Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the middle of a completely dark area, energy pulsed into existence as a steady silence rang, almost deafening in the already dark and quiet area before another pulse followed closely by a third. Then once more, the pulses stopped altogether before the space around the area warped and rumbled threateningly.

“I’m coming for you Princess of Flame.” A dark voice which seemed to overlap with many other tiny voices growled lowly. “And all the Warriors you have by your side won’t be enough to protect you from my wrath and your destiny! Those who stand in my way won’t live long enough to save the digital world from its doom.”

A bright light enveloped the seemingly empty area briefly before it was gone, and the darkness once more took over in the dark abyss.

Monday (8:00 am)

⸺

Yagami Hikari sighed as she walked into class that day, expecting Daisuke to be jumping over himself just to come and greet her before Takeru did. But the brunette was slightly surprised when he didn’t after a few minutes. Glancing around, she found him looking out the window in their class, face blank and contemplative as he stared at the flood of students outside.

‘He hasn’t noticed me yet…’ She thought before roughly shaking her head. ‘Of course he shouldn’t be so eager now! I’m dating Takeru. I don’t have time to feed his dream anymore… I have to worry about my own relationship finally.’

At least, that’s what Hikari told herself. To be perfectly honest, she missed his constant attempts of wooing her. It livened her day and reminded her about the determination the burgundy haired male always had, that had saved their lives on multiple occasions. But she didn’t have to think like that for long before her boyfriend walked into the classroom.

“Kari!” The blond smiled with a wave as he called her childhood nickname. She turned around, face lightening up upon seeing the hat wearing teen. “Sorry I’m late.”

“It’s no problem silly.” She beamed pecking him on the lips, he returned her smile with one of his own wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close to himself. She briefly thought about bringing up the fact that Daisuke hadn’t acknowledged her to him but decided against it for the moment. “I heard we’re getting new students.”

“Really?” He tilted his head, eyes shining curiously. “We don’t get too many of those.”

The last time they had a transfer student was last year with Takeru and now they have a bunch of them.

“I hope we all get along.” He chuckled remembering how Daisuke treated him like he was the enemy for most of their first year together.

“Yeah,” The brunette chuckled back. “Don’t need a repeat of Mr. Hot-Head.”

“Speaking of which,” Takeru looked over her shoulder. “Where is Daisuke?”

“He’s over at his desk,” Hikari admitted, glancing at the burgundy haired male. “He hasn’t moved since I’ve been here. Just sitting there, looking out the window.”

Takeru followed her gaze, frowning softly. Daisuke and his relationship had improved since the duo of Hope and Light started dating and the taller male had taken the time to try and get to know the other more. “Really? Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” The brunette smiled before looking back towards their leader. She was sure he’d be fine…he usually was. Takeru didn’t look convinced but let it go as they went to their seats.

The duo talked for a bit more before the teacher walked in, followed by four children behind him, two girls and two boys. “Good morning class. Today we have some new students joining us for the remainder of the year. Now, if you would introduce yourselves.”

The shorter girl came forward first to write her name on the board. She was wearing a pair of gray cargo pants, a red long sleeved over shirt with a yellow shirt underneath it with an orange symbol on the center, almost like it was emblazoned on it in fire, and a pair of square goggles around her neck. She had reddish brown eyes with long wild brown hair tied into a high ponytail. “Hi there, my name is Kanbara Takuya. I recently moved here from Shibuya for a change in scenery, as my mom put it.. I love soccer and I hope to get along with you all.”

As she bowed, the blonde next to her picked up the chalk next to write her name on the board. The blond was wearing a mid sleeved dark purple cardigan over a lighter lavender shirt that had a symbol glowing brightly in the middle, shimmering slightly like wind blowing fairy dust, she was wearing a skirt that went slightly above her knees with a blue pair of shorts underneath and showing slightly. The girl's blond hair was long and her eyes were a beautiful light teal as she smiled at the class. “Orimoto Izumi. I’m half-Japanese and half-Italian. I also moved from Shibuya but mostly for my dad’s job. Let’s all get along together from now on.”

After Izumi finished her speech, a long haired teen stepped forward after writing his name on the board but he didn’t seem too eager to introduce himself, his cold dark blue eyes scanning over the class slightly, before closing. He was wearing a black zip up hoodie with a dark blue shirt underneath with a symbol placed in the middle, the symbol looking like it was glowing in light against the dark blue with a pair of black jeans on his lower half. “Minamoto Kouji. Came from Shibuya.” He seemed done until the brunet next to him elbowed him harshly in the side. He glared at her only for Izumi to do the same before he sighed. “I like kendo and I have a twin brother.” 

That seemed to pacify both girls as they smiled and went back to standing by innocently. The last boy stood forward, a shy smile on his face as he wrote his name on the board. Hikari noticed that he had the same face as the boy before him but his dark hair only went to his shoulders. He was wearing a mahogany colored long sleeved over shirt with a forest green shirt underneath it with a symbol in the middle, darker than his hair yet it still seemed to shine in certain lighting with a pair of khaki colored long jeans. “I’m Kimura Kouichi. I’m from Shibuya. I’m the twin Kouji mentioned…I hope we get along for the remainder of the year.”

The teacher nodded towards them with a polite smile. “Kanbara-kun, you can sit next to Motomiya-kun. Kimura-kun and Minamoto-kun, there are two seats open in the back and Orimoto-kun, there is a seat open next to Ichijou-kun.”

The students went to the seats assigned to them for the time being and class resumed as normal. At some point the teacher told them they could work together in groups up to six, Takeru and Hikari were slightly surprised when, instead of joining their group, Daisuke stayed with Takuya and her friends, Ken coming over to join the Children of Light and Hope.

“Looks like Dai’s just as good at making friends as always,” The indigo haired male smiled, not noticing Hikari’s slight frown.

“But we always work together…” Hikari trailed off slightly, a little put off in the way Daisuke was not hanging with them. It felt like the child of Miracles was avoiding them for some odd reason.

“Well, it’s okay.” soothed Takeru, shooting Hikari a strange look. “It happens. People make friends and try to get to know them better.”

“I guess…” The brunette still wasn’t sure about the situation but let it go at the blonde’s reassurance. “Well, let’s get started.”

The whole time they worked though, Hikari couldn’t keep her eyes off of Daisuke and the new kids who surrounded him. The burgundy haired teen was smiling slightly at something Kouji and Takuya said, the duo smiling back at the usually over the top teen. The child of Light couldn’t help but feel like something was missing as they worked and she could tell the other’s picked up on it as they attempted to make her feel better as they worked.

⸺

Monday (8:00 am)

⸺

Motomiya Daisuke sighed as he stared at the flood of students that made their way to the school, meeting up with friends along the way, having fun the whole way. He knew Hikari was bound to make an appearance soon and would be expecting him to be in a rush to greet him but he couldn’t find it in him to jump at the chance.

‘What’s the point anymore?’ He thought, eyes tearing slightly. ‘She already made her choice. Hell, everyone’s already made their choice. It’s always going to be Takeru over me.’

He’d been noticing a pattern in the way his…’friends’ treated him and Takeru. It started in the Digital World where everyone would choose Takeru’s idea over Daisuke’s. Then it began to transfer over to the Real World where everyone would listen to Takeru speaking and ignore him completely unless he was causing a ruckus or being overly loud. Then, they just called him annoying, obnoxious or childish.

‘I’ll never really compare to him…’ Daisuke knew in his heart that this was mostly caused by his recently diagnosed depression. He’d spoken to Taichi about it and the former leader told him that it was okay to feel like this as long as he told someone. He’d tried to talk to the other’s in his group but they had been too busy recently doing other things now that the Digital World was safe for the time being. ‘Maybe my therapist was right. I just need to find friends who won’t constantly compare me to Takeru.’

He’d accepted the fact that Hikari loved Takeru and he wasn’t about to stand in the way of their relationship. He’d just been feeling left out recently and really alone. 

Ken lived in Tamachi and was still getting his feet back under him with his parents, Daisuke wasn’t about to intrude on that. Yolei had her own family with her many siblings that needed her attention and besides, Daisuke felt like she would just say it was all in his head anyway. Cody, while more mature than others his age, was just a kid. He didn’t need Daisuke dropping his problems on top of him.

Takeru was out of the question since the blonde was the reason for these doubts, mostly, and it would feel awkward to talk to him about it. Hikari was out of the equation as well. Ever since the Digital World, he’d felt like she really only spoke to him since he was Taichi’s kouhai and successor and the way things had been going recently hadn’t helped.

Logically, he knew he could talk to Yamato but unlike his own sister, who barely paid him the time of day, Yamato and Takeru had a really great relationship and the burgundy haired boy already knew how the older child of Friendship felt about Daisuke talking bad about siblings, so that was a no go.

So, he’d spoken to Taichi but told the older one not to tell the others. Taichi had sworn to it but if it ever got out of hand and Daisuke did more than just get lost in a spiral, Taichi was going to tell everything, for Daisuke’s own safety.

It just made Daisuke admire and respect him more.

‘But I can’t always rely on Taichi-senpai.’ Daisuke mentally sighed, closing his eyes in thought. ‘And Chibimon can only help so much when it comes to this.’  

The little blue dragon had been worried and tried to support his partner as much as possible, even though he didn’t fully understand it. All he knew was that sometimes Daisuke’s head filled with endless self-hating thoughts and that he simply needed someone to cheer him up, so Chibimon decided to do that to the best of his abilities and it usually worked.

But there was nothing the digimon could do while Daisuke was in class or at soccer practice. So they worked together. If Daisuke had a bad day, he’d tell either Taichi or Chibimon and when Daisuke was home and seemed off, Chibimon would keep an eye on him just in case and try to cheer him up to chase the voices away.

‘And now, I need to find something to focus on.’ The teen blinked emptily outside, unaware of his teacher currently talking about one thing or another.

“Hiya!” Until a cheery voice sounded next to him. Turning around, he was surprised to see a young girl with brown hair and eyes sitting next to him. “From the looks of it, you weren’t paying much attention, huh, buddy?”

“Er…” Daisuke felt his cheeks flush a bit as the girl chuckled.

“Lemme fill ya in.” She held out a petite hand his way. “Names Kanbara Takuya. I’m new here.”

“Uh, Motomiya Daisuke,” He shook the offered hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“I heard you’re the captain of the soccer team here,” Takuya whispered, highly aware of the teacher looking at them from the corner of his eye. “Care to tell me if there are any open positions for a female?”

“We don’t discriminate in this house,” Daisuke grinned, a real one for the first time in a while. “I’ll tell Coach you’re coming down to try out.”

“Cool.” Then she faced forward as their teacher droned on before assigning a group work. “Do you wanna work with me and my friends? Nobody knows this, but we knew each other before we all moved to Odaiba.”

“Sure!” Daisuke agreed, maybe a tad too enthusiastically, but he couldn’t help it. This is what he was looking for. A group of people who wanted to hang with him and didn’t know Takeru.

“Alright, but I’m only introducing them once!” Takuya winked his way and he pouted in her direction before they moved to where the other new kids had been seated. He was distantly aware of Ken moving to where Hikari and Takeru were, since they usually worked together. “Hey guys, this kid was zoned out while we were introducing ourselves. Why don’t we do it again for him?”

“Sure,” The blonde smiled. “Hi, I’m Orimoto Izumi.”

“Minamoto Kouji,” The long haired one to her left nodded his way, adjusting his desk slightly.

“And I’m Kimura Kouichi.” The soft spoken voice nearly gave him a heart attack. He didn’t notice the other there at all.

“Nice to meet you all,” Daisuke took a seat next to Takuya who’d seated herself next to Kouji. “Motomiya Daisuke at your service.”

“Now!” Takuya clapped her hands together in a playfully loud voice. “Did anyone catch what the assignment was because I for one was not paying attention!”

Izumi giggled as Kouichi shook his head but there was a fond sort of look to the movement as Kouji’s eyebrow twitched and Daisuke couldn’t help but snort at the look.

“Do you ever pay attention, Gogglehead?” Kouji was trying to sound exasperated but it came off more as a playful jab as Takuya growled back, face flushing.

“Only when it actually concerns me!” She huffed, looking to the side and Daisuke couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, unable to keep a straight face. He slowly quieted down, noticing the other’s staring at him and he instantly thought he’d messed up already.

“U-Uh…” Wracking his head, Daisuke tried to figure out what was wrong. “S-Sorry for being too loud…?”

“What-?” Kouji looked confused before shaking his head. “Why would you—?”

“No no,” Kouichi followed his brother's movement. “It’s just you looked so serious when we walked in…”

“I didn’t expect you to be much of a laugher…” admitted Izumi, poking two fingers together shyly.

“You have a really nice laugh,” Takuya bluntly stated with a smile. “That’s what they’re trying to say. I think so too. And a nice smile.”

Daisuke felt his own face heat up as Takuya’s friends scolded her about saying things like that with a straight face, the female gogglehead brushing her friends off.

‘This…is great!’

Monday (12:00 pm)

⸺

Hikari was eager to go to the cafeteria. It was lunch time and Daisuke always sat with them at lunch. So, new friends or not, their leader was sure to arrive at their usual table and greet them all. As her, Takeru and Ken made their way, she couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Without Daisuke’s usual complaining about school work, the aura was more…tame and quiet.

Glancing around, hoping to catch sight of him, she instead saw him with the new kids, talking animatedly and gesturing a lot with his hands, as he tended to do. ‘Funny, I used to think that annoyed me…’  

As they made it inside, she caught sight of Miyako and Iori already in line. Takeru and her made a beeline for the lunch line, not wanting it to grow out of control and they would be left with nastier food than before as Ken went to secure them a table in the jungle known as the cafe.

“Do you think Daisuke is going to eat with us?” Takeru asked as they waited, blue eyes pointedly staring forward.

“Of course,” Hikari was confused by the question. “Why wouldn’t he? He always sits with us.”

“Hikari-chan,” Now, Takeru looked a bit uncomfortable. “He hasn’t been eating with us for like a week.”

“Huh?” No, she was sure he was there. He would constantly fight with Takeru about who could sit next to her…huh? That was…a week ago, like Takeru said. “When did he…?”

“Yeah, he told us that he’d been bringing his own lunch and eating in the classroom.” frowned Takeru. “You don’t remember?”

“Er…not really.” She shrugged a bit, not understanding how she forgot that piece of information. “But do you think he’ll sit with us today?”

“I don’t see him in the cafeteria,” Takeru was using his superior height to look around. “Yeah, not seeing him.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped a bit. So maybe she can talk to him later when they went to grab the digimon from the computer lab. “I guess we can catch him after class and head to the computer lab to pick up our digimon. I don’t know why, but it feels like I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“You’re right,” Takeru shot her a soft smile and Hikari returned the gesture as they finally got their food and made their way to the table Ken grabbed, Yolei and Iori alright sitting and talking animatedly with the child of Kindness. “Hey guys.”

“Hikari-chan!” Her jogress partner waved at her. “You’ll never guess what happened! Iori and I both got new kids in our class! How rare is that?”

“Funny, we did too.” Hikari smiled as she sat down. “We got four new kids. Two girls and two boys, how about you guys?”

“A new boy named Shibayama Junpei,” Yolei sighed dreamily. “He’s kinda cute.”

“I have a boy named Himi Tomoki,” Iori responded quietly, picking at his food. “He seemed really nice but didn’t seem to really want to socialize. I think he was kinda shy on his first day.”

“That’s understandable,” nodded Ken, unwrapping his bento. “A lot of people are usually nervous on their first days. Although, Daisuke made friends with them almost immediately in our class.”

“That’s right,” Hikari smiled, but she felt like she forced it, even though no one seemed to notice. “They even worked on the class assignment together.”

“Well you know that guy,” snorted Miyako, not exactly the picture of lady-like with that noise. “He’s so annoying he’d talk to the wall if it meant hearing his own voice.”

Takeru chuckled and Hikari laughed, the two of them imagining the sight while Iori frowned and Ken scrunched up his nose. “That’s not very nice.”

“Oh come on,” Takeru waved the other off. “Daisuke is always talking. The guy loves the sound of his own voice.”

“And remember all the times he’s been so dramatic!” laughed Hikari, not thinking this to be rude but rather slightly amusing. Everyone picked fun on their friend every now and then. “Remember the first time he met V-mon?”

“You should have seen his face when Patamon digivolved into Angemon,” countered Takeru, having the same thought process as Hikari. “Priceless.”

“Well, that’s not very fair,” Iori countered, looking at his older friends with a face full of disapproval. “We were used to seeing Pegasusmon and we were all shocked when we first went to the Digital World and met our partners.”

“Yeah but the guy is the king of drama,” chortled Yolei as she began to tuck into her own lunch.

⸺

Monday (12:00 pm)

⸺

Daisuke was ready to eat lunch by himself in the classroom again but was shocked when Takuya and Kouji each hooked an arm around his own and began to leave with him. “C’mon buddy, you didn’t think that after the fun you showed us during class that we’d leave you by yourself during lunch?”

“That aside,” Kouji continued, loosening his grip. “You can show us where the cafeteria is.”

“And!” squealed Izumi, dragging a slightly flustered Kouichi after her. “You can meet some of our friends. They transferred here too. Tomoki-kun is younger than us and Junpei-senpai is older so they’re probably waiting for us. They’re going to adore you!”

Daisuke blushed but consented as they made their way to the cafeteria. “Sure, maybe you can meet some friends of my own.”

“Molto Buono!” Izumi cheered as the group walked.

As they made their way to the cafeteria, Daisuke told them about how great his friends were, a small ball forming in his stomach, scared that they would all think Takeru was better than him as well, mentally kicking himself the whole time.

They soon ran into the duo that the new kids were talking about. One was a really tall light brunette with spiky hair and kind brown eyes. He was wearing a long sleeved blue shirt with an electric yellow symbol in the middle, the yellow almost moving like electricity against the blue and a pair of jeans as he waved. The other was smaller than the others, a small orange beret on his head, showing off the mousy brown-gray hair on his head in a fluffy manner and big green-blue eyes that twinkled with mischief. He was wearing a sky blue shirt with an ice blue symbol in the middle and cargo pants much like Takuya only baggier.

“There you guys are,” The spikey haired brunette sighed. “I thought Takuya got you lost thinking she knew the way around the school already.”

“Rude!” Takuya huffed, narrowing her eyes at the brunette. “I don’t always get lost Junpei-senpai!”

“Ugh! Please don’t call me that,” Junpei shuddered. “That’s not the Takky I know.”

“And besides,” The smaller boy giggled, wrapping his arms around Takuya in a hug. “Takuya-oneechan doesn’t always get lost. Sometimes she gets someone to actually help her find her way.”

“You and Shinya have got to stop hanging out, Tomoki.” sighed Takuya as she shook her head. “Well, this is our new friend from class, Motomiya Daisuke!”

“Hey,” Daisuke waved at the duo who smiled back at him.

“Shibayama Junpei,” The light brunette introduced, holding a hand out. “Nice to meet ya, Daisuke.”

“Himi Tomoki, Takuya-oneechan’s honorary little brother!” The younger teen smiled brightly and Daisuke just had to grin back.

“So! Who's up for today’s mystery grossness?” joked Daisuke as he led the group inside. The transfer students laughed as they made their way inside. After retrieving their lunches, they made their way to the table where Daisuke knew the digidestined were seated. Upon getting closer and ready to announce his presence, he caught wind of their conversation.

“He’s so annoying he’d talk to the wall if it meant hearing his own voice.” Miyako.

“That’s not very nice,”  At least he could always count on Ken to have his back.

“Oh come on, Daisuke is always talking. The guy loves the sound of his own voice.” Takeru, who Daisuke had been trying to get along with.

“And remember all the times he’s been so dramatic! Remember the first time he met V-mon?” Hikari-chan…his first crush. His heart sank into his feet, trying to get out through the floor.

“You should have seen his face when Patamon digivolved into Angemon, priceless.” This had to be a joke, right? Not his friends…

“Well, that’s not very fair. We were used to seeing Pegasusmon and we were all shocked when we first went to the Digital World and met our partners.” Always reliable Iori, having his back, even without him knowing Daisuke was there.

“Yeah but the guy is the king of drama.” Miyako again. Daisuke had thought him and the older girl had finally started getting along…

“...” A soft touch to his shoulder brought him back to reality. His chocolate brown eyes turned to see the new students standing there, with varying looks on their faces.

Tomoki and Kouichi looked sad, like puppies that had been kicked. Izumi and Junpei had faces that seemed understanding, almost like they’d been through this before. Kouji and Takuya on the other hand looked angry for Daisuke.

‘But that can’t be,’ A voice in Daisuke’s head reprimanded slightly. ‘They just met you…’

“Why don’t we go eat somewhere else?” Takuya whispered. The group was close enough to the table that they could hear the other Chosen Children talk but they weren’t close enough where they could be seen through the thick wave of students. “Besides, I’d love to hear about how you went to the Digital World.”

This caused Daisuke to freeze. They had heard everything… “Uh…”

“Don’t worry,” soothed Izumi, placing her own hand on his other shoulder, much like an older sister would do. “We understand. We’ll tell our story if you’ll tell yours.”

Daisuke smiled through the pain and nodded. “Sure, let’s stop by the computer lab before eating in the art classroom. It’s always empty at this time. The teacher’s not even there.”

The others smiled, happy to see he wouldn’t be kept down by this.

⸺

As they made their way to the computer lab, Daisuke was trying to calm the whirlwind inside his head. He’d made new friends today, learned that his other friends were talking crud about him behind his back, save for Iori and Ken and that his new friends seemed to know about digimon and the Digital World.

Too much going on, too fast.

“You guys wait out here.” Daisuke said to Takuy and the others. “I’ll run in real quick and we’ll be on our way.”

As the leader of the second generation of digidestined went in to grab Chibimon, he felt slight relief and immediately felt bad. He felt relieved at knowing what the others truly thought of him but felt bad because maybe he wasn’t such a great leader to begin with.

“Chibimon?” He whispered as the digimon appeared at the sound of his voice.

“Daisuke?” Poromon flew in front of him, blue eyes confused. “Is Miyako coming too?”

“Not until later buddy.” He answered, catching Chibimon as the small digimon jumped into his arms. “I’m actually not going to be able to grab Chibimon after school so I came to get him during lunch.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Tailmon yawned, obviously having woken from a nap. “Well, see ya around Daisuke.”

