Chapter 3: Changing Tides
"Hold on tight!" Angemon commanded, his strong voice echoing as he lifted Takeru into the air.
"You too, Hikari." Angewomon added on as she followed along behind him.
They'd just parted ways from Taichi, Daisuke, Agumon, and V-mon, and were headed in the direction of the alert that Koushiro received earlier that day. The small group was passing over the forest and could see sand-covered landscape off in the distance.
"I hope Taichi and Daisuke don't run into any trouble." Hikari glanced over at Takeru and flashed him a worried look.
"Don't worry!" Takeru called back to her, grinning reassuringly. "I'm sure your brother has everything under control."
The younger Yagami had faith in her brother and in Daisuke as well. For as reckless as the two of them used to be, they'd certainly leveled out and come into their own. Hikari had always admired her brother, though. Whatever he said, she would do. When he offered her advice, she'd follow it without question. She'd pinned Taichi as being wise before anyone else could see it. That didn't mean that she didn't worry about him, though.
Hikari felt anxious as they approached the desert and she wasn't sure whether to attribute it to her worry for Taichi and Daisuke or her worries about what they might be approaching. She couldn't see anything in the distance but sand. There were no plants, no trees, and certainly no digimon. As they closed in on the location things became eerily quiet. What could have possibly caused the alert if nothing was around to be disturbing?
"Let's all keep our eyes peeled." Angemon reminded them.
"Right."
Once they reached the edge of the forest, Angemon and Angewomon descended. They placed their partners on the ground and looked around them. There was still nothing.
"So what do you think sent the alert?" Takeru asked, breaking the silence as goosebumps began to form on his arms.
"I'm not sure." Angemon replied, scanning his surroundings cautiously. "There's nothing here, but I feel strange."
"Let's get moving so we can get Takeru and Hikari out of here as quickly as possible." Angewomon responded, glancing towards the kids. "I don't like this."
The four of them walked together further into the desert. They kept their eyes peeled, but there was still nothing. Every now and then a gust of wind would come through and sweep the sand up with it, twirling it around in the air before dropping it down five or ten feet away. Between the gusts of wind, the sun was unbearable. Hikari didn't know whether she was getting dehydrated, but the further she went into the desert, the more faint she began to feel. The rest of the group was getting a little ahead of her but she couldn't will herself to walk any faster.
Hikari glanced down at her heavy feet and wondered why it took so much effort to pick them up. She felt as if something was weighing her down, wishing to take her under the sand. The girl looked back ahead and realized her three friends were going on like normal. What was wrong with her? She treaded along like she was walking through water.
Hikari's ears perked up upon that realization. She could hear waves crashing distantly, but there was no water in sight. She froze and suddenly felt water rushing over her feet like she was standing at the meeting of the land and the sea. Still though, there was nothing.
"Takeru… Angewomon…" Hikari called out, noticing her friends were now several meters in front of her. "I… I don't feel so well."
Takeru instantly turned around and dashed back towards her. "What's wrong?" he asked, furrowing his brows in concern once he realized she looked pale.
"Hikari?" Angewomon followed along behind him, looking down protectively at her partner.
Hikari let out a shaky breath. "There's water… don't you feel it?"
Takeru's look of concern grew into one of confusion. "Water?"
"I can hear it, too." The girl went on. "I feel bad."
Takeru spun around to take a second look at his surroundings. He believed his friend, but why wasn't he experiencing the same phenomenon that she was?
"Perhaps it's best that we leave." Angewomon suggested.
"I agree." Angemon added on. "We won't be able to investigate anything so long as we're not all feeling our best. We can regroup and come back."
Takeru felt a bit disappointed, but he nodded. As much as he wanted to figure out what was going on, he wanted to get his friend home safely. "Alright, let's head back then."
It didn't take Hikari long to offer up a weak apology. "I'm sorry. It's my fault we couldn't do what we were supposed to. I hope Koushiro isn't mad."
"He'll understand." Takeru assured her. "But Angemon is right. Maybe we're unprepared. Let's come back later."
