Project D.I.G.I.M.O.N

Disclaimer-I don't own DIGIMON.

Chapter Two- Enter: Aijou and Seijitsu

April, 24th 1995 -Garudagoma.

11:57pm -Club 'Pyramid'

Grey-Blue eyes hid behind messy navy black strands, that watched from a corner of the opening club. They weren't jaded, or hateful. They were a pair of matured, and submissive eyes that lowered; tasked into just blending in. They were the eyes of young 16 year old, Jo Kido.

Club Pyramid's VIP server, it really wasn't the best job. He usually got the diamond coated backhands of VIP's arm candy whenever they found something distasteful. Which seemed to be every second of their useless status. Jo was use to it, it was hardly the best thing to be use too, but he accepted it. After all, anything would be better then being her.

Her. Being the 14 year old amber eyed little beauty, with strawberry blonde locks, and ivory skin. Sora Takenouchi. Once upon a time, those amber toned eyes sparkled with love and happiness, surrounded by fresh lilies and forget-me-nots. Those strawberry blonde locks were a pair of long pigtails that blew in the winds under the Harbor Front's docks. The once vibrant sun kissed skin, was the outcome of hours of flirting with Garudagoma's lake beach, in all its splendid glory.

Yet, that was hardly the girl she was now. Sora's amber eyes held no sparkle. They were only hollow as she stared at the older man, who's lap she sat upon. Her once childishly worn hair, was left down to frame her face and tickle the top of her developing chest. The black tube top didn't help. And what was once skin that bared signs of sunny freedom, was forcefully painted white ivory from the many hours...no many days kept behind closed doors.

Jo turned his own grey-blue eyes away from the sight of the older man clearly enjoying himself as he felt up a child. His fate in humanity had always been very small, but in these moments he had to bare witness while working. He lost all fate.

Jo bared a napkin to one of the man's business like companion. He continued to keep his eyes lowered, almost shutted. Probably because he could hear the whispered chuckles, of the two older men and hear the tiny echo of a hand firmly patting -slapping- Sora's rear end. As if they had to give each other ego boosts on being rich and filthy bastards.

The scene played on as such for awhile, as time went by. He could see piece by piece as Sora died more on the inside on the treatment she was forced to receive. Later into the night, Jo's eyes sharply looked up as he watched the companion leave. He quickly turned to the man that Sora still sat on, his hand had risen back up intending to give her another 'pat' in the ass.

"Ah! That hurts!" The bumbling pig began as Jo held onto his wrist with a firm grip. Calculating grey-blue slits kept a locked gaze on the wrist he held, making sure to hold it specifically. After all, one didn't study the human anatomy without knowing critical spots, to cause the similar pain that the man had caused Sora to feel.

"There is a strict rule of no hitting the escorts. A rule you have violated. I'll have to ask you to leave. Now." Jo may be young, but the reason he was stationed in the VIP, was because at the end of the day. He was deceivingly agile and used his brain when applying force to render others to follow Club Pyramid rules.

Sora's amber toned eyes didn't even widen when she felt herself being moved around like a puppet, it didn't register who it was that even moved her. She barely heard the shouts of the man who had been her newest client, she learned early on to numb herself completely. It made everything bareable. She blinked as the blurs meshed together and separated throughout it all, and suddenly there was a light, a bright light. Too bright.

April, 25th 1995 -Garudagoma.

04:02am -Club 'Pyramid' Head Office

"You stupid-!"

"-Motherfucking-!"

"Idiot!"

Sora felt her entire body echo a soreness she was use to, but this time she felt herself on tiled floor, so unlike the main club room floors. Something that was unfamiliar to be laid upon. Blinking open her amber eyes, she heard more curses that were followed by the slight shake of the walls and the crashing of furniture and glass.

Sora finally got off the floor and turned her head to the silhouettes behind the door leading to his office. The owner to Club Pyramid.

Mr. Data Nano.

She knew his silhouette in the fogged glass, as well as she knew her own reflection. It was as if cold water had been dumped over her head, a cold sweat formed in her fear of who was on the other side other then Mr. Nano. Data was not just his usual mad self, he was livid. Taking out his anger on the figure that was probably on the ground curled in pain, as she heard the sound of Data's boots hitting a body, over and over.

