Hey everyone,

Okay, I had to use a line tool to divide the two sections of ch.37, because unfortunately, just putting asterisks doesn't work anymore (don't know why, but I liked using asterisks better). Hope you guys enjoy! Please R&R!

Uzuki Cheverie

The Legend of Zelda: Time Gate

Chapter 37: Reappearance

Uzuki tied the last bandage around Shuto's wound. You could pretty much just say she had an unlimited amount of bandages on her at all times. It kind of freaked me out sometimes actually. But bandages aside, we were all amazed that we were able to save Shuto before it was too late. We were lucky that Mitsuhiro's blade hadn't gone through Shuto's heart; it was pretty close though. He had a few problems breathing, but Uzuki told me that Reapers heal much faster than humans do, so Shuto would be better in no time. But it was hard looking at Shuto with that hole in his chest. I took it as a message from Mitsuhiro, or the Kyodai no Akuma. He was telling us that he wouldn't hesitate to kill us. The sword through Shuto's chest was a warning to us... from the demon itself. I knew that this mission would probably last too long for me.

After Uzuki finished tying the bandages, she proceeded to her sketchpad that was lying in the grass. I stared at Dex who was sitting next to the sketchpad, looking through Uzuki's drawings. We were still at the Mirror Sanctuary, and we were trying to figure out where to search next.

Dex stood up and approached Uzuki as she lifted her sketchpad from the ground.

"Do you honestly think you can stop that monster?" he asked her in a low voice. I could still hear the conversation though.

"He's not a monster..." Uzuki muttered. "He's just being controlled by one."

"He's worse than Link though..."

"Don't you think you're to blame for that?"

Dex didn't respond.

"Exactly," Uzuki muttered, and placed his index finger on his chest. "Now, we're going to keep looking for him, and we are going to find him and kill that demon. If you want to try and stop us, be my guest. But we're not going to give up until we find Mitsuhiro."

Dex looked away from Uzuki's sharp look, and then looked towards me and Yashiro.

"Gonna try and stop us?" I asked Dex in a challenging voice.

Dex laughed, and approached me with a mischievous look in his eyes. "Far from it, kid. Listen, right now in the Dark Realm, I'm considered the most fearful and powerful demon among the Reapers. I don't know why that is, and frankly, I'm proud of that title. I ain't letting this Kyodai demon guy taking my title! I'm going to kick its sorry ass out of here!"

"Does that mean... you're going to help us?" I asked nervously. The idea of Dex working with me wasn't the best idea I'd heard in my life.

"What, do you need me to spell it out for you?" He withdrew his black Master Sword, which sent several shivers up my spine. I had only really seen that thing in my nightmares... and here he was, holding a twilight-possessed Master Sword. I didn't even know that something like that existed.

"But let me warn you..." Dex hissed, holding the tip of the twilight blade up to my neck. "This doesn't make us 'pals', 'friends', or even 'partners'. We're just working together to get rid of this demon. After that, everything goes back to normal, okay?"

"O-Okay..." I whimpered, not able to take my eyes off the blade even as Dex pulled it away from my neck.

"Good! Uzuki, where to first?"

Uzuki was drawing something in her sketchpad. "If Mitsuhiro wants to try and scare us away... we're just going to have to bring his fears to life!"

"Uzuki, what are you drawing?" Yashiro asked her.

Uzuki snapped her head up, quickly looking up to the sky. "We have to hurry... Mitsuhiro's scout is already coming back..." She wrapped a bandage around her eyes again, which told me that it was the same thing that scared her away before.

"W-What the hell is that thing?" I screamed, pointing up to the tower of the Mirror Sanctuary. There was a person standing there, and I knew it was the same person I had seen in the meadow before. He didn't move even as I screamed at him... he just stared at me with a haunting expression. Wait a minute... that thing didn't even have an expression... because it didn't even have a face.

"I-It's here already!" Uzuki screamed. She jumped up from the ground, and began to run from the Sanctuary. "Come on guys, I'll explain it on the way! Just run for your life!"

Yashiro grabbed the unconscious Shuto and began running after Uzuki. Dex and I took one last look at the man looking down at us, and then we ran too.

