"WAKE UP! NEKU!" Nodoka screamed as she shook my limp body. The battle had come to an end but I was still talking to Hikari. Nodoka kept shaking me. Tears streaming down her face. After a while she became tired and dropped me back on to the ground. She put her head on my bloodied chest and sobbed, "No! You can't die! You just can't! We have to both get back alright, together..."

"You look really cute like that, but I hope to never see that face again. 'kay?"

Nodoka looked up at me in disbelief. I would have waved at this point but if sort of hard when your struggling to keep yourself alive. "NEKU!" Nodoka exclaimed in joy and relief. She hugged me hard. Any other day, just any other, I would have enjoyed this moment, but I am in sooooo much pain now because of it.

"Ahhhh Nodoka? This is REALLY hurting right now."

Something must have clicked in her head at that moment cause she jumped off me with a little yelp. "I'm sooooo sorry, Neku! I'll find some clean bandages right away!" She apologizes as she starts to walk off. I raise my voice as much as possible.

"Soak the bandages in Fennel seeds and say 'occultus vox , solvo!' it will make the bandages much more effective"

Before all this had started, I had noticed a storage place for herbs. Fennel seeds have the ability to provide better healing and protection, if their inner power is released into bandages that is. She turns around and nods in acknowledgement. After she leaves, I vomit up some blood that had gathered in my stomach. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Well, I really wish I had a coffee right this moment. Might cause me to bleed out faster but who cares, I should be dead anyway after being stabbed in nearly every inch of your torso, seventy billion times! No! I should concentrate on not bleeding out. Nodoka will be on her way back in a minute with the bandages. "Don't worry Neku. It'll be fine. I'm regulating your blood flow at the moment to help slow it down" come a voice in my head. Must be Hikari at work, so he doesn't die aswell. I think back my thanks and then my mind goes blank. I haven't given much thought about meeting my brother like I did. What went wrong to make him like this? Why did he try and kill me? and the one question that's niggling in the bak of my mind, Why is he at Mahora of all places? As I'm contemplating these questions, Nodoka comes back with the fennel seed soaked bandages. "I hope this is right." Nodoka mummbled to herself, almost inaudibly. She dresses my wounds when I come up with a question.

"Nodoka, what do you really think of me?"

Nodoka hesitated with the bandages for a second, you could barely tell it ever happened. She continued with her work while saying, "Neku is a fine gentleman, but needs to slow down on alot of things in his life." She said all this with out looking at me. Huh. I try to move my face to meet her eyes but I feel a massive throb of pain. I blackout for a second. When I come to, Nodoka is looking at me with a huge amount of worry in her beautiful eyes. I have got to stop worrying her.

"I'm fine now. We have to concentrate on getting out of this underground reading room. It maybe paradise but we can't live here forever."

Nodoka sighs in relief and understanding. "I know but we aren't leaving until you have healed enough to move around properly." I think back to the book I read about the healing properties of fennel seeds. It should take maybe four to five hours to become fully healed, so I give maybe two and a half maybe three hours. But until then I'll have to come up with a way out of here.

"Nodoka, Can you find me a certain book from the shelves, even though I doubt it has it, please? It has a blood red leather binding cover and it has green letters etched on the side. I can't remember what it was called though."

Nodoka looks at me thoughtfully. "I think I saw a book like that in the bookshelves closest to the hot springs," Nodoka finally says out loud. I nod to her and give her my assurance that I'll be fine by my self and the like. She is almost like a mum. Untill Nodoka comes back I can't do anything, I just have to stay put of the ground and let the bandages do their work. But when she comes back, we're going to go back to school together. I smile and close my eyes, letting the last thought linger in my head of Nodoka and I holding hands while walking back to school.

*Author's Space*
Ok then people, my part of my research is done and my homework flow has lessened quite substantually so i thought that this would be a great time to write up another chapter and finally give myself a deadline time for each chapter, which will be every friday in Australia. and HURRAY! they finally leaving the reading room! I haven't mentioned it yet in the story but they have been in there for nearly 7 days now so i thought i better release them from the basement under my house XD and another part of this great news is WLAFN has nearly reached 1000 hits! and in celebration of this when it does surpass the milestone, I'll finally release the lexicon. AND thank you for everyone who is supporting this story, cause if you werent' then you wouldn't be disrupting my Final Fantasy XIII play time.