Title: The Courage Child

Author: angel zeniko-chan

Email: zeni24@hotmail.com

Rating: Taito, a bit of Takari, Koushiro/Sora, and Mimi/Jyou

Summary: In the Digital World, Tai is targeted by a powerful digimon who wants our favourite leader to rule with her.

Author's Notes: Hey everyone! This is my first Taito story, so please don't blame me if it sucks. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: As much as I want it to, Digimon does not belong to me. Neither does any of the characters used in this fic, other then MAYBE (I emphasis maybe because they might exsist but I don't know about them) Catlimon, Miliramon and Griffonmon and other digimon who you've never heard of because the names are so farfetched.

*** change of POV or time gap

"speaking"

'thinking'

Italics: letter

The Courage Child

by: angel zeniko-chan

"Tai! Taichi! Are you okay?"

Tai felt someone shake his shoujlders. That voice... it was... Kari's.

"Wha-? What?" He asked, sitting up from the rock, hard ground.

"Are you okay, onichan? Did you have a bad dream? You were thrashing around." His little sister told him, concern held in her deep brown eyes.

Tai hugged her, comforting both her and hisself. He didn't remember what his dream was about, but he knew that it was something bad. "I'm okay, Kar." He hugged her again, pulling her onto his lap. "Go to sleep." He said, softly.

"Play me something..." She asked, snuggling in his chest. Yamato wasn't the only one who could play an instrument. Although no one knew it, Tai carried a tiny flute in his pocket. And he was really good at playing it too. No one ever heard him play because he only played for Kari, embarassed about what anyone else would say about this little secret of his.

Taichi smiled and lifted Kari easily and walked beside the lake, before setting her down again. He made sure that she was comfortable before looking around seeing if they were far enough. He smiled as he saw everyone sleeping a bit away from them.

Koushiro and Sora. Mimi and Jyou. TK and Yamato. And him and Kari.

Their digimons also sleep beside their designated partners, with the exception of Gatomon and Agumon who snuggled together. It seemed that the closer he and Kari were, the closer their digimon were as well.

The fearless leader carefully took out his shiny silver flute and trilled a few notes, testing the sound. Finally, he decided on a tune and started playing a soft haunting melody that he decided was best for Kari to fall asleep with.

Kari wrapped her tiny arms around her brother's waist and sighed. Then she fell asleep, lulled by the soft melody of Taichi's song.

Tai smiled down at his little sister. She was the world to him. He vowed to keep her safe, always. He took his shirt and wrapped it around her when he felt her shiver with the cold. It didn't Yamatoer to him. As long as Kari was okay, then he would be happy.

"Thanks... Onichan..."

"You're welcome." He said, kissing her forehead. He continued playing his flute. It was a new song that he had written while he was feeling lonely. The lyrics he had kept in his pocket, unknown to everyone other then him.

"Well, well." A voice said, breaking into his thoughts. "What do we have here?"

Tai's head spun around, careful of not waking Kari.

In front of him, stood a digimon. She was unlike any other digimon that he and the others had encountered before. She looked somewhat like Ladydevimon. She had a gothic look, her face completely pale. She was wearing an extensive amount of makeup and a black dress which had a slit from her thigh down.

If Tai was a normal boy, he would have gone nuts over this digimon.

But he wasn't normal. First of all, he was a digidestined and second of all...

"What do you want?!" He demanded, his crest of Courage shining as he drew the digimon away from his beloved sister and the others.

"You." She said. "I am Miliramon. I rule a kingdom far from here." Then she said seducingly, "I need a worthy boy to be the king."

"I'm not ruling anything with you!" Tai yelled out softly, careful of not waking the others.

"You will soon." She said and when she disappeared, Tai let out a sigh. Then she appeared again and slashed his back with the giant nails of hers.

To Tai, it hurt like hell, but he bit his lip from crying out loud. He fell to the ground.

"Don't worry. I'll be back for you." Miliramon smiled and truly disappeared.

Taichi crawled over to where his little was lying. He decided that no one else needed to know about this, and the only person he trusted to keep quiet was Kari. "Kari. Wake up, please!" He whispered as loud as he dared to.

Kari heared her brother's pleas and woke up. "What's wrong?" She asked, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Can you go to Jyou's bag and get the firt aid kit without waking anyone?" He asked, his back itching like crazy.

His sister nodded and he wacthed as she scampered to the bag and got the kit before crawling back, disturbing no one.

Then Taichi turned on his back. "You remember what I thought you before?" He asked. Recently, he had taught both Kari and TK about first aid and he was positive that they knew what to do in emergencies.

