diatu | The icing on the cake

The icing on the cake - Locked to Lea

Xion had spent much of the last month trying to avoid people - and failing miserably - and trying to find a perfect sunset watching spot. Until she could figure out the spell to take away everyone's memories so that she could end herself, as she knew she had to, she had to stay away from people.

But she was still Xion. And still drawn to the same things she always had been. A good ledge from which to watch the sunset, ice cream, and seashells.

Finally, at the start of the month she had found the perfect place. She didn't know how she had missed it, given it was a giant clock tower. But she found it, and for once luck was with her. No one else had been there.

Every day since she'd been buying three ice creams and heading to the top of the tower to watch the sunset. Every day.

Which was where she would be, just before sunset, a small touch of black, a familiar black coat, sitting on the ledge of a clocktower, watching the sky.....

Maybe not something most people would notice. But then most people weren't used to thinking of clock towers that way. Also, Lea really is freakishly tall....

Her hood is still up, so even he couldn't tell who it was, but really...who could he remember that sat with him, eating ice cream at the end of the day?

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Okay, that alone was a lot to take in, and she had a few dozen questions already. "Wait, what happened with me that they did not want to risk again? It worked, didn't it? Everyone forgot me, I died, and returned to Sora, didn't I?" she was so confused now. "Why would he need to keep Roxas from escaping?" Alarm then. "Wait, Roxas didn't want to and they forced him to anyway?" Oh Roxas... No. Why? Just....

The digital town and computer stuff was all confusing, she pushed it aside for the moment. As to Axel being sent to retrieve Roxas... "Like you used to bring me back?"

"You got away from DiZ and Naminé," Lea explained. "Or rather, I took you away. And you did succeed in the end, but that meant that DiZ didn't get to do control the process of awakening Sora as much as he wanted, and he to make sure he wouldn't lose another chance to do it. And I don't know the details of how Roxas ended up int DiZ's hands; for that you'll have to ask Roxas if he shows up here. But if I had to guess, I think DiZ just figured that not giving Roxas the option to refuse would be the quickest way to get what he wanted."

He nodded though at Xion's last question. "At first, yeah," he said. "They still needed a Keyblade wielder, after all, or so I thought. But I was pulling my punches on the first attempt, trying not to hurt him too badly, so all our fight really did was eat up time. DiZ realized what was going on and managed to throw me out of the digital Twilight Town."

"That's when I got the order," Lea said. "Outside the Organization's control, Roxas was too much of a liability. If I couldn't bring him back that time, I was to eliminate him. At first I thought Roxas had remembered when I ran into him again, but he really hadn't; someone- I'm guessing Naminé- had given him some information regarding his real past, but not enough. I realized then I'd have to fight him again, either to bring him back by force, or... well let's just say I'm glad I failed there."

"That time, I came at Roxas with everything I had," he said. "But he just whipped out two Keyblades and promptly kicked my butt. I didn't have the strength to stay in the digital town any more and faded out of it. Probably not long after that, Roxas remerged with Sora."

"Back in the real Twilight Town, I ran into Naminé and Riku," he said. "That meeting was... every bit as awkward as you'd expect. Especially given that DiZ had wanted Riku to finish off both of us. But in the end he let us go. Neither Naminé nor I had anywhere to go at that point- since there was no way I'd be gong back to the castle-, but we both had things we wanted to do. Naminé and I left Twilight Town and went our separate ways not long after that."

She closed her hand tightly around the pop stick as she listened. She was angry at DiZ, angry at Xemnas and Saïx and just... she wanted to have been there to have tried to help protect Roxas. Riku was supposed to help protect Roxas and Axel but.... of course he forgot his promise when he forgot her. She should have known he would.

She knew Axel wouldn't have actually really hurt Roxas if he had one. He would have just brought him back, or they would have escaped or something. She knew that. Even if Axel didn't know it himself. But...

Two Keyblades?

She closed her eyes for a long moment. "Riku... said he would watch over the two of you, but that was forgotten when I was, I'm sure," she said softly.

Lea took another bite of his ice cream, making a thoughtful noise. "I dunno," he said. "Even if he couldn't consciously remember it, it's possible that part of it stuck subconsciously; I know some vague feelings did for me. I haven't really asked him, though."

"Anyway," he said, "after Sora left Twilight Town, he went back to doing what he does best; traveling from world to world, helping people and fighting Heartless. And all the while not knowing that by doing so, he was playing right into the Organization's hands. It didn't matter who released the hearts, after all; they were still getting collected in Xemnas' Kingdom Hearts."

