Chapter Twenty-Three

She didn't sleep that night.

It wasn't that the bed was too uncomfortable or the strangeness of her surroundings was too much, but because Hikari spent the time listening to the soft mutters and murmurs, and occasional cry, coming from Daisuke as he dreamt just a few metres across from her. She tried to imagine just what was running through his head but nothing she came up with seemed quite bad enough to account for two years of pain and anguish.

When morning came, a bleary eyed Hikari made her way down to the building's mess hall for breakfast, a suited-up Daisuke behind her, and dumped herself down next to Miyako, Ken and Iori at their table with a bowl of some cereal before her, plus an extra strong mug of coffee.

'Geez, Hikari,' Miyako said. 'You look terrible.'

'Thank you for reminding me,' Hikari mumbled, spooning the bland food into her mouth. 'I didn't get any sleep last night.'

'Did Daisuke's snoring keep you up?' Ken offered.

'I wouldn't have minded if it was that,' Hikari said. 'Share a room with Taichi for a few years and you can sleep through an earthquake.'

'So what was it?' Miyako asked.

'He was crying and muttering in his sleep,' Hikari said.

She glanced at Daisuke as he got himself a tray of food from the counter, a hearty meal piled high with foodstuffs, plus coffee, and sat down in an isolated corner with his back to everyone. Outside of the steward manning the food counter, the only people in the room were the DigiDestined arranged in their groups. Hikari saw Takeru glaring at Daisuke as he stepped out of his suit and sat down, the blonde teen no doubt thinking to himself he and Hikari had spent the night having sex in their room until dawn.

A sigh escaped her lips as she tried to down another spoonful of cereal but her appetite was gone, not that it had ever really been there to begin with.

'Did you at least get to talk to him?' Iori asked. 'You guys have been in that room since we got here. I can't imagine there's much to do but talk.'

'Not if you ask Takeru,' Hikari muttered. 'He seems to think I'm sleeping with Daisuke.'

'He can't be serious,' Iori said.

'I know he took the breakup badly,' Miyako said as beside her, Ken choked on a slice of toast at Hikari's words. 'But inventing that kind of a claim? That's a little extreme.'

'He's just upset,' Hikari said, shrugging. 'It might be more because I was siding with Daisuke and Captain Ishida rather than him about your disappearances. Somehow, that means I'm in love with Daisuke and I spent my first night on base alone sleeping with him.'

'And you weren't,' Ken said. 'Were you?'

'Of course not,' Hikari said.

'You'd tell me if you were, though,' Miyako said.

'Sure,' Hikari said. 'If I ever became that desperate.'

She tried to laugh about it but it fell flat, and Hikari turned to her bowl of cereal again as it became little more than a sodden mess, becoming even less appealing than it had before.

'So what did you do?' Iori asked after a few moments.

'We talked,' Hikari said. 'For a little while, anyway, and we might have shared a kiss…'

She muttered the last part but Miyako made up for it, exploding out of her seat to grab hold of her hands with little regard for the cups and bowls on the table, spilling them, and shouted, 'You and Daisuke did what?'

Hikari felt all eyes in the room, sans Daisuke, swivel to her as Miyako loomed over her, noting in particular as Takeru's face darkened at whatever thoughts were rushing to his mind following Miyako's outburst, his eyes drifting to Daisuke who continued to eat alone, his only companion being the suit standing nearby.

'Miyako, settle down,' Hikari hissed as Ken and Iori did their best to clean up the spillages. 'Everyone's looking at us.'

Which they were, and when Miyako realised that she sat back down and rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment before leaning in close to Hikari, plus Ken and Iori, to ask, 'You kissed? As in, his lips on yours?'

'More like mine on his,' Hikari said, going on to describe the subject of her conversation with Daisuke yesterday, including his admission of harbouring deep feelings for her all these years and how, in a moment of pity and guilt and impaired thinking, she had given Daisuke a kiss, much to her immediate regret.

'Then he said I'd lost him,' Hikari finished. 'And collapsed onto his bed. We haven't spoken since then.'

