Author's Note: Well, it took me longer than I would have liked to post this, but things have been really crazy both for me and my friend who was helping read through this. So, without further ado, let's get into the story!
Naminé felt herself completely lost in the flow of her powers as a faint image intruded on her thoughts. Dropping any pretense of paying attention to Ms. Folia's lesson on pre-Calculus, she immediately started sketching out the vision that came to her. Back when she was working on Sora's memories—both in Twilight Town and in Castle Oblivion—she would always get a clear image of what she would want to see and drawing out the pictures had merely been a focus to make changes to the links in the chain. Now, things became much harder with Sora's disappearance, and she felt like she was working in reverse. Instead of creating pictures as a byproduct of analyzing memories, she felt like the pictures were creating themselves and she had to try to analyze whatever Sora might be seeing from what she had. Considering the flashes came to her at random times and she often couldn't use anything more than a pencil to record them, she almost missed her previous working conditions where she was at least allowed an eight-pack of crayons as a utensil.
The blaring of the bell cut into Naminé's trance, leaving a long streak of graphite extending off of her page and across the surface of the desk. She quickly started erasing it, both to clean up her mess and to have something physical to do to burn out some frustration. Even if she hadn't been interrupted and had had a full studio of art supplies, all she would have gotten was the same image before her: a figure that she could easily recognize as Sora fighting against a blurred figure with silver hair. This memory might be something Sora was currently experiencing, or it could just as easily be a phantom echo from his many fights against Riku or the younger incarnations of Xehanort.
Almost as if the universe felt her frustration and wanted to pile on, a pair of hands snatched her notebook away before she could react. Naminé wasn't surprised to hear the grating laugh of Chelinka, another student who had decided to make Naminé's adjustment to regular life difficult. Naminé wasn't surprised when the other girl saw the picture and immediately jumped to conclusions. "What is this, Sora and Riku now? What, couldn't be happy with stealing Riku from us and now you have to go for his missing friend too? I'm not sure what kind of freaky stuff you're into that a wallflower like you managed to sink your claws into a total stud like him, but if you break his heart your life is going to be a living hell."
Naminé took a deep breath before focusing a glare on the girl who had been bullying her for the past month. A set of voices in her head that sounded oddly like Marluxia and Larxene were egging her on to get revenge, but she managed to quell their instinct to just summon a weapon or let loose with offensive magic. She'd have to be a bit more subtle than that, and while Chelinka hadn't been close enough to Sora that Naminé could affect her memories, her powers did give her another way to hurt her. After all, Sora might not have been close to Chelinka, but he had been in her same class ever since he started school. And since Naminé had gone over Sora's memories so many times between Castle Oblivion and Twilight Town, she had more than enough ammunition.
Naminé's face morphed to a smirk as she responded. "Well, when you put it that way it almost sounds like you care about Riku as more than just an object. I can't help but think that things might have worked out between you if you ever showed that to him—especially after the tomato juice incident…"
Chelinka's eyes widened in shock that Naminé would even know about that, but the slight gap was all Naminé needed to snatch her notebook back and head out of the room before anybody could respond. If nothing else, another month of Keyblade training had certainly done wonders for her athletic ability, and she made her way out of school at a pace that was a brisk walk to her but would require almost anybody else to run if they ever wanted to catch her. She didn't break her stride as she crossed through the gates, but fortunately the person who had been waiting for her was one of the few people on the islands who could easily catch up to her.
Naminé didn't slow down until Riku handed her a to-go cup containing her favorite paopu fruit smoothie. "Looks like you had a rough day. Hopefully this helps." The action was something of a tradition now, with Riku waiting outside the high school with a takeout order from a local coffee shop. It had started around two months ago when he would treat Naminé and Kairi before they headed out to the play island to practice with their Keyblades, but it continued for the past month even with Kairi asleep in Radiant Garden trying to find clues that would lead to Sora. Naminé took a sip of the drink only to grimace.