"Meanwhile, I kept track of him as much as I could while trying to figure out what to do next. All I really knew was that I wanted Roxas back, but I only knew of one way to make that happen. So eventually, I came up with a plan. I kidnapped Kairi, hoping to use her to draw Sora out so I could turn him into a Heartless and recreate Roxas."

He sighed. "In hindsight, it was a really stupid plan, and only ended up making things worse," he said. "Kairi ended up getting away from me, only to be caught by Siax. He took her back to the castle and locked her up in the dungeon. She was supposed to be the Organization's insurance policy; long as they had her, they could force Sora to keep fighting Heartless, even after he found out what was happening to the hearts."

She took another bite as well as she listened. So... her going back to wake Sora... roxas vanishing into Sora... "If Sora was collecting hearts from them... did... did it matter?" she asked, softly. Her and Roxas vanishing? If nothing changed... what had been the point? Just a trade? The two of them for Sora?

At his plan her jaw dropped a bit and she reached over to shove his shoulder lightly. "You're supposed to be the smart one, you know," she said, giving him a look, though the edges of her lips were twitching a bit. "That sounds like the kind of plan that Roxas would come up with, not you, Axel." And losing Kairi, failing like that... sounded more like her. "I guess you really are useless without us," she teased, knowing fully well that it was the other way around, and that he knew that as well.

But when he said that Saïx had kidnapped Kairi, she shuddered. "He made her into a Nobody?" she guessed in a whisper.

"More like Sora was doing what Sora does, and they were just taking advantage of it," Lea said. "But Sora being awake meant that he'd actively be able to throw a monkey wrench into their plans when he did find out, which I'll be getting to in a minute."

He chuckled a bit at her shove, but there was a rueful note to it. "Hey, I never claimed to be the smart one in the group; you guys just decided I was, since I'm older," he said. "And honestly, as a kid I'd always have to be the one who my friends held back from doing stupid stuff. So yeah, more like I am just useless on my own."

"And no, she didn't get made into a Nobody," he said. "Siax just kept her locked up in the dungeon. Frankly I'm not even sure trying to turn her into a Nobody would have worked if he'd tried, since she already sort of had one at the time, namely Naminé. But Naminé's situation was kind of unique, so..." He shrugged. "I dunno. I read Vexen's notes on her once, but honestly couldn't make heads or tails out of that section."

"Anyway, moving on...", he said. "Eventually there was a massive Heartless attack in Hollow Bastion. Sora was there at the time, so of course he joined in the fight to defend the town. Frankly, it was kind of epic; I'd gone back to following him from a distance, so I got to see him fight. Sora took out what must have been close to a thousand Heartless all on his own, in one battle. And since the Organization wasn't about to go unrepresented, Demyx showed up there too; he actually put some effort into the fight for once, but in the end, Sora and his friends eliminated him. Xemnas was there too, but he cleared off before anybody could try and fight him."

"Once Xemans had left, I came out of hiding and let Sora in on the fact that the Organization was using him, though at the time, I didn't explain why," he said. "I did try to apologize for what I did to Kairi, but before I could explain, Siax showed up, and I had to make a quick exit."

"It's not because you're older," she said quietly. "It's because you're you." Maybe that said something about him. Or... maybe it said something about them. Or both? Though... he had other friends? Who? When? What had he been like then? Questions for another time. Or perhaps never. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

She looked at him confused. "Naminé?" What did she have to do with Saïx? And... "Since when does Saïx or Xemnas stop from making a Nobody because they already have one?" How did they get Naminé? That DiZ guy who seemed to be her keeper seemed to be too scary to even think of taking on, and he seemed to hate the Organization, so she didn't think he would have just handed her over, would he? Who knew how Somebodies thought. Maybe he didn't need her anymore?

"Demyx is gone?" she asked softly. He wasn't one of the ones who gave her much of a hard time, so... she wasn't sure what to do with that. If she had a heart would that have bothered her? Would she have been glad? She wasn't sure. She just thought that... maybe she should have felt.. something? Maybe? She wasn't sure. Though if Xemnas would have been the one destroyed.... She shook her head slightly.

She closed her eyes. "Was he able to stop Saïx when he showed up? Save Kairi?"

Lea nodded. "Naminé was Kairi's Nobody, and was created at the same moment as Roxas due to the fact that Kairi's heart was within Sora at the time," he said. "But because Kairi is one of the very few people who has no darkness at all in her heart, no Heartless was created when that happened and Kairi's heart just returned to her body. Sora did get turned into a Heartless, but only briefly; Kairi was able to restore him to human form. That's how come both Roxas and Naminé could exist at the same time as their Somebodies, which normally wouldn't be possible."

