"Two Faces, One Mask"
9. 'Never leave me'
"Lord make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.
Oh divine Master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive-
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life,
Amen."
'Prayer of Saint Francis' sung by Sarah McLachlan
Mae felt the darkness envelope her until she felt as light as air, but there seemed to be a figure standing in the middle of all this blackness around her. So she squinted and stepped forward until the figure came into view.
"Osamu." She breathed.
He nodded at her, his face mournful.
"What's wrong Osamu?"
He looked up at her, "Have you forgotten Mae? Have you given up? Are you willing to let this happen?"
He threw his arm to the side to gesture behind him and as he did so, the darkness was replaced with a flash of colours and images. Images of Ken and the Emperor being killed by Daemon. Images of Gennai mourning Mae. Images of the digital world in ruins.
Her face contorted in shock and horror.
"No." she whispered, but the images filled her head and her ears and her eyes and cut at her.
"No!" she yelled, but they didn't stop.
"NO!" she screamed and fell to her knees looking up at Osamu. "I haven't forgotten. I will never forget! I will never leave them but Osamu, I am not strong. Help me. Help me get through this."
Osamu stepped forward and kneeled down so he could hug her.
"You can do this Mae. You have to."
She held back a sob and nodded. She stood up and felt slightly more aware of herself and felt very heavy. The darkness began to fade away and was replaced with a blinding white and Osamu disappeared.
Mae opened her eyes and suddenly became very aware of her body. It was burning with cold and she shivered with extreme effort. Her wounds felt as though someone was inserting white-hot needles in the very center of them. With intense effort, she sat up and then stood up. She swayed a little and then looked up. The peak was close, closer than it had seemed before.
She breathed and took a step forward, her feet sinking into the snow and she did not stop. She pulled herself up the cliff faces and pushed herself to the top.
Finally she was at the peak and she could see the sun peeking through the clouds near the other peaks of other mountains. She shivered again and could not stop herself from shaking but she had made it, her test was over with.
"HELP ME!"
She whipped her head to the right, where the desperate plea had come from and saw a hand gripping a rock. She made to run to aid the person, but to her left the same plea was heard.
"HELP ME!"
In front of her, Osamu appeared again and looked mournful once more.
She frowned desperately, "Osamu, help me. I need to…" she looked hard at him, "This is the test isn't it?"
He nodded, "You can only save one of them, there isn't enough time to save both. Who will you choose Mae? Ken or Gennai?"
------
"You don't care anymore?" the Emperor repeated.
"No, I don't." Ken confirmed.
"What about Yolei and marrying her? What about your friends and Wormmon?" he tried to reason.
Ken raised his eyebrow, "Yolei left me and Davis clearly seems to think I'm a lost cause and Wormmon…he'll survive without me. Maybe he could find Ryo and be his partner. God knows I wasn't the best partner for him."
The Emperor scoffed, "I can't believe I'm hearing this. What about me huh?"
Ken folded his arms, "What about you?"
"Don't you think I have feelings to? I have had to put up with all your pain for years, all your nightmares and self-loathing and you just forget about me. I'm part of you Ken, remember, you said it so yourself. I don't want to die. I don't want to give up. But because I'm just part of your psyche, I don't get a choice in the matter."
He leaned against the wall and slid down it to sit on the floor.
"Man, we are a mess aren't we?" Ken laughed emptily. "You're sitting on the floor feeling sorry for yourself and I'm losing my soul."
The Emperor looked up sharply, "Don't even joke about that. You have to hold on to something to keep you alive, to keep us alive."
Ken sighed and began walking again; "I'll try."
------
Gennai opened the door of Mae's log cabin and a ghostly sensation threatened to swallow him. He took a deep breath and proceeded to walk through the door, standing aside to let the others in. At this point the Sorceress wasn't even tempted to try and escape Gennai. She had seen something in him before they went to the desert and while it didn't frighten her, it still made her nervous. She knew that if he could find a way to kill her, he would. She stepped through the doorway and sat down on one of the couches. The rest followed.