"What in the world was it?" I asked Dex as we ran.

"How should I know? Whatever it was, it's definitely something we don't want to mess with!"

We eventually caught up to Uzuki, where she was starting to explain her plan. I looked at her sketchpad. She was drawing pictures of strange machines. A lot of the lines looked messy, but that was just because she was running and was blindfolded while she drew.

"Tell me Link, have you ever driven a car?" Uzuki asked me.

"Huh?"

Okay, this was literally the coolest thing that I had ever done in my life. When Uzuki had asked me if I had ever driven a car, I responded with, "What's a car?". But this was so awesome! Uzuki said that one of Mitsuhiro's greatest fears were cars, because of the cause of his death. Also, she said that if they tried to fly after him, they wouldn't be fast enough because they'd have to carry me, Dex and Shuto, and we didn't have enough people to fly for that. So Uzuki drew up some cars for us to drive. This was something that I knew would only happen in future society, but with Uzuki's imagination and drawing skills, she managed to bring the technology of a future world to life. She was riding what she called a 'motorcycle'. She said that the Reapers constantly studied future technologies, and what the world would be like with that technology. So she knew what the future technology was called, and what it looked like. Dex was driving a motorcycle, and because I didn't trust myself enough to drive, I sat behind him on the same bike. Yashiro was driving a strange flying machine, and Shuto was sitting in the back seat, still unconscious. He was starting to show signs of waking up though.

We all followed Uzuki with our machines through the forest, avoiding the trees as we drove. But what really nagged at my mind was the constant wonder of where we were going. Uzuki was just guiding us through the forest, and she had never told us where exactly we were going.

We finally stopped outside of the forest, where there was another meadow. But this one was filled with beautiful green grass and flowers. It didn't look like the Dark Realm here... it looked more like Kalasia. The only difference between this place and Kalasia was that the sky was still black with twilight, as were the flowers.

"Uzuki, where are we?" Yashiro asked as she jumped out from her flying machine.

"This was the second meeting place of the Time Keepers..." Uzuki said, remaining on her motorcycle. She looked around the meadow, and her eyes stopped on the ground. "That can't be right..."

"What can't be right?" Dex asked. "It's just a meadow."

"No, I mean... weren't there more flowers here before Yashiro?"

"Uzuki, it's a meadow. Flowers can be picked by some people, and they can wither and die," Yashiro replied.

"But look... I can see bits of the earth... its like the grass was burned away." Uzuki pointed to the brown line of earth in front of her.

"There's some over here too," Dex muttered, kicking the dirt by his foot. The three of us began examining the area, finding more lines of earth where the grass had been burned away. I found a strange 'v' marking, and Dex found three lines of dirt next to each other. Uzuki found strange circular patterns around the meadow. Yashiro found two lines of dirt crossing over each other to form an 'x'.

"What do you think this is?" I asked Uzuki curiously.

"I don't think it's anything serious," Dex muttered. "Some Reapers just decided to go nuts with fire."

"No, it's not that," Uzuki corrected, spreading out her black Reaper wings. She took off into the sky, Yashiro following her.

"What do you see Uzuki?" Yashiro asked her as they both looked down at the meadow from an aerial view.

"I've studied these things," Uzuki mumbled. "See there?" She pointed to the three lines of earth that Dex had found. "Those three lines can be accepted as Roman numerals for three. The 'v' that Link found stands for five in Roman numerals. And the two lines you found crossing over each other stand for ten."

"What about the circles?"

"Let's say that this is a clock, Yashiro. See all those strange taboo markings around the circles? These form a sealing spell. Maybe the numbers say what time the seal will open? In this case, it would be three fifteen."

"That's a great prediction Uzuki, but it could be something else. What if it's ten eight? Or eight ten? Or three eighteen?"

"Wait... look," Uzuki argued and pointed down at two other lines that they had failed to see. "That line is the smallest... and that line is longer. What if these are clock hands? The short line is pointing to the ten... and the longer hand is pointing the five."

"But what about the three?"

"There's another line. That could be the seconds hand. This time would be ten fifteen and three seconds." Uzuki flew down from the sky and landed back on the meadow grass. Yashiro followed, landing in her flying machine car.

