A week from today I will be a full-time student again. The updates have been coming on a pretty regular basis up until now. Let's hope I can keep that up to at least once a month… That's the goal anyway. But just in case… Kindly accept this especially long chapter as gift. Also, there's a flashback in this chapter. Read carefully, so you don't get lost.

As a little side note, I found myself spending a lot of time on real-world research for this chapter. I'm not terribly familiar with Japan and its geography, so you'll have to excuse any mistakes there, but here's what I found: We all remember the battle in Odaiba when the kids return to fight Myotismon in the original series. (Digimon fans have even put together an 'Odaiba Day' in celebration of that anniversary, in case you were unaware of that.) But Highton View Terrace is Nerima, which I don't think is ever explicitly mentioned… Hopefully that saves you from any confusion.

Thank you for reviewing chapter five: Guest, Angelfish369, ToastyToaster22, and Sweet Cari! I love reading all of your predictions, and I hope you continue to enjoy this story!

Chapter Six: Breakthrough

This was not part of their summer plans. Kari tried to tell herself that Yolei was so disorganized anyway, maybe the sudden change wouldn't bother her too much. They were supposed to be headed to the ocean today. The first beach trip since school let out for the summer break. But, upon waking that morning, Kari had been struck by a certain resolve. Her parents already expected her to be gone for the day. She wasn't sure when another opportunity would arise.

She wasn't looking forward to convincing Yolei—or breaking the news, if the other girl didn't want to join her—but Kari was going back to Highton View Terrace. The scene of the crime, she could imagine Cody calling it. She hadn't been back since her family had moved away, but now she needed to see it. She hadn't had another… episode since her journey to the nurse's office right before school let out, and her dreams had returned to normal too. This probably should have been something of a relief—an indication that she wasn't going crazy after all—but instead she just felt even more lost. Had the answers been within reach only to evade her yet again?

She had to find out. And if seeing the place where it all went down didn't jog her memory, Kari wasn't sure what would.

"Good morning, Mrs. Inoue," she greeted. Kari didn't have much experience with lying, but she figured the key was to appear as normal as possible. Luckily, Yolei's parents didn't really have the time to be suspicious. In fact, her mother was already on her way out the door.

"Oh! Hello, Kari. It's good to see you again." And then, to the rest of the house, "I'm heading out!" And back to Kari, "You girls have fun."

"Thanks." Kari stepped into the house as the Inoue matriarch rushed out, closing the door behind her. She was a frequent visitor in Yolei's home. Her siblings seemed to take no notice of Kari as she moved through the house to Yolei's bedroom.

When she reached the room, the door was already cracked open. This may not have been unusual somewhere else, but Yolei did whatever she could to give herself privacy in this crowded house. Her door was always closed. Kari peeked around the doorframe and saw that her day was about to get a little more complicated.

Yolei was hunched over a laptop on her desk, some incomprehensible code played out over the screen. It was Cody, sitting on the bed, who noticed her. Kari entered the room then, and Yolei looked up too.

"Oh, hey, Kari. Cody came over early and asked me to check out his laptop. It's a little trickier than I anticipated, but I shouldn't be too much longer. And then we can go."

Cody bowed his head to them. "I'm sorry to be a bother. I didn't realize you had other plans."

"It's okay, Cody. Um, actually, I wanted to talk to you about our trip today…"

Yolei's hands stilled. She looked horrified, as if there was more at stake here than just a day at the beach. "Don't tell me you're cancelling! You've already come all the way here!"

Kari didn't have a chance to answer before there was a loud pounding on the doorframe, despite her having left the door wide open. One of Yolei's sisters stood in the doorway, a bored expression on her face. "Hey, there's some boy here to see you."

"What? Who?"

Yolei's sister just shrugged.

"Well, did you let him in?"

"Left him in the kitchen."

Yolei huffed impatiently as her sister drifted off down the hall, mind already on something else. Yolei stomped past them out of the room and returned a moment later with Davis in tow. His presence in her room did not seem to improve Yolei's mood any. Davis himself looked a little confused.

"Oh, did you all have plans?" Someone else might have sounded jealous or left out. Cody's tone was one of simple, polite interest.

"No," Yolei said shortly. "Davis, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I have a week left before soccer camp starts, so I was going to see if Kari wanted to hang out. But when I got to her apartment, her mom said she was here so…"

"So you came here," Yolei concluded.

