Odaiba was barely familiar.
It had only been a day since the attacks took place, and yet, it was terrifying how much had changed in the eyes of the Chosen Children. There were many dents in the streets from where large attacks had made contact with the ground, and some of the buildings within the city were starting to struggle because of the damage that they had sustained. The Chosen Children had done their best to keep the city from being hit too hard by the Digimon invasion, but there was only so much that they could do given that there were so few of them. Even if there were others with Digimon, it wasn't exactly uncommon for other Chosen Children to choose a life of peace with their Digimon. After all, there were enough of them where not everybody had to fight all the time, and while that had been fine previously, it seemed like a grave mistake as the Chosen Children acknowledged the city around them.
It was still standing though, and that had to count for something. The markings of the past few years of their lives were still present, albeit distorted under the influence of the attacks. It was strange how everything was recognizable but unfamiliar at the same time, some strange uncanny valley between newfound curiosity and melancholy nostalgia. The Chosen Children didn't say much of anything on the matter, but the unanimous agreement in the silence was that they never wanted to see something along these lines ever again.
The journey back to Odaiba had taken place as soon as they all woke up from their rest in the Digital World. Daigo and Maki were the ones to rouse everyone from slumber, and it became a belated realization that Daigo had been the one to take over the lookout shift throughout the whole night rather than switching out with anybody. The worst part of such a revelation was the fact that Daigo barely even looked different compared to how he normally did, as if his eyes had just barely started to be influenced more by the outward effects of newfound exhaustion. Everything about him seemed to be mostly the same, but there was some sense of reminiscence that lived at the corners of his existence all of a sudden. His smiles were almost terrifying in how blatantly they were made of nothing more than lies.
The Chosen Children had decided to go their separate ways after getting back to Odaiba, knowing that their families were looking for them with the attacks taken care of. The whirlwind of activity had kept them from being able to apologize to their parents for randomly disappearing, meaning that they all had quite a bit of explaining to do to the rest of their families. Their parents likely had at least an inkling as to what was happening given the circumstances, but that still did little to lessen the immediate impact of feeling apologetic for something that they could no longer alter. After all, that mistake was in the past, and they had to focus on what was in the present and future.
The process of bringing all of the people back into the city was slow, and it seemed to be almost excruciating as residents of Odaiba made their ways back to their homes and surveyed whatever damage had been left behind. The streets were both chaotic and barren at the same time, a constant screaming of static that was dulled into the background simultaneously. It was an odd paradox, and as Takeru walked back to the apartment he shared with his mother, he found himself thinking about how oddly poetic this was. He was a storyteller, after all, and this would certainly make for an interesting tale one day.
Miyako and Iori had decided to go to the Inoue family convenience store to pick up a bit of food before returning home, but Takeru was simply too exhausted from the battles to stray too far from his apartment. He yawned, raising one hand to cover his mouth. Patamon held tightly to the edges of his hat to stay balanced on top of his head. The weight was familiar and comforting, and Takeru allowed his fingers to trail up so that Patamon could nudge at them gently with his wings. It was a small motion, but Takeru needed the sense of relief as much as possible, so he embraced it with everything that he had.
The previous generation of Chosen Children had all scattered to take care of their miscellaneous work in the aftermath of the attack. Daigo, Maki, and Hiraku had their duties to resolve as part of the data bureau, off to fit back into their masked identities of being regular workers rather than a trio with such a personal connection to the Digital World. Their partners had promised to inform the Chosen Children if anything happened while they were gone. Atuso, Chisane, and Kaya had adjourned to the former's apartment since Chisane and Kaya would be unable to find a hotel room under the current circumstances. The city was simply too chaotic, and there likely wouldn't be any employees at any hotels to help them get settled down in the first place. In a word, everything was disorganized, though Takeru could think of far better terms to describe what had taken place within the last day.
That was the other fact that bothered Takeru much more than he was willing to admit: it had only been a day since all of this started. A quick glance down at his phone's clock showed him that it had been less than twenty-four hours in total since the attacks started. Within an hour and a half, the one day mark would officially come and go, and Takeru couldn't tell if that was more terrifying or relieving. How had everything taken place in such a short span of time but felt like a century had passed at the same time? Once again, his mind offered the true but twisted fact that this was all so eerily poetic that it was almost painful.
Takeru shoved his hand into his pocket before he pulled his keys free, and he shoved the proper one into the lock of the Takaishi apartment. He had a key to the Ishida household as well, a gift from Yamato from a few years ago, though it saw much less use than his own key to home. Takeru found himself almost wishing that he and Yamato had stayed together after returning to Earth, but his brother had been so antsy and agitated that Takeru knew it wouldn't have done either one of them much good. At his core, Yamato was an introvert, and it was in times like these when he most needed time away from human interaction to strum away his emotions against the strings of his guitar without any outside interference.
Takeru knocked against the door as he walked inside, glancing around in curiosity. He didn't know if his mother was home yet, though he immediately received a response that answered his question in the negatory. He had texted her a while ago to ask if she was back in Odaiba yet, but he hadn't received a response. He let out a small sigh and shook his head, seeing that it was just going to be him and Patamon for at least a while longer.
