A/N: This is one of those chapter that I've been looking forward to writing for a very long time and I enjoyed it very much. As such, I hope you all enjoy it as well. If you like it, let me know! If you don't, feel free to let me know that too!
Early September
Combat and Questions
Aelita, Odd and Sissi exited the tower and saw Yumi on the ground with Ulrich over top of her. Embarrassed as all they were to catch the two of them like that, all three of them were filled with hope for them... and were a little disappointed when Yumi pushed Ulrich off and sent him flying with a well placed kick from prone when he tried to stand up!
"Yoo hoo, we're done!" Shouted Aelita with a wave, really hoping that they were just sparring and she wouldn't be interrupting anything too heated... or private. Yumi flipped to her feet with a hand-spring and turned to the trio and grinned at them, her apparent good mood filling the pink haired woman with relief.
"That's great! How're you feeling Sissi?" She asked as Ulrich got to his feet and started approaching too.
"I'm doing pretty good, but having two different accounts of the way a lot of things happened is kinda confusing!" She tapped the side of her head and Ulrich chuckled.
"Yeah, I'll bet!"
"And some things came back a little jumbled, so I think it's going to take some time getting everything straightened out."
"If you ever need help with that, just ask," Yumi offered as she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. Sissi smiled while everyone else nodded in agreement.
"Thanks guys, this... this really means a lot to me." She frowned and looked away sheepishly. "In some of the memories that came back I was pretty awful..." she looked at Yumi and Ulrich. "Especially between you two, I'm really sorry."
"It's all in the past, so don't worry about it!" Ulrich exclaimed. "You're a good friend now, and that's what counts." Sissi smiled again. She thought of some of the heartfelt conversations they'd had in the past year and couldn't help but agree. Her thoughts quickly turned mischievous though and a smirk formed on her face.
"Well good friend, I'm up to a little sparring... that is, unless Yumi wore you out!"
"you're on!' Ulrich challenged. Aelita, Odd, and Yumi backed away from Sissi and Ulrich as they drew their swords.
"Here's the visual you wanted Jeremy," said Aelita with a giggle.
Thanks Aelita!
"You know, I'm not gonna go easy just because you're new at this!" Ulrich shouted and he swung the sword in his left hand from above which Sissi easily deflected to her left side. As his blade was sliding off hers, she kicked Ulrich's hand from the outside and sent his weapon flying off the edge of the platform. Ulrich backed up. "Hey Jeremy, I'm gonna need another saber!"
Sorry Ulrich, but I saw that and you lost it fair and square!
"Beginner's luck I suppose..." said Sissi with a smirk. "I don't plan on going easy either!"
"Don't underestimate her, she's a tough opponent!" Called out Yumi, who was speaking from experience! Ulrich grunted an acknowledgment and adopted his old two-handed stance with his sword in front, while Sissi dropped into her own guard with the tip of her blade angled toward the ground.
Ulrich charged again, though this time more cautiously and with a tighter grip on his sword! He cut from above as before, but Sissi raised her sword arm up while keeping the tip of he blade pointed at her opponent catching his blade above her head. She immediately pushed in for a thrust which Ulrich barely managed to parry and caused him to stumble backwards, though he did manage to keep himself from falling.
"Ok, fine then, super-sprint! Ulrich started literally running rings around Sissi and began attacking repeatedly from different directions. Despite the ferocity of his attack, he couldn't break through Sissi's efficient defense, though his speed prevented her from being able to follow up with any attacks of her own either. About fifteen seconds of this went by and Ulrich retreated to a relatively safe distance and shouted, "I've got to admit it, you're pretty good." Sissi smirked again at his praise.
"You're not so bad yourself!" Ulrich flashed her a knowing smile.
"But I'm not out of surprises yet, Triplicate!" Sissi's smirk disappeared and her eyes shot wide open as she suddenly found herself being charged by three Ulrichs! She cocked her arm up high with her blade pointed forward, sprang forward into a lunge, and vanished! Two of the Ulrichs stopped running and stared at the lead Ulrich as it disappeared into a cloud of pixels.
"Whoa!" They heard from behind them and when they turned around they saw a slightly confused looking Sissi. She looked at them, down to her sword, and back up to them then grinned widely.
"That was awesome!" Exclaimed Odd from the sidelines.
"Here it comes again!" Sissi cried out gleefully while she raised her sword like she did before. Both Ulrichs' eyes widened as she sprang forward again... but nothing happened.
That ability must have a cool-down period or something. Called out Jeremy's voice.
"Well that stinks!" She yelled and seeing their opportunity the remaining Ulrichs charged again.
Sissi parried the first Ulrich's swing, but the second sprinted behind her and also attacked. She managed to intercept his blade and attempted to deliver a riposte strike of her own, but Ulrich's speed was too great and he was able to back up before it hit home. She caught a glimpse of the other Ulrich out of the corner of her eye and succeeded in sidestepping his blow, but she was on the back foot and knew it!
The three spectators watched in awe at the incredible display of the Ulrichs' ferocious assault on Sissi's equally impressive, if desperate, defense.
After about a minute, Sissi realized that in order to have a chance at winning, she was going to have to try something very risky! When she gauged that the two Ulrichs had separated far enough, she stepped into the attack of one of them, hopefully out of striking range of the other, and parried the strike with an upward swing of her blade. Grabbing this Ulrich's sword by the hilt, she pulled it out of the way and brought her own back down and through the Ulrich. Knowing that her back had been exposed to the other Ulrich for too long already, she pivoted and blindly swung her blade at shoulder height. Her hope was to either intercept the remaining Ulrich's blade or drive him back. Unfortunately, neither one happened. Ulrich had slashed horizontally at her midsection just as she turned around and the two fighters' blades passed right by each other and both Ulrich and Sissi's attacks solidly connected resulting in both of them being devirtualized!
