PRE FIC RANTINGS AND A SPRINKLE OF DISCLAIMER: This fic is getting a total overhaul. I've decided that no chapter of this fic is going to be any shorter than 15 pages (as dictated by Sammy of course) so I've been squishing some stuff together and spreading some other stuff out and... um... yeah. If you've already read the three chapters I had up before, there's nothing new here. If you're just reading this for the first time, welcome aboard and hope you stay for the ride- it's going to be a long one!

Introduction: this was originally supposed to be my Swan Song as far as Digimon was concerned, but since my obsession with the series has just been revived it looks as if I'll be writing Digifiction forever. ^ ^ Even so, this fic is an acculmilation of all my past efforts and... stuff (wow, my train of thought just derailed). This is an alternate future based two years after the end of 02. Things didn't go so peachy-keen as in the TV series and the world is now a dark decaying place. The Digidestined attempt to deal with the world around them as it falls apart, as well as their own difficult lives. And how does everything that's happening tie in with the original four Digidestined that Gennai once spoke of?

Think of this as 02.5- Izzy Girl style. Erm, except not that cheesy. ^ ^;; Anyways, this is the new and improved chapter one (which was once chapters 1+2). Expect chapter 2 very, very soon!

Digimon does not belong to me. Tokudai, Kowai, Seisaku and Kiritsubo were entirely my invention. Forgive them for being OC's- I assure you, they were 100% based on the outlines of Digidestined in Gennai's speech during the last episode of 01. Anyhoo! On with the fiction!

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After Destiny
Izzy Girl

Part the first.

'I still remember the world I still remember the sun
From the eyes of a child Always warm on my back
Slowly those feelings Somehow it seems colder now
Were clouded by what I know now
Where has my heart gone
Where has my heart gone Trapped in the eyes of a stranger
An uneven trade for the real world I want to go back to
I want to go back to Believing in everything'
Believing in everything - Fields of Innocence, Evanescence
and knowing nothing at all

Prolouge.

Taichi Yagami was a good leader. A faithful leader. A responsible leader. But when the time came, he was only too glad to hand the mantle of leadership over to younger, stronger shoulders.

When situation demanded, Tai was always the one in charge in the end. The youthful Daisuke and Miyako, defacto leaders of the "new" digidestined, were only too glad to allow their predessesor the stresses of point blank battle decisions.

But Taichi Yagami was sitting this one out.

It was only fair. It was their battle. Their moment of glory. They had earned it and to take away from it by firmly assuming leadership would only be selfish, not to mention grossly unfair.

The mellowed fifteen year old, during the aforementioned battle, had been seated in a manner much typical for a boy of his age, legs spread carelessly, knees bent and his arm resting across his thigh watching the events from the safety atop the valley's walls. Agumon at his side and a glorious battle spread out before him, wistful memories flooded him.

Only four years ago, that was him, out in the front lines barking orders and crushing his own moral objections into ashes at his feet. Only their situation had been much more dire. They had been alone, he and his comrades, not surrounded by hundreds of people and Digimon. No. Their final battle had been dark and desperate and almost fatal.

He shook his head and murmered, "Back in the days..."

There was a soft chuckle from behind him.

"Taichi, you sound like an old man."

Taichi craned his neck backwards to meet Yamato's cold blue eyes and the blonde gazed down at him amusedly.

"But I am an old man!" he insisted, grinning his classic madman grin.

"Oh yes, Taichi. You're getting up there." Koushiro remarked sarcastically from behind his laptop, "Now you're all youthful and energetic, but before you know it it's dentures and depends."

Taichi's expression soured and he turned his attention towards the battle. Koushiro's intelligence worked for him in more ways than one would suspect, and when given the chance, his snide comments became deadly acidic. Taichi, wisely, knew to quit while he was ahead.

"Koushiro? What are depends?"

"Nevermind Tentomon. It is neither something you require, or want, to know."

"Those WERE the days..." Taichi commented again, his friend's sarcastic prodding having failed to derail his train of thought, "Do you remember them? Lost and wandering. Hungry and dirty. The fate of an entire world resting on our youthful and oh so idiotic shoulders..."

"That was you, Tai. No we." Yamato replied drly.

"Life and death hanging only by a thread..."

"Please stop. You're beginning to sound like a cheesy anime." Taichi flipped his head back again and stuck his tounge out at Yamato.

"Real mature Tai."

"You told me to do it." The chestnut hair boy said defensively.

"Told you what?"

"To be leader!"

"Not this again!" Koushiro groaned loudly. His typing ceased and he poked his dark eyes over the i-book monitor, "You two have been going on about it since you were twelve years old!"

"Damn straight!" Taichi lept to his feet and made a fist, "And he's wrong!"

Yamato crossed his thin arms and stuck his nose in the air, "Taichi... you forget. One of the BENEFITS of being a leader is that everything you do is automatically wrong."

"Actually..." Koushiro broke in once again, sounding almost offhand, "There is no right or wrong in this argument. But if we must get down to it, I'M right, since the first thing Taichi did when selected leader was force all the responsibility onto me."

There was a long silence. Yamato glared at Tai. Tai stared at Koushiro. Koushiro typed with a vengence. Agumon laughed. Taichi sent him a death look.

((flash))

There was a multitude of blinking as Koushiro's laptop clattered to the ground and the redhead sprung forwards, gripping the cool evening grass between his long fingers. His neck was stretched out in a manner that made it seem like he was trying very hard to look for something that wasn't there. Or at least wasn't visible to human eyes. This was nothing strage. The boy tended to have an uncanny ability for seeing what normally couldn't be seen by any NORMAL person. It had nothing to do with perception and everything to do with something else that no one was quite sure of. Due to this fact, the easily distracted teenager was prone ot randomly zoning out and staring at a blank wall, or a patch of sky as if it held all the answers in the universe. And who was to say it didn't? No one knew exactly what Koushiro saw, and he himself acted as if it were nothing perculiar.

