Author's Note

Hello again everyone.

Next chapter's my favourite, where the main action is. This chapter is just setting things up. On the bright side, it is longer than last chapter.

BTW, I get the feeling that Takuya's pretty smart, but most of the time doesn't act like it. Same with all the leaders, Taichi/Tai, Davis/Daisuke and Takato (haven't seen Savers yet so I don't know if Marcus is the same way).

And updates will now be every Thursday till this story is completed. The rest has already been written; it's just a matter of posting it up.

Chapters remaining after this: 4

Disclaimer: You should all know by now what I own and what I don't.

Anyway, enjoy everyone, and let me know what you think. Pretty please...(gives irresistible puppy dog eyes)

Brother, Hear Me Cry

AU They were inseparable, till the day he turned on his brother. Eventually driven mad with confusion and grief, he vanishes into the shadows...then weird things start happening...and through it all, his cries echo in his brother's ears...

Kouji M & Kouichi K

Quote: "We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language." – Joyce Carol Oates

Chapter 13 – Linkage by Blood

'Want to play?' Junpei asked, holding out a fist full of pawns, a mix of black and white, under Kouji's nose.

'No thanks.'

Izumi came to sit beside him as Takuya, surprisingly, agreed to play.

'You'll lose,' Junpei warned.

Takuya raised a cocky eyebrow. 'Oh, will I?'

'Are you sure you don't want to?' the blonde asked gently. 'There's nothing you can do now, and you need to clear your mind.'

'I'll watch,' he muttered without much emotion. 'Chess isn't my forte.'

He didn't elaborate, but they all knew where he was going. They were all familiar with the elder twin's skill at the game. However, the other four were not aware that he had also trained Takuya when the two hung out in the others' absence, and thus the brunette wasn't as much a pushover as the others thought. On the contrary, he could give his coach a run for his money.

The game went underway, with Kouji, Izumi and Tomoki observing while the adults carried on with their own activities out of sight and hearing of the kids. The two from the government had left, presumably back to their own quarters, while Kousei had been informed by phone that the scientists were working on modifying the original algorithm under government surveillance.

And that left the four teens and one preteen with nothing much to do save mope...or occupy oneself with a game of chess, which seemed the only indoor game in the house, and converse, as such games, especially with two able players, tended to last quite awhile.

So it was sort of inevitable that throughout the game in progress, the conversation eventually turned back to the very topic they were trying to avoid.

'I don't get it,' Izumi muttered, curled up on the couch beside the younger twin. 'Why is this happening? Why are innocent people being hurt because of the mistakes of others? How is that fair?'

'It's not,' Junpei replied softly, scrutinising the board carefully, before pushing his queen across the board and swiping Takuya's knight. 'But I guess that's just how real life is. Nothing like that glamour we see on TV or read about in books...'

'Yeah,' Tomoki muttered dejectedly. 'I never would have imagined that. I guess I never really appreciated what Okaa-san and Otou-san and were trying to do in protecting me. But I think Ni-san was right. We won't remain ignorant forever.'

Kouji just grunted an affirmative, showing that he was, at least, paying half a mind to the conversation, his eyes straying from the board to the scattered pieces to the outside world through the open blinds.

'I'm glad Shinya's at camp,' Takuya murmured, contemplating the board. 'He at least isn't caught up in this.'

'Yeah, Ni-san too,' Tomoki agreed. 'He went as a counsellor. But what happens now. How many more people are going to get hurt?'

'Who knows,' Izumi sighed. 'A computer programme is predicable, but a human adds in the unprecedented factor.'

'He's waiting...' Takuya said vaguely, moving a pawn forward.

'Why?'

'I suppose all the pieces are in place,' Junpei muttered, nudging a bishop into position. 'Maybe he thinks whatever he wants will come to him.'

'Probably will,' Izumi sighed, watching the game. 'Dusk knows Kouji will stop at nothing to get his brother back, but this waiting...it's torture.'

'How can he?' Takuya, surprisingly, pointed out. 'It's not like we, or anyone else for that matter, know where he is. If he wanted someone to find him, he'd have left a trail of breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretal. Speaking of...' he knocked down the elder boy's defenceless rook with a pawn, leaving his queen to attack the opposing king. 'Check mate.'

'Huh?'The other four gaped at the board, but none more so than Junpei who was frantically searching for a non-existent exit route for his king.

'Well,' he eventually sighed dramatically, leaning back. 'Got to hand it to you Taki, you've got me well and truly beat.'

'Coming from the one who said I'd lose?' he teased, attempting to lighten the mood.

Junpei cracked a grin, as did Tomoki, but the two on the couch did not, Kouji's eyes searching his best friend's face for any explanation. The brunette, noticing this, proceeded to make explicit his viewpoint.

