Interlude III: Axel

There were so many reasons not to go there. He didn't really want to see it in its digital incarnation -- to walk up the same stairs and settle on the same ledge that had no meaning here, to look out over the same view right down to the same goddamned birds in the sky and know that this wasn't his, wasn't theirs.

It was plenty bad enough just to know he was coming here with his new friends, without actually imagining the faint salty taste on his tongue, and Axel really wasn't one for torturing himself.

He went anyway, at the end of the fourth day, like a dog determined to gnaw on itself, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the even concrete of every step along the way, hating the compulsion and hoping the fresh jolt of pain would at least help him come up with a new plan for tomorrow. They didn't have a lot of time here. He needed to take things up a notch.

But when he cleared the stairs and came out onto the ledge of the fake clock tower, he saw someone he really hadn't been expecting.

Her.

Axel paused, and stared.

She was a slim little figure against the setting sun, curled in on herself with her knees tight against her chest and her head pillowed on her arms. So much the frightened little bird he'd left behind that Axel almost wondered if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere and left this unreality behind for the twisting changing corridors of Castle Oblivion.

Of course. Of course. He should have known. They should have known. It was so obvious. The program might brainwash him, but alone... alone it would never be enough to merge someone this strong into his Other.

As soon as the thought had occurred to him, Axel wondered -- had they known? When they'd sent him on this assignment, had they known it wouldn't be as easy as jogging the kid's memory?

Fuck.

He gazed at the witch's back. Part of him wanted to shove her off the goddamned tower. If only they'd been in the real world, the fall would've killed her, and then--

--and then, what? Memory was a fragile thing. If this last year had proven anything, it was that once you'd started pulling someone apart, putting them back together wasn't easy. Without a witch to guide the process, that person might even come undone completely.

It hurt to think.

Axel took a step towards her, not trying to be quiet; she didn't stiffen at his approach. Must have been too lost in thought. Dreaming up more pretty, insipid little lies?

He felt his lips twist, the ugly distant cousin of a smile. Nothing good could come from this. He was going to lose it, fling himself at her, burn the whole clock tower down. But he couldn't... he couldn't just walk away. "Nice view, huh?"

That seemed to startle the little witch terribly, and Axel took a nasty amount of pleasure in her nervous movements and her sad empty eyes. Then her shoulders slumped in a way that looked like -- what, guilt? -- and she murmured, "I wasn't really looking."

--Interesting. "Well," he began lightly, studying all the taut lines of her, "you wouldn't have, would you? After all, when you make the cage, you get to know the bars." The softest emphasis on all the right words, to remind her of the other cages she's been in. This bastard can't be much nicer than Marluxia to her, if she's still cowering. "Do you think he plans to let you out?"

She whispered, "It doesn't matter. I don't intend to go anywhere until I've finished my work. And then..."

"And then you'll fade away, back into darkness, like a good little Nobody?"

The party line. If anything, she curled in on herself even further, and beneath her steely resignation, Axel thought he caught a glimpse of a helpless little girl struggling not to cry.

It was -- pretty infuriating, really. Axel was helpless. He was helpless. Sora, wherever Sora was -- he was helpless, too. This little witch, on the other hand... she had nothing but power.

"You think he wants that, too?" he asked smoothly, gesturing at the digital town. "Is that what this sick joke of a life is supposed to be? You'll make him hate himself so much that he wants to end it all?"

"No!" She was on her feet then, determined or desperate or both. "He won't -- he won't fade away. That's not what this is. He'll be whole. Don't you see...?" Her hands twitched as if to take hold of his, but she forced them still instead, and met his gaze almost hopefully. "This is better. Living like this... it's not worth it."

Axel stared at her, incredulous. "Not worth what? Existing? Look, just because we're missing something--"

"Missing a lot," she put in quietly.

"Whatever," he snapped. "Yeah, we don't have hearts. Big fucking deal." The language made her eyes go very wide, and he smirked a little in spite of himself. "It's hollow and lonely and all that jazz. But any life is still better than the alternative." Axel raked his hand through his hair and wanted to pull it out in clumps. "He won't be whole, kiddo. Sora will be whole. Sora's the one with missing pieces. Him, he's just... a piece. And once he's apart of Sora... he won't be him anymore."

She pursed her lips and said nothing for a long moment. Then: "Today, there was... an incident. Roxas brought him into contact with Kairi's heart." There had to be something malicious in her use of the name he'd been so diligently avoiding. "He spoke to her. I suppose he's waking up."

"Does this story have a point?" If it hadn't been for the gloves, his fingernails would have been slicing into his palms.

The witch had started chewing on her bottom lip. She seemed to be choosing her words very, very carefully. "We don't have hearts," she agreed slowly. "And Roxas is, as you said, just a piece. So I keep wondering... how did he contact her? There shouldn't have been anything there to connect with. Shouldn't she have found Sora instead?"

That gave him pause. To his surprise, he found himself almost smiling faintly. "Yeah, well. If you ask me, he's always been a little different." It was as close as he would come to naming the unnamable feeling of being around Roxas for her.

She nodded, but her reply was soft and distant. "Different... I wonder."

What was she thinking?

Axel said, not even quite knowing why, "If any Nobody could do it, it'd be him."

"Do what?" the witch asked, still sounding distracted.

"Become somebody."

Her shoulders tensed, and he knew she recognized the reference, knew she was thinking But you said we couldn't do that. He wasn't sure what he'd say if she actually asked. But all she did was lift her head very slowly, and fix those starved eyes of hers on his face. You'd think he'd promised them all a happy ending.

"Of course," Axel reminded her delicately, "we'll probably never know. Seeing as how you're, you know, going to destroy him before he has the chance."

The little witch flinched hard, and turned her eyes away from him. That was probably his cue to go.

He'd made it as far as the door to the stairs when she said it -- so soft and quiet that he thought at first she was only talking to herself.

"Yours wasn't the only promise I made."

The palms of his hands were so hot he knew they'd be smoking soon, but Axel shoved them deep into his pockets and smothered the almost-flame. "I guess it just sucks to be me, then, doesn't it?"

She didn't laugh, which was fair. He hadn't meant it to be funny. "Still," she said, more softly still. "If being a Nobody is really being..."

Axel waited there another minute, then two, but she didn't seem inclined to finish her sentence, so he left her to her thoughts. It was the only sensible thing to do, for all sorts of reasons. (DiZ was bound to notice him on the network eventually, and then he'd know they'd talked, and that could only make this already-impossible mission even more difficult.)

But all rationalizations aside, he wasn't sure he'd really wanted to hear the end of her thought anyway.

He was such a fucking coward sometimes.