Jessica's Point of View

I looked around the next morning, hoping to see if Axel was still around, but he was already gone. I spotted Roxas talking with Xaldin and rushed over. "Hey, Roxas. What are you doing today?" I asked.

Roxas was about to respond, but Xaldin interrupted him. "We were discussing our mission. Nothing to concern yourself with." He went back to discussing the mission with Roxas.

"Can I tag along?" I requested.

Xaldin turned to me sharply. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Xemnas said I can go anywhere with whoever I want, so long as I don't interfere with any missions," I explained.

"Honestly, Jessica, as though I would believe such a preposterous lie," Xaldin scoffed.

"It's actually true. Xemnas gave her the clearance last night," Xigbar spoke up.

Xaldin took a moment to regather his thoughts. "Well, that's beside the point. You've been too much of a liability lately. I won't be the one to have you running off on me. What you want is completely out of the question."

"Please, Xaldin," Roxas pleaded.

"Please, Xaldin," I repeated in a sweet voice.

Xigbar got behind us and put his arms over our shoulders, much to our dismay. "Please, Xaldin." Roxas and I quickly shrugged Xigbar off.

Xaldin rolled his eyes. "You three are pathetic. All of you. Fine. You may come." I clapped my hands and cheered, but Xaldin glared at me sternly. "But if I so much as believe you have any intention of purposefully breaking the rules, I will run my spear straight through you, got it?"

I knew he wouldn't do anything of the sort, so I wasn't scared. I had no intention of breaking any rules anyway. "Yep. I got it. What are we doing?"

"Recon at Beast's Castle," Roxas replied.

"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" I cheered.

We stepped inside a huge dark room with a giant staircase that led to a door and split off into right and left staircases. "Whoa," I muttered.

"Is this your first time here?" Roxas asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Hmph, still as dark and empty as ever. It's practically a cave. A fitting home for a beast," Xaldin commented.

"The castle's master?" Roxas asked.

"You've seen him, haven't you? Every inch a monster," Xaldin remarked.

"Wait, you mean Beast's Castle isn't just a cool name? It's actually a beast's castle?" I questioned.

"Keep up or stay silent," Xaldin huffed. He was still displeased with me; that much was obvious. I tried to follow along with their conversation, but Xaldin's remark discouraged me to the point where I couldn't seem to pay attention. As they were talking amongst themselves, I began up the staircase.

"Jessica, get back here," Xaldin hissed.

"I don't know why I even bothered coming," I grumbled.

"That makes two of us, but you're stuck here now. Come along." I waited around as they observed some scratch marks and listened to the other side of a door. Roxas wanted to open another door, but Xalding scolded him for it.

Finally, we got to go up the staircase and through the door at its center. "Oh my!" I gasped. It was a grand ballroom with a balcony and a wall made of windows. I looked all around, but what caught my attention the most was the ceiling. It was painted with dozens of cupids, and a spectacular golden chandelier hung from its center.

Heartless appeared and began to attack. "Make yourself useful and help us!" Xaldin growled as he and Roxas fought the Heartless off. I helped them, and we continued our observations once we had finished the Heartless off.

We approached a set of doors in the center of the windowed wall that went outside. "There's a balcony outside the doors here," Roxas commented.

"Fascinating, Roxas. Can you see anything else?" Xaldin wondered.

"Not really. Just the stars," Roxas replied.

"They're so bright from here," I smiled.

"Anything else useful?" Xaldin snapped.

"What do they use such a big, open room for?" Roxas asked as we ventured around the room.

"Why, it's a ballroom. And a quite lovely one, at that," Xaldin answered.

"Wow, Xaldin. I didn't expect you to have an appreciation for the grandeur of the room," I brought up.

"No place for a creature as hideous as our host... And it seems he agrees with me," Xaldin added.

I sighed. Xaldin was only making an observation. He didn't actually care what the ballroom looked like.

"How do you figure?" Roxas inquired.

"There are Heartless here, but I see no traces of a struggle. I can only take that to mean that he is avoiding the place," Xaldin explained.

When we left the ballroom, we walked up the staircase to our left. Xaldin stopped right as we were about to turn a corner. "Wait... Something is there."

We peered carefully to see a living clock about the size of Zexion's book talking to himself. "Another day of the master skulking about the castle, chasing down those creatures... At this rate, he'll go the entire day without speaking to Belle at all... Again. This can't go on much longer. We're running out of time!"

"Running out of time for what?" Roxas mused.

"Ah, but you see? This is one of the castle's residents. And like the beast, a human once," Xaldin stated.

"You think he's under the spell, too?" Roxas questioned.

"If I had to venture a guess. And from the sound of it, this spell came with a time limit," Xaldin mentioned.

"What happens when time runs out?" Roxas wondered.

"What indeed? Let's continue our search. And stay out of sight," Xaldin instructed.

"What about him?" I asked, referring to the clock.

"We'll have to sneak around him while he's distracted," Xaldin answered.

We carefully maneuvered around the clock, evading his line of vision and doing our best to blend in with the scenery as he paced back and forth. At the end of the hall, there was a door that was slightly ajar. "This room..." Roxas trailed off.

"Yes, what about it?" Xaldin inquired.

"This room looks just like the beast's," Roxas realized.

"Hmm, I sense someone may be inside. Whoever it is must be important enough to warrant accommodations as fine as the master's. Peer inside to see who it is, Roxas," Xaldin said.

Roxas looked through the opening of the door. "I wanna see, too," I decided.

"Jessica, this isn't a game. We're trying to be undercover. We don't have time for you to take turns," Xaldin hissed.

