Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is not mine.

Warnings: language, character death

Author's Note: Can it be? Yes, it is chapter 17. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews. I love every one of them! And for those curious as to why Leon and Sora don't get along well…

Chapter Seventeen: What Lies Between Brothers

"Roxas!"

On hearing his name, Roxas quickly shoved the rest of the bread in his mouth. He had been planning to savoir the taste, but it seemed Cloud had gotten back sooner than expected, and Roxas did not want to share his hard won treat.

"Roxas! Come out I have a surprise for you!"

The promise of a surprise just for him had Roxas feeling slightly guilty (his stomach however did not share this guilt) for scarfing down the stolen bread without offering some to Cloud. With a smile that could light the sun, Roxas crawled out of the shelter of a rusted mine cart, and picked his way through the pile of junk to reach the other blond haired boy. He skidded to a halt however when he saw that Cloud was not alone.

"Ah, there you are," Cloud called out to him. He waved a hand beckoning Roxas closer, and cautiously Roxas complied. The younger felt his previous excitement about the promised surprise somewhat stifled when he realized that it must be the boy standing next to Cloud.

The boy's guarded eyes were hidden under a tuff of silver bangs and his arms were crossed like he wasn't quite comfortable or happy to be there. His face was pinched as if he was trying to ward of some smell, and Roxas remembered belatedly that he and Cloud did live in a junk yard. Roxas supposed that he didn't smell any better than his surroundings as he hated baths unlike Cloud.

"Roxas, this is Riku," Cloud said. He smiled at Riku in a way that Roxas had only seen directed at him and he felt a pang of jealousy. "Riku's just like us! He doesn't have a home either."

Roxas childishly disagreed with this thinking that he and Cloud had done an alright job at making this place their home even if it was just filled with the town's unwanted and discarded rubbish. It had been just him and Cloud since he could remember and secretly Roxas believed that they were brothers. He did not want some other kid coming in and messing everything up.

"I don't like him! He can't stay," Roxas exclaimed. Cloud's mouth fell open in surprise and there was hurt in his eyes like he had been the one insulted instead. Suddenly, feeling rather foolish, Roxas scurried back under the mine cart.

Had he made Cloud mad? Would Cloud leave him and go off with that Riku kid? Roxas felt his eyes leaking and discovered that he was crying.

It was then that he heard someone coming. Roxas furiously wiped the tears from his eyes as a polite metallic knock vibrated his hiding spot. Cloud hadn't left after all!

"Come on Roxas," Cloud assured him. "You'll see. He's really nice." Roxas didn't respond. "He has nowhere else to go, Roxas."

"What about his other friends?" Roxas replied rather sullenly.

"He doesn't have any," Cloud told him sadly. "His father wouldn't let him."

The strange boy didn't have any other friends? Roxas was amazed and felt a little wretched. He hadn't been very nice to him back there. Maybe what Cloud said was true. The older boy had never lied to him before. Besides it could be fun, Roxas thought. He would make Riku his friend and then everything would be all right!

"Then he can be our friend," Roxas alleged. Cloud agreed with him and Roxas happily with his new mindset crept out under the mine cart once again.

"Now go and apologize to him," Cloud instructed with a light tap on the back. Roxas was thrilled to see that happy smile that he had been so jealous of earlier directed at him.

Roxas nodded to Cloud and ran back to find Riku with renewed hope. Their future looked so bright now! Riku was standing where they had left him looking as if he felt very out of place. Roxas approached him, and gave Riku his friendliest smile.

"Let's be friends," Roxas said and held out his hand for Riku to shake.

Riku looked at the hand and recoiled. "I don't want to be friends with a dingy nobody who stinks like a dirty diaper."

Roxas snapped his hand back, and scowled at the other boy. Riku was looking down at him with a dark frown of his own. Cloud was wrong. This boy wasn't nice at all!

"I won't forgive you," Roxas cried, and much to Riku's surprise he leapt at him knocking the pair of them into the mud.

-xxx-

"Roxas?"

Riku lowered his axe letting it fall uselessly to the ground. He dared not blink in case doing so would break this dream. Riku's mind was racing trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

"You're alive?" Riku asked addressing himself as much as the other.

Roxas was alive? Impossible this couldn't be right, but…

The young man was breathing heavily. His eyes were clouded and Riku wasn't sure if he could actually distinguish him from the rest of the world.

Riku unwittingly reached out a hand to touch the soft blonde hair. He half expected that his hand would go through it even though he knew that he had previously been able to knock him to the ground.

Before his hand made contact, the man scooted out of reach. The clouded look remained in his eyes but there were other emotions that Riku recognized that were there as well, and chief among them was disbelief and fear.

