A/N: -looks at the last update- Ouch. How's that for a writer's block? Anyway, chapter eight is finally there, so I won't lose even more time by babbling endlessly. Just one last thing: Enjoy! And yes, Aziluth is coming closer.

This chapter is dedicated to Franzi-chan, my never-ending spring of inspiration. Furthermore, I want to thank my beta-reader Myo (Milleniumon) for his support.

8.) Absolution

Silence. Not even the bird-digimon were chirping anymore after CyberDramon's astounding revelation, as if it had taken this entire part of the Digital World by surprise. Merely the slight soughing sound of the nightly breeze gently blowing through the leaves of the forest could be heard.

SkullSatamon, formerly known as Musyamon, had saved their lives once again. They did owe him a lot, and they all knew it, yet it took five minutes at the very least until finally Takato, as the first of them, regained his ability to speak.

"Just… wow…"

"Very eloquent, gogglehead," Ruki commented with a smirk that came from Lord-knows-where, but probably simply served to cover her own amazement.

"And you're absolutely sure?" Ryo questioned his partner. It did sound incredible, after all.

CyberDramon didn't even bother answering; instead, he just gave his Tamer a half angry, half offended look. Ryo flashed a lopsided grin and bowed in apology.

"Alright, I guess you are sure." He paused. "I suppose this is the weirdest coincidence in history- that, or SkullSatamon has been following as around since we parted from him."

"I would have sensed him a long time ago already if that were the case," CyberDramon growled. His tone and the look in his eyes both had now changed from half offended to clearly pissed, and Ryo figured it was better to shut up for the time being.

"I'll go and look for him," Guilmon shouted, and suddenly disappeared into the thicket of the forest with surprising speed. Renamon shook her head in annoyance, but still followed her viral friend to try to keep him safe in case he did not find what he was looking for.

'Or possibly,' the yellow kitsune added mentally, 'if he does find it.'


Takato had absolutely no chance to react in any way other than looking after the red blur Guilmon had turned into as he vanished into the wood. His first impulse was to run after him, but a firm grasp at his right wrist prevented him from doing so.

"You're too sanguineous, gogglehead. Renamon will take care of him." Ruki smirked slightly as she finally let go of Takato.

"But he is…" Takato started, but never finished the sentence as Ruki interrupted him.

"…your friend, I know. But so are they." She made a quick head movement towards the still unconscious Jenrya and Terriermon. "And I have a hunch they'll really need us as soon as they wake up."

She smiled, and that did it. Guilmon was in good hands- or paws, to be precise-, and Ruki had caught him anyway. And she didn't even have to use her hands for that (which, of course, probably was a good thing).

"You're right, I guess," Takato replied, his gaze focussed on Ruki's still smiling face. Upon realizing that he was staring at her, though, he quickly averted his eyes towards Jenrya and Terriermon. Ruki- and the others- followed his look, and they all formed a slightly misshapen circle around their two friends.

"I wonder when they'll wake up again," Hirokazu commented, poking Jenrya's left cheek.

"Do that again and I'll poke your eyeballs out," Juri whispered in a low voice. Hirokazu immediately drew his hand back and gave her a dumbfounded look.

"Uh, I mean…" Juri began, "just… you know, leave him alone, alright?" She tried to smile, but failed miserably. Nevertheless, Hirokazu obeyed her request, even though Juri's unnatural outburst surprised him immensely- him and all the others, for that matter.

"I was just about to say the same," a voice piped up, obviously referring to Juri's statement before. Half a second later, Terriermon lazily opened his eyes, showing his omnipresent grin to the odd human/digital circle surrounding him. Absolutely everyone was staring at him.

"What? Do I have peanut butter on my nose?"


Even Renamon, whose speed was second only to a handful of other beings in both the Humans' Realm and the Digital World, had trouble catching up with the strangely hyperactive Guilmon. Finally, she got a hold of him and roughly tackled him down.

"Where do you think you're going?" Renamon hissed, effectively fixating the dino digimon to the ground. "Do you think SkullSatamon will greet you with a bouquet of flowers?"

Guilmon gave her a puzzled look, but at least he didn't try to struggle against her grip.

"You still don't understand, do you?" Renamon inquired as she ultimately let go of her temporary captive. "SkullSatamon saved us with the last traces of friendship and care still left within him. But now, he had to go in order not to do something regrettable. He doesn't want us to find him, and we shouldn't try to do so."

Guilmon gave Renamon a long, understanding look.

"Self-sacrifice," he muttered.