She nodded again then glanced at his back. When she saw the sight, she bit her lip from screaming, the tears escaping down her cheeks.

Tai saw them and winced as he wiped them away. "Don't cry." He said, lying through his teeth. "It doesn't hurt at all. Can you just wrap them up?" He asked her.

Hikari could see that it did hurt a lot, but she did as her brother asked her. She wrapped the gauze as bvest as she could around the 5 scratches which now, permenately scarred her brother's back. They were very long and deep as well, but Tai bared the pain well and didn't show it.

"Thanks, Kari. I owe you one." He said as she helped him put his t-shirt back on.

Kari hugged her brother, being careful of his wounds. "Just don't leave me, k?" She asked, innocently.

Taichi smiled. "Of course not." He took out his flute and continued playing it throughout the night.

Kari didn't sleep though. She stayed up, watching and listening to Tai play his music. "I love you." She whispered.

"Love you too." Tai grinned and patted her head. "I'll be fine. Don't worry."

Although Tai reassured herthat he would be fine, she still didn't sleep. She listened attentively to Tai's new song and they watched the sunrise together.

***

"Rise and shine, people!" Tais called out to the 3 sleepy quarduples of humans ans digimon.

Everyone sat up and yawned. "It's too early..." Mimi said. Taking her big pink hat and setting it back over her eyes, she fell back on Jyou's chest. "Wkae me up later."

The blue-haired boy blushed, but didn't complain. Then he saw that the bag he always carried was opened. "Hey!" He cried. "Who went through my bag?!"

Tai looked at Kari, silently wishing with his eyes not to tell anyone. "Sorry, Jyou." Tai said sheepishly, painfully raising his arms to the back of his head without changing his grin. "I did."

Jyou glared at him at Tai but didn't ask why he had been through the first aid kit as he closed it. "It better have been a good reason."

Tai grinned. "Life or death." He promised.

The others just shook their heads. It was evident that Tai was his goofy self and he would not tell anyone why he went through the bag in the first place and Jyou had no right to persist because the bag belonged to all of them and not just him.

"Let's go find some berries or fruit to eat." Sora said and she and Mimi walked out, dragging their boyfriends and their digimon with them.

Agumon lumbered over to Tai, yawning. "Did something happen last time?" He asked. Even if he was tired, he had sensed some kind of emotion in Tai's eyes that was not like what his bright brown eyes usually showed.

Tai panicked for a split second then calmed down. "Just your stomach rumbling every two seconds." He patted Agumon's yellow head. "We'll find something to eat."

Agumon nodded. If his partner wasn't ready to tell him what was wrong, then he wouldn't ask and would let Tai tell him when the time was right. "Alright." The yellow dinosaur nodded before walking into the forest after the girls.

Kari, Tk and their digimon had already went looking for food in the bushes, so Tai went to follow them. He turned slightly to look at Yamato. "You coming?" He asked, but it seemed that the blonde boy didn't hear him. Then something caught his eye. Gabumon was sniffing at the spot where he and Kari had 'slept' last night.

'Oh no!' Tai thought, getting jumpy. 'Gabumon must have smelled my blood or something...' He quickly started to walk to the forest, but his back hurt. He didn't know why. 'It wasn't hurting before..' He thought, worried. Then, feeling something in his throat clog up, he fell to the ground, coughing.

***

(Yamato's POV)

"Yamato!" Gabumon called me over to the lake. As I walked over to my digimon partner, I saw Tai get all fidgety. 'What's with him?' I thought but switched my attention back to the spot where Gabumon was pointing to.

"There's blood here." Gabumon said.

I looked closely. He was right. There were trails of crimson liquid coming from the forest and stopping right at this spot. 'Where did it come from?' I tried thinking of who had spelt there.... Tai and Kari. It couln't be Kari that was hurt because then Tai would have been making a big fuss over her. So the only logical answer was that this was Tai's blood.

But how?

I tried to remember if I had heard anything last night.

Nothing...

Wait.

The last thing I remembering hearing was the sound of a flute... That's not right. Tai doesn't play the flute; he's tone deaf and Kari was a bit too young to learn how to play it.

So who was it?

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tai fall. He was coughing pretty badly as I walked over. Maybe he could give me some answers on this whole mystery.

***

(Tai's POV)

I tried breathing deeply, but it only increased the cough in my throat. Covering my mouth using one hand, I used the other one to push myself up to sit on the green grass.

"Something wrong?" I heard someone say.

I jumped. I didn't mean to, but I thought that everyone had left already.

I shook my head, hoping for Yamato to leave me alone. I didn't trust my voice yet.

