This Week On Ruining Your Life

[caliginose]

Who: caliginose and fireintwilight
When: Tonight, post-sirens.
Where: Just outside of Xehanort's house.
Summary: Axel, being brave and wily and foolish, has gone to rescue his best friend. Master Xehanort, being a compromising soul, offers an alternative to something other than utter annihilation.
Warnings: Evilness.

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[fireintwilight]

Axel gave it some time, and opened the dark corridor beyond view of the house; maybe an unnecessary precaution at this point, but wasn't it brazen enough to simply walk up to the front steps of the old man's house? Calling up an inferno to accompany him was a nagging temptation, but the extent of Xehanort's powers was still a complete unknown, and quite possibly beyond his scope.

And whatever else he did, Roxas was in there somewhere. That was something to keep in mind, before he burned all three of them in one suicidal effort.

"I like what you've done with the place," he remarked to the old man standing bent on the stoop. So harmless and unassuming at first, like somebody's imitation of a grandfather that had skewed horribly wrong. He could sense the absence of a heart, Axel remembered. And he could sense something like in return--Xehanort wasn't missing a heart, but there was something lacking in there, all right.

[caliginose]

"I do try to keep up appearances," he remarked in return and let all the unsaid implications remain in the air, formless and threatening.

Axel stood out in their surroundings, not because of the forever recognizable coat, but because of his hair and because of his manner. The red was a stark splash of a still-barren background, the lonely island city still gripped by the last wringing vestiges of winter. But even here, at the doorstep of what he knew had to be death - his own or others - the amicable playfulness had not disappeared. He was as young and sure and indomitable as he had been that day in the bar last year.

It was an effective mask, one had had to laud even while he thought of what must be done with the wretched creature, now that it had delivered itself to him.

"I could invite you inside, but...would I be correct in assuming that you would decline such an invitation?"

[fireintwilight]

Axel shrugged after a pause, as though he were giving it some consideration. "I suppose that depends on why you're inviting. I'm not here to fight, Master Xehanort." He spread his hands innocently. "We were so friendly before, and I'd hate to ruin that. I'm only here for Roxas."

If only it would be that easy. Of course Xehanort wouldn't give Roxas up just like that; why would he, when he not only had something to his heart's content--a Nobody, and one with Ven's face--but leverage over everyone that cared anything for him? Axel wouldn't. But he wouldn't have come without some incentive to make in return.

He smiled. Let all the unsaid threats and implications float around between them that Xehanort wanted. He might walk into that house and never come out, and he didn't care. It's nice that I can't be afraid of you. "If you wanted a Nobody you only had to ask. I told you you could use me, old man."

[caliginose]

Self-sacrifice, is it?

Do you understand the personal gravity of what you are proposing - or is it that you cannot?

Axel certainly did not care to follow the mold, or followed it so closely that he had emerged clearly on the opposite end of the scale. Monumentally selfish and egotistical enough to think that his own person, half as it was, would be more than enough to save his...what? His friend?

A Nobody that imagines for himself friends? "So you would propose that I use you for the service you original offered in exchange for...his freedom? And nothing else?"