Prior…
At the dawn of time, there was chaos. The one world had begun to rip itself apart. The life-forms of this world were thrown to pandemonium as fire rained down upon the people like rain, large gaps in the earth leading to nowhere formed every second, and huge gashes in the very sky materialized that drew in everything like an unstoppable vacuum. All of the kingdoms fell, their lords thrown from their seats of power. Outraged, these fallen lords began to kill with abandon, slaughtering countless innocent. The people, in their distress, turned to their governors and saviors, The Four, to save them from the horrors. Nevertheless, not all the might and power of the world could stop what had started. For this world, the end had come. Armageddon had dawned.
The Castle That Never Was lay in ruin. The world's Heaven was in reduced to rubble. The Four still resided within its barely standing walls, simply a memory of its former glory, as they contemplated what to do.
Axel gritted his teeth with restraint. He was trying to keep himself from attacking the King who was all but snoring in his seat. It outraged him that he could be so aloof about the situation, yet his behavior was not surprising. Boastful and childish, the King rarely bothered himself with serious matters, leaving the remaining three to deal with issues like this one. So he sat with his legs over the armrest of his throne—solid diamond by his own request—and gazed at the ceiling as if he were bored to tears.
Axel paced back and forth insistently in front of the row of thrones at the front of the council room. The Queen stood worriedly by his side. She too, was too on-edge to sit. She had her hands clasped nervously before her chest and her eyes closed as if in concentration. Axel understood that she could probably see the devastation taking place with her eyes of lavender. He could only imagine how she was feeling, being forced to stomach the horrors that neither she nor anybody else could not stop.
The Jack entered the room a few moments later through the mostly broken stained glass window behind the row of thrones. He maneuvered his way over the jagged pieces that still remained wedged in the windowpane. "Most everyone is dead," he remarked solemnly once he was inside.
All eyes were trained on him as the three waited for any report of survivors. The Jack met each one of their gazes one by one, watching their eyes fall as they understood what his silence meant. "I didn't come across any survivors."
"Are you sure?" The King asked with a superiority in his voice that made Axel sick. "Are you sure that little talent of yours didn't miss anything?"
Axel took a step forward in rage, but he was stopped by a gentle pull on his arm. "Ace," the Queen whispered in a voice that made him immediately calm. "It's alright."
She let her hand slip from his arm and glided over to the King. Though the King was generally rude to everyone, the people, the Ace, and the Jack, he always developed a softness in his voice whenever he addressed the Queen. Axel didn't know why for sure, but that softness made him angry.
"Surely you don't believe that Jack could have missed something?" she asked gently. "His skills and speed are legendary.
By the people of the world, the Jack of Clubs was often regarded as the Phantom of Clubs because of his well-known ability to disconnect his spirit from his body and move at impossible speeds.
"But moving at such speeds, wouldn't it be possible that something might have slipped his vision?" he countered.
The Queen started to answer, but it was the Jack's turn to step in. "Nothing was missed. There are no survivors." He stated firmly.
The King simply glared in retort and looked back at the ceiling that was riddled with spider-like cracks and caving in.
Axel collapsed backward into his seat, exhausted by the weight of the words that had been spoken.
No survivors.
The Queen saw his distress and placed a hand on top of his in comfort. He looked at her hand, a feeling of soothing filling his heart as a revelation filled his head, as if he were finally going to understand why she was so important to him, what she meant to him, what role she played in his life. But, unfortunately, before his thoughts had a chance to develop, darkness descended upon his vision, fading the scene before him like the end of a play.
…
Chapter Three: Sick
"Axel? Axel? Aaaaaxelll!"
Axel forced his eyes open, thinking that the sooner he awoke, the sooner Jiro would shut up.
"You awake, Axel?"
"Now." He snapped grouchily. Lack of sleep made him irritable. He struggled to sit up, blinking hard at the light that seemed to be directed at his face. He pushed some crimson strands back out of his eyes, and tried to remember where he was.
"Aren't you cold?" Jiro asked in wonder. "I don't know why you insist on sleeping without a shirt on."
Axel looked down, not confused. It was a habit he'd developed. Practicality had nothing to do with it. "Where's my cloak?"