“Yup,” The child of Miracles made a quick getaway, not wanting to stay around the other digidestined’s digimon for too long as it was making his heart throb painfully at the reminder of what happened just a few moments ago.

“Dai, why aren’t you coming after school?” Chibimon questioned once the computer lab’s door shut.

“Because he heard some rather rude things come from his so-called friends,” a female voice startled the small dragon, who froze in plushy mode. “Don’t worry little buddy, we’re friends of Daisuke who know of the Digital World.”

Big ruby eyes blinked up at the new students before getting a good look at their profile. “Hey, I know those symbols!”

“I betcha do!” Tomoki winked at the digimon before Kouji interrupted.

“Shouldn’t we be going now?” He wasn’t trying to be bossy but he didn’t want any teachers asking questions about why they were out in the hallway during lunch.

“Right,” Daisuke quickly turned around. “This way.”

Easily they made their way to the Art room without a hitch and soon everyone was settled, Chibimon was ready. “Okay, I’d like some answers. Starting with what is going on!”

“Well, we heard Daisuke’s “friends” talking bad about him in the cafeteria,” Izumi huffed as she glared at the wall, arms crossed. “And, they weren’t exactly quiet about it.”

“So, they happened to mention something about the Digital World and well, we know a thing or two about the Digital World and digimon.” continued Junpei as he began to eat his food.

“And since Daisuke has been nothing but nice to us, we decided to return the favor and be there for him,” Kouji said as his brother placed both their bentos down for them.

“It’s never nice to be spoken about badly when it’s ones that you speak so highly of,” commented Kouichi, almost casually, if not for the sad undertone.

“Leading to us leaving the cafeteria without your friends even noticing us or Daisuke, going to grab you and eat here.” finished Takuya as she poked at the meatloaf on her tray, red brown eyes glaring at the food as if it personally offended her.

“Oh, Dai…” Chibimon trailed off, staring up at his partner with apologetic red eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Daisuke tried to wave his partner off. “Aside from Iori and Ken, we already knew the others had…differing opinions of me. Besides, they have a cool story for us.”

“You bet your ass we do!” Takuya grinned at the duo of Miracles as Izumi scolded her for her language. “Here is the tale of the ten legendary warriors and their wielders against Lucemon.”

Chapter Text

Monday (12:30 pm)

⸺

“Woah!” Daisuke’s eyes were sparkling as he gazed at Takuya and her friends. “You guys really did all that during your time in the Digital World?”

“They’re talked about in all the Digischool’s Dai,” agreed Chibimon as he swiped a piece of sushi from Daisuke’s bento. “I remember my teacher was a Bokomon and he seemed to be bent on shoving all the tales of the Legendary Warrior’s into our little heads.”

“You met Bokomon?” Tomoki was grinning as he looked at the small dragon. “Did he have a pink waistband on?”

“Yeah,” Chibimon blinked for a moment. “Not all Bokomon wear that, how did you…WAIT! He traveled with you guys?!”

“Yup, Bokomon Keeper of the Book.” Takuya had a fond look in her eyes as she pushed her meatloaf around, pretty intent on not finishing it. “And Neemon Keeper of his Pants.”

“The pair of them got into more trouble than we did sometimes…” admitted Junpei as he laughed softly, reaching over and ruffling Takuya’s hair causing the one he viewed as a little sister to laugh as she brushed his hand away.

“Yeah, remember the time they followed me when I went to search for my Beast Spirit?” Kouji chuckled as Takuya sent him the stink eye.

“Thank Azulongmon,” the goggle head huffed. “We would’ve never found you otherwise.”

“Don’t start you two.” chided Kouichi as he began to put his bento away. “Besides, we have to start heading back to class soon.”

“Aw man,” Daisuke whined, putting his own bento away. “I wanted to hear more!”

“We’ll talk more about it later bud,” reassured Takuya as she threw her tray in the trash. “But for now, let’s get going.”

As the group began to clean up, Daisuke’s D-Terminal beeped twice to let him know he received a message. Absent-mindedly, he opened it and read the message sent to him from Hikari.

Hey we stopped by the lab at lunch and heard from Poromon you won’t be coming later today. Will you be at the meeting tomorrow?

The burgundy haired male frowned for a moment before looking at Takuya and her friends before an idea came to mind. “Hey, do any of you want to meet the Digidestined tomorrow? They might’ve been having a bad day today is all…”

“Dai…” Chibimon didn’t like how even after the others badmouthed him, his partner was still willing to give them a chance. The little dragon noticed how Takuya had seemed to stop and think about this as well, arms crossed over her chest.

“Well,” The female goggle head grunted, eyes closed. “How about this, I’ll send Kouji with you to get a feel for them and if he doesn’t like what he feels or hears from them, then that’s that. I won’t force you to stop hanging out with them but my group and I will keep our distance.”

“Deal.” Daisuke smiled brightly at the other who turned away, obviously flustered from having such a look directed her way.

They continued to class with no other problems, laughing and joking the whole way.

⸺

Monday (12:30 pm)

⸺

Hikari was walking back from lunch to their classroom with Takeru after stopping by the computer lab and she was a bit worried. Why would Daisuke be unable to meet up with them today? She smiled softly as her D-Terminal beeped with a new message, most likely a response from Daisuke.

Sure, I’ll be there tomorrow. I even have a great surprise for everyone!

The cherry eyed girl paused at the one lined response. Usually when Daisuke texted her, it was just like him, over the top and somehow louder than life. But this one felt more…calm.

‘I mean that’s a good thing,’ She thought sitting at her seat, eyes scanning for the holder of Miracles. ‘I’m glad he’s finally moving on from me and accepting my relationship with Takeru.’

But Hikari still felt like she was looking at this all wrong. Like she was missing a bigger piece of the puzzle that is Motomiya Daisuke. Don’t get her wrong, she knew she wasn’t perfect but the brunette would think she would know Daisuke well as they grew up a majority together, they just happened to grow up a bit is all.

“Hey, did Daisuke reply yet?” Takeru asked once they were seated in class and the teacher was writing on the board, getting ready for their next lesson. “Will he be at the meeting tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Hikari smiled at her boyfriend, glad to see some of the worry lines disappearing from his face. “He’ll be there. He said he has a surprise for us.”

“Let’s hope it’s a good one.” The two shared a small laugh before the rest of their class went on. Hikari actually felt better after receiving the message from Daisuke. She didn’t feel the need to look over at him constantly, even though she was slightly worried with how many times the teacher called on the burgundy haired teen whenever he and the new girl, Takuya, spoke too loudly from their position at their desks.

She was just happy that she had been wrong about him avoiding them.

Tuesday (7:00 am)

⸺

“Dai, are you sure about this?” Chibimon whispered from inside Daisuke’s bag. The gogglehead didn’t want to take his partner to the computer lab because of what he heard yesterday. He didn’t want Chibimon going and telling the other digimon partner’s either, just because he was insulted doesn’t mean that his partner should tell the other’s and get angry on his behalf. “We can always cancel until you’re ready.”

“Trust me Chibimon,” Daisuke grinned and Chibimon could hear the good mood in his voice and the little digimon felt himself relax. “This is going to be a great day.”

“I hope you're right,” But Daisuke’s good mood must’ve been infectious because Chibimon felt giddy all over now. “Are we meeting up with Takuya and the other’s this morning?”

“Huh?” Daisuke paused to think about his response but was cut off by someone shouting his name. He turned only to have to quickly catch an armful of tiny brunettes. “Takuya?”

He didn’t blush, he swore to his grave he didn’t. There’s no way he, Motomiya Daisuke, would blush from someone other than his first crush Yagami Hikari.

It just wasn’t possible.

“Heya Dai!” The shorter digidestined pulled back with a wide smile and Daisuke cursed the heat in his cheeks. “Thanks for the catch! I was actually running over here and I tripped!”

“Takuya!” He heard Kouji and Izumi’s voice call from behind them. Daisuke looked over and saw the rest of the Warrior digidestined rushing up to them. Takuya followed his gaze and waved at the others.

“Look who I found!” The smaller brunette giggled, unaware of the exchanged glances from her friends. Takuya may get attached easily but it still took a while before she approached with physical contact usually.

“Trying to hide from us Motomiya?” teased Kouji as he gently guided Takuya off of the other leader. 

“Rude much,” Junpei agreed with a sly grin as Daisuke lightly shoved the older boy to the side. “Ouch and aggressive.”

“Come off it,” grinned Daisuke as he looked at them. “I just didn’t think you guys would be here this early.”

“Well, in case you didn’t know,” started Izumi as the group began to make their way inside. “We have this uncanny habit of…getting lost in new places.”

“And, since we don’t really like detention,” Takuya continued as she scratched her cheek with her pointer finger. “We tend to try and arrive at new places long before we have to, just until we get the hang of travel distance and all.”

“But hey!” cut in Tomoki, a lightbulb going off in his head. “What if we met up with you every morning?”

“At least we’d have an actual reason to show up early and not just our terrible sense of directions.” Kouichi chuckled as the rest agreed.

“Man, that’d be cool,” Daisuke had to admit, it had been a minute since he walked to or from school with anyone aside from Taichi recently. Maybe this would actually be a good thing. “Are you guys ready for today?”

That seemed to put a slight damper on the mood and Daisuke didn’t understand why. To be honest, he’d spoken to Chibimon about what was said yesterday, and it’s not the first time the other’s had made fun of him for those things. It’s just the first time that they made fun of him while he wasn’t physically present. The little digimon understood but still didn’t like it.

“Besides Dai,” Chibimon had said the night before. “They’re not mad because they said it, they’re mad because of who said it. It’s never a good thing to talk about someone behind their back…especially someone who sticks up for them countless times.”

That had made Daisuke pause and think. He did stick up for the younger generation of Chosen Children a lot, but he’d like to think they’d do the same for him…at least, Iori and Ken would. But that didn’t change the fact that he thought, maybe he was being too sensitive. He’d seen Yamato and Taichi take barbs at one another, even when one wasn’t present and no one else seemed down or upset about it.

Everything was just confusing at this point. This was the only friendship type he’d known. That’s why he had such a hard time with the Digitama of Friendship, he never knew what true friendship was and he’d thought he found it but…

He was just confused.

“Look, Daisuke,” Takuya started, face surprisingly serious. “Let me ask you something before the meeting this afternoon. Are they really your friends?”

“Yeah,” Daisuke blinked. He expected many things but not that question. “We saved the Digital World multiple times.”

“Yeah, okay, they’re like, comrades in arms, I get it.” The girl blew out a breath, obviously thinking her next words differently. “Do they ever try to…make you feel good about yourself or like…compliment you?”

Daisuke’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ at the question. “Uh, yeah they compliment me when I don’t mess up or, like when I figure something out and…when the team wins they do.”

“...” Takuya shared a look with Kouji before sighing deeply. “Okay, look, we’ll try this your way but…Kouji will not be doing anything under my orders. Everything is his own choice.”

“Okay.” Daisuke was confused but let it slide. As they continued, Izumi suddenly had an idea in her head in order to lighten the mood.

“Let’s play a game on the way to school!” Everyone glanced at her, question unasked. “Someone asks a question and we all call out our answer in age order, youngest to oldest.”

“Why not?” Daisuke smiled as Tomoki raised his hand and jumped up and down.

“I wanna go first!” When no one argued, the Warrior of Ice thought for a moment before grinning widely. “What’s everyone’s favorite color?”

“Yellow.” Tomoki thought about shining stars glittering in the Digital World while he and his friends camped with Bokomon and Neemon, roasting fresh meat apples over an open fire.

 “Orange,” Takuya thought about the warmth of fire, Agnimon and Vitramon as they came together as one to fight and protect their friends, family.

“Blue.” Izumi thought long and hard about the blue open sky of the Digital World as they traveled across the ocean on a Trailmon.

“Black.” Kouji remembered the comforting warmth of Kouichi as they spoke about things that they would never tell others at night in their mother’s house.

“White.” Kouichi remembered Kouji’s protective presence whenever he was in a pinch with kids who would pick on his kind demeanor and the light of Lobomon leading him back to the right path from Cherubimon’s darkness.

“Gold.” Magnamon’s warm golden armor appeared in Daisuke’s mind as if the gold plated digimon was standing next him, watching over him and making sure nothing could ever hurt him before he and Chibimon shared a smile, the tiny dragon cuddling up to his partner.

“Silver.” Junpei could basically feel the cool metal of his work table as he tinkered with old electronics after returning from the Digital World and realizing he had a talent with them.

“Okay, I’ll go next.” Takuya smiled, happy to learn about her friends and Daisuke a bit more. “Who is everyone’s hero and the reason?”

“Takuya-oneechan,” Tomoki answered as the Warriors all smiled, although Daisuke and Chibimon looked confused. “Because while we were in the Digital World, even though she was scared and didn’t know what to do, just like us, she still looked out for us and protected us, me, without fear. She did so much for me that I swore I’d be able to protect her too.”

Takuya smiled as she ruffled Tomoki’s hair, currently without the beret, gently. “Thanks bud. I guess my hero is Agnimon. Before I met her, I had to often be the support beam for all my friends, family but especially Shinya. I couldn’t really rely on others. When I went to the Digital World, Angimon showed me that it was a team effort for us to save it. I wasn’t alone and I had her strength just like she had mine. I also had Kouji and the others to rely on if I ever got hurt or a moment to catch my breath. Not everything was on my shoulders anymore.”

“Takuya…” Izumi looked touched while the guys shifted. They knew their leader needed them at times they just didn’t know how much. Daisuke also felt touched. The speech may not have been for him but it rang in his head on how a leader could look at their group. “I think Daisuke should answer next since we’re almost at the school.”

Daisuke blinked before noticing everyone staring at him, apparently agreeing with Izumi. The burgundy haired male thought for a moment. He thought about it as he saw the school start to appear down the street. “Well, I guess Taichi-senpai will always be my hero. He gave me courage when I was a kid and along with Hikari-chan, he was the first person to be my friend when I was a kid and recently…he’s been one of the two people who’ve been helping me keep my head up recently and never asks for anything in return…That’s why Taichi-senpai is my hero and why he would always stay my hero. He never turns his back on anyone.”

The group walked into the school before going their separate ways to their own classrooms, Takuya and Daisuke taking their seats next to the window while Kouji and Kouichi took the seats in front of them and Izumi taking the open seat to the left of Takuya.

“So, Kouji’s going to come with me to the computer lab to meet the other Digidestined?” questioned Daisuke, glancing around to check if Hikari or any of the other’s were there. He wasn’t trying to hide the Warrior digidestined but he still had time to think about what he was going to do about what he heard yesterday. If Daisuke was to be honest, he wasn’t sure what he would do if he ever heard them do it again…

‘Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there…’ Daisuke thought before the teacher walked in.

⸺

Tuesday (7:00 am)

⸺

Hikari was walking with Takeru to school before they went to meet with Miyako, Ken and Iori. She was hoping Daisuke would be there with the other Chosen Children. She wanted to ask him if everything was alright. She’d noticed her brother hanging out with him a lot more than usual, even though that wasn’t exactly strange, but it was concerning her. He wouldn’t hang out with his group, sometimes Ken, but not the rest of them and yet, he’d spend time with her brother.

As they entered the computer lab, her cherry eyes looked around, but was slightly disappointed to see Miyako, Iori and Ken in the room talking quietly as the digimon played together.

“Hey guys!” Takeru waved as he let Patamon out of his bag, the flying hamster cheering as he went to fly around the in-training digimon.

“Good morning,” Ken smiled as Iori bowed  in greeting toward his Jogress partner who patted him on the head.

“Morning!” giggled Miyako as she rushed over to Hikari’s side. “So! Are we still having the meeting after school today?”

“Yeah, Daisuke even said he’d be there today.” responded Hikari, smiling brightly at her. The lavender haired girl hummed in thought as she flicked through her phone. “He said he had a surprise for us too.”

“Well, it better be a good one.” Miyako sighed. The air tensed slightly, Iori and Ken were still upset over the conversation at lunch yesterday while Miyako and Takeru thought they were exaggerating, claiming once again that all friends took barbs at each other about this. Hikari was neutral, since she often saw her other friends (not the digidestined ones) often do the same and no one ever seemed hurt by it.

“Sure…” The group awkwardly sat in silence before gathering their things and heading off to their classes. Tailmon and the other digimon watched them go, eys confused but sad at the weird tension around the children.

“Will they be okay?” Upamon whispered to the champion holy digimon who looked back at the younger digital monsters.

“Of course,” She yawned, stretching out before jumping onto one of the air shafts. “They may be humans, but they’re our humans. They always come out alright.”

“I miss Chibimon,” confessed Poromon as he followed after his jogress partner. “He’s not really around unless Daisuke is and Daisuke hasn’t been coming by recently.”

“You’re not the only one…” Minomon whimpered as he pulled himself upward with some silk. “He’s always so much fun and Daisuke is always playing with us…”

“Yeah but…isn't he a bit much?” questioned Patamon innocently as he landed next to the other three, Upamon on his back. “He’s always picking fights with Takeru and he’s always so loud.”

“Not really on the picking fights anymore.” Tailmon countered, narrowing her eyes at her longtime friend. Since when did he start talking like Takeru about Daisuke? “And he really only gets loud when the other’s ignore him.”

“Which is often,” pointed out Upamon, raising a wing ear. “Whenever he has an idea, the others kind of just blow him off…”

“It’s kind of rude to be honest.” Poromon huffed, crossing his tiny pink wings. “I think I would have exploded at someone by some point.”

“Yeah but human’s ignore each other all the time!” Pataman tilted his head. “At least from what I’ve noticed when the students come in.”

“And the ignored person doesn’t always look happy does he?” hissed Tailmon. She had to deal with the guilt of watching Chibimon’s partner be ignored and treated badly by his own group, she didn’t want to hear it from the digimon of Hope, of all things. “How do you think Daisuke feels?”

“Oh…I guess you’re right…” Patamon had noticed how miserable the children would look when ignored by the other groups. “They do look sad. But then why doesn’t Daisuke say anything?”

The others remained silent, none of them having an answer because none of them were Daisuke nor Chibimon, the only two who would have the answer.

⸺

Upon entering class, Hikari looked around and was only a little hurt that Daisuke decided to come early to school, it seemed, and not go to the computer lab to meet up with them but instead chose to hang out with the new kids.

“I’m going to go say hi,” Ken commented lightly, already moving to the cluster of students. Her and Takeru exchanged glances before Takeru shrugged and began to make his way as well. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you, once again, I’m Ichijoji Ken.”

Hikari noticed the girl's smile and greet the child of Kindness back as the twins exchanged a, meant to be, hidden glance before doing the same. Takeru smiled and walked forward. “I’m Takashi Takeru, hope Daisuke isn’t talking your ear off.”

A small frown came over Hikari’s face when she noticed instead of snapping back at the jab as per usual, Daisuke seemed to shut his mouth faster than typical. One of the girl’s—Takuya, her mind supplied—reached over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders comfortingly while the blond frowned at them, the twins sharing another, meant to be hidden, look.

“Uh, yeah, no.” Takuya smiled but it seemed fake to Hikari as the brunette’s eyes drifted from Takeru to her. “I’m assuming you’re Yagami-san, then? Daisuke’s been telling us all about you guys.”

“I actually feel like we’ve been bothering him,” Izumi smiled, but once again it felt off to Hikari and she felt ashamed for some unknown reason. “We’ve basically been keeping him from hanging with you guys by asking him to show us around and all.”

“Of course, he always has the right to say no,” The long haired twin, Kouji, smirked at Daisuke, the burgundy haired male smiling softly his way. “It was just really easy to get to know Daisuke.”

“Yeah, Dai has that effect.” chuckled Ken softly, brushing his own dark hair behind his ear. “He was actually my first friend when I transferred here. He introduced me to Takeru-kun and the other’s after a while.”

“Not to say we’re antisocial or anything.” Hikari didn’t know why she felt the need to defend herself or her friends. For some reason, she felt like they were appraising them and they were sorely failing this test. “It was just a surprise that super genius Ichijoji Ken was transferring to our school.”

“That’s understandable,” Kouichi, the other twin, smiled and Hikari had to repress a shiver. Something about the boy felt off and she didn’t know why. “I’m usually go more with the flow with the friend type of things. Kouji is more antisocial, Izumi-chan is more so…worried and Takuya is—,”

“A social butterfly.” snorted Kouji, closing his eyes and leaning his chair back against the desk behind him, almost smashing another student's fingers between them if the student didn’t move in time. The long haired teen paid them no mind though, continuing his silent staring down of Hikari and Takeru.

‘Why is he only staring at Takeru and me?’ Hikari thought. It seemed the new students warmed up to Ken and Daisuke easily enough, but then they seemed on the fence about her and her boyfriend. She noticed that Takeru didn’t seem the least bit concerned. ‘Maybe I’m just overly self conscious…they are new here.’

Before the conversation could continue any further, their teacher walked in and asked them all to be seated. Hikari and Takeru nodded towards the new students before moving to their seats up front while Ken decided to sit next to Izumi, instantly falling into a conversation with the blond.

Class started but for some reason, Hikari couldn’t shake the bad feeling that began to plague her and moved on autopilot throughout the day.

Tuesday (3:30 pm)

⸺

“How often does your teacher talk to you about these grades, Daisuke?” panted Kouji as the duo raced to the computer lab, held up by a half hour thanks to the teacher talking to Daisuke about his failing grade and being pulled off the soccer starter.

“Enough times that I know the entire spiel better than my own textbook!” Daisuke grunted before turning a corner and racing up the steps. “It hasn’t been this bad in a while but I had to take a month off of school a little ago.”

“Really?” Kouji followed the other, falling behind a few paces in order to avoid crashing into Daisuke or other students with their rushed gait. “Why’s that?”

