Title: The Betwix and Between

Disclaimer: If I owned Axel, I would be the happiest person on the face of the earth, but sadly, I am still searching for a forged replica of his chakrams, so I’m not likely to get ownership of him or any other component of Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy any time soon.

Summary: One day, while Cloud was taking a walk in the forests of Radiant Gardens, he is attacked by an overwhelming amount of heartless, only to be saved by a very weak nobody who was perceived to be dead… CL AkuRoku (Implied) CloudAxel friendship Post-KH2

Pairings: Cloud/Leon (Squall) main, side AkuRoku and Sorku

Warnings: Ummm… Cloud getting hurt, Cloud acting like a school girl with a crush, oh, swearing, and Yaoi.

THIS STORY IS DEDICATED TO, ShimaGenki, WHO WROTE THE EXCILENT STORY, ‘An Unanticipated Storm’ WHICH IS AWSOME! READ IT.

Chapter 1

Stupid people, stupid problems, stupid me

Green, nothing but green vines, leaves an stems sprouting out as far as the eye could see, the trail that stretched on ahead of him was well-beaten, and currently empty, save for the tall, muscular blonde that was now walking calmly alone it’s surface.

The sun shone just barely through the thick gaggle of branches above his head. The strong sent of greenery surrounded him, almost suffocating him. He closed his glowing cerulean eyes, and sighed.

The spiky white blonde mat atop his head swayed slightly as he walked, brushing every once in a while across the pale almost ghostly skin of his pallid cheek. A noise could be heard behind him, of an inky black creature sneaking toward him through the underbrush, creeping closer and closer until it was almost behind him, when he turned, unsheathing the humongous sword from his back. He slashed downward in a swift, graceful motion that made a direct hit upon the heartless; Cloud frowned and narrowed his eyes watching the shadow fade away.

Heartless were still very common in Radiant gardens, even after the door to the dark had been sealed, and the Organization stopped. The ebony creatures lurked around every corner, hiding in the shadows until you were lulled into a false sense of security, then they would strike, fast, and on the weakest of the group, hoping to steel another heart to add to their numbers.

Cloud looked around suspiciously, with still narrowed eyes. The heartless barely ever traveled alone, opting to travel in loose groups, in hopes of catching their pray off guard. But the blonde wouldn’t fall for such an obvious ploy as to loosen the grip on his sword. One wrong move could mean the difference between life, and death. And he wasn’t willing to take that risk, not when his comrades were still in need of his assistance rebuilding his lost world, not when Aeris was still in danger. He had promised her father that he would take care of her, and he would not break that promise, just because he was being careless.

Nothing moved under the cover of the trees. Cloud stood stalk still, waiting for the smallest sound to reach his sensitive ears. His glowing gaze swept over the small trees and shrubs, but there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary around the area, save for the stray heartless that had just vanished in a wispy cloud of black smoke before that too, was carried away, with the light breeze that had weaved it’s way through the foliage.

He sighed again, and started walking further into the forest. He slipped the buster blade back into its sheath as he went. This walk wasn’t clearing his head as much as he had hoped it would. He was still confused, and a bit annoyed, and he had no time to think, as he was constantly being bombarded with small backs of heartless every few steps he took.

He had left the small confines of Merlin’s house to clear his head of the strange emotion he had been suddenly pummeled with when one of his comrades, Squall, had caught him. He had fallen back after tripping over the book of pooh, and landed in a cushion of muscular arms and silky brown hair. He had planed on grunting a quick thanks, and furthering his attempts to get to the kitchen. Yet, when he looked up at the tall, handsome man, he had gotten a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, and had quickly taken his leave, to contemplate this odd feeling.

It felt to him as if someone had let a jar full of energetic butterflies loose in his belly. He had never experienced anything like it before. And was at a loss to explain to himself what it might be. He would have asked someone else, like Aeris for instance, but she was busy enough as it was, there was also the face that he was a very anti-social person, and talking to someone about something like a feeling in his midsection, was an awkward topic to approach with those you called friends.

The blonde grimaced at the though of going up to Yuffie and telling her he got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach when he looked at Squall. Cloud was actually one of the few who were left, the still called him Squall, most called by the name of Leon, which was just a piece of his last name that he used, because he was shamed that he couldn’t save his world from the first attack of the heartless.

Cloud rolled his eyes at this point; Squall could be such a baby sometimes. Cloud had lost his home world in the same attack, and you didn’t see him changing his name in shame. And it wasn’t like it was Squalls complete fault that the world got shrouded in darkness! It was Xehanort’s fault. He was the one who took Ansem the wise’ research too far, and caused a mass overload of heartless, which attracted Maleficent, who the used the heartless to destroy countless worlds.

