Now the story begins. Kingdom Hearts doesn't belong to me.

Chapter 1

~Now It Begins~

Axel was called into the meeting place of the Organization, Where Nothing Gathers. Xaldin and Xemnas, the leader of the Organization called him into this place. "He hasn't crossed us," Axel declared.

"Why hasn't he come back if he hasn't betrayed us? Are you trying to protect him? Surely, you haven't forgotten your job as assassin; it's your job to annihilate anyone that goes against the Organization. If he doesn't come back than you'll pay his price," Xaldin said as his lance hovered beside him. And, he sent it hurling towards the Nobody.

Axel just crossed his arms and not so much as flinch. Xemnas placed a hand up and began to summon something. Axel's eyes turned towards the sphere, which the hooded superior had called. He sighed, "Fine I get it. I'll do it! I'll use the Dusk!"

~The Sixth Day~

Roxas had just woken up from a strange dream. The sixteen-year-old boy ran outside to the alleyway to a fort known as the 'Usual Place'. There he saw his three friends: Olette, Hayner and Pence. He approached Hayner complaining about how he couldn't sleep last night, but his hand went straight through Hayner. The three kids turned and ran straight through him and a picture landed on the floor of the fort; only, Hayner, Pence and Olette no Roxas was in it. It was like everything he knew was just an illusion.

After that he decided to leave the 'Usual Place'. Instantly, four creatures in white surrounded him as they miraculously appeared out of nothing and than another portal opened, a man, Axel appeared. "Look at what it's come to, I've been given these icky orders to destroy you if you refuse to come back with me," Axel said to Roxas with a bit of a sigh.

"We're best friends, right?" Roxas asked slightly confused at what was happening to him and why this red-haired man kept showing up to him at the strangest times. What was he and why did he call him the 'Man Chosen by the Keyblade'? Roxas was just an ordinary kid living in an ordinary town nothing special, but then why did his friends and the photo just show he never existed? It didn't make any sense.

Axel suddenly realized what Roxas had said and he seemed ecstatic for some reason. "Wait, you really do remember?" he asked.

Roxas just replied a little bit confused, "Y-Yeah."

This only seemed to make the redhead even more overjoyed. He then asked a question, but Roxas couldn't answer and sighed. Roxas was now forced to fight this strange man. However, just as they were about to fight; time seemed to freeze Axel. "Roxas to the mansion," an elderly man's voice ordered.

Roxas stood there for a second taking a short glimpse of the redheaded man in the black coat and than at the strange weapon, the keyblade in his hands. "Hayner, Pence, Olette," he shouted before he headed off.

Meanwhile, time seemed to return to normal and the redhead found that he was alone again. Axel sighed as he realized that he couldn't avoid eliminating his best friend anymore. He followed after Roxas to the mansion. But, he was met by a hard problem. How was he going to get into this mansion, the mansion that Roxas was in? There was a barrier surrounding it keeping him out. So, Axel ordered the Dusks to charge the barrier hopefully one of them would get through the barrier and he was right.

Axel was now in the mansion to be more precise the basement. He was in a room, which was close by to where he heard something being smashed, probably a computer. Axel only attributed it to Roxas. The only thing he could do now was wait patiently till Roxas came to him. Then, things would get interesting.

Moments later, the door slid open and Roxas entered. Axel hid and sent some of the Dusks and Assassin Nobodies under his command. He watched as Roxas fought them when he finished the last he sent out. Axel decided to confront the boy. "Simply amazing Roxas," he said with his arms folded.

"Axel," Roxas gasped.

Axel turned to the boy with a slight sigh, but anger flared up and he surrounded them both with a circle of flames. "You really do remember me this time. I'm SO flattered! But, you're TOO late!"

In that instant something overcame Roxas, he suddenly pulled out two keyblades: one silver as light and the other as dark as night. He swirled them around before dropping them to his sides. Axel was awestruck by this. "Two," he gasped he never seen his friend handle two keyblades at one time. But, he couldn't bother with the details this time. He called forth two of his own chakrams from the fire and they battled.

