I spent some time in my cabin, thinking through the possibilities of leaving, how I'd do it, the most effective ways to make it be known I was leaving and I had no care for them any more, and others. I came up with some very creative ideas, once even including eliminating every member of the Organization except for Xemnas, but I reigned in my creativity after that – maybe I was having to make some serious changes due to Xion, but I wasn't going to copy him and go as far out of my way as possible.

In the end I decided that I'd stick with the same route I'd originally planned to follow – the same one I should have followed, had I been Sora's Nobody instead of Liam's. It'd need a few minor alterations, but that was no concern.

The real concerns were what would happen afterwards, and Xion. I had a base of operations to work from – my ship – but I had a lot of time where I'd have nothing to do but evade the Organization – and lets face it, given the trouble they had on the first day of my existance, that wasn't likely to be a difficult task.

Xion was the more immediate problem. If Riku's letter was anything to go by, I could expect to go up against someone who was as much like Liam as Liam himself was. Though I hid it well, I was strongly feeling the weakening effects Xion was having on me. In this state, I was going to be no match for him. What I needed was some outside help – but from who?

The answer came to me from, rather ironically, Xion. Though not the one I faced, this is Xion as she appears in the normal story. Who does she turn to when she needs advice? Riku. And who should Riku direct her to but Naminé. Of course I'd have to figure a way around DiZ, but once free from the Organization I'd have plenty of time to work that one out.

When I headed back outside again, I overheard Luxord talking with one of the Samurais.

"I'm just saying, the fates could go against him," Luxord's voice came to me. I quietly closed the door to my cabin and leaned back to listen out of sight.

"We are loyal to our commander," A Samurai told him stiffly. "We will not entertain the idea of treachery."

"I'm not saying you should, but what if something happens to him?"

"Then we will prevent it."

"You can't prevent everything."

"We can try."

"And if you fail?"

"I think you'll find that word isn't in their vocabulary – or mine," I told Luxord, joining him. I already had Riku's letter folded under Jack's compass as I took the wheel from him. "Return to work," I told the Samurai.

"Aye, Captain."

Once it had rejoined the others, I glanced over to Luxord and said, "Trying to subvert my Nobodies now, are you? Was it Saïx's idea, or your own?"

"Neither," Luxord replied. "And I wasn't trying to subvert them – just point out they had an option if something happened to you."

"The only thing that's going to happen to me is returning to Liam, and even then I'll maintain my presence there strong enough to keep command of my Nobodies, and they'll know I'm still around. Just drop it, Luxord."

"You're being a bit adversarial, aren't you?"

"So what if I am? This is my ship, I can do what I want here. Including order you around, since you haven't done anything to pay for your presence on board yet."

"We're both part of the Organization," he pointed out. "Isn't that enough?"

"You wish," I snorted. "The only reason I'm doing this is because otherwise we'd have spent ages looking for a ship."

"What about the good Captain?" he asked then.

"What about him?"

"Do you trust him?"

"Jack? Of course not," I answered with a sense of deja vu. "You'd be a fool to do that too much."

"You accepted his word for the compass though. A compass that doesn't work."

"His compass works just fine," I told him. "It just doesn't point north."

"Then where does it point?"

"It'll come to you," I shrugged with a nasty grin. "If you think about it hard enough."

"Land ho, dead ahead!" A Samurai called to us. I checked the compass, which was pointing ahead, then looked for myself. A familiar looking little island was coming into view.

"It looks like we've found our dear Captain Sparrow," I murmured. "Bring us in close, then ready a longboat! Luxord will take it to shore to being our next passenger aboard."

"Me?" Luxord said, startled. "Why me?"

"Because this is my ship and I said so. Also because if you don't do it, I'm going to throw you overboard – after Sparrow is on board, so you can't just swim back on again."

"Someone will be hearing about this," he muttered as he headed down to wait for the longboat.

While I waited for Jack to be brought aboard, I decided to take some time to consult his compass again.

"Alright," I told it in a quiet voice. "I've found Jack. Now tell me which way I should go to save myself from Xion."

The compass spun once, then pointed at me. I felt a familiar feeling in the back of my head suggest a vision coming on. Either a coincidence, or the compass using them as a more understandable means of directing me. Given who Jack got the compass from, I suspect the latter.

Twilight Town, in front of the train station. At first it looked like it was just me there, though it looked like I'd just been fighting something. Then a Heartless that I didn't immediately recognise appeared, slamming into the ground in front of me with a shockwave that hurled me against one wall. It looked painful, to say the least.

"Oh, no you don't!" Xion's voice said, then he appeared between me and the Heartless – not to attack me, but the Heartless. "No one defeats Roxas – no one but me!"

Xion was... saving me?

The second vision was also in Twilight Town, though this time inside the old mansion. In the room where Naminé left so many of her drawings. She was seated at one end of the table, humming softly as she drew something. What it was, the vision's angle didn't let me see.

The door opened to admit Riku and another person wearing the Organization's coat, but with the hood up. Riku guided them to the chair, nodded to Naminé,then left. The coat was not one I recognised, and even more oddly it seemed as if there was something underneath the hood. Besides the wearer's head of course. As if they were wearing something else underneath.

"Why are you here again?" Naminé asked without looking up.

"Necessity," an unfamiliar voice replied.

"There's no such thing when it comes to you, you told me that yourself."

"Alright, call it personal ethics. I made a mistake, Naminé. I shouldn't have helped him."

"He had the book," Naminé said, nodding to the tiger-striped book on the table beside her. "You didn't have any choice."