The two angel digimon were preparing to lift their partners back into the air, but a low growling came from the distance. Everyone froze as they strained to see what was coming towards them. There were dark figures- tons of them- headed right in their direction.
"What are those?!" Hikari cried out as her digimon put her back on the ground, getting ready to potentially fight. Angewomon clenched her fists and took a half step in front of her partner.
"I don't know." She replied cautiously, but we're about to find out."
The four of them stood and held their ground as the distant shadows turned into ten figures, then twenty, then thirty, and continued to multiply. As they got closer Takeru and Hikari could make out their aquatic characteristics. They were short and blue with white stomachs and they all had fins for feet.
"Divermon?!" Takeru exclaimed, "What are they doing in the middle of the desert?!"
Angemon had another question. "And why are there so many?"
The monsters had red, glowing eyes, and their coloring was darker than usual. Before they could get too close, Angemon and Angewomon blasted off towards them.
"I wonder if these guys were the source of the alert." Takeru pondered as he worriedly looked over at the commencing battle.
Hikari put her head in her hands and groaned. She still felt faint and all she could think about was laying down.
One of the Divermon initiated the fight by yelling out "striking fish" and attacking Angemon with his trident. Angemon quickly moved back and lifted himself higher into the air, shouting "hand of fate" as he shot a bright beam of energy at the monster that had just struck him. Angewomon followed with her own attack, taking out a Divermon that was creeping up behind the other angel digimon.
As the digimon fought, Takeru was becoming more and more concerned about Hikari. She was on the ground now, her knees digging into the sand. He was unaware, though, that his friend was now feeling water washing over her thighs. Hikari felt as though a tide was coming in and waves were crashing closer and closer to her.
"We need to start moving out of the desert!" Takeru told her, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the battle. "There's too many Divermon! We're going to need to run!"
The girl knew that wasn't possible. She could barely gather the energy to look up at him, so she figured she could forget about getting up altogether. Something was sucking the life out of her.
"Come on, Hikari! I'll carry you!" Takeru lent down to grab hold of her arm, but then he heard a voice call his name off in the distance.
"Takeru!"
It wasn't Angemon's, nor was it female. It was someone familiar, though. Takeru spun around and saw three digimon coming towards him. He squinted his eyes and made out Metalgreymon, Atlurkabuterimon, and Lilimon. They were flying in a line with Taichi, Koushiro, and Mimi on their backs.
"Takeru!" Koushiro called out once again.
Once they were close enough, they landed and the three older digidestined jumped down to the ground.
"What's going on?!" Koushiro demanded to know as he looked out over the fight going on in the distance. The perfect level digimon took off to help, and Metalgreymon launched an attack.
Taichi's eyes locked on his sister on the ground and his face paled. "Hikari!" He dashed towards her and knelt down next to her. "What's wrong?!"
"Onii-chan?" The girl muttered, finally looking up. She let her hands drop down to her sides and she looked at him in confusion. "What are you doing here?"
The girl's eyes were dark and she still looked a bit ill. Taichi was looking at her with deep concern, his brown orbs looking more present than hers.
"We need to get her out of here." The older Yagami said suddenly, looking up at his friends.
Mimi glanced back over the battle and noticed that the Divermon were appearing to multiply. Whenever one was deleted, two more seemed to show up. She quickly agreed. Koushiro was hesitant, but eventually he gave in.
"Fine." The redhead obliged. "There's too many Divermon, anyways. We need to get everyone else. Now that we know what the alert was about, we can start to prepare."
Taichi motioned for his digimon to come back towards them. "Let's get out of here!" he called out, helping his sister stand up. Takeru's first instinct was to rush to Hikari's other side to help, but he remained where he was and let her older brother act the part. She seemed to be more responsive to him, anyways.
Angemon and Angewomon held the Divermon off as the other children got prepared to leave. Metalgreymon scooped both Taichi and Hikari up in his hands. Mimi, who was too big for Lilimon to carry, joined Koushiro on Atlurkabuterimon. Angemon and Angewomon both fired their last attacks before speeding off and rejoining the group. Angemon grabbed onto Takeru's hand and picked him off the ground along the way.
