XXIX.

I wake Axel up, this time not screaming.

"Come on." I whisper, my lips at his ear.

"Is this a new early bird gets the worm thing?" He grumbles, heaving a sigh, though he dutifully sits up. I grin at him, all eagerness and excitement. I can feel it buzzing in the air like electrical waves, I feel more energized that I think I ever have.

"It's a let's get your heart back thing." I correct him. "You, me, Oblivion. Now."

"Rueki, it's still dark out." He insists.

"It's always dark out. Up." I order, climbing out of bed. I am dressed before he even has a leg slung over the side of the bed.

"You know, there will be plenty of time tonight, when we get done with our missions." He reminds me.

"I'm busy tonight." I remind him.

"Right." He sighs, rubbing his eyes. Finally, he throws one leg over the bed, then the other. "With Xion."

"As soon as she and I are done figuring all of this out, I'm all yours again. We can sleep in and then cause trouble after our missions." I offer him a cheeky grin. In seconds, he's behind me, his arms around my waist.

"You sure you wanna do this?" He asks. "Whatever we uncover, we can't cover back up. What if it's something that makes you think I'm the bad guy all over again?" Do I detect a hint of worry in his voice?

"I know you're the bad guy. I love you anyway." My eyes go wide and instantly, I tear myself out of his arms, my hands over my mouth as I look at him. "Fuck. Fuck. Axel, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—" He puts me into the dresser, his mouth searing mine.

"Ditto, Rueks."

We light a fire beneath us as we search through Castle Oblivion, together, never splitting off once. Axel is convinced that he could lose me at any second. I am not so sure, but with his hand in mine I do minimal complaining.

"You ever hear of the Greek Myth, about the Labyrinth?" He asks me as I stand on a table, fussing with a loose tile in the ceiling. Apparently, on top of the library that I found while we stayed here, there are at least six more in the castle. Axel has poured through just about every tome in here, during his month long mission, but that doesn't mean every square inch of them has been searched. We both agreed that if someone were to hide information on where this secret chamber is, what better place to do it in, than one that is already filled with other, less useful information. We then proceeded to hi-five and waste about fifteen minutes dry humping before we remembered that we were in a time crunch.

"Probably, but refresh my memory." I place the ceiling tile back in place, and turn to him. He's on his hands and knees, looking for a lever, a trap door, something.

"It was a maze, built to hold an ancient monster. Of course, the hero defeated it, but the legend of it has changed over the years. Some say that the Labyrinth has evolved over time, and that the standard trick, of keeping your hand on the wall no longer works, because the Labyrinth is a living, breathing organism. It has changed and morphed. It shifts and becomes a different maze by the minute." He tells me. "The smartest trap in all of the worlds."

"Are you suggesting that Oblivion is changing on us?" I ask. He sighs, climbing up off the ground and dusting himself off.

"What I'm saying is this library wasn't here last time I was here. Half of the books were, but this room isn't right at all." He explains. I sink down onto the chair that I was standing on only moments ago and set my head in my hands.

"Fuck." I sigh. "You sure?"

"Pretty damn." He nods, as I look up.

"What do you wanna do?" I ask.

"Are you actually asking my opinon?" He snorts. I meet him with narrowed eyes.

"Let's not dwell on it, darling." I reply with venom in my voice, which only makes him laugh harder. I crack a smile.

"We give it a week. Seven more days worth of searching here. If it turns out we don't find anything, we move on." He allows. I don't know if there is a significance of seven days or if he really just likes using rounded timelines—a week, a month, a year—to test things out, but I agree.

It takes all of that time for us to find anything, and even longer than that for Xion and I to make any progress.

Without any leads, she and I search, high and low. Through strange, wet worlds where we transform into mermaids. It isn't as glamorous as it sounds, and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to swim in those waters. We run through a series of plains, on four legs, tails in the wind, hind legs moving at the speed of light, as we are chased by the most irritating hyenas ever. We fly with the help of a little blonde pixie, who seems to find a kindred spirit in me –bad attitude, blonde, big ass, a girl after my own heart—and grants us the ability to fly, if all we promise is faith and trust. It is a little culty, but after spending the past almost 200 days with Organization XIII, I suppose this isn't too terribly off.

We head over the river and through the hills and come up with nothing. No sign of this mysterious imposter. Not a lick of anything helpful.

She and I sit on the Twilight Town beach, looking out at the gentle waters, lapping at the shoreline. In the light of the setting sun, they look orange, almost like a gentle fire. I think this makes me feel more at home than anything.

