"Sincerely, Nobody" by ladydemelza
Chapter 7
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 so much to everyone who has read and/or reviewed!
Yuri wrung her hands nervously. "Leon? I think you'd be the best person to explain this."
He sighed deeply. "A lot more is going on than you five realize."
Yuri was surprised to find herself included in the group, since the issue seemed mostly to do with her friends, but didn't comment.
"Oh, really? Care to explain what's going on? The faster you go, the faster we can get to Naminé!" Sora said fiercely, daring to get into Leon's face a bit.
"Calm down," Leon suggested, slowly pushing Sora out of his personal space. "I'll tell you what's going on, but you have to promise that you'll believe me. It seems…impossible…but trust me, it's more than possible."
"We're listening," Riku said expectantly, arms folded tightly across his chest. Yuri detected the slightest bit of nervousness, which surprised her, considering how carefree Riku always seemed.
Leon sighed again. "Well. I guess you could say that it all started in this world you've all never heard of."
"Another world?" Sora exclaimed in disbelief. "You're joking!"
"Your promise," Leon reminded him. "Just sit tight till I'm done."
Sora cast him a glare, obviously still freaking out about Naminé, but didn't reply.
"So… this world is called Hollow Bastion," Leon explained. "It's very far away from here, and no humans know of it… our Queen made sure of that, she hid the world with extremely complex magic."
"Magic?" Kairi choked.
"Yeah," Leon affirmed. "See, the population of Hollow Bastion is pretty unique. Common people, warriors, witches, magicians… all sorts of people live there."
"What does this have to do with anything?" Sora said impatiently.
"Seriously, calm down," Riku snapped at Sora. "Just listen to what he has to say."
Leon gave Riku a look of gratitude and continued. "The land of Hollow Bastion is extremely magic infused. Only certain individuals can draw magic from the world's core, which make them the most powerful in Hollow Bastion. The Queen was, obviously, one of them."
"Could people other than the Queen use the magic?" Riku asked to everyone's surprise. They all stared, shocked that Riku was buying all of this.
Leon nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes. However, the number of people who could use it is very small. Since the magic of our world is so powerful and unique, many people throughout the ages have plotted to conquer Hollow Bastion and use its magic. The Queen didn't know about the Magicite specifically, but she had already placed her most powerful spells on the world to keep the intruders from entering."
"What in the world is Magicite?" Kairi asked reluctantly.
"The Magicite," Leon corrected her. "An organization bent on entering Hollow Bastion and stealing the ancient magic of the land," Leon answered grimly. "The Queen thought we had had enough magic in place to repel them, but they somehow broke through the enchantments, and attacked."
Kairi gasped, and Yuri eyed her sadly. Nothing could prepare them for what was coming next.
"Now. Ancient legend in our world states that a specific weapon is a sort of physical manifestation of the magic. Well, when four keyblade wielders and a witch who could use Hollow Bastion's magic came to the castle, the Queen thought, naturally, that these people could be trained to be fighters and help her."
"And the fighters were…?" Riku prodded, a knowing look in his eyes.
"You," Leon replied simply. "All of you."
"So, you're trying to say that we're warriors from an ancient, secret world," Sora said, choking back laughter. "You can't be serious."
"I told you at the beginning, I'm more than serious," Leon said flatly. "You all fought with keyblades, and Naminé was quite good with magic. Her eyes glowed red whenever she drew magic from Hollow Bastion—in fact, for members of the Magicite who clashed often with Naminé, it was said that her red eyes were the last thing you would see before she killed you."
"Is that why the witch took her?" Kairi asked shakily, sounding nothing short of terrified.
"No, I expect Korin—"
"Korin?" Kairi repeated. If it was possible, everyone looked even more gobsmacked.
"I didn't know she was a witch until she took Naminé. Anyways," Leon continued, "I believe that Korin took Naminé first for two reasons. Firstly, I assume that she saw an immediate opening to take Naminé, and didn't want to pass up an opportunity to rid herself of one of you. Secondly, after we sent you all here, I learned that the reason for Korin's intense hatred and relentless hunting of Naminé was due to the fact that Naminé killed Korin's brother."
"That's wrong," Sora said quietly. "I mean, she's Naminé. She would never kill someone." The idea of it was utterly preposterous.
"Unless I'm mistaken, Roxas was being threatened by Korin's brother, and Naminé saved him," Leon explained.
As Leon was explaining this, Roxas's brain was going into overdrive. The fight he was describing sounded exactly like the journal entry in the girl's diary. The girl had written about how she had red, glowing eyes in her dream, and was fighting a woman with black hair… and she had saved a boy, hadn't she?
