¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
PLAYING FOR KEEPS
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Act IV
He hit the cell floor and scraped his cheek. His captors pinned him down immediately: one straddled his waist and held his shoulders while another shut thick shackles around his wrists. Fighting them proved to be a short-lived endeavor: a long, blunt object cracked his legs when he tried to worm away—he shrieked, confused and very much in pain. They used his hurting inattention to drag him to the far wall. Like a prize catch, he was strung up with chains attached to his shackles and anchored to the sturdy metal framework protruding from the wall. His shirt had ridden up—he didn't know where his jumper was—and the stone wall felt frosty on his bare skin. It was nighttime. Through a small rectangular window he could see the stars, millions of them, and they were beautiful.
If it weren't for the burning, too-real pain in his lower back, he could have sworn this was just another bad dream.
A jittery somebody held a candle at the doorway; the light fluttered and bounced to a vexing degree, casting shadows where there ought to be none and providing very little light besides. He saw nothing of his captors beyond their hulking silhouettes. One gruffly demanded the candle-man keep still, but no change was made.
"Where am I?" he screamed. "Where am I?"
The blunt object belted his mouth, cutting his lip. Liquid warmth dribbled down his chin. He tasted the blood experimentally.
"Shut up, damn it—or we'll gag you."
They had to gag him thirty seconds later. He gnawed on the cloth bunched up in his mouth and secured by a strip slung around his head. Violent curses came out as embarrassing whimpers. His back hurt so much—but he focused on the pain and knew that he was alive. More people came to the door and they jostled the candle-man from side to side, chasing away shadows and also paradoxically producing more at any given moment. He recognized none of their voices.
A warm hand cupped his cheek and forced his head to the left. A penlight shined into his eye and he winced away from it, but the blunt object landed another blow and someone else protested sharply. He forced his eyes open. Dizziness and queasiness quickly overwhelmed him.
"His reflexes seem okay," a strained voice reported.
"Help me," he said into the gag.
"Sora. Sora? Sora, can you hear me . . . ?"
"What happened to him?" someone asked.
One edgy voice answered: "He was found wandering around outside—completely out of his mind. He didn't even recognize his own name. Everyone expected him to be armed and dangerous after what he did to his escorts, but he was approachable and seemed harmless. We got hold of him after that, and then he started demanding to be let go, and we fought with him all the way here. He didn't draw the Keyblade once, strangely . . . but he kept screaming 'I hate you, I hate you' at us."
"Maybe I could have prevented this," the strained voice said. "It's—presenile dementia, as far as I can tell. Something broke inside. A few days ago he had been perfectly okay except for some weakness in his immune system and a sore throat . . ."
"The Court ordered him bound and imprisoned when they found out he had come back. They didn't know what else to do with him," another someone said in a hushed whisper. "All of Disney Kingdom is in an uproar because they don't know what's going on—just that their king is missing and no one will tell them anything. The Court is waiting for your professional opinion of Sora, Doctor, before they do anything."
"I know," the strained voice—the physician's—said. "Tell them to wait a while longer. I'm heading back to my library to research these symptoms. This may not be what it appears, especially since he's so young; even if it truly is full-blown dementia, I'm going to do whatever I can for him."
"What do you want us to do in the meantime?"
"Keep an eye on him. Report directly to me if any strange activity starts up—forget the Court for now. And for goodness' sake, don't hit him! Internal bleeding isn't going to help solve this."
Dark, seething frustration welled up in Sora's heart and threatened to burst out. He didn't understand any of what they were talking about. Axel had told him about these people, about whom they were and what they wanted to do to him. Sora knew that he had to get away as soon as possible. Beyond this panicked knowledge, he also knew the burning pain they were responsible for, his agonizing hatred for everyone responsible, and the merciless anger pulsating behind his eyes like a migraine. People moved around him, leaving the cell to hide outside and watch him from the door's barred window. He snarled behind the gag and choked on blood.
"What did he do to his escorts?" someone outside wondered.
"He damn near killed them, that's what. They're both in comas last I heard."
