Two Years Ago…
"Are you hungry?"
The small green blob glanced at the offered bread, but scowled and turned away, trying to crawl even deeper into the small rock crevice in the cave wall. Patamon sighed and ate the bread himself before flying back toward the mouth of the cave, where Takeru sat tending the campfire.
"Gummymon, Nature Spirits," mumbled Patamon to himself in between his chewing. "I've heard about them, but they're supposed to be extremely rare and never found alone. Gummyon is always found alongside Chocomon, because they are twins born from a single egg. If there's a Gummymon, there should be a Chocomon too."
The only reply was a small sniffle. Patamon drew in close, and saw tears in Takeru's right eye. The boy noticed his partner, and quickly wiped his eye.
Patamon shook his head sadly and nestled next to Takeru's leg. There were tears in his eyes as well. Whenever he saw Takeru begin to cry, he always began to cry as well.
"It was our fault," whispered Takeru, his voice shaking. "While we were… his brother Chocomon was probably… it was our fault…" He shut his eye and wiped harder, but the tears refused to stop. "No, it was my fault… I shouldn't have lost my temper…"
Patamon wiped his own building tears and touched Takeru on the knee.
"I'm sorry Patamon," said Takeru, trying to force a miserable little smile as he wiped his eye. "I shouldn't cry. I said that I wouldn't cry anymore. I have to be tough, like brother and Taichi and Jou and Koushirou, because I'm going to be on my own from now on."
"You're not completely on your own," whispered Patamon with another nudge to Takeru's knee.
Takeru nodded and picked up Patamon, hugging the Digimon close to his chest. When he set his partner back down, he noticed Gummymon poke its head from behind a rock, but just as their eyes met the small green blob retreated back into the shadows in the back of the cave. Takeru felt his heart sink again.
"He must hate us a lot," whispered Takeru. "He probably… he probably feels even angrier than we did when everyone else got…" He frowned and shook his head. "And he probably feels even more scared than we did. Maybe we should go."
"We can't just leave him," said Patamon. "Look at him. He's all alone. He can't protect himself. We have to take care of him, take him with us."
"How can we when he hides away anytime we try to get close?" asked Takeru.
Patamon frowned and looked back into the shadows of the cave. "Well… then we'll just have to stay here until he stops hiding."
"We don't have that much food. We'll have to get some more, and he might run away and hurt himself if we both leave."
"Then we'll have to leave and forage in shifts," said Patamon. "We'll stay at this cave for however long it takes for Gummymon to trust us enough to come with us, or however long it takes for Gummymon to grow strong enough to take care of himself."
Takeru shifted his position and hugged his knees. He looked into the darkness of the cave where the scared little Gummymon was hiding, and then back at the mouth of the cave and the fire that he would be tending for days on end, in between alternating foraging shifts with Patamon, doing the same thing over and over again for however long it would take to change Gummymon's fear of them, if he decided to go along with the plan. He sighed. They were supposed to be in a hurry. If they remained at the cave, they would fall behind in the race to stop the growing problem of the space-time distortions.
"Okay," whispered Takeru as he remembered Gummymon's sad and scared eyes. "We'll do that."
Maximum v10.0
Dark Wakening: Andiramon vs Dagomon
Now…
There was nothing but an endless gray shore beside a dark ocean that stretched out past the horizon, blanketed by thick gray fog, just as in her dreams.
Now that she was there in person, awake and aware, she could see just how strange her surroundings were. As in her dreams, lines could be both straight and curved at the same time, if they could be said to exist at all. The border between the water and sky in the distant horizon was indistinct and blurred, as if her eyes were out of focus. She blinked. It didn't help.
Hikari took a cautious step and turned to look in the other direction. Opposite the ocean the ground gently sloped upward until the gray sand ended, leading to a field of dead gray weeds, marked by the remains of a fence of broken dark gray wooden planks bound by twisted and rusted gray wire. Beside the ruined fence was a wooden post, broken near the middle such that the upper half was bent at an odd angle, which bore a sign, marked by strange symbols she had never seen before.
With nowhere else to go she left the sand and stepped onto the fields, the dead weeds cracking and snapping beneath her feet as she crossed a gap in the battered fence. She pushed past the taller weeds that awaited her on the other side, until the dead plant matter ended as well and she saw what resembled an abandoned seaside village, worn and broken by centuries of neglect.
The architecture was completely alien to her, stranger than even the strangest things she had ever seen in the Digital World. Like the beach there was a dream like quality about the buildings. Their outlines were blurred and indistinct, both straight and curved at the same time, and their geometry was completely impossible, with looping stairs that constantly climbed higher and never lower. Perspective was completely fractured, obtuse angles appearing acute such that she could see multiple sides of everything. Hikari was forced to quickly close her eyes and turn away. Just the brief glance had made her feel nauseous and given her a massive headache. Looking for longer would have likely driven her completely insane.
Hikari briefly massaged her head and tentatively opened her eyes again, keeping her gaze low. The road before her was both twisted and straight, but not as overwhelmingly multifaceted as the rest of the town. She could stand to look at it a few second at a time without losing all sense of direction and spatial position. Her confidence slightly restored, she took a step forward.
After a few more steps, she was forced to stop again as something strange came into view. Rather, what she saw was strange because it was not strange. The outline was distinct and straight. Hikari raised her head. Before her was a perfect cube of black stone. The material looked as if it was the same that made up the outer shells of the Kaiser's Towers. Eleven more such stones were arranged with it, such that all twelve formed a complete perfect circle.
