Alone in the rain [open]

[Xion]

She was too easily noticed. Everywhere she went, she got looks from people. They would either glare at her-which quickly made her retreat into the closest alley and open a dark portal to take her somewhere else-or they would grumble under their breath while waving a fist at her. Sometimes, people did both and she didn’t quite understand why. Xion had never done anything to anyone, especially not those people. She hadn’t a clue why they would hate her as much as they supposedly did. They couldn’t possibly know what she was, could they? No, there was only a limited amount of people who knew what she was, and she didn’t even know where they were at the moment. That was why she was in Twilight Town in the first place. She had been looking for Roxas and Axel. She had been looking for them everywhere, actually. She had saved this place for last, but she didn’t think they were there. What if they were avoiding her, she wondered. She had, after all, abandoned them. Then again, what if they just couldn’t remember her?

She just didn’t know, and the failed replica wasn’t quite sure that she wanted to know. If they wanted to find her, they would, right? She shook her head and continued to walk down the raining street, taking all the damage in. Just what had happened to everything while she was out of commission? Nothing had been this destroyed-or, you know, destroyed in general-when she had left. She bit her lip and wondered if Roxas hadn’t taken her words to heart and really had went off to fight with Xemnas. She paused in her stride and glanced up at the sky. A couple of raindrops managed to hit her in the face before she glanced back down and shook her head. Her bangs leaped at the chance to get in her eyes and she brushed them furiously out of her face. Xion had always wondered why it was always raining. She had asked Saïx once, she remembered, but had only gotten a glare and a “Get to your mission” in response. She had even asked Demyx, who had shrugged and asked her to go play with him in it. Of course, she rejected the offer in favor of going to go eating sea salt ice cream with Roxas and Axel.

Smiling at the memories, she sat on part of a curb that didn’t seem so destroyed and placed her head in her hands. She didn’t want to go into The Castle That Never Was. Although there wasn’t really that big of a chance that the other members were in there, she felt safer on the street she had run over so many times in her attempts to escape from the castle. At least she wasn’t getting any glares, here. The streets were utterly empty, reminding Xion that she was utterly alone. Her mouth twisted into a frown and her bottom lip trembled. She wasn’t afraid of being alone, by no reason did she have to be afraid of being alone, but she missed the company of another person. At this point, she would take anyone to talk to. Except, she was likely to run away if it was Xemnas, Xaldin, Vexen, Saïx, or Marluxia, if she was going to be perfectly honest with herself.

“Why can’t I find anyone?” She mused to herself.

[axie]

[OOC: Long time no see~.]

"--hell, you better--fghrngh--let go already, son of a b--!" The chakram finally did its work and turned the Heartless clinging to Axel's boot to black smoke as he stumbled out of the portal. After waking up in Radiant Garden, he'd figured out how to open it after a few hours, and once he entered and got attacked by the darkness within, the spiked wheel had shown up out of reflex. He only dimly recognized it. Somehow he knew it had a brother, too, and he had a feeling it'd come back to him if he threw it but he wasn't keen on trying just yet.

Hesitant to dismiss it, he straightened as the portal closed behind him and held it loosely at his side. The world that stretched out before him was dark and cold. The only light came from a castle far in the distance, and all the neon lights shining balefully through the fog of rain. Axel looked up, as if just now noticing the downpour, and felt it slick his hair back and paint glistening trails down his face. The feeling of water was uncomfortable. Draining, even. Black fingertips found the edge of his hood, hooked around it, and tugged it up to shield whatever parts of him weren't already damp.

He pressed on, boots splashing out footsteps in the street that got flooded the minute he moved. The chakram grew heavy, and in time he let go of it, watching it burn out of existence. It'd be there when he needed it again, or so he thought.