Time was meaningless. Sora brooded in collection of bleak emotions and listened to the voices of his captors bounce back and forth. Without meaning to, but with well-practiced ease, he imagined stealing their voices in an insane series of visions that almost blended into the real world. The Key was in his hands, though he couldn't recall ever wielding it before, and he had the tines pressed against one of their necks. They were screaming and crying and pleading. He said to the first captor, grim and menacing, Your power is nowhere near my own. And then—like it was the natural thing to do—he smudged the flaw away and went on to the next captor, who repeated the first's slobbering display and still ended up as an unpleasant pool of gore. Whoever came at him learned to bow before they were killed. Sora was grinning at the red smears left on the Key, and also grinning against the gag as the conversation beyond the door continued. Yes—this was the power Axel had talked about, this ability to eliminate the inferior and revel in it. This was—
Axel, he thought suddenly. Axel. Axel. Axel, you're such an asshole. You're a traitor. Where the fuck are you? Come here, Axel—destroy them! Destroy them for me! Help! Come for me. Your traitor. You deserter. You were right when you told me they were all worthless. I hate them so much, Axel. I hate all of them so much. They're hurting me and you were right when you said they didn't want to do anything but hurt me and you. Please come and destroy them . . . Let me be free!
"Anyway, that's what happened when this—what the—hey, you—!"
"So sorry to intrude, gentlemen, but might I get through?"
"Who the holy fuck are you? Where did you come from?!"
"I'm a comrade of your prisoner. Would you be so kind as to open up?"
"Are you kidding? I don't know who you think you are, but you can't go anywhere near him."
"—Unhand me. Now."
A wet sound rinsed the walls, one that was like slopping paint or a rupturing water balloon, and someone screamed behind their hands. The candle holder clattered when it hit the floor, its light blowing out in the fall. Two heavy sets of footsteps joined together in the unprepared dance of an ensuing scuffle. White fire licked at the window's iron bars, but it couldn't have come from the candle because that was already snuffed out and the fire was too bright and fierce anyway.
The muffled scream continued unabashedly, accompanied now by the intruder's smooth laughter until a great and disgusting slosh! brought silence. The shadows snickered and bowed, retreating to the corners after their voyeurism, and then a darker, broader, more malevolent shadow opened the door and stepped inside the cell.
"I finally found you," Axel said as he came closer. From his cloak he withdrew a few matches; he struck one against the wall and transferred its flame to the candle he had also rescued. "I told you to stay put, and instead you ran off!"
"Mmph."
Axel stooped and pulled off the gag. "Sora, what would you do without me?"
"Sorry," he said, unaccustomed to the name and yet knowing it was his. Axel set down the candle holder and Sora watched its yellow bulb dance. "I didn't realize how close I had gotten to the castle until they spotted me."
"Regardless of your apologies, I ought to teach you a lesson for ignoring my orders." Axel slid down his hood and smiled at Sora, who looked so stricken. "I might be persuaded to take so other sort of reparation for my trouble, however."
"I've already given you so much," Sora said, grimacing. "I'll get out of this myself."
Sora strained against his binds, but every movement was fruitless and tiring. Having his arms suspended over his head had allowed pins and needles to sneak into his biceps, and they hurt. Axel grinned and chuckled, his eyes feral in the fluctuating light of the candle, and did not do anything but look on as Sora fought with the shackles.
"—What do you want?" Sora said when the chains and locks proved to be too much for him. He slouched against the icy wall and lowered his chin. "I can't stay here."
"I'm fairly certain you keep what I want on you at all times," Axel said, intuitively guiding his hands down to the hem of Sora's shirt. He investigated with touch alone, found nothing more than the smooth flesh of a half-exposed midriff, and so moved lower to the dark shorts and its two deep pockets. Ignoring Sora's obvious discomfort, he searched each thoroughly. "It's a lucky charm that you have no use for, so I doubt you'll mind parting with it."
Axel grinned wickedly when he heard the tell-tale clink. His fingers closed around a handful of reparations and drew them out, a glittery collection of five that he dangled in front of the light for inspection. A lucent butterfly, a florescent star, a blood red rose, a bronze medallion, and a burnished lamp: keychains, every one. He picked through them carefully and selected the florescent star, then unceremoniously dumped the rest onto the floor.
"That's . . .""Oathkeeper,"
Axel provided, tinkering with the keychain's silver clip. "I'll take
this in exchange for your freedom. Doesn't that sound good?"
and she says "be sure to bring it back to me" and i promise her that i will
"You can't take that one," Sora said tersely.