'That's incredible,' Miyako whispered. 'All this time and he's been hiding such a big secret from us.'

'You didn't know anything about it?' Hikari asked Ken who shook his head.

'No,' he said. 'Nothing. Daisuke always acted like MaloMyotismon had no effect on him. I certainly never would have expected this.'

'None of us did,' Hikari said.

She gave a tired sigh and buried her head in her hands, oblivious to Takeru standing and making his way towards Daisuke, empty tray in hand even though the trolley for them was the other way.

'I bet you're happy,' he said to Daisuke when he was close, glaring down at him.

'Actually I'm Daisuke,' he said. 'Not one of the Seven Dwarfs, but if I was one I'd probably be Grumpy right about now.'

'Don't play dumb with me,' Takeru said. 'After all these years of pining after her, you've finally gotten Hikari all to yourself.'

'Have I, now?' Daisuke muttered without even bothering to turn around and look at Takeru, casually sipping at his coffee. 'What makes you so sure of that?'

'All she's been able to think or talk about for the last month now has been you,' Takeru said. 'Then a few days after she goes live on the same base as you, she breaks up with me and gets put in the same room as you whilst we're here, and now I hear you and her did something together. Cut the crap, Daisuke. You're with her now, aren't you?'

'No,' Daisuke said, glancing up at Takeru. 'I have neither had, nor plan to have, any kind of relationship with that girl. Just thinking about it makes me want to retch.'

Hikari raised her head at that comment and stared sadly at Daisuke, stung by the venom in his voice, as everyone in the room turned to look at him and Takeru as they glared at one another, even the steward at the counter.

'What, you think you're too good for her now?' Takeru said.

'Yes,' Daisuke said. 'I've got my eyes on better women than her.'

'Like who?' Takeru said.

'Your mom,' Daisuke said. 'She says she needs a good strong man in her life, someone her youngest son can learn from and-'

The rest was cut off by a solid punch from Takeru, whipping Daisuke's head around, and he went tumbling to the ground in a clatter of cutlery and food as Takeru yelled something incoherent, his fist raised ready to deliver another punch that Daisuke did nothing to block. As it happened, he didn't need to.

His suit, which had been standing off to one side, blurred into action and grabbed hold of Takeru's arm as he swung it down in a vice-like grasp, tight enough that pain flared up on his face as the suit positioned itself between him and Daisuke.

'Threat detected,' it said in a flat, monotone voice. 'Protocol Three in effect: protect Pilot Motomiya. Alert. Threat identified as Takeru Takashi, DigiDestined of Hope. Tag designation friendly. Confirm as threat?'

'Confirm,' Daisuke said from the floor, wiping away a trickle of blood coming from his nose.

'Acknowledged,' the suit said. 'Engaging. Non-lethal countermeasures authorised.'

It pushed Takeru back a step before shocking him, a surge of electricity spreading out from its hand into Takeru's body who screamed in pain as it did, collapsing to his knees when the suit released him and cradling his arm where he had been grabbed. Yamato was by his brother's side in an instant, glaring at Daisuke.

'What the hell was that for?' Yamato said. 'You could have seriously hurt him.'

'He would have deserved it,' Daisuke said as he stood. 'Saying I was sleeping with Hikari. I wouldn't have sex with her even if she got down on all fours and begged me like a bitch.'

That was the wrong thing to say, especially around Taichi. As strained as their relationship might currently be, she was still his baby sister and he still had a duty to protect and look after her, especially when someone insulted her like that, though unfortunately for the elder Yagami sibling he was so blinded by rage that he neglected to recall not scant seconds ago that when Takeru tried to hit Daisuke, his suit responded.

'Additional threat detected,' the suit began. 'Alert. Threat identified-'

'Yes, yes, confirm threat,' Daisuke said, interrupting.

'Acknowledged,' the suit said.

It stepped in front of Daisuke and intercepted Taichi when he came charging over, grabbing him by the throat and zapping him much like Takeru had to make him scream in pain as several thousand volts surged through his system. The suit let go and Taichi fell to his knees, breathing hard and massaging his neck where the suit had held him. He recovered enough to level a deathly glare at Daisuke who threw one back, no longer holding Taichi in any kind of high regard.

