Hello everyone, and welcome to my Digimon Fanfiction!
Although many will probably go "why would you do this", this story is entirely based on the canon created by Digimon World 4. Although that game had you playing a digimon of your choice, this story will focus on a Male OC as its Main Character.
Now, I know this is going to set off many, many alarm bells to most of you, and frankly, I cannot guarantee that this OC will be perfect or even good, what I can tell you however, is that I will be doing my very, very best at making him both believable and not overbearing.
Aside from this, the entire story takes place roughly around one year after the end of Digimon World 4's storyline – don't worry if you haven't played the game, the story is very simplistic and simple to understand, and I will be making hints to it in the story.
If the fact that this story focuses on an OC did not already drive you away, then please, keep on reading! For the record, the Main Character's first name is pronounced as "Saki" (despite what its spelling may lead you to believe).
As far as formatting goes, italics in this story will be used for emphasis, if the entire sentence is in italics, then it is expressing a character's thoughts on the matter at hand, if the entire sentence is both in italics AND between quotation marks, the character is remembering someone else's words. Bold, again, is for emphasis, although it is for bigger emphasis than italics. Finally, a line that is nothing but an ellipsis indicates either a dramatic pause or a change in scene.
And like any other fanfiction author, I hold no rights over the Digimon franchise as a whole, but obviously enough, I hold full rights to the Original Characters mentioned in this story.
The skies shone brightly during that afternoon, the clouds were few and far in between, a strong Sun shone upon the valley of rock and stone reflecting off of the mountainside, giving the vegetation that grew around it their precious rays of light, the basic element necessary for their own survival.
But that day was different than others, on that day, there was a man walking among that vegetation, on that day that man was climbing the mountain, taking the natural path nature had formed to walk up, moving to its peak, inch by inch, the man was clad in robes of the darkest blue, a blue that closely resembled the darkness of a moonless night, his left hand rested on a sheath beside his hip, the blade carried within ready for any sort of eventuality.
The man stopped for a moment, taking his right hand away from the mountain to look upon the sky, his black hair, just short of being shoulder-length swayed in the calm wind of that afternoon, he used his hand to hold it in place as best as he could, though even though his attempts at such failed miserably, he still smiled towards the sun, "Today's a beautiful day." He murmured to himself, his brown eyes gazing intently at the fiery orb that people called a sun.
But he had a task to conclude, the man took a deep breath, smile still in his face, and continued along the mountainside, using his right hand to help him keep his balance – no matter how impressive he was considered, falling from such a height would certainly spell doom for him.
Though his ascent was slow, in reality, it was much slower than it should have been, the man – Sacchi Hikaru – was using this brief respite to take in the scenery and enjoy the wind that still blew gently across his face, he had to enjoy life as much as he could.
Though all of that positive thinking grinded to a halt as he found himself in front of a cave, about halfway through the mountain, the man look inside, to see nothing but darkness, he chuckled to himself – why would he see anything else?
He clutched the digivice that dangled on his neck, strapped to it with a chain, that he wore like a necklace, the man took it off and lifted it up, pressing a button that started its lantern function, pointing it towards the cavern revealed the way forward, the man grinned for a moment, before unsheathing his sword with his right hand, and holding his digivice forward with his left.
Traversing the cave was just as annoying as he remembered, it changed size and shape several times as the travelled its already rather narrow corridors, fortunately, the ceiling was high enough that he would not be able to touch it even when making small jumps with his hand outstretched, and though he wasn't particularly tall, the man was certainly not short.
A few streams of water ran through the cave as he walked through it, his sword at the ready, the darkness that surrounded him would probably scare other humans, but he had already gone through his cave time and time again, at this point, it had become routine. He glanced back, where he could see the entrance he had used just a few minutes ago, now only a mere dot in the background of this cave, he glanced forward again, greeted by the sight of several bats that immediately answered his approach by flying in his general direction.
The man recoiled, hunching down and protecting his head, the bats flew overhead with no problems, he was not hit by any of them, he looked back again, towards the entrance, only to see the last of the bats flying outside it, the man grinned, and proceeded to keep walking through the cave.
Though the minutes were long and boring, he finally started to see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, the human smiled, satisfied and relieved that he had finally made it. He brought his digivice back down, disengaged its lantern mode and started using it like a necklace again, as he walked towards the faint light.
The faint light revealed itself to be several, several small lanterns within a huge chamber, all of these lanterns were there probably to point to the massive fortress that resided within the chamber, the green walls of the fortress were menacing to most, but much like the cave he had just gone through, going through the massive doors of that fortress had become routine to the man.
He entered the fortress and walked its halls, seeing only glimpses of the green denizens within – Goburimon – though at first they tried to fight him, maybe they realized that the man was capable enough to take on several champion-level digimon at once, let alone several rookies, this was not the first time they had left him alone, and he hoped it wouldn't be the last.
He continued walking the halls, eventually finding stairs that he climbed with absolutely no rush, occasionally, he continued to see the Goburimon that continued to hide or run as they saw him, he heard their hushed whispers of fear and disdain, he grunted in annoyance – they had all the right in the world to fear him, of course, but he would have never slaughtered so many Goburimon if they hadn't attacked him in the first place.
