Title: Last Train
Author: nikki_ntm
Beta reader: Shattered Apocalypse
Chapters: 13/20
Genre: Drama/Adventure/Suspense
Rating: M for language, violence and disturbing themes such as bullying, crime and disease.
Characters: Axel, Saïx, Larxene and Marluxia amongst others (Lea, Isa, Seifer and Org. 13).
Pairings: Implied past/present/future pairings, mainly past Axel/Larxene, current Leon/Arlene, and implied one-sided Isa/Lea.
Setting: Modern Japan (yakuza-themed)

A/N: Hi there, readers! I want to let you all know that I might not update as frequently as I have up until now after next week. I'll try to at least update every other week, but I make no promises. I also want to thank you, reviewers as well as readers, for your continuous support, and as always, I hope you're enjoying the story ^^

x

Chapter 13: Lying Through Your Teeth

Zack hadn't lied when he said that they had lots of space. The house was located right by a lonely road, not too far away from the hospital. The house looked quite Japanese from the outside with its tilted roofs, black and white exterior and paper-door windows. At first Axel thought that it would be a bit like Yuna's house, but the inside was much more modern. They had a big kitchen/dining room, the living room was quite spacious and modernly furnished as well. It seemed that it paid off being a doctor at a free-clinic that was sponsored by a cracker factory.

Fortunately for Axel, the floor was new as well, it didn't squeak when he walked down the hallway on the second floor from his room at the far end to Saïx's room that was closer to the stairway. The evening had felt weird, Axel had been tense and wasn't sure what to expect from these two doctors.

He hadn't been able to speak to Saïx in peace either, and it bothered him that Saïx had seemed so amused by it because Zack always interrupted him by remembering something that would be fun to show them.

It was past midnight and since he couldn't sleep, he figured that he should take the opportunity to talk to Saïx now that no one could interrupt. He walked up close to the door and knocked gently, looking down the hallway to make sure that no one was there.

"Saïx, it's me," he whispered and waited for a reply, "I'm coming in."

He pushed the door open and walked into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Saïx sat up in his bed and leaned against the wall behind him as he rubbed his eyes.

"What do you want?"

Axel took the small stool in the corner to his right and walked over to Saïx, sitting down on it with a sigh.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better."

"Good. That's…good."

Saïx eyed him from where he sat, chuckling and closing his eyes, "What is it?"

"I want to know what you're getting at, why are we here?"

"Didn't you hear? I have a serious case of motion sickness; I would've thrown up all over the car if we had kept going. And Zack gave me an ultimatum; either I accepted the invitation or he called the police."

"What for?"

"He thinks you're hitting me."

"What!" Axel had to remind himself that he better keep his voice low, "Why the hell does he think that? Is that what you told him?"

"How should I know? It doesn't even matter if it's true, it would be his word against yours. I did you favor by accepting the invitation. Now you have time to ask the blond doctor about the parts of the book that are in German."

"Yeah, well, I still don't like that Zack-guy's attitude, acting all high and mighty. He doesn't even know what's going on."

"It kind of reminds me of someone."

"An asshole, that's what." Axel crossed his arms and sighed. The nerve of some people, he thought, judgmental too. Zack had barely looked at him and yet he had decided that Axel was beating Saïx up – why ask when it was easier to jump to conclusions?

"Relax," Saïx mumbled as he accommodated himself in his bed, sinking his head against the soft pillow, "He's just the kind of guy that likes to pick up strays, much like someone else I know."

"You better not be talking about me."

"Well, I am. Shut up and let me sleep. I took some pills a while ago and they're making me sleepy."

"You asked him what they were before taking them, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just go."

Axel hesitated and looked at the door and then back at Saïx. His arms fell to his side and he shook his leg impatiently.

"I was actually hoping that you'd let me sleep here. You know, for the nightmares and stuff." That hadn't sounded as needy as it did when he had said it in his head, but at least it was out there.

"Good grief. I think there's a futon in that closet over there." He pointed to the closet behind Axel that was built into the wall. He got up and pulled the door aside and saw a couple of towels, a futon, and slippers. He placed the futon next to Saïx's bed and crawled into it quietly.

The ceiling looked a lot like Yuna's ceiling, he noted as he rested his hands on his chest, and being here caused him a strange feeling, maybe a sense of déjà vu, and he didn't like it at all. Maybe he feared that Saïx was betraying him again or maybe he just didn't like how easy Saïx had folded for the invitation. He had never been one to trust a stranger so easily.