All the digimon sat at the their respective partners' feet while they sat in silence. Wormmon whimpered quietly and sat by Davis.
Kari finally looked up at Gennai and asked, "What now Gennai? What do we do?"
The guardian sighed, "I don't know Kari, I'm sorry. The Light and Dark masters have done something to change the balance and I don't know what kind of effect it's going to have on the world. Since there's nothing we can do in that area, we'll concentrate on finding Ken."
Davis nodded as did the rest and they fell into silence again, knowing that they had no idea where Ken could be.
------
"What?" Mae asked bewildered.
"Who do you love Mae, or who do you need to save?" Osamu said quietly.
She opened her mouth to reply but no answer came out. Her eyes dropped to the white snow.
"I love them both." She admitted, "How could I choose one?"
She looked up sharply at Osamu with a defiant look; "I will save them both."
"You can try." He said sadly.
She ran to the left and looked down at Gennai, who was hanging on the cliff with one hand. It was a long way down and the fall would kill him before he hit the ground. She reached out to grab his free hand, but as she did so, the drop below him was replaced with images of Ken. As if someone was playing a movie on a white canvas behind Gennai.
She frowned and watched as Ken was covered in darkness. How the two worlds were consumed by evil, how Ken was literally broken in two and she retracted her hand with a sharp gasp. Her eyes widened.
She had to save Ken; it was her duty to save him more than anything else was.
She looked at Gennai, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I have to do this."
She got to her feet, swayed a little from fatigue and ran to her right where Ken was hanging. She bent down and reached for his free hand but again, the background was replaced with images of Gennai and their life together. The first time Gennai saved her from the clutches of the Sorceress. How he fought against her banishment. The first time he kissed her.
She hesitated for a moment as tears filled her eyes and she looked back at where Gennai was.
She could hear him calling her and it was so hard for her to just turn her head back to Ken. She quickly reached out her hand toward Ken and with the tiny amount of strength she had left, pulled him up. She was weak and it took all her strength to heave him up. For a while she thought she wouldn't be able to do it. Her hands felt as though they were slipping but she closed her eyes and bit her lip and found the strength to pull him up. When she saw he was safe she sprinted as fast as she could to the other side of the peak and dived to the edge. She held out her hand and reached for Gennai but she was too late, he had already fallen.
"NO!" she screamed and it echoed for miles around.
With a blinding flash she was no longer on the mountain peak but in front of the Light masters again.
"Congratulations Mae, you have earned your right to go back." They said in union.
"Is Gennai dead?" she asked with tears in her eyes.
"No, it was only a test. We are sorry for putting you through that, but we needed to know why you wanted to go back. Your duty as a Guardian comes before anything in your life."
She nodded and looked up, "Are you going to send me back now?"
"Yes." The woman replied with a kind tone, "To your home."
"You have the spell to join yourself and the Sorceress again as well as Ken and the Emperor."
A piece of parchment appeared in her shaking hand and she nodded again.
For the first time she noticed the background of the area she was standing in was no longer white but gray. She frowned and looked at them again, "What have you done?"
"What we had to do. We made a treaty with the Dark Masters for a brief time. Until all this is over."
"You'll regret it." She said darkly.
With another blinding flash, she was in her bedroom of her log cabin. Again, she was intensely aware of her body, her wounds, her fatigue and how terribly cold she was. She sat down on her bed and shivered uncontrollably. She forced herself to stand because of the way her eyes were drooping closed. She moved to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself. Her left eye was shadowed with a blue/purple bruise. Her bottom lip was split and swollen. Scratches, scrapes and various other bruises were scattered over her face and neck. Her hair was wet and stringy with a few patches of dry blood. She looked down at her hands and saw that they were blue and reddish brown.
