A/N: Another manga fic for another round of the General Round by Round Contest. :D I'm starting to form a habit of this. This time the manga is V-Tamer, and the Yagami Taichi is not the same one as from Adventure/02 anime; just looks the same. The main character here though is named Sigma…though it's unclear whether that's his real name or an alias, since the other characters are introduced with two names, given and surname, while Sigma is just Sigma. I've taken it to mean an alias in this case.

Lipless Mask

He wasn't quite sure when he'd stopped talking to others, but it was some time after he noticed the looks he'd attract whenever he did. He didn't really know why either: just that that intense, searching look tinted with preformed disappointment he'd receive would be enough to make his voice die after the first few words. And it would be a long time afterwards before he felt he could speak again, for only the same result.

That look….as if he was expected to say something profound, something earth-shattering – he'd blame his parents if it was, such great specimens of mankind he could never hope to live up to. But he hadn't chosen to be born to a pair of geniuses, researchers who'd met at a convention discussing newly trialled therapies combatting the previously combatable therapies. With them so heavily involved in such ground-breaking work, it seemed everyone who knew him expected the same.

Unfortunately, he was barely average at school and even worse in sports, and even his parents who claimed to love him with every breath couldn't help but be disappointed in him. Or so he assumed. They wouldn't admit it after all; they were good people, and good parents who'd had the misfortune of having an inadequate child like him.

The internet was a blessing for him and a sanctuary he'd had access to from his earliest years. His parents made a lot of money off patents, and that coupled with the need for modern technology at their beck and call meant they'd had internet access almost as soon as it had become available to the public. And within there he found an anonymity he could drown within. No-one knew his name, or his face, or his background. No-one knew him at all, and he could be whatever he wanted without there being an expectation for him beforehand.

In retrospect, if he hadn't had that he might have been able to keep trying. But it seemed senseless to try and shape himself in the real world when it was so much easier in the world behind the screen.

There, in the internet, he was in complete control of himself. And he gave himself a new name there too: Sigma.

.

At some point after that his face had become unbearable to him. Too many people recognised it: recognised his parents' features behind it. He begged his parents to take him away from that: that school where everyone expected far more than he could give, those roads where everyone looked at him like he was some sort of failure to them. His parents he could talk to still, and the words tumbled out without restraint into their laps along with tears. And then he stopped and hiccupped into his father's strong chest, and they consented to move away – for him.

He felt terribly guilty about that, but his parents claimed it made no difference to them save his happiness – and maybe it didn't. Research institutes with the latest technology were springing up everywhere, and who wouldn't want to hire his parents?

But a new place didn't save him from being recognised by his face or name alone. People read papers, saw pictures – and those few times he'd ventured out alone made the whole endeavour seem the less appealing result.

But they didn't recognise him if they didn't know those things, and when he hid his face he could be a stranger no-one looked back at. It wasn't like the world of the net, where he could be some-one – anyone he wanted to be. He was nobody when he wore the mask: just a boy who wanted to hide his face…and the world let him hide. Sure, there was the occasional person that stared because they found it strange – but, somehow, it wasn't the same as them staring at him because they couldn't see beyond the mask. And his name became less obvious the moment his face disappeared from the picture – but it didn't disappear, not really. It was Sigma's face: the Sigma who lived on the internet and who talked only by letters typed on a keyboard.

And maybe that's why he didn't start talking again once the mask was on: why he'd made that mask without parted lips, to mark its silent state. Sigma did not talk by voice: he talked through his keyboard and that was the person he was: the anonymous Sigma from the internet world. Even though no-one called him that in the real world he'd stopped, at some point, thinking about himself from the name they called him by.

At some point, he'd stopped talking to his parents as well, because they were hardly home since their work became more and more time-consuming and he was old enough to be by himself most times. They didn't like it but their work was saving lives. Probably the last thing he'd said to them was that he would be fine. And he was; it meant he could integrate himself even further into the internet world, and his contact with his parents became through said internet as well.

.

Sigma wasn't famous, but he was a name on the net and he couldn't ask for anything more – nor did he want anything more, but something came to him anyway. It started through the internet, as all things started for him in those days. Even school. They'd started online schools and it was perfect for him. His parents were reluctant to allow it at first; it was one of his last links to other people after all, but they let him try and all of them were pleased with the results. His marks went up now that it was Sigma who attended school: Sigma whose background no-one knew and who didn't have any expectations surrounding him. He could focus only on his learning, and he could improve without being looked upon.

And games, they were all on the internet and another thing Sigma could immerse himself within. And that's how the new string of events began, with Digimon emerging on the internet.

All he needed was a little device: a V-Pet he could easily order online, and a cord that would connect that to his computer. And then he could make the perfect friend and companion and become something else that only Sigma could be. Others used the V-Pets to connect to another person's and battle, but the internet allowed that without the personal interaction and he pursued that instead. Once online shopping expanded to fruits and vegetables he wouldn't need to leave the house at all. The world was getting there, but it hadn't, yet. He still needed to get out for that.

But not for Digimon, and Sigma gained another reputation as well: as a tamer that rivalled the best in the internet world. Piemon was his partner: Piemon who had a mask just like his own and moved just as he wished in the virtual world. But then they lost to a boy who called himself Neo and his MetalGreymon, and suddenly he was gone from his home and was standing in a blank space instead.

The question almost fell from his lips in shock, but it and he simply looked around uncomfortably. Piemon was behind him: colourful and as large as life and only mildly confused. But both of them had their masks and there was nothing that could be seen beyond them, nothing told except their voices…and, by then, he didn't talk at all.

Piemon it seemed talked a little, but only that. 'You're Sigma,' he said, and that was it because Sigma nodded and, just like that, there was nothing left to say.

Neo met them after that: impressed by their strength even though they'd lost and uncaring as to who he might be beneath the mask. And as much as Sigma shied from the idea of human contact he found he, at the time, didn't mind Neo because, to him as well, he was Sigma and only Sigma.

Until Neo asked him to be one of the Alias III – and, even then, he didn't mind it terribly because even if they were classed as a team with two other tamers and were in a bigger world than his computer, the principles were exactly the same.

But there was an "except" to that as well; it only lasted till his first meeting and fight with Yagami Taichi and his Zeromaru. His mask only lasted that long whole as well – and once the bottom half broke off, his image started falling apart again.