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Betwixt and Between Ch11

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Chapter 11-Face it! and Scythe of Petals


"Are you two gonna help or what?"
"And you're getting distracted."



"So I know you're probably still mad at me…" Roxas began, walking up to Xion.

"For the last time, Roxas," she replied, turning to look at him. "I'm not mad at you from yesterday."

"We didn't make it home for dinner though."

She shrugged. "I half wasn't expecting you to. I mean, sure, I got a little worried when you guys had been gone all day and the last place I had known you'd gone off to was the Dark Margin, but I reasoned that you two could take care of yourselves, regardless of what happened. You didn't even run into any Heartless."

"Well, I'd still like to make it up to you."

"Really? How?"

"Come with me, I want to go get all my sea-shells from The World That Never Was."

She smiled. "Okay!"

"And, while we're there, we can make sure the levels of Heartless and Nobodies are in check."

"Sounds like a great way to spend the day!"

"Let me go grab a star shard, I'll be right back."

"I'll be here," she replied, leaning up against a wall.

Roxas darted back to his and Sora's house. He jumped the back fence, heading for the back door. He passed Sora who was lazing in a hammock.

"Where are you rushing off to?" Sora asked.

"Xion and I are going to The World that Never Was."

"Odd place for a date."

"I never said it was a date."

"What are you going to be doing there?"

"Getting the sea-shells that she got for me."

"Yeah, that's a date."

Roxas frowned. "We'll be killing enemies too."

"And you two are the couple that just does stuff like that on dates. Have fun!"

Roxas wasn't sure of what to make of this, but went to go get the star shard anyway.



"Sora told us to have fun," he said when he ran back to Xion.

She shrugged. "All right."

"Ready?"

She grabbed his hand.

He activated the star shard.

The two of them arrived just outside The Castle That Never Was, their ears ringing.

"You know," Xion said, shaking her head to clear out the buzz. "I have to appreciate the lack of negative effects dark corridors have."

"That you can physically notice," Roxas pointed out.

"True. So the sea-shells are in your room?"

He nodded.

"Time to storm the castle!" she exclaimed, running up.

He laughed and followed after her.

"Where'd you get that line?"

"Read it in a book that Riku's mom had lying on the coffee table."

"When do you have time to read?"

"I need less sleep than all of you. The other night I wasn't tired at all, so I wandered down to the living room to see if there was anything of interest and I stumbled across this book. I read it in one sitting. Riku's mom didn't seem to particularly mind, not after I told her I didn't need as much sleep, at least."

"What'd she say?"

"Well, first she joked that I must really not need sleep if I need less sleep than Riku. Then she said I was welcome to help myself to any of the books on the bookshelves and if there was anything in particular that I wanted, she'd try and get it for me."

"That's really nice."

Xion nodded. "She's awesome."

"Sora's parents are nice too. Though I have to laugh at all the things they don't know."

Xion looked at him, a curious expression on her face.

"Well, unlike Riku, Kairi and Sora don't tell their parents everything. Kairi doesn't tell her parents every detail because she's afraid that they won't let her go out anymore."

"Understandable, I suppose," Xion said.

"Sora isn't afraid that something like that'll happen. However, he only tells his parents what he thinks is interesting or important, or stuff that they explicitly ask about. So, a lot falls through the cracks. Like, when I mentioned that he'd been turned into a Heartless, they freaked out—not because he'd been turned into a Heartless, but because he hadn't told them himself."

Xion laughed.

All the while, the two of them had been making their way through The Castle. By this point, they'd showed up at Proof of Existence.

"Look at the colors," Xion said.

A lot of the glowing plates were red. Xemnas' was a pitch black mess. However, quite a few of them were blue. Xigbar's was blue, Zexion's (although mostly smashed) was blue, Axel's was blue, Demyx's, Luxord's, Marluxia's and Larxene's were all blue. Roxas' glowed nearly white it was so blue. Xion's (though also smashed) glowed the same color as Roxas'.

