Aura's narration

After what happened recently, it was going to be hard for me to move on.

I had literally lost everyone I shared my life with, and that's something you cannot forget easily.

I was broken and unstable, something my hostess was aware of and was spending the next few days battling.

Vanilla had been doing anything to help me recover my real self again, with Cream coming to her aid on some occasions.

She really seemed to care about me and knew what I have just been through.

Unfortunately, my nightmares had decided to team up with my emotions to try to tear me apart.

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Normal POV

Aura's conscious

Aura wakes up to the black void, but it's eerily different from the past few times.

Cracks littered the place around him, extending to the infinite above and infinite below.

Some of these bright cracks were in front of his face and right behind his tail.

They pretty much defied reality and the laws of physics, choosing to be wherever they wanted to be.

When Aura went to touch one, he flinched at the bright light that hit him.

"YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME!!!"

Aura falls back while clutching his head, both the physical and emotional pain coming back to him.

It was a memory that was damaging his mind, something attempting to push him to insanity.

A dark chuckle goes off near him. "Ironic. No matter what you do, your presence brings destruction. Even your breath causes the pointless deaths of others."

Aura turns to see someone he didn't expect, his mindscape suddenly extremely cold.

Lord Rai stood a couple of yards from him, his smug expression boring right into Aura's terrified face.

Aura backs away. "W-What are you d-doing here? I am supposedly dead to your knowledge!"

Lord Rai didn't change anything on that face of his, still looking as victorious as ever. "Did you really think you could escape me in any way? Then again, why would I be here?"

Aura felt confused by the man's double questions, which canceled each other out in reality.

Aura asks him to the best extent he could. "W-What do y-you mean?"

Lord Rai steps forward, gracefully despite the cracks around them. "That is a question I cannot answer. Am I the product of reality? Or am I a product of your worst reality?"

Aura was now left unsure of what the answer could be.

Is he here because of a power he had?

Or is he here because of his nightmares?

The old master continues his confident banter at the blue ninja. "So your father managed to beat me....yet his own offspring fails to see past me?"

Aura looks at him with shock. "My father.....defeated you?"

Lord Rai nods. "Yes. He was quite the strong warrior.......nothing like his disappointment of a son."

Aura felt his confidence being chipped away bit by bit at every jab Lord Rai threw at him.

Lord Rai adds to his attack. "Come to think of it....how would everyone you ever knew think about you?"

All around Aura is blurry silhouettes of those he knew.

His parents standing next to each other.

Suzuki and Tanya side by side with a still stance.

Ki was practically leaning against his walking stick, barely holding his own weight up.

And haunting to Aura the most...

...Blaze laying on the ground, a massive wound in her chest.

Aura goes to Blaze's side as voices echoed around him.

His parents looking at him with disappointment.

Aura's mother speaks with moans in the background that sound like those of pain.

"Why did you not save us, Aura?"

Aura tries to respond. "I could not do anything....I did not even know I had powers...."

Aura's father practically scoffs at his answer, his eyes burning a hole through his skull.

"That is no excuse for hiding while you left us to die. You.......you are no child of mine."

Aura could practically feel a dagger at his chest from being denied by his own father.

Tanya crosses her arms and looks away from Aura.

"You could tell my mood was changing. You should have either tried to help me change or kill me. Not confronting me left hundreds of people to die!"

Aura tries to talk with her. "I......I did not know....I wanted to help you......but you threw my chance away..."

Tanya practically rolls her eyes.

"Then you should have actually gained my trust more......instead of ignoring the signs and letting myself think I was doomed to this."

Suzuki practically glares hatefully at him, the rage burning through Aura's soul.

"You knew there was something wrong with me! I thought you were my friend! You were supposed to help me!"

He covered his face with his hands for a long minute, before looking back at him with glowing eyes, black veins bulging all over his face.

"NOW LOOK AT ME!!!"

Aura reaches out to him. "I tried to.....I wanted to...."

The blue wolf feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around to see the owner of it, which caused him to gasp.

Yua looks at him with black soulless eyes, a mark where she got impaled on her torso.

"You killed me...."

Aura's eyes widened. "I.......did not mean it.......I was trying to save you....."

Ki was on his knees, arms barely grasping his walking stick.

"You should have listened to me. Now our home is in ruin........all because of your disobedience and recklessness."

