A/N: Apparently, this is what my brain thinks bittersweet is. And I don't usually write action-y sort of scenes like this, so let's see how it turned out.

Written for The Light's Refrain…and the original idea was a cat dying, but it mutated. Drastically; there's no cat in here. Instead, Lucemon's a real world criminal/murderer and our favourite Frontier gang has somehow wound up on his hit list.

Also written for the Digimon Bingo – the non-flash version on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's in my profile), with 182 – hell.

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The Guy's Hit List

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They were all going to die there, like dogs in the mud with the rain pushing them down, cursing the man that had put them there to hell to no avail.

They were fools to think they could defeat a man the adults couldn't catch. They were fools to think that, just because they were the ones chosen, the ones targeted, that they had a natural advantage, that they simply had to win because they wouldn't have been singled out otherwise. They were fools to think that, by meeting the man head on, they could avoid more people getting hurt.

Reality wasn't a game and they should have known that they'd probably die going face to face with a psychopath after their heads. And they were going to die, because they'd been tossed around, tossed aside so easily, and there was nothing to drag them up.

And the man's, the monster's, eyes were gleaming as he unscrewed something, pulled something. Their eyes were all fuzzy from the shock they'd received, the shock that had caught five of the six and dropped them like stones into the ditch and wouldn't let them get up. They couldn't tell what it was – and the sixth of them was still trapped under the bent bridge railings when the truck had slammed into it. And it was pure luck he hadn't gotten worse than a stuck and possibly broken leg.

But he couldn't get it out, couldn't get himself out so he was useless to his friends, to his brother. He was useless when he'd watched them tricked into the pooling water in the ditch, and the livewire. He was useless when they'd been shocked, when they'd been screaming in an agony that far surpassed the stabs that stopped him from pulling his leg with all his strength – but when he'd done that, hearing those screams, it had only come out halfway. He was still trapped.

And now the man was doing…something, back relaxed as though the battle was already won and cackling as though the victory celebration had already begun. He couldn't hear the words over the rain and wind and the man's cacking and his own pained gasps – and he couldn't hear the others either. He could only see them, shadows in the ditch, twitching slightly as they tried to move, tried to get their bodies to obey.

Then the wind suddenly changed direction and he heard the next bit perfectly.

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He was smirking at them, the man with the weapon in his hands facing five powerless kids in the ditch. 'You're all fools,' he said, and they couldn't fault him for that because they knew just how foolish they'd been, how disillusioned. But the only thing they'd succeeding in doing was finding the elusive man.

A whole lot of good it'd done them though, considering nothing had come from it, except watching the slow dance towards their death. And the man was showing them, giving them the show. Because he knew he'd won; they all knew he'd won. He had every right to gloat – and even if none of them could understand, not one of them could find their voice to scream, to demand answers.

They'd already tried that anyway. They'd lost reason in that; they'd been separated, weakened – and they didn't have his experience anyway. It hadn't even been a fight for him. He just looked annoyed he couldn't catch all six of them together, even if that had been his own doing as well.

The rain didn't bother him; his blond hair painted his pale face and blue eyes that made him look almost innocent if it wasn't for the leather black he was dressed in and the thing he held in his hand. A bomb of some sort, it seemed: a home-made one so no-one could trace it to him before he had the chance to use it. And somehow the rain didn't seem to bother it either; he had its container open, to the sky, and was fiddling with a lighter with the tar stained fingers of his other hand. Not fiddling because the lighter wouldn't spit out a flame, but fiddling to draw the agony out a little longer because he knew they were just innocent kids and couldn't possibly be immune to death.

It took the hardest criminals to become immune to death, the ones who'd killed and killed and killed until it didn't matter anymore, who'd forgotten why their targets even became their targets in the first place. Of course, killing one's intended targets was always more thrilling then catching a bystander, and that was all he felt. Thrill: the thrill of having the opportunity to blast these children that were his targets, the children that would become six more names in a long long list of deaths.

And they'd come out so nicely to him too, instead of hiding and running and getting tangled in the spider's web that awaited. It had been a little disappointing; they'd robbed him of a little of the fun – but fun wasn't all that drove him. He could do without that, as long as the children died before they could truly get in his way.

He didn't know why he thought they could get in his way. Maybe it was just paranoia, but he'd learnt long ago that being safe was better than being sorry. And it didn't matter if he killed six kids to be safe. What were they to him? Just six more names to add to his list of victims.

He lit the lighter, flickering and slightly warm and shielded from the rain and tossed it into the container in its other hand. It smoked a little; he smirked wider and counted out loud as cackles began to appear: slow, getting faster.

'10…9…8…'

The children struggled, but their vision was still fuzzy, their bodies still disobedient. One managed to get to his hands and knees but the mud gurgled, refusing to spit him out. One slipped and fell facedown, worse off than before.

'…7…6…5…'

The other boy, the one who'd gotten trapped thanks to his little truck trick, was screaming. That didn't matter; it was unlikely he'd get free in the next five seconds, and even if he did, he wouldn't make it far with a broken leg.

