Saïx wakes up in a place he doesn't quite remember falling asleep in. Also, he has a dull headache, but he doesn't give it much thought. It makes his head bother him more, for one, and he's used to waking up with phantom pain on his scars.

The room is pristine white, from the slender metallic bedposts to the slippery tiling on the floor to the sturdy bars on the window. Not like that would stop him from getting out whenever he wanted to. Like now, probably, there isn't much to catch his interest (not much to inform, at least, and there's no mission on the bare white nightstand for him to do or assign) and summoning the darkness is an easy thing.

Saïx makes his way to a standing position- gathering his bearings takes some time, he notes, and whatever headache this was, he probably shouldn't have slept it off like he did in the Castle. Focusing on darkness, at least, is as easy a task as Saïx expected: vast spaces, a tugging nothingness, heavy silence and all the things that lurk within…

He snaps his fingers.

There should've been a portal. Instead, the click of Saïx's fingers echoes faintly off the walls. He tries again, but nothing (besides a spike of pain at his head) answers his call a tad too literally. With a flick of his wrist, he pelts the nightstand with a ball of fire: magic still works normally, aside from the strange ban on darkness.

Saïx considers his environment again: a charred nightstand, a bed, a barred window with no curtains and a sturdy metal door. On the ceiling there's a bare bulb- turned on, so Saïx can see without resorting to the night vision granted to him by his affinity to darkness- and the sky beyond the windows is clouded over and the color of deep night.

He moves to stand by the window, the air cold but working wonders for the headache (he really should practice his spells more) and gauges its size. Saïx supposes he fits, if curled down slightly, and he readies himself to summon his claymore-

He crumples to the ground. The claymore doesn't appear wreath in moonlight and inky clouds of course, and that singular event is wrecking. Saïx knows the blade, every inch, it's a part of him and lacking the ability to summon it is-

He can-

Saïx passes out, a headache rising to be unbearable and his last conscious thought is that now of all times, he shouldn't be sleeping this off.

The next time Saïx wakes up, he notes it's still before dawn. And the headache is understandably still there.

Some habits die hard. Harder than the charred nightstand at least, which failed in its duty to provide support for him as he stood up.

He returns to the window, barred and (he notices) shut. The wind must've blown the panes closed, but with some prodding Saïx opens them wide again beyond the metal bars. They're about as thick as his thumb, and firmly welded. Saïx doubts even Lexaeus could've separated them from the frame by strength alone, even if only because his hands were probably too large to fit through the gaps.

Pelting them with another ball of fire yields nothing but a faint shimmer of an anti-magic ward, and a dull reminder that he probably has a concussion or a bad night's sleep and shouldn't be focusing on spell work, even at a basic level, at this hour and condition. Saïx abstains from trying the darkness again, merely satisfying himself with the darkling sky beyond the bars and the buzzing silence of voices out of tune in his head.

Stop right there.

Rewind.

Before he awoke in the white room, Saïx had been in a battle.

Before the battle- ages ago, in fact, even if it hadn't been in a linear manner- he'd been in another white room, lying in much the same state of 'waking up to a persistent, splitting headache'.

He'd been surrounded by entities he discerned were himself too many times, he'd been another person and they all had been speaking. Or at least, there were voices. Saïx remembers none of them sounding quite like himself, for being himself other twelve times over, and he distinctly remembers Xigbar sitting there with too much of Saïx up in a throne like chair.

He'd been beckoned over, and sent to the battle in a manner that wasn't linear at all, involving some time with a young man with golden eyes and moonlight hair strolling down a windswept cannon and getting reddish dust on his immaculate black leather coat.

…

No, that had been Saïx. The young man had simply stayed back at the meeting, indicating in a clipped monotone where the mission was to be carried out and that only one operative was required in the field. And Saïx had left, he knows, because he was capable and he was assigned the mission and-

(he's disposable and he's bait, but he doesn't hear Xigbar say-think this back in the tall white throne room, kicking back in his-Saïx's chair).

Saïx remembers that the battle had too many key blades since his count, or at least the count of the Saïx swinging the claymore around. Sora and Riku were an expected pair, as were the King and the Sage. Kairi had displayed one, even if Saïx was borderline amazed at her possessing the skill to go with the weapon.

(she fights just like another young woman, some other Saïx-voice whispers lost in time, and Saïx adjusts himself to better brace against the barrage of spells Kairi favors).