“Well, when Ken first transferred here, he helped me pull my grades up, but then…I had a small incident and I was forced to take a month off a school,” Daisuke didn’t seem too keen on opening up about the incident at the moment but began to slow down, showing they were close to their destination anyway. “I didn’t want to bother Ken with more help and have been trying by myself. As you can see, I’m not the brightest star out there…"

“You’re plenty bright, Dai.” gasped Chibimon, popping out of the bag he was hidden in and leaping onto Daisuke’s head. “You just need a little more help to shine brightly. But that’s okay—,”

“Not everyone can shine by themselves,” Kouji finished for the little digimon as he slowed his pace as well. “We all need help in some departments. Nii-san helps Junpei with his English and History while getting help with Science and Math. Izumi and I help Takuya with all of her studies and she helps Shinya and Tomoki with theirs. Izumi even helps me with my people skills. It’s natural.”

“...” Daisuke frowned thoughtfully as they came to a stop in front of the lab door. “Maybe you’re right…”

⸺

Tuesday (3:30 pm)

⸺

“Where is he?!” Miyako yelled impatiently as she stomped her foot and crossed her arms. “I went to the store and the older kids have already come, even Mimi-chan, who had to get here from the airport and he’s still not here!

“Well, we’re still waiting for Taichi-san,” Koushiro hummed, brushing a strand of long red hair behind her ear absentmindedly. “Besides, it’s not like we had anything to do today, that’s why we all came today."

“Yeah, but he’s always late!” Miyako seemed dead set on being angry at Daisuke.

“Then, are you mad that Taichi’s not here?” asked Poromon, flying by his partner’s head, blue eyes wide in confusion.

“No, he probably got held up with his coach or something…” The lavender haired girl didn’t seem to get the implications of the question.

“Then, why are you mad at only Daisuke?” Mimi was painting her nails but something about this seemed off as she listened.

“Because he’s supposed to be our leader and he couldn’t be bothered to show up the last few times and the time he decides to show up he’s late?” huffed Miyako, glaring at nothing, most likely imagining it to be Daisuke. “Some leader!”

“She has a point,” Hikari added, still upset that Daisuke seemed to be avoiding them. “He doesn’t even hang out with us anymore.”

“Well, sometimes people make other friends,” piped up Sora, raising an eyebrow at the brunette. “I remember when we started middle school, I had made so many friends I didn’t have time to spend with the ones who were still in Japan.”

“And I was in America and I made friends there and didn’t call anyone from Japan.” Mimi supplied, pausing in her task to look at her kouhai. “I’m really not understanding why this is bothering you guys so much?”

“Because he always does this,” sighed Takeru, shaking his head. “Taichi-san made him the leader and yet all he does is what he wants. Show up to meetings when he feels like it, hang out with us when it’s convenient for him and doesn’t even let us know until the last minute.”

“If you ask me, Taichi should’ve made Takeru the leader.” Miyako smirked at her own joke. “Besides, if he had then we probably would’ve gotten out of trouble a lot faster and easier than with Daisuke.”

“But Patamon couldn’t digivolve and Taichi-san couldn’t lift the digitama of courage,” pointed out Ken, eyeing their friends angrily. This is the second time they’ve bad-mouthed Daisuke and this time in front of their senpai. “How was Takeru going to save Hikari-san then?”

“And what about against Kimeramon?” Iori inquired, frowning heavily. He never approved of this but now it was just getting to be down right mean. “Daisuke used the golden digitama and even got Ken to join the team. The rest of us wanted to run away and ignore Ken afterwards, no offense.”

“None taken.” The child of Kindness shook his head at the younger boy. “I wanted to run away from my problems as well but Daisuke wouldn’t let me.”

“That thing was probably up for grabs!” snarked Miyako as she waved the duo off. “Takeru would’ve saved us.”

“And we would have warmed up to Ken eventually.” Takeru said, looking at the wall and avoiding his brother’s disappointed look. “It just would have taken time.”

“You three are being unnecessarily rude right now,” Koushiro paused from her computer work to look at the younger digidestined. “What is going on?”

“...that’s what I’d like to know…” a familiar voice cut in. Everyone’s head snapped to the door’s direction and saw Daisuke standing there with an unknown (to some) teen. The burgundy haired teen’s head was bowed and his bangs covered his eyes, making his expression unreadable. “Do you really think all my accomplishments up until now were just… flukes ?”

The room was silent before Iori stood forward. “Of course not Daisuke, I think everything you did, you did correctly and earned everything.”

“Dai, you know I think the world of you as my best friend and you’ve done nothing but the best since I’ve joined the team.” Ken could basically feel his Jogress partner’s broken heart.

Daisuke finally looked up and the older digidestined gasped when they saw his face. His warm chocolate brown eyes looked lifeless as tears dripped down his cheeks, a broken smile pulled onto his lips. “Thanks guys…”

With that he ran. The long haired teen stopped for a moment, a dark scowl on his face as he looked at Miyako, Hikari and Takeru. “You guys are the worst. This guy told me and my other friends, who are digidestined, that you guys are so nice and so understanding.”

Hikari felt her heart throb a bit. A little from happiness that Daisuke had praised them so highly to the new kids and a little from some unknown feeling in her chest at what transpired before the other continued talking. “Yet, all I see are a bunch of jerks who bad mouth someone who keeps coming back to them. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure he's okay, for Iori-kun and Ken.”

With a swish of his ponytail, Kouji was gone, chasing after Daisuke down the hallway. The older digidestined looked at the younger generation. Hikari looked in thought, Takeru didn’t seem bothered, just embarrassed that someone that wasn’t from their group heard and Miyako didn’t seem to care in the slightest. Iori and Ken on the other hand looked livid.

There was one thing running through the original digidestined’s minds at this moment.

How long had this been going on?

⸺

Daisuke came to a full stop outside the school, barely managing to make it to the bench before the sobs bursted out of his chest in heavy wracks. Chibimon had moved to sit on his partner’s lap, big red eyes worried as he tried to comfort his human. “Dai…”

A hand on his shoulder caused the holder of friendship and courage to look up, eyes still full of tears. His brown eyes met Takuya’s red brown orbs. The girl sat next to him before hugging him tightly to herself, shoving her face into his shoulder. “It’s okay, let it out.”

The dam broke and he began to fully cry into her shoulder, making small wet patches on the fabric of her shirt. Chibimon squirmed from between the hug and pulled Daisuke’s D-Terminal out, opening the device and sending a message to Taichi as the rest of the Warriors gathered around, sending silent comfort to the holder of Miracles.

It was time the original holder of Courage learned what Daisuke never told him.

Taichi was cursing as he made it to the school and entered, looking around in case he ran into any old chatty teachers like his second trip there. Seeing none, the wild haired brunette continued on his way to the lab before his D-Terminal beeped. Pulling it out, he frowned at the message typed in front of him.

Oh, hell no.

Chapter Text

Tuesday (4:00 pm)

⸻

Takuya and the other Warriors had decided that Daisuke needed some cheering up and were now at an ice cream parlor, seated at one of the booth’s, looking over the menus. Daisuke had stopped crying before they arrived, thankfully, but was now staring dejectedly at his menu.

“C’mon Dai,” Takuya tried to encourage softly, nudging him gently in the shoulder. “It’s Junpei’s treat, so pick anything you want.”

Daisuke cracked a slight smile, not as big and bright as his usual one, when Junepi began to whine. “Why do I always have to pay!”

“Fine,” giggled Izumi, covering her mouth daintily. “Why don’t we do Jaken?”

“Okay, but Dai isn’t paying.” Takuya nodded as the other Warrior’s agreed.

“Jan…ken…PON!” The six hands made a circle, showing three winners and three losers. Takuya and Kouji glared at their hands while Junpei whined at being stuck with the competitive duo, Izumi, Tomoki and Kouichi laughed in the background.

‘You know…it’s almost like the time before today…’ Daisuke thought, watching them fondly as they rearranged themselves, this time with the three losers only.

“Jan…ken…PON!” The hands flew out again, this time Kouji was the victor, leaving Takuya and Junpei left to go against one another.

“Remember, if you draw you have to play acchi muite,” smirked Kouji as he took his seat again. “Now, let’s have a fair game.”

“Jan…ken…PON!” Two fists met in the middle, both having used rock.

“Damnit!” Junpei cried, falling to his knees, clutching his hair as Takuya suddenly smiled at him, looking at him below her nose, brown eyes gleeful.

“Come on, buddy.” snorted the younger girl. “It’s just a game.”

“You demon!”

“What’s up?” Chibimon tilted his head, glancing at Kouichi who was shaking his head in pity.

“Nobody has ever beaten Takuya at Acchi muite,” the dark haired teen admitted. “She has more nerves than Kouji, and he tries every time they have to play.”

“I think it’s because that’s how she and Shinya decided on everything.” Tomoki chuckled, rolling his light green eyes upward. “Shinya said she used to flinch and look every time, but stopped after elementary school.”

“Nerves of steel, Kanbara Takuya.” recalled Kouji, joining their conversation. “At least that’s what they call her in her neighborhood. Bullies are kinda terrified of her.”

“Which is hilarious,” Izumi added, leaning against Daisuke’s shoulder. “She actually gets scared by small things. That aside, Takuya’s literally the shortest high schooler in her neighborhood, so imagine seeing a bully around Junpei-san’s height, running away from her.”

Daisuke snorted before hearing a cry of defeat from the other two. Takuya was smirking, arms crossed over her chest as she stared at Junpei, who looked up with teary eyes. “You demon! You have to be cheating, somehow!”

“Give it up!” Takuya laughed, moving back over to sit by Daisuke, she leaned against the shoulder opposite of Izumi. “Yeah, so, it’s Junpei’s treat.”

Daisuke laughed, head knocking against Takuya’s lightly as the other’s picked up their menus to hide their small smiles. Mission one, make Daisuke forget about his troubles, accomplished.

⸻

Tuesday (4:00 pm)

⸻

Hikari stared at the door in shock, her body trembling as she sat down, chest throbbing periodically. She couldn’t tell if it was the empty feeling from when she began to notice Daisuke’s absence or her thudding heart, this time around and that scared her.

“I didn’t think he would be there!” gasped Miyako, hand covering her mouth as she stared at Mimi and Sora’s disapproving looks. “I didn’t think he would actually hear me…”

“And he usually doesn’t get so worked up over this,” Takeru murmured, pulling his hat over his eyes.

Yamato watched his brother, arms crossed, ready to speak up when they heard footsteps approaching. The owner of said footsteps quickly followed after Yagami Taichi stood, brown eyes burning with a protective fury, as he glared at the younger kids. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Taichi, calm down,” Yamato said calmly, walking in front of his best friend. “Yes, what they said may have been a bit harsh, but don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Overreacting?” repeated Koushiro, her usually blank black eyes narrowed at the former Child of Friendship. “Yamato-san, no disrespect intended, but I think you’re letting this go a bit too easily.”

“Daisuke probably had it coming,” Yamato commented snidely, shrugging his shoulders. “From what Takeru said, he barely shows up to meetings anymore.”

“First off, don’t talk as if you understand anything, Yamato.” started Taichi, now glaring solely at his best friend. “Despite him being both of our kouhai, you barely pay him the time of day. And every time Takeru tells you something, you take his word for it, don’t even bother to get the other half of the story, too busy wrapped up in your own bubble of cares.”

“Taichi-san,” Takeru tried to cut in, but was stopped by their former leader holding a hand up. Despite not being Takeru’s leader anymore, the younger digidestined felt like he was back to being an eight years old all over again.

“Not a word until I’ve said my piece.” growled the older Chosen Child. “Second of all, this isn’t the first time Daisuke’s caught them talking shit behind his back. Hikari, I’m very disappointed in you.”

Hikari bowed her head, feeling the shame of being scolded by her usually carefree and kind older brother doubled. Once over because he was right, they did the wrong thing and twice over because he scolded her in front of the others. “...”

“Third, the reason Daisuke hasn’t been arriving to the meetings, aside from feeling like he doesn’t belong, is that he’s been going to therapy.” Taichi continued, ignoring the shocked gasps from Sora and Mimi, Jyou’s stance stiffening and Yamato’s change in posture. “But none of you bothered to ask him, so we’ve come to this.”

“Why didn’t he talk to any of us?” whispered Mimi, eyes watering as she glared at her successor, who finally had the sense to look ashamed. “I told you to lay off Dai-kun months ago, Miyako-chan.”

“...” The lavender haired girl looked away, cheeks burning in shame and embarrassment.

“He didn’t want to bother Mimi-chan, Jyou-senpai, Sora or Kou.” Taichi sighed, anger seemingly deflating from him as he ran a hand over his face, weary from the whole situation. “I only found out because I saw him heading into the building.”

“Well, why didn’t he tell me?” demanded Yamato, offended that he didn’t know this about his own successor. He could have helped the situation. Could have made it better, so it wouldn’t turn into whatever was going on.

“Because he thinks you don’t care about him!” Taichi snapped, anger returning as he glared at the blond. “You once yelled at him about insulting Jun, who you don’t even like !”

“Well, he needs the cherish the family he has,” started Yamato before Taichi fully turned to him, staring at him straight in the eye, and his words froze.

“You mean the sister who can’t even be bothered to remember he exists until your name pops up in a conversation?” Taichi sneered, crossing his arms. “The sister who is constantly putting him down, much like the younger digidestined, who you cover for as well?”

“I-,”

“No no, you’re right,” Obviously on a roll, Taichi spoke over him, hands beginning to move erratically. “He should be grateful that he has parents, who only remember they have a younger son when something bad goes wrong with him or he should be grateful for the sister, so obsessed with you, that she forgets to help him with anything, right?”

Yamato floundered, he’d never asked Daisuke about how his actual relationship was with his sister, he’d just assumed the kid needed to be reminded that his sister always had his back…but did she?

“That’s right,” seethed Taichi, turning away from them. “I’m going to look for Daisuke and the new digidestined he’s with, apparently.”

As he began to head out the door, Hikari’s hand reached out and latched onto his arm. The leader of the original digidestined turned to look at his little sister, brown eyes tired and sad. “Yes, Hikari?”

“I-I know I don’t have the right to know,” Hikari barely held back a flinch from the look in her brother's eyes. “But w-why was Daisuke in therapy?”

“Look, even if I thought I should tell you, I can’t.” sighed Taichi, shoulders slumping once more. “It’s not my story to tell. All I will say is we’ll be lucky if he ever wants to be around us again.”

After finally finishing his piece, the brunette left, leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence before Ken stood, breaking it. “I’m going after Dai.”

The former genius made his way to the door, Minomon clutched tightly in his arms, the little larval digimon staring at the other human’s in worry as they passed. “Wait, I’ll come too!” Miyako and Takeru only stared as Iori rushed past them, not even sparing them a glance, to try and reach Ken before he left. “Daisuke-san needs to know that I never meant to hurt him, even without me saying anything.”

“And I’m sure he will,” Koushiro smiled as she stood up, laptop packed away. “You’ve always had his back, even if you think he never noticed, I’m sure he did. Him and Taichi-san are similar in that aspect, they notice when we support them, without us having to specify. It’s a great trait of theirs, actually.”

“She’s right,” nodded Jyou as he followed after the younger girl. “Just continue to support him as you’re already doing, Daisuke may be a little bit older and more mature, but our leaders tend to be reckless without supervision.”

Ken and Iori paused letting the words sink in, before nodding, feeling a little lighter than before. After the duo left, Koushiro’s smile dropped and her dark eyes looked at the remaining younger digidestined, disappointment radiating off of her in waves. “You three, on the other hand, are not going to like what I’m about to say. But at this moment, I don’t particularly care.”

“B-But Koushiro-san,” Takeru stuttered, shuffling from the look she was giving them. He’d heard Taichi complaining to Hikari about how scary Koushiro could be when she was angry.

“Save it,” The redhead cut him off coldly, reminding the others that the reason she didn’t have many friends before the Digital World was because of her blunt wording. “That other digidestined with Daisuke earlier was right. You’ve never treated him like he belonged or like a friend and yet, he constantly came back, defended you guys and accepted every half thought apology you gave. What makes you think this will be the same as before?”

Miyako winced as Takeru and Hikari kept they’re gazes on the floor, too scared and ashamed to look at the older girl.

“You’re not elementary kids anymore,” scolded Sora, hands on her hips. “You’re all growing and learning about yourselves. Daisuke has been maturing in his own way and we’ve all noticed it.”

“Well, most of us, at least.” Mimi amended, her usually kind honey brown eyes locked onto Yamato, who stiffened from the look. “You’re not much better than them. Taichi-san was right, when was the last time you spoke to Dai-kun, without yelling at him over something stupid?”

“That’s not true!” defended the older blond, glaring back at the girl, who didn’t back down. “I don’t always yell at him, he would just act like a brat sometimes and he was constantly picking fights with Takeru!”

“Then you talk to him and mentor him like you’re supposed to,” Jyou cut in, adjusting his glasses. “All I’ve seen when you’re around him, is Daisuke avoiding you like I avoided the outside when I was in elementary school myself. That’s not a very healthy relationship, if you ask me.”

“Oh, like you’ve never yelled at Iori,” snapped Yamato, going on the defensive.

“Actually, Yamato-san, we don’t yell at Iori because he was acting his age.” Koushiro snipped, her tone cold and angry. “You seem to believe that just because Daisuke is the digidestined’s current leader, that he has to act like an adult, but he doesn't. At the time we met them, they were in elementary school and we didn’t know anything about them. You yelling at Daisuke, just because he was saying some mean things about Jun-san, was uncalled for. You were constantly badmouthing her yourself, yet when he did it, you acted like he was committing a crime. Simply because you were projecting onto him your own feelings about family.”

“You know,” started Mimi as she blew on her nails absentmindedly. “I once went shopping with Jun-chan for Dai-kun’s birthday. I needed her help trying to find him a gift. She asked me why I was asking for her help and that she didn’t know what he wanted, she thought I could help her pick out a gift for him! Crazy how she’s lived with him her whole life, but wanted someone who’d only known him that year to help her pick out a gift.”

Yamato froze at the story. He knew that he didn’t exactly go out of his way to try and get to know Daisuke, but he didn’t think that at the time of yelling at him about family, that the kid had any problems with his own family. Realistically, the blond knew everyone had their own family problems. Miyako felt like she didn’t get enough attention, due to there being so many kids in the house, Iori being an only child and having lost his dad at a young age…Daisuke’s, recently found out, neglectful family. But at the time, he just assumed that the kid had it all, he was only in elementary school and at that age, they usually took everything for granted.

“I wasn’t projecting, I thought I was just teaching him something important.” He tried at last, mentally wincing at how weak it sounded.

“And he took it personally, you know.” Mimi continued, seemingly uncaring, that her words struck a few chords. “But not in the way you think. He believed that maybe, if he tried to be a bit more like Takeru to his family, that maybe they would pay more attention to him, try and be there for him.”

“Too bad, human’s don’t change like that.” sighed Sora, shaking her head. “After that he would come to me or Mimi-chan and ask us what girls like for things like birthdays, Christmas or even as a congratulations gift. We would go with him to shop and pick out items and every time, the results never changed.”

“But that didn’t matter to you guys, did it?” Jyou tilted his head as he looked at the guilty four. “You just expected him to continue bouncing back from everything. Every hurtful remark, every battle, every argument. Daisuke was supposed to just recover and continue being there, ready for you to start the next day, with a smile.”

“To be honest, I have a question.” Koushiro didn’t seem angry at this point, just mildly annoyed. “After major battles, like Kimeramon or BeilaVamedemon, did anyone check in on Daisuke?”

“Huh?” Hikari could feel the confusion radiating off the others and knew she wasn’t the only one confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Iori-kun called me and Jyou-senpai a few times after those battles because he was suffering from nightmares,” She continued, not at all phased by the visible confusion she received. “Nightmares about the what if’s and the how's. Ken-kun too. Taichi-san told me how Hikari-san would either go to him or Takeru-san. How Takeru-san would call him, Yamato-san or Hikari-san. Mimi-san and Sora-san said that Miyako-san would often talk to them about her own nightmares. And yet, no one ever knew who Daisuke spoke to about his own, or even knew if he had any.”

“...” The silence in the room spoke for itself and the others in the room.

“That’s what I thought, sadly.” Koushiro finished as she left the room.

Tuesday (4:30 pm)

⸻

Daisuke and the other’s had left the ice cream shop, after Junpei tearfully paid for all their ice creams, and made their way to the arcade. The burgundy haired teen was currently watching Kouji and Takuya compete against one another at DDR, both trying to outdo the other. “They really are competitive.”

Izumi, who had been boredly watching next to him, suddenly grinned his way. “You’re right and I have an idea that’ll make them regret making us wait for them.”

“Oh, I’m listening!” Tomoki didn’t mind watching, but Izumi always came up with interesting ideas in her fits of boredom. Kouichi and Junpei, upon noticing the three scheming traded wary glances. This could either be really entertaining or potentially dangerous.

“Well, there was a haunted house not too far from here and I wanted to see if either of these two got scared of it.” The blond smirked, her head already filled with images of the duo in the house. “It’d be really funny and no one can actually get hurt.”

“Yeah, unless Takky’s the type to punch when scared.” snorted Junpei, but Kouichi and Daisuke could already see he was on board with the idea.

“So, it’s settled then!” Tomoki cheered as he and Izumi threw their hands in the air.

“Settled how?” Daisuke was amused and confused as he watched the other two while Kouichi patted him on the shoulder. 

“Leave them, once Izumi-chan’s got an idea in her head, it’s as good as settled.” The short haired twin chuckled before Daisuke joined in.

“What’s up?” Takuya’s voice asked and the group turned to see the girl in question and Kouji standing behind them as the dark haired boy glared at her. “Get over it, you slipped on your sweat and lost.”

“Tsk.”

“We’ve decided that we wanna go check something else out,” Izumi smiled and Daisuke noted that almost immediately Takuya took a step back, face paling slightly.

“Takuya?” From what he’d seen so far, nothing really scared the girl, so this was seemingly out of character. “You okay?”

“I’m not putting a dress or skirt on!” The tomboy cried out, gaining some strange looks from people walking by.

“Not that, you idiot!” Izumi held up a fist threateningly and Junpei hurriedly grabbed her arm. “We’re going to go check out the Haunted House down the street.”

Kouji shrugged, but Daisuke noticed that Takuya didn’t calm down in the slightest. If anything, she seemed more nervous than before. “I don’t mind.”

Upon noticing Kouji’s nonchalance, the brunette frowned and steadied herself. “Y-Yeah, no problem at all.”

“Huh, Takuya,” Kouichi started, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “Could it be-Ouch!”