Jiro pointed to the opposite end of the room where something dark was hanging from a shelf corner. Now that most of his vision had returned and all of the grogginess had left him, Axel remembered where they were. The previous night, Jiro had led him to what he had called one of his many "spots". Jiro had remarked nonchalantly that he often traveled to them when he was brought home by the police and Gyei threw him out, or when he was just sick of her nagging. He said this proudly as if by showing Axel that he came and left Gyei as he pleased, he had achieved some form of maturity. It was not much of a "spot" at all, Axel had thought. It was only three blocks away from Gyei's shop and was in even worse shape.
Axel hurriedly pulled on his cloak and zipped it up, not wanting to waste any time. "So where's this portal you were telling me about?"
Jiro grinned, obviously pleased to be the one in charge, and motioned for Axel to follow him. "Right this way."
-Elsewhere-
"Are you sure she's home?"
"She should be. I mean, she never goes anywhere anymore."
Hinata bit her lip anxiously. She wasn't feeling well. A storm was brewing in her stomach as it always did whenever she had to face people and she didn't want to. She'd been taught long ago that this storm was called nervousness. Since then, the storm had only grown as she had grown until it had reached the size and ferocity of a hurricane. That hurricane was raging now as she sat curled up below her window, trying to ignore the voices of Kiba and Shino that were floating in from outside. She didn't want to face them now, not feeling the way she was.
The dreams made her sick.
A soft knocking echoed through the room, making Hinata curl up tighter. "Who is it?" she asked in a weak voice.
"Are you okay, Hinata?"
She jumped at the sound of his voice, instantly recognizable to her, and rushed to unlock her door. She didn't fail to blush the color of…his hair before she made her cold fingers turn the doorknob. However, she only opened it a crack; she was feeling so awful that she didn't even wish Naruto to enter.
"Naruto?" she whispered softly in acknowledgement.
She could and probably would have fainted if it weren't for the dreams that still played in her mind. The horrible images were making her cruelly aware and alert. Naruto's bright blue eyes were so full of worry that she couldn't stand to look at them for long, and soon she found herself staring down at her feet in shame. That worry is for me, she thought guiltily. She'd made her friends worry and she hated herself for that. But she knew that even after Naruto—the boy who she would do anything and everything for—voiced his concern over her, she still wouldn't be able to remove herself from her room.
"Are you okay Hinata?" he asked her. She nodded quickly in response, never removing her eyes from the ground.
"You know…Kiba and Shino told me…about how you haven't been out of your room lately."
She made no move in response. She was too ashamed.
"Hinata," he started softly. Automatically, she blushed even further. "Can I come in?"
She hesitated, but then shook her head.
She heard him sigh heavily. Maybe, she thought, if he was fed up with trying to help her he'd just forget about her. Even Naruto erasing her from his mind would be better than him worrying because of her selfishness.
"Kiba and Shino have been taking their missions without you. They don't complain because they know there's something wrong with you." He whispered.
She sniffed, feeling the guilty tears welling up within her eyes. But her tears would just have to flow. She could do nothing about the situation. The dreams just made her so sick. She couldn't walk four steps without collapsing into a horrified crying fit. What sort of help would she be on a mission? In her state, she'd be more of a liability than anything else. Still, though logically she knew that skipping her missions was best for her team, she still had to struggle with herself to keep from crawling out her window whenever she heard Kiba and Shino's voices calling her, telling her that they had a new, important mission to complete. It wasn't fair for them to have to shoulder her half of the duties while she curled up in her room and descended into madness. She was putting her personal needs before those of her team, and no matter how bad her situation was, that wasn't the shinobi way.
She was too weak to be a ninja now. She knew this. She was planning on going to see Lady Fifth, to tell her that she'd need to resign her duties. It was an enormous disgrace and shame for a ninja of her status and age to quit—which was precisely what she was doing—but she had to, for her team. They needed someone they could rely on.
She looked up at Naruto, tears streaking down her face. "C—could you tell them I'm sorry. I—I think that they should assign a new shinobi to my spot on their team."
Naruto's eyes widened with shock. "Hinata! What are you saying?"
She was sobbing hard by then. She was so distraught that could barely make out her next sentence. "I'm sorry. I can't be a shinobi anymore. I'm…I'm too weak. I can't even leave my room, Naruto. I'm sorry. I know there are a lot of people counting on me, but I just can't. I'm not shinobi material anymore. I wasn't much of shinobi material in the first place."
