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A flame flickered briefly in the palm of his hand before dying out.

"That was pathetic, Lea. Again."

Lea gritted his teeth as he fought the urge to give a painful third degree burn to the bored looking lab coat wearing silver-blue haired boy who had spoken.

"We've been at this for three hours."

The only reply the redhead received was the raise of the visible eyebrow. Lea tried again.

"I'm tired, damn it!" That, and the chilling weather did nothing to help his magic.

Again, he received no verbal response.

"You can hardly expect me to be a master at this immediately, like Axel!"

Lea realized his mistake the moment his Nobody's name left his lips.

The silver-blue haired boy's mood had grown visibly darker; his face was as impassive and controlled as ever save for the piercing blue orb that wasn't hidden by silvery bangs and was now colder than usual.

"Why, Lea," he practically trilled, "I was under the distinct impression that you were perfectly capable of handling 'such an amateur task as casting ten rounds of level one fire spells in the rain.' It appears that you have proven me wrong."

Oh why oh why did Lea boast about his fire spell casting skills earlier, especially in Ienzo's presence? The silver-blue haired boy had always been exceptional at twisting around the words of others, and he still had residing memories of his Nobody days, including the time when Axel had ordered the Riku Replica to finish off Zexion in his weakened state, which meant that Ienzo probably had a grudge against Lea. Well, no. Ienzo had already demonstrated his vengeful state of mind the moment Lea had woken up choking and sputtering on a mouthful of bitter liquid. Lea had wondered just who the silver-blue haired boy was before noticing the startling resemblance between him and a certain Nobody he had assassinated.

Damn it. Just why the hell was he training his magic with someone who obviously wanted him dead? Oh, yeah, it was because he couldn't reject the extremely cheerful proposal of Yuffie's for Ienzo to teach him magic. Well, he had tried to back out of it. It was just that he was still groggy from waking up at the crack of dawn, and Yuffie wouldn't take no for an answer, finishing the entire argument with a guilt trip.

"Weren't you going to help rebuild Radiant Gardens?" she had said wearing her best defeated puppy look. "If you can't defend yourself from the Heartless, then it will be difficult for you to assist us."

So here he was now, in a spacious turf near the impressive looking hospital Isa was currently resting in, pitifully attempting to cast basic fire spells in the wintry chill of the air and under the close scrutiny of his would-be killer. No, Lea was not having fun. In fact, he almost wished that Isa would wake up so that Ienzo could have another target to lock on, because earlier in the hospital, the silver-blue haired boy had shown small signs of hostility towards the bluenette. As it was, Isa had shown no signs of awakening any time soon, and Lea was on his own to suffer.

Fun.

In an attempt to wipe the chilly smile off of Ienzo's face, Lea summoned all of his reserve energy and threw it into one attack.

The redhead could only watch in dismay as his attempt failed miserably, the flame glowing dimly in his hand before extinguishing.

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"How was-?"

"Don't. Please don't," Lea curtly cut off Yuffie's good-natured question and slumped into the empty chair next to the ninja, infuriated and exhausted by the earlier events.

After his fatal mistake of mentioning Axel's name, Ienzo had worked Lea like a dog for several hours straight, uncaring of the fact that Lea was simply too tired and out of mana to cast any spells at all. The redhead's frustration had grown until, his caution around angering Ienzo had been forgotten and he had burst out, "If you're such an expert on magic spells, then why don't you demonstrate them to me instead of just standing there looking like a statue?"

At that demand, Ienzo had stated that he was expected to return to his duties as a medic and that Yuffie was expecting Lea to eat lunch with her.

Then again, it had all been Ienzo's fault that Lea was so angry. The redhead immediately felt guilty for snapping at the black haired ninja and apologized.

Yuffie pouted like a kicked puppy for a second before cheerfully waving off the apology and finishing her earlier question. This immediately caused Lea to begin ranting.

"He's terrible! He's trying to kill me! He's..."

Aside from the small amount of entertainment that she gained from prying into others' businesses, the ninja was almost sorry that she had asked.

Still, she was both disappointed and relieved that the two males didn't get along. She was hoping that Lea would settle in, but at the same time, she had her suspicions of Lea. Did he used to be what Ienzo and those others were? If so, would they band together to destroy their world a second time?

The black haired girl shook off her thoughts. Lea couldn't be a bad person. She had gotten to known him a little, and he seemed fine. Plus, Ienzo and his friends had reassured her that he wouldn't try to damage the Gardens because he already had his heart back, and what would he gain from sabotaging his former and current home?

Whatever. Yuffie would just have to trust the redhead for now.

Once she was sure that Lea would probably never end his tirade, she tossed him a sandwich to shut him up.