Kari sighed. "It's fine. Maybe this is for the best. I get the feeling, somehow, that we're all tangled up in this."

"Tangled up in what?" Cody asked curiously.

Kari took a deep breath. "I'm going back to Highton View Terrace."

She watched as this sank in for Yolei and Cody. The look on Davis's face was utterly blank. It reminded her that they'd never actually discussed the incident with Davis. So he was the one she turned her focus on.

"Four years ago, my brother and six other kids disappeared after our neighborhood in Highton View Terrace was destroyed in what was blamed on a terrorist attack. The three of us have been brainstorming about the mystery. About some things that don't add up. And I've been… remembering things. Things that don't make sense either." She glanced at the two who were supposedly already up to speed and decided they didn't need the whole story—hallucinations and all—just yet. "So I'm going back to see if any of the old sights help me remember anything else."

"Oh… Yeah, I remember that. Kinda. I mean, we never lived in the area so…"

Yolei's sigh cut off Davis's stumbled response. "Are you—I don't even have to ask, do I? Of course you're sure. Okay, when do we leave?"

Kari swallowed. "Are you sure? I know this is kind of a weird trip. There doesn't have to be a 'we'."

"Don't be ridiculous, Kari," Yolei answered immediately. "I'm not about to let you go alone. We're in this together."

She looked to Cody and even Davis who nodded. Though Davis still looked a bit bewildered. Kari felt a surge of affection for her friends.

"All right then," said Yolei, standing up as if she was in charge of this operation. "When do we leave?"

Kari smiled. "As soon as everyone's ready."

Everyone was suddenly in motion, mobilizing for their adventure. Only Cody stopped to wonder, "Should we invite TK?"

"No," Davis answered immediately and was pleasantly surprised when Kari thoughtfully replied, "Not yet."

The other two seemed surprised as well, so she elaborated, "Don't get me wrong, I like TK. And if there's anyone who should be as invested in finding answers as me, it's TK. But… I don't want to involve him just yet. There's something he's not telling us. I know you've all noticed it too." She paused. "I want to trust TK. I think… he just needs some more time to get to trust us."

Her little speech was met with silence but approval. They were all on board. Once again, Kari was struck by a feeling of comradery—the way she'd felt at the lunch table that day. Now they'd inducted another member and moved past the brainstorming stage. Kari was trying to keep her expectations low. The day trip to Highton View Terrace was only the first step, after all. Even so, she couldn't help feeling like they were on the edge of something momentous.

…

As was to be expected, the route to Nerima was crowded with other students taking advantage of the extended summer break. But their destination was not chosen for amusement, fun, or relaxation. The four didn't quite know what to expect, but the journey there was a quiet one. Tense for some, contemplative for others.

For Kari, the time was spent reflecting on the quote she'd found in the unfinished castle—the foggy world of her possible hallucination. She had located the rest of it that very afternoon, but this accomplishment had not brought with it any startling clarity. The full line, attributed to Desmond Tutu, read, "Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all the darkness."

Personally, Kari felt that this last bit was implied, though she did note that the extra capitalization had not been a work of the original author's doing. So did it perhaps mean something special to her situation? If so, shouldn't she know? She wished she could have Cody's weigh in on the seemingly simple line. But then, that would require sharing where she had come across it in the first place so… It could wait.

There was a loud ding as the train reached their stop. The four kids rose as one but didn't speak until they'd moved off the platform, out of earshot of most of the potential listeners. It really was starting to feel like some sort of undercover mission.

Once again, Yolei appeared to take charge but turned to Kari for direction. "Where do you want to start? Your old apartment building?"

Kari shook her head. "No. They probably built the new building to look exactly like the old one, but I'm not sure how familiar it would be. I mean, even if it looks the same, my mind knows those apartments were never home. I want to see if the shelter is still standing."

"Wasn't the 'shelter' just an old abandoned warehouse across the river?" queried Cody. "What are the chances that it's been renovated too? Or just torn down completely?"

"Don't be such a downer, Cody! We won't know until we look!" Davis jumped in. Kari was grateful, though she knew there was a good chance Cody was right.

"Then I guess that's that," said Yolei. She pointed to a grassy embankment just a few yards from where they stood. "If we just follow the river, we'll run into it eventually."

