Yakusoku

A Peregrine Side-story by Marron

Disclaimer: Digimon and its characters are not owned by me. If you haven't already started to read the wonderful story Peregrine by Dark Sakura, go read it now!

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Yakusoku //

Promise n.

1. a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified.

Promise v.

1. to pledge to do, bring about, or provide.

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The sky was always a bright blue in the Digital World, never marred by rain or storms. The sun was always large and bright in the sky.

Sariel could feel the warmth of the sun on her back as she ran. She never wondered why the Digital World had a sky, or a sun, or for that matter how she could feel its heat. She never thought of how this world had come to be, or why it was the way it was. She ran.

There were still some tears stinging at her eyes as she had broke into a sprint, waving behind her to the tall, blonde Chosen and his twin Digimon. She ran until her legs gave out, and she stumbled onto the soft grass, landing in a heap. She rolled over on her back, panting for breath. 'Almost there.' She thought. 'I can't stop now.'

She attempted to stand up, but her legs wouldn't work. Sighing, she pulled the tired limbs into an embrace against her chest and rested her forehead on her knees.

I'll find you, I promise!

She had sworn to Reremon that she would meet her in Primary Village, but now that her legs didn't want to run any more, she became afraid. She had already broken one promise to Renamon when she had been unable to stop them from taking her and manipulating her code. They had unlocked some kind of code in Renamon that allowed her to appear as a human, which allowed the two to travel freely without drawing attention to themselves, but…

"Reremon, I'm so sorry I couldn't keep my promise." She whispered to the breeze. Her mind played memories over and over again, the backs of her eyelids serving as a projector.

*****

"Sari, I have some work to do. Won't you be a good girl and stay here in the den while I go to the library and retrieve a few books?" Doctor Patrick Henry, professor of philosophy and religious mythology at the University of Nevada, patted his daughter on the head, ruffling her pale hair. The girl looked up at her father with huge ocean-colored eyes and nodded.

"I'll be a good girl, Daddy." She promised, hugging the large, floppy stuffed rabbit in her arms. Henry smiled at his little girl, gave her head another pat, and walked towards the hallway, picking up his briefcase as he left.

Sariel, her limbs long and clumsy for her age, sat completely still until she heard the front door of her house creak open, slam shut, and lock. Most children her age wouldn't have been left unattended for any long periods of time; but Sariel Henry definitely wasn't a normal six-year-old girl.

Sariel's father was a kind man with little contact with small children and even less knowledge on how to raise them. He did his best, which was rather good considering the widower was a full time college professor. He read students' essay papers to her as bedtime stories, and let her pick out whatever kinds of books she wanted when they went to the library. Little Sari, as Henry and his colleagues called her, had received her library card when she was only two years old, and had signed her own name on the back (in pink crayon).

Sari should have been in kindergarten, but she wasn't; she was a first-grader who sat in her father's classes when there was nobody to baby-sit and who was left to her own devices when her father had work to do.

As the girl heard the door close and lock, she scrambled from the leather sofa of the den to her feet. Her father would only be gone half an hour at most, but it was plenty of time. Sari hugged Mr. Floppy, her stuffed rabbit, and looked across the room at her father's computer desk. Whenever her father was gone, she liked to play on the computer. There was something about it that amazed her. She set Mr. Floppy down on the leather sofa and made her way to the large oak desk.

The computer chair was taller than her, and didn't creak from her weight the way it did when her father sat in it. She felt an excited lump in her throat as she pushed the power button.

Something strange happened.

There was a powerful surge of energy, so strong that it pushed Sari and the chair away from the desk. The computer screen glowed with light so pure and bright that she had to shield her eyes from it. She was scared that she had broken the monitor, so she clambered out of the chair and ran back to the couch, hiding behind one of the large corner pillows and covering her eyes.

A few minutes passed, and when the computer did not explode and the light had faded, she peeked out from between her fingers to look. In front of the monitor, there was something large and oval. It was speckled.

She slid off the couch slowly, not wanting to make any noise, and crept back towards the computer desk. When she was close enough, she climbed back into the computer chair and looked.

"Egg?" She asked aloud, reaching out to touch the speckled object. It was slightly warm, and the shell was firm, with a slightly rough texture under her hand. She stepped down onto the hardwood floor and reached up onto the desk, picking up the egg. She took it upstairs to her room, wrapped it in her favorite blanket, placed it upon her pillow, and went back to the den. She turned off the computer, put the chair back in its place, and returned to the leather couch to lie down so that she would be napping when her father came home.

For three days, nothing happened. Sari continued to try to keep the egg warm, even snuggling with it and her favorite blanket while she slept to help ward off the cold of the winter nights. She wondered what was inside the egg, but she did not ask her father; Henry ate eggs for breakfast every morning, and might have decided that this egg would make a tasty omelet.

On Thursday--four days after the egg had mysteriously appeared--Sari was unusually hopeful. Her father picked her up at First Good Shepherd, the private school she attended, and they drove home. Sari could tell that her father had a lot of work to do on this particular day, because he spoke very few words to her on the way home. It was just as well; it would give her a chance to spend time with her egg.

"Sari, I have some work to do, so be a good girl and go do your homework. We'll do our thinking exercises at dinner time, okay?" Henry fumbled with his keys as they stood before their house; finally finding the correct key amongst the plethora of others, he unlocked the door and let his daughter in.

"Okay, Daddy. Can I do my homework in my room?" She asked as her father helped her out of the large down jacket she was wearing. Henry hung the girl's jacket up on the coat rack next to the door, and then removed his own.

"Sure. Come downstairs at five o'clock so that I can start dinner."

"Okay!" She needed little encouragement to lift her backpack from the floor and sprint up the stairs to her room. Her father was too engrossed with his own 'homework' to think her behavior strange.

