"Sincerely, Nobody" by ladydemelza

Chapter 10

Note: this story is in the process of being updated from how it was originally posted. Thank you for bearing with me as I continue to work on it. I really appreciate it!

Naminé concentrated on the spell in her hands, burning like open flames against her pale skin. Would Korin really manage to block something like this? The amount of magic that she was drawing from Hollow Bastion began to feel even more uncomfortable—a perfectly noticeable pressure at the base of her throat. In her mind's eye she could see what would happen if she hit Korin with this spell. The girl would crumple to the ground, black hair spilling across the floor like ink, and found she didn't truly want to hurt anybody, even though she should want to hurt Korin after she did to Roxas.

The magic flew from her hands almost of its own volition. Korin reacted quickly, shooting magic of her own directly toward Naminé. The two spells met and ricocheted off of each other with an enormous cracking noise. Naminé shot another spell, instinct kicking in before she could stop it.

Korin, entirely prepared, blocked the spell, though wasn't left without wounds—her arms were damaged with cuts where her blocking spell touched her skin. Enraged, she ran toward Naminé, who, desperate to release more of the power in her body, was preparing another spell. Something shifted inside her and her limbs suddenly felt impossibly heavy. The magic in her veins felt like it was exploding now, the pressure inside her so intense she realized with a jolt she could hardly move. As she was frozen in shock, Korin wound up and punched her furiously in the face.

Naminé fell to the ground, landing hard and feeling her head bounce off the floor. Her limbs felt stiffer than concrete and refused to move. The pain she felt was unbearable, white hot and unrelenting, and she felt herself slipping away, brain shutting down as her vision spotted with light as white as the heat in her veins felt.

"You overdid it," she thought she heard Korin say. She could hear the smile in Korin's voice. The spot Korin had punched her was pounding with pain and already swelling. She couldn't hear anymore – all her ears could pick up was a high-pitched ringing. Something wet trickled out of one of them, she thought, and it felt like blood.

Just as Korin loomed over her, before she even had a moment to consider that she might die, that this might be the last thing she would ever see, everything went black.

Leon and Aeris were fully prepared for a fight with Hana and Tomoko. Tomoko threw herself toward them, weapon drawn, but Hana hung back slightly, eyes searching.

Aeris drew at her internal magic and sent the first spell at Tomoko. Who blocked it and returned fire. Hana drew her sword and rushed to catch up with Tomoko, headed toward Leon to engage. He saw her coming, gave her a nearly imperceptible nod, and readjusted towards his left towards Aeris and Tomoko. Riku burst from Leon's wake, coming from what seemed like out of nowhere, sword drawn and eyes blazing.

"Riku," Hana said under her breath, shooting a wind spell through toward him. He didn't have his keyblade, there was no way he could block it the way he used to.

Somehow, he glanced the spell off of his perfectly normal sword. In a flash of steel, Riku and Hana's weapons were grinding against each other, steel against steel. "You left," Hana said, so quiet Riku almost couldn't hear her. "You left me here."

Riku's muscles strained as he pushed harder against her sword, noticing Leon and Aeris drifting further and further away as they fought Tomoko in his peripheral vision. "Your partner almost killed my friend!"

"Your partner almost killed my friend!"

"Oh, yeah? What happened to hating them all?"

Hana felt his glare like a dagger to the heart. She could almost feel the cold metal there aching in her chest. His cheeks were red with anger and exertion, his eyes wide with fury. "Well, you've given me seventeen years to get used to the idea of being stuck with them forever."

"Forever?" he repeated, voice as low as a growl. Her feet began to slide backward.

"I can't ever get away from them now, and it's your fault!"

"Bullshit." With one final, muscle-wrenching heave, he shoved all of his weight onto his sword and pushed her backward. She toppled over, landing with a muted thud against the soft earth. He suspected she wasn't giving the fight her best effort. Nonetheless, he kicked her hand and her sword went flying. He placed the point of his sword at her neck. "Would you like me to end your suffering?"

"If you can find it in you to stab me, go ahead," Hana said bitterly. "I won't die."

Riku inched the point of his sword closer to her skin. "Everyone bleeds. Everyone dies."

"Not us," Hana said, eyes narrowed.

"That's impossible."

She shook her head. "Get your weapon out of my face, or I definitely won't tell you what I mean."

