Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts

Chapter 1

"Hey Axel, I have a question." This came from a shortish blond kid of no more than 15, whose hair was generally spiky in a general upwards direction. He looked young, but at the same time you got the feeling that he was tired with the world, tired enough to just give up. He seemed sad, in a way that made you feel he'd been sad for a long time. He looked as if he'd seen too much in his life.

Axel, who was a tall, thin man with bright red hair that went backwards in lots of separate spikes, said "Whats up, Roxas?". They both wore matching black cloaks that covered them from head to foot. They had deep hoods that could completely conceal the face of the wearer if it was pulled up all the way, but in a concession to familiarity and friendship the wore them down.

"Why are we called Organization XIII?" asked Roxas.

Axel looked up at him, but nothing showed on his face. "Because there are thirteen of us." he replied in the strange tones of one who thinks the question is stupid, but knows that the questioner is not. He wondered why Roxas would ask that.

"Right, thirteen for the thirteen members. But what about before I joined? Were you called Organization XII because there were only twelve of you?" Roxas asked.

Axel suddenly got a pained look on his face. Roxas wondered about what Axel could be remembering that would crack his laid-back shell, and cause him to look like that. In a slightly troubled voice Axel said "Umm... No, we've been called Organization XIII since the beginning."

"Even when there were only twelve of you?" Roxas persisted, having realized that Axel had avoided half of the question. Axel was never usually evasive with him. If Roxas asked a question Axel either told him the answer or told him that he didn't know the answer. He had never tried to dodge a question before.

"Well, there were actually still thirteen of us," Axel said, "but our original thirteenth member...ah... left us." he wondered why he was telling this to Roxas. It was ancient history. And some memories are better left forgotten. "I've got to go." he said standing up abruptly. He portalled away leaving a puzzled Roxas sitting on the tower.

Roxas eventually found Axel on the Altar of Naught, staring up at Kingdom Hearts. Since Roxas arrived at the castle and joined the Organization he had been up here a few times, and he swore that the creepy and beautiful heart shaped moon was never anything but full and was always getting bigger. He walked up beside Axel and stood in silence for several minutes. Axel didn't seem to know he was here.

"Her name was Xsivah(pronounced Zee-vah)." Axel said in a slightly more sure of himself tone of voice than the evasiveness of earlier.

Roxas, startled at the words that arrived with no warning, automatically said "What?".

"Our original thirteenth member." he explained, "Her name was Xsivah." He felt good to be finally telling someone about her. He realized there had been a weight in his chest for a long time now, and was glad to be finally ridding himself of the pain. "When she joined she wasn't just starting as a Nobody, she had been one for a while. When me and Lexaeus were sent to find her we got ambushed by some Heartless and managed to lose her somehow. We searched for hours but couldn't find her anywhere, and eventually we had to give up. We never did find out what happened while she was alone. We assume she went through all the discovery training, you know, the weapon and the element stuff, by herself and taught herself to fight". After a pause Axel let out a short bittersweet bark of laughter. "Well, she sort of taught herself to fight. It was relatively okay, considering she had no formal training whatsoever."

At the beginning Axel had been just remembering Xsivah. Now he was oblivious to Roxas, who had been listening quietly, and was reliving his memories in a sort of trance. "Ha, everyone thought she was so weird at the beginning, but they began to trust her, and she began to trust us. She was... different from the other members, she didn't really care about Kingdom Hearts, or becoming a Somebody again. She only cared about her friends. She became friends with the Neophytes but it took a really long time. Every time she felt vulnerable she hid in the Darkness, like she was afraid of friendship. It was strange, how hard it was for her to form trust.

"What about you?", asked Roxas, "Were you two friends?"

"Yeah," Axel said giving Roxas a sad smile, "She used to be my best friend."

Updated: 2/24/11

Sorry for the long gap between chapters, have been busy for a while.

In response to my three favorite reviews in no particular order:

SoraIsMyHomeboy: Thank you very much, and thats what I was thinking too.

.fury: Thank you as well, and please continue with the criticism. It just makes the story better.

: Thats a crazy coincidence...yeah.