-The journey begins-

Kaoru seemed to have taken everyone's attention –everyone but Cyberdramon –so that they didn't even notice it when Gulfmon gave a weird gesture, right behind Kaoru. For a moment the bestial Digimon curled and twisted, as though it was suffering from so kind of stomach ache, and then he straightened himself up again. The fur covering the front of his crotch beat lightly sideways, revealing a mouth-like organ at his abdomen. It was bonded by dark, flesh-colored lines, and inside was nothing but darkness.

Cyberdramon, of course, knew what had to be done. The moment Kaoru had chosen, moving just a millimeter towards Yuzuki, Cyberdramon dashed forwards, both hands holding his lance, his fragile wings flapping against the wind like scarves.

"Watch out!" being the closest to Kaoru, TigerVespamon yelled. Without hesitation and delay, he dashed towards Kaoru as well, pushing him aside so that he was sent flying towards a tree, stopping only when he hit the truck. The Digimon was back to the combat state again, ready for necessary violence.

But it was already too late. Cyberdramon hit TigerVespamon with the tip of his lance. Having discarded his weapon, TigerVespamon had no means to defend himself, gripping the lance to keep himself standing. It was incredible that the rigged Cyberdramon could actually exert such force upon his weapon that it almost pierced through TigerVespamon's torso had he not evaded it by an inch.

TigerVespamon turned his head as much as he could and located Kaoru, who was trying to stand up straight, holding out his Digivice. It became clear that he'd remembered who he was, as he yelled "TigerVespamon!" with such desperation that he seemed to have turned back into his old self. They'd succeeded; Kaoru was back. Managing a smile, TigerVespamon gazed at his partner.

Then came the kick. Defenseless, TigerVespamon was left flying backwards. The impact was so great that he felt like he was accelerating, like he usually did in midair combat. Standing right behind the Mega, Gulfmon readied himself as well. The mouth like organ on his abdomen dilated, and began sucking in anything that was close to him. The humans had to be held securely by their Digimon partners, and even the Digimon needed to grab on to something to stand still.

It happened at once when TigerVespamon was sucked into the black void of Gulfmon, his features being stretched so that he looked like nothing but a stream of color as it was curried away into the void, his struggles powerless.

"Nooooo!" when the sucking force ended, Kaoru yelled.

The other Digimon, noting the event, turned more furious then they'd ever been before. The most obvious one was Jesmon, who had discarded his clear-headedness and charged straight towards Cyberdramon, his blades flashing with tears he had shed for his late friend. With a swift motion, he stabbed the Digimon that had murdered his friends with a rage that it seemed he should have killed it in a matter of seconds. But when his rage subsided a little, he could only see Cyberdramon there, broken as he'd been, laughing. There was no sign of wounds on the Digimon.

But Jesmon wasn't the only one that got pissed. GrapLeomon joined him as well, punching Cyberdramon right on his head, as Jesmon grabbed and tossed him aside. The impact crushed the visor thing on Cyberdramon, drips of liquid spilling from it. GrapLeomon continued with more punches, each heavier than the previous. He wanted to see Cyberdramon dead, wanted to hear his bone fracture, to tear him into pieces.

Nevertheless, that did nothing to Cyberdramon as well. The Digimon was weakened, but was not dead. It almost appeared that he could take on as many punches without even falling down a little. Though without regenerating power, Cyberdramon just kept standing up straight again after every hit, not unlike an undead.

Even SkullMeramon joined the strike. Silently but rapidly he secured one of the chains in his hand and flung it towards Cyberdramon before the flame started to trailed along it. Cyberdramon was on fire, but still wouldn't fall. It was simply illogical.

"Had enough?" Cyberdramon said finally. The Digimon, however impulsive and desperate, stopped to listen.

"You really have no idea." Cyberdramon barely stood up, but his voice was so full of strength that he didn't sound like he'd been beaten up before. "Hurting a body cannot do you any good."

"Why did you do that!" Jesmon demanded, putting a blade next to his throat. "Why kill him!"

"Don't be so radical. He got in the way himself. Can't blame me for that." There was definitely something wrong with Cyberdramon. He sounded too casual. "But I do remember the face of yours when you entered the Digital World. It was kinda like this one, wasn't it? So angry and yet powerless."

GrapLeomon threw another punch on him, but to no avail.

"C'mon, don't you remember me?" Cyberdramon said. His tone was too odd that he sounded like someone else, someone he'd worked with, someone who'd haunted the Destined for countless nights.

