A/N: Written for the Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Getting the Miracle DE from Pandamon event, and for the Diversity Writing Challenge, e14 - write a fic with at least 80% dialogue

A Long-Winded Chat about the Past and Future

'Did you ever wonder what we would've been like in past lives? Before you know about me, I mean?'

'…hmm?'

'Did you ever –'

'I heard the question, but it was a little…random.'

'…oh. I guess it kind of was. But I was…thinking. About how our meeting just had to be fate, because the chances of it occurring otherwise…'

'I guess that depends. It's not a probability of zero, after all, so it is theoretically possible.'

'Occam's razor says to go for what's most likely though.'

'True, but what's more likely between fate and chance? Fate's the one requiring someone or something pulling the strings, while chance is part of a simple physical system.'

'Physical?'

'As in physics I mean, not just something we can touch. In any case, even for people who believe in fate, how much of our lives is ruled by that, and how much by pure chance?'

'Some believe it's only major life events – birth, death, falling in love: those things we can't control. And everything in between, like what we have for breakfast tomorrow, is random chance.'

'Isn't that leaning more towards choice?'

'Hmm…maybe that was a bad example. More like…flipping a coin or throwing a dice. If you reroll it, you're more likely to get something different than exactly the same.'

'Though you reroll in a different point in time, so you could argue that if you replayed that exact moment, you'd get the same result but it's just impossible to prove while no-one's managed to work out how to time travel.'

'You're enjoying playing devil's advocate here, aren't you?'

'Yup. You set it up so perfectly for it. In any case, what's the point of wondering whether we believe in fate or not when there's no way to see what fate has in store for us or to turn back time?'

'Well, I don't think it's a particularly nice feeling to think that everything – like losing someone important, or even meeting them, is a random chance, I guess. And when you think about things like reincarnation – surely some points are constant…'

'Which introduces the whole question as to whether reincarnation is a thing or not, though.'

'Do you?'

'Do I what?'

'Believe in reincarnation? Or fate for that matter. I don't think I've ever asked you.'

'Hmm…no, I don't think so. Somehow, it never came up like that. Not that we haven't talked about this before, but somehow…'

'Might have to do with how you talk yourself in circles sometimes, Ni-san.'

'I do not!'

'Do too.'

'Are we seriously doing this?'

'You could just answer my question instead.'

'Do I believe in reincarnation and fate?'

'Yup.'

'Well… fate…yeah, in a sense. I mean, it sucks thinking that we're all born to die at a specific time, in a specific way, in a specific order and all that. But at the same time, if it were random chance, to watch someone die you can only think of what you could have done to prevent it and it would mean a whole lot more, since fate's unchangeable but chance – chance you can affect.'

'…you know, Takuya said almost the same thing.'

'Really? Takuya did?'

'In the context of you going and smashing your head open on the landing.'

'I didn't smash my head. I had a fracture but the skull was still in one piece and no dents!'

'We're not arguing about that, are we?'

'I don't think we're arguing at all, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The brain's pretty fragile. It doesn't take a whole lot to make it bruise or bleed or just up and die, and if it's in just the wrong place, well… But I guess that comes back to your question too. Was I just really lucky, or was I just not meant to lose more than a few weeks in the hospital and the occasional migraine and potential seizures – which I haven't had, before you ask – or was it Ofanimon's role to save me? And on the same vein, how did my spirit wander into the digital world to begin with? If that was chance, then it could just as easily have been so many other worlds, but if it wasn't… yes, it all worked out in the end, but was it all necessary?'

'We grew up fast, didn't we? And I think we all found our lowest points there. But I wonder… If none of that had happened, would we have given up once Lucemon had made it through to our world?'

'That's what I mean. So many what ifs, but we can't do anything about them now and I'd rather not regret what we already had.'

'You said it before, when… when Lucemon scanned you.'

'I meant it, you.'

'Yeah. Comfort lies are silly thing to waste your potential last words on.'

'I'm alive now.'

