Author's notice: Finally, after almost nine months, I have updated this fanfic. All I have to say to my viewers is welcome back, enjoy the chapter, and please review to give me some feedback. Thanks! Important please read: This is just a re-post. It came to my attention that I didn't place brackets to indicate scene changes which confused many readers. (P.S: please review if you like the story, I am getting depressed from the lack of Reviews.)

Training Days

A lone boy runs down an empty street, dodging run down cars, whose metal coating was now rusted away, and any other debris that is in his way. He is covered in fresh wounds and has blood speckled on his cheeks, some of it not his. One hand is carrying a katana that is drenched with the blood of a couple of heartless and the other hand is clutching his side. It is apparent that a rib or two is broken and he is having a hard time breathing.

"Hayner, Pence, Olette, where are you guys!" The boy yells before letting out a series of furious coughs. He hopes that he will hear the warm voices of his friends somewhere off in the distance and he can be reunited with them. When silence is the only answer he receives, his face pales and a shiver of fright runs down his spine. As he continues to run down the street, his legs wobble from over-exertion and it appears that they will collapse at any minute. The boy tries to encourage himself to run just a little bit further but he well knows that he can't fight the lactic acids that are building up inside his muscles.

Within a few seconds he hurdles towards the street and lands face first on the cold ragged asphalt. Upon the impact with the ground, his right hand releases the katana in his had and it slides across the street to the entrance of the sewer system. The boy can hear the metal of his blade collide with the metal of the pipes as it falls further into the sewer system. The boy's body begins to shake uncontrollably and within the next few moments he is fully weeping. He cries not for his lost blade or his collision with the ground. It is for his lost comrades who he cannot find.

"Their gone, all of them are gone!" the boy yells as tears began to make their way towards the street. "I was suppose to protect them and I failed. I am the most worthless shit to ever walk on the face of this planet."

As the boy continues to weep, there is a rhythmic "Clank, Clank Clank" in the background. After a few seconds, the metallic noise ceased. The boy, well knowing what had spawned the noise, raises his face, which was now covered in blood and tears. Surrounding him from all sides were at least two dozen soldier heartless. All their pairs of pale yellow eyes were focused on him with anticipation. The boy could hear their venomous hisses coming from their strangely shaped helmets as some of them swayed from side to side. The boy focus on the crowd surrounding him with an intense glare of anger and his fist began to tremble as he clenched them so hard that his knuckles began to turn white.

"You bastards!" the boy yelled with pure hatred towards the crowd of soldier heartless,"Where are my friends? What have you done with them?"

Out from the crowd of heartless, one lone soldier, one who appeared to be leading the platoon, stepped in front of his comrades focusing only on the boy. "You foolish child," the heartless hissed out. His voice sounded what one would imagine a metallic snake would sound like. "Your companions put up a valiant fight against my squad but alas they were overrun by the sheer numbers of us. But don't worry, they're all still alive, that is if you call becoming a heartless living." At the end of his sentence, a crooked smirk etched its way on to his midnight black face. Soon his was letting out an eerie chuckle, which within a few moments became a maniacal laugh that filled the abandoned street. His squad soon began to follow their leaders actions and the boy found himself surrounded by the laughter of those who mocked his misfortune.

The boy's eyes went wide as his face began to pale . He had ignored the mocking laughter around him and only focused on what the leader had told him. 'My friends are heartless?' the boy thought to himself. What once had been saddest on his face began to transform in to a vicious scowl. 'No it can't be true. They really are gone' The boy's trembling hand grabbed the top of his head as the truth began to sink in. 'It can't be true,no,......no ,....no,'

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the boy yelled at the top of his lungs. The heartless' wicked laughter was silenced as the boy stood up, despite the intense signals of pain that his body sent him, an charged full speed at the soldier commander. Since his katana was lost forever in the sewer system, the boy raised is fist, aiming it at the leader. "I'LL KILL ALL OFF YOU MONSTERS!" The boy shouted once again.

"Those are big words for someone as weak as you," the heartless calmly hissed as the boy began to draw closer. Once the boy was within striking range, he unleashed all of his anger and hatred into his punch. To his disappointment, his fist only met air as the heartless side stepped to right, in an almost liquid motion, and rammed the the point of his metallic boot in to the boy's gut. Despite being nearly half the size of the boy, the kick from the heartless was so powerful, that it caused the boy to fly back into the side of a rusted car. Upon impact, two of the windows were shattered and the side of the car that received the impacted was now dented in. The back of the boy's head had hit the top off the car and was now oozing out blood. The boy felt to the ground, his mouth leaking a crimson liquid and his vision began to fade.