"Was it somebody new working the counter today? I think they added some coconut extract to this." While Kairi loved the taste, Naminé couldn't stand it. She wasn't sure if it was the disappointment over the drink or the long day of stress, but Naminé was distracted enough that she didn't notice Riku closing the distance between them until his voice sounded directly in her ear.
"Here, let me see." Without backing away, Riku swiped the drink out of Naminé's hands and took a sip. While Naminé's brain froze up as she processed exactly how close they were, Riku just shrugged. "Tastes the same to me, but I'll take your word for it."
Riku then took a couple of steps in front of her, leaving Naminé to blush over the whole exchange in peace. It had been perfectly fine working alongside Riku back when she was a Nobody and had plenty of work to drown out the weakened emotions that came from that state, but now that she had a Replica body and a fully fledged heart sometimes these random emotional spikes got to be too much to handle. She wasn't sure what Riku had meant by taking a sip out of her straw—was that basically him indirectly kissing her? Did he mean anything by that, or was it just something he didn't think of? A small part of her wanted to let the distance stay between them until she could calm down from the slew of questions she was asking herself, but another part wanted to keep the conversation going.
"You're just saying that because you can't appreciate the taste of anything other than that dark roast coffee. What, are you so dedicated to the darkness that you have to drink it, too?" Admittedly, teasing probably wasn't the most mature way to respond to embarrassment, but Riku just laughed in response.
"Gotta keep up the brand recognition, right? Besides, it was Ansem who drank it because of the darkness. I just grew to like the taste after months of his influence." He then turned back towards Naminé with a more serious expression. "But seriously, if you'd like to talk about what's going on, I'd be happy to listen. I can tell it's something."
Naminé sighed. "It's not anything important. I may not have much life experience, but I did spend a lot of time going through Sora's memories so I'm pretty sure it would be safe to call this typical teen drama. Maybe more on the younger side of the teen scale, but let's just say that some of the girls in my class haven't really matured much since middle school and seem to be jealous of the fact that you're spending time with me instead of them."
Riku sighed. "Seriously? Why do they still think that? Sure, fifteen-year-old me wanted to be the broody guy all the girls dreamed of, but fifteen-year-old me thought that the darkness wasn't dangerous and that holding a Keyblade for thirty seconds made him the one true Keyblade Master. I was an idiot back then, and I thought I've made more of an effort to show the real me to everyone around here."
Hearing the dejection in his voice, Naminé reached out and grabbed his arm to bring them face to face. "You made some mistakes, but since you've learned from them you shouldn't be so hard on yourself for your past. And I know how hard it can be to feel like you have to keep the truth of your past away from everyone, but just know that I'll always be happy to know the real you instead of some idealized version."
She could tell by the way his face lightened that she had gotten through to him, but now that she was no longer focused on a problem she noticed just how close they were standing. Naminé immediately blushed and put on some extra speed to get back home, practically running there to try and hide her embarrassment. While it worked for a little bit, it wasn't until she got to the door of her new house and reached to open it that she realized she had never let go of Riku's arm and had practically dragged him along with her. Then again, considering his longer legs he probably wasn't as inconvenienced by her pace, but she still made sure to let go before her new guardians could see.
She went immediately up the stairs to her room with only a quick "I'm home, Jun" to Kairi's mom and started changing into her outfit enchanted by the Three Fairies. It was a copy of the outfit she had first bought for herself back in Twilight Town, with the added benefit of being able to use a Dark Corridor safely in addition to being more comfortable to fight in. Once she was ready, she went back to the living room where Riku was waiting and summoned up a Dark Corridor. While it was fairly easy to row out to the play island, the corridor still was faster and it also served as a way for her to continue practicing her control over darkness.
Once they arrived on the beach, Riku turned to her. "So, you up for running or gunning first?"
Naminé didn't bother facing him as she went through a few stretches. "Well, I've got some frustration to work out, so if you're up to it I'll start as the gunner. Any preference on which course?"
