A/N: Hello, everyone! Sorry to take so long to update, but this summer was a busy one, and now that college has started back up I'll still have my hands full. This chapter is a short one, really to let you know I'm not dead and I regret not updating in a while. But I'm already working on the next segment, so hopefully I'll be more prompt with the next chapter.

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and kept up with this story!

Chapter 4

Axel shifted for the fourth time in ten minutes, but no matter how he moved, the springs in Leon's decrepit, sagging sofa stabbed into his bony frame. Finally he sat up, abandoning the idea of sleep altogether. Besides his less-than-comfortable sleeping spot, he couldn't allow himself to sleep under Leon's roof. He didn't like leaving himself vulnerable around someone he didn't trust, and he certainly didn't trust Leon. The Gunblade wielder had never warmed up to him.

Green eyes narrowing in a squint, Axel glanced across the room at the tiny nook that passed for Leon's kitchen. In glowing green numbers, the clock on the stove heralded the coming of a new hour, the time ticking from 2:59 to 3 am. Well, that certainly left him a lot of time to kill. Even Leon, early riser that he was, didn't get up until 6:30. So, either he could spend the time here counting the hours and twiddling his thumbs, or he could go and see how Kanixa was doing.

If she would even speak to him, that was.

Axel ran a hand through his spiky hair sheepishly, a rare look of self-doubt flickering across his face. He'd handled his earlier conversation with Kanixa badly. He hadn't meant to let loose on her, not originally, but three whole days of putting up with Aerith's unexpected dragon side—no matter what tactic Axel tried, she wouldn't let him near Kanixa's room. She'd even taken to sleeping there to make sure that Axel couldn't portal in on the sly—suspicious glares from Leon, and pitying looks from just about everyone else, his temper had reached the end of its (short) tether. And Demyx had been wise enough to steer clear of him throughout the whole ordeal, so when a target for his bad mood had presented itself…

His bony shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. That always seemed to happen. Whenever it really mattered, and he really needed to get the point across to someone he cared about, his temper always seemed to get the best of him.

Axel got to his feet decisively. Well, there was nothing for it. He would have to swallow his pride and make the supreme sacrifice: actually apologize. With a flick of one wrist, he opened a portal. A few seconds later, the last wisps of dark energy faded away in front of him, leaving him standing in her room. A shaft of light from the full moon outside gave plenty of light, so that he could clearly see the empty bed.

Great. So, the recovering invalid had decided to go for a moonlit stroll. If that was all there was to it. And with all the suspicious coincidences starting to line up—reports of Maleficent summoning Heartless, and Heartless popping up all over the worlds—he had to suspect otherwise.

"Don't believe this," Axel sighed, crossing to the door with quick, silent steps. Opening it just enough to slip through, he glanced down the hall. No Kanixa. Taking the stairs two at a time, focus on speed rather than stealth now, he was on the first floor in a matter of seconds.

He scanned the living room quickly. No sign of Kanixa. Wait—his eyes narrowed as he saw a flicker of white disappear into the kitchen. He followed it as quickly and quietly as he could, and in the blink of an eye he was peering through the kitchen door to see—

Kanixa, looking like a deer caught in the headlights as she froze with one hand on the refrigerator door's handle. "Axel!" she gasped, moving that hand to press it over the space where her heart would be. "You startled me."

"Out for a midnight snack, hmm?" Axel asked, covering up his inward feeling of relief by taking up his customary lounging pose as he leaned against the door frame, folding his arms across his chest as he cocked his head at her. "Well, give or take a few hours," he added, gesturing at the clock above the stove with one hand.

"What? I'm hungry," Kanixa said defensively. "If what you said is right, then I haven't eaten in three days—"

"No need to get huffy. I was just asking," Axel said, voice trailing off into a mutter towards the end as he turned his head to stare at the space in front of him, the sort of stare that might peel the paint from the stretch of door frame he currently glowered at. So, she was still angry with him. Great.

"Hey…" Kanixa put her hand on his arm, and Axel glanced up sharply, surprised. "Are you all right?" she asked, peering up into his face with a concerned look.

"Never better," he replied, giving her his usual cocky smirk. "But, uh, Nixa, listen—" he began, making the awkward beginning to a segue into the apology he'd come to deliver. "About earlier—"

"Don't worry about it," she cut him off, giving him a somewhat tentative smile. "It's not a big deal."

"I was just worried about you. And…I'm sorry."

"Well, well. The great Axel is actually apologizing," Kanixa said, a more genuine smile spreading across her face. "I'm flattered."

"Don't expect it to happen again, if this is the result I get," Axel complained, folding his arms across his chest and glancing away in a pose that might have been called sulky—if anyone was brave enough to risk a barrage of flames.