The boy, whose vision was now just a blur, once again heard the metallic "clank clank clank" of the commander's boots as he began to draw nearer and nearer. Once he was close enough, he flipped the boy on is back with the tip of his boot. He bent down to the boy and hissed "Don't worry child, you will be joining your companions soon enough." The heartless raised his crimson claws and aimed them at the boy's heart. Without hesitation, the heartless brought down his claws. As he did the boy thought to himself

'So this is where it ends huh. This is were this living nightmare ends and a whole new one begins.'

Just as the crimson claws were only centimeters away from the boy's chest something unimaginable happen. An instant before the claws met the boy's chest, the heartless soldier burst into and eruption of flames. It letting a horrid shriek as the fire scorched it's tar skin. A wave of relief passed over the boy, knowing his life had been spared from a cruel fate. The heartless continued to run around and shriek as he was being burned alive at an alarming rate. Finally it fell to the ground and continued to burn until it was completely reduced to nothing but ashes.

Following in suit, all of the other heartless were stricken by flames. Now instead of being surrounded by heartless, the boy was was completely surround fire. At first the boy took this freak accident as a saving grace, but than he began to notice that the ring of fire began to burn more intensely and it was making its way towards the him. The boy searched for an adrenaline rush like he had found before, but this time his body simply refused to move. 'Wow, within the last two minutes of my life, I have become the most unlucky person to live." The boy thought as his breathing became heavy from the smoke.

Just as it would seem that the flames would swallow him whole, the sound of crackling electricity filled the air and before he knew it, the boy was picked up by a pair of small arms. The crackling noise once again filled the air and before anything could register, the boy and his savior were outside of the ring of fire. The boy felt himself being lowered and gently placed on to the street.

"Axel, you dumbass, what the hell do you think your doing trying to pull a stunt like that" a female voice yelled with much rage.

"I'm sorry Larxene," whimpered a male voice, " But I just saw the kid about to die, and I guess I acted without thinking." The female voice sighed and said, " That seems to be happening a lot these days with you huh? Come on lets see if the kid's okay."

The boy heard sound of padded shoes walking towards him until they stopped right next to him. He tries to turn his head to get a glimpse of his saviors but his body still refuses to move.

The boy feels a gloved hand on his shoulder that begins to shake it. "Hey, kid, you okay?" The male voice ask. The boy tries to speak but his vision is now completely gone and the world around him begins to fade into darkness.

Roxas' eyes shot wide open and he quickly sat up on the mattress and propped his back against the head of the bed. His whole body was drenched in a cold sweat, thus causing him to shiver. When he finally was able to regain control of his body, he looks at the bed next to him to see if his stirring had woken up Axel. To his relief, his room mate was still sound asleep. In fact, with his snoring, Axel was causing more noise than Roxas had. Roxas glanced at the alarm clock to see how much sleep he had gotten.

5:37 A.M the neon red lights flashed on the clock. "Might as well start getting ready," Roxas thought. Letting out a deep sigh, Roxas pulled the covers off of him and quietly made his way to the bathroom.

While walking there, Roxas began to remember his dream he had last night and thought "Hayner, Pence, Olette, I know I failed to protect you guys, but I promise as long as I have the ability to breath, I will not give up on returning you guys back to normal. I know that I am not strong enough right now, but hopefully with this training and the antidote that Mr. Wise is still processing, I can return you guys to your former selves."

At the end of his thought, Roxas reached the bathroom on the other side of the apartment. He turned on the lights and looked at himself in the mirror. His skin was a frighting pale and he had dark rings under is narrow eyes. It was obvious that he had had trouble sleeping last night.

"Today is going to be a long day," Roxas said as he reached for the water faucet to wake himself up with a palm full of cold water.

"Damn why did I have to wake up early too," Axel complained.

Roxas and Axel were currently on the train heading towards the twilight district. There were very few people present on the train and the ones who were looked just as tried as Axel. After waking himself up and getting ready for training, Roxas had a hard time of convincing Axel to get out of the bed. As you can imagine, Axel was not happy about his.