Riku turned to make sure Leon, Aeris, and Tomoko weren't looking; they were thoroughly engaged in their battle. He hesitated, and then slowly lowered his weapon to his side. She looked just like he remembered, like she hadn't even aged a day. He knew the Magicite had dark magic at their disposal but couldn't imagine why they'd use it to prevent themselves from aging.

"We're cursed, sort of," said Hana quickly. She knew the fight between Aeris, Leon, and Tomoko couldn't last much longer, and Tomoko would come looking for her. "We made a deal with Akiko and she cast a curse on us so we wouldn't age or die."

With a sigh, Riku ran his fingers through his hair. Akiko. The Queen wouldn't relish the idea of having to kill Akiko to even have a chance against the Magicite, but he could already see there was no other option. Hana looked miserable at having to reveal this to him, and Riku felt a nostalgic stab of remembrance of the way things used to be for their friendship. He couldn't believe he was actually feeling pity for her. "One more thing. Why didn't you tell us that Korin was coming after Roxas that night?"

Her expression of misery deepened, and for a moment Riku worried she was going to cry. "It's not as though I didn't try. I did everything I could. I didn't want them to figure out I was betraying them. I had no idea that Roxas would be unprepared to fight her, and that none of you would be with him."

"You could have come to me when you knew that Korin was going after Roxas. He would have been prepared if he had known. She caught him at a very bad time."

Hana scoffed at that. "There are more important things than what was happening between he and Naminé."

"Not to him!" Riku said, clearly pronouncing and emphasizing every word. "She's the most important person in the world to him."

"You were the most important person to me," Hana whispered.

Riku hung his head, feeling guilty for thinking in that moment that he missed his life on Earth, where things were exponentially less complicated. "It really wasn't like I had any other choice but to leave."

"You could have at least waited until I switched sides," she pointed out. "I was stuck with them for seventeen years, Riku. Now, my hands are tied. I can't leave this side. I cannot die until Akiko lifts our curse, and if all of you were killed and I was the only one left, they could torture me for the rest of eternity."

"Don't be so dramatic," Riku said, immediately regretting saying something so insensitive. "Sorry. What I mean is, we're back now, and we'll handle it."

"No, you can't," Hana said. Her shoulders slumped forward. "Not unless you can get Akiko to lift the curse on us, and I imagine you guys don't have many bargaining chips."

She had a point there. He knew the Queen, Naminé, and Aeris hadn't taken into account the idea that Akiko might bargain with the Magicite while they were gone. Akiko was the only other witch that they knew of in Hollow Bastion who the land was bonded with and responded to, but normally she kept to herself instead of getting involved. Getting her to go back on her deal would be a difficult task indeed, Riku knew, and it wasn't as though they could offer her protection – it would be an uphill battle just to protect themselves.

"We're going to do everything we can," Riku reassured her even though he didn't feel particularly sure of things himself. "And I'll get you out of there."

Hana's eyes met his. "It doesn't matter anymore. You chose someone else."

With a heavy sigh, Riku again wished he could return to his life on Earth. "I chose survival. Not a person."

"If you find her, we'll see," she said, voice cold. "We're done here."

Riku noticed with a start that Tomoko, Aeris, and Leon were starting to move back toward them. Hana stood up and grabbed for her sword.

"One last thing," she said. "Unless you want Naminé to die, you'd better get to her before Korin kills her."

Without another word, she dashed away so quickly that Riku could hardly tell which direction she had gone. It took a moment for everything she had said to process, and then—"NAMINÉ!" Riku bounded after her, eyes wildly scanning the surrounding area to see where she had gone. After about a minute or so, Riku had a feeling that Roxas, Sora, and the girls were hidden in the section of woods just to his left, so he rapidly halted and cautiously entered the wooded area.

"Roxas?" Riku murmured.

Sure enough, Roxas, Sora, Kairi, and Yuri were all still carefully crouched and seated where he had left them before.

"Why did you run off?" Sora asked.

"I ran into Hana."

"Hana…" Yuri, who had been far too drowsy to notice Riku's departure, muttered. "I've heard that name before…I know I have…"

"Who I ran into isn't important… I think they're going to try to do something to Naminé, and I really need someone to come with me."

Roxas was off the ground and grabbing the remaining sword that Aeris had left before Riku had finished the sentence. "Let's go!" he said, sprinting of the ditch more quickly than could be natural.

Riku followed in his wake, suddenly realizing something—Roxas didn't remember being in love with Naminé. He didn't know how he knew that, but somehow, he had a weird feeling that Roxas didn't remember the full story. Riku's memories, on the other hand, were relatively clear, much to his chagrin.

