Too Close To Be Apart

Con2020tran: Wow, 8 reviews. That's more than I had expected!! Man, I wish I didn't get that many reviews. It was a good feeling to know that more people are reading this than usual, but it's still kinda weird and freaky, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, sorry about the pretty late update.

A note for this chapter: Leomon is alive, okay?? Don't ask why. Okay, you could but I won't give you any answer.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon, but I do own this story and the plot.

To Akino Matoumiken: Glad to hear that another watches "A Dream Named Desire" out there! And you're definitely right! Pauline's mother was annoying, but not as 'annoying' as Fanny was (she just makes me so angry with all of her evil deeds).

To a-Carly: Wow, thank you. But kissing?? I'm sorry, but that is something that I don't REALLY like to write about. But I'll admit it, I did want to include that in chapter 4, actually I included it in my rough copy. But I did some after thinking and decided not to. At least not in chapter 4, especially considering...

To a-Kira: Sorry, but if I type up both of the chapters, it'll take a very long time (like this one did).

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Chapter 5: Matches, Powers, Knights and Wizards in one day

It was a bright and sunny morning today. At this particular setting, a couple of kids were having fun outside, at least as much fun as they could before the dreaded final bell rang. Most of the students were already inside the school, hanging by their lockers and taking the necessary equipment that they needed for the day.

Takato Matsuki, Jeri Katou and Henry Wong ran towards their school as apposed to walking so they wouldn't risk the chance of being late again. Yesterday, they had spent so much of their time talking that they didn't make it to school on time. Waiting for them, as usual, was a 14-year old girl with blonde hair, wearing a black shirt and black skirt.

Henry was the first one to greet their friend, as he was the first one to see her. "Hi Alice."

"Hi Henry. Hi Takato. Hi Jeri," greeted Alice as she walked over to join the group. "How are you today?"

"We're fine," said Jeri with a bright smile and being her cheerful self. "How are you?"

Henry sighed, knowing the true meaning of the question. "Our Digimon haven't been able to find them in the Digital World. We've checked our "Everywhere", the police have found nothing and no one has seen them. And as you know, even Hypnos can't locate them."

Takato and Jeri looked at him, silently questioning him. "She's talking about Ryo and Rika," explained Henry and they gave an understanding 'oh'.

"Well, I wish that I could help you guys, but my work at Hypnos eats up most of my time," said Alice. "Personally, I think that it wastes my time even though my grandpa insists that I do it so that I can become an expert like he is. I hardly even have time for homework. It's a wonder how I can manage a pass. Sorry that I can't be of much help," she apologized.

"Yeah, well too bad that you'll be missing out on a lot of fun," Takato said sarcastically.

"But we just have to help find them, they're our friends. They would do the same for anyone of us," said Jeri. The others nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, Alice noticed a faint glowing. "Takato, what's that in your pocket? It's glowing."

"Huh? What's in my pocket?" Takato looked down and saw that there was indeed something glowing in his pocket. He looked at Henry and Jeri and saw that they too had something glowing from either their pockets or their knapsacks. Takato reached into his pocket and took out the source of the glow: his D-Power as his fellow Tamers took out theirs. They all had to shied their eyes from the light. Their partners many times in the past had contacted them, but it had never shone as intensely as now. It must be very important. Takato squinted his eyes to try to read the screen and saw a number.

"Whoa...Guilmon had tried to contact me 104 times!"

"So did Leomon!"

"Terriermon tried to contact me 118 times! Figures."

Takato tried to feel for a button on his D-Power while closing his eyes, finally found the correct one and pressed it. The light died on his D- Power, allowing Henry and Jeri to find the correct button also. "Guilmon, what's going on?"

"A crazy mega Digimon is trying to destroy us!" Terriermon shouted. "We tried to contact you guys yesterday. But noooo, you all didn't answer us! Leaving us to run for our data the entire day!"

"Who's the mega Digimon? Do we know it?" asked Jeri, ignoring Terriermon's complaint.

"See for yourself," said Guilmon and suddenly, the screens all showed a completely black Digimon with a golden sword in one hand and a large red shied in another.

