"Sincerely, Nobody" by ladydemelza
Chapter 5
Reminder: this story is in the process of being updated from how it was originally posted. Thank you for your patience as I continue to work on it. Thank you to everyone who has read or reviewed!
Hollow Bastion—a thriving world, far away, and inaccessible to nearly everyone. The land itself, deeply infused with ancient magic, was enough to drive many to attempt to enter. However, even if they managed to lift the enormous enchantments placed on the world by the current Queen, harnessing the dormant, ancient magic would be nearly impossible. The Queen, as well as a select few other witches and magicians, were the only ones who knew how to use the magic. When unleashed, the magic could do terrible things and cause great destruction—or, as the Queen preferred to use it, to protect her world and herself.
Enchantments, however, can be broken, and a land imbued with as much ancient magic as Hollow Bastion would eventually attract those who would attempt to enter the Queen's realm and steal the magic for themselves. They came dressed in black and white – the Magicite. Nobody ever saw their leaders, but they were able to break the protective enchantments that kept them out. Unable to access the land's deepest and most powerful magic themselves, they searched for someone who could in order to use them. The Queen, constantly under threat of kidnapping, could barely protect herself with magic after they infiltrated the world—they had already broken her strongest protection spells. She fortified the castle as best she could with the magic she could muster and began to search for help.
One of the oldest and most widely known legends of their world told of a physical manifestation of the land's magic: the keyblade. Just days after the infiltration of Hollow Bastion, four young subjects able to wield the keyblade sought refuge from the aggressors at the castle with the Queen, knowing the Magicite needed someone connected in some way to the magic in order to access it. An exceptionally talented witch soon arrived at the castle as well – one who, like the Queen, was able to use Hollow Bastion's magic without hurting herself.
The Queen realized the newcomers needed above all else to be trained as warriors, if not only to protect themselves but also to protect the world. She couldn't do it alone. There were some people at her court who could fight the Magicite, but not enough. Their leaders had brought a highly skilled, loyal army with them to subdue Hollow Bastion and its queen, and without an army of her own, the best she could hope for was that training these magically gifted teenagers would buy her some time.
She had faithful warriors that had been in her service for years—Leon, wielder of the gunblade, Aeris, a witch skilled in healing and medicine, and Yuffie, a quick, loud-mouthed ninja. Occasionally, her friend Cloud would swing through, but at the moment, he wasn't anywhere near Hollow Bastion. Either way, the five teenagers were more than eager to help her, and soon, they became the most powerful and feared fighters in all of Hollow Bastion.
Three boys, all wielders of the keyblade, each had their own strength. One had better honed his spell casting, one's physical strength had surpassed the others, and one had a quick-thinking wile that allowed him to excel in battle.
Two girls, one a wielder of the keyblade and expert healer, the other a witch—second to only the Queen, with eyes that glowed bright red whenever she harnessed the land's ancient magic. In some ways, the violence of the color provided a warning to those she fought, and so the widely known rumor passed like a whisper through the ranks of the Magicite: the color of blood in her eyes meant your own blood would soon be shed.
Was it possible that the Queen's life could rest in the hands of five teenagers? Strangely, after what she had seen them accomplish in their training, she didn't fear for her life at all anymore. Not even a little.
Roxas was pleasantly surprised to find Naminé waiting for him with Sora and Riku after school. She and Riku were talking in hushed tones, Roxas occasionally overhearing the hissing sound of a whisper. Sora's gaze was fixed on the ceiling, as though he were too busy thinking to look anywhere else. Roxas was focused on his own worries and unsure that he could get Sora to open up about what was bothering him in any case.
The ride home seemed longer than usual. Roxas was thinking of both the diary and his discussion with Naminé, the threads of thought winding into a confused knot in his mind. Sora was still distracted, and Riku and Naminé were making forced conversation as the two silent boys sat there awkwardly. Roxas was more than relieved to get out of the car and back to the safety of his room.
Naminé and Sora rode from Riku's to Sora's house in silence. His garage door lifted open sluggishly, and he pulled the car in. Naminé followed him through the door and into his house. Sora kicked off his shoes and led the way to the kitchen. "What can I get you?" he asked.
"Just water," she said.
"Sounds good," he said. After avoiding meeting her eye, he finally looked at her. "Hey, listen, can I talk to you about Korin?"
"Of course," Naminé said.
Sora's younger brother and sister were still at school, so they had the house to themselves. Something about the subject made Sora feel like it was something to be kept secret, away from his family or anyone else who might come home and hear them talking, so he led Naminé into his family's expansive basement. A well-worn gray couch and loveseat were situated in front of the family's television. Late afternoon sunlight streamed golden across the floor through the panels of the sliding glass door. From the refrigerator behind the bar in the corner, Sora retrieved a bottle of water for Naminé and a can of soda for himself. She felt drawn to the pool table as Sora fetched the drinks, and placed her fingers on the felt almost instinctively.
