A Second Chance

Chapter 2 – Thoughts of the Future


Much to Takeru's surprise, he wasn't feeling as much anxiety about attending his new school as he thought. He figured it was due to the fact that Hikari was also attending. Even if they weren't in the same class, knowing she was there helped kill the feelings of loneliness.

His optimism and good mood only increased as he walked in for his formal introduction to the class. He saw her sitting there in the middle of the room, just off in the row to the right. There was a guy seated a little behind in the farthest row who slouched over on his desk, elbow planted and head leaning against his palm. Unlike everyone else, he was ignoring the front, instead choosing to stare at the back of Hikari's head.

This guy had short spiky brown hair, a tanned complexion and dawned a blue jacket with a fire pattern. Even if the schools had slacked on the dress code in recent years, - especially for those in the military program – it was rather ostentatious in Takeru's opinion. Only when Takeru was directed to sit beside Hikari did the brunet look over, the childhood friends whispering hellos to each other as he sat.

He didn't fail to notice the glare the spiky haired boy was giving him, a humorous mixture of anger and disbelief. Takeru couldn't help but smirk. Whoever this guy was, he seemed sensitive to the fact that Takeru has a history with Hikari to talk with her like this.

Class went rather smoothly, and he even managed to learn a few names of his other classmates. Most of them he could recall were from the basketball team, which he signed up for during the first break. He wasn't sure if he dodged the bullet or not with that angry-looking kid. As they packed up their things he overheard him mention something about soccer. While having no interest in it, Takeru did amuse himself with thoughts of beating him in a game.

It had been Taichi's sport. He knew mostly about how to play through him. He remembered Taichi spending many gleeful afternoons teaching him and Hikari how to kick the ball. He was a little impatient, hoping the two four-year-olds would become as good as he was in a few misguided lessons. But he was never mean to them for not being quite old able to get it. That was what kept those memories good ones.

On his way out the door, the brown haired kid stopped Takeru as he tried to leave, stepping in between him and freedom. He folded his arms in front of his chest, staring indignantly at him. He wasn't blinking. Takeru sighed, his shoulders slumping.

"Can I be let through, please? I'd like to go home," Takeru said dully.

"Who do you think you are, getting all buddy-buddy with Hikari?" The brunet said, loudly. Takeru's eyes narrowed.

"What do you care?" Takeru stepped forward, trying to get the other teen to budge. A hand grabbed Takeru's shoulder, shoving him back.

"I'm not done talking to you, Blondie. Answer my question."

"I don't care. It's none of your business what goes on between Hikari and I." Once again, Takeru made an attempt at stepping past the brunet and was again stopped by him.

"Yeah, it kind of is my business. See this?" He opened his jacket, revealing his school uniform underneath. It was the first thing Takeru noticed, the badge on the other hand was what the kid was pointing to. On the inside of the jacket was a badge for the military's youth program. "Due to the situation, which is digimon-related, I have taken it upon myself to protect Hikari Yagami from harassment as an official member of the Anti-Digimon Youth Division."

It dawned on Takeru now. "Oh, you're Daisuke." The situation he was talking about must have been Taichi going rogue. Knowing his name apparently caught Daisuke off guard as he dropped his jacket, giving a blank stare. "Hikari mentioned some kid named Daisuke helping her out yesterday."

"Hikari was talking about me, was she?" Takeru's eye twitched. He hated the way Daisuke said those words; smug with an underlying tone of hopeful. As though it were an obvious conclusion to something inevitable.

"She talked about a lot of things. If it means you'll let me go, Hikari and I are childhood friends. We reconnected yesterday when my brother told her I moved back into the area."

"Back into the area, huh?" Daisuke said, seeming to completely forget to step aside once Takeru relented his personal info. "Must not have been that long ago because Hikari was living in Hikarigaoka when she was younger."

"So was I," Takeru said with a sigh, trying not to show his irritation as Daisuke showed no sign of moving. As much as he liked the fact that he was no longer being accusatory toward him, he still wanted to leave. "Our parents left soon after the digimon attacked Hikarigaoka. Both our parents moved to Odaiba and I lived here for only a few months before moving to Suginami."

