A/N: Yes, still here! I apologize for the longer wait, work has been hectic and my Muse has decided to play team-Halo for the time being. Without further delay, here is chapter 17. Merry Christmas for everyone who celebrates the holiday!
"I guess I'll put the tonkatsu to the fridge."
Sora's words made TK turn to look at the doorway where Taichi had just appeared. Sora, however, was already getting up after looking at the clock, visibly fretful that it hadn't been Takeru turning-up on late supper.
It was nearly 10 p.m., and Takeru hadn't visited the kitchen the whole evening. In fact, many of the kids were already in bed trying to catch some sleep or taking a shower, leaving the older kids between themselves. It had become almost customary for Yamato, Taichi, Koushirou, and Sora to stay up, not always to talk, but to consume the silence between them in an act of comradeship. Some nights, TK or Daisuke tagged along. Even Joe had rejoiced his temporary freedom from exams and cram school.
"He didn't come down to eat?" Taichi guessed correctly, his hair still wet from the shower, dropping water on to the floor and drenching the towel on his shoulders.
"Not since the afternoon." Sora answered quietly, taking a look at the fridge before closing the door. TK could also notice some tightness in his older brother's posture.
None of them had dared to openly note how rarely his future-self seemed to eat, or how tired he looked. Takeru had always been on the lean side when young, and his build now resembled Hiroaki, helping him hide his weight. However, no-one felt they were entitled to criticize the oldest of the group — not to mention, that Takeru seemed to draw a clear line on between their mission and his personal life. Almost everyone from the group had crashed against the wall when Takeru's demeanor had changed as if from a switch when they had approached something he didn't want to disclose.
Their run-in with the Kaiser-imposter and Himekawa five days ago had only worked as a catalyst for the divide.
The only positive side was that they were closing in on their search.
Even right now, Koushirou's hands were typing and exploring variables. The red-haired boy had even had to resort to pain killers for his aching wrists.
"He should eat more." Joe mused, his expression somber.
There was a mulling silence before Taichi settled to ease the mood, "We could put Miyako or Daisuke on it." Taichi suggested the push as a half-intended joke, half-serious. But his grin soon weakened into a reminiscing smile, "I don't remember TK you ever being that scary."
The comment made TK smile that only widened when Yamato snorted in a belated answer, the older brother's stoic stance broken for a second. "You haven't seen, what I have seen," Yamato stated before getting up and setting to wash his mug.
Taichi chuckled at the answer, "Maybe so."
With the conversation moving onto more menial matters TK's mind wandered off.
He didn't necessarily like his older-self, but the man had helped Patamon, the least he owed was a thank you. Furthermore, he had seen the looks Patamon threw Takeru, how close the two had become, maybe not knowledge-wise, but heart-wise, on the same side with no grudge.
He had first tried to reason that Patamon might be too gullible with him, but there was something in the connection between the two that made him see his older-self harbored the same feelings towards the small Digimon as he did.
It made Takeru more humane and created a point of connection, despite the outward strangeness.
But the fear still lingered.
Takeru could feel TK's entrance to the library room even before he took his eyes off the shelves. With the antique furniture, the white classical piano and the floor to ceiling bookshelves, Takeru had once again habited the quiet room.
Finally, the older man stopped his search on the books and turned his head in a way of asking.
His younger self looked unsure before swallowing his own nerves.
"I just wanted to say thank you, for patching Patamon," TK confessed with his chin held higher than normal.
Takeru didn't reply anything and just returned back to look through the books, a minimal tilt of the head being the only acknowledge towards the words.
TK didn't move to exit the room but stayed looking at Takeru's one-handed guest with uncertainty on his young features.
"What are you looking for?"
Takeru withdrew the book from the shelf just enough to read the whole cover, before letting it fall back into place before answering, "I'm not sure. It's the Digital World, sometimes coincidences happen."
TK blinked.
Takeru gave a small, awkward laugh, "In this row, there has been a cook-book in German, a dissertation from old dialects, some fiction, a book about the pyramids," Takeru explained nodding towards the shelf in question. "You never really know what you can find."
Takeru handed TK a thin book about motorbikes, before receiving it back and putting it in the original spot.
"Why?"
"I don't know. But, do you remember Yamato's school project files on dad's laptop?"
Takeru knew his younger self did based on the expression.
"Exactly. When you are in a hurry, have too much to do, or just are a little less organized, you put things into a shared folder. A few years later you clean the top folder and move stuff around, you transfer the original files to a new and sometimes a more random location. With enough people messing around and enough years, it starts to look like this."
