Eudokia pulled herself up.  A ringing still hung in her head.  “…damn…”  Her eyes locked on to Yumi and then noticed Yuki, his consciousness returning.  The fact that he started to move surprised her.  “No!  It can’t—“  A blast of wind kicked her forward, throwing herself back across the chamber.  “Sit down, Yuki!”

He didn’t seem to be listening to her.  Grinding her teeth together, she saw Yumi.  Eudokia raised her claws.  “Damn you!  I’m going to KILL you!”

In the last few centimeters before her claws sunk into Yumi’s chest, a hand stopped her.  The sudden stop threw a painful force through her body.  “YOU—“  Eudokia ground her teeth and bare them in anger.

“What’s going on?”  The clarity had returned to Yuki’s eyes.  He tightened his hold on Ayumi’s hand trying to figure out why he needed to stop her from killing Yumi.  “Ayumi?  What are you doing?”

Growling through her teeth, she lost all of her control.  “…that…bitch…”

Still confused, Yuki tried to figure out where he was.  ‘Why can’t I remember coming here?  What have I been doing?  I remember beating Demosthenes…’

Coughing, Yumi grinned a little, pleased to see Yuki returned at the end.  “…Yu…ki…I’m…glad…”

“Yumi?!”  Yuki threw Ayumi to the opposite side of the chamber.  He didn’t understand what she was trying to do, but she seemed to want to hurt Yumi.  “You’re…”  Kneeling down next to Yumi, he couldn’t believe how much blood he saw.  “…all this…blood…  Yumi…you…”

Yumi stretched her hand up to Yuki’s face.  This was all she needed to see.  “…it’s…okay…”

“NO!”  The Field he had disappeared and then a ripple ran out quickly.  Faint lights rose up from the ground gathering around Yumi’s body.  “You’re still alive!  I’m not going to allow you to die!  I’m not losing anyone else!  EVER!”

Chapter 273 – Returned Mind

Another cough came up from Yumi, but this time didn’t sound so deathly.  She rested her hand on his cheek just staring at him for a moment.  If time could just stand still she would be happy.  However, neither of them had such luxury.

Nearly sounding like a wild animal, Ayumi roared from the opposite side of the chamber.  “YUMI!”  She staggered to her feet, almost hung over her waist.  “You’re DEAD!  DEAD!”

Yuki glanced over his shoulder at Ayumi, completely confused.  ‘She’s completely lost it!  What happened?’  He looked back at Yumi, who seemed to be calling him.  “Yumi, tell me what did I miss?  I feel like everyone knows something I don’t.”

Most of her wounds had already healed with her severed arm being grown.  The sensation felt strange.  Despite their powers and even her own, it still felt unreal.  It felt like she was in some movie she would go to see.  It didn’t feel like it was happening to her.

She pulled herself up to sit next to Yuki.  Her mind tried to process everything that she needed to tell him.  It almost felt like something that would lose her for hours.  She needed a place to start.  “Eudokia…Ayumi, she’s been hiding the truth from all of us.”

“Huh?”  It came as a bit of a surprise to Yuki, but deep down he knew something had to be off.  The Demosthenes fight gave him enough of a gut feeling that things didn’t add up correctly.  “What did she hide?”

“I don’t know how much of it is actually true, what she’s told us.  But she never told us about what it means to be the King of Atlantis, about that thing, the Throne of Atlantis.  Or price you have to pay to be King.”  Yumi stared over at Eudokia with Yori’s words echoing through her mind.  “I believe her intention the entire time was only to take you to Atlantis and force you to become the King without telling you anything about the reality.”

“Reality?  Yumi, what are you talking about?  You’re not being very clear.”

“Sorry, my emotions are still not completely cooled over what she was planning.”  Just the thought about what she was willing to do to Yuki made her blood boil again.  She never planned to give him a choice.  “We just got in her way.  We complicated her plan.  I can see that now, that’s why she told us the lies and kept quiet about certain things.”

Yuki grabbed Yumi by the shoulders.  Most of the healed had finally finished, so she was safe.  “Yumi, what are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying she planned to leave you here to die!”

His eyes widened and pupils shrank to pin dots.  “Die?!  Yumi?”  Yuki turned his head over to Ayumi wanting to know it was an exaggeration.  “Ayumi?  You planned to kill me?”

“He’s supposed to be King!” she roared again.

“Being King is a death sentence!  You were condemning him to death without even telling him!  You planned to kill him!  EUDOKIA!”  Yumi tried to get back on her feet, wanting another piece of Eudokia.  However, Yuki held her back.  “Don’t stop me, Yuki!  This woman needs to die!”

“Yumi?!”  He couldn’t believe what he heard coming from Yumi’s mouth.  His hands tightened further on her to keep her charging into the fight.  “Do you hear what you’re saying?!  This isn’t you, Yumi!”

Her eyes went wild once again.  Harsh lines drew up around her eyes completely fixated on Eudokia.  “You can’t stop me, Yuki!  I’m going to KILL her!  It is what she deserves!  She doesn’t care about any of us!  We were all just in her way!  I’ll make her suffer!”

Nothing seemed to be getting to Yumi.  He couldn’t believe that this was the same girl he saw in the hallways in school.  ‘How did she change so much in such a short period of time?’  Yuki knew that he couldn’t just hold her.  He slapped her across the face trying to snap her out of her rage.  “Yumi!  Do you hear yourself?!  Kill?  She deserves it?!”

