"Yoh. Yoh. Yoh. Yoh. Yoh."

'Is that my name?'

It was called over and over again. He thought he heard it; was it a dream?

"Yoh. Oh, God I Love You, Yoh. Please wake up to me. Don't be gone."

'Here I am!' He knew that his place was with her. 'Such a lovely voice,' he thought. 'I can't be dreaming.'

He made up his mind. With determination, he decided to face the woman calling from the other side of life. Or death. Or wherever he was lingering right now. Whatever it was, he knew in his subconscious that the woman whose voice this belonged to could make his existence an intense, burning Hell...

Or a peaceful state of Heavenly bliss.

His eyes peeled open to see white all around him. Light enveloped him through the broad, crystal-clear window at his left, illuminating his smooth, boyish complexion as though he were the Saviour.

'If this is Paradise...it looks an awful lot like a hospital.'

Disoriented, he clutched his head. He felt a couple scabs and scratches on his forehead, verifying that he was still human. He felt refreshed, but more importantly, very alive.

But what was the weight on his chest...? And he knew that someone close by was crying.

He focused his eyes through the luminosity that threatened to blind him (Author Comment: Just what do hospitals try to do to their patients with that fierce brightness, anyway? Does the whiteness prepare you for death at any moment?). He looked down toward the end of the bed.

There, laying her head on top of him, was Anna. If he didn't feel so joyously bound to the Earth, he would have mistaken her for an angel. Her hair shone more brilliantly than the Sun, and her tears had the quality of multi-faceted crystal.

Beautiful.

He smiled.

Finally sensing his consciousness, Anna gasped and looked up at him. Her full, rosy cheeks had streams of both dry and wet tears trailing down; she had obviously been weeping for a long time. Unblinking, she spoke.

"Yoh?" Her usually brave tone was gone. She had been worrying for three days before Yoh arose. Besides that, she was about to face the moment of truth that would, ultimately, define her life. "Is it you?"

He looked down at Anna's nervous expression. Something in her concern and care touched him, and yet...

To see her like this was really, really funny.

"Heh," he laughed. "Ahah...ahahahaha—OOF!!"

Why had she resorted straight to the Legendary Left? Now he was crying.

Anna's eyebrows kneaded upwards, her features overflowing with the worry welling up from her heart. "Don't...you EVER SCARE ME LIKE THAT! DON'T, DON'T, DON'T DON'T DON'T!!!"

He laid his index finger atop her lips. Mouth upturned in a toothless, soothing smile, he gazed at his fiancee.

"Anna," he whispered to her. "I did it."

Anna began sobbing all over again. She flung herself close to him and squeezed him tightly around the ribcage, never uttering a word. She wanted to keep her thankful emotions to herself as much as possible

"ANNA!! CHO—king--m-must--let go..." Yoh gasped, his lungs being crushed. Anna, as always, was deceivingly strong.

Anna would not let him go, and held him even tighter. "I...can't believe it. I...I..."

It was very unlike Anna to display her emotions so openly. But Yoh was grateful for the warmth it brought him, and he realized that what he went through during the fight with his brother must have been just as traumatic for her—if not more traumatic—than it was for him. After all, he was unconscious directly afterwards. Until about ten minutes before she...hugged(!) him, actually.

"I can't believe it, either, Anna," he cried, throwing his head back and sinking his shoulders in rapture. "I really can't." He tried to wrap his arms around her waist to pull her close, comforted by her presence more and more with each moment.

He couldn't.

He tried, but he could not reach around her! Where was the dainty, trim waist that he remembered?

Anna, bewildered, pulled away a little when Yoh loosened his hold on her.

She stared at him, silently demanding an explanation. She had been the happiest she had ever felt, and was actually letting it show for once. She didn't care anymore; she was not his trainer anymore.

She was going to become his wife.

Why did her soaring spirit have to falter?

Yoh's hands came back to him, and they curiously caressed her belly. His eyes met hers, his expression swept with surprise. "Anna...! You...We're—?"

She blushed and looked down to the feet that she could no longer see. Her palms resting on the backs of his hands, she nodded.

"We're going to have a baby. In a little over a month." At her own confession, she did something she rarely did. She demurely smiled.

"..." Yoh fell silent, his mouth hanging open. He had risen again after three days, and immediately found out that he was to be a fifteen-year-old father?It was too much for him to handle.