"It cannot be!" Amy mumbled as she walked closer. She was one of the more observant of the group, and she was, perhaps for the first time, doubting her senses.

"Remember when you all called me by another name?" Cyberdramon continued with a crackle so creepy that he sounded like nothing but a manic. "When I was known as Piedmon?"

"Piedmon is dead, and so should you!" Snarled Jesmon as he stabbed a blade into Cyberdramon's already crippled body.

"Half of Piedmon was dead." Cyberdramon corrected him. "The other half, fortunately, flew back to the factory, full of components and a body to house. So of course, you can see that I'm not as good at this handy work as the one who previously owned this body, but it works just fine.

"Besides, you're making the same mistake again!"

Then came a roar, and they remembered Gulfmon. The giant hoof of Gulfmon stomped where the Digimon stood, but they managed to escape the strike. Unfortunately, that also meant a chance for Piedmon to escape. Quickly he made himself into a half-standing and half-leaning position as Gulfmon landed behind him. A Gate then opened up behind them, and they vanished as they jumped backwards into it.

In the meantime, Katashi and Yuzuki were experiencing something way harder. Yuzuki was with Kaoru, whose face had been stained by tears that two clear trails ran down his face. Yuzuki hugged him, and let his head rest on her shoulder, but that didn't do much.

"It's not your fault." She kept saying. But he couldn't hear or say anything. He was just sobbing, and for a few more seconds later he found the world spinning around him before everything went black.

Katashi was growing more and more anxious about his departure two days later. He hadn't expected for that much to happen in just a day, and was still having his mind brown just by thinking of a way to inform his parents that he would need to go to a place where the dangers there were as unpredictable as a lottery number. He wanted to stay with Yuzuki, who had been staying by Kaoru's side since he'd been sent to a hospital. She'd told him that Kaoru would be all right, and that he'd fallen into a comma probably duel to Amy's mind trick, so he wouldn't be in any danger. She knew about Katashi departing, and said she was sorry that she couldn't help him.

And now there was the problem. Cyberdramon, or rather, Piedmon, having risen from the death, was clearly mental, and that meant that the problem was way more vital than Kynan had thought when he'd first fought Cyberramon.

He decided to tell his parents everything that evening. The problem was way too great to ignore. So, when they came home, and found Katashi waiting for them by the door side, they knew something was wrong. Katashi seemed serious, which wasn't common. But, having been his parents for all his life's time, they knew he could get serious and stubborn and hot-headed at times.

"What do you have in mind?" it was his mother that first talked.

"Well, I…" Katashi started, only to feel his chest harden the same time the words came out, as though an invisible weight had been exerted on his chest, making his heart pump fast. "I need to tell you something, mum, and dad, too."

"What is it?" his father then asked.

He waited for about two seconds, concentrating to ignore the bumping heart that was threatening to jump out of his ribcage, and then he said, "I'll need to get to the Digital World two days later. I may be gone for weeks, or even months; I don't really know. And I just want to let you know that I'll be fine and…I'll miss you."

"Why?" both of them asked.

Katashi then proceeded to tell them the truth, about everything that had happened a year before and the most recent issues, which had caused him much trouble and stress. Even his parents couldn't understand why Smith would want half a dozen of kids to do the work that was supposed to be done by someone else, someone more mature and…someone expendable.

"I will be fine, I really will." He reassured his parents, though he couldn't even convince himself.

His parents stared at one another, apparently communicating with just eyes. They seemed to understand each other even without speech, and the awkward silence was kind of disturbing to Katashi. He'd never seen his parents considering something serious, at least not at his presence.

"Good luck to you, son." His father said, leaving him with nothing but a "what?"

"Starting to have all those considerations means that you've really grown up a lot." His mother said, smiling. "We will be worried, make no mistake. We will always be worried, because you're our son, and even if you've grown to fifty, have had a family, we will still be worried. But you need to know that we have faith in you, and you'd better not let us down."

Katashi hated silence, but it seemed to have come to him very frequently lately. He didn't know what to say except for a "thanks", so that's all he said before the family did their routine lives for the last two days.

"Are you sure you really want to do this?" Kaito asked Rikuto for another time.

"Of course I'm sure!" replied Rikuto, sounding a little more than furious. "I know what I'm doing."

"But you don't have to go." Kaito said, "I can do just fine. Besides, you've just started to have a relationship."

"She's coming too."

"And that's how you prefer to date her, in a world full of unknown threats?"

