Burning For You: Akuroku (Axel x Roxas)

Twelve- Ridged

Roxas' POV

I leave the colluseum before anyone has time to follow me, not even my assignment partners Xemnas and Larxene. I summon myself to the Disney castle-the only place I can almost call home. Minnie and Mickey are my adoptive parents, but they sent me away to Destiny Island two years ago to become a keyblade master- a hero. Little do they know, that didn't happen. As far as they know, right now I should still be on the island studying fighting techniques and passing duel exams. Not helping collect hearts and being enveloped in darkness. But what they don't know can't hurt them.

I walk across the slick, white bridge that connects two parts of the castle. The rail seperates me from the beautiful garden scenery below and around me. I graze my hand onto the smooth rail and feel the cold, shiny surface brush my skin. My mind starts to wander and I think of before I joined the organization. I came to Destiny Islands two years ago, training to be a key blade master. Feuling my light or what I had hoped to be light inside me. But as I had walked the shore that last morning, I had felt my courage slipping away, my want to be good vanishing. I had felt like it was my best option to join Ventus in the Ocean of Time, because I had felt hopeless as a warrior of the good, as a keyblade master of light. That morning when Axel hinted that he was a nobody....that I had no idea what it felt like to have no heart; that was when I felt betrayed, like nobody truly knew me. I thought that maybe I could tell Axel about me, about my origins and how I, too, was a nobody. But after that incident, I felt something inside me change....like no one could ever feel how I did- If I can even actually feel. So that morning I had joined Ventus willingly . I joined him without thought about it. At that point I didn't care. I knew what I was getting myself into- I knew how it would affect my life, and I felt I had nothing to loose. I knew how it would affect the people I had knew who resided on the island. The Ocean of Time-it has special qualities, one of which makes all the inhabitants of the island forget about you, unless you had specifically been on a person's mind at the time. Nobody knew me that well, aside from Axel and uncle Goofy. But Goofy is usually busy and flighty, so I had my doubts about him thinking about me so early in the morning. Axel....well obviously he had been thinking of me- considering I fled towards the shore because of him. And, well, considering that he seemed to-stupidly- chase after me. I almost forgot how much he cared about me, and... I almost forgot how much I cared about him.

I...I mean how much I used to care about him! Used to. I've severed our relationship for my own good. I can't lean on him anymore, I can't show weakness. Not now, not ever, not again. I'm sick of being weak, and training as a warrior and keyblade master for organization 13 has shown me I can be strong. Falling in love with someone isn't strength. It's a weakness, because that person becomes a weakness to you, and from there you only retreat and grow more weak. I love...er loved Axel but it was so sudden, so useless to fall in love with someone you don't hardly know; to fully know, and love that person all in all, and that was a thing that me and Axel hadn't quite obtained. Maybe we could have had a chance, maybe...but circumstances are different now. The world is different, I'm different, and there is no time for weakness. I..will no longer be shy and weak like I was two years ago, I am no man's pushover! "Gahh!" I yell out into the open air and slam my fist into a handrail, cracking it easily under my force. My mind swirls with the rage of seeing Axel again, and once again feeling weak in his gaze. I feel the stress of trying to do my best and collect enough hearts, to help the organization wholly and greatly, and to strengthen myself...so I never become weakly again.