Y/N: Okay…so I know there really isn't an excuse for how late this chapter is. I just wasn't inspired to write it, and my brother is pretty much ready to kill me thanks to the long delay. The good news however, is that he's got the next chapter already written thanks to my writer's block/lack of enthusiasm, so it'll be able to be uploaded soon!
U/N: …. -_- she wrote it! YAY. It's HER fault it didn't go up… I did try to help her along… but she refused to allow me to assist her… but it doesn't really matter—OH WAIT. YES IT DOES. GRR UPON HER FACE.
Title: Digimon Adventure 03
By: YukiraKing
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or its characters.
Part 5: Apocolymon's Spell
Chapter 49: Ultimatum
Koushiro:
Darkness engulfed me. That's really all there is to describe it. I was looking at Mimi, who'd been screaming through her tears at the loss of her best friend. I was contemplating yelling out for Jou myself, when suddenly everything was gone. Darkness had swallowed everything, eaten away my surroundings, leaving me with nothing but the bleak blacks and greys that surrounded me now. There was no ground, nor was there a sky. It simply was. And I was now in the heart of this darkness.
"KOUSHIRO!"
I'm not that proud to say that my chest swelled knowing that Mimi was calling out for me. I hadn't thought she would. I figured no one would notice, not since I had Motimon with me. But that it was Mimi that noticed just made my day…well, it would have if I had not been swallowed by the very ground on which I stood.
"Koushiro," Motimon was saying in a rather calm voice. It surprised me that he wasn't scared by now. I'd been too distracted by Mimi to be scared yet myself, but I knew it was coming. I clutched my laptop closer to my right side, while holding Motimon close to my left.
"Yes?"
"Do you suppose it was Apocolymon's doing, this darkness?"
"I would say that things do seem to add up to that conclusion," I replied, knowing this was what he needed. No simple "yes" or "no" would do. He craved normality in these situations. And I tended to go about things the long way.
"Alright. What do you hypothesize he wants from us?"
"I won't be able to come to a conclusion without anything to base them off of," I told him.
"Right…" he agreed nervously. I held him closer.
"We'll be fine," I lied. I couldn't assure him of this, without knowing for certain, thus the lie…which he saw through immediately. He gave me a critical look, and I sighed. "We might be fine then," I amended.
"And then again, knowledge child, you might not."
"Who was that?" Motimon cried out.
But I recognized it.
"Apocolymon!" I shouted out.
"Yes, you are clever," he said, but it seemed a tad sarcastic to me.
"Where are you taking us?" Motimon asked.
"I am going to prove to you just how useless your crests are. They are worthless, just like you and the rest of you wretched digi-destined."
We're worthless? I thought. We were the ones that defeated him years ago. I was just ten!
"Where are they?" is what I asked him though. I didn't think the other question was worth my life to ask.
"Now, now," he said. "You are a nosy child. They are, as we speak, suffering on their own, each facing a trial tailored to them specifically."
"So they're not in this endless darkness?" Motimon asked.
"Oh no," he answered in his ominous way. "They aren't needed for your own nightmare, perfectly tailored to suit your weaknesses."
Oh no. It's going to be a sort of social challenge. Well, that's what was going through my mind at the time. I figured I was going to be thrust into one of the stereotypical situation, you know, with you running into school and not wearing pants, or having to say a speech in front of the entire student body without having anything prepared. If only I'd gotten off that simply. It wasn't life or death…but I didn't like it.
Obviously…
"There is no point dwelling on their well being. You'll all die soon enough," Apocolymon finished. I'll admit there was a shiver that made its way down my spine at that promise. "It is a mere misfortune that your little friend was caught up in it all."
I hugged Motimon close. I sent him a silent apology, but he met my eye and I could tell he was promising that we would escape somehow. He was sure that my own nightmare couldn't be too bad. I didn't do much that entitled me to be afraid.
But that didn't mean I wasn't terrified. Things that would seem so easy to Taichi—well the old Taichi anyway—I would avoid with all I had. And I knew this wouldn't be easy on me. If not physically—death tended to be that way—then mentally.
"Now, off you go…"
His voice faded with the darkness. Suddenly, I wasn't in an endless black abyss. I was in a grey room, with only one exit. I'd never been in this room; I knew that much, but something about it, though, was familiar.
