AN: Lol sorry, the next few chapters WERE totally meant to be Namine/Roxas focused ones, buuut some of the other pairings and interactions were niggling at me and I just had to write it first to get it out of my head! xD It wouldn't leave me alone! :D So I did a bit of rearranging lol. :D But no big deal!

Isa departed the upper marketplace with two thin sticks of ice cream in his hand.

He made his way alone down the steps into Radiant Garden's ruined streets, proper.

Before leaving, of course, he did make the effort to wave awkwardly goodbye to the ones in the market who had tried their best to engage him in conversation - that Aerith woman chief among them.

The woman was kind - and he couldn't bring himself to spurn that kindness.

Moreover, he was actually trying to integrate himself with these people in some manner - to set himself apart from the other apprentices, and to give the citizens of his home world no reason to...similarly be wary of him.

Personally, he felt they (Aerith in particular) gave him far too much leeway in that regard. It was true, he had once been victim - but he had long-since turned into yet another perpetrator. A cruel, vile, uncaring monster of a being. One who had gone on to find and create his own victims...

He didn't deserve to be here, free, alive, and whole again - human again.

It should have been Lea.

Even as a Nobody, a part of Lea had survived; unquestioningly, he had shown signs of a Heart. A part of himself he had shared with the likes of Roxas (a part that existed, perhaps, only because of Roxas).

And not because of Isa.

Was this that unjust rage again? That pathetic jealousy?

No: it was simply the facts.

And the fact was that Lea was still out there, somewhere. Or, Axel, rather...

Because Isa had saved him. And in a twist of universal irony of the cruelest kind...he wished he hadn't done so. Because from what Isa now knew - from all he could surmise - Axel had nothing to be grateful to Isa for now. Not if it was true that the reason for Axel's continued absence - the reason he had yet to return home, as a human or otherwise - was that Xemnas...was that Xehanort still might have some use for him.

But what use could that be?

Isa only knew it could be nothing good - and that it was all his fault.

And yet, he could do nothing about it; he could only focus on what was right in front of him. Fixing these mistakes, righting these wrongs - right here at home. His damaged, broken home... Something that had come about, also, because of his own actions. If he had never followed Xehanort, if he had never become so lost, so bereft of purpose and reason that he had become...

Perhaps, yes, he could pin a good share of the blame onto the fact that Xehanort had actually placed a piece of his very Heart inside of Isa - and then, Saix, for whom it had been the only thing he'd had - leading to a slow descent into madness and a subtle, unnoticeable alteration to his own thought processes...but the rest of it had actively been Isa. His conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions that had driven him further along that path - influence of Xehanort or not.

Isa was Isa - and Saix...was the worst of him. Looking back on it all now, on his time as a Nobody, he hardly even recognized himself. But he did recognize...what had been he, and what had been Xehanort. And how the two had fed into each other, consciously or not. And now he realized-

Isa was pulled from his inner thoughts - quite literally - as someone seized his arm and pulled him nearly off his feet!

"Saved your life!" a familiar, light, and very pleased voice declared.

Isa blinked, stumbling to regain his footing. He set eyes on the woman before him - the woman still grasping his arm like that. He glowered at her, pressing his mouth tight. He tore his arm free, stepping back (he had never been one for physical contact, not even with Lea...or his parents - and yet this woman continually initiated it on pure whim). Then he blinked again, taking in a breath and glancing around himself.

And he realized that, yes, he might have been standing a little too close to the edge of the stone walkway between districts, overlooking the rooftops littering the ground some fifteen feet below...

Isa refocused on the woman again - Kana. That blue hair, blue eyes, and that ridiculously...immodest outfit of hers that left hardly a thing to anyone's imagination...and those twin, magical swords of hers, as well (she had called them victory prizes, but everyone else knew that the wizard Merlin had only granted them to her as a means to placate her). This woman, a Replica creation of- Even's... The stark difference in his own thoughts truly did shock Isa; that he was even thinking of her as a woman and not a-

A tool...a mere object, made to serve...

Fresh guilt twinged in Isa's human Heart at even this admittance - but he wouldn't shy away from it. He wouldn't be a coward, so weak and foolish, deluding himself, hiding from the truth - of himself, of how his life had gone...

No. No more of that.

"I suppose you did - thank you," Isa said finally, doing his best to ease the scowl off his face as he nodded to the woman - and then stepped on past her.

Predictably enough, she did not leave him alone: she twirled on an easy heel and stalked right after him.

Isa took a breath, then glanced back at her over his shoulder. "Was there something you needed?" he said, as politely as he could.