Did his family members know? What did they think?

Did his friends know?

Was Anna prepared to be a mother?

And...WHY HADN'T HE BEEN INFORMED?!!

That's when it dawned on him. Before the final fight, Yoh hadn't really seen Anna in a while or spent any quality time with her. Did someone else try to tell him?

Yes.

Amidamaru did, right before the fight with Asakura Yohken.

Wait, when did they...?

He calculated in his head a moment. Approximately...around the time before he left for the second round of the Shaman Fight.

Oops.

Sensing that Yoh was feeling faint, Anna propped him up and supported his weary head in her hands. She ran her fingers through his hair and situated herself on the bed with him.

She kissed him on the forehead, not expecting a word.

She was just as scared as he was.

But Yoh shook off his initial reaction one moment later and looked up at the girl that he had grown to love—through the training, through the time apart, through her bitchiness. He looked at the girl who had taken such good care of him and would lovingly bear his child.

And he smiled back at her, knowing things would work out.

"I'm so happy for us. This is great news! And Anna?"

"What?"

"I Love You."

"Anna...?"

"WHAT?" she asked, turning abruptly.

Yoh whined and shut his eyes. "Suman." He was prepared for her moodiness, as she was a woman with child (and...well, Anna), after all. "But we are here, you know."

"Hmn—?" Anna looked up. She had been lost in thought, wondering why Yoh was being so overconcerned towards her compared to his laxness during her first pregnancy. She didn't realize that she had absentmindedly been led by her husband to a place that he had been, but never she.

The Tao Stronghold.

With invisible reluctance, Anna composedly inquired, "How are we going to break in?"

"'Break in'?"

"You don't just expect us to be able to walk right through the entrance, do you?"

Yoh grinned at her and shrugged. "It's worth a shot, right?"

As Anna slapped her forehead in disbelief, Yoh's raw, masculine hand rolled into a fist and headed for a knock on the door to the "Xuan-Ming" level...

Heading down a bumpy, muddy terrain...

"RYUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hana was clinging for his life to the back hatch of the truck.

It was absolutely no use. Matamune was no more likely to hear Hana's cries than a deaf old man while he pored over a book. Not only this, but earplugs were tightly squished into his pointy ears to block out Ryu's blasting radio.

The driver of the truck? He was sticking his left hand into the "Kaminoke-no-Gunko" tub that was next to him, and slapping it onto his hair. Ryu's pride and joy was nearly ready to face the day: his pompadour.

However, with one hand smothered with greasy gunk and the other meticulously combing through Ryu's thick black locks, the steering wheel was at the mercy of his knobbly knees. The truck swerved left and right at ninety kilometers per hour, and Ryu was obliviously ignoring the honks from cars in every direction while he jammed to "sweet tunage."

Hana was getting extremely aggravated. With all the strength he could muster, he struck the back of the truck with the Futsu no Mitama and used it as an anchor to tow himself back into the truck.

"Come...on...!!" Hana yanked and yanked on the back, his bare feet getting calloused from his repetitive kicks against the back bumper. "Just...a little MORE...!!!"

Hana's forehead leaked perspiration, his weak little arms never having to support his entire weight before in his short life. He was not going to give up! He would persevere! He would—

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He slammed against the metal above the back bumper and tumbled to the ground. The truck had jerkily halted, springing his face forward and into the hatch he had struggled so hard to overcome.

Music turned off along with the ignition, Ryu heard the thud of "cargo" hitting the ground behind the vehicle. "What the heck was that...?"

"Mm?" Matamune's left ear twitched, and he deftly unplugged his ears. "Ah, the ride has stopped, ne?"

Ryu got out, closed the door, and made his way to the back of the robust white automobile. There he saw Hana lying face down on the ground.

"YAA—H! BOCCHAN!!!" Ryu cried despairingly. He turned Hana over. The boy's nose was bleeding badly, his eyes were swollen, and he himself was unconscious.

Matamune's pipe fell when his little cat lips fell open. He instantaneously hopped out the truck window to look for help around the milieu.

Nothing. Just a bunch of green plants everywhere he turned. It seemed that Ryu had driven them straight into the middle of a field.

"Ryu-san...?" Matamune started to query, "Where are we?"

"Etou..."

A voice called from the far side of the field. "What's up?"