Once they were all safely in the air, Mimi looked behind her and noticed the Divermon didn't seem to be following them. It was like they didn't want to leave the confines of the desert. "That's so strange…" she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
Koushiro overheard her. "What's strange?"
"They're not following us." She gestured behind them and Koushiro turned to look. "Why are they even in the desert anyways?"
Amid the chaos, Koushiro hadn't stopped to think about that. Normally Divermon were found in water. A desert seemed like it would be the most unnatural place for them. He pondered for a moment, but he had nothing. "I'm not sure. That's a really good question… At least we found everyone."
"Found?" Mimi asked inquisitively. "Your computer said they were gone, but they were never missing."
Koushiro grew silent again. She was absolutely right.
Daisuke sat with Reiji in Koushiro's room while they waited for everyone to return. The chosen child was a bit agitated that he was the one assigned to keep an eye on the other boy while everyone else got to go in and see some action. Koushiro, Taichi, and Mimi had gone into the digital world about a half hour ago and Reiji remained silent the entire time. He sat motionlessly in one of Koushiro's computer chairs.
To be honest, Daisuke was confused as to why he'd stayed so long. The older digidestined wanted to lay it in to him for sure, but it's not like he was under arrest. He figured that Reiji would get too bored soon and leave. What was he supposed to do if that happened? Hold him down until the others got back? Who knew how long that could take!
Eventually, Daisuke's predication became true and Reiji got up.
"This is stupid." He muttered. "I'm going home."
"What?" Daisuke perked up. "You can't just leave."
"Oh?" Reiji spat. "I don't need to sit around here and wait for your friends to get back just so they can talk about how you all are the only special ones. I've been here long enough."
"Dude, come on, Koushiro said to stay." Daisuke groaned, sick of the boy's complaining. He couldn't figure out why Reiji kept referring to them as 'special', either. It's not like they were idols.
Reiji rolled his eyes. "Well Koushiro isn't here. It sounds like he's too busy screwing up the digital world. If he wants to talk to me later he can find me himself, but to be honest, I don't really care what he has to say."
Daisuke was really getting fed up now. He stood from his chair, knocking it back. "Can you just shut up and wait? You're acting like a prick."
"Whatever." Reiji muttered, heading for the door. He pulled it open dramatically and waltzed through it, eyeing Daisuke to remind him that he couldn't really be stopped.
"Shit." Daisuke moaned under his breath once the boy was out of sight. He couldn't do much to bring him back, but he was really sick of letting his friends down. He bit his lip for a moment and fought with himself before deciding to run to the front door. He threw it open and saw Reiji down at the other end of the hallway.
"Hey!" He called out angrily. "You know, you caused a lot of problems for us! The least you could do is get back here and apologize to everyone."
"Apologize?" Reiji laughed at that. From what he learned from Impmon, they didn't deserve any apologies. It's not like the digital world was their terrain. "Yeah, right!"
Daisuke took a step forward at that, like he was about to bolt after him. Reiji noticed and gave him a skeptical look.
"What are you going to do, chase me? I could outrun you any day. I already do it on the soccer field."
"Shut up!" Daisuke yelled back.
Reiji smirked at getting a rise out of him and went on. "I don't know what Taichi sees in you. Not that Taichi's that impressive of a player. He's selfish and graceless, but I guess that kind of makes sense then, doesn't it?"
Daisuke clenched his hands into fists and took another step forward. "You're such a fucking asshole!" he called out, ready to run at him and fight if he said one more thing. Reiji didn't, though. He just laughed again and walked into the stairwell.
"Fuck!" Daisuke cursed again, spinning around and kicking the wall behind him. "We should have left him in the digiworld." He threw the door open and sauntered back inside. "It would have only been a matter of time until something came along and ate him…"
Sora was happy to finally be home. She took her shoes off at the door and inhaled deeply, taking in her house's scent. It always smelled like flowers, for reasons that were obvious enough, but it also smelled like clean laundry and fresh air. It was familiar and comfortable.
