A/N: Wow, I've been...out of commission. I haven't even responded to everyone. I'm sorry about that. I'm supposed to be less busy this time of year. Surprise, huh? That's how it goes, I guess.

Thank you mysteryreader6626, LunaEtSidera, WhiteMage, AllOtherNamesHaveBeenTaken, nafara, sleezygazelle11, and Talye Kendrin for reviewing last chapter. Though I didn't get to respond to all, please know it means a lot to me.

And another Thank You to AllOtherNamesHaveBeenTaken. Your message made me feel better. I'm my own worst critic, but I will try to be more proud of myself. :)

::XIII::

ashes of rage

The wind chilled her skin, raising goosebumps, despite the sun shining florescent bright, blazing her peripheral with white that was almost like a fog in the way it distorted her vision. The grass grew a fresh green at her feet, the sweet tang of clover blossoms drifted to her nose, and the song of birds and bees filled her head.

Looking back, she couldn't remember why she was aimlessly standing in the yard.

A brown Doberman trotted up, panting around the large ball protruding from its mouth.

Oh, right. She was playing with the neighbor's dog…who was called "Snowy," for some reason.

"Snowy~" she cooed softly, and the dog dropped the ball, nudging it to her feet with its nose. Dexné complied with the request and kicked the rubbery sphere. With a loud squeak it flew to the other side of the yard. Snowy never took its—his—eyes off it, and bounded after it with a glee Dexné could only ponder at.

"Cute dog."

Dexné looked to her right. "How'd you get here?"

"Magic." Lea flashed a toothy smirk. "I walked, dummy."

"Oh. Yes. Of course."

"What's his name?"

"Snowy."

Lea arched a brow. "Really?"

"Really." She kicked the proffered ball again, sent it, and a pursuing Snowy, soaring across green grass.

Lea eyed the dog's brown coat. "Huh…"

Companionable quiet took over, with nothing but the whistling wind and the fast patter of paws and squeaky ball filling the void.

"What is it?" she asked after noticing Lea's wistful expression.

"Isa always wanted a dog."

"Why not get one?"

"His parents."

No other explanation was needed.

"Oh…" Dexné punted the ball further. She watched the Doberman leap after it like a child going after its favorite ice cream truck. "…He could always come and play with Snowy. Mrs. Jemima doesn't mind. She appreciates it actually. She says she's too old to really kick it for him."

"You know," Lea sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets and stretching his shoulders back, "he just might do that. Hey, I'll come too. Then we can play keep away."

"From Snowy or from Isa?"

He chuckled. "Why not both?"

Dexné's lips twisted in a fought-against smile. She could just picture Isa snarking at them, with his arms crossed over his chest, for not kicking the ball his way. And Snowy, wide-eyed and slobbering from all the excitement, wouldn't know the difference beyond more people to play with.

The wind blew softly, gentle apart from the icy fingers it trailed across her skin. It batted Dexné's hair in her face like an annoying sibling and rustled Lea's like he was the favorite.

"…Could you stand with your back to the wind? Or face the wind, if you rather not look at me."

Lea threw her a funny look. "Uh, sure. But why?"

"You'd make a more effective wind breaker."

"Really?" He laughed, turned towards her.

"Thank you. Wind's cold. You're not cold, are you?"

"Nah, I'm good." He kept his eyes on her. The green irises shined with warm mirth. It was unsettling, somehow. It would have made more sense to look over her head, or through her. That's what Dexné would do. She avoided eye contact, looking only when the other person wasn't. Or not, as it seemed she couldn't stop glancing at Lea. His stare was steady, unwavering. Dexné, meanwhile, locked eyes, tore gaze away, locked eyes, and so forth.

Her mind was scattered that day. More so than usual.

"Chilly wind," she repeated. "Nice day, though. Sun's out. Snowy~" She wriggled her fingers at the dog as the ball was pushed to her feet once more. The dog paid her fingers little attention, eager stare trained on the ball's rubber flesh.

"You seem chipper today," Lea noted.

"I am. It's a nice day. Sun's out. The birds are happy. I think I'm happy too."

