Roxas looked up at him. “Have you been keeping the truth about her from me the whole time?”
Axel had no intention of lying anymore. But some things he couldn’t say and some things he didn’t know.
“No. Not the whole time.”
“When did you find out?” Roxas pressed.
“I dunno… Sometime.” Axel scratched his head, like it wasn’t a big deal. “I forget exactly when.”
That brought a dry smile to Roxas’s face. “What, you didn’t get it memorized?”
But after the riff on his catchphrase, an awkward pause hung between them.
“Axel…,” Roxas finally said. “Who am I, really?”
That right there was the number one question Roxas wanted to ask. But Axel had no idea how to answer.
He looked at Roxas’s wide eyes. He didn’t want to lie. But…
“Xion and I are special Nobodies. I know that,” said Roxas. “But the Organization was trying to have me destroyed.”
Axel nodded. “Yeah. They were.”
“Because they copied my powers, the Keyblade’s power, and then they didn’t need me anymore—is that it?” Roxas spat.
He couldn’t bring himself to confirm it.
“I guess you felt the same way, huh, Axel?”
At those words, something wrenched in his chest, and he could hardly breathe. No, not me. I wasn’t thinking like that. I would never. “That’s not true. You—you’re my best friend.” The words spilled out of him.
“Your best friend?” Roxas shook his head furiously and grabbed Axel’s cloak. “Best friends are supposed to be honest with each other!”
He’s angry, Axel thought clearly. It really does make it seem like he has a heart. But if that’s all I can think of when he’s this upset, I really must not have one.
“Who am I?!” Roxas shouted, and Axel only stared at him. “Xemnas said Xion and I are connected to Sora! Who is that? Am I a puppet like Xion?!”
Sora, the Keyblade master—everything went back to him.
Maybe Axel had made mistakes in Castle Oblivion. Maybe everything he’d ever done was a mistake.
He shook his head. “No… You’re not like Xion.”
“Then what—”
Axel cut him off. “Look, if you find out the truth…you might wish you didn’t.”
“You don’t know that!” Roxas let go of Axel and clutched at his own hair. “I just want to know who I am! How did I get here? Why am I special? Why can I use the Keyblade? I deserve some answers! How can you tell me I don’t?!”
He even sounds like he’s about to cry, Axel thought. “Roxas, listen…”
Roxas shook his head in quiet refusal. “Just tell me, Axel. Who am I?”
He couldn’t.
What could he say? Just tell Roxas point-blank that he was Sora’s Nobody? But what if that set his friend on the same path as Xion, deserting the Organization? Then Axel would have broken his promise to her—the one thing he couldn’t bear to do.
But he knew. He knew it was already too late.
He hoped anyway. “Please, Roxas. You gotta trust me.”
“I can’t. Not anymore.”
Resolute, Roxas looked Axel in the eyes as he said it. No anger or hurt was showing in his face now.
“Hey. Roxas…,” Axel started helplessly.
But Roxas turned away. “I have to know who I am. Where I came from. And if I can’t get the answers here…”
Roxas left the rest unsaid and started to leave.
Axel watched him walk away from everything, and he couldn’t come up with anything that might stop him.
You’re my best friend. Did that mean anything?
Roxas kept walking. There were just two things he wanted to get before leaving.
Both of them were about Xion.
He went back to his room and took a seashell from the drawer in the nightstand. A thalassa shell—it was a good luck charm. Behind the shells, he saw the ice cream stick.
Roxas shoved the thalassa shell in his pocket and picked up the stick with the word Winner on it. He had planned to show it off and use it sometime when the three of them got ice cream together.
But that wouldn’t be happening now.
“I have to find out about myself,” he muttered, clutching the stick in his fist.
He slipped that into his pocket, too, and left.
The castle was in an uproar. Word had already reached Saïx.
Roxas had attacked the Dusks working here in the castle. They were summarily ordered to capture him.
All these desertions. This was ridiculous.
And with Xion already gone, losing Roxas was a real problem. Xemnas had issued orders: They had to stop Roxas from leaving.
Saïx was heading for the castle gates when someone called his name, not unexpectedly.
“Time is of the essence, Axel. Make it quick.”
“Just—just give me a second,” Axel said hesitantly.
“For what?”
“I’ll bring him back to our side. Let me—”
“That’s enough.” Saïx turned his head, giving Axel a sidelong look over his shoulder. “Traitor.”
Axel scowled darkly.
“I’m going. You know, don’t you, that you won’t stop me except by force? And even if you tried, you would fail.” Saïx went on his way. Memories informed him that he hated this kind of thing.
Saïx posted himself on a floor near the castle gates to wait for Roxas.
It had been quite a long time since he fought anyone, but he could feel battle drawing near like a storm.
He greeted Roxas with his Claymore in hand. “I’m afraid we can’t have you wandering off.”
Roxas responded to the declaration by summoning his Keyblade. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Good. That saves us some time.” Saïx promptly hurled the Claymore at him, but Roxas deflected it easily, a fluid motion unlike anything Saïx had seen from him before.
In that instant of hesitation, Roxas charged.