As the group began their trek, Cody engaged Yolei in the logistics of some of the other, less popular conspiracy theories that had arisen around that night. But Kari wasn't in the mood for technical problems and true craziness. Her thoughts were filled with the 'human problems' they had barely discussed. With Joe and Mimi. Matt and Izzy. Names she could only put faces to with the aid of the old childhood photos that had been distributed when they went missing. Sora, of whom her memories were starting to fade. And, of course, with Tai.

Had they raced along this very path in the chaos of that night, the way they raced through her mind now? And, of course, where exactly had they been lost to whatever fate had befallen them? She longed for a concrete way to retrace the steps of even one of the seven. TK's amnesia was once again her own personal plague. Far more painful to her than it seemed to be to him. Secrets or not, if he had regain even just the barest, disjointed scraps of memory of that night, she would have had him along in a heartbeat. As it was, it seemed she would have to rely on her own memories of the experience. Incomplete as they may be.

She hardly noticed Davis hanging back to walk alongside her. He didn't seem to mind being ignored, for which she was grateful. He annoyed Yolei to no end, but he really didn't bother her as much as her friend thought he should. Of course, just as she was feeling generous he went and opened his mouth.

"So, uh, Kari… I was thinking… Maybe you and I could hang out some other day too? You know, just the two of us?"

She sighed and slowed her steps, distancing them even more from the other two. Davis remained hopefully at her side, but Kari was about to put this to rest once and for all. "Davis, your interest is really… flattering, but it's not going to work. I'll just never be able to think of you that way."

He hung his head. "Never?"

Her smile was a little sad. She kept her voice soft as she explained. "It's a compliment, really. You see, Davis… you remind me of Tai."

His eyes widened as that sank in. Kari wasn't sure she could articulate it exactly. It wasn't his looks or his love of soccer. It wasn't even his stubborn streak or hotheadedness, which they also shared, to an extent. No, what reminded Kari most of Tai was the magnetic quality Davis had. He was loud and not always all that bright, but it was hard to stay mad at him. People were drawn to Davis. He made friends easily and, once made, there was nothing he would not do for those friends.

"I hope you can understand," she said at last.

Davis still looked a little dejected, but he was resilient too. "Yeah, I get it…"

"Hey, look!" Yolei's shout brought the two pairs back together. "That's it, right?"

Kari looked up and felt her breathing stutter, for just a second. That was, indeed, it. The old warehouse remained standing, just across the river from where they stood.

Davis ran down the embankment with renewed energy. He waved to them from the water's edge. "Guys, look at this!"

The other three followed a little more hesitantly. Davis stood beside a large, beached wooden board. He crowed again, "Look at this! We could use it like a raft." He rooted around in the grass a bit more and came up with a large stick.

"I feel like we've stepped into some sort of storybook," Yolei muttered, but no one jumped to turn Davis down.

Cody had already slipped the board out onto the water and seemed to be testing its weight. It remained afloat, so that was one less worry. Even so, he glanced thoughtfully at his friends. "I wouldn't risk more than two of us on the raft at a time. We'll have to make three trips."

"Great!" Davis cheerfully held up the big stick acting as their oar, but Yolei wasted no time in cutting him off.

"I don't think so! If anyone's going to be the designated rower, it should be Cody."

"Me?" Cody exclaimed, audible even over Davis's protests. But Yolei wasn't budging.

"Cody's the smallest. Any other combination and we risk being too heavy to get across."

Cody was quiet for a moment, possibly looking for some way out of the job, but in the end he bent to Yolei's logic. He ferried first Davis then Yolei across the river, depositing them on the other shore. Kari was last, and Cody's knuckles were white on the oar, his jaw clenched shut. He made for a very different picture than Tai had that night. Her brother had seemed heroic—a figure straight out of some mythological legend. With Cody, there was no such façade. She saw no brave confidence on Cody's face. Perhaps he was still a hero… But he was a hero who was well aware of the dangers the world held.

In any case, a silence fell over them all as they drew closer to the warehouse. The door creaked open easily and the four crept in. There was no one around and no one likely to come by and catch them, but the feeling of trespassing remained. Even so, Yolei left the door ajar. The only other sources of light were the places the ceiling had fallen in. It was dim, but big and empty too. There wasn't much of anything to see.

"Well…" Yolei said, taking a few steps deeper in. "This place sure is… big."