'Think about it,' he said. 'He's doing all this, and despite what that lady said, it doesn't really that much sense on its own. If it was Dusk, he would have killed them. Why let them live? But at the same time, if it was Kouichi, why do it in the first place? You said,' he looked at Kouji, 'that those scientists said that it was like two consciences in the same body, but even if one was more in control than the other, the other would still have some influence. So I think Kouichi is manipulating Dusk's plan enough so no-one dies, and also so that this can somehow be put an end to.'

The others simply stared. 'What?' he asked.

'You know Takuya,' Izumi said, shaking her head. 'That's about the smartest thing I've ever hear you say.

'Hey!' he exclaimed. 'I can be smart when I want to be.' He turned to Junpei. 'Wanna play again?'

'Not till my bruised pride heals.'

Silence met his remark, so he chose to simply let it go. They sat in silence for a while after that, Junpei fiddling around with his captured king, twirling the piece around his index finger while Takuya shifted slightly uncomfortably under Kouji's gaze.

'You really believe that?' he whispered finally, when it looked as though Takuya was going to crack, his blue eyes shining slightly with both tears and the light that shown through the exposed window.

'Course I do,' he replied, with as much cheerfulness that he could muster up.

'Thanks.'

'No problem.'

'Hey, didn't we have homework to do?' Izumi, quite suddenly, exclaimed, once the silence was pressed on them once more.

The others gave her an odd look. 'You're thinking of homework at a time like this?' Takuya asked incredulously.

'Actually,' she flushed a bit. 'I have a major assignment. I was meant to do it a while ago, and it is due in tomorrow, but with everything...and Shinoda-sensei's really strict. Nothing short of a coma would excuse us from it.'

'Shinoda-sensei?' Kouji looked up. 'Comparative religions?'

'Yeah,' she looked at him curiously. 'How'd you know?'

'Ni-san mentioned it,' he replied, looking at his lap. 'Something about a research assignment on Christian funeral services. Left it on his desk too, instead of filing it.'

'A funeral?' Tomoki wondered aloud, though it didn't seem to be in relevance to the conversation. On the contrary, his attention was on the streets.

'Yeah,' she sighed. 'They have an interesting saying, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," in other words, everything goes back to its origins. That's why they don't cremate the bodies of their dead, like we do, instead burying them, in a sense returning them to the soil from which they originated.'

'There's a funeral fire,' Tomoki said following her explanation, pointing outside where the small gathering of black could be seen, and behind them, the rising smoke of a funeral fire. The other's looked too, watching the smoke fade into the air.

'Dusk...' Takuya hissed.

'Not necessarily,' Junpei contradicted. 'It's not really fair to blame everything on him.

While Takuya stared agape, Izumi interrupted. 'That doesn't really matter right now. Look.'

The two looked to where she had gestured, at the slightly pale Kouji beside her. No doubt the fire reminded him of his mother, his birth-mother's funeral.

The thought had barely passed through their minds when Takuya unexpectedly leapt up, accidently scattering the pieces remaining of the chess board in his excitement.

'I know,' he all but yelled. 'The graveyard.'

The others gave him odd looks. 'That would be one of your more ridiculous statements,' Izumi stated flatly.

'Why not?' he challenged. 'There's a blind spot towards the edges, as good a hiding place as any, and didn't this all start when Tomoko-san died?'

'You know how tactless you sounded right then?'

'Tactless or no, there's a point. Didn't Kouichi start having nightmares when he realised his mother's health was going downhill. Didn't those nightmares get worse with her health? Didn't he almost completely lose it after she died?'

'Takuya...' she sighed exasperatedly, before turning to see how the younger twin was taking it. Surprisingly well, it turned out, because he was actually considering the words of his best friend.

'There's some truth in that,' he admitted, his mind dead set on saving his brother, so much so that it was able to diminish the grief of his mother's passing. 'He used to dream about darkness: fear, loneliness...then nothing. And it used to scare him like nothing else, even when he pretended it didn't...but how do you know there's a blind spot?'

'From Otou-san.' He shrugged. 'He works on surveillance. Anyway, it's worth a shot, isn't it?'

He smiled at the other. Not smirked, but genuinely smiled. 'Definitely.'

'You two are crazy,' Izumi sighed, but when Tomoki eagerly followed suit as the two stood, she relented. 'Fine. It can't do any more harm anyway.'

'And don't even think of leaving me behind,' Junpei quickly slipped the black and white pieces into their compartment before standing as well. 'All for one and one for all, despite how corny that sounds. Right?'

Izumi smiled. 'That's right.'

And with that, the five ran out the door, ignoring the adults who had just realised, and for the cemetery, or more specifically, to what originally triggered the cascade of events that lead them to this specific moment. The grave of Kimura Tomoko.

Preview for the next chapter:

'You would sacrifice one child for the fate of the human race, who currently is simply an obstacle preventing you all from being free of me and me from achieving my full potential? Though you will never truly be free. I am content with the freedom I have tasted and the revenge I have delivered in the fear that grips your hearts. But you humans, despite the emotion you call "compassion", you will not be content till the threat is eliminated forever, regardless of the cost.'