Chocolate Fic for jadeswallow
To: jadeswallow
From: melonpaan
Title: Stray
Pairing: Ninomiya Kazunari/Aoi Yu
Rating: PG
Summary: A thief, an artist, a mechanic, a scholar, and a bard. We’re not really in the business of saving the world.
A/N: Hello and happy white day jadeswallow! You didn’t mention a specific Final Fantasy, but I hope this fits the genre just enough. :)
He finds her in the woods while hunting. She is dressed in layers of fabrics and furs, all in shades of the earth-browns and greens and tans and spotted blacks. She is still, curled up with knees pressed against her chest, seeking warmth and shelter in a small pile of withering leaves. He thinks she is an injured bandersnatch, easy prey, instant kill for dinner. His dagger is exactly 1.5 centimeters from her heart when he notices the pale white face through waves of tangled obsidian curls.
Nino is hungry-starving-hasn’t had a good meaty meal in days and everyone is counting on him, but the entire forest is completely devoid of life save for this one girl. And in a few minutes she, too, may depart.
He listens for a breath, faint, but distinguishable against the rustling of leaves. Satisfied, he presses a finger to his left earring and waits for a crackle of communication. “Sho-chan? I’m going to need you to come find me.”
Sho’s voice fills his ear, bored and exasperated, “Nino, you know I can’t land in the forest. Remember the last time you made me land in a forest? It took Aiba two weeks to repair our ship.”
“Yeah, but our last ship was practically made of paper.”
“Point taken, but still-”
“Sho-chan, you’re going to have to trust me this time. You don’t have to land, just throw the ladder out. I think there was a small opening in the trees exactly five kilometers north of where we parked, three kilometers west. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
“Wait, Nino-”
“If you don’t come get me, I may just be taking the train out of here,” Nino says, quickly releasing his ear to cut off any complaint. He fits his dagger back into the sheath at his waist and regards her carefully. “It’s a good thing you’re smaller than me.”
+++
There is a thin bronze crown circling her forehead, with three prongs-two at her temples and one at the back-joining at the top of her head. It looks as if it were crafted specifically for her, fashioned in one complete piece, with only a small red stone centered in the middle of her forehead. He notices it only after he deposits her onto Jun’s bed and continues to stare, even as Jun squawks about common decency and proper hygiene and do you even know how much bacteria lives in the Phantom Forest? Everything is dead, Nino, dead. Dead things live there and die there and now death is all over my bed. Why were you even hunting there?!
Nino makes a mental note to tell Jun that already dead things cannot live, let alone die for a second time, but for now he presses his fingers against the jewel, transfixed.
Her eyes snap open. Jun steps back in surprise but Nino doesn’t move, eyes trailing from the little red stone to her eyes, wild and reckless and desperately scared. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be afraid,” he says calmly, reaching out to her with his palm open and flat.
He thinks his words have gotten to her; her hands lower from her chest, fists uncurling. And then she howls and there is a sudden flare of orange and red and gold and Nino reacts on instinct, tackles Jun onto the ground just before a massive ball of fire scorches the wall behind them.
“Ow, fuck, my eyebrow!” Jun hisses.
Nino doesn’t know how he is not more alarmed at the fact that this girl just released fire from her hands. He raises his head, but barely manages to duck the second blast, tries to ignore the acrid stench of burnt hair as he dives across the room toward the blazing girl. One hand knocks her hands apart and the other gets tangled in her hair and when they hit the ground he hears something shatter. He is almost certain it is the sound of a dislocating shoulder, but when he takes a look at her there is a thin red line running across her forehead where the crown has cracked and broken off.
Blood.
Her eyes flutter unsteadily, but then her gaze refocuses, flickers a piercing, electric shade of blue. “Nose,” she whispers, before her eyes roll back and she is unconscious once more.
+++
“She’s the fucking witch,” Jun snarls in outraged disbelief, brandishing a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.
“J, put the weapons down, you don’t even know how to use them.”
“All I need is one clean stab.”
“J-Jun, please just calm down. I think she was under mind control or something-did you take a look at that crown on her head? There was blood underneath it, Jun, blood. Someone was hurting her and controlling her-”
“And that excuses all the lives she’s taken in the name of the Empire?”
“No, but shedding more blood won’t solve anything at this point,” Sho cuts in, stepping in-between them, casting a dubious look at the unconscious girl before turning his gaze back on Jun. “Besides, she’s still on your bed.”
Jun frowns but turns away, tosses the weapons onto the floor with a thud. “Fine, but I still don’t like it.”
“You don’t like most things,” Aiba offers, unhelpfully, leaning against the wall with one leg crossed over the other, foot resting on his opposite knee. Jun flicks him on the shoulder in annoyance.
Nino seats himself next to her, traces the scars of blood around her forehead, and when her eyes open again, she sits up and crashes straight into his face.
Nino hisses.
The girl looks on with bewildered eyes.
“W-who are you?” her voice is little more than a whisper. “Who am I?”
Before anyone can think, let alone speak, Ohno enters the room with bright smile and a still steaming ladle in hand. “I made soba.”
+++
“I say we leave her in the next town we visit,” Jun says, raising his hand to take a vote. “We don’t have to kill her-just let someone else deal with her.”
“That’s as good as killing her,” Nino objects instantly. “And put your hand down, we’re not voting like this.”
“It would be wiser not to deal with her. If anyone finds out we could be associated with the Empire, our livelihood is pretty much done for. People won’t trade with us and the Empire doesn’t care for our selling of suspiciously obtained goods.”
“Sho-chan, you too?” Nino turns helplessly toward Aiba, who is watching as Ohno gives the girl a second helping of soba in the kitchen.
“I like her. She has a good appetite.”
“You like everyone,” Jun grouches. “Remember, she’s not some helpless stray-she’s the witch who’s been terrorizing any form of resistance. She is a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode. Look what she did to my eyebrow.” He points to the singed and scarring skin where once stood the glorious other half of his eyebrow.
