Chapter 25: In which Sora is a good friend

"What do you want to start with?" Sora asked, rubbing his hands together. Namine shrugged, staring at him. The waves pounded in the distance. The sand crunched beneath her bare feet. Sora'd ditched his jacket, and it lay off to the side—summer had already started, and the afternoons were beginning to get hot.

"I dunno," Namine said. "I'm really only good at Reflect." It was the only one she'd been practicing. The only one she could practice while sitting in Kairi's bedroom. The only one she could practice without having her heart seize in her chest. Just the attempt of casting offensive spells made her feel queasy. She'd asked Kairi to help her to get used to it again, but Kairi's tough-love attitude didn't help. That's why she asked Sora.

She figured she should probably tell him the real reason she wanted to practice, but her tongue was tied, and he was talking before she could even sort her words enough to start.

"Reflect?" Sora looked at her with wide eyes. "I don't know that one."

Rather than explain it to him, Namine just reached out and cast it. The barrier came much quicker, and lasted a little longer—that's what she'd been practicing to do with it, along with make it reach a wider area. For now it still only surrounded her, but she was certain its reach was increasing, if only by inches.

"Whoa! Neat!" Sora rubbed his hands together again, eyes glinting with an eagerness to try. Before he asked her for any instruction, he reached out his hands, and commanded: "Reflect!" To Namine's surprise, the spell took—it didn't go completely around him, but it did reach over his head. For a first try, that was pretty outstanding.

"Amazing…" she whispered, trying not to gape, and trying not to feel jealous. She'd managed to learn it well enough to completely surround herself with it in a day, but it had definitely taken her more than a few tries. "Good- good job!" she told Sora, forcing a smile.

He was grinning, looking very pleased with himself. "Thanks! My magic's gotten a lot better lately. But, c'mon, that can't have been perfect. Tell me what I got wrong. Lemme try again."

They spent probably fifteen minutes going over it, though it consisted more of Sora casting it multiple times in a row than it did of Namine doing anything. He was trying to train himself to focus on the idea of the spell, to memorize the feel of it, something which could only be done through repetition. Rather than waste her energy by practicing it as well, Namine just watched, and gave him pointers, usually only when he demanded them. He had the spell mastered within those fifteen minutes.

"Alright," Sora said, after he'd downed an ether. "What now? You wanna work on something? What spells do you know?"

"That, Cure, and Fire…" Namine said, very slowly. Now was her chance. She just had to tell him.

"Then I guess Blizzard is where we start!" Sora moved to stand next to her, holding a hand out. "It's a lot like casting Fire, but instead of focusing on heat, you focus on cold, or picture ice… or a chunk of ice… Blizzard is actually pretty fun because it comes in different forms, if you want it to. Watch." He cast it twice in rapid succession—the first was a blast of ice from his hand, the second a chunk that dropped from the sky, then he turned to her with a grin. "It just depends on how you picture it in your head when you cast it! You try!"

Namine reached out her hand, too afraid for a moment to speak, too afraid to do anything but go along, even though it was not quite what she wanted to do. She could hardly raise her hand, though. Her chest seemed to constrict.

"Something wrong…?" Sora asked, studying her.

"I…" She licked her lips, and pulled her hand back to her chest. "I'm not sure if I'm… If I can…" That wasn't right. None of those words were right. "I just want… I want to be able to cast offensive magic without freezing up…"

Sora considered her a long moment, obviously not understanding at first. It clicked before he had to ask, at least, and patience washed over his face. "Ah, I see! Right, then Aero is what I need to be teaching you—it's offensive, but it doesn't do much more than push an enemy back and away from you. Maybe it does damage? I wouldn't count on it doing a lot though…" He shook his head, then with a sweep of his hand commanded: "Wind!"

A blast of air carved its way through the sand. Namine could feel it pull at her a little. She licked her lips. Sora sent a reassuring smile at her. "Think you can do that?" he asked.

"I… Let me try…"

It couldn't do any damage. She had to keep telling herself that in order to make herself even raise her hand from her side. She could not hurt anyone with it. She could not hurt anyone.

