Whole-heartedly blaming Homura Bakura's "YGO Shipping Challenge" fic for this. Whole-heartedly. Homura if you're reading this: this is entirely your fault.
Anyways. I completely adored (and bawled over) the idea that Homura presented for the Nellshipping chapter, which suggested that Noa and Amane were childhood friends. Of course the writing bug bit. That, plus a conversation on Tumblr, and we have my first Nellshipping fic. I referenced Homura's chapter on these poor tragic children for this little ficlet (ch. 258 of "YGO Shipping Challenge).
Slightly AU and it's set before the Virtual Reality arc. Thanks for reading, guys!
BAKU#^_!MANE. CYB1. EXE
VERSION 1.01.4
…READY
**HELP
ACCESS
MEMORY RESTORE
**PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR REQUIRED.
**PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD:
ADMIN CODE: NKAIBA01O
**ACCESS GRANTED. REQUEST?
MEMORY RESTORE
**DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED? [Y] [N]
Y
**MEMORY RESET. COMMAND?
RUN BAKU#^_!MANE. CYB1. EXE
…
…
She didn't remember very much.
She of course remembered her family. Mama, Papa, and Ryou. She adored Ryou. Quiet but kind, always hunting fairies and ghosts when he could. Always scaring away the monsters, or at least reasoning with them. Always ready to play.
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 05% COMPLETE
She had been after a ball when she saw him. Of course she'd been careless, the ball had gone over the fence and she'd crawled under it to get it. He'd been outside. Green hair, blue eyes. A blue tailored suit. Knee socks and loafers. He'd been very surprised to see her.
"H-Hey! What are you doing in my yard?"
Ball. I lost my ball.
"Then you shouldn't have bounced it over here." Folded arms, a scowl that didn't quite scare her.
Not my fault. Accident. Was there someone here after all? I'm sorry. Going home, back to mama and Ryou.
"W-Wait. Uh…what's your name?"
Amane. What's yours?
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 20% COMPLETE
Boooooored. Ryou at school again. Maybe […] will play. Roll ball over. Accident-not-really again. Ha, you don't believe me. That's okay. Play?
"I'm busy. I'm doing Calculus. If Father sees I didn't finish this I'll get in trouble."
Cackyrust? Sounds icky. But oh. I'm bothering you. I'm sorry. Going home again.
"Although…" Furtive glances over his shoulder. "Well, I mean…what kind of games do you play with that thing, anyways?"
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 35% COMPLETE
Play again! Play with […] today, take him to playground. Never played lava? Never played tag? That's okay. I can teach you. Wanna go see Mama? Mama's working, but she's home today. Wanna get cookies?
"O-Okay. I can't stay for very long."
Stayed for an hour and played. Had lots of fun, right N[…]?
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 47% COMPLETE
You aren't out today? Did you get sick? That must be it! You're sick and can't play today. That's okay! I'll get out my paper and crayons at home, and I'll make you a card! You'll have the best get-well card ever when you come back! Oh, and I'll even invite you to my birthday party! Because you're my friend forever right?
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 67% COMPLETE
She remembered drawing up that little card and setting it under a rock on the table. It had been gone the next day.
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 70% COMPLETE
The next thing she remembered was a cool, breezy autumn day. She remembered that it had been raining only moments before, that the sun had only just come out from behind the clouds.
She remembered it was her birthday.
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 88% COMPLETE
They'd been in the car to go to the park, because today was her birthday party happy birthday to me. There was someone on the sidewalk, green hair visible and it's my friend, Mama lookit it's—
That's when the other car came.
SYSTEM MEMORY RESTORE: 92% COMPLETE
Screeching brakes, flashes of silver.
Ethereal lights and cold darkness. Pain upon pain. Fear it hurts make it stop taste pennies owie Ryou help me!
UPsiDe down now, there waS a boy lying on the RoAD nearBY and green hair, blue eyes looking back at her with fear scared scared N[…]….he'S hurT someONE help…!.
SysT3M mEMory $%STOre: 9!# C%^LE$T
Bright lIGHts, distant screams. GhOSTs wearing masks, BEEps and pincHEs and pokes—computers and fish tanks—onii-chan help me I'm—cared—dy i n g—m AMma, p a Pa—N o A—eRrOR
PROGRAM ERROR
ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND (0x2)
ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED (0x5)
ERROR_ARENA_TRASHED (0x7)
ERROR_BAD_FILE_TYPE (0xDE)
ERROR_LOCK_FAILED (0xA7)
ERROR_INVALID_ORDINAL (0xB6)
FINI. BAKU#^_!MANE. CYB1. EXE
"No!" he snarled, slamming his hands on his armrests. "No, I was so close!"
The room had no natural light. Screen upon screen lined the walls of the circular room, giving an eerie blue cast to everything around him. It was okay. Noa was used to the terminal and the light; he practically lived here in this technological sphere, where the line between the computer coding and his "world" existed and where he could easily navigate through cyberspace. His "home" was nestled comfortably in the heart of the vast Kaiba Corporation network, where it had ready access to any technological device with internet capabilities. Besides, it wasn't like staring at these lights for hours on end would kill him.
He was glowering at the brightest display of them all, nothing but white space visible in the monitor. His teeth ground against each other as he glared at the blank space in front of him. He'd found the rift while trying to access a backdoor in Kaiba Corporation's firewalls, a small niche in cyberspace that he had nearly overlooked had it not been for what he had seen as he glanced at the blank monitor—a single glimpse of a smiling face and warm brown eyes framed by white hair.
