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Chapter Text

One winter, a Farmer found a Viper frozen and numb with cold, and out of pity picked it up and placed it in his bosom. The Viper was no sooner revived by warmth than it turned upon its benefactor and inflicted a fatal bite on him; and as the poor man lay dying he cried, “I have only got what I deserve, for taking compassion on so villainous a creature.”

Kindness is thrown away upon the evil. 

Aesop.

(April - 2006)

It was spring again.

The Yoshino cherry blossom trees bloomed, well into the season of new beginnings. Petals stirred as the light pierced through the thin trees–thin like clouds. They weren’t the double-flowered kanzan ones, but a true Yoshino tree–the kind that were pale, and pink, and fragile. Delicate, and noble, and the kind that marked the turning of the season–a tree and a bloom that lasted only for a week. 

Just like the coming season of the new year, they were something that would only happen once in a lifetime–something that would never happen again, after being experienced once. No two years were the same. No two seasons were the same. 

Once lost, a life could never be experienced again.

Hikari Yagami walked underneath the steps leading up to Tsukishima General High School, for her second year of high school. It was reaching the end of her school life as a student, and she couldn’t help but be excited for it. Next year, she would be taking her entrance exams for the University of Tokyo–of course she would aim high, for her dream to be a Kindergarten teacher. She wanted to teach the best of the best, and she wanted to help with daycares and childcare centers until then, so she would be able to learn how to work with kids. She wanted to take curriculum classes, she wanted to volunteer. She had a lot of dreams she had to fulfill–and she couldn’t be more excited about taking steps closer to her goals.

Hikari had a plan, of course. Even if she didn’t make it into the University of Tokyo, she would still be taking preparatory classes for her exams. Jyou had plenty of connections to preparatory schools, and would be able to recommend her good ones for high aiming students who lived with high goals. She would study until she had the grades to enter without paying high fees–and even if she had to work on the side, she would be happy to take daycare jobs while she did it. Hikari was a hard worker–she didn’t mind taking things the hard way, and she didn’t mind the work she would need to do to get there. 

It wasn’t like it was the first time that Hikari had to take on challenging tasks, after all. It also wasn’t the first time that she would have to push through things to get there. Hikari didn’t have a problem taking on hardships, and she didn’t have a problem with putting her life on hold so that she could achieve the things that she wanted to do. Such would have to be the life of someone who wanted to achieve her dreams–and Hikari was nothing if not someone who knew exactly what she wanted in life, and knew exactly how to get there.

The world seemed to be responding to her in kind, too, and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of new beginnings on the horizon–the sense of a new future. Hikari stopped underneath the posting boards of Tsukishima’s classes, and she held her hand up to her eyes to block the sunlight as another person came to join her. 

Takeru Takaishi–the person she’d been closest to since she was eight years old, for almost half of her life. The Tsukishima uniform suited him well, she thought. A simple uniform with a button down shirt, a black tie, and black trousers. 

She had never particularly been one to complain about the way uniforms looked on herself–the Odaiba Middle School’s green uniform looked nice enough on her, she had thought–but she couldn’t deny the thrill of excitement that came with being able to wear the same uniform as her elders. It really gave her a sense of growing up, of being able to follow in the footsteps of everyone else. 

Taichi had already graduated the year before, and had started attending classes in university while working at a pachinko parlor, and had already moved out of the house to a small apartment in Nakano, Tokyo. He was a thirty minute ride by train now, but he still came home on the weekends. In all honesty, it gave her a sense of pride that she was able to go to school without Taichi around to watch after her–and it also gave her a sense of privacy that she’d been lacking before. Sure, he’d moved out of her room when he got to middle school–their parents finally saw sense to give Hikari her own room by then–but there was still the fact that Taichi hung around pretty often to look after her, even when she’d insisted she was fine. She guessed that old habits died hard, even when she was pretty sure that by the time she was fifteen, she’d thought that he’d know her better. 

Still, she was proud of the fact that her older brother was also starting to figure out where he was going in life. She’d always been a little worried that he wouldn’t know what to do after the digimon adventures were over, and she was happy that he was able to move on, and that he was able to figure it out after they were gone. A lot of the others had problems letting go of the changes in their lives–Koushiro in particular had taken it pretty hard, after how interested he was in the Digital World–but he’d moved on with his own tech startup. Mimi had moved into fashion design. Sora had moved into taking over her mother’s ikebana school, Jyou was going formally into medical school, and Yamato…

Hikari had no idea what Yamato was thinking about doing. But then again, she didn’t think the closest person to him knew what he wanted to do either–and the closest person to Yamato was standing right beside her.

“Looks like we’re going to be in the same classes again.”

Hikari smiled, glancing back towards Takeru, who held his school bag slung over his right shoulder as he looked up towards the class list. Both of them were listed in 2-2–the second class of the year, right behind the third year. 

“That’s not much of a surprise. We’ve been in the same classes ever since elementary school.” Hikari hummed, turning away from the list as the two of them started their way past the entrance ceremony for the juniors, and towards their classes. Takeru laughed as he walked alongside her. 

“Still, pretty lucky if you ask me. Most people are separated from their friend groups as they go through school. It’s nice to know a familiar face every year starting out.” 

“That’s true.” Hikari gripped her bag as they walked past the juniors. A couple of the juniors giggled behind their hands at Takeru as they passed, and Takeru really didn’t seem to pay them any mind. Hikari sort of suspected it was because of Yamato, to be honest. While the Teen-Age Wolves didn’t really work out, and neither did Knife of Day , he’d still been famous enough to get a live broadcast…some time ago. 

It was a Christmas Eve performance, something their dad had set up. It had gone well–well enough that he’d gotten a couple of other specials. She knew that he had a fan following, complete with official keychains. Even if Takeru hated the keychains .

She’d heard from Takeru once that there was a fangirl who had somehow found out where Yamato was staying at a camping retreat once, and had tracked him all the way there. Takeru recounted it as some kind of horror story to Hikari, who giggled all the way through it. She guessed that she couldn’t blame Yamato for wanting to stay away from the music business for good after that. She sure would after an experience like that!

“So, what are you planning to do all year?” Takeru asked, putting both hands behind his head as they walked through the halls. “Yamato says that I should start studying for my third year exams, even though it’s only my second year. Are you planning to start?”

Hikari hummed quietly. “That would probably be a good idea. I want to get into the University of Tokyo–and Taichi says they’re hard, especially if I want to do it without having to go to a prep school.”

Takeru gave a sigh. “I guess that makes sense. I was kind of hoping I had at least one more year to enjoy myself without having to worry too hard about it. We’re going to be seeing each other a lot less, though.”

“That’s what comes with growing up, Takeru.” Hikari gave him a small, pitiful pat on the shoulder. “Taichi says that’s what happens to all friends when they grow older. We haven’t seen everyone in a while, too. Once we graduate school, we’re going to go to different universities, and then we’ll have to start working from then on to become adults. That’s what happens to everyone.”

Takeru gave another sigh–this one tinged with wistfulness. “I guess so. Yamato said the same thing to me. I was kind of hoping it wasn’t true for everyone, but if Taichi and Yamato both say it’s the case…”

Hikari patted his shoulder again, but this time let her hand linger in sympathy. She knew it was hard for Takeru, who already had to learn to live apart from Yamato and his father both, and who also had to say goodbye to Patamon twice. First after the summer of 1999, and then after the past year, when the gate closed a second time. Takeru always had a hard time saying goodbye to people–and while she knew they weren’t going to have to say goodbye for good, it was still a hard thing to have to accept moving on. 

“You know, that doesn’t sound very hopeful to me.” She teased quietly, and Takeru rolled his eyes, the heavier mood dropping a little with the joke. 

“Har-dee-har. That was a good one.”

Hikari giggled behind her hand. “You left yourself open.” 

“Whatever.” Takeru rolled his eyes a second time. “Pretty mean for someone who is supposed to be all goodness and light .”

“Hey! It was just a joke!” Hikari stuck her tongue out at him. 

Still–it wasn’t just hard for Takeru, but hard for everyone. It had been six whole years since they’d seen their digimon partners, only for them to come bursting out of their digivices with no explanation and no apparent warning, right into their lives. Six years since they’d said goodbye to their digimon on the train ride that day, and since they’d come to terms with the fact that they’d never see the most important friends they’d ever made again. 

It was a reunion not meant to last, of course–and a reunion that was tinged with sadness. They’d witnessed the death of Leomon and Meicoomon, and their digimon had lost all of their memories of their entire adventure that they’d had together. The entire Digital World had to be rebooted because of the infection that Meicoomon carried inside of her, and they’d had to kill a fellow Chosen Child’s digimon. That in itself was hard, especially after becoming such good friends with Meiko, and learning that her own partner was the cause of so much pain and sorrow in the world, because she’d been born with a piece of Apocylamon inside of her.

Right when they’d seen them again, right when they’d met a ninth chosen child, they’d also met the previous Chosen Children–and then Meicoomon’s infection had overtaken her, and a Mysterious Man who’d disguised himself as Gennai had used that infection to turn Tailmon and Meicoomon against them both. With the help of Omegamon, they’d managed to drive the Mysterious Man away and seal the gate between the worlds again, but at the cost of losing contact with their digimon again. 

Himekawa and Nishijima had both left back to continue their research into the Digital World after that, and Meiko Mochizuki had gone back to her previous school as well, to recover from the loss of her partner. Everyone had been sad to see them go, and had offered to help Meiko recover, but she said that the pain of seeing everyone else was too great, and so she had to go. 

Everyone understood, of course. But it still wasn’t easy to lose a new friend, and it was something Hikari really understood Takeru was still going through–losing Patamon a second time, and losing touch with everyone after that. 

“Hey, Hikari?” He asked. “You want to get some convenience store ice cream after this?”

Hikari blushed a little–though it was mostly because he was drawing attention to the brief obsession she’d developed last year. She herself honestly couldn’t explain it–and though she tried to pretend it didn’t exist, it seemed that Takeru wasn’t going to let it go. 

“Oh, sure.” She smoothed out her skirt. Takeru raised his eyebrows at her, and Hikari cleared her throat. “There’s a convenience store right by my apartment, you know.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Takeru hummed. “The I-mart, right?”

“Yes, that one. They have the best ice cream. Koushiro also used to get all of his oolong tea from there. I think they made a fortune off of him alone.”

Takeru laughed. “Didn’t your mom just make him a bunch when Diabolomon attacked and made him sick? Do you think she did something to his brain with it?”

Hikari laughed back. “Maybe.”

The two of them arrived at the classroom entrance, and Takeru opened the door, gesturing for Hikari to enter inside.

After school, Takeru walked Hikari down the street, back to her apartment district on the other side of town. Odaiba was small enough that Takeru could spend the evening at her home and make it in time for dinner. 

Their life was peaceful, she guessed. As peaceful as any other glorious school life. She was popular at school for her beauty and grace and polite manners. People often compared her to a princess of some kind. Someone who was smart and gifts and well liked and blessed with good looks and charm and intelligence. She had a glorious school life, the kind that people dream of. The kind that people wrote books about and dreamed of as adults. 

Hikari and Takeru stopped at the I-Mart to talk to the Inoue family that owned the place, and each bought an ice cream. They made brief conversation about how Mantaro Inoue was doing at university, how Momoe was going to university that year, and how Chizuru was going to prep school that year. The three Inoue siblings were all out of the house, something that Mrs. Inoue complained about–apparently empty nest syndrome was hard to deal with. 

Takeru and Hikari chatted about that as they walked to the Yagami apartment–about how Hikari and Takeru’s mothers were going to deal with that, about how all their other parents must feel. Hikari ate the sea salt ice cream as they climbed the steps to her apartment complex, and pondered about what it must have been like for Jyou’s parents and Yamato’s dad–stopping to ask how Yamato was doing. 

“He still says that he doesn’t know what he’s doing yet.” Takeru sighed. “I’m a little worried about Taichi. He’s taking the separation from the digimon even harder than me.”

Hikari put her hand on Takeru’s shoulder, and squeezed. It was the first time that either of them had really talked about losing the digimon since the end of the year before. It was an important and vulnerable thing, and she knew it.

“We didn’t think we’d see them as kids again, either. But they came back to us. I don’t think it’s the end of it now, either. I think they’re always going to be a part of our lives. Even if we have to say goodbye for a while, I think they’re always going to be in them.”

Takeru gave a small smile to her, and he instead took her hand, and squeezed it a little. 

“Thanks, Hikari.”

Hikari smiled back. “No problem. And besides–we still have a long life ahead of us. Who knows if things could change in the future?”

Takeru chuckled. “You’re right. There’s still a long life ahead of us…and I think that I’m just stuck on the fact that it doesn’t feel like it.”

“I think that’s your problem, Takeru. I think you’re always so focused on here and now that you don’t think about the long term.” Hikari nodded. “If you relaxed a little, you could probably enjoy things more.”

Takeru laughed. “I guess so.” He paused. “Sometimes, Yamato says I’m like my dad that way. That I’m so focused on right in front of me that I forget to take care of my future self.” 

“I guess hope and optimism can become reckless sometimes.” Hikari gently chided. “You should remember that.”

Takeru shoved her playfully. “Yeah, yeah…”

The two of them laughed together, with Takeru telling her more stories about Yamato’s band, and Hikari telling him stories about her friend group, the afternoon tea and conversation they had, and Takeru teased her about being a real princess. They talked about their digimon together, how much they wished that they had more adventures with them, and how it would have been great if they’d ever gotten the chance to bring them to their homes after school, if Patamon would ever help with homework, if Tailmon would boss Hikari around like an older sister would.

After a long evening, Takeru walked back home, leaving Hikari to her evening bath and the first day of her second year marked off on her calendar. 

It had been this life every day for the past year–a fabulous school life. Some part of her longed for the days of adventure, but she couldn’t complain. 

Day in and day out, she went to class, studied, and spent time with her friends. It was the same life that she’d lived since middle school, and the same life that she predicted she’d live after she went off to college, just like Taichi. It was the same life that she’d always wanted for herself. A life that she could be proud of. 

She wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

Across the city of Odaiba, the city slowly fell asleep. 

Parents came home to their children, who were tucked in for sleep. Instant rice was made, with grilled fish and miso soup. Apartment blocks settled in, lights were turned off. The island celebrated a year of peace after what happened the year before. The waves crashed into the shore, steady and true, and one calendar day switched to another. 

Across the city of Odaiba, Jun Motomiya stretched out on her bed, while her parents used the office room–a spare room that they’d been lucky enough to have for such a cheap find. Her father brought home work with him nowadays, and Jun put off studying for her university exams for one more night–something which her parents scolded her for, but something that she didn’t really care about. She had decided that she wanted to pursue music herself anyway, and she was starting to learn piano in her spare time. She also thought about drums. She’d just have to find somewhere else to play them, since the office was already full. 

She wasn’t quite sure why she thought it was an empty room before. She guessed it was because she wanted to use it herself. Her parents didn’t want it to be empty, anyway. They kept giving it strange looks, and Jun put it down to her refusing to study. 

She had a strange feeling that she shouldn’t leave the house, deep in her heart, but she didn’t know why. 

None of that mattered to Hikari Yagami, of course. Hikari Yagami had never met a person named Jun Motomiya before, and while she certainly wouldn’t have been opposed to making a new friend, she didn’t have any reason to seek anyone like that out, so she didn’t. 

Hikari Yagami didn’t know why Mr. and Mrs. Inoue were so struck with empty nest syndrome, or why it came as such a shock to them, because they hadn’t been expecting their house to be so empty so soon, after being so full for so long. She didn’t have any reason to talk with either of them beyond simple small talk, so she didn’t. Their lives were of no special importance to her, so while she didn’t have any problem talking to them, she didn’t think that there was anything special about the people who ran the convenience store close by her house. She still visited them every day for ice cream, but that was as far as it went, and Hikari didn’t see a reason for it to go any further than that, so it didn’t. 

Hikari didn’t have a reason to visit Takeru’s apartment building, where, close by, there was a dojo that practiced kendo, and a shrine to a former police officer named Hiroki Hida, who was shot in the line of duty tended to by Chikara Hida. She didn’t know about either of them, so while she certainly would have given a listening ear to Chikara Hida and his story about his son who was shot in the line of fire, she didn’t have any reason to talk to him, or attend the dojo where kendo was practiced, or to go to any kendo matches, so she didn’t. She didn’t have anything against the sport itself, but she’d never seen it, and had never known anybody who practiced it, and Hikari had always watched soccer matches anyway. However, as Taichi had left for university, she never watched the soccer matches at her school anymore. 

She didn’t know anybody who practiced soccer at her school, so she didn’t watch any of the matches, even when her school was playing against their rivals, Tamachi F.C. She didn’t have any particular interest in soccer besides when her brother played it, so she didn’t really care about their rivals, or about who was playing. Hikari had never been to Tamachi anyway, and didn’t care about the fancy prep school that played with Tamachi F.C., so none of it really mattered to her, and so she decided not to go. Hikari didn’t know about the grieving parents who lost a son and decided to never have another after a car accident a decade ago. She had no reason to know, so while she would have lent a sympathetic ear, she didn’t.

She didn’t have anything against anybody who played soccer at her school, but she didn’t know any of them, so it didn’t matter. 

Hikari also never took an interest in computers, either. She liked Koushiro, and she liked when he talked about his computer club, but she only really used computers for classwork, so she didn’t take an interest in it. She had bought a cellphone that year, and that was as far as her interest in technology went. She didn’t attend the computer club, and that was all that there was to it. 

Hikari’s life was pretty peaceful, and pretty contained. She went to school, and she spoke with her friends, and she came home and studied. It was an ideal life, and she was lucky to have it, and she knew it. So, while she knew that a lot of people out there didn’t have the same life that she did, she was content to live in the small space that she had carved out for herself in the world, and that was all that mattered to her. 

Hikari’s head hit the pillow, and she curled up under her pink sheets. With a content smile on her face, Hikari plugged her phone in to charge, and she went to sleep. 

She had a dreamless sleep, as usual. She was never bothered by bad dreams, and never wistful about sweet ones. She always slept a complete eight hours, and never woke up sick or with a headache or tired. She slept wonderfully, as she had since her first time back from the Digital World.

The next morning, she woke up to a beautiful, perfect spring morning, and she put on her uniform, and she went to school again.

Chapter Text

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the audience is asked to imagine a scenario where men are chained from birth to a dark wall. They can only see the outside world through the shadows it casts, and believe the world to be made of these shadows. A prisoner, freed from his bonds, sees the outside world and its dazzling, piercing light. He bathes in the rays of the sun. When he returns to the cave to free the others, his eyes are so adjusted to the light that he becomes blind. Seeing the blindness of the man, the prisoners remain in the dark, fearing that such a journey would also blind them. In the end, they would stay together, and kill anyone who tried to have them exit the cave.

Socrates

(April - 2006)

It was spring again. 

The Yoshino cherry blossoms bloomed, still in their blooming week in Odaiba, Tokyo. A few petals stirred impossibly on the breeze outside of the Yagami residence, carried into the open windows. It was well past the chilled season of March, so while it wasn’t quite how warm it would get during summers, it was still warm enough that it was acceptable to have windows open during the warm nights. Especially when one was several feet off the ground level floor.

Hikari Yagami awoke to the quiet beeping of her alarm clock–one of Yamato’s singles back when he played for the Teen-Age Wolves . She remained in bed for a moment, looking up from the top bunk towards the ceiling, counting the small imperfections in the paint, watching the way that the light from the early morning sun spilled into her bedroom. 

The curtains along the wall swayed–soft pink, made of tulle, with heavier, darkening curtains underneath. The laundry hung along the line hung in clips, with dish towels and handkerchiefs she would have to press before going to school. She’d used her handkerchief the day before to help a nervous first year who cried about being separated from her best friend in class. The first year promised to wash and press it, but Hikari had taken it, tears and all, and she’d assured the first year that she didn’t have to worry at all. Anyone would do that for her. There wasn’t anything she needed to do but have a good school year. 

Hikari’s friends often commented on how mature she was, how much she was in tune with the hearts and feelings of others. Hikari herself didn’t think much about it. It had simply been the way that she had always been, and she didn’t think anything would change that. She quite liked it, actually. She quite liked the fact that she was able to sense the hearts and feelings of others. That she was able to ease just a little bit of the pain in the world, even if it was something as small as comforting a scared girl who was a little bit afraid of growing up. 

Rising from her bed, and tucking the futon neatly under her pillow, Hikari started to get ready for school that morning. Her house slippers sat neatly at the bottom of the ladder, and she set her pajamas on the bottom bunk as she shuffled quietly around the Yagami residence, passing her mother who prepared the rice, miso soup, and tamagoyaki for the morning. Hikari had insisted that she wanted to eat vegetarian after entering middle school, and while her mother was a little surprised, she didn’t complain. Chilled tofu and pickles were her usual side dishes after that, while Taichi enjoyed getting extra servings of mackerel in the morning with his miso soup.

Hikari stepped outside on the balcony after brushing her teeth and washing her face, and putting on her uniform for the school day. Hands resting on the bar, she looked out over Odaiba–over the ferris wheel that still spun idly by, over the lake that was the real selling point for her parents after moving to Odaiba from Hikarigaoka. 

She understood how much Takeru enjoyed the short walk to school, but for Hikari, it was always going to be the ferris wheel that she really enjoyed–it always made things feel a little modern to her, she guessed, and also a little fun. It reminded her of the summers that she’d spend eating ice cream and watching the patrons. It reminded her of when she first wanted to be a kindergarten teacher–when she’d helped a yochien student who was lost make her way back to class. 

She’d been in her second to last year of elementary school at that time–about eleven years old. She’d started to carry around her camera permanently at the time, in a strap around her neck. She’d started to carry it around after realizing that there were some things she wouldn’t always get to remember, and while she still had the picture of Andromon and their group saved on her computer, she wanted to make sure that every moment like that was captured. So she was sure she’d never lose something like that again. Especially after she’d given her whistle to Tailmon before they’d separated, so she wanted to replace it with something just as important to her as the whistle she’d carried the first time she’d met Greymon. 

She’d been at the actual ferris wheel that day, and it honestly was a little bit of a surprise even to her that she couldn’t really remember a time that she’d gone before that. She guessed it was because Taichi didn’t really care about anything except soccer, and Hikari didn’t like to speak up for herself, so she’d never asked, even if she’d always thought the idea had been cool. So she’d gone with some friends, and while she’d been taking pictures of them, she’d noticed a little girl getting lost in the crowd, and she took the time to take her hand and get her back to the attendants, and she’d made friends with the little girl along the way, and she’d felt so good helping her that she’d decided she wanted to spend her life like that. Protecting kids just like how she’d protected the other kids. Just like how Taichi and Takeru and Yamato protected her. Just like how she and Tailmon protected the world. Gennai said that it was because of kids like them that the Digital World could be safe, so she wanted to make sure that every kid could be strong and smart and be the best versions of themselves–just like what the Digital World did for her.

‘Wow Hikari, you’re a natural at this!’

That had been something that tipped her over the edge, really. It was one of her friends at school at the time who’d told her that–someone she didn’t really remember, someone she’d lost touch with as she’d moved into the upper grades. It was a girl, though. She remembered that much. She knew it wasn’t Takeru, because she’d remember anything he told her. She was certain that the person who inspired her to be a kindergarten teacher was a girl. A little strange that she didn’t quite remember who had inspired her so much to pursue her dreams–something she hadn’t really thought much about before, since she really didn’t think much about what she wanted at all before she turned eleven–but she knew that person hadn’t been Takeru, and had been one of her friends, and had been a girl. 

She should look at her camera, then, she decided. Someone like that probably deserved a thank you note from Hikari. Even if they hadn’t talked in a while, even if they lost touch, she still cared about the people in her life. Someone who helped her decide what she wanted to do with her life deserved something nice. The best way to do that would be to open her camera. 

She still had about thirty minutes before she had to start walking to school, so Hikari decided to sit down with her PC and her camera, and she hooked her camera up to her PC with the cable it came with. One of these days she should actually go ahead and get all of the photos printed out at a pharmacy. Then she could make a photo album. She should make one for everyone in the group, especially after they all started moving away from each other.

When was the last time that she’d seen Sora, Jyou, and Mimi, actually? It must have been back in 2005, after the incident with Meiko and Ordinemon. Koushiro and Taichi kept in touch because they were both working together on researching digimon, and because Taichi and Koushiro both wanted to follow in the footsteps of what Nishijima and Himekawa were doing. She hadn’t seen Sora, Jyou, or Mimi at all since then, though. 

How had they said goodbye, anyway? 

Mimi was supposed to have moved back to Odaiba for her dad’s work, and she’d transferred in the middle of the school year. So had Meiko. Then both had left just as suddenly, and before Hikari had known it, Mimi was back in America and Meiko was gone again. All within the space of a single school year.

Hikari blinked. 

Himekawa and Nishijima had also packed up and left, just after that. She guessed it wasn’t as strange as Meiko and Mimi, though. Nishijima had done a lot of his work in his car, and Himekawa didn’t seem to have a formal office. She hadn’t heard Taichi or Koushiro mention either of them once since the end of the digimon adventure they’d had together, though. 

Actually, she hadn’t heard anything from either of them, or anything from Meiko, either. It was a little understandable with Meiko after everything that had happened, but she knew Taichi had looked up to Nishijima, and Koushiro even moreso. He’d fulfilled both of their dreams, in a way. Nishijima was researching digimon as a concept, and Himekawa was one of the former Chosen Children, who had proved that an adult could still have a connection to other Chosen Children and the Digital World in their adult life. It was something they’d honestly all been afraid of, especially after the gate had been closed for so long. They’d all been worried that, when they’d become adults, they’d lose connection to their digimon. It had honestly seemed to happen before Himekawa and Nishijima had come into their lives, and while she understood why Meiko wouldn’t want to talk to them, she was still thankful to Meiko for inspiring her to follow her dreams.

Meiko .

No, she’d just been thinking about that. It wasn’t Meiko. She liked Meiko–she liked Meiko a lot, actually. Meiko was shy and kind and gentle, and a bit socially awkward, with dark violet eyes that always seemed downcast around her energetic and forward big brother. But her dark past couldn’t hide how kind she was, and Hikari was glad that her brother could bring it out of her, even if she had a tendency to run away from them.

She was always glad that they’d made such good friends. They both needed someone to fill in the gap the other felt–someone to ease the guilt that came with holding a shard of darkness for so long, something that came with a dark digivice and a dark seed embedded so deep it infected one’s soul, and the bright shining star that pulled out the gentle heard. 

Hikari felt a strange tingling under her hands, and she stepped away from the balcony. She should probably get to looking through her camera, actually. She didn’t have much time to think about this. Five minutes had already passed (had she really been thinking that long?) and she had to get to school soon, and she really wanted to find the name of the person who inspired her to become a kindergarten teacher. She really wanted to see her face. She really wanted to see her again.

Hikari pulled up the media viewer on her computer, and she started to dig through her digital camera roll. She hadn’t carried her camera around since middle school–wearing it as a necklace was banned from the school because of their uniforms, and Takeru had pitched a fit when they’d made him give up his bucket hat–but she still kept it around in her desk drawer, never getting around to developing the roll. 

Clicking through her photos, she realized that her pictures from elementary school were few and far between. She guessed that she didn’t take as many as she thought. 

Something fuzzed at the edge of her vision–a strange cotton feeling. The same numbness that tingled her fingers when she stood at the balcony. She probably didn’t get enough sleep that night, she decided. There wasn’t anything to worry about. She clicked the last photoset, and she moved backwards, going through the unnamed images in her digital camera album.

Hikari blinked again. 

She was sitting down at the breakfast table, a bowl of miso soup in front of her, and her chilled tofu was half finished. She hadn’t put any soy sauce on it. Her pickles were already gone. Her cup of tea was already drained, and she glanced at the clock. 

She’d lost fifteen minutes. She only had ten minutes left to finish her breakfast and get to school. Hikari’s hands shook as she started on her eggs, eating them without tasting them, swallowing so fast that she almost gave herself a stomachache. She’d never lost time like that before. Even back when she’d let Homeostasis talk through her, she’d been completely aware the entire time, and they had always asked permission before talking through her. 

They’d always asked permission. 

They always spoke very politely to her, and very politely to everyone else. The Chosen Children were there because Homeostasis called to them, after all, and Homeostasis was the one that picked digimon and their partners to work together from 1995, back when the first generation of Chosen Children were picked. Back when Himekawa and Nishijima were picked. Homeostasis had never acted cruelly to her before–they had always been good allies. They had no reason to fight. 

Hikari stood up quickly when she was done with her breakfast, almost knocking her chair over. The Earth seemed to want to chain her down, however, and Hikari gripped the table as the world spun, and she dug her nails into the wood so that she wouldn’t fall over. 

Her vision seemed to fuzz at the edges again–and for a moment, Hikari’s heart rate jumped. Something she didn’t entirely understand. She wondered if she had just stood up too quickly because of the time, if that was the reason she was losing it. Maybe she was getting a fever again. She hadn't had a bad fever since she was nine, but that didn’t mean that it was impossible for her sickness to come back. 

In fact, it was meeting Tailmon and going to the Digital World that had helped her get over her fevers the last time. 

Her mother paused from taking in the laundry to ask if Hikari was feeling well, and Hikari nodded without answering verbally. It was easy and a force of habit to pretend that nothing was happening. It was better that way. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she could take whatever was happening to her. She didn’t have to give in to the things calling her. Takeru had been the one to show her that. She didn’t have to rely on Taichi anymore.

Hikari paused as she was grabbing her schoolbag, before she ran down the hall to her bedroom and threw open the door. She grabbed her digital camera from the table, ripping the cord out from the camera as she did so. She knew it could mess up her computer while she did it, but she didn’t care. She tucked the camera into her bag, and closed both of her hands over the clasp. 

There was still the computer lab at the high school. She could get into the computer lab there, and she could see what was going on. Maybe she could get into contact with Koushiro. Maybe she could see if any of the third years could help. 

Hikari stopped in the genkan, as she tapped her loafers against the mat. Something occurred to her as she ran through the list of people she could talk to about her issues with her camera. She turned towards her mom. 

“Mom?” Hikari asked, and her mother paused while gathering up the plates, glancing up at Hikari. 

“Yes?”

“Mom–when was the last time that Taichi called home?” Hikari rested her hand on the doorknob. It couldn’t have been a year, right? Taichi was the type to get completely caught up in whatever he was working on, but Taichi loved their parents and he loved Hikari. He could lose contact with everyone else, but not her and her parents.

Her mother’s brow furrowed, and she huffed as she put the dishes in the sink. “You know what, Hikari? You’re right! I can’t even remember the last time that boy called home! I’m going to call him today and give him a piece of my mind!” 

Taichi wasn’t the type to ignore their mother’s phone calls, either, and Hikari looked down at her shoes. Still, it was nice to know that it wasn’t just her–but it was also scary to know that it wasn’t just her. But her mother had always been the type to exaggerate things…and Hikari couldn’t tell how serious her mother was. Or how long it could have been for the both of them. 

“Thank you, mom.” Hikari opened the door, and she stepped out of the apartment. She had to stop for a moment, resting her hand on the wall as another wave of dizziness overtook her. She was definitely going to come down with a fever if she didn’t stop stressing out so much.

No, she could overcome this. She wasn’t a little girl who relied on Taichi anymore. She wasn’t a little girl who Takeru had to save. She was the Chosen Child of light, the one Vamdemon was afraid of. 

Vamdemon, who it took every Chosen Child in the world to put down.

Hikari winced again as another wave of dizziness hit her, and she leaned her shoulders against the wall as she brought her hand to her forehead. How silly of her. Meiko hadn’t been around, and there were only nine of them. Only nine Chosen Children in the world. Well, maybe it wasn’t so silly, because they only knew about eight of them at the time, and they didn’t know Nishijima or Himekawa. It was a pretty reasonable assumption to make. 

Hikari took another deep breath, a little shaky on her legs, and she started walking to school. She wouldn’t worry too much about this. She’d gotten this sick before. She’d lost days to sleep after bad fevers before. There was nothing to worry about. 

It was spring. Everything was fine.

Hikari sat in the middle of her English class, balancing her mechanical pencil in her hand. She twisted it between her fingers, tapped the eraser against her paper. She dragged it up and down her paper by the eraser edge. 

Her teacher was talking about something–probably some British classic, or some sort of philosophy paper. She couldn’t find it in herself to focus on the words, no matter how hard she tried. Multiple times, she tried to listen in–tried to force herself to read the characters on the board, tried to force herself to listen to the important literature that her teacher was reading–but no matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to stop the fuzz that had wrapped around her brain. 

It was white cotton, something that had stopped up her ears, a white sheet that was wrapped around her like a cocoon. A glass box that had encased itself around her. Hikari pushed the lead of the pencil back into the tip, and pushed it out by thumbing the eraser again. Over and over, while the minute hand ticked by on the analog clock above her teacher’s head. They should really get a digital clock. A lot of the younger kids she knew didn’t know how to read an analog clock anymore. Not since PCs had become more common, not since people started really carrying around cellphones in the last few years. 

Takeru had tried to talk to her that morning, and she’d smiled politely and told him that she didn’t feel great that day, so she’d rather not talk and just walked in silence. While each teacher came and went throughout the day, Hikari spent most of it like this–trying desperately to listen, and coming up with nothing while she was at it. 

A year. 

It had to have been since the incident with Meiko and Ordinemon and the Mysterious Man who looked like Gennai. It had to have been a year since then–they went to an onsen with Meiko after the school’s cultural festival, and after they discovered Meicoomon was infected for the first time. That was also when the Mysterious Man had taken the form of Gennai and had intimidated them the first time by taking Meicoomon and taunting them about it. 

It had been a shock, seeing Gennai again, and seeing him acting as an enemy. She remembered that Takeru had been the one who had gasped at seeing Gennai. They had gone to Koushiro, who tried to get answers from Himekawa and Nishijima about the possibility of Gennai being evil. Hikari and Takeru had tried to contact Gennai directly, with nothing in return. Yamato had talked to Nishijima, who assured him that nothing was going on, and that he was keeping tabs on him, and that everything was fine. 