"Why
not?" Axel's eyes were sharp and suspicious. "It's worthless, but I
think it would go rather well with my white satin regalia."
i'll
never be alone again so long as I remember the way she smiled at me and
i have to leave her here because it's too dangerous but i'll come back
The memory of why this keychain meant so much was like something on the tip of his tongue. "I can't . . . I can't remember why . . ."
"Then it's settled."
her smile doesn't judge me and i know she truly believes i can save us all from the darkness
"No!" Sora shouted, lashing out with renewed vigor as far as the chains would permit. "No, no, no! You can't take that one! You just can't!"
"Your logic amazes me," muttered Axel glumly as he thumbed a point on the keychain's star. "I require something in order to free you—it's only fair we practice equivalent trade. This still meaning so much to you is kind of upsetting . . ."
"Just give it back, Axel."
Oathkeeper tumbled onto the others. "Whatever. There are only five keychains here, though. Where are your others?"
Flooded with strangled relief, Sora barely processed the question. "My other . . . what?"
"Your other keychains," Axel reiterated. "Pumpkinhead, Lady Luck, Wishing Star, Oblivion, and the rest—where are they?"
"I don't remember," Sora said. "I don't even remember what they look like."
"Think hard, or I'll just take Oathkeeper—"
"No! They're—they're—"
i open an inconspicuous cardboard shoebox and dump them in there with other odds and ends: candy wrappers and antique coins and
And the answer came to him in a rushed flash of images.
"My room! The shoebox!" he exclaimed. He remembered nothing because he no longer had those memories, but inside his head there lurked sensations that sometimes were able to manifest as something interpretable. It felt like he was sharing his mind with someone else who didn't speak up very often—but now this someone was learning how to communicate again.
"Very good," Axel said and patted his comrade's cheek. "Let me comb through those and I might find something more chic than Oathkeeper."
Sora knew instinctively that style did not motivate Axel when concerning the keychains; nonetheless, he acceded to that plan. Axel displayed a filched set of keys and undid the locks. Chains slithered away, tinkling altissimo, and dropped raucously into a pile. Leaning forward onto his knees, Sora massaged life back into his arms while avoiding the tender red welts encircling his wrists.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Axel straightened and appraised him. "You look like shit, by the way."
His lip was cut superficially, but it stung. "Believe me, I know."
"Let's not dawdle over your bruises too long," Axel said and flipped up his hood. "Someone will come by eventually, so we don't want to waste more time."
Cupping his hands, Sora scooped up the keychains and deposited them back in his pocket. He stood without taking Axel's extended arm and then wished he had when his muscles kinked. Bruises were not his only problem obviously; to call the whole of his injuries a "bruise" was a gross understatement. Axel waited impatiently with the candle holder while Sora fought to stay upright.
"I'm not really sure where my room is," Sora whispered at length. "We might run into someone before we get—"
"It's somewhere by the royal repository. I know where that is, and I'll let you take it from there."
"All right . . ."
Axel nodded, motioned for silence, and then checked the hallway. There hadn't been another patrol pass-by thus far, but he risked nothing as he headed out of the cell and to the left; his spare fingers curled over the candle flame to create a muted corona that did not touch the walls. Sora hesitated at the door. The darkness looked harmless enough and his comrade led him onward, but a fussy little instinct told him something was very wrong.
"Coming?" Axel said in an echo.
Sora's first three strides were copasetic because there was ground underfoot and nothing lying in wait to grab him and gobble him up. The fourth stride, however, was like stepping onto a wet floor: his foot only budged an inch or so, sliding through something thick and slippery, and he reached out reflexively to the wall where his fingers also slid in the same slick substance. Hot lead settled in his stomach because something was—indeed, as suggested by instinct—very wrong.
"What is this?" Sora said, keeping his balance as he pulled his fingers away. The liquid was kind of sticky when on his skin, and it webbed between his fingers. He couldn't identify it without light, but it smelt sickly-sweet. "Axel—?"
"What the hell is taking you so long?"
