Chapter 1

Part 1

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven…

(Ecclesiastes 3-1)


The alarm had been triggered at 6 am in the morning, and it wasn't until 7 am after much consideration and thorough assessment of the situation that Yamaki had decided to call the tamers and inform them of the current happenings in the digital world. It had been a couple of weeks, really, since he and Riley, the more committed ones of the Hypnos research group, had noticed that something was off. They had decided to monitor the happenings until they made a decision on whether to make it known to the tamers. That decision had been made the 22nd of December at dawn. During the night 79 villages alone in the digital world and hundreds of digimon had vanished. Riley stared grimly at the monitors in front of her before looking back silently at her boss, the number of destroyed villages and slaughtered digimon over the past two weeks had just reached the four digits. They could no longer remain observant; something was deleting little by little all life in the digital realm. Nodding in understanding Yamaki moved to his own work station. He would have a flock of angry parents on his headquarters sooner than later but promises needed to be kept.

Some years ago an agreement had been made between Hypnos and the children, now almost young adults: there would be no human interference in any matter regarding the digimon as long as it did not affect both worlds; and even though this, technically, had no evident repercussions in the human world, it could mean the end of the digital universe. It was certainly not to be taken lightly or ignored.


Early the next day most of them were reunited at Hypnos, including Ryo, who got to Shinjuku the same day he received the call despite his father's protests. In the end he had been forced to sneak out of his house and leave a note behind. He realized, with some regret, that this would bring back some issues he and his father had been trying to resolve.

"It had to be a matter of life and death for us to finally see you again, Ryo. Man, I can't believe we're together again, we missed you so much." Hirokazu beamed at the cerulean eyed and swung his arm around his shoulders pulling him into a friendly one armed hug.

Rika gave the enthusiastic teenager an icy look and catching Ryo's eye turned her head away disdainfully "Speak for yourself, visor boy."

Hirokazu opened his mouth to defend his hero's stand and to remind her that he no longer wore a visor but a hat, a respectable black and green stripped baseball hat, a 17-year-old couldn't be seen wearing a visor anymore, that would be ridiculous. He was about to make his first argument but Kenta spoke first. "Oh, that's right; you two have actuallybeen seeing each other."

Rika turned to face him and had him gulping and regretting the sudden slip. "What?" she asked the green eyed in a steely tone "We certainly have not. The last time we saw each other was at that annual reunion months ago and you were all there."

Hirokazu turned to look at Ryo for confirmation but he looked away as if he weren't really paying attention.

Takato spoke out. "Have you two really been seeing each other? How long has this been going on?"

Jeri choked out a giggle and Takato turned to her "You knew!" and narrowing his eyes he turned to Kenta "And you too!"

"Jeri!" Rika snapped at her and the brunette pursed her lips.

"I didn't tell anybody, I swear. I have no idea how Kenta found out!"

The young man cast his eyes to the ceiling. He had once, not so accidentally, eavesdropped on a conversation between Jeri and Rika, sadly he still hadn't gotten all of the details.

"So it's true." Henry said looking at Rika in disbelief. Who would have thought? She always made a show of having a passionate hate for the guts of Ryo Akiyama, whenever he was brought up in conversation she would huff and try to change the topic almost instantly. Perhaps they had all been reading those signs of annoyance the wrong way.

The auburn haired shook her head furiously, her ears suddenly felt like they were burning. "I-it's not true…I mean fine, we've seen each other after that, but—"

"So are you…uh, dating?" Takato asked bluntly.

Hirokazu let go of Ryo as if he had caught on fire "No, this can't be true. You couldn't possibly have fallen for that… that…"

Ryo arched a brow, silently daring him to finish his sentence.

"Hirokazu…" Henry began in a warning tone, Rika looked flustered enough and Ryo was strangely quiet.

"Why couldn't you just tell us?" Takato muttered, the disappointment in his voice quite evident. Jeri moved her hand to his back and patted it affectionately before looking back at Rika and mouthing a sorry.

"So how did it happen?" asked Kenta.

"Dude, don't ask them that." Hirokazu actually looked a little bit ill by now and staggered to a wall to lean his head against it. Henry rolled his eyes at his dramatic display of inconformity.

Rika whipped a glare towards the green haired. Since when had he become so outspoken? She managed to squeeze a half hearted never mind out of him before an uncomfortable quietness settled in the room.

After what felt like an eternity of extremely awkward silence Yamaki called to them from the door. "Rob McCoy should be here shortly and then we'll bring you all up to date. Ten minutes, conference room three." Unaware of the tense atmosphere hanging in the group and the pleading stares for him to stay, he turned and left before anyone had a chance to say anything.