At least where he came from was public knowledge, though living in Odaiba was so brief before the divorce. Small details. Insignificant details. Things this nosy person didn't need to know. Takeru pushed past Daisuke, ignoring the sounds of protest from the other boy. He was a quarter the way down the hall when Daisuke called out to him again.

"Hey, you dropped some-" Takeru turned around, seeing Daisuke actually looking at the pamphlet in his hand. It was a pamphlet that his father had given him to read over. He stuck it in his backpack to look over during lunch. Daisuke let his hand drop to his side, giving Takeru an amused look.

"Looking to join the Youth Division? You? You don't look like you have what it takes. No offence." It was clear he didn't mean that.

"Neither do you. Yet here you stand." Takeru held out his hand for the pamphlet. Daisuke looked at his hand and held the pamphlet closer to his body. With a frustrated sigh, Takeru turned around and swiftly walked down the hallway. Daisuke was calling him to come back, but he ignored him and jogged down the stairs, missing the last two steps, holding the railing as he rounded the corner and continued down until he was outside. From there it was a short run back to the apartments.

He stopped at AiMart for a moment to grab a new pamphlet from a stack next to the magazines and an ice cream. Takeru laid on his bed, casually nibbling at the ice cream as he read through the pamphlet.

He unfolded the pamphlet and started to read through it. The first page told what the youth program was about. The program was to train teenagers who were interested in joining the army but were yet too young to better prepare them. It was designed specifically to combat digimon. Soldiers that were in or came out of this would rarely ever go into regular combat. The normal Defense Force and the Digimon Division were mostly separate entities with different skillsets.

The next section was about digimon themselves. Creatures from another world who first appeared around a decade ago in an event known as the First Contact Digimon Incident – or just the Digimon Incident. Supposedly, a group of kids disappeared shortly after and were never heard from again. This incident was pretty common knowledge, especially in the Tokyo area. The pamphlet went on to explain the different levels digimon could obtain.

Digimon were born from eggs, and this first stage after hatching was known as Baby. From there, digimon became In-Training, which was slightly more powerful. Both forms were easily dealt with little danger to humans. Their Rookie forms, however, were more problematic. While several magnitudes weaker than the next two stages, they could still be dangerous to the average unarmed or lightly armed citizen and being capable of damaging property. Champions were often much larger and more powerful, capable of large area destruction, and Ultimates were stronger than that. For both of the last tiers, it was recommended only trained personnel deal with them.

The third page had the questions of what digimon wanted and what the reader could do to help. The pamphlet explained that no one knew what digimon wanted other than land, and didn't object to getting rid of humans in order to do so.

Basically an invasion. Individuals aged sixteen could sign up and start training to use technology and fight weak digimon under the careful supervision of seasoned veterans in a highly protected facility in the middle of Tokyo. Those who joined would be instructed by those with years of experience dealing specifically with the threat of digimon.

Takeru finished the last of his ice cream, biting down on the stick. He wondered briefly how many different types of combat were utilized to fight digimon. Was it just technology? Or did they have some sort of hand-to-hand combat system in mind?

With a thoughtful look, Takeru flipped the pamphlet over. There wasn't much more information on the other side. There were photographs of teenagers in uniform, working on complicated tech, standing guard over the rainbow bridge, and even the aftermath of a battle, with some small orange, round digimon in a cage, held up by a very proud looking boy standing beside a tall man.

One of the kids he recognized. It was that Daisuke guy. He appeared in quite a few of these photos, actually. Takeru frowned. If he did join this group, that would mean he'd have to deal with Daisuke a lot. He wasn't exactly fond of him now, after the incident after school. Even if he did claim it was all to protect Hikari, that didn't give him the right to go around interrogating anyone who got close to her. It looked more like an excuse to check out the competition. Being that protective of her would only isolate her further, and that didn't sit well with him.

His eyes travelled back to the picture of the digimon in the cage. He didn't know why, but he was drawn to it for some reason. It was an In-Training stage known as a Tsunomon. He never encountered this species, but there was something about it.

Takeru tried to figure out what it was that drew him to the picture. The horn perhaps? It made up at least a third of the digimon's body size. No, that wasn't it. The shape? No. The colour…

Images ran through Takeru's mind, flashes of bright blinding light, men in military uniforms filled his vision, all unfamiliar faces if he could see a face at all. His father was there, yelling at him. The noise was deafening, orders being issued, his father calling his name, and shrill cries filled his ears. And a few flashes of orange accompanied a sick feeling in Takeru's stomach.

