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Prologue:
Yuriko Hateshi woke with the same
feeling of unease that she had for 25 years.
After splashing her face with some
cool water she studied her reflection for wrinkles or signs of age.
The mother had long murky purple
hair and wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
Just the wrong kind.
Yuriko's frown deepened and she
swirled the water once again to that of a maroon-hair man serving costumers in
his restaurant.
Yuriko's anger and sadness grew as
she went from image to image of the digidestined of Japan.
"Hey what are you up to?" a voice
called her out of her thoughts.
She sat up from her position lying
on her stomach on the sand to face Ran who was carrying a load of wood.
"Just looking…" she sighed.
"At what?" he inquired as he
stepped to the edge of the water and looked at the image of a couple in their
late thirties eating silently at the table.
"Oh no, not this again…" Ran moaned.
" What do you mean: Not this again?" she snapped back jumping to her feet.
" You've been harping about those digidestined for years."
"Well maybe you should start listening to me! Everything is wrong! Can't you feel it? Hell! Don't you see it? Ran look at me, how do I look?" she challenged him.
Ran sighed and humored her by playing along as he looked at her young features, " You look wonderful as usual."
"Exactly! Does this look like the
face of a Forty-four year old?
He shook his head, " Yuriko maybe since you've been in the digital world for so long that you've gained the ability of eternal youth."
" No! What about the first ten years I spent here? I aged then, how come I don't now? And what about the digimon? When was the last time you saw any digimon digivolve?" she once again challenged him.
This statement stopped Ran in his tracks. " To… to tell you the truth I can't remember."
Yuriko sighed as she ran a hand through the turquoise locks of her hair, " This is what I've been talking about and I think that it was this group of children that caused this imbalance."
" What imbalance?" a sleepy voice asked.
Yuriko turned to small serpent-like dragon that had turn his pleading blue eyes onto her. " I'm talking about the fact that you can't digivolve into Tempestmon, Kazemon."
"Oh…" the digimon obviously didn't know what to say.
"I've got to go back and change this," she sighed glancing back at the pond that had once held the images of the Japanese digidestined.
"You can't do that! What about the
children that are a result of these marriages? What happens to them when you go
back to fix whatever is supposedly wrong?
"Is this what this is all about?…
Listen I understand your concern for them but there are things about my world
that you don't understand.
" So you can just so easily dismiss them like that?"
" Hey! Guys calm down!" the little digimon tried to draw their attention away from their anger.
"What about you!?" Yuriko shot back
completely ignoring Kazemon. "Those digidestined went through hell and back in
order to bring peace to both worlds only tossed aside when their usefulness is
over?
Ran once again sighed in irritation, " What you mean is that you want your surrogate little-brother to have happiness."
Yuriko sank down onto the sands
facing away from the source of her aggravation.
"Yuriko…" Ran began.
"Probably for the best," she cut him off. " I mean what did I do to help him when he was really in trouble? I stood by and let it happen. What the hell was the matter with me?!"
"You couldn't have done anything then… but … but you could do something now…" Ran softly replied with his head bowed.
"What do you mean?"
"If this means so much to you then … then go…" he forced himself to say.
"You won't be mad?" she inquired.
Ran tightened his hands into fists and grit his teeth. "I told you to go, didn't I!?!"
Yuriko slowly walked over to the
young man who still had his head bowed, his thick bangs obscuring his watering
eyes.
"Come on Kazemon." She then took a small necklace that was hiding under her tank top. The necklace held a turquoise crest that had a symbol that looked very much like an hourglass.
" Where are we going?" the little dragon asked.
" Nowhere really, but we're going to a different time… to see the other digidestined," she explained as she clutched the crest close to her heart as a bright sea-green light appeared in the shape of a doorway behind her. The two figures then turned to face it.
" We're going to see Ken-chan aren't we?" the digimon couldn't contain its excitement.
" Yes we are," Yuriko replied before looking over her shoulder at Ran. " So I ah… I guess I'll see you around," she stuttered.
" Yeah, I guess so…" he looked up trying his best to smile for her.
With one last look back Yuriko Hateshi, the digidestined of Time and Change stepped through the doorway with Kazemon right at her heels, leaving Ran with only his thoughts as company.
"If only you knew…"
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