*hahaha! I finished this chapter amazingly fast! Wow. I think I may have two or three chapters at most. I think! No guarantees but I think. Okay here it is! yey!*

Chapter 19 Bleak Homecomings

"You need to tell them; I'm sick of hiding!"

"Fuu keep your voice down," Ferio tried to hush her.

"Why can't they know Ferio?! They know about Hikaru and Lantis!"

"Hikaru and Lantis aren't royalty," he protested.

"Emeraude and Zagato!"

"They're both from here!" and then it was out.

Fuu was immediately silent.

"Fuu-chan, I didn't mean it that way," he told her softly.

"You can't be with me because I'm not from Cephiro?" she closed her eyes, and tears slipped, "This whole time you never intended to be with me; you were just going to use me."

"No," he took her hands in his, "Never, but there was no way…I didn't want to hurt you."

"You led me on!" she pulled away as tears fell, "You never had any intention of bringing this into the open!"

"I…" he faltered.

"Ferio please tell me you did," she begged.

"I…"

She turned, "God, I thought that maybe you'd be different," she walked out, "But then…" she muttered outside, "Why should he be any different?"

§§§~~~

She lie on the ground, crumpled in a ball. She cried and screamed, hit the ground with her fists weakly. She didn't know what to do; she had never been this hurt. She had lost everyone at home, everyone here, there was no point in being here anymore. She closed her eyes and tears of blood fell down her face, 'I don't want to be alive, I don't want to be here,' she thought in her mind.

'Umi…then so it shall be,' the voice in her mind was gentle.

'Yukito?' she whispered as she sat up.

'Then so it shall be,' another voice, just as soft chorused.

'Then so it shall be,' Selece echoed.

'No!' but before she could answer Clef's painful shout she opened her eyes and was sitting in a dingy room, "What?" she looked around her.

"What are you doing?" a guard demanded and pulled her down from the bed she was sitting on, "How have you been hiding? It's nearly noon!"

"What day is it?" she choked in scratchy English.

The guard smirked, "She speaks?! It's February 22nd," he answered and wrenched her out the door.

"What?" it had been only half a day since she left for Cephiro, but it had seemed like it had been months there.

"Don't you understand?" he mocked, "It doesn't matter, you don't need to speak to be able to do work, get working!" he shouted, and she went to work. Tears of joy came to her eyes when she saw her fragile mother picking vegetables in the field.

"Mom?!" she called in Japanese, and her mother smiled warmly, and she ran to her, "Mom! I was so scared that I lost you too!"

Her mother held her while she sobbed in her arms, but still the painful scream of Clef's haunted her.

§§§~~~

"Umi-chan's gone?" Hikaru whispered when she heard Clef's painful tale, not even she could deny the obvious anguish in his eyes.

"Gone?" Fuu whispered and turned from glowering at Ferio, "I don't understand. Where did she go?" she was in denial.

"She went home, she didn't want to be here…she didn't want to be…" he didn't finish; they didn't need to be worried.

"She can't go home! What will they do to her there?!" Fuu stood up, outraged, "They'll kill her! She'll die!"

"Fuu it's not that bad," Persea insisted, but Hikaru shook her head, and Fuu turned away.

"It's not is it?" Caldina whispered.

"It is," Fuu choked, and they all looked suddenly tired.

"Umi…"

"You've got to call her back!" Hikaru shouted, clenching her fists.

"We can't," Clef told her frankly, crisply, restraining his emotions and keeping them away. Emotions were weakness; he couldn't show weakness with them.

"Why not?" Fuu's eyes were fierce, "You called her here and sent her home, call her back."

"It's not that easy," Emeraude put a hand on the Wind Knight's shoulder, "She wanted to be here, subconsciously she wanted away from that place; you all did, so it was easy. She wants to be home now; we cannot summon her back."

"This isn't right," Hikaru looked down, "This can't be."

"It'll be okay," Lantis put a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sure she'll be fine."

"No she won't!" Hikaru turned and bolted down the hallway, her head in her hands.

"Hikaru…"

"Don't go after her," Clef instructed, and Lantis turned his fierce eyes on the Master Mage, "She'll be worse if you do. Lantis you know what this means."

