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The Homicidal Maniac.

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Chapter Eight: Painkiller

Taichi

I wonder how many times I had thought 'This is insane' in the Digital World...well, now I know what real insanity is. My best friend may be suffering from it. I was sitting on the back of the couch outside of Yamato's room. His parents were in there with him, talking to him. Izzy had tried to call Mimi, Jyou, and our parents but the storm had cut us off. Sora and Izzy went home. I stayed, my parents would understand. ... Matt and I had had rough times before, thrown punches, gotten in a lot of fights, but we were still friends. We could always talk to each other. Always.

'Cept now. Takeru's gone. I had been shocked, I had grieved, I had sort of gotten over it. There was nothing I could do. Too bad Matt didn't feel the same way. Damn, if only he did. 'D'save all of us some trouble. At the funeral, I heard Mimi trying to cheer him up. Hell, that worked out //great//. He had, more or less, cussed her out and told her to leave him alone. Mimi, had taken some offense, but presissted.

Yamato almost threw a punch ,but instead he took a disgusted glance at Takeru's coffin, called Mimi one more name, shoved her and ran off. I had cursed under my breath and taken off after him,...hell, I thought I'd be able to catch him in a minute. But, Matt must've been excersizin' somewhere cuz he was damn fast! I chased him, he ran faster. I couldn't catch him, and I used to runnin', with soccer and everything. I ran, and ran. And fuckin' ran some more.

I had to stop a few times and catch my breath, and those were the times Yamato ran fastest, to get away from me. At some points I acknowleged Sora and Koushirou behind me, but I didn't pay much attention. We had gone past endless hills filled with gravestones, then into the forest beyond it. And it started to get dark. And I had skipped soccer practice for this.

I wasn't able to see Yamato anymore then, he was way ahead of he. And then, in the forest, he could have been in the trees and watch me pass him by. I had been worried, Hikari had told me about her dreams of Takeru's killer, hunting the rest of us down and stuff. What if they were true? Oh yeh, I'm the brave one. Crest of Courage and all that crap. I was being freaked out by my little sister's nightmares.

I had slowed to a walk, soccer or not, I could not run endlessly for an hour. And hell, I still had no idea how Yamato had done it. Sora and Izzy caught up with me, both tired and panting. We walked the forest, looking for our friend. It was really dark now, sun gone and clouds still covering the sky.

We eventually made it through the forest. We saw that we were at the edge of town, the 'bad' neighborhood. The ground was mostly dirt, and a several yards away from the forest was a huge dumpster. The first sign of life we saw was a huge black rat. Sora kicked some dirt at it and it ran off sqeeking. The as we walked closer, we saw Yamato. If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was a maniac.

Maybe he is. His hair looked like it had been through a few hurricanes and and a mud slide. His face was had some dark spots of dirt and/or mud on it. His gloves were torn, his jeans were torn. "Yamato! What the hell are you doing!?" Sora had demanded. Yama had given us one hell of a psychotic grin and revealed what he was holding in his hands. A knife. And a groutesque looking dead rat. "What the fuck!? What are you doing!?" I had asked.

"Killing rats and pretending they're you." he had answered. Koushirou had looked disgusted; "Yamato..." And Matt lost his cool; "Yamato what!? Yamato, you're insane!? Yamato, deal with it!? Yamato, everything will be ok!? Yamato, you're completely and totally fucked up!?!?" he had screamed, Izzy didn't reply. Our friend had turned his back on us and said; "Yeah, I'm fuckin' fucked up. What are you going to do about it?"

We had stood there for a few minutes. Then he turned back and faced us again; "Just leave me alone. I'm going to find Takeru's muthafuckin' murderer..." "Matt, it's not worth it! All for what?! Revenge!?" Sora had told him. "Fuck off bitch! What are you worked up about!? You don't care! You all don't care! You muthafuckin' selfish bastards!" Yamato then pointed the knife at us; "You don't care, so quit fuckin' pretending, and leave me alone!"

"Why are you doing this!?" I had screamed. Yamato had glared at me and wiped off some dirt off his chin. I remember the scene perfectly. And it creeps me out. The fact that it had been about an hour ago didn't help. Matt's answer was this: "It takes away the pain." Killing rats had taken away his pain? WHe had pretended that the rats were the murderer? And us? What if he can't find anymore fuckin' rats?

There was a loud thump on the door of Yamato's room. The door opened. Ms.Takaishi was crying. Mr.Ishida was backed into the door, he looked shocked. I leaned and looked closer. Yamato was standing there, his expression was of pure rage.

"Yamato..what's happened to you..?" his mother sobbed. His father shook his head and exited the room, Ms.Takaishi followed him out. Yamato's dad looked at me, "Maybe you can talk to him, Taichi..." he muttered, and walked away. Yamato averted his glare to me; "What are you going to say to me, Tai?" I gulped; I didn't know. This was not my friend.

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