This scene kills me. It kills me because… just damn it, Axel, do you even know how close you came?
Watching 358 Days/2, reading the manga and novelization, you can see the change in Axel, the development, the slow growth of his heart once he starts to bond with Roxas and Xion. Before that, he’s just as cold and empty and… reduced as Saix, and it’s just… dumb luck that he’s saved. Dumb luck that he’s assigned to be the new kids’ babysitter. Dumb luck that he manages to form bonds, to maintain bonds, to be anything other than an emotionless assassin when everything around him demands otherwise.
It just as easily could have not happened. Take one fateful ice cream session out of the equation, and that could have been him there, yellow-eyed and sick and used.
He’s so angry and disappointed with Saix, with Isa, in this scene, so bitterly hurt… but fuck me, Axel, that could have been you. That could have easily been you, child, had you not escaped by a goddamn hair. One slight shift of circumstance, and you stay a remorseless killer, only to be taken over by some mad old man in his quest for gods-know-what.
and i think a part of Axel knows this he knows that he came close but he doesn’t want to think about it so he’s angry but underneath he’s just deeply sad and that’s why he holds Saix while he dies and why the anger fades away
…I think that’s a large part of why he forgives Isa, in the end. Which I feel some people don’t realize, when they complain about Isa being so easily redeemed. It’s why Xion and Roxas forgive Isa: because they all realize how lucky they were to find each other and build the foundation needed to escape the Organization, even if it took immense suffering to do so. They realize how close it really was, how Isa just ended up on the wrong side of that fine line that both he and Axel walked for years.
Just… ugh, these kids. These poor kids and the horrific life they had to lead. I’m so glad they’re both saved, in the end. I’m glad they’re all right.