Takeru felt his knees hit the hard floor as he fell off his bed, kneeling heavily on his knees and elbows, tucking his head in until it almost touched the wood floor. The last thing he saw was the frantic flapping of bat wings.

Taking a few moments to compose himself, Takeru just stayed there motionless apart from the laboured panting. The first movement he made was to swallow the saliva that was starting to trickle out of his open mouth.

Sitting up, he wiped his mouth clean and leaned his back against his bed. What was that just now? He only realized now that his body was shaking, sweat droplets forming and sliding down his face. His legs felt like jelly.

Was that a digimon attack? Had he really been that close to a digimon before? Takeru frowned, trying to recall ever being in that kind of situation. Apart from the attack yesterday, he couldn't think of anything. He wasn't even that close to that incident. Nor could he remember ever being near such surroundings, though he had to admit he barely saw any of it.

Scraping through the flashes of memory, Takeru tried to focus on the background. Well, there was dirt. A hill, and barbwire fencing or chain-link fence. It was all he could recover. Unfortunately it seemed that would be all he could get from those brief flashes of memory. If a digimon really did attack him in the past, it was likely he blocked out the traumatic memory.

He needed to take a walk to clear his head. Glancing back up at the pamphlet, it didn't take Takeru long to decide to check out the facility where all the training would be done. Then again, perhaps he should stay and ask his mom about what just happened to him.

He stepped outside after about ten minutes of deliberation. Well, if he was going to check out the facility, it might as well be while the sun was still up. His mother wasn't in her work room, anyway. Likely, she had retired to her room for a short nap before resuming her work.

She often had an afternoon nap so she could easily work late into the night, grabbing just enough sleep before starting her work day all over again. He wouldn't want to disturb her.

Catching the Tokyo Waterfront line from Odaiba Kaihin Koen station, Takeru soon found himself in a relatively unfamiliar part of the city. It wasn't often that he ever went to Shinbashi. Yet, looking down at the address on the pamphlet, the building was definitely around here somewhere.

As he wandered around, he wondered how big the building could even be if it was so close to the centre of the city like this. If they were going to have a properly large facility, they would have had to do a lot of reconstruction. It was only ten years ago after all, so before that other buildings would have been there prior.

Then again, there had been a lot of damage taken in the early years. Perhaps instead of rebuilding those exactly as they had before, the military instead bought a plot of land. That was the case with a few areas in the ground zero area, Shinjuku. Many buildings were less than seven years old, with construction being a constant all over the place as there was still work being done to replace buildings from the mass chaos that was the first few years. This hypothesis seemed to be true as Takeru rounded a corner and stumbled upon a very large building.

It was white, shining like the building had been finished yesterday. It was an oblong, rounded shape with seven rows of windows, though they were so large Takeru suspected there were more than seven floors inside. The roof looked flat, apart from the large tower that hosted its own barrier emitter.

The address was the same as the pamphlet. He wondered if he could go in to get any further information. Would they allow guests in? How much of the building would he be able to see?

Takeru stood in front of the building, having these mental conversations with himself, barely noticing when a rather tall man with short cropped black hair, a smart suit and glasses stepped out of the building. He nearly ran into Takeru.

"Oh, sorry," The man grunted. Takeru, slightly startled, sidestepped.

"It's alright, sir," Takeru mumbled back. The man continue on a few steps before stopping, and turned around.

"You lost, kid? Or are you interested in the program?"

"The program... But I'm not sure if I want to join or not," Takeru said, glancing back at the man. Looking at him now, Takeru recognized him from the pictures in the pamphlet. The man held out his hand to him.

"My name is Keisuke Tachikawa. I run the technology division for the Digimon Eradication program."

"Takeru Takaishi," Takeru said, briefly shaking his hand. "I was mostly just curious for now. My father, Hiroaki Ishida and my brother, Yamato Ishida are in the military already."

"I see. Well, if you're interested in our program, I encourage you to go inside. You look like a healthy young man. We could use more boys like you in our program. I'm sure you'd do very well."

