A/N: Yay, a slightly longer chapter!
"So, what are we going to do?"
TK admitted that Taichi's question was a good one.
He had sat on the infinite room for good forty minutes listening to his older self, Angemon, and Koushirou trying to find an agreement on where to go from here. The oldest kids tried very hard to understand the decisions being made.
He didn't — understand that is.
Takeru, Angemon, and Koushirou talked over maps, variables, sometimes even lines of code, Taichi, and the others asking questions or making points only to receive quick dismissals.
TK could gather that there seemed to be only bad options and it worried him. Patamon was drowsing on his lap after coming to plead some scratches. Something in here affected the small Digimon; somehow he was lucky enough not to fully feel it.
He could see the luck didn't favor everyone though, as both Hikari and Ichijouji were clearly downcast, as were most of the Digimons. Moreover, everyone seemed to be more on edge, more dejected than they had been this morning.
Even his effort to lift the mood had only drawn an annoyed frown from his older self.
"So, it's the best solution, to not do anything?"
"We are not trapping ourselves here," Angemon replied to Taichi steadfastly while moving to pick up the bags.
"But the energy will continue to accumulate?" Joe questioned wanting to make sure he understood the situation correctly.
"We don't have a way to cut if off otherwise," Koushirou replied his voice hesitant and quiet after eyeing both Angemon and Takeru of whom neither took the question.
"So how are we going to solve that?"
"We don't know." Takeru snapped at Taichi while rubbing his forehead with his right hand. There was enough of an edge in his words to cause a prolonged silence to follow.
"But if the walls will crash anyway…" Yamato began being the least taken aback by Takeru's outburst.
"Then they will do so in a moment when we aren't directly on the line of fire," Angemon stated. "If we do this here, it might be controlled, but it will only get us dead or worse. — We are not stopping the towers." Angemon added his voice overriding all the remaining pieces of uncertainty Takeru harbored.
The human in question was looking sick, and not as certain over the chosen course of action as his partner. They had a mean to stop part of this madness, it was right here on arm's reach, and they were opting not to take it.
Who doesn't take the option to hinder the darkness when presented with one? Was it logical reasoning — or just fear?
The young teens were silent. After Daisuke and Angemon's quarrel, they couldn't shake the caution to argue with the tall Digimon who seemed very steadfast to argue till the end without compromises.
"But if we used our crests?" Sora suggested eventually earning a tiny grimace from Takeru.
"It would be of very little help here," Angemon answered with a sigh, starting to get irritated and bored when the group wasn't already taking the initiative to start moving out.
"But we have two Megas, six, well, seven Ultimates, and a handful of Armored forms."
Without making any effort to explain Angemon just replied, "Even so."
Everyone let the subject drop after that and gathered their belongings.
The air got only more tense as they unplugged the tablet from the system two of the CCTV-footages changed to a new spot, showing something climbing out of the puddle of water.
Miyako let out a startled scream at the sight, "What is that?"
"It's a Raremon, a champion-level Digimon." Tentomon was first to answer.
"We fought one on Tokyo Bay over three years back," Koushirou clarified as they all watched the shapeless mass lurch its way forward.
"It might not be the same level here," Angemon warned before ushering everyone to leave the room and almost ready to push them forward with the Holy rod if they wouldn't otherwise take the hint.
They were moving much faster now in the tunnels, causing the walls to vibrate with their steps.
Now they knew better where they were heading and how far it was, but against the expected, it didn't make the journey feel any shorter in the murky corridors.
They had jogged for good five minutes before coming to a dead stop right before stepping into the first bigger hall on their way. A Devidramon screeched somewhere above them.
WereGarurumon, Digmon, and Flamedramon jumped in to get them a clearance.
"How many Devidramons does this place have?" Taichi asked.
"A lot. Couple dozen on the top part alone," Tailmon replied.
"Well, at least they are Champions," Yamato muttered before shouting, "WereGarurumon!"
WereGarurumon had managed a direct hit on the dragon Digimon. However, the second one smashed the Ultimate straight to the opposite wall causing the wall to shake.