"So while I frankly don't know whether Siax tried to turn Kairi into a Nobody, it almost certainly wouldn't have worked if he had. Far as I know, one person can't have two Nobodies created directly from them. Even a regular Nobody's grip on existence is tentative at best; there likely wouldn't be enough there to make a second. Which- if I had to guess- is probably why Vexen created you as a Replica instead."

"And yeah Demyx is gone," Lea said. "Xaldin too, though he got taken out a little later. Really by the time Sora made it to the castle, the only ones left with Xemnas, Siax, and Luxord."

"But I'm getting a little ahead of myself there," he said. "As for what happened between Siax and Sora, I couldn't tell you; I didn't stick around to see. But both of them apparently made it out unscathed, so my best guess is that whatever happened, it wasn't a fight."

"After that, Sora knew that the Organization was using him in their plans," he said. "He couldn't exactly stop fighting Heartless along the way, but between that and Kairi, taking down the Organization had become a much more urgent priority for him. I continued following him as best I could after that, while keeping one step ahead of the remaining Organization members, since by then I was now number one on their hit list."

He took another bite of his ice cream to fill the pause that followed that. "Frankly, I think I knew the moment I didn't bring Roxas back and went off on my own, that I was operating on borrowed time," he said. "And eventually that time ran out. Sora made it all the way to Betwixt and Between, but was surrounded by Dusks and couldn't get through to The World That Never Was. I jumped in to help him, tried to explain a bit more, but after being on the run for so long, I was kinda on my last legs, even with Sora's help. In the end, I put pretty much everything I had left into one massive explosion; took out all the Dusks, while leaving Sora and his friends unharmed."

"Not a bad piece of work, if I do say so myself," he said. "But it did me in; I was fading away. I apologized to Sora for kidnapping Kairi, then asked him to pass one along to her for me. I told him about why I'd been after him, that I'd wanted to see Roxas again, and used my last bit of energy to open a portal for him so he could get to The World That Never Was before fading away."

"Which I thought was going to be the end of the story for me," he said. "But obviously...", he gestured to himself, "it wasn't."

She had been working on her ice cream thoughtfully as she listened. Until he got to the part about fading away. Her ice cream tumbled from hr fingers falling down, ignored and forgotten as she lunged to close the space between them, to grab the edge of his jacket. As if the words meant he was going to vanish then and there. Was he even really here? Or had she inhaled some odd potion in class and only thought he was? Her eyes were huge and afraid as she curled her hands around the material of her coat, trying to remind herself that it felt solid, he was there. He almost clonked her on the head with his elbow with that gesture, so he had to be really there. Right?

Right?

Hopefully no one was walking by on the ground below just then, or they might well get a sticky surprise.

Lea was startled when she grabbed his coat, but quickly realized why. "It's OK," he said. "I'm here, and I'm real. Something Xemnas conveniently forgot to mention was that if a person's Heartless is taken out by someone with a Keyblade and their Nobody is also destroyed, the whole person is recompleted. That's what happened to me and the other people who joined the Organization in Radiant Garden; most of us woke up there in the same place where we'd lost our hearts, fully human again."

Though again, that's getting a little a head of things," he said. "This I only know second hand, for obvious reasons, but Sora eventually made it through to The World That Never Was and the Castle. He eventually did find Kairi, but not before Naminé did. Naminé helped Kairi escape her cell then eventually remerged with her, just like you and Roxas did with Sora."

"Eventually Kairi and Riku met back up with Sora after Sora took out Xigbar- who'd also survived til Sora got to the Castle; forgot about him before-, then they all met back up with King Mickey and DiZ," he said. "DiZ, it turns out was actually Ansem the Wise, the guy who used to be King of Radiant Garden where I grew up. The reason he had it in for the Organization was that the original six members had been his apprentices once, but they turned on him and cast him into Darkness, where he went a bit revenge crazy."

"Anyway, he tried to use this machine he made to digitize Xemnas' false Kingdom Hearts, but only succeeded in damaging it and blowing himself to who knows where. After that though, Sora, Riku, and all their friends went to face Xemnas at the highest point of the Castle. Xemnas actually sort of... merged with his Kingdom hearts, and after a long battle- the last leg of which Sora and Riku had to fight alone- they finally beat Xemnas and put an end to his false Kingdom Hearts. Sora and Riku finally made it back to their island , and every thing seemed reasonably OK... for a little while, anyway."

