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Ryu and Jelena walked in to the garden. Yes, this should do nicely Ryu thought. Turning to her, he said "I am going to use my ability to take you back to a very difficult time in my life. I want to show you why I said I would protect you, and how I feel like I can relate to your situation. It's going to seem like we go back in time, and are in the middle of my childhood. Things may seem real, but I assure you nothing is." He gave her hand a little squeeze and took a step back, closing his eyes.

Suddenly, they were no longer in a garden at Rikku's school. They were in a small Japanese style home in mid spring. There was a cherry tree in full bloom out in the yard. The house was small, but it had that feeling of a wonderful, happy home to it. Ryu stopped in the entryway and took off his shoes. "Old habits die hard" he said to Jelena with a laugh. They walked through a bamboo and paper panneled door in to an 8 mat tatami room room. There in the room were a younger version of Ryu, another small boy, and a couple in their late forties, Ryu's parents. They were all watching Chiisai Ningyo (Japanese for Little Mermaid.)

Ryu walked around the room looking at the people, smiling in remembrance. He stopped at the little boy and a tear came to his eye. He patted him on the head, and turned to walk back to Jelena. "That is my little brother, Shouji." he let out a deep sigh as he looked in to her eyes. "Are you ready?"

Her comment drove deep, and a tear found its way down his cheek. There was no way she could know what was about to happen. He closed his eyes, and everyone began to move around them. Ryu's mother was preparing dinner while they watched the movie, and his father was sitting with the two boys. Shouji was at that age where all little kids obsess over a movie, and must watch it 50 billion times a day. This month, it was Little Mermaid, who had just dove in to the water on the screen. He looked at his big brother and said, "Niisan, kore o ite itai ne!" (Big brother, I want to do that!)

Ryu, wanting to be a good big brother, decided to help. "Boku mo, ikuze!" he said. (Me too, let's do it!) He knew he had a gift, and he knew the basic idea behind how to use it. Unfortunately, he did not know the intricacies involved. As the two boys were submerged beneath the ocean and grew fins, they started to run out of air. Ryu's father was closer to Ryu, and when he saw what happened, he grabbed Ryu and ran outside to get him to snap out of the illusion and release it. Shouji wasn't so lucky. By the time his mother reached him, it was too late.

At this point, the entire illusion faded and the two of them were in the garden again. Ryu had dropped to one knee, and a silent stream of tears ran down his face. Without turning, he said to Jelena, "That day... I made a promise to my parents and... my brother. I would do anything... anything in my power to keep this from happening again..." He stood up, wiped his eyes, and looked at her. "That is why I want to help you."

"I know..." was all he could manage to say at first. He slowly stood, walked over, and put his arms over her in a protective manner. "Now you know my past. My hope was to show you that we aren't so different, you and I, and we CAN control this, we can beat it! He sat there comforting her, all the while gaining comfort himself. "We can beat it." he repeated.

Ryu wiped himself off and stood up as well. "Let's start with the feeling then and work our way from there, okay?" He looked around, the sun was already well on it's way to bed, and after a day like today, they should be too. "How about we start first thing in the morning? You've had a long day, and should get some rest. Will you be ok to go back to your dorm?"

"I am usually up at sunrise, why don't we meet at my classroom at 9?" Ryu stood there watching the sunset with her for a few minutes and deceded to go turn in. "Good night, Jelena. Get some sleep, we have a long day ahead of us."