Unlike Yamato had done with Takeru, Hikari made no attempt to tend to her brother as he lay sprawled on the floor of the mess hall, recovering. Instead she averted her eyes from the whole thing as though trying to blot it all from her mind.

'You're just gonna sit there and do nothing?' Taichi shouted at her. 'After he called you a bitch?'

'I did no such thing,' Daisuke shot back. 'I said if she crawled and begged me like a bitch, not that she was one. Wow, you memory is really self-'

He didn't get to finish. A loud, resounding smack echoed across the room as everyone fell into silence, stunned by the sight of Hikari getting up from her seat to stride over and slap the side of Daisuke's face hard enough to leave a mark on both his cheek and her hand, the palm of it stinging from the impact which Hikari ignored. She gave him a ferocious glare for a second, cowing him into stunned silence, and then turned to Taichi.

'I should be slapping you as well,' she said to him, mindful of the suit that turned in her direction before hesitating. All of the DigiDestined had been marked as friendly to the onboard AI, but she had been elevated to have the same critical importance as Daisuke, perhaps more so, and it seemed to struggle over whether it should subdue her like Taichi and Takeru or not.

Eventually it elected to do nothing, returning to face Taichi and Takeru on the floor should they try to make a second attempt on Daisuke.

'What are you talking about?' Taichi said.

'I'm talking about you ignoring Daisuke,' Hikari said to him, and then rest of the room. 'Actually, I should be slapping all of you, including myself, because we're all just as guilty as one another. We're the DigiDestined and we're supposed to look after our teammates. Where was that two years ago when four of our own disappeared for three months?

'We should have made it our top priority the moment we saw Imperialdramon taking orders from someone we thought was Ken, back in his Digimon Emperor persona.'

Her chest was heaving in and out from the stress, and at letting everything out, and Hikari fixed each of the original DigiDestined with a withering and disdainful stare that they all looked uneasily away from, even Takeru. The exception was Taichi as he got to his feet and took half a step towards Hikari, stopping when the suit, still thinking of him as a threat, moved to stand between them. She placed a hand on its arm and the suit backed away, apparently able to interpret her intent, and Hikari stepped closer to Taichi.

Then she slapped him with the same ferocity she had done with Daisuke, saying, 'You were supposed to be our leader, always looking out for everyone. Good leaders are supposed to care about every member of their teams, Taichi. Every member. You didn't.'

'We looked,' he said, his voice a ghost of a whisper from the sheer shock that his sister, who he had tried to stand up for, had just slapped him hard enough to stagger him.

'No, you didn't,' was Ken's response, his hands clenching into fists on the table before him. 'I read the IAA's reports on how you all spent your time. You paid the search for us lip service at best, those rare occasions you talked about us.'

'They're fakes,' Taichi said.

'Are they?' Ken said, yelling as he stood to face Taichi. 'Well if they are, they're damned good ones that got every little detail about your life just right. The route you took to school, the word choices in your texts and emails, even how many times you slap the snooze button on your alarm clock before waking up.

'I didn't want to believe that what was in those files was right, none of us did. I kept hoping that before long, Captain Ishida would break down laughing and tell us it was all just one big mind screw, designed to fracture us, only he never did. Those files are true and accurate and they're damning evidence you didn't look!'

He looked ready to lay into Taichi with a flurry of blows, anger on his face, and the leader of the DigiDestined took a worried step away from Ken, hands up in the air by his head in a defensive posture.

'I've been meaning to say that for a while now,' Ken continued as his voice returned to a more reasonable timbre, though with a definite edge to it. 'And it's helped me come to a decision I've been thinking over for just as long.

'I quit.'

All of the older kids just looked at him, stunned, doubly so when Miyako and then Iori stood up with Ken and announced their departure from the group.

'You can't just quit,' Taichi said. 'You're DigiDestined.'

'We're not quitting being DigiDestined,' Miyako said. 'We're just heading off on our own, as a new team.'

