Ok…so I didn't update sooner. That was totally…not my fault. You can't blame me having fun with life. Anyways….please continuing reviewing and read on!

By the way, both Krad and Satoshi will be in the story (they play a main role too!) soon. Satoshi comes into this chapter!

Chapter Two: Brink of Death

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After the conversations between the family members dispersed, Dark went into his room and plopped into his bed. Just what in the world is going to happen…it can't be all that bad can it? Dark flipped onto one side of his body and drifted off to sleep…

Meanwhile, Daisuke was lying on the green couch near a large window in his room. His arms were crossed behind his head and his eyes stared off into the empty space of the dark sky. He blinked for a long time, recalling the conversations of his family he overheard a moment ago. Dark, you're really not going to become a thief will you? That just doesn't make any sense...I know I have heard grandpa talks about our family being thieves. But this just doesn't make any sense! And…and…

All this thinking caused a great pain in Daisuke's head. He let out several small coughs before trying to hold them back. This only caused his body to feel bad. Daisuke crutched up into a small ball, falling asleep as fast as he could so the pain could go away.

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"Morning!" Daisuke's face was bubbly and happy as he walked down the stairs. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he turned his head right and saw his mom in the kitchen. "Morning Mom!"

--- Silence ---

Daisuke continued walking and walked around until he was near his mom. "…Mom?" He tilted his head with his big ruby eyes that stared at his mother's side. "Mom…is everything okay? Why aren't you replying?" Daisuke grew concerned.

Yet there was more silence.

Daisuke's heart began to beat faster. Maybe…maybe it's just a bad day…I should just turn around and say 'morning' to everyone else. Daisuke turned around and saw his grandpa sitting at the table with his cup of tea. "Morning grandpa!"

No one responded.

Daisuke was speechless. Did something happen? Did I do something? Why isn't anyone talking?? Was it because of yesterday?

"Daisuke…"

Daisuke turned around to his mom. "Y-Yes?"

Emiko didn't budge from her original position. She continuously chopped onions with a knife at a constant pace and didn't stop when she heard Daisuke responded. Her mouth opened but decided to shut again.

"M-mom..what's wrong??" Daisuke walked up to Emiko and pulled her by the arm slightly forward and backward. Emiko put the knife down and without a moment hesitation, she slapped Daisuke in the face. A red mark quickly placed itself onto Daisuke's face. Daisuke looked up to his mother with sad eyes and wondered, "W-why Mom?"

Emiko got back into her original position, facing Daisuke only by her side. "It's your fault. It's your fault…Dark's purpose…Dark's purpose was not supposed to help you. His purpose in this world, in this family, is to fulfill the goal of the phantom thief." She turned to Daisuke, who is on the verge of tears, and spoke, "You're in his way. I don't even know why you were born into this family. You have been nothing but a burden in this family."

Tears were streaming from Daisuke's eyes. He turned to his grandpa to see what his reactions would be. He wasn't expecting anything from his grandpa but maybe a small response, anything would do! He didn't understand what was happening. A sharp pain passed his head but Daisuke refused to let his face changed. He could feel the fever coming back. His heart kept beating harder and harder as well as his lungs. To Daisuke, everything felt dizzy. Daisuke ran back upstairs and into his room before dropping onto the floor.

Daisuke was grabbing his neck with one hand like he needed to breathe. Tears were still dripping from his face. Nothing was making any sense. Nothing at all. Everything was so…so happy. What happened? Daisuke pushed himself back up with strong pains still shooting through his body. He wanted to walk to the couch near the window. He slowly pushed his legs to walk to the couch before he collapsed a foot away from the couch. As he was lying on the floor, tears were coming out nonstop. I wished I'd never asked Dark to take me to the fountain! I wished I'd never…I wished I'd never asked anything…

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"Crap…I'm late to school. AGAIN!" Dark ran down the stairs with his backpack flying loose in the air while holding it with one hand. By the time he got down the stairs, Dark expected some kind of breakfast lying out so he could easily grabbed like he usually do. But the moment he saw the kitchen and the table, he was very disappointed.

"Mom…where's breakfast?"

Emiko turned around to Dark and smiled. "I'm so sorry. There will be no breakfast today since I just came back from the stores." Dark gave a face that says 'I don't care' and ran out the door.

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Daisuke could feel he was drifting off into a deep sleep. He pushed himself up one more time and walked over to the restroom that was in his room. He opened the door and slowly shut the door behind him. Looking at the mirror, he saw a pale red-headed kid looking at him back. "It hurts…it really hurts…" Daisuke gave a small sniff and leaned against the restroom's wall. A small memory suddenly recurred in his head that he didn't want to remember.

"Daisuke! Tag me!" A small 10-yr old identical boy to Dark was running around the living room in his house. A smaller version of Daisuke began to chase after Dark. Dark jumped onto the green couch.

