Roxas walked down the halls of the castle with an eager smile that hadn't faded since his previous mission with Xion. Without Axel there was always an empty place on the clocktower that reminded him that his friend wasn't there anymore...but meeting and befriending Xion changed that.

As he approached the grey room, he hoped that today's mission would be with her.

"Huh?"

The first thing that drew Roxas's attention was something new in the room. He wasn't certain what it exactly was as it hovered over the ground with tiny wings, yet it bore the same coat every member wore to shield them against both dark and light.

"Hi?" Roxas greeted. "What's your name?"

"...My name is of no importance, kupo."

"Kupo?" Roxas repeated, only furthering his confusion.

"Are you here to shop, kupo?" The creature prompted. "Should you desire anything, I can provide it- for a reasonable fee of course, kupo."

Roxas thought to himself, wondering if this was where he was supposed to spend his Munny. "Do you have any sea-salt ice cream?" He asked as it was the first thing that came to mind.

"I can be provided to you by the end of the day, kupo." The creature said just as Roxas heard voices approaching. Demyx and Xaldin walked into the room with troubled expressions.

"Don't look at me, man! I just found out minutes ago." Demyx insisted as Xaldin shook his head. "Talk about a bad scene."

Roxas was immediately curious as this was the first time he'd seen his fellow members looking worried. "Is everything okay?" He asked walking up to them but Xigabr was the one who answered his question, walking up behind the three of them.

"Okay? As if. Word has it at least one of the folks we sent to Castle Oblivion has been terminated." He said nonchalantly.

"Terminated?" Roxas asked hesitantly, uncertain of what the word meant but was certain that it could mean nothing good, especially if Xigbar was the one saying it. Yet the older Nobody placed a hand on his head with a cheeky grin on his face, as if he knew something that Roxas didn't.

"Come on, you're with me today, kiddo. We're on recon duty." Xigbar said as he opened a corridor of darkness while Roxas stepped back, wanting to at least see Xion before leaving.

"Wait, but-"

"No buts. There's work to be done." Xigbar said as he threw Roxas in by the hood on his coat and then closely followed behind him.

"BWAH-" Roxas fell face first in something that filled every crevice of his face, much to his chagrin as he realized his mouth was covered in sand. As he tried to wipe it away himself off, he quickly realized that he was in a new place- one that was foreign as he had never seen anywhere like this before. Twilight town was the only other place he had been to, yet this new World appeared to be more worn down, not to mention it was also covered in sand. Not to mention that the sun itself seemed to be against him as he felt his black coat burn under its direct rays.

"Ugh, I'm already frying out here. C'mon, kiddo. Let's get this investigation over and done with." Xigbar said as he walked through, placing his hands on his hips as he looked around. He took notice that Roxas said nothing in turn, rather he held more interest at the sand he was sitting on. "What's wrong? Dazzled by the new scenery?" Xigbar teased gruffly as he pulled Roxas to his feet.

"...What does terminated mean?" Roxas asked, unable to bring himself to look at Xigbar.

"Ha ha, is that seriously what's eating you?" Xigbar chided in amusement, it was easy to forget that Roxas had large gaps in his knowledge due to being a newly created Nobody compared to the rest of them. "Didn't think I would be the next one on babysitting duty." He remarked as Roxas looked at him with a blank expression on his face. "Terminated is what you do to Heartless when you wack them with that key of yours. Someone at the castle was wacked, and now there's nothing left."

Xigbar could see the realization wash over Roxas as his junior began to become distressed.

"N-nothing left?" He questioned as his voice started to shake. "Does that mean that Axel..."

"Could be, but also couldn't be. We have no way of knowing who it was that bit the dust." Xigbar clarified as he walked past Roxas to stand in the shade, quickly unable to bare the heat.

"So...they could be gone? Doesn't that bother you at all?" Roxas asked as Xigbar took some amusement from the supposed disbelief Roxas held on his face. Being a newer Nobody meant that almost everything was a new experience to him; meaning he had the pleasure of taking witness to the reaction of loss- it was almost sympathetic.

"As if." Xigbar scoffed. "You'll learn lesson soon enough, but forming these false connections of yours are just distractions. We have a job to do, and you have to learn to do it otherwise, you'll be lesser than the dusks." He said harshly as Roxas appeared to take in his words; Though even he could see that the newer Nobody was prone to more sensitivity as well- and there was no telling what could happen if he was too overwhelmed.

He couldn't take the risk of breaking it, before the puppet had time to play it's role.

"Listen-" Roxas lifted his head up as he heard Xigbar speak again. "If you're so upset about, then once we finish the mission we can RTC and I'll personally ask Big Blue what exactly happened to your babysitter."

Xigbar could see Roxas's eyes spark with some hope as he internally grimaced at the thought of putting in personal effort for the sake of a lesser.

"Big door..." Roxas observed as he looked up to see how high it actually was.

"Probably leads right to the royal palace."

"Royal Palace?" Roxas asked. "Like our castle?"

"Something like that." Xigbar said. "Take a good look. High walls, ornamental carvings... The construction's different than the rest of the city. In other words like this, large castles are the most likely place to house the most potential threats."

