Chapter 19

CHAPTER 3 OLYMPUS COLISEUM THE PAIR WALKED IN SILENCE. The stagnant air made it a little hard to breathe. There was nothing to be seen in any direction—only a thick, gloomy mist obscuring their vision. It felt like they’d been walking in circles for ages. Naminé tried to look around. Maybe they really had, she thought. “Axel?” “…Yeah?” His steps never paused. “Where are you going?” “…Our base of operations,” Axel replied, over his shoulder this time. “What are you going to do?” She gazed straight at him. “What do you mean?” “If I return with you in tow, I get to live without being branded as a traitor,” he said with a wry grin. “Maybe. Axel, what do you want to do?” “Avoid being eliminated ideally.” “So you’re offering me up to the organization?” “…Well, you see any other options?” His expression was frozen in a forced smile. He had no ideas. He didn’t know what to do. And he had no heart and thus no emotions to guide him, either. “I have a request,” Naminé said, determined. “I want…to meet Kairi.” Axel frowned. Naminé was a Nobody. If she met Kairi, her true self…Naminé would disappear. “Are you serious?” “Well…” She looked at the ground. “Isn’t that only natural?” “Then what did you wanna come with me for?” Axel flung his arms out angrily. “Because… Because you seemed lonely.” “What?” The irritated furrow between his brows deepened. “You seemed lonely,” Naminé repeated, raising her eyes. “Lonely? Me, a Nobody, lonely? That doesn’t even make sense!” “You know, Axel… I wonder if we really do have hearts after all.” “Yeah, well… That’s impossible.” He turned away from her. We don’t have hearts. Still… I know that feeling. I was lonely. I’ve been lonely since Roxas went away…! Does that mean I have a heart? Is that what makes me feel this way? “Axel…,” Naminé began. “Sorry to bother you when you’re so busy, but…” The sentence was finished not by Naminé’s voice, but a man’s. Axel looked up to see someone else he knew. He hadn’t even sensed him coming! “Saïx…!” he snarled, and the other man slowly lowered his hood, smiling serenely. Long blue hair escaped from the hood, but it didn’t hide the scar on his forehead. “Naminé, run!” She flinched at Axel’s shout and took off. Ahead of her was a portal in the air. “Axel…!” “It’s okay—go! I’ll catch up.” Naminé nodded and jumped into the gateway. “So you’re trying to play the hero now, too?” Saïx said flatly, staring hard at Axel. Number 8 gripped his chakrams, hoping he’d be able to buy some time. Enough for Naminé to find Riku, at least. He edged backward, step by tiny step. If he was being honest, Axel didn’t think he could win against Saïx. The best he could do was to find an opening and make a break for it. “What are you going to do now?” Saïx asked, watching the portal close with no discernible reaction. “Nothing that’s any of your business.” Saïx shifted his shoulders. “I beg to differ, if you’re going to betray the organization.” “…So, are you saying I’m not already a traitor?” Axel smirked. “We can’t let you turn the hero into a Heartless.” “Huh? What’re you talking about?” Apparently they weren’t having the same conversation. The organization’s objective was to recover Roxas—the wielder—and have him under their control. Wasn’t it? Well, to be precise, the goal was to use Roxas’s Keyblade to destroy the Heartless, collect all the hearts, and regain hearts for themselves. Then did this mean…the organization had given up on Roxas? If they had Sora, they didn’t need Roxas? Was that it? “Our goals are constantly evolving,” Saïx explained dispassionately, taking a step toward his retreating target. In response, Axel leaped back. “Oh yeah? Huh… That’s news to me. So, what’re your orders this time? You can tell me,” he mocked, as he started to create something behind Saïx. To the naked eye it appeared to be nothing but a black dot. He’d jumped away for a reason. He just needed a little more time and distance, and the blue-haired man wasn’t the type to attack without any provocation. “My orders are to take you down!” A heavy sword materialized in Saïx’s hands, and he closed the space between them in one leap. “…Not the brightest, are you?” Now that Saïx was in very close range, Axel sprang right over him and ran. The setup he’d planted was just ahead now—a distortion in the air steadily taking shape. He knew he had no chances of defeating number 7 in a fight, but he had every confidence in his own speed and cleverness. “What—?!” Saïx whirled around. But Axel had already plunged into the warp. The trio disembarked from the Gummi Ship into a world they’d never seen before. “Gee, this place is new…” Goofy cocked his head. The almost completely lightless expanse was strewn with boulders. It seemed to be a cave. “There’s the way out!” Donald pointed to a large, shining gateway at the top of a staircase. “Looks like there’s a door over there in the rock, too,” Goofy said, directing their attention in the opposite direction. Over