Riku smirked. "Is there any point in playing on anything other than the highest difficulty? I'm going with level four." With that, he went to the starting point of the obstacle course he and Sora had used all those years ago and activated an AR headset gifted to him by Hiro Hamada. Naminé activated her own headset and glowing rings appeared throughout the entire play island. This had fast become one of Riku's favorite opening exercises—as a warmup, each Keyblade wielder would go through an obstacle course that lasted 10 laps around the island. The person going through the course was trying to beat their own personal high score, while the other people involved would do their best to try and slow them down by any means available. It had been much more difficult for the runners when Kairi was still here and there were two people trying to interrupt them, but having a one on one session just meant Naminé had to be more inventive to keep up with her more experienced friend.
Of course, all of that had to wait until they set up the course. After all, there was only so much they could build out of the materials available to them on the island, and no matter how advanced the VR goggles were they wouldn't let them physically interact with objects that weren't there. So, Riku and Naminé took a quick lap around the island, firing off ice magic to create the various rails needed to reach all of the positions where the glowing rings of the course would be. Naminé was hopeful that she'd soon be able to match Riku in casting Blizzaga, but for now Blizzara would have to do. Once the rails were all completed, she and Riku returned to the starting point.
While Riku took a ready stance on the starting platform, Naminé transformed Destiny's Embrace into its glider form. It would hardly be fair to force the gunners to run under their own power to keep up with the person running the course, so she would get to ride a Keyblade glider while pelting Riku with magic to try and slow him down. With both of them ready, their goggles started counting down the start of the course.
3...2...1…
"Stopga!" Naminé timed her spell to the start of the course, but Riku was expecting the move and had faded into his Dark Roll immediately, taking him out of phase with the stopped time around Naminé and letting him continue along his path. Of course, Naminé hadn't expected things to be that easy at the start, and flew alongside him sending bursts of Fira and Thundara at Riku, who was able to easily dodge through the bolts of lightning and swat away the balls of fire with Braveheart. By this point, he had finished the wooden section of the obstacle course and started to enter the ice railings—but Naminé had a trap ready to catch him. As soon as he started using Flowmotion, Naminé called out, "Slowga!"
Unlike her previous spell, Riku wasn't able to Dark Roll through this while he was maintaining his Flowmotion, leaving Naminé sure she'd catch him and wear out multiple seconds until he could resume his normal speed. However, what she wasn't counting on was him abandoning the rail and jumping over the area of the spell. Grinding her teeth, Naminé realized she'd need to kick things up a notch. She let Riku get a bit ahead of her so he wouldn't see what she was doing and downed an Ether in preparation. Then, she focused on merging a Blizzard Spell with a Stop spell before calling out, "Time Freeze!"
The combined spell went along the existing ice rail, leaving another thin layer of ice that was barely noticeable. Of course, that was the point, as an obvious trap wouldn't be effective. The combination spell had come from witnessing Aqua combine the homing ability of a Firaga with the area of effect of a Thundaga into her Thundaga Shot spell, and while Naminé wasn't able to merge third tier spells she was able to do so on the lower levels. Now all she had to do was make sure Riku hit that portion of ice and he'd be hit by the Stop effect without realizing it. With the first layer of her trap prepared, she quickly flew across the island so she could cut off Riku as he continued through the course.
She kept a little bit of pressure on him with Firas, Aeroras, and Blizzaras just to keep him from getting too suspicious, and as soon as she saw him approaching the enchanted rail she merged a Thunder and a Slow spell. "Slow Storm!" Bolts of lightning rained down in front of Riku, but instead of fading instantly the addition of the Slow spell caused them to linger, forming a cage of lightning. Naminé knew Riku would have to avoid the bolts to avoid being inflicted by slow, but either jumping over them or rolling through them would put him directly onto her rigged ice rail. He could avoid the obvious attack but that would leave him easy prey to the hidden one.