"You don't get to decide things for me!" it was probably the first time in a few years that Rikuto had yelled to his brother. It just bothered him, that he was always considered helpless and needed advices. He was, after all, just younger than Kaito for several minutes, and that had been decided just by chance. It would have been the other way around had the odds be in his favor.

Kaito seemed a bit shocked. He was protective, but he wasn't stupid. For a moment he realized that he had been acting on emotion too much. Rikuto's yell hadn't been for nothing. It reminded him that they were two individuals, and that he should probably believe in him more. Thus he said, "I'm sorry…I didn't –"

"You don't have to say anything." Said Rikuto. "Just don't try to be a jerk sometime."

Kaito actually laughed upon hearing it. He looked to the left, where the two Dracomon were resting nearby. He kind of envied them, that they were brothers, just like him and Rikuto, and yet they didn't exhibit any form of quarrels.

"We're going tomorrow." He said coldly, walking towards his room. "Better get some rest first."

"But what about mom?" Rikuto suggested. It was the issue he had wanted to discuss with Kaito, but things just went the wrong way such that he could only remember it by now. "How are we gonna tell her that we're leaving?"

"I don't know." Answered Kaito. "But I think we'll figure that out tomorrow."

Morning came sooner than he'd expected, but he gladly accepted the truth, that today would be the day where he'd left everything he loved behind for a save-the-world journey. Glancing back at his room he asked, "Everything ready?"

"It should be me asking you." Liollmon said, lagging behind Katashi. For some reasons he just didn't like walking in front of the boy. Maybe it was because so that he could watch his back, though Katashi seemed to be more than capable of taking care of himself.

"Everything packed and ready." Katashi said. It was kind of intriguing, even to himself, that he could still manage a smile and talk light-heartedly when everything they're about to face was guaranteed horrifying. He took one last look at his room, at the bed he'd always lay upon whenever he got trouble.

It's not like I'm leaving for good/ he reminded himself. Turning around he walked towards the door, and then to Smith's office.

It turned out he was the first to be there. At seven-thirty he and Liollmon waited anxiously at the park directly opposite to the office.

"Nervous?" he asked Liollmon.

"A bit."

"Me too." He managed to suppress a yawn. Though he wasn't particularly sleepy, he felt like he was about to be. Just think of it like a camping trip. That's how he comforted himself –a camping trip with promised danger; a camping trip that was guaranteed to last more than a month or two. It wasn't that bad; he enjoyed camping anyway.

When he got himself lost in the thoughts of the primitive community in the Digital World, thinking how much fun it would be to finally see a habitat for himself that wasn't inside a vibrantly colored textbook, though it'd be the ecosystem of the Digimon, a figure approached him.

"Have you seen the others?" came a deep yet light voice. It took Katashi a second to remember that was Kynan's.

"Not yet." He said, switching his attention back to reality.

"I see…"

He preferred standing, Katashi guessed, since there was still empty space on the bench he sat on, and should be enough to fit him. He looked away from Katashi, as though avoiding eye contact. It was then that Katashi noticed Kudamon wrapping around his neck.

"About what happened the other night…" Katashi started. Kynan seemed interested, as he turned a bit, probably so that he could see Katashi in the corner of his eyes. "You don't really have to feel guilt about that; I'm fine with what you said."

"I don't feel guilt." Kynan answered.

"Then why do you look away from me?"

"I don't know." He replied. "I haven't seen a single human being for long, I guess."

Liollmon, despite the distaste towards Kynan –or just Kudamon –rose up and approached the foreign boy. "Since we still have time left, mind telling us about your story?"

"We've told you everything we knew." Kynan answered coldly. Katashi, knowing that Liollmon might not really admire the straightforward attitude of Kynan and Kudamon, followed Liollmon and departed the bench that had almost made him fall asleep.

"I'm not saying about you out there." Liollmon continued. "Don't you have anything to share with us, like when you were out there in your community?"

"I wouldn't ask that if I were you." Interfered Kudamon, his voice sharp and squeaky. "That's not how you talk to him."

"I'm sure he didn't mean any offense." Said Katashi as he stood between them. "You don't have to do anything you don't want."

"I'm fine with that." Kynan replied, more like talking to himself. "I just don't think I can trust you…yet."

That's normal! Katashi would have said that, but at the moment right before he did, two more figures walked to the rendezvous –Kaito and Rikuto, along with the Dracomon.

"Hi!" Katashi busied himself with greetings, though the twins, as usual, didn't give him much respect and walked straight past him.

