Hello again! Long time... I realized I didn't inform the ages of some characters I made up. So, just to make things clear:
Sabine Weiss 14 years old (like Izzy)
Charles Grayman 15 years old (Charlie is the older)
Aurélia Camargo da Silva 13 years old (frau Schultz is the youngest one, but is still one year older than TK and Kari in this fic)
Well, now the chapter begins (I wonder if people like the characters I made up). Thank you Kaito Lune and May Kat for the reviews. Vocês são demais!*_* (means "you're great" in Portuguese).
Chapter 10: All that is solid dissolves in air
When Izzy and Grayman reached the hotel, there was a big commotion at the entrance. People were talking fast, but Izzy could understand something: "That foreign girl, the one with green eyes, she went insane..." "yes, I saw, she ran to outside as if she was being chased by something" "She was yelling something in Spanish..." "Portuguese, it was Portuguese."
Izzy was going to translate that to Grayman, but the older boy seemed to understand what they were saying. That's right, Izzy remembered he had heard in that memory that Grayman knew Japanese. Charles approached those people and asked in Japanese:
"Did you see to where she went?"
"Was she alone? Sabine, the one with black eyes, wasn't with her?" Izzy asked in concern.
"The Latin girl was alone. The room has been checked too, but nobody was there. By the way, the room is a complete mess, looks like a lot of stuff is broken." the doorman said.
"I see." Grayman started to walk toward the stairs, in order to reach the apartment. Izzy ran toward him and pushed him against a wall.
"What do you think you're doing? We must go look for Sabine and Auri!"
"This city is too large. It's useless to look for them without information. We must investigate the apartment and search for some clue that can lead us to Traum." Grayman said coldly.
"How... how can you be so calm? They're in danger! You know them better than I do and still-"
"I thought I had told you this already. I'm not their friend or your friend. I'm in this association just because of the information I can get about the digimons. I don't care about other people... I live just for myself."
Izzy remembered what he had seen in the other's memory. He let him go. Grayman went to the apartment and Izzy went with him in silence. When they reached the door, Izzy spoke again.
"What's the point of being like your mother?"
Grayman frowned, Izzy continued:
"What your mother did to you was wrong, I understand you were hurt, but... it's not a justification to treat people like-"
"Shut up, Izumi. You know nothing about it. You know nothing about people."
"I KNOW ENOUGH!" Izzy shouted, Grayman frowned again, in surprise, "PEOPLE... there are good people, you can't generalize. And, even when people do bad things... they can learn and... become better... change."
Grayman stared at Izzy for a while, then he spoke:
"You're pretty naive to believe in this kind of stuff. Or, maybe, you're just lying to yourself."
"Lying to myself... why would I..."
"You want to have some hope. You were ready to stay caught with me in my nightmare forever... it's not a thing a hopeful person does. It's an act of despair."
Izzy went pale, he wasn't liking the course the conversation was taking.
"I... I was concerned about you... I didn't want..."
"It may be true, Izumi. But why would you risk yourself for someone you barely know?"
"I... I would do that for anyone..."
Grayman was just observing how nervous Izzy was getting, then he spoke again:
"So you would risk your life for anyone. Is it because you think your life is the least important thing in the world? By thinking that kind of stuff, you really must hate your life."
Izzy couldn't take that anymore, he punched Grayman hard, what made him hit the door. Izzy was shaking, he didn't want to do that, he put both hands on his face, trying to calm himself.
"Are you doing this to me again, Traum?" he asked in low voice, "Is it funny to watch?"
Grayman stood up without saying a word. He opened the door and didn't believe in what he saw. The entire apartment was messy, as if it had been the place of a battle. The furniture was out of their places and there were a lot of dishes and electronic things in pieces on the ground, as if they had been thrown at someone. Grayman went to his room quickly and opened his bag. He sighed in relief when he realized his things were entire. He took a laptop out and turn it on. Izzy was observing him.
"Izumi, if you're done with your scene, you may be interested in finding where the girls are."
Grayman pointed to two lights, a green and a white, in a map at the computer's screen.
"You put..." Izzy started, in disbelief.