"Where now, Koushiro?" Motimon asked me.
"I suppose the only logical answer would be through that door," I said, my gaze fixated on the closed door. I swallowed thickly. Whatever it was that Apocolymon chose to torment me with was waiting for me…through there.
"Then we should do that," Motimon said simply.
But I didn't really want to. I was much happier being stuck, possibly for eternity, in this room. The grey walls were suddenly being painted with shimmering, golden symbols I could only guess at placing. I'd seen them before, but when exactly I had, I wasn't certain. There weren't many, just a continuous line that made its way across the room, three feet into the air. A single line of script perhaps… If only I could translate it, I might be able to figure out what was going on…
Then again, it mightn't be so bad to just forgo the entire adventure to settle this mystery.
"Koushiro," Motimon said quietly, having made his way nearer the door. "Are you not coming?"
"Not now," I said, my voice sounding distant even to myself. "This is more important."
"More important than the lives of our friends and ourselves?" Motimon asked.
Our lives… They weren't in trouble right now… the only thing that mattered was this scripture.
"What are you talking about?" I asked him, but I didn't bother listening to his answer. His voice was fading further into the background the longer I looked at this code. I instinctively went for my laptop, starting it up. I knew I'd seen this code before… I would have the answers on my hard drive, and if not… I'd have fun inputting them there.
The code ran through my mind, pushing everything out. It didn't matter that I was in a strange room that was meant to torture me. This code was going to fix everything. Apocolymon could take over the digital world, so long as I had this code, I didn't care about anything.
"Hmm," I mumbled, reading out the words I'd translated. "This path leads to your final choice, follow it carefully, and never stray…"
"Koushiro, we must find the others," Motimon said breaking my concentration.
"You go find them; I have to stay on this path…"
"What path?" Motimon questioned.
"I have to follow the words," I realized having translated the next segment, which ended with a partial word. I opened the door, and saw—with a smile—that the word curled around the doorway, leading out into the long, desolate hallway. The line of gold the only colour in the grey world.
"Continue, yet do not fear. You will not be led astray, follow us and reach your heart's content. You shall want for nothing, your endless curiosity will never sate, your cup of knowledge will fill past the brim, a constant input, never ceasing… Nothing will stand in your way. Nothing will stop you from your goal. Nothing else matters…"
And it was right…
Nothing else did matter…
Mimi:
The darkness was the first thing I noticed after Michael let me fall. The jerk couldn't even hold me up... The fall didn't hurt, though, like I thought it might. It surprised me actually, the painlessness. I'm not complaining, though. I rather liked not being in pain. But something was eating at me, and it was much worse than a simple bout of pain.
Fear.
It was eating at my very being, sending me into fits of shivering.
I was alone. And I feared that more than just about anything.
"What are you playing at?" I shouted out to whoever could hear me—and hoping that it would not be a particularly evil being that answered.
"Your demise perhaps…?" A voice that sent even more shivers down my spine rang out. I was able to place it at once.
"Apocolymon," I said with a fierce scowl. "Why are you doing this? Why can't you just leave us and the digital world alone?"
"I am merely proving a point," he said. Wherever he was, I was sure he had a twisted grin on his face. I could hear it in his voice. "You are weak, and I will prove it to you. I will destroy your spirits so completely, you will wish for me to end the pain, beg me to kill you."
"I would never beg for death from you," I countered.
"Perhaps… yet it may not reach that point. I may have you killed off before then. Patience is not my strongest virtue…"
I snorted, despite my fear. "What virtues are you talking about? You have none!"
But I didn't get an answer. I figured he was just ignoring me, until the darkness was replaced by a large shadowy room. The overhead lighting fixture was lighting little more than a six-foot-circle around me, taunting me with the darkness. I placed myself at the centre of the circle, the furthest from the darkness I could manage.
"Is anybody there?" I called out. "If you are, come into the light…unless you're evil!"
I felt rather ridiculous yelling out at nothing, but the quiet was shaking my confidence. The absolute stillness frightened me. I needed some noise, something to prove I wasn't alone. My friends would come though. I wasn't going to be alone, and I certainly wasn't forgotten… So I hoped anyway.
And then I heard it. A single footstep… no, make it two…
"Palmon? Is that you?"
I wasn't given an answer.
"Koushiro, Jou, Michael?"
