We find out more about Nathalia in this Chapter (and by more, I mean almost everything). Some light violence, I sorta tried to hide it so it's not too bad. This chapter's probably one of the longest, because there's really no good place for a break in here. Hope you like it.
As usual, only Kiri, Kyoko, Nathalia, and the plot are mine. Everything else belongs to somebody else.
Nathalia stood where Kiri had been a few seconds before. Kyoko gasped, her face turning red with anger.
"I've told you two, you can't switch in front of other people," she admonished, putting down the pan she had been holding.
"We can't help it, Kyoko. You know we change whenever Kiri becomes angry enough. You must remember that. And besides, I wanted to let you know my reasons for wanting to stay here," retorted Nathalia.
"I know you're reasons for wanting to stay here. You spent most of your time with me trying to chase after a dream." Kyoko snorted, crossing her arms. Nathalia sighed and turned to Daisuke.
"Niwa-san, I hate to ask you this, but could you please…" she began, spreading her arms. Daisuke nodded, understanding what it was Nathalia was asking. He closed his eyes, and after a few seconds Dark was standing where Daisuke had been. Kyoko took a step back in surprise. Next to her, Daisuke's mother looked confused.
"I still don't understand who you are," Dark told Nathalia, crossing his arms. Nathalia sighed.
"Is now really the time to get into that?" she asked, giving Dark a pained look.
"Yes," everyone else in the room replied as one. Nathalia sighed again.
"I'm curious too, Nats," Kiri remarked. Nathalia sat down, then drew breath to speak.
"Two generations after the Hikaris created Krad and you, Dark, they created me. I was created as a weapon against Dark. At first, I served Krad. Anything he told me to do, I did without question. During those days, he could have told me to set myself on fire and I would have done it." Here Nathalia stopped, the memory clearly causing her pain. Her hands were fists on her knees, and she took several deep breaths. There were several seconds of silence before she managed to continue.
"Then one day he gave me the order to kill Dark. He told me that everything else, everything he had ordered me to do, was all just to test me, to see if I would do as he ordered. I told him I would do it. There was nothing else I could do. I left that night, and began hunting Dark. I finally found you, two days later." Here Nathalia looked up at Dark, and there were tears in her eyes.
"Needless to say, I failed. I was weak, and Krad knew I would fail. I could tell when I returned to him. But he punished me anyway. He punished me for three days, then he decided to destroy me. I-I ran. I ran for the rest of that night. And then I started trying to get stronger. I thought that if I could prove to Krad that I could be as strong as he was, then maybe he would take me back and things could go back to normal. It was another year before I felt strong enough to go back to Krad. When I did, he said that all I had to do was capture Dark, and he would take me back. It took me a week, but I finally found you again. This time, I managed to capture you and bring you back to Krad." Nathalia paused, then glanced up at Dark, seeing the slight anger in his eyes and flinching slightly.
"He told me that he just wanted to talk to you, and I believed him. There was no reason for me not to, he was my Master. B-but h-he lied." Nathalia choked and seemed unable to go one. Dark walked over and sat on the couch next to her.
"I remember," he whispered, and Nathalia turned to look at him with eyes full of regret and sadness.
"It was a full month before I could no longer bear it. I confronted Krad, and he told me that I shouldn't concern myself with things that had nothing to do with me. That was when I-I snapped. Krad was there when I was created. He was older than me, sure, but that didn't make him better than me. I attacked him, used up almost all my strength to put him to sleep, just for a little while. Then I carried him down to where Dark was being held. I wasn't supposed to know where that was, but I had followed Krad down there a few times. I left Krad in that room, took Dark, and ran. I didn't really know where I was running to, but I knew I had to get out of there." Nathalia stopped again. By now, tears were flowing freely down her face. She wiped them away and turned away from the room, trying to collect herself again. After a few seconds of silence, Nathalia turned back to the room.
