Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing at all. I'd say I own Nobody, too, but alas, Axel isn't mine either.

AN: Done for a challenge on another community, and written while I'm sick and less than coherent. Forgive me.

Axel stormed into the mansion, melting the iron gate and splintering the massive door as he went. Namine almost barricaded herself into her room—the safe, open white one, its monotone disturbed only by her little drawings—but she rushed to the dining hall instead, where the doors were thicker and the heavy table offered a better place to hide.

It didn't stop him. He raced from one room to the next, smashing and shouting as he went, finally bursting through the wooden door of her shelter.

"WHERE IS HE?" he roared, and she suddenly recalled how DiZ had compared him to a lion. A dangerous, starved, crazed predator. She flinched, and a ripple of shadow cascaded from her ivory form. He pounced on the flicker, demolishing the table in a burst of flame, and now he loomed over her. "Where is he?" he repeated again, his voice a fierce growl.

For a long time, the only thing she felt was terror. But even fear drained away from her, dripped from her small white form and was replaced by defiance; anger. She pulled herself to her feet, locking her eyes on his.

"DiZ isn't here," she said quietly.

"I'm not talking about your demon!" he snarled. "Where is Roxas?"

Perhaps she was thinking more coherently now that the fear subsided, or perhaps she had lost all sanity in the moment before. But now she saw him—truly saw him. That torpid anger had always been there, always half-hidden under emerald eyes, always subdued in the past by his blond companion; there was a pallor there, too, and it seemed that Axel's usually dark skin had taken on her own tone. Emotions that he shouldn't—couldn't—have felt pulled his face into a frightening mask. Dread. Fear. Hatred. Worry. Fury. He was different from the other Nobodies, and she knew it. How ironic that he named DiZ the demon: Axel himself was now a body of flame and rage, a perfect storybook monster. Perhaps he was worse than even a demon; maybe he was the devil himself, out to destroy whatever good was left in her fractured little world. And she remembered, with awful clarity, what he had done.

"He's gone now," she said coolly. "You can't reach him anymore."

And they said that last word together, united in that odd way that enemies always are: "Murderer."

And suddenly the storm erupted, and the air was drenched with accusations and betrayals and his lightning rage pitted against her driving fury.

"You killed them all," she said, her voice like ice. "They were your friends and you marched them to their deaths—"

"You've taken him!" he snapped, never touching her, though his glare could have scorched her hair. "You've destroyed him, you've—"

"You betrayed them!"

"You turned on him!"

"He was my best friend!"

"They took care of me!"

"It's your fault!"

And as quickly as it had begun, the storm broke, and all went silent, and they could only stare.

"If you liked it there so much," he said cruelly, his quiet threat nearly drowned out by the still air, "Then what are you doing with the likes of him?" DiZ, of course. That disgusted sneer was the only identification she needed. Namine didn't hesitate; she had asked herself the same question, and always emerged with the same answer:

"He's going to bring Sora back," she said, and something new crossed his face. Something still dangerous.

"I helped you bring him back," he said, leaning closer to make sure she caught every word. "I helped you get to him, I helped you meet him, I cleared the way so you could put him to sleep or whatever it is you did."

"You had them killed."

"Sora was their executioner, and you're so eager to save him. I set the stage so he could survive."

"To save your own skin," she accused.

"I did it for Roxas," he corrected fiercely. "And for you and your precious Sora. You owe me, Namine."

"No." She turned away, realizing a moment too late how dangerous that move was. He was still angry, still coursing with internal flames, still holding those deadly chakrams. "I don't want anything to—"

"They'll come for him," he said. "And now they'll probably try to eliminate him while they still can. And you know they're willing to do it." She turned back to him, carefully, willing the worry not to appear in her eyes. "They can kill him. I can save him. Got it memorized?"

It wasn't like she wanted to listen, but now she didn't turn away or drown him out with shouts as he spoke. That thought chilled her—as real and powerful as one of her conjured memories: the mansion flooded with black robes and grotesque white Dusks; the crystal bloom where Sora slept, shattered; their blades and dark magic all focused into vengeance and hatred that they could only remember feeling—

"I can keep them out of here. I can make sure nobody hurts your precious Sora until he wakes up." The thought was tempting, the offer welcoming after the horrified image of the boy's destruction. But she knew better. Axel's coaxing hadn't made her forget his crimes in Castle Oblivion. He was still a devil, a lion, a monster, and any bargain she made with him could only end in disaster.

