"...Where am I?"

"Thirteen?"

Roxas forced his eyes open. Zexion was kneeling over him, watching him intently. "Yeah...what happened? Where are we?"

"The Copernicus Museum, a block or so north of the library...can you stand?"

Roxas tried to pull himself to his feet, feeling the pull of bandages and probably stitches across his skin. Much to his surprise, he was able to stand, if unsteadily. "I...guess so."

"Good. Come with me." Zexion grabbed his hand and dragged him out from behind a folding screen and towards a door painted to blend into the wall.

"Wait...what's going on? Where's Axel?"

Zexion stopped short. He hesitated for a long moment before answering, never quite looking Roxas in the eye. "...I was...forced to leave him behind. There was nothing that could be done for him."

Roxas suddenly felt like he'd been rooted to the spot. His legs must have moved of their own accord as Zexion continued dragging him towards the door. Even when he was pushed into the little room, and Zexion quietly shut the door behind him, he was frozen with disbelief.

"Roxas?"

He snapped out of it. Demyx was lying on a makeshift cloth mattress, probably made out of priceless medieval tapestries, and wrapped in thin sheets that were probably born to protect artwork from exposure to sunlight and dust and other environmental hazards. The red stains on the sheets and the crusted blood on the side of his face made Roxas gulp. He knelt by the other Nobody's side, ignoring the pain from his own injuries. "Demyx, are you okay?"

"No," Demyx whispered, shaking his head weakly. He sighed. "Axel's gone."

Roxas squeezed his eyes shut. "I know," was all he said. He refused to let himself cry, even for the first friend he'd ever had, or at least remembered having...the one who'd taught him that just because you didn't technically exist, you didn't have to face any world alone...he couldn't really be dead...it wasn't possible...

Demyx gently touched the back of his hand. "Rox..." Roxas opened his eyes unwillingly. "I'm so sorry." There were so many things Roxas wanted to say to that - no you're not, you don't have a heart either, you bastard, you can't possibly miss him like I do, shut up and leave me the fuck alone - that he didn't say anything. Demyx smiled faintly, and sadly, as if he guessed what Roxas was thinking and couldn't find it in him to be angry about it. "At least...two out of four made it out alive..."

Two out of...no. Ridiculous. Demyx was hallucinating or something. He couldn't possibly mean... "Demyx, what do you mean?"

Demyx gave his hand a comforting squeeze; his grip was as weak as a child's. "Axel's gone. And...I'm going to follow him."

Oh.

No.

"No."

Demyx sighed, then gritted his teeth, as if the exhalation had been extremely painful. "I'm sorry...I'd rather not...there's so much I'm gonna miss..."

Roxas shook his head in denial. "No...don't talk like that...there's gotta be something..."

"Rox..." Again, a gentle pressure on his hand. "There's not. It's bad...reach in and find vital organs bad. Zex tried...everything he could think of. And I wouldn't...make it back home."

Roxas took a deep, shaky breath. "That can't be true...you can't die..." But Demyx couldn't lie to save his life - not like it would have helped here. It was true - he was dying. "I'm going to miss you two so much..."

Demyx smiled faintly. "Thanks...I'll tell Axel...when I see him again...he'll be flattered..." His eyes flickered towards the ceiling. "You know what would be cool?...If Ax and I came back as twins."

Roxas blinked, then smiled a little himself. He hadn't suspected Demyx believed in reincarnation, but he liked the thought of his two best friends coming back so close to each other...if they had to die like that, one after the other..."I wish you didn't have to die..." he choked.

Demyx squeezed his hand again; he was growing steadily weaker, and the red stains on the sheets grew a little each time he moved. "I wish too. I'll miss you. But...I'll be able to hear, next time...I know it...so don't worry too much about me..."

Roxas sighed heavily, trying not to choke on tears. "Aren't you the one who's dying? I thought I was supposed to be comforting you."

Even so close to the end, Demyx could smile at everything. "Let me assure you...this is a hell of a lot better...than dying alone...and at least...I get to say goodbye..."

Axel never had the chance. That one thought opened the floodgates.

