A/N: I'm back! Sorry, everyone. I had to work on a paper over the last few months and it took everything out of me. I'll stop saying when the next update is coming so I'm not breaking my word but I am committed to this story so don't worry!

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon


Chapter 10 – Holy Ground

Kari

The woods around me were ablaze. Tree branches fell into an inferno that scorched the forest floor. I walked through ash and soot and felt nothing. Nothing physical. I stepped over hot coals as if they were nothing but dirt under my toes. I wondered for a moment if this was death and if I was in hell, had Kato come and snuffed me out without me seeing it coming? I thought, there was too much peace. The fire burned a beautiful amber light and the coals flickered along the ground like fireflies. Even though I stood amongst the flames the air was clean and clear in my lungs. Best of all, I was warm, gloriously warm. It was as if I'd been wrapped in a cashmere blanket. For someone with an affinity for water, it was the fire I longed for, ached for, could get lost in. I often wondered if it was because it felt like home somehow or maybe we always ached for what we couldn't touch.

Nadia said our elemental magic was connected to our astrology, and chart placements. So as a Pisces, water came easy to me, next was earth with my moon in Taurus. I was an Aries rising though, and fire still seemed so out of reach. I sometimes wondered if it had to do with Tai, my longing for more fire. He was an Aries, alarmingly so. I admired his impulsiveness, his ability to lead, his strength and courage. Then there was TK, a Saggitarius, whom I was inexplicably drawn to. His charm, and ease, and urge for justice. Hell even Davis was a fire sign, a Leo, and sure I'd only had a short crush on him, I can admit I liked his attention, there was something about the fire in him I was drawn to as well. All of these men, who I looked up to or loved, all had this fire I couldn't seem to touch, to grasp.

Here, now though, standing in this blaze I felt alive. I felt free. Over the deafening sound of the flames came the clank of metal against metal. I felt my body pulled in the direction of the muffled sounds of a battle but before I could see what it was I shot awake in bed. For once I didn't need to catch my breath. I didn't feel scared. I felt safe. I felt warm. For a moment I wished to be back amongst the flames.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the bedroom and I jumped a bit seeing someone slumped over in the chair near the window. After a breath, I realized it was TK, fast asleep, but I didn't know why. My head was a fog and the last thing I remembered was holding his katana sheath in my hands, everything was dark after that.

I rubbed my sore temples trying to get a grasp on what had happened earlier in the day. I remembered the feel of the wood in my hands the groove of carvings I couldn't place now and then nothing. I must have passed out, it would explain the lost time and him staying in my room, they must have taken shifts keeping an eye on me. Fainting was nothing new for me at this point and in the past it had led to a similar situation, waking up in a room with one of our friends there to make sure I was okay. I huffed, wishing I was back in the fire, wishing I was someone else. Just when I thought I was ready, that I was strong, I faint and feel helpless all over again. My nails were digging into my palms and I let them, angry with myself, and decided it was a fitting punishment. Then I sighed again and unclenched my hands feeling childish.

I looked back towards TK and thought of leaving him there. He looked peaceful, all the tension and years of stress evaporated from his face while he slept. He was so handsome, his cherub features from childhood thinned out and the glow of the moon gave his cheekbones some severity that wasn't noticeable during the day. His full lips and pronounced cupids bow once again took my head somewhere it didn't need to go at the moment. I needed to get myself together.

I thought of the pain he'd likely have after curling up in that chair all night and thought it would be kinder to wake him. I crept out of bed, not wanting to startle him and planning to wake him gently but as I reached out my eyes were drawn past him outside the window. A small white fox sat outside making direct eye contact with me. Its bright snow colored tail swished back and forth as it tilted it's head as if it was trying to make sense of me from inside of the house. It stood out under the moonlight, surrounded by the dark wood and placid lake, and for a moment I wondered if I was seeing a ghost.

"Kitsune?" My voice came out breathy and full of curiosity. It did a jaunty spin as if in response and then looked between me and the forest entrance. I gazed back to TK and decided to let him keep sleeping afraid if I woke him now he would try to stop me. I tiptoed out of my room and slid on my shoes before heading outside. The little fox was waiting before the tree line for me. As I got closer it moved towards me and rubbed along my legs like a cat before bounding into the forest. I followed after her like a faithful servant, moving at a brisk pace along a well-worn path, stumbling a few times over tree roots and rocks. The moonlight flickered through the branches onto the forest floor, it was growing towards full and gave just enough of a glow to be helpful.

