Notes: For those who missed the disclaimer for book one, yes, I do have kale's permission to post these. See his author profile #12224 if you don't believe me. And yes, the title of this story was changed when he rewrote it as the private edition. But it is the same story that was book #2 last time.

Of course, this is the second book. If you haven't read the first one, Soulbound the Takari saga, you may be a little lost here.

Tai Kamiya sat alone in his bedroom, his back against the door and his knees pulled up to his chest while staring blankly at some nondescript point on the wall in front of him. And but for a minor, almost imperceptible palsy, he had remained completely motionless, in that same position, for nearly two solid hours. The look on his face was a tortured one, and the sweat that beaded on his forehead could not have come from the mild temperature in the building.

For most of the past month he had remained in the same dazed state, forcing more customary behavior only when it appeared that his parents would become so alarmed as to seek medical advice about him. He had steadfastly refused contact with anyone else, and had pulled thick, dark curtains over his bedroom windows so that not even sunlight could intrude upon him. Now the cool, suffocating darkness in the room enfolded him, drowning him, and he prayed that there, in bleak solitude, he might find some absolution for what had happened.

He couldn't believe what he'd done... or worse, what he'd almost done.

But despite the heavy penance he had taken up and the continual emotional torment that he was subjecting himself to, forgiveness would not come. Behind his closed eyes he could still see Matt, bound in heavy ropes, writhing angrily at his feet and staring daggers up at him. And in his mind he could experience for himself the same sharp kick to the ribs that Matt had received for looking at him so.

Mimi was still crying frantically, her ruined mascara dribbling messily off of her cheeks in a flood of tears.

Izzy and Sora. They had clearly given up, Izzy with a look of incredulous betrayal in his eyes. At the very least, the pair were no longer struggling against their bonds. Joe? Surprisingly, the older boy had put up the best fight of all of them at the beginning. But a few well-aimed blows to the face had set his nose to bleeding and put an end to his struggle quickly enough.

Only Matt still fought back, but fought back in vain, as surely he knew.

He had turned his back on them all. He'd won, as he knew he would. Cursed, damned victory. Soon Kari and T.K. would arrive as well, and he would bring an end to all of this. They would each die, one at a time, at his hands. In the mind within his mind, he could see how it would all unfold. It would be all too easy...

The repulsion of their imagined deaths shocked Tai violently back to the present and the veiling darkness of his room. "Why?" he demanded of himself, closing his eyes against tears of anger and frustration and pounding his fist into the side of his bed. "Why couldn't I have been stronger?"

It had been just over a month since that had all happened. The spirit of the Dark Master Piedmon had taken up residence in Tai's consciousness on their last day in the digital world when he had foolishly tried to take the creature's sword as a memento for himself. Though the boy had not known it at the time, the weapon had served as some sort of beacon for the other and had allowed Piedmon's soul to find its way back from the place where T.K. and Angemon had banished it. And after taking control of Tai's body and much of his consciousness, the other's lifeforce had lain dormant for those three years until it was strong enough to rise up and seize total control.

"Tai?" his mother called, gently tapping on the door at his back. "Telephone. It's your friend, Matt."

The boy exhaled deeply, running his fingers though his messy hair. He'd begged them all to leave him alone. He just couldn't bring himself to face them after what he'd done to them... and the infinitely more ghastly horror of what he would have done if it hadn't been for the love of Kari and the courage of little T.K. Why couldn't they just leave him alone...?

Tai picked up the receiver and held it to his ear, waiting to hear his mother hang up the other line. After a clearly audible click had told him that she'd done so, the boy answered. "Matt," he murmured, his voice husky and dry and full of shame. He'd failed them all, and didn't think that he could ever face them again without reliving the full horror of what had happened to him.

"Tai, where were you?" the other demanded accusingly, almost angrily. "It broke Mimi's heart, her having to leave without getting the chance to say goodbye to all of us together. You know how important it was to her to see us before she left." He paused, waiting for a response. When none was forthcoming, he continued. "Tai, you won't see her again for months! How could you do that to her?"

Tai's voice was dark. "I couldn't do it, Matt. I just don't want her... want any of you to see me like this."