"You're a nightmare sent by the monster that killed you!" The blond whispered, and Riku was all but hit with the desperate strength of certainty that vibrated in Roxas' voice. Riku recognized the danger of this situation just before he saw Roxas veering his sword to take off his head. Riku seized his fallen axe and parried the blow that had come just an inch from killing him. The impact sent the axe spiraling out of his hand.

The sword gleamed from the light of the dying sun, and Riku understood that this person was no longer Roxas and wondered if it had ever been his friend in the first place. This was Ansem's doing. It had to be. Seeing Roxas alive and fighting him as well was just one final deception prepared by that fucking bastard. The memory of Roxas didn't deserve this!

Riku screamed and using all his rage he struck the lingering sentiment with his fist. His knuckles burned, but the satisfying blow had knocked the imposter's head back. Riku had expected Roxas' doppelganger to come at him again with the sword. Instead it backed away a few steps and then turned and made a full out run in the direction from which Ansem and his army had come.

Riku sprinted after it. He needed to put an end to Ansem's lies. He had to. The pain that he had felt ever since Roxas died burst forth, and all Riku could do was run after a mere shadow of his friend.

A familiar tug reminded him of the cursed bond that fucking Leon had latched to him. He could go no further. He wanted to destroy that fake so bad, even though he knew that the ghost of his friend would haunt him forever if he did.

Seething, Riku watched as the blond head disappeared from view.

-xxx-

What was left of Ansem's army had fled back to the hell in which they belonged. As for the pack, there were a few fallen bodies and Cloud hoped it was nobody that he had come to really know.

Somehow they had done the impossible and won this fight. Ansem's death had freed his army of his influence. Without his blinding order for obedience those men had retreated. Cloud couldn't guess how much they would remember their time under Ansem's control and he also wondered how much of their mind would still be intact. Cloud had felt a slight numbing snap in his own mind and knew he and Riku were lucky to have distanced themselves from Ansem's control when they did. If they hadn't then they might have lost some of their sanity with his death.

Cloud dropped the heart and thought it looked rather small and pathetic lying alone in the dirt. He shifted back to his human body and felt a weary tug on his muscles as he did so. Once more, he observed the shriveling heart and for a second he considered crushing it with his foot.

"In some packs it is tradition for the victor to eat the heart of his enemy," Leon said. He had also changed back into his human form and Cloud felt an unwelcome tightness in his chest just looking at him.

"Are you suggesting I eat it?" Cloud asked as he once again captured the heart in his hand.

"The custom only applies to the alpha." Leon looked at the heart, frowned and then said, "A heart that comes from such a man must be tainted …"

Leon's words trailed off, and if Cloud's eyes had not been scrunched shut then he would have had the satisfaction of seeing Leon's eyes widen. As it was, Cloud knocked back his head and suddenly shoved Ansem's heart in to his mouth knowing that it was either now or never.

"What are you doing?" Leon asked, but the bewilderment had worn off into understanding between Cloud's swallow and before his reply.

"I challenge you," Cloud said despite having to fight against his instinct to gag. His voice was choked, his teeth red, and out of the corners of his mouth Ansem's heart blood escaped and slid down to his chin. It had been hard to say the first time, but Cloud uttered his challenge again not knowing if the difficulty he found in saying these words came from more than just having eaten Ansem's heart.

"Under what grounds?" Leon whispered.

Fearing what he might find there, Cloud had to force himself to look Leon straight in the eyes. He did his best not to flinch at the raw emotion he saw there. Those grey eyes held the pain of betrayal and if Cloud had ever doubted Leon's love for him then he didn't now.

The wolves that had been yipping joyously at having won the battle stilled and advanced towards their alpha and his challenger. Werewolves wearing both forms circled the pair.

"Faulty judgment impaired by your own emotional involvement on multiple accounts," Cloud said. His words were clear despite the lump in his throat. Feeling something sticky on his chin, Cloud wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.

"You don't want to do this," Leon spoke steadily. Cloud knew that Leon was granting him this last chance to back out, but he had already made up his mind.

"Yes, I do." With these words Cloud watched the softness in Leon's eyes harden. This stony look was one that Leon reserved for Sora, and despite his best efforts, Cloud felt some of his resolve weaken to regret. "We are lucky to have won this battle. If Ansem hadn't controlled so much of his men's minds then we would have been devastated. Your fear and hatred of Ansem blindly guided you to lead this pack into battle without much thought of the heavy sacrifice it might have required. This same blindness has caused you to warrant in inexcusable behavior towards members of the pack most notably your brother who you do not even recognize. A pack is a family and its members should n-"

"A family, huh?" Leon shook his head. Rage contorted his body making his actions sharp and precise. "You speak of that which you do not know!"