Then he did something made her a little bit stronger. He opened her door wider, put both his hands on her shoulders, and looked directly into her eyes. Slowly, her crying digressed until it finally ceased. She wiped away her tears and looked back into his eyes, so full of courage and strength. Just looking at his unwavering power made her feel a little stronger herself. Naruto had faced so much more than she had and he still hadn't quit. If anything, all of his trials and tribulations had made him stronger both as a ninja and as a person. She remembered a time, a time before the dreams had come, when she had strived to be like him. He had been her motivation in life, her drive to better herself. But after the dreams, her former wants and needs had become like a distant memory. Too many things had changed inside her since then. Having him gaze at her now brought the feeling back a little. The feeling of wanting to be like him. But it wasn't enough to change anything.
"You are not weak. You're shinobi material if I've ever seen it; one of the best."
She smiled a little for his benefit, but it was empty.
He removed his hands. "Granny Tsunade sent me here to check on you. For some reason she thought that seeing me would be able to make you get out of your room."
If she was close to it before, she was defiantly blushing the color of his hair now. "S—sorry Naruto. Tell Lady Fifth that I'll be needing to see her about…you know."
"So you're sure about this whole resigning thing?"
She bit her lip and nodded.
"But Hinata, I don't want you to resign. You're an excellent shinobi. I don't know what this is all about, but I'm not letting you do something you're going to regret. Whatever problem you think you have, I'll help you." He said with a powerful grin.
She was about to start crying again, just from how nice he was being to her, but she held it in. "That's okay, Naruto. I don't want you to trouble yourself—"
He shook his head. "Come on, Hinata. I want to help you. If it's training you need help with we can start right now. What is it? Do you need help with jutsus? Weapons?"
She couldn't help but laugh. His familiar helpfulness made her happy. It was a comfort. He didn't understand, but she couldn't dare discourage him. Not when he was being so giving toward her. Besides, it was beyond her abilities to deny him anything. If she was going to resign, she'd have to do it later.
"Okay, Naruto. Whatever you want."
-Elsewhere-
By the time they finally got to Jiro's portal, Axel was starting to think that he should have gone to Visor after all.
"This?" he asked dryly staring at the puddle that Jiro had referred to as the inter-time portal. They'd taken the day to journey all the way to the forest that bordered the western edge of Twilight Town and had spent the better half of the time maneuvering the complex pathways that Jiro swore he knew like the back of his hand. After six wrong turns, two falls down drops where the path fell away, and one near strangulation by the means of hanging vines, Jiro's portal had turned out to be nothing more that a puddle. A large puddle, but a puddle still.
Just as Axel was about to pick the boy up, throw him into the nearest raging river, and grumble back to town, Jiro laughed.
"No, not this," he squatted and pointed into the rippling puddle water. Axel sighed and looked after what he was pointing at. The water was clear, surprisingly so for a puddle in the middle of a muddy bank. Axel cursed under his breath as he glanced at his dirt-encrusted boots. Then he looked back at the water. To his surprise, the water had changed. It was still clear, but it wasn't reflective like it had been a moment ago. Instead, it was like a transparent glass to what was underneath. A swirling silvery portal was trapped beneath their feet in what appeared to be a marble chamber. "That."
"How did you find this?" Axel asked, crouching down to get a better look. The portal beneath the water wasn't like any he'd seen before. Unlike the calmly turning portals he was use to, this one looked vicious. Silky silver tendrils flashed out from the stormy center as it turned so fast it appeared to be shaking. Tiny flashes of lightening were visible within the depths I the portal.
"There are rumors about this place. Kids say that it's a portal to Hell."
Axel looked at the fearsome portal again. "How do you know its not?"
Jiro gave him a disbelieving look. "Come on, Axel. That's just crazy kid's talk. Anyway, I've been down there before. On a dare. I didn't go through, of course, but it didn't look like a portal to Hell to me."
Axel looked again at the portal. "So how do we get down?"
"Just step through."
Jiro did a few showoffy back flips before he dropped into the water. Axel watched from above as he landed stealthily on the ground below. He looked up and grinned. Axel just sucked his teeth and stepped in after him.
"See?" Jiro said once Axel had landed a few seconds later. He was looking at the portal with a mystified expression. The silver light it was emanating reflected back on his face like a white mask. He walked up to the portal and extended a hand to it. The aura undulated, wrapping its smoke-like tendrils around Jiro's hand briefly before rippling back to form a mirror-smooth surface. "harmless."
