Updated as of December 12th, 2020. I went back and reworked chapters 1-8, some much more than others. If they just say edited for grammar I didn't change anything else. If it says content it probably impacts the story and you'll want to re-read it.

Enjoy friends!

Hello, welcome to this new story! I'm going to be playing with a fair amount of time jumping so if it gets confusing please let me know in reviews so I can tweak things. This is something I've been working on for over a year now and I finally decided to just post it so I would have more motivation to write. I'll update as often as possible.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Characters outside of those from the show are mine.

Light Magic

Chapter One - Treacherous

Kari

People stared.

It could have been my dark brown hair. Which had settled half in and out of a bun. Maybe it was the way my shirt was ripped at the sleeve and hanging slightly off my arm. It may have been the wild look that I'm sure covered my face, or the blood on my lip, and the bruise around my eye.

It was probably that last part.

I found a seat in the corner of the train and people slid away from me, weary of the disheveled traveler. I reached into my backpack and found a sweatshirt, pulled it on roughly throwing the hood up, wishing to become invisible.

I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. Now that I was sitting and the adrenaline was wearing off I felt dizzy and my face was throbbing. I would have given anything for an aspirin or a drink. I just wanted to be less coherent. I wanted this day to just be a bad lie. My mind was trying to calculate how cataclysmic this was on the weird trauma scale that was my life, maybe it was my brain's way of trying to keep me safe, convince me I'd been through worse. Maybe if I believed it I could survive this too then I'd be okay. I'd seen death, experienced battle, war, I'd lost so much already. It wasn't long though before I got into "fair" territory, but life didn't care about fairness or how good of a person you were, there was just what was true and how you responded to it.

I took a breath. I told myself that I was safe, for now, and I was going home. The day played out over in my head, that morning felt so far away now, but my nightmare felt more real than ever. I wasn't sure if the train was cold or if I once again had the permanent chill of the ocean flowing through my veins.

Last night I'd woken up to the sound of labored breathing. Not knowing it was mine. I felt so outside of myself, soaking wet, but at the same time feeling almost nothing at all. Just cold, so cold. The sensation came back to my toes first, tingling as a reminder that they were still connected to my body and that my body was indeed in my bed.

It was so long ago that I was in that place, and it made me feel like a child again, wishing to peak up into the top bunk to wake my brother. Or grab my phone and text those preset numbers for my best friend, so he'd know where to go. Now, I was alone hours away from who I used to be, racing to catch my breath.

I got out of bed, grabbed the set of worn tarot cards from my desk, and unwrapped them with shaking hands. I shuffled them, asking a question I already knew the answer to.

I drew The Devil.

I drew The Devil again, and again. Even though there was only one Devil in a deck. I dropped the cards as 78 Devils fluttered to the ground, staring up at me, taunting me. I stepped back horrified at the impossibility of what I was seeing, even though I'd learned long ago that the impossible didn't exist in my life. I pushed myself into a corner, muttering words of protection to myself, hoping something or someone would hear me.

I fell asleep like that, leaning against my wall, and woke with a crick in my neck. I dragged myself back toward the cards, afraid to see, but they were back to normal. Their archetypal images looked back at me as if nothing was amiss. I shuffled them back together, but as I did one fell out, suddenly looking up at me was The Sun. A vision flashed before my eyes, just for a moment, from my dream the night before. His warm hand as it clutched my arm, pulling me away from the shadows and back towards the light, his blue eyes.

I fell into my bed and curled myself into a tight ball, scared, tired, and alone. I thought of him, his warmth, the way it had felt to be close to him, and the hole my life had without him in it. It wasn't fair, but again nothing was. They say it takes half the time of knowing someone to get over them, but four years had passed and the thought of him still made my heart ache. How is it possible to feel so connected to someone you haven't spoken to in years? Did he look the way I'd remembered or had time changed him? Were we both actually there in the dream or was it nothing but a nightmare?

It was thoughts of him now though that calmed my racing heart, almost being murdered really has a way of putting heartache on the backburner. I had nothing to go back to in Kyoto anymore. Everything I'd built over the past four years had been destroyed in a matter of hours. I felt like I was being drawn back towards home, back to safety, so I curled my knees into my chest and hoped I was heading in the right direction.

TK

I hadn't had a nightmare in years. Therapy, and meds, had put an end to my own demons a long time ago. Waking last night though was like being shot. I felt hot, a tightness in my chest, and an empty feeling in my hand where she should have been. Years since I'd dreamed, and years since I'd seen her face so clearly.

