Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Heart and Soul ❯ Heart and Soul: Fate ( Chapter 4 )
And so discoveries are made...
Non Anime: Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Shounen | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 07.11.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.8K | Visits: 259 | Status: Work In Progress
"Warning" before reading: Okay, this definitely has spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2. And chances are... you probably know what's coming, so... it's okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Just so everyone knows, there will be a "bonus" epilogue very soon.
Heart and Soul: Fate
by Orin Drake
It was like any other mission card received from Xigbar--handed over with a whap on the shoulder and a big grin, while Demyx rolled his eyes and tried not to groan too loudly. Yeah, great. Another mission. Why couldn't he get missions to just explore worlds that had good music? Or at the very least decent food. He didn't bother to so much as glance at the card until he was halfway down the hall.
He stopped short. Absolutely motionless. "Uh..." He turned, calling to Xigbar's retreating back, "You're sending the wrong guy!"
The freeshooter didn't even bother to turn around. He'd heard it all before. "Orders are orders."
"But you're most definitely, without a doubt, totally sending the wrong guy!" he insisted with desperation.
Xigbar only scoffed, disappearing through the door at the end of the hall.
Axel was never hard to find, really. Not unless he really intended to be, which was usually far too boring for the redhead. Often times he would be spying on Sora, or out on some "task" that didn't involve a mission and he'd never elaborate on, but... usually, he would be in the alleys. Practicing. Fighting. Dancing, with his weapons, with fire, as if it could all make him forget.
Things had happened, though. Over the past few weeks, Demyx and Axel had fallen into a comfortable companionship... though mostly in passing. The blonde had seen the fire mage less and less, and the worry of him disappearing altogether was almost too much to bear. Axel was the only one...
Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was fate. The musician had just turned around to go back to the castle, having roamed the streets of the World That Never Was for hours only to find--
"Hey, Demyx." A nearly friendly call, stepping out from a dark gateway of his own creation. Axel's grin was a lot more subtle than it had been, weeks prior... but that could have been the play of firelight against his skin when he ignited a chakram and tossed it casually into the air. Turning and catching the weapon without the need to give it a second glance, he looked to be at perfect ease.
Or would have, to most. The blonde only felt his stomach tense as he held the small, unforced smile in place. Regardless of knowing something was "off", he couldn't help but be glad to see the pyro. He just... he needed it, before... "Hey, Axel."
The firestarter was no idiot, either; he knew something was "off" just as much with the musician... though he wasn't quite willing to ask again. Besides, he... hadn't come back to ask. He'd returned to find Demyx, to... well, he... Things he'd done. Things he'd become. With Roxas, and without. And the stuff with Kairi... it was time to leave. Maybe Roxas had been right all along.
The blond realized it, then, stopping with a sudden jolt a few feet away. Axel had come back to say good-bye. And he... he wondered if he wasn't there to do the same thing. "I... I have orders." He finally managed, stepping closer and swallowing hard as he pulled the written orders from his pocket. "To kill Sora."
Axel stared at the card... but couldn't find it in himself to reach for it. Numb horror filled him, weighing him down. The useless mission. The death sentence veiled in a noble command.
Silence passed between them, made even more empty by the rare lack of rain. Neither set of eyes could find the strength to lift from the ground--the finality of it all was a tangible, heavy burden. Regardless of what was to follow... this, what and where and how they were right then and there... was over.
Completely and sincerely tender. Demyx didn't even feel the ungloved hand against his cheek at first, its touch so perfectly delicate; until it pressed a little more, tilting his head and--
The gentle kiss seemed to have surprised the initiator as much as the boy on the receiving end. Even so, it was light, careful... quick and yet lingering. It was... their proof. Even if no one else would ever believe.
Nothing was said. The silence was by far more profound than anything that could have been spoken. They nodded to one another... then parted ways through the darkness.
Demyx sat waiting on a low cliff, watching the Heartless gather around Hollow Bastion. He knew Sora would come, passing through just underneath him on his way to being a hero. The Nobody knew that he wouldn't be recognized... and a battle would follow.
He was... he was afraid, dammit. Afraid to live, afraid to die--because neither would be honest anymore. He wasn't alive or dead... he wasn't even supposed to exist--but he did exist, somehow. He was real in some sense, they all were... No one knew what happened to a Nobody, after... Well, Xemnas certainly had his own ideas. But, even if no one was willing to say it... they all had their concerns. One learned quickly not to voice such things, though.
He just didn't see the point in killing Sora. Roxas hadn't betrayed anyone... he only went out to do what they all wanted so badly: to find his heart. Just because the kid had the unfair advantage of actually being able to find his whole heart...