"Are you asleep yet?" He tilted his head slightly to catch a glimpse of Saïx.

"I'm trying."

He smiled at the slightly annoyed tone that was muffled by the pillow Saïx was currently cuddling up against, but he wasn't amused for long. With darkness came worry and anxiety, and even though he could see Saïx, even though he could hear him breathe softly, there was an insistent voice in the back of his head repeating, "But what if he's dead?"

Axel ran his fingers down the palm of Saïx's hand slowly, and he shivered at how cold they always were, and in the dark they seemed paler than usual. He found his steady pulse almost immediately, and he smiled again as reality triumphed over that nagging voice.

"Are you serious?" Saïx tapped his fingers against Axel's wrist lightly, but made no effort to pull his hand away.

"What?"

"Are you seriously taking my pulse?" His voice broke as he tried to stifle a chuckle.

It was weird, Axel thought as he felt Saïx shake with laughter at the ludicrous situation. He had almost forgotten that sound and how infectious it was. He couldn't remember the last time when he had laughed like this either, but the feeling wasn't complete, and for a split second he wished he could just pull away the pillow hiding Saïx from him just to see him smile again, but he settled with the sound of it and the feel of Saïx's hand in his.

"I might just be holding your hand, y'know," Axel said at last with a small yawn.

"Whatever."

He didn't succeed in sounding as indifferent as before, but maybe Axel wasn't paying as much attention as he should. It was difficult to concentrate when Saïx traced his fingers down his wrist, drawing the tattoos Axel had on his other arm as if he had memorized every single stroke.

"If something was wrong, if something was happening to you, you'd tell me, right?"

"Yeah."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"No bullshit?"

"No bullshit."

Axel looked back at the ceiling again. He could only hope that Saïx was being honest. If history was anything to go by, chances were that Saïx was lying to him about something or everything right now.

~ooo~

Saïx had already gone downstairs when Axel woke up, and to him it was a bit weird that Saïx would go anywhere without at least giving him a heads up. He hurried out of the futon and down the stairs only to see Cloud sitting by the big dining table, drinking his coffee while he flipped through the newspaper.

He looked up at Axel when he heard him walk in and glance at the table where they had already eaten breakfast.

"You finally decided to wake up, huh? Are you hungry?"

"Where's Saïx?"

"He went back to the hospital with Zack. He wanted to check his blood sugar after breakfast. They should be back any second now. There's coffee over there, you want scrambled eggs?"

"No, I'm not hungry." Axel flopped down onto a chair and took another look at the items on the table. Had Saïx eaten breakfast? They did have a lot of things to choose from so maybe Saïx had found something that he liked.

Cloud watched his every move, Axel could feel his gaze burning through him. He looked up, already annoyed with this day and what it was turning into.

"He told me to tell you to not stress over it. It's just a visit to the doctor's. I know that Zack can be a little too much if you're not used to it, but his heart is in the right place."

"Did he tell you that he thinks I'm beating Saïx up?"

"He did."

"Did he tell you why?"

"No." Cloud leaned back in his chair, "I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Well, I'm sure we'll have a serious problem if he keeps taking Saïx away."

"You have a very co-dependent relationship with Saïx. Why is it so important that you know where he is all the time if you're on a road trip? Isn't the entire purpose of the trip to get out, see new places and meet new people?"

"What kind of doctor are you?" Axel asked after a brief moment of silence, "Are you a shrink?"

"Not yet." He got up from his chair and walked up to the coffee maker to pour himself another cup, "You didn't sleep in your own room."

"So?"

"Did Saïx ask you to sleep in his room or was that your decision?"

The questions were bordering on insulting and Axel could only stare at the back of the so called doctor with an incredulous look on his face. Maybe he should have said yes to breakfast after all, that would've at least given him an excuse not to talk.

"I asked – nicely – and he gave the green light."

Under any other circumstances Axel would have let his fists do the talking if it had been anyone else implying whatever it was Cloud was implying, but Cloud's calm voice and gentle demeanor threw him out of loop and just left him confused and unsure as to how to react.

"You come off as awfully dominant, Axel. Are you jealous?"

"Listen, doctor, I don't know what the hell you're getting at, or what Saïx has been telling you, but I am not jealous of him hanging out with Zack, alright? I just wanted to know where he was... you don't have to pick it apart to see stuff that isn't there."