"Xigbar's still alive?" Xion asked.

"Yeah, he disappeared before I…" Roxas frowned. "I'm glad I didn't kill him, to be completely honest. I was just angry that he kept shooting at you."

"I don't remember…ah. I was still passed out, wasn't I?"

Roxas nodded.

"Zexion's still alive," Roxas said. "Somehow Xehanort never got to him after he betrayed him."

"That's good. I liked Zexion, he wasn't mean to me."

"I knew about Demyx and Luxord," Roxas mused.

"Don't you mean The Amazing Demetrius?"

They laughed.

"Lovely, Marluxia and Larxene are still around," Roxas said. "Axel must have just sent them away from Castle Oblivion."

Xion wrinkled her nose. "Larxene was mean."

"Tell me about it."

"You don't even want to know what all she did to Sora and Namine and the Riku Replica in Castle Oblivion," Xion said quietly.

"How much did you find when you hacked the system?"

"More than I ever would have wanted to know."

"Right, let's just go to my old room. This place is starting to creep me out."

Xion nodded and the two of them made their way to a pitch black hallway.

"So many X's," Xion mused when they got to the Hallway of Bedrooms.

"Yeah, and this is after Axel took down the ones over yours and Zexion's rooms."

Xion grimaced.

Roxas walked up to his door and unlocked it with his Keyblade. The two of them walked in. The room was the same as Roxas last remembered seeing it: through Sora's eyes back when they came and destroyed Maleficent.

"He left my closet door open," he muttered. "Though, I suppose we were in a rush."

"Where are the shells?" Xion asked.

"Bedside table drawer," Roxas replied.

"Right."

She went over to the bedside table and pulled open the drawer.

"Goodness, you have a lot," she said.

"You gave them all to me," he replied.

"Really?"

He nodded.

"Oh, well then."

"You sound surprised."

"Well, I brought you a shell each day that you were asleep," she said. "Seeing all of these shells reminds me of how many days you were asleep."

Roxas shrugged. "I'm rather proud of the collection. They make me think of you. It's a wonder I left them behind."

Xion could hazard a guess as to why they had been left behind—he hadn't remembered her at that point. She didn't point that out to him however. She didn't hold it against him.

Roxas scooped the shells into his pockets.

"Ha!" he exclaimed. "They just fit."

Xion laughed.

"Ooh, while I'm here," she said.

"What?"

"I'll grab a couple more cloaks. Kairi has just enough if me, her, and Namine all want to use one at the same time. I want to grab spares."

"You anticipating needing the cloaks?"

She shrugged. "You never know, and they are quite helpful."

"Well, go for it, then."

"Be right back."

"I'm done here, so I'll come too."

They both walked across the hall. Xion opened the door with her Keyblade and walked straight to her closet.

"Kairi left the door open," she observed.

"Well, we were trying to do as much as possible before Maleficent noticed."

"Makes sense, I suppose," she said, grabbing three more cloaks.

"I think we're done here, no?"

"We're good."

The two of them walked back into the hallway and ran right into a half a dozen stray Berserkers. It took them all of three seconds to have their Keyblades summoned. Xion dropped the spare cloaks to the floor.

"Combo?" Xion asked, holding out her hand.

Roxas grabbed it. "Light!" he shouted.

The two of them began glowing with white-hot light.

"Let's do this," Xion said.

They separated. Bathed in light, the two of them darted among the Berserkers, slashing through them with increased strength. Within a couple of minutes, all the Berserkers were gone.

"That was almost too easy," Xion said, the aura of light around her fading.

"Let's not complain," Roxas said, banishing his Keyblade. "There could be more."

"Should we stay and try and get rid of some more?" Xion asked.

"We just cleaned house here the other day," Roxas said. "I don't see a need to do it again. However, if you want to kill some monsters, do you want to head over to Hollow Bastion? Leon said they're in need of some help right now."

