Thanks, as always, to Ellen Brand, Waywren Truesong, Joisbishmyoga, Cherry, and Cloudy for beta work and cheer-reading.

Unfurling Smoke

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
~East Coker, V.29-34. TS Eliot

When the sun started to set, they left the other group to enjoy twilight on the island and returned to the docks. Kaito made a beeline from the boat to the Moogles, waving hello to the current attendant as he approached. Mozme's hologram greeted him cheerfully, and by the time the others caught up Kaito had the stunning results of magical synthesis in his hands.

The deep blue sparkled in the evening sun, a promise of its namesake as he ran his fingers along the facets to confirm it matched to the original. Once assured of the apparent authenticity, he instinctively turned to the pale moon already lurking above the horizon, arm sweeping up in the familiar gesture.

The moonlight caused no reaction, of course—couldn't, though even knowing ahead of time didn't fully quash the spark of disappointment—and after a few moments of watching the refractions, Kaito tucked the gem away with his trick supplies for safekeeping. He turned back to his newly-arrived audience, the younger teens smiling even though only Riku had the full backstory for what this gem could mean, and Saguru with a complicated expression Kaito wasn't positive how to read.

"What?"

Saguru shook his head, lips curving in a smile that was inexplicably fond. "It's still a surprise when I see Kid outside of your working whites."

...That's fair, it's only been like a month. Two? Who cares, time is an illusion and I can cheat.

"You'll see it plenty even when I'm retired, y'know—stage presence is stage presence and you and Aoko are my current go-to audience for FISM routines. If I'm going to blow the socks off the world at large with the international debut of Kuroba Kaito, I have to impress my best critics first."

Aoko still being in his initial audience assumed a lot of things about how she was going to react to the long conversation he owed her, but he couldn't stand to think about her not. Now that there was a chance he might be able to stop dedicating every spare minute to Kid, he could work out borrowing the school auditorium on weekends for an actual stage, and weekend trips to Kichijoji for close-up performances.

Actually looking forward to something beyond Kid was a bizarre feeling, but Kaito was distracted from it by the complicated expression reappearing on Saguru's face. "I wasn't aware I had qualified for such a position."

Kaito waved a hand dismissively; they'd had enough emotional conversations for the week already, hadn't they? "Of course you are. Kid's magic has failed to impress a total of three people on first meeting, and Kudou-kun doesn't count for this."

Neither did Mom, and Jii had been impressed on their rooftop confrontation, but Kudou was categorically excluded from stage-work critique until Kaito learned if he would still try to knock Kaito into next week after receiving a sample of apotoxin. Nothing was guaranteed, even if their heist confrontations were fun and Kaito would never forget the cheeky brat gleefully chirping "Fireworks!" and forcing Kaito to work out backup plans for his backup plans.

(Yes, Kudou was the older of the two of them, barely; it did not prevent him from being a cheeky brat in his current situation.)

"I'll enjoy the chance to see your broader repertoire, then," Saguru finally replied, face relaxing into pleased anticipation.

Kaito rubbed his hands together with a grin. "It'll be fun!"

After a late celebratory dinner for the start of the summer break with Riku's parents, they were free to hang out in Riku's room again until bedtime. Saguru was still exhausted from the island encounter and opted to retire to the bedroom early, which left Kaito and Riku alone for the first time since they'd played cards the week before.

Kaito should have anticipated that now that Riku's head had room for more than exams, he'd settle in one of the beanbag chairs and quietly ask, "Has being here helped like you hoped? I don't want to pry, but you're both still… tired, I guess. And watching for each other a lot. Whatever happened while you were missing got you past the hangups about being friends, but you're sticking so close now, and you not wanting to talk about it means it must have been…" Riku grimaced, and settled on, "Bad."

Kaito laughed without much humor. "You have no idea, and I'd still rather keep it that way. Trust me."

"I do," Riku replied with an earnestness that must have rubbed off from Sora, then repeated, "But has being here helped?"

Kaito slumped in his beanbag with a sigh. "Honestly? As a safe place to decompress, yes, which has its own pros and cons but is all we really wanted. As a place for full recovery… I don't think we'll get there until we do get home."

And had months more distance from the horrors they'd powered through from sheer necessity, months more of forcing his mind to differentiate between true memory and false instinct, months for Kaito to accept that whatever the hell was wrong with Saguru's empathy, it was like the other Kudou's eyes—something beyond what even magical healing could fix.

