warnings: blood, violence, ptsd, slight character alterations, slight timeskip from canon, trauma.

Chapter One – You're All In

Kudo Taiki was dying.

Yuu knew this in his bones. He knew it wasn't his fault. He knew it had nothing to do with Hell's Field and everything to do with Superior Mode and DarknessBagramon flinging attacks that could kill a universe, never mind a person. He knew it had everything to do with the fact that they'd left their backs undefended at a terrible time. To be fair, no one had expected anyone to move, all of the human race had been petrified. Which meant that wasn't a human who had taken a weapon and stabbed them with it.

Not that Yuu would come to this conclusion until later. After all, they had just won. And their leader, the guy who had donned a Messiah complex to save the world, was now bleeding out for real under Yuu's fingers. It was nothing like he had imagined it would have been in the game. It was nothing so freeing and full of triumph. If his idealistic nonsense had needed a final nail in the coffin, here it was.

Blissfully, he was too busy focusing on breathing to try saying stupid and inspiring. Akari was shoving Kiriha's jacket over it and the others were helping and he coughed and coughed and-

Shoutmon Xros 7 Superior Mode moved to kneel, to try and help-

And the world was awash in green and gold.

Akashi Tagiru was a self-aware individual.

He had no doubts that when it came to life that he was painfully average and knowing it made everything all the more unbearable. Case in point, right now, as his teacher disregarded him after passing him his latest English score. It wasn't bad per se. It could have been worse. But the cold have been better nagged at his ordinary life, nagged at the desire to function like that head higher. Like, as sad and pathetic as it sounded, another boy in his class.

Amano Yuu glanced back at him as he passed the next worksheet and Tagiru made a face, wrinkling his nose in distaste. The boy frowned and turned back around, and Tagiru slumped his shoulders down with relief.

Yuu was his goal to be so to speak. He wasn't quite as good as the former star of his school, but that was a star who had been overcome by his own light. That was just not done. And this stupid seventy-two staring him in the face wasn't helping at all. But then, he was already screwed because the guy spoke English at home or something didn't he?

Tagiru gave up on his own self-monologue and went back to his notes. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the mistakes, looking back, weren't completely obvious. So he scrambled down words all the faster, his messy scrawl all over the page the biggest setback if there ever was one. Oh well, he'd work it out. His mom could read it and she wanted to, to stay modern or something.

Still, when lunch rolled around, Tagiru was all too eager to bolt out of the classroom to the cafeteria. He was even more eager for the day to end.

Amano Yuu watched Tagiru go. Then, he went to get his bag. Mami, two seats down, was also watching Tagiru's back, but with much more distaste. Not that Yuu could blame her. He had been in the room when said spiky-haired kid had shoved a rotten egg sandwich, open-faced, into her lap. The school had heard about it of course, but there was something uniquely humiliating about the experience in front of the person you crushed on.

And Yuu had no illusions that was how Mami felt about him. Not anymore.

He smiled at her. "Don't worry, I don't think he'll do it again."

Mami deflated and smiled at him in the same span of a minute. "I know, Yuu-sama-" He winced, and she shook her head apologetically. "Yuu-kun, just too many years with him. You're lucky you were a transfer."

He laughed sheepishly. "I'm not sure about that..." After all it was transfer away from the people who knew him as an antisocial little snot or go with his sister to another country and attempt to learn Chinese. It was an easy guess as to where and what he was going to do. Besides, circumstances made options less and less realistic. Such was life.

"Well, this school's a breeze compared to your old escalator one," she commented with a sigh. "My brother tried to go there. He had a nervous breakdown at the end of the first semester."

"Most people do," he said freely, opening his bento. "Including me." His had just been… more violent than others. And not on Earth soil. "I was just lucky enough to have supportive family and friends at the time."

Mami sighed. "We tried. He just locked up."

"People bully in that school," Yuu said gently, thanking and praising the meal. "It's inevitable in such a competitive environment."

"Mm."

Yuu preferred this, her casual speeches to her fawning adoration. Whether it was deserved or not didn't matter, it just didn't… it didn't belong to him.

Still, if it was the worst thing he had to deal with in this world, that was fine. He was happy with that.

Eventually his thoughts turned to Tagiru again. Not in a bad way, but in a sleepy, acknowledging sort of way. He did feel the guy glaring at his back all through class after all, when Tagiru thought he wasn't paying attention. Not to mention every grumble after homework, every mutter and destroyed set of notes. Yuu hadn't survived a war and gotten out useless, after all. He knew a competitive idiot when he saw one.

He didn't quite mean to smile about it, but the thought gave him an idea. And ideas were always a source of entertainment. He paused Mami's genuinely interesting talk about her brother and his ability in the sciences (He would have to meet him, might serve as a good distraction) and went to his phone.

"Hey, spider," he said softly. "Get me a key. I think we have someone else."

