Warnings: Sexism, trauma, terrible mindsets, AU, blue and orange morality, children

Chapter One

Nothing had gone to plan. Nothing had worked the way it was supposed to. But then it was never going to, when you thought about it. Mochizuki Meiko became the eighth child, quite possibly through circumstance. She joined her new friends in redeeming Tailmon, in stopping Vamdemon and now... now she was up in the sky, fighting for all of their lives.

Professor Mochizuki was furious, terrified, calm, in turns. Maki watched him pace, watched his hair grow a little greyer as the day went on. She didn't react to it, which was likely why he kept her around. Daigo would have tried to calm him with word and action and explanation and empty things that drove the man eventually insane and effectively useless. Maki did not talk. She had learned when to curb her voice, much to her own chagrin.

Daigo was different. The others had been different. A mishmash of personalities and survival skills and faithful cohesiveness that simply had not been enough. And Homeostasis had apologized a thousand, thousand times for it. Had said they'd done their best and it was her own inability to do enough that had caused it. Like a parent taking responsibility for their children.

It also wasn't entirely true, but Homeostasis had always struck her as the bullied smart child in the class, who was prodded and loathed and pinned to a corner. Except able to smile and mean it. It was confusing. But it was fair.

The others had encouraged her to speak, to stand up straight. The world did not. And no one now would be able to do that to Yagami Hikari. No one except her.

No pressure.

The little girl was sitting outside the small home, snacks untouched, flushed face a little more red, but arms steady around the egg. The sky thundered and she didn't flinch.

Maki, one ear on Professor Mochizuki, settled beside her. "Yen to speak freely?"

Hikari blinked, red eyes losing the slightly glazed sheen that either meant deep concentration or she was pretending she wasn't sick. Maki had been there, done that. "Uhm..." She dipped her head. "That's... uhm..."

"Not the right phrase, I know." Maki snorted. "Force of habit. You haven't heard me speaking English yet."

A timid, warm smile crossed her face and then she coughed and looked away. Maki only dipped her head.

"You should rest." Her voice was plain, not unsympathetic. "Not resting won't make your brother come back any sooner, nor will it make the egg hatch any more quickly. In fact," Maki paused, as if for dramatic effect. "The egg will need you to be healthy. They will be helpless without you. They are a baby. A baby needs to be taught, to be cared for. They need to be raised with a steady hand and guiding heart, so they say."

Hikari giggled. "That sounds like one of Mama's shows in the mornings."

"That sort of thing tends to," Maki said with a low sigh. "Unfortunately it's usually true."

"When isn't it?" she asked this as children often do.

Maki rubbed her forehead. "When life decides you need a kick in the shorts." The professor looked at her aghast, but little Hikari giggled again. He couldn't talk anyway, he was the one ignoring his wife's pointed stares for hours on end. "Let's get this giggle cat to bed, before we regret it."

That set the little girl off again and at this point, Maki would take it. Someone in this giant house needed to be happy and she wasn't it.

"Why don't they need me?" she asked when she was settled in Meiko's futon.

Maki turned the thought over with the grace of a goldfish and answered with, "Why do you need them?"

The girl blinked at her and went to sleep while hugging the egg that was now roughly the size of dinosaur eggs in Jurassic Park. Maki waited a few moments before leaving the room once more with the door cracked open.

"What a strange child," the professor said.

Maki, having been the strange child not that long ago, rolled her eyes and prayed for patience.

Her Digivice, cracked and half-dead on a good day, whirred to life at midnight, while she watched the striped sky continue on even though it was now August fourth. "Daigo," she said, pretending she wasn't relieved and about to deck the bastard for scaring her midlife crisis to happen early. "What is it?"

"Don't be mad," he said, which was her cue to break his skull starting with his nose.

"You saying that never ends well for you," she started and he coughed. Maki made her shoulders slump. "What."

"I went back. To the Digital World I mean."

"Oh fuck you," she said, but she didn't mean it and he knew she didn't. "What's it like?"