However, she wasn't expecting Riku to smirk at her. "Sorry, Naminé, but I know you can do better than that, and you'll have to if you want to stop me." With that, he ran straight through the cage of lightning, seemingly not affected in the slightest. He then did a one-handed handstand on the rail, waving cheekily at her as he slid along without any effect of her Stop spell. Naminé could only gasp in shock as she tried to figure out what went wrong before casting one more spell.
"Libra!" The spell was a creation of her own design improving on the Scan technique, and once it was active she noticed Riku was covered in a green glow. She recognized the Shell spell, but there was something else there as well. Once she recognized it, she couldn't help but fly next to Riku and question him in surprise.
"Did you just make yourself immune to any negative magical effects by combining Shell with Esuna?"
Riku laughed. "I may be a master, but that doesn't mean I can stop learning. And when one of my students managed to combine a Shellra and a Protectra to withstand all of my attacks, I got inspired. You would not believe how many times I got this wrong, but now I'll be able to keep pushing you to improve."
Naminé was a bit conflicted on that. On the one hand, the fact that Riku valued her skills highly enough to emulate them into his fighting style warmed her heart. On the other, the fact that said emulation completely negated what she had taken to be her greatest combat skills frustrated her to no end. Still, there was a bit of hope left. Melding two spells was difficult, and using three at once was practically impossible. If Riku was using Shell and Esuna, he would be open to physical attacks, and while that wasn't normally Naminé's strength she did have something she was working on that just might turn the tides. It wasn't quite combat tested, but if Riku was going to take away her trump card she would have to take a riskier approach.
"Hastega!" As the magic rushed over her, Riku seemed to slow to a crawl in front of Naminé and the sounds of the island distorted to a much lower pitch. If Riku's magic prevented her from slowing him down, Naminé would just have to speed up herself instead. She returned Destiny's Embrace from its glider form and rushed towards Riku. It was almost comical how the look of shock slowly spread across his face, but even though she recognized the movement of him raising his barrier he wasn't able to react quickly enough before she struck him in the shoulder and knocked him down towards the sand below. Of course, since Naminé's spell was making her perceive things much faster, he was falling in slow motion and Naminé took that opportunity to land some additional air combos on him. It might not have been the fairest thing, but her spell wasn't actually slowing Riku so she wanted to get as many hits in as possible hoping the damage would accomplish what her magic couldn't.
Riku finally hit the ground as the Hastega spell wore off, and Naminé smirked at him as her perception of time returned to normal. She was about to taunt him for leaving himself open, but her words were lost in a sudden ringing in her ears and a darkness that filled her vision, leaving her no sensation but the feeling of falling…
Riku groaned as he collapsed into the sand. He had known Naminé was able to use the Haste spell, but he didn't expect her to suddenly bust out a Hastega. He had tried to defend himself, but before his Barrier could form he had been assaulted by a pale purple blur and couldn't even count the number of times he got hit. Since his MP was still in the process of recovering from his combined defensive spells, he would just have to let Naminé enjoy this victory for a bit before he could cast Curaga and resume his laps through the course. At least her spell was also wearing off, letting her come back into focus with a smirk on her face. Riku was prepared for whatever snide remark she was about to throw at him, but he wasn't ready for her eyes to suddenly become glassy, her nose to start bleeding, and for her to collapse on top of him.
Riku let out a pained grunt as Naminé's sudden weight drove the air out of his lungs. It was just another reminder of how much she had changed since he first met her. Back when they had been working together in the Old Mansion to restore Sora's memories, Riku had occasionally had to carry her to bed when she passed out from working long hours, and as a Nobody created without a physical body as a base she couldn't have weighed more than fifty pounds. Now, she had a body indistinguishable from a regular human. Combine that with months of Keyblade training adding some muscle, and she was now a lot heavier, and warmer, than Riku remembered…
"Holy shit, is she okay?"