Eleven of the stones were topped with broken black stone fragments, with more black shards scattered around them. It was obvious that these cubic stones were pedestals, and the stone fragments the pieces of what had once been statues standing atop the cubes. The twelfth stone still had its statue intact. It was a tall vaguely humanoid creature in jester's clothes, with a head that vaguely resembled that of a rabbit. Long mammalian ears flanked three small horns.
Scattered with the broken stone were abandoned tools that had likely been used to cruelly tear down the other eleven black statues. They were twisted and nightmarish like the buildings, defying all laws of geometry, with forks having two prongs at the base and three at the end. Among them was another small miniature statue, likely to have been intended to be set in place of the torn down statues.
Hikari approached the miniature statue and then recoiled in disgust once she saw it more clearly. The stone it was made of was dark green and soapy with yellowish striations, resembling slime and ooze. It was positively revolting when compared to the sleek and clean black stone of the pedestals and statues, both broken and intact. Yet the repelling nature of the material was nothing compared to the sickening shape of the stone.
The stone shape was that of a creature resembling a mutated octopus. Countless tentacles extended down from its rounded head and were bundled together into four limbs, giving it an almost humanoid shape which added to its frightening appearance. Hikari looked away, unwilling to spend any more time observing the thing.
She walked past the circle of black stones, further into the abandoned village, but as she progressed she found that the sound of ocean waves began to become louder and clearer instead of softer and weaker. The next thing she knew, there were dead weeds in front of her again. Hikari pushed on past, unbelieving, but sure enough she was at the broken fence again, at the exact same gap beside the broken wooden post and sign. Up ahead she saw the gray sand and ocean again.
That was impossible. She had been walking in an exact straight line, never straying from her path. Hikari turned back to the village in confusion, but immediately snapped her head back when the slight glance led to another headache that felt as if her skull was being hammered apart.
With nowhere else to go, Hikari walked through the weeds again and returned to the gray sands.
"What happened?" stammered Tailmon. She ran up to the spot where Hikari had vanished. "Where did she go?"
Patamon and Terriermon ran up beside her and stared at the spot as well. Neither could think of anything to do or say. They all turned back to Takeru, who was still kneeling alone, staring at the silk scarf in his hand. Without unfurling it, he set it aside and turned to them. His bangs had drifted over his eyes, casting a dark shadow over them, and his breathing had suddenly become irregular.
"Her scent is gone completely," continued Tailmon, still not having noticed the change that had come over her traveling companions. "But how…? I mean, that wasn't anything like a dimensional gate opening, so… so what's going on?"
She sniffed the air harder in desperation and noticed a faint change in the air. Her hair began to stand on end as she felt a strange aura. Tailmon turned back to the others at last, and noticed the change that had come over them.
Patamon flew up to Takeru and remained hovering in front of him. "Takeru?"
Takeru's fist collided with the ground and began grinding the dirt, the pressure forcing the blood from his skin and turning it pale white. His pupil had contracted, and his iris was almost glowing with emotion beneath the shadow of his hair. In his head, he was remembering the battle weeks ago when he had foolishly let Hikari be trapped inside the city while he was outside, unable to help. He still remembered how badly things had gone because of him, and yet what he was facing now was infinitely worse.
His fist rose up and smashed against the ground again. "What the hell was that?" he hissed. Slowly, his head began to shake back and forth. "No… No, this is not… Not again…"
"Takeru, look at me," said Patamon, growing agitated. "You need to calm down."
Takeru's fist struck the ground a third time. He rose and drew the throwing star, throwing it into the ground, where it embedded and quivered. All feelings of triumph at finally understanding the message had vanished and given away to utter shame that he could have felt any positive feeling at all in the past given the present situation.
"We have to think about this rationally," said Tailmon, holding out her paws as if trying to reassure the others, which she thought was quite odd considering it was her partner who had vanished. "That didn't look like a dimensional transfer, but what else could it be? We should try crossing dimensions to the other world."
"She's not there!" snapped Takeru, his voice rising. "You said so yourself. That wasn't a dimensional gate opening! It was… something different."
"Some other, third world perhaps?" offered Tailmon.
"If it's another world then we need to get to it!" Takeru pulled his green Digivice from his forearm and glared at it. "And how are we supposed to do that? Can this thing open a pathway to it? Of course not! We have to get to her, and this thing is completely worthless! Again and again, I can't do anything!" He raised it high above his head, ready to smash it on the ground. Both Patamon and Tailmon moved to protest.
"Takeru, don't lose your temper!" cried Patamon, but the hand holding the Digivice was already making its way down toward the ground.
Terriermon jumped up and spun as if using his twister attack. His ear flap slapped Takeru across the face with enough force to send the boy crashing into the ground. The green D2 slipped from his hand as he fell, landing softly and safely to avoid any permanent damage.
Takeru blinked in surprise. His hat had slipped off his head and his eye returned to its normal dilation as he felt the pain pass from his cheek to his mind. Terriermon landed in front of his head and looked him straight in the eye. The digimon's own eyes were brimming with tears.
"You are the older brother now!" yelled Terriermon in Takeru's face. "You have to take care of your younger brothers and sisters! It is your burden! Do not falter! If we cannot rely on you, what will we do?"
For a moment, no one spoke.
Takeru smoothed his hair back over the left side of his face before replacing his hat. He pulled the brim low as he inhaled and smothered his desires to cry and rage, yet again killing that part of him until the only thing that left his lips was a single soft sigh.
Now that she was back on the beach, Hikari attempted to explore a different direction and began walking parallel with the coastline. With the water on her left and the broken fence on her right, she eventually reached what appeared a sort of end of the beach, where the land shifted up as a rock barrier. In the side of this earthen wall, someone had constructed a dimly lit tunnel with round concrete walls. Like the village, it seemed to have been abandoned and long ago fallen into disrepair, but unlike the village the path was straight and made physical sense. When she looked in the opening, she could see a dim light ahead, which was comforting. Deciding that she had nowhere else to go anyway, she stepped into the tunnel.