For the last month now, this woman had dogged his every step - just like this. Not that she didn't dog everyone's step...but he swore she sought him out far more often than any of the others. He also swore it was only getting more frequent with time...

Kana gave a shrug as she walked along - as she shuffled closer to him. Literally on his heels now, nearly. "Just trying to kill the boredom."

Isa restrained a growl and quickened his pace. "You won't get that from me," he told her. "I'm rather boring compared to most of the others in this city."

The woman's mouth turned to a small, now irritatingly familiar smirk. "I disagree."

Heavens, why...? Why me? Is this punishment? Penance? Or did Even put her up to this out of newly-regained human spite and pettiness?

Isa had done his best with this woman to exercise patience and restraint - and he had even indulged her in her whims several times over, in the past few weeks now - because he understood more than most just what she was: a new being. One bereft of all of life's most important lessons and experiences - socialization, education, etc. As Luxord might have put it: Kana wasn't working with a full deck of cards. Yet this understanding could only go so far, in Isa's view...and he thought he was soon approaching his limits - even as a human now, with a Heart full and capable of empathy and compassion once more.

Even as a human, before, he hadn't exactly been the best at exercising those parts of himself either...or, at least, not the best at expressing them. Because hadn't this all began due to his and Lea's insistence on sneaking into that damn castle...on finding and helping that girl locked away with all the others...? A girl who was a woman now, a woman he had seen briefly in Traverse Town during a grand strategy meeting a month back, but whom he hadn't had the time to dwell on since then (more irony?)...

He'd told himself - would have told Lea - that he was still doing all this to find her, to help her, and yet he knew that hadn't been true for a long time now. And now he'd found her, and he hadn't even bothered to look into her for weeks now, when he knew full well where she was. When he knew full well now that...Xikira...no, that Namine, had been telling the truth that night in Lea's room, back in the Castle That Never Was...

More guilt. Human remorse, washing through his body.

Isa had failed, at any rate: Xigbar - or, Luxu - had been the one to rescue her. Not Lea, not Isa.

He had gone so far off the path, he had descended as low as any man could go, and for all of that...he had still failed.

He was an utter failure of a man.

But, at least, now, he could try and set things right.

"Kana..." he sighed.

"What?"

He stopped, turning around fully to face the woman. He looked her in the eye. "I'd appreciate being left alone today." There - blunt, but as polite as he could have made it. Certainly an improvement over the way "Saix" would have told it to her (he wouldn't have even called her a "her"). Isa saw the woman's face change. He saw her falter, for an instant. He saw the smirk turn to a frown, and he watched her eyes narrow and sweep him up and down.

"Okay - why...?" she asked, utterly flippant - as if it hardly mattered, one way or the other. Or as if she were forcing herself to even ask such a thing.

But, even a few weeks ago, Isa reflected, and the woman wouldn't have even bothered to ask such a thing - even such a basic thing.

Perhaps Even was doing something right with the woman after all, then...not that Isa would ever give the man more than mere scraps of credit.

"I'm simply not in the mood to-" Isa began.

The woman darted forward, bending down; her hand shot out and touched his, then pulled away with a prize of ice cream in her grasp.

"You...give that back," Isa said harshly, stepping forward.

Kana held the stick of ice cream out to him, mocking and taunting - and then she unceremoniously shoved it into her mouth. Completely. Only the end of the stick was visible.

Isa wasn't sure whether to be impressed, or if he should be hoping she choked on it all.

Well...why not both? The thought in his mind - along with the traces of amusement brimming in the cracks of anger - surprised Isa.

Regardless, he proceeded to watch as the woman scraped the entire block of ice cream off the stick, tossed said stick aside, and then begin furiously chewing...until at last she gave two great swallows, devouring the ice cream.

"Are you pleased with yourself?" Isa said flatly.

The woman made a face of what seemed like instinctual disgust, giving her head a furious shake. "No - that was terrible! You actually eat that? And like it?"

Isa...gave a small grin to the woman. "I suppose to some it's an acquired taste. Perhaps that will teach you not to steal food from others...you never know what you might be in for."

"Eugh - yeah - keep it," Kana agreed swiftly. "It's all yours!"

"And you won't make the same mistake twice, will you?"

"Ugh - definitely not."

"Well then...good. And goodbye."

Isa turned away, striding off down the street.

But she continued to follow him.

He could hear her quick, light footsteps, her sharp intake of breath.

"Why did you want to eat it?" he said, not looking back at her as he walked on. To satisfy his own human curiosity. "I wasn't...aware you needed to eat at all. Do you?"

