Impure Diamond
2. Shaded Red
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
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There's a cruel silence in the air. It's paralysing. It's seized him and this wretched heart of his in its grip and it won't let go.
There's only Yuu: his litany of "why" and "Tsuwamon" tumbling from his lips between tremulous nothings.
And, really, those are the only words he wants: answers to his pleas. He wants Tsuwamon to tell him that didn't just happen. He wants the nightmare to evaporate like it was never there.
But Tsuwamon says nothing. He only backs away.
And since when was Yuu standing on the ground instead of Tsuwamon's shoulder?
He trembled. The wind by the bay was cold. Freezing, really. And Tsuwamon backed away from him. Tsuwamon, whose big strong golden body, had blocked the wind before.
Tsuwamon, who under Yuu's lagging, wide-eyed, stare was changing into something… else. He's streams of data suddenly: green instead of gold. And then he's something else again. Fusing with the monolith atop the bay they'd meant to strike down.
And from inside his throat is a deep, rattling laughter that chill's Yuu to the bone.
Someone shrieks.
The spell shatters. There's suddenly more than just the two of them, but it changes little. Tsuwamon is still… not Tsuwamon. And Yuu is still shaking and trembling and on his knees.
When did he sink to his knees anyway?
There's a bubble around Taiki and OmegaShoutmon. It's the rest of Xros Heart, with Tagiru as well as though he's seamlessly merged into them. Maybe he's taken the black hole that should have been Yuu's. Maybe he's taken the black hole Yuu rejected for so long it was gone.
Or maybe it was never supposed to be Yuu. Even if Tagiru was the newcomer who'd floundered his way onto a basketball team and under Taiki's wing.
But that's just insecurity talking, isn't it? That's just jealousy and he knows this. He's gone through it so many times and Taiki knows it too. He must know it. He's left the pair of them alone often enough. Forced them alone so they can find some sort of common ground that doesn't involve climbing up the ladder to the pedestal they've placed Taiki on.
That's what he's been telling himself all year, but this is different. New. Wrong. Or right.
All this time, it was like that…
His mind still can't quite grasp it.
There are words being thrown around. Murmurs from the other Hunters. Something from Tsuwamon who isn't even Tsuwamon anymore.
He can't hear the buzz from the others. But Tsuwamon… Of course he can hear Tsuwamon's every word.
How can he not, after he'd stopped listening before?
'Now I'll change the entire world into DigiQuartz: into my very self. And be rid of the imperfect species: animals, digimon… and human beings.'
I feel tears slip down my cheeks and I wonder why.
'Hey!' Tagiru's voice is painfully sharp. Somehow, it pierces through the icomprehensible fog. Or maybe it's just the words he says. The words Yuu most desperately wants to hear… from Tsuwamon, instead. 'Yuu is your precious partner! What the hell are you doing, throwing him like that? I mean, I know I was going to punch him myself, but how can you say you have no use for him like he's some kind of tool. You're partners! Partners!'
'You don't understand.'
He still sounds like Tsuwamon, Yuu thinks. Like Tsuwamon, and yet not like Tsuwamon. Or maybe Yuu has just been trying to match him up to the Tsuwamon from his memories all this time. The Tsuwamon he never deserved in the first place.
'I am Quartzmon.'
And then he doesn't even look like Tsuwamon anymore. He's twisting in the air. Deforming. Sprouting extra arms and wriggling and thinning and growing six red eyes that make Yuu shudder, even though he can't make himself look away.
'Damemon was the first Digimon I brought into the DigiQuartz.'
And that is the nail in the coffin telling him he'd never had Damemon back, at all. But also a relief because it's not Damemon betraying him…
But then where is the real Damemon?
The tears don't stop falling.
'It was easy. Damemon's data was scattered and broken, much like mine, but he had something to hold him together: this human… or rather, the bonds and memories with it. It took far less to restore him. I absorbed the data of weak digimon to give him back his form while sustaining mine. And then I was able to increase my data absorption exponentially.'
I see it now. So clearly. How the digimon became so much harder to handle after Damemon came back. How our fights ended, more often than not, with at least two Hunters teaming up to take down their quarry. How, so very frequently, it would take all three of us, or even more. The big battle on the abandoned island that took practically the entire Hunter pool to handle.
Before Damemon, they were tame battles. Battles Shoutmon could handle without evolving. Battles Tagiru, a complete novice, could handle on his own if he kept his head.
It makes so much more sense, and he's been completely blind.
'But now I have enough power to assimilate the rest of the world. And without the Brave Snatcher, I cannot be stopped.'
The buzzing has started up again. So loud, yet so incomprehensible and it doesn't do a thing to swallow up Quartzmon's words.
'Amano Yuu, I don't need you anymore.'
He wails.
He knows it's not Tsuwamon, but he still wails.
'Yuu! Yuu!'
Someone's calling his name. He doesn't know who.
I don't need you anymore, Quartzmon says.