Riku nod was slow and thoughtful. "...Okay. I wish we could do more, but I know that's asking a lot."

Kaito smiled ruefully. "You've done more than enough. If we'd gone straight home—that would have been a pretty epic disaster." Not least of which, Kaito might have done something permanently unfortunate to Vermouth that did not include arrest, without Saguru to remind him that he was… well, him. "Being here gave us the space so that when we do get home, we'll be ready for the difference there."

He hoped. They couldn't put it off forever, either way.

"I'm glad for that, at least. ...You think you'll be going after you help Axel?"

"Yeah. If we manage a decent night's sleep tonight, I think we can do it tomorrow." Kaito picked idly at the beanbag's seam with his fingernails. He wasn't in a rush to leave Riku behind, but they'd been imposing on his parents' hospitality for ages already, and they couldn't hide here forever.

"Oh." Riku was silent for a moment, considering. "If you want a good night's sleep, wouldn't going to bed early help that?"

Kaito snorted, waggling one hand non-committally. "There's early, and there's 'just after dinner'. Give me an hour and I might be tired enough to crash."

REM sleep didn't happen right away, so he didn't need to rush. He'd be in the right time frame to keep Saguru from delving into a nightmare based on previous nights even with the delay.

"Okay, then. Want to play more cards?" Riku asked hopefully.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Sleeping in shifts was successful again at keeping the nightmares at bay, so once Saguru obtained his new untinted glasses in the morning—which were perfectly on-brand for Saguru's attempts at 'timeless but mature but not too mature' fashion, so Kaito teased him as much as was warranted—they were finally, finally ready to deal with Axel.

Riku'd packed a lunch hamper large enough to feed their whole group, but Sora and Kairi met them at the docks also carrying smaller baskets of additional food.

"Riku said you'd need the calories, and it was easiest to avoid too many explanations this way," Kairi said, patting the lid of her hamper.

"Excellent sneaking," Kaito declared as they loaded up the rowboats, earning proud grins from the islanders. "Good work."

Once they'd reached the island, settled together on the wood-plank platform that had more space than the treehouse proper, and devoured the contents of the main picnic basket, Saguru turned to Kaito and gave him an intent look over steepled fingers. "Do you have a plan for this, or are you improvising?"

"I have… three-quarters of a plan." When Saguru's eyes narrowed Kaito hurried on: "I can't actually finish it until I have a better idea of if anything has changed with how I anchored him to Sora, and what else I need to do to reach wherever the hell the physical and metaphysical bits of him that didn't become Axel ended up."

Saguru's frown relaxed, but before he could reply Sora jumped in eagerly. "You think you can find his heart and restore him to who he was before?"

"I'm at least going to try," Kaito said with a shrug. "Bringing him back only as a Nobody seems cruel."

There were nods all around, and Sora had a hand pressed against his heart as he beamed. "So what do you need to do? Do I need to do anything?"

"Hold still, and think about Axel-san and wanting him back."

"I can do that! Riku, Kairi, you too!"

Saguru and Riku had shifted to either side of Kaito without saying anything, and Kaito would object if he weren't aware of the benefits of support if things got away from him, like they so often did when the Shadows were involved.

Kaito closed his eyes, -reaching- into the mindset of a heist that he'd taken so long to realize was pulling in the Shadows like a cloak, a mask, an endless procession of impressions and feelings and—

—wisps of smoke roiling across the shine of an anchoring trellis, a braid that wasn't a braid but with edges that could be loosened, gently freed from the gravity of Sora's heart and coaxed to point toward what was still missing—

—rising and straining and thinning, slipping away beyond sight toward a place far away; but distance was relative, wasn't it, if he could simply reach along that guide—

"Give him back!" Kaito's eyes flew open as Roxas blinked into existence behind Sora's shoulder, the blues of the ocean and sky still visible behind the incorporeal, incandescent fury of his face.

Kaito stared back, realization flashing even as he felt his connection to Axel's presence falter. Roxas hadn't been angry like this when he'd been talking with Naminé, but he'd said he remembered that he used to be; Naminé was remembering him a certain way and then he was. Axel would have known him differently. Maybe Sora's heart had done more than just anchor Axel from fading away completely.

"We were partners! When he's sleeping he remembers me too—give him back! Or take me with him!"

"I—" Kaito darted a glance at Saguru, he was trying to not be impulsive, he was, but—

Saguru's expression was tense, but held more worry than disapproval. "Kuroba, your energy was parceled for one impossible thing today."