The light she had seen was the first of a series of small dim lights mounted on the ceiling of the tunnel. As she approached it, it began to flicker, as did the others ahead. She was suddenly gripped by a fear that the lights would suddenly fail when she was deep inside the tunnel and leave her completely lost in darkness. She began to turn around, and that was when she heard the pained groan.
It had come from deeper within the tunnel, and defied all attempts to describe with words. She was not even sure if it could be called a groan. The noise was unlike anything that any human ear had heard before, and reflected a deep horrid pain that no human had ever experienced or imagined.
And yet at the same time she felt she recognized the groan. No, not groan. Call. The sound was calling for her.
"Hello?"
Her voice echoed down the tunnel, but received no reply. She took a step forward, and looked ahead to the next light. There was a massive hole carved out on the left wall beneath the light, while opposite the hole on the right wall was something written in dark red and black. The symbols were scribbled and unintelligible, resembling no language that Hikari had ever seen, and yet somehow when she looked at it she thought she could understand its meaning.
Greatly bothered by what she read, Hikari approached the opposite hole and saw another tunnel carved straight out of the rock. In the distance she could see a faint light, possibly the end of the tunnel, and began to walk towards it despite the intervening darkness. The ground was uneven, but she kept moving ahead, keeping her eyes fixed on the faint light ahead. However, an uncomfortable feeling began to grow in the back of her head the longer and longer she kept walking toward it.
And then she realized what was wrong. The light was not getting any brighter no matter how far she walked. It didn't seem like she was making any progress in approaching it.
She felt something cold and slimy grab her heel, and looked down.
Perhaps her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. She found that the faint light from the distant end of the tunnel that she could not get closer to was enough to see the faint outline of a lanky humanoid shape lying on the ground at her feet. The strange creature uttered a mixture of a gurgle and a moan, and yet it seemed clear that these odd guttural sounds were actually some sort of language, an ancient primitive language that the rest of the world had long ago forgotten.
Most bizarrely of all, despite never having heard these sounds before, Hikari somehow found that she could understand the alien gurgling sounds. The creature was asking for help.
More sounds began joining that made by the creature at her feet, a low dissonant chorus of pained grunts and sounds. Hikari began to realize that she could see many other dark forms identical to the one grabbing her heel, all scattered around the tunnel floor.
"What are you?" she whispered.
The thing groaned its answer. It was short, and only confused Hikari further, but before she could press the matter it began begging for help again.
"Help with what?"
As the thing answered, it also motioned toward its arm, drawing attention to the black shackles binding tightly to the slimy gray skin of its forearm. The shackle was not bound to any chain, and it was spiral instead of a single ring. Hikari's mind flashed back to the spirals she had seen bound on BlackAgumon, ShogunGekomon, and MegaSeadramon.
"The Kaiser?" she whispered aloud. "No, that makes no sense. How could Ichijouji…?"
A shudder rippled through the crowd of the lanky creatures at that name, and yet it did not seem to be a shudder of fear. If anything, it seemed more reflective of excitement.
"How can I take those off of you?" asked Hikari.
The thing pointed past Hikari to the end of the tunnel and gurgled.
"You want me to unlock the power source there?" Hikari shook her head and began to turn to look back to the end. "But no matter how far I walk, I never get…"
The mouth of the tunnel was directly in front of her, only it wasn't the mouth of a tunnel anymore. It was the frame of a broken door, directly opening up toward the ring of twelve black stones. Confused, Hikari looked around at her surroundings again. The rock was morphing seamlessly into rotting gray wooden walls of a decaying village house. The tunnel had routed her directly back into the village center. Somehow, she wasn't exactly surprised.
The grip on her heel relaxed, revealing the slight bruising that the creature's tight grip had left behind and allowing her to push aside the remains of the door and approach the village center and the ring of twelve black stones. The crowd of lanky black slime creatures crawled after her, grunting with pain with each movement and yet still trying to croak words of encouragement. They were telling her to unlock the power inside the lone intact black statue.
Hikari approached the ring of stones again. Her migraines had faded, and the bizarre geometry-defying tools and surroundings had somehow righted themselves, becoming perfectly normal looking except for their lack of color beyond various shades of gray.
Not knowing what to expect, she reached out and touched the black cube base with the edge of her fingers.
Nothing happened.
Hikari turned back to the dark creatures. They had refused to enter the circle of stones with her, and had instead crowded around the broken door she had exited. It was almost as if they were afraid to draw too close to the statue.
"What am I supposed to do?" asked Hikari.
The creatures gargled and grunted the same words of encouragement from before. Hikari swallowed and looked back to the statue. She wanted to help end their pain. She really did.
She suddenly felt a slight hint of warmth at her fingertips.
The next thing she knew, she was eight years old. The seaside village was gone. Instead, she was in an open field. She wore a yellow shirt and a pink scarf around her neck. Hanging from her neck was her old whistle. That whistle had been with her for as long as she could remember.
Something that towered over her approached her and offered its large brown paw. She reached out and touched it.
Hikari was back in the seaside village at her normal age. Her hand left the statue. She looked around, confused. Somehow it felt as if years had suddenly passed by, and yet when she turned and looked back at the still hooting and gargling dark slime creatures, it seemed as if it had been less than a second.
However long it had been, she began to hear a low grinding sound, like two rugged stones rubbing against one another. The creatures' hoots and cheers became louder as they began to crawl away from the dilapidated house into the circle of black stones. Hikari looked back to the statue. The grinding sound was coming from it.