Leon's words landed heavily in the air, and Cloud was suddenly aware of Riku standing next to him and Sora standing across from him. The younger werewolf whom was in human form as well had not joined the pack in their circle. Instead, cradling a bloody hand, Sora stood on the outside.

Leon followed Cloud's gaze and his eyes landed on his brother. He clenched his fists and then looked back at Cloud. "You believe that I am the 'bad guy'? That I'm just torturing some innocent?"

"He's your brother! I can't believe that someone could do what you have done to their own family."

"Why should I act nicely to the murderer of my parents?"

"The…what?"

"You heard me! He killed them! His hands are stained with their blood, and even now I can still see the look in their eyes as they realized that they were…"

Cloud glanced over Leon's shoulder when Sora flinched violently at his brother's words. Horror was shining in Sora's eyes, and he stuttered, "I-I…needed to…" Sora's mouth clamped shut when he noticed Riku standing beside Cloud.

"Riku, I…", but Sora could not finish and he took a step back then ran for the cover in the dense forest.

-xxx-

Sora ran with a heart that felt like it was a heavy burning weight. He had no destination, but his mind was too focused on what had happened to actually lead him anywhere.

"Why should I act nicely to the murderer of my parents?"

"He killed them!"

To hear those words spoken out loud by his brother cut open the scars that Sora had tried so desperately to hide. And Riku had heard them! 'He knows…now he knows my greatest sin.' Sora couldn't face Riku not when he knew what Sora had done. 'Riku hates me, Sora concluded, 'and now I have lost the one true friend that I have.' All the time that they spent together would amount only to memories with no hope of future moments. Time with Riku had been so precious and now…

'Leon. Ansem may have used pain, and torture, but it wasn't he who defeated you all those long years ago. It was me, and my betrayal. I am the cause of your sleepless nights when your cry out in terror. In every dream it is me who you try to prevent from killing our parents, and still I hope that one day my brother would forgive me. I have tried everything…except," and here Sora paused not only his mind but his feet as well. So profound was this thought to him that he uttered it out loud. "Except I always run away."

"SORA!"

On hearing his name, Sora still engulfed in his own thoughts looked over his shoulder, and gasped. He gasped not because at that very same instant his toe caught on a jutted out stone nor did he gasp when his fall was caught by shallow water.

Running up behind him was Riku!

Riku stopped beside Sora who still lay sprawled on the ground. He was panting hard, but offered Sora a hand up anyway. Sora felt a second of awe that Riku had kept up with him while he had been running, but it was quickly overwhelmed by both confusion and an embarrassing large swell of hope.

Sora grabbed Riku's hand and let the other haul him to his feet. He took in those aqua green eyes, and for the first time Sora saw the depth of the love that was ignited in them. Despite Riku now knowing what Sora had done he still loved him. Despite all of Riku's attempts to keep it cool, Sora knew that the other loved him, but it wasn't until now that he realized just how much.

Sora owed it to Riku to tell him the truth although he could not tell the whole story. Riku would only get that if he asked Leon, so he would have to make do with Sora's own speculations on what his brother had been thinking.

"I have to tell you what happened, and if you decide that you can't look past what I did then I will accept your choice," Sora explained to both Riku and himself. He knew that he had to stop running away even if it hurt. Even if Riku would only see him as a murderer.

"Before I was a werewolf and before Leon was one too. There was a happy family. A loving mother, a hard working father, and the best big brother a boy could ever have. They all belonged to me, but now only in my memory. Their happiness only lasted so long. Leon, he left. I don't know why. He just gets restless sometimes and I think he wanted to go somewhere where he could really grow. While he was gone I fell ill and my parents became… old. I was dying and this changed them. With Leon gone and me slowly fading away, my parents became listless.

"I believed that if Leon came back home that everything would be right again. I remember thinking that if he were here our family would be fixed and that this rut we had tumbled into would be erased. I thought it couldn't get worse than this, but you know what they say…"

His ragged coughing disturbed his parent's sleep. He could see it in the hollows of their sunken eyes. Sora tried his best to muffle his cough beneath his blankets, but his fits wrecked his wasting body. Pain was everywhere. It flared with every movement he made and every breath that he breathed. It felt like he was drowning from the inside out.

A shuffle of footfalls alerted him to his mother's presence. She cupped his cheek gently in her hand, but did not smile. Sora had not seen her smile in weeks. Only an ever thinning line replaced it.