This does not help Jun’s argument at all.
“Yes, she attacked us, but who could blame her? She was left for dead in the Phantom Forest and scared out of her mind. I’m sure the Empire was just torturing her, using her to do their bidding.” When no one speaks, Nino continues, darkly. “Or, what happens if someone brings her back to the Empire? I’m betting she’s valuable, and we know she’s powerful. If the Empire puts a pretty gil reward on bringing her back alive, we’re all as good as dead anyway.”
Complete silence. Even Jun lowers his hand.
“Okay-so she seems to have lost her memories for now, but what happens if she regains them and it turns out she wasn’t being used? That she likes killing?”
All eyes are on Nino. He licks his lips. “Then we kill her first.”
“If we’re not already dead by then,” Jun mutters, but seems more complacent than before.
“In the meantime, what do we call her?” Aiba asks, bouncing on his heels, eager to join Ohno for dinner.
“Aoi,” Nino answers at once, recalling the flash in her eyes.
Aoi glances over at them just after Nino speaks. She gazes at each of their faces in turn, first Aiba, then Sho, then Nino, before finally resting on Jun.
“Eyebrows.”
Jun bristles, leaps to his feet and stalks into the living room to join Ohno and Aoi. Sho shrugs and follows after them.
“I like her,” Aiba says again, glancing over at Nino.
“Yeah. I think I like her, too.”
+++
Aoi likes soba, refuses to eat anything else except for a bag of old, dried shitake mushrooms that Ohno found in the corner of one of the kitchen drawers. She has absolutely no recollection of her past, although she functions perfectly well without them. Aside from food she has no preferences, wears anything she is given, bathes when she is told, and walks barefoot around the ship.
She does not seem to remember her magic at all.
They explain their roles to her one day, to see if it will jostle any loose memories. Or at least help her to remember their names.
“Ohno is an artist. Ohno-artist.” Aiba speaks slowly and loudly, enunciating every syllable.
“Aiba, she lost her memories, not her hearing.” Nino says, covering her ears with his hands.
She giggles and Aiba continues, “He’s really good. He can paint a picture of any animal and it will really look like it. Sometimes they will even be afraid of his paintings!”
“Aiba is our engineer. He fixes things, sometimes makes things worse, but mostly fixes things,” Sho says, patting Aiba on the arm good-naturedly.
“Jun…sings,” Ohno offers. If it were anyone other than Ohno, this would have been said with air quotations.
Jun huffs, “Yeah, well, Sho reads.”
“Hey, we might be dead right now without my knowledge.”
“Weren’t you the one who lead us to the Phantom Forest?” Jun remarks snidely. Nino motions for them to drop the matter quickly.
Aiba blurts out, “Nino is a thief!”
“Treasure hunter.”
“What kind of treasure do you hunt?” Aoi asks, wide-eyed and wondering.
“Only the most valuable.”
“And then what do you do with it?”
He smiles and taps her on the nose. “I protect it with my life.”
+++
It takes very little time for Aoi to weave herself seamlessly into their daily lives.
She helps Aiba when he does his rounds, checking for any broken pipes or loose boards, making sure the ship is working in tip-top condition. She helps carries his tools, hands him hammers when he asks for screwdrivers and nails when he asks for glue.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he accuses once.
Aoi smiles guilelessly back at him and hands him a fork.
With Sho she sits and listens as he explains things from his many books, facts and histories and did you know’s and isn’t that fascinating’s. She nods and nods until eventually she nods off and Sho sighs and covers her with a blanket.
During meal times she follows at Ohno’s heels in the kitchen, helps him carry and scoop and spoon sauces and soups, sets the table when dinner’s ready. He does not let her touch the fire.
When Ohno isn’t cooking, Aoi sits by his side as he paints, with her own canvas spread out in front of her. She dips her fingers into colors and spreads them messily about, covering every inch of white.
When Jun is least expecting it, Aoi will be perched on his bed, head in her hands, watching him like a tiny bird.
“Shoo!” he says, waving her off with his hands, but she never leaves, sits there waiting and watching until Jun sighs and turns away from her, coughs and then strums fingers delicately over his harp, first one string and then another until they are not just playing chords, but music.
She only leaves when he opens his mouth to sing.
With Nino she stares at his nose. She calls him “Nose.” He doesn’t understand why she seems so fascinated by his nose, why her eyes will search his face and then cross as she concentrates on this one aspect of his face.
Out of all of them, she spends the least time with Nino. He gets up at the crack of dawn to go hunting, in fields for dinner and in caverns for treasure. When he gets home, sometimes Aoi is already asleep from Sho’s lectures. Other times, when they all actually get to eat dinner together, Aoi makes sure to sit across from him, staring at his nose when she thinks he’s not looking.
He’s a thief; he’s always looking.
One morning, just as he’s about to head out for the day, he feels a tug at his sleeve and sees Aoi staring up at him with large eyes and pouted lips. “I want to go with you.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“You can protect me.”
They’re parked in the grasslands at the moment, and Nino sees no harm in having her tag along. There are only leaf bunnies and peepers and it might be good for her to get some exercise. Plus, in the middle of the grasslands, there’s no way she will be seen.
It is a mistake.
While tracking a group of peepers, they stumble onto a lair of tonberries, two, ten, fifteen of them, all with glowing yellow eyes and sharp, pointed knives.
“Run!” Nino screams, taking Aoi by the wrist and leading the way. Knives whiz through the air and there are more tonberries, everywhere, blocking off all exits. A knife slices into Nino’s shoulder as he shoves Aoi behind him, and she screams as blood spurts from the gash.
“Aoi, don’t-” Nino says, turning toward her, but he freezes.
Her eyes are shockingly blue. Heat rises in the air, crackling and hissing and suffocating.
“A-Aoi-”
She opens her mouth and screams.
When Nino opens his eyes, all he can see for miles in every direction is scorched, blackened earth.
+++
She does not leave the bedroom for days.
