Amends

Chapter 3: Improve

Nakiri and Jerome ponder the last few years of looking out for Ingressus since his return to Northwind, and to them, they feel that it's one step forward, two steps backwards.

At least, until they begin to connect the dots and they uncover something unnerving about their Master...

Author's note: they always say not to tell a story through dialogue, but I just really wanted to try something; so this chapter is a tad shorter than the others, and the first half is just dialogue. I had fun with it anyway XD

apologies for the delayed chapter. this fic is on a weekly update, but life decided it was gonna be awkward last week. hopefully no more blips from here; but I wish that about everything XD

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"Do you think he will be okay?"

"You ask me this often, Jerome..."

"I know. You give me the same answer and yet we are still here, doing the same things..."

"But so is he, and that's what's important. If we are not there for him, then who else is?"

"I know. I just worry that we have seen little improvements over time; I often think that this is it – this is as good as he'll get, that he'll never fully recover."

"He won't, Jerome. He will always get better at some point, but this won't go away. It's still early. It has only been seven years."

"Nakiri... He was better off when he was making those lonesome night walks up until four years ago. He seemed more stable. I don't know what those walks were doing to him, but they were helping him, somehow; whether it was where he went or who he went to, I don't know. Why did he stop?"

"I don't know, Jerome. It's clear that they did something to help him, but I guess we'll never know what. I am not about to go digging up something that he clearly stopped for a reason."

"Has he said anything that might give us a hint?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary – nothing that neither you nor I are not already aware of. He still sees the Tidesinger in his dreams – even in his hallucinations..."

"His captor?"

"Yes."

"So even after his escape, he never really...escaped...did he?"

"No... I don't understand why he still lets the Tidesinger consume his thoughts. It's almost as though he doesn't want to think for himself..."

"There has to be a reason for his attachment – or, at least, his reluctance to detach. What was the Tidesinger's name, again?"

"Achillean Nestoris."

"..."

"What are you thinking, Jerome?"

"It's... It's probably nothing, but Ky'Ingressus went missing during his camp's raid – the one where Ky'Dominus was finally killed. I remember it. My mama was in pieces because father was in that camp at the time delivering messages. Anyway, everyone thought Ingressus was also dead, but they never identified a body, then he suddenly turns up at the Nether tournament disguised as a Nestoris. Only a clan Master can initiate those colours..."

"You aren't suggesting that someone let him in? It pains me to say it, but there wouldn't have been an Ardoni alive unwilling to kill him on sight, child or not..."

"I know, Nakiri, and that's why I say that it's probably nothing; but this connection that he has with the Tidesinger... It's more than not letting go of the past. It's a determined reluctance – a desire to not want to let go. He keeps having these night terrors, these hallucinations because he has something he wants to hold onto hidden behind them."