Recreated on 04-01-09

Refinished on 04-01-09

Baoh

Together At Last

Violet, now seventeen years old, running across the plains of wilderness with her pet Notsuo, whom had grown by four inches in the last nine years, while she had grown into a more mature young woman. Nine years…nine long years she had used to keep herself busy from the desire in her heart that she knew would happen soon: To see Ikuro Hashizawa again.

Nine years since the incidents that led to our separation, she thought quietly as she stopped running and sat by a tree to catch her breath. Ikuro…I'm waiting for you still. Where are you? I turned seventeen almost five days ago. I had a dream on my birthday, that you had awaken from the underwater lake/cave that you were stuck in, and you broke out into the ocean straight to land. Where are you, Ikuro? I'm waiting for you.

Falling to sleep, she waited once more for him. Waking up a while later, she and Notsuo returned home to the elderly couple that took her in as a child while she waited for Ikuro, helping them with just about everything there was to do there: Cook, clean, etc., and they've never been happier to see her with them. Ma and Pa, as they were referred to as, both now sixty-seven years old, ate dinner with her as the sky grew dark.

DING-DONG! The doorbell rung and Ma grabbed her cane and went to answer it.

"I'll get it," she told them, walking down the hall and opening the front door. "Yes?"

A tall young man dressed in black, wearing black sunglasses, asked, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but is there a young lady in this house that answers to the name of Violet?"

"Yes, she lives here," Ma answered. "How may I help you?"

"I was instructed to give her this letter. For her eyes only."

The letter in his right hand had only four letters written on the surface of the envelop reading "BAOH".

Ma accepted the letter and the man walked away.

Returning to the dinner table, she told Violet, "This letter came for you. Your eyes only."

Violet accepted the letter, read the word "BAOH" on it, and it sparked a memory from long ago. It was when she had been captured by the Judas Laboratory and was being rescued by Ikuro when he was in his changed form that her captors always referred to as Baoh, and the psi-warrior, Walken, had frightened her to near-death when he said, "I have you, Baoh! I will sink you into the darkness of the underground!"

Violet had never been that scared of somebody so dangerous in her entire life, and to her, he was the most feared creature to have ever lived, with Ikuro's Baoh form being the gentlest, even in all of its brutality. Baoh, his embrace is death, the slightest contact, decay, and yet, he was a kind and gentle soul beneath. He led her to safety and protected her from him and the rest of the organization, and for that, she was eternally grateful to him.

Opening the letter, she read it and found what was written surprising: "To Violet, I shall see the day after you receive this letter. I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long. Ever since I woke up from the underwater cavern, I still had to recover some more…and there was something I needed to confirm about my condition. I'm alright and I'll be with you again. Ikuro."

It was from Ikuro, and he was coming to see her tomorrow. A tear had escaped her eye.

Ma and Pa were shocked by this, never, ever seeing her at all this happy before.

"Ikuro's coming to see me tomorrow," she told them, setting the letter aside.

"Really?" Pa went. "That's incredible to hear."

"I wonder how he is after nine years," Ma added. "I hope he stays."

Violet was hoping the same thing. After dinner, she went to bed, praying she would see him sooner than what her letter had read.

Ikuro…I'm waiting for you, she thought in her dreams, seeing herself back in the body of her 9-year-old self, trapped in a tower atop a large castle protected by a dragon that embodied the Judas Laboratory in a bestial form, and her knight in shining armor was Ikuro, wearing a suit modeled after the humanoid Baoh, saying that he wouldn't rest until it had been brought down and the princess was freed. I'm waiting for you.

She woke up the next day and got dressed and went outside with Notsuo again. Since it was summer, she didn't have to worry about school, and she lived on the countryside, far away from the loud noise of the city. Notsuo leapt through the trees while she climbed 1 and sat on its branches. The countryside again was serene and blissful, like how the Garden of Eden used to be when Man lived in it: No pain, no suffering, and no hurt. Feeling exhausted, she let sleep claim her for a while as she closed her eyes.

"…Violet," someone called out to her, waking her back to the present. "Violet!"

She opened her eyes and looked down at the plain, seeing a darkened figure approaching the trees. Focusing her vision to better identify the person, Violet saw at least 1 thing that was familiar to her that was from the past: The unmistakable eyes of Ikuro, the man that became an outcast like her because of what people like the Judas Laboratory did or tried to do just their own evil twisted ways. As the man came to the tree, Violet saw that he was wearing a pair of jeans, a blue long-sleeved undershirt and gray short-sleeved sweater, and some fingerless gloves.

Her eyes widened as his familiar made her shed tears.

"Ikuro," she said quietly.

"Violet," the man, Ikuro, responded, "I'm back."

"Ikuro!" She cried, and leapt out of the tree and into his arms. "I'm so glad you're back!"

They fell to the grass beneath them and held each other in their embrace for a long time.

"Violet," he went, gazing into her eyes. "I love you, Violet."

"I love you, too, Ikuro," she responded, and then they kissed, knowing they couldn't be separated anymore by any 1 or anything.

Ma and Pa, who had been watching the whole scene go by, both chuckled as they recognized the young man with Violet, having not aged a day since the day they had met them both.

"Those two are quite the pair," Pa went.

"Yes," Ma agreed with him. They sure are.

As the two returned to the house, they were walking into an unclear future that was as clear to them as water was clear in a glass cup, and could see the most important detail of their life together: They didn't care what came at them as long as they had each other and the love they shared. Ikuro told them that the parasitic worm the Judas Laboratory had put him had, over the years of sleep inside him, evolved from a parasite to a symbiote, having merged with his body and becoming harmless, and he could now control the change between forms at will, with very little effort. He told them that once he had woke up from the sleep underwater, the first thing he wanted to do 1st was see a regular doctor that wouldn't poke and prod at him, and then he got cleaned up and set out to be with Violet again. During the whole conversation, Violet never let go of his hand.

Ma and Pa had listened and once he had revealed all, they still accepted him as he was, knowing he couldn't and wouldn't cause them any harm, and the way he looked at Violet was evidence enough that all he wanted was to have a happy ending with her.

Violet, thought Ikuro.

Ikuro, thought Violet.

They kissed again, wishing that every day that they were going to share with each other for the rest of their lives was like this.

I've never been this happy in my entire life, they both thought, kissing a little deeper now. No, not this happy.

And since that day of returning back the love of their lives, they've never been happier than they could've if separated, and with each passing day that came and went, their love only grew deeper.

The End

After my USB drive crashed, I had to go onto the net to salvage my work and revise what I had to fix. Please, review if you never heard of Baoh before.