a/n: hi everyone. i hope you're well. thank you for all the lovely reviews, ffn has been glitchy, so the PMing system isn't working well, but i've tried really hard to reply to your comments. tysm. đź’›

Ch 12 || Imprint

In the wake of their new—though unconfirmed—discovery, Takeru felt numb.

Perhaps the war inside him had caused so much damage that he could no longer feel it. Perhaps it had become so intense that his brain decided to disconnect. Dissociate. Locate every last part of him that was scared. Shut it off.

Or maybe… maybe he hadn't done it. He wasn't really in control. Maybe someone else had found that switch and flipped it for him.

Maybe that someone was Mirrormon.

They had no way of knowing, but all of his friends had seen the red in his eyes. Takeru himself viewed the world through a red lens and it had taken so long for it to fade.

But what… what did it even mean?

"Takeru, are you sure you want to come?" Yamato repeated, like he was waiting for Takeru to decline so they could head home. "It'll be risky."

"I know," Takeru said. "But… we can't just run away from this. If we go and talk to the digimon… maybe we'll find out something."

"Something good, hopefully," Miyako said.

Yamato narrowed his eyes. "Not helping."

"She's right, though," Takeru said.

"We won't know until we go," Hikari pointed out, though she looked just as uneasy as Yamato did. "You don't feel sick or anything?"

"I'll be alright. Besides, we're just going to talk to the digimon, right?"

"That's the plan," Taichi said. "If… if Mirrormon is really behind this, then… I think it's best that we find out what the other digimon found just so we can have time to digest it."

"I think that's a good idea," Iori added. "Depending on what they discovered, it could be another clue for us to think about."

"Hopefully, none of them are in any trouble," Sora fretted.

"It really sucks that Mirrormon can't just come out of hiding," Daisuke said with a groan. "I mean, it's not like we're prepared to face him but I am so tired of just sitting around and waiting!"

"Believe me, you're not alone," Taichi said. "It's kind of a helpless feeling."

"And dreadful," Mimi added.

"Not to mention, it'd be nice to get back to, you know, life," Miyako said.

Takeru swallowed as he realized they made very valid points. Yamato had basically put his life on hold—they'd been to, what? One band practice in the past two weeks?—while Takeru settled into his home. He'd selfishly soaked up most of his brother's time, and the fact that he was a potential target for Mirrormon only took more time. And his parents…

He was starting to grow close to his father—he'd spent more time with him in the past few weeks than he had for most of the year, and it was so wonderful.

The hurt that stemmed from his mother's impulsive decision to leave Odaiba was starting to fade, though it still lingered enough for him to dread a conversation with her. She was moving soon—and the days were going by so quickly. Shutting her out was childish and… and cruel.

Mirrormon and moving into Yamato and his father's place had occupied so much of his time and his thoughts. By the time he made up his mind about whether or not he was still mad, would… would it be too late?

She was his mother, after all. Even if her choices and her absence in his life stung deeply, he still loved her. And Kobe was so far away… by the time he made a decision, she'd be too far out of reach.

Just like Mirrormon.

The numbness remained and yet tiny remnants of fear slipped past the wall of apathy. Leaked through like little drops of water. Cold. Phantomlike. It truly was an awful, apprehensive feeling—knowing something was out there, ready to strike, but not knowing where or when.

"We'll figure it out," Sora reassured with a tiny smile. "We always do."

"Yeah," Takeru murmured hollowly.

Usually, Takeru would find anything that resembled optimism and leech onto it. He was the embodiment of hope, after all. But the image of his brain-turned-spiderweb and whatever hid in its depths stole every last drop.

Yamato rested a hand on his shoulder. "We will, Takeru. We'll figure this out and we'll find Mirrormon. And when we find him, I'm gonna beat the snot out of him for messing with my brother."

That did it. Takeru giggled softly. Hoarsely. Yamato said it so firmly, so confidently, so boldly, like he didn't care that they were in a room full of people and Mirrormon wasn't a seemingly indestructible, emotionless monster who could squash any human with a snap of his fingers. No shame lingered in his voice. No fear.

