Title: Grimm, Little Red

Author: Digimon Empress Yaten (de yaten)

Notes: This was originally written as a giftfic on livejournal. This is the slightly more edited, a bit longer version of what I posted there. This is the second chapter to Grimm, but it's more like a companion story. It's a bit darker, and there's some gore (nothing too graphic) near the end. Edited 3.10.2008.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters, or the quote from the beginning. I do not claim to own them.

:There are no happy endings, because nothing ends:

Once upon another time, there was Axel.

Axel was dangerous but beautiful because his hair was both as red as blood and black as coal, and his eyes were greener than any sparkling emerald. All that saw him declared him a fine beauty, and when a man with a dark coat and silver hair patted his the red locks and called him "Little Red," the name stuck.

Axel lived in a castle, though he was no prince, with a family that was neither loving nor happy, because though their bodies beat out a pulse, they had no Heart to feel loving or happy with. It was nothing for a brother to kill a sister or an older brother to grind his sibling's face into black pavement.

It so happened that Axel, the Little Red with a leather coat and no basket of goodies for Grandma, was taking a walk in the old forest of his home. He was not recognized by the townspeople, though most of them had become empty shells, and even the trees in the forest called him a stranger. The leaves cried with envy because they could never reach that shade of green that shone between blinks, but Axel paid them no mind. He was listening for the Wolf.

The Wolf was also called Xigbar. Xigbar with the eyepatch and dull black hair, who strolled through the cities and Worlds looking for all the Little Reds he could find, always returning to the white castle smelling of gunpowder and blood.

Axel did not fear the Wolf, because wolves were flammable and he certainly had enough fire in him to scorch Xigbar twelve times over before needing to rekindle.

But the Wolf was arrogant of his abilities, and proclaimed that he was afraid of no Axel or Little Red, and continued to pursue him through the town, over the river and now into the woods.

The leaves were bitter and silent, and they did not warn Axel as Xigbar crept behind the crimson-haired beauty and pressed two twin guns into the tresses.

"Be a good boy and don't move, Red, unless you want your brains all over those lovely flowers below you."

Axel's body shuddered but his face was grinning something horrible, but Xigbar was too smug with victory to think and too blind from behind to see.

"The Wolf," Axel crooned, lightning fast with a kick so heavy it sent Xigbar to the floor, "would be smart to fear Little Red, because Little Red can be oh-so ruthless." His boot pressed down on Xigbar's chest and a satisfied sigh pushes past Axel's lips when he hears a satisfying crunch and the man below him gnashes his teeth.

"Little Red can be hurtful too," he continued, summoning his Chakrams slowly so that Xigbar has time to take in the weapon, the pointed spikes, and the fire licking wildly around it. He grinned and released the weapon towards the man's hips, slicing clean through the leather and skin and tissue and bone, coming back to him bloody and smelling like burnt flesh. The chest was still heaving and Axel knew from experience that he should last for a few more minutes, and because of this he relished kneeling next to the half-man and licking away the blood covering his chin.

"I have a secret," he whispered. His breath burns the bruised cheek, and Xigbar had to strain to hear behind the blood dribbling from his ears. "I lied. I'm not really Little Red at all, or at least not anymore. A witch cast a spell on me—" and the audible groan and roll of an eye behind swollen lids made him laugh, because only a true asshole would be a snarky bastard after he had been reduced to a stump. "—and turned me into a Demon."

Emerald eyes narrowed and Xigbar's fleeting brain only allowed him a halfhearted, "I don't believe in witches," before Axel's gloved hands cracked through his chest and pulled out his wispy smoke heart.