. . . .

It didn't take long before he came to a bridge.

It was boring. Plain and simple. But it was also high as fuck.

Glancing down over the edge, he would hazard a guess that it was a long ways down. And when he jumped, and stood above the water, he gathered that thirty Lexaeus's, all standing on each others head, wouldn't be able to come close to the bottom of the bridge.

However, that really seemed to be all that was worth looking at-the height. There was nothing else remarkable, except for how deep and deadly the water in the river was.

But halfway across the bridge, he had to pause, then lean down. There were...scorch marks.

The wood was singed in places, as if specific points had been targeted by something very, very hot. But it hadn't burned completely. His guess was electricity.

Something went down on this bridge...but what?

He didn't know the answer to that question, so he shook his head, stood, and kept going.

Or rather-he was going to.

But in the distance, he heard a strange...thrumming. He'd have to compare it to a hummingbirds wings, only this sound was much louder than the wings of any bird he'd ever heard, and he ducked into the cover of the trees.

Strange, flying machines were heading this way, and he watched with baited breath as they passed overhead. He could count five of them.

And they were all carrying an even bigger machine, that looked like some sort of death-bringing vehicle, suspended between them. And then came two other flying machines, which distinctively reminded him of the paper planes he and Demyx threw at each other sometimes, trying to create one that looked cool, and still made it across the room.

They moved pretty quickly, despite the giant load between them, and he cautiously stepped out as they continued on, disappearing over the rocky walls he saw in the distance. And as he watched, his binoculars out and scoping in that direction. He didn't see anything.

But now he had an idea.

Follow the flying things, and scout out anything he comes across in the meantime.

-{-}-

Unfortunately, it was only a few minutes travel before his senses picked up on something very, very wrong.

The helicopters were moving much slower now, and he could see a man up there. He was holding a strange device, and it was aimed-

Shit.

He was in the crossfire, and it was aimed somewhere he didn't know about. He jumped into warp speed, aiming to get to the other side of the flying objects, and as fast as possible.

No sooner had he done that, then he heard a loud, ear-ringing explosion, eye wide as he stared back at a gigantic pillar of flame, that billowed like a mushroom.

It was almost as if Axel and Xaldin had gotten together to create some flame art. The smoke blacked out the sky, and ash was raining down on the land. It hurt to even look at the disaster before him, the raging flame billowing again, and again, trees bending and swaying as wind, pushed with the same force of the explosion, forced them to move.

Not ten seconds ago, he'd been standing close enough that he could have been caught in that explosion. At best, he would have only been hit by the aftermath-the wind. Still. Best case scenario in that situation was that he was launched off his feet and knocked unconcious, possibly suffering minor-to manageable wounds.

Worse case? Painful and most certain death, in either outcome.

And with that horrible thought in mind, he was at a loss for words.

What kind of world was it, that they possessed a device that could destroy so much land, and in only one second, and left the aftermath of a burning flame that didnt subside for days?

Suddenly, the world he was in seemed so much more frightening and strange.

During the time it took for his ears to stop ringing, and for him to be able to hear normally again, the strange flying things had moved off again. He needed to follow them.

But for some reason...he felt sick.

Maybe it was the wind. It smelt toxic.

It made him ill enough that he had to stop teleporting, and spent about an hour throwing up, and shivering on the riverbank.

After that, he blacked out.

-{-}-

He woke up three times over the course of the next three days.

The first day, he felt as if he was dying. Potions didn't help, because he couldn't keep them down long enough for them to kick into effect. Cure magic was out, because his head hurt too much, and he couldn't summon the energy needed to save his life-which he needed to do.

On the second day, he had all but given up. He'd woken with a horrible fever, the headache was still going strong, and his stomach felt horribly empty. He didn't have the strength needed to crawl over to the river for water. There was only one small mercy that day.

He didn't have anything in his stomach to throw up, and so he didn't end up doing that. Instead, he just quietly lay there, overheating and shivering alternatively, before he finally succumbed to exhaustion, which, for all he knew, could be the final time he slept.

-{-}-

When his eye opened once again, he felt like the world had been dropped on his head, brain pounding, and throat dry as hell. He crawled to the river side, and despite the color of it, he cupped it in shaking hands, drinking thirstly from it.

