in God?" one of the men standing beside him asked.
Lea thought about this a moment before answering. He pondered the question over and over again as he tried to tame his unkempt red hair. But he wasn't getting an answer that he liked.
"You know, Ydem, I just don't know anymore. You'd think that if there was a god, then maybe we wouldn't be here right now. What kind of deity lets shit like this happen?" Lea asked bitterly.
"Just asking. Besides, wasn't it you who said that you'd found heaven a few months ago?"
"Yeah, well, your so-called heaven tried to take back its angel."
"That's so poetic," Ydem tried to joke. "And so unlike you. Remember the good old days when it was you always trying to cheer me up?"
"Uh huh. The world's officially been turned upside down now. If there is a god, he must have a pretty sick mind." Lea said, making a half-hearted attempt to return the joke.
"And you, my young friend, have quite a twisted sense of humor," another voice added as its owner entered the white, lab-like room where the three men waited. The newcomer was dressed in a long black robe. The hood was thrown back to reveal pale blue hair and a pair of cattish yellow eyes. And in his hands, he held an opalescent sword. The blade of which appeared to be fashioned out of diamond. It was a blade that Lea recognized.
"That's Liberator's Heart! One of Takiren's jewels. Where did you get it, Saix?" he asked furiously.
"From Takiren," he answered simply.
"But how?" Lea asked, barely daring to hope. "You don't mean…she's-"
"Yes. She is completely cured. She is still a little drowsy after everything her body has been through, but she is perfectly fine."
"Please, Saix! You have to let me see her one more time! I need to know that she's all right. Let me hold her one last time before-"
"No," Saix interrupted harshly. "That life is over. Accept it. You belong to the darkness now. You are not leaving this room…ever again."
Lea was surprised at how little that last statement scared him. But then again, he knew what was about to happen.
"So that's it then," Ydem said remorsefully.
"Still, how did you get the jewel, Saix?" Lea asked angrily.
"When I took Takiren from the pod I made her activate the jewel. Not that she was fully aware of what she was doing. I had to use my own methods of persuasion. Takiren would never agree to this procedure," Saix explained stoically.
"What have you done?" Lea asked, still furious.
"Nothing a few hours of rest will not heal. Perhaps it is better this way. Now she cannot interfere."
"Saix, I swear, if you've hurt her, I'll-"
"You are in no position to be threatening me, Lea. It is yourself you should be worrying about."
"Don't worry," Lea relented, backing down. "I won't fight you. You kept your word and Takiren's still alive. You…you can take my heart."
"Whoa! Hold on a minute! What's this about hearts?" Ydem asked, panicked. "Nobody said anything about hearts!"
"You mean you didn't tell him?" Lea asked.
"I told him what he needed to know in order to gain his cooperation. I told him that he would be part of medical experiment. All he wanted in return was the munny for that foolish sitar."
"But you can't make him do this if he doesn't want to!"
"Correction. Now that he is here, he doesn't have a choice."
"Ludor, did you know?" Lea finally addressed the third man in their group.
"I knew," he said, speaking for the first time in a long while. "But I'm doing it to stay out of jail. Besides, do you have any idea what kind of power we'll have if we survive this?" he said as he continued to shuffle his deck of cards.
"That's a big if, Ludor."
"Well it's a gamble I'm willing to take," he said smugly. "If anyone on Galenna is strong enough to withstand the rending of body and heart as I understand it, it's you and me."
"But what about me?" Ydem asked fearfully.
"You? Hell, I don't even know why you're here."
Ydem barely managed to keep his whimpering in check at that comment.
"Now, if you will all hold still for a moment, I cannot have you getting away-"
With that, Saix raised his hands and shot bursts of light at the three men. The next thing they knew they were bound at the wrists and ankles by cuffs of pure energy and they seemed to be hanging in midair.
"I- I can't-move!" Ydem shouted, struggling to try and free himself.
"How are you doing this?" Lea demanded.
"It is just one of my abilities. If you retain a sense of self once you are split perhaps you will receive this kind of power."
"What do you mean? Are you saying that you've been through this procedure?"
"Not this exact one. Something similar to it. But your suspicions are correct. I do not have a heart. I am a Nobody."
"W-what's a Nobody?" Ydem asked.
"It is what the three of you will become once I have used the jewel witch's blade to unlock your hearts. A Nobody is the body and soul of a living being left behind when his or her heart is taken by darkness. If your will is strong enough then you will retain a sense of self as I have. I have reason to believe that out of all of your people, you three are strong enough to do that. Ludor because of his lust for power and his survivalist instinct. Ydem because of his passion for his music. And you," he said to Lea as he brandished Takiren's weapon before him. "Because of the great love you bear for the jewel witch, Takiren. And if her feelings are just as strong, then maybe she will survive as well."