He remembered Hana, the cautious and unwilling soldier. He remembered her plea as they fought to allow her to switch sides, or at least help him and his friends—she hated everything about her job, but couldn't get out of it without help. Riku had tested her to make sure that she was trustworthy, and suddenly found himself friends with her. He made sure all of his friends knew to leave her alone when possible if they happened to come across her. He remembered her attraction to him, and even his own feelings. Maybe, just maybe, she could be enough for him. He wanted to punch his past self. There were things in his past with her that he didn't want to remember anymore. Things he had done.

The Queen had been very good to Riku before they had left. She always trusted his advice, and he always considered her in his circle of close friends. She wasn't any older than him, and even permitted him to call him by just her first name, and not "your majesty". When gossip about their familiarity had inevitably seeped out of the court and into the hands of the Magicite, it led to a bitter fight between Riku and Hana the night before he and his friends left Hollow Bastion.

He knew he was leaving her then, and he hadn't told her. Couldn't.

"Aeris, you okay?" Leon asked urgently, blocking another of Hana's strikes with his gunblade.

Aeris had been hit with some sort of stinging spell that had prompted a yelp of pain. "Fine," she answered through gritted teeth as she prepared to reflect another of Tomoko's spells back at her. "You?"

He swung his heavy blade toward Hana for what felt like the millionth time, but her sword skills were far too refined. She blocked, and launched another intricate pattern of attack. "Just great," he replied in a similar tone. Suddenly, his eyes widened again, just as they had when he had noticed that Riku was following him towards Hana. "Aeris! Riku and Roxas!"

She spun towards them, braid whipping around into her face as she fired a bright red spell at Tomoko. "What are they doing? They heard my directions!"

Riku and Roxas breezed past the fighting and were at the door of the mysterious house in the distance in mere seconds. Easily kicking the door in, they found a shocked Korin, and Naminé, blond hair heavily ruffled and face-down on the ground, clearly knocked out.

"YOU—" Roxas began furiously.

"I'll be seeing you," Korin promised with a grin. She disappeared as Roxas lunged.

Riku dropped his sword and hurried to Naminé's side. She held her wrist, feeling for a pulse.

"She's alive," he said, feeling the faint beat of her heart through his fingertips.

Roxas knelt next to her, brushing the hair from her face. Blood dribbled from one of her ears into her hair, staining the pale blonde color. Roxas wiped it away from her skin with his hand. "We need Aeris."

"Come on, let's take her…"

Roxas lifted her with ease, and he and Riku flew out the door.

"Well," Aeris began, "Korin didn't do much damage… most of this is her own."

"How…did this happen?" Roxas asked, absently running his fingers along the back of Naminé's hand, blindly hoping the touch might bring her back to consciousness. Everyone, he could tell, was very aware of the contact, but Roxas didn't care.

"Magic," Aeris said. "It looks like maybe she took in more than she could handle."

"So it wasn't Korin," Roxas said. "It's not worse, is it?"

Aeris seemed to debate internally for a moment. "Psychologically, the injury will be much greater than physically, I think."

"She'll be afraid to use magic again," Riku intuited.

"Possibly, but it's hard to say," Aeris said. "We'll have to wait until she wakes up to find out."

"Is she going to be okay?" Yuri asked, long since awakened.

"Perfectly fine," Aeris said confidently. "She's very overexerted is all. This could be an unintended effect of having been away from this land for so long."

Roxas left his hand resting on Naminé's, privately incredibly relieved that she was okay.

"As soon as she wakes up," Leon began, "we'll decide what our next move is. Until then, let's concentrate on getting Kairi's memory jogged…on all of you remembering everything. It's very important that you remember what you did before you left, especially what mistakes you made. And Aeris, make sure you get a look at Yuri…"

Riku nodded in understanding. Leon's reasoning made perfect sense; it was the same reason that most humans had for studying history. Past mistakes were not to be repeated. Riku almost laughed out loud at that. If only he'd remembered that before getting caught up with Hana again.

I'm dead, Naminé thought as she started into the black abyss. Completely, totally dead. I've let everyone down…

"Naminé?"

She heard a warm, familiar voice quietly saying her name, and could feel someone lightly touching her hand—the touch felt warm skin.

And Naminé realized that she wasn't dead at all.

Thank you for reading!

Love,

ladydemelza