As I'm sure you could conclude from the title alone, this chapter will be a big turning point for this story. I think we're making pretty good time, if I do say so myself.

Thank you so much for reviewing chapter nine: Sweet Cari, ToastyToaster22, Angelfish369, Guest, Berry Doyle, t4courtney, and dnofsunshine! There were so many of you this time around! The reviews just kept coming, and I love them!

Chapter Ten: Explanations

She waited until the store closed. And that was Yolei's absolute last straw. When the front door to the Inoue home closed behind her mother, Yolei was immediately on her feet. She still hadn't heard a word from Kari, and the other girl certainly should have checked in by now. To make matters worse, Kari's mother had called an hour earlier—near-frantic for understandable reasons—wanting to know where her daughter was.

Yolei had played her part well, covered for her best friend. Yolei had told Mrs. Kamiya that of course Kari was still with her, in fact, she was probably going to stay the night, they'd just forgotten to call, apologies all.

But this had left Yolei in quite a pinch, and the second-guessing began immediately. Maybe her first instinct had been wrong. What if something had actually happened to Kari? In that case, wasn't the responsible course of action here to let someone know that she was actually missing? By the time night fell in earnest, her mind was filled with images of what Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya would do if they lost their daughter too. By the time her mother was walking through the door, she was on her way out.

"Bye, Mom! I'm going to go see Kari. I might stay the night."

"What? Aren't you even going to pack a bag?" she heard her mother call after her, but the door was already clicking shut behind her.

Yolei ran until she turned a corner and could be sure no one would see her from the windows of their apartment. Then she found the nearest pay phone. She was going to track down Kari herself, but she didn't want to do it alone. Unfortunately, Cody didn't pick up, so she steeled herself and went for plan B.

The phone rang so many times that Yolei almost gave up and hung up herself. But then, finally, a groggy voice picked up on the other end. "Hello?"

"Davis, it's Yolei. I need your help."

"What?" She heard him yawn and stretch on the other end. "Right now? I just got home. Spent the whole day on a bus…"

Yolei had almost forgotten that Davis had been away at soccer camp. But she didn't have the time to spare to catch up. "Yes, right now! Kari could be in trouble. I need you to meet me at the station."

"What?! Kari's in trouble?! I'll be right there!" And she was met with dead air on the other end.

…

Kari didn't know what to ask first. 'Where are we' was on the tip of her tongue, but then she caught sight of something in her periphery. She looked up to see the angel who'd rescued her floating down to them. As it drew closer, the being was engulfed in a brilliant light. Just when she thought she'd have to look away, the light shrank in size and then faded completely, leaving behind a strange, almost pig-like creature with wings that fluttered down to rest on TK's shoulder. It was cute… but strange. Although, any instinct she had to be put off by the creature's appearance was overridden by the look on TK's face when he and the creature were reunited. He wore, undoubtedly, the most open and genuine smile Kari had ever seen on his face.

TK got to his feet, helped Kari to hers, and then said, "Come on. I'll explain everything, but I don't want to do it out in the open like this."

She wasn't really in a position to do anything but go along with this, so she followed TK as he took off across the open field they'd appeared in. Kari couldn't tell what they were running for until the field very suddenly dropped away down an embankment. TK's pace slowed just enough to prevent them both from tumbling headfirst over the edge.

Even so, she had to swing her arms in wild circles to avoid losing her balance as they skid down the embankment, sending loose dirt and pebbles every which way. She prepared to take off again the second they were on stable ground again, but TK turned back the way they came. She followed him to a spot where the pebbles grew into boulders and struggled to copy his movements when he hoisted himself on top of one. She lost sight of him almost halfway up and was beginning to panic—contemplating the possible dangers of calling his name (what were they even fleeing from?) when she crested the top of the boulder herself, lost her balance, and slid into a small cavern concealed behind it.

She could just see TK as he brought a finger to his lips to signify silence. She pressed her back up against the boulder they'd just climbed over so that she and TK were hidden in its shadow and didn't have long to wait before it became quite apparent what they were hiding from.