Namine took a deep breath, then mirrored Sora's actions exactly, down to the verbal command and sweep of her arm. A gust of wind fled her, though it was much more feeble than Sora's had been. At least it was something.

"Good job!" Sora clapped her on the back. She tried not to tense at his touch. "See? You've got this. Try again, alright? Let's see how far we can get with this."

They practiced for a while more, and Namine's blasts became slowly more powerful—only by a little at a time, but she was no magical prodigy, and she knew well enough it could be months before she really had a hang of it.

Sora eventually coaxed her into trying it against him, reminding her that it was just a gust of wind, and it could not hurt him. "The worst that could happen is I get sand in my mouth!" he told her, laughing. He still had to assure her it wouldn't hurt him at least twenty times, and she had to remind herself a thousand more before she was able to even prepare to cast the spell against him.

She managed to do it, though, with only the slightest catch of her stomach. The air did nothing more but whip at Sora's clothes, and he grinned at her, once he'd pulled his arm away from shielding his face. "There you go!" he said. "Try it again. I'll Reflect this time."

Namine took a few deep breaths, but cast it again for him. He cast Reflect before it hit, and when his spell went down, he grinned even wider. "Didn't feel a thing!" he told her. Namine sighed in relief. That was good to hear.

"Wanna try with a different spell?" Sora asked. "How about Blizzard again? That one's relatively harmless—or, it can't do any serious damage. Maybe a couple bruises."

Her stomach churned at the thought of having to cast another spell against Sora. She should tell him that that was enough practicing for today. That maybe she should just practice Aero for now—thank you for teaching it to me. There were so many excuses, but she could open her mouth to form none of them.

Sora took her through the steps of casting Blizzard again, and had her cast it at the empty air in front of them for a while. She could make herself cast it, now. She could make herself cast it. Perhaps it was because she knew it could not hurt anyone so long as she aimed at the sand. Perhaps she was just getting in the groove again.

In fact, Namine felt fairly confident before long. She could cast the magic without freezing up. That's all she wanted. Her confidence and good mood fled her, though, when Sora proposed the idea of her tossing Blizzard at him while he Reflected.

"It won't hurt me," he told her, for the hundredth time. "I have good reflexes, I'll get the Reflect up in time, and I'll be fine! And even if I don't, somehow, it's just Blizzard. Like I said, the worst I can get is a bruise, and nothing a simple Cure couldn't fix. C'mon, Namine!"

She wanted to tell him no. That was enough for today. She was too nervous. But it was hard to refuse, hard to deny the eager glint in Sora's eyes. The thought of casting the spell against him scared her to death. The thought of backing out and explaining herself and having to argue against Sora's persistence scared her just as much.

So as Sora took his stance, Namine took deep breaths and prepared herself to do it. She raised her hand to cast the spell—

All she could see was Riku, lying in his own blood.

Her laugh, his screams, ringing in her ears.

Get up, you worthless piece of—

Her stomach heaved. The air fled her lungs. Bile rose to her mouth. A faint thumping started in the back of her head.

"No!" she cried, falling to her knees. She shook her head vigorously, clutching at her hair. She couldn't do it.

"Namine?" Sora was at her side before her name had finished leaving his lips. "C'mon, you okay?"

"N-no, no stay back! I'm going to hurt you!"

"I already told you, a Blizzard—"

"Sora, seriously!"

The thumping in her head was too familiar. The itch of her blood.

"You aren't going to hurt anyone, Namine…" Sora said, after a moment.

She shook her head again. He wasn't listening. How could he not be listening? It was him who restrained her, in the end, when it had come down to it. He knew how much damage she could do as well as anyone else. Didn't he remember?

"I'm going to hurt you!" she cried again. She would have pushed him away from her, but even that could turn into a further form of violence. Even if he did not remember, she did.

Sora did not budge an inch. Was he insane? "Namine, come on, that's not true!" he said. "I'm your friend. You wouldn't hurt me."

"Please, Sora, just stay back!"

Instead he pulled her into a hug. Tears welled up in her eyes, in part from the comfort of it, in part from terror. He was too close to avoid getting hurt, if something did happen, if she did—

"It's okay," he whispered, holding her tight and doing nothing more. "You won't hurt me. You aren't going to hurt anyone. You're safe now."