Renamon was seriously surprised that Guilmon even knew that word- the semantics, at least. However, it pretty much hit the nail on the head. Now that she was thinking of it, it wasn't all that astonishing that Guilmon, of all, had come up with it. He was, after all, the essence of self-sacrifice made flesh.

So, instead of snarling at him, Renamon merely nodded her head.

"Now get up," she commented as she elegantly hopped to a stand, pulling Guilmon up along with herself. "We have to-"

A loud ripping sound interrupted her speech, as something big literally crashed through the thicket behind the two of them. Renamon whirled around in a split second's time, and narrowly dodged Kuwagamon's Scissor Arms attack. Immediately, the kitsune digimon assumed a fighting stance, and Guilmon was right next to her, bracing himself for the follow-up.

"I am the Demon of the Forests," the gigantic beetle digimon growled. "For desecrating my shrine, I shall slay you at once. Guillotine!"

However, the murderous assault clearly missed Renamon and Guilmon, who took cover just in time for the Guillotine attack to effortlessly chop down a nearby pine tree.

Using the tiny break in Kuwagamon's concentration, Guilmon threw himself at his enemy and tackled him to the ground, just like Renamon had done it with himself only a moment before.

As for said Renamon, she jumped up high like a yellow lighting bolt, turning in mid-air so she was facing Kuwagamon's back.

"Diamond Storm!" she announced, as the razor-sharp crystal projectiles started to shower the ground beneath her. Luckily, Guilmon immediately rolled to the right and thus out of her attacking range. Unfortunately, Kuwagamon did just the same, only to the left side, so that the two combatants were now separated by the unsuccessful Diamond Storm attack.

"Why you little…" Kuwagamon lost his speech for the moment, and could do nothing but stare at Renamon with blatant hatred. Obviously, he hadn't expected resistance of any kind.

Guilmon, meanwhile, shivered with fury. His sincere and innocent soul hated ambush attacks for all he was worth, and the disrespect Kuwagamon showed towards Renamon did, for some obscure reason, only fuel Guilmon's rage even more. For a second or two, his eyes turned to that unnatural, viral red colour once more, and with a piercing outcry, he dove towards Kuwagamon and right into the diamond shards separating him from his foe.

Renamon was a fighter, and as a fighter, she saw such crucial moments in slow-motion more than anyone else. But even her fast-as-lightning reflexes couldn't prevent what was happening below her feet this very second. She cursed her own attack, her helpless situation and herself as a whole for not being able to do anything against it; since, as she suddenly realized, she would rather give her life than put Guilmon's health at stake.

Whether the following was the force of her will or just a plain, conventional miracle is still to be found out. Either way, Guilmon didn't even receive a scratch from the deadly diamond projectiles he was jumping through. Kuwagamon, totally perplex and unprepared for such a kind of attack, didn't even have time to flinch before Guilmon's powerful Rock Breaker attack sliced him in half. A split second later, his data dissipated, and the self-proclaimed Demon of the Forests was no more.

Renamon landed on the ground again. Her face, usually bereft of any kind of emotion, now showed an expression of pure and utter astonishment. Guilmon gazed at her; his eyes had regained their normal colour, but still his look was unusually serious.

"Why… did you do this?" Renamon tried to suppress the amazement in her voice, but didn't entirely manage to do it.

"I don't know," Guilmon replied in a rather low voice. "I just couldn't let you get hurt."

Renamon smiled warmly at him in response and indicated a bow, thanking him without words.

"Now," Guilmon piped up in his usual happy voice again, "let's go back to the others, okay?"

"Of course," Renamon answered, but then, a sudden thought crossed her mind.

"In a minute we can go. But first, I'd like to talk to you about something. Let's call it… a pact."

Guilmon blinked in sheer confusion.

"A pact? What do you mean?"

Renamon smiled.


"And you really can't remember anything?" Kenta asked Terriermon for the 47th time during the last few minutes, when they all had recapitulated the events which the small bunny digimon obviously had no memories of.

"Nope. Not one bit. Jen wanted to matrix evolve, and the next thing I know is me waking up amidst the strangest druid circle I've ever seen," Terriermon joked. It wasn't all that funny, but what he had apparently done as BlackSaintGalgomon surely was gnawing upon his conscience, and this was just his way of dealing with it.

In that moment, Renamon and Guilmon returned to the clearance, and the latter happily greeted Terriermon, which worked wonders to take his mind off the terrible incident earlier this day.

"What took you so long?" Ruki whispered to her digital partner.

"Squashing bugs," came Renamon's laconic answer. Then, to change the topic, she pointed her right paw at Jenrya's silhouette in middle of the 'circle' they were still forming. "He's coming to his senses."

