A/N: Written for the Digimon Flash Bingo, #019 – empty shell.
Outside Quartzmon
His belief, his drive, his character…not one of those things mattered, because he was just a puppet on strings, doing everything required of him and maintaining a façade otherwise. That way no-body else would get suspicious, no-body else would be able to stop It…
But, at the same time, he didn't have the wild-card factor that could undue all its hard work. Because human or digimon, free will was a weakness but also a fickle thing that could turn the tide. It had no need for that: just a puppet that couldn't move against him, a figurehead that could stand in the crowd and not be noticed.
And it had been surprisingly easy, to overwrite Mogami Ryouma's mind and take out that small variable that might have been Its undoing. So easy…to get close to the one who did have that power to undo It, and take It down.
So perhaps It grew careless in the end, tossing aside the puppet now that It had achieved Its highest state, Its highest glory. Or maybe It had underestimated something else…something Ryouma, with his own, uncontrolled mind, would definitely have picked up.
Free will, human desire…those were curses, but also the things that could transcend perfection.