Author's Note: I have done something horrible. No, not in the story, excatly. I completely forgot to give credit to my best friend and editor of Hero. So, thank you Ann for editing the entire story and making me laugh at my own mistakes. I'm sure the readers appreciate it too. Because of you I have fewer dum mistakes. See what I did there? I hope not because it was stupid...

I'll stop bugging you guys and let you do what you came to do.


Loving the Fight, Fighting to Love

"For how long?" Roxas asked as he looked up at Axel.

The two boys were standing on Roxas' porch, the sun meekly shining that day and the air quite cool. Axel stood before Roxas, the blond boy short enough to stand under Axel like how they were both standing under the porch's covering. They wore doleful expressions and found it hard to look each other in the eye.

"I don't know but not for too long. Xemnas can't keep his dogs away from the home for long," Axel said in an attempt to sound cheery, but the tone was too heavy to let the words fly.

"Yeah. And it's just training, right?" Roxas asked as he now looked up at his best friend.

With tensions being bad, Roxas no longer visited Hallow Bastion so if something happened to Axel it was likely no one would tell him. It was a thought that scared him more than the thought of another soldier standing at his door and saying he was very sorry for Roxas' loss. If Axel just didn't come home for months and months Roxas didn't know what he could or would do. Maybe he could ask Riku...no, that would be too risky.

"Yeah, just training," Axel said with dim eyes.

The wind blew, lightly shaking the trees and making them sigh. Two or three song birds tweeted at one another and the sun lazily opened its eye to peek through the porch screen, but the boys were still and silent.

"Roxas...it's not so bad. I - "

"When do you leave?" Roxas interrupted, fingers clenching and unclenching at his side.

"Like, an hour," Axel mumbled.

He knew he that the training camp would take him away for a couple months. Dread gnawed on his heart but he could hear the gnashing of its teeth in his ear. A week away from Roxas during a war that hid just below the ground would be a long time of uncertainty. Months apart could change both of them permanently.

Roxas was silent for too long. Warily Axel raised his head and was prepared to console Roxas, but the blond boy had been gazing up at Axel with blazing eyes.

"What?" Axel asked and ran a hand along his chin as he laughed, "Do I have something on my face?"

At times like those Roxas really wished he was taller. Stretching up on his tippy-toes and legs trembling to reach Axel's lips just made him feel so short. He wouldn't describe their kiss as short though. Axel's arms were around him, squeezing and searching his spine for a way through his vertebrae and a backdoor way into his heart.

There was a dry cough that didn't come from an infected throat, but nonetheless a sickened person. Roxas and Axel broke apart to see Riku coming up the stairs, a flat expression thinly masking heated emotions on Sora's friend's face.

"Where's Sora?" Riku asked as he stood stiffly at the top of the steps, a little distanced from Roxas and Axel.

Axel noticed an awkward feel about the guy. Riku and Axel had never been close friends because they tended to drift around the brothers and so only crossed paths when it came to situations that dealt with Sora and Roxas. Now it felt that Riku might actually have some great emotion for the redhead. Too bad all the vibes felt dark and tense.

Axel regarded Riku with an amused expression, trying to understand the hateful glances he received. They were from opposite sides and Axel was a soldier. Maybe Riku thought it was bad enough to be associated with the Organization without having done anything. Whatever, he wasn't here to pick fights, he was here to say goodbye to Roxas.

"Sora's inside. Just go on in," Roxas said, trying to smile at the boy though he too seemed to feel tense in Axel's arms.

Riku nodded curtly and, giving Axel a wide birth, retreated into the house. He let the screen door bang closed behind him.

"Little ray of sunshine that one is," Axel commented while watching Riku's shadow disappear down the hallway. "He should dress in yellow, it'd compliment his sunny disposition."

"Knock it off," Roxas tried to say sternly but smiled all the same. His eyes lowered as he said, "Riku's going through some tough things in Twilight Town. Even I know that he's never been one to ask for help. Sora's worried about him but he won't let Sora in, let him help. It's tough..."

"Well, no more silly, heroic acts outta me. See where it's landed me? Couple weeks out in the boondocks without my Roxas. What am I gonna do? Maybe I should be asking who am I gonna do?" Axel laughed as he ruffled Roxas.