Hikari pushed her thumb against the eraser of her pencil. 

She remembered that day. They had taken a train together, and they had gotten ice cream at the I-mart after they’d tried to contact Gennai. Had they tried to open the gate in Hikarigaoka, the one that Myotismon used the cards to maintain and open? That was probably the case. There wouldn’t be any reason to use a train otherwise. That would honestly be pretty silly of them, though, considering that the gate was closed now. Maybe they tried the campsite. That would make a lot more sense. It was the one that the older kids used the last time that they’d tried to force their way into the Digital World. 

Hikari paused in thought, instead of spinning her pencil in her hands again, she let it rest against her open notebook, her chin resting on her palm. 

That was right–the older kids didn’t have the ability to open up the gates with their digivices. But neither did Hikari. Her D-3 was just because she and Takeru were younger than the other kids, maybe something about their digimon both being matching angel forms. 

She couldn’t really remember why her digivice was different from the others. She guessed it was one of the mysteries, just like why she hadn’t been pulled into the Digital World at the same time as everyone else. Just like why Tailmon was older than other digimon, old enough to have encountered Myotismon early. Or why Tailmon hadn’t been on File Island like all of the rest of the digimon. It was just one of those things that happened with the strange and mysterious place that was the Digital World. 

Himekawa, too–she also had a D-3. It was a black D-3, a grey and black one. It wasn’t at all like the other digivices that were all pale blue, and it wasn’t like her digivice with Takeru, which was white with grips the colors of their crests. It was a lot like Meiko’s digivice, actually. Meiko’s digivice which had turned black when it was touched by the darkness inside Meicoomon ….

The strange, fuzzy cotton inside Hikari’s ears rang a little, and Hikari pushed her pencil down into her paper, hard enough to tear a small, dark hole in the stark white. She started pushing her pencil down into her paper multiple times, forming a small cluster at the edges. 

Her thoughts were going in strange places again, in one place after another. It didn’t seem like she could focus on one topic for very long without getting distracted by something. She pushed her bangs out of her face, and tucked them behind her ear. She’d left her hair clips at home. She wished that she’d brought them. 

Focus .

A year ago, Koushiro had organized the strange, six occurrences into six bullet points. Easily identified points. Hikari wasn’t sure what was troubling her exactly, though. She didn’t even know if there was anything to be troubled about. She knew she was getting sick, and she knew that being sick made her mind work in strange ways and it made her a little out of it. That was all that she had to worry about. 

No, dig deeper.

She had a bad habit of not worrying about anything involving herself. She knew that. If something involved herself or her own feelings, she would push it aside. She had to do something to avoid that. She picked up her pencil and pressed it to the paper, hard enough that it left another, small black mark.

Deeper.

She knew that she was starting to get fevers again, and she hadn’t had fevers since she was nine years old. She wrote that down into her paper, carefully so. For some reason, even that alone was a bit difficult–her hand shook so badly that the characters came out a little clumsy, a little bit shaky at the edges. 

It started to get a little bit difficult to breathe, for some reason that she couldn’t articulate. She felt her forehead with the back of her left hand, but of course nothing would come of it, since she couldn’t reasonably check her own temperature. She bit down on her lip and turned back to her paper. 

This must be important for some reason. She knew it was important. Something deep inside her gut told her that she needed to find out whatever it was that was making the edges of her vision fuzz, and that she needed to find it out sooner rather than later, if she wanted to make sure that her fever wasn’t going to pull her down to the Earth first and make her stop against her will.

She was getting fevers again. Taichi hadn’t called her or her parents in thirty days. That was another example. She wrote it down quickly as a hot lance pierced her temples, and they started to pound against her hand. 

She was getting fevers again. Taichi wasn’t home. She couldn’t remember how or when Himekawa and Meiko and Mimi left. 

That’s right. 

Her memory . 

Her right hand gripped her pencil tight in a fist, to the point that her knuckles were white. She grunted and pressed the hells of both of her palms to her temples as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly. 

Her memory .

She couldn’t remember the last time that they were all brought together. She couldn’t remember the last time that Taichi called. She couldn’t remember why they took the train when they were investigating the evil Gennai. She couldn’t remember the name of the person who had inspired her to become a kindergarten teacher. 

She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember . So many things were slipping through her fingers. Her head ached so much that she curled her knees against the bottom of the desk and she shook with how much it hurt. Tears welled in her eyes and pooled on the paper. 

“Ms. Yagami?” Her teacher asked, through the cloud of white noise that developed in her head. White noise that crackled behind her ears like loudspeakers. White noise that drowned out the entire classroom, floating her away on a dark ocean where nothing could reach her, not even light or sound.

No. No . She couldn’t lose this. She couldn’t lose it again. She tore her head away from the paper and flipped the pages, until she was halfway through the notebook where her tears didn’t make the paper wet. She wrote down each item as fast as she could before she lost it. Taichi, Gennai, the others, the missing person in her memory. The missing pictures on her camera. The time that she had lost that morning. She wrote all of it down quickly, not caring how badly it came out. She couldn’t lose it. 

Her memory was unreliable. 

That was the last thing that she wrote down. Her memory was unreliable. She had to keep it with her. She had to make sure that she knew this for sure. She took her pen out of her backpack and wrote it on her wrist in ink. Her memory was unreliable. She was missing her memories .

“Ms. Yagami!”

Her teacher stood over her desk, looking down at her. The adrenaline rush that had given her the strength to push through the pain faded, and it all came rushing back to her in a wave of agony that had Hikari gripping the sides of her head again, her forehead pressed to the notebook cover.

It was closed, carefully. She didn’t want to risk getting any tears on the pages. She didn’t watch to smudge any of the ink. She didn’t want to lose any of it.

“Yes, ma'am?” Hikari asked, and her voice came out incredibly unsteady, and she kept her eyes shut because she didn’t think she could stand looking at the light directly. She honestly wasn’t sure she remembered the face of her teacher, either. She couldn’t really remember any of her teachers from last year, either. 

She could only seem to remember being in class with Takeru and knowing that she had a few friends outside of him in class. She remembered that she would spend time with them, and they would have tea together. She couldn’t specifically remember any of their names or faces.

“Ms. Yagami, do you need to go to the nurse?” Her teacher asked, and Hikari vaguely nodded, honestly unsure if it was a good idea. At the very least it would get her out of class, and she could focus more. 

“I’ll take her–” Takeru started, standing up. 

“No.” Hikari immediately said, and she tried to open her eyes, but instead winced and closed them again. “The nurse’s aid. Please?”

The nurse’s aid for her class stood up–Hikari was pretty sure it was a girl from her last year, but she wasn’t sure of her name. Takeru protested for a moment, but after Hikari nodded for the nurse’s aid, she felt herself being gently guided out of her seat with a hand on her back, and she leaned against the other girl as they walked down the hall. 

Takeru would just get worried. She knew that. She also knew that she wasn’t well enough to answer questions. 

“Yagami, we’re here.” The girl said quietly, and Hikari looked at her, and gave a small nod. She stole a glance at the other girl’s bag before giving a shaky smile. 

“Thank you so much, Mizuho.” She said, her voice quiet and exhausted. The other girl led her inside the nurse’s office, and explained the situation while Hikari laid down on the cot, and drew the blanket up to her chin. 

The world still spun, even as she shut her eyes. Vertigo was added to the mix at that point. Just focus on trying to rest. The paper thin blanket and the paper pillow crinkled in her ears, and Hikari turned on her side as she laid her bag on the floor. The act of trying to cover her eyes from the piercing light brought her wrist into focus again. 

My memory is unreliable .

Her eyes popped open again. Already, in that small space of time, she’d forgotten everything that she’d been focusing on until that point. Just the act of walking to the nurse’s office made her forget everything. She sat up a little bit, ignoring the way her stomach and her head clenched. She dug out her pen. 

It was all in her notebook. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d written down in it, but she knew that everything she had was written down in there. She wrote that down on her arm, and rolled up her sleeve to do it. My memory is unreliable. Check my notebook.

She had to make sure she wrote it down every day. She’d pin it to her bathroom wall after her showers so she didn’t forget to write it down again. She’d write it on her mirror in the morning if it smudged after she went to sleep. 

That brought up the question, though. Why was her memory unreliable? Who took her memories from her?

Hikari dug out her notebook again, stuck the cap between her teeth, and stared down at the page. She read over her list again, and flipped the page, and started a new line. 

Someone took my memories from me. Who?

The Evil Gennai, of course, was the first person that came to mind. She wrote it down immediately. It could also be Meicoomon, from the infection. It could have possibly done something to them while they were in the Digital World because of the reboot. 

Nishijima and Himekawa…

She didn’t like thinking about it, because they were so nice to her, but she also wrote their names down, with Meiko as well, whom she hesitated even more with writing. She didn’t want to suspect her friends, but she had to make sure she accounted for everyone . Everyone who disappeared, who wasn’t someone she knew wouldn’t do it. 

She knew none of her core friends would do it. Even if she hadn’t seen most of them in a long time, she just knew none of them would do it.

It could also be some sort of unknown digimon, too. Honestly, she would have preferred that. She put that down as the last option. She didn’t want to fight against anyone’s partners again. It had been hard enough with Meicoomon. She didn’t want to fight against Tailmon as Ordinemon again.

The most likely person, though, was the Evil Gennai. That would be the person that she started with. She circled and underlined the name, and dog-eared the page, so that she would find it when she forgot again, and she looked at her wrist. She flipped it back over, and read over the list again. Hoping to burn it into her mind while she laid down. Hoping that she wouldn’t lose it while she tried to rest.

Her camera…

Someone had messed with her camera. That had been the first thing that she’d noticed that morning. A physical link to something someone had done. 

They must have known that she’d taken a picture of something or someone important. The Evil Gennai must have done something to it. He deleted data off of it, or he’d somehow corrupted the pictures, like with a virus. 

She had to get a hold of Koushiro, somehow. He could make sure to retrieve all of the data on her camera, and he could fix it if something was wrong with it. She knew that Koushiro was capable of that. She wrote that down on the bottom of her list. Contact Koushiro to fix your camera.

If she was right, though, she still had his e-mail address. 

She dug through her bag for her phone, and she messaged Koushiro about her camera, and asked if he could fix it. She also messaged Taichi and asked him when he was coming home. 

One by one, she messaged each of the chosen children, including Meiko. She asked them about what they were doing, and when it could be possible for them to meet up again, and that she had something important and digimon related to talk to them about. 

Lastly, she messaged Takeru, and told him that she was fine. 

She didn’t want him to worry. That much, Hikari knew for certain. When Takeru worried about her, he stopped acting rationally. He always got that way when someone messed with something that they didn’t understand. 

Finally, with nothing else that she could do but wait for a response, Hikari shut her eyes to rest.

Sorry Hikari, but I’ve got a lot of work to do. Try asking Taichi? - Jyou.

I’m in America, sorry Hikari! I’m sure Yamato and Tachi will help! Maybe Ms. Himekawa and Mr. Nishijima can help you? Best of luck! XOXO  - Mimi.

I’m busy with work, sorry Hikari. I hope everything is okay. Let me know if it isn’t. - Sora.

Is it another digimon attack? I’ll let Ms. Himekawa know and get back to you. Thanks for the update. - Yamato.

I’m very sorry about your camera, Hikari. I am unable to help right now due to startup business. Please let me know about the digimon and I will help with what I can. I would suggest contacting Ms. Himekawa and Mr. Nishijima first. - Koushiro.

I’ll call mom today, just fill me in over email on digimon stuff. I’ll tell Nishijima.  - Taichi.

I’m glad you’re feeling better. Let me know if it gets worse, alright? - Takeru.

Hikari laid on her bed, with her cellphone resting on her stomach as she stared up at the ceiling. It was uncharacteristic of her to be in a mood like this, that much she knew. She also knew it was uncharacteristic for her to not tell Takeru everything that was bothering her. 

Was it, though? 

She looked back at her arm again, and frowned. She didn’t know what was characteristic of her or what was uncharacteristic of her. That much she knew. She also knew that there wouldn’t be any way of figuring it out if she didn’t try. 

She had to stop pouting. She had to look forward. She had to leave the past behind. Fine, if nobody was going to be of help to her…she’d just have to figure it all out herself.

Hikari started writing down everything that she remembered. 

She’d gone on the adventure with the others and Tailmon when she was nine years old, and when everyone except Jyou was eleven. She’d met Tailmon in Odaiba, and they’d all left from Hikarigaoka. They’d gone to the Digital World from there. 

They couldn’t get in and out of the Digital World, except from the gates that digimon opened, and from the gate in Hikarigaoka and the campsite. After they’d defeated the Dark Masters, they traveled behind the Wall of Fire to defeat Apocylamon. 

After Apocylamon, Taichi had encountered a digimon on the network born of computer viruses. Gennai had helped them, and Taichi and Yamato battled a digimon called Diabolomon. Diabolomon returned a few years later, and Omegamon slew him in a form called Armageddemon. Omegamon could do that because he was the most powerful digimon they had. He had Merciful Mode which could defeat Meicoomon as Ordinemon, after all, who merged two Ultimate digimon too. 

After Omegamon defeated Armageddemon on the internet, they lost contact with the digimon again. Years later, the digimon reappeared because of Meiko and Meicoomon, and they had to defeat Meicoomon after the Mysterious Man corrupted her, and turned Tailmon and Meicoomon into Ordinemon. The real Gennai talked through Hikari after that, and said that Homeostasis would shut down something called Yggdrasil. 

Yggdrasil .

The name made her hand shake. She wrote it down and underlined it. Yggdrasil . The world tree from Norse Mythology. Something that didn’t even have a name or an explanation attached to it, like Homeostasis and the agents. She didn’t know anything about it, but she knew it was important if Homeostasis mentioned it willingly, without anyone asking them about it. Homeostasis never talked about things without being asked about them.

After they defeated Ordinemon, there wasn’t anything else except the questions that kept popping up. The questions she’d already asked. 

Hikari rubbed her forehead.

She’d hit another dead end. There wasn’t any way that she could get into contact with anyone, and she’d even brought it up as being about important digimon business. At everyone’s suggestion, she also sent an email to Himekawa and Nishijima. She didn’t really expect a reply, and as far as she’d known, they didn’t look at it, or didn’t care to look at it. 

To make matters even worse, the more that Hikari thought about it, the worse that the headache got. Even just getting up to do something about it made her dizzy, and it made the spinning worse. She laid back down on the bottom bunk, frowning at her list. 

It could be a virus. It could be Nishijima and Himekawa. It could be the Evil Gennai. It could be something caused by Meicoomon. It could be any of her friends…

She didn’t know any of her friends that would turn against her, though. Even Meiko. Even Meiko had allowed them to kill her partner digimon for the good of the world, even after how hard it had been for her. 

She…wished that she could see Tailmon again. 

For the first time in years, Hikari really allowed that ache inside to take her over. She wished that she could see Tailmon again. She wished that she could hold her. She wished that Tailmon would tell her that everything was okay, that Tailmon would assure her that she could handle it. She wished she had Tailmon again. 

Hikari buried her face in her arms, and tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to see Tailmon again so badly that it ached. It felt like only Takeru understood how much she missed Tailmon, how much that it felt as if a piece of her heart had been ripped out of her chest, gutted and left with the rest of her to pick up the pieces left behind. 

It felt as if she were missing her heart.

Finally, after coming out of it, Hikari lifted her head off of the pillow, sniffling. That was it–she had a goal. Besides getting her memories back, she had to find some way to see Tailmon again. That was going to be the only thing she would focus on. That would be the only way that she would feel satisfied. 

If only…if only there was some way to get in contact with a digimon…to get in proper contact with someone from the Digital World .

Sitting up properly, she stared at her PC across the room.

She couldn’t open a gate, even if she tried. She’d tried, many times. She’d tried pointing her D-3 at the monitor. She’d tried begging it to open. She’d tried pleading with Tailmon. She’d tried everything she could think of, but the gates stubbornly stayed closed. Only Himekawa’s black D-3 and everyone’s crests focused together could open the gate. 

She’d heard Koushiro say something about data not really ever leaving computers, that data could only become inaccessible to someone once they deleted it off their PC. That was how Diabolomon had stayed on the internet, after all. If only there was some way she could get as smart as Koushiro, if only she knew someone who could trace that data. 

Hikari’s blood went cold. 

Diabolomon .

Diabolomon, the one who sent a nuclear missile straight to Odaiba. The one who waited three years to reform and return. The one who copied millions of Kuramon so that he could defend himself and not be taken out in one shot like Omegamon had done the first time. 

Diabolomon was still on the internet. 

No, Kuramon was still on the internet. 

In weak form, unable to really do anything but float around as a baby jellyfish. Hikari knew how dangerous they were. Doing anything to a Kuramon risked it digivolving into a Diabolomon, especially with how much more advanced their world had become since 2000. Doing anything to mess with Kuramon risked initiating another attack, without Omegamon to fight them. 

Hikari laid back down, her hand on her stomach again. 

It was stupid, and risky. Besides, Kuramon ate data. That was what Koushiro had told them. Using Kuramon would be the same thing as throwing data away. 

But Kuramon was an easy program. And all Koushiro had done was just put them in the trash can. If the worst came to worse, all she’d have to do was put the Kuramon back in the trash. 

Hikari sat up on her bed. 

Slowly, she approached her PC, and she dug through her old, saved emails. Three years ago. The email that came with the attached picture of Taichi as a toddler, the one that came with a Kuramon attached. A Kuramon that hadn’t been deleted, only put in the trash. 

She attached all of her images from her camera, and put in a simple command after a little bit of research. A command for the Kuramon to identify everyone in the pictures, and to output any missing ones. 

It was a gamble, and a big one. Hikari disconnected her camera from her PC afterwards, just in case. 

She was banking on the fact that, at the end of the day, as destructive as they’d been, Diabolomon and the Kuramon were programs that were still newborns. Diabolomon had wanted to test his destructive power, and held a grudge, and wanted to play a game with the Chosen Children and the human world. He’d been born from computer viruses that hackers made to test their knowledge and skill. Kuramon were newborns who didn’t hold any particular allegiance. They just did whatever they were told. 

More than that, they didn’t exist in the Digital World, or the human world. They were digimon purely from the network , and while something had messed with the human world, and while the Digital World had been rebooted, Diabolomon and the Kuramon existed in a place outside of both, and didn’t have any greater goals than destruction for its own sake. Whomever it was could mess with her computer, and mess with her memories, and mess with her camera, but Diabolomon existed outside of both worlds, where it could never be deleted permanently. There wouldn’t be any reason for Diabolomon to ally itself with anyone else. It only wanted revenge, nothing more.

It was the only way she could get an objective answer–from the mouth of the devil itself.

After a few, agonizing minutes–minutes of Hikari dreading the idea of causing some sort of trouble in the real world, or the Digital World–she received a reply. She opened the reply with shaking hands, as guilt and dread welled in her gut. 

What had she done? What was she thinking? She was going to cause so much trouble for everyone, she was going to throw the whole world into chaos. Omegamon wasn’t here to protect them. She was stupid and selfish, she was only thinking about herself, she was–

The Kuramon she spoke with replied in equally simple python code–and Hikari imagined that it was the way that a newborn who was just learning the language may talk. But that wasn’t the part that caught her eye. 

The part that caught her eye was near the bottom.

[Image Identification: Miyako Inoue, Hikari Yagami, Daisuke Motomiya, Takeru Takaishi, Iori Hida, Ken Ichijouji. Place: Odaiba. Time: 2003.] 

Attached to the email was a long list of images–each one in perfect detail. The exact same capture clarity that Kuramon had sent them all back in 2003. 

Hikari didn’t dare save them–instead, she screen captured each picture, and saved them to her computer. She quickly sent the email to the trash, just in case. She knew playing with something as wild as a Kuramon was risky, and she would probably regret it later. She disconnected her PC from the internet afterwards as well, just in case the Kuramon was still on her computer, so it couldn’t connect to her home internet or go back into the network. 

It was only after that–after minutes of work that made her fingers and joints ache from how much anticipation curled in her stomach–that she finally allowed herself to open the image capture function on her computer, and she looked at the attached pictures. 

It came in slowly, like waves tumbling against the rocks. It came in like fog creeping over a dark horizon. The pounding of wind against the waves. Something inevitable and powerful and agonizing. Something that split the very world into pieces. Something that stripped leaves from branches and upturned trees. Something that she couldn’t possibly predict, and something that felt utterly right all the same. 

It was a lock and key, clicking into place. It was a brick sliding home into a building, the last piece. It was finishing a puzzle. She couldn’t breathe.

Four of them–four, other Chosen Children, standing with smiles alongside her and Takeru. A boy wearing the same goggles that Taichi wore now, and the same goggles that he’d worn back then. A younger boy who couldn’t be older than ten. A girl with lavender hair and a bright smile. A boy with downcast eyes who smiled shyly at the camera. 

There were four of them. 

Each of them had a digimon–all of the digimon excited for the camera. A tiny cartoon dinosaur, a bouncing head with wings, a naked bird, and a bagworm. They were all held in what must have been their partner’s arms, except for the blue one, which rode on the top of the goggle boy’s head.

Hikari scrolled. Picture after picture assaulted her senses. She clamped her eyes shut and pressed her hands to her temples. Pain assaulted her from all sides–pain in her chest, pain in her temples, pain in her forehead. She bit down on her lip to keep herself from screaming. 

It was trying to keep her from remembering.

She knew in an instant that must be the case. It was the same pain that had been tormenting her since that morning, when she’d first started questioning things. Whatever did this, it was trying to keep her from remembering them, remembering this . 

She forced her eyes open, despite the tears that were trying to cloud her vision. She had to see this. She had to make herself remember. 

Another picture, this time of the six of them at a picnic. Hikari must have been holding the camera for both of them. Tailmon was in the picture, but she wasn’t. The girl with the purple hair was grabbing the arm of the boy with black hair to force him to sit down, while the goggle boy was fighting with the blue digimon over the last piece of meat. The youngest boy was feeding an armadillo digimon dumplings, while a hawk digimon and a caterpillar digimon talked next to the purple haired girl and the black haired boy. 

A picture at the start of middle school. Someone else was taking this one, probably Takeru, since Patamon was in it, but he wasn’t. Hikari and the girl were wearing the green uniforms, and the boy with goggles was in the male uniform. The boy with black hair stood off to the side in a different uniform, and the youngest boy was still in casual clothes. He must have still been in elementary school. The digimon were eating snacks on a nearby table.

A picture with all of them hanging out on the beach. The girl with purple hair was splashing the goggle boy with water, while the youngest boy and the boy with black hair sat on the sand dunes a while away, both looking vaguely uncomfortable. Hikari and Takeru ate shaved ice and watched. She didn’t know who took that picture, she guessed a digimon.

Picture after picture, enough to fill her entire camera gallery. It felt like she was seeing an entire lifetime in front of her. It felt like it wasn’t enough. She only saw snapshots of what she’d missed, no, what had been taken from her. She felt a hole made of grief open up in her chest, in the pit of her stomach. 

They’d known each other. There were others just like her and Takeru .

She didn’t realize that she’d been crying until her tears completely obscured her vision, and even then, she wiped her eyes with her right sleeve, so she wouldn’t smear the ink on her hands. She took pictures of her PC screen with her phone so that she wouldn’t lose them, even if Kuramon crashed her computer, even if someone wiped it. She had to keep it from being connected right now. She couldn’t risk someone getting into her PC and making her lose these pictures. 

She reached the names in the code, and she opened up her notebook and wrote them all down carefully. Daisuke Motomiya. Iori Hida. Miyako Inoue. Ken Ichijouji.

There was only one girl in the pictures besides herself, so that must have been her name. Miyako Inoue. 

“Miyako Inoue.”

It felt strange to say her name out loud–almost holy, in a way. Like she was giving life to a concept unknown to the world. Inoue. She looked like an Inoue. She looked exactly like the woman who ran the I-mart. Miyako went to her school. She knew where Miyako was from, who her family was. She must have known all of that when she remembered her, too. She must have known all of that when they were friends. 

The others she couldn’t be certain about, since there were three boys in the picture, and she didn’t recognize any of their last names. She would have to do some digging into the news and family records, so she could see if any of them shared features with family members, so she could properly match names to faces. 

She picked up her phone again, and she ran a few searches. She looked to see if there were any missing persons articles from three years ago. Someone would have to notice if four kids suddenly went missing in Odaiba. 

But she didn’t notice.

Guilt shot through her stomach like a pit of acid, but she furrowed her brow and bit her lip. She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t pity herself or her inaction. She had to keep looking so that she could find them. 

A quick search of Motomiya, Odaiba found her an apartment in her building, and a search of the local school records found her Jun Motomiya , who had the same brown eyes and brown hair as Daisuke Motomiya , so she could be reasonably certain that she had a match. A search of Ichijouji, Odaiba didn’t bring up anything, but Hida, Odaiba brought up an article about a police officer killed in the line of fire who had similar features the younger of the three, so she could reasonably place the tallest boy as Ken Ichijouji, and the youngest boy as Iori Hida .

Miyako Inoue and Iori Hida …they lived in the same apartment complex as Takeru. They lived in the same building, and nobody had noticed the both of them vanishing. Seemingly, not even their parents. Even Hikari couldn’t really remember any of them–she had to only guess at the names of the two other boys, and she could be wrong. After all, black and brown hair look the same in newspaper print. 

Almost all of them lived in the same city as her. 

The thought made her stomach clench, and she lurched forward, pressing her palms against the sides of her head. She couldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think about it. She couldn’t get distracted by her own guilt.

She still didn’t have the answers she needed. 

In her notebook, she wrote down all of her names, and a small description of what they looked like. She wrote down a description of the digimon that appeared with them. A bagworm turned caterpillar, a small blue dinosaur turned into a child sized one, a naked bird turned into a hawk, a bouncing head turned into a yellow armadillo. She wrote down their family’s addresses and their phone numbers with them. 

That was another question to write down. Who took the four of them, and why? Why were all of their memories taken of them? Where were they, and why was it necessary to remove their memories? 

The more that Hikari thought about it, the more sick that she felt. She didn’t have any way of finding any answers. It wasn’t like anybody around her knew, and it wasn’t like she could ask the digimon for help, and it wasn’t like she could contact Gennai for help. She didn’t have any way of opening a gate. She didn’t have any way of contacting Gennai. She was out of leads, and out of options. The only thing she could do was to keep thinking about all of this.

She couldn’t stop thinking. The minute that she stopped thinking, she was going to lose all of them all over again. Keep thinking .

Takeru was also involved in this, but it didn’t seem that he’d started to ask questions yet, so he didn’t know. Taichi’s goggles were on Daisuke’s head, so Daisuke and Taichi knew each other–knew each other enough that Daisuke had received his prized goggles. The four of them went to the beach and picniced together, so they all knew each other well enough to spend time together outside of school, when there was no digimon business around. Ichijouji didn’t go to their middle school, so he went to a private one, or a public one somewhere outside of Odaiba. That widened the area of possibility for whatever was going on. He was still close enough that they seemed to be together on a regular basis, though, so he wasn’t as far as Hikarigaoka. He was still close enough to be involved.

Her head started swimming again–this time worse, and she lowered her head into her hands. She didn’t think she could take much more of this, even if she seriously tried to power through it. She wrote down her thoughts into her school notebook again, and she shut down her PC. Hikari paused to write a note to herself about her memory and attach it to her mirror. She had to be sure that she recorded it all on her arm again in the morning, and that she knew what page to turn to for her notes. 

She knew that she had to figure all of this out sooner rather than later, because her body seemed to want to fight against her on this. Hikari had a race against whatever it was that was forcing her to forget. She knew that if it got bad enough, then she would have to go to the hospital, and she couldn’t maintain her work–or worse, that they’d lose the notebook, and that all of her work would be lost again. She couldn’t trust them with her phone or her PC, and she didn’t know if any of this would work again–if she’d start questioning herself again, and if she’d remember again. For all she knew, this was a fluke. 

It wasn’t like any of the others had started to remember anything, after all. This was a miracle, and she had to treat it as such. She had to be careful with it–she had to make sure that she acted as if it would never happen again. 

Hikari laid down on the top bunk, and she drew her covers up tight over her chin. 

She was going to miss school tomorrow. She never missed school, so her mother would be okay with it. She genuinely didn’t feel well, anyway. She could say that she was coming down with a cold, and when her mother went shopping, she was going to do a little bit of field work. She was going to visit their homes. 

If anybody else could remember…she was certain their parents would. 

If none of that worked, she would have to tell Takeru. 

Hikari shut her eyes, and fell into another, long sleep.

Chapter Text

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between man and butterfly, there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.”

― Zhuangzhi

(April - 2006)

Iori Hida, Miyako Inoue, Ken Ichijouji, Daisuke Motomiya…

Hikari frowned, writing the names over and over in her notebook. Iori Hida, Miyako Inoue, Ken Ichijouji, Daisuke Motomiya . It felt as if she had to keep repeating them over and over in her mind so that she wouldn’t lose their names. It felt as if letting anything else into her heart would push them back out again. It felt as if she were letting the characters of their names slip straight through her fingers, like trying to catch sand falling through her fingertips.

When she’d woken up that morning–out of a dreamless sleep, no less, what felt like the only type of sleep she had nowadays–she’d completely forgotten everything that she’d discovered the night before. She’d been ready to just go right back to the way things were before, like she hadn’t been terrified the night before, discovering the fact that everything she’d known the last three years had been a complete lie. A complete lie by someone who seemed to be willing and able to completely change everything that Hikari knew about the world and herself. A lie by someone who somehow had the power to completely rewrite the history of the world–or at least somehow suppress it, so that all of the knowledge that she and the others had were things that were suppressed or taken from them, or somewhere in between.

She didn’t know what kind of power that it was, or what kind of power that they had. She didn’t know if it was a genuine rewriting of history, or if the world that she was in was still the one that she had come from. But she knew that the truth was still out there, from sources that had been put out of place from whatever power that it was. She knew that the truth still existed. She just had to find a way to get to it. 

She had to get those pictures properly developed, too. She had to find a way to keep the truth physically with her, away from something or someone who could erase it. If she could get her PC to the pharmacy, she could probably find a way to get the photos developed, and she would keep them with her, in her purse or a wallet or something that couldn’t be erased digitally…if the person who took her memories away didn’t have some kind of way to affect the physical world, and take her pictures from her.

Hikari dug the tip of her pencil into her paper again.

She’d almost had another, total meltdown that morning after she’d discovered everything all over again. It was the exact same, haunting, piercing feeling of having her heart ripped out of her chest again, like it had felt the first time. It was the exact, same process of questioning the world around her, of questioning everything that she knew. She’d broken down into tears upon realizing that it only took a single night for her to forget everything, to forget her friends, to forget three years. 

Three years had been taken from her. 

That had been the hardest realization of all. Three years had been taken from her, and had been replaced with a life that wasn’t her own, a life that was seemingly perfect, but not the one that she had chosen for herself.

It wasn’t as if Hikari was unused to the fact that she was regularly possessed by entities that chose her for a vessel of some kind, of course. Honestly, she figured it has something to do with the Crest of Light. Something about her Crest was powerful enough that Vamdemon had been afraid of it, afraid of her , and afraid of Tailmon. Something about it meant that creatures chose her to talk through, her to talk to. Her to be a vessel for things beyond the world.

She glanced out of the window, a couple of rows away. 

Takeru, a few rows back and towards the bookshelves in the classroom, was still working on his assignment. He still didn’t have any idea about what was happening. Nobody else had sent her a message since yesterday. She had turned down tea with her friends that morning, and they had given her worried looks, but otherwise didn’t press anything further. 

How much of this…was real?

It was a question that she had been asking herself, something bubbling in her thoughts. She started drawing spirals, absently, in her notebook.

How much of this was real, anyway?

She couldn’t remember anything about them, apart from the fact that they had existed at some point in her life. She couldn’t remember anything except for the fact that she was missing memories in the first place. It was like trying to find out the shape of something without knowing its dimensions. It was like trying to explain to someone what the color blue meant, or what the sun was to a person who had spent their entire life underground. It was trying to discover an entire world beyond her perception. 

She’d been fighting off a headache again since that morning, and while she was slowly starting to get used to the nonstop aching–just the way that she had been, since she was a child–she still had to take breaks, putting her head in her hands to block it out. 

She’d stopped at the I-mart on the way to school that morning for some tea, and she’d tried to talk to the woman behind the counter about her children, tried to ask her about the name Miyako. Hikari had phrased it like it was a name that she was planning on giving a new pet. The woman had no reaction whatsoever to the name, and had said that she liked it without much fuss and fanfare as she rang up Hikari’s tea. Hikari didn’t know how to react to that, so she didn’t. She didn’t like the way that her heart clenched in her chest about it. The way that someone like Miyako’s own mother didn’t seem to remember her. The way that the world entirely passed all of them by. The way that the name Miyako meant nothing more than a passing liking for a name that had been the baby girl her mother had held in her arms.

Hikari rushed out the door after that. She didn’t know how to phrase the words that were aching in her chest. She didn’t know how to give voice to the wrongness that had welled in her gut, the bile in her throat. Her head and her heart ached, iron weights dragging her down to the Earth. How did someone explain the fact that someone else forgot their own daughter? How could she possibly make a mother grieve for someone she didn’t even know–someone who was supposed to be the most important person in their world?

Daisuke Motomiya lived near her building, that much she knew. She had his address from the address book. She also knew where Iori lived. She had found the news articles about the Ichijouji family, and she knew that they lived in Tamachi, judging by the apartment buildings the family had been in front of. She could find that building easily, and it was only a thirty minute train ride away. She couldn’t tell if any of them would have anything come of it, and honestly, while she had an easy excuse to talk to the Inoue family because of the convenience store that they ran, she didn’t really have any reasons to talk to the rest of them. Maybe she could pretend that she was looking for her cat or something, and keep trying to suggest names, and bring up the names of their children…?

