Not Too Late [TRE 3;7]

-Bis' Part-

The Day began like any others, but there was excitement in the air. This was the last Day. Still, a kind of foreboding hung over the group. The mysterious cloaked figure – Demyx swore she was a faceless girl, Axel swore he was a silver-haired boy he recognized as Riku – was still with the group.

As Partners, Axel and Demyx woke together; the redhead took his partner aside and relayed his suspicions; the cloaked figure had lost their identity, but… was it possible that this was Xion? Demyx, who had no recollection of the girl he’d once played the Game for, asked Axel about her – Axel told him about the shyest member of their gang, who had always hung out with Demyx when she wasn’t spending time with him and Roxas. Demyx was shocked; the words awakened memories he hadn’t realized were even missing.

They were snapped out of their reverie by the others joining them. Sora, who had just rejoined them, and his partner Tidus… and the mysterious cloaked figure.

With a guilty expression beneath the hood Demyx could not see past, she told them what had happened to her partner.

He had once been good friends with a  girl named Namine. The first time she had removed her hood in front of him, he’d seen her as that girl. Angry, feeling betrayed, he abandoned her.

Needless to say , this didn’t go over very well with Demyx and Axel, especially knowing who they both suspected her to be. They smiled, cracked jokes – she was much better without that jerk. Together, they would complete the missions, and keep her safe.

Surrounded by friends for the first time in what felt like ages, she smiled – and the first hint of who Xion had once been came out of the darkness.

The moment, however, couldn’t last. A pink-haired Reaper appeared.

It was the last day, she told them. It was open season on the Players, and she was ready to score a few quick points. The group readied for battle.

They all fought bravely, and it seemed like they were evenly matched, until…

“Hey there, Dem~!”

The familiar voice startled the sitarist, as well as the Reaper girl. This, too, was a Reaper, though a very familiar one.

“Aqua!”

She grinned, then turned to the pink-haired girl. “Stand down, Vanille; these guys are alright.”

“But, Aqua, they’re players!”

“Doesn’t matter. Demyx here is a personal friend, and a good Player. He deserves his second chance more than either of us did.”

Vanille reluctantly followed orders, putting away her snare-staff as Aqua began to joke with Demyx.

But the joking seemed to remind him of something. He tried to figure out what – a flash came back to him, a black-haired girl, but her face eluded him. The flashes were accompanied with blinding pain. He couldn’t remember – it was as if they were completely gone.

Upset, disturbed, he collapsed to the ground, beneath the worried eyes of his partner, his ex-partner, his new friends, and the Reaper, Vanille.

“Demyx, are you alright?”

“I can’t… remember,” he replied. “It’s my entry fee. I can’t remember… a single, certain person.”

The black-clad figure seemed devastated, but Axel merely put one hand on a hip. “Come on, Demyx. You know the plan. Let’s head to the final gate. We’ll kick the crap out of the Composer, and we’ll all go back where we belong.”

“Yeah!” he agreed, standing.

As they moved forward, though, and parted with Aqua and Vanille, two new Reapers stood in their path.

Unlike Vanille, however, these were clearly combat specialists. They had been warriors in life, and the group stood no chance. One of them managed to knock out Demyx, the other took Axel and Sora.

Xion had had enough. She charged them. And the looks on their faces told all the story she needed to hear.

It was her Fee again, affecting them. One of them, a tall blonde man with an incredibly large sword, called her Zack; pained memories flashed through his mind before he turned and left, as if fleeing from her presence.

The other, a blonde boy with a sword that looked oddly like hers, asked her why she’d gone away; he pulled out a charm and then, looking hurt, fled as well.

“Nice job, there,” Axel congratulated

Her own mangled memories came rushing back, dying at the hands of her two best friends, wondering if they even were her best friends. Trying to make sense of the tangle.

Demyx looked worried. Asked her what was wrong. Finally, she laid her confession bare for them – she had told them she had no memories, but now she told them the truth, about how she couldn’t tell if one of them killed her, if she cared about them…

“I don’t know who I am. What I was to you. Every memory contradicts the last…”

But Axel’s smile held a different tale, one that he told her freely. “If you’re Xion,” he said, “there’s some things you should know…”

And he spun a happy tale of friendship and ice cream and shells on the beach and loyalty.