The trio in armor, Saïx doesn't focus on too much. Someone else already has them pinned down as his (mine but not completely, Saïx reckons, what with all being him), and with their dangerously synchronized triple attacks, he doesn't want to embroil himself directly with them. Better to let the rampant heartless assault them at will.

The last trio, Saïx pays full attention to. The two smaller figures he recognizes, but dismisses. Roxas and Xion were nuisances with great potential at their best of their days in the Organization. A rebelling duo at their worst, slated for elimination. The last figure stays oddly distant, darting in for a couple strikes with a hood covering his face more completely than any so-called hero would use and then retreating back to unleash a firestorm that dances and whirls around Roxas and Xion without ever touching them. It sears Saïx, but this he can use.

Limit breaks are a glorious thing. Xion blocks a couple strikes, only to be sent flying because even guarding, she is but a porcelain-skinned doll with the weight of a feather; Roxas abandoned his faltering assault to make sure his companion didn't land in Saïx's path.

As for Saïx, he was well on the route to cleaving a path straight to the fire slinger, key blade whirling and limned in a heat-haze, when the (quite concussive) Sleep spell landed courtesy of someone and all went black instead of raging moonlight.

Flash forwards.

Saïx leaning on a wall, looking out of a barred window. The sky is well past dawn and nearing midday, wispy clouds slowly absconding from the behemoth of a storm that will come in soon. He still has a splitting headache, but slowly receding.

He listens to the silence, now creeping along with full wakefulness. He's missed it, in a way. For being a single person, the group of thirteen Saïx came from was quite talkative. Monologues came in round robins, tactics were discussed, the darkness was lauded and strategies were planned for their optimum outcome when the war broke out.

Someone- Saïx didn't really care for whom- had rhapsodized on what would await them once Kingdom Hearts was properly formed. One who had sounded like Xigbar muttered something about revenge while polishing a weapon to battle-readiness.

Now, Saïx hears nothing but his breath and the slight drone of wind as it rushes past castle stones and the whistle of it against metal bars and dewy window panes.

And some slow steps of someone beyond-

A slot in the door clears to reveal a peep hole, which barely reveals a large, blue eye. That doesn't narrow Saïx possibilities too much, but the speed of the steps rushing away from him hints at it being Sora.

Against a key blade wielder, Saïx knows risking a worse headache is the preferable option. He can tell the other twelve Saïx would be displeased at his fading so soon under those conditions.

Emptiness. Mystery and temptation and the sense of darkness and the unknown and Saïx pulls, drawing from himself, drawing into the darkness and-

He ends up on the ground, pulling at strands of his hair with eyes glimmering bright gold and a headache that, as a weapon, would've knocked every other soul in the castle to his or her knees.

When the door is opened, Saïx glares at it. Light spills ever radiant from the small crack, and it's because of Saïx's force of will that a shadow is cast to stifle it.

For his part, Roxas steps back once, one and a half times, and then slams the door shut. (Saïx winces unseen at the loud sudden noise, unaccustomed to the fact that not all transportation is slick and silent as the darkness is). Locks it with his key blade once for good measure, and then tore down the hall at full speed.

Roughly half an hour later, Axel stopped whining about waking up before midday on his day off training. Saïx had ceased glaring at the door for allowing the light in and lastly, Roxas had barreled through the correct hallway down to Saïx's room.

Saïx resumed his glaring, eyes accustomed to the dimness of his allotted room (and accustomed to the darkness of the In-Between) and with head still pounding from a headache.

"Isa-"

"Axel. I see your decision to side with your makeshift friends was of a more permanent nature."

Saïx doesn't miss the young man behind Axel, summoning his eccentric blade in a flash of light that compounds the problem with his headache.

Creatures of darkness fear and loathe the key blade. Saïx in particular dislikes Roxas. Those facts a good ambient does not make, and Axel can sense it in a way verging on psychical. He stops Roxas with a warning gesture (dully, he notes that the weapon is not withdrawn, but merely lowered so as to imply the retaliation for any action against Axel won't be instantaneous) and approaches Saïx with wary steps.

Crouches.

Gives Isa what would pass for a friendly pat on the back if done with several magnitudes less of strength behind the gesture.

"Isa. I see that you didn't get permanently damaged. Wouldn't have wanted a zombie around here like we had when recruiting."

"You would've merely had a wisp of darkness in its place. Consider yourselves warned."

"Or you'll glare us to death?"

Saïx pointedly ignores the comment.

"It's not as if he could do anything else Axel, I mean Lea, the-" Roxas chimes in, only to be stopped by a warning look and a cutting motion.

