A/N: I have to start with apologizing to all the people who have waited and waited for the continuation of this. I've had many tests in school, loads of stuff have been going on in my life, and I just got a 'dry mind' and couldn't write anything, though I managed to press out one or two chapters of Fallin' To Pieces for ya… Well, I've scraped together enough inspiration to type this chapter out now, at least!^_^

And, whoa, I never thought I'd get so many reviews! Thank you, thank you, to:

i dunno, sarah, Chicquila, Ranma_Lunatic, emerald, thorne, ColourBlind, Claire, Saya the Demoness, ishida86, J, mimi, takeru's babe, Ying-Fa, Silver Eagle, titangirl, Teti, magenta, evi, dai, Mistress Kaikari, WildfireFriendship, Unicorn*angel, Sora's twin, Ice'is Blue, kittykoko, Crest_of_the_Clow, Annie, JuliaChildOfNight (det gör det väl inte..! *vill fortfarande läsa något som du har skrivit* :P ), MeShelly, mattrina, Kari Ishikawa, mischy101, Hope Dragonfire, Kodachrome, Eve, kouchi, SoLeo, Saria-the-green-haired, Firefly's Light, yamatoforever, kurokasaineko, zara, RyoTay Moy, CSMars, joyeuse femme en pain d'epices, Sapphire Goddess, D MuSHRooM PriNCeSS, Angel Karora, FC6, waitful but hopeful, tora-chan, Wildfire's Flame, Yuki-chan, Emily, matt4ever, ?, tatele, Mirrored, Linnda, and Bubble Bitch.

Aaaand, I'm glad (or sad for the fans who didn't vote for this coupling…-_-) to present the "winner-coupling": TAITO!

Okay, so now all of you out there know that this will be a taito. I hope you'll enjoy the next of the story as well.

In this particular chapter there'll be a lot of flashbacks, but don't worry; I've marked them well, so that you won't get lost. I just needed a good way to tell you what had happened to Matt the last couple of months. Thoughts are in written in italics

Very well then^_^  On with the story!

XXX by ThatGirl

~chapter two~

Matt opened his mouth and started to tell his story…

"You know I've always been smart, Tai. But I never thought that it was something special about it…" he started, "You remember that day, the last day you saw me?"

Tai nodded; how could he forget? Matt had always held a special place in his heart, and it had hurt him terribly when the he had disappeared out of his life without as much as a trace.

{~'*Flashback*'~}


Matt's head lied limply in his arms, which rested on the table before him. Around him, the chatter and giggles of the other students seemed to become louder and louder by every second.

School and headaches just doesn't mix, he thought, sighing deeply but not making the slightest effort to lift his head.

"Hey, Matt. Matt!" Matt felt Tai nudge his arm and before he knew it himself, his left hand had shot out, smacking Tai's away. Tai yelped, due to pure surprise.

"Sorry", Matt mumbled, his face blushing. Not that Tai could see that anyway since it still was well hidden in his arms.

"It's alright." Tai said.

Then the bell rang, a long, loud and piercing sound, declaring that their last lesson of the day was over.

Matt groaned and sat up: "Finally"

"You okay, man?" Tai asked suddenly, bending down to take a closer look at his friend.

"I'm fine, just a headache."
"Maybe you should go to the nurse of something… You've been having a lot of headaches over the past weeks…" Tai sounded concerned, but resisted the urge to lay a gentle hand on the blond boy's forehead.

"No, I'm fine. One pill and I'll be well again."

Tai, knowing better than to argue with Matt, said nothing.


{~'*End of flashback*'~}

"What, you mean that there was something strange with those headaches?" Tai wondered, looking at the teen before him. The tears had stopped falling now, but that didn't mean that his azure eyes were any happier.

"At least that's what I think." Matt said. "But it was later that day, the whole thing really started"

{~'*Flashback*'~}

He had just said goodbye to Tai and was on his way over to the Takaishi apartment. Tk and he were going to the movies. In view of the fact that they didn't get to see each other very often, none of the two would miss their 'brother-days' for the world.

