Their Side
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Matsuda Takato
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I guess you could say I had an interesting adventure up until returning to Earth. Interesting, mind you. It wasn't in the least bit exciting. Rather, it was a journey full of pain, and suffering. You see, when I discovered the digital gate remaining on Earth, I thought immediately of how happy everyone would be when I told them there was a way to see the digimon again.
At the time, Jeri and I were very close. I asked her out a week ago, and she said yes. So I told her, but told her not to tell anyone else. I knew it would be dangerous if the others wanted to go too, and that would only happen if Jeri told them. After the D-Reaper was destroyed, it wasn't like all the digimon and land it absorbed and destroyed would just pop right back where it belonged. We had no idea of knowing how much chaos the Digital World was in, whether or not our digimon were still there anymore, or if the Digimon Sovereign were around to control everything. I wanted to make sure exactly what was on the other side, and if it was safe enough for us to go through and find the digimon.
So I went.
I came back home a week later, tired, and miserable.
The good news was that Guilmon, Renamon, Terriermon, and everyone else was better than ever, stronger too. Before that day I realized there wasn't ever a time Guilmon's hugs felt about ready to snap my body in half. And the Sovereign were more than happy to see I was doing well after the D-Reaper incident in Shinjuku, and not to mention all over the rest of the world's major cities. But the bad news that I was right: the Digital World was still a disaster. Almost everything was in ruins, even the plane of the Digital World where the Soevreign lived. At first I was glad that they needed my help, but that was before they said I couldn't tell the others.
I asked them why.
It turned out that the Digital World was even more dangerous than ever. Countless digimon minds were corrupted from the remaining parts of the D-Reaper that weren't sucked back under the first layer with the rest of the program. The digimon that were infected would often go berserk, trying to assimilate data just like the D-Reaper, apparently to evolve, but the Sovereign still think it's because they were infected by the D-Reaper. I never got to learn which.
After I went back the second time, I met Alice. She didn't look very different from the last time we met. In fact, I don't think she changed at all. But something made me curious, and to this day I never got my question answered: how did Alice end up in the Digital World after the gate closed? There was no way she could have known about the gate Guilmon dug up in the park... But I guess I never had a reason for her to tell me. Strange, considering how we spent the next five years in each other's company.
Together we fought, trained. I was surprised when I learned she knew how to fire a gun. She taught me as much as she knew already, and from there I practiced on my own. Eventually I took up martial arts back on Earth, spending two days a week there for two years. And when I earned my third level black belt, I had the formalities to bring what I had to Alice. I taught her everything I knew, and although she didn't use it much, except for when we sparred (something about her dress getting ruffled or her hair frizzing up) she was pretty good at it. I taught her the basics, and from there she could pick up on what I was doing by watching and then repeat exactly like how I did it, flaws and all, embarrassingly enough. So she became an unofficial black belt.
By then I was already thirteen years old, and puberty hit me. Over the next year or so I watched as Alice seemed to get smaller, but that was, according to her, because she doesn't have the ability to grow anymore. (Yet another curious thing I never had explained...) And to this day I'm taller than her, with some exceptions.
Alice was the brains of us two. She could figure out exactly what angle I needed to accurately fire my weapon at a target, compensating for wind, the target's speed, and the amount of recoil. She was quiet, shy or just not very talkative in general. But when she did speak it always made my head hurt. It was even worse for me after she Woke, about a month or so after me of course, because she would always try to predict what I was going to say next. About ninety nine percent of the time she was right, and as scary as it was for someone to believe, it was true, and is true.
As for me, I did most of the physical work. Alice didn't like having to use force, and never did. I didn't ask her why, so I ended up learning all the combat strategies: things like learning how to topple an enemy as big as MegaGargomon, how to find weak spots, pressure points, handling, loading, firing, and storing weapons. I learned dual knife combat, and several distance ranges of firing weapons. My specialty, however, was close combat: short range firing and blades. And when I mastered all these, I became so deadly even a skilled assassin would find me a tough opponent.
But at this point I guess it doesn't matter. I found that out when I met Oshima Kaiya: the very first Bearer out of all of us. She said that when she saw me for the first time, she saw a cold empty shell, with a fragile heart trapped inside, able to die out an any moment. And I knew what she meant. Over the five years I spent keeping the secret from my friends, I slowly became mentally and emotionally unstable. She told me that the one only thing keeping me from killing myself, or going insane is my unbelievably strong will to protect my friends.
And she's right.
The only reason I agreed to gather the DigiDestined was because I wanted to keep the others safe. To keep our World safe. If I hadn't thought of that right when she asked me to, then I wouldn't have any other reason to keep on living. And I'd be dead right now. Because inside I'm still suffering from having kept the gateway secret for so many years.
It was even worse after I Woke.
Since that day over a year ago I've tried killing myself whenever I doubted my purpose. So to be honest, I guess that would be over ten times. Each time I press one of my guns to my head, and wait for the second that I pull the trigger and hear the shot. But that moment never comes. Alice never tried to stop me. She's learned long since the first time that I never have the guts to kill myself. No. Not while I still have a reason to live. And by now all the other Bearers have learned this.
But I still wonder: when we save the Worlds, what will happen to me?
Once my purpose has been fulfilled, and our Worlds have been saved, what would I do? My friends would be safe. And unless I find another reason to keep living, everyone around me knows that I'd kill myself as soon as I get the chance.
Even Jeri...
Author's Note: I know I haven't updated anything from myself in forever. Unfortunately, there have been delays.
Delay One: The house is under renovations. I always have to be doing heavy lifting of floor boards and bed parts and whatnot. And now I sleep an even tinier room with an impossible to live with younger sister.
Delay Two: I have signed up for after-school activities. Which means I lose about six hours of the week I can otherwise spend typing.
Delay Three: Studies. Homework. I get all the heavy books and two page assignments of said heavy books. I'm terrible at doing homework late at night so I do it as soon as I get home from school.
All in all, it's been a pretty lame last few months or so for me, but that doesn't mean you can't give up!
Chapter four of Digital Crisis is still in the writing phase, and even though I work on it for only a half hour each day, or even less, that won't stop me! I am determined on finishing the Digital Crisis series (ie: more than one story...) so I won't let all of you readers down. I posted this story to make sure all of you know I'm still alive. (Not that anyone has any need to murder a fanfiction nerd, though, am I right or not?)
Thank you very much if you even took the time to read this, and I hope you look forward to the next chapter of Digital Crisis when I post it!