"That's right. It's GPS. I had the idea of each of us having one in case of emergency. Seems frau Schultz is running through a street near here, wait, she stopped. Weiss... is in her bedroom?"
Izzy ran toward Sabine's bedroom, but it was empty. He noticed the room wasn't messy at all. Grayman followed him and pointed to something on the ground. It was the GPS.
"Traum came to get Weiss personally. He left the GPS so we couldn't find him." Grayman said.
"But, Auri... she's still with the GPS, and she wasn't taken by him, why...?" Izzy stopped talking abruptly, he suddenly understood what Traum was thinking.
"His target was Sabine since the beginning. You and Auri were just... he didn't bother in take you personally, he just put you..."
"We were distractions?" Grayman asked. Izzy answered:
"No, he probably thought he would have fun if he played with your minds. But you were not his priority. He didn't kidnap you because you were not as precious to him as Sabine was."
"I see." Grayman said, "He must like weird people. That girl was always alone in the institution. She seemed to not care about anything."
"Traum tortured her mother until madness. Then, she jumped from the tenth floor in front of Sabine, dying later." Izzy informed. Grayman didn't say anything about it, but he spoke again after a minute:
"We don't have how to know where Weiss is. All we can do by now is search for frau Schultz. I'll prepare some stuff before we leave."
Izzy took a glance at the room, looking for some clue. He saw there was something attached to the window. It was a small piece of paper. Izzy pick it and read what was written:
"The first act and the final act can seem different, but they always are in the same stage".
What is this supposed to mean? Was Sabine who wrote it? Maybe Traum... that's it! Izzy understood the message. Grayman entered the room in a hurry. He was pale and speaking fast.
"We have to go, NOW!"
"What?" Izzy asked, hiding the paper in his pocket. Grayman pulled him by the arm and led him to the laptop. The green point was still in the same place.
"Nothing changed. Why are you so...?" Izzy frowned when he realized where the point was in the map: the middle of a street with heavy traffic. Auri couldn't stay on the cars's way for so long, unless...
"She was hit by a car." Izzy said in low voice.
"We have to go to where she is... she can die..." Grayman ran toward the door, Izzy followed him quickly.
While this was happening, Matt and Sora were heading to Izzy's apartment. They had talked a lot and decided to go there and say to their friend that they were on his side.
"Unschuld, Traum and the others have been lying to us. They're planning something bad to Izzy." Matt said. Sora agreed:
"This entire story is too odd. If that Weisheit was such a dangerous enemy and is being chased by them for so long, why didn't he ever show himself to us? Why didn't he ever attack the Digital World?"
"TK said that he was gathering dark energy, a lot of it. But we don't know why. For what I heard, Glaube destroyed the thing without giving further explanations."
"What about his followers? They attacked Kari."
"That's true, Sora. But TK told me that Kari and the others attacked first, the other two didn't seem to want to fight. Kari was attacked after she and the others attacked one of the digimons. His partner got mad and shot Kari. Then, Glaube showed up and asked the two about Weisheit, they refused to tell. Then, Weisheit showed up and gave them an opportunity to escape."
"A bad digimon showing himself in front of a strong enemy in order to save his followers... I never saw something like that."
"Neither do I, Sora. I told TK about it, but he didn't want to hear. He seems to believe in Traum's version. And I don't think he would ever be against Kari."
"That's true!" she said. When they reached the door of Izzy's apartment, they heard people yelling inside it.
"It was still morning when he left... now it's 8:00 p.m and he didn't send us any new. He doesn't answer the phone. Where is he? What happened to him?" Mrs. Izumi was becoming desperate. Tentomon was near, he was concerned too. The bug had a bad feeling, Izzy could be in danger, but he didn't know where he was. Tentomon didn't say anything in order to not worry more the Izumis. He wanted to call the other digidestineds for help. However, he didn't know if he could trust them.
"Yoshie." Masami tried to calm her, "He must be OK-"
"HE'S NOT OK!" the woman shouted, "If you don't remember he's being chased by dangerous digimons and his own friends! Now he's vanished for hours without saying a word and you think that 'he's OK?' WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
Yoshie started to cry, Masami hugged her. He was a lot worried too and realized that he wasn't able to calm his wife.