"I'm game," Xion said. "Just so long as they're enemies I can see, I don't particularly care."

"What's that a reference to?" Roxas asked, pulling out the star shard.

"The Shadow in the parallel universe. I couldn't see him. I couldn't even hear him most of the time. It was very annoying."

"Sounds like it," Roxas said. "I wonder if I'd be able to see or hear him, since I'm a part of the Sora in this universe."

Xion shrugged. "Arguably, I am, and I couldn't see a thing."

"Maybe it's a replica thing."

She rolled her eyes. "I remember Aerith saying it had something to do with darkness."

"Oh, so how come Namine could see him?"

Xion shrugged. "She knows enough about darkness to sense it? No, wait, I think it had something to do with the fact that she sees memories."

"Oh, that makes sense. Are you bringing those cloaks?"

He gestured to the cloaks behind her.

Xion turned around and scooped up the cloaks and nodded decisively. "Shall we go kick some enemy-butt?"

"I think we shall!"

He activated the star shard once again. As soon as they had landed in Hollow Bastion, they shook their heads to clear their ears.

"I will get used to this one day," Roxas vowed.

Xion laughed.

"Hey! Watch out!" Yuffie yelled, coming up behind them.

On instinct, the two of them ducked. Roxas looked up and saw a Phantomtail flying overhead. Yuffie's shuriken flew by and whacked it on the side. It dropped some munny and Yuffie wasted no time in gathering it up.

"Are you two gonna help or what?" she asked.

Xion dropped the cloaks again and the two of them summoned their Keyblades.

"Good practice, don't you think?" he asked.

She nodded, grinning.

The two of them ran off to help Yuffie.



Shortly after one star shard disappeared from the Hallway of Bedrooms, another one appeared. This one was accompanied with a hooded man. He took down his hood and shook out his hair.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" he mused to himself.

He walked pretentiously to the bedroom door right next to one of the ones that Roxas and Xion had been in moments previously. It had a scythe on it—a very menacing-looking scythe at that.

He frowned at the glowing black-and-white X shimmering across his door. He knew what that X meant—don't go somewhere. He frowned, Xemnas was gone. So was Xehanort if the rumors were true. How did someone have enough power to permanently put one of these things up?

He frowned, trying to see if he could get around this predicament. He tried placing his hand through the X, but an invisible barrier stopped his hand from getting closer than four inches from the door. He tried several different areas of the barrier.

There was no getting through.

He summoned his scythe and tried to hack through the barrier.

All he managed to do is look rather awkward trying to chop through an invisible barrier alongside the reinforced walls of the Castle that Never Was.

He banished the scythe and resummoned it, this time using the flower petals that came with it to pelt into his door in a predetermined pattern.

The petals went through the barrier and his door swung open quietly.

He banished the scythe again and gave a curt nod. He then proceeded to walk into his room.

And then fail, because the barrier was still intact.

"I bet not even a Keyblade could get through this," he muttered sullenly.

What he needed, was the ability to erase the barrier. But that would require some power over darkness. He couldn't even form a dark corridor; there was probably no way that he could get rid of one of Xemnas' old barriers.

He tried, anyway, but nothing happened.

He swore.

To pour salt on the wound, his door closed on him.

He swore some more.

"Man that's a dirty mouth," came a very familiar cocky voice.

Marluxia turned around to see Axel coming into the Hallway from the Grey Area.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Just got here," Axel replied with a shrug. "I wanted to get some things out of my bedroom and I figured now's a good a time as ever. Of course, if I had known Roxas and Xion were going to come, I would have come with them. No matter."

Axel shrugged and walked up to his door. Snapping his fingers to light a little flame, he heated up his doorknob and his door clicked open.

Without saying another word to Marluxia, he went in. Marluxia shifted uncomfortably. He almost would have rather run into the wielders of the Keyblade. They probably didn't harbor enough hate towards him to kill him without a second thought. Axel, well, he had no flipping clue about Axel.