Takeru sat down on the couch as soon as he had put his keys back into his pocket and shut the door behind them. The lights in the apartment were off, so the only illumination offered throughout the space was from the windows. The sunshine was gentle in a way that didn't even feel real, as if those few beams of sunlight had been stolen from a dream and somehow injected into reality. Then again, Takeru supposed that this disconnect from reality had just come to be part of his regular life over the past day. Nothing felt truly real, but at the same time, it was all too brutally real at the same time. The endless paradoxes never ceased to fascinate him despite how much they were bound to frustrate someone else.
"I hope your mom gets back soon," Patamon commented. He crawled off Takeru's hat, leaving the fabric to fall down to Takeru's lap limply as Patamon settled down on his partner's legs. Patamon seemed tired too, but he was doing his best to seem as optimistic as possible. That was how Patamon functioned, and it was one of the ways that the two partners were similar in personality and outlook.
Takeru nodded as he reclaimed his hat. He set it beside himself carefully, running one hand through his hair. He wished that he had thought to run a brush through his blonde hair before he settled down on the couch, but he was too comfy to get up and mess with it. He could solve that problem later on when Patamon wasn't holding him hostage against the cushions. "I was hoping that she would be back here by the time we got home, but I guess that the return process is taking longer than we thought," he commented.
"It took a long time to get everyone out of Odaiba to deal with the Digimon yesterday, and it's going to take a while before everyone is ready to come back too. I guess we're just going to have to see what happens from here," Patamon commented, his eyes falling shut. "But it's all going to be okay. I'm sure of it. Your mom will get back soon, and everyone else will come home too. After that, we'll just have to see how the process of getting everything back to normal goes."
"It's going to be a while before we're able to go back to normal life," Takeru told him. "We saw so much damage on our way back here, and there's definitely more of it out there too. For now, I suppose that all we can really do is take everything one step at a time, though I suppose that we're no strangers to something like that." He let out a laugh, hating how hollow it sounded even to his own ears.
One of Takeru's hands brushed down over Patamon's back, and his partner looked up at him with concern in his cerulean eyes. "Are you worried about having to go back to the Dark Ocean again soon?" he questioned. He didn't say more than that, but it was clear that the unspoken inquiry regarded Takeru's fears from when Hikari had been taken in by the realm of shadow. Even if Hikari was confident that she would never be taken back there against her will-and the same applied to Ken, as a matter of fact-that did little to stop the fact that they had no choice but to return under present circumstances, dragged away involuntarily or otherwise.
Takeru was quiet for a long time after he heard Patamon's question. "Yeah," he finally admitted. Takeru didn't know how they were going to be finding a way to return to the Dark Ocean, but he knew that he could count on Koushiro to find the answer soon enough. Takeru couldn't tell if he was dreading it more or concentrated on just wanting to get it over with for the sake of his own mental clarity. Perhaps it was a bit of both. Did the answer even completely matter?
This was not how Takeru had wanted everything to go, but he knew that there was no point in fighting against it. After all, the Digital World was counting on him and the rest of the Chosen Children to save it from whatever dark forces were waiting for them in that other world. There was no way of saying what they were going to have to deal with, and that was beyond nerve-wracking as far as Takeru was concerned. They were just going to have to see what was thrown their way and grin and bear it from there.
Takeru's fingers drifted up to the back of his neck without him even fully realizing that he was doing it, but he certainly caught on and recognized what his subconscious was pushing for as soon as he felt the gentle texture of the bandage that Kaya had applied the day before. The injury wasn't exactly severe, but it most certainly was a nuisance, and Takeru just wanted to be free of it as soon as possible. In fact, he wanted to be free of everything that reminded him of the events of the past day, if he was being honest.
"You shouldn't mess with that," Patamon reminded him, and Takeru knew that he was correct. Even so, it took him longer than he would have liked to be able to pry his fingers away from the bandage, too wrapped up in the reminder of what he had endured to realize that he was trying to pry away the gauze.
"I know," Takeru murmured. He distracted himself with stroking at Patamon instead of messing with the bandage, hating the itch that nagged just beneath his skin. Everything was going to be fine. It had worked out before, and it was going to happen once again. He and the rest of the Chosen Children were going to work together and ensure that everything was resolved as soon as the chance came up. The gate to the Dark Ocean would be opened, and then, they would fight with everything they had to save the stability of the worlds. From there, they would travel to this realm of fire, whatever it truly was behind that title, and repeat the process once more. After that, it was just a matter of taking down the Digimon that was behind the Emissaries of Chaos. When Takeru put it like that, it sounded almost cruel in its simplicity, but he knew that it was much easier said than done, especially with how little foresight they had of their upcoming circumstances.
"We're going to be fine," Patamon assured him, those bright eyes of his starting to glow with that bright optimism that Takeru adored so much. His smile, while small, was all that Takeru needed to see to be positive that Patamon was right. Everything was going to work out, and they were going to make sure of it regardless of what threatened to impede their progress along the way.
Takeru returned the smile and nodded in response as his eyes fell shut. His exhaustion was starting to get the better of him, and he knew that fighting it would ultimately prove to be futile. Instead of protesting his body's needs, he set his head against the back of the couch and allowed himself to speak one last time. "I know," he repeated. He heard Patamon's smile without needing to see it, and a few moments later, both Chosen Child and Digimon were sound asleep.
Mercifully, when Miyako arrived back at her apartment, the Inoue home was quiet.