He was feeling exposed and flustered; the AC in the house seemed to have stopped working because he suddenly felt uncomfortably warm.

"I meant, are you jealous of Saïx?"

"No. Jeez, can we please drop it? You're freaking me out." He shivered and crossed his arms as Cloud sat back down on his seat and picked up the newspaper. Axel reached for a toast that had gone cold already and buttered it. Cloud couldn't expect an answer if he had his mouth full, unless of course he was analyzing the way he ate a toast and concluded that he had all kinds of psychological issues.

"How good is your German?" Axel asked once he was finished with breakfast.

"Good."

"Good enough to translate it to Japanese?"

"It depends. Does the document you want translated demand a certain field of expertise?"

"I don't think so."

Cloud reached his hand out, "Let me see it."

"Okay, but the content might be a bit weird, just so you know." Axel gave Cloud the little yellow notebook and almost regretted it as soon as Cloud flipped through it. "I've marked the pages. They're the ones with the ears."

Cloud didn't say anything while he read it through, and he had the same calm expression as before, making Axel think that maybe there was nothing more of importance in that book. Maybe it had been a waste of time and that left him back on square one.

"What is this?" Cloud asked finally.

"What it is? It's – well, we met a couple of German backpackers on our way here and well, I'm trying to write a sci-fi novel and this guy said that he had an awesome idea that I could take my own spin on, so I told him to write it down in my notebook, but his Japanese wasn't that good so he wrote it down in German."

"And the English parts?"

"That...that was from the English guy we ran into a couple of cities later."

"Strange how two different people that you met on two separate occasions had such similar ideas. What's even weirder is that one idea continues on the other."

"Well, maybe the English guy knew some German and thought that it was a better idea than his so he continued on it. I just need to know what it says so that I can write on my sci-fi novel. That has been a lifelong dream of mine." Axel tried not to gulp, he tried to keep a firm look on Cloud, because he knew that he had the habit of always looking away when he lied, but he needed Cloud to buy his story and judging by the look on Cloud's face, he was far from selling it to him.

"You know what's even weirder than two strangers sharing identical ideas? A backpacking English man in Japan that knows how to read medieval German."

"Oh, but you know, now that I think about it, I met the English man first and then I ran into the German guy."

"I see."

"Yeah, you should hear all of the weird stuff that's happened to us while on the road. There are crazy people out there, I mean, they just come by the dozen. It's endless. It kind of makes me understand why the world works the way it does."

Cloud turned the page and showed the notebook to Axel, pointing at the page he wanted him to look at, "What language is this?"

"English," Axel answered quickly.

"And this?" Cloud turned the page and pointed at it.

"Medieval German, obviously."

"Obviously, huh? Well, at least you can recognize German when you see it. This language however, isn't English. It's Esperanto, it's a mix of different languages and has similarities to English amongst other languages. Axel, you suck at lying. So if you want me to tell you what this says, I want to know the truth."

Axel couldn't sit still anymore, he got up on his feet and started pacing, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. It had been a stupid idea to ask a doctor out of all people to translate that stupid book. He didn't even know why he had assumed that one of the languages had been English. How could a man that was dead still mess with him the way he was, anyway?

"Does it even matter? Maybe the guy pulled a prank on me, what do I know? Can you please just tell me what it says? It's just pointless crap anyway, to you at least. There's no conspiracy or hidden agenda here, just an aspiring author wanting some inspiration. That is all."

It was bothering to see Cloud calmly look at him, not convinced at all. For all Axel knew, they could have been talking for hours about how untrustworthy he was while eating warm toast. How else could he explain Cloud not believing him?

"Axel, I'm gonna let you in on a secret. You think you can keep it?"

"Is it a test? Like a shrink test?"

"No, it's an honest question. Can you or can you not keep the secret I'm about to tell you?"

It was clearly a test. Axel wasn't as stupid as to fall for such a simple trap, not when he had been forewarned. "No, I can't."

Cloud smiled and put the book down, "That's fine, I guess. At least you're being honest. Now I'll be honest with you. The notes in this book shouldn't be performed by anyone. I've heard of this research, about doctors trying to manipulate memories to change people. I always thought that it was some urban legend some college kid made up to scare his friends, but you know what worries me the most?" Cloud paused and stared sternly at Axel, "The fact that you have it. Last time I heard of this book, the Ingô-family was trying to get their hands on it."