"Any ideas?" Dex asked.

"Does anyone have a pocket watch?" Uzuki asked. I pulled out my pocket watch from my bag, and tossed it to her. She opened it, and then bit her lip.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"If my theories are correct, then we have only a few seconds to get out of here before this place becomes a burning wasteland," Uzuki muttered, and tossed the watch back to me.

Yashiro started up her car.

"What did you find out?" Dex asked.

"Listen, if we don't get out of here now we'll be burned to a crisp!" Uzuki yelled, and jumped onto her motorcycle. She revved up the motor and took off into the forest.

Yashiro started up her machine too, and began flying off after Uzuki, yelling, "This place is going to explode!"

Dex and I looked at each other with shocked expressions, and we both gulped. Dex leaped onto the motorcycle, pulling me onto the backseat, and he started the motor, taking no hesitation to drive into the forest. Not three seconds after we left the meadow did the meadow explode into flames. The flames circled the entire area first, and then they started lining through the forest.

"Drive faster Dex!" I screamed, looking back at the flames that were getting closer and closer to us.

"Shut up, Link! I'm going as fast as I can!" Dex yelled back.

"It's not fast enough!" The flames were already nearly around us now. Dex sped up the bike, driving faster and faster until we were ahead of the flames again. Then the flames stopped, all of them ending at the same time. Dex stopped the bike next to Uzuki's and looked back at the flames in the forest.

"What the hell was that?" Dex yelled.

"A fire explosion seal," Uzuki sighed as she caught her breath. "Is everyone alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Dex muttered as he wiped the smoke ashes from his black shirt. "But that was too close. Reason one for you to learn water magic Link."

I ignored Dex's remark, and looked back at the burning forest. "Mitsuhiro, right?"

"That's what I'm guessing," Uzuki answered. "He knew we were coming. It's amazing how he knew which way we were going though. He's probably got traps like these set up all over the Dark Realm."

"This is going to be a pain in the ass, isn't it?" Yashiro groaned. "Uzuki, there's no possible way we can get away from Mitsuhiro's traps! We don't even know where the guy is! And this trap is probably one of his simpler ones! I bet he's got ones out there that possesses us, or explodes, or sucks the entire area into a black hole or something!"

Uzuki started to giggle. "You're silly, only his scouts can possess and suck people into black holes!" she laughed, like she wasn't even worried about the current situation. "Anyways, that sounds like fun..."

"Uzuki, pay attention to the situation at hand!" I grumbled.

"Sorry, sorry, got distracted for a second..." she giggled. "Now, where would a psycho-maniac demon possessing our leader go?"

Dex placed his hand on my head, and licked his lips. "Where would I go if I was possessing Link?" he snickered. I frowned, and pushed his hand off my head, giving him a disgusted look.

"Hey, that's actually a good idea!" Yashiro exclaimed. "Dex, where would you go if you were possessing Link?"

"Don't answer that question!" I yelled, not wanting Dex to possess me for experimental reasons.

Dex paced across the grass, looking up to the sky as he thought over the situation. "Hmm... if I were to possess Link... I would probably jump off a cliff and get him killed."

"Come on, be serious about this," Uzuki mumbled, pulling the blindfold off from around her eyes.

"I am being serious."

"The Kyodai no Akuma can't just kill Mitsuhiro! That would just kill itself!"

"Good point, I guess that would be the same situation as me and Link..." Dex muttered. "Alright, getting serious... that's actually a really good question... now that I think about it, I have no idea where I'd go if I possessed Link..."

"Please try and think of an answer. It could really help."

Dex tapped his chin, and shuffled his feet through the grass. "I guess if I were to possess Link, the first thing I would want to do is drive Link to the point of insanity... but the Kyodai no Akuma has already done that to Mitsuhiro, hasn't he? Driving someone to insanity usually makes them leave their current location, which Mitsuhiro has already done... after that, I would use Link to get something. Maybe I would make Link believe that he's better than everyone else... and then I would make him look for powers even stronger than he could ever imagine..."

"You would really do that?" I asked him with nervousness in my voice.

