In the month since Belial Vamdemon's defeat, the world had learned about the existence of the digital world; this time it would not be hidden away. The dark seed children had gained digimon partners, and all around the world eager humans and digimon were joining them. Most of these individuals were children, for it had been chosen children who saved the digital world, and human children around the world naturally gravitated to raising fictional monsters and jumped at a chance to do the same with the real thing. But there were more than a few adults just as intrigued, as well as a few perfect-level digimon, although they were partnered with human adults, for humans do not pass the adult level. By late January of 2003, digimon partners were more common than cats or dogs.

All of the chosen children – Japanese and international – had received inquiries from around the world on how to care for their partners, but Koushirou Izumi, given his extensive online presence, his attempts to host a digimon information website, and his reputation even among the chosen children as the most knowledgeable of the group, was busier than anyone.

Which was probably why Iori Hida took so long to approach him, given that his question was undoubtedly one he had been thinking about for some time – perhaps since the battle with Belial Vamdemon - but declined to ask in order to not trouble his friend or distract him from his work. Koushirou wasn't the only person to consider Iori too polite for his own good.

It didn't help that Iori insisted on meeting him in person; an e-mail would have been quicker, but Iori treated this as too serious to resolve through the internet; or perhaps he feared interception, or wanted to see Koushirou's reaction, not just hear his words. Koushirou didn't know; all Iori's e-mail had said was that something had been troubling him, and to meet him when he had the time.

And after helping another three new tamers with their digimon – tamers, not chosen children, for no one had chosen them but their partners – Koushirou Izumi made his way to the Odaiba Elementary School computer club room, which was empty except for Iori – although he did notice the new plaques on the door marking the room as a historic monument for its role as their meeting place in the war against the Digimon Kaiser.

After a quick, polite exchange of hellos, Iori asked his question. "After the older chosen children defeated Apocalymon, why was the digital world sealed away?"

It was an understandable question from a boy who had taken Oikawa's death harder than anyone – but Koushirou understood, given Oikawa's connection to Iori's father; had his own parents (either his deceased biological ones or the family he knew) discovered the digital world with Oikawa, perhaps he would have felt the same way. Besides, Iori was also a boy who treated killing even hostile digimon with far more trepidation than anyone in Koushirou's generation had – and although Oikawa was the only known human casualty of these incidents, how many digimon lives had been ended prematurely by the Digimon Kaiser's reign, the destruction of the Holy Stones, or Belial Vamdemon flooding the world with darkness?

Had there been no barrier, there would have been no reason for Oikawa to absorb Vamdemon's weakened spirit and try to enter the digital world at any cost. Had their been no barrier, no one would have had to die.

"Because Gennai said," Koushirou said, then began to question what he was saying: Gennai's reasons were as true now as they were then, so why had he relented? "Gennai said he and his comrades sealed the gate because most humans could not be trusted with the digimon's power."

"And why do you trust Gennai?"

Koushirou was visibly taken aback by this question, because it had simply never occurred to him that there was any reason not to trust him. "Because he helped us throughout our adventure."

Iori nodded. He didn't like it, but it seemed like he understood.

"What's wrong, Koushirou?"

"Iori asked me about why Gennai sealed the digital world. I'm not sure I gave him the right answer, and I'm not sure I know the right answer." Partially because, for all his inquisitiveness, he had never thought to apply any skepticism to Gennai, whom he had never entirely understood, but always viewed as a kindly mentor and trusted as much as he did his fellow chosen children. "What did he really want? Why was he so determined to seal the digital world away... and did we do the right thing by helping him, at the cost of our crest powers?"

"He did have a habit of always disappearing when we needed him, and he often dodged our questions. Hmm." Tentomon crossed his middle legs in a pondering gesture, or at least an insectoid facsimile of one.

"Still, to think he's not trying to do what's best for the digital world is hard to imagine. And without that program, Mom and Dad would have been captured by the Bakemon... or worse. But now that I think about it, there's something that's bothering me... why did he send us to fight Vamdemon on Earth to begin with?"

