Blast Into The Past.
Chapter 1
: Reborn :

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"Odd…?!"

Ulrich practically bellowed into his mobile phone; His tone was dramatic, and ultimately drenched with worry. He'd talked to Odd just moments earlier, and Odd's words of goodbye were much too final for Ulrich's comfort.

"Odd,… Please, answer…!"

His lungs were aching from not stopping once since he'd left his room. Sprinting down the factory's bridge, that now more then ever seemed like he'd never reach the other side, He heard a chirping from down below him; And easily recognized it to be Odd's 'break-break-break-dance' ring tone. Stopping at a dire halt, and straightening his spine to stand up straight to peek over the wall of the bridge to gaze down at the black water rushing below at the speed of a dog sled team.

"Odd…?" Gulping, Ulrich really honestly preyed that he'd hear a reply from his best friend. Still hearing the ringing of Odd's phone, but no reply, Ulrich quietly debated with himself to climb down into the darkness beneath his feet.

And once he'd decided that it'd be a good idea to at least take a quick check to see if his friend was down there, and in need of Ulrich's help, he walked towards the end of the bridge and slowly began to climb down the ladder covered in the maroon rust.

Eventually Ulrich made it to the near bottom of the ladder, and let go three bars up, to land with a 'plop' on the soft sand that squished underneath his shoes. He then turned on his heal, and walked the border of broken down particles and dirty channel water; He listened closely, and noted that Odd's ring tone seemed to get louder the farther he walked, meaning that Ulrich was getting closer.

The sound echoed through the brunette's ears and his hands were shaking violently. There could be any explanation as to how Odd's phone had fallen into the channel. Perhaps it'd slipped out of his pocket, and fell off the side without him knowing? That was possible. Of course it was.

Ulrich finally reached the end of the narrow beach, arriving at a tall cement wall. Odd's Cell phone was laying on the shore, floating in from the current. So bending down, Ulrich picked it up, and turned both phones off to stop the annoying ringing.

Once putting his own phone back into his pocket, Ulrich held Odd's in his right hand, and put his left fall limp to his side, looking out into the dark water, save for the moons beams hitting certain spots creating a certain beautiful glow on the water.

Slimmed chocolate eyes gazed out into the far water, where an object floated on the surface. Ulrich didn't have the best vision, therefore he couldn't tell by glance just what it was, but when he recognized the color, something told him.

Purple.

Screaming out the name of the boy in mind, Ulrich threw the phone behind him, and leaped into the water, too worried and frightened to even take a breath before plummeting his body into that cold water.

--

Raven locks bothered into her face when she jumped down the short distance between the ladder and the sand. Turning at the same time as she moved those said locks, Yumi saw Ulrich curled up on the beach. From the spot where she was standing, she could hear his cries - Which frightened her completely, since she's seen Ulrich in bad situations, but has never seen nor heard him cry out. His back was facing her, and so she couldn't see his facial expression, or what exactly it was that he was holding in his clutches.

"Ulrich," She walked closer to him, but slowly. She reached a hand out to touch his shoulder, but stopped when she finally realized what it was in Ulrich's arms, and now she understood why he was crying. "U-Ulrich…! How did this-?"

"It was Xana," Ulrich whispered; just loud enough to stop Yumi from asking her entire question. "He'd activated a tower and attacked."

Falling to her knees in the muddy sand, Yumi clung to Ulrich's vest, placing her head against his spine, and drenching it with tears of her own. Her fingers twisted in the green cloth, holding on tighter until her fingers stung and turned white at the knuckles.

"He didn't… Deserve this…" She cried, pushing her face harder up against Ulrich's back, causing her to push him forward, which led him to lay his head on Odd's body, wrapping his arms around his friend tighter.

"No…" He spoke, louder then before. The tone spooked Yumi, and she opened her tightly clamped eyes. "…But Xana will deserve what's coming to him."

--

Yumi found her dark raven hair getting drenched from the light drizzle pouring down from the sky - It was appropriate that it was raining today, the day of Odd's funeral. This day would be one the Lyoko gang would remember forever. One of the saddest days they would ever have to face.

It'd been three days since Ulrich found Odd drowned in the channel right outside the factory. It took a lot of work from all of them to persuade those suspicious to not take a look inside the factory - They would say to them over and over, "We're best friends with Odd, he never came to this place. He must have fell off the bridge." and to their surprise, this excuse worked and no one snooped around the factory.

