Chapter Two
"Roan!" the younger boy shouted in a challenge, drawing an amused glance of indifference from the white-haired adolescent who had just put Mimi into his car.
Izzy slowed, stunned as he heard T.K. shout. "Roan?" he repeated in alarm, remembering that T.K. and the others had very nearly lost their lives fighting against one with that name during the previous year. "Tai's Roan?" he called to the back of the blond-haired boy, then quickly scrambled after him.
T.K. slid to a stop in front of the evil teen, his blue eyes locked angrily upon the older boy's dark face. "Let her go, Roan," he insisted fiercely, his little hands balling up into fists at his side.
"And what if she doesn't want to go, Takeru?" the other demanded in response, looming over the much smaller boy.
Izzy finally came to a stop at his friend's side, panting heavily. He was admittedly not in as good of shape as the younger boy, but the look in his eyes was just as ferocious as he also squared off to fight against Mimi's abductor. Then, seeing that Roan was already preoccupied with his younger companion, Izzy yanked open the car door and grabbed Mimi by the arm, pulling her out.
Roan, surprisingly, made no move to stop him, and it was doubtful that the much smaller T.K. standing in front of him was any impediment. With an evil chuckle that came from the depths of his throat he glanced over at the young girl, his eyes flashing. Thanks to his Master's almost mesmerizing influence over humans who were not prepared to resist, she was already well within his power. She did not see him as he truly was, but instead as everything that she could want him to be.
"Get off of me!" Mimi snapped, yanking her arm from Izzy's grasp and slapping him smartly across the face. Izzy reeled back, stunned by the ugly tone of the girl as much as the blow.
"You see," said Roan, suavely. "She wants to come with me, don't you, lover?"
Mimi eyed the dark boy hungrily as she walked to his side, reaching for him and brushing past T.K.'s shoulder on the way. The embrace that she met him with was almost indecent in its ardor, her body entwining with his like a serpent.
Izzy's heart felt shattered to pieces in his chest, and T.K. looked sickened. The younger boy gave a quick, sideways glance at Izzy and then turned back to the standoff against the older teen. "It's not what it looks like, Izzy," T.K. relayed to his friend. "His crest does things to people. He's using it against her, or something."
Half of Roan's mouth twisted into a condescending leer as his hand slid down the small of Mimi's back. "Such a simple and straightforward and wrong explanation, boy. Or don't you remember? Mine is the crest of Hatred. Would you care for a reminder?" And with that he stuck two fingers of his left hand into the pocket on his vest and he pulled out the crimson-red pendant, flashing it in front of the eyes of the two boys.
T.K. flinched just slightly as the scent of evil filled his nostrils, then quickly recovered as the crest of Hope burned a fiery retort against the bare skin of his chest and fought off the other's harmful influence. "That won't work, Roan. You'll never-- oww!" he exclaimed, his defiant words interrupted as Izzy slammed a fist into the back of his head, then tackled him to the ground.
T.K. struggled in vain to extricate himself from Izzy's grasp, but the other's sudden rage had given him an uncommon strength and a willingness to fight just as dirty as was necessary to keep the younger boy face down on the pavement. And so T.K. was forced to watch helplessly as Roan once again corralled the all-too-willing Mimi into the car, started the engine and drove off with the odor of burning rubber in his wake. Desperately the blond-haired boy rolled over and tried to catch the plate number of the car as it went, but Izzy's frantic struggling made it quite impossible to read.
"Izzy!" he shouted, rolling the older boy onto his back. T.K. was the stronger, the more athletic of the two, but he was trying his best not to hurt his friend in the skirmish. And Izzy, relying on the strength of his insane fury, reared back and caught T.K. with a sharp elbow to the ribs. The younger boy gasped in pain as the other snarled angrily at him. "I'll teach you to interfere with my--"
"Izzy, stop it!" commanded a familiar voice from somewhere above the two, and then Matt was there, grabbing the boy about the wrist and pulling him away. "What are you doing?"
Izzy struggled against the other's vice-like lock on his arm. "I'm gonna kick his--"
T.K. staggered to his feet, holding the back of his head with his hand. "No, Matt!" interrupted the oldest boy's young brother. "It… it was Roan! He's got Mimi! He used his Crest against Izzy and made him that way!"
"Roan?" whispered a quiet, timid voice from behind Matt's shoulder. It was just then that T.K. noticed that his brother was not alone. A tall, thin girl, draped in a flimsy veil stood just behind him. With an evident alarm at having been seen, she again ducked behind Matt's shoulder as T.K. glanced at her.