It took me back to days in the digital world, stumbling through the night into battle or away from it for cover. My entire childhood felt like a fever dream and there were nights I laid awake in university and wondered if I'd imagined it all. It was only the feel of my D3 that brought me back to my warped reality. I'd lived through wars, through death, not just from Digimon but literal human death, and we just continued on as if it was normal. The sick part was that I missed it. I missed being needed, feeling called, feeling special. I think it's why I was so quick to believe Nadia, to follow her, to bring Kato in. I wanted to be chosen again. Maybe a part of me even wished for battle. There was something about being on the brink of death that could make you feel alive.

My foot caught in a root and I stumbled into my hands and knees. I pushed myself up and winced as a small bit of blood started to form on my knee from a rock I'd fallen onto. I looked up and saw that the creature stopped underneath a willow tree just slightly off the path ahead of me. It's branches tickled the earth as they swayed with the night breeze. The little fox walked back towards me and I leaned down, reaching my hand out and it tilted its head into my hand. I rubbed it's fluffy head and scratched behind her ears. "What did you want to show me? What's out here, huh?" I asked, and she responded by bounded over to a spot a few feet away started digging. I moved closer but was startled as a branch snapped behind me, I turned to see a sleepy-eyed TK stumbling through the woods.

"What are you doing out here?" I whispered.

He rubbed his eyes, "I could ask you the same thing," he said through a yawn. "I saw you follow something into the woods and was worried."

I saw the concern across his face as he drew closer. "You're hurt?" He looked down at my knee and I flinched, feeling bad for making him worry.

"I'm sorry I didn't want to wake you. I was following the fox."

"What fox?" He asked, looking around me towards the tree.

I turned and saw that it was gone, leaving only a shallow hole where it had been digging. I moved towards it and put my hand towards the ground. Closing my eyes I took a breath and tried to focus on the earth beneath me and what it wanted me to see, why it dragged me out here. 'Dig,' said a voice.

"I think there's something buried here. It led me out here and when I asked why it started digging."

"Foxes dig holes. It was probably nothing." He said, trying to rationalize thought another yawn.

"No," I pouted a bit, "It wasn't a normal fox. It was looking at me through the window and it waited for me to come outside. It was guiding me here. It was bright white TK. The Kitsune are messengers, it was trying to tell me something. I know it." I let my fingers dig into the earth but it was too hard for my hands to move. "Do you have a shovel?" I looked back at TK desperately.

"Maybe we should wait until morning." He said, wearily looking around as if the woods and the darkness around us might swallow us whole. The clouds had moved over the moon and it left the wood dull and ominous.

"This is important." I said, "I need you to trust me a bit here, things aren't going to get less weird as we go, if anything it's going to only get weirder"

He nodded with another yawn, reluctantly accepting the truth we found ourselves in, "I'll be back. Stay here. If another forest creature shows up, tell it to wait."

I let a smirk pull at the edges of my lips as he walked back towards the house. I sat back against the tree and closed my eyes, silently giving thanks to the small fox that brought me here. I'd never interacted with elemental beings before that Bogey, only learned about them, and now twice in a few days, they'd come into my life. I had to believe this one was here to help me instead of harm me. Why bring me out here to show me this spot only to hurt me. Fox spirits could be tricksters, but they could also be cunning and loyal to those they put their trust in. I had to believe it was the latter, if anything else was against me at this point I didn't know that I could take it. There was something under the earth that I needed to find, I was sure of it. It felt like a heartbeat underneath my feet, steady and solid.

After a few minutes, TK returned looking more awake, holding two shovels. He handed me one and we silently started digging.

"I'm sorry I woke you," I said sheepishly, and I was, I'd already put them through enough.

"Don't worry about it," He glanced up through his thick lashes, taking me in. "Do you remember anything from today?"

"Just that I was holding your sheath and then I woke up in my bed." I paused digging and tried to remember anything from that moment but it was just blank. I didn't know how the blade worked though, "I don't even remember you swinging it. Did you figure out if it is sharp enough to use?"