"I passed out as soon as I thought I was safe, and I don't know how long I slept for. When I woke up, it was nighttime, and I could tell by the moon that several days had passed. Dark was still unconscious, and only then did I realize how many injuries we both had. At the time, I couldn't heal. Krad had never taught me any magic, and it took me most of a year just to learn how to put people to sleep. I was so convinced that it had all been in vain and that we would both end up dying in the cave I had hid us in. I did the best I could but I was still so terrified…." Nathalia trailed off, tears beginning to form in her eyes again.
"Nathalia, Dark, do you either of you know why you never transformed back?" Kyoko inquired in a quiet voice, as though she was reluctant to interrupt.
"My host was…gone. Krad had separated us and sent him away. I don't know what happened to him," Dark answered slowly.
"He was safe, hidden. Krad wanted me to kill him, but by then I was already starting to doubt Krad's orders, so I brought the boy back to his house, with a note telling him how sorry I was and that I would leave another message when it was safe for him to leave his house again," Nathalia told them. She stopped talking and took a few measured breaths. She looked down at her hands on her knees, then began to speak again.
"We couldn't leave that cave. I didn't think I could fight Krad again, and Dark was still too weak to move. I spent every day trying to learn how to heal, but all I ever managed to do was relieve the pain a little. Every so often I would sneak out and follow Krad, but once I was almost caught, and so for almost a year we were stuck in that cave. I used Wiz to send messages to the Niwa boy, to assure him that Dark was safe from Krad, and that I would bring Dark to the boy as soon as I thought it was safe. Finally, after about eleven months had passed, Dark began to noticeably recover. It was hard, those first few days." Nathalia stopped again, glancing at Dark, who smiled slightly at the memory.
"I didn't trust you," he stated simply.
"You didn't have a reason to," Nathalia replied, shrugging. She turned back to the two mothers. "Dark was unconscious when I saved him, and for most of the time after that he was only ever semi-conscious. When he fully regained consciousness, it was to find himself alone with the woman that was a servant of Krad who had tried to kill him once and captured him another time. It was an….interesting few days. It was another month or so before Dark was strong enough for us to leave the cave. Like I promised I would, I took him to the Niwa house. I had thought the boy would be happy, but he wasn't. He said it was a trap. I didn't blame him, but…before then I had rarely thought about the consequences of being Krad's servant. In my mind, I didn't have any choice but to serve him, but that boy didn't see it that way." Nathalia choked again and started crying. This time it took a lot longer for her to collect herself.
"He blamed me for everything. He helped Dark inside, then told me that if he ever saw me again, he'd kill me. I ran. I had never seen so much hatred in anyone's eyes before. I went back to the cave. There wasn't anywhere else for me to go. I stayed in the cave for a week. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I kept seeing those hate-filled eyes, and the hurt I had felt when I saw them was made worse by the fact that I felt like he was right to hate me. I began to remember all the things I'd done for Krad. And I remembered the off-handed way that Krad had called them 'tests', as though all the pain I had caused meant nothing. By the end of the first week, I had just about given up. I was even starting to consider going back to Krad and letting him do whatever he wanted to me. That was when Wiz showed up. He had a note with him. It was from Niwa, asking me to meet him. Wiz led me to the spot, a clearing in the woods not far from that cave. Niwa was there, waiting." Nathalia stopped, and when she looked at her hands they were almost shaking. Remembering her past like this was almost as physically draining as it was emotionally.
"Nathalia, how is it that you became bound to a host?" Daisuke's mother questioned curiously.
"I'm getting to that," Nathalia replied, though her voice was beginning to sound tired.
"Nathalia, if you need me to take over, let me know," Kiri told Nathalia, her voice full of pity. Nathalia simply shook her head. Kyoko handed her a glass of water, and Nathalia downed the entire glass in one gulp.
