C13

LOCATION: Meeting room of Organization XIII, The World That Never Was
DATE: Thursday, December 6th 2X60
TIME: 0931 hours

Naminé reminds him of someone.

Actually, she reminds Sora of a lot of someones. It's funny how she's a combination of different people in his life. She's as competitive as Riku, and she's as no-nonsense as Squall when he's having a bad day (except everyday seems like a bad day for Naminé). There are moments she sounds exactly like Conscience-Kairi—but thankfully without the constant nagging, cause he gets enough of that from his conscience, and actual Kairi. And, though he's a little reluctant to draw comparisons to his mom, he has to admit their commitment to excellence is startlingly similar. Once she's made up her mind, Naminé is determined to be the best at whatever she does.

At the moment, it's finishing a 1000-piece puzzle by herself.

Sora had given up on their team-building activity of the day about 20 minutes ago. He just doesn't have the patience for things meant for kids. That's how he ended up watching Naminé and comparing her to people he knows.

He's probably thinking of people from home because he's getting homesick. He could ask Riku and Kairi if they want to videocall again. It's been awhile, and at least he's a little closer to going home now. Three more weeks, give or take?

"Wait, give me all the blue pieces!" Naminé exclaims, suddenly inspired. He looks over at the spare puzzle pieces and slowly picks out the ones she wants. She's really having a lot of fun with this.

"You got all of the ocean?" Sora looks over her shoulder at the half-finished puzzle. It's actually coming together a lot more quickly than he expected.

"I think so. I have a few extra blue pieces, probably for this river over here, but most of it is done." She releases a content sigh. "This is the first time I've actually done a puzzle."

"What?" He thought her singular focus had been because she enjoys puzzles. More importantly… "What do you mean you've never done a puzzle before? Kids do them all the time!"

"Well I didn't do any as a kid," Naminé returns, inserting another piece in its place. Indeed, she looks a little too satisfied with herself. Maybe that's why she's been extremely agreeable today and hasn't told him off for slacking.

"Well, what toys did you play with growing up? The lack of puzzles probably explains your charming personality."

Naminé shoots him a deadpan look before shrugging. "I don't know. Actually, my dad brought home a lot of tools and gadgets from work, and I'd play around with them. He does research on tech for detecting and fighting Heartless."

"Wow, so you were destined to be an OATS operator."

"A lot of people have told me that. My dad's kind of a big deal in the OATS field cause he helped with the last big update of the radar. With a legacy like that, it was hard for me not to follow in his shoes."

Naminé's words resonate a little, and Sora starts sharing as well. "I feel that. My mom was basically a hero in the army, fighting on the frontlines to protect us. I'd be lying if I said she wasn't part of the reason I joined HBRC."

Naminé pauses her puzzle assembly to look at him, a small smile on her face. "Sounds like you've got big shoes to fill."

"Yeah, I try," he says with a shrug, knowing he could never live up to his mom's legacy.

After sharing their personal stories, there's a raw tension in the air. Silence enshrouds the duo as they continue working on the task. Sora's now infinitely grateful they have something to focus their attention on, because he's not sure how to follow up their conversation after swapping vulnerabilities.

"There we go," Naminé cheers, putting the last piece in. The finished puzzle of an evening ocean view is striking and nostalgic. The homesickness intensifies, and Sora makes a plan to text Riku and Kairi by the end of today.

"Hey guys!" As if on cue, Hiro pops back into the room. "I just wrapped things up at the lab. Oh, you guys finished the puzzle! How'd it go?"

"It was fine," Naminé responds with an obvious smile on her face.

"What was the point of this again?" Sora prompts, hoping his confusion is palpable.

"Team-building!" Hiro exclaims as if that answers everything. No, kid, it doesn't. Sora's seriously starting to doubt the effectiveness of his tactics. He understands that they don't know much about Synergy so it's more or less trial-and-error, but there seems to be an awful lot of errors recently. Their Synergy has improved marginally in terms of activation speed and maintenance, but it's hard to say what's been helpful.

"Okay, you guys finished a lot faster than I thought. Let's go to the next thing planned for today," Hiro announces. "Grab your stuff! We're heading to the lab."

"What're we doing?" Sora asks with a heavy dose of skepticism.

"It's a surprise!"

Everyone begins moving around as he and Naminé grab their stuff and follow Hiro out of the room. Sora glares at the back of Hiro's head and remains obstinately quiet until the kid probably realized that withholding information isn't to anyone's benefit.