"Let's list the things we are thankful for today," Sora's mother said.

Sora looked into the depths of her eyes and saw a light dying. He used to like this game when he was little, but now it had become something twisted. His mother would start everyday saying this, but her hope had dried up and so had the game. He didn't want to play, but he told her in a paper thin voice, "Number one: You're walking again."

"Yes, on a crooked leg," his mother said bitterly.

"Number two: the rain stopped."

"The wind still rages."

"Three…" Sora began already knowing that it was hopeless. There was nothing that his mother could not find fault in nowadays. "Number three is I'm alive."

"Yes," Sora's mother said simply. She removed her hand from his cheek and moved away from the side of his bed and limp towards the window.

Sora felt that trembling urge to cough again seize his throat. He struggled against it trying to hold back the sharp pain that he knew it would bring but he was overwhelmed. When the trembling in his shoulders ceased and the house grew quiet, Sora looked down at the hand that he had used to cover his mouth. There, running down the lines of his palm was blood. This was new. Sora glanced towards his mother to see if she had seen, and was reassured to find that her eyes were still trained out the window. Sora wiped his hand off underneath the blanket, and tried to block the building panic climbing higher in his chest.

"Sora!"

Sora's eyes whipped back to his mother. Had she seen the blood?

No.

"Sora! It's Leon! He's here!"

"Leon," Sora repeated his mother. He had hoped for so long…

Sora's mother ran towards the door and wrenched it open. A second later a dirty form dashed into her open arms and she enveloped him there. The person lifted their dirt stained face and their stormy eyes pierced Sora.

"I wanted so badly to believe that this person was my brother that when he finally did arrive I could not believe that it was him," Sora shook his head, and his lips trembled. "And those eyes. Even after I accepted that the man who came through the door was my brother, I knew that he was also somebody else."

"The wolf?" Riku offered.

"No, well yes and no. It was more than the wolf. His eyes reflected the torture Ansem had done to him and the surge of spent adrenaline for freedom. What I saw there was something raw, something wild. Not the wolf, but something that had been dormant in Leon all along.

"My brother blacked out in my mother's arms, and she called for my father. Between the three of us we got him inside the house, washed the muck off his skin and in his hair, and wrapped him in loads of blankets. After three anxious days of he woke up. It was on that third day that my condition took a turn for the worse. I was in so much pain that I couldn't move, and even if I would have wanted to I had no strength to. I hovered in and out of consciousness.

"As for what happened next, I can only speculate. I had become so delirious that I can only recall bits and pieces. I came so close to dying that night and I would have except that Leon woke up. I remember hearing his voice but I couldn't make out all of what was being said. I know he spoke my name and I tried so hard to swim out of the darkness that was pulling me deeper and deeper.

"The rest of that night was a twister of sensations. The sound of my brother's voice, a scream…my mother's for that I am certain, and then the darkness that had swallowed me burst into white sweltering pain. This next part is very hard for me to…"

Riku gripped Sora's hand in his own. Sora stared at their hands locked together no linked. If there was anyone to tell his story to it would be Riku. It must be Riku.

Sora took a breath and continued on. "Things might have been different if that third night had not been the full moon. My parents might still be alive, but the Mother moon, she sped up Leon's recovery and I can only guess that what he did was to save me and preserve our family. When he transformed he bit me. After that white pain, I was once again dragged back into darkness, but this void was different. It was filled with hunger, and madness.

"I slaughtered them. I can't remember it, but I know," Sora shuttered. 'I could taste their blood between my teeth, smell their shock, their fear, their horror.' "On the verge of my death, my wolf was born and it brought with it the chaos that had wrecked my body. During my first transformation, I was dead and the wolf was the only living thing running my body."

"A pure wolf," Riku stated, and Sora wished that Riku wasn't so good at hiding his emotions.

"My only memory of that night was when I was torn away from the darkness, and opened my eyes to the fading moonlight. To survive the wolf pulled me from my death.

"And my parents were the sacrifice," Sora concluded. The end of Sora's tale was met with silence. Sora did not dare to look Riku in the eyes for fear of what he might see there. Instead he concentrated on their connected hands and tried to take it as a good sign that Riku had not pulled his hand away in disgust.

"You're both wrong," Riku told him breaking the silence that Sora both needed and dreaded.

"What do you mean?" Sora asked.

"You and your brother have it wrong," Riku pulled his hand out of Sora's and for a split second Sora's heart plummeted. In the next instant Riku pulled him into a tight hug that sent Sora's mind and heart into confusion. "Sora, it's not your fault. You had no idea what was happening. You weren't in control. Don't you see? You said it yourself, it was the wolf."