He sighed, taking lives of digimon did not have the value of taking lives of humans, though humans were guaranteed to die, Digimon were locked in a perpetual cycle of rebirth – so long as the digimon died within the Digital World, their residual data would be consumed by the World, and eventually reformed by The Prophecy, being reborn into an egg.
Though of course, the resurrection was not complete, they retained only a portion of their memories upon death, if digimon of the Mega-Level died, they would retain all of their memories, Ultimate-Levels would have most of their memories back, though small details would be left out, champion-levels would remember faces and names, but certainly not much else, and Rookies would at best remember faint glimpses of people who were very important to themselves in their past lives, everything below that remembered nothing – though he took solace in the fact that anything below that would have died before they actually had a life to remember.
His feet moving without aid from his conscious thought – another side-effect of having taken this path so many times before – the human found himself in front of a panel with a keyboard in front, he chuckled to himself when he noticed that, had he been that lost in thought? It was a bad habit of his.
He started to type on the keyboard, turning the monitor on and running the usual procedures, he looked for the usual files and continued to try and restore their data, though unfortunately for him, the process was slow – it took months or even years for deleted or corrupt files to be completely restored – so all he could do was send back all the pieces he could to HQ.
He looked around as the transmission back to HQ began, the room was clearly a lab of some sort, it held this computer and a containment pod not so far away from it, he remembered when he used this computer for the first time one year ago, he disengaged the lock on the pod, but was greeted by security – to be specific Mecha Rogue 01, the very first he ever thought.
Mecha Rogue 01 was a mobile, if rather weak and fragile unit, though back then the human was not nearly as skilled as he was today, so taking it out was a task in and of itself, nowadays, he was sure that the robot would not even stand a chance against him. He frowned as he looked at the containment pod, back then, one of the soldiers of the DSG – the Digital Security Guard, the organization he worked for – had been trapped there, he found and released Leomon after fighting the Mecha Rogue, though they had obviously been performing experiments on him. This was the entire reason he was here today, as he had been here so many times before – he, as well as HQ, wanted to discover what sort of experiments were performed on Leomon, since he still suffered from nightmares from that time.
He sighed as the transferring process had been completed, he looked at the screen again to see that less than a megabyte of files had been recovered since last week – the lowest amount so far – hhe grunted, were they finally reaching the end? Or was this computer getting resistant to the restoration process? Maybe the Digi Elfs needed to step up their game.
He shook his head, still sighing, and looked at his digivice, pressing a few buttons as the screen changed to a "checkpoint" option, pressing okay, his body was engulfed in light.
…
The man found himself in another place before long, he looked around to see the blue floor and white walls of HQ, it was buzzing with activity – like always – though the other members of the DSG barely paid him any mind, he stepped out of the transporter and scanned the small crowd that busily made its way to and fro the research area and the quarters, unfortunately for him, he did not find Leomon.
I can go look for him after reporting, otherwise Ophanimon will get angry at me again.
The man looked around for another moment, seeing a second transporter not far from the one he had just stepped out of, someone passed him by from behind – obviously another soldier who had just come back from his mission – "Oh, hi Sacchi." The Dorumon said, waving with its tiny paw before taking off, "Hello Dorumon." The man replied, and chuckled mentally, to think that he was one of the very few human members of the DSG was rather staggering.
He looked upon the different transporter that he had eyed before, and proceeded to step on it right after the Dorumon did, seeing himself engulfed by light again, though fortunately, this time it cleared quickly.
The first thing to note was obviously the four stairs around him, each one of them leading to a different part of the command center, so many digi-elfs worked here, Sacchi was always confused – they all look the same, after all – though the man headed for the stairs that were opposite the transporter – the ones he had been facing.
Climbing them, he heard the final words from Dorumon before the digimon took off in another direction, and as soon as he reached the top, he saw the two figures the digimon was talking to, both of them sporting several wings in their backs and lots, lots of armor, one of them however, had a more masculine look, the other, a more feminine, delicate one, "Hello, Sacchi." The female digimon – Ophanimon – spoke, the woman brought a hand to her chin, sitting in the chair behind the desk that almost seemed like a counter from this position, "We have received your data."
"We noticed there was very little this time." The other one spoke up, the male one – Seraphimon – spoke in a much harsher tone than his female counterpart, "What happened?"
Though the man was used to this, he shrugged in response to his question, "Beats me, restoration progress is going rather slow, maybe the elfs need to step up their game?" he asked, and smiled a bit, "Or maybe we're finally getting close to an answer, wouldn't that be a refreshing change of pace?" he continued, crossing his arms with the smile still there.
"Unfortunately, we are not." Ophanimon answered, and Sacchi was not surprised, "But your efforts are still appreciated Sacchi, thank you." She continued.
The man's smile turned to a frown that quickly turned to a sigh and a shake of his head; they weren't close to an answer? Not even a little?
"What is it Sacchi?" Ophanimon spoke up, the man looked at her, though unfortunately, discerning her expression through that mask of hers was… impossible. "Speak your mind."
