Sonic: Crap, these chapters are taking forever to publish now! What happened?
Yuki: Writer's block?
Sonic: Yeah, but that's no excuse for this guy to make us wait a month just for one chapter!
Me: I'll try to get back on shcedule, okay? Keep in mind that as long as I'm writing I have full control over you.
Sonic: And...?
Me: Do you want SonAmy in this story?
Sonic: NOOO! I'm sorry, I'll be paitent.
Me: A wise choice. (To readers) And by the way, I've decided to change the names of the locations. Shikokou is now Bouken. And I'll go back and change the names from previous chapters. Sorry I'm so indecisive folks. Well, here's the new chapter!
Sonic had continued scoutering the subway path he had taken, and eventually he was lead back to the station.
Sure enough, he had found Dokuhebi there, who was towering over what would have been mere obstacles for him. His appearance was even more terrifying (and hideous for that matter) then they had remembered earlier that day.
And what did Sonic do? "You look a whole lot slower than you did last time I saw ya! I bet you could never catch up with me if you had to chase me!" Taunt him, ignoring all signs of danger.
Dokuhebi was chasing Sonic through the subway ready to bite him with his venomous fangs. "Yuki, here's your cue! Get 'im with a blast of fire while he's distracted!"
"I... I can't do it."
"Have you randomly lost your powers somewhere? If not, you can."
"You wouldn't understand." Deep down, Yuki was worried about Kaori. Not only how he had treated her, but also what he did to her dad. "There's more to life than taking out one giant boss after the other." Unable to do anything because of the amount of regret he was carrying, Yuki walked away.
Eventually, the subway reached a dead end. "Darn it, looks like the end of the line!" He watched the demonic snake getting closer, until he turned into a ball and spun into the wall and dug to the surface. "But now that we're on city grounds, he could destroy the buildings! I have to put a stop to this as soon as possible." As he kept evading Dokuhebi's attacks, he summoned Knuckles to help him out.
While Sonic had the snake demon distracted, Knuckles punched a large hole on its side, and it only noticed after the damage was dealed. It responded by letting out a small roar out of pain. Knuckles was about to throw another punch until it noticed him and attacked him. Before he could punch him directly in the head, it attacked him with a direct strike. He was unable to get up, and Dokuhebi took that oppurtunity to bite him with its fangs.
Tails caught as Knuckles was poisoned. "Knuckles! Are you okay?" Knuckles could only respond with groans of pain before sitting down against a wall. Tails got back into his Death Cyclone, and flew up into the air while Dokuhebi was off guard. "I won't stand around and watch my friends get beaten around by some giant snake!" He fired the falme thrower right towards it and gave it a large burn as it roared in pain again.
"That's my cue!" Sonic called, as he got out around ten rings, threw them toward Dokuhebi rapidly, and flew along them with his Light Speed Dash, peircing into him through the mouth, damaging him from the inside, and rocketed out. While he was in there, he had also taken the Chaos Emerald, so Dokuhebi ceased to exist, and vanished in a white light.
Sonic let out a sigh of exhaustion. "It's been a while since I've had that much fun."
"I don't know if you've noticed, but... I'm sorta poisoned here, and I'm dying."
"Oh, right..." Tails reached for a bag of Senzu Beans, just like Kaori had. "I got Kaori's Senzu Beans just in case we'd need them." He fed him a bean and it healed him from the poisioning. "Speaking of Kaori, I hope she's feeling better. I feel really sorry for her."
"Look, I've made some mistakes, but can you maybe forgive me? I'm only human!" Yuki snapped. The other four were looking at him.
"You're not human, you're half-hedgehog, half-demon. And calm down, please."
"Our work is done, let's get out of here." They headed back, now with another emerald in possesion.
15 minutes later, back at Bouken...
Sometime after the others had left for Garami, Kaori wandered the streets alone, thinking over everything she had to be upset about from her dad's death to Yuki's abusive behaviour towards her. It wasn't very long before she teared up. Eventually she bumped into Shadow and Esmerelda.
"It's that catgirl. I had hoped we wouldn't run into you here." Shadow stated.
"You look different, but I can recognize you because you look just as annoying as you did before." Esmerelda mocked the catgirl.
