a/n: ugh omg i'm behind on replies again, but please know I've seen your comments and I adore them, they're very encouraging and uplifting! if I don't respond, it's not because I don't care, I promise! please enjoy tonight's chapter! :) I'm thinking next week I'll update in the morning so I don't get so swamped by the day's events and then get overwhelmed when I realize I haven't posted. Up to Ch 15 is written, and 16 is halfway done, so I'm gonna try to update sooner in the day. :)

Ch 09 || System Error

Takeru's words echoed in Yamato's head endlessly, stuck in a haunting, bone-chilling loop. Alongside his brother's confession were his memories from the previous few nights. The screaming. The whimpering. And knowing that Takeru had so easily plummeted towards death without him there… it was terrifying. He'd almost lost his brother twice in just a few weeks.

His head spun, whirling too fast for comfort, and yet when he walked, his gait remained natural. Casual. He had no interest in going back underground—the discovery had been made by accident, after all, when they'd been examining the perimeter of the burnt down garden, and Jou had leaned back against a mossy rock that turned out to be a den of sorts—and he also had no interest of showing Takeru, either.

Except… Takeru wanted to see. Takeru wanted to know. It wasn't fair to keep him in the dark—especially given the circumstances. So now they walked, side by side, to the den where their friends were most likely located.

"We're not going to stay long," Yamato told him quietly. "Just long enough to investigate as a team, and then we'll leave."

"Right," Takeru whispered somewhat distantly. "Ok."

Why had Gabumon and Angemon gone with their friends? It had been nice at the time that they wanted to respect Takeru and Yamato's privacy, but now they were vulnerable and defenseless.

But then… the den was only a few minutes away; five at most. And if something happened in the den—though they'd have to devolve to enter—they'd need all the help they could to make sure everyone got out safely.

Another reason not to linger longer than they had to.

"We'll figure it out, Teek," Yamato assured, a little unnerved by Takeru's tone. "Alright?"

Takeru didn't look at him, but he scooted closer to Yamato as they walked. "Alright."

A cluster of unfiltered questions zoomed through his head like a vehicle without breaks. He wanted to ask so many things. That would only make the situation worse, he knew, and so he kept quiet, even when they neared the mysterious mossy den and heard voices from inside.

It had been a weird surprise that it was so big. From the outside looking in, it seemed so tiny. Maybe big enough to house one or two digimon. But as soon as they walked through the entrance, it expanded into a massive underground tunnel, and—not for the first time—Yamato wondered what kind of thing could have done this.

"Whoa," Takeru breathed out in awe, as Yamato clicked on the flashlight feature on his digivice. Even in his bewildered state, Takeru was able to do the same after a few moments. "This is… this is huge…"

"Watch your step," Yamato warned. "It goes under, and it's easy to trip if you're not careful."

"Alright."

With one hand on the wall to stabilize himself, Yamato's other arm hovered around Takeru, preparing to catch him if he stumbled. The pathway was a bit rocky, and even with the flashlight, Yamato wasn't sure if he'd miss something and cause one of them to lose their footing.

"...who could have done this to him?" came Mimi's voice, laced with melancholy.

"I think the real question is how they did it to him," Tentomon said.

"And how in the world he got down here," Miyako added. "The opening wasn't very wide, you know! And this guy isn't exactly small."

The gravel crunched and rolled underfoot as they drew closer and closer to the other Chosen, who expressed similar concerns. Takeru gave Yamato a puzzled look, but it was then that they finally came to a stop that he nudged Takeru with his elbow, coaxing him to look at where the group currently stood.

Takeru expelled a gasp of wonder. "What the heck…?"

Many pairs of eyes looked in their direction. Each of them had their flashlights going, and Yamato swept his digivice across the edge of the tunnel, illuminating each crevice and abnormality that their lights couldn't reach.

There, on the ground, unmoving and death-still, was the body of a Kuwagamon. It hadn't moved an inch since Yamato's group decided to explore the tunnel, and under the shimmering lights of their digivices, it didn't even look like it was breathing.