Still, on that night, at that time, his manner was more distressing than usual. Lines of terror tugged at the edges of his intelligent eyes and his body shuddered in the soft, July breeze. This behavoir greatly distressed not only Yamato and Taichi, but Agumon and Tentomon as well. The four exchange confused glances before Taichi leaned down and lightly tapped Koushiro's shoulder.

"Yo... Izzy? What's up?"

The younger boy jumped, and turned to stare at his companions wide eyes.

"I..." he moved his mouth wordlessly, then shook his head in fustration before he began again, "It's not right... can't you see it? It's not supposed to happen this way..."

"What's not supposed to happen this way?"

"It's not the end... not anymore... they undid it somehow and..."

Taichi grabbed Koushiro's shoulder roughly and yanked the smaller induvidual to his feet, "Dammnit Izzy, quit speaking in riddles and tell us what you mean. What do you mean by it? Koushiro, what do you SEE?"

"Tai..." Agumon whispered eerily, "You don't see it... do you... Izzy's right..."

Silence. All eyes were focused on the small, fire-colored Digimon.

"It's written in the sky."

Tentomon nodded somberly, "Everything's written in the sky."

"And something's wrong."

The Digimon glanced at each other knowingly. Fearfully.

((flash))

Koushiro spun his head as Taichi blinked.

There was screaming. There was light. And the light was growing.

The former digidestined leader stumbled backwards a few steps until he bumped into Yamato. The blonde was just as shocked, but placed a mediating hand on Taichi's shoulder. Both shuddered.

Koushiro, with trembling hands, dantily lifted his laptop from where it had fallen, none too gracefully, on the ground.

He glanced at the screen for no more than a half second before exclaiming in a voice that was all in all too calm considering the situation.

"Oh. Shit."

And that was when the world collapsed.

Chapter 1.

"It stinks down here." Daisuke Motimaya exclaimed loudly, making a great fuss as he dramatically clamped his nose between his thumb and fore finger.

Iori sighed and pushed past him, flickering the beam from his large flashlight arcoss the walls, floor and ceiling of the sewer in search of what they were looking for.

The only problem is that they didn't know EXACTLY what they WERE looking for.

"Daisuke Motimaya. You never cease to astound me with your glowing perception. The very profoundness in your statement brings me to tears." The remark was made all the more sarcastic by the biting monotone of Iori gruff voice.

"Yeah. I'm just amazing, aren't I?" It was hard to tell if the older boy was trying to be witty, or if he took Iori's faux compliment for face value.

After a few more minutes of walking in monotonous silence, Iori stopped, huffed and shoved the flashlight at Daisuke.

The red-head stared at it blankly before taking it in numb hands and shrugging, "Iori, what..."

"Daisuke, this is useless. You know I'm more than half blind and these damned glasses don't do a thing..." as if to strengthen his point, the young boy fiddled with the ridiculously thick spectacles that rested on his nose uselessly, "I'm not asking you to do much. Just point the flashlight forwards and tell me what you see!"

And that's what Daisuke did.

"Well?"

"Big hole."

"What?"

"There is a big hole of nothing where there should be a big chunk of something."

Iori almost laughed. Or would've almost laughed, had he been the laughing type. And had not suddenly felt sick to his stomach at the sound of those words.

"Iori? You okay?"

"Six day cycle, Daisuke, right?"

"Yeah, of course it's a six day cycle. Has been for the past two years."

Iori nodded deftly, "Of course... but... which of the six day cycles was this particular 'chunk of something' recorded to be on?"

Something flashed across Daisuke eyes that could've been fear, "Oh." He said quietly.

"Oh indeed."

There was a silence. Not an awkward one and not a nervous one. Simply a pause as both boys began to form important thoughts in their very different minds.

"Damn! How the hell did Koushiro know?"

"What?" Iori glanced at Daisuke, puzzled.

"Koushiro must've known, otherwise he wouldn't have sent us to check. I was wondering about that a ways back... there's no other explaination, but HOW?"

Iori shifted and rolled his small shoulders, glacing around the room through the glaze of semi-fuzzey darkness that was his world, "I don't know, Daisuke, but I don't think that is what's important right now."

"Of course not. What's important is that we go find out what's causing this and kick it's big-hole-causing-ass!" Daisuke sounded particularily exuberant.

Iori coughed, "Yes, well. First of all I think that we should at least focus on getting OUR asses out of this sewer." he paused carefully and turned back towards where the dim pillar of light emanating from the manhole still illuminated the exit ladder, "It stinks down here." he finished wryly, casting Daisuke a sly grin. The goggled boy laughed and followed after him.

Daisuke's good humour was starkly out of place among the DigiDestined as of late, and one, upon viewing the current state of the world would find the reason rather obvious.

This is the scene that greeted Iori and Daisuke as they cleared the ladder and stepped out into the foggy half daylight, coughing and sputtering as they raced to greedily suck in the fresh, afternoon air.

They emerged into a narrow alleyway. The ground was slick with last night's rain and the sky a grayish-red color that looked somewhat like rust. Hikari paced nervously, close to the entrance of the manhole, biting her lip and wrapping her lavendar-colored wind breaker tighter about her body as the chilly autumn wind picked up. A little ways from her, Miyako leaned casually against the cement wall, chewing on the tip of her long cigarette as it traced lazy patterns in the air with it's barely gray smoke. Her fuzzy sweater was formfitting and she struggled to keep her skirt knee length as it danced rebelliously in the breeze. Koushiro was hunched over his glowing laptop, furrowing his brow curiously at what he saw, and obviously very displeased. He was muttering, but aside from that, the group was silent.