Her head started pounding even harder, the more that she thought about it. Hikari clasped her temples between her palms, and she squeezed her eyes shut. 

Distantly, somewhere beyond the horizon, she could hear the whisper of waves hitting the shore, of rocks tumbling under water. She could hear the hush of foam hitting sand. Fingers of water splashed against the horizon, the feeling of salt and wind hitting her face. 

Hikari looked up quickly, her hands dropping to her desk. 

She was still in the classroom, four walls surrounding her, her teacher was lecturing about compound clauses in the English language, and how they were separate from complex sentences. Hikari’s heart pounded strangely in her chest, and she glanced back down at her paper, where she had idly been drawing spirals of lead the entire time. 

Hands shaking a little, she turned the page. 

She didn’t know what that had been, or where she had gone. She didn’t remember seeing anything like that before. She didn’t remember any kind of place like that in any of her experiences. 

She had remembered going to a lot of places in the Digital World, a lot of places that had been terrifying. She had faced Apocalymon. She had fought Tailmon when she had been stuck inside of Ordinemon. She had faced down the Dark Masters, had stood up against Andromon and had befriended him. She had faced down Diabolomon with Taichi and Yamato, she had seen Omegamon fall and get back up again, never stopping a fight until the bitter end. 

This place was different, though. This time it was different. That place she had gone too was completely different.

Hikari frowned, and she wrote down something that came to mind. A dark ocean. A place with black water and black sand, where not even light seemed to pierce it. 

Just another mystery that she had to face in the Digital World. Just another in a long line of things that she didn’t know. 

She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, and furrowed her brows. A dark ocean. Could it possibly be from the Digital World? Did that mean that, in some way, some kind of gate was open that she could get back through? Or even a distortion, like the kind Meicoomon was able to open? She didn’t want to fight Meicoomon again, of course, but she also…didn’t want to be away from Tailmon, while she was facing something alone. 

The dark ocean. She wrote the name down a few times. That was a place she could go to. That was a place she could think about. The dark ocean. 

The bell rang above, and her teacher started packing up. She still had a few class periods to get through, but Hikari stood up, and she went for the door. 

“Hey, Hikari?” Takeru called out, getting up and walking towards her. Hikari sent a small smile towards him.

“Yes, Takeru?”

“Where are you going?” He asked, and Hikari gave a little shrug. 

“I don’t feel well, so I’m going to the nurse. I want to go alone.” She gave an apologetic smile, and he frowned. 

“Are you sure? You’re acting a little odd, lately.”

Hikari smiled, guilt lancing through her, but she couldn’t explain here, between classes. “I’m sure. I’ll see you in a while, Takeru.”

He hesitated, before gently touching her arm. “If there’s anything bothering you, anything at all, you can tell me. You know that…”

Hikari smiled again. “I know. Thank you.”

Hikari walked down the hallway, opposite of the nurse’s room, and out one of the cafeteria side doors. She broke out into a run as she started down the street, still in her school uniform. She would get in a lot of trouble for it, and she knew it. She had never cut class before, and she had never left school like that before. Her heart pounded in her chest as she ran. She couldn’t go back to her apartment because her mom would ask questions. She stopped halfway down the street, her hands on her knees, and she looked up at the ferris wheel and the entertainment park. 

It was the winter of their first year of middle school, and Miyako’s second year. Iori wasn’t really someone who had sought out a place like that in the entertainment district, so they had all decided to have fun that Christmas break. It was their second Christmas together. The last time they had Christmas together, they’d ended up all split up across the world after that party, so they wanted to be sure they got to spend the entire break and New Years together, especially since the last New Years had been such a terrifying break. 

She remembered that much. She was surprised that she remembered that much. Hikari held her hand, closed into a fist, over her chest. She stood outside of the entrance to the shopping mall, and she stared.

They had all gotten together into one of the ferris wheel carts, and Daisuke, ever the one who wanted to prove himself brave and cool, pretended he wasn’t scared the entire time, looking at Hikari with wide eyes and a fake smile, while Ichijouji had rolled his eyes and let Daisuke crush his hand. He’d talked the whole time about how cool he was, about how it didn’t scare him at all, while Miyako loudly talked about how she’d seen him wimp out, and they’d gotten into one of their usual fights about it. Daisuke tried over and over again to prove to Hikari that he wasn’t scared, but Hikari had giggled and praised him, saying he’d gained the Digimental of Courage for a reason, and he’d preened while Takeru rolled his eyes and asked if Ichijouji would ever be able to use that hand again after the treatment Daisuke had given it, and Ichijouji had laughed and said he wasn’t sure, and Iori had asked if they could get some tonkatsu or wagashi because he was hungry, and Daisuke, eager for the topic change and for some good food, dragged them all around Palette Town, so that they could get a good meal to eat with some desserts on the side. 

They’d ended up with a christmas cake that they’d gotten from a nearby bakery, already pre made and served in a box. The actual christmas party was happening next week, so most stores were already pre ordering and sold out, but they’d found one that didn’t need any kind of special decorations, so they’d all slid into a booth, crammed together with other shoppers and patrons, and Miyako stole a strawberry while they all fought about what they were going to get that christmas.

Daisuke loudly protested about being the one who had to do all of the shopping, and he voluntold Ichijouji to go along with him, who rolled his eyes but agreed after saying Daisuke was going to have to get his parents to pay for it, since his own parents were paying for the new years celebration that they were all invited to, and offering to take them all to the Shibuya Crossing for new years, and were willing to pay for whatever they wanted, even bringing along Yamato and Taichi if they wanted to bring their brothers along, too. 

Daisuke claimed he could handle it, and that he was more than capable of doing all of it by himself, if Ichijouji didn’t think he could handle it. Ichijouji smirked, something competitive in his face, and the old soccer rivals started plotting ways to sabotage each other while Takeru kicked Hikari under the table and whispered about their brothers, and Hikari giggled while Miyako stole another strawberry and Iori muttered something about crazy teenagers, and how he’d never act that way when he was their age.

Hikari squeezed her hand to her chest as she blinked the memory away, and her mouth opened as she came back to reality, where she currently was. She half jogged across the street, underneath the blinking, neon signs. She had no idea what she was doing here. It wasn’t christmas season, it wasn’t anything close, and she honestly didn’t know if she could trigger something like that happening again if she tried. 

She swallowed. She didn’t know if this was the right thing to do, or if this was the right place to be. But she had their faces in her mind–she could distinctly remember their voices. Almost. The strange, toneless voices that existed only in one’s mind. She grabbed her notebook out of her bag, and she scribbled down as many details as she could find, as older teenagers passed in and out, most of them ones who had cut class or who had decided to not go to university. People she didn’t really know, and people she probably shouldn’t be around, but people nonetheless. 

None of them paid her any mind, of course. It was as if she didn’t exist in this place. It was as if she didn’t exist anywhere in the area at all. It was a strange, unnerving feeling. The idea that she shouldn’t be here–the idea that somehow, in some way, she was breaking the rules. 

She didn’t really know where that notion came from, so she looked up again, her hand pausing over her notebook, pencil in hand. 

She’d had the thought a few times, of course, that something was going wrong, that somehow, she was infringing on some sort of unwritten rule that had been put in place by some power beyond her understanding. It reminded her of what Taichi had told her about the first time that Gennai had explained to them about the idea of the Chosen Children. The idea that they hadn’t somehow just fallen down the rabbit hole, but the idea that something–some greater power than any of them had ever known–decided that they should be brought here. The idea that their lives weren’t entirely their own. 

Hikari, for the first time in what must have been years for her, really took a long look at the place around her, really took a look at the people around her. Really took a look at the faces as they passed by in the crowd–more than as people who existed in the world around her, but trying to focus in on their features. 

Hikari blinked.

Five minutes passed–jumping forward, ahead of time. The minute hand on the watch lurched forward, and she was taken with it. The clock rewound and jumped, and she was standing there again, and she swallowed. She hadn’t moved at all, rooted in her spot, and it felt as if the whole world had moved around her. She couldn’t explain the feeling–it was as if she had tried to see the world from another angle, and the world reacted in turn by pushing her back into her place. As if she had broken the rules again, and the world set her right back into the point where it started from.

How much of this place was even real to begin with? 

Hikari’s heart pounded in her chest, as she turned on her heel again. She had to get out of this place. She had to find out what was going on, and she had to find her friends. She had to find a place to sit down, and she had to find some way to get a plan together. A plan without anybody to turn to except Takeru.

She could rely on him. He, at least, would understand–when she found a way to wake him up. When she found a way to put together something that would shake him awake from this world that they were in–or at least a way to tell him about the truth of their memories being taken from them.

She knew that she couldn’t rely on the senior members, because none of them knew the others like she did, and like Takeru did, and because they were all busy in their own lives now, and because they didn’t respond to the call about important digimon problems. But Takeru had come to rescue her when she needed him to, and Takeru had been a part of them. Takeru had been a partner to them all. More than that, though, they were the only members that had been a part of all of their adventures together–and Hikari knew that she couldn’t do all of this alone. 

Honestly, though, she was a little afraid of the idea that he wouldn’t be able to remember anything, if she told him the truth. She was also a little afraid of what it would do to her, too, if he didn’t remember. 

Some part of her–some small part of her that she wanted to ignore–wondered if she was really losing her mind. She didn’t want to think about that part. It reminded her of the sound of the ocean, the feeling of the waves hitting the rocks, the way that the spray hit her mind.

She started to walk back towards the main district, walking towards a cafe. She slid mindlessly into the door, past other high school students who had left the entertainment district before, the chatter of the other patrons hitting her distantly. She took out her phone and started to scroll, keeping her head down so the others wouldn’t see her. 

All of the others had told her to go to Nishijima and Himekawa. All of the others trusted them so easily, without even thinking about how odd it was that the distortions started around the time that they had shown up. They didn’t think about the fact that it was so weird how Meicoomon had a piece of Apocalymon when they had only defeated Apocalymon a few years before, but Meiko had Meicoomon since she was a kid. They’d believed her and they had taken her in without a second thought.

They’d rebooted the Digital World.

Hikari clenched her jaw tightly together, and pain hit her in the side of the face, blinding her again. She put her face into her arms. Rebooting the Digital World–was that even possible? It couldn’t be possible. The Digital World was a living, breathing place. It wasn’t data in someone’s computer. That sort of thing shouldn’t have even been possible.

She knew that firsthand, how impossible that it was . 

Did that mean Himekawa and Nishijima were lying to her, lying to all of them? She honestly couldn’t know for certain. She didn’t have any proof of any kind–she didn’t even know if she was on the right track. She honestly didn’t even know if any of this was real .

Still, she wrote it all down, and she put her head down in her arms. School wouldn’t be out for a few, more hours, and she couldn’t go home, and she couldn’t go back to class. She could start thinking about what she was going to tell Takeru, though. She could start thinking about how she was going to make him know that she wasn’t going crazy–and she could hope that the fact Homeostasis and the Digital World always used her as an avatar for talking through would push her case forward, but she honestly couldn’t be certain, because she couldn’t be certain how much Takeru would be able to remember even if she told him.

Making it worse, she didn’t really remember anything herself, not really. She could only recall a few names and faces and a single memory of a night with them. There wasn’t anything else except knowing that they were important, and that she didn’t trust Himekawa and Nishijima because of a few, fishy circumstances. 

She didn’t have anything except a few feelings and a few notions and some ideas that she should look into some things further, and that she wanted Takeru for help in doing that, and she could only really hope that he decided to believe her because she had usually been right in her gut feelings before, even if she didn’t want to be.

She had to take initiative. She knew that she had to. Even if the idea completely and utterly terrified her. Even if she had always relied on Taichi to be the one to push things forward, and she’d relied on Miyako to help her give thoughts to her feelings, because Miyako made things okay to talk about, even if she’d always been jealous of the way that Hikari carried herself in graceful silence, and Hikari had always been jealous of the way that Miyako was able to give voice to things that other people suffered in silence about.

Hikari’s heart pounded, and she felt dizzy at the thoughts. Something in the back of her mind gnawed at her, telling her that she was just suffering from some sort of delusion, telling her that she should ignore these feelings because if she followed them, she would regret it. The same voice that told her it was selfish to not play games in the rain with Taichi when he’d wanted to play with her. The same voice that told her to swallow down her feelings when Takeru was looking after her, because she shouldn’t be a burden on him. The same voice that told her it was okay to follow the things calling her out to the ocean, because she couldn’t say no to anything that needed her, even if it terrified her. 

She honestly didn’t know where these feelings had come from, but they had followed her for her entire life. The world was large, and dark, and terrifying, and dizzying, and she half stumbled back into the booth, drawing her knees up to her chin, and she tried to take deep breaths, to push away the things that ate her up from inside of her heart, and she didn’t know if she could properly stand up to get her way home. 

If she didn’t, though, she’d be stuck here, and she didn’t want to go to the hospital, because her mom would worry. 

“Hikari?”

The Chosen Child looked up, honestly surprised when she saw Taichi standing there. She looked back, just as surprised, her jaw hanging open a little because he’d said that he’d call their mother, and he didn’t say anything about actually coming to visit them.

“Taichi...?” She asked, a little dumbly, a little stunned. Taichi looked back down at her, blinking, looking for all the world like he didn’t know himself what he was doing there, before he shook himself out of it and grabbed her gently by the elbow.

“Come on, Hikari. You look terrible. Let’s get you home.”

Hikari let herself be ragdolled a little out of the booth, and Taichi walked with her. It was the middle of the day, and he should probably be in class. They both should be. Hikari frowned as they walked together.

“Taichi, what are you doing here?”

“Mom said that she wanted me to come see you guys, so I decided to take the day off of class, and I came down here. I guess that she didn’t tell you?”
“I guess not.” Hikari replied, a little numb. Taichi shrugged as they turned the corner to the complex, and started walking up the stairs.

Everything about it felt wrong, even if Taichi usually made her feel safe. Hikari couldn’t stop feeling the way that her heart hammered in her chest. Taichi wanted to protect Meiko, and Taichi looked up to Nishijima, to the point of calling him a teacher and a mentor figure. Taichi had his goggles back, and Hikari couldn’t remember how he’d done that. 

Hikari gripped the sides of her elbows and she looked down at the floor. Everything felt wrong, and she didn’t know how to explain it. She didn’t know if Taichi would believe her. She didn’t know how he’d come here so quickly. She didn’t know why her mother didn’t tell her.

“Hikari, did you go to school while sick?” Taichi felt the back of her forehead, and Hikari shook her head again, but Taichi knew her enough to know when he was lying, so he frowned even deeper. “Why didn’t you tell mom? Is that why you left school?”

“I’m fine.”

“Hikari…” Irritation welled in Taichi’s voice. “I hate it when you do that, you know. You shouldn’t say you’re fine when you’re not fine.”

“But I am fine.” Hikari took a step back from Taichi, and frowned. “I’m not a little kid anymore. Why are you treating me like a little kid?”

Taichi sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry. You just don’t look the greatest, that’s all.”

Hikari bit her lip, because she hated it when she felt angry, but she shook her head, and then turned back around. “I’m going to go to Takeru’s house, actually. Let mom know I’ll be home later tonight.”

Taichi reached out and grabbed her elbow. “Not when you’re looking like that, you’re not–”

Hikari immediately twisted her arm down. “Don’t grab me like that!” Her voice went up higher. “Don’t–!”

Taichi backed away, his eyes going a little wide. Guilt launched straight through Hikari’s heart, but she grabbed her bag, and she started running anyway. Taichi for a moment lurched forward, like he was going to try and give chase–something Hikari knew he would absolutely win at, because even if he didn’t play soccer anymore, Hikari still had a pounding headache and she knew that she would absolutely lose against someone who was as physically fit as Taichi still was and she wasn’t–but Taichi just called after her, and Hikari kept running, squeezing her eyes shut as tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

She couldn’t go to Takeru’s house, because she’d honestly never been to his house before, even though she knew where it was. She couldn’t go over to anyone else’s, because they were all either away or busy or both. She couldn’t go home because she’d just yelled at Taichi, who was going to tell her mother, and they were both going to be even more worried about her, and she didn’t think she could handle something like that right now, not when she already felt terrible and when she already didn’t know what she was going to tell him. 

Instead, she kept running until she reached Tokyo Bay, and she went down to the shoreline, pulling up her knees to her chin as she sat on the steps.

She was here again, watching the waves roll in, listening to the seagulls. 

She always seemed to end up back here again, whenever she was upset. 

She could at least start writing down her thoughts again. Even if she couldn’t go home that night, she could start doing that. Maybe she could go ahead and contact Takeru and they could arrange something the next day. She honestly didn’t think that there could be anything else that she could do, especially when she was now officially in a fight with Taichi, and especially now that she didn’t have anywhere else to go but the ocean.

She started writing everything down again, as the waves rolled over the shore, and the seagulls cried, sharp, piercing things that drilled into her skull. 

Finally, as the hours passed, and the sun started to go down, she rolled onto her side, and watched as the stars started to come out. Her phone buzzed a few times, and she instead switched it off. 

She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she did, and it wasn’t the dreamless sleep of the night before. It wasn’t even the same memories she had earlier at the entertainment district of Odaiba. Instead, it was a memory that wasn’t hers to begin with.

Hikari awoke in the middle of the night with a start, gripping her chest as her heart pounded, and she couldn’t stop crying. 

She cried until she was out of tears, and by the time that she made it home that night, Taichi had gone back home, and she had missed dinner with him. She cried even harder about that, for some reason. She cried for the missed dinners and the missed families, and she cried for the years that had passed everyone by like sand through the sieve. She cried her way back to her bedroom. 

It was only when her head properly hit her pillow, as if it were waiting for her to crawl back under her covers, that she was able to let the world fall away. 

She decided after the next morning that she had to tell Takeru.

(March - 2003)

Iori Hida…was moping.

It wasn’t a normal state of things for Iori, of course. He held himself to very high standards of politeness and common decency. His grandfather had always told him that there was no use in moping, and indeed, it was a waste of time and energy. If there was a reason for him to be upset, rather than pouting, he should instead dedicate his time and energy to doing something about the thing that made him upset. He wasn’t practicing very good gaman by openly pouting, after all, and he was quite sure that his grandfather would scold him for it–just the very same as he was pretty sure that his grandfather was going to scold him for spending the entire day out with his friends, and not coming home until after dawn.

Iori had never stayed out so late before–and it was honestly a little scary, as much as it was tiring. He was so exhausted that his arms were starting to get a little sore. Tokyo Bay wasn’t far from his home, so it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes or so by taxi, but Iori didn’t have any pocket money on him, so he guessed that he was going to have to walk the whole way back. 

That, of course, drew another pout from him–something that was still very uncharacteristic. There wasn’t much to be done, though…and he couldn’t exactly complain about something he had volunteered to do. Not after he had seen the entire thing through to the end.

He yawned, placing his hand over his mouth as he stood up. Armadimon, right next to him as always (and having digivolved from Upamon, just in case they had to fight–which, of course, they didn’t have to do with Imperialdramon and Omegamon on their side) and he started to shuffle sleepily off, pausing to give a polite bow to Miyako as he started walking.

“Hey, Iori, are you sure that you want to go back on your own?” Miyako asked, shooting Iori a mildly concerned look. Iori, having honestly never stayed up past midnight before, gave her another, tired smile. 

“Thank you for your concern, Miyako, but it is also really early for you, too, and you did much more work than me. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Well, yeah, but we live in the same building, you know. We can just walk back together.”

“That is true, but I think I would rather walk alone right now.” Iori covered his mouth to stifle another yawn. “But thank you for your concern.”

Miyako looked as if she were going to continue with her concerns, but, perhaps a little rudely (though not entirely uncharacteristic of Iori, who really had no problem with being blunt–he just normally wasn’t the case, too bound by the high standards that his grandfather expected of him) Iori gave another, small, curt nod and turned back around. 

“Goodbye, Miyako. I will see you…later today, I suppose.”

Miyako gave a little sigh, probably figuring that she really couldn’t win when Iori was stubborn, which was very much the case. “Goodnight, Iori.”

Armadimon, who had watched the conversation pinging back and forth with quiet interest, quickly caught up to Iori, and degenerated back into Upamon–both so that he could be a little bit faster than Armadimon’s waddle, and so that he could preserve some of the energy he needed to maintain to stay in the human world. 

A moment of quiet passed between the two of them, and Iori dug his hands into his pockets to grip the D-3 a little tighter. The two of them carefully picked their way through the crowds, and, so that he wouldn’t lose Upamon, Iori reached down to pick him up and carry him, even though his arms were aching from exhaustion.

Upamon, as he always did, contentedly snuggled down into Iori’s arms, and Iori released his hand so that he could stroke the amphibian digimon on the head. The softness of his….ears? Iori guessed they were ears? Always helped to calm the kendo student down whenever he started to get into his own head.

“Iori, why didn’t you want Miyako to walk with us, dagya?” Upamon asked, looking back up at Iori. The kendo student winced a little bit at the direct question, but he guessed that was what he needed. Digimon were supposed to be a perfect match for their partners–Hawkmon balanced out Miyako’s wild side. Upamon always balanced out Iori whenever he was too stuck in his ways–something even his grandfather commented on.

Iori sighed. 

“I just don’t want to talk about it right now.” He grumbled, holding Upamon up closer to his chest, squeezing the amphibian digimon a little. Upamon squirmed in his arms, whining a little in the hold, and Iori let him go a little bit, and let the amphibian rest in his arms. 

Upamon frowned, knowing that Iori wasn’t really ready to talk about it, and instead decided he was going to make Iori talk about it later–probably after some food and rest.

Iori looked up at the sky as he walked, dragging his feet a little. He honestly just…didn’t know if he wanted to go home and sleep, or if he wanted to keep walking around and not go home.

He stopped at the corner of his apartment, and looked up. He hesitated, before stopping at the elevator. He squeezed Upamon under his chin. 

“Hey, Iori.” Iori jumped a little, spinning on his heel to look the other Chosen Child in the eyes. Takeru leaned against the wall by his shoulders, Patamon resting on the top of his head as usual, already dozing a little from his earlier fight against Diabolomon. 

“Takeru.” Iori nodded politely to his jogress partner. “I’m glad to see that you’re well. Is there something that you need?”

Takeru hummed, and he walked over to his jogress partner, gently setting his hand on Iori’s shoulder. “No, I just came to check on you.”

Iori looked down at the ground, feeling something quiet curling in his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing, if he were being honest. It was a little annoying and exhausting being chased down by both Takeru and Miyako, but it was also nice that the both of them seemed worried about him. 

He squeezed Upamon again, who whined before Iori let him go. 

“Thank you for caring, Takeru, but I’m fine.”

“Well, I mean, it isn’t exactly a normal thing for a nine year old to go through, heh.” Takeru rubbed the back of his neck. “I was there. I remember what it’s like.”

Iori vaguely remembered the fact that, indeed, Takeru had been around his age when he had first gone to the Digital World. He’d heard about all of the adventures that Takeru went through, and a little bit about what Takeru had experienced with Patamon. He remembered listening to Yamato talk about how they still impacted Takeru to this day. 

He...thought back to his father, when he thought of Takeru losing Patamon. A guardian angel who defeated evil. He thought about how lucky Takeru was to get Patamon back again.

“Thank you for worrying, Takeru.” Iori repeated again, quietly. “I appreciate you caring about me. Why did you come out here?”

Takeru laughed, and Iori looked up at him, remembering how he’d been a little bit bemused at Iori going to talk to Yamato instead of him. Takeru’s hand instead rested on the top of Iori’s head, and he ruffled Iori’s hair affectionately…and Iori found himself pouting again at the treatment, before he quickly fixed his expression again.

How undignified…

“Do you mind if we have breakfast together?” Takeru asked, and Iori paused, a little bit surprised.

Takeru…was a very private person. Honestly, he was even more private than Ichijouji, even more private than Hikari . Takeru never invited people over to his house, never ate or went off with someone besides Hikari…and even then , after Miyako had become Hikari’s best friend, Takeru always seemed to be by himself, holding everyone at an arm’s length, with an eternal smile hiding something else underneath. 

It took weeks for Iori to discover what was underneath his smile…and even then, it hadn’t come naturally to him the way that it came naturally to Miyako and Hikari, or even with an important friendship that happened like Daisuke and Ichijouji. He guessed it happened the only way that it could happen, though. Iori wasn’t very natural with friendship. It sort of had to happen with formality and politeness. 

And that still seemed to be the way that it was, with Takeru making grand gestures the way he always acted when reaching out to others…until now. 

Iori blinked a few times. It felt a little like when Takeru gave up his seat to Ichijouji, or when he invited Ichijouji to the table. It also felt a little like when Takeru told Daisuke to attack Patamon if he ever had an Evil Spiral put on him, or when Takeru had said he was ready to jogress with Iori. 

That was something else he and Takeru had in common. Neither were very…natural. Both worked on stiff and grand gestures. Things that felt important. Things that didn’t come naturally. 

How could he say no?

“O..okay, Takeru.” Iori bowed his head again, and Takeru’s smile widened. He withdrew his hand from Iori’s head, and gestured for Iori to go ahead. 

“Let your family know you’ll be having breakfast with me, so they don’t worry. Then you can come and meet me at my house. I’ll have mom make us something.”

Iori blinked again, realizing that Takeru was right. He nodded and gave another, small bow. “Thank you, I’ll see you in a little while, Takeru.”

He turned on his heel, and quickly rushed into his apartment, hitting the elevator button. Upamon wriggled in his arms. 

“Wow, we’re going to go to Takeru’s house? We’ve never been anywhere but Miyako and Ken’s houses! Do you think we’ll ever go to Hikari’s house, too, dagya?”

“I don’t know, Upamon.” Iori rested against the elevator. “But…I know mother and grandfather will be very happy to know I’m going over to a new friend’s house.”

Iori…he had always gotten along better with adults than other kids, especially other kids his age. His mother had been over the moon about the fact that he was going to be spending Christmas with his friends, and that he had other friends outside of Miyako when he had first started attending the computer club. His mother was especially excited that he seemed to be playing with other kids, and while a lot of it was dangerous…

He didn’t really expect that he’d still be as close as he was with the others…especially after the digimon fights ended.

When he reached his apartment, he found his mother and grandfather already awake, and he went up to them, setting Upamon on the table, who immediately bounced up to his mother to receive affectionate headpats. 

“Mother, grandfather.” Iori gave a tired smile. “I’m okay. Actually, Takeru wants to have breakfast with me this morning.”

Fumiko blinked at the sudden information, and then her eyebrows raised. “I saw the news, Iori. Haven’t you been out all night?”

Iori rocked back and forth on his heels. “I’m okay, mother. I’ll come home right away when it’s over.”

“Yeah, we did a great job, dagya!” Upamon added. “And it’s a new friend’s place, too! New food to try, dagya!”

“Oho, is that so?” Chikara asked, reaching over for his cup of tea. “It wouldn’t be the first time that you’ve been out all day. Just call us before coming home.”

Iori shot a grateful glance at his grandfather, and smiled. Fumiko sighed, and wiped her hands on her apron–a nervous tick, considering Upamon really wasn’t that dirty. “Well…okay.”

Iori grabbed Upamon off of the table, who whined at being suddenly stripped from Fumiko’s affection, but quickly adjusted again into Iori’s arms. Iori ran back out the door after throwing a quick “ Bye !” Over his shoulder, before he ran down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, then he started making his way down the city block back to where Takeru lived.

It only took him about ten minutes to make his way up the road, and he paused to send a quick email to Takeru, asking for his apartment number. Takeru responded, and Iori made his way up to his door, nervously rocking back and forth on his heels while he waited for Takeru to answer.

“Hey, glad you made it.” The older boy said with an easy smile, and Iori noticed that he genuinely did seem a little more at ease while in his own home. Iori, however, gave a formal nod and a small bow, while Takeru gestured over his shoulder. “Come in, come in…mom already started on the food.” 

“Oh, thanks Takeru, dagya!” Upamon said, wriggling out of Iori’s arms, and bouncing along the floor to look around. Iori was about to scold Upamon for being so rude, but Takru laughed, and Tokomon jumped down from the table to headbutt him and both started to roll around on the floor. 

“Tokomon, be careful!” Takeru called over his shoulder. “Don’t bite! That’s how you lose friends!”

“I know, I know!” Tokomon called back, before Upamon headbutted him again, and got his attention back. “But what if he reeeeeeally deserves it?”

“Then I’ll just get you back, dagya!” Upamon answered for Takeru, and Tokomon pounced on him a second time.

“I guess he’s already at home…” Iori tucked his hands into his pockets, and Takeru laughed, before getting out of the doorway and gesturing for Iori to properly come inside again. Iori obliged, leaving his shoes at the door as he looked around the place.

Natsuko Takaishi paused at the counter, glancing back as she shut off the sink and nodded towards Iori. “Oh, you’re one of the new Chosen Children.” She blinked, seemingly a little caught off guard, though Iori wasn’t quite sure why. “It’s nice to see you here.” She offered Iori a small smile, and Iori gave a deep bow to Natsuko in return. 

“It’s very nice to meet you too.” He said. “Thank you for having me over.”

Exhaustion made him a little sore from holding the bow for very long, so he stood upright again, and he yawned. Natsuko gave him a softer smile, and Takeru picked both Tokomon and Upamon up from the floor. 

“Come on. Do you like games? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them before.”

“Well…not really.” Iori admitted. “I mostly do kendo in my spare time.”

“Damn.” Takeru sighed. “That’s all I’ve got.” 

“I appreciate the offer.” He understood what Takeru was asking, though, and he followed Takeru anyway, back to his bedroom. 

It was a simple space–with wooden furniture, including a desk and a bed. Iori sat on his knees on the floor, and Takeru seemed confused by the action, before seemingly remembering how very traditional Iori’s family was, and he joined the other boy on the carpet.

Iori…sort of had a feeling that Takeru didn’t just want to invite him over to have breakfast, so he wasn’t particularly surprised about this. Still, it was nice anyway. Iori sort of figured that it was repaying him for how hard he’d tried to reach out to Takeru.

He couldn’t deny him that.

Takeru, however, couldn’t seem to stand sitting on his knees for very long, so he fixed his posture, and instead leaned back up against his chair. Tokomon and Upamon immediately both bounced up onto Takeru’s bead, and Upamon started jumping on it, while Tokomon joined.

“Hey, you guys! I made that!” Takeru scolded, but Tokomon just laughed, and Takeru sighed before dropping his face into his hands. “Impossible…”

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Takeru-san?” Iori asked, deciding that a direct approach was the best one. Takeru looked up, and then hummed, pulling one knee up to rest his elbow on, and stretching out his other leg. 

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for leaving you behind like that, actually. When I went to the network with Hikari-chan. I thought about it, and I’m sorry.”

Iori blinked, genuinely a little bit confused. “Why are you apologizing?”

Takeru gave a little shrug. “I believed in you, that you could handle things on your own. But I thought about it more. And then I saw you out there this morning with Miyako and Armadimon, just watching Imperialdramon and Omegamon, and I…well. I kind of thought about myself.”

It was a pretty rare thing to hear Takeru talk about himself, so Iori sat up straighter, his back rigid and shoulders squared to show he was sincerely listening, the way he always did when his grandfather was speaking. “What do you mean, Takeru?”

Takeru gave another sigh, and he removed the white bucket hat from his head, crumpling it up in his hand, before tossing it towards the bed. Iori let him gather himself, maintaining his hands in his lap while he waited. 

“Well, you’re the age I was, when I went to the Digital World the first time. You know, you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age. A lot .”

Iori didn’t reply, but he was sure that his surprised expression gave it away, so Takeru laughed a little. 

“Thank you, if you mean that. I take that as a sincere compliment.”

“I do. All of the other kids were a lot older than me at first, so I wanted to do my best not to be a burden to them, especially my brother. Taichi and my brother fought all the time, so I also wanted to keep them both in line and together. I also had to take care of Hikari whenever Taichi or Yamato wasn’t around, because she was sick a lot back then. And I also felt like I had to…” He leaned in close, to whisper in Iori’s ear. “ Patamon . Don’t let him know that. He’ll feel really bad if you do.”

Iori instantly got what he was talking about, so he nodded, and Iori leaned back again, glancing at Upamon and Tokomon as he sat back up. Thankfully, both digimon were instead using Takeru’s desk as a launching pad for jumping, and Takeru leaned back against his chair. 

“That sounds like a lot of responsibility you put on yourself, Takeru.”

“It was. And I mean, it’s nobody else’s fault. We were all doing our best at the time. And I’m thankful I ended up with the people I ended up with. Taichi and my brother were both great to me. Jyou, Mimi, Koushiro, and Sora were amazing teammates.”

“But…?”

Takeru sighed, and he reached out, and put a hand on Iori’s head again. Iori got the strange notion that it was probably something Taichi or Yamato did to Takeru. 

“I always felt like a burden to them. I always felt like a little kid, or like I wasn’t doing enough. Especially when Yamato and Taichi received the ability to digivolve into Ultimate forms together. When it was just me and…” Takeru shot a glance at Patamon. “...I felt like I couldn’t do anything. I felt like I wasn’t needed as a teammate.”

Iori glanced down at his lap. 

He never …felt like they didn’t want him. He knew everyone liked him, and valued him. He knew that they wanted him. 

But…

Seeing Takeru and Hikari together with their angel digimon…seeing Ichijouji and Daisuke fighting together…even Miyako with her ability to hack the network and draw all of the Kuramon to one place…

It made him feel… small .

“I don’t…think that way about you, Takeru.”

“I know.” Takeru hummed. “What I mean is…I get what it’s like to be the youngest kid on the team. I know what it’s like to feel weak. I know what it’s like to watch everyone else get stronger. I know what it’s like to put the world on your shoulders and think you’re only burdening others if you think about asking for help. I’m saying…”

Takeru leaned his head back in thought. 

Iori…looked down at his lap. 

He didn’t like asking for help.  

The one time he really felt like wanted something for himself , he got everyone trapped under the ocean, and they’d all insisted that he be the only one to go, even if everyone drowned. He did everything the way his grandfather said was right. He stayed long after class ended so that he could finish every bite of food on his plate, even if he hated it. 