It took Riku a second to recognize the voice as Selphie's, and once he realized it wasn't likely a threat he sheepishly let the barrier he had raised at the first sign of someone else's presence fade away. With that out of the way, he turned his attention fully back to Naminé and answered the first of what he assumed would be many questions from Selphie.
"I think she'll be fine—she probably just overdid it with one of her spells. Give me a second and I should be able to take care of it." He paused for a second until he had enough MP to cast magic again, then chain-cast an Esuna and a Curaga. The two healing spells washed over him and Naminé, removing the damage Riku had taken from Naminé's attack. However, while it seemed to heal Naminé's nosebleed, it was only partially successful in bringing her back to consciousness. Her face twitched and she let out a groan before she wrapped her arms tightly around Riku and snuggled closer to him. Apparently she had gone from unconscious to just asleep, and since magic wasn't able to deal with simple exhaustion Riku resigned himself to dealing with being her pillow for a bit.
"Okay, I'll admit. This was a bit more like what I was expecting to interrupt you two doing and not whatever magic show was just happening." Riku would have kicked himself if Naminé wasn't effectively keeping him pinned to the ground. He really needed to stop getting all weird at the close physical contact with Naminé and losing sight of everything around him. He pointedly ignored the evil gleam in Selphie's eyes as he addressed her.
"Look, I get that you have a lot of questions, and I'll try to explain what I can, but I'd rather not have this conversation from the ground. If you wait here, I'm going to drop Naminé off in her bed so she can finish sleeping this off and I'll be right back. Just don't follow me—this is dangerous if you aren't using proper protection."
With that, Riku formed a dark corridor beneath him and let him and Naminé fall into it—and out the other side into Naminé's bedroom. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to make the portal open directly over the bed instead of at the ceiling, but luckily they didn't end up bouncing off of—or worse, breaking through—the bed. With that taken care of, all he had to do was remove himself from Naminé's sleeping grip—which turned out to be a bit more difficult than expected. Looking around for anything to help, he saw the plush Komory Bat he had won at a carnival in Disney Town and gifted Naminé as a moving-in present. Sending a silent thanks to his first Dream Eater companion, he managed to pull in the plush and then with some careful maneuvering get it so Naminé was cuddling it instead of him. With that taken care of, he was about to jump back into the portal when he heard someone clearing their throat.
Riku turned and saw Kairi's mom smiling at him. Who happened to be Naminé's current guardian, when he had effectively broken into her room while she was sleeping. And it was impossible not to see the implications of what was happening. He could only blabber out, "This isn't what it looks like!" before Jun held up her hand to cut him off.
"I trust you, but I would like to know why you decided to just immediately teleport into her room instead of the living room like usual. I thought somebody had broken in."
Riku sighed. "I think Naminé overdid it with a spell. I healed her, but she's still probably going to need to sleep it off. I can go into more details later, but Selphie walked in on us training so I need to get back to the play island so I can explain everything to her."
Jun nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Be sure to tell her that she can come to me also if she has any questions—it might be less intimidating to have someone who's also...well, let's just say non-magical to deal with some of the issues."
Riku smiled at her in thanks before he jumped back into the portal. After a small immersion in the darkness, he stepped back into the sunset-lit beach of the play island where Selphie immediately addressed him.
"Okay, good, you weren't just leaving me here. Now, is it just Naminé, or do you have a magic portal into every girl's bedroom that just requires you to wear protection?"
Riku groaned. "Okay, I know I said I'd answer your questions, but if all you're going to do is tease me I'm out."
Selphie threw up her hands in exasperation. "Sorry, but I tend to rely on humor to cope and I just found out that one of my old friends is apparently some sort of super-powered magician. I'm freaking out right now, and maybe this is just me making sure that you're still that guy I kinda knew instead of some secret experiment or something."
"Okay, yeah, I can see where you might think that, but I promise it's still me. I just—"
"Prove it. When's my birthday?"