"Well," Hiro begins with a chuckle, "there's a slight disconnect between what you guys are working on and the ultimate goal of this project. I mean, I thought you guys would have the basics down before we started...but take your time with the meditation and working out! Well, not too much time, cause I only have you guys for another month…"

"What are you getting at?" Sora interrupts.

"Right. Remember, we're aiming for something that's usable in a battle. All this static stuff is great, but how're you gonna actually use this in the field?"

"We're going in the field?" Naminé balks.

"No, of course not," Hiro reassures. "There's too much liability paperwork to fill out."

Uh, right, and the fact that Naminé's not a field agent and it'd be putting their lives in danger. Details, details…

"However," Hiro continues, "I think it'd help you guys—and me—to get a sense of how Synergy would work in a real fight. And the next-best thing we have for a real fight is…" Hiro gestures at a nondescript door he's led him to. Wait a sec...

"Is this a sim room?" Sora asks.

"This is a sim room!" Hiro exclaims.

"What's a sim room?" Naminé asks.

Sora stares at her. "A simulation room. You haven't seen one before? Well, I guess operators wouldn't need it. We use it to mimic a Heartless battle to practice our fighting and work on teamwork. Oh, so we're back to the teamwork thing."

"Exactly! But also, real life-ish experience is valuable too," Hiro adds.

"Wait, how do you simulate a Heartless battle?" Naminé asks.

Hiro proceeds to explain some of the technical details of a simulation room to Naminé. Has she never seen one before? Surely her fancy school that's making kids fight Heartless would have something like this to train them. No way they're just tossing their students to the wolves…!

"Wow, that's amazing. I've never used one at DiZA, maybe it's reserved for the army," Naminé says.

"It's really not that big of a deal. They're pretty common in Hollow Bastion," Sora says.

"Well, they're not common in Land of Departure," Naminé returns, though ultimately she's too curious to argue much further. Turning towards Hiro, she asks, "How does this work?"

The three of them enter the prep room, grabbing equipment before breaking up into respective locker rooms to put them on. Sora slips into his armor with ease and comes back out a full five minutes before Naminé. When she finally steps out, she looks like she's literally drowning in armor. Seriously, she's tiny. On an actual battlefield, she'd get crushed in an instant.

"Okay, let's do this!" Hiro exclaims, leading them in.

Entering the sim room, Sora notes it's about the same size as the standard ones in HBRC, maybe a little bigger. While looking around, Hiro finishes fiddling with the control panel and hovers by the door.

"Well, have fun guys! Remember, it's just a simulation, so the stakes can't be any lower!"

"Wait, what about—"

Before Sora can ask about the settings, or duration, or anything about their simulation, Hiro throws up a peace sign and closes the door behind him. What the hell? He just tossed both of them off into the deep end!

"...w—what's going on?" Naminé stammers.

As the simulation starts up, Sora realizes this is Naminé's first simulation, which is always slightly jarring. Goddammit, Hiro should've explained all of this before suddenly leaving! It's like he's determined to maximize the time he has Sora and Naminé while minimizing the amount of work he has to do.

Well, he can talk shit about Hiro later. Meanwhile, Naminé's panicking.

He hesitantly approaches her, staying within her field of vision. "Hey, Naminé. Don't worry, you're okay. It's just the simulation starting up."

Their surroundings continue to whirl. Sora can't really see her eyes through the dark visor glasses but notices her head turn in his direction. He shoots her a grin, wondering if she's paying attention to him.

"Sora?" she mumbles, her voice shaky.

"Yeah. It's just me. First time doing a simulation can be kinda weird. Close your eyes if that helps."

"Okay…"

Her voice trails off, and she presumably closes her eyes, but then she suddenly gasps and catches herself from tilting towards one side.

"What's wrong?" Sora exclaims.

"I don't—I don't have a good grasp of what's around me when I close my eyes, and with the noise it's hard to stay balanced."

"Well, if you wanna keep your eyes open, we could sit." He takes the initiative to do so and watches Naminé slowly lower herself to the ground. They're seated criss-crossed across from each other, just like kindergarteners.

"You don't have to keep looking around," Sora says.

Naminé's head stops rotating and focuses on him. "Huh?"

"The surroundings spin around for a bit. It's calibrating with your glasses, or something." He taps on his visual equipment. "Looking around doesn't help."

"Well, my job is paying attention to the environment," Naminé returns.

"Like I said, there's no point because it's just meaningless simulation building blocks."

"I can't just stop paying attention to my surroundings like it's an on-and-off switch," Naminé argues.

