CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As they headed downstairs, Roxas, holding Axel's hand, said casually to Riku, "I'll text you when it's time to talk to Aerith, okay?" and, without waiting for an answer, unzipped the universe and zipped he and Axel back into existence on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

Hit both by a blast of ocean spray and the dizziness of the sudden shift, Axel yelped in surprise, clutching Roxas. Becoming aware of a looming building, he craned his neck back to gaze up at a lighthouse. They were – at the base of an offshore goddamn lighthouse. If he squinted, Axel could see the mainland on the horizon, but then his eyes were full of salt water as the ocean collided against the stone base, and he was trying to rub seawater out of his eyes. Glaring through the stinging, he called over the crashing to Roxas, "A little warning would have been nice!"

Roxas had already pulled up his hood, and yanked Axel's arm, over to a wet, weather-worn ladder up to a platform from which they could then climb stairs just to reach the damn thing. After that, Axel wasn't even sure what happened, he'd never been in a lighthouse before. Getting wetter with every smashing wave, Axel held up his drenched arms and demanded over the noise, "Really?"

Roxas shrugged apologetically, then took hold of the ladder and started his ascent. Cursing under his breath, Axel blinked around at the sheer isolation, before, sighing sharply, he followed Roxas upward. Every grip of the ladder rung was a struggle to keep from slipping, Axel weaving his arms through each time before he stepped. Eventually, the ladder gave way to the platform, the man dragging himself up before throwing himself down on the ridged metal flooring to gasp for breath.

Up here, they were out of range of the vast majority of the sea spray, and could actually hear each other, Roxas lowering and unzipping his hoodie and saying, "Sorry about that. I don't usually have passengers, I keep forgetting to let you know."

Axel was already sitting up, shivering, peeling off his outer shirt so he was just in his slightly less damp tee. "Damn it," he muttered, tossing the plaid shirt away with an audible splat, before Roxas bent and hugged him, pressing his significantly drier face against Axel's chilled cheek.

"I'll try harder," he promised, before leaving a warm kiss behind, and standing to tug Axel to his feet.

Gripping the metal railing for stability, the ocean sounding hungry beneath them, he looked around and asked, "Why the hell are we all the way out here? Why is anyone out here?"

Roxas reluctantly tipped his head to the side, clasping his hands behind his back. "Well, this is where Vincent lives. And Vincent… likes…"

"If you say 'privacy', I won't be responsible for my actions," Axel muttered, still shivering, his bare arms bearing the brunt now of the ocean wind.

"…He likes to keep as much space between himself and humanity as possible," Roxas finished.

"Well, I would say he's succeeded," Axel declared, tossing disbelieving arms wide to encompass the absolute emptiness of the space surrounding them. He received a quick hug from Roxas before the blond took the lead, pulling him up a set of stairs carved right into the rock face itself. Resignedly, Axel followed without further complaint. At least the wind was drying him off. It whipped at them, Axel lifting Roxas's hood back over his hair as they struggled upward. The stairs eventually gave way to the rough, rocky plateau on which the lighthouse was established. A few particularly hardy, scrubby plants dwelt here, but other than the occupant of the lighthouse, there was basically no other life for miles around.

"You couldn't," Axel panted, arms folded for warmth, shoulders hunched, "just have brought us directly to this spot?"

But Roxas shook his head. "Not if we want his help," he replied. "Vincent has his own set of rules, and one of them is that if you want to talk to him, you have to do it as old-fashioned as it comes."

"How would he know the difference?" Axel demanded, though chattering teeth. Roxas pointed upward, even as he knocked at the lighthouse door. Following his finger, Axel saw a camera staring blankly back at him. Motherfucker.

"Old-fashioned, my ass," he mumbled, jumping in place.

"He also has alarms set up," Roxas explained, hands dug into his pockets, squinting one eye against the sunlight. "So there's just no way for me to get here without pissing him off unless it's from the base."

"And why do we want his help, again?" Axel wondered, just as the door slowly, heavily eased open. It creaked agonisingly every inch of the way, like it hadn't been moved in months.

By the time it was fully open, there was a brief silence, before the dark-eyed, unkempt man on the other side quietly said, in a deep voice that sounded as underused as the hinges, "…Guess I should oil that." Axel couldn't help but stare at this long-haired, expressionless, positively gaunt man. He looked like the human incarnation of a crow. "What do you want, Roxas?"

"Vincent, we need help," Roxas started to say, before the man cut him off with a single motion of his hand.

"I don't get involved. Just leave me alone." He then hesitated. "I would ordinarily close the door on you," he sighed, "but you can just pass right by it, can't you?"

"And this guy could burn it down, if he wanted," Roxas added, nudging Axel with his elbow. Oh, was it introductions time?

Still fucking shivering, because it was extremely cold out here, he held out his hand. "Hey. Axel. Newly awakened. Reincarnation of fire and passion."