Eventually, when Nino is sure her bag of dried shitake mushrooms has run out, and the others are tired of sleeping on the living room floor, he picks the lock.
He finds her curled up in Jun’s bed, resting her chin on her knees, staring at her hands.
“I hurt people once, didn’t I?” Aoi asks, not looking up. Her hands glow orange and even from a distance Nino can feel beads of sweat dot his forehead, the intense heat of magic.
He moves to sit beside her. “What makes you think that?”
“I feel it. This power. Pulsing through my veins. I hear it. The screams. The cries. The flames licking my face like a blood-stained friend.”
“You weren’t you then.”
“How do you know?” She is not asking, she is hoping, yearning to be told differently. “The mark on your arm. You told me you burned yourself while cooking. But you didn’t, did you?” Her eyes are desperate, pleading. “It was me.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Yes it was!” she cries, taking fistfuls of his shirt and pulling, pushing, fighting. “I can feel it. Smell it. The stench of this-this-”
She buries her face into his chest, shudders and then finally stills.
“It wasn’t you,” Nino repeats firmly, wrapping his arms around her tiny shoulders. “If you are so worried about this little scar on my arm, how can that have been you?”
She pulls back, away from his chest but still in his arms. She is not crying, just stares and stares and eventually, her pupils come together and he knows she is staring at his nose. He leans forward and presses it against her own.
“You are you now. That’s all that matters.”
+++
They stop in Jidoor to restock supplies.
“Owzer-san wanted me to stop by with more paintings.” Ohno hums as he rifles through stacks of canvases. “Do you think he would be interested in a portrait of an octopus?”
“Bring everything you can,” Nino advises, piling trinkets and knick-knacks into his pockets and his bags. “Maybe you can even try to sell some of Aoi’s.”
“Nah, those are priceless.”
Aoi watches in the doorway as they get ready, mouth puckered.
“Is something wrong?” Sho asks, noticing her expression first.
“I want to go,” she speaks in a whisper, understands what happened the last time, but craves just a touch of the sun.
No one says anything.
Then Ohno says, “Okay,” and goes back to his paintings.
Jun and Sho share a look and, after a moment of silent conversation, Sho speaks. “It-er, might not be a good idea. What if someone recognizes her?”
“She just needs a disguise,” Nino says after a moment of deliberation. Jun raises half-an-eyebrow as Nino enters the bedroom. He comes back out with a long red scarf and a fluffy, multi-colored hat.
“Why does it have two balls?”
“Don’t be spoiled.” He fits the hat snugly over her head, making sure to cover her entire forehead. At Sho and Jun’s mirrored expressions of anxiety, Nino grins and gives them a thumbs up. “It’ll be okay.”
When Ohno ties up the last of his paintings, they depart.
“No more soba, please,” Jun pleads, sending them off at the door.
“Maybe we can buy some soumen this time,” Aiba chimes in, waving goodbye.
“I like soba,” Aoi says softly.
“Soba it is,” Nino calls out behind him. “We’ll be back!”
+++
Their first stop is a bakery.
“Oh-chan has a crush on a waitress here,” Nino whispers to Aoi. She pulls her hat further over her face and buries her nose in his scarf as people pass by.
“I promised Meisa a painting,” Ohno replies delicately. As he wanders into the backroom to look for her, Nino and Aoi seat themselves at the table closest to the dessert display. Aoi presses her fingers against the glass container, staring at a row of little yellow cakes decorated with chocolate curls.
“Cheesy-cake?” Nino reads, tilting his head to one side.
“It looks good.” Her breath fogs up the glass.
“And expensive.”
She stops staring at the display after that.
Ohno comes back after a few minutes.
“Which did you give her?” Nino asks, though he doesn’t really care about the answer. He imagines it will be a sunset over the sea or the clouds at dusk.
“A behemoth.”
“Ah.”
At the intersection, Nino veers left. “I’ve got some stuff to sell. Meet you at the market, Oh-chan?”
“That sounds good. I should be done at Owzer-san’s in thirty minutes.” Aoi glances at both of them thoughtfully, before Ohno nudges her toward Nino. “You might have more fun at the pawn shop.”
When Ohno leaves them, Nino grins and pulls Aoi into a hidden nook between two houses. “I was hoping we would be alone.”
When Aoi blinks at him, he brandishes a small box from one of his many pockets. Inside is a tiny yellow cake with chocolate curls on top. Aoi’s eyes widen.
“I thought you weren’t a thief.” Her eyes have not once left the box.
“You wanted it. That makes it a pretty valuable treasure.”
+++
After their snack, they set off for the pawn shop, down a long stretch of pavement and a stone-tiled tunnel. “It’s just a little further this way, Aoi,” Nino says, leading the way down winding steps. When he doesn’t hear the echo of her footfalls after him, he glances back. “Aoi?”
She is staring at a board filled with various bits of hastily tacked on paper. There is one image in particular that has captured her attention, and when Nino jogs back up to her he knows immediately why.
It is her face draw in pencil and charcoal, wearing a thin circlet around her forehead. Her eyes are black, blank, devoid of human expression. The caption beneath the portrait reads: WANTED. Alive. Reward 10M Gil.
“Aoi,” Nino repeats, taking her by the wrist in case someone should see them, but she shakes him off, presses her hand against the portrait, against the small red stone in the center of her crown.
“Yu,” she says, suddenly overwhelmed by images, a vortex of heat and fire and pain and suffering and blood and loss and then-a far off world, full of light and warmth and love and magic. “I think my name is Yu.”
“Yu,” Nino repeats, rolling the syllable over his tongue. “I like it.”
+++
Someone must have spotted them-her. It takes the Empire less than a day to flank their ship from all sides. There is a hiss and a crackle like lightning, hot and intense, slicing the air in two.
“Guys, we’re under attack!” Sho announces from the cockpit. “Hold onto something, quick!”
Yu reaches for Nino’s hand instantly, and he barely manages to grab onto a pillar as the ship lurches on its side.