"Mom?" She called out as she headed towards the living room. Sora passed by the kitchen and saw her mom making dinner.
"You're home!" Mrs. Takenouchi exclaimed. "You were gone all night. Did you stay at Mimi's?"
"Yeah…" Sora replied, trying not to turn red and give away the reason why. "I figured it'd be better than walking home late at night."
"Well I'm glad you're back." Her mother replied.
Sora nodded slowly, eyeing the couch. She definitely felt like taking a nap.
"Oh!" Mrs. Takenouchi went on, "Some mail came for you. I think it's from school. I put it on your desk."
"School?" Sora asked, dreading the idea of having to fill out any more paperwork. She groaned and shuffled towards her room, pulling her bag along behind her.
"Sora." her mom said quietly from behind her, causing her to turn around.
"Yeah?"
"Just so you know," she smiled softly, "I'm really proud of you."
The girl sighed and smiled back. "Thanks Mom."
After she plopped her things down on her bed, she shut her door and took a seat at her desk. There was a large manila envelope waiting for her.
Sora wondered if she was supposed to look forward to getting things from her university. Did other people? Taichi sure seemed excited to be heading off on a new adventure. Yamato, however quiet he'd been about his plans, had never complained.
"I'm going to study physics." She remembered him announcing, his voice cool and calm as ever.
Taichi and Yamato both seemed to enjoy the subjects they picked to study, though. That was the difference between her and them. Taichi had thought long and hard about what focus on, and he eventually decided on international relations. Yamato had grown an interest in physics during high school and quickly excelled at it. As Sora pulled out a giant book of course listings from the package, she realized she was meant to look through them and pick out which ones she was going to take during her first semester.
The girl opened up to the first page and glanced over a welcoming letter from the head of the math department. He wrote about how excited he was to have all of the new students and how he hoped they'd excel and go on to be great mathematicians.
Sora- a mathematician? She didn't really like the way that sounded in her head. She wondered what mathematicians even did. Although math seemed like a simple thing to study in school, Sora never thought to think about what she would do with it. Perhaps she'd been too rash and shortsighted with her decision.
The redhead turned the page and noted the long list of calculus courses. On the next page there was algebra. She struggled to get a grasp of what requirements there were and how many of each section she'd have to take. A few pages after that there were higher level classes that built off all the entry ones. There was one common theme though- all of them seemed incredibly boring. She couldn't even focus on reading the descriptions.
And all of this for what? Sora didn't want to teach, she didn't want an office job, and she didn't want to do anything financial. She didn't want her daily life to become repetitive and mundane. But she also remembered how happy her parents were when she told them what she'd be going to school for. It would be a nightmare to try and reverse her decision now, and that's when she felt her breath start to shorten.
Sora lurched forward in her chair and felt her chest tighten. Her eyes widened as she tried to steady the rising and falling of her chest, but it was no use. She could feel her skin getting clammy and her eyes started to water.
Terrified that she was having some sort of medical emergency, she tried to call out to her mom but it was no use. Her voice was cracked and quiet and it could barely be heard over her heavy breathing. Her head began to spin and everything around her started looking fuzzy, like her mind was preparing her to pass out. Sora stood and stumbled towards her bed, struggling to lay down before her shaky legs gave out and forced her to collapse to the floor. She was hot, and her blankets made her back sweat, but she was thankful to not have to expend energy by sitting up.
Sora kept focusing on her breathing, panicking more because she couldn't seem to will herself to stop panicking, and for what? She couldn't shake the feeling that someone was coming to get her, or that something terrible was meant to be happening, but all she'd been doing was looking at her math courses.
At this point, the girl could feel herself completely sweating. She laid flat on her bed and stared up at her ceiling, trying to count as she inhaled and exhaled. Eventually the counting seemed to be working as her chest steadied, but then she started to feel exhausted. It was like she'd just run a marathon. She was out of breath, her muscles hurt, she was sweaty, clammy, and had no idea why any of that had happened.