"Catch me Daisuke! Catch me!"

Daisuke ran as fast as his little feet could carry him to the couch only to see that Dark jumped off the couch at the last minute.

"No fair!"

"Heesh. You're sooo slow! Can't you go any faster?!" Dark was now across the living room from Daisuke, taunting him so that Daisuke would go tag him.

"HMMMPH!!!" Daisuke puffed up his cheeks and ran again to Dark.

Dark crossed his arms and closed his eyes, turning his head in another direction. "Anytime now Daisuke!" Dark waited for a while but he didn't feel any "tag" from Daisuke. As much as to Daisuke's slow running, it shouldn't take a very long time to tag someone especially if you're standing still. Dark opened his eyes only to see that Daisuke collapsed on the rug in the middle of the room.

"Daisuke!"

----HOSPITAL----

"What were you thinking?!" Emiko was practically shouting at Dark while Dark continued to look at the ground. "You know your brother can't do any physical activities!" Dark began to shake from crying secretly. "I-I'm s-s-sorry. I didn't know this was going to happen!" Emiko, knowing that this was hard on Dark too, embraced Dark for a long time.

"Are you Daisuke's family?" A doctor with a white jacket came out of a room, which was apparently Daisuke's room, and had a deep, concerned face.

Emiko let go of Dark and stood up in a normal position. "Yes, we're his family."

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. Daisuke…Daisuke won't live for a long time. Maybe if he's lucky, he will live through his 15th birthday, but results show that his life will probably end much before that."

Daisuke felt guilt crawling up his spine. It is his fault that the family suffered…It's really his fault. I really shouldn't have been so selfish like that. At that moment, Daisuke opened up a drawer and slowly pulled out a scissor. Daisuke opened up the scissor and placed the sharpest part of the scissor on his right wrist. Everything will be over soon Daisuke pulled the scissor real fast on the wrist; blood started oozing out. Daisuke felt a sense of dizziness but still hanged onto the scissor. Crap…I didn't make it deep enough. Daisuke placed the scissor like a moment ago and was about to repeat the same thing until he felt a presence from behind him.

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Daisuke slowly opened up his eyes…and he didn't recognize his surroundings. He was on a nice, comfy bed with a maroon silk blanket. A small voice croaked out of him, "Where am I?"

"So you're finally awake?"

Daisuke immediately sat up realizing that his upper body was naked. Blushing and scared, Daisuke wrapped the blanket around him.

"Done yet?"

Daisuke looked straight on to see who was talking to him. There he was, sitting in a wooden chair, with crossed arms and crossed legs. Daisuke continued his observations of the boy. The boy looked like his age, or maybe even older. He had blue short hair, wore glasses, and was very clean-looking.

"I see that you're observing me. I'm guessing that you want to know who I am?"

Daisuke gave a small nod.

"I am Satoshi. If it wasn't for me, you would have been dead."

Daisuke stared at Satoshi. "Why did you stop me?"

"What do you mean why? You seriously wanted to die?"

Daisuke looked down at his wrist. His wrist was bandaged up very securely. Without looking up, he mumbled a small 'I don't know'.

Satoshi stood up and walked to where Daisuke was. He gently lifted Daisuke's chin up with his index finger, and his face came up close to Daisuke. "After all, we don't want anything to go wrong." Daisuke gave a puzzled look on his face only making Satoshi chuckled. "I'd helped you excreted some poisons from your body. Things would have not looked so good if it had been a few more hours from when I last took you."

Satoshi backed off and sat on the bed. "Any more questions?"

From the looks of Daisuke, it looked like there was going to be many more questions. "Why did you take me?"

"For personal reasons."

"P-Personal???"

"Ok, not that personal. Sorry, I can't tell you why I took you."

"Ermm…okay…can I go home?"

"And let you try to kill yourself again? No."

"So I can't ever go home??"

"I can't answer you."

"Then what can you answer?"

"You happened to be under a curse. I don't know what happened to you in the past but someone managed to put their magic unto you."

"….Huh?"

"Never mind. Nothing will make any sense to you right now. Everything will make sense later."

"Oh."

Daisuke didn't get anything answered. And he was stuck here in some stranger's house. But for some reason, Daisuke wasn't scared. He wanted to know more about this boy. "S-Sato--" Daisuke got cut off by a touch on the forehead by the finger of Satoshi. The touch paralyzed him and cutting his conscious off from Daisuke. Satoshi pushed his glasses a little up and crossed his arms again. "Now, I'm going to seek you out."