"LEAVE TAKIREN OUT OF THIS!" Lea screamed, struggling futilely against his bonds.
"Ah, such devotion for something so fleeting. And now it is time to put that strength to the test!"
But as Saix was preparing to slash the blade through Lea's heart, the door behind him suddenly opened. A young woman stood in the doorway. She was clad in baggy, black slacks and a lavender tank top. Loose braids of dark purple hair hung to her shoulders and her emerald green eyes were wide with confusion and fear.
"Takiren!" Saix hissed.
"Lea! What's happening here?"
"Takiren, you have to get out of here now! Go!"
"I won't leave you here!" she cried as she raced to him. Saix backed away and Takiren flung her arms around Lea.
"I thought I'd never see you again," Lea choked, hardly able to contain the emotion of seeing her back from the dead. "But you're in danger here. You must go. Now!"
"Never."
Lea felt his resolve melting away.
"Takiren…kiss me one last time, before he takes my heart away," he pleaded, on the verge of tears.
"What?"
"Please…just do it."
Slowly, Takiren lifted her face up from his chest. She tangled her fingers in his unruly red hair, and captured his lips in a smoldering kiss. Lea drank in the passionate essence of that kiss like water, imprinting everything about that moment into his mind. The feel of her body against his…the clean scent of her hair…the sweet taste of her soft lips. After this moment, if what Saix had said proved to be true, then he would truly never see her again. She would be dead to him. Their life…the love that they shared…everything would be lost. It broke his heart to know that he would never again kiss her like this, or hold her in his arms…never again tell her how much he loved her. Hot tears began to stream silently down his face.
"I love you," he whispered tearfully against her mouth, breaking off what he knew would be their final kiss.
Takiren backed away from him, about to respond when Lea suddenly threw his head back and gave a strangled cry, his eyes wide with pain. Takiren looked down and saw the blade of her own weapon, Liberator's Heart, sticking out of his chest. Saix had stabbed him in the back, directly piercing his heart.
Takiren looked on in horror as her lover's face cracked into fragments not unlike a broken mirror.
"Please- Takiren…" Lea grunted. "You must live."
Then, with a burst of light, his entire body shattered into a million pieces like a destroyed jewel.
"NOOOOOO!"
XxX
Hollow Bastion
(4 years later)
Takiren awoke from the nightmare screaming as she had hundreds of times before. She shot up in bed, searching the darkness for Saix's leering face. This time it took her a full five minutes to realize that she was no longer on Galenna. The confrontation with Saix was over. Lea was gone.
Suddenly the door to her room burst open and Aerith ran in.
"Takiren, are you all right? I heard you screaming."
"Four years," she said, her voice trembling. "It's been four years tonight."
"Another bad dream?"
"Yeah," Takiren whispered as her mind drifted back into the memory of that last kiss. She could still feel the warmth of his body pressed up against hers. Whenever she curled her fingers she could feel his wild hair caught in her grasp. In her mind, Lea's lips were still pressed against hers, begging for one more day. She could still taste the sorrow of his tears.
Aerith didn't speak. She knew that there was nothing that she could say. Nothing could penetrate Takiren's shell when she got like this. Well, nothing except Leon smacking her upside the head, and then she would go berserk and start screaming that he was some guy called Saix and demanding to know where Lea was. Sometimes Aerith wondered what really happened when her world was destroyed. Takiren would never give them the entire story. The only thing that the friends could gather from her story was that she believed that her fiancé, Lea, was still alive somewhere. Ever since she had shown up in Traverse Town, Takiren had disappeared and reappeared on her search for her lost love. They never knew when she would show up or how and when she would depart, but they helped her when they could. And now that Sora had sealed away the darkness of Hollow Bastion and they had returned home, she had somehow found her way to them again. She had been back with them all of seven hours and already the old nightmares were plaguing her. But either way, Aerith sat down on the edge of the bed now and waited for Takiren's trance to pass.
Takiren, meanwhile, was caught in the grips of a vision. A boy with silver hair was standing in front of the bed. She had met him briefly on a journey to Agrabah. His name was Rick…or Riku, or something like that.
"Why are you just sitting around when you know that he's still out there somewhere? What if he's suffering and needs your help?"
But, she protested to the apparition, Saix said-
"Who cares what Saix said? You can save him. There are still places you haven't searched yet. Go!"
