Chapter 23: Coming

Everything hurt…

The faces of Odd, Hiroki, Milly and Ulrich appeared one by one, then disappeared in the same order.

Everything could be evil…

She ran towards the monsters blocking the way, convinced of her case.

Milly…

Fighting, she made her way through.

Odd…

On of her fans flew into the factory.

Hiroki…

She just reached the shadows in the factory.

Ulrich…

ULRICH!

Yumi opened her eyes. She knew where she was – the factory, off course – and she was aware she was laying on the ground, but she didn't know who was standing around her. The two men and the woman looked at her as they were seeing a ghost. She knew the boy from school – he studied Latin-Sciences at Kadic. The woman was the second oldest who had worked at a local bakery, but the third seemed most familiar. He had longer brown hair and a well-known face, but no sweatband was visible around his head – that's what made her doubt.

"Jim?" Her voice broke from tiredness, and Jim nodded, confessing it really was him. Yumi sat back up and the three looked at her, scared ²and confused, which made her think something terrible must've happened. She looked at each of them separately, and eventually fixated her eyes on Jim. "What happened?" It didn't really help they were looking at her as if they made the biggest discovery since the wheel and fire.

"Yumi, you're… you're alive…" Jim said; Yumi gave not much attention to the fact th at Jim was calling her with his first name, but she did pay attention to his words.

"I'm alive," she confirmed, "What happened?" Jim shook his head – she couldn't tell why – and answered her question.

"You … You were dying just after you came, and died. It lasted until … well, until now. No beating heart, no breath, nothing! We thought we lost you…" he trailed off and helped a confused Yumi get up. She had been dead!? It was impossible to die and resurrect, but she sort of knew Jim wouldn't be able to lie about that subject, so it could only be the truth which he'd told. For a while, she hoped the same happened to Ulrich. The hope quickly disappeared when she pictured his body again – for him, all those functions were automatically blocked. With such a hole in his body it seemed – it was – impossible for his heart and lungs to function properly again.

Jim probably noticed something was wrong, because he sat down next to her with a worried expression on his face. If she could do it now, she would smile; even if she didn't know if her parents survived this long, Jim would wake over them as a worried uncle.

"It ain't easy," he said, "It's always a shock to know you were dead for a while. It happened to me once, but I'd rather not talk about it." he looked at Yumi, and noticed the fact she'd been dead wasn't the reason why she was so sad. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Yumi… what happened? Where's St– I mean, where's Ulrich?" Yumi pinched her eyes closed. She told herself she wouldn't cry over it again because crying wouldn't bring him back.

"I hate Krabs," she only said. Only a Krab could have been able to make such a hole. Jim nodded.

"Yeah, me too. They're really unlikable." Yumi looked up, surprised.

"There have been Krabs in here?"

"Yes, eleven or twelve days ago they broke in when the force field shut itself down, and three entered. One made a distraction, number two went after the refugees and the third went straight to Jeremy. He's been knocked out for nine days, and so he forgot 'the enemy'." Yumi's eyes widened.

"What!?"

"I know. And I hope you know more about XANA, because he really doesn't know what he's doing." Yumi nodded.

"I'll go visit him, then. I think he'll want to see me." She was already standing up and walking to Aelita – he'd be there most of his time – but not before she answered Jim's question – if she wanted to participate in the defense course he was teaching those who asked. Off course she said yes, and maybe she could even help him teaching his small bunch of students.

Then, she went straight to Aelita's room. She wondered if Jeremy would be there. If that wasn't, she would ask where he was. But today apparently was her lucky day. After surviving the death for a while, she found Jeremy at Aelita's. Like always, the pink-haired girl seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but she was actually at the edge of dying and would already have if Jeremy hadn't acted so quick. Jeremy was busy controlling all the machines in the room. He stood with his back to Yumi, and she could clearly see the bandages around his head and one of his ears – probably because of the Krab-attack Jim had been talking about earlier. Looking at how he handled the situation, whatever it was, he was either very enthusiast or very hasty.

"Hey, Jeremy, is something wrong?"

"Well, for now everything's fine," he answered – he didn't even look around as to see who was talking to him, "but I don't want to take any risks. For a while, it seemed as if Aelita… most importantly, she's still here, her situation is stable and I am prepared if anything like this ever happens again." Yumi stared at him – he hadn't known it was Yumi asking him the question. Who did he think she was, Jim? And since Yumi wanted to see Jeremy looking at her when speaking, she walked straight towards him, grabbed him by his shoulder and turned him around so they could look at one another.