Vincent looked at his hand, then up at his face. "…You've been healed by Kairi, haven't you?" he asked. He reached out with bony fingers and took hold of Axel's jaw, turning his face carefully from one side to the other. "The flesh of your face is newer than the rest of you."

"…Okay, that's weird," Axel carefully commented, from within his grasp, "but you're not wrong." Never mind why.

"Kairi's gone, Vincent," Roxas heavily said, the man momentarily going still.

"In what capacity?"

"Xehanort knows about her. She had to… go on the run, I guess." Roxas said it miserably, but Vincent relaxed again, and let Axel go.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Vincent rasped bluntly.

"We died, Vincent," Roxas told him, just as straightforward. The man blinked, glanced at Axel, then, scowling faintly, thought for a long moment.

"…You have… seven minutes," he told them, and stepped back to allow entry to the lighthouse's interior.

At long last, Axel experienced warmth again, sheltered from the cold and the wind and the sea by thick, salt-eroded walls. There was even a slow combustion stove, well-stocked and radiating, Axel drawn to it with a relieved sigh. Vincent led Roxas to a small table with two aged chairs at it. Roxas's one released dust as he sat, while Vincent's seemed well-worn, like maybe he spent a lot of time sitting here, staring out through that window at the sky.

"Seven minutes?" Axel looked over his shoulder, from the soothing embrace of heat.

"Ten from the moment he opened the door," Roxas shortly explained, before turning back to Vincent. "Things are starting to spiral, Vincent. It's not the usual stuff."

"You said you died. What brought you back?" Vincent speculatively asked.

Roxas sucked a breath through his teeth. He didn't want to have to state it so plainly, but time was evidently of the essence. "I have… recently learned… that –"

"Roxas is a god, too," Axel said, for him, cutting through his hesitation. "And my best friend has become one Xehanort's puppets, but we think he's still in there. Except that apparently, we tried to rescue him once already, and – and Xehanort caused my friend to kill Roxas and Kairi, and maybe me, I don't know." Axel looked away, not wanting to dwell on that one. Not because he didn't want to think about Demyx killing him – but because he was pretty sure Demyx wouldn't, and he didn't know what was going through Demyx's head anymore. Quietly, he concluded, "And because Roxas is a god, everyone thinks he somehow managed to make time – go backwards to before it happened."

Drumming his knuckles nervously on the table, Roxas told Vincent, "I… don't know what to think about all that, but both Kairi and my brother had identical dreams that ended with us getting killed, and before she went off-grid, Kairi said she was pretty sure it had actually happened."

"In the meantime," Axel said tightly, "Ansem's a goddamn liar, he's brainwashing Aerith, brainwashing everyone probably, and Xehanort has more strength than ever while we're down by Kairi. And Kairi was cool."

Vincent held this in his head for a moment, eyes closed, before murmuring, "She is quite cool." He cracked his neck, pushing the hair away from his eyes to make full, proper contact with Roxas. "So it's a shift, then. The status quo is collapsing."

"I – I guess it is," Roxas said, sounding disheartened, but Vincent only nodded, seeming to confirm something in his own mind.

"Very well. I will assist you."

"I – wait. You will?" Roxas checked his phone, and a glance at his screen showed Axel that he had a timer running downwards on it that he had apparently begun the moment Vincent opened the lighthouse door. There was still over two minutes left.

"There's no point in joining a futile war," Vincent said, seeming to refer to the entire Xehanort situation as if it were something merely bothersome, "but a war where change can occur? I'll partake." Roxas looked lost for words, clearly expecting a harder sell, up until Vincent followed up with, "And then you leave me alone again, and leave me out of everything that follows."

"Deal," Roxas agreed, shaking his proffered hand. He tossed an amazed glance at Axel.

Vincent sat back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee, and he hadn't really changed anything but his position, yet somehow now he seemed… longer than before, and larger. Like the stretching of a shadow. "Tell me about the brainwashing."

"Ansem has been tricking Aerith into making pixie dust for him." Roxas was sticking to the bare facts, as though any extraneous information could queer the whole deal.

Vincent's mouth hardened. "What of Cloud?"

"He's in on it," Roxas dejectedly answered, "and that's the only thing I can't really figure out."

Vincent quietly closed his eyes and considered. "Pixie dust for forgetting. Secret god. Time unwound." He pondered. "The power of the wind god," Vincent mumbled, staring into space, "was always motion and time." He stared at Roxas. "…The forgotten god is Ventus."

"Wait, where have we heard that before?" Axel wondered.

"…Demyx," Roxas said, voice shaking slightly. "He's the one who brought up Ventus. I remember, because I wanted to know who Ventus was, too. Because he…"

Abruptly, Axel remembered. The one who had come between Demyx and Axel, back in the ancient days… that was Ventus. 'That little slut'.