Silence again, until…

"But really, guys…" Kenta began, testing his luck one too many times by Rika's estimate. She clenched a fist and opened her mouth just as Jeri jumped in to play referee and try to settle things. Unfortunately for her Takato soon joined his friend in his bout of questioning while Hirokazu spiraled down into a pit of denial and started mumbling, mostly to himself and a sighing Henry, that it couldn't be true and all was a nightmare he would soon wake up from. After a while, tired of trying to effectively shut everyone up for good to no avail Rika turned to Ryo. He was standing to the side and looking seemingly unaffected by everyone's outburst.

"Goddamnit, Ryo, why aren't you saying anything?" She finally spat out.

She might as well have tried that from the start as everyone stopped in the middle of their respective arguments and turned to her.

Ryo looked at her and his lips curved into a sly smile.

A long drawn out No emerged from Hirokazu's gaping mouth.

"I guess that's that; it's confirmed." Henry said.

"What are you talking about? I haven't confirmed a damn thing," Rika wanted to step over and slap Henry for trying to be a smartass.

"Rika you just used his first name instead of calling him Akiyama or some insulting/sarcastic nickname." Jeri stated softly. It had been a while, and she had to give it to Rika and Ryo for not slipping on their past reunions with the rest of them, but after more than two years, it was obvious their act wouldn't last much longer.

Rika was rendered speechless and just stared at the brunette before her expression settled into helpless mortification, probably not as evident as Hirokazu's, but bad enough that she finally turned and walked out of the room.

"To be fair, the nicknames are still there, it's just the context and tone that have changed." Ryo put in.

Henry cleared his throat and Hirokazu's jaw dropped.

"I'll bring her back." The blue eyed finally said, and patting Hirokazu's head on the way out flashed everyone else a smile.

Oh yes, they were absolutely dating. Takato grinned.

Ryo found Rika pacing the corridor outside, her phone to her ear "I can't tell you for sure, mom. Mhm…I know. I am sorry but if it comes to it I'm going anyway." She turned back and caught sight of Ryo, waiting patiently for her to finish her conversation. She rolled her eyes at him and he nodded in understanding.

"Mom, you and I knew it wouldn't be the last time." She sighed and he noticed how she suddenly tensed and immediately stopped walking "Well sure, fine, if you want to come and try to stop me then that's your time wasted, but in the end I'll find a way to—Oh, hi grandma… could you please tell—yes—I was calm grandma…"

Ryo kept a sober expression. Rika's relationship with her mom had certainly improved over the years but not without the help and constant interference of Seiko, Rika's grandmother. At least Rika had agreed, after much insistence of her mother, to carry a cell phone around and to not just hang up whenever the young model got on her nerves. She was doing her best to keep things amicable but her and her mother's temper tended to just clash naturally.

"Uh…yeah sure, I will call her when a decision's been made. Thank you, grandma. Bye."

"God, you do suck at lying." Half amused he saw her turn to him as if suddenly irritated by his presence.

"I did not lie. She will be informed of whatever is decided today."

"That's an interesting choice of words. This, just to be clear, means Yamaki will end up calling her if we have to leave today and you'll pretend you just had too much going on and forgot."

Rika hated that he could—no, that he was allowed to call her on it. Stupid relationships giving people the right to meddle in your personal business. But then again, she had also given him grief for not confronting his dad before he got here.

"Like you're the one to talk. And what was that a while ago with the rest? If I suck at lying then I don't even know what to call what you did in there…you might as well have told them we've been..." she winced at the word "dating for over two years now."

It was a damn good record, Ryo thought, not to mention they had already been keeping in touch after the D-Reaper incident and that had been a while before they even decided to give their relationship a status or a name. After all, since they had kept it in secret from mostly everyone, formalities had not been something they had bothered with. Finally, Rika had decided to make an exception with Jeri, (mostly because Jeri had begun to suspect something and she would sooner than later give Rika the third degree) Ryo had to agree it seemed more dangerous not to tell the brunette.

"I didn't say a word."

"Exactly!" Rika exclaimed stabbing her finger to his chest. "It was like you were silently agreeing with everything they said."

"You're the one who made me promise to stay silent and I quote Ryo Akiyama, you will not say a word about our current relationship, not to anyone in the group, not even Takato, and especially not to that duo of idiots Hirokazu and Kenta or so help me God you will wake up one day in a dark alley with marks on your body so bizarre and deep you'll still have them years from now and just looking at them will make you wince at the memory. Not to mention that I will be dumping your ass in that instant. I'm serious hotshot, after I'm done with you, you will never hear from me again.

"Huh, you were actually paying attention. Good." Rika seemed suddenly satisfied.

"I just couldn't risk the consequences." He smiled.

"That scared of physical confrontation, huh? That's very wise of you."

He laughed and shook his head, "Physical confrontation between a couple could lead to very interesting scenarios, I wouldn't mind us giving it a shot someday. The latter of your threats, however, I can't help but take more seriously. I'm just not sure how I could deal with the prospect of not seeing you again."