There were no Digimon. And if one took the time to notice, the world about them seemed... off. The colors were not as vibrant as they should be, and occasionally something would flicker in the corner, and suddenly, something wasn't there, or had changed subtly. Most of the buildings were hollowed by fire, and there were not too many areas of Japan a person would care to stroll around in alone, or with a friend.

The harsh reality was that Myotismon had been a lot more ruthless and, and much more intelligent, than many had given him credit for. He had done what so few villians realize is necessary... he prepared for defeat.

Daisuke remembered it clearly. He had been out in front, shouting something back to the others. He couldn't remember exactly what it was, the memory was all faded now, like an old polaroid that begins to dull and bleed.

The final blow had been struck and Myotismon cried out in pain. Victory was assumed and as the fiend fell, the masses cheered. But then, it happened. The white light began to pulsate. The celebrative noises slowly dissapated until the shouts of joy were scattered and nervous. Hikari fainted and Takeru looked sick, a sure sign that something terribly wrong. Somewhere to Daisuke's left, Ken cried out and gripped his head in pain.

"The sky..." Palidramon muttered absently in his forceful, dual voice, "Something... went wrong..."

It was then that the red head made his fateful decision. He began to run towards the light. There was neither rhyme nor reason to his action, but at the time, it made sense to him, all the while, the Digimon's hauting words echoing in his mind.

He remembered the footsteps behind him. He had run faster, but Ken had caught his hand. The momentum propelled the both of them forwards into the light. As the barrier was broke, all sight and sound died out, and then, there was only darkness.

When the dust had settled, the world was... different. It felt artificial... dying... unright.

Daisuke did remember Ken's small and frightened words:

"The Digital World... is gone... I... I can't feel Wormmon..."

Others would relate the horror of the Digimon's death. The slow, systematic crumbling of them. Somehow, the Digital World and the Real World had melded... melted into each other. Koushiro explained it like this:

"Y'see... sometimes worlds, erm, bump. There's no other way to explain it without me going into a load of technical jarbon that you wouldn't understand... anyways, when world's bump, usually they will bounce back off each other with only minimal changes so subtle that no one really notices. Like, maybe your best friend's hair changes color, or your dad's boss is suddenly Mr. Fuji instead of Mr. Takiyari... but the problem with the Digital world is that it's just a shadow world of our earth, not another world entirely, so the bump, erm, had repercussions.

I'm sure most of you remember what happened after our first battle with Myotismon all those years ago, right? Well, originally, from what Gennai and I have figured, the Dark Masters had planned to... well, not bump, but crash the two worlds together, hoping that the Digital world would eventually win and become the only reality for this universe... I guess they knew it wasn't right having two worlds occupy the same space in the continuim. Well... Myotismon studied this during his many years living inside Mr. Oikawa and discovered a way to do this using a trigger. He set more than one up, of course, in case of variables that might affect the situation. In our case, two of the seals were tripped. The first, Myotismon did himself by letting those not compatiable with the Digital World in... unfortunately, we tripped the second... the moment Myotismon was felled. As genius as he might have been, he didn't plan for that, and it had an adverse effect he had never considered... instead of one world dying and the other one expanding into it, both worlds are expanding into each other. Both worlds are slowly being destroyed."

It was a terrifying prospect, and one Koushiro had little doubts about coming to pass.

"All we can do..." he had sighed regretfully, "Is watch, record and clean up the mess... eventually we might find a pattern..."

"Pattern my ASS!" Daisuke shouted upon setting his feet on solid ground. Iori, who was still in the process of dragging himself out from the sewer rolled his eyes and muttered irritatedly to himself.

"Hmm?" Koushiro barely glanced up from his laptop, "It wasn't there?"

"A big fucking hole of nothing," Daisuke affirmed, pressing his back into the wall and placing his hands on his hips, "You didn't tell us that there would be nothing!"

Koushiro hmmed again, "It's to be expected... if both worlds are deteriorating, I would have guessed that eventually parts of each would begins to dissapear entirely... don't be so surprised, Daisuke..."

Daisuke kicked a rock and snorted. Hikari looked up suddenly.

"Izzy... doesn't this... well, doesn't this unravel the pattern you had been forming? Ken was explaining it to me the other day, and it didn't seem like... well... I hadn't thought you had taken such things into consideration."

"I was frightened that he had..." Miyako cut in, glancing at Hikari meaningfully.

"Well... I had it in mind..." Koushiro answered guardedly, "Let's just say that..." Suddenly, he slammed his notebook shut and rose violently, "Okay. We'd better get out of here... it's no good staying in one place too long."

"Amen to that!" Miyako crushed her cigarette daintily with the edge of her toe and pushed off from the wall. The others began to slowly file out of the alley, still not speaking. Iori lingered a moment and glanced back.

The manhole was gone.

He blinked, rubbed his glasses on the edge of his sleeve and looked again. The manhole was there again. He shook his head, scolding himself about being paranoid and quickly followed after the others.

+

The bar was small and unkempt and on the edge of the ocean. Everything in it was fireproof and lightweight, ready to be moved at any given moment, a sure sign of the times. The fuzzy radio was tuned to an American station and the sound of lonesome, outdated english music surrounded the scattered drinkers like the very stuffy air they breathed. From the look of them, you would have thought that maybe they were absorbing the music.

Most of it's occupants suffered from post-Digital depression. Once rich business tycoons, or those who had lost their family, were the sorts one expected to see wasting away their scant pennies on flat, warmed booze. The bar-keep had long since stopped tying to keep underaged drinkers out of his establishment. There were too many orphaned teenagers to deny them solace anymore, and a few in particular who returned almost every day.