At one point not that long ago, Miyako would have let out a sigh of relief and kicked her feet up while reaching for the television remote while knowing that nobody was going to stop her from doing so. The smile that would have spread across her face would have been immediate, and she wouldn't have been able to keep herself from grinning at the mere idea that she was the only one in the apartment. In fact, being able to occupy as much space as she wanted to without butting heads with her three siblings sounded like something that could only be found in heaven, and Miyako had dreamed of it countless times only to wake up disappointed with reality.
But that was then, and this was now. Somehow, Miyako couldn't help but feel as if there was something wrong about the apartment being so quiet. After all, she knew the circumstances behind the silence, and they were far from being ideal. Her family hadn't managed to come back from the evacuation quite yet, so that meant Miyako and Hawkmon were alone in the space. She let out a heavy sigh, but instead of being a sound of relief, it was of agitation. She had wanted time to herself, but this wasn't what she had asked for. She felt almost guilty for even imagining that this could be a positive thing.
Miyako dared to not stray over in the direction of the window, knowing what she was going to find if she looked out over the rest of the city. Odaiba was going to stare back at her with all of its mottled bruises and distorted corners, and she didn't want to acknowledge the truth of the matter. The city had nearly been destroyed, and she was going to have to put up with the aftermath.
"It will be quite a while before the city returns to its previous state," Hawkmon commented, his voice little above a whisper. He sat down beside Miyako, his blue eyes drooping despite their normal sharpness. "I certainly didn't anticipate this to be the outcome of the attacks when they initially began."
"The Digimon attacks here on Earth have never caused this much damage before," Miyako muttered, her tone somewhere between bitter and resigned. She knew that there was nothing that she, a single person, would be able to do to change this truth, but she still hated that she hadn't been able to do more. It was an odd blend of emotions, and immediately after they hit her, Miyako decided that she hated them passionately. This was frustrating at best and something much darker at worse.
Hawkmon nodded simply, not offering any other input beyond that for a long minute. Miyako found herself staring down at the television remote. In another world, she would have been happy to not be interrupted as she selected her dramatic program of the afternoon. In this timeline, she wanted to turn on the television just as a way to fill the silence. After all, if she was listening to the screen prattle on with mindless insincerity, she wouldn't be able to think about all that had happened in the past day.
She was exhausted, to say the least, though there were a dozen other words that floated to mind whenever she positioned herself in a mindset to imagine what had taken place over the course of the past day. The twenty-four hour mark had come and gone without any sense of ceremony and celebration. After all, Miyako hardly wanted to play a metaphorical trumpet to honor the fact that she had survived one of the most chaotic days of her life. She was just glad that she was going through this at the age of fifteen rather than twelve.
Miyako was fully aware of how emotional she was as a person, and she knew that if this had happened at any earlier point in her life, she would have fallen apart. She vaguely remembered pushing Hawkmon to the brink of his limits as she clambered around the Digital World in desperation, searching for the base of the Kaiser when he still held an iron fist over the realm. Her emotions, her empathy, had grown to be too much for her, and she had nearly buckled under the pressure. She had been young back then. In a way, she was still young, but she felt so much older.
Miyako couldn't help but shake her head at the memory, and she couldn't tell why she was dismissing it. Perhaps she just didn't want to deal with the past because of how much sway it had over her current actions. She didn't wish to acknowledge such a fact though, so she reached for the remote with clumsy fingers, finally committing to the clumsy action with something spiteful curling at the edges of her lips. Hawkmon watched her simply, not commenting on the action but understanding where it was coming from regardless.
Miyako didn't fully care about what was on the screen. It was some news program though, and that was the one thing that she didn't want to see. The shot was of an aerial view of Odaiba and all of the damage that had been sustained to the buildings and streets. Miyako let out a thin hiss from between her teeth before she slammed her finger angrily against the button that would change the channel. A moment later, a dramatic soap opera appeared with two characters on the verge of kissing in a passionate moment. Miyako hardly felt the romance of the situation, too jaded from her anguish over the past day to even bother dreaming of what true love could feel like.
The longer that Miyako stared at the screen though, unaware of the rambling that the characters were releasing into the air, the more that she started to think about what had happened in the past day. She had finally learned the truth behind the original Chosen Children, and it had hardly been what she expected. In fact, she didn't think that any of them had seen it coming. How could they? Daigo, Maki, and Hiraku had always been so cagey with the matters of their past, not that anybody had bothered to stray close to the subject. Miyako knew that they were all vaguely aware of what was bound to happen if they did ask. There was something about the trio that made it clear as could be that they weren't going to want to talk about what they had been through to prompt their dynamic to be as perfectly tight-knit as it was.
Atsuo was a slightly different story. Miyako didn't know anything about him, and that was part of the reason that she was so surprised by all of this. Prior to the day before, she was only vaguely aware of the strange musician from some indie band that dropped by Hiraku's office every once in a while. Then she became all too familiar with who he was and everything that he was involved with, and as soon as she met him, there was no way to undo the past. It wasn't as if she wanted to in the first place though; after all, he was part of her history whether she chose to admit it or not.
Chisane and Kaya were the strangest of the bunch as far as Miyako was concerned. They were so clearly a step apart from the rest of the group, and Miyako couldn't help but wonder what it was that had driven the wedge in the center of their dynamic. Kaya was overly familiar to the rest of her team while keeping them at a distance at the same time. Chisane's bright smiles and optimism about the Digital World were clearly masking something much darker, something petrifying, if Miyako looked close enough into those gray-blue eyes to notice the shadows. Nothing about them made sense, but then again, nothing about the past day made a damn lick of sense, did it?