Before her eyes, the black statue began to move. It lifted up a leg and stepped off of the black cube pedestal. The statue's head turned back and forth, as if it was looking around. Its gaze settled upon the crowd of the lanky black creatures that had entered the ring of stones.
The creatures were hooting. They were demanding that the statue join and obey them.
The black statue lifted up its right arm. The large paw at the end began to morph, the fingers melting together and widening, becoming a sharp double-bladed axe head.
"You hide under darkness, because underneath it you are nothing but smoke and void," said a voice. "Nothing but empty puppets. Be free."
The axe head fell upon the nearest lanky creature, cleaving it in two. The victim let out a gurgling wail before its two black slimy halves melted away into gray vapor and mist before vanishing completely. Immediately, the other creatures stopped their hooting cheers and began trying to crawl away from the black statue. Meanwhile the statue raised its axe arm up and brought it down upon the next nearest creature, which wailed and vanished like the first.
Hikari's eyes were wide with surprise and fright as she watched the black statue continue its grim execution of the creatures, one by one. Her hand closed as she remembered the warmth she had felt with her fingertips. Had she brought the thing to life? Was this her fault?
The statue paused and turned its head, its blank and lifeless stone eyes settling upon Hikari. Her heart froze in terror, but the statue did not move to attack her. Instead, despite the fact that the face of the statue was unmoving stone, somehow it looked as if the statue was confused.
A sick feeling began to pool within her gut. Was the statue confused by her fear? What if the statue was attacking the creatures because it somehow thought it was what Hikari wanted? An even more disturbing thought: what if she actually had wanted it to?
It took a cautious step forward, looking down at Hikari the whole time. She heard a voice. "You hide under darkness." Its left arm began to reach out toward her.
As more fear began to strangle Hikari's heart, she wished the statue had never noticed her but continued focusing on the strange lanky creatures.
A black shadowy javelin struck the face of the statue and exploded.
The statue reeled backward from the force of the blow, but as the shadowy material dissipated, Hikari saw that the face of the statue was still perfectly intact. She turned to look for the source of the javelin. Once again she was taken by surprise.
Space seemed to have warped yet again, albeit more violently this time. The gray sand of the beach itself was now mere meters from where Hikari stood. The half of the seaside village between the beach and the ring of black stones had been crushed together into a mess of black and gray debris by the sudden shift in land and water.
More slimy creatures, even taller and lankier than the ones Hikari had met before, were emerging from the gray waters, carrying long shadowy javelins. The closest ones lifted up their weapons and threw them at the statue, causing more explosions against its black surface. Meanwhile, the pained crawly creatures were making their way into the waters of the dark ocean. Hikari watched as the furthest one dipped its arms into the dark waters, and like some corrosive acid the water caused the spiral shackle to melt away. With a hooting croak of joy, the now free creature dove completely into the water before emerging again, taller and lankier, and carrying a shadowy javelin.
The creatures began chanting their dissonant gurgling chant. Hikari understood their strange song. They were singing her praises, thanking her for bringing them to the saving embrace of the dark waters of the ocean.
Why should they do that? Hikari had not done anything to help them… unless, perhaps, she actually had moved them to the ocean or the ocean to them. This dark world, with its callous disregard of physical and geometrical sense, was almost like a dream world. Perhaps like a dream, it could be reshaped by her mind. Perhaps like a dream, unconscious desires that she was not aware of was somehow influencing the dark world.
As she thought this over, the statue recovered and pushed through the barrage of exploding javelins, raising up its right axe arm and swinging it down to cut through the nearest five creatures all at once. It was trying to position itself between her and the army of things by the ocean, as if shielding her. They were fighting over her, she realized.
Another explosion and a javelin flying just in front of her face woke her from her trance, and she tried to find cover in the wreckage between the ocean and circle of stones. The sounds of battle were growing louder and louder, reminding her of so many other battles she had been through. As she remembered them, she realized all of them had been unpleasant, whether they ended in victory or defeat.
"You know my opinions on violence," he had said. She did know. She had always known because she shared those opinions, but like so many other things about herself she had tried to bury it away, hide it in deep dark recesses of her mind.
It was like she was shining a light into the dark corners of her mind again, trying to relearn who she had been, and who she really was. Hikari realized then that she wanted help. She wanted her brother with her again, and she wanted Tailmon by her side. But she also wanted Takeru there with her.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. She blinked. "You came."
He greeted her with a small ironic smile. "I guess I'm just insane."
"He said… he had someone very important to him.
"He said… that someone was why he wanted to be better, why he wanted to be a hero.
"A hero was someone who had the heart, the will, to do whatever was necessary. I wanted to be a hero too."
Takeru glanced up at the three Digimon in front of him. "The first time through, we ended up separating twice. I don't know if I ever told you about those times. You weren't with us yet, Terriermon."
Terriermon shook his head.
"Tailmon, you weren't with us yet either, actually, when we split up the first time."
Tailmon nodded.
"The first time was a bit unexpected. We were fighting a local warlord on Server, Etemon. Taichi finally used his Courage in that final battle, allowing MetalGreymon to defeat Etemon. But at the time, Etemon had integrated himself into his Dark Network, and the resulting explosion was strong enough to warp local space and open a gate, and it ended up sending Taichi and MetalGreymon over. We didn't know that back then. We had no idea what had happened.
"Things changed, but I don't think any of us expected everything to break apart like it did. But it did. Koushiro was our brain, Jou and Sora are backbone, my brother Yamato our eyes and hands, but that time showed us that Taichi was our heart, our will. He was the only one with the vision to find the common ground of all our different perspectives, the only one that could create the single compromise, no, synergistic vision that all of us could work toward. With him gone, we began going our own separate ways."
