Part 3
The Boy simply stared at her for a moment before asking her "How did you know my name?" "Then it is you" Kari said totally shocked. 'He's not dead, he's really not dead.' "Ya and who exactly are you?" Koushirso asked. "It's me, Izzy don't you recognize me" She said, then seeing the blank look on the boy's face she looked down and remembered how much she'd changed in the past four years. "It's me Hikari" She added. "Hikari, that's impossible." He exclaimed. "What?" She asked confused. "You can't be, quit playing games who the hell are you?" Kari was taken off guard by the statement, If anyone should be asking that it should be her.
"What are you talking about, I'm not playing games with anyone" She shot back. "Then quit trying to say that your Kari, it's just not funny OK" Was his reply, he actually sounded serious. "I'm not gonna quit telling you I'm Kari, I am Kari, why wouldn't I be Kari?" Kari shouted at the boy who still didn't seem to believe her, she was starting to get very annoyed. "Because Kari's dead" He began. "Puppetmon killed her." "No, he didn't, he killed you guy's, or at least I thought he did." She explained, now even more confused then before. The boy looked her over for a moment before saying. "No, your not Kari, you can't be." "If I'm not Kari then why would I have this" Kari asked pulling the crest of light out from under her shirt.
Izzy stared at it, totally surprised at what he saw. "But that, it just doesn't make sense" He muttered. "What does?" Kari replied thankful that Izzy finally seemed to believe her. "But if your Kari, then who did we see die" Izzy asked. "I could ask you the same question." She said truthfully. "What do you mean?" He asked. "Well, I saw you die too, all of you and then somehow or another I ended up back home" Kari answered. Then she looked at him and once again and a puzzled expression crossed her face. "Hey shouldn't you be like twenty something by now" She asked totally changing the subject. "Huh" Izzy replied. "Well, according to digiworld time hasn't it been like ten years or something" She continued. "Oh that, don't ask me how but it seems that time in the digiworld has slowed down quite a bit, in fact now it's the same as it is in our world" He answered. "Now back to the subject of you being alive, tell me what happened."
"Were should I start" She asked not really wanting to start at all. "How about when Puppetmon kidnapped you." Izzy suggested. Kari nodded reluctantly, that was the last place she wanted to start. "Well, when he got me he took to his mansion, I guess he decided I could be one of his friends, toys, whatever you want to call it, you know the way he did with TK?" Izzy nodded. "Then you guys got there to save me and he used me as a hostage or something, he told you guys to give up your crests and digivises in exchange for my life, and even though I told you not to you did. And then....." Kari trailed off, could she really continue this conversation, could she really talk about this again.
"Then what happened?" Izzy asked leaning forward with extreme interest, he could tell that she didn't want to talk about it but he knew she had to. Kari took a deep breath before continuing. "Then, well since you guys didn't have your digivises and your crests the digimon couldn't digivolve, they were just no match for him. Eight rookies against a mega, they just couldn't win, there was no way they could win. It only took a few minutes for him to kill them all, and then, then he went after you." Kari stopped again, these memories were just to much for her, especially with Izzy sitting right across from her. She didn't want to continue, she wanted to stop right there, still all it took was another deep breath and a reassuring look from Izzy for her to start again. "He killed you all and I couldn't do anything about it, I was still trapped in his mansion but I could see the whole thing from the window. After you were all dead I started crying really hard and it was really weird but my crest started glowing and then my digivise and the next thing I knew I was home."
"Home" Izzy looked startled by the whole thing. He knew how young Kari was when it happened, she was only eight years old. The events she had witnessed were enough to make a grown man cry, but for such a young girl, the thought made his stomach turn. "Ya" She continued. "Well, not exactly home, you see when I got there I was at the same place where we fought Myotismon, and with the whole digiworld time thing it had only been a few minutes there since we left, so everyone was still there. I think it was Joe's brother Jim who saw me first. The next thing I knew my mom and dad were hugging me, but that only lasted for a few minutes cause everyone just crowded around me and l asked me where you guys were."
Izzy suddenly went from feeling sorry for Kari to feeling sorry for his parent's. "And you told them we were dead, didn't you." Kari nodded sadly. "What else was there to tell them?" "Man and to think, all these years that you thought we were dead, we thought the same about you." Izzy said ironically. "Why exactly did you guys think I was dead?" Kari asked hoping that their reason wasn't quit as depressing as hers. "Well, when we got to Puppetmon's mansion, you know to save you and all, well you weren't there. Tai got all mad and demanded to know where you were, Puppetmon told us that you were dead, he said that the two of you were playing a game or something and he'd won. We all got really mad then and Wargreymon killed Puppetmon. After that we went on to defeat the dark masters. But at first we didn't believe you were dead, even though your signal wasn't showing up on the digivises, I even made this tracking program but we still couldn't find you, eventually we just excepted the fact that you were dead."
