Next chap-pa-ter!!!!! It's up! 5 will be here, um, in a bit. After CHRISTMAS! By the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thank you to Frosty (once again), golden star, shriekingdaisy, Ashley, and chickadee, for reviews. You guys rock for being so considerate.
~~~~~~~~


Yamato casually strutted out of the barn. He'd simply left Yolei lying there. What could he do now? Nothing about her, but as long as he was going to jail, might as well. Might as well… When in Rome, see ya later!

Some how he knew his thoughts were all being mixed up, but he was seeing things more clearly than ever before. It's like sanity had been a screen, a screen that filtered the thoughts, and the screen was gone. Now his thoughts whizzed through his head at a fantastic speed. Getting caught up with each other and jumbling around, becoming a mish-mosh of consciousness. Mish-mosh, where'd that come from? Fish heads fish heads rolly poley fish heads! Ha! Where did that come from?

He kept the same pace and the same expression as he walked back to the house. He stepped inside and didn't really consider anything. His mind was like a radio, PICKING UP SOMETHING GOOD!!!!! He just listened to the thoughts in his head, not really, trying to think about anything, but they kept coming, like the songs on his old Sony. They kept playing, until he sang along with out realizing it.

Tai was leaving the kitchen, and had a very peculiar look on his face. Don't care, Yamato thought, might have.., don't now. I can blame him all I want. He doesn't have to be so, likeable. I'm likeable!!

Tai hauled butt upstairs quickly at the sight of Yamato. Yamato snickered in spite of himself. Fear, a fear the drives terror into the hearts of the afraid, this fall, Yamato Ishida is, THE TERMINATOR! He giggled and giggled, like a mad man. Well, not like a mad man, because, he was a mad man. He giggled even more at that.

"Yamato?" Iori was look at from the stairs with questioning eyes.

He stopped laughing, listening to the music of his mind. His face went blank as the instructions came in from his head. He snapped out of it and smiled at Iori.

"Wanna go for a walk? Like to talk to ya!"

"Umm, okay I'm just gonna get my shoes…from upstairs," he aid slowly his eyes focused on Yamato's.

"mK! Meet you down here!"

Yamato slyly entered the kitchen, smiling at Mimi more genuinely than Tai had. She returned a sympathetic smile that he wanted to smack off her face, but refrained. When he saw Sora he couldn't help but think about what he heard about ten minutes before. "Yeah, I dunno how to tell Yama. I just love Tai so much. I can't be with Yamato and have a clear conscience anymore." The radio was muted for a moment and he thought as he had always, a simple musician with a 109 IQ. What he had heard didn't fit in with what Yolei had said, but… The radio returned at full blast: She's a lying bitch. All of them know, and they were taking advantage of you. They deserve what ever you give them.

He walked over to Sora at the stove and slipped his hands around her waist.

"Hey baby."

"O, hi Yamato," she squirmed in his arms and tried to focus on her cooking.

"Me and Iori are going for a walk. It we'll be back in about, 15 minutes. See you then baby," he smiled brightly, and as she looked down at the stove he grabbed a large butcher knife from the cabinet beside him, and slid it into the giant pocket of the cargo shorts he was wearing.

"Well, it's just about to rain, but you guys can go if you'll be back in a little bit, I guess. Not that you need me- my permission, " she smiled her best fake smile at him.

He nodded and walked back out into the hallway. Iori was already there.

"What time is it?"

Iori glanced at his watch, "4:34."

"K, let's go. I have to talk to you," Yamato grasped at the knife in his pocket.

~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~~*~*~*~

Yamato walked back into the house exactly 12 minutes later, a bit damp, pretty pleased with himself.

"LET ME OUT! SORA! C'MON SORA!"

He stepped back into the kitchen. Sora was standing by the pantry that Mimi was apparently inside of. She was laughing at Mimi's exasperated calls from inside. He took a look at the scene and knew what he had to do.

"Sora can I see you in the living room?" he smiled at her, and she looked up from her laughing.

With a very frightened countenance Sora sheepishly stepped away from the pantry and took small steps, exiting through the door behind Yamato. Mimi screamed once more and stopped, she sounded like she was tired and out of breath. Yamato grabbed a chocolate chip from a bowl of cookie dough on the counter and ate it as he walked into the living room behind Sora.

"Yes?" Sora said meekly as the entered the room. Daisuke has succeeded in lighting a fire and she sat near it, but she still looked like she was shivering.

"Well, Sora, has anyone ever lied to you?"

"Sure they have…Why do you ask?"

"Do you lie to people?"

"Yamato…I…"

"DO you LIE to people?"

"Yes, I have. I need to let Mimi out of the pantry, she's probably getting scared, and I was only joking."

"No. Wait." He took the knife from his pocket, it's blade still damp from when he had washed Iori's blood from it in the ditch.

"O my god, put the knife down…Yamato," she slowly got up from the fireplace as she sputtered these words.

