Author's Notes

This is a pseudo-cross between frontier and tamers. As in frontier characters, tamers card game and rule. Frontier enemy, tamers version of the digidestined, so instead of spirit evolution, it's the cards of the ten legendary warriors. Though you'll see that soon for yourselves. Provided we all stick around (me most of all there). *sighs* I swear my brain goes to fast for me to keep up sometimes.

Anyway, enjoy.

Redealt

AU. It started off as a card game. But it became so much more as spirits long since sealed emerged, and with them, chaos. Frontier, pseudo-crossover with tamers.

Rating: T

Genre/s: Drama

Prologue

'Mama?'

The pale, sickly woman referred to lay still and silent upon the futon in which she had been warmly tucked into. The hesitant whisper came from her son, a boy who didn't look older than eight on his knees beside her, hands stretching out to caress the skin: the cold hands, the stiff face, the ghost of a slight frown permanently etched upon her features.

A hand descended upon his shoulder, and he twisted his head back. The touch was vaguely familiar, the slightly coarse glove of a doctor who periodically checked on his mother's condition as it deteriorated. Then his hands were pulled away by its partner as the grip of the first tightened.

'I'm sorry,' the vaguely recognizable voice, toned with a mix of sorrow, regret and apathy. 'She's in a better place now. But her spirit will always be with you, in your heart.'

Tears spilled from the blue eyes as the hand retracted. His body became stone stiff on reflex, the statement and it's implications flashing through his barely-coping mind like a pictorial; his mother...dead...like Obaa-san...how would he live now?..who would take him in?..and his father left long ago...no relatives...dead, dead, DEAD!

He screamed, clamping his hands on his ears, letting go of the still corpse, his mother's corpse. He was old enough so that the childish ignorance did not cloud the permanence of death. Too old to believe that a fairy god mother or the likes would just wave a magic wand and everything would be all right, because it wouldn't.

The doctor gently pried his hands away, and the tear stained face tilted back to him.

'Go rest for now,' he advised quietly. 'The formalities and arrangements will be dealt with by the end of the week.

Later, long since the doctor had left and the sun had set, he wandered around the familiar neighbourhood as the emotional turmoil attempted to settle in.

It was one of the things that eventually had to happen, when her mother, his grandmother passed away, she had told him. Everyone has a time to live and a tie to die. And her time had now come, and she too had left the hardships that the worldly life had given her.

He tried to help as much as he was able, but an eight year old in elementary school was extremely limited in terms of the assistance he could provide, and in previous years, even more so, especially with the additional handicap of blindness upon him. But he still tried, as he felt his presence was another burden on his mother, even as she scolded him for thinking that way. Because two people costed considerably more to support than a single one, and the salary of a divorced mother with limited credentials could earn was not always sufficient.

And now she was gone, and he was alone.

Carefully, as he walked, he fingered the fences, counting off steps in his head so he knew where he was and how to get back, while simultaneously keeping an ear out for footsteps and other noises which may alert him to the presence of other people, or vehicles when the fences momentarily disappeared from touch. All the while as he drifted in his own thoughts and the cauldron of emotion, dry stains on his cheeks, his dam at the current moment exhausted.

Until he became aware of the foreign, rhythmic footsteps following him.

He paused on the asphalt, and turned around, and he heard the footsteps come closer to him. For a moment, there was silence, until an unfamiliar voice broke it.

'Someone as young as you shouldn't be out on your own at this hour,' a distinctly male tenor stated. 'Where's your mother? She must be worried sick.'

It was a perfectly innocent question innocent question; after all, an assumed stranger had no way of knowing the earlier event. But for the second grader, the hurt was too new, the wound too raw, for such a statement to not bring about another turmoil of emotion.

So he did the first thing that popped into his head. He turned and ran.

Thinking back, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, seeing as though he had lost track of where he was. The fingertips never left the fences as he ran, tracing everything from wooden posts to brick layers to the thorns from overgrowing roses, all the while as footsteps pounded after him and the noise of late hour traffic filled the road, and the stiffness of his mother's corpse feeling under his fingers.

Then suddenly, his hand was touching nothing save it, and the horrible screeching of squealing tires filled his ears. He froze, clutching at nothing and unable to know in which direction danger lay, and in which, safety. The sound of his hammering heart and choked sobs filled his ears, making it impossible to figure out in what direction the noise came from by auditory sense alone-

-then something, or someone as he felt the warmth of another body on top of his, knocked him off his feet and onto the sidewalk.

