CHAPTER 47

"Oh, my God. I can't believe I got it." Miguel murmured to himself, pacing around the room triumphantly. At this point, Amanda and Sam had come downstairs too, and Daniel had briefed them on everything that Miguel had discovered. Because it wasn't Daniel who had made the breakthrough, he wasn't very good at explaining it. And Miguel was no help. He seemed to be in some kind of a trance, and he was completely out of it. Sam slowly got up and walked over to him, taking his hands in her own.

"Okay, Miguel, calm down. Slow down and explain everything." Sam said, calmly. She seemed to be able to break Miguel out of the trance he was in. Before he could start to explain, the door to the house swung open and Johnny and Robby walked into the house.

"Yo, Larusso, why'd you call us?" Johnny asked as him and Robby walked into the living room.

"Your amazing step-son just solved the whole case!" Daniel exclaimed. Johnny and Robby turned to Miguel, astonished.

"You did?!" Johnny exclaimed. Miguel slowly nodded. He seemed to be extremely preoccupied. Like he was having some kind of internal battle in his head.

"Well, what did you find out?" Robby asked, eagerly. "And please explain in English. I don't speak nerd."

Miguel rolled his eyes and began talking in an extremely quiet tone. He didn't seem to be too well. He was extremely pale, and beads of sweat gleaned on his forehead. He looked pretty sick, to be honest.

"I, um… I used all of the information we have to make a rainbow timeline of Kreese's life. Red was his enlistment, orange was his training; yellow was deployment in 'Nam; blue was when he first opened Cobra Kai; and purple was present day. As you can see, there is a green period of around a year that he doesn't go out in public at all."

"Maybe it was because he was recovering from when he was taken as a POW at the end of his tour in Vietnam?" Robby suggested. Miguel suggested.

"Nah. Kreese has lost hundreds of his own men in 'Nam. It wasn't that. It was the death of his girlfriend Betsy Rose during the time he was deployed. Kreese was mourning her death. That's why he didn't go out in public too much. Then, when he did come out a year later, it was with new fire, and it was all about vengeance and revenge."

"But how are you sure it was about his girlfriend? I mean, no offense but Kreese doesn't really seem like the kind of person who dates." Johnny remarked. Miguel nodded.

"Let me paint you guys a picture." Miguel mumbled. "Kreese is a young teenager from an extremely poor neighborhood. His dad left his family when he was very young, and his mom - a woman suffering from dementia - killed herself all before he was even 14. That's bound to cause some severe abandonment issues. Now, Kreese is forced to work 12 hours a day to support himself without parents. He meets a girl, a girl who is able to see past all of his issues and love him anyways. Then he joins the Army and gets deployed to 'Nam, and he goes through ALL of the shit he goes through in Special Ops, holding onto the single string that his girlfriend is waiting for him back home. That's the reason he stayed alive. That's how he survived being imprisoned. But then, after being discharged from the military as a hero, he finds out that the one person who didn't abandon him during the tough times, the one person who gave him a reason to live, has died in a car crash months ago. That's enough to really fuck up someone's life. And it makes sense too. Why is Kreese, a man who was willing to kill 3 kids, not willing to EVER lay a hand on a woman? Why did Kreese risk his livelihood to threaten Tory's jackass landlord? It all revolves around Betsy. And then, after a year of mourning, he was ready for revenge. He hated everyone. He wanted to die. But first, he needed to get revenge on the world for royally fucking him."

With that, Miguel collapsed back onto the sofa. He was absolutely exhausted. He could feel his mental illness bubbling up inside him, but he forced himself to push it away. Not now. He couldn't go crazy right now.

"What the fuck? That's it! That's actually it! Miguel, you genius!" Robby exclaimed. Miguel didn't feel like a genius though. He felt like he was about to pass out from the effort of holding back his brain. Miguel suddenly got up.