If this wasn't the digital world, where creatures didn't die but were instead reborn, Yamato would have called it a corpse. That was exactly how it appeared—the shell of a being whose soul had departed from its body.

"That's what we're thinking," Daisuke said, bug-eyed and a little pale.

Finally, Takeru started moving again. His steps were careful and uncertain, eyes locked on the Kuwagamon, and Yamato started to follow him. Hikari squeezed her way through the ground, looking noticeably distraught, and as she reached Takeru, Yamato heard her murmur, "Everything ok?"

"Yeah, I think so," was Takeru's barely-audible reply. Then, much louder: "How did this happen?"

Patamon—as Yamato had suspected, he'd devolved back into child form—was fluttering above it with a pensive expression. He then looked at Takeru and made his way over to him before perching himself on Takeru's head.

"I think I've seen him before," Patamon said finally. "He looks familiar."

"What?" Yamato asked. "Where?"

"I'm… I'm not sure…" He paused, face scrunched in concentration. "He smells different than the Kuwagamon I fought, but… but I keep thinking this is him."

"You fought a Kuwagamon?" came Koushiro's voice. "When?"

"It was when you'd been separated from Takeru."

As Patamon said the words, Yamato's gaze was still locked on Takeru and his partner, so he immediately noticed the way his body went still. Immediately noticed the look of alarm on Hikari's face, like she'd caught it, too.

Something about that struck him as odd, but before he could push the issue, Iori said, "That's right… you had just finished a battle with something when we found you."

"But they don't smell the same," Patamon persisted. "This one smells… stale."

"We don't know how long he has been down here," Gabumon pointed out, coming to Yamato's side. "Perhaps that is why he has such a strange odor."

"I don't smell anything, other than dirt," Daisuke said.

"I was about to say the same thing," Ken said. "But that could be because our digimon have sharper senses of smell than we do."

"True," Jou said contemplatively.

"What kind of stale are you thinking?" Takeru asked Patamon, moving his neck ever-so-slightly to gaze up at him. "Like, stale water? Or… a weird smell in an old house?"

Patamon was quiet a moment as he thought. It was Tailmon who said, "He smells… dusty to me."

Sora scanned Kuwagamon's eerily still body in a slow, fluid motion. "He doesn't look dusty."

"And he doesn't show any signs of decomposing," Jou added. "I'm sure we'd smell that."

"Well, that would make sense, considering he's made of data," Ken said. "They wouldn't go through the same process that a corpse would, right?"

"Ugh." Miyako shuddered almost audibly. "This is giving me the creeps. Talking about dead bodies."

You're telling me, Yamato thought dryly as he suppressed a shudder of his own.

"I think a change of subject is in order," Hawkmon said, ruffling his feathers as if equally uncomfortable.

"I think…"

It was Koushiro who had spoken, but he trailed off in thought, which gained more than one's person's interest. Mimi said, "Care to share with the class, or are you just going to leave us hanging, dear keeper of Knowledge?"

Humor laced her words, but Koushiro didn't react accordingly. Instead, he tapped his chin, studying Kuwagamon's not-corpse intently as he traced its outline with his digivice.

"I wonder if he's frozen in time, somehow," he continued, sounding more like he was talking to himself than a fairly big group of people and digimon. "Maybe he's not a corpse at all, but rather a Kuwagamon who was carefully preserved for the very purpose of stalling his rebirth. Or… or maybe something in his programming simply went wrong."

"Meaning…?" Taichi prompted.

"Think of it as a program or system error," Koushiro explained. "Sometimes when a computer malfunctions, it freezes. This could be for a multitude of reasons—an error in the software or hardware, lack of system resources, a bug or virus, or a driver malfunction that can cause a program to stop responding."

"Not sure I'm following," Daisuke said. "Am I the only one?"

"You're not," V-mon assured him.

"I'm a little lost, too," Taichi admitted sheepishly.

"I think I get it," Ken said thoughtfully. "Digimon are made of data. They're filled with specific code and programming, just like a computer."

