"NDS: Book 11: Chapter 69: Hollow Company"

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A pale blue light came into the living room of one Adven Bok. It touched the wooden wall across from him as he sat on his couch, staring vacantly at the photo that hung on the wall of his beloved mother. Viciously staring at it without emotion. "This isn't my house. No, it's not real at all. Just fake." He commented as he stared at the photo. "Why…do I have to remember it now?" He covered his face to force back some tears, but could not. Adven remembered how his shell came about. A faded memory he wanted to forget.

He could see himself in his mind, back when he was young, at the age of five or so. His brown hair the same length as today, just scaled down to fit his head. His little hand though was holding the frail hand of an older woman, the age of her body being thirty. She had pale skin covering her bones, most likely because she was sick. But in her eyes was the most beautiful gray-blue and on her head was long auburn hair just like Adven's own head in the present. Adven's memories that he saw with his eyes closed came in clearer. He envisioned his younger self, with his hand in this woman's own, as she lie in bed looking fondly at him, but he recalled himself wearing a worried and terrified look. It was the doctor's home in his hometown. He remembered his plea at the time, "Mommy…please don't leave me…."

She simply had smiled at him with a look that enveloped him with love. Something that warmed the coldest of hearts and settled away the worst of worries and fears. "I promise you…I won't." A smile that could cover lies.

Adven opened his eyes to look back at the photo of his mother on the wall. He stared at it for what was minutes, but felt like hours. His look of pain left with his tears for a look of anger as he moved violently ripping the curtain down before stopping. His rapid and jagged breathing sounding out. His last memory of her. His last memory.

It was a few days after he had been with her at the doctor's. He stood before the newly dug grave of his mother. A grave that was not even given a tombstone because his father would not pay for it. His father could only have enough to pay for the house and food, and not the stone. He chose his way, but Adven, even now owning the house after his father died and he had the deed, won from Dal, even owning it now, Adven would still give it all up just to place a stone there. He felt he could not until now. When he returned home he planned on putting one there. He swore that he could not put one down until he owned the Bok home, and now he did. Adven hated his father for the rest of the older man's life. Not just for doing that to his mother, but because he was a terrible father, one that Adven swore he would never be. Adven clearly remembered the words of his younger self from that day at the grave: "Now, it's all over…I'm all alone now…I'll always be alone…"

He opened his eyes and sat down on the couch once more with his hands at his side. He let his memories soak in, and more importantly, the words he had said in the past. "I am…still alone. Ever since my mother left me." He bitterly thought of the one and only lie she ever told him. That she would stay with him. She lied! That stung him so hard it ripped him apart. The only person, he could ever truly love, and who was the most important to him, even in death, lied to him. That had his fingers confused on whether they should turn to a fist or not. They merely flinched with an unknown feeling Adven had never felt in his life. Was it more correct to say he might be trembling? This was his mother's home! Not his father's, he was not here enough. He was only six! Six! And he was left alone by a liar. He fought Dal so hard to get this home back for his mother, and for what? The woman who taught him what it was to be alone by leaving him to go on to a grave. "I…I was meant…for the moment I was born…to be alone." He muttered, only to himself. His hand finally became a fist. "That would…that would explain why I can't tell Sakura I love her. I don't even know what love is. And how can I love someone if the only people I love leave me?"

He looked back to the photo of his mother, but it was no longer there. He did not question where it had gone, and instead took in a breath of the stuffy air that seemed so real, but was not. He nodded with a final decision. "I'm fine with the fact that I will always be alone. No one wants to be with me anyway. I can just tell, feel, that being alone is the way I'm meant to be."

Adven felt a sudden rush to the head before he found himself in knee deep water. He slowly stood upward noticing that although he was in water, he was not wet. That part was not true in Twilight Lone it seemed. "Now where am I?" He huffed. He looked at the sun that was across the lake he was at the shore of, and saw the sun either lowering or raising. Time did not exist in a world of illusions, at least like that, and so he could not tell sunset from sunrise.

"Adven?" From the sandy shore Sakura slowly walked towards the water. He looked to her and stepped to the sand as well. Sakura could not describe the joy she felt in seeing him after the fear that took over her when she got here. She was so afraid of being alone. Adven himself, felt a sting of pain as her hair blew in the wind and he saw her beauty once more, always captivating him no matter when. He knew she could never be his though. He simply remained with a neutral face, but had this uncontrollable urge to swallow some saliva. "I…was so scared." She said through trembling lips, still caught up in her fear. "At least for a moment I was. I thought…I thought I was all alone again. Like before…oh, so many times before." She looked to him biting her lip as she walked towards him through the sand. "I'm glad that you're here now."