The idea of the Harmonious Ones being the partner Digimon to Chosen Children hit Miyako like a truck, but at the same time, it made a bit too much sense to her. After all, why else would those Digimon specifically be so heavily involved with the matters of Homeostasis and the other high-ranking figures of the Digital World? They were there because they had saved the Digital World before, and they knew what they had to do to help those who were weaker than themselves.
The pieces just refused to pull away from the picture as soon as they fell into place, and Miyako was glad that she was able to at least lay this curiosity to rest. It wasn't as if she had thought too intensely in the past about the previous generation of Chosen Children, but it was a nice thing to know regardless. The truth revealed an image of six young children who had stumbled into the Digital World by chance, setting an unrealized precedent for what was bound to happen nine years later when Taichi, Yamato, and the rest of the original eight followed in their footsteps to wind up in another world of monsters and wonder.
"The Digital World was different back then, wasn't it?" Miyako found herself muttering before she could stop herself. She knew that Hawkmon didn't mind, but she glanced over in his direction regardless. He glanced over at her in curiosity, prompting her to elaborate. "You know, according to the original Chosen Children. They said that the Digital World didn't have any sense of order back when they were traveling through the area. That was how things were when they were there, and... They just kind of had to put up with it being like that, I suppose."
Hawkmon paused thoughtfully for a long moment. "I suppose so," he agreed eventually. "The Digital World certainly does have its lawless creatures, but for the most part, the Harmonious Ones and Homeostasis are able to keep the realm in a state of balance at present. Much has changed in the past fifteen years."
Miyako nodded numbly before she glanced over in his direction. "Hey, Hawkmon... Come to think of it, weren't you around back in ancient times? I mean, that was one of the things that we learned when we first met you, Armadimon, and Veemon, so I might as well ask, you know?" she said simply.
Hawkmon nodded. "I was, but... Many years have passed since the days that the Harmonious Ones and their partners describe have taken place. The distorted time of the Digital World's past has likely erased any memories of most Digimon that were around at that time. The Harmonious Ones likely only remember because they were partners with humans in the first place," he explained.
Miyako sighed. "I guess that makes sense... I suppose I was just looking for a bit of insight. The way that all of them talked about the Digital World sort of made it sound like... I don't know... They all went through something that changed them for the worse. I know that's a weird thing for me to say, but... I don't know. It's like they were trying to cover up some giant source of trauma or something," she told him. She didn't even know what she was trying to say, but the words just kept spilling from her lips, and she wasn't about to stop herself.
"The Digital World changes most people who travel into it," Hawkmon pointed out. "I would argue that many members of your team have been altered by their journeys within the Digital World... Including yourself. Wouldn't you agree?"
For a long time, Miyako just stared at the television screen, aware that the actors were talking about some dramatic happening or another but not at all hearing the words they were speaking. Processing Hawkmon's words took much longer than she would have expected at a first glance. After all, when push came to shove, he had a point. She hadn't ever thought about it through this lens before, but he was right in some respects.
After all, Miyako was fully aware of the fact that every August first, when the Odaiba Memorial came and went, Mimi's eyes were filled with tears over the lives that were lost in her name over in the Digital World. She planted flowers in a small pot near her window and placed names before each of the blooms, dedicating them to another Digimon that dissipated before her very eyes. Hikari had stayed at Miyako's house a few times, and once or twice, she had woken up in a cold sweat whispering the name 'Wizarmon' like it was the one thread that would save her from her the hell that had converged upon her six years prior. Hikari would always apologize for waking Miyako, her cheeks pink with unspoken embarrassment, and Hikari would shift the subject before Miyako gave her a reason to shelve her confessions of sorries. Ken was left unspoken, and Miyako knew the way that her friend's face grew pale when matters of the Digital World came up on his worst days. Nobody ever seemed to know how to acknowledge the matter openly, a silent musing of tension that hung in the air with enough force and gravity to suffocate those who were unprepared for its power.
"Oh," was all Miyako could whisper. Was this what trauma felt like? Why had she not realized this before? Hindsight was twenty-twenty, she supposed, but it seemed so painfully obvious when she looked back that it was almost excruciating. How could she have not seen this before?
Even in herself, it made a lot of sense to frame it through that light. Miyako would have been lying if she said that she didn't sometimes wake up late at night with the memory of LadyDevimon's death three years prior. The taste of data and blood made her feel like she was going to be sick, but she always did her best to choke it back, ignoring the exhaustion that tore at the skin beneath her eyes the next day.
"Ouch," Miyako murmured a moment later. She didn't know what else she was even supposed to say. Was this series of events over the course of the past day going to be the latest piece of pain in the conga line that the Digital World had brought her? Had the previous Chosen Children been touched by this claw of grief and anguish with such force that it splintered their past connections? It would certainly explain a lot, but Miyako wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer.
Instead, she just stared at the television screen and watched as another drama unfolded in fiction as the show changed. In a way, trying to catch up with the events that had spanned the past ten episodes was easier than trying to figure out what in the world she was supposed to think about her recent revelation. Her thoughts flowed away, and she reveled in the bliss that was brought by the internalization of silence.
She felt data and blood on her tongue.
