Killer Instinct - 28 Rehabilitation

*There are quite a lot of events that have occurred after that first incident with his strange yet fascinating state of violent behavior that has been deeply repressed.* Katz thought as many lines of text appeared on the monitor.

“Mea, is this everything?” Katz asked once the lines of text stopped.

“Yeah, that’s all,” Mea replied, her disembodied voice echoed from the monitor. “I do have to say, this boy has some interesting memories locked away in that mind of his.”

“Send it to my computer, Mea,” Katz said, seating himself at a nearby chair with a big yet smaller monitor than the center monitor, accompanied with complex keys and switches.

“Are you going to hear my requests, as you promised?” Mea asked.

“Yes, I will,” Katz replied. “After I help this boy, I will grant you your wish. You can ask for whatever you want.”

“You better,” Mea said. She then appeared on the screen again. Her eyes glowed once again and the text was replaced by a loading bar with the text: Uploading Data To Monitor 2.

Then in quick succession, the series of text appeared on Katz’s monitor. Katz caught several interesting words as the text was being uploaded.

Bloodlust. Insanity. Demon.

Murder.

*This is getting quite interesting.* Katz thought, smiling.

~7 years ago; After First Awakening~

Karma, carrying Josh, walked with Shirohana toward Josh’s house.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that for me,” Shirohana said. “Thank you so much, Karma,”

“It’s no problem,” Karma replied, smiling. “I did what I had to do. They were really stepping out of their boundaries.”

The afternoon was cool. A light breeze blew through them. Shirohana’s white silky hair fluttered in the wind. Everything seemed fine after that incident.

Or so Karma thought.

“Thank you so much again,” Shirohana said when they arrived at Josh’s house.

“No problem,” Karma said. “As I said, I did what I felt I needed to do at the time. Are you sure you are going to be okay from here?”

“Yes. I can’t trouble you any further,” Shirohana replied. “Ms. Somen will take care of us.”

“Alright then,” Karma said. “I’m going to head home now.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow,” Shirohana said, smiling.

Karma blushed and walked away. He was both tired and happy. He just wanted to go home and sleep the night away.

Suddenly…

“Argh!” Karma exclaimed, clutching his head. It started to hurt all of a sudden. It felt like his brain was about to burst.

Then a voice came. It was the same voice that Karma heard that offered him power to fight that high schooler.

– Do you think you can restrain me? –

“Who are you?!” Karma exclaimed, holding his head tighter.

– I am you. The deepest part of you. The you that holds all of your darkest desires. –

“No! You are not!” Karma screamed. “I don’t desire to hurt anyone! ”

– Are you sure? If that was so, why didn’t you try and stop me when I was beating them up? You stopped me from hurting that weak white-haired girl, but you made no effort to stop me when I was beating up the high schooler and his sister. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it if I recalled. –

“No! I was not sane!” Karma exclaimed. “I just wanted to teach them a lesson! You are the one who took it too far!”

– You had the ability to stop me. But you didn’t. You are also guilty. –

“I am not!” Karma exclaimed, his head pounding. “Just… Get out of my head! I don’t want anything to do with you anymore!”

The voice did not reply and Karma’s head pains slowly started to lessen.

*W… What the hell was that?* Karma thought, breathing heavily.

After resting and thinking for a few minutes, he started to walk home.

When he neared his house, his mother was there, waiting for him with a stern face. When she saw him up close, she was horrified.

“Karma! What happened to you?!” she exclaimed. “Why do you have bruises on you face?!”

“I…” Karma began, but he did not want to worry her. So he lied. “I… fell down the stairs.”

But she was very intuitive, especially when it came to her son and knew that wasn’t the case.

“Don’t lie to me,” she said sternly. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Karma gave in and told her what happened. But he twisted the occurrences a bit. He didn’t mention the voice in his head, his headaches and how he wasn’t sane when he was fighting.

Karma’s mom let out a sigh and smiled.

“Though I don’t really approve of you getting into fights, you did the right thing,” she said. “You defended a girl when she was being violated. Come, let’s treat those wounds of yours.”

Karma nodded and followed his mother into the house. They went upstairs to her room and he sat down on a chair. His mom applied some medicinal cream to Karma’s bruises and the pain slowly started to fade.

But as she was treating his wounds, his head began hurting. It was pounding heavily.

“Argh!” he screamed as he fell from the chair. The pain was stronger and he felt he would lose consciousness any minute.

“Karma!” his mom exclaimed in worry. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?!”

“M… My head,” Karma replied. “It hurts… Argh!”

“I’m going to call for help,” his mom said. “Here, lie down on my bed.”

His mom reached to help Karma get up, but Karma suddenly grabbed her arm with tremendous force.

“Ow!” his mom exclaimed in pain. “Karma?”

In a swift motion, Karma pushed her down, each hand grasping her arms with force.

“Karma?” his mom asked in surprise. “Karma, let go of me. What are you doing?”

Then she froze. When she saw her son’s face, she was terrified. It was an expression of murderous intent.

Then he started to choke her. She tried to take his hands off of her and also tried to push him away, but he would not even budge.

“Kar-ma…” she said weakly. “Pl…ease…let go.”

At those words, Karma suddenly let go. His face was full of fear and guilt. His mom coughed and tried to gather her breath.

“Kar-ma…?” his mom asked, still shaken up. “Why did you do that?”

“I…” Karma began. “I’m sorry!”

And with that, he ran to his room and locked the door.

*What the hell did I just do?!” Karma screamed in his head. *I just tried to kill my mom! What the fuck is wrong with me?! *

Then, for the first time in a long while, he began to cry. His anger at himself turned into sadness and depression.

Then he heard a knock on his door.

“Karma?” his mom called. “Karma, please open the door.”

“I-I can’t,” Karma said through tears. “I can’t risk the possibility I will go mad and try to attack you again.”

“Let me help,” his mom said. “We can work through this.”

“Please… Please just go away!” Karma shouted. “I.. I just want to be alone right now.”

His mom did not reply and the knocking stopped. A few seconds later, she spoke.

“… Let me know if you need anything.”

Karma then heard her walking off. He put his face into his arms.

It was a long night for the both of them.