I felt myself being swept down the river, terribly conscious of the pain in my head and ankle, though only half conscious in all other respects. The water was shockingly cold, and that was perhaps the only thing that managed to keep me awake at all, and therefore the only thing making me remember to gasp for air when I by chance breached the surface and hold my breath whenever I submerged.

I couldn't really tell how long I stayed like that, being pulled along by the current. Eventually, I felt the river slow, and my feet began to drag along the silt-covered bottom of the river. I tried to stand, but pain shot through my left ankle, causing me to stumble back under the surface. I tried swimming using only my arms and other leg, although I only had a vague idea of where the shore was; I was so exhausted and numb that I could barely even keep my head above the water for long enough to catch a breath before being pulled under again.

It took me longer than it should've, but I eventually felt my knees hit the bottom of the river. From there, I crawled until I was fully out of the water. I coughed, choking on the water that was trying to escape my lungs. Then, lacking the energy to do anything else, I collapsed to the ground and fell into a state of half-slumber.

Judging by where the sun was in the sky when I opened my eyes, it was maybe an hour or so later when I awoke again. I slowly pushed myself up off the ground, but even that was enough to bring pain to my ankle and make myself feel nauseous. I tentatively reached up to my head, and felt a painful lump somewhere near the crown of my head; I didn't doubt that I had a concussion, though what exactly that entailed I wasn't entirely sure.

I'm awake and thinking clearly enough, despite the pain and upset stomach, I thought to myself. I think the concussion is the least of my problems.

I lowered my gaze to my legs, which were stretched out in the sand in front of me. And I nearly threw up at the sight of my ankle. I couldn't even see all of it thanks to the shoe and the sock that partially covered it, but it was so swollen that I hardly needed to see past them. Still, something told me that I ought to try to get the shoe and sock off, and they finally slid off after a lot of painful, cautious tugging.

Seeing all of my ankle was even worse than seeing it practically swelling over the sides of my shoe. It was almost like I had a knee where my ankle was supposed to be. A very unnatural and painful knee, that is.

"How did this even happen?" I asked aloud, for the first time thinking of something else other than the pain in my head and ankle. "I was waiting for Mai and the Guardians, and then… Oh, no. That feeling… That was Easter."

So even after all I've been through – the cleansing, the memory loss, the lack of emotion – the crystal can still effect me? Of course, it's not as bad as it was. No X-energy. But still, it's shocking enough… Shocking enough that I couldn't keep myself from hurting my ankle and falling in the river, at least. Why now? Were they watching and waiting for just the right time to try and kill me? But why would they do that?

I let out a sigh of frustration, then slumped slightly in resignation. "What am I going to do?" I asked myself as I let some sand slide through my fingers. I felt sort of silly talking to myself in the middle of nowhere, but I had to organize my thoughts, and speaking aloud was the best way to do that. "Who knows how far away the rest of the school group is? The river was fast, and I was in it for a long time… I could be miles away. I can't walk, I hurt all over, and… Oh, what's the point? This is hopeless."

Lacking anything better to do since even my thought process was unproductive, I slowly slid myself over to the base of a tree so that I could at the very least lean back against it. The crawl over to the tree hurt, but it was worth it to keep myself comfortable and – more importantly – unmoving. With my body stable, the pain in my ankle was reduced to a dull throb, as opposed to the frequent lancing pains of before, whenever I shifted my body.

"Maybe it's not completely hopeless," I muttered to myself. "Mai probably came back soon after I fell in. My stuff should still be at the bridge. She wouldn't think that I'd leave it there and go off for too long. And she knows I wouldn't leave Azami's egg behind. She's probably already realized that I'm gone, and she went to get some help." I sighed again. "Even so, I wish Azami was here. I feel so useless just sitting here… I practically couldn't defend myself against a mouse, if a particularly vicious one decided to attack."

I still couldn't remember much about Azami. She was the one part of my memories that remained stubbornly blank. I could remember times when I'd been with her, and I could even remember some of what she'd said. But what she really looked like, what she really acted like… I had no idea.

"Well, they always say that the best thing you can do when you're lost is stay where you are and wait to be found," I said to myself. "I guess all I can do is wait here."

