Author's disclaimer:
Code Lyoko, its locations, including Kadic Junior High and the factory, and its characters, including Jeremy, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and XANA, are the property of Antefilms Ltd.
Chapter One: Revelation
They were about two kilometres into the wood when Ulrich really began to wonder where Yumi was taking him, and why. She told him she had something serious to show him, but what could she have discovered out here? Why would she have been out here to discover it in the first place? And if it was really serious, why wasn't Jeremy with them?
A possibility kept reoccurring to him, and he hoped it was that, and he hoped it wasn't. The more he thought about it, and the further they went into the wood, the less he thought that was it. There were many more accessible places secluded enough for that. Besides which, Yumi looked far too nervous; no, that would make her nervous too, but she looked far too grim for it to be that.
Her grimness initiated a more sinister possibility: Could this be XANA's clone, carrying him to a secluded place to kill him? No, he thought. The clone never looked this worried, and besides, they had already passed about three places where she could have dumped his body with no real fear of it being discovered.
The depth to which they had penetrated the forest, the fact that they were still going without him having any idea what their destination might be, and Yumi's strange mixture of unease and determination would have been enough to worry Ulrich greatly, but something else occurred to him. Despite Yumi's usual attire and obvious anguish, she looked, strangely, as if she belonged in this wood. Rather, she looked as if she belonged in woods wilder than this conquered land, woods where there were predators, woods where there was prey.
Ulrich thought all this in silence, following Yumi as she lead him along trails and across trails through the thickness of the forest, seemingly guided by instinct rather than by memory. Their hike ended at a clearing close to a ridge. Ulrich went directly to the edge of the clearing where, while standing among the trees at the edge of the ridge, he could see the city below, and the river. He saw all of the Kadic campus, and the full length of the island and the factory that stood on it.
The view, magnificent as it was, did not have Ulrich's undivided attention. He looked back and forth between the vista below him and Yumi behind him. She had walked completely around the clearing, looking into the trees and bushes and… sniffing? When she had finished this strange search, she went to Ulrich, put her hand on his shoulder, looked in his eyes with the same expression she had worn throughout this journey, and pulled him gently. She led him to the middle of the clearing, and then stopped, looked into his eyes again, and spoke for the first time since they left Kadic.
"Here," she said.
"So, uh, what's here?" asked Ulrich.
"Nothing," she replied, "and, more to the point, no-one."
"There's been nothing and no-one for the last forty-five minutes." Ulrich said.
"Closer to twenty minutes, really," she replied, " but this is the first clearing we've come to since then."
"So what's so important that you had to take me to the middle of nowhere to tell me?"
Silence. She looked down. When she looked up again, her face looked drained; she seemed even more nervous than before.
"Ulrich, I… um… there's something about me that you don't know. I've been keeping it secret from just about everyone, but I don't want to keep any secrets from you…"
She hesitated, then went on: "Ulrich, I love you, and I don't want to have any secrets from you. There is no way I can tell you about me, so I'll have to show you."
Ulrich had no idea what to feel. Should he be happy because she told him she loved him? Should he be sad because of her almost frantic anguish? He finally settled on being exasperated at all the hesitation after being dragged into this corner of the wilderness.
"O.K., show me, then" he said curtly.
Yumi sighed. "This is going to sound childish," she said, "but I'm asking you to close your eyes and count to three."
Ulrich was taken aback. Did Yumi put him through all this for some child's game? More to get it over with than anything else, he said "O.K.," closed his eyes, and counted "One, two…"
As he said "Three," he felt Yumi kiss him on his forehead. He giggled, "Hey! That's not fai… HUH?"
Yumi's eyes were now yellow, but Ulrich did not notice that. It was her ears that held his complete attention. They were high on the sides of her head and they were large, red and furry, with black tips and white insides.
"What the…? YUMI!" exclaimed Ulrich. "What happened to you?"
"Well, Ulrich," she said embarrassedly, "nothing really happened to me. This is what I am."
"And what are you, exactly?"
"A kitsune. A fox spirit."
"So why're you here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why are you here? In France, at Kadic; why are you here?"
"To be with my parents. My mother and father, my stepfather, really; he's human."
"So you've been fooling all of us, all this time?"
"If you're asking if I kept this secret from everyone, then no. Jeremy knows. Aelita, too."
"You told them?"
"Yes"
"Why'd'ya tell them and not me?"
"Because they asked me about it."
"Huh?" he exclaimed, startled. "Why would they ask you that?"
"You can't hide anything from the scanner, Ulrich."