Whatever he was going to say, was cut off by the brunette stomping on his foot. As the older twin leaned down to check on his abused foot, Kouji raised an eyebrow and Daisuke frowned slightly. There’s no way, was there? “Let’s go.”

Not giving them any time to try and figure out what happened, Takuya led the way out of the arcade and towards the attraction. Once they made it in front, the teens all glanced at one another, seeing if anyone was going to back out.

As they entered the main part of the attraction, Izumi quickly ran up to Daisuke and pulled him back a bit. “Daisuke-kun, just a little thing you should know…”

“What is it, Izumi-chan?” The burgundy haired teen was curious. The blond had seemed giddy about this and he wanted to know why. “Does it have to do with this?”

“Yeah, see, the thing is Takuya is-,” She was cut off by a high pitched shriek and the duo turned to see Takuya hiding behind Kouji, a realistic headless body hanging in front of the duo. “...scared of things like this.”

Daisuke felt sweat drip down the back of his head. This must be what Izumi was talking about back in the ice cream shop. She actually gets scared by small things.

‘This must be one of the ‘small things’ she was referring too…’ He thought with a small sigh as they finally managed to convince Takuya that in order to get out, they had to get through the whole attraction. ‘This is going to be a long haunted house.’

They eventually made it out, without Takuya punching anyone, but now Takuya was the one crying and Daisuke was comforting her now, instead of the other way around. Kouji and Kouichi were watching with looks that crossed between amused and worried, while Izumi and Junpei were snickering as they tried to be good friends but failed horribly, and Tomoki simply went to get drinks from the vending machine for everyone.

“Jeez,” Daisuke sighed as he continued to wipe the girl's eyes, despite her protests. “If you were that scared, just tell us next time, we won’t go in.”

“B-But…” whined Takuya as she tried to pull her head back, only for Daisuke to turn it back his way to continue wiping her face. “I thought I could handle it.”

“Yeah, no.” Kouji sat next to her, ruffling her hair. “Never doing that again, you almost swung on like, five people dressed as zombies and I had to stop you.”

“Well, hopefully, Izumi has gotten her fill of Takuya Torture today.” chuckled Kouichi as the blond smiled playfully.

“Yeah, I’m done,” She giggled as Tomoki returned, only he wasn’t alone. Behind him were…

“Ken and Iori?” Daisuke gapped at them as the duo did the same, only their eyes were trained on the brunette, who Daisuke was still holding the chin of. “What’re you two doing here?”

“We were worried about you Dai,” Ken said, wide eyes staring at the scene they had arrived in. “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Daisuke blinked before realizing the situation he was found in, hand on Takuya’s teary red face and their faces inches apart. His tan skin darkened with a flush as his chocolate brown eyes looked away. “N-Nothing, I was wiping Takuya’s face because she was crying, that’s all!”

Takuya finally pulled her face away with a sniff as she scrubbed at her eyes with her arm. “I told you, you didn’t have too!”

“Yeah, Takuya could always just walk around with tears and snot all over her face,” joked Kouji, narrowly avoiding the small fist thrown his way. “I’m just saying, you would’ve walked around like that, if left to it.”

The brunette grumbled, but didn’t argue the point. Daisuke turned to look at his two friends again, brows furrowed. “You didn’t have to worry that much, I’m fine.”

“But it wasn’t right!” Iori cried out, dark green eyes sad. “They were being unnecessarily mean and didn’t take into consideration anything about you!”

Daisuke shifted, obviously feeling uncomfortable. “Yeah, but I didn’t want to make a scene like that. It wasn’t very cool.”

“Forget being cool,” sighed Ken, leaning forward to flick his best friend on the forehead. “You have a right to your feelings and they should have taken them into consideration just like you do for them.”

“He’s right,” Kouichi nodded, smiling at the duo in front of them. “And I’m glad you still had some good friends in that group.”

“Thank you for looking after the idiot that is my best friend,” Ken bowed to the other teen, who laughed and waved him off.

“No thanks needed, he and Takuya are one in the same,” teased Kouichi, his eyes twinkling in amusement. “If left unsupervised, they can get into Azulongmon knows how much trouble.”

“They know?” Ken and Iori looked at Daisuke, who was sending Kouichi a flat look.

“Well, yeah, they went to the Digital World before Taichi-san and the others,” The burgundy haired teen frowned at the other. “Kouichi knew you two didn’t know that and decided to tease me and you.”

“Speaking of Taichi-san,” Ken winced as he considered his words. “He went off in the computer lab after you left.”

“Oh no,” whined Daisuke, dropping his head onto Takuya’s shoulder, much to the girl’s confusion.

“What?”

“A Taichi-san on a warpath is scary…” The goggle wearing boy shivered. “He’s worse than Kouji and Takuya when they get into a match.”

The Warrior’s all shook their heads in sympathy, aside from Takuya and Kouji, knowing how that would look to anyone else. Daisuke perked up as a thought crossed his head. “I should probably let him know I’m okay, before he assumes the worst.”

“That’d be smart,” Ken commented dryly. “Although I would’ve thought you would’ve let him know sooner, all things considered.”

“Er, what?” Iori blinked at the obvious confusion on the older boy’s face.

“You didn’t tell Taichi-san what happened?”

“Huh? Hell no!” Daisuke looked wholeheartedly lost, before he narrowed his eyes on his bag. Shoving a hand down into it, he pulled out Chibimon, the little digimon giggling sheepishly. “But, this one, might have.”

“Ehee~,” The little dragon shrugged his shoulders. “But! Don’t worry! I just sent him a message that you’re fine and our location.”

“Well, not a total loss, I guess.” The child of Miracles sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “So, how long do you think we have until he finds us?”

“A second,” Another voice cut in and the group turned to see Taichi standing there with Koushiro, the girl looking at her phone while the brunette led her by the hand. “Sorry for the wait Daisuke.”

“No problems,” The younger child of courage basically tripped over himself to go up to his upperclassman. “Hi Koushiro-san!”

“I’m glad you’re okay Daisuke-san,” The older girl finally put her phone away and look at the group with a smile. “Sorry if I seemed distracted, Taichi-san didn’t tell me I’d be out and may be late getting home, so I had to warn my parents.”

Taichi felt sweat appear on him at his girlfriend's narrowed glare and apologized silently with his hands, until she dropped it, completely ignoring the smirking and snickering younger kids. “Anyway, wanna introduce us to your new friends, Daisuke?”

“No need,” Takuya cut in, standing up and walking towards them. “I have a better idea, why don’t we go somewhere for some food and talk, yeah?”

Taichi blinked at the sight of the small teen, who seemed to just give off casual authority, in surprise. “Yeah, no problem here. Kou?”

“Nope,” The redhead smiled, eyes twinkling in amusement. “Ken-san? Iori-kun?”

The duo shook their heads and the large group left, trying to decide where to go for food.

Gennai’s Home

⸻

Gennai sat in his home, feeling like something was off, yet not knowing what it was. As he walked past his living room, he was shocked when he got a knock on the door. His home was deep in the digital web, not many knew where he was and the ones who did, tended to not need him often. “Hello?”

“Gennai-kun, is it?” A woman’s voice asked as he opened the door fully and he almost closed it again in his shock. There in front of him, were three thought to be long gone digimon.

“Lady Ophanimon, Sir Seraphimon and Sir Cherubimon…” He breathed blue eyes locked  on the, seemingly, larger than life digimon.

“Yes, young one.” Seraphimon’s voice echoed, both loudly and yet not. “And I’m afraid we’re not here to ask for a tour.”

“Sadly,” scoffed Cherubimon, nudging Ophanimon lightly. “I would have loved to see more of this new world.”

“Hush,” the lady war angel giggled behind one dainty hand. “If Papamom catches you acting like this, we’ll all get scolded.”

“Dear me,” Seraphimon sighed, shoulder slumping slightly. “We’re never going to grow up at this rate.”

“Why don’t you come in for some tea?” Gennai offered. “It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, evil is making its presence known…” Ophanimon agreed.

Chapter Text

Tuesday (5:00 pm)
⸻

Koushiro, Taichi, Ken and Iori all sat back with wide eyes as the Warriors finished explaining their journey for (hopefully) the last time that day, Takuya and Kouji looking particularly smug as they finished and began to tuck into the ramen they had ordered.

The older two had decided to treat the others to some dinner since it was already late and they had a lot of talking and catching up to do, which Daisuke and the younger digidestined appreciated greatly.

“You know, this adds to a multitude of possibilities that I never even thought of.” Koushiro whispered, her laptop pulled out as she finished typing everything she’d heard in the past couple of moments, before she stopped and closed her eyes, and meeting Takuya’s. “I deeply apologize on behalf of the younger generation. I know you sent Kouji-san with Daisuke-san to go and see how the others were after hearing the horrible things they said the day prior at lunch, but I swear to you, we’re not all like that. I have come to greatly admire and trust Daisuke-san through all the adventures and fights we’ve been through together. He has shown much potential as not only a leader, but also as a good friend of mine.”

Daisuke blushed deeply, head tilting forward as a smile came to his face. “Aw, Koushiro-senpai, thank you.”

The redhead smiled his way, before nudging Taichi in the side gently, the brunette jumpstarting slightly. “Kou is right. I’ve known Daisuke since he was a silly kid and watching him become the strong and brave guy he is today has been a journey that always brings me pride. I always knew there was something special about him, but knowing something and seeing it is a different feeling. I only wished I had been able to step in sooner.” His gaze met Daisuke’s and the two seemed to have a silent conversation. “Never took him for the type to bottle his feelings up, if I’m being honest.”

“Taichi-san…” whined the younger goggle-head, only to chuckle in the next moment. “Thank you. I know I could’ve said something, but I didn’t want to. I knew if I did then, not only am I acknowledging everything they say as the truth, but I’m also just running away from my problems. I thought if I tried to change, chill out a bit more, then it would be different. Lot of good that did me.”

“Hey, none of that talk, Dai!” Takuya punched him lightly in the ribs, a scolding frown on her lips. “You didn’t do anything wrong. From what Kouji and your friends tell me, Hikari-san and the others are in the wrong. You tried everything with them. You tried being louder, you tried being calmer, you changed yourself for them, which is something no one should ever do. I like the Dai that I met in school so far, so maybe you can continue showing me that cool guy, huh?”

Daisuke grinned at her, hyper aware of the way Ken and Taichi were grinning at him from the corner of his eyes. “Yeah, I think that can happen, Takuya.”

She grinned, before turning back to her ramen in front of her and continuing to eat with gusto, the rest following her lead, before the silence was once again broken by Taichi. “So, I have a feeling you guys didn’t move here from Shibuya for a change of scenery like you claimed, did you?”

“Not really.” Kouichi hummed, pushing a piece of shumai onto Kouji’s plate.  “We’re here because we got a message from the Digital World years after we were forced out of it and back into our own. An enemy of ours is returning and we can’t beat it alone.”

“Tell us more, please.” Koushiro moved her ramen to the side once more as she pulled open her computer. “Maybe I can help before we do anything else.”

“We don’t know all the exact details, but we do know that we needed to gather the help of the Virtues and meet in the Digital World for all of the story.” murmured Izumi, moving to brush her hair out of her face as she slurped some more ramen down. “We don’t know who the Virtues are, but we’re supposed to find them.”

“Virtues…” Daisuke looked over at Taichi, who nodded back solemnly. “I think that’s referring to the Odaiba Digidestined. Unlike you Warriors, who were represented by your elements, we were given crests and partners based on a series of events that led to us being chosen as Digidestined and then personality traits that link directly to us and the Digital World’s crests.”

“Wait, really?” Junpei blinked, leaning over to look at Koushiro’s laptop with interest. “These are the crests that you guys use to help your partners digivolve?”

“Yes, these help our digimon evolve to Ultimate level, while Taichi-san and Yamato-san’s allow their partners to digivolve to Mega level.” explained the redheaded tech genius. “It’s quite amazing when you think about the phenomenon that is required. When we were kids, we thought our partners only evolved when we were in danger and that in turn made us think their strength was connected to their need to protect us, since that was how they reached Rookie and Champion level and in some cases, others reached their Ultimate level from the exact same thing, like Takeru-san and Hikari-san, but that is mostly because their crests were Light and Hope, which was a more powerful virtue and they were the youngest out of us all, both only being eight, while Mimi-san and I were nine and the rest were ten, the oldest being Jyou-senpai at eleven.”

“So, if it wasn’t for the danger factor involved in it for Ultimate, how else did the crest affect the digivolution of the digimon?” Kouichi moved a bit closer, eyes just as intrigued as his voice gave away. He was always a bit more curious into the effects of the Digital World after his own rocky involvement of getting there.

“That’s where the Virtues and crest come into play for the Ultimate forms,” Koushiro quickly pulled up a diagram she’d made awhile back of their partners, crests and themselves. “Taichi-san had the Crest of Courage, which tied directly into his reckless and courageous nature. When he did things without fear of the consequences in order to protect us, his crest would activate and cause the digivolution to happen, leading to Greymon becoming Metalgreymon, or in the case of his megs form, he would digivolve into Wargreymon. I had the Crest of Knowledge and when I used learned that it was an important factor to me and how I was constantly trying to learn more about the world, both real and Digital, I activated it and Kabuterimon digivolved into Atlurkabuterimon.”

Junpei nodded, hand moving to cup his chin as he thought about everything that was being said. “I see what you mean. So the Virtues were not only tied directly to your strongest personality traits, but also to your emotions of how you saw it.”

“In a way, yes.” Koushiro smiled, glad that someone else was understanding what she was saying. “It was an intense learning curve for all of us, since the being who was supposed to help us wasn’t very helpful at the time, but we managed. There were times where we all separated and needed a time to go and find ourselves, especially when we came back to fight the Dark Masters. It was our biggest learning curve, but by the time we went to fight the one who really made such a mess of the Digital World, we almost lost when he took our crests and destroyed them. We assumed that our digimon’s power was directly linked to them and that we had failed at that point, but once our partners managed to get it through our heads that the power was within us the entire time, it was easy to find the will to fight once more. We had not only one world to save, but two.”

Takuya nodded slowly, pushing her finished ramen bowl to the side. “I understand exactly what you mean. When we went to fight Lucemon, we were almost defeated, especially after Kouichi was…” She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the memory. “I almost gave up. We were beat up, tired and I thought there was nothing more we could do. Lucemon had destroyed the Digital World, we had failed, I had failed, but then Agnimon appeared and reminded me that we weren’t alone. We had each other, we had the Warrior’s spirits with us. We weren’t truly alone and we still had a chance to win.”

“The important thing that many digidestined learn on their journey,” Daisuke cut in, looking thoughtful as he wiped away the remains of food off his face. “Is that the power they have isn’t just their own, but the power of all of them. The fight that they’re in isn’t just them alone, but with everyone by their side. When we went against BelialVamdemon, we had been in a world where our strongest wishes could come true and my only wish was to have the power to take him down, make him regret hurting my friends and make him leave us and every other child in the world alone. He preyed on the weak, the lonely, the hurt and I didn’t like that. When I had the option to choose a safe wish and wish everything away, the only thing I wished for was for V-mon to be strong enough to take him down and it worked. We even managed to break the others out of their dreams and bring them back to reality, before we took down BelialVamdemon.”

“So we’ve all been in situations that caused us to grow up and become better as Digidestined and regular people. We learned more about ourselves and others, while also trying to adapt to different personalities. We grew up a bit faster than most people our ages did, but we managed to achieve the kind of peace we wished for both worlds.” Kouji added in, nudging Takuya in the shoulder as she smiled his way. “Clashing personalities is usually the best way to work with someone once you get past the rough patches.”

“Too bad you and Takky just seem to clash no matter how well you get along, huh?” teased Junpei with a grin, snickering at the twin glares he received from the two.

“We’re not that bad anymore!” Takuya complained, slumping forward slightly. “Besides, Kouji has a very punchable attitude.”

“And Takuya is just asking to be knocked down a few pegs sometimes.” The long haired teen clicked his tongue slightly, the two turning their glares onto one another, before breaking and snickering themselves as the others joined in.

“Maybe we should try and head to the Digital World sometime this week to try and figure out more of the mysterious enemy that is coming back, then try to find Gennai, surely he must know something is going on in the Digital World.” Ken mused, beginning to stack their finished plates atop one another and push them onto the corner of the table to wait for the waitress to come and get them. “We need to plan a date to use the computer lab where everyone is free.”

“And when the others aren’t in the computer lab.” Daisuke sighed, moving to place a hand on Chibimon’s head. “I’m not fully ready to go and meet them anytime soon. I need some time to think and get myself straight. I know we’ll need to face them soon enough if the danger is really going to need all of us to go against them, but at the same time, I need some time too. I’ve been running back to them every time they apologize without a thought, believing firmly that they would do the same, but there isn’t any way of me knowing if they would truly mean it this time around, even if they got yelled at.”

“If anything,” started Tomoki, voice small. “They could say it just because they got yelled at. I’ve seen it happen a lot with some old bullies of mine. They would get a firm talking too from my big brother and then they would just come back and do it again after being made to apologize to me in front of their parents.”

“I agree with Daisuke-san.” Iori nodded, his green eyes serious as he looked at his predecessor. “I have always stayed silent when we first made the group together and were chosen to save the Digital World and even on occasion ignored his orders as leader and followed the others’ lead in running away from our problems, even when I knew we couldn’t just run away all the time. As the years went on, I watched as Daisuke-san continued to be there for all of us and realized that I wasn’t acting like a friend or even a comrade at all, but instead just being a follower. I won’t do anything to hurt Daisuke-san like that again, I promise.”

“Iori…” whispered Daisuke as Koushiro and Taichi smiled at the younger holder of Knowledge and Reliability.

“I made a lot of mistakes in the past as the Digimon Kaizer, even if I was controlled, but Daisuke was the first one to reach out to me in the aftermath. The others wanted to continue to avoid me and weren’t ready to accept me, hell, I wasn’t ready to accept myself and my mistakes, recklessly trying to do things to try and make things right by myself.” Ken started, noticing the way Kouichi blinked at his story. “But Daisuke wouldn’t allow that. He knew that as Digidestined we needed to work together, that we needed each other and I may have been against it at first, but Daisuke helped me and the others see that the past can be fixed together.”

The others smiled as Daisuke reached over to gently ruffle Ken’s hair. “I would never leave you behind. I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but sometimes we have to go our own ways to try and sometimes we can find our way back to one another. Which I know as Digidestined we can, it’ll just take some time.”

“You know, Dai, you are an amazing friend and leader.” Taichi grinned, the look dulled by the slight sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry that it took me this long to get involved, all of us older kids actually, but I promise things are going to change and be better.”

Daisuke nodded as they stood up to start heading out of the ramen shop. “Don’t be sorry, I never told anyone, I kept it to myself and that was my mistake, but you know now and that’s how change starts. It’s a two way street, Taichi-san, Koushiro-san!”

The two eldest smiled as they exited, all exchanging numbers and contact info to set up a meeting date for later, before they began to head their separate ways, Taichi and Koushiro heading towards the former holder of Courage’s place and the rest beginning to head to Daisuke’s for a study session and finishing up some homework.

⸻
Tuesday (5:00 pm)
⸻

Hikari sighed as she and Takeru sat in her apartment, waiting for Taichi to come home. They had thought about what had gone down during the day in the computer lab and Hikari knew they had messed up, but something about the way Takeru was acting about the whole thing was upsetting the brunette and they were trying to talk about it.

“Takeru, what are we going to do?” Hikari asked, head falling to look at the textbook she had opened, though she didn’t retain any of the information in front of her.

“We could try apologizing when we see him in school?” offered her boyfriend, turning a page in the textbook slowly. “I know Koushiro-san doesn’t think we mean it when we apologize, but we do and Daisuke knows that. Otherwise, he wouldn’t keep accepting them, right?”

“That is true.” The Child of Light agreed, head bobbing in a nod, cherry red eyes peeking up to look around as Tailmon and Patamon napped on the couch across from them. “I mean, we have small fights all the time.”

“We do. I think all Digidestined do, since we all have various personalities trying to work together.” Takeru rolled his shoulders as he leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “We’ve said things to each other that got under all of our skins at one point, I just think we all need to take tonight to cool off and think for a bit and we can talk to him tomorrow at school. How does that sound?”

Hikari’s mouth twisted a bit, not liking the way her boyfriend was brushing it off like it was their old elementary fights when they first started working together, but she also saw the logic he was saying in that moment. If they jumped to try and talk to Daisuke now, they could come off as just trying to move past it like every other time. “And what about Iori, Ken, Onii-chan and Koushiro-chan? They were pretty angry with us as well, you know.”

“I know and I think the same should apply to them. They were angry with us and they have that right, so it would be easier to talk to them later when everyone has calmed down. When I said it the first time, I meant everyone involved, not just Daisuke.” The blond reached out to pull her into his side. “We know we messed up and if everyone calms down, they can see that we feel really bad about the entire thing, ya know?”

Finally a smile came over Hikari’s face. “Yeah, I know.” She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, before moving and laying her head against his chest. “I hope everything works out.”

“I’m sure it will.”

Takeru spent a little longer at the Yagami Household, studying with Hikari, before leaving to catch the train back to his apartment complex for the night. Taichi had arrived home some time after, but aside from a small sigh and kiss to her forehead, didn’t really say anything to Hikari, which hurt, but she knew why and understood.

Her brother knew she would make mistakes growing up, but he also wanted her to learn and grow from them and she couldn’t do that if he stopped to coddle her each time she cried over a mistake.

Hikari knew this, but it still hurt, she only hoped that everything could be fixed the next day.

⸻
Wednesday (6:00 am)
⸻

Daisuke yawned as he sat up, turning his phone alarm off and blinking sleepily as he read over some of the messages he’d received while sleeping. He pointedly scrolled past the messages from Hikari, Takeru and Miyako, all most likely asking if he was going to meet with them that morning, before landing on the ones from the newly made group chat with the Warriors and him, Ken and Iori. There was another one that had him, the Warriors, Ken, Iori, him, Taichi and Koushiro, but it was only active a little bit the night before, so there was nothing new there.