He nodded a farewell to Takeru and went on his way. Takeru gave a small bow before turning back to the building. He took a step forward, and felt a hand grab his, another covering his mouth. Before Takeru could comprehend what was happening, he was dragged into a nearby alleyway.

Takeru struggled against his captor, who was larger and stronger by the feel of it. With only slight difficulty, he got Takeru far into the alleyway. Managing to break away, seemingly only because the assailant let him go, Takeru whirled around.

"What the hell is the big id-... Taichi?" Takeru's body laxed as he stared at the older man in surprise. He was a lot older now than the last time Takeru saw him. But he still had the same mop of hair he had back when they were kids.

Taichi gave him a lopsided grin. "Hey there, squirt. Long-time no see, right?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Taichi, what's with dragging me into this alleyway? Why is Hikari saying you're part of the digimon sympathizers?" Taichi held his hand up.

"Whoa, that's a lot of questions. Just hang on. First of all, you saw Hikari? It's been a while since I've seen her. I haven't exactly been home since I graduated."

"I kind of got that. I moved back to Odaiba a little while ago. She said she was worried about you."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Taichi said, rubbing the back of his neck. He leaned against the wall. "It's true, I joined a group that doesn't quite agree with the military. So I guess I'm a bit of an outlaw, if there is such a thing anymore."

"Why did you drag me in the alley?" Takeru asked again. Taichi looked back at him and gave a sympathetic smile.

"I saw you talking with that guy. I had to get you out of the way somehow."

"But why did you drag me?" Takeru nearly growled, glaring at the older man. Taichi laughed and made a hand motion telling Takeru to calm down.

"I didn't know if you knew about my more recent lifestyle or not. If I approached you normally there was a chance you'd yell and I'd get caught. I'm an active member, Takeru. I could get incarcerated."

"So then what did you want to talk about?"

"I thought it would be kind of important to talk to you myself before you made any rash decisions."

"Rash decisions?" Takeru repeated carefully. "What are you talking about? What I do with my spare time is my business."

"True," Taichi said. He rubbed the back of his neck again. "Maybe it was just a waste of time talking to you, if you're determined to join that place. I just wanted to let you know that there are other methods to dealing with the digimon invasion than simply murdering them all."

He shrugged at Takeru's silence and walked past him, not looking back but instead giving a wave. "See you, squirt."

Takeru left the alleyway, more confused than before. He decided to walk around Shinbashi a while longer to sort out his thoughts. A lot happened today. There was a lot to sort through. Hopefully he could get it all done before it got too late. The sun was already setting.

His first day of school could have gone a little smoother; especially toward the end. Then again was there really getting around being cornered by a guy almost looking for a fight? Then there was meeting Mr. Tachikawa and Taichi. It was really good seeing him again. Unfortunately it couldn't have come at a worse time.

He lingered on what Taichi had to say for a while. Could there really be an alternative solution to digimon invading Earth? Was such a thing even possible? With how long things have been going on, was an alternate solution to the fighting possible?

Thinking on what he witnessed, he wondered if it was just wishful thinking. There were countless attacks from the digimon on the cities all over the world, not just Tokyo or Japan. There were news reports every day. Even that attack yesterday was pretty intense.

How would such an alternative come about? Would the military and citizens go for it? Would digimon? Or was Taichi just being overly optimistic?

Before long, Takeru found him in a construction zone. Based on the surrounding buildings, it was the remains of a digimon attack. It was so far into the city. Likely it had to be a weakness in the barrier, or one of the in-between zones. Takeru stopped. When did he travel so far?

It was then that he heard soft whimpers coming from inside the debris. Slowly, Takeru approached the site, ducking under a beam and sliding down a patch of muddy hill. He was nervous. The feeling in his stomach returned. Removing a pile of trash, Takeru jumped back when an orange and cream digimon was uncovered.

He fell back hard on his backside, and scrambled until his head met a beam. Panting heavily, Takeru's eyes darted around. They fell back to the digimon in question, who didn't move. It was bean-shaped, with four legs ending in paws, and bat-like wings in place of ears. Large blue eyes were red and watery with tears. It looked like one of its wings and legs were caught in some sort of trap.

Takeru sat there, staring mouth agape, unsure what to do.