Matt checked a sigh on the other end of the phone, biting his lip to keep from blurting out something that he really shouldn't. "Tai... c'mon buddy, snap out of it. You know you can't keep beating yourself up with this forever. Sooner or later you're going to have to come out of that room and talk to us, and see that each and every one of us has already forgiven you a hundred times over. Hell, I don't even know what there is left to forgive. We've all been through worse."

"Matt," Tai responded calmly and with deadly seriousness. "I came this close to killing every... single... one of you. I came closer than that to killing your brother and m... my own sister. I almost caused our world to get invaded by an army twice as large as anything that Myotismon ever put together, and--"

"Damn it, Tai it wasn't you!" Matt very nearly shouted, frustrated by the despondency in Tai's voice. "You know that and so do the rest of us. Sure, we all got scared, and T.K. and Kari got a little scraped up, but you saved T.K.'s life by holding out against Piedmon during that little fight that you two had. You saved his life, Tai, and he saved Kari's. You've got to know that."

It was the only consolation that Tai had allowed himself. He had been strong enough to exert just enough control over his own body so that the master swordsman had not been able to kill T.K during their duel, as he certainly would have done otherwise. But even as the noble thought tried to buoy his feelings he pushed it back down again, sincere in his determination to punish himself for what he'd done. "Mimi'll get over it," he said, reverting back and ending the previous conversation.

"Tai--"

"Matt, I don't want to talk about it. Just... not right now," the boy sighed, and slowly placed the receiver back on the hook.

Matt, left holding a dead line, sighed in discouragement. Despite a month of trying, none of them had been able to talk Tai out of his self-induced depression. They had each gone to great measures to communicate their forgiveness to him, but it was all in vain. Tai was intent on torturing himself for what he'd done, and was now little more than a shell of his former self.

The blond-haired boy felt a sense of exasperation welling up inside him, and longed for someone to talk to. He was perfectly willing to acknowledge his shortcomings, and providing needed solace to a friend who refused to listen was definitely such a shortcoming. He needed Sora. If anyone could break through to Tai, he was sure that it would be her. But Sora was out with T.K. and Kari, acting as chaperone for the pair.

Matt's brow furrowed, honestly not sure how that made him feel. Sure, he supposed that he was happy that the two were 'official' as Mimi would have put it... but still, they were only eleven years old.

Suddenly the door to the apartment flew open. "Hey, Matt!" hailed a female voice from behind him, as if summoned by his need.

"Sora," the boy nodded, exhaling in relief. At the girl's back T.K. and Kari also entered, the pair still hand in hand. During the time of Kari's illness, her contact with T.K. had been necessary... more or less the only thing that had kept her alive, but now that she was better neither of the two seemed inclined to break off the contact. The shy little glances that the two kept directing at each other were heartwarming, and Matt's concern about them suddenly seemed wrong and out of place. When he saw them together, everything about it just seemed so right.

He shook his head. There was a more important matter to attend to at the moment. "Sora, will you please try to talk to--"

"Wait a minute, Matt," T.K. interrupted, smiling. "Sora's got it all figured out."

Matt turned on his little brother, a single eyebrow raised to silence him. "Well that's nothing new, squirt," he countered. "As I recall, she had the two of you 'figured out' a few weeks before anyone bothered to tell the rest of us. At least until I caught you in bed together."

Both of the younger pair blushed at the words and cast a quick, fond glance at one another. Matt and the others all knew the reason for that now, but they still endured no end of teasing about it.

"Matt, please listen to her," Kari implored. Matt softened his stance at the younger girl's voice plea. He now looked on her as every bit a sister as he did T.K. a brother, especially since her own older brother had become little better than a recluse.

The older blond boy turned to Sora and sighed. He acknowledged her as the wisest of them all, perhaps outside of the youngest two. It was hard to tell with them. "Tell me it's about Tai."

"Okay. It's about Tai." She smiled and paused for effect, then continued. "You see, my dad is going to take me on a little trip up to the mountains this weekend, and he kind of hinted that I should bring along as many of you as wanted to come. Though I think that's just so I'll stay out of his way while he's communing with the fish."