“Aiba, the cannons!”
“I’m on it!”
The sound of gunfire fills the air and Aoi sinks to the floor, shuts her eyes and pulls Nino’s hat over them. “Don’t worry, Yu,” Nino says close to her ear, wrapping an arm around her. “I’ll protect you with my life.”
Her head snaps up at this, pulls the hat off of her head and stares at him with protruding eyes. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You can’t. Not this. Not anymore.”
“What?”
One hand finds his shoulder and the other finds the burn on his arm. “I don’t want you to get hurt again. I won’t let you.” She stands before he can stop her, strides toward the airship door without once losing her balance. He struggles after her, tumbling through the air from Sho’s sharp curves.
“Yu, what are you-”
She opens the door and stands before him, hair flying in with the wind.
“Don’t,” he says, reaching for her hand, trying not to get swept away.
“I’ll find you, Nose,” Yu says, touching her fingers with his. It is the first time they’ve ever felt so cold.
Nino reaches desperately for her. “Please.”
And then there’s a gale of suffocating wind and she’s catapulting out of the open door with a smile on her face.
“YUUU!”
And there is an earth-shattering screech and Yu is no longer Yu. She is but she isn’t, a shining ephemeral creature of silver and magenta, and she’s flying, soaring through the skies, turning back only once for him to see electric blue eyes focusing one last time on his nose.
+++
“We have to go after her,” Nino says, strapping on a pair of Aiba’s repair goggles and searching the weapons cabinet for all of his knives and dirks.
“Are you mad? She’s headed straight for the heart of the Empire. We even go near the central tower and they will shoot us down like cockatrice.”
“We can’t let her go there alone. She left to save us, we have to-”
Sho places an arm on his shoulder, biting his lip. “Nino, she left to save us. Isn’t it doing her a disservice to just-run straight back into danger? Aoi-”
“Her name is Yu!” he cries, breathing heavily. “Her name is Yu. She-She falls asleep when you open a book, gets all of Aiba’s tools mixed up a-and she helps Ohno cook and paints with her hands, and Jun is the only one who can get her to immediately leave a room and I-I told her I would protect her with my life.”
“But what can we do?” Jun asks, exasperated. “A thief, an artist, a mechanic, a scholar, and a bard. We’re not really in the business of saving the world.”
“Meisa gave me a recipe for cheesy-cake,” Ohno says softly, staring at one of Yu’s paintings. It is a messy swirl of colors; purple, blue, green, red, yellow-and a single streak of bright magenta. “I promised I would try baking her a cheesy-cake.”
“We have to go after her,” Aiba says, placing a hand on Jun’s shoulder. Sho gulps, but nods in agreement.
“I still miss my eyebrow,” Jun mutters with the air of someone who has lost completely and utterly and willingly.
+++
They find her-he finds her at the very top of the Empire’s tower. She is lying still, with her knees against her chest, drenched in blood.
His heart stops in his chest and he runs forward, skins his knees on the wood and puts his ear to her chest, willing and wishing and hoping and praying for a single breath.
She gives him two.
He sighs in relief, hugging her close to his chest. He realizes a second too late that they are not alone in the room. The Emperor is almost unrecognizable, skin blackened and covered in blood and dirt. He grins, mouth wide and sharp and white and red. There is a detonator in his hands.
And then the tower is crumbling but nothing matters because Yu is in his arms and she is breathing so he runs, crashes through the stain glass window backwards and falls.
“I found you,” Yu coughs feebly, pressing a hand against Nino’s cheek. It is still cold, but there is a flicker of warmth in her fingertips.
“Stupid, we found you.” The words don’t come out as harsh as he wants them to, not when she’s smiling like they’re not currently plummeting to their deaths. “Yu, I-”
“You’re warm, Nino.”
“Hey now, since when do you call me that?”
“Nino, Nino.” Her eyes are drooping and she’s curling further into his chest, the arms around his neck growing limper and limper. He clenches his hands around her slim waist and wills himself to hold on if it’s the last thing he ever does.
+++
He wakes to the smell of burnt ash and-cheese.
“Yu!”
He is in his bed, actually, he is in Jun’s bed. His head is killing him, pounding against his skull like thousands of off-beat hammers. His mouth tastes like dirt and filth and there is blood all over the front of his shirt.
But everything looks so-so normal that he wonders if it had all been a dream.
“Jun-chan! Nino’s awake and not dead! So it’s okay we’ve placed him on your bed right?” Aiba’s lanky arms are suddenly around him, painful and sharp in all the wrong places.
“Whatever. I’ve already asked Yu-chan to burn it,” Jun says, leaning against the door frame.
Nino’s eyes snap open. “Yu is-”
“Yu is here,” says the sweetest voice Nino has ever heard. Yu’s head peeks out from behind Ohno’s back, who enters the room with a tray of oddly shaped orange cakes. “Cheesy cakes!” Ohno announces, and Jun, taking the hint, untangles Aiba from around Nino and walks to the opposite corner of the room with Ohno.
Nino’s hat with two bonbons on the end is pulled down over her eyes. She pulls up the ends slowly, shyly, revealing electric blue eyes.
“Y-your eyes.”
She nods, fingers splayed out over her cheeks and over her mouth.
“They were like that when she woke up. As well as her hair-” Sho says, stepping beside her.
Yu squeaks, but Sho has already pulled the hat off of her head, revealing short, silvery magenta hair, before flitting away towards Ohno’s cakes. She furrows her eyebrows and bites her bottom lip, staring up at him through dark eyelashes. He sits up and takes one step forward, two, five, seven, until he’s right in front of her, ignoring the throbbing in his head and his arms and legs and every fiber of his being, takes up a bit of her hair in his hands and smiles. “It looks good.”
She throws her arms around his neck, crushing him with her tiny little hands and it feels like his back is on fire and he will probably have to buy a new jacket when she burns hand-print-sized holes into it, but he doesn’t care at all, just picks her up off the ground and swings her around and around.