Still no answer.
"Sora, Hikari, Iori, Takeru, Miyako? Whoever you are, answer me!"
The footsteps grew louder…closer. I was going to find out who it was sooner rather than later. With a sort of desperation, my mouth continued to shoot off suggestions without my help.
"Taichi, Yamato, Daisuke, Ken, Willis? Please, tell me who you are!"
"Quiet, Purity Child."
I'm confident enough in myself to admit that my heart pretty much stopped at that. I was almost in a panic. The voice wasn't one that I remembered hearing ever before, and it was actually kind of ominous.
"Mimi Tachikawa, Purity Child, look at the predicament you've got yourself into," the voice—distinctly female—said.
The figure of a young girl wrapped in a dark cloak stepped into the very tip of the light, barely even lit by the lamp.
"Who are you?" I asked trying to keep my voice steady, and I did pretty well… I think…
"Call me Kura," she said. "But it is of little consequence what you call me, be it Kura, or your impending doom… I don't mind either."
And all my confidence promptly left me right then, letting a rather large shiver wrack my body.
"And if I d-don't want to die?"
"It's not about what you want, now, is it?" she said. Her hood covered most of her face, but she was showing me a feral smile. I was almost positive that this was deliberate. She wanted me to see only the darkness, only the evil within her… you know, if she was evil… but I was pretty sure she was, what with the whole predicting-my-death thing…
"Where am I?" I asked, changing tactics. If I could keep her talking then she couldn't kill me. Bad guys really liked hearing themselves talk, so it would be my get-out-death-free card.
"You are in your own personal nightmare," she said. "A place where your friends cannot help you. A place where you will be alone, forever."
"F-forever?"
"Or until you die, I don't mind either option," she said. Her blasted shiver-inducing smile was back. I had to look away.
"Where are my friends?"
"Now now, they aren't worried about you, there's no need to waste any time on them," she told me. "They won't even remember you soon enough. You'll die alone, forgotten, waiting for someone to come to your rescue… I can hardly wait."
"I don't need to be rescued. I can rescue myself," I said firmly. "Are you insinuating that I'm the weakest link out of everybody?"
"No," she said softly with that darn wicked smile. "I'm merely saying you are the most easily forgotten and replaced. You didn't think they'd care about you forever did you? New York is quite far from Odaiba after all. There are plenty of teenage girls in Japan that can replace you. You're time as a chosen child of Japan is quickly coming to a close. Soon you won't even cross their mind. You have Michael and Willis now, the American digi-destined… you don't need them anymore, and they won't feel guilty for letting you go."
"Jou, Sora and Koushiro would never let me go. Miyako won't forget me, she's like my sister," I cried desperately.
"But Miyako has Ken now," Kura said slowly. "Jou has medical school. He won't have time for children anymore. Sora is desperately torn between two boys. They take us so much of her time that she can't even think of you. It wouldn't be hard for her to simply forget."
"And Koushiro?" I asked her, holding on to my last life line.
"Do you really think he cares for you? He cares only about his laptop, only about his ever-growing thirst for knowledge. He has less time for you than even Sora," she said. "Hikari has Takeru and Takeru has Hikari. Daisuke is trying to come between them. Iori hates all of you. Taichi and Yamato are vying for Sora's attentions, and fighting with each other. Ken has Miyako… Even Willis won't need you. He has two digimon of his very own, he needs nothing else. You only have Michael."
I whimpered. When she laid it out like that, it was true. No one needed me anymore. They hadn't needed me for awhile. They didn't even want me…
No. She's lying!
"I have Palmon too," I said stubbornly. "And they all care about me still, even if I'm not needed. I'm still wanted."
"Only by Michael," Kura continued, still in that skin-crawling calm way of hers. Her words were vicious, cutting away at my confidence, my heart, my very being, all without any emotions to speak of. "And that will end soon enough. He will realize that you don't want him the way he wants you. He'll go on to be a film star, and you'll be in training for the culinary arts. He'll forget about you. They always do… forget about the 'little people' I mean. And when that happens, you'll be all alone."
"That's a long way off…" I protested weakly.
"Is it? Let's take a look, shall we?" she said, waving her arm. A bubble appeared before me, floating in the air. Images found their way within it, almost as if it were a television screen.
"Look carefully," Kura insisted.