"Oh no," Matt exhaled, stunned into immobility as his hands dropped free of Izzy's wrist. His eyes were expressionless. "Mimi…"
Izzy was breathing heavily now, but the bewildered expression on his face made it clear that the insane fury had lost his influence over him. He was horrified at what he'd just done, and he turned to face the younger boy. "T.K. … I'm… I'm so sorry. I don't know why I… what just happened…"
T.K. felt dizzy and a little bit nauseous, and his eyes were having trouble focusing on the others. "No... it's all right, Izzy. I should have been ready for that. I knew about the crest. It had Tai, Matt and Sora at each other's throats the first time we met him. You weren't there."
Izzy frowned, still looking fierce, though now his anger was not focused on the younger boy. "The next time I see him, I'll be ready."
"No, you can't," whispered the veiled girl, gently pushing aside Matt's arm when it seemed that he would keep her away from the two. Quietly she approached the two boys, her head still bowed. "You cannot resist Roan's power simply by being aware of its existence. It takes more, much more than that, or if it is his desire that you should hate... you will hate."
"Stop... please," murmured Matt into the girl's ear, trying once again to grab her by the arm. She only shook her bowed head at him, sadly it seemed, in response.
"Matt?" asked T.K., perplexed by his brother's actions. The back of his head was throbbing angrily where Izzy had struck him, and dark spots clouded his vision as he peered at the veiled girl. "Your voice seems familiar somehow. Do I know you?"
"Yes. Yes, you do Takeru Takaishi." She moved a hand towards the thin veil that shrouded her face.
"No!" Matt now insisted, catching her by the arm and holding her firmly. "He…" he turned to his little brother. "You won't understand."
The girl's response to the boy was gentle, and comforting. "Matt, this time had to come. You agreed. It only seems appropriate that we tell T.K. first. You said that it wasn't in your brother to hate anyone. Time to find out how well you know him, because if he can hate anyone, it will be me." And with that she slowly lifted the thin veil from her face.
T.K. was stunned, his lips quivering and his mouth falling open in horror. He stumbled backwards, tripping off the edge of the curb and falling to his backside. His head was swimming. "T.K., please let me explain," said Matt quickly, the look of betrayal in his little brother's eyes breaking his heart. "We've been together for a few weeks now, even since Tai and Sora started… I meant to tell you, meant to tell all of you… but most of all you… because of what she tried to do to you."
T.K. couldn't take this in, and the sound of blood pounding in his ears blotted out his brother's words. The world in front of his eyes reeled all around him and quickly faded to black. A deep black... black as the night, black as the girl's heart. My brother's girlfriend? Rio Kuroda?
*****
T.K. was awakened by the feeling of someone running their fingers slowly though his hair, and the sharp pain in his head had been reduced to a dull ache. He was lying down, his head on a soft cushion of sorts even as it pounded a protest at having been treated so roughly by Izzy. Reluctantly his eyes came open, and he looked right into Kari's gentle face. It was her lap on which his head rested, her fingers which made their way through his hair. And it was her lovely, genuine smile that shown down on him to numb the pain from the injury.
"T.K.?" his brother whispered quietly from somewhere beside him, the older boy sitting quietly on a chair next to the bed in Kari's room.
"Matt!" the younger boy bolted upright in alarm. His head protested the sudden movement, and for an uncomfortable moment the dizziness returned. Kari grabbed at his hand and held it tightly, and she glanced uncertainly at the older boy.
"Please," Matt said as he looked at the young pair, his voice thick with worry. "I didn't mean for the two of you to find out like this. Really I didn't. I meant to tell you all along, but it just never seemed like the right time..."
It might well have been that Kari's hand on his arm was the only thing keeping T.K. from slipping back into oblivion at that point, as the look in his eyes betrayed not even a hint of responsiveness. But for a bout of extraordinary luck or some sort of divine blessing he should have been dead at the hands of that girl almost a year ago. "But she almost... she tried to..."
The boy's evident pain crushed his older brother, and unshed tears pooled in Matt's eyes. Fiercely he caught his little brother in a tight embrace, his hands pulling the young boy against his chest. "I'll won't ever let that happen, T.K. I know it sounds hard to believe, but she's really not like that. After she left the others, she changed."
"Or so she says," replied Kari in a gentle voice, clearly concerned. Rio had literally come within inches of costing her the boy she loved so much that she simply could not imagine living without him. Now she was causing him more pain in making him think that his brother had betrayed him.