Did Damemon ever need him at all? Or is it only Yuu that needs him. Only Yuu… 'Damemon…'
'Sorry about this, Yuu.'
That doesn't quite register until after the fact. It's the pain that clicks first. Pain and warmth. And then his vision is covered by something. Someone's shirt.
Oh, someone is hugging him. After they slapped him.
'You mean it would've been okay if I did punch him? Geez, missed my chance.'
That's Tagiru's voice, as loud and unavoidable as ever.
But Tagiru's not the one hugging him. The shirt's a soft pink and a different sort of familiar.
Nee-san.
Nene.
His arms come up on their own, like they're wrapped in puppet strings. He hugs her, even though he doesn't deserve to. But he needs her. He needs their comfort.
'I'm sorry, Yuu,' she whispers into her hair.
What does his sister have to be sorry for? He's the one who should apologise.
But he can't seem to get the words out of his head.
He can't get the questions out of his head either. How are Taiki and OmegaShoutmon? What'll happen now? How can they defeat Quartzmon without the Brave Snatcher? How are they going to make everything right again?
'Come on.' Nene is speaking again, but this time, her words make no sense. He's lacking the context, somewhere, or perhaps it's just plain understanding he's lost. Nene wants him to go somewhere, or do something, but Yuu doesn't know where or what. He just knows he doesn't understand, and he can't muster the strength to do anything but shake in his sister's embrace beside.
And then Nene is gone: releasing her hold on him, standing up. Her hand is the last thing to go. She's already turned away from him, saying something to something else.
The static is back, filling his ears. The whole world is swallowed in that static… but their world has shrunken down, hasn't it? It's only those with Xros Loaders left. Everybody else has been swallowed up by Quartzmon. Everything else has been swallowed up by Quartzmon.
Damemon has been swallowed up by Quartzmon too.
A thought snakes into his mind and bites with its sharp fangs.
Damemon has been swallowed up by Quartzmon too. Damemon, and every person in the world without a Xros Loader.
If he lets go of his Xros Loader, he'll be swallowed up as well.
His fingers scramble all over his body. Why does he have so many pockets? Which one did he put his Xros Loader in?
Ah, there it is.
His fingers wrap around the plastic. It's so stiff and cold. He pulls it out. It struggles, like it has a mind of its own.
It doesn't. If it had a mind, it was because it was possessed. Now it's not.
Or maybe it'll always be possessed for things he can't be forgiven for after all.
He lets it go. It clatters and the noise seems so loud, it whites out the entire world.
He blinks eventually, slowly, and then blinks again. Aside from his black-encased Xros Loader, the world is still white and empty and cold.
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Monday-Tuesday, May 19-20, 2010
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The dust of broken data hangs in the air for minutes that feel as long as hours. Tyutyumon doesn't react at all, like he's not even there. Except he is there. There and smug, for whatever reason. Smug and unhelpful.
Tyutyumon just leaned back against the bed when Yuu had turned to him for help.
There's a side called Yuu and Damemon, and nobody else is on it.
Yuu doesn't go to Tyutyumon now. He never was someone or something another person would go to for comfort. Just the eyes and ears for the Twilight army. DarkKnightmon's eyes and ears. And bodyguard who'd watched with beaded eyes when Yuu had scoured the room twice over looking for a way out.
That told Yuu there was a way out. The door looks like a reasonable option. It's locked from the outside though, and the tiny flap is just enough for Tyutyumon to get through. Yuu can look, but there's not much point in doing that. There's nothing to see. Nobody passing by.
Not that he's going to find an ally in a castle full of digimon who've been keeping up a façade.
Even Damemon had been keeping up the façade, and he'd also given him the key to tear it all apart.
But that's just as much Yuu's fault, isn't it. Because he'd forgotten first impressions when DarkKnightmon had danced onto the scene.
And now he's got the weight of that price on his shoulders.
Would it have even weight that much without Damemon's absence?
That prompts him to glare at Tyutyumon again. Tyutyumon who'd just lain back calmly when Yuu had screamed and begged.
Lucky for him Damemon had snatched his attention away.
He yanks the pillow Tyutyumon is resting on. The little rat tumbles to the floor.
It's not as satisfying as it could have been. It's not satisfying at all, really, but Yuu's too heavy to muster up the motivation to do more. It's the weight of reality and it's almost unbearable. Curling up with the cushion doesn't take the edge off but it's a kind of primal instinct so he does it anyway.
You could have been cuddling Damemon, a little traitorous voice in his mind points out. You should have been.
But that's the thing about hindsight. It burns. And there's nothing he can do about it.
The Xros Loader could have, if he'd found it in time.
Whatever did he even do with it? How could he have lost it.
Of course, hindsight is also quite vindictive. He bets it'll be easier to find now, if it's here. He can just stretch his hand out a little and it'll be there: that cold, laughing plastic.
He doesn't loosen his grip on the pillow. He can't bear it being right there and him having overlooked it when he needed it.
