Chapter 3: The kill

Sora woke in pain. He tried to move, and found that he couldn't. Right. Roxas must be awake too, then. Sora wasn't in charge.

Sora tried to remember the last thing that had happened, and found that he couldn't. There had been a fight. He remembered Axel and Riku battling. But what had happened after that?

With a pained hiss, Roxas finally opened his eyes.

It was bright. That was the only impression Sora got, for the first few seconds. Bright like he hadn't seen in days. Gosh, maybe as much as a week. He'd lost count of how long it had been, stuck in that basement.

Then Roxas blinked a couple times, and his eyes adjusted.

He was in a room that was all windows. Some sort of sun room, Sora supposed. Light streamed in from every direction, and even weak late-fall sunshine seemed really bright right now.

"Axel?" Roxas croaked. And Sora remembered smoke, and how it had burned his lungs. Right. There had been fire. There had been Axel.

Everything hurt, but out of all the pain, his head hurt most. Sora couldn't remember hurting it. Had Roxas been messing with his memories again?

No, wait. Sora knew this. Head injuries sometimes came prepackaged with their own memory-messing-up...ness. And from that mental sentence, he knew that he wasn't thinking super clearly, either.

Hopefully Roxas was feeling that, too, Sora thought bitterly. Since it was probably all his fault.

"Axel?" Roxas called out, again, a little louder. "Are you here?"

Sora was under covers. He was really warm, and he kind of wanted to go back to bed.

Roxas sat up, and even though it wasn't very fast, it made Sora dizzy. There was a jingling noise, and Roxas looked down. The melted half-of-a-pair-of-handcuffs was still on his wrist, the end of the chain a melted and re-solidified mess. Roxas looked at his hand, then- his other hand. He turned it over and looked at his palm, as though surprised that it was uninjured. Had he really not done that trick with the heat before?

Sora actually wasn't that surprised. The thing about superpowers was, you didn't always know what you could do with them until you had to do it- and then you either found out your capabilities were more than you thought they were, or- well- you didn't.

It hadn't been life-or-death for Roxas. Not this time. But apparently Roxas had been pretty invested in the whole escaping thing.

The thing was- Sora could understand why. He could imagine being trapped in that basement, because he'd been there. But Sora had had faith that he'd get out of there, free in his own body again. Roxas, on the other hand, had just been waiting for someone to figure out how to kill him without hurting Sora. It had to have been a nightmare for him.

Sora shouldn't have cared what it was like for Roxas. Roxas was the enemy. Roxas was possessing him. Roxas was terrible to Sora's friends, had tried to hurt Kairi, was part of the Organization that had nearly done worse than any of that to Riku.

But Roxas was afraid of the dark, and he had a best friend, and he had been alone in that basement with no hope of escaping on his own. Roxas was too human to hate. Sora wouldn't go as far as to say that he liked him- there was too much animosity between them for that- but it was hard to outright hate him.

Sora had a plan for what to do about getting out of here already. He'd wait until he was back at full strength. Then, he'd wait for a chance when Roxas was sleeping. It seemed like sometimes Sora woke up before Roxas. He'd high-tail it back to Riku's place, and that would be that. He was sure Riku had been on the verge of figuring out what to do about Roxas. It would be a piece of cake. Roxas thought he had Sora 100% under control right now. He wouldn't take precautions.

Sora would only get one chance at this. But he was pretty sure he could do it.

Too bad he couldn't teleport. That would be an awesome power to have. He would just have to wait for a moment of inattention on Roxas's part, and zap, he'd be back at Riku's place. He'd have to make friends with someone who had that power ASAP. It would be so useful.

"Axel!" Roxas rasped again, and when no reply came, he slumped down onto the bed again and closed his eyes.

The door opened a moment later. Roxas's eyes opened in time to see Axel come into the room. "I thought I heard you," he said. "I'm glad you're awake." He smiled, and it actually looked sincere.

