Author's Notes
Six parts. Each for one of the legendary warriors, following the order their spirit selves were introduced in the anime. Which means it's Kouji next.
Wow, this is my 100th fic. Of course, more than a quarter of them are still in progress. I'm working on that; this had been planned for quite a while.
Enjoy, and tell me what you think.
The Price One Must Pay
Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.
Genre/s: Angst/Friendship
Rating: T
Part 1 of 6: Takuya
He used to talk. A lot. Before the digital world, it seemed as though his mouth was moving before his brain could quite catch up. It got him into a lot of trouble too, namely badmouthing bullies that hated anything that meant they weren't getting what they wanted with minimal fuss (it would eventually lead to an all out brawl that got him more detentions and suspensions in his elementary school years than he cared to count) and talking back to teachers (the other main contributor to his detention record). He wasn't much more reserved at home, which generally resulted in him and Shinya fighting, him stalking off to cool down, then his mother sending his little brother after him an hour later.
Then the Digital World itself. Between shouting out attacks with a passion, pep talks, arguing with Kouji (though that thankfully stopped towards the middle of their journey), zealously bantering with evil maniacal digimon and learning his own lessons, enough words were said to flood the oceans, literally. With the power of the legendary spirits of flame behind his back, and most importantly, in his heart, there was nothing stopping the fervour backing the words of strength and justice. There was nothing stopping that power being shouted out at its full potential in his hands. Him, just a human, with the power of a digimon.
Coming back from the Digital World, there wasn't really all that much left to say than a few long awaited apologies. Obviously, without the death threat looming, things were quieter, falling back into its normal routine with a more mature and guarded boy. Their moment of glory was over; they were not warriors here. They were simply humans.
But they still carried the memories and lessons. They had grown. They were stronger.
But that came at a price.
He only realised a year or two later, when he met up with an old friend he had lost contact with. The change had been gradual, hence why no-one else had picked up the descending silence. A lot of thoughts were going unsaid, bubbling up to rise before vanishing. Something was holding them back. He thought it was just acquired wisdom. He hadn't even realised.
It just took one offhand comment to make him realise what he was slowly loosing.
'You don't talk much nowadays, do you?'
He became more conscious of that from that moment. Important things still came out though, so he simply assumed it was a change. But he found it suddenly quite difficult to speak his mind, as though something was physically clutching the words he aimed to will out of his mouth and tossing them back down his throat. Sentences were getting shorter, he quit the debating team, and he found even phone calls were dwindling rapidly. Emails too; putting the words on paper were about as hard as getting them out his throat. It was as if thought was losing its ability to become expressed in any sort of language.
That brought on other sorts of changes. His voice had been many things, but above all it had been a weapon. The extrovert was turning inwards. The snow was falling over the fire, smouldering it.
His parents worried. They took him to a psychiatrist about three years after the events of the Digital World. She thought his mind was withdrawing from some sort of trauma. After all, there was nothing physically wrong.
His parents asked. He just shook his head in reply.
He met another old acquaintance soon after. A teacher that had taught his troublesome past self in second grade, now returning to his junior high school life. By then, the teenager had changed so much that the teacher hadn't even recognised him until the name was read off the register. When it was, he pondered the briefest moments, before simply assuming it was someone else with the same name, and passing on. Appearances may have been somewhat similar, but the auras each projected were alike in only the barest ways.
It continued going downhill. One day eventually, he opened his mouth to greet his mother…and nothing came out. It hit him then, how far apart this moment was from his epiphany in the Digital World.
For playing with a power beyond his sustenance in this world, he was paying with one of the things that most defined him.
The chatty, boisterous Takuya was gone. This one just stared at his mother a moment, then turned around and went quietly back upstairs.