"They still died because of me!"

"No, they died due to matters completely out of your hands," Riku told Sora in a steady and even voice. Sora realized that his own voice was starting to sound hysterical, and he was both angry at himself and embarrassed by it. "Sora, I promise you that your past will not keep me out of your future as long as you still want me there."

"Riku…" Sora could not get the rest of his words out as he suddenly found himself awash in tears. He cried loudly and his whole body trembled.

-xxx-

Cloud sat a good bit of distance away from the weeping pair, but not so far that he couldn't hear everything that was said. He felt tears in his own eyes, and let them fall freely.

He was so proud of Riku. The boy had really grown into a man. A better man than what both his father and Ansem had tried to mold him to be. Somehow, Riku had become fully human, and Sora…

Cloud frowned. Riku was right. Sora was not to be blamed for the death of his parents. How a person could carry Sora's burden and still be able to smile Cloud would never know, but he was grateful. Thankful even, that the two of them had found each other.

As for Leon…

-xxx-

Namine had not been able to watch the battle. The anticipated violence was too much for her to handle, and before the battle began she hid herself out of sight and up a tree.

'If only Axel could see me now', she thought. 'He would be so furious with me for being in the midst of this battle.'

She was tired, but she dared not fall asleep. Namine kept up a silent vigil, praying that she would go unnoticed until the battles end and she could climb down again.

The sounds of a skirmish nearing her tree caused Namine to tense. A brown wolf dashed into sight followed by two men swinging dangerous swords. Namine covered her mouth with her hand less to stifle sound and more as a nervous reaction.

The brown wolf and the men attacked and dodged each other's advances. The wolf was fast, but wounded and slowing down. Faces empty of emotion, the men were gaining the advantage. She heard the wolf cry out, and couldn't stop herself from looking. The wounded wolf took a step forward as if it were going to deliver one final blow when it collapsed and transformed into a woman. She lay their defenseless and exposed to further grief.

'I have to do something,' she thought. If she didn't then the wolf below would die. Namine carefully opened up her nap sack and took out a precious pear from her dwindling supply.

'Setzer, don't let me miss!'

With all of her strength Namine hurled the pear at the man's unprotected head. Her pear hit its target and the man comically froze and then dropped. The other man looked around in confusion until he noticed the pear. He bent to pick it up when his body convulsed.

It was like something was being purged out of him, but both his mind and body could not take it. The man threw up and then ran away.

Namine scaled down the tree and hurried over to where the brown haired woman lay panting heavily. With a mother's care, Namine brushed the hair out of the woman's face. She looked at the wound in the woman's side and knew that it was fatal.

"Who are you?"

Namine's eyes shifted back to the woman's face, and was felt her heart clench at the way the brown eyes were clouding over.

"I'm Namine," she told the woman. "It's funny. You're not the first werewolf to die in my arms." Namine was surprised to find tears slipping down her cheeks, and she blocked the image of Setzer dying from her mind. She closed her eyes and rubbed the tears from her face.

For the briefest second after she opened them she did not see the brown haired women, but a red haired young man. Was Axel in trouble? Namine blinked and reality was once again restored.

"I'll finally be joining them," the brown haired woman choked.

"Joining who?" Namine asked gently.

"My pack. Marluxia, Demyx, and Axel."

Namine blinked in surprise at hearing the name of her loved one from this dying woman's lips. Could they be one and the same? Was this woman Axel's Tifa? Namine felt as if she should say something. Tell this woman that Axel was alive.

"I've seen you before." Tifa's fingers twitched as if she were trying to lift her arm and Namine lifted Tifa's hand up to her cheek. "Once every month you smile down on me like a goddess of the moon."

'Yes,' Namine thought 'that sounds right.'

Namine stayed with Tifa long after her soul had passed. She was not strong enough to give the body a proper burial, but she knew that there would be others searching for it soon.

The unnatural rustling of leaves alerted Namine to the approaching of another stranger. She saw that the figure that was crashing through the woods would not intersect with her at this point and so she stayed still and silent…but the stranger running at full speed in the direction that she had come from looked hauntingly familiar.

Roxas!

Namine was on her feet before she knew it and took off after her friend. She called his name, but he did not stop and turn around like she expected instead he picked up speed!

"Roxas, wait up!" Namine was not fast enough to catch up to him, but she could follow him.

Little note thing:

Wow! Only one more chapter to go and then this fic ends…or at least that's the plan. Thank you for sticking with the story and being patient as I chug it out to completion. Thank you for reading, and don't forget to review! I love to know what you all think!

Bottom of Form