The Digital Monster closely resembled a black knight, with the armor and everything. Its eyes were blood red and it had 4 large blood red wings on its back. It rode on a brilliant brown horse-type Digimon (though the Tamers didn't even think that it was a Digimon at this point) with excellent wings to match its master's, and incredible speed.

They were getting closer to the Digimon, when finally the Digital knight leaped off of its steed, landing but a few metres away from the Tamers' Digimon.

The knight raised his sword and brought it down hard to the soft sandy ground. The hole made from the sword, emitted a sort of lava geyser. The knight slashed his golden sword through the geyser. The sword came out, not melted but intact, with red-orange lava covering it.

"LAVAN DESTROYER!" the Digimon shouted and area where the other Digimon were just a few seconds ago, was deleted by the lava.

"We have to find a way to bio-emerge into your world," Leomon said, calmly as if there was nothing wrong at all.

"Yeah, but how?" wondered Takato.

"Hurry up and think of a way!" shouted Terriermon, not as calmly.

"I don't think that there is a way to do that," commented Jeri. "I think you're all going to have to find the portal to this world. And fast too."

"You think that they could do that quickly?" asked Alice.

They all thought for a couple of seconds when Henry snapped his fingers. He put his knapsack on the ground and began to search quickly through it, before giving up and dumping the contents of the bag out.

"What are you doing Henry?"

"Shut up! I'm trying to find it!"

"Find what?"

"Shut up, shut up!" shouted Henry. "Found it! No, that's not it! Found it!" He took out a card, a card that resembled the Blue and Red Card that they all knew, except for the fact that this one was Green in colour. "Okay, I've been working on this card with my father," he quickly explained. "It's suppose to be programmed make your Digimon bio-emerge into this world. It's not done, but at this point, it's all or nothing! Right?"

"Right," agreed Takato and Jeri.

"DIGI-MODIFY! BIO-EMERGE ACTIVATE!"

"DIGI-MODIFY! BIO-EMERGE ACTIVATE!"

"DIGI-MODIFY! BIO-EMERGE ACTIVATE!"

A bright glow was emitted from the devices and suddenly; Guilmon, Terriermon and Leomon appeared in front of their Tamers. Most students walking by the gates of the school, walked a little farther from the Digimons, while others stood looking at them for a couple of seconds until the final bell rang.

The Tamers breathed a sigh of relief when the Digital knight's voice came echoing from their D-Powers. "I'll have my chance to defeat you Tamers yet! Time hasn't run out just yet. A split-up team doesn't even have the chance of defeating me! Watch your backs Tamers," the knight warned and the screens went back to compass mode.

The Tamers looked at one another.

"How'd he know about Ryo and Rika's disappearances?" wondered Alice.

"You think that he's behind it?" questioned Jeri.

"Let's hope not," said Takato. "Let's hope that he's just talking about Kazu and Kenta." He looked around, sighing. "Get ready for another detention."

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(Meanwhile...)

The castle was full of commotion today, people running here, people running there, people running everywhere; they all had one thing in common: they were all preparing for the jousting match that was going to happen between Jason and Ryo. Behind the castle, the yard was being set up; people were in the stables to get the two lucky horses ready; people were in the kitchen to get the feast ready for when the match was over (people were being very biased that Jason was going to win) etc.

Ryo Akiyama watched as Jason took out his extremely sharp sword and tested it against a block of wood, cutting it in half cleanly. Ryo smiled and clapped for him. Jason turned around, saw him and threw him a glare, obviously because he was still angry that he had been called a liar and insulted him.

"What is it Jason?" asked Ryo. "Don't you like me applauding you?"

Jason turned back around "You are nothing more than a common boy who has insulted me, insulted my family."

"That has nothing to do with applauding people does it?"

Jason growled. "What would a little boy like you know?"

Ryo chuckled. "C'mon Jason, you and I are the same age you know.""

Jason laughed. "Yeah right. You may think so, but a commoner like you would not understand that people of royalty towers over you commoners especially when it comes to our superior knowledge."

"Your superior knowledge of what? Of how many servants you have working for your fat ass lazy family?" said Ryo. He could see Jason's eyes turning into silts.