Not expecting an interruption to his raving, Lea was hit in the face by the soft projectile that flew at him, recovering just fast enough to catch the plastic wrapped package with his hands (it would have fallen onto his lap anyway).

He nodded gratefully and unwrapped the sandwich to take a bite, quickly pacified by the food. He was very hungry, now that he had stopped ranting and could think about it, and the sandwich- peanut butter and jelly- was mouthwatering.

"Dudouyathedith?"

Yuffie stared at Lea's bulging mouth in horror and re-wrapped her half finished tuna sandwich, appetite destroyed. She thought that she was used to overstuffed mouths, what with Cid being a messy eater and all, but Lea had just broken the world's record for chewing on much too much food at once.

"Um…what?" she had no clue what the redhead had said.

Lea finished gulping down the rest of the sandwich. "Did you make this?" he gestured at the now-useless plastic wrap balled up in his fist.

"Ah, no," Yuffie smiled. "It was actually Aerith who made them. She's usually really busy, so I feel kind of guilty that she goes out of her way to make us these, but… Hey, I know!" a brilliant flash of inspiration struck the ninja like a lightning bolt. "You haven't met any of the others yet, have you?"

Lea shook his head in reply.

"Great! I have some free time this afternoon, so I can show you around this place more, then!" Yuffie hopped out of her chair excitedly. "I mean, Ienzo's back to helping out in the medical wards, so you have some spare time, too! Right? Right?" She didn't wait for a reply." Okay, let's go!"

One hand still clutching her partially finished sandwich, Yuffie raced off, dragging Lea behind her.

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"Hey, Squall!" Yuffie sprinted towards the turned back of a brunette man with a lean yet well-built frame who was currently brandishing a giant blade as if he had just been in a battle.

The man turned around to reveal a diagonal scar running across his forehead, as well as a pair of blue eyes that held exasperation in them.

"It's Leon."

The man- Squall or Leon- appeared to be used to Yuffie's antics and seemed almost amused by them.

"He's a childhood friend," Yuffie explained to the confused redhead beside her. "His name's Squall-"

"Leon," as the brunette corrected her, he turned his eyes on Lea, regarding the redhead warily. Lea noticed the glare and made a mental note to call the man whatever he wished to be called, because he didn't want to even imagine being on the wrong end of the sword-thingy the brunette was currently holding.

"-and he's the leader of the Restoration Committee!"

"The what?"

"The committee for restoring Radiant Gardens back to normal," the ninja said to Lea.

"Oh." Lea couldn't think of anything smarter to say.

"So anyways, this is Lea, Squall!" Yuffie introduced the redhead. Leon didn't bother to correct her. "He's going to help the Committee!"

An awkward silence reigned on within the trio. Lea could barely hide his desire to get as far away as possible from the watchful eye and shard blade of the silent swordsman while Yuffie was temporarily out of things to say. The redhead almost sighed in relief when the ninja decided that they should continue on their tour and left the brunette to his work.

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"Thank you very much," Lea smiled gratefully at the graceful woman clothed in pink as she handed him a bowl of soup. If there was something that the redhead had learned from his Nobody days, it was how to charm people into siding with him. Axel had been on many recon missions, and when he had been seen, which had been rarely because he had been a highly skilled assassin and assassins simply weren't easily spotted, he had usually managed to convince the unfortunate witness to forget that they had ever seen him. So, yes, getting on good graces of one of the prominent members of the Committee- which Lea had learned earlier as being one of the most influential groups in the Gardens- was pretty high up there on his current list. After all, who knew when Ienzo or some of his ex-Nobody friends would gang up on Lea in some sort of revenge?

Yes, Ienzo and his ex-Nobody friends. After Yuffie had introduced Lea to some other Committee members, such as Cid and Merlin, she had led him back to the hospital and acquainted the redhead with some of the staff there, including a woman named Aerith, who was the head of the wards and in charge of cooking meals. This had all been fine and good; he had learned the names of some new people and checked up on Isa to find that the bluenette was still asleep. Then, the crowning moment of doom had presented itself in the forms of an apathetic silver-blue haired boy in a white lab coat and an even more familiar looking irritated blond man with extremely long hair.

It had been terrible. Yuffie had been with him, but that hardly assuaged the feeling of guilt and fear that had hit him like a sledgehammer with the appearance of the person that he had personally killed. Or rather, the appearance of the Somebody of the Nobody he had been ordered to assassinate as a Nobody and had pulled off with ease had caused him to feel the remorse and wariness that Axel had never felt.

After having known the blond man's Nobody, Lea had expected Vexen's Somebody to attack him with a giant ice shield or something. As it was, the blond had glared at him and Ienzo had drilled his eyes into Lea's green ones when the two pairs had met each other.