As if to emphasize her point, every word had its own echo. But Cody turned to Kari. "So? Is being here bringing back any memories?"

She looked around for a moment before shaking her head. "Not really… More like making all the old ones even clearer."

"So you just sat in here all night?" Davis asked.

"Yeah… None of my memories from this part of the night are going to do us much good. It's the journey here that I can barely remember. Except…"

"Except what?" Yolei had returned to the little huddle the group was making in the middle of the big empty room.

"I remembered the raft ride over here. I think that must have been the way Tai got us all to the shelter that night."

"But why would he do that?" They all turned to look at Davis. He hurried to explain, "I mean, there's a bridge just a little farther down. We would've seen it soon if we kept walking."

"There was a bridge this whole time?!" Cody exclaimed, looking a little betrayed.

"Yeah. At least, I remember crossing a bridge. We had a match against the Nerima soccer team not that long ago. I just thought the raft would get us here faster."

"They must have rebuilt the bridge too then," Kari said without thinking. And then she blinked. Where had that come from?

"Huh? Did the bridge get destroyed too?" said Yolei. "All of the newspaper articles I saw only mentioned the apartment buildings that were hit."

"I… don't remember," said Kari at last. "I'm not sure where that came from."

"Hmm…" Yolei had crossed her arms and was eying her friend thoughtfully. "Well, let's take the bridge back and see if you remember anything else."

Their footsteps echoed as they made their way back to the door. Kari stopped once and turned to stare, briefly, at a nondescript spot on the left side of the room. Davis stopped beside her, looking around for whatever she was staring at. "Kari? What's wrong?"

She tried to keep her expression neutral as she pointed, her voice soft. "That's where I sat for most of the night. The parents and rescue workers started arriving around sunrise. I kept waiting and waiting for the next face to be Tai's… But he never came back…"

"Uh…" Davis didn't seem to know how to respond to that. Kari just shook her head. It was a little late to spend time wallowing in the past. She turned to go, Davis close on her heels.

…

Kari was starting to worry she'd dragged her friends all over the city on a pointless adventure. What had been gained from their trip to the warehouse? She hadn't learned anything she didn't already know, and she expected the walk across the bridge to be the same. But she was to be surprised, if maybe not so pleasantly.

They were about halfway across the foot path when her breath caught in her throat. She had never experienced a true flashback before, but suddenly, the sun disappeared overhead, and she was on the ground, the bridge still ahead in the distance. She was running straight for it… when something big fell like a rock from above, crushing the bridge underneath its weight.

Kari felt a scream pass her lips. She instinctively turned away as the wall of dust and debris from the destruction swept her way. A pair of arms wrapped around her, pulling Kari close and shielding her from the worst of it. Tai, some part of her realized. And he didn't let go until the wind and screams around them had died down.

Tai's hands tightened on her shoulders ever so slightly. Kari dared to look up at the ruined bridge. There were other crashes in the distance, and Kari could just spot two enormous, shadowy figures that she couldn't quite make out… But their shapes were the things of nightmares. She saw what looked like horns and wings, blasts of fire or pure energy shooting through the air, briefly lighting up the night sky.

"Those two again," Tai murmured above her, his voice startlingly clear. He pulled her upright. "Come on, we'll have to find another way across."

They ran toward the river… And suddenly she was back. Kari found she had fallen to her knees on the bridge, the sun shining above. Her friends were all standing protectively around her, reminiscent of the way Tai had held her that night. Luckily, traffic on the bridge was light, and there were only a few other people, staring at her in concern.

As soon as she saw Kari had come back to them, Yolei hurried to shoo them away. "She's fine; there's nothing to see here; it's just the heat; it gets to her sometimes."

Slowly, the bystanders dispersed as Cody and Davis helped her to her feet. Yolei was back at her side in an instant, smoothly nudging Davis out of the way.

"Give me a heart attack, why don't you!" Yolei exclaimed in a low voice, throwing an arm across her shoulders. "I don't know what just happened, but it looks like you had a breakthrough. Let's get off this bridge, and then you can tell us all about it!"

Kari nodded and let herself be led forward. She was ready to tell her friends everything. Now if only she had any idea where to start.

Review please!

I don't own Digimon!

There has not been a single chapter yet where the title hasn't changed before I've finished writing the chapter.