Nothing seemed as difficult to Axel as the act of trying to clear his mind of the past and focus on what was to come. His search for Roxas was a hopeful one. Roxas would remember him and make his life worth living.

But things didn't go as planned.

Roxas couldn't recall Axel at all when they finally met.

Roxas actually seemed to resent Axel.

Axel felt a possessive insanity taking control. He'd make him remember their friendship; he'd force him to remember.

"Roxas. Roxas. Roxas." The name came from his lips as he pleaded his friend to join him and make him whole.

Roxas never responded. He remained cold, and it killed Axel inside.

The whole Organization itself was heading downhill with defeat after defeat of its members. Axel remained alive, but only as he acted on his own agenda. He might as well have been dead. Nothing yielded any comfort.

It was a strange sight to the waiting eyes of DIZ as a woman awoke to the sight of the crashing waves and gentle breeze, on a beach with otherworldly qualities. The sand was as white as snow, and the sun shown down like a golden fog. The man wrapped in red cloth with a mysterious face approached her and gave her his hand. She reluctantly gripped the hand of the waiting figure.

"You've overcome the impossible. This…shouldn't be happening, yet you are standing here."

She felt a cold sweat as his hand tightened around her own.

"If there are to be anymore malfunctions like this, nothing will go according to plan. I hope you can forgive me, but this is the only way to assure success…"

DIZ raised a knife to the woman's neck and pressed it against her jugular vein, causing her to gasp for life. As his fingers pushed against her skin, they pressed the surface of her neck and he felt the pulse of blood; blood being pumped by a heart. This was a totally different situation. Now he confused beyond all reason. He thought she had merely reappeared from the vanished fragments.

"Larxene, dear…I'm so sorry, I didn't know"

She fell backward, her body tangled in a loose white sheet. She moved to stand, unable to speak. Where was she? Was this heaven…a place supposedly forbidden to Nobodies and their counterparts?

"You are. …alive. Enjoy your second life." DIZ vanished in an instant and Larxene stood lost in the unbearable brightness of light mixed with the purity of her surroundings. Could she find Axel? What was the point of having a second life without being able to hold him in her arms? She ran for what seemed forever through the sand until she found a liquidly white panel on the ground that wouldn't come loose. She kneeled beside it and tried to pry it free, but it remained in place.

She tugged and scratched at the surface of the panel until her fingers began to bleed and ache. The sun only became warmer and she felt human reactions unfamiliar and disquieting to her. She would sweat from heat, cough from the drifts of sand that buried her and her progress at tearing away the panel. But her desire to be with Axel was no stronger, and no weaker. The heart she now possessed had no connection to her love. The love that was forcing her to find an escape and an exit from this peaceful world she was trapped in. She swore she'd find a way to him. She had to.