The Hika Blabs ::

Alright. This is where things start getting a bit... strange. Don't worry, I try to explain myself at the end of this chapter, so if you're confused, please just read my notes... If you're still confused... well. I don't know, I can't help you then. It's my fault. I apologize in advance. This is the 'in-the-middle' chapter, where Hika takes the chance to Explain Things.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ragnarok Online (duh), and Kigami Kaze's original character design belongs to my amazingly talented friend, Minou.


Chapter 7
信じて待つだけで 何ができるんだよ

(Just believing and waiting won't do anything)

There was a door in the water. Waving, waving; like most things in the water did.

At least, it looked like a door. He didn't really want to go to the door, but the door seemed to think otherwise. It pulled him toward itself, calling, calling…

He floated towards it.

Strange. He didn't want to go there, yet at the same time he couldn't turn around and swim in the other direction.

The door seemed to grow larger.

No, wait, he was just moving closer.

Larger and larger and larger, a mouth of shadow, agape.

'Wait…'

The shadow seemed to swallow him.

'I don't belong there.'


Kale awoke to the smell of breakfast. Not the usual smell of the usual breakfast Kaze tended to make for him. That had a tendency to be toast. Maybe omelette or scrambled eggs if he was in a good mood. Occasionally there was fried bacon when he really felt like giving him a treat.

He sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes wearily. Strange, they felt so swollen, it was almost a chore to open them properly. It was only then did he realise he wasn't in his room. He yawned, and struggled to drag a body that would not listen to him out of bed. When in the world were his muscles aching this much? It was almost as if he had done vigorous exercise for at least four hours non-stop…

"Kale-chan?" Kotone poked her head into the room, "Aa, you're awake. Thank god. Want to have some breakfast?"

Her smile was overly bright, her tone was overly happy. He frowned slightly; why? It was almost as if something bad had happened…

It hit him the moment he searched in his memory. It was almost like in the dramas when he fell back so he could sit on the bed; a temporary loss of strength.

Oh. Right.

Kotone's smile was immediately replaced with a worried look, "Actually I have some information, but I thought we'd talk over breakfast… can you…" She trailed off.

Kale nodded and grinned, "Yea, breakfast sounds good." He forced himself to stand up.

Moping won't do anything.

"So, the news?"

Kotone smiled slightly, a small smile. "I talked to my friend Atsuki yesterday when I came back to Prontera… she told me something I thought you would want to know…"

"What?" He was more impatient than usual. Was it good news? Bad news? Useful news? Useless but good to know news?

Kotone's smile was still there, a small smile, but Kale found it more comfortable than the bright beam she had tried to put on earlier. "I called her over so we could talk over breakfast."

Atsuki was a High Wizard of the Wizard guild; one could easily see from her clothes, the furred coat and the silk bodice, trimmed with an intricate gold border. She had her nose in a book thicker than Kotone's bible, and only raised her head to look when Kale pulled out a chair.

Atsuki smiled. She was a charming young lady, with dark brown hair that fell to her waist in luxurious curls. She took off the pair of reading glasses and pushed a plate of sandwiches over to Kale. "I already had some. It tastes great."

"Thanks," Kale managed a grin. He was hungry afterall, and no matter what his loss was, he wasn't the type that believed in starving himself to mourn for it. You needed energy to face a loss, and not eating didn't make things better. He bit into the sandwich, his mouth glad for the taste of something solid, not just the bland stench of water.

"I was doing some extra research on Niffleheim, actually…" Atsuki started, "I'm the one who asked Kotone to help me set up a teleport point there, since that place is a place that constantly interests me. It's supposed to be the City of the Dead, right? But not all dead go there and all that…" She flipped her book to a page marked by a bookmark, "That pool in Umbala used to have a portal that went directly to Niffleheim. At least, in ancient manuscripts it had been marked like that."

Kale did not understand. "Uhm. Wait. Can you put it into simpler terms? Simple?"

Atsuki frowned for a moment, as if trying to find the simplest summary she could think of. "Kaze could have found his way into Niffleheim."

"Oh." Now that made so much more sense. "So he's alive, right?"

It was almost as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Not… quite…"

Atsuki dumped the weight back.

"What do you mean 'not quite'?!"

"Well, because the portal is the 'usual way' of getting into Niffleheim, unlike the 'unusual' way which requires a whole lot more walking and searching… You've got to be dead to get there."

"But you just said he wasn't dead!" Kale paused, "Wait, no. You just said something along the lines that he was still alive."

"Well… Kaze didn't die, but because he entered the portal into Niffleheim, it is considered that he's dead."

"So is he dead or not?" Kale frowned, "Because if he's alive then we need to get him out of there. Is he dead?"

Atsuki sighed. This would take a while.


"Kale-chan… don't you think you should really consider waiting for the search party?"

"Nah. What's the point? I'm about as good as any search party." Kale grinned into the blue gem that Kotone had given him. Atsuki had it magicked so they could still communicate over long distances. "Alright, I'm where all the trees are, where next?"

Kotone's voice was slightly fuzzy over the magical-transmitter-device, "But even Atsuki had said so! It's dangerous, and you might get lost!"

"But you have the map in front of you."

"I… I do, but… You could have just waited a bit…"

"Nah. Waiting won't do anything. Come on, the instructions."

There was a sigh from the other end. "Oh alright. If that's what you say…"

"Good girl. Left turn?"

"Right."