"Then should we go inside?" Roxas asked. "Threats mean heartless right?"

"Sometimes." Xigbar said as he narrowed his eyes, glancing at his junior. "Take a gander, can you sense and strong heartless in there?"

Roxas paused for a moment, closing his eyes as he tried to do what Xigbar asked, but instead his brow furrowed in confusion. "...hm."

"Hm?"

"There's...something weird about that place." Roxas admitted, crossing his arms, unable to properly describe it. "I can sense the heartless...but there's also something else there too, something that's not heartless."

Xigbar smirked to himself as he patted Roxas's head. "Very astute observation." He remarked as he turned away from the castle and back to the city.

"Wait- shouldn't we recon the castle?!" Roxas asked as he tried to catch up.

"Not with you." Xigbar stated. "A mission like that is out of your paygrade."

Roxas scowled at him in frustration as he kept hearing new words he didn't understand. "Paygrade?"

In the city next to the palace, Roxas took in everything, taking notice of the run-down state of the city as well as the scattered supplies. "Everything is so messy." He said as he walked over to some wooden planks. "Everything is covered in sand." He said as he saw Xigbar looking at a large metal gate that separated one segment of the city from another. While approaching him, Roxas was stunned for a moment as Xigabar phased through the gate with ease, leaving him behind.

"HEY!" Roxas called out as he grabbed the bars of the gate, looking through to see his partner for the mission smiling in amusement in his own twisted way.

"Find your own way Kiddo! I can't be expected to wait on you!" Xigbar said as he walked away without a second thought.

"Ughh." Roxas growled in annoyance as he looked around. "Why does this place even have such a gate?" He asked, looking around- wondering if he could scale the walls. He held out his hand, trying to focus his energy into forming a corridor, but quickly gave up as he continuously summoned his keyblade instead. He wandered through the area, trying to think up a way to get past.

"There are definitely people that lived here, that guarded this place..." Roxas said to himself trying to connect his way of thinking. He thought back to the castle, thinking about the gates that were there. Most automatically lifted when they were approached, but a few had switches that needed to be touched for security purposes. Immediately Roxas looked around for anything that could be a switch and spotted a lever just above the platforms.

"Well done!" Xigbar said as Roxas ran through the gate, flashing him a scowl of annoyance. "You've opened a door, now you're unstoppable." Roxas didn't say a word as he looked around the new area, seeing that there was another large door, this time- leading out directly to the desert outside. "Now, what have we learned?"

Roxas juggled the options of being snarky outright and complying but ultimately gave in as he wanted to go back to the castle quickly. "The city is messy, filled with sand, every door is boarded up, and there are a lot of supplies scattered around...maybe it's been left behind?" He reasoned as they hadn't seen a single soul.

"Far from it. Roxas, look at that wooden scaffolding over there, what do you see?" Xigbar pointed out, crossing his arms.

"It's...not round-ish?" Roxas said as he took notice of the wood's edges being rather clean-cut than compared to the rest of the planks. "It's new?" Roxas clarified as Xigbar nodded.

"Meaning?"

"...The city isn't deserted?" Roxas said hesitantly. "It's being taken care of?"

"Close enough. Okay, so we've got an entire city under a layer of sand. What do you make of it, Roxas? All these giant sand dunes in the middle of the city, how did they get here?"

"There's already a ton of sand around here, wouldn't this be normal within this world?"

Xigbar scoffed. "Heh normal? As if. Look at the city walls. They built them high to prevent exactly this from happening." He pointed out.

"Then...a giant storm?" Roxas offered with more clarification. "If it was bigger than they're used to then it means that they would need more supplies.

"Attaboy, you're right on the nose. This place got hit by a sandstorm. And not just once or twice, from the look of it. I guess the high walls around the city weren't high enough. It also means that these storms are frequent enough to the point where these people don't have the time to even fortify properly before the next one hits. They have to do rush jobs so that they can protect what little they have left." Xigbar said as he looked out towards the city's exit, seeing that any way to lead out into the desert was obscured from sight.

"Plus they have to deal with all the Heartless." Roxas added. "There's a whole bunch around here, but none of the city damage seems to be from them."

Xigbar turned his head slightly back to where Roxas was still looking around, taking interest in what his junior just said. "What makes you say that?"

"Well- because all the damage is from the sand, but there are no burns or marks from anything other than sand." Roxas pointed out. "Unless it was worn away."

Xigbar hummed to himself as he thought about what Roxas had observed, but kept it to himself for now. "All right, I think that's all we're getting for one day. Let's RTC."

"Huh? Really?" Roxas asked in surprise.

"What? Don't you want to go back to the castle?" Xigbar teased as he walked past him.

"It's not that, but shouldn't we see the ocean?"

Immediately, the older Organization member looked back at his junior in disbelief. "Ocean? What makes you think there'd be an ocean in a place like this?"

"...The sand?" Roxas said, pointing to said sand on the ground.

Xigbar opened his mouth to immediately refute his junior's words but then sighed. "Point taken, where there's sand- there's usually a large body of water. But not in this place. If there is any water here, it'll be under watch."

"...Oh."