"C'mon Axel," Roxas said with an exhausted sigh. It was obvious from his irritated tone that he was just as tired as Axel was, if not more. "I already told you, I still don't know my way around that city and we wouldn't want me to get lost in the bad part of town, now would we," Roxas finish his sentence with a playful tone.

Knowing that the younger boy was right, Axel let out a sigh of defeat and said "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Axel crossed his arms and closed his eyes and tried to regain some of his precious sleeping time Roxas had caused him. Meanwhile, Roxas was wondering what kind of man this Auron fellow was like. He have been insanely powerful to have had trained his father. Thinking about his father caused a pain in his heart to throb, so he decided to think about something else to take his mind of is absent parent.

Roxas thought about the dream he had last night and turned to Axel. After a moment of contemplating, he realized that he had never thanked Axel and Larxene for saving his life. If it had not been for their intervention with the heartless, Roxas was almost positive that he would have been nothing but a mindless monster. A static noise snapped Roxas from his thoughts.

Destination: Twilight District , repeat Destination: Twilight District. The current time is 7:32a.m. The mechanical doors of the the train slid opened and one by one the passengers made their way to the exit.

Axel opened one eye and looked at Roxas. "From here all you have to do is follow Kingdom Road and you'll arrive at the training dojo. Once your done, Larxene said she will come pick you up. In the mean time, I'm going back home to get some shut eye."

Roxas nodded at Axel, stood up, and made his way to the train platform. Before he reached the exit, Roxas stopped and turned back to Axel. Taking note of this, Axel rose an eyebrow and said "What, is something wrong?"

Roxas said "It just that before I leave, I just wanted to thank you." This statement further confused Axel. "Thank me for what? Coming with you on the train? You don't have to thank me for that Roxas. I'm sure that anyone would hav-"

"No not for coming with me on the train," Roxas interrupted, "it just came to my attention that I never thanked you or Larxene for saving my life two days ago, so I am saying it now. Thank you Axel for saving my life." And with that Roxas hurried of the train as its doors were closing.

As the train started to leave the platform, Axel could help but where a wide grin on his face. "Damn, I can't hep but like that kid," Axel said to himself as he put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

After following the road Axel told him to stay on, Roxas found himself in front of the training dojo once again. Anticipation was getting to Roxas' nerves. "I have not felt this nervous in a very long time. Well it's now or never."

Using all the courage, Roxas pushed open the doors. When Roxas stepped inside the dojo, he found that it was almost completely empty. The only person that Roxas could spot was a lone figure who sat in the center of one of the sparring rings.

The figure, a man who appeared like he was in his late thirties, wore a blood red jacket over what appeared to be an Elite uniform. The coat seemed that it was a size too big for him and had a collar that rose high enough to cover the lower half of his face. Perched on the bridge of his nose was a pair of small black sunglass which were just the right size to keep both of his eyes completely concealed, which had Roxas wondering if the man's eyes were open or closed. Trying to ignore the queasy feeling forming in his stomach, Roxas hesitantly walked up to the strangely clothed man.

Just as Roxas began to open his mouth to speak, the man's gruff voice interrupted him. "Please remain were you are and be silent. I will be with you once I have finish my meditation," the man commanded. Roxas, one who usually did not like taking orders form someone, felt such a powerful intimidation from the man that he found himself obeying him without question.

After five minutes of complete silence, the man stood up and started walking towards Roxas. As the man drew closer and closer, Roxas felt as if there was a pressure around him that increased more and more with every step. When the man finally stood in front of Roxas, Roxas could feel his eyes pierce the very being of his soul, even though they remained covered by the small sunglasses.

"What business do you have here, boy?" the man asks impatiently.

Roxas hesitated before he said, "My name is Roxas sir. I came here today because a man named Leon said that there would be a man by the name of Auron who would be able to train me."

The man placed his hands on his hips and sighed, "Damn it Leon." He looked up at Roxas again and said "Look boy, the man your looking for is me. I am Auron Ishikawa. However, I am not looking for a pupil at the moment, so you're just wasting your time by asking. Go find yourself another person to teach you." With that Auron started to walk to the back of the dojo, towards a flight of stairs that lead to the roof.

"No wait, please don't go," Roxas said as he started to chase after him "I need someone to help me become stronger."

"I told you boy, your just wasting your time," Auron said a little more annoyed this time as he started to ascend the stairs. "Why don't you just go find someone else to teach you?'

