Play of Spirits
Chapter 21 - Back to School

Izumi woke up on top of Junpei, which was somewhat of a relief because at least that was Junpei accounted for. He was still out, though, so she took the moment to stretch, check herself, and then look around.

She was fine. She wasn't even stiff from being in such an odd position – or being tossed from a factory and landing who knew how far away. Bokomon might be able to tell them. He had a map, anyway. Or the book, which was as good as a map as they had in this crazy world.

But she didn't see Bokomon or Neemon anywhere. Or Takuya or Tomoki or Kouichi for that matter. It was just her and Junpei.

She sighed. Not that Junpei wasn't decent (and certainly not that she preferred to be alone), but how were they going to find the others?

She wandered a little further. The pair of them had landed in a field of some sort, and she was barely taller than the crops. It was troublesome, really, because they could have landed nearby and she just couldn't see them. 'Bokomon!' she shouted. 'Neemon! Takuya! Tomoki! Kouichi!'

'Hey, you forgot me?' said Junpei in an injured tone, sitting up.

Izumi laughed at that, though she was relieved he was up. 'I already knew you were there,' she explained. 'It's everyone else I have no clue about.'

'Huh.' Junpei stood up and dusted himself. 'Where are we?' Then he checked his statement. 'Guess you wouldn't know any more than I do. Did we land in a wheat field?'

Izumi shrugged. 'Not the best place to be looking for people without an aerial view,' she commented. 'Maybe Arbormon's detachable legs –'

'Or I could fly,' Junpei offered.

Izumi deflated. 'Yeah, that's more reasonable.'

Though when Junpei, or Blitzmon, took to the sky, he only found a walking cactus of note.

.

'The walking cactus must be a digimon,' Junpei mused, as they (back in their human forms) walked in the direction of said cactus.

'It's kind of sad the guy in a costume theory is suddenly a lot less likely,' Izumi sighed. 'We're getting too used to this.'

'I wouldn't call it sad,' Junpei corrected. 'More… frightening.'

'Frightening?' Izumi echoed, surprised.

'Well, yeah.' Junpei walked a little ahead, 'We're turning into digimon and fighting and that's going to change us. There's no getting around that. Not to mention, the entire set-up is forcing us to change and change fast. Like the lady who sent us the messages is prepping us for something. I mean, I signed up for a game, not playing hero.'

'I think you're doing fine so far,' Izumi replied, before her words caught up with her. 'Whoops. At least it wasn't an insult this time.'

Junpei made a confused sound in reply.

'I mean I tend to say what's on my mind, without activating the brain to mouth filter first,' Izumi explained sheepishly. And often, she didn't apologise either because whoever she was talking to would take whatever she'd say and run with it and then apologising meant more than just admitting she hadn't thought her words through before speaking. It would, often, mean admitting she was wrong when she didn't think she was. Sometimes the conversation ended there, with an air of awkwardness. Other times, it descended into an argument. 'A lot of people don't like that.'

'It's not like saying whatever other people want you to say works to keep friends, either,' Junpei shrugged. 'Already tried that.'

'Oh?' Junpei hadn't seemed the sort, to her. Or maybe because there were people like her and Takuya in the group that it went unnoticed. 'Yeah, well, it always felt like I'd wind up compromising myself if I did that, so I didn't. Still, sometimes I'd kind of wish I wasn't so stubborn, you know?'

'We're a right pair,' Junpei laughed. 'You know, when I first saw you on the train, I figured you'd be one of those gorgeous stuck-up girls that had all the boys in class following her around like lost puppies, or something.' He'd slowed down by then, enough so that Izumi could see the slight blush on his cheeks and infer that he had, at one point anyway, been one of those "like a puppy" boys. 'The kind that'd pick the most pathetic out of them all and make them a laughing stock.'

'Stronzi,' Izumi spat, before going a little red herself. She'd have earned a very severe glare from her parents for that.

Junpei blinked. 'Uh, I don't –'

Oh, right. She'd slipped into Italian. 'It's an Italian swear word,' she explained sheepishly. 'In this context, I meant… well, bitches.'

'Ah.' And then he, surprisingly, grinned. 'I'll take that. That means you're on my side.'

No comment on how it was unladylike to swear. That meant Junpei was on her side too.

She couldn't help but laugh. 'Why aren't you in my school?' She knew the answer, sadly. Her school was all-girls, so of course there wouldn't be a boy there.