"To protect your families and save your world. I know it's frustrating that he kept coming back, but surely Gennai's better than V-" Tentomon said, a bit taken aback; he had half a mind to check Koushirou for a black gear or evil ring.

"I mean, why did he send us to fight Vamdemon before we defeated the dark masters? Given the time difference between the two worlds, we probably would've stopped them long before they built the dark towers, only to find Vamdemon still searching for-" Koushirou answered, interrupted in turn.

"For the eighth child. We needed Hikari too. Don't forget about her." Tentomon said.

It was true. It was the explanation Gennai had given at the time, and although Angewomon wasn't decisive in any of the battles (at least not after defeating Vamdemon), Hikari's mysterious powers of light were the reason Mugendramon was dead – and the reason that the rest of them hadn't perished in the sewers beneath Mugendramon's city. Yet Mugendramon had a city, and an army, and their digimon allies were at best a guerrilla resistance to be gathered, at worst weak, low-level digimon joining them to avoid political murder. If they had taken them on before the conquest, maybe it would've shifted the balance and saved countless digimon lives; the comrades they saw perish were only a fraction of the rain of digitamas after their victory.

"Maybe we did. I hope I'm just second-guessing because of how much was lost. His prophecy helped so much against Venom Vamdemon, but when it came time to fight the Dark Masters..." Koushirou said,

"We were more lost than ever. I think he was tracking down Apocalymon. But come to think about it, remember that spirit that possessed Hikari?" Tentomon asked.

"What about it?"

"That battle it showed us. What do you think that black ball that Piemon wounded him with was?"

Koushirou nodded. He hadn't encountered black balls, but between black gears, evil rings, and dark seeds, he certainly knew what mysterious black objects in the digital world usually meant – and what Tentomon was implying.

He just couldn't believe it.

He had agreed with the others to give up their crest powers to seal and purify the digital world, but Koushirou now wondered if that had done more harm than good; Atlur Kabuterimon alone could have stopped the Kaiser in his tracks long before the digital world was blanketed in Dark Towers. But if Gennai was serving the powers of darkness, it would certainly explain his actions.

It just wasn't the only way to explain them, and Koushirou didn't want Gennai to be an enemy. "Maybe he had a reason to seal the digital world. It might have done more harm than good, but we've had to fight a lot this month. I can't blame him for being worried." Koushirou said, and Tentomon nodded; he had evolved to Kabuterimon a lot recently, and fought so many kids intent on using their digimon as a tool to further their grudges – or digimon intent on using humans the same way. "Besides, even some of us have used our digimon that way."

"He was certainly corrupted – and dangerous for us to fight against – but didn't Ken ignore Wormmon the entire time he was the Kaiser?" Tentomon asked.

"Ichijouji's not the only kid with a digimon the powers of darkness can manipulate now... But I meant Yamato. The fight that spirit had to interrupt by showing us everything. Maybe humans and evolution are too dangerous for the digital world..." Koushirou wondered aloud, "even when we've been chosen to save it."

"I'm just glad nothing that bad's happened yet. I hope Gennai was wrong. And that he was only wrong," Tentomon said. The world's governments had so far treated the digital world not with a scramble for power but with cautious wonder, and the digital world had too many powerful inhabitants to be an easy conquest. Those who sought to use digimon evolution to do evil and had partners willing to help them were faced with two worlds where most sought to good.

"The digital world's come a long way since Etemon and Vamdemon," Koushirou agreed. "And the international chosen children have been as busy as we are. He might just have been wrong." But the possibility of another motivation loomed large, and that black ball was too unsettling to ignore. "Or Iori might have been right to question my trust in him. There's only one way to find out."

Koushirou was considered an authority about the digital world, and with good reason – but usually when he had a question which needed answering, he had gone directly to Gennai. For obvious reasons, that approach couldn't be used with this question – and his other go-to sources of information, such as the international chosen children and the digimon analyzer, were similarly unapplicable.