"I'm sorry. I've got to go." He murmured, before sprinting out of the house. As he left, the group all looked at each other worried and confused. What was going on with Miguel? He did not look okay!

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Miguel sped over to his house, sprinted inside and immediately collapsed on his bed. He could feel the manicness rising inside him and the only way he knew how to get rid of it was sleeping. He fell asleep right away, not even pulling the blanket on top of him or anything. He literally fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow, ignoring his mom who was extremely concerned when he ran inside. She knew about his sickness, but she was the only one.

A couple of hours later, when Miguel hadn't yet come back to the Larusso House, the group started to get extremely worried. They all drove over to Miguel's house, and they knocked on the door. Carmen opened it, surprised to see them.

"Oh, um… hi. Can I help you guys?" She asked.

"Is Miguel okay?" Johnny asked, immediately, as him, Daniel, Sam, Robby, Amanda stood in the doorway.

"Yeah, he's just sleeping. Why?" Carmen asked.

"Um… Carmen, Miguel didn't look very well this morning." Johnny said. Carmen looked at him, confused, for several moments before realisation dawned on her. Her mouth made a massive 'O' and she slowly nodded.

"Let me guess… Miguel solved a massive problem that none of you guys could solve. He put together pieces of a puzzle that none of you could see, but then right after, he looked really ill like he was about to pass out?"

Everyone nodded.

"Yeah, exactly! Is he okay?" Daniel asked. Carmen opened the door, wider.

"Why don't you guys come in? We need to talk…"

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"So what's wrong with Miguel? You don't seem very surprised about any of this." Johnny remarked as the group all sat in the living room. Carmen shook her head.

"No, I'm not. I remember Miguel was 6 years old, I gave him a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and he completed it within 3 hours. And then he was extremely sick for a couple of weeks." Carmen stated. "We knew there was something different about him that day so we took him to a bunch of doctors. They all ended up diagnosing Miguel with an uncommon mental health disorder called…"

"Low Latent Inhibition." Miguel stated. Everyone jumped in surprise and spun around to see Miguel walking out of his room and walking over to them.

"What is it?" Robby asked, at a loss. He had no idea what Low Latent Inhibition was. Well, none of them did.

"It basically is a disorder that allows me to see things differently to everyone else." Miguel said, before walking over to them and pointing to the lamp that was in the corner of the room. "Like for example, you look at this lamp and you see just a lamp, right? But when I see the lamp, I see the stem, the bulb, the bolts, the mechanisms inside. That's why I want to be a Formula 1 race car engineer when I'm older. I see small parts and I connect them to form a big object really well."

"Wait… that's like a superpower!" Robby exclaimed. Miguel shook his head.

"There are drawbacks, trust me. You guys have it easy. You can walk around and look at various things and just see them how they are. A table. A chair. A lamp. Etc. But for me, seeing every small part of every object is exhausting and terrifying so I force myself to see things the way you do, only using my abilities when I really, really need to. As my doctor said, using my illness on occasion can cause high level creative achieving. But using it too much can easily cause psychosis. I pushed myself too far last night and I could feel a manic episode coming on, hence me running out."

Everyone was shocked, but not exactly surprised. Miguel had always been extraordinarily good at solving puzzles and putting things together. Abnormally so. They just didn't realise everything he went through on a daily basis.

"Oh, my God. Miguel, I'm so sorry. We had no idea." Johnny said. Miguel shook his head and shrugged.

"Don't be. It's not your fault. And besides, I've found a way to channel it so it does work as a gift a lot of the time like Robby said. It's just on occasion that I push myself too far, and all it takes is a nap to get my head back to normal. All right, now, are we ready to get back to work? We have practically no information about Betsy Rose and if we want to find Kreese, we're gonna need to find some."

Miguel was trying to change the subject. He did NOT like talking about his mental health disorder. Even the word 'mental health disorder' made him feel like he should be in an insane asylum, and the looks of pity and sympathy he would get back in Ecuador when people would find out about it were not nice at all. That's why nobody in L.A knew about it but his mom. Well, his mom and now the whole group.

