"Sincerely, Nobody" by ladydemelza

Chapter 11

Reminder: this story is in the process of being updated from how it was originally posted. Thank you so much for your patience as I continue to work on it!

"Roxas."

He jolted at the sound of her voice. Even though it was quiet, it still surprised him in the utter stillness of the mostly vacant infirmary. "Naminé," he said again. "Are you okay?"

Her eyes opened slowly. "I…think so," she murmured, barely audible. Roxas's hand on her own was in her line of vision, and she felt an unsettling swoop in the pit of her stomach.

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," he said, quickly pulling his hand away from hers to cover his face.

"I'm glad you're still okay, too."

"You're in a bed in the infirmary. How are you even remotely worried about me?"

She managed a small smile. "Like this."

He couldn't stop himself from smiling. Her eyes, bright blue even though she looked drawn and tired, met his, and it was as though both were suddenly and simultaneously aware of Riku's presence in the room. Naminé flushed, although at least she could pretend it had to do with her injuries – Roxas had no such excuse.

"What happened?" she asked, realizing she had no idea where they were or how they had gotten there.

"Korin took you from Earth to Hollow Bastion," Roxas said. "Leon and Aeris brought us back after my spell broke. Riku and Sora's spells both broke too. I assume yours must have, since you hurt yourself by using magic."

"Is everyone okay?" Naminé asked, making a great effort to sit up.

"They're all fine, but would you please stay laying down?"

Naminé collapsed back into her pillows. "Korin didn't hurt me, you know."

"I know," he said, looking at her hands. Anything to look away from her eyes. When he had looked into them, he felt so vulnerable that he could feel the pressure of it in his chest.

"It was my fault," she continued, watching him carefully.

"I know," he repeated hollowly. "Don't scare us like that again."

"You can't have been that scared. Aeris must have told you that I'd be fine."

"She did, but she mentioned that there might be some…side effects" he explained, fumbling with his words as he attempted to choose carefully.

"There aren't, I don't think," Naminé said.

"Aeris was afraid that you'd be terrified to ever use magic again after what it did to you," Riku said, pointedly staring at the ground. Naminé always could count on Riku for brutal honesty, and most of the time, she even liked that he was in the habit of giving it to her.

"I told you, it was my fault."

"Did you know that was going to happen before you did it?" Roxas asked.

She shook her head. "No. I assumed I'd be able to control it. Instead, it kind of felt like it was controlling me, or maybe instinct was."

Roxas frowned at that. The danger of coming to fight in the war over this land was obvious before they ever agreed to come back, but Roxas realized there were probably more dangerous things about this place that they didn't even know about. Before they left, he felt so sure that nothing here would ever hurt Naminé, but now he didn't know how to feel. He couldn't protect her, he knew, but he couldn't stop her from doing what she could to help, either.

"Hana, Tomoko, and Korin ran away," said Riku. "Roxas left that out. We fought them and they ran, and then we brought you here to the castle."

Naminé eyed Riku with interest and even a little amusement. "You saw Hana," she said.

"To be more accurate," said Roxas, "he saw her and then his spell broke."

She managed half a giggle before groaning and holding her arm against her ribs.

"My misfortune can't be that funny," Riku said with disdain.

"Well, look at that, Naminé," Roxas said, feigning surprise. "You're not the only person in this room with self-inflicted wounds!"

Riku scoffed. "You two are absolutely merciless. And not funny."

Roxas snickered, and he could see Naminé's smile and knew she'd be laughing too if it didn't hurt her. For a split second, it felt like they had never left Hollow Bastion, like everything was just as it had been.

"Sorry, Riku," Naminé said.

He frowned in response, arms folded across his chest.

An uncomfortable silence hung heavy in the air before Naminé asked, "Where's Yuri?"

Roxas's eyes widened. "You…remember her? I'm not the only one?"

Naminé looked at him with brows furrowed, confused.

"Leon asked me not to tell others anything about Yuri," he clarified. "Especially not to mention a word to her."

"Oh," Naminé said, understanding Leon's thought process without further explanation. "Does he really think that there's even the slightest chance that it isn't her?"

Roxas shrugged. "I have no idea what he's thinking."

"You know," Naminé began thoughtfully, tugging what she could of her hair into a ponytail, "the way we talk, it seems like we've just stumbled into an alternate reality… We don't sound anything like we did even the day before yesterday, before we came here."

"You're right," Roxas mused. "It seems like we picked up right in the middle of a movie. There was no beginning, and we don't seem to be our old selves anymore…"

"Speak for yourself," Riku said. "I'm every bit as good-looking as I used to be."