Only absolute certainty. Conviction. Like it was a simple task that he'd have no trouble completing.

"Nii-san… you'd get hurt."

"Nah."

"You would," Takeru persisted, although with a ghost of a smile this time. "He's merciless."

"You forgot one thing, kiddo," Yamato said. "So am I."

The sudden ice in Yamato's voice was enough to make Takeru glance at him, but Yamato was already moving. Said without looking over his shoulder, "Gabumon. Let's get this over with."

"Right," Gabumon said after a moment's pause.

"You ready?" Hikari whispered, still close to him.

Yamato… Yamato was serious. At first, Takeru had wondered if he was joking—taking on a digimon was a death sentence, and they all knew that. But that voice… and the detached, haunted undertone in his voice as he told Takeru the story of his nightly episodes…

Yamato hadn't made a joke. He'd made a vow.

"Takeru?" Hikari pressed.

"I'm ready," he said. Echoed, "Let's get this over with."

Do you hear that, Mirrormon? he challenged mentally, as if Mirrormon was able to hear him somehow. You can't win. I can't give up. Not when Nii-san's determined like this.

Koushiro pulled up the portal, setting the code to open it as naturally and swiftly as one would open a regular door. Patamon perched himself on Takeru's head, tensing in anticipation.

As bright light and digital code burst out of Koushiro's laptop to swallow them whole, Takeru swore he heard what sounded like maniacal laughter.

Aside from Kuwagamon, four other digimon were hidden within the depths of the tunnel. Tailmon reported that it was much longer than she'd expected, so all of them going down to investigate for themselves was unlikely, unless they wanted to be down there for hours.

Armadillomon told them that the tunnel ended abruptly, like whoever was building it had been interrupted before they could finish. That meant they'd had to backtrack, but it at least gave them the chance to confirm the number of digimon found.

Still, it was mysterious, and it was unnerving. Takeru liked to believe that a little mystery in life could be fun—it gave him a puzzle to solve, and unexplained phenomena (including traveling to another dimension) had fascinated him from day one.

After all, how fun would learning be if they already had all the answers? Puzzles weren't fun when its solution was provided for you at the very start. That drained a mystery of its charm—robbed its allure. The tale of the unknown was something which many found addictive and mesmerizing, and Takeru liked diving deeper into things to explore what was hidden beyond what one could see. It was one of the reasons why he enjoyed cryptic literature so much.

This, however…

This mystery chilled him to the bone. It felt as if they were in way over their heads this time. This puzzle oozed danger and malevolence, and it promised to deliver answers in all the wrong ways—through fear, through rage, through morbid curiosity. Every clue only opened up room for more confusion. Like trying to locate a door in the dark, only able to rely on the sense of touch.

And there were so many doors they could open.

Doors that gave no hint as to what lay on the other side until it was too late.

Doors which could lead to many more puzzles—entire labyrinths so disorienting and chaotic that escape became impossible. Their clues were taunting, glaring reminders that they still had no idea how much more there was to figure out, or how much progress they'd already made.

Doors that sent them farther away from the exit, rather than toward it.

"That's such a strange combination," Koushiro said thoughtfully as Tailmon finished her explanation alongside V-mon, Armadillomon, and Tentomon. He tapped his chin as he echoed, "Kuwagamon, Floramon, Tyranamon, Crowmon, and Bakumon…"

Something in Takeru's brain twitched. Maybe the webs. Maybe the knots in his head, struggling to loosen. The name 'Bakumon' was familiar—but in such a way that Takeru couldn't tell where the line of memory and dream stood. Like the way childhood memories fade as the years pass and become little more than a ghost. Blurry, partial pieces of a picture. Tail-ends of conversations and thoughts.

And yet somehow he couldn't let it go—the same way certain scents, sounds, or sensations could bring him back into the past to relive experiences, fondly nostalgic and unsettling alike.