Gennai's counterpart Jackie was an obvious choice, but one he dismissed as too dangerous; if he was in fact a clone, it was very possible that he had copied Gennai's corruption, and Jackie surely trusted Gennai more than Koushirou anyway. Koushirou knew of two individuals whose knowledge of the digital world matched or exceeded Gennai's own, but both were virtually impossible to contact: The spirit who possessed Hikari had done so once, it was unprompted, and it required a host to communicate, while Black War Greymon had to destroy the Holy Stones and nearly annihilate the digital world to win an audience with Qinglongmon.

Which left one extremely wise digimon who knew Gennai personally and who Koushirou believed could be trusted – after all, he had showed them what their digivices could do. It was time to pay Kentarumon a visit.

When Koushirou had last visited the Temple of the Digivice, it ws a run-down, labyrinthine building which he had mistaken for abandoned. The legend of the Chosen Children was one the temple kept alive, and it was known on File Island, especially by the older digimon - but few of them considered its eschatological prophecies relevant to their lives, at least until seven humans showed up. The site was a virtual ruin, and Kentarumon was more guardian than priest.

Three years after the Chosen Children had saved the digital world from Devimon, Etemon, Vamdemon, the Dark Masters, and Apocalymon, the building had been restored and then some; it now had all the splendor of Kyoto's largest temples, or even a Christian Cathedral – although the digital world architecture was very different. Pilgrims from all around the digital world visited File Island to worship, for although it was only one of many places the Chosen Children had traveled in their adventure, the digital world had been rearranged with the fall of Spiral Mountain, and most of the old sites had been lost, or had other uses and would require significant re-purposing.

A far more dazzling array of digimon greeted him than the Sukamon and Chuumon he had met on his first visit, but despite Tentomon's protests, Koushirou didn't spend much time talking to any of them or signing autographs; he was too focused on his mission.

He found Kentarumon in what was now the lobby of the restored temple – the room where he had once spent hours trying to hack into and reverse the direction of an enormous black gear, only to see an enraged Mimi solve the problem with a bit of percussive maintenance. The gear itself had vanished after Apocalymon's death and the digital world's purification, but a replica had been built and become one of the temple's most famous sites.

"So what brings you all this way?" Kentarumon asked.

"It's Gennai." Koushirou said.

"So it's as I thought. He hasn't taken losing well; I can't blame you for being worried," Kentarumon answered.

"Losing?"

"You didn't know," It was a statement Kentarumon had made, but an extremely surprised one, which could almost be mistaken for a question. "Gennai never imagined the younger chosen children would beat Belial Vamdemon by attacking his power source. He hoped that Imperialdramon Fighter Mode, Shakkoumon, and Silphymon would be strong enough, and when they started to fail, raced to the battlefield in the hope of teaching the two lower-level digimon how to reach their Ultimate form. But by the time he arrived, it was too late."

"But they beat Belial Vamdemon," Koushirou said – a bit more suspicious, but also genuinely puzzled. "Why would he consider that a defeat?"

"Because of how they beat him. They taught children who weren't chosen the power of wishes and partners. They helped Oikawa into the digital world, and those butterflies helped those who shared his dream as much as himself. And in doing so, they made sure the digital world and the human world could never become isolated again." Kentarumon answered. "And Gennai opposed this more than anyone."

"More than anyone?" Koushirou asked. "So does that mean there were forces in the digital world who thought otherwise?"

"Indeed; I was one of them. Even Qinglongmon was skeptical, although three years ago he came down on Gennai's side. But your success against Belial Vamdemon made his ideas fall out of favor." Kentarumon answered. "There is danger in opening the digital gate... but I think we saw there was even more danger in leaving it closed, especially at the cost of your crest powers." Kentarumon explained.

"And Gennai still thinks otherwise? Why?" Koushirou said, although he strongly suspected he knew.

"I don't know why. Perhaps he is simply proud, or stubborn, although I've never known him to be either on any other issue," Kentarumon speculated.

"Speaking of Gennai... when he battled Piemon to free Tentomon and the others' digitamas, he was wounded, right? Do you by any chance know what that black ball was?"