"Speaking of- when exactly did you go to any ocean?" Xigbar asked for his own clarification since the locations Roxas visited were limited.

"Larxene took me." Roxas said. "I saw the sand just before she threw me in."

"Right, right. Your magic lesson." Xigbar recalled as it had been mentioned in a report.

"Also...that other ocean..." Roxas muttered under his breath, recalling a fuzzy memory in a dark place that he could only barely recall. But then shook his head as he quickly realized that Xigbar was leaving him behind again.

At the palace gates, Roxas looked down at his feet, walking just behind Xigbar who suddenly blocked him from walking forward.

"Uh-oh." The older Organization member muttered as he grabbed Roxas's hood and the next thing he knew, they teleported to the rooftop of one of the buildings, overlooking the two people talking below.

"What was that?" Roxas asked while Xigbar knelt down, placing a hand on Roxas's head so he'd do the same.

"We're not supposed to be seen, period. Normally with locals like those, I'd be able to just slip on by, but the way you stick out? Well."

"Huh?" Roxas questioned, then winced as Xigbar pulled on a few strands of his hair.

"Let's just say we're better off waiting for them to pass rather than trying to slip past." Xigbar remarked as his eyes were trained on the couple. Roxas followed his gaze and noticed that there was a pretty lady dressed in jewels and fine clothes while before her was a man who appeared to be her exact opposite in terms of dress. The two appeared to be in a heated conversation where they both looked distressed, yet the man was comforting the woman as they then walked into the city ruins together.

Roxas found himself unable to tear his eyes from the woman as she gave him a strange feeling.

"So that guy must be spearheading the city repair efforts. The question is, why him? He doesn't look like royalty..." Xigbar said, snapping Roxas out of his thoughts.

"Does he have to be?" He asked, assuming royalty was a high position of power like the ranks in the organization.

"It's not easy getting people to follow you, especially when it involves work. It's the kind of thing you'd expect somebody in the palace to be doing. They already call the shots, right?"

"...I guess?" Roxas said, now certain that Xigbar was just using him to bounce off his own thoughts.

"The girl next to him-now SHE was royalty." Xigbar remarked as Roxas hung her head.

"That girl...she was strange."

"Strange?" Xigbar asked.

"Yeah...I think she's what wasn't the heartless..." Roxas explained as he recalled the same premonition from earlier.

Xigbar paused for a moment before a smile drew on his face, quickly deciphering the implications of Roxas's words. "You've done well today Roxas." Xigbar compliment as he slapped his Junior's back. "We've got a good read on the area and now a look at the leaders of this place."

"Good, then we can go home now?" Roxas asked eagerly.

"Why did you leave the toaster plugged in?" Xigbar teased while Roxas became crestfallen.

"...You know why." Roxas said more sullenly while Xigbar chuckled.

"Fair enough." He said placing a hand on his head.

Roxas felt heavy, distracting him from his surroundings as a Scarlet Tango appeared behind him. Before he could even react it was taken out just as he turned around, releasing the heart right before his eyes just before disappearing.

"Where do Heartless go when they're destroyed?" Roxas asked as Xigbar walked past him to open the corridor.

"They don't go anywhere. They're gone. Only the hearts they held remain. But the hearts go somewhere: Kingdom Hearts." Xigbar informed, holding out his hands as the corridor appeared before him.

"So what if a person without a heart is destroyed-a Nobody like you or me? Does some part of us remain?" Roxas asked with more desperation as he looked back at his senior, feeling disheartened as Xigbar chided his question by laughing aloud.

"As if. We're not even supposed to "be" in the first place. What's there to leave behind?" Xigbar asked as Roxas became more upset.

"Then whoever it was at Castle Oblivion-

"Gone."

"...And I'll never see them again?" Roxas whimpered while Xigbar smirked, looking at how pathetic the Nobody before him really was.

"Nope."

He saw the Roxas was even more sullen than before, now unable to properly answer. "Come on." Xigbar prompted just about to step through the corridor, but then heard a thud and turned to see that Roxas once again had fallen face first in the sand.

"...Aw crap." Xigbar muttered to himself, scratching the back of his head as he was certain that he would be chewed out.

In the darkness appeared to him two familiar faces, one of his best friends and one of his newest friend. He felt longing towards the both of them as he tried to reach out towards them, wanting to be by their sides.

However, what came to him then was a flash of blinding white, and a girl with light-colored hair lifting her head to look in his direction as she was sitting in a chair.

Who are you?

"Before you say anything-" Xigbar said as he held up his hands defensively. He stood before Saïx in the Grey room with a limp body, previous over his shoulder now on the ground. "I don't think he's broken." He said while Saïx sighed heavily in displeasure.

-Roxas's Diary Entry: Day 26-

Saïx recommended I fill out this day to try and make some sense of what might have happened. But I don't know.

I only remember part of this day. I heard somebody sent to Castle Oblivion was terminated. Saïx said it may have been Axel. I tried to ask Xigbar about it on the day's mission, and he said nothing's left of Nobodies once we're gone, because we have no hearts to leave behind.

I don't remember much after that. They say I collapsed and wouldn't wake up...