"So you think that Kuwagamon's just stuck in an unresponsive state?" Hikari said and looked down at Tailmon. "Has that ever happened to a digimon before?"

"Not here," Tailmon replied.

"But in the real world," Yamato said, catching on. "Like when we fought Diablomon using the computers. He stopped responding because he was overloaded."

"Oh, I see now." Taichi snapped his fingers. "All those emails slowed him down. But that… that was connected to us fighting him on the internet, right?"

"Right," Koushiro said. "But the very fabric of the digital world is composed of similar coding and programming. No system in the world is entirely flawless—so it could just be an error that needs to be corrected."

"But… how do we correct it?" Sora asked. "We can't leave him like this."

"I agree," Hikari said, her voice slightly hoarse like she'd been crying. "No being deserves this kind of fate."

Yamato couldn't see her face because she wasn't facing him. He did, however, see the way Takeru reached for her hand, as if to comfort her in silence. Takeru had been fairly quiet throughout the conversation, but Yamato didn't have time to ponder too deeply on this before Koushiro spoke again.

"Like performing the steps of troubleshooting to repair a computer, there are a few things we can do." He walked down the decidedly wide path left between the group of Chosen the Kuwagamon as he continued to examine Kuwagamon like a lab specimen. "Typically, the first step is to run a scan for viruses. Though usually, if a digimon's code is corrupted, it doesn't simply stop responding. Its behavior is affected the most."

"Like the black gears?" Mimi asked in a hushed voice.

"Kind of," Koushiro said. "The black gears were parasitic in nature, yes. But if a digimon's code is corrupted, it usually happens prior to or at birth."

"Like in Diablomon's case," Taichi said.

"Exactly." Koushiro nodded without facing them. "If there is something harmful in Kuwagamon's code, we would have to figure out a way to remove it. Computer programs that are in need of updates can sometimes malfunction, and the easiest way to fix that is to backtrack to the developer's website and see if there are any patches or updates."

"Um, not to be a bummer but hello, does Kuwagamon look like he's got a website we can just click on?" Miyako cut in. "I'm not seeing a link anywhere. How in the world would we 'install updates' in a digimon?"

Palmon shivered. "That sounds painful."

"That's how I digivolved the first time," Tentomon said proudly but deflated somewhat after a moment. "But it was rather unpleasant the first time Koushiro-han tried it."

"Wait a minute," Daisuke said. "So there is a way to 'update' a digimon?"

"Not exactly," Koushiro said. "Back then, I was only trying to decode the inscriptions to see what I could find out about the digital world. We were already in an area that responded well to my computer, and I'm not sure if this place would respond similarly. I don't see any inscriptions in this tunnel. The program also responded to my digivice, so it's a bit of a special case.

"I was forced to disconnect the first time because the program was harmful to Tentomon, but my digivice triggered it. Kuwagamon isn't a human's partner, so without a digivice to serve as a catalyst, it's unlikely that we could produce similar results."

"Oh, I see," Miyako said. "When you download some kind of update, you have to reboot it to make sure it works properly, right? Sometimes they don't get installed correctly, or something gets messed up. You didn't really expect it to happen the first time, and so you probably didn't do it right because you weren't prepared."

"That makes sense," Daisuke said, and then, after a brief pause: "Sort of."

"But we could talk to Gennai," Koushiro went on. "He could know something about the development of Kuwagamon's programming."

"But who knows how long that would take?" Yamato said, starting to get a little annoyed. "Our main priority is making sure that Mirrormon isn't still around to pose a threat. I'm not trying to be heartless here, I just think that tracking him down is more important than tracking down some Kuwagamon's 'software update'."

"Hey, wait a minute."

Takeru's voice almost startled him—not because he forgot that he was present, but because he'd been so quiet that he hadn't expected him to finally speak up. Yamato met his gaze as Takeru turned toward him, and Hikari prompted, "What is it?"

"Could… could Mirrormon be responsible for this?" Takeru suggested. "Patamon… before he… he had me hide in the forest, he did fight a Kuwagamon."

"Who mysteriously vanished when it ran out of strength," Tailmon said.