"It will not happen," he said firmly.

"You are as arrogant as Yukito, do you see where that got him?" Clef demanded, and Lantis turned away and looked down the hall.

"It will not happen. I will see to it."

"You cannot cheat destiny, but there is more to the legend," Clef said softly, "For every love there is a price."

"Umi will not die for her love," Fuu turned and walked after Hikaru, "Nor will I," she said softly, but everyone heard her.

"Ferio," Emeraude looked deep into his eyes, and he turned, tears in the bright yellow eyes, "It is true then; it has begun," her gentle eyes creased, and Zagato took her hand.

"But nothing is forever, you of all people should know that."

She smiled up at him and nodded.

§§§~~~

"Hikaru-san you don't know that Umi-san isn't okay. Who knows? Maybe her mother is still alive and they're on their way out of the internment camp now. Maybe they'll be able to get on with their lives; I'm sure they will. Now we have to too. We can't forget her, but we can't stop living because of grief. That got Umi-san nowhere, and we must learn from her mistakes," Fuu coaxed, and Hikaru slowly nodded and wiped her tears.

"For Umi-chan then?"

Fuu nodded, "For Umi-san."

§§§~~~

Umi poured out her whole tale to her mother before the others arrived at the bunk. She sat and cried over it and laughed and tried to get her mother to understand, to believe. There was a blank expression on her face when it was all over.

"Mom you do believe me don't you?" Umi asked, pain in her expressions.

Her mother nodded, and Umi smiled, "I knew you would."

"U…U…mi," the word was dry in her throat; she hadn't spoken in three months, "You must go back."

"What?"

"You must go back; it's the best place for you. You will have a better life there," she insisted, "You have to go back. You will live a long life there, many many more years. You will be happy, and there is no war, you've seen to that. There are friends that love you there. Umi, you must go back," she urged.

"No mom, I won't leave you," Umi shook her head and dismissed the argument, "I will never go back there, not after loosing him. I will not go back and loose you too."

Her mother let tears slip, "But you may loose yourself if you don't," she pleaded with her daughter.

"I don't care, this is my choice, and I refuse to go back. I will never abandon you."

"My daughter," her mother took her into an embrace, "You are as brave as your father."

"Arigato mom."

§§§~~~

She cried into her pillow trying to stifle her sobs; she thought she loved him, but he had proved her wrong. She didn't understand why men always did that to her, turned her away like that. She didn't know what it was that attracted the wrong kind of people to her, but it hurt, and the loss of Umi-san was more than she could bear. She could tell Hikaru to be strong, but she herself couldn't, and she was angry about that.

"Fuu," there was a knock at her door, and she didn't move to open it. He opened it anyway and walked in.

"Get out!" she screamed, but never looked at him. She didn't want him to see her tears and fiercely tried to rub them away, "Get out of my sight!"

"No, I won't," he sat on her bed and touched her back, sending chills up her spine. How could I love someone that did that to me? How can I still be effected by him? She demanded of herself and tried with no avail to force the feelings away, "You don't understand the responsibilities of being royalty. There are standards; they want me to marry someone that would benefit the country, foreigners, nobility."

"I am nobility in the highest form," Fuu looked up; her face was tearstained, "And I am as foreign as they come. Ferio I'm not asking for marriage, I'm asking for your heart. I'm asking for you friends and family to know that you want to be with me."

"I give you my heart, a thousand times over, but if they publicly know, everything is practically set in stone. I can't take a lover and then not expect them to jump all over me about marriage and heirs and such."

"Then you cannot have me as a lover, and I wish to go home," she whispered.

"What?"

"I don't want to live without you, and I don't want to be here any longer!"

'Then so it shall be…' Emeraude's voice was quiet and whispery in her mind.

'Then so it shall be…' Windam sounded pained.

'Then so it shall be…' Umi's voice was tired and weary.

"Um…" but before she could finish her friend's name she was enveloped in darkness.

"Where am I?" she stumbled and tripped over something, making a loud crash as she fell to the ground.