Something tickled at the back of his throat, fuzzing it and blocking it. He felt a pricking sensation in the corners of his eyes. 

He’d taken so long to forgive Oikawa that he didn’t get to bring the man to the Digital World before he died in Iori’s arms. Iori still had nightmares about it. The feeling of a grown man slumped over onto him, the feeling of failing his father’s best friend. The feeling of having to give up his dream of ever seeing his father again. He should have acted sooner. He should have reached out to Oikawa sooner. Then the man wouldn’t have hurt all of those kids, then the man wouldn’t have kidnapped Ichijouji, then the mad wouldn’t have died while just meeting his partner for the first time .

Iori’s vision blurred, and tears welled in his vision, fat and hot tears that dripped onto his hands. His shoulders were rigid, and he tried not to move too much, trying not to draw attention to himself. Those were all his failures, and they were up to him to deal with. The one time he’d asked for something for himself he’d had to bring Jyou-san into it, because he couldn’t do it by himself…

Just like the first time he’d jogressed with Takeru, he suddenly felt the older Chosen Child grab him by his shoulders, and pull him into a tight hug. 

The dam burst, and after a long night and long morning of stress and anxiety, after facing down Armaggedemon, after chasing Kuramon all night, after not eating since the night before, Iori buried his face in Takeru’s shoulder and cried–cried like he hadn’t since he’d found Submarimon’s Digimental of Reliability, and Takeru squeezed him tightly, not saying a word and letting Iori cry it out. 

After several minutes, Iori finally pulled back, and, in a very childish way befitting of the past few minutes, he wiped his face on his purple sweater sleeve. Takeru got up and left the room for a moment, before returning with a box of tissues that he handed to Iori.

“You’re not a ball and chain, Iori-kun.” Takeru said, with some level of firmness that made Iori think it was something he’d heard from someone else before, but he appreciated the words all the same after he wiped his tears away.

“You and Hikari…I’m glad that you and Hikari are close, and I’m glad that Hikari and Miyako are close, but I always thought…” He looked back down at his hands, folded back on his knees again. “I always thought...we weren’t like the rest. Miyako and Hikari, Ichijouji and Daisuke...they’re all best friends. When Oikawa put the seal on the Digital World and you all regained the power of your Crests, and Master Gennai said that we didn’t need to jogress anymore…I thought I’d be closest to Miyako again, but she has Hikari now. And…I’m just a little kid.”

The words were biting and harsh. The same words Daisuke had said to him once. But it was true. 

Iori had never been close to any kids his age, and he’d never really known anybody he could talk to outside of his grandfather, and his mother, and Miyako. He was strict, and he was rigid and inflexible, and he knew it was the reason why.

Still…

“Hey…listen.” Takeru took his bucket hat, and put it on Iori’s head, making Iori look up with a puzzled expression. “Yamato…he isn’t close to me the way Miyako’s and Daisuke’s siblings are close to them. Yamato is actually closest to Taichi. Yamato’s best friend is Taichi. Hikari’s best friend is Miyako, not Taichi. But that doesn’t mean Taichi isn’t her brother.” 

Iori blinked, unsure of what Takeru was talking about. “Huh…?” He covered his mouth, realizing his rudeness. “Oh, excuse me…I’m not sure what you mean.” 

Takeru smiled. “We might not be best friends, the way that Miyako and Hikari or Daisuke and Ichijouji are, but you remind me a lot of me. And…my brother and I aren’t the closest in the world, but I still care a lot about him, and he still cares a lot about me. That’s the way I think of us as jogress partners.”

Oh .

Just from the way that Yamato talked about Takeru, and the way that Takeru talked about Yamato…Iori knew there were still complicated feelings there. The way that he thought about his father. The way that he had to live up to what his grandfather thought of him. The way that he had to live in a way that would make his father proud. 

Iori’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest. He felt as if he were going to cry all over again. He didn’t grow up around other kids, all he had were his grandfather and his mother. He never had a brother before. 

“You…?” His voice cracked on the last syllable, and he was too tired and too emotionally spent to keep up the formality for much longer. “You mean that, Takeru…?”

Takeru smiled back, and Iori caught the bags under his eyes from the night through, and he thought about how Takeru must have been exhausted from helping Taichi and Yamato fight Diabolomon, and how he still went out of his way to find Iori and talk to him. “Yeah, I mean…I had Yamato back then, and Taichi, too. I’ve got to look out for you too, right?”

Iori took the hat off, and held it in his lap. He tried to fight off the tears threatening to well up in his eyes again, but they still fell anyway.

“I’ll look out for you too, Takeru.” He promised. “Even if we don’t have to jogress anymore…I’ll still look out for you.” 

Takeru smiled. “I believe you.” He took the hat back. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner. If anything’s bothering you, come tell me, alright? That’s what I’m here for.”

Iori nodded. “Same with you, Takeru…that’s what I’m here for.”

“Dagya!” Upamon added. 

“Dagya!” Tokomon joined in. “Dagya, dagya!”

Iori laughed, his voice a little raw, before Natsuko knocked on the door, and announced that breakfast was ready.

Iori…felt that things were going to be okay after all. Even after a long night like this…it felt like, finally,  things were going to really be alright.

Chapter Text

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”

― Hermann Hesse, Demian . Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

(April - 2005)

In the end, it was the fault of the calf to begin with. Nobody asked for a calf to be born. 

It really was the calf’s fault for not growing wings.

“Well…I never thought that I would see you again.”

“Oh, don’t pay that any mind. It would only disappoint you. Though, if you’re interested in it, I’m certain that we could make a bargain.”

The horizon was endless as ever, of course. A black sky that disappeared far beyond the horizon, a lighthouse in the distance that would only ever emit darkness. The air itself was an oppressive fog–a thickness that weighed upon the soul, a mist that was poison to breathe, choking and heavy and a weight that seemed designed to stifle–a weight that seemed designed to creep. Roots that spread within the lungs, roots that wrapped around the spine. They crawled, penetrating with black thorns, growing within the body, feeding upon the rot that existed in the human soul. 

One couldn’t really blame them, of course. They had no concept of why such a thing could be considered wrong, why such a thing would be feared. They had no reason to consider it. This world was not a human world–this world was not something that existed within the same ideals.

White was black, up was down, darkness was light. 

Such was the case whenever one dealt with matters far beyond the realms of their own plane, far beyond the horizon of their shores. Such was the case when one dealt with matters of things beyond the grasp of mortal men. Truly, there was nothing inherently wrong with a world that existed in darkness, after all. Darkness was simply a fact of life, just like any other piece of it.

The problem, as one could imagine, would come when one comes to a world that they don’t understand, and treat it as a plaything–as a toy, as a weapon to be wielded, rather than a world of its own. 

Things never really turned out well when a whole world was treated as a toy. 

This was something consistent enough that, when it really comes down to it, it almost becomes surprising that the same lesson is learned over and over again–though it seems that not learning one’s lesson was also consistent enough to appear time and time again. To look at the world of darkness was to see a reflection of things that humans would rather not see–to see a reflection of the things that humans left in the shadows of their world. In the end, the world of darkness was something that could only exist in the shadows of the material world–a plane without boundaries, a plane without a beginning and an end. A plane without a reason to exist.

A million and one things were wrong with this place. A million, tiny inconsistencies. There were no living things here–nothing that a human being would consider living, anyway. The endless, black water existed without a measurable end to the depths. The things that lay within were as ancient as the world itself, if not moreso. The influence of outside worlds would give rise to other creations, of course–such was the nature of evolution as a concept, such was the nature of the world–and while age did not necessarily mean strength and wisdom, it certainly gave rise to experience .

After all, what greater of a creature to be a keeper of the world, than the one who was born with it?

A man (or at least, he superficially resembled one) stood there, facing the endless depths of the sea, dressed in complete black, still wearing the face of the one who wished for peace. Next to him stood a young man–honestly, more a boy than anything else—completely without expression, his face completely hidden in shadow. Standing opposite to him, dressed completely in red that obscured everything but the two eyes glowing beneath, was the fallen greatest fallen angel of the Digital World–the first of his kind, the great Seraphimon turned Daemon.

At the end of the day, plenty of living beings spent their entire lives born and growing up in a garden made of spun glass dreams and paper mache lives. Could one really fault something not human applying the logical endgame of such a life to human beings themselves?

Daemon certainly thought so.

The fallen angel digimon narrowed his eyes, still fixed upon the one standing beside the Dark Gennai. He had appeared to have grown older during the years that Daemon hadn’t seen him, but nonetheless, it was still the face of one of the Chosen Children who dared to oppose him–at least, the way he had used to appear back when Daemon was still much more interested in him–back when the fatted calf was more useful for slaughter.

Despite everything, of course, the human didn’t appear to react to the words that Daemon told him at the start–rather, he didn’t even seem to register that Daemon spoke at all. 

Instead, the Digimon Kaiser stared straight ahead blankly–looking right past Daemon, out to the endless horizon. Completely and utterly unblinking. He resembled more a doll than a human being–something that was frozen in place. Something that responded only when told to act. 

A fitting fate, one could suppose, for one who had done the same to so many others. Certainly not so, however, for Daemon.

If anything, Daemon, as predicted, looked a little annoyed at the behavior–his eyes narrowing further, as he moved his gaze back towards the Dark Gennai. “Is this what you’ve brought me as tribute, then? How disappointing. I have no use for a piece of darkness now that I’ve been sent to its source, nor do I have a use for an empty shell if you brought me this for revenge.”

“Oh, no, great Daemon. As I’ve said, I’m only asking for a piece of your data, after all. I just brought this along because I can’t open a gate to Dagomon’s Ocean without it, or go back to the Digital World without it. What I’ve brought you is an offer far, far more interesting than a doll, or a seed.” The words were careful and flattering of course. The words of a snake, the words of a liar. Sugar words dipped in poison. The man gave a low bow to the Demon Lord of Wrath, low at the waist. The Dark Gennai seemed to know this game well–and despite the fact that he had been more than content to intimidate the Chosen Children through force alone, he seemed to know when the force he displayed was outmatched. 

After all, the doll next to him only had access to so many resources, and when the doll’s most powerful creations could only control Perfect level digimon, or the doll’s Ultimate digimon would falter under the might of the Demon Lord…well. 

Only the snake’s flattery and careful words would remain.

Mildly intrigued, both by the deference of such an arrogant being, but also the promises that he gave, Daemon’s eyes shifted back towards the Dark Gennai. 

True, it was bothersome that a human who had foiled him looked to be completely and utterly useless, even as a vessel for vengeance. At this point, everything that the being brought him would serve more use as furniture than anything else–same as all of the other creatures under his dominion. But Daemon was a being who could be easily swayed by deals and business–and something which would guarantee him a new vessel for growth and conquest certainly looked interesting.

If anything else, the promise of new furniture was still an option for Daemon to take by force, after all. If this disappointed him, he could still hang his enemies up by their heads. A warning to all who came to see him–a trophy for the future.

“I’m listening.”

The Dark Gennai held out his hand, and within it appeared light.

Nine orbs of light danced in his palm, each containing one of the nine crests of the Digital World–the crests that would appear once the virtues of the world were displayed. The light was so dazzling, so brilliant, that it even seemed to pierce the immense darkness of the world surrounding them–the world so curtained by shadow that it emitted darkness itself.

Nine, brilliant points of light, out of millions. Nine points of light so dazzling that it even gave the Demon Lord pause.

The Crests were ancient things–primordial wishes, seeds of light that formed the very foundation for the Digital World. The Holy Stones themselves had been created out of a need to stabilize the immense, endless powers of the Crests–the very foundation for evolution of life itself. 

Evolution, after all, relied on the interdependence of a species, relied on the ability to exist as a sapient being. The Digital World itself was a place made of ideas, of concepts, of dreams. To exist with virtue was to continue to live, to perpetuate the Digital World. The foundational virtues of the Digital World–the very virtues that made life existing possible–-were wild and unpredictable things, but necessary things. Temples were built in the Ancient Digital World to uphold the importance of the Nine Virtues. Entire countries were built to protect the Crests that embodied them–to protect the Digimentals that were created so that their world could be protected with the might of them. The Crests were the one thing that could bring forth immense power and evolution, after all, and the Digimentals were a way to use it without the embodied ones who existed with them. 

To have the Crests within one’s palm, to control them. That would require a might never before seen by the Digital World.

Or, rather, that would require the simple matter of capturing the ones embodied in the Crests–Daemon was beginning to suspect that the other being hadn’t brought the Digimon Kaiser just for show, or just as a gateway. After all, if he could control the Crests so easily, what was stopping him from tearing open a doorway by force, the way that Daemon could do between the human and Digital Worlds with ease?

This was getting very, very interesting.

“So, what do you think, Great Demon Lord?” The Dark Gennai asked, before closing his palm, the Crests vanishing within an instant. With a snap of his wrist, they were gone–without even a reaction from one of the Chosen Children that a Crest embodied right next to him.

Not even a twitch.

Even more interesting, of course, given the fact that the Crest of Kindness was supposed to have been destroyed, and yet it did not escape the Great Demon Lord’s notice that there had been nine of them total, and not a mere eight. It had been a point of great amusement to the Demon Lord that the Crest had been corrupted and then destroyed by one of the ones whom it had embodied–even more a point of amusement that the Crest had never been used by a Chosen Child to begin with. He had thought it a point to be made to Homeostasis that their foolishness in relying on children at all–unpredictable, fundamentally flawed children–should be something to be mocked and laughed at. 

Well, he didn’t think himself wrong in that assessment, of course–he was an Ancient Demon Lord, after all–but this was greatly showing to be something worth his time.

“Well?”

“You have proven amusing enough to gain my attention.” The Demon Lord said, amusement curling in his voice–something dark, twisted, and pleased. 

The Dark Gennai opened up his mouth again, but Daemon held up a hand to make the Dark Gennai pause, even before the other opened with his offer. 

“I do have one more condition, of course.”

“And what is that, great Daemon?”

“Bring the humans here, all of them. I have much to discuss with them.”

The Dark Gennai laughed. “Then you’ll enjoy my proposition greatly .”

(April - 2006)

“You’re behaving like the idea of peace is a bad thing.”

Meiko Mochizuki pressed her face further into her arms, her glasses set to the side so that she didn’t have to look at the person talking to her, standing behind her. She had her back turned so that she couldn’t see the other, she had her face angled away so that she couldn’t see. Her ankles hooked together under the office chair. She kept herself firmly planted down, unable to be disturbed, unable to be touched, unable to be seen. 

It was so that she didn’t have to see their judgemental faces. So that she didn’t have to know that she was the one who caused all of this–that she was the one who wished for it.

It was her fault, and she knew it, of course. She was the one who had gained their trust. She was the one who had taken advantage of the absence in their group. She was the one who had allowed herself to be swept up in the idea of having them as friends. She was the one who had kept her head down and her mouth shut. She was the one who had allowed herself even the briefest moment of weakness–the briefest moment of allowing herself a luxury that she didn’t deserve. She was the one who had allowed herself the moment of weakness to pretend .

It wasn’t real, of course. None of it had been real. None of what she had said had been real. None of what she had done had been real. None of what any of them had said to her had been real. They didn’t know her–they didn’t know the real her. They didn’t know anything about her.

If they had known her–if they had known the real her–all of them would have cast her away without a second thought. All of them would have thrown her to the wolves. All of them would have rightfully thrown her aside, shoved her away, put her outside where she belonged. 

There was a reason Meicoomon and Meiko were partnered, after all. A digimon was a reflection of its partner's heart. They were living, autonomous creatures as much as they were being entirely dependent on their partners to survive. That was the trade off in getting to know what your true self looked like, after all. 

There were always going to be unbearable truths when one saw their inner self. 

For Meiko, it was Meicoomon .

The curtains were completely drawn shut, the only light in the small computer room being the faint, blue glow from the monitors. Meiko refused to look up at the camera feed, refused to listen to what was happening. She refused to be around them when they were like this. She refused to know what was going on–to see the thing that she was a part of.

It was a cowardly thing to do, and she knew it. She could never be around captive and pet birds for that very reason. She could never go to aquariums or zoos or farms anymore. Her gut twisted at the thought of seeing them. She hated the thought. She hated the very idea of looking into them and seeing the world that she had created inside–the world that she had had a hand in crafting around them.

She wished Meicoomon were still around. She wished things didn’t have to turn out the way that they did. Her digivice still hung around her bag, completely grey, and completely dead. The screen fuzzed with white snow constantly–a quiet drone that felt as if it were boring into her mind. She didn’t know what to do with it anymore. She didn’t know what to think.

The same thing happened to Himekawa’s digivice, apparently, a long time ago. At least, Meiko had been told that. She didn’t know, of course. She couldn’t have known. Himekawa didn’t show her digivice to anyone, and had never let anyone see it, not even Nishijima. 

Such was the fate of a Chosen Child who couldn’t protect their digimon. Such was the fate of a Chosen Child who was destined to be an experiment of the Digital World. Such was the fate of a Chosen Child who was put in charge of the one thing that was so unlovable that it should never have been born. 

“I’m not saying it isn't.”

“Your behavior says otherwise. What’s so wrong with wanting people to live happily? What’s so wrong with giving the Chosen Children a chance at the lives they didn’t get to lead?”

“I know. I know .” Meiko clenched her fists tighter, her hands shaking. She didn’t need to be told this. She didn’t need to be lectured about this. Everything inside of her ached. They were so kind to her, and all she’d ever done was use them. They were so good to her, and all she’d ever done was throw them away. She didn’t deserve to ever know them. She didn’t deserve any of them. She deserved to be thrown away. She deserved to be treated like Meicoomon.

She missed Meicoomon. She missed Meicoomon with every cell in her body. She’d had to put down her own partner. She’d had to throw her away. She’d had to destroy her. She was the one who deserved to be destroyed. 

Self loathing wouldn’t hurt anyone. She knew that. Her personal sense of pathetic self loathing wouldn’t hurt anyone. That was what she had learned from Taichi.

“Or is it because you’ve gotten soft?” It was harsh, and cold, and it lanced straight through her. Meiko grabbed her own elbows, gritting her teeth together, grinding tight.

“I…I haven’t. There’s no need to worry about that. You don’t need to do anything?”

A hand grabbed her chin, forcing her face up. Meiko flinched, looking away, back towards her glasses resting on the table. Back towards where her digivice sat. Back where it was dull and grey and dead. Back where it was snowed out. Back where Meicoomon would never come to her again. 

Dan-dan .

“Do I?” She could feel a hand grasp her shoulder, tight. Fingernails digging into the flesh of her shoulder, biting in. She was a little afraid that they would reach right inside, underneath her bones. She felt as if she were being flayed open. She felt as if she were going to be stripped wide. She felt as if her ribs were going to be pulled right out of her, one by one, laid out and sleeping in the sun.

“Please…don’t worry about me.” She fidgeted with her hands, holding them in her lap, before her fingers laced together. “I-I know what we worked so hard for, okay? I know. You don’t have to worry about me breaking anything. You don’t.”

“Good.” She was released, and Meiko sat back in her chair, clasping her hands together tight and looking down at the ground. This was good. She was doing something good. She was a good girl. She was a very good girl, and she was going to get left alone, and she was going to be able to just put her head back down and pull the curtains shut and she was going to be able to stare at the snow in her digivice, where Meicoomon left her. 

Everyone knew what happened when a digimon was left to die in the real world. Everyone knew a digimon like that wouldn’t get brought back to Primary Village. Everyone knew they would exist in agony, between worlds. 

It was a part of their plan. It was a part of what Himekawa had asked for, to get revenge on the one who had taken her precious partner from her. The one who had forced her apart from her partner for years. When Meicoomon had come to her–when Meicoomon had been discovered to be a part of the very beast that had separated her from her partner–there was only one thing that they could do. There was only one thing that could possibly bring peace to the Digital World. There was only one thing that could save them all. 

It was a part of their plan from the start. 

They had to find the Chosen Children. They had to bring them Meicoomon. They had to have the Chosen Children kill Meicoomon. 

It still hurt. Just to think about. Just to know the fact that she really had betrayed Meicoomon, that Meicoomon had been right to think that she had been abandoned, the fact that she had been the one who helped drive her to madness. 

And it had all been done with the intent to bring her down, to put her down. To shoot her like a diseased animal. Because that was what she was. Because that was who she’d been, in the end. 

Because that was what one did when one was a Chosen Child. Because they had to make the hard decisions. Because even when Meiko had hoped and prayed there would be another way, in the end, there really wasn’t.

Miracles didn’t exist.

Years ago, back when she was a little girl, she’d seen Spiral Mountain appear in the sky. She’d seen the way that the worlds could blur, the way that things could shift and turn with enough release of energy. She’d seen the energy that the Digital World could produce. She’d seen the way that the two worlds could change each other–and she’d seen the way that the very lines of reality could blur, quite literally. 

She’d seen the need for someone to control it. After all, if the Digital World could be reshaped so easily with just a matter of days, how could they be sure that the real world couldn’t be shifted and twisted like that? How could they be sure that something like this couldn’t happen to change the world like the way Spiral Mountain twisted the Digital World?

It did, of course. The real world twisted and changed before their eyes. She’d been a part of it. She’d seen it happening from the very beginning.

The process of evolution, the way it changed people. The way it changed digimon, the way it changed the world. Something like that couldn’t be so easily left alone. That was what she was told. That was what she had seen with her own eyes.

After all, she’d seen the ones left behind. 

Still, when she watched the ones she’d gotten to know, when she watched them go about their lives, completely unaware of what was going on around them…

“You’re doing it again.” Meiko snapped back to reality at the voice. She snapped back to being. She curled back down in on herself, in a ball. She was a child again. She was still a child. She had to put that part of herself behind her a long time ago. She had to destroy it when she destroyed Meicoomon. They all had to put the past behind them at some point. They all had to put away childish things, and go back to sleep, and go back to bed at some point. She put her toys away a long time ago. 

Jyou was right about that. Jyou was right to put things behind him. Mimi was right to leave the country. Taichi had gone to college, and Koushiro was a business owner, and Yamato was going to be an undergraduate. All of them were leaving the Digital World behind. Meiko was still here. Meiko would always still be here. 

They got to live in a lucky world, even if she hated doing it. They got to live in a world without digimon. They got to live in a world where they didn’t suffer pain and loss and sorrow. 

It had been at her insistence, after she saw the pain that she had helped inflict. She didn’t want them to remember. She didn’t want any of them to remember. Not after what had to be done. It was better to live in a world of dreams and forget than a world of pain and to remember.

“I’m sorry.” Meiko looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know whom she was talking to, she didn’t know whom she was wishing would forgive her. All she knew was that it was her fault. She wished that she was a witch. She wished that she could wave her wand and make things disappear. 

Sins could never be undone. At least, right now, she could pretend they could be.

“Wishing for peace is never a bad thing. The world seeks out stability, and the world seeks out something comfortable, something that’s safe. That’s what it means to have peace. There’s a reason people seek out paradise.”

Meiko nodded, and finally looked up.

“I know.”

“Good. Then you won’t show me that face again.”

(April - 2006)

Hikari Yagami wasn’t really a person who played video games. 

She sort of understood that it wasn’t a normal thing for kids her age–after all, arcades were a popular spot for girls her age, and the entertainment district was full of them. Hikari herself was usually a person who preferred to play with her friends, to play with younger kids, or to cook with her mom. She had a pretty active social circle for that reason–that, and the fact that she was a pretty agreeable person who didn’t really care as long as her friends were happy.

She was starting to get the idea that she had to work on that.

Either way, Hikari just wasn’t someone who worked on logic puzzles, or who spent much time trying to figure them out. She was a person who preferred to talk her way out of situations–able to use the social niceties of social situations to get what she wanted. Her brother called her scary sometimes for that reason. Hikari just thought that it was the way that a person learned to survive in the world. 

Still, she was starting to really appreciate the skills that a person developed when dealing with those kinds of puzzles. She did, of course, back when she was in the Digital World to an extent–she was pretty sure that all of them would have died if Koushiro wasn’t as much of a brilliant mind as he was–but still. She was going to have to bake him a cake or something once this was all over. One never really appreciates what they have until it’s gone, as the saying goes .

Hikari lifted her hand to the Takaishi residence, her fingers curled into a fist, and she hesitated. She couldn’t be quite sure how Takeru took this, of course, how he’d take any of this. There was no guarantee that he’d listen to anything she had to say at all–and she honestly felt a little terrified by that fact. Just the idea that she would be turned away terrified her even more deeply than facing Taichi and their argument from yesterday did.

Still, though. She couldn’t run away from this, and she rocked back and forth on her heels for a minute more, before she knocked on the door and sent an email to Takeru saying she needed to be let inside. 

Hikari honestly didn’t imagine the first time that she went to Takeru’s house being like this, of course. Truthfully, whenever she imagined it, she pictured such a thing to be a more…she guessed lighthearted experience. She had a bit of a careful friendship with Takeru–something both born out of trust, as much as it was built out of boundaries. The two of them didn’t often talk about important things–rather, they spent time together because the both of them trusted the other to not bring up painful things, and because they knew the other was the person whom they trusted most in the world with the things left unsaid.

Sometimes, of course, it wasn’t the best thing in the world. Hikari knew that she had a lot of things that she needed to work on, and Hikari also knew that Takeru wouldn’t push her about them. Still…if there was one person that she could turn to, that would be Takeru.

The only person that she could turn to at a time like this. The person who shared an angel digimon with her. The person whom she trusted above everyone else. The person who would remember them like she did.

“Hikari?” Takeru asked, as he opened the door. She herself couldn’t begrudge his surprise, of course. Hikari didn’t go to school that day, so it was pretty understandable to think she wouldn’t come over. Hikari was also more than aware of the fact that her mother was going to be worried when she wasn’t home. But this was something she needed to do. 

“Can you let me inside, Takeru?” She asked, and Takeru squinted, as if he were suspicious, but he stepped aside and allowed Hikari inside. Some part of her wondered if he suspected her of being a replacement–and honestly, she couldn’t blame him. 

At this point, she felt more than a little crazy herself.

“What’s up, Hikari?” Takeru asked, as he took her to the kitchen table. It looked like his mom was still at work, which was nice. Hikari definitely preferred privacy. She walked to the windows, and she drew the curtains shut. She checked the doors, she checked the windows a second time. She had to be sure that they weren’t being watched. She even switched off her cellphone and tucked it away in her backpack, just in case, before she went back to the table. 

Takeru stared at her, puzzled, and looking a little concerned. Hikari felt shaky on her feet. She knew that she looked crazy. She genuinely felt crazy. She hoped that Takeru would stop looking at her like she was crazy.

Hoping that she hadn’t come here for no reason–and honestly fearing for the fact that she had–-Hikari exhaled, and began. 

“You’ve been lied to.” She started, the words falling out, tumbling and hitting on the floor between them. The words piled up, awkward and painful, and she held herself by her shoulders.

Takeru blinked. “Huh?”

“All of us, I mean. All of us have been lied to.”

“What are you talking about, Hikari?” Takeru asked, frowning. She could already feel a cold hardness between them, something rising between them. Hikari stared down at the table. She hated the judgemental stares. She wanted to curl back up into a ball. But she owed it to them all to continue.

“The Chosen Children.” Hikari started again, finally looking up to meet Takeru’s eyes, and she set her hands firmly in her lap, to give herself more of a firm and determined look–far more than she herself felt. “There’s more than just us and Meiko. There’s a whole lot more Chosen Children than just us, too, or Ms. Himekawa and Mr. Nishijima. We used to know some other Chosen Children. They worked with us and went to school with us. We’ve just been made to forget.”

Takeru frowned, and Hikari watched him consider the words carefully. A spark of hope filled her chest, and she herself prayed that Takeru would hear her out, that Takeru would listen. “What do you mean made to forget, Hikari?”

Hikari frowned, because in all honesty, she herself didn’t know why or how. She just knew that it happened, and while she had suspicions, she didn’t have any proof. She was the only person who knew any of this. She had never stood by herself like this before, against someone she liked, against something that she knew was right. She had gone off on her own to protect the Digital World with Tailmon before. She had even stood up against her older brother before. She had no problem doing that against a tangible enemy, against something right in front of her. But it was hard when she had no grasp on what she was saying, on what she was doing. It was hard when she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she herself could be wrong.

“I don’t know. But I know that we have to do something about it. I know that it shouldn’t have happened.” 

Takeru shook his head. “Hikari…” He started to stand up. “Hikari, I don’t think that you’re well. You stayed home today. I should call your mother and have her come pick you up.” He bit his lip, and he chewed on it for a moment. “It’s probably not a good idea for me to be the only one looking after you…”

“Wait.” Hikari took out her notebook, and flipped through the pages. “What about our trip on the train when Meiko came around? Why did we take that?” It was the first out of her long list of contradictions. It was the first thing that she had–tangibly grasped in her hands.

“So that we could get in contact with Master Gennai to be sure it was the real one. We went to Hikarigaoka, because that was where the gate opened up, the one that Master Gennai took us to.” Takeru sat back down, and he set his hands in his lap, staring her down firmly. 

Hikari’s heart clenched.

“What about Mimi and Meiko moving for work? How were they able to come to Odaiba and leave so quickly?” She moved her finger down to the next point, and it was only then that she saw the complete mess of scribbles on the white page–the spirals, the dots, the words that were repeated over and over again. The names that were slashed into the pages. Over and over again, tiny ants marching across the pages. Characters that filled pages. 

Had she really been that lost in herself, that she didn’t notice the pages that she filled? The way that the pages overlapped, spilling over each other, pages of ink that piled together into an ocean of words? She didn’t see it when she was doing it. How manic her writing had become. How wild and out of control and…

Crazy .

“Mimi’s father had to change jobs quickly, so they had to go back to America. They planned on staying longer, but they couldn’t. Meiko’s father did the same thing. She told us about it before she left.” Takeru’s voice was calm, steady, a light in the storm. Hikari’s hand shook, and she grabbed it with her other hand, steadying herself. She had more than this. She had physical proof of this. She had so much more than just a few things. She knew that she did. She knew.

“What about Ms. Himekawa and Mr. Nishijima? Why did they show up so suddenly and leave so suddenly?”

“They came here to ask us for help because they didn’t have digimon to fight with. When it was over, they didn’t have a reason to stay anymore. Taichi is still in contact with them.”

Hikari’s hand shook as it closed into a fist over her chest. Takeru wasn’t listening to her. In fact, he looked downright worried. 

“Hikari?”

His voice was worried, gentle. Calm. Steady. She would normally cling to it, the way that she would cling to Taichi. She would normally cling to a beacon in the dark, a light in a harbor. 

She had to make him listen. She had to make him understand.

How could he forget? How could he think that she wasn’t right? He had to know. He had to know, because he was there . He had to know because he had been a part of them–he had been a part of every fight with them, a part of every moment with them. He’d seen the shades of grey between the light and the dark, the way that she had. He had changed as a person–he had grown stronger, kinder, wiser. He’d grown up because they’d fought together. They’d all seen his deepest wish, the thing that he kept at the center of his heart. They’d seen his desire to have his family together again. He, of all of them, should be the one who should be fighting for them the most, because they were a part of their family, because he’d been able to overcome the illusion because of…

Because of…

“Daisuke.”

Takeru blinked, confused by the name, confused by the sudden outburst. “Huh?”

“He likes to argue with you. Your biggest argument was about Patamon. Don’t you remember that?”

Takeru blinked. “Who argued with me about Patamon?”

“Daisuke! He was–he is–Taichi’s junior. In soccer. He idolizes Taichi. He has since Taichi first became the captain of the soccer team. He loves playing soccer, he loves ramen, and he got caught in all of this because he followed us both to the computer lab by dumb stubbornness .”

Takeru hesitated for a moment, before shaking his head. He seemed to be shaking something out of his mind–fuzzy cotton balls floating in the afternoon sky, bubbles disappearing into the desert storm. “Hikari, I don’t–”

Hikari herself didn’t know how she remembered that. But she had to keep going. She was on a roll. She stood up as she spoke, getting animated in her words. Her voice was getting louder, angrier, breaking at the edges. She gestured wildly, animated, something thick welling in her chest, angry and churning in her gut.

“And–and Miyako-she’s a year older than us. She’s Koushiro’s junior, and she’s great with computers. She’s amazing with computers, actually, and she can hack into things–even Koushiro can’t hack into things. He has to rely on other people to do that for her. But Miyako can. She’s really brash and loud and she doesn’t care what people think of her, and she has catchphrases and she’s easily forgiving and she’s…my best friend.” Hikari bit her lip.

Miyako was her best friend.

Takeru stood up with her. “Hikari–”

“And Iori-he’s only thirteen now. He’s responsible and serious and reliable, and he never lets himself act like a little kid, but he’s always thinking about other people and always doing his best to live up to everyone’s expectations, and we didn’t live up to his–we didn’t live up to what he needed from us. He’s just a kid, and we let him down. He’s just a kid–and Ichijouji. Ichijouji–he faced his fear of the darkness to help us seal away Daemon, and we just let him stay there in the darkness instead. We promised that we’d always be there for him, and we weren’t. I’m Miyako’s partner and I wasn’t there for her. I’m Miyako’s partner –”

Takeru grabbed her by the shoulders. “Hikari!”

Hikari blinked. 

“H-huh?”

“Hikari–where is all of this coming from? Is it someone else?” Takeru’s face went dark with worry. “It’s not Homeostasis again, right? Or someone else like that?”

Hikari shook her head. “N-no, why would it be?” She was genuinely a little bit confused by that, blinking, coming out of things. She felt a little rattled, a little confused. She felt like she were coming back into a long spell–or like she was finally breaking out of one.

“They used you for Ophanimon and Ordinemon.” His face went stony. “I’m calling Taichi.” 

“No!” Hikari backed away. “No–don’t. It won’t make a difference. It’s not Homeostasis, and it’s not the Evil Gennai.” Hikari bit her lip. “But–what about all of the other digimon we met? Didn’t we go to the Digital World after 1999?”