"And I trust her," Matt said with a nod. "But T.K., I didn't want to believe it at first either. I even tried to leave her where I found her, to forget about her, but something made me stay and listen to what she had to say. T.K., you've got to believe in me, even if you don't believe in her. She did what she did out of fear of Roan. He's terribly violent and manipulative, and he used her fear to control her. Please... please, I'm begging you. If you don't hate me yet then at least talk to her. Listen to her. T.K. … I love her."
T.K. pulled out of his brother's embrace, blinking away the tears in his own eyes. Then he wiped a sleeve across his eyes when the more face-saving gesture didn't work, and Kari wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind. The warmth of the young girl's embrace renewed his strength again, as his embrace had once renewed hers. His blue eyes met his brother's. "I trust you, Matt," he said in a voice no louder than a whisper. "But, Mimi…"
"Izzy's working on it, squirt," answered Matt, leaning forward to muss the boy's golden hair. "You know he'll tells us if he comes up with anything. For now, just talk to her. Both of you, please?"
T.K. turned around within Kari's arms to glance at her. The girl paused briefly, then responded with a single nod. Matt flashed her a thankful smile for supporting his cause and stood, leaving the darkened room. The full moon outside provided the only illumination, and the young pair looked seriously at one another. "Do you believe him?" the boy asked, a messy tuft of blond hair partially obscuring his eyes.
Kari looked troubled. "I believe that he believes, T.K., and we all have to trust one another's judgments if we're going to rely on one another. And he really is in love with her, that much is obvious. But I'm still worried about him, because before she left, Mimi said almost the exact same thing about her mystery lover. And apparently that's Roan."
The door to the bedroom gave a creak as it opened slowly, and light from the hallway flooded the room. Rio walked quietly into the room, allowing the door to close behind her. She looked somewhat stronger, healthier than the day that the two had seen her last, when her skin had been deathly pale from months of living in the dank caverns. And gone as well was the ugly arrogance and hatred that she'd shown towards them. Now she looked nervous, almost skittish, about how the pair would receive her after what she'd done before. The boy's approval was something that she desperately needed if she and Matt were to remain together, and since the girl meant so much to him, it was necessary to have her support as well.
She knelt at the foot of the bed and paused, looking up at the pair. Then she gave a very brief nod. "Takeru Takaishi... Hikari Kamiya... I have come to beg you both for your forgiveness..."
*****
"Any luck?" asked Matt as he joined Tai and Izzy in the living room.
"No," snapped Tai in a frustrated response. Izzy said nothing as he continued to tap furiously on the keyboard to his laptop, scanning city files for any clue to where Roan might have taken the girl.
"The police?"
"Took Izzy's report, but said they wouldn't do anything unless her legal guardian called because the abduction wasn't 'violent'."
"Well then, call her dad!"
"He's not there," murmured Izzy, not pausing his search long enough to look up. "God only knows what that man does, but he's nearly impossible to get in touch with."
And then something on the screen caught Izzy's eye amidst the jumble of words and numbers. Nothing definitive, just a listing that any of the others might have passed up without another thought. But as he gave it a second, then a third glance, his exceptional mind finally put together what had drawn his attention to it in the first place. The boy gave a surreptitious pause to make certain that Tai and Matt weren't looking, committed the address to memory, then powered down the computer.
"Giving up?" asked Tai.
Izzy bowed his head and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "I just can't read any more, Tai," he replied, quickly manufacturing a yawn to emphasize his fatigue. He wasn't the world's best actor, but both of the two older boys had their minds on a couple of something elses just then, so he didn't have to be that convincing. "My brain feels like it's been fried." That much was true, at least.
"You want to sleep on the couch?" Tai offered. He was sure that his parents wouldn't mind. The rest of the group of eight regularly stayed the night at one another's homes.
Izzy feigned another yawn and a stretch. Don't overdo it! he chastised himself. Just get up, say 'bye' and go. "No thanks, Tai. I'll just catch a cab home. It won't take too long. I'll be back first thing in the morning, and you've got my number if you think of anything. Of anything."
Tai and Matt nodded vaguely, still preoccupied with thoughts of the missing girl and the fact that both of their siblings were still alone in the bedroom with Rio. Then Tai turned. "Right. And you've got my number if you think of anything, 'k?"