Her poetry and artwork…Naminé loved art and writing. She seemed quiet, thoughtful, subdued…
Which could only mean one thing.
The girl Roxas had been dreaming of had been sitting right in front of him for nearly his whole life… and now, she was gone. Sighing inwardly, he decided not to let his dismay at Naminé's capture show through any more than normal. None of his friends needed to know about his extremely…adverse…crush on Naminé.
"So… the war against the Magicite started to get rough," Leon continued. "You guys were getting kicked around a little, mostly because you were tired and overworked. More than once, after you all returned to the castle from fighting, Naminé would pass out from overuse of magic. The rest of you would be so overly-exerted that it would take days for you to heal completely."
Riku and Sora, who had both been standing and pacing nervously, collapsed into chairs at that. Everyone's eyes settled on the ground, and the sadness they felt for their past selves was more than evident. Yuri's heart wrenched as the looks on her friends' faces shifted from stunned to morose.
Leon eyed them sadly. "After Naminé rescued Roxas from his brush with death, the Queen decided something had to be done. She, Naminé, and Aeris, another talented witch, came up with a plan to remove all of you, including the Queen, from Hollow Bastion for a short while. The spell that they invented was supposed to cut off all of your memories of Hollow Bastion, and lock away all of your powers until you would need them again. Naminé, who invented the spell, cast it on the Queen because it would be hardest to break or detect."
"Which is why Korin found us, but not the Queen," Riku deduced, to the awe of everyone in the room. "Her spell was stronger than ours, because Naminé cast hers…"
"Exactly, and Naminé couldn't cast it on herself due to the specifics of the spell. It's not like they had a long period of time to refine it or work out any problems," Leon said, nodding. "Your spell must be breaking…"
Riku looked slightly pleased with himself, but didn't confirm any such thing.
"We sent all five of you here in a group, so that you would still be together… which was why Naminé couldn't cast the spell on each of you, and have Aeris cast it on her… you wouldn't have ended up here together. Actually, I'm almost positive that the Magicite thinks that the Queen is still in Hollow Bastion, but… you can never be sure," Leon continued. "I'm sorry if this is confusing, but…it's really all about magic."
"So…the Queen of Hollow Bastion is somewhere on this planet, but you don't know where, and you won't be able to trace her at all, since her magic is basically undetectable," Kairi said. "Great."
"We were hoping to use Naminé for that," Leon confessed. "A good witch can always find her spells."
"So…are you saying we have to go back to Hollow Bastion?" Sora asked uncertainly. "I mean…"
"Sora, I know this must be confusing…go dashing off with a stranger like me to a world you've never heard of…but I promise you, things will get better when you go back. Your spells will break, your memories will return, and you'll remember everything," Leon said gently.
Riku and Sora exchanged skeptical glances. "So…if we agree to come, more of this could be explained?" Riku asked. Everyone looked as though they knew in their hearts that this was real, and that their only chance to get back who they were was to go with Leon.
Leon nodded. "You'd certainly be able to understand it better if you could remember everything that happened 17 years ago in Hollow Bastion. You need something around to trigger your memory, and I think going back to the world would be the best trigger, don't you?"
"Hold on, hold on," Roxas said, speaking for the first time since Leon's arrival. "So we had different lives 17 years ago than we do now? That's…"
The weight of this information made him feel overwhelmingly dizzy, and he slumped backward into the cushions of the couch he was seated on. His body began to shake violently, and he pulled his knees up to his chest as his stomach started to wrench and churn, and the horribly ill feeling began to take over…memories were flooding into his mind…memories he was certain couldn't be his…
A flash of he and Sora fighting together with key-shaped swords… he and Riku screwing around together with their weapons… Naminé teaching Kairi what appeared to be a spell as he looked on… Yuri marveling at his key-shaped sword, though something seemed quite different about her… Fighting a boy with dark colored hair, and actually losing… that is, until a red-eyed Naminé turned up to save his life…
And just like that, Roxas's spell was broken.
When Naminé at last stirred, a quick survey of her surroundings left her confused. She seemed to be in a type of basement, or maybe a cave, judging by the stone floor and walls. She was in a corner, with two strange, crystalline walls, each about seven feet in length, extending out of each wall, keeping her in a sort of enclosure. Stone walls made up half of the enclosure, and the strange, clear ones made up the other half.
She somehow knew better than to touch the walls. Pacing, she waited for her captor to come and check if she was awake.