Had she made it all up? She considered getting her mother for a moment, but all she could think about was sleeping. Sora curled up in a little ball on her bed and glanced over at her desk where her packet of courses remained. All she wanted to do was throw it away.
Yamato could smell burning food through his front door. He instantly knew his father had tried to cook again.
"Dad?" he called out as he walked inside, bass in hand.
"I'm in the kitchen!" he called back, his voice a bit strained.
The boy left his things at the door and walked in. There was a thin layer of smoke in the air.
"I could have made dinner…" Yamato said quietly. "You're gonna set the fire alarm off."
"Well, I got home from work early!" Mr. Ishida replied as he bent over to pull a tray of food from the oven. "I figured I'd treat you."
Yamato stared skeptically at his father. "Treat me?" he laughed.
"Listen," his father said, glancing up to shoot his son a visual warning, "I made dinner. You could appreciate it."
"I do, Dad!" Yamato put his hands up in defense. "Let me get some plates. We'll see how easy whatever-you-made is to eat."
Mr. Ishida sighed as his son set the table for the two of them. He'd never been the best cook but he did want to do something nice for his son every once in awhile. Soon he'd be moving out and going to school and he was running out of chances to have dinner on the table for him when he came home. Plus, he had some news, and he wasn't sure how Yamato was going to feel about it.
Mr. Ishida waited until they were both seated and ready to eat before he began to think about telling his son what was on his mind. He delayed himself by asking too many questions.
"How was your day?"
"Did band practice go well?"
"You didn't get too drunk last night, did you?"
"Dad!" Yamato finally exclaimed, thinking that he was acting peculiar. The blonde watched as he fiddled with his food.
"Sorry." He shrugged, putting his fork down neatly next to his plate. "I'm a little uh, nervous."
"I can tell…" The blonde began, watching his father carefully. "What's up? Did you have a bad day at work?"
"No, no," Mr. Ishida began, shaking his head, "it's not about work. I uh-" he paused, glancing up to look at his son. He watched for any sign of realization on his face but there was nothing. He sighed. "Yamato, I met someone."
Yamato blinked, the words passing through him before what his father had said actually hit him. "You what?"
His father looked at him seriously. "I met someone."
"A woman?" Yamato asked, just to make sure he'd heard things correctly.
"Yes, a woman." His father clarified, his response a bit gruff. He was trying to figure out how his son was reacting but too little emotion was being shown.
Yamato stayed silent for a moment and furrowed his brows. He'd always known his family wasn't going to get back together, but it had just been him and his dad for such a long time. He wanted to ask so many things- who was she? Where did they meet? Was it serious? Would she be coming around? But at the same time, he didn't really care. He didn't want to know. He wanted things to go on as they had been. They'd both been happy that way, right?
He kept his face as blank as possible. Yamato wanted his dad to be happy, of course, but for some reason he didn't want to seem particularly affected by the news. "Have you told Takeru?"
"Takeru?" His father looked back at him confusedly. "Er, no. I figured I'd tell you first. I haven't seen your brother in a few weeks. This woman, um, Ume, she'll probably come around soon, so I just wanted you to know."
Yamato nodded and took a bite of his food. Ume. Great. She had a name.
Back at Koushiro's apartment, Daisuke was busy trying to explain that Reiji had left.
"That kid…" Taichi muttered angrily. "He's got no respect for anyone else."
"You're telling me." Daisuke rolled his eyes, his hands crossed tightly across his chest. He couldn't clear his head of the rude things that he'd said, but he also couldn't bring himself to pass them on to anyone else. He didn't see a need to make anyone more frustrated.
"Well, what's done is done." Koushiro interjected. "We just need to make sure this doesn't happen again. This is the first time in the history of the world that anyone's known about any parallel worlds, so we all need to keep track of our things and be aware of who's around us."
"Right." The group said, Daisuke a bit more quietly than the others.
Koushiro still had no idea how Reiji had managed to open the digiport with someone else's D-3, so he wanted to make sure everyone was cautious until he figured it out.
Taichi glanced over at his sister, who seemed to be regaining some of her energy. He still worried about her even though she was growing up and he was nervous his emotions were showing on his face. He quickly diverted his eyes.