I wanted to peek through anyway, but I was trying to behave so this wouldn't be the last time I was permitted out of the castle. Instead, I attempted to think like Xaldin and appeal to logic. "Roxas is wonderful at fighting Heartless but lacks in recon skills. Surely, you don't think he's doing a better job than I could. After all, I learned from the best."

"I don't believe it. The woman inside- she's human!" Roxas exclaimed in a loud whisper.

"Really? Just when I though this castle was all freaks and furniture... Then she must be Belle." Xaldin deduced.

"How do you know?" Roxas wondered.

"All the servants speak highly of her. It's only fitting someone so well regarded would be given such fine lodgings," Xaldin remarked.

"She's pretty, isn't she?" Roxas commented.

"Irrelevant. Jessica, why don't you take a look. See if you can find anything to add," Xaldin urged.

Excitedly, I peaked through the crack. The girl, Belle, had brown hair in a low ponytail and wore a blue dress with a white apron. She had her back turned, so I couldn't see her face. I took note of her surroundings. There was something different about her.

Xaldin pulled me away. "That's enough. Well?"

What made her different dawned on me. "She has more light than most. In fact, I couldn't sense any darkness in her at all."

"Hm. Interesting," Xaldin mused.

Xaldin and Roxas looked around outside before we headed toward the beast's room. On the way, there was a corner where Xaldin held out his arm to prevent us from going any further. "Stop. We're not alone."

Sure enough, there was a living candelabra pacing, or rather hopping, back and forth as he was muttering to himself. "He must be like the others- another under human under the spell," Roxas commented.

"It would seem everyone here underwent some sort of transformation," Xaldin added.

"Except Belle. Perhaps there's something that sets her apart from the rest, such as her intense light, or perhaps she came here after everyone else was placed under the spell," I put in.

"How do you suppose they wound up under a spell," Roxas wondered.

"I couldn't say. We may find some clue in the beast's room," Xaldin speculated.

"That's just past here," Roxas informed.

"Then let us be going. Don't get spotted," Xaldin warned.

We snuck past the candelabra and headed to the beast's room, Roxas and Xaldin taking note of damage caused by the beast on the way. We finally stopped at a door at the end of a dark and dingy hall. "This is the beast's room?" Xaldin questioned.

"Yeah. I'll take a look inside..." Roxas replied. He looked through the opening of the door. "Looks like he's out... There's something at the far side of the room... Xaldin opened a dark corridor and waved for me to follow. When I did, we were inside the room.

"My, my..." Xaldin said as he observed a single rose under a glass compartment on a pedestal.

"It must be important for the beast to have kept it so nice while the rest of the room is in shambles," I mused.

"Huh?! Xaldin, Jess, how did you..." Roxas trailed off.

"Very good, Jessica. I sense a power in it. The beast must hold it quite dear." Xaldin opened another dark corridor leading back to where Roxas was.

"Well, well... We have made quite the discovery, haven't we?" Xaldin commented.

"You mean the rose? What do you care about some flower?" Roxas asked.

"That flower isn't just any flower. It holds some sort of significance. Did you see the way it looked well taken care of?" I pointed out.

"To the beast, at least, it seems to hold more value than anything else in the castle. You saw the room. It was in tatters- save one corner," Xaldin added.

"Maybe that's why he's been fighting the Heartless. He wants to protect the rose?" Roxas realized.

"Hey, that's a pretty good connection. You're not as hopeless as I thought," I complimented.

"Our work here is done. The beast's weakness is clear," Xaldin stated.

"It is?" Roxas inquired.

"To hold something dear is to let it hold you. His heart is in thrall to it, don't you see? And that is ample weakness," Xaldin explained.

"I'm not sure I follow," Roxas said.

"Yeah, that one didn't really make sense, Xaldin," I agreed.

"Nor should you. You, Roxas, have no heart to love with, and you, Jessica, have been too sheltered to understand. Come. We return."

As Xaldin led the way, I raced to keep up with his pace for a quiet conversation. "Thanks for letting me come along." Xaldin's response was a grunt. "I'm sorry I tried to, you know." Xaldin didn't even reply, so I kept going. "We both know that if you had wanted me to, I would've been much better helping with recon than Roxas. If it didn't matter to you, you would have had me more involved."

"A little late for that now, isn't it," Xaldin replied harshly.

"Yeah. I guess it is. Still, I'm glad I came. It was nice getting out. It's been a while. That ballroom was amazing."

"It was. I don't think I had ever seen any that grand," Xaldin agreed.

I was satisfied leaving things on a high note, so I didn't say anything after that.

Xaldin went home and Roxas and I stopped for ice cream and met Xion on the Clock Tower.

"You're here early," Roxas mentioned to Xion.

"Work was easy today," Xion smiled as she turned to us. "Jess?! What are you doing here?!"

"Xemnas cleared me to leave the Castle and if I'm with someone, so I tagged along with Roxas today," I explained.

"I guess Axel's still on that classified mission, huh?" Roxas commented before he and I sat down

"So mysterious," I giggled.

"So where'd they send you guys?" Xion wondered.

"Beast's Castle with Xaldin. You remember the castle's master, Xion?" Roxas checked.

"Yeah, the beast we saw," Xion answered.

"Well, you were right. He does have something he wants to protect. Something he cares about," Roxas said.

"Really?" Xion asked.

"Yeah, but Xaldin says that's a weakness," Roxas recalled.

"Why would caring about something be a weakness?" Xion questioned.

"It's not. Caring about something isn't weak. It gives you the strength to keep going," I stated.

There was a pause in the conversation before Xion spoke up, "I hope Axel comes home soon."

"Me too," I sighed.