Riku blinked. "Uh...don't take this the wrong way, but we were never super close and we haven't hung out in a couple of years so I either forgot it or never knew it? Sorry."
Selphie opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider her thought, and closed it for a few seconds before resuming. "Fine. When's Kairi's birthday?"
This was something Riku could more confidently speak on. "That depends. Do you want the actual birthday, the day she appeared on the islands, or the day we actually celebrated? Because even Kairi doesn't remember her real birthday, she first appeared on the islands on July 31st, but we always celebrated on March 28th because five-year-old Sora thought it was sad that she didn't have a birthday so he told her she could have his. I guess their parents thought that was too cute and ran with it."
"Shit, it is you. I was hoping this was some crazy body-double scenario because that would make more sense. How long have you been able to do all this crazy stuff?"
Riku let out a sigh. "Do you want the full story, or the simple version? Because Kairi and I managed to get most of the details out in about seven hours when telling her parents, but even just the part I'm directly involved in covers basically everything from the past two years so it would take a while."
Selphie gasped. "Wait, Kairi is in on all of this too? And it goes back that far… wait, it's not just you two, is it? Sora must be involved too, and that's why there was that year we all forgot about him, right? He was involved in some crazy magic, wasn't he?"
Riku sighed. "Yes. He got tricked into a bad situation looking for me, and I spent the rest of that year trying to make up for the problems I had caused. I'm still—-OOF"
Riku suddenly had all the air forced out of his lungs as Selphie pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. After a few seconds. She pulled away and sniffed as she fought back tears. "Sorry about that. I just realized that Sora and Kairi are both gone now, so there's probably something crazy happening again. I know how cut up Kairi was when you and Sora were gone, and I wasn't very supportive to her then. I'm going to try to do better this time."
Riku supposed his shock still showed on his face, because Selphie blushed. "God, I'm really fucking this up, aren't I? Can we resume this conversation tomorrow when I'm not freaking out?"
Now that he was in the middle of this whole conversation, Riku was exceptionally glad Mickey had been able to take control of the first time they had revealed all of this information. He really wasn't the best to deal with a panicking Selphie, but he still wouldn't leave her floundering. "Okay, that's a good idea. But instead of just dealing with this on your own, try to talk to Kairi's parents. They're also in the loop and are probably a lot better at explaining this than I will be. Sorry I can't help you more."
Naminé groaned as she sat up off of her bed and rubbed away the traces of a headache. She remembered hitting Riku under the effects of her Hastega spell, but everything between then and now was completely blank. She reached over to her nightstand and switched on her Gummiphone, immediately seeing a text from Riku.
Naminé—great work with the Hastega spell, but looks like it needs a little more work before you use it in a real fight. I called an end to training and brought you home to rest up. See you tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have good news about my talk with Selphie :/
At least that answered how she had gotten home, but a glance at the time showed she wouldn't be getting any more answers for a while. It was currently 3 am, and she wasn't going to impose on Riku any more by trying to talk to him this late. However, her unintended nap had been long enough that she knew she wouldn't be getting any more sleep tonight, so she had to find some way to kill the hours until the rest of the world woke up. Deciding she may as well get a start on her day, she changed out of her combat gear and into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt as she went downstairs to get some breakfast.
However, as soon as she stepped into the kitchen she heard a voice from the living room. She instinctively summoned Destiny's Embrace to her hand before her mind caught up with her—even if there was a burglar in the house, why would they mumble "Damn, was everyone in the Organization a total jerk?"
Naminé decided to investigate, but on the list of things she was expecting to find Selphie scrolling through a Gummiphone while laying on the couch in what looked to be an old set of Kairi's pajamas wasn't anywhere close to the top. "Selphie, what are you doing here?"
The other girl set her phone down. "Right, you passed out before I revealed myself. I happened to catch the tail end of your training session with Riku…"
Naminé's eyes widened. "That's why he texted me that he was talking with you! How did things go?"