"The blow to the head-"

"Blows". Roxas sounded too proud of that fact, Saïx noted, and although the result wasn't as lethal as expected (desired?), it was still annoying.

Funny thing, to feel.

"Blows to the head can do that. Now Rox, can you run along and tell whoever is in the med sector that he woke up? I'll get you ice cream."

The last is said to empty space, Roxas already careening through corridors to pass the news along. Lea turns back to Saïx slowly, and raises empty hands.

"Isa-"

"Do not repeat that name. It isn't mine, and it is foolish to expect the response you desire to it."

"It is yours. You aren't with… did you use 'us' or 'me'? I mean, them, but..."

"None of your business, Axel." The last word is said with blades and poison, a clear warning. Saïx vaguely resents the fact that he was unable to summon his weaponry back then, to lend credibility to the threat. Lea (he means Axel) is still wiry, though, and Saïx guesses that he could leave him with at least a severe sprain if he needs to. The odd weakness and the pounding headache don't affect his muscle for the time being, and once he recuperates he should be able to escape through a portal.

"It is all of my business, same as you spacing out all the time. Unless you want Even or Naminé messing around in your head to set it straight again."

"I doubt either of them could affect me through the concussive headache. Do you have more nonsense to spew?"

"I don't- I wasn't speaking nonsense Isa."

"Hmph. It seems you went through a concussive trauma as well." A pause, Saïx's face trying to flicker through an emotion. "I seem to still be unable to express any condolence."

Lea turns back and leaves, the door clicking locked behind him.

Saïx paces around his room. The headache doesn't lessen in the least, but he slowly grows used to the quietness of the castle.

(Before, Saïx would've constantly heard the drone of some other Saïx thinking out loud to himself, or bemoaning the fact that yes, they will go grey sooner rather than later. The price of power.

Someone, although Saïx can't remember who, was thankful it was only looks and muttered so in pointed words and wary tones. Saïx remembers wondering why could he have ever thought that, and why did he ever think recruiting half of the vain other Saïxes was a good idea.)

Lea visits every day. Saïx doesn't really care, although he does notice that both of Lea's visits are evenly-spaced and quite regular. He also brings the better meals (even if they usually consist of not-fluffy pancakes and scalding coffee for breakfast and a bar each of sky-blue popsicle goodness later on).

Between them, they don't speak.

Morning. Saïx only knows it is such because of Lea's greeting, when it's intelligible.

Lea walks in. Says hello blearily, half asleep, even though the mug precariously balanced with two fingers on his right hand is his. On his other hand, there is a small tray containing a plate of breakfast (today, burnt toast with a small pat of butter and about a spoonful of jam) and a cup of some brew Saïx can usually recognize as some sort of coffee.

"Axel."

"Lea."

"Flurry of the Dancing Flames. While I am duly aware of your predilection for that element, I do not think it translates into something edible."

"Speak for yourself."

Saïx never does. He sits in silence, and sorts through the quiet voices in his head.

Mornings were a dull affair in the company of the other somewhat Saïxes. Monologues were interchanged. The young man with moonlight-silver hair and golden eyes would speak the least, and Xigbar would try to liven up the atmosphere by warping the sugar in and out of the cups.

Mission portfolios were passed around. Saïx dealt with those from nearly his rebirth, the page setup burnt into his eyelids, although now he can't recall a single mission he was assigned this way. He remembers seeing Axel in the target lists often enough, and he remembers having a migraine on those days.

(Maybe his headache is chronic. Too long being an administrator of paradox people).

Saïx remembers being quiet and letting the voices wash over him and tangle him in place, monologues blending into the drink and the faint headache being shoved behind his consciousness.

Lea always tries to speak.

He speaks of his training sessions – Saïx thinks he'll have excellent intel to report back when he returns to the white castle in the edge of nothingness – of how Roxas recovered the use of his keyblades in the blink of an eye and how now it's the young boy's turn to mentor Lea. Dual-wielding, he says, is a pain when the blades can't be held aloft by magic alone. (Saïx never says it is probably due to the weapons now having a proper hilt and grip instead of a chakram's spiky, circular impracticality).

He speaks of ice-creams, of basking in sunsets that they have to catch with Roxas (and it's harder when they aren't permanent, as they were in Twilight Town), of the sea-salt recipe tasting slightly different here than he remembers it and of the ledges being nowhere near as high.

Saïx hears only tactical advantages, and remains quiet whenever Lea directs a question to him.