At this, Halsemon and Lillymon joined the fight. Soon after, the battle turned for their favor but one final attack from the second Devidramon collapsed their exit tunnel right before their eyes. Moreover, the crash collapsed part of the wall letting the water trapped behind it pour freely into the room.
With a quick unison, the winged Digimons carried the rest of the group to an overpass above them.
And now they had very little idea where to head to — nor a choice for that matter.
However, with some navigation and a few more Devidramons later they were closing in on the surface.
But at this point, Takeru was beyond exhausted: his body wasn't in great health to begin with and the extra exertion was making him out of breath and his heart race. He hated being here and making a useless trip. Not to mention he was starting to feel very dizzy as his heart and lungs couldn't match his need for oxygen in his brain.
To his luck, he wasn't fully the only one as the kids stopped to take a breath and thus took their attention away from him.
"I think I know a way out from here," Tailmon remarked looking around the room that, apart from large stone-ornaments on the walls, sported only one man-sized egg and a pedestal in the middle.
There was a cacophony of content reactions to the feline-Digimon's words.
However, their hope was, for the third time in a row, cut short as the egg behind them came to life by growing legs, arms, tail, wings, and a head with nine eyes.
Devitamamon looked like Digitamamon's demonic cousin as it opened its long jaws and shot blind lasers from its eyes.
"Tailmon, lead the way!"
The group set of running again. On the same mindset, the Devitamamon jumped after them and withdrew itself back to its rock-hard casing which gave the mutant Digimon a clear advantage. The kids and their partners had to run unarmed, whereas Devitamamon could just roll after them inside its impenetrable shied.
In the first clearing, Lillymon used the Flower Cannon to throw the egg from its track but the Digimon just bounced taking more energy from the collision.
"What does that thing do?" Daisuke shouted amidst running.
"Kills with its breath," Angemon shouted back and making everyone increase their speed.
Tailmon was doing a good job at the front, leading them through intersection and junction after another.
Still, even in their best route they ultimately run into a problem.
The corridor led to a dead-end.
The path was supposed to lead to a large room, however, with the castle's law-breaking architecture a misplaced wall cut the room in half from the top part.
This wouldn't have been a problem if the open bottom half wouldn't have been underwater.
Seeing no other way out the group turned to get ready for the impending fight while Gomamon jumped into the dark waters to see where it lead.
They could hear the screeches from the hallway behind them, closing in on them like claustrophobia.
"The road is open on the other side! It's only about thirteen feet apart." Gomamon shouted after rising back to the surface.
But Devitamamon had already reached them and released the Black Death Cloud that would destroy all data on its wake.
Their fight-or-flight -decision made for them, Taichi shouted, "Dive to the other side!"
The kids swarmed into the water in panic. Gomamon called the ever-present Marching Fishes to guide the group forward.
Takeru stood on the edge unable to make himself go under before Angemon grasped him with him. Takeru had the fleeting second to take air into his lungs out of a forced to learn habit before breaking the surface of the water and leaving the gas-filled tunnel behind them.
Then his mind stopped working.
He didn't dare to look but he couldn't close his eyes either.
He had to be fighting against Angemon even if he didn't fully realize it. Luckily, Angemon was used to holding him still amidst his fits. However, they were now in the water and Angemon's wings were not built for diving. He could faintly detect Angemon shooting a Heaven's Knuckle somewhere behind them but after that, his next reflection was Angemon pushing him onto the ledge and the others pulling him out. Someone grasped his left arm causing him to scream in pain.
Angemon hauled himself out of the water after Takeru was on dry land. There was blood bleeding from the base of his wings where the darkness had stabbed its claws. A few feathers floated on the murky water behind them.
"Go!"
They weren't that far away anymore.
Fortunately, Takeru — like everyone else of the original Chosen — was ingrained with the survival instinct of putting one foot ahead of the other as long as it was physically possible. With some help from Angemon, the human was back on his feet trailing behind the group as Tailmon lead them the final stretch.
After a few twists and turns, they were finally out of the complex in the fresh air and under the cloudy sky of the Digital World.
Instead of the barren landscape, they were now surrounded by fields of grass and a forest starting from their left.