Beneath the trees of a seemingly innocuous park, something started to creak. There was little thought in the plant's mind, just a simplistic urging upward. Its roots slithered and groaned, squirming out like horrid tentacles. As one reached gleefully towards the sunlight, a mouth chomped down over its tip. It screamed and no one heard it. Plants weren't sentient enough to make a sound, after all. Stubby blue legs stuck up in the air as it chewed like a distended pacman or a demonic Kirby.

Tobari Ren could never tell the difference with this guy. But it did him good. It was easier to feed Dracmon actual digimon than, well, his minor allowance. Was it sick and cannibalistic? It was likely. Did he care? Not particularly. A job was a job in the end, right?

And Yuu really had given him an awful job. Well, it was more of a request really. Didn't matter. He had still said yes like the idiot he was.

Still. Ren couldn't help his smile. Frowning would only drag the whole thing down. "Got him tagged. Airu! Get ready!"

There was a low noise of affirmation. Then there was familiar sound of something exploding and a car backfiring yards away.

The Blossommon shrieked. Ren laughed, his short blue locks dancing in the air as it gave an sickening shiver of cold for summer.

"Sorry, buddy," he said, not really meaning it. "But you're going in the game." He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a teal microphone with a screen. "Now..." He smiled towards nothing in particular. "Let's see how far you reach."

He held out the device in front of him, routinely used to the utter banal cheesiness of it all. "Time shift."

The world warped.

Feed.

The food that awaits is covered in moss. Something awaits, something deep and dark and cool, like the arctic sea.

Tagiru, eyes closed, sketched quickly, remembering, recalling -

Green and red mix in the water like holly and threads of fate someone said. Green and red tied with gold, poured out and out, on and on. There was no siren fast enough.

Tagiru paused, made a face, then took out his ruler. Then, without hesitation, he went right back to it, clinging hard to the images in his brain. The pencil led broke, he reloaded it. Silence. It was one of the few times Akashi Tagiru was silent and still. You couldn't tremble while you were drawing. If you could, it meant erasing possible hours of work. And while Tagiru was used to getting things wrong the first time, erasing the right marks just-

Someone yelled outside and Tagiru almost dug the pencil into the paper. He groaned in exasperation and put the pencil to the side. The images in his head bled out of his ears and onto the floor. Sighing, he sat back. "Well, at least I got somewhere," he muttered to himself, beginning to pack his things. None of the others were getting up, of course, but the only way for him to get his thoughts in order was to go for a run and come back later. He put his things away into his bag, unintentionally looking around the room.

"And to think you didn't want to be in art club," mused the vice-president behind him, putting down her brush. "Look at you now, Tagiru-kun. Actually making lines that turn into shapes."

"If we weren't in a classroom, I'd punch you Sudo," Tagiru said, scowling just enough to attempt to look serious.

"I wouldn't dare," Sudo Miho said, still not looking up. "You need all the brain cells you can get next month."

It took Tagiru a minute to swing that sentence back around. "You're so mean! Why are we friends again?"

"Yes," Miho said dryly. "It can't be because we're neighbors. Or family friends. Or-"

"Stop invoking anime tropes!" Tagiru grumbled. "Only I can do that."

"Then get on it, you closet mangaka."

Tagiru almost asked if that was an insult. Then he thought better of it and marched away with his head held high and his bag over his shoulder. As he walked down the hall, his eyes caught a glimpse of the basketball courts across the street, players moving in quick bursts across the field. A surge of envy filled his heart.

"You're too reckless," he mocked under his breath, thinking of the team captain. Hah. So what if he was? He was still going to do it, wasn't he? Then it was fine to stick his head out once in a while. Or a lot. Or all the time.

He bet that sub player would have let him. Taiki-senpai, that kid who just showed up and struck wins wherever he went. He would have given Tagiru a chance. Except.. Well, that wasn't today. He would have to find another team. One that saw him.

"Do you always talk to yourself when you're annoyed?"

Tagiru didn't even look up at first. "Yeah! It sounds better." Then he did look up and saw periwinkle eyes and blond hair. "Wah! Yuu! What are you doing here?" He scrambled backwards, hands clutched tight around his bag by reflex. "D-D-on't you have a club or something?"

Yuu raised an eyebrow. "Not today, no." He smiled and something about that smile made Tagiru's shoulders straighten.

"Yeah?" He used his spare centimeters of height to look down at Yuu. "What? Is there something on my face?"

It was good to antagonize Yuu, at least a little, to get a bit of a hot glare under the collar. It never really worked, or at least his anger was more of exasperation than actual, you know, anger. Better than him know Tagiru had been there to hear him scream, had been conscious and seen-

He'd heard the shout that echoed round the universe. It felt like that, even though he was frozen in the grass, he had seen the monsters falling from the sky and he had felt a rush, such a rush. A heady feeling of belonging and longing.

And then two monsters clashing, striking hard enough that Tagiru could feel their echo, feel their agony and pain and he was still stuck in this tiny pocket of… somewhere. He couldn't see still but he didn't have to, that sight, that everything was beautiful.

And then it had all turned black and crumbled-

A piece of paper landing in his hand made Tagiru blink. "Uh."