"Well, frankly." He started, on the back of his mind, the man was glad to be as important to the DSG as he was, otherwise, Ophanimon would never have said that, "If we aren't even remotely close to an answer on this debacle, I feel like I'm wasting my time on these missions." He continued, shrugging, the man looked at both Seraphimon and Ophanimon, expecting some sort of reprimand, to him, it seemed like Seraphimon was close to one, but Ophanimon was the first to speak.
"You wish to undertake more important missions, then?" Ophanimon spoke, he could hear the annoyed grunt below Seraphimon's armor, Sacchi chuckled mentally, to him, it was amusing that the female archangel was the one to control the organization, with the male one being the second-in-command. "Or at least more exciting ones." Sacchi answered.
"Then we do, indeed, have something bigger for you." Ophanimon started, typing on the keyboard in front of her, several small monitors appeared around her, "A virus reading has been detected in a certain server, and we want you to check it out."
A virus reading?
They were always bad news, Virus readings meant someone – or something – was trying to create something to infect the Digital World with, either completely or partially, the effects of such varied from virus to virus, but the end result was never pleasant – the last time they had a widespread infection, Sacchi had to hop around four different servers, including the Digital World's physical firewall system to eradicate the virus, which made every digimon it touched go berserk and attack any non-infected, they even managed to get inside HQ, though fortunately were fended off.
"I'll go out immediately." The man spoke, he looked at the female seraph, determination clear in his eyes, he would not let another catastrophe befall the Digital World. "Do not worry; the Virus reading isn't as big as the doom virus from the Mecha Rogue incident." Ophanimon spoke, "But we still advise you to exercise both haste and caution."
"I am aware." He spoke, memories of that time befalling his mind, he remembered the catastrophe that had been wrought one year ago, every digimon he fought, every digimon he had slain, he could see the fear, the remorse, the pain in their eyes, he could almost hear the pleas for help, but as their bodies attacked him, he was forced to cut them all down, one by one, he let his mind wander to that time in the swamp, where his one and only partner was taken away from him, he was powerless to stop it from helping, his injures did not let him move his body enough to stop it all from happening, her cries, her cries for help still echoed in his mind.
"Sacchi!" she cried out as she looked back, her body clenched in between the Mecha Rogue's massive hands, "Sacchi!" she cried out again as the man grunted in pain, his belly had been slashed open, and his legs were way too sluggish to move, it was some sort of anesthetic, he felt his consciousness slipping from him every moment, but he eventually – against all odds – brought himself to his feet, he used his scabbard almost as a walking cane, whatever semblance of balance he had threatening to disappear the moment he let go of that scabbard, "Sacchi!" she cried out again.
"Sacchi!"
Ophanimon's voice snapped him back to reality, he was surprised, truly, he looked at the Seraph and realized he was still in the Command Center, "Were you even listening?!" she continued, the man mentally cursed himself for letting his mind wander again, the memories of that time would not be easy to cure.
He took a very deep breath, then looked down, scratching the back of his head, "Could you repeat that, Ophanimon?" he spoke, and immediately heard her grunt in annoyance, "We will be monitoring your activities during this mission, though the virus doesn't seem like a threat, if it gets released, you are to come back to HQ immediately." She leaned forward slightly, "That's an order."
An order you know damn well I won't follow.
"Roger." Sacchi spoke, "Anything else?" he asked, to which Ophanimon shook her head. "Dispatched." She finally finished, at this point, back an year ago, was one Sacchi would stand still and salute her, but now, he was glad that he had enough leeway to not have to do so. The man turned around heading back down the stairs, his arms were crossed, his mind was elsewhere, he knew he already had all the equipment he'd ever need – his clothing was protected against digimon attacks, his swords were capable of dealing with just about any digimon, and his digivice gave him access to any other utility he might need – though something – his gut, maybe? – told him that this mission would be a lot, a lot longer than it first seemed.
Little did the man know though, that this mission would not only be a lot longer than originally anticipated, it would also be the absolute most important mission in his life, the trials and tribulations he had faced an year prior would pale in comparison to the things he was about to face, and had he known about all of this at this point in his life, he could've prevented everything that followed.
He could've prevented the revelations, the pain and the suffering, the screams of the dying, and the countless, endless moral questions he would eventually be faced with, the countless things he would have to face in the end, things that would have torn any other man.
But though the man's mind did not know of all of the things that he could have been prevented from simply refusing this mission, he knew even less of the chain of causality he was already a part of, this mission, this moment in his life was simply the first major point in this chain.
And it would, quite certainly, be far, far from the last.
He made his way to the transporter, mind focused on the mission he was about to participate in, he glanced over at his digivice, selecting the newly added option of the server he was about to go to for his mission. Some of the digimon waved him goodbye, some of them wished him good luck, and though he returned the gesture and thanked them for the well wishes, he had that lingering feeling in the back of his mind that it would be a long time before he saw them again.
Little did the man know, that would be the last time he ever saw HQ in his life.
Truly, just the first step in a much, much bigger chain of causality.