Summary: AU: The Digital World only seemed to be a figment of his imagination, surreal, but he's destined - the Child of Hope. In this world, the Chosen are feared, Digimon forbidden. They fight to protect the world until forgotten. Friendship breaks, romance grows. To Re-Birth.
Author's Notes: Whatever drove me to write this has driven me to continue it. I'll only put up author's notes if I feel it is necessary. I will only update when I have a chapter that satisfies me. I have to research as well; if you would like to help me with Digimon-data, then please email me with the label of "Fly Away" at the top. Please be patient; I have all intentions of completing this because this is an idea I'm extremely attached to. But I cannot and will not give any promises because situations do not always comply. Constructive criticism is dearly loved. It encourages me and gives me more ideas than a simple: "Good job!" So please be thoughtful. No need to be gentle, because I can handle that, rest assured. So enjoy. :) Thank you for your patience.
Research conducted will always be explained up here. All translations will be the first things found here as well. Links will be at the end.
Japanese terms: (They are all italicised except for name-endings, because I'm lazy.)
-san: respectful, a little bit distant, but someone you are familiar with
-kun: friendly, often used for male classmates
-chan: intimate, but common among young children
kaasanor kaa-san or okaasan or okaa-san (NOTE: it would be written properly as kāsan and so on in its various respects): mother, et al (kaasan is a bit less formal than okaasan b/c "o" has honorable marking over "kaasan")
oi: hey (kind of rude, distinct, boyish)
iie: no
gomen: sorry (informal)
omae: you (informal and rude, commonly used amongst boys / young men, was used for calling a man's wife as: "omae" or "omae-san")
dare da?: who are you? (informal. Formal would be: Anata dare desu ka? or in a similar likes)
shiranai yo: I do not (don't) know. (casual)
uso ja nai yo: It is (it's) not (isn't) a lie. (casual)
boku Gennai o aitai . . . aitai: I want to meet Gennai . . . want to meet (literally). (Has a more emphasizing feeling, however. "I want to meet him, I really do!" as an example.)
-
Fly Away: Delving into the Digital World
By Takeru Takaishi
-
Prologue
When I was eight, I went to camp. It was a camp some place that I cannot seem to remember, nor can I remember much else about the camp, except that something magical and strange had happened during that summer. I had seen my brother Yamato at the camp and there was a thrilled feeling in me because I had missed him so much – how long had it been? Three years, four? I'm not sure. My memory once again failed me at that time. And then, suddenly, we were captured in a dream, us kids at the camp: Yamato Ishida, Koushiro Izumi, Jyou Kido, Mimi Tachikawa, me (Takeru Takaishi), Sora Takenouchi, and Taichi Yagami.
There was a bright stream of golden light, so many different colours. It was like being captured in a spell. We were so unfamiliar to it, it seemed, but it was so welcoming even though it was an intruder upon us. My only thought was very simple in my mind: What is this? It had been a logical question, as Koushiro-sanwould point out, but also an obvious question, as Taichi-sanpointed out. We found our answer later when our – these things called "Digimon" called out our names. My Digimon partner was just like me, he being just as hyper and hopeful and oblivious to everything else. He was Patamon.
Patamon and I got along fine. It was the others that might have worried me. They didn't make sense to me at the time, though they do now. I guess I had grown through the journey, become more responsible upon the situations. Now I understand about all the stuff they were talking about. They had so much decision in things, too much responsibility, burden – they didn't want it. Later on, Taichi's younger sister joined us in our adventures being the Child of Light. She was my age and seemed so faraway to me. Normally, it was I who drew attraction and friendship, but she only wanted to be by herself. We became friends though.
I cannot remember if all of this "Digimon" stuff was real. It had seemed so real to me, but it was as if everything had come to a stop in my dream. When I woke up again, I was at the camp . . 'kaasan was waiting for me, and she looked upon Yamato, her own son, with a desolation that I could not understand. When I had burst out about the Digital World, she brought this all upon Yamato's fault. I didn't understand why, because she had seen all the monsters, hadn't she? She had told me that I was just in a bad dream, but in my eyes, it was only everybody in the world but me who was in a dream, because I had changed.
