A/N: A mix of both worlds this time, though the second part is again from Daisuke's POV. Next chapter we'll switch to Takeru and will cover the rest of chapter 2. There probably won't be another update for a while, since by next chapter I'll have passed the 10k hurdle for the competition this is entered for, and it's a good time to switch focuses to something a little easier to write. This crossover is hard work. :D And I still need to rewatch Sunday Without God too.

Enjoy!

After the Undead, the Reaper Calls
Chapter 4

Coming back to the bay had been a tentative decision for her. The majority of the dead from three years ago were still there, and it was there her actions in burying them would be more noticeable. But, to her knowledge, she'd cleaned up the others, those that had spread far and wide, and new deaths as an aside. But now she had come to the crux of her task, and there was a request from a man – or not man – that she had met in this bay three years ago to honour as well.

But there were still over a thousand dead to bury. Closer to two thousand, she thought. Maybe a bit above if one included other causes for mass death. A car crash that had killed two bus-loads of kids and their teachers but no-one had noticed, since they'd all sat up and walked on. Many who died of sickness but went on, day by day, not realising. The ignorant Japan still declared death: heartbeats that ceased in moments of unconsciousness, but the oddity of finding no heartbeat on one awake was generally put down to poor skill. She knew little of the living's world, but sometimes she wondered if there existed a way in their technologically advanced society to check every person: check their eyes, or the tint of death in their sclera. But they'd seen no cause. Not yet. As advanced as the east was, it was segregated from the west wherein the truth began to spread.

But their ignorant bliss wouldn't last forever. Japan was kept cleansed for a time through their cremations but unprecedented and misunderstood disasters caused the hidden death toll to climb. And when the dead went on living, their bodies and minds decayed. One day they would lose all reason and seek only their preservation if they weren't buried in time, and then the happy days of ignorance would end.

The job of a Gravekeeper was to prevent that. At least in a part of the world where ignorance still lived.

.

The Gravekeeper was digging her first grave near the bay when she felt it: light souls, alive souls, blossoming in to the world. They couldn't be born. There no births any more. And yet she was sure they hadn't been there just seconds before.

Leaving the half dug grave, she wandered after the lights. They split far before she reached them, and only one came her way. She followed it: it was the closest after all. He: it was a boy around ten, or eleven or maybe twelve, with goggles on his head.

She watched him enter a building cluttered but not entirely filled with dead.

She would need to stay away from that apartment building, for the time being at least.

.

Daisuke babbled off some excuse to his parents while kicking off his shoes. They assumed he was playing soccer anyway, so they didn't complain. He was well within his curfew after all. Not even late for dinner…not that he ever was late for dinner, because dinner at the Motomiya apartment could fill his appetite when cafeteria food could not.

He hadn't been playing soccer, but he shed his clothes and hopped into the tub anyway. The digital world had been an adventure, after all, and it was always nice to feel the muscles relax in the warm water. And it was a good time to think as well, until the water became cool and his sister knocked on the door until he came out – and why she bothered, he'd never know. But no amount of thinking would consolidate the digital world. It was strange, like a world of a movie or a video game, and yet it was real and he'd made a friend in that world.

V-mon. He wondered what V-mon was doing now. Whether they'd meet again. They probably would, if there was that Digimon Kaiser going around ruining the show. They'd have to fight and beat him and create a happy ever after ending for everyone, like the hero always did in the video games.

Except it wasn't a video game, and people got hurt. Hikari-chan had hurt her ankle, and though she'd been able to walk with a slight limp afterwards so it wasn't sprained or even strained (and soccer club was the only reason he knew the difference between the two), but it was plainly more than just a game. If that fiery attack had hit Hikari-chan, he was pretty sure she would have been badly hurt, or worse. And there'd be no magic medicine to make things better or revive her should she die otherwise her face wouldn't have been so terrified. Because she'd been to that world before. She must know that much at least. And that made him a little afraid as well, because there would be no second chances if they messed up.

But at least he knew that now. There were no second chances in this world either and he wasn't afraid of his own shadow. It was just a surprise; even though he'd heard of the digital world, he'd never really expected it.

He'd just have to be careful, he figured. And brave. In this world, the adults did the fighting. In that world, it'd be them and their digimon partners. On the down side, that meant they were the ones in danger, and the ones who had to do the hard work as well instead of just reaping the benefits of his father's salary and mother's housekeeping and just going to school every weekday…

On the plus side, they got to actually mean something. They got to fight, and be heroes.

And his dreams that night were filled with V-mon and knights and something sparkling.

.

They collected in the computer lab that afternoon. Taichi-sempai and Hikari-chan and Takeru were there, and Koushiro-san. Then there was Miyako and a little guy called Hida Iori, and an older girl in the same uniform as Taichi-sempai whose name was Takenouchi Sora-san. Koushirou explained a few things, and Daisuke added his own tidbits. After all, he was the only one of the new kids to go to the digital world. That had to count for something. Even if Miyako was rolling her eyes at him.

He was sure she'd be freaked when she saw the digital world was far more real than some video game.

He didn't get the chance to witness it though. Even before going through the gate, it was a bustle of activity. They got interrupted by a teacher the older kids seemed to know, and Taichi-sempai led him out before he spotted the gate on the computer. Which left the rest of them to go through, and they did to find V-mon waiting, along with others.