"Somehow, yes." He stopped now, leaning onto his shovel. His eyes shut tight, and he ran a hand through his hair, "Kari, it makes no sense. It's as if it was forged yesterday. I was sure it was an antique, maybe even just for show, I never imagined it was lethal." He shuddered with the final word.

"Maybe your grandfather just took really good care of it?" I said.

"That's just it, it was hidden in a chest of their things. I only put it on display after they passed." He started digging again with a shake of his head.

"Maybe they just didn't want a weapon out in the open with children in the house?" I offered it as a logical explanation, but I could see that it was bothering him.

"I don't-" He was interrupted when his shovel hit something hallow. We shot looks towards one another and then started digging faster. It was a few more minutes before we had uncovered the whole thing. It was a wooden box, varnished in a dark polish, seemingly untouched by the elements around it. We dug space around the edges and found handles on either end but when we tried to lift it we realized it was far too heavy.

"Shit." He said, staring down at it. "How the hell are we going to get this thing out of here. And who put this on our property?" He was truly unsettled now, glancing around on edge as if someone would hop out of the woods and push us down into the hole with the mysterious box.

"Could your grandparents have buried it?" I asked, but I could tell from the look of unease in his eyes that it was unlikely.

"I can't imagine my elderly grandmother being able to lift this into a hole. Look at it. It looks new right?"

I looked down again and took in the box, and he was right, it looked like it was recently buried. "Point taken."

I tried to think. I wanted this out of here. I needed to know what was inside. If it could wait until tomorrow the fox wouldn't have come. We needed what was in here. I knew that in my bones.

"Got any spells," he threw out as a joke.

I did though. I knew one, but I'd never done it alone, I'd rarely done any magic alone. I'd always been scared, always relied on Nadia the same way I'd always relied on Tai, or TK, or the rest of my friends. I set my jaw, determined. I was done not being strong. I was done waiting for everyone else to have the answers for me.

"Grab your end."

"Kari we can't-"

"Grab your end," I said firmly. "Don't lift until I tell you.

He wrapped his hands around the handle, unsure, and probably worried about what would be of both our backs in the morning.

I focused my eyes on the box as I wrapped my hands around my own handle. I didn't have a spell for it, but Nadia used to write her own so I just needed to think of something and set my intention and thoughts towards it. That was always how she explained it. Make the words something simple you can remember and repeat. So I thought about what I needed. I needed strength, but I couldn't change my own body's strength, I needed to change the weight of the box. 'Light as air,' I thought, but what else. 'Light as air, light as air, light as air,' I thought over and other again, trying to find the words to come next. 'A weighted burden we can share.' It wasn't enough. I looked down at the box again, a box, that's it! "Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share."

"Now!" I shouted and we both lifted, so much so that it threw off our balance, lighter than we expected and we felt to the side, taking the box with us tumbling onto the ground.

"You did it!" He said, laughing in disbelief.

"I did," my voice filled with awe. "I really did it," I said, now laughing too. Feeling a spark of joy and belief in myself I thought I'd lost. I had power, I just needed to trust myself. I moved to sit up, the world spun around me, and I fell back to the earth. Spots shot to the front of my vision and a pain shot through my head.

"Kari," TK called to me as he scrambled over.

"I'm okay," I said. "I think I just exerted myself."

He gently brought my head into his lap and brushed my hair away from my face. I closed my eyes and if I thought hard enough we were back on the beach, "our beach," he'd once called it. There was a day, not so long before that end of year dance where we'd found ourselves back on there. We avoided it quite a bit those first few weeks after the gate closed, it felt tainted, and I hated that what was suppose to be ours became this reminder of our own failure. Eventually, though, we were drawn back there. Drawn back to what was familiar. We'd been studying and I was using his legs as a pillow when suddenly one of his hands started absentmindedly running through my hair. My body had frozen, afraid to move, to breathe, to break the spell that seemed to overtake him. Just as suddenly as it had started it ended as he reached his hand back up to turn a page. I'd relaxed again, but unable to focus back on my work, wishing he'd resume. It was the moments like that, few and far between during those months, that gave me hope for us.

