Yanai came to once more to find herself still inside the lab. She ran over and copied a disk from the computer's hard drive before running outside of the base. She continued to run until it felt as if she had lifted herself off the ground. And when she was a considerable distance away in the air from the charred remains of Prison Island, she created and delivered a energy blast that finally destroyed the whole entire island. As she sped off into the sunset, she repeated this same phrase within her mind: "Aozora may have eluded me this time…but I will be the victor in this war…she and that priestess, along with her friends will all be casualties in this war…"

Meanwhile, on Flora Island…

Sara was tending to the wounds that everyone had sustained during their battle. No one was really badly injured except for Amy, who had fainted a few minutes after she had teleported everyone to the island. The two shallow puncture wounds that the demon had made had slowly taken their toll on the pink hedgehog's energy. Now that they were all safe, Sara had bandaged up her neck and placed her down to rest in a private room. Sara had advised everyone not to bother her and leave her to rest, but a certain blue hedgehog couldn't resist an opportunity to speak his mind…

"Amy?", whispered Sonic, who had tiptoed in as quietly as he could.

Amy turned around in bed to look at him. She wasn't in the mood to hear anyone, especially Sonic, talk to her. "Go away..", she moaned. He continued to move in closer until he was kneeling by her bedside. "I'm not going to go away", he said angrily. "You ran off and didn't tell me that you knew where Shadow was!" Amy tried to turn away, but he pulled her back in place. "You purposely didn't tell me where he was! That's not like you! How could…" She got up and gave him a good slap in the face.

"Look at you", she said weakly. "Crying over the fact that you couldn't be the first to do something. I didn't tell you because I'm always the last person you ask for help. And quiet frankly, Mr. Sonic T. Hedgehog, I'm sick of it…I probably never registered as anything more than a hidden asset to you. Right? When all else fails, you come to me? Is that it? Keep trying to make me feel bad…because I'm not." Within the minute, Sara angrily walked in and pulled Sonic out. "I told you to stay out of here! Upsetting her is just going to make her recovery slower." She closed the door behind her. And neither of them noticed Amy put her head back down and silently weep. "Stupid hedgehog", she thought.

Everyone else except for Shadow and the cat were waiting outside of the room. Seeing as everyone was bound to stay for the night, Sara decided to show them to their rooms. "This will be your room, Sonic and Tails", as she pointed to a door on her left, "and this will be your room Rouge, and.." Rouge had tapped her shoulder. She took a quick glance over at Knuckles before saying, "If it isn't too much trouble, could I share a room with Knuckles?" Sara couldn't argue with that since she could see that she would need the space. "Fine, as you wish.", she said solemnly. At the end of the corridor, she turned to all of them and said softly: "You are all welcome to go into any rooms you wish unless I say otherwise. The only rooms you can't go into are my bedroom and this room." She pointed to the room behind her. "This room is strictly off limits to all of you." With that, she went about her evening business.

They all watched her leave before they turned their attention to Sonic. A sweat drop of nervousness was rapidly forming on his blue forehead. "Why's everyone staring at me?", he asked curiously.

Tails: For the world's greatest hero, you can come off as a jerk.

Sonic: Wha?

Rouge: You heard him. Why'd you have to go in and upset Amy like that? She's been through enough today as it is!

Knuckles: And let's not forget what happened with Shadow awhile back. What's gotten into you?

Sonic: I dunno. I guess I overacted and…

All: DAMN STRAIGHT YOU OVER REACTED!

Rouge: You better apologize to Amy when she has the strength to put up with your B.S. If you don't, you'll have to deal with me.

Elsewhere in the cottage…

Shadow had taken a bedside vigil by the sleeping cat. He didn't take notice of her until they had been teleported back to the cottage. Her appearance took his breath away; she reminded him of Maria so much that he could have sworn that she was the breathing specimen herself. He had drifted off to sleep, all his memories of Maria rapidly flowing through his mind….Maria running….Maria singing…Maria laughing…Maria crying…Maria falling down because of her weak legs…Maria dying…Maria dying…

He woke up to find that he could see himself within the room, watching the now empty bed. He looked outside to see the sun shining brightly…the warm summer air splashing against his face, the trees and plants of the island in full bloom. But the inhabitants were not the same. Moving in closer, he saw that several beetle robots, if not the ones they had fought today, had surrounded Sara. He could see that she was cradling and protecting something wrapped in a bundle of blankets away from them. He watched on as she swatted them away, trying to escape with whatever was in her arms…he could hear it crying…

 "It must be a baby", he thought. He watched on as she continued her defense, but it proved futile as they slowly began to overcome her advances. She was about to be overtaken when a dark figure jumped in front of her and the child. She slowly got up to her feet as the figure turned to face her, saying something that made her face cringe and frown. Tears flowed down her eyes as she yelled something back at it, before finally breaking down and falling to her knees once more. After a few motionless seconds, she lifted the child up to be taken by the dark figure…and as it was about to leave with the beetles, she handed it something…which he couldn't make out…saying, "Give these to him to let him know that he has a mother who loves him…."

Shadow woke up in a cold sweat. When he had thought that having that reoccurring vision of Maria's death was bad, this was probably 10x worse. He looked around to see that the bed was empty, and was about to run out and call the others when he noticed something from outside the room's window. Taking a closer look, he noticed that the cat was outside, standing in the spring nearby.

She turned around to face him for the first time. "You were the one who did this?", she said while pointing to the broken full moon. Shadow slowly nodded in reply. He watched as she did a swanlike dance on the water's surface, noticing that the moon's reflection had changed in appearance due to the ripples and waves she was making. When the water resettled, he noticed that the reflection of the moon had become complete. That also proved to be true when he looked up to see that the moon he had hurt was now restored to its full glory.

He jumped out of the window and walked over to meet her. "I'm not too proud of what I did now that I think of it", he admitted. "But I'm trying to make up for that. They call me Shadow. I wonder what they call you."  The cat slowly stepped out of the water and onto dry ground to face him. "From outside my chamber, one called me Aozora.", she replied softly. "He had great hopes for me…" A tear escaped from one of her piercing blue eyes. "I wish I was outside….I could have saved him…the thing you went up against wanted to destroy me…but for some reason…I know I can't let that happen…" Shadow placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I understand how you feel…but I've learnt that there are some things that you can't stop…but you should do what you can to help either way…" The both of them stood there for most of the night, admiring the now complete and full moon in the starry night sky.

Shadow's thoughts drifted off to that vision of Sara again. Why was she in it? Why was she running away? Who were that child and dark figure? So many new questions floating around in his head…but it was too late into the night. They could all wait for another day…