"Smile, then."

She blinked. "…I thought I was."

Lea leaned over, peered into her face. He squinted. "Looks like it's stuck in neutral." His hands framed her face, thumbs pressing into the corners of her mouth, pushing upward.

Dexné's heart rammed her ribcage, heat broke out and blasted off the chilled breeze. The proximity was too much, and her body's reactions made her panic. She lunged, smashing her face to his chest in a sudden and desperate attempt to hide it.

Like lightning, she pulled away. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"It's all right!" Lea held up his hands as if he were being mugged. Then, gently: "It's all right…"

She muttered a few more rapid-fire apologies. Her breath still had not settled when she said, "You know, a lot of people assume I'm smart. And then there are more who think I'm not. And if—if they heard me open my mouth or—or if they took a minute to really look at me, then they'd all know I'm actually retarded."

Lea frowned. "You're not—"

"Socially anyway, I am. And mathematically. And…in a bunch of other ways. I just panic, and my brain stops working right. I think—I think I might get that from my mother." Her speech was still too fast, and she held her breath to make it stop—to shut herself up.

Lea's brows scrunched over his eyes and his mouth contorted with disbelief. "What are you talking about? Mirron's the calmest lady I've ever met."

Dexné exhaled, calm presiding the empty vacuum left behind. The mere thought of Mirron, of that tranquil smile and those bright, knowing eyes, eased her. "Yes, she is. She is. But I meant my biological mother."

Lea froze, expression flat save his wide eyes.

"She was always wringing her hands," Dexné continued, "pacing around. Talked to herself sometimes, too. Cried a lot. I couldn't figure out why."

Lea didn't say anything.

Dexné looked off at Snowy, watched him toss the ball in the air and catch it, chew it. When she thought of her "mother" she couldn't remember much. A shadow with pale hair in dark clothing, marching from one end of a room to another, hands clasped and back hunched like she was sheltering from a hurricane.

Mirron's face washed over that image, striking out all darkness and leaving only sunlight, bright as the kind that reflected off snow's surface. Mirron was Dexné's mother. Mirron was the woman who cared for her. Mirron was the one who rocked her to sleep, who read to her on stormy nights, who took her in her garden and sat her among all the lilies, under the speckled shade of the magnolia, humming as she worked.

Mirron was her mother. Not that other woman. Never that other woman.

Dexné returned her attention to Lea. He looked at her strangely, like he was seeing something on her that shouldn't be there. It was then she realized she was smiling. A true, happy smile. Her glee spread her lips, filled her cheeks, and curved her eyes, touching all aspects of her face. She smiled wider as Snowy bounded up with his ball, almost showing her teeth, something she was normally aghast to do.

"It's a nice day," she said. "It really is."

The heat of this fire burns like the cold.

Her back pressed against the wall, her blood trembled in cold veins that could evaporate any second, with just one snap of his fingers.

Axel leaned over her, a hand braced against the wall just over her shoulder, making her feel trapped, suffocated. Despite that, his body was poised as a cat's, tense and coiled to spring away at any given moment. He heeded his own warnings.

Those green eyes held no mockery of kindness now, no fake, sharpened smile to lure her into a false sense of security. That act had hurt her, made her uneasy, but at least it was something. Scraps of leftover meat for a starving dog. Now all she had was naked bones, jagged and cutting, taking her previous uneasiness and turning it into something shriveling and painful.

What was that word again?

Oh, yes.

Fear.

It was fear.

To think she could ever forget. The memory of that emotion, though still covered by a thin veil of haze, grew ever stronger. And how could it not? It had dominated every aspect of her human life, waking and sleeping, day and night alike. How stupid she was to think she could…forget. How stupid to think she could ever…escape.

Yes, she remembered.

She would have died to escape that feeling.

His eyes were narrowed to needle slits, teeth bared in a snarl, voice a threatening hiss in her ear.

She nodded to everything he said, response always an, "As you say."

"So glad we've come to an understanding," he drawled, finally straightening.

"…Yes."

His glower lingered over his shoulder as he left her, mouth pulled down in a cutting frown.