And so I did…
Miyako was walking down the aisle, towards Ken… Daisuke was standing directly on his right. Takeru, Iori, and Jou finished the line of men. The girls waiting for her seemed to be Sora, Hikari and Miyako's sisters Momoe and Chizuru. Her father was walking her down the aisle. Her mother and brother were waiting for him, saving him a front row seat. Koushiro, Taichi, Yamato Willis and even Michael were in the front row, with Ken's parents finishing it off…
"Thank you for coming everyone," Miyako announced as the wedding faded into the reception. "I couldn't imagine this day without all of you. We love you all nearly as much as we love each other."
"There's just one person I'd have liked to come that couldn't," Ken started.
I foolishly let myself hope it was me.
"My big brother Osamu, I just wanted to take a moment to remember him, and though I wish he was here, I know he's happy where he is."
His brother… not me. I couldn't fault him, I'd do the same thing I suppose… but where was I?
The image changed again. Sora was sitting on the couch, with Taichi and Yamato on either side of her. A box of pictures was settled into her lap.
"Hey here's another one!" she exclaimed. "It's from Miyako and Ken's wedding. Look how perfect we all look. Before all this age we've put on." She let out a laugh that both boys fed off of, smiles spreading across their faces.
"Here's one of our first adventures," Taichi said. "You know, the one Hikari made us take."
"Oh, I remember that. It was such a great adventure," Sora agreed.
"But who is that?" Yamato said.
My heart dropped as he pointed his finger at me.
"That's a Palmon," Taichi said. "Umm… I don't remember her name."
"Was it something like Mary or Makoto?" Sora asked.
"I don't know," Yamato said with a shrug. "That's probably it…"
"STOP!" I shouted. "I don't want to see anymore!"
"There's a lovely one about you going to see Michael at a movie premiere that ends with you being taken away by the security because you're a 'crazed fan'. Are you sure we have to stop now?"
"Yes, I don't want to see it," I said. I could feel the tears running rivers down the side of my face. I knew it wasn't true… it couldn't be true. I'd never met her before, how could she know all of this stuff about me?
But even though I knew it wasn't true… it felt like it.
It was painful to see such realistic visions of the future. A future where I was abandoned, a piece of the past that no one even cared about, someone who's name was even too hard to remember.
"You're afraid of the future," Kura said with a strangely sinister chuckle. "Are you ready to surrender to me? Ready for me to rid the world of me, or are you going to continue to 'distract' me?"
"You're wrong. Those aren't real. I know they aren't," I said, even though I was starting to feel they were…
"I propose a test then," she said happily. Oddly enough the happy tone was scarier than her evil one. "We'll see just how important you are to your friends…"
There was a clang, and suddenly a second light turned on shining on a doorway.
"Here he comes," Kura said as she stepped back into the darkness. "I must go greet him."
And the door opened to reveal…
Koushiro:
I had been following the words for a long time now…I couldn't remember ever not following the words… It just seemed to be the only important thing in the entire world. The hallway reached turns and intersections, causing me to do even more configuring to see which way I needed to go. It just made sense. I had to follow the words. They were my lifeline. I didn't need anything else…
Not even that little pink blob that had been following me as long as I could remember, trying to tear me away from my lifeline.
Didn't he see that the words were everything? More important than me, more important than him, more important than the air I was breathing…
"Koushiro, you have to stop reading. You're just repeating the same words over and over again. If they were so important don't you think they'd say something other than 'follow me' over and over?" the pink blob was saying.
I ignored him. I couldn't be bothered wasting the energy it would have taken to answer him. I needed the energy for following my words…
"Continue, yet do not fear. You will not be led astray, follow us and reach your heart's content. You shall want for nothing, your endless curiosity will never sate, your cup of knowledge will fill past the brim, a constant input, never ceasing… Nothing will stand in your way. Nothing will stop you from your goal. Nothing else matters… Continue, yet do not fear…. the end is near…"
The end? No! I couldn't be at the end…maybe I should turn around…
"Koushiro, there's a door there," the pink blob commented.
"I don't care, I have to go back. I need more words, they can't stop," I said desperately.
"What do the words say the closer you get to the door?" pink-blob-guy asked.
"A choice you must make. A decision that will be as difficult as it is easy. The choice you must make…for the path has found its close…"
"Okay, so you just have to choose correctly," he told me.