"Right now?" He paused as if for dramatic effect. "Dead. I'm taking some samples but… the Dark Masters did a lot of damage again."

"… I see." Her thoughts churned towards grey in an instant, thinking of golden light that never returned, of power that grew and grew and grew beyond her fingers and hands.

"It's no one's fault," he said, almost hurriedly. "I think they were waiting for this moment. It was just easier without the children, you know?"

"I'm fine, Daigo," she said, quietly, peacefully. "Well, no, I'm better, anyway. I don't want to be a distraction."

"A distraction, she says," he grumbled. "You're keeping me sane and you know it."

"Well," she murmured. "When you put it like that." She sat back. "What does it feel like, being there?"

"I have never missed Bearmon so much more as a guardian than I do now. It's a different kind of ache, you know?"

"I can guess." And she could. Age and nightmares had taken the wonder away, the beauty of their friendship replaced with that same love, but tinged with helplessness. "But I'm sure you're constantly surprising them."

"And me. My body feels much lighter here." He paused. "I… I'll come bring you, next time."

She chortled. "Sounds like a date. Get back to it."

"Yes ma'am."

The line went quiet after a few awkward moments of who would hang up first, but they both ended up doing so together. She laughed softly to herself and laid back on the wood, and let the world fall quiet around her.

She would like to stay up to see the world survive or end, but it would only make her anxious and unready. And she didn't need that. She needed to have faith. And that was much harder than it sounded.

Hikari awoke, and she did not know why.

It was still dark, but somehow worse, like the sun didn't exist anymore. There weren't really any stars, even the world overhead couldn't really shine any light. A shudder ran down her spine and she shivered and rolled over to look at the egg. It sat snugly beside her, dark with circles and hard to see with so little light.

Then, loud as the bell at school, the egg cracked.

What lingering sleepiness had hovered over her vanished at once and Hikari hopped to her feet and scrambled out of bed. Her head was pounding, eyes aching, possibly teary, but excitement gave her more energy than she was used to. The egg was hatching! It was hatching! It was coming!

All she could think of was the warmth of the egg, the weight of Koromon then in her arms, and the way everyone looked so happy. So complete. All together. And yet…

"Are you okay? I didn't see anything like that."

"It's just your cold, Hikari-chan."

"I can't see it."

"I can't see it."

"I can't see anything, Hikari."

"It was a burglar, Hikari."

Tears filled her eyes and she wiped them stubbornly away. She couldn't pretend it didn't hurt, that the brother who didn't believe her got to see the world and the things for real that she had always, always believed in. She couldn't pretend it didn't ache to see all these people get to have something she couldn't, to be sent away because she was useless.

But now, now that would change, now it would be better. She would make it better.

"Hime-san!" she called down the hall. "Hime-san!"

"Daigo infected you," grunted a voice from outside. "Over here." Hikari hurried towards the voice, a ballooning hope in her throat. The young woman was sitting up slowly, hair a mess, some of it flat on the back of her head. Hikari bounced to her and waved her hands. "Something good happen?"

"The egg!" she said and Maki rose to her feet at once, a small smile breaking the detached look on her face.

"Excellent," she said. "Let's go see."

Hikari led her eagerly down the hall, bouncing on her feet. Then she slowed and stopped. "Hime-san… am I going to have to fight?"

Maki regarded the back of her head, Hikari could feel it. "It's very likely. Even though they have eight, that doesn't mean they're the right ones."

"What do you mean?" The two of them reached the door and Hime-san was still looking at her.

"It's not obvious? They suspected it could be you, but you weren't called. Something could have gone wrong."

Terror filled her stomach at the thought. At the visions filling her head that were much too gruesome for any child to have, nor really understand, but she did understand, her hands coiled into determined fists. "Then I'll just have to fight too," she said, and to her it was as simple as that.

Maki knew it wasn't but telling her that would only make her more certain of what needed to be done. And Maki had to respect that even at it's most inane and stupid.