I leaned my head back against the tree and tried to rest and recover the energy I'd lost during my struggle with the river. But even if I'd been in my bed at home, I doubt I could've slept due to my ankle. It felt terrible, and it was definitely overwhelming enough that any sort of rest was impossible.

After maybe ten minutes or so of trying and failing to sleep, I angrily lifted my head, grabbed a handful of sand, and flung it at the water in frustration. The constant pain was starting to get to me. But it was more than just that.

"I hate this!" I shouted, sending some birds in a nearby tree flying away in surprise. "I hate that I'm so helpless all the time! I never know how to feel, I don't know how to face up to the Guardians, I can't move from this spot – I hate it! I'm even shouting about it to no one, and I hate that, too!"

A branch snapped somewhere in the woods behind me, and I promptly twisted around to see what it was. This of course sent pain racing through my ankle, and I gasped a little in pain as tears filled my eyes.

"Just go away! I don't want to have to be rescued by anyone!" I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes, taking my anger out on what I assumed to be someone coming to help me. "I'll get back on my own!"

A loud, rumbling growl came from the trees, and I froze as I finally got a good look into the shadowy undergrowth behind me. My anger was suddenly mixed with fear as I saw a big, hulking beast lumbering out of the semi-darkness of the forest. A bear was walking straight towards me, and it didn't look too happy about being yelled at by a young, wounded human.

The fear that had come upon me was quickly washed away as a flood of anger rose within me. It was more emotion than I'd felt in weeks, and it almost felt good to let it run through me as I suddenly found myself shouting at the bear, "What? You want to eat me? Just try it! I'm not going to just lie down and let you! I'm not going to let myself die like this! I'm going to get out of this just so I can tell Rima and Tadase that even though I'm not with Easter anymore, I still hate them! I just want to go back to how I was, when I could fight for myself against whatever was hurting me! I want the power to just be myself again!"

The bear snarled and charged, apparently enraged by my shouting. Still only half-turned towards it, I stared it down as it ran, ready to hit it as hard and at least do some damage before it could kill me.

But then something changed. The anger was in me still, but confidence and strength surged with it. The bear suddenly slowed to a walk, and then stopped right in front of me, its eyes locked with mine as I stared up past the muzzle filled with teeth made for tearing flesh.

Still keeping my eyes locked with its gaze, I stood. A moment ago, the pain this caused would have been unbearable (excuse the pun), even though I kept most of my weight on my other leg; now, however, I somehow managed to push the blinding pain to the back of my mind. Then, not quite knowing what I was doing, I pulled my fist back and then let my punch fly, hitting it right in the nose with more force than I knew I could manage.

This broke the eye contact, and he began to growl again as he crouched, prepared to leap at me once again; but as soon as its eyes once again met mine, it whimpered and even cowered slightly.

A grin leapt to my face as I realized what was going on. I'm chara-changed. Which means that somewhere, somehow, Azami reacted to my anger and hatched.

Then the chara-change took over, and I found myself saying, "I'm not going to let myself be mauled by some stupid animal, even if it is a bear. Nothing attacks a dragon." I leaned down close so that I was only inches away from its face; it backed up slightly to get away. Even though I was still physically a human, I was mentally an almighty, fire-breathing lord of the skies. "Now listen to me, bear. You're going to let me on your back, and you're going to take me back to where I want to be. Got it?"

The bear cowered. Some part of me – the average me – thought that this was crazy. Chara-changed or not, there was no way a bear would understand human speech. But the chara-changed me somehow had no problem expecting the idea to work, and I found myself doing one of the stupidest things of my life: climbing onto the back of an aggressive, several hundred pound animal.

I pulled on its ears until it turned its head and body so that it was parallel to the river, facing upstream. Then I kicked it in the sides, though this combined with the effort of climbing onto the bear's back in the first place had aggravated my ankle so much that even my chara-changed self was having trouble ignoring it now.

As the bear suddenly began sprinting off (with me clutching the fur at the base of its neck as tightly as I could), the chara-change finally ended. Now I was half terrified again. What if I fell off? Would the bear lunge for me? Would it still be scared enough of my dragonish self to not kill me?

