Disclaimer: Digimon isn't mine. Don't sue, please.
A/N: This is a little piece that could conceivably fit in the normal Digimon
timeline, if a few scenes were ignored. Please, do so.
The ruins of the control room that spread out before him seemed to mock him,
telling the tale of the rise and fall of the empire of Yamaki. Sparks still
flashed from broken panels, pieces of ceiling stuck out at odd angles from the
once valuable machinery.
He had been a fool.
Picking his way through the rubble,
Yamaki felt empty, bereft of emotion. A cold knot in his stomach was the only
sensation; and that, he ignored.
*I believed... I thought it was my duty
to destroy Digimon. I thought that if I didn't, the world would be overrun,
be destroyed by those parasites.*
Yamaki laughed; a harsh, bitter sound
amid the destruction on all sides.
*And I was right. Partially.*
*Of course,
I didn't take into account that the world can take quite good care of itself.*
He had finally reached the center of the room, where one of the control chairs
had somehow survived miraculously intact. He sat down.
*The world chose its
own defenders. Children, yes, but somehow able to do what I was unable to: protect
this world.*
A fist clenched tightly on the chair's armrest, knuckles turning
white.
*I sought to change that fact, to change what some might call destiny. I
tried to make myself the defender of this world, and I tried to do it my own
way.*
*But it was, of course, futile. I could no more change the course of destiny
than a drop of water can change the course of a mighty river. I was not the
one chosen. Those children were. Despite my genius, despite my advanced technology,
I was passed over by destiny and given the same fate, in the end, as every other
normal person: to sit, to watch, and to wait.*
Unclenching his fist, Yamaki
buried his head in his hands. His shoulders shook with what might have been
laughter, or might have been something else entirely. He sat there for several
minutes, while all around him the crackle of electricity from half-destroyed
machinery provided eerie background noise. But as he sat there, shoulders shaking,
a thought flashed through his mind.
*But... I cannot have been given my intelligence
for nothing; and maybe there is a reason I survived here, when I should have
died. Maybe there is something I can still do. Not to change destiny this time,
but to help it along.*
Yamaki pulled his hands away from his face, revealing dry eyes, and looked around
at the destruction anew. This time, however, there was a glimmer of something different
in his eyes; something a certain blond-haired, blue-eyed child from another
time and place would have recognized instantly.
*Maybe it is time I stopped struggling against destiny, and learned to accept
it.*
Getting up from the chair, Yamaki walked over to one relatively undamaged
console. Popping oven the access panel on the side, he started yanking out components
and tossing them on the ground.
*As the drop of water does not know where the
river is going, so too do I not know where destiny may be taking me. But maybe
this little drop of water can help somehow.*
Seemingly satisfied with the pile
of electronics before him, Yamaki stood up and grabbed a pair of pliers, a screwdriver
and a soldering iron out of a box on the wall designed originally for emergency
repairs. Settling himself onto the floor once again, Yamaki let a small smile
play across his face.
*And I think... I think that I might like that.*