But just like the way a human's voice would startle a feral animal, when someone else spoke, the feeling of familiarity scattered and Takeru was left in a fog.

"Floramon is one of the digimon who used to occupy this village, right?" Ken asked.

"That's correct," Tentomon said.

"Hey, does that mean…" Hikari hedged, a ribbon of fear wrapped around her words. "...that one of the Floramon was forced to obey Mirromon?"

"That's so cruel," Mimi said with a shudder. "Imagine… how the other digimon must have felt, being betrayed by one of their own."

"Hey, wait a minute," Miyako chimed in. "If Floramon's down in that creepy tunnel… wouldn't that be where Mirrormon started?"

Iori blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it," Miyako persisted urgently, gesturing back to the mossy boulder that served as an inconspicuous entrance to the passageway. "This was Floramon's garden! Of course he'd start with a Floramon—to stay undetected while he planned his attack!"

"That would make sense," Jou said contemplatively. "But who knew how long Mirrormon had been in the village before he evolved? And how long he'd disguised himself as Floramon?"

"He could have been hiding for a while," Tailmon said with a grim expression.

"We don't really know how he was born, or how he got to this village in the first place," Taichi said. "He could have traveled somewhere else."

"Gennai did tell me he suspected this garden was his place of origin," Koushiro said. "We don't have a lot of evidence that proves his theory."

"All digimon start in the Village of Beginnings, don't they?" Mimi turned to Palmon. "How far away from there are we now?"

Palmon paused, almost as if she was gathering her concentration, but it was Koushiro who answered. He said, "I'm thankful I brought my laptop. We can use a map to calculate the distance."

"It's not anywhere close," Gomamon said. "We'd have to travel a bit to get there."

"He's right," Piyomon said. "It's not as simple as 'it's on the other side of the mountain'."

More digimon provided their input, and his friends continued to theorize where Mirrormon was born and how he ended up in the village—or, rather, what remained of Floramon's village—where they currently stood.

But Takeru was searching through to fog to find that strange, dreamlike memory that had prompted some tiny, instinctive part of his brain into action. His focus swiftly shifted to finding out the culprit of this sudden sensation, and without even meaning to, the ongoing conversation of his friends became quieter and quieter.

Bakumon… Bakumon…

Had he dreamt about that digimon before? That had to be it, right? He wished he had more information. The memory—assuming it was actually a memory—was so faint. And though Takeru had been pulled into his thoughts by curiosity, the sensation had disappeared and he didn't know how to get it back.

And he didn't know where it went.

It didn't take long for frustration seeped into his skin. As much as he hated the feeling of not knowing, Takeru hated the feeling of almost knowing even more. It was a terrible feeling—like trying to remember a word that was on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how much his brain worked, it refused to come back.

Bakumon, he thought again, almost experimentally. C'mon. I know that name. I know it.

And yet Takeru remained afraid to delve deeper into the depths of his mind. Didn't want to risk getting caught by crimson webs, suspended and rendered motionless, with nothing to do but wait until his predator arrived to collect its meal. Until the puppeteer came to claim its prize.

Those strings in Koushiro's apartment… it had been excruciating. Like the threads weren't even threads at all, but rather painful, sharp wires hooked painfully deep into his skin. It wouldn't be long before he was yanked up to do whatever the puppeteer commanded.

"I found you."

Takeru shuddered so violently that it caused rippling spasms up and down his body. Patamon whispered his name, but Takeru barely even heard it. Those words had been echoing distantly in his head since his episode at Koushiro's apartment, and he didn't know how to make it stop.

"Nightmare Syndrome."

That one was always a whisper—soft and deceptively gentle—ghosting deeply into his ear in a way no human could. Drifted past the red spiderweb with the lazy ease of an afternoon cloud. Effortless. Graceful.

Takeru struggled to hold onto something that would keep him grounded. All of a sudden, trying to figure out why Bakumon's name sounded familiar to him seemed like a bad idea. He didn't want to know where or when he'd heard of Bakumon. He didn't want to know why these voices kept bouncing around in his head.

