Author's Notes

Last chapter, sans the epilogue. The ending is actually inspired from Sailor Moon's ending…except with not as much death involved. And Savers in a sense.

And this looked a lot better in my head than on paper. I mean, seriously.

Up next: Epilogue – Their journey has finally come to a close, and all that's left is to say goodbye to their dear friends and take what they've gained along the way.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think. Especially since *sniff sniff* nobody reviewed the last two chapters. Epilogue will be up in a few days; hopefully tomorrow.

Achilles' Heel

Sequel to Butterflies' Flight. It is a fatal weakness in humankind, an enemy they themselves created and fuelled with each step towards defeating evil. Because evil always exists; it cannot be defeated, as does much else...a broken balance needing repair.

Takuya K & Kouichi K

Genre/s: Drama/Friendship

Rating: T

Chapter 11 – Mankind's Sin

The silence was grating their nerves, filling the air with an insistent buzzing reminiscent of flies in the heat. It was almost like waiting for a bell to ring and signal the end – except it would be more like a gong shattering their virtually non-existent delusions of peace…unless it had already rung and they had simply missed it.

Takuya laughed suddenly, though it was somewhat forced. 'When did we become so paranoid?'

The question was rhetorical, and Kouji only looked at him through his bangs. His trademark bandana was currently off; little drops of sweat clung to his skin and he was mopping his brow with an even more sullied hand. Izumi was flat against a rock, almost as though she was trying to remember what the earth felt like under her back. Tomoki was rubbing various sores along his body, while Junpei was silently thinking about something or other.

Kouichi was a little apart from them, busy getting scolded by two Perfect level digimon. Or rather, Angewomon was busy scolding LadyDevimon and the warrior of darkness while healing up the head injury during her tirade. It was actually rather amusing to watch, and the Warriors' heads gravitated towards it. Takuya had found though that, during said period, his brown eyes were restlessly flickering in other directions, skimming every nook and cranny of the shattered temple as though something would burst out from beneath it.

Which was unusual for him, and he normally didn't notice someone sneaking up on him until they were in his face.

'I think it had to do with the Demon Lords,' Bokomon supplied, glaring at Neemon when he responded with a: 'It did?'

'Well, that's an obvious one.' Junpei straightened, fidgeting a little so he could get more comfortable. 'It's the whole reason we got to come to the Digital World.' He had almost said "come" instead of "got to come", so it was a bit of a surprise the latter came out without any hint of hesitation. It didn't seem anyone else had noticed though.

'I think we've got a good reason to be paranoid though,' Kouichi pointed out reasonably, blinking as Angewomon did something in front of his eyes. 'We're still here and there's got to be a reason for that.'

'Maybe it's just because we haven't found the Angels yet for them to send us home,' Tomoki suggested.

'Angewomon?' was the reply.

'Can't open the Gate,' she responded with a frown. 'I've already tried that, you know. And I was very tempted to try earlier as well, but it would have defeated the purpose in my calling you to rescue your friends in the first place.'

The other seven looked somewhat shocked before the pieces started connecting.

'Angewomon is Ophanimon?' Izumi blinked. 'Wow, didn't see that one for some reason.'

Neither had Bokomon apparently, for he was frantically flicking through his trusted book as though it would inform him of something.

'Hang on.' Kouji, who had been milling the information in his head, suddenly interjected. 'If this Angewomon – ' Said angel glared at him, and Kouji quickly corrected himself, 'If you're the Ophanimon we met previously, then who called the five of us to the Digital World? Unless you made a mistake and landed us in a trap, then called my brother to get us out of it?'

Angewomon looked a little affronted at the accusation, though the tone the other had used implied he didn't really believe she had. 'I did no such thing,' she said anyway. 'It was your presence in the Digital World that fed the Demon Lords to the level of power you saw.' Her tone mellowed a bit as she continued: 'It would have been quite a few decades before anything detrimental happened otherwise.'

'Why is that?' Junpei asked. 'Is the Digital World a reflection of the human world or something? It's not like Digimon don't have emotions of any kind, so why are our emotions more powerful?' He paused, reconsidering his words. 'Well, more appetizing I guess.'

Angewomon shrugged; so did LadyDevimon. The truth was, neither of them really knew.

'The Digital World has always simply existed,' Bokomon explained, as the children looked at each other. 'There are theories – most of them by Wisemon or Baromon – but nothing proven. I suppose the human world is the same?'

'Well, I suppose so.' Junpei shrugged. Takuya looked blank, as though he had never considered it, but the twins and Izumi were all nodding in agreement. 'It's not a whole lot of help though.' He looked up to the angel. 'Do you at least know where the Demon Lords came from?'

