"Axel, say something to me. Please say something." But no matter what Roxas did, Axel stayed stubbornly unconscious.
Axel, Sora and Riku had reappeared in precisely the same spot they had left… and had immediately been grabbed by a very irate group. Marty had provided them with special cuffs that prevented the two keyblade wielders from summoning their weapons. Shocked and horrified by what they had done, Sora and Riku had hardly put up a fight. The entire group had been brought to the Keep as they tried to figure out what to do.
Axel had been out cold for most of the day and it was starting to really worry everyone. He looked completely fine, his breathing was even and stable… but he just wouldn't wake up. Nothing they could do would wake him. The sirens and Hourglass demons had already tried.
"Roxas, honey. We've got someone here to see him." Froggy said gently. Roxas looked up blearily as a witch walked briskly in. She was wearing very familiar robes, and he blinked. It was the female wizard… Ya Tashra's apprentice. Tilting his head to one side, Roxas examined her more closely. She looked perhaps fifteen years old and very oriental. Her straight black hair had been cut in a razor sharp line at her jaw, and her eyes were almost black. Her wizard robes were light purple and embroidered with delicate gold flowers and her staff was very plain, except for a few carvings on the tip. She didn't look very powerful… but she would be channeling the power of her master, if Ya Tashra had decided to help.
"Ya Tashra is going to help us?" Roxas said, his hopes rising. The wizard who had created the Twisted World could do anything. Quite possibly literally… everyone was divided on what exactly Ya Tashra was. Some even said he was a god. The girl nodded.
"Doctor Rufus and Rude came to the tower and explained the situation. A tool of creation is a very bad thing to have wandering into evil hands." She gently rested a hand on Axel's chest, staring at him for a moment and frowning slightly. "This is… unprecedented." Roxas blinked, wondering what that meant. The wizard looked up at Froggy. "Could you fetch the other Sora and Riku, please? They should understand the consequences of their actions." Froggy blinked but nodded and ducked out to go find them. "I will awaken him now." She hesitated a brief moment, then shook her head before she waved her staff.
White sparks seemed to play over the staff, and slid down onto Axel. He stirred with a groan, green eyes slowly opening… and Roxas hugged him tightly. Axel didn't make a sound, and Roxas looked up as he felt a hand touch his shoulder.
"Axel?" Roxas felt a sudden chill as he looked into Axel's eyes. They were… so cold. So empty. The beautiful green eyes that had been full of life and love were as chill as the deepest winter. Axel tilted his head slightly to one side… then suddenly hissed as the wizard touched his cheek, a spark jumping from her finger onto his skin.
"Remember, Axel. You may not be able to feel… but you can suffer." She said, her voice as cold and remote as Axel's eyes. He looked up at her as Roxas stared, wide eyed, and he couldn't understand what passed between them.
"I understand." Axel said, his voice just as remote, and Roxas pulled away, swallowing hard.
"A-Axel, what's… what's wrong…" Something was very, very badly wrong. Axel just didn't talk like this, he didn't act like this. It was like a stranger had taken his place. Axel looked at him, and Roxas saw a flicker of emotion in his eyes.
Pity?
"Got them." Froggy said from the door, and pushed Sora and Riku in. Sora was looking depressed but brightened a little when he saw Axel awake. Riku looked at the wizard, uncertain, as she gave them both a hard look.
"You have both helped do a terrible thing. I will hold you responsible to help correct it." She said harshly to them both, and Sora opened his mouth to speak, but shut it as she pointed at him. "Explain for Roxas. What is a Nobody?" Sora blinked.
"It's someone who's lost his heart. It's the body and soul that's left over." He said uncertainly and Riku's gaze darted to Axel. But the wizard wasn't finished.
"And what is a Heartless?" That confused them both, but Sora answered anyway.
"A heart that has surrendered to the darkness… why are you asking this?" He couldn't understand what she was driving at. The wizard took a deep breath, and sighed.
"Graphical demonstrations are best. Roxas, this is what a normal heart and soul look like if you have the vision to see such things." She used Riku as her test subject, and Sora and Roxas both stared as a mist of white and black swirled around him in a complex aura. "This is what Axel has been left with." She pointed at Axel, who watched, emotionless, as the same swirling appeared around him.
Except it didn't. There were a few traces of white, a few splashes of black… but mostly a horrible yellow color mixed with grey. It swirled with the idiot power of a gas giant, and there was no sense or reason to it. The pattern around Riku spoke of his emotions and his memories, a great complexity… but there was nothing of that in what surrounded Axel. It was chaos. Roxas stared, horrified, as Sora swallowed and Riku looked down.