Falteringly, Sora tried wiping off his fingers and then continued walking, though each step was frightening for the split-seconds his feet glided through the muck. The sickly-sweet odor followed him and intensified—it was like stepping into a room of blooming roses—but he began to notice the smell of burnt meat almost hidden beneath the flowers. He felt queasier and queasier with every step, and he stopped again just a few feet from Axel when he heard the distinct crunch of something brittle underfoot.
The guards, he realized all at once. Where are the guards? What did Axel do to them?
"What happened?" he said loudly.
"Keep your voice down!" Axel hissed. He was standing at top of a stairway that led down from the prison tower, still dimming the candle so only the edges of his hood were illuminated. "Just get over here and stay close."
I wanted them to die so painfully, Sora thought and lifted his hands. I imagined that they were screaming and that there was blood everywhere. I hated them. But . . . but . . . did they really . . . ?
He turned and pointed at the hallway he had gone down; despite all he had wished and possibly done, despite all the darkness that had been corroding his heart, a familiar weight actualized between his sticky palms. One unspoken thought later, the Key glowed and banished the darkness with a scalding fireball. It traveled the hallway's entire length, brightening the floor and walls and ceiling until it broke, hot and angry, against the farthest wall. The shadows rushed back instantly, but there had been enough time to see . . .
Blood. Blood everywhere, like he had fantasized. There seemed to be an unnatural volume of it for belonging to two people: a sheet of it coated the ground, entire portions of the walls were awash, and even the ceiling was mottled with it. (As Sora stared at this butchery, a red droplet bowed to gravity and pattered onto his cheek. He did not notice.) Charred remnants of bones, some which he had stepped onto to make that ugly crackle, lied in several ghastly heaps.
"Yes, slaughter is spellbinding," Axel said dryly. "Nothing you won't get used to seeing, Sora."
"Why did you do—this—?"
"I think it was because they wouldn't get out of my way. Yes."
Sora mustered up his revulsion until it overpowered even the profound anger and hatred and frustration he had been feeling for the guardsmen. "You are so fucking sick—"
"Excuse me?" Axel rasped. "I think I misunderstood you, because I could've sworn the pot was calling the kettle black."
"They were just people!"
"You
wanted them to die too for no more reason than 'they exist and that
pisses me off.' Someone is liable to hear your bellyaching at this
rate; if you're done, let's go. I don't know how you can operate your
little toy when you're sided with me—put that thing away—but I'll
figure that out later."
"yeah we're supposed to keep an eye on you" goofy says and comes at me again
He aimed the Key at Axel. "I'm not like you."
"Of course you are."
they
are trying to help me and i know that they're my friends of course they
want to help me but i hate them so much for keeping me from doing what
i need to do and i'm going to scream and here i go i'm screaming at
them and i scream "fine just don't get in my way" and they look at each
other like i'm crazy and maybe i am because sometimes i feel like
something's broken in me
Suddenly those rushed images really inspired pain.
He cried out and collapsed to his knees. The Key vanished again and his hands splayed out in the blood, but he did not care. "What are you—what have you done to me?!" he wailed. The buried someone in his mind who was discovering how to communicate again did not use any delicacy. It felt like an ice pick was being hammered into his brain. "It's too much—things—pictures in my head—stop making them—it hurts!"
"Obviously taking your memories was not as clean a process as I had hoped," Axel said grimly. "There's still some sort of resolution left over, like a bad aftertaste. We'll experiment with that when we get back to Hollow Bastion."
"What—?"
i
hear "get 'im goofy" before i see them coming but i'm prepared and the
key always does whatever i want it to including hurting my friends if i
want that and i do want that so one step two three four five and goofy
ends up as a hemorrhage
"Oh Sora, don't you remember?" Axel bent down and lifted Sora's chin with two fingers. "We were playing a game. Remember the game?"
"The card game . . . ?"
"That's
right," said Axel, smiling kindly. "You lost the first round. You also
lost the second, and the third, and the fourth. You became desperate,
and no longer did you want the letters or the power to get home: you
just wanted your memories back. So we upped the ante: you laid down
four memories and I laid down the four you had lost thus far. When you
lost again, you were almost too scared to go on."
and
my power flares and i know i'm better than both of them combined i am
not weak i have never needed them so when donald lifts his staff i lift
my own and then he is gone in a maelstrom of fire
"You
had a gambling addiction: you couldn't stop yourself. The bigger the
ante, the more furiously you played. The best thing—for me—was that you
continued to lose, and pretty soon you weren't sure who you were."