"That's enough! I'll go look for him. Even if I have to search in the entire Tokyo, I'll find my son!"
Yoshie went to the door. When she opened it, she saw Matt and Sora.
"What are you two doing here?" she asked angrily, what scared the two, "You... you know where my son is, don't you? What did you do to him?"
"Yoshie, you don't know..." Mr. Izumi tried to calm her again.
"Of course I know it! I saw how Kari looked at him earlier, how she was talking to him. As if he was a criminal... and now he's gone! This can't be just coincidence! This can't be..." she started to cry again.
Suddenly, Joe appeared at the door. He was surprised by Sora and Matt being there. He was carrying a cell phone.
"Excuse me. My father called me from the hospital, since he doesn't have your phone number. I didn't really understand, but it has something to do with Izzy..."
When Yoshie heard the words "hospital" and "Izzy," she lost her head. She took the phone from Joe's hand and started to ask about her son:
"WHERE IS HE? IS HE HURT? IS IT BAD? PLEASE TELL ME HE'S FINE!"
Dr. Kido, on the other side of the line, wasn't expecting such reaction. He had to wait the woman stop yelling on the phone in order to talk.
"Mrs. Izumi, your son is not here. That's the problem! Looks like he kidnapped a patient."
Yoshie didn't believe in what she had just heard.
"Is this some kind of joke? You're making fun of me?"
"No... wait. I don't believe it!"
"What?"
"Your son and the 'kidnapped' are back, they came with the ambulance... my gosh, how much blood!"
"...Blood?" Yoshie was in panic, she could hardly speak.
"I can't talk now. People, prepare the operation room!" he yelled at the other doctors, Yoshie was still listening "We must hurry or the kid will die!"
Yoshie let the cell phone fall. Tears start to drop from her eyes. She started to shake violently.
"... die... Koushiro... he's going to..."
Masami went pale when he heard that. Everybody was in shock. That couldn't be true. In despair, Masami asked Joe:
"The hospital! In which hospital does your father work?"
"I'll lead you there." Joe answered in a whisper.
While this, in the hospital, Aurélia was tied to a stretcher, being conduced by paramedics. Izzy and Grayman had come with the ambulance. When they found her, she was lying on the street, surrounded by curious people. The driver had run away. Someone had, already, called an ambulance. Aurélia was bleeding on the ground, but she was still moving, as if she was trying to stand up and run. She was also saying something in low voice, since she was powerless after being hit by the car.
"Não vai me alcançar... morte...eu não posso ir ainda... eu tenho que viver... o sonho dele... deles... as cinzas... não pode sumir..." (translating: you won't reach me... death... I still cannot go... I have to live... his dream... their... the ash... can't disappear...).
Izzy didn't understand what the girl was saying. But he noticed Grayman was strange. He was speechless, his hands were shaking, he walked among the people and reached the girl. He fell to his knees in front of her. He grabbed her arms in order to stop her from moving and turn the wounds worse. She was trying to escape, trying to beat him, but he didn't let her go.
"IZUMI, COME HERE!" he yelled. Izzy went without hesitation. He approached Aurélia and Grayman, the black-haired boy didn't move his head to see Izzy, he was focused on Aurélia. Izzy realized there was some water on the girl's face, but it wasn't raining. Grayman was leaning over her. Izzy understood.
"Grayman, you're..."
"Go bring her back!" Charles ordered.
"Of course." Izzy answered. Heart!, he called in his thoughts, I need you to...
"I'm already sending you," a voice in his head said. Izzy's body collapsed. When he woke up, it was the Heart who was in control. The ambulance was approaching.
"You're the 'Heart?'" Grayman asked.
"Yes." The Heart answered, "You're the 'gray man,' right?"
"..."
"This was very irresponsible. If the girl dies while Koushiro's conscience is still in her mind, I don't know what would happen to him." the Heart said without emotion.
"...You don't sound really worried."
"You don't seem to care just about yourself right now, but I'm not throwing this on your face."
Grayman lifted his head so that he could look at the Heart. He had a serious and distant look.
"I suppose you have free access to Izumi's memories."
"You're right."
"What are you planning to do?"