"That's not the real book and you know it. I could have chosen to ignore him."

"So why didn't you?"

There was a long pause, then, "Because of my own stupid ethics," the unidentified figure sighed. "Xion wasn't aware it wasn't the real book, so I acted as if it was. It's happened before, with a few previous owners of the book, but normally nothing came of it. This time though..."

"This time it turned bad on you."

"Not on me. On Liam. I've come to know him, Naminé. He may be the first person to hold the book that I've felt I can trust to keep it without using it for his own gain."

"So that's why you're here – you don't want Xion to take that from you."

"Exactly. Necessity. Roxas will be here before long. He's even watching this in a vision I arranged for him to have," he added, startling me. Who was he? "When he gets here... well what you do is up to you. But I think you should remember his advice – don't be afraid to use the book. Without it..."

"Without it, he'll never survive the meeting with Xion," she finished.

"Right. I trust you not to abuse the book, Naminé."

"Can't you..." she trailed off.

The hood shook, "I don't like to get involved without the words in the book prompting it, not unless it becomes necessary. Necessary as all this is... it doesn't yet qualify in my..." there was a faint chuckle then he continued, "in my book, so to speak."

"I know what you mean," Naminé smiled. "Will you be staying long?"

The hood shook again, "DiZ will be here shortly. He has no idea I'm here, and I should warn you Riku won't remember bringing me here. I'd rather keep the number of people who know about me to a minimum. I think Roxas has seen enough now too," he added, then the vision cut off just like that.

The thought echoed strongly in my mind – just who was he, and what gave him the power to arrange for that vision? Had he too used the book, or was he somehow related to it?

As if to distract me from that thought, I checked the compass, which had returned to spinning around, uncertain of where it should point now.

A further distraction came in the form of Jack.

"You might just be the strangest thing I've seen since your good captain and his friend," he was saying to a Samurai.

"Never mind my crew, Jack," I called down to him. "They might look unusual, but they can still sail my ship. Catch," I said then, chucking the compass in his direction. I wasn't surprised to see him catch it easily. "Don't forget to settle accounts with him," I added, then turned to my crew and commanded, "Set sail for Port Royal!"

I don't know what Jack and Luxord discussed in our short voyage to Port Royal, but for the most part I didn't dwell on it. The vision still mostly dominated my thoughts. At some point in Twilight Town I was going to get attacked by a giant Heartless that I had by then identified as a Dustflier, easily one of the most powerful Emblem Heartless, only to be saved by Xion.

Then of course the mystery figure who had some connection to the book, enough to arrange for me to see the meeting he was due to have with Naminé, somehow knowing that I would be at the same mansion not long after that meeting.

I don't like feeling like I'm not in control of what I'm doing, and the whole thing so far reeked of someone else having a hand in things. Given my own plans to leave the Organization, these were not the most welcome troubles to add to the collection.

Since there was no one I could turn to though I kept it as well hidden as I could from everyone else, keeping us on course to Port Royal. Which while I didn't know the exact location of, the Samurais somehow did and surreptitiously gave me periodic course changes to keep our heading true.

"You'll have to pay to moor your ship up, you know," Jack told me, having apparently finished with Luxord by the time we closed on Port Royal. I'd prudently had a Samurai take down Hook's pirate flag. It left us not sailing any colours, but better none than seen to be a pirate.

"That's what these are for," I told him, showing him the three shillings I'd nicked from him earlier.

"Last time I made port here, it was only one shilling. Not that I paid, or let them know I was here," he added. "When people are looking for you, it pays not to pay. Or be noticed."

"I noticed. I've got a little plan though. One of you come up here and take the wheel!" I called down then. "Run out the gangplank as soon as we're moored up, then stay aboard and wait for me."

"What about me?" Luxord asked.

"Once I've paid the mooring charge, I don't care. You've seen to your mission, so you can get off my ship – unless you care to negotiate payment for passage elsewhere. Captain Sparrow no doubt has plans of his own he wants to get to work on."

"Actually mate, I'll soon be wanting to head back out to sea," Jack told me. "A few things to do ashore, then I'll need to be leaving again."

"We'll see. You'll have to negotiate passage as well, you know. I'll give you time to do whatever you need, but if you're not back before evening I'm sailing without you."

"I'll be back long before then," he promised.

"Then if you'll excuse me," I said, noting the gangplank being put in place. "Time to pay up."

A neatly dressed official accosted us before we'd taken more than a dozen paces away from the ship.

"Excuse me sir!" he said, barring our path. "It's a shilling to moor your ship up at Port Royal, and I shall need to know your name." He held a pen poised to write in the accounts book he had before him.

"What do you say to three shillings," I countered. "And we forget the name. Of both me and my ship," I added quickly, noticing the name on Hook's former ship, though faded, read 'Jolly Roger'.

The official glanced at the three coins I deposited on his book, hesitated, then brightly said, "Welcome to Port Royal, Mister Smith," and wandered off without another word.

"Never thought of that," Jack confessed. "Must remember that next time I'm here."

"I'm sure it'll be useful. I sail come evening, or when you get back," I told Jack, then turned to Luxord and continued, "As for you, unless you've got something else to do here, I believe that's your mission dealt with. You should probably go back and report in."

Luxord waited until there was no one around to see him, then vanished into a corridor looking disapproving. I got the distinct impression he didn't care much for the attitude I'd picked up since he'd discovered I was also a Captain as well. The repeated threats to throw him off my ship probably caused that.