'Speculation,' Angewomon replied, 'but I have heard things about a Digimon called Hitotsumon, but no-one has ever seen him.' She crossed her arms, a frowning forming on her flawless face. Somehow, she seemed a lot more straightforward in this reincarnation.

LadyDevimon too was tense, and she had spoken even less. In contrast the light angel was quite forthcoming with her repertoire of information, but none of it was remotely useful.

'Do you think he'll attack us?' Tomoki asked, looking up. 'The big bosses don't normally take this long.'

'If it's designed to drive us crazy waiting,' Takuya replied, 'it's working quite well.'

Surprisingly, the twins started snickering like that, though Kouji stopped with a little blush and Koucihi laughed a little longer. 'Still as impatient as always,' he volleyed over thereafter, and Takuya groaned towards him.

'I'm allowed to be impatient, thank you very much.'

They all, Takuya and the stern Angewomon included, laughed a little at that, feeling their tense muscles relax a little. The discussion that followed bore no extra fruit, but at least none of them ran the risk of dying of an extremely premature heart attack.

When the change happened, it was slow and nerve-gratingly steady. It began with the small pieces of stone crumbing into dust swept up by the wind, and it took a while for them to notice. In fact, it was Tomoki, who had started entertaining the notion that there was a magical door somewhere, who found a small piece of rock becoming gravel before his eyes, who first noticed the change.

The alarm propelled them all to their feet and the two Perfect level Digimon to ready their wings for a sudden flight. The Child Digimon scrambled for a makeshaft cover. Takuya's and Kouji's D-scanners were already in their hands, and the others quickly followed suit as eight pairs of eyes scanned the landscape for a potential threat.

A minute and a half later, Takuya sat back down with a groan and watched a stone the size of his big toe crumbled into smaller pieces. 'When is something going to happen?' he asked.

'Maybe weeks or months down the track,' Junpei said thoughtfully, poking the ground and watching it waste away beneath his fingertips. 'Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this what was happening the last time?'

'No.' Both Kouichi and LadyDevimon shook their heads, before the latter took up the explanation. 'From what Cherubimon-sama explained to me – I believe this was around the time he fished Kouichi out of the Dark Area – ' She grinned as the subject made a face as the unintentional pun, 'what had happened was that the Digital World had lost its ability to regenerate. Digi-code is simply that; code. It runs through what you humans would consider a mainframe computer, and the computer then gives an output: this world. Technically speaking then, if the data inputted remains the same, then the external output should be the same as well, however while the computer has infinite processing power in our terms, the code can get worn the more times it is run through the system. Damages can happen, and while the computer has functions in place to repair those damages there comes a time where the data becomes irrepearable. In that case, the memory is wiped and a backup file containing the original data is loaded and fed to the computer to replace the existing loop.'

'That makes sense.' Junpei, who appeared to be the only one apart from Kouichi (who had heard this in the past) that had followed that, nodded thoughtfully. 'In a way it's like our DNA. It replicates frequently, but sometimes mutations occur, and while those mutations often are either repaired on the spot or don't cause any damage to us, there can be ones that have an outwardly physical effect. Some mutations – or certain combinations of them – can even kill us, and even when they don't they war down eventually because of the oxygen we breathe.'

'But don't we need oxygen?' Takuya asked.

'Well, yeah. But it's also the thing that makes us get wrinkles and stuff.'

Izumi brought a hand to her face, before being thrown off by an entire pillar vanishing in front of her. 'I think we got entirely off topic,' she said, before directing her attention to LadyDevimon. 'Why is that different from now?'

'I'm not sure,' LadyDevimon admitted. 'We've been looking into it when the surgery doesn't have too many patients, but it became a lot more difficult with all the recent casualties from the Demon Lords. We do know though that there appears to be some sort of energy that is stopping the regenerative process, something that grew exponentially stronger when you children re-entered this world and has grown in power since.'

'Even when we defeated the Demon Lords?' Kouji asked. 'Has this got to do with what Ni-san remembered?'

'Which was hardly anything at all,' the elder twin pointed out, frowning a little before shaking his head. 'I think it's a lost cause.'

'That's probably for the best,' Angewomon said, her features softening slightly as she looked down at him before turning back to the younger twin. 'We noticed the energy waned and waxed at certain points; certainly it fell at the exact moment of defeat of a Demon Lord, but it increased just as rapidly.'

'I wonder if we were doing something then.' Junpei folded his arms and Kouji followed suit. Tomoki regarded them curiously, before turning back to the slowly dissolving scenery and letting out a startled gasp.

The others turned to him and gaped themselves; somehow, in the time they were talking the world had completely vanished.

'I see you've finally noticed my presence.'