"Niwa told me that Dark had spent the last week telling him that I wasn't as bad as Niwa thought. But Niwa still didn't trust me. He knocked me out, then sealed me. I don't remember anything after that, until sixty years later. A young girl, she must have been around ten or eleven, unsealed me. I don't know why, but I became bound to that girl's body. I was….angry when she found me. I had spent the last sixty years being angry. I felt betrayed. I blamed Dark for the fact that I was sealed, because I thought that everything Niwa had told me that night was a lie. That's why I transform when my host becomes angry enough. The girl told me her name was Thudinia Kaen. She was scared at first, but she listened to my story and by the time I was done, she had calmed down. She helped me see a light and happiness in the world that I had never had a chance to see. Eventually, my anger subsided, and I came to realize that what had happened when I was sealed was a simple misunderstanding, resulting from the things that Krad had done. That's when I began to hate Krad. Not with the burning anger that I had felt when I first woke up, but with a slow, smoldering hatred that grew a little bit every day."
"Kaen told me that she was the niece of a thief, and that she was training with her cousin to be the next generation of thieves. I was with her through most of her training, and when she turned twenty, her uncle retired. Her cousin had fallen in love and turned away from the life of the thief, but Kaen loved stealing. I had to work hard to keep her from stealing the little things. After her training ended, I began teaching her what to steal. Soon, the name 'Nats' was famous. When Kaen went out, I could hear people whispering about us in the streets and markets. As was probably inevitable, we ran into Dark again." Nathalia paused, and Kyoko fetched her another glass of water. While Nathalia drank slowly, Dark took up the story.
"I thought I was seeing a ghost. I had fought against my host when he sealed Nathalia away, but he did it anyway. I knew how strong the seal was that he'd used, and I knew that only a strong person would have been able to break it. I thought that the art thief everyone kept talking about was just some person. I heard that she had wings, and I didn't remember Nathalia ever having wings, so I figured it was just someone trying to copy me. I went to confront the person, and found Nathalia." Dark stopped, seeing that Nathalia was done drinking.
"When I first saw Dark, all those feelings of anger that I'd felt when I was first reawakened came flooding back. Part of me was happy to see him, but the other half wanted to kill him. I was so confused, I ran. I didn't come out again for almost a week, I just let Kaen go about her days unhindered. But then Dark approached her, and she explained everything to him. After that, Dark disappeared for almost two months. And then he broke into Kaen's bedroom." Nathalia gave Dark a look.
"What, I didn't think there was any other way to make you talk to me," Dark said defensively. Nathalia rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, Kaen forced me out, which, I might add, is rather difficult and painful to do, but she did it. But not before she told her parents to lock us in the room and not let us out until they heard her say the password." Nathalia stopped rather suddenly and glanced at Dark. She seemed to decide something, and turned back to the room.
"We talked it out, and the next day we agreed to partner up. We worked together for about a month, and then Dark's host explained who he was to the love of his life and they got married and Dark went away. Before the next Niwa reached fourteen, my host died and I was expelled. This is the first time we've met since then," Nathalia finished.
"So your hosts are only free of you when they die?" Daisuke's mother inquired. Nathalia shook her head.
"They have to be at peace. For Kaen, that didn't happen until she died. For Kyoko, that happened when Kiri was born. It's different for each person. But once my host is at peace, then I am expelled until the next Thudinia reaches ten," answered Nathalia. She sighed, then stood and began to walk upstairs.
"G'night, Nathalia," Kyoko called.
"Good night," Nathalia replied before shutting her door. She sat down on her bed with her head in her hands.
"Nathalia, do you want me to take over?" Kiri asked, the concern in her voice obvious.
"No thank you, Kiri. I think I might-" Nathalia responded. She was cut off by a quiet knock on her door. Nathalia glanced at the door.
"It's open," she called, not leaving her bed. Dark walked in quietly and sat down next to her.
"Are you okay?" he questioned, looking at her in concern.
"I'm going to sleep, Nats," Kiri's voice told her.
"I'll be fine, Dark. I'm just a little tired," Nathalia assured him, attempting a smile. She yawned and leaned against the wall behind her bed, closing her eyes. Dark leaned back next to her, though he remained awake for most of the night. At some point, Nathalia ended up leaning against him, crying slightly in her sleep.