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.

Thursday

"Odd, can I talk with Ulrich privately?" Yumi asked as she walked into the boy's room the next morning.

"Sure, I'll just go play chaperon to Mr. and Mrs. Einstein," he replied, and left, closing the door behind him.

Ulrich was sitting at his desk next to the window, looking outside. He had a troubled, distracted look on his face, from what Yumi could see of it.

Yumi's dream last night disturbed her. After Saturday night, she thought that everything was going to be okay between her and Ulrich. But seeing him on the other side of that locked gate, walking off with the man from the cornfield shook her. She was hoping it was just her overactive imagination, but she was afraid that it wasn't.

"Ulrich, I'm worried. I had a dream last night about you and..."

Ulrich cut in, "don't worry about it, Yumi, it was only a dream. It's not like it could really happen or anything."

"Ulrich, everything that's been going on for the past week has been in our dreams! Jeremie came close to dying because of his dreams! Please, don't shut me out now! I don't want to lose you when we're so close..."

Ulrich stood up suddenly and turned on her.

"So you want to know what my dream was last night, do you? Alright, I'll tell you, I was walking down that street again in the red light district. Only this time, I was the pimp. I told Milly and Tamiya, Milly and Tamiya, Yumi! I told them they were going to have a 'special customer' in the audience for their nine o'clock show, and to pull out all the stops for him. I then met Nurse Yolande and told her to get to her 'patient' or she would be the one needed medical attention. And you! You hadn't made the evening's quota yet, so I smacked you down like a cur!"

"You want to know what I've been dreaming, Yumi? I'm the man in the cornfield! Ever since that first damn dream and Saturday night, I've been dreaming the same thing. And each and every night, I enjoy it more and more!"

"That first night, I was shocked at what I saw him do to you. But there was a little part of me that liked it. A little part that wanted to join in the fun. And each night after that, I did!"

"And you know what? I'm afraid that I'll start liking it again in the real world too! That I'll start to enjoy using people up, then throwing them aside!"

"Ulrich, you're not like that at all..." Yumi tried to say, but Ulrich cut her short.

"You don't really know me at all, do you. I've spent every year since I've been here fighting that urge to do just that," Ulrich replied.

"Did you ever wonder why Sissi was after me so much? We were at the same school before we came here. By the time we left that school, I was leading her around by the nose so badly it was pathetic! I could have popped her cherry anytime I wanted to, and she would have thanked me for it! Even with her being with Odd now, I'm almost certain if I crooked my finger at her, she'd let me fuck her in the school courtyard at high noon, with her father and everyone watching!"

"Ulrich, you don't use people that way, you never have," Yumi said, her world starting to crumble around her.

"You're right. I don't, anymore," he replied.

"Before I came here, my father was doing quite well. We had money, a nice home, all the things they say a successful person ought to have. My father got all of that by using people worse than anything that man in the cornfield ever showed me. He would brag in the evenings of the things he made people do to impress him. And then he would laugh when he would describe how he crushed them!"

"I grew up listening to that, Yumi, living that. I thought that's how you made it in the world."

"Then, a few years back, something happened. He was trying to get me into this upscale school in Switzerland. Said that it would look good on my resume later in life. To do it, he was trying to get in good with this one man, a real old money type, Old World Aristocracy. Anyway, my father tried to set up some kind of business deal for this guy and it blew up in his face. Badly."

"We lost everything. Father had to resign his job, but before he did, he managed somehow to make it look like his best friend had botched the deal. He even testified for the prosecution at his friend's trial! That man is now serving thirty years in prison for something he didn't do."

"So, my father got another job, and joked about how he screwed over his best friend. Because of our debt, I had to come here, instead of that fancy school. And I finally saw my father for who and what he really was."

"He uses my mother and I just like he uses everyone else. And we play along, because if we don't, he'll discard us like yesterday's garbage. I have to do something to excel at school here, or he will send me to some military school in the back end of nowhere, and that'll be the end of me. I've lain awake nights wondering what he is making my mother do."

"And then I met the man in the cornfield. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be a user. But he reminded me. When we met, he said 'Long time no see.' I told him I had never seen him before, but I was wrong. He's the man behind my father's eyes."

Yumi just stood there in shock. Until this moment, she had never realized just what Ulrich was hiding all these years. Part of her wanted to just turn and leave. Run as far away from him as she could. But she remembered what her mother told her on Monday.

Ulrich is your karma. Nothing will change that.

He had turned his back to her, his hands resting on the desk, his head slumped. He was defeated, condemned, resigned to his fate and place in Hell.

After a moment of quiet, Ulrich heard her call his name.

"Ulrich, I don't believe you are that man. I don't believe you are your father. I have seen users in my life, and you are not one of them. The last 'user' I met got his jaw jacked for his trouble."

He then felt Yumi's hands gently rest on his shoulders. They pulled him upright and turned him around. Ulrich's eyes went wide.

In the silence, Yumi had removed her clothes, and stood nude before him.

He couldn't help but to look. Standing there before him, she was more beautiful than he had ever imagined, even in his nightmares.

She said, "you say that you're a user, that you can bend anyone to your will. Well, I don't think so. But even if it's true, it's too late for me. I've known almost from the day I first laid eyes on you that you, Ulrich Stern, were my destiny. I've questioned it, I've fought it. Even now, part of me wants to run as far as the west is from the east to get away from you. But I can't."

She drew him close, placing his hands on her hips.

"If you are a user, then use me. I can't escape my destiny. And I would rather be your dish rag in the darkest depths of Hell than to sit at the Right Hand of God without you."

"Take me."

Ulrich stared into her eyes. They were as calm as a summer's evening breeze. She would let him. He could do anything with her, to her, and she wouldn't complain, wouldn't raise a hand to stop him. He could even kill her and she would still welcome his embrace.

The demon that had been hidden in his heart reared up and roared, TAKE HER!

Ulrich suddenly pushed Yumi away from him. She stumbled back and fell back on his bed. The demon roared in triumph. Yumi lay there on Ulrich's bed, watching him, waiting for whatever would come next. The calmness never left her eyes. He stood there, eyes shut, his hands at his sides, clenching his fists.

"I... WILL... NOT! I WILL ROT IN HELL FOR ETERNITY BEFORE I DO THAT TO HER! GET OUT OF MY SOUL, YOU SON OF A BITCH! IF YOU WANT TO RAPE HER, YOU'LL HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF! BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME AND ALL THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN TO GET TO HER! BEGONE!"

The demon screamed its rage in Ulrich's soul, and fled. Ulrich collapsed to the floor.

Yumi jumped up from the bed and ran over to him. He was sobbing on the floor, curled up in a ball. She knelt down beside him, and drew him up into her embrace.

Then came the pounding at the bedroom door. Sissi, Aelita, Jeremie and Odd were on the other side, wondering what was going on and what the shouting was about. Just as Yumi was about to shout that everything was okay, they burst in.

Ulrich was still sobbing on Yumi's shoulder, but she had managed to turn him enough so as to provide the barest amount of modesty. But it was still pointedly obvious that she wasn't wearing anything.

Even as she felt the heat build up in her cheeks, she returned their astonished looks with patient calm.

Jeremie recovered first. He quickly shooed the others out of the room. Taking one last look in the room himself before closing the door, he said, "tell Ulrich we're even."

When Yumi and Ulrich joined the others later, not a word was said by anyone about what had transpired.

That night, Yumi dreamed of sleeping peacefully, her husband standing watch over her.

Ulrich dreamed of standing at the very Gates of Hell, sword drawn, waiting for the man in the cornfield to come and try to take his wife from him. And behind him, all of the Host of Heaven stood ready to back his play.