"But why would Puppetmon do that, I mean wouldn't it be in his best interest to just go ahead and use me as a hostage the way I thought he did." Kari asked a little curious. "Maybe that's what he planed to do originally, I don't think he expected you to go home the way you did." Izzy replied trying to make sense of the situation. "So what your saying is that he really was playing with me, or rather my mind" She said angrily. "That's what it sounds like, and then I guess he couldn't really come up with an explanation for what happened to you so he decided to play with us a little too, by telling us that you were dead." He said sadly. "He really did win, he tricked me. All this time, all this time I've wasted, all this time I've been alone, all this time." She exclaimed showing Izzy how angry she was for the first time.
Koushirso just stared at her. ' So this is how it's been for her all these years. And I thought we had it bad after her death, but we still had each other, she didn't have anyone. All these years she really has been all alone.' Kari bit down on her lower lip still staring at Izzy. 'What am I doing, I'm getting all upset again, I can't let him know how bad it's been for me, he just wouldn't understand. I have to change the subject, ya that will work.' "Can we talk about something else?" She asked after a long pause. Izzy looked at her worriedly. 'Ya change the subject that's gonna make you fell all better, ya right.' Reluctantly he nodded and simply said "OK"
"All right then, um....What happened after that, I mean it has been four years, so what did you do after you defeated the dark masters?" Kari asked. "Well, after that it was actually quiet for a while, maybe a month or two, of course there were always those little attacks here and there but we beat them easy. Besides most of the digimon were just so happy that the dark masters were gone that they treated us like royalty. At that time our main objective was to get home, but for some reason we just couldn't get back, there wasn't a gateway. Then there were some more mega's who challenged us, Garomon, Fungomon, and Hidramom to name a few, but we beat all of them too. It wasn't until about a month ago that we started having any real big problems again."
"What happened a month ago" Kari asked knowing that it couldn't be good. "That's when Ruthomon showed up. I don't know where he came from but we just can't seem to beat the guy ya know. Don't ask me how but it's like he's reached a level beyond mega." Izzy replied sadly. "Is that possible?" She wondered. "Apparently it is." He said. "What would that stage be?" Kari asked. "That's just the thing there is no stage after that, that's why it's so confusing, but lately we've been calling it maxima." Was his reply. "You mean like maxim?" She asked. Izzy nodded. "Hey speaking of we, where is everyone, where's Tentamon anyway shouldn't he be with you at all time's?" Kari wanted to know.
"There back at camp, Tentamon and I went out to look for food and then my digivise stared beeping, that's when we found you. That Lucomon was just about to attack but when we saw you Tentamon digivolved and scared Lucomon off. So since you were out cold and there didn't seem to be any sign of you waking up any time soon I sent Tentamon back to camp to let the others know I was OK. I figured it would be faster and safer that way rather then trying to get you all the way back to camp in your condition. Tentamon should be back any time now though. Wont he be surprised to see you, wont everyone." Koushiro replied. "I'm sure they'll be just as surprised as you and I were." Kari said matter of faculty. He smiled "Tai is gonna be so happy, they all will, but Tai maybe we'll finally get him back." Kari was a little surprised by the statement. 'Get him back' she thought. "What do you mean get him back?" "Oh nothing to worry about it's just, well ever since you died, or rather ever since we thought you died Tai just hasn't been the same." He said the smile fading quickly from his face.
"How do you mean?" Kari asked. "It's just, well..." "Spit it out" "He blames himself. You know him, it's like his greatest fear for one of us to get hurt cause he thinks it's because he made a bad decision or something. And well losing you that was just to much for him, I mean he's still a great leader and all it's just he's got kind of a one track mind, all he ever thinks about is keeping us safe, he's so afraid of any of us getting hurt that it's almost gotten him killed a number of times." Izzy explained sadly. Kari felt horrible, her brother felt that way because of her. 'Since when do I care about anyone, Dammit this is only gonna get me hurt, I knew coming here would get me hurt.' She thought, but she couldn't say it so instead she asked "Oh, well when can we go see them?"
"I guess we could go as soon as..." " Izzy, I'm back" Tentamon announced cutting the boy off as he flew down to where his friend was seated. "Now" He finished. "Great then lets go." She said picking up her back pack and standing up slowly so not to hurt her ankle anymore then she all ready had. "OK, hey Tentamon were gonna head back to camp now" He told the exhausted digimon as he to began gathering his stuff. "Aw Izzy, I'm tired I've been flying all night." Don't worry about it we have to walk slowly anyway until Kari's ankle gets better." He said putting out the fire. "Kari, what are you talking about?" Tentamon exclaimed totally confused. "We'll explain on the way." Kari replied as the trio headed toward the digidestind camp.
A/N : OK part 3 is done. I don't know about you but I thought it was sort of sad, but maybe that's just me. Anyway I was board the other day so I wrote summaries for what's gonna happen in the rest of this fic and hate to say it but the list got kinda long, so hopefully nobody minds long multipart stories. Another thing is that the name of this fic doesn't really go with the rest of it but not much I can do about it now huh. Not that I'm changing any thing it's just that Kari's no longer the only main character, still THE main character but a certain somebody else is gonna be a really important character too. Hehe, can you guess who it is? Wow I just typed a lot! sorry 'bout that! Bye.