From: melonpaan
Title: Stray
Pairing: Ninomiya Kazunari/Aoi Yu
Rating: PG
Summary: A thief, an artist, a mechanic, a scholar, and a bard. We’re not really in the business of saving the world.
A/N: Hello and happy white day jadeswallow! You didn’t mention a specific Final Fantasy, but I hope this fits the genre just enough. :)
He finds her in the woods while hunting. She is dressed in layers of fabrics and furs, all in shades of the earth-browns and greens and tans and spotted blacks. She is still, curled up with knees pressed against her chest, seeking warmth and shelter in a small pile of withering leaves. He thinks she is an injured bandersnatch, easy prey, instant kill for dinner. His dagger is exactly 1.5 centimeters from her heart when he notices the pale white face through waves of tangled obsidian curls.
Nino is hungry-starving-hasn’t had a good meaty meal in days and everyone is counting on him, but the entire forest is completely devoid of life save for this one girl. And in a few minutes she, too, may depart.
He listens for a breath, faint, but distinguishable against the rustling of leaves. Satisfied, he presses a finger to his left earring and waits for a crackle of communication. “Sho-chan? I’m going to need you to come find me.”
Sho’s voice fills his ear, bored and exasperated, “Nino, you know I can’t land in the forest. Remember the last time you made me land in a forest? It took Aiba two weeks to repair our ship.”
“Yeah, but our last ship was practically made of paper.”
“Point taken, but still-”
“Sho-chan, you’re going to have to trust me this time. You don’t have to land, just throw the ladder out. I think there was a small opening in the trees exactly five kilometers north of where we parked, three kilometers west. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
“Wait, Nino-”
“If you don’t come get me, I may just be taking the train out of here,” Nino says, quickly releasing his ear to cut off any complaint. He fits his dagger back into the sheath at his waist and regards her carefully. “It’s a good thing you’re smaller than me.”
+++
There is a thin bronze crown circling her forehead, with three prongs-two at her temples and one at the back-joining at the top of her head. It looks as if it were crafted specifically for her, fashioned in one complete piece, with only a small red stone centered in the middle of her forehead. He notices it only after he deposits her onto Jun’s bed and continues to stare, even as Jun squawks about common decency and proper hygiene and do you even know how much bacteria lives in the Phantom Forest? Everything is dead, Nino, dead. Dead things live there and die there and now death is all over my bed. Why were you even hunting there?!
Nino makes a mental note to tell Jun that already dead things cannot live, let alone die for a second time, but for now he presses his fingers against the jewel, transfixed.
Her eyes snap open. Jun steps back in surprise but Nino doesn’t move, eyes trailing from the little red stone to her eyes, wild and reckless and desperately scared. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be afraid,” he says calmly, reaching out to her with his palm open and flat.
He thinks his words have gotten to her; her hands lower from her chest, fists uncurling. And then she howls and there is a sudden flare of orange and red and gold and Nino reacts on instinct, tackles Jun onto the ground just before a massive ball of fire scorches the wall behind them.
“Ow, fuck, my eyebrow!” Jun hisses.
Nino doesn’t know how he is not more alarmed at the fact that this girl just released fire from her hands. He raises his head, but barely manages to duck the second blast, tries to ignore the acrid stench of burnt hair as he dives across the room toward the blazing girl. One hand knocks her hands apart and the other gets tangled in her hair and when they hit the ground he hears something shatter. He is almost certain it is the sound of a dislocating shoulder, but when he takes a look at her there is a thin red line running across her forehead where the crown has cracked and broken off.
Blood.
Her eyes flutter unsteadily, but then her gaze refocuses, flickers a piercing, electric shade of blue. “Nose,” she whispers, before her eyes roll back and she is unconscious once more.
+++
“She’s the fucking witch,” Jun snarls in outraged disbelief, brandishing a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.
“J, put the weapons down, you don’t even know how to use them.”
“All I need is one clean stab.”
“J-Jun, please just calm down. I think she was under mind control or something-did you take a look at that crown on her head? There was blood underneath it, Jun, blood. Someone was hurting her and controlling her-”
“And that excuses all the lives she’s taken in the name of the Empire?”
“No, but shedding more blood won’t solve anything at this point,” Sho cuts in, stepping in-between them, casting a dubious look at the unconscious girl before turning his gaze back on Jun. “Besides, she’s still on your bed.”
Jun frowns but turns away, tosses the weapons onto the floor with a thud. “Fine, but I still don’t like it.”
“You don’t like most things,” Aiba offers, unhelpfully, leaning against the wall with one leg crossed over the other, foot resting on his opposite knee. Jun flicks him on the shoulder in annoyance.
Nino seats himself next to her, traces the scars of blood around her forehead, and when her eyes open again, she sits up and crashes straight into his face.
Nino hisses.
The girl looks on with bewildered eyes.
“W-who are you?” her voice is little more than a whisper. “Who am I?”
Before anyone can think, let alone speak, Ohno enters the room with bright smile and a still steaming ladle in hand. “I made soba.”
+++
“I say we leave her in the next town we visit,” Jun says, raising his hand to take a vote. “We don’t have to kill her-just let someone else deal with her.”
“That’s as good as killing her,” Nino objects instantly. “And put your hand down, we’re not voting like this.”
“It would be wiser not to deal with her. If anyone finds out we could be associated with the Empire, our livelihood is pretty much done for. People won’t trade with us and the Empire doesn’t care for our selling of suspiciously obtained goods.”
“Sho-chan, you too?” Nino turns helplessly toward Aiba, who is watching as Ohno gives the girl a second helping of soba in the kitchen.
“I like her. She has a good appetite.”
“You like everyone,” Jun grouches. “Remember, she’s not some helpless stray-she’s the witch who’s been terrorizing any form of resistance. She is a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode. Look what she did to my eyebrow.” He points to the singed and scarring skin where once stood the glorious other half of his eyebrow.