But I didn't fall off, and for some reason, the bear kept running. Perhaps it really could understand me when I was chara-changed… Or maybe it's just running out of panic that there's a human on its back. But if that's the case, it's panicking in exactly the direction I need to go. Too convenient to be coincidence. Maybe predators as fearsome as bears and dragons can make themselves understood by one another?

"Aw, whatever," I said under my breath, through teeth clenched together in pain. "As much as it hurts, this is too awesome for me not to enjoy."

Over an hour had passed before I found that the bear was traveling down a well-worn trail by the river, noticeable enough for me to guess that we were nearing the park's hotel. I pulled back slightly on the bear's fur, willing it to slow down; it did so, shifting from his bumpy jog to a more gentle walk. His tongue was lolling from his mouth, and his spit was frothy with exhaustion – no doubt he wasn't used to carrying humans for any amount of time, nonetheless running with me for well over an hour.

Tentatively, I reached out and rubbed his head, trying to show my appreciation as we drew ever nearer to the resort. He lifted his head and turned to me, and for the briefest of moments I thought I saw something vaguely puppy-like in his gaze. Perhaps he feels grateful that a dragon spared him? True, I never could have done more than maybe bruise his nose slightly, but maybe he doesn't realize that.

I directed the bear closer to the river so that it was literally walking right along the bank. Soon, a bridge came into sight, and I spied someone sitting right in the middle of it, next to what I could only guess was the lumpy form of my bag.

I had a suspicion of who the person was; and this suspicion was confirmed when I got closer and she suddenly sat up, as if startled by something. Two small, bird-sized things suddenly zoomed from in front of her down to me, and I found my head being encircled by two charas. One, of course, was Suzume; Mai was the girl sitting glumly on the bridge.

The sight of the other made my heart soar, and made memories both good and bad gush back into my mind, finally filling in the gaps that had been present for so long.

"It took you long enough to hatch me again!" Azami said as she whipped me in the head with her tail. "But since you're coming back on such an impressive steed-" She looked down at the bear, who was currently growling at Mai, "-I guess I can't be too angry with you."

I rubbed the bear's head affectionately, then somehow managed to slide off of its back. I was sore, and my head was swimming, and even just using my injured leg to balance me was almost enough to make my ankle give way beneath me; but somehow, I managed to stay upright and conscious as I pushed the bear a little, giving it permission to leave.

As it quickly lumbered off – probably uncomfortable at being at a place so filled with the smell of humans – I half smiled, half grimaced. "I think he was gonna eat me at first. Then you somehow hatched, and I stared it down, and we're good friends now. I think I'll call him Teddy."

Before Azami could reply, I collapsed as Mai practically tackled me with a hug.

"Ouch ouch ouch! Ankle!" I shouted.

Mai quickly pushed herself off of me and looked down at my ankle. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! What happened? Where did you go! I was so worried, and I told Nikaido that you were missing, but he said you probably just went off somewhere to figure stuff out on your own, and that we shouldn't worry unless you didn't come back for dinner, and then I waited here and Azami hatched, and-"

"Slow down, Mai, and help me limp somewhere where I can get my ankle fixed. And I think I hit my head, too," I said. Mai first ran up to the bridge to grab my bag, then ran back down, crouched down next to me, put my arm around her shoulders and helped me up.

We were beginning to walk back up to the path when Azami flew in my face and said, "So I finally hatch again and this is the welcome I get? Maybe I just should've stayed in my egg."

"Sorry, Azami. I'm glad to see you back," I said sincerely. "But the surprise of it has sorta already warn off. I chara-changed over an hour ago, and so I've known you were hatched for a while."

"So really, Miyuki, what happened?" Mai asked as we slowly made our way to the more populated part of the main hotel. "I'm gone for five minutes to find the Guardians, and when we get back, you're gone and only your bags were left. Amu, Yaya, Kairi and I were all really worried."

"Easter happened," I said glumly. "Without the X-energy, it's not as bad as before… But somehow, they can still affect me with the crystal. It more surprised me than anything, but it was enough of a surprise that I fell into the river. I washed downstream, eventually met my bear friend, and then came back here."

Mai scowled slightly. "Easter? But why? What did they get out of hurting you right then?"

I shrugged slightly. "I dunno. Maybe they just wanted me to know that my break was up, and they're still after me?"