I'm never going to see him again. No more afternoons wasted playing video games, no more nonstop banter over meals that makes everyone else want to kill us - well, everyone but Demyx, but...no one waiting for me when I get back from missions just to make sure I got back all right and to hear all the details I wouldn't want to tell the Superior...no more giving him grief about his blood sugar just because it annoys him...no more chatting in sign language during meetings...no more on-the-spot sitar lessons...no more walking past the Hall of Empty Melodies and hearing it's not empty of melodies...it will be now...

Goodbye, life; hello, mere existence.

And I never got to say goodbye...the last thing I said to him was "It tastes like coconut milk and vanilla" - talk about meaningless...if only I'd known...

Demyx reached up and gently brushed the tears away. "Thank you," he whispered. "It's nice to have someone...think you're worth crying over...or is this all for Axel?" Kingdom Hearts, he'd even miss that self-deprecating smile...

"It's for both of you," Roxas answered. He swallowed hard. "Thanks for not telling me not to cry."

Demyx smiled again. "In your situation...I'd be bawling nonstop." He withdrew his hand and closed his eyes, and Roxas was afraid that was it, until he spoke again. "It was fun, wasn't it..."

Roxas nodded tearfully. "Thanks to you two."

Demyx reached over and gave his hand another gentle squeeze. "Couldn't have done it without you." Wait a second...was...no, ridiculous...was he getting...stronger?

"Demyx...are you..."

Again, that soft, sad smile. "Probably...but it hurts a little less all the time...it's not so bad..." Then...he looked surprised. His hand moved to the red stains on the sheets - probably over those huge gashes Roxas had seen earlier. "Kingdom Hearts..."

"What? What's going on?"

Demyx's smile had changed to an expression of disbelief. "I...I'm not...I don't know...but..."

Roxas's eyes widened. He tried to rub away the crusted blood from Demyx's face, trying to ignore how Demyx winced. There were no serious cuts beneath it, just a row of thin parallel scratches. "I don't believe this..."

"What?" Demyx asked earnestly.

"They're healing..."

Demyx's eyes were huge. "Rox...help me up...help me with these damn sheets..." Roxas helped him into a sitting position, and carefully tried to unwind the bloody sheets. The gaping wounds were down to long, thin cuts. Demyx looked up at him in amazement. "I...I don't...how?"

Roxas gave him a hug, ignoring how much his own injuries stung when he moved. "I don't know either, but I am so glad..."

Demyx grinned, with tears in his eyes. "Well...you're an angel, aren't you...guess your business is making miracles happen..."

"Good thing I got one for you..." All the joy suddenly seemed to drain out of the moment. "I wish I could have made one for Axel too."

"I know," Demyx whispered, suddenly grave. "He was my first real friend."

The two of them spent the next several minutes crying on each other's shoulders.


"They'd all taken Invulnerability potions er somethin'," one of the Dark Oppressors said, relaying an account of the library battle to a variously intent, indifferent, and intoxicated crowd. "That snarky Nexus Champ took Gotfil down first - right in 'is face with one o' them burnin' wheel things. Never seen aught like 'em."

Lucky was more indifferent than anything, busily stuffing scrolls into the safe before his next trip to the library. When he finally gained the strength to change from a Pariah to a full-grown Void Walker - the canny, creepy Void Walkers had always impressed him more than the nasty, brutish Infernal Behemoths - the spells detailed on those scrolls would be of some use to him, but for now, might as well put them where someone who could use them could find them, and get them out of his way at the same time.

"It were good ol' Smiley what finally took the bastard down," the Dark Oppressor continued to expound. "We'da had the lot of 'em if not fer that damn Wizard - marches in outer nowhere and starts throwin' spells around like they be goin' outer style." Smiley the Behemoth snarled in a deep guttural. "Then, if ye please, the bastard up and throws a Major Ward in our very faces. By the time we got that broken, the rest of 'em had cleared out."

Lucky shrugged - major brawls like that weren't his style; he preferred one-on-one combat, preferably with the odds in his favor. He hadn't earned his nickname by natural luck alone - well, to be honest, it had as much to do with his real name as any remarkable fortune. He didn't even like it all that much - it sounded like a dog's name - but it was a big improvement on "Lucy". Stuffing the last scroll into the safe, he zipped up his backpack and headed off for the library, now that the fight was over and it was safe. Unusually for a demon, especially a Pariah, he was startlingly bright and a dyed-in-the-wool, read-anything-that-has-writing-on-it bookworm. Besides, being alone in the library was an improvement over staying in the stronghold and collecting those weird stares the evil Myrmidons and Eternal Soldiers had been giving him the past few days. He'd tried to get an explanation out of them, but they always just shrugged and said it was hard to explain; it was getting frustrating.