"Why'd you wanna get ice cream out here? I'm sure Roxas and Axel are probably wondering where we've been, we haven't all met up since Axel got back from Oblivion." I remind her, not that I particularly mind. The view is beautiful, but, now that I like Axel again, I catch myself missing him, and not just out of necessity, but out of want. I want to tell my beautiful man about the days I've spent with Xion. But she draws a knee up to her chest, her lower lip quivers and I know it's out of the question.

"I don't want to see Roxas again until I've gotten this all sorted out." She confesses. "He and I were both assigned to go after the imposter. He was there when Saix called me a failure. I don't know if I can face him again until we both know for sure that I'm not."

"Fuck Saix." Is my response. "He's a dick. I'll fight him for you."

"I don't want anyone to have to fight him for me." She says with a smile so broken and so sweet that I am reminded, unquestionably of Naminé. Xion still doesn't look quite like her anymore, with her short, choppy hair. I wanna ask her when she changed it, but part of me is still worried that I'm losing my mind, and I don't want her to confirm that. "I want to fight my own battles, I don't want any of you having to pull extra weight for me. I hated when Roxas felt like he had to, because I couldn't summon the Keyblade."

"If this is about proving yourself, Xion, you don't need to do that. Saix is honestly an elitist with a major stick up his ass. Until Xemnas himself climbs the fuck off his throne and has words with you, just ignore him. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter, don't mind." I say and she looks at me with a twinkle in her eye.

"Thank you, Rueki." And I get the sense that she feels as though my words are so incredibly profound. I don't want to tell her that it's an old saying, I feel like that might take away from this moment. "But this isn't for Saix, this is for me. I need to know that I can do this. I don't want anyone thinking I'm a sham, but even if they do…They don't need to go to bed at night with all of the doubts and insecurities. I do. I need to prove myself wrong."

I reach out and set a hand on her shoulder, because truly, she is breaking my heart. She doesn't remind me so much of myself at that age as she does Amaya. Amaya's problems were a little more superficial— 'I'm the first girl in our grade to get boobs and now all of the other girls are being mean to me'—but still, I was the one fighting her battles for her, trying to protect her, trying to tell others to piss off, in her honor. Because she was my friend. And now, here is little Xion, in the mix with a bunch of grown ass adults, expected to carry out grown ass tasks, as a child. And yet, she never questions why this is so unfair.

"We'll get him. The imposter. We'll keep searching until we find something. He flew into the Organization's radar again. Next time he does, I'll go with you. He won't get away from us. And he certainly won't get away with calling you a sham or anything else." I promise her, and I mean it, from the absolute depths of my heart.

"Thank you." She says, in a voice barely above a whisper. "I trust you. Really."

"You should, I wouldn't lie to you." I insist, and finally, she giggles.

"I don't think you could lie to anyone. Your temper always gets away from you too quick." She reminds me and I snort out a laugh.

"You're not wrong, kid."

"Fuck this castle." I grumble, brushing clumps of dust off of me. I sneeze, violently and by time I open my eyes, Axel is choking on laughter, his hand clutching his abdomen as he wheezes. "You are the worst."

"Oh come on! Cut me some slack, it's early, I'm tired and you look ridiculous." All of those are fair points, but I still chuck a wad of dust at him. It falls to the air, sinking softly before it hits him. He cracks a smirk.

"It is early, you should tell me nice things." I stick my tongue out. "No luck inside of the cabinets, in case you were wondering."

"I'm sorry, would it make you feel better if I said your ass looked amazing, when you were bent over inside of the cabinets?" He asks, grinning wickedly. I sigh, leaning against the cabinets.

"No, it would make me feel better if we made some fucking progress." I roll my eyes. "All of these rooms leading to nowhere would be really cool and I'd love to explore the hell out of them…if this wasn't so high stakes!" I throw my hands up.