A man's voice suddenly said from behind them, "Or maybe they were annoyed that they don't know where you are."

Both Mai and I practically had heart attacks as we turned around to face Nikaido.

"When did he get here?" Suzume asked quizzically.

Azami landed on my head. "Beats me. I didn't even hear him coming. So Nikaido, what do you mean?"

As carefree as ever, Nikaido pushed his glasses up his nose a little. "Miyuki, I don't suppose you have your phone along on this field trip, do you?"

I shook my head. "Mai told me that we weren't supposed to have electronics along."

"Well, that would explain it," Nikaido replied happily. "They've been using that phone from the beginning to track you. They've probably been keeping an eye on you these last couple weeks, and when they figured out that you weren't actually at home, they decided to do something desperate in case you were trying to escape their watch. It's quite simple, really." He blinked dumbly for a moment, then said, "Yamada-san, did you perhaps hurt your ankle somehow?"

I sighed and looked down at the shoeless, sockless, swollen mess at the end of my leg. "You think so, huh?" I asked sarcastically, though without malice; Nikaido acted so oblivious most of the time that it was hard not to be amused by it. "Yeah, maybe just a little. There wouldn't happen to be any doctors here, are there?"

"Actually, there is a small medical center," Nikaido said. "Right this way."

They walked up to the main part of the hotel, and then into a small building just off the side of it. A man sitting at the front desk of the little mini doctor's office looked up, saw me, and immediately took Mai's place and half carried me back past the front desk and into a room with a hospital bed in it. I gratefully let him lay me down on the bed, and winced only slightly as he propped my foot up with pillows.

"What happened?" he asked Nikaido when he and Mai followed him into the room.

Nikaido scratched his head. "You know, I'm not really sure. I didn't bother to ask. What happened, Yamada-san?"

"Oh, um…" I hadn't thought of a good lie yet for what happened. After all, the adults would probably just say she'd been purposefully playing by the river, and there was no way they'd believe her if she told them she rode a bear back to the hotel. Thankfully, Azami and a chara-change were there to save the day. The comfortable strength of my dragon personality settled in, and I said, "I just was running through some of the trees close to the hotel, but my foot got caught on a root. I fell and hit my head, and something went really wrong with my ankle."

"It's definitely dislocated," the doctor said. "Maybe broken, too. We'll need to do an X-ray. As for your head…" he looked at her scalp and easily found the bump, then asked, "Are you feeling strange in any way? Dizzy or nauseous, for example?"

"I was nauseous earlier, but not now," I said as my chara-change went away. "And I'm a little dizzy, I suppose."

The doctor frowned. "You might have a minor concussion then, but I think you'll be fine so long as you take it easy. For now, we need to focus on your ankle. Before we do anything else, I'll need to push the joint back into position. It's going to hurt a lot, but unfortunately, I can't give you any painkillers. I need you fully aware of the pain so that we know when it's finally back in the right position." The doctor turned to Mai. "Miss, you might want to leave the room."

Mai averted her eyes down to the ground. "Um, of course." She glanced up momentarily and gave me an encouraging look, then she slid out of the room. Before she could close the door behind her, another doctor or someone came in.

The first doctor saw him and nodded. "Would you mind holding her leg? We need to get the ankle back in its correct alignment."

I gritted my teeth with anxiety. The doctor had said this would hurt. A lot. I braced myself as the second doctor grabbed my leg and the first doctor got a firm grip on the bare foot. "Now, I'll need you to tell me when it stops hurting so much," he said. "Are you ready?"

I nodded.

He started pushing on my foot, as if he was attempting to shove it up into my leg. I yelled out, unable to help myself. He'd been right; it really hurt. This was worse than when the injury had first happened, and worse than whenever I'd tried to stand up. Sweat began to roll down my forehead and gather in the middle of my back, and I continued to scream louder with every renewed effort on the doctor's part.

This lasted for a few minutes before something seemed to pop back into place and the doctor paused. "Is that better?"

The pain immediately seemed to fade. It still throbbed, but not as intense as it had been in the past few hours. "Y-yeah, I think it's back to normal," I said, slightly hoarse.

"Do you want your friend to come back in, Yamada-san?" Nikaido asked, making me realize that he'd been in the room the whole time.

