Key:
'Thought'
"Speech"
"Speech in Japanese"

NOTE: My gods, I'm so sorry for being a lazy bum about updating. I'll try to be more frequent; school just started, though, and stress levels high like a crack whore, so... blah.

The next morning brought Ulrich and Yumi back to the park for their usual sparring session. Well, nearly usual. The duo hadn't particularly had time for the midday spar since this fiancé fiasco started. The situation however seemed to only fuel their fighting, taking out frustrations on each other through friendly combat rather then in blinding rage.

"Oww-ack!" Ulrich winced as Yumi roughly blocked one of his punches then grabbed his other arm and flipped him over so he fell on his back. "Oof!" he let out as he hit the ground. "Geese, do you know how much that hurts?" he muttered in mild irritation. The girl smiled nervously, cocking an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, Ulrich..." Yumi said with honesty. She still hadn't told Ulrich that her parents were taking her out of school an hour and a half early so that they could make their plane, and she had the sinking suspicion that it would be coming up very shortly in their conversation. Ulrich indeed gave her a strange look.

"What's up with you today, anyway? You've been so... quiet and violent. Like a panther or something," Ulrich sat up, rubbing his back with both hands and cringing. 'Right on cue', she thought. 'I think the world is spiting me...' Yumi sighed and sat down next to him, inadvertently agreeing on the break.

"A panther?" Yumi asked, raising an eyebrow and dodging the original question as far as she could. "More like a ninja; silent, but deadly,"

"Isn't that... No, never mind. So what's up with you?" He leaned forward a bit so that he could take Yumi's hand in his own. She flushed a bit, still unuse to the displays of affection he was showing her. Sighing, she figured that she couldn't delay it anymore. Ulrich was going to flip out...

"My mother and father... Have decided that they were taking Li and I back to Japan today." She looked away from him. "They're coming to pick us up in about two hours."

Ulrich didn't flip out. He didn't have any reaction at all. The silence around them was deafening. Yumi, lost to the thought that he was never going to speak to her again, turned completely away from him. Her heart fell; how could he say nothing?

A full minute of silence passed before Yumi had the courage to turn around to see Ulrich's reaction. Instead of meeting his eyes, she met his chest as he pulled her into a hug. She reached up and clung to his shirt with one hand, wrapping the other around his back to pull him closer. He cradled her head as she clung to him, both trying to savor as much time together as possible.

Ulrich pushed her away gently, then took her face with his hands and pulled her upwards to meet his mouth. The kiss was deep, and full of emotion; Ulrich gently coaxed Yumi's mouth open with a brush of his tongue over her closed lips. She submitted to his whim with little protest, whimpering as their tongues caressed eachother.

Yumi suddenly tasted saltiness in his kiss, and pulled away from him. To her shock, she saw that Ulrich was crying.

"Ulrich...?" Yumi wiped her thumbs under his eyes and down his cheeks to rid his face of tears. He placed her hands on top of his, holding them in place.

"Yumi, I promise. I don't want to lose you. I promise. We'll go talk to your parents; we, us. We'll make them understand. We'll make them, Yumi, but you can't go, you can't leave me..." Ulrich put his head on her shoulder and cried silently. He never really liked crying in front of other people; he never really liked opening up to other people, despite how close they were.

Yumi's eyes watered, but she didn't cry. She just held Ulrich as he let his tears fall and stroked his hair comfortingly. "Hey," she nudged him gently. "My parents will be here soon. Let's go meet them. We'll talk to them. Come on, everything will be okay," Yumi said, hugging him gently as he pulled back to look at her.

"You're right," he said, the usual confidence back in his voice. "We'll go talk to them. I'm sure they'll let you stay once they see how much I'm in love with you."

"You mean that, don't you?" Yumi asked gently. "You really are in love with me, aren't you?" She smiled widely, despite the situation.

"Of course I do," Ulrich said, wrinkling his brow in confusion. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Oh, it's not that! I... well; I mean I know you cared about me... very deeply... But I had no idea that you were in love with me... And... Well, that fills me with hope." Yumi pulled Ulrich back down for another kiss, this one short and sweet. "Let's go talk to them, Ulrich."

"Alright. I'm ready when you are." He stood up, pulling her with him. They embraced lightly then walked back to the school hand in hand, where Yumi was to meet her parents.

The walk was a silent one, aside from the sound of their feet on the dirt and vegetation. Ulrich and Yumi made it back to the two other members of their group, who were waiting expectedly.

"What took you so long?" Jeremie asked, springing up from the bench as he saw them approach. Odd grinned.