Yuffie had then introduced- well, more or less re-introduced- everyone in an attempt to mend the chilly atmosphere that had been forming between the three males.

An awkward moment had then settled among the four, even more uncomfortable than the one that had occurred with the meeting with Leon.

Yuffie had eventually dragged Lea away from the icy pair, but not before she had mentioned that Aeleus was taking care of some Heartless that had wandered dangerously close to the Borough.

Aeleus. Being a former member of the Organization, name anagrams were easily noticed by Lea because all of the Nobodies' names had been derived from their Somebody's with an "x" thrown somewhere into the mix. He had almost immediately rearranged the name to form "Lexaeus," which had been the identity of the fifth Nobody in the Organization.

Lea gulped down his soup in agitation. It was bad enough that two scientists were probably after his blood, but why did an extremely muscular guy who wielded something that resembled a tomahawk (or used to as a Nobody, anyways) have to be, too? The redhead was almost sure that the brunette ex-Nobody was Ienzo and Even's friend and would probably assist in their quest for revenge.

Maybe he was being too paranoid. Ienzo had hardly made any moves to harm him so far, aside from working him relentlessly in magic training and waking him up through a terrible method involving dumping potions into his mouth, while Even hadn't done anything aside from glare evilly at him.

Hopefully, the they would just leave him and Isa alone. He doubted it.

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The next few days had become something of a ritual. Lea had memorized his schedule. Wake up at the crack of dawn. Eat breakfast. Get tortured (also known as magic training with Ienzo, although Lea had to grudgingly admit that he was getting better at spell casting; he could cast Fira now). Eat lunch. More training or assisting Ienzo and Even in the hospital (this was becoming an increasingly uncomfortable task and the redhead was sure that their unvoiced truce would soon be broken). Eat dinner. Assist Yuffie or some other Committee member in getting rid of Heartless. Sleep.

In between everything, Lea would always check on Isa to see if he was awake yet. The bluenette never was.

It wasn't that there was an abnormality causing Isa to stay in a coma-like state. Aerith had scanned him with magic and had kindly told Lea that his friend was fine. Even Ienzo had checked, although his way of communicating results to the redhead was accompanied with a sharp and clipped voice.

It was getting ridiculous. Lea couldn't help but childishly blame Isa for not waking up.

With each passing day, Lea grew more and more used to the emotions that he now felt. He was becoming less Axel and more Lea. He wasn't wary of Isa anymore, because they were friends, and any bad blood Axel had with Saix was overwritten. Yes, Lea's sense of logic was terrible. He didn't mind, putting his energy into worrying for his friend instead.

"Wake up, Isa," Lea commanded to the comatose figure sleeping soundlessly in the bed, unaware and undisturbed by the redhead's presence. Lea currently had some free time from helping out in the medical wards, so what a better way to spend it than to check up on his friend? "Wake up."

Lea didn't care about how futile his request was. He didn't think he could last another day being lonely. Yuffie and everyone else who was even remotely friendly to him were always busy. Ienzo and Even were distant and slightly hostile. It was driving Lea nuts. He had always been an attention seeker, and Isa had always lavished the redhead with attention, albeit in a sarcastic manner and with forced reluctance.

"Wake up, Isa."

Lea knelt next to Isa's bed and tiredly slumped his arms and head onto the white covers blanketing the bluenette's body.

"Wake up..." he muttered, voice muffled by the sheets.

At this, the redhead felt Isa's body shifting underneath him. Lea brightened considerably and raised his head hopefully to look at his friend.

"Isa?"

His gaze faltered. Isa's eyes were golden. That wasn't possible. Isa's eyes were supposed to be green. Green. Not gold. Gold was the colors of Saix's eyes.

It wasn't the color that had made Lea freeze. It was the fact that Isa's eyes were blank, devoid of any emotions or signs of recognition for the redhead.

The former Luna Diviner continued to lie in bed unresponsively. Then his mouth opened to form the words that lodged themselves in Lea's brain to shatter any remaining bits of hope he ever had.

"Who are you?"

HABITUATING-END

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I enjoy seeing Ienzo torture Lea. Clearly, I have problems. Quite honestly though, I never was too fond of Axel (he looked extremely evil in the original trailer for KHII, which was a giant... turnoff). Lea redeemed the redhead for me. But I digress.

This chapter took quite a long time to write, school not taken into consideration. I kept deleting and rewriting certain parts of it. For some reason, I just couldn't come up with the words to describe some scenes. Also, I think my chapters are getting progressively shorter. I apologize for this. The next chapter will be longer, hopefully.

I thank all the readers of this fic for patiently waiting for an update. I hope to find more time to write. Special thanks goes to those who reviewed this story.

Next Chapter:

"Your name's Isa."