The Most Important Gear

Chapter 22

"is she alright," scaramouche asked nahida. worry was written all over his face.

"{name}, can you hear me? are you alright," she asked you. 

silence.

nahida felt something in her stomach drop. "{name}? {name}?! answer me right now."

silence.

"lesser lord kusanali," scaramouche said from next to her. "may i go inside and check if she's alright."

she thought for a moment, then spoke to you. "{name}, i'm unsure if you can hear me or process what i'm saying, but i'm sending the balladeer inside to check on you." nahida turned to him and nodded, "go."

meanwhile you were groaning, in immense pain. you were basically kneeling on the floor, holding your head between your hands while tears streamed down your cheeks. memories flashed through your head, feeling like you were about to pass out from the pain. you had no grounding, like you were falling down and you couldn't stop.

then, you felt two arms wrap around your torso, one of them pushing your upper body into their chest and stabilizing you. you leaned into the person's touch, as you cried, head still hurting. they said nothing, just holding you until your head stopped hurting. then after around another minute, you finally calmed down, and they held you tenderly to their chest. you opened your eyes and looked up, seeing their face and a weak smile spread on your lips.

"kunikuzushi."

he hugged you tightly, feeling wetness slip out of his own eyes as he smiled in relief. scaramouche stayed like that for a few moments, relief flooding his body while he processed the fact that you were indeed alright. "{name}..."

"hi," you said, happily hugging him back. "kuni, why did you do that? you scared me..."

"i'm sorry," he apologized, his voice breaking. "i'm so sorry... i almost lost you."

"i'm okay," you reassured him. "i'm alright. please just never do something stupid like that ever again."

"i won't," he promised you, separating from you and linking pinkies with you. "i promise."

you smiled at him, cupping his cheek with your other hand. "that's all that matters to me. i love you."

"i love you too," he said, leaning in to press a kiss to your lips until-

"{name}! you're okay!"

scaramouche froze on the spot, separating his face from you and helping you stand up. you coughed to try and clear the blush on your cheeks. he glared at paimon who came flying in, the traveler running from behind her. "you obnoxious floating thing... how did you both even get in here?"

"uh... hehe- uhm... did we interrupt something?"

"paimon this is why you should have waited," the traveler scolded her with a sigh. "sorry about that."

"no worries," you brushed it off, wiping the stray tears off of your face. "did we take too long?"

"nahida sent us in as back up. luckily paimon found you very quickly!"

"almost too quickly," scaramouche muttered, glaring. "i don't like you very much."

"the feeling is mutual," paimon scoffed. "come on, paimon wants to go eat some delicious food. all that flying made paimon hungry."

"you're always hungry," the traveler rolled their eyes.

"you both go eat," you said. "there's something i have to get from nahida."

"sure! see you later," paimon said. "let's get out of here!"

all of you warped out to talk to nahida, paimon and the traveler leaving to go eat. you and scaramouche stayed behind to talk to nahida, who was eagerly waiting. she hugged you, "i'm very pleased to see that you're alright!"

"i'm glad to have my memories back," you smiled. "thankfully the backup worked."

"backup? what backup," scaramouche asked you.

"{name} felt like something was very wrong when you went inside irminsul," nahida said. "so she asked me to create a backup of her memories. i stored them away so they were safe."

"i see... so you knew i was up to something," he said. 

"well i wasn't sure, but it seemed like you alluded to doing something," you confirmed. "i wanted to be sure. hopefully in the future i won't have to worry about ulterior motives."

you gave him a knowing glare and he nodded. scaramouche switched the topic, "what was it that you wanted to get from lesser lord kusanali?"

"i gave her a very specific piece of technology a while back," you said. "you'll see what it does."

scaramouche felt intrigued, nahida giving you a knowing look. "ah! yes, i remember. however, does it exist?"

"it does," you confirmed. "the only thing that was different about my past memories was that scaramouche wasn't in those. my inventions should theoretically be the same."

"go grab it then," she smiled. 

"thanks for letting me work on it in here," you said, running off to go get it.

"what technology piece is this," scaramouche asked nahida. 

"you'll see," she said. "she made it specifically for you in the past."

"for me?"

you ran out, holding a medium-sized box under your arm. "got it! thank you nahida."

"of course," she said. "enjoy your time, both of you. {name}, i'll give you a week off from any duties."

"got it," you acknowledge. "but if you need me, don't hesitate to ask."

"noted. now go enjoy your time!"

a/n: finale is in two chapters! 

i can't believe it's already the end- tbh i was so invested in this series LMAO- next chapter is like a super fluffy moment between the two of you! the finale is technically the "final part" of this series, however i'll be including some bonus extras because i'm in a good mood :)

book 3 will def take place in fontaine, so there'll be a decent wait for the 3rd part of the series ^^ i hope you all look forward to it :)