The strings in her ribcage quivered, pulled too tight, creaking with the threat of breaking, the eerie melody of it seeming to chant the affirmed stay away from Roxas, stay away from Roxas.

Stay away from Xion while you're at it.

As you say.

Dexné crumpled to the floor like a used up tissue, her knees no longer able to support her weight.

He'd always been protective of his friends. Fiercely so.

But she had never been on the opposite side of the spectrum. Before becoming Nulla she had always…yes, she always stood behind him, in the shadow of his protection.

She remembered it because of Zane.

Zane patrolled the school like it was his domain, shoving and knocking around anyone who dared to get in his way. He always had a sneer ready, or a vengeful boast to expel. Any student who didn't keep in line got his fist.

Naturally, Lea and Isa took exception to him.

She'd never been the target of others before, as she was no more than a fly on a wall, and that hadn't really changed in spite of her run-in with Zane and his group. She stayed quiet, shadowed behind Lea and Isa who took the brunt of what the muscular teen had to offer, only jumping in in panicked defense when his cronies tipped the scales to odd numbers.

But that changed when she fell into the spotlight of Zane's wrath.

The stupid part was she did it both knowingly and unknowingly.

The routine of everyday had become monotone. She wanted a change in scenery. Walking home on a backstreet road she rarely took, Dexné saw the boy in the green-striped sweatshirt. He was out in a backyard lined by a fence with crooked boards and chipped paint, near a shed that looked just as neglected.

A man clutching a green bottle came stumbling out of the shed, his checkered shirt askew, the stubble growing on his chin looking like it could eat through sandpaper. Zane bunched his shoulders at the man's approach, ducked his head like he was afraid.

The sight of Zane—the tough, never-flinching Zane—making cowardly motions was enough to root Dexné to the spot.

Dexné's eyes glued wide in stunned alarm as the man yelled words so heavily slurred they were undecipherable. Shivers went down her spine as he swung the bottle, smashing it on the paint-peeling shed. Then, in a blink, the man rounded on Zane and struck him to the ground.

He stumbled off, leaving Zane huddled in the dirt, sniffling.

Seconds dragged by and hesitations won out. Dexné went on her way. The whole walk home she debated whether she should have tried to stop it, or if she could have. Further still she berated herself for not reaching out a comforting hand when it was over. Not that Zane would have appreciated it, but…

But she didn't. She walked on by like a typical bystander, like a coward who didn't want to be involved.

She should have done something, she should have—

It was over now; nothing to be done, she told herself. Too late.

The next time she saw Zane was at school. He sported a nasty bruise.

He stalked down the busy hallway, his face darkened with a scowl. He shoved students at random, anyone that was too close.

Passing by, he shoved her and her back slammed against the lockers, rattling the metal violently.

Words jumped out of her mouth.

"I know why," she said too loud, and Zane rounded on her.

"What was that, mouse?" he spoke warningly, his eyes big with suppressed anger.

The first bell rung and students filtered into the classrooms like ants into their hills.

Zane remained, his brimming glare's intensity never lessening, nailing Dexné in place so she could not move even if she desired to.

"I know why you do it," she said, letting out what she had mulled through the night, what she had ultimately concluded. "I know why you are the way you are." She faced him solemnly, her gaze blank and her voice dulled by simple fact. "You feel powerless at home. You can't stop your father's drinking and you can't do anything when he beats you, so you come here and take it out on—"

She didn't get to finish. Caught up in the spiel of her theory she didn't notice Zane's eyes growing wilder, the tightness of his mouth, or the white-knuckled curl of his fists.

The next she knew she was being hit over and over and over again—slammed against lockers, sliding down to the floor only to be punched and kicked some more. Pain screamed from all over her, especially her face and nose. The pain left her breathless and it was as if her assaulted muscles and bones had stolen the screams from her lungs, rendering her speechless—unable to call for help.

Then the hallway was empty except for her, and there was no noise besides an odd wet whistle that sounded with every heaping breath she took. She sat against the wall, her legs sprawled out and her arms limp at her sides.

She stayed like that, staring off into space.