Matt waited for her to continue. When she didn't, only sat there smiling at him, the expectant look on his face faltered. "What... that's it? A camping trip? Sora, Tai won't come out of his room to go eat or talk or even see any of us. What makes you think he'd agree to go on a camping trip?"

Sora grinned. "You haven't heard where we're going yet."

Matt's protests stopped in mid-breath, recognition dawning on his face. His teeth wrapped around his bottom lip for a moment. "What about the other kids up there?"

"Summer camp is over, just this week. When the all the campers are gone, they're going to open it up to the public."

Matt looked hopeful for a moment, then frowned again. "I don't know what good it'll do. The gate to the digital world isn't going to open again just because we show up. Even if it did, I don't know if it'll help him any."

"Matt this isn't about getting him back to the digital world. It's about taking Tai back to a place where he first found out that he was destined to be something more than ordinary. That camp is special to all of us, tough guy, even you."

The older boy stopped and focused on her. He had begun to have stirrings of emotion of… of some sort for Sora, and whatever she said usually made sense to him when she first said it. But he refused to give in to the temptation to automatically agree and instead put his mind to work. He sincerely doubted that Tai would agree to go, but decided after a moment that it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"All right," he said, his response slow and measured. "I'll ask my dad for me and T.K. But it'll have to be someone else that convinces Tai to come. I'd get more out of talking to a stick."

Sora and Kari glanced at each other, a conspiratorial smile passing between the pair. "Leave that to us."

*****

Tai sat alone in the very back of the van, looking petulant to say the least. In the end he had agreed to come, but was making his displeasure felt by doing everything as moodily as possible. He crossed his arms and exhaled loudly, in case either of the girls had forgotten how upset he was with them. Don't even know why I let those two talk me into this…

Kari and Sora sat in the middle, on either side of T.K., and winked. Between the two of them, there had been enough badgering and pleading and crying over the past few days to break down even the most stubborn resistance. Tai had continued to sulk the entire time and mutter that all he wanted to do was sit in his room and be left alone, but in the end even he had been no match for the two of them together.

The gray mountain loomed at his side as he turned his head, and he frowned as he placed his forehead against the window. This is where I was chosen because I was brave. This is where I became their leader. This is where everything started to fall apart... Oh, Agumon, buddy, where are you now? I'm so afraid... so afraid...

It was a long drive, much longer than Tai remembered, and he had become considerably more moody by the time that they arrived at the campsite. Sora's father allowed them to select their own site and to pitch their own tents with one provision: it must be within sight of his. He would be up early and fishing most of the time, but he made them swear to keep up with him constantly.

The children selected their campsite and quickly started to set up two tents and their gear. Mimi, of course, had already left the country. Izzy had declined the invitation and Joe was still busy studying for summer school. That left Kari and Sora in one tent and Tai, Matt and T.K. in the other.

"Dad says that we have to be careful up here," Sora said, joining Matt and Tai from checking in with her father. "He says that last year some kids from a home for troubled children disappeared in this area, so he doesn't want us wandering off anywhere."

"Well you can tell him he doesn't have to worry about me, at least," Tai answered sullenly, not meeting her eyes. "If the rest of you don't mind, I'll just stay here in the tent for a while."

"Oh no you won't," Sora retorted firmly, hands on her hips as she turned on him. "We're supposed to stay together, remember? And the rest of us have decided that we're going to take a hike down to the lake for a while."

"Swimming?" the other returned dubiously. "Isn't it kind of cold up here for swimming?"

"Tai it's the middle of summer," Matt chided. "And a little cold water never hurt anyone." He moved closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. "Besides, there's no way I'm going to miss seeing Sora in that new suit of hers." He finished with a low whistle.

Tai scowled, crossing his arms across his chest in a huff and freezing the other with an irritated glare. He knew what Matt was trying to do, and didn't appreciate it in the least. "Don't be stupid, Matt. If everyone else is going, I guess I'll just be dragged along. Again."

It was only a few minutes later when Sora emerged from her tent in the bathing suit that Matt had mentioned, a towel draped over her shoulder. The blond boy looked her up and down once in approval before turning to grin at his dark-haired partner. "Kicking and screaming all the way, right?"