She looked different, her face thinner and her hair slightly longer, but I knew it was her. Her brown eyes had locked on mine for a moment before I woke and the fear in them made it impossible for my heart to stop racing. The urge to call her was so strong, but the sad truth was that I no longer had her number. She'd changed it long ago when she moved away like so many of the others, probably looking to escape a tragic childhood that some of us never properly dealt with.

Once the gate closed it was like people couldn't scatter fast enough. I'd always thought more kept us together than duty, but I'd been wrong about that, like so much else.

The dream wasn't nothing. I knew it wasn't nothing. I laid back in my bed that night and tried to imagine I was there, wherever she was, protecting her from the darkness I thought we'd banished long ago. I felt warm as I drifted off to sleep, fingers tingling, and a sense that I'd done something right even though I didn't know what.

When I woke up this morning the unsettled feeling returned, having little sleep and the images of the dream from the night before floating through my mind. I knew I needed a second opinion. I put myself together, throwing on a pair of shorts and an old T-shirt, grabbed my backpack, and was out the door. I backtracked as I passed my normal coffee shop, feeling the need for comfort on what felt like an abnormal day. It feels silly in hindsight, my clinging to some sort of normalcy, but I'm grateful I did it. I'd need the coffee.

I walked up the steps to Tai's apartment and started to worry I was being dramatic. Why was I making such a big deal out of a dream? I stood at the door, kicking my shoes into the old red carpet working up my nerve. It wasn't like it would be weird for me to show up, we'd remained close, probably the closest of everyone. As the rest of them scattered and lived their lives away from the digital world, we held on. We continued to grow, went to school, became adults, but we kept the bond that brought us all together. Izzy remained as well, not always physically close, but still in constant inquiry about the world that we were spirited away to as children.

There was something about barging in on Tai and trying to explain having a dream about his sister though. He knew the truth, well most of the truth, about how I'd felt before she'd left and why I never told her. It was one thing to know and another to actively talk about it. It felt weird and obsessive and I almost turned around and went home to save myself the awkward conversation.

Why now? Why after all these years? I just couldn't shake it, so I took a breath, knocked on the door, and waited. I heard some commotion from the other side, some muffled yelling back and forth before the door opened to a wide-eyed Tai.

"I was just about to text you, get in here." He grasped onto my arm, in the same place I'd held onto hers in my dream the night before. There was a flash of it again, his eyes replaced with hers, searching for the clarity that it was actually me. Gone. Just as quickly as the flash came and I was back in the room with Tai and was surprised, but not shocked, to find Izzy there as well.

It was like being transported into the past, watching him type away on his computer, not even registering my entrance. Tai nervously paced back and forth, leaving me in the hallway with no explanation. Tai's kitchen looked a little worse for wear, the remainder of empty beer bottles, tea bottles, and takeout littered the counter. It looked like they had been up all night working.

"Here!" Izzy sat back while Tai and I made our way over to him.

"What are we looking at?" I asked.

"Remember the lines, when our worlds were merging together?" Izzy pointed towards the screen showing what I assumed was our world line, flickering in and out with another line popping into the screen, like subliminal messaging. Blink and you'd miss it.

"Yea, but we closed the gate, how would that be possible?" Tai's voice held a bit of wonder, possibly excitement.

"Because it's not the digital world. It's the ocean." Izzy's voice didn't hold emotion, it was mechanical, just the truth. The weight of it hung over the room.

"Guys, we need to talk." They both looked at me, finally giving me their full attention, as I started to tell them my dream from last night.

Kari

This morning, when I finally gained the courage to pull myself from my bed I texted Nadia, the only one here who would understand, and got ready to face the world. I walked into the bathroom and turned on the water for a shower but the second it hit my skin I felt burned, afraid. I turned it off and stepped back, taking a breath and getting myself together. I was safe. I was here. I was not in the ocean. I backed out of the room, the cold tile on my feet exchanged for the warmth of the carpet in my bedroom.

I got ready the best I could without a shower. I dabbed at the dark circles under my eyes with some concealer and swiped some mascara over my lashes so I would at least look awake, even though I felt like the walking dead. I tossed my shoulder-length hair up into a messy bun, pulled on a pair of high waisted shorts, tucked a button-down shirt in, slid my feet into a pair of combat boots, and ran out of my apartment. I felt lighter once I was out, breathing in the fresh air, grateful for the warm day, and the feeling of the sun against my skin.

Nadia was the first, and only real friend I'd made when I moved away for school. She was eclectic but sophisticated. She wore black like the color belonged to her, and a piece of crystal quartz hung from her neck on a silver chain. Her hair was dyed blonde at the ends, perfectly blended into her darker brown roots. She didn't splurge on much, but her hair was the exception. Her eyes were hazel and always had an otherworldly look to them, seemingly changing colors with her mood.