Aura tears up and pleads with him. "I........I did not mean for this to happen......"

Ki sighs and looks away from him.

"I should have left you to starve in that field..."

Aura looks around at every person standing around him, trying to deny every accusation thrown at him. "Please......do not do this to me......."

He feels a bloody hand grab his arm, forcing him to look down at Blaze's corpse.

Her eyes look at him with blank emotion.

"Why did you abandon me? Lord Rai killed me.....just like he did with everyone else..."

Aura couldn't hold it back as despair crumbled in.

The silhouettes all fade away, leaving only Aura and Lord Rai in the damaged scenery.

Lord Rai shook his head. "Why do you let yourself live? To honor the dying wishes of those you knew? Whatever god brought you here.....made a mistake."

Aura glares at him, rage following in his blood again. "You......will..........burn!!!!"

He jumps at him, but the old man blocks his strike with a simple reach of the palm.

Aura used the catch to put his strength into throwing Lord Rai across the dreamscape, shattering parts of the terrain around them.

Before he could get up, Lord Rai was pounced on, his back now flat to the ground.

Aura let loose on the old master's face, pounding his face with his fists over and over and over.

The blue wolf only cared about turning Rai's face into a bloody pulp, each hit influenced by the river of tears in his eyes.

When Aura stopped, he saw he wasn't punching Lord Rai, but something else he hated.

It was his special form he discovered........the very power he never used responsibly, which caused so much pain and misery.

His new form smirks at him evilly, giving him the message this whole dream was telling him: he was the real monster.

Aura was about to go back to beating his other self up, when he was kicked off by it.

His other self gets up. "We never cared about them. We just wanted to kill the murderer and make the world respect us."

Aura gets up himself, not answering back since he was technically right in a way.

His parent's murderer being killed was exactly what he wanted because he ruined his life.

Every technique learned was just a step further to him bringing "justice" to himself and his blood family.

He should have spent more time with the family he had in the Forbidden Valley.......and he was paying the price for it.

Aura tries to punch his other self, but it misses and leaves him open to being kneed in the face.

He crashes through a rift that forms behind him, a whole new scene in front of him.

There was another version of Mobius in front of him, but was different in how the deserts and ice caps were placed.

Aura was practically outside of the planet, looking down at it from space.

Suddenly, flashes of blue and purple fought down on the surface below, a bright light emanating every time they met.

It was Lord Rai and his special form fighting below, or might be an alternate version of himself and his foe.

He watches as the fight gets intense, not sure what was really happening.

Was this alternate versions fighting in another time?

Or were the ones in his dreamscape fighting over who had the right to torture him?

It didn't matter, because Aura couldn't stop it from happening in this state he was in.

The two collided so hard, they were both hit outside of the planet, floating in the void of space.

Suddenly, they both charge massive beams of energy that they fired at each other, both of them hitting the surface of the world.

Cracks form all over the world...until the planet blew up with a magnitude bigger than any bomb could match.

Aura stared in fear at what his own powers could do, worried that if he alone could bring the world to an end.

Lord Rai floats by him, ice forming on his body from the coldness of space. "Even when you kill me.......everyone else loses."

In a flash of light, he was back to that damaged realm of his dreams, supposedly alone again.

But then the shadows of the people he knew returned, standing taller than giants over him.

Their gazes alone made Aura go onto his knees in pain, wanting the nightmare to leave....or end him.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!!!!!!"

A loud voice practically shook the area, it's tone sounding either angelic or heroic.

A bright light appears next to Aura, as if it wasn't going to leave his side and was determined to protect him.

Rai and the shadows hiss at it, despising it being here.

The light booms even brighter at them, vaporizing parts off.

"YOU WILL STOP...NOW!!!!!!!"

The silhouettes melt away at this, reduced to nothing but destroyed matter.

Lord Rai glares at Aura. "I may not be able to harm you in your dreams anymore......but you will never be safe from yourself."

The old master disappears, leaving the dream world forever.

The light that saved Aura was even closer to him afterwards, the blue canine feeling like he was being hugged by the light.

After all of that, Aura woke up from the dream.

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Aura's narration

That was the only time I ever saw that light.

That dream.....or nightmare, left me with more questions to bounce around in my mind.

Was Lord Rai just in my imagination?

Or did he actually know I was alive?

If he did, was the attack an attempt to discourage me from coming back?