Takeru looked down at the ground and smoothed the hair hanging over the left side of his face.
"Sora came close though, and she helped keep us from completely turning against each other until Taichi could return and reunite us. The second time was different though. That time was when we fought the Dark Masters.
"Things were different that time. The Masters were strong, and they were in control. The odds were against us. When we lost, innocents died. Even when we won, innocents died. But I was still a little child then. I didn't fully understand. I thought I could be a hero. I was very proud of myself, actually, when I supposedly sacrificed myself to be Pinocchimon's hostage.
"Of course, when I escaped and went back, well, things weren't that simple. My brother and Taichi were arguing again. They always did when things became hard. My brother was upset. He had been ever since he had watched all those Digimon of the Net Ocean die. The casualties were rising, and he accused Taichi of not caring about them. He accused Taichi of not caring about me, because Taichi had tried to restrain him from recklessly rushing Pinocchimon's mansion alone. If anything, my return somehow made things worse.
"My brother wanted to stop fighting. Taichi refused and said 'If we don't keep fighting there will be more hurt in the end. In war there are always sacrifices.'
"My brother said 'A man who does not care about his followers cannot lead them!'
"Taichi turned away, but my brother followed to force the issue. I saw then, that if things kept on like that, something bad would happen. I thought I could do something. I thought I could be a hero. So I stepped up to stop him.
"I said 'Taichi is right.'
"He told me to move, but I refused. 'Taichi is right.'
"He yelled. He pushed me aside. I moved back in front of him. 'Taichi is right.'
"He raised his hand. I recoiled. He didn't hit me. Seeing me turn away from his raised hand brought him back to his senses. After that, things quieted down again. It was a while before we realized that he and Gabumon had disappeared somewhere.
"Then, when he came back, he challenged Taichi to a fight to settle things. And that was that. We were all split up again.
"He regretted the fight a lot. He apologized to Taichi, and Taichi forgave him easily. But the whole incident changed things. It changed things between us. My brother never looked me straight in the eye after that. I was sad. Even now, it hurts, but…
"Taichi was right."
Takeru took a long pause after he finished his story.
"Well, I guess this is what it must have felt like for my brother back then," said Takeru at last. "I'm sorry for losing my temper before." His hands tightened into fists as they rested on his knees. "Waiting is hard, but we've been divided before. We'll reunite again. In the end, we always do."
"Fan gau bit hap, hap gau bit fan," whispered Terriermon.
"You were strong back then, when you went alone to the mansion," said Tailmon. "Hikari is strong too. Whatever happened, we must have faith in her."
Takeru nodded slightly. He felt a chill, and pulled his cloak tighter around himself. It didn't help.
He felt sick in ways indescribable. In his head, he thought over and over about those final moments that he had spent with her. What should he have done? Should he have refused her and answered anyways? Would that have changed things?
No, he should not be thinking like that. If he were to wonder about what could have been if only he had acted differently, there were so many other things for him to wonder about. Right now, only one thing mattered.
If he had to wait, he would wait, for however long as it took. It was like what Terriermon and Tailmon said. They would reunite. Hikari was strong. No matter how bad it seemed now, he could face it, and things would get better again.
He had to keep believing that.
Takeru suddenly lifted his head. The sickness had passed. Instead, he felt something new, something strange and yet familiar. It was a feeling he had felt before, but not for a very long time, not in years.
He stood up. The others watched him, confused by his sudden movement. He was looking straight ahead, and the Digimon tried to follow his gaze. They, however, saw nothing. "What is it?" asked Patamon.
"That light," said Takeru, pointing out. "Don't you see it?"
The Digimon looked on, searching the area where Takeru was pointing. "I don't see it," said Tailmon. "Where is it?"
Takeru began walking forward, his hand outstretched and pointing in front of him. His finger touched the small light in the air that apparently only he could see.
The air shattered in front of him. The Digimon saw something at last. Cracks were emerging out of nothing, as if some invisible wall was breaking and crumbling away, revealing a window into a dark world of black and grey.
Whatever it was, it was enough for them. Takeru was already running through it before any of the three could begin to speak. Patamon and Terriermon charged in after their oath brother, into the breach of dimensions. Tailmon lagged behind a moment, marveling at the strange sight. "Could it be?" she whispered, before following. "Did he just open a path to another dimension… through the strength of his emotion alone?"
On the other side was some sort of wall of debris, made up of crushed shards of gray wood and stone. Hikari was there, crouched beside it. Forgetting himself, Takeru reached out and touched her shoulder.
She looked up in surprise. "You came."
Takeru thought for a moment, and then smiled. "I guess I'm just insane."
The brief celebration of reunion was immediately ended when Takeru felt a massive pain grip his head, as if his skull was being cut open by an ax. Hikari straightened, and the expression on her face was clearly one of worry. "You're bleeding," she said.
Takeru felt something wet just below his nose, and hesitantly touched the area above his lips with two fingers of his right hand. When he looked down at the tips of those fingers, he found that they were red.
Before either could say anything, there was another explosion, louder than the ones Hikari had heard before. They turned and saw the black statue stagger backward. A group of the lanky creatures had flung their javelins in unison at a single concentrated point, and clearly done some damage. Meanwhile, Patamon, Terriermon, and Tailmon finally crossed the gap between the tear in space and their partners by the wall of rubble.
"What's going on?" asked Takeru. He pushed aside the feeling of pain to concentrate on the task at hand. His eye focused on the strange shambling creatures, with their long thin limbs, slimy gray skin, and threatening shadow javelins.
With the statue momentarily stunned, the crowd of lanky gray creatures was turning its attention back to Hikari and the newcomers. Tailmon paused and took a fighting stance. "I don't like the way these things are looking at us," she said.