"Uh, sure," I said shakily.

Nikaido as well as the doctors left the room, and soon Mai was tentatively coming back into the room. But she wasn't the only one. She was followed by Amu and Yaya, then Kairi, Rima, and Tadase. All of them looked horrified, even Rima and Tadase to an extent.

I wasn't sure how to react to their presence, but for the first time, this wasn't due to any paralysis of my emotions. I was just too tired from the minutes of intense pain to really think.

"Um, Miyuki?" Mai asked quietly. "Are you okay? We could, um, hear you out in the hallway, and-"

"I'm fine," I said, my face burning with embarrassment. They'd heard me shouting out in pain? Not just Mai, but the Guardians? That was too much to bear. How weak would they think me now?

There was an awkward silence for a few moments. No one was really sure what to say.

Eventually, though, Yaya could hold her silence no longer. She suddenly jumped forward and wrapped her arms around my neck and started bawling as she cried, "Miyuki! That sounded so scary! Don't ever ever ever get hurt like that again! It's like that night at the carnival all over again, and I hated that night!"

"Um, what night?" I asked.

Amu stepped forward. "When I purified Azami. You were in a lot of pain. It hurt all of us just watching. I'm… I'm sorry that I did that to you." Her eyes were wet with tears, as if the thought of the purification had been weighing on her ever since that night.

"Don't be sorry," I said sincerely, the words coming surprisingly naturally. I'd been think that this would be so hard, but all I needed to do was say what came to my mind. "I'm… Grateful, I suppose. It did a lot to me and I remember that it was bad… But now Azami and I are back to normal." Then, turning to Azami, I said, "We are bother back to normal completely, right?"

"Well, maybe not completely," Azami said. "I think I might be a little different. I think your dream changed a little, maybe."

"Like how?" I asked, wondering if this was a good or a bad thing.

Azami frowned. "I'm really not sure, and it's frustrating me. I can't put my finger on it. I just feel different."

Ran floated up to Azami, followed by all of the other charas except Kiseki. "I bet you're just happy that you're back on our side, Azami!"

"That's right, desu~!" Suu said. "And we're glad to have you back!"

"Woah, I never said that," Azami said. "A dragon doesn't need friends. But…"

Miki floated forward. "But what?"

Azami shook her head, as if ridding herself of some distasteful thought. "Just forget it. I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep." Ignoring the questioning stares of the humans and charas around her, she flew into my bag, which Mai had carried all the way here.

That's strange… She's acting almost confused. She's never confused. But if my dream has changed, then maybe that's messing with her… I hope she'll be okay. With all the Guardians here, right now isn't exactly the time to talk about it.

"So, um, Miyuki…" Mai began. "I know the circumstances are a little different now, but you still have a chance to talk to everyone. If now isn't the best time, we understand, but… As I've been saying, you have to face up to things sometime."

I nodded. "I know, I know. I haven't really thought about what I want to say, but…" I took a deep breath, then looked at all the Guardians. "I'm sorry for a lot of what I did, and what I've said. And I'm especially sorry for everything after Nikaido turned good. Easter was angry with me after that since I disobeyed them, and so they demonstrated the power that crystal had over me, and… Well, it was terrible. After that, I couldn't disobey them. I tried once or twice, and it nearly drove me insane."

"Boo-hoo!" Azami suddenly shouted from inside her bag. She was probably angry at me for apologizing at all, nonetheless making it into a sob story.

"Oh, shut it!" I said back. Azami didn't respond, so I continued, "Well, anyway… I'm sorry for lying to you before that. When it came down to it, I guess I did the right thing by standing up to Nikaido, but after that I didn't have a choice."

Tadase glowered at me. "But you joined Easter of your own free will, after you met us."

"Tadase-kun! She's trying to apologize," Amu defended. "Can't you at least let her-"

"But he's right," Rima interrupted, looking equally murderous.

Amu looked over to me, hoping that maybe I had a better defense for myself.

"They're right," I said, looking up and meeting Tadase's and Rima's glares. "It's part of who I am, and who Azami is. I wanted power. I still want power, in fact. And Easter did what they promised – they gave me more power than I could have imagined. But they took my freedom in exchange, and I hate them for it now. And I'm not even fully free of them now."