"And the alert?" Mimi asked, looking expectantly at Koushiro. She'd said before that Takeru and Hikari had never really disappeared- it only appeared like they had.
"I don't know." Koushiro replied, defeated. "I'm assuming it was all those Divermon, but I still can't explain the shift in data. We couldn't really get in there to find out, so I'm going to try and figure it out. I'll let you guys know as soon as I do."
"Koushiro…" a small voice began. Everyone spun around to look at Hikari. She glanced at her older brother, almost as if she was looking for his reassurance that what she was about to say wouldn't be stupid. "When we were in the desert, I heard water. I felt it too. It was like something was draining the energy out of me, and I've only ever felt like that once before."
Takeru felt his hands form fists as she spoke. "The dark ocean…" he muttered under his breath.
"The dark ocean?" Taichi asked, glancing from Takeru to his sister. "You were there?"
Hikari looked at him apologetically. "Once. Someone called me there and I felt just like I felt earlier."
Taichi snapped his head back to Takeru. "And I never knew about this?"
Takeru didn't answer. He could feel his nails digging into his palms. They were supposed to be done dealing with that sort of darkness. He kept his eyes locked firmly on the ground and chose to address Koushiro instead of Hikari's protective older brother. "If that really was the dark ocean we were feeling, we need to do something about it as soon as possible."
Koushiro was lost. Normally he'd be able to come up with some sort of plan but he had no idea what sort of energy they were dealing with. He knew Takeru wouldn't want to hear it, but they needed to wait.
"The digimon agreed to keep an eye on things for now. Tentomon will let me know if anything immediate comes up."
Takeru furrowed his brows, his voice low and raspy. "Then we'll be too late."
Daisuke had remained silent the entire time. He hadn't been able to help out with the dark ocean when it'd taken Hikari before and he felt even more useless now. If he knew one thing for sure, though, it's that Koushiro's decisions were to be trusted. He also felt the need to redeem himself, so he spoke up supportively. "What would we do if we made any rash decisions? Koushiro's right. We need to wait for more information. If we go back in before we're ready, someone might get hurt."
Takeru was stunned at that. It wasn't like Daisuke to want to wait, especially when the digital world might be in danger. Takeru trusted his friend too, though. Daisuke had never let anything seriously bad happen in the past. "Alright."
"Why don't we all go home." Taichi said, sounding more like he was making a command than asking a question. Hikari knew she'd have a lot of explaining to do.
Takeru and Daisuke agreed, and soon it was only Koushiro and Mimi left in the room. She waited until she heard everyone else leave the apartment before breaking the silence between them. "If we were really in the dark ocean, that would explain why Hikari and Takeru couldn't be seen on your computer."
Koushiro spun around in his chair and looked up curiously at her.
She continued cautiously. "It's like they… transferred dimensions, sort of, isn't it?"
"I suppose…" The redhead responded, wondering what she was getting at.
"Well if we did that, wouldn't it be possible for something to cross over the opposite way? We banished Daemon there years ago."
Koushiro felt his face pale. He wasn't willing to believe that was possible, at least not in his conscious mind. He didn't want to acknowledge that question- not because it was stupid- but because the answer terrified him.
"We need to figure out if what we experienced was actually the dark ocean." He said, leaving it at that. Koushiro believed in the scientific process. He wanted to figure one thing out before jumping to the next question, especially when it was a question with such a huge implication. He also knew that Mimi was the type of person to trust her gut. It was just… her gut was usually right.
He kept his eyes locked on her for an extra second, and in that second he felt all of her worry. She knew she was right, too.
A 'bing' came from Koushiro's computer and startled him. He spun back around and noticed an email in his inbox.
"What is it?" Mimi asked, primed to believe it was something urgent.
Koushiro didn't recognize the address that it came from. He quickly read over the message. It wasn't related to digimon, but it still left him dumbfounded.