"I bet I can guess!"

"Odd!" The three of them glared, but the guilty pair flushed, as they both knew Odd's suggestions to be true.

"This isn't a time to be joking, Odd," Ulrich said flatly. Jeremie raised an eyebrow.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"My parents..." Yumi said. "...are coming to pick Li and I up from here soon. We're going back to Japan. In two weeks, they want to marry me off."

Odd scoffed. "God, Yumi. Your parents are starting to tick me off."

"Just starting?" she replied with sarcastic venom.

"They wouldn't really do that, would they? Marry you off, I mean. Well, like, come to pick you up from school to drag you back home to marry someone who's a pretty cool guy, but not someone you want to marry?" Odd asked again, voice full of skepticism. Yumi glared as hard as possible at him.

"This is my home, Odd. And yes, they really would do that. They're honor bound. Honor means a lot to my parents... Though why the honor of their only daughter means nothing to them is beyond me."

"They think they're honoring you by making sure that you uphold the promise that they made," Ulrich replied to her, squeezing her hand gently. She looked down at their hands and sighed.

"Yes, I know. I just wish they'd honor me by letting me be my own person," she muttered. Her three friends nodded in understanding.

"Don't worry, Yumi. We'll talk to them. We can talk them out of making you leave," Ulrich said confidently, bringing her hand up to hold it close to his heart. She looked at him, then let her eyes drift down to the pavement, unsure.

"I hope so... I truly, truly hope so,"

"They can't let you leave. You're an important member to this team; how many times have you saved us in Lyoko? Or in our world? You're a powerful ally. And it's not just that, Yumi. You're our friend. Our long term friend. There can never be another person like you," Jeremie said endearingly.

Yumi looked up with a smile. She had always considered Jeremie to be like the brother she never had; they looked out for eachother. She loved Jeremie very dearly; after all the things they've been through, after all the mistakes that were made, he was always there for her, always forgave her. There were few people in the world that could live up to Jeremie. She would miss him.

"Damn right!" Odd agreed with a firm nod. "You're the one and only Yumi; our friend, our fighter. Even if we do loose you to your dictator-esque parents, you don't need to worry about being replaced. Nothing on Earth (or Lyoko, for that matter) could replace you in our hearts."

Yumi's smile widened at that, though her eyes were sad. Odd was always there to lift her spirits through humor. She also saw him as a brother, though significantly less mature. Odd was reckless and joked a lot, but he did have his moments of tenderness. Like now, for instance. There can never be another Odd. She would miss him, too.

The Japanese girl doubted very much that her parents would even spend time listening to what she and her friends had to say. They didn't listen to her for all the other times she tried before, what would make them listen now? And now that they had bought tickets, there was no way they would go back on their word. She didn't want to tell her friends that, of course, for obvious reasons.

"Thanks, you guys... Thank you so much."

-------------

Not fifteen minutes later did the adults appear. Li was with them; the entire scene was so similar to when Li first came that it made Yumi nauseous.

"Yumi, let's get going," Mrs. Ishiyama said sharply. Yumi snapped her head around, glaring at the woman, but said nothing.

"Mrs. Ishiyama?" Ulrich said loudly, gaining the woman's attention.

"Yes, Ulrich?" she asked tiredly. Ulrich looked down at the ground for a moment, contemplating his plan of action. Instead of dwelling on what he might do, he just walked up to Yumi and took her hand.

"Mrs. Ishiyama, please don't take Yumi away from here. This is her home. She has friends here, she has responsibilities here..." he paused and flushed. "I love her so much; she has me here." Yumi squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"Yeah!" Odd piped in. "It's not fair of you to just take her away without asking her if she wanted to go back and marry Mr. Li over there. She loves Ulrich and she wants to stay!"

Mr. and Mrs. Ishiyama looked towards Yumi for confirmation. The girl nodded, moving closer to Ulrich. The parents looked at eachother.

"This is exactly why we are leaving, Yumi. Because you are disrespecting us," Mrs. Ishiyama bit out. She turned towards the principal with a disgusted look on her face. "I suggest to you, sir, that you teach these delinquents," she gestured to Odd "to respect and honor their elders. Disgraceful!" She marched over to her daughter and ripped her and Ulrich's hands apart. "You will marry Li, Yumi!" screamed the woman in Japanese.

Yumi struggled as her mother dragged her away from her friends. The principal, angry but silent, stood next to his three remaining students who watched with shock and sadness. "Come on, children. Say goodbye and it's time for lunch," he said lowly.