Harsh laughter clawed through Sora's mind. "It got old fairly quickly,
but you were rather subdued by the time I wanted to stop despite the
delicious accumulation of hatred and pain that filled the voids your
memories had left behind. Funny how the mind adapts, yes? Anyway, a
break was in order, so I let you back into the real world, and you know
what happened next, you naughty boy."
donald's
screaming and i'm laughing and laughing and i walk over and say
"roasted duck anyone" and he's nothing to me because i am everything
Sora gasped. "My head—really hurts—"
"I
know, I know," Axel murmured and shushed Sora. "As soon as we're done
here, I'll take you someplace where all of those silly images will stop
bothering you."
i can feel his ribs giving way to my foot
Propelled
by pain and fear, Sora got back onto his feet, knocked Axel aside, and
ran down the stairwell with nary a misgiving. Horror wrapped wet red
tentacles around his lungs and breathing was too difficult; his anger
drowned and hatred flourished, but this hatred was directed inward
rather than outward—he couldn't escape from who he had become. He
launched down another hallway to another curving set of stairs, and
repeated this many times, leaving viscous footprints behind him.
Leisurely, Axel gave chase, his shadow growing longer and longer until
it almost covered an entire hallway whenever he entered one. The
closeness of thriving shadows tightened Sora's throat. He clawed at his
head because "memory residue" needled incessantly. He felt hopelessly
lost.
the closer you get to the light the greater your shadow becomes
"What's the matter, Sora?" Axel shouted. "Weren't you relishing in the darkness not too long ago? Have you forgotten what I taught you about everything else beyond the shadows?"
"Leave me alone!" Sora yelled, diving down the next stairwell. He tripped on the third step, but he did not sustain a broken neck during the somersault to yet another hallway.
He ran blindly, unsure of where each turn led. It was eerily quiet; he assumed all of the cacophonous stamping and screaming would have alerted someone by now, but that was not the case. Windows flew by, bright with moonlight, the dark carpeting lightened to a royal blue whenever it coincided with a window. He heard Axel laugh behind him, seemingly within reach at all times no matter how fast he force his legs to go, no matter how many turns he took, no matter how much he wished to be left alone, and especially no matter how viciously he repented.
Two long, black arms closed around him; he panicked and howled and struggled admirably against the hug's viselike perversion. Shadows covered him, picking at and sticking to his clothes like burs, boiling and buzzing with their own voices. A hand clamped over his mouth and a warm voice tickled his ear.
"Shut up, will you?" Axel murmured darkly. "You're blessed that I took the necessary precautions on my way to liberate your sorry ass, because otherwise there'd be guards all over us."
Sora listened to his heart pounding madly, unable to think.
"If you promise to stop running away, I'll let you go. Can you promise me that?"
"Mmph," Sora said and nodded.
Those inhumanly powerful arms relinquished him. He did not look at Axel and instead studied the way moonlight beautified everything it imbued with milky-white radiance.
"What were the necessary precautions?" he wondered coldly. His eyes strayed over the wall to count doors, yet he knew a room provided no more protection from Axel than the game of cat-and-mouse might. Breaking a window and leaping from it spelled suicide at this height. All in all, his chances of escape were next to none. "Does it have something to do with why no one's come for us? You were so paranoid earlier, so that makes no sense."
Axel purred and laid his hand on Sora's neck. "Always remember to die, no matter how many people you remind in your place."
". . . Have you killed them all?" Sora asked, barely able to control his voice.
"Bloodlust is a fickle ladylove!" Axel proclaimed. "But to answer your question: no, I spared some in case you were up for flexing your wings—so to speak—but I guess that's out. I got my own boots plenty wet, though."
Sora snarled and turned around, throwing out a tight fist in one last desperate attack. It failed miserably when Axel caught that hand a moment from impact; he squeezed until the beginnings of pain caused Sora to wince unwillingly. Inside the hood Axel's eyes shone with moonlight and a special luster that appeared when he demonstrated his power.
"How do you feel now, hmm?" Axel whispered and pressed his other hand to Sora's chest. Energy sparkled between his fingers and he grinned savagely. "How do you really feel now?"