Oh. So Axel was Roxas' friend. The one who didn't trust him.

Roxas frowned. "I think I have a concussion or something. And a bit of retrograde amnesia."

Ah-ha. That had been the phrase Sora had been searching for, a moment earlier. Retrograde amnesia.

Then Roxas seemed to cut herself off. "What about you, Axel? You rescued me. Are you hurt? What exactly happened? Why did you even come? Riku could have killed you. When you showed up I was so worried."

Axel gave him a look. "Me? I'm fine. You're the one who was locked up in a basement for a week and a half surrounded by enemies. And then, to make it all better, I botched the rescue attempt and nearly killed you myself with all the smoke I made."

Roxas scoffed, and it turned into a cough, as though to prove Axel right. If Sora had been awake, the cough would have healed in moments. Roxas didn't have Riku's healing powers like Sora did, though.

"The rest of the Organization thought you were dead," Axel said. "But you know I like proving them wrong. It's the only fun I get around here." His tone was carefully light. "I hired a healer, by the way. You aren't actually concussed. Just bruised. You'll be fine." Then, a little too casually, he added, "You looked fine otherwise," Axel said. "No bruises. No scars. You're in better condition than I expected."

"Yeah," Roxas said. "I let Sora out for a bit, when I needed to heal."

Axel frowned. "If you need to talk about it-" he started.

"No. It's- they didn't really hurt me much. Except the one time. I nearly escaped. We fought. They didn't- they wouldn't have wanted to hurt Sora."

Axel nodded. "Good. I was worried- Never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm just glad you're okay."

"You thought they were going to torture me," Roxas said.

Sora wanted to shout out, "What?" As if Riku and Kairi would torture anyone. Roxas had to know that they were nice people. He'd been spying on them long enough, after all.

Axel didn't answer. He just stared at Roxas. Sora didn't know him well enough to guess what he was thinking. Then he seemed to shake off whatever thoughts he was having, and said, "Xemnas will want a report on everything. The usual."

Roxas let out a little, hollow laugh. "Like I learned anything, trapped in the dark there. Except that I'm not cut out for actual combat."

Axel shook his head. "You haven't had much practice. That's all. I've been fighting since I joined the Organization. You've been spying. Your role is important, too."

"Some spy I am," Roxas said. "I got caught."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Axel said. "No one's perfect. But hey, everything will be okay now. You'll have a little time to recover before you get another mission, and then we can get back to work. Nothing has really changed."

"Right," Roxas said." He shook his head. "I'm going to get the rest of these handcuffs off. Can you stand back for a sec?"

Axel did so, and Roxas held up his left arm, handcuffs and all, and pointed his right index finger at them.

The laser beam that came out of his finger melted through the handcuffs easily, and also looked kind of stupid, like they were in a comic book or something. Not that Sora really had any right to talk. He was sure that he looked like he was from a comic book himself, when he used Riku's super-strength.

Then Roxas stood shakily, and said, "I need a shower. I must reek."

Axel made no argument to that. He walked Roxas to the bathroom as though afraid he might break, and said, "Shout if you fall down or something."

Roxas glared at him. Axel just shrugged. "You have a head injury. It could happen."

Roxas made it through the shower uneventfully, though. Shampooing his head hurt like heck, but Sora was glad to get the grime and- was that blood? It was- out of his hair.

Being clean was kind of spoiled by wearing clothes that Sora had never seen before, and which he was sure Roxas must have bought with Sora's own money at some point. It was like having his face rubbed in the fact that he wasn't in control at all. Again.

He ignored that. He focused on spying, on paying close attention to the house they were in. It was some kind of safe house, he'd gathered over the past half-hour or so. It wasn't Roxas' first time here, because he didn't seem curious at all about his surroundings.

Once Roxas was dressed, Axel found him. With a grim expression, he said, "Xemnas wants to see you now."

"Already?" Roxas asked. But then he just shook his head. "I'll go." He put on his shoes and made for the door of his room.