He just wanted them to stop.

"I don't care where Mirrormon came from," Yamato's voice cut in abruptly. "We just need to know how to get rid of him."

A hand came down on his shoulder and Takeru jumped. He looked at the culprit with startled eyes and was met with deep pools of red-brown.

"Are you alright?" Hikari whispered. She hadn't left his side since they arrived in the digital world, and even Yamato seemed reluctant to leave him alone despite the fact that they were surrounded by trustworthy teammates and digimon.

"I—"

"What?" Yamato's head whirled around, all traces of venom gone and replaced with apprehension. "Takeru, did you feel something?"

Takeru wasn't sure how to word it. It wasn't like he was hearing voices—just the same thing, on repeat. He swallowed nervously anyway, his throat still uncomfortably dry even though he'd downed so much water at Koushiro's.

"Um…" His fists clenched and unclenched when the action stung, reminding him of his wounds.

Suddenly all eyes were on him and it was like they were in the middle of Koushiro's bedroom again, their attention glued to him. This time—

Wait a minute.

Takeru's gaze zeroed in Koushiro's laptop, eyes popping wide as an idea hit him. "Koushiro?"

Koushiro blinked perplexedly at being addressed so abruptly. "What is it?"

"Does… does your digimon database work like… a regular search engine?" he asked. "Can I search… a digimon's attack?"

For a moment, Koushiro appeared stunned, but he seemed to recover swiftly. "If one of us has seen a digimon and it's been registered in our digivice, then I suppose we could try."

A spark of hope ignited in Takeru's heart. He didn't have his d-terminal, but he did have his digivice.

"Why do you ask?"

"Nightmare Syndrome."

"Bakumon…" Takeru trailed off, struggling to come up with the right words. "...I don't know if I'm imagining it? I just… can I see your computer for a moment? Please?"

"Oh my gosh, that's actually brilliant," Mimi said. "If he's seen Bakumon, his digivice would… register it, right?"

"Right," Koushiro said with a quick nod.

"I found you."

"And if it shows up on his digivice," Sora added, "then… that would mean he might have run into him in the forest, wouldn't it?"

"And that could be the Bakumon from underground," Piyomon said. "Meaning… Mirrormon might be behind it?"

"It's possible," Armidillomon said.

"Have you ever seen Bakumon, Teek?" Yamato asked as Koushiro brought Takeru his laptop.

"Nightmare Syndrome."

"Not that… that I remember?" Takeru answered hesitantly. "But… something's off. I can't explain it."

"May I see your digivice, Takeru?" Koushiro asked.

Swallowing the new lump in his throat, Takeru handed it over and Koushiro inserted the device into the small port at the top of his keyboard the way one would insert a cartridge into a game console. They both sank to the ground, almost unknowingly, and a large huddle formed around them: Yamato, Tailmon, Patamon, Gabumon, and Hikari were closest to them; while everyone else squeezed in behind them.

"I found you."

The database didn't take that long to load, and automatically, it transferred the data from Takeru's D3 to his computer. It'd been a long time since they'd upgraded the database with everyone's digivices—not to mention, it took a while back then to figure out since the younger kids' digivices were a different, newer model—so, inevitably, they had to wait for the database to catch up with Takeru's encounters.

"Nightmare Syndrome."

While they waited, Takeru wanted to move. Fidget, scratch, bounce his leg—something to ease his anxiety. Even if… if Takeru did see Bakumon in the past, how would they know if it was the same Bakumon?

Mirrormon never showed up.

Bakumon did.

Takeru's breath was held captive in his throat as the image of a tapir-like digimon loaded on Koushiro's screen, pixel by pixel. Everything in him—the web, the destruction, the echoing voices, even the part of his body that reacted to the pain in his hands—fell mute and unnoticed.

Along with Bakumon's picture was a small description of Bakumon's appearance, type, attributes, and attacks.

"I'm reading that, right?" Takeru whispered to no one in particular, and when no one replied, he repeated somewhat desperately, "Right?"

