A/N: Welcome to our first collaboration! We'll be trading chapters for this one, so the odd chapters are written by one of us and the even ones by the other. Can you guess who's who?

This is written for the what-if challenge at the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum where both of us are mods. The what-if we chose is: What if Tailmon had killed Hikari when she had the chance?

Warnings: there's a bit of blood in this chapter. Just in case any of you are squeamish.

Enjoy, and please let us know what you think!

Blood-Stained Claws
1. Anyone Home?

Taichi was hot and sweaty and annoyed. All day they'd searched for the eight Chosen, but all they'd managed to find were Vamdemon's henchmen looking for him or her as well. They had a lot more to show: a hastily welded and precariously leaning Tokyo Tower – considering Kabuterimon couldn't just let it fall onto the city with people in the vicinity or even still inside that tower…

Taichi sighed. At least Agumon was back to being Agumon, which made him feel a little safer. But to think so many of Vamdemon's henchmen were still running about the city, causing who knew what sort of trouble. The seven of them couldn't be everywhere all the time, and if they managed to find the eighth child first –

He quickly shook himself out of that train of thought, then groaned. His feet and head were both killing him, and he couldn't wait for a cool shower and then bed. It wasn't that late, but they'd been walking around all day. Lunch had been salad sandwiches at the stand because it'd been just too hot to digest anything richer. Filling enough when their attention was on other things.

'I'm hungry,' Agumon said at that precise moment.

Taichi laughed; apparently it was only enough for the humans. 'You can grab something to eat when we get home,' he said. 'Who knows; maybe Hikari's baked cookies for you.'

'Ooh, yummy.' Agumon's mouth watered at the very thought and he ran ahead. 'I hope so.'

'Slow down.' The brief respite that had come with laughter quickly faded again. Going home with his sister waiting for him and maybe his mother too, if she wasn't out shopping or at her club, was a peaceful and wonderful idea he'd taken for granted before the Digital World. But now, with everything that had happened, it was a blessing. A place that was still the same and out of Vamdemon's reach, despite everything else. Even if the rest of the world would move on, if Vamdemon's henchmen could search through the night because they weren't human and bound to those same natural laws as the Chosen…but children didn't wander around at night by habit. Being able to search inconspicuously at night would be far more difficult.

That, at least, was something they still had on their side. But there had been Mammothmon, rampaging on the streets of Highten View Terrace. There had been Gesomon, raging through Tokyo Bay. They weren't inconspicuous at all. But that was only two of all those Digimon they'd seen go through the gate. Two of all those Digimon still out there, still searching. 'Do they sleep at all?'

'Huh?' Agumon, who'd already reached the door, turned to his partner. 'Who doesn't sleep?'

'Vamdemon's henchmen.' Taichi caught up and pushed the door. It wasn't shut properly, let alone locked, and Taichi wondered if that meant Hikari had ducked out for a bit, or else his mother had just returned. He didn't think his father could be home yet; it wasn't quite late enough for that.

'I'm back,' he called into the apartment. The sound of the television in the background could be heard, but no reply. 'Mum? Hikari?'

'Maybe they're not home,' Agumon offered, as Taichi toed off his shoes and replaced them with slippers.

'One of them is,' Taichi said tiredly. 'They wouldn't have left the door open otherwise.'

He couldn't hear anything but the television: a news report on the drama at Tokyo Tower it seemed. That knowledge had spread fast. If it was Hikari watching, she might have recognised MetalGreymon from the similarities he bore to his previous digivolutions. It probably was Hikari, if it was the news. Their mother tended to listen on the radio, and the sound was from the living room.

Taichi poked his head through the door. 'Hikari?'

He could see a bit of her brown hair. Yep, that was Hikari all right. Except Agumon was wrinkling his nose. 'What's that smell?'

'What smell?' Taichi sniffed the air. He couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary at all – until he stepped closer to the couch. Not enough to discern it, so he edged closer still. 'Hikari, did you play in the mud –'

He was close enough to see the pink scarf she always wore around her neck, and the blood it had soaked. His heart skipped a beat that moment and his breath got caught in his throat, but then it escaped in a loud panicked cry of 'Hikari!' as he dashed around the couch to her.

And then he froze again, close enough to touch if he stretched his fingers out – but he didn't. He couldn't. She wasn't starting at him, but blankly ahead, at the television screen mindlessly playing on. And blood had dribbled like ketchup from the tear on her neck onto her powder coloured clothes and even onto the whistle she'd loved so very much.

His heart didn't stop beating this time, but screamed so loudly, so fast, it drowned even the television and Agumon's voice out.