"Roxas?" Axel said, as Roxas walked out of his room.

"Yeah?"

"Be careful, okay?"

Roxas shrugged, and left.

The safe house looked mostly like an old house, with a living room and bedrooms. Roxas's room was on the second floor. That was most of what Sora got to spy on, in the moments Roxas walked around. The first floor looked just like an old house, in need of serious redecorating but not otherwise notable. Outside the windows, Sora saw a large yard, and other houses down the block. It looked like suburbs, still. Good. He'd known that the Organization couldn't be too far from the main city, but it was nice to have some confirmation.

Roxas stepped outside. They were on a main road, but it wasn't one Sora recognized. Must not be the northwest suburbs, then. Sora knew those too well to be lost.

There was a cluster of office buildings across the way. Roxas tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and, after waiting for a couple cars, crossed the street and went into the closest one.

Sora wasn't sure what he'd expected of the Organization. A huge imposing lair, maybe. He realized now that that didn't make sense. He and Riku had been fighting the Organization wherever they found them for the past year, and they'd never figured out where they were meeting. Anything that stood out would have been way too obvious.

In any case, it looked like any other office building. There was a reception desk, though no one was sitting at it, and there were a couple chairs for people to sit in while they waited. A couple of signs made it clear that this was a doctor's office, and that the receptionist would be back "momentarily".

Roxas took the elevator. There didn't seem to be any security in the building, which made sense when Sora thought about it. The Organization was an evil league of supers. They didn't need security- they were each deadly to the average human being.

The elevator was slow. Sora could still feel every bruise that Riku had inflicted on Roxas during their last fight. He remembered what Roxas had said, before- that he'd "let Sora out" when he needed to heal. Sora was sure there was more to it than that, though- Roxas hadn't just let Sora out for that reason. He'd wanted conversation, and Sora wasn't so sure he could keep Sora locked in this corner of his mind indefinitely anyway. Ansem hadn't had full control of Riku's body until Riku was nearly gone. And Sora wasn't gone. Not even close yet.

If Riku didn't rescue Sora fast, Sora would just figure out a way to rescue himself.

The elevator dinged when it reached the top floor. Roxas stepped out into a huge white room.

The space in the room was bigger on the inside than the building had looked outside. Sora was no architect, but he had a feeling the dimensions of the building didn't add up right. Like, maybe someone in the Organization had space-manipulating powers. That was a scary thought. Then again, maybe the building was just bigger than it looked. It wasn't like Sora had been able to get a good look when he couldn't even control the direction his eyeballs were pointing.

Sitting at a desk at the end of the room was a man of indeterminate age. His hair was gray, but his face was fairly youthful. "Ah," he said. "Roxas."

"Xemnas," Roxas replied, tone edging close to impolite but not quite there.

What followed was pretty dull. Roxas told Xemnas how he'd been captured, and about what he'd learned during his imprisonment. Not much, Sora was happy to hear, though he'd pretty much known that already.

"I have a mission for you now," Xemnas said, once Roxas had finished his short report.

Roxas frowned, but didn't complain.

Xemnas passed a folder to Roxas. "The details are in here. Finish up quickly. This will be your only mission for today."

Roxas nodded.

Half an hour later, after reading the report and throwing it on his bed back in his room, Roxas was standing on a nearby corner, catching the cross-town bus. Sora shouldn't have been surprised by the bus- why would Roxas know how to drive?

He kept himself all hunched over the whole time, with his hood up. Sora could tell he didn't like public transportation.

They passed a few landmarks Sora knew, which meant he could place the Organization's headquarters as being only about a half hour drive from his house. There was a warehouse district in between, where not many people went these days. Sora's mom had explained it when Sora was little- something about the manufacturing jobs going to the mainland, and nothing being left on the island. Abandoned warehouses bordered the river, and there were old disused docks there, which had long ago been replaced by others further down the river, towards the coast.

