Sorrow's Promise

Chapter 36

Springlock2:  Thanks for your comments!  I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story!

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It was a couple of weeks after Port Royal when we found ourselves back in Twilight Town. Being back there felt so strange, but I didn't have much time to dwell on it. Almost as soon as we arrived, we were pulled into a battle with a bunch of the lesser Nobodies in an area of town known as the sandlot. It was a tough fight, but with a lot of teamwork we got the job done.

"Impressive!"

We were still trying to catch our breath, and the newcomer took us all by surprise. I whirled around to see another black-coated figure standing a few yards away. I frowned, trying to decide if this was someone that we had seen before, but based solely off of body type it was impossible to tell.

"By the way," the man spoke again in a smooth, cool voice. "Have you seen a man named Axel? I expect he's here somewhere."

The voice and demeanor told me that this was not someone we had encountered yet. Something about the way he spoke gave me the shivers. And why was he asking us about Axel? Were we supposed to have run into him?

"Like I care," Sora retorted, jumping into his defensive stance.

"You see, Axel's no longer acting in our best interest," the man explained. My mind went back to my conversation with Axel, when he had mentioned not being on good terms with the Organization. Things must have gone south when he was looking for Roxas.

"Is he with the Organization, too?" asked Goofy.

"Yes," the man confirmed.

"You havin' a fight?" Donald queried.

"Not a very organized Organization," Sora quipped. It was a stupid joke, but I had to fight back a smirk, nonetheless. That's what I got for hanging around these guys for so long – eventually their sense of humor rubbed off on me, no matter how distant I might have tried to be.

The man pointed at us. "Don't let your guard down. Axel will stop at nothing to turn you into a Heartless."

That accusation struck me as being a bit strange. What in the world would Axel get out of turning Sora into a Heartless? Unless...I ran all the possibilities through my head until it dawned on me. Unless he was actually aiming to create a Nobody – in other words, Roxas. It made sense, in a way. I definitely didn't trust the red-head, but obviously I couldn't trust this guy, either. He had to have a reason for telling us this, other than just being nice.

"Gee, thanks for looking out for us, mister," Sora returned sarcastically. "But I'm sure we can take care of ourselves just fine."

"Glad to hear it," the man replied. "Axel aside, it would break our hearts to hear something happened to you." Right, because for whatever reason, they needed a Keyblade bearer to be out killing Heartless. Guess that meant that they had given up on getting Roxas back, which is probably why Axel was going against them.

"Hearts? You don't have any hearts!" Donald countered.

"True, we don't have hearts." The man reached up and removed his hood, revealing long blue hair, yellow eyes, and an x-shaped scar across the bridge of his nose. The blue hair immediately reminded me of Chander, but I had never gotten a good enough look at his face to tell whether he really looked like this guy or not.

"But we remember what it was like," he continued. "That's what makes us special."

"Whaddaya mean?" Goofy asked as a dark corridor appeared just behind the man.