CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Riku and Sora disappeared into Sora's room for several long minutes, Axel sighing and sitting down. Roxas plopped down at his side, and they just… sat there, trying to wrap their heads around this. Between them, as had rapidly become habit, their hands were tightly clasped.

"There's no way I'm a god," Roxas muttered, trying to reject the notion, but the force behind the statement was… lacking. Axel remained silent, because all that aside, he was wondering why his head felt so – fuzzy. When Riku and Sora eventually emerged, Riku looked chastened, Sora grim.

They placed themselves on the sofa opposite Axel and Roxas, Riku directly on the scorched part, as Sora stared straight ahead for a moment, then met his brother's gaze. "Riku," he announced acerbically, "has something to tell you. All of it," he warned, shooting the wilting man a dagger-like look.

Riku leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and hung his head, his hands dangling limply from his wrists. "I just… I want to preface this with the fact that I thought no one would get hurt," Riku said, voice low but earnest, "and that I was told it was for the greater good." He lifted his head and looked wearily at Roxas. "It's true. You're a god. I don't know which god, but I think, for a second, I did." He sighed heavily. "You see… Ansem has Aerith create stuff for him. She's a goddess of planetary life, so she's… she's good with plants, and she makes some things for Yuffie to use in battle, and also, secretly, this stuff for Ansem called pixie dust. One puff and you forget your recent memories. And I think it was used on us all, back in the basement."

Axel abruptly punched a fist into his hand, startling everyone, exclaiming, "I knew it! I knew something was off in the elevator."

Blinking, Riku nodded. "It's – it's more effective the longer you go without remembering what you forgot. If you just don't think about it anymore… the memory would be gone after a good sleep. And that's," he admitted reluctantly, "how we usually do it."

"Usually do what?" Roxas asked, with great suspicion.

"Stop anyone from figuring your real identity out," Sora snapped, his glare angry. "Including. Me."

There was a stunned sort of silence that followed. Roxas was positively shocked. "He used it… on you?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper, at which Sora fiercely nodded, furious tears in his eyes. Riku looked like he wanted to throw himself off the nearest tall building.

"I didn't want to," he said despondently, but Sora wasn't in the mood to hear it.

"You said," Axel slowly reminded him, "that Ansem was holding the protection of Sora over you."

"You… stupid motherfucker," Roxas said, sounding more annoyed than angry. "Do you really think I would just sit back and let that happen? You saw what happened – Ansem was willing to accept Axel if it means keeping me around. Since I'm apparently a god," he added sarcastically.

Riku was starting to get upset, his usual mask slipping a little. "It wasn't just that." When both Roxas and Sora looked expectant, Riku stared down at the ground and, haltingly, said, "He would have… also erased our memories, for both of us.." He dragged his gaze up pleadingly, stuck on Sora's face. "He would have erased everything you know about… about me, about us, about anything. He might even be able to convince Roxas he never had a brother. Sora, with enough of that powder, he has the ability." He faltered. "And I… I was selfish. I didn't want to lose you."

Well, fuck. With reasoning like that, how could anyone actually stay mad at the guy? Glancing down at Roxas, he was pretty sure he'd do the exact same thing. Hell, he was willing to join the bad guys just for the sake of his best friend. Before… well…

"Aerith would never help Ansem create something like that," Roxas argued, as Sora looked stricken by Riku's revelation and Axel's frowned deepened. "She'd never be complicit in something so rotten."

Closing his eyes, Riku replied, "She does, the first time. But then, when he wants more and she refuses…"

Roxas's eyes widened. "He uses it… on Aerith? So that she just… keeps making it for him?"

"I honestly don't know how much he has," Riku shamefacedly told him, "because it's not an easy thing to make, or to convince Aerith to even do the first time. But I can tell you that whatever dream Kairi and Sora had, if any of us had any knowledge of it before we entered this apartment, it was taken from us."

"Why?" Sora demanded. "What we saw…" He trailed off for a moment, before jerking his head away, as though to escape the memory. "I can't see why Ansem wouldn't want anyone knowing about that. Like, I legitimately don't see how he benefits."

"…I might know," Kairi volunteered, from the phone, her first words in a while. Sora held her up, so everyone could see her face. "Going purely by Ansem's logic…" She thought for a moment. "If any of you had knowledge of what had happened, Ansem would want to get rid of those memories."

"Knowledge of what happened? Sora had a dream," Roxas complained.

"And Kairi," Sora pointed out, at which point Kairi fell oddly silent. They stared at her, all the way over in Destiny Island, a distant expression on her usually animated face.

"Kairi?" Axel asked carefully.

"I don't think… that it was a dream," she said uneasily. "I think that what Sora and I saw… was reality. I think that I died, guys." Now even Riku was staring, the four of them trying to process this new possibility. "I've never felt like that before," she went on, sounding haunted, and they could see it in her eyes – the sheer dread that being murdered had felt like. "I think that I lived it."