She'd come right up to me on that first day of college, "They were not subtle when naming you," her mouth had twitched into a small smile as she spoke, and her eyes danced with the light. I'd been confused, how she'd even known my name. I'd been standing in the courtyard with too many fliers in my hands for clubs and parties, being too polite to turn them down, when all I'd been trying to do was grab my class list. She laughed when I'd asked if she was my RA and if she could direct me to the right table. I didn't know how else she'd have known my name. Her eyes had shimmered in delight, she laughed grabbing the fliers and taking me by the hand. She tossed them out and helped me towards the right table. Once I was finished all she'd said was, "come on," and weirdly I'd just followed her without a second thought. I had no friends, and my roommate seemed too cool for me, so I followed her.

I followed her that day and every one after it.

I'd come to learn about her gifts over time as she guided me into my own. She was a witch and had all eight Clair senses, and she was guided to me by something larger than us. I was a witch too, and life would never be the same.

I was in disbelief at first, a witch, how could that even be real? Then, sensing my shock she said, "A digital world is within the realm of possibility but somehow being a witch and believing in magic is too much?"

I laughed, she was right, my life experience had been otherworldly. How could this be where I drew the line on believability. Also, the fact that she even knew about the digital world without ever having a partner made it easier to believe in her psychic abilities. With a touch of my arm, she recanted moments from our adventures, so it was hard to call her a liar. There was something in me that was also desperate to believe it was true. For years my body had been taken over by beings in the digital world, no one else, and it always felt unfair and strange. She explained that they'd used me as a vessel since I was already connected to magic. I didn't fully understand it at first, and I think I was just longing to be part of something again. Over time she taught me to tap into my own Clair abilities, the digital beings speaking through me suddenly became more understandable.

The next few years were spent learning, in school, and with her. More important than anything else, she taught me how to protect myself, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't being held back or shielded from something.

She'd said, "You're like a lighthouse guiding ships back home. Creatures are going to be drawn to you like a moth to a flame and darker energies want to absorb that light, deplete you and dull your power. Your existence is a threat to their own so you need to be able to keep yourself safe."

She said I had so much dormant power, and she could teach me how to use it. We became, in a sense, our own little coven. By day we went to our classes, I studied photography and she studied history, and by night she taught me all that she knew of the magic that lived inside of us. I felt seen in a new way, in a way that made me feel in control, a person with the power to take care of myself, instead of a girl in constant need of protection.

Then, Kato appeared a few months ago, as if out of thin air. He was handsome, alarmingly so, with dark eyes and dark hair, his skin a perfect caramel color. Unlike Nadia, he was always wearing white, it made him stick out, the crisp color against his darker features made him even more striking. He came to us the same way Nadia had come to me, a homing beacon she'd called me, and like a moth, to the light, he was guided to us.

All because of me.

He was powerful, she felt him coming a day before he even showed up. I remember the way she'd been dousing, meditating, and doing everything she could to figure out which side he was on. He seemed to know more than her, he said his family had a lineage, whereas she was self-taught. He said he wanted to teach us, but she was wary, curious about what he wanted in return. I argued back, she'd done the same for me, when I had nothing to offer her. It was our first and only fight, she'd told me I'd never understand what I'd given her, and she refused to explain. I felt angry and left in the dark, again, as I'd been as a child. She finally caved and half heartily accepted that our duo was now a trio, begging me to avoid being alone with him.

It confused me. He was kind, to us and to others, and never gave us a reason to expect anything else. There was also the fact that he was beautiful and I found that I was drawn to him in a way I hadn't been drawn to someone in years. I wondered if my broken heart might finally be mending.

I was naive.

I was always so damn naive.

When I got to her apartment this morning the door was already ajar. I paused, knowing the second my hand touched the knob that something was wrong. It's called clairsentience, clear feeling. My least favorite gift. When you got that jolt, that feeling so sharp and harsh that something bad has happened. I promise you'd rather not know. I felt a darkness wash over me but at the core of her home, it felt simply empty. I called to her with no reply. Everything was in its place, her kitchen counter covered in jars of dried herbs, and fresh flowers on her table. I made my way into her living room where she had high ceilings that she adored, and it's where I found her hanging, in the highest point in her home.

I wanted to scream but nothing came out of my mouth. I backed myself against the wall, taking her in, certain that she was already gone. Her body was almost still, but swayed just the slightest bit, her eyes open and looking down at me. The lovely color of her eyes made to look otherworldly by the bluish tone her skin had taken. Her mouth hung open, gasping for the last breath that never came. She looked wrong, so much like her, but so void of all the things that made her who she was.