Yamato had initially been planning on dropping off Sora at her apartment after they returned from the Digital World, but that didn't wind up panning out the way that he had hoped. He could see that there was something wrong by the way that she did her best to mask her true emotions behind a half-hearted smile, and he wanted to do what he could to ease her burden. Yamato and Sora had both been silently but foolishly counting on Sora's mother to be back at the Takenouchi residence, but that had wound up being little more than a pipe dream, as the space was as empty as it got when Sora slipped her key into the lock. The disappointment on Sora's face had felt like a punch to the stomach to Yamato, and so, he offered to let her stay with him until her mother returned. The gratitude in her gaze was overwhelming, and he knew immediately that he had made the right choice.
Much to Yamato's surprise, the Ishida apartment was not empty when they arrived. He let Sora in first before trailing behind her, and he could see the outline of his father on the couch, remote grasped loosely between his fingers. Gabumon and Piyomon moved in the direction of the kitchen to find a snack wordlessly, still exhausted from the numerous battles of the previous day.
"Good morning, Mr. Ishida," Sora greeted with that eerie smile of hers that did such a good job of making it seem as if nothing was wrong that it was painful. Yamato knew better than to fall for her tricks these days, but not everyone was quite so wise, and he did his best to pretend that he hadn't caught onto Sora's habits through his brother's own masked issues.
Hiroaki turned his head over his shoulder to see Sora and Yamato entering the apartment, and he began to move books and old VHS tapes off the couch to make room for them. Yamato was about to ask what the tapes were for, but he realized that there was no point a moment later. They were all scrawled with the same date in Hiroaki's haphazard excuse for handwriting: August 1999. Hiroaki had likely been overcome with some sense of unfortunate nostalgia at the sight of the Digimon attacks, and that had ultimately led to him trying to dig through the remnants-minimal traces, but still remnants- of past Digimon attacks being caught on tape. Given his position as a reporter and an employee at the television station, he was able to get his hands on such highly-sought items, and Yamato was all too familiar with such a fact.
"The city looks awful," Yamato murmured under his breath as he sat down beside his father. Sora took her place at the far edge of the couch, and all of their eyes were locked solely on the screen. A news report was showing the damages to the city, varying from buildings to streets to bridges. Everything looked as if it was merely a shadow of its former self, on the verge of falling apart at a moment's notice. Even the structures that were still stable and standing tall and proud were unsettling to Yamato's eyes because of how shaky their surroundings were. The sunshine that fell across the city was ominous, as if it was doing what it could to mask the problems that were resting beneath the surface of Odaiba's shattered facade.
"Yeah," Hiroaki agreed simply, his eyes suddenly much more exhausted than they had been the last time that Yamato looked at his father. How had it only been two days ago that he last saw Hiroaki? It felt as if a thousand years had passed. However, Yamato was never able to phrase such a thought before Hiroaki glanced over at him and Sora. "I take it that you two were trying to take care of the Digimon yesterday?"
Yamato nodded in response. He winced at the memory that he and the rest of the group had never been able to send out the message to their families that they were going into the Digital World to resolve the issue before they were given no choice but to jump through the gate. "Sorry for not telling you," he said though he already knew what his father's response was going to be.
"I knew that you were going to be fine. You've had everything under control in the past, and I know that I can count on you to stay safe now too," Hiroaki replied, following Yamato's expectations perfectly. "I did what I could to keep the rest of the parents calm... Well, the ones that I saw, at the very least. The evacuation procedures were not exactly the best."
Yamato was almost afraid of the question that he was about to pose, but he offered it up regardless. "Who did you run into?" he asked. Hiroaki would already know the real inquiry that Yamato was questioning him about: 'did you see mom?' Yamato gave a glance to Sora out of the corner of his eye, seeing the way that she stared blankly at the damaged city being displayed tragically across the buzzing television screen. He knew that he had asked the right question for her sake.
"For one, I found Mrs. Hida," Hiroaki replied. "But we split up when she left to look for Iori's grandfather. I found the Yagami family too, and it took a lot more energy to calm them down than you would have expected." He let out a humorless laugh before continuing. "And... I ran into your mother. It wasn't for long, but we did see each other. She wound up being separated from me because of the crowd though. After that, we couldn't find a way back to one another. Everything was just too chaotic, I guess."
Sora's shoulders deflated, proof that she had been listening even though she had tried her best to pretend that the news report was the only source of her present fascination. "Okay," Yamato murmured in her stead, knowing that Sora didn't want to interrupt. His attention shifted back to the television screen, and he became vaguely aware of the fact that a reporter was cooing and hissing over how dreadful the damage was. He was already fully acquainted with the damage that the city had sustained, and it took every ounce of restraint in his body to keep from getting snappy at a person who didn't even know that he existed.
"A lot's happened in the past day," Hiroaki muttered completely unprompted. He reached for a small sucker that could be found in a distorted yet brightly-colored cardboard box he had picked up a few days prior (or was it a lifetime ago? Yamato couldn't tell anymore). He unwrapped the candy before shoving it into his mouth in the place of a cigarette. He had been doing his best to calm his obsession with cigarettes over the course of the past year and a half, and his response had been chewing on the sticks of small suckers. Hiroaki was hardly known for his sweet tooth, but it was a step in the right direction, and that was all that mattered.
Much to Yamato's surprise, it was Sora who replied to Hiroaki's prompt. "Yeah," she said simply, almost as if she was unable to bring herself to say much more. She glanced down to Piyomon, who was standing by the couch after having returned from her search of the apartment alongside Gabumon, and the two shared a moment of silent eye contact before they did their best to shove all reminders of the past day out of the forefront of their minds.
