"You've lost too much

To fear doubt and distrust

It's not enough

You just threw away the key

To your heart"

―Gotye, "Heart's A Mess"

Lea would have raised his eyebrow, if it hadn't already been as high as it could go.

"And I ask again:" he said, "what are you talking about?"

Ven glanced back at Sora, who was still wearing that you-can-do-it face. "In the Organization." Ven said, turning back to Lea. "He was Number Thirteen."

Lea snorted. "That's ridiculous. There were twelve of us."

"Then why were you called Organization Thirteen?" Sora asked quickly.

That gave Lea pause for a moment. But his mind shied away from thinking about it―it hurt, and something far back in his mind was terrified. He waved a hand dismissively. "Look, don't ask me about why Xemnas named things the way he did. The guy was a nut job."

"You two used to come up to the clock tower here for ice cream," Ven pressed. "You were best friends."

Unaccountably, Lea was furious. These . . . children had no right telling him what he should and shouldn't remember. It was his life, he ought to know it better than anyone else.

"I didn't have friends in the Organization," Lea snapped, uncrossing his arms. "And how would you two know any of this, anyway? You weren't there."

"But Roxas was," Sora said. He put a hand to his heart. "And he's in here, somewhere. He's lost, but I can still talk to him, sometimes. And I remember everything that happened to him." He looked up and met Lea's gaze and something about his eyes was wrong. "I remember you."

"No you don't." Lea snapped, his fists clenching at his sides. "You only remember Axel, and he's dead. You wouldn't know anything about what happened to me in the Organization."

"But Roxas does." Sora pressed. "You two were best friends. When he ran away from the Organization, you went looking for him, even though it put you on their bad side. Because you promised him that you'd always bring him back."

Something in Lea's chest really hurt. His smile was turning quickly into a grimace. "That didn't happen." he insisted. "I left the Organization 'cause I got sick of it."

"Even Isa?" Ven said.

Lea wasn't sure what, exactly, happened, but then suddenly Ven was on the ground bleeding and his clothes were on fire and one of Lea's chakurams was whizzing back to its owner's hand.

"He has nothing to do with this," Lea snarled. Something in Axel's half-smothered heart was screaming and weeping with horror. It only made Lea angrier.

The Keyblade was in Sora's hand and he was crouched in his fighting stance. Ven was picking himself up off the ground, looking at Lea with something middling between disbelief and rage. The grin leapt onto Lea's face again. The chakurams were hot in his hands.

"Well, well, well." Lea said. "So this is how it's gonna be, huh? I knew you two'd get tired of talking eventually. It always comes down to violence."

"That hurt," Ven said. Rage seemed to have gotten the better of disbelief and now Ven was holding his Keyblade, too. Lea's grin only got wider.

"Oh, whoops." he said. "Didn't mean to hurt anybody. That'd be a crying shame!"

Flames erupted all around the courtyard. If this was going to be a fight, Lea was determined that it was going to be all-out. Maybe if he made them angry enough, they'd kill him.

"You really did forget him, didn't you." Sora accused, his eyes narrowed. "You'd never have hit Ven if you remembered."

"Wouldn't I? Well there's your proof, then. We gonna stand here talking all day, or are we gonna fight?"

He didn't wait for an answer. The first chakuram was already whirring towards Sora's head before Lea had finished speaking the last word. He blocked it handily―of course he did―and then he was running towards Lea, Ven only a yard behind him. Lea kept right on grinning. He did not expect to win this fight.

With a yell, Sora swung for his head. Lea ducked and would have retaliated in kind, but Sora kept the momentum of his swing going as he pivoted and swung again at Lea's shins. He only just dodged in time, and then Ven's Keyblade slammed full force into his back, knocking him to his knees.

"Stay down," Ven growled, "and don't make us hurt you."

Lea flung a chakuram over his shoulder, almost casually, and was back on his feet in an instant. While Ven coped with the suddenly flaming wheel speeding towards his face, Lea took a shot at Sora, one that, miraculously, connected; evidently the boy was concerned about Ven's safety. Lea took the opportunity to repeatedly slash at Sora's body with the hot points of his chakuram. He paused only a moment to settle his stance, and heard Ven's Keyblade whistling towards his head. He ducked and struck out behind himself with the other chakuram. He was gratified with a gasp and a spurt of hot blood over his hand.

A ball of ice impacted Lea's head and knocked him flat, stinging his skin with cold. Sora was pointing his Keyblade at Lea, blue light glowing around its tip.

"Cute trick," Lea said, "have you seen this one?"

A line of fire shot out along the ground between Sora and Lea, rupturing the ground and knocking Sora a good three feet into the air. Lea got to his feet, wiping ice from his eyes.

Ven's Keyblade struck him once, twice, three times, battering his head and shoulders. His ears were ringing and he was too disoriented to block the strikes. Apparently the boy was not as injured as he had thought. Axel's heart was screaming betrayal.

Lea finally got his chakurams up to block and the metal of Ven's Keyblade started to glow with the heat. Lea smirked. Very soon, Ven would not be able to hold on to the weapon without burning himself.