Demyx sighed and summoned his sitar, strumming a few, quiet notes. He envied Axel for having the strength to leave. Yeah, there was a chance Saix would catch him, but... he truly doubted the berserker would ever get the chance. Axel was crafty, and strong, and... and when he had a goal in mind, there was no stopping him. Demyx just... wished he could be the same way. Wished he weren't so damn afraid.
He could abandon the Organization, too. He knew that. It probably wouldn't be terribly expected of him, and so he might even get away with it. Find Axel, run and try to exist elsewhere... but... To be truly honest with himself, he wasn't sure he wanted to live as a Nobody any longer. Wouldn't it just... wouldn't it be better to... die, rather than live as a shell? They somehow still had hearts, yes, he honestly believed that, but... there was still so much missing. He was half himself at best. He'd lost half of his very meaning. A half that clearly could not be obtained no matter the time and effort spent trying.
The thought of not existing anymore at all, though... it scared him. Truly, he wanted nothing more than to find something after all of the pain, the fighting. Heaven would be preferable... but he wondered, with a quiet humming along of a few chords repeated over and over, if Hell was just as likely.
It was all a state of mind, he told himself. Heaven or hell... was all in how you viewed it, the condition of your soul when you died... But, when had he died? Was he dead? Was he in Hell? There were times when he wondered... And... did he even have a soul any longer..? Was he even capable of having a state of mind?
Maybe it didn't matter, really. He hadn't lived long as a Nobody, compared to so many of the others... but it was already getting unbearable. Cracks had formed, clearly... he simply wasn't sure if--
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. There, below him, was the Keyblade Master. And one thing was certain: win or lose, he was not getting turned into a Dusk.
It was slightly unfortunate that he'd never really gotten used to using the tunnels of darkness. Really, if he hadn't been so utterly disoriented, he might have made a more fearsome entrance. Considering he arrived not only closer to Sora and his battle-ready pals, but forgot to look decently frightening as well... it just didn't really work. So he tried the only tactic that came to mind--being friendly. "Hey. You guys are looking lively."
And what did he get out of that? A duck, yelled at him. And Sora called him a wimp!
Well, it wasn't like he was unused to that kind of treatment, but still! Demyx did what he could to slough it off, going instead for a scare tactic--ninja skills. Very unsuccessful ones, it appeared.
Then the kid had the nerve to insult his fighting ability. Not to mention the duck being bitchy and everything... geez, how rude. The musician almost felt like he was reminding a group of little kids or something, "You shouldn't judge anyone by appearance."
That certainly didn't work. It only seemed to make the Keyblade Master and his weird animal companions more intent on fighting... and fighting was not something Demyx appreciated. Even as he was trying his damnedest not to run the hell away, he mumbled to himself, "I told them they were sending the wrong guy..."
But when Sora insisted that Nobodies didn't have hearts... that got the blond to turn back. Roxas was in there somewhere... even if he couldn't appeal to Sora, perhaps... "Oh, we do too have hearts! Don't be mad."
That duck again. That damn duck. How dare the foul imply that Demyx would ever try to trick Roxas! They didn't understand, they just couldn't understand! Would they ever be able to comprehend not one but two existences crumbling down around them, each time reaching out and finding no hands to grasp because everyone else was just as helpless, just as broken and unsure?! Would they ever know the tearing not-quite-heartache of not being whole, desperate to be filled and yet brimming with harshness and memory and overwhelming things that no one should ever have to try and understand?! Who were they, ever, to be so callous?
Even though he knew it was Sora ready to fight him, even though the boy was clearly a completely unique identity... he could see Roxas in those eyes. Could almost hear Roxas' voice even in the words, the intonation...
And then the reality of the unreal truly, thoroughly, hit. There was nothing Demyx could do to save any of them from the impending battle. No matter what he tried, regardless of the choices before him at that very moment... his fate was already decided. The time to change it had passed without so much as a whisper of warning. He felt... so helpless. Powerless. And, really, to make things even worse... maybe he didn't even exist. Maybe... his heart was only an illusion.
Anger. Vile, hateful rage. Had he been in a stable frame of mind, he'd have used that to prove it--prove they had hearts, that he could feel, but... too far. Too little. Much, much too late.
So. Maybe Roxas wasn't there anymore. He was just as nonexistent as the rest of them. Fine. "Silence, traitor."
More than a battle--what happened between them was war. The musician seemed to forget about having been a pacifist, unleashing every thread of power and potential that had made his heart strong to begin with. He hadn't the presence of mind to realize how twisted his principles had become--Sora was The Enemy, and that was all he knew.