Sora quirked an eyebrow. "I have literally never seen you play pool," he said.
Naminé jerked her hand back. "Sorry," she said immediately.
"My dad isn't here, so I don't think anyone here cares," he said, a tinge of teasing in his tone.
She lifted her hand with effort and followed Sora to the couch, still feeling the prickling texture of the felt on her fingertips.
"So, what is it?" she asked, twisting the cap off her water bottle.
"Korin," Sora began. "She just started today, right? So why is she getting to me already?"
Naminé ignored the hatred bubbling up somewhere in the back of her mind at the mention of Korin. "Getting to you in what way?"
"It's just… when she's around, it's like… I can't think."
Naminé's brow furrowed. "I could just be because she's pretty and new and you're nervous—"
"I am not nervous," he said shortly. The expression on his face was taut and unmoving.
Silence. Naminé took a drink of her water.
"Well, I think there's something strange about her, and Roxas agrees," she finally said.
"What about Yuri?"
"What about her?"
Sora cast her a knowing look. "Come on. Yuri's obviously mad about something and you've seemed a little off in the past few days. Whenever I talk to you, you seem really distracted."
Naminé was, for once, annoyed with his perceptiveness. It was always hard for people to read her, but Sora and Riku always could with ease that was exasperating sometimes. "What are you talking about?" she said evasively.
His eyes seemed to stare straight into her thoughts. "You don't have to tell me."
She covered her face with her hands. She had already tried keeping it secret and it had done her no good. "Fine. I lost my notebook. There."
Sora frowned. "Notebook, or diary?"
"Diary."
"Uh oh."
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Have you checked the lost and found?"
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"Well, if someone sees your name in it, they'll return it… right?" Sora said.
"That's the problem!" Naminé said. "I wrote it anonymously in case anyone ever did find it!"
"So what's the plan? How are you gonna find it?"
"I have no idea," she sighed wearily. "I've looked and looked, but… I just don't know what to do. If someone finds out that it's me, what will they think?"
"I don't know… I guess we'll just have to get it back then, won't we?" he smiled weakly.
"Yeah, I guess we will," Naminé agreed, feeling much better now that Sora was offering to help her in the search for the misplaced notebook.
After school, Korin marched down the hall, heels clicking loudly, towards the bathroom. Nearly everyone had left by that time, and she was more than a little ticked that she had to wait for everyone to leave before she could use magic to transport herself back to the house she was using.
She pushed the door to the bathroom open, chose a stall, and locked the door. Sighing, she snapped her fingers, and disappeared. Moments later, across town, she reappeared in the living room of a brand new house, looking annoyed. She kicked off her shoes and left them lying in the middle of the floor. She padded across the plush, white carpet of the living room towards the kitchen.
Lucky I got this place, she thought. It's pretty nice, actually.
She pulled open the fridge, and sighed again—empty. "Don't tell me I actually have to go shopping," she mumbled, agitated.
She focused, and snapped her fingers. The fridge was instantly full of food. "Can't blame me for thinking it might not work in a place so devoid of magic."
Exhausted, she slowly wandered back out to the living room, and plopped down in a heavily cushioned white chair, thinking about everything she had seen at school. The people she met didn't seem at all like the ones she remembered fighting as though it were yesterday…
Naminé's glowing eyes that she was so accustomed to were nothing but crystal blue here—how she hated it. Of the five, she hated Naminé the most. The grudge wasn't about jealousy. Korin's brother, Hiro, had been very near killing Roxas at one point in the past, and Naminé had stepped into their fight. Eyes the most intense red they had ever been, she fired a powerful spell that Korin had never seen before and hadn't seen since, and killed Hiro with one blast.
Fighting back tears as she thought of the day her brother died, she promised herself that the Queen would be found eventually, and they would have full control of Hollow Bastion—Hiro would not have died in vain… Hana and Tomoko, Korin's partners, were still in Hollow Bastion searching for the missing Queen, and she would be found any day now…they would have the ancient magic and control the world very soon.
After Hiro had been killed, the Queen disappeared, and her guardians had been sent to the human world to hide, to lead "normal" lives. After much searching, Korin had finally found them.
And what was the best way to bring back a group of soldiers? In pieces, of course. She couldn't just kill them in the human world. The Magicite needed them alive. If they were all brought back to Hollow Bastion, she could turn them over to her leaders and take her revenge on Naminé. If she could just manage to break them up, bringing them back would be that much easier.
Naminé awoke the next morning, feeling much more tense than usual without knowing why. Her recurring dream in which a witch with long, black hair tried to murder her several times had turned up again the previous night, and this time, Naminé couldn't write about it in her diary. The witch chased her through her house like a scene from a horror movie. The strange feeling of foreboding that was stirring deep within her stomach bothered her until she got to school and found Yuri waiting for her by the door.