"I'm just saying, you're not helping yourself! You'll probably get nauseous from all the spinning."

"And you're not helping either!" Naminé exclaims, leaning forward to make her point but then suddenly freezing and lowering her head to her lap, groaning uncomfortably.

"...see, told you so," he mutters.

Not helping! Conscience-Kairi chimes in. Okay, okay, he kinda feels bad now.

"Uh, are you okay?" Sora asks hesitantly, scooting forward. "Naminé?" he asks again when he doesn't get a response. Is she okay? He hasn't heard of anyone fainting in a sim before, but if it were to happen, of course it would happen to Naminé…

He cautiously approaches and pokes her in the shoulder. No response. Coming a little closer, he rests a hand on her shoulder and shakes her—gently, then more consistently. His concern continues to spike. What's wrong with her? Should he call Hiro?

"Naminé!" he exclaims.

"Urgh—ugh…"

Naminé finally looks up but holds a hand against her mouth. Oh hell no, is she about to—?

Sora pushes her towards the side and instantly scoots back. Naminé leans forward, her left hand pressed against the floor, and remains in that position while making awful retching sounds. Oh, gross!

"At least warn me if you're gonna throw up!" Sora complains. He checks his clothes to make sure nothing got on him. He doesn't think Naminé actually vomited, so maybe she's just making a fuss.

A moment later, she takes a few deep breaths and seems to calm herself down. She turns to face him, and though he can't see her eyes, he knows she's glaring at him.

"I'm fine, Sora, thanks for asking. It's so nice when people are concerned for your wellbeing instead of only worrying about themselves."

The sarcasm is duly noted. "At least give me a splash zone warning," Sora grumbles.

"Sorry I couldn't speak, I was busy trying to not vomit all over myself. And you."

"Okay, okay, my bad for having self-preservation instincts—"

"Watch out!"

Naminé's exclamation comes just in time as he whirls around, his gut sensing danger behind him. Sora summons his Keyblade just in time to parry an incoming attack. The simulated Heartless growls, quite differently from the sims at home—and real ones for that matter. Somehow, the foreignness of it all makes everything more...sinister.

Sora easily takes out the Heartless, turning towards Naminé's direction and spying three more headed towards her. His body acts on instinct while his mind tries to figure out what's the best way of fending them off while keeping Naminé safe. For all intents and purposes, he should probably think of Naminé as a civilian—

In one smooth motion, Naminé raises her arm and her Keyblade materializes in her hand.

That's right, she isn't a helpless civilian. Naminé actually has some basic Keyblade skills under her belt. She's been training for this, after all. It's kinda crazy seeing the fruits of her labor right before his eyes: from the girl who couldn't even summon her Keyblade in absolute silence, to someone who can almost seem to materialize it on command.

"What do I do?" Naminé exclaims, head turned towards him.

Sora blinks. What the hell, why's she looking at him when the Heartless are in the opposite direction?

"Well, first keep your eyes on the enemy!" he hollers, heading towards her.

That's right—she can summon a Keyblade, but she's still a noob.

He reaches her just in time to stop the closest Heartless from tearing into her. Three is a handful to take care of if she's defenseless. But hey, this is just a sim…

"Just do your best! Remember, it's just a simulation," he exclaims, focusing on two of the Heartless while one slips past him to go after Naminé.

He dispatches the two Heartless with minimal effort, keeping an eye on Naminé through his peripheral vision. He feels kinda bad just tossing her into a battle (at least it's a simulated one), but like Hiro said, the stakes couldn't be lower. Nothing will happen if she 'fails.'

Despite the widened eyes and obvious anxiety written across Naminé's face, she remains focused on the enemy (great, she's got lesson number one down). She hesitantly takes a few steps back, which is probably a normal reaction to a horrific enemy about to jump you. After stumbling a bit, she finally steels herself and looks up to face the Heartless head on. Sora dimly wonders where the burst of courage is coming from.

The Heartless swipes with a claw and Naminé deftly bends out of the way. Faced with the Heartless' relentless assault, Naminé barely dodges each attack. Watching her fighting style reminds Sora that she's only learned the basics of self-defense, which means she has no idea how to actually take out a Heartless.

"Fight back, Naminé!" he exclaims. Naminé looks towards him, shooting him a crazed look that reads something along the lines of, 'what the hell does that mean?' Or maybe she's having a leg cramp. Who knows?