Izzy fought down a momentary sensation of guilt. There was no reason why he shouldn't tell the others what he'd discovered, except that he was determined to do this alone. They would never have suspected such an emotion from him; they continued to look at him much as they did his computer. Somewhat distant from his emotions and working with a machine-like precision. But he was not a computer. And the feelings that he continued to struggle with were now becoming harder and harder to control as he thought of what might happen to Mimi in the hands of Roan. Am I in love with her? Or just honestly concerned about a friend? "Right," Izzy replied, scooting towards the door and exiting.
*****
Mimi wailed in pain as the tall, menacing figure bound her tightly to the chair in the center of the room. A mere half an hour ago she had been inexplicably overcome with desire for this dark, handsome young man with the dazzling features. Now she was filled with terror and struggled furiously against the wires that he bound her with.
"Oh, shut up!" he snapped, forcefully stuffing a gag into her mouth. The piece of cloth tasted filthy, and the scent of the boy's strong cologne, which an hour ago she thought was the most delightful odor on earth, now caused the tears that had remained in her eyes to roll down her cheeks.
Mimi saw the boy glance over her shoulder. "Yes, she came along willingly," he snapped to someone behind her. "More than willingly. Anxiously. You said that once she came inside I could drop the pretense. So I will. Oh, that's right," he said with a snap, standing up and striking a contemplative pose, a single forefinger against his lips. Without warning the teen reared back and delivered a vicious backhanded slap to the girl's gagged mouth. "That's for making me waste a whole week of my life on you!"
Mimi reeled from the blow, and would have fallen out of the chair had the wires that bound her not held her upright. Then she bowed her head and started to sob silently, tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks. "Oh, now don't do that," Roan leered tauntingly as he slowly and deliberately popped the top two buttons off of the girl's shirt with his fingers. "Don't you still want to be with me?"
Mimi shook her head, twisting desperately to keep him from opening her shirt any further. Roan smirked. "Oh come now… you know you want me…"
"Mmph!" replied Mimi furiously. Then a curious, random thought entered her head. God, I slapped Izzy. He was trying to save me from this… and I hit him.
"Enough," whispered a voice from behind the girl's back. A filthy odor filled her nose as a figure cloaked from head to toe in black came into the field of her vision, brushing the strong young man away.
The creature was limping heavily, almost dragging his left leg along behind him. He was hunched over, and every now and then gave a muffled cough. She could see a pair of yellow eyes gleaming out at her from the depths of the black hood, then a flash of white teeth as well. "Yes. Sincerity, purity. This is the first." And the black cloak fell from his shoulders to the floor.
Mimi screamed as best she could against the gag. Standing before her was some… thing… a creature of such hideousness that she could not have imagined existed. Pale, paper-thin flesh that was blackened in many areas as if seared by a great heat covered an ancient-looking frame. A pair of frail, feathered wings drooped limply from the creature's shoulders, and green puss oozed from sores all over his body, particularly his face. The hair on the creature's head was wispy, dirty and all but gone in several spots. "Not a pretty sight, am I?" he hissed, leaning over the girl. The stench of his breath was like rotten garbage, and she was just able to cling to consciousness.
"This is what the youngest of your friends have done to me. My companion... my lover... was injured in a manner quite similar to this, but their power also cast her from this world. And now, as a result of their actions, she is no more. So it only seems fitting that you, as their friend, provide me with the last joy that I will now ever know. With your help and the help of your friends I will return to the world of my birth, and there I will rule as a god."
The creature held out a hand that trembled with some sort of palsy. Into it Roan placed an exceptionally large, clear gem, and the creature continued to speak in his cold, analytical tone of voice. "You see, in order to battle the minions of my rival in that world, I need to replace the power that this broken body can no longer provide. Your virtue, combined with that of your friends, will provide me with that power."
Then the creature limped to the center of the room and placed the large gem on the plain-looking table resting there. "There is no question that she came to me willingly, of her own volition?" he asked Roan once again, his voice anxious for verification. The other tilted his head to the side in a lazy nod. "Very well," he continued, waving his hands back and forth alternately between Mimi and the gem. "Then let us begin."
Every muscle in Mimi's body contracted at once and caused the girl's body to arch in torturous agony, and again the wires that bound her to the chair were the only thing that kept her upright. She longed desperately to pass out as pain that she had never experienced before racked her body, only to find out that she remained regrettably both conscious and alert. Now she became vaguely aware that a thin trail of light was stretching from her chest to the flickering light of the crystal on the table, and a single tear fell from her eye. Izzy… I'm sorry…