'…4…' Something cracked, somewhere. And more screaming. That was an added bonus, and he savoured it. '…3…'

Another boy dragged himself to his elbow, and the girl; they reached for the one that'd slipped. They wouldn't even be on their feet in time.

'…2…'

The big one rolled, pushing the smallest of them into the mud and covering, covering his body. The girl yelled something.

That wouldn't do anything.

'…1 –'

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Kouichi watched, powerless and horrified. Watched as the lighter caught light, as his friends and brother screamed in terror as if death had just walked up to them. He still couldn't see what the other held, though he could guess: a bomb, or grenade, or some other sort of explosive. Anything that needed a flame to light.

Anything that needed ten seconds to explode. And he could hear the countdown loud and clear.

The first seconds he was frozen, terrified. Then a new strength seized him and he struggled anew, forgeoing his attempts to pull the bent frame away from his leg and just yanking it out instead. It hurt unlike anything he'd ever felt before – because he was just twelve and this broken leg was the worst he'd ever had – but that didn't matter anymore. His friends, and his brother: they were floundering like fish in a puddle as their deaths or something worse approached, and he had to do something –

He pulled the leg free at "4" and stumbled to his feet, throwing himself at the enemy they'd come to meet, to face. That leg was too hurt to support him; he used the other one instead, springing like they'd do in gym class, in soccer to headbutt a high passing ball.

He crashed into the man at "1", making him stumble and curse and snap around –

– and then the weapon, whatever it was, blew up in both their faces.

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In that last second not one of them had made a noise, expecting it to be their last. Except it wasn't, and it wasn't swift and blasting either, but slow and torturous – more torturous than watching that container spit out sparks. More torturous than listening to the man's mocking, his counting down.

They hadn't seen Kouichi get free; they'd just hoped he would and run. He'd gotten free, but he hadn't run. He'd saved them instead. Saved them because, by pure luck or surprise or something else, their would be murderer had still been holding the container at "0" and it had backfired.

He'd gone down like a stone and didn't move in the few seconds they simply stayed where they were, frozen and waiting for him to get up, to do something.

But he didn't, and it was Kouji's scream of "Ni-san!" that rose them as the other collapsed backwards, slower but still from the blast.

Their limbs still wouldn't obey, but Kouji managed to pull himself free from the mud and crawl over, with that same strength bubbling inside and driving him that had driven his brother free. And the other was still awake, still moving; he saw Kouji and lifted a few fingers, shaking, in his direction.

Kouji grabbed the whole handing, taking in the glazed eyes, and the blood and burnt flesh that covered his face and chest. 'Ni-san?' It wasn't a scream this time, but a whimper, and Izumi who'd made it beside him turned away with a sob. There was a growl from somewhere, someone. Kouji ignored it; he was focused on his brother, on those burnt lips parting, speaking so softly that the wind and rain almost drowned it completely.

'I'm glad…you guys are…okay…'

Kouji's eyes brimmed with tears. 'You idiot,' he snapped, not mad, not really. 'You should have run.'

The burnt lips twitched. 'I…couldn't…' he whispered. '…broken…leg.'

'Don't give me that excuse.' Because it was an excuse; none of them would have run. None of them could have run from each other. That's why they'd gone on such a fool's errand. That's why they'd almost died right there.

That's why the rain wasn't thinning the blood like water did when one held a paper-cut or one from a kitchen knife under a running tap. That's why those blue eyes were glazing, fading. Why the voice, already so faint, was getting fainter.

'Is he..?' Kouichi managed to ask.

Kouji didn't look; he just crawled closer still, trying to hold more of his brother as though holding more of him would hold him together, stop him slipping away.

It was Junpei's voice who answered: firm, but shaking. 'He's dead. He caught more of the blast.'

'I…' Kouichi began, eyelids fluttering, closing a moment before reopening. '…safe,' he finished, and it barely linked to the other word but all of them were drinking them in, remembering them.

There was a scream of rage and the sound of someone sinking to their knees in the mud again. Takuya. And a whimper, a smack into something hard and a grunt that came out more like a sob. Tomoki stumbling into Junpei.

'…smile…' The eyelids closed again. '…we're safe…we can smile…again…'

But no-one was smiling, except for the small twitch of burnt blistered mouth that could have, maybe, been a smile.

'That's what we…wanted…to smile…everyone…no more…tears…' He opened his eyes again, little cracks barely able to see.

That's what they'd wanted: to stop all those tears that came from those deaths, to stop those worried looks from everyone who knew their eventual fates, their places on the list.

But not one of them had wanted to die, despite that.

Kouji clutched his brother harder, tears mixing with the blood and the rain but all of it was red, still red.

'It's...okay.' The eyes slipped closed again, and the voice was barely a sigh, private, inaudible to the others. 'I got…to be friends…with all…of you…and my brother…'

They could hear sirens in the distance, but no-one moved after that, no-one could move after that, so it didn't matter.