Hoo boy, this one was a little difficult to edit, though it was more tweaking prose and details than an issue of too many words. I hope you guys like it!
Data Fragment 42: Songlines
Kenta had no warning. Suddenly they were falling up into strangely distorted air. Then they were falling down in a new sky, the grassy plains of the Digital World below. Beside him was MarineAngemon, finally fully evolved again.
Then Rika was screaming. Why was Rika-
Kenta heard shrill beeping just under his ear. He looked down just in time to see his newly-remade anti-virus ring turn scarlet and crumble.
Then pain. Hot, electrifying pain. Kenta screamed with Kazu and Rika, their bodies flickering violently. Translucent aura cloaked them like a comet trail as they plummeted. Their D-Arks shuddered and cracked.
The virus! thought Kenta in a panic. The ring! I need-
Then he looked to Kazu, already quiet, burns forming on his skin. His partner was also charred and unconscious. The damage from that lightning strike from that damned Cherubimon...
...Right...Kazu's...even if I gave him the ring, Kazu's...
Kenta took the ring off MarineAngemon anyway, who shrunk down to a Gomamon again. Even just holding the ring made Kenta feel a little better, his head a little clearer.
Which only made it clearer that Rika needed this more than Kenta did. He slipped the ring on her wrist. Gomamon gave an uncertain little whine, so Kenta pulled his partner to his side, while taking hold of Kazu's limp wrist. He gazed at the plains far below, heart hammering.
Ryo finally caught up with them, his expression unreadable. "So...that's your choice, huh?" Kenta could've sworn he saw two transparent dragon heads curling around his shoulders, almost like a hug.
"A-Are they..." Henry, in human form again, had just caught up with Ryo. "Oh, t-they are converting! I've never actually seen...uh...congratulations?" Henry smile looked uncertain. "Or, uh...Moumantai?"
Kenta mustered a tiny grin. "S-Sure, I'll...take it easy..."
Rika started to stabilize. She looked to Kenta with growing horror. "Kenta, wait..."
Kenta couldn't quite meet Rika's eyes. "It's okay. I've-"
Kenta and Kazu's D-Arks shattered. From them erupted twin shimmering beams, shooting to the sky. The others screamed as they got engulfed and thrown upward by the blasts.
But suddenly, nothing else mattered. Kenta stared at the beams, even as his body turned numb. That...is that what our souls look like? Somehow he just knew. They're...prettier than I expected...?
Strangely, as Kenta kept falling, he didn't see his life flash before his eyes, or even notice the beautiful sceneryabove or below. Instead he thought of a song, a relic of his childhood half-remembered.
Sudden anxiety over not understanding myself, it's always aiming for us
We were deluded by secondhand information and useless commonsense
It was a song from some indie band Kenta couldn't remember the name of, but it was a favorite of his. Though he mostly kept that to himself, since it was a boy band song. Maybe he thought of this song because he and Kazu were in the sky...the cover had the band falling into the sky for some reason...
If everyday is tinged with boredom like this, do you even want to go along
today?
Then Kenta found out Kazu liked that song too. Soon they found out that they liked a lot of songs like that. They even started listening to overseas bands like the Backstreet Boys together. In secret, of course.
Instead of pretending to be something we don't know, let's find our reality
The one thing we can't give away, our pride, hidden in our hearts
They laughed about it now, but...was that when they first became friends? It was so long ago...Kenta had known Kazu since forever....
Oh keep on running keep on running
Find out your reality.
…And what was going to happen to them now? Henry was so different from how he used to be. Would they be different too? They would have to be, right? Kenta's breaking, pixelating flesh told him as much. Still...Still...
"Let's start running, not for anyone else, but because it's better than stopping." Kenta was no singer, he knew. But he quietly trembled out the words anyway.
Kenta wondered if Kazu heard him. He wondered if Kazu was even there anymore. His senses were so distorted, he couldn't tell what anything was anymore...Well, maybe he could, sort of...
"...Cutting through the...clear air..." Kenta's voice crackled with static.
Everything in the Digital World shimmered, whether sky, ground, or creature. Shimmering like water...like their souls...Was this all soul? Was that where their souls were now?
"...Turning toward...the bright...ocean..." Bits of data, his data, shed off him like sand. More sand for the beaches of the bright ocean...
...Did it matter? Of course it did. It meant that Kenta and Kazu could sing badly together in another life. If only he could heal...but that wasn't his sorrow, was it? MarineAngemon..."There's no time...to hesitate...in front of...the...new..."
So yeah, the prompt very much shaped this drabble. The song used is Tobira Door (Gate Door), and it's a song Matt's band performs in the anime. It might be the Japanese version of it though? Anyway, used this version of the song since it's the one I used for Preceding Overwrite. So yes, Kenta and Kazu are fans of Matt's music lol. Though they didn't recognize him since he looked older than he did back then. Plus they were young kids when they first listened to it.