Fan Fiction ❯ Heart of the Warrior ❯ Changing Hearts ( Chapter 2 )

"Hey, don't be so rough on him. When he came here, he WAS pretty crazy, yeah, but things have changed. Give him a chance, and you may just find someone who understands how you feel more than you think."

She sighed, knowing he was likely right, but not yet willing to admit it. "Can we just figure out where I'm staying, what I'm going to do while I'm here, please? Let's just get ON with it, already!"

Herc nodded, blond waves bouncing a bit as he did so.

So it happened that Diane was sitting next to the stadium in her own box, a variety of herbal remedies and a small assortment of needles and suture materials in front of her. It had been decided (By Philocetes, of course) that since she had first aid training and a gentle touch, she would be the designated nurse for the Coliseum.

Diane knew what arena matches were about, having studied her own world's history well, but it still didn't prepare her for the blood that got spilled there. With each match she shrank just a bit more inside herself. Then, a match she'd not been expecting to see came.

The boy on one side of the arena looked to be no more than maybe 14, his hair a dark chestnut and tossed about his face in wild spikes, his eyes a crisp blue that were hardened into chips by determination. His name was Sora, and he was called the Keybearer by everyone who had heard of him. He was the only hope of all worlds, this she knew, even as isolated as she was here. A portal ripped open the sky above the arena as the boy's opponent entered.

Diane took a quick, sharp breath in then. She had never seen him fight before, not in all the time she'd been here, around 2 months or so now. In fact, she'd rarely seen him at ALL since the day she arrived, aside from a few sneers from him in passing. She knew she'd been wrong, and had tried to do what she could to apologize, but for good reason, he was not the most forgiving of people.

The silver hair flowed to his waist, almost as if it was spun from the precious metal itself, and his emerald eyes glowed in an almost eerie manner. Sephiroth motioned the boy to come to him, spreading his single wing, its iridescent black feathers reminiscent of a raven's, gleaming in the sun.

Sora nodded.

Diane recalled as they met the boy's battle with Cloud the month before, how the blond warrior had not even LOOKED at the one battling now after the battle, though they had been forced to co-exist for nearly a year in this place. She knew there was a bad history between the two, knew what it was, even, as their story had been told by a game in her world.

Strange thing was, instead of hating Seph for his crimes in that world, she understood him. She knew how it felt to be the outsider, the one no one ever understood because they never took the time to look deeper than their first impressions.

She was ripped from her thoughts by a collective gasp that rang through the entire crowd. The greatest swordsman ANY of the worlds had ever seen had fallen to the young keyblade bearer.

Phil approached Diane as fast as his short Satyr legs would carry him, urgency in his face. "Di, you need to help him. If he doesn't make it. .." Phil shuddered, unable to even NAME the consequence of that.

"I patch people here up, yeah, Phil, but it's usually just minor bumps and scrapes." She looked out to see the stadium housemen bringing the fallen silver-maned fighter into the locker room. His face was normally a pale color anyway, almost snow-white, but the skin had a sallow tone to it, and he held his hand over a wound in his belly that seeped, the blood coming from between his fingers, his mouth and brows drawn tight in obvious pain. "I'm no surgeon."

Phil looked at her then, eyes dark with worry, as Hercules came over. "Then I guess we're all doomed." The demi-god's voice was almost toneless as he spoke