'Same reason you aren't in mine?' Junpei offered with a shrug. 'Honestly though, I doubt I would've said all this back in the real world. Not as things were, anyway. But I'd like to think I've gotten a bit stronger, and that I know myself a little better.'

'You got the spirit that truly belongs to you,' Izumi pointed out, 'provided we're on the mark with how all these spirit things work. That's a step ahead of the rest of us.'

'That's right.' A slow grin spread across his face. 'There's hope for me after all.' Then he dug into his pockets and offered her a chocolate bar.

Izumi took it happily. 'Chocolate! Bellissimo!' Then she blinked. 'What are you doing with chocolate in your pocket, anyway?'

The grin vanished behind a blush. 'Well… Chocolate always made me feel better.'

'Chocolate does that,' Izumi agreed, unwrapping hers. 'It's really good for menstrual pain and – Whoops, forgot who I was talking to there.' Her dad still went red whenever she or her mother brought their monthly cycle up.

Junpei made an odd noise, half-way between a snort and an embarrassed choke. 'Everyone else just says I'm a rich pig. Behind my back, usually.'

'Better when they say it to your face,' Izumi muses. 'At least that way you're not caught unaware later.' Because it hurt when rejection slipped in like an afterthought, after she'd thought she'd made some leeway with her classmates after all.

It was a different sort of pain when something nipped the chocolate right from her fingers. 'Hey!' she exclaimed.

A blur of silver disappeared into the wheat, followed by shouts of 'Kapurimon!' and something green heading their way.

'Think that's the giant cactus?' Junpei asked.

'Probably,' Izumi replied, though she was looking at her fingers. They were a little red and a little chocolate stained – and she hadn't even gotten to eat the chocolate. After a friend had shared with her. 'You know, people don't share with me.'

'Don't share with me either,' Junpei pulled out another chocolate bar… and then a few more. 'Looks like I've got one for everyone, and a couple of –' He shoved them all back into his pockets when the cactus stepped out of the wheat.

'Oh, hello.' It blinked at them, voice soft and pleasant and at odds with it – her – appearance. 'Have you by any chance seen a Kapurimon run by?'

'If it's silver and it bites, then it went that way.' Izumi pointed. 'With my chocolate.'

She was well aware that was petty, but still…

The cactus simply bowed in gratitude and took off. Junpei stifled a giggle. 'That's petty.'

'I know, but I don't care. Right now, anyway.'

'In the moment,' he mused. 'Guess you just need the right company to be yourself without any backlash. Then again, everybody's so different, there's bound to be backlash at some point between any two people, regardless of who they are.' He stretched. 'Interacting with people sure is tough and complicated.'

'Sure is,' Izumi agreed. She could have said something else, there. Maybe if she'd been someone else, she would have. But she didn't. After all, she shut down communications that looked like they weren't working. She cut her losses early on. Getting along with people and then getting into an argument later down the track was different… Or was it? Betrayal was a sharp knife, after all.

She'd find out eventually. No group of five (or six, technically) kids could fight for survival in a world and not argue at some point or other.

.

The green cactus came back, and so does the silver chocolate-nabbing Kapurimon, and the cactus introduced herself as Togemon.

It was nice not to have to call her "cactus" anymore, because she was actually quite sweet. She brought them to her school and introduced her students, and then sat them all down for a snack.

It was Bokomon and Neemon who were a little rowdy, but only because they'd somehow wound up at the school too.

'Well, I am glad you're alright,' Bokomon said, once they'd all gotten back up and checked the stools (and thankfully, none were broken, because they weren't exactly handymen). 'Where are the others?'

'We couldn't find them,' Junpei shrugged, 'even with a bird's eye view.'

'Oh, you turned into Blitzmon again? I would have loved to see that.'

Izumi couldn't help but laugh at his starry eyes. He looked like a fanboy, though he wore the look far better than people their own age tended to. They were at the point where they were growing out of such looks… except maybe Tomoki.

'You can do that whenever you want?' Neemon wondered aloud.

Bokomon grumbled, but the humans glanced at each other. 'Hey, that's right,' Junpei groaned. 'I was stuck as Grumblemon for ages. And now he turns around and attacks me as soon as I've gotten another spirit. I guess these guys are the jealous types?'