"Of course, I'm not an idiot."

"But where would a demon go to acquire such powers?" Yashiro asked while she poked Shuto's forehead, attempting to wake him from his deep slumber.

"An awesome demon like me would probably seek power from the next biggest threat," Dex answered, shoving his hands into his pockets and stopping his pacing to look at Yashiro. "Considering that Ganon is out of the question right now, the next biggest threat would be the Society, right?"

"Mitsuhiro has enough self-control... he won't go to the Society," Uzuki muttered as she kicked her toes against the ground. "It's getting late. We should set up camp so that we can get some rest." She began to draw in her sketchpad again, drawing out blankets, a lantern, and pillows. She set the new items around in a circle, then tucked her sketchpad back into her bag. Without stars or a moon in the sky, nighttime in the Dark Realm looked like any other day. But I was really tired, and I knew that I would need sleep if I wanted to survive the next day.

We all laid down on the blankets and stared up at the twilight sky. Even with nothing but black clouds, the golden hue made the twilight look so much more beautiful. It was like the golden color was the stars. But there was no moon, which made me feel a little depressed. Even the moon that Majora's Mask had tried to use to destroy Clock Town would have been better than nothing.

I looked over at Uzuki. She was wearing a blindfold, as usual, and was playing with a string around her fingers. Yashiro was reading a book she had kept in her bag, and Shuto had been carried from the flying car and set down on a blanket, still fast asleep. Dex was looking up at the sky, his eyes calm and his mouth brought into a straight line, almost into a frown.

The one thing that made me go a little nuts though was the fact that Mitsuhiro's scouts could have been watching us at that very moment. I didn't like what those... whatever they were looked like. I had noticed that they didn't have eyes... yet they could still stare into my very soul. But one of them had held its arms out to me... I obviously ran away, but before I almost felt like walking towards it. It had some sort of hold over me, and it almost felt like heartwarming comfort. But comfort or not, that thing was still a creepy monster none of the less. But if it was a monster... wouldn't it have attacked us? All it did was watch u... but that was enough to make Uzuki go completely nuts. When Yashiro had seen it though... she almost looked a little thrilled. And when we ran away from the creatures, she looked somewhat disappointed. It was like she was happy to see the weird ghost thing. Ghost, creature, monster... whatever it was, it was going to keep me awake all night.

But all that thinking eventually made me fall asleep.

An Interlude

Uzuki sat up for the fifth time that night and took off her blindfold, unable to sleep because she knew she was being watched by Mitsuhiro's scouts. She had never felt so paranoid in her life, not since the day Mitsuhiro had shown her the videos of the ghosts for the first time. No... this time she was even more paranoid. It was because she had actually encountered this monster... but in the real world the creature wasn't real. It was actually just a myth created by some high school student. But because Mitsuhiro had recreated the creature, and made it look so real... it just made Uzuki believe that the myth about the creature was all the more true than fake.

Uzuki looked down at Link sleeping, and then at Dex, and then Yashiro. Even in all this mess, they could get to sleep... She looked down at Link again, seeing the golden light from the sky shine from the metal on his headband wrapped around his forehead.

You're a good leader for us, Link, she thought as she stared at his headband. You're doing a good job on this mission...

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a twig snap. She wrapped the blindfold around her eyes again, aware that it could possibly be another scout. She navigated her way around, and then realized that it couldn't be a scout because it always attacked without making a sound. The scouts walked so gracefully... it was clearly impossible for them to break a twig. She kept walking towards the forest, and realized that she could sense someone's aura near her own... a green one. But it was two auras, one black and one green, and the green aura was extremely hard to detect because the black one was almost completely obscuring its presence.

Uzuki took off the headband slowly, her hands shaking because she was still scared of the scouts. She looked off to the distance where the golden hues looked so much like a sunset, and saw a figure sitting on the cliff. She swallowed, fearing that it was an enemy, but she approached it anyways, a feeling of recognition of the person overcoming her. The image of the person became clearer and clearer as she got closer, and saw that it was a man with his back facing towards her.

Wait a minute... that's...

Uzuki didn't have to take another step to know that it was clearly Mitsuhiro Minamimoto.