"The signal came from over here, I'm sure of it!" a shrill voice insisted from someplace above them. Was its owner standing atop the cliff?

"Well, where are they then?" a much harsher voice demanded in reply.

Kari held her breath at the sounds of what were clearly more than two pairs of feet slipping and sliding down the embankment after them. What was this? An entire search party?

There were scattered mutterings as she heard the group spread out a bit. Her breath caught in her throat when, at last, one roared in outrage. "Damn it! How are we supposed to show our faces around town if we can't even manage to capture a mere child?!"

"W-well," a higher-pitched voice cut in, "to be fair, the boy has gotten awfully tricky as he grew older."

"Silence! The Emperor will tolerate no excuses! Let's keep moving… Numemon! Let's go!"

An odd squelching sound had been nearing their little cave's opening, but it began retreating at this call. Kari didn't dare peek through the opening to get a look at their pursuers. From the sounds of their gaits alone, she was fairly positive they weren't human. One was big enough to block out every ray of sunlight coming through their little doorway, and Kari's heart continued to pound long after the shadow moved on and their footsteps began to fade.

She jumped at TK's loud, relieved exhale. He grinned at her. "We're lucky it was only a Numemon that got so close. There's something endearing about them… but they're not too bright."

Kari didn't find this to be as reassuring as he seemed to think it should be. And then she spotted his own personal little winged creature crawl up to perch on his hat rather than his shoulder, and the dam broke. "TK, what is this place? What's going on here?"

His smile didn't falter but grew sympathetic. "Sorry. I did promise you an explanation, didn't I?"

He scratched the back of his head and looked up at the little winged… thing on his hat. The creature shrugged. TK took another second to contemplate something before apparently reaching a decision. Slowly, he began, "Four years ago… we didn't just disappear. I mean, I guess we sort of did, from Earth anyway. The seven of us got caught up in the middle of the battle that night. And we ended up in another world."

…

Yolei heard Davis before she saw him. There were only a few passengers waiting for transportation this late at night, and the sound of Davis's sneakers on the pavement was easily the loudest noise in the vicinity. They got a few strange looks as he skidded to a halt on the platform beside her, struggling to catch his breath.

"I'm here," he wheezed. "Where's Kari?"

"I don't know," she told him, biting her lip. "That's the problem."

She quickly ran through how their investigation had progressed while he'd been away. Davis bristled at the end. "That TC… I bet he has something to do with this!"

"We don't know that…" Yolei refuted halfheartedly. At this point, she didn't know what to believe. But TK was definitely involved somehow. After all, Kari had disappeared while looking for information on him.

Stop that! her mind berated. You don't know that she's missing yet. Maybe she got stuck in traffic or something and got back after Mrs. Kamiya called. Maybe she just hasn't had time to call you back yet…

"So what are we doing here?" Davis demanded, interrupting her thoughts. Not that she really believed them anyway. "I say we go back to his mom's house and see if he's come back yet. And then we can corner him and press him for answers. He won't be able to avoid us in his own house!"

"But what if he's not even there?" she countered, cutting through his growing enthusiasm for the idea. "I want to go to Odaiba. Kari was going to see TK's father. I think the first step is seeing if she even made it that far."

Their ride came rumbling into the station then, giving Davis little time to argue with her. A part of Yolei was still worried he would be his stubborn self and stick to his own idea, rushing off recklessly to solve the mystery on his own, but in the end, he boarded the train with her. Yolei never thought the day would come when she honestly desired Davis's company. But if there was anyone else who cared as much as she did about Kari, it was Davis. And at this point, she would take anything over being alone.

…

Kari was oddly… indifferent to this revelation. There was something building within her, but the fact that she had traveled to an entirely separate world… Well, after all that had happened, it felt fitting somehow. Like all the crazy theorizing and breaking and entering and stalking had finally amounted to something.

"The Digital World," she repeated slowly, remembering what he'd said before they'd run for cover.

"Right. And all the creatures who live here are known as Digimon. This is Patamon," he said, reaching up to rest a hand on the little winged creature's side.

"Nice to meet you!"

"Oh!" Kari exclaimed before she could stop herself. As if this was the strangest development of the day. "You can speak!"