The partner Digimons immediately devolved back into their child-forms and the kids sat or laid down on the grass to catch their breath.
Takeru, in contrast, stumbled blindly a little bit farther from the group taking ragged breaths and giving deep coughs, eventually dropping to all fours and vomiting out gastric fluid. However, the wheezing and coughing continued and Takeru retched again. Many of the kids and the Digimons raised their heads from the grass, only to see Angemon walking over the oldest human with a bottle of water in his hand.
Angemon's back was bleeding: many of the scuffs were minor, but the one that had managed to stab closer to his right side bled heavily. Normally the large veins needed to carry oxygen to his wing muscles were protected by the wings themselves but with the obstructive circumstances, the back of his white suit was now tainted with red. But it wouldn't be lethal, so it could wait.
Takeru's breath and pulse calmed down closer to normal little by little but it was still clear that the human was far from okay. And as Angemon surveyed the rest of the soaked, worn-out group, it was clear that they would first need to find a place to rest before thinking about their next move.
It was well into the evening when they finally had managed to reach and secure an empty — this time a bit smaller — mansion to camp in.
Takeru's condition had deteriorated after giving the effort to make it to safety. He just couldn't get his body to calm down anymore. He was having tachycardia and with the faster beat, his body was varying between wanting to go into a shock and just breaking down altogether.
His vision was blacking out on the sides, he was drowning, he couldn't breathe, and even though his lungs were screaming out of an excess of air, his other organs screamed from the lack of it. Not a moment later, Takeru had vomited again on the lawn as his stomach kicked out the few sips of water from earlier.
Angemon had had to drag Takeru to the bedroom, give him a strong drug cocktail and try to prevent Takeru's body from falling deeper into the shock. The medicine — poison, really — would take the human's nervous system almost completely off-air, and force Angemon to support his organs, right after pushing through his own exhaustion and building the wards around the place. And maybe after that, he could devolve and digivolve to close his own wounds.
Meanwhile, cast completely aside, the young teens battled for turns in the shower and a place in front of the fire to dry their clothes.
Yamato, Sora, and Hikari had begun to make supper from the canned food they had found in the kitchen cabinets.
Twenty minutes later, the Digimons were largely asleep: some on the kitchen table, some on the living room sofa — wherever they felt they were needed in order to be ready to ward off a potential attack.
The kids took their place around the kitchen table when they had gotten other necessities of life under the order. So far the group consisted only of Iori and TK, plus Koushirou and Joe who were yet to reach the showers.
Their idle musings were halted by Angemon's curt check-up.
"Joe, can you clean up Miyako's wounds when you have the time?"
The blue-haired teen turned to look at Angemon, "Clean the wounds?"
"In case they have opened a bit in the chaos and got contaminated with the water."
"My bag got soiled in the water, and I'm not sure how much use there is for the items, I think the disinfectant cap had opened but I'll check what I can do," Joe answered with slight hesitance.
Angemon just nodded swiftly at the teen's words, "We have some in our emergency supplies, it should do."
Angemon left the room leaving Joe puzzled whether the adult-level Digimon would bring the bag to him or whether he should follow. Ultimately, he got fully up from his seat and left the room.
TK followed Joe's exist but his eyes stopped on the prominent bloodstaining on the floor courtesy of Angemon's wounds.
His knuckles tightened on their own accord.
The room was slightly warmer than Angemon had expected, the cool autumn air making the difference even more pronounced. But it was uncomfortable anyway. The size of the hospital room forced the angel Digimon to keep his wings tightly to his back while leaning on the back wall to leave enough room for the Shou and two nurses to treat Takeru. They apparently couldn't make him wait in the hallway or the waiting room because it could create pointless hysteria among the other patients and their loved ones.
The angel Digimon agreed with the decision since he didn't want to be separated from Takeru and be stuck for hours in a plain white waiting room sitting in a too-small seat. Despite everything, he preferred to watch Shou work on very pale and too rigid Takeru. The discomfort and remorse being a better option than being stuck in an ignorant and mindless wait.
He had to correct the positioning of his middle right wing as the wing-bone was squeezed between the wall and his shoulder blade.