Roxas made a choking noise while Naminé managed another giggle. "I meant more along the lines of having to worry about dying tomorrow, or maybe even today…" Roxas trailed off.

Naminé reached for him and touched his shoulder lightly. "We lived like this before, and we'll do it again."

He half-smiled, and nodded. "I guess that's the only option, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, sounding a bit sad. "What I wouldn't give to have that diary that I lost right before we left home! There's so much I'd like to write in it now."

Roxas could feel the heat of shame tingeing his cheeks crimson. She had just presented the perfect opportunity to tell her the truth, and return it to her, but for some reason, Roxas didn't want to let go of that precious piece of Naminé quite yet.

"Leon's going to send some of us to see Akiko," Roxas said conversationally, smoothly changing the topic. "I don't think he'd choose you, though, for obvious reasons."

She sighed inwardly. Why wouldn't anyone believe her? She was going to be just fine, and quickly. "I'd like to go," she told him. "Why do we need to go all the way to her place, though?"

Roxas hesitated. "I have some bad news."

Sora burst into the room. "You're okay!" Sora breathed, rushing to Naminé's side.

"So are you," she said with a small smile.

"Has Roxas been catching you up with everything? Geez, Naminé, lay down!" Sora chided.

Another attempt by Naminé to sit herself up had been quickly thwarted by Sora. "Yes, he's been telling me everything," she pouted. "That we're going to see Akiko, for one."

"Yeah, we definitely need her to remove that curse she put on the Magicite!"

"What curse?!"

Sora looked sheepish. "Did…they forget to mention that?"

Naminé whirled on Roxas. "You should have mentioned that, oh, maybe first?"

"Sorry," Roxas said. "It sort of slipped my mind—I mean, you were awake and everything—"

"What does the curse do?" she demanded.

"They can't die," Riku said with a sigh.

"You definitely should have mentioned this first," Sora said to Roxas. "That Akiko made a deal with them, so it's probably gonna be hard to get her to—"

"They made a deal?" Naminé felt out of breath. If they had made a deal, persuading Akiko to go back on it would be difficult. She was the one witch besides the Queen and Naminé herself who was able to use Hollow Bastion's magic, and she took all of that very seriously. She experimented with types of magic Naminé would never touch because they were too dangerous.

"Calm down," Riku suggested. "We just have to get her to lift it."

"Lift it," Naminé repeated, thinking.

"So we can kill them," Riku said. "To get rid of them, we have to kill them."

Everyone sat in silence, unwilling to move or speak. Naminé had already arrived at this conclusion before Riku said it, but she couldn't will herself to hate it any less.

"We're going to need you with us," Sora said quietly. "You're the only one she'll listen to."

"I'll be ready in two days," Naminé said, sitting herself up.

Nobody stopped her this time.

Riku sat, unmoving, staring off into the castle gardens, which were utterly destroyed, for the most part. Everything was overgrown with weeds, and the fountain's water was long since gone. He couldn't blame the staff that had stayed in the protection of the castle for not tending them – truly, there were only a few that had stayed. He remembered them as they were before he left, always in bloom thanks to a little magic. He remembered white rose bushes, pruned to perfection with delicate flowers blooming, lending their delicate scent to the air. There used to be so much green, but now there was only brown. He couldn't seem to rip his gaze from it.

"Riku?"

He turned at the sound of his name. "Yuri…how are you?"

She made a face. "Probably not as bad as you, though. I would be terrified."

"I'm not," Riku sighed. "Or not as afraid as I thought I would be. Why are you feeling bad?"

"I'm completely out of place here," she murmured. "I don't know where I belong. All of you are remembering these things that you've done, and… I'm the odd one out."

Riku shrugged his shoulders. "There are good memories. But there are really, really bad ones, too. You might be lucky."

She rubbed the back of her neck, black hair streaming down to the middle of her back. Her dark eyes shone like polished gems. "I guess I don't know what I expected when I came here."

His eyes met hers. He wanted her to know he was serious and honest as he said this. "It was brave," he said. "What you did was brave. This place needs us, and you threw yourself into something crazy for it. It was extraordinarily reckless," he said, "but also incredibly brave. You may not feel like you belong here, but trust me, what you did to help us get back here is just as important as anything I ever did."

She reached out, almost as though she wanted to touch him, but stopped herself. "Thanks," she said. The word sounded flat and woefully inadequate once she had said it.

"You were somebody," Riku said after a long silence. "I know you were. Leon knows you were, too, or he wouldn't have brought you here."

"You think so?" she looked up at him, seeming truly surprised that he would say such a thing.

He nodded. "I know."