"We'll see what you can say to insult me once the jousting match is over. Then you'll be begging me to spare you," growled Jason. "You were just lucky that Yama stopped me from beating you to a pulp yesterday. This time you won't be so lucky."

"We'll see about that Jason," said Ryo, under his breath as he stroked one of the horses' mane with his hand. "We'll see."

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(A couple of hours later...)

The trumpet sounded, it was the signal for more or less everyone to come to the jousting field. A few nobles and their ladies had come for the event; a jousting match was always such a good sport to entertain people with.

Rika Nonaka took her seat near the top, near the King and Queen. She sighed. She still couldn't get last evening out of her mind, when she was alone with Ryo. Why had she felt the difficultly of trusting someone? Was it something that had happened before? And why when Ryo had taken a step closer to her, had she taken a step back? What was it that had motivated her to be afraid? 'Something's wrong,' she decided. 'Ryo really isn't telling me all I need to know.'

Suddenly from the corner of her eye, in the forest, Rika saw something move. She quickly turned to her right and saw only a glimpse of what had been there before. Since it was in the shadows, Rika couldn't really see it, but she got a general idea. It kind of resembled a knight with a shiny sword and a large shield, along with wings that were folded onto it's back. Rika felt something go through her spine again. She had once seen that creature before, but where?

Rika turned her attention back to the jousting field. 'That was just part of my imagination, was it? It didn't seem like it. And why did I feel like I had seen it once before?' She shook her head to clear her thoughts. 'There is definitely something wrong.'

Then, she saw Ryo and Jason come onto the field from opposite sides. Both wore a few armor plates that were strapped onto their clothing (for enough protection and was also much more lighter than the actual full suit of armor), held a spear and carried a sword by their side. Though they were supposed to use blunted weapons and such in a jousting match, it was clear that they weapons that the two boys held were quite real.

