A/N: For Higuchimon, because it's entirely her fault this happened XD. Or only half her fault. I actually have no idea why Kurata decided he wanted to work behind the scenes, but oh well.

Written for:

Advent Calendar 2016, Day 25 – write a gift-fic (DMWA)
The Crossover Big Bang 2016 (DFC)
Becoming the Tamer King, Steamy Jungle Task (DFC)
100 Prompts, Up to 100 MCs Challenge, #078 – fungicide (DFC)
AU Diversity Boot Camp, #047 – permissible (DMWA)
Another Mega Prompts Challenge, writing prompts #120 – series containing fics (in the main series) 25,000-50,000 words (AMF)

petals rain on the black and red wings
Chapter 1

.

They're in the flower gale without a care in the world and Yuuri smirks, because evidently they've never met a flower like his. If they had, they wouldn't be so carefree in a gale where any flower could rise up and bite them, or dust them with pollen or a great many other things once one knew how. A bird's eye view became quite a useless advantage in this scene, when even hawk-like eyes can't tell the difference between a flower and a flower head –

And, really, that's the price one pays for looking with only their eyes. They can't hear it: the leaves whispering to each other, the closed heads singing to themselves as they count down to the moment they snap their petals open for their prey, and the way they fall silent and rub almost silently against each other in glee when it's almost time.

They've stopped singing now. It's almost a pity and it's certainly over far too quickly. The bird falls without even a sound, because for all that she has wings, she's far too close to the ground. The girl manages a shriek – high and piercing and calling knights that really are too far away to be of any use at all – and then she crumbles.

A tittering arises from the field as Floramon rears up, and standing at her full height she can't be mistaken as a part of the flower gale anymore. She titters and sharp petals open and close and he can see the trembling from her form. She wants to crush them like fruits and berries and drink their soup but they really are too big, and too troublesome. She'll chop them into bite-sized pieces if given the time and the patience but the world can give her all the time it wants and it won't curb her impatience. They're not interesting when they're not moving, after all: not wriggling around and scurrying about like little insets trying to hide beneath the foliage and he's the same. He'd much rather let the other two catch up to him and then lead them on a merry chase, but a job is a job and he's promised all the world's playground as the end reward.

And so he picks them up: the girl and her songbird as well, and the gale is still and silent for a breath before her knights trample in, far too late.

I'll see you again, far too slow knights. I'll see you again and then we'll have some fun.

.

They don't hear Ruri anymore. Ruri who can never be still and rarely quiet too. Silence is for talking, and if they don't talk, they sing or hum. Make the birds dance. Make the flowers open their petals and sway to and fro even when the sun lags. And they can silently walk with her and bask in that – and laugh at her varying attempts to mimic the birds.

Now she has her own songbird and it is all the more amusing when they try, because the digital world birds are really very different from the human world's. And Shun knows well enough; he has his own bird: with black feathers and it suits him well. He is the watcher from the shadows, watching his sister's back and she is the bright, fiery one who dances in the light.

Brother and sister with two birds: black and red. It suits the pair of them just as well and then there's Yuuto who has a dragon the colour of Ruri's hair and Shun will start teasing him about that coincidental connection when he's adjusted to the idea a little more. And when Yuuto stops blushing every time one of their other friends brings it up and gets himself into gear.

But he's a little grateful too, because it means his role as her protector is still his and his alone. Even if Yuuto is almost always with them now. Hanging out with them more often. Even staying over more nights than not and Shun's a little disgruntled there as well, even if he knows it's his social skills or lack thereof that's the reason he hadn't moved in with them years ago.

At least now one of them wouldn't laugh or glare when reminded of how Yuuto had thought Ruri to be another friend of Shun's instead of his little sister. But they're all practically family anyway. It doesn't matter as much as it used to.

So long as everyone knows that Ruri is number one in Shun's books, it doesn't matter.

And they do know. It doesn't mean Shun will ever stop worrying when she's out of his sight, even if she really is only a little far ahead.