"But then why did I see it?" Sora asked helplessly. "I wasn't there! I had no way of knowing what was going on! But it was definitely a dream, because I woke up screaming from it."

Riku blinked at him. "Wait. When was this?"

"While you were at your fucking meeting!" Sora retorted. "I took a nap, okay? And then it all…" He again seemed to try to pull back from the vision. "It went badly. Very badly."

"But, more specifically, was this within the past couple of hours that you woke up?" Riku asked, sounding suddenly alert. Sora scowled at him, but considered it.

"Yeah, I guess like… an hour or so ago? Maybe a little longer?"

Axel and Riku both stared at Roxas, who jerked slightly at being the centre of attention. "What?" he asked, agitatedly.

"That's when I regained consciousness, as well," Kairi said, from the phone. "I say 'regained consciousness', but I hadn't actually been asleep. I was just… suddenly back home. And it was… earlier. Like the time hadn't passed, and I'd just been daydreaming or something."

"Did you stop to consider whether you were just daydreaming?" Roxas demanded. "And I still don't what any of this has to do with me."

"Well…" Kairi sounded reluctant, like she didn't quite want to say what she was thinking. "…If it's true that you're a god, and Riku seems fairly sure you are… maybe you did it, Roxas."

Roxas stared blankly. "…Maybe I did what?" he eventually asked, when she waited for him to respond.

"Took things… backwards."

Roxas sent her a flat look, which then shifted to include Sora, and Riku. "Are you out of your freaking minds?" he asked, monotonously. "In what –"

"Roxas –"

"Let me finish," he cut Sora off, sending him a glare. "Because what I would like to know is, in what universe am I able to manipulate. Time." He enunciated carefully, so that the ridiculousness of the statement could sink in, but even Axel had to admit that he was at least considering it.

"No one said you can manipulate time," Sora reassured him, trying to sound reasonable. "Just that, maybe, you know, one of your… godly powers," Roxas flinched, "is to make things go… back a little."

"Back to that meeting with Ansem," Kairi pointed out. "And what happened there?"

Realisation dawned on Riku. "We all got… pixie dusted. I even helped Cloud do it to the others, before he… apparently did it to me." Riku sounded resigned, like this had happened before. So he wasn't even allowed in on the big schemes; that, Axel supposed, was Ansem's failsafe for if ever Riku did… well, exactly this.

"Weren't we going to discuss how to – how to prove Demyx is still inside him?" Axel asked, at which Sora looked alarmed.

"You can't, though. If you do it, if you go, that's how it all starts."

"So we were returned to the deciding moment," Kairi mused. "And now, because of that, your plan to rescue Demyx in the park isn't going ahead as originally planned."

Axel was trying desperately to keep up with all this. "So, you're saying this happened already? And that our plan to save Demyx ends up with…" He couldn't say it; couldn't push the words past his teeth.

"I think he killed us, Axel," Kairi told him, hesitantly. "Well, me for certain. He did say that Roxas was next, as he…" It seemed she couldn't voice it either, albeit for different reasons.

Axel closed his eyes, massaging his forehead with the heel of his palm. He breathed slowly, deliberately, attempting to remain calm, and maybe not throw up. Because, yeah – he'd been thinking about how the park between his apartment and his ex-workplace would make a good spot to talk. It was open. It was isolated. It was somewhere where if things went… awry… it might take a little longer for someone to call the police.

But for that meeting to result in everything that Sora and Kairi were saying had happened…

"I just… I'm sorry, I can't see Demyx doing that," he told them, from between clenched teeth. "I know that you believe what you're saying, but –" His voice cracked.

Roxas touched him, first his shoulder, cautiously, in case he pulled away, but when Axel didn't resist he all but flowed around him. He held him tightly, giving Axel something to cling to, because he was feeling so lost right now, so confused and so lost.

"It doesn't make sense, though," Roxas said, Axel able to feel the vibration of his voice through their embrace. "Why would Xehanort suddenly decide to start killing people? It's not exactly his style."

"It's because you got Demyx away from him," Sora said, at which point Axel suddenly straightened back up and out of Roxas's grasp.

"Wait, we what? It worked?"

"I think you're kind of missing the part where you died because of it," Sora reminded him.

Looking down at Roxas, brushing a thumb over his face, Axel thought about it. "But if it worked the first time… then it can work again, right? And we were always going to keep him at Ansem's tower, where he couldn't hurt anybody –"

"But Xehanort. Hurts. Him," Kairi said, making sure he understood the gravity of what she was saying. "He leaves him just barely alive, so that you'll take his body and try to save him. The only way to do that is with me, and I…" She looked away, and for the first time, Axel noticed that she was on foot, walking somewhere.