The room fell silent after that, and the television screen's gentle rambling about all that had happened to the city during the attacks was the only sound to pierce through the quiet. Yamato still didn't register it, instead watching as his partner walked around to the front of the couch before sitting down on the floor. Not even Gabumon or Piyomon seemed to know what to say to pierce through the quiet to make the air seem a little bit less unsettling.
Yamato let out a small sigh before tearing his eyes away from the screen. He didn't know how much more he would be able to take of just staring and waiting for something to jump out at him. He already knew that the city had been put through the wringer, and the last thing that he needed was to be aware of all the specific damages. It would be a while before the city was able to fully recover from the damage that was done to the buildings and infrastructure, and until then, Yamato knew that he was going to wind up shoving his face down to the ground as he tried to tap out a silent beat against his leg as a way of keeping his thoughts from getting to him.
Hiroaki had enough of listening to the television speak as well, it seemed, and he allowed his finger to come down on the button that would turn the device off. He let out a sigh, one hand coming up to run through his short hair. His fingers came to adjust the candy piece between his teeth after the fact, and he just spun it around as a way of keeping himself busy as the seconds passed by.
Yamato's next action was as sudden for him as it was to everyone else. He walked back in the direction of his room, and when he returned to the main area of the apartment, his guitar was in his hand. He sat down where he had been previously once more, and he propped the guitar up against his leg before he gave a test of a strum as a way of making sure that the instrument still functioned the way that he remembered. It had only been a few short days since he was last given the chance to play the instrument, and yet, it didn't feel right at all that he was back with his guitar. Had it really been a few days since he last picked up the guitar? It felt more like a lifetime, though he supposed that the past day alone felt like it had lasted for a thousand years minimum.
Sora and Hiroaki watched him simply, and the two Digimon in the apartment did the same thing. Yamato knew that he was on the verge of getting overwhelmed by his own thoughts, and he allowed his fingers to strum along the surface of the strings once again. He knew that this was the best way to keep his thoughts from getting to him. After all, if he was focusing on making music, then he wouldn't be able to think about all of the ways that the infected Digimon had ravaged the city over the course of the past day.
He knew that he should have taken solace from the fact that there likely wouldn't be any attacks for a while. After all, this meant that he would have a chance to relax and decompress after the mess that the previous day had been. Instead, he found himself unable to fully keep himself calm, like he knew that there was going to be a whisper in the back of his mind no matter how hard he tried to run. Was there even a point to attempting to escape if he was just going to have to suffer through this again in the future? He would have time to wait until then, but he didn't know if that was a good thing or not.
Yamato needed the break. All of them needed a break, as a matter of fact. The past few events that they had endured were overwhelming, and they needed a few days to step back from the rest of the world, but Yamato didn't think that they were going to be able to get relief. Yamato knew that his thoughts were going to constantly be aimed in the direction of what was to come next. How could he stay away from that? He knew what was going to be next on the eerie path that led to the future, and that wasn't something that he would be able to avoid thinking about no matter how hard he tried.
It wasn't going to end unless he jumped into action, and taking a break wasn't going to bring an end to this nightmare any sooner. The fact that there was pushing taking place from other angles of the barriers between worlds only left extra distress to linger in the back of Yamato's mind. There were two other worlds that had to be saved before he could move on and even dream of seeing peace when he closed his eyes. There was too much to be done, and he couldn't slack off for even a moment. That wasn't realistic, and Yamato was fully aware of it.
Instead of allowing himself to be caught up in the future though, Yamato strummed at the guitar. He hadn't grabbed his pick, seeing no point in it. He needed to feel the rattle of the strings against his fingertips just to ensure him that he was still in the present. He was still real, and that was something that he had to be aware of. Normally, he didn't need reassurance over such an obvious fact, but that day was different. He knew deep down that days were going to be different for a while until after this issue had been resolved for the most part.
Neither Hiroaki nor Sora seemed to particularly mind the fact that Yamato had gone silent. They were both quiet as well, just letting the music fill the apartment. Piyomon leaned her head against Sora's leg, and the redheaded Chosen Child ran one hand through her partner's feathers. Gabumon watched his partner with all the admiration in the world despite the exhaustion that pulled at the corners of his eyes. They weren't happy about being in this situation, but they didn't have much of a choice in the matter. They were just going to have to find a way to power through regardless of their personal opinions for better or worse.
Just take it one step at a time. That was what mattered most. Soon, the Dark Ocean would be out of the picture, and the world of fire would follow soon afterwards. Everything would be fine soon enough. Yamato repeated the mantra until it felt real, but even so, he was fully aware of how superficial it all was.
"Pardon the mess. I didn't realize I was going to be having company, you know?"
Atsuo held open the door to his apartment as Kaya and Chisane entered the space. True to his words, the apartment was a bit of a mess with various objects strewn across anything that would be able to hold them up. Atsuo let out a small sigh before reaching in the direction of a stack of books that had fallen off the shelf as a result of the street outside taking a heavy hit from a Digimon. He placed the books back in their home location before sighing and shutting the door behind himself.
"I see that you're the same way that you were when we were kids," Kaya remarked with a half-hearted snort as she cleared away space from the couch so that she could take a seat. Chisane took up as little space as possible to minimize the number of objects that would have to be displaced, and she practically pressed herself against Kaya's side for better or worse.