In truth he was more concerned with this strange world. A certain street made him stop short and look over his shoulder for the specter of a forgotten memory. There had been a name he memorized once. It had been important--life-threatening, even. But the reasons were gone now. Whatever brought him back had neglected his memories, but Axel knew without a doubt he'd lived before. Otherwise he couldn't be alive in this state, if this was living. Now all he had to do was line the pieces up.

The first being he encountered was a small one, also hooded and cowled. Something jumped at the image from his memories, but it was too faint and he couldn't be sure if it was just deja vu. "You just makin' a fashion statement or does everyone wear these?" he asked with a languid indication of her cloak. The assumption that there even was an "everyone" didn't give him pause. Even if "everyone" was just them, Axel knew there were others besides him, because his purpose was to burn his memory across them all.

[Xion]

(OOC: You’ve GOT to be joking? )

‘I’m a one girl pity party.’ She frowned when she realized this. She was the epitome of an emo child. She was sitting alone, wearing all black, and was in the rain. How much more pathetic could she get? The next thing would be for her to start injuring herself. Then again, Xion would never do that to herself. It might slow her down and then she wouldn’t be able to find her friends…and the other people she supposed she was meant to find. They weren’t as important, though. If she found them, awesome, if she didn’t, then it wasn’t a big deal. She doubted any of them were looking for her. Actually, the thought of having them looking for her put a smile on her face. It was just funny picturing Xigbar walking sideways on a building while calling out her name.

At least she wasn’t sad anymore. She had to be thankful about that, at least. Wait, she had forgotten she couldn’t exactly be sad. Not having a heart was so confusing; especially when you knew the emotions well enough you figured you had them. It didn’t help that she had felt what emotions felt like while she was inside of Sora. If she was even inside of Sora, actually. Truthfully, she didn’t know. It was like, one minute, she was lying in Roxas’ arms saying goodbye and, the next minute, she was telling him something while the world around her was fuzzy. On that third minute, she was waking up in front of the mansion she had first met Naminè at. Of course, none of this was with her the moment she had woken up, but it had progressively made its way back to her head.

It was weird at first, wondering around not having a clue who she was and still having these people glare at her because, apparently, they knew who she was. She had had to relearn everything they had taught her that first week, and it wasn’t fun having dusks falling her around, mocking her, and calling her “My liege”. Especially because they would run away the moment she turned around to see why they were following her and why they were calling her that. But, the thing was, everything came back to her…Sure, she had cried the day she remembered everything because she felt so “guilty” for causing her friends pain. It wasn’t until later that she realized she was crying-which only succeeded in making her that much more confused-and that she couldn’t really feel guilty-which made her ‘feel’ worse.

Still, one of the worst parts of it all was that she realized she had never said goodbye to Axel. He was one of her best friends and the last thing they had done was fight each other before he beat her up-which, at first, she was mad at him for doing before realizing that he just wanted to have his best friends in one place, or that was the conclusion she had come to. Suddenly, Xion found herself looking up because of a sudden voice. Her top of her hood was being pressed down so that she couldn’t, exactly, see the figure, but the voice was unmistakable. “Axel…” She breathed, relieved to know he was fine, and happy, or the memory of happy, that he was standing right in front of her! “What’re you talking about, you weirdo? We’ve been wearing these since-uhm…a long time?” She laughed and got to her feet, resisting the urge to hug him. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you? Have you been hiding?”

[axie]

[OOC: Like hell~. Glad to see you're still kickin'.]

Now that she was standing, she was...well, short. Young, rather. And she seemed glad to see him--seemed since Axel wasn't sure if emotions were muted for her like they were for him. Assuming they existed for him in the first place, which was probably just as big an assumption as figuring he didn't have them at all. Point was, he didn't think he'd make nice with someone that far away from him in age. From what he knew of himself, anyway, but a lot of that was in a fog.

