Chapter One: The End of November (Sunrise)

November 30th, 2009

Odaiba, Japan

"It's a rare opportunity. Look a little proud already!"

It was hard to take her brother seriously when he said things like that, especially now as he held a pair of scissors in his hand. Yagami Hikari crossed her fingers that he wouldn't cut himself and went back to folding the thickest clothes she could find. "Yesssss," she eventually replied, feeling his eyes, ever reproachful, on her back. "It doesn't take away from that fact that New York is going to be freezing, Onii-chan. I've only been there in the summer."

"Well… true." He scoffed playfully at her and went back to the onerous task of trimming his hair. He had a date after all. "But that's no reason to look like your mouth is goin' to fall off from frowning too much. Don't want to learn from Yamato too much, right?"

Hikari tried not to make a comment about an entire summer where Taichi had imitated Yamato so thoroughly it had caused him and the blond to fight without saying a single word. She tried very hard indeed. "Mm," she grunted instead, picking through her old hats. "I'm letting you use my mirror for free to take out Meiko-san," she noted with a loose little grin that she knew he could see. "I could always add some extra help if you keep this up… like a buzz on the back of your head."

His eyes went wide, but he didn't do what most siblings would and say she wouldn't do it. Because she would. They both knew that. "Yeah, don't. Mom will want to know how you do it."

Hikari laughed, feeling her shoulders slump a little as she found her last pair of woolen socks. "Can't be helped I found the one razor that doubles as a miniature lawn mower."

Taichi scoffed a little and took to the scissors again. "You really think it's fine to cut my hair?" His voice quivered, not with that big overwhelming uncertainty, but the quiet kind that tended to be locked up in his head for a good few hours (days, weeks, who was keeping track?) until someone else smacked it out of him. If he thought about it for that long. "I mean, I don't want to look like a try-hard or-"

Hikari turned from her packing and went to hug him from behind. "Meiko-san is going to love your hair no matter what. And so will your job interviewers. Don't worry." She stepped back and went to squeeze her bag shut. "You should be worrying about me a little bit. I'll be in Wallace's apartment for a month while he visits his mother."

"Are we even sure his mother is real?" Taichi dipped the comb in the nearby water cup again as Hikari began poking through her toiletries. "How do we know that he uses that as an excuse to go date another girl?"

Hikari raised an eyebrow. "Onii-chan, he's not interested in me."

Taichi shook his head. "I dunno. Just cause he's dating Mimi does not mean he wouldn't be poking at you."

Hikari blinked at him, zipping up her bag and using the most innocuous voice she could manage, asked, "What makes you say that?"

Like the last time she had asked that Taichi sputtered for an answer. She turned away to keep packing. She knew Daisuke had just said way too many negative things about the other boy. Otherwise, her brother would be fine. He regularly let her handle the odd looks of her soccer team, after all. There was nothing more awkward than that.

Letting him ramble on for a bit more (making sure to nod in understanding at the right places), allowed her to think of the piece of paper on her backpack.

It was an attempt, albeit a rocky one, to connect humans and Digimon via the classroom. As the years passed, the predictions had gone wrong. After the events in 2005, an influx of Digimon had begun to flow to the human world, searching, as their partners had, for companions. There was no stopping it. There was only accepting it. After all, they were easy to hate until they became a part of your life.

As one of the Chosen Children, one of the oldest, Hikari knew she had to help bridge the gap somehow. This was the best opportunity she could think of, as a future teacher. It was also a little too neatly dropped into her lap.

(Perhaps it was Himekawa-san's way of assisting and repenting? She wasn't quite sure and she didn't want to ask.)

Hikari sighed. That stopped Taichi's monologue which had turned to the weird obsession people had with ties in the minute or so since she had zoned out. "I can't even market this to myself," she said with a groan, flopping forward onto the bed.

Taichi almost snorted. "Well, Hikari, I hate to tell you this but everything's already paid for. Including Mom's gift requests."

"I know..." She sighed. "Well, can't be any more of a culture shock than the Digital World." She crawled onto her bed and went to take a nap. It was a fourteen-hour flight and she was not prepared to come in and not crash on the floor.