They made it back to the room to the sound of another crack. Hikari's eyes began to shine, shine with hope and desperation and a hunger the girl likely didn't know. She bounded over, cheeks burning with the fading traces of a fever even now. (It hadn't broken? Why not? What was going on here?) Her fingers rubbed over the smooth black shell, tracing the circular patterns as they cracked slowly beneath her fingers. She did not pull away, did not even seem to consider doing that. Instead, she gently folded her fingers over the cracks and hummed.

"It's okay," Hikari told the egg in a soft, gentle voice. "I'm here for you."

The egg cracked again, and a soft pink glow began to flow out from its insides.

It was in that moment that Maki realized that something had gone very, very wrong.

She thumbed her digivice and it cracked angrily against her fingers but for the first time in years she didn't care. She didn't care in the slightest, because she just had to get pressing as quickly as she could and get a hold of him.

"Hime-chan?" Daigo's voice was slurred, even through the fabric of her pocket. "What is it?" There were muffled voices behind it, weary, irritated, worn out.

"Did Meiko get a crest?" she asked, voice hoarse.

"I…" There was a pause. "No, not really. There was a light, dark pink from her body for a second, but it was hard to tell, she kind of fell, but when she was brought to safety the glow never faded. But it wasn't a crest. I have the crest. It hasn't glowed once. The digivice is with Meiko though, everything seems to be fine." He stopped rambling. "Why?"

"This girl's the eighth child, isn't she?" She had just been talking, she hadn't meant it.

Daigo shifted in the dirt. "Well, Meiko managed to become a chosen child anyway, so… wait what are you getting at here?"

"She's sick." Maki shook her head. "Ill. And we're in a crisis. A digital world crisis. And… Homeostasis crossed over and gave her an egg. Which is hatching, right now."

"That's not a coincidence."

"If it is, I'll eat my heels."

"Please don't."

Maki almost laughed, because that was what Daigo was good at, but then she looked at the egg, which was cracking pink and Hikari was covering it with her body like some awkward leech.

Maki felt what little remained of her professional demeanor crack. "What are you doing?"

"It's coming," Hikari said. "For Her. It's coming for this child."

Her tone was perfectly serious, which was the only reason Maki's eyebrow didn't twitch with frustration. The digital world was just like that, which meant that it made about as much sense as you let it.

"It?"

Hikari shook her head. "I dunno. But they're different to the girl who gave me the egg. Much angrier, much…" She paused to think about it. "Much more lost. Still." Her expression went tight. "I won't let it hurt her."

There was a crack and another flash of light and then the sound of a very confused cat. Hikari had landed on her face to the right of it. She rolled over, wiping her eyes and facing a white blob with black eyes and round ears.

It mewed at her, nosing at her face. Hikari simply stared at it for a moment. Then her hands shot out and she cradled it close to her chest and wept.

Maki blinked, torn between reaching out and avoiding a young child's tantrum. Hikari wiped her eyes quickly and Maki lowered the hand she'd been subconsciously reaching out with. She watched the girl sit up, still rubbing her eyes.

There was a small sigh in the air and two small somethings clattered to the floor. The first was familiar by now, a pale blue digivice. The second was a necklace with something pink in the middle. This, Maki picked up and offered to the girl, who still held the digimon –her digimon- in one small hand.

Maki almost felt like she was seeing something private.

"''m sorry," Hikari eventually managed to say. "It's just that… I don't know why but… I feel like I should have been holding someone like this much earlier, but I… I failed them. I don't know why it feels like that's what happened."

… What is Homeostasis trying to do? Maki rubbed her exhausted eyes. This implied that Meiko and Hikari… had the wrong partners. Which… maybe it could happen and turn out just fine. After all, they knew so little about the process. They'd been the prototypes so they could be trying all sorts of new things to make Chosen Children. But for what purpose? What were chosen ones needed for after their battle? They were obviously needed or they wouldn't be called but…

Was she simply a back up plan?