Another ball of ice hit him in the head and knocked him off balance, followed by a heavy blow to the jaw from Ven that sent him spinning to the ground. He staggered to his feet, blood dripping down the side of his head.

"Give it up, Lea," Sora said, the Keyblade still pointed at him. "You can't win."

"Yeah?" said Lea, whose repertoire of comebacks had taken a severe cut with the latest hit to the head.

"Don't make us hurt you." Ven said again, although there was steel in his voice. Apparently he had not liked being stabbed in the gut.

"Too late for that," Lea said, putting a hand to the bleeding wound on the side of his head. It was rather a lot of blood. He hoped it looked gruesome. "Guess you'll have to come up with some new goals."

"Lea, please," Sora said. "You don't have to do this."

"No," Lea admitted, "but you do."

One chakuram flew at Sora's head, the other at Ven's. Both ducked out of the way, and Lea leapt for Sora, catching his weapon as it spun around back to him. He landed a cleaving overhead blow on Sora's head, then caught the other chakuram in his other hand and followed through with his momentum to deliver a second strike that knocked Sora back. Ven leapt at him from behind, but Lea was ready for him this time; he blocked the initial shot and flung the boy over his shoulder. Sora was back on his feet by then, and Lea just barely managed to intercept his strike with one chakuram while he blocked Ven's counter-attack with the other. He stood for a moment, trapped between the two Keyblades, his arms trembling.

"Stop this, Lea," Ven growled through bared teeth.

"No," Lea replied, and kicked Ven's feet out from under him. His chakuram slipped from Sora's Keyblade and the weapon struck at him with uncanny swiftness, catching him in the shoulder. He dodged Sora's second strike and countered by flinging a fireball into the boy's face. He did not dodge that one, and Lea smirked.

Ven hit him in the leg, hard, taking his feet out from under him. He fell, hard, and found two Keyblades suddenly pointed at his throat.

"Give it up, Lea." Sora said. "You can't win."

"Yeah?" said Lea. "Neither can you."

The two shared a quick glance. "What's that supposed to mean?" Ven demanded.

"It means," said Lea, "that no matter how many times you knock me down, I'm gonna keep getting back up."

He swept the Keyblades aside and leapt to his feet, striking both boys in the back of the head with a chakuram each. Ven stumbled, but Sora countered with almost inhuman speed. The Keyblade slammed teeth-first into his back, leaving three deep wounds in his flesh. He stumbled—the pain was difficult to bear, as it hurt every time he took a step—but he turned before Sora could get in another hit. Ven, he saw, was sitting on the ground, his eyes bleary, his Keyblade dematerialized. Lea counted him as out of the battle.

"Why are you doing this?" Sora asked. He seemed legitimately confused.

"Doing what?" Lea asked, casually sending another gout of fire spitting in his opponent's direction. Sora leapt out of the way and rolled, but he did not attack again, standing at the ready and fixing Lea with his gaze as a pin fixes a bug in a glass case.

"Why are you fighting us? What makes you so desperate to not remember Roxas?"

"Because he wasn't real!" Lea cried, the nameless fury again bubbling to the surface. He lunged at Sora, who deftly avoided his attack and paid him back in two bone-breaking swipes to the ribs. On the first, something cracked. On the second, something stabbed into his lung and he felt it begin filling up with blood. He felt like he was drowning—and he was; drowning in his own blood. He fell to one knee, gasping and gurgling, but struggled back to his feet. It didn't matter, not now. Nothing mattered now.

"Yes, he was!" Sora replied. He put a hand to his heart. He couldn't see Lea's lung filling up with blood. Lea's breath was coming short and ragged, but Sora did not see that, either. "He's in here, somewhere, lost. He knows you, he misses you, and I can feel it! He wants to come home, Lea. He needs you to bring him home."

"Shut up, would you?" Lea said, taking a haphazard swipe at Sora. It did not connect, but he snuck in a second blow that caught the boy in the leg, the point of his chakuram going through the hard-muscled flesh of his left quadricep. Sora brought the hilt of his Keyblade down hard on Lea's head. Lea saw sparks and heard a ringing like the echoes of a distant bell. He staggered away, and Sora took a few limping steps back as well. They were both panting. Lea's breath was beginning to bubble in his chest, and he could taste blood welling up in the back of his throat with every exhalation.

"I am not giving up on you," Sora stated, "even if you gave up on him."

"You," Lea panted, "are such . . . an idiot."

"Maybe I am!" Sora cried. "But at least I'm an idiot who doesn't desert my friends!

Snarling, Lea leapt at him again, his knees shaky beneath him. Sora deflected his attack with barely a flick of the wrist and sent Lea tumbling to the ground. Shakily, Lea got to his feet. Blood was dribbling from his lips now, and breathing was like sucking down mouthfuls of needles. The world was spinning around him. He wondered, idly, how much blood a lung could hold, how much longer he would have to live before he drowned in his own blood. He hoped it wasn't long; it really did hurt.

