I was roused early the next morning by someone knocking at the door to my room. For a few sleepy moments I thought it could have been Xion, but then my mind caught up with the rest of me and I realized the chances were it wasn't going to be him.

Since I hate using my mind first thing in the morning, I left whoever it was out there while I got myself ready, not being in any hurry at all. There were several more knocks and a couple of tired sounding yawns before I opened the door to find it had only been Saïx waiting for me.

"Under no circumstances should your face be the first one I see in the mornings," I yawned at him ungraciously. "What do you want?"

"We have been summoned," he said shortly, then turned and left with the further remark, "Make your way to the round room immediately."

As if it wasn't bad enough that Xemnas was rousing me in the middle of the night for arguments he knew he was going to lose, now he was calling all of us this early? Did the man not sleep at all?

Out of habit from those arguments, I arrived in a timely fashion, just with an expression like a thundercloud. I like my sleep, even if I don't sleep in. Disturbing it isn't a highly reccommended way to catch me at my best or most agreeable.

Once there I noticed most of the other members had somehow contrived to look as if they'd been wide awake already as well. Axel looked like he was trying not to fall back to sleep and Xigbar was clearly fending off a yawn. Xemnas of course showed not even a single hint of sleep about him.

"Alright, we're all here," I said, sounding as irritable as I looked. "What possessed you to get us all up this early?"

"Xion is gone," Xemnas responded shortly, ignoring my remark. So much for keeping that from them.

"What?" Demyx exclaimed, surprised. "You mean like, flew the coop?"

"Flew the coop and the Organization," Xigbar chuckled. "He's off on his own now."

"Preposterous," Xaldin muttered. "What would drive him to choose his own demise?"

"Xion can handle himself," I told him. "At least, unless he comes up against me."

"Then you know where to find him?" Saïx asked.

"No. He's grown skilled enough to block me out entirely. I just know what he's up to, I've got a fair idea of how I'm going to handle it and I don't need anyone else getting in the way and muddying up the waters any more."

"So you knew this had happened and failed to notify us."

"I told Xemnas and I'm telling you," I answered flatly. "I do whatever I feel is necessary, and I decide what's necessary by my judgement, not yours, his, or anyone elses. It was none of your concern what Xion was doing."

"How can you say that, Roxas?" Axel demanded, not seeming quite so sleepy now. "After all those times up on the clock tower with you two, you can't say I don't have a right to know too!"

"And what would you have done if I'd told you? Rushed off looking for him? The way he is now, that would see you destroyed, Axel – the same as anyone else who goes looking. I was trying to save your own life."

"So why only you?" Saïx asked when it became clear Axel had no answer to that. "What, aside from the obvious, is so special about you?"

"I know who my Somebody is, and what they're like. Xion is very similar to him, and that makes him predictable. Now I know what he's doing and some of how he's doing it, I can take steps to counter it and hold him off until the time comes."

"The time for what?" Xigbar spoke up again at last. "To get rid of him? Why not just deal with him now, before he becomes a threat later on?"

"Because the time isn't right for it. It has to happen at the right time, at the right place."

"Or?" Xemnas prompted.

"Or my Somebody never wakes up," I shrugged. "And I don't care how much the Organization doesn't want that. You might have made a member of me, but I still have my own goals and I'm not going to put them aside when they're in conflict with yours."

"You are becoming an increasingly difficult to ignore liability with that kind of attitude," he told me reprovingly.

"Yes," I agreed, "I know. But what can you do? Without me, you'll be stopped in your tracks unless Xion or I happen across any Heartless. With me, you have to accept that I'm going to do my own thing and work to my own ends, with what you want only being handled where it coincides, or becomes necessary for me to see to."

"He has a point," Xigbar chuckled. "And he has us over a barrel. Progress with his... quirks is better than no progress and no Keyblade to our name."

"I think not." Predictably, it was Saïx that disagreed with a cunning smirk, then a glance up to Xemnas, who nodded to him. "In light of this, you have a choice: work with us and surrender what knowledge you glean through this second sight of yours to us, or be forcibly ejected from the Organization and subject to immediate pursuit."

"And you know, once a Dusk catches your scent, it won't let up until it finds you," Xaldin added. "Then we need merely react to the information it reports back to us and leave you surrounded by Heartless – enough for you to meet what would have been your quota for that day, or more if you fell behind."

"You wouldn't dare," I said, trying to hide my slight fear at the idea of that happening. "I'd see any Nobody coming, and if I destroy it before it reports back, you'll never know where I am. You'd still be risking your supply of Hearts, which I have no problem with at all."

"Unless, each of those scouting Nobodies were accounted for specifically, given a set region to search for you," Saïx countered. "Then we need merely discern which one you dealt with, and we will know where to find you."

"I could listen in on you while you decide where each of them should be, find a number of them in any number of worlds, then you'd have to guess which part of which world I was in." I was grasping at straws here. I really wanted to put them off this idea, and I wasn't thinking straight under the pressure.

"You say Xion shares a number of Liam's traits," Xemnas said then. "I believe the same could be said of you, for I have observed such in you as well as him. It would be fair to say you would share his view of many things, such as his reluctance to allow any world to fall into the darkness. If we should threaten one such world thus, would you then not feel obliged to take preventative measures by weakening our Heartless at the scene?"

