III - SWORD OF THE BRAVE // Doraemon Fanfic

15 - REUNITED Part 2

A man, with his sword raised up, lunged himself onto Nobita and Christina from behind.
But before he could bring down his sword and cause any damage, a dagger flew out and plugged itself fiercely into his heart.

It was Kiyoshi.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm in the middle of something," he said passive aggressively, addressing the dead man on the ground.

That took both Nobita and Christina by surprise.
Whatever doubts they had up until that point was all cleared with that.

Nobita had two predicaments.

Kiyoshi as the enemy's Hand.

Christina as the princess of Yumirumi.

And he prioritised the obvious thing.

Turning towards Kiyoshi, he said, "Kiyoshi, what is all this?"

The boy was clearly taken aback. "You know who I am?" Brushing the thought off, he added, "Well fair enough, since I know who you are."

"Of course I know who you are, we are friends. Come on, Kiyo."

"The fuck! Ridiculous!" Kiyoshi laughed.

That's right. He doesn't remember.
The fact that I remember doesn't mean he does too.
The override happened for everyone.

But how the hell am I supposed to convince him like this?

"Kiyoshi~" Nobita took a step forward. His voice was broken and sensitive.

That alarmed Christina. She looked over and found Nobita perplexed.
Although, it would be a lie to deny that she wasn't affected by the turn of events too.

However, as things stood...
She wasn't getting a good feeling about this.

"Nobita, listen~"

"Wh-what happened? What happened to you? I- I don't. I don't get-" Nobita could not finish his words.

"Calm down, Nobita~"

Kiyoshi spoke up, "Is it okay for the Shirogane swordsman, the last hope of humanity, to act like this? Are you not going to fight me?"

"All this... Did you do all this, Kiyo?"

"Nobita~" Christina kept calling out his name as an attempt to try and break him out of whatever trance he was in.

However, nothing seemed to work.

"All this destruction, all this suffering, was it you, Kiyo?"

"Ugh," Kiyoshi grabbed his head, "Stop calling me with that wimp ass nickname. It's getting on my nerves."

"I go by the name, Kiyoshi. You can call me Kiyo if you want."

"Okay."

"Man, why is it so hard to get you to smile a little... You suck."

When I was in my darkest place, you were the first person to reach out to me, to cheer me up, Kiyoshi. I can never forget that.

Nobita barely held back tears.

Christina slowly reached for an arrow, the last remaining arrow from her quiver while the two were busy with each other.

Nobita got serious. "This isn't you. This isn't who you are, Kiyoshi. I refuse to believe it to be the case. I refuse."

"Pull yourself together, Nobita, please," Christina begged as she placed the arrow on the bow while Kiyoshi's glare was still fixed on the boy. "Stay on guard. He's an enemy now, don't forget that."