"I'm sorry," Kanixa said quickly, looking contrite. "So, what's the word on this big mission the King wanted us to go on? I missed that meeting—"

"And so did the rest of us. When I brought you here, it scared your little friends enough that they panicked and called Sora."

"Oh. Sorry." Kanixa ducked her head, a guilty expression flickering across her face.

"Please. You did us a favor," Axel said, trying to cheer her up. "No one wanted to be stuck at Disney Castle a minute longer than we had to be. At least you got us a little reprieve."

"Maybe." Kanixa turned her attention back to the refrigerator. She opened it slowly, as if afraid of what might be on the other side.

"Afraid something will jump out at you?" Axel teased.

"It depends. If Yuffie's been doing the cooking, maybe," Kanixa said grimly.

"Good point. But I think Leon's taken over. So you should be safe." As Kanixa pulled a slice of cold pizza out of the fridge, inspecting it from all angles with a suspicious frown on her face, he allowed his thoughts to wander.

Once Kanixa was well enough to travel—and he would be making that call, not Aerith. She didn't just need to be sound enough for a little pleasure jaunt. With Heartless inexplicably popping up among the worlds, she needed to be battle-ready—they needed to return to Disney Castle.

Axel was suddenly more than a little curious about what King Mickey had to say. In fact, he had several pressing questions for the King. And he felt certain he wouldn't like the answers.

Ever since he'd seen the swarm of Heartless in the Land of the Dragons, the pessimistic part of him—the realist part—had known. This couldn't just be a freak occurrence. Once more, something—or someone—was playing with the balance of Light and Darkness in the worlds. No doubt the Keyblade Master and those tied to him would soon find themselves snarled in the heart of the matter. And Sora would need competent help to avoid hopelessly bungling the situation.

If it were anyone else, Axel would just take Kanixa and Demyx—Kanixa would balk at leaving him behind, and at times it was handy to have another fighter around—and leave now, find a place to lay low until the worst blew over. But…he couldn't leave Sora in the lurch. The kid had started to grow on him, and besides, he carried valuable cargo locked away inside him.

He sighed, shaking his head. The things I do for you, Roxas.

Demyx cracked an eye open at the faint noise of someone stirring on the floor above him, the muffled thud of footsteps audible through the ceiling. He'd always been a light sleeper—a necessary survival skill in the Organization—but the tense atmosphere here on Radiant Garden had made him especially wary.

Tempers had been on edge here the past few days. Ever since Axel had burst into Aerith and Yuffie's living room uninvited, holding a limp Kanixa in his arms and looking as though he would incinerate the first person who made the mistake of getting in his way. Not that he'd been around for that, but he'd overheard Yuffie's dramatic retelling to a rapt audience of Sora and his sidekicks.

But most of the worry seemed directed at the possible resurgence of a Heartless threat. Demyx's face rearranged itself into a scowl as he got to his feet, stretching the kinks out of his muscles. The sofa in the little study off of Leon's front room had to be the worst place to spend the night ever—though Axel claimed that the longer couch in the front room, where the former Number Eight slept, was just as bad.

People with hearts could be so selfish and mercenary. They could act as callously as the worst Nobody, and no one would bat an eye. Right now, the Radiant Garden crew were so wrapped up in their horrible memories of the first time the Heartless had invaded their home that no one seemed to remember the fact that a girl who had once been one of them was stuck in Aerith's guest room, still an invalid after her run-in with the Heartless in the Land of the Dragons.

Pausing only to smooth out his sleep-rumpled Organization coat, Demyx headed for the front door of Leon's house. Before most of the townies were awake, he would find an out-of-the-way corner of the town to practice some tunes on his sitar, safe from both the Restoration Committee's suspicious stares and the wrath of a worried Axel. The Flurry of Dancing Flames wasn't above picking fights just as an excuse to vent some steam, and Demyx had no intention of turning into Axel's stress-relieving punching bag.

A few steps out into the small square where all of the Restoration Committee lived, Demyx paused, blue eyes widening in surprised recognition. "Nixa!" Face spitting into a wide grin, he launched himself at his best friend.

"Demyx," Kanixa laughed, returning hug. "Easy on the enthusiasm, okay? I'm still not 100 percent yet—" The smile disappeared from her face, and she cast her eyes around nervously. "Don't tell Axel I said that. He and Aerith are the biggest mother hens—"

Demyx snorted at that. If anyone had told him a few months ago that the Flurry of Dancing Flames, the loose cannon that even the leadership in the Organization had feared, could have an overprotective streak, Number Nine would have told them to get their head examined. But that was before Kanixa had joined up. "Where is Axel, anyway?" Demyx asked, a noticeable amount of enthusiasm leaching out of his voice at the mention of the redhead.