Despite the rain, she decided to stay until the end of this funeral. Since Odd had done so much for her, she knew that this was the absolute least that she could do for him. She turned her head and saw Jeremie and Aelita standing in front of the casket. Jeremie had his arm supportively around Aelita's shoulders, and Yumi could tell that Aelita was crying hard from the jerking of her body and her heavy breathing. Aelita was almost new to this world; She didn't have too many friends, and this was the first death she'd ever faced, so of course this was probably hitting her the hardest.

Except for Ulrich.

Speaking of him, Yumi hadn't seen him since they had first shown up to the cemetery. She saw many people sitting in folding chairs, holding flowers and crying and talking about how he was so young and innocent. Yumi tried to look through crowds in order to spot her brunette friend, but it was of no use, and so she set out a search to find him. She was positive he wouldn't have left already, since Ulrich would surely stay until the end of his best friends funeral.

It's not like Ulrich was that disrespectful.

After walking around the cemetery for some time, she saw Ulrich sitting by a narrow clear watered creek, legs folded Indian style, and his head resting in his hands. She was aware that he was probably crying, and that he didn't want her to see, (Not wanting Yumi to see him cry was why Ulrich probably left the funeral in the first place, actually.)

So she pretended like she hadn't known he'd been crying, and walked making sure she'd step on a few twigs so he'd hear her and wipe his tears away and not feel embarrassed when Yumi came to him. And her plan worked perfectly. He wiped his tears away with his sleeve, and turned to eye Yumi who was approaching him slowly.

"Ulrich,… Hey." She really didn't have enough words to say to him.

He looked at her, "God, Yumi. I should have went for Odd as soon as he called me.

"Ulrich…" Understanding that right now he was blaming himself, she kneeled down next to him, and laid her hands on either of his shoulders.

"Seriously," He started. "He could still be here if I would have just ran when he called me."

Shaking her head, "Who were you to know that he was in trouble?"

"He's my best friend… I should have sensed it, right?" He looked up for a reply, but she shrugged.

"Being best friends with someone doesn't mean that you should know everything about them." She paused, "You're my best friend, and I don't know what you're doing every second of the day, or weather or not you're hurt or in trouble."

"Granted, things would be a lot easier that way, but it's not the case. What happened to Odd was a tragedy, and he didn't deserve it, but you don't deserve the blame."

Lifting her hands from his shoulders, she smiled down at him.

"Get this weight off your shoulders and realize that it isn't anybody's fault."

"But it is, Yumi… Okay, maybe not my fault… But it is Xana's fault."

"Right," She nodded, and then stood up from kneeling in the wet grass. Ulrich looked up to see Yumi offering him her hand.

"So come on. We'll get back to the funeral, and say goodbye."

He reached out and grasped her warm hand, using her strength to pull him up on his feet. And they started walking back to the crowd where everybody had tears in their eyes, and Ulrich couldn't help but wonder…

"… Were you just serious when you said that I'm your best friend?"

Blushing, "Well… I've known you the longest, and sometimes we don't fight or hate each other… That's a total bond, right?"

Ulrich laughed a little, and it made Yumi happy.

"Sorry for always being a pain, Yumi."

"No." She grinned. "You being a pain in the butt is what I like most about you."

An awkward silence followed this, but then Ulrich broke it with a -

"Yeah right, Yumi. You just like me for my good looks."

"You're starting to sound like Odd, Ulrich!"

Only now did they realize they'd been holding hands the whole time back.

--

Pink shades almost covered her entire window, but not quite. And so the small blank space where the shade was bent and not doing it's job to block out the sun annoyed the little girl immensely and forced her to open her eyes to face her ceiling which was covered with glow in the dark stars. She remembered begging her father to buy them for her, but was always afraid that they'd fall through the night, and so she then forced him to super glue them to the ceiling, and somehow she wasn't so scared anymore.

Her tired face twisted into a weak smile, and she through the blankets from her body and exposed herself to the cold air in the room. She almost had to run to her dresser to grab her green hoodie that was sizes too long, and through it on quickly so she didn't freeze while she ran down to the kitchen to greet her loving mother.

Once she was dressed in her usual green sweater and baggy black jeans, she hurried to the bathroom where she could fix her hair - Because her mother loved it when she looked nice when they all sat together and ate one of their three meals.

So she brushed through her shoulder length brown hair, and breathed in the smell of her mothers cooking, and suddenly her stomach growled and screamed for food. Throwing down the brush in her hands, she ran down the flight of stairs, and then towards the kitchen.

"Momma!"

Her mother was standing behind the stove, flipping the pancakes she'd been cooking. And then she felt her body shift when Little Natsumi locked her arms around one of her mothers thin legs, and held herself tightly against her calf.

Smiling, "Natsumi, sit down at the table and I'll serve you In a second."