Was my new form really capable of ending worlds?

Did all of my friends and family really come from the grave to haunt me?

The biggest question never left me though.

Who was that light who saved me?

But in the end, it didn't matter, because the dream proved it's point.

I had been thinking of myself for most of my life, especially when I got my powers.

If I had actually done something when my parents were being attacked, none of this would have happened.

Even if I did die beside them, at least it would have saved everyone else the trouble.

But I still needed to know why Vanilla begged me to spare myself.

Maybe after that, I would figure out what I needed to do once I had those answers.

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Normal POV

Vanilla's House

Aura and Vanilla sat together at a table, having tea and a few treats.

The calm and sunny weather was a nice change from what happened days ago, making it more comfortable for what conversation came next.

Aura asks her the question, getting straight to the point. "Why did you stop me back there?"

Vanilla looks down at the ground. "I know what you're going through, Aura. I lost someone too years ago."

Aura didn't dare to ask who it was, afraid to make her depressed from the memories.

Vanilla smiles a little. "I loved my husband with all my heart. He was everything to me. He even gave me the greatest gift of all....my daughter."

She continues on. "We had plans for everything when I was pregnant with her, even down to the school and what clothes she would wear. But something happened sometime after Cream was born...."

Aura lets her continue, knowing she needed to get the weight off of her chest.

Vanilla carries on. "My husband...went missing. I waited a week for him to come back. He never appeared anywhere. A search party went to look for him......but found no trace of him."

She adds more to the story. "I was a mess of emotions at the time. One moment, I was afraid someone had kidnapped him and held him for ransom. Another moment, I was angry and bitter at the thought that he might have left me for another woman. But I was quick to correct that after remembering why he wanted me."

Aura asks her a new question. "What made you let him go?"

Vanilla looks at him. "I kept him alive in my memories, both the good and the bad."

The blue canine was curious of the adult rabbit's answer.

Vanilla answered his curiosity. "He may be gone, but I knew it wasn't my place to control fate, blame myself for it or just throw everything away. My husband desired for me to be happy, and I intend to live for my whole life with Cream, even when she has to leave me one day to her own life."

She then put a full hand on Aura's shoulder. "You may have lost your family and friends....but they never really left your memories. Only you know who they were and what happy moments you had with them."

Aura smiles for the first time in a long while. "Thank you Vanilla."

Vanilla smiles back. "Your welcome, Aura."

Aura asks one more question. "If you do not mind......could I stay with you and Cream?"

Vanilla nods. "Yes you can. Cream and Cheese love having you around, so they won't mind either."

Aura finished his cup and put it down. "Thank you Vanilla.....for giving me another chance."

Vanilla pours more tea for Aura. "It's my pleasure, Aura."

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Aura's narration

Vanilla had managed to open my eyes to why I was still alive....at least for now.

I had been spending the last few days bashing myself for things I did wrong.........that I never stopped to think about everything good I had made.

I may have lost the life I had several times, but at least I had good times with everyone stored in my memories.

Even if things did get bad, I would cherish what I had with my parents, those in the Forbidden Valley........and the new memories I would make with Cream and her mother.

Lord Rai had no power over the happiness I had for my whole life........the happiness that was constantly being buried alive.

Though I knew that if I was going to enjoy my new memories with Cream and Vanilla, I was going to have to let go of the violent past I was part of years ago.

I was going to give up being a ninja.

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Normal POV

Vanilla's House (The Guest Room)

Aura held his green martial arts outfit in his hands, seeing the torn parts and a few stains on it.

He had been through a lot with these robes on, many battles with it clung tight to his body.

But now it was time for him to let go of this past and move on to a new life.

Aura says to himself. "It has been a long road.....but I feel I am ready to take a new one."

He places it inside a box and closes it before placing that box on a shelf in the closet.

Cream calls out to him. "Mr Aura, lunch is ready!"

Aura calls back. "I will be right there!"

He goes to the entrance of the room and looks back at the closet one more time where his outfit is.

He mutters out. "Goodbye, Ki, Suzuki and Tanya. I hope you find a better peace than the one I have."

Aura walks out of the room, moving on to a new destiny.

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That's it for this chapter!

.....

What? Did you think it was over?

I doubt I can be the Sonic Fanbase equivalent of Shakespeare!

If you have any questions please let me know.

I'll see you in the next page!