Hah! After months of work, I can finally start posting! I'm writing ahead and while I'm nowhere near finished with the fic, I've got several chapters just about ready to go. I was originally going to finish the entire fic first and then start posting, but if I did that KH3 would be out before this thing was online. Besides, I figured I'd write faster if there were people waiting for an update.

Just so you know ahead of time, this will be a massive crossover fic, though I'm only using Final Fantasy and Disney stuff. Starting in Chapter 2 there'll be several Advent Children characters that aren't currently in KH, and a few chapters after that will be Cinderella.

Whenever a new movie/game/whatever is introduced I'll provide links with info for the people that aren't familiar with the canon. I'll also describe the new characters as the story goes along, so if you don't know the characters but don't want to read the links you can just pretend they're original characters or something. EDIT: My site with the links went down. Henceforth, I'll just briefly describe new characters in the author notes. No long bios or anything, but you won't be left ignorant!

Disclaimer: None of the characters here are mine; they are all property of Square Enix/Disney. I guess I have partial rights to Soldier since it's technically an original character, but all Heartless look alike so what's the difference? I own the plot and the story as well.

xxxxx

Prologue

rebirth

x

The first thing Axel noticed was warmth. It was the only thing, really, that he could notice. He heard, saw, and felt nothing, except warmth. It was an odd sensation, but a welcome one.

Especially since he was pretty sure he'd just died back there. As far as he knew, the dead didn't feel warm.

Which brought up the fact that the dead didn't feel, well, anything. And by now Axel was definitely starting to feel something, like a breeze. He could feel air going in and out of his mouth, and his chest rising up and down. He couldn't feel the ground, but he could clench his hand into a fist and feel his fingers and glove. Axel was most definitely alive, and though he could feel his own weight but not the ground, he was probably in the realm of darkness. He hoped he wouldn't have to spend his great luck saving Sora again. He really had no affection for the rest of Roxas's personality, so far as a Nobody felt affection.

That brought up another point; Nobodies usually didn't feel warmth any better than the dead. Temperature warmth, sure, but not this feel-good, glowing warmth. Axel usually felt like this only when he was around Roxas. And they'd both had a good day. And the rest of Organization XIII was at least acting cheerful, wherever they were. And Axel and Roxas were alone. And Axel had a bag of chips. Cheesy chips.

Axel wondered if the rest of him knew something his brain didn't. He sure didn't think he'd had a good day, and he absolutely knew he didn't have any chips.

Axel opened his eyes.

Staring down at him was a horde of Heartless.

Axel leaped to his feet. His chakrams appeared in his hands, but he didn't have the energy to use them after saving Sora's sorry butt. The Heartless hopped, floated, and jumped backwards to form a small ring around Axel. The Heartless and Axel watched each other warily, but no one attacked.

As long as no one was moving, Axel decided he'd better see what he was up against. There were fifteen or so Shadows. In the realm of Darkness, Axel couldn't see their outlines clearly. He was pretty sure from the height of some of them that a few were the bigger Shadows – Neon Shadows or something? Axel didn't keep track of all the Heartless very well. He could never remember their names. There were also six or seven of the floating mage red Heartless. Something Jazz. They and Axel both used fire magic exclusively, so they couldn't do much damage to each other.

But there were also two child-height ones, Soldiers or Warriors. Axel focused on one of the two. He'd been told that Heartless had no ability to think, but this one seemed to be capable of concentration. At least, it was staring at Axel with a kind of determination while the other Heartless continued their restless fidgeting. It was the first Heartless Axel had ever seen hold still that wasn't dying.

One of the Shadows seemed to get tired of waiting, or forgot that it was supposed to. It lunged at Axel, flailing wildly. It would have looked funny if Axel hadn't been caught completely drained of energy. But before he could move, the armored Heartless he'd noticed jumped to his defense.

It was an odd defense. The taller Heartless (it was definitely a Soldier, Axel remembered) engaged the Shadow desperately, as if it had been the one attacked and was defending itself. Did Heartless usually fight each other like this? In fact, did they fight each other at all?

The Shadows were scared away quickly. The mages and the second Soldier lost interest once the Shadows left and meandered off into the darkness.

Now, there was only Axel and the first Soldier, his defender. And that warmth. Where was it coming from? And why had the Soldier decided to protect him?

Based on what he'd seen so far, Axel didn't think this Heartless would attack him, so he sat down to study it. It followed suit. But it was pretty easy to tell that there wasn't anything out of the ordinary with this Heartless, and it probably thought Axel was pretty normal looking. If Heartless could think, at least. Could they? Thinking in circles like this was getting him nowhere, but wasn't nowhere exactly where a Nobody belonged?

So. Axel knew that he was somehow alive. He was also in the realm of darkness, but apparently in Heartless territory. Either that or the Heartless had wandered into Nobody territory; darkness couldn't really be divided up into zones, so perhaps it was a moot point anyway. In any case, the Heartless hadn't attacked in force yet so they must not have seen him as a threat. Maybe Heartless only attacked when ordered, or if there was a heart to be stolen for their efforts? Axel knew virtually nothing about Heartless, he realized.