This does not help Jun’s argument at all.
“Yes, she attacked us, but who could blame her? She was left for dead in the Phantom Forest and scared out of her mind. I’m sure the Empire was just torturing her, using her to do their bidding.” When no one speaks, Nino continues, darkly. “Or, what happens if someone brings her back to the Empire? I’m betting she’s valuable, and we know she’s powerful. If the Empire puts a pretty gil reward on bringing her back alive, we’re all as good as dead anyway.”
Complete silence. Even Jun lowers his hand.
“Okay-so she seems to have lost her memories for now, but what happens if she regains them and it turns out she wasn’t being used? That she likes killing?”
All eyes are on Nino. He licks his lips. “Then we kill her first.”
“If we’re not already dead by then,” Jun mutters, but seems more complacent than before.
“In the meantime, what do we call her?” Aiba asks, bouncing on his heels, eager to join Ohno for dinner.
“Aoi,” Nino answers at once, recalling the flash in her eyes.
Aoi glances over at them just after Nino speaks. She gazes at each of their faces in turn, first Aiba, then Sho, then Nino, before finally resting on Jun.
“Eyebrows.”
Jun bristles, leaps to his feet and stalks into the living room to join Ohno and Aoi. Sho shrugs and follows after them.
“I like her,” Aiba says again, glancing over at Nino.
“Yeah. I think I like her, too.”
+++
Aoi likes soba, refuses to eat anything else except for a bag of old, dried shitake mushrooms that Ohno found in the corner of one of the kitchen drawers. She has absolutely no recollection of her past, although she functions perfectly well without them. Aside from food she has no preferences, wears anything she is given, bathes when she is told, and walks barefoot around the ship.
She does not seem to remember her magic at all.
They explain their roles to her one day, to see if it will jostle any loose memories. Or at least help her to remember their names.
“Ohno is an artist. Ohno-artist.” Aiba speaks slowly and loudly, enunciating every syllable.
“Aiba, she lost her memories, not her hearing.” Nino says, covering her ears with his hands.
She giggles and Aiba continues, “He’s really good. He can paint a picture of any animal and it will really look like it. Sometimes they will even be afraid of his paintings!”
“Aiba is our engineer. He fixes things, sometimes makes things worse, but mostly fixes things,” Sho says, patting Aiba on the arm good-naturedly.
“Jun…sings,” Ohno offers. If it were anyone other than Ohno, this would have been said with air quotations.
Jun huffs, “Yeah, well, Sho reads.”
“Hey, we might be dead right now without my knowledge.”
“Weren’t you the one who lead us to the Phantom Forest?” Jun remarks snidely. Nino motions for them to drop the matter quickly.
Aiba blurts out, “Nino is a thief!”
“Treasure hunter.”
“What kind of treasure do you hunt?” Aoi asks, wide-eyed and wondering.
“Only the most valuable.”
“And then what do you do with it?”
He smiles and taps her on the nose. “I protect it with my life.”
+++
It takes very little time for Aoi to weave herself seamlessly into their daily lives.
She helps Aiba when he does his rounds, checking for any broken pipes or loose boards, making sure the ship is working in tip-top condition. She helps carries his tools, hands him hammers when he asks for screwdrivers and nails when he asks for glue.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he accuses once.
Aoi smiles guilelessly back at him and hands him a fork.
With Sho she sits and listens as he explains things from his many books, facts and histories and did you know’s and isn’t that fascinating’s. She nods and nods until eventually she nods off and Sho sighs and covers her with a blanket.
During meal times she follows at Ohno’s heels in the kitchen, helps him carry and scoop and spoon sauces and soups, sets the table when dinner’s ready. He does not let her touch the fire.
When Ohno isn’t cooking, Aoi sits by his side as he paints, with her own canvas spread out in front of her. She dips her fingers into colors and spreads them messily about, covering every inch of white.
When Jun is least expecting it, Aoi will be perched on his bed, head in her hands, watching him like a tiny bird.
“Shoo!” he says, waving her off with his hands, but she never leaves, sits there waiting and watching until Jun sighs and turns away from her, coughs and then strums fingers delicately over his harp, first one string and then another until they are not just playing chords, but music.
She only leaves when he opens his mouth to sing.
With Nino she stares at his nose. She calls him “Nose.” He doesn’t understand why she seems so fascinated by his nose, why her eyes will search his face and then cross as she concentrates on this one aspect of his face.
Out of all of them, she spends the least time with Nino. He gets up at the crack of dawn to go hunting, in fields for dinner and in caverns for treasure. When he gets home, sometimes Aoi is already asleep from Sho’s lectures. Other times, when they all actually get to eat dinner together, Aoi makes sure to sit across from him, staring at his nose when she thinks he’s not looking.
He’s a thief; he’s always looking.
One morning, just as he’s about to head out for the day, he feels a tug at his sleeve and sees Aoi staring up at him with large eyes and pouted lips. “I want to go with you.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“You can protect me.”
They’re parked in the grasslands at the moment, and Nino sees no harm in having her tag along. There are only leaf bunnies and peepers and it might be good for her to get some exercise. Plus, in the middle of the grasslands, there’s no way she will be seen.
It is a mistake.
While tracking a group of peepers, they stumble onto a lair of tonberries, two, ten, fifteen of them, all with glowing yellow eyes and sharp, pointed knives.
“Run!” Nino screams, taking Aoi by the wrist and leading the way. Knives whiz through the air and there are more tonberries, everywhere, blocking off all exits. A knife slices into Nino’s shoulder as he shoves Aoi behind him, and she screams as blood spurts from the gash.
“Aoi, don’t-” Nino says, turning toward her, but he freezes.
Her eyes are shockingly blue. Heat rises in the air, crackling and hissing and suffocating.
“A-Aoi-”
She opens her mouth and screams.
When Nino opens his eyes, all he can see for miles in every direction is scorched, blackened earth.
+++
She does not leave the bedroom for days.