Selphie snorted. "Awful. I basically had a panic attack on him and apparently I'm far harder to deal with than various incarnations of darkness. We're going to talk later, but he at least pointed me here and your mom was able to calm me down and give me the summarized version. Still couldn't sleep though even after like three pots of chamomile tea, so I figured I could read the more detailed version of everything that had happened over the last couple of years."
Naminé grimaced. "All at once? You might want to slow down a bit. Trust me, going through even one journey's worth of memories in one sitting is awful. I can't imagine cramming in...well, how many would you even count?"
Selphie was quick to respond. "Well, I guess it depends on how you divide things, but I guess the journal is divided into eight different sections so we could go with that? So far I've read through Sora's journey to defeat Ansem, the events of Castle Oblivion, and I'm partway through the journey to take out the first Organization XIII. Figured it would be easiest to start with the focus on Sora instead of going chronologically. Speaking of which, I think the parts of the journey that you provided to the journal are a lot more interesting to follow than the stuff Jiminy recorded."
Naminé shuddered. "Well, that's probably because I wiped out all the information from Jiminy's Journal the first time, and then spent a year going over every aspect of that time period over and over. Jiminy was writing about what happened, but I was practically inside Sora's head so it was like I lived it over and over."
With that, there was a loud clunk as Selphie dropped the Gummiphone and stared at Naminé in shock. "Wait, let me get this straight. You spent a year living through all of those fights, while working with a guy who repeatedly claimed you had no right to exist, AFTER being literally born into a hostage situation and manipulated by an evil cult. How the fuck aren't you a gibbering mess right now? I can barely wrap my mind around READING this, let alone LIVING it!"
Naminé winced as Selphie started yelling, but the other girl seemed to remember the time and sheepishly apologized. "Sorry, still trying to wrap my mind around what a couple of kids I grew up with managed to get caught up in. This is crazier than any of the stories that Tidus's mom used to tell, but the proof that all of this is real is right here in my hand."
With that, Naminé sighed. "Yeah, I wouldn't have wished this life on anybody, but there's nothing I can do about my past. All I can really do is try to help out so things don't ever get that bad again. It's why I've been working so hard trying to learn how to fight."
Selphie looked forlorn at that. "At least you have the choice. Reading all this I feel like I need to do something to help out since I've been a pretty horrible friend not even noticing how much stress Sora, Riku, and Kairi had been under, but I don't think there's anything I'll be able to do. I can't use magic, I'm probably not worthy of a Keyblade, and I highly doubt there's any serious enemy around that I could do anything to using a jump rope as a weapon. Guess I'm stuck just trying to run interference when people try to bully you…" Naminé couldn't help but shudder at the gleam that suddenly appeared in Selphie's eyes. "...Or, I could try my hand at being a matchmaker…"
Naminé immediately tried to deflect the conversation before things got too awkward. "That isn't necessary. But if you really want to learn to fight, I might be able to help…"
Selphie immediately latched on to the idea. "Really? You'd be willing to teach me?"
Naminé sighed. "Well, not directly. Not that I don't want to, but I really don't know how to teach you. We tried stumbling through teaching our friend Olette but it didn't work out. None of us can figure out how to first awaken magic in someone. I have a bit of an advantage since I was born with an innate magical ability over memories, so I at least knew how to channel magic before I started learning spells. I'm not really sure how to carry that over, though."
Seeing Selphie's face fall, Naminé quickly continued. "But just because I don't know how to teach that doesn't mean somebody else won't. I can't promise anything, but I might be able to arrange a trip to Radiant Garden. The members of the old Restoration Committee weren't Nobodies or Keyblade wielders, so maybe they'll have some insight into how to learn to fight without those advantages."
Selphie smiled. "So if they say yes, I could go to another world? This is going to be amazing! Although I'll probably need to work things out with my parents first...and would it be okay if I invited Tidus? It might be good for him to get some closure seeing that other worlds are in fact a real thing…"