Sora was seconds from hyperventilating when suddenly the beatings stopped. She sat on her knee's unable to do anything as she anticipated what was to come next. Her amber eyes watched a short man come out of the room, heavily smoking a large cigar as his own lukewarm brown eyes almost a mucky yellow stared down at her in disgust. She didn't dare breathe as the balding man, with the thick hi-tech, personally modified glasses headed past her. She felt the familiar sting of his cane hit her in the small of her back.

"Get him out of here before I use my good leg to kick his feeble brain in!"

Sora hitched her breathe as she swiftly got up and ran from those murky eyes of his. Entering his office, her chest felt sunken at the sight of the beat up form of Jo. Quickly stepping over to him with the gentle tapping of her ballet flats on the marble floor, she went down on her knee's to move some of his messy black navy hair. Obviously having been pulled a couple of times roughly by the tiny hiss for lightly brushing a hand near his head.

"Your a real idiot, no one told you to stand up for me. Anyone who pays is considered an irreplaceable client to Data." Sora never understood why out of everyone she had met while being Data Nano's ward, that Jo Kido felt he had to protect her to the best of his abilities.

"You'll die one day if you keep it up." She previously had many speeches about him giving up on her salvation and running for the hills.

"Funny...I could say the same about you." Sora's amber eyes froze in place as they looked into the grey-blue eyes that peeked out from his navy hair, piercing and relentless to let her escape the truth of her own fate.

If there was one thing she had to hate about Jo; and no, not the common dislike of his good nature in protecting whatever virtue she had left; or even his need to play the reliable hero. What she hated, was how he made her feel, like she was trying to outrun the rain. Those eyes of his could have past off as murky waters, she had drunken when Data was being exceptionally cruel to her.

And running, was all she could do.

"Sora!" Jo struggled to get up as Sora ran out of the office and hearing the slamming of the closed club's doors, he knew she had left the building too.

April, 27th 1995 -Garudagoma.

01:15pm -Harbor Front

The sound of crashing waves beating against rocks echoed, the lake's beach was deserted during the wet season, no one wanted wet sand...no, wet clay stuck to them. How long had it been since she had stood in the harbor front? Tears rolling down silently, as memories of younger days clouded her mind.

'She was just twelve; kicking the soccer ball with the university professor, her father. While her mother waved from afar on a picnic blanket, surrounded by the fresh lilies. She'd never forget the sand and grass stains on her father's clothes as he taught her a couple of tricks in keeping the ball. She'd never, not remember the pearl white dress her mother was in, she might as well have been a lily herself. As she had kept to being off the lake beach and under the greenery close by. Everything was perfect that faithful spring day, picture perfect. So obviously, it had to be destroyed.'

Sora sat on the clay like sand, continuing to watch the waves and ignoring the early spring chilling winds. Even as they left goosebumps up and down her petite form. Memories of pearl white dresses, torn dirty and crinkling against the blue tarp of a coroner's bag. Plagued her mind until she wanted to scream. Black barked tree's lay waste behind her, no one bothered to keep up with the greenery after the "family killing" that took place in it. Sora kept her hands over her head trying to block out the onslaught of memories.

'An escaped convict had targeted the Takenouchi's family day. She only knew his street name as 'Lil'Devi', the man who killed her parents in cold blood. They were just 'in the way'. Innocent Sora died that night with her family. She had been sent to the orphanage, and adopted by Mr. Data Nano. A hi-tech genius, with no love for anything but money and revenge for his own sworn business competitor, some "Metal-Monkey Joke". He saw how his unique and perverted clients had looked at her. Hell, he had planned on it. He made sure that she knew, their was no such thing as 'love' for someone like her. She was born to be used and abused.'

Funny thing about cruel lies like that, repeated long enough, even after two years. You'll start to believe it yourself. Dried up, brown and crunching leaves could be heard behind Sora, as she whipped her head around, her tears flew behind her, as she stared at the person that had come to pick her up. Jo; in all his bandaged up glory stared at her with a weak smile.

"Funny thing about you...Data always says you look perfect...but I know the truth." Jo slid to sit beside her as he took on his role of 'big brother'.