"And in exchange?" She prompted. Another long silence followed, again their jewel-toned eyes stared each other down in the midst of the splintered, ruined mansion.

"I want him back," Axel said at last, and again she saw that lion. Still hungry, still enraged, but much older now. Wounded and weary. Still dangerous, but nearly pathetic in its exhaustion.

"I can't give Roxas back to you," she said without malice, and something flickered over him. Anger, partially, and despair. "But I can let you see him again. And if," she cursed herself for those words even as they left her mouth, "if you keep up your end of the deal, and if you can get him past DiZ, then..." I'm being stupid, she thought. You can't deal with devils without losing your soul. "I won't stop you." He leaned forward to speak again, his face obscured by a strange expression, and she hastily amended. "But I won't help you, either! I'll show you where he is, but that's it."

She lied, of course. After Axel saw the computer room under the library and vanished, DiZ returned, telling Namine with strained sincerity that he was glad she was safe as he replaced the ruined doors and gates (he never bothered reviving much of the splintered furniture). When DiZ went away to do whatever it was he did, she would unlock the door and Axel would creep inside, typing and toying with the countless screens while she kept guard. It took nearly a year for Axel to break through layers of codes and encryptions, but Namine guessed them all in no time, and she began to watch over Roxas (an added favor to Axel, so he'd make extra sure to keep the Organization out). The boy was fascinating, and slowly she learned to appreciate why Axel was so intent on rescuing his lost friend. She met with him, befriended him (almost?) and told him, for Axel's sake, about how they had been best friends once.

Axel came to her again, even after Roxas disappeared and Sora woke, asking for favors, and together they forged deals of their own. She became a reluctant part of his renegade schemes, and he offered ever more help to her unwitting ward.

The final deal was perhaps the hardest.

Axel crept into the mansion, wounded and weakened by that last fight; Saix had found him, nearly killed him, and Namine knew it the moment she looked at Axel's heaving form.

"You need to give up on Roxas," she commanded, as much for his sake as for Sora's. Axel shook his head, a rough smile on his face.

"Not a chance."

"Why not?" she asked. She wasn't afraid of the Lion anymore, and if she hadn't quite forgiven him for his betrayals yet, at least she could look past them.

"Because he's still important to me," he said. And then she got that look in her eye, the one that informed him that she was quite ready to make a deal with this particular devil. "I'm not willing to trade for him," he said stubbornly.

"And if you were?" she prompted. She'd spent too much time around him. "If you were, what would it take to make you give him up for good?" He called her bluff, and made his condition:

"You'd have to give up something of your own," he said. "Something as precious as he is to me." When she still didn't back down, he continued: "You'd have to disappear, just like he did. Leave your life and everything else behind and become a part of Kairi. No more watching Sora, no more doodling in that white room of yours, no more nothing." He let the words smolder in the air for a moment, the gravity of his request sinking into her skin.

For a long moment, she was silent.

"I thought so," he said, pulling himself to his feet. He was sure he could find a potion somewhere in Twilight Town...

"I'll do it." The words stunned him. She couldn't have...he must have misheard... "I'll disappear. I'll become a part of Kairi. Will that be enough for you?" She touched his arm, aware that the contact chilled him while it burned her. "Will that end this?" He nodded dumbly, and she turned away, opening a corridor into the Darkness (one of those little skills he had taught her, in exchange for a tricky password). She wasn't bluffing anymore, and now she could nearly hear him crumbling behind her.

"You're seriously going to do it, then?" he asked quietly. She stepped into the shadow without a word. "I'll...I'll say my goodbyes, then," he sighed, vanishing into a corridor of his own before she drifted out of earshot.

He kept his promise; she kept hers. But she lied, of course. Even when she became a part of Kairi, she didn't disappear—she became whole, just like she had promised Roxas. And when Sora told her about Axel's goodbye, (and she never, ever meant for that to happen!), he couldn't explain why she started to cry.

She'd made a deal with Axel, after all—her personal devil. How ironic that this demon lost his own soul in the bargain.