My fear, originally slight, was now well grounded. They didn't want to get in my way as such, just continue to benefit from my services no matter what I did – willingly or not, they'd find a way to get what they wanted from me. They were as bad as, if not worse than Xion with their own deviations by now.

I'd been deftly outmanoeuvred not once, but twice now – first by Xion, and now by the Organization itself. Either Xion was starting to have a noticeable effect on me, or they were smarter than I gave them credit for.

"Damn you," I muttered in chagrin. "You win... for now. Don't think this arrangement will go on any longer than I let it though."

"So tell us what Xion is up to," Saïx asked. "Why he left the Organization."

"I don't have any reason to tell you that."

"Our conditions were clear – you share with us what you learn through your second sight."

"I understood your conditions clearly," I retorted, then in a spiteful tone went on, "You failed to take into account other possibilities however. I never learned those things that way, so I'm not obliged to tell you a thing."

"Be as uncooperative as you want... so long as you share what you see, you need not be concerned with what we might command the Heartless to do."

I was determined however not to tell them everything. Like what I did for them, only what I felt necessary, and if they didn't like it that was too bad. It wasn't as if they could tell when and what I saw.

I was dispatched shortly after that meeting to Twilight Town to eliminate an Avalanche, one of the more troublesome airbourne Heartless. Fortunately I remembered to stock up on fire spells and switch to Spellbinder for a further magic boost. Interestingly, defeating this Heartless caused the chain for Oblivion to appear, rattling on the ground as if it had been dropped.

Through the whole mission I had a sense of being watched, and I got the impression the watcher wasn't friendly. I searched around with my mind, determining that it was somewhere in Twilight Town, but no hints as to who or what it was. I was fairly certain it wasn't Xion, since trying to get anything on him still not only turned up nothing, but failed to get started at all still. However he'd figured out how to block me out, it was still effective.

I didn't bother to report back to Saïx. He always seemed to know when I'd completed a mission anyway, and I didn't want to subject myself to his smug expression or talk to anyone. I doubted even Axel would have managed to cheer me up, though he proved me wrong when he stopped by my room later on. It was nice to have someone I could beat at my games for a change.

I didn't, however, let him find any of the Kingdom Hearts games. I don't think he needed to get that shock.

Our little session was cut short by yet another visit from Saïx, who commandeered Axel claiming he needed to speak with him, then before he left told me that once again, Xemnas wanted to speak with me. I wasn't surprised to hear that.

I still resented what they'd done earlier, so it was understandable when I stumped up the stairs to the Altar of Naught again, spotted him once again staring into the perpetual night-time sky and in the tones of the mortally offended said, "What are you trying to extort out of me now?"

"As I recall, when we first spoke here I warned you that in time, we would find your price. Now we have extracted it and employed it, you are bound by our terms. I see no extortion about it."

"You threatened me," I accused him. "and other people and entire worlds besides that. Using that to force me to work for you is wrong no matter what way you slice it."

"Perhaps you should see things from our point of view instead of your own for a change. Then maybe you'd understand why we sought to bring you fully under our control. Now with the benefits of your abilities, we can prevent any threat before it happens, even as it is being planned-"

"I don't see on demand," I told him. Alright, yes I do, but at this point only Vexen and Xion knew that, and Vexen was gone. "You'll get what I get when I get it. Whether it's useful to you or not is another matter."

"Then you can at least divulge what you have seen so far."

"Are you kidding me? We'd be here until the day I face Xion and wake up Liam if I tried to go into all that, and in any case you wouldn't believe much of it, heart or not!"

So far as I know, only Sora and Riku have ever been told they're just video game characters, though Kairi and Naminé probably know too. Each of them took it fairly well, though we've never actually found out what Sora's response was, but I suspected there'd be some – especially the Nobodies of the Organization – that would have trouble coming to terms with it. Besides, it gave me a convenient excuse to hide whatever I wanted under that label.

"There is undoubtedly something you can reveal right now."

I thought about it, then decided there was indeed something, provided I was careful about how I 'revealed' it.

"Xion's departure would have happened anyway, without Liam's influence making it come sooner," I told him. "Either way, some influence came from a certain trio who plan against you, and who despite earlier I still in some part conspire with because I want the same thing."

"Liam's awakening," Xemnas murmured.

I ignored that and went on, "You know of two of them by now – Riku and Naminé. They're working with a man name DiZ, who you know better as Ansem the Wise."

"And do you know where they are?"

"Of course not," I snorted. "I might share the same goal, but I only deal with them whenever I run across them while out and about, and then only with Riku. Naminé too, but very rarely."

"And I imagine if I asked how Naminé was spirited away from Castle Oblivion and away from us..."

"You'd get no answer, " I confirmed his suspicions. I knew Axel had some part in it, but I refused to implicate him. "As for anything else... whenever something relevant comes up, I'll pass on anything I have on it, not before."

"At least you can be trusted to honour your word," he noted as I turned to leave again.

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," I threw back. "Or keep from finding ways out of it."