A/N: From this chapter onwards, this is officially a crossover between both Digimon Tamers and the book Something Wicked Nothing Sacred by C.C Corma (if you google the title it should come up on amazon, and the reason it wasn't "officially" a crossover before now was because I wasn't sure if the author was okay with fanfiction of it or not, but now I know they are). So the new characters, setting, themes, etc in this chapter and the next one are from that. Also, SWNS has themes of things like gangs, drugs, sex work, etc, so any mentions or representations of those things are based on how they're represented in that, but either way I apologise if I don't portray them well or accurately.
Naomi doesn't exist in that story so this is an AU of that too, and the characters are also likely at least a bit out of character.

I'm not sure if this chapter and the next one will make much sense to anyone who hasn't read SWNS, but hopefully it won't be too confusing.

That night, Naomi slept over at Rika's house, as was pretty common at this point.

It was midnight, but neither of them were sleeping. Rika was staring at the ceiling, and Naomi was looking at her phone.

Naomi started coughing, and grimaced as her throat hurt.

Rika looked over, "Are you okay?"

Naomi nodded, and sat up, but kept coughing.

"Please don't ever try to inhale data again."

"I know," Naomi said out loud, her voice sounding quiet and scratchy, "I won't."

She continued coughing, but then jumped when her phone rang.

"Who's calling?" Rika asked, confused. In the amount of time she'd known Naomi, she'd never actually seen her phone ring or go off.

Naomi shrugged, and coughed a few more times, "I don't know," she said, sounding slightly more normal this time, "Maybe my friend."

She answered her phone, and said nothing for a few minutes.

"Okay. Can I hear this from someone who isn't you? … Because you exaggerate everything. … Fine. Can I- Never mind. … I'll tell you later. Bye."

Rika was even more confused.

Naomi smiled, "You know how I've gotten to meet your friends? Do you wanna meet mine?"

Rika nodded, "Yeah, sure."

"Okay," Naomi said, and stood up, "Get dressed and let's go."

"Now?" Rika said, doing as Naomi said, "But it's the middle of the night."

"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, I do, I'm just really confused."

Naomi shrugged, "You'll see."

Rika had no idea where they were walking to, but just followed Naomi. They'd gone past where Naomi lived and continued walking, and it seemed as though the houses and other buildings were more and more falling-apart and graffiti-covered the further they walked. She started to feel uneasy.

"Um, is this place safe? Wherever we're going?"

"Not really," Naomi said, "But as long as you're with me you'll be fine!"

That just unsettled Rika even more, but she didn't say anything else.

After a while, they got to a bus stop, and waited there.

"Do buses run this late?" Rika asked.

"This one does!" Naomi said.

After a few minutes, a bus pulled up, and they got on.

Rika paid for both of them, and they moved towards the back of the bus. It seemed completely empty, until a person jumped up from one of the back seats and ran over.

"Naomi!" the person yelled, "Who's your friend? What took so long? Why haven't we seen you? Teri hasn't told us anything and says you're gone all the time! Where do you go? What have you been doing? Why did your voice sound so weird on the phone? Woah, your hair is purple! That's awesome!"

Rika shrank back slightly from how loud this person was.

Naomi laughed but said nothing, and grabbed Rika's hand and dragged her towards the back of the bus, where a few more people were sitting.

Rika sat as far away from the people as possible. Were these Naomi's friends? She wasn't sure why exactly, but they seemed slightly intimidating.

Naomi poked Rika to get her attention, then signed, "From now on, you have to be quiet and act submissive to everyone. There's a hierarchy here, and you're below the bottom of it because you're not from anywhere around here. Nobody will hurt you 'cause you're with me, but you still need to be careful."

Rika was shocked, but nodded silently.

"Perfect! Just like that," Naomi signed. Then she pointed to everyone on the bus in turn, and spelled out their names, "That's Rio," she signed, pointing to the loud person with blonde hair who was only just sitting back down, "That's Rune," she pointed to someone with long black hair, "And that's Rayne," she pointed to someone with red hair, vaguely similar to Rika's.

"So, who is your friend, and where have you been?" Rune asked.

Naomi coughed slightly, then smiled and flapped both hands enthusiastically, "This is Rika! She's my girlfriend! And I guess I've just been busy with school and stuff," she shrugged.

"I go to school too, and I still have time to go out," Rio said.

"You aren't in a relationship," Naomi said, "Anyway, where's Teri? Where's Pixie, as well, actually?"

"I think he's probably gone ahead of us," Rayne said, "And Pixie's…" he trailed off and rolled his eyes, and Rune laughed.

"Still?" Naomi said, and Rayne just nodded.

Rika felt extremely out of place, and wondered what exactly Naomi meant when she'd said there was a hierarchy.

Rio stared at Rika silently for a while. "Oh my gosh," he yelled, "You're that girl!"

Everyone else looked at him in confusion.

"You're the Digimon queen! You won that card tournament!"

"Oh. Yeah," Rika said.

"What?" Rune and Rayne asked simultaneously.

"You know," Rio said, "Digimon cards?"

They both stared blankly.

"Okay, digimon?"

They both shook their heads.

"The thing me and Naomi talk about a lot?"

Rune showed some slight signs of recognition then, "Oh, the thing Naomi recites stuff from?"

Rio nodded, "Yeah! That's the show. But there's a card game, too. And there was a big tournament, and she," he pointed to Rika, "She won it this year! Oh, and the guy who won it the year before that had the same name as me!"

"He spelled it differently, though," Rika said.

"How do you know how I spell my name?" Rio asked.

"Naomi spelled it out to her, you idiot," Rune said.

"Oh."

Rayne shook his head, "You really need to learn sign language. It's like you don't even try to."

