Disclaimer: I own only the human charaters.

6 ~They're everywhere~

'I'm sorry, but I have to ensure your safety.' FanBeemon, the newly digivolved digion who had just taken a direct hit from Deltamon as a fresh and appeared to be perfectly fine, said humbly.

Can someone tell me what's going on? Yuzuki wanted to say that, but right now she had to focus on the battle, resulting in her directing BaoHuckmon to attack the triple headed digimon before he could do any damage to the school. That was the only school in the district after all. Destroy it, and there'll be nowhere to hold the students. But they might actually want it to happen.

'Fif cross!' the white dragon digimon leaped forward, slicing two deep scratches on the blue digimon's body. Deltamon yelled in pain. There might be no blood in a digimon, but there surely was data that was leaking out of the wounds.

'What are you doing here?' Kaoru starred fiercely at the bee digimon, demanding for an answer. 'Why are you here?'

'I'll explain it later.' FanBeemon said, his wings vibrated, levitating him to the air. 'You there, help me out!' he shouted at the white dragon digimon, which he regarded as friendly seeing how they had common enemies.

'Be polite!' BaoHuckmon jumped to the air, preparing to make an aerial strike, but was struck down by the two strong tails of Deltamon before he could have anything done.

'Activate strength enhancement!' Yuzuki used the card she's most familiar with. She hadn't had the chance to try out Fangmon's card lately, but she wanted to go the safe way. BaoHuckmon, with the now increased strength, was ready to strike again.

'Gear stinger!' FanBeemon fired multiple energy stings in midair, all aiming at the three-headed dinosaur's wounds, immobilizing him with the pain induced continuously. Deltamon flinched, not having a chance to strike back.

'What are you doing here? He's your partner, right?' Katashi, frustrated by the blond boy's indifference in spite of how fierce the battle was going on. Kaoru didn't respond as usual, simply standing there watching the battle.

Deltamon was struggling to counter the attack from the two digimon, but was so distracted by the continuous fire by FanBeemon. 'Fif cross!' Not being able to fly, BaoHuckmon jumped as high as he could and slashed the throat of the three-headed dinosaur. Deltamon, after bearing so much pain, endured the attack and first struck the flying bee digimon with one of his tails and grabbed the white dragon digimon with his serpent headed arm, throwing him aside before starting to charge for his triple blast.

BaoHuckmon, despite having enhanced his physical strength, was not fast enough to react. The triple headed digimon had all three of his mouth cavities filled with spheres of glowing orange light of energy. Although hoping to at least success for one time, the data-leaking wounds of him caused the charged energy to also leak out of them and the energy spheres in the mouth cavities to backflow. FanBeemon, seeing the chance to finish the digimon once and for all, didn't hesitate to give one final bow to the three- headed digimon in the wound, causing his energy to go overload, imploding for the massive amount of energy backflow.

Deltamon was defeated, turning into strands of data that flowed toward the dormitory building.

'Alright. Can someone tell me what's going on exactly?' Yuzuki had wanted to say this from the beginning of the battle, and though it seemed a bit out of her character as seen in her friends' eyes, she really needed to know the answer to that question.

'I owe you all an explanation.' The insect digimon said, turning to face his supposed partner, who seemed to not care, or even reject the digimon. 'I secretly sneaked into his luggage the day he left Xe. I was really worried about Kaoru.'

'That's why my luggage was that heavy,' mumbled the blond boy. 'I thought I had made it clear when we first met, obviously I was wrong. Get Away From ME!'

'But, Kaoru…'

'Don't call me like you're a friend of mine.' Kaoru uttered. 'You're nothing to me, and you'll gain nothing from me.'

'But I…' FanBeemon spoke, but was rudely interrupted by a shout from the blond boy. 'Shut up!'

'Stop it!' the black haired girl couldn't stand watching that anymore, so she stepped forward and tried to out an end to the meaningless conflict between the two. 'Can't you see he's just trying to help you? He even saved your life! At least you should be thankful for that!'

'Is he?' Kaoru said, louder than anyone's ever heard of. 'Then do this for me, get out of my sight, right here and right now. Disappear and never try to reach me again. Surely you can do that!'

'Oh just how stubborn are you?' Yuzuki uttered. The bee digimon was obviously depressed by the words from the one he tried so hard to protect, turning around ready to leave, only to be retained by BaoHuckmon, who then asked the boy to apologize in proper manner for causing the bee digimon to be heartbroken.

'It's no use.' The playful voice of Elsa came.

'What do you mean?' the white dragon digimon asked, wasn't quite in the state of taking every move properly.

'Look what I've got here.' The blond girl said, waving the stack of paper hand. 'I've got his file!'

'Wait, are you sure you're gonna do that?' Katashi asked as Elsa flip opened the file, reading information written on it aloud. It was obvious that the girl stole the papers from the office during the chaos.