There were several close calls in the last fight between the two friends. However, Axel was the weak one in this fight. Roxas seemed to falter for a second during the fight and Axel caught him, but Roxas reversed it and slashed Axel in the chest with his keyblades. Axel stumbled as he held his stomach apparently injured from the blow. The flames dispersed and everything returned to normal. Roxas stood motionless across from Axel.

~Flashback~

It was in the middle of a dark city, Roxas strolled through while Axel leaned back against a building. "You're mind's made up?" the redhead asked casually.

"Why did the keyblade choose me?" Roxas retorted irritably.

There was a moment of silence. "I have to know," Roxas added.

Axel instantly lost his cool. He was no longer leaning against the wall but standing back on his own two feet and mad. "You can't cross the Organization! You get on their bad side and they'll destroy-," Axel said but Roxas cut him off.

"No one will miss me," he replied as he walked off.

"That's not true! I would," Axel sighed as he watched his best friend and protégé disappear right in front of him.

~End of Flashback~

"Axel," Roxas said.

The redhead gazed up to his friend. "Let's meet again in the next life," he replied without thinking.

With that Roxas was instantly quiet but he answered, "I'll be waiting."

Axel chuckled a little at his friend's surprised expression, "Silly, just because you have a next life…" He was suddenly consumed by darkness and Roxas approached the spot where the redhead stood.

~Later~

Roxas entered a white room where a white pod stood. In front of the pod was a man cloaked in red. He taunted Roxas and Roxas sliced through him. However the man, DiZ just turned to him and mocked him saying that he couldn't do him any damage to him as it was just was only a projection of him. The data form of DiZ disappeared and Roxas was left in front of the white flower-like pod.

Roxas saw a boy with spiky brown hair and red clothing in the pod. He instantly recognized the boy from his dreams. The pod opened and Roxas said, "Sora, you're lucky. It looks like my summer vacation is over."

"Sora," two voices called out from out of nowhere. The boy woke up. He jumped out of the pod and in front of the owner of the two voices, Donald and Goofy. They were wondering how they got in this place and if they were really asleep. Sora noticed that he had gotten bigger, because his clothes no longer seemed to fit him. So, the three set out to do the only thing they knew what to do. And, that was to find the king and Riku.

Elsewhere

Axel squint his eyes as the sun flashed in his face. He placed a hand in front of his eyes and smelt the salty air of an ocean and heard the sounds of seagulls squawking overhead. Axel could only think of one thing to explain this: he was on a beach, but no ordinary beach to be exact; Destiny Islands. This was the place where according to the Organization the Keyblade Hero and his friend, Riku originated. He felt funny about being on the beach, because this was where he promised to take Roxas the next time they had a vacation. How ironic due to the fact that he planned to take Roxas to this place for their day off, it would have been a nostalgic experience for the young Keyblade Hero's nobody.

To make matters more complicated, today was Roxas' 365th day of existence, which meant that Roxas was a year old now. All this time that Roxas had existed he had spent so much time alone in his own world trying to figure out the reason for why he existed. Axel felt guilty for hiding Roxas' other's existence from him for so long. The only reason he did that was because he didn't want to lose his best friend. It was too late for that anyways.

Axel stood on the shore of the island: the one where Sora, Riku and Kairi would often play on as little kids. He saw a pink seashell in the sand and noticed that it was Thalassa shell, a native shell only found in this world. He picked it up with the sand intact. Axel let the sand trickle through his fingers as he held the seashell in his palm. "Roxas," he said as he pulled out a Popsicle stick with a crown and the word WINNER on it. "If I can change things to get you back; Roxas I will," Axel swore to himself.

He heard rustling in some bushes behind him. Axel decided to investigate. He pulled back the hedges and found a small cave. It looked too big for him to fit through, but he continued to hear something within the cave. Having nothing better to do, the redhead squeezed through the narrow entrance and found himself inside the cave.

The cave was must bigger than he expected. Axel was able to stand to his full height without his head hitting the ceiling of the cave. There were several chalk drawings on the charcoal-colored walls of the cave. Axel figured this could only be done by Sora and his friends due to the pictures of the children he saw on the cave's walls and the fact that Sora, Riku and Kairi's signature were on it. One thing really ticked him off about one of the drawing. It read, "Sora, Riku, Kairi, friends forever!"