'Jealous or completely antagonistic,' Izumi said thoughtfully. 'After all, if what we thought before is true, the spirits we're using now are the most ill-suited for us. They're practically antagonistic, so maybe this is the end result of that.' She was silent for a moment, before adding: 'Of course, along the same vein, once you've gotten the right spirit, you should be the stronger one of the pair. It was only because you were exhausted that we never worked that out.'

'Not necessarily,' Junpei frowned. 'The pairings aren't really to our advantage. Take mine. Thunder's not that effective against the earth, because it absorbs all the shocks. And Takuya. Water trumps fire all the time. And Tomoki. Fire melts ice… Though if Takuya takes that spirit, we shouldn't have a rampaging Agunimon, right?'

Izumi shrugged. 'I wasn't expecting a rampaging anything…'

'Rampaging digimon?' the students piped up. 'Like the Tortomon who made the fields?'

They'd forgotten their company.

'Oh, what a lovely idea,' said Togemon, cutting through the sudden awkward silence. 'Let's have these humans tell you a story.'

Junpei grinned. 'Stories, I can do.' And he launched right into something that had to be fiction. But the students – the in-training digimon – soaked it right up.

Izumi watched him silently. He had a way with words that came out the best while telling stories like that, and worst when in situations that socially demanded empathy (and, in that, he shared her tendency to stick their foot in their mouth). It was interesting, and she could see why it would be a problem when dealing with one's own age-group, but for younger people… He'd be one of those kids who'd go back to volunteer with the elementary school when he was in senior high. Who'd maybe think about becoming an elementary school teacher because he had such a way with kids (unless his interests lied elsewhere, and they probably did with how much he knew about technology). Who probably surrounded himself with the wrong sort of people, wrong age-group. Who felt more at home with the lot of them, all younger by at least a year, than with his own classmates.

Being in the Digital World had made that so plain.

So what about her then? She could easily see herself with butting heads with Takuya, or Junpei, or both of them, but they hadn't yet. Tomoki was… well, she didn't often spend a lot of time amongst people younger than her, but he kept up surprisingly well. It'd scared them all, when he'd accidentally set the forest on fire. But they were learning, slowly learning, from all of that. Maybe she was learning something about getting along with others too, something she hadn't managed at camp where she thought she would, something she'd never managed to grasp when amongst her classmates here.

They put it down to cultural differences and adjusting, then to the general approach to foreigners (even though she wasn't technically a foreigner; she'd just moved away for a few years), and they'd been aware that she bore some of the responsibility herself, but the question then was: how much did she put up with? How much did she compromise? She never wound up compromising at all.

Wood matched her quite well, when she thought about it like that. But wood was so stiff. So hard to walk with. Maybe that was her lesson to learn. How to be flexible without changing herself drastically.

'You've got a serious look on your face,' said Togemon, sidling up to her. Junpei had the attention of everyone else in the room… except the Kapurimon, who was staring at the pair of them instead. 'It looks like Kapurimon has taken an interest in you.'

She could be petty. She would have been petty and turned her head, even if Junpei had given her another bar of chocolate and, really, was the only one to lose anything in that encounter.

Or maybe it was because Kapurimon was so tiny and cute when it grumbled. Or maybe it was the Digital World already changing her. But she thought she could not be petty this once.

She offered a hand instead. Kapurimon snubbed her, but later, when he'd run off and she'd plucked him out of a tree, that tentative friendship based on common behaviours was formed.

Post A/N: Putting the A/N here instead, because I changed that episode a little more drastically than I meant to. Didn't originally mean to leave Tsunomon out, but then Kapurimon's behaviour stuck out to me in that episode as well and this was a good opportunity to address that, while looking at Izumi's character in a slightly different light. I love the Tsunomon/Gabumon situation, but it doesn't have any bearing on this story, sadly. Which means I'll need to do something else with that another time to keep the Frontier muse happy, but Kapurimon just fit better with where I was going for this chapter, and the Tsunomon/Gabumon situation would have been a red herring (plus, if you've seen Frontier, you know it anyway. Trying not to repeat things too faithfully because where's the fun in that? XD)

This is technically this week's chapter, not last week, which means I didn't get the second of either week's chapters written, but I've got time to backlog now so we'll see how that goes. I'm on the coast now and the internet is very limited from tomorrow (this was the freebie), so I'll be writing but I can't post until I get back to the city. So enjoy until the end of October, and then I'll be off to another placement soon after so there'll be another pile at the end of November, by which time I hope to be caught up… but we'll see!