One
Earthquakes were nothing new to the people of Japan. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, tectonic activity was the norm, not the exception, and the population had adapted accordingly. Buildings were built to exacting specifications and the population drilled in what to do should one occur, and they were treated no differently than any other seasonal weather that occurred around the globe. The only real problems came about when the seismic activity went beyond what was expected.
Daisuke Motomiya groaned in dismay as he experienced exactly this, looking up at his family's apartment building as a group of civil engineers cordoned it off following a particularly bad earthquake only the day before, a magnitude 8.1 that had taken Tokyo and its surrounding regions by surprise, and was playing merry hell with everything.
No end of roads, bridges and railways were torn up, or were damaged enough they had to be repaired before they could be used, which meant supplies had a hard time coming in, and people had a hard time going out. The quake had also disrupted basic utilities like water and power, meaning the SDF had to bring everything in for the people that had nothing, and the phone lines were down or jammed, meaning Daisuke had no way of contacting anyone.
Worse, though, was that his building had been deemed unsafe by inspectors and everyone was ordered out, lest they be trapped inside if the whole thing came down. He looked up at the rough spot where his apartment was, where his most prized possessions were, and groaned again. Daisuke didn't like the idea of leaving them there, only to come back and find they were now buried under several dozen tons of rubble.
It was a sentiment shared by the other residents as they, like Daisuke, stood outside the building. None of them carried much more than a rucksack containing a spare set of clothes, maybe some food, and whatever trinkets and mementoes they couldn't bare to leave behind. Nearby, one of the engineers was using a loudspeaker to assure them that alternative housing would be found, that they should remain calm, and to avoid breaching the exclusion zone in place around the building.
The only saving grace Daisuke could think of was that the rest of his family was away on vacation in the States, meeting friends and relatives, whilst he remained behind because of work. In fact, the same could be said for most of his close friends, too.
Taichi, Joe and Meiko were in the Digital World, supposedly to give representatives from Japan a tour of the place, though Daisuke knew his mentor was using it as an excuse to have a trip away from his family with his girlfriend, Joe being there only to play chaperone. Yamato and Sora were doing much the same thing, though in Paris rather than the Digital World, and Takeru had gone with them only so he could meet up with Catherine, a French DigiDestined he had met ten years ago and become smitten with.
Closer to home, Iori was attending a kendo tournament in Kyoto with his grandfather and mother, and Ken and Miyako had headed north to Sapporo. Mimi was supposed to have gone with them but changed her mind at the airport, opting to fly to New York instead after seeing the next flight out had spaces available.
That left Daisuke, Hikari and Koushiro as the only DigiDestined in Odaiba, and the only ones that had suffered through the earthquake.
'Lucky us,' Daisuke muttered darkly to himself, hitching his rucksack a little higher on his shoulder.
He pulled out his D-Terminal to see if anyone had left any messages but there were none, though that probably had to do with the lack of a signal. The little icon in the corner of the screen was flashing a warning, a reminder that nothing cellular was working, so Daisuke shoved the device back into his pocket and resumed looking at his building.
It was a safe bet that tonight's bed would be a narrow cot in a cramped stadium somewhere, or a tent on an open field, or a hotel pressganged into sheltering the displaced people, none of which Daisuke looked forward to. Tensions would be high amongst everyone and the close proximity would be prime territory for people with sticky fingers.
He figured a decent night's rest would not be on the menu for tonight, but at least it was better than sleeping rough in the streets where he'd be an even bigger target.
With that being said, there was one possible alternative Daisuke could think of. The Yagami apartment wasn't too far away and there was always the chance it hadn't been condemned like his own, and with Taichi away in the Digital World he knew there was a bed going spare. Daisuke doubted Hikari would turn him away if that was the case, not without a good reason.
His destination fixed, Daisuke started to make his way through the crowded streets of Odaiba, fighting through the crowds of fellow displaced residents and emergency service vehicles that had come to render them aid. He could have gotten to the Yagami apartment much quicker by having Veemon digivolve into ExVeemon, except his partner was away in the Digital World. Spending too long in the real world sapped at their strength, so periodically they went back for a few days, a week at most, to recharge.
It then struck Daisuke that the earthquake had knocked out most forms of communication, meaning there wouldn't be any internet to connect them to the Digital World. For the time being, Veemon and the rest of the Digimon were separated from their partners.
Apprehension tugged at Daisuke when he realised this, fearing that some all-powerful entity might choose now to attack, when so many of the DigiDestined were dispersed around the world and without their partners. But then he relaxed. There hadn't been any hints of a new villain rising up in the Digital World, the threats posed from that otherworldly realm simply being primal Digimon suddenly finding their way into the real world.
If anything the bigger threat was at home, coming from numerous anti-Digimon groups that seemed to spring up overnight all across the globe, but they were being dealt with by the various world governments.
Thus reassured, Daisuke allowed a grin to creep onto his face despite his surroundings and trod the path he knew by heart to the apartment building where Hikari lived. As he did, he passed by a lone figure sitting on a low wall that seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere. They were just sitting and watching the chaos around them with a detached interest from behind a pair of silvered aviators, head nodding slightly in time with an unknown beat.
Their gaze seemed stuck on Daisuke, though, tracking him as he moved with the crowd and once he was far enough away, the figure raised a hand to their mouth and spoke into a microphone near their wrist.
'Delta-9 moving west, towards Delta-8,' they said. 'No sign of the partner Digimon.'
'Acknowledged,' a tinny voice replied, coming from a covert earpiece. 'Follow at distance and continue observations. Delta-6 moving towards Delta-8 as well. We might be able to intercept all three at once.'
'Solid copy,' the figure said, lumbering to their feet. 'Continuing observations.'