Daichi, needless to say, was confused by his partner's reaction. To him, this was completely quotidian; eating something he had killed himself. So he thought maybe Kenny was sick. Still holding the leg he had been munching on, he called out, "Hey, are you okay? You seem sick."
"I told you NOT to go this way," A voice from behind the trees scolded.
"Ok, ok, I know!"
Daichi's head snapped up when he recognized Tyson's voice. Finally, Tyson, then Teresa, emerged from the bushes.
Daichi, still with pork in his mouth, looked at both teens, and then looked down at Kenny.
"What's wrong with him?" Teresa inspected Kenny, cocking her head to one side like a perplexed dog, and shrugged her shoulders non-chalantly. "Take him to the Mystic Waters." She said in an aloof manner.
"The Mystic Waters?" Daichi and Tyson chorused, both with an eyebrow raised and a face of total…non-understanding.
"Yeah there should be like a fountain that heals you around here. Every place should have that." She explained.
"You know, this place doesn't obey your rules." Daichi said, pointing at her for emphasis.
"Why shouldn't it?" She retaliated, making her rotten eggs face.
"Because Kenny made the game!" Daichi answered, putting his face close hers and almost baring fangs. (Like when Tyson and Daichi fight)
"So!? Every game should have that!"
"You're just being stupid!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"GRRR!!"
"GRRR!!"
"Hey you guys, it's right here!" Tyson announced triumphantly. Daichi and Teresa stopped bickering and turned their heads in the direction from where Tyson's voice came. They walked a few meters in that direction, quietly, because they began to distinguish the faint gushing sound of running water, the chirping of joyful birds, and of wind slowly whispering through the trees' leaves, and the cracking of a bone.
Tyson's bone.
"OUCH!!!" The scream scared off the above-mentioned birds and seemed to shake the whole surroundings. Tyson jumped from the ground, with excrement all over his shirt, and miraculously landed on a tree stump, from where he began whining. "That was my arm you stepped on! Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!!!"
"Quit whining, it's just an arm." Daichi said carelessly, waving his hand as he walked up to the small stream. Even though it was small, it glistened in the sun's light. But it didn't seem much to Daichi. "This is supposed to be the 'Mystic Waters'?" He said incredulously, bending down low to inspect it. No fish seemed to swim through it; there were no plants visible in the bottom, just rocks that looked like they had been polished.
Meanwhile, Tyson was still moaning as if his arm had been cut off. "I think it's broken…"
Teresa was watching this with her eyes rolled and shaking her head with a grimace. Then, for some strange reason that even science cannot explain, Teresa used her brain. It was like if a light bulb appeared over her head, a light shone upon her, and she went up to Tyson in a flash, grabbed him by his intact arm, and pulled him to the stream, and made him dip his arm into the water. There, Tyson's arm glowed red, then the hue changed slowly into white, and went back to it's original light tan colour.
"Wow that was cool!" Tyson waved his arm around and flexed his joints in awe. "This is the most good you have done to me, Teresa." Tyson added, not really thinking of the consequences.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well…all you've ever done is make fun of me and…thanks for healing my arm!" He finished sheepishly. He knew that was he had said was offensive, and that Teresa's problem was that she was too sensible.
"OK. You don't want my help, you can manage on your own." And so, Teresa stomped off into the brush.
Tyson rolled his eyes.
"Okay. Leave her be. Let her walk away in here, with all those monsters out there." Tyson said stubbornly, crossing his arms and turning the other way.
Kenny and Daichi put their hands up, gesturing simultaneously, "Three, two, one…"
"Teresa! Wait!" Tyson suddenly went into the brush, chasing after her. "Uh…Teresa…where are you? …I'm not playing hide-and-seek you know!"
He kept walking through the brush, picking up food in the way, looking out for the brown-haired girl, when oh, surprise of surprises, he tripped with something, causing him to tumble straight onto the ground.
"Stupid rock." Tyson admonished the object that "tripped" him. He took a good look around, and next to him was one of Teresa's tennis shoes. "I guess she wanted to go around barefoot…he told himself, not thinking about the worst. He bent down to pick it up, and something else caught his eyes.
A corpse.
No, no, I'm kidding. It was the other shoe, half-ripped. "Looks like she was eager to be barefoot…really eager..." he muttered.
"Tyson! You want boar?" Daichi offered a miniscule piece of what used to be a leg. "What's gotten into you? Indigestion?" Tyson held up his arm which had the shoes, and threw them next to Daichi's and Kenny's feet. Daichi, never too considerate, looked at them for about a second, and continued devouring the meal he had caught. Kenny, a more empathetic friend, stopped eating, but didn't say anything. How do you react when one of your friends inexplicably disappears, and could possibly be dead? What do you say?
"Do you think…" Kenny stuttered, attempting a consolation.
"I think it's her fault," Daichi managed to speak more-or-less in a civilized manner while chewing, "for going out there by herself."
"But she only went there for a moment!"
Kenny, to avoid getting yelled at by Tyson, added, "Not even five minutes"
For a moment, it seemed the world champion would yell something else. However, he stopped himself, and a dusty light bulb suddenly was flipped on in his brain.
"That's right! Kenny! You're a genius!" Still gobbling up the last few edible pieces of meat, Daichi murmured, "If I got a penny every time he said that…"
"She couldn't have been taken by a wild animal, because she wasn't even gone for long! Someone took her!"
Needless to say, both Kenny and Daichi were slightly confused.
"Why are you so darn happy someone took her? What's the difference?" And having finished, Daichi smacked his lips in satisfaction, as he was officially full.
"Can't you see? It means that she's not going to be eaten by something!" Maybe Tyson was back to normal, except that he had a theory that there was some bad guy out there that randomly decided to kidnap Teresa.