As he read over the new messages, a small smile came to his face as he finally moved out of bed to get ready for his day, gently nudging Chibimon over to wake him up as he did so. Once out of the bathroom, he noticed his partner holding his phone and grinning widely, bright ruby eyes turning to look at him. “Dai, Dai! Takuya and the others are coming over in a bit to go to school together!”

The burgundy haired teen nodded as he finished dressing, moving to scoop his tiny digimon into his arms and moving towards the living room. At some point after becoming a digidestined, Daisuke had taken to waking up pretty early for school to make breakfast for the two of them, moving the time up a bit more to make lunch for the two of them as well when he started eating lunch in the classrooms by himself as well in order to avoid his parents or Jun finding out about Chibimon.

By the time it was six thirty, everything had been cooked, eaten and the area cleaned up, right as a knock resounded on the door. “Coming!” He whispered yelled, grabbing his bag as Chibimon hopped into his free arm. A grin came over his face as he opened it to see Kouji, Kouichi and Takuya standing at the door. “Morning!”

“Mn…” Takuya hummed, leaning almost all her weight on Kouji, who sighed and shifted a bit, as Kouichi waved.

“Good morning.” The older twin smiled, turning and taking Kouji and Takuya’s bags from them as the long haired teen allowed the petite brunette to climb onto his back sleepily. “Takuya’s not really a morning person, so this is the result of our hard work to get here before the annual school meet up.”

“Understandable.” snorted Daisuke as he stepped out of his apartment. “I hate the mornings as well and would rather still be sleeping myself, but sadly, school is a requirement still.”

Kouji laughed a bit as they began to make their way down the hallway. “Yeah, we even went through the trouble of letting this one sleep over at our house to save ourselves the trouble of two stops on the way here and we still almost left late.”

“So, I was thinking it over last night after you guys left, but what if we did a meet up during the weekend?” Daisuke started, taking a bag from Kouichi to make the amount even among them. “I know that Hikari and the others usually have things to do on the weekend and that’s why we usually meet up during the week, since only some of us have club obligations and the like, but the weekend should be easier for us since I don’t have anything to do on weekends, same for Taichi-san and Koushiro-san, but I don’t know about you guys.”

“Well, we don’t really have anything to do on weekends,” Kouji huffed as they made it outside and began to trek towards the train station. “Our only obligations are during school hours and our families all know each other pretty well, though Tomoki’s big brother still doesn’t like us too much, thinking we’re forcing him to hang with us and all, but they won’t blink if we say that we’re just going to meet with each other and you.”

“That’s good at least.” sighed the holder of Miracles, looking up at the slowly lightening up sky. “My folks don’t ask where I am too often, but they do question who I hang out with, but if I say it’s just friends from school that’s fine. I’m more worried about Nee-chan. Every time I say I’m going to hang out with friends, she tries to figure out if I’m going to be with Yamato-san or Takeru, since he’s Yamato-san’s little brother and if I tell her I’m not, she doesn’t believe me and will follow for a bit, but if he doesn’t show, she’ll leave after a bit.”

Kouichi shuddered. “Your sister sounds like a piece of work, respectfully speaking.”

Daisuke chuckled softly. “Yeah, she is. Sometimes it makes me wonder, you know?”

The twins stayed silent, the message getting across clearly as they shared a glance. Jun’s reactions made Daisuke often wonder if she would care if he didn’t know her fangirl crush or if she would just ignore him like normal.

It didn’t take them long to arrive at the station and Kouji woke Takuya up briefly to swipe her Student Train pass through as they waited for the train to arrive.

Once it did, the four students quickly got on and found seats, Kouichi and Kouji sitting next to each other on one side, while right across from them Daisuke and Takuya sat. The sole female was a bit more awake, but her head laid on Daisuke’s shoulder until they arrived at their stop.

They continued on their way to school, this time with Takuya walking and talking with them, until they met up with the remainder of the group. Izumi and Junpei had gone to pick up Ken and Tomoki had grabbed Iori before Miyako and Takeru left at their usual meeting time, meaning there was no way for the holder of Knowledge and Reliability to run into the two and possibly hear them out without Daisuke being with them.

“Nice of you guys to finally join us.” teased the blond teen as she rushed to meet them halfway, the rest of the boys moving at a slower pace. “We were just thinking about if we wanted to head to the rooftop until it was time for class, that way we have a new hideout, since the others from your group most likely know which classrooms you eat lunch in, right?”

Daisuke blinked. He hadn’t thought of that, considering it took Hikari some time to even remember that he wasn’t going to be eating with them anymore. “Oh, I didn’t even think about that, but that sounds like a solid plan, except for when it’s raining or windy.”

“We’ll figure that part out when we get there,” Takuya laughed, pulling a store bought onigiri out of her bag and opening it to snack on. “For now, let’s go check out the rooftops. I know some schools have them locked and off limits to students, so I’m surprised about this one.”

“Oh, Odaiba’s relatively laid back compared to some other prefectures.” explained Ken as he began to lead the way, the others falling into step behind him. “What was Shibuya like?”

“Uh, I think it depends on the person you ask, when it comes to us.” Tomoki chuckled, locking his arms around one of Takuya’s, beaming when the brunette moved to ruffle his hair gently. “I was in a rather gated community and that was pretty safe for me, even if I often got bullied by the bigger kids, though I was a spoiled crybaby.”

“I was in a high end part of the prefecture, with nice row houses, friendly neighbors with pets and the like.” Kouji snorted. “I moved to a lot of places like that too in Shibuya.”

“I was in a middle class setting,” Junpei shrugged. “Not too much crime, but also still with worry and danger at some corners that you learned to avoid.”

“Lower class.” Takuya made a face as she walked, but she didn’t go into detail and no one wanted to pry in that moment, but from the looks on some of the Warriors’ faces it was obvious they knew already. “Learned how to fight and how to protect my brother. We weren’t poor and never really wanted for more, but our parents weren’t really home.”

“And when they were, they only focused on Shinya.” snorted Kouichi, shaking his head as Daisuke’s eyes widened. It reminded him almost of his own family. “It’s one of the reasons Takuya took a liking to all of us. We liked her for her and even when we met Shinya, he’s a good kid, but we still preferred her. Just like you, Daisuke.”

Ken and Iori shared a smile as they continued to walk. “What about you, Kouichi-san?” The Child of Kindness asked.

“Oh, me and my mom were pretty poor with me growing up in borderline poverty, but we’re doing much better now.” The smile on the older twin’s face seemed both sad and wise beyond his years. “Mom used to work a lot of jobs and shifts, but after the Digital World, everything is looking up for us again.”

“I’m glad, Kouichi-san.” Iori smiled, a small nod to the other, before he paused. “By the way, I’ve already introduced the others to my partner, Upamon.”

A small little digimon popped out of the brunette’s kendo bag and smiled widely at the newcomers. “Hi, I’m Upamon, Iori’s partner! It’s very nice to meet you all!”

“And this is my partner, Minomon.” Ken moved his bag to the side and the little bug digimon peeked out eagerly.

“Hello, I’m Minomon, it’s great to meet more friends of Ken-chan’s! Please continue to be his friend, since he’s such a kind person!” Ken blushed and frantically moved to cover the little In-Training digimon’s mouth.

“You can ignore him…” He sighed as the others laughed as they made their way towards the school after the introductions were made and they went to check out the rooftop.

Daisuke smiled as they did so. It was turning into a good day so far and he hoped it stayed that way.

⸻
Wednesday (7:00 am)
⸻

Hikari smiled brightly as she walked into her classroom, looking around for any sign of Daisuke or Ken, even the new kids since she knew that they would know where Daisuke was, only to wilt when she didn’t see any of them, turning around and frowning even more when Takeru walked in looking a little concerned.

“You didn’t see Iori?” She asked, walking up to him as he reached out to hold her hand, their fingers interlacing easily.

“No, when Miyako and I stopped by his apartment to pick him up, his mom said that he was already picked up by a new classmate of his who was around his age.” The blond sighed, looking a bit more dejected with the revelation than he did yesterday, “I thought they would have cooled down by now, yet I don’t see Daisuke or Ken around the room either. None of the new kids as well.”

“Well, they can’t avoid us forever, right?” Hikari tried to keep her tone cheerful as she met his eyes once more. “I mean, we’re in the same class, there’s no way they can come in or leave without us talking to them at least once, right?”

Her words sounded weak even to herself at that moment, but it made the two of them have a hope to at least try, they couldn’t give up so soon. They settled into their desks and began to quietly talk, trying to think of what they would say and how they would approach the group.

A few moments before the bell rang, Daisuke, Ken and the new students walked in, laughing and talking and Hikari felt her mouth twist slightly at the sight of Takuya walking next to their leader, his arm thrown over her shoulder as she argued playfully with Izumi at her side, the grins on their faces showing the fondness they had despite the way they sounded like they were arguing.

Hikari didn’t know why her face reacted that way when she saw them. She should have been happy considering Daisuke had people in his corner after the horrible situation the day before, but watching him from a distance and being unable to join in hurt her, just like it had felt weird to see him being all friendly with them their first day, despite that just being his nature.

She didn’t understand a lot right now, but she knew what she had to do at the end of the class period before their next class.

Talk to Daisuke and apologize for their disgusting behavior. They didn’t act like digidestined yesterday, especially not the Children of Hope and Light, they acted like bullies and that was something she didn’t like to think herself to be.

She had hope that all they had to do was talk to Daisuke and everything would be fine.

⸻
Wednesday (12:00 pm)
⸻

Hikari frowned sadly as she looked around the quickly emptying classroom. Daisuke and his group had disappeared almost the minute the bell rang and for once the teacher didn’t call him back to talk to him about anything, so her and Takeru hadn’t managed to talk to him yet.

But it was lunch time and while they may not have eaten together in some time, Miyako (who had the same struggle with catching up with Junpei in her class) had told them how she knew only a few classrooms that were open for students to eat in during their lunch breaks, which gave them something to look through before the end of the period.

So that was their plan.

But they checked every room and there was no sign of Daisuke or any of the teens who had been hanging around him.

So they tried the computer lab that held their digimon, hoping that Chibimon was there at least so that they would know that Daisuke would be coming back at the end of the school day.

“Sorry, Hikari.” Tailmon apologized, shaking her head sadly from where she lounged on one of the support beams on the ceiling. “Chibimon and Daisuke haven’t been in, neither has Ken and Minomon or Iori and Upamon.”

“Oh…”

“Why are you looking for Daisuke?” squeaked Patamon, gliding down to land on Takeru’s head, big blue eyes looking at them inquiringly. “Weren’t you all really mad at him yesterday?”

Miyako winced, arms opening to catch Poromon, who nodded as much as his little body would allow. “Well, we may have been a bit…wrong to be mad yesterday.”

“I thought you were a little harsh, Miyako-san.” Poromon admitted, looking just the slightest bit guilty at the admission. “You were mad because he was late, but you were late during all the times he was on time…” This caused the lavender haired teen to wince again, gently squeezing him in her arms.

“I agree with Poromon.” yawned Tailmon, stretching briefly. “I’ve already told them, but I think you guys always yelling at him would eventually catch up with you.”

“It’s not like we always yell at him…” Hikari whispered, hands fisting into the bottom of her shirt and wringing the fabric slightly. “And it’s not always so serious, sometimes it’s in good fun.”

“For you, maybe.” Her partner shook her head, looking at Hikari sadly. “I thought you humans would know when someone was faking being happy or when they were genuinely hurt. You used to be so good at it, Hikari.”

“...” The Holder of Light said nothing, hiding her eyes in shame as she bit her bottom lip.

“But I still don't get it.” Patamon chimed in, looking around at the humans. “Daisuke’s always doing things the others don’t like, right? So it’s only natural to get upset at him.”

“Patamon…” Takeru held his partner a little tighter, guilt swirling in his stomach slightly. “It’s not that he’s doing things we don’t like, it’s the fact that we constantly dogpile him with things and despite the older kids telling us not to, we continued to do it, in front of them even and that is what we did wrong. We can’t keep going after one person for everything we don’t like about them. It’s not nice.”

The flying hamster pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything else.

The rest of lunch was spent in silence as they tried to think about what they would do and how they could try to talk to Daisuke again.

⸻
Wednesday (12:00 pm)
⸻

Daisuke laughed as he watched Takuya reach over and snag a eggroll from Kouji’s plate, the dark haired teen growling at her, before taking one of her Harumaki rolls for himself, earning a squawk of disapproval from his leader, before turning and looking at Taichi and Kouji with a bright grin. “Man, I forgot that you guys had the same lunch time as us.”

“Yes, it was quite fortunate actually.” Koushiro smiled back, moving to wipe a piece of rice off her boyfriend’s face gently. “Now we get to talk about what we’re going to do this weekend without any interruptions.”

“I was thinking, Koushiro-san, you had the portal set up on your laptop and desktop at some point, right?” hummed Ken, moving and pushing a California roll onto Daisuke and Iori’s plate, earning beaming smiles from them. “Couldn’t we use that to get to the Digital World?”

Koushiro blinked, before facepalming. “I completely forgot I had set that up back when you guys were traveling from my home and during the camping trip.” The redhead’s pale cheeks darkened as she took another bite of rice shyly. “I’m sorry I forgot it now.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, a lot’s been going on, Koushiro-senpai.” Junpei chimed in, putting his empty bento away and moving to pull a smaller bag out. “Ah, by the way, I grabbed some snacks from the store if anyone wants to share? I have chocolate and some different breads, I might’ve grabbed some onigiri as well.”

“Just a little bit of everything, huh, Junpei?” giggled Izumi, leaning against him as she reached out and snagged a chocolate bar. “Thank you for the chocolate!”

“Yeah, you know me and snacks are old best friends.” He chuckled in return, handing some to the rest of the group, before grinning. “I can’t wait to be back in the Digital World. I know some would think I’m crazy, but when I was there, I met so many amazing digimon and even life long friends.”

“Being trapped in a world that is out to get you and destroy you would do that.” joked Takuya, before her smile softened and her eyes tinged with something soft. “I wonder how it’s changed and if everyone is okay…”

“I’m sure they’re fine.” Kouji bumped her shoulder gently, a smirk on his face. “Neemon and Bokomon got into trouble, but they also knew how to hide when it counted. Not to mention that even if they aren’t good friends from what we’ve seen, Daisuke has told us great stories of them protecting the Digital World after we left. Their Original predecessors did good in showing them the ropes, so everything should be good enough for us to come back and get ourselves reoriented with the world before we have to go and figure out our next step in the plan.”

“So, this Saturday good for everyone?” Daisuke clapped as they began to pack up, the first bell ringing to signify the ending of lunch. When everyone nodded, he grinned. “Good! We’ll meet at Koushiro-san’s house and continue from there!”

With that, their small meeting was adjourned and they left, unaware of the planning Hikari and her friends were doing to try and talk to Daisuke.

Things were still looking up for them and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

Saturday (12:00 pm)
⸻

Daisuke swiped through his phone absently as he waited for the Warrior Digidestined to arrive at the train station. He’d told Taichi and Koushiro that he would pick the other group up and show them to the redhead’s house, since they’d never been there before.

As he was waiting, a message popped up and his face twisted into one of forced calmness.

It was a message into a group text from Takeru with Yolei, Iori, Hikari and Ken in it as well.

We need to talk. You can’t avoid us forever. Daisuke snorted softly at the blond’s text. Straight to the point and unapologetic in the slightest, just like he expected from the Child of Hope.

Daisuke used to think that they could’ve came to some sort of middle ground by this point, but after hanging around Takuya and her friends, hearing how they actually overcame most of their differences and helped one another, the thought of him and Takeru actually ever agreeing on something was just not in the realm of this century, he was pretty sure of it.

Licking his lips, he flexed his fingers for a moment, before lifting his phone once more. There’s nothing I have to say to any of you right now. It can wait until I’ve thought some things through.

He released a gust of air, muting his phone and pocketing it as he turned to look up at the sky, his chest feeling lighter than it had in some time.

Daisuke knew that he couldn’t avoid them forever. From the way things were going, sooner or later they would have to talk about things, but right now…right now, he wanted to focus on what he could handle.

He could handle helping the Warriors getting back to the Digital World and trying to figure out their next step from there. He could handle working on bringing his grades up in the middle of all this mess.

What he couldn’t handle was being faced with Hikari, Takeru and Yolei, hearing them half heartedly apologize about what happened and hope they could move forward, only to know that the cycle would repeat.

Daisuke knew humans could change and were constantly changing, but when it came to those three, at this moment, he didn’t think they were ready for change.

Not until Daisuke himself could change and promise himself he wouldn’t fall back into his habits of just accepting everything and moving on without expecting anything to actually change.

But Daisuke knew eventually, he wasn’t going to be able to avoid the confrontation that would take place and he could only hope the outcome wouldn’t be so bad that they couldn’t fulfill their duties as Digidestined.

Just because they couldn’t get their shit together, didn’t mean the Digital World had to suffer.

⸻

Hikari blinked, cherry eyes flicking away from her phone to watch as her brother began to get ready to head somewhere. “Nii-chan…”

“Yes, Hikari?” He turned to meet her gaze, brown eyes soft and warm, pausing at the doorway.

“Have you heard from Daisuke?” She asked, moving to stand in front of him, her phone clutched tightly to her chest as she did so.

“Yeah, Kou and I have been studying with him, Iori Ken and the new Digidestined after school,” The former leader hummed, reaching up to fix her hair gently. “Why?”

“Well…the others and I want to meet with him to talk about everything…” Hikari’s gaze fell to the floor. “I want to apologize to him for being such a terrible friend to him. Daisuke has every reason to be upset with me, to not want to be around any of us…but I want to try and make it right with him. To try and be a proper friend to him, like I should’ve been from the start.”

Taichi’s face twisted for a moment and he heaved a sigh, moving to sit on the couch, patting the spot next to him gently and Hikari slumped into his side, practically melting into his side as she searched for the comfort she was craving in these moments. “Hikari, can you tell me when you stopped seeing Daisuke as a friend?”

“I haven't.” She protested, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Even when I felt a little annoyed with him, I always considered Daisuke a friend…why would you ask that?”

“Hikari, if I’m going to be honest, it doesn’t look like that to any of us, not even to Daisuke.” Her brother shrugged, almost helplessly at her side. “When Daisuke moved into the apartment complex, you and him were like siblings, close and always having so much fun. But ever since you became a Digidestined and met Takeru and Tailmon, you began to distance yourself from him. He’d come over and ask to play during the summer, after we came back, but you would often send him back and go play with Takeru instead.”

Hikari paused, brows furrowing as she thought back to after their adventure in the Digital World. She knew it was hard for her and Takeru to adjust back to normal life after the times they held in the Digital World, the loneliness they felt after Tailmon and Patamon were forced to stay behind and they had to return back to their world.

The feeling of despair at the thought of never seeing their partners again and only having the other Digidestined to rely on, cope with.

She would hear about Daisuke coming over to invite her to play with him, especially when his parents would leave him with Jun and he had nothing else to do, but she couldn’t find it in herself to play with him, too lost in the thought of the Digital World and wanting to go play with the other Digidestined, even if it was usually just Mimi, Sora and Takeru with her brother at her side.

Hikari had felt like Daisuke wouldn’t have understood and it would’ve been weird, since she was still so young and trying to figure out what to do now, feeling like she didn’t have a purpose anymore.

“Oh no…”

“Just think about those times, try to remember a time you hung out with him for the sole purpose of hanging out with him and not because you had Digidestined related things to do.” Taichi murmured, his hand running through her hair once more. “I know that during that time, it was hard for all of us, especially you and Takeru since you were so young, but sadly, the world doesn’t stop when we have troubles and issues and that includes friends. You and I were Daisuke’s first friends and maybe even a second family to him when he first arrived. The way you pushed him to the side, it wasn’t right and it hurt him to the point that when he met Takeru, it wasn’t just petty jealousy over a crush. It was hurt and anger because he didn’t know how to feel about how easily you could become close friends with him again, not knowing the full story of what happened when you were children.”

“...I never knew I hurt him so much.” She whispered softly, head tilting downwards. “I had never told him the reason I started putting distance. He didn’t know that I was struggling and I didn’t know I was hurting him…I was just a kid, Nii-chan.”

“You both were. You weren’t supposed to know how to talk about things like that yet, we can’t blame you for what happened in the past.” soothed her brother, a small sad smile on his face. “It started off as a miscommunication, but then it got worse when you were part of his group, don’t you think?”

Hikari closed her eyes, thinking back to all the times she spent with Daisuke, Takeru, Iori, Yolei and Ken. She thought about how Daisuke would try and encourage them in his own way, the way he acted loud and brash at the beginning, how he grew into his role of leader and then the times they spent in school after the final fight and how things changed, their dynamic changed right in front of her eyes.

How she ignored it.

“I…I started following how everyone else treated him…” She gasped, hands flying up to her mouth as tears sprung into the corner of her eyes. “I-I thought that he was showboating to try and get my attention romantically, but he was just trying to get any kind of attention because we weren’t treating him like a friend! We were treating him like a nuisance…oh my Azulongmon…”

“Now that you see that, why don’t you try talking to Yolei and Takeru.” Her brother advised, standing and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “Try seeing what they think of the situation, Daisuke and how they used to treat him in the past. See if they’re truly ready to try and grow like we’ve been telling you guys and maybe you guys can find a common ground to actually start repairing the fracture in your relationship with Daisuke and the others.”

“Okay…thank you, Nii-chan.” She murmured, standing and hugging him tightly. “I know you’re mad at us and we deserve it, but thank you for helping me still.”

“Hikari, I told you the first time around,” His large and warm hands fell comfortingly onto her shoulders and Hikari soaked it up gratefully. “I was disappointed and upset, but I wouldn’t leave you to struggle alone. You’re still learning and growing. Leaving you to drown in this alone would only cause more damage. I just hope the others are as open minded as you’re being right now.”

Hikari smiled for the first time since their talk started and nodded slowly. “Me too, Nii-chan.” Then she blinked. “Where are you going?”

“To Kou’s, I’ll be back around dinner time.” A joking smile came to his face as a teasing glint came to his eyes. “Try to keep mom from making anything poisonous. If it’s not possible, call me and I’ll grab some dinner for us to have with movies tonight.”

Hikari giggled and nodded as he turned and headed out the door, leaving her and Tailmon alone as she pulled her phone back up and looked at the group text that Takeru had sent out that day.