One of these was once a familiar face, though everyone was too caught up in their own misery to notice. At least three times a week, a boy of no more than fifteen would stroll into the bar, head down, hands in pocket, and sit at the smallest table, closest to the window. He never ordered anything, just sat and stared at the ocean. A woman once asked him why he did this, and he only replied:

"I like to keep an eye on the ocean... I'm afraid it might turn black again."

These words were cryptic at beast, and after that, no one approached the strange boy. He was thin and unhealthy looking with a gaunt face and sunken eyes. He always wore black, which complemented his smooth, dark hair, but offset his dangerously pale face. Despite his general appearance of unkemptness, a shimmer of rare, almost feminine beauty, showed in his narrow, pale eyes, smooth lips and high cheekbones. It showed in the graceful, thoughtless manner he moved and the softness of his gentle voice.

This boy was Ken Ichijouji, and despite everything, the beauty of his kind, but tortured, spirit still managed to shine through.

He always sat alone.

The bar-keep turned his head at the light tingle of wind chimes, a sign that someone had just entered the bar. He eyed the newcomer as the door swung closed behind her and noted that she was young, but not quite so young as some of the woman who came by. She was plain because of her coarse, auburn hair, pulled back into a loose pony-tail, but startling because of her dark eyes, the most peculiar shade of brown which looked deep ruby in the dim light. She was well groomed and quiet moving and every eye in the bar followed her silent footsteps as she walked to the table in the corner and very calmly took a seat across from the boy watching the ocean.

"Ken..." she whispered.

The boy made a start and jumped, staring at her with wide, sky-colored eyes. He stared at her decisively, as if he didn't recognize her, then folded his hands on the table top.

"What is it Sora?"

The bar, once filled wiht only silence and the sound of some late-fifties crooner, suddenly erupted in murmers. Even drunk, there were few who didn't recognize such famous names as Sora Takenouchi and THE Ken Ichijouji. Both winced, surveyed the crowd, then glanced back at each other hopelessly.

Though they were still doing everything in their power to make things right again, many believed that it was the Digidestined who had caused the whole mess in the first place. Not many people in Japan cared enough about the issue to hold too many firm beliefs about it, they were too busy trying to survive, but in other countries, mainly the United States and some of the stronger European nations, were not in such dire straights. Basically, the problem started in Japan, and spread outwards. There was even a myth that the end of the world has appeared in Tokyo three weeks earlier.

This being the case, most of the world blamed Japan, and the Digidestined in particular, fo the incident. Humans being as humans are, most figured the problem would just go away if anough bombs were dropped. The world was on the brink of a nuclear war to top things off, and for this reason, Taichi had advised everyone to keep a somewhat low profile.

Sora leaned towards Ken and lowered her voice further, "Ken. Taichi's called a meeting. Looks like Koushiro's made an important breakthrough and... well, it's probably better that you come."

Ken made a weak 'hmm'ing noise and dropped his gaze, "A meeting then... seems like there's nothing better these days..."

"What do you mean?"

Ken didn't answer, but stood abruptly, motioning with his chin towards the exit. Sora nodded knowingly, and with as little commotion as possible, the two left.

When out in the street, Ken sighed heavily and watched the ground as he walked, "I meant that it hardly seems like we do anything... well... for ourselves lately."

Sora jogged a few steps to keep up with his hasty pace. She looked simple and very stable with her neatly cut jean jacket and tightly tied hair, next to Ken, whose dark jacket and unkempt locks spilled out behind him in the harsh, acidic wind.

'The air doesn't smell like Earth anymore...' Iori had once said cryptically. Koushiro answered, 'It doesn't quite smell like the Digital World either...' Sora had always thought that it smelt like death.

"Ken... you know that we... we don't have time for that kind of thing. It would be wildly unfair if we stopped and..." she caught herself and exhaled, "What am I saying... it's really sad, isn't it?"

"It's something Daisuke said to me the other day that got me thinking..." Ken explained, "He said, 'Oh my God Ken, I'm fourteen!' I didn't quite understand exactly what he meant by it- sometimes it's hard to tell if he's really, actually being profound or if he's just being himself- but we've literally taken the world on our shoulders these last few years, isn't it time for a break?"

Sora shook her head firmly, "No. Never. Not as long as..." she looked to her right as she passed a wall, once clean and white cement but now decayed, with lines of unreadeable Digital code running through it. She continued heavily, "Not as long as things are the way they are... No one else can do anything."

"And neither can we, obviously." There was no anger or bitterness in Ken's voice, only a soft loss of resolve. A defeated sort of tone.

Sora opened her mouth to reply, only to find that there was nothing to say. She bit her lip and looked at her feet as they moved mechanically on the hard pavement. Neither of them said a word more.

+

Hikari used to wonder if after it was all said and done, the Digidestined, once the closest of unbreakable friends, would eventually drift apart. It seemed an obvious enough assumption that they would, after all, time and circumstance pulled even the closest of people away from each other.

Yamato always talked about moving to America, of Europe. Making his music a bit more mainstream in other countries. Miyako was just itching to get out of Odaiba when she was old enough, and Iori longed to see the Himalayas before he died. Taichi wanted to become a proffesional soccer player, Jyou intended to move to Tokyo to open up a practice and Daisuke was hell bent on opening a Ramen Shop. There was no possible way for the twelve of them to prusue their dreams and stay close to each other at the same time. It was a terrible, yet sensible fear that constantly lived in the back of their minds.

Now, she reflected, it had been all but forgotten. Even worse, their friendship was now borne more of necessity, than actual affection. Hikari watched them file into Taichi's small, one bedroom apartment, divided and defeated. Taichi was sitting alone, looking out of the window with a dark expression upon his face, Koushiro was sitting near him, staring at the ceiling and biting his lip. His laptop was stationary on his knees and his arms resting across it. Neither spoke. Yamato leaned casually against one wall, arms crossed and left leg supporting him. Mimi laid in the middle of the floor, utterly exahausted and chatting quietly with Miyako, who sat cross-legged by her head. Iori and Takeru sat to either side of Hikari herself, both solemn and tense at the same time. Daisuke paced impatiently, stopping every few steps to run a worried hand through his ruffled, burgandy hair.