"The cube that removed from him was indeed a tool of creation. It was the book of names… the Creator made it to help her assign names, to help define the properties of all things. Those names gradually change with time, and the cube has always kept itself up to date." The wizard paused, then shrugged slightly. "This only matters at the moment because it was not meant to fuse with a person. How Axel's mother managed that, I do not know… but in doing so, everything he was became written in the cube. His heart and soul were linked with it on a most fundamental level… you could say that the book read him, rather than the other way around."
"What does that mean for Axel?" Roxas whispered, gazing into those cold green eyes.
"It means that he has lost almost all of both his heart and soul." She said gently, and Roxas looked up, tears building in his eyes. "I am sorry, but he is very dangerous in this condition. He is like a Nobody in that he cannot feel… but he is like a Heartless in that he cannot muster the logic to plan. The only things he will respond to now are threats, because what is left of him can feel pain. If we released him in this state, he would be a wandering menace. It would be best if I put him back to sleep." Suiting words to deeds, she gestured and Axel's eyes closed again as he slumped against Roxas. Roxas gently eased him down onto the bed, and the tears started to fall.
"This is all your fault!" He suddenly shouted at Sora and Riku. "Why did you… why…" Roxas drew a deep, shuddering breath and pressed his face against Axel's shoulder. "Axel."
"I'm sorry," Sora whispered. He'd thought he'd felt bad before… but now he felt like he'd killed a kitten. "I'm so sorry… we're both sorry…" Riku just kept his gaze fixed on the floor. What could he say? They'd screwed up so badly it wasn't even funny. The wizard cleared her throat.
"You will help us assault Yen Sid's tower. In his arrogance, he thinks the book can protect him… but he has made an error." They all looked at her, and she smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. "Axel's heart and soul will resist him from within the pages of the book. Given enough time, Yen Sid will overcome that, but for now the cube will only answer to him grudgingly. We have an opportunity and we must seize it. As Ya Tashra's proxy, I will take control of the cube when we have it."
"What good will that do for Axel?" Roxas said bitterly, and she looked at him with a small smile.
"All the good in the world… for when I have it, I will place a power ward on it. And with that to contain the energy… you will take your keyblade and destroy it." Roxas blinked at her as Riku looked up sharply. Ya Tashra was willing to destroy a book… a tool so incredibly potent? "The Creator is dead and gone. The cube should not have outlasted her… it probably only did so because it was inside Axel. Destroying the cube will release his heart and soul. I will catch them and we can bring them back here, fusing them back to his body. He will be in sad shape for a while, but he will recover." Roxas stood up, grimly determined.
"Then lets go!" The wizard nodded, but held up a hand.
"All of us. Let us collect the others. Yen Sid will have many defences for us to overcome." Soon, everyone was together… Froggy, Rufus, Rude, Sora and the second Riku. Riku started as he saw an identical version of himself. But there was something… he stared at his dop alt, puzzled, for a long moment and was surprised again by the hostile look he received.
"What's wrong, Riku?" Sora said to the female Riku, a bit worried. She looked upset. She glanced down at him, silent for a moment.
"He's a boy, isn't he." Sora blinked, looking at the first Riku and nodding. "It's so fucking unfair!" Sora frowned, not understanding, and she gestured to herself angrily. "Look at me. We're exactly the same. I'm so goddamn butch…" Sora's mouth dropped open, and he grabbed her shirt.
"You are not! You're beautiful." He said angrily and pulled her down into a kiss. Riku's breath caught in her throat, and she suddenly pushed him away.
"Please Sora. Don't do this to me. I can't go through this again, I just can't…" Riku sounded close to tears, and Sora blinked, confused. Has someone broken her heart? Had it been his dop alt?
"But I like you, Riku. I really like you." His feelings for her had been getting stronger all the time, since the first moment he met her. Riku stared at him, and he met her aquamarine eyes. "You're so strong and smart and… I like you a lot." He liked the feeling of being held in her strong arms, liked being around her. Riku hesitated, then sniffed.
"Would you date me?" She said softly and Sora grinned.
"Sure!" He'd been struggling trying to figure out how to ask her out, in fact. To something more intimate than ice cream, anyway. Riku smiled, and it was like the sun coming out.
"He would never do that… never…" She murmured, and hugged Sora tightly. "Thank you." Even if it didn't work out, they would have a chance. Not like last time. "Sora, I- YEOW!" Riku jumped forward, almost knocking Sora over as someone pinched her on the bottom. Whirling around, she saw a grinning Froggy behind her.
"Hate to break it to you, love, but everyone is waiting for you to finish this touching little moment." Riku looked around, belatedly realizing that everyone was indeed watching them… and that her double and Sora's were looking a little shell shocked by the whole thing. "Got it together? Good, it's time to go!" Froggy waved at the wizard, who nodded and brought them all the base of Yen Sid's tower in a flash of golden light.