His cloak wasn't zipped up yet so she could probably see the paleness of his nose and mouth where the shadows broke over his face, but not the eyebrows that shot up under his hood. He studied her for a little longer than what was comfortable, one hand on his hip. "Uh. Hmm." He reached up with the other to scratch his head, but stopped when his fingers only encountered leather. "Not intentionally. Fact is I think I might've died, but I don't remember so well." Instead he scratched his temple under his hood. "I'm not rememberin' much, actually, which is kinda embarrassing. So let's just get this over with, huh?"

He didn't exactly expect this to go well, but just his luck he ran into someone who knew him before he could put his head back on straight. The most frustrating thing about it was, he knew he had enemies, so if he never got his memories back then he'd never be able to tell who was friend and who was foe for certain. Not that Axel was frustrated, exactly. Maybe if he wasn't so apathetic about everything he'd be less impulsive--but then, he knew already that he was impulsive by nature. He could really only hope he'd found a friend, and a friend that would stay a friend once she found out what the hell was really up.

Dropping his hand from his face, he spread it in a question. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

[Xion]

(OOC: Uh, yeah I’m still kicking. I’m glad to see you are, too! )

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. He couldn’t remember if he had died or not? That certainly was…weird and not expected at all. What would she know? She couldn’t remember anything past when she bit the dust. Despite the fact that it was raining just a little more than it had been, she pulled her hood back and winced when the rain pelted her scalp. It also succeeded in pushing her hair down. Xion shook her head, causing the water to go everywhere before looking back up at the taller figure in front of her. So, really, Axel didn’t just forget her? He had forgotten everyone, but…why? She had forgotten people too, at first, but everything had come back pretty soon. Then again, maybe she had been awake longer than him?

But, to Xion, that wasn’t the important thing she was going to focus on at the moment. The thing was, he had forgotten Roxas, too, and that was what had her so shocked. Roxas was his best friend, more so than she ever was or could ever hope to be. “I’m sorry, Axel. I don’t know if you died or not. If you died, then it was after I did.” She frowned and bit her lip, not knowing what to tell him. Did he was comfort? Because, considering who they were and what they were, she didn’t think that would help any at all. And, on top of that, she didn’t know where to go about beginning to comfort him. Actually, now that she thought about it, maybe it was better that she didn’t try to comfort him and just let him sort things out for himself. Considering he didn’t remember it, it would probably strike him as weird that some random, short-a lot shorter than him-girl was hugging him and trying to tell him that everything would be fine.

Uh, yeah. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. When he suggested they get things over with, she nodded her head once and blinked up at him, studying him with her-or, rather Sora and Roxas’-blue eyes. “My name is Xion. I was…am…am?...one of your best friends.” She grinned up at him. “And, the coat, that’s a symbol of the group we belonged-belong?-to. I’m not too sure on the details, sorry, Axel. I didn’t wake up too long ago.” She laughed nervously, or tried to make it sound nervous without it coming out as forced, while pushing her bangs out of her face. The water was streaming down her face, and it was probably in her hood. If she pulled it over her head now, then, it would be like a bucket of water had been thrown on her. It wasn’t as if a bucket of water hadn’t been thrown on her before, or as if she hadn’t been underwater before because she had, but she figured what was the point it in all?

[axie]

[OOC: Shweet then~. I was rereading that one old thread, your Xion, my Roxas, not that long ago. Hadn't expected to run into you so soon after; funny how that works.]

Xion.

Nope. Not a single bell rang in Axel's head at that name, but seeing her face gave him pause. She looked like a wet kitten in all this rain, but that didn't hide the familiarity in her eyes--or the sadness. Was it sadness? Looked like it to him. He remembered being able to read people, but it didn't seem right on her. There was something about her that made him want to seize her up--affection wasn't his thing, so he didn't--and warn her off him at the same time, like he knew he'd hurt her. Or maybe he had, in the past, and never quite apologized. But the darkness of her hair threw him off and he couldn't be sure it was the same girl who seemed to resonate so powerfully in his shattered memory.

