Kesshi no Miren

By Aaron

I do not own Digimon or any of the multitude of other creations I ripped off in the creation of this work.

This is the sequel to Toumoku no Miren. It, along with my other stories, are at The Crests of Destiny. I wrote this from T.K.'s POV, both third and first-person. I plan another sequel, so far untitled. There's less shounen-ai in this one, and even some Takari (T.K./Hikari) hintings. Still enough Keneru (Ken/T.K.) for me to get flamed to a crisp, but now enough straight hinting for the YDML2 people to throw in their fair share. Woo hoo! But, for the two people who don't feel like flaming me for this, and in fact everyone else, enjoy!

--Aaron, Sep. 15th, 2000.

"Kari-chan, I need to tell you something."

Kari lifted her head up from where it had been leaning against Takeru's shoulder, turning her attention away from the old movie they had been watching.

"You know you can tell me anything," she told him.

"Kari," T.K. paused for a second, then decided to take the indirect approach, "What do you think of the Digimon Kaiser?"

"Is that really what you wanted to ask?" Kari responded, sitting up straight.

Takeru looked at her, "Yes. It's just that, well. . ." Takeru trailed off for a second, then continued, "Not really. It's just that he's what started all this. . ."

"All what?" Kari asked. She reached over and grabbed the remote, turning off the TV. She turned back towards Takeru, giving him her full attention, "What's bothering you?"

TK looked down at his shoes, "When the Kaiser came to our world to try and find the SoQmoH crystal. . ." he trailed off again.

"He didn't just leave you locked up alone that whole time, did he?" Kari had thought something like this had happened for several days, ever since the last time the digidestined had met. She had seen how TK had always looked away whenever the Kaiser was mentioned, how he had been so quiet when they had talked about that strage boy who ruled the Digiworld.

"Not. . .exactly," Takeru started, "He. . .he tried to get me to give him the crystal. He showed me. . ." TK tried to come up with the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. In the end, the best he could come up with was, "Do you think he's a liar?"

"The Kaiser?" asked Kari, "Of course I do. Why?" she paused for a moment, "What did he say to you?"

"Have you ever known anyone who was on drugs?" TK asked suddenly.

"What?" Kari replied, trying to figure out what to make of Takeru's sudden change of subject, "No, of course not. Why?"

Takeru sat for a second, then stood up and walked out to the balcony of the Kamiya's apartment. Kari followed him out a second later, closing the door behind her.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, looking out at the apartment buildings and offices that lined their in what seemed like an endless wall of glass, reflecting the orange and red shades hues of the sunset behind them, and casting a beautiful, vibrant glow on the street below and the people milling about on it.

They could see Tai, who had left a few minutes ago, walking towards the park with Sora, Matt, and Joe. The original digidestined were all going back to their school tonight to see the school play.

"I feel like I don't know where I belong anymore," Kari said to T.K., seeing that he was looking at his brother and the others, "Everyone else is in a diffrent school now everyone else is growing up, and I just don't feel like I belong with them anymore. But we shared so much with them when we were in the digiworld. I'm not sure I can ever feel like that about Daisuke or the others. I don't know if we'll be the same thing.

"Takeru-kun," she stated, "You're the only one who I still feel like I know. You're the only one who's been with me through everything that's happened, and you need to know you can tell me anything."

T.K. smiled, reassured now that she had opened up to him. Summoning up his strength, he turned away from the view and looked right at her.

"Just before the Kaiser retreated, he and I were in the dressing room Matt and his band had been in before the concert. He opened 'niisan's locker, and there was a bunch of bags of stuff inside. Marijuana, I think. Some had cocaine. They're were--"

Kari put her hand on T.K.'s mouth, stopping the flood of words that had come pouring out once he had started.

"Takeru," she said honestly, "if you're even considering the possibility that the Kaiser wasn't lying to you, that means you can believe that those were Matt's, and if you can think that, the least you owe him is to be honest with him. You need to tell him."

T.K. turned away to look back at the city around them, "But if the Kaiser was lying to me, What's Matt going to think? He's going to think I betrayed him--"

"He'll think you care for him," Kari cut him off, "That you were concerned for him and wanted to help him."