She gingerly pulled off her black top. It stung as the dried blood pulled at her raw flesh when she lifted it off her back. She dropped the top on the floor and then stepped out of her soaking jeans. Her legs, like the rest of her body, were bruised and covered with patches of dry blood.
She turned on the hot tap of her shower and put her hand under the jet of water. Steam soon filled the bathroom and she stepped under the shower. The hot water, in comparison with her low temperature was painful and it felt as though needles were stabbing her skin, but she endured it. Her raw wounds protested loudly at the water but she endured that too.
She ran her hands over her hair and closed her eyes while the hot water ran over her stinging face.
When she finally felt warm and the hot water began to run cold, she turned off the taps and dried herself.
She wrapped the white towel around herself and stepped over her stained clothes and into her bedroom. She remembered that she had no clothes due to the fact that she had always dressed herself with her powers. The power of the wish in the Digital world and the power to materialize her thoughts in the real world.
She sighed and went to pick up her wet clothes. As she removed the white towel from her body, she dropped it to the floor and saw that it was stained with patches of blood. She opened one of her cabinets and pulled out some soft bandages. After gently dressing her wounds she pushed the towel away with her foot. Then regretfully, she began to put her wet, blood soaked clothes back on. When she was dressed went to the living area of her house, where she stopped dead to find the Digidestined, Gennai and her dark side sitting in silence.
Gatomon was the first to notice her, "Mae!" she gasped.
Everyone turned to look at the doorway and all their mouths dropped open.
Gennai sprang up and ran to her. He wrapped his arms around her but when she yelped in pain he released her and stepped back.
"Sorry, I'm just sore."
He nodded, "You were dead Mae, how did you…?"
"The Light Masters gave me a second chance but not before putting me through a dangerous test."
She looked over his shoulder at the Sorceress, "How did you make her stay?"
"It's a long story, but right now, I think you should not waste anytime in getting back together with her."
She nodded and pulled out the piece of parchment from her pocket.
"What once was whole
But now is half
Complete the soul.
What once was light
And once was dark
Be black and white
And gray.
Be still of heart
Be still of mouth
Let evil die this night.
Be strong of spirit
Be strong of mind
Let evil flee from sight."
Without meaning, or wanting to, the Sorceress stood up, walked towards Mae and became transparent. Both of them glowed and the Sorceress walked into Mae. Once the light died away, Mae stood standing in her Emerald Guardian dress.
She slowly walked over to the couch and sat down.
"Mae!" TK exclaimed looking at her bruised face, "Are you all right?"
"I am now, or I will be TK." She sighed, "I just need to heal."
She looked around, "Where is Ken?"
------
"Where are we?" Ken mumbled as he looked left and right. They seemed to be in a never-ending maze of dark corridors.
"No, stop it! I don't want you to fight each other!"
Ken spun round to look at the Emperor.
He frowned and asked, "What did you say?"
But the Emperor didn't hear him and kept looking down at the floor, "Stop it!" he shouted.
Ken raised an eyebrow.
Suddenly the Emperor looked up and straight through Ken. His eyes widened with terror and he flung his arms up in front of his face to shield himself from something.
"NO! How can you turn on your master! Please! I created you!"
But the ghostly Chimeramon did not stop his attack on the Emperor and soon Ken figured out what he must be seeing.
Ken ran forward and smacked the Emperor; "It's not real. You're just imagining it."
Panting, the Emperor looked up and around him self and then at Ken, "Thank you." He said sheepishly.
"No problem." He turned around again, "Now, can you tell me where we are?"
"I don't know." He confessed.
To their horror, a purple and black pool opened up in front of them, and Daemon appeared.
"You have been a thorn in my side long enough. I think I'll skip the torture I had in mind for you and go straight to the finale."
In a second Daemon had Ken's neck in his grip and Ken screamed out in agony as he felt the Dark Spore being activated like never before.