It was one of those perfect Friday nights in the city, the sun glimmering in the clear blue sky and some kids out playing soccer in the park.

Considering for a moment if he should take the bus instead of walking, Matt decided to do the latter.
Since Tk and his mother lived on the other side of the river that ran straight through Odaiba, he'd have to cross the bridge. Not that that was a bad thing though, no, Matt liked walking over that long bridge, the fresh wind in his hair.

Matt soon reached the substantial viaduct.

Thinking about almost anything in his life, friends, family, school… maybe-love… he promenaded, sometimes looking down on the water beneath or just toying with the tickets to the movie, which lay in his pocket.

Then a black, shiny car suddenly drove up behind him.

Matt stopped, looking back at it.

One of the men inside opened the car door, stepping out. He was very tall, taller than Matt by far, and one could easily tell that this guy had spent much time of his life in the gym.

The man flung his cigar over the banister of the bridge, down in the water underneath.

"Hello", he said in his dark voice, "Are you by any chances Yamato Ishida?"

"Yeah, who are you?" Matt answered, not knowing that with that simple 'yeah', he had created a great deal of trouble for himself in the future.

"Oh, good. My name is mr Imai." Something in his voice sent shivers down Matt's spine, "Would you like to step in the car, please?"

"Uh, no," Matt stated, trying to keep his calm.

"Why, we just want to talk to you" Imai took a step closer and Matt backed away a bit. "C'mon, you don't have to be afraid of little me," Imai gave up a small, ironic laugh, taking yet another step forward.

He then lunged at Matt, who yelped by surprise, finally allowing the panic to come.

That was when the strange thing happened.

Just as Imai's hands gripped Matt's shoulders, it felt like if something exploded. It didn't hurt, but the strange force caused Imai's hands to fly backwards, away from Matt.

"Why, you little…" Imai growled and stretched out his fingers, making them crack slightly. "Don't give me that crap"

The large man slapped him over the face, almost sending him to the ground. Before Matt had the time to neither think nor act, Imai had struck him again.
With his head spinning and his cheeks burning, Matt was thrown ruthlessly into he car. The door slammed shut behind him and then he felt something sting in his upper arm.

A needle, Matt guessed.

His vision blurred, an extreme tiredness sweeping over him in an instant. Feeling how the car started moving, Matt lost consciousness and floated away into a synthetic sleep.

{~'*End of flashback*'~}

"I-I mean, I don't really know what that force was that caused Imai's hands to fly off me, but I know that it was I who caused it. I felt it" Matt said, looking straight into Tai's eyes.

"Matt… I mean…" Tai broke the stare.

"You think I'm a nutcase." Matt said calmly, but Tai noticed the flicker of hurt in his voice.

"No, no that's not what I mean, it's just that-"
"What, Taichi?"
Tai cringed. Matt rarely used his full name.

"Why would I lie about anything like this?" Matt asked, his gaze still as strong as ever.

After a while, Tai heaved a sigh. "I dunno", he said.

"Even If you don't believe me, Tai, I am telling the truth."

A long and awkward silence settled.

The sky was beginning to darken as the sun slowly fell and all of the shadows grew eerily big.

"Don't you have a roof to sleep under?" Tai questioned, just to break the silence.

"No"

"Okay…Umm…" Tai scratched his head sheepishly. "You gonna tell me more?"

Matt sent him a quick glance, then nodded: "Sure… I don't remember anything about the ride there, but when I woke up, I was in this big, big room…"

{~'*Flashback*'~}

A weak groan was heard from the floor in the perfectly square room.

Still groggy, Matt pulled himself off the floor, steadying himself against a wall. He was surprised to notice that the wall was clad in a light grey mattress. As he looked around, he saw that it was the same with all of the walls. The cold floor was in the same dull colour.

"Hello?" Matt called, not really expecting an answer. "HELLO!?"