'Think about the future huh, not the past. But aren't you contradicting yourself, Ni-san?'

'How so?'

'You just said we can't see the future or change it, so it doesn't really matter from that perspective whether it's predetermined or random chance.'

'But that would only contradict the worth of thinking about the future if we did know what was predetermined for us.'

'…damn, you're right.'

'Conversation getting too circular?'

'Too spirally, more like. And you never did answer the other question.'

'Reincarnation, you mean?'

'Yup.'

'Well… sometimes. Mostly along the lines of being a bird – and recently, about our digimon forms.'

'Fair enough. I think we've all thought about it in the context of our digimon forms. But why a bird?'

'…Velgmon?'

'Before that, Ni-san.'

'Well, I guess I just wanted to fly. And that it was kind of unfair. They get to experience so much more of the world than we do. Like they get the three dimension experience and we've got the flat plane.'

'That doesn't explain why you'd think about it in terms of reincarnation, though.'

'Well, it was more that I wanted to be reincarnated as a bird in a future life. At one point, I thought I'd try and collect lots of good karma to make it happen, but…'

'But?'

'…I dunno. It seemed like a silly thing, so I stopped. And now I'm glad I did.'

'Because of Velgmon?'

'It's not that Velgmon wasn't me, but…yeah, Velgmon.'

'…geeze, a simple curiosity turns into an entire philosophical discussion.'

'What sparked it, anyway?'

'I told you. Curiosity.'

'And what sparked that curiosity?'

'Are we seriously doing this?'

'Yup.'

'…some guys at school were talking about an anime or something. Didn't catch the name, but there's a ton of them that have reincarnation as a theme.'

'True. There's Sailor Moon, Yugioh – the original season, I mean. Don't think the others do…except – oh, ZEXAL.'

'They all do. Juudai in GX. I mean, Yubel followed his soul through how many cycles?'

'You're asking me like I've seen it.'

'You haven't?'

'Nope. Just heard the story. I've seen most of the original though. Classmates keep on talking about the new episodes though. And rewatches.'

'Yeah, you do get a lot of the story out like that. But muss the cool stuff.'

'Probably, but it does take time to get through them all. I can't afford to use all my library time watching anime, you know.'

'Yeah, probably shouldn't. Anyway, 5Ds had Jack being the reincarnation of that guy who tamed the demon. How he got his burning soul power. And the manga had Aki as the reincarnation of some priestess.'

'There's a manga?'

'Tomoki has them. He can loan them to you.'

'Sounds good. I rather like Yugioh, but it does take time to watch all those episodes.'

'The manga's shorter, so there's that.'

'…that is a good thing, right?'

'Sure. They've mostly cut out the filler, so no great loss. Though the filler's fun in its own right…and aside from the original, the stories are very different from the anime.'

'Oh, cool. And these differences still have reincarnation?'

'Well, maybe not so much the GX manga. But the 5Ds manga has. Haven't read the ZEXAL one myself yet. And Arc-V's manga's still too new to know. Arc-V anime hasn't gotten around to any reincarnation yet – unless you count them using characters from their earlier shows that aren't strictly connected with this one.'

'…probably don't count that.'

'Yeah, probably not. But ZEXAL had the Barians reincarnating. And the Kamishiro twins do it twice – or three times – or four, really.'

'It'll be hard to think of another anime that tops that.'

'But as far as reincarnations go, there's Angel Sanctuary – they've got a pair of twins in it too.'

'Isn't that the one where the girl twin yells at a God?'

'Angel, actually. But yeah, that's the one. Unless it's a common occurrence. The twins were in a relationship, and one of the angels tries to judge her as a sinner because of it, but she argues that love is love or something like that. Apparently sounds better when you actually read it. They were reincarnated from another pair of angels, and the angel the boy twin was reincarnated as was kicked out of heaven for loving her brother in a sisterly fashion. No romance involved.'

'So god or the archangel or whatever was jealous of his angels loving anyone other than him and kicked her out?'