Jeremy simply looked terrible. He had big bags under his eyes and he let his shoulders hang. Yumi also thought he was falling behind on everything. He was losing the spirit he once showed while battling XANA with his friends. Now Yumi couldn't immediately imagine Jeremy smiling or even laughing aloud and since the last time she's seen him his eyes seemed to have turned partly lifeless. Jeremy's eyes widened when he saw the Japanese.

"Yumi! Man, am I glad to see you!" he exclaimed. If it was possible, he would've forgotten Aelita was there. Yumi smiled weakly.

"I'm also glad to see you. How's it going with you? Does it hurt?" Jeremy shrugged.

"I'm fine, I guess. I can still feel it sometimes, though, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did in the beginning. And I'm not actually bleeding, so I hope the bandage can get off soon." He stopped, but started again when he noticed something. "Say, where's Ulrich? Is he around here somewhere?" Yumi's expression changed to sorrow. She tried to get the image of the big hole out of her mind whenever she heard or thought of Ulrich, before answering to Jeremy.

"He's… he's gone." Right now it felt official, by saying it out loud. A new pressure appeared on Yumi: the acknowledged of Ulrich's death and how he'll never come back. Jeremy's face paled.

"Oh," was all Jeremy could say until he found something to add to this cliché answer, "I'm sorry, it's bad. That wound on his leg's never been good for him…" However, Yumi interrupted him in a roughly manner, showing she disagreed with Einstein. Not because of what she's seen.

"It had nothing to do with the wound," she sneered, "It was XANA! One of his Krabs caught him! One of those hideous creatures pierced through his body!" Yumi forgot for a while how Jeremy had forgotten (almost) everything about XANA, and Jeremy looked at her, slightly confused.

"I still don't get why crabs are so dangerous they can kill!" Jeremy said, "but if you say it's because of one of them, I'll believe you. Apparently X- the enemy is also a murderer because you said he killed our friend, so let's destroy this enemy." He sounded confident, and Yumi looked surprised at him. Maybe he didn't have the right knowledge now, but he did have guts. He couldn't recognize XANA, but he did want to fight him, even though he didn't know how dangerous XANA really could be. An action of courage. Yumi sighed.

"It's only you and me, isn't it?" she said, "Odd's probably dead and Ulrich…" She didn't want to finish that sentence. Jeremy shook his head.

"You, me and Aelita," he said, and Yumi nodded. Now she just lost her love, she couldn't tell Jeremy Aelita's situation wouldn't become any better. She did not want to give him false hope, but she didn't want to tell him the truth either.

"Right… you, me and Aelita," she said. They stood there for a while , just standing and thinking, each about their own troubles, but certainly not about the future which was at this point very uncertain. And Yumi was thinking about how she was going to tell Jeremy she was taking defense lessons from Jim.

Yay, reunion time! Now only Odd should come to them and the Warriors are reunited! Only if one of them doesn't die first... it's possible they die before Odd can reach them... How will Yumi tell him about helping/being taught by Jim? Will Jeremy approve of it, or not? And will XANA try to do something against Yumi because she just burst through his barricade and is only feeling tired? All will be explained in the next chapters, and the twenty-fourth will arrive on...

Wait, first that big announcement. You know that big thing all kids get to do, school? And you know when teachers tend to hold a few weeks where they are all cruel and make us study a very big part of what we have to know? Well, tomorrow my exams start (geography/English) so I probably won't be able to update. Probably, and by that I mean I've written already written the next three chapters so I didn't have to worry about getting it done while studying. It could be I'm allowed to update in the max. 15 minutes I'm allowed per day on the computer.

If I'm allowed on the computer, the next update will be on a Saturday, so the 14th of June. If not, I hope you can wait for the 20th for an update... I wish it was different, but school is more important than a hobby, apparently... And here's my reply to the review:

Bluedog197 (Yeah, that'd be hilarious. And who knows, maybe your guesses are what I have in mind, maybe not. Thanks for the review!)

See ya next time, and wish me luck! And a big thanks for the 5000 views, y'all!

-Dutchwriters2