An explosion of red light temporarily blinded Sora; electricity seared his body and he went sailing with the current's force, landing farther down against the wall of shut doors, unable to breathe and also unable to believe he had survived a blast from that nearness. He scratched at the wall, panic-struck, hoping for a doorknob to help him upright before Axel swooped in again, but his fingers met with a thin handle attached to a panel made from something cold, hard, and definitely not stone or wood.
Eyes glittering, Axel stalked toward Sora like a monster right out of mythology. "Get up and fight me if that's what you want!" he yelled. "Otherwise you're going to start respecting those higher on the food chain than you, Sora! I'm the one who will teach you how to swallow your godless pride!"
Sora's brain was out of sync with his legs, lungs, eyes—everything. He stared dazedly at Axel and the oncoming shadows ready to christen him with black thorns again. Get up, you idiot! a lone corner of his mind roared. Get up! Do you have any idea what's on the wall above you?
He was so acquainted with answering himself: I can't . . .
The hell you can't. Get up right now, or so help me—I'll figure out a way to kick your ass.
But you're me—?
His many processes aligned as Axel amassed another orb of red electricity.
GET UP, DAMN IT.
He used the thin handle as a lever onto his feet and then faced it to deftly wrench it upward; the stainless steel panel moved away to reveal a dark, vertical shaft that looked like a serious tight fit. Dumbwaiters were stationed on every floor—I lost that knowledge too!—and servants used them to bus food and other things wherever need. There was no cart stationed there presently.
But
he didn't have enough time to doubt the execution of this lucky
improvisation. Shutting his eyes, he wedged himself into the shaft,
kicking and pleading and hoping and praying that he hadn't grown too
much in the past year. Axel said something and laughed, and another hot
blast of energy thrust Sora the remainder of the way inside while also
melting away his shoes' soles and singing his ankles. Below him
stretched infinite darkness, an abyss made of metal, and he plunged
into it head-first.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
"FUCK!" Axel screamed and struck the wall with his bare fist—it came away unscathed, but the wall received a visible crack. "Things really aren't going as planned."
Next to him, sitting in an old-fashioned wooden wheelchair that hadn't been oiled in forever, a crimson-clad figure said nothing. The man—his gender unapparent outright because he was so thickly covered in cloth and leather straps, save for one glassy eye and the grim line of his mouth—regarded Axel, shook his head, and then looked out the room's expansive floor-to-ceiling windows. The brownish yellow light of a slow sunset turned suspended dust into gold motes and lent antiquity to furnishings. Being inside Hollow Bastion was like stepping into the past: no one had set foot on the premises in at least a year, and it showed in the sheer volume of dust everywhere.
Wispy and tattered shadows encompassed Axel and fed off his anger. He waved them away and muttered "Damn melodramatic things" whenever they stuck to his hair: they were gummy like spider webs and their autonomy made them stubborn. The low creaking of the wheelchair's braces startled him from his fuming. He forgot the creepy-crawly way shadows had of seething over him and instead dedicated his attention to the crimson man.
"Ansem?" he asked with his voice low and reverent. "Do you need something?"
"Anger rests in the bosom of fools," Ansem said.
Axel relaxed, harrumphed, and glanced upward because he expected to see the sword of Damocles. "I have all the right in the world to be angry. It was leashing my impatience in the first place that got us into this cockup."
When Ansem didn't reply, Axel sighed and shrugged off his cloak. Disney Castle was a remote place now, but the bitterness of an impending failure nonetheless taunted him. He compulsively straightened his ruffled cuffs and thought about Sora, that lucky bastard, who had escaped into the dumbwaiter. Chasing the amnesiac would have been an exhausting waste of time, and so Axel came back to obtain further advisement from Ansem—the man dangling the laurels in from of him and the man he owed so much.
Ansem lifted his wrapped fingers and beckoned for Axel, who was obliged to kneel beside the wheelchair. "Train up a child in the way he should go," Ansem said and touched the other man's messy hair, "and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
"I haven't been able to win Sora for you," Axel said quietly. "I made him into a king and showed him the common man's inherent greed. I took away the memories and sentimental things he valued. I taught him how to hate and rage absolutely, and even how to lust for death."
"A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again."
"Aren't you listening? This is going to be a spectacular defeat on our part if something isn't done, and I don't know if there is anything I can do to salvage our plan."
"Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete—and not lacking anything," Ansem said, smiling. His hands cupped Axel's face gently, as if handling glass. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you."
"I need you wisdom. He is beyond my influence right now . . . his stubbornness obstructs my charm and the charm of darkness."
"Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
"I don't understand you at all."
The air was warm and heavy, and littered with the sounds of banging and pounding. Beyond the walls that housed them, a million shadows toiled to rebuild a castle damaged by the fighting that had occurred there once upon a time. Night would soon come to Hollow Bastion; candles that were interspersed throughout the room came to life when Axel directed a half-lidded, smoldering gaze at them. Disney Castle was closer to morning.
Axel turned his mouth to Ansem's palm and against it he whispered, "Sora began to remember what he wasn't supposed to. You said the game would work flawlessly, but something interfered . . . within him hide the negatives of photographs I swiped."
"Love your enemies: bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you."
"How is that supposed to help me?" Axel groused. "I'd like to knock out his teeth, really. Are you certain this kid would be of any help to us? Any predilection to darkness he has I've already exploited, and yet there's always some light keeping him from going under. I understand that his power is great, but I've bested him more than once, so I'm already what he is not—"
Ansem removed both hands as if he had been burnt, and Axel looked up to see the cold fury in the man's exposed eye. Axel immediately identified his Freudian slip and the severity of it: he had implied that his own power trumped Ansem's, the man who had given him and so many others powerful physical forms after what seemed like an eternity lost inside the In-Between. When a palm cracked across his cheek, Axel knew he had deserved it.
"I'm sorry," Axel whispered, touching the stinging skin. "I owe you too much to have even thought that. I'm sorry. Forgive me, Ansem, for your power is greatest."
Ansem's ire did not lessen. "Flattery is a form of hatred!"
Twilight then pervaded the room and the candles worked to stave it aside. Axel sulked in the oncoming implosion of their plan and the foolishness he felt for aggravating Ansem. What was there left for him to do? Sora was uncooperative, while Ansem felt too insulted now to be of any assistance—privately, Axel anticipated being hauled away by the shadows and cannibalized for his failures. All he had to show for his efforts was the playing cards with Sora's memories stored inside them. There was no more he could take from Sora.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," Ansem said tenderly and reached for Axel again. "Who can know it?"
"Death never entered the equation before," Axel said and shut his eyes. "We could conquer Sora by destroying him, a dubious task indeed, but then we wouldn't have to worry about neither his interference nor his facilitation."
"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."
"You know, I hate it when you talk like that . . ."
Someone else threw in a curt, malicious: "Stop bitching."
"Vixen," Axel said, eyes flashing open. "I'm having a private conversation with Ansem—do you mind?"
In the doorway stood another man who resembled Axel as far as the affinity for dark cloaks went. Vixen—that was indeed his name, a name that hadn't been his choice to receive—had a wan face and long, disorderly blonde hair held back by a tie. Diligence held him rigidly; outlined by the candlelight, he looked like a slim knife fashioned from ebony, and apparently his tongue was just as sharp.
"I need to speak with you, Axel," Vixen said. "Alone."
"Fine."
Ansem smiled patiently at the two men as they left.
Once in the hallway and out of earshot, Axel shoved his fashion duplicate against the wall and growled menacingly, "What do you want, fool? Don't you have repairs or some other menial tasks to oversee?"
Vixen looked contemptuously at the hands abusing him. "I just wanted to wish you luck," he muttered and shook Axel off. "Nothing more, nothing less."
"I'm not surprised that you were eavesdropping, but don't try to make me laugh. I know what you're playing at."
"The others and I just want you to know—since you're Ansem's favorite and all—we wish you the best of luck with this impossible task you've been assigned. Killing the Keyblade Master, is it?" Vixen flashed a too-bright, too-cheery smile. "I'm next on the pecking order, if you didn't know. Should you fail, and you should, I'll finally be able to prove myself to Ansem."
"Tell someone who fucking cares," Axel hissed, shoving Vixen again. "Go masturbate to your little fantasies. I've got work to do."
"No, really—good luck! We'll all be awaiting your triumphant return!"
Expelling a string of profanities, Axel turned away and disbanded into a cloud of purling shadows.