Yuu stepped away from him and Tagiru looked down to correct himself. It was… actually a piece of vibrant plastic with a single black line down one side."Why did you give me a hotel key card?"

Yuu snorted, "It's not. It's a safety net." He smiled again and Tagiru felt a horrible urge to punch it. "In case you decide to get into trouble. You'll get some help."

Okay, Tagiru was going to change his mind about Yuu. He was just a weirdo. "You need to go to the nurse?" Not that he was that concerned about the guy but people did not just give away hotel key cards from nowhere.

"Nope." Yuu spoke the single word with casual finality. "But you're not much better. People don't just stare longingly across the grounds of a school unless they're in love with someone or something."

"You mean like you and your posse?" Tagiru shot back.

Yuu let out a laugh. "I didn't know you knew what a 'posse' meant."

Tagiru made a face. "Slow, not stupid, nerd."

"If nerd is the best you've got, you need to hire someone to run your insults by."

"Hey!"

Yuu waved a hand in complete dismissal. Tagiru felt his eyes flare with heat. Jerk. "Look. Let me talk and I'll leave you to your wistful gazing."

Okay, that did it. As soon as he surpassed him, he would be a better person. By far. Tagiru, as far as he was concerned, already was. "What." Tagiru kept his voice amazingly flat.

Yuu exhaled slowly, thinking his words over. Tagiru watched his face, suddenly feeling that full body urge to run like you ran from a snarling dog off its leash. Run from Amano Yuu and never look back or feel bad because that wasn't nerves or anything like that. That was the look his dad got when a boring business meeting might turn the fate of the company the next day, or his mother plotted to justify taking away his game systems for his health. "You saw what happened a few years ago, didn't you?"

Tagiru felt his heart stumble to a halt, pinned by those blue eyes turning sharp and pitying. "Well, I-"

"Yeah, I figured as much." Yuu cut him off too casually, like he'd already anticipated hearing that answer. "Everyone who I give those cards too saw what happened with the Digimon, somehow. Even if it was just through dreams."

No accusations. No complaints that he had just stood there and let that final moment happen. None of that 'if you had been there, why didn't you help?' Which even Tagiru knew that wasn't going to happen. It just didn't make sense. What did he have to feel guilty for? "So… what?" He said, instead of trying to force his brain to understand. "What does that have to do with me?"

Yuu grinned with the mischief of a puppy with the sock already in their mouth. "That battle was the end of a war, a war that took up a world's worth of people. We thought it was over after that, we were busy with other things, and all. But then we heard from the king, about a year ago. Some of those final criminals, some idiots with a little bit of a big ego, decided to come over to this side, and see what mayhem they could cause. So he asked for help to catch ithem. We can't do it ourselves, though. You see where this is going?"

Tagiru was already grinning himself now, a big, hearty smile that he just couldn't help. That sounded tough. That sounded dangerous. That sounded like trouble and a good few scrapes.

"Yeah," he agreed. "You're nuts."

Yuu's grin only widened. "Paradise isn't free, Akashi."

It was spoken with the shameless camaraderie of a salesman, with a sales pitch, even. But Tagiru soaked it up before he could really tell himself not to.

"All right," he said without even missing a beat. "I'm in."

It had been so easy to get him.

Watching Tagiru bolt away at mach speed, Yuu knew he had admittedly dragged it out too long. Tagiru had started to think he was crazy and not worth talking to and the guy didn't strike him as the kind of person who would worry about that when it came to other people. He should have just given Tagiru the card and let his curiosity do the rest. If he threw it away despite the fact that it had immediately turned red after put into his hand, well. TO be fair, he'd been lost in his head for a minute there. Who would have thought?

Still, he hadn't meant to talk like that. But… something about Tagiru gave him this terrible little urge to push and see how much he could get in return. It was almost like his rivalries, his fights as a general. Just safer, less diabolical and potentially life-threatening. Yuu shook his head. He'd just have to avoid him for a while from now on.

"Hey, Yuu."

Yuu glanced at the golden device on his belt. "Mm?"

"Something's close."

Yuu got off of the bench he had been sitting on. "Ren and the others must have found something. Let's get going."

"Finally," groused the voice. "Something to do."

"Poor you, so infinitely bored," Yuu said with a drawl. He unclipped his Xros Loader. "Let's get moving Gumdramon."

"Got it!"

A/N: Hey, hey guys remember me! She who makes noises about Xros Wars and Hunters? Well, I'm here attempting to post to this every week, Sundays from now on provided life works out. This one took ideas from my old story Marionette that didn't quite get off the ground. But here it is now~ So, this seems manageable. Expect updates to for the sake of peace soon! Thanks, guys! (Also let me know if this needs a rating upgrade.)

Challenges: Epic Masterclass Hunters list 7. reverse-verse, Three Sided Box, Diversity WRiting A/M L17, season rewrite boot camp - lonely, interseason boot camp - nauseating, AU diversity boot camp - grandfather, New Years Long Haul.