Aelita, Odd, and Yumi just stood speechless for a minute. Yumi broke the silence first.
"Anyone else got the feeling that we should have tried recruiting Sissi instead of William...?"
"Of course I was rooting for her, but I wasn't actually expecting her to be able to devirtualize Ulrich..." said a very impressed Odd.
"On her first time fighting here too..." added Aelita.
Yeah, that was a good match! Thanks for the visual Aelita.
"No problem Jeremy."
I'm going to bring you guys back in now.
Yumi watched as Aelita then Odd disappeared into pixels, and moments later she did the same. When the scanner doors opened, she saw Sissi and Ulrich hug tightly for a second. They broke away from each other and Sissi grinned widely at Yumi before walking to Odd leaving her a bit confused. She shrugged and decided to ask about it later.
The six of them left the factory and descended into the sewers. Jeremy and Aelita were in front, talking about something techy that no one else understood. Odd and Sissi were discussing the memories that she'd recovered and trying to make sure that she had them straight. Ulrich and Yumi were bringing up the rear, but unlike the others they were quiet. Yumi knew that Ulrich wanted to talk, and so did she, but not with the others around. She also knew that she shouldn't get her hopes up without knowing what the status with Anya was, but with the looks he'd been giving her all day, and the fact that he shaved after hearing that Yumi preferred him that way she couldn't help it! They made it to the secret door behind the Hermitage, and when they walked outside they saw that it was starting to get dark out. Unfortunately that meant that Yumi was going to need to get home soon... but Ulrich seemed to have been thinking the same thing.
"Hey, can we talk before we leave?" He asked quietly.
"Yeah, sure," she replied as she felt her heart start to race.
"Hey, we'll catch up in a few minutes," he called out to the rest of the group and they left the two of them alone, thankfully without comment. Ulrich walked up to the fence in front of the house and put his hands on it. "Yumi, I've been thinking a lot lately," he started while facing away from her. She walked up to the fence as well and stared in the same direction he was.
"Yeah, me too," she replied. "You can go first though." He stared into the woods for a minute.
"I heard that things didn't work out between you and Xavier..." Yumi looked at Ulrich in surprise.
"How did you know that?" Ulrich sighed.
"It doesn't really matter right now, but I guess I just needed to hear it from you." Yumi looked forward towards the woods again, but didn't know what to say so she just waited for him to continue. "I know that we talk more than two people that broke up normally do." Yumi nodded, but wasn't sure where he was going with this so she still said nothing. "Honestly, with how close we've stayed... or became again, maybe... I dunno..." Yumi noticed he was tightly squeezing the fence posts his hands were on. "Anyway, I just can't keep going on like this." Yumi's breath hitched in her throat and she felt tears welling up as she started to fear the worst. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't. Ulrich took a deep breath and kept going. "I just can't leave without telling you how I feel." They slowly turned and faced each other. Yumi saw that he was just as close to tears as she was and her heart felt like it was about to beat right out of her chest. "The truth is that I don't want to move on. I know that you said that as long as we were still long distance that there couldn't be an us... but I want to try again. That is..." he looked away sheepishly. "Only if you want to." For a moment Yumi just stared with her mouth slightly agape, but before she knew it she found her face buried in his shirt with her arms wrapped tightly around him. The tears that had welled up minutes ago now flowed freely, and the fear that gripped her heart disappeared into the indescribable relief and joy that replaced it. "I love you Yumi, and I always have." Yumi felt the wetness from him crying on top of her head. She pulled away to look up into his face and could see wet trails running down his face.
"I... I am so, so sorry for everything I put you through." He smiled.
"That doesn't matter anymore. We're here, together, and that's what matters!" Yumi returned his smile.
"I love you too Ulrich." His smile grew even wider. "There's something that I have to do right now." Ulrich never lost his grin, but he looked at her curiously for a moment, just before she had reached up and pulled his face down to hers. Another wave of tears fell as their lips met and she let herself get swept away in the rush of emotion that accompanied the kiss. She had completely forgotten the kind of fireworks kissing Ulrich caused in her, and how much she missed and needed it!
After they separated for air, though still held onto each other tightly, a thought popped into Yumi's head. "I've got to ask, What happened with Anya?" She asked.
"She was nice, but it wasn't going to work out so we only lasted a total of two dates. That and she found something..."
Yumi furrowed her brow quizzically. "Found something?" Ulrich pulled away and took her hands in his while he nibbled his bottom lip nervously.
"Yumi, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to know that if you need to say no right now, I'll understand." Yumi was confused. "Yumi, somehow we've managed to rekindle the spark of our relationship and we were really only trying to be good friends. On top of that, it was entirely over the phone. To me, that's practically a miracle. If we can do that, I think that if we can be just a little more... intentional... then we can handle anything together." He let go one one of her hands and started digging in his pocket. Yumi clapped her hands to her mouth in shock when he pulled out a small velvet box. "You're going to think I'm crazy for asking this now... heck, I think I'm crazy for asking, but I need you to know how serious I am about us." He dropped to one knee and opened the box toward her, exposing a simple, yet elegant ring. It was a somewhat thick white gold band with a black onyx center stone, strikingly contrasted with two diamond side stones.
Yumi, Will you marry me?