"But Patamon said they don't smell the same," Hikari pointed out.

"Yeah, but… but it could be connected, somehow." Takeru paused for a few moments, like he was mulling over something. "Maybe… maybe Mirrormon's the one who trapped Kuwagamon like this."

"But… but how could he get down here, of all places?" Mimi asked.

"Once Mirrormon no longer had a use for Kuwagamon, he tossed him aside," Ken said.

"And it'd make sense to place him somewhere where no one could easily find him," Wormmon added.

"He did summon him from out of nowhere," Patamon said with a sad undertone. "He just appeared. It makes sense for him to be transported in a similar fashion."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Hikari asked, looking at Koushiro. "To help Kuwagamon, I mean. There has to be something."

"Something fast, hopefully?" Jou added.

Koushiro tapped his chin again. "Rebooting the system is fairly quick and simple. However…"

"Every time you say that word, it fills me with dread," Miyako said. "Just spit it out already."

"Well, think of what happens when you force a computer to shut down," he persisted. "If your computer is frozen, yes, it is a fast and effective way to unfreeze it. But doing so could corrupt files or the software.

"In Kuwagamon's case… we'd have to defeat him to reboot him. We'd have to kill him, and his code would be transferred to the Village of Beginnings so he could be reconfigured. If we kill him in this state—or 'shut him down forcefully', in this case—it could corrupt his data and we would have to face the consequences. He'd essentially have a virus, which is what we want to avoid."

A somber hush fell among the group. Yamato chewed his lip, wanting more and more to get out of this stupid tunnel and go home. Mirrormon was a threat looming over all of their heads, and as much as he didn't want to upset anyone—specifically, any of the younger kids—by just leaving Kuwagamon like this, but they didn't have time to focus on something else, especially if it wasn't as violent or threatening at the moment.

"That's awful," Iori said remorsefully. "Even if Kuwagamon didn't get corrupted, we'd still have to kill him to trigger reconfiguration."

"Yeah," Mimi said. "Sometimes… sometimes there's no other way but to take a digimon down to get it to stop hurting you or others. Sometimes you have to do what you can to protect you and your friends. But it seems cruel to just take his life, even if he'll come back."

"And he didn't do anything wrong," Hikari murmured.

"It'd be one thing if we knew he'd come back with no risk of infection or corruption," Tailmon said. "But to be uncertain…"

"It's a gamble," Jou said.

"I… I do think Yamato's right, though," Taichi said. "We've got bigger priorities. I know nobody really wants to leave him here, but we've got to find Mirrormon. We'll reach out to Gennai and come back to help Kuwagamon as soon as we can."

"Maybe the way to help him is to destroy Mirrormon," Sora said.

"And at least we found a clue," Piyomon said. "It's better than what we had before."

Something about those words sent an unpleasant, foreboding shiver up Yamato's spine. Sent goosebumps pebbling over his skin. Sent his mind back to panicked, blood-curdling screams and unseeing, red-laced eyes and…

"I think we've spent enough time down here," Yamato said before he could linger too long on those thoughts. "We should get back."

"Agreed," Miyako added. "Not that I don't want Kuwagamon to wake up, but… imagine if he does all of a sudden. There's not exactly room for a battle. If he flips out or something, we could get trapped in."

"Thank you so very much for putting that image in my head," Yamato deadpanned. "Really appreciate it."

Miyako shuddered. "No, the pleasure is all mine."

Very slowly, everyone—humans and digimon alike—began to inch toward the entrance of the tunnel, all murmuring to each other about what Kuwagamon's 'frozen' state could mean. Yamato, however, just wanted to get out of this place as soon as he was physically able, and he had no interest in making small talk or theorizing.

As everyone started to filter out, Yamato turned his flashlight in the opposite direction when he realized Takeru was not with the group. He hadn't moved, and neither had Hikari and their partners.

"Takeru," he called, taking a step toward him despite how his skin crawled at the thought of staying in this tunnel for a second longer. "We need to go."

