6.
The message keeps coming back.
Takeru keeps deleting it.
He barely pays attention in class. He barely does anything. His mother keeps asking where Patamon is and he doesn't have an answer. Because she's noticed, of course she has.
His dreams are chillier too and he can't place where cold starts or ends and the real world begins. He hears Patamon laughing in his dreams but his voice is too deep and the blond hair is too dark to be Angemon's but the eyes are the same so gentle, so cold-
More and more, he wakes and his floor is wet. His Digivice is always flashing.
Patamon wants him there, so he goes one day, when nobody might find him, when the pressure is somehow less.
As it happens, he sees Ken. Without the Kaiser armor, which mysteriously hasn't returned, he looks fragile and smaller than before. He's staring up at his own Dark Towers. From behind, Takeru can't see his expression, but he sees his shoulders shake.
It makes him see red and he hates it. Ken is an ordinary kid, but this is all Ken's fault. They were Ken's Spirals, he threw it and hit Patamon, made him that… monster.
So why is he crying?
He stiffens suddenly and his eyes flicker to Takeru. A tiny smile flits over his face and Takeru feels like he's looking at his eight year old self. Wormmon watched Takeru with big eyes, almost pitying because he understands and it's just not fair.
"Hullo," Ken says. "You are…?"
He doesn't know their names. Of course he doesn't. As the Kaiser, he probably wouldn't have bothered to find out. It's a step forward that he is.
"Takeru."
Ken nods, and his expression doesn't change at all. "I hurt your partner."
Takeru blinks. He's said it. So simply, so calmly, even though he's trembling, even though his face is still wet.
"Not just him." Ken turns back to the Dark Tower. "I've hurt a lot, a lot of Digimon, haven't I? Wormmon told me I did."
Takeru feels his mouth go dry. He manages a nod.
Ken doesn't seem to be paying him too much attention though. "I don't know what he's talking about. I don't remember much of any of it… but I've stopped now, right? Now that I know, I can turn back and change." Fast, jerky words, desperation.
Takeru wants to say yes. Every fiber of his being is telling him that it's possible because really, the lines that Ken has crossed are under Devimon's but they are the most sacred and his Patamon is still suffering because of him and there's no way to turn that off.
He wants to say yes because maybe it's possible.
Then there's a quiet laugh. "Takeru wouldn't really know much about change. He's always been like this!"
Ken's expression tells him he doesn't need to turn around.