"Didn't that other guy- Ryo- get kidnapped or something?" Rio asked Rika.

"I don't think so. He disappeared, yeah, but I don't think he got kidnapped."

"Hmm," Naomi said, "Maybe he got pulled into the digital world or something."

Rune sighed, "I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds ridiculous. I don't think that's real."

Naomi shrugged.

"What did happen to your voice?" Rayne asked, "It sounds different. No offence."

"I burnt my throat," she said, "It doesn't hurt as much anymore, it's just hard to make my voice go as high as usual now."

The bus stopped suddenly, and Rune, Rayne and Rio got up. Naomi and Rika followed them, and got off the bus.

When they got off the bus, there was another person at the bus stop.

"Hey, Teri!" Rio yelled, "Look, Naomi's here! She brought her girlfriend! Her name's Rika!"

Naomi sighed quietly, but then went over to the other person and hugged him.

"Hey. You've got a girlfriend now?"

"Yeah," she said, and coughed, "Sorry I never told you."

"And what happened to your voice?"

"I burnt my throat," she shrugged.

"And what happened to you a few weeks ago?" he asked, looking worried, "I didn't wanna ask about it then, but seriously, how did you get shot?"

"... I can't tell you," she said, and looked away.

"You got shot?" Rio shouted.

Rune and Rayne stared at Naomi in shock.

"What? What happened? What did you do? Did you pick a fight with a Wolf or something?" Rune asked.

"A… Wolf?" Rika asked, "Shooting someone?"

Rayne raised an eyebrow at her, "You really don't know anything, do you? I mean, about us, and this place. The Street Wolves are a gang. There's some other gangs around here too, but the Wolves are… Well, messing with one of their higher-up members is a bit more likely to get you shot."

Rika felt like she couldn't breathe. Was that what Naomi had meant by a hierarchy? This place really was dangerous!

Naomi signed to Rika, "Oh, by the way, that guy is Wynter," she pointed to the guy with medium length dark hair who they'd been calling Teri, "He's my closest friend out of all of these guys, and he's the one I live with."

"Gangs?" Rika asked, seeming to ignore what Naomi had just said.

"Yeah," Naomi said out loud, "I found it scary at first too, but you get used to it. Anyway," she turned to the others, "Do I look stupid? Of course I didn't-" she trailed off as she began to cough uncontrollably.

Rika rubbed Naomi's back in concern.

Wynter turned to Rika, "So, you're Naomi's girlfriend? Please take good care of her, okay?"

"I will, don't worry."

"Do you know what happened to her? She just- She came home one day with a bullet wound and wouldn't tell me what happened."

Rika looked away, as Naomi stopped coughing.

"I can't tell you, I'm sorry," Rika said.

She felt bad not telling Wynter, since she could see that he seemed to care about Naomi as much as she did, but she really wasn't sure about telling Naomi's friends about the digimon. She'd only just met them, and wasn't sure if she even particularly trusted them yet. She really didn't want to go around telling everyone who asked about something that was meant to be a secret. But then again, Takato had told his entire class, hadn't he? But that was his decision. Rika wasn't sure if she wanted to do something like that, and these weren't even her friends, they were Naomi's. She might not even have ever told Naomi at all if she hadn't wandered into the middle of a battle.

Rika turned to Naomi, "How about this? It's your decision if you tell your friends or not, since they are your friends."

Naomi nodded, then turned to Wynter and signed quickly, "I'll explain later, if you really want. But you might not believe me, and you definitely won't like it."

Wynter shrugged, then gestured towards Rika and signed, "Can she sign?"

Naomi nodded, and signed, "Yeah, but she's not as good us yet."

"Really?" Rika asked, "I thought I was pretty good."

Naomi nodded, "Yeah," she said out loud, "I go kinda slowly for you. And you probably wouldn't pick up something like…" she thought for a minute, then quickly signed something incoherent.

"Yeah, you're right, I didn't get that at all."

Wynter shook his head, "That's cheating, those words weren't even in the right order."

"Yeah, but that's how I sign to you when I don't want anyone else getting it," she stopped speaking and started coughing again.

"You probably shouldn't be talking if your throat's burned, should you?" Wynter asked.

Naomi shrugged.

Rio sighed loudly, "Come on, let's go already! And Naomi, will you tell me how you got shot?"

"If she ain't even telling Teri, why would she tell you?" Rune asked, "But yeah, we should probably quit standing here."

"We needed to find Teri anyway, though," Rayne said.

"Yeah, and now we've got him," Rune said.

They all started walking.

Rio went over to Naomi and grabbed her shoulder. She flinched slightly.

"Come on! What happened? I wanna know! Did you pick a fight with someone?"

Naomi got Rika's attention, then signed, "Repeat what I say, please."

Rika nodded, and repeated Naomi's words out loud as she signed, "It wasn't by doing something stupid like you would've."

Rio sighed, "That was one time! I didn't even know the guy was a Wolf!"

Wynter, Naomi, Rune and Rayne all rolled their eyes in sync.

"Babe, I'm pretty sure you've done nearly that exact thing at least five different times now," Wynter said.

Rika looked between Wynter and Rio when he called him "babe".

"Oh," Wynter said, noticing her curiosity, "I call everyone that. Most people around here do the same thing. I've been stopping myself from calling Naomi that in case you got the wrong idea, but if I end up doing it, try not to take it personally or anything."

"Oh, okay," Rika said. She didn't understand anything about these people. They seemed completely different from her and all of her friends, and she would have thought that they were completely different from Naomi too, but Naomi seemed to fit in with them perfectly. She didn't feel as completely uneasy as she had at first, but she still felt pretty out of place and uncomfortable. She continued walking, hoping she'd get used to it later, and wondering if Naomi felt similarly around her friends.