Nothing really important happened since then, much to Katashi's disappointment. Almost everybody there except himself, Liollmon and the Dracomon, was very fund of their solitude and did a great job keeping the atmosphere as dull as possible. It made him feel uneasy, especially since they're about to work as a team. Even without using the best of his intellect, he could sense danger in this team. He wanted to have faith, but he just couldn't.

It took about ten minutes before the talkative ones came, the first one to arrive there being Ren and Valkyrimon. They proved themselves to be much more capable companions, keeping an optimistic attitude and breaking the silence there. It was also the second time that Katashi had seen her. He'd almost forgotten that he still hadn't known everyone in the team, and it sickened him. Fortunately for him, Ren wasn't an especially hard person to talk with.

"And that's basically all I know about you." Katashi ended his conversation with Ren, having said his opinion of her.

She was eager as well, and responded in no time. "Well, I guess Riku never told you about me?"

"I noticed he knew you." Liollmon interrupted. "He just wouldn't say a thing about that."

"That's…that's like him, I guess." Said Katashi.

"If we're doing introductions, I think I should talk as well." Valkyrimon approached the party. Ren looked back at her, then to Katashi again, seemingly annoyed.

"She's a bit like that when talking to strangers." She added. "She'll be more casual once she got to know you more."

"I don't mind that." Liollmon said. "At least she knows manners." He murmured to himself.

"So, what about your introduction?" Katashi asked. "I'd like to know more about you, just as well as I want about the others."

Valkyrimon proved herself to be a very blunt Digimon, and said at once. "The first time I met Ren was when I was just a Rookie, or even less." She talked in such a way that every syllable sounded intact. Katashi didn't really know what kind of accent that was, but he kept listening.

"That was about a year ago. She was special, I could tell it back then."

"But that doesn't really matter." Ren added. "I just happened to be lucky enough to find a Digimon that was willing to team up with me."

"What'd you mean?"

"I was very young back then, though I'm still now." She said. "And most Digimon looked down on me, thought I was just a little girl and therefore didn't worth their time. But Valkyrimon was different."

"That's because I was weak as well."

"Anyway, since we've teamed up, the Institute opened at the same time, so I thought maybe we could enroll there. I'm kind of a fanatic towards Digimon stuff, back then and now."

An unexpected voice came from behind, and she immediately noticed it was Rikuto. "And you became the champion in that Game, which you didn't tell me when you first mentioned the Institute to me."

She could acknowledge the sarcasm in the voice, and looked back. It occurred to her that she hadn't really talked to him since she had arrived, which was odder than usual, especially given that they'd been spending much time together lately. The only response she could come up with was "You jealous?" and it did inflict some sort of non-physiological effects on him.

"Why would I be?" Rikuto answered, looking away. She could see the red spots spawning on his face.

A few minutes had passed since Ren's arrival, and much to the others' relieve. Elsa was the last one to arrive, which meant that they could finally get going without further delay. No more waiting, that's the best news in the day, at least to Katashi, who'd arrived first.

In to the office they went, and there they were met by Smith himself, of course. He said a few things of formalities and led them into another room, the room that only Katashi and the twins had entered. It looked like something straight out of a science fiction, with overwhelmingly white tile walling the chamber and exceptional lighting, almost more blinding than looking directly to the sun. In the middle of the chamber was a straight device that had intrigued Katashi once. It was elegant in design, with an arc lined with silver paint and a stand that looked not unlike a podium at school, if he remembered correctly.

That was both relieving and disappointing at the same time. Katashi remembered first seeing the Destined walking past a similar device, in an urgent, unprepared situation, and disappearing once they got through the illumination. He admired the courage required for such an act –they might never have come back. And here he was, standing in a familiar chamber, protected by the dozens of workers around him, all focusing on their own issues that they hardly had time to even just look at them as an acknowledgement of their arrival.

Without much delay, the center of the arc flashed with a radiant light, which shone with a bluish gray. The moment had come –the moment when he had to leave everything behind and face the possibility of never coming back. It didn't really occur to him how heavy this moment would be. It seemed just like any other time, any other decision. Just one step, and everything turned into total whiteness even if he had his eyes shut as tightly as human skin could. Nothing other than that was painful, as he'd experienced before. And when he opened his eyes, he was standing in an entirely different location, with green leaves unlike any other he'd seen –beaten-looking and bushy, disorganized. He knew it that he'd successfully gone to the Digital World.

It just happened like that, like taking a step or paying for lunch. Nothing really touchy lingered with him. It was just like any other decision he'd made. It just happened naturally.