"Where are you going?" he asked her, puzzled.

"I'm back on the move," she said, and it was with the deepest of sighs. "If I remember that alternate timeline, then so does Xehanort. We are closest to the fabric of reality, as old gods." The casual way she spoke, it was like she was talking about the differences between left-handers and right-handers. "That means he saw Destiny Island. He knows I exist, where I am, my power, everything." She shrugged, heaving along an apparently heavy backpack. "I have to drop off the radar for a while. It's been a long time since I had to." She looked sadly into her phone. "…I'm going to miss you all. So much."

"Kairi?" Sora frowned into his phone, then proceeded to look increasingly alarmed. "Wait, Kairi, no! Just come here! Ansem can cover you from Xehanort's view!"

"No, he can't," she bluntly, yet sorrowfully replied. "Xehanort will be able to find me now. If I remain in place, that puts all of you in danger. Sora, I'm so sorry. I loved getting to know you."

"We can protect you!" Riku yelled desperately over his shoulder, as Sora started openly weeping. "Kairi, please trust us!"

"Oh, Riku." She sighed. "You can't even trust yourselves. Everything in this cycle has become… so messy. I'm… I'm better off waiting for the next one. Until then, I'm doing the only thing I know to keep you all safe." She smiled at them, mournful, loving. "Don't trust Ansem anymore, all right? For me. Find your own way forward from here. And be careful. You are all… so dearly beloved by me." It was both of them speaking; the girl, and the god. They really were one entity. And they loved so beautifully, with their entire heart. "…See you in the next life," she wistfully said.

In the next moment, the phone screen went blank. Sora, Roxas, and Riku were staring at it in shock, while Axel was simply reeling. How had things become so insane, so quickly? Or was it quickly, if there was an entire other life that had already been lived once already?

"Kairi…" Sora dialled her, but the call didn't go anywhere. It didn't even get rejected, it just… didn't work anymore. She was erasing her own existence; no Ansem necessary. Sora started shaking his head, dialled again, and again, and again, to no avail. Riku was holding his shoulders tightly, while Roxas wrapped his arms around his twin's midsection and gazed with him as the phone rejected his attempts again and again. His hands trembled. "I don't – I don't have another life," he said, brokenly. "Kairi, come on."

Eventually, Roxas murmured, "Let me try," and pulled out his own phone, as if this would somehow make a difference. The call rang out into the ether, with no one to answer it.

Gulping, grabbing at Roxas, Sora commanded, "Go after her. Find her."

Roxas unzipped from the room in a heartbeat, leaving them all there to just… wait. It was the waiting that was the worst part. Even if it was the worst case scenario, Axel just wanted to know, without all of this useless, helpless fucking about. They drank tea, so much tea that the smell of it was starting to make him feel sick, but it was the only beverage in the house. Imagine. An entire apartment with zero coffee. Axel would have to bring his own damn grounds in future. How could they not have coffee. Kairi's place had…

His face dipped. It had been hours. Roxas had been out there, searching, for hours. He could move anywhere he wanted, so fast you could blink and miss it, but he hadn't found her yet. He must have been all over Destiny Island and not found her, but still, he was out there. And it was only as dawn was staining the sky that he returned, looking like he'd been through mud, and storms, and deep places, and high places, and bright places, and dark places, and the space within space itself. But he returned alone, and desolate. Axel, who was the only one still awake, determined to remain so until his return, was up and enfolding him in an instant. Roxas started crying, and the noise roused the slumbering Riku and Sora, curled up fast asleep together.

Upon waking, Sora jerked away from Riku, apparently still bothered enough with him for his deceit that he had not intended to sleep upon him as he had. But he rapidly forgot the issue, rising to his feet, Axel releasing Roxas so he could turn to Sora, who was already matching his tears. As the twins wept, Riku buried his face in his hands, and Axel hung his head. Their one, true ally was gone. Their… their friend.

"She'll be safe," Roxas whispered to Sora, who nodded wordlessly. He rubbed his back roughly. "She'll be safe. That's what matters. She'll be safe."

"If even Roxas can't find her," Riku offered, with a watery smile, "you know she's so far off the grid, Xehanort will forget he ever saw her long before he actually finds her."

With a sob, Sora turned and flung his arms around Riku. Axel followed Roxas to his room, and they closed the door, curling up on the bed with the curtains drawn. He held Roxas from behind, the hand overhanging his body clutched hard by the boy. Tucking his face over Roxas's, they stared together at the far wall, wrapped together, feeling… pain. Confusion. The comfort of one another.

"Whatever they saw…" Roxas softly said, into the dim afternoon light slipping past the curtain. "It must have been real. It must have already happened once."