"I'm just wondering if we're on a trail that's completely cold." Axel sighs, finally. "Maybe it's time we call it quits here. Not that I think business is finished at this castle, but I think that if Xemnas did leave anything behind here, we'd have seen at least a trace of it by now. A clue, fucking something." I guess I haven't really noticed until now just how exhausted he looks too. Beautiful, but spent, and I'm wondering how much of this is my fault. If it weren't for me, constantly pushing and the absolute loathing I have for his childhood friend, would he even be here right now? Or would he be plucking along with the rest of the Organization, sleeping in late, completing missions and eating ice cream with his friends, until something explosive inevitably goes wrong. I don't trust Xemnas as far as I can throw him and I especially don't trust Saix. Something will go wrong, even without me here as the catalyst, but everything Axel has ever said to me echoes in my head. Sometimes the truth is not here to set us free. I want to believe that I am helping him break free of the chains that hold him down, but maybe I'm the only one who sees chains in the first place. I just don't know anymore, and the longer I run around with him and Xion and the less we find the more unsure I grow. Being inside of Oblivion doesn't help either. There's a panic that sinks into my veins with each new room we enter, and I wonder when, once more, we will stumble upon the basement where I ended Zexion's nonexistence.

"Do you really think Hollow Bastion is going to turn up anything, if an Organization XIII facility didn't?" I ask.

"Fuck me." He groans. "Honestly, Rueks, I really wish I knew."

I close the distance between the two of us, taking his face into my hands. I have to stand extra tall on my toes, just so that I can look at him, but as always, the view is rewarding as hell.

"Do you wanna take a breather on this?" I ask. "Go home, go back to bed, play hooky and just sleep the day away?" He snorts, softly, as though the very idea just hurts his absence of a heart. His eyes flick to mine, his hands hang limp at his sides.

"You're being serious, aren't you?" He asks.

"Your boss can fight me if he's got a problem with it. We were away at Oblivion for months without a day off. You had to go there on a solo mission for a damn month with no day off. That's gotta be illegal." I mutter, but as always, he knows what of our conversation is snarky bullshit and sifts through it, to the heart of matters.

"You'd give up snooping around today just to sleep beside me?" He asks.

"I'd do anything for you, Axel." I promise. His eyes are so sad and so tired but so, so in love as he meets mine. Like the fact that the world around us cannot be as perfect as this moment is weighing down too heavily on him.

I sink down to my knees and try to grant him the heaven he deserves.

We decide on one more day in Oblivion. Just one, to make sure we aren't calling it quits too soon.

It is as though some unforeseen force in the universe understands just how vital this is to us, and a light is finally seen at the end of the tunnel.

"Come see this!" I order, loudly, a book in my shaking hands. Axel is underneath a table, trying to figure out if the carving on the bottom is a sigil or just damage from moving furniture.

"Dammit, Rueki, could you have chosen a worse time?" He sighs, clunking his head on the table as a reaction to my sudden noise. I decide not to wait for him. I crawl under the table, a little black notebook at hand. The very same one I remember reading from, months ago. I don't recall this entry in there, but sure enough, it is there, after that passage that stood out in my mind. I must've stopped reading after that point.

"Look!" I sit down on the floor beside him and point a finger at the passage. With the snap of his fingers, a flame is lit, illuminating the shadows cast from under the table, as he reads the passage I just finished.

'I have been to speak with a wiser version of myself today. He promises everything I could ever aspire for. I am not without obligation though. It is my mission to seek out twelve others, vessels for darkness. Only those with strength of heart, body and will can suffice. I believe I have found the first place to start looking. Only when all thirteen of us have gathered, can my true plans begin to take shape
-X'

"How did you even find this?" He breathes, leaning in to take another look. "Rueki, do you have any clue what this is?"

"Looks like an old journal? I read some entry in here when we had our stint here, about memories. That one was written by someone named 'A' though. Seems like they're all kind of written in code of some sorts though." Because who goes to speak with a 'wiser version' of themselves? It sounds like either a bad drug trip or someone being far too introspective. But 'X' seems to be clear enough, as does the meaning of thirteen.

Axel flips through the pages in the journal, looking over the passage written by 'A' and then several other ones I remember skimming over.

"Hell…"Axel breathes, with wide eyes and still hands. His eyes flick to mine and a spark of a grin starts to burn across his features. "This is one of the research journals from the original six. Before Hollow Bastion fell to darkness."

He explains to me how the original six were researches or members of the king's guard. That there was an obsession, by the king himself, with darkness in the heart, and he ordered his researches to conduct experiments to see how individual hearts were affected by it. But with the constant exposure to darkness, eventually all of the original six became seduced by the power or the secrets that the darkness held, and fell to it. It sounds like a horror story to me, but I guess that probably means that Axel is right. A cult formed by lab experiments gone wrong.

"So then X is Xemnas?" I ask, though I can't quite pick up who 'I' and 'E' might be, though I remember reading passages from them.