Sora and Ken were currently AWOL.

These were not the DigiDestined of the past. These were not the DigiDestined thrown together by fate, growing and learning together and loving each other unconditionally... these were the DigiDestined thrown together by failure, kept together only by faded memories and the faintest traces of feeling.

The rusted door creaked in protest as Sora lightly propped it open. She stepped gracefully into the room, followed by the ever downcast Ken. She calmly took a seat beside Koushiro, exchanged a knowing glance with him, and then folded her hands. Ken gently grabbed Daisuke's arm to stop the younger boy from pacing and both sat near the door, on the other side of Yamato.

There was a poignant silence. And then Taichi spoke.

"Everyone's here?"

All murmered weakly in response. Still, they would look instictively to their sides for Digimon partners.

Taichi turned from the window and face his troops. He was ragged and aged looking, but the deep, red scar running down the left side of his face was common place by now. Only Sora and Yamato would wistfully whisper about the Taichi they once knew and loved; jovial, emotional and caring, but even they would agree in the end that this post-apocolyptic persona he had taken on was more in tune with his surroundings.

He glanced coldly at Koushiro, "So, what's the news Izzy?"

Koushiro nodded deeply and stood, his entire exterior changing fluidly from reserved, polite, computer-geek Koushiro to second-in-command, General Izumi. His voice was more forceful and his manner more compelling. He didn't stutter, didn't flinch, hardly showed any emotion at all.

He had always been like that- able to set aside his own personal conflicts and get done what needed to be done- Hikari had always admired and detested that in him.

He said: "According to my predictions, the unraveling has indeed begun and right on scheduel I might add. This morning Daisuke and Iori confirmed our first section of 'dissapeared land'- in other words, the Digital World at least, is beginning to... well... simply cease to exist, and it won't be long before our world starts to follow suit."

Taichi growled, "Well, we can fix it, can't we?"

Koushiro bit his thumb, "Well... you see... I'm not quite sure about that. Nothing we've done during the past two years has helped any, but..."

"You have a theory." Daisuke blurted out, rolling his eyes. Ken shot him an icy look.

"Doesn't he always?" Mimi said lightheartedly, giving Koushiro the thumbs up as she pulled herself into a sitting position.

Koushiro winked in a manner very much not like himself, "Not one that I'm sure will work, but I think it's quite possible for us to learn how to use our Digivices..." he paused, and searched his peers for reaction. There was none. He coughed loudly, and continued, "I mean... learn how to use them as in... harness their power, the kind that we're usually only able to fuel."

This earned a fair amount of gasps and wide-eyed looks from the group.

"So, what... you're saying we'd be able to Digivolve?" Takeru asked skeptically, rubbing his neck sorely.

Koushiro shook his head, "No. That's not what I mean at all. We're not data, it's impossible for us to Digivolve, but it IS possible for us to manipulate digital energy and... well, *change* things..."

Yamato snapped his fingers as he slammed his left foot to the ground, sapphire eyes burning excitedly, "It's exactly like what we've been doing all these years to our Digital partners!"

"I understand!" Sora exclaimed, "You mean that we were changing them. Manipulating their very structure based on our own emotions!?"

"Yes." Koushiro answered simply.

"If we DID learn how to do this..." Taichi interrupted, "And that's not garunteeing that we ever will,. how will it help matters?"

Koushiro grinned madly, "It's actually quite simple. We could manipulate the stray digital energy into... gates of some sort... we could clog the holes and eventually set up a dam that would keep our world slipping into theirs and vice versa."

"Wait..." Hikari stood up suddenly, her voice and stance dripping with righteous resolve, "I forsee problems with this plan..." she paused and wrapped her small hand around the whistle hanging at her neck... the whistle she had given th\o Gatomon after that first summer in the Digital World, "If we do that... then wouldn't all the energy of the Digital World exist simply to hold that dam? To keep our world safe? We'd be able to rebuild OUR world, but how would... how would THEIR world ever be the same again...?"

Koushiro opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself. He fidgeted akwardly and shrugged stiffly, General Izumi rapidly losing ground "Well... Hikari... I... I haven't exactly figured that out... it's quite possible that we could... that is, we would be able to change the energy again but if it could be done... and I'm not saying it can be... it would take years."

"How many." Hikari demanded.

"Well... too many... we'd be dead long before we got anywheres."

"Dead!?" Daisuke exclaimed.

Koushiro laughed nervously, "Yes... well... that's the other kink in the plan, so to say... I'm not sure if any of you were aware of this, but manipulating digital energy signifigantly shortens one's life span... the energy required for us to even dam the flow right now would shorten our lives by a little less than half."

The room was full of blinking and horrifyed silence. Only Ken, who stared blankly at Daisuke's shoe seemed un-affected by the revelation.

Daisuke spoke, as he oftenm did when no one else had anything to say, "Who cares?"

"What?" Miyako glared at her friend viciously, "Did you not get that, Dais? We'd die at... at 40!"

"So?" Daisuke shrugged and chuckled, "We're Digidestined. It's what we do."

"Daisuke has a point." Koushiro nodded gravely, "It's not for us to decide what to do with our lives any more... we do what's right."

Yamato scoffed, "It came in the job description under 'hero', isn't that right, Yagami?" he shot Taichi a wry look and for a moment, it seemed as if they were as they had been back in the Digital World days... two young boys, always looking to get the better of each other. Hikari nearly smiled... except that before Taichi had a chance to grin back at the blonde, his face set sternly and he folded his arms angrily.

"There's no question about what we have to do. We follow Koushiro's plan."