Oh Damemon, why didn't you just tell me? Or tell me sooner.
And Damemon had been the one to say sorry after all that. Yuu knows he's the one who didn't listen at first. Who listened to the wrong things. Who got the idea of it being a game, a dream, into his head and then ignored everything that suggested otherwise.
It's not like that fight with Taiki is the first time he feels anything other than a pleasant haze.
Heh, it almost sounds like he's been drugged up or something but he knows that's not the case. Or if he was drunk, he was drunk on the idea DarkKnightmon presented.
In that case, the current haze might be the start of the consequent withdrawals.
But he can't blame it on substances like that. Or sickness or anything, really. He can't even blame it on grief. The time in between is too long. His grandmother died years ago. He's had years to remember Damemon's words when they first met. Years to accept what those around him have said: words he doesn't want to hear.
Instead, he used those years to think about all the things he would do in this glorious world where nobody got hurt and, more importantly, nobody died. He thought about all the things he could do in this game that he can't do in reality because the world is too fragile and he'll break everything he touches –
He does break everything he touches, even here. All those digimon he's used like pawns that now he knows aren't respawning at some save point and probably won't make it back at all. Kudou Taiki in Hell's field. And now Damemon as well.
Even if it was all a game, he's killed a human being, and the closest thing he's ever had to a friend.
The tears start anew: big fat tears that soak into the pillowcase and the bedsheets. Tyutyumon says nothing. Maybe he's left through his little mouse flap. Either way, he doesn't care. And since he's really just the glorified baby-sitter, he doesn't need to care.
Yuu wishes for a little sympathy. He knows he doesn't deserve it.
He's a child and his soul feels like it's in pieces. He wants some sympathy anyway.
He wonders if his big sister will still chase after him. He's killed one of her friends, after all. And even if he hadn't, Hell's Field could easily be the tipping point? Anything could have been the tipping point and yet Nene came back, but that doesn't guarantee at all that Nene will keep on coming back.
She knows the true Amano Yuu now, after all.
It's the Amano Yuu that breaks everything he touches. Except his prison. He can't seem to break that.
He wants to, suddenly. It's not fair he can break everything but this.
So he tears at the first thing he can: the pillow that's already in his grasp. It's stiff and tightly woven and unyielding but he fights through it anyway. It's almost satisfying when it does finally tear and white fluff pours out.
Almost satisfying, but not quite. And the blankets are the same. They make no sound. They don't tear cleanly. They don't break. They just become a mess.
He crawls until he tumbles off the bed. The bed is too big. It's a four poster and he rips down the ornaments but he can't make the posts bend. He's not that strong.
He's not strong at all. He's weak. He's only strong in the ways that don't matter.
He punches the post again, and his knuckles bleed. His wild anger drains out of him as well but the crushing weight's still there.
Really, it's only worse because the room no longer looks idyllic, and neither does the world.
It's a very large world, and he's stuck in his room that's feeling more and more claustrophobic by the minute.
He starts pacing liked the caged soul in tatters he is. And isn't it a pity that tattered souls can't slip through mouse flaps like tattered other things can? He paces until the big heavy weight he's carrying crumbles into smaller stones of the same cumulative weight, and he throws himself back onto the bed and cries all over again.
This time, he realises he's scoured the room from top to bottom in all of that and still hasn't seen his Xros Loader.
It's not here. It's seriously not here.
He couldn't have saved Damemon even if he'd been a little faster.
He could only have saved him if he hadn't been so stupid. If he'd listened at the beginning. If he hadn't believed DarkKnightmon and gone along with it all. If he hadn't pushed and pushed and pushed and finally asked too much from Damemon than he could give.
He'd turned Damemon into a monster.
He's turned Damemon into ash.
And DarkKnightmon isn't even here pretending to salvage the situation.
Well, Yuu doesn't think it can be salvaged, anymore. It's shattered. Everything's shattered. That utopia he'd been working towards. The game he'd planned to beat. The bonds he'd ignored. The soul he thought he was giving a break to but wound up breaking instead. It's all a mess like the state of his room and… well… he's got no idea how to move forward from here. He doesn't know if there is a forward. DarkKnightmon might not even need him anymore. The Seven Generals are defeated. Kudou Taiki is defeated. What's left? Kiriha and Nene aren't strong enough at only two-thirds strength, against both DarkKnightmon and Bagramon combined. It doesn't matter that the Death Generals are defeated. It doesn't matter that the Lieutenants are defeated.
It doesn't matter that DarkKnightmon has plenty of those fake Xros Loaders and doesn't need a human child behind the real one anymore.
Right, he doesn't need Yuu anymore. And Damemon who'd needed Yuu long enough to use the Xros Loader the right way for once didn't get what he needed.
I'm not needed. I'm useless.
I've just made a big mess of things.
And in this room, he thinks he can only swirl in that dark mess of emotion, because there's nowhere for any of it to go.