"Hey, cut me some slack," Atsuo told her, though his voice lacked any sense of malice. "I've been on tour up until recently, so it's not like I was able to make sure that this place was cleaned up. I was a tad busy, so you can't be too mad at me for needing some time to make sure this place is tidy, you know?"
Kaya shrugged, a good-natured smile on her face. "I'm just kidding, Atsuo. I'm just saying that there are some things that never seem to change even after all this time. You're just as messy as you always were, and Daigo and Maki still clearly have feelings for one another that they aren't ready to admit. Hiraku loves his laptop as much as he always did too... I guess it's good to see that life is still a bit of what I remember it being," she said, her voice taking on an oddly somber note near the end.
At first, nobody was sure about how to respond to Kaya's words. She was completely correct, but that was the terrifying part, it seemed. Chisane's gaze dropped to the ground as guilt overcame her eyes, and she looked as if she wanted to be absorbed by the earth itself until she was able to absolve herself of whatever darkened sensation lived in the back of her mind.
"You know... I'm not mad at you," Atsuo managed to force himself to say a moment later. "I know that you had to leave because of your own reasons, and I'm not mad about that. I know that Maki has been a bit prickly about it, but... I know that it's because she cares. You know that she's not the best when it comes to expressing her emotions. What happened in the Digital World changed us all for better or worse, and she's... She wound up becoming controlling in response."
"If she couldn't look after the people that she cared for the most, then she would get upset and agitated," Chisane murmured, completely familiar with what Atsuo was speaking of. "She had to make sure that everybody was around her, and if they stepped out of her circle... I know why she's all upset at us now. I can hardly even blame her. We did run away from what happened in the Digital World."
"Because a lot happened when we were kids. Sometimes, people grow up, and life changes," Kaya remarked, her voice hardened at the edges. "We did what was best for us when the time arrived, and there's nothing wrong with the fact that we had to step away from Odaiba in order to make sure that we were alright. There's nothing to be ashamed of about what happened. We made the right choice for ourselves, and that's what matters most. There's no reason to feel guilty about it."
Chisane sighed, glancing out the nearby window with sorrowful eyes. "Atsuo, I... I still feel like I should apologize for what happened when we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. It was nothing against you or the rest of the group. I just want you to know that. It's not that we hate you or anything like that," she told him.
"I get it," Atsuo assured her. "The Digital World did a lot, and you had to take a step away from it so that you didn't have to deal with the aftermath too much. We all know about how the barrier can hurt you when it grows to be too unstable, so it's natural that you left after all that happened. You did what you had to. I know that I'm not entirely innocent in terms of not abandoning Odaiba either. I mean, going on tour with my band... I like seeing the rest of the world, but beyond that, I couldn't stay here forever either. I just remembered too much."
Quiet came down to hang heavily over the trio. They could all still remember the day that they had been taken to the Digital World. They had been out at summer camp for various reasons. Since they all attended the same school, they were granted the fortune (or perhaps it was misfortune) of being together when they found an old screen that was on the verge of complete collapse. Atsuo had been ridiculously childish enough to kick it in a moment of what he had claimed at the time to be genius, and the screen came to life a moment later before dragging all of them under its influence. That was when they were pulled into the Digital World, and from there, they met their partners, earned their Digivices, and fought off Apocalymon so that he found a home behind the Wall of Fire in the northern regions of the Digital World.
There were many smaller details about their adventure that went unmentioned. After all, at times, nostalgia could be as painful as current experience. None of them wanted to fully be forced to acknowledge what they had been through. The Digital World had once been a lawless place before Homeostasis brought down her sense of order. She laid the groundwork, and from there, various Digimon came together to contribute to the peace, exhausted of constantly having to fight for their right to live. Even after the Harmonious Ones were unable to help to maintain this sense of peace due to being sealed away by the Dark Masters, the Digital World saw relative order in comparison to what had once been the law of the realm.
Atsuo shuddered as he remembered the first time that he saw a Digimon splinter into little more than dust. He had learned later on that Digimon were all reborn into eggs in the Village of Beginnings after their deaths, but he had still cried and punched a tree trunk in anger that he had seen the death of a living creature in the first place. Behind his hardened exterior with all of his open confidence, he was a sensitive soul, and witnessing a murder of a Digimon had been the first crack in the armor.
The worst times had been when the Digimon that died were friends. That had hurt a lot more than any of them expected. Chisane and Kaya had been separated from the rest of the group at one point, and they witnessed something that they had only been able to describe as a bloodbath after the fact. Chisane hadn't been able to stop crying until her body had no other sobs to release from between her frail lips. That had changed all of them, and caution had become the law of their shared lives. How else were they meant to survive in a place that wanted them dead?
They fought against their fair share of evil Digimon, but there was little more that could be said on the matter. They had all been unrelated incidents of darkened creatures that were hoping to exert their power over the Digital World, and they had moved on as soon as possible. All of the Chosen Children were seeking a life far from the eyes of combat where they could live only with their partner Digimon. They spoke of their dreams around a circle of twelve near an improvised campfire across different locations in the Digital World. They were fully aware of how unrealistic such dreams were, but they were whispered into the night sky regardless.
Atsuo shook off the memories with as much force as he could manage. He didn't want to think about the past more than he absolutely had to, and that felt like the kind way of putting it. He let out a sigh to pull Kaya and Chisane from their own bittersweet reminiscence as well. "So... They're going to have to get into the Dark Ocean to take out the monsters that are pushing the barrier there," he said. Atsuo was barely aware of the words that he had spoken to change the subject until after they had left his lips.