TK was silent for a while but Takeru knew the young teen had to have something on his mind, otherwise, they wouldn't be in the same room anymore.
"In the future… mom and dad…"
Takeru stilled, it was a question he — for some unknown reason — hadn't known to expect.
TK, on the other hand, was clearly very invested in the question, reading his reaction, but unwilling to believe anything but words.
Takeru could relate to the feeling, a newly formed pit in his stomach, but there was so much wrong in his life these days, that the idea of his childhood family back together had somehow been pushed back amidst the more pressing wishes. He didn't have anything else to give to his younger self than an apologetic shake of the head.
TK had a hard time to accept the fact, the stupefaction and disbelief evident on the younger boy's face. "I can't fix those things. No?"
Takeru knew his younger self realized it was a fool's hope. However, his own realization of the partial surrendering to the permanence of the divorce surprised him, making him feel hundreds of years old.
Maybe he was closer to the end than he had thought.
A chill passed through his bones.
As TK started to swallow down tears, Takeru left the room. He walked through the entrance hall, and after a quick disappointment with the hobby room and a questioning glance from Daisuke, Sora, and Yamato, Takeru found Patamon in the kitchen. Without words, he picked the small Digimon up and carried Patamon to the library.
By now TK was wiping tears and breathing larger gulps of air, but the teen didn't miss a beat when taking Patamon to his arms. Takeru could guess that reaction was more instinctive than anything else.
Patamon turned to look at Takeru for advice.
"Mom and dad's divorce." Takeru settled to explain.
Patamon looked at TK from this arm's and pressed his small head against the human's chest.
Takeru leaned against the mahogany desk and waited for TK to compose himself. He felt without a better word - alienated - he remembered sharing the sentiment, but the open showcase of feelings and seeing his own actions from a second person perspective was bizarre.
"It's just hope." At TK's inquiring hurt look, Takeru explained, "To see that things that do not exist or seem possible could become true. To firmly set your mind on them."
TK began to scratch Patamon from the top of the small Digimon's head, unsure what to say. There was a louder clank from the kitchen which Takeru listened for a second before continuing, "But… sometimes it can be detrimental. There is a certain point to which you can affect other people's wills and wants. — It is impossible to let go, I know." Takeru sighed.
The young boy looked to steel himself against the words, ready to call them lies if they would get too much into his psyche.
"Do you know the story behind Daemon?" Takeru asked contemplatively, remembering that his younger self probably didn't. He wasn't sure why to bring it up — probably it would do nothing for the boy in front of him. But there was something… like passing on the fears that harbored his mind.
Earning a shake of the head he walked to close the door fully, before continuing, "A long time ago the Digital World was governed by the Celestial Kingdom. The Digital World represents the Human World to some extent, so the Celestial Kingdom mirrored the police, court, in a way." Takeru played with a thin hard-cover book in his right hand. "To govern it all, there were three angel-type Digimons: Seraphimon, Ophanimion, and Cherubimon. –Hope, light and miracles respectively if you want to say it as such. It worked well, but when time went by the distortions in the Digital World grew. The darkness found more footing and eventually Cherubimon got infected — and killed Ophanimon."
Patamon exhaled.
"With Ophanimon dead and Cherubimon lost, Seraphimon tried everything to stop the darkness from spreading. However, when you begin to fix issues with a plan A, and it doesn't work, you move onwards the alphabet. However, with every letter you are dealing with a more acute situation and less effective means," Takeru said with a sigh. "As time goes on, the hope becomes despair when you notice that you really want something to happen but you are starting to think that it most likely won't. With the Digital World falling to darkness, Seraphimon was refusing to give in. In the end, he was only left with wrath on not succeeding even though he should have — hate against himself and the world. …He fell."
"Fell?" TK asked with his voice quiet.
"Fallen angel." Takeru elucidated. "He became Daemon."
There was a clear moment when the information hit TK as the boy froze on the spot. The long shock was followed by a subconscious shaking of the head from side to side as if denying the fact.
Takeru didn't make an effort to break the silence and walked back to the bookshelf, beginning his search on another row.
"Became Daemon."
There was a question behind the statement, on which Takeru nodded without taking his eyes off the books.
"Is that what she meant?" TK asked, making Takeru stop in mid-air.
"What? — Destroying the world? — In a way," Takeru replied sounding uncertain as if he was just pondering his thoughts out loud.
TK was clutching his arms while trying to not to squeeze Patamon too hard.
"Would you?"
It was an absurd question to ask from one's future.
Against the young boy's expectations, Takeru paused for a moment, taking his time to answer. After a few unvoiced starts, Takeru answered, "That's what they are hoping for."
There was a heavier note in Takeru's words that made TK consider twice before pushing on, "But?"
"There is no but," Takeru said, turning fully towards them, "It's war. If the outcome was obvious, there wouldn't be one."
Despite the outward neutrality, there was a slight rise in volume, a small extra press on the tone.
"That's how it works." Takeru reprimanded, his bad mood catching him again. Luckily, TK was smart enough to accept the dismissal and leave him alone.
"You should become a partner Digimon."
Angemon ignored the proposition and the body making it for the hundredth time.
"We get that you need time to think. But you, on the other hand, need to realize the scale of the opportunities presented to you."
Angemon didn't move a muscle at the words. Only when the being had already moved on, he let himself relax and look at the direction the foe had disappeared.
It was the same story he had been offered for over two years. A chance to become a partner Digimon for a human. That there would be once again a group of new kids to the Digital World and almost all of them already had a partner waiting for them.
But humans didn't belong to the Digital World.
And he had seen what had been left of those who had come.
What was left wasn't body parts or corpses, but mere shadows, mutated and mutilated parts of beings that didn't really exist anymore. But sometimes enough was left for something to unexist in the existence. Fractures of beings that would have been much better of dead, but didn't have enough being in them to be able to die.
Saying 'No' wasn't even up to debate.
They had given him all the possible marketing strategies. Promises of power, of status — of meaning. But in contrast, his very being was to oppose those factors. He had trained a long time to become a guardian of the Celestial Kingdom and all that was pure in the Digital World. Humans didn't belong to the Digital World and most certainly neither did the experiments with darkness the agents were conducting.
He wasn't going to have any part in the process — other than protecting the Digital World from them.
They were even audacious enough to try and lure him with hope. That because the child's crest had been decided to be hope, there would be no better Digimon partner than an angel-type Digimon, more importantly somemon from the digivolution line of Seraphimon.
However, even if he wasn't willing to admit it to himself, that argument stuck with him, because something was changing in the status quo of the Digital World.
The nightmare had been repeated numerous times in Angemon's head, whether asleep or awake.
The constant questioning of whether he should have been stronger, whether he should have never visited the Human World to see Takeru, or whether he should have agreed to burn the whole world down just to save the boy.
The what-ifs that formed a living hell.
But more bearable than the one he tried to cover himself from — that he would still choose Takeru all over again. Not only because it was the only route Takeru wouldn't die before adulthood but because he needed his partner too much.
Knowing that Takeru was suffering without him the very moment made his steps faster and push himself through the exhaustion he was piling to another day, hoping to never have to face that mountain.
Angemon took last glances at the shores of the ocean in the Digital World, the gates closed and fortified to the degree he could manage on his own.
However, here too, it was already raining, the large drops drenching his hair and dripping down along the rim of his helmet.
The water was salty, almost acid on the small section of bare skin on his face.
Whatever they were trying to keep out, possibly would break its way through anyway. It was like fortifying a wooden door, knowing their enemy was already deploying a tank, just waiting for it to roll onto the scene.
The water made him feel cold but that only managed to fortify his resolve into cool truths.
He would fight the darkness to the bone; dying on the battle didn't matter, as long as Takeru lived, he could always claw his way back.
It was the part he had chosen.
The manor stood unchanged inside the protections.
It didn't rain as much here as it had closer to the sea, but the air wasn't sunny as dark clouds loomed in low altitudes.
Few of the kids reacted to Angemon's arrival with looks of surprise, not really knowing what to say; not that the angel-type Digimon would have expected greetings in the first place.
The mood was somber and subdued. But with nothing wrong in anyone's energy, Angemon let the issue slide and strode up the steps of the grand staircase.
As he opened the door, Takeru was sitting by the table staring blindly ahead of him. Angemon had gotten used to this, having learned the telltale signs of hard thinking — usually accompanied by thoughts of plot or something else story related. Takeru was leaning slightly to the back of the chair, his injured left hand crooked and close to his chest, while the right one was rolling a pencil sluggishly between the fingers. The somewhat down-casting look and small seriousness in Takeru's face were, however, clear signs for him that, right now, it wasn't about a story, but about the worlds and other philosophical ponderings. Even the initial smile at seeing each other had disappeared soon after..
Angemon moved quietly to sit on the bed next to the desk, looking Takeru in the eyes for a moment.
There was a sad smile on the human's face when saying quietly, "I really didn't think it would come this far."
Finally, Takeru put the pen down to the table and sighed, letting his guard down.
"I'm not really on their good books," the human admitted and nodded towards the door.
"So I've heard", Angemon acknowledged, taking a more comfortable position.
Takeru gave an answer between a small laugh and a snort.
"I sometimes fear that they aren't wrong." Takeru sighed and turned his head to meet Angemon's gaze.
Angemon considered his words for a moment, "We all have a dark side, the capability for both good and bad."
When his companion didn't really respond to his words he continued, "With you, the resources are just a little bit bigger." And a tiny pause later, "However power itself rarely makes anyone "good or bad", it's the expectations and wishes added to it. - -You have never been one for power."
"Do you think Daemon really ended up to this based only on goodwill?" Takeru challenged, wanting Angemon's personal opinion and knowing that his partner would understand what he was after.
There was a longer pause when Angemon considered his words, neither of them rushing the conversation.
Eventually, Angemon responded with his own question, "What do you think is counted as a good intention? – – If you think it also as overlooking means then maybe yes."
The small silence told the angel-type Digimon that his partner was still not convinced.
"Yamato asked about it. — the deaths."
Angemon leaned back, just a touch.
The subject wasn't easy.
"They weren't humans anymore. Corrupted data that was too far gone with darkness. If they'd have enough left they could have been reborn, otherwise, they moved on."
They both knew Angemon was stating his moral code, the way the Digital World had operated for as long memory served.
The forces of good and evil fought to destroy each other, here it was a nature's law.
Takeru looked at his partner and searched for verification. Somehow the human could sense that the question wasn't that simple to Angemon either.
"So that's just how it goes?" Takeru questioned aloud, trying to alleviate his feelings.
"Mhmm."
The silence etched on, both having almost forgotten that there were over ten kids and ten Digimons in the ground floor.
"Angemon, do you think… that we might go as far as to destroy the worlds?"
Angemon fixed his pose at his partner's quiet question.
Angemon had trouble finding the right words. He had thought about it too. Feared of what he was becoming — fearing that it worried him less and less. It all revolved more and more around his will for Takeru to survive no matter the cost. Before, it had been simple, evil would be destroyed and removed from the Digital World, however now…
"Angemon?"
Angemon let his head drop a little — out of shame or determination, he didn't know — "I don't know. For me, you are the world. You are my responsibility and life since becoming your partner Digimon." There was surprising raw uncertainty in Angemon's voice, not to mention the way Angemon's eyes stopped on Takeru's injured arm. "Seeing you in that state then, seeing you through this — I hate." Angemon's voice shook little in the end, before composing himself and seeking atonement, "You know that."
Angemon clasped his hands together when Takeru met his gaze, both staring right into each other, heedless of the mask.
He wasn't what Takeru had once thought of him as. He wasn't a righteous warrior and a protector. The minute he had seen Takeru, the minute he had become compromised, the level of the emotional attachment only increasing each year. He was literally a shadow of what he had once been. But like shadows, he had become bigger, further reaching than he had been before. For the troubled little boy who had been forced to bear alone the tears of the adults and the world around him, he had become the shadow that not only allowed a soft embrace but followed everywhere and anywhere, always. And deep down his need to be important to someone and to atone his sins and the destruction he had caused to Takeru when choosing him, matched perfectly with Takeru's perpetual need to be the utmost important being to someone, to have someone who would never leave and shared the same clingy attachment.
There could have been a time when Angemon would have been too ashamed to expose his faults to the human, but they had traveled too far — were too high-up on the brink — to give each other anything but honesty the best to their ability.
In the end, Angemon pulled Takeru into his arms, "I don't know about the world, but I know that I would never risk you. As long as you are here, as long the world has hope. That much I know."
A small part of Takeru wanted to cry for his fear over Angemon's life, but he put it aside. Angemon was here, the only solid thing in the world. It was all that had kept him alive all these years, and if it had never crossed his naïve mind that Angemon could die against Devimon, it had now become unspeakable in the very-unnaive sense.
Takeru tried to disappear to the angel-type Digimon's arms. The partner who was always there, always asking and offering, never demanding anything from him. They had never really been mentally or physically sexually attracted to each other. It had ultimately started as the need for something intimate, to provide the other pleasure and comfort. They both knew each other so well, and with the changes, they weren't mentally two different beings anymore, not fully at least.
Angemon's embrace electrified Takeru's infected skin areas: at first, the feeling burned, but it was almost instantly replaced by the coolness of a fire-burn salve, the energy providing a temporary antidote to the human's damaged data.
It was the last effort from Angemon to give his partner the strength to go through this, to survive the last hundred yards, in the marathon he had been running since he had been sixteen. And with Angemon's passing shaky breaths, they both knew it was the last lifeline for the Digimon too.