Saïx blocked the sweep of the Keyblade. It brought back those long-ago days when there had been some pleasure in fighting. The Claymore slammed into Roxas…
And he recalled things from long, long ago.
Saïx collapsed to his knees. “Ngh— How much longer…?” He groaned through clenched teeth. “Kingdom Hearts… Will your strength never be mine?”
Roxas was already walking away, down the steps, and then he opened the doors…to the neon city.
He figured it was more appropriate for a deserter to leave this way, rather than through the Corridors of Darkness. And someone who knew to anticipate that from him was standing there between the skyscrapers.
“So your mind’s made up?” said Axel.
Roxas didn’t stop as he replied, “I have to know why the Keyblade chose me.”
He wasn’t angry anymore. Just determined.
“You can’t turn on the Organization!” Axel cried. “You get on their bad side, and they’ll destroy you!”
Now Axel was upset—nothing like before. Roxas smiled thinly and paused a moment. “No one would miss me.”
Then he kept going. Kingdom Hearts, the heart-shaped moon, shone from the dark sky above.
He wasn’t quite sure where to go—only that he couldn’t stay here.
Axel’s murmur was too faint to reach him. “I would…”
Chapter 8
358 Days
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WHITE TABLE SAT THE GIRL in a black cloak. Her hood was pulled up, shadowing her face, but Naminé looked squarely at her.
She had always known they would meet someday. The girl was part of Sora, after all, and Naminé knew what choice Sora would make at a time like this. Like the choice he made when he turned the Keyblade on himself.
Naminé smiled at her, full and genuine. “It’s good to finally meet you, Xion.”
The girl pushed her hood back, revealing her face—the face of a puppet named Xion. “Naminé, can you…
see my face?”
Naminé nodded. The face she saw was definitely Xion’s.
“What should I do?” asked Xion.
Naminé answered with a question. “What do you want to do?”
Our names have something in common, she realized. Naminé means the sound of the waves, and Xion sounds like shio, the tide. We’re both connected to Kairi, who lives by the great sea.
As she waited for a reply, she saw Xion’s gaze stray to the drawing on the wall. Xion peered at it for a while before speaking.
“I thought I knew at first. I wanted me and Roxas and Axel to be together forever. But then, my memories…” Xion caught herself, blinking uncertainly. “Well, they aren’t even really mine, are they?”
“You’re not Sora, and you’re not Roxas,” said Naminé. “You’re Kairi as Sora remembers her.”
Xion looked down at the table, thinking.
Did that make sense to her…? Naminé wondered.
Xion’s memories were really Sora’s. But the form she had taken was reminiscent of Kairi. And that was because of Sora’s memories inside Roxas—the memories that knew Kairi as someone precious to him. Like Xion had become someone precious to Roxas.
“The more I remember of my past, the more I feel the urge to return to where I came from,” said Xion slowly, grasping for the right words. Then she leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “What should I do to go back?”
“Back to Sora, you mean?” said Naminé.
Xion nodded.
“If you return your memories to him, you’ll disappear.” Naminé, too, chose her words carefully. “You never had your own memories in the first place—they’re all his, and that’s what connects you to others. So no one will remember you when you’re gone.”
Everything about Xion was built on Sora’s memories; she had no substance of her own. Without those memories, she would cease to exist, reverting to an empty puppet with no face. And no one would remember a puppet.
That was the difference between Xion and the Replica of Riku. The Riku Replica was a puppet made from a complete copy of Riku’s memories, while Xion was a puppet created to absorb memories.
And when the memories she’d taken were restored to their rightful place, any trace of her would vanish from others’ memories. It would be like Xion had never existed at all.
“Even my power can’t save anyone’s memories of you,” Naminé told her. “All the links between the pieces will break.”
Xion listened, gazing steadily back—and the look in her eyes was so like Sora, Naminé thought. Sincere and determined, a hero’s eyes.
“I know. I’m ready. I just don’t know how. That’s why I came to see you.” Xion exhaled. “And Roxas should be going back with me, shouldn’t he?”
She looked away, as if that was the only part that upset her.
“But I don’t think he’d understand that…not yet,” she went on. “He still can’t feel Sora. So, Naminé, I want to ask you… Can you watch over Roxas when I’m gone?”
Did that mean that Roxas would make the same choice as Xion, if he could sense Sora? Naminé had an inkling that it might not be what Sora himself would do. Sora would choose the path he believed was right and fair, even if it meant defying the command of fate. That was his strength. He was always the one to name injustice when he saw it.
Xion seemed to reflect all the best parts of Sora. And maybe Roxas carried the more childish parts of his nature—so Naminé suspected, although she had yet to meet Roxas.
“It won’t be just you. I asked someone else, too. It’s just…I won’t be able to help him.”
“All right. I will.” Naminé nodded.
“Thank you…”
Naminé truly wanted to protect Roxas, too, just like she’d promised Riku she would look after Sora. It was her heartfelt wish, so to speak.
She gave Xion another smile. “If you’re ready, we can go see Sora.”
But it wasn’t going to happen peacefully, after all.
A portal tore open in the white room, and out of the Corridors of Darkness, DiZ emerged.