Taker turned away and stared out at the city again, ignoring Hikari's discreet exit.

I was going to see oniisan. At least, that's what I told myself when I left. I had finally worked up the courage to walk out the door and leave. I walked toward otousan's apartment, rehearsing what I was going to say to him. I kept playing Kari-chan's words from last night in my mind, over and over.

The next thing I knew, I was halfway towards the bay, and the sun was starting to set.

As I headed for the subway, I tried to convince myself that I hadn't really been avoiding Yama-chan, that I had just forgotten to stop walking at his apartment. I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Just as I was getting close to the subway station, I saw Ken walking out of a big office complex. He was helping some guy wearing a tie push a cart loaded down with old computer equipment. I was a little surprised I didn't think of him as the Digimon Kaiser, but we were in the real world, and seeing so many of my friends Digivolve over the past few years had kinda gotten me used to thinking of the same person by a diffrent name depending on the situation.

Suddenly I realized that, while my thoughts had wandered, I had actually started walking towards him. Before I could turn away, he saw me. I don't know why, but he smiled at me, the way someone would smile when they bumped into a friend of theirs at the mall.

He nodded to the man he had been helping, who thanked him and began throwing the computers in a garbage can. He turned and starting jogging toward me.

I closed my eyes and turned away, walking towards the station again. For some reason, it was harder then I had expected it to be. In fact, when I heard his footfalls come into step with mine, I couldn't bring myself to tell him to leave. I couldn't bring myself to insult him, or to scream, or hit him, or any of the other things I know I should've wanted to do.

All I could say was, "Aren't you sweet, helping out a stranger like that."

I heard him laugh, but still refused to turn and look at him.

"Hardly something an evil, facist dictator is likely to do, now is it?" I hear him say light-hartedly.

"A deluded, ego-manical dictator, on the other hand. . ." I trailed off, trying to tell myself I wasn't enjoying this war of words.

"Do we have to talk about politics?" he asked me, sighing.

"That is why we're having this conversation," I said, more to myself than him.

"Of course. You're big chance to convince the bad guy just how evil he is, and get him to change his ways before it's too late," he laughed, waiting for me to respond. I wanted to, but was too busy trying to tell myself that he wasn't lying this time, without much luck. So he kept going, "That's not why we're talking, and you know it."

I closed my eyes, hoping, praying for him to stop now. If only he wouldn't say it aloud, it could stay hidden and I could keep ignoring it.

But he wasn't going to be that merciful. He leaned in closer, whispering conspiratorially, "You're--"

Suddenly, I felt a blast of heat hit my back, throwing me forward to the ground. I felt myself slam face-first into the hard concrete, having been caught totally off-guard. I rolled over, lying flat on my back and watching pieces of flaming steel and glass fly over my head. Groaning, I tried to pull myself up.

Suddenly, Ken's hand reached out towards me. I looked up, seeing him standing over me. For a second, I tried to bring myself to refuse his offer of help. But I reached out, grabbing his wrist anyway. He pulled me up.

Before I could say anything, he simply said, "Come on," and started running down the street.

I started running after him. As I ran, I tried to get a sense of my surroundings. We we're running, neck and neck, towards a tall apartment complex just down the street. I could see a huge section of the side facing us crumpled inward, spewing flame from a couple of gas lines.

We quickly reached the building and ran around the side of it, just in time to see a corpse hit the pavement. A second later, I realized I was looking at what was left of a Parrotmon, just an instant before it disintegrated.

Just behind it I saw the Veemon de-evolving. Standing next to him we're Daisuke and Iori. As soon as he saw Ken, Daisuke ran over.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" he shouted.

"What's that Parrotmon doing attacking an apartment complex?" Ken shot back.

"That doesn't concern you!"

"It--All right, fine," Ken shook his head, "This is your world, and if you think you can figure out what happened, go ahead. But the digiworld is my responsibility, and if anything remotely like this happens there, I will be back, and you will tell me exactly what happened here."

With the final word, Ken stormed off into the thickening crowds surrounding the building, and I stood there, the sirens ringing in my ears.