"It was a theory, Tai." Koushiro reminded, "Just a suggestion."

"Still, it's the only one we've got."

"But Tai!" Hikari exclaimed, "If we do this, the Digimon will never come back! Don't any of you understand that!"

No one answered.

Hikari sat down, tears forming in her soft, hazel eyes. Takeru tenatively wrapped his arm around the width of her shoulders, and she leaned into him gratefully. It had been a long two years, and she fore saw a long road ahead of them

Interlude.

"I have been one aquainted with night." the girl said, her eyes fixed tiredly on the unfamiliar patterns in the sky. Her voice was thin and strained, and her eyes laden heavy due to lack of sleep. She leaned back lightly on her knuckles, yawning every so often but continuing in her quiet monolouge, "I have walked in rain and back in rian. I have outwalked the farthest city light. Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right, I have been one aquainted with night."

"Interesting." the older man smiled at her side. He was tall and handsome, with cropped brown hair pulled back in a tail and dressed in flowing, white and brown robes. He had a wide, smiling face and crinkled worry lines, but something in his eyes didn't quite seem... real... "But what is it?"

"Robert Frost." the dark boy answered without hesitation in his dulled monotone. The fire flickered thin shadows across his pale features, and his garb, dark as night, devoured all light's attempt at reaching him, "Famous poet. Wrote many wise things." he glanced lifelessly at the girl, "That's one of my favourites."

"It suits you, Saku." the last boy muttered drowsily, his fluffy head of chestnut hair resting on his jean-clad knees. He was nearly asleep, "Things like that all suit you. Night and dark and stuff like that."

"How prolific, Toku..." the dark boy rolled his eyes and the man and girl laughed.

"Of course, that's our Tokudai!" she excalimed sleepily.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Ko..." the dark boy began, "I'm not sure whether to take it as compliment or not." he raised a black eyebrow and the girl laughed again.

"I'm never sure whether to take ANYTHING Tokudai takes as compliment or insult."

"I suppose the best we can do," the man added, "Is simply take it for face value."

Both nodded, and finally, the girl lost the battle and nodded off to sleep, falling face first into the robed man's shoulder. He smiled, and slowly, closed his eyes. The dark boy followed suit, and soon, there was only the deep silence of a Digital World's midnight encircling the small camp.

/Interlude.

Contrary to popular belief, Jyou Kido was not, in fact, planning on becoming a doctor.

... well... techinically he was. He had all the training. He had been in med-school earning his pre-doctrined, then eventually a phD. He had been regularily volunteering at random hospitals. He knew medical terms, could diagnose any diesease, disorder, sickness, metal illness, ect. this side of Tokyo but still, it was not what he was planning to do.

Despite all apperances, Mr. Kido was a very aimless, lost and wandering young man. When he looked ahead to his future, he saw a blank space in the time continuim. He could see anyone else's future- Yamato's, as he climed the ladder of rock-star fame; Hikari's, as she taught her first elementary school class; Sora, selling her first article; but no matter how hard he tried to invision his own fate, there was nothing except a slight feeling of rising dread in his stomach.

It was no surprise, then, taking all this into consideration, that at this very moment, Jyou was asking himself exactly what the hell he was doing, hands in gloves buried inside a middle-aged woman's chest, searching for a piece of Digital sharpnel that was slowly killing her.

He was very nearly hyper ventialating- Jyou had always hated blood.

Sometimes he thought that the great crumbled was a blessing of sort. Tending for people hurt by the mistakes of the DigiDestined gave him a renewed purpose in life. Sure, he was a doctor, which he would've most likely been anyways, but at least he was a doctor with purpose- a doctor with a mission. He was force into the proffesion by means far beyond his miniscule control, and that was quite fine with him. That's simply the kind of person he was.

He was very good at it, as well. Perhaps, he often mused, it was meant to be. Word of his name spread quickly (there were very few doctors left in Japan willing to operate on Digital World related inguries- Jyou specialized in it), but still, despite the hundreds he had treated in the past two years, it continued to astound him how many sensible adults were willing to trust a nineteen year old boy with scraggly hair and foggy glasses to poke about their insides.

There was a catch, of course.

"Heeeey...." the woman had peered at him curiously over her handbag, "Aren't you one of those... those Children? What do they call them... DigiDestined?"

Jyou's throat caught and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose nervously, "Uh... no.. that was a... a Shyou Kido. No relation. I assure you."

Not to say that he had completely cut his ties with the Digidestined, that would, after all, be near to impossible, but he DID have apperances to keep and his work was demanding and strenious. Which is why he had the full and unwavering permission from Taichi to miss as many meetngs as he felt necessary without prior notice.

Jyou wiped his brow and motioned to his nurse with his hand. She fluttered her eyelashes (she had been crying again. The poor girl had barely started med school when it happened, but there was no one else willing to take the job) and she reached shakily for thread and needle.

Jyou took them with a grateful nod and bent down, setting himself to the sweaty, percise work. He balked at the shoddy supplies. He was not using actual medical thread, but thread from a sewing kit Sora had secured for him. It was thin and frail, but all they had to work with. Medical supplies were scarce as it was, and the "real" hospitals always first priority. Jyou just warned his patients to be careful and mind their scars.

When the job was done he pulled away hastily from the patient, signalling for his nurse to take over. He burst from the small, dirty operating room with fervour, pulling down his surgeon's mask and vigoriously gasping in the fresh air.

"Bad day at the office, Dr. Kido?"

Jyou blinked in surprise and stared at his 'reception area'. A kid, barely eleven years old and wearing ugly, perscription glasses was seated in one of the shoddy, dust-covered waiting chairs with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Jyou recognized him immedietly, even despite the dull, monotonous tone he conveyed, but it took him a moment longer to process why, exactly, Iori Hida even KNEW where his practice was located.