Cloud had been with his long-time friend during the attack, fought beside him, and hew had gone down with him, and in no way was it Squall’s fault. Not that Xehanort got away, not that the world was shrouded, and not that Aeris’ father was killed. If anything it was his fault. But he still didn’t feel the urge to change his name in shame. He didn’t understand the point of it. He was still the same person on the inside, no matter what name he chose, so why bother?

Rolling his eyes, Cloud continued down the trail. If you could really call it a trail anymore. It looked more like a path now, as he pushed further toward the depths of the forest.

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Leon POV

Squall was at a loss to explain what had just happened. All he had done, was catch his friend. But, as he had found out, it must have been a bigger deal for the blonde, because as soon as he was successfully stopped from being re-acquainted with the floor, he had given Squall one, horrified look, and headed for the hills, (Or in this case, forest) with his face bright red.

And, as previously stated, he was at a complete loss to explain to himself why, his usually strong, powerful, and kind friend was suddenly acting like a shy school girl with a crush! Sure, Cloud had always had an anti-social air about him, but he was acting considerably beyond anti-social at the moment. He was going to take a walk in the heartless-filled forest for a walk, for crying out loud!

Squall shook his head dejectedly. He hadn’t even gotten a thank you, for catching him. It was a pity, really, that Yuffie had chosen that moment to come in, and drag him down to the lab, for a meeting with Tron, the computer program that now ran the lab’s systems.

The majority of the meeting, had actually been taken up, by Tron trying to show the group the new dance he had made up. A complete waist of time, in Squall’s opinion. But there had been a bit of good news. Tron had received an email from Donald and Goofy, and apparently, Sora was coming to visit Radiant Gardens with his two friends, Riku, and Kairi, to properly introduce them, since they had never really gotten the chance.

Squall was sort of looking forward to meeting the famous ‘Riku’ who everyone had heard so much about. Although he would never admit it to anyone. He didn’t really like people knowing what he was thinking. That’s why he liked to stay away from Aeris as much as he could. She was abnormally good at reading people’s minds. And he was no exception.

Squall liked keeping everyone at arms distance; even his closest friends didn’t know everything about him. Cloud, for instance, didn’t know that he had gotten his scare in a fight he had had with his long-time rival, and crush Seifer. Apparently, Sora had once met a Seifer in ‘Twilight town’. He would have to go there, and see if it was the right person. Although he doubted it. Seifer had died in his arms, a long time ago, so had Rinoa, but that was also a secret he harbored from his companions. He liked to call theses people companions more than ‘friends’. The only true friends he had left were Cloud, and Yuffie. And, those two were hard to get along with. As he had once said, Cloud was extremely anti-social, and Yuffie, well, Yuffie was just out-right annoying.

Of course, Squall was also quite anti-social. Well, to everyone except Cloud. But that didn’t stop Cloud from only being able to hold a conversation with him, or anybody else for more than five minutes. Except with Aeris. Aeris was someone he talked to often, he was known to spend hours talking to her late into the night up in her room.

It irked him slightly, how well those two seemed to get along. He knew it wasn’t any of his business, but he was curious by nature, and was drawn to mystery. He also loved solving puzzles. Yet another thing he would not admit to any of his acquaintances, especially Yuffie, even on his death bed.

Another interesting thing about him, he was very secretive. If you couldn’t tell. He was never one to put all of his trust in someone else. A firm believer of, ‘If you want it done right, you got to do it yourself’, which obviously annoyed some of the people around him, who thought you should put your trust in at least one person, or one day, it would come back to bite him in the ass.

But, every time he had put his trust in someone else, they always died. Just like Rinoa, Seifer, and Quistis. He had trusted them, and they had failed. They had died, even after they promised they wouldn’t. And he wasn’t sure how willing he was, to take that risk again.

He could think of no body to put his trust in, anyway. They would all blab to each other, plus most were too weak to protect themselves, meaning they could die very easily. Unless, maybe Cloud? He didn’t talk much, and he could definitely hold his own in a fight. But Cloud was so anti-social, and well, lonely all the time. And he probably wouldn’t listen, anyway. He had always had a talking problem.

But this seemed to e getting worse, of late. With him, at least. The usual five minutes had been cut down to two or less, and Cloud seemed to be avoiding him lately, then that odd incident, today.

Something was up. Maybe Cloud had some dark secret that he didn’t want them, his only friends, to know about? Maybe he was secretly under contract with Hades again, or maybe, he was harboring some evil, but injured creature, bringing it back to full health, in hopes that it would help him find Sepheroth, or something else like that.

Not very likely, Squall mused, Cloud wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice, or call upon debts.

But still, this sparked his interest. What could Cloud be hiding? He had to find out, somehow. Cloud was getting so distant lately, and no just around him, even around Aeris, and Tifa.

