Go Down in Ashes or Go Up in Smoke

He knew Roxas was planning on leaving. He guessed Roxas wanted to leave even before the kid realized it for himself, probably, and he was waiting when he did. He didn't know why, or to what purpose. But he hadn't been lying when he had told Roxas and Xion that they were his best friends.

Sure, he'd been forced to pick between them, to force them apart and ultimately break apart their whole friendship, but... they were his best friends. They always would be.

"Your mind's made up, then?"

The words come out flat. He isn't sure why. After all the laughing and the confusion and the contentedness and being torn between a rock and a hard place, now isn't the time when he needs to be flat and he knows it. He just can't help it.

"Why did the Keyblade choose me?" Roxas intones, glancing over his shoulder. "I have to know."

Because of Sora, Axel wants to say, but he can't. He betrayed the Organization once by letting Naminé go; he can't betray them again, not like this. Even though Roxas is well on his way to finding out on his own...

But then, by not telling him, by not explaining the fiasco with Sora and him and Xion, he's betraying Roxas, too. It makes his stomach turn, that.

For once in his life, couldn't he manage anything without destroying it?!

"You can't turn on the Organization!" he snaps, pushing away from the wall, pushing away from his thoughts. "You get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!"

Roxas doesn't miss a beat. "No one would miss me." He faces forward and keeps walking, his head high, shoulders straight.

Roxas actually believes that.

The words hit Axel at an odd angle. The fight finally goes out of him before he realizes what's happened, that Roxas is leaving, that he's really leaving, and nothing Axel says or does can change it. "That's not true..." he mumbles, the words falling off of numb lips. And how it is possible for such mind-numbing pain to come from nowhere, when he can't feel anything, when he isn't supposed to feel anything, how can it hurt so damn much? "I would..."

But it doesn't matter because Xion is gone, because Roxas is gone, because every friendship he's ever had has gone to nothing. Isa hadn't been his fault. Isa had been Xemnas's fault, not his.

But Roxas...?

Roxas is his fault.

Roxas is regret.

Axel doesn't like the feeling.

I always wanted to write this scene from Axel's POV but never did, and... well, now I made up for that.

I do not own Kingdom Hearts! Disney and Square Enix does. Thanks for reading!