He awoke to darkness. There was a spider web hanging so close to his face he could feel its wispy touch against his nose when he breathed in. He swiped at it, and frowned when it only moved a little, as if there was only a little breeze.

He swiped at it again.

Once more, the spider web barely wavered.

Annoyed, he sat up directly and felt the spider web pass through his face.

"… what in the world." Where was he, anyway?

The room he was in looked like an inn, dimly lit by a few flickering candles on the wall, their flames pale and wispy like the spiderweb. He frowned. It didn't look familiar at all, yet at the same time he couldn't really recall what was familiar…

"Aah, I see you've awaken."

He turned to see a young woman enter his room, on her lips the ghost of a smile. A frown, "Who are you."

"Myssa. And you?"

"Kaze."

"I see you still recall the name. Came here through the watery door huh?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about…"

Myssa smiled at him with her bright red eyes. "The other residents here don't remember anything, even their names, when they come. Only those who came through the watery door remember that. But that's all you will remember I think, Kaze."

He blinked at her, "What do you mean? I remember…"

Remember what?

Myssa smiled knowingly, "…Nothing?" She suggested for an answer. "Welcome to Niffleheim, Kaze."


"Okay, Kotone. Remind me about why I am doing this again."

Kotone giggled from the other side of the blue gem, and recited, "Because Kaze is not only your parter, but also an idiot who is probably hopeless at saving himself." That was what Kale had told her at least five times before. After the five times she had been in charge of repeating it to him, with her own little additions, "And he is also your closest friend whom you really really like."

"No he isn't." Kale retorted stubbornly, releasing his grip on the makeshift ladder made of a tree's vines. "Oh god, please don't tell me there's more."

"We're nearly there " Kotone comforted him, "Sort of."

"I am not feeling happy." Kale grimaced as he nearly slid and fell against the smooth bark of the tree he somehow found himself on. In front of him was a maze of tree roots – the only bridges across what looked like murky water.

"No fear, Kotone's here! With the map." Kotone's voice sounded cheerful, "Alright, now you take the top most root."

"What the heck is the 'topmost'…" Kale muttered, but reluctantly followed Kotone's instructions in order to find the 'topmost' root. "This has been the longest walk of my life."

"Let's talk more while you're at it, there's still quite a bit!"

"Agh."


The residents of Niffleheim remember nothing. Most of them didn't even remember their names, and instead were named after things that stood out about them.

The little girl that had run through him was called Littlemouth because her mouth was exceedingly small. There were quite a large number of kids in the City of the Dead, and now, even though they couldn't even touch each other, were enjoying a game of tag.

Kaze walked back into the inn.

"How was your walk?" Myssa greeted him with her usual smile.

"Strange."

She caught the look on his face, and frowned. "You are dead, you know. And the dead of Niffleheim don't remember, so stop trying."

He smiled at that, "I don't know why… there's this nagging feeling that I should be remembering."

"But there is no point. There is no point in remembering."

"Perhaps."


"I'm here."

Kotone let out a long sigh, "Thank god."

"Hey, hey Don't relax yet. The hard part has just begun, right?"

"That's what Atsuki said."

"I always love challenges." Kale rolled his eyes and cast them to the gates of Niffleheim. Tall, looming black iron gates, one of which was missing a hinge, and lay crooked with an edge embedded in the rocky ground. Kale pushed the other gate until he could squeeze through.

"So. This is the 'wrong' way of entering, huh."

"Yes, apparently by doing so, you're still considered alive. A lot of explorers and researchers enter this way. The 'right' way of entering is by dying, and then you apparently get automatically sent to this area. Then there's the 'sort of right' way of entering, which Kaze apparently stumbled on."

"Which means he's alive, but they made him dead."

"Something like that."

"I find it terribly hard to comprehend." Kale sighed. "But well, since he's not supposed to be dead, and there was some mistake, looks like it's up to me huh."

Kotone sounded worried again, "Are you sure-"

"Yes. I'll call for you later once I've met up with him. Don't wanna make too much noise now." Kale slid a finger across the gem and watched as it grew dim. He stuffed it into a pocket and looked around him. This place looked like one of those places you saw in Ghost Stories for Children, or something like that.

"Ok. The difficult part. Finding him." Kale sighed, "This should be easy, unless I can't see the dead."

Far off in the distance, he could hear children singing a song. That meant that he could hear them, which raised the possibility of being able to see them. He took in a deep breath – musty swampy air – and cleared his mind for a moment. Not that he needed to clear it much. Ever since Kaze had jumped off it was pretty much empty.

It was okay though. Kaze wasn't dead. Kaze wasn't dead, there was just a mistake…

Yet what Atsuki had told him didn't make him feel any better.

"I'm warning you. He might not remember."


After-words:

OOPS. Yes, I know it's starting to get weird. I know this doesn't happen in RO. But er, it does in Hika-imagination! xD

I know this is a difficult concept, but let's just put it this way.

1. Dead people die and their souls get sent to Niffleheim. Not all dead people get sent here, only some who have a certain special trait/condition. Find out what that is next chapter.

2. The dead people whose souls were sent to Niffleheim don't remember anything, and will never remember anything.

3. People who have not died, and entered Niffleheim through the portal in the water in Umbala, would have travelled there IN FULL BODY. Not just the soul, but they would have forgotten everything else except a name, and by forgetting, they will be considered dead, and will gain the body of a ghost.

I'm sorry. This is absolutely NOT TRUE of Niffleheim in RO. I made it up cus I thought it'd be fun. -smiles and gets killed-