Ken knew his eyes were open, he could feel them stretched wide in horror, but all he could see was black. All he could taste was bitter darkness. All he could feel was dreaded, undiluted evil. He vaguely registered the Emperor scream out in pain before his own agony devoured him like a star that had gone supernova and was now being sucked into its own black hole.
He suddenly had an odd sensation of leaving his body, though he was still very aware of the pain and evil surging through it, over it and out of it. Something was terribly wrong, he knew that much and he felt as though he was losing grip on himself. He tried to hold on as hard as he could but he could feel himself ebbing away. The darkness was replacing him. It had manifested into something real, something that one could touch and it was using his body to do this.
------
"And that's all of it?" Mae asked, after they had all explained where Ken was.
They nodded and she sighed and hung her head.
"Mae," Gennai began, "you should be able to sense him, shouldn't you?"
She looked up at him; "I can, but just barely. Not just that, but there's something…" she glanced out the window and her mouth fell open, "…wrong."
Everyone looked out the window to see what she was looking at and they leapt to their feet.
"What is that?" Davis questioned desperately.
Just on the horizon, black ooze was crawling over the digital world, destroying everything it touched.
Gennai and Mae looked at each other and then yelled, "RUN!" to everyone in the room.
"We should digivolve," Patamon began, "we'll be faster."
"No time!" Gennai barked, "Just run!"
Without another word, the Digidestined picked up their Digimon and sprinted out the log cabin and into the woods where they continued to run.
"Where exactly are we running to?" TK panted.
"To Daemon's headquarters." Mae yelled behind her.
"Why don't you just open a portal and take us there?" Wormmon asked.
"I've already tried. I can't do it for some reason. He must have protection over it."
"What is that stuff?" Armadillomon questioned when glancing back at the black tentacles rolling over the land.
"It's pure evil. You think the D-Reaper was bad? That was nothing compared to this. This is even what the Dark Masters fear." Mae informed them.
"Why would they fear something evil like themselves? Wouldn't they be happy about it?" Kari panted.
But before Mae could answer her, they all ran suddenly into thick fog. When they stopped however, they were no longer in the Digital world but in a different area completely.
"Where are we?" TK asked, his voice echoing off the walls, or more correctly, the surrounding gray.
"In a sanctuary." Three echoing voices filled the air around them.
"More correctly, limbo." A solemn tone followed.
Osamu walked out of the fog and as he came into perspective, the fog melted away.
Everyone except Mae and Gennai looked around and saw that they were in a gray area with no walls or floor or sky from what they could tell. Yet they were standing on something solid and there was a horizon. It was as if they were suspended in mid air.
"We have brought you here so you would be safe." The three voices called again and the Three Light Masters came into focus behind Osamu.
Mae spun to face them and looked desperate. "That was pure darkness flooding the Digital world!"
"Yes it was." They said in union.
"How?" she cried.
"Daemon."
"The Dark Spore." Gennai breathed and Mae felt her stomach sink.
"He's using Ken to channel the evil." She gasped.
"He must be stopped." Another three voices echoed through the area and they all turned to see the three Dark Masters.
"Hang on!" Davis blurted out, in true Davis style, "Isn't this what you want?"
"Dear foolish child." The woman taunted and Davis growled.
"Who you calling a child?"
"We do not wish for the destruction of all worlds. If that were what we desired, we would have done it in the very beginning. Our purpose is the same as the Light Masters'; to bring about balance. Without light there cannot be shadow. We did not foresee Daemon's plans to use the Dark Spore. If he is left to carry on flooding the worlds with darkness, he will destroy them and himself. We are sure he is unaware of this."
"That is why you made a truce?" Mae asked.
"We need your help." The Light Masters chorused.
"What can we do?" Gatomon asked eagerly.