"Even suggested it," Kana spoke, with clear distaste. Rather literally, in this instance. "He keeps going on and on about how when the time comes that I get myself a human body like his, I'll need to eat every day - or I'll 'suffer the consequences.'" She gave a loud laugh practically in Isa's ear. "So he wants me to start 'getting into the habit of it' now. I still think it's all a huge waste of my time...It can't be that horrible, can it?" she added at the end, with a trace of uncertainty.

"For a human to not eat?" Isa said, glancing back at her now. "If you consider a slow, minute by minute, agonizing slide into weakness and fading life to be 'not that terrible'...I suppose so. I've heard it's one of the worst ways to die. I've heard it's excruciating..."

Kana stared at him, blanching, truly now. Those blue eyes of hers blinked at him as her mouth fell open. "The more I hear about this, the less I want to have a human body."

Isa gave a small chuckle. "Human bodies are fragile, and temperamental, and need...a lot of maintenance to keep them going - but everything else about it makes it worth it, I can assure you. Take it from a man who lived as a human, then became a Nobody, and is now human again. As annoying as it can be from time to time...I'd never wish to go back to being a Nobody again. I'd never want to...give up all that I have back again, now. It's a second chance at life - one I'm not going to waste."

"Being human can't be that great," Kana insisted, with a snort.

"I suppose when the time comes, you'll be able to see for yourself," Isa told her simply.

"Why did you have two of those things?"

"Hm?"

"That food."

Isa stopped again, considering her. Considering himself, as well. "It's just something that I used to do with a dear friend," he said finally. "The best...friend I ever had. Hmph - the only friend I had," he amended with amusement, shaking his head. "When we had the time and the munny, we'd often grab some ice cream - just something to treat ourselves with while we hung out together."

"So to you, it made things more enjoyable?" Kana responded. She put a great stress on the word "you."

It made Isa...almost laugh again. "Considerably, yes. Though, usually...his presence alone was enough..."

Kana looked, suddenly, thoughtful. Deeply so. A rare look on this one's face. After a few moments of this, she grinned and set a hand on her hip. With the other, she turned to point up the streets. "And this ice cream of yours - you got it from up there?"

"At the market, yes," Isa confirmed.

"Okay, then," she said, and then she spun around and strode off back the way Isa had come.

Isa gazed after her, feeling not the relief he should have felt at her departure, but instead a strange...

He shook his head firmly, striding off in the opposite direction with a fervor.

This part of being human, he did not miss! It was utterly, patently ridiculous - and he refused to entertain it.

He hadn't ever done so the last time he'd been human, and he wouldn't start now!

Safe and alone with himself now, he took out his ice cream and bit into it furiously.

Kana jumped her way up onto the rooftops, from one to the next, until she'd found herself right up against a high stone wall on the edge of the city. She jumped straight up, then again, and then ran up the rest of the way, doing a flip at the top to land in the middle of a tightly packed area. A little stone plaza, surrounded by little shops.

"Okay: who has the ice cream up here?" Kana demanded, gazing around herself.

Laughter rang out, as a long, black haired woman strode forward. "Wait a second...did you just...scale the wall - to get all the way up here?" Tifa said slowly, with her hand over her mouth.

"Yes," Kana replied, a pleased feeling in her chest. It made her smile. "Not that it was a big deal."

"Well, that sure beats taking the stairs," spoke Aerith, laughing too, as she gestured off to Kana's right.

Kana turned to look, finding a set of stone stairs leading down from the area - leading to what looked like several stone ramps. She scoffed at the sight. "That definitely would have taken too long - and been way too boring," she agreed.

"Got that one right! So then, what can we help you with today?" Aerith asked with a smile, coming forward with Tifa.

"Ice cream - right?" Tifa remarked, raising a finger. She turned and used that finger to point. "That would be right over there. Obviously you don't have to pay - we don't exactly have a working economy again here just yet - but...just be mindful to leave enough for others, okay?"

Kana frowned, but shrugged as she started off for the shopfront. She'd only come here looking for one ice cream anyways. She approached the tiny blonde woman at the counter, leaning over it and placing her hands onto it. "I'm here for an ice cream - a-" She stopped, realizing she had no idea what she was actually looking for. Her eyes roamed the inside of the shop. She raised a hand to point, relieved. "That - I want one of those!"

The woman nodded and took a stick of blue ice cream off the shelves for her, handing it over to Kana.

Kana held it tightly, gazing down at it with revulsion. But she still held tight to it as she turned away, striding back toward Tifa and Aerith. She stopped, eyeing the two women. "How's this?" she blurted.

"Mmm, sea salt - yummy," Aerith said brightly. "Great choice."