"You sure get around despite being a doctor in a small town area like this one."

"What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into, Axel?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me what the notebook says. If you go back on your word, I'll have to kill you."

"Tell me what you're involved in and I'll tell you about the notes," Cloud said reassuringly, "But if I suspect that you're lying, I'll give you a run for your money."

"Brace yourself then, doctor. This might be the weirdest thing you'll ever hear."

~ooo~

Zack pushed the wheelchair off the paved road gently and stopped right by the entrance to his garden when he saw the mailman come on his bike. Saïx didn't say much, he was reclusive and careful with what he said around Zack. He claimed that he was okay and that Axel wasn't doing anything bad to him, but there was something, a hunch that told him that something fishy was going on here and he couldn't just let them go without figuring it out. Since he couldn't count on Saïx's help, he had asked Cloud to work his magic on Axel, get him to talk. He seemed to be the most nervous one out of the two.

Zack smiled as the mail man jumped off his bike and waved at him, "Dr. Fair! Good morning! I have some mail for you." He flipped through the mail in the basket on the back of his bike.

"How are you?" Zack asked as he took the mail the mailman had reached to him.

"I'm fine, thank you. My back doesn't hurt anymore thanks to you. I'm very grateful, Dr. Fair, without you I would have lost my job and that would've angered my wife. Who is this?" He looked at Saïx and bowed his head slightly.

"This a new patient of mine, he's –"

"Tanaka," Saïx finished for him and bowed his head slightly, "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Mailman."

"It's nice to meet you. Whatever it is that you're suffering from, Dr. Fair will take care of it, I assure you." He smiled brightly and nodded in agreement with himself, "Well, I have to keep going, there are lots of people waiting for their mail. Have a good one, gentlemen!"

Zack waved after him as he took off on his bike and continued to the next house. It was always nice to meet old patients. He looked through the mail quickly to see if there was anything interesting.

"What a weird package," he mumbled as he looked at a big and thick envelope. "It's just addressed here, no name, no nothing. A secret admirer perhaps?" He pushed the wheelchair forward and kept a gentle pace all the way up to the door.

They heard mumbling come from the kitchen when they entered the hallway and Zack stopped to see if he could make anything out, but the mumblings weren't clear. He pushed Saïx into the kitchen and both Axel and Cloud looked up to greet them.

"What are you two whispering about?" Zack said as Saïx got out of the wheelchair and sat down across from Axel.

"Come here, you have to see this." Cloud sounded fascinated. Zack stood beside Cloud and looked at the small yellow notebook and tried to read what it said.

"My German is a bit rusty. What is it?"

"Remember that urban legend about doctors in underground labs researching on memories and how to manipulate them?"

"No. You're the only doctor I know who would even read about that stuff. Why? Did you find proof that there is such a thing? Or are we looking at pictures of Bigfoot? It would make perfect sense if he wrote was German."

Cloud grabbed Zack by the arm and excused himself as he dragged him into another room where he could explain what Axel had been trying to explain for the last hour.

"Did you get him to translate the third part?" Saïx looked at Axel who was deep in thought, "Axel?"

"Huh?"

"What did it say? Do we know what Ansem wants?"

"It doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?"

"He regretted going through with the experiments. I don't – I really don't understand. He came this far, he came to the point where he could store memories, that's probably what Xemnas wanted me to steal that night, but when he gets to the practical part, the part where he can actually do something with this, he regrets it."

"But does it say why?"

"Yeah, here. It says..." Axel flipped through some loose paper until he found the note he was searching for and put it next to the yellow notebook, "It says: The experiments are wrongdoings. This is not how it's supposed to be, Man shouldn't play God when he cannot face the consequences." Axel paused to point out a certain part of the notes, "Then it gets really weird, he says: The False Memories were fragile and caused the subject to weaken. I cannot let him continue with this nonsense anymore. He can no longer be a part of my research. It ends here."

"That's it? He went through the trouble of writing this in gibberish for that?"

"That's the weird part, because after the entry in German he continues in Esperanto, but look at the writing."

"It's not the same."

"Exactly, it's not the same. You know whose handwriting that is?" Axel paused briefly, "It's Xemnas'." He reached for a small, folded post-it with some scribbling on it that they had found stuck to one of the pages in the book. It was signed with Xemnas' name. He put it next to the entry in Esperanto to let Saïx see the similarities, "Xemnas was the one who encouraged Ansem to continue with the research. He wanted to be able to control memories."