The docks were where Roxas found Xemnas' thug, after a bit of a walk from the bus stop. Scotch was his name, and he didn't look like much of a threat. He was skinny, arms poking out of his loose green t-shirt like twigs, and his legs didn't look much better- his jeans looked like they were falling off of him. Sora thought, with a little relief, that Roxas wouldn't have too much trouble beating him. Not that Sora wanted anyone to be captured by the Organization, even one of its former goons, but he also didn't want Roxas to die and take Sora with him.

He hoped the Organization didn't treat prisoners too badly. He had a feeling they probably weren't very forgiving, though, to those who betrayed them.

Scotch saw Roxas only a second after Roxas spotted him.

"I was wondering who they'd send after me," Scotch said. "Thought I'd at least merit someone with real powers."

Roxas ignored the insult. "You going to come quietly, or are we going to do this the hard way?" he asked.

Scotch just laughed. "Kid, you're in way over your head. Just because you're a full member of the Organization doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing. What are you, fifteen?"

Sora was seventeen, and his birthday was in less than a month. He felt Roxas bristle slightly at that insult, but he still did his best to ignore it.

Did Roxas even have a birthday? Gosh, what if he actually was fifteen? What if Sora was being possessed by someone really young? Roxas certainly didn't seem any older than Sora- didn't seem a lot younger, either, though, so probably he was around the same age. Sora wasn't sure why that was a relief, but it was.

"Guess you're choosing the hard way," Roxas said, pulling his hoodie off and tossing it to the ground. He stepped a step back into the sun, where, Sora remembered a second later, Roxas's powers would be stronger.

The little bit of eye-dazzling that came from stepping into sunlight was all that Scotch was waiting for. He moved, fast enough that Sora didn't see what he was doing. There was a boom, and it was only as Roxas stared down at the sudden bullet hole in his stomach that Sora realized that movement had been Scotch pulling a gun from the back of his pants.

Roxas dropped to his knees, hand covering the wound. The pain was intense. Sora had felt worse, but not recently.

Ansem reaching into his chest, grabbing something vital, something that should have been intangible, and shattering it-

He hadn't thought about guns. Hadn't remembered that, hey, regular people could be just as deadly as supers.

Scotch walked over to where Roxas had now collapsed onto the ground. Roxas made a feeble move to point his finger at Scotch. Sora recognized the move from earlier- Roxas's dorky-looking laser beam.

Scotch stepped on his hand, hard. There was an audible snapping sound, and Sora knew that at least one finger was broken.

They weren't getting out of this one. Sora might have managed, but Roxas wasn't a fighter. He didn't have superstrength or any sort of healing powers. And Sora could feel Roxas's pain, could feel that there was no way he could even stand up, let alone fight back.

"Doesn't seem like the hard way to me," Scotch said, laughing a little. Sora felt sick. Any trace of sympathy he felt for Scotch disappeared.

Scotch lowered his gun again, pointing it directly at Sora's head. At Roxas's head. "Any last words?"

"Sora," Roxas said, voice pleading.

And then Sora was in control for the first time since the basement. There was no time to think, no time to plan a good course of action.

He sat up, took another bullet to the shoulder when Scotch missed, and punched.

Sora would never be as strong as Riku. Riku was bigger, and Sora had a feeling that the way his powers worked, they were never as strong as the person he was copying them from.

It didn't make a lot of difference. Sora wasn't up against Riku. He was up against a non-super, and even with such a poor angle, his punch made Scotch bend over double, wheezing.

Sora's pinky was still broken, but as Scotch watched, unable to move, it popped back into position, and healed. It was a little bloody, and Sora didn't want to think about bone poking through his skin, but he did anyway. The bullet holes closed slightly more slowly, but within a moment they were gone, too. One bullet, which had apparently been lodged in his shoulder, popped out on its own and clinked to the ground.

Scotch looked afraid. Normally, Sora didn't like inspiring that expression. Right now, though, he was okay with it.