"I hardly think you failed," Maki finally said. "During my time, I considered that I had, and perhaps I did. Even now, I have no idea. But mourning your failures won't lead to you being happy or helping this little one, I think. So take a bit of time, but not a lot, and hang onto that failure if you have to."

Hikari looked at her like she hung the sun and nodded.

Maki wished she had done anything to earn that look.

It stayed nightfall for a long time.

The girl didn't sleep anymore, noted Mochizuki Ryotaro as he left his office to stretch his legs. He found her sitting on the pouch, staring at the striped sky. Her flushed cheeks seemed like a distant memory and she was quiet. She was very strange, very casually holding that ball of fur. The white ball could escape at any time and that in its own way was disconcerting, but it did not, perfectly comfortable after eating an entire sleeve of crackers on its own.

How children could be comfortable with monsters was beyond him. IT was a little bit disgusting.

More than a little, but he had subordinates who would disagree, so he would never speak those aloud.

It was worth studying, he supposed, but nothing for him to think about as of yet. The current crisis had to be resolved first.

"You can do nothing," he decided to tell her, if only because it was what he would have wanted to hear, to be absolved and taken to do other things. If only because this was not their responsibility. This was no one's responsibility and that had always helped him. She did not look towards him, which was terribly disrespectful.

"I know," she finally said. "But I want them to know I believe in them, and the only way I can do that is to watch. I don't think I could sleep anyway."

Children were strange creatures, he decided. He had one and he still did not understand her.

"I see," he said, and began to make his way away from them and back to his agent, who was also a child that he did not understand but it bothered him less that he did not understand her. She was clinging to childhood. The folly would pass and she would grow old inside and that would be the end of these problems.

At least, these human ones. The Digital ones were proving harder to solve the longer things went on. And he was not sure how to quantify that to investors, to politicians, without sounding once again like a child and crowing 'I told you so', as the two wayward children he had picked up had said to him, while clutching the dead body of a third and bruises from a fourth and fifth as the two of them scattered for years and years in rage and hate and fury. Young grudges ran deep.

Adulthood was much clearer. Closer to death, petty things meant little, and knowledge meant plenty, at least in his mind.

Still, as he walked back to his office and soon after, his bed where his wife was still feigning sleep (maybe she would be up for reading whatever book she picked out this time, that was always soothing in these difficult situations) the man wondered. He helped but he wondered.

He did not hear the pounding of the drums, nor see the laughing fairies.

He did not see the little girl with purple hair standing by his window, staring up at the sky. Though, in fairness, no one else could either. No one that was looking

The sky did not clear up by sunrise.

It was frighteningly cold now, like a chill from another world. Hikari did not shiver, however. She would not be cowed. She was a Yagami. Fear didn't consume a Yagami.

"That's right," agreed the baby partner in her lap. "We're not scared of you, you big bully."

She hadn't even had the chance to teach the baby words, but Hikari figured if they were partners – partners, really, for real just like Taichi!- then she must have picked them up form her brain.

"YukimiBotamon?" she said quietly, and the baby snapped to attention.

"Yeah, Hikari?"

Hikari's heart swelled with love and terror. "I think the others need help."

The baby sat quietly. Then, she said, clear and grown like she'd lived a thousand lives after being attacked. "I think so too, Hikari."

Hikari pulled the baby onto her shoulder and went to get dressed. Both of them knew the problem so they were going to seek a solution. The necklace Himekawa-san had given her from the floor wasn't glowing this time. Instead it was thrumming against her skin, encouraging her, awaiting her choice.

Life or death, it asked her, steady and calm as the winters on the tops of mountains. Death or life?

Life, she answered without hesitation. My life, their lives, the world's lives. Life, always.

She dressed in play clothes, like she was going to war. Hikari pulled the whistle from its safe little compartment, old and weathered and still making a beautiful sound when blown. She didn't practice. She tapped it neatly into her knapsack.

