A/n- Another one-shot I felt needed it's own attention.

Disclaimer: I am not that powerful…

Summary: What if Yumemi had stepped into the light? Alternate ending to episode 9.

For You

She stood, pain tearing at her heart, terror running torrents of pulsing blood singing through her ears. She felt as if she were about to break, as if her soul itself was being ripped apart by the needs and wants it struggled so fiercely to obtain.

The column of swirling golden light illuminated the earth where she stood. It rocked the ground like waves and pitched the earth.

Another cracking whip. Somewhere above them a tendril of golden fire licked the land, sweeping with it a great jolt of power. It touched him, just barely, and his back arched so beautifully as his head tipped. A cry, strangled and singular, burst from his lips into the cold night.

She whirled around, hands clutched, watching on in horror as his body slacked against the rushing pain, as it ebbed, and he was once again suspended in perpetual, aching, agony.

Gntarl's jeers rose above the fury, but she could hardly hear them. Her focus was pulled to the young man now grit against the breaking light.

"Munto," She whispered, lost within herself. Distantly, she could hear her friend's protests- their cries- and she knew Gntarl had them.

Yumemi turned.

Oh God. Oh no.

What should she do?

"Get going!" Ichiko yelled at her, eyes wide as she kicked and struggled.

Suzumei joined in, "We'll be fine!"

The vision of them, struggling against the iron grip of their captor, nearly had her forsaking Heaven. She was about to break, to beg Munto's forgiveness, and tell him she couldn't do it. That she couldn't leave her friends- her friends.

The air cracked, rippled, more violently than before. It was like a lightning bolt. It cut him twice; cheek, leg. He cried out again.

So much pain…

How could she leave him alone in that thread? How could she lay to waste everything they had stood for?

How could she let him suffer when she… when she-

"Munto!" His gaze, glazed over in barely repressed anguish, rounded on her. "I'm ready."

A strangled, choking noise issued from the man so sure she would let Heaven fall. "What?!" Gntarl snarled.

Yumemi turned, catching the old man's stunned expression with the fierceness of her own. She gathered what courage she had, steadying herself against the tidal wave of the world crashing down upon her. "I will not let our futures be destroyed."

Looking back up, she saw Munto closed his eyes briefly. His lips moved, but not sound came out, and Yumemi wondered briefly what was uttered had been a curse or a prayer.

Then-

"Yumemi!" Another ripple and he broke. His body convulsed, once, as his arms were forcibly clenched against his side, hands fists, and as his spine arched.

He was falling, knocked down by the final waver of energy that tore at the thin golden hope. As he plummeted towards the ground she bolted, and when he crumpled onto the earth, one leg under him in a half attempt to land despite the pain, she ran into the pillar.

Everything went black.

Instantaneous.

Sound dissolved like rushing water.

A vacuum.

Void.

Nothing.

Yumemi knew everything was falling...

Tumbling…

Perhaps she was too late.

Had she failed them? Was the world really gone forever?

"Yumemi…"

Her breathing, labored, slowed steadily.

"Yumemi…"

She couldn't see… why couldn't she see?

"Open your eyes, Yumemi."

Slowly, bringing her hands up to her face, Yumemi realized she was curled into a tiny little ball. Carefully she relaxed, stretching, widening. There was still no other sound, absolutely no sound to give any clue as to the bone-jarring cacophony from before… but there was light. She could see it from behind her closed eyelids.

A warmth was on her cheek, a ghostly trail of fingertips she knew were not her own.

Very carefully, Yumemi opened one eye, and then another. Her mouth fell open.

All around was empty space, the same in-between black abyss from when she had fallen into the Pool of Memory. Looking down, Yumemi realized she was pure white, glowing, and her dress had dissolved into the shapely nothingness like in Munto's memory.

Munto…

Her head snapped up, and then she blushed.

He was kneeling before her, blazing like the sun, face alight with worry and a hand on her cheek. His outline was bare too… and she felt lightheaded with embarrassed heat.

At her acknowledgement however, Munto relaxed, strange colored eyes- like amber- loosing a bit of their worry.

"You're awake."

"What happened?" The pair stood, and Yumemi found she was eye-to-eye with him. Ah… they were floating. "Are we dead?"

His smile was gradual, "No. We are in the Akuto." He looked away briefly, and then back at her. His hand had moved to her upper arm. "You're shining like diamonds."

"I-" She could think of nothing to say, so she touched his cheek, upon which no scar was visible, despite the cut from earlier. As she made contact however, an unexpected burst of sparks flew. Yumemi jumped. She could feel the jolt travel swiftly up her arm, gathering in the pit of her stomach. Glancing up, she saw Munto felt it too, for his eyes were wide.

