Warning: Rated 'M' for horror-genre violence, adult situations and adult language.
The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
Certain characters have been adapted from 'The Stand,' by Stephen King, and he is the copyright holder of these.
Certain characters are based on 'Hikaru No Go' by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata. I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
Brief references are made to a character from 'Watership Down,' by Richard Adams, and he is the copyright holder of this character.
Sunday
It was Sunday afternoon before Yumi could see Ulrich again.
When they got home last night, Yumi's father started in about her and her mother just leaving in the middle of the night with no warning or explanation, then showing back up like they didn't have a care in the world.
Yumi left her mother to deflect her father's inquiries and went to bed.
Sunday morning was a blur. She had slept in, and when she did wake up, the rest of the family was bustling about. Her father was busy talking on the telephone. Her mother was doing the laundry, and had even drafted her brother, Hiroki, to help.
She was able to duck out of the house before her mother could enlist her aid, and made her way to the school.
When Ulrich told her about how he wound up lost, she laughed.
"If you had stayed five seconds longer, you would have seen what really happened," she told him.
William had tried to kiss Yumi yesterday. What he wound up kissing was the upper cut she launched at his chin the second he started pulling her close. Her connection to his chin was so solid, it lifted him up off of the ground and threw him back three feet!
She then told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever tried anything like that again, she would kick his balls so far up into him that he would spit them out of his mouth!
Ulrich winced at the comment, but laughed as well. He also apologized again for being stupid. She smiled back and said if he apologized every time he was stupid, he wouldn't do anything but apologize.
Ulrich also told her more about his dream Friday night. He had told her a little in the car last night, but today he elaborated a little more. She paled a little when he told parts of it. Ulrich then told her more about his adventure in the red light district last night, about the woman who looked like Yumi, and the man who looked like the man in the cornfield. That made her even more pale.
The talked on into the early evening about the strange things taking place. Then, with the moon coming up, Ulrich walked Yumi home.
Monday
The bombshell dropped when Yumi came down to breakfast the next morning. Her father announced that he had spoken to his sister in Tokyo yesterday and arranged for Yumi to fly there for a few weeks. She would be leaving next Monday.
Yumi politely declined to go. Her father insisted.
Yumi asked to go another time. Her father said no.
Yumi told her father she wasn't going. Her father told her she was.
She shouted that he could not send her anywhere she did not want to go. He shouted back that he surely could, he would, and he did.
She screamed that she would die before she was forced to do something like that against her will, and ran up to her bedroom. Her father shouted that the reason why he was sending her back was to get her away from these 'barbaric' influences, and back to a more 'civilized' society, where young women still respected the sacrifices their fathers made for them.
Yumi never heard that last part. She slammed the door to her bedroom and threw herself on the bed, crying.
She was still crying into her pillow when her mother softly knocked on her door, and let herself in.
"Yumi, you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that you are going to visit your Auntie," her mother started.
"But, why? Why now? I know I've been a pain for the last week but, sending me home won't change that, it'll make it worse!"
"Karma," her mother replied.
Yumi suddenly sat up in her bed, "Karma? Karma? My father is about to tear my life apart like used tissue paper and you give me this karma bullshit..."
Slap!
Yumi was knocked back down onto the bed when her mother slapped her face. She stared back up at her mother.
"You, you've never done anything like that before..."
Her mother, still calm, sat down on the edge of Yumi's bed and replied, "An American man once told me that the way to teach a mule something was to first hit it on the head with a club, in order to get its attention. Now that I have your attention, let me explain karma to you."
"A few months back, I had a dream. In that dream you were freezing to death under a fallen tree at that school. Your husband was doing everything in his power to save you, but to no avail. As I watched, you and he almost froze to death before the whole scene was erased like writing on a blackboard."
Yumi stared at her mother, dumbfounded.
"Another time I had a dream that you had died in a strange place, and in such a way that even the memory of you was destroyed. It was only through the sacrifice of another that you were saved and returned to me."
Yumi sat up and continued staring at her mother.
"Another time, I saw your husband literally place himself between my children, my husband and myself, to save us from an abomination that I can barely imagine exists. I saw him fight, and ultimately fall. I also saw you rush to his side, to die with him when the thing next struck."
"Almost every night I have similar dreams. Almost every day I wonder if it will be the last time ever see you when you leave for that school. I dread laying down to sleep, for fear of what dreams may come."
Her mother took Yumi's hands inter her own.
"And then, Saturday night, I saw my daughter with her husband, sitting in the back seat of my car. She was comforting him after a battle that he had nearly lost. And this was no dream, Yumi. It was karma. My karma."
"It is my karma to see these things, to know that that boy is your husband. That you and he will one day leave, and I may never see you again. That you and he will do great things together. At times, I can almost see your children, and the generations that will flow from them."
"It is your father's karma to try and keep you safe, to keep you his precious little girl. It also his karma to fail, as every father ultimately does."
"And it is your karma, Yumi, to do these things that you do. Ulrich is your karma. Nothing will change that."
"And so is your going to Japan. Nothing will change that. You can only bow and accept it."
Yumi could only stare at her mother. She knew? Even with the time reversals, she knew?
The only thing she could do is nod her acquiescence. As her mother left her room, Yumi got out her cell phone and called Ulrich, to give him the bad news.