A few more Heartless appear from the periphery of the room, and he quickly engages them so Naminé only has to deal with that one. Thankfully Hiro set the simulation on pretty simple settings, so although the spawning is unpredictable, it's overall manageable. He's well-trained enough to handle the extras on his own while watching Naminé in her 1v1.

So apparently, Naminé's idea of fighting back is relentlessly swinging her Keyblade in front of her, the equivalent of a button mash. Not bad, but also not the best idea. She can do better.

"Keep your eyes on the enemy!" Sora reminds her, because just gesticulating with your Keyblade and hoping for the best usually isn't effective.

Naminé finally refocuses on the Heartless and draws a deep breath. Steeling herself, she keeps her eyes trained on the enemy as the Heartless leaps towards her. Pulling her Keyblade back, she jabs forward and strikes the Heartless through its body just as its claws scratch the edge of her shoulder.

"You did it!" he exclaims, feeling unbelievably proud. Rushing up to her with a raised palm, he grins eagerly and cheers when she gives him a high-five.

Naminé jumps in response. "You're overreacting, I just took out one Heartless…"

"But it's your first Heartless! Second?" he amends, recalling the real one she took out. "First sim Heartless? Anyways, you did it! Why am I happier than you are?" he exclaims in one breath.

Naminé inhales and exhales with a small frown on her face. "I guess I don't feel like this is worth celebrating or anything. It's just one simulated Heartless."

"C'mon! You took out a simulated Heartless, it's a big deal! Gotta celebrate the small victories, you know?"

Naminé regards him with narrowed eyes. Slowly, her lips curl into a smile. "I guess I did pretty well, huh?"

"Yeah, after you stopped dodging like a coward for the first half! OWW!" Sora exclaims, caressing his arm where Naminé had mercilessly hit him. "I'm just saying! You did a lot better once you actually started using your Keyblade!"

"You didn't have to say it like that—" Naminé abruptly cuts herself off and sighs. "You know what, never mind. I know what you meant. Why should I even bother telling you off?"

"Exactly!" Sora exclaims, though honestly he's not entirely sure what she means.

The sight of more Heartless popping up in the periphery reminds him that they're still in an ongoing simulation. Focusing once more, he assumes an offensive stance next to Naminé.

"I have no idea how Hiro set the settings, so let's just do our best," he mumbles.

"Settings?" Naminé repeats.

"Yeah. Things like battle style and whatnot are based on real-life data of Heartless, but you can adjust certain settings of the simulation—for example, how many total Heartless appear, at what rate, or even what surroundings you're in."

"Oh. Well, I think this is the last wave."

Sora glances at her. "What?"

"If the simulation does mimic real-life Heartless behavior, I noticed a rising and then falling number of Heartless in each wave that you took out. Based on the dwindling rate, I'd say this is probably the last wave. Heartless usually don't travel in packs less than four."

Sora's eyes widen. He hadn't noticed any of that while fighting the Heartless. "How'd you figure that out? And when?"

Naminé grins. "I'm an OATS operator. Like I said, I pay attention to my surroundings."

"You thought of all that when you should've been focusing on using your Keyblade correctly?"

"Hey, I got the hang of it eventually!" Naminé exclaims defensively. "I just think about these things sometimes. Subconsciously sometimes."

"You're so weird," Sora comments, though more than anything, he's kinda impressed. Just a little.

Again, no need to tell her that.

"Well, one last wave you said?" Sora raises his Keyblade, eying his opponents. True to what Naminé had predicted, this wave only has five Heartless.

"Let's do this!" Naminé exclaims. Sora glances at her, a little surprised by her enthusiasm. She then glances at him and sheepishly gestures before them. "...after you."

Sora smirks. "Watch how it's done."

He thinks he hears Naminé mutter something about 'show-off' under her breath...but that's probably just him.


A/N: Oh, Sora. I think you heard her correctly.

Sorry this is one day late! Also, like I said, I'm unfortunately out of prewritten chapters (uh-oh) so the next chapter will take an extra week!

Writing Sora's POV is always hard, but I like being able to explore things from a different POV besides Naminé's. Personally I relate more to Naminé, being an overthinker and preferring to have a plan for everything, but I imagine Sora's laissez-faire approach to life is pretty sweet.

We're a little stalled at this point of the story, in the sense that there's a lot of filler-esque scenes to catch us up on details of the world and build on existing relationships. I do have more plot in store for us, so I hope this detour is worth the build-up! Let me know if you have any thoughts about the pacing, the worldbuilding, the characters—and yes, I think Sora and Naminé are finally becoming...friends?!