If they had badges or the like, this would be the point where they tossed them to the ground before Taichi to solidify their resignation from under his command. In fact, the only one who could do such a thing was Daisuke who reached into a trouser pocket and withdrew the goggles Taichi had bestowed upon him four years ago, as a sign of his role as leader, and tossed them with reckless abandon at his feet.

'It goes without saying I quit this shitshow,' Daisuke said, rubbing the side of his face where Hikari had hit him. Already it was turning red and swelling, a lasting impression. 'Been wanting to say that for a really long while, now.'

'Fine, go ahead,' Taichi said as he bent down to retrieve his goggles, scowling a little at the grimy condition they were in. 'See if I care.'

He pocketed the goggles and turned his back on the four of them, arms folded across his chest, but they dropped in bewilderment when Hikari said, 'I'm leaving, too.'

Once again everyone was looking right at her, Daisuke included this time around, and she met their gazes defiantly.

'You're leaving?' Takeru finally whispered. 'You're seriously leaving?'

'Yes,' Hikari said. 'I am.'

'But we're your friends,' Taichi said. 'Your family. How can you think of leaving us?'

'They're our family, too,' Hikari said, gesturing at Miyako, Ken and Iori, and Daisuke. 'And we left them behind, no matter what you might tell yourselves. I can't stay part of a group like that.'

'If we didn't look, then that means neither did you,' Yamato said. 'So who are you to say we're the bad guys here?'

'Because she's willing to admit to it,' Daisuke said. 'And try to atone for her mistakes, unlike the rest of you.'

'Now you're defending her?' Takeru said. 'Not two minutes ago you were calling her a bitch.'

'I can dislike a person and still speak truth in their defence,' Daisuke said, glowering at the other teen. 'And again, I never called her a bitch. Get that through your thick skull.'

Takeru growled at him and turned to Hikari, giving her a pleading look, and said, 'You can't leave us for them, Hikari. You can't. We're supposed to be together.'

'I'm sorry, Takeru,' she said. 'But I can't be part of this group anymore. Too much has changed.'

The expression that swept onto his face was one of utter heartbreak at losing her for a second time in just as many weeks and Hikari found herself turning away from it in shame, knowing she had been the one to cause it. But at the same time, so had Takeru. If he hadn't clung so doggedly to his belief that he and the other DigiDestined were right, they might have been able to work something out.

Instead, they were just drifting further apart as the rest of the group fractured around them. Hikari averted her gaze off Takeru and inadvertently settled on Daisuke who stared back at her, his expression unreadable for the moment. She averted it again but each time, her attention fell onto another of the DigiDestined who all bore looks of betrayal at her admonishment of them all, and her departure from the group after all these years of fighting by their sides.

It became too much and Hikari staggered out of the mess hall on rubbery legs, barely able to perceive where she was going until she found an isolated spot between two buildings, falling to her hands and knees and throwing up what little she had eaten until nothing was left but spittle and bile. She fell onto her backside and slumped against the wall behind her, staring at nothing.

'Did you come here to make fun of me?' she said to Daisuke, knowing without looking he was standing a few metres from her in his suit.

'No,' Daisuke said. 'I'm your close protection. I'm supposed to be near you.'

'I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to mock me,' Hikari said, glancing at him. 'I guess I kind of deserve it.'

'That's for sure,' Daisuke said, but he made no effort to do so. Instead, he said, 'Can I ask you a question?'

'I guess so,' Hikari said, shrugging.

'Why did you turn me down all those years ago?' he said. 'When I first asked you out.'

'You really want to know?' Hikari said.

'After yesterday, it seems only fair,' Daisuke said.

She shrugged and said, 'I think it was because you reminded me so much of my brother at the time. You'd copied so many of his mannerisms and quirks, like the goggles, that I figured it would be just like going out with my brother.'

'You knew that for certain?' Daisuke said.

'At the time I did,' Hikari said. 'Not so much now.'

He nodded absently and she went on to add, 'Would I have seen a different side of you if I had said yes?'

Daisuke looked away. 'Guess we'll never know now, will we?'

'No,' Hikari said. 'I guess we won't.'