"Walk all over him Ryo," said Rika under her breath, then her brain registered what she had just said. 'Where did that come from?' she wondered.

~~~~~~~~~

Ryo tried to steady the spear he held with his hands, but it was too heavy for him to hold steady. His eyes searched the crowd for Rika; she had promised him that she would be here today, watching him. When his eyes fell onto Rika, he smiled and his confidence rose. Her presence made him become even more determined to win.

'I'm going to win this,' Ryo told himself as he eyed his opponent. 'Not only for me, but for Rika too. And not even Jason is going to stop me.'

Ryo didn't even hear the opening speech that was made; he was too focused on his goal. The trumpet sounded and Ryo urged his horse to begin running as fast as it could, though it became even harder than ever to aim his spear at Jason.

When they first met, both of them hit the protective metal that was tied to their upper arms. The shockwave almost made Ryo drop his spear, because metal against metal is not a good feeling, especially when hit with such strength. Ryo pulled the reins to steer his horse around, ready for the second encounter. Once again they charged but instead of getting hit in the arm or hitting the arm, Ryo leaned over to the side, missing Jason's spear point and aiming his spear point at Jason's chest; luckily for Jason, the spear missed.

Jason mumbled under his breath as the two fifteen year olds turned again to face each other, though Ryo couldn't tell what he was saying, his eyes told him all: "So you want to play dirty like that? I'll give you dirty!" In spite of this, Ryo smiled, giving Jason a look that meant: "Let's see if you can."

Ryo slapped the reins and his horse ran against Jason's again. As they closed in for their third time, Jason took out his sword just before they horses had reached each other. This action was so unexpected and fast that Ryo hardly had any time to react. Jason swung his sword and it cut into Ryo's side where it wasn't protected; luckily for Ryo, because he had leaned a bit to the side, he had avoided the worst of the attack.

Ryo tumbled off the side of his horse, holding his cut. He groaned in pain, getting back up. When he got up on one knee however, he felt a sharp pain on the side of his cheek, falling again. Looking up, Ryo saw Jason's horse towering over him, Jason himself smiling. Anger boiled up inside Ryo and he reached for the sword that hung at his side, before he did though, the horse went up onto its hind legs and Ryo only had a second to roll out of the way for the horse had dug its hooves deep into the dirt. 'That would have killed me!' thought Ryo.

He rolled away again when the horse tried to crush him once more. But this time, Ryo wasn't so quick; the horse had landed his hooves onto his left foot. "ARGGG!" cried Ryo, holding his now broken foot.

Jason's smile grew broader and Ryo would have done anything to wipe it off of his face. "Why, look at you little boy. It hurts, right? Well, don't worry; it'll all be over in a couple of seconds. I'll help you out," and he pulled the reins of his horse back again, making the horse stand up on its hind legs again. Ryo did his best to back away from the danger that came, though it hurt his foot painfully. Again and again, the horse tried to crash him; again and again, Ryo painfully moved out of the way, avoiding death each time.

Suddenly, Ryo felt something cold brush against his skin; when he looked at what it was, he saw the spear that he had held earlier while on his horse. Jason's horse reared up again and Ryo quickly grabbed the weapon and thrust the point deep into the stomach of the creature. Warm red blood flowed out and the horse fell onto its side, its hooves pawing the air as Jason gracefully rolled off to the other side and landed on his feet.

Ryo withdrew his sword from its scabbard as Jason withdrew his. Jason brought the weapon above his head and slashed it down towards Ryo, but Ryo saved himself from it with his own sword at the last minute. The two boys struggled to take over the playing field, but Ryo was losing the energy to continue quickly. Suddenly, his sword flew out of his hands and onto the ground a metre away from him. Jason's sword point lightly landed on Ryo's chest.

Jason smiled. "I've believe that I've won."

'Ryo's going to die!' thought Rika, anger overwhelming her now. She had been good at controlling her emotions so far, but this was just too much! 'No! He promised me that he would win and beat Jason! Now look what has happened! He can't die! He told me to trust him and now...!'

"RYO!" she shouted, standing up suddenly.

Ignoring the strange looks that people all around her gave, Rika held out her hand towards the jousting field, right at Jason and his horse. "SPIRIT STRIKE!" she cried out. Suddenly three coloured fox spirits appeared from the centre of her palm and flew out to meet the two torturers. Jason's eyes grew wide as the spirits flew towards him, Ryo forgotten. All of them went right through Jason's chest knocking him on his back, paralyzed.

Ryo's eyes widened and his month was slightly opened in surprise at what had just happened, 'Rika couldn't have done what I thought she did, could she?'

Rika was also surprised at what had just happened for she had no idea how, 'Did I just do what I think I did?'

No one said anything for a few minutes. It was absolutely quiet until someone said the thing that was on all of their minds (excluding Ryo and Rika), "Witch."