The crowd began chanting again. It was a single word. Tailmon and the others had no idea what it was, but as before HIkari could understand: Interlopers.
Hikari gave a cry of surprise as she felt the cold wet grip of a claw on her arm. She turned. One of the creatures, thankfully unarmed, having already thrown its javelin at the statue, had crept up the other side of the rubble and surprised her. It croaked its demand that she follow it to the ocean, to meet the God waiting in the depths… to go down into the ocean with them, and never leave it.
"No," said Hikari, trying to pull her arm away from the cold grip. "Let me go…"
The thing only tightened its grip and croaked an obvious threat, warning Hikari that she had no choice in the matter anymore.
"Let her go!" said Takeru, moving to grab the creature's arm and force it off Hikari. Before he had even finished taking the first step toward Hikari, however, another creature hopped forward and grabbed Takeru's left arm, pulling him away.
Patamon and Terriermon went straight into action, firing their airburst and green fire breath attacks at the creature holding Takeru. To their horror, both the air and fire seemed to merely dissipate as it struck the creature's slimy skin, leaving it completely unharmed.
Tailmon pounced, the golden ring on her tail flashing with light as she tore the arm of the creature holding Hikari with her claw. The swipe slashed through the arm, and the creature howled in pain and fell backward. Before their eyes, it and its severed arm seemed to dissolve into smoke and vanish, just like the ones that the black statue had cloven with its ax arm.
Hikari glanced at the still-glowing ring on Tailmon's tail, and instantly made the connection. She looked up at Takeru, who came to the same realization. He nodded and lifted up his still-free right arm, revealing the golden Digivice, and called to Patamon.
In the next moment, Angemon emerged from the white light of evolution, the golden ring on his wrist and golden staff in his hands both glowing brightly with a fierce light. Angemon lifted up and jabbed his staff like a spear, impaling the chest of the creature holding Takeru, causing it too to wail and vanish. The next moment, he turned and swung his staff, cleaving through another creature that was trying to sneak up behind him with its shadow lance.
"No fair," muttered Terriermon as he looked on.
His attention however turned to the rumbling sound of footsteps. The black statue had recovered and was advancing again. Its blank stone gaze was fixed on Takeru as it reached the piles of debris.
A voice seemed to whisper "In the midst of the boy's darkness, there is something… but still…" The statue raised up its ax arm threateningly as it stood over them.
Recognizing the statue as different from the gray creatures, Terriermon smiled as he figured out a role he could still fill. As the green Digivice on Takeru's left arm flashed, he charged forward, evolving to Galgomon in midair before bringing up his strong right arm, gauntlet gun barrels spinning with green fire, into a heavy uppercut right into the black statue's stone face.
It seemed the battle between the statue and the slime creatures had ended, but only because the two sides had a third side between them to cut through first. Despite having lost two of their number to Tailmon and Angemon, the remaining slime creatures continued to advance on them, shaking their javelins angrily and continue to gargle and croak mysterious chants.
"What do they want?" asked Takeru, looking on anxiously as the crowd of creatures began to form a half circle around them despite Angemon and Tailmon trying to ward them away with swings of their staff and claws.
"They want to take me away," said Hikari. "They want me to join with their God… under the Ocean…"
Takeru glanced at Hikari, confused. "You can understand them?"
Hikari nodded. "They're… they're saying that because of your interference, the stars have changed…"
"The stars? What does that mean?"
Hikari shook her head, indicating that although she knew enough to translate she didn't fully understand the mysterious chants herself. "The stars have changed," she repeated. "When the stars are wrong, the dead God must wait. Now that the stars are right, the city is rising, and the dead God is waking again…"
Takeru blinked, only growing more confused. "What city? What God? What…?"
He suddenly cut off as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He looked down and saw something like the point of a gray spear protruding from it.
"What the… What is this…? Is this a spear?
"No, it's not a spear. It's not metal. It… it feels fleshy… and wet… maybe even rubbery… No, this isn't a spear at all. This is a tentacle. There are even little suckers on the bottom.
"Ah. It pulled back.
"Strange. It doesn't hurt.
"That's not a good sign. It's supposed to hurt. If it doesn't hurt, that means something is really broken somewhere. Maybe it severed some nerves. Maybe? Damn. After spending all that time with Jou, why don't I know more about stuff like this? Why can't I feel anything?
"Did I just die? Did this tentacle just kill me?
"No, I'm not dead. At least, I'm not dead yet. I'm still alive. I can still think. I can still see. I can still hear.
"Wait, no, I can't. Hikari is saying something. I can see her open her mouth, but I can't hear what she's saying. Huh. Are those tears in her eyes? No, they can't be. She hasn't cried in years. And why would she cry? She's not hurt, is she?
"I don't see any wounds on her. Those things that grabbed her before, they seem to be backing away, actually. That's good. And I can't hear that horrible sounding chant of theirs. That's good.
"Hikari is okay. She's not hurt. That's good. That is what's important here.
"Hm... Did I just fall? I must have. Everything looks different now. Is that my hat over there? It must have slipped off.
"Why can't I feel anything?
"Damn. That tentacle must have really did some damage. I really am going to die.
"Damn it. Not like this. Not right after we found the coordinates. Not right when the end of the war is finally in sight. In a year there will be peace again. In a year Hikari is going to smile and laugh like she used to. We will have that walk along the beach together, where we finally have that nice long talk to set some things to rest, just like I promised we would.