"Don't preen at that for too long, okay?" she told him, head face first in the pillow.

Whatever he said, she didn't hear, because like Tailmon, she always found it easy to doze.

There was nothing to worry about with this trip. It would just be a good experience, and very helpful for entering college in a few short months. This would almost be good for her.

So why did she feel so sick to her stomach?

When she opened her eyes to the gray sand and the dull water washing over her socks, she was not afraid. Hikari wasn't sure why exactly. This place was not welcoming, nor had it ever done anything particularly kind or good for her. Regardless, for whatever reason, she was here when she was supposed to be sleeping. There had to be a reason.

Hikari swallowed and watched the waves. She walked along the shoreline.

"There are no seashells here," she realized after a while. Come to think of it, had there ever been? Any seashells? Sand dollars? Crabs? Did seaweed wash up on shore? There didn't even seem to be any jagged rocks.

"I like a clean beach," said a soft voice.

Hikari spun, reaching for a Digivice she belatedly realized she didn't have with her."Who-who are you?" She faced a boy, one who looked to be barely Iori-kun's age, if that.

The boy brushed the gray fabric about his shoulders. "You don't recognize me?" He paused, then laughed a little as he smoothed his seemingly fluffy dark hair. "Never mind, you wouldn't. We haven't actually met." He sighed, twirling almost blueish fingers in the air for a moment. When Hikari didn't relax, he elaborated, "You would know me as the master of those dark creatures, right?" As Hikari's panic turned into horror, he bowed. "I'm really sorry about them. They acted without permission. They won't be harming you again."

Hikari's shoulders did not ease, but she didn't quite feel as tempted to run screaming for her loved ones again. Not immediately anyway. "How can I trust you?"

The boy blinked, then laughed. "Well, to be honest, you can't. We're opposing forces. I'm only in this form so I don't get caught."

"Caught." Hikari edged back slightly. "By who?"

The boy's smile made the image of slime and tentacles flicker into her mind. Then they vanished. "Well, I am a minor chaotic being by their standards. Supposedly. So those creatures tend to leave me alone. For the most part anyway. So, I'm here to talk to you so those supposedly higher beings don't see me and catch a whiff of what's been happening lately." He raised crimson eyes to look at her. "You see, there's a girl out in your world who did a very good deed. She slaughtered the nigh invulnerable. Which was quite good because as of late they'd been acting a fair bit peculiar. But, you see." He snapped his fingers and the breeze chilled. "By natural law that was a mistake. There are some things in the universe that cannot be written out. So she paid a price, and now someone wants to make her pay one more."

He paused and for a moment, red rested upon red, through it, into the clouds of a sunset and into pain. "Please save her." His voice shrank to a whisper. "I know that old fool has forgotten, but that child is a good girl. She doesn't deserve what's coming for you all." The boy looked to the sea. "You're going to where she is. Please, I know we are not well met, but..." He shook his head and the cold wind picked up speed and force, pushing at Hikari like she was nothing more than a leaf.

She shut her eyes to it and opened them to see Taichi shaking her and her back unusually sore.

Hikari rubbed her eyes and stared for a moment. Then the dream words came back to her and she frowned.

"What could disturb something with those for minions?" What disturbed the ruler of another dimension that it would reach out to humans for help?

Hikari hoped for a moment that it was a dream and she was not in much danger. But Hikari was no fool. She never just dreamed, and she was always in danger.

A/N: Oops. This is my nano fic, started slightly early to handle me wanting it done in two months. No clue how that's gonna go. Anyway. Please leave a review if you can! It really means a lot to me.

Challenges: Diversity Writing (Digimon) L1. Write a fic with chapters under 2000 words, Gameverse Boot Camp prompt 'punish', AU Diversity Boot Camp prompt - protect (expanded universe!AU), Pairing Diversity Boot Camp prompt 8 - stolen (Hikari/Sayo), Chapter Set Boot Camp prompt - 64, Multiple POVs Challenge, Prompts In Steps 5.9 problematic, Valentine Advent 2015. write from a female character's POV, Valentine Advent 2016 day 25. write about the consequences of a character's actions, Epic Masterclass Story list number 10. wild card, and Halloween Countdown Challenge.