Takeru’s face darkened with worry again. “No, Hikari. We’ve only ever seen the digimon during the attack from the Evil Gennai to bring out Ordinemon. There’s never been anything outside of the situation with Diabolomon.”

The fight with Diabolomon…

“Diabolomon!” Hikari blurted out, before she brought out her phone, switched it on, and showed it to Takeru. “Those pictures–the ones I took. I hooked up my computer to my camera because I knew I was missing pictures. I had a Kuramon recover the data. Don’t you see who I’m talking about?”

Takeru froze. “You–you contacted a Kuramon ? And let it into your computer?”

Hikari flinched a little, though she understood his anger. She puffed up her chest, and shoved the pictures up under his nose. “Yes–but look! It shows what I’m talking about!”

Takeru, however, didn’t even glance, and kept his face firmly focused on hers. “Hikari–why did you give a Kuramon access to your data ? It’s just going to give you what you want so it can get into your computer! It just did exactly what it thought you wanted, and you let it in!”

“I didn’t! I disconnected my computer!” Hikari felt frustrated tears welling in her eyes–hot and angry and cutting. Takeru wasn’t listening to her–and worse, she was listening to him . “It can’t get in if I don’t let it!”

“Are you…just going to never use your PC again?” Takeru asked. “That’s not–what about when you have to work? What brought this on? What’s going on with you–this isn’t like you!”

“This–this isn’t about me! This is about our friends that we left behind! You can’t just forget them and leave them behind–I don’t even know where they are, but I know we have to go save them!”

“Hikari– none of those people are real! Someone is lying to you , using you ! You have to let this go!”

Silence reigned for a moment, heavy and echoing between them. For a long moment, things had gotten intense–devolving into a yelling match between them. She didn’t even realize how close that he had gotten. She didn’t even realize how loud they both had gotten. She didn’t even realize the fact that she had started to yell–something so unfamiliar to her that her voice went raw from both crying and screaming, something she hadn’t done in a full year.

She didn’t know how long it had been, really. She didn’t know if any of that was true. She didn’t know if any of this was true.

She didn’t know…if what she knew was real .

She’d been half expecting those words, but they still struck her dumb anyway. She backed away further, crossing her arms over her sides. 

“You…” She turned away. 

She didn’t have any proof to begin with, and everything Takeru said made sense. Everything could be explained with just a moment of thought, when she wasn’t caught up in emotion, and when she wasn’t stuck with a pounding head and vivid dreams. 

Kuramon just gave her exactly what she was wanting to begin with, and of course it would do that to get into her computer. Mimi and Meiko just happened to come along with job transfers from their parents at the same time. It was a massive coincidence, and extremely convenient, but it wasn’t impossible. All of the Chosen Children happened to live in Odaiba, too, and that was an extreme coincidence in and of itself. 

Nishijima and Himekawa were both involved with digimon, so they came to help, and left when they weren’t needed. Everything had a completely and utterly mundane explanation. 

“I-I’m sorry, Takeru.” She finally said. “I…I don’t know what’s going on with me. I really thought…”

“Hey…hey, it’s okay.” Takeru took a step forward, and gently took her shaking wrists between his palms, pressing their hands together. “You don’t need to worry about it. I…I’m honestly a little worried about you, Hikari. I don’t want to watch someone hurting you like this. Where did all of this come from, anyway?”

“I…” Hikari looked down again. Her head started pounding again, aching, throbbing between her temples. She brought up both of her palms and she clasped them together. It felt strangely like something was inside of her head, calling to her. She had felt the same way, years ago. When something else had started calling to her. When she’d gotten into another fight with Takeru over something like this. When she’d had Takeru screaming at her again, when she’d left him behind. When she’d given up something that she had felt was important. 

When she didn’t have Tailmon.

It was calling to her again, this thing that strained in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, and Takeru grabbed her shoulders. 

“Hikari…”

“Go ahead.” She finally said. “Go ahead…call mom. I’m sorry, Takeru. I think I got really sick again. I think I need to go home.”

“Okay.” Takeru nodded, and he took her phone. “Go ahead and lay down on the couch, Hikari. I’ll send you home with your mother when she’s here for you, okay?”

“Okay.” Hikari said, quietly. “Okay. Thank you. Thank you for taking care of me, Takeru.”

He squeezed her shoulder, gently, and his voice was kind and patient as it always was to her. The very reason that she had come here to begin with. “Of course, Hikari. I’ll always be here for you.”

The next few weeks were…dull.

Hikari Yagami, believing that she had been entirely wrong in her search, allowed herself to sink back into the mundanity of life once more. 

Days passed, and she reconnected with the friends that she had stopped talking to, once more going out for tea with them after class, once more sinking into the endless cycle of life. 

She got up, she went to school, and she came home again. Her PC still sat unplugged in her room. She didn’t bother to use her phone anymore, not after she couldn’t bring herself to delete the photos that Takeru had confirmed were doctored out of her deep desire to have friends alongside Takeru. She had come to the conclusion that they were born out of a sense of loneliness after the older Chosen Children left, after the digimon had been sealed back behind the gate again. 

Of course she would seek out a way to think that she had gone on more adventures with them. Of course she would seek out a way to bring them into reality. Of course. 

She had tried to reach out to Koushiro again, just to assure herself that there was some chance that they were real, only for Koushiro to tell her the same thing that Takeru had told her. There was no chance for them to be real. There was no way it was possible. It hurt, of course. It always hurt. 

Every time that she had to confront the idea that Miyako was born from her imagination, the idea that Miyako wasn’t the one who helped her decide to become a kindergarten teacher. 

The idea that Daisuke hadn’t brought them all back to life and light with his simple dreams and earnest desires for something as simple as running a ramen cart. The idea that, when upset, Iori didn’t sometimes fumble into improper speech and petty arguments befitting of a child his age, no matter how adult he liked to pretend that he was. The idea that Ichijouji sometimes still blushed when someone complimented him on his smile, that he still made a big idea when someone called him nice. Takeru’s petty fights with Daisuke, the way that Takeru started body blocking Iori from enemies the way that he used to do Hikari in fights, the way that Daisuke got flustered and jealous whenever Miyako started grabbing her hand to help her, the same way that he’d gotten over Takeru back when he’d first started becoming friends with them, seemingly never coming to terms with the fact that he was always just as clingy to Ichijouji–though that was also just who Daisuke was, in general. A clingy and affectionate and honest person, right to the end.

How could he not be real ? 

How could any of them–as clear and honest and true as they were in Hikari’s mind–not be real ? Was she really so detached from reality that she could imagine them in her mind? Could she really make a whole world ? Three years gone ?

She was right about the fact that she couldn’t trust her own mind, then, even if she didn’t understand it. She’d started to keep her head down, and started to ignore the things that she saw. She couldn’t think about anything that she couldn’t prove, things that other people didn’t see. 

It happened slowly–in increments that could honestly be ignored, if one were inclined like Hikari to ignore them. It started in small, fuzzing moments out of the corners of her eyes. She started to think that it was just like the way that the world had been when she had started to distrust her own memory. It started with a detachment from her body–to notice the way that she was holding things. A strange numbness in her mouth, as if her entire body were made of static. It started with the way that the world itself stopped turning under her. Her pounding heart clanged loudly in her ears and chest, as if it were a caged bird that was trying to escape, as if her very bones were trying to get out.

She knew about these symptoms, of course. She remembered it happening to her years ago, when she was in elementary school. None of those memories were real, of course. Nothing like that ever happened to her before. Nothing that happened to her was a cause for alarm. She had to just keep her head down, and her eyes shut, and she had to just go to school. 

Hikari passed the same intersection every day, the characters jumbling together, worms that inched along the path, falling off of the metal and dropping to the floor, dead flies that pooled in the path. When she walked, she heard the sound of her shoes dragging through water, pulling the tides with her. She held her pencil so tightly between her fingers that she would snap the plastic if her hands weren’t shaking so hard. She took deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling, to avoid the cold creeping up her bones, to avoid the fingers digging into her spine. She couldn’t focus on the way that the walls expanded around her in class. She couldn’t focus on the faces that were distant in the fog. 

They weren’t digimon. She remembered that much, from when she had been young. They had taken the shape of a digimon, just like so many of their enemies from around that time. They had taken the shape of Hangyomon, somehow imprisoned by the Evil Spirals, though it didn’t brainwash them the way that it had brainwashed the real digimon. It trapped them in digital forms, trapped them away from the master that they had served–a being she still didn’t know about, even years later. 

She’d heard the name mentioned once, by Daemon. Dagomon, he’d said. That world was Dagomon’s Ocean. 

Just thinking of the name sent a rush of waves around her, lapping at her legs, welling up around her. She squeezed her eyes shut again. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. The things that she was thinking–they also weren’t real. The Dark Ocean wasn’t real. None of this is real .

None of this is real .

She looked up, around the classroom. The faces of her classmates were also blurred–as if someone took an eraser across their faces, as if they were simple cutouts, flat sheets of paper with the vague shapes of humans around them. The classroom she was in was a cardboard cutout–paper mache with holes cut in for windows and doors. She sat at a plastic desk, a child’s toy. Someone’s notion of the real world. Some child’s imagination on what the real world looked like. 

She stood up, suddenly. So suddenly that her desk fell away behind her. 

“This isn’t real.” Hikari whispered to herself. “This isn’t real. None of this is real. None of this world is real.”

She was having a nightmare again, she decided. Something she’d had over and over again the past few days. Memories of Meicoomon, memories of Ordinemon. Memories of having to battle her own digimon. Memories of the possibility of having to slay Tailmon in Meicoomon’s place.

The deep hatred that had formed from Ordinemon’s wings–this miasma of hatred and anger and wickedness –this thing that had existed straight out of the darkness of the world. She didn’t like to think about it, and she honestly hadn’t in a full year. 

Even just to think about it–that her heart had been capable of pushing Tailmon into the form of a wicked angel, to even think that Tailmon was capable of being pushed into that creature. To think that her heart–even a small part of her heart–had been capable of pulling that out of Tailmon. A dark digivolution that went beyond SkullGreymon, that went beyond anything that any of them had ever seen. 

That, even for a moment, the jogress Tailmon had created was Ordinemon .

It was the miasma that seeped into this place–the deep wrongness that was pulled out of her wings. Hikari didn’t know where she was. The paper walls of the classroom fell away into darkness, disappearing into the shadow. The strange, puppet beings disappeared behind them. The world itself seemed to be falling away from her–as if she were being pulled into the wings of Ordinemon. As if she were falling into a nightmare. 

Hikari snapped awake, again. Her eyes shooting open as she sat at her desk. Not even a moment had passed, and she was back where she was. Nobody even seemed to have noticed that she was gone. Nobody had seemed to care. 

She was losing her mind.

The fear and dread that settled over Hikari sent her heart racing. She was losing her mind. She had created imaginary beings in her head that she had convinced herself were her friends. She kept seeing visions of them, she kept seeing memories of them. She was losing time, and she was losing her perception of reality. She kept losing herself when she was awake. She couldn’t tell when she was awake or when she was asleep anymore.

She couldn’t tell what was real anymore.

A few more days passed, where Hikari did her best to not think about things, to focus on things that she could feel, things that she could touch. A month and a half passed after she talked to Takeru, and he seemed satisfied with the way things were going. She didn’t bother to talk to Taichi, and he didn’t reach out to her. Things were going just fine for all of them. Things were happening just fine. 

She went to class, and it was just fine. She ignored the water filling the halls. She ignored the grey horizon outside of the windows. She ignored everything as she sat in class. She ignored everything. She was fine.

The ocean tumbled around her, water filling the classroom, splashing at the bottom of her feet, rolling against her ankles, rolling against her heels. It was happening again, so fast, that she barely had time to breathe. Takeru didn’t notice, continuing to fill out his worksheet. 

Hikari stood up, quickly. She raised her hand, and she asked if she could lay down. The last time that something like this had happened, she passed out in the middle of the class. She hoped that it wouldn’t happen this time. 

Hikari hoped that nothing like this would happen again.

She was guided down the hall, and she laid down on the cot. She rolled over, and she faced the wall. Little holes opened in the walls, just the same as when the classroom had fallen away. She shut her eyes tightly. Just the same as last time, if she ignored it, it would go away. She focused on the crinkling over her pillow. She focused on the feeling of the blanket over her. She focused and tried to use logic on herself. It worked whenever she was in a bad place. It worked when she had a fever as a child and she lost herself to the things that existed just beyond her peripheral vision. 

Hikari had always seen digimon, ever since she was young. Even before Koromon had first appeared to her, she had seen between the cracks of reality, between the corners where the creatures hid. She had known digimon before she knew their names. Jyou’s brother thought that they might have been the yokai of Japanese legend. Gennai claimed that the Chosen Children didn’t interact with Earth until 1995. Koushiro theorized that the Digital World was like the World of Dreams, just using the information that humanity consumed and giving abstract ideas life and form, and that the internet was just the newest version of it. Ichijouji compared it to Plato’s idea of the abstract form, and Koushiro had been excited that someone had caught on so quickly, while Miyako was excited over the ideas of what abstract programs that she created might take. 

It had been a nice moment, of course. Too bad that it never happened.

If Plato’s abstract ideals were the good side of the Digital World’s notion of giving information and ideas form, the Dark Ocean was the side of those ideas twisted into darkness. That had been what Koushiro believed. 

The Dark Ocean. 

She allowed herself to think of the name of that place for the first time since it had started. For a while, she had allowed herself to think it was a case of simple distortions. But she knew that it hadn’t been so. That would have been too easy. Koushiro or Himekawa or Nishijima would have noticed something. She would have been able to reach them, but they simply didn’t reach out back to her. They were too busy now.

Hikari slowly opened her eyes.

She sat up, as if in a trance. It wasn’t just the abstract darkness before, like it had been in the classroom. That had been closer to the nightmares. This place was more real and solid than anything that she had seen yet, in those strange distortions. 

The Dark Ocean was a place of negative thoughts, negative emotions. It was a place where warmth and light didn’t vanish, instead never existing to begin with. The Dark Ocean was a place without any concept of love or light or hope, it was a place without hopes and dreams. The World of Dreams fed on childish ideals of optimism and faith and light. The World of Dreams were the dreams of children. Someone like Daisuke easily belonged in a place like that, a place where blind light existed. Someone who was capable of creating Ordinemon didn’t exist in a place like the World of Dreams. Someone with that amount of darkness in them couldn’t exist in a place like that. 

Someone who would kill someone’s partner digimon three times shouldn’t exist in a place like that. 

It wasn’t real, though, so it didn’t matter. She shouldn’t even bother thinking about it. She shouldn’t even bother imagining it. Any minute now, Takeru would come shaking her shoulder, and she would wake up from her nightmare in the nurse’s office. Or her mother would shake her awake with some tea and rice porridge and she would set a cloth on Hikari’s head. The others didn’t exist, and the Dark Ocean didn’t exist, and BelialVamdemon didn’t exist. She knew that because she had never started consciously remembering things in the first place. She knew that because she could suddenly recall things, and that didn’t make any sense. 

None of this made any sense. 

The past two months didn’t make any sense. The holes in her memory didn’t make any sense. The way the world worked didn’t make any sense. Time itself didn’t make any sense. The world was built on a lie, and she couldn’t see the cracks. 

She pulled her knees to her chin, and tears ran down her cheeks. 

She was here. 

She was in the Dark Ocean.

Chapter Text

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. One must not strive for perfection, but rather wholeness of personality.” – Carl Jung.

(May - 2006)

Know the darkness, and go beyond.

It was a message that had appeared in the messages they received at the beginning of the adventure, the messages that appeared on Koushiro’s phone, over and over again. The message that appeared before Meiko’s digivice completely corrupted and turned black. The message that appeared before the infection overtook Meicoomon completely, and made her kill Leomon. The message that seemed to be coming from the Evil Gennai, before he vanished completely, and left the Chosen Children of Odaiba to pick up the pieces left behind. 

Know the darkness, and go beyond .

She had been here before. 

Logically, of course, she knew that it wasn’t the case, because she had gone completely mad , and there was no way that she couldn’t have been here before, because this place didn’t exist . 

This place, this world. Everything inside it. This place didn’t exist.

Everything she had ever known didn’t exist.

The sky taunted her overhead, dark and spiraling and eternal, stretching in all directions with no end in sight. The black water pushed too and fro, reflecting no light and taking it in. A blackness that sucked at her heels, a darkness deeper than the space between the stars. More than an empty void of eternity, more than an event horizon. Featureless, smooth, cold, freezing to the touch. She stared out at it for several minutes, the wind blowing at her features, stirring her bangs as the state of absolute eternity settled into her bones.

Eternity was a coffin. This was her grave.

The black water was deceptively smooth and dark as she watched the tides, a glass utterly undisturbed by time and space and rot, hypnotizing, drawing the eye to find any sort of distortion, any sort of break in it. It taunted her that way, taunting her to try and seek it out, to try and find any fleck of the light from within the water. 

There was no horizon, after all, except for the Dark Ocean. 

There was no break in the landscape behind her, no chance for land beyond the world in front of her, because behind her existed only a cliff face without purchase, a land without people. A place older than time itself, a place without human knowledge and human touch, a place older than the Digital World, a place older than light itself, the endless turmoil of the cosmos, something sleeping beyond the stars, something reaching out to touch her mind, something that was old and blind and ancient and dreaming.

Dreaming .

It was dreaming , and it was blind, and it was mad, and it was the exact same as her, and she knew it just by looking out beyond the horizon. She knew just by watching the lighthouse that reflected no light. She knew just by the call of the water, the song of the whispers of the wind, the hush of the waves, that she was returning home. She knew that she was going back to the place from which light came to begin with, to the place that all humans went when they dreamed, to a place that was primordial and before light and sound and consciousness and knowledge. A towering place beyond her dreams, rising higher than the stars, higher than the clouds.The emptiness of the echoes of the waves begged to be known, begged to be seen, and they said that they would wait for her here–wait for her to return.

They knew she would return here, to the place from which evolution sprang. This place before light. This place before life .

Her breath was stolen for her, lightheaded, dizzied, the same way that she had felt the last, several times that she fainted. She was faint, then. She could hear the strange call of the song without sound. She could hear the whispers in her heart. She could hear their names peeking through the corners. 

And it was then that her thoughts began to spin. 

Hikari blinked, and she stood, suddenly, ankle deep in water, fuzzing at the edges, the lashes from the world chaining her down, thick iron chains that cuffed her wrist the way a prisoner would be held behind bars. The shadows blotted her vision, vulture wings sweeping through her, sweeping past her, a hushed whisper through her and over her, and into her heart. 

She had been here before. She had heard the call of this place before. She had listened to them before, the things without faces, the things with no body to speak of, nobody to speak of them. They saw into her, and they reached out and gripped her, and she was taken. Stolen here.

Lost and found. Hide and seek. A game for elementary schoolers. A game for her to play. Taichi always preferred soccer.

How could she be found again, when nobody remembered to look?

Hikari blinked again, and her body was behind her, still watching her from the bed she came from–brown eyes staring into brown, and she turned and faced herself, held by the ocean current, the water that froze her upon impact–the water that was ice and needles and rain, the water that was so cold it turned her fingernails blue. The same washed out blue as the ocean, the same washed out blue that was the vision of Taichi’s corpse rising out of the ash and fire before Tailmon was swallowed by darkness. The same washed out blue of grey skies, of grey water, of a grey world that flickered in her vision–a television screen with bad reception, a cellphone without bars, something that glitched, malfunctioning code, an error, an infection, a bug that needed to be cut out, a growth that needed to be sliced through, a dark spot of dirt that stained the sheets, insects that swarmed, biting, killing, breeding, too many blind things that didn’t need to exist, weeds in a garden that needed to be plucked free.

Hikari couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Ringing filled her ears, packed with cotton, a gunshot going off next to her. The echo reverberated through her bones, through her skull, lightheaded and dizzy. She was seeing double because she was insane. That was the only explanation. She was completely insane. 

This was her coffin. She could never leave. A locked room mystery, a closed room without a key. She would never be found. She was lost. She lost. She lost . She lost her memories, she lost her life, she lost her chance at a normal childhood, she lost her chance at ever being a normal girl the second that she was born, the second that the world demanded too much from her, and she never had a choice in it to begin with, no matter how much that she may have wanted to, because nobody ever asked her what she wanted in all of this.

She would have done it again, and she knew it, and she knew that she would have, and she hated herself for that a little, too, because she saw ten thousand futures stretching in front of her that had other lives that she could have lived, and she saw all of their lives stretching out in front of her, and she saw all of their futures, and she saw the things that they had that she didn’t, and she saw their futures, and she saw their happiness, and she saw the dreams that they had. 

The dreams that they didn’t have to wake up from. The dreams that weren’t captured in perfect crystal in front of them. The dreams that they were allowed to have. 

Hikari stared, floating above the surface of the water. It pooled out behind her, fanning, stretching, reaching with black fingers to grasp her by the legs and pull her down, to throw more chains around her, to keep her in iron bands and iron brands. 

Hikari Yagami stared at herself.

Her other self sitting atop the cot in the nurse’s room. Her other self that was the version of herself in her high school uniform and her school bag and her painfully cute charms hanging off of her phone–stared back at her, unblinking. 

Brown eyes stared into brown eyes. The eyes of a Chosen Child. The eyes of a version of herself who lived and breathed and walked inside a dream. She still couldn’t tell who was dreaming, and who was awake. At that moment, however, it didn’t matter to her. What mattered was seeing this future before her–this future version who stretched beyond the Dark Ocean, this future beyond the horizon.

The version of herself that stared back–it was a normal girl. The version of herself who was idyllic and happy and at peace. The version of herself who didn’t dig too deep into things, who didn’t ask questions, who happily went along with everything other people told her to do. The version of herself who relied on her older brother to look out for her and save her from danger. 

The version of herself who was weak, so painfully weak, that everyone wanted to shield her, wanted to wrap her in cotton and tuck her away, wanted to keep her from fighting, wanted to keep her from standing up for herself–over, and over, and over again. Against WaruMonzaemon to free the Numemon, against Andromon when he was controlled by the Evil Ring, against Tailmon …they wanted to keep her away from Tailmon , when she was just manipulated by Vamdemon…

If she listened to them back then, Tailmon would be… Tailmon would be …

What…what was she thinking…?

Hikari had been reaching out with her hands as she’d thought–stretched out at the elbows, fingers curled, ready to snare herself around the throat. 

She blinked. Her reflection blinked back at her–eyes wide, and terrified, and utterly uncanny. The eyes of someone who was weak.

No–no.

No. 

She grabbed her left hand with her right, to keep her hands from shaking. She forced the both of them down, as her reflection shuddered, shoulders shaking, and the both of them finally started to breathe.

Taichi had just wanted to keep her safe . They all did–she was a little girl, back then! She was only eight years old! Of course they wanted to keep her safe from a digimon they thought was a threat–she would have done the same! She wanted to protect the Digital World, she wanted to protect Tailmon, and she wanted to protect Taichi, too . She’d wanted to protect him from going back to the Digital World with Koromon– she wanted to keep him safe, and he did to her.

Hikari swallowed, then, and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to pull out of the Evil Spiral –no, the evil spiral which she had started to sink into–something that dug thorns into her mind, something that lashed to her thoughts, something barbed and full of spires barbs that dug into her spine. It grabbed onto her the way that spores burrs would grab onto the fur of a cat. It grabbed onto her the way 

There was no Dark Ocean, there was no Dagomon, there were no servants who had wanted to rebel against their lord and use her to make more soldiers when she was still in elementary school. There were no Evil Spirals and Dark Towers, there was no Nefertimon or Pegasusmon, there were no Digimentals or other Chosen Children, she never partnered with Silphymon, she never heard Miyako Inoue’s heart synch with hers–

She clapped her hands over her ears to keep the thought out of her head. To keep the sound out of her head. The sound of matching breaths and matching beats, a rhythm synched in time with hers, to match with someone in a step in time, to match with someone perfectly , two pieces clicking into place. The opposite. A sword to a shield, weakness becoming strength. How two people can become stronger as brothers, as sisters, as friends, as partners .

She floated on her little island of the nurse’s cot, her knees to her chin, her hands wrapped around her legs, and her school bag sitting right beside her. There was no Dagomon, so there was no reason to be scared of this place. She was in her own body, she was in her own mind. She was in a nightmare. This place was just every bad dream come to life, every regret that came to haunt her. 

Maybe she was upset about the fact that she chose to become a Chosen Child. Maybe she was upset about the friends she never made, about the life that she never had. Maybe she wished that she was with Tailmon so much that she conjured up this vision of an adventure that she would need Tailmon again for. Maybe she was just having bad dreams about the fight she had with Takeru, so she was punishing herself with a world where she couldn’t make up with him, so she would go over the regrets she had for eternity, just the way that she had moments before. 

She probably deserved it, anyway. Just like she deserved it whenever she got sick, so she couldn’t do her chores the way her mother needed her to. Just like she deserved it whenever she was too weak to stand up for herself. Just like she deserved it for not coming to find Tailmon sooner, so Tailmon didn’t have to suffer the way that she did with Vamdemon. She deserved it for night fighting Diabolomon with Taichi the first time the digimon emerged on the net, and for getting sick so that she had to stay home during summer camp, and for not being strong enough so Tailmon could reach Ultimate with WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, for not being able to be as strong as Omegamon so they had to rely on him for all of their fights.

She deserved it for pushing Tailmon to dark digivolve to Ophanimon Falldown Mode. For pushing Ophanimon Falldown Mode to jogress with Raguelmon. For forming something as deep and dark and disastrous as Ordinemon. For being able to even create something as evil as Ordinemon with Meiko–something that so detested life that it only existed to destroy it, something that only existed to make the world disappear. For being the one who finally pushed Omegamon to digivolve further and slay Meicoomon in the real world, where Meicoomon would be stuck with Wizarmon here–a voice in the television station, a whisper on the wind, something between worlds, something that could never be set free, haunting until the end of time.

It really made sense, when she thought about it this way. She would usually punish herself like this whenever she did anything selfish, because she believed that she was doing the right thing, and that someone like her deserved to be punished. 

Her heart sat heavy in her chest, alone. She sank to her side, staring over her knees, curled up in a ball as she watched the ocean rise and fall. Time never passed in the ocean. Not when there was no sun, not when there were no shadows. There was no light here, in a place like this. There was only an endless stretch of eternal darkness.

It was Miyako here last time.

Tailmon had been looking for her Holy Ring, and she’d ended up walking through a distortion in the Digital World, but not the same kind of distortion that Meicoomon had caused. She, Ichijouji, and Miyako had ended up here–and Ichijouji had a panic attack after coming to this place, accidentally letting Hikari and Miyako fall over the edge of the cliffside, down to a place that started to fade into the Dark Ocean.

It was an in-between, really. Not like the time that she had been called here by Hangyomon, or at least the creatures that looked like Hangyomon. When she had been called to the Dark Ocean by them, she had disappeared completely, body and soul to the place that called her. The distortion in the Digital World had still allowed a Dark Tower Blossomon into the space between the worlds–and they had been able to easily get themselves back out of the distortion without much trouble, once they’d gotten inside. 

Hikari honestly didn’t know what it was, back then, that shook her so deeply about being pulled into the Dark Ocean. Nobody could really tell what the place was–they had guesses, but that was about it. When they had made it to the Digimon Kaiser’s base (who was the Digimon Kaiser, anyway? Probably a digimon shaped like a human, like Mummymon or Archnemon) they’d found the Control Room, and the same miasma radiated from it that radiated from the Dark Ocean–and even though they’d been a mere, few meters away from it, all of them suddenly found themselves unable to move from the depression that seeped from it–the same darkness that seeped through Hikari’s heart and soul as she lay a mere, few meters from the water. The same miasma that seeped through the wings of Ordinemon, dripping ichor and rot from black feathers that radiated misery and sorrow. The same, deep sorrow and despair that gripped her so tightly that she feared uncurling from the ball that she lay in, in that very moment, for if she even had the thought to turn around or face the cliffside, she feared that the hands of Dagomon or LadyDevimon would reach out and grasp her in tight hands and claws, and she might have been pulled under the water the way that she always feared that she would–never to resurface again, never to return.

As long as she wanted to return to the real world, and as long as someone else wanted her to return, she would be able to make it out of there. She remembered that, somewhere, deep in her heart. Even as she thought about it, though, something cold gripped her by the heart–the same, cold feeling that rattled her, digging into her spine.

If there was even a chance–even the slimmest chance in the world–that all of this was real, that she wasn’t going mad…then that meant the whole world could have forgotten her. The same way that she had forgotten them. The same way that they had all forgotten them.

That meant that the real world had forgotten Hikari , too.

The same way that they had callously reset the Digital World. The same way that they had wiped out the history of an entire world within minutes, just on the chance that they could get rid of the infection in Meicoomon. An entire history, an entire world. Civilizations and time upon millennia. Millions of lives, millions of memories , all wiped out in minutes. 

“Andromon.”

Andromon –the Numemon, the Geckomon . All of their friends and allies who fought so hard to defend their world. All gone within minutes. 

A deep sense of loss settled over Hikari–something she honestly hadn’t felt before, something she honestly hadn’t thought about feeling before. The Digital World had forgotten about them. Tailmon didn’t have her memories of Hikari. That sense of loss had been something she’d felt for a short while, but she’d been so consumed by the battle happening that she hadn’t even thought about it for very long–not before they’d all ended up telling s cary stories in the school .

The world must have forgotten about her by now. 

The world must have forgotten about her, the way that they forgot about their duty to protect the Digital World, the way that they forgot their duty to protect the world from Meicoomon and Ordinemon, the way that they forgot their friends, the way that they forgot to mourn Leomon when he was killed by Meicoomon in the real world, the way that they forgot about all of their fights and their bonds and their adventures together, the way that they forgot about–

“-- Imperialdramon! ”

The realization hit her like cold ice, genuine panic setting in before she remembered what Himekawa had told her–that digimon who were lost in the real world during the reboot would also be taken back into the Digital World. Imperialdramon wasn’t lost. Wizarmon and Leomon were also alive…there was even a chance that Meicoomon was alive. 

Hikari laid back down. That was good, at least. If everything was real, and she was forgotten with everyone else, then at least all of their digimon would make it out okay. Tailmon and Wizarmon would find some way to be friends again. Tailmon still had her whistle back then, so V-mon, Wormmon, Hawkmon, and Armadimon were probably also unsealed from the Digimentals, and were okay. 

The world forgot her, and she kind of deserved it, for forgetting her friends, for forgetting the Digital World, for forgetting the digimon. At least the digimon were okay. 

She shut her eyes, and wrapped her arms around herself. There needed to be someone out there who wanted her home, and this world didn’t exist to the outside. The memories of this place didn’t exist to the outside. Takeru and Taichi were the only ones who would come looking for her, and Taichi was busy at university, and Takeru didn’t believe her. He was angry at her, as he rightfully should be, for always coming to him and getting him involved in this. He’d always tried to protect her even though they were the same age, even though he was just as scared as she was, even though she had a big brother to look out for her, just the same as he did. His digimon had died before, and she still relied on him to protect her. 

At times like this, she’d told him, she would always have Taichi come rescuing her. Even though it meant that he wouldn’t be able to kick the ball if he came looking for her. Even though she would hold him back from going to rescue his friends in the Digital World. Even though he had a life now. She would rely on Takeru to come and find her, even though she was a Chosen Child just like he was, even though he was going through everything with her brother, even though he was bottling up so much pain and anger inside, even though she’d never reached out to understand everything he was carrying inside of himself.

In the end, she didn’t really know Takeru as well as she thought she did. In the end, she pushed Taichi away from her. In the end, the both of them were going to end up forgetting about her. That was going to be her fate.

She was going to be forgotten about, and when the morning came, they were going to go on with their lives, and she would be left in the shadows–something less than a dream, something that would be a voice in the wind, something that would end up pushed aside, tossed in a corner, forgotten like the rest of the nameless void, like the rest of the drops of water in the ocean–carried away, the whispering of the wind and the multitudes of names on their tongues, the gibbering maw of darkness, and when she would see beyond it, when she would know the place beyond darkness, that would be when things truly began, and that would be when she would know what it was like to see the nightmares that gave birth to this place to begin with.

The voice of darkness called to her, and she answered. 

The voice of darkness called out her name, and she shut her eyes. 

The voice of darkness called…

(“If you hear the voice of darkness, I’ll scream!”)

Hikari jolted upright, hearing the piercing, loud voice cutting through her–straight through her heart, sending it stuttering, crashing into her ribs.

(“If the darkness is swallowing you, I’ll grab your hands and bring you back!”)

“Miyako…?”

The name fell out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she found herself sitting upright, not even thinking about it. She didn’t move on purpose. She didn’t plan on it, and didn't resist forcefully. She simply found herself moving, her eyes wide, following the voice inside of her heart.

She had finally gone insane. 

The voice of the darkness, of course, berated her for it, hissing it in her ear. Hearing voices and responding to them was the first sign of insanity. Well, truthfully, seeing things that weren’t there probably was, and following them to another world definitely was. Contacting an evil digimon and getting photographs of friends that didn’t exist anymore–or never existed to begin with–probably sat up there as well. 

Hikari didn’t particularly care, though. She pressed her hand to her heart. She could still remember the bright light that shone through the dark. She had to get out of here. She had to…if Miyako, Daisuke, Ichihouji, and Iori were real, even the slightest chance of real, then she had to …

“How…surprising.”

Hikari jumped so badly that she fell off of the edge of the medical cot, scooting backwards several centimeters on her bottom, curling up by the legs of the cot. 

That…voice. 

It wasn’t the voice of darkness from the Dark Ocean. It wasn’t even Dagomon’s voice.

Standing several meters away from her, only about the size of a human man, was a digimon that she had honestly forgotten about in her thoughts, but one that really shouldn’t be much of a surprise, all things considered. The digimon that Ichijouji sent to the Dark Ocean. The digimon that forced Miyako and Iori to kill for the first time. 

Daemon.

