Disclaimer: I own nothing! Seriously, if I did, think of how I would've made the series end... heh heh heh.

This is the first "book" in my saga A Tamer's Story. For more information about the point of this book in relation to the rest refer to my entry A Tamer's Story: Introduction, which can be found here. Thanks for reading, please review. I'll do my best to get the following chapters up soon.

A Tamer's Story: I'll Never Leave You

Chapter 1: To Young to Understand?

Juri Katou was only four-years-old when her mother passed away.

Her mother, Arashi, had been suffering for the past number of years from a brain tumor. They found out about the tumor shortly before Juri had been born, due to her terrible headaches, but weren't able to do anything about it until after Juri was born, incase something would happen to their, then unborn, child.

Three months later Juri was born, and Arashi had a surgery to remove the tumor a month later. They thought they had beat it. A year later though, the doctors found out that they didn't get all of it, but they didn't even try to remove the rest due to the fact it was on her brain stem, and they didn't want to take the chance that they'd accidentally kill her; nor did Arashi want it done. She'd been in the hospital for the last week to monitor the tumor's growth.

"I want to show mommy the picture I drew." Juri said skipping along side her father as they went inside the hospital.

"Okay. Just a moment sweetheart. I have to tell the nurse we're here." Jigo, Juri's father said as he went to the nurse's station. "We're here to see Arashi Katou, I'm her husband and I brought our daughter."

The nurse wrote something down.

"Do you know the room number?"

"Yes."

"Then go on up."

So Jigo and Juri rode the elevator to the floor Arashi was on.

As they were walking down the hall to the room, a doctor stopped Jigo to talk with him. Juri just continued on toward the room.

"Mr. Katou, I was just in to see your wife. She'd dead." The doctor said.

"What? When?"

"Around One o'clock."

It had been four painful years, but at last her pain was over. That was the only thing Jigo could think of for a moment. He looked up to see his daughter going into his dead wife's room.

"Mommy! Get up. I want to show you my picture.!" The four-year-old said as she walked over to the bed on which her mother lay.

"Juri, honey. Mommy's not going to wake up." Jigo said, entering the room.

"Mommy." She said touching her mother's arm. It was so cold. "M-mommy? Are you okay?" She asked.

Juri shook her mother's arm. When her mother didn't wake up, she started crying.

Jigo fell to his knees and held the crying girl close to him.

"Why isn't she waking up, Daddy? Why?"

"Mommy's gone to a better place."

"But she's right here."

"You know she wasn't well. Mommy's sprit went to heaven."

"When will it come back?"

"It won't. her spirit is gone forever, but she lives in our hearts."

"But I want mommy to wake up."

"I know you do, but she won't."

Jigo had started dating Satsuki about four months after Arashi's death. Juri hated her.

"Juri, sweetie." Jigo called to the girl who was playing with the dog puppet her mother had made her before she died.

"What is it daddy?" She asked as she came down the stairs with the puppet still on her hand.

"Who's she?" Juri had her puppet ask her father.

"She's adorable Jigo!" Satsuki cooed.

Jigo bent down to his daughter's level.

"This is daddy's girlfriend, Satsuki. Say hi to her."

"Hi Juri." The woman said bending down as well.

Juri looked at the woman and stared her down.

"No." The soon-to-be-five-year-old said not breaking eye contact.

"Juri! Say hello." Jigo hissed.

"No." The puppet, whom she named Inu, echoed her earlier answer.

"See. Inu doesn't like her either." She said patting the puppet.

"She doesn't have to, Jigo." Satsuki said planting a kiss on his cheek.

"NO!!!" The little girl screamed and charged at the woman.

Satsuki stepped back. Jigo grabbed her and lifted her off the floor.

"Juri! Behave!"

"No! I hate her! I want mommy back!"

"We've been through this. Mommy's not coming back. I was waiting to tell you sweetie, but Satsuki is going to be your new mommy." Jigo said holding her.

"No! She's not my mommy!" Juri said.

Against Juri's wishes, Jigo and Satsuki were married only a couple months after she turned five.

Everyday Juri would sit in her room and cry, but whenever her step-mother, Satsuki, would enter being friendly to her, Juri would just look at her with hate filled eyes and start screaming bloody murder. Not only was she hating her, but as the years went by, she pinned all the bad things that happened to her on her step-mother.

Soon Juri started going to school, with Inu of course, but she would only let her father take her. At school she was a happy little girl who loved to play, a perfect angel. But when she was home she would be like a demon-child, always screaming.

"Juri, guess what sweetie. Soon you'll have a little brother." Jigo said one day about three months after the two of them were married.

Satsuki stood nearby hoping that maybe this would be the thing that drew the two of them closer.

The five-year-old was confused.

"A brother?"

"Yeah. Your mommy's going to have a baby."

"But mommy is dead." She said almost too emotionlessly.

"Not that mommy. Your new mommy."

"I have no mommy. My mommy is dead." Juri said and walked into her room.

Jigo followed her and shut the door behind him.

"Juri. Quit this. Satsuki is your mother now. Stop hating her. She's done nothing wrong to you, she's very nice. Why are you so mean to her." He said angrily grabbing her wrist.

"She took my mommy away."

"No she didn't mommy was-"

"She took her away. I will never let her take my mommy's place!"

"Sweetie, Satsuki's not taking her place."

"Then why is she here?"

"Because I love her. I love you both. Don't I show that?"

Juri said nothing and looked away from her father's eyes.

Juri still hated her step-mother, especially since she was having a baby.

"Do you want to feel the baby move?" Satsuki asked Juri, as she had many times since the baby's movements were able to be felt by other people.

Cautiously she laid her hand lightly on her step-mother's bulging stomach. She felt the movement of the baby as it moved.

"Did you feel that? That's your brother kicking."

She removed her hand and held it close to her chest as though it had been burned by something hot.

The baby is just a replacement for me. Then they'll get rid of me just like my mommy. I wish she would just die. I'd rather have no mommy than have her as my mother. I don't want a little brother. I want it to be just me and daddy. Juri thought to herself whenever she saw her step-mother's swelling stomach after that.

She never told anyone about these dark thoughts in her head. No one would even guess she thought such dark thoughts due to her happy nature. If they ever looked at her drawings though they might think of her as a very tormented child. The pictures were mostly of stick-people: a man, a little girl and a woman angel standing on top of a grave of a buried woman and a baby. She drew the pictures only when she was alone. If anyone was around she'd only draw the angel and the girl saying that it was her and her mother.

Three months after that incident Masahiko, her baby half-brother, was born. She could tolerate the baby, in fact she got along with him wonderfully, but she still hated Satsuki with a passion most fearsome!

About five years later she became a Tamer, then lost the privilege when Beelzemon took him away from her. Leomon had helped her get over her depression, and now everything went tumbling backwards to how it was when she was five. That's why the D-Reaper had chosen her. Her mental and emotional defenses were gone, and she was filled with hate.

It took her a long time to get over the depression again after she'd been freed from the D-Reaper's mind games and prison, but her best friend, Takato helped her through it, which is how they became boyfriend and girlfriend.

It could be said that it is because she loved that boy, her secret crush for so many years, that fifteen-year-old Juri was going to go through the deed she was about to do...

To be continued...

In The Next Chapter:
Takato's childhood up until the incident which could change both his and Juri's lives forever...