For a moment he had the distinct impression he was standing in a courtroom. No one stood beside him and he could sense that emptiness, just as he could feel the pressure on his chest that meant a guilty verdict. Across from him, gold eyes burned into his as the gavel came down--

Axel twitched and glanced warily behind him at the sharp sound of a pebble clicking against the street, probably loosened from its perch on a roof by the rain. That was weird, he wasn't given to daydreams--especially not in the middle of a conversation, but he shook it off and caught back up with the moment.

At any rate, she seemed about as confused as he was on the specifics. Maybe that was just to be expected. Death wasn't the kind of thing one could normally recover from, so it was enough that they were alive in the first place. The fact that she could remember a few things about the life before their deaths was just a bonus. He didn't know if he could trust her outright, but there was something too imploring about those blue eyes. They seemed to indicate his own guilt instead of hers, even if he couldn't remember what for. "Guess I'll take your word for it. It's not like I've got a choice here, but if it's comin' back to you maybe it'll come back to me." He tasted irony in those words but couldn't place it. Something was reversed that he'd never expected to be reversed, was the impression he got.

If they'd been part of a group, that group may have died too. But any survivors would clear up a few mysteries, and with Axel and Xion back now there was nothing yet to indicate that whatever comrades Xion remembered wouldn't have the same shot. "Maybe we'll run into the others later on, too. But let's get outta this rain, it sucks and you're gettin' soaked." He pressed on, dropping his hand from his hip in a beckoning gesture and heading for the bright light of the castle ahead of them. Aside from that one street, it was the only place that seemed to trigger something in his psyche. Maybe it was safe and maybe it wasn't; either way the faint glimmers of nostalgia pushed him to investigate.

[Xion]

(OCC: Weird. But, at the same time, D’aww.)

She couldn’t shake off the guilt feeling. She had a lot of memories with him and Roxas. The three of them were happy for a while, at least, weren’t they? All the times they had eaten ice cream on the Clock Tower, all the times he had helped them out, even the tiny little spats they had gotten in…she treasured them all and wouldn’t dare trade them in for the world—or even a heart. If she had been offered a heart for her memories, she would have, politely, turned the offer down and went on with her friends. Or, she would have convinced whatever high power was offering it to her to give it to someone else. Someone like Roxas or Axel who deserved a heart more than she did. Heck, she would even ask them to give it to Demyx.

If she thought about it, really, they were all Nobodies. They had all lost their original selves before she had. And, on top of that, they had lasted longer than she had. They weren’t able to feel their emotions for a longer than she had, although she couldn’t remember anything from when she disappeared to when she awoke. All of this was beginning to give her a headache. Xion began to wonder how he felt. Her attention snapped back to him when something fell a little behind them. She glanced at the buildings behind her, almost as if judging whether they would stay up much longer, before wrinkling her nose. Had she been alone for much longer, she probably would have still been sitting down and a building would have collapsed on her before she would have even noticed everything was still falling apart.

It wasn’t as if it would kill her, after all. Weren’t they basically invincible to everything except the Keyblade? Then again, maybe that wasn’t true considering Vexen hadn’t died by the hands of a Keyblade Wielder. He had died because Ax-she glanced back up at him and wondered if he didn’t remember that, either. Probably not or he would have remembered at least meeting her. “Maybe it will. Well, hopefully it will.” She admitted, wrinkling her nose. It was getting harder for her to blink, too. Her eyelashes were even soaked. “Axel, what does the name Vexen mean to you?” She asked him, her voice dropping the volume it had had earlier. “And, Roxas, too.” She added as an afterthought. She wouldn’t explain why she had asked about Vexen, but she would tell him about Roxas. It was only fair that he knew about his best friend, right?