“You… you .” Hikari whispered, her voice shaking a little. “ Daemon .”

The digimon’s pale, blue eyes narrowed a little–seemingly pleased that Hikari remembered him, though he didn’t move beyond his spot rooted in the black sand. 

“ Me .”

His voice swept over her, through her–a voice with the same, icy chill as the rest of the Dark Ocean. The power that she distantly remembered remained–honestly, it probably even grew, given the fact that he had spent so long locked away in darkness, the very thing that he had been chasing. 

“What…do you want?” Hikari asked. Her heart picked up speed, then, hammering in her chest. 

She didn’t have Tailmon with her, like she did last time. She didn’t have Miyako or Hawkmon with her. She didn’t have Takeru, and even if she did, he didn’t have Patamon or the Digimental of Hope. The Dark Tower lighthouse was also back, too–but that didn’t make any sense, either. The Digimon Kaiser was long gone, so it didn’t make any sense for a Dark Tower to be put back up–once the Digimon Kaiser was gone, the Dark Towers also went away. 

It didn’t matter, though. None of it mattered. She just had to find some way to get out of here–but she couldn’t let Daemon come through with her. She just couldn’t .

“How considerate, Chosen Child of Light.” Daemon said, his voice entirely flat and calm as he approached her–strangely hovering in the air as he did so, his robes barely whispering against the ground. “That you would be the one to come and greet me. One of the ones who dared defy me. The one who suggested that I be put here to begin with.”

Hikari’s hands shook, as she looked away from him. She didn’t know what she should say. She couldn’t stand defiantly against him–she didn’t have Tailmon to protect her. She still had her D-3, and while it was a powerful device, the D-3 couldn’t do anything without a connection to a digimon–or even if it could, she didn’t have the ability to open a gateway between the Dark Ocean and the real world. 

She…honestly didn’t remember how she’d gotten out the last time. She knew Takeru and Miyako were a part of it. They were the ones who wanted her to get out. 

Takeru…Takeru…come find me!

“Y-yes…” She looked down at the ground in front of her. “I…I…I guess I was…”

It was still a blur, if she were being honest. She could remember snatches of things here and there, but they came bursts–memories that only came to her when the dam burst, and when her mind started to race. She couldn’t hold onto the memories, however. As soon as the moment passed, they faded–dissolving through her hands. It was like trying to catch water, or trying to keep sand from falling through her fingers. She could hold onto it for a single moment, but as soon as it was gone, it was gone. 

“Is that so?”

Daemon approached her, until he was standing an arm’s length away from her–until she could see the strange, third eye on his forehead, and until she could see the glistening fangs extending from his maw. Beneath the cloak, he looked exactly like a depiction of the Christian devil–and it reminded her of how they needed the combined power of two, angel digimon and two Ultimate digimon to take down VenomVamdemon–a digimon that required a prophecy of celestial power shooting through Chosen Children to defeat. 

(The first time.)

Up close, somehow, Daemon seemed so much more like a nightmare come to life–and while Hikari had seen the presence of true despair and hopelessness in Apocalymon, and true chaos and destruction in the Dark Masters and Vamdemon, and true wish for the end of things in Ordinemon, she supposed that it was both the cool facade of control that Daemon put forth, as well as the surrounding miasma of darkness around them–a control that evil rarely put up around her, a confidence that wasn’t loud and boisterous, but cool and collected and painfully certain in their own might.

Daemon seemed to grow, towering over her, reaching two meters before peering down at her. Hikari’s hands shook as she grasped onto the strap of her schoolbag. 

“Well?” Daemon asked, a note of dissatisfaction in his voice.

“W-well..?” Hikari asked, her voice coming out as more of a squeak than anything else. 

Daemon snorted, the sound strange and alien coming from the face, flashing quickly between the hooded mage, and the image of baphomet beneath it. 

“I have waited for this day, you know.” His voice seemed to deepen, echoing, deep and reverberating, filling the air around them, filling her head, filling her mind. Hikari dropped her bag to clap her hands around her ears.

“Y-you…?”Hikari’s voice came out cracking, unsure, a squeak to her own ears. Daemon continued to grow taller, wider, growing to three meters, his horns lengthening, curving at the tips. He hunched forward slightly, wings filling out, as the mantled robe seemed to strain under the barely-concealed anger building in his voice.

“I have. Waited. For this day.” Daemon repeated, looming over Hikari, who took several more steps back, up against the nurse’s cot.

“Wait!” Hikari called out. “Wait, I–I don’t know why you’re so angry at me!” She hoped the sincerity in her voice was enough–she hoped his dissatisfaction would have him let her go. “I don’t remember you–I mean, I do remember you, but not really! I know you’re–you’re Daemon, and you–” She shut her eyes tight, trying to scan her memories, trying to find that day. “I know–I know you attacked us, and that we sealed you here, but that’s all!”

The pressure in the air didn’t seem to lessen–if anything, her words weighed it down even more. Nevertheless, a few moments passed, and she looked up to see Daemon lowering himself–still at his impossible height, but looming over her to look in her face nonetheless. 

He studied her for several moments, and then chuckled–and even that was more than enough to make Hikari shake under his gaze.

“So it seems, human child. I had hoped that the effects weren’t so complete I wouldn’t get my revenge upon you, but nevertheless, it seems that the competence of petty creatures shouldn’t be discounted without discretion. I had believed your presence meant that you were awakened. Still. Our encounter in Hikarigaoka hasn’t entirely escaped your mind–and that is something more than satisfactory for me. While you have certainly sent me to precisely the world I have been wanting to leech the power of, the fact that it is Dagomon’s domain still bothers me–and that is not forgotten.”

Awakened .

Hikari’s eyes widened, and the world zeroed in entirely on that one, singular word.

Awakened.

For the second time, she found herself not listening–not comprehending the rest of the world. Her processing power stopped. Her senses froze. Awakened. She repeated the word in her mind, over and over again. Awakened. To awaken from a dream. To have one’s reality restored to them. To become aware. A million ways of meaning entered her mind, one after the other. He said that she was going to awaken. He said that she was starting to awaken.

The Demon Lord of Wrath continued to talk, but Hikari didn’t listen. The world suddenly made sense to her, and there wasn’t any question about it anymore. Her memories of her life had been taken from her, and they had been put to sleep. All of their friends and family had been put to sleep. All of their memories were stolen, and this was real, tangible proof right in front of her. Right here. Right in the Dark Ocean. Daemon confirmed it. 

She just hadn’t awakened them. 

Every little idiosyncrasy, every little piece of the puzzle that didn’t make sense suddenly fell into place in front of her. If Daemon knew about it, then someone high up must know about it–someone so powerful that Daemon heard about it, even in the Dark Ocean. He had been here, knowing it, waiting for it. Maybe it was the Dark Masters who had been restored. Maybe it was the Evil Gennai. Maybe it was Daemon himself, or Dagomon. Maybe it was BelialVamdemon, since he had come back, too. It could be any number of digimon. 

They were out there. Somewhere. They were out there, and so were everyone’s digimon. She could find them. She could break the spell on all of them. She could bring them back home. 

They were real. 

“So, it seems that you’ve had some sort of epiphany, Chosen Child of Light.” Daemon said, a pleased hum in his voice. Hikari blinked, coming out of it a little, just in time to realize that Daemon’s claws had reached down towards her, and had entirely closed around her, lifting her up into the air, and holding her up above the ground, lifting her up so that she properly was held up by the waist towards Daemon’s eyes. 

Hikari gasped in shock, shaken out of her sudden realization by the fallen angel digimon holding her out in front of him. So excited was she by the possibilities that she had utterly forgotten about the situation–and Daemon’s smile widened behind the hood, utterly pleased by the reaction of fear that he had gotten out of his intended target–someone he had spent a very, very long time holding a grudge against. 

“I had planned to slay all of you together, allowing you the chance to build your hopes up against me, but taking you one at a time is not something that I am entirely opposed to, either.” The fallen angel digimon said, arrogance returning to his tone–the same arrogance that she had seen in so, so many digimon before him. “The way that you were so certain you could send me back to the Digital World, the way that you had pinned your hopes on such a futile action. Something like that made me remember why I wanted to do this so badly. So I could build you up as mighty heroes, and then tear all of you down. I wonder what doing it one at a time could do? Make you disappear, and have your family members agonize over you, searching for you, mourning you. It might even be better than when the other Chosen Children turn on you, after realizing you left them behind.” 

A spear of guilt pierced Hikari, just the same as the fallen angel digimon’s hand crushing around her. It was true–she had fallen into despair at the thought of her companions forgetting her, just the same as she was certain they would feel the same way. 

But she didn’t . 

She didn’t forget about them. Not forever. She had managed to push past the spell–a spell so powerful it reached the Dark Ocean–and she had managed to remember her friends, and she had looked for them, and even in this place, the thought about being able to search for them, the thought about being able to reunite with them, the thought about taking their lost friends home again–

–it gave her Hope .

A piercing, green light suddenly burst from the dark lighthouse–one that shot straight up into the sky in a beam of radiance, before crashing back down towards her. The light completely filled the sky, shooting through the clouds, blinding Hikari in dazzling radiance. It was so warm and brilliant that it felt as if it would burn her–as if the very sun itself had come crashing down from the sky to make up for the millennia it couldn’t warm the Dark Ocean.

The light pierced through her, and though it was blazing with radiance, it didn’t hurt. The green light was the radiance of the dawn, the warmth of the sun in the sky, and Daemon let out a bellow of pain as he couldn’t bear to touch the light anymore, forced to drop Hikari, who did not fall the two meters to the ground, but instead was held in the pillar of light. 

She remembered, distantly, that the Dark Tower hidden within the lighthouse released a pink light that allowed Tailmon to digivolve into Angewoman. She wondered if something similar happened–if a miracle had occurred as it did before. 

Takeru . 

She knew it was Takeru again, somehow. That he had thought of her. That he had wished for her to return home. 

She reached for her schoolbag, and it came to her, lifting off the ground with her wish. She opened up her bag, and retrieved her D-3, where she saw the Crest of Hope emblazoned upon her screen. Takeru .

The warmth that swept through her heart wasn’t just because of the light, but also with the affection that filled her with the thought of his wish to bring her home. 

Hikari lifted her gaze to Daemon, who narrowed his glowing, blue eyes at her, and Hikari didn’t say another word, but instead lifted her D-3 up to the sky. 

“Chosen Children, let’s roll!”

Even though it was just her, even though it really shouldn’t have sounded right coming from her, her D-3 still responded to her wish, and with the small miracle created by a wish, a portal was opened above her, guarded by the Crest of Hope, and the might of HolyAngemon’s power shielded her and the gate to the real world from allowing Daemon to follow after her.

Hikari was thrown out of the gate when she arrived back into the real world, tossed unceremoniously out of the computer on the school nurse’s desk, thrown with momentum across the room and into the opposite wall. The wind was honestly knocked out of her from her landing, and she blinked for a moment at the sudden force from it, genuinely not sure if her trips had ever been this rough before. Going to the Digital World during the Odaiba Fog Incident had been a graceful trip, floating into the sky, and a return home on a trolley . It was never like this before .

Hikari stood up, brushing herself off and looking around. There were no students around, no teachers around. Grabbing her bag, she found that the door to the nurse’s office had been locked, and that she had to unlock it from the inside to leave.

It seemed that by the time that she emerged into the real world, it was dark. 

The sun had long since gone down, and all the lights in the school had been shut off, with not even custodial staff around. She had a distant flash of nostalgia–something about this not being the first time that she had snuck around in a school after hours–but it was a distant touch of emotion, and not really something that she could hold onto for more than a few seconds after it entered her mind.

She decided that she had to hold onto those emotions, when they came, and whatever thoughts prompted them. If Daemon was right, and she was still awakening from whatever spell had been put on them, then it seemed that the feelings that linked to her memories were going to be the key to breaking the spell on herself, and the spell on all of her friends.

As Hikari exited the school, she was a little surprised to catch the time at eight in the evening from one of the wall-mounted clocks. She honestly didn’t think about how much time had passed, if any. She didn’t really remember if time had passed the last time that she had gone to the Dark Ocean, or if it was some sort of strange, new time dilation that had been created–the same sort of time dilation that happened the first time her brother had gone to the Digital World, before the portals opening in the sky had broken the time shift, and they had all been set free.

Come to think of it, she honestly didn’t remember if resetting the Digital World had changed it, too. They hadn’t been in the Digital World long enough for the time dilation to take place. She knew it had been created after sealing Apocalymon away, so it possibly wasn’t the case since Meicoomon was still around when the Digital World was reset, but she wasn’t sure. Either way, it was still something to look into. 

Hikari started to make her way home, and as she did so, she took out her D-3, where the Crest of Hope was still emblazoned on it–glowing faintly in her hand. 

She wasn’t sure about this change, either. She had thought that the Crest of Hope had responded to her because of Takeru’s wish for her to come home, but it should have gone away the moment that she re-entered the real world. Was Takeru’s wish to protect her beyond entering the real world? If so, did that mean that he had also realized that he had his memories taken from him, even after he had told her that everything she had remembered was a lie? 

It was time to re-organize her thoughts, Hikari decided. Now that she had new information, and she had a new goal in mind, she had to properly sit down and think things through–and she had to make sure that she started planning a way to show everyone, and to organize them together to get their friends back. 

She might not have been the leader of either of their groups, but she was still the Eighth Chosen Child, and she was still the Chosen Child of Light. She was still the Chosen Child that Vamdemon had been afraid of, and she was the Chosen Child that Homeostasis had chosen to talk through. She was still Taichi’s little sister. That meant she could still lead them when they needed someone who was able to lead–and that meant that she wasn’t someone who had to be protected anymore. 

If she had to go and save her friends by herself, even without Tailmon, she was going to do it. No matter what.

Her memories were a little more sure in her head, and that meant that she didn’t have to keep writing the notes about her memories on herself. That was certainly a relief, because it meant that she could be a little more certain in the things that she knew, and that meant that she didn’t have to keep leaving things out for herself in the future. She could keep writing new things, and she could be sure that she wouldn’t forget them. That was good.

As Hikari climbed the steps to her home, she blinked, a little bit confused. Her house slippers seemed to have been put away, and there was no bowl of food left out for her. Her mother didn’t leave her a note, either, explaining the situation, or asking about her. The lights were turned off–something that wasn’t too unusual, but the light outside wasn’t left on for her, and she had to use her house key to get inside. 

After making her way to her room, she noted that all of her notes had vanished, and her laundry had been put away and folded up, with her computer still unplugged, but all of her school supplies stored in her closet. She wondered if her mom had decided to clean up her room, which was a little unusual, but still a little out of the ordinary, she guessed. 

Could she have already started forgetting about me?

The thought came completely unbidden into Hikari’s head, but she couldn’t help the cold shiver that ran down her spine. It…seemed utterly impossible to think about, but she had been left alone in the nurse’s office without any staff supervision, without calling home, and without her mom checking up on her. 

In fact, checking her phone, her mother didn’t send her any texts, any calls, or any e-mails. She was in high school, so it wasn’t entirely unheard of for her mother to show her more freedom than she had in elementary school…but still. 

Her room had been left in place for the most part, though. Her bed was still here, and her clothes, and her extra uniforms. Hikari sat down on her chair, opening her notebook, and she started writing. 

1.) We have been put under some kind of spell by a powerful entity that stole our memories of the junior Chosen Children, and all of our adventures with them. 

2.) The spell works by suppressing our memories, but Daemon of the Daemon Corps in the Dark Ocean expects us to eventually remember, so he can take revenge on us.

3.) The Crest of Hope reacted to me in the Dark Ocean, so the Crests are still around. Maybe they react to someone thinking about you?

4.) The Crest of Hope is still reacting to me, and I don’t know why. I need to talk to Takeru about this. I also need to wake Takeru up. 

5.) Time may or may not pass differently in the Dark Ocean, but I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how long I spent in the Dark Ocean, because of the fact that there aren’t any time keeping devices in there, and there isn’t any sun to measure if days have passed, or just hours. 

6.) Daemon is still in the Dark Ocean, and Daemon still remembers us. I don’t know if it is because of how powerful he is, or if it is because the Dark Ocean isn’t the Digital World. The lighthouse from before is also back in the Dark Ocean, and I don’t know if it’s a Dark Tower, or if it's some kind of other structure modeled after it. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be a Dark Tower since the Digimon Kaiser is gone, but I don’t really know why a Dark Tower was in the Dark Ocean in the first place, or why there were Evil Spirals in the Dark Ocean, so that’s something we still have to look into.

7.) The thing that took our memories is powerful enough for Daemon to know him. I don’t know who or what it is. I am guessing it is the Evil Gennai, but I don’t know. Daemon didn’t call it a digimon or a human, like the Agents, but I don’t know if Evil Gennai is one of the Agents, either. We still haven’t been contacted by Gennai since everything that happened with Meicoomon, so I don’t know if Evil Gennai is a digimon of some kind, or if he’s one of the Agents. That’s also something we have to start looking into.

8.) Our friends are still out there. Daemon didn’t say they were dead, just forgotten. After being in the Dark Ocean for a day, mom also started to forget me. I wonder if our friends are in the Dark Ocean, or the Digital World? I think we would have noticed if they were in the Digital World, so maybe the Dark Ocean? I’m not sure. I wished hard to see them in the Dark Ocean, and my Crest didn’t react, and Takeru’s Crest of Hope didn’t reach out for them, either. I don’t know what any of that means. I do know that they’re still out there, though, and that I have to find them. I heard Miyako’s voice when I needed her words the most in the Dark Ocean, so I think they’re still out there, and we need to find them.

Hikari closed her notebook again, and she started changing into her pajamas. She was going to have to stay home tomorrow, again, so that she could recover and so that she could think of a plan. 

She wasn’t sure what had triggered her trip back to the Dark Ocean–if it was thinking that her friends weren’t real, if it was the words Takeru said to her, if it was an act of sheer coincidence, if it was Dagomon or Daemon calling to her. Either way, despite how awful the experience had been, she was honestly thankful inside. It had been the thing that she had been looking for–proof that she could cling to, proof that even Takeru would listen to. She had the Crest of Hope with her, now. Maybe it was his own heart reaching out to find people important to the both of them. Maybe it was Takeru discovering that he was wrong, and wanting to find some way to apologize to her. Maybe it was simply Takeru realizing that she had been missing from school, and taking longer than the others to forget about her. It honestly didn’t matter at this point. She was going to drag him by the hand with her no matter what, and even if he didn’t believe her, she was going to find some way to make her believe.

No matter what, they would see each other again.

(May - 2006)

“Oh no…”

Meiko Mochizuki chewed on the edge of her pen, furiously gnawing at it as she observed the data fed back to her from her screens. 

This was bad. Really bad. Really, really bad.

It honestly wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place, not really. The process was a fail-safe procedure–something that was supposed to happen in the later stages of total system failure. A promise that had been made to her–that they were going to include a dummy system just in case, so Meiko could do her job without worrying, so that Meiko wouldn’t get too upset and let her childish emotions get in the way, just like her partner digimon had done before her, just like how she’d ended up doing at the end of the whole thing.

So much of the plan had ended up in the real world, when it really wasn’t supposed to be. The reset happened a lot earlier after everyone saw how badly everything was going, and how hesitant Meiko had been about it. They didn’t want Meiko’s childish feelings to end up bringing Meicoomon back after the reset, so her team had gone ahead and pushed for it, even when it had ended up with the domino effect of the partner digimon not recognizing their humans, and dragging the fight out a lot longer in the real world than Meiko had liked. Still, everyone had been furious at how much damage had been done to the real world, and Meiko apologized as many times as she physically could, but that didn’t change the fact that she had gone and screwed things up again, even if she really hadn’t meant to. 

She guessed that this was another one of those times. 

She really didn’t see the need for everyone to suffer, so she tried to make things as smooth as possible, even when it wasn’t really necessary. She didn’t want them to remember the bad times, so she smoothed out the rough edges of their lives, and she made sure that things went perfectly for them. She remembered how much Mimi liked fashion, and how much she enjoyed New York City, so she made sure that everything was going great for Mimi in America, even if it meant that Meiko never saw her, and even if it meant that Meiko ended up missing her more than she could ever really know. Taichi wanted to become a leader, so she made sure that he got into the University that he wanted, and that his application was accepted, no matter how much he dragged his feet. She made sure that Koushiro’s loans were accepted, and got him accepted for the office space that he rented, even if he didn’t really have proof that he was a reliable person beyond his high grades. 

He wasn’t much of a hacker, after all, so he didn’t really notice the fact that things were going so well for him–none of them did, and she made sure that none of them did, because she didn’t want them to break things for themselves. Not after how much they deserved this. Not after how much that they had done for her. 

She’d never really had any friends before, after all. Not real ones. Not human ones. Not ones who took a chance so easily on someone they just met. 

Sure, it was part of what she’d programmed. She’d programmed for the events of everything to happen–she’d manipulated so much code that her fingers ached for days. Some tweaks, some changes, and some pushing of circumstances brought all of them together, to the point where she’d ended up in Taichi’s class, and Mimi had come right back to Odaiba with her, in the middle of the year. She had taken a while to work up the courage to admit it, but even if she knew that everything was fake, it was still probably the best, short while that she ever had. 

She sort of understood why people got into video games, after that. She had never really had a chance to play them, but to have the simulated feeling of true companionship, even if it was behind a veil of artificiality. She really understood why people got addicted to things like that. She really felt for them. She felt pathetic for that, but she really did. 

It also helped with the guilt, really, to think of it like a game. That was something that she didn’t yet have the guts to admit to herself. That this place wasn’t a game–that these people weren’t a game. She knew it in her heart, but she still kept them at an arm’s length for that reason. Playing with people’s hearts wasn’t a game. 

She still didn’t want to admit that was what she was doing–both figuratively and metaphorically–but that was exactly what she was doing.

Still, she was too much of a coward to completely commit to it, and that was why she had begged for this–begged for the possibility of them to be able to wake up, instead of the original alternative that they had all pushed for. Meiko had gotten down on her hands and knees, crying until her glasses fogged up, crying until she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t be more grateful for the fact that she had been listened to. She couldn’t have shed more tears of joy when she was told that the backup system would be installed–that she was in charge of monitoring their progress, just to pull out all of the fail safes in case a procedure like this occurred. 

Meiko did. 

She fucking did–she put her nose down to the grindstone to be sure that they lived the best lives that they could possibly imagine. She gave them everything that she could think of without physically appearing to give everything to them. She gave her entire heart and soul out, and then more, and she guessed that it still wasn’t enough, because Hikari disappeared from the screen yet again, and when she appeared, she appeared hours after she had vanished–from a gate that opened and closed again. From a gate that wasn’t even to the Digital World. From a gate that nobody had authorized for Hikari Yagami to enter. 

Meiko buried her face in her hands. 

This was bad. This was really, really bad. She knew that it was going to fall on her to do something about this. She knew that she was going to have to redouble her work to keep the rest of the Chosen Children asleep–or, heaven forbid, for any of the ones who were truly asleep to start waking up.

That would be the worst case scenario. A critical failure of the highest regard–and she would be the one tasked with clean-up duty in that scenario. Something she was already technically in charge of, but definitely something that she didn’t want to get her hands dirty with. 

Not when her last clean-up duty had involved getting her digimon executed, even if it wasn’t with her own, two hands.

It was kind of ironic, she guessed, that Raguelmon’s species was a fallen angel digimon who fell, and was still tasked with slaying other, fallen angel digimon, regardless of the severity of her crimes. She guessed it was another reason that she was assigned to Meicoomon as a partner. In the end, the two of them were exactly alike in that way, too. The two of them were tasked with slaying the people they were closest to, no matter how much it hurt them, and no matter how much they wanted to go back to the peaceful self that existed before they ended up neck deep in the muck and dirt, before they were permanently stained with blood to the point that there was no way they could go back, even if they desperately wanted to find a way to go back to where it all started. 

Meiko removed her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She sneezed, once, twice, and then she sniffled, and put her face in her hands.

Nobody else but Hikari Yagami had even started the process, and that was a good thing. Hikari didn’t have Tailmon, either, so that was even better. All she had to do was to start with a little tampering, and she just had to make sure that she tampered with the others enough so that they couldn’t possibly believe her–and she had to make sure that Hikari didn’t get into the Digital World to retrieve Tailmon at all costs. Once they had a breach to the Digital World, all bets were off, and she would have to move into the next protocol. 

She really didn’t want to go into that. She really, really didn’t. She wished that Hikari would just listen for her own good, but she also knew that the Chosen Children were stubborn. 

She’d been a part of them, after all, for however brief a time. She knew that better than anyone here–even if she didn’t know as well as they must have. 

She missed them. She missed them a lot.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Chapter Text

“I went outside. Tried taking in the billions of stars above, lingering long enough to allow each point of light the chance to scratch a deep hole in the back of my retina, so that when I finally did turn to face the dark surrounding forest I thought I saw the billion eyes of a billion cats blinking out, in the math of the living, the sum of the universe, the stories of history , a life older than anyone could have ever imagined. And even after they were gone--fading away together, as if they really were one--something still lingered in those sweet folds of black pine , sitting quietly, almost as if it too were waiting for something to wake.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

(April - 2003) 

“Come on, Takeru, that’s unfair!”

“Then you just have to get better, Daisuke!”

The evening sun settled low in the sky, sinking slowly over the horizon, leaving streaks of blood cutting through the dusk. Stars were just starting to wink to life in the inky twilight, mirrored in the sheets of water rocking gently against the rolling hills below. Just above the scenic view, inside of an arcade settling down for the evening crowd, the Chosen Children ignored life’s responsibilities for a night–something quite well-deserved, after a year of fighting and planning against the forces of darkness in the Digital World.

Daisuke Motomiya manned the wheel of a racing game, sitting in a large, car-shaped controller side-by-side with Takeru Takaishi, who manned the opposite one. They had been going for a few rounds at that point, and were pretty evenly matched–both winning two rounds, and both losing two. Daisuke pushed down on the accelerating pedal, taking a risky maneuver and speeding around Takeru, who managed to snag a power up and hurled a banana peel in the direction of Daisuke’s kart. Daisuke swore a few times as he drove the go-kart off the track again, hitting the wall and going right into the water below. He groaned as he buried his face in his hands, dropping full-body against the wheel controller, and Takeru laughed out loud as he clapped Daisuke on the shoulder, reaching across the aisle (figuratively and literally) to do so.

“Don’t worry about it! You’ll do better next time–unless you wanna go again? Loser pays for dinner.”

“No way, you just want to make me pay!” Daisuke complained. “And you know I don’t have the money for that!” He pulled his face into an exaggerated pout, sticking out his lower lip and crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. Hearing his claim, Iori paused and started to go through his bag, looking for spare cash while Upamon looked skeptically at Daisuke from Iori’s head.

“So you’re saying I’ll win, then?” Takeru bounced his eyebrows mischievously back at Daisuke, leaning in playfully, while Hikari giggled behind her hands, and Miyako rolled her eyes and went back to drinking her milkshake. From the tables she was sitting at, Poromon, Chibimon, and Plotmon dug into a plate of croquettes that Hikari had thoughtfully bought for them, while Ken and Minomon quietly drank two milk teas across from her, having already arranged to stay the night, his overnight bag sitting next to him. Tokomon, as usual, had taken a perch atop Takeru’s head, and backseat drove the entire time.

Daisuke paused for a moment, holding his finger up in the air, before he puffed up his chest again and planted his hands on his hips. “...you’re on!”

“Don’t worry about it, Iori!” Miyako called across the table, startling the kendo expert, who startled and dropped his wallet. “Hikari and I are already planning on helping out!”

“...did you already ask Hikari, or are you just telling her that she’s helping out?” Iori asked, his brows furrowing. Ken snorted at that, and hid his chuckle behind his hand, while Miyako shot him a quick glare, and then waved her hands back at Iori. 

“Hikari and I already arranged it, so it’s fine!”

“...if Hikari says so.” Iori picked up his wallet and tucked it back into his backpack. He walked over to sit by Miyako, who scooted inwards until she was up against the window. Miyako passed a croquette to him, and Iori accepted, though he didn’t seem very hungry, and just tucked it into a napkin before Upamon asked to eat it, which Iori gracefully allowed.

Hikari got up from her spot next to Ken to grab some menus, and Takeru cheered as he managed to pull first place. He turned to give Daisuke a handshake, and Daisuke pouted for a moment longer, before he shrugged and shook Takeru’s hand, his sourness at his loss instantly fading as Takeru praised how close the round came. The two of them walked together back to their group table, Daisuke stealing Hikari’s spot as he slid in next to Ken, and stealing a croquette from Chibimon, who protested loudly at the thievery. Takeru glanced between the two booths, shrugged, and sat next to Iori, dropping his hat on the younger Chosen who protested as loud as Chibimon did at the childish treatment. 

Hikari returned with six menus, blinked at the seating shuffle, then shrugged and sat next to Daisuke, who instantly lit up while sitting next to Hikari, which Takeru rolled his eyes at, but didn’t comment on. 

“So, what does everyone want?” Hikari asked, as she passed out the menus. 

“A bowl of beef ramen!” Both Chibimon and Daisuke exclaimed at the same time, in exactly the same tone. Chibimon scrambled over the menu to sit in Daisuke’s lap, and Miyako hummed, squinting in thought. 

“I guess that sounds good. I’ve just had snack food all day, something hearty would be nice.” 

“Hell yeah, you’re getting a sense of taste!” Daisuke said with a nod of approval. Iori’s brow furrowed. 

“Grandfather would approve…we have had snacks all day. One needs a good meal to have a healthy body and mind.”

“I want more croquettes though, dagya!” Upamon added, bouncing on Iori’s menu. Iori sighed.

“And more croquettes for Upamon.” 

“Alright, four bowls of ramen, and another order of croquettes…” Hikari stuck her tongue between her teeth as she wrote. “Takeru, do you want to split some tonkatsu with me?”

“Sure, if Plotmon and Tokomon agree.”

“I think I’ll just share with Upamon.” Plotmon said. 

“I’ll share with you, Takeru!” Tokomon said, and jumped down from Takeru’s head to land on the table with Plotmon. 

“What about Poromon?” Ken asked, glancing at the bird, who puffed up at being acknowledged. 

“I’m quite full, thank you.” He said, sounding quite pleased at being acknowledged. Ken glanced back down at the menu.

“I suppose I’ll have beef ramen, too, if that’s alright with you, Minomon.”

“Yeah, yeah!” The bagworm jumped. 

“Hell yeah–I knew you guys would come around!” Daisuke said, smugly. “Who’s got the best dream now?”

Ken reached for a croquette, and split it in half for Minomon. “Nobody ever said it was a bad one. Owning your own business is admirable.”

Daisuke looked genuinely pleased at the compliment, grinning brightly, and Takeru tapped him on the arm.

“Remember though, Daisuke, you’re paying for all of this.” 

“Not fair!”

(May - 2006)

The moonlight streamed through the open window. 

Takeru Takaishi laid in bed, the pale blue and silver pooling in thin rivers through the curtains. He’d left the window open just a crack–enough for the quiet breeze to whisper occasionally against the air–while the ceiling fan overhead made slow, lazy turns in the muggy, spring night. 

The cherry blossoms had long since fallen, leaving bare trees as the early spring turned to blooming season. The height of June would be when it became too hot to sleep with a completely closed window, so Takeru took advantage of the pleasant beginning of the year–before it turned thirty degrees and he had to carry around a fan. 

Where’s Tokomon?

The thought flitted by absently, and he sat up slowly, the blanket falling off of his waist. Tokomon would usually sleep right up next to him, to the point that he sometimes couldn’t breathe in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like him to go wandering around in the middle of the night–he was protective over Takeru, sometimes to the extreme. He didn’t like to leave him alone for a moment–so where was he?

Takeru swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his forehead. He’d had a hard time sleeping lately, something he honestly blamed on how sick Hikari was getting again. He didn’t really like being alone in school. It wasn’t like he wasn’t popular–quite the opposite, really–but it was because he was polite and respectful and generally a cheerful person to be around. 

He was called someone reliable–someone that one could put their trust in. Someone a person could confide in. He tried his best to live up to those expectations, the ones his mother told him that a proper man should be, the ones that Yamato and Taichi modeled for him. A good leader, a good caretaker, a good role model for younger kids. 

He generally lived up to those standards, and people liked him for it, but that was usually as far as it went. Girls liked him, and guys wanted to be friends with him, and teachers liked him. He’d turned down quite a few invitations to the Sunset Coffee Shop from girls, and he’d gratefully accepted love confessions, and gently turned them down. 

It…was just a little too much, he guessed. He could never really accept honmei choco because of it. He didn’t really like the idea of someone only seeing the face he made out of obligation, the face he made because it was expected of him. Honestly, it was his own fault for feeling like he had to show that face to begin with, and he damn well knew it, but, well…

Hikari wasn’t the only person who felt the pressure to live up to the things set before her–and she also wasn’t the only person who had trouble letting go of it.

Takeru switched on his lamp. 

He honestly never remembered his dreams–something which sort of served as both a good and bad thing throughout his life. He was never a kid who woke up from a nightmare–something his mother was quite happy about. Whenever he woke up from a dream, it would always fade quickly–falling away in mere moments. He sort of wondered if it was one of those unconscious things he did, sometimes. A need to not be a burden manifesting as a need to take care of his own problems, and then showing up as forgetting what bothered him in the middle of the night, even in his dreams. He really couldn’t tell. It probably didn’t matter, anyway. 

He grabbed his D-3 off of his desk, and shuffled into the hallway. A nearby clock read three in the morning. Takeru honestly wasn’t the type of person to leave his house much, especially at night. He felt a pretty deep responsibility to protect his mom in general–particularly after the infected digimon rampaged through Odaiba last year. There was going to be a large memorial because of it–usually, only the eight of them remembered the Odaiba fog incident. This year, after everything that happened with Ordinemon, they were going to hold a memorial service on the same day as the Odaiba fog incident–something the rest of the kids were planning to attend. 