Sora stood, and rolled his shoulders a little. The pain was gone now. He reached out and plucked Scotch's gun from his hand without much effort. He didn't need superstrength, even. He carefully crushed the end of the barrel, and then tossed it far away in case Scotch got any ideas about it. Sora didn't know anything about guns, but if there was any chance that that gun was still remotely useful, he wasn't letting Scotch get hold of it.

Scotch said, "please." That was the only word he could get out.

Sora said, "I'm not like you. I don't kill people."

Scotch looked relieved, though he still couldn't get another word out.

And then Roxas was in charge again. He said, "I'm turning you in to Xemnas. We'll let him decide what to do with you."

Scotch wheezed, nodded.

"The healing thing is just between us," Roxas said. "Understood?"

Scotch nodded again. Roxas picked his hoodie up from the dirty ground and pulled it on, carefully zipping it all the way up.

The Organization sent a car to pick up Roxas and Scotch, so Roxas didn't have to take the bus back with Scotch in tow. Sora had never minded taking the bus- his school district didn't have money for school buses, so he'd taken the city bus to school every day of high school- but he could tell Roxas didn't like it. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he was worried, this close to Sora's house, that someone might recognize him. Maybe he just hated public transit.

Sora hoped his mom had put up posters of him or something- he was missing, after all. Depending on how much Riku had told her, he might have been considered missing for nearly two weeks now. Maybe someone would see Roxas and call Sora's mom, who might tell Riku what was happening, and this whole mess could get sorted out.

He kept an eye out, as much as he could, for any such signs. He didn't see any. It was kind of a longshot, anyway.

Scotch seemed to recover slightly on the trip back, from what Sora heard of his breathing on the drive back. Roxas was in the front seat and Scotch the back, so it wasn't like Sora could see him, though.

Roxas reported to Xemnas briefly, leaving out all the parts where Sora had saved his butt. Sora guessed it would look bad that Roxas'd had to rely on Sora's powers to survive a fight with a non-super.

And then Roxas went back to his room in the safe house, shut the door, and locked it. He pulled the hoodie off, then his bullet-hole-ridden shirt. There was blood around each hole. Roxas examined Sora's stomach, his shoulder- places he'd been shot. There were no scars, of course. Sora didn't scar anymore.

Roxas slumped to the floor, shirt still in hand. He leaned against his bed, and took a few deep breaths.

Sora might have said something comforting, in other circumstances. And if he'd had control of his own mouth, to talk with. As it was, that wasn't even an option.

Roxas sat there for a long time, freaking out, but it couldn't last forever. After a long while, there was a knock on the door. Roxas said, "Give me a sec!" and threw the ruined shirt in the trash, burying it under a couple tissues and other garbage. Then he pulled the hoodie back on, zipped it, and opened the door.

It was Axel, who leaned against the door-frame, and said: "Thought you might want to know- that guy you just apprehended is dead."

Roxas blinked. "What?"

"Internal bleeding," Axel said carelessly. "He died a couple hours after you brought him in."

Roxas repeated, "What?"

"It happens sometimes," Axel said. "If you punch someone really hard in the stomach. Nothing you could have known about, but I thought I'd let you know so you weren't caught unaware by it." He paused, added, "I know some people in the Organization aren't... very sensitive."

"You're saying I killed someone," Roxas said, slowly.

Axel hesitated.

Roxas cursed. "Why didn't someone get him a healer? A doctor? There was plenty of time."

"No one knew he needed one until the bleeding had just about killed him," Axel said.

"Shit," Roxas said.

"Xemnas is happy," Axel said, as though that were the problem. "It's just one less loose end."

