towerofanimus

1369

Characters: Anyone coming to Zo's carnival
Setting: Cafeteria; please specify the date and location in the carnival in your subject header!
Format: Anything
Summary: Zo has set up a carnival for the residents, but it's not meant to last. Anyone wandering after the bombs go off might see things they never wanted to see...
Warnings: Psychological and body horror
Note: Characters entering the carnival from the 27th to the 30th will experience visions! Please refer to the info post for details and reply to this thread if your character enters the carnival during these days.

[The carnival has taken up the entirety of the cafeteria. A large roller coaster and ferris wheel tower over the residents, while a child-sized roller coaster, a merry-go-round, and spinning teacups project much less daunting silhouettes. Stands are set up with standard carnival foods available, from ice cream to cotton candy. These stands do not ask for anything as payment.

On the twenty-seventh, the carnival appearance changes. The machinery all appears rusted and broken down, as if weathered with decades of rain and snow. Plants grow up and around the rides, ruining them, and all the food is rotten.]

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[Her head raises slightly, eyes widening. 'Something like that' or something even more like that? There's only one other person she could imagine saying that, someone who'd cause Axel to have that tone in his voice, but--]

[He's not from the right time, and even if he were they never had the opportunity to talk about it, did they?]

The second?

[The 'who was the first?' is implied, even though she already knows what the answer must be.]

[But... Roxas isn't here, is he?]

That's right.

[The redhead leans in, just slightly, and smiles. It's not friendly, though others may mistake it as such. It's more like a knife's edge: move wrong, and it slices.]

You wanna take a guess who the first was?

[He doesn't think it's gonna be a guess.]

[This is why she was worried.]

[Because she knows enough about him to know better than to take that as anything even remotely close to friendly. (And it stings, somehow, even if they never exactly became close, to know that at least now his loyalties probably lay further away than they did in the end.)]

[She doesn't have to guess. That much is obvious in her frown, in the knowingness of it, but-- there's something almost like an apology, too, lingering somewhere under the surface.]

I didn't know Roxas was here.

[And really... she feels as though she has no choice but to offer--]

I'm sorry.

[What, exactly, she's apologizing for could be any number of things.]

You're sorry.

[He repeats it slowly. Deliberately. And, for a few moments after, he stands in silence, studying her face.]

You wanna know something, Naminé?

[It's not really a question: he continues right away.]

I've spent a lot of my time making sure that Roxas and Xion are alright. I come here, and Roxas doesn't even know who Xion is. Instead, he talks about people called Hayner, Pence, and Olette, like they mean something to him. His memory's a train wreck, and he tells me this fragmented story about you, DiZ, and joining Sora. I can't make heads or tails of it, and guess what? Neither can he.

But you know what happened. Don't you, Naminé?

[It's not really a question.]

You wanna put some meaning behind that apology? Tell me what happened.

[Her expression, for what it's worth and how wary it is, is full of contrition, of regret, of shame. She does not bother answering that question because she knows it for what it is, and thus she listens, wishes she could squeeze her eyes shut - doesn't dare.]

I do know. Some of it, at least.

[She hesitates, but not for long; she just needs a moment to draw in a breath.]

I'm still a little hazy on what happened with Xion, myself. But that part of it... wasn't entirely my doing, of that much I'm sure. As for the rest--

[She is guilty, and the look on her face makes no secret of that.]

... Roxas needed to be hidden. He left the Organization, Axel. And after he did that, he was in serious danger. You know as well as I do what would have happened if they'd caught him...! The only way to make sure that they never found him and he didn't do anything that might get him hurt was... to provide him with a new personality. A new life, and new memories. [Her hands clasp together, her discomfort visible.] I didn't want to do it, but-- if I hadn't... not only would Sora never have been able to wake up, Roxas would have almost certainly have been destroyed.

[He listens. There's no pity in his eyes — even if Naminé inspired the same strange sense of humanity that Roxas and Xion do, he doubts he'd "feel" it in this case. But he does listen. There's no intention to use her words against her; not in this case. Right now, all that he wants is the information.

[When she finishes, his expression hasn't changed. It's part of the story. More of the story than he had before. He knows that, somehow, he factors into it — but that's not his next question.]

So, where does the whole "joining Sora" part fit in?

[She doesn't look for pity; she looks only for what's there, without prejudice or expectation. (Perhaps the Organization and DiZ taught her that - showed her what it was to be blind and to be ruthless and to be dishonest and in their failings taught her to do better than they, to seek and to offer the truth no matter how ugly or disadvantageous it may be.)]

[Her eyes lower at the question, again threaten to shut-- flick back up.]

After... what happened in Castle Oblivion, Sora had to go to sleep so that I could repair his memories. But... along the way, some things started to happen. Eventually I realized there was no way for him to wake up, unless--... unless Roxas went back to him, and became whole again.

[A long moment passes in silence. At first, Axel has difficulty processing the reality of what Naminé just said. Then, he's simply struck speechless.

[It's a rare thing. The shock in his eyes is real, as is the slowly building anger that replaces it. Still, his voice stays controlled.]

And what was gonna happen to Roxas?

[The pieces fit together. But he has to hear her say it.]

[She swallows, because she can see all of those things and even though his voice tries to hide it she knows what's in his eyes and that's what frightens her.]

[But she stays steady, even through her strain and her guilt and her pity.]

He'd be whole.

[A repeat, but also something she's had to repeat to herself, all this time.]

... But no longer separate.

You mean he'd be gone.

[And there's the anger. This isn't an Axel who has driven away his friends. This isn't an Axel who has realized that, in the end, maybe Roxas returning to Sora was inevitable. This isn't an Axel who has tried to bring Roxas back, and eventually wound up giving his life to save his best friend's other.