Kanixa shrugged. "I haven't seen him in a while. I'm sure he's lurking somewhere."

"Maybe he's right behind you." Demyx spun around to see Axel half-standing, half-leaning against the front of Merlin's house in his typical slouching pose. He'd stood in shadow, so Demyx had missed him, even with that shock of red hair. His face was closed off, giving no indication of how much of the conversation he'd heard or what he'd thought of it.

"And who says I lurk?" Axel asked, strolling over to join them. He gave Kanixa an affronted look. "Lurking is for wimps. I prowl."

Kanixa put a hand to her mouth in an attempt to mask her giggle. "Whatever you say."

"So, what's with the lurking—I mean, prowling," Demyx corrected himself at a glare from Axel.

"You don't think the Heartless will come here next, do you?" Kanixa asked before Axel could reply, eyes widening in alarm.

"Maybe," was Number Eight's less-than-comforting answer. "I do know one thing. I want to find out what's going on here. If we're about to have a full-scale war between Light and Darkness again, I want to know about it before all hell breaks loose."

"Who said anything about a war? Can't you be optimistic for once?" Kanixa gave Axel a light swat on the forearm.

"No," Axel replied. "Optimism is dangerous. Going around with my head in the clouds only means I won't be paying attention when someone rips it off."

"Gross, Axel." Kanixa made a face. "Besides, that's not always true! Look at Sora!"

Demyx snorted. "Sora isn't just optimistic, he's clueless. How many times have we had to save his bacon?"

"Fine. You two go on being all doom and gloom. But I'm going to hope for the best," Kanixa declared, before flouncing back into Aerith and Yuffie's house for breakfast.

Once she was gone, Demyx gave Axel an assessing glance. "So if someone's playing with the balance of the worlds, who do you think we're dealing with? Who has that kind of power?"

"Beats me," Axel said gloomily. "Maleficent's not who she used to be. And the Organization's gone. I didn't think anyone with enough juice to raise another Kingdom Hearts was left—"

"Who said anything about Kingdom Hearts?" Demyx broke in.

"Use your brain, Demyx," Axel scoffed. "Whenever something major goes on, Kingdom Hearts is always right at the center of it. All that power is just too tantalizing for anyone to pass up for long. The strength of all the free hearts of the universe…" He trailed off, a speculative gleam in his eyes. "Who knows? Under different circumstances, I might've taken a crack at it myself."

"At least we know who it's not," Demyx said, trying to look on the bright side. "Maleficent doesn't have the energy for such a monumental task, and the Organization is gone."

"Thank goodness for that," Axel snorted. "This saving the worlds routine is getting stale already. Imagine having to go back and re-kill our 'esteemed colleagues.' And considering we terminated their existences in the first place, they wouldn't exactly make it easy for us…"

Both Nobodies let out an involuntary shudder at the thought.

In the Organization's castle, a portal hissed open. A hooded figure in an Organization coat stepped out, an inky blot against the drab smears of the castle walls, decorated in various shades of gray. Bo-ring. The Superior—Xemnas, the figure amended mentally. If he'd gotten offed by Sora just like the rest of them, then exactly how superior could he be?—should have been able to magic up something more ritzy out of the Nothing from which this world came than just bland old gray.

It was time to shake things up a bit around here. Maleficent might oblige. The sorceress couldn't keep the Organization under her thumb forever—Xemnas had been a hell of a plotter, and even he hadn't been able to stop the Organization from tearing itself apart. Certain malcontents had helped that process on its way a little—Saïx and Axel. It was no secret that the Luna Diviner was ambitious, and for a while the Flurry of Dancing Flames had been, albeit grudgingly, helping his rise to power along And then that Dynamic Duo had split up, leaving Axel more of a loose cannon than ever.

Xigbar pushed his hood back, a ruminating frown on his weathered face. Well, If he was being all honest and introspective, he hadn't been exactly been a fan of the boss either. Xemnas might have been head honcho, but for all his blather about exploring the mysteries of the heart and finding a method of restoring theirs, he'd given a lot of talk and no action. And then there were all the secrets that he kept from the group—like the whole deal with the Chambers of Sleeping and Awakening. Xigbar had done some digging on the subject and come up empty, but that just proved his point. Xemnas had hidden too much from them, the better to manipulate them.

He wouldn't be making that mistake with the new boss-lady. In fact, he didn't intend to let anyone boss him around for long. But hey, maybe a coup or two would be just the thing to heat things up around here. Kingdom Hearts knew he could use some excitement. Letting a small pack of Heartless loose in the middle of the Land of the Dragons' annual celebration of the emperor's birthday had been child's play. Time for the real fun to begin.