Really did the blue-haired Tamer move and stir in his sleep, and just a second later he finally opened his eyes, only to discover that he was being looked over by thirteen pairs of eyes.

"What?" he asked. "Do I have peanut bu-"

"Oh please," Ruki moaned in annoyance, while Hirokazu and Kenta simply gave a slight chuckle.

"You know, they do say if a dog and his owner stick together for some time, they become very similar to each other," Impmon commented with wry amusement in his voice.

Jenrya just gave him a quizzical look. "What the he-"

He paused, and half a second later, his face assumed a very disturbing ashen colouring while his eyes widened in horror until they seemed to consist merely of pupil anymore.

"Uh, Jen? Buddy?" Terriermon expressed his worries about this strange transformation his Tamer was apparently undergoing. "What's up?"

Surprisingly it was CyberDramon who answered instead of the blue-haired Tamer, "Realization."

"Huh? You mean only now does he remember what he did before?"

Ryo's question was left unanswered, as his digital partner merely continued to stare at Jenrya Lee, who by now obviously was overwhelmed by a wave of guilt and remorse, even though his body- apart from a slight trembling and the still murderously widened eyes- showed none of it.

"What…" he whispered in a throaty, barely audible voice. "What have I done?" His right hand subconsciously clasped his D-Power, and his unnaturally blank eyes looked at it as if it were a poisonous viper.

None of the others dared to move or say a word. They simply didn't know what they could do to ease the pressure currently pressing down on their fellow Tamer. None… except one.

Juri walked up to Jenrya, repeatedly muttering something incomprehensible under her breath which could mean something like 'Lionheart'.

Upon reaching him, she hesitantly placed her right hand on his left shoulder and showed a gentle, benign smile.

"It's not your fault," she whispered, inaudible for anyone except the two of them. "It was Parasimon's manipulation, and Parasimon is gone. Don't curse yourself for what it has done to you."

"And to you," Jen replied. "You don't understand it. It was actually my fault… my… desire…" He couldn't carry on, as he desperately tried to fight back the tears of fury and guilt welling up in his eyes.

"No," Juri demanded, this time in a considerably firmer voice. "It's you who doesn't understand. You are way too friendly and caring to do what you just did out of your own intention."

Her hand grabbed his shoulder even tighter, almost hurting him in the process, as she repeated her statement from before in an unusually demanding voice, "Read my lips: It's not your fault!"

"She's right," Terriermon finally barged in the conversation. The other Tamers and their digital partners simply nodded in agreement.

Jenrya looked at Juri with blatant admiration. It was not the first, but surely the most obvious situation in which the shy, innocent girl showed the true strength within her. Probably one of the reasons why he liked her, and surely also one of the reasons- if not the only reason- why Parasimon…

'No!' he reprehended himself mentally. 'Enough of this.'

What he said out loud, though, was a plain, simple "Thank you." And the fact notwithstanding that the circular motion of his head which he made indicated that it was directed to all the others, it was especially dedicated to one extraordinary girl by the name of Juri Katou.

An awkward silence was following, which was eventually broken by Renamon, "We should rest now. We don't yet know what awaits us on the way to Aziluth the Aureate."

"That," Hirokazu commented, "is the first good idea I heard to-"

The 'day' went down in a monstrous yawn, which reminded the others of their own tiredness. One after the other, they gathered around the campfire, which radiated both lulling warmth and calmative crackling. Hirokazu and Kenta, along with their partners, were asleep in no time; and the same applied for Impmon. All the others were still in miscellaneous states of being awake, and as for CyberDramon and Renamon: whether they were asleep or not was impossible to say.

"How is your leg?" Jenrya whispered to Juri, who was lying on the right-hand side of him.

The girl didn't even know what he was talking about at first, until finally, realization struck her.

"Oh… the muscle, you mean? Definitely better. I totally forgot about it already."

"I can see that," Jenrya commented with a sneer. "I hope you sleep well, then."

"Same to you. And dream a little dream of me, alright?" Juri responded tauntingly, oblivious to the blush on both her own and her conversation partner's cheeks.

"Will do," Jenrya muttered in embarrassment. "Good night."

From the opposite side of the campfire, Takato Matsuki was watching them with interest.

'They act very weird towards each other lately,' he thought. 'As if they were in love or something. Thinking of that, they would make a rather cute couple.' He chuckled inwardly.

'But of course, that's never going to ha-'

At this point, his glance suddenly wandered to Ruki Makino's dozing form just a few meters away from him, and for some obscure reason, he couldn't finish his current thought anymore.

'Then again… never say never, right?'

Somewhere high above him, a nightingale-like digimon seemed to chirp a melodious affirmation.


to be continued…