Masaru lost a lot when he left the human world for all those years. Forget the crap about school and homework and all of that, it was the noise that was overbearing. And he thought Agumon's snoring was bad, the city was awful, no joke!

Yet here he was, because his family missed him and Tohma had threatened to let Gaomon Final Shining Burst him home before Chika and Ikuto broke the dimensional barriers again so he could celebrate being twenty-one years old. He still didn't see the big deal; it was just a number. Just a number indicating he'd left his family for over half the time his dad had – sigh.

Okay, maybe he kinda sorta got it now.

But wasn't his dad, so it wasn't right to compare them.

It also wasn't cool to drag him back here when he really didn't want to come back. He would just have to tell all of them off about blackmail. He had punched people over less, a lot less.

Meanwhile, Agumon was grumbling in the Digivice. This was probably the longest he had ever stayed in that thing since… probably their fight all those years ago. He'd just have to suck it up. Drama queen.

Masaru kept walking, wishing he had thought to bring some ear plugs or something to deal with this. He was never so glad to libe in a decent, quiet suburb as he was right now.

Unfortunately, he was so focused on getting the heck out of the busy area that he slammed right into someone smaller than him, earning a shout of dismay and his digivice flying out of his hand. So much for good coordination.

"Ow," he said as he stumbled, surprised to find it had actually hurt. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah, you probably should be, I almost broke my nose on your chest." Her voice didn't sound remotely offended or irritated. In fact, she only sounded like the entire thing was hilarious.

He could respect that.

Masaru looked, well down at her. She couldn't be much younger than him, being a decent height and with skin just slight over tanned. She was probably at most a college student, though he had no idea what that weird thing was on her belt.

"I've never seen you before," she told him.

"Nah, I just got back." He paused. "Who are you?" Masaru couldn't help but be a little curious. Usually when people bumped into him, they ended up hurting themselves but she didn't seem bruised.

Nice.

For a moment, she didn't answer, as if trying to remember. Then she smirked, a face he loved wearing. He thought he could like this girl a bit. At least she was friendly. Yoshino could learn a thing or two from her about being chill.

"Oofuchi Himari, and welcome back to town I guess!" She waved her hands and the weird toy, if it was a toy, beeped.

Masaru smirked right back. "Thanks I guess. It's good to be back." It was, to be honest, to not have to cook for himself and a walking black hole. Masaru still couldn't imitate his mother's fried eggs, much to the irritation of both of them. (Agumon should have tried making them once in a while, he whined for them every day.) He scanned the streets but he'd never been good with district numbers and the like.

"Crap, I think I'm lost." He could almost see Agumon about to open his big fat mouth and blow their cover, but Himari interrupted right on time.

"I can help you find your way if you tell me where you're going," she offered, one purple eye closed in a wink.

"Think of it as payback for nearly breaking my nose."

For a moment, Masaru felt that rebellious urge towards independence rear its messy head. Then he relaxed and remembered the threat of a search party towards his person if he didn't hurry up, and that would be just humiliating. The number one fighter of the Digital World, called home by the police like an annoying toddler. That would be so great for his street cred.

Whatever, he was willing to swallow a little pride for the sake of a lot of it.

"Sure, that'd be a real help," he said and Agumon made a noise. Masaru didn't even try to pretend it wasn't there, but barring the way her eyes flicked over him, Himari seemed to not even care.

"Okay, where is it then?"She was so blunt. It was like his sister, but older and not ready to leap down his throat.

Awesome.

After a few seconds of Masaru struggling to recall his home address, they set off. It wasn't very noisy, barring Masaru's stomach, but it wasn't like he needed to fill the silence. She was kind of busy alternating between pointing the way and fiddling with the thing at her belt.

"What is that?" he finally couldn't help but ask.

Himari frowned, probably the first actual unhappy face she'd worn yet.

"It's a Digivice."

Masaru did not have the chill up his spine, because really, that wasn't too shocking. Digivices in general looked weird and his dad had made his, so maybe they had just made more.

"Mine doesn't look like that." He held it up to show her, black and orange and with Agumon straining to see what he could through the little screen.

Himari let out a laugh. "Aww, he's a cute one."

"I am not cute, I am the best Digimon Street Fighter there is!"

"Street fighters can be cute too, buddy."

It was the smirk on her face that made Masaru not tell his idiot partner to shut it. Anyone who didn't see Agumon and run off screaming (just because you had a digimon didn't mean his lummox wasn't weirdly terrifying, especially when he chomped on your head) was definitely a keeper of some kind.

His parents would like her anyway.

Whoa, that kinda sounded like marriage.

Nope, not happening.

Nope.

"What've you got?" he asked, to protect his brain.

She held up her own and the full color screen changed to look less like pixels and more, well, normal.

Masaru, despite knowing his sister and her sometimes abandoned liking of dirt and grime for destruction, expected something harmless and adorable and fun to appear.

What he got instead was the image of a massive, fluffy pink dragon held up by a lot of tiny wings.

"This is Rikka! Cool, huh?"

"Hmph!" Agumon tried to sound like he wasn't threatened. "I could beat her easy, no problem."

"You wanna go?! I like fights!" Himari grinned over at Masaru.

"I think they wanna play a bit. You in?"

Masaru didn't even have to think. Nothing, not even a family reunion would stand in the way of him and a good brawl. "Bring it."

Of course, his sister ruined that by screaming his name down the street.

She was getting such a noogie when he got a hold of her.

A/N: Guess who really likes Next 0rder? I do! Guess who thought these two might be cute together? I did! Let me know what you think!

Challenges: Pairing Diversity Boot Camp prompt - engage, Dice Gods Challenge, Double Dose of Restricts Challenge, Chapter Set Boot Camp Prompt '1', Dawn/Dusk Challenge 1a1, Diversity Writing Challenge (Game/Gen) D7, advent 2016 day 17, valentine's 2016, day 9.