Her fever hadn't broken of course, but there was no time to wait for it to. She went to the kitchen on light feet and snuck the containers the kind wife living here had left with her name on them. She placed them on top of her spare clothes.

A brief fission of guilt rumbled her stomach, but Hikari got to picking up a chair and looking for a first aid kit. Sure, Jou-senpai had come over with a giant first-aid bag, but who knew when she'd reach them again? She felt bad for stealing but they'd only be for her anyway, right? Did Digimon use bandaids?

YukimiBotamon stared at the doorway like something was going to pop out of it and something could. Hikari didn't worry about that. She took a roll of bandages, some antiseptic, bandaids, painkillers with fever reducers, a bottle, some patches, anything she knew how to use on herself that made sense (not like, a thermometer or something, she's not dumb) but she'd patched herself and her brother up before. And she knew how to pack where heavy things weren't heavy at all. And again, she didn't think those things worked on Digimon. To wrap it up, she rummaged in her other pink bag pocket for her birthday money and put it in the kit with an apology note and hid it under the sink again. Also filled the water bottle.

Then, the room put back together, Hikari scooped YukimiBotamon onto her cushion of clean clothes and her whistle and went outside.

Now, how did she get to everyone?

The little necklace thing settled against her chest, but the Digivice was neatly clipped to the strap of her bag. She looked at it nervously. "Do I just… turn this over?"

"Maybe," squeaked YukimiBotamon. "Maybe you should point it at the sky like a superhero!"

Okay, her digimon must be super smart. She hadn't even mentioned superheroes yet. Not even in the past ten minutes.

Still, the idea was worth a shot. She put her house slippers on the edge of the porch and stepped out onto the grass. Her socks grew dirty with grass in moments. She stepped further from the house and lifted the tiny device in her hand so high she thought her hands would give out.

Then she heard the girl from hours and nights before say, "It doesn't work like that."

She whipped around to see her, purple hair and glasses and tiny overalls. She looked pleased as punch about it too. "Hello, Yagami-chan. Calling me so soon?"

"I… I didn't…" Hikari began. Her partner squirmed to her head in alarm. "No, wait don't-"

"Hikari! Who's this?"

"I don't know," Hikari admitted. "But she gave me your egg, so she can't be all bad."

The girl's smile widened, showing a hint of white. "That's one way to look at me, sure, probably the safest way. But anyway, are you ready to go?"

"You can take us to my brother?" Hikari didn't mean to doubt, but she had to doubt. This was going too well.

"I can get you pretty close," said the girl. "I'm not supposed to be this close to you guys, but I had to break the rules. She'll be mad at me, but it'll be worth it, I think." She smiled sadly. "You're willing to do anything to change fate, I think. Everyone's fate. So, hold out your device if this is what you want to do."

Hikari looked at her for a moment. Then she nodded. "I can help my brother and everyone. I want to help them."

The necklace at her chest began to sparkle.

"Then you will," the girl said, and the device in Hikari's palm glowed a bright, brilliant blue. "Just so you know," she warned. "I can't guarantee you'll end up where you want to be, only where you need to be."

Hikari swallowed and set her shoulders. "It's okay, I'll get there."

This statement was meant with a fond, delighted smile. "I know you will."

Then Earth was gone and she was flying.

Maki awoke to silence, dread coiling in her stomach and a pounding headache. She reached for the glass next to her bed and chugged the rest of the water in it. Then she got up from the futon and padded outside.

The sky was still striped, the stars between it twinkling without a care in the world. She made a face. The difference from one world's time to the next really was a horror. Because who knew how long it had been over there? Who knew if they were still alive over there? All they had was hope. And hope was not a plan.

The house breathed around her, exhaling with the wind. The dread grew, superstitiously so. Maki checked the kid's room first, just to be safe. It was empty.

Well, that explained that. She hadn't gone back to bed. Not quite enough for dread but she still felt it. At least she had a place to start.