The Heart smiled at Grayman.
"Why do you want to know? Are you worried about Koushiro?"
"Of course not."
"Sure! You're 'heartless!' I had forgotten. In any case, I have no intention to hurt Koushiro. I still need his body, otherwise, I would become an 'it' again."
"Still?" What does he mean? Grayman asked himself.
They didn't talk to each other in the ambulance, Charles had said that he was a close friend of the girl and the paramedics let him and "Izzy" go with her in the ambulance to the nearest hospital. It was Joe's father's hospital. Grayman was grabbing Aurélia's hand when Dr. Kido appeared and called Grayman and the redhead to talk to him in his office. Don't dare die, frau Schultz! I won't forgive you if you die, he thought, before letting go of her hand and following Dr. Kido. As soon as Dr. Kido closed the door of the office, he started an interrogation about the reason because of his patient had left, what he had, how he got better and what was his connection with the girl who was going to be operated.
"Well," Grayman started, "I woke up and decided to go, so I asked Izumi to untie me. Frau Schultz was hit by a car, so I came with her. Unfortunately, this was the closest hospital, so... here we are again."
"You want me to believe you just woke up? So it's just coincidence that that girl is screaming and writhing like you were doing before? I want to know the truth! Who are you? In what are you involved?"
The lights started to flicker. Dr. Kido looked to the redhead boy, but he seemed worried and surprised with the phenomenon. He stood up abruptly and went toward the door.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?"
The Heart gave a serious and mortal look to the doctor and said coldly:
"Do you want every single person in this hospital to be in danger?"
"What?"
"There's a huge danger approaching this place. If you don't let me take care of it, you will be the only responsible for whatever happens to this place."
Dr. Kido and Grayman were speechless. The Heart left the room and walked toward outside the hospital. He reached a desert street and saw someone hidden in the darkness. He knew who was there.
"I never thought you would take control of a human's body to look for me. If I was strong enough I would have left this body a long time ago." he said.
"It's not as if I'm possessing this body. I'm just controlling it from distance. The girl will not get hurt." The figure showed herself under the light. It was Kari.
"You came to pick me?" The Heart asked.
"Yes. It's time for you to return to me."
"Why now?"
"I don't have to explain this to you. You belong to me."
"I was part of you a long time ago. We were just information and energy. If I go with you, I'll be an 'it' again. Besides, you're OK by letting Koushiro die? You know he will die if I leave his body, right?"
Kari frowned, then she answered:
"That human kid means nothing to me."
"That's right! You made that clear when he called Yoshie Izumi 'mother' earlier.
Kari frowned more, the Heart continued:
"What are you planning to do? I don't think you want to kill Koushiro. If you did, you would have done it a long time ago. But you didn't make a single move since his death. That must have been a big trauma for you."
"SHUT UP!" Kari ordered angry, "I'm done with this! I'll take you right here and right now!"
"Let's see if you can."
Meanwhile, in Aurélia's inner world, Izzy found himself lying on grass. He stood up and saw in his front a big and beautiful river. There were some pavilions with letters on their walls near the river. He walked toward the buildings, there were classrooms in them. He saw a huge covered walkway that led to other buildings. Izzy saw an immense library not very far from a building called "Reitoria," what he read on a plate. More in front, there was a bridge crossing a small river.
"This place looks like a university. It's really beautiful, but where is Auri?"
Izzy walked a bit more, but he heard a strange sound. He turned his head to the left and saw one of the buildings disintegrating. It was turning to ash just in front of him. He, then, realized that phenomenon was occurring to the entire place. The ground and the solid constructions were dissolving and disappearing, as if they were built with sand. Dark and deep holes appeared at their places. The holes were getting bigger and it looked like they were swallowing everything. The walkway where Izzy was started to dissolve as well, the redhead ran from there, but the path in front of him was even worse. With no other way to go, Izzy ran toward a building called "Instituto de ciências da saúde." He entered the place in a hurry and went to the second floor through the stairs. There, he found Aurélia in front of a door.
"Auri! I found you!" he said happy, but he noticed the girl wasn't moving. She was stood in front of the door. There was a plaque on the wall where it was written "Sala professora doutora Capitu Camargo da Silva."