The voice echoed strangely, as though it were pre-recorded and being played into empty space. The humans looked around blindly, finding they could not even see or sense each other save for the sound of their breaths. The Digimon they couldn't sense at all for they were refined warriors with far more care, but the angel and fallen angel pair could pick out their positions in the gloom.

'Though you still wander…lost…' There was no emotion in the tone; it was simply a fact put out to the world.

Takuya turned sharply, trying to pick out the voice. So did Kouji, and as a result they collided, heads banging with a distinct smack and two cries of pain. The others, now adequately forewarned, turned more slowly towards the sound. Fingers stretched out, grasping warmth in the flat atmosphere, and finally they managed to organise themselves into a semi-organised clump.

They knew where their friends were anyway, which was good enough. Neemon clung to Tomoki's leg; Bokomon hid behind Junpei, and the twins could feel the brush of wings behind them.

'All together,' the voice intoned, 'the embodiment of the sins: the cause of the evils.'

'Now just hold on a second.' Takuya's goggles slipped a little in his hair as he glared towards a spot in the black. 'You're the one who dragged us into this mess.'

'I do not exist,' came the monotonous reply. 'I simply am, fed by the blackening hearts of humans.'

There was a hiss from LadyDevimon. 'Do recall that light and dark have been on the same side for the three largest battles in history.'

'History does not concern me. It is the state of the world that brings me into being, and it is the state of its people that decide my form.'

'And you can decide that, how?' Izumi shot back. 'You're not a human; you can't possibly understand us.'

'She's right.' Kouji might have nodded if the action wouldn't be ultimately redundant.

'I cannot benefit.' A normal digimon would have been annoyed, but not this one. 'I cannot suffer. I am but one thing.'

'That explains where the name Hitotsumon came from,' Kouichi said quietly. 'Hitotsu translates to one thing after all, but he…it…doesn't appear to be a digimon at all.' He raised his voice after that statement. 'You're not a digimon are you? And you're not human either, so what are you?'

'I am whatever I am made,' came the reply. 'I simply exist to restore balance.'

That last line didn't quite connect before the pre-evolved warriors were almost knocked off their feet.

Angewomon strung an arrow, giving off a little light in the darkness but showing nothing save the thumb and forefinger of her hand, pointing towards nothing. LadyDevimon flexed her wings beside the other, claws elongating and pulsing with dark energy, but there the two waited, for without a target there was little to attack.

A second blast knocked them all down, and the arrow flew askew. Tomoki tumbled over somebody's legs; Izumi managed to grab onto Bokomon and Neemon while getting sandwiched by JP, and Takuya and Kouji found their heads had knocked into each other again. LadyDevimon, in the commotion, managed to grab Kouichi (purely by coincidence, because her senses were dulled by the chaotic scene) and hover with him as the others tried to disentangle themselves.

The next wave knocked them out of the air, and the fourth pinned them all in their place like a gravity field.

'Damn,' Takuya whispered, attempting and failing to reach for his D-scanner. 'Hey, fight us…properly.'

'I do not fight.' The response was as flat as its predecessors.

'Right, you restore balance,' Junpei muttered, 'we get that.' He thought for a moment, something made more difficult flat on the floor. 'Balance…the sins?'

'Can't…be,' Kouichi pointed out, a little breathless like the rest of them. 'We beat…them all.'

They thought; the disembodied voice offered nothing else and the digimon did nothing, motionless and soundless. But then, they could barely talk themselves…but if they could come up with a plan, it would be worth the time spent.

And the air was growing heavier atop them.

Takuya struggled under the mass above him; his chest was being crushed on the floor, and he was sure a few centimetres would allow him to get a decent breath. It wasn't as though he had been running on the baseball field all afternoon after all; there was no sweat and no satisfaction and no adrenaline ebbing away; all in all, in fact, it was quite anticlimactic as far as final-boss battles went.

After all, they'd already dealt with all the Demon Lords. There couldn't be anything else left.

And fighting did not involve struggling against anti-gravity like in science fiction movies.

He growled. 'There's got to be…something.' His arms shook with the effort, and he was relieved his coach made them do so many push-ups in training. If their defeating the Demon Lords just made the new guy stronger, then what was it?

'Damn.' That sounded like Kouji, cursing his inability. 'Light and darkness…the same…so why not this…'

'That's it!' Tomoki shouted suddenly, and the others would have jumped if they were able. 'It's too much of a good – woah!'

He broke off as Takuya suddenly felt a small warm weight fall on top of him. 'What the heck?'

'Sorry Takuya-nii,' the youngester's sheepish reply came, before he bounced back to his idea. 'Yeah, anyway, it's too much of a good thing. By defeating all the sins, we overcame them and tipped the balance too far to the virtue side.'