"I don't want that, I want to keep deciphering," I whined.
"Koushiro, maybe there are more words in the room. Maybe this is your choice, you have to decide whether to stay out here with already configured words, or go in and find a new puzzle," he said…only he seemed to be putting me on. But I was desperate to keep going, and decided he was right.
"That's what the words say?" I asked to clarify.
"Yes, Koushiro, they say to open the door."
So I did. I needed more words after all.
But inside the door there weren't any more words. There weren't any kind of symbols, just a girl standing in the middle of the room in a spotlight, and another girl in a dark cloak coming towards me.
"Ah, Koushiro Izumi, the Knowledge Child, so good of you to come. We were so in need of your help," the cloaked girl said. "I am Kurayami, and this is your test."
"I'm good at tests," I said not bothering to reign in my excitement. There weren't any words, but tests were good too.
"Koushiro!" the girl in the spotlight called. She looked familiar… but I couldn't remember who she was. Spotlight-girl, like little-pink-blob-guy were both a part of my past, parts of the past that I didn't need any more, not since I found the words.
I stared at her though, trying to place her in case it was needed for my test…
"Quiet, Purity Child," Kurayami said. She raised her hand, and encased Spotlight-girl in a bubble. I watched it as if floated towards the ceiling. "Now, Koushiro, you must be tired," she said with a somewhat vicious smile. I ignored it. "Let me take that off your hands."
With another wave of her hand, my laptop was placed in a bubble as well, and was lifted towards Spotlight-girl.
"Which do you choose?" Kurayami said simply.
"That's my test?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"That's easy then," I said. "I pick my l—"
"No Koushiro!" Pink-Blob-Guy shouted, covering my mouth with both of his little hands. He must have put a lot of power into that jump too; I'm a lot taller than he is after all. "You can't do that. You have to think about the decision. That's what the words said, remember, and think about it. That's Mimi! You can't just leave her here."
"She can't help me with the words," I told him, though the words seemed slightly less important now.
"She doesn't have to. You like her the way she is, Koushiro. Remember that? You like her."
"No I don't," I said immediately. I didn't want her to hear that. It wasn't a matter of whether it was true or not, it was a matter of keeping it secret… Interesting…
"You do," Pink-Blob-Guy said, making my face immediately flush red. Mimi didn't need to know this. I'd kept it to myself for a long time… I hadn't even told Sora when I meant to.
Wait. Sora? Mimi? Suddenly I remembered that Pink-Blob-Guy was really called Motimon.
"Motimon, what's going on?" I asked. My life seemed to rush back into my head all at once. It was the opposite of when I'd lost my crest before, in that disgustingly embarrassing way. I'd given up my curiosity then, this time I'd given up everything else.
Even Motimon.
Even Mimi.
I swallowed thickly. This decision seemed to be a lot more complicated now. It wasn't just Mimi or my laptop. It was comfort or discomfort. Mimi made me nervous at the best of times, now she'd know if I cared, because everybody knows my laptop means the world to me… It was my comfort. I went to it no matter what was troubling me.
But it wasn't just a simple decision between comfort and discomfort either.
It was the past versus the future, safety versus risk.
And it was making it much harder to decide because of that.
Mimi had told me the day before leaving for our trip that someday I'd have to choose. And I'd know she was right, but I didn't want her to be. It went against everything in my being to choose Mimi over my laptop. I shied away from risks, preferring to stick to what I knew was safe. If I didn't understand something, an emotion or a situation, I locked my sights on my laptop. It was a coping mechanism. My parents got it for me in a dark time for me. When I knew I was adopted but they didn't know that I knew. I was too afraid to talk about it. My laptop saved me because I threw myself into my work, and was able to ignore the outside world…
Except for Mimi.
I'd made a promise to myself that I wouldn't ignore her again, after I'd lost her and Tentomon in that stupid maze. It was easier at the time to just listen to her prattle than to have to fix a mess as big as that one. But at some point, it stopped being such a chore. The chore actually was trying to seem as though I didn't care….
And to distract myself from those feelings and thoughts, I turned to my laptop.
It was a circle. How was I supposed to pick between them?
Mimi was my friend…just my friend, but my laptop was a friend too.