Far away, voices clashed, a deep bellow and a high-pitched tenor laced with alarmed question.

"What happened to your hands? Zane? What did you do?!"

A student was coming down the hall. She could hear the quick flaps of their sandals. Dexné's muddled brain thought maybe Zane had come back to finish the job, but—he wasn't wearing sandals, was he?

" - - - -?" Dexné's true name was spoken with uncertain urgency.

The flaps stopped. Sped up. Stopped again.

Sera knelt down in front of her. "Oh my—! - - - -!"

Dexné barely heard the flaps as Sera raced off.

Moments beat by to the tune of Dexné's pounding heart.

Then Lea was there. The whites of his eyes were large as he carefully cupped her face with his hands.

"Zane got her," she heard Sera say.

Vile curses were hissed and when Lea's hands came back with red on them Dexné knew she was hurt bad. Funny, she couldn't feeling anything—just a distant throbbing.

"What are you going to do, Lea?" Isa—when did he get there?

"What do you think I'm gonna do?! I'm gonna fucking kill him!"

"Not alone you're not." No room for negotiation in Isa's statement. The blue-haired boy turned to Sera, gestured sharply at Dexné. "Take her to the infirmary."

And then they were gone, their footsteps thundering in Dexné's head, getting smaller, smaller, until they echoed out.

Back when she was a shadow stuck to the wall, back before her friendship with Lea, she would have kept going like nothing happened, taken the shove in stride.

She would not be feeling the pain she was feeling now.

Dexné didn't remember much after Lea and Isa charged off to fight Zane. Sera's hands pulling her to her feet, stumbling her way down the halls like a blinded cripple, the nurse's shocked voice, a bed, then sleep.

Angry voices disturbed the quiet black, and light fluttered with her eyelids. The first conscious thought that pierced her mind was pain. Her face. It felt like, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. She tried to force herself back to sleep to escape the pain. Her body did not comply, frantic neurons screaming alongside the voices in the room.

Her father's voice was among them.

It was enough to stun her fully awake.

Her father did not yell. Ever.

"I want that boy expelled! No—I want him jailed!"

"Sir," the principal's voice placated, "we are still trying to understand the situation—"

"Look at my daughter's face! What's left to understand?!"

Dexné struggled to sit upright.

"Wilam, please!" Mirron beseeched. "She's awake."

A shadowy silhouette came to her side, and it was then Dexné realized she could not fully open her eyes. "D-Dad?"

Wilam took her hand. "I'm here."

He said nothing else, his quiet, steady nature once again taking precedence.

The memories afterward were jumbled messes. She remembered being transported, a doctor, pain, pain, pain. She wanted to listen to Mirron, she wanted to hold still in Wilam's hold, but the pain turned her wild and she fought. Eventually the doctor had to sedate her to reset her nose.

Through the agony blaring in her face, all she could think was Lea. Isa. Zane.

Her tongue felt like cotton stuffed in her mouth, and so she could not verbalize her need to know. What happened to them?

Stop them, she wanted to say. They don't know about Zane. They don't know…

Too late, a voice from the back of her mind said as she woke days later.

Anti-pain tablets had been fed to her daily, the side-effects keeping her within sleep's iron grasp. Her mother would rouse her with food and medicine, and then it was straight back to unconsciousness for Dexné.

In that time images swirled, and she had strange dreams.

In those dreams she saw a man. A man with black hair and even blacker eyes. A man whose powerful footsteps seemed to shake the earth, whose large hands could reach out and crush the very sun in the sky.

Awake, Dexné could not stop thinking of that man. She knew him.

"Dear?" Mirron poke her head in Dexné's room. "Are you feeling well enough to sit up?"

Dexné complied without a word, her injured face kept carefully blank. The sporadic bandages on her nose, eyebrow, and cheek made it stiff anyway.

She felt the ugliness and the weight of her facial bindings far more acutely when Lea walked into the room.

Mirron had gone away and Lea took her chair by the bedside.

Awkward silence permeated the air. Despite the frantic questions spinning in Dexné's head, she could not utter a single one, instead staring like some bewildered owl who had suddenly been exposed to sunlight.