"Let me try." Kaito forced his eyes to meet Saguru's gaze, even with almost all his concentration scrambling for his tenuous grasp on Axel's -woodsmoke-and-ash- as it rose and twisted and flailed against the last threads anchoring him to Sora's heart. "If I can't find something I'll stop, I swear, but I won't have the resonance of both of them together later, if there's a chance it's now."

Saguru's jaw worked silently for a moment, and then he nodded. "Stop before you pass out, not after."

Kaito nodded sharply in answer before turning back to Roxas with single-minded focus, extending a hand to the intangible presence. "Whatever I can do, I'll do it. Trust me."

Suspicion, anger, and fear flashed across Roxas face in a split-second, followed by dawning hope. His gloved palm met Kaito's hand in a faint tingle of energy, and Kaito took a deep breath and closed his eyes again to concentrate.

Axel was still there in his seeking sense of other, a weakening trail of black vapor stretching from Sora to that distant elsewhere, circled by frantic white plumes of -dryice-and-sunmelt-and-salt-. Kaito delicately coaxed the Shadows closer to wrap around both like a coiling blanket, to taste the depth and breadth and soul-seared need of both half-selves: fractured heart and missing body and no way to heal on their own.

But it's a big universe—bigger than I thought it ever COULD be—something simple like a body no one else will miss, artificial or not, can't be too tall of an order compared to time travel, right?

Right?

Kaito took another steadying breath, soaking in the sense of what-is-not-but-could-be, should-be, and reached.

A feeling of weight hit his brain, not unlike an anvil slamming into a cartoon character, but if mental strain could make him give up he'd never have stuck it out as Kid. He clenched his teeth and kept going—the resonance of Axel was feeling closer, he just needed to get it from There to Here, distance was just numbers and Kaito could make numbers dance, dammit—

The weight vanished so unexpectedly he would have toppled over if not for hands on his arms, bracing him upright. He blinked owlishly as their chosen alcove swam back into focus, Sora and Kairi still across from him and Riku and Saguru close beside and—in the middle space, spiky red hair with a black cloak and a white mannequin-looking body in another cloak, that had a golden glow sinking eagerly toward it.

"Yes!" He punched the air, regretting the movement as his head spun and he fell sideways into Riku, who checked his forehead and then his pulse but Kaito couldn't even care about the vertigo.

"Got it right. And stopped 'fore passed out," Kaito mumbled triumphantly, then closed his eyes and passed out.

When Kaito woke again, his head was pillowed on something warm and people were talking quietly around him.

"Maybe King Mickey knows where Vexen's research was kept besides Castle Oblivion," Riku said. "We don't know if this will work permanently, or degrade, or… anything."

"The Organization's Castle, or the old lab where we were apprentices, if it's still around," Axel answered.

Kaito lifted his head carefully to better appreciate that Axel was able to talk, and the conversation cut off as Sora cried, "Kaito! You're awake!"

Loud bad, bright bad, lightheaded bad.

"Ow." Kaito closed his eyes again and let his head drop again onto his pillow, which was apparently Saguru's leg. He must have still worried Saguru more than he meant to, even with stopping before he passed out. Just after wasn't that much of a difference, when he let himself admit it. "Headache still. Was I out long?"

There was a familiar faint click and snap of Saguru's pocketwatch being consulted. "Eighteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. Lea-san and Roxas-kun took three minutes and forty-seven seconds to wake, so you've been unaccountably lazy for having achieved the near-impossible yet again."

Kaito smiled, despite the acerbic tone and his own throbbing temples. "That's why I have you to keep me honest, right?"

Saguru's disbelieving huff was eloquent enough. "Do you think you can eat something?"

Kaito tried cracking one eye open and regretted it, turning his cheek against the fabric of Saguru's trousers to better block out the afternoon sun's glare. "...Gimme a few minutes. What'd I interrupt? The thing I found for Roxas-kun worked?"

"Yeah!" Kaito couldn't stop his flinch at Sora's volume, but at least it instantly dropped three orders of magnitude to an enthusiastic whisper. "Roxas, say hi or something since he can't see you."

"Thank you for helping me," Roxas murmured from somewhere to the right. "Ax—Lea says you must have found a Replica from Vexen's research somehow and brought it here like you did with the rest of Lea."

"Which, I have no clue how you managed either of those," Axel, or presumably Lea, now, jumped in, "but I'm human again and I'm alive, and I've got my best friend back, so... thanks. I owe you."