"I still haven't written down records of our adventures in the Digital World. I was supposed to do that, for Taichi and Agumon and my brother and Gabumon and Sora and… and everyone really… I still have to write down what everyone did, what everyone went through, so that it will be remembered and never forgotten. I was supposed to do that, so that everything they did and everything they went through would live on, like it should, so that all the sacrifices wouldn't be for nothing.
"Terriermon still hasn't finished teaching me Cantonese either. We still have to visit Guangzhou. And Taibei. And Paris. And in the Digital World, we still have to finally explore Directory Continent. We still have to revisit the Royal Knights monument to pay proper respects. We still have to bring a real sacrificial tribute to leave at the altar, not like that little trinket we left the first time. And there are so many other things I still have left to do.
"It was hard to survive this long, you know. I was lucky to have made it this far.. and now it's going to end like this? It's not fair.
"I don't want to die."
Hikari was too horrified to even scream as she caught Takeru in her arms. Her hands gripped the hole the tentacle had left behind, desperately pushing down as if she could somehow close it and heal it just by doing so.
The gray tentacle lazily pulled back, and her eyes followed it back to its source: the ocean. Some more identical tentacles were beginning to poke out from the waters as well, adding to Hikari's growing panic. She remembered the strange miniature statue made from the slimy alien stone, with its appearance of a mass of countless tentacles bundled together as limbs. When she glanced up at the distant horizon, she thought she could see the faint outline of menacing red eyes staring through the mist at her.
Her surroundings seemed to grow dimmer, and when she looked around at her companions she saw why. Angemon had shrunk down back to Patamon, his white glow vanishing with the evolution. Galgomon had reverted to Terriermon. The two looked down at their small forms in surprise, before turning and finding the reason for their sudden power loss.
With Angemon no longer at her side as support, Tailmon could no longer hold off the onslaught of the advancing slime creatures alone, and was gradually pushed back. Steadily, the crowd advanced upon them, pace by pace, as Tailmon was forced back, pace by pace, and Patamon and Terriermon ran to Takeru's fallen form.
"Hikari…"
Upon hearing her name, Hikari shifted Takeru's body to a cradling position in her arms, holding his head close to her chest even as her hands remained pressed down on his.
"Listen, Hikari… I'm sorry…"
Hikari pushed ever harder on the hands covering the hole. "Hush, don't talk," she said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. Her racing mind told herself that talking would cause shaking inside the body and make things worse.
"I'm sorry… about what happened… back then…"
Hikari shook her head, not understanding. "What?"
"Three years ago… with everyone… I'm sorry…"
"That…" Hikari bit her lip and tightened her grip on the hands in hers. "No, that…" She shook her head. "That wasn't your fault, that… that was my fault. What happened back then… was my fault." She shook her head harder and gripped so tightly her hands turned white. "No, don't… I… the things I said… I was always mad, but I never really blamed… I never… I never meant what I said… I was angry with myself. I lashed out. But even so I never… I never really blamed you…"
"You asked what reason I had, to do what I do for you..."
"That's not important right now," said Hikari desperately, her mouth practically tripping over itself as she tried to keep talking, as if somehow words could save the situation. Her hands briefly left his, going to his face. "That was a stupid question. Forget about it. Just… just stay awake, alright? Don't… don't fall asleep or anything. Just stay awake."
"I know why you are afraid to ask. You are afraid that... that what drives me is guilt. But you don't have to be afraid of that. It's not guilt. I don't do what I do out of guilt. Even if things had been different, I'd still do what I do. The reason is something else entirely."
"I take back what I said before," stammered Hikari. "Everything. All of it. Please, just don't…"
He closed his eye and smiled. "The reason is simple. You are Hikari. That is enough."
Patamon flew up and grabbed Takeru's right arm, shaking it wildly as he called his partner's name. Terriermon grabbed the left arm and shook it desperately as well. Tailmon looked back, her face contorted in desperate fear, and she jumped back to join them all. Around them, the crowd of long limbed slime creatures drew closer and closer.
Hikari's grip on the body tightened. She looked at Patamon and Terriermon, and couldn't help but smile sadly, despite herself. "An older brother protects his younger siblings," she whispered. She shook her head. "You say that, Takeru… but Takeru, you're the youngest one. You were supposed to be the last one standing." She placed her hand on his, giving it a light squeeze. "An older sister protects her younger brother."
And with that, she looked up at the advancing crowd, and said a single word. "Stop."
The advancing crowd faltered. They looked on, tilting their twitching heads side to side in an almost inquisitive manner. One tentatively raised a leg to step forward.
"I said stop," said Hikari. She reached out and pointed directly at the crowd. "Get away."
Some of the creatures exchanged glances with each other. The nearest one gurgled in response, asking her to stop resisting. No one could resist the power of the old God, not even they. They were all bound to obey the will of the one down in the depths.
"I don't care if you are slaves, or victims, or puppets, or whatever," growled Hikari. "You think you can still win even a hint of sympathy from me now, after all this? You think you can scare me? I'm not afraid of your threats anymore. Get away."
Another creature croaked an answer, explaining their previous statement. It was not a threat. It was advice.
Hikari's eyes widened as the oppressive aura almost crushed her. Tailmon, Patamon, and Terriermon all collapsed to the ground, gripping their chests and gasping, as if the wind had been suddenly forced out of them. Before them, the entire ocean seemed to swell with rage, massive waves and whirlpools suddenly forming as the dark clouds above began to twist and swirl. The long grey tentacles rose up high into the sky all the way up to the clouds, waving in wild chaotic spasms. And beneath this horrible aura of concentrated malice and dark will, Hikari glimpsed the power hidden in the darkness before her, and understood just what was before her.
Dagomon: Perfect level. Virus Attribute. Sea God Type. Deep Savers. Melee Attack: Forbidden Trident. Rapid Attack: Thousand Whip.