He swallowed, strained. "The pillar is gone… I- I could not hold it for you."

She shook her head. "It's all right, it's still here." Munto's grip on her arm tightened as she brought the pads of her fingers away from his skin. "Our spirits still live… and if the world is created by our spirit," She touched a hand above her left breast. "Then our hearts won't allow that world to fall."

Seemingly taken aback by her words, Munto stared. "Yumemi…" His voice lowered, "What should we do?"

She had to smile- it was simple really, didn't he realize? She moved her hand from her chest to lay flush against his. A rippling like water spread over him from her fingers. She gasped, shuttering against the strange wave of energy that enveloped her. All she had wanted to do was show him that he too had to believe in his heart; she hadn't expected that kind of reaction. It was more powerful than before on the faris wheel, more than anything else- this jarred her to her very core, and like the white-hot surface of metal, she couldn't rip her hand away.

Something was gaining in volume the longer she touched him…

And-

All around them suddenly was the whistling wind, the Akuto that spilled forth. Now the void was alight and spinning, swirling around in the same jumble of colors as when Yumemi had touched the stone at the shrine.

Munto was shaking, and his eyes had been forced closed. Yumemi was without breath, the strain having ripped the gasp of surprise away from her.

"Munto!" She was barely able to say his name as his other hand had come up to grasp at her outstretched wrist. A fresh downpour of rocking energy almost crushed them, and she had the sinking feeling that he was trying to resist, trying to pull her away. "Please! Munto! Don't-" The knot of power in the pit of her stomach was about to burst. "We have to give everything, everything. Believe me, please! Your people are not gone! What you wish to protect is still here!"

His eyes opened, and she could see with stunning clarity everything he was and had been and could be.

"What I wish to protect..." His voice could just barely be heard. "Is you."

Tears streaked her face, and Munto's grip on her shifted away as he relinquished his hold and trust. Without another thought Yumemi fell forward, grasping at him, pulling her body flush against his as he curled his arms around her.

Once again the world seemed to implode, and the warm coalescing sensation deep inside burst blankets of warmth from fingertip to fingertip.

Yumemi could feel nothing except the way her moved over her, enveloped her, and perhaps his lips pressed against the side of her neck.

That final push, that final pivotal union, had brought them to the edge and over. The rush was like falling into a pit of never-ending nothingness; falling, falling, falling. Holding each other and falling.

With stark frankness, Yumemi realized she didn't care, as long as he was with her.

What I wish to protect…

Is you.

"Munto…"

A bursting whump, like the low- throttled chord of rock-on-rock, exploded from all angles, and the pair were thrown sideways. Equilibrium shifted drastically. They connected with something large and flat.

Slowly the whirling stopped, or at least, settled down to a constant quiet thrum. Yumemi opened her eyes, coming face-to-face with the young man holding her. Their foreheads were touching, and his eyes were just opening too. She was breathless looking into those golden eyes; they found, held her, and grounded her.

"Yumemi…" His voice, rough, reverberated within her chest, and she knew they were still completely against one another, not a schism of space between. "We- you did it." His chest rose and fell as they both panted for breath. A smile broke over his face, and his arms around her were cradling and comforting.

Yumemi smiled too, and looking up she realized they were lying against the golden surface of an elevated column ground, great bands of Akuto bursting and arching above them. Gasping in shock, she rose to a sitting position, Munto coming with her. Their legs were tangled, and she was partially in his lap. But around them… above them…

Upon a dais raised hundreds of thousands of feet into the sky, the air shimmered like ingot rain, and right over their heads the reflection of the worlds rippled against Space-Time. Munto's fingers moved to her lower back, as if to help hold her up, and Yumemi turned too see that she had grasped his full attention.

They were both shaking minutely, and maybe even feverishly. She saw the cut on his cheek.

"Is it over?" Her voice shook. Above her the reflection of them moved… but… not a reflection. Yumemi saw her childhood self, wrapped around the young King, move in and out of focus as if through ice. "Oh."

Oh.

The surface was just above her, just an arms-length away.

As she reached out she felt Munto thread his fingers in her other hand.

Just barely…

Just a little more…

Yumemi could feel his arm around her.

Her hand brushed the transparent surface, and the worlds merged.

Fin

A/n- So, I wanted to add a kiss in here somewhere, but it just seemed really awkward. Sorry.

I know I should be focusing on "Vows" but I had to write this!

Reeeeeeview!