"This isn't a place for children, Iori." he said firmly.

"I'm not a child." it wasn't meant to be a protest, there was no intonation to suggest it. Iori meant it as a simple, truthful comment.

Jyou sighed and massaged his temples. It had been a bad day, "How did you find this place?"

"Oh, it wasn't too hard... I just asked around Ken's usual haunt... it's a bar by the ocean, built where the dockyard used to be, you know the place..." Jyou nodded, "Well... there aren't too many people around who don't know of a young and talented surgeon specializing in Digiwounds... considering you're the only one in all of Japan who actually half knows what he's doing."

Jyou nodded again, "Fair enough. But that doesn't explain why you went looking."

Iori opened his half blind eyes and fixed an unsettling gaze on the older DigiDestined. It was creepy mostly because Jyou knew exactly what the young boy was seeing... not much more than a white, shadow-wrapped blur, "I decided that it might be useful for you to know exactly what goes on during these meetings you so casually miss, and today's was most enlightening."

Jyou chuckled appreciatively. Iori hadn't changed much on the surface in the years since the final battle, but his outlook on life had soured and very nearly withered away completely. He lived his life as if he were at constant odds with everyone and everything around him and had to keep at least three steaps ahead of the hurricane brewing in his imagination. It had to do, in no small part, to his partial loss of eyesight. One could only imagine what it must be like lliving in a world of only slanted, black angels and the faintest smudges of color, even through visual correction lenses. Just like deafness makes one paranoid, blindness makes one catious. Jyou had the sense to realize that at the moment, he was caught in one of the boy's tenative mind games. He had learned the best thing to do in such a sitution was to bend. Iori was a lot smarter than he could ever hope to be.

"Well then, I suppose you're going to fill me in whether I'd appreciate it or not..." Jyou leaned against his dusty reception desk, no more than three pieces of wood nailed together haphazardly, and waited.

"You're covered in blood." Iori observed quietly.

Jyou looked himself over and shuddered slightly. The boy was indeed right and the blue-haired doctor realized none too happily that this was his usual state of dress, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It gives you a resonable excuse for missing out on us today... though I thought Koushiro told you to come."

"Mmm-Hmmm. It was important."

"Koushiro developed a plan. I think we're going to need you for this one, Doctor Kido."

+

It was in the top drawer of his badly made desk. The space was otherwise unoccupied. Jyou somehow felt that it would be a betrayal of sorts towards Gomamon to place his Digivice in a cluttered space, shoved beneath heaps of complicated medical textbooks or piles of patient waiting lists. The drawer was barren and the small device sat serenly at it's center, dim as if in peaceful sleep.

Or dead.

Koushiro had said, many years ago, that the Digimon were physical representations of the power held within the Digivices. He later revised his opinion to say that the Digivices were, in fact, a physical representation of the bond between human and Digimon and not the other way around.

"Like the chicken and the egg, eh Koushiro?" Yamato had commented snidely, only half listening as he polished his harmonica.

"No, Yamato." Koushiro had shook his head soundly, "It's nothing like that. The Digimon were around for eons in their time before the Digivice."

"Yet another lovely little mystery of the Digital World..." Taichi said through a muffled yawn, "But if you don't mind, I think everyone would rather get some sleep than ponder your fascinating little theory. Sorry Izz."

Jyou had thought about it a great deal that night, but never really considered the subject again until the day Gomamon left. The Digivice, which had always hummed silently with a quiet, glowing life had suddenly stopped that day. It felt cold and empty and Jyou had since been too terrifyed to touch it.

So it had been shoved away in a dark, little corner of the office, hidden but most certainly not forgotten until the need for it arose again.

"You carry yours with you?" Jyou asked in surprise as Iori slipped his own Digivice onto the crooked desk surface.

Iori nodded, "Out of respect for Arujimon."

"I still respect Gomamon..." Jyou said defensively, reaching into the desk and scooping out the cold device with a twinge of sadness tugging at his heart.

"I know." the child answered, "But your respect is different than mine. Everyone's is. You know, Ken won't even talk about Wormon."

Jyou nodded somberly and stared for a long moment at the Digivices, their dark screens speaking volumes of the void he felt deep in his soul, like a vital part of him had been torn out in Gomamon's absence.

"I... don't think that this is a good idea." he said hesitantly, sparing Iori a glance.

"Why is that?"

"Well... you know, Izzy will probably show us. I don't think we need to figure it out for ourselves... I mean..." he coughed purposefully and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, unable to still the quell of his long-instinctual caution, "We might make a mistake, Iori. You know... mess something up in the scheme of things."

"We won't."

"How do you know?"

"It would be impossible." Iori explained implaceably, "We have to find it out for ourselves, otherwise it won't work." He fixed filmy emerald eyes on Jyou evenly, "Don't you understand that the Digivices are tuned to us especially? Everyone would have a different way of connecting. Koushiro explained it all. He can't teach us how."

Jyou gulped and accepted this answer, as it seemed resonable enough, but still, one other question pried on his mind, "Well... then why did you come to me? Why not just do this on your own?"

"Because I trust you." Iori answered simply, "I don't trust myself."

"Fair enough... well then, what exactly are we supposed to be doing."

"I don't know. I don't think anyone does. There is no right thing to do, it must be instinct."

"Great..." Jyou muttered under his breath, "Um..." he said aloud, "Shouldn't we... touch them at the very least?"

Iori blinked widely and chuckled, "Sometimes, Jyou, I really do feel your senior despite the fact you were already in school when I was born." he sighed, "I can't think of anything else but to... think. Focus your thoughts on something that needs to be fixed..." Iori's pale eyes scanned the room fruitlessly until they fixed blurrily on the wall, near the door. It was red with code running both horizantal and vertical. Beneath the strange characters was a translucent mist, through which a thick, exotic looking forest was visiable, "See the wall and think of Gomamon. Picture the wall as it was before it looked like that and then imagine Gomamon and his strength of will."