Takiren knew that the boy was no more than an illusion created by her sickened, stressed mind, but she also knew that he was right. Who could stand idlely by while there was work to be done? Her conscience would not allow her to rest until Lea was back safe in her arms.
"Riku," she whispered aloud.
"Riku?" Aerith asked, confused. "How do you know about Riku?"
"No…please," Takiren grunted as she struggled to break free of the hallucination and rise from the bed. "I need to go!"
"But- but you just got here," Aerith tried to argue as Takiren stood up and started to gather her gear.
"No matter," she answered hastily as she picked the pouch that contained her arsenal of jewels up from the nightstand and strapped it around her waist. "I am summoned."
"Summoned? What do you mean? Summoned where? Who's summoning you? Where will you go this time?"
"I don't know where I'll end up. My heart knows what I seek. I will follow where it leads me."
But just as Takiren was throwing the last of her supplies into her knap sack, the door to her room was flung open again and Leon barged in, followed by Cid and Yuffie.
"Don't you know how to knock?" Takiren asked, sighing in exasperation. Normally she wasn't this short with people, but she was in a hurry to be gone.
"You're running again, aren't you?" Leon said, more than a little irked with her lack of consistency.
"I can't rest. Not until I find him."
"Takiren, I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you really want to find Lea then you should wait for Sora to return," Leon said, fixing her with a hard stare.
"I've heard these arguments before," Takiren said sadly. "You don't even know when Sora will come back, do you?"
Leon begrudgingly shook his head No.
"Besides, I seriously doubt that your precious Keyblade Master could help Lea."
"Well maybe we could help if you'd just tell us what happened to him," Yuffie said indignantly. "How do you even know he's still alive?"
"It's…complicated," she said, as she had so many times before. "But I know that he's alive. I can feel it. And Saix told me-"
"Who the hell is this Saix you're always talking about?" Leon shouted. He had finally had it up to there with Takiren's cryptic answers.
"A Nobody," she finally answered.
"What?" all four friends gasped as one.
"Please, no more questions. That is really all the answer I have to give you," she said as she knelt in the middle of the room.
"Hey! Wait a second!" Cid tried to speak to her.
"Don't try to stop me," Takiren said to all four of them. "I don't know where I'm going or when I'll return. But I will return."
With that said, Takiren turned her attention back to the task at hand. She ran through her jewel supply until she found the one she wanted, the wild fire gem. She held the gem in her open palm and focused her energy on it.
"I summon thee," she whispered to the jewel, and instantly it transformed into a long spear that shone brilliantly in the dim light of the bedroom. Then, focusing all of her will power on opening the gateway, she channeled her power into the spear and slashed it violently through the air. The space she had slashed split apart, revealing a door into the darkness.
"Be careful," Aerith warned as Takiren stood up.
"Good luck, kid," Cid added.
"Come back soon," Yuffie said.
Takiren turned to look at her rag-tag band of friends one lost time before entering the portal, particularly at Leon. She didn't want to part with him on bad terms. But apparently neither did he.
"I hope you find what you're looking for."
Takiren nodded once before stepping through the portal and sealing the way behind her.
"When do you think she'll be back?" Aerith asked aloud.
"Who could say?" Leon said as he walked out of the room. "If I've learned anything about Takiren, it's that she's an obstinate girl."
XxX
Castle Oblivion
(Same Night)
Roxas crept silently through the stark, white halls of Castle Oblivion. Some sort of storm was raging in the strange half-existence that lay beyond the castle walls. It seemed to match the turmoil brewing within. Everyone was on edge. Something was about to happen. Roxas could tell Organization XIII was keeping something from its youngest member, namely himself. Something big was going on and no one would tell him what. Figured. They never told him anything. It was on nights of major frustration like this one, that Roxas would go and see Axel.
Axel, Number VIII, was the only one who was ever really nice to him. When Roxas first came to the Organization, Axel had befriended him. He'd shown him the ropes. And when the fiery redhead wasn't setting things on fire, acting like a clown, or being a complete jackass, he was actually a pretty cool guy. Axel was…well…his best friend. As far as Nobodies went anyway.
When he reached Axel's room, Roxas knocked on the door. When he didn't get an answer Roxas figured that Axel was either not in or asleep, so he decided to find out for himself. Roxas pushed open the door…and received the shock of his young life.
Axel was lying on his bed in nothing but a pair of black pants. He was tossing and turning, trying to free himself from the flimsy sheets he'd managed to get himself tangled in. His body was wet with sweat, his normally wild hair matted down against his skull, and he was shouting to high heaven. Now that Roxas had opened the door the noise was starting to carry out into the hall. As Roxas approached his struggling friend he noticed shreds of black material littering the bed and floor. It took him a few minutes to realize that they had once been Axel's Organization robes.