"I dunno." Axel mutters. "I thought he went by the name 'Ansem' back before he lost his heart, but I also thought that was the king's name too, so I guess I just don't know." Axel sighs. "Sorry, sweetheart, I was just a kid back then." He looks up at me through his lashes, all sheepishness and vulnerability and my heart leaps into my throat.

I realize now that we are still sitting under a table, so I start to climb out. He follows my lead and we take seats at the table, next to each other, looking over the text again.

"It would make sense for it to be Xemnas, right? Assembling thirteen vessels, that could easily be in reference to Organization XIII." I remind him.

"Right, but look at the date on it." He points to the tiny numbers scrawled in the upper left hand corner. I almost didn't even see them. "This is before Hollow Bastion even fell, that would have to mean that he has been looking for thirteen of us since before anyone even lost their heart."

I raise my eyebrows and he shakes his head.

"C'mon sweetheart. There's no way he's had this entire grouping planned out for over a decade." Axel says, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Why not?" I ask. "He never looks shocked, he never looks unsure, maybe he has planned this out for longer than you've been part of the plan. Is it really so shocking to think that maybe, he's been stirring the pot this entire time? And that maybe, the reason you were told to weed out me and the others that were stationed here, was because we didn't fit the mold of what he wanted for vessels of darkness?"

"Larxene and Marluxia were as dark and twisted as they come." Axel reminds me, and okay, that is true. "Besides, that kind of defeats the whole thirteen vessels thing. Why get rid of some that were, for all intents and purposes, fine?"

"I don't know. But for how aggressively he's been sending everyone out on recon, maybe he's looking to rebuild." I offer.

"Of course he is, we're down five members. There's a lot of work that still needs to be done, got it memorized?" Axel asks.

"Like what?" I ask. "I've seen Kingdom Hearts, it's almost full. If Roxas and Xion just double down on collecting hearts, you guys could actually have hearts back, and soon. He acts like that is a top priority, he's always going on about it to you guys, but if that's the case, then why are the rest of us even needed?"

"For research." Axel says. I snort.

"On what?" He doesn't seem to have an answer for me. Instead, he sighs, and takes the book from my hands.

"We'll keep a hold on this. It might be useful later, but for now, let's keep trying to find something more concrete than this. Cuz even if Xemnas was planning for thirteen of us to get taken by the darkness, it still doesn't insinuate anything other than that, well, he's a damn good planner." He reminds me, which is true, but at least this is something.

"So, we've got some more searching to do here?" I ask. He shrugs.

"Guess so. You and Xion making any progress?" He asks. I make a face.

"I wish. She's determined not to give up though." I explain. "She's hella insecure for someone without a heart."

"Yeah, well, she and Roxas are good for that. I thought that you were the only one who made me feel alive, the only one who reminded me what it was like to be human." He reaches out to squeeze my hand. "But the more time the four of us spend together, the more we get ice cream and laugh about stupid stuff, the more I start to wonder…" He heaves a sigh. I lean forward, closing the distance between us, my lips grazing his.

"There's gotta be something." I say, my fingers creeping from his hand, up to his chest. I rest my palm over where his heart should be. He's so incredibly warm, it feels wrong to even consider that he doesn't have something beating in there. But I know better than that. "Heart or no. There's something."

"Don't." He urges, shaking his head. "Neither of us need to get our hopes up." He insists. I climb out of the chair and into his lap, wrapping my arms around his waist. Setting my head against his shoulder, I give him a light squeeze, trying to encourage him to relax into me.

He's right, of course. It's going to hurt a thousand times more when the reality of everything hits me once more, but I'm safe inside of my hope. And right now, when it feels like he feels something for me, his lack of heart doesn't seem so bad. He clutches my hips, fingertips pressing into my skin.

"You've got to stop keeping things from me." I murmur. I feel him shift uncomfortable beneath me.

"Rueki, I'm not—"

"You can't keep this hurt from me." I press my lips to his shoulder. "You've acted so miserably since getting home from your month in Oblivion. I don't know what happened but—"

"I was alone with everything." He confesses. "No you. No Roxas or Xion. I guess Saix was right. I've changed since I met you three, because the second you were all gone and weren't there to remind me of who I was, I started to feel just as empty as I did before I knew you. I wondered what the hell I was doing all of this for, I was angry at you three for not being here with me. And for making me soft. I wondered if maybe mine and Saix's plan would've already been completed if I wasn't so distracted. I guess I started thinking, hey, maybe everyone is right about me. Maybe I'm like a fucking dog, chasing its tail, all because I can't handle the emptiness of not having a heart. I get distracted too easily by people like you, people who make me feel…something. The more and more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got. My heart was supposed to be mine, but it's not, so I thought, as long as my life is mine, hey that's something. But the more people I let in, the more I started to wonder—was there anything that is mine, or am I somehow a victim to everyone else's agenda. It was so much easier, doing the lying and the manipulating so that no one else could do it to me. I got home though, and Roxas yelled at me and told me I had to look after you, and then I saw you, just lying on the couch."