"I don't want to find someone else," Roxas said, following Auron up the stairs, "I want to be trained by the same man who taught may father." This sentence caused Auron to come

to a complete halt . Auron stood with his back to Roxas for a moment and then slowly turned around with a skeptical look on his face.

"Tell boy," Auron said in a hushed voice, "What did you say your name was?"

"My name is Roxas. Roxas Strife."

Auron looked at Roxas with an intense gaze for a minute or so, the emotion on his face was unreadable. After what felt like a hour to Roxas, Auron turned around and said "I didn't realize it before, but you have an eerie resemblance to your father. Quickly, follow me to the roof." With that, Auron continued his journey up the stairs. Roxas could feel the excitement boil in him as he followed him in suit.

Once on the roof, Auron walked to the other side of it, to receive what appeared to be two wooden swords that were carefully propped against the side of the wall. He picked both of them up with one hand and tossed one to Roxas."In my entire life, I have only trained three people, one in which was your father, Cloud. Just because you are his son, doesn't give you his skill. You must prove that you are worth my time to train. These wooden swords are called Bokken. You and I will duel one on one with them. After which, I will decide on whether or not to train you depending on how you do." Auron then took his Bokken and got into the ready position.

Roxas, nodded and also got into his ready position. "On my mark," Auron said. Along silence followed after this. The tension in the air caused Roxas to gulp. After what feel like an eternity, Auron quickly shouted, '"BEGIN!"

With that Auron, before Roxas could blink, shot at him with his sword raised high above his head. Roxas barely had enough time to react. Just as Auron was bringing down his sword, Roxas brought held his sword horizontally in front of him to block the blow. However, the force of Auron's attack was so great, that Roxas felt his leg being strained by the attack. In fact Roxas, thought he heard the sound of cracking wood.

"I see you have been trained in the way of the sword prior to this," Auron said with a hint of interest, "but let's see how you handle this."

Auron quickly jumped back about a good five feet from Roxas, and then let out a fury of diagonal slashes towards his opponent. Roxas quickly brought his other hand to his bokken and did his best to try and anticipate each of Auron's attack. As Auron continued his fury of attacks, Roxas was able to successfully deflect and block each one, but it was apparent that he had a hard time keeping up with each on coming one.

"Good, good," Auron said as he continued to try and lay a hit on Roxas, "You obviously know how to be defensive with a blade. However, if you don't start to go on the offensive, this will quickly turn into a one sided battle.

'He's right,' Roxas thought, 'I have to act now if I want if I even want to have a hope of proving myself.'

Roxas parried Auron's oncoming attack with his own and then they were locked in a stalemate. Roxas pushed as hard as he could on Auron's bokken, but it was obvious on who was superior in strength.

"You should not try an maintain a stalemate with someone who is far greater than you in strength." Auron said as he pushed back Roxas with sheer power. Roxas knew that he had to do something soon or Auron would push him all the way back to the edge of the roof.

Roxas pulled his bokken away from Auron's, slightly backed away, and tried to land a thrust attack on Auron. Auron easily sided stepped to the left while saying, "Your wide open." Auron raised his bokken up high above his head again, and the tip of it downward towards Roxas. Before Auron's attack could arrive, Roxas quickly hopped back to give himself more room. Where he had only been standing a second ago, Auron's wooden bokken had impaled the concrete floor of the roof. 'Just how strong is this guy.' Roxas wondered after witnessing Auron's demonstration of his power.

Roxas crouched down, brought his Bokken to the side of his hip, and placed his right hands above it to make it appear as though he was about to unsheath a real katana.

A moment passed as both of them just stared into the others eyes, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

In an instant, Roxas' eyes widened and he shot forward ready to make a deadly strike, eyes aimed at Auron's head. Auron, who had a small smirk on his face, readied himself for Roxas' attack. When Roxas had gotten close enough to his target, he quickly grabbed the bokken with his right hand, released it in his left, and unleashed a ferocious horizontal slash. He had expected his wooden sword to come in contact with flesh and bone, but instead what meet Roxas' strike was the wood from Auron's own bokken. Roxas was in complete awe from this display of reaction time. Auron held it with only his right hand and it appear that it and not moved an inch from blow. Roxas' however, could still feel the lingering vibrations from the wood on wood impact.

'Auron had brought his bokken up so fast at the last second,that I didn't even have enough time to calculate it,' Roxas though as his arms ached from the collision.