Axel folded his arms behind his head and studied the portal carefully. Now that it wasn't flashing lightning and swirling wildly out of control, it did look a lot like the other portals he had been through, except it felt different. Portals were cold, numbingly cold, but this portal was hot. Axel felt as if he were getting a sunburn just by standing in front of it.
"So how do you know its inter-time?" he asked curiously. There was nothing exceedingly telling about the portal other than its heat, but if that told anything, it was that this was indeed a portal to Hell.
Jiro shrugged. "I don't. But since you were talking about a…what was it? A Queen of Hearts, I figured this might be a portal to her because of that." He gestured to the emblems that were carved into the marble above the swirling silver circle. A spade, club, heart, and diamond had been expertly cut into the stone just above the portal and filled in with what looked like emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. The heart glittered brightly red as if it were lit from the back by some unseen light; the gems that made up its surface gleamed like luminous crimson stars.
Jiro made a face. "The last time I was here it was that diamond that was shiny. Hmmm, I wonder why it changed."
Axel wasn't paying attention to Jiro's musing. He was busy having a vivid flashback, or what he assumed was part of a flashback. It was choppy and large pieces were missing, but from what he could see this place did have some significance to her. She'd been here before.
"Jiro," Axel said suddenly. The boy blinked, so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he'd forgotten about the man next to him.
"Yeah?"
"I'm not sure if I'll be coming back. This is risky, which is why I didn't want to get you involved. But now that you are, I guess I'm kind of grateful. If it weren't for you, I would have never found this place. Thanks for that. But from here on out, I have to do this alone. You understand that, right?"
Jiro nodded firmly, obviously trying to be mature about the situation, but it was evident that he was having a hard time with Axel's leaving. No matter how grown up he tried to seem, he was still a kid at heart.
Axel nodded a good bye and stepped away, into limbo and out of his world.
Axel awoke in the rain. Buckets of water poured down hard onto the ground on which he happened to end up laying. He started to sit up but was quickly knocked back down by something heavy.
"Oh. Sorry." A familiar voice said sheepishly.
"Jiro? What the hell are you doing here!" Axel asked in outrage. The boy stood up and shook his damp hair like a sopping dog. He looked up at the sky in awe as if he'd never seen rain before and completely ignored Axel's question.
"Jiro!" Axel barked.
He looked back down with a smile. "Sup?"
"What the hell! Why did you come here after I specifically told you not to?"
"Well, you didn't actually expect me to let you do this alone did ya? You can't break up a good team."
"Team?"
Jiro crouched down and extended a hand in an offer to help him up. Axel scowled at him and ignored it. Jiro's smile faded. "Hey, don't tell me that you're mad at me."
"Damn straight."
"Don't be like that! I was just trying to look out for you. It could be dangerous out here."
Axel stood up and glowered at the boy making him gulp audibly. "That's exactly why I didn't want you to come."
"But you said yourself you were glad I came along to help you!"
"So?"
"So…" Jiro looked down at the dirt road in a shy gesture that Axel had never seen him do before. It took him off guard to see the excitable boy behaving so bashfully. "So, I'd miss ya, you know?"
Axel stared at Jiro whose sagging wet hair made him look even younger. A sad child in the rain. Jiro had always looked up to Axel who had all but taken the place of his actual older brother who was nowhere to be found. He didn't keep it a secret how he strived to be like him or how much he admired him. When Axel had left to join the Organization Jiro had bawled up a tantrum, begging him with all he not to go. But Axel had left, leaving Jiro just as his real family had. He didn't intend to do that again. Not when all the boy had done had been to impress him. Axel had only wanted to leave Jiro behind for the boy's own safety, but he realized now that by not promising his own return he was abandoning him again.
"Okay." He said unwillingly. Jiro's eyes lit up in that old familiar way, the way they had when Axel had come back, like sapphires. He started to say something but Axel quickly silenced him.
"But, if there's even a hint of danger, your on the first train out of this place, you got that?"
Jiro nodded eagerly, too excited that Axel had permitted him to stay to pay much attention to his warnings.
"And anyway," Axel added once they had started down the road. He smiled despite himself. "You can't break up a good team."