Koemi Akiyama

Leaning against the frame I looked out the window as we left the station. I could feel the train slowly gain speed as we went along the tracks, Suddenly something caught my eye as we left Balamb, a group of soldiers with vehicles littered around and in the middle were the lights.

I immediately ran down the train, desperate to get a closer look at them, anything to jog my memory. Looking out the windows as I ran I could see there were cluster of them all floating around. I finally got to the end and went out the door to the outside of the train. I flung the door open and I could hear it. It was faint as we were nearly away, but I could hear it. The only way I could describe it was a relaxing eerie hum.

“It’s a pyrefly.” I quickly turned round and saw a flash of a woman with long blonde hair, a woman I recognized.

“Wait… I think I know you.” I said to myself. “Ah! I got to tell them,” I quickly went back inside the train looking for the others, I found Kyra in one of the rooms but she was asleep. I quietly backed out of the room to let her sleep. It’s not nice being taken away from your home, she deserved to get some rest when she could.

I found Swain in the corridor and he agreed to come with me to find Mr Steele since I told him I remembered something.

We found Mr Steele further along the train in his room looking out the window, I quickly slid the door open, and I could hear Swain sigh at me as I did so, I couldn’t dwell on it though. "Mr Steele, I have remembered something. The lights, they are called Pyreflies."

"Pyre... Flies? So they ARE some sort of lifeform? An insect of some kind?", he questioned.

“I don’t know, but this lady told me with long blonde hair and blue eyes… OH! They are from Spira!” I exclaimed suddenly as I was slowly remembering the conversation in my head. "I couldn’t remember her name but I was sure-"

"...Spira?", he asked. interrupting my train of thought. "Koemi, this is important. Can you remember if these 'pyreflies' are dangerous? Our reports suggest that they interfere with GFs. Is this some kind of attack?”

“Um…” I said as I began to think, “Well I don’t remember them ever causing harm, it’s a bit hazy still, I would describe them more as peaceful, you get a calm feeling when you are near them. They feel a little bit like….” I tried to find the words. “Home.”

“That’s an odd choice of an word.” Said Swain raising his eyebrow.

“I know it’s weird, but yes to answer your question Mr Steel the GF’s they grow quiet, like you can’t hear them anymore, but she… she still could use magic.” I remembered her at least getting a more peaceful look when we were near one.

He arched an eyebrow, trying to process this information. "Magic without a GF? For anyone other than me or a sorceress, that shouldn't be possible...", he said, his voice trailing off.

I pondered on that trying to remember why she was able to use magic or who she was. “…Kyra! She said people were using magic and didn’t have GFs! Spira doesn’t have GFs! Wait… Kyra she didn’t have Diablos with her and she could still use magic there…”

"Interesting... So that would seem to imply that it's the magic in Spira that works differently, not the people.", he said. "That raises the question, what is it about magic in our world that makes it unusable to normal humans?"

I didn’t have an answer to that and there was a long pause.

“…Where is Kyra anyway, shouldn’t we ask her?” asked Swain.

“Oh she was sleeping, but we are getting near timber now so I can go and wake her up.” I went back to her room and found her exactly where she was before, asleep at the desk near the window. "Wakey wakey Kyra!"

"Huh? Where's Nikki?"

"No time to be dreaming about Nicola silly, we are at Timber,"

"Oh. Wait, was I asleep? Who is Nicola?"

Koemi waved it off "Nicola, Nikki, your girlfriend , I'm terrible with names." I wasn’t sure myself where I had got that name from.

"Right." Kyra said still in a daze after just waking up.

"I remembered something too,"

"I'd like to hear it if you want to talk about it."

"Well I told the others while you were sleeping, but the lights, they are called pyreflies."

"They're pyreflies? But..how?"

”I knew it! You know what they are, come on, we have got to go and discuss this with the others.” I said excitedly.

"Yeah. Let's meet up with them."

