Koemi Akiyama
“Wow!” I exclaimed pressing my face against the glass. “That necklace is so pretty, I’ve been looking for a new necklace for a while.” The necklace I was looking at was made in silver, carved into a small s shape with a blue jewel at the bottom of it. I just stared at it, and the longer I stared the more in love I fell in with it.
I heard a sigh behind me. “We’re not meant to be shopping.”
I turned to Swain “Fight me and I’ll forget about this necklace,” I said pointing at it with my finger pressing against the glass.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
I smiled at him and I turned back towards the necklace “It’s just so pretty… Huh? What? 10000 gil? Are you kidding me?” I said as my eye had just caught the price I stood there just blinking and then my heart fell. “There’s no way I can afford that.” I mumbled. I turned to complain to Swain who was already half way down the street. “Hey! Wait up!”
“Hey! We could have asked the guy in the shop along the way.” I said catching up to him.
“You seem to be easily distracted, I think it’s better we just ask at the inn.”
I pouted at that, but quickly recovered. “It’s a shame we can’t get near that light here,” He didn’t answer me.
When we got to the inn I was glad, he was honestly quite difficult to make small talk with. As I opened the door I was greeted with a welcoming voice.
“Ah Koemi! Long time no see, how are you?”
I smiled, the owner of the inn stood before me. His brown eyes and big smile gave me a nice welcome. “Hi Isao, it’s been too long.” He certainly had changed from last time his long black hair had been cut short now, he had a bit of a stubble and was wearing a white shirt, black trousers and black shoes. “You’re looking smart, dressing to impress perhaps?”
“Hey, hey never you mind about that,” I think I saw him blush a little bit, it was nice to see him happy. “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh! This is Swain Kita, he is part of SeeD too.”
“Ah I see, so this isn’t a pleasure call.”
“Afraid not, we’re here because of those lights. Do you know anything about them?”
Isao put his hand to his chin, and closed his eyes. “I don’t know much, that thing has the townsfolk worried, everyone is on edge.”
“Anything you do have will help.” Said Swain.
“Mhm…” He sounded. “And what do SeeD want with it? There are already fears about it being used as a weapon, we don’t want another war.”
“Nor do we Isao, we just want information on it so that we can better protect people.” I said trying to calm him down, he sadly smiled at me.
“Sorry it’s not that I don’t trust you or your friend, I just don’t trust the headmaster, something about him seems off.”
“Off?”
He waved it off. “Ramblings of an old man, you wanted to know about the light, right?”
“Yeah,” I said getting the topic back on track.
“When it first appeared a few kids got too close, apparently there was a blinding light and then they just disappeared.”
“Where did they go?”
“No one knows, but everyone keeps their kids inside now, and I don’t blame them. Apparently the army have started tests on it, supposedly to try and bring the kids back. It’s all a bunch of poppy **** of course. It’s just an excuse.”
“Are there any records on what happened?” asked Swain,
“Other than a young kid watching his friends disappear, none. And I’m not telling you where that kid is, he’s been through too much already.”
I saw that Swain was about to respond to that but I interrupted. “It’s ok we don’t need to see him, anything else?” Swain looked at me displeased, but I didn’t care I wasn’t about to interrogate a little kid that lost his friends.
“Actually there is, I had a guest here. An old guy and his grand daughter, he owns a chocobo ranch up near Trabia. Apparently one his chocobos disappeared too, his grand daughter was very upset about it.
“That was the light that we were going to investigate.” I thought I turned to Swain. “Might be a good idea to visit that ranch,” I said to Swain. “Do you know where it is?” I asked turning back to Isao.
“Hmmm, I heard it’s not far from the Garden that is being rebuilt.” He said stroking his stubble.
At the sound of the door opening I turned my head, both Mr Steele and Kyra had entered to room, I was pleased to see them, my annoyance at Kyra has worn off but I was still a little hurt at what she had said. “Oh hey, they are here.” I said motioning to Swain, patting him on his shoulder, he just raised his eyebrow at me. I then turned to Mr Steele and Kyra. “So what did you two find out then?”
"Hey. We didn't find out much. Someone was able to tell us about the lights, and took a picture of them." Said Kyra
“A picture?” questioned Swain. At that Kyra handed him a photo, I looked over his shoulder to see what it is was.
"While it's not much to go, the fact that the motion is unpredictable could be a sign that rather than a device, that were dealing with something living. But with so little data available, I'm not comfortable trying to draw conclusions just yet", he said.
“She said they were weird. It moved in an unpredictable pattern. Have a strange colour. Sort of iridescent. It also had a peaceful sort of hum. Do you remember anything like that, Koemi?"
“Hmmm… Not really,” I said I then took the photo from Swain.
Isao sighed, “You stare at that any longer and you might hurt yourself”
“What kind of photo is this anyway? You can’t see anything.” I said turning it upside down, it was mostly just a bright white light.
“I’m Isao, the owner of this establishment,” he said introducing himself to Kyra and Mr Steele
I zoned out then going through the description that Kyra had given me, my head hurt as I tried to shift through the memories, I held my head and grimaced as I dropped the photo.
I remembered a sound of a hum, it was peaceful, it wasn’t really a hum though. It wasn’t the sort of hum a person makes, it was high pitched, soft and then faded before starting again.
“What is it?”
"It's so peaceful"
“Tross!”
“Koemi”
The pain then quickly went away I couldn’t remember where I was when that had happened and I didn’t see much.
“Kid you shouldn’t push yourself so hard.” Scolded my guardian force.
“Heh, sorry. But I don’t think you being with me is helping.”
“What do you mean kid?”
“I just think because you can impact my memory I just need to be without you for a while.” I gulped, my heart dropped, I had known I would have to do this for a while but I kept ignoring it.
“HA bout time!”
“You’re not mad?”
“Nah kid, I was just waiting for you to be strong enough to let me go for a while.”
I smiled closing my eyes “Thank you Quezacolt”
“Are you okay?” asked Kyra.
“Yeah I just need someone to take my Guardian Force from me for a while?”
“I'd volunteer, but my body is no longer compatible with a GF," he said.
That made sense after all Mr Steele didn’t use them. I then looked to Swain, but he sighed. “Why do you need someone to take your Guardian Force?”
“Well, it’s just a theory but since Guardian Forces have a side effect of memory loss, I figured I might be able to remember more without him for a while, but I’ll take him right back if we need to go where the monsters are.”
“I’ll take him.”
“Are you sure?” I could feel Quezacolt getting excited at being junctioned to Kyra, but I knew it wasn’t because of Kyra it was because of Diablos.
"I'm sure."
“Well okay….” I said I then let Kyra draw from me and I could slowly feel his presence leave me, it felt extremely lonely as he left my mind, it felt empty, but it was okay. “So what now?”
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