Rika quickly spun around to witness the King's reaction. King Peter looked at the one near him, narrowing his eyes as he studied her. Then he finally opened his month to speak.

"Someone seize this witch for me."

Everyone got up to seize the 'witch', though few of them even got close to her because they were afraid of her "magical powers". Rika ran down the stairs to get away from them, fighting her way through the little crowd to capture her. But as soon as she saw the armored knights, she knew that it was hopeless for knights aren't that easily brought down to their knees and they wouldn't freeze because knights don't become knights by being scared of everything.

Ryo watched all this from his spot on the ground, struggling to get up, but his broken foot prevented him from getting up. His anger grew with each passing second. Not only because of the scene he was witnessing, but also because of everything that had happened before.

He hated himself for not being able to help Rika. He hated himself for agreeing to such a thing and getting himself and Rika into this kind of trouble. He had told himself that both of them would be going home, together...it wasn't going to be interfered with by the inhabitants of this dimension!!

"RIKA!" shouted Ryo, who had gotten a sudden burst of energy and leaped onto his feet; ignoring the sudden pain it brought to him. The sword that laid 2 metres away flew towards Ryo's hand and when it reached it, he tightened his grip on the hilt. He ran and jumped high up into the air, did a mid-somersault and landed beside Rika.

"MOLTEN BLADE!" he cried out. His sword began to glow a bright red and orange colour and attached itself onto his wrist. He brought the blade up to his chest, ready to slash out at any one that came. Most of the knights had stopped in their tracks, obviously realizing the danger of the blade. One really brave but stupid knight charged against them and Ryo attacked, leaving a gash in the knight's armor and body.

"ARGGGG!" The knight cried out, tumbling down the aisle.

"Seize them both!" ordered the King. Though the knights all seemed reluctant to attack at first, they still began to charge at the two adolescents.

Ryo reacted quickly. He jumped over to where Peter was, grabbed him and placed the hot red-orange blade at the ruler's neck. "If anyone harms me or Rika, your King's head won't be attached to the rest of his body," Ryo threatened. "Now back down."

Peter's eyes grew wide. "Do what he says!" he commanded his knights, although they had already begun to do so.

Ryo turned to Rika and made a motion with his head, signaling for her to go down. Rika responded with a nod and headed down the steps, Ryo followed her with the King still prisoner.

"What do you want?" asked the King with a trembling voice, feeling the hotness of the blade.

"I want to get down to the ground safely," answered Ryo. "And that's why I'm using you." He felt the blade slowly beginning to weaken; he wouldn't be able to keep this for much longer. The blade would fall and everyone would feel no fear in attacking.

As soon as they reached the soft earth, Ryo pushed Peter away and ran for the forest. "Rika!" he shouted to the one in front of him. "Run!"

Rika looked back, saw Ryo running towards her and saw the King on the ground before she realized what had just happened. She also broke into a run for the forest. "Why didn't you tell me what you would do?" she asked.

The colour on the blade died and became a regular sword again. Ryo caught it before it fell to the ground, and began to feel the pain of his broken foot and the cut in his side again. "I couldn't unless you wanted everyone to know," he answered. "Rika, my foot's becoming unless again, don't ask why or how. Just help support me, go under my left arm. Hurry up!"

Rika nodded. "'Kay, just stop for a sec." She went under his left arm and placed an arm over his shoulders. It was now when she saw him close up did she notice how tired he looked. Starting from the corner of his mouth, a trickle of red blood was flowing, Rika guessed that it came from the time Jason had attacked him with the side of his sword, along with the scratches on his face. His chest went in and out as he gasped for breath and blood could also be seen through his t-shirt, mostly coming from his left side, where Jason had cut him.

Rika looked at his eyes, wondering if he could continue like this. "Ryo, are you okay? Can you still go on?"

Ryo smiled. "Of course I can, did you think that a few injuries could stop Ryo Akiyama? You think too little of me Rika."

Rika was about to say something else when Ryo signaled her to stop. "We have to hurry up and get as far away as we can. The knights can still catch up with us."

"Yeah, let's go..."

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(An hour later)

They had covered a pretty good distance and now it seemed that the knights would not catch up to them. But still, they did not know for sure; it was only an estimate. They still had to cover a lot of ground. But now, they would take a chance and rest.

Ryo knelt by the edge of the clear stream, getting a drink of water to wet his dry throat. Rika knelt down beside him, doing the same. When both of them had drank their fill, Rika turned to the 15-year-old boy.

"Ryo, are you sure you're okay?" she asked again.