The screeching stopped, and another pair of footsteps, heavier than the previous ones, neared. Unfamiliar hands took hold of him as the weight lifted to an extent, and on instinct, he tried to shake it off initially. The hold however, felt warm, and comforting, like he always imagined a father's embrace to be, and he eventually slumped into it, tired out and willing to trust anyone with a prospect of sanctity and a future at this point.

'Don't you know to look both ways before you cross the road?' an annoyed voice asked, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the concern that the Kansai accented masculine voice.

The boy shook slightly, before looking sightlessly towards the voice. 'I'm blind,' he whispered, barely audible. 'I can't see.'

'I was looking after him,' the other male continued the explanation, and not entirely untruthfully. 'But I said something that upset him and he ran off.'

'Well then...' the reply trailed off for a bit as the footsteps retracted. 'Don't run away from your father again now, 'kay?'

'I don't have a father,' the boy muttered, loud enough so that the man who held him heard, but not the driver, who by then was seated in his car.

Moments later, he drove off, and the other two were alone again.

The grip tightened slightly, as the older male spoke into the silence.

'Where is your mother?' he repeated, gently, and yet firmly.

The other sniffed slightly, and the hands behind his back pushed him slightly forward into the embrace, so his face was mostly buried into the comfortable-feeling cotton shirt.

'She's dead,' he mumbled finally, his voice half swallowed.

'And you don't have a father?'

The small head shook slightly.

'Then who looks after you?'

He sounded concerned, like he cared Not many people talked to him like that; only his mother and grandmother, but they were both dead now.

'No-one,' he answered, after a short pause.

'You're all alone?'

A nod.

'Then how about you came with me?'

The heads shot out of the embrace, but the hands holding him prevented him from going much further.

'With...you?'

'Sure.' The man sounded genially excited. 'I'll be your father, and I'll look after you.'

'But-' he stuttered. 'Why would-'

'I can't just leave you on the streets now,' the other laughed. 'Besides, you seem like a good kid.'

A hand ruffled his short hair, before the voice continued.

'I could probably help you see too,' he stated thoughtfully. 'I think I know something that could do the trick.'

'Really,' he breathed amazed. To actually be able to see like other kids, to be able to do the things that they do, read and write in Japanese as opposed to the Braille alphabet he used, read games, and so many times that in the current circumstances was impossible.

'Yep. And then I'll teach you a few things too. You know the digimon Card Game?'

A hesitant 'yes' followed. He did know the game, but not the cards, nor the rules. He didn't have friends; no-body wanted to hang out with the blink hid, and his mother wouldn't have been able to afford the cards in any case.

'I'm a designer, so I make quite a bit of money through the retail line. But it gets lonely, especially in such a big house. So what do you saw? Want to come live with me?'

The blue eyes stared at the ground, even while being physically unable to see it, considering the proposal.

'I'll just be a burden,' he muttered. 'Just like I was a burden to 'kaa-san.'

'You won't,' the other assured. 'And I'm sure you weren't a burden to your mother either. I've seen the two of you around town. Sure she always seemed a little tired, but she was happy. Because she loved you.'

Another stretch of silence followed as the older male waited patiently. And then he finally nodded his assent. It was better than the orphanage in any case. He'd heard the stories about that place.

'Okay then,' the man said. 'Kouichi, wasn't it?'

The said boy blinked in surprise, but nodded in affirmation.

'When Kouichi, let's go back to your old place and sort this out, shall we?'

Post Author's Notes

I've tried to simply the language (if you can't see it, look at something like Immortal and compare), but apparently, I'm just a naturally complicated person, so I don't know how well that turned out. Reason is because, even if it's in 3rd person POV, it's from the perspective of an eight year old, so his thought processes and articulation thereof, and thus the overall narrative, isn't as complicated as it would be for someone older. If you looked closely at Desperation, you'd find I've done the same thing to Takuya who tends to speak for colloquially than say the twins, who are more formal in their dialect.

By the way, Kouichi has cataracts (so do I for that matter, but that's not really relevant, and not to the extent that I'm completely blind). For those of you not familiar with it, cataracts is an eye disease which in this case results from genetic mutation before birth but after cell differentiation (and obviously after he split when the single zygote split into monozygotic twins). So while Kouichi is blind, Kouji still has perfect vision. It's when cloudy spots have developed on the lens. In severe cases such as this one, the lens become opaque, thus light can't go through at all. As for what will help, it's not surgery, it's something else, my own theoretical invention that should theoretically work with advancing modern technology, but I'm no scientist, though that is my future prospect. The dream I'm slowly working towards.

As for why Kouichi's not suspicious that the other man (currently nameless) knew his name and has seen him and his mother, he just assumed it was because he (Kouichi) couldn't see him because of his blindless.