For the first few days, Kentarou openly expressed his feelings about having his own Digimon. He was proud to have a Digimon no one had ever seen before. He had to hide it from his parents and get out the potty trainer from his attic, and started going for thirds and fourths at the dinner table.
But after a few days, it wouldn't evolve to Champion stage like Makoto said it should. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...I'll see if Makoto has any bright ideas.
He went down to the park during lunch, where boys and girls with Digimon got some battles in before returning to class. "Hey, anyone seen Makoto around?" A boy stepped out from a group engaged in watching a battle. "He was challenged…" The boy looked down at his shoes.
"Well? Where is he? I need to talk to him." The boy pointed to a large truck towing a trailer that had the "Jousaki" logo printed on its side. It was parked on the other side of the park, and judging by what he'd heard about the Jousaki kid, this couldn't be good.
"I'm coming, Makoto!" Being a rich snob wasn't enough for a kid like Shinichiro Jousaki; he had to torment other kids who weren't as fortunate as him. Recently his name had been mentioned in rumors among Digimon battlers, and he was becoming notorious for his skills. But there was a catch to battling him, and Kentarou didn't know what it was yet.
"Wait, don't! I'll give you anything else! Just not that!" Makoto's voice was breaking, and a nauseous sensation rose up in Kentarou's stomach. He yanked the doors open to expose a single room that was empty except for a small battle arena. Makoto's Greymon was there with a hole in its abdomen, and on the other side a demonic Digimon with leopard spots stood with its mouth gaping and sharp teeth gleaming.
The owner of this Digimon was a boy with a muscular bodyguard at his side. He grinned wickedly at everything before him. "A spectator! And just in time for my grand finis."
Kentarou watched as Makoto's v-pet corroded into nothing. "Hard Armor III..." Tears began to drop to the floor, and Makoto's whole body shook.
"What the hell are you doing, Jousaki?" Kentarou could barely contain himself; his heart sounded like a subwoofer.
"Welcome to my home, the 3-D Colosseum. I'm just getting ready for the last part of the death battle with my friend, Makoto Abe." He kept the smile on his face. "Unfortunately he lost, so I'll be taking his dock now."
The bodyguard quickly grabbed Makoto by his wrist and twisted it, wrenching the dock from his grasp. "You bastard, give it back!" The boy beat on the guard with his fists, but the guard slapped him down and sent him headfirst into the battle arena.
"You won! So give it back and leave Makoto ALONE!" Kentarou rushed at the guard and landed a punch on the side of his face, and out of shock he dropped the dock. Kentarou reached for it, and the next thing he knew he was on the floor with Makoto and some other kids who'd heard the commotion. Shinichiro held the v-pet in his hand. "I won, yes. So that means I get to destroy this dock."
"No! That was the third Greymon I've raised on that! Please, I won't be able to raise another life from that dock if you do this!" Shinichiro laughed, but it seemed unnatural. "Watch carefully, now." He dropped it to the floor, and the guard held Kentarou back when he got up to get it. "Quit it!" he snapped. "I'm not gonna let you get away with this! That thing's important to him!"
"I know. I've researched you, Makoto Abe. You've never been allowed to have real pets, so you collected all versions of the Digimon v-pet and treated them like they were real. You fed them on time, never made any care mistakes, even kept a record of their progress. So this is what you write on the last page of Hard Armor's record." The grin went from ear to ear as Shinichiro lifted his leg up and brought his heel down hard on the dock. The plastic cracked and the screen shattered, the batteries rolled away, the circuits fell apart, and liquid crystal spilled onto the floor. "DEATH!"
"He raised that like it was his own real pet! How can you do that to somebody and feel good about it!?" Kentarou was red, and the blood pumped madly through his veins. "Only powerful monsters deserve to live. 'When you lose, only DEATH awaits!' Isn't that an exciting rule? It's fitting for a game like this."
Kentarou stood up and said, "No. You're wrong! Your rules are wrong!" That grin made him want to rip Shinichiro's mouth right off his face. "Then what's right? If power doesn't matter, then what does? Friendship? Love? Prove it to me in a death battle."
"Don't do it, I don't want your Digimon to die because I lost." "No, Makoto. This guy needs a lesson in what it means to be human. I accept on one condition: I need time to raise my Digimon."
Shinichiro laughed and said, "Fine. I'll give you ten days. At three o'clock on the tenth day, meet me in the park after school. We'll see who's telling the truth then."
The kids left the trailer, the doors shut, and it drove off.
"It's my fault. If I wasn't so good at Digimon, he would've never known Hard Armor III was the strongest in the city." Kentarou tried to comfort him. "It's not your fault. You lost, sure. Everyone does sometimes. But that jerk destroyed Hard Armor. That's why I'm gonna beat him in ten days."
Makoto scowled. "You don't even know. His Digimon is Deathmon. It absorbs the data of monsters it defeats, and then uses that data in battle. It can be several Digimon at once."
"That doesn't matter. I'm telling you, he was wrong." Makoto snivelled. "I'm sure that's what you'll be saying...once you know what it's like...to lose something you took care of with all your heart and soul."
Kentarou turned away. "I do know."