"You must get to Daemon and stop him. You were correct Mae; there is a barrier of dark magick surrounding his home. We will lift it in order for you to create a portal and enter into his fortress. There is not much time, so you must hurry. Ken is holding on, but he cannot hold on for much longer and if the darkness replaces him, there will be nothing left. You know what you must do Mae. We are truly sorry."
Mae looked up at the light masters, her emerald eyes glowing with power and tears. She nodded and turned to the group.
"Stand close to me."
"Do it now." The Light Masters ordered and she nodded and held out her hand. White light emanated from her palm and tore through the fabric of space and time. Swirling colour swam in the hole before her and she turned to Gennai.
"Go first." He nodded and the others followed him. She was the last to step in.
They looked around themselves. The walls were cold and black; no light was visible, even though there were torches on the walls. Kari shuddered and went deathly pale. TK turned to her, as did Gatomon. The blond put an arm around her shoulders and tried to comfort her, but it seemed there was little comfort to offer.
"Mae…" Davis choked.
She did not look at him.
"What were the Light Masters talking about? When they said you know what you have to do?"
Still she refused to look at him and was silent. He opened his mouth to demand an answer but he saw Gennai take her hand in his as they walked side by side. Something in the way that Gennai did this told Davis that Mae was about to do the hardest thing in her life. His stomach seemed to vanish and his heart began to beat unnaturally fast.
'No.' he thought, 'He can't die. He can't. It's not right, it's not fair! There must be another way!'
They burst into a deathly room and saw nothing but black. However when they looked closer they saw the oozing black coming from five directions from high above them. They all gasped when they saw Ken suspended in air, black ooze coming from his head, arms and legs, like a star. His eyes were wide open, but pitch black. Kari tore her eyes away from the horrific sight and looked to the corner. She ran to the Emperors' aid.
Mae wasted no time,
"What once was whole
But now is half
Complete the soul.
What once was light
And once was dark
Be black and white
And Gray.
Be still of heart
Be still of mouth
Let evil die this night.
Be strong of spirit
Be strong of mind
Let evil flee from sight!"
The Emperor glowed white and flew like a ghost to his other half. Ken bonded with the Emperor but the ooze kept flowing.
"Why didn't it stop?" Davis asked desperately.
"Because I am still alive." Daemon informed them from the shadows.
Mae, radiating with rage and power wasted no time and no words on Daemon but rather, ignited the blue flame in the palm of her hand and drifted his essence over it. He yelled out in horror, as the flame turned bright red. In a burst of data, Daemon was no more but Ken continued to hang in the air like a morbid doll.
------
"Ken!"
The voice seemed far away but so familiar.
"KEN!"
Somewhere in the distant reaches of his mind he felt a grip on reality.
"Emperor?" he said weakly.
"Ken! Where are you?"
"Here…somewhere. Am I still in my body? I can't feel it? I can't feel anything. I don't know where I am."
"Can you feel me? Mae joined us together again."
"No. All I can feel is the evil. It hurts Emperor."
"Ken, I don't want to say this, but it's the only way. You have to let go. You have to give up. You can't fight this. Let go and the worlds will live." The Emperor pleaded.
A long silence followed.
"Ken?"
"I already did let go." He said sadly. "I let go quite some time ago. I thought I was dead. Maybe I am and this is hell."
"No Ken, you're not dead. I would know."
"I want to die Emperor! Why can't I die? I want it to end, I don't want to suffer anymore, not like this…but maybe this is hell and this is my punishment…"
"NO! It's Mae!"
"What?"
"She's keeping you alive!"
------
Mae stared up at Ken. Her whole body was shaking. She barely felt Gennai put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"There's no other way Mae." He whispered but the effort of saying it was draining on him and he closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"I can't." she stated softly, "Gennai, I can't let him die. I love him."
He looked up at her and she broke away from him, "I love him! He is a part of me, I can't let him go!"
"Mae…" Davis walked forward slowly and it seemed it was taking all his strength to speak, "Mae, you have to. You have to let him go. For the worlds…and for him. He's suffered enough Mae, don't make him suffer anymore than he has to."