Axel scoffed at the drawing, "Hmph, if you hadn't returned to being a human than Roxas wouldn't have to disappear and I wouldn't have lost my best friend. I wish you were still a Heartless!"

The rustling from before came behind Axel and the redhead spun around to see what or who it was. There was no one there. Axel sighed, "I guess my imagination is getting to me."

"Gee you think so," a voice replied.

Axel watched as a boy in a black coat stood before him. He carried two keys in his hands: one as silver as light and the other as dark as night. "Roxas," Axel asked.

The boy turned to him with a slight smile, but than just turned around and disappeared through the old wooden door in the cave. "Roxas wait," Axel shouted.

The redhead knelt to his knees. He didn't know what was going on or how he had just seen his best friend, but it only seemed to trigger his hatred for Sora. Axel pounded his fist onto one of the chalk drawings of the trio, particularly on the image of a little Sora who stood happily holding hands with Riku on his left and Kairi on his right. "I promise you Roxas, I'll always bring you back," Axel declared and just as he did a white door appeared in front of him.

Axel stared at the door suspiciously. He got to his feet and quietly approached it. The redhead opened the door and heard the voices of the Keyblade Hero and his goofy sidekicks and without further thinking, the Flurry of Dancing Flames entered the place and the door shut behind him.

Axel exited the white door. It seemed to disappear right after he left it into thin air. He was now in a strange place, a world without color or rather a cartoon from the late 1920s. "What the heck," he asked himself, but his attention was soon drawn to the sleek charcoal-colored river nearby. He glanced at his reflection and was taken aback by what he saw.

"Is this really me?" he asked.

His eyes were like two large circles with a slice taken out of them, his usual scrawny body looked like a toothpick and his spiky hair looked like someone had drawn it badly or something.

"The sooner I find Roxas, the sooner I can leave this place," Axel thought.

Axel soon saw four figures out in the distance; it was that keybrat, Sora, his goofy sidekicks and that witch, Maleficent's useless lackey, Pete.

"What the heck are they doing here?" Axel thought but soon decided to hide in a Corridor of Darkness as the four approached his location.

The trio somehow managed to lose Pete and was now resting. "I can't believe we lost him," Sora complained as he fell on his butt on the ground beneath him.

"We'll catch him Sora," Donald Duck replied.

"Yeah I know, but we have to hurry. Disney Castle is at risk if we don't hurry and if Pete makes off with the Cornerstone of Light than Maleficent will fill the castle with darkness. And, we can't do that! Merlin and Queen Minnie are counting on us," Sora sighed. "Sometimes, I wish I could still be a normal kid and didn't have all these problems to worry about!"

"Aw Sora," Donald said.

Goofy spotted Pete on a boat and on the back of it was the Cornerstone of Light. "Sora, there he is," Goofy announced frantically. "Pete's making off with the Cornerstone of Light!"

"What," Sora exclaimed as he bolted back onto his feet and rushed with his dopey sidekicks to go after Pete.

Axel was now able to escape the darkness that he hid in once the trio left the spot he was in. "So you wanted to 'save' me?" a voice asked.

Axel turned around and saw Roxas. "Yes I do, Roxas. I'll do whatever I can to bring you back! Got it memorized?" Axel declared.

"Hmph, so you're going to drag me back kicking and screaming into that miserable existence; back into that miserable Organization? Don't you know Axel? We maybe friends, but I won't serve someone as repulsive as Xemnas. Don't you still get it that he's lied to all of us!

He only wants Kingdom Hearts for himself," Roxas admitted.

"Roxas, I don't care if that's true! I'm NOT doing this for the Organization's sake. I just want to see you again! You're the only one I liked," Axel confessed.

"Is that so," Roxas chuckled. "Then, why did you lie to me? Why did you lie to me about my other self and everything that went on at Castle Oblivion? Why Axel? Friends don't lie to each other! We're you only thinking about your reputation?"

Axel could sense the despair in his friend's voice. Yes, it was true that he had lied to Roxas the whole time that they were both in the Organization together. Yes, he had done it to protect his reputation as the fearless assassin of the Thirteen Order. However, there was a deeper meaning to why he had lied to his best friend. And, that reason was, because he wanted to protect him from going back to Sora.

"Roxas, I'm sorry that I lied to you. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to keep you at my side. You were the only person I could confide in. And, I haven't been able to do that in years," Axel admitted.