'And chained her soul to be endlessly reincarnated and suffer painful deaths each reincarnation as well.'

'Ouch.'

'Now, imagine us in that situation.'

'…why?'

'That's the whole point of thinking about these reincarnation stuff, you know.'

'You want me to think about us replacing those twins?'

'Or the original angel and her brother.'

'Which leaves which of us to die the painful death over and over again?'

'…yeah, let's skip that one. How about the Kamishiro twins? You know some ZEXAL, right?'

'Some, but while you might make a passable Kamishiro Ryouga, do you really think either of them suit me?'

'If you were a little more outspoken and sharp, you could probably manage Rio.'

'Maybe…but ice is Tomoki's element.'

'And water's Ranamon's. Yeah, that doesn't go so well. Juudai's got darkness.'

'Juudai is closer to Takuya, personality wise. And wouldn't that make you Yubel? Though if you found a way to make yourself a dragon and immortal to stalk my reincarnation sequence to protect me, I'd find a way to make myself immortal too and strong enough to not need that protection, you know.'

'Yeah, you probably would. Poor prince charming that tries to sweep you off your feet.'

'Kouji! In any case, shouldn't I be the prince charming?'

'You could be, if you wanted to I guess. But you have to admit, I was saving you more often in the digital world. Until you one up me in the grand finale – except prince charmings don't go and get themselves killed – stop laughing!'

'And how long ago was it when you'd complain about us putting a humorous spin on that?'

'Okay, okay, so you guys converted me over to the dark side… Now can you stop laughing?'

'Okay, fine. I'll try – but speaking of prince charmings and reincarnations, King Endymion and Queen Serenity?'

'Well, Serenity's symbol is the moon so I guess you…'

'But she's also the one on the front lines, while Endymion supports from the shadows. And with you guys hyper-spirit evolving, we couldn't fight on the front lines with you.'

'Did you guys resent that?'

'Hmm?'

'Us fighting while you couldn't?'

'You need to ask the others that question.'

'I'm asking you, Ni-san.'

'And I can't speak for them.'

'You can speak for yourself. And now I know you're avoiding the question.'

'Well… I just thought I should be fighting too, after all the trouble I caused. But all I could do was stand and watch you guys through yourselves in harm's way again and again and hope you came back okay.'

'But being on the sidelines didn't save you guys. LordKnightmon snatched you that one time. And Dynasmon's attack knocked everyone out and to the moon. And when LordKnightmon blew the snowball maker up…'

'That didn't really affect me, though.'

'We didn't know that until we were back in the real world, though. But I still don't get why you tried to keep it a secret from us? I mean, if Bokomon hadn't said something, we probably never would have figured it out?'

'It wasn't that I was trying to keep it a secret. More that I didn't want to accept it.'

'Accept you might be…'

'Dead, yeah. I mean, who would want to? I was alive there, in the digital world, so how could I imagine I was actually dead. But I wasn't getting hurt like you guys. I had absolutely no idea how I'd wound up in the digital world in the first place. My evolutions always seemed to take longer and when you scanned my spirits, it knocked me out cold…'

'Well, we don't know if getting both our spirits scanned would've had the same effect on us. None of us ever lost our beast spirits, though Tomoki and Izumi did lose their humans spirits for a bit.'

'Mmm.'

'So…you didn't want to think that you might be dead, so you just tried to push what he said out of your mind?'

'Something like that. And also…'

'…what is it?'

'Well, it's what you said afterwards. About our meeting probably being fate, because the odds of it happening by random chance were so slim. Was it also fate that I only got to meet you after I was dead or had I just let the window of opportunity slip by…'

'That's… You're alive now. So…'

'So it's kind of being invalidated now anyway. Right?'

'You're learning.'

'Well, if I said it didn't matter anymore again, we really would be arguing.'

'And I'd win that argument.'

'Of course you did. Which is why I didn't say it this time, silly.'

'Guess so… So can you think of any other characters that might suit us?'

'If we keep at it, we're just going to get silly.'

'That's the whole point…silly.'