Chisane and Kaya glanced over in his direction before nodding in sync, just as intertwined in mind and body as they had been as polar opposite best friends when they were all in fifth grade and stumbling mindlessly through life. "Do you think that the monster that's causing all of these problems is the same one that was after Maki when we were kids?" Kaya asked, her voice soft and dreadfully lacking in the normal confidence and bluntness that had come to be Kaya's brand.
Atsuo sighed, hating how suddenly vulnerable and fractured he sounded. "It wouldn't surprise me," he admitted under his breath. He could still remember the string of events all too well even though part of him wishes that he could forget. Maki had fallen into a downward spiral, unable to pull herself free of the despair that threatened to consume her entire being. The Dark Ocean's gateway had opened before her, and she had wandered through it with tears in her eyes and grief in her heart. They hadn't known that it was called that at the time-the Dark Ocean-but the name was fitting enough that Atsuo was willing to overlook his past ignorance in favor of what had to be done at present.
The next few hours had been terrifying, a series of happenings that would live in Atsuo's mind for the rest of his life. The world of shadow and sea was terrifying, and Maki had stood on the shore with a salty wind in her hair and the waves lapping at her ankles. She hadn't even noticed that they were there, too focused on staring down at her hands. The marks of her Crests had pulsed at the center of her palms, and she was simply entranced at the sight of the symbols. It wasn't until Daigo's hand fell upon her shoulder that she finally responded, and the grief and anguish in her eyes had stolen the breath from Atsuo's lips before he realized what was happening.
That was when the shadow appeared, towering high above the six Chosen Children. When they were separated, the Dark Ocean did everything that it could to tear them to pieces. Insecurities manifested in the shadowy water, and all they could do was stare down at the reflections that looked back at them. When they found their ways back to one another, they had fought off the figure that had been responsible for the attack in the first place. The beast had been after Maki's Crest of Light, hoping to use the power to fully exert his control over the Dark Ocean. When she defied him, finally managing to escape the spiral of pain that had overcome her, she had managed to hurt him with her overwhelming light of carnation. He had screamed, repelled for the moment but not killed.
Their salvation had come in the form of Bakumon, Maki's partner. No Child Digimon had ever held as much power as that small creature, and he was all that it took for the Chosen Children to make their escape from the scene. Maki was able to tear a hole in the sky through her pure determination, finally given the chance to return to Passion after her time of anguish, and they had rolled through the barrier with bruises littering their youthful skin. Nobody had wanted to believe that what they saw had been real, but they knew the fact of the matter. They had seen something terrifying, and they would never be able to forget about what had happened.
"I hope that they're able to do it," Chisane murmured, holding onto the words like they were the only things keeping her from completely falling apart. Atsuo was sure that Chisane and Kaya had been sent back to those times in the darkened waters so many years prior as well, and the vacant expressions that lived on their faces all of a sudden acted as evidence and witness to melancholy whisperings of shadow and sea.
"I'm sure they'll be fine," Atsuo assured her. "After all, we were able to pull it off. We escaped without even having any Ultimate Digimon on our side. They've got a lot of Ultimates on their team, and they know what they're doing now. I'm confident that they'll be able to figure everything out before we even know what's going on." He smiled, hating how strained the grin felt at the corners of his lips. He knew that he was trying to convince himself just as much as Chisane. No matter how much faith he had in the Chosen Children, he knew that he wouldn't be able to easily escape the influence of his past trauma. Nothing was ever that easy.
"They had better be. I'm not about to deal with the blood of thirteen young corpses on my fingers," Kaya muttered. She was surely aware of how grotesque her remark sounded, but she didn't comment on it in the slightest. Instead, she simply looked down at her palms, almost as if she expected the markings of her Crests to appear to her the same way that they had formed in front of Maki so many years prior as she pushed through the grief that nearly drowned her in those darkened waters.
Nobody dared to speak for a long time after that, and Atsuo's foot tapped against the ground below as a way of getting out the energy that was desperately seeking an escape from his body. He didn't like that they were in this situation either, but the very least that he could do was put up a front of positivity. He needed it just as much as everyone else, and beyond that, he had to have faith. The Chosen Children were going to be fine. He was sure of it.
After all, he wasn't about to let history repeat itself.
Next chapter is the end of act two! Damn, I can't believe that we're in this situation! Lots of progress is being made now, huh?
This chapter and the next chapter are going to act as a sort of moment of catch-up before we start act three. I'm looking forward to the third act since that's where a lot of the character development comes back full circle. There's been little hints scattered about, but this is going to be the chance where a lot of it comes to light, and I can't wait for it. Act three is also where we get to take advantage of Tri having a darker storyline in canon. Granted, this story is dark in a different way, but the fundamental idea of being a bit darker than Adventure and Zero Two remains.
Okay, if I keep talking about it like that, I'm going to just be weird and ominous, so I'll let that part of the story speak for itself when the time comes. Speaking of, this chapter is really great in my eyes. I love these little character moments, just taking a moment to step back and let the characters stand on their own two feet. Plus, there's extra development for the previous Chosen Children, and that's always fun. I have to make up for the fact that they get the backseat hard in act three (and to a lesser extent, act four) now, so there you go.
Anyways, I'm going to leave this chapter off here. Thank you for reading! Next week, I'll be back with the finale of act two! Until then, I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback is always appreciated. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital