Lea Conrad

&nbsp Lea "Axel" Conrad (formerly known as Luca Cardano) is Member VIII in the Organization and an antagonist in The Nobody Virus. At first portrayed as a sarcastic and cheery pyromaniac and terrorist, he later becomes a tragic villain, desperately trying to help his friend Roxas from being slaughtered by Marla Shift.

History
Luca Cardano was a boy raised in Italy until he became fourteen years-old, when he moved to the United States. Since his birth, Cardano had an infatuation with fire. At a young age, he typially fulfilled his need to burn things by lighting candles and carrying them around. When he grew into a teenager, he began to create makeshift weapons using fire. After reading The Anarchist Cookbook as well as many other books on chaotic philosophy, Cardano started to become a bit of a nihilist and anarchist, deciding life was overall pointless and that there was only true beauty in its destruction.

As he was developing these thoughts and beliefs in his freshman year, Cardano moved to the United States and became best friends with future criminal lords Aqua and Isa after helping the former from being sexually assaulted with a makeshift flamethrower. They had many great times together until Aqua was again assaulted; Cardano tracked down and horribly disfigured the assailants by burning them. This began to show Cardano's carefree philosophy even applied to other human lives. Because of the damage he had done, Cardano's parents moved to another town away from Aqua and Isa, thus splitting up the three friends.

Once graduated, Cardano began to live on the streets, destroying a couple of public places through fire. After a close escape from the cops, Cardano murdered a recently-homeless man and took his identity, becoming Lea Conrad. Deciding he loved the name more than his former one, he stayed Lea Conrad until his joining of the Organization.

When he approached his parents with false remorse of his past actions, they decided to pay for his further education, and Lea Conrad got to go to college. There, he met Aqua and Isa again, and many times Lea slept with Aqua. In college, Lea dyed his hair a distinct crimson, making his chemistry teachers raise their eyebrows at his ambition to create fireworks for a living.

Eventually, once Isa and Aqua were too busy for friendships and were struggling to become underworld powers, Lea found friends in soon-to-be-future-Member Alex Curtis. Curtis shared Lea's passion for destruction, weaponry, and fire, and the two began to plan to blow up their University with homemade bombs and establish themselves as the world's most dangerous firebugs. However, Curtis was then approached by Christopher Xehanort, who was establishing his Organization at the time. Alex, newly-christened as Lexaeus, began to work for the Organization behind Lea's back, until Xehanort allowed Lexaeus to invite his friend into the Organization as well.

Happy to have a cause, Lea renamed himself for a second time as "Axel", after Axel Rose from the band "Guns N' Roses". Due to his sense of humor and carefree attitude, Xehanort took a liking to Axel, and Axel began to feel a father-son relationship between the man, believing his old father to be weak.

The Nobody Virus
Axel is first introduced to Roxas directly after his initiation. Although at first not fond of the newest Member, Axel and Roxas' shared craving for destruction brought the two together, along with their shared job in the Organization as professional "troublemakers" who would go out and commit acts of terrorism to either turn more people against the Heartless (who they would sometimes frame) or to make people wary of the coming of a new terrorist group. Eventually, the two became best friends, Roxas leaving behind his calmer persona in order to be more like Axel.

However, trouble arose when Marluxia threatened to kill Roxas after the chaos theorist snooped in the killer's room, looking for evidence that he was a traitor, which Roxas believed he was. Since Marluxia seemed absolutely ready to kill Roxas, Axel intervened and made a false ploy with Marluxia to kidnap and impregante Roxas' girlfriend, Xion, before killing Roxas himself.

Axel's true motivation, however, was to lure Marluxia into the Grand Hotel and blow it up with him inside, using explosives supplied by Xigbar. To avoid being suspected of being a traitor to the Organization (for which death is a penalty) and to make it seem like Marluxia was a betrayer, Axel cunningly placed Xion in the Hotel and later had Zexion go in to find her and bring her out.

However, in order to get Marluxia to go, Axel threw in another murder for the madman, kidnapping Kairi and placing her in the Hotel. Unbeknowst to Axel, Zexion had been in love with Kairi, and instead of looking for Xion, he saved Kairi by doing battle with Marluxia. Due to a miscommunication between the two via walkie-talkies, Axel incorrectly believed Zexion had found Xion instead of Kairi, and blew the building up, killing Marluxia and accidentally killing Xion.

As the sun was rising from the nightly battle, Axel made his way down to the ruins of the Hotel and found Xion's corpse. Horrified, he started to wonder what to do next, when he found Zexion, injured from his battle with Marluxia and the explosions, limping towards him with a pistol in his hand. Panicking with the realization that Zexion believed him to have lured both he and Marluxia in the Hotel to kill them, Axel tried to explain himself, only to be shot three times by Zexion on the spot.

As Axel bled to death, he hallucinated that Zexion, who was walking over to finish him off, was Roxas coming to tell him that everything would be alright. Thus, Axel's last word is a questioning "Roxas?" before Zexion shot him again, this time killing him instantly.

Symbolism
His death, along with Xion's, marks the beginning of Roxas' attempts to overthrow the Organization and kill its remaining Members.

His death also symbolizes a frequently-discussed plot point: that those who oppose the Organization will be withered down and thrown aside. This leaves much speculation about Roxas' own future attempts, as his best friend paid the ultimate price in attempting to do what Roxas will now have to do: deceive the Organization and destroy some of its Members.