(He ascribes the relief from the headaches to having proper nourishment running through his system).

Lea leaves, and Saïx tries summoning the darkness again.

Whatever reprieve the food gave him is gone and the headaches return with a vengeance. He avoids passing out daily, but after the latest failure Saïx sits by the window and waits.

If he looks down- he always eventually does- he sees recruits training. Lexaeus (Aeleus, but if Axel isn't Lea than nobody is their other self) leads the drills. Saïx is mildly amused at the fact that no-one has a keyblade or a claymore or thrown weaponry down there, even when the exercises call for other weapon types and other trainers. He also notes no tremors cleave the ground and no stones dance around their master, and Saïx thinks this loss of potential a worrisome thing.

Sometime in the afternoon, Saïx will hear steps and the fizz of magic as more food is transported in. No one opens the door unless a keyblade is involved, Saïx thinks, but there is a latch on the outside as well as a traditional lock. Without his dark magic, breaking them is impossible. He tries summoning it nonetheless, sparks trailing to his fingers and sputtering out along his strength in a short moment. The door is made of solid wood, as he expects, and firing off a regular Fire spell doesn't singe it at all, which he also expected in a place holding Axel.

Every so often, he gets transported out, to a wide room devoid of furnishings except for training dummies at a far edge and a selection of wooden training gear in varying degrees of broken.

He doesn't question why his captors want him in fighting form, but he does question why there are no methods of surveillance even as he trains. Saïx thinks, that if he's sneaky enough about carrying off a couple of the blunt practice claymores and strong enough (he is, even if less so than he thought when he lost the darkness), he can break the heavy oaken doors of the wide hall.

He tries every day.

To Saïx's relief, the walls aren't ringing with magical wards and there are no shouts of alarm or even notice. He breaks sword upon sword on the wooden doors, and bites back curses to maintain all of his strength on the vicious blows.

However, the doors don't budge, bend, or even buckle. Saïx notices that they scratch easily enough (which proved their non-magical nature to him), and that they lose their lustre, but they don't break.

He is also greeted every day by a new door, which once made Saïx think he was being rotated through many practice rooms alone. Then Lea had said that Aeleus (Lexaeus, and wasn't he dead-) was getting vocal about how their guest-

"Prisoner, Axel, use the proper term."

"Guest, Isa, I'm the one who put you here-"

Saïx blurs out the rest of the conversation. He can imagine it easily enough, Lexaeus getting tasked again with the maintenance of the castle and replacing tall, white nether-stone doors after a practice session went as brutal as expected. Axel shrugging a spent Saïx onto his shoulder and haphazardly hurling a portal to his room open, barring the door by melting down the hinges and half-hoping that when he woke up, he wouldn't immediately recall that yes, portals were available.

Saïx now knows what to plan.

He waits, day after day. Grows stronger, even if it's just by swinging swords made from progressively less broken wood. Speaks just a little.

(He missed it.

With the other number Sevens, he didn't need to speak. Vocal chords grew rusty and his instincts sharpened, enough to cut meaning from a glare.

Saïx saw mostly commands, death threats, fear and from young men with keyblades, a desperate wish to not completely obliterate some other thing.)

Axel revels in the now more commonly broken silence. He's always had a loose tongue, from back when they both were boys with coltish limbs and a mischievous streak a mile wide (on Lea's case). Saïx recalls it being silvery, but if Axel has kept that trait on to his third iteration, he doesn't know.

It is difficult to sneak any item into his room. There are no hiding places, and he suspects that the small training sessions he's allotted serve to conceal any efforts to maintain his room hygienic.

Axel helps him figure out a hiding place unwittingly. Every day-

"Yo, Isa. Brought your favorite, if you want to share…"

-he produces an ice-cream bar. Sits on the bed, an unwrapped popsicle halfway to his mouth. It's always sea-salt, wrapped in paper the color of bright sunsets or cheap transparent plastic when he has to resort to stealing from Zexion (Isa didn't bother learning the young boy's name and now, he doesn't care). Saïx always knows when this happens, because there will be patches of frost in Axel's coat, the smell of ozone or burnt cloth, and a small but quite descriptive rant of the mage's underhanded 'tactics' and entrapments around the fridge.

He always refuses, on the grounds of keeping himself fit.