It didn’t hurt him a bit to leave out how it had all really ended. That was the glory of this little curse of his…

-Miri Part-

What he had told Xion stuck in his mind as they traveled through the day. He remembered it all – those happy times he’d shared with Saix, Isa back then, and he channeled them as he lied through his teeth, a pep talk to the rest of them to tell them that they were almost there.

And yet, as he thought about it, what he had done to Xion and the tragedy it had brought, he realized that his words were truer than he’d thought.

He was ready to move forward. To forget the past and move on. And they were so, so close to making it.

As Demyx thought of Aqua and the journey behind him, of the blonde reaper who’d fled Xion and his friend, Axel watched the silver-haired boy closely.

He could see Xion in every one of the boy’s movements. He barely dared hope that the girl he’d known was inside.

Suddenly, they were interrupted, and he couldn’t help but be surprised as another cloaked and hooded figure, just like an older version of the boy he saw, walked up… and threw aside his cloak.

“I’m sorry, Namine,” he said. “It was wrong to leave. My old partner… she did that, when she became a Reaper. I won’t do it to you.”

And then a startled gasp.

“Riku?”

The older silvette turned his Keyblade on Vanille as she stepped out of hiding, where she watched them. Xion, who from Riku’s point of view was a pretty blonde with long hair, got ready to fight as well.

Vanille held out her arms.

“Do it,” she said quietly. “I abandoned you. I deserve this. Take me out.”

A tense moment passed with heated stares… and Riku lowered his weapon.

“I’m done fighting people who should be friends,” was his response.

Her expression was shocked. She shoved him aside as she ran past, to the edge of the stairway they stood on that looked out over the street. Her fists clenched, and it took them all a moment to realize that she was crying, rather than angry.

She turned back to Riku. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he said. “I may not be happy… but I understand it.” He smiled. "You'll always be welcome here."

She sniffled a little, turning her face up into the light rain that had begun to fall.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

After that encounter, it was a straightforward jaunt. With Riku’s help, the party consisted of three sets of Partners – they were virtually unstoppable. Hoards of Noise fell in their wake, but through it all, Axel… couldn’t stop thinking about the things he’d left behind.

Sadness, yes. He’d taken Xion to her death. He realized he should have realized Saix’s words were lies.

The previous Game, and the Xion clone that Demyx had defeated, and curled up with her lifeless body in his arms as he cried.

But there had been happiness, too. He remembered the boy he’d been, back when his name was still Lea and he and Isa and Roxas were just kids who didn’t know anything about gangs or Reapers or rebellions. He felt more of a connection to that boy than he had in a long time.

The time after they’d joined the gang, after Isa, now Saix, had become distant and it had been he and Roxas and Xion, sitting on a tower eating ice cream. He made a silent promise – it would be that way again.

Xion…

Could he believe it? He’d first come up with the theory, but he wasn’t sure if he even believed himself anymore. The silver-haired boy, the blonde girl he’d glimpsed for that brief moment… and Xion. Were they all the same? He had to believe. He had to hope that there was more to the enigmatic figure than met the eye.

The last person he’d believed in had turned against him, murdering Xion and himself and possibly even Roxas, as well, shattering the dreams they’d all shared.

He thought about this as they paused long enough for Xion to tell Riku the truth about herself. They were so close now.

Riku told them briefly about his own goals – who Namine was to him, and his friend Ven, waiting in a coma for him to Win the Game and come back to life. In return, Axel shared his own stories about the boy he’d once been. He felt Lea starting to slip away, but not forever – to a place deep within his heart where he would always be able to call him up and cherish him.

It was almost time. He readied the chakrams, imbued with his own spiritual power, that he used as a weapon. Demyx took his sitar, powered with water that flowed from his soul.

Ready, now, to face the challenge, the final door appeared before them.

The Composer’s realm lay beyond…

Okay, Blogger, will you let me fix my botched formatting now?