This did not make Roxas any less upset. Sora felt like he was going to be sick, and he wasn't sure if it was him feeling that way, or Roxas. Probably Roxas- he had Sora's body tightly under control, so his reactions were probably the ones Sora was feeling. Not that Sora wasn't upset- but he was having trouble telling how upset, exactly, he was, with only Roxas's feedback from his body, and not his own. It was weird. Sora had thought, before he knew about Roxas, that emotional states probably came straight from the soul. After all, Sora knew that souls existed as a fact. But he guessed it was more complicated than that, because he couldn't tell how upset he was, and his soul was fine. It was just his body Roxas had.

Sora hated this. It wasn't the first time he'd thought that, but it hit him now with a lot of force. He hated being so out-of-control. In some ways, it would have been better if he'd stayed asleep while Roxas took over. It would have been easier, anyway.

Roxas would be dead if Sora weren't awake. Sora would be dead if Sora weren't awake. If Sora couldn't heal himself, he was just as vulnerable to injury as anyone else.

He could have died, easily, today. Funny, that he couldn't feel shocked or panicked about it. He felt so disconnected from himself.

Roxas had been very quiet this whole time. Axel said, "You okay?"

Roxas shook his head. "I'm fine," he said.

"You've never killed anyone before," Axel said.

Again, Roxas just shook his head. "I'm fine," he repeated, a little flatly. "I just- I need a little time. It hasn't sunk in."

"Okay," Axel said. "I- okay. Just- find me if you need me, okay? I don't have any missions lined up for the rest of the day."

"Alright," Roxas said.

Axel hesitated a little longer, hovering in the doorway. Then he left. Roxas shut the door carefully, then collapsed on the bed.

"You've never killed anyone either," he said. "How's it feel?"

It took Sora a minute to realize he had control again.

"I have," he said, quietly.

Roxas raised one eyebrow, which was a weird sensation when Sora was otherwise in control.

"Ansem," Sora said. "You forget, I had to kill him to get Riku his body back."

"That wasn't killing," Roxas said. "I was there, watching. You just touched him, and Riku was in control again. Took about three seconds."

"I shattered his soul," Sora said. "That's the part you couldn't see. He was latched on to Riku's soul like a leech or something. There was no way to detach them without killing both, so I just- grabbed, and squeezed. Ansem's soul is in a million little pieces. He's still attached to Riku, still in his body and attached to his soul, but there's nothing left of him big enough to grab control."

"Oh," Roxas said. "I thought you just- superpowered him back to his body, or something. I wasn't- I wasn't as in control back then, as I am now. I slept a lot. I didn't get the whole story."

Sora said, "It's okay. I don't talk about it much. You wouldn't have known, I guess."

Roxas shouldn't have known any of it. If he didn't live in Sora's head, he wouldn't know anything at all.

Sora had never talked to anyone about that day, not even Riku. Sora guessed Riku knew that Ansem was still inside him- after all, he still had all of Ansem's powers, and there wasn't really any other explanation for that. And since he had Ansem's soul powers, he could look at himself and see what was happening. It wasn't exactly a secret. But they'd never discussed it. Sora wasn't sure Riku could even remember exactly what had happened, when he was possessed.

"How did you even use Ansem's soul powers?" Roxas asked. "I thought your powers were like... friendship-based, or something like that. Ansem wasn't your friend. I always wondered how that worked."

Sora thought for a moment before responding, but couldn't think of a way for Roxas to use the information against him. "Riku is my friend," he finally said. "And they were attached." More than attached, they had been the same person at that moment- had been literally joined at the soul. Sora remembered the mess he'd had, the trouble even finding Ansem's parasitic soul among the wreckage of Riku's soul.

"Sounds like a technicality to me," Roxas said.

"Sometimes technicalities can save your life," Sora said. "Anyway. I think shattering someone's soul is worse than killing them. If you kill them, they're just gone. If they're shattered..."

"He shattered you, first," Roxas said. "Was it- did it hurt?"

Sora didn't want to talk about it. So he said, "There would have had to be something left of me, for it to hurt." He tried to make his tone as final as possible.

Roxas didn't take the hint. He said, "Then how did you fix yourself?"