Tears formed in his brown eyes but he blinked them back and looked pleadingly at Mae.
She stared at Ken's best friend and suddenly fell to her knees where she dissolved into tears.
"I love him." She sobbed into her hands.
Gennai bent down next to her, "I know you do. I know you've always loved him, how could you not? He is a part of you and you are a part of him. But Mae, listen to what he is telling you, he wants to go. Let him."
She choked on sobs and felt her whole body relax and become limp. It was as if all life had been drained from her and she could not move.
Suddenly Ken fell to the floor below and all the darkness stopped flowing from him. He muttered one word, "Yolei."
------
Yolei sat up on her bed as if someone had slapped her face and stared around. She clutched her chest, where her heart was and gasped, "Ken!"
She got up off the bed and grabbed her D-3 and ran to her computer.
"Yolei, what's wrong?" Poromon asked innocently.
"How could I have been so stupid!" she cried as she picked up her Digimon and was sucked into the port. However instead of landing in the Digital world, she was in a white area.
"KEN!" she yelled desperately.
"He is gone, Child." Three voices informed her.
She spun around, "Gone? What do you mean gone?"
"He's dead." She looked to her left and saw Osamu standing there with a somber expression.
"No." she whispered, "NO! You're lying!"
"We are not."
"He can't be dead." She sobbed desperately, "I love him!"
"Love cannot raise the dead."
"But you can!" she yelled, "Bring him back!"
"We cannot."
"Cannot or will not?" she barked, "You brought Osamu back! You can bring him back!"
"Osamu is not alive, not really. Besides, it was Osamu's choice to come back and help his brother. We do not know if Ken wishes to come back."
"I wish him back!" she cried, "He wants to be with me, I know he does!" she kneeled down before them, "Please, bring him back, please."
They regarded her for a moment and glanced at Osamu before looking at her again, "There maybe something you can do Yolei, to save him, but there is not much time. He has already being dead for a few minutes."
She looked up, tears shining on her face, "Anything!"
------
The Digidestined, their Digimon, Gennai and Mae stood around Ken's body. There were no words, only tears that fell through disbelieving eyes. Wormmon had scuttled over to his partner and best friend and curled up on Ken's chest. Mae was kneeling by his head. She shook with sobs as she brought a hand over his wide, lifeless eyes and closed them forever. As she finished doing this, she collapsed into fresh tears and loud sobs.
"I failed him."
"No, you didn't Mae." Gennai whispered, "You did just the opposite. You proved your love for him."
She held her hands over her face and tried to stop herself from crying more as her body ached with each sob. She felt as though her heart was empty, that there was a large hole inside her where Ken used to be.
She was not the only one. Davis had dropped to his knees as well, unable to take the weight of his best friends' death. Pearly tears shamelessly rolled down his cheeks. He held his head in his hands while the others looked down at their lifeless friend and had no words of comfort. He was dead. He was gone. It didn't seem real. It didn't seem fair. He was young, he was just starting life. He had so much more to give, a whole lifetime of it. It was surreal how years of friendship could be taken away in a mere second.
Yolei seemed to be looking at the group through a two-way mirror. She felt the female Light Master stand next to her. Yolei turned her tear-stained face to the 'woman'.
"I didn't want to believe it, but…I have to. What can I do?"
"We will stop time for a short period while you take our test. If you succeed time will start again and you will be able to save him, if you fail, nothing changes and he will remain dead. Good luck." She said kindly and in that second, Yolei was transported to a cliff edge.
The wind whipped her hair against her face and tugged at her clothes. Then suddenly, she heard yells, desperate cries of someone needing to be saved. She ran to the edge to find Ken hanging on the edge, close to falling. She threw out a hand to help him but heard more cries behind her and then someone call, "Wait!"
Yolei turned to see the female Light Master standing in the middle of the plateau and another Ken was struggling on a cliff behind her.
