Taichi hated goodbyes.
It was harder than anything he had ever experienced, to listen to Nishijima's final words through the capsule's communication system as the countdown kept going on.
He heard every word, memorized them by heart, while trying to tell himself that there was nothing he could do now to save the man. There was a way to escape for one and Nishijima had played it smart, having tricked the teen into the capsule and made the choice for him.
Smart didn't equal fair, though. He banged the metal again, leaning his head against the insides of the pod.
The amount of information he had to handle after waking up at the facility was too much: the thoughts of the other digidestined kids by his side kept coming back to him, their previously unsure situation now more like straight from a horror film.
They were still kids, all of them, and four of the youngest ones had been kept in cryostasis somewhere underground for what could be weeks. All because of the things they had found out. And now he found himself thinking how good it was, that neither Hikari or Takeru had been with them.
And directly afterwards he beat himself inwardly because of his thought. It didn't matter who was in the capsules, it wouldn't have been good either way. If he could, he would go back in time and trade places with the four other kids, just because. That would have been at least slightly better, easier for his conscience to handle.
The capsules were sent to the real world before Taichi got the chance to tell Nishijima everything he felt like he needed to say.
Apparently that would be the way of things for him until the very end, whenever that might be. It didn't seem like he had even the slightest chance for slow goodbyes, at least not based on the situations in which he had almost died so far. Or in which someone else had.
Maybe he was destined to leave the world, real or digital, as fast as possible and when no one expected it to happen. Which was the most fucked up thing he could think of.
In another reality, because by now he was quite sure that there had to be more than just theirs, he was sure that he was dead. His friends would save the world from its end, and they would be treated as heroes whether they liked it or not. Then there would be a funeral for him and he would be remembered, until no one simply could remember him anymore. And he would want them to move on.
For some reason he found himself wondering, if that reality's Yamato would cry in his funeral. Not because it would be funny or anything, but because he wasn't sure if his Yamato would. He wasn't even sure when was the last time that he had seen Yamato cry, but to cry for him? That was a whole another question.
Maybe that reality's Taichi hadn't been the biggest idiot until the end, like he had.
.
.
.
Taichi had to kick the capsule open, as the insides of it had shut down, after coming back to his senses. He wasn't sure when he had even lost consciousness in the first place.
One thing was for sure though - he was back in Japan.
Which would be the only good news for the moment, apparently, as none of the other capsules were nowhere to be seen. He stood up with trouble, slowly getting out of the pod, feeling older and clumsier than he had ever before.
And he searched the nearby waters, and park, even for just a simple sign of one of the capsules or the kids. There were none. His capsule looked like it had gone through a lot. He had no memory of the return to his own world, which was why it was possible that his pod had travelled in the river for some time before crashing to the shore.
Taichi didn't have a phone with him, or any money, which was weird. Maybe they were in his school bag, wherever that was. He did have his digivice though, but it wouldn't be of any help now that he was alone. His friends could, for all he knew, still be in the digital world.
He wondered who he should contact or where he should head to, as he turned around in the ankle deep water - only to see the sky darken at a pace that could only mean one thing.
At least he had his digivice.
It would lead him to where he needed to be.
.
.
.
Taichi's digivice kept beeping, informing that the signal was still as strong as before and that he was in fact closing onto the others even though it felt like the road kept going on and on forever.
He couldn't wait to see everyone.
The battle in the air, near the bridge, was closer and closer by each running step he took, but he feared that he wouldn't be there soon enough. Something would happen before he could get there, someone would get hurt, and he just hadn't been fast enough.
Or maybe someone was already hurt.
The dark form, Ordinemon, roared in what sounded like pain.
Taichi watched how the digimons that had been attacking it were thrown aside, one after another, dropping to the river or the bridge. He recognized each and every one of them, even though it was dark and he was too far away to see anything clearly. He couldn't turn his gaze away from them as he kept running, hoping for more than anything that he wouldn't be too late.
He passed the heart of the fight; passed the monster, the battleships, the tanks.
The beeping fastened its pace when he neared the bridge. And the quicker the beeping got, the faster Taichi ran.
Then he saw them all, each and every one of them. They were by the river, standing and watching the horrors before them happen as if there was really something a few kids could do in a situation like this. They still had hope left, they hadn't ran away.
Taichi understood it now.
His unrealistic expectations had got them through a lot of situations in the past, something the others might have seen as braveness but Taichi couldn't sign that thought anymore. It had been his childish foolishness, him putting everyone into trouble battle after battle without even a thought of consequences, and somehow they had made it out of all those situations alive. They had been lucky.
Ordinemon screamed again, before it lashed out and reached towards the two people who were in the water:
Yamato and Meiko.
She tried to run away and Taichi wanted to yell at Yamato for not doing the same thing, call him stupid because apparently he was, but he could only breath as he took into the last sprint.
He was so close already.
It was like in the desert again: Taichi running after Meiko and Yamato, trying to reach the both of them in time. He was filled with the same fear as he had been then, because something bad would happen - something bad always happened and he tried his best to intervene each time.
And something bad had happened. The ground had cracked and he had known that Omnimon could only save either him or his two friends. He had almost made it to safety - heck, he was there now. There were no reality in which he chose otherwise.
Then he saw how Agumon begun running towards the pair in the water, his yellow form almost a blur due to the speed. Taichi immediately knew what he was about to do, and there was no way that he would let him.
He was so close.