Ryo nodded slowly. "I've told you, I'm okay."

"But there's blood all over your shirt..."

"I'm okay," he repeated.

Rika shook her head. "No, Ryo. We've got to stop you from losing so much blood. If you lose any more, you could be in a very dangerous condition. We have to stop the loss of blood or at least slow it down," she insisted.

"But Rika, the knights are still after us. If we waste too much time, we could be captured."

"But if we don't stop you from losing blood, you could faint or worse, even die. Then how am I suppose to go on knowing that I had abandoned the chance to save you? Yesterday you told me to trust you, well; I'm asking you to trust me now. We can do this quickly with your co-operation. Then we won't be caught."

Ryo looked at the rocks in the calm stream, giving up. He knew that she was right and that she wasn't going to give up easily. "Go ahead then. But I don't know how you're going to do it."

Rika smiled. "That's simple. You don't have to be a doctor to know how to stop the loss of blood. All we need is something that's long enough to wrap around your waist that can slow the loss of blood."

She looked around for something that fitted her requirements until she decided that her white and blue t-shirt was good enough. She sighed and pulled until the force made a small rip in the fabric. From there, Rika tore at it, being careful not to rip too much as it might expose more than wanted. When she was done, she washed the strip of clothing in the flowing stream.

"Ryo, I need you to lift up your shirt a bit so I can put this on," said Rika, gesturing to the cloth she held in her hand.

Ryo nodded slowly and lifted his shirt, revealing the deep bloody cut in his side. Ryo blushed slightly as Rika approached him and bent down to bandage him. Rika knelt down and ripped off a piece of cloth from the strip and held it against Ryo's cut.

"Ryo, could you hold this?" she asked him.

"Yeah," replied Ryo. As he reached down to hold the cloth against his side, his hand touched Rika's for a second before she quickly pulled it away. Ryo smiled slightly at the 14-year-old girl as she busied herself with the long strip she held.

Rika, who had blushed slightly when the 15-year-old boy's hand briefly touched hers, quickly wrapped his waist with the wet strip and tied the ends together. When she was done, she looked up and the first thing she saw were Ryo's blue eyes looking at her.

Rika was frozen in place as she stared into his eyes. Ryo smiled at this, stood up and held out his hand to get her to stand up also. She absent- mindedly took it and was helped onto her feet, but was still lost in his eyes. Tiredness showed in them yet courage and concern shone brightly. So full of the emotion that she didn't want to admit she had for him but wanted to. Why did she feel like this? Was it really because she had had feelings for him in the first place? And why did she only feel like this now? All of a sudden, their faces began to slowly draw closer together and her heartbeat and breathing quickened.

Right when the distance between them were two hands worth, an arrow flew between the two adolescents. They both almost frowned at the sudden interruption, but caught themselves when they registered what it was.

"Who was that?" demanded Rika, having finally been freed of her spell.

Ryo spun around quickly and spotted something glitter against the sun in the forest. "Knights!" he hissed. "C'mon! We have to get going before they catch up to us!"

"Right," agreed Rika and started to run.

"Rika! My foot!" Ryo shouted after her as he tried to limp/run away, but only resulted in falling down.

"Sorry!" Rika apologized as she ran back over to Ryo, supported him up and began to slowly jog away. The knights behind them had gotten onto their horses and were heard galloping towards the two.

"Hurry up!" urged Rika.

"I'm trying to," said Ryo as he nearly tripped on a rock.

Several knights rode ahead of them and turned their horses around to face them; some others stopped a couple of metres behind them while the rest stood everywhere else, armed with swords, bows and arrows. The two teenagers were surrounded. Ryo pushed away from Rika, drew his weapon out and grasped it firmly.

"What do you want?" Ryo demanded.

The one directly in front of him spoke up. "The King has issued for the capture of you two. One for stealing the identity of Princess Yama and one for threatening King Peter's life. If you try to escape, be warned that the whole country will not assist."

"Great," Ryo muttered under his breath. "Well, tell your king that we're not going down without a fight!"

"Fine," said the knight said as he drew out his sword. "So be it!"

Suddenly, the knights who held swords charged at them, their horses running at full speed. The ones who were armed with bows and arrows stayed their ground.

The one in front of Ryo charged at him and slashed his sword outwards at him. Ryo used his own sword and blocked it until the knight went past, he then attacked the horse's hind legs and the creature along with its rider went crashing down to the ground. Another knight crept behind Ryo and slammed the hilt of his sword against his head. Ryo lost his sword and went rolling on the ground with his head in his hands. He felt something wet and when he looked at his hands, he saw red blood glittering back at him. Ryo tried to stand up but fell because of the remembered pain in his foot and the intense throbbing of his head.