"M-Mitsuhiro?" she stammered, unable to think of words to say to her friend.

He looked back at her, and then turned back towards the sunset, not saying a word to her. He was clearly sane now... the question was for how long he was going to be sane.

"Mitsuhiro? Are you alright?" Uzuki asked, slowly and carefully sitting down next to him just in case he wasn't really himself.

"I didn't know you were here with them," he mumbled, looking down to his feet as they hung off the cliff. "I just came here to sort out some thoughts..."

"What happened to you Mitsuhiro? I thought you knew how to control-"

"Far from it Uzuki! Even your seal can't hold this thing back!" he yelled, glaring at her.

"Then why are you sane right now?"

"The bastard said he would give me some time to think to myself about what I wanted to do next."

Uzuki began rubbing her thumbs together and tapping her fingertips against each other. "You know, those scouts you sent out were pretty impressive... I nearly stopped halfway through our mission..."

"Uzuki, I promise you... I wasn't the one that sent those things out..."

"Yeah, I know. It was the Kyodai no Akuma. Don't need to blame yourself for that."

"Then you should know that just because I'm sane right now doesn't mean that the scouts are gone."

Uzuki twitched, and looked around. She gripped the blindfold in her hands tightly, keeping it ready for when she would need it.

"So what are you going to do?" Uzuki asked, still twitching her eyes to different areas in case there was a scout hiding somewhere. She felt paranoid again, the same paranoia she had as a human.

"Apparently I have two choices: I can stay here with you guys, or I can run away on my own, forever increasing my powers."

"I like choice number one better," Uzuki muttered, trying to cheer Mitsuhiro up.

"So you can tell Link to keep my headband. You're the new leader."

Uzuki blinked in surprise, and jumped to her feet. "Mitsuhiro, you're not possibly..."

He stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands. "Yep. I'm going to be gone within the next few minutes. I'm not going to be a Time Keeper anymore."

"But you can't leave! You're our leader!"

Mitsuhiro placed his hand on Uzuki's head, keeping the stern look on his face. "You're the leader now Uzuki." He turned around and began to leave the forest, before Uzuki let out a low mumble. "What did you say?" Mitsuhiro asked.

"I said that I'm not the leader for this anymore."

"Then pass it on to Shuto or Yashiro."

"Neither of them are the new leader. It's Link. He's the only one right for the job." Uzuki could feel her eyes get hot, and she knew she would end up falling into tears soon. No, she already knew she was crying when she felt a tear roll down her cheek.

"You're going to let that squirt be the new leader?" Mitsuhiro asked.

"I know he's only been a member of the Time Keepers for two years, but he's the only one who can become stronger than all of us. He's already stronger than you..."

"That brat will never be stronger than me!" Mitsuhiro yelled, glaring back at her with black eyes.

"You have stronger abilities Mitsuhiro... but you can't control them like Link can. Look at you... you're already giving in to the demon. That's why you're weak! You don't pound that demon back into your soul!"

Mitsuhiro lunged at her, grabbing her neck and holding her up from the ground.

Uzuki just smiled, and threw a kunai at one of the trees in the forest. "You should be sleeping... Yashiro-chan." She looked at the black-haired Reaper casually leaning against the tree that the kunai had driven into. Yashiro was tightening black gloves on her hands.

"You know that I don't sleep Uzuki," Yashiro muttered. She pulled out her kunai gun and sword, and began walking towards Mitsuhiro. "You sure like to get into trouble, don't you Mitsuhiro? Don't you have someplace to be right now?"

Mitsuhiro let Uzuki go, and pulled out his katana from the sheath on his waist. Yashiro watched as Mitsuhiro began to shift into the demon, his eyes turning completely black and his skin becoming covered with black markings. Mitsuhiro licked his lips, and summoned his Time Distorter to his right arm.

"You want to fight, huh?" Yashiro snickered. "You know, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Mitsuhiro approached her after licking his lips one more time.

"Alright, I guess you want to do this the hard way. I'm fine with that."

Yashiro drew her sword and kunai gun, and said, "Goodbye," before lunging at him with a killer instinct.