That wasn’t the right way to go about this and she was going to figure out the proper way.

“Tailmon, let’s go. We have some things to do today.” Her partner blinked, before she grinned at her broadly.

“You got it, Hikari.”

⸻
Saturday (12:30 pm)
⸻

Yamato and Takeru were walking by the train station when his brother stopped, turning to stare at a brunette with wild hair and warm eyes that was running towards the station, a grin on his face. “What’s up?”

“She’s one of the kids that have been hanging out with Daisuke recently.” The younger muttered, eyes narrowed as the girl cursed and began to search through her bag for something, pausing in her running.

“Is she? Do you think if we asked her, she could set up a meeting with Daisuke?” Yamato really hoped that would be the case. He’d thought long and hard on what Taichi had said during that meeting and felt an immense amount of guilt about the way he’d treated Daisuke up until this point.

When they first met, Daisuke had just been a child, not even in his teenage angst phase, instead just being like a younger Taichi, only with more anger issues. Yamato had seen the courage in the kid, had seen the way he prioritized his friends above all else, even in moments of indecision, he always tried to make sure everyone was okay.

It had been like looking at mirror when Daisuke had told V-mon that he was his friend, almost like he didn’t truly know what a friend was supposed to be like and that made Yamato feel worse for assuming that Daisuke was like one of the everyday kids who had the world and didn’t realize it just yet.

“I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.” Takeru decided, beginning to make his way over to the girl. “Hey, Takuya, you have a moment?”

The brunette paused in her shuffling and turned to look at the other with a face of displeasure, shifting her stance slightly. “Not really, I’m kind of in a rush right now. So, if you don’t mind.” She turned to leave, but Takeru’s hand latched onto her wrist. “Hey! What the hell?!”

“It’s only a minute, you can go afterwards, promise.” bargained Takeru and Yamato looked over at the petite teen in front of them appraisingly.

Takuya huffed, tugging her wrist free easily. “Fine, but hurry the hell up. I really don’t want to be talking to either of you, since I don’t like you,” She pointed at Takeru, who winced, before flicking her gaze over to Yamato. “And I don’t know you. Stranger danger and all that jazz.”

Yamato hummed, eyes narrowing slightly, before shrugging. “Ishida Yamato, Takeru’s older brother.”

“Oh, I can see that.” Takuya rolled her eyes sarcastically, before turning to look back at Takeru. “And what do you want right now, Blondie?”

“It’s Takeru, not ‘Blondie’, and I wanted to know if you were going to be seeing Daisuke any time soon?” His brother asked, keeping his voice calm and casual, trying to not come off as aggressive or rude to the shorter, who seemed to have no problem doing the exact same to him. “We were hoping you could ask him to try and set up a time to meet up with us.”

“Oh, see here’s the thing, I’m not going to force Dai to hang out with people who hurt him repeatedly and now want to make it up to him in the name of their form of ‘friendship’,” sneered the brunette, the look out of place on her youthful face. “Especially if he doesn’t want to talk or meet up with them on his own accord right now.”

“Avoiding us isn’t the solution to the problem.” scoffed Takeru, blue eyes rolling slightly. “Besides, he does this from time to time and then shows up when he’s done acting like a child.”

Anger flashed in the brunette’s eyes and she pushed Takeru out of her way, glaring at him. “You don’t fucking know anything, stop trying to make it seem like you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in this position, don’t you fucking thing so?”

Yamato’s eyes widened when Takeru shoved the girl back, with a lot less heat than she had, but it wasn’t in character for him at all. “You don’t know anything about us! You’re only taking his side of the story because of one meeting! He’s always been like this! Overdramatic, childish and completely unbearable to be around for extended periods of time! He doesn’t know when to shut up, he doesn’t know when to take a hint!”

“Takeru!” snapped Yamato, trying to grab the younger blond’s attention as other people looked over at them in shock and curiosity from the noise escalation.

“And isn’t that just your point of view, Blondie?” sneered Takuya, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “And if you keep talking about him like that, you’re going to regret it.”

Yamato could only guess. He knew that he’d told Takeru that there wouldn’t be any harm in going to try and see if she set the meeting up, what he didn’t expect was for everything to go sideways so fast. But Takeru obviously didn’t see it like that, instead gritting his teeth and glaring back at Takuya. “What is your deal? We haven’t done anything to you nor your friends and yet you're treating us like public enemy number one!”

“I’m treating you like this because you’re treating this whole thing with Dai like it’s one big show that he’s putting on, even though you all hurt him!” Takuya huffed a dry laugh, head tilting back slightly. “Kouji told me what happened at that meeting, how you were all talking badly behind his back. V-mon and Dai told me how that wasn’t the first time either, how you constantly do it whenever he’s late, even though he doesn’t do that to any of you. So, tell me again, why should I do shit for you?”

“We act like that because Daisuke doesn’t act like a leader and he certainly doesn’t act like a friend, if he turned on us just for words! We said sorry and have been trying to make it up to him, but he’s not giving us the chance to,” grunted Takeru and Yamato wanted to step in, say something, do something, but he couldn’t. He just continued to watch, just like he always did when it came to the younger generation. “You talk about us being bad friends, but what the hell do you call him running off and straight to you guys, even though we’ve known him longer, huh? Pretty shitty friend, isn’t he? Despite the fact that he has the Digimental of Friendship-!”

Takeru was cut off by Takuya suddenly jumping on top of him, a growl escaping the brunette as she punched him and for the second time in his life, Yamato watched Takeru fight with someone, but this time, he didn’t think Takeru was in the right.

Takeru had been bad mouthing Daisuke, Yamato’s kouhai and successor, saying he was sorry and yet somehow trying to pin it on Daisuke the entire time.

It didn’t make sense to the original holder of the crest of Friendship. This wasn’t like his brother in the slightest and he didn’t understand what was happening.

He heard people rushing around, some pulling out their cameras and phones as the petite teen continued to have the upper hand in the fight against Takeru, easily keeping him pinned to the floor, even as he writhed and wiggled under her, trying to shake her loose.

Then a shout broke through the murmurs of the crowd. “Takuya!”

The older blond turned to see a long haired teen, along with one that had similar facial features run through the crowd and pull her off with some struggle, Takuya bucking and jerking in their hold until they managed to get her back onto her feet and away from Takeru, who groaned and sat up, dirt, bruises and scratches on his face as he did so. That finally kick started Yamato into moving, rushing forward and kneeling next to his younger brother and checking him over.

“Let me go, Kouji!” Takuya growled, still trying to break out of the dark haired male’s hold. “I’m going to kill him!”

“Not now. We have to go and when we get there, you can explain what happened, okay?” The long haired teen grunted, pulling her further away from what had just occurred.

The short haired male turned and looked over at them, dark sapphire eyes meeting Yamato’s and the older blond blinked at the sight of disappointment and sadness in his gaze, before he turned and followed after the other two.

Seeing the fight broken up, caused the crowd to disperse and Yamato was left with Takeru on the floor. The former holder of Friendship looked down at the Child of Hope and he sighed heavily through his nose. “We need to talk when we get home and then we’re going to have another meeting with the rest of the Digidestined. They need to know what happened and we need to know how to fix this, because they’re going to tell Daisuke exactly what happened and we need to figure out how to work through that. But first, you're going to come back to my place and we’re going to work through your feelings.”

Takeru said nothing, but he nodded, blue eyes on the floor, but Yamato knew they were full of shame and regret. His brother must’ve been going through something and this was simply the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back.

Quickly, they left the station and made their way back to Yamato’s apartment.

⸻
Saturday (1:30 pm)
⸻

Koushiro blinked when her room door was opened again and she turned with a smile, only for it to fall when Daisuke and his new group of friends walked in, all looking concerned and upset, as Takuya shifted under their gazes. What really caught the redhead genius’ attention was the scratches and minor bruising that was littering the younger girl’s tanned skin. “What happened to you?!”

“Got in a fight before I got into the train station.” She grunted, gingerly settling herself onto the carpeted floor, one hand moving to play with her goggles as the other ruffled her messy brown hair. “It’s not that important.”

“I don’t know about that…” huffed Taichi in disbelief, moving to grab Koushiro’s first aid kit from the closet. “I know you said you used to get into them all the time, but I also remember you saying you don’t get into fights over stupid things anymore.”

“And I don’t.” Takuya promised, looking up with honest brown eyes. “This wasn’t something stupid, but I also don’t want to get into it right now…”

“That’s nonnegotiable, Takuya.” cut in Daisuke, crouching down in front of her, a frown on his face and eyes hard. “You got into a fight and Kouji already said it was with Takeru, which means this must’ve been something important enough to cause you to get upset.”

This threw Koushiro for a loop. Takeru was usually a calm and gentle boy, never really one for physical violence, unless pushed to that point and now she learns that he was the one that fought Takuya, who was a female, was something that couldn’t be brushed over.

“Fine…” And Takuya began to explain what happened at the train station before Kouji and Kouichi arrived to stop the fight.

Looks like they had some more things to figure out before Daisuke could try and think about how to reconcile with the other Digidestined.

Chapter Text

Saturday (1:30 pm)
⸻

Takuya shifted, a small blush on her cheeks as she looked down with a frown. “...I’m sorry.” It took Daisuke and the others a moment to realize she wasn’t blushing because she was embarrassed about fighting, but more so because she felt ashamed for it. “I know that you’re mad at him right now, but I also know that you wouldn’t have wanted me to do that…even if I felt like it was the right thing in the moment.”

“...I’m not upset.” Daisuke promised, watching as Taichi finished bandaging the warrior of Fire’s scrapes. “I mean, maybe if it had been a day or two ago, I probably would’ve been a little peeved, but now I know that you were just trying to defend me.”

The brunette looked relieved, shoulders slumping slightly as she smiled up at him. “I’m so glad, Dai. I didn’t mean to get so mad, considering it wasn’t supposed to escalate like it did, but then…they wouldn’t stop talking and they kept pressing me to try and talk to you for them and I knew you weren’t ready for that, wasn’t ready to go around forgiving them already.”

“And once again, I’m grateful, Takuya.” He promised, before turning to Taichi. “What do we do now? They’re going to start trying to talk to me in the real world and I’m pretty sure if we start heading back to the Digital World constantly, they’ll try and find me there, which would be easier for them with the D3’s.”

“It’s fine,” Taichi reassured, finally putting the first aid kit away. “We’ll handle it if it gets there, but for now, we have to head over to the Digital World and contact Gennai. We don’t have to tell him everything that’s happened, but we do need to let him know about the current situation at hand with the Warriors to see what our next step would be.”

Takuya looked up at him, eyes wide and slightly sparkling. “Wow, so that’s what a natural born leader looks like, huh?”

“Yup,” Daisuke nodded, a grin on his face as Taichi flushed lightly. “Really cool how quickly he can take control of a situation, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, you two can stop it now.” grumbled the flustered former Chosen of Courage as he turned to Koushiro with a wave of his hand. “Kou, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Taichi-san.” giggled the redhead, turning to set up her computer. “Are you all ready to head to the Digital World?”

“You bet!” Takuya beamed as she jumped to her feet, basically vibrating at the spot as the others readied themselves as well.

It was time to head back to the Digital World and start their next step.

⸻
Saturday (2:00 pm)
⸻

Yamato sighed as he finished cleaning all the scrapes and bruises off Takeru, shoving tissue into his nose and looking him over for anything more, only to come up empty handed. “Alright, I’ll bite now that you’re not getting mauled by a short girl…what the hell was that?”

“...” Takeru’s lips twisted for a moment as his hands moved in the air helplessly, before sighing and looking up from under his bucket hat. “She started it…?”

“That’s weak and you know it.” snapped Yamato, arms crossing over his chest as he tapped his foot irritably. “Now, fess up. You didn’t seem the care when this all started, but the minute it came to trying to set up a meeting and failing, you’re suddenly so dead set on talking to Daisuke, knowing damn well we need to give him space and time.”

“It’s just…” Takeru’s head fell forward once more and his shoulders slumped. “Everyone is mad at us because of what we said about Daisuke, but no one is trying to see it from our point of view. He was made leader by Taichi-san and the entire time, he’s made one mistake after another and no one seems to care except for Miyako and me!”

“Takeru, it’s not your place to get on his case about the mistakes, that’s what…” The older blond stopped himself for a moment, before picking it back up. “That’s what Taichi’s there for. He’s there to help Daisuke learn what is the better path without making all his choices for him. He’s there to show Daisuke that he can make mistakes because he’s not alone.”

He would’ve said that was what they were both there for, but…Yamato didn’t think he deserved that right when he didn’t even know the Holder of Miracles’ favorite color in all honesty and that meant he couldn’t be called responsible to try and help him, when he only made things worse. Yamato knew that Taichi and the others had a point when they said that he didn’t try to get to know Daisuke and it just had to really be pointed out to him about the entire situation.

It did sting to know that he’d pushed someone he was supposed to be mentoring away, instead of building any kind of bond with him like the others had.

They all had their issues in the long run, but Yamato allowed his own to control how he perceived others and their words, even if that wasn’t his place.

“But-!”

“No ‘but’s, Takeru,” Yamato held his hand up firmly. “I would defend you every time, but this time, you started the fight and then when it got out of hand, someone else stepped in to help you. I understand you’re frustrated with Daisuke, but this is a new level that I’ve only ever seen you do with Ken when he was still the Kaiser, so please…be honest, tell me what’s going on.”

“I…I don’t know.” admitted the younger after a moment of silence, his head falling forward and shoulders shaking slightly. “At first, I thought it would blow over like usual, but now there are other people saying how we’re all terrible friends, but they only know Daisuke’s version! They don’t get how he’s been avoiding us this entire time, how he’s been skipping meetings, not eating lunch with us…acting like we’re doing something wrong when he’s the one who stopped being around us first!”

“Takeru…” Yamato closed his eyes, looking up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out the words for this situation. “You remember what Koushiro said in the lab? How you guys throw half assed apologies at him and then he comes bounding back with that grin and energy around? Well, sometimes people don’t just come back after some time. In fact, they decide that they don’t want to deal with that kind of pain anymore and think the best solution is to give both parties space and time. Daisuke did this and you guys didn’t seem bothered initially, but that’s most likely because you thought he’d come back only a week in, correct?”

“...We didn’t take it seriously when he said he was going to be eating lunch in the classroom instead of coming to the cafeteria with us…” admitted the younger.

“And when it came to him bailing on the meetings?” Yamato didn’t know the story behind that one, but he knew Daisuke enough to know lying wasn’t his thing and the older blond knew he would’ve put some actual reason and not some made up one in place.

“He would say he had extra practice to do or he needed to go tutoring…” A harsh swallow. “Or…he had to go straight home from school and wouldn’t offer anything after that.”

“That must’ve been what he was saying to get to his therapy sessions,” hummed Yamato, eyes shadowed at the thought of Daisuke not feeling comfortable telling them the full truth and instead half ones. “And the others must’ve been true, considering Taichi did say he took a break from school, which I’m surprised that you never told me about.”

“I thought you knew already…” The younger sighed. “I didn’t know the reason, I only know that the teacher told us that Daisuke was going to be gone for a while and to not bombard him the day he was coming back.”

Yamato nodded and the two sat there for a moment, the older trying to find the right words, while Takeru was stuck in his own spiraling thoughts. “...even Hikari is starting to take his side in this thing.”

“Takeru, you have to know this isn’t about sides, right?” Yamato stared on in shock. He knew things had been ongoing for some time, but he didn’t think it had devolved this far already.

“It’s always been about sides when it came to me and Daisuke…” Takeru pursed his lips, eyes flashing defensively. “I mean, I always thought that Taichi-san would make me the next leader of the Digidestined, but when Daisuke came in, he always seemed to try and pick fights with me, so eventually people started choosing sides. Iori-kun, Miyako and Hikari were usually on my side, with Ken and Daisuke being on the opposite one…”

“We might have a lot more to fix than I thought…” Yamato pulled out his phone, sending a mass text message to the rest of their friends.

⸻
Saturday (2:30 pm)
⸻

Takuya looked around the new Digital World in front of them. “It’s…it’s changed so much.”

She heard murmurs of agreement behind her and knew the rest of the Warriors were looking around, trying to find something that would be at least the slightest bit like they remembered in the area.

“I don’t see any…Trailmon tracks…” Tomoki hummed, eyes looking downcast as he glanced at the ground. “And I don’t see a village around either, despite how close they usually are.”

“Trailmon?” repeated the former Child of Knowledge as she turned to stare at the Warrior of Ice in interest. “What are those?’

“They were one of the ways to get around when we went to the Digital World.” Izumi explained, looking around as if expecting one to pop up. “They were train based digimon that were some of the most interesting ways to get around.”

Taichi whistled. “Man, wish we had that when we went to the Digital World. We ended up just walking everywhere or using rafts if we had to cross waters with the occasional ride from Whamon.”

“Maybe they ended up being transfigured when the Digital World started once more?” whispered Kouichi, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I mean, they did have to rebuild it after Lucemon ate all the data…”

“Oh, child, are you still worrying about things like that?” They heard a mature sounding voice and they all looked up to see three beings floating down their way with Gennai in front of them. “Really, you saved the world, you’d think you’d be a bit happier about that and a little less sad about the world being briefly reborn.”

“Gennai!” Daisuke, Iori, Taichi and Koushiro cried out, happy at seeing the familiar faces, only to be startled by the sheer happiness on the Warriors’ faces.

“Seraphimon!” Takuya dashed forward, slowing down in front of the male War Angel. “You’ve done it. You made it back to Mega and grew up again!”

“That I did, Takuya-oneechan…” The War Angel gave a little nod down at the tiny human as Kouji ran over to the blond digimon at his side.

“Ophanimon…” He breathed, reaching up to meet her hand as it brushed along the tips of his fingers.

“You humans don’t grow much, do you, Kouji-niisan?” She teased lightly as he sent a small glare up her way, though there was no heat in the look at all.

“Cherubimon…” The large Holy Beast mega floated in front of Kouichi, his once purple and blue colored fur changed to a pure white and gold coloring as his shining eyes looked down at the one he once took advantage of, guilt and sorrow in them as he met the human’s blue eyes.

“Kouichi…I-I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you…” The Mega took a deep breath. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but…”

“I already forgave you, Cherubimon.” The Warrior of Darkness smiled, the look so gentle and kind. “After all, y9ou were being manipulated just as I was. It wasn’t your fault what happened and neither was it mine.”

“Well, though you humans don’t grow much physically, you sure do gain wisdom.” chuckled the Holy Beast, his hand moving to gently brush over the top of Kouichi’s dark hair.

“I wish we had more time to catch up,” Gennai cut in, Koushiro and Taichi at his sides as he regarded all the humans in front of him. “But sadly, we don’t. There is a new threat coming and in order to combat it…”

“The Warriors must once again pick up their mantles,” Ophanimon smiled as she looked down at the humans in front of her. “And find suitable partners for the spirits that were once touched by darkness.”

“That is, if our special chosen would still take it up once more.” teased Seraphimon as he met the playfully offended looks sent his way. “You could continue with the peaceful lives you’ve had until now.”

“As if…” Takuya grunted, a grin coming to her face as she crossed her arms over her chest. “This place is our second home and where we found our second family.”

“If it needs help, we’re going to help it.” agreed Izumi, her green eyes glittering.

“Besides, we miss our spirits.” Junpei admitted, a small flush coming to his cheeks as he scratched at it gently. “I wonder if they miss us just as much.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it.” groaned Cherubimon, looking more exasperated and less regal as he tipped his head back. “I didn’t think they’d ever stop whining about ‘not wanting new holders’, as if we planned to do all that again.”

Daisuke watched the group as they conversed with the three Holy digimon in front of them. Gennai had a similar relationship with the older Digidestined, though he was much more distant with the newer generation. It was kind of lonely, but they didn’t really press it.

He kept his distance, so they kept theirs. It was a normal balance.

“So, where are our spirits?” Tomoki broke the calm atmosphere with his own excited question.

“Ah, and that is where it becomes a little harder…” chuckled Ophanimon. “You see, the spirits don’t like to do anything the easy way, thus you have to go and find them all over again, along with your Beast Spirits.”

The look of horror on the Warriors’ faces was almost comical, if it wasn’t for the fact that Daisuke knew he and the others would be helping them with this task. Takuya took a step forward, a look of resignation on her face as she regarded the digital beings in front of them. “And how do we do that? We don’t have our D-Tectors anymore and no Bokomon or Neemon to even begin to try and navigate this new Digital World, no offense.”

“Come on now, Takuya-oneechan,” Seraphimon scoffed as he floated above them. “Do you really think we’d send you on another wild goose chase?”

Izumi inhaled sharply, hands clasped in front of her face as her eyes closed for a moment. “I’m going to speak on behalf of the rest of us as well…” Her eyes narrowed slightly at the Megas in front of them. “ Yes .”

“Rude.” huffed Cherubimon, but everyone could clearly hear the fondness in the words, before a bright light began to emit from the pockets of the Warriors and they all reached down to pull out the lights.

They all watched with various grins on their faces as they noticed their cell phones changing into the smaller, yet bulkier forms of their D-Tectors once more.

“With your D-Tectors, you are going to go and find the Spirits once more,” Seraphimon explained and Daisuke could hear the smile in his voice, even with the helmet covering the entirety of his face. “The evil is on the rise, but we’re ahead of it by a couple of steps at least. This will give you time to go and get your Spirits and hopefully your Beast Spirits as well.”

The teens nodded, looking at their newly returned D-Tectors with fond smiles, before Gennai looked at them. “While you are all looking for the Legendary Spirits, I will be keeping an eye on the evil with the three Holy Angels, while also returning the power of mega evolution to your partners, speaking of which, where are the rest of the Digidestined?”

The silence that came from the humans suddenly turned tense as Daisuke’s gaze fell to the floor and Takuya’s eyes narrowed and she looked away with a nearly muted growl.

“About that,” Taichi stepped forward, ready to start delegating between everyone involved at the moment. “There’s been some…issues recently with the younger Digidestined and it’s gotten pretty bad.”

The Digital man blinked for a moment, his lips twisting into a concerned frown as his brows knitted together. “What is it?”