Sora said, "I don't want to talk about it, okay? It was hard. It took weeks, and I was in a coma the whole time, and-"

He was breathing hard.

"I never wanted to kill anyone ever again," he blurted out. "I thought- I thought my secret identity would be enough, that no one would ever know who I was, that no one would ever come after me or Riku again."

"I never had a secret identity," Roxas said quietly. "I've just always been me, and I... I didn't have an identity, period. They could make me do whatever. Not like I'm a person, right?" He paused, but didn't give Sora a chance to say anything. Then, louder, he said, "I wouldn't even have my own name if-"

He paused for another moment, apparently unsure if he should go on. Then he shook his head, obviously deciding Sora wasn't a threat. "I wouldn't have my own name," he continued, "if Axel hadn't given me one. It was while you were in the hospital last year, in a coma. Fixing your soul after Ansem broke it, I guess. Anyway. Ansem had names for me, but they weren't- weren't real names. He called me the freak, sometimes. Ansem was really into his soul powers, so it really pissed them off that he couldn't seem to use them on me. Because I don't have a soul, apparently."

Roxas stated this all matter-of-fact, but Sora could tell it all pained him. He could feel it.

Roxas shook his head. "Anyway. Axel was my guard. They knew something was weird about you, mostly because I existed, but they didn't know you were a meta. Axel was overkill, they thought, but he's always been a bit of a wildcard, and I guess they wanted him out of the way for a while. So he was my guard. And when I was awake, we talked. He said, if I wasn't you, I needed a name. So he called me Roxas. It's just your name, jumbled up. With an X in it. Because he said, I was ex-Sora... It made more sense at the time, I guess."

He said, "Axel told me everything the Organization knew about you. Even before you woke up, we figured I'd be taking over your life. Not as a spy, just as my identity. There was no reason to spy on you, then. You seemed brain-dead when I wasn't awake, and they weren't even sure I had powers. That came later. You don't have to have powers to be part of the Organization."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Sora asked, when Roxas finally gave him back control, and he could get a word in edgewise.

Roxas took a long moment to reply. Finally, he said: "I know you, even though you don't know me very well yet. And- I trust you, even if that's sort of nuts. Besides, it's not like you're ever going to have a chance to betray me. Uh."

That feeling of trust wasn't mutual. Not now, not ever, Sora vowed. But he could tell Roxas was sincere. There was a warm sort of feeling in his chest, and he knew it belonged to Roxas. He found himself resenting that feeling. He didn't want to know how Roxas felt. He didn't want to get to know him. He wanted Roxas gone, banished back to wherever he belonged. (Not dead though, Sora'd had enough killing. First Ansem and now Scotch, and Sora had known when he realized that he was a meta that people might try to kill him, but he hadn't thought that through and realized that he might have to kill to survive. He hadn't wanted to think it though.)

It wasn't Roxas's fault, though. None of it was. If it had been Sora who woke up in that hospital room, alone and friendless and without even a name, wouldn't he have latched on to the first person who was nice to him? Maybe he would have joined the Organization too, until he was in so deep that he couldn't get out.

He was glad it hadn't been him. He was sure it would have broken him, to be so alone.

This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to do. Sympathy was the last thing he needed to feel for Roxas.

This was all temporary, anyway. Even if Sora couldn't find a way free on his own, Riku would come for him. Sora just had to wait. And, well, Sora didn't like waiting, but he knew Riku would never leave him here alone. Friends didn't do that. Kairi would help too- she was the smart one. Sora had always been a little naïve and never done well at school, and Riku was fine with book smarts but he was dumb enough to get possessed by the first person to try to use him for his powers. But Kairi- she had it all. Sora had always admired her for that.

Sora missed them both so much it hurt, and that was kind of a relief- that he could still feel something. It didn't make things okay, but it made them a little better than the numbness he'd been feeling.

He still hoped Riku would come soon. He didn't want to have to kill anyone else.

A/N: Scotch is named after a VERY minor FF7 villain.