"What for?"

"That's what I don't understand. It doesn't make any sense. If Xemnas is the one who wanted to control the memories, why would Ansem be out after us? Especially since he allegedly regretted doing the experiments."

Saïx reached for the documents when Axel suddenly caught a glance of something moving by the kitchen island behind them. He looked up and felt his heart drop when he saw Naminé stand there, looking back at him with her big and innocent blue eyes, pointing at something on the counter. She disappeared when he got up from his chair and he shivered.

"What if it's just someone using Xemnas' name?"

"I don't think so..." Axel walked over to the counter and saw the mail that Zack brought in and the big envelope was the first one to catch his attention. "There's no name on it," he mumbled to himself. He tore the envelope open and pulled out the file in it.

"Axel, what the hell are you doing?" Saïx turned around just in time to see Axel flip the file open and lose whatever shred of color he had left. "That's what you get for opening other people's mail, especially doctors' mail. What is it? An image of scattered brain?"

Axel kept flipping through the file and saw pictures of the girl he had seen on that video, of Su-mi's daughter that had been institutionalized and put under the care of Dr. Even and Dr. Ansem. The file consisted of admission documents, tracks of injuries and what he assumed to be before-pictures of an accident that had occurred abroad.

Delusional.

Hallucinogens.

Psychiatric ward.

Su-mi had said nothing about an accident, but maybe this was when Terra died. Aqua survived the accident, he didn't. Axel knew he was jumping to conclusions, but he couldn't help it. His imagination was on overdrive and there were so many questions he wanted answered, but who should he direct them to?

"Yeah – pictures of operations and stuff. You'll just puke again if you see it." Axel closed the file and tried to smile at Saïx, "Could you take a look at page 31, I think there was a figure or some picture that could help us with this."

As Saïx turned around to flip through the notebook, Axel hid the file underneath his jumper. He threw the envelope into the bin and shuffled with his feet when he heard Zack and Cloud walk back into the kitchen. He had never been so happy for being paranoid, he had told Cloud the absolute necessary and he had left big chunks of it out. They clearly had some affiliation with Ansem; why else would this be sent to them?

They all gathered around the table and Cloud continued with the translation.

"There a three stages in the process: Introduction, Adaptation and Acceptance. Rejection usually occurs late in the phase of Introduction or early in the phase of Adaptation. It then goes into cryptic explanations of how the procedure is done. It makes little sense to me, so I'm gonna skip that part. Here's a headline that says 'Rejection'." Cloud pointed at the headline and showed it to everyone, "It's of vital importance that signs of rejection are caught early on to avoid the slow and painful electrocution. The first signs are usually: shaking, sleep deprivation, nightmares, confusion, paranoia and the barrier between the two egos is weakened. If this is left untreated the brain will electrocute the body and affect vital areas that will torture the subject until death."

"What barrier? Why is there a barrier and why are there two egos?" Axel had goose bumps all over from hearing Cloud describe the monster's they had seen back in Kyoto.

"This isn't about controlling the memories anymore," Saïx said, "It's the third stage. This is the practical part. Memories leave an electric trace in the brain, an imprint that's deep enough for us to go back to it and remember what's happened. They can't simply be erased, they have to be overwritten by something else. That's why there has to be two egos – one that is being overwritten and the other with the new memories."

"What about people with amnesia?" Axel challenged.

"The conscious mind doesn't have access to the memories, they're there, but they can't be read. That's why some people with amnesia can recover the memories. Their conscious mind regains access to the memories it didn't have access to before, while others lose pass into that part of the brain forever."

"I'm not big on neuroscience," Zack cut in, "But that does make sense. If it's possible to overwrite a person's memories, you can make a new person, so to speak."

"But why go through that trouble? Why not just find the person you are so desperately trying to remake?" Cloud sighed, "Unless this is an attempt to make the perfect Manchurian Candidate."

"This doesn't seem to be advanced enough to make a perfect Manchurian Candidate. Not when they have to replace memories with other memories." Zack took the notebook from Cloud and looked at the strange drawings.

Axel stared ahead while the other three tried to decipher the drawings, like they weren't involved with this enough to know what they meant. Axel didn't mind playing the game, it was his neck on the line anyway, he was the only one here with a mark, the only one who saw the wench come and go as she pleased and he was the only one who knew about Aqua.