Jyou tenatively reached out his left palm and closed it aroung the Digivice. He stared sternly at the wall and thought fiercly, searching his memories for it's greedily stored Gomamon moments. The Digivice felt warm for a moment when his mind picked a particular moment, Gomamon entertaining the entire group for a whole sticky afternoon as they wandered Server's massive desert. Even the shamed Taichi, dragging along in the back, cradling a sleeping Koromon in his arms was forced to smile at the Digimon's antics. Jyou blinked once, and suddenly, where once there was Digital World, there was wall.

The spectacled boy dropped the Digivice in shock. It hit the desk and clattered loudly to the floor, where it lay, blank and cold as ever. Iori was staring at him and the wall flickered back, once again mist and code.

"Was I... I'm seeing things." he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes before placing them back on the bridge of his nose, "I could have sworn that the wall..."

"You let it go." Iori grumbled, "I couldn't hold it on my own... but I think I can now. Watch." Iori closed his eyes and whispered something undistinguishable under his breath and suddenly, the wall was normal again. Iori opened his eyes, but this time the wall stayed.

"Is that... is that what Koushiro expects us to do?" Jyou asked breathlessly, still bewildered and slightly frazzled.

"Apparently... but he's hoping that somehow, if we all combine that power we can... well not so much fix it as stop it."

Jyou nodded dumbly, "I... I see..." he sighed and gave Iori a wry glance, "So, what's the catch..."

+

Koushiro Izumi swore softly as he rattled his stubborn keys against the might of his apartment's padlock, then louder when he found that he could not witthdraw the offending key from the door unless he were to miraculously force the thing open. It fustrated him that for all his unmeasured genius he still often lost these incessant battles against such ordinary, everyday objects. It seemed as if most domestic items were determined to make his life miserable. His radio refused to tune into any of Japan's plentiful news networks, his shower rarely delivered hot water, his toaster constatly blackened toast against his will and his door ALWAYS took approximately eight minutes and thirty eight seconds to open.

It was being particularly antagonistic this evening, Koushiro observed, as he had been struggling with the simple lock for nearly ten minutes.

Finally, as he was on the verge of surrendering and ringing the landlord, there was a click and the door fell open, nearly dragging the young red head with it. Koushiro straightened himself and viciously ripped his keychain from keyhole, his actions from that point on uncharactersitically violent.

He kicked off his muddy boots and slipped quickly into a soft pair of indoor slippers (adorned, of course, with various aquatic mammals). He flopped thankfully into his worn arm chair, the only piece of furniture in the entire apartment, not even bothering to removed his green raincoat and sighed out the day's stress.

It would work, he told himself, it was their only option and if Hikari had not pointed out the obvious morality issue, no one would have noticed.

Except, of course, Koushiro himself who had spent an entire night pacing his living room, wondering how wise it was to bring this new theory to Taichi's attention. Their leader, of course, ignored all considerations of right or wrong in his subjective quest for victory.

"Who cares if it's right or not, Izzy! Don't you understand, WE have a responsibility!" Which roughly translated to: "I don't care what you say, Koushiro, I have a mission to relieve myself of self inflicted guilt and nothing short of my own death is going to stop me."

Koushiro closed his eyes and sunk into the enfolds of what was once his adoptive father's reading chair. Kaasan and Otosan had dissapeared during that final battle with Myotismon and Koushiro had never set out searching for them as many others had their parents. He knew they were dead with that sort of sickening, soul searing certainty and there was no reason to confirm the horrible fact. He didn't miss them as much as he had hoped his would, and often worried about his lack of emotional attatchment. He thought sometimes, what would he feel if it had been one of teh Digidestined- Tai, Sora, Yamato- who hadn't survived the battle. Would he still have been able to get on with his life, or would he break apart like Ken had at the sight of his parent's mangled bodies ("I never said goodbye... they never knew...").

"I shouln't be living by myself." he muttered, opening his eyes and staring at his disorginized home, "It gives me too much time to think..." It was a bachelor apartment what once had been Odaiba. Now it was the slums. All the rent was free and the people essentially refugees who had lost everything and were unable to sustain themselves anywhere else in Japan. Most children and teenagers who had lost parents were holed up in dirty apartment buildings much in the same manner Koushiro was.

Seeing as Koushiro didn't spend much of his time at home, the place was a hopeless mess. Dirty dishes, discarded clothing and masses upon masses of Digital World related notes itched at the boy's tidy, Japanese upbringing, but he remained unable to do anything permenant about it. Whenever he found himself a few hours of free time to clean, it always ended up an abhorrent mess less than three days later, so what was the use?

The red head reached weakly for his laptop where he had dropped it and unfolded it on his lap. It chimed cheerfully as he did so and the screen lit almost blindingly. Koushiro raised a thick eyebrow in puzzlement... he hadn't even turned it on. His laptop often pulled strange stunts like this. It's experiences in the Digital World had given it a life and, it sometimes seemed, a mind of it's own.

There was no loading screen this time, only black and the faint blinking of a white line, as if it were expecting Koushiro to write something. He didn't need much more of an invitation. His nimble fingers flew across the sensitive keyboard. 'Hello'. he typed.

The words came up in the language of the Digital World, burned on the screen for a moment, then dissapeared.

'Are you Digital?' he typed, words once again converted to the Digital language.

This time, there was a reply. Grey characters flooded screen after screen and Koushiro's mind worked furiously to process the information before it dissapeared. It was mostly nonsense, but his photographic memory stored it away for further analysis. This continued for a very long time until finally, the screen was blank again. Very slowly, letters appeared on the screen symbol by symbol. They read:

'My name is Gennai.'