They thought about that, and Takuya found he was able to sit up and squint at the other's frames in the dim. They had pulled themselves to their knees as well, taking deep breaths to satisfy their insatiable lungs. While it hadn't been nearly enough to knock them unconscious, it had been rather uncomfortable.

'We're hardly representative of the Human World,' Kouichi said finally. 'Sure, between us we cover the seven sins and their virtues, but they're hardly uncommon.'

'But you are the only Chosen to recently enter our world,' came Bokomon's reply, breathless but high pitched and excited. 'Of course, Hitotsumon's influence in your world must have been extremely limited, so he could only judge from the six of you!'

The warriors considered for a moment, before registered the presence of the digimon. 'Hey, you're back.'

'We were always here,' LadyDevimon responded, a little peeved. 'That force-field was keeping us immobile.'

'Has the bad guy gone yet?' Neemon asked suddenly.

'Of course not you – ' Bokomon paused. 'Where is here anyway?'

The humans looked blankly at each other – or where they thought the others were.

'If Hitotsumon's not a human nor a digimon,' Kouichi repeated, 'what could he possibly be?'

'A God?' Izumi suggested. 'Something from another dimension? Some sort of spirit? A computer programme?'

'I think the last is most likely.' Junpei crossed his arms, thinking. Ultimately, as confusing as the Digital World appeared, it could be mapped out as a single computer with a single master programme. Which meant… 'A repair mechanism,' he surmised. 'Trying to restore balance.'

Takuya tried to stand, but couldn't manage removing two supports from the ground and was forced to remain propped up with both arms. 'This is so anticlimactic,' he groaned again, this time aloud. 'Seriously; are we having an old man's quarrel or fighting a war here.'

'You mean a philosophical debate?'

'Kouichi, don't use such big terms.'

'Yeah, his head isn't big enough to handle it.'

'Koji!'

Koji shrugged though invisible in the blanket of darkness. 'Too perfect an opportunity to resist?' he offered, before switching back to seriousness. 'Considering Hitotsumon's not attacking us again, I guess we're on the right track. Question is though, what can we do about it?'

'I know what we can do.' Angewomon sounded just as annoyed as LadyDevimon with her inability to help. 'Nothing.'

'But – ' Takuya began, but the angel cut across him.

'I meant we digimon,' she clarified. 'We reflect the state of the human world after all; you six represent it, and there must be something in that.'

'Maybe –' Tomoki and Junpei began together, before stopping. 'Err, you go,' Junpei offered.

Tomoki audibly collected himself. 'Even if we do represent the human world, the six of us can't change things overnight and we shouldn't either. It's just not the way the world works; it's supposed to be able to grow on its own, without a whole bunch of guidelines.'

'That's a lot of wisdom for a little kid,' the warrior of wind said appreciably. 'Wish I could have said that.'

'You have your moments,' Takuya offered.

'Oh, really?' He couldn't tell what she meant by the tone, but he didn't need to as Tomoki prompted Junpei to speak.

'I was thinking,' the warrior of thunder began, 'that if we established a balance, nothing would happen after that. It would be the end. It's just like a chemical reaction; once both sides of the equation equal each other, the reaction stops happening. Sure, there's a little movement on both sides, but nothing significant in any way. It's stagnant.'

The humans slowly processed that. 'So we do nothing?' Kouichi asked eventually. 'Go on as the world has always done, and hope for a bright future?'

'Sounds good to me,' Takuya decided. 'I'm having trouble with the science, but hope is something I can understand.'

'Yeah,' Kouji agreed, before raising his voice. 'You've been listening, haven't you Hitotsumon? What was your plan with this?'

'I have no plan,' came the reply. 'My only function is to restore balance.'

'Then let us do it out way.' The warrior of light straightened, staring the darkness head on. For a moment, it flickered, and he was looking through it to patterns and script that made no sense to him at all. 'Have faith in humanity. We've survived four thousand years after all and we've come this far.'

There was silence for a moment, and they all waited with baited breath. Then, finally, the darkness lifted.

'Very well,' came the agreement. 'I shall leave you to your own world, and await that future your young hearts so firmly believe in.'

There was a pause; silence hung in the air, and then –

'Restore mechanisms terminating. Current file saving.'

And just like that, they were back in the human world as if nothing had changed. Angewomon, LadyDevimon, Bokomon and Neemon were nowhere to be found, and neither were their D-scanners, replaced once again by the cell phones they had originated from.

'We're back already?' The words slipped out before Takuya even processed them, and a scolding scream was his answer.

'Kanbara Takuya, you disappear for months and those are the first words out of your mouth!'

Somehow, hearing his mother's sharp voice helped bring things into a better perspective.