Cloud disappeared down the stairs, the front door opening and closing a few moments later. I fumed quietly at their insinuating that I couldn't help. " Come on." Roxas said, tilting his head towards his room before heading there himself. I grudgingly followed, crossing my arms across my chest with a light huff. " And stop pouting." He laughed, not even looking back at me.

" Am not!" I was mindful of my volume when I remembered Axel was sleeping. " I'm not just going to go home and wait until everything blows over. That's not what friends do."

" I'm not going to make you. But Cloud is right; you're untrained and quite frankly going to be more of a burden than a help like you are now." He walked over to Axel, checking his forehead to make sure he didn't have a fever and giving the bandages a once over. When he seemed satisfied, he walked over to his closet once more.

" Then train me. I'll prove I can help." I refuse to be deterred. I was going to help my friend this time, I owed it to him. He started all this for me and I was going to be there to help him finish it.

" You should call your mom. The hospital no doubt contacted her looking for me and you. They can't be too happy to find that a coma patient and his friend are both suddenly missing." Roxas said before walking out of the room with some cloths under his arm, completely ignoring what I had said. After a few minutes I heard the shower start running. Great so now I'm alone with the sleeping, injured pyro.

Sighing I decided to sit down and think of what to say to my mom. He was right; I did need to call her. What to tell her though was the question. I couldn't tell her that he was a number and I was going to go help him take down the last and most powerful member of the most dangerous gang this region had ever known. She'd freak and honestly she'd have every right to. Not really knowing what to do, I just called. Hopefully things just went well because I've got no clue what to say to her and no amount of thinking is really going to help me.

" Sora, oh thank God, where on earth have you been!?" I had to hold the phone away from my ear a bit because she was so loud.

" Hey mom, I'm, uh, with Roxas." I stuttered, scratching the back of my head nervously.

" So he's awake? Where did you two go? The hospital called and said you had just disappeared!"

I laughed sheepishly, " Yeah, um, you see we kind of did. Roxas had this-" I jumped when said person punched me lightly in the shoulder shaking his head. Ok so that was classified information apparently, which made sense. When the heck did he come back in anyway? " -problem he had to take care of. I'm helping him out." He watched me while I spoke before nodding and moving to put his swords back in their hidden place. He was now dressed in a white, short sleeved shirt and a pair of black jeans, his hair still damp and limp.

" This problem doesn't have anything to do with why he was in such bad shape does it? I don't want you to have anything to do with any of that, do you understand me? Whatever he got himself into it's dangerous."

" No, it's not that, it's something else."

" Sora, don't you lie to me. I want you to come home right this instant. I didn't make you come home when you said you wanted to stay at the hospital with him but I'm putting my foot down. I don't want anything to happen to you and Roxas should come with you. Honestly between the two of you, you're going to give me a heart attack from worry!"

I looked helplessly at my friend. What was I supposed to do? She obviously wasn't buying it and I can't really blame her for that either. She was there when he was all bloody and beat up. With a sigh he came back over to me and held out his hand. I gave him the phone immediately, hoping he could calm her down. " Hey mom." He simply stated. It wasn't really odd that he called her that, I mean we've been friends for as long as I can remember really and I knew she thought of him as her son. Not to mention that he didn't have any parents to really speak of (they both died when we were in elementary school in a car mugging hence Cloud's desire to be a cop) so he just referred to mine as his own too and I was perfectly ok with that. I called Cloud my brother sometimes so it wasn't really one sided.

There was a moment of silence on the other line before her voice came back still loud enough for me to hear. " Roxas, it's so good to hear your voice. I was worried sick about you after Sora found you. You boys should come home and lie low for awhile. Whatever happened I'm sure it'll blow over." She seemed like she was trying her hardest to sound as pleasant and nice as possible as to not scare us off. Who would want to go home to an angry mom that was threatening scolding?

" There's nothing to worry about. Sora's just helping me take care of my friend Axel. He's a little sick and needed some help." Yeah 'cause having gashes and bruises everywhere counts as sick. " He called a little after I woke up and didn't have anyone else he could go to. We're at my house now. He's had problems with getting sick like this before."

" Why on earth did you just tell her that? Now she's going to come over!" I hissed quietly at him, he just scowled at me and motioned for me to be quiet.

" I see. You wouldn't mind if I stopped by then and checked up on him, would you? I'm a nurse after all."

" Not at all." This wasn't going to end well. How were we supposed to hide all those injuries? His arms and face had little cuts and bruises all over them too.

I could hear her sigh of resignation." Alright I trust you. Just be careful and tell Sora to come home when your friend feels better. His friends are worried about him as well."

" Will do." He said cheerfully giving me a smug look at having convinced her. It diminished some as I heard her say something else, something I couldn't quite hear. " Don't worry, mom." He handed me back the phone.

" Hello?" I asked hesitantly. Now all I had to do was make sure I didn't blow our cover.

" Sora I want you home as soon as you're done helping Roxas. You're friends and I have missed you two. Stay safe and don't do anything stupid. I love you."

" I love you too mom and stop worrying so much, everything's fine. I'll be home as soon as I can. Bye." I hung up as soon as I heard her say goodbye, releasing a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

" That went better than expected. I was worried she'd actually say she was going to show up."

" She still could you know, thinking she'd catch us off guard." He just shrugged and headed out the door. I glanced at his desk, spotting a note for Axel left there, and followed after him, closing the door behind me. I found Roxas in the kitchen with a bag of chips in his hand. " So what now?"

" I'm going to train you. That's what you wanted right?"