Takeru changed into a pair of shorts and a shirt, and slipped on his outside shoes in the genkan, stopping only to grab a baseball cap, wallet, and keys. He shut the door behind him, locked it, and stood on the outdoor balcony, looking upwards at the sky. 

The Digital World was ripped open, once, high above the clouds. They’d been pulled right into it, as if the world was welcoming them, as if Spiral Mountain were a great enough defacement of the universe that it demanded them to fix it. He supposed it must have been, after the destruction the Dark Masters had wrought upon it–after Puppetmon had the power to control them with dolls, after Piedmon had the ability to turn them into dolls. 

Distantly, he remembered the fact that his Crest had only glowed once, the entire time he was out in the Digital World. It only glowed when he was completely on his own, when he had only himself to rely on, and the faith that his brother could be saved. It reminded him a little of the way that Yamato had acted after Cherrymon talked to him–when Yamato believed that he couldn’t be worthy of friendship. It also reminded him of when PicoDevimon convinced Sora that she wasn’t capable of love, back before they met Vamdemon for the first time.

It was a little funny–some of their Crests were pretty obvious. Sora, Taichi, Hikari, Koushiro, and Mimi bled their Crests from their hearts, right from the very beginning. Jyou did, too, when he grew confidence in himself and his abilities. Yamato eventually did, when he stopped holding himself to such high standards–something he had in common with Ichijouji. Cherrymon would have had a field day with Ichijouji .

It honestly, at the end of the day, seemed that he was the only one who had trouble with his Crest, and he couldn’t help but see the irony in that–the fact that he was having so much trouble with Hope made him feel despair .

He thought about talking to Yamato about it–Yamato was the one who struggled the most with his Crest, after Sora–but he decided against it, and against talking to Sora. Sora hardly talked to any of them anymore, because of her ikebana practice–even Yamato, who she was supposed to be seeing. He couldn’t talk to Yamato, either–he didn’t want to rely on Yamato to take care of him anymore, especially when Takeru had spent so long trying to prove that he was someone who didn’t need to be taken care of–when Takeru spent so long trying to prove that he wasn’t a ball and chain.

Well, there was certainly one person left who would get the idea of not connecting to your Crest–one person who would probably get it more than any of the others. 

Takeru took out his phone, and scrolled through his email list. He paused at the end of his contacts, and frowned. 

The empty space right above Yamato Ishida didn’t make any sense. Ken Ichijoui and Miyako Inoue should be right above him, and under Iori Hida. Takeru scrolled up and down a few times, just to make sure that he wasn’t missing anything. His list started with his brother’s and father’s name. It didn’t make any sense.

And where was Tokomon?

That’s right.That was the whole reason that he was out here in the first place. Tokomon wasn’t in his bed, and he had to go find him. That was why he was outside at three in the morning. That was what he had to do. 

He tucked his phone into his pocket, and he started walking towards the elevator. 

He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, because of this. The trains ran from five in the morning to midnight, so he had been using taxis for the hour-long ride. It probably wasn’t going to do much–there wasn’t any real point to begin with, and he kind of knew that in the back of his mind–but it was more or less the only real chance he had, unless he was going to try and make it all the way back to the beginning in a single night.

He guessed he kind of was, though.

It would be the third night in a row that he woke up in the middle of the night to do this–and the third night in a row that he didn’t get any sleep because of it. He wasn’t really going to have any money by the end of the week, and that was pretty unusual, because he was normally pretty responsible and didn’t buy anything he couldn’t afford. He could technically afford this, though–by numbers alone he could.

He called for the taxi with a payphone, and he waited for a few minutes. He had the sense that he really shouldn’t use a public telephone–he didn’t want anyone listening in. He didn’t want anybody to hear—especially after half of the names of his contacts had mysteriously disappeared from his phone.

He boarded the taxi, ducking his head inside. He had to go find Tokomon–no, probably Patamon if he was in the Digital World, still. 

He had to go find Patamon, and to get there, he needed to go back to the Digital World.

He had the strangest feeling, too, that he’d find answers for why everyone else disappeared, too, if he went there. 

Three hours later, Takeru found himself standing at his bathroom mirror, bags under his eyes, already in his morning clothes. He changed out of them, into his school uniform, hands shaking from exhaustion in the process.

Takeru Takaishi never remembered his dreams, even from when he was a small child. His mother never told him about his sleepwalking because of it–because there was honestly no need to tell him to begin with. All she had to do was put a lock and chain on his door, and the problem was solved, and she would be done with it.

The entirety of the night before, from waking up to coming back home, was entirely forgotten by the time that he started going to school.

(May - 2003)

“So, what are you thinking about, Hikari?”

Hikari swung her legs idly, sitting on a bench in front of Odaiba Beach. She sat next to Miyako, having met up with the other after school, across from Odaiba Elementary, and right down the road from Odaiba Middle School, where Miyako attended that year. 

Daisuke had made it to a permanent position on the school’s soccer team that spring, so he started attending practice after school. He had almost burst with joy upon hearing it, and he immediately sent out a mass email to all of the Chosen Children in his glee. Taichi personally showed up to congratulate him for it, and the smile that Daisuke had given could have melted the polar ice caps. Yamato put him in a headlock and almost noogied the poor kid bald, and Mimi sent him snacks from America in a care package with how excited she was for him. A couple of the other Chosen Children had been confused with how eager Mimi was to celebrate for him, but apart from Taichi and Yamato, Daisuke had always been closest to Mimi, so it made sense for Hikari, and she was honestly excited for him.

The only other person who was probably as excited as Daisuke was most likely Ichijouji, who immediately joined the soccer team at his school again when he heard. It kind of surprised Hikari that he acted that way–he honestly didn’t strike Hikari as the competitive type anymore, but the two boys instantly started going at it about how they were going to face each other on the field again. Every weekend since then, Daisuke and Ichijouji practiced in Daiba Park, and Taichi had taken to joining them between studying sessions, to the point that, while he wasn’t really captain of any soccer team anymore, he talked like an old man managing one again–something that Yamato had taken to teasing him about. 

Iori, of course, didn’t change much–there was a sort of steadiness about him that was comforting, at least to Hikari. Faithfulness. He continued to study kendo with his grandfather after school, diligent and thorough and calm. 

Between Iori, Daisuke, and Ichijouji, the three of them and their after school clubs took up quite a bit of time–and Takeru had been withdrawing again lately, with his vague smile and assurances everything was fine, leaving Miyako and Hikari alone quite a few days of the week. 

Hikari…guessed that she didn’t mind. She loved Miyako, of course. Miyako was her best friend, and had been since the two of them became Jogress partners. Miyako supported her solidly through everything, broke her out of her thought spirals, and made her express herself when nobody else could–something she desperately needed in her life. 

Still…

As much as she loved Miyako…

“I’m…a little worried.” She admitted, pulling her knees up to her chin. Miyako hummed a little, sitting back, crossing one leg over the other, not really caring about the fact that she was wearing her uniform as she did so.

“Is it about Takeru?” She asked. “I noticed he’s been a little off lately. What do you think it’s about?”

“Well, that, and…” Hikari plucked at her gloves. “It’s also the fact that…you know this isn’t the first Chosen Children team I’ve been a part of, right?”

“Yeah, I remember. You told us in Daiba Park.” Miyako gestured vaguely in the direction of said park. “We were also there on the Odaiba fog memorial thing you guys do. So it’s about the older Chosen Children? Is that it?”

“Kind of.” It was…a hard thing to put into words. Hikari felt herself swallowing around them, her throat tightening a little. “What I mean is…we were all still in elementary school when we first became Chosen Children back then, too. Takeru and I were still Iori’s age, and everyone else was in fifth grade. We all became really close over the summer vacation that we all had together–we talked about our hopes and dreams, and we talked about our futures. We talked about the fact that we were all destined to be a team together, and the fact that we weren’t the first set of Chosen Children. We all had to learn to trust each other, because of the fact that we were all each other had. The others even went before I did, and they faced more enemies than I did. I wasn’t there to face Etemon and the Dark Network, or Devimon on File Island, and his Dark Gears. I entered the group at the time of the Odaiba fog incident.”

Miyako hummed quietly as she listened. She heard a rough story of the whole adventure, and had a loose idea of the enemies everyone faced, even if she didn’t have much beyond a basic summary. She knew who Etemon and Devimon and the Dark Masters were, and she knew who Apocalymon was–and of course she knew who Vamdemon was, being that he’d ended up being their final enemy.

Miyako had a lot of respect for her seniors–all of them did. They were the ones who saved the world before Miyako even knew that another world existed. They were the ones who defeated the end of the world. Miyako and her group…all they ever ended up defeating were Vamdemon, and a bunch of humans that worked for him. 

She honestly preferred that, though, if she were being honest. The stuff that Hikari and the older Chosen Children went through sounded terrifying, and the closest that she could compare it to had been their fight with Armagemon, which the older Chosen Children had helped them fight in the first place–and the other fight she could compare the battle with the Dark Masters too had been the fight with Kimeramon , which none of them liked to think about, and which nobody had brought up after the fight with the Dark Tower Thunderballmon, for pretty obvious reasons–especially after Takeru had gone on several rants about how unforgivable the creation of BlackWarGreymon was. 

That had been an uncomfortable time for all of them.

No, Miyako was perfectly happy performing a long territory war with Mummymon and Archnemon after school, and she honestly preferred it that way. It had been something that she’d even had to come to terms with, before they’d entered the Digimon Kaiser’s base–that she had been treating the whole task of being a Chosen Child like a game, and that she needed to take the task of being a Chosen Child more seriously if she was going to be a real Chosen Child, like Mimi and Sora before her. 

It was still something that she struggled with, if she were being honest. All of the declarations that she had made when she retrieved the Digimental of Purity were still true in her eyes. She was clumsy, loud, annoying, and had a constant case of putting her foot in her mouth–something that she slowly learned that people loved her for, but something that still made her something of a terrible girl in society, especially compared to her older sisters who were already in high school and making something of themselves. 

To Miyako, there honestly couldn’t be anything wrong with the older Chosen, except for maybe the fact that they didn’t have the power of Jogress. Miyako honestly sort of figured that was because the older Chosen didn’t have D-3’s the way that the younger Chosen did, owing to the fact that only Tailmon and Patamon were descendants of the same ancient digimon that could perform Digimental evolution–except for Agumon and Gabumon, who could fuse–though even then, it wasn’t the same as Jogress evolution, because they could certainly get stronger, though they didn’t get any stages higher.

It was just an unhappy coincidence, that was all. As far as Miyako was concerned, if Palmon could still become Lilimon back then, her idol could take on the world.

“What about them, though?” Miyako asked, her head tilted to the side. “It sounds like you all completely did everything you were supposed to do. I…I know some of you wanted to be able to help out more, but you all did a lot that we couldn’t do. They helped us invade the base, and they helped us cover for our parents, and we were happy to help you all when Diabolomon popped back up on the internet, and sent a bunch of Kuramon out into the real world, before Gennai gave you all the power of the Crests back. Is it still about not being able to help us back then…?”

Hikari blinked for a moment, and then she laughed a little, holding her hand to her mouth. Miyako blushed a little in embarrassment, puffing out her cheeks, and Hikari shook her head, honestly a little lightened by the embarrassed face that Miyako made. 

“No…but I’m sure they wouldn’t be happy to remember back then.” Hikari finally said. “What I mean is…back when Diabolomon first emerged on the internet, Koushiro was the first to notice it. He started trying to get in touch with everyone, so that we could all get together to fight it.”

“I remember that fight, I saw it.” Miyako cut in, and Hikari nodded. “But…it was only Tentomon, Patamon, WarGreymon, and MetalGarurumon that joined in the fight. Where was everyone else?”

“That’s…what I mean.” Hikari sighed. “When Koushiro and Taichi sent out a message to everyone…Mimi was in America, Jyou was studying for prep school, Yamato and Takeru were visiting their grandparents, Sora was having a fight with Taichi, and…” She blushed a little in embarrassment. 

“And? What about you?” Miyako asked, tilting her head to the side. 

“Well…I was at a birthday party.” Hikari buried her face in her hands, and Miyako couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Hikari huffed, but after a moment, she started laughing too–she guessed it was kind of funny.

“Right, right.” Miyako giggled. “Is that it? Do you feel bad about the fact that you missed the first fight with Diabolomon? You did act really worried about Taichi when he appeared again on the Internet.”

Hkari’s smile slowly faded, and she rested her chin back on her knee. “No, it’s…something Taichi talked about, and something everyone else talked about, too. Back when we all first got our D-3’s. Sora talked about how it was hard to get everyone back together, because…at the end of the day, we all weren’t really friends to begin with.”

“What do you mean?” Miyako asked, head tilting. “You guys seem like pretty good friends to me.”

“Taichi knew Sora and Koushiro through soccer, and Yamato and Takeru are brothers, and Taichi is my brother, but that’s about it. Mimi was already popular in school, Jyou is busy preparing for studying to be a doctor, and I was too sick as a kid to really have friends. People like me, but it’s because…I just don’t cause much of a fuss, and I don’t really fight with anyone. Like I said before…I admire you because you’re such a strong person, and you’re able to speak your mind. I can’t really do that.”

Miyako reached over and squeezed Hikari’s hand. “So you wish the older Chosen were better friends, is that it?”

“Kind of.” Hikari gave a small, half smile to Miyako. “What I mean is…we are all friends. I know we’re all friends. But it’s hard to feel that way when we don’t talk, and we don’t see each other, and we don’t ever spend time together.” 

Something hard welled in her throat. 

“So…you miss them?” Miyako, endlessly patient, tried again and again, not minding how hard it was for Hikari to talk. Hikari appreciated her for that–appreciated her for the fact that she never got annoyed or impatient with her, appreciated the fact that she gave Hikari the space and time to find her words. 

“No, I mean…we were never really that close to begin with. I joined late, and I was sick most of the time, so I didn’t really bond with the other kids the way that Taichi did.” She sighed. “What I mean is…I guess I’m worried about the fact that our group is going to end up the same way.”

“You mean…like not staying close friends?” Miyako asked. “You’re worried about that?”

Hikari paused, and then she gave a small nod. “Yeah…I think that’s what I’m worried about. I know that we’re going to be friends…I don’t think we could all be through what we’ve been through and not be at least distant friends…but what I’m worried about is that…you’ll find new friends, and so will Daisuke when he gets closer to the soccer team, and when Iori goes to middle school and joins the kendo club, and when Ichijouji goes to school and can’t spend the time taking the train across Rainbow Bridge, and when Takeru goes to university…”

Hikari sighed quietly, and Miyako squeezed her arm. 

“You’re not worried we’ll lose contact, but that we won’t be each other’s closest group…is that it?” Miyako asked, keeping her voice slow and calm. 

Hikari nodded. 

“I know…I know our friendship is deeper than that.” She squeezed her other hand, fingers curling into her gloves. “I know we’ll never have to learn about being apart completely…but you and Daisuke have got so much more confidence now. You’ll be able to make friends easily. People like you, you’re so likable and nice, and you’re great friends. Takeru and Ichijouji are already popular. Iori’s going to get older and start hanging out with kids his own age.” She looked down at her shoes. “What I mean is…” She wasn’t sure what other ways that she could put it. “What I mean is…I don’t doubt you guys, but…”

Miyako leaned over, and she squeezed her tight. Hikari froze, genuinely not expecting the sudden hug. After a moment, she slowly relaxed into the hug, and leaned into Miyako’s arms, pressing her forehead to her shoulder. 

She sniffled. 

She didn’t cry–she didn’t cry much, not really. Mimi and Daisuke were the ones who easily cried, but not Hikari. Hikari always held everything inside. Hikari reached up, and wrapped her arms around Miyako’s shoulders. 

“You all…are such good friends to me.” Hikari finally said, her voice going a little raw. “I’ve always had friends, but they were always touch and go. They were all…friends who stopped being my friends when I got older, or friends that moved on to girls who were more popular and outspoken. My closest friend has always been Taichi.”

“What about Takeru?” Miyako asked, smoothing her hand over Hikari’s hair. “You two knew each other before us. I always thought that the two of you were best friends.”

Hikari sniffled again. “We are. But he holds so much inside. And I was always afraid of pushing things too hard, and losing the only kid my age that I could really spend time with. But with all of us…I guess…it took all of us for everyone to open up more, and everyone to really…be more confident with being ourselves.”

“And that’s why you shouldn’t worry.” Miyako said, pulling back a little and taking Hikari’s hands, clasping them tight in her own hands, and bringing them together–in the exact same way that she did when the two of them first became Jogress partners.The exact same way that she did when she called Hikari the light that shone in the dark. “Because even if we all grow up and end up going our separate ways–even when Daisuke gets his ramen cart and you’re working as a teacher, and we all end up busy and with our own families and ready to move on with our lives–we’re all going to not only be friends, but we’re going to be close.”

Hikari bit down on her lip. “But how is that even possible? It felt like that when we all defeated Apocalymon together…it all felt like that when we ended up going to the Digital World together, when we all defeated Vamdemon and left Odaiba together…but now the older Chosen Children aren’t together anymore…what if we all end up like that?”

Miyako’s face went stern. “Because they didn’t discover the power of Jogress. That’s why.”

Hikari blinked. “Because of Jogress?”

Miyako nodded firmly. “We didn’t have the power of the Crests, because we didn’t get them like you all did. But we had the power of Jogress. We had to rely on each other not just to survive, but because we all needed to grow stronger together. We didn’t defeat huge, evil digimon like you all did, but we were able to become better together. That’s what makes us different, okay? We aren’t as strong and capable as the other Chosen Children, but we’re good as a team, and that’s what makes us special.” 

Hikari swiped her hand over her eyes, and rubbed them with the heel of her palm. She nodded, slowly. 

Miyako smiled. “I believe in us. I’ll never forget you, and you’ll never forget me. And when we’re adults, we’ll still be close. Right?”

“Right.” Hikari nodded slowly. “Right.” 

Miyako hugged her again. “Right.”

(May - 2006)

Hikari Yagami stayed home from school for a week.

Half of it was due to the fact that she needed to form a coherent plan. She knew that her memories were real, and she knew the fact that it was still possible to travel between worlds–and that the barrier between the worlds wasn’t as completely solid as it looked. She could still travel between the real world and the World of Darkness, even if she didn’t necessarily have the ability to do it on her own. It wasn’t necessarily a distortion, like the ones caused by Meicoomon, either. The World of Darkness didn’t call people to it like that–-she honestly didn’t know how it called people to it, but she knew that the way it worked was completely different than how the Digital World worked. 

Still, the fact that she could still go to the Dark Ocean meant that the barrier wasn’t absolute, and that had to mean something–it meant something to her .

The Crest of Hope didn’t leave her D-3, still glowing a dull green from the small screen, though the Crest itself was still outlined in its normal, bright yellow color. She kept her D-3 inside of her desk drawer, just in case her mother walked inside. 

The second reason she stayed home was because of a genuine illness–a sickness that had started to plague her body, even worse than before. Her dreams were becoming more vivid with the sickness as well–long, vivid dreams that locked her inside visions of the past for hours on end. Memories that unfurled before her, her vision becoming undone as she saw herself move and act and speak the way she did before–a past self that acted without her knowledge, but it must have been her, because her dreams used her name and her face and her voice, and did things she would do, without the knowledge she had or the age she had behind her. 

It was a disorienting experience–and she would wake up with a spinning head and a spinning mind, not knowing where she was or when she was. 

She would lay there, her hand upon her forehead, feeling the heat building up in her head, feeling her head pounding and her stomach twisting and heaving, and she stayed like that for days–a fact that worried her mother, since she didn’t have those fevers for years, and none of them really wanted them to start up again.

Still, even though they were dreams, she could still remember them perfectly–something a person really wasn’t supposed to do with such clarity. Dreams of a lost year that she didn’t remember before. Dreams of people she didn’t remember before. Dreams of places she didn’t remember going, and enemies she didn’t remember fighting. But all of them felt important to her, all of them felt precious to her. And there wasn’t any way that she was going to let them go. 

She had to find some way to get them back. 

Hikari didn’t really know what else to do but to find some way to get to the Digital World. 

She didn’t have the black D-3 that Himekawa used to channel a gateway to the Digital World with the digivices of the others, but she did know that a D-3 was more powerful than a normal digivice, so if Himekawa could open up a gate to the Digital World, then she should also be able to do the same thing. She also knew that Meiko had been able to get to the Digital World with her own digivice, so if that was the case, then a single D-3 like Hikari’s should also be able to do the job–something Hikari was glad and willing to put to the test. 

Hikari didn’t really have any other digivices that she could use beside her own at that point–and besides, Takeru didn’t believe her, so there was no point asking him to begin with–but she remembered the gate that opened up from Hikarigaoka into the Digital World, and that the veil between the two worlds was at its thinnest there. That, at least, seemed like a good starting point, so she decided that her best bet would be to wait until her mother had gone to bed for the night, and she would take a taxi to Hikarigaoka, and take one back home before the morning came–even if she would get sick in the process. 

Hikari laid in bed for most of the day, packing a change of clothes and spare shoes and pajamas, along with some extra cash and snacks. She brought along a first-aid kit, too, just in case, the way that Jyou did. She didn’t know if a gate would genuinely open, after all, so she wasn’t taking any chances. If she could get to the Digital World that night, even alone, she would take any chance that she could get.

After night fell, Hikari snuck out of the front door, and called down a taxi with her phone. She didn’t take it too late–it was only around midnight when she started traveling–and as she rested her head against the taxi window, she watched the lights of the buildings flash by, and she clenched her hand tighter around her phone.

She had vague memories like this–vague memories of going to Hikarigaoka in the middle of the night for some reason, chasing down an enemy. She couldn’t really recall exactly who it was or what happened, but she knew it wasn’t the first time she had done this–though it was the first time that she really did it alone.

By the time she had crossed city limits, it was around one in the morning, and she allowed the driver to drop her off at Hikarigaoka Park, close to the housing complex. Not really knowing what she was supposed to be doing, she paid the driver, and she exited the cab, drawing her jacket around herself as she wandered aimlessly into the park, making her way towards the complex, past the street where she and Taichi had met Agumon, and where they had battled Parrotmon for the first time. 

Standing there, at the site where Parrotmon emerged, she looked up at the sky. 

That was where Parrotmon first emerged, and where she had her first digimon fight. That was where she had first become a Chosen Child. That fight was where everyone witnessed digimon for the first time, and where they had all become Chosen Children because of it. 

“Hikari?”

Hearing the familiar voice, Hikari froze up completely, and then spun around. 

Takeru stood there, behind her, also carrying a backpack over one arm, wearing a thin jacket and a baseball cap. He looked exhausted–and she figured that she also must have looked the same. He had bags under his eyes, and he looked pale and clammy, and he blinked at her, as if he didn’t believe that he was seeing her–and she figured that she must have been doing the same, as he stepped forward, holding out a hand in hesitation, before touching her shoulder.

“You’re…here.” He said, finally, testing the words out numbly on his tongue. 

“I…I am.” Hikari finally said. “But what about you? Why are you here?”

“I…I don’t know.” Takeru drew his hand back, and he looked down at both of them. “I…I woke up from a dream. I can’t remember it. But my heart was racing, and I felt like I had to come here. I…I felt like Patamon was calling for me.” He glanced back up towards the sky. “I…I think it’s been happening for days now. I think I’ve been…coming out to Hikarigaoka from Odaiba for days.” 

“Are you also wanting to go back to the Digital World?” Hikari asked. 

Takeru gave her a long look, hesitating on the answer, before he finally nodded. “I think…I think I have to, for some reason. I need to go see Patamon again. I think he needs me.” 

Hikari reached out, and she squeezed his hand. “Patamon needs you. Taichi said he felt the same way when Agumon needed him before. We have to go and find them.”

Takeru sighed, and then looked back up at the sky. “What…do we try to do here? I felt called here because the gate Gennai used with the spell cards meant that the world was thin here, but…the gate was sealed up a long time ago. There’s no way that we can get there now.” 

Hikari felt her heart stutter in her chest. “Do you mean…like when Gennai said that the world was sealed up after we defeated Apocalymon?”

Takeru shook his head. “No…I mean. When…the gate was forced open before. Or someone was trying to force open the gate. BlackWarGreymon…he ended up sealing the gate.”

Hikari stopped again, and she turned slowly to stare at Takeru. That was…that was something that she didn’t remember at all , not until that very moment. 

“You…what do you remember?” Hikari asked, her eyes wide. “That…that was something that I didn’t know. Are you starting to remember?”

Takeru blinked a couple of times, before he shook his head, and placed his hand to his forehead in confusion. “I…I don’t know. I don’t even know why I said that. There’s no BlackWarGreymon, right? Just Taichi’s WarGreymon.”

“No…no, there is!” Hikari said, her voice rising in excitement. “I…I don’t know what’s going on with you, but there is– was a BlackWarGreymon! And–and you’re right. He sealed the gate here in Hikarigaoka…” But the world gate was thinnest here, so it was no wonder that Takeru felt drawn here because of Patamon…

Still, the Digital World needed them, and that meant that they were going to be able to find some way to get there. That was how it had always worked before. The Digital World responded to them when they needed it the most, and they always responded to the Digital World when the digimon needed them–and if Patamon was calling out for them, that meant that the Digital World needed them, and they would be able to find there way back to it somehow, even if they had to get creative about it–and she was willing to do just that.

“Takeru.” She said, turning to him. “Take me back to your place–if you’re willing to listen to me, I have a lot that we have to talk about.” 

Takeru seemed to genuinely pause, and for a moment, Hikari saw deep hesitation in his eyes. She wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling–and honestly, considering the fact that he found himself out in Hikarigaoka on a weekday at one in the morning, and didn’t seem to have any conscious recollection, she could sympathize.

Afterwards, however, he nodded. 

“I think you’re right.” He finally said. “I…I don’t know what it is. But I think you’re right.” 

Hikari smiled, and her D-3, still holding the Crest of Hope, lit up in response. 

“I knew I could count on you.” She said, her voice quiet and fragile. “I…I knew it.” 

Takeru looked away, and nodded. “Yeah. Why…why don’t you come over to meet at my place?”

Hikari nodded. “Yeah. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

(April - 2004)

“So, what did you want to talk to us about?”

Daisuke lazily sprawled out, feet kicked up on a footstool, sitting in Koushiro’s bedroom. It was a rare weekend where Koushiro was taking a break from his small startup–a break that came from an important reason, and one that he had called the group of Chosen Children to talk about. The digimon in their baby forms quietly ate snacks from the treat platter that Koushiro’s mother had given them a few moments before–Chibimon in particular enjoyed the chocolate cookies that she had brought, while Upamon happily guzzled down a few of the juice pouches, Poromon ate some of the tea cakes, and Minomon seemed content to just hang off of Ken’s wrist, politely waiting to be the last to eat while Tentomon buzzed around the room, fetching a few books and notebooks for Koushiro while the Chosen Children got settled in.

“Well, first, I want to thank all of you for coming. I know that all of you have a busy schedule, so I am very grateful that you have made the time and effort to come all the way out here.” Koushiro said. Daisuke hummed in acknowledgement, while Iori gave a polite bow in return, and the other, younger Chosen nodded along with him as Koushiro started to pull up a few browser tabs on his PC. 

“What about everyone else?” Miyako asked, stretching out her legs on the floor, before crossing them again, and leaning back against Koushiro’s bed. 

“Mimi didn’t have time to come to America, since she is in the middle of her last semester of American school. Yamato is studying, and so are Jyo and Taichi. Sora can’t get time off from her ikebana studies. Taichi and Yamato say that they are relying on you all, and that this is a mission you will have to handle on your own.” Koushiro looked up from his computer. “You all are willing to do this, right? If not, we can wait until summer, and then we can all try and do it together–though entrance exams are coming, and that is going to still put a hold on all of the rest of us being able to join you.” 

Iori looked down seriously at the floor, crossing his arms in consideration. Ken held his thumb to his chin, somehow mirroring the exact same face that Iori was making, despite the fact that they were both sitting across the room. Daisuke and Miyako, however, nodded eagerly, both looking absolutely fired up about being trusted by their seniors to take a mission all on their own. 

“Yeah! Just leave it to all of us!” Daisuke said excitedly. “All of you seniors won’t have to worry about a single thing–it’ll be easy!”

“Careful, Daisuke.” Ken warned quietly. “We don’t really know what we’re getting into yet, after all, so we shouldn’t be so eager to accept without knowing the whole story.”

“I don’t see why we should be worried–you and I are an unbeatable team!” Daisuke said, throwing an arm around Ken’s shoulders, and tucking the other Chosen Child up against his own shoulder, messing up Ken’s carefully-ironed dress shirt in the process. Ken huffed quietly, but allowed himself to be manhandled, and instead turned his gaze back towards Koushiro. 

“I suppose…but you still shouldn’t interrupt our seniors.” 

“Yeah, yeah–oh! Sorry, go ahead.” Daisuke apologized sheepishly, demuring to his senior quickly. Koushiro just sort of shrugged, about to continue on with his introduction, before there was a knock on his bedroom door again, and Iori got up to answer it. 

Takeru and Hikari both stepped inside, looking for all the world worn out as they both sat down next to Miyako and Iori, Hikari collapsing quickly onto the floor. Plotmon and Tokomon went to join the other digimon in their snacking, and Tentomon settled down, bringing Koushiro his charging cord as Koushiro plugged in his PC so he could get up and use his clicker to pace as he spoke.

“I’m so sorry.” Hikari apologized quickly. “My mom wouldn’t let me come–she made me help her with cooking today, and I didn’t know how to get out of it.” 

“Same here.” Takeru said. “My mom forced me to help her with grocery shopping, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get in here late.” 

“It’s quite alright.” Koushiro nodded. “I assumed you would be joining us later, and if not, I assumed the others would fill you in on what is happening.” 

“Thank you so much for waiting.” Hikari continued, and she opened her mouth again, looking as if she were going to continue on with her apologies, but Koushiro raised a hand to cut her off. 

“No need. As I was saying…”

“Oh, go ahead, go ahead.” 

“As I was saying. We have discovered a new area in the Digital World–an area that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, and we are greatly concerned about it. This area is giving off a strange signal like nothing we have ever seen before. I am concerned that it could be a Digital Hazard of some kind–something that could be a side effect of the Holy Stones being destroyed.” 

“That’s right…” Iori tucked his thumb under his chin as he spoke. “We were only able to save one of those, and Qinglongmon was only able to plant Seeds of Light that had the potential to grow into Holy Stones, but they haven’t grown all the way yet.”

“That’s right.” Koushiro nodded. “Because of the Holy Stones being destroyed, we don’t have the ability to counteract whatever this is without interfering. The Harmonious Ones were released by our Crests, but they are simply in charge of being able to defeat darkness where it arises–and it is our job to assist them when something like this happens.” 

“So what do you want us to do?” Takeru asked. “We don’t really know what we’re going to get into–is it just going on a scouting mission?”

Koushiro nodded. “That’s more or less what I am asking you to do. At the first sign of danger, however, I want you to pull out, after getting a formal reading of the situation. I don’t want to put you all in more danger than necessary, and when I get an understanding of what is going on, I want to have a formal meeting with the rest of the Chosen Children. I just don’t want to let an unknown factor go completely unstudied, and I want to take all of the time I can get to prepare some sort of countermeasure against it.”
“That makes sense, I suppose.” Ken, still squashed against Daisuke’s shoulder by the death grip of the other boy, hummed as he propped his thumb up against his chin. “What about if we become trapped in some way, such as a television screen being broken, or our D-3’s being taken? Would you be able to find some way for us to get out, especially if it’s an unknown area?”

Koushiro nodded. “I’ll be tracking all of you while you go into the area, and if you’re ever in trouble, you can use your D-Terminals to email me, and I’ll contact one of the Agents to come and assist you, or I’ll contact some of our allies to come and help you, such as Andromon. If the worst comes to worse, escape on Imperialdramon’s Dragon Mode.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it!” Chibimon called out from across the room. “We’re faster than any digimon, so we’ll be out of there and through a television in no time!” 

Ken gave Chibimon a small smile, unable to really resist the confidence of the baby dragon. “Yeah, you’re right. We can count on you, Chibimon.”

“And me!” Minomon added, swinging energetically. Daisuke reached over and stroked between the bagworm’s antennae, which instantly flattened in pleasure under his hand. 

“Yeah, and you.” 

“Then I guess that’s settled.” Takeru said. “When do you want us to go and head out into the new area, Koushiro?” 

“As soon as it’s most convenient for you all–I think that would make the most sense.” Koushiro said, crossing his legs and resting his chin on his hands in thought. “I don’t want you to force yourselves into jumping into something that you are not ready for, however, and the new area is quite big, so I was thinking that tomorrow would work, if you are available for that? Warning your parents that you will be gone for a few days would also be helpful–if any of your parents are concerned about where you are, and if you don’t feel that you could tell them the truth, it would probably be a good idea to say you are staying at a friend’s house.”

“My parents don't care.” Daisuke shrugged. “I can do it tomorrow.”

Ken frowned a little at Daisuke’s words, but didn’t push further. “My parents know about the Digital World, so I’ll just tell them where I am.”

“I’ll say that I’m staying over with Hikari.” Miyako added, and Hikari nodded. 

“Takeru and my parents know about the Digital World, so there’s no problem.” 

“I’ll also tell my parents where I am.” Iori said. 

“That’s good, so there’s only one set of parents we’ll have to worry about.” Koushiro hummed. “In that case, would it be a good idea to plan for tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yeah, that works.” Daisuke hummed, seemingly a little deterred by what he admitted. Ken unwrapped himself from Daisuke’s arm, and instead just pressed his shoulder up against Daisuke’s, who relaxed a little when Chibimon, sensing his partner’s feelings, went and hopped up into his lap, bringing a cookie along with him. 

“Very good.” Koushiro said, and he started to type away on his computer. “In that case, I’ll also tell the rest of the Chosen where you are going, and I will also send them the coordinates, just in case something happens.” 

“Right.” Takeru nodded. “That makes sense–and tracking us through our D-3’s would also be a good idea. By the way–do you have a name for this place we’re all going to?”