~ooo~

The clinically white room was cold and he had been soaked in water. The chair he sat in was made of some kind of plastic, his hands and arms had been tied down to it as well as his legs. There were wires on his head in different colors and he was hooked up to a machine that beeped with a five second pause in between. He wasn't sure why he knew that; maybe he had spent long hours tied up like this.

There were people in lab coats standing in the room. His vision was blurry and he couldn't quite make out their faces at first, but the blurriness slowly disappeared as he blinked slowly. The man standing closest to him reacted as soon as he started to pull on his restraints, his arms and legs were numb from the cold water and as he tried to call for help he realized that he had been gagged with something that kept his tongue down.

"We have a reaction."

The other man came closer, but the man with a notepad in his hand kept his distance as he wrote down everything he saw.

His eyes were probed open as they shone a bright light into them. It hurt. He tried to shy away, but his head was kept in place by the chair he was sitting on.

"The eyes are reacting to light," said the other man. "There's no rejection. This might be the candidate you've been waiting for."

He recognized the man that had come to him first. He couldn't quite see his face, but he recognized his voice. It was Xemnas. This was his laboratory and this was where he conducted his experiments. As he tried to pull free again, he felt a lock of hair fall down over his shoulder and down on his chest. It was a pale blue.

This was a dream.

"Fill the tank," Xemnas said to his assistant and turned back to face him, "We'll give it another go. It won't hurt as much this time, but you have to be patient. When the water starts to fall, don't panic."

He had to blink several times to get rid of the white spots in his sight, and just as he could see properly again, Naminé walked up to him with the same serene face as always. He tried to scream for help and pull free, but she ignored him and smiled gently as she pointed at the third man.

"Axel, look."

He looked at the third man and blinked away the water that was running down his face. His breathing was already heavy; the sense of panic in his chest made it feel like he was physically unable to pull in enough air into his lungs, but the sight of the man overseeing this torture was enough to make his heart skip a beat.

Saïx.

It was Saïx standing there, taking notes of the things Xemnas was doing. Was this what Naminé wanted to show him? Was this the agony Aqua had gone through just because she had put her faith in the wrong people? Axel shivered and stared at Saïx, trying to assimilate this with the person he had once befriended. This was what Saïx wanted to stay for, to be able to work as the scientist he never got the chance to educate himself into, he had found another way to fulfill his dream.

The tank was slowly filled with water, the glass around him was clean and allowed him to see the room perfectly, but all he could focus on was Saïx, and he wondered if this was what he had always been. Strangely, it would make sense to him if this was the monster he had befriended. Saïx had manipulated him for as long as he had known him, and Axel had played him right into his hands.

There was no point in feeling guilty anymore. He didn't mind admitting that he had been the one to drag Saïx into the world of the yakuza, but he couldn't take the blame for what Saïx was, what he always had been. It wasn't difficult to come to terms with what he was seeing, not at that moment, because it wasn't the first time he came to this conclusion.

The only person he could save now was himself, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to be the one to put an end to Saïx.

Axel closed his eyes as the water swirled around his mouth and he took one last breath as the water quickly came over his head. Xemnas stood by the tank, watching him fight against his body reflexes until he couldn't anymore and he took a deep breath of cold water that burned in his lungs.

"Axel! Axel! Damn it! Cloud, wake him up. I have to take him to the hospital."

He got up with a gasp, startling Cloud who had just leaned down to shake him. The nightmare was over. He moved his arms and legs to make sure that he wasn't restrained and earned weird looks from Cloud.

"What's with the screaming?" He asked and realized that his throat was sore.

"Zack had to take Saïx into the emergency room. He's bleeding out. We'll go after them, let's go." Cloud was already out in the hallway when Axel got up onto his feet and hurried after him.

"What do you mean? Did he injure himself?"

"I don't know, Axel. I just hope that it's just a very bad nosebleed and not a hemorrhage in his brain."

He was dragged out and pushed into Cloud's car. His mind was blank, and that tightness in his chest was worse than ever. He thought he wouldn't care as much after what Naminé had shown him, he had hoped that he would ease up about it and focus on getting his own life back on track, but even though he knew that Saïx was a monster, he couldn't stop hoping that maybe there were bits and pieces of Isa left to salvage.