“Naminé, they’ve found us! They’re coming!” he bellowed, then turned a disgusted glare on Xion. “This blasted puppet led the Organization straight to our doorstep! See what you get for trusting it?!”
“I’ll handle this!” Xion jumped to her feet without the slightest hesitation and dashed outside.
“No! Xion!” cried Naminé, but she never heard.
Axel knew Twilight Town inside out, upside down, and backward, and yet, he’d never set foot in the haunted mansion before. Its looming gates had always been closed.
He headed through the forest leading up to it with an unhurried stride.
“How did you know where to find me?” Xion asked him at the gates.
Axel was a bit relieved to see that she looked like herself. “The point is, what are you doing here?”
“Riku told me that if I came back to Twilight Town…I’d find out where I belong,” she said, staring at the ground.
Twilight Town was a special place, very close to the realm between. Among all the worlds, there were hardly any others like it.
The three of them always came to Twilight Town because they felt at ease here…because twilight was closer to darkness than to light.
Why had it never occurred to him to wonder what was inside the old mansion? It was odd that he hadn’t given it any thought before. The world rippled and wriggled. Others had felt it, too—that they should come here.
But what led us here? Axel thought. Maybe I’m becoming connected to the Keyblade master, too.
He laughed under his breath and shook his head. “Why do I always get stuck with the dirty work…”
“Axel…?” Xion said, her voice hushed but otherwise normal.
“Xion, what are you gonna do?”
She answered plainly. “I’m going back to where I belong. That’s all.”
“You know, I always thought that’d be for the best. But it still bugs me. Something about this is just wrong.”
“It’s the best thing for everyone,” said Xion.
Everyone? Everyone, who? For us? Or…for someone else?
“How do you know that?” Axel demanded. “Everyone thinks they’re right…”
“This is right,” Xion said firmly. “It’s better this way.”
Axel hated that argument. Nothing was better any which way. All it came down to was what you wanted to do and what you didn’t. He’d learned that lesson back when he had a heart.
“So it’s better for you to disappear?” he protested.
Because she would—they both knew it. No more Xion.
But she raised the Keyblade against him. “Please don’t hold back, Axel. Promise.”
“What’s your problem?!” Axel roared.
She thinks I’m gonna hold back? Now, after all that’s happened?
“You both think you can do whatever you want!” He summoned his flame-wreathed chakrams to his hands. “I’m sick of it. Go on, you just keep running. But I’ll always be there to bring you back!”
It was a plea, a cry, a bitter lament, and a vow.
No matter how many times you leave, I’ll bring you back. Every time. Both of you. For my sake and for yours.
Xion might well be more powerful than he remembered. But he wouldn’t lose. He was stronger.
He flung his chakrams and sprang into the air, cloaking himself in fire, but Xion’s Keyblade knocked them aside. When the weapons returned to his hands he closed the distance between them and struck.
She blocked him. “Axel… Please.”
“Please what?”
“I—I have to!”
For an instant, he thought he saw Sora’s face instead of Xion’s again. He shook his head slowly in denial.
“Don’t you understand, Axel? I can’t keep existing like this!”
“Yes, you can! There’s gotta be a way!”
Xion shoved him with the Keyblade, then leaped back to adjus
t her stance. “No, there isn’t. And I don’t want to be a puppet for the Organization. I won’t let Roxas be their tool, either.”
“Well then, we’ve got the same agenda!” Axel closed in on her again and surrounded her in a wall of flame.
She crossed her arms to shield herself and shook off the leaping fire, then darted in past his guard. “Just listen to me!”
Her Keyblade slammed into Axel’s shoulder, and he groaned. “I am listening! You’re just not making any sense!”
He really, really didn’t want to do this, but… Blocking the Keyblade’s next blow, he slashed at Xion with the chakrams and sent her sprawling.
“Axel—!”
“I swear—everyone just keeps making excuses!”
“Axel, please, you have to understand!” Xion got to her feet.
Maybe they were evenly matched after all. And they both had their reasons for fighting.
“What about me? Don’t you think I wanted the three of us to stay together, too?!” Axel cried, knocking her to the ground again.
He’d been overthinking the do’s and don’ts so much that he lost sight of what he wanted. And he couldn’t gather the courage to follow Roxas. Was he afraid of rebelling against the Organization? No—it was just that he wanted things to stay the way they were, even more than Xion or Roxas did.
Axel didn’t care anymore about what the Organzation needed, what Xion or Roxas wanted, or even what was supposed to be good for the worlds.
He had been using the Organization for his own ends from the start. The only thing that had changed in the meantime was who it was all for. Maybe Saïx would call that a betrayal. But his world had changed.
I wanted us to stay together. All I wanted was to hold on to our happiness as a trio in the Organization. But I told myself to grow up and stop wishing for the impossible.
Well, I’m done with that. That’s not the answer I want.
“…Axel?” Once more, Xion dragged herself upright.
And they clashed again…
“Why d’you have to be so much trouble…?” Axel grumbled, his steps faltering under the weight of the girl—the puppet—hoisted over his shoulder. While he was hardly unscathed himself, she appeared completely unconscious.
Kingdom Hearts 358-2 Days Page 31