Mimi was a living breathing organism with thoughts and feelings… My laptop on the other hand contained just about every thought I'd had since I was seven, as well as all the details I've learned while in the digital world, a full analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, Gennai's system of cataloguing such information of all our past foes, allies and acquaintances. In short, both could be used against us in a battle, though in different ways.
"Koushiro, you shouldn't have to think so hard," Motimon commented. "It's Mimi or a computer."
"I-I can't," I said after a moment. "I can't choose. They're both important to me, to us as a group. Neither can be replaced."
"Koushiro…" Motimon said looking as though he'd love to have an eyebrow to raise.
"Wait…" I said. "Apocolymon said something…"
"What did he say?" Motimon asked. "And why is it important now?"
"I asked where our friends were, and he said 'They are, as we speak, suffering on their own, each facing a trial tailored to them specifically.' That means that they aren't going to be in my nightmare, thus making it safe to say that this isn't really Mimi."
"Are you going to gamble her away like that?" Motimon asked.
"Is it really gambling to just take Apocolymon's word for it?" I asked just a tad desperately.
"He is the villain here…"
"Yes, but up until now, we have not been lied to by our enemies. They sometimes get things wrong, such as telling us that our death is near, yet never managing to finish us off, but they never really lie to us…" I pointed out. "They tend to be pretty straightforward. Sometimes they even tell us of their plans."
"That is true…" Motimon said nodding to me. "I suppose that means it isn't Mimi then…"
"Right," I said trying to convince myself I wasn't doing something incredibly stupid. "So then I should pick my laptop."
"Right…" Motimon agreed.
Neither of us really seemed all that sure though.
"You have made your decision, Koushiro," Kurayami stated. "I am pleased." She moved her arm to lower my laptop, and I hugged it close to me. I could only hope I'd made the right decision. "You must leave now."
"How do I do that?" I asked her.
"And you are the Knowledge Child?" she asked with a smirk. "That is something you must figure out on your own."
"Right," I said backing out of the room, refusing to allow myself another look at the hopefully-not-real Mimi. "Motimon, got any ideas?"
"Not really," he admitted.
I looked around the hallway, only to notice it was no longer the same. It was stone now, instead of plaster, and the words were gone. But I'd seen it before. A long time ago… when I was ten? Once I posed the question, the answer located itself in my mind. I was ten; we'd been in the digital world only a short time. I was here with Tentomon, and Palmon and Mimi found us…
"The maze," I said in realization. Motimon looked a tad worried, but didn't say anything. "Just stick close, okay?"
He nodded and allowed me to choose which direction we went. I chose corner after corner, and took awhile before I would admit to being lost. It's just not something I like to admit.
"Now what?" Motimon asked.
"I don't know. We're at a dead end," I told him as we entered an empty room with no exits. It too was familiar however.
"So…?"
"Well…" I said, resisting the urge to pull out my laptop. I'd seen what it would do to me in this world, and wasn't about to risk a second lapse in judgement. I looked to each corner of the room, and then scanned each wall. It was a rather tall room, tall enough for Kabuterrimon to fit nicely. Actually, there was enough room for Togemon too… My eyes widened.
"Digivolve," I told Motimon.
"How far?"
"As far as you can. We're blasting our way out through the far wall; see that crack near the floor. It's just like last time," I told him. "Palmon and I broke in using a rock from the outside. Kabuterrimon or anyone more powerful than him should be able to blast our without any difficulty."
"Right. Motimon digivolve to… Tentomon!"
"Tentomon digivolve to… Kabuterrimon!"
"Kabuterrimon digivolve to… MegaKabuterrimon!"
"I think that's good!" I called from the doorway. I had to step out of the room due to MegaKabuterrimon's size. I didn't want to be flattened into the wall after all. "Hit the wall with something!"
I couldn't be sure what attack he used. His voice was muffled by the fact that he was crammed into a room a tad too small for him. The explosion, however, I heard. And it was hard to miss the blinding light.
"Koushiro!"
I turned and saw Jou and Takeru running towards me. Takeru appeared to have reached his mega level, I was pleased to notice.
"Hi," I said a little lamely.
"Did you see any of the others?" Takeru asked me.
"I hope not," I said a little grimly.
"Maybe," MegaKabuterrimon said loudly.
"Who?" Jou asked.
"Mimi…" I said in nearly a whisper.