"Of course." Patamon and TK shared another look and a smile, and this time, it made Kari feel a little uncomfortable. It took her a moment to figure out why this was. The knowledge of Patamon's sentience and communication capabilities changed the way she viewed their exchange. No longer was she looking at a boy and his dog. Patamon was undoubtedly TK's best friend. Kari felt like she was almost… intruding. Like being the only acquaintance in a group of close friends sharing an inside joke.

But it wasn't long before TK turned back to her. "So I'd imagine you have some questions. I don't know where to start so… What do you want to know first?"

"How did we get here?" she asked immediately.

"Well, you remember that other world you were in, right?" She nodded. "We call that one the Dark Ocean. As far as we can tell, it's an… in-between world. It runs underneath all the worlds, like a current, kind of. Darkness is universal and all that."

"Sounds more like a Dark River."

He grinned. "Like I said—kind of. We think the Digital World is already connected to ours. There used to be a direct path, but it was closed off when I was sent back the first time. So now you have to cross through the Dark Ocean to get here."

"The first time…" she repeated almost inaudibly. The lump had encroached on the back of her throat with a vengeance. Whatever had been building up inside her since she realized her answers were on the horizon was making itself more apparent.

TK nodded. "That night Highton View Terrace was attacked, a portal was opened between the Digital World and Earth. The seven of us were sucked through."

He looked as if he was going to continue, but his words cut off abruptly. She didn't have to wonder why. Tears were running down her face almost before she was aware of them. When she finally got her next words out, they arrived as a hiccup-y stammer. "So Tai… Tai was here?"

TK's expression was sympathetic but grim. "He still is. They all are."

…

Even this late at night, there were people strolling the streets of Odaiba, but the halls of Fuji TV were all but deserted. The front doors had not been locked yet, but the woman behind the front desk seemed surprised to see them. "Can I help you kids?"

"Yes," said Yolei, trying to appear confident, like she belonged here. She had gotten Davis to agree on the way here to let her do the talking. "We're looking for Hiroaki Ishida. Is he still here?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"It's about TK," Davis cut in.

Yolei shot him a look and rushed to smooth over, "We're friends of his son."

"All right, I'll let him know." She still looked a little unsure, but she picked up the phone on her desk and dialed his office number. She explained the situation, listened for a minute, and then hung up saying, "Okay, I'll send them up." She looked at them. "Third floor, fourth door on the right."

The two tried not to look too relieved or giddy when they were actually let through. Yolei and Davis walked to the elevators at a controlled pace. It was only once they were inside and on their way up that Yolei realized, "We should have asked her whether she'd seen Kari!"

Davis shrugged. "Whatever. We can ask Mr. Ishida about TK, too, while we're up there."

Yolei knew immediately from the curious look on Hiroaki's face that they were his first unexpected visitors that day. Her heart sank, but Davis was right. Perhaps he could answer some of their other questions.

"You said it's about TK? Is he all right?"

"We're not sure," Yolei answered. "Another friend of ours went looking for him, and now they're both missing."

"And we've already talked to his mom," Davis jumped in before she could stop him. "We know you're keeping his secrets, so don't lie! Have you seen Kari or not?"

"Kari? You don't mean Kari Kamiya?" His tone of voice stopped Yolei from berating Davis. TK's father looked almost frightened. Even Davis seemed to notice something was wrong.

"Yeah, that's right. So she was here?"

Hiroaki shook his head. "No, I haven't seen her. You say they're both missing?"

"Yes," said Yolei. "Kari was actually on her way to see you. We've been looking for information on TK. Mr. Ishida, what is going on?"

He brought a hand up to rub his chin contemplatively. He still looked worried about something. Finally he sighed. "You two better take a seat."

…

"What do you mean?" Kari asked, trying to get a hold on her tears. "Why are they still here? You came back."

TK exhaled deeply. "I better start at the beginning. Come on."

He got up to climb back through the opening of their cave, and Kari followed him. Twilight had dimmed their cave to the point where she could barely see two feet in front of her face. She glanced around for their pursuers, but TK walked fearlessly back onto grassy terrain, settling under a tree where they would still have a clear view of the emerging stars. Kari reclaimed her spot beside him, and he began.