But Roxas was shaking his head, still unable to accept it. "No, I mean – I've always been the messenger of the gods. There's always one, and that's me this cycle, right? Right from the start, that's who I've been."

Vincent tapped one long, bony finger on the tabletop. "Who woke you, back before Ansem was using you to do it?"

"…I – I don't know. I've just… always known I was the messenger," Roxas said, sounding confused. Vincent eyed him beadily.

"You're sure about that?" he asked hoarsely. "You're definitely the one who woke Ansem? Not the other way around?"

"How, how could Ansem even wake people before me?" Roxas wondered uncertainly.

"How does Xemnas wake people?" Vincent countered, watching him intently. Roxas opened his mouth, then closed it and looked away.

Axel looked between them slowly. "What? What am I missing? Xemnas's side doesn't have a – a Roxas of their own for waking people?"

"What Xemnas's side has is a mystery we have yet to come close to knowing," Vincent muttered, before wryly asking Roxas, "Or has that changed in this cycle?"

Silently, Roxas shook his head. "We don't… we don't know much about what Xemnas does. Only that he's spreading, possessing more and more people… like Axel's best friend…" He shot Axel a regretful look. "But I've never encountered anyone on his side who can – see like I see."

"So Ventus can see the gods," Vincent observed, curiously, Roxas shaking his head hard.

"No – no. I'm not Ventus, goddamn it."

"Then, who are you?" Vincent asked, and Axel blinked, also looking over to see what the answer was.

Roxas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well… no one has told me yet."

"Riku doesn't know because Ansem doesn't let him remember," Axel said, "so literally the only two people who know the truth are Ansem and Cloud."

"All that tells you is that you can't confirm or deny it yet," Vincent answered mechanically, "which means the possibility exists."

"Who even is Ventus?" Axel demanded, exasperated. "No one knows who he is, except for you, and probably Kairi until she comes back." Axel jabbed a finger at the bedraggled man. "So how do you know about Ventus?"

"Because Ansem can't get to me," Vincent said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and suddenly it all fell into place. Even the name Ventus hadn't meant anything to anyone but Ansem and Cloud. For that to happen, that meant they must have used to the pixie dust heavily. On everyone.

"But that still brings us back to 'why'," Roxas frustratedly pointed out. "What would be the point in hiding my existence? Even from me?"

"Maybe especially from you," Vincent impassively commented. "Ansem is a god of judgement. If he has deemed it necessary to hide you from yourself…"

"…Then he somehow managed to loop Cloud in, because of how strongly he believes in himself," Axel muttered, recalling Kairi's description of Ansem's own sense of infallibility. "Which means the only way to show him the error of his ways… is with proof." He looked at Roxas. "We need to crack you open and get that god shit on full display."

Roxas's eyes went wide, and Axel thought he saw the shadow of a smirk on Vincent's thin lips. This was definitely going against the status quo. "Axel," Roxas said, with forced calm, "we don't even know if it's true –"

"So Kairi left for no good reason? Sora just happened to have a dream in which you guys died, and Ansem just happened to fucking steal our memories of whatever happened next? And all the while, there's this… big… stupid mystery over some god no one under Ansem's zone of control remembers?" He ticked it off on his fingers. "Demyx knew about you. Vincent knows about you."

"Well, what about Kairi?" Roxas argued. "Surely, of all people, she would have recognised me for what I was."

"Why?" Axel asked simply. "Even she can't see other gods, and she's one of the most powerful. You are the only one so far with the ability to see gods. And read people's auras, or whatever the fuck it is you do. Not to mention being the only one capable of moving through space, which is the one thing Kairi pointed out." He went to where Roxas was sitting, frowning to himself, and crouched beside him, looking up into that perturbed face. "All along, I was saying it – all along, Sora's clearly been saying it. You're not just a messenger. You're a full-blown god."

"Reincarnation," Roxas grumbled, Axel rolling his eyes.

"Fine. Reincarnation. We all are, except for Kairi and Xehanort. We are all reincarnations, and that… includes… you." He placed his hands on Roxas's knees and squeezed lightly. "Sooner you accept it, the sooner we can wrap this up, buddy." He was sympathetic. He knew how it felt, entirely too freshly. Roxas was resisting, just like Axel had. It was a lot to take in.

"So, what? I can see others gods, I can move through space, and I can… change the past?" Roxas asked, scoffing.

"A power that someone like Ansem wouldn't approve of anyone else having," Vincent remarked.