When she told me that I had only been there a day and that camp had been cancelled because of a big storm that was coming very soon, I just couldn't believe her. I kept silent. She told me that there was nothing of this "Digital World" junk, and because of my naïve nature, I think I believed her. Now that I look back on it, I cannot say if I still do or don't, because there was something in my mind that made me believe that it hadn't been a dream. It had been too real, but that couldn't be my real proof. The proof would have to be seeing them, the Digimon, again. Everybody else, it seemed to me, had gone back into the real world and was in denial.
That night upon getting back home, I wrote every little detail about the Digital World, from arriving at camp to going home. Everything. It was a miracle that I had finished the whole thing. My writing was less than neat. It was legible, just legible, but you could see the left-hand slant of my writing. I had to smile a little bit, proud of my writing, but I didn't dare to show it to my mother. Would she get mad? I did not know. I kept it as my secret, storing it away in the green notebook. Every night, I added drawings and drawings of Digimon into it, though I was only a less-than-great artist. Then my drawings and writings came to a close at the end of the summer.
I had been forced to face back at the world, as if everything was normal, but I was changed. There was something about me that was all changed, so . . . changed, different. And then I saw that girl, the Child of Light. I didn't get a chance to chase after her, but I knew it was she. It was she! That changed nothing, though, because my mother had convinced me that it was all nothing, only my imagination. I knew that I had an overactive imagination, proven to some of my drawings in the lines of my notebook, but could it go that far? I doubted it, but I pretended that I was convinced. And then I fell for my lie, slowly. And I forgot everything.
We moved again when I was eleven, to this apartment in Odaiba. The day we moved, I saw this high-rise building at a corner glimpse, but I looked at it again with a thought that I remembered it from somewhere. I couldn't remember where or when, it was as if I had been brainwashed or something, but somewhere, sometime in my life. Racking my mind for an answer didn't help me because all it gave me was a bad headache. The tall building kept flickering in and out of my mind. No matter how much I did to distract myself, it was still there.
-
The first step into school, I was nervous. Blind faces passed me, but I didn't pay attention. My heart was wandering somewhere else, until I bumped into this one boy . . . . .
"Oi!" he shouted.
I caught the soccer ball on the short notice, as if my life was hanging over this moment, and stared into the face of the goggle-headed boy. He seemed so familiar . . . . "Taichi-san?" I gasped, the word coming to my mind automatically. I blinked a few times, wondering where in my brain that name had come from. All I could remember was that he seemed so familiar, but also not. Was he the same face as that of the one in my mind that I could not see? But there was another automatic answer in my head as he gave me a strange look, "Iie, iie . . . gomen, I thought . . you were somebody . . I . . . once knew." I grasped the soccer ball tightly with a sad face and sighed with regret that I shouldn't have felt. I didn't even know whom I had been talking about. Who was this "Taichi-san"? I closed my eyes and pushed the ball gently into this spiky-haired boy's arms. Walking away and down into the main office, I stubbed my toes against the ground with a sadness that was intangible to me. Until I was called to my new classroom, I sat there with a bored mind and a broken heart.
I understood only this at that time: I had lost something important.
"Takeru Takaishi?" a voice called.
She led me down the halls and opened the door, with a small conversation with the teacher, and then sensei let me in. He told the class that I was new. "Takeru Takaishi, nice to meet you," I had replied, gazing upon the class. There was the boy with the soccer ball that I had met earlier. I felt ashamed of that meeting, but kept gazing into the class until sensei found me a seat. He sat me next to a brunette I had never noticed before until now, and then, abstractly, I blurted out,
"Hikari-chan?"