Eventually, when Nino is sure her bag of dried shitake mushrooms has run out, and the others are tired of sleeping on the living room floor, he picks the lock.
He finds her curled up in Jun’s bed, resting her chin on her knees, staring at her hands.
“I hurt people once, didn’t I?” Aoi asks, not looking up. Her hands glow orange and even from a distance Nino can feel beads of sweat dot his forehead, the intense heat of magic.
He moves to sit beside her. “What makes you think that?”
“I feel it. This power. Pulsing through my veins. I hear it. The screams. The cries. The flames licking my face like a blood-stained friend.”
“You weren’t you then.”
“How do you know?” She is not asking, she is hoping, yearning to be told differently. “The mark on your arm. You told me you burned yourself while cooking. But you didn’t, did you?” Her eyes are desperate, pleading. “It was me.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Yes it was!” she cries, taking fistfuls of his shirt and pulling, pushing, fighting. “I can feel it. Smell it. The stench of this-this-”
She buries her face into his chest, shudders and then finally stills.
“It wasn’t you,” Nino repeats firmly, wrapping his arms around her tiny shoulders. “If you are so worried about this little scar on my arm, how can that have been you?”
She pulls back, away from his chest but still in his arms. She is not crying, just stares and stares and eventually, her pupils come together and he knows she is staring at his nose. He leans forward and presses it against her own.
“You are you now. That’s all that matters.”
+++
They stop in Jidoor to restock supplies.
“Owzer-san wanted me to stop by with more paintings.” Ohno hums as he rifles through stacks of canvases. “Do you think he would be interested in a portrait of an octopus?”
“Bring everything you can,” Nino advises, piling trinkets and knick-knacks into his pockets and his bags. “Maybe you can even try to sell some of Aoi’s.”
“Nah, those are priceless.”
Aoi watches in the doorway as they get ready, mouth puckered.
“Is something wrong?” Sho asks, noticing her expression first.
“I want to go,” she speaks in a whisper, understands what happened the last time, but craves just a touch of the sun.
No one says anything.
Then Ohno says, “Okay,” and goes back to his paintings.
Jun and Sho share a look and, after a moment of silent conversation, Sho speaks. “It-er, might not be a good idea. What if someone recognizes her?”
“She just needs a disguise,” Nino says after a moment of deliberation. Jun raises half-an-eyebrow as Nino enters the bedroom. He comes back out with a long red scarf and a fluffy, multi-colored hat.
“Why does it have two balls?”
“Don’t be spoiled.” He fits the hat snugly over her head, making sure to cover her entire forehead. At Sho and Jun’s mirrored expressions of anxiety, Nino grins and gives them a thumbs up. “It’ll be okay.”
When Ohno ties up the last of his paintings, they depart.
“No more soba, please,” Jun pleads, sending them off at the door.
“Maybe we can buy some soumen this time,” Aiba chimes in, waving goodbye.
“I like soba,” Aoi says softly.
“Soba it is,” Nino calls out behind him. “We’ll be back!”
+++
Their first stop is a bakery.
“Oh-chan has a crush on a waitress here,” Nino whispers to Aoi. She pulls her hat further over her face and buries her nose in his scarf as people pass by.
“I promised Meisa a painting,” Ohno replies delicately. As he wanders into the backroom to look for her, Nino and Aoi seat themselves at the table closest to the dessert display. Aoi presses her fingers against the glass container, staring at a row of little yellow cakes decorated with chocolate curls.
“Cheesy-cake?” Nino reads, tilting his head to one side.
“It looks good.” Her breath fogs up the glass.
“And expensive.”
She stops staring at the display after that.
Ohno comes back after a few minutes.
“Which did you give her?” Nino asks, though he doesn’t really care about the answer. He imagines it will be a sunset over the sea or the clouds at dusk.
“A behemoth.”
“Ah.”
At the intersection, Nino veers left. “I’ve got some stuff to sell. Meet you at the market, Oh-chan?”
“That sounds good. I should be done at Owzer-san’s in thirty minutes.” Aoi glances at both of them thoughtfully, before Ohno nudges her toward Nino. “You might have more fun at the pawn shop.”
When Ohno leaves them, Nino grins and pulls Aoi into a hidden nook between two houses. “I was hoping we would be alone.”
When Aoi blinks at him, he brandishes a small box from one of his many pockets. Inside is a tiny yellow cake with chocolate curls on top. Aoi’s eyes widen.
“I thought you weren’t a thief.” Her eyes have not once left the box.
“You wanted it. That makes it a pretty valuable treasure.”
+++
After their snack, they set off for the pawn shop, down a long stretch of pavement and a stone-tiled tunnel. “It’s just a little further this way, Aoi,” Nino says, leading the way down winding steps. When he doesn’t hear the echo of her footfalls after him, he glances back. “Aoi?”
She is staring at a board filled with various bits of hastily tacked on paper. There is one image in particular that has captured her attention, and when Nino jogs back up to her he knows immediately why.
It is her face draw in pencil and charcoal, wearing a thin circlet around her forehead. Her eyes are black, blank, devoid of human expression. The caption beneath the portrait reads: WANTED. Alive. Reward 10M Gil.
“Aoi,” Nino repeats, taking her by the wrist in case someone should see them, but she shakes him off, presses her hand against the portrait, against the small red stone in the center of her crown.
“Yu,” she says, suddenly overwhelmed by images, a vortex of heat and fire and pain and suffering and blood and loss and then-a far off world, full of light and warmth and love and magic. “I think my name is Yu.”
“Yu,” Nino repeats, rolling the syllable over his tongue. “I like it.”
+++
Someone must have spotted them-her. It takes the Empire less than a day to flank their ship from all sides. There is a hiss and a crackle like lightning, hot and intense, slicing the air in two.
“Guys, we’re under attack!” Sho announces from the cockpit. “Hold onto something, quick!”
Yu reaches for Nino’s hand instantly, and he barely manages to grab onto a pillar as the ship lurches on its side.
