A/N: I'm SOOOO sorry about this late as hell update! I've been busy with random crap, work, and…yeah. Sorry! Anyway, here's the next installment. Enjoy~

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Night.

KH 358/2 Days, Night's Story

Chapter 4

Axel's…Gone…? What Happened?!

The next morning, Roxas and I left for the main room where we were assigned our missions. Roxas and I overheard some of the other members talking, though, so we went over to join in.

"Everyone's been eliminated, I heard," Xaldin said.

"Aw, man! That means more work I don't want to do!" Demyx complained.

"Well, look who's shown up," Xigbar said. "It's you two and me today, kiddos."

"Don't call us 'kiddos'," I growled at him. Xigbar was known to be cocky, but this was stupid. Roxas looked withdrawn, and I reached into his mind. I could feel true sadness from him, and I felt the same way about what happened to the others at Castle Oblivion. We looked at each other, and we knew that this meant Axel was gone from us. Everyone was gone. How could this happen? There was no time to think about it, though, because Xigbar began to head to the corridor. We went after him, and when we arrived, it was in a new world called Agrabah. Xigbar was there with us so we could perform recon around the area.

"Ready to go, kiddos?" he said. We didn't respond, just continued to look away. We were still thinking about the others from C.O. "Still thinking about them? Well, you'll both have plenty of time to do just that when we're done here," Xigbar said.

We nodded and sighed, and then continued with our recon. We discovered some interesting facts, such as there was an unusual amount of sandstorms here, and that possibly they were connected to the Heartless amount. Roxas and I continued to let our minds wander, and we were almost attacked by a Heartless due to it. Xigbar took it out, though.

"Right. We're done here, so let's RTC," Xigbar said, and we started to leave. Right as Roxas and I were about to leave, though, we felt a sharp pain in our minds, and collapsed as everything went black.

We awoke feeling so…strange. We were rested, but we'd had strange dreams of a boy in red and his dragon, and the boy looked like Roxas, while the dragon looked like me, only no white stripes, all black. We got up and began to leave, but not before noticing the seashells on the side of Roxas's pillow. We gathered them all up, and there were a bunch, too. Roxas and I decided to head for the Clock Tower to look for Xion. When we arrived, we saw Xion sitting there by herself.

"Xion," Roxas said, and she turned around in shock.

"Roxas, Night! Oh, I'm so glad you're both awake now!" she cried out. We sat down with her, and she gave us each an ice cream.

"What happened to us, Xion?" I asked her. She hesitated, and I said, "It's okay."

"Well…Saix told us you had passed out while in Agrabah and that you would take some time to wake up," she murmured. "I was so worried about you both…"

Roxas chuckled, and I joined in as well. "Well, at least we're awake now, so no need to worry," Roxas told her. She sighed with relief. "Why were there so many seashells on our bed, though, Xion?"

"I left them there, and I put one on your bed for each day that you were asleep," she told us. I took a bite out of my ice cream, and looked at her.

"How long were we asleep?" I asked.

"At least three weeks," she whispered. "I'm sorry, but I was just worried that you would never wake up."

"Well, no need to worry now, as you can see," we said, and the three of us laughed together. The sun set over the horizon, and we all got up to get ready to go home. It was the end of our day, but as Roxas and I went to our room, we thought about Axel, and how much we missed seeing him. It was hard, because we could feel…pain over the loss of our friend. At least we had Xion, but it just wasn't the same.

One morning, Roxas and I got up and left for the main room where we were assigned our missions. We were always paired up, and that was because of the close mental and friendly bonds we have. Roxas and I were assigned to Twilight Town again, and we realized it had been a few weeks since Axel had been gone; we missed him dearly, and there was no escaping the pain. We left as we usually did for the day's mission. Lately, though, whenever we would go up to the Clock Tower, Xion wasn't there. It was so weird, though; we hadn't even seen her before setting out on missions. It was like she had vanished. It was bad enough that we had lost Axel, but now Xion was missing, too. We left for the dark corridor, and started our mission. We thought about things as we went through with the mission. When we would eat our ice cream by ourselves at the top of the tower, we could only taste the salt, and no sweet. We had a lump in each of our throats that wouldn't go away because of our sadness, and it probably never would. We finished for the day, and began to head for the dark corridor, when Roxas and I clinched our fists with anger and sorrow.

"Why do we even bother anymore?" Roxas asked me quietly.

"We should just leave and never come back," I muttered, but suddenly a voice sounded from behind us.

"Hey, long time no see!"

We whipped around, and to our utter shock, it was Axel!

"Axel?!" I yelped. He walked over to us and laughed. Roxas was pale as a sheet.

"What's the matter with you two? You look like you've seen a ghost," Axel laughed.

"We thought that-everyone said that the members at Castle Oblivion were terminated," Roxas mumbled.

"Correction-almost everyone," Axel said. "Well, let's catch up!"

"Right, we'll go and get some ice cream!" Roxas said excitedly, and the two of us took off to buy some ice cream.

Once on the Clock Tower, we handed Axel his ice cream. Or rather, I snatched it from Roxas and gave it to Axel first before he could give it to him. Roxas gave me a small punch to the shoulder, and I laughed.

"Sounds like you two have been doing well," Axel remarked.

"Only because you're back now," I said.

"What happened there, anyway, Axel?" Roxas asked.

"Oh, it's a lot of hush-hush stuff. Can't tell, or I'll be in trouble," Axel teased. "But since you're both my friends, I guess I can tell you this: it was really just a bunch of traitors."

"Huh." I grinned at Axel, and Roxas did, too.

"Well, we're just glad you're back," Roxas told him, and I sighed with content. "Oh, and Night and I have been seeing Number XIV here every now and then."

"Xion?" Axel said, confused. I saw something in his eyes that I couldn't place my finger on, but I knew it wasn't something good. Maybe it was just me, though.

"Yeah, we were placed in charge of training her after you left," Roxas said. "She can use the Keyblade, too." Axel looked even more confused by that one, but he didn't say anything. He looked away when he noticed I was watching him, and continued to watch the sunset. We watched the sunset in comfortable silence for a while, and I got up and stretched my wings out, letting them feel the warmth from the sun. Finally, Roxas broke the silence.

"You know, we haven't even seen Xion lately, that's what's weird," Roxas told Axel.

"Hmm, I don't know anything about it, seeing as I left right as you three became friends," Axel replied. "However, I'll see if I can pick Saix's brain, and find out what I can for ya, deal?"

Roxas and I looked at him with hope in our eyes. "Really? Thanks Axel!" we said, and we all laughed together about things that made no sense to anyone watching, but they made sense to us, and that was what mattered.

After we returned home for the night, Roxas and I wrote in our journal about Axel's return and the promise he made to us regarding Xion. We also put in there that the lumps in our throats were gone, and that hollow feeling felt filled again. We even added about our hopefulness about the four of us all being friends and that we could be together, forever. Hopefully that would never change, and we would never change, either. Unfortunately, we would learn down the proverbial road that nothing stays the same, no matter what.