"I have an idea, but if it's what I think... we can't talk safely here." Kentarumon galloped further into his temple, leaving Koushirou and Tentomon hustling to keep up. They would follow him to a room in the temple's back, windowless, heavily barricaded and surrounded with inscriptions of the digivices and crests. "We can't talk safely anywhere, for that matter, but at least here no one else is in danger."

"In danger?"

"I had forgotten about that ball, but if it's still within him, it would explain everything. The device is called a Dark Sphere, and as you suspected, it's a mind-alteration device. Think of it as something like a Dark Seed, although in truth the Dark Seed itself was the result of Millenniummon attempting to reverse-engineer one of these. It works like one, but even more effectively – it amplifies one's negative attributes, and changes one's goals to serve Piemon's agenda, but through a personality shift so subtle neither the victim nor those around them realize anything unusual has happened, until it's too late."

"Is there any way to get him back to normal?" Koushirou's suspicion had been merged with concern for his mentor and sometimes friend, even though the Gennai he had known had always been under the Dark Sphere's influence.

"A digivice can remove them like it can Black Gears, but the problem is getting in a position to use it... If someone like Gennai has fallen prey to it, we are in extreme danger."

"What's to worry about? I thought he had no attributes," although to be sure, Koushirou recalled, Gennai himself had told him that fact, and given him the digimon analyzer, so that wasn't a reliable source either.

"And that's why he's so dangerous. Based on your reaction, I don't think you fully grasp what "no attributes" really means. Kentarumon said.

"It means no level, no type. He's not virus, data, or vaccine, he's not a digimon. So wouldn't he be no stronger than me?" Koushirou asked.

"It's like how an undefined function can crash a computer program. Attributes don't only define a digimon's power, but also limit them. A digital world native with no attributes is like a human unbound by the laws of physics. There's a reason we sent him to fight Piemon one-on-one," Kentarumon began. "To fight back, only an ult-"

Their conversation was soon interrupted, for Gennai – still a young man, with robes reminiscent of a Jedi knight - suddenly materialized within the temple sanctuary and knocked Kentarumon unconscious with a ray of brilliant green light; only the centaur digimon's failure to disperse into data gave Koushirou any indication he was still alive.

"So despite all I did to win your trust, you managed to figure it out. Impressive; there's a reason they call you the child of curiosity. But I'm still safe, so long as you don't make it long enough to tell anyone else." Gennai said, his voice seemingly merging into Piemon's from long ago, or perhaps simply taking on a far more sinister tone than the kindly old man Koushirou knew.

"Tentomon!" A horrified Koushirou shouted, holding up his digivice, although he doubted even Atlur Kabuterimon stood a chance; if he had heard properly, Kentarumon was in the midst of saying Ultimate. And Gennai had taught the three Ultimate partners of the Chosen Children – War Greymon, Metal Garurumon, and Imperialdramon – the method of evolution they needed, whether by revealing a prophecy or presenting Qinglongmon's digicore.

Obviously, he would not be so forthright this time around. But perhaps Atlur Kabuterimon's could stall long enough for the others to get here; he did have a very thick exoskeleton and had shrugged off plenty of powerful attacks.

"Tentomon, warp shinka!" The insectoid digimon shouted, to Koushirou's immense surprise; if the possibility of warp evolution had slipped Gennai's mind, however, his face did nothing to show it, for he looked as angry and confident as ever. "Heracle Kabuterimon!"

The small, red insect shifted in shape, first switching through the silhouettes of Kabuterimon and Atlur Kabuterimon, before settling on an enormous, golden brown skeletal insect, with two pairs of wings – one skeletal pair, one blue and surprisingly ordinary one – along with an enormous horn and equally large claws.

Koushirou reached for his Digimon analyzer, only to be warned off by his partner: "Don't worry about tactics; I know how to fight, and there's something else you need to do!" Heracle Kabuterimon shouted, raising his horn to Gennai. "High Mega Blaster!"

A beam of electricity sped Gennai's way, but he lifted a single hand and froze the attack in mid-air, and it soon disintegrated. He did not call any attack back, possessing no attributes, but the same ray of light that had knocked out Kentarumon now sped to Heracle Kabuterimon, only to break upon his thick exoskeleton.

