Digimon 3: Lost Prophecy

Part Four: The Prophet

""Yolei," TK said, trying to shut her up. He felt hot tears burning his eyes.

He took a shaky breath to stop them from falling.

"She's not coming back, is she?" Yolei said, her nose running too.

Izzy frowned next to her and handed her a hankerchef from the airplane bag. Before TK could stop them,

his own bitter tears ran down his cheeks."

"Izzy...can you hear me?"

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"Help me, Izzy! I need you!"

"No, leave me alone. What are you doing? No, stop, stop! Don't touch me!"

"Izzy, wake up, you're having a nightmare!"

Izzy Izumi's eyes snapped open and the first thing that greeted him in the conscious world was cold sweat and his mother.

"Heh, another nightmare, huh?" Izzy said, sitting up. The blankets were tangeled around him and his mother helped free him from it's cottony grasp.

"You've been having them too often," Mrs. Izumi said, frowning. "Ever since you came back from the museum."

Izzy realized she was right, the museum trip had been almost 4 weeks ago, and he was still dreaming about the castle...Demon...Katrina...

"Do I need to take you to a psychologist," Mrs. Izumi said, standing back up to open the window for some February air. "Or are you going to tell mommy what happened to make you so miserable?"

Besides the fact you forgot who I really was, a digidestined, and that we ran into another digital monster and my best friends dead, and I'm using run-on sentances to express my feelings, no nothing's wrong. Izzy shook his head, but his mother wasn't pleased.

"Well, if things get any worse, I'm taking you to a counselor."

Something clicked inside Izzy's mind and he eagerly jumped up. "Mom, would it be okay if I went over to Tai's house?"

"Are you crazy?" Mrs. Izumi said, walking to the door. "It's 2 in the morning! Maybe by 10 I'll let you go, but for now, sleep. And try not to wake the whole apartment doing it."

Deja Vu, Tai thought as he woke up in his room. Exactly one month ago, Kari had woken him up to get ready for school just after the fight with MaloMyotismon and Owikawa. But now...

Kari.

The word floated through Tai's mind and he remember the day he had returned on the plane without her. He had lied to his parents, he told them she had died of hypothermia when she lended her jacket to a little kid, and he body was washed away with the tsunami flood. It was cheesy, but they believed it and now they were mourning.

Mourning.

Tai sighed sadly. He hadn't spoken much lately, and his parents kept telling him to 'move on,' but he couldn't help but feel responsible for her death. Not just her though.

Katrina.

Katrina had died to, but she was lucky. Her dad and brother knew her real cause of death, and Tai hadn't heard from Adrian since. Adrian was doing poorly on the track team, and Tai was failing Japanese, English, and Social Studies. Tai had overheard from Matt and Sora's conversation that TK wasn't doing to well either.

Sora.

Tai had heard rumors that Matt was going to ask Sora out on Valentine's day. Strangely enough, Tai couldn't care less if they got married.

"Honey? Could you please take out the trash?" came the voice of Mrs. Kamiya.

"No," Tai called back through the door.

"Get off your butt and do your chores," Mrs. Kamiya answered back. "I'm tired of you moping around 24/7. Move on, it's what Kari wants us to do."

"You don't know what the hell she wants 'cause she's dead," Tai mumbled, but he rolled out of bed, tossed on clothes, and walked into the kitchen.

"It's great to see you're helping us out," Mrs. Kamiya said from the kitchen. It seemed she dropped her bad cooking habit after Kari's death. Tai shrugged noislessly and reached for the trash bag.

"Yeah, it's nice to see we're one big family again," Mr. Kamiya said, smiling at his wife from behind the newspaper.

"How can you live like this?" Tai said, from the door. The smiles were wiped clean off of his parents.

"What honey?" Mrs. Kamiya said, putting the plate down.

"It's so sick!" Tai said, spinning around. "Kari's dead, and all you give a damn about is having a happy family?"

"Now son," Mr. Kamiya said, rising to his feet. "Don't raise your voice-"

"Yes, I'm going to raise my voice!" Tai said, throwing the front door open. "Good riddence, you murderers!"

Tai stormed out of the door and realized he hadn't even taken the trash bag with him. With a sigh, Ta weighted the possibilites of what his parents would do if he went back inside. Instead of retrieving the trash bag, Tai turned from the apartment and went down the balcony. He passed many apartment doors, some empty, most full; and read each name until he paused outside of a certain door. Tai had been wondering if Mr. Jon was going to pull out of the house. Maybe Jon believed that Katrina would come back, like she had seven years ago. But this was for real, Katrina was never coming back.

Neither was Kari.

Tai spun around when he heard panting behind him. Tai first thought was Adrian, to come check up on his dad. Tai wasn't in the social mood, but he needed to see how the boy was doing. The panting got closer and the first thing Tai saw was red hair.

"Izzy?" Oh, I'm definatly not in the social mood! "What are you doing here?"

"Tai?" Izzy said, looking just as surprised as he did. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, I dunno," Tai said sarcastically as Izzy walked over to him. "Maybe I live here?"

"Nevermind," Izzy said as he rang the doorbell to apartment "Strauss."

"Are you checking up on him?" Tai said, mellow.

"Not really," Izzy said, biting his lip. "I just wanted to ask him something."

"About what?" Tai said, surprised. "Do you think he's in the mood to talk?"