Axel straightened sharply, startling the other two by suddenly exclaiming, "Yes! That's it!" Then, when they blinked at him, he shook his head slightly, apologising for the volume. "It's just – Kairi said he didn't like having her around. So, thinking about it: you're Ansem, you like being top dog, you see a full-blooded god and you go 'no, thank you, let's keep an ocean between us' and that's just dandy." Axel was on a roll now, conjecturing feverishly but also with unfolding clarity, the dots connecting one by one. "But some kid shows up, a reincarnation, who can move around at will and undo the past? That's too much power in a reincarnation, way too much for a kid. No way would Ansem stand for it. So the second he finds you – he dusts you. He changes it all, right in here." Axel tapped the side of his head, gazing into Roxas's bewildered features, willing him to see the line as brightly as he did. "And then he just… leaves it. What did Riku say? The longer you go without questioning it, the more it settles in? You didn't even know how to question it." Axel's grip tightened on his thighs. "He just changed your memories, and kept you close to keep an eye on you. And he managed to convince Cloud that it was the right thing to do."

There was a low rumble from Vincent, the pair of them glancing over at his newly darkened expression at the subject of Cloud's involvement. "His sense of justice was always prone to corruptive external influence," he muttered.

Raising his eyebrows, Axel looked at Roxas. "'Prone to outside influence'. Roxas, that is Ansem. And you already know he's a goddamn liar, so where's the blockage happening?" He reached up, pushing his fingers through those soft blond spikes. "Where," he asked, gripping Roxas's head with gentle frustration, "in here, are you refusing to entertain the notion?"

Roxas looked down at his knees, where Axel's hands had been. "It's just…" His voice was halting, quiet. "This was never meant for me, you know? I'm not a god, I'm just… I'm just a messenger."

"You're more than that," Axel told him, quietly but firmly. "You've always been more than that. From the first day you looked at me, I saw someone I knew. Someone I remembered." He rubbed Roxas's head briefly, asking, pleading, "Haven't you felt that with me?"

When Roxas's eyes slid shut, Axel knew the argument was over. The blond's whole body sagged slightly. "So I'm a slut, huh?" he mumbled.

Axel laughed slightly, pulling him down and kissing his forehead. "My slut," he assured him. Their heads touched briefly, before Vincent drily cleared his throat.

"At any rate," the man said, going on as if there had been no interruption, "it makes the most sense. Roxas must be Ventus. He reversed time, and Ansem somehow knew and made it so you'd all forget whatever it was that you heard or saw at that moment." He looked mildly stirred from his stagnancy. "This is the most interesting thing to happen to me in cycles."

Axel frowned. "Wait, you remember your past lives?"

"Some of them. The ones I'd prefer not to most strongly," Vincent expressionlessly replied.

"Um, Vincent is a god of… memory and death," Roxas softly informed Axel.

"'Memento mori'," Vincent murmured, bitterness in that gravelly voice. "A pleasure, I'm sure." He pulled out a long, slender pipe from a small jumble-filled bowl, took out some tobacco, stuffed the pipe and then held it out to Axel, who sent him a questioning look in return. "Would you mind?" Vincent asked, Axel suddenly realising the nature of the question.

"Ohhh, no, you don't want me doing that. The whole place could go up."

Looking around at the stone walls, Vincent replied, "I highly doubt that," but shrugged and dug around further for a lighter, which, after several fruitless clicks, lit his pipe. "So you're… quite new," he observed through an exhalation of smoke, his intense eyes seeming to burn like coals through the smog. Death and memory. No wonder he was holed up on his own. Axel wasn't sure he'd deal well with it, either.

"Three weeks, give or take," he replied, with a helpless lifting of his shoulders. "And it has been a shit-show since day one."

This time, Vincent almost actually smiled. "…That's the best way to be," was all he said, taking a long pull on his pipe.

"So, we can count on you?" Roxas asked, still just making sure.

"You can," Vincent replied, shortly. "I have a short-wave radio you can contact me on."

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Axel asked, while Roxas dug an elbow into his ribs and nodded.

"Cid knows the frequency."

"Oh, so we've got Cid on our side already?" Axel wondered aloud.

"If you've convinced me," Vincent said, shortly, "Cid will be extremely easy."

Somehow, Axel doubted that, from what he'd seen of the gruff old man. But convincing Vincent had been fairly easy, after all the build-up. All it required was a total shift from the norm for him to be on board.

Turning to Roxas, he asked, "So, who's next? Aerith?"

Vincent paused in his smoking, tapping his pipe slowly against the table. "…She is an old friend of mine," he eventually said. "Be gentle with her."

Considering Vincent's long memory, Axel didn't doubt the statement, and both he and Roxas nodded in response. With a querying glance, Roxas asked Vincent, "Is it okay if I…?"

"…Just this once," Vincent allowed.

Turning to Axel, taking hold of his hands, Roxas said, "We're about to move. Ready?"

Axel drew a breath, never ready, but nonetheless giving the affirmative. "Let's do this."

And with Vincent's black-eyed gaze on them, they unzipped from the lighthouse and into the crushing darkness.