"The night we all met, we were all still in the middle of everything. We found each other in pairs. I lost track of my mom shortly after we got outside, but Matt had stayed behind to look for me. Then we ran into Sora and Mimi. And then Izzy and Joe. We were all running but trying to stick together, too. It was chaos. The destruction was caused by two giant Digimon fighting. A dinosaur and a parrot. I still don't know why they were fighting, but a portal had been opened between the two worlds. They'd just destroyed the building right in front of us… And then Tai appeared."

He grinned at her. "You should have seen him. The way Tai ran through the cloud of dust to get to us… He looked fearless. Like a hero straight out of a cartoon or something. He told us he'd brought all the other kids he'd found to a warehouse out by the river and that we'd be safe there. So that's where we were heading… But then we saw the other boy."

Kari realized she'd been holding her breath. "What? What other boy?"

"He said his name was Ryo and that he was here to set things right… I'm still not really sure what that meant. Anyway, meeting Ryo held us up. You see, we were already a team by then. Ryo was heading in the direction of the battle, and Tai wouldn't leave without him. Sora wouldn't leave Tai behind, and Mimi was sticking with Sora… It just went on and on. In the end, it didn't matter anyway, though. The battle came to us."

He paused, glancing up at the stars. "I'm not really sure how to explain what happened next. Before any of us could be hurt, Ryo started… glowing. I know now he must have been able to open a portal to the Digital World directly from Earth, but I have no idea how he did it. Next thing I knew, the light had swallowed all of us, and we woke up here."

"And then you met me!" Patamon cut in.

TK grinned at him. "Yeah. When we woke up, we each had our own personal little monster waiting for us. And we were connected by one of these." He held up a tiny blue… gadget of some sort. "This is a Digivice. With this, our Digimon can borrow our energy to Digivolve temporarily. Become an even stronger monster."

TK brought a hand up to Patamon, and Kari remembered the angel who'd rescued her. So that had been a Digimon too. Apparently the very same one who now rode atop TK's hat. Before she could fully puzzle through this, he held the device out to her.

"Here. This one is yours, actually. That's the original model. Mine changed form when I was sent back to Earth." He pulled another Digivice out of his pocket. Indeed, this one was a little bigger and had green plating around the sides. "I'm not entirely sure what the difference is. Just that this one granted me passage through the world's boundaries. I couldn't open a direct passage like Ryo, but it showed me safely through the Dark Ocean."

"Wait a minute. Back up," Kari said, holding up the hand with the Digivice in it. "What do you mean this one is mine? Does everyone get one?"

"No. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. When we got to the Digital World, our first priority was finding a way home. We figured the easiest way to do that was to find Ryo. He got us here, he could bring us back, but he was nowhere to be found."

"So how did you get back?" she asked.

"Well, we found something else first… Digimon were being infected by dark gears. The gears would drive them crazy, and they'd attack anything around them. Including us. Our Digimon were able to Digivolve and keep us safe, but we weren't making much progress… until we met Leomon."

"Leomon," she repeated.

He nodded. "Another Digimon. He told us we were the Digidestined—a group straight out of a legend in this world. Apparently, eight children were fated to appear when dark forces took over and save the world."

"That sounds… a little far-fetched."

TK grinned. "I don't know. Spend enough time in the Digiworld and nothing sounds crazy anymore. Leomon told us the black gears were being controlled by another Digimon called Devimon. So we set our sights on taking down him. And then everything started to get out of hand."

He paused again to organize his thoughts, and Kari found herself just waiting to see what came next. She had to keep reminding herself that this was real life now, and not something out of a storybook.

"The first problem was the eighth child. At first we thought it was Ryo. Who else could it be, right? But we still had no idea how to find him. And then Devimon caught up with us before we could."

"But you all escaped. Right?" That one sentence had set her mind racing through all the worst case scenarios again. Had TK been the only survivor? Was that why none of the others had returned?