He felt how the panic rose inside of him. He shouted again, and started to walk around in the room.

But it looked alike in every direction and it made Matt's already dizzy head spin.

He was trapped…

Trapped… there was nowhere to go or run or hide…

Matt banged his fists into the mattresses on the walls.

"Let me out!"

"No." a calm voice said in a fatter-of-fact tone that scared him half to death. The voice didn't seem to come from any course. It was just there, all around him. But he could tell that it came from a speaker, somewhere.

The voice chuckled. "Aww… don't fear me," it mocked.

"Shut up! Shut up and… and let me out of here!"

"No," the voice said again. In the same second, a door, well hidden in the mattresses, opened in a corner of the room and in came two men.

Matt recognised one of them, Imai, but the other one, he had never seen before.

He was short and wiry, a few grey strands of hair sticking out by the other black bangs.

"I believe you have already met agent Imai, here," the man said. It was the same voice as in the speakers! "I am agent Ozaki"

"What do you want with me? I haven't done anything," Matt enquired, clenching his hands into fists again.

"Oh, my dear boy," Ozaki laughed to himself, and then snapped his fingers. "Imai,"

The large man left the room, but returned quickly again, a big and thick envelope under his arm. He opened it and gave the papers to Ozaki, who obviously was the superior of the two.

"Thank you," Ozaki said, eyeing through the papers. "You see, Yamato Ishida, Imai and I took the freedom to scan you while you were still unconscious."

Ozaki held out two papers to Matt. The blond teen looked at him suspiciously and then quickly took the papers.

He was surprised to see what was on them; they looked like x-ray pictures. 'Scan', had Ozaki phrased it. The photographs were a scan of two heads.

"Take a look at picture number one." Ozaki pointed at one of the papers.

Matt did so. That photo was of one of the heads, the brain being the focus of it. In the brain, there were a few small light-dots. Matt saw from Ozaki to Imai, then to Ozaki again, confused.

"Now, take a look on the other picture, number two."

As Matt did, he noticed a major difference. Instead of just a few small light-dots, these dots were not only very much bigger, but also so many more.

"Wh-What is this?" Matt had a bad feeling about this.

"Hush! Do not speak when I do!" Ozaki yelled, his calm replaced with a sudden fury. After that, as fast as the outburst had come, it was gone, only leaving that calm behind it. Ozaki cleared his throat.

"As I was about to say… Do you see the dots? Good. Those represent the brain-activity."

"But-" Matt started but was cut off by a highly annoyed glare from Ozaki.

"Do you see any difference between the brain-activity of these two pictures, Yamato?"

Matt nodded quietly.

"Now, the picture with the least activity is the average human being. Can you guess who that on the other picture is?"

Despite the fact that he knew what the answer probably was going to be, Matt just shook his head.

"Aww… Come on, for being such a smart lad, you do seem a bit retarded." Ozaki sneered and Imai laughed quietly. "It's you."

{~'*End of flashback*'~}

"What, you're some kind of genius, then?" Tai wondered out loud.

"No, it's not like that. It's hard to explain… It's like… I just use my brain more. In a way that not many other's can. It's not that I have a super-brain or anything, I… just know how to use it in a way that not many other's can," Matt stopped, noticing that he was repeating himself.

"There were others there as well?"

"Yeah. A few," Matt drew a shaky breath. "They, the agents, kept us locked up in small spaces, like cages, during the nights. Each person had their own two guardians, as they so nicely put it, which kept charge of the tests. They experimented and examined us. Mine were Imai and Ozaki."

His lower lip trembling, Matt's eyes got an expression of a lost little kid on the urge of crying.

Tai felt his heart melt and lay and a gentle hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"Shh… It's okay, Yama… I believe you. You don't have to finish", he said softly, a bit shocked of the warm feeling he got inside of him. Sheesh, Tai! What is with you?, he thought, pulling his hand back.

"No, I think it's good for you to know… As I said, my *guardians* were Imai and Ozaki. The tests… at first they were just ordinary, calm tests, bit then… They changed."