"What's wrong?" Hikari asked, so quietly that Yamato almost didn't hear her. She was looking at Takeru in concern. "Takeru?"

Then she looked at Yamato, all hesitance and unease, and Yamato called back to the group, "Hold on a moment."

The group of Chosen lingered, but the tunnel seemed much more ominous without the light of their digivices. Yamato's, Hikari's, and Takeru's flashlight feature only touched so much, but Takeru's was locked on Kuwagamon's motionless figure.

Yamato swept his flashlight over Takeru's silhouette. "Teek. C'mon."

"There must be more."

The words left Takeru's lips in an eerie, disembodied sort of way. Like they hadn't come from him, but a spectral being whom they could not see. As Yamato neared him, each step tentative and shaky, he caught a glimpse of Takeru's expression.

He looked at Kuwagamon like he was putting together the final pieces of a puzzle—pieces which all belonged to the same cluster, similar in shape and color, so it would be easy to place them in the wrong spots.

Naturally, Yamato was confused by his statement: a statement that could mean a list of so many different things, and none of them any less sinister than the next. He had reached Takeru's side but Takeru did not acknowledge him.

"Takeru, there's only one digimon here," Yamato said slowly with an apprehensive undertone. "Where would the rest be?"

Slowly, mechanically, Takeru swept his flashlight down the uncharted area of the tunnel—the area that none of them dared to explore—and stared at it like he was in a trance.

"He may be right," Gabumon said. "We don't know for sure."

"And we won't unless we check," Tailmon said.

Suddenly Takeru turned back to Yamato, glancing at him, and then at Gabumon, and then back at Yamato. He craned his neck to look once again at the unexplored depths of the underground passageway.

The big, dark tunnel abruptly seemed so much bigger and so much darker. The goosebumps prickling Yamato's skin refused to leave.

"I don't think it's safe to go any farther," Jou said. "We don't know what's down there and Miyako made a valid point—should Kuwagamon wake up at any time, we don't know how he will react."

"Right," Taichi agreed. "We need to retreat without a chance."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Takeru said, turning back toward them. "I could be wrong. It's just… there has to be more somewhere. Mirrormon summoned a whole bunch of different digimon, didn't he? If this really is the Kuwagamon Pegasusmon fought, and Mirrormon's the culprit… wouldn't he bury the rest of the digimon?"

It was an unsettling point, but it also seemed like a logical theory. But that wasn't what struck Yamato so deeply—it was Takeru's expression and tone, shifting from mysteriously ominous to confused. A little disoriented. Like he wasn't sure why he suggested there were more in the first place.

Hikari stepped away from Takeru and toward Kuwagamon. Yamato's eyes widened, and many of the others—Taichi, Miyako, Agumon, Sora, Tailmon, Gabumon, and Takeru himself—hastily wanted to know what she was doing and begging her to stop. Hikari, though, acted as if she didn't hear them at all, and instead extended a hand to dust her fingers over Kuwagamon's shell.

Yamato sucked in a hushed breath of anticipation. His body became incapacitated with shock.

"He's warm," she murmured softly.

"...really?" Takeru asked, dropping all hints of reluctance to walk toward her.

"Takeru," Yamato said, reaching out to grab his wrist instinctively. "Hikari. Get back here. We have to leave."

"But Nii-san—"

"We have to leave," Yamato said sternly. "We've spent a lot of time down here. We can investigate another day."

"He's right," Taichi said, stepping down carefully toward them. He walked toward Hikari.

"But… why would he be warm?" Hikari said, not reacting to Taichi's presence at all.

"Maybe he's overheating," Miyako joked. "You know, like a computer when too many programs are running."

"Miyako, I think you're onto something," Koushiro started, hastily squeezing back through the crowd. "Let me see—"

"No," Yamato said, because everything about this situation was just wrong and he couldn't play nice guy anymore. "We have to get out of here. That means you, Takeru, and that means Hikari; and Koushiro, if you try to convince them to stay a second longer I will make you wish you never came down here to begin with."

The last part was hissed, and he sat there seething for a bit, fingers tightening around Takeru's wrist protectively.