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"Mom, I'm home." Dark was at the doorway taking off his shoes. Without looking up, he past through the kitchen and went up the stairs. He felt more tired today than ever, and he was not in any mood of falling into one of his mother's tricks. He past by Daisuke's room to see if Daisuke was sleeping or drawing. Yet the funny thing was when he past by his room, Daisuke was nowhere to be seen. Finding it odd, Dark walked into the room to see if he just accidentally missed him.

Still, there were no signs of Daisuke in the room.

"Hey, Daisuke! If you're playing hide-n-seek, you win! Now come on out!"

Dark expected the boy to come out but he'd didn't come out. Damn…this is really odd…Dark made a slow scan of the room, from the bed to the windows, yet there were still no signs of Daisuke. Dark turned his body toward the door while his head was still staring at the room, preparing to leave the room. Just as he took one step forward, his eyes caught the restroom with the lights on. I'm getting an odd feeling about this. Didn't I say 'odd' before? Huh, I hardly repeat myself. Damn. Isn't that great Dark? Now you're going crazy.

Dark walked toward the restroom, which the door was slightly open, and opened the door. Scanning the restroom thoroughly, there was nothing that felt out of the norm. Yet, it's better to be careful and check everything thoroughly. He began to open the drawers that were in front of him. Again, nothing out of the norm. Except for one thing: there was scissors. Nothing was particular about the scissors but Dark couldn't help but wonder about this scissor that lay in the drawer. Picking up the scissors, Dark ran his fingers through the two blades that were held together. Moments later, a small stream of blood was trickling down Dark's right index finger.

"Damn! Just what did I do that for!"

In case Daisuke comes back, Dark thought it was better to clean off the blood stain that was on the scissors. Going to the sinks, he placed the scissors under the faucet. Dark turned on the hot water and quickly washed the stain off.

"There…you can't even tell."

He looked up at the mirror and freaked out.

There were words written on the mirror that was in front of him. Dark's mind ran in panic. Just how did that happen! I swear there was nothing before I came in the restroom! Maybe..this is one of those damn spells.

This could be a clue to where Daisuke's whereabouts. So Dark read the words on the mirror:

IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR BROTHER ALIVE,

MEET UP AT 7:00 P.M. TONIGHT

Dark looked at his watch. "30 more minutes…That should give me enough time to go—WAIT. GO WHERE???" Dark grabbed his head in frustration. "DAMN. When you say 'MEET UP', AT least tell me where! Where in the world would they want me to meet them at?!"

Dark immediately dashed out of the restroom and downstairs. His mom and his grandpa were downstairs so the moment he ran past them, they gave him a confused look. Now was not the time to explain to them. He quickly placed on his shoes and ran out of the door.

"Now what???"

Running to every corner of this city was definitely not a good idea. Plus, thirty-minutes were barely any time to run through the whole city. But…it was worth a try. These 30 minutes went by like time was nothing.

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It was almost near 7 o' clock. Dark was at the fountain, taking a break from his continuous running of the whole city. Yet, he couldn't find the people that kidnapped Daisuke. "Damn. Damn. I'm so damn useless." Dark shut his eyes with his hands against his ears.

"You are completely pathetic."

This new tone…Dark opened his eyes and dropping his hands down to his sides. In front of him was a boy with short, blue hair. Suddenly, the words that the boy spurted out against him made him angry. "What the hell did you just say? Say it to my face again!"

The boy crossed his arms, unsurprised. "I said 'You are completely pathetic.'"

Dark couldn't believe this boy. Who was this boy?

The boy made a small grin. "To make this short, I have Daisuke in my hands."

Dark didn't know what to think. This boy was completely be something that he would imagine as the last minute to kidnap a boy. But now wasn't the time to think about the motives of the kidnap. Dark grabbed the boy's shirt with a fist ready in the air. "What do you want with Daisuke!? You better give him back or you will never hear the end of it."

The boy was unmoved. "I recommend you to not do anything to me otherwise you will never see Daisuke again." Dark released the boy out of his grasps. "Fine. But what will I have to do to get him back?"

"You're straight to the business aren't you? Good."

"I'm listening."

"Daisuke's chained up at the top of the hill that I will lead to you later. You can get him there."

Dark felt a strong rage going through his mind. "Chained? You are sick. Why did you chain him? And why are you doing this?!"

The boy made a smirked. "Otherwise, I will not get what I want."

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I have the latest 2007 Microsoft Word, and it's sooo amazing. I really like how they reformatted everything (shiny!). I'm so addicted to using my word all the times now. And the real reason why I haven't updated sooner was because I was watching Yuyu Hakusho straight. I'm still not done with watching it because I'm on the very last season and I want to enjoy the last minutes of it (I enjoy Yuyu Hakusho a lot).

I was about to make this chapter have more actions (drama too?) but I haven't really thought out what is going to happen next. Plus, this chapter was overdue. Haha. So can't really give a summary what's going to happen next because I have no idea myself. Anyways, please review!