"But wait, Miyuki-chan!" Yaya suddenly burst out. "I thought you were supposed to be all better after that night!"

My mood fell through the floor as I really thought about the implications of what had happened today. "That's what I thought, too. It's nothing like before, of course, but today – did Mai tell you how I got hurt?"

They shook their heads.

"I fell in the river after Easter did something to the crystal. The feeling wasn't painful, exactly, but it was far from pleasant. They're not going to be able to force me to join them with that alone, but they can still hold that control over their head. If I tried to take revenge on them… Well, quite simply put, I couldn't do it. I doubt I could even maintain my chara-nari if they used it… On second thought, I doubt I'm even able to chara-nari anymore…" My mood lowered even further. No more flying? I'd been so focused on just getting Azami to hatch that I hadn't even really thought about it until now.

The door opened before I could say anything else, and Nikaido popped his head in. "Hello everyone!" he said cheerfully. "Miyuki-san, are you ready for your X-ray?"

"Could you give me just, like, one more minute?" I asked.

"Not a problem," Nikaido said. "Just try to hurry! We don't want to inconvenience the doctors, after all."

He stepped back out, and I took one last deep breath as I finally tried to figure out exactly what I wanted to say to the Guardians aside from the apology. I was confident as I went on to say, "I am who I am. I don't care if you want to be friends with me or not anymore. I could hardly blame you if you hated me. And it's probably even wise not to trust me anymore, because to be honest, I'd probably leap at any chance to get power. That's just how it is."

The Guardians and even Mai didn't seem sure of how to take this statement. Tadase continued to glower for a moment, then left the room; Rima quickly followed suit. Yaya turned all teary eyed. Amu looked like she was thinking hard to make a decision.

Kairi, however, stepped forward and, to my great surprise, actually bowed to me. Staying bent over, he said, "Yamada-san, you helped me do the right thing before it was too late and I ended up freely doing what you were eventually forced to do. You talked to me, and you let Mai warn the Guardians about me when you wouldn't even let her tell them why you were being forced to work against them. You say that you'd do anything for power, but…" He stood straight again, and a rare smile appeared on his face. "I don't believe you. I think you're a good person. I have you to thank for being able to redeem my honor as a samurai. Regardless of how you demonize yourself, I trust you."

I was struck speechless as he walked from the room.

Yaya quickly wiped the tears from her face and, followeing Kairi's lead, said, "Yaya wishes that you'd just say that you're a good guy, Yuki-chan! But I'll still be friends with you too, okay?"

"Um, sure," I said.

Then Amu took the stage. "Kairi's right. You helped save my charas from Nikaido, and you've been a good friend. I can't blindly trust you, but you're still a good person, and I'll still be your friend. That is, if you can forgive me for purifying Azami."

"I already told you that I'm grateful for it!" I responded, that being the only part of Amu's words that I felt I had an answer for.

Amu smiled, maybe sensing that I didn't know what to say to everything else. "I'm glad. And I'll come visit you later, when the doctors don't need to bother you with X-rays. So… see you later?" she asked as she opened the door.

"Um, yeah," I said, not quite happily. I had been expecting all the Guardians to reject me once I told them that I still wasn't really on their side. Instead, this had happened.

Amu left, so that Mai and I were the last humans in the room. "I guess I should get going, too," she said. "Get better soon!"

She started to leave, but before she could, there was something I needed to say to her. "Wait!" I said before she could open the door. She paused and looked at me questioningly, and I said, "Thanks for insisting on me talking to the Guardians. If it wasn't for the pressure of that coming up, I don't think Azami would've hatched. Though admittedly, having a bear charging towards me probably had something to do with it, too."

Mai smiled. "What are friends for?"

She left, and the door closed behind her. But before the doctors could come in again, I heard Azami mumble from within my bag, "Friends – really, what are they for?"

All right, so the bear riding might have been bit over the top... But I couldn't help it. I was originally just going to have her face off with the bear, then scare it off, but that was too fun. I mean, how often do I get a chance to have a character I love (that being Miyuki) ride an actual bear? Never. So I made it happen. ^_^

Then the apology was a lot less fun... But hey, whatever. She had to get it off her conscience, I guess. It needed to be done.

Anyway, thanks for reading!