"I think this is very important, for Kari and Katrina's sake," Izzy argued back.

"That's it!" Tai said, angrily. "The girls are dead and you want to talk to Jon about godde-"

"Hello Koushiro, Taichi," came the groggy voice from the man who opened the door. "Come in."

Tai gaped as the man stepped aside to let them in. Tai had never actually been in the Strauss' household before. It was small and modern, except for the large oil painting of a beautiful Japanese woman hanging beside the large plasma television.

"Tha's Mai," Jon said, following Tai's gaze to the painting. "She looks like Katrina, doesn't she. They both have a lot in common, their hair, their eyes, there digimon, their cause of dea-"

"Mr. Strauss," Izzy said, clearing his throat. Jon didn't bother to correct him. "I was wondering if I could ask you something? I know it may seem insensitive, but-"

"Don't ask then," Tai said, sitting down on the sofa.

"I don't mind," Jon said, sitting in the recliner next to the sofa. "Please, have a seat and continue. Are you still having those strange dreams?"

"Dreams?" Tai said as Izzy sat next to him. "What kind of dreams?"
"I think they're linked to the goddesses," Izzy continued. "I started having these weird dreams since Katrina showed up. Ever since Matt, Sora, and Katrina landed in the Digital World that night, I kept having these dark...premonitions, you could call them. And now...my dreams are all mixed up. I feel completely lost in my dreams. Do you think my dreams are linked to Kari and Katrina?"

Jon listened to Izzy's story with interest while Tai tried to soak everything up. When Izzy finished, Jon stood up and walked to the cabinet next to the TV. He pulled out a old leather-bound album and flipped the pages. He stopped at a page and handed the book to Tai and Izzy. Six 13-year-old kids were waving back at them, grinning and laughing, looking as if they were enjoying themselves.

"That's me in the middle," Jon said, pointing to the blonde kid in the page. "I was such a trouble-maker back then. The tall brown-haired guy I'm giving the bunny-ears to is Tobias Wyatt, my best man and Chantel's brother. That's Chantel on my left, she had glasses back then. Next to Chantel is Mai, of course, and the red-head next to her is Rikko Tsurasa, her best friend. The last guy is Tiron Tanima, we used to be worst enemies, but now we're best of friends."

"The old Digidestined," Tai said, looking up. Jon smiled and nodded.

"Yes, and you know what else? We started our Digital World adventures when Chantel and Toby moved to our neighborhood. Not long after our adventures begun Toby started having strange dreams too. Eventually, he told us about having a dream of a strange prophecy fortelling the creation and purpose of goddesses. We never found it, but we didn't have time to ponder over it because Demon was going to destroy the Digiworld."

"Apocalymon," Tai said. "So, there's a prophecy out there that can probably help us out? But, what's Izzy connection to this?"

"He's the Prophet," Jon said. Tai and Izzy looked at each other, frowning.

"'Prophet'?" Izzy said. "As in fortelling events before they happen?"

"But, how come he couldn't save them?" Tai said, his mourning pain returning. "And more importantly, why is he still a prophet? I mean they're...gone now."

"There are many answers, naive one," Jon said, looking as if his mourning pains had returned too. "Maybe the prophecy fortells of a way to restore peace and light to the digital world, maybe it tells of fallen goddesses."

"Maybe it tells of a way to bring them back," Tai whispered, hopeful. Jon gave a small smile before sighing.

"Don't get too hopeful, Tai."

"We have to find it," Tai said as the phone rang. Jon got up to get it as Izzy looked at Tai curiosly. "We'll use your knowledge and my courage to uncode it!"

"But we don't even know where to look," Izzy said, already starting to go pesimistic. "The Digital World is so big and-"

"11 o'clock on Friday?" Jon was saying. "Yes, and no reception. Just a short ceremony. Ok. Thank you so much. 'Bye."
"Who was that?" Tai said before he could stop him. Jon humg up the phone and sighed.

"The funeral home. We're having a funeral this Friday at 11."

"A funeral?" Tai said, jumping to his feet. "For who? Katrina?"
"She's been gone for a month," Jon said, walking back over to them. "If I don't get her death certificate in, they'll be suspicious."

"But we're not sure she's even dead!" Tai said. "They could be in the Digital World, processing themselves! I mean, they died as data-"

"Enough, Tai." It was Izzy. "Reality check, Tai. They're gone, and even if they were processing themselves again, they wouldn't be back for another hundred years. Now, let's go, this lack of sleep is wearing me out."

"I don't believe you," Tai said and they looked up at him. "Two of our own just vanished in thin air, and you guys think they're dead?"

"Tai, we saw a castle fall on them," Izzy said angrily.

"So?" Tai argued back. "ig deal, so we assume they're dead. What if they're not? What if they somehow escaped?"

"We didn't see them escape," Izzy said.

"We didn't see them trapped in the castle either," Tai continued. "Every night I have this dream that Kari and Katrina are in that castle, and Kari calls for my help. But, everytime I search through the rubble for her, I never find her. Not a body, not a shred of clothes, nada. Do you think it means something?"
Izzy looked at Jon who shook his head and sighed. "Dreams are what we want to come true-"

"Are you saying Izzy's the only one that can have 'special' dreams?" Tai asked angrily. Without an answer, Tai stormed out of the house.