Mimi:
I couldn't believe it! He'd chosen the stupid laptop. Apparently I wasn't nearly as important to my friends as they were to me. It didn't help that I couldn't hear any of his reasoning. Kura seemed to think it was funny sticking me who knows how far up in the air in a sound-proof bubble. I didn't quite see the humour in it, but maybe that was just me.
"It was as I foretold, was it not?" she told me after she released me from the stupid bubble.
"It was," I said a little grudgingly. "But Koushiro wouldn't choose anyone over that stupid piece of junk."
"He couldn't even figure out who you were until his digimon told him," she told me, adding insult to injury.
"That's not true," I told her, feeling tears sting at my eyes.
I'd been nursing a small crush on him for the past few weeks, and he'd gone and shattered it, and she had to keep bringing it up. That and those could-possibly-happen videos weren't really making me feel good about myself…
In fact, I hadn't really been acting like myself since I fell down that stinking hole. I let fear cloud my judgement, and now the hurt that Koushiro had inflicted, and the sadness that Kura had instilled where making that small cloud into a storm.
"It is," she insisted. "If it weren't for that digimon you wouldn't have even needed to watch a debate. He was ready to pick his laptop first thing."
"I don't care," I told her, and oddly enough, I meant it... "I don't need them to care about me. I will still care for them whether they need me or want me or not. I'm just Mimi, I can't change that, and I can't change where I live right now, but I won't change how I feel. I love my friends and I need them, and as long as they'll have me, I'll be proud to call myself their friend."
Kura seemed confused for a moment, staring at something behind me. I ignored it.
"I'm moving back to Japan anyway. It's my home; I don't want to be in New York forever. I want to go to culinary school, I don't want to be an actor, I don't want to date a movie star and get put in all the tabloids. I just want to help people and express myself in a way that I feel good doing. And yes, Koushiro's dismissal hurts, but I can get over that and I will get over it. I will still be his friend whether he wants me anymore. I don't care. I'm still Mimi, I'm still me."
Her mouth dropped open as she stared. I could almost see her eyes now, it was getting brighter.
"I love the digital world, and I love my friends, but I do love who I am as well, and I don't want you or your pal Apocolymon to try and change that!"
And suddenly Kura wasn't there anymore. I closed my eyes as a flash of brilliant white light surrounded me.
"And another thing," I said only to cut myself off when I noticed Kura wasn't there. In her place were Jou, Takeru and…Koushiro.
"Mimi," Koushiro said in a sort of breathless gasp.
"Mimi!" Jou and Takeru shouted—which totally made up for those videos of me being disliked and forgotten. They seemed more than happy to see me. And they probably would have ran to hug me too if Koushiro hadn't gotten there first.
Yeah, Koushiro hugged me.
"Hello," I said briskly to him, as he let me go. His face shone as bright as the sun as he looked anywhere but at anybody's face.
"Hi," he said in a choking voice. He was embarrassed, that much was obvious, but it still managed to be awkward too.
"How was your nightmare?" Jou asked me kindly, as he and Takeru took turns hugging me. I was really feeling loved at that moment.
"Fine," I told him honestly. "It was touch and go for a little while," I said glaring at Koushiro, who'd just felt brave enough to meet my eye. He blanched. "But I realized it didn't matter, because it was all about being myself and not caring what Apocolymon and Kurayami said."
"Mimi!" Tanemon shouted running over to me. "I missed you!"
"I missed you too," I said scooping her up into my arms.
"It was you…" Koushiro muttered. "Damn it."
"Koushiro?" Jou and Takeru asked as one.
"It was you then?" I asked him. "Not a mirage?"
"Yes…" he muttered.
"And you picked the freaking laptop?" I asked him and I will admit to slapping him across the face as well.
"I thought you were the mirage," he said quietly, rubbing his recently slapped cheek.
"Oh," I gasped. "Sorry… I thought you knew it was me, that's what Kura said anyway."
"She let me talk myself out of it being you," Koushiro admitted with a small blush. It was the most direct he'd been to me in a long while. Well, without directly or indirectly insulting my intelligence…
"Do you suppose the others…?" I said, letting my question hang. They could fill in their own blanks.
"I can only hope," Takeru said.
Next time on Digimon Adventure 03: Yamato and Sora must tackle their problems head on, or else they will succumb to Apocolymon's trap.