Besides, he had to know about Roxas if they were going to look for him. And, Xion figured that, by looking for Roxas, his memory might be jogged by all the places they would visit since he had visited them before she had. When he had suggested them running into the others, she shrugged slightly, not really wanting to find most of them. It was even worse when he suggested they head towards the castle. She glanced at it and shook her head, taking a half-step back and nearly tripping. “You want to go to there?” She bit the side of her lip and sighed. “I suppose seeing your room might jog your memories…if it hasn’t been destroyed…Maybe you’ll remember something after seeing the Grey Room, too.” She smiled, brightening up at the idea before thinking of something that squashed the dream. “Oh, Axel, I don’t think it’s a good idea to find the other members, save one. I kinda…I kinda turned traitor before I died…”

[axie]

Axel didn't count on getting his memories back outright. If he and Xion were cut from the same cloth, it stood to reason that he would, so he didn't have to worry about it. If he didn't, he could still find out who he was. The memory he'd left behind wouldn't let him die; from it, he could piece together who he'd been in life, regardless of the time lost. He just couldn't get too broken up about something gone from his mind anyway.

But little things were still triggers and they added up. The street back there meant something had happened there once; the familiarity in Xion meant she was telling the truth; the similar cloaks and talk of a group meant there were others who would remember him.

And the flicker-by daydream of a court ruling meant he had something forgotten to atone for.

"Axel, what does the name Vexen mean to you?"

Vexen was the cold darkness of the basement before him. The metal clutched at Axel's side could never be warm under his hand, and he stretched out his arm without the nerves to make him shake--click and the curtain rose on a soliloquy of begging. These words were never going to be heard, so Axel pulled the trigger--

"And, Roxas, too."

Axel had stopped walking, struck by the image that had just taken him on a half-journey at Vexen's name. He'd expected Roxas's name to do the same thing but it was more subtle somehow, coming in a tightness around his waist and the bluntness of a cheekbone against the small of his back. I'm sorry that I have to go, not a sound but a feeling, but Roxas hadn't gone. Axel carried that person with him with every step.

He didn't answer for a long moment, letting Xion talk and staying silent for several moments after. "Hmm." Jade eyes studied the castle from underneath his hood. "They were part of the group," he said finally, trying to imagine the Roxas who had worn this cloak. It wasn't because he remembered, but Xion could think that if she wanted--it was simple logic. Xion was prodding his memory and it only made sense to ask about their partners, and both of them had x's in their names. Axel was going to assume that Xion's was spelled with an X instead of an S-H because it felt right.

Speaking of whom, he turned to study her again. A traitor? What and how exactly could she betray? She was just a girl. Not only was their group dangerous, it was unrepentant. Axel could work with that. But the fact that she'd approached him meant she trusted him in spite of that; their bond went beyond the restrictions of their positions. Who else was like that? Not Roxas, he hoped, since that seemed important somehow. Was that what haunted him about Vexen's name? A betrayal of that trust? Maybe that was what he had to do. Betray the traitor.

Or maybe he was a traitor himself.

The missing memories were irksome. He would really hate to make a mistake with all this--in a manner of speaking. Though as long as he could find out who this Roxas person was it might solve a lot of his problems. At any rate, if he were a traitor then Xion would have told him so. He could use this if it came to that. As long as he didn't know where he stood with whatever black-cloaked clan he was supposed to be a part of, he could pay for his treachery with Xion.

But was Axel's loyalty to the group, or to Xion? The only thing he was loyal to right now was the spectre of this Roxas person who kept bugging his mind. Regardless, he couldn't afford to make a move until he found out.

"Traitor, huh? I can work around that. You wait here and I'll go see if it's clear up there first. Like you said, might jog some memories." He lifted his hand like he might pat Xion on the head, but refrained and turned it into a wave. "Oh--but. Wait." But it was raining still. Axel glared at the sky and moved to one of the buildings alongside them, trying the door. It was locked, so he kicked it open, spreading a hand to let Xion go in ahead of him.

"First I wanna hear about Roxas."