Speaking of Cloud, or, rather, thinking of him, where was he? He had gone for his walk hours ago. Why was he still out, so close to night fall, when the heartless attacked in larger numbers? It wasn’t safe to wander around alone, even if it was Cloud, after dark.

Squall contemplated getting up to go look for him, but thought better of it. Cloud had probably gone back to his small flat, which was off next to the castle. And, even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go into the heart of the forest at night; no one was stupid enough to do that, unless he had something really confusing on his mind, but nothing was that hard to figure out, right? No one could be that stupid, right?

How wrong he was…

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Cloud POV

Cloud groaned, inwardly as he took another slow step, towards the heart of the forest, where he knew was a small clearing, where he could sit, and think. He needed to think. Really badly, because he had no idea what he was doing anymore. He had already killed at least 100 heartless in this one walk alone. No, not killed. Heartless and Nobodies were no alive, not whole, so they couldn’t be killed, just destroyed, like an object, is destroyed when you throw it to the ground.

Heartless were mindless being, only out to hurt those who were still whole. They didn’t think, and they didn’t care, their mission was to hurt, steel, and destroy. They cared nothing for the innocent lives they had taken, the lives they would take. They were evil things, although they had hearts, they didn’t use them.

Nobodies seemed to be the exact opposite. They were emotionless, heartless beings, empty shells, they weren’t capable of love, compassion, or caring. And, in the end, they were just as bad as the heartless. No, they were worse than the heartless. They had no emotion, but they had intelligence, Cloud wouldn’t deny that. But they had helped the heartless, created them, and then purposefully destroyed the mindless creatures.

They had turned their backs on their comrades, just to gain what they had wanted. They were the lowest of the low, the worst kind of enemy. Smart, powerful, and uncaring.

Cloud tightened the grip on his buster blade. He hadn’t bothered putting it away since the last attack. They were getting more and more frequent the closer he came to nightfall. He had the distinct feeling, that he should go back soon, but how could he? If he went back to his flat, he was sure to be checked on by someone, for being gone so long, and if he went back to Merlin’s house, he was likely to meet up with Squall, which he didn’t want to do, until he had figured out the strange thing he felt when he looked at him.

Cloud jumped back slightly as he blocked another sudden attack from a shadow. He side-stepped as it lased out once again, and leapt for him head. Slashing down with the heavy blade, it faded, but not before another leapt at him from behind.

Cloud jumped away from the lunging heartless, barely avoiding its feeble attack. His frown deepened as he finished off another heartless, and another.

If he could just get to the clearing, he could sit, and think! But the heartless were coming non-stop. He would have to avoid them if he wanted to get to the clearing before nightfall. Cloud could already see the light speckles of pink, orange and even a little violet on the horizon through the little breaks in the trees. They were starting to thin out again, which proved to clearing to be near.

Cloud dodged another of the many heartless pursuing him, and ran toward the clearing. He wasn’t quite sure why the small expanse clear of trees was so important for him to get to; he just knew he had to. Somehow.

Now that he was running, rather than destroying, the heartless were starting to grow in number. Some neo-shadows entered the throng, and Cloud sped to his fastest speed, the heartless were still coming, led on, by his heart beat. This was getting bad. There were way too many to fight alone now…

He needed help, badly. Running faster only seemed to attract more, make them speed up, they were gaining on him. Cloud spotted a small break in the trees ahead of him, and sped up. All you had to do was get to the clearing, just get there, and it will be ok…

He wove his way through the last on the trees, he pushed a final leaf out of his way, and he found himself in the small glade.

But, to his great dismay, the ever-growing arm of heartless followed.

(WARNING: I have never written a fight scene before, this is my very first time, so be nice to it…)

Cloud groaned again, bending his legs slightly, he went into his fighting stance. There may have been way too many to fight alone, but he would go down fighting if he really had to.

One of the many Neo-shadows lunged forward as the other black creatures slowly surrounded him. Cloud thrust his blade sharply at it, successfully destroying it. Another came at him, then another. They kept coming, one at a time.

The neo-shadows were a bit harder to destroy than the regular shadows, having more human-like forms, and slightly larger brains.

He slashed his sword downward, cutting roughly through his current ‘opponent’. Three came toward him at once, one getting him square in the back. An inky black claw slashed through his skin, leaving a deep wound.

Cloud spun around, in a sweeping movement, he destroyed all the heartless in reach of his blade. Just as the last of the group faded away, five more came at him, from behind him this time. One of the shadows latched itself to the sheath on his back, clinging to it for dear almost-life.

Cloud quirked an eyebrow, trying to get it off of him. The other four neo-shadows made grabs for his sword, right as Cloud lifted his free hand up, to pull the pesky shadow off of him, and successfully pulled the sword from his grasp.