" Well, yeah, but how? You're brother's going to notice if we do it here and there's no way we can go to my house."

" We can use the old training grounds for the Organization. It should be all cleared out by now and it'll be awhile before Cloud comes home. The police aren't just going to blindly follow an anonymous lead on something this serious. They'll take their time examining how valid it is and trying to get Cloud to admit how he got it."

" Why doesn't he just say he got it from you?"

He gave me a weird look, like I was stupid for asking the question. Now that I thought about it, I was, because it was obvious, but still. He was trying to get rid of the organization so they wouldn't be too hard on him right? " I'm part of it and don't exactly have the cleanest record now. Saying 'I'm an Organization member' isn't a light statement."

" What did you do there?" Were there others that he killed other than the other numbers?

" I don't want to talk about it Sora." He looked away from me again and turned to put the chips away. I changed the subject both because I didn't want to force him but also because I wasn't really sure I wanted to know. It's not like I haven't considered that before since I've known he was a member for a few days now. I just don't know what to think about it. He seems so different but just like his old self at the same time. Now he's laughing and talking with me like we always did, joking and playing around as we're walking to what I'm guessing is the training place he had mentioned. But the way he reacted to everything since he woke up just a couple hours ago is so new to me.

" We're here." He spoke suddenly, looking up at a huge, run down looking building. " It used to be a gym but it fell into bankruptcy and closed years ago. Xemnas bought it from the owner and left it like this to avoid suspicion."

I looked further down the street. It was littered with buildings that looked just like this one and no one was walking around. " Kind of fits here." I commented. Everything here seemed run down even though it looked like a few houses had some people living in them despite the fact that they seemed to be in pretty rough shape.

" This is one of the poorest districts in the whole region. Come on but keep quiet we need to make sure it's empty."

I gulped at the thought of there being a bunch of thugs jumping us when we entered. Roxas was unarmed and I may not be too shabby at fighting but nothing to really brag about. I think I have more luck than anything. I followed behind him closely, looking around curiously. It looked as bad inside as it did outside. Broken down pieces of gym equipment littered the ground. Discarded weights leaned against broken and shattered mirrors that reflected hundreds of me and Roxas' images. " You trained in all this?" I whispered, kind of afraid that someone was lurking around. It's not like this place is well lit…

" Not quite." He pushed open a door which opened surprisingly quiet. Now we were in a trashed hallway with a dull red carpet and pieces of trash laying around. Several beer bottles littered the place and the carpet had all kinds of stains in it. Pulling out a key, Roxas stopped in front of one of the closed doors lining the destroyed hallway. When the door clicked open all I could do was stare in surprise.

It was like we were in a completely different building. It was a large room with two doors at the end of each wall. The floors were polished wood and the walls a bright white color. There was a sparing area in the middle and dozens of weapons of all types lined the walls. There were punching bags hanging from the ceiling in one corner. Everything I could ever think of that was fitness or training related was somewhere in that room. Throw in a café or something and this would be just like one of those super expensive gyms that you had to have a membership to go to. Except with weapons.

" Pretty cool, huh?" Roxas asked, bumping me with his shoulder when I didn't move. " Anything you particularly interested in?" He moved further into the room, his head turning as he looked everything over.

" Not really."

" Hmm, didn't you always want to learn fencing or something?"

" Yeah but that was like two years ago."

" Still want to?" He grinned and I couldn't help but grin back. Who wouldn't like to learn to sword fight?

" Is there one of those virtual training things here!?" Please say yes.

" Sure is though not quite as high tech as the one in Oblivion Mansion."

" Awesome!" I ran after him, bouncing with excitement.

" You'll probably need to know some basic disarming stuff if Xemnas still has any dusks…"

" Dusks?"

" Lower level members. They're like newbies that aren't really tough. They have had some basic training though so they're not your regular criminal."

" Great." I replied sarcastically. Even the grunts were trained fighters.

" Don't worry, by the time we're done here today you'll be able to take them." Were they that weak or was he that confident that I'd learn to fight within a few hours? Well, whatever it is I guess I should just go with it. Besides, this'll be like a video game that I'm actually in! " Go in there." He pointed to a shiny, metal door that slid open automatically as he began pressing buttons on the control panel next to it, a large screen mounted in the wall above it.

I did as I was told and waited. This looked like something right out of a movie. The walls and floors were a grid of what I guess is computer panels. Suddenly they all lit up with a white light, scaring the crap out of me, before the weird looking panels were replaced with what looked like a dojo. The floor was wooden with white mats laid on it and large sliding doors making up the walls. A person fazed into existence. It was an older man with short cropped black hair and dark brown eyes. He held two wooden swords in his hands.

" This will be your sparring partner and teacher." Roxas voice sounded, making me look around for him. " I'll be watching from out here. Make sure to pay attention."

" I will." I nodded with a grin on my face. My teacher handed me the sword. It felt so real in my hand, just like it was actually there. This was so freaking cool!

" And be careful; this isn't just a game." Before I could ask what he meant, the older man lashed out with his sword hitting me soundly on the arm. I shouted out in surprise at the sudden attack and the pain that rushed through me.

" Roxas why did that hurt?" I asked, slightly panicked.

" You're not actually being hurt; the program can create the illusion in your mind that you are. While you're in here, you will feel pain and you'll grow tired just like you would if you were actually fighting."

I was a little weary of that but I suppose it's better that I can actually feel everything. That way later when I'm actually fighting pain and tiredness won't throw me off. I simply nodded, guessing he was watching, and began my lesson. " Give me your best shot." I grinned at the man the program had created.

This was going to be so much fun!