"Which part, Takeru?" Patamon asked.

"One of his attacks is called 'Nightmare Syndrome'."

"I see it, too," Yamato said in a low voice.

"It is one of his attacks," Gabumon confirmed. "Usually, Bakumon are gentle digimon who…"

"Everyone time one of you says a digimon is a good digimon and wouldn't harm a fly, we get attacked," Jou said with a fretful undertone.

"He usually is," Gabumon persisted. "But under the influence of Mirrormon's control…"

"Wait a minute," Miyako interrupted. "I know that digimon. He was around Digitamamon's restaurant! When I summoned my digi-egg!"

Iori gasped. "I remember him, too. He was serving food, wasn't he?"

"I think so," Hikari murmured. "So… of course you've seen it. We were there when Miyako found the digi-egg."

"It must have been a fleeting encounter if you don't remember," Wormmon said gently to Takeru.

Ken hummed. "Not to mention, it was a few years ago…"

Takeru deflated, that spark of hope dying as he expelled a breath of frustration. The memory was faint enough that it explained his feeling of deja vu. "Right."

"Hold on a minute," Koushiro said, scrolling on his computer. "That was years ago. This encounter… it wouldn't have shown up if it wasn't recent. Sometimes the same digimon will run twice on this program, if it's been a while since the last time Takeru's D3 was synced with the database. Especially if new data has been collected on the digimon."

"What does that mean, then?" Yamato said, looking between Koushiro and Takeru.

"I found you."

Koushiro turned to Takeru with a solemn expression, rather than Yamato. "It means that you must have encountered Bakumon recently, and something about this Bakumon was different from the one you met in the past."

"Something, meaning…?" Taichi hedged, before continuing hastily, "Hold on… Takeru, why did that attack stand out to you?"

Takeru looked back at the screen, scrambling to remember. Everything that had traveled to the back of his mind while this revelation unfolded in front of them suddenly seemed so much more present and heavy.

"Nightmare Syndrome."

"I found you."

"Nightmare Syndrome."

"—is it you are searching?"

"I found you."

"—your name?"

"I found you."

"—out of this forest—"

"I found you."

"I found you."

"I found you."

The words swirled around ceaselessly within the confines of Takeru's skull. Painful. Disorienting. They were so daunting and foreboding that it dizzied him. Made his body quake like the ground during the onset of a stampede.

"—keru?"

They were all gazing at him expectantly, and Yamato in particular looked petrified. Swallowing with difficulty, Takeru croaked out, "D-does anyone have any water?"

"I do," Sora answered tenderly, slowly. "If drinking after me doesn't bother you?"

"We should have all brought them," Jou fretted.

Takeru shook his head no, and part of him felt guilty for taking someone else's source of hydration, but right as Takeru opened his mouth to say he changed his mind, the bottle was being passed up to him.

"Here," Hikari whispered as it was handed to her, and repeated once more, "Are you ok?"

"It's… it's in my head," Takeru said quietly, almost embarrassed to say it aloud.

Yamato leaned in closer to him. "What did you say?"

Takeru unscrewed the cap of Sora's water bottle, took a grateful drink, careful not to be too greedy. This wasn't his water, after all. His throat throbbed in protest when he lowered the bottle and said in a louder voice, "I hear it in my head, sometimes. Not like, a voice in my head, but… but it's just always the same thing, like… like a memory?"

"You hear what?" Gabumon asked. "The name of that attack?"

"Nightmare Syndrome," Takeru echoed with a tiny nod. "Every time I… I try to think about the forest, it happens."

"...why didn't you tell me?" Yamato asked him.

Me. Not 'us'. The hurt in his brother's voice had been near-undetectable, but Takeru had spent years reading people. If he didn't, he wouldn't know much about his brother at all.

"I was going to," Takeru said hastily. "I just… wanted to see what we found out here first. I wasn't trying to keep it a secret."

Hikari rested her hand on his knee. "We believe you, Takeru."

"Hang on," Tailmon said, her voice soft but urgent. "...you hear that, in your head?"