"Take the book," I heard inside my head. I wanted it to be her, but it wasn't her voice, it was one of the many I'd become accustomed to over the past few years. Clairaudience, clear hearing, had felt like a curse the first time I understood what was happening. Crazy people heard voices in their heads, but so did some witches, and I was one of them. The voices I heard had never been alive, they were of the spirit world, like guides.

"Take the book," it said more forcefully, jolting me away from her body and into her room. I closed the door behind me and slid onto the floor, feeling my eyes fill up and spillover. I let out a wail and let myself sob. She was my anchor, my teacher, my family. She was all I had left in this world in terms of real connection, and she was gone.

"You have to go," the voice said gently. I shook my head, angry that Spirit was pushing me at this moment. "It's not safe," it startled me then. I took a few breaths and wiped my face clean. I pushed myself up and went into her top desk drawer where her book of shadows was hidden, there was a false bottom in the drawer that she hid all her most important items in, next to it was her dagger which I took as well, placing it into my boot.

As I left her room I heard a different voice, "Keep your head down," and I did, letting myself be protected from the image further ingraining itself into my mind. I wanted to remember her flipping her hair after a joke, her eyes as she crafted a new spell, and the way she always smelled like lavender. How could someone so full of life, so young, just be gone? I let the door click behind me and I took a seat on her steps, grabbed my phone with shaky hands, and called the police. Part of me felt guilty leaving her alone in there but I couldn't stand to be with her body and not her soul.

When the police arrived they took my statement. They asked if I knew she was depressed if she'd ever talked about taking her own life or been fascinated by death. As I told them, "no," they seemed unconvinced, I'm sure the items in her home didn't help this cause. She had a healthy relationship with death, and several books on the topic, but she wasn't seeking it. At one point a neighbor came over and quietly confirmed that I had only recently arrived, so if this did turn out to be foul play it seemed that I would not be a suspect.

Once they were satisfied with me they asked if I needed to be taken somewhere, but I declined. I told them I just needed air and asked them to let me know if they needed anything else.

Once I got back to my apartment I fell to the ground, pounding my fists into my carpet, angry, scared, and confused. She was not depressed. She was not suicidal. Why would she do this? Why would she leave me alone? My dream from earlier felt years away, now that I was truly living in a nightmare.

I grabbed her book and looked through with blurry eyes, her delicate handwriting covered the pages with all she knew of the craft until it stopped being about that. There were pages and pages in code that I didn't understand. I knew some witches coded their books but Nadia hadn't in all the time I'd known her. Some pages were covered with numbers and others in sentences that read like gibberish. I looked to the back to see what her last entry was.

"Kato." Was written as her last entry. It was quick, scratched in, unlike the other carefully written pages. I shut the book tight and shoved it back into my bag feeling sick. Sick because I didn't have to wonder if it was true. The voices in my head were layered over each other saying yes over and over again until I yelled for them to stop.

5 Years Earlier - Kari

I woke up soaked with sweat as if a fever just broke. My hair was stuck to my head and my pajamas felt damp from my neck down. I tried to calm my breathing, I was safe in my room, and after checking my phone I saw that it was just after one in the morning.

I got up, pacing a bit, and looked up towards the empty bunk above me that my brother used to occupy. He'd been away at university for about three years now, no longer here to bring me back to reality after a horrifying dream. I tore off my sticky clothing and threw on a clean pair of leggings and my friend's hoodie that he'd left behind after a study session a few nights earlier.

It smelled like him, woodsy and earthy, it grounded me back to the world a bit. I quietly opened the door and made my way down the hall, before leaving my apartment and hurrying out into the night. Once outside I let the cool early autumn air crash against my skin, I was able to deepen my breath as I made my way down the quiet street, towards the beach. The neighborhood was always quiet at night, it was safe, so I never worried about taking a walk if I had a nightmare that was particularly awful. When I got to my destination I was surprised to see a boy standing in the sand near the water, his shaggy blonde hair swayed slightly with the wind. He had on shorts, a long sleeve shirt, and sneakers with no socks on, like he'd rushed out quickly, or in a panic.

The boy turned towards me, his eyes widening at first, surprised, before they narrowed and a smirk grew across his face.

"That's where my hoodie went?"

I felt my face heat up, I'd been caught.

I made my way towards him, "It was laying on the floor and I ran out in a hurry," I rationalized.

"I'm just teasing," he said. I stopped in front of him and his eyes glossed over me, searching for signs of pain or injury, "Why are you out here?" His hand rested gently on my shoulder.

"Isn't it the same reason you're out here?" I looked up, searching his eyes.

His hand fell, "You dreamed it too?"