Axel squeezed him. "Nothing's happened. We're right here."

"…What if we weren't?" He turned onto his back, his face inches from Axel's. "What if I'm a god? What if I… decided to reset time, rather than die?"

"So you're, what, the god of time loops?" Axel grinned faintly.

"Kairi's gone, Axel," Roxas said, the joke falling flat, Roxas refusing to be drawn from the topic. "She believed, with every part of her, that it happened and that she needed to hide from Xehanort. Her whole advantage was that he didn't know about her, and we fucked that up." He tapped Axel's shoulder, as if hitting him, maybe wanting more… to hit himself. The hand then squeezed him. "What did I… What did I do?" He met Axel's gaze searchingly, hoping desperately for answers.

"Ansem," Axel said slowly, scowling. "Ansem took that from us. He stole the answers. And Cloud, too." He tilted his head. "They don't know that we know. Now, that's our only advantage. We might not know the details…" He brushed Roxas's hair softly, sighing. "But we know enough."

"Enough to what?" Roxas asked, hopelessly. "Take on Ansem? He'll remove our protection and Xemnas will get us. He'll either turn us into puppets or kill us, Axel, that's not a solution, even if it means getting back close to your old flame."

"'Old flame'," Axel laughed a little at his jealousy at a time like this. "Does that make you my latest flame?"

Roxas slowly took hold of a fist of his shirt. "I prefer 'only flame'."

"I like that," Axel agreed, kissing him deeply, climbing over Roxas and settling. "You're my spark," Axel breathed. "I only burn because of you." They continued kissing, until Roxas started weeping again.

When they parted, Roxas demanded shakily, "What are we supposed to even do? Kairi said to go our own way, but…" He sniffed, looking off to the side. "How are we meant to do that? We can't take on Ansem, any more than Ansem can take on Xehanort. It's useless." He sobbed slightly. "We couldn't even get Demyx properly, and we lost Kairi because of it." Again, he looked up at Axel and asked, "What are we meant to do?"

Axel thought about it. He thought it about even as Roxas drifted off to exhausted slumber in his arms, and, as he followed, he thought about it further. He dreamed about it. And when he woke up, he had an idea.

They all convened at the kitchen table, taking their seats seriously.

"We need to tell Aerith the truth," Axel told the other three. "She needs to be in on this."

Nodding seriously, Riku said, "Agreed. I'm going to speak with Leon. I'll tell him about Kairi, about Ansem, everything. He needs to be able to get to Cloud outside of Ansem's influence and really needle him about it."

Eyebrows rising, Axel asked, "Oh, so Leon and Cloud are –?"

"Like absolute rabbits at home," Riku confirmed. "Do not try to speak to either of them outside of business hours." He met Axel's gaze with a sort of crazed, disturbed look. "Really. Just don't."

"…Noted…"

As Axel shook his head to try and clear it of that image, Roxas said, "I was thinking of visiting Vincent." Sora groaned slightly.

"That guy is so hard to hold a conversation with," he complained.

"It would help to have someone else outside of Ansem's sphere of influence," Riku pointed out, Sora sighing sharply and nodding.

"I was thinking of introducing him to Axel. Spice things up a bit," Roxas informed them.

"Exactly what kind of spice are we talking here?" Axel asked with some concern, afraid they were pimping him out somehow.

"Get out the violin, play the saddest fucking music you can think of, we might have a communicative Vincent," Roxas suggested.

"Saddest?" Axel echoed, Riku shaking his head.

"You'll see," he said heavily, not exactly assuaging Axel's fears so much as shifting them to imagining some other kind of extremely unpleasant encounter.

"Oh, my god, that could totally work," Sora mumbled. Then, meeting Axel's eyes, he just said, wearily, "…You'll see. And I…" he sighed a little, "…will wait here for Hayner, Pence, and Olette with that sofa they managed to find us."

Riku kissed his cheek, and he pulled away a little, but not quite as much as before. It seemed like Sora wasn't so good at keeping grudges.

"So," Roxas placed his hands together and pointed both index fingers at Riku, "you, Leon, us," he pointed now at Axel, "Vincent, and Aerith."

"Subtly," Riku pleaded. "Ansem's not stupid, he'll figure us out if we're not careful."

"Subtly, then," Roxas agreed, with a sideways glance at Axel.

"I can do subtle," Axel defensively responded. "You know. When the situation calls for it."

"Well, then." Sora looked around at everybody. "You guys know your parts. Play them extra well, for me, too."

Texting as they left the apartment, Roxas called back, "Let me know when the sofa gets here."

"Sure, I'll send you a…" The door slammed after them, leaving him to mutter, to the empty apartment, "…message." As the new silence settled, he mumbled, "Fucking gods." Then, with a sad, longing look at his phone, he tucked it away and slowly began tidying up.