Chapter Text
0.
Is it really going to end like this?
Kaito wanted to laugh, rasping breaths choked out amidst the smoke; hunched into himself and clutching at the wound that bled freely across his stomach. In the distance he could still make out Murasamemon's blurred silhouette, retreating with Kyo carried on their back.
The scent of singed flesh haunted him. Lingering even as Flaremon gathered him up and took off in sprint out of the smouldering wreckage, bounding across the ruined landscape with a desperation Kaito was numb to.
A fight with their lives on the line... Kyo had kept his promise to him.
So why did Kaito still feel so empty? Why did his mind flicker back to a silver ring he'd never worn and the matching golden band he was certain Kyo had never tried on either.
Survive - Kyo Sawashiro. You have to. One day... I'll meet you on another battlefield.
The thoughts pass through his mind with a whisper, the last of his conscious haze before the world went black.
(Later, after their wounds healed and Firamon had forgiven him for allowing his fixation to delay their retreat and leaving his debris inflicted wound to fester, Kaito retrieves his wedding ring. Even for the World Union, the conditions for completing that mission had been asinine. Endless layers of bureaucracy for a task that had taken less than an hour, a handful of signed documents tying his life to another in the eyes of the law.
It wouldn't take more than a few days to get divorce filings in order, the forms already bookmarked on his Sapotama.
Gently setting down his ring Kaito grabs the device, and a few minutes later the bookmarks have been cleared and forms discarded. He can't find it within himself to regret following through with the impulse.
Your move, Kyo.)