The brunette looked up at me and blinked with confused eyes. Maybe she remembered? Did she remember? "H-Hikari Yagami?" I stammered in amazement. I still didn't know that name, or who she really was, but all of this was coming from a deeply hidden part of my mind that even I had not known of. But she was so familiar – it was the girl I had seen so long ago, turning the corner. I had tried to chase that girl, even though I had not known her . . . or had I? I was doubtful of my memory.
"OMAE!" the boy shouted. He was the one I had met earlier. "Dare da? What's your relationship with Hikari-chan?" he questioned, but truthfully, even I didn't know. I could not answer his question, or that was what I had thought. "Dare da?" he repeated with a fierceness of some short-temper. He glared at me with sharp brown eyes and his fingers curled up in a fist. He was ready to fight, I knew that.
"It isn't 'OMAE'," the girl spoke up with a glare, "it's Takeru-kun, right?" She looked up at me with a puzzled face. She was questioning me, of my presence and whom I was. Of course, she didn't know me. I didn't know her. Could I make it any simpler?
"Who cares?" he demanded, "Okay, TAKERU-KUN! What do you think your relationship with Hikari-chan is?" He had a loud voice that stirred the kids around us to a curious stare and a short glare from the teacher. He calmed down a little, but hissed, "Who are you?" It was a question that I did not have an answer to.
"Takeru Takaishi," I told him simply, not trying to mouth him, "and . . my relationship with Hikari?" I blinked with a small sadness of not knowing anything, but a simple answer came from the back of my mind. "Digimon," I whispered with a streak of passion in my heart. My blue eyes were probably sparkling with a fierceness that was unknown to me because he gave me a blank stare that told me so, in return. "Camp, Digimon, three years ago," I answered to his prompting and demands. I didn't know where this was coming from but an awkward expression came onto Hikari's face.
"D-Digimon? How do you know about Digimon?" Hikari's voice trembled as she said this. She looked shaken and confused again, though I hadn't meant to bring sadness. "How do you know about Digimon, Takeru-kun? It is dangerous to say that around here, it is forbidden. Do you know what happens to you if you say that again? Something bad, very bad. How do you know about Digimon, Takeru-kun?" she asked, her voice growing urgent.
I closed my eyes. "Shiranai yo, Hikari-chan, shiranai yo . . . uso ja nai yo . . ." I whispered slowly in return, in abstract language and thoughts, "I just don't know, but I remember them. I remember these things, and . ." I sighed, and laughed, "I don't even know what I'm talking about! All I know . . is . . you're the Child of Light." I felt a hot passion in myself that wanted to look for the answers that I did not know of, a passion to make everybody smile, but that was simply impossible. She looked so sad.
Hikari coughed weakly and replied, "How do you know all this? You're right for sure, and I have this feeling that we've met before . . . but I can't remember either, Takeru-kun." She laughed nervously, catching the teacher's glare, but she didn't seem to care. "As long as I live, I can only remember the seething pain of darkness. Gennai says that there is a golden-haired, blue-eyed boy . . . a boy who lived faraway and was deceived . . . that could save me from this. He is supposedly the Child of Hope – no, sorry, that was only a childish story . . ." she whispered in a hushed voice. She looked rather resentful of her past.
I thought about her words, and slowly realising this, what she was describing, I stared into her eyes with an amazing curiosity. It was often hard to find a blond in Japan, very hard. Actually, it was perfectly rare. Looking around the classroom, I was the only blond and blue-eyed boy. I probably inherited this from my French grandparents, but I didn't say anything about my appearance. The hope thing, I could remember. "Boku Gennai o aitai," I responded to the girl quietly and calmly, "aitai . . ."
She glanced at me curiously. Then she noticed, "You . . . you with shining blue eyes, and golden hair . . ."
And that's how it all started in the corrupt world we stood in.
That's how our long journey started.
-
(Disclaimer: This applies for the rest of the story, that I, Takara Kasai, do not have any claims on Digimon. Digimon rightfully belongs to Akiyoshi Hongo and its distributor, Toei. Thank you.)