She shook her head and did not stop. The pounding in her head persisted. "They're gonna make me hurt you, they did, they put it in my head that I have to—"

"No, shh, that was fixed, wasn't it? That was fixed. You aren't going to attack anyone."

"I'm scared. I'm scared." Tears poured from her eyes, and her stammers became sobs. "I don't want to hurt anyone again. I- I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You're not gonna hurt anyone," Sora repeated. "I promise, Namine, you aren't going to. Not if you don't want to."

"But on accident?"

He shrugged, slightly, and Namine felt it as he did. "Accidents happen," Sora said. "But you won't hurt anyone on purpose. There's no way."

It was too much to take, too much to believe, and she was terrified. "But- but even if I don't want to, I- even if I don't want to, I- I'm going to. I- I never wanted to kill Riku, I never wanted to but I nearly did. I nearly did."

"They fixed that," Sora clutched her tightly, grounding how her body shook. "You won't do it again. You gotta believe you're okay, because you are okay."

"O-okay…"

"Shh, you're okay."

"Okay."

He held her for a long while, until she could breathe properly again. He kept reminding her that she was okay, every now and then, just as the silence seemed too much and tears broke in her eyes again. How his timing was so perfect, Namine did not know, but she was very grateful for him to be here, very grateful to have Sora as a friend.

When he finally let her go, they sat in the sand, saying nothing for a moment. Sora looked like he wanted to. Namine looked down at her hands. After studying them for a bit, and once sure Sora would not say anything, she spoke, quietly, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"It's just… I nearly killed Riku," she said. It was something of an apology. An explanation. "That doesn't just… go away."

"I- I know," Sora said. "I know."

He shifted a little, so he wasn't sitting casually anymore, but hunched over his folded knees. He took a long breath.

"And I- I know this probably doesn't compare to what you had to go through, but… I was forced to fight a lot of people I didn't want to, and in the end, I was forced to kill all of them—" His voice caught, and he shuddered a little. "I- I killed them. I killed people. And, I- I know that Organization 13 was a group of bad people who would do bad things, and I know that he apparently had to die, but I still… It… Y'know." He sent her a bitter smile. "It doesn't go away."

"Right…"

And Sora was right about it not comparing more than anything else. He did not have to face and fight someone he loved. Worse, he did not want to do it.

It was the memory of wanting to kill Riku, wanting to slice him open, that burned her worse than anything else. The glee she'd felt as she watched him writhe. That was real, even if it was elicited by programming, by something that was not her. She remembered it very clearly, and it stained her mind.

She could not bring herself to correct Sora, though.

She could not belittle his feelings—he was just trying to comfort her, to be sympathetic, and she understood that. She could not tell him that it did not work, could not bear telling him that it made her feel no better.

So she kept her thoughts to herself.

"I'm sorry, by the way," Sora said, after a moment. "I… I shouldn't have pushed you to try that, even if it was harmless… We should've just gone and fought Heartless. I would've been able to practice Reflect, and you'd have been able to practice casting spells. Heartless are all you're probably gonna be fighting from here on, anyway. I can't think of any other big-bad-guy threats like Organization 13."

Namine shrugged. "It's okay."

"You mean that?" Sora leaned in close to her, twisting his head so he could look at her from the position he put himself in.

"You were trying to help," Namine said, with another shrug. "And you didn't realize right away that it wasn't going to… That's not your fault…"

"Well, still, next time lemme know if you're getting uncomfortable. You've gotta let your friends know about that stuff!"

She nodded, having no voice to say anything else. Trying not to think about how hard that was, even if it was what she needed to do.

Sora slowly poked her knee. "You wanna go fight Heartless now?" he asked.

"No. I want to go to Castle Oblivion. I- I want to make sure I'm safe."

"You are, Namine."

"I want to talk to 7."

Sora looked at her as if he could stare an answer out of her, then he sighed. "Alright," he agreed. He jumped to his feet and pulled her to hers, then dug his star shard out of his pocket. A few seconds later, they were both whisked away.