"Camargo da Silva, but that's..."
"Yes, Izzy." She said to him in low voice, "It's my last name. Capitu Camargo da Silva was my mother. It's a custom in UFPA to give some rooms the name of a great dead researcher."
"UFPA?"
"'Universidade Federal do Pará.' I used to come here a lot when I was a kid. My cousins and I used to play around while my mother and my uncle were teaching. Our grandfather used to bring us here too. He taught us a lot about philosophy, sociology and literature, especially Brazilian literature. I had a good time here. But now it's vanishing, just like everything in my life. All the things I considered once so strong and solid are dissolving in air. I tried to escape, I ran all I could, but it reached me.
"What did reach you, Auri?" Izzy approached her and saw there was blood on her clothes. Did the wounds she got in the "real world" reach her in her inner world? Was she in pain?
"A morte... death reached me and I fought so hard against it. I tried so hard to not be like my mother... and now I'm going to die in front of a room in her memory. It was all useless. My dreams are going to disappear just like my father's and my mother's dreams... soon nobody will remember anymore, as if they never had existed. I didn't want this. I promised myself I would not let them vanish... I promised that I would accomplish their dreams so their lives wouldn't have been meaningless."
"Their dreams?"
"My father wanted to discover new worlds, he wanted to extend humanity's horizons. At least it was what my mother used to say to me. She wanted to make great discoveries in medicine and help people in the entire world. They were happy. But my father's experiment failed and no one else wanted to help him accomplishing his dreams. He was very depressed when he died. He was working alone in a laboratory... I don't really know the details, but my mother said there was an accident with the electrical system. After my father died, my mother gave up on her dreams too. She abandoned her research and Germany and went back to Brazil to be a professor in UFPA. I'm not saying that it's not important teaching new generations, but... she was just running away. She worked all the time, she never had fun, and she barely smiled. It was as if she was already dead. When she discovered she had cancer..."
"What?" Izzy wanted to know.
"She didn't fight it at all. She was resigned to death, as if she desired it. I scolded her." tears started to fall from Aurélia's green eyes, "I called her coward for giving up on life like that, but it didn't change anything at all. She told me life was meaningless because no matter how much people work, dream and seek happiness, everything turns to ashes in the end. Death destroys everything and in a short period of time it would be as if the things that vanished never had existed. My mother told me, she told me a lot of times... 'tudo o que é sólido se dissolve no ar'... all that is solid dissolves in air."
"Auri, do you believe in that?"
"I refused to believe in that! I refused to be like my mother! I promised myself that I would prove she was wrong! I would prove people's dreams and people's lives weren't meaningless! That's why I went to Germany! That's why I wanted to accomplish my father's dreams... which became my own dreams. But... I can't even move now... I'm losing my blood and I don't even know how I got hurt. I'm losing everything."
"Don't say that, Auri! You don't understand, this is not real! You're having a nightmare because of Traum! He made you ran through Tokyo like a sleepwalker and you got hit by a car. You must have been tied up to not turn your wounds worse. Grayman is taking care of your body... and I'm here to let you free. The Heart sent my conscience here to wake you up."
Aurélia didn't know what to say, but a question appeared in her mind:
"If I was hit by a car, my life is in risk. What would happen to you if your conscience is in my mind and I die?"
Izzy didn't expect that question.
"I... didn't think about it. But, I wouldn't let you stuck here even if it meant I'd have to risk my life."
"Risking your life for someone you barely know. You're a very special person, Izzy."
Suddenly the walls around them started to dissolve quickly, the ground was disappearing too. Soon, they would fall into a deep and dark hole, which had already swallowed the rest of Aurélia's inner world.
"That's it! We're going to die here." she said in resignation.
"Don't say that, this is not real! You can't give up now, Auri."
"There's nothing I can do now. I can't fight anymore... it's meaningless..."
"STOP SAYING THIS STUFF!" Izzy shouted at her, "Are you going back on your words now? It's true that I barely know you, but I thought you were stronger."
"...Izzy?" Izzy's words disturbed Aurélia.
"You can't give up on your life when you mean something to someone, when there are people waiting for you." Izzy said.