{~'*Flashback*'~}

Harsh hands gripped his shoulders, arms and legs and he couldn't get himself free no matter how much he struggled.

Matt felt how Imai easily carried him towards a large, round tub.

The circle-formed patches that had been fixed on his forehead felt strange and unnatural against the skin. The patched were coupled with thin cords, which led to a peculiar looking machine. There was some strange tension running through the cords, somewhat prickling his brow.
Matt felt how the panic in his body built up.

"No!" he wanted to scream, but not a sound escaped his strained throat.

Then, if only for one confused tick, he was in the air, falling.

"Splash!" Water sprayed up and over the tub's silver coloured border.

*Cold*

That was the only thing Matt could focus on.

A horrible, painful and soaked iciness.

The tension in the patches on his forehead increased, buzzing slightly and almost vibrating.

He gasped for air, but he was still underwater and only managed to choke in more of the freezing liquid.
Ice cubes floated around, Matt could distantly feel them rub against his skin, as he squirmed and kicked, trying to get his head above the water.

Finally, he managed to get on the right side and break the surface.

Gasping and coughing, he spat out some of the water he had swallowed, and then tried to get out of the tub.

Instantly, Imai's strong hands pushed Matt's trembling body back down underwater, making him ingest even more of the liquid.

Ozaki, who had been standing by the atypical machine, raised a hand: "Stop"

Imai backed away.

Sending an almost amused glance at the shivering form of Matt, Ozaki ripped of a long piece of paper from the machine that it had printed out.

He looked at the paper, then at Matt and then at the paper again, the same amused expression on his face. Imai just stood there beside him, unmoving and like a tall statue of stone.

Matt crawled out of the tub, landing on the floor with a soaked thud. He stayed like that, curled up into a small ball, shivering and breathing in short puffs, trying to maintain some warmth.

Not even noticing that the agents were walking out, the door slammed shut, leaving him cold and alone on the hard floor.

{~'*End of flashback*'~}

Matt's head hung low in a desperate try to hide the silent tears rolling down his cheeks. Many other memories of the horrible tests flashed by in his mind. It hurt to talk about them, it hurt to even think about them, but he felt that Tai had to know, now that he was involved in the whole mess too.

Then he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Resisting the urge to look up, he smiled. At least, he wasn't all by himself now.

Tai quietly caressed his friend's shoulder. He had missed him so much and had been so worried… but this whole story? Was it really the truth? Tai wanted to believe him, but he had to admit it; it was rather hard.

"Many even died during those tests", Matt said, his voice barely a frail whisper. A small whimper escaped his throat, and before Tai even knew what he did himself, he wrapped his arms tightly around the other teen, just wanting to comfort him.

About then, it was like if a barrier broke inside of Matt and he just leaned limply into Tai's embrace, his entire body trembling with heart-raking sobs.

Incoherent words were mixed with crying hiccups, until Tai almost couldn't make out what the boy was saying.

"Shh…" he soothed, softly rubbing Matt's back and rocking him back and forth, just as he had done with Kari when she was younger.
"Th-There was a girl there too… and she used to sing to me after they had tossed me back inside of that cage-like thing they kept me in…"Matt began after a while again, his voice muffled by Tai's shirt. "When her agents did tests on her, I sang and talked to her too, just to soothe her as she had done for me… She was my only friend there," Tai felt a small pang of jealousy in his chest for a second. "T-Tai… she's still there… I couldn't take her with me when I escaped…I… couldn't…"

Once again, tears began streaming down Matt's cheeks.

"Is that why they're after you?" Tai asked.

"Yeah," Matt sniffed, "They don't want anyone else to know about me… Or them. That's why I can't go back… and why you can't either. The moment you saw me, you were doomed…"

"So you ran?" Tai felt the other boy's head nod slightly against his chest. He didn't quite know what to say to him. "I-I'm sorry, Matt… I guess… that if it hadn't been for me, those agents wouldn't have seen you…"
"Don't blame yourself. There's nothing that can be done about that now, anyway…" That came out a bit harsher than Matt had meant. But he just couldn't let himself let go of the protecting barrier he had built up. He couldn't and he wouldn't. At least not now.

