Chapter 8 - Separation

"I'd rather have no heart than a whole one." pondered Keiko, talking to herself.
Axel and her were still laid on her roof staring at the stars.
"You really wouldn't. At least you can feel a little bit of something. I feel nothing." answered Axel.
"Not anything?"
"Well, I guess just deeper and more complex emotions like love and all that crap. We get angry still. Man, you ought to see Xemnas on a bad day!"
"Xemnas?"
"He's our superior... Bit of an ass..."
"Ughhhh, superior? I hate being bossed around..."
"I can imagine that."
At Axel's last comment he jabbed him in the ribs in attempt to tickle him. Unfortunately it appeared he wasn't ticklish. However, it was true. Keiko hated being bossed around... She is too lazy to take orders. Keiko really wanted to see what Axel looked like, she was gonna take down his hood but she thought it might offend him.
Offend him? Am I stupid? Him and all his friends have been harassing me all week!
Keiko thought about it for a while whilst Axel rambled about something to do with missions or something that she was completely uninterested in.
"Take your hood down." Keiko said bluntly
"Uh... What? Why?"
"I wanna see what you look like!" she giggled, turning over onto her side to look at him.
"Nah... Gotta keep some of the mystery haven't I?" he laughed.
Dick she thought.
'The first guy who came to capture me did a shit job." Keiko said. Not thinking about who she was insulting.
'I'd be careful what you say. He's one if your superiors too." Axel laughed at her bluntness. "We didn't wanna force you,because then you'd be more likely to lash out and cause more damage and fuss than it'd be worth."
"Well what about the second guy? With pink hair?" she said, thinking about the man who came into the shop to buy roses.
"Oh, Marluxia. He was just observing you. Also he wanted some flowers!" he replied.
"Pfft observe." she laughed.
"Yeah, just checking you out. Not in a flirty way. Yeah... Uh." Axel seemed a bit embarrassed. He probably thought Keiko was going to hit him.
"If I knew you more, I would've hit you. But don't worry about that." she reassured him as if she'd read his mind.
A few minutes went by of silence. Keiko didn't know what to say, she naturally wanted to get closer to him, it was natural. She felt like it was natural instinct to try and get closer to a guy. She was about to edge closer but an eerie breeze blew and lightly skimmed Keiko's skin. It made a shiver go down her spine. It wasn't a nice summers breeze, it was a deadly breeze, heavy and it rustled the leaves of the trees.
"Do you feel that?" Keiko asked Axel, turning to face him.
"Yeah... Something isn't right." he answered, sitting upright.
Keiko sat up as well, she genuinely felt quite scared. She got closer to Axel without realising.
"I'm scared." she stated, not caring how stupid she sounded.
"It's fine. It's probably nothing." he reassured her. He then stopped and stared into the darkness for a while.
He'd spoken too soon. A flying heartless which sort of resembled a dragon soared straight above their heads.
"WHAT THE FUCK?! What even was that?!" she asked.
It heard her. It swirled around in the air gracefully and made its way back to them both. Standing on a roof wasn't exactly the most ideal place to be having a fight with a giant flying dragon heartless and there wasn't much room to manoeuvre. Axel stood up immediately and at the same time Keiko did, made his weapons appear. He threw them towards the heartless along with some fire.
"Not bad." Said Keiko casually.
"Oh, you can do better?" laughed Axel as he caught his chakrams again and flung them straight back at the creature.
Keiko used her ribbons to slice the flying dragon heartless. It did a fair amount of damage but she wasn't that accurate and she hadn't practiced a lot.
If only I could get it closer...
Then it struck her. She could get it closer, all she needed to do was sing. But what could she sing?! Axel fought the heartless and she thought...
"A little help would be nice?!" he shouted.
Keiko turned to the dragon, and sung. She wasn't singing any tune in particular, sort of like a soft hum. She got rid of her weapons. The dragons attention was diverted from Axel to her, it glided slowly through the air, puffing smoke as it came closer. Axel looked over and stood still, she glanced at him briefly, trying to convey a message of 'stay still' through her eyes. She then looked back into the dragons eyes as it came closer. It came right up to her face, there was only an inch of air between their faces. Behind her back, she made her weapons appear in each hand, whilst still singing, she slashed at its face quickly. It roared in anger, it was about to attack her, but then Axel attacked its tail and it spun around to attack him. She'd lowered its health by at least half, but it wasn't going down without a good fight. She looked at the floor below in her garden, and she spotted some acid yellow eyes.
"Keiko, look out!" Axel warned her as he fought hard against the dragon.
Keiko, still panting from the adrenalin, looked behind her and saw a shadow heartless... It launched straight for her heart.
"Shit!" she screamed.
...and then it was darkness for a second, she hated the dark. She tried hard to open her eyes. But she couldn't. Then she remembered what her brother said when she was scared of the dark."Whenever you're scared, just think of nice things that make you happy." She thought of nice things, she thought as hard as she could, she remembered all the fun times at school with Miya and her friends, she thought of flowers and food and sunshine, and the memories of her brother... She thought of the time he would time her and she raced around the market square seeing how fast she could run, she remembered making him a bracelet for good luck... Then her eyes opened, it was dark and blurred but she saw Axel, still fighting the dragon.
"Are you okay?!" he yelled.
Keiko stood up, wobbling a little. Everything was still blurred by a dark black shadow and she tried to refocus. She looked down at her hands; they were burning and tingling, more than they'd ever done before. There were dark shadows lingering around them, twisting around her fingers, like some sort of toxic gas.
"What the hell…" Keiko slurred.
She looked down at her body, the shadows were entwined around her legs, and some was emitting from her chest, where her heart was. She felt weird, tired but angry. Not the upset angry, the hysterical sort of angry. Adrenaline was pumping through her body and she was ready to take another swing at the heartless.
"Get out of here, Keiko! Quick!" Axel yelled over to her, struggling to over-power the heartless.
"Don't you want some help?" She laughed hysterically.
"I'm serious, you need to get out of here as fast as you can and I'll find you another time."
"Okay whatever you say." She sung.
Keiko quickly descended down the ladders onto the cold grass. Where the heartless still resided… she was surrounded.
"You bastards." She laughed.
Keiko sliced the heartless one by one, creating more dark shadows. She was actually enjoying it. This is when she realised, she was meant to kill heartless. She didn't feel guilty about killing them, she found it fun. It felt good getting revenge.
"I said go!" Shouted Axel.