Axel was like that.

He thought about just leaving, but he didn't want to appear cowardly. He leaned against the wall next to his door, keeping an eye out for Axel when he came back out of his room.

He noticed a few more X's. There was one over Larxene's door, one over Demyx's door, one over Lexaeus' door, one over Vexen's door, and one over Xaldin's door. He raised his eyebrows at the lack of Zexion's door entirely, but didn't question it all that much. Zexion was an odd one.

Axel came back out of his room, shoving something in his pockets and closing the door behind him. Marluxia had to notice that Axel was not dressed in a black cloak, but rather a khaki pair of pants and a loose red, long-sleeved shirt.

"So, paranoid one," Axel said. "What are you doing here?"

"None of your business," Marluxia said stiffly.

"Nothing's changed then," Axel replied. He looked to the side of Marluxia and noted the X over the door.

"Stuck outside your room, buddy?" he asked.

Marluxia turned up a nose and looked pointedly away from the double-crosser.

"Nothing that you can do to help," he said.

Then he remembered, Axel could form dark corridors. Theoretically, Axel could help him.

Not that he was going to ask for help.

"You are stuck out of your room! Would you like some help?"

"Why do you even offer you double-crossing traitor?"

"Sheesh, must we call names? Not that I'm offended, I've been called worse and I've called others worse. But still, is that really necessary?"

"What are you playing at?"

"I asked if you wanted some help. You want into that room, but Xemnas' barrier is in the way. I have the ability to remove that barrier and I'm offering. I think it's a winning situation for you."

"What do you want in return?" Marluxia asked. "You're always after your own ends."

Axel shrugged. "Nothing in particular today. I'm in a good mood. Though, there is one thing you can do for me."

Marluxia raised an eyebrow. He had been expecting something like this.

"I want to see you open your door."

Marluxia frowned. Axel had a habit of laughing at what it took to open his door. He pursed his lips.

Was it worth it?

There were things in that room that he needed and Axel was being generous. But, he couldn't trust the pyro any farther than he could throw him (though he probably could throw the skinny git rather far if he tried). So perhaps that was a bad analogy. He couldn't trust the skinny git, leave it at that.

On the other hand, Axel had yet to shove him through a dark corridor. Or summon a weapon, or anything to indicate harm.

Perhaps the man was having a good day.

"Fine," Marluxia said through clenched teeth.

Axel walked across the hall and casually passed his hand over the shimmering X. It disappeared.

"How do you suppose Xemnas keeps these things up?" Marluxia found himself asking.

Axel shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe he wasn't the one to put them up. Maybe someone who's still alive put them up."
"Like?"

"Oh, old Xiggy's still around."

Marluxia frowned.

"Well, go on then, open your door."

Grimacing, Marluxia summoned his scythe. He gathered up the petals accompanying the scythe and threw them at the door. They glowed pink as they hit the door in the pattern before disappearing. The door opened.

Axel was snickering.

"Your face!" he said.

Marluxia growled, walked into his room and started to slam the door behind him. Axel stopped the door with his foot. Begrudgingly, Marluxia noted a thick black boot.

"Now don't let me catch you causing problems later," he said. "I did you a favor. You'll remember it. Now I'm going to leave now before either of us try to kill each other. And I, at least, will have a good day."

Axel excused himself from Marluxia's room and Marluxia heard the distinct sound of a star shard leaving.

Marluxia found something haunting in Axel's last words: 'I did you a favor…you'll remember it…'

Nevertheless, he made his way to his desk and began gathering things up.



"Yuffie!" Zack yelled. "Knock that flying one this way and I'll get it."

"It's called a Wavecrest," Yuffie yelled back. "Get it right!"

Zack rolled his eyes. "Just knock it this way, will you?"

"Only if I steal from it first!"

Zack decided it wasn't worth it and went after a nearby Bully Dog. He killed it with one slash, which made him happy.