A few seconds later a light snapped on, "Got…" she looked into the terrified eyes of her sister and looked at the trembling hands that held a bat, "Fuu?"

"Kuu," Fuu addressed her with a smile in her eyes.

"Where were you? Father was so angry! You're going to be in so much trouble!" her sister scolded, and Fuu looked down.

"I don't know how to explain." She sat her sister down and told her the whole story, every detail leading up to Ferio's cruel explanation of the rules and regulations of the palace.

"Fuu, I don't know what to say," Kuu said quietly.

"Do you believe me?"

"Of course, even with all the reading you do I don't know how anyone could make that kind of thing up," her sister sounded flabbergasted, "I know why you left by why come back Fuu? What do you have to come back to? A worn-torn country struggling for control of some unknown power? Fuu you should go back."

"No Kuu, I came back for you, and for father, for the good of the country for…" she turned her head. She was back for only a few minutes and the brainwashing had kicked in once more.

"You know that's not true."

Fuu nodded, "Not for the good of the country no, not for father, for you Kuu, I love you. You're the only sister I'll ever get, and no one will take that from me, not ever."

"Oh Fuu," Kuu smiled at her younger sister, "What would I do without you?"

"You'll never have to worry about that," Fuu hugged her sister before they both headed for bed.

§§§~~~

"Then there is no one left," Hikaru whispered when Lantis tried to break the news to her gently.

"There is me," he said quietly, but she shook her head.

"I cannot stay."

"Why not?" he was suddenly angry, "Why not? If you go back you'll never see them again anyway! Is that what you want?!"

"No," she looked down, tears forming in her eyes, "But I have to go back, to help in the cause, more than ever they need me. I cannot let Japan oppress America. I will go back and find Umi and maybe her mother. I'll bring them in, and maybe later, when the war is over we'll go find Fuu. My mother has been saying she wants to bring us to our homeland."

"What about me?" he mumbled, "What am I to do without you?"

"What about you?!" she screamed and backed off, "Gomen, but I can't deal with this. They're my best friends."

"And aren't I supposed to be your lover?!"

"No, yes, but…"

"But they mean more to you," he looked away, scorned.

She didn't want to say yes, but she didn't want to say no, "They're my first priority."

"You should be your first priority, and what makes you happy, not them," he begged her to stay with him, this was too fast, this wasn't how it was supposed to work.

"Dammit Lantis I can't take this now! I want to be away! I don't want to deal with you! I want to be away from Cephiro forever!" she screamed.

'Then so it shall be…' Zagato's voice was mournful.

'Then so it shall be…' Rayearth's voice lost its power and held only sadness.

'Then so it shall be…' Fuu whispered, and she could picture the tears.

"Fuu-c…" she looked up and was surrounded by three brothers.

"Where have you been?"

"That was cool, do it again!"

"How did you appear out of nowhere?"

She closed her eyes, "Masaru, Kakeru, Satoru, there's a lot to explain."

She explained to them Cephiro and her outburst with the love of her life; she explained her guilt but how she knew that she had to come back.

"He made you happy Hikaru," Satoru said softly, and she nodded.

"But I need you three; you're my brothers," she added.

"But why did you come home? It's miserable here," Masaru told her what she had been so afraid to admit to herself before Cephiro.

"I know, but I missed you. I needed to stay with you, this is my home, and I'm going to see this war through to the end."

"You can't though; it's not safe, you should be there. It's safe there," Kakeru pleaded.

"It's safe yes, but it doesn't have you guys, and I need to find Umi-chan."

"Hikaru, you are amazing," Satoru said softly.

"Strong," Masaru chimed in.

"And extremely determined," Kakeru finished.

"Ashiteru," she told them, beaming but still longing for lost love, the love that slid through her fingers.

*This is almost the ending, but I like to have action to the very end so there'll be one more fight scene, but not involving the Knights…theeheehee. So until then ja! ^.^*

Tori:

"He says he reckons I'm a watercolour stain

He says I run and then I run from him

And then I run

He didn't see me watching

From the aeroplane

He wiped a tear

And then he threw away our apple seed"

~Tori Amos, Father Lucifer, Boys for Pele