"That your riddled with imperfections." Sora stared at him, the nightly abuse always took its toll on her, the manifested guilt, that she was the reason Jo got hurt every time. Everything Data crammed into her head, left her a mess of imperfections, and it seemed only Jo was willing to remind her, it was okay to be human.

She's not a doll. Too bad, atleast then she'd have an excuse to not be able to love.

Jo watched as she internally shut down, could feel the small weight lean against his shoulder. His thoughts ran back to when he was first employed -blackmailed- into working for Data Nano. He noticed the pretty little girl, he remembered her picture in the paper months ago, a family shooting. She was dressed in clothes not meant for her, and always in the company of adult men who should never be touching her that way.

Sometimes, when he was left alone, he'd make sure to meet up with her. She use to be so cold and aloof with him, almost as if to drive everyone who could possibly care away. Yet, at times like these, she seemed like a helpless little girl, and every once in awhile, and she'd deny it to death, she would get the tenderest -loving- expression on her face.

Her predicament had always sickened him. So he made it his own mission, to play big brother, to be her pillar, her reliable emotional pillar. After all, it was what he was good at, and he'd be damned if he didn't play his cards right this time around.

'Jo had been born in a family of inspiring doctors, even his two older brothers and himself were expected to be doctors. It was a high expectation. It was tradition. Jo should have known something was wrong though. His brother Shuu, the middle child was fidgeting non-stop lately. Always tensed, snapping at eldest Shin, and himself constantly. Jo was "just a kid", so his concerns fell on deaf ears with his parents. Shin though, shared his keen observations and as Jo heard his brothers tussle into a juvenile fight one night, while their parents worked the ER; he snuck into Shin's room. Unlike Shin and himself, Shuu struggled to be the doctor the Kido's were infamous for, his talents bordered onto hacking.

"That idiot" He had cursed in a low voice, Jo was going through his brother's laptop with dismay growing in him. The fool had hacked into a high security network. A 'dark network', and from what he could see, far more talented hackers then Shuu had noticed him, because an alert of "Metal-Seadra" was glowing an unconcealed threat.

Jo was hardly a hacker, he was just a medical student. Yet he typed away furiously at the keyboard. Trying to conceal Shuu's predicament. Suddenly he found the only thing he knew about advance computers, a loop-hole. A passing hacker. "Datamon".

Needless to say, it was his downfall that 'Datamon' was non too happy at his little ploy. One day, while everyone was out, he had heard the doorbell. Answering it, he had been punched down by an older man, balding and with cruel lukewarm brown eyes, that could pass off as murky yellow. They glared angrily at him, this was the face behind 'Datamon'. Realizing his predicament, and being unable to admit that it was Shuu, that wanted and not him. He had been forced into working for the man. His parents had thought he had turned his back on the family. Shin followed them, turning their backs on Jo. While Shuu could only stare in horror at what he had caused and reluctantly turned his back on Jo 'the Kido outcast'. Yet he never told them why he did it. Doing it for his family. He'd shoulder the responsibility, he was a Kido. He had to be reliable.'

Jo gave a deep sigh, he turned his grey-blue eyes to a figure not to far from his sitting form, and the sleeping Sora.

"I think...I'll take you up on that offer now. If she comes that is. Because I won't be leaving her in this horrid place."

The hooded figure didn't sprout a single word but merely left, the small sound of chains being dropped could be heard. Out of experience in dealing with the hooded figure, Jo turned his head to his side, so not to disturb Sora. His arm reached out and picked up two silver chains with different symboled pendants on each end.

"The symbol's of Aijou and Seijitsu huh? Never knew they had a sense of irony." Jo shifted ever so slightly to place the Aijou pendant around Sora's neck.

"Now you can always wear 'love' on you." The tiny humor didn't reach Jo's eyes as he pocketed his own pendant.

"Do not forget Mr. Kido. D.I.G.I.M.O.N is a curse one must be prepared to kill for." That is what the hooded man had told him when they had first interacted. Jo had never been so sure, since the day he was forced to bare witness to so many despicable acts, that Data Nano was responsible for.

"Reliability...sounds like a bigger curse." Jo got up, with the sleeping Sora in his arms, as he took them out of Nano's reach, and away from the haunting memories of Garudagoma.