There was Patamon again, who made a beeline for Takeru, and Tailmon who likewise bounded to Hikari-chan. Then there were two digimon Daisuke hadn't met yesterday: Piyomon, Sora-san's partner, and Tentomon who was Koushiro's.

And the new clothes, which had somehow entirely slipped his mind. Though he noticed that Sora-san and Koushiro-san were still in their uniforms, and Takeru and Hikari-chan were in the clothes they wore to school. It was only Miyako's and Iori's clothes that had changed, along with his own.

Go figure, he thought to himself. The world had some odd rules. Maybe it was a welcome for the new kids only? There was even some background noise. A roar.

Sora-san suddenly looked up and screamed. Daisuke looked up as well. That explains the roar… It was a flying mantis, and swooping at them. At Sora-san and Piyomon who were either his targets or the easiest to get to. But Takeru yelled and pushed them down, and the digimon were attacking.

It was no good. The attacks did little at all and Tailmon scowled at her paws when she bounced off. 'Without my tail ring, I'm as weak as a Child.'

V-mon jumped in front. 'Daisuke! The digitama!'

The digitama? Oh, right. The digitama had made V-mon stronger last time. And since the attacks at this level were no good, they needed to step it up. Daisuke found the D-terminal in his pocket, and his digivice in the other. But he lost his footing before he could take them out, and could barely grab a jutting stone in the hole that had suddenly opened up to swallow him.

'Daisuke!' the others cried, V-mon's closest and somehow the most real in his sudden fright. And V-mon was there: visible. Reaching a hand down, and Daisuke could tell he was just a little too far away for comfort, with two glowing eyes in the darkness behind him. But it was either reach up or fall and so he reached up. He'd rather take his chances, when it came to things.

But it didn't wind up mattering in the end, because a shadow appeared behind V-mon and the warning was barely passed Daisuke's lips when V-mon was falling past.

Daisuke grabbed the tail, but lost his hold on the jutted rock as a result. The two slipped, and for a moment the fresh slope dug at Daisuke's hands and face as he slid. Then there was a sort of heavy pressure and he couldn't breathe, though he fought for breath…and lost.

.

He woke up stapled to the side of a cliff with someone's laughing voice to greet him. He didn't grasp things at first. Like many who came out of unconsciousness, confusion was the first thing he felt. But things began to pierce themselves together. The tight feeling in his chest that got better the more he breathed. The view he was taking in. The hard feeling around his wrists, and on his back. The lack of support beneath his feet and the lack of mobility in all but the tiny joints of his fingers and toes. And the voice that was coming from somewhere above and in front.

A kid, maybe a little taller than him but definitely dressed far more extravagantly than the clothes change the digital world had offered to him. And he had a whip in one hand. No good guy would have a whip. 'The Digimon Kaiser?' he guessed. He didn't look so tough. It must have been the height. Nonetheless, Daisuke realised he was at the other's mercy: weaponless, stuck to a cliff – and where was V-mon?'

The Digimon Kaiser confirmed his identity with some amusement, and V-mon's location: the cliff face opposite Daisuke. He was still unconscious, but Daisuke called his name and he stirred. 'Daisuke!'

'V-mon!' Daisuke returned, relieved. They'd barely known each other, but Daisuke had been worried. There was relief on V-mon's face as well. Somehow they'd gotten that close without him being aware of it.

They could get even closer without being stuck to a cliff, Daisuke thought. And, better, he wouldn't feel so vulnerable if he could move. Or if V-mon could move. Or both.

'V-mon!' he called across the cliff. 'Armour digivolve!'

But V-mon couldn't armour digivolve, because the Digimon Kaiser had both digivice and D-terminal in his hand and was waving it at them. Was taunting them. Like a child. Like a kid their age who'd stolen the ball and was rolling it in the grass, taunting the opposition, waiting for them to try and swipe the ball before bursting past and to the less defended goal…

Except this wasn't soccer, and Daisuke was starting to feel vulnerable all over again. Especially when the Digimon Kaiser cracked his whip and a choker-like ring appeared in thin air, and the Kaiser guided it ever so slowly to V-mon. They both yelled. Daisuke's heart was thudding in his chest and V-mon's arms and legs and eyes were bulging. And the ring inched closer, as well as the threats that came attached with it.

Tailmon mentioned them yesterday. The rings that turned good digimon into his slaves. And the Kaiser said the same. And then what? Would V-mon armour digivolve into Fladramon? Would Daisuke be fried by him, in those shackles on that cliff? Or would he be set free because he was a bee without his only stinger and sent home to get over it all? But he wouldn't be able to, would he? Hikari-chan and Taichi-sempai and the others would still come to the digital world, would still try to stop him. And that would be giving up, wouldn't it?

Avenging? That would be crazy, without any power to back him up. But he didn't have any power now either. Nor did V-mon. But V-mon's yell had diffused into blubber and Daisuke's had evolved from yelling just V-mon's name to 'Leave him alone!' Terror had loosened his tongue instead of frozen it. Perhaps it was because it was terror for something or someone else, as opposed to himself. He wasn't in any immediate terror. Unless V-mon attacked him after the ring but that was thinking ahead and Daisuke had never been good at planning ahead anyway so it was easier to avoid thinking about that again.

It was also easier to think of a few choice words to call the Kaiser, even if he did wind up signing his death warrant with a floral script in the process. Even though the ring inching closer was a distraction, eating at fear, eating at reason, eating at the scene that surrounded them so he could only see V-mon, the ring…and the Kaiser with his cracked whip looking down at them both.