"Did you save me?" Axel finally asked the Soldier. It was the first sound he'd heard since regaining consciousness, but it didn't seem to make an impact on the silence. Not that it was drowned in silence, it just sounded casual. Like another voice joining in a hubbub of conversation. It was odd, just like the warmth.

The Heartless studied Axel contemplatively, appeared to think over the question, and finally blinked once in an utterly bewildered way.

"You're not much of a talker," Axel chuckled, and was surprised to find he was almost amused, not in the hollow way Nobodies usually felt emotion.

The amusement, the warmth, the odd state of the silence… Axel could almost remember when he had last had these things. It was like not being alone, but it was something else, too. It was like being somebody again, Somebody with a capital S.

And it was the Soldier that was causing this, Axel knew it. He remembered being told by Xemnas that when a Heartless was created, so was a Nobody. There was always a pair. Was it possible for a Nobody to recognize his Heartless? After all, hadn't Roxas done it?

What were the odds?

"Hey, who are you, anyway?" Axel reached out tentatively to touch the Soldier, but stopped. It reached back and grabbed his hand.

A jolt of recognition shot across their arms. They were one.

The Heartless was the other half of Axel, and the Nobody was the other half of Soldier. Soldier had hunted down its other half, and in that moment life became quite a bit easier for both of them.

Building Kingdom Hearts was trivial. Xemnas could harvest Heartless as long as he wanted, and it wouldn't change a thing. Axel had his heart again, and Soldier had its mind and the memory of its body back. Kingdom Hearts couldn't do anything more.

Axel and Soldier were still separate, but they were almost a human.

Axel suddenly became aware of the fact that he was, of all things, hugging his Heartless, and its arms were around his neck in return. They were clinging together like they'd grabbed a lifesaver. Axel grabbed Soldier and held it out at arm's length. He still had some dignity, after all.

Soldier, dangling in Axel's grip (it was amazingly light), squirmed and spoke; "Hunger." It wasn't a word exactly, but a mental sense of want that Axel could hear. Well, why not? Maybe Heartless could talk to their Nobodies like that. Axel already knew he didn't know anything about Heartless. It was possible.

The Heartless shifted again to glance up at Axel with pleading eyes. It wanted to steal a fresh heart.

"Fine, let's find some place for you to eat," Axel said. He stood up, carrying his Heartless like a child. It was about time they got out of here, anyway. He wasn't quite sure how long they had sat, since there was really no time in the realm of darkness, but he had an odd sense that something had shifted within it. Something big had changed, and he wanted to see what.

Axel shifted Soldier to his left arm and used the other arm to lift aside the darkness and reveal the castle of The World That Never Was. He stepped through the door he had made, thinking about how he could convince Xemnas to let him keep Soldier. Maybe Organization XIII could train the Heartless to guard the castle or something. In any case, he'd only stay with the Organization long enough to learn how to recombine with his other half. Xemnas had undoubtedly figured out how to do that years ago, the creep. Axel could pry the info out of him and be gone.

And while he was at the castle, he could grab a bag of chips and make this a real party.

xxxxx

Chapter I

dust to dust

x

Two Dusks glanced up as reality was pulled away and a door to darkness was revealed. It was a Nobody form of transportation, so they didn't watch it with any trepidation. Sure enough, a Nobody from the Organization, number VIII, came through, but he was carrying a Heartless. They rose to their feet, ready to attack, but VIII waved them off. "It's with me. Don't worry."

They accepted this and turned to slink down the hall again, but VIII said, "Wait." The Dusks turned and stood patiently.

"Do you know where the superior is?" VIII asked.

They glanced at each other. Xemnas had disappeared a few days ago and hadn't reappeared. He was probably dead. So they indicated no answer.

"What about Xigbar?" No answer. "Saïx?" No answer.

VIII stood uncertainly for a moment. "Did Sora come here?"

They both nodded.

"Did Sora fight?"

Nod.

"So, everyone else… are they all… dead?"

Nod.

"Well…" A sigh. "That's it. Go do whatever you were doing."

The Dusks quickly slinked away. Heartless were running wild through the castle without the Organization to keep them out, and the lesser Nobodies were battling them all over the place. These two certainly did not want to be left out of the action.

Axel watched the two Dusks go. "What kind of condition do you think the rest of this dump is in?" he asked Soldier. Soldier didn't respond; it let Axel do the thinking.

Axel wandered through the Castle for over three hours. Heartless and Nobodies roved through the abandoned passageways and chambers, as confused by their own presence as they were by each other's. The Heartless were scared by the strange place, where beings without hearts to steal attacked them. The Nobodies were desperate for some order, a command that they could obey.

The castle itself was already falling apart. Walls were dented, scratched, and had large chunks blown out of them. The lights had failed completely in most parts of the castle, so Axel had to navigate by his own firelight.