[This is an Axel who came from a time when things were just fine. He had his friends, and they were inseparable. Sure, Xion was a Replica, and she wanted to find out where she came from. But no one was leaving the Organization. No one was going to—]

He'd be destroyed.

[It's so dangerous, him being from that time. She knows it's a thin line she's toeing, here. She knows maybe it would keep things quieter at least for a little while to keep her mouth shut, to lie her way around it.]

[But she's not a liar when she can help it and even if he doesn't remember, even if he is not yet that person, she remembers him as he was, as he will be in the future. She remembers the man who sacrificed himself, who grew and changed and--]

[And she can't lie to him. She can't disrespect him so, can't betray him that way even though right now she is frightened.]

No...! Not destroyed. Just-- different. Whole. [She keeps using that word over and over again because she can't help it, it's what she's always needed to believe.]

Axel-- there wasn't any choice. ... We both had to go back.

[Axel shakes his head, denying the word even as she repeats it. Not whole. Gone. Roxas is Sora's Nobody, but he's not Sora. And Sora may be a special kid, but he's not Axel's best friend. Roxas wouldn't be whole if he returned to Sora. He'd just be gone.

[No choice? No. He refuses to believe that. He could've gotten Roxas out of that mess somehow. (Why didn't he? What was the Axel that Naminé remembers doing?)

[The anger doesn't fade. If anything, it's only growing stronger, as Naminé uses that word again. But her last sentence does cause him to pause.]

Both?

[It's cold solace, that's for certain - but she'd clung to it because that was the only kind of comfort she'd ever had; the bittersweet, the consolation prize, the 'you may not be able to be happy but you'll be able to do the right thing'.]

[She'd tell him, if he asked, as hesitant as she might be; telling someone they're to die is no easy task. (She knows that one all too well.)]

[The pause is as mixed a blessing as many other things, but at least he hasn't lost his temper yet.]

Both of us. [The weight of her words can really only grow heavier, at this point, and it does.] He went back to Sora, and I went back to Kairi. It was... the only thing I could think to do. It was the only way to be whole, and to stop myself from fading and make sure I didn't hurt anyone else, and--....

... And I couldn't let him go alone.

[She willingly destroyed herself...? He stares at her, long and hard, working to fit this latest piece into the ever-growing puzzle. It still doesn't make sense to him. None of it does.

[How could he have let any of that happen?]

You think that makes it better?

[A cold question, simmering with anger — but an honest one nonetheless.]

[She looks back at him, steady but frowning, and it's only once he speaks that she glances away, pausing just a moment before shaking her head.]

No. I know it doesn't. There isn't anything I can do to make it better. I made-- arrangements, but whether or not that'll help....

[Lips pressed together, she considers him again.]

It was just the way that things had to be.

The way things had to be.

[Again, he repeats her words slowly. Carefully. Like saying them will help everything fit together. Like it'll help everything make sense.

[It doesn't work.

[When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. The anger is repressed, though certainly not gone.]

You wanna tell me where I was in all this?

The way things had to be.

[She echoes his echo, quieter as such a thing ought to be and probably more forlorn.]

[And then he asks the question she does not fail to see the relevance of, but one she's not happy to have to answer. (None of these really have been the sort of question she would take pleasure in sorting out, as most questions asked of her have always seemed to be.)]

....

[How does one tell someone something like this? She has experience with it, yes, but--....]

... You had already fallen, Axel.

[It's pretty obvious by her expression what she means by that particular euphemism.]

At least, you had by the time he and I went back to our Others.

[Fallen. He'd already fallen. It doesn't take a genius to figure out exactly what Naminé means by that.

[He exhales slowly, forcing himself to breathe through the tight knot in his chest. He'd fallen. He'd been destroyed. But how...?

["You're not hurt right? I mean, I didn't hurt you too much?"

[A memory. Roxas' voice, just after they showed up here, clear as day in his mind. He thinks, tries to remember what else Roxas said about that fight....

["In the future for you we fight because I have to be eliminated. You were going to eliminate me. I guess Saix said you had to."

["I won, but it was really close, I know and you, we said we'd meet in the next life. I thought this was here, but now I'm not so sure. I thought I really hurt you."

[It takes a long moment for him to respond. When he does, it's simply:]

Oh.

[Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's putting the pieces together in all the wrong places. Somehow.

[But if he's right, he doesn't think he can take hearing Naminé say it.]

[Somehow, she'd been hoping for a bigger reaction.]

[Well, maybe 'hoping' isn't the right word. Expecting? But that's not quite right, either, because that was a hard thing to say but a harder thing to hear and even harder, perhaps, to respond to. She doesn't blame him for his thoughts overtaking his words.]

[It just doesn't make things any easier. Even though she knows she hasn't any business asking, she really wishes she were privy to what he is thinking. As ever, her natural reaction is to try to help.]

Axel--....

[She swallows.]

Don't you want to know how it happened?

[He refocuses his gaze on her, sees the expression on her face. Quickly, he forces a smile. It's strained, even by his standards, and does nothing to disguise how obviously troubled he is by the news. "Troubled" putting it very mildly.]

Think I've already got the picture.

[He shrugs, gives a dismissive wave — as though physically pushing the thought aside will make the awful sensation in his chest easier to deal with.]

Edited 2014-01-13 02:04 (UTC)

[Even a forced smile is probably better than things could be, but she hasn't got a smile to give him in return. Frowning slightly,]

Are you sure? After all-- a lot of things happened between your point on the timeline and then.

[And it's probably safe to guess that he's not in a position to accurately assume the circumstances involved.]

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1369

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apologies for the delay (again orz)

No problem /o/

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