Lea was the one to break the silence. "How're you feeling?" he asked softly.

Jarred to life by the sound of spoken words, Dexné took immediate stock of the bruises dotting Lea. A couple on his arms, one on the underside of his jaw.

"Are you okay?" she reiterated.

"What, me? I'm fine." He scoffed. "You should see the other guy."

Dexné immediately thought of Zane, and her heart skipped in fear. "Lea—"

"You didn't answer my question."

"I…I'm fine. I can see out of my eyes now." Dexné pointed to the radically reduced swelling.

Lea let out a harsh bark of laughter. There was no humor in it. "I see that."

Silence overtook again. Lea would not look away from her, and his stare made Dexné feel her injuries as if they were alive and eating her face. She cast her gaze down to her hands, folded neatly in her lap.

"Zane…" she started quietly.

"Won't bother you again. Me and Isa made sure of that."

Dexné suppressed a shudder. "No… No, you don't understand. I…started it."

"What?" That one word was so sharp, it could have cut her. "You think I care who started it? That bast—"

"Please! He—I called him out."

"So? That doesn't—"

"His father hits him!"

Quiet. Only the birds, ignorant to the turmoil in the room, could be heard singing outside the window.

"I saw"—Dexné swallowed thickly—"I saw it. Walking home one day. I confronted him with it. But I…I must have come across wrong. I was merely trying to confirm why he acts the way he acts and… Well, I suppose he thought I was lording it over him. He—he went berserk."

Though timidly, she dared to meet Lea's eyes. His arms were crossed, expression carefully devoid of anything. When he finally spoke, it was a hiss. "And that's supposed to excuse what he did to you?"

"N-No—but…" She stepped on a wounded lion's tail. What had she expected? Unable to voice this, she could think of nothing else to say.

Lea's fingers circled her wrist. "Look, if it makes you feel better… I'll say something to someone about it. I'll let Isa know. He'll know what to do."

The pressure in her chest eased. "Yes, thank you. I—I will say something to my father as well. Perhaps the more people who know, the more can be done."

Dexné eased back into the pillows. Her gaze went back to her hands. With a puzzled blink she realized Lea had not let go of her.

Then something else came to mind. "I'm surprised Sera didn't get a teacher."

"She was going to. She found me and Isa first."

A smile twitched at her mouth. "Skipping class again?"

A smirk threatened to break through on Lea's end.

He left a short while after that conversation. There wasn't much to fill in the silence but what she missed in school.

Alone with her thoughts once more, Dexné thought of her father…and the similarities he had to Wilam.

Dexné could still hear Wilam yelling in the infirmary, as if the memory were playing back a tape recording. He never yelled. She had not heard him raise his voice since. But even now as he passed her room and beheld her beaten face, a thunderous expression cut deep lines within his. His rage was silent, but ever threatening, and Dexné wondered how she would break the news of Zane to him in a way he could accept.

She became frightened, almost.

The man with black hair and black eyes…her biological father. He had had the same rage. Silent, but looming like a storm cloud, or a hidden undercurrent that drags out to sea.

There was something the black-eyed man was always angry about, but, for the life of her, Dexné could not place it.

Her father was Wilam, she told herself. Her father was Wilam. Not that other man. Wilam.

But the memory of the other man rose up like a shadow and it blocked out the sun, arms circling her like chains, pulling her into the storm cloud chest, dark head bending over her.

Ashes fell all around them.

And the shadow man would not let go.

Dexné, Nulla of Organization XIII, strode over the grounds of Halloween Town. She bemoaned her location, though there was naught she could do about it, or her orders.

Her pursuit of the Heartless took her far from the graves.

At least for that she could be grateful.

Black trees hailed the dark sky. Dexné blended in with their dark shadows, becoming one, among many. Melancholy bled into every color, from the purplish soil, to the gray tint of the underbrush, to the dark bark upon the trees, and it fueled the abysmal torrent rampaging in Dexné's mind.