Rika blinked at him, not quite sure which of both statements had color rising to her cheeks, and then, catching his smug smile, she forced a frown to her face "Don't be a smartass, Akiyama."

"Oh there it is, you should have used my last name a couple of minutes ago and you could go on pretending to hate me in front of the rest." He watched her expression fall once again. "For what it's worth, it was very entertaining to see you trying to handle it."

"Oh, go to hell."

She looked away but he could see the humor in her eyes now and offered her a hand "I think it's time to go back."

Rika eyed his subtle offer as if it were a bear trap "And you think that because they know about us now we're walking back in together hand in hand?"

He stared at her for a couple of seconds before sighing in defeat and shoving his hand inside the lower front pocket of his black jacket "No, of course not. What am I thinking by wanting to hold my girlfriend's hand in front of my friends? I'm sorry; sometimes I don't know where I get these crazy ideas from."

Rika ignored his sarcasm and walked past him. "Just don't let it happen again."


The general mood of the audience in one of Hypnos' conference rooms had become somber within the first five minutes of Yamaki's report. He presented charts, diagrams and along with Riley explained to them how they usually kept track of the villages and hotspots for certain digimon and how some of them had disappeared overnight. Yamaki proceeded pointing to numbers and maps as he spoke in a detached manner; but he knew the young faces in front of him were seeing and listening to something else. Those weren't just ciphers he was delivering to them but what they all knew to be actual feeling creatures; creatures as sentient as their loyal partners who were now waiting in another room of the Hypnos facility.

"Whether the cause of this is a digimon or a program like the D-Reaper we haven't been able to find out. It doesn't show in the radar and no matter how closely a spot is being monitored all life and settlements could and have vanished without much warning." He stopped his pacing, scanned the contemplative faces of his audience and settled his stare on Takato's, "I didn't call you here expecting you to fix this. I just wanted to honor our agreement."

Takato nodded and felt obliged to ask, "Have any of these happenings reflected on our world?"

Yamaki shook his head. "Not so far. There haven't been any peculiar incidents in the real world in the past few weeks that stand out or could be connected to this event."

"But there's no saying there won't be any." Rob McCoy, Alice's grandfather, stood up. "If this is anything like the D-reaper it will definitely find a way to the real world."

Jeri's eyes widened for a moment. The memories of the time the chaos had reigned over their city, fueled by her fears and sadness, came down on her as a bucket of cold water, paralyzing her. She knew she would never completely forgive herself for what her friends had gone through and for the part she'd taken in it, but she didn't know that she would still be so terrified of it. She heard Henry's dad speak out but the sound was muffled now by the resonance of her heart pounding in her chest in a panic, and as she struggled for calm, she felt something warm cover the fist she had clenched around the fabric of her dress under the table. It was Takato's hand, he wasn't looking at her, his stare was set on Henry's dad as he spoke.

"We can't just stay here waiting for it to attack."

She turned her hand and gripped Takato's softly in response to his gesture. It was all right, she was never alone. He had never deserted her and neither had her friends. She looked up to the others, realizing with some relief that, although Rika had briefly looked in her direction with some concern, none of them had actually noticed her loss of balance. She offered her friend a smile of gratitude and tried to focus on the discussion again.

"When and if it turns into a problem here, we'll find a way to deal with it, there's no need for you to go back."

Janyu Wong was against the idea of them becoming involved again, after all, two of his children were tamers and he wasn't too happy with the possibility of having to send them off again to the digital world to face some unknown threat that for all they knew could be worse than the D-Reaper itself. He had somehow pulled through the insanity of last time, being forced to just observe and wait. He definitely did not want to go through that again.

"We owe it to our digimon. They helped us save our world. The least we could do is help them protect theirs as well."

"Takato is right, dad." Henry said and Janyu locked his eyes on his son's calm grey ones. "I am sorry, but we can't just wait and see."

"Do you really want to get your sister involved in all of this again?" Janyu hadn't raised his voice but the look on Henry's face was the same as if he had.

"Suzie won't be coming." He answered firmly.

"Henry, if we open that portal and send you all back it could suck your sister in no matter where she is. Much like last time."

"That portal may open regardless. If it's their mission to go, there's nothing that will stop the digital world from transporting them back."

Janyu looked at Rob McCoy, his usual calm demeanor almost completely gone. Before he could stop himself, the thoughts cruising through his mind turned into bitter words. "It's not their mission to go missing like your granddaughter."

Both men's eyes widened, both almost equally shocked at what had been said. Rob clenched a fist and stood up.

"Dad!" To everyone's surprise Henry raised his voice, standing up too, he stared at his father with evident reproach.