[Xion]

She hadn’t expected anything to make him freeze up in the way he kinda did. Xion’s blue eyes widened a fraction in worry and she moved to stand directly in front of him, looking up with concerned eyes. Maybe she had been wrong about not having any emotions. She certainly seemed to have emotions most of the time. And, on top of that, her chest was hurting. It felt like Saïx had just rammed his Claymore at her and it had hit her head on. There was that guilty feeling that was scratching at her again, asking her to tell him everything that she remembered to see if he couldn’t remember any of it after she told him. It was asking her to take back her questions about Vexen and Roxas because it had seen her affecting him so. Still, she knew she wasn’t a Somebody. When she was hurt, the feeling only lasted a while before going away and, when she was injured deeply, she did not bleed.

Almost as soon as she realized that she was staring at him, willing him to remember something, she backed off again and was so tempted to ignore the water and pull her hood over her head again. But, when Xion had mentioned Roxas, he had stopped walking almost as if an image of Roxas had appeared to him and he was trying to make sense of it. She was hopeful-or, she tried to remember what it was like to be hopeful so she could be sure that that was really what she was feeling-but she wasn’t going to hold her breath. Whether he could remember something by the name was a longshot. She couldn’t even remember what she had gone through so that she could remember what had happened to her. She had been wandering around Destiny Island when her memories of her conversation with Riku hit her, and she had been wandering around in Twilight Town, trying to figure out why, when she got lost in her thoughts, her feet always carried her to the top of the Clock Tower. A piece of her had wanted to see if she could float if she took a step off the tower, but she was always too worried to do that. And, on top of that, it wasn’t as if she could wander around for too long before everyone’s stare became painfully obvious to her.

Her attention was zoned in until it was back on him. Her head snapped up and in Axel’s direction while her mind processed what he had said. Yes, they had been a part of the group. In fact, the two of them were key members that had affected them both. Vexen had created her and had been eliminated by him. He wasn’t exactly a pleasant memory to think of, so she decided not to focus on him. Roxas, though, was a happy memory-no, person-to think about. A small smile appeared on her lips and she nodded her head once. “Were and or are. Vexen was…uhm, killed before my death. If I’m back, maybe he is by now, too?” She shrugged and turned her gaze back to the castle, focusing on it. “With me gone, I’m not entirely sure what Roxas chose to do.” She had gone to Neverland to think about it all once her memories had returned. The people there never judged her. They didn’t exactly remember her, causing her to have to hide when the boy in green appeared in front of her and asked her who she was, but she was glad that the small fairy at least remembered she wasn’t a foe.

As she was sitting on one of the highest rocks, that she had reached only because the fairy had sprinkled her with dust again, Xion had begun to think of a way to find her friends and tried to make sense of why she was there and why she was alive. She would have been lying if she had said that her thoughts hadn’t drifted towards Sora, Riku, and Kairi every once in a while. Even Naminè had passed through her brain, but none of them were important to her. She had never met Sora or Kairi, and Naminè and Riku, well, they were a reminder of a past she didn’t really want to have to remember. If only she could have selected the memories that came back to her. She would have had to think about Saïx, Xaldin, or even Xemnas. The older members, especially the one she would have chosen not to remember, always scared the living daylights out of her. Xigbar was the only one she could remotely stand.

Xion was on the verge of losing herself to her own musings again when Axel spoke. She shifted her eyes off the castle and towards him again, but not without blinking because of the rain that had continued to bombard her. He could work around her becoming a traitor? She was about to open her mouth and tell him that he had known she was a traitor, and had even promised her that it hadn’t mattered how much she ran because he would always come back and find her, but she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to remind him about any of the unpleasant memories. However, when he kicked a door down, she was thankful and moved ahead of him, wincing a little when he wanted to hear about Roxas. She could have expected that, she should have been expecting that, but, for some reason, she hadn’t.

“What do you want to know about Roxas?” She asked, leaning over and letting the water pour out of her hood. She even slid her pale fingers out of her gloves which she lay on a half broken table. “You knew him better than I did, but I can certainly try and tell you as much as you want to know.”