Without thought Adven let out his true malicious feelings that were now bitter and jaded, thanks to his revelation here in his own Twilight Lone realm. All he had to live for now was loneliness, and he knew it was only right to say his good-byes. "I always will be alone, Sakura." He said to her forcefully, out of spite. "I am too hollow to mean anything to someone, and I know, being a vacant body, that I can't cure the loneliness in you." He let it all out on the line, meaning them to be his final words to her, "I love you." His serious remark left her holding her breath as he continued. "I'm going to go now, Sakura. I'm leaving this beach, and I will return to the life of the wanderer. I'm not meant to be seen by another any longer. I will help Jet, and then fade away."

He slowly walked past her unevenly due to the way it is when walking in sand. It was the hardest walk for him, physically, now that he left all other forms of them behind with Sakura. "Stupid!" Her bold words caused Adven's eyes to widen. He had never heard her like that in his life. And he has heard her talk and shout and whisper in many forms. And that was one he never received. Still, even though Adven's retreat came to a halt, he failed to turn and look at her. "Why do you have to go and leave?" She wondered as Adven swallowed an empty mouth and felt his air leave him like he were suffocating. "I loved Jet, Adven."

"I know that." He spat. As great a guy Adven found Jet to be, and as much grief Adven gave him, he knew somehow that Jet was the only one he could turn to even though that gray-haired man was the source of his frustrations. "I know that you love him! That's why I'd rather be alone like I was born to be! When you asked who it was I wanted to grow old with it was you! And you said it was him! So of course I know." Adven erupted harsh words.

Sakura stood calm as she stood there with him now turned due to his shouting at her. She turned to him as well; her legs no longer feeling frozen. "From the moment I arrived here, what seems like years ago, but has probably only been minutes, " She began with tears in her eyes. When Adven looked at them, all he could see was himself reflected back, and it stung him even more. It shattered something within his body and soul. "From the moment I got here I only desired to be with the people I care for." She continued, with as much velocity and emotion in her voice as Adven, but with purer words. "And what it came down to, and the first thought in my head, was that the same man who had treated me like a queen and followed me faithfully would be here to take me out of this place. All I could do was wonder where Adven was, and if he could reach me, and why he wasn't here yet, because there was no doubt in my mind that you would show up in the end. And I was so happy that he did come…but he came with you." She closed her eyes as the tears pushed away. "There has never been a man that I could trust. I thought they were horrible people, just like my father. And maybe I was right, because here you are, but Adven Bok, he…he isn't that sort of person. I know I can trust him." Though, she would admit, to herself, that she could never trust a man, there were just some he could trust better. "Adven, I…I…I, like you." She shut her eyes, as if in pain, as a twinge of regret took her when she was so pathetic to say 'like' when he was willing to say love. She looked at him desperately, besides the point. "I want you to stay by my side, Adven, and no one else. Because, we are two lonely people, there's no changing that, but…it proves that we aren't alone. There are others like us! And I know in the end, no matter how badly things turn out, they will be fine in the end."

There was a silence that went on forever. Adven finally made his steps again, and this time back for the shore where she was. Her tears since dried by the wind. Adven had thought of Sakura in her heart back before he left his realm, even though he had resolved to be lonely. He knew his heart is what led him here. "I-I will stay then. Here. With you, I mean." A burden had lifted away from him. "Maybe, maybe we weren't born alone…maybe, we were just born without one another."

She nodded. "Let's go back to the others Adven. I have no time to feel alone if I know I can never be."

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Clive looked around his empty house in Humphrey's Peak. The green haired man simply stood up. "I can't be here. My friends are waiting on me probably and I have to help them if I think Generator Eon is what it is…they will need me." He scoffed as he went to the front door. "I have no time to worry about being alone or not because I plan to stick to my teammates and family, and if I do that I know I will never be alone. If I get back to them I won't be!"

Clive found himself staring at Adven and Sakura, while Virginia was hurrying down the stairs to meet them. "You're all back!" She said with relief. "I was worried you weren't going to come back."

Clive let go of the celebratory mood. Things were not done yet, and he had a family member to stop. "We should get going. Eon is a sandcraft, and by remaining motionless here we are allowing it the chance to get away." He quickly climbed the flight of stairs and started the engines back up. "Sakura, you can handle the helm."

She nodded. "Right." Sakura quickly took her seat, getting ready to take them out.

"Jet, Gallows, and Emilia went to Eon." Virginia interjected.

"That means we can't just go and destroy the thing." Adven commented. "Even if we could…" he eventually lamented after seeing how big Eon really was.

"Don't worry, I have a plan." Clive assured them. "If Eon begins to move it will be too fast to catch. The speed must be incredible, but don't worry about that. Just worry about getting there and I will use the guns to fight."

"Can the others defeat Nobuo, though?" Sakura wondered.

"I have a strong faith in Jet…er…as well as Emilia and Gallows." Virginia replied. "I know they will not fail us."

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An: Deleted. I revoked my comments before I unleashed them. To sum them up, don't dis this chapter because the Adven-Sakura scene is one of my favorites and the best one I can understand aside from some more that are coming up now.