 He sat up, wiped the last tears away from his cheeks and then looked at Tai, who stayed put, but couldn't help but feel a little disappointed at the loss of Matt's warm body in his arms.

Matt fought hard to get his feelings in control, and due to the months of training, he won the battle quickly. No more tears streamed down from his eyes, though they were still red and swollen. Sniffing and rubbing them with his hands, he curled up into a little ball in the opposite corner of Tai in the blind alley, wrapped his arms around himself to maintain some of the warmth he had in his body and then finally relaxed a bit. He felt he wanted to get some sleep. A small voice in the back of his head told him he was going to need all of the energy he could get soon.

"Try to sleep some, Tai." Matt said when he saw that his friend was shifting uncomfortably on the dirty ground in the other corner.

"Okay. Sure…" Tai answered distractedly, wrapping his arms around his knees in the same way Matt had done. After a few moments of sitting that way, he lay down instead, but quickly rolled over on the other side. He didn't stay that way for long, though. Only after less than one minute, he was changing sides to lie on another time.

"Stop turning…" Matt complained.

"Sorry," Tai said sheepishly. But he couldn't get over the fact that the asphalt was all but the warm bed he was used to. This was hard, uncomfortable and most of all: it was freezing. Tai didn't wear more than a sweatshirt over his arms and chest and it was an early autumn night. He shifted again, trying to get his hands inside of the sweatshirt to warm them.

"Tai," Matt's voice was annoyed.

"Sorry," Tai repeated. He resisted the urge to turn over one more time. "It's cold," he said to Matt.

"I know,"

Tai bit his lip. "Mind if I move closer to you? For the warmth, I mean."

He heard a quiet sigh and was surprised to hear, "Sure. Whatever."

Tai got up and went to Matt's side, sat down and then hesitantly wrapped his arms around the blond teen. After a minute or two, he felt more comfortable with the embrace and tightened his grip around Matt slightly, leaning his head on him.

"Thanks,"

Matt's body was tense and he tried to focus on relaxing. He felt small butterflies tickle the inside of his stomach and a faint blush spread across his cheeks. 

Strange, he thought. Heat from Tai's body warmed him and he unconsciously snuggled closer. He had to admit it. He liked having another person close. Or maybe it was just Tai he liked having this close? At least he knew one thing for sure; this was certainly better than sleeping alone.

Tai blinked groggily as he stirred. He was lying on the ground with his face turned so that he could see the sky. If the city lights hadn't been so many, he probably would have seen the small, bright stars twinkling in the dark velvet.

Something shifted in his arms and Tai looked down. The blonde hair reflected in the dim streetlights as he shifted again, pressing his face closer against Tai's chest. Matt looked so frail when he slept. So innocent and perfectly pure…

Then faint footsteps were heard. Tai didn't care about them that much, but they grew louder, as if the one or ones they belonged to were drawing nearer.
Tai cautiously sat up, careful not to awaken Matt and not to make a single sound. He was unusually aware of his breaths and it felt like if his heartbeats made more noise than his old music-class had done when they had been supposed to learn how to play drums.

A ray of artificial light fell on the wall beside them, narrowly missing Tai's shoulder. The one holding the flashlight stopped in his tracks for a moment and Tai held his breath. The unknown person scanned the area, but he didn't notice the two boys in the corner of the cul-de-sac. He turned around a bit reluctantly but then finally left. Tai exhaled.

But only a split second later, his breath was caught in his throat again:

"Imai!" a cold voice that made shivers run down his back called, twisted between antagonism and that sort of bizarre amusement that could only been found in a hunter's mind. "Come here. I've found something."

A/N: Oki, that's all for now… What did you think? Good, bad? *hopes for the first one* Please review!