Slowly, she lowered her head. The sheer presence of the thing threatened to suffocate her. The thing before her was on an entirely other level of existence. She could not hope to compare. She could not hope to win.
A low groan from one of the creatures called for her to give up.
Hikari sighed. She smoothed the hair of the head pressed against her chest.
"You know, he had a lot to live for," she whispered.
A shiver of anxiety passed through the wave of creatures, and even the long gray tentacles seemed to shrink slightly back into the ocean.
"He always fought hard, and survived so much to make it this far, and despite that, he was willing to give it all up for me." Hikari looked up at them, and smiled. "So really, do you think that I care whether or not I can win? I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. He is enough reason for me to fight."
Hikari slowly set down the body she had been cradling, and straightened, standing tall despite the oppressive presence trying to crush her down.
"Here I come."
The crowd let out a wail of despair, and a haunting groan came from the ocean, one that recalled regret and mourning.
This was not supposed to happen. She had been brought so that her power could be joined with the power of the Sinful Priest of the Ocean Floor, not so that she could use it against the God and the world. The way things were going now, she would not only deny the dark world of the much needed light it had sought to gain, but also cause some more damage to the decaying world in the process as an extra layer of spite.
All around, the creatures flung themselves to the ground, wailing and begging her to stop. The Sinful Priest would destroy her if forced to, and everything would have been for nothing.
But through all the wails, the black statue marched forward to stand beside Hikari. It looked down at her, and pointed. "Use it," said a voice.
Hikari looked at the statue in confusion. "Use what?"
"Remember," said the voice. "Use it."
And then, Hikari remembered the day she had spent in the wide open field, some three years ago. Her hand reached down to her pocket, and felt something that had appeared there.
No, she felt something that had always been there. She just had never noticed it before. Her hand slipped inside and pulled the object out: a second, pink D2 Digivice.
The oppressive aura from before seemed to lessen, allowing Tailmon to get back up. Meanwhile Hikari looked back to the black statue in surprise. Cracks began running down the surface of the statue, cracks which revealed a powerful pink light emerging from beneath the outer shell of black stone. "This is a Digivice?" said Hikari in wonder. "Just who are you?"
"Hidden in your darkness is... well, you already know better than I do," said the emerging form as the outer black shell completely broke away, falling aside and revealing the true appearance of the tall humanoid rabbit Digimon, with brown fur and dressed in violet and white. "It is the strongest I have ever seen. You are the one I have been waiting for all these years. I will join you."
Andiramon: Perfect level. Data Attribute. Holy Beast Type. Virus Busters. Melee Attack: Treasure Ax. Support Attack: Meditation Cure.
Hikari studied the now free Digimon, and suddenly she understood. "Andiramon, you have the ability to warp time and space. That's why they wanted to unlock your power. You could have changed the stars for them. And back when I touched you... you changed the past so that I would have this Digivice with me at this moment."
Andiramon shook its head. "No. The past is the past and the future is the future. I cannot change that. What I did was merely close a temporal loop that was already and will always be there. You always had the Digivice with you for all those years. You always will have had the Digivice with you for all those years."
A tentacle suddenly shot forward at Andiramon, but the Digimon cut it down with its ax arm. The stump retreated back to the water, writhing the whole way, while the severed piece fell to the ground, squirming and twitching.
Hikari turned back toward the ocean. The remaining tentacles looked as if they were regrouping to prepare for another wave of attacks. "Can you defeat that thing?" she asked Andiramon.
"No," admitted Andiramon. "I cannot fight at full strength in this world, and even if I could, I still would not be able to match that thing by myself."
Hikari's hand curled into a fist as she looked back out over the ocean. She felt something brush her leg, and looked down. Tailmon was there. "We should use Andiramon's space-warping ability to open a way out and retreat," advised the cat. "Escaping this place and living on is how we will really win this fight."
Hikari frowned, but nevertheless nodded in agreement. She looked up at Andiramon. "Can you open something like a dimensional gate?"
"Like before, I will only be able to do so with your power."
It took only a moment for Hikari to remember the warmth she felt at her fingertips when she touched Andiramon as a statue before, and realize what Andiramon meant. She nodded. "Alright, but…" She looked back to where Patamon and Terriermon were cradling Takeru's still form. Hikari held up the pink D2. "Like you did with this Digivice… can we something similar, only this time to change…?"
"The past is the past. I cannot change it."
"Right," said Hikari, swallowing heavily, yet there was a hint of defiance in her eyes as she reached out and touched Andiramon's paw. "The past is the past." She grit her teeth as she felt the warmth reappear in her hand before growing into a burning heat. "You cannot change it..."
Andiramon's right arm shifted its shape, turning from the doubled bladed ax back into a paw. It reached out and touched the air, causing the air to suddenly crack around them. Immediately, Andiramon suddenly began to glow and shrink down into a much smaller form. Even with Hikari's power, the amount of energy needed to open the way was so much that Andiramon was completely drained, and could no longer support its Perfect level form. As the Digimon shrank down, it blinked in surprise. It had expected opening a way would be draining, but not this much. Something was wrong. The energy had been diverted elsewhere. Its eyes widened in understanding. Despite what it had told Hikari, Hikari had tried something impossible anyways.
All the tentacles of the Sinful Priest lashed out from the ocean, trying to grab the six before it was too late.
But it was already too late, and the tentacles smashed against nothing but sand and wooden debris and stagnant dead air. They were gone. The tentacles slowly began to slither back into the water. The stars had changed again with the opening and closing of the path between dimensions, and the Sinful Priest would have to wait yet again, until another opportunity arose.
But it wasn't a total loss. And it could afford to wait.