This stupid tunnel was dangerous. Part of him wasn't sure why he thought so—maybe it was just paranoia and concern for his brother clouding his sense of reason—but he didn't care. Takeru's strange behavior was only getting stranger, and the only way he could think of to put an end to that was to leave the digital world completely.

"Please," he whispered, body trembling along with his voice. "It's time to go, Takeru. Please listen to me."

Takeru looked at him with wide, worried blue eyes—eyes that seemed to glow in the inky dimness of the cave. After a breath's pause, he murmured, "Alright, Nii-san. Let's go."

The tension in Yamato's body seeped out like blood from a lesion. He exhaled in relief and tugged on his brother's wrist. "Good. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Wait," Tailmon said.

"What?" Yamato snapped.

"You go on ahead. Some of us digimon should investigate."

Hikari looked down at Tailmon with a puzzled expression. "Why?"

"My vision's pretty good in the dark," Tailmon said. "There's so much of this tunnel we haven't seen. I think some of us should stay behind to see what we can find and report our findings later."

"I think that's a good idea," Tentomon said. "I'll join you."

"Me too," Armadillomon chimed. "If something happens and we get trapped somewhere, I'll be able to dig us out."

"I'll stay, too," V-mon said, stepping forward. "For back-up."

"The rest of us can continue patrolling from above," Agumon said.

Ken looked down at his partner fretfully. "Are you certain that you'll be ok?"

"I'll be fine, Ken-chan," Wormmon replied. "Covering all the bases seems like an excellent plan."

"We've got digimon who can search by air, land, and by sea," Gomamon added. "A lot of the digimon around here are still living in fear after Mirrormon's attack. We need to show them there's no reason to be afraid."

"Agreed," Palmon said.

"Be careful, Armidillomon," Iori said.

"Same to you, Tentomon," Koushiro said. "It'll be just like last time. Contact me if you find anything."

"Will do," Armidillomon and Tentomon chorused.

"You're coming home with me," Yamato whispered to Gabumon. "Patamon, too."

Maybe it was selfish to demand that. The digimon were going to need all the help they could get in patrols—but something wasn't right with Takeru, and Yamato needed all the help he could get, too.

"Understood," Gabumon said, glancing up at Patamon, who nodded subtly in response.

Takeru was so wrapped up in the chatter of the other digimon as they constructed a plan of who would go where that he didn't seem to notice. Yamato tugged on his wrist again, coaxing him into movement, they all—with exception of the digimon who were patrolling underground—made their way in the direction whence they came.

"I've had enough spooky crap for today," he muttered, sighing once again when they made it out. "Time to go home."

"Aww, Nii-san," Takeru said with a teasing smile. "You don't like spooky stuff?"

Maybe he said it to get Yamato to laugh. Maybe he said it to break the ice that had somehow formed around the group. Or maybe he said it to ease his own anxieties—he had, after all, looked extremely fretful when Yamato reached his breaking point.

Whatever the case, it worked like a charm. Laughter rippled through the group, and even Yamato was thankful, despite being the subject of teasing, for the humor in Takeru's words.

"No, kiddo," he said, soaking up the light of the sun like he hadn't seen it in weeks. "Spooky's not my thing."

"Right," Mimi said. "He prefers rom-coms instead."

"I dunno," Daisuke said, all solemnity and concentration—the exact opposite of Mimi's playful demeanor. "I always pegged him as a sci-fi kinda dude."

"No way," Miyako butted in. "He's totally into the detective scene. You know, crime and suspense and all that Noir stuff. He's a rock star—he's got that edgy vibe."

"Not true! Ken doesn't have that vibe and those are his types of films!"

"Nah. He's a total action movie guy," Taichi said, the grin evident in his voice.

"Nii-san, just 'cause you're an action movie buff doesn't mean every guy is," Hikari piped up teasingly.

Yamato rolled his eyes as they put more and more distance between themselves and the creepy tunnel. The whole exchange was painfully inaccurate, but the change of subject was appreciated. Anything to get his mind off unresponsive coding and unsolved mysteries and destructive, psychotic digimon.