Surprisingly he did leave me alone. I sighed in relief.

I know that I shouldn't be treating my best friend like that. But he wasn't just my best friend. I loved him. And that wasn't right. A boy cannot just love a boy. So I pushed him away.

We drifted further and further, until we were hardly at speaking terms.

So for Yamato to not bug me, it was a big thing, but I didn't question it now. I just welcomed the fact that he left and maybe I could find if something was wrong with me. No one just coughed for nothing. No. Something was wrong with me. But I wasn't sick. It was near to impossible for me to be sick.

When Yamato walked away, the pain in my heart increasing, I pulled my hand away from my mouth.

Blood.

Maybe Miliramon did something to me, I thought. But the other side of me argued that all she did was scratch me. No one ever coughed from being scratched.

I shook the thought away and washed my hands in the lake. I should catch up to the others. Yamato and Gabumon had already gone ahead, leaving me at the campsite. I supported myself with shaky hands and got up. I looked around then walked into the woods, following the others.

***

Yamato watched in the shadows as the smalled boy pulled his hand away from his mouth. Just as he suspected, he saw blood.

'Tai coughing up blood?' He thought to himself a bit worried. 'Something MUST have happened last night.'

He sat down at the lake side, deep in thought.

'Jyou's bag. I t was left open, but all there is, is the first aid kit...'

'First aid kit!' Yamato's sky blue eyes widened. He watched as everyone came back from their scavenging, carrying some big melons and a bag full of berries. Surprisingly, Jyou had sacrificed his shrit for them to use as a basket. Normally, Tai would have offered to do this. Yamato thought that it was very odd.

He helped everyone prepare breakfast. 'I'll have to watch him.'

Sora took a glance at the older blonde boy. Something was wrong today. First Tai was silent like he was deep in thought, then instead of him offering to use his shirt as a basket for the berries TK and Kari had found, Jyou had only when no one said anything.

Now Yamato was acting weird. He seemed to be staring off in space, looking somewhere close to Tai.

"Yamato? Yamato? Is something wrong?" The brown haired girl waved her arms infront of the preoccupied boy's face. "Hello?"

Gabumon looked at his partner worriedly. Something about what he had told Yamato this morning was bugging him a lot. 'I think he's trying to find out who's blood it was.' Gabumon knew. He could smell the scent of bllod coming from Tai, but he knew that their leader didn't want to say it for a reason, so he kept his muzzle shut.

Yamato snapped out of his thinking. "Hehe... Sorry 'bout that. What were you saying?"

Izzy looked up from his laptop for a while to glance at his friend. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Yamato said distractedly, converting back to his in space mode. He watched Tai out of the corner of his eye.

The group looked at each other. They could tell that something was wrong with Yamato, but he was in one of his moods and they knew that it was useless to talk to him.

Tai knew that Yamato was watching him. 'Why?' He thought, playing with his handband. He was so busy that he didn't see or hear Mimi asking him if he wanted breakfast.

"Tai? Tai? TAI?!" Mimi grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. "You there?!!!" She screamed. It seemed to work because Tai jumped then covered his ears. "What?" He asked irritated.

"Is something wrong?" Patamon asked.

"Nuh uh." Tai shook his head and replaced the far out expression but a goofy smile. But it didn't fool anyone for a moment.

Mimi smiled, hoping to settle the tension around the campfire. "You hungry?" She asked, holding out a few slices of melon which were neatly cut, done by Yamato himself.

Everyone smiled. They knew that Tai couldn't refuse any food. This was Tai they were talking about. He was always hungry. So they were really shocked when Tai shook his head again. He stood up slowly, careful of his aching back. "I'm gonna... get some air!" Then he walked away before someone would point out that they were outside and there was plenty of air all around them.

Yamato watched as their 'leader' walked away.

"What's wrong with everyone today?" TK asked innocently. Then from beside him, Kari stood up as well, her brown eyes held concern for her older brother. He was holding the pain inside again. "I think I'll see if anything's wrong." Shre quickly ran after the retreating figure of her onichan.

Everyone watched her leave. "Something's wrong here..." The ever so noticing Gatomon pointed out.

Jyou nodded. He tried to look through his head if it was the starting of some kind of disease or disorder. But none of them came to his mind at that moment.

"You know, that's the first time that our leader has ever not been hungry..." Palmon remarked.

"What would be wrong?" Sora thought outloud.

"Maybe a digimon turned them evil." A grinning Gomamon said. When everyone glared at him, he blinked. "Sorry."

***

zeni: what do y'all think? Is it okay? Let me know so that I can work on the rest of it!!