Move for move matched; more than exchanging hits, it was brutal beating for brutal beating before either broke away. Using music for violence... Demyx should have been horrified.
The horror finally came with a gasping, wet cry of pain--Sora's. Something had been broken in his chest from the impact of the sitar, and that realization was what finally made the blond cringe. The rest was too quick, too fast to understand. Cure spells, potions... and a swift, searing flash of light.
It was a slip. A slip on the Nobody's part, and a skillfully executed move on the part of the Keyblade Master... He knew, even before the blade struck its final blow, that he'd lost. On impact, it all simply felt... cold. No real pain, not even the raw and terrifying feel of the blade through his flesh--just... cold.
Fear. As he fell to his knees in physical weakness and shock, it was fear. He was dying. He didn't know what was going to happen, and he was so goddamn afraid that... that...
He was fading. He could feel himself slowly ceasing to be.... So scared. He was only aware of the familiar weight of the sitar disappearing from his hand, becoming nothing, falling away... Axel... Roxas... what now?
Sensation began to fade out with the rest of him. His hearing was gone, numbness flooding his limbs, sight darkening. The cold become a tangible thing, enwrapping him like the tunnels of darkness--only...
Only... in the darkness... was Light.
His body was giving out, knocking his legs out from under him, body and mind separating as he let out a howl; but the realization of light in the darkness gave him the strength to gaze up through the hazy darkness his vision had become, at the one who'd defeated him. What he saw there... it was Roxas, looking back. Roxas was clear as day, while the rest was almost too dark to see. Looking sad and angry and horrified, but... gentle. Very, very gentle. There was the hint of a smile there. A nod. An indication that it was all... okay. Everything was going to be okay.
Home. Beyond a word. So much more than an idea.
In the last instant of his half-existence... his heart leapt.
Axel... had been witness. He'd been watching in the shadows of a cliffside, one hand full of flaming chakram... the other, firmly placed over his mouth. It was a gesture entirely uncharacteristic of him, but he couldn't help it. It was... it was the only thing he could do. He'd been damn good and ready to jump in himself--
Nothing he could have done would have made anything better. It was an awful, tearing realization. He obviously couldn't kill Sora, uncertain as to whether he would be able to pull Roxas out of death (and to kill Roxas, accidentally or otherwise, would have been far beyond unforgivable). He could have tried to turn the boy into a Heartless again, but there was... something telling him how wrong that was. How horrible that would be for both Sora and Roxas.
And if he'd saved Demyx, just shown up and stolen him away... the musician never would have forgiven him. It was unspoken, but... they'd known. From that moment Demyx had told him of his last orders... this, what had just happened in front of him, had been the opportunity. This... wasn't suicide so much as... mercy. As screwed up as that was. As horrifying as their half-logic had become.
But why... why had Xemnas sent the musician to the slaughter so soon? Axel knew that they were all on the chopping block, to distract Sora as much as to keep testing his skill, but... it was an unnecessary loss.
He tried to laugh through his gloved hand. It sounded strangely like a sob--but it wasn't. No, he... he didn't have a heart. None of them did. He didn't have emotion. He would just have to believe that for a while. Though... he thought that maybe he believed a Nobody wasn't really nobody if somebody thought them real. Even if that somebody was a Nobody. And the swirling thoughts hurt in numerous ways and made him sick and dizzy and wanting very much to just... stop.
He'd been selfish. Enormously, ungratefully, inexcusably selfish. He was a fool to have tried to keep Roxas away from the very thing they all desired more than anything... even more than one another. But he was more a fool to have tried to destroy Sora's life, to steal Kairi and come up with a plan to rip the Keyblade Master's Nobody away for himself.
Sora had done no wrong. He was trying to save everything, not... tear it all asunder for his own insane, misguided reasons. Xemnas had strayed so far from his Other's true wishes... and he'd managed to drag the other Organization members along with him for too long.
No, Axel didn't want to die. But neither did he want other worlds to suffer. Other Nobodies to wonder what they did to deserve such unthinkable punishment, feeling incomplete and broken for their whole nonexistence. He would simply have to be careful, to keep one step ahead of everyone.
Sora. To help Sora would be to help Roxas. And, even if he were never able to see Roxas again... it was something that the boy had to do, join with his Other. He was lucky that the other part of his heart waited for him, protected in capable hands. Of course they were capable--they were half his own.
First off, yes, there will be an epilogue to officially end this thing. Within a few days, even. There will be more notes there, because to say anything else here would be... inappropriate.
If you'd like to be e-mailed when I update, drop me a line (orin(at)sephain.com) with whatever story/stories/website you'd like me to inform you of.