"Axel!" he shouted, gripping his shoulder and trying to shake him awake.
"No…Takiren, no!"
"AXEL!"
Suddenly Axel sat bolt up right in bed. His eyes snapped wide open, revealing an insane fire in their crystal green depths. Before he even realized who was standing in front of him, Axel summoned a chakram into fiery existence and slammed the bladed weapon into the boy's chest. Axel retracted the chakram just in time for Saix and Marluxia to come racing into the room.
Roxas' cry of pain was what finally brought Axel out of his nightmare. His eyes filled with horror when he saw his friend collapsed against the far wall of his room with a ghastly wound running from his right shoulder down to his stomach. There was no blood though. The fiery chakram had cauterized the wound.
"ROXAS!" he shouted as he leapt off the bed and knelt in front of the boy.
"Number VIII! What is the meaning of this?" Saix demanded furiously as the other members of the Organization gathered outside the doorway, attracted by the noise.
"H- help me," he appealed to the second in command, disregarding how bad the situation looked. "He's barely breathing!"
Saix turned back to the group in the hallway. "Lexaeus," he said. The man quickly stepped forward, healing potion in hand. He entered the room and quickly knelt down beside Axel. He uncorked the bottle and tipped the liquid down Roxas' throat. For a moment there was nothing. But then Roxas coughed and the wound began to heal. When he was able to, he sat up. And when Axel realized that the crisis was over he assumed his usual sarcastic manner.
"Sorry, but that's what you get for coming into my room unannounced. Don't you forget it. And don't go scaring me like that again."
"It's all right," Roxas said as Axel helped him stand up. "You were having a nightmare. By the way, who, or what, is Takiren?"
"Takiren?" Axel stared blankly at the blond. "Uh…I'm pretty sure I don't know any Takiren."
"Whatever you say. But that's the name you were shouting in your sleep."
The only ones present who reacted to that statement were Saix and the newly arrived Superior.
"Number XIII, everyone, I think it would be best if you all returned to your rooms immediately," Saix ordered.
Roxas and Lexaeus trooped out of Axel's room and followed the others back down the hall. But not before Saix ordered Lexaeus to return with a sleeping potion in five minutes. When he had done this, the only ones remaining in Axel's room were Axel himself, Saix, and Xemnas.
"So what was that about?" Saix asked him condescendingly.
"I guess I had a nightmare and Roxas woke me up on the wrong side of the bed," Axel replied glibly before downing the sleeping potion Lexaeus had given him.
"And you don't remember anything about it?" Xemnas asked.
"No, not rea- hey…wait a sec," Axel said sleepily. Dang that potion was fast. "I do…kinda (yawn)…remember- something-"
"What?" Saix questioned sharply.
"Would ya calm down and (yawn) let me finish?" Axel jibed as he collapsed back down on his bed. "I…remember…"
"Yes?"
"Eyes…green (yawn) e-zzzzzzzzzzzz." Axel didn't get a chance to finish, as he was sleeping like a log.
Xemnas turned away from the sleeping Axel with an agitated snarl.
"Superior…he could have been talking about someone else."
"We can't take that chance."
"Could it be that the unchained portion of his memory is…chaining itself back together?" Saix suggested tentatively.
"No, that's not possible. More likely Takiren has picked up his trail again. It's almost strange. I would have thought she would have given up long ago."
"She will never give up. Not so long as she is still breathing. I would not expect anything less of her. Unfortunately a bond like theirs is not so easily severed. Perhaps only death will end it. Her heart is very strong."
"But what could her heart possibly be calling out to that allows her to track him? Axel no longer has a heart!"
"I know, Superior. But either way, we need her to find her way to us eventually."
"In any case, I want you to locate Takiren immediately. When you do find her, bring her here."
"With pleasure, Superior. But what about the Keyblade Master…and Axel?"
"Let us not think of the Keyblade's chosen one now. I am confident the plan will work. However it will be necessary to bring him here if it fails. And as for Axel, Marluxia can control him. I will send word to him tomorrow. Under no circumstances is Axel ever to come into contact with Takiren while she is a "guest" here. I will not run that risk. And no matter what, Takiren must not leave this place with her heart intact."
"It shall be done, Superior."
XxX
(A/N) So what do ya'll think? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Perhaps you even like the story. Just thought I'd give you a taste of it before finals start next week. Let me know if I should continue with it at all.