Having distracted the blonde long enough, the shadow hopped off of Cloud’s sheath. Cloud made a dive toward the abandoned weapon, only to have one of the five heartless to hop upon his back, knocking him down just short of the large blade, and swiped its claws across his already wounded back. A few more heartless followed suit, swiping sharp black claws at the blonde, who let out a cry of pain.

He groped desperately for his weapon, which was just out of reach. One of the Neo-shadows took that moment to aerial rush (1) him, hitting him on the side of the head. Cloud stopped grabbing for his blade, as the rest of the hoard piled on top of him, and all went black…

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“Flame Prison!” (2) Cloud’s eyes fluttered opened slightly, he looked around with half lidded eyes, all the heartless were gone. But that wasn’t what he found strange.

The thing that caught Cloud’s attention was the fact that he didn’t seem to be in the glade in the middle of the royal forest in Radiant Gardens any more.

In fact, Cloud thought, as he pulled his aching body from the ‘ground’, unsuccessfully, and he looked around himself again in frustration, If he could guess, he would say that he was in the pit of a volcano.

All around him stood pillars of fire and lava, nothing but flames. Reds, oranges, and yellows, danced unpredictably around him, and the ground, as he had decided to call it, looked like it was a river of lava. Steamy, red, and mixed with little specks of coal every once in a while. Yet, as the flames of a near by wall licked him, he didn’t burn, in fact, he didn’t feel any pain at all when the fire pushed against him. All Cloud felt, was a light tickling sensation, and a strange, but wonderful, whole-hearted warmth, that flooded his body with its heat filling him.

Cloud blinked. He slowly tried again to pick his weak, aching, and injured body off the flaming floor.

His eyes stung slightly as he tried to open them further. He was also having trouble seeing straight, and he felt dizzy, and weak-kneed. He was having an even greater trouble keeping himself up right, as the fiery world around him started to spin rapidly, and multiply.

Stars swam in and out of his vision lazily, and he quickly scoured the area for traces of a savior. As he turned, he saw a black figure, blurry, and faded, coming slowly toward him from the other side of the ‘room’.

He opened his mouth to say thank you, or question him as to who he was, which ever came out, but the words were caught abruptly in his throat as the man’s face swam into view. He gasped, tried to speak again, and failed, again.

He collapsed, falling to the fiery floor with a dull, audible thud. The lat thing that the blonde could remember, before he slipped into unconsciousness once more, was the man’s face. Catlike, almost glowing green eyes, the color of freshly polished jade. Spiky, flaming red hair. A hand, reaching for him. Black.

But… It wasn’t possible. How could this be?

He’s dead, he had died.

Why, no, how could he be here?

Axel…

----

Help:

1) Aerial Rush is one of the attacks Neo-shadows can do in the game. They sort of float above you, the kick down at you. Sort of like a heartless drop-kick. Now, wouldn’t that make you faint too, if you got hit in the head with that?

2) Flame Prison is the attack that Axel uses against Roxas the time they fight at the mansion. It pretty much circles him, and his opponent with a circular wall of fire, and turns the floor the to lava. I’ve decided that it hurts heartless, even though it didn’t hurt you in the game as far as I know.

Ok! That was the first chapter. I’m not sure if I’ll continue with this one, it’s really all up to the reviewers. I’m not going to put a minimum on this one, just remember, not enough reviews, no more story. Heh, yeah, I know, still just as mean…

I’m not sure how much I like this name, either. But I can’t really think of anything else, so help? I’ll dedicate a chapter to you?

I’m thinking of bringing Roxas back in this story, and it wont be implied AkuRoku anymore, but since it’s not the main pairing it may not be a good idea, since I love that pairing too much, and I might start focusing on it too much. So, again, give me your opinion, you reviewer people.

Also, was anyone OOC? If they were, please tell me, and I will try to fix it!

This was 3,525 words, exactly, without author’s notes at the beginning or end. Is that good for a first chapter? I hope so, because it took me like… three days to write. I don’t write all day, or anything like that. It’s a mix between writing, reading, drawing, eating, sleeping, and going to Tai Kwan Do. Plus, I’m like the worlds slowest writer. Maria can write like… twelve pages in an hour, and I’ll still be on page six, after three days. So, yes. That’s why my updates are slow. Plus I’m always starting new stories when I shouldn’t be. But if I don’t, I get really depressed after I forget it, and I know I could have made something out of it. So, yeah…

OO; Am I ranting? Or rambling? I’ve been doing them a lot lately… I hope not. It must get annoying for you people that actually read the ending notes. Sorry! I’ll like… stop now, and stuff.

Next update should be done on either a new story, (Sorry people!) or Sides of the Mirror. Just so you people know.

Review!

Zeida