A slap could do nothing to temper the rage in her heart.  She glared fiercely at Yuki.  “I don’t want to hear anything from you!  You want to kill Demosthenes for killing Kazuhiro!  So you don’t get to stand on your high morality speech when you aren’t any different!”

She was right.

It was difficult for Yuki to counter her.  He knew he fell into the same pit that Yumi was in.  He knew that feeling.  In fact, it wasn't the first time.  Twice now, he wanted to kill someone out of revenge.  They deserved it for hurting the ones that he loved.  It was all justification.  He was probably the wrong person to try actually to say anything to Yumi about revenge.  But he was the only one that stood in front of her.  The only one that could stop her.

Tightening up his fists, he prepared himself for the next round.  “Yes, I’m just as guilty.  I’m a hypocrite.  I tell people they shouldn’t kill, but fall to the same traps.”  His hand shook.  He could still see Kazuhiro in his mind.  His friend was left not avenged, even though in his heart he could feel it screaming for it.  “But it’s because I’m human!  I’m human, so I make mistakes!  I’m going to stumble and be consumed.  But I can still stand even with that weight on my back because I haven’t crossed that line yet.  We aren’t justified even with everything screaming in our hearts saying we are right!”

“She wants to kill you!”  Yumi threw out her hand to point at Eudokia.  There was no forgiveness in her eyes.  “She doesn’t care about your life!”

“That may be true, but it’s my life.  If it is my life that she wants then it’s me that she should face.”

“Yuki!”

He shook Yumi trying to get her to stop.  “Yumi!  You’re in no position to fight even if I didn’t stop you!  Kazuhiro’s already dead!  I’m not going to lose someone else I care about!”

“…Yuki…”  It finally broke through to her mind.  She stared at Yuki rather than her enemy.  Yumi could see the look in his eyes.  The pained look endlessly haunted by ghosts.  A future robbed from him.

Sighing, she worked to calm her emotions.  It was nearly impossible to get the shaking out of her body.  Her fingers still wanted to choke the life straight from Eudokia’s neck.  But she would have to let it go.  He was right.  Though healed, she still had trouble feeling like she could move her body.  “Fine…I understand.  But this isn’t over yet, Yuki.”  She glanced at Eudokia over his shoulder.  The wild look didn’t seem like one ready to give up.

Yuki turned to look at Ayumi.  He saw the same thing Yumi did even though it was a sight completely new to him.  “Ayumi…what’s happened to you?”

“Yumi!  You ruined everything!”

“Ayumi…”

“Don’t give me that pitiful look!”

“You get upset over a single death!  Insignificant, one death is a small price!”

It seemed like she had already completely lost it.  Yuki didn’t know what she was talking about.  He glanced back at Yumi.  ‘Yumi never really answered me clearly about what's going on.  I still haven’t a clue what this was all about.  Why I’m at this…Throne of Atlantis.  Or why I’m going to die…’

Yuki stepped out from around the stone chair.  The light from it disappeared.  It stood in silence, just a simple block of stone waiting for the one meant to sit on it.

Using the pieces that he had and some of his own ideas, thanks to his literature, Yuki tried to put together the events.  “You tried to get me to sit here.  This is the Throne of Atlantis, the place you make your Kings, right?”

“You will still sit there!”

‘She’s a little difficult to talk to right now…  I sort of wish I had the old one…’  Yuki still needed to get all of the pieces to fit together.  “Why will I die if I sit on that throne?”

“It feeds off your life to keep Atlantis alive!” answer Yumi.  She wasn’t about to let Eudokia twist words around in her favor.

He looked back at Yumi.  “Keep Atlantis alive?”  In the next, he checked with Ayumi.  She didn’t seem to argue the point.  “But why?  What danger is Atlantis in?”

“Without the King, Atlantis will disappear,” Ayumi answered instead of Yumi.  “The King is the strength of Atlantis, the will!  The King is Atlantis’ savior.  With their life in honorable sacrifice, Atlantis can live!”

“You’re sending someone to die!  You’re telling them to sacrifice themselves for the selfishness of everyone else!”

Ayumi threw out her arms to deny Yumi’s opinion.  She roared, “You understand nothing!  The death of one is a small price!  Millions will die otherwise!”

Yuki stared back at the Throne.  It made him stagger a little, finally understanding the weight.  He understood the importance of the position finally, why the people were so afraid without a King.  It made so much sense now to him.

Even Ayumi’s stories finally made sense.  ‘The King…my father…  He wasn’t ill because of some disease.  It wasn’t some natural cause or illness that killed him.  It was this thing that killed him!’  Yuki stepped away from the Throne.

It carried so much blood within its stone.  All he could see was the blood.  The millennia upon millennia of countless sacrifices all for the good of Atlantis.  ‘How many willingly became King?  Did they regret it?  Knowing that they’d die a short and slow death…’  The impact of the truth was more than Yuki expected.  He fell back with his legs buckling.

Yumi rushed over to Yuki’s side.  He finally understood everything.  “You’re not going to become King!  She can’t force you to do it!”  She glared over at Eudokia.

Eudokia bent down a little prepared for more.  She bore her teeth with the rage reaching to the surface once more.  Her plan wasn’t ruined.  “If you don’t become the King willingly, then I’ll just force you!”  Her voice roared through the entire chamber.  “I’ll KILL that bitch!  And then you’ll put you under my control again!”

Her eyes locked on to Yumi immediately, the threat to her plans.  She charged across the entire chamber on all fours with her claws aimed for a quick kill.  However, Yuki stepped in front of Yumi.  Mist surrounded his hands grabbing her claws before she could do anything.  “You’ll have to go through me if you want Yumi!”