raspberryturk | Room 501, Wednesday Evening

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Room 501, Wednesday Evening

Why yes, yes Reno does, in fact, check his e-mail.

Junk, junk, junk, junk with spam filling, ten messages from the boss informing him that his second report is half a week late, junk, invite to the Girls with Guns club, spam, spam, junk, jun-- Ooooh.

He scrolled up and clicked on the invite, reading it over a good three times and grinning all the more as he did so.

"Chicks and firearms," he said aloud. "I'm so there, yoto."

[[Door and post open like an open thing. Give Reno another reason to put off writing that "no, really, I'm not insane, I just wasn't me at all this weekend" report for Tseng.]]

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Naminé nodded. "He wields the keyblade. Which makes him important. So they ..." She bit her lip. "Persuaded me to do what they wanted."

There was, perhaps, a bitter note there, but it wasn't directed at him.

"It would have destroyed his mind and turned him into a puppet, subject to my whims - by which, of course, I mean theirs."

"Of course." Reno was good and familiar with the manipulation and mind-breaking that came with his own particular line of work. Just another parallel between himself and this Axel guy, it would seem. "So, he was involved in this, then? This Axel?"

Naminé nodded. "He was one of the three there, in the Castle. There were more, but they were in the basement doing something else. Although Vexen was more inbetween."

She frowned slightly. "I don't mean for this to be confusing. The point is, we were nearing the end. Sora remembered almost nothing except what I had planted. Marluxia and Larxene were already celebrating their grand victory. Axel and I were alone." She took an uncertain breath. "And he said to me, 'if you don't stop this, no one will.'"

Reno simply looked at her.

"He let you fix it?"

It... really wouldn't have surprised him, he decided. Not that he was the expert on drawing lines. Maybe Axel was better at that. Or maybe...

"What then?"

"He let me leave, when he should have been guarding me. I found Sora and ... stopped it. It was nearly too late." She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "After that, it all got confusing. There's a lot I don't understand. Axel and Marluxia fought, and there was talk of who was a traitor, to the Organization, and ... there had been some intrigue, I think. I tried to listen, but I tried harder not to be seen, and so I missed a great deal."

If Reno had any doubt a moment before, this girl's use of the word 'traitor' put things into perspective for him, if only a little.

"Was what they did to you for the Organization? Who was the one keepin' you? Not this Axel guy, right?" He pursed his lips for a moment, then made a bit of a 'tch' sound and stretched his arms out to his sides before resting them on the bed behind him and leaning backward. "I'm thinkin' that whatever whoever did had a whole lot to do with loyalties and where they actually lie, zoto."

Just because the Turks worked for ShinRa didn't mean that the Turks were ShinRa. Being loyal to one was totally different than being loyal to the other, or to both.

Parallels. Huh.

Edited 2008-01-24 08:10 (UTC)

"It was ..." She had to stop for a moment and consider his questions. "For the Organization, I think, at least at first. They were in charge of that project, but he always seemed ... separate from them. They ... enjoyed it, in a way that he didn't."

She was trying her best to be tactful, to some extent.

"But ... if Marluxia was going against the Organization, why not report Marluxia, or overpower him? Why let me go, to free Sora?"

"Maybe he was right. Maybe you were the only one who could give the kid back his head." Reno shrugged his shoulders. "Or maybe he wasn't as loyal to the Organization as any of them would like to think."

Because saying no to ShinRa was suicide, but sometimes it just had to be said. Or something.

"I think I was," she said softly. "I had to go, then, and show him the truth, and even at that, it took me a year to sort all of his memories back together. I don't think anyone else could have convinced him; I had to break the hold I had over him, first."

She look down at her hands again. "But why should he have cared about Sora's fate at all? Unless ..." She stopped, struck by a thought. "Maybe he was thinking about Roxas."

Reno was not putting on his hard-face, here. It did not in the least involve gritting his teeth and finding that bit of professional poise that he kept well-hidden for rainy days and emergencies.

Really.

"Wouldn't be surprised," he said carefully.