As he clashed with the Ultimate-level digimon, Gennai found himself, for all his boundless powers, distracted from the Chosen Child on Heracle Kabuterimon's wing. Heracle Kabuterimon flew towards Gennai and shouted "Giant Scissors!" and Gennai predictably floated under the attack – only to be hit in the neck by a targeted ray of the light from Koushirou's digivice.

As the digivice light made contact, Gennai's Dark Sphere floated out of his body and disintegrated into data. Gennai himself appeared to age fifty years in one minute as he collapsed from exhaustion.

After Heracle Kabuterimon devolved all the way to Motimon, Koushirou waited in the room where Kentarumon and Gennai lay unconscious, for he was so horrified by the battle and concerned for both of them that he could not bring himself to leave. Instead, he booted up his laptop and spent what he estimated as a couple hours (although the room was windowless and his computer clock often inaccurate in the digital world, so he could not verify the time) alternately answering the usual inquiries about their digimon partners from people around the world and asking every chosen child he could find what they knew about digimon medicine.

Koushirou had no hope of helping Gennai – beneath his human appearance was surely a biology as poorly understood as anything in both worlds – but perhaps if he could figure out the nature of his wound, he could at least help Kentarumon. The problem was that, despite Jou's prompt reply and instructions, he couldn't find any wound in Kentarumon at all; only the fact that he was out cold testified to the fact that Gennai had wounded the adult-level digimon at all.

It was to Koushirou's immense relief when the two finally awakened, seemingly unharmed. It was not hard for him to understand; digimon had time and time again shown resilience to wounds that would easily killed a man, and although Koushirou had feared Gennai would share Oikawa's fate, perhaps having no attributes meant that Gennai could not suffer permanent wounds.

Or perhaps they had merely recovered consciousness, and remained badly hurt. "Are you two okay?" Koushirou asked.

"We're both fine. The attack I used on Kentarumon is a sleep technique that can not even kill a Botamon, and I'm just exhausted from the Dark Sphere. I guess even with that thing in me, I couldn't bring myself to kill my friends." Gennai said.

"Is there anything else you're wondering about, Koushirou?" A rejuvenated Kentarumon added.

"Yes, actually. How was Tentomon able to warp evolve? He's never done it before."

"Warp evolution works like crest evolution, but requires an even greater expression of the trait." Kentarumon said. "Or at least, that's what I've heard; it's happened so rarely that it's hard to tell, and even the legends are vague."

"And without your overwhelming curiosity, no one would ever have figured out what had happened to me, let alone been able to stop it. I thank you, Koushirou." Gennai said.

"You're welcome." Koushirou answered, somewhat taken aback; Gennai hadn't given the chosen children this much of a thanks for defeating Apocalymon, but he supposed this time it was far more personal.

"Now, about the digital gate..." Kentarumon asked.

"I was afraid and obstinate, and the Sphere fed upon my fear and amplified those qualities. Now that it's not influencing me, I still have my fears... but I think the reason the Dark Sphere wanted our worlds divided is because Piemon was able to take advantage of that division last time to conquer it. Humans can be very dangerous, and only the future will tell if we've done the right thing," Gennai admitted, "but surrendering to the powers of darkness would be even worse, and we've already relied on humans to save the digital world twice. Even I get it wrong sometimes."

Kentarumon suppressed a look of elation; he had argued this point with Gennai for years, and was ecstatic to see him give in, but did not want to ruin the moment or cause him to reconsider with an inopportune reaction.

Koushirou, for his part, bowed. "I hope our worlds can live together in peace, and that you won't need to call anyone to save the digital world from us." With Motimon by his side, the child of curiosity pressed a button on his laptop, another one on his digivice, and the two returned to Earth.

Koushirou would have to send Iori an e-mail after he got some rest. There was a reason that kid had inherited his own digimental trait. But for now, he would sleep; he hadn't devolved, but he was still as exhausted as his digimon partner.