Alice McCoy had disappeared immediately after she took Dobermon to help them biomerge during the battle with the D-Reaper. They didn't gather much information about her from their brief interaction, only that she and Dobermon had been sent on a mission by the Sovereigns to help them defeat both worlds' common threat at the time. As far they knew she wasn't a tamer. Dobermon had seemed to be her only companion but not her partner; he had been, after all, just a vessel. The Alice McCoy they had met looked utterly lonely and disconnected from the real world. Not at all like the smiling girl in the portrait that Rob carried around.

At the time none of them knew of the kinship between the blonde girl and the professor, of her disappearance, and of his failed attempts over the years to contact her. In the end they didn't know if by mentioning her to the team at Hypnos had brought new hope for the man or if it had only reopened the wound and made it more painful. But they definitely acknowledged the sensitivity of the matter. Unlike Ryo, Alice hadn't gone willingly to the digital world; it had been Rob himself, during one of his experiments, who had accidentally sent her away. It was hard to imagine how anyone could live with such guilt.

"I apologize, Rob. I shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah, you shouldn't have." The man adjusted his glasses and looked at Yamaki's data still on display and after a moment looked down at the notes in his hands. "I realize now that I really have no say in what you decide here. But I'm willing to help you make the trip to the digital world as safe as I can, should you decide to go. Excuse me."

Henry saw the man leave, his back rigid and his head high, nothing in his posture deceived his struggle for composure but the slight clenching of his jaw as he exited the room. The blue haired felt a pang of guilt. None of them had given the girl much thought after they had received her help. They had been too focused on the battle, on themselves. If at least one of them had followed her that day they would have perhaps been able to alleviate the professor's suffering.

Ryo stared at the door long after the man had left, he hadn't met this girl they were all talking about but knew from previous conversations and meetings that without her help they probably wouldn't have been able to defeat the D-Reaper. He wondered if he and this girl had ever, unknowingly, been in the same area at the same time while in the digital world. It wasn't easy being in a world that could often turn hostile and was in essence primitive. If she, in fact, did not have a partner, he found it hard to believe she could still be alive.

Yamaki cleared his throat, effectively breaking the tension lingering in the room. Henry sat down again, averting his eyes from his dad's apologetic stare.

"Take your time to think this through." Riley said softly.

"No." Takato looked around, assessing his friends' expressions. "This can't wait anymore, we are going. We are all reunited, so the sooner the better."

The rest of the group nodded in unison. Janyu's expression turned pleading, his eyes fixed on his son's face, but Henry wasn't looking at him anymore. The group got up and started leaving the room to make calls and inform their partners.

Rika hadn't risen from her seat and stared as Jeri and Takato left the room hand in hand. She wondered if it would be a good idea to talk to Jeri in private before leaving. Never mind that it would give her a decent excuse to avoid the call home.

"He's got it. She'll be okay."

She almost jumped up from her chair and looked back at Ryo, towering over her. Her eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about." And damn it, she wished she actually didn't. She hadn't decided whether it amazed her or freaked her out the way he seemed to easily read her mind.

He simply stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. "There's no way you can stall long enough to avoid making the call."

Never mind, it was decided. It freaked the hell out of her.

"What? I wasn't—it's insulting how you would believe I—Shut up."

His brow raised, a half amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

She gritted her teeth. "Don't act all patronizing with me. If I make that call then you will make it too."

The smile on his face vanished instantly and it made her feel significantly better.

"I already left a note. A call won't make any difference with my dad, if anything it will only get me yelled at." Ryo defended, but his stare implored to be spared the bad moment.

"No, don't give me the puppy eyes; you're too old for that." And damn if they didn't work if you stared back long enough. "If I have to call my mom then you have to call your dad." She let out a long dramatic sigh "But I guess, if you really don't want to call him, then we could both spare ourselves the unnecessary formalities and just, I don't know, pretend the calls didn't go through."

"You're terrible, Rika."

She grinned but it didn't last long as he reached for the phone in his pocket and slid it open. "We're doing this. And don't ask your grandmother to tell her for you. That's cheating."

011101010101010101011101

Okay, that's the first part of a very long first chapter. Some of you will recognize this fanfic (that is if you are a hardcore Ryoki fan and are still around after 7 years or so from the first time I published this story under the very absurd title of 'Before death continues', okay, say what? Don't ask. The title before that was even worse. Yes, it is possible.) , and so you'll know I've been modifying it for a very, very long time. This fic has been my precious baby for years. I won't promise I won't do any modifications to this entry later on. I have a problem. I'm just trying to improve, and believe me when I tell you it's been a long way from the first draft of this story (I don't know how people could read it and still leave nice reviews) to this (still not great but much better than before). Anyhow, Ryoki is my illness and I want to help spread it, maybe this time I'll finish the story*fingers crossed*. Needless to say titles and summaries are still not my thing.

Anyway, it's nice to be actively back.

Dolce S.