Warning for character death, trauma, PTSD, and auditory processing disorder. Also bad grief coping mechanisms.
1. For Heaven
He took the rainbow lights for granted. He took the roar of power that sounded more like gobbledygook and his best English all rolled up into one and thought that would be just the end. The battle would end and he'd take her hand and they'd finally get to go home. Finally, they'd be together at home, just going home from a summer vacation that had gone on a little too long. Finally, finally, no more fighting. Just peace. Just pe-
But the iridescence lies for once. It hovers around him, glowing, glowing bright, washing around her as she stumbles back up, holds her Digivice as it crackles and sparks. She lets out a cry that may have been joy, but now it's just pain. Now it's just pleading.
Now it's just a single cry for help.
But he's all caught up in things. He can't answer. He can barely even move. His limbs are heavy and his friend is suspended like the puppets they all are in the end and he-
And the sound fades away. He can't make it out anymore, can't really make anything out except soft sobs. Megadramon is trying to look but he can't they can't-
"Please," he hears in more unfiltered nonsense sounds and then there's nothing again and by the time he is down and they're down, there's just a corpse with drying tears and golden light washing her away.
Bakumon has never not smiled before. He's been determined. He's grimaced hard, but he's never been this, never been so despairing. He shakes her with his hooves. He sobs. He screams. Her eyes are glassy in death and staring towards something at their left. Her Digivice is a charred hunk of plastic sparking with light. It crumbles when Daigo reaches for it.
By the time Daigo musters up the courage to touch her, his fingers pass through her bird arms. He crumples. The world gives beneath his feet -
And Nishijima Daigo, twenty-five years old, wakes up to the wind flowing through a window that should have been closed. He wakes up in a cold sweat that makes the dress shirt stick to his chest and his hair flies all about.
His dinner lays half-eaten and cold on the coffee table. The television talks about monster sightings and there's a long fizzled out beer that he always buys and never finishes on a coaster.
For a moment, he thinks someone is there. That someone is most decisively on the other side of his couch and watching him with disapproval. Or maybe it's concern. Maybe it's happiness. Of course, no one is actually there, but he's insane. There's something wrong with him.
Everyone has said so.
But this time when he reaches for his water, long fingers push it towards him. Long and slender and somewhat calloused, and yet here they are. They fade when his hands reach for them and there's no one there.
He blinks and Daigo thinks there's a smile there, hanging and waiting for him to say her name.
But he hasn't said her name in fifteen years. He doesn't think he can start again now.
A/N: Oops. I blame tumblr for this. I realllyyyy do. Please read and review, friends! It means a lot!
Challenges: Chapter Set Boot Camp '19', Ficletchap Competition. Season Rewrite Boot Camp prompt 'meddle', Diversity Writing H29.