There was so much to unpack there. And she did not let go of his coat, even though she was very nearly sitting on Roxas' ice cream. "What... would have happened if your Heartless was taken out while you were still a Nobody?" she asked softly.

And... Kairi being able to interact with her Nobody? Then why had she and Roxas have to merge with Sora before he could wake up? She had questions about DiZ too, but wasn't sure she wanted answers there. Honestly he, Saïx, and Xemnas were on the list of those she didn't want to ever show up here. But she suspected all three would. That she and Axel were here was better than her existence - what little of it she had - usually allowed for.

But Xemnas... merged with his Kingdom Hearts? The one she and Roxas helped him build? She looked down. So then... everything he did after that... was her fault, wasn't it?

Lea looked slightly confused at that. "I imagine it was taken out while I was still a Nobody," he said. "I mean I guess it could have happened in between but there wasn't really that much of a gap, in between fading as Axel and waking up as Lea."

"Besides," he said, "I kinda like the idea that it was you or Roxas that took out my Heartless, which would mean it's thanks to you that I'm whole again." Not that he had any way of proving that one way or another, but i was a nice thought.

"Anyway, any other questions before I move on?", he asked. "Cause trust me, it doesn't get any less complicated from here on out."

"So it just... waited?" she asked confused. "It didn't join Kingdom Hearts..." and Xemnas?

Though if the heart did wait... then... she kind of liked that thought too. But... so much could have gone wrong...

Lea thought about that for a long moment. "Don't know, honestly," he said. "I don't think there's any real way to tell for sure, since it's not like any of us were really aware of what our hearts were doing after the became Heartless." With the possible exception of Xemnas, but that was a bit different. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say it most likely went to the false Kingdom Hearts, and was just released along with all the other hearts there when Xemnas was defeated."

"I mean, I'd like to think my heart was floating off somewhere by itself waiting, but I just don't see it actually happening," he said. "Sorry."

It was always a bit odd when Axel said he didn't know something. He was the one who always had the answers, like how to keep Saïx from finding out that she couldn't summon her Keyblade, back home. She nodded a bit, not sure what else to say, and looked down at her ice cream.

Or more accurately, Roxas' ice cream, since her own ice cream had plummeted to the ground below.

As it seemed there were no more immediate questions though, Lea continued. "Anyway, the next batch of trouble started when Master Yen Sid called Sora and Riku to his tower," he said. "He wanted to give them both a special test to see if they were ready to become true Keyblade Masters. Apparently this involved them both going to seven different 'Sleeping Worlds' and seeing if they could wake them up. Apparently these worlds were so deeply asleep that not even the Heartless could get there. Instead, there were creatures called Dream Eaters; both helpful ones called 'Spirits' and ones similar to Heartless called 'Nightmares'."

"Unfortunately, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, Xehanort had hijacked that test to get what he wanted. The further along Sora and Riku went, the closer Sora got to falling into a trap he set up to try and make Sora into the final member of his rebuilt Organization XIII. One not composed of Nobodies, but of a dozen different versions of Xehanort, pulled from all different points in time. Don't ask me how all that time travel stuff works, because I have no idea, but he did it. And it was all organized by the original version of himself. The version that came even before the one that split into Xemnas and his Heartless, Ansem: Master Xehanort."

Okay, now she had questions.

"Keyblade... masters?" she asked. Clearly she knew what Keyblades where. But since when did they ever need tests for them? You could summon your Keyblade or you couldn't, right?

Sleeping worlds and dreameaters and nightmares made no sense, but it wasn't as important as the rest.

"How... would Sora be a version of him? Them...?" Was it because there was something wrong with how she was made that when she went into him, she made him vulnerable? And... Roxas with him? She looked down at her gloves.

Lea nodded. "Yeah," he said. "See, Keyblade wielding didn't used to be a thing that people learned on their own, like you, Roxas, and orginally Sora and Riku had to do. There used to be specific teachers for it and everything was a lot more formalized. Kinda like how it is with magic at this school. And those who showed a really high level of skill and passed certain specific tests were eventually named as Keyblade Masters."

"Mater Yen Sid was one of these, even if he wasn't actively wielding a Keyblade any more," he said. "In fact he might be the only old Master left. But he recognized that as good as Sora and Riku were already from being self-taught, it wasn't going to cut it for the kind of challenges that would be coming up. So he put them to the test- basically gave them special missions- in hopes that it would help them reach that same level of power and skill as those who'd been formally taught before."