Meiko's parents were in bed. Not asleep, judging by the sound of the television, but in bed.

Kitchen first. Rifled through, everything mostly put back in its place. Money on the table in a clumsy attempt to pay back for hospitality. Same in the bathroom.

"She's gone up, not sideways."

Maki prided herself on not jumping, on not being surprised, but she wanted to be desperately. "Homeostasis."

"You hate me that much." The girl's voice was wry. "You won't even use my name."

"you let my friend die," Maki said quietly. "For the world. And now you're going to kill a child. For the world."

There was no sound as the girl approached her, but then she wouldn't make any sound. She had no presence here. "If I am capable of choosing to let those things happen, so are you for choosing to do them."

"I didn't know what would happen."

"Neither did I. Neither do I. That is the thing you won't forgive me for, isn't it? Not for not saving him, but for not knowing it would happen and accepting my mistakes. You have gotten taller, Hime-san, but that's about all."

"And you never change," Maki said, but it was a feeble retort, a splash of water in an already filling sink. "Take me to her."

"No."

Maki deigned to look at her. "I wasn't asking, Mirei."

"And I don't take orders easily," the goddess replied. "You know this. And I treasure you too much to let you run off and die."

Maki doubted that, but not by much. "Then bring back Bakumon."

"I can't do that at this time." The purple eyes bored into her. "None of the Digital World is able to function as it should, and until the balance is restored I can't reboot it, or him. His egg wouldn't hatch even if I was able to create it. Which I'm not. I can't create something that already exists."

Maki felt her heart thud to a stop. "What… what do you mean?"

"He was a very stubborn digimon," Mirei continued, as if Maki hadn't spoken. "He refused to come back together and wanted to protect you forever with every bit of his code. I convinced him he was being terribly impractical and rude. But he didn't come together fast enough, or all the way."

Maki felt the world start to spin and, perhaps that was for the best.

She did not have her eyes open to see the strips of Digital World start to crumble above.

Mirei did. The child floated Maki back to her room, tucked her in, and sat in front of the closed door to watch it continue to shrivel and tremble.

"Oh, Children of Life and Death," she said. "May your hearts light your way to a better future than the one once created."

On her belt, a cracked digivice began to shine a soft blue.

Hikari hit the ground with a splash. Yukimibotamon squawked at the chill that immediately ran through Hikari's bones as she nearly sank into the waves. She pulled herself and her bag (and thus her partner) above water with a gasp, feet kicking.

"Whuh…" she managed to say.

"That girl lied!" declared the baby. "This isn't the digital world! I remember it! This isn't it!"

How can you remember a place where you weren't born? Hikari did not ask this, merely swiveled her head to find shore, which, thankfully wasn't far away. Her lungs were already starting to hurt.

It took much longer to get to shore than Hikari would tell her brother it would. She collapsed on the shore, barely containing the wheezes threatening to spill sand in her mouth.

"She tried to kill you!" YukimiBotamon shouted, nuzzling her cheeks and trying to help without hands. "I don't like her! I'll blow bubbles at her next time!"

Hikari didn't hear any of this, too busy focused on breathing properly. When she could (and it felt harder here, so much harder like this place was sucking her blood out of her body without poking her with a needle.), she sat up and looked at a dismal grey sky. It was nothing like fog or stormy nights, but it was somehow worse. Thicker, and there was no hint of there ever being a sun, aside from plants the color of soot. Even they, she realized, were a horrible, ugly grey and black.

"Where are we?"

The girl had said we would go where we were needed. But who could possibly need us in this place?

The sea lapped at her feet and a voice whispered, "Little one…?"

Hikari turned back to the sea and saw eyes staring back at her from its depths.

"Little one…" whispered in the air again. "Zia… Is that you… Zia…?"

Hikari should have been afraid. But Yagamis did not often stay afraid. "My name is… Hikari."

The water rose and YukimiBotamon squeaked displeasure. "I… I am… Dagomon. You are… Zia. You are… home."