It made him feel crazy. The way they kept asking for clarification. Made him feel silly. Struggling not to shrink in on himself, Takeru forced himself to meet Tailmon's calculating blue gaze. "...I did, yeah."

"I think that means we're in trouble," came Gomamon's voice.

"Gomamon," Palmon hissed. "You're going to scare them."

"Actually, he's right," Tentomon said.

"Why?" Yamato snapped. "What does it mean? We don't have time for sugar-coating."

The digimon went grimly quiet for several heartbeats. The group of Chosen were silent as well, waiting anxiously for an explanation. Yamato was tense next to Takeru, and Hikari had yet to remove her hand from Takeru's knee.

"...Bakumon is a holy digimon," Gabumon said eventually, finally, gravely. "Usually, he is meant to soothe those whose sleep has been disturbed by nightmares and other such things. He helps others sleep peacefully. But an unholy Bakumon, corrupted by evil and greed…"

He trailed off as all the digimon made their way to the middle of the group, where Koushiro and Takeru presently sat, and looked as if he was struggling to continue.

Tailmon, however, suffered no such handicap. "...he steals the good dreams and traps the victim in an endless nightmare."

"But that doesn't make sense," Daisuke blurted out. "Takeru's awake!"

"Yeah, but not all the time," Hikari said somewhat ominously.

"There was that one time…" Agumon added.

"Right, it was like he was asleep," Sora murmured, catching on to something Takeru didn't understand.

Takeru's frustration grew and hissed and crackled like a fire beneath his skin. "What?"

Yamato, if possible, stiffened even more. "Are you guys talking about…?"

"Talking about what?"

Hikari glanced at him, all nerves and sympathy. "We aren't trying to leave you out on purpose. It's just… when you fell, you didn't remember."

"And… you told me yesterday, that it was like you were asleep," Yamato said, voice barely above a whisper.

Takeru tried with much difficulty to breathe normally and ignore the hot, hot frustration that threatened to burn him alive from the inside. Wished he could aim it up, up, up to his brain, so the web could be destroyed. So his connection to the puppeteer would be severed.

Yesterday… had been so fuzzy. The day had flown by, and most of it felt like a dream. But not a good dream—a dream that stripped him of his perception of time, and he couldn't even remember it.

Above the fire, as if threatened by the very emotions that Takeru struggled to tame, the web shuddered. That same twitch from earlier returned, and with it came blurry silhouettes and scattered conversations.

Gabumon called Bakumon a holy digimon.

"That does sound familiar," he said out loud. "Bakumon being a holy digimon."

"Perhaps… Bakumon, while being manipulated by Mirrormon, used his attack to put you under a spell?" Koushiro suggested.

"Well… if Takeru saw Bakumon recently," Iori began, "and Bakumon's body is underground in an unresponsive state, then that means he's one of Mirrormon's puppets."

"But… what about Mirrormon?" Ken asked, brave enough to voice the question all of them had been thinking. "Where is he?"

The web shuddered again. Hesitantly, Takeru dared to think further back, wondering how much time he had before it became stable again. Before the strings came back to claim his body.

Along with the twitch in his brain came an unsettling, foreboding feeling, like someone was watching him. Someone who was still waiting for the right moment to pounce, to latch onto him and take over his body the way a parasite overtook its host.

He didn't want to accept it. Refused to. But this parasite, this spider, this puppeteer who left all of them scrambling to put together its clues—whatever it was, it had to be related to Mirrormon somehow. They had collected evidence that Mirrormon could very likely be the culprit.

Mirrormon, who knew how to effortlessly manipulate other digimon to his will.

Mirrormon, who always disappeared while controlling another digimon, and had mysteriously vanished now.

Mirrormon, whose transcendent, malicious red eyes transferred to the gazes of his victims—almost like an imprint. A signature. An irrefutable mark that said, without any room for an argument, "This belongs to me."

And yet… when Takeru opened his mouth, he mentioned none of this. Instead, he simply murmured, "That's a good question."