"Stop bullying me!" Kaori snapped at them. "Can't you see I'm already miserable? I don't need anyone making it worse!"
"Geez, I'm sorry! You don't have to always be so bitchy!"
"You wouldn't understand what I'm going through. You can't have had anything disasterous happen to you if you're this cold-hearted."
"We both have, actually." Shadow informed her. "Now do us a favour and go away, your voice is giving me a bad headache."
Kaori growled viciously and shoved Shadow and Esmerelda aside. "Leave me alone!" She shouted at them.
Once he had gotten back, Yuki had gone out searching for Kaori in the moonlit city, until soon he caught her. He snuck up to her, then once he was close enough placed his hand softly on her shoulder.
"Yuki, go away." Kaori replied, pushing the hand away. "I don't want to see you now, or for the rest of my life."
"I'm sorry... I really am. I just wish I hadn't treated you like that."
"I wouldn't be so mad at you if only you had been nice to me. That's really all I ever asked of you." She walked away from Yuki just a few feet, then stopped.
"That day me and my mum found out that dad died in the war, that was when my life turned around." She begun telling Yuki. "My dad was my hero. Not only was he a brave fighter, he was also a loving husband and father. I never went out to make any friends, because he was the only friend I needed. Having him as a role model made me feel like I was the luckiest kid in the world. After they gave us the news that he had given his life in the war, all I wanted to do was cry. I was hoping it was just a bad dream. Sooner or later, I'd just wake up, and he was all okay. But it was all too real."
"It must have been tough, losing someone that close to you..."
"Trust me, it was. It didn't stop there, either. My mum started heavy drinking and coming home with one boyfriend after the other. Not before long she stopped paying attention to me, and when she did she'd abuse me. The last time I saw her alive we had a terrible fight that was nothing but her screaming at me. Then, she stormed out of the house. I followed her and found she had killed herself. From that day on I had no family or no home. There was nobody outside of my family I knew, so there was nobody to take me or look after me, and nobody cared about me. I was invisible." Then, she turned around to face Yuki. Since she started talking to him, the tears in her eyes only built up.
"Then, about ten years later, I found there was something wrong, and that was Hakai was about to awaken. I tried telling the people in the village, but they all told me that he had been sealed away for good and I was just still upset that my dad was dead. That's when I came across you. No matter how you treated me, no matter what you'd say to me, I thought that deep down you could learn to accept me as a friend and help make me feel I had someone who was still there for me. That never happened..."
"Maybe if you give me one more try... I know I don't deserve it, but now that I've learnt from my mistakes, I'll be different. It's not too late to become my friend..."
"One more try?! The person who killed my dad and ruined my life, he wants me to believe that he's suddenly changed out of nowhere? You want one more try?!" Once she had finished, she was panting softly with an uncontrollable flow of tears. "I'm sorry... maybe this is what I deserved for being such a bad person..."
Yuki went close up to Kaori and held her. "First, you're not a bad person. I am, and you managed to put up with me this long. Second, nobody, no matter how bad they are, deserves to have their whole life taken away from them."
"Then why did this happen to me? Why did I get my life taken away?"
"Sonic lives life with no regrets. He just lives life free and happy. You can either keep this with you forever and let it ruin the rest of the life you have left, or you can put it behind you and make the most of what you've got left."
Kaori reacted with a look of both emity and disgust. "You're only saying that to get off the hook." She started to head back for the workshop and go to bed. "Deep down you could care less about me. Everything you've said and done has been about you, never anyone else. You've reached the point of no redemption." She stormed off. Yuki chased after her begging for an apology, but once she went inside, she locked the door and refused to let Yuki in.
Yuki looked through the window as Kaori went straight to her room in tears. He felt sorry for everything he had done to put himself in this mess. "I never hated you, Kaori." He whispered as he shed a tear.
Sonic: If you never hated Kao-Tan why did you treat her like crap Yuki?
Yuki: Shut up. I'm not very proud of what I did either.
Sonic: If you don't hate Kaori that means you *like* her?
Yuki: (Holds a fireball up to Sonic's face) I'll make it look like you burnt yourself in an accident.