He could have devolved, but somehow the adrenaline was still affecting him, making breathing labored and keeping his pulse higher than normal.
Takeru hadn't even been three weeks out of the hospital before being carried straight back in. The young man had had breathing issues over the night, and the situation had culminated in the morning what Shou had called to be a strong panic attack and a following shock due to the poor physical condition. The young man's body was still trying to heal itself over the long imprisonment and infection.
It wasn't going well since Angemon could see — could feel — the infection in the blond's left arm. He held back the urge to scratch around the holy bracelet around his own arm, almost exactly in the same place as Takeru now had a completely different kind of a mark.
He watched as they put an IV on Takeru's other arm, giving him a strong injection of painkillers and sedatives.
No, it was better to watch than to wait elsewhere. Takeru wouldn't want to be alone anyway, no matter what the human sometimes said in his bursts of resentment.
Finally, Angemon could detach his back and wings from the wall as Shou started to fill the prescription board and the nurses cleaned up.
Shou was speaking to him but the word went largely past acknowledgment, only a few important pieces registered into the Digimon's memory for later contemplation. As always, Shou took the effort to consider him as the second patient to look after and gave him a commiserating pat on the back before promising to be back in the next two hours or so.
Angemon let his right hand softly touch the blanket to straighten a small crumple. The bedding was faintly woolly making it chafe his skin-tight gloves.
He could understand why Takeru hated hospitals.
It was all too still, all too white and all too warm to feel like a living space. He didn't even want and try to count up the days Takeru was forced to reside inside these walls.
It was as if the walls were mocking on failing to protect his partner. His wings felt heavy on his back.
"Shou said he had a panic attack."
Angemon turned his head towards Yamato who had come immediately after hearing the news. The older brother looked disheveled, being forced to commute from the other side of the city to the hospital.
"Yes." Angemon heard himself replaying, the image of Takeru hyperventilating on the bathroom floor still vivid in his mind. For once he was glad of the hard mask covering his eyes. It gave him a prized gift of privacy.
It didn't matter how many times Takeru was admitted to the hospital since each memory only seemed to accumulate on the others. He was starting to feel that he was finally beginning to understand Takeru's trauma over his own death against Devimon. Healing didn't matter – the wound had still been created.
His hands tightened around the cold metal bed railing, his gaze never leaving Takeru.
"You know you are doing everything you can. You are doing more than any of us could." Yamato stated quietly after watching the large Digimon for a moment. "You are giving him a reason to fight, you know that."
Angemon didn't ease his grip from the railing but turned his head the tiniest amount towards the older man to acknowledge his words. He wanted to say sorry for not being able to do more. He wasn't even sure if Yamato was implying what he thought, if the man could see more than they had let on.
The steel pipe stayed cold under his gloved touch.
How could he get his partner out of this mess?
And in the end, he wasn't sure if it was right to keep someone fighting for your sake instead of their own.
What if his will to see Takeru happy and well was, in reality, killing the human in ways death never could?
"Come in, Yamato," Angemon called before the blond teen managed to knock on the door.
There was a tiny silence before Yamato opened the door with a tray of food balanced in his left hand.
"Sorry, I… We… I mean... We thought you could do some late supper," Yamato stuttered not posing any of the directness he had used to overstep TK minutes ago to be the one to bring up the tray.
He set the tray on the desktop and Angemon just nodded at him courteously from his resting spot on the floor, back against the bed. However, Yamato's eyes stopped on his adult baby brother on the bed. He couldn't tell whether Takeru was asleep or unconscious; in any case, Takeru seemed to be completely out of it, not reacting to his arrival in any way. Yamato wasn't sure whether he ought to have just exited right away, but something in the tiredness that radiated from Takeru's form kept him from moving.
"He is going to be okay, right?"
To a dread he didn't want to acknowledge, Angemon didn't reply right away and instead turned to look at Takeru too, "He'll wake up in a better condition tomorrow." Angemon replied voice slightly lower than usual, but not seeing the need to whisper, knowing it would be very unlikely for Takeru's mind to push through the medication in the current state.