And for once Xion probably understood something just as well as Lea, as the whole business with the Sleeping Worlds was about as clear as mud to him too. But it was relevant information, so it needed to be passed along.

"And Sora could be a version of him the same way anyone else who wasn't already a part of him naturally could," he said. "Because Xehanort was going to shove a piece of his heart- or a copy of it, or something; I'm honestly not clear on that bit- into Sora's body. That's what the point of the Organization was all along, that's why he wanted a false Kingdom Hearts to start with; to provide thirteen vessels for Xehanort's heart."

"Fortunately though, yours truly was able to swoop in in the nick of time and save Sora from becoming Xehanort's thirteenth vessel," he said. "And I mean just in the nick of time. It was kind of awesome really."

"But I'm getting a little ahead of myself there," he said. "Since I kinda left off on my side of things with me still out of the picture."

She looked down at her gloves considering all of that. Axel swooping in at the last minute to save the day she totally believed. It was very him. But needing to pass tests... this whole Master thing.... She looked up at him again. "If somehow... Roxas and I do come back... back home. Will Roxas have to take that test as well if he wants to keep using his Keyblade?" she asked softly. She had already made up her mind she wasn't ever summoning hers again if there was even the slightest chance that using it could hurt Roxas. So she didn't care if someone told her she couldn't use it anymore. But she knew Roxas would be upset, wouldn't he?

She was also a little unclear how adding heartless hearts to a fake Kingdom Hearts would put pieces of one specific heart into each of them. She frowned a bit, again, looking down once more. Then up at a sky so unlike the ones she was used to. A sunset., but a different one. "Did all the heartless already have a peace of his heart?"

"I don't think so," Lea said. "Not unless you wanted to. Riku and Sora needed to do it because they needed to get stronger in a hurry, and because if we're going to fight Master Xehanort, we'd need some new Masters. But becoming a Master one day isn't a requirement for using a Kayblade. So assuming we manage to take down Master Xehanort, there won't me any need to be in such a rush to get stronger, so you and Roxas would be able to decide for yourselves whether you wanted to or not."

Lea shook his head. "Uh-uh," he said. "I think that the false Kingdom Hearts was more of a giant power source that would have let him do it a lot more easily. He'd have been able to do it, because he already had a copy or a fragment of Xehanort's heart on hand; in Xigbar. Xigbar was in on Xehanort and Xemnas' plan from the beginning and had had a piece of Xehanort in him for a long time. Maybe from the beginning. I dunno what Xehanort promised him, but he was gonna sell us all out too" And Lea was very clearly Not Happy. about that.

"So... we didn't really do much to stop him by vanishing, did we?" she asked softly. Of course, by that same token she wasn't doing as much to help him as she'd feared. Not that she'd ever see it that way.

"You allowed Sora to wake up," Lea said. "And you bought us time. And if there's anything we need, it's time. Master Xehanort seemingly had backup plans on top of backup plans so we've been playing catch-up from the start, whether we realized it or not. Anything that gives us more time to work with helps."

"Anyway, back to things that happened on my end," he said. "It took a little time, but eventually, I was recompleted, and woke up as Lea again in the same place I'd originally lost my heart; the basement of the castle in Radiant Garden. And I wasn't alone either. Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo- the Sombodies of Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion respectively- were all there too. Braig and Isa- Xigbar and Siax's Sombodies- should have been there too, since they lost their hearts in the same place, but they weren't, and at the time, we couldn't figure out why."

"Dilan and Even were still pretty out of it, since being recompleted is rough," he continued, "so that left Aeleus, Ienzo, and I to try and figure out what was going on. It became clear pretty quickly though that they weren't anywhere in the castle. Which meant that someone was gonna have to go looking. And since Ienzo worked better on the technical end of things and Aeleus was better on guard duty, that left me. Which was fine by me, since I had other things I wanted to do out in the worlds anyway."

"it was hard? Getting your heart back?" she asked softly. She reached a hand towards him, grabbing the edge of his sleeve. "Did it hurt?"

"Not that I remember," Lea said. "I mean, I was unconscious when it actually happened, so who knows? But it's more that just trying to reintegrate a heart and body isn't always a smooth process, and it takes longer for some people to stabilize than others."

She gave a small nod, thinking about that. Going back to Sora.... Maybe it was best for Axel that he didn't remember that sort of thing.

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The icing on the cake - Locked to Lea

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Whoops. LOL. Good... um... catch. :D

No problem. XD

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