Taichi began the story and by the end of it, Gennai looked horrified at what the younger children had done, eyes turning to Daisuke, who seemed to almost curl into himself as Ken and Takuya stood by his sides, the Warrior’s leader looking more pissed as she heard the story once more from the top.

“I…I understand that you need time, Daisuke.” Gennai cleared his throat sternly, hands going behind his back as he considered their next option. “Then in that case, I’ll leave communication to the other Odaiba Chosen Children to myself and the Three Holy Angels can communicate with this group, if that’s okay with everyone?”

There wasn’t a sound of protest, which they all took as an agreement, before Seraphimon spoke up again. “But this is only a temporary fix, eventually you’re going to have to go and face them. This evil can only be defeated if you work together.”

Takuya pursed her lips slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. “Speaking of, who is this threat? It couldn’t be Lucemon…we didn’t seal him, we reset his data entirely and besides, he would’ve been reborn long ago if it was him.”

“You’re correct,” Cherubimon nodded. “This evil is someone much worse…”

“Mileniumon has returned.” whispered Ophanimon, voice haunted and it was like those words were somehow Takuya’s breaking point.

Her face paled and she took a step back with a jerky shake of her head, eyes wide. “N-No way…we-we sent him to a whole other dimension!”

“H-He shouldn’t be back so soon!” whimpered Izumi, hands clenched tightly in front of her chest as she looked up at the digital monsters in front of her.

“I’m sorry, but…he is.” apologized Gennai, his eyes lingering on the shocked Warriors. “We don’t know what his plan exactly is, all we know is that…the worlds are in danger, but so is the one nicknamed the Princess of Flames.”

Silence once again overtook the area as everyone turned to look at the shaky Takuya. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Daisuke couldn’t help but want this day to be over faster than he’d wanted it to get there…

Chapter Text

Daisuke glanced at the pale and shaken faces of the Warriors in the clearing, the looks of fear and anger clear on their faces. Takuya’s brown eyes were stuck on the ground, her fists clenched tightly at her sides as Kouji stood beside her, almost protectively, a glare on his face.

The rest were in similar states, Kouichi’s arms wrapped around his midsection as small shivers ran through his body, almost as if he was scared of something ripping through him, while Tomoki clung to Izumi’s side and Junpei looked at them all with worried eyes.

“Guys, who’s Millenniummon?” Taichi broached forward, eyes darting between the Holy Digimon trio, Gennai and the Warriors contemplatively.

“I guess we should start with some context,” Seraphimon started, his voice low and concerned as he gazed at the digimon and humans in front of him. “I’ve heard tales of the trials the Virtuous digidestined and I don’t want you to make any mistake on the type of people you will be working with this time around.”

“Before then, why don’t we head to a safer location to talk,” Gennai placed a comforting hand on Takuya’s shoulder, the brunette’s eyes flashing up to meet the man’s kind smile. “I know a place that would help you Warriors feel just like you were home once more.”

They heard a loud chugging noise and watched as the ground, once unmarked and completely covered in grass, began to glow and shift, train tracks appearing as the chugging sound got louder and louder. “Woo! Woo! Trailmon coming through!”

The Warriors turned, the desolate expressions shifting to one of shocked happiness as a burgundy train pulled to a stop in front of them and Daisuke was shocked when the front of the train opened up, looking like a mouth as it roared once more. “Woo! Woo! Worm is here for an important pickup, no stops on the way to our destination!”

“Worm!” Takuya dashed forward, coming to a stop in front of the large digimon, a grin coming to her face. “Look at you, buddy! Looking good!”

“Haha, nothing can take down the ol’ worm! Not Lucemon, not Vamdemon, not the Digimon Kaiser and certainly not age!” laughed the Trailmon, yellow eyes shifting to look over at the tiny human girl. “It’s good to see you again, Takuya.”

She beamed, before turning to Daisuke and the others (and Daisuke didn’t feel his heart leap a bit at the sight of the smile). “Come on, guys! Worm isn’t going to sit forever, he’s always ready to go, go, go!”

With that, she ran inside, the others following suit and Daisuke thought, not for the first time, the Digital World was amazing and full of surprises and friends.

⸻

The scenery passed in a blur, places that Daisuke remembered and places that he’d never seen before, until the area changed to something more rural looking, digimon that he’d never seen before starting to pop up and around, all doing the most mundane of things that he’d never would’ve expected in the Digital World.

“Where are we?” He wondered to Ken and Iori, both following his gaze as they looked at the little digimon that looked like Upamon with bodies and little hamburger bread hats.

“Welcome to Burgermon Village!” Seraphimon laughed gently. “After the Digital World reformed, a lot of Digimon lost their original homes due to Lucemon, so they rebuilt, once the human world’s data started flowing through to the Digital World and cluttering up the data streams as the Dark Masters twisted the Digital World to their dark desires, they found themselves unable to cope with the change and took to finding a place where they could continue their happy lives of making food and trade in secret with other digimon that couldn’t handle the changes.”

“Look! There’s Toucanmon!” Izumi grinned and Daisuke saw the black bird digimon with colorful beaks with what looked to be red overalls on.

“And Meteormon…” Kouichi mumbled, head tilting slightly. “But I thought they stayed on the moons of the Digital World.”

“Some Digimon prefer to stay with those that understand them nowadays.” Cherubimon murmured sadly, her lips turned down slightly. “The moons are vacant now, no longer full of life and advancements as the Meteromon and Gastumon tried to have it long ago.”

“Oh…”

Worm pulled to a stop, jolting slightly and causing the groups to startle with the stop. “Alright, everyone off, final stop! Woo! Woo!”

“Rude as ever.” grumbled Takuya as they all deboarded the Trailmon, as they did so, they noticed the small village had a rest stop for the Trailmon, just like the original station from the Warriors’ journey. “Okay, Big Guy, enjoy your nap!”

Worm blew his whistle once more, before gently chugging down the tracks to his tunnel, leaving the motley group standing at the tracks, watching him with a smile.

“I’ll tell you about me and Worm’s story later.” promised Takuya, her arm locking around Daisuke’s as they walked to one of the restaurants.

“You’re going to love Burgermon’s food!” Tomoki promised, before yelping as something slammed into him.

“Warrior of Ice, Tomoki! You’ve come to visit us like you said you would!” The little one said and the mousy haired boy looked down to see a small Burgermon smiling up at him, their tiny arms wrapped around his waist. “I was only a TorikaraBallmon last time you came to the Digital World, but I remember how you saved my mama and papa from Petaldramon!”

Tomoki’s eyes widened, before he grinned down at the little Burgermon. “I remember you! Look at you now! A Burgermon!”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to a table and I’ll have the ‘Tomoki Special’ ready for you in a jiffy!” The little Bugermon beamed, before ushering them to a table and running off to the kitchen area.

“Looks like you guys are pretty famous around here, huh?” Daisuke grinned, eyes catching the way a lot of digimon waved enthusiastically their way.

“During our journey through the Digital World, we ended up in a lot of places and meeting a lot of Digimon,” giggled Izumi, waving at a passing Floramon, who beamed back. “We had friends everywhere and everyone knew about the Legendary Warriors at some point, especially once all the other humans were sent home.”

“Makes sense.” Koushiro nodded, before her eyes drifted over to Takuya, who smiled, though it seemed a bit more sad at the edges. “I think now would be a good time to explain what’s going on, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, can’t avoid the conversation with good memories forever, I guess.” sighed the Warrior of Fire, but Daisuke could tell she was still shaky about the entire thing. “Back when we first saved the Digital World, we were forced out by the portal allowing transportation between the two of them became unstable, since Lucemon forced his way through the portal partially. We got home safely and our D-Tectors turned back into our phones…”

“A couple of months after our journey ended, we got a call from Ophanimon once more, though at the time she was Angewomon…”

⸻
「Flashback - Digital World」
⸻

Takuya and the others deboarded from Angeler, who chugged away with happy wishes and steam, before turning to the three Ultimate Holy Digimon in front of them. Patamon had evolved into HolyAngemon in his time, while Plotmon and Lopmon had transformed into Angewomon and Antriamon respectively.

“You guys called us back?” Kouji raised an eyebrow, never one to take things as just ‘happy coincidences’.

“That we did, Warrior of Light…” Antiramon shifted slightly at the look the long haired twin sent him. “There has been a new evil that has arisen and we need your help once more.”

“This is an evil as old as Lucemon, but much more direct than Lucemon was.” Angewomon continued, her lips pulled into a firm frown. “His name is Millenniummon and he has come to wipe us all out in the name of being the most powerful digimon…without any contest.”

Takuya didn’t know why, but something about this screamed worse danger than their last adventure.

“So, Legendary Warriors, will you take your mantle up once more to defend this world?” asked HolyAngemon, looking more regal than the little Patamon they remembered playing with the others last time they’d been there.

“Of course we will.” Takuya nodded, already knowing all their answers would be the same.

⸻
「End Flashback」
⸻

“We travelled to the spot that Millenniummon was regenerating and…” Takuya’s eyes closed tightly at the memory. “We lost, but we came back again…this time with new powers and we managed to seal him away again. The only way to actually defeat him would have been with other Digidestined, but…”

“We were completely alone, spirits aside.” Kouji’s lips twisted into an angry scowl. “There are only ten Legendary Warrior Spirits, four of them were corrupted during our last journey and didn’t even have human hosts to help with the damage, leaving us with only six against one monster.”

“There are no other words to describe what Millenniummon is…” Tomoki agreed, pressing himself closer to Takuya. “A monster who wants nothing more than to take everything with life and light…”

“Okay, so he wants revenge for being sealed, but why is he desperate to get his hands on Takuya specifically?” brought up Taichi, brown eyes flickering among the shadowed faces of the Warriors.

“When we defeated Lucemon, he broke apart like puzzle pieces,” started Junpei, picking at the fries on his plate. “We were spirit evolved into one being when we took him down and didn’t notice anything different at first, but Takuya gave Tomoki, Izumi-chan, Kouichi and I the ability to Fusion Spirit evolve like they have. That power was granted by Lucemon’s last good piece and was given to our fearless leader. Millenniummon wants that power, since it can do more than just give us the power to level up in our evolution, it’s also the part of him that could recreate the Digital World. He didn’t want it to be in the Digital World to corrupt anyone anymore and Takuya took that burden, since the Holy Digimon didn’t want the power to remake the world, they simply wanted to let it grow and change, even if it meant fading into mere legends and myths…much like our Spirits.”

Daisuke looked over at Takuya, whose hands were shaking the slightest bit as she hugged Tomoki a bit closer. “When we sealed Millenniummon, some of us had to Spirit evolve a second time after being knocked out to finish the sealing…he saw what we looked like outside of our evolutions…”

“He knows what you look like.” concluded the Child of Miracles with a dawning horror. “That’s why you guys moved from Shinjuku. Not just to search for us, but to get away from the area you were known in.”

The silence was the only answer he needed after that.

“This…this sounds like it could be a lot worse than I originally thought.” Gennai muttered, looking horrified at the lengths Millenniummon was willing to go to get his hands on the power to be the strongest. “You never mentioned how…persistent he could be.”

“We knew that he would go to grave lengths, we also knew that he wouldn’t stop unless forced to, so we made the initiative to get the Warriors to move.” Ophanimon explained, looking uncomfortable at the dangers that they’d put children in. “Besides, we are only able to help them inside our world, the human world is a realm that we have no power in. And it’s not like you were much better, snatching kids from their camp when the time came for the Digidestined to be brought to the Digital World. I…didn’t have such resources and instead had to summon hundreds of human children to our world and let the Spirits decide who were their new hosts.”

Gennai said nothing, but Daisuke knew a part of him felt bad for the way he phrased it. “Apologies, Ophanimon-sama.”

“Think nothing of it.” The female War Angel waved off the apology with a kind smile. “Our time as sovereigns is over, but we all had to make decisions in time of need. I had to bring humans to the world and let the truly chosen follow the path to save us, while you had to bring them into the world without anyone knowing due to the evil. The evil this time around is one of our biggest failures, due to the fact we couldn’t stop him the first time and our Warriors’ seal is fading. Not as fast as he’d hoped, but fading nonetheless.”

“So, what do we do now?” Takuya asked, brown eyes shining with determination. “I know we’re supposed to find our Spirits all over again, but how do we combat Millenniummon this time around when we failed the first time?”

“This time, you’ll have the power of all ten Legendary Warriors and the Virtuous Digidestined.” started Seraphimon, nodding towards Daisuke. “The successors of the Virtues’ digimon are able to DNA digivolve into Mega forms, while the original Virtuous’ digimon can evolve into their Ultimate and Mega forms. The power of all of you should be able to take Millenniummon down in his weakened state.”

“Okay, we’ll stop him this time.” Daisuke grinned at the digital beings. “We won’t lose to him and let him do as he pleases.”

“Be warned, Digidestined and Warriors,” pressed Cherubimon. “Millenniummon does have followers out here that would do anything to win and revive him. They’ll do anything to stop you from defeating him and deliver him Takuya in order for him to take her power for himself.”

“We’ve never lost to the same Digimon twice and we won’t let anything happen to her!” Taichi promised, before standing. “I think we should start looking for those Spirits!”

“Well, before then, why don’t you wait for your guide to arrive?” smiled Gennai, brown eyes glinting. “The Warriors haven’t been to the Digital World in a bit and things have changed with some data overlapping in places where it shouldn’t. While you’re searching for the Spirits, they’ll be able to fix the data that covered landmarks and original homes for the digimon that lived there. The digimon here can return home as you do so.”

Takuya’s face lightened at the thought of returning the Digital World the way it was supposed to be, even if she knew that it would change eventually. “So, whose our guide this time around?"

“Well, who do you think it is, dear girl?” A voice chuckled as the Warriors’ face brightened and they jumped out of their seats, looking over to see Bokomon and Neemon standing behind them with tears in the corner of their eyes.

“Bokomon! Neemon!” The two rookies were surrounded by the happy humans, all hugging and smiling as they looked one another over.

“You haven’t changed a bit!” Neemon giggled, before his pant strap was pulled back slightly and the red fabric slapped against his waist once more. “Ow!”

“Of course they’ve changed, you nincompoop!” scolded Bokomon as he looked them over. “They’re no longer just the children we met, they’re turning into young adults! Why, Junpei-han, Kouichi-han, Kouji-han and Tomoki-han look like fine young men, while Takuya-han and Izumi-han look like they’re turning into beautiful young women! Ah, the beauty of human life! They change all the time and continue to grow!”

“Digimon change too, you know!” Neemon protested, even as Izumi picked him up and hugged him tightly. “We can go all the way to Mega!”

“We know, Neemon,” cooed the blond, pressing her face between his ears. “You guys change as much as we do.”

“It’s really great to see you guys again.” Kouji smirked, placing a hand on Bokomon’s head as he beamed up at the human. “And now we get to travel together again, isn’t that great?”

Daisuke and his friends watched the reunion with small smiles. Despite the looming threat over their heads, watching their new friends reunite with the digimon who helped them during their journey was a touching sight.

“First things first!” Bokomon cried out, breaking free from the happy visage as he turned to all the humans and produced a large book from his…waistband? “We’ll be heading to the original locations of where we found the Spirits, meaning we will be heading to the original Fire Terminal for Takuya-han’s Human Spirit!”

“And if it’s not there?” Takuya raised an eyebrow, a teasing grin on her face as Bokomon frowned flatly at her.

“Nonsense! It would be there, Agnimon and the other Spirits have always been particular about where they hid.” scolded Bokomon, as the Holy Angel Digimon snickered. “You three! You’re no longer Rookies, act your level!”

The sound stopped immediately and the humans laughed, the digimon joining in shortly afterwards, while Bokomon looked at them in confusion, before finally cracking a smile.

They would face the threat together.

⸻
「Computer Lab - Human World」
⸻

Yamato glanced at the gathered Digidestined around him, Mimi and Sora sitting off to the side, while Jyou stood by the door, the younger Digidestined seated at some of the computer chairs as they looked at the older blond with varying levels of confusion and worry.

“So, I called this meeting today to discuss the situation a bit more,” Yamato opened, watching as Mimi and Sora raised an eyebrow his way, while Jyou nodded firmly at his words. “I know Taichi and Koushiro aren’t here, but that’s because they’re with Daisuke, Ken, Iori and the other digidestined. This means that we have to figure out how to fix this without them for once.”

“Okay, then where do you suggest we start?” wondered Sora, eyes a bit harder, not that he could blame her.

He was just as much a part of the problem as the younger Digidestined, maybe even more so, since Daisuke was his kouhai, but never felt like he could open up to him with the problems regarding what was going on.

“I think we should start with my part in all this.” He admitted, hands clasping in front of himself. “When I first met Daisuke, I didn’t treat him with the guiding hand that the rest of you treated the others. I treated him like I treated Takeru at first, like a nuisance that I had to look out for, but then…like Koushiro and Jyou-senpai pointed out earlier, I began to project my own family problems onto him and began to tear him down without knowing anything about his own home life. Then, at some point, I stopped and just started taking everything that was said at face value and on the words of others without even talking to him.”

Takeru and Miyako shifted uncomfortably, but Yamato noticed with pride that Hikari took his words seriously, nodding along with everything he said as she hugged Tailmon closer to herself, before standing up and looking around at them all. “I met Daisuke when we were kids and before I went to the Digital World and met you all. We played all the time, since we were the only children that lived in our building that were the same age. His parents were usually at work and Jun was off doing whatever she did at the time, so he spent a lot of time at our place. When we returned from the Digital World, I ended up shutting him out a lot and instead going to hang out with you all, due to the fact that I couldn’t deal with not having Tailmon by my side anymore. I didn’t mean to be like that, but a part of me felt like he wouldn’t understand and that I would feel bad being around him. That somehow changed when we started middle school and Takeru joined our school. Suddenly, I was ignoring Daisuke more, unintentionally and intentionally, and was focused entirely on Takeru. Things got a bit better when we went to the Digital World together, but…that doesn’t change the fact that I followed in everyone’s pace to ignore him.”

Mimi huffed slightly, but the smile on her face showed she approved of Hikari owning up to her mistakes. “Miyako, do you have anything to say?”

“...I don’t understand,” The lavender haired teen started after a moment. “You guys spoke to us about it before, but you’ve never made this big of a deal out of it either. You know Daisuke’s just being…well, Daisuke! He’s insensitive, he’s loudmouthed and he says whatever comes to mind, but no one bats an eyelash. But now that we do it, we’re in trouble? Despite the fact he’s been ditching us for literally weeks, but just because some new digidestined happened to be with him, we have to play nice with him?”

“This isn’t about that, Miyako.” Sora cut in, her face set into that motherly frown she wore around the younger generation. “This is about the fact that none of you have shown Daisuke any respect, despite wanting him to give it to you in return. I understand when you were in middle school things were harder since you were all navigating through the Digital World together, but even now, none of you have any respect for him…it’s like you’ve always been…”

“Divided.” finished Yamato with a sigh, his hand moving to drag down his face. “Takeru told me something today and that’s what made me bring this meeting up.”

And he told them all about what happened at the train station. Takeru and him trying to talk to Takuya, the ensuing fight and the things Takeru told him before he called the emergency meeting.

Jyou looked horrified at the ingroup discourse, eyes flashing between the three younger digidestined as their partners looked away shamefully. “I know our group had moments of dysfunctionality, but this is almost like a one sided power struggle, just because Taichi didn’t name you leader?”

“It’s more than that!” defended the younger blond, blue eyes blazing. “When we were in the Digital World and Yamato wouldn’t even treat me my age, Taichi treated me like he would a brother! He looked out for me and made sure I was treated like everyone else, even when you all acted like I was just some little kid! Even when we returned, you all treated Hikari like she was one of you, but not me! Taichi was always the one who treated me equally, so why…why did he give it to Daisuke? The new kid who’d never been there like we were? The kid who didn’t understand like we did? Why did it feel like…I had been replaced by him so easily?”

“Takeru,” Yamato started firmly, placing his hands on his brother’s shoulder as their eyes met. “It isn’t like that and you know it. Taichi cared for all of us like family and like a leader. He looked out for all of us, treated us all equally. That’s why he was the leader.” Takeru’s eyes narrowed and Yamato knew why. “Takeru, be honest. If you had been the leader instead of Daisuke, would you have treated everyone equally? Would you have been so quick to forgive Daisuke, like he’s shown multiple times to do for you and us for our mistakes? Or would you have held a grudge? Would you have been able to forgive Ken and not gotten mad at Daisuke for reaching out to him after the Digimon Kaiser incident as he had been?”

This caused the younger blond to pause and consider his next words, before shaking his head, eyes shadowed with guilt. “No, I don’t think I would have…”

“Exactly. Takeru, being a leader is more than just experience.” Yamato swallowed heavily on his next words, remembering all the shit and fights he’d gotten into with Taichi about the leadership role, despite them both being the same age. “It comes with having understanding and more of an emotional awareness.”

“In that case, he could’ve made Hikari the leader!”

“I would’ve been a terrible leader, Takeru and you know it.” The brunette snapped, standing up and glaring with teary cherry red eyes. “I’ve always pushed away the dark thoughts of the what if’s, but leaders have to think about the what ifs! And yeah, Daisuke made mistakes, but we all did! And now, we’re paying for those mistakes!”

Her boyfriend’s mouth snapped shut as he looked at her with betrayed eyes. “You too, Hikari?”

“Yes, me too. Admit it, Takeru, we’ve been terrible friends to Daisuke and that’s why he’d rather be around the new Digidestined than us!” Hikari’s eyes flashed over to Miyako, who looked lost in the middle of their fight. “He’s heard all of us talking about him behind his back, making jokes at his expense, acting like he was some big joke! And if Ken had never joined the group, he would’ve been alone in his corner the entire time…friends don’t do that to one another. Teammates don’t do that to one another. We haven’t been good to him in the slightest, why would we think that he would want to come back to us after this? After the new Digidestined have probably been treating him better than we’ve had in years…”

The room was silent as they all took in the Child of Light’s words, knowing the reality was just as glum as they thought it to be.

“Well, I’m not going to sit by and let Daisuke think I haven’t actually thought this over.” Hikari turned, Tailmon jumping on her shoulder. “I’m going to try and make things right between me, him and the others. You can come if you’d like?”