Overall, Angemon wasn't sure whether Yamato's question related only to Takeru's current state; the older brother had posed the intuition before by understanding more than Angemon had expected. More than that, he couldn't give the boy false hope. Yamato was no fool. He had been through a divorce too, knew the empty promises, and how short they would often end up. And far before his little brother, Yamato had come to realize that not all stories had happy endings.
And now, Angemon was sure that Yamato could read his words because the teen didn't say anything back and just continued to watch Takeru's form.
"Tell me, what can we do to help."
Yamato's words may have been quiet but Angemon knew the teen well enough to hear the unyielding resolve behind them.
"You are doing enough."
"No, we are not!"
"Yamato, it's fine."
The human's eyes turned sharply to Angemon.
"If there was more you could do to help Takeru, I would tell you so," Angemon continued with a softer tone. "You know that."
Yamato took a few steps back to slump on the chair behind him. The teen's face mirrored much more defeat than it had a minute ago, much more despair as he searched for answers from Angemon's half-hidden face.
"How are we going to solve this?"
It was more of a rhetoric question, a question you use test reactions while guessing that the actual answer was non-existent.
"We don't know," Angemon answered truthfully his voice calm. It was somehow easier to accept the fact at this standstill — however, Angemon knew he would probably fall back into his despair once the situation would need acute decisions.
"So, not much has changed?" Yamato snorted.
"Part of the never-ending charm of this World," Angemon agreed flatly.
Yamato moved his hand along the smooth wood of the chair as many questions he didn't dare to ask hovered in his mind, not to mention words of advice he was too shy to give.
He trusted Angemon — how could he not — and he could remember how Takeru's smile had been a tad bit more genuine after getting to know the small Digimon back then. But it was weird too, because he was still in the stage where his baby brother had, in his perspective, just started to go on the adventures on his own.
He got up to get out but the muddle in his mind forced him to open his mouth, "Don't… I… It would be nice if you didn't have to die this time. Takeru doesn't like to see it. …None of us does"
Yamato's words put a warm but not a fully genuine smile on Angemon's face, "We'll try to prevent that."
Not one to open about his fears, Yamato just nodded bashfully at this and left the room with no further words and his cheeks flaring red. However, as he walked down the hallway, his mind continued to stay on Takeru.
"Was he okay?"
Yamato walked back into the kitchen with slow steps. Taichi, Sora, Joe, and Koushirou were still up whereas the kids were asleep in the living room or the second bedroom. Mimi had wanted to stay up and talk as well but Miyako and Palmon's pleads had led the pink-haired-girl to go to sleep. Takeru, Hikari, and Daisuke had also wanted to get a status-update but with old ease and authority, the older teens had managed to push them to turn it in for the day.
"Asleep," Yamato answered quietly, closing the door behind him.
"He looked pretty ill." Taichi sighed and rubbed his chin.
"They don't have an answer," Yamato eventually said to silence the restarted small-talk. He wasn't sure if he was allowed to say it — it felt too ominous.
"They don't?" Taichi confirmed earning a shake of the head, "Shit, that's bad." However, there was only a two-second pause before Taichi re-found his faith, "Well, we'll figure something out. We always do."
However, a short while later Joe joined Yamato in sharing one's worries. "I think Takeru honestly might be ill." The blue-haired boy raised his chin and pushed his glasses up his nose. "There was a lot of medicine in their supply."
"For what?"
"I don't know about everything; there was stuff I have never heard of. Strong painkillers and anxiolytics I've heard my dad talk about at home. Very high doses if I understood correctly." Joe explained with his voice slightly strained; during the last few hours, he had thought a lot whether he had the right to bring his findings up. However, in the end, he wasn't Takeru's doctor, and with seemingly the battle of the worlds and their lives resting partially on Takeru's shoulders, the others should know the circumstances.
"He had some medication with him on one morning when I was the first to get up," Sora added as a soft afterthought.
Yamato looked both of his friends with surprise — why hadn't anyone bothered to tell him, it was his brother for fuck's sake.
And Yamato wasn't the only one affected as Taichi didn't find the courage to say that Takeru and Angemon would probably tell them if it was something serious. I mean surely they would know but… hadn't he made the same mistake with Hikari?