"Baby…" I touch his face, drawing my head away from his shoulder to look into his eyes.

"And, well, I knew it before, but looking at you, you looked like home. Not just you, but Roxas and Xion are starting to be that way for me too. So maybe that's more important than having something that is all mine. But I hated how easy it was for me to resort back, when I didn't have any of you to keep me on track." He sighs. "Even after everything, all it takes is a gust of wind, to blow out the fire."

"Shut up." I order, pressing my forehead to his.

"Forgive me for bearing my heart and soul, princess." He says, humorlessly.

"You are not your element, Axel. And you're not who you were. The you before wouldn't have told me all of this. You probably would've just made some jokes and fucked me to distract me." I remind him.

"Who says I won't still do that?" He teases, and while it is tantalizing bait, I stay on track.

"The point is, you're different. You're changing, you're growing and the parts of you that aren't are the parts of you that I'm here to help with. You shouldn't have to do any of this on your own. Trust your partner, Axel. We're supposed to grow together. If neither of us ever changes, how will we ever make progress? I'm here for you, to keep you on track, to be your light. Whatever you're worried about not having, stop it. Because I've got heart enough for both of us. So until you get yours back, you'll just have to lean on me."

"Rueki…" He starts and then finally sighs. He kisses me lightly on the forehead.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing. Never mind." I have a feeling that it's something, and that I should mind. But I guess right now he needs me more than I need to be right.

And I guess that's okay.

"Rueki, wake up." Xion is tapping at the door to mine and Axel's room. It's late at night, or is it early in the morning. I'm wide awake though and quickly zip myself into a coat before answering the door. Voice at a whisper, I poke my head out.

"What are you doing at this hour? Shouldn't you be asleep?" I ask. But there's a spark in her eyes that lights me up from the inside.

"I've found him. The imposter." That's all it takes.

I don't ask her how she found him, and why she was out this late, I probably should, but instead, I follow her out of the room. She opens a portal for me and we wind up…right outside the old mansion in Twilight Town?

"Right under our noses?" I ask.

"Yes." She nods. "I was out for a walk, I couldn't sleep. I keep having dreams that I'm drowning. I just had to get out of bed. I was walking out here and I noticed someone go into the woods. I followed, and I swear, Rueki, it was him! He walked into the mansion, I came right after you the second I saw him!" There's a palpable excitement in her voice, hushed and urgent. I offer her a grin.

"We're gonna do this kid. We'll get answers out of him, bring him back to the Organization, whatever the hell you want." And then, go back to sleep, I think, in my exhausted state.

"Right." She nods. With Survivor at the ready, and her Keyblade now in her hands, we make our way through the creaking gates and to the door of the mansion. The door is unlocked, there is a thick layer of dust over everything in the mansion. I take a step from the porch, in, keeping Xion safe behind me. Chairs and tables that haven't been moved in eons, doors to rooms that might not have been open in my lifetime, decorate the place. There are not even a set of footprints marring the inch of dust across the floor. I wonder, for a moment if perhaps Xion was wrong in thinking she saw the imposter. And then, before I can turn to ask her, the doors slam shut behind me, right in front of her face.

"Xion!" I cry out, pounding at the door. I don't know if she doesn't hear me or if she is otherwise distracted, but I'm unable to help any further. I try at the door, twisting the knob, kicking it, throwing all of my weight into it. "Dammit!" I shake my head, turning to asses any threats in front of me, in the mansion. I contemplate for a moment, if maybe this place is haunted, though I'm not naïve enough to believe that is actually possible.

That is when I catch sight of a pale figure, sitting at the edge of the stairs.

"Naminé." I breathe. She meets me with the softest of smiles, her head cocking to the side.

"Hello, Rueki. It has been a little while." Despite her mysterious appearance, I don't hesitate in crossing the room to where she sits. She looks up at me, her brow coming together.