He spoke to Mimi while rereading the letter, just to make sure he'd understood it correctly. "I don't know who it's from, but he wants to meet me. He says he was friends with my dad…"
He turned back around, and this time it was Mimi who felt his emotion. Her eyebrows shot up and she felt guilty for looking so surprised. "Y-your dad?" She'd never really spoken to Koushiro about his family before, but she knew what happened to his parents.
Koushiro knew he had no scientific process for this. Mimi was the one who was good with emotions. "This is a lot… I don't know what to do."
Mimi walked up to him, wondering how she was supposed to provide comfort. Koushiro confused her sometimes. She figured that he was still human though, so she put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "I think you should do what you think is right. If he really wants to meet you, I'm sure he'll do it on your time."
Koushiro was at a loss for words. He felt himself jolt slightly at Mimi's touch, but then it became calming. "Maybe you're right. I should meet him, but maybe I should wait until I'm in the right mindset."
"That sounds like a good idea!" She offered him a small smile and took her hand back. "And don't worry about talking to me if you need someone to sort things out with. I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."
Mimi hoped her offer wasn't too forward, but it seemed to be well received. "Thanks, Mimi." Koushiro replied, and if she wasn't mistaken, she saw the smallest tinge of red spread across his cheeks.
Across town, Reiji found himself sitting on a park bench looking out over the harbor. The sun was beginning to set and the sea seemed to go on forever. Nothing but water could be seen past the horizon. He couldn't help thinking about Impmon and the digital world. He rolled a stone over in his hand and threw it out into the crashing waves.
"Stupid… shit…" he muttered to himself when it didn't skip like he'd intended it to. It sunk straight to the bottom of the ocean.
Reiji had never been fond of Taichi and Daisuke. He'd meant it when he called them selfish football players. Talking to Impmon really sealed the deal, though. Deep down perhaps he knew that he had jumped the gun by believing everything he'd heard, but it just seemed to make so much sense. He wanted that narrative to be true, and so it was. Taichi and Daisuke couldn't possibly be the heroes they thought they were. No. Not them.
Reiji thought back to the year before when his school football team had made it to the semi-finals during a tournament. He had the ball and was dashing towards the goal. It was going to be his moment. They were one point down, and tying with the other school would give them more time to make a come-back. As he sprinted, he began to drift off into his thoughts and didn't see a defender coming straight for him. He tripped over himself, and the clock ran down before his team had another chance to score.
"Good going, Reiji." Taichi had said to him in frustration.
Everyone else thought Taichi was a good guy and a kind captain, but he had never seen it. And Daisuke? He was pathetic, trailing behind the older boy like some sort of lost puppy.
He knew their true character. How could they be responsible for something like the digital world? They couldn't.
Reiji chucked another rock at the water, and once again it failed to skip. The waves ate it whole.
Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I apologize for the long wait. I had some things going on, but I've managed to get it finished. I also truly appreciate the reviews that everyone's been leaving. It's really encouraging that people are reading the story and think enough of it to leave some thoughts. I also appreciate people pointing out some confusing aspects, so I've tried to tie a few things together in this chapter that might have gone over my head had others not pointed them out. A good friend of mine (user gr0wlmon) has been kind enough to beta read everything for me, but I think it might be easy for us to miss some potentially confusing things since we both know the basic plot? Once again, I'm always trying to improve my writing so I truly do appreciate the honest feedback. I hope you all do trust me with the plot though! I'm working on making Reiji's point of view more understandable, but that will come with time.
Anyways, I think this chapter led in to a lot of things, and I'm really excited to start getting into each character's individual struggles. A lot of reviews have asked about relationships, and although they will vary and help with character development, they won't be extremely central to the plot itself so I hope you all don't hate me if I don't write about one you're really hoping to see! I do love exploring different relationships, so you might be expecting some, you might not be expecting others, who knows! :)
I expect things to really pick up in the next chapter, so I hope you'll check back for updates. I've also been trying to respond to most of the reviews I'm getting, at least with some sort of thanks. I wasn't able to do it for the past chapter because I was busy but I'm still very thankful. Once again, thanks for reading. I'm still amped to be back writing fanfiction after a very long hiatus.
garudamon.
