"Alright everybody, time to get up, C'mon LET'S MOVE!" Butterflymon cried, sliding the doors of their rooms open with a loud snap.
Kenta sat up groggily and glanced over at his twin, who, despite the early hour seemed quite awake, Ryudamon on the other hand was still asleep.
"Oi." He muttered, prodding the armored dragon, "Time to get up, or drill sergeant nasty's gonna have both our hides."
Ryudamon lifted his head off of his forearms and blinked blearily. "Drill sergeant nasty eh? I Don't think she'd like that very much.""No I wouldn't, but it does have a nice ring to it." Butterflymon said, glowering at them from the doorway. Both human and digimon shuddered. "You'd better get out here or as you put it, I will have your hides."Kouta smirked at his twin from the hallway. Kenta rolled his eyes as he and Ryudamon stepped out to join the others. What he saw piled before them were buckets of water and washrags. He had a sinking feeling he knew what they would be doing. He glanced at Kouta who was thinking the exact same thing. Their parents ran a dojo and used this same 'training' method. He felt it was more or less a way to get work that one didn't want to do themselves done.
"To start off your training, You are going to be cleaning the floors. Since there is obviously not enough room for you to all be doing the same hallway, you will be split up into teams." "Excuse me," Katimon said, "But, how is cleaning the floors supposed to be training?"
"Everything you do can be considered training." Butterflymon said simply "Anyway, you will be split up as follows, Katimon, Kitsunemon and Dorumon, you will be doing the far hallway. Gomamon, Usagimon and Ryudamon, you will be doing the Left hallway. Saia, Kouta and Ari, you will be doing the right hallway, and Nani, Riku and Kenta, you get this hallway. Have fun." She said cheerily. "I wouldn't slack off if I were you, It wouldn't be a pleasant experience." She winked and knelt down in the doorway of the guy's room.
Gomamon panted heavily as she pushed her own wash rag across the floor Dorumon and Usagimon were waiting for her at the other side of the hallway. Her back legs were ill suited for this kind of work but she pushed on. A few minutes later, she reached the other side.
"Please," She panted. "Do not compensate your own training for my sake. I can manage." "You sure?" Dorumon asked, concerned for his friend.
"Yes, I am Dorumon-san. I must train to become stronger as well after all. We have talked for too long as it is, we must get back to work."
Both digimon nodded before taking off again. Gomamon turned herself around and began to make her way back down the hall. 'I must get stronger. In order to be worthy of Riku-sama! I will not allow myself to be protected any longer, by Katimon-onee-sama or anyone else!' This thought fueled her determination, helping her to work harder.
Katimon found it hard to concentrate on what she was doing. Her complete hatred of anything that had to do with Avismon made her suspicious of every one of Kitsunemon's actions. What she had told her yesterday was also weighing heavily on her mind.
"Go ahead, kill me. I Probably deserve it."
She shook her head as she dipped her rag back into the bucket and wrung it out.
Kitsunemon looked over at her. "I am distracting you correct?" She said. Her voice was flat and expressionless. "I am not going to betray you. I want him dead as much as anyone. Also, you shouldn't always believe the stories of others, the truth is sometimes atrociously worse."
Katimon blinked and looked down at the rag in her paws, perhaps even more frustrated than she was before. She lay her rag back down and pushed it across the floor, rocketing past Kitsunemon and Ryudamon.
"I don't know what you said, but now she probably has enough energy to clean the entire temple." Ryudamon said, keeping pace with the fox digimon.
Kitsunemon merely gave an indifferent shrug and continued on with her work.
"I haven't done this in years." Nani said, wiping sweat off her brow. "I forgot how fun it could be."
Kenta laughed, "Yeah, mom has us do it at least twice a week, believe me it isn't so fun when it's about the thousandth time you've done it."
"Yes, but you're at least used to it." Riku said, wringing out his rag. "Though it could be worse than this." He mused.
"I wouldn't say that if I were you, I could make it much worse." Butterflymon said wryly. She held a cup of tea in one hand and sipped from it lazily
"I wouldn't push it, she means business." Nani said.
"Speaking of which, you should all be doing less talking and more cleaning." Butterflymon looked over at them. Both Riku and Nani had already resumed scrubbing, but Kenta stayed where he was.
"I said, get back to work." Butterflymon said coolly.
"I don't see how this is going to help us. Why should we be doing this?" He said, crossing his arms over his chest.
A moment later, Butterflymon landed inches from his face. "I would have thought that you might take this a bit more seriously." She grabbed his collar, pulling him up so that his face was only centimeters from hers. "But I guess maybe I was wrong. If you want to die, be my guest." She said, letting him drop back to his knees.
Nani and Riku had been watching the whole ordeal. 'Note to self, do NOT cross Butterflymon. Ever.' Nani thought, as she resumed her cleaning after receiving a sharp glare from the armored digimon.
"Ari-chan, wanna race?" Kouta asked grinning.
"Sure why not?" She said as she tied back her hair to keep it out of her face. "Uh, Ibarashi-chan, wanna join us?"
"No thanks." Saia sighed. "You two should be treating this a little more seriously."
"Your loss then." Kouta said. "Ready, set, GO!" He cried, taking off down the hall.
"Hey! I wasn't ready!" Ari called, scrambling to her feet, trying to catch up to him. "It's like they're children." She muttered exasperatedly as she began to scrub her own section of the floor. When she got to the other end of the hall. They were kneeling next to each other arguing over who had won their little race. She paid them no mind, at least until Ari Called her name.
"Ibarashi-chan, you were behind us, who got to the end first?"
Saia sighed again. "I wasn't paying attention. Besides, if you keep running around like that you'll get tired before you're done."
Ari frowned. "We are taking this seriously, we just wanna have a bit of fun along the way."
"Whatever," Saia replied, "Just don't crash into anything, or anyone."
She wasn't sure whether one hour had passed, or eight, but they were still cleaning the floors, and Ari and Kouta were still racing each other. How they had so much stamina, Saia would never know. As for her, the last time she had done something like this, was back at Nani and Meiru's grandfather's house, before Meiru disappeared. She dipped her rag into her bucket and wiped her forehead.
"Hey, Ibarashi-chan, What's that on your wrist?" Ari asked.
"N-nothing, Tachikawa-san." Saia said, shaking her sleeve back down to cover the scars.
"Oh, okay." Ari said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Uh, by the way, you can call me Ari." She smiled and held out a hand to her.
"Oh." Saia said taking it. "I guess it's okay if you call me Saia, Ari-san." She couldn't help but smile too.
"Hey, guys," Kouta called from the other end of the hall, "Butterflymon says we're finished here."
"Be right there!" Ari called back as both girls got to their feet.