And he does worry, because he can't see the gale she loves from here and he can't hear her either. They're here alone. She should be singing her lungs out and see if the fabled Hououmon will descend to the world if she sings well enough, even if he suspects that's Allen pulling Sayaka's leg. But she's not, and that might mean nothing at all. That might mean she's picking flowers instead, or brushing Hawkmon's feathers but she can't do even those things quietly. She always hums along.

And then they see the gale and its empty and both Ruri and Hawkmon are unmistakable from the dust of flowers. Beautiful colourful flowers but they barely pass Ruri's shoes in height and even if she was lying flat and buried in them, they would have seen her.

He dashes into the gale and their pollen coat his own shoes. 'Ruri! Ruri! Answer me.'

She should come out from somewhere, laughing. 'I'm here, Ni-san. You worry too much.' But she doesn't. No-one answers, except Yuuto echoing his own call and only making him worry more.

Falcomon flaps his wings and the frail flowers scatter at his feet as he takes off, but even he finds nothing and Monodramon is no good at all. He can dig through the flowers and find anything they drop but he can't fly and he can't dash across the plains with the speed of Kaito's Lightdramon either. He only stumbles like them and Shun is gripping his digivice tightly enough to break his skin with its edges now but Falcomon just circles the sky and sees nothing.

There's no enemy in their faces to fight. And it's always so much easier when there is.

And there's no Ruri right in front of them either, where she should have been.

'She's not here.' Yuuto punches the ground as best he can and it's pathetic, really, with the bed of flowers soaking up the blow. Little petals stick to him. 'Damn it, how did this happen? Where is she?'

The sky is clear except for Falcomon flying high above them… And that's the question, isn't it? The ground may as well have opened up and swallowed Ruri and Hawkmon for all they can tell.

'We'll find her.' Shun is glaring at that silent sky, towards Falcomon whose birds-eye view gave nothing. 'We'll find her.'

.

He hears them, yelling her name over and over but she's still asleep. Floramon's pollen has ensnared her tight and Yuuri allows a grin to himself as he listened: her gentle, even, breaths and those calls: raucous like bird calls. And he can see a bird in the sky as well but that's useless. Don't they even know the layout of this world? The gale sits on a hill and there's plains all round but there's a village to the south and a forest to the north and a forest is the perfect place to hide from the eyes of a bird. They think they can see all, from their vantage point in the sky but the canopy's pulled tight over this forest –

And, anyway, they've never met Cherrymon.

He's more than happy to take advantage of the fact that Cherrymon has something of a green thumb as well and so a soft spot for Floramon. Just as he's more than happy to take advantage of Floramon's unique talents, even if it's disappointing she can't go in for the kill herself without a human weapon to augment her. But that's okay with him. He uses them too. Always has. It's another passion they share together and, really, blades are all the more sharper when there's a smattering of poison or paralytic or something that's almost a drug in the human world as well –

Because far too many people think to fight what they can see, and that's it. But then they fight him and learn that it's never a quick and easy fight with him, because he prefers to chew them up when they're alive.

Metaphorically speaking, of course, because the human constitution isn't really made for eating other humans, and certainly not for eating them raw. Or so they think until they're desperate, truly desperate – and once he'd been there, and it's a taste he doesn't really want to let go of.

Still, they can sacrifice things like if the alternative will have them locked up somewhere far away and this job is pretty good. Kidnapping helpless little girls might be boring, but listening to her shining knights clamour around clumsily as their brains rattle in their skulls is pretty fun. A brief, diluted, fun – but the way falcon-boy screams, it sounds like he won't stop hunting and maybe his brain will click into place and make the race even more fun.

He's Kurosaki something or other. Oh well. He'll find out eventually, or else the guy won't make things fun at all.

And it doesn't look like they'll be coming to the forest anytime soon, so it's time to go.

'Goodbye, Kurosaki. Come and find me when you have the time.'

And then he opens and closes the gate, and they are gone.