Although she was angry, it was only because she was upset. Yumi simply could not understand what was going on in Ulrich's head. Stepping into the outdoors, she shivered slightly at the overly cold wind whipping around her. How it could possibly be April already was beyond her.

She couldn't help but imagine Ulrich trying to get home from his uncle's house as fast as he could in order to make curfew. His injuries still fresh in her mind, Yumi traced a lengthy discolored scar etched into her skin, a few inches from her thin wrist. Closing her eyes, she recalled the terror and pain she'd felt when XANA's polymorphic clone had plunged a pocket knife into her and drug it up her arm.

Aside from the throbbing pain, the bitter betrayal she felt from the Hiroki look-alike had haunted her for days after the attack. She really should have noticed him acting strangely before he was close enough to strike, but she was too busy worrying about what might've been XANA's attack to pay much attention to her "little brother".

Once it had happened, she'd been caught so off-guard that she barely dodged the clone's second jab at her throat. Yumi was able to regain her composure after she saw XANA's symbol finally flash in the clone's eyes and quickly disarmed it. Without any weapons, they engaged in hand-to-hand combat until the others were able to deactivate the tower. However, when all was said and done, she decided the cut wasn't deep enough to need stitches and she could live with a scar over XANA becoming any stronger with a return trip.

Yumi wondered if her fear had been anything like Ulrich's the first time his uncle had hit him. They'd both felt the initial pain and the secondary bewilderment at a family member causing them harm. Sure, it turned out her brother wasn't really the person who attacked her and she'd fought back, but if she held onto that fear, then maybe she could understand Ulrich better.

Resting one hand on her hip and pulling out her cell phone with the other, Yumi considered whether or not she should call him then and there. Deciding she was being rather hasty when he'd just potentially woken up and was surrounded by their friends, she slipped it back into her pocked and made up her mind to swallow her pride and wait for them all to walk outside. She had angrily walked out on all of them, but if she admitted she'd left to clear her head then they couldn't be too upset.

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Ulrich squinted his eyes as the sunlight bored into his face. After his concussion, he wasn't sure if he could ever love the sun again and the sunset really wasn't helping his pounding headache. Although he knew he could really use some more pain killers, he wasn't sure he could handle taking anymore medications after whatever Nurse Yolanda had injected him with. Leaning against Odd, because his strength hadn't fully returned, Ulrich hobbled along.

"Yumi?" he heard Odd say before seeing her casually leaning against the railing of the bridge to the factory. His breath caught slightly as a large gust blew her hair away from her face. He really couldn't help being a love-struck pre-teen.

"Hey, glad to see you back to normal Ulrich," she said with a gentle smile. One of Odd's eyebrows rose at her total change in demeanor from just a few minutes ago. A tad suspicious, he wasn't sure what to say so he just shrugged in response.

"Since you're here and all, wanna give me a hand with this big lug?" asked Odd.

"Hey! Sorry I'm not as scrawny as you!"

"I'm not scrawny! I'm svelte!"

Deciding to ignore Odd's final comment, Yumi slung Ulrich's free arm around her neck and helped shoulder some of his body weight. With the two of them working together, maneuvering their friend became a simplistic task.

"I think we should all meet up in Jeremie's room when we get back," Aelita said. Although she didn't want to break up the good morale they all shared, she knew that they couldn't just let bygones be bygones and let everything go back to the way things were. It had been almost two months since everything had a semblance of normalcy and Aelita was willing to do whatever it took to get her friends back together.

"Yeah," mumbled Ulrich, "let's do it."

A calm silence washed over the five of them as they trudged back to Kadic.

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Frantically scribbling his pencil across his notebook, Ulrich desperately attempted to record everything Mrs. Hertz was saying. Today was the big review day for the test they'd have on Monday and he'd missed so much that he was freaking out. After all he'd done to finally get his grades up, the last thing he wanted was to let them tank. If only there were some way for him to make up the classes he'd missed while he was mandatory bed rest.

When the bell finally rang he relaxed slightly before gathering his things and standing up. He spotted Jeremie and Aelita waiting for him over by the door and started heading towards him until the glasses-clad boy reached out an arm and pointed across the room. Turning to follow Jeremie's arm, Ulrich saw that his best friend was dozing in the back row. Shaking his head and grinning, he quickly walked across the room and lightly shook Odd's shoulder.

"C'mon Sleeping Beauty! At this rate the Rosa will be all out of croissants before we get there."

Odd's head shot up in panic at such terrible news and he hopped up so fast his chair flew backwards.

"Ahhhh!"

Ulrich had to hold his sides he was laughing so hard as Odd pouted on the floor. His good buddy eventually extended a hand to him and pulled the blonde to his feet.

Brushing himself off as he followed Ulrich out of the classroom, Odd smiled to himself. He had no idea how long it had been since he'd heard Ulrich laugh so hard. Swinging an arm over his roommate's shoulders, Ulrich led Odd towards flaky, warm croissant heaven.

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Sitting down on their favorite bench, the gang was truly enjoying the beautiful weather. XANA hadn't attacked for about a week or so they knew it was only the calm before the storm, but they'd always been the type of people that made due with the time they did have.

Yumi and Aelita were chatting about animals. There was still so such much that Aelita hadn't experienced firsthand that the two of them were considering visiting a zoo.

Jeremie was playing a video game so quickly on his laptop that Odd and Ulrich could barely follow his moves.

"There, now that you've seen the ending to the game, you can stop wasting hours playing it!" he was preaching as the ending credits began flashing across the screen.

"But it's not the same if you don't beat it yourself Einstein," replied Odd with a frown. How the heck was he ever going to win if it took moves like that?! "Let me try the last level one more time, I swear I've got it this time!"

However, before Odd could restart the level, the laptop started beeping and diagnostic windows began popping up.

"It's XANA!"

Everyone jumped up and looked around to make sure no one would see them heading off together. Running to the underground entrance to the factory, Ulrich felt strangely calm.

Because he wasn't fighting alone anymore, he was fighting alongside his friends.

And when his friends got together, they could fight all of their fears.

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That's it guys! I hope you enjoyed the long-awaited end to Inescapable Fear (: Thanks for reading!