Tai punched him in the shoulder.

*****

Some time later, in a subterranean cave elsewhere on the mountain.

"Just five of them? Are you sure?"

"I can count to five, Rio," the gangly boy replied in a jaded voice, his eyes darting nervously about the room as if he were expecting trouble at any moment. "That's all there were. Five. And before you think to ask, no, I haven't been drinking today."

The slender girl with the pale skin and dark, serious eyes frowned. "Daven," she said, focusing her attention on the ashen-faced boy in front of her. "Are the three that he wanted here, at least?"

The other turned with a start as a tremendous roar echoing from far away shook the cavern, and Rio rolled her eyes. Daven had bordered on neurotic before any of this started. As things were, she wondered that he hadn't given himself a heart attack. "Uh huh," the boy returned absently, obvious more focused on the noise at his back than on her. "But Roan owes me for not strangling the two little ones when I had the chance."

Rio snorted. "Go ahead. At least it'll be your ass on the line this time and not mine. I know I'd much rather have his attention focused on you instead of on me. Just remember what he told you he'd do if you didn't get this right."

Daven's eyes continued in their dance around the room as he remembered just that, and the blood drained from his already pallid face. "You... you know him better than me, Rio. He wouldn't... really do something like that, would he?"

"If you get him mad, Daven, you'd better pray that's all he'll do. Better yet, you might just want to toss yourself off of a nearby cliff or something, because some of the stuff that I've seen him do to people I wouldn't want to wish on anybody..." The girl's eyes darkened heavily. "Well, anybody who isn't Roan himself, anyway," she amended.

Another roar shook the cavern, and Daven flinched. He needed a drink. Badly. He knew he should have never gotten himself involved with this group. Sure, he'd had his problems in the past, but Roan... Roan was a butcher. Vicious. He enjoyed hurting people, sometimes seemingly just for the sadistic pleasure of doing so. But at least he seemed to know what he was doing, and if that boy with the other group could silence the damned roaring noise that that beast was continually making... well, so much the better.

"Daven!" came an unexpected, rich voice at his back. The slender boy trembled and stiffened to attention at the sound, but did not turn. He knew well the domineering voice, and could literally feel the imposing presence of the other as he approached. "Yes… yes, Roan?" he answered timidly.

"Well?"

"They are here… five of them, at least." And now the younger boy chanced to peek back over his shoulder at the very dark, very masculine figure of Roan Kuroda. Standing as he was in front of the only source of light in the room made his shadow stretch and fall over each of them, threatening to swallow them whole. The wickedness of his presence, calm though he was, was almost overpowering.

"What about the three?"

Daven gave a nervous nod. "Yes, they're all here. B... but you're wasting your time with the young ones. They're completely innocent, and seem quite incorruptible to me."

The older teen's lips curled into a smile as he placed a firm hand of fictitious camaraderie on the other's shoulder, right at the curve of his neck. "Is that right, Daven? So I'm... wasting my time, you say. And because I value your opinion so, I'm sure that you can explain to me why I'm... wasting my time."

Daven cringed, uncomfortably aware of Roan's strong grip so close to his throat and the dangerous calm in his words. With trembling fingers he pulled up the talisman that dangled from a chain around his neck. "This thing... 'crest' or whatever the old man called them. It told me. Roan, I could hear it in my head. It... I don't know... it warned me away from them."

Roan's fingers tightened for a moment, then pulled away from the other's neck as he deliberated for a moment. Not that he doubted Daven's account. For one, the boy was obviously too frightened to lie, and for two, he had also felt the consciousness of his own crest of Hatred inside his head from time to time. "Still..." he trailed off musingly, folding his hands together, "...Still, we will try." He glanced across the room at Rio, who had thus far remained silent. "Sister? Next time you go. Take Leiko with you, and bring them back here. I don't care how. Ask them, trick them... seduce them if you must. That's what you two are good at, isn't it?"

The girl flushed with shame, but nodded her head in timid agreement. "Yes... yes, Roan. I understand. I'll bring them back."