"That was quite a move you pulled back there," Auron said, bring Roxas back to reality from his thoughts, "If that his had landed I might have actually had a semi-concussion right now." Roxas didn't know whether to take this as a complement or not."You are indeed a skilled swordsman, but....,"

Before anything else could happen, Auron brought the fist of his free arm to meet Roxas' abdomen. For an instant, Roxas could feel all of the wind in him force its way out through his mouth. The only sounds that could be heard on the roof were, Roxas expelling his air and the sound of Roxas bokken clattering on the floor besides his feet.

Once Auron brought his fist back, Roxas immediately dropped to his knees and doubled over. He brought his hands to his mouth and began to cough like a madman, the familiar metallic taste of blood on his tongue.

"......a true swordsman never lets his guard down until he knows that battle has reached its conclusion." Auron said as he hoisted Roxas up with one hand. Roxas was too busy trying to regain his air to comment. "Your form could us a little bit of work but all in all your not half bad," Auron said with a smirk still on his lips. "Be here tomorrow morning at the same time. Your training will began exactly at 7:30."

Roxas couldn't believe his ears, Auron had finally agreed to train him. A smile started to form on his lips as he said "That you Mr. Ishikawa. I promise that I will always try my hardest when you teach me. After he composed himself, Roxas turned to Auron and said "Before I leave, yesterday Leon said that there was something blocking the flow of my mana. He told me that you might be able to do something about it."

From what Roxas could tell, Auron's expression changed to a surprised one. "Your not able to control you mana flow. Come over here and let me and let me take a look."

Roxas gulped and stepped towards Auron, his body already expecting the intense pain of having an alien mana probing him again. Just as Leon had, Auron placed his hand on top of Roxas forehead and he closed his eyes (at least, Roxas guessed. Hard to tell with sunglasses on). Unlike Leon however, Auron's probing technique was not painful at all. Where Leon's man felt like a rough and rigid hand poking at all of his insides, Auron's mana felt like a stream of water, that peaceful flowed through him.

"I've found the problem," Auron said with his hand still on Roxas' head and his eyes still closed, "your mana has remained dormant for such a long time that it has sealed itself from you. To fix this, I'm going to transfer a little of my mana to you, so that your mana will unseal itself."

After a moment or two, Roxas felt a rush of energy flow within him and then it felt like something inside of him had unlocked. Roxas felt a comforting energy fill his entire body. Roxas felt as if he had been enveloped in an all knowing light and what was once blinded by ignorance was revealed by this light. Even when Auron then removed his hand from Roxas, the light within him shone on.

"You mana system should be up and running again," Auron said, "How do you feel."

"I feel alive for the very first time," Roxas replied excitedly. "Now that my mana is unblocked, can you tell me how to produced my Chaser weapon with it."

"Sorry Roxas that is the on thing that I cannot do," said Auron. "Out of the three types of mana users, producing Chaser mana in the real world is probably the mos complex. Where as Mages produce the mana through archaic language and will power, and Druids only through sheer willpower, each individual Chaser has their own specified way of releasing their mana to create their weapon."

"So what your saying is I can't make a weapon until I find my own way how to and there is no way you can help me?" Roxas asked with some strain on his voice.

"Don't let it get you down Roxas," Auron said, "All Chasers must go through it at one point in their life."

"So what will you and I be doing until I can release my mana?" Roxas asked.

"Since you can't release your weapon yet, you and I will be working on improving your swordsmanship and taking it to another level. And as for your mana, I may not be able to help you with creating a weapon, but what I can help you with is teaching you how to properly fortifyit so that you can increase your agility, strength, endurance and stamina."

"That sounds like fun," Roxas said sarcastically.

"Hey I don't want to hear any complaining," Auron said sounding a little impatient, "Be lucky that I even said I would train you. Now get out of here, there is a lot of stuff I have to do."

"Yes Auron-sensai," Roxas said in a playful voice before turning around and heading towards the stairs.

Once Roxas was gone, Auron just stood there for a moment and sighed. "He truly is your son, Cloud."

Author's Notice: Sorry it took so long to post this chapter, but school has been a killer lately. I will try and get one more chapter posted before thanksgiving break is over but I don't think I will be able to produce a chapter a week, like I said so. Look for a new chapter about every three week. Anyway give me some feedback in your reviews.

Have a Merry Thanksgiving.