"We did one better," he said, though his voice was oddly grim. "We beat him. Patamon Digivolved into Angemon for the first time at the last second to protect me, and we took Devimon down. Which shouldn't have been possible without the eighth Digidestined. Unless Devimon wasn't the great evil we'd been prophesied to defeat after all."

Kari felt like she was playing a game of Clue, struggling to fit the pieces together. "But… how does Leomon know any of this, anyway? Maybe he was wrong."

His grin told her he was pleased she was keeping up with his insane, convoluted retelling. "And that was the next suspicious thing. You see, the Digital World is true to its name. I'm not really sure how it came to be, but it's a little like living in a computer. Everything here is made of data. The Digimon themselves never really die. If ever they're destroyed, their data is recycled. The ones who've been corrupted, like Devimon, are purified in the process. But they come back in baby form, as an egg. When we first met Leomon, he materialized out of nowhere. Like, we could see his ones and zeroes binding together. That's not how a Digimon's reincarnation works. But we didn't know that then. And he appeared just in time to save us from a sticky situation with some of Devimon's minions, so we weren't gonna question it."

Kari's eyes widened. "So… he was created just to help you?"

"That's what I believe. He had knowledge and abilities the other Digimon didn't. He appeared again after Devimon had been defeated. He told us the eighth child was still on Earth, and then he opened a portal to send us back, but…"

"But what?" she whispered. TK appeared lost in his own memories.

"I was the only one Leomon got to… before Ryo appeared and killed him."

"What?!"

"Yeah. And his data wasn't just scattered. I could tell Ryo was deleting him, piece by piece. He closed the portal, too, but I was able to make the journey back to Earth. But the others were stuck on this side of things."

"But you got back," Kari prompted. The suspense was just about driving her insane.

"Yeah… But only because of Patamon." The two shared another smile. "You see, your Digimon links you to this world. Patamon's data had to be recycled after the fight with Devimon, too. But once he was reborn as an egg, I could feel that connection calling me. Good thing, too. I thought I was going to lose my mind, trying to return to my life on Earth… knowing I'd left my friends behind. And in danger."

TK trailed off, his eyes downcast. Patamon climbed down to settle in his arms, a clear gesture of comfort. When he continued, his voice was quiet.

"I pretended I couldn't remember anything, because I knew I'd never get out of the hospital if I told them the truth. I'd just be transferred to the psych ward. Sometimes, my Digivice was the only thing that kept me convinced I hadn't just hallucinated the whole adventure. When I felt the call to return, I didn't question it for even a second. I followed the light through the Dark Ocean and wound up in the Primary Village, where all Digimon are reborn. Patamon was waiting for me there."

"But what about the others?" She'd gone back to holding her breath. Was this where she finally learned what had become of Tai?

"In the months I'd been gone, our team had fallen apart. The others were scattered across the Digital World. I've been following every clue I came across, but even the ones I found… Well, it's not a matter of just finding them."

"What do you mean? What's wrong with them?" she interjected fearfully.

"There's another piece to this puzzle. Each Digidestined has not only a Digimon partner and a Digivice, but a personal crest, too."

"A crest?"

He nodded and pulled forth a necklace from under the collar of his shirt. There was an unfamiliar symbol engraved on it. Like a sun… with a cape.

"This one is mine—the Crest of Hope. A Digidestined's crest is supposed to show their greatest inner strength. When that inner strength is corrupted… it's almost… completely debilitating."

"Corrupted?"

"Best Patamon and I can figure, opening the path between the Dark Ocean and our world has allowed some of that darkness to seep through."

"So they've all been… corrupted?" Her voice was barely audible. There seemed to be a disconnect between her thoughts and her feelings. She wasn't sure what she felt.

"Maybe corrupted isn't the best word. They're all just a little… lost right now." He flashed her another smile, one of the genuine ones that she was just starting to get used to. They had finally moved past all the secrets. "But now that you're here, we're going to find them. And help them find themselves."

Review please!

I don't own Digimon.

Well, I did warn you guys that this chapter was going to be a novel. And I actually cut myself off here. The next chapter is almost like a part two, but introduces a few more important plot points, and I didn't want this one to feel too rushed.