that way, they could see a sliding door made from a single block of stone. “Which way should we go?” wondered a confused Sora between the two. Just then, a scream pierced the air. “Whoa! Sora—Heartless!” Goofy raised his shield and charged. Near the stone door, a woman was on the ground, surrounded by Heartless. “Wa-wa-wa-waaak!” Donald joined Goofy fending off the Heartless. “Are you all right?” Sora went to help her up, but the woman shook her head and stood on her own. “Thanks. But I’m fine… Who are you supposed to be?” “I’m Sora. That’s Donald, and that’s Goofy. We’re trying to find our friends.” She nodded and glanced up to the door atop the stairs before introducing herself. “Name’s Megara, but you can call me Meg. I’m a friend of our local hero.” “Hero?” Donald regarded her curiously. “Yeah. The hero of this world… But he’s about to run out of heroics.” “Who is he?” asked Goofy. “Hercules. He spends all day, every day, duking it out in the Coliseum up there.” Still staring at the bright door, Megara sighed. The trio exchanged glances. “Duking it out with who?” Sora asked. “Heartless?” “No— Hades just keeps sending him tough customers. Monsters, really…” “Hades?” At the unfamiliar name, they looked at one another again. “The Lord of the Underworld,” Megara explained. “I was on my way to have a chat with him just now. Maybe I can get him to give Hercules a breather. If anything happens to that kid…” “Gawrsh, sounds like you’re more than friends,” Goofy said. “Wh— No, we’re not!” she retorted, a hint of color in her cheeks. Sora folded his arms and looked up at the knight. “Well, we can’t just leave someone down here when she’s trying to help out a friend.” “But they’re not just friends!” Goofy pointed out. “Then we definitely can’t!” Donald snapped. “We’ll go talk to Hades for you,” Sora declared. Megara’s head rose. “Really? Well, I guess I’ll take you up on that.” “Leave it to us!” Sora boastfully jabbed a thumb at his chest, and Donald and Goofy followed suit. “Okay, let’s go!” They nodded to one another and wrenched open the stone door. At the same time, deep in the bowels of the Underworld, its ruler Hades had a visit from a familiar character. “So, what’re you gonna do about Hercules? He’s makin’ mincemeat outta every fighter you send.” The guest was none other than Pete, pacing around restlessly and muttering to himself. “Pretty soon the Underworld’s gonna be standing room only! Sheesh. I guess by now there’s a whole lotta new warriors down here.” Hades scowled contemptuously at Pete’s ranting. The Lord of the Dead was tall with a sickly blue complexion, and his hair blazed with hellish flames. Before Hades and Pete was a pit spouting yellowish-green mist, along with a rotten stench. Pete scrunched up his face in response to the smell. “…So, basically, I’ve got a full roster of fallen warriors to put back in the game,” mused Hades. “What d’you mean?” Pete demanded, crossing his arms in an attempt to seem confident. “See this hole in the floor? It’s a portal to the Underworld’s deepest, darkest dungeon.” Hades peered down into it with a nasty grin. “Which means I can call up the baddest of the bad whenever I want.” “Ya don’t say…,” mumbled Pete, even as Hades’s grin sent a shiver down his spine, and shrank back. Hades let out a sinister chuckle, either at Pete’s fear or at his own scheming, and waved his hand at the pit. A crackling bolt of light blasted from his hand down into the depths. Pete crept back even farther from the uncanny roar that followed. “…Ya don’t say…” He cowered, covering his face against the awful reek and flash of eerie light. At Hades’s near-maniacal cackling, Pete peeked out from between his fingers and saw a man dressed in red and holding an enormous sword. A terrible wound to his face had permanently closed his right eye, and his graying hair was cut short. His left arm was tucked into his robes. “Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. Not-so-nice-guy. I’ve got a deal for you,” Hades told him cheerfully. “Do what I say, and you’re free as a bird, no strings attached.” The man shifted his attention from Hades to Pete. “Eep…” Pete retreated a step, unnerved by the penetrating one-eyed gaze. “It’s a walk in the park, really,” Hades went on, teeth still bared. “Go to the Coliseum and fight Hercules…to the death.” Unflinching, the man lifted the corners of his mouth into a hint of a smile. “This is my story. And you’re not part of it.” He raised his sword squarely at Hades. “Did you forget who you’re talking to?! I am the Lord of the Dead!” “Right… No wonder no one wants to die.” At that, Hades’s flaming hair flared up red with anger. “You are fired!” he shouted, and lunged at the man. Sora and his friends headed deeper and deeper into the dreary caverns, taking down Heartless along the way. “A lady shouldn’t be in a place like this all by her lonesome,” Goofy said, knocking aside with his shield any Heartless that jumped at him.