CHAPTER 46

"Any progress?" Miguel asked the next morning as he walked into Johnny's apartment and into the living room, where him and Robby were working. Because Robby was staying at Johnny's apartment, it made no sense for them to go all the way to Encino to work at the Larusso house to do exactly the same work they could do at home.

Miguel sat next to Robby, and the two poured over their laptops. They were in charge of researching Kreese's time in 'Nam but they weren't having that much luck.

Robby nodded at Miguel.

"Yeah, actually I've made a fair bit." Robby said. Miguel raised an eyebrow.

"Really? What you got?" Miguel asked, sitting next to him.

"Well… I managed to get a hold of all of the declassified information from Kreese's time in 'Nam." Robby said. Miguel's eyes widened.

"You did? How? Why did they disclose that information to you?" Miguel asked. Robby grinned.

"Well, you know how Kreese is technically, legally dead in their books? Apparently, even the military is kind of lenient towards young boys who never got to meet their action hero grandfather before he passed away. I just had to act out that lie for one email, and I got sent whatever I wanted."

Miguel laughed and clapped his hands.

"Respect, man. Mad respect." Miguel laughed. "All right. So I guess we just start diving into the files, right?"

Robby nodded.

"Yeah, let's do it. There's a shit ton though. Like at least 80 pages of stuff. We need a way to organise everything. Any ideas?" Robby said. Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, why don't we print all of the files out and we can make a physical timeline with them to organise them. Then, it'll be easier for us to go through each year."

Robby nodded.

"Great idea. Wow, it pays off to be working with a nerd for once." He remarked.

"Hey! Yo! Not cool!" Miguel snapped. Robby laughed.

"Trust me, it's a compliment. You should've seen my old friends Trey and Cruz. They make candles look intelligent."

Miguel laughed.

"Wow. They seem like… interesting guys." He replied. Robby chuckled and nodded.

"All right. Let's get to work…"

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"All right, Larusso, let's do this." Sam snapped, sitting beside Tory in the living room that afternoon. The two girls were ready to start working together, but the tension between them was so palpable that it could be cut with a knife. They hadn't sorted out their issues yet like Miguel and Robby had, and because of that, they couldn't work together very well.

"Okay, so where do we start?" Tory asked.

"Well, we're looking into his life immediately after 'Nam but before he opened Cobra Kai. Therefore, we need to figure out what he was doing, where he was living, anything we can about that period of time."

"Got it." Tory said. She then started to reach for her laptop that was on the living room table, and she noticed Sam flinch in fear as Tory moved closer to her to grab the computer.

Tory sighed in annoyance and glared at Sam.

"Seriously, Larusso?! For the last fucking time, I'm not gonna hurt you!" Tory spat. Sam sighed.

"I know. Look, I'm sorry. It's just, you spent the past year trying to kill me. You absolutely terrorised me. I can't just forget about that in an instant." Sam said. Tory stood up.

"Okay, get up. We're going on a field trip." Tory stated. Sam slowly stood up, confused.

"I'm sorry, what?" Sam asked. Tory pulled Sam towards the door and practically shoved her into her car. Sam looked at Tory, nervously.

"Um… Tory? Are you kidnapping me? People know where I am!" Sam exclaimed. Tory rolled her eyes and glared at her.

"Sam, shut up. I'm not kidnapping you." Tory snapped. She started driving and 15 minutes later, they pulled into an extremely rough neighborhood. As Sam got out of the car, she looked at her surroundings, slightly scared. The sun was starting to set and this looked exactly the kind of place where she would be mugged.

"Tory, um… where are we?" Sam asked as they approached a compound.

"We're at my house, Larusso." Tory replied, watching Sam's jaw drop slightly and Tory chuckled. "Yeah, that's right. Not all of us live in palaces."

"Why did you bring me here?" Sam asked. Tory didn't answer, and just unlocked the door and walked into the apartment. When Sam walked in, her eyes widened. It wasn't like Sam was expecting knives, axes and daggers on the wall, but the apartment was still a lot brighter than she expected. Toys were littered all over the floor, light streamed in from the windows, and there was quiet music playing in the house. Suddenly, a young boy, no older than 8, rushed out of one of the rooms and he flew into Tory's arms. Tory chuckled as she hugged him.

"Hey, Willie, how was your day?" Tory asked, in a soft, sweet tone that Sam didn't even recognise.

"It was awesome! Luke and I went and we played basketball all day! I scored 9 three point shots!" The boy, Will, shouted in delight.

"9?! That's amazing! That's your new best!" Tory exclaimed, before turning to Sam. "Sam, this is my younger brother, Will. Will, this is Sam."

"Hi, Sam." Will waved at her, before unexpectedly throwing his arms around her and hugging her tightly. Sam, taken aback, hugged him back.

"Hi, Will! How's it going?" She asked.

"Good!" Will exclaimed.

"Okay, Will, go decide on a restaurant to order dinner from." Tory said.

"Pizza!" Will shouted, clapping his hands in delight. Tory laughed.

"Pizza? Okay, go decide what pizza you want." Tory said. Will sprinted out of the room and Tory chuckled. Once he was gone, Sam turned to Tory.

"He's a really sweet kid." Sam remarked. Tory nodded.

"Yeah. Will's awesome. Here, I want you to meet someone else." Tory said, before walking Sam over to a room in the corner of the house and knocking on the door.

"Come in!" A faint voice called. Tory walked in, and when Sam followed her in, she couldn't help but gasp quietly. Lying on a bed in the middle of the room was a middle-aged woman, who was connected to a blood transfusion machine.

"Sam, this is my mom. Mom, this is Sam Larusso. A… friend of mine." Tory said, saying the word 'friend' rather reluctantly.