As soon as we did we got off at Timber I was then about to open my mouth but Swain quickly hushed me, with a quiet “Not here.” I guess that meant that we should wait until we were in a private cabin on the train. Still Swain didn’t have to hush me like that.

The next train was going to be a while so I decided to go to the tiny store at the platform to buy some snacks, my mind was still thinking about the mysterious woman from Spira, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t called Nikki, even though the description matched her appearance. “Could she have been called Nicola?” The name had a familiar ring to it. ‘I hope her and Tross are okay…” I said under my breath.

“Koemi um… Sorry I followed you I’m worried.”

I turned around suddenly, “Did she hear me?” I didn’t want to raise her hopes because I remembered meeting someone who came from Spira, I panicked a little as I thought about what to say to her. “Nikki certainly did sound like Nicola, and to be honest Nicola had a bit of an attitude, didn’t seem to like people that much and was…. “ My eyes went downcast as I thought about her. Pain, I had seen it on her face all the time.

“Do you know a girl called Kyra?”

Now I remembered she asked that when I first met her, I think then Kyra asked me something but I didn’t quite hear her, my hands went up to my arms as I thought about Nicola, I had been looking for her, she had separated from us and I could tell it had been a bad idea to let her go on her own. I quickly then turned to exit the shop I could feel my eyes welling up.

“There is a possibility that Nikki and Nicola are the same person.” I thought, “However, I can’t tell Kyra because I’m not sure.” Plus I didn’t know where this wasteland was, or how to even get there to get her and Tross out. I washed my face at the sink in the ladies as I thought about this. Now was not the time to get upset. Looking at myself in the mirror I nodded to myself and headed back to the others.

“Heya! I’m here” I exclaimed cheerily.

“Hey, train should be here soon.” As soon as Kyra said that the train rolled in and we all boarded. We all went to a private cabin and then I spoke.

“So Kyra, about those Pyreflies…”

"Pyreflies are from Spira. I've seen them many times before. They appear when a fiend is killed, or can show memories when there are a lot of then together. They were very rarely single ones floating around."said Kyra. "I have no idea how they'd be here, so hearing that you've seen them is a surprise."

"Hmm... memories. That's interesting, because a GF is said to reside within the same part of the human mind where our memories are stored. That could imply that these pyreflies aren't actually disabling the GFs. They could just be creating a sort of interference, like when too many broadcast devices are trying to use the same frequency, preventing humans from being able to act as effective receivers, to further the metaphor", he said, thinking aloud.

“Wow! Mr Steele is smart” I thought as I looked on in awe.

"Interesting. I can't say whether or not that's correct, but it does seem to make sense. They didn't have the technology there as we do here. That could be why Galbadia is more involved with this too. We won't be able to tell until we get close to it though. Their soldiers don't have GFs equipped. Pyreflies should be harmless unless there's a lot of them together... they'd only get harmful if someone with ill intent has the ability to control them." I noticed that Kyra shivered at that the end, she had a look on her for a moment that reminded me of Nicola, lost, sad, alone. More questions filled my head though as I thought about the woman.

“Perhaps she isn’t Nikki I mean how could it be possible? Kyra saw her not that long ago and I met her a year ago.”

"And... just for the sake of anticipating the worst-case scenario, what would happen if they were being controlled by someone with ill-intent?"

"Living people can't control pyreflies. I don't think we will have this issue here."

“Huh? What do you mean? I mean ghosts aren’t real.” I said nervously. ”I don’t like ghosts, I don’t even like the idea of them.” I thought.

They aren't...here. Pyreflies have something to do with it. It's one of the many questions I still have about Spira. I didn't get many answers while I was there."

This was all just too confusing for me, I’m pretty sure she never spoke of ghosts when I first heard her talk about them. My thoughts were interrupted by Kyra.

"But something has been concerning me, If there's an interference, how was I able to use Diablos for a moment in Spira?"