Daniel sensed Miguel was trying to change the topic and he nodded.

"Yeah, Miguel's right. Everyone try and find any information you can about Betsy Rose, and her relationship with Kreese. Let's get to work…"

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For the next couple of days, the group started looking for any information about Betsy they could, but with little to no success. Despite being granted access to the LAPD's resources, there really wasn't much to look for as Betsy had died almost 50 years ago.

The group sat in the Larusso house around a week later, trying desperately to find any information they possibly could about Kreese and Betsy. Miguel needed some air and he wanted peace and quiet so he walked out into the Larusso backyard, and he sat on a chair at the lawn table, pouring over his laptop and his notes. He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't even notice someone slipping into the chair opposite him.

"Hey." The person said. Miguel jumped in shock, and his head snapped up to see Amanda sitting opposite him. She laughed when she saw his reaction. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!"

"It's fine, Mrs. Larusso." Miguel laughed. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"About 5 minutes." Amanda replied honestly, laughing. "You hadn't noticed and I didn't want to disturb you."

"Well, I guess if I didn't notice you for 5 whole minutes, that's a sign that I should take a break." Miguel remarked. "What's up?"

Amanda looked at him and took a deep breath.

"So I've been doing some research on Low Latent Inhibition for the past week and then I looked at the Kreese puzzle you had put together. You know you're certifiably a genius, Miguel."

Miguel laughed.

"Wow, thanks. Just a little bit of exaggeration there, huh?" Miguel replied. Amanda shook her head.

"No, I'm serious! Apparently, according to a LOT of websites I read, people who are able to channel their disorder like you can… they go on to do incredible things in life. And based on what you did last week, you're definitely one of those people, Miguel."

"Aww, that's sweet. Thanks. It means a lot." Miguel responded.

"Miguel, you've done so much for my family. I'm not talking about the stupid, dumbass karate war…"

"Ouch, that one hurts." Miguel joked, clutching his chest. Amanda laughed and continued.

"...That those two man-children inside started. I'm talking about how happy you've made Sam this year. You've had a massive positive impact on my daughter, and I wanted to thank you for it. I remembered that you said last week that you wanted to be a supercar engineer when you grew up. As you know, Daniel and I own the biggest dealership in the Valley, so I have quite a few contacts in that community. I made a few calls, pulled a few strings, and I got you an internship at the McLaren dealership."

Miguel's jaw dropped.

"Are you serious?" Miguel stammered. Amanda couldn't help but laugh at the flabbergasted expression on his face, and she nodded.

"Yup. It doesn't pay that much, but it's definitely a starting point for you if you want to become an F1 car engineer one day. It's completely up to you whether you want to take the job or not…"

"Are you kidding? Of course I'd love to take the job!" Miguel exclaimed. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Larusso!"

"No problem. It was my pleasure." Amanda replied, giving him a hug. "You've done so much for my daughter and my husband. You deserve it."

Miguel's eyes widened.

"Husband… Husband… Husband… Holy Crap! Mrs. Larusso, you genius! That's it!" Miguel exclaimed, running over to his laptop and typing wildly.

"I'm sorry, what?" Amanda asked, completely at a loss. Moments later, Miguel stopped typing, and he sat back in his chair, triumphantly.

"Boom. Did it. I found Kreese." Miguel stated. Amanda was even more confused.

"Huh?" She asked, dumbfounded.

"Well, I found out a while ago that Kreese and Betsy actually got eloped around halfway through Kreese's tour when he got a month of vacation time. When they got eloped, they had their marriage certificate mailed to their first place together because this was well before email, right? So I now just went to the courthouse website, clicked 'lost marriage certificate', and it automatically offered to send the new one to the same location as the last one, which is… 399 W 9th St, San Bernardino, California…"