He brandished the knife higher and Sora opened her mouth to scream, but it was covered before it could release a sound by Yamato's long and slender tan hand. He took the knife above his head as far as his shoulder would allow and brought it down on Sora's chest. A cartoonish look of lunacy was on his face as he repeated the motion again and again, slashing and marring the flesh on her rib cage. Meanwhile, Mimi wearily called out from the pantry, exclaiming that "this wasn't funny anymore, Sora!" He finally let Sora's body fall to the wood floor. He didn't like the expression she had as she stared at the ceiling, so he turned her over with his foot. His mind blared with old poetry about lost lovers and the pain of death. He recalled things he never knew he had heard about human anatomy and the stain on floors. The madness started to hurt his head and he bit his lip for the sudden stabbing ache that jumped to his head. He sat in a leather chair across the room from the fireplace, and the corpse. He grabbed a throw blanket, which was draped over a sofa and began to sop the blood from his clothes. Then he very slowly and deliberately began to clean the blade of the butcher knife with the Martha Stuart edition Victorian print throw quilt saturated with blood. The ache in his head grew worse as the thoughts and memories came faster, his head was never quiet, and there always seemed to be another plan or scheme forming in the abyss. He sat staring into the fire, elbows on knees, head on hands.

"I'M COMING TO HELP YOU IN THE KITCHEN SORA!" Kari screamed so that Tai could hear her, as she rounded the bottom of the stairs. Yamato would have stopped her at the top had he heard her. Yet, his head was buzzing with nostalgia and murderous ecstasy.

He sat perfectly still. Kari was bouncing by on her way to the kitchen door when she stopped short, her eyes following the trail of rich red blood to the now cold body of Sora. She let her mouth hang open as she approached the body, not knowing what to say or do. She stared at the body like a deer caught in headlights, to use a cliché, and Yamato's mind jumped to an early memory.

His dad had gotten the idea to go hunting, and they'd sat in a deer stand all day. His dad was not the patient type, and near 6:00 PM, he had snapped. Spotting a deer he tore out of the stand, ran up about 10 yards to it and stopped. It stared at him, like a deer with no common since. Like Kari was staring now.
He tried to raise his rifle and as he did, it went off, shooting him right in the foot. His dad had hopped around like Bugs Bunny in the cartoons he used to watch with TK. It was as if the deer had known his dad was a rookie. At this hilarious childhood trauma, he chuckled.

Kari very suddenly threw her head back focusing on Yamato. She looked exactly like a very wary doe, who had just heard a shot ring about the forest. He laughed at all the deer analogies his mind conjured. She ran fleet footed from the house beginning to scream in the yard.

He slid to the window and watched her high tail it up the road her shrieks becoming distant. He heard worried voices above the TV upstairs and light footsteps to the door at the head of the stairs. He bounded up and met Tai with a warm smile as the door atop the stairs opened.

Taichi stammered as he collected his thoughts, "I-I-I heard screaming?" He looked to Yamato for clarity.

"Ah," Yamato sounded like a used car sales man who knew he had Taichi in his grasp, "You see, my great Tai, Sora locked Mimi in the pantry and she was screaming to be let out," he squeezed.

Taichi looked at him questioningly and as if on que, Mimi started to scream from the storage room below, "SORA LET ME OUT!" Yamato found what Mimi was saying quite amusing, but did not let on. Taichi seemed satisfied, sort of, and Yamato caught him eyeing the bloodstains on his shirt.

Yamato smiled apologetically, "I was helping them with a brisket that the neighbors had left in the freezer. Those home slaughtered cuts are quite bloody."

Taichi nodded in reply and looked downstairs warily. Yamato leaned on the banister to block his view of the living room. The only phone in the kitchen, an antique job in the kitchen, rang loudly. "Well, I'm going to get that, and wash up. Then come up with you guys and watch television. The girls still have a bit to do before dinner."

The slightly suspicious Tai was still worried to be sure, but his for now unfounded fears were overridden by his desire to please Yamato and he stepped back as Yamato shut the door.

Yamato bounded down the steps, grabbed the phone, on his third ring, and left out a sighing "hello?"

"Hey bother! It's TK! I think I'm gonna be later than I said," if ever Yamato had considered going after Kari, this was the end of that, his brother would hate him forever. If wouldn't hate him already.

"Why?"

"Flat tire. Man the weather is getting bad out here too…"

"Yeah…in fact, why don't you go ahead and turn back when you change your tire, we're going to pack up and leave in a bit. The weather is just getting to bad, and Kari's afraid we're going to be stuck out here without power. In fact give me about 20 minutes and I'll be out there to help you change that tire."

"O, okay, I'll come and help you pack up if you want, I'm only about umm, 10 miles away…"

"No, bro, you sit tight I'll be there to help you in a bit."

"mk….bye."

"Bye!"


Yamato hung up the phone and considered the four upstairs, twenty minutes, not much time to get rid of them.