She stood up and faced the Light Master.
"This is your test. There are three people hanging all around this plateau, you only have time to save one of them. There are two Ken's, one if fake, the other is real. The third person is the Emperor. You must choose whom you are going to save, but you must hurry, for as soon as I am gone, you will have thirty seconds to save one of them. If you choose the wrong Ken, you will have failed. Choose wisely." And with a howl of the wind, she vanished.
Yolei turned in every direction; she knew instantly what she must do. She knew it from the second the Light Master had explained the rules. She dashed to the edge and saw Ken hanging there, calling out to her desperately, but without hesitation, she turned her back on him and ran to where the others were hanging. She found the other Ken and the Emperor beside him. Instantly, she thrust her arm out to the Emperor and yelled, "Grab hold!"
The Emperor wasted no time in grasping her hand in a monkey grip. She struggled to pull him up but she managed and they fell back onto the ground. As they stood up and looked down, they saw Ken fall and then the ground beneath them.
She was once again, standing in the white area with the three Light Masters and they were smiling.
"We are proud of you." They said in union, "You truly are a child of Love and Sincerity. Tell us, how did you know to save the Emperor?"
Yolei flushed, "There wasn't time to compare the two Kens against each other, but you never said the Emperor was a fake. So I assumed that he was real too and that saving him would be the same as saving the real Ken, because after all, he is still Ken."
The woman smiled, "You assumed correct. You love everything about Ken and were willing to save the darker half of him, rather than let him die. You're love is self-less and unbiased."
"Thank you." She mumbled and looked at them imploringly, "Now can we save him?" feeling that that was rude, she added, "Please?"
They nodded, "Yes. We will give you the power and transport you there."
------
Silence racked the room, punctured only by the group's sobs. A light suddenly erupted from behind them but they seemed not to take notice of it. Only when Yolei walked forward did they look up. They saw that her face was tear-stained so she must somehow know.
Davis opened his mouth to say he was sorry, but found he couldn't utter the words and dropped his head again, feeling like he had failed both her and Ken. Kari put her hand on Yolei's shoulder for a second before the young woman continued her walk forward, toward Ken's body.
Mae was the last to look up. She was shaking with tears and could offer no comfort to Yolei. She looked away in shame but then back at Yolei again when the young woman kneeled over Ken.
Mae could clearly see something different about Yolei, while the others could not.
"How…?" she whispered.
They all watched Yolei as she leaned over Ken's still form and brushed his hair back. Then, gently, she placed her palm over his heart and a pink light glowed around her and then into Ken. She stayed like this for what seemed like over ten minutes, but in reality was little more than fifty seconds.
The light faded, sweat had formed on her brow and she fell forward, gasping for breath. Ken however did not stir. He showed no signs of life but Yolei seemed to be smiling. Mae looked at Yolei and then Ken and quickly felt Ken for a pulse. His heart was beating again!
"He's alive…" Yolei breathed, "But we'll have to get him to a hospital."
------
(AN)
So this is the second last chapter and the last one will be here next week. Now this is the reason this story took me two years to finish. It took me months to write this chapter alone. I kept editing it, rewriting it, changing it and then I finally settled for the way it turned out at the end of this chapter. But it by no means is over yet. You still don't know if it's a happy ending or a sad ending yet. And trust me, it took me two years to decide on that.
It was a long chapter I guess, but I really enjoyed writing this chapter, though at times it was really draining and I even cried while I wrote Ken's death scene.
I got the idea of the black ooze from another episode of Samurai Jack, where Jack is in the grave yard and Aku is fighting him and tries to kill Jack with his own sword.
Yolei's test is all mine, and I'm really proud to say that. I hope you understand the message behind that one.
The spell was also my own creation and it was actually very easy to come up with it, but then again, I am Wiccan and I've never had a problem writing my own spells.
Anyway, until next time…
Nic