Of course Father had tested the program on someone else. It was Noa's last chance and at the time Father still believed that he could still carry on the legacy of the Kaiba family. Father had to be certain that this risky procedure would succeed in saving his son—and as it happened, there had been one other victim in that terrible accident who Father could test it on:
The little girl named Amane Bakura.
Noa had been completely bowled over once he realized the significance of this miraculous find, and he was so excited about what he had discovered that he stopped trying to hack into Kaiba Corporation's main frame. He didn't even care that the Battle City finals would soon be upon him and that he would show up any day now. All that mattered at this moment was waking up his first and only friend. If he could just bring her back, he wouldn't be alone anymore! He could play with her again, he could finally have that birthday party for her!
But no matter how many times he tinkered with the code, no matter how many times he fought to restore the original memory functions and tried to rewrite the damaged portions, Amane's cyberworld program refused to start. He would get so close—he'd seen Amane for one blissful second this time around!—and then the error codes would start scrolling down the screen and he was back to square one.
It was because he had been screwing around with his own coding, he thought furiously. Noa had become adept at accessing loopholes and back doors in the program his father and the technicians had designed, and over the years he had altered his world to suit his needs. His actions had consequences, however—by changing his own program, he had inadvertently corrupted the files for Amane's.
Still, he thought he had patched everything back together! He was a genius, this was his world and he was the god of it, so why was this proving so hard to repair?
"Why?" he said angrily, shoving himself out of the chair. The floor silently rose to meet him and Noa began to pace. "Why, Amane? I fixed it all! I pulled all the code together! I repaired all the corrupted files, I did everything right—why won't you respond?"
He stopped pacing and moved to the glowing monitor. He sighed, his fingers brushing gently against the glass. Of all the places he could access, the only area of this wretched world he could not get into was the niche Amane had been placed into. He'd certainly tried, but something had stopped him from entering. At the time, he had thought that maybe it was a firewall, but he had disabled all of the security measures as he had worked to restore Amane.
Now, however, he had to wonder…
He slumped, and he heard the small hiss as his chair glided across the floor to intercept him. Noa sank into the seat dejectedly, his heart sinking as he felt a strange lump in his throat.
"You…you're not really here, are you?" he whispered softly. "Genius I may be, but you…you're smarter than I am. You left long ago, didn't you? This file…this isn't you at all."
He should just delete the program, if he was to be honest with himself. Amane was gone. This fragmented computer code that he had restored would never really be the little girl he had known, just a compilation of what he had pulled together. She'd end up being just like every other person that Father had programmed to keep Noa company. Amane didn't deserve that.
His eyes closed.
"Cackyrust?"
"Do you wanna play lava?"
"We'll be friends forever, right?"
"I'm Amane. What's your name?"
For a moment Noa imagined that he felt his eyes burning.
"Okay," he whispered, and there was a waver in his voice. He opened his eyes. "Okay. I get it, Amane. I know I can't get out…but maybe I can get you out."
His hand ghosted over the keyboard, moving slowly towards the Delete button. He took in a deep breath, his hand trembling. He shakily exhaled—
And then the alarm went off.
His fingers violently jerked, his hand almost slashing the air as Noa called up the security cameras. His eyes scoured the monitors feverishly, a savage grin spreading across his features as he caught sight of the blimp.
"At last!" Noa hissed, and he sprang to his feet. He clapped his hands and began to laugh. "I was wondering when you'd get here! You're late, brother mine! The party can't start without you!"
He closed out the program window and skipped back to his chair, a bounce returning to his step. Seto was so much earlier than he had anticipated! But that was to be expected, for someone claiming the title "Kaiba", and it had been so long since someone offered a real challenge.
He exited out of Amane's program. He'd take care of it later, once Seto was out of the way, and who knows? Maybe once he was out of this prison he could find the elusive piece of the puzzle to bringing Amane back.
He pulled up a monitor, intending to call the Big Five and let them know that —
Don't. Noa…don't. Please.
The little girl's voice caused him to jump, suddenly frantic as he called up Amane's program again. The screen was still white, the code still scrolling in the corner. There was nothing to indicate that anything had happened…and yet…
Noa. Stop this.
He turned so quickly that he nearly lost his balance, his breath coming in a harsh and ragged gasp, and this time he caught it in his peripheral vision: white hair, brown eyes, a red ribbon, she's here.
But when his vision focused on the spot, there was no one there. He stared, even rubbing his eyes. "Amane?" he asked cautiously.
No reply.
He watched the spot carefully for several long seconds. When nothing happened he let out a shaky laugh and massaged his temples. "Now's not the time to start hearing voices," he murmured, his voice trembling. "Not now. Not when everything's finally coming together."
He turned back to the monitors and sent out a message to the Big Five, and once they acknowledged the message he called up yet another window. Time to get the party started.
A few keystrokes on the keyboard, and Noa was through the blimp's security program; almost seconds later, he had full access to the navigation system. One more minute and he would have total control over the aircraft.
Even as Noa was impatiently shaking his head he was smirking. This was so ridiculously easy that it might have physically hurt him, had he the capacity to process the pain. "Seto, Seto, Seto," he sang aloud, his tone chiding and amused all at once. "You're so naïve and careless. Do you believe yourself to be above the commoners, that no one can touch you on your pedestal? You're wrong—a king you may be, but a god am I!"
Noa.
He ignored it.