Ulrich, Odd and Jeremie all mumbled a sullen 'goodbye'. Yumi was already outside the gates and probably couldn't hear them either. She turned around suddenly, which made the trio pause.

"I'll call you when I have the chance!" Yumi cried. She turned around at her mother's harsh grip, letting out a whimper. The three boys went back to the cafeteria, stunned into a cold shock.

Yumi wrenched her arm out of her mother's hand, but continued walking towards the car. She had given up. She had lost. Li came up to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. They exchanged a look.

"I am sorry, Yumi, that this couldn't be avoided," he said softly. Yumi nodded understandingly.

The duo looked back at the school, both wearing a solemn look on their faces. Yumi's eyes were red from unshed tears. She would not cry. Things would work out... Maybe... Maybe at the last minute, her parents would change their minds. Maybe a X.A.N.A attack would give her an excuse to run off; maybe when they went back in time, this entire thing could be avoided.

"Yumi..." came the angry softness of her mother's voice from inside the car. "Let's get going,"

Or maybe, for once, reality would be allowed to sink in and fate would be allowed to ruin lives.

With a heavy sigh, Yumi and Li turned around and got into the car. Neither adult looked remorseful as the car soared down the road to the airport.

-------------

He couldn't take this. He couldn't just stand here as Yumi flew off to get married to this boy she doesn't love. Ulrich paced back and fourth in his shared room, feeling much like a caged animal. Odd followed him with his eyes, getting more then frustrated with his friend's lack of action.

"Jesus, Ulrich, just go to the airport! Her flight doesn't leave for another 15 minutes; you can make it," Odd grumbled.

"Yeah, maybe if I had a car or, ya know, money for the bus or something," Ulrich replied with angry sarcasm. Odd made a face.

"Touchy, tooou-chy!" replied the blonde, anger seeping into his voice. "Dude, you love her. You can't let her parents do this to her. If you let her go now, you may never see her again! Would you like that, Ulrich? Would you really like that?"

"OF COURSE I WOULDN'T 'LIKE THAT'!" Ulrich snapped, turning towards Odd with anger. Odd reeled backwards at the harshness of his words, staring openly in shock. "Don't you think this is hard enough as it is? Yumi's parents know about us and they still wouldn't change their minds. What the hell makes you think that anything would change if I went to the airport? This isn't some clichéd movie, Odd. Her parent's aren't going to smile and let it go if I take her into my arms! She's going to Japan and she's going to be stuck in a relationship that she's unhappy with, and there is nothing I can do about it, so just let it go and let me try to move on!!"

The silence was blinding. Static rung in Ulrich's head due to the loudness of his voice and the fire he felt inside of himself did nothing but swell as Odd turned his eyes down. Ulrich stared at Odd, hands at his sides, trying to make the blonde understand; there was nothing that could be done. They had lost.

They had lost... They had lost. They had never lost before. Never. Especially had they never lost a person; an associate, a friend, a lover. They've never had to deal with loss, never had to deal with the slight possibility that they might loose someone. Ever.

The thought reverberated in Ulrich's head over and over again until he started to whimper, trying hard to hold back the tears threatening to shed. Odd looked back up at him at the new sound, a new wave of sadness and shock rolling over him as he saw Ulrich almost literally biting back tears. In all his years of being friends with Ulrich, he had only seen him cry one time beforehand, and that was because he was 10 and fell out of a tree.

"..." Odd opened his mouth to say something, but shut it immediately, not able to find the right kind of words to comfort Ulrich. The heavy silence continued, sans Kiwi's nails tapping on the wooden floor as the dog uncurled to stretch.

It was then, of course, that the thumping of feet echoed down the hallway, and the door was thrown open. Jeremie stood in the doorway, huffing and puffing, eyes switching from panic to alarm and concern as he stared at the incredibly unfamiliar situation in front of him. Ulrich was on the brink of tears and Odd looked very much like a beaten puppy; the entire room had an aura of distress about it, which both shocked yet didn't surprise Jeremie at all.

"I know now really isn't the time," Jeremie said softly, aware that noise was probably new to the room. "But a tower was recently activated in Lyoko. I don't know what could be the problem, but we'd better stop it before something happens." Neither of the boys said anything, but both followed their friend as he lead them out of the dorm.

As they came to the end of the hall, they ran into a crowd outside of Millie and Tamiya's door. An elder man's voice could be heard, which lead them to believe that there was a television on. The trio stopped at the door and tried to peer over everyone's shoulder.

Jeremie tapped the shoulder of the nearest person, a girl, who turned around sharply.

"Oh, hey Jeremie!"