It soothed his stomach, at least. Looking around, he saw the mushroom-shaped fire cloud had disappeared. The sky was now more of a normal color again, and it was much easier to breathe and think. He pulled off one glove, damp with both water and sweat, then raised a shaky hand to his brow. His temperature didn't seem quite as bad as the day before.

He sighed with relief, before he uncapped a potion, and brought it to his lips. Thirty minutes passed after he drank it, and he thanked Kingdom Hearts that it had stayed down. He could feel his sore insides healing, his esophagus having been burned repeatedly by vomit.

Slowly, he sat up, looking around at the place he'd stumbled to and passed out . Strangely, he could see blood, dried on the roots of a tree. He could even see an indent in the mud where someone had been laying, with a splintered stick with teeth imprints lying nearby.

The thought that he'd' been so close to someone sat ill with him.

But when he checked the density of the mud, he was relieved. It had been dry before he woke up, so whoever had been there had moved on while he was still passed out, or even before he was ever there.

Even more slowly than before, he manuevered himself so he was standing on his feet, wobbling slightly as blood rushed to his feet, little white dots appearing in his vision temporarily. But thankfully, they didn't stick around long.

He winced with the first step, turning in a circle, and he froze, eye locked on a flash of off-white he'd seen next to a log. Slowly, as if in a dream, he wandered over to it.

. . . .

It was a skeleton.

Judging from the look and the position of the body, they hadn't fallen to their death. He crouched down, examining the clothing. A fallen pair of glasses lay on the ground a few inches from the corpse, half buried in the dirt. When he pulled them out, he discovered that the left lens seemed to be broken, fragmented pieces of glass barely clinging to the frame.

Were they...shot?

He now looked over the actual figure. Judging from the shape and position of the bones, as well as the jaw...he'd have to guess that this person was once male. And with that thought in mind, the gunman deducted that the deceased was a man wearing a sweater, with shoulder guards and straps across his chest. Judging from the way the bones looked, they'd have to have been here for at least twenty-odd years, being as bare of flesh as they were.

He did a quick search, but found nothing to tell him who the man was. The only thing he did find, was a hole in the back of the skull, which showed how he died.

"...Shot in the left eye."

As he stared at the bones, and that hole-riddled skull, he raised a hand, briefly fingering his eyepatch, gaze still fixed on that empty left socket. Slowly, he lowered his hand again, as memories began to flow through his mind. He'd never forget how he lost his right eye.

He can still see it. The way the keyblade flashed in the sun. How that ball of darkness-shooting towards him, had suddenly changed trajectory, curving up towards his face.
The sheer agony he'd felt when it had connected, wounding him in two places.

And then...

The horror he'd felt when he realized he couldn't see out of his right eye anymore.

. . . .

"...Whoever you are...I hope you passed quickly."

. . . .

He glanced up at the sky, and frowned when he realized how quickly dawn was sneaking up on him. By his count, it had taken at least one day to scout from the Shack to the bridge. Then, he'd spent three days being ill next to the riverside.

He couldn't get much scouting done with only one day left. It would be better to return early, and explain the circumstances that led to him aborting the mission so soon. He had been ill equipped, and ill prepared in general for it. Next time, however, he'd have an idea what to expect, and should be able to do a better job when he returned to do Recon.

For now-it was time to return to the Castle That Never Was.

He stepped forward, then paused. For a moment, he just stood there, staring straight ahead, thinking on something, before he turned again, and set to work.

Five minutes later, he was satisfied with what he'd done, and he created a Dark Corridor, and left the world, exhausted both physically and mentally by the stress of the mission.

As it closed, the darkness faded away, and the sun finally peeked over the cliff, the early rays of light illuminating the place where he had been sick. And before long, they had even reached that lonely, desolate log, tucked against the river side.

Xigbar had arranged that unknown skeleton so that they no longer looked as though they had died, sprawled out on the ground, with limbs lying awkwardly at either side. Instead, it looked as if they fell asleep with a pair of glasses resting on their chest, and never woke up.

The cliff wall above the deceased male now held words, carved into the wall with magic.

Rest in Peace.

. . . .