In a flickering attempt to hide a cheeky grin, Roxas said soberly, "Larxene's going isn't she?"

"You've got quite the mouth," Axel sighed as he held Roxas in a tight embrace.

"You would know," Roxas murmured against the tall boy's chest, making them both buzz with soft laughter.

Still, no matter how many amusing, dirty, little jokes they told the dread and sadness persisted in the cool air of the grey, summer's day.


"How the hell does this thing work?" Demyx asked as he flipped the gun upside down, taking an awkward hold of the deadly thing. Axel and Larxene both took a step to the side, away from Demyx, but looked down at their own weapons a little uncertainly. It was beginning to rain and outside the protection of camp the earth turned to a muddy mess.

With a nasty sneer Larxene said, "Aim the long part at Axel and start screwing with the trigger. Something good's bound to happen."

"Nah, aim it at Larxene and pull. You'll be doing the world a favour," Axel replied with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "Probably get a medal for it."

Larxene still hadn't forgiven Axel for humiliating her and Axel really didn't give a shit. He wasn't there to make nice and he was sure neither of them had pictured a ring of soldiers holding hands and singing songs around the campfire when they were told about the training camp. Well, maybe Demyx had pictured that seeing as he'd brought his sitar along.

"I suggest not aiming it at any of your comrades and wait for further instruction," Zexion said rationally.

Larxene rolled her eyes and said cattily, "Still say aim it at Axel."

"Put the bitch to sleep," Axel quipped and shook the rain haughtily from his clipped hair.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Gladly, as long as it's got nothing to do with you."

"Get back in line, kiddies!" the instructor barked as he sauntered up the line of cadets, a grin on his scarred face. He paused before Demyx, the boy still holding the gun awkwardly as thought it were a baby. The instructor's grin slackened as he pointed at the gun and asked Demyx, "That's not loaded, right?"

"Uh, no. Unless they come loaded?" Demyx said uncertainly, giving the gun a shake to see if any bullets clanked around inside it.

Axel and Larxene gazed at Demyx with disbelieving looks. Axel smirked and wondered what would the instructor make of Demyx?

The instructor put a hand to his face and his shoulders sagged as though letting out a heavy sigh. To Axel and Larxene's surprise the man came up laughing and fixed Demyx with his one bright eye. The other eye was hidden or perhaps lost behind an eye patch.

"Soldier, I ban you from aiming that gun, loaded or not, at any living thing. You're one kid I don't want shooting at squirrels and birds. I'd like to keep my other eye," the instructor laughed and Demyx blushed.

To the line-up of students at large, the instructor barked, "Alright kids, we're going for a stroll in the rain. I'm Officer Xigbar and as long as you behave and listen to me, I can make a sharpshooter outta you. 'Cept for you blondie," Xigbar said in a lower tone and with a grin on his face as he pointed at Demyx. "You're gonna learn the spray 'em and flay 'em method."

Xigbar moved away from Demyx, Axel, and Larxene to the head of the line where he jostled other students along and barked orders that didn't sound as serious as they should be.

"I think I'm in the wrong profession," Demyx said glumly, his stature a little shrunken as the line squelched through the mud.

Larxene snorted as though to say 'you're just figuring this out now?'

"Geez, Dem. This instructor actually likes you. Why d'you have to come out with a downer of a line like that now?" Axel said, teasingly stepping on the heel of Demyx's boot and making the boy stumble.

"Likes me?" Demyx said with surprise as he half turned around to fix Axel's amused expression with bewildered eyes, "He was picking on me. I don't think that's like. If it were, you and Larxene would be in love."

Larxene spun around, mud whirling from her boots from the swiftness of her turnabout.

"Demyx, you little shit!" she bellowed, raising her gun to use more as a club than a firearm.

The rain was coming down harder now, nearly so dense that the five feet separating Larxene from Axel appeared as though a waterfall was blocking her from him. Demyx broke rank with a yelp and banged shoulders with Axel as he did so. Larxene pursued, also banging against Axel. Maybe it was the water in his eyes but he swore that as Larxene ricocheted off him he caught sight of a smile on her lips and a light in her eyes. It was hard to tell.