"You have to remember him, Lea." Sora insisted, standing once again in his guard position. "You have to remember Roxas. He was your strength of heart. It's why you can't make your Keyblade materialize anymore. Because when you forgot him, you cut out the one thing that was holding your heart together, and so now you're falling apart!"

"Shut up!" Lea snarled, woozily flinging a fireball in Sora's general direction. Aiming was becoming really incredibly difficult. "Whoever he was, he's dead. And he's not my problem anymore!"

"He'll always be your problem!" Sora retorted. A ball of ice caught Lea in the shoulder and he felt his whole arm go numb. "He's your best friend. He's been trapped in the darkness for so long, waiting for you to come and find him!"

"Ain't that just a crying shame." Lea spat, blood flying from his lips, hurling both chakuram at Sora, who swept them aside like flies with his Keyblade. "He can stay there for all I care!"

Lea thought he saw tears welling up in Sora's huge blue eyes. "He's your best friend." Sora said, as though that would mean anything.

"He's dead!" Lea retorted, hurling another fireball. Sora ducked under it, running at him now, the Keyblade poised to strike. Lea did not even try to dodge. He did not have the strength.

"He waited for you and you never came!" Sora cried, tears spilling from his eyes. The Keyblade swung in and dealt a heavy blow to the side of Lea's head. He staggered, his head spinning, and then fell. He did not get up. Things were rushing back into his head as though the final blow had knocked loose the dam on his memories.

We're . . . best friends, right?

Like I asked! Know-it-all.

No, you're just late.

Have to hang on to something, right?

Yeah. I'll be waiting.

No one would miss me.

No one would miss me. . . .

"No," Lea gasped. He clutched at the ground, eyes blurry with tears, the tatters of his consciousness beginning to trail into blackness. Blood splattered on the ground as he spoke, welling up from inside his punctured lung. "How could I . . . have forgotten?" He was dying. He could feel himself slipping away into the darkness, dissolving. He struggled to stand, but only managed to roll onto his back, scarcely able to lift his head. His own warm blood gurgled in the back of his throat. It wasn't so terrible, really. It didn't even hurt much anymore. Death was better than the crushing guilt of having forgotten. . . .

"Roxas."

The word fell from his lips with palpable weight. It struck the ground like a hammer-blow whose echoes shook the foundations of the world. He felt it crash into his chest and knock what little breath he had left right out of him. Sparks swam before his eyes and the world filled up with light.

There were hands holding up his sagging head.

"Hey," He said.

"Roxas," Lea gasped, fighting a losing battle back towards consciousness. "It . . . can't be."

"It can. It is. I was lost in the darkness for a long time." He said. "But I heard you call my name. I heard your voice, calling me back. So I followed it here."

Despite himself, Lea chuckled. It barely hurt. The blood was flowing down his trachea and into his other lung now. He didn't have long. "Roxas," he said, "I'm sorry . . . it took me so long."

Roxas shook his head, smiling gently. "Don't be. You promised you'd always be there to bring me back. I knew you'd find me eventually."

"Really? 'Cause . . . I didn't." He was laughing again, a helpless kind of hysteria that dissolved into weak sobbing. "I'm dying, Roxas." he choked. The blood was filling the back of his throat. He coughed, once, and blood went everywhere. It got into his eyes and it stung.

"No you're not." Roxas said. The hands tightened in his hair. "You're going to be fine."

"Hah. Out of the two of us, who's had more experience dying?" He couldn't see, not because of the tears flowing freely down his face, not because of the blood in his eyes, but because his vision had stopped working altogether. He saw only darkness. "It's . . . funny, really. A minute ago, I didn't mind too much. Didn't seem like . . . that big of a deal. But just then, you get back. . . . I need more time." His heart stuttered in his chest. "I can't lose you again."

Roxas said something, but Lea couldn't hear. He was falling, falling, falling. . . .

And there was darkness.

There was a light.

It took him a long few moments to realize where he was. The pale green ceiling with its glittering constellations should have been a dead giveaway, but he spent his first few seconds puzzling out who he was.

Lea. Axel? He put a hand to his chest. The movement hurt. His hand rested there for two, three, four seconds.

Nothing. A hollowness that went deeper than it seemed his thin chest could contain.

Axel.

He tried to remember what had happened. He was in Yen Sid's tower, now. He was home safely, he was . . . alive, for lack of a better word. He was alone in the room.

He must have dreamed it. It had been Ven there in the last moments, and he had been too out of sorts, torn to shreds by his grief and guilt, dying on the ground, to recognize the difference. Of course it had been Ven.

Gingerly, Axel turned his head to the side. He froze, the emptiness inside him pounded like a heartbeat. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow, reaching out a tentative hand to the space beside his pillow.

He counted ten seashells, each unique in color and shape. He touched one, gently, with the tip of his finger, then picked it up. He held it to his ear and he could hear the ocean.

A slow smile crept across Axel's face. Deep in the emptiness, something small and tentative fluttered like the first breath of spring.

He could live this new life.

With or without a heart.

THE END