She looked away from him finally, surveying the dilapidated gardens. "Can you even imagine what this place looked like, before everything?"

"I don't have to imagine. I saw it."

"I tried to imagine what your life was like," she said. "I couldn't."

He clicked his tongue. "Sounds like you're asking about it."

She smiled. "I am."

A brisk gust of wind blew, and Riku watched the way it was tousling her hair. "There was a girl," he began, almost wistful. "She was Magicite. She begged me to let her onto our side. She claimed that she hated it where she was."

"What did you do?"

"I tested her to see if she could be trusted," said Riku. "After a few weeks, it seemed that she had done everything I asked her to. She was helping us a lot, giving away a lot of valuable information…she and I became close friends, actually."

"Really," Yuri said blankly, an oddly distant look about her.

Riku felt himself being almost transported into the past as he shared this information with her. He had no idea why he was being so open with her – things were just pouring out, and for some reason, it felt oddly right to tell her what he was thinking about then. "I got too close. I was weak, and Roxas almost died because of it. I should never have trusted her at all." He brushed his hair behind his ears. "Even though it wasn't her fault that he got hurt. We can only blame ourselves."

Feeling an odd sensation, as though the air around him was suddenly very empty, Riku glanced over at Yuri. She lay sprawled out awkwardly on the ground, holding her head in her hands.

Riku leapt down from his perch on the short stone wall and was at Yuri's side, repeatedly saying her name. He tried to pick her up, but was zapped painfully by some sort of strange magic that seemed to be all around her. He knew she needed help, but he couldn't move her, and he didn't want to leave her. He resorted to shouting desperately at the top of his lungs, at a loss for what to do.

Yuri writhed in pain, and Riku's heart broke with every moment he had to watch one of his best friends looking so helpless and wounded. He tried every curing spell he could remember, but nothing seemed to help Yuri's state at all. Eventually, the tremors stopped and the odd, zappy magic vanished, much to Riku's relief. He grabbed for Yuri, scooping her up off of the ground and making a break for the infirmary.

He tried his best not to jostle her as he focused on moving as quickly as his legs would carry him.

"Riku?"

"Oh god, oh god, oh god…"

"Riku, please put me down."

He looked down at her. She was wide awake.

"Whoa. What is your problem? One minute you're on the ground, and the next, you're totally fine? It's almost as if you…" his voice trailed off uncertainly, indicating that he had thought better of what he was going to say.

"Almost as if I…remembered?" she quietly finished for him.

"Yeah," he affirmed. "Almost as if you remembered."

"Riku, what was all that yelling about?" Leon had rounded the corner at a sprint, almost running head-on into Riku, who was still carrying Yuri.

"Yuri collapsed; she needs to get to the infirmary."

Leon surveyed her critically. "I'm fine," Yuri assured him firmly.

"I'm not setting you down," Riku snapped, continuing past Leon and rounding the corner.

"I was coming to find you because we wanted to have a quick meeting to discuss our options," Leon said, falling into step beside Riku and Yuri.

"Are they closing in on us already?"

"Closing in?" said Leon. "Let's just say we need a plan."

Minutes later, they arrived at the infirmary. Everyone was already gathered in the hospital wing around Naminé's bed, chatting nervously amongst themselves. Riku set Yuri on the bed next to Naminé's to await inspection by Aeris. The circle of people widened to enclose the two beds, and silence fell.

"They've surrounded the castle," Leon said unsmilingly. "It's bad…they know you all haven't fought in years, and are ready to take advantage of that."

"We're surrounded," Naminé said, crossing her arms over her chest. "What are we going to do?"

"To make any gains at all, we have to get Akiko to lift the curse," Riku said. "Otherwise, we're fighting for nothing."

"Well," Aeris said as she examined Yuri's pupils for signs of concussion, "there are a few options secret passage-wise that they definitely don't know about. We can get you guys out."

She cast Leon a knowing look, and continued. "We've checked maps from the library of the secret ways out of the castle, and Ivy Pass seems to be our best option, as it leads straight down from here to about a day's journey from Akiko's home. It goes directly from one of the Queen's chambers."

"Ivy Pass can't be used," Yuri said quietly.

Everyone turned to stare at her. "And why not?" Leon demanded.

"Because I destroyed it."

Everyone gaped.

"Yuri. I can't believe you didn't tell me," Riku grumbled.

"Didn't tell you what?" Kairi asked, still watching Yuri with wide, surprised eyes.

"Yuri is the Queen," said Riku, "and, to top it off, her spell broke, but she didn't tell anybody."

Thanks for reading!

Love,

ladydemelza