"Have you ever done anything like that before?" His voice broke the spell, and I was back on the cold forest floor.

"No, Nadia was always with me when I practiced."

"You're amazing," His comment caught me off guard and I felt my face heat up. He was looking at the box in awe.

"It was your idea," I tried to say, brushing it off.

"You did it though." He looked back down at my face, and a sudden sadness filled his eyes. His fingers traced around one of my eyelids and the skin underneath my eye.

"Does it still look bad?" I asked of the bruises.

"I think it's beginning to fade," he clenched his jaw and anger clouded his vision. "I'm so sorry he hurt you."

"I let him in. It's my fault." My voice was low, and horse.

"Kari, you can't"

I interrupted him, "No it's on me. Nadia tried to warn me. She knew he wasn't good, that something was off, and she tried to keep him away but I wouldn't let up. He had power and was willing to share it, and I wanted it. I wanted that power."

"We spent our lives fighting against those who were more powerful than us, it's normal that you wanted a piece of it. That you wanted to feel that type of control for once when we had so little of it as kids." His hands lightly ran through my hair as he spoke, soothing and gentle.

I wanted to believe him but would we all have made the same choice, would Sora have? Would Tai have? Would TK? I didn't know how to tell him that I was drawn to Kato in other ways, it felt like a betrayal somehow and the words all got caught in my throat.

I moved to sit up, going slow to make sure I wouldn't get dizzy again. He moved slightly to give me space but stayed close to me in case I fell. "He'll look worse in the end," I said determinedly. It didn't matter what I'd felt for him in the past, now all I wanted was him gone, obliterated from this earth. Our eyes met in that moment in an unspoken agreement, we would take him on, and we would win. We had to.

"So," he stood up and held out his hand for me to take, "How are we going to get that thing back to the house?"

"I'm not sure if I can use the spell again." I brushed myself off, moving back towards the container and trying to lift the one side a bit but it was pretty heavy even outside of the hole.

"Can I help in any way?" Once he asked I realized I didn't actually know the answer to that. I'd never asked if people who didn't have powers could assist or if there was a way for the energy they exerted to be sent to someone. There was so much I never thought to ask. It was worth a shot though.

"Grab your end and repeat after me," I said, thinking it was better to try at this point before abandoning it altogether. He moved over and gestured for me to continue. "Say this phrase with me, out loud, I'm pretty sure it works better aloud."

"Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share." I said.

He paused raising a brow, "Wait that's it?"

"What did you expect it to be?" I asked a bit put off.

"I donno, something more complex?"

I stared at him flatly.

"Or something that ends with Abracadabra," he wiggled his fingers in the air for emphasis and wagged his eyebrows.

"Are you finished," I said with a smirk. "Spells need to be easy enough to remember, they tend to rhyme for that reason."

"Oh," he shrugged. "Okay. Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share." He said and I joined him on the next one.

"Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share.

Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share.

Shape of square, be light as air, a weighted burden we can share."

I felt my body get warm, and a tingle ran down my arms into my hands, which hadn't happened before. I nodded for him to lift. It rose easily off the ground and we started moving towards the house. Repeating the words and concentrating on the weight in our hands. After a few minutes, we cleared the tree line and both moved a bit quicker, a sheen of sweat glistened across his face in the moonlight and I could feel myself slick as well. It started to become heavier as we neared the house and we both dropped it near the front door, collapsing onto our backs, exhausted and drained.

"We," he huffed, "did it."

"We did," I managed to get out. A smile pulled at the corners of my lips. I wondered what else I could do with the help of others, and how else they might be able to amplify my magic. This opened so many doors for us.

I closed my eyes, my body begging for rest. The sound of our breath felt loud in my ears. I opened my eyes to the moon and the stars, the clouds had vacated the sky, and now it was so clear I almost gasped. Last night I'd been too preoccupied with warding the house to take a moment to look up at the sky, so far away from the city, so clear of pollution. So many stars shone above us, there were constellations I could pick out that you'd never catch back home. The sky started to blur and I felt my eyes become heavy, the sounds around me dulled and quieted and I let myself succumb to exhaustion.


A/N: As always leave a review and let me know what you think! We are starting to build towards some big things and I can't wait to reveal them.