"You're safe." Is my first reaction, and I kneel down to look her in the eyes. She looks as sad and sweet as usual, I notice that her fingernails are bleeding from biting them down to the quick. Her hands are stained with markers. She looks more frazzled than she did in Oblivion, where she was being held hostage. "Are you okay?" I ask. She shrugs.

"I'm not the one you should worry about, Rueki." She chews at her chapped lips. "You shouldn't be here at all."

"Then let me out. My friend and I are just trying to—"

"I know what you're trying to do." She whispers. "But, Rueki…I need you to think for a moment, truly. Who is this person you are following around and calling friend?"

"I thought you and I were cool enough to stop talking in riddles." I frown at her. Her eyes flick down to her feet.

"I'm sorry." And she genuinely sounds sincere in that. "But I cannot explain this any better, I'm afraid even I don't know fully what's going on. But you're heading somewhere dark, Rueki, and if you keep down this path, you won't make it." She doesn't look in my eyes as she speaks, but at my chest, my heart.

"Is this because of Organization XIII?" I ask, though I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that.

"It is so much more than just them." She confesses. She reaches out and touches my heart. "The sealed room is cracked. It's letting the darkness out. You've been having nightmares, haven't you?" My eyes go wide.

"How did you know?" I choke, though I know how she knows. She can see into my heart. But still, the sealed room theory still disturbs me. I think of the nightmare I had in Shibuya, where Naminé told me all I had to do was knock, before she got consumed by darkness. "I'm just trying to find out the truth and help my friends. Is that really so wrong?" How can it be?

"Rueki, a Nobody doesn't have a right to exist." She looks like she is going to cry as she speaks, she must truly believe this, though I can't say I do. Not completely. I look at her and Roxas and Xion and Axel, and I cannot imagine my life without them having touched my heart.

"That's so fucked up. That and the whole Nobodies don't have a heart thing. Existence and hearts, are they really the end all be all? Because I look at all of them, and I'm not stupid, you know that, but I swear that there's something there! Something that makes them…"

Not whole, no. But close.

Perhaps they are not whole, but does that really mean that they are broken?

Naminé offers me a half smile.

"You're not afraid of the light anymore, Rueki. That's nice to see." She says. "But, this is the truth. A Nobody is nothing. A Nobody can never be anything. And the sooner you understand that, the better."

"They'll get their hearts back, that's what we're trying to do. That's why we're here. So a friend of mine can rest easy at night, knowing she isn't a failure." I insist.

"She." Naminé says, weighing the word as though it has a tangible value. "Yes, why not, I suppose. Those do seem to be the memories that are missing. I thought it was my fault, but perhaps…"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask her.

"Perhaps she isn't the one that needs to rest, Rueki." Naminé replies. I don't know what she's getting at, but I don't have time to ask. From outside, I hear Xion scream. I stand up.

"No." I breathe. I turn to look at Naminé, demanding an explanation, but with a pained look on her chest, she touches my heart.

"I'm sorry, but maybe this will help you understand." She sputters.

I feel a deep pang, radiate in my chest, sharp and brutal, like a knife ripping into me.

A blinding white light flashes behind my eyes.

I don't hear Xion scream again. I don't even know that she is knocked unconscious, until I wake up to Axel looking over me one morning.

"Rueki!" He chokes, grabbing my face desperately in his hands. "I didn't think you were going to—"

"Slow down." I blink back haziness and rub my eyes. "What happened?"

"You an Xion disappeared last night. When I woke up, you were gone, Roxas noticed Xion was too. We went looking and found the two of you both passed out in the mansion. Xion, she's out like a light, but you kept screaming, jolting up, saying 'she's going to kill him' and then passing out again. I didn't know…" Axel pinches his eyes shut and when they finally fly open again, I see the man behind them is more broken than I could even begin to fathom. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't really know. Xion wanted to go into the mansion, the doors closed and trapped me inside but, she was stuck outside. I found Naminé, Axel." I remember it and react with just as much shock as he does.

"In the mansion?" He asks.

"I don't know if she just appeared there or what, it didn't look like any sign that anyone had been there in a long time. But she told me I was heading down a dark path. And then she put her hand on my heart, I just remember being in pain, then I passed out." I confess. Axel looks at me with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes as his fingers trail down to my heart.

"What did she do?" I ask. He shakes his head.

"That one, I really wish I knew, Rueks."

"What about Xion, is she awake now?" Somehow, I know the answer before he can even respond.

"No." No, she's not, and somehow, I know she dreams about being taken by the waves on Destiny Islands.

What did Naminé do to me?