Once in the safety of her pink-walled room, she carefully closed the door behind her and set the backpack down. She didn't have homework, she never did. She did it all during recess because nobody wanted to play with her.

Sariel dove onto her My Little Pony-clad bed belly first and carefully unwrapped the egg from her blanket. "You're hatching!" She exclaimed in an excited whisper--so her father wouldn't hear--as she noticed that the shell of the egg was starting to crack near the top.

"You can do it! I know you can!" She whispered encouragement to the egg; much to her delight, the egg seemed more determined because of her words and the shell cracked more. Finally, the egg shell all but crumbled; sitting in the center of the pieces of broken shell was a small, round ball of fur with a bushy tail.

"Eeee!" Sari squealed at the sight of the fur ball. She sat up on her knees and watched it in delight as it yawned and shook its tail. It looked up at Sari and imitated her squeal, jumping into her waiting arms.

"I'm Reremon!" It chirped as it happily snuggled against her sweater.

"I'm Sariel!" The girl gave the ball of fluff a fond squeeze.

"Sa…ri? Sari!" Reremon squeaked. "Let's be friends!"

Sari looked down at Reremon, a huge smile stretching across her tiny face. "I've never had a friend before." She admitted.

"Why not?" Reremon peered up at the girl.

"All the kids in my class hate me because I'm younger than them and got moved up to their class." She explained rather casually. "They don't want to be friends with me because they think I'm a smarty-pants." She started to feel tears in her eyes; it really hurt her feelings that the other children didn't like her, but when she was around her father, or the kids themselves, she tried not to let it show.

"I think you're the best!" Reremon consoled the girl. "When I first came here, you wrapped my egg nice and warm in a blanket, and I could hear you talking to me at night time before you went to sleep."

"You knew about that even when you weren't hatched yet?"

Reremon bounced in her lap. "Yep yep!" She chirped. "You took good care of me. You're my best friend."

Sari's expression brightened and she squeezed Reremon tight. "I'll always take good care of you from now on. I'll never let anything bad happen to you, I promise!"

*****

The promise of a six-year-old child remained with the eighteen-year-old young woman. Sariel lifted her head from her knees and forced herself to stand. Her legs were a little wobbly, but she didn't collapse this time.

'Those bastards. When they took Renamon away, they made me break my promise.'

She couldn't wait any longer. Primary Village was just over the horizon, and she knew that her friend was waiting there.

'I won't break any more promises.'

She felt a burst of adrenaline, a sudden rush of energy, and broke into a run again.

"Sari-chan!"

"Sari-chan!"

She didn't turn around or stop, but kept on running, even as two streaks, one white and one blue, came up on either side of her.

"Terriermon! Lopmon! What are you doing?" She called out to the Digimon who had caught up to her.

"Sari-chan! So glad we found you!" Terriermon sing-songed.

"Sari-chan! Warassu told us to take care of you until you go back to your world!" Lopmon added.

Both Terriermon and Lopmon tripped and stumbled as they saw Sariel skid to a halt. She lifted her hands to her flushed cheeks and shook her head as her blush increased. "He told you… To take care of me? Eee, how sweet of him!"

"Hidoi." Lopmon tilted his head to one side as he watched the girl make a fuss.

"Sari-chan's eyes have turned into giant hearts." Terriermon stated.

"Th-they have not!" Sariel shook a fist at the twin Digimon. "Don't tease me!" They giggled at her.

"Gomen!"

"Gomen ne!"

Sariel gathered her composure, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her face. She looked past Terriermon and Lopmon, and to her surprise, she saw Elecmon in the distance. He was carrying something fuzzy in his arms.

"Sariel! There's someone here who's been waiting for you!" Elecmon called out.

"Reremon!" Sariel cried as she ran towards Elecmon.

The ball of fur perked up at Sariel's voice and jumped out of Elecmon's arms. "SARI!" It squealed as it bounced towards the girl. They met half way, and Reremon leaped into her Chosen's arms.

She was crying again, but this time, the tears she shed were those of joy.

"It's just like a movie!" Lopmon burst into tears, hugging his brother.

"Don't cry! Uwaaa!" Terriermon hugged Lopmon back and the two of them bawled.

---

After the touching reunion, and well after everyone had settled down, they all sat in the soft grass at the edge of Primary Village. Terriermon and Lopmon snuggled against Sariel, who held Reremon in her lap. The human girl watched the horizon change colors as the sun began to set and wondered if Wallace had collected any more keys.

In the far distance, something twinkled for a few seconds and then vanished. She wasn't sure why, but the flash of light made her stomach uneasy.

"Rere, will you be ready to go soon?" She asked her digital partner. "I told Wallace I'd see him again soon."

"Mm, maybe just two more days." Reremon replied, snuggling closer to Sari.

Terriermon and Lopmon looked up at the girl, and she looked between the two, biting her lip. "I have this bad feeling." She confessed. The twins shook their heads and patted her arms comfortingly.

"Everything is okay now, Sari." Reremon murmured, half asleep. "Now that we're together again, everything is okay."

Sari smiled down at the ball of fuzz curled up in her lap and smiled. "You're right." She looked back towards the setting sun and reflected.



'My name is Sariel Henry. At eighteen years of age, I've been a Chosen for twelve years. Always being advanced into higher classes during school, I never had any friends except for Rena, my digital partner. But now, Rena and I have made many new friends. Terriermon, Lopmon… And Wallace, the boy destined to find the Digital Keys. I know our adventure has just begun, and I hope that we make a lot more friends along the way. Wallace, I wonder if you're watching a sunset somewhere, too. If you're thinking about your friends, please know that we're all safe, thanks to you. Rena and I will see you soon. I promise.'

The End.