Her voice had slowly softened from angry and upset, to more kind and hopeful as she looked at the other two, but Miyako continued to look down, eyes darting to Takeru every now and then, who resolutely looked at the floor. Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing, turning and exiting the room.

It was silent for a moment, before Jyou straightened up. “I’m going with her. I need to talk to Taichi, Koushiro and Iori anyway.”

With that he left, leaving the remaining Digidestined behind to think about the development that had arisen.

“What do we do now?” Sora asked, looking at Yamato, who shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know…”

Chapter Text

「Yagami Household (9.00 pm)」
⸻

Taichi sighed tiredly as he walked into the apartment, expecting to see everyone watching television, only to be shocked at the quiet of the apartment, Hikari sitting on the couch with Tailmon next to her. “Uh, I’m home?”

“Welcome home, onii-chan,” Hikari smiled, though it looked a little strained at the edges. “I know it’s late and you just got home, but do you think we could…talk? Over dinner?”

Taichi nodded, heading into the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge for a bit, before Hikari tugged him back by his shirt. “I, uh, ordered pizza. Mom and Dad went out for dinner and the pizza arrived a little bit ago.”

The older nodded, reaching out and running his fingers through her lighter hair gently. “Sounds great, Hikari.”

They settled at the table, Tailmon and Agumon hanging out in Taichi’s room to watch television, while they ate, before Hikari broke the silence first. “Onii-chan, there was another meeting today.”

“Oh, how’d it go?” He hoped it went better than the last one he’d been at. He may have been mad at the group, but that didn’t mean he wanted them to break down more than they already were with the younger generation being separated as they were.

Not to mention they needed unity to help Takuya and the others with Milleniummon.

“Well, both good and bad.” She admitted after a moment, taking a sip of her soda. “Yamato and I admitted we made a lot of mistakes that led to Daisuke leaving the group and making him feel the way he does, which is understandable, but…”

“I’m guessing Takeru and Miyako are still struggling to understand why this is such a big deal?”

“Yeah, not without trying to understand at least.” Hikari hummed, cherry eyes locked on her food. “Takeru said he felt like you replaced him with Daisuke, since you chose him as leader, but I don’t think he really understands your point of view. He admitted that all the hard decisions Daisuke had to make, like forgiving Ken and getting him to join our team, he wouldn’t have been able to do as a leader, but he still thinks me or him would’ve been better leaders still.”

“Hikari…” sighed her older brother, but she shook her head.

“I know I would’ve been a terrible leader,” She let out a bitter chuckle. “I mean, this entire situation proves it. I followed everyone else’s lead in ignoring Daisuke and making jokes at his expense, while still criticizing. I don’t think a good leader would follow everyone else’s footsteps and he’s always made his own path for these things, even if he made mistakes.”

“That’s true.” Taichi winced, remembering the plethora of mistakes he made during his time as leader of the original digidestined. “Some people are natural born leaders, which Daisuke is, but even they still make mistakes in situations they aren’t used to or unable to figure out quickly. Not to mention, people will always find ways to fight against what they think is wrong or the incorrect way to do things. Hence, why even leaders are constantly growing along with the team.”

“That’s an amazing way to look at it.” smiled Hikari, shoulders untensing. “But I’ve come to another conclusion after today's meeting…I want to apologize to Daisuke, face-to-face, if he’s feeling up to it.”

Taichi blinked, before smiling her way. “I’ll text him and the others tonight to see if he’ll be up to it. He’s a little cautious after the whole Takuya and Takeru thing…”

“I understand and I want to apologize to him about that too, I’m pretty sure Yamato does too.” Hikari admitted. “I mean, he wants to apologize since that was one of the moments he admitted that he’d enabled Takeru, which in the ended up making the situation worse for us, but I want to apologize about it because it was wrong of Takeru to get into a fight with her over one of Daisuke’s boundaries.”

“I’ll say.” snorted the original holder of Courage as he took another slice of pizza. “I don’t really know why he thinks that just because I chose Daisuke as leader I don’t care about him anymore. Not to mention, if anything, Daisuke would’ve been the one to think I chose Takeru over him , considering I knew Daisuke first. Like, Yamato mentioned Takeru in passing, but I only met him at summer camp, never before then, while me and Daisuke played all the time before I went to the Digital World and when we returned.”

Hikari nodded, remembering the times Taichi would invite her to come and play soccer with him and Daisuke, but she refused and instead went to hang out with either some of her friends from school or any of the digidestined that were up for it.

“Would you like to watch a movie?” The topic change had her jolting slightly, but relief filled her at the offer. It felt like it had been forever since her and her brother had been able to just relax.

No drama from whatever was going on with their friends and their discourse, no sentimental and heartfelt talks that were all about the treatment that had been going on, no talks to try and pry information out about Daisuke.

Just the two of them enjoying each other’s company for the night as they waited for a response from Daisuke about whether he would be up to hearing Hikari out or not, either way she would accept his response.

“I would like that, onii-chan.” His grin was nothing short of blinding as he picked up the box with the rest of the pizza and she grabbed their soda cans to move to the living room for their movie night.

They still had much to talk about, both on her part and his, but for now, they could relax and act like siblings that simply wanted to enjoy each other’s company.

⸻
「Motomiya Household (10.30 pm)」
⸻

Daisuke yawned as he climbed into his bed, Chibimon curling up under his arm as they flicked his television on with the volume low for background noise, before his D-Terminal gave a little beep to show that he’d received a message. Without thinking about it, he lifted the device and scanned the message.

“Huh…Taichi-san messaged me to see if I would be willing to hear Hikari-chan out tomorrow.” Chibimon’s ruby eyes glanced up curiously, a glint in them. “Apparently, they had a deep conversation over some pizza, but he still wants it to be my decision in the end.”

“Agumon did say that as he got older, Taichi did a lot of big thinking about the ending outcome and not the short come.” His partner hummed, looking over his shoulder to see the message. “What do you wanna do, Dai?”

“Honestly, I’m kind of tired of being angry.” admitted the holder of Miracles with a small shrug. “Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to hear her out at least?”

Chibimon smiled comfortingly up his way. “If you’re sure, Dai…but I’m not the one who has to explain to Takuya that we’ll be giving this a try.”

This caused the burgundy haired teen to give a small groan as he realized that he would be the one to have to explain to the hot-head about why they were going to be meeting up with one of the people who was talking trash about him during their first meeting. “Fun…”

Chibimon gave a little cackle that would’ve been adorable, if not for the fact that it was at his expense.

⸻
「School Rooftop (07.30 am)」
⸻

“Okay, lemme see that I got this right,” Takuya huffed, brown eyes locked with Daisuke’s own seriously as Kouji copied her stance, the others scattered around them. “You got a message from Taichi-san, saying that he wanted to see if you were up to meeting with Hikari, his little sister and one of the people he verbally tore apart, and hearing her apology to see if she was really up to changing…and you agreed?”

“Yes…?” He smiled sheepishly, his smile faltering slightly at her deadpanned look. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but out of all the digidestined in our group, Ken and Iori aside, Hikari-chan has always been able to see when she was in the wrong for things.”

“Fine, we’ll hear her out, there is only one thing I’m worried about.” admitted the Warrior of Fire. “You said she had bad experiences with the dark and virus type of digimon, our spirits are based on elements, darkness is an element and one that Kouichi wields. How is she going to react to that?”

“I…I can’t say for sure.” Daisuke sighed, shoulders slumping. “If this was back with my ‘Rose Tinted Glasses’ phase, I would’ve said with certainty that Hikari-chan wouldn’t care, but at the end of the day, even if she is the Child of Light and is extremely kind…she’s shown that she does tend to get blinded by the things around her or that affected her in the past.”

“All humans do, it’s why we’re so flawed.” smiled Kouichi, though his blue eyes shadowed it with feelings of guilt. “What time are we meeting up with her?”

“Today, in the Digital World after school.” Daisuke leaned against the fence as he regarded the Warriors carefully. “But just like she’s trying to start off on a new foot, I want you guys to try as well. It wouldn’t be fair to not show the same courtesy.”

“I’m allowed to hold grudges, since her boyfriend fist fought me at a train station .” sneered Takuya, the only thing lingering on her from the fight being a nasty bruise on her cheek. “But I won’t be openly hostile, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’ll take what I can get with you, Crosspatch.” joked Daisuke, wincing when the petite brunette punched him in the arm as the others snickered around them. “Alright, we should head in.”

“Yeah, come on!” Takuya instantly started pulling him along, the annoyed and angered air around her shifting almost instantly to her normal carefree personality. “Did anyone study for that stupid science test we have in third period?”

“Ugh, I forgot all about that…” Daisuke whined, head falling back dramatically. “Kouji, let me look at your notes before third period!”

“No way Goggle Brain.” snorted the long haired twin as Kouichi chuckled at their antics.

“You can borrow my notes, Daisuke.” offered the older twin, though from the way his blue eyes twinkled, Daisuke didn’t trust it for a moment.

“Don’t do it, Dai!” warned Taukya, already rummaging through Kouji’s bag as they continued down the steps. “Kouichi is smart in English and Math, but Science and History are all Kouji’s domain! Ah! Found it, come on!”

Without waiting for a response, she dragged Daisuke down the last flight of stairs and took off down the hallway, both laughing as they heard Kouji yelling for them to stop and return his notes.

As they ran, Daisuke glanced over at Taakuya and felt a small heat rise in his cheeks as he saw her grinning mischievously as they slowed down slightly and ducked into their classroom. As they settled into their seats, the only thing running through his head at that moment was that she looked pretty and free of worries…

It wasn’t the worst thought and distracted him from the talk that would come later that day.

⸻
「Cafeteria (12.00 pm)」
⸻

Hikari sighed as she grabbed her lunch and considered her options. She could eat her lunch alone at one of the tables, or she could take it to an empty classroom or something, since she wasn’t feeling up to seeing Takeru or Miyako yet…

Too bad, they didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

“Hikari!” Miyako called out, eyes lighting up at the sight of her Jogress partner. “About what happened at the meeting…”

“I don’t really want to talk about it right now, Miyako-chan…” sighed Hikari, wincing at the hurt look on the older teen’s face. “Really. I just…have something going on.”

“Oh, that’s…that’s fine too,” Miyako looked at her feet for a moment, before looking back up at Hikari. “Will you at least come and eat with us?”

The Child of Light felt like she should’ve said no, just sucked it up and went to eat by herself, but she wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt at least. “Sure.”

Once seated, the trio ate in awkward silence, Takeru trying to lighten the mood, but it was obvious that things were still off from the meeting. “So, Hikari, are you coming to the Digital World after school today? We just finished that test in Science today and Miyako thought it would be nice to have a little reprieve after school by taking a day to relax in the Digital World.”

Hikari felt her shoulders tighten slightly, before she sighed. “Can’t today. Have something to do with onii-chan after school.”

“Oh? Is everything okay?’ The blond gently held her hand, knowing when this all started, Taichi and Hikari’s relationship turned a little rocky from the tension of it all.

“Yeah, things are actually better than they have been for a while,” admitted Hikari, a small smile on her face as she touched the whistle around her neck. Tailmon had returned it to her when she’d noticed that she’d missed her brother’s steady presence. “We watched a movie last night with some pizza.”

“That’s good.” Miyako smiled, but it still looked stiff as she picked at her lunch. “D-Did he say anything about Ken and the others?”

Hikari frowned at the older teen. “Nothing we didn’t already know. Daisuke still wants sincere apologies from us and I’ve been thinking about how to give him one without making it seem like I’m doing it to make onii-chan happy because I do mean everything I will be saying to him.”

Takeru’s jaw tightened as he looked down, fist clenching slightly. “Don’t you think it’s a bit much to overthink it like that? I mean, Daisuke said he wanted apologies and for us to mean it, if we mean it isn’t that enough?”

“No. Not in the slightest.” Hikari placed her chopsticks down and met her boyfriend’s gaze. “Takeru, it would’ve been one thing if this was an accident that happened, but this isn’t and it’s not the first time they’ve spoken to us about it. I don’t know what else has to happen for you to see that already!”

Takeru looked shocked, as if she hadn’t made her stance clear that day of the meeting, while Miyako looked like a cross between ashamed and worried at the fight that had sprung up between them once more. Not that Hikari could blame her too harshly for that.

Before this entire situation had sprung up, the most she and Takeru had ever argued over was which was better, pizza or burgers. But ever since this entire thing has started, Hikari has started seeing parts of Takeru that she never noticed before and didn’t think she liked too much.

She thought he was probably thinking the same thing, but even then she wasn’t too sure about that anymore.

“I’m done.” She decided finally, the silence stretching far too long for her liking. “This entire lunch has gone out of control and I think we both need a moment to think, before we say something we’ll regret later. I’ll talk to you after I’ve calmed down.”

Her chest felt hollow as she dumped her lunch and left the cafeteria, especially when she realized that Takeru didn’t try to stop her or call out for her, neither did Miyako.

Maybe…maybe this is what Daisuke felt when he finally realized he needed to put distance between them and himself.

Or maybe, he felt the relief that was deep in her heart about taking a step back from the people around her who weren’t as good as she originally thought.

Dear Azulongmon, she hoped the talk with Daisuke went better than this.

⸻
「Hidden Valley - Digital World (3.30 pm)」
⸻

Daisuke paced back and forth anxiously, V-mon watching him with worried red eyes as the others prepared themselves for the talk as well. He knew that out of the stubborn three, Hikari was typically the easiest to get through and see reason if they were being unreasonable, but he’d heard some girls talking about how Hikari had stormed out of the cafeteria during lunch and it made a knot form in his stomach.

What if they had said things to try and make her rethink this? What if they tried to downplay his feelings like they’d been doing this entire time and  she’d caved just to keep the peace?

The thoughts swirled and twisted around his head mockingly, making everything seem so much more than it probably was, but he couldn’t help it.

Taichi had told him everything Hikari had told him about their meeting the other day, how the one sided competition he’d thought he’d been the only one participating in against Takeru and losing in wasn’t as one sided as he originally thought.

Takeru had been just as jealous as he had been, and was still jealous of him.

Jealous that he and Taichi had a closer bond, despite the fact that he hadn’t gone to the Digital World with the rest of them and only met Takeru in elementary instead of during their summer camp trip when they all became digidestined. Jealous that Taichi saw the potential in him, rather than just give Takeru the leader position because of experience.

Daisuke couldn’t believe it at first, wondering if he’d been in a weird fever dream this entire time and all his thoughts had actually been validated this entire time, after so long of everyone making it seem like he was the only one trying to shine out there.

He didn’t know if he liked the implications if this was true about Takeru and Hikari’s relationship, so he firmly shut that train of thought into the furthest corner of his mind for a way later date.

“Hey, Goggle Brain, calm down.” Koji called from where he was sat under a tree, Takuya leaning on his shoulder as she gazed into the distance, most likely lost in thought about Milleniummon. “Here she comes now.”

Daisuke looked up, the familiar white and gold of Nefertmon slowly coming closer from the sky. His heart clenched and worry built up once more with the anxiety, but he pushed it down.

They had to just hear her out, he didn’t have to forgive her yet if he wasn’t ready.

“Daisuke…” Hikari greeted the moment she was off her partner’s back, cherry eyes taking in his profile anxiously. “I…Thank you, for giving me this chance to apologize.”

Daisuke smiled stiffly her way, shoulders relaxing  slightly. “Listen, Hikari-chan, I know to you it may seem like this was all out of nowhere…”

“No, no…it didn’t surprise me…” Hikari jolted slightly at her own words. “I-I mean, yes, I was shocked, but I knew that we’ve been doing a lot to deserve it. Especially lately. We haven’t been good friends or even teammates to you. I thought at some point that we had been working together as a unit finally, but…that may have been me being blind to your pain and discomfort. I always just…turned a blind eye and followed along, but it was obviously something I shouldn’t have done and for that, I’m so sorry. Instead of acting like it was okay, I should’ve acted like a friend to you.”

Daisuke blinked, face slack in shock. He expected Hikari to realize she was wrong, but he wasn’t expecting her to apologize for it like this…firmly and so sure of her decision. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so firm in her beliefs since the entire BaliaVamdemon situation.

“I…I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t expecting that.” He released a large breath, searching for a lie, but finding none in his heart. “I just…did you know ? About-About the entire jealousy thing or was this new to you as well?”

“I mean…when Takeru first started going to the Digital World, I didn’t notice anything different, until…” She bit her lip as she looked at the ground. “Until it came to the bigger decisions. Then I would notice the way he started acting like Yamato. Yamato used to question everything onii-chan did, both times we were in the Digital World. He’d even question if it was the right thing to do when it came to giving Takeru small time jobs like collecting wood, not even allowing him to watch the campsite like the others would. Then it escalated to questioning his plan and strategies for every battle. I wasn’t there for the beginning ones, but from what I heard, onii-chan and Yamato were constantly getting into fights like that and it would escalate to fist fights.”

Daisuke nodded, remembering the one time he and Takeru got into it and Yamato instantly got onto him about it, despite Taichi saying how it reminded him and their friendship.

“I didn’t know it was because of jealousy over your position, I just thought that maybe…maybe he was acting like Yamato, since he’d always looked up to him.” Hikari continued, hands held tightly to her chest as she looked down. “It’s no excuse for me to turn a blind eye, but I promise you, I have thought this through too much and can’t stand the thought of not being friends with you anymore. I’m so sorry…”

“Okay, okay…” Daisuke took a deep breath, his shoulders heaving with the motion. “I…I don’t forgive you just yet, but we can extend an olive branch to start the bridge to mending, especially since you seem sincere about all of this.”

Hikari’s eyes lit up and though she looked a little sad at him not forgiving her yet, she couldn’t fault him for it. “Thank you…”

“Don’t thank him yet.” Ken chided gently, though they could all see the relief in his eyes at the way the conversation was moving. “There’s one more thing you have to do to make sure that the olive branch extends fully, Yagami-san.”

“And that's to pass our test.”  Takuya was standing now, body weight shifted to try and make her short stature look bigger than it was. “We’re all digidestined, so we’re going to have to figure some things out between us…for starters, the difference in the way we react to different views.”

Hikari met the other’s stern gaze. “I understand.”

“Good, I’m going to get into this right off the bat,” Takuya crossed her arms. “We’re not represented by something cut and dry like your virtues. We deal with Elemental positions of the Digital World.”

“Elementals?”

“Instead of things like personality traits that could make a person good or bad, we deal with things that come from the Digital World, like Light, Darkness, Wood and Wind.” explained Takuya, taking note of the way Hikari flinched at the word darkness. “Unlike the virtues, any of these Elemental spirits can be used for the purpose of evil. You guys went against a lot of digimon using the powers of darkness for evil, but the thing at the end of the day, is that anyone can be evil. No matter the digimon type, stage or even the element they hold. Anyone can be evil if they have a bad enough heart for it.”

“But…darkness is…”

“Darkness is merely misunderstood.” Takuya’s voice was firm and held wisdom that sounded far beyond her years as she spoke. “During the start of our journey in the Digital World, the first big bad we went against was Cherubimon, a Holy Beast digimon. He had been corrupted by Lucemon, another Holy type digimon. He used the corrupted spirits of Water, Metal, Wood, Earth and Darkness to try and take the spirits of Fire, Thunder, Light, Ice and Wind from us. After him, we had to go against Dynasmon and Crusadmon, two Royal Knight digimon, who fought to revive Lucemon by scanning all the Digital World’s data and feeding it to him by dropping it into the void he was sealed in. Finally, we fought against Lucemon, who was so corrupted by the power he held, decided he wanted to destroy both the Digital and Real World.”

Hikari felt like she’d just been sucker punched. She’d always thought that darkness was the cause of everything they had gone through in the Digital World and in a way, she wasn’t wrong, but maybe instead of darkness being the main cause of everything…the main cause would have to be the way someone was.

“Darkness isn’t always the root of all evil, no matter how scary it can look from the outside,” Takuya’s face finally softened as she spoke, obviously taking note of the way Hikari was processing her words. “In some cases, darkness doesn’t have anything to do with it, while the evil in a person or digimon’s heart and mind have all the reigns.”

Hikari nodded slowly, her shoulders relaxing as she took more of the statements' meanings into consideration. They may have only gone against virus type digimon, but just like any human could be evil without having the power of darkness, digimon could have the same thing. “I think I understand now…thank you, for explaining it to me and showing me how much of a hypocrite I’ve been.”

Finally, Takuya’s face and body fully relaxed as she regarded the other carefully. “Of course. Now, why don’t we start over? Hi, I’m Kanbara Takuya, Warrior of Flame and leader of our little group.”

And slowly, one by one, the other Warriors introduced themselves and their elements, before it came down to Kouichi and his own element. A moment after his introduction, Hikari stared at him, basically being able to feel the anxiety and worry radiating from him, while also feeling the protective anger and worry rolling off his twin in the background.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kimura-san,” She started, keeping her voice slow and deliberate, to show she wasn’t trying to offend anyone. “I’m truly sorry for almost having a bad preemptive look about you, before even getting to know you. I hope we can work together.”

At the way everyone’s shoulders relaxed and the defensive aura died down, Hikari knew deep in her heart, she was finally on the right path of making things right between Daisuke and his friends, hopefully soon to be friends of her own as well.

“Now that the hard part is out of the way, let’s get the rest of this day's mission on.” Takuya grinned as they turned to Bokomon. “Time to go find the first spirit.”

⸻
「??? - Digital World」
⸻

Milleniummon looked down at his body, growling softly at the missing parts of him that still needed time to regenerate. He didn’t want to wait any longer than he already had, but there was no way he could conquer anything missing pieces of himself.

He’d already felt it when the power he needed had returned to the Digital World once more. He just needed to find a way to drag that power closer to devour it and leave nothing behind.

He would be the strongest and nothing would stop him.

Not the Holy Digimon, not their weakling human digidestined and their pathetic partners. Not even the Princess of Flames herself.

They would all fall to him and he would destroy everything and everyone to remain on top.

The first step to that was to collect the power he needed.

With a wave of his remaining arm, a Phantomon, Andromon, and a LadyDevimon. The three turned to look at him, bowing low. “Bring me the Princess of Flames before her and her pathetic little group find their spirits once more. Do not fail me.”

“Yes, Lord Milleniummon.” The three swiftly left and he rumbled as he worked on regenerating the rest of his body.

This time for sure, he would prevail.