The library still showed clear evidence of the recent chaos - trails of blood on the floor, charred marks on the walls, bookshelves knocked over and in disarray, bodies on the floor - mostly demon bodies, but there was one human body left. That's what captured Lucky's attention - he hadn't been ignoring the Oppressor completely, and he wanted to see the wheel-shaped weapons the Nexus Champion had been using. He'd never heard of anything like that, but it had caught his imagination.

"Tough bastard, weren't you," he muttered to the body sprawled at the top of the stairs. Big, too - six-foot-six at the smallest, though he was skinny as any Pariah. And that red hair would have made him stand out in any crowd even if his height wasn't enough. His long trenchcoat was open, revealing not only the tattoos of a Nexus Champion but the gaping chest wound that had killed him. There was no sign of any bizarre wheel-shaped weapon, though, which Lucky found slightly disappointing.

Lucky delicately dipped a claw into the man's blood, then licked it off. For a Pariah, this was completely normal - most demons, especially Pariahs, had an inborn taste for blood. But there was something...different...about this blood. It tasted like human blood usually did, but...

I think this guy might have had diabetes; he's not using his own insulin, I think...his blood glucose was pretty damn low, though...and there aren't any cardiac markers in circulation at all and how in Cthulhu's name do I know that?!

He stared. Tasting blood was normal Pariah behavior. Being able to tell someone's general health and specific blood chemistry from tasting their blood was not a normal Pariah ability.

Right. Fuck this; I'm imagining things.

But his natural curiosity wouldn't leave him alone - what if he wasn't? What if he had magically picked up the ability to taste someone's health and fitness just from their blood?

Well...he could find out...

If he was diabetic, and using artificial insulin, it had to come in somewhere - he'd either have an injection mark or an insulin pump. And the only way he wouldn't have cardiac markers - it wasn't that Lucky hadn't tasted their presence so much as he'd sensed their absence - was if he didn't have a heart in the first place. Which was insane, but easy to check in this case. Lucky took a good look at that chest wound - so huge and so open it was possible to see parts of human anatomy meant to be kept away from outside air.

He sucked in his breath. "Tholaghru's claws on a pizza crust. I guess you really don't have a heart." He started rifling through the man's pockets, coming up with nothing but a crumpled slip of paper and a hole. But under the hole...there was a mark on his skin that could easily have been left by the cannula of an insulin pump.

Now this was creepy.

"Get away from him." Lucky glanced at the door, and quickly decided that tangling with an unhappy Wizard, even a small one - well, he was still bigger than Lucky himself, but who wasn't - was a good way to ensure his luck ran out. Shoving the slip of paper into his pocket for no real reason, he ran out the door on the other end of the library. When he was halfway back to the stronghold, he took the paper out of his pocket, unfolded it - and read his own full name.

Lucioforo Rakanishu.

Man, I only thought it was creepy before...

His heart should have been pounding from that discovery. But for some reason, it wasn't. It was like it wasn't even there.


The trip back to the apartment was longer than it should have been and felt longer than it was. Demyx and Roxas could both barely walk and were leaning heavily on each other, for more than just physical support. Zexion was wandering distracted, in danger of walking into trees and buildings, but not by Demyx's miraculous recovery - though he did berate himself for not realizing sooner that angels' tears had healing properties. What had him baffled was the fact that Axel's body hadn't faded after his death.

And, of course, there was that...absence. The fire had gone out, and there was no way to light it again; and its loss only highlighted how cold and dark the world was, even under a bright tropical sun. If it weren't for Demyx, Roxas would have been the one walking into trees and buildings.

"How are you holding up?" Demyx asked quietly.

"I'm fine," Roxas murmured, as if on automatic.

Demyx shook his head. "Like hell you are. Rox..."

"I can't believe he's gone," Roxas whispered. "Not having him around...I can't see it..."

Demyx had to fight the temptation to break down and cry. "I know. Axel was...a hell of a guy. Irreplaceable."