"Yes?"

"Shit."

"Shit is right," I sighed.

"How'd you know?" He sat down, digging his sneakers into the sand. I did the same, resting my weight back onto my hands.

"I dunno, It's like I could feel you there, in the ocean." I paused, thinking clearly about it and realizing he was the only one I felt. Maybe it was the subconscious knowledge that my brother wasn't as accessible anymore, but I couldn't figure out how TK dreamed it as well, did I pull him in with me somehow? We always had a strange connection to each other, more so than anyone else in the group. When he was sad or in pain it was like I could feel it in my bones. The last thing I wanted though was our connection to drag him down into the ocean with me.

"Somethings coming?" He asked, and I nodded in response. I'd had a terrible tie to the other world that I never understood. I could feel it differently and something was indeed coming.

"We need to call Izzy tomorrow and see if there was a disturbance, but maybe it was just a dream." TK was keeping his voice even and gentle, trying to keep me calm, always trying to ground me.

"Just a dream that we both had that brought us to the same place in the middle of the night?"

"I mean, this is kind of our place."

"We have a place?" My voice got a bit too high and I felt my face go red.

"Oh hush, you know what I mean."

I felt warm again, as the heat rushed to my face, something that had been happening more often than not when it came to him lately. TK had been my best friend for the past nine years of my life, recently I'd been seeing him differently, but every time I shoved it away. I wasn't ready to battle that, what it could mean, and how it could blow up in my face. It felt easier not to chance losing him because I wasn't sure I could live without him at this point.

"What was yours like?" His voice was quiet, almost lost with the wind. There was something I didn't hear often weaving its way through his words, fear.

"I heard them calling to me, telling me it was time, and I could feel you there but I couldn't find you. It was like your aura was palpable, but physically no one was in sight, and then a wave crashed over me and I was washed out to sea. Then I woke up."

He stayed quiet, his fists clenched at his sides, and I could tell he was chewing on the inside of his mouth, trying to stay calm.

"I saw it."

"What?"

"I saw it happening. You, out in the water, those things coming towards you. I kept calling, but you didn't acknowledge it. Suddenly there was a light, I don't know what it came from, but it was blinding, and then I was awake."

We both sat with this. My mind tossing and turning around ideas trying to figure out how and why we were in the same awful nightmare.

"Were we actually there?" He asked the thing I was too afraid to confront.

"I don't know," I pulled my legs tight against my body and wrapped my arms around them. I looked out at the water in front of me, somehow calmed by it, even as the nightmare washed over me. Until the dark ocean, I had always loved the water, the ocean, the rain. I felt a connection to it that I could never properly articulate, maybe that's why the ocean always chooses me.

I felt his hand against my back pulling me back to the beach, "We'll figure it out."

"You always do that," I said.

"What?"

"Believe in us," I looked towards him and was pleased that he was the one turning red now. His shoulders relaxed a bit and he unclenched his jaw letting his face soften.

"Are you still alone?" I asked.

"Yea she's gone until Monday," I knew his mother had been gone this week on assignment but thought she'd come home before the weekend started.

"Do you want to come back and stay at my place?"

"Sure."

He stood up and brushed himself off, reaching for my hand to help me up. We'd had sleepovers since we were little, but they'd obviously dwindled as we'd aged. Over the past year though it wasn't out of the ordinary for him to crash at my place when his mother was gone, now that there was always an empty bed above mine. She'd been traveling more for work over the past year and he was terrible at taking care of himself. Matt, when left to his own devices, learned how to cook like an adult at twelve, TK at seventeen was more likely to microwave ramen than make himself a real meal. My mother was more than happy to have another mouth to feed, and TK would eat anything so she could get as weird as she wanted to the detriment of my own stomach.

We made our way back to my place in silence. His unease had returned, his back ridged as we walked and his eyes on alert as if the ocean would swallow us whole right on the street. It wasn't often that worry was evident when it came to TK. He was naturally cheery and optimistic, it unsettled me when he drifted from that normal pattern and into the darker depths of his mind. They were there though, he could sink as easily as I could if he let himself. We both had a terrible habit of suppressing our feelings when we thought it would strain the others, forced to be strong and brave at eight years old wasn't something I'd wish on anyone. The loss we'd both been through had left scars that neither of us wanted to focus on.

We snuck back into my apartment and to my bedroom. He hopped up into the top bunk, and I curled myself back into my own bed, keeping on his hoodie, choosing to stay surrounded by the comfort of him.

"Kari?"

"Yea?"

"Everything will be okay." His voice betrayed him, a slight waiver, and I wondered if he said it more for himself than for me.

"Goodnight, TK"

"Night."

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