One thing that the rain didn't hide was the laughter from a source Axel didn't know was possible. Zexion was laughing, not huge snorts or anything like that. Just generally amused, good natured laughter. Axel was with Zexion on this one. Through laughter crinkled eyes they saw a confused Xigbar double back to watch Larxene hunt down Demyx in the pouring rain.


"C'mon, c'mon! Pretend dinner's waiting on the other side of the wall! Hey, redhead, don't be a smartass. I know the food we serve is one shade away from being shit, but that doesn't mean you can slow down. Move your ass! Your mom gave you those long legs for a reason. Use 'em!" Xigbar cajoled from beside the tall wooden wall the cadets were climbing.

Axel smirked and gave an energetic kick to get up and over the wall. He landed on the other side in a crouch. The others were either struggling at the bottom or about halfway. Axel walked back to the other side to wolf whistle at Demyx and Zexion. When he received grunts and threatening glares from the two he went to lounge about in the grass in full view of his struggling friends.

Xigbar shook his head and barked at the redheaded youth, "Park your attitude somewhere else before I make those long legs run laps."

Axel rolled back to his feet and joined then lapped his friends in climbing the wall. The relaxation and taunting had been fun, far more so than Larxene's accidental kick to his stomach that had him back at the bottom of the wall, but when he was idle his brain hummed to life. Thinking of Roxas only made him antsy and irate. There was little he could do out in the middle of nowhere and he knew his imagination was overactive. Roxas wouldn't be drowning in a pool of his own blood. Or so he hoped, he thought fleetingly as he lost his train of thought when Demyx slid back to the bottom for the sixth time, with the same yelp of alarm he had issued on his first attempt.


Roxas no longer attended school. The bullet hole through his backpack said enough about why he no longer did. He hadn't even gotten into town and he was extremely lucky that his note books had taken the hit and not him. He didn't think the people running around in black or the people running about with crowns on their chests had meant to shoot anywhere near him, but what did it matter? If he was dead then he was dead.

When he felt the bullet tug through the fabric of his backpack he hit the ground and rolled into the bushes. His hands lay in a patch of thistles and the thorny branches of the bush that sheltered him pricked and poked at his face and arms. The most painful sensation was the fear constricting his heart. His heart beat with an animalistic furiousness against its confines of fear. The stupidest and most unhelpful of thoughts ran through his head. It helped in no way to be thinking about a boy and his kisses when that boy was miles away from him at that moment.


"Shit!" Axel swore as he clapped a hand to his abdomen. Red stuck to his fingers as he tried to straighten himself up, but the pain in his stomach spread in vicious ripples along his body.

"I saw that one coming and I've only got one eye," Xigbar said, partly disappointed and partly amused at Axel's cussing. He turned to Larxene who smirked behind the scope of the paintball gun. Xigbar smiled with her as he said, "Good shot but I would have placed the bullet either a little higher to kill or a little lower to destroy."

The pain lasted briefly but his anger persisted. He had his own paintball gun in hand and would've loved to sink a couple shots into her stomach. A moment later the thought was obliterated when a wild flurry of blue paint pellets splattered across Larxene's chest making her howl and tumble to the forest floor. The pellets showered Xigbar's back as well, eliciting a huff from the older officer.

"Dammit, blondie. I know I pegged you as a trigger-happy fool but you do not shoot the non-combatants," Xigbar growled at Demyx as the boy fought his way out of the untamed and browning greenery.

"Sorry, I couldn't see through the trees," Demyx admitted, coming to stand next to Axel with Zexion following closely behind.

"Demyx, firing blindly is probably the worst thing you could do with a gun," Xigbar reproached as he massaged the small of his back. With a rugged smile that stretched his scar a little he pointed to Axel and added with a laugh, "No smartass comments about blindness."

"Fine, but I gotta say, you really nailed Larxene. I'm proud of you, Dem," Axel said happily and affectionately wrapped his arm around Demyx's neck.

Demyx chuckled and ribbed Axel with his elbow. Zexion stood a little ways away, a grin slipping onto his face as he watched his idiot friends.

"It would be wise to retreat," Zexion said and headed back into the bushes.

"What? Why?" Demyx asked Zexion's back but received no reply.