Familial ties, one forged by blood and the other by…by…

Dexné slowed her footsteps, clutching the fabric covering the left side of her chest. She could not feel the subtle beating beneath. Nor could she recall the word she was looking for. Mirron and Wilam were not her blood, but even so…they were family. How could she have forgotten? So many things she had forgotten, and still so much to remember. The inky blackness covered more than she realized.

She shook her head. It did little to clear it. She needed to focus. Not only was she tasked with seeking the impostor, she had to unearth Heartless locations along the way. Her muscles quaked, her bones felt as if they bent under unseen pressure, like gravity itself bore down on her, and she could never seem to catch her breath.

Rest, if she could just rest for a little—

No. No, she was not permitted.

She carried on, a mechanical solider squeezing all it could from its batteries.

If she fell she got back up. If she stumbled, she used the jerking momentum to go faster.

In a clearing where the moon shone bright between the shadows of trees, she conceded to stillness. She breathed deep, black eyes combing all around her. It was quiet, eerily so without even a rustling breeze. The meadows from her old home were full of them, and she could not stop the sudden…longing…pulling at her chest.

A branch snapped.

Soundlessly, Dexné pivoted towards the noise. She stood erect and alert, fully focused and prepared to either dodge or attack as more twigs cracked. The wall of leaves she faced suddenly shuddered, and Dexné leaned into her thighs, preparing for push-off.

She did not expect Roxas to come stumbling out of the brush.

He panted. "There you are. I thought I saw you."

Dexné stared uncomprehendingly. Little twigs stuck out of the boy's already messy hair, leaves and brambles decorated his coat.

"What are you doing?" she began softly, disbelievingly. "Did Axel not tell you—?"

"I need your help."

That silenced her. She continued carefully, "…Is that so?"

Blue eyes, watery as the ocean, locked into her black pools. "Xion. Xion's been acting really off. I tried asking Axel but…" He paused, a hard look coming over his face. "Why are females so complicated? Axel said you have to be careful about pressing buttons, but I don't know anything about buttons! And he said Xion should only be a single dose of complicated since she's a Nobody, but how am I supposed to know the difference between single or double dose?"

Dexné blinked.

Roxas grabbed his head. "I just don't get it. And you're the only other girl besides Xion, so I was hoping you would…know," he ended uncertainly, his eyes entreating her.

"…What?"

"Xion—"

Dexné hardened her tone. "You do realize if Number VIII discovers you've met with me, he will—"

"He won't find out! Please, just tell me why Xion's acting weird."

"…Was that an order or a request?"

Roxas pressed his mouth into a grim line. "An order."

Dexné contemplated, her mind scrambling for evidence and explanations. She did not know Xion. She did not know what was normal and what was not. But Roxas was looking for a reason as to why Xion might have changed, not for an everyday girl's outlook on life.

Dexné grasped an answer. "She failed her mission, correct? It was turned over to me."

"What does that…?" Realization crept across his face.

Dexné forged ahead regardless. "She failed her mission. She failed to subdue the impostor. Because of this she feels worthless, unimportant. Unneeded. Unnecessary."

"She's not—!"

"It does not matter whether she truly is or isn't. That is the way she feels and that is the way it is."

Roxas hung his head with a heavy frown, fists gathering at his sides.

"She isolates herself, and lashes out, because she does not wish to appear weak. Or burdensome."

Dexné blinked rapidly as if her brain was frizzing out. She stepped back from Roxas, shocked with herself. Where did all those words come from? How did she know...?

She turned away from Number XIII.

"Wait! What should I do?"

Dexné walked on. "That is up to you. Prove her beliefs, disprove them. It matters not to me."

The shadows of the trees engulfed her and she left Roxas in the moonlit clearing.

Unneeded. Unnecessary. She knew those words well.

I didn't want to bother you.

I didn't want to pull you down.

I'm sorry.

Dexné continued on her mission, a voice from long ago filling her head.

Her voice.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are loved. And will be responded to this time, promise!

Forgot to say: I don't usually put the big curses in my works—unless there's a character who is a potty mouth. The exceptions to this are characterization and emotional setting. The word "Frickin'" did not seem to convey Lea's rage. Sorry.