Tifa smiled softly at her, brushing her hair back. "One is good - really considerate of you."

Kana nodded, then strode for the edge of the plaza and leapt out into the open air with a whoop of excitement.

After venturing back across the city, Kana finally made it back to the castle.

She strode up to the front entrance - a large, stone clearing. Empty space now; all the rubble had been cleared out over the past few weeks...mostly because of her.

She saw the big, red haired man standing there in front of the doors - Aeleus, wasn't it?

This was the first time she'd ever seen him outside the castle.

When he spotted her, he stepped aside, giving her a nod.

Kana made to go through the door, then stopped. She glanced sideways at the man. "What are you doing standing out here like this for?" she asked, amused.

He didn't look half as amused as her. He didn't look anything, really. Boring. "Master Ansem forced me to accept my old post back," he said, in a murmur. "I told him repeatedly that I wasn't worthy of this...but he refused to hear it..."

"Your post?"

"My job - my duty - my responsibilities..." Aeleus clarified, with a sigh.

"And your job is to...stand around in front of a door?" Kana laughed.

Aeleus's jaw clenched. Then he sighed again, shaking his head. "Never mind that - you may go inside, of course."

Kana wanted to actually question him some more (she was finding that conversations could actually be pretty amusing in their own ways - entertaining!) but...she did have ice cream to take to someone.

So she moved on through the door. She walked the halls, took the steps down into the lower levels, and navigated still more hallways with exposed pipes until she came to the study room. She walked on through, entering the lab. She stepped across the walkway and entered the control room that overlooked the huge chamber of all those glass tubes on the walls.

There she found him: Even. He was standing before the main computer, hunching over it. Tapping away at the keyboard, and then scribbling on a spread of papers...

Kana rose up onto her toes, silently moving closer... "You should put some chairs in here."

Even startled, whirling around as he let out an incredibly high pitched yell. He stared at her, wide eyed. He held a hand over his chest for a moment, then dropped it. "What in the world is the matter with you?!" he exclaimed.

Kana grinned widely, and then she fell to her laughter.

Even stared at her, watching silently. Then he shook his head and turned away from her. "Body of an adult, mind of a juvenile..." he muttered furiously. "That was not in any way amusing, you know!"

"It was to me."

"Clearly," he retorted.

Kana stepped up beside him, leaning sideways against the console. Even silently and casually grabbed her arm, forcing her to lift her elbow so he could retrieve a sheet of paper - and move it to the other side of the console.

Even did some more writing, then glanced over at her. "Do you need something...?"

"A chair," Kana said humorously.

To her delight, a small smile came to Even's face. "Yes, we really should, shouldn't we? How astute. Ahem, though, really - what is it, Kana? I'm quite busy today."

"You're busy every day."

"And you're going to be glad I am, one day soon," Even replied firmly.

Kana rolled her eyes, then held up the ice cream.

Even eyed it for a moment, then shook his head. "When I told you to start getting used to eating, I meant healthy foods - not over-saturated, sugary heart-attack-causing pieces of junk..."

Kana's lips twisted. She blinked quickly. Then she shoved the stick forward, smacking him on the arm. "I don't like it either - but I- got it for you..." she mumbled out quickly, the words not quite making it out so easy for some reason.

Even did a double take. He stared at her for a long minute. He swallowed. "You- you...you did?"

"Yeah...but if it's just a piece of junk-" Kana started, pulling her arm back and preparing to hurl the thing at the far wall.

"K-Kana - don't!" Even said swiftly, seizing her wrist. With his other hand, he pried the ice cream from her grasp and took it from her. He gazed down at it, then he gave her another smile. A strange one. "I- that is- it's perfectly acceptable to occasionally enjoy heart-attack inducing junk foods..." he continued on. He paused, still staring at her. "And I...I truly appreciate how- wonderfully thoughtful and- ahem...sweet, seems the appropriate descriptor...it was of you to do such a thing for me. It was- sensitive and selfless and kind...and that's to be encouraged, and praised, and- yes, it's- it's very, very excellent for your...personal development. So- yes- I wouldn't mind you doing this sort of thing more often! Yes, very, very good, Kana. I am very proud of you today."

Kana nodded, smiling widely at him.

Even looked at the ice cream again, then bit into it. "Still as horrid as ever, I see..." he murmured. "No idea what Master Ansem sees in them..."

He might not have liked the stuff either, but Kana still watched him eat it all. And after he was done, he turned to her again and told her "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Kana said casually, arching her back to lay atop the console.

Even glanced at her. "Just sit if you must," he told her, with a touch of humor. "We really do need a few chairs in here..."