Rika wasn't as lucky as Ryo was because she didn't have a weapon like he did, so when the first knight came charging towards her, she felt a sharp pain cut through her right shoulder and upper arm. She suppressed a cry of pain and instead clutched her arm. A knight and his horse hit the ground and she saw the sword that lay gleaming in the sunlight near him. Rika made a movement to get it but before she made another, she felt a sharp pain in the lower part of her leg and fell down. A moment later, something hard slammed into her back and she hit the ground, making all the wind get knocked out of her.

Ryo stood and fell beside her and then in a second, they both felt the sharpness of a blade pressed against their necks.

One of the knights spoke to them in a loud clear voice. "Come with us now or don't come with us at all."

"You're not supposed to kill us!" exclaimed Rika.

"No, we aren't. But we will if necessary. King Peter will have you two killed anyways so it won't be that big a problem to us," answered another knight and the others nodded in agreement.

Ryo and Rika turned to each other as best they could without injuring themselves. They both gave each other a nod meaning that they would go with them; they would figure out how to escape later on, besides, trying to escape here where one wrong move could take their heads off immediately, was completely stupid.

"Complete paralyse, take over the ones who say that they are noble and good yet their intentions of now are not," chanted a loud, clear voice. Then, the source of the voice showed himself. He was an old man with piecing but tired green eyes and greying brown hair that went about uncombed; the man looked as if he didn't get enough sleep for weeks. He wore long blue robes that sweep the ground as he walked. The old man walked over to them.

"Surely you two are not going to lay there all day, are you?" asked the old man. He seemed tired, yes; but his voice seemed energetic.

Ryo and Rika quickly, but carefully, got up from the ground. Both were surprised at the old man's sudden appearance; they hadn't expected anyone to come and save them, least of all an old man who could paralyse people.

"Well, why are you two just standing there?" asked the old man. "Hurry up!"

"Who are you and why did you just save us?" questioned Rika for the both of them. Ryo was too weak and injured to ask anything and wanted to conserve his strength in case the man was a threat to them; though it didn't really matter.

"Really!" exclaimed the old man. "The spell's going to wear off sooner or later and you're asking dumb, time-consuming questions?"

"Who are you?" Rika pressed him.

"Who I am is not important. What IS important is that you trust me."

"And why is that?"

"Because I can get you two back to your home."

Rika quickly looked to Ryo for advice. Could they really trust this old man? He had saved their lives, but he could have just done that to gain their trust. Then he could just kill them whenever their guard was down. Rika received a small nod from Ryo and turned back to the stranger.

"We'll follow you, but if you try to do anything to harm either one of us, you'll be sorry the thought even crossed your head," she replied back to the man. A useless threat, but it couldn't hurt to throw that in.

The man nodded. "Having known the full extent of your power and being that there are two of you; I wouldn't even dare think of it."

Rika shot another look at Ryo, asking him a silent question. He knew MUCH more about their home than she remembered anyways; maybe he knew what the old man was talking about. The full extent of what power? But when she merely got a shrug from him, she had to fight off the urge to hit and shake him to get him to think really hard. She sighed.

"Yeah, our 'power' is so incredible that we can't even begin to imagine what it would do to someone like you," she lied.

The old man nodded again. "Yes, now hurry up! The spell's going to wear off real soon. If you don't hurry up, you're not going to be walking and talking anymore."

Ryo gave a slight, tired nod and motioned for Rika to help support him. As now his injuries were taking their toll and were wearing him out really fast. Rika helped him to an upright position, winced at the pain in her shoulder but quickly ignored it; Ryo had endured much more pain than she had, she had to be strong.

Rika's eyes met the old man's with a sense of determination. "Lead on."

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Con2020tran: I'm finally done this chapter! I kept putting it off to work on 2 stories that I would most likely NOT put on Fanfiction.net or Fictionpress.com because I just don't want to. But as I written on a story that I would be most likely NOT to put on Fictionpress.com, "But if I don't type this out, it'll eat at my brain and make me unable to work on my fanfics! Ahhhhhh! :-o A fate worst than death!" See?

I guess that I don't have to tell you that I'd rewritten this chapter more than a lot because if I didn't rewrite it at all, it would only be 5-6 pages long (This one was 11 pages long on Microsoft Word). Also, I'm thinking of writing an extra chapter in this story, but the odds of that are not good...unless I think of something that flows with my original plot. :) I'm so mean to Ryo and Rika :) Please review! Please Review my story, give me suggestions, give me comments, just give me something! Thanks!