Judging by what happened over the weekend when that name was dropped, and all.

Naminé looked up suddenly. "I'm sorry, I'm going on and on about all sorts of people you don't know and this must be terribly confusing."

Except ... he didn't seem confused.

He stood up. Sitting wasn't doing it for him anymore, here, and he had to be on his feet for a bit, maybe pacing. Moving around, because moving meant that he was still all there. Really.

"Don't worry about it."

He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a wadded piece of notebook paper. He'd been carrying it with him since the weekend just so he could look at it to remind himself that he hadn't lost his freaking mind and hallucinated it all.

He absently wadded it in his hands a little more before unfolding it and eying it. And then he handed Naminé the note.

"Got a pretty good idea who's who, yo."

Naminé took the note and read it over ... and then stared, jaw dropping without her even realizing it.

She must have reread it four or five times before she managed to look up at him, dazed.

"How did you get this?"

"Sora," came the very carefully neutral reply with a shrug of his shoulders. "Said he must've written it in his sleep or whatever. Handed it to Axel."

The day after Axel went freaking flaming ape shit on the roof. For good reason, Reno figured. If anyone had believably told him the same about Rude, the electrical storm they had yesterday wouldn't have even begun to compare with the aftermath.

"I ..." Naminé stared at it, and then looked up at Reno, and then stared at it again, shaking her head. "In his sleep? So Roxas is ... there, but ..."

Couldn't step forward to write his own note? That would make sense. What else had she expected? Roxas was staying in the back, observing, but not participating. Just like she would.

It was better than fading into darkness, and she was only feeling sorry for herself. She cleared her throat and tried to find something to say.

"You're one of them, too." It really was a question, no matter how straightforward it seemed. "Not quite all--?"

He gestured vaguely at his chest with one hand.

"We're Nobodies," she said softly. "Roxas, Axel, the rest of the Organization, and myself. Sora's a person. The rest of us never were. Just echoes left behind."

"Didn't feel too much like an echo," Reno mused, giving his head a bit of a shake.

No, everything had been way too freakin' intense for all of that to just be an echo.

Naminé lifted a shoulder. "DiZ said ... that Nobodies can't feel. We remember feelings that we had, when we were people, and we act them out, either to fool ourselves or to manipulate others, but ... that we aren't capable. I wouldn't know. I've never been anything other than myself."

"Comin' from a guy who's been himself his entire life right up until this weekend?" He lifted a shoulder and shoved his hands back into his pockets. "Had a lot of shit happen to me where it felt like my chest was gonna explode because of all that was freakin' the matter. Like this kinda... pressure. Dunno how else to put it."

He was going to pace again.

"Axel sure as hell felt that and more."

Naminé stared, unable to find her voice for a few moments.

"Maybe you only thought that," she said weakly. "Maybe ... you kept your heart, even when you were him?"

If Axel could feel ...

But that was crazy. Wasn't it?

"If it was my heart the whole time, I don't think the name 'Roxas' would have really had that effect on me," Reno reasoned. "One, because I just don't get upset over people I've never heard of, and two, because Axel wouldn't have ever had the chance to feel anything for Roxas without a heart in the first place, zoto."

He offered a bit of an uneasy smile. "He nearly tried to burn down the dorms."

Axel had a heart. Axel?

It made perfect sense and it was completely insane.

"They were best friends," she said, to say something. "Axel ... I think he risked a lot, to try to get Roxas back. In Twilight Town. From the way he was talking when we left, I think he'd turned on them. The Organization."

Blink.

"The dorms? Why?"

Reno was wearing that carefully controlled face of his again. The 'too tough to be upset by this, see?' face. He was a Turk. He got angry and he could get annoyed, but upset wasn't allowed.

"Was standin' on the roof when they told Axel about little things, like how he's gonna die, and how his partner's gonna leave the Organization and join with Sora." Little, dismissive shrug. Pacing again. "Nothin' huge."

Right.

"Axel ... dies?" Naminé said softly.

Room 501, Wednesday Evening

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