"I don't think he's into just one genre," Takeru said with a chuckle. "He's actually got a pretty wide taste in movies. Provided they're not bloody or sad."

"At least somebody knows me," Yamato said, secretly proud.

"'Course I do," Takeru chirped. "You're my Onii-san."

"Well, I'm just glad you two made up," Sora said warmly.

"I agree," Iori said, a bit hesitant. "You two don't seem like a pair that fights often."

"I don't know someone who doesn't fight with their siblings," Miyako grumbled. "Mine are always giving me crap."

"You're telling me," Daisuke said. "Jun is always on my case about something."

"I don't really like to fight with people," Takeru admitted, shooting Yamato a look that was both apologetic and filled with adoration. "It usually ends in someone getting hurt."

Something melancholic and wistful was threaded in those words that Yamato chose, for the moment, not to examine. It was lonely and fragile, like a young animal that had been separated from its mother far too soon; and he wouldn't lie if he said it didn't worry him, but it was a discussion they could have in private.

"I'll try not to be so overbearing," Yamato said finally, sighing for dramatic effect.

"I think it's admirable," Ken said somewhat sheepishly. "You're really lucky to have a brother like Yamato, Takeru."

His tone was achingly similar to Takeru's—something that whispered of loneliness and loss, of secrets and long-buried memories—and he paused for a moment to look at Ken perplexedly. His expression was somewhere between fond and regretful, and it struck Yamato deeply and unexpectedly.

Daisuke and Miyako went quiet for a moment, like they knew something he didn't. Before he could dwell too deep on it, Takeru said, "...yeah. I am."

Any confusion or anxiety was melted by the warmth of those words, replaced by a fondness reserved for very, very few people. He looked at Ken with an inexplicable, abrupt sense of respect, and then at Takeru with affection.

"Careful, tourists," Mimi announced in a hushed voice, like she was trying to avoid startling a wild animal. "If you look to your left, you'll catch a very rare sight—one Ishida Yamato showing what really exists underneath his edgy, punk-rock façade: a softy. One-hundred percent teddy bear."

"What in the world are they talking about?" Piyomon asked, looking at Hawkmon.

"No clue," Hawkmon replied.

"They lost me a long time ago," Gomamon said.

"You're not alone," Jou said.

"I must admit that I'm lost as well," Koushiro added.

"Feel free to take pictures," Mimi went on, undeterred. "It's a once in a lifetime sight—"

"Gabumon, you can digivolve and attack her now," Yamato deadpanned, unamused. "Make it slow and painful."

"Gabumon would never attack anyone, Nii-san," Takeru said.

"Gabumon and Garurumon are very different."

"Looks like the tourists have lost their chance at the rare photo," Miyako continued for Mimi as they continued to walk. ""Will we get lucky again? Quick, Takeru, say something super mushy—"

Yamato glared coldly at her. "I never liked you."

"Hey now," Jou cut in, like he was trying to play the role of peacemaker. "We made it this far without insulting each other."

"Why don't we keep that streak going?" Sora suggested.

"But I'm having fun," Mimi said with a pout.

"Me too," Miyako added. "It's hilarious seeing Yamato go from teddy bear to porcupine."

"You know what else would be fun?" Yamato asked flatly. "If you two would shut up."

"Nii-san," Takeru chided.

"Yamato, you're supposed to be the older one," Jou said.

Giggles and laughter erupted throughout the group, and despite Yamato's earlier words, the light conversation was a much-needed distraction from all the tension. He still planned on returning to Earth with Gabumon and Patamon, and Takeru would probably wonder why, but he could think of an excuse later.

He could do everything later. Maybe.

For now, they just needed to get to the closest portal. Without even meaning to, he'd taken the route around the burnt garden, rather than through it, and so it was taking a little bit longer than he originally expected.

But it'd be fine. Going through that village would kill the mood that Takeru had so easily and effortlessly created, and if Takeru was distracted… if the team was distracted, then Yamato could be, too.

For now.