Yuri squealed when she saw her and flattened Naminé with a hug. "Sorry about yesterday. I don't know what got into me!"
"It's all right, Yuri," she said, patting Yuri's back. "You can talk to us anytime, you know that, right? We're happy to help."
"Oh, I know," Yuri said gratefully. "I really appreciate it. Maybe later in the library I can talk about it with just you and Kairi. It's hard, you know?"
"I get it," Naminé said gently.
Yuri smiled. "I knew you would. Oh, hey, look! I met this girl yesterday, she's awesome—Korin! Hey, Korin, over here!"
Naminé felt her insides sink as Korin acknowledged Yuri and made her way down the hallway towards them.
"Morning Yuri, Naminé," she said. "How are you guys?"
"Great!" Yuri said. Naminé had to give it to her – she was unfailingly optimistic, even when struggling with something emotionally difficult.
As Korin looked Naminé in the eye, Naminé felt a sudden lurch in the pit of her stomach—and for a fleeting moment, Korin looked familiar. Just was quickly as the strange feeling came, it was gone. Korin turned back toward Yuri, leaving Naminé to wrack her memory for why a girl she had obviously never met before would look familiar.
"That's good! I really like this school…I hope I can find my way around easier today than yesterday," Korin said.
"It's always easier the second day," Yuri told her reassuringly. "I remember my first day freshman year…"
Naminé easily slipped away to go have another look around for her notebook. It was most likely long gone by now, but there was no harm in looking, was there? Based on the way Korin looked at her, she doubted she'd be missed.
Eyeing the back of Korin's head with intense dislike, Roxas felt unexplainably enraged as she talked and laughed with Sora and Riku a few steps ahead of him in the hallway after second period. Normally, he was a kind person and wouldn't hate someone he barely knew without reason.
Naminé was right. There was something very off about Korin, and as he saw the look Riku was giving her, a thought popped into his head. Could it be possible that Korin was trying to…stir things up? No, that didn't seem right. She didn't know anything about their group, and if she did, she'd know that they were so tightly knit that they were like family.
That day, Naminé, Kairi, and Yuri hadn't turned up at the table for lunch, much to Roxas' dismay. His face propped on his hand, he slipped off into a daydream, completely ignoring the lighthearted conversation being made by Korin, Sora, and Riku.
Naminé and Kairi cast each other knowing looks as Yuri rushed into the library later than planned.
"Sorry, ran into Korin," she apologized quickly. "Anyway… I wanted to talk to you guys and tell you… you were right."
"We were?" Kairi and Naminé said together.
"Yeah… you were. As much as I hate to admit it, you two have been right all along. Last night, I thought about it for awhile, and…"
"Realized that using other people isn't the best way to get what you want?" Kairi offered.
Yuri gave her a sarcastic look. "No. I felt really odd, and realized… you know, I guess I thought the weird connection I felt to Roxas meant something, but maybe it doesn't. There are other people out there."
Naminé felt so proud of Yuri. It seemed like a radical change for such a short period of time, but Naminé could tell in the set of her shoulders that she was serious. It wasn't hard for Naminé to imagine Yuri's feelings, either. She felt oddly drawn to her friends sometimes, too. An overwhelming sense of rightness hovered over them at times, like when they sat together at the lunch table. Yuri obviously felt something similar for Roxas.
"I'm serious," Yuri said. "I guess since he doesn't realize how great I am, I'll find someone better…don't you guys think?"
Kairi felt happiness swelling inside of her—things could be normal again at last. "That's great, Yuri! I'm really happy for you."
"And now I can go back to being…me," she said with a smile. "I'm looking forward to that."
"We're both looking forward to you being you again, too," Kairi said happily. "We missed you!"
"Yeah, sorry about all the craziness," Yuri said, embarrassed. "I just… to be honest, I'm not sure why I did it…" she trailed off as though there was more to say, but didn't elaborate.
Yuri swung open the door to her house merrily and hurried inside. She slipped off her shoes, and headed straight for her room—her mother wouldn't allow her any time on the phone unless her homework was finished.
She hummed to herself, glad to feel freer than she had for a long time. The connection to Roxas would always be there, but she felt at peace with their friendship. She was delighted that she could stop worrying about what Roxas would say or do, and what Roxas would think about this, and what he was talking about with that other girl…
She placed her hand on the doorknob of her room, and felt her stomach wrench into a tight knot. Strange… She turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open.
"Oh!" she shrieked, horrified to find a man with long, brown hair sitting anxiously in her favorite blue chair. As she took in the sight of the man—he was dressed in all black and looked very threatening indeed—she found that her legs had become basically paralyzed beneath her. She couldn't move, and suddenly, she couldn't make any noise…
The stranger stood up. "Yuri, is it?" He walked over to her, and looked her straight in the eye. "Well, I'll be. I think maybe we should have a talk."
Thank you so much for reading!
Love,
ladydemelza