Kaito caught himself before he shook his head and made the headache flare again. "No owed favors. We're even."

"Uh-huh," came the skeptical response. "But I gotta admit, Vexen kept his work secretive even when I was on assignment in Castle Oblivion. As far as I know there weren't any successes other than the one of Riku, and this guy was still running around the castle basement at the same time as the replica."

"Wait, what?" Sora interrupted. "Riku, did you know? Did you meet him? ...Did I?"

"Yeah," Riku answered, reluctance palpable. "We weren't the same, by then. He'd embraced the Dark and I'd already fought my way out. Naminé told me later he was used against you there, but you made it through anyway. He tracked me down later... wanting to replace me."

A longer pause. "We fought. I won, and he dissolved into Darkness."

The silence was interrupted by a faint 'oof'. Kaito attempted another go at vision and was rewarded with the sight of Sora hugging Riku so tight it was nearly a stranglehold, and Kairi joining on Riku's other side.

Riku soaked in the contact for another long moment, then gently shifted the hug to loosen Sora's arms. "Thanks, but I still need to breathe, Sora. It's over now. And it at least gives us the clue that replicas can develop their own personalities, so with Roxas's heart the connection should be even better than the one of me was."

Sora reluctantly released the hug but stayed curled against Riku's side, and Kairi moved her hand to Riku's shoulder before speaking. "We should still send a message to King Mickey, and maybe Master Yen Sid, in case either of their libraries has any books about similar research. If there are other replica bodies left behind, maybe we can find one for Naminé, too."

"Yeah! She deserves one as much as Roxas, if she wants one."

"All right," Riku said with a faint smile. "We'll send a message asking to visit, and maybe borrow a gummi ship for a while to safely visit Radiant Garden, too. If there's no answers in Ansem the Wise's lab we can see if the Nobody's Castle is still reachable, but I don't want to go back there if we don't have to. We can be ready to go in a few days—you know our parents are going to insist all our summer homework is done first—and aim to still be back well before summer break over."

"For sure! We'll be grounded for real if we miss more school," Sora lamented.

"I dunno if I can wait that long," Lea said. "I'm grateful, don't get me wrong, but I need to look for Isa, if he's somewhere to be found. I might be human again but I can still feel the power I used to have as Axel, so I don't need a gummi ship to travel. Whaddya say, Roxas, wanna come with?"

"You were dying," Riku responded flatly before Roxas could open his mouth. "You're a stick, there are bags under your eyes, and we don't know if Roxas can travel safely without a ship even if he used to be able to. You're assuming that having your old power will protect you still even though now you have a heart again, too. Your old promise can wait a few days while you make sure your current best friend isn't going to collapse from complications we can't anticipate because Kaito did by instinct what a genius scientist twice his age apparently pulled off ONCE."

Lea rubbed the back of his neck with a rueful smile. "All right, all right, my bad."

"We'll stay," Roxas answered for both of them, "if you have a place for us."

"Of course!" Sora's boundless optimism was hard to not smile at, even if he was edging towards loud again. "Mom and Dad won't mind, especially if it's not long before we go to Master Yen Sid's tower."

"And after we speak with Master Yen Sid, and you've found out what happened to Sa—Isa," Kairi continued, "If you want to stay here, we can work out something longer term than a guest bedroom for all of you."

"Yeah! Roxas, you should join us at school so I have someone else in my grade!"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Sora," Riku cautioned, catching Sora with a brief noogie that made the younger boy laugh and squawk protests. "But if you need a place somewhere outside Hollow Bastion, we'll make sure you have one."

Kaito closed his eyes again and let the discussion wash over him in a wave of comfortable noise. His headache was fading slowly and he didn't have to contribute here, when they wouldn't be staying long enough to matter.

They… didn't have to do anything else.

They didn't have to do anything else.

Kaito carefully turned his head so he could look up at Saguru, and smiled brightly. "Hey, Hakuba."

Saguru shifted his attention from watching the rest of the group with amusement. "Yes?"

"Wanna go home?"

Endnote: Writing that last line was the most satisfying thing ever, and remains a favorite. We're in the home stretch! Thank you for sticking with me.

When reintegrated-Lea is seen in Hollow Bastion in the secret ending of DDD, he was still in the Org XIII cloak, indicating someone was lazy about character models or Lea was stuck in the cloak prior to becoming a Heartless/Nobody, or both. Probably both.

Mozme is also borrowed from Final Fantasy IX's moogles to match KH2 naming schemes.