Roxas scoffed, "If I were so special then…why did you try to kill me?" Axel began to see that Roxas' body was beginning to fade.

"Roxas," he called out, but the hooded boy ignored him. "Roxas," he cried but only to see that the boy's ghostly image had completely dissolved into nothingness. Axel fell to his knees and began to sob, "Roxas, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I lied to you. I wish I had another chance to get you back!"

As Axel pounded the ground again, the same white door from before appeared. The pyromaniac stared at the door in confusion, but he hesitantly entered through it. "Roxas, we're friends no matter what you think!"

As Axel wondered through the long annals of the seemingly endless tunnel that he had found after he accessed the door, he found himself glancing at many memories. One of the most peculiar was the memory of him, Roxas, and some strange girl sitting on a beach. All three of them stared endlessly at the endless body of turquoise water that was the ocean and the fading sun as it set behind the blanket of water almost like a toddler about to sleep. The memory soon continued but a voice, Saix's voice could be heard now. It said, "Which would you suffer from the lost of a fake friendship or a real one?"

Axel soon found himself at the end of the tunnel just right in front of the light that served as the exit to the tunnel. He took one last look back and saw Roxas standing there. The boy spoke to him, "If you truly care about me than just forget about me. I was never meant to exist!"

"You're wrong, Roxas," Axel replied to the boy as he nodded and disappeared. The redhead stepped through the tunnel and found himself engulfed in the radiant light.

"No way, this can't be…!" Axel exclaimed as he recognized the place he was in. His home world or rather his other half's home world, Radiant Gardens, it was just as clean and prosperous before the time Axel and Saix's human halves had been swallowed up by the darkness that engulfed their home world and their rebirth as Nobodies. It was all so nostalgic.

Axel decided to do something. He flicked his fingers in a manner to call a Corridor of Darkness, but the egg-shaped portal of purple and black vortex wouldn't appear. The pyromaniac tried again and again, but always with the same useless and disappointing outcome; no Corridor of Darkness. He was stranded in this past replica of his home world and Axel wasn't all that looking forward to going back to the World That Never Was to face the consequences that awaited him there. So, he decided to do a little reconnaissance to see if this world was really Radiant Gardens and to see for himself that he had somehow time-traveled.

Axel finished his investigation of 'Radiant Gardens'. The only conclusion he had was that this was really his home world before the Heartless invaded and Maleficent had cast this world into darkness. The only thing that was left to convince the Flurry of Dancing Flames was seeing his past self. That would ultimately convince him that he was in the past. Until then, he decided to wait in front of the gates that lead up to King Ansem the Wise's castle near the fountain, the place where he and Isa, Saix's human half would always play.

Axel leaned up against the gate that lead up to the castle. Two boys, one with spiked blue hair with some hanging loosely beneath the spikes and wearing a navy-blue sweater with a crescent moon crest, khakis and black formal shoes passed him by along with another boy. Axel noticed the other boy; he looked very much like him, except that he wore a yellow scarf around his neck, an orange vest, white and red tennis shoes and a pair of beige jeans. He couldn't believe his eyes, but at the same moment he couldn't disrupt time. So, he decided to let the scene play out.

He heard the boys talk with someone. This someone's voice seemed very familiar almost like Roxas'. However, he couldn't get any clear image of the boy that his other, Lea and Isa were speaking with, because Lea's pointed red-orange spikes shrouded the boy's face. Axel sweat dropped, "Why is my hair always getting in the way?"

"After all, we're friends now. Got it memorized?"

"Yeah, I got it memorized, Lea."

The three boys soon departed. "What is with you and picking up stray puppies?" Isa asked.

"I want everyone to remember me," Lea answered.

"Well, I won't forget you. Believe me I've tried," Isa smirked.

"See I'm immortal," Lea chuckled.

"You're cocky," Isa replied as he looked up to King Ansem's castle. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah," Lea nodded and the two boys headed pass Axel through the gate and up the stairs to the castle.

Axel sighed, "Since, I'm in the past I might as well pay a visit to Destiny Islands." He called a corridor, which came luckily this time. Axel entered through it to the peaceful tropical paradise that was Destiny Islands.