“Aiba, the cannons!”
“I’m on it!”
The sound of gunfire fills the air and Aoi sinks to the floor, shuts her eyes and pulls Nino’s hat over them. “Don’t worry, Yu,” Nino says close to her ear, wrapping an arm around her. “I’ll protect you with my life.”
Her head snaps up at this, pulls the hat off of her head and stares at him with protruding eyes. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You can’t. Not this. Not anymore.”
“What?”
One hand finds his shoulder and the other finds the burn on his arm. “I don’t want you to get hurt again. I won’t let you.” She stands before he can stop her, strides toward the airship door without once losing her balance. He struggles after her, tumbling through the air from Sho’s sharp curves.
“Yu, what are you-”
She opens the door and stands before him, hair flying in with the wind.
“Don’t,” he says, reaching for her hand, trying not to get swept away.
“I’ll find you, Nose,” Yu says, touching her fingers with his. It is the first time they’ve ever felt so cold.
Nino reaches desperately for her. “Please.”
And then there’s a gale of suffocating wind and she’s catapulting out of the open door with a smile on her face.
“YUUU!”
And there is an earth-shattering screech and Yu is no longer Yu. She is but she isn’t, a shining ephemeral creature of silver and magenta, and she’s flying, soaring through the skies, turning back only once for him to see electric blue eyes focusing one last time on his nose.
+++
“We have to go after her,” Nino says, strapping on a pair of Aiba’s repair goggles and searching the weapons cabinet for all of his knives and dirks.
“Are you mad? She’s headed straight for the heart of the Empire. We even go near the central tower and they will shoot us down like cockatrice.”
“We can’t let her go there alone. She left to save us, we have to-”
Sho places an arm on his shoulder, biting his lip. “Nino, she left to save us. Isn’t it doing her a disservice to just-run straight back into danger? Aoi-”
“Her name is Yu!” he cries, breathing heavily. “Her name is Yu. She-She falls asleep when you open a book, gets all of Aiba’s tools mixed up a-and she helps Ohno cook and paints with her hands, and Jun is the only one who can get her to immediately leave a room and I-I told her I would protect her with my life.”
“But what can we do?” Jun asks, exasperated. “A thief, an artist, a mechanic, a scholar, and a bard. We’re not really in the business of saving the world.”
“Meisa gave me a recipe for cheesy-cake,” Ohno says softly, staring at one of Yu’s paintings. It is a messy swirl of colors; purple, blue, green, red, yellow-and a single streak of bright magenta. “I promised I would try baking her a cheesy-cake.”
“We have to go after her,” Aiba says, placing a hand on Jun’s shoulder. Sho gulps, but nods in agreement.
“I still miss my eyebrow,” Jun mutters with the air of someone who has lost completely and utterly and willingly.
+++
They find her-he finds her at the very top of the Empire’s tower. She is lying still, with her knees against her chest, drenched in blood.
His heart stops in his chest and he runs forward, skins his knees on the wood and puts his ear to her chest, willing and wishing and hoping and praying for a single breath.
She gives him two.
He sighs in relief, hugging her close to his chest. He realizes a second too late that they are not alone in the room. The Emperor is almost unrecognizable, skin blackened and covered in blood and dirt. He grins, mouth wide and sharp and white and red. There is a detonator in his hands.
And then the tower is crumbling but nothing matters because Yu is in his arms and she is breathing so he runs, crashes through the stain glass window backwards and falls.
“I found you,” Yu coughs feebly, pressing a hand against Nino’s cheek. It is still cold, but there is a flicker of warmth in her fingertips.
“Stupid, we found you.” The words don’t come out as harsh as he wants them to, not when she’s smiling like they’re not currently plummeting to their deaths. “Yu, I-”
“You’re warm, Nino.”
“Hey now, since when do you call me that?”
“Nino, Nino.” Her eyes are drooping and she’s curling further into his chest, the arms around his neck growing limper and limper. He clenches his hands around her slim waist and wills himself to hold on if it’s the last thing he ever does.
+++
He wakes to the smell of burnt ash and-cheese.
“Yu!”
He is in his bed, actually, he is in Jun’s bed. His head is killing him, pounding against his skull like thousands of off-beat hammers. His mouth tastes like dirt and filth and there is blood all over the front of his shirt.
But everything looks so-so normal that he wonders if it had all been a dream.
“Jun-chan! Nino’s awake and not dead! So it’s okay we’ve placed him on your bed right?” Aiba’s lanky arms are suddenly around him, painful and sharp in all the wrong places.
“Whatever. I’ve already asked Yu-chan to burn it,” Jun says, leaning against the door frame.
Nino’s eyes snap open. “Yu is-”
“Yu is here,” says the sweetest voice Nino has ever heard. Yu’s head peeks out from behind Ohno’s back, who enters the room with a tray of oddly shaped orange cakes. “Cheesy cakes!” Ohno announces, and Jun, taking the hint, untangles Aiba from around Nino and walks to the opposite corner of the room with Ohno.
Nino’s hat with two bonbons on the end is pulled down over her eyes. She pulls up the ends slowly, shyly, revealing electric blue eyes.
“Y-your eyes.”
She nods, fingers splayed out over her cheeks and over her mouth.
“They were like that when she woke up. As well as her hair-” Sho says, stepping beside her.
Yu squeaks, but Sho has already pulled the hat off of her head, revealing short, silvery magenta hair, before flitting away towards Ohno’s cakes. She furrows her eyebrows and bites her bottom lip, staring up at him through dark eyelashes. He sits up and takes one step forward, two, five, seven, until he’s right in front of her, ignoring the throbbing in his head and his arms and legs and every fiber of his being, takes up a bit of her hair in his hands and smiles. “It looks good.”
She throws her arms around his neck, crushing him with her tiny little hands and it feels like his back is on fire and he will probably have to buy a new jacket when she burns hand-print-sized holes into it, but he doesn’t care at all, just picks her up off the ground and swings her around and around.