"Hi, um… nice to meet you." Sam said, quickly getting over her shock of seeing the frail woman connected to all of those machines. After a quick conversation with Tory's mom, the two girls left the room and when they were out the room, Sam turned to Tory.

"Um… Tory? What does your mom…"

"Dialysis." Tory answered before Sam even finished the question. "She doesn't have longer than a year left. I have to work 3 jobs to earn enough money to pay my mom's hospital bills and pay for my family's livelihood. So if you ever think I'm gonna hurt you from now on, I'm not. Because if I do, I'll be dumped in juvie and I won't be able to ever see my family - the only people I care about in this world - again. My mom won't be able to afford her own hospital bills. My brother will probably be put in the foster care system. So whenever I get angry and snap at you or anyone, just know that it's because I have a lot on my mind."

Sam was speechless. She couldn't believe Tory was going through so much in her life. Before today, all Sam thought Tory was was a selfish, possessive bitch who took things WAY too far in the school fight. Suddenly, Sam understood why Tory did what she did, even if she didn't agree with it. Tory was used to fighting for every little thing that was hers in life. She was used to putting a wall around her emotions in front of everyone in the world. Lowering that wall and letting Miguel in, only to be betrayed by him when he kissed Sam had caused her to explode.

Sam's mouth had gone dry, but she eventually managed to string two words together once she was over her shock.

"Tory, I… um… I'm really sorry. I didn't realise you were going through so much." Sam stammered. Tory shrugged.

"It's fine. I don't advertise it. I just get on with my fucking life." Tory stated. Sam nodded, a new-found appreciation for the woman and her old fear of her forgotten…

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The next morning, as people in the Larusso house started to wake up, Miguel was downstairs. He had been there all night, working extremely hard to create a timeline of every single known move Kreese had made from the moment he enlisted to the moment he burned down the dojo. He had used the information collected by the group to put together a timeline of events, going from Kreese's enlistment to Kreese's creation of Cobra Kai. The various sheets of paper took up the whole living room in the Larusso house.

"Miguel, what are you doing here?" Daniel asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he came downstairs that morning. Miguel turned towards him, exhausted. Miguel hadn't slept a wink that night while he was working, and it clearly showed.

"Oh, hey, Mr. Larusso." Miguel murmured.

"Woah, you look exhausted! Did you even go home last night?" Daniel asked. Miguel shook his head.

"Nah, I was working on this. Look at this, Mr. Larusso." Miguel said, pointing to the massive timeline he had made. Daniel walked over to him, and his eyes widened as he stared at Miguel's findings. One thing was glaringly obvious: there was a period of around a year, when Kreese didn't surface into public but one or two times. The LAPD had given them access to a lot of their old resources, so the empty year period was even more obvious as the activities in the time around it increased. Miguel had made the color of the timeline a rainbow: red was during Kreese's enlistment; orange was his training; yellow was deployment in 'Nam; green was his disappearance period of around a year; blue was when he first opened Cobra Kai; and purple was present day.

"Jesus, Miguel, you made this?! This is incredible!" Daniel exclaimed as he looked at the extremely helpful visual aid Miguel had made.

"Thanks." Miguel murmured, yawning enormously.

"Okay, so, I think we can gather that something happened in this zone." Daniel said, pointing to the empty green spot right after Kreese was discharged.

"He went quiet for the whole year. No public activities. Nothing." Miguel said. "But then he came to life again with purpose. More than ever. He invented Cobra Kai with Silver, and his evil-Kreese reign began."

"But why the hibernation? What happened?" Daniel asked.

"Johnny and I discovered that he was taken as a POW for a couple of days right at the end of his enlistment." Daniel stated. "Maybe his disappearance was due to injury? Or health?"

"Or loss." Miguel murmured, suddenly standing up. "Tragedy. He was mourning during the year. And then blue - opening Cobra Kai - was revenge. It was a plan."

"And now… the purple." Daniel said, pointing to the final color shade on the timeline, which was present day. "He's ready to end this war. So who did he mourn for a whole year? A soldier buddy?"

Miguel shook his head.

"No. He lost more than 200 of his own men in the Vietnam War. One more isn't making a difference to him." Miguel murmured.

"So who?" Daniel asked.

"It's in here. The answer is in here." Miguel said, jabbing at that blank green spot and racking his brain frantically. "I can feel it. I know what the answer is. I just… I got it!"

"What is it?" Daniel asked, intrigued by the way Miguel's mind was flowing. Miguel's brain was working like no one Daniel had ever met before. After this all was over, he was 100% hiring Miguel to work at his dealership. They could use people like Miguel.

"Mr. Larusso, who does Kreese never attack?" Miguel asked. Daniel furrowed his eyebrows, confused.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked. Miguel smiled widely, relieved, and he sat back on the sofa.

"Think about it. We've seen Kreese attack all kinds of people. Old people. Young people. All races. But there is one thing Kreese will never do, and that is allow violence towards a woman." Miguel stated. "Think about it. When your wife slapped him across the face, he did nothing. According to Tory, when her landlord was harassing her, Kreese stepped in and stopped it immediately. Kreese has had plenty of opportunities, but he always refrains around women. However, according to our timeline, he has not had a girlfriend of any kind since his Army days, where he had a long-time girlfriend named Betsy Rose…"

"Who died right before his mourning period began." Daniel finished. He smiled widely at Miguel. "So Betsy died right before he was discharged. She's the one person he has a connection with. If we find her old location, we find Kreese…"

"Bingo." Miguel smiled, lying back on the sofa and falling asleep immediately from exhaustion…