"Hi Naomi," Jeremie said quickly. "Do you know what's going on in here?" Naomi turned back around and pointed to the television.

"Well, not exactly, but something's happened at the airport. All flights that took off in the past hour have mysteriously turned towards the Foreign Embassy district in Paris. They're expected to crash in no less then 10 minutes."

The colour drained from the three boys faces. A feeling similar to the mix of both bitter coldness and frying heat spread throughout them over and over, as their most unexpected fears manifested themselves.

Without another word, they tore off towards the factory.

-------------

Odd and Ulrich dropped to Lyoko in their usual stance, ready to spring into action. Aelita wasted no time in joining them.

"Ulrich, Odd! We have to deactivate the tower now!" she said in a rush.

"We know," Odd said, taking off in the direction of the pulsations. "The airplanes are being controlled and Yumi's on one!" At the blonde's words, Ulrich ran off after him. Alarm ran over Aelita's face before she snapped to attention and followed her two friends.

"What do you mean she's on one?" Aelita asked, panting as they ran.

"Hasn't Jeremie been keeping you updated? Yumi's parents are taking her and Li back to Japan so they can get married once Yumi turns 18 in a few weeks!" replied Odd. Aelita took in this information and instead of replying, concentrated on getting to the tower. There was no time to waste.

"Is this it?" Ulrich asked, glancing up towards the red tinted tower. "It's gotta be," he reasoned. "But where are the monsters?" he looked around and indeed, there were no monsters in sight.

The trio approached the tower with caution, but when absolutely no monsters made the move to attack them, Aelita went to enter the tower. She touched the base tentatively, unsure of whether or not monsters would spring out at the last minute. When they didn't, she turned around to the two boys watching her.

"Be careful, Aelita. It could be a trap," Odd warned.

"Hurry. Yumi and thousands of other people are counting on you," Ulrich said. Aelita nodded and entered the tower. Without any hesitation, she typed in the Lyoko code and watched as X.A.N.A's presence faded from the inside out.

...But that's all that happened. The familiar white bubble of back-in-time travel didn't appear. Aelita exited the tower in confusion to see whether or not Odd and Ulrich were still there. To her dismay, they were.

"Aelita, what's with the delay?" Odd said.

"There was no delay. I entered the code," she replied. All three stared at each other in confusion. "Jeremie? Do you know what's going on? What's happening?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Jeremie...?" Ulrich echoed. Again, no reply.

"JEREMIE!" Odd screamed, panicking. This time, there was a reply. Jeremie's voice was shaking, but he replied.

"Hey guys..?" Jeremie started hesitantly. "Remember how we said that if anyone were killed because of a X.A.N.A attack, we wouldn't go back in time...?"

He left the trio to draw their own conclusions.

-------------

They watched the television playback of the planes crashing into each other and the buildings in Paris; a grand total of 10 planes were destroyed in the attack.

"I understand now," Jeremie quietly said after a while, watching the television screen on his computer. "X.A.N.A didn't send any monsters to stop you because he didn't need to be stopped. His goal had already been reached. The planes had crashed before you'd even got to the tower." Once again, silence fell over them. None of them could believe this was happening.

"We have just received a list of the planes involved in the attack," said the man on television. Three heads whipped around to stare at the screen of the super computer with full attention. "Flight 582 to Newark International, New Jersey, United States. Flight 87 to Sheremetyevo, Moscow, Russia. Flight 1039 to Schonefeld, Berlin, Germany. Flight 1112 to Hong Kong, China. Flight 97 to Osaka International, Osaka, Japan. Flight 776 to Cario International, Cario, Africa..."

"Call her cell, Ulrich, call her cell," Odd said quickly. Ulrich pulled out his cell and dialed furiously, holding the trembling phone to his ear. There was still the slightest bit of hope that Yumi wasn't on the plane, or that maybe her plane hadn't taken off yet.

It was only a moment later that he gently took the phone from his hand and pressed the disconnect button.

"'The number is temporarily unavailable'," he repeated monotonously. A dark wave of silence washed over them as the unquestionable truth fell upon them.

Yumi was dead. X.A.N.A had won.

Yumi was dead...

...Yumi was dead...

The cries of three boys echoed out of the factory for hours, but no one was there to listen.

I recall all the days,
all the things that I acted upon,
all the pain that I bared and still bare
just for a 'maybe' in a dream I
barely remember.
It fades like the sky that now,
I watch with interest,
willing it to swallow me up,

to take me home.

You may throw rocks at me now. :D
(No, this is not the end)
Reviews make me want to update faster!