Roxas nodded weakly. "I don't care if the new guy is the greatest angel who ever lived or what; I'd rather have Axel back. We're never going to find him anyway." Demyx could have said something about how finding the new member was what they'd been sent to do and how Axel would want them to continue - but that was trite as it got and he knew it. He remained silent and let Roxas continue. "He saved my life...that demon that killed him...it had been coming after me...but he got between me and it...even though he was already hurt..." Roxas trailed off. "He saved my life," he repeated in a barely audible voice.

Demyx gave him a comforting hug. "Well, you saved my life, so I guess he saved me too," he whispered. "I bet he's really proud of himself for that, knowing him."

Roxas sighed; it was half a sob. "Is he? Demyx, I know you can't lie to save your life - do you honestly think there's anything for us? Do Nobodies have a next life?"

Demyx was glad Zexion was completely ignoring them along with the rest of the world. "Of course we do. We may not have hearts, but we still have souls. And the soul is what carries on into the next life."

Roxas smiled, despite the tears in his eyes. "Thanks."


A soul, floating in the void above the Nexus, shapeless and formless, one of thousands ripped from their former bodies and cast adrift, waiting for a chance to return. The entire world spread out below, including the broken body that used to house it.

It? Him.

Do you choose to return?

Memory...the last thing he saw...a red-skinned demon, with an axe that burned with black fire...fighting...dying...the blade in his chest...he'd been protecting...someone...

I want to go back. I have to go back...

Who was he protecting? Had they survived? He had to know...

Hmm...special circumstances. A specific body is required.

Special what? Was there something special about him? Special enough to need a custom-made body, instead of taking the first available? Too late, he was already plunging back to the ground - fast - too fast -

A breath, solitary.

A pair of bright green eyes opened, taking in the dirty streets around them. He lay there, waiting patiently for the memories to come back. Sitting on the ledge of a tower, eating ice cream with a teenage boy - his brother? No...his brother died years ago...A young man, sitting on a bed, sobbing brokenly - "I just wish I could hear it," he wailed - was he deaf? Yes - yes, he was...A stern, cold man with blond hair most women would envy..."Eight, you have a condition known as type 1 diabetes mellitus," he said...

Eight...is that my name? No, just my number...

My name...is...Lea? No...it's Axel.

That was...Vexen, telling me I had diabetes. And Demyx, when he went completely deaf. And Roxas...That's who I was protecting. It was Roxas.

I remember now.

Where the hell am I? What happened to Roxas and Demyx - they were there fighting too; did they make it out alive? What about - Zexion? Yeah, that's his name...the little short guy with silver hair...

He groped in his pocket for a cell phone - when Zexion went to get these, he got trapped in the store by a crazy angel, until I chased it away - and dialed the first number he had stored on it.


When Demyx had first learned (or relearned) what grief was all about - the day the music he relied on finally faded completely, to be replaced by that awful dead silence - Axel had spent the night in a sleeping bag on the floor next to his bed, performing the all-important task of just being there. Now Demyx was finally returning the favor, just not to Axel. He was stretched out on the floor next to Roxas's bed, substituting a pilfered blanket and a white cotton bathrobe for a sleeping bag, and just being there because he knew Roxas needed someone there. Frankly, so did he.

Axel...why? We still need you...

Now this was ironic. Zexion was fast asleep, Roxas had eventually given up and collapsed into bed, and Demyx couldn't be more wide awake with the help of amphetamines. He'd even taken his hearing aids off - partly to help himself get to sleep, partly because it seemed right that the entire world be silent for a while.

He jerked and scrambled for his cell phone when it started vibrating, only to set it down in disgust when he saw the caller ID read "Axel". It must be some random jackass who'd taken his phone and was now joke-calling every number in his address book. Creeps. Besides, he couldn't carry on a phone conversation too well without his hearing aids, and he didn't feel like putting them on for some asshole who happened to be using Axel's phone.

The cell phone vibrated again, this time with a text message. Sighing heavily - this dipshit was persistent - he looked at the message; he didn't need to hear to do that.

Put your hearing aids on, idiot, it read. He choked - no random stranger would know he wore hearing aids. That was Axel.


AN: Death in the Nexus is generally a temporary inconvenience. Unless you're a Lich or a Revenant. Also, it's Lucioforo Rakanishu (aka Lucky)!

Planned for the next chapter: Confoozlements on all sides. Especially mine; it's gonna be late.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Nexus War, got it memorized?