"Yuffie," Cloud said, going over to the girl. "Things might go better if you actually worked with the rest of us."

Yuffie's nose twitched. This was coming from Cloud.

"Things go just fine," she said. "We get all the Heartless. And it's been nearly two weeks since one of us got majorly injured."

"Yes, but don't you still think teamwork might make things easier?"

"Maybe."

Cloud dropped the subject after that. Yuffie decided that she was going to work with Roxas and Xion. They had yet to annoy her today.

"See, if you toss it like, so," Roxas said, chucking his Keyblade. It went spinning amongst the horde of Rapid Thrusters that had decided to join the Bully Dogs and the assorted flying Heartless. "It's rather effective."

Oblivion came spinning back to him and he caught it easily.

Xion threw her own Keyblade, but it didn't go nearly as far as Roxas' had. Nor did it come back to her.

She sighed and went to go get it, again.

"Just summon it back," Roxas suggested.

"Oh, that's a good idea," she replied, doing so. "Why didn't you mention that five times ago?"

"Just thought of it," Roxas said, shrugging.

Xion sighed and tried again—to the same end.

"Try some more wrist-action," Yuffie suggested. "For best results, add a little Aero behind it."

Xion summoned her Keyblade back to her, bashed away a Rapid Thruster that had gotten too close to them. She threw her Keyblade again, whispering 'Aero' as she did so. The Keyblade went farther, and even thought about coming back. But it didn't.

"Well, that's the general idea," Yuffie said. "It's just getting it to come back."

"Obviously," Xion muttered.

She summoned it and tried again. Roxas and Yuffie looked on while batting away the bravest Rapid Thrusters. In an attempt to make Xion feel better, Roxas gave a little twitch of his wrist, pulling the Keyblade back to her.

He only partially expected it to work. It worked well. Too well. The Kingdom Key came back and whacked them both in the heads. Yuffie laughed at them.

"Roxas," Xion rubbed her head. "Don't ever summon my Keyblade like that again."

"Duly noted."

"Zack!" Cloud shouted.

The three of them looked over to the other two people who were helping on this little round of Heartless killing.

Zack had a giant gash on his forehead.

"Do you not know how to be careful?" Cloud asked. "How do you survive as a mercenary? You don't always have people around to Cure you!"

Zack threw up a Cura for himself. He didn't respond.

"You're showing off, aren't you?" Cloud asked.

Zack shrugged.

"For who?" Cloud asked. "Aerith's back in the house!"

"I never actually admitting to showing off," Zack said, wiping blood from his face with the back of his glove.

"You're totally showing off!" Cloud teased. "Bet it's for the newcomers! You just wanted them to see…"

As Cloud was talking, Zack maneuvered himself around the spikey blonde and killed a larger-than-normal Bully Dog.

"And you're getting distracted," Zack pointed out.

Cloud rolled his eyes.

"Boys," Yuffie muttered.

"Hey!" Roxas said, taking offense.

"Let it go," Xion said, chucking her Keyblade again. "It's not worth it."

This time, her Keyblade actually came back to her. She was so surprised she almost didn't catch it.

"Woohoo!" she exclaimed.

"All right, all right," Yuffie said, resting her shuriken on her shoulder. "Enough jokin' around. Let's kill these Heartless!"

"Combo?" Xion asked.

"Combo."
Moving... is a weird fun sad interesting thing.

I am done with all of my finals. I am done moving. Granted, there is still paperwork, but there will always be paperwork.

Much thanks to :iconwhitehawkminion: and his father for helping me move back up to Phoenix! (Sadness though because I won't be seeing you as often :()

Anywho...

Bit of trivia for you: Sora, Roxas, Xion and Ven can all summon each other's Keyblades once they are on the battlefield. However, they cannot summon one when it's in another's hands. The Keyblade has to be free-floating.

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HynMayProductions's avatar
You're very welcome! :D
-WHM