Chapter Text
After Chronomon's defeat, Jupitermon returned each of the Olympos XII to their own domains, eight years in the past. To Vulcanusmon, it felt a little weird to be back in the Factorial Area after so long, and to find it exactly how he'd left it. When he'd been reunited with his Kokuwamon workers in Rebellion Village, they'd bemoaned the state of their former home and how it had become little more than a flashy money pit. Vulcanusmon was relieved to find that post time-reset, this was no longer the case, and his forge was back in working order.
Jupitermon's reset had affected not only the human world but also every Digimon except for the Olympos XII themselves. Even the Kokuwamon partners who'd assisted Vulcanusmon at the end of the world had no memory of their heroic actions. Vulcanusmon felt bad about that, and worse when it occurred to him that none of the humans would remember anything that had happened, either.
Still, as he climbed back up to settle in at the console from which he controlled the power to all of Iliad, one thing pleased him: his “treasure” was still there, intact—even the action figure he remembered breaking. He glanced down with an unseen grin at Jupitermon, who was standing below him, in front of the console.
“Ha, they're all still here! Except. . . .” Vulcanusmon's voice trailed off as he carefully picked up something lying on the console: a tiny yet perfectly formed replica of a human hand.
“Except for one,” he muttered. “I remember this washed up, and Aegiomon—well, you went to Akihabara and brought back that action figure for me. It was amazing, such exceptional craftsmanship! But it's not here anymore, because I guess now that never happened, did it?”
Vulcanusmon looked down at the miniature outstretched hand resting on his own, much larger palm and murmured to himself rather than Jupitermon, “So delicate and beautiful. . . but none of it really happened, and now it never will. I'll never see her again.”
After a few seconds, Jupitermon prompted, “Her. . . ?”
“. . . Hunh? Oh!” Vulcanusmon held up the hand and stammered, “Sayori! That's what you said the figure's name was, right, Sayori the. . . Cutie Magician? Haha, it's wonderful that they'd put so much care into crafting something, even with such a silly name!”
Jupitermon just stood there looking up at him for an uncomfortably long moment, long enough that Vulcanusmon was pretty sure he'd caught on that “her” hadn't referred to Sayori the Cutie Magician.
When he did finally speak, gently, Jupitermon's voice sounded very much like Aegiomon's had: “Just before we faced Chronomon, you said that if the world ended, your life would be full of regrets.”
Vulcanusmon's single eye shifted to Sayori's little hand again, then back to Jupitermon.
“Yeah. . . ?”
“Well, the world didn't end. I 'reset' it, but it didn't end,” said Jupitermon. “So there's no excuse for you to live with regret! Like I told all of you, the future is something we must grasp with our own hands. And you've got more than enough hands to grasp it with, right?”
Vulcanusmon chuckled in spite of himself and shrugged four of his shoulders.
“True. But what are you getting at?”
Jupitermon gave him another one of those thoughtfully awkward silences before responding in a way that didn't answer the question at all: “You also said that you wanted to talk to Dr. Simmons longer. You know. . . she said the same thing about you.”
Vulcanusmon blinked. “She—did?”
“Yes. Before you ever met, even.” Like Vulcanusmon, Jupitermon lacked a visible mouth to smile with, but his voice sounded like it was smiling anyhow. “When you asked me to track down what figure that hand went to, even the shopkeeper in Akihabara couldn't tell me. But Dr. Simmons was shopping there, and she recognized it immediately.”
Vulcanusmon blinked a second time and repeated, “She did? She likes action figures?”
“She called them 'an art form,'” confirmed Jupitermon, “and she chose the one I ended up bringing to you. In fact, when she realized that it was a Digimon who was so impressed with that hand, she bought the figure for you.”
“. . . Oh,” Vulcanusmon sighed as he closed his fingers around the part he held. He was sure Jupitermon meant to make him feel better, but what he'd explained—that the lost Sayori figure was actually a gift from Dr. Simmons—only gave Vulcanusmon more of those regrets he had no business feeling.
But Jupitermon wasn't finished: “And she said she wanted to meet you someday, because you two would have a lot to talk about—the same thing you said.”
“But when we did meet, there wasn't much time for that,” muttered Vulcanusmon. “We talked a little while you were gone to the Cosmic Area, but then everything happened so suddenly. I never had the chance to tell her. . . .”
“To tell her what?” Jupitermon asked when he didn't continue.
Vulcanusmon shrugged again, all eight shoulders this time. “Hell, I don't even know. That I did forgive her—that there wasn't even anything to forgive her for. What was done to me. . . that wasn't her fault. Even if it was the end result of her research, she was long gone by then. She seemed to think that she was responsible for every bad thing humans ever did to Digimon, but she's no more to blame than I'm to blame for the bad stuff other Digimon did to humans.”
He looked down at Jupitermon standing below with his golden head tilted up, looking back.
“I should've told her that sooner,” Vulcanusmon finished quietly, “because now I never can. Since time's been reset for everyone but us twelve, not only will I never see her again—she never met me in the first place. She'll never know I so much as exist, and I didn't even get to say goodbye. How'm I supposed to stop regretting that?”
Jupitermon replied immediately: “By making it right. You've always said that if something is broken, you just fix it. You don't have my power to change the past, but everyone has the power to change the future—so fix it!
“Digimon and humans. . . we can coexist. We proved it! And even though I stopped Chronomon's gate from opening, there must still be other connections between our worlds. That piece of the Sayori figure proves that.”
“I didn't think about that, but you. . . you're right,” murmured Vulcanusmon. “It wouldn't still be here otherwise.”
Jupitermon nodded. “Right. And that means humans and Digimon can make contact again—safely, this time. Junomon can open another gate, but only when both sides are prepared. That will take time, and the humans will need to be introduced to the existence of Digimon first.”
He lowered his head and was silent a beat before saying more softly, “I wish I could be the one to do that, but I cannot. With my powers, it's too dangerous. I might not be able to resist the temptation to interfere too much. Someone else, though. . . .” Jupitermon looked up at Vulcanusmon again as he declared, “Another Digimon who cares about humans could.”
In amazement, Vulcanusmon breathed, “You mean. . . me? But how?”
“I sent my other self back to that world, and they still have their Digivice,” replied Jupitermon with that smile back in his voice. “Why don't you see if a message will go through?”
–
to be continued