Nearly an hour later, Korin appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room. "Restless, huh?" she sneered. "Your spell must be breaking, though. If you weren't, it would have taken you at least another day to awaken."
Naminé glared. "What are you talking about? I have no idea why I'm even here!"
"Don't you?" Korin asked quietly. "Well, you're here because you killed my brother, and I've been assigned to retrieve your friends. You," she paused, "I'll kill."
Naminé's eyes widened. "I didn't kill anybody! What the hell are you talking about?"
As Korin walked straight up the barrier to stare Naminé down, two other women appeared at Korin's sides. One had shoulder-length bleached blonde curls and a sneer spread across her thin, pale face. The other, sporting black hair similar to Korin's, had nearly a mirror expression. Both were Korin's height, sporting nearly identical outfits—black skinny pants, a white top, a large black belt with daggers hanging from it fastened around their hips, and black and white striped armbands.
"Korin, calm down," the blonde girl advised. "You can kill her. You'll get your revenge."
"No, Hana, I can't," Korin muttered through gritted teeth. "She has to help us find the Queen first."
"That's not what the boss told us," Hana said, casting the other black-haired girl a look.
"Yeah, she said we didn't really need the Queen," the black-haired girl agreed.
"Tomoko, you know better than I that she's just tired of looking for her."
"Perhaps the murder of one of her most trusted witches will coax her out of hiding," Hana suggested.
"Perhaps," Korin said thoughtfully. "I'd better run that by the boss. Can you guys watch her till I come back?"
"What, you think she's going to break out?" Tomoko said, laughing a little. "Korin, you over-estimate her. She's just a human."
"For now," Korin reminded her. "If the real Naminé is unleashed, run for your lives. You're ill prepared to fight her right now, and she'll be furious when she gets out. You saw what she did to Hiro when her…" Korin choked a little, "loved one…was threatened."
Instead of sticking up for herself or asking questions, Naminé was listening carefully to this exchange, trying to absorb as much information as she could. Sadly, they hadn't given any clue as to where she might be—she could feel her cell phone still in her pocket, ready to use to call for help at any time…
"Ah, yes, the blonde boy," Tomoko said. "Sorry, it's been just north of fifteen years, it's hard to remember these things."
"Either way," Korin said, eyes narrowing. "Watch her." She snapped her fingers, and was gone.
Hana and Tomoko took a seat on two chairs across the room from where Naminé was being kept. So far, Naminé had gathered a lot of information. Korin thought she had killed her brother, a Queen from somewhere or another was missing, and Korin's boss was looking for her…Naminé had somehow been one of the Queen's most trusted witches, whatever that meant…she had rescued a blonde boy that Korin believed she had been in love with…
"So," Naminé began, "I still don't know why I'm here."
"Yeah, let's keep it that way," Hana said without looking at her. "You killed one of my best friends, and then disappeared. I honestly never thought I'd have to stare into the face of his killer again. Well, little murderer, you're not getting away this time."
"He tried to kill Roxas!" Naminé shouted, not entirely sure why the name "Roxas" had come out of her mouth.
"Roxas? How did you know?" Tomoko demanded, sounding slightly on edge. She and Hana exchanged panicked looks.
"Don't worry, I don't remember everything," Naminé said bitterly, feeling as though someone else were controlling her mouth. "Just…how I got out of here. I can't…if only I could remember…"
Overcome by a sudden wave of sickness, Naminé sat down so quickly it almost looked like she fell. She grabbed her legs and pulled them to her chest, shaking violently. Hana and Tomoko rushed towards Naminé's enclosure.
She tried to get up—if only she could stop the random jolts of her muscles…
She clutched at the wall, still shaking madly. Before she could stop herself, she keeled over and spilled the entire contents of her stomach on the stone floor. Hana and Tomoko, making noises of disgust, were desperately trying to strengthen the crystal walls. Naminé crumpled to the ground, passing out as her head hit the stone. Her mind was suddenly full of extremely familiar-looking images…
She and Yuri talking and laughing, though Yuri looked much different…Kairi showing her how to use a sword…Sora begging her to teach him how to cure himself, since Riku wouldn't…Riku and her, fighting girls wearing outfits similar to that of Korin, Hana, and Tomoko…Roxas, half-dead…drawing at a powerful, rumbling magic beneath her feet to kill the dark haired boy standing over him…
As the images faded to black, she knew the images were true. Somehow, as Korin had warned Hana and Tomoko she might…her spell had broken. She could hear Korin's voice from the bathroom echoing in her brain… "The real you has broken free."
Oh, how right she was.
Thank you so much for reading!
Love,
ladydemelza