(On the grounds of not wanting yet to dispose of his cut-off power. Sea-salt is young nights spent stargazing and slapping Lea upside the head when the idealistic comments got too boneheaded or he finished drawing a motorcycle on Isa's homework again)

Axel eats the two bars. Sometimes, he hollers down the window and throws one down to someone Saïx can't see, but he imagines is Roxas. The wrapper is stashed somewhere- the charred remains of the drawer, under the mattress of the bed, on the small windowsill, around the small bin- and Saïx checks the locations every time he returns.

When he finds a wrapper unperturbed, he marks the spot and then, with great care, throws it down the window. He repeats this carefully, going so far as to attempt to hide some of the drawer's burnt corpse, and when it works after a sleepless night, Saïx puts his plan in motion.

Saïx waits stretched on his bed with an arm behind his head and the other falling slightly over an edge of the bed. Axel doesn't complain much about this.

"Stole my spot Isa." A nudge to the knees, expecting a response, and then Axel just sits on Saïx legs. He's used to-

Not used to the swift kick and a thick practice sword rapidly being swung towards him.

Axel darts out as fast as he can, but still gets clipped on the side and knocked down. The next hits are parried with a hastily summoned blade and a few spinning fireballs.

Neither of them bothers speaking save for Axel's hasty spell slinging and Saïx's low snarls, biting remarks at how Axel is still a slithering fighter and he still can't keep his priorities straight. Saïx understands, maybe bitterly, and maybe it's just all of his other selves echoing poison, but he understands that Axel just risked everyone. The two half-nothings. Roxas and… whoever it was, but those that Axel had willingly died for.

He'd risked them, and still he made a feeble attempt for him.

Saïx lunges, grabbing Axel's right hand before he gets another fireball out. Pins him to the ground, paying as little attention as possible to the kicks Axel delivers to his knees.

The wooden sword is at the fire-slinger's throat and a fire-wreathed fist is held a breath away from Saïx's left ear. The standstill is perfect, frozen and unbroken even by heavy breaths or darting looks.

"You can't focus on a single thing Axel."

"Lea."

"Axel. Lea didn't sacrifice a friendship for another. Lea didn't keep a friend out of the loop, Lea didn't kill-"

"Okay, okay, Axel. I'm focusing."

"On what?" Saïx makes as if to press a point with the side of his practice sword, but that would send his head right into the fire next to it.

"On you. The three of you. Sora-"

"Sora killed you. You'll believe in him?"

"Isa you have-"

"I know. I know, Axel, I know because I heard it from me and from me and-"

"Xigbar and Xemnas. Or more like diet Xehanort. I blew up their plans and didn't-"

The darkness had caught on fire for a long time, Saïx feeling something get swallowed by the void in between distances and then knowing it was one of theirs. Not really one of theirs though, not connected as they were, but-

"You burnt up part of Never Was. The Darkness is an integral part of it. When you blew it up, you began tearing the castle apart. And-"

And there was something else, Saïx knows. There had been a flickering moment of something. Of not knowing the hall he was pacing through, of feeling disoriented and like he should've been three weeks back still handing a mission out to Demyx and taking the customary three hours to knock him out and through a dark portal. There was getting called- again, as always- to Xemnas's office somewhere isolated with a great view of the ever-growing moon and-

There was a boy walking, sneaking down halls with a flashlight borrowed from a cousin you never saw again and bright yellow eyes bobbing in front of him as Lea called out-

"And-"

Saïx blacks out.

He reckons he hasn't heard silence in ages. True silence, not just blank noise when he's thinking or the whispers that are filtered out unless directed to him. Loud and commanding or the powerful, quiet tones of someone who knows too much, or even him if he bothers to think it through.

Now he hears only silence, and thinks that finally, Axel decided to cut clean.

He whites in.

The room is familiar. Spartan, antiseptic white. A charred nightstand- he thinks Axel has been getting creative with the wake up calls again, except Axel hasn't woken him up since…

Since…

(Lea used to wake him up when they were young, and early enough to be considered really late to sit outside and stargaze or empty an entire whipped cream on Reno's hand while he slept.

Lea used to wake him up when he'd get a mad idea, and-)

Saïx whites in to finding that Lea is pinning him to the ground. Not really, but he's on the floor with the tall redhead awkwardly bent over him, and looking way too distressed for whatever in the a.m. it happens to be.

"Lea-"

"Flaming pants Sa- wait."

He brightens. And the boy pinned down can't deal with this so early, much less when waking up from the floor.

"Lea. Get off me and go back to whatever it was you were doing. Unless-"

"Dude, I'm not going to go back to nearly hitting you over the head with an oversized key I-"

"I was going to say unless you weren't being productive. However that is a good idea too."