Most disturbing was that parts of the castle had simply disappeared. Walls would have vanished, revealing the room behind it, or simply revealing nothing at all when there should have been another chamber. There should at least have been the outside sky, but there was nothing. Walls or doors appeared where there hadn't been any before, and when Axel opened the doors he found that past them there was nothing. His room was intact, but the windows revealed nothing. Roxas's room was already gone. Axel didn't bother to check the other rooms.

Once, when he reached a passageway that dead-ended in nothingness (it had been a full hallway earlier, Axel was sure), Axel stuck his hand out just to see what happened. He touched the realm of darkness and pulled his hand back. So, this castle was returning to oblivion. A second Castle Oblivion, then. How appropriate. Soon, it would be absolutely nothing and exist nowhere. That wasn't really a change from existing within a place that didn't. Axel wouldn't miss it.

He stepped into the darkness and turned to find no trace of the castle. Well, that was fine. He wasn't going back.

Soldier looked over Axel's shoulder at the place where the castle had once stood, and said, "Gone; why? Home…"

Home? Soldier had never lived in The World That Never Was, why would it say that? Axel realized that Soldier was reflecting the emotions he would have had as a whole person, and then he felt it too; a sickening ache in his stomach and chest, the beginnings of a homesickness that would never be cured without a home to return to.

"Let's go get some food, okay?" Axel said, and pulled reality aside to step through. He had been wrong. Nobodies couldn't miss anything, but Axel was a bit more than a Nobody now. Maybe, in some hollow way, he'd miss that stupid floating high-rise after all.

Axel left the darkness and was met with a cold breeze and naked sunlight. He was in a wide, cobalt blue canyon. In front of him was a city, and behind him a familiar fortress.

"Radiant Garden," he said.

"Hollow Bastion!" Soldier trilled, jumping out of Axel's arms to do a jittery dance. "Other home!"

x

"Look here. These tears are weird, don't you think?" a voice said softly, Whisper.

"This is the first time you've spoken in a while." The man Whisper was speaking to, Dissolve, walked behind her and studied the largest computer monitor over her shoulder. White lines of a coordinate grid covered the blue screen, with tears and puckers forming and smoothing in the lines. The comings and goings in the realm of darkness; tears were where Nobodies opened reality to enter or leave the realm, puckers where Heartless pulled some of the realm out with them when they left, like a drop of water falling from its source. Dissolve frowned. There were thousands of rippling tears and puckers. "Which ones?"

"These jagged ones." A pale finger tapped one of them. "There were several today."

Dissolve let out a melodramatic groan. The wide sleeves of his jacket rasped together as he crossed his arms. "There have always been those tears. They haven't changed."

"Exactly," Whisper said. "But Organization XIII is the only kind of Nobody that makes them. So they must still be active, right? If they were all dead…"

Dissolve's disgust evaporated. "Those tears wouldn't be present… Then this… this is fantastic. Magnificent! Perfect! Someone from the Organization survived. Heck, maybe they all made it through. That's… that's just…"

"Amazing." Whisper studied the tears with pale eyes.

"Precisely. We couldn't have asked for anything better."

A child in the corner behind Whisper and Dissolve stirred and opened his golden eyes. "How soon can we kill them?"

"As soon as you can track them down," Whisper said.

Squinting, Proxy peered across the room at the computer. He ran through his personal knowledge of the realm of darkness and shook his head. "There's only one member going in and out, and right now he's not on a world where I can touch him." He swore. "He was in the realm of darkness and the Organization's world for days, until a moment ago…"

"He'll probably use the darkness for transportation, like the rest of Organization XIII," Whisper said. "He won't stay in darkness long enough for us to reach him."

"You can steer him to a world where we can kill him, though," Dissolve said.

"I can," Proxy nodded and his golden eyes closed. "Wake me up the next time he's in the realm of darkness for more than a few seconds, and quickly. I want to hit his weakness."

"Which is…?" Dissolve trailed off, putting his hands on his hips. His jacket was baggy enough that his appearance barely changed.

"It's a Heartless." A chuckle. "Look at those puckers in the darkness around him. He's traveling with a Heartless, and it's a weak one. It'll be easy to kill."

Whisper nodded. "I see. And then you can kill the Organization member?"

"In five minutes," Proxy said.

"Of course," Dissolve said. "You are one of the lucky victims of the Organization's malice. You received their cursed blessings, and are stronger for it. But we do not know the price yet for your—"

"Cut the monologue," Proxy said. "Hey, you can keep monitoring the realm, right?"

"Yes," Whisper said.

"Good," Proxy said, and shut his eyes. "We'll get him in no time. Just wait."

xxxxx

So, that's it for the prologue and chapter 1. Axel hasn't started on his quest yet, but that's coming next chapter!

I'd also like to mention that Whisper, Dissolve, and Proxy aren't original characters. They all appear in KH. Right now, they're going by aliases. We'll find out why eventually. Until then, try to figure out who they are!

Please review! Praise makes me squee, concrit makes me improve, and flames make me laugh. Let me know what you think!