"Probably because Lady Vengeance is on her feet again," Xigbar said, pointing at Larxene who was splotched blue and pissed off.

Demyx looked down at his gun.

"But I'm out of pellets," he admitted.

With a grim laugh Larxene unloaded on them.


It had become a rarity for Riku to visit their farmhouse but today the silver haired boy was overwhelmingly present. His bangs clung to his forehead with the sweat he had worked up quite literally running across the battlefield and to the safety of Sora and Roxas' house. Roxas' brow crinkled with irony of calling the house safe as he wrung bloody water from the dishcloth. He dipped a clean cloth into the pot of boiled water and laid it on top of Sora's exposed shoulder. Sora hissed and clenched his teeth while Riku let the wounded boy squeeze the blood from his hand.

"Sorry," Roxas mumbled and sat next to his brother who lay on the floor, covered by Riku's black trench coat.

Honestly the hiss of pain wasn't that bad compared to the bloodcurdling scream the boy had let out when Roxas dug the nasty, nestled bullet from his brother's arm. At that point Roxas had felt like a monster, though he knew it had to come out. Tears had sprung to both brothers' eyes, but Roxas had harshly shoved his away and timorously dragged the wretched thing out. Riku had just gotten there at the time when Sora lay moaning and taking sobbing breaths, his writhing just beginning to cease as Roxas held the little pieces of metal between shaking, red fingers. Both boys were privately thankful as well as stressed that Riku had been there. Neither wanted the strong young man to see them with tears in their eyes, while at the same time Sora wanted someone to hold onto as the pain brought on darkness, and Roxas knew there was no way he could stitch the wound with his nervous hands. Thankfully Kairi had found Riku and passed the message on.

Funnily enough, Roxas mused, Riku wasn't exactly a pillar of strength. He looked just as gaunt as Sora who had been bleeding out for the last half hour.

Riku and Sora exchanged some quiet murmurs that Roxas turned his gaze from. They may be brothers and particularly close siblings, but those hushed whispers shared while wounds healed were private and intimate. Roxas' cheeks were glowing just from hearing the tones of their voices.

With a light kiss shared on the lips and another pressed to Sora's sweat drenched forehead, the injured brother fell into a slumber. Riku gently checked Sora's pulse and breathing with a loving yet practical hand. Apparently everything was as it should be for he pressed another kiss with white lips against Sora's temple and let go of the boy's hand to walk over to Roxas.

They sat, eyes trained carefully on Sora's chest, watching the air move in and out. Finally Riku said in a well controlled voice that Roxas admired, "It shouldn't be like this."

"He shouldn't be sleeping?" Roxas asked, eyes flickering back to fearful.

Riku chuckled but given the atmosphere of the room and the bloodstained rug, it sounded sardonic and dark.

"I don't think you could stop him even if you wanted to. Sleeping his problems away is probably the best way for him to heal right now," Riku paused and fixed Roxas with a determined gaze. In a much graver tone he continued, "Sora shouldn't have been at the registration office."

Roxas bristled a little at the comment. Of course he didn't want his brother hurt in the war but what right did Riku have to say Sora shouldn't join if he wanted to?

"What? You don't think Sora could handle himself?" Roxas asked in a hushed and harsh voice.

"Don't be ridiculous, Roxas. I know that Sora can take care of himself. What I'm saying is that he shouldn't have to join either side because he's not part of either," Riku whispered back bitingly.

"Maybe not physically, like actually in any borders, but he's certainly a part of your life," with a knowing look at Riku's stubborn face and a sad smile at his sleeping brother he added, "He'd follow you anywhere, Riku."

"Fine, but where's that leave you and Axel?" Riku retorted with an equally sombre smile.

"It's the same for us as it is for you and Sora. We want what's best for ourselves and each other. I'd come through for Axel like he'd come through for me," Roxas said honestly but a ball of anxiety began forming in his stomach like rotten food that refused to pass.

"And if Sora runs after me and you run after Axel, where's that leave you and Sora?"

Roxas was silent.

The answer 'looking from opposite sides of the fence' hung in the rusty blood scent of the room.


For those that read closely: there was subtle little-somethingin this chapter that hints at a more crucial event in the story. Did you spot it? Love you guys.