"Flaming pants Sa- I-…"

"What happens? You never censor your curses Lea."

"You did it."

Isa is confused.

Lea had managed to return some space to him- apologizing all the way, for some reason- and then he'd been crushed to Lea's chest. With surprising strength, considering his best friend was still wiry and lanky instead of built.

He's confused, and Lea mutters and then stands up. Hauls him up in the same motion, and runs out of the room, into a long hallway that is slightly dusty and colored a neutral yellow that is blazing to Isa's eyes.

They run.

(Isa looks back, but there's no horde of black and no swarms of yellow eyes and the corridor stretching on is well lit rather than dusky and barely visible). Lea knows where he's going, apparently, or at least is purposefully lost.

They nearly bump into a guard. The tall one, with auburn hair, who stops them with quiet authority. Lets them pass as soon as Lea shouts something quick- "he's back", and Isa has no idea who- and then they're tearing through a wide room that's a mess and through another corridor and out into the courtyard.

(He nearly screams that they're going to have the entire town drowning in shadow aliens, to put it in Lea's terms, but everything is clear sunlight and the ringing voices of trainees at their exercises)

Lea doesn't stop until they're somewhere high. He goes out on the balconies and balustrades and jumps over the railings to walk on the small ledges and climb to the rooftops, Isa in tow. When he finds a view that he likes, facing the wide open plaza which isn't as pristine as Isa recalls but is still there, Lea sits down.

Checks his pockets.

Curses, and takes a deep breath as if to holler down to whoever might listen.

"You know, we're too far up for any communication you attempt to be intelligible by anyone at ground level. And unless you want us to get caught by anyone in-"

"Isa, Ansem isn't here anymore. Mickey stopped freaking out over my climbing once I showed him how I could propel myself in the air with some crafty Firagas and Aerogas."

(Isa gets a weird feeling of deja-vu, like he should've known everything Lea's saying, like he's researched it and heard the squeaky voice reprimand his best friend.

Like he's really been there, a wall away and-)

"Plus, I can't check that you're back unless we're doing the usual thing. Which would be sea-salt ice cream, except I don't have any."

Isa freezes.

(Moonlight and charging at a boy with a key. Two young men and a tiny woman blasting at him with spells and columns of light.

Waking up in a blank room and burning the nightstand to try and relieve the pent-up energy and headache and shut up the voices…)

He turns to Lea, grabs him by the shoulders and glares. Or more accurately, tries to glare. He's too desperate to really manage the commanding, sure air he knows will get Lea to not be a cocky idiot and answer directly.

Except Lea is really serious, and holding one hand out as if to bring forth a-

"Lea, I don't- what color are my eyes. Green. Sea green. What color are they, tell-"

He doesn't answer. Not verbally, but he lunges at Isa and crushes him in a hug.

"I don't want to experience Firaga propulsion just yet Lea. When it doesn't involve a fall of about ten floors, we can discuss it."

Days pass.

Roxas and Xion bear a grudge towards him that Isa understands. And doesn't really mind, so long as they remain passably cordial and let him have his share of Lea's company. They slowly speak up more, let down their guards

(Isa doesn't hear the commentary on how he'll now get the perfect opening for a strike at the neck, a blow to the chest)

And eventually, one day when Lea catches a serious cold (or at least something that made him whine enough to oversleep and not get dragged out of bed), the three of them surprise him by waking him up with sea-salt melting in their mouths and laughing loud enough to rouse the dead.

For his part, Lea trains. He says, in a mocking voice that fails at hiding how thrilled he is, that he's a Keyblade wielder now. That he'll get sent on missions, that he needs to train and become stronger and-

(Saïx waking up in a blank room. Voices in his head demanding to find a way back in by pounding his brain and making so much noise)

Isa nods, and lowers himself to a fighting stance.

He sleeps, and hears only silence.

Isa thinks, in the space before he's dreaming, that that's true freedom.

A.N. - I'm not dead. Yet. And to the one and only Raberba Girl: I owed you this one xD It was a blast to write! And sorry it really overshot your deadline.

Any case, here's the most belated entry ever for your KH Platonic Love contest you hosted on dA. I don't plan on reposting it there (because word limit is an evil invention), so enjoy!

To everyone else: hope you liked it! And as per usual: nothing belongs to me. Except the vague attempts at a diet-version of plot. Reviews and general reading of this fic is appreciated. Lots of love,

Mirae!