"Where's daddy?" Natsumi did what her mother told her and sat at her seat around the circular tiled table. Her mother walked over to her with a plate stacked with pancakes, and used a fork to transfer those pancakes onto the plate in front of her daughter. After placing two on the plate, she turned to face the stairs.

"Not sure…" She thought, just before taking in a deep breath and yelling -

"Ulrich…!"

"He might still be sleeping, Momma… I can go wake him…?"

"Sure."

Excited, the little one practically leapt from her chair and raced up the stairs and to her parents room, where she saw her father sleeping soundly on their rather gigantic bed. Walking closer, she laid her hands on the mattress and watched him sleep for a moment.

"… Natsumi."

He whispered, his eyes opening just a crack, and a soft smile creeping up on his face. Somehow, without opening his eyes, he knew that she was there.

She giggled, "Momma told me to wake you up…!"

"Right," Ulrich rubbed his eyes as he sat up in his bed. "Next time Yumi wants to sleep in…" He threatened, while throwing the blanket from his body.

His five year old little girl still stood at the side of his bed, looking up at her father.

"Just tell your mother that I'll be down in a minute."

Turning on her heal, she began to trot back towards the door, but before she could even reach the doorway:

"By the way… Did you sneak a peek? What's for breakfast?"

"Pancakes." She turned to smile at him.

He nodded his head thanks to her, and she ran down the stairs quickly, leaving Ulrich to rub his eyes irritatingly to try and wake himself.

Yumi felt her spin tingle when an arm snaked it's way around her neck. Smiling once her heart slowed back down, she laid her hand on the arm Ulrich had put around her, and let her body lay at rest against his tight chest.

"Yumi." He whispered into her ear

"Shut up," She laughed and pulled his arm away. She threw another arm out, and shoved him back. At first he looked at her surprisingly, not quite understanding what her intentions were. But she peeked over her shoulder with a playful smile and blew him a kiss.

"You're weird," He shook his head and took a gleaming look at the table. "Where's Natsumi?"

Yumi turned away from the stove to face him, and leaned against the appliance, keeping tabs on where she let her fingers land, because she really would rather not have them burned.

"She got tired of waiting and ate without you."

Ulrich thought. "Did you eat already too?"

The raven haired woman shook her head, and then took the plate from the stove and laid it on the table.

"Eat, Ulrich."

He did as she commanded.

Yumi also made a separate plate for herself, and laid it down at her spot around the table next to Ulrich. Between them was a bottle of Syrup, which was probably one of Ulrich's favorite things in the world. She elbowed the bottle closer to him, and he smirked at her while he watched her do so.

"I could have gotten that myself…" He commented, snatching the bottle off the table and holding it over his cakes. He'd squeezed the plastic bottle at least three hard times upon realizing that it was probably clogged. He turned the bottle over to peek inside, and once the air had snuck inside, it squirted out and plastered all down Ulrich's face.

Yumi at first tried to hold in the laughter itching in her throat, but couldn't contain it very long, because she'd eventually blown up in a laughter so loud, Ulrich flinched.

"… So not funny," He commented while reaching for the cloth hanging from the towel rack above the counter. "And so not amused."

"Alright," She hushed her laughter away, and picked at her pancakes again with her fork. "But if it'd been me…"

"I wouldn't have laughed." He tried really hard to keep a straight expression on his face and make it look like he wasn't about to burst out laughing. "I'm a nice person."

Yumi grinned at him and pointed her index finger at him.

"I think you're a liar!"

"Seriously," He cut his pancake into little squares and began to munch on them while arguing playfully with his wife. "I'd be nice to you."

Yumi let out a laugh of sarcasm and started cutting her pancakes, too. He head jerked when Ulrich suddenly dropped his fork on the plate.

"Jeremie called earlier by the way. He said he was in town and wanted to stop by with Aelita later," He informed. "I told him it'd be alright. We don't have any plans to do anything anyway, right?"

"Yeah we're free," Yumi paused to chew the food in her mouth. "Plus I'm sure Natsumi would be happy to see them."

It'd be a year now that Jeremie and Aelita had decided to travel and explore the world together. The bond between the four friends had begun to weaken before they left, but both Ulrich and Yumi were sad to see their long time friends leave for so long. Natsumi had cried herself to sleep for days after they'd left.

"Yeah. Jeremie said they'd be here kind of late tonight."

"Are they staying here?" Yumi turned to face her husband.

Ulrich nodded, "He said it was an offer he couldn't refuse."

-x-

:D
First chapter, completely revamped.
Hopefully I'll get the other ones done,
while still updating... Lol.