“Well, it doesn’t really have a name yet, but I’ve given it a nickname.” Tentomon called from Koushiro’s bed.

“What’s that?” Miyako asked. 

“I call it the Red Desert.”

Chapter Text

“Physics depends on a universe infinitely centered on an equal sign. As science writer and sometime theologian David Conte wrote:

'God for all intents and purposes is an equal sign, and at least until now, something humanity has always been able to believe in is that the universe always adds up.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

(May 2006)

“At the end of the day that’s always been your role, I guess. Distracting from the real ones behind the scenes...I mean, I don’t think anyone blames you, though. It’s just an important role that someone has to take.” 

Meiko sighed a little, guilt boiling in her stomach, a storm in her chest. They were looking for an explanation, so it was the easiest one to give them. It was honestly the easiest option that she had –she really couldn’t bring back Homeostasis, or control Daemon, or summon Dagomon or even Vamdemon. They’d already defeated the Dark Masters again. They couldn’t even defeat a real enemy without digimon, so this was what she had to work with–with her back against the wall, and her hands tied. 

She didn’t really have any control over when that man appeared, either. She didn’t know who he was to begin with. All she knew was that he was the one she was supposed to listen to, and while she could probably slap his image onto a Bakemon, that would only hold for so long when the real one appeared again.

Of all the options that she had, this one was the easiest one to work with.

She fussed uselessly, lacing her fingers together in stress, looking up and down, scuffing her shoe on the floor of the lab between her nervous sneezes. It was a horrible thing to do, and she knew it. Horrible, evil, unforgivable. If the others knew, they’d never talk to her again. Nobody would talk to her again. This was awful .

But what other choice did she have ?

She couldn’t use real digimon–they didn’t even have digimon to fight with, and if the digimon died here, they wouldn’t revive. That had to be worse, right? That meant real lives . She had real lives she had to think about, and this…

It wasn’t like he was even aware enough to remember anyway, right?

“Listen, you and I are in the same boat here. I don’t really like it, either. But I don’t really have a choice in the matter.” She bit her lip. “It’s not like I feel good about it, you know.” She reached up and fussed with the golden glasses, trying to hide his flat gaze away from her face. She should have made them solid this time, instead of translucent. She hated the way the indigo somehow pierced through. It made her feel like he was judging her. It made him feel alive .

She knew it was functionally useless to justify herself, anyway. He couldn’t really hear her. All he did all day was quietly do the grunt work of typing away on whatever programming task that she asked him to do. He didn’t talk unless she told him to talk. He didn’t do anything unless she asked him to work. He just quietly sat at the console, back facing her, working on the mindless scut work that she assigned him, unnerving in his silence, the way that he’d always been from the moment that he’d been made to wake up from the pod. 

She hated that she was always stuck with him. It always felt like he could see her, even if she knew that it wasn’t the case. 

She was met with expected silence, of course. She drew her hands back, and fussed at the ascot, and fussed at the high collar, smoothing out the wrinkles. It felt like an apology. It felt like penance. 

“So, I mean…it’s a compliment , right?” She continued, filling the empty air with chatter. “I picked you because I can’t exactly call on a digimon, and they’re not going to kill you. They’re going to draw things out as long as possible. They’d want to talk if they could, I mean, that’s just who they are. The last time that I used you, they went to your house to check on you, and Yamato called to make sure you were okay, too. They were worried . That should mean something to you. That means even with the virus, they care about you.”

The words sounded sour, even to her own ears. She let go of the ascot after tucking it in again, and took a step back. The Digimon Kaiser followed her movements with his eyes, but otherwise remained completely still. 

“I’m not going to make you use Imperialdramon, that would be too much to send out an Ultimate when they don’t even have a digimon.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Stingmon should be enough. Scare them a little, give them an enemy to fight, confuse them. Throw them into a tailspin for a while. I’ll clean things up, erase their memories of this ever happening, and you can go back into the pod and back into dreamland.” 

She rocked back and forth on her heels. In the dead silence, she sneezed. 

“And I guess you’ll need your digivice, too.” She finally said, snatching the black D-3 from her desk, and handing it over to him. He didn’t extend his hand to pick it up without an order, so she grabbed his wrist, and dropped the D-3 into his hands, curling his fingers around it. His arm remained in the air after she let it go. She took a step back, looking at him over a few more times. He should be in high school right now. All of them should be. She’d find some way to make it up to them. She’d already promised herself that. Some way.

She cleared her throat after a moment. 

“Digimon Kaiser, your orders now are to take Wormmon and go after the Chosen Children Hikari Yagami and Takeru Takaishi. You will not kill them. You will just…scare them for a while. Use your best performance. Your access to your memories and personality as the Digimon Kaiser have been granted.”

His fingers curled around the D-3. 

“Begin.”

(May - 2006)

“The Crest of Hope. It’s still with you.”

Takeru’s voice was a little numb as he sat across from Hikari, in his room. Both sat on their knees across from each other, sharing two cups of mint tea, two small bowls of miso soup between them to warm up after the long and cold ride home. 

It had already been a long night, and it didn’t seem like the night was going to be ending any time soon. Exhaustion was so heavy between them that it felt like it was clinging to Hikari’s skin, aching at her bones, pulling at her muscles. Her hands curled around the mug as she sipped from it, warming her up just a little–something to help bring her out of the cold.

At Takeru’s question–or at least, it felt like a question–Hikari gave a little nod, thumbing her finger over the D-3, where the yellow Crest of Hope still shone.

She had no words for the Crest of Hope being with her, no reason for it. She still didn’t know why it stuck with her. But she knew that it must have had a good reason to–after all, it had saved her from the World of Darkness to begin with. She honestly didn’t know what she would have done without it, how she would have found her way out of the dark.

The dawn crept over the early morning horizon, pale light shining through the windows. While they had prepared something to eat together, while they had made their way back home, she had spent the last few hours going over everything that she knew thus far–everything that she had discovered. Takeru listened completely quietly, eyes on her, despite the exhaustion clear on his face. 

It was the first time that she had really felt as if she had an ally in all of this–the first time that she really felt as if someone was listening to her. Her hands shook the entire time that she spoke, and she honestly wasn’t sure how long that she would be capable of talking, but she did, and she talked until her throat was raw–talked until her voice broke. Takeru didn’t doubt her the entire time. She soothed her throat with the tea while he digested everything, while he stared out the window in thought.

“So that’s…that’s everything that has been happening to you.” He finally said, after a while of listening. “Everyone in class has been worried about you, after you stopped showing up to school…I had no idea…”

“It’s okay.” Hikari said automatically. “I mean…none of you knew…I couldn’t expect you to be responsible for me. I’m responsible for me” 

Takeru shook his head. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then started again. “It feels…it feels like waking up from a long dream. Like for the first time in a while…there isn’t sleep in my eyes.”

Hikari nodded. “That’s…that’s how I felt, too. Even when going to the World of Darkness…it felt almost like a relief seeing that place. Knowing the whole thing is real. That place was like a nightmare, but…it felt real, and nothing else until then did.”

Takeru hesitated for a long moment, watching her with something like sorrow in his eyes, before he reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’ve been through a lot. I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you.”

“It’s okay.” Hikari looked down at her D-3. “I feel like…in some way. You were. Otherwise, the Crest of Hope wouldn’t have come to me. You’re the whole reason I’m alive..”

Takeru looked like he was about to say something, but instead he gave a little shrug. “You must be right about that.” His eyes then hardened. “But if what you say is true, then that must mean that someone out there took our friends, and that we have to go save them.”

Hikari’s heart picked up in her chest. He was right about that, of course. But even more than that…it felt like for the first time that she was really making some sort of progress, that she was really getting somewhere. “I agree, but…how? The gate that Vamdemon had in Hikarigaoka is gone, and our D-3’s can’t open any other gates. Himekawa and her black D-3 are gone, and the distortions that Meicoomon created are also gone. We’re trapped in the real world. There’s no way to get to the Digital World.”

Takeru put his thumb to his chin in thought. “Have you tried talking to the others? I’m sure Koushiro could find some way to open the gate.”

Hikari nodded. “I have. Back when you started noticing me acting weird in the beginning…I sent out an email to everyone else saying that we had emergency digimon business. They acted like you did, when I tried to talk to you. They all said that I should talk to Himekawa and Nishijima.” 

Takeru winced a little at the memory of their earlier conversation, but nodded. “So you don’t think that it would be very useful to go and talk to them? Not even if we go to them with everything that we have now, the two of us together?”

Hikari shook her head. “I don’t…not unless they start to wake up the way that you have, Takeru. It feels like there’s something blocking their minds, or blocking their hearts. Something that…is changing them. Like it changed you. Like it changed me.”

Takeru’s frown deepened, and a darkness brewed behind his eyes, but he didn’t comment on what she said. “What about the campsite?”

“We don’t even know if that’s an actual gate. The older Chosen Children tried that before, and it didn’t work. They had to be brought in by us.” Hikari thumbed at her tea cup, the warmth curling up by her, burning her lips.

“Still.” Takeru said. “We…have to try, don’t we? Otherwise, we might as well just be giving up, and we can’t do that. We can’t give up until the very end.”

It was…something nice to hear. A reminder that she wasn’t alone in this. It was honestly something that she’d been looking for the whole time. The words, too, sounded like something Yamato and Taichi would say. Comforting. Familiar. Nice.

“Then I guess we’ll have to find some way to disappear without worrying our parents or our brothers.” She said, “I mean…I’d hate to suddenly vanish again.”

Takeru looked out the window. “If what you say is true, though, that means we can disappear, and they’ll forget about us until we come back. If the world is different in some way, that is.” 

“Do you really think that this covers the entire world?” She bit down on her lip. “Do you think someone could really do something like that? Like a digimon? Even Vamdemon could only cover Odaiba with the fog.”

“I don’t know. But I do know that something is different. And I do know that the real world doesn’t work this way. I think, whatever happens…whoever is controlling this doesn’t want this place disturbed. The logic of this place follows their desire to not see it disrupted.” Takeru’s gaze slid back out to the window, as he took the miso soup, and held it in his lap. “That’s what I think.”

Hikari shivered a little. “That’s…not a nice thought, Takeru. I don’t like the thought of the whole world being put under some kind of spell. I mean…it could just be Odaiba and the Digital World.”

“Neither do I. But think about it, Hikari. It was only when you noticed some kind of logic error that you were able to be pulled out of it. I didn’t even get pulled out of it until you were able to retrieve my Crest. That means that this world works on some sort of self-maintaining logic. You were forgotten about in a single day. If we were to do something to disrupt that logic, we would also be erased from this world. Just like the others. If it was just Odaiba…don’t you think other people would have noticed? People outside of Odaiba?” 

It was…exactly the sort of fear that Hikari had, and she didn’t like thinking about it. “But if we went out, wouldn't vanishing also be some kind of…logic error? Like you said about the rest of the world…wouldn’t people notice?”

“I don’t think so.” Takeru glanced back at her. “You’re…different from everyone else. You have some kind of…thing about you. Something that can’t be suppressed, something special. That’s why Vamdemon was afraid of you. That’s why Master Gennai always used you to talk. That’s why the World of Darkness called to you. Whatever it is, you can fight it off. That’s what makes you different.”

“I…I guess that’s the case.” Hikari bit her lip. “But I don’t have the Crest of Light with me, not like how I have the Crest of Hope. Do you think that’s why we can’t go back to the Digital World? That’s why Oikawa couldn’t go to the Digital World. Or the other children. They didn’t have light inside of them, either. I mean, if I still remember right.”

Takeru frowned. “Maybe…but I don’t think that we should worry about that right now. I think worrying about it will only stop us.” He set down the bowl, reached over, and gently took Hikari’s wrist, squeezing it, while her hands were still wrapped around her tea cup. “I think what we have to do right now is focus on what we can do, not worry about anything else.”

Hikari hesitated again, but she smiled. “Thanks. That…helps a lot.” 

Takeru smiled back, and he took a sip of his soup.

“What do we do now, then? Do you want to go to the campsite?” Hikari asked. “I think…setting out as soon as possible would be best.”

Takeru glanced towards the window, where the dawn was creeping over the horizon. “I think we should get a few hours of sleep, and go out around noon. If we’re too tired to think straight, we’re not going to be very useful. Tell your mom that you went to school with me after staying the night. My mom will be out around that time, too. Then we can take the train out for the day, sneak onto the campsite, and see if we can open the gate from there.”

Hikari nodded. “And…we can pray for it to open. I mean…that’s all we can do, right?”

Takeru gave her a thumbs up, something warm and reassuring and bright. “You’re holding Hope right now, so try to act like it, right?” 

That drew a little smile from Hikari in return. “Yeah. I’ll act like it.”

The two of them finished the bowls of soup, finished their cups of tea, and Takeru washed the dishes in the sink while Hikari laid out Takeru’s spare futon, and changed into the pajamas that she brought for the possible journey to the Digital World. It reminded her a little bit of when the group bedded down for the night in their original journey. She hadn’t been around for long, but she still remembered the camp adventure, and how wild it had been. 

They had never thought about having a picnic in the Digital World back then.

Takeru changed into his pajamas in the bathroom, while Hikari crawled under the blanket. When he returned, he switched off the lights, and both fell into silence.

Bedding down for the early morning wasn’t easy, of course, as Hikari’s heart kept hammering through the night, but she didn’t remember the time leading up to Takeru’s alarm going off, so she considered herself lucky in that regard. She still honestly felt exhausted as she got up in the morning–but she still got up and prepared instant rice with eggs and soup, while Takeru started packing up his own bag, preparing for the trip.

Takeru was right about it, of course–his mother had already gone out for the morning, leaving the two of them alone with the house to themselves. After Takeru’s guess about the way that the world worked, there was a definite strange atmosphere around them–this sort of strange, tense sickness. An air like a cup of coffee with the surface tension straining–right about to burst.

It reminded her a little bit, now that she thought about it, of the train ride in New York, where the passengers suddenly vanished and she was left with only Takeru as Chocomon’s heart took them–the strange, dreamlike feeling of a world that wasn’t quite their own.

She wasn’t sure about it–the memory that pushed at the edges of her mind, making her press her palm to her forehead, shutting her eyes. She didn’t remember encountering any digimon by that name when she went to the Digital World for the first time. 

To be honest, she didn’t really remember any of the other Chosen Children’s digimon either–and it was the strange, off realization that there was still more to remember–still more that she had forgotten.

Takeru, as they packed, revealed with a small level of embarrassment that he didn’t really have the money to pay for their fare, but Hikari didn’t mind. It was something important, so she didn’t mind taking the hit for the train ride across the Rainbow Bridge, and taxis out to the campsite.

Hikari packed up extra rice and fish and eggs for dinner in two bentos, and wrapped them both in napkins before tucking them away with water bottles and oolong tea bottles from Takeru’s fridge. Takeru packed pajamas and a few changes of clothes, and the both of them left in silence during the early evening, when other students were coming home from school, allowing them to slip in quietly together while surrounded by other high schoolers and middle schoolers, lost in a sea of faces, all blurring together and looking the same. 

It really did feel like a dream, now that she thought about it. Sleeping through the day meant that the late afternoon bled into the evening, as the time crawled by, and silence fell between them. There wasn’t much to talk about, and there wasn't much to say. Students got on and off the train, and by the time they reached the last stop, the sun fell low in the sky, streaks of light bleeding red over the horizon.

Hikari was roughly reminded of the strange, feverish afternoon when Taichi came back from the Digital World, and brought Koromon with him for the second time, before Taichi ended up disappearing into light. She had been ill, home alone while Taichi was at camp and her parents were away. She’d always been alone, ever since they were children–and Taichi was left to take care of her alone during the day. 

Hikari wondered, to herself as the hours passed, what ever became of Chocomon. If the egg ever hatched again. If she would be able to do what Wallace did. 

Hikari wondered who Wallace was to begin with. 

After taking a few taxis into the early dusk, as the stars began to appear in the sky, one glimmer of light at a time, Hikari and Takeru made it to the edge of the cliffside where Takeru was first taken into the Digital World–where the Chosen Children had gone into the sky, after meteors fell from it, after the aurora appeared over the whole of the world.

The both of them stood over the horizon, where the land met the sky, and Takeru held tightly onto his D-3, holding it out in front of him. 

Hikari did the same. 

The impossible had happened before, of course. Miracles happened before. Taichi and Yamato went into their computer screens to form Omegamon. The Digital World ripped open and appeared in the sky. Hikari’s father’s computer formed an egg that Hikari slept with through the night. 

Hikari and Takeru held their D-3’s aloft for a few minutes, and nothing happened. There were no digimon for them to communicate with. There was no Digital World waiting for them. 

Tears rolled down Hikari’s cheeks, and she bit her lip and didn’t make a sound. Takeru wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders, and Hikari ducked her head into it, squeezing her eyes shut as he wrapped both arms around her.

“It’ll be okay.” He said quietly, rubbing his hand down her back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get there. I promise.”

“What if it’s like what I said?” Hikari asked quietly. “What if it’s like Oikawa? What if I just don’t have a pure enough heart anymore? What if it’s because the Crest of Light left me?”

“It didn’t.” Takeru said, his voice firm. “And even if it did. It’s going to find its way back to you. So just keep going. You’re not alone anymore.”

Hikari nodded quietly into his shoulder, and drew herself back. She’d been telling herself that the whole time, and she knew she was starting to fall out of it faster and faster, but she kind of thought she deserved it, deserved being able to fall apart after doing it alone in the first place. 

“Do you think that we’re being used by someone? Like we were back then, by BelialVamdemon?” She asked. “The same way that BelialVamdemon needed the Dark Towers built to keep the Holy Beasts sealed, so he could weaken the barrier between worlds and get back to the Digital World?”

Takeru hummed in thought, running his hand down Hikari’s back. “I’m not sure what their goal is. If their goal is to keep us here, maybe it’s so they could take over the Digital World without us interfering? That’s all I can think of.” 

“That might just be it.” Hikari mumbled into his shoulder. “Homeostasis wanted us to go back to our world for some reason. The Digital World itself didn’t want us there after the whole thing was rebooted. Do you think that’s why we’re being shut out?”

“I don’t think so. I think…something deeper might be going on.” Takeru sighed. “But I can’t figure out what it might be. I just know that Master Gennai…we can’t trust anything he says right now.”

That was sort of a hard thing to swallow, considering how well they had worked with Gennai before, but Hikari nodded. “I guess so.”

Takeru was quiet for a moment, but he gave Hikari another, small smile. “Hey. I don’t think you ever really saw the campsite, right? You want me to show you a couple of the cabins? The one Yamato and I stayed in?”

Hikari gave a little smile. “Yeah. That would be nice.” 

The life she’d had just a short while ago seemed so far away, the life where she’d just gone to school every day and spent time with her friends. It felt like full lifetimes away–last month felt like years away.

Years . 

How many years had it been…?

“Two years.” She said, out loud, while Takeru let go of her and started to walk. Takeru paused. 

“Hmm?”

“It’s been two years.” She frowned. “I mean...since we’ve last seen them. They’ve been gone for a full two years.”

Takeru started, his eyes going wide. “Are you sure? It…can’t have been that long, right?”

“It’s been a year since we saw Meiko. Before that, there was a whole year where the Digital World was closed. That means two years. They’ve been gone for two years.” Dread settled into her chest. “Two years .”

“We don’t know that.” Takeru frowned. “Our memories are messed up. They could have…just been gone right before Meiko showed up. We don’t know.”

“I hope so.” Hikari said, biting down on her lip. “I hope so.”

Takeru squeezed her hand. “Come on. I’ll show you around. Then we can go back, and think about something new to do.” 

Hikari recognized what he was trying to do–and she honestly appreciated it. She allowed herself to be guided by the hand around, and Takeru talked about the few, short days that they had spent at summer camp together–the soccer team that Taichi had led, the fact that Koushiro had joined just so that he wouldn’t be forced to interact with people too much. 

Hikari listened quietly, with the strange, distant feeling that she was caught in between three adventures that she just didn’t know much about–but that was a normal thing for her. This wouldn’t be the first time.

Hikari always had the strangest feeling of being caught between worlds–something about being born on the rift, born on the very edge of the horizon, where the heavens met the earth. She was born somewhere there–something from the in-between, something from the place between worlds.

Hikari was just born that way, and she didn’t know any different–and there wasn’t any use changing it. There wasn’t any use thinking about it. 

There wasn’t any use complaining.

The two of them made their way to Takeru’s old cabin, and it only took a well-placed kick for the wooden door to come down, the site having been abandoned for a good seven years. They’d sort of quietly decided without talking about it that they would stay for the time being at the campsite, and Takeru rolled out a sleeping back while Hikari took out the bentos that she’d prepared the morning before, setting out the napkins and the water bottles as Takeru walked around and inspected the cabin, making sure there weren’t any animals they should watch out for. 

“Hikari?” Takeru called across the room as she set out the chopsticks. “Do you have any emails from anybody?”

Hikari blinked, then took out her phone. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like there’s any signal out here.”

“I guess there wouldn’t be.” Takeru took off his hat and wiped his brow. “We’ll go back tomorrow. I just want to stay around for a while to see if anything happens out here–we can’t just try once and give up, right? Something’s gotta happen if we keep trying.” 

Hikari nodded, and took the lid off her bento. “Right.” 

The two of them ate quietly together, Hikari distantly listening to the quiet buzz of late spring and early summer insects. Takeru took out his D-3, holding it up, and flipped through a few of the screens for a while, frowning at the lack of signal while Hikari packed up the empty dishes and tucked them away. 

“Koushiro could use his laptop out here, before.” Takeru muttered to himself. “There shouldn’t be any reason why we don’t have any signal out here. I don’t get it.”

“I guess it’s the same reason why the gates are closed.” Hikari said. “There’s something blocking the gates.”

Takeru ran a hand through his hair, messing up blonde locks, leaving a few of them standing upright in the cool air. “I guess. It’s frustrating, though. The world’s been rewritten to accommodate whoever made it.”

“Just like when the world was rewritten to accommodate Chocomon’s broken heart.”

Takeru frowned, confusion briefly flickering across his face, and Hikari honestly didn’t have much of an explanation–she didn’t really know what she was remembering, but judging by Takeru’s silence and lack of questions, he knew what she was talking about–he just didn’t remember.

Outside, the quiet buzz of the spring insects grew. 

“Well, there’s not much that can be done about it, now.” Takeru said. Hikari nodded. 

“I think…I want to go ahead and take a rest right now. I’ll think about it, and then we can figure something out in the morning.”

That was all they could really do–just take a rest, and figure something out in the morning.

Takeru tucked himself down into his sleeping bag, changing in the neighboring cabin before returning to the one Hikari was in. Hikari followed his lead, both bedding down across the room, not facing each other. Takeru fell into silence soon after, and Hikari rolled around so that she could watch him–watch the quiet rising and falling of his shoulders, and listen to the steady breathing of the other Chosen Child. 

A few hours passed in the early summer night, until Hikari heard her phone buzz. 

Hikari wriggled her way out of her sleeping bag, reaching for her bag and opening her phone. She still saw no bars whatsoever on her phone, but a message came through all the same. 

Come outside if you want answers. Come alone.

It came from an unknown sender–and it felt like a trap. A trap that she had to walk into. A trap she didn’t have a choice but to walk into.

Hikari shot upright, snatching her phone and her bag, going straight into the night. 

There wasn’t anyone outside immediately waiting for her–and she frowned, looking back down at her phone. Waiting, praying, there had to be a sign.

There wasn’t any activity coming from her phone, so she reached into her bag for her D-3. Her heart stuttered in her chest when she saw something activating–a signal that was nearby. 

Close. Something was close . Something from the Digital World.

Using her D-3 as a lead, she immediately took off on foot after it, going straight into the woods where the signal led her. For minutes on end, she followed the signal, the late afternoon sleep still pounding in her blood as she went, not caring about how lost she was going to get–only caring that finally, finally , after waiting so long, something was coming to find her.

Her heart raced, faster and faster, her pulse climbing higher. The buzzing got louder, ringing in her ears, and she shook with adrenaline as she raced after the signal. 

Summer. It was always summer when it started. Always summer when the bugs come out.

It was a clearing. 

A strange clearing, directly in the middle of the woods–surrounded by trees that had been cleared out, a man-made clearing in the middle of the woods.

Standing directly in front of her, framed by the shadow of a distortion–the same kind of distortion that Meicoomon created–was the Digimon Kaiser.

Ken Ichijouji. The Digimon Kaiser. 

The two, conflicting thoughts immediately ran concurrently with each other–crashing into each other, cracking at the edges. The person standing in front of her was the Digimon Kaiser. The Digimon Kaiser was the corrupted Chosen Child who built Dark Towers, the Chosen Child who enslaved digimon with Evil Rings, the Chosen Child who kidnapped Taichi’s Agumon and forced him to digivolve again and again through experiments that tortured him and forced Taichi to fight him. The Digimon Kaiser was their enemy. The Digimon Kaiser forced digimon to fight each other for his amusement, burned down villages with Kimermaon, and used Devimon’s data from the World of Darkness to create a digimon without a heart–a digimon who was only built to destroy.

Ken Ichijouji was the Digimon Kaiser. 

Ken Ichijouji was their friend. 

Ken Ichijouji opened up the gate to the Dark Ocean despite being terrified of doing so. Ken Ichijouji allowed himself to be kidnapped so that the children Oikawa took would be returned home. Ken Ichijouji was used by the powers of darkness just like the rest of them, and they went to his house for a Christmas party, and fought together against BelialVamdemon at the end of the world. Ken Ichijouji laughed with them, played cards with them, played soccer with them and shared dinner with them. Ichijouji was a Chosen Child who inherited a Crest, whom Qinglongmon tasked them with the duty of freeing, who joined with them and inherited Omegamon’s power to save the world.

The two, conflicting realizations hit her at once–cracked at the edges, running dissonant to what she saw with her own eyes. It didn’t make any sense. None of what she saw made any sense. Meicoomon’s distortions were gone. The Digimon Kaiser was gone. The Digimon Kaiser was an eleven year old boy lashing out at the world, dead and buried in the wreckage of the base he left behind. Ichijouji was ready to throw himself into that exploding reactor to bury the Digimon Kaiser. He had to be snapped out of it before he did just that. He would never–she didn’t even think he physically could –

“What’s…?” She asked, confusion and disbelief and flat out horror in her voice. When he woke up–because he had to be controlled by something , there was no other way–he would be horrified and guilty and she didn’t know if she and Takeru alone would be able to help him through it this time, not when he realized his parents had forgotten about him. “BelialVamdemon? Is that it? Did he…did he activate the darkness somehow?” She asked, not really sure what she was asking, but knowing it was the only explanation. “Ichijouji– Ichijouji , it’s me, Hikari. Hikari Yagami. Your teammate. Your friend. Right?”

In the dark, with his face framed by shadow, Hikari couldn’t see his eyes behind the visor–and she honestly didn’t know if she wanted to. Her veins felt like they were completely made of ice, but she took a few steps forward, one hand hesitantly outstretched towards him.

“Ichijouji–come with me. I have to take you home–”

The buzzing grew louder, somewhere behind her, and Hikari turned around to see Stingmon.

A black Stingmon–completely black with eerie, glowing red eyes.

Heading right towards her. 

Hikari ducked her head, dropping down in a low crouch towards the ground. Stingmon flew right over her head, circling around the portal, circling behind the Digimon Kaiser, who held out one arm regally, imperially, as Stingmon degenerated into a Wormmon with the same, strange black coloration, resting on his shoulder and arm. 

That–that also didn’t make any sense .

The Digimon Kaiser always rejected Wormmon–never using him for any of his plots. He even made Kimeramon in order to reject Wormmon completely. Something weird was definitely going on–this wasn’t Ichijouji, it had to be–

“What are you–?” Hikari stopped, standing upright again, only for Wormmon to immediately face her with his strange, red eyes and release a Sticky Net–and it was only then that Hikari realized he degenerated specifically for that reason as the web hit her, and Hikari overbalanced, and braced herself for hitting the forest floor.

In a flash, Wormmon evolved into Stingmon again, and the assassin digimon caught her before she hit the ground in his claws. 

Hikari struggled.

She thrashed as much as she could, kicking and twisting in the assassin’s grip. Stingmon lifted her bridal style–carefully, so his claws didn’t hurt her–and the Digimon Kaiser turned, gesturing wordlessly for Stingmon to follow, as he disappeared into the distortion, stepping quietly into the glowing tear in reality, into the world beyond. 

“Ichijouji!” Hikari called out again, from Stingmon’s hold. “Ichijouji, listen to me ! Stingmon! I’m your friend, I’m your teammate! You’re a Chosen Child, you were meant to protect the Digital World! You have to listen to me!”

It was as if neither of them heard her. It was as if her words didn’t exist. 

She shut her eyes tight as she was taken into the Digital World.

The world beyond the distortion was a desert–one that was entirely red, with sand the color of blood, and a sky the color of rust. The distortion closed behind them, and the Digimon Kaiser turned to face her again–the desert wind blowing and battering her face, sending his coattails whirling, the tall and imposing and imperial figure a black outline in the red horizon.

Hikari glared at him, her lips pressed together in a thin line. She was moved upwards, held by her waist so her legs dangled, and Stingmon tested her weight–so her diaphragm wasn’t under pressure, so she could properly breathe.

She took the opportunity to speak again.

“Ichijouji. I was looking for you . I was looking for you, Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori. You can help me find them. You have to listen. You have to help me. ” 

The Digimon Kaiser watched her quietly for a second, his expression completely unreadable behind the visor. Hikari glared at him–and while she knew it wasn’t Ichijouji acting as himself, she couldn’t help the feeling of betrayal–the feeling that her words should reach him, that he should be able to open his heart and understand .

After a moment, he pressed a little button on the side of the metal braces of his gloves, and he produced what looked like a small, black version of the same visor that he wore from code that appeared in the air. He brought the visor closer, dropping it onto the bridge of her nose, securing the strap behind her head. Hikari had the urge to bite his hand–viciously, like a caged animal. Her vision was cut out completely, leaving her in the dark, and some part of her honestly wished that she had bitten him. She heard the soft click of the Kaiser’s boots against Stingmon’s armor, and after a moment of quiet shuffling, the insect digimon took to the air again–flying with the oncoming storm, instead of against it.

Some part of her distantly realized that the visor acted as goggles–the same kind that Daisuke wore against the sandstorm. She guessed she should have been thankful it was better than a blindfold. 

Several minutes passed in silence, with only the buzzing of Stingmon’s wings, and the howling of the desert wind. 

Hikari realized, at the very least, that she was in the Digital World.

She could find some way to get out of here–the Digimon Kaiser’s weakness was always his arrogance, but she couldn’t rely on his former personality right now. If she found some way to get out of here, she could get to Tailmon, and they could get Patamon and find Takeru again, and they could find some way to get to their other partners, and get the rest of the Chosen Children to help. 

If she brought them their partners, she was sure they would listen. Koushiro gave them back their memories before. Maybe he could do something now, if Tentomon told him to?

Tailmon. She had to focus on finding Tailmon and HolyAngemon. HolyAngemon was able to break spells like this. HolyAngemon could help them. She had the Crest of Hope. She could help him evolve. She had to find Tailmon and Patamon.

She felt them descending after several minutes, the feeling of vertigo hitting her, and Stingmon descended in slow circles–body tilted level with the ground, and she felt the Kaiser’s arm brace her so she wouldn’t overbalance in the assassin’s hold. Stingmon landed on the ground, weightless, and Hikari heard the Kaiser’s boots hit the ground again–this time on something metal, rather than sand. 

He must have brought her to some kind of base, judging by the metal and the sound of a door opening. Did they use some of his old programming work to restore something like his old base? How much of this was activating the darkness inside of him, and how much of it was hypnosis? He wasn’t talking, so it couldn’t be like before, where BelialVamdemon just let him go as long as he worked in the vampire’s favor–unless the years of growing up changed who the Kaiser would turn out to be?

No, she couldn’t believe that. She had to have faith in her friend. She couldn’t break his heart by believing it was the real Ichijouji. She couldn’t do that to him.

Stingmon carried her inside, judging by the cool air and the lack of sand hitting her face anymore. Hikari tensed herself. If she could get free of Stingmon’s grip, she could cut herself free on his armor or claws, and she could take off running. She’d use her D-3 to find Tailmon. She just had to wait for the Kaiser to take the blinder off of her. Or at least wait for him to stop walking, and she could take it off with her own hands–unless it had some kind of code that only he could disable. Shit .

She had to wait for him to take it off her first.

The Kaiser stopped walking again, and there was the distant, quiet sound of something being keyed in–probably the sound of a doorway–and the woosh of metal confirmed it was the case. The Kaiser walked again, and Stingmon followed, as the door shut behind them. 

Hikari was set on the ground. She wasn’t sure what to do, so she just stood completely still, waiting for what would happen next.

“Wormmon.” Hikari started a little at the Kaiser’s voice, calm and quiet and impassive. “Report on the security, please. Status of audio and video recording?”

“Right.” The worm digimon skittered, soft clicks of his claws over metal, and then soft clicks of his claws typing on a keyboard. “The bug is in place, Ken! We have about five minutes before it’ll be picked up in the security system.” 

“Good job, Wormmon.” 

They were talking. Ichijouji was talking. Wormmon called him Ken.

“Hold still, Hikari.” Ichijouji’s hands gently lifted the visor again, and while she still faced the Digimon Kaiser, his face was set–determination in his brow. 

“Five minutes and thirty seconds, Ken.” Wormmon called out from a computer monitor in the corner of the room. 

“Ichijouji?” Hikari asked, and Wormmon jumped down from the computer to peel off the sticky net with his mandibles. 

“Wait until I’m done explaining, Hikari.” Ichijouji continued, taking a step back to lean against the door, frowning as he braced against it, listening. “Give me your D-3, please. I’m going to send you out to find Tailmon, and a key to open the gate. You told me you want to help. I’ll need you to do it. To save the others and the Digital World.”