'Well, first of all, incase you don't know, he is male,' she said jokingly. 'And he was sent here by the Xe social welfare department. Oh! You're gonna love this.' The double pony tailed girl said dramatically. 'He lost his parents. Or, to be accurate, his parents gone missing along with many other people in Xe five years ago, but he insisted that they were killed by a digimon.'

'I wasn't lying,' Kaoru said starring at Elsa, 'I saw that with my own eyes.'

'Be patient, I haven't finished yet!' Elsa said. 'And I can't quite believe in you, for you are described as mentally unstable and…violent? Oh! You assaulted almost every single one of your foster parents, nearly killed them the last time, no wonder why they put you in the prison.'

'They deserved that.' The blond boy said, starring more fiercely at the girl, 'for insulting my parents. I mean my real parents.'

'Is that true?' Yuzuki asked.

'Is what true?' Kaoru asked back, still not leaving his eyes on the blond girl.

'That your parents were killed by digimon? Is that why you hated digimon that much?' the black haired girl asked. Kaoru didn't want to answer at first, but he could sense something in the girl's voice that indicated her honesty and that she was taking it seriously.

'Are you trying to say that I made the hole thing up due to some mental damage for losing my parents and try to find a way to rationalize the whole thing so as to comfort myself, like all the others said?'

'So that's true.' Yuzuki said. 'I don't think you're making it up. Nobody could ever lie about the ones they love.'

'You…believe me?' the boy's voice started to soften.

'And so is he.' Yuzuki turned to FanBeemon, who seemed to be relieved now that he knew that reason of his partner's unexplained hatred towards him.

'He's still gonna leave.' Kaoru said coldly.

'But…'

'Listen to me first.' Yuzuki wanted to speak, but was cut off by the yellow digimon. 'You need me, what could you do without me?'

The first reaction of Kaoru was to argue back, yet he paused for a moment, knowing that FanBeemon's words were true. There's nothing he could do without the help of him. But partnering with a digimon? Someone he hated so much? It took him a long while before the boy unwillingly moved his lips, said. 'You can come.'

'There're a lot of surprises here.' The mysterious woman uttered, watching the video of Deltamon being deleted provided by unknown source.

'Good surprises.' The shadowed figure beside her said. 'What's your next move?'

The woman paused the video right at the moment FanBeemon finished his digivolution. 'Isn't that interesting?' she said, pointing at the newspaper from Ar and another from He. 'There're more of them, and I guess I should have a chat with them. A personal chat.'

'And recruit them?' the shadowed figure said.

'Oh don't spoil my secrets every time, Piedmon.' The woman giggled. 'But it'll be your job if they don't fall for our little plan. Take good care of them by then, ok?'

Kaoru was back to his 'home', with FanBeemon no longer needing to hide. He found two pieces of odd equipment from his luggage. A digivice with silver color and three claws of translucent ruby color, much like Yuzuki's, along with a card deck, where he found eight blank cards and two with images on them.

'Kaoru.' FanBeemon called for his partner's attention. And the blond boy, as he's always been, didn't respond but simply turned to look at the insect digimon. 'Just, if anything happens, remember that I'll always be at your side.'

The blond boy paused for a moment, confised by the strange words of FanBeemon. Of course. He thought. He must have seen me panic before the nightmares.

'And…take good care of yourself. The weather's a bit cold.' FanBeemon said out of concern, seeing that the boy was currently only wearing his gray t-shirt as upper wear under the cold weather of the night.

The boy got onto the bed, and murmured a few words before switching off the light. 'Thanks...' He didn't know why he did that, maybe because that was the first time someone had said that to him since his parents were gone.

Yuzuki was surfing the Internet. Most of the time she's too busy with schoolwork or occupied by her friends. Once she's gotten online, however, the news headline gave the black haired girl a welcome gift, a surprising one.

'What's bothering you, Yuzuki?' BaoHuckmon, noticing the change in facial expression of the black haired girl, said.

'We're not the only two.' Yuzuki replied. 'They're everywhere, all over Ventrium. And…' she paused. There had been reports that all over the country there had been kids partnering with digimon fighting the uncontrollable, but what shocked the black-haired girl was the only one with an image on it.

It couldn't be wrong.

Despite how blurred the face of the boy in the picture seemed, she immediately recognized his hairstyle and his suit, which are all symbols of him.

'Eiji's one of them.'

'Who's Eiji?'

'I used to live in He, remember? Eiji is the one that helped me not only to adapt to the local environment, but also almost everything I couldn't handle on my own. And now he's one of us!'

So that's the first chapter in 2015, with nothing special but a late happy new year from me.

The title of the last chapter might be a bit misleading, seeing that it's written in the viewers' point of view. Kaoru was, in fact, very probably the last one to show up in chronological order. (Not a spoiler at all: all the digi-destined will show up in the next chapter.)

I updated the cover as well, I like it being more simple. May change that at anytime if I have a better idea of attractive cover art.

Hope I'll get more reviews (or just views) in 2015. See you next week!