"Waiting for me?"
"You have a grandfather in Germany, right? And a family in Brazil. And Grayman... I used to think he didn't care about anyone, but when he saw you hurt... I can't tell for sure, but he seemed desperate. You and he have a bond, how is he going to be if you die?"
Aurélia didn't say a single word. The void was coming closer to them.
"It's true." she said, "I can't give up. I know how it is to the people who stay... how they suffer... I suffered so much when my mother gave up... and I promised..."
The ground vanished, Izzy grabbed Auri's arm before they fell into the hole.
"I promised I wouldn't be like her!"
In Dr. Kido's office, Charles didn't give him any clearer information. Suddenly a doctor entered the room and said:
"The operation was a success! She'll live."
Charles was deeply relieved. He asked if he could see her, the doctor said she was resting in a room, but she was already out of danger, so he could go. After hearing the number of the room, Grayman went straight to there.
"There's nothing more beautiful than young love, don't you think, chief?" the doctor said after Grayman had gone.
"I don't know what they are to each other. But she seemed to be really important to him. I think I'll try to get information from him later... what is that?"
Dr. Kido pointed to outside the window. A strong light was coming from a street near the hospital. In that street, the Heart was trying to escape from Kari. He tried to use some of his power, but since Izzy's human body was too fragile, all the Heart could do was getting hurt. Izzy's arms were bleeding and he was breathing with difficulty. The pink light which was surrounding Kari reached the Heart. He couldn't move. The girl approached him.
"I told you I was going to take you."
"Damn it, if at least Koushiro weren't so weak... if I didn't depend on him so much..."
The Heart collapsed, Kari didn't expect that. When the boy in front of her woke up again, something was different.
"I'm back... it means I could save Auri. Wait, where am I?"
Izzy realized that he was in a desert street, immobilized by a strange light and Kari was in front of him.
"Kari, what's going on? What are you doing to me?"
Kari frowned.
"Koushiro? Is it you?"
"Yes, of course!" Izzy said. He noticed that there was something strange with Kari, she didn't seem herself. Kari seemed to be in internal conflict. I went this far. I can't go back now. I have to... but, Koushiro... no, he's nothing to me. I'm not her! I never was! He means nothing, he's just the keeper of the heart. I need it back! I'll take it back!
The light became stronger, Izzy felt his body getting hotter, as if he was going to burn. The pain was terrible, he was screaming, but suddenly it all stopped. Izzy was free. Kari was on her knees and was staring at the ground.
"I can't..." she was speaking to herself in a very low voice, she was shaking too, "Why?... He's nothing... that woman... that damn woman, even after death, she still..."
Izzy was worried about Kari, but he knew it would be dangerous to get closer to someone who had just tried to kill him, if that's what she was doing. But Izzy realized he was OK, despite some wounds on his arms.
"Koushiro, run!" he heard the Heart's voice in his head.
"But, Kari..."
"Don't be silly, it wasn't the girl named 'Kari' who was attacking you. But there's no time to discuss this right now. There's still one person in danger, remember?"
Izzy had forgotten about Sabine. She had been taken by Traum and Izzy knew where they were.
"But, I should first go to the hospital and-"
"Idiot! Don't put more people into this! We can take care of Traum."
Izzy wasn't very sure about it, but he decided to trust the Heart. He left Kari there and went toward the place where Traum and Sabine were. When Kari, herself, regained consciousness, she noticed she was very far from her home.
"Where am I? How did I get here? My face is wet... was I crying?"
In the place where Traum and Sabine were, the digimon was staring at his rings.
"Koushiro was able to bring those two back. He even deciphered the message I left to him, as I expected. Now he's coming here alone. I couldn't be more satisfied. The real fun will start soon." he told himself. Meanwhile, in Izzy's inner world, it was raining. The Heart was on the top of a ruin, staring into the darkness.
Traum is near...the 'fourth'...he's strong. I can't let this opportunity pass. Soon, I'll be out of this place and I never again will see and feel this rain... this rain that I hate so much. Your days as king will end soon, Koushiro.
This chapter is very long, isn't it? I hope you liked it. Please, review me.