Making their way through the tower wasn't easy. The wizard hadn't been kidding about the defenses… but she augmented their weapons with a touch of Ya Tashra's power. They sliced through illusions and monsters, although not without damage. Soon Rude had a bleeding cut across his shoulder, and Rufus had lost his hat to a flying beast. Froggy picked up a few burns, and Sora cried out in pain as he was slammed to the floor by a beast… which Riku promptly decapitated, the blood spraying across them both. Gradually, they made it to the top of the tower… then the wizard called.
"All of you stay out here but Roxas and the Sora and Riku who need to make amends!" That clarified who she meant. "Keep the defenses off while we deal with this!" The rest of them arranged themselves defensively to meet what was coming up the stairs, and the other four went into the top of the tower.
The room was exactly how they had left it. Except that Yen Sid was sitting on his throne in the centre, gazing at the cube in his hand and completely ignoring their presence. It was a bit insulting, really, and Roxas bristled, stepping forward.
"Give us back Axel's heart and soul!" He shouted, and Yen Sid slowly looked up. Then he smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile at all.
"No." He stood, and laughed. "Did you really think you could challenge me in my own tower, keybladers, while I have the cube? I will destroy you all… as if you had never been." But the wizard stepped in front of them, her robes billowing in the air. "Step aside, apprentice. Your master should never have sent you." She tilted her head to one side.
What happened next occurred so fast that it was difficult to see. Pure gold light seemed to explode from the apprentice, taking the form of a bird of prey and rocketing towards Yen Sid in a flash of light. He was slammed off his feet and dragged across the floor until he hit the wall. His protections saved him from broken bones but not road rash, and there was blood on the floor as he pulled himself to his knees, staring at the apprentice in stunned shock.
"You… are not an apprentice…" He grated out as the wizard smiled.
"You're not the only one able to play pretend, Yen Sid." Her voice deepened and became masculine. As the keyblade wielders watched, wide eyed, the female form dropped away as if it had never been. Instead there was a dark skinned man, with light grey hair pulled into thousands of micro-braids. His eyes were golden, and Sora shivered faintly as he was reminded of Ansem. "And before you ask why I didn't just attack you directly… because you would have fled. And I couldn't have that." Yen Sid stood with a snarl, and words of golden power rippled from the cube… and were met with a wall of darkness that swallowed them into ebony.
The battle was fierce and as one sided as Yen Sid had anticipated… but not the way he had expected. Riku, Sora and Roxas attacked with their keyblades as Ya Tashra warded them and fought Yen Sid with pure magic and will. When it was done, there was nothing like of Yen Sid but his hat… which rolled away and vanished into the darkness. Ya Tashra went to the cube that was lying on the floor, and gently picked it up.
"No!" Roxas said involuntarily as the wizard studied it. Was Ya Tashra lying to them too? Was he going to keep the cube for himself? The wizard looked up with a sad smile, and Roxas was surprised to see grief in his eyes.
"So many lives lost for a worthless tool… this was never meant to be used by mortals. I could use it… but I do not need it." Ya Tashra gently set the cube on the ground and surrounded it with a field of force. "Destroy it Roxas. Destroy it with the Bonds of Love." Roxas blinked as Ya Tashra said the name of his keyblade… but it seemed right. Right that he would free Axel with the keyblade that symbolized his love for him.
A single blow shattered the golden cube, and it winkled out of existence as if it had never been. A breath of darkness and light shot up, but Ya Tashra captured it easily, imprisoning it in a globe. He smiled and offered the globe to Roxas, who took it tentatively.
"So are you guys done in there? Everything's dead out here." Came Froggy's voice from outside the door, and Ya Tashra laughed softly.
"Yes. You can all come in." He'd rather forgotten about the ones outside on the stairs. They all stepped inside, glancing around.
"I say! Look at those bookshelves. May I?" Ya Tashra quickly checked the books for any residue of traps, then nodded. Rufus quickly started scavenging, with Rude and Froggy's help. Roxas couldn't help but laugh.
"It never changes…" No matter what happened, Rufus would always be on the lookout for new knowledge. It was almost comforting. Ya Tashra shrugged with a smile.
"If you want, you can stay here and search the tower for anything valuable, and I can come pick you up later." He offered to Rufus, who nodded happily.
"Capital! Thank you so much, we quite appreciate it." Ya Tashra looked a little bemused, but waved a hand and brought them back to the Dark Land, minus Rufus, Rude and Froggy. Roxas immediately bolted away, running to Axel's bedside.
"Axel!" He happily pressed the globe to Axel's chest, and it vanished. Axel twitched, then opened his eyes with a groan. Roxas looked into his eyes anxiously, and was relieved to see the Axel he knew looking out at him… although he looked to be in serious pain.
"Ow… god… what happened to me… ow!" Roxas hugged him tightly, sniffing, and Axel smiled and hugged him back. "Careful, I feel half dead, you'll finish the job."
"Axel…" Roxas just closed his eyes and held his love.
All was right with the world.