Daichi: And here is where the important questions finally start being asked.

Verity: We don't own anything.

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As the group of sixteen continued walking, it started to get cold. Ib shivered, being dressed for midsummer and not having any alternatives on hand.

"You think it'll start to snow soon?" Tai asked.

"I hope not!" Joe stated. "Snow means soaked feet, lost visibility, and possible hypothermia! ...Then again, that last one might still happen."

"Please don't remind me…" Ib sighed. "Does anyone see something we could use as a form of shelter? That'd be pretty useful right about now."

"Biyomon, Tentomon, Patamon, and I could fly above the trees to look," Lalamon suggested.

"No, that won't be necessary. We can keep walking."

"But it'd be quicker that way!"

"No means no, Lalamon." After what had happened with Monzaemon, she was unwilling to let her partner out of her sight. Not that it would have been a good idea to begin with, the Digimon were their only hope of being able to survive in this world.

"Would snow really be that bad?" T.K. asked.

"They say the most important things are food, water, and shelter," Mimi responded. "Snow would provide water, but for the rest…" Sometimes, Ib forgot that the youngest girl in the group had actually gone camping before. She needed to stop doing that.

There did end up being snow on the ground. But at least it actually started out on the ground, and there were hot springs nearby. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

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"We're not climbing the mountain right now," Ib declared.

"Why not?" Tai asked.

"Well, because the sun's already set, for one thing. We need to sleep." Besides, there was something off about that mountain, and it wasn't something she wanted a kid as young as T.K. near. He was younger than she was in the Gallery!

"But later?"

"If you can give me a good reason at the time." And that was all she had to say on the matter.

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"When was the last time you slept through a whole night?" Joe asked. There was no way he wasn't going to worry about his friend, especially after she'd blanked out while they were running from Andromon, experienced or not.

Ib shrugged, which counted as a very bad sign in and of itself. "I don't know. Before we got here, I think. Not sure on the exact day."

"That… you know that's not healthy, right?"

"It's safer." Joe glanced at where Lalamon was asleep in his friend's arms. Somehow, he wasn't all that convinced. "What are you doing up?"

He paused. Really, he wasn't sure of that himself. It was just… something kept pulling him awake. "I… I think it's something about that mountain. I can't stop thinking about it."

"I already said we weren't climbing it. Besides, you have a seal, what's that going to do against a mountain?" Thinking on realistic terms? Not much. But then again, this world didn't necessarily operate on realistic terms, and they both already knew this.

"Well, he can throw fish at it… And he could Digivolve."

"He hasn't yet." But now Ib, too, was looking pensively up the mountain. "If that ends up being our way home… how would we even get there?"

"Climbing, I guess."

"Very funny. There just… mountains are difficult. High ledges, high altitude, and I don't think any of us have so much as gone rock climbing before." That… was probably true. But there wasn't really a better time to learn, was there? "Joe… you're starting to scare me."

If Joe were a less sensitive person, or if it'd be less obviously hypocritical, he'd point out that everything scared her in this world. Because it did, and that was clear, and maybe it affected her judgement more than a little bit, but there were reasons for that that actually made a good amount of sense.

...Mostly. He still couldn't picture how anything in her past could have actually happened, but maybe he'd need to have been there for that, so it was probably a good thing.

But being scared wasn't something they were allowed to be, if they hoped to survive in this world. And he understood that enough to know exactly what he was going to do next.

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Ib was furious. She'd turned her back on Joe for just a few minutes, trusting him to go back to sleep like anyone sensible would, and instead he went to climb up a mountain on his own! He'd taken Gomamon with him, which was itself a small blessing, but the fact remained that he was still climbing a mountain, mostly on his own, in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, he wasn't very active. Neither was she, but at least she didn't lock herself inside with books all day. "Joe, wait up!"

"Told you we weren't gonna make it," Gomamon remarked. "See? You should have carried me, just like I said."

"You just didn't want to have to walk," Lalamon spoke up. Ib sighed, because this would be so much easier without their odd little friends being there to deal with.

"Joe, everyone was staying back by the hot springs for a reason. It's dangerous here right now."

"Would it ever not be?" She paused, because she knew he was right, but this wasn't the time for that, really. Maybe that time would never come, because to admit anything would be to let her already unstable house of cards come crashing down.

"...You still didn't have to do this alone. Come on." She strode past him, up the mountain path.

If he insisted on doing something reckless and putting himself in danger… then she was going to be right beside him, all the way.

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Of course, just being there wasn't going to change anything.

It had started with the Unimon. Well, more precisely, it started with the Black Gear that had embedded itself in the Unimon, causing it to set its sights on them as potential targets. Ib still wasn't sure why having gears in them suddenly made something go homicidal, and she didn't want to know. Some things were better off hidden, really.

The first step to escape the Digimon was, of course, to run back down the mountain. Probably not the safest idea- all their friends were down there- but it was the best Joe could think of at the time, and she wasn't going to discourage him when she didn't know what to do, either.

And then the path in front of them had disintegrated. And Joe and Gomamon had fallen. And neither Ib or Lalamon were able to do anything about it.

They were okay, thankfully. Gomamon had Digivolved to Ikkakumon at just the right time.

But it could have ended differently. They could have hit the ground, and shattered, and she wouldn't have been able to stop it. Because whatever it was to trigger their partners gaining knew power, she had no clue how to do it. If she even could.

It hadn't even been a week, but she couldn't help but wonder why she was even here, if she was just going to be the thing she hated most. Helpless.

"We're going back to the others," She said, once she'd managed to safely hop down onto the white walrus' back. "It'll be better, if we're all together. Safer."

And she wanted it to be safe. She didn't want to have to keep worrying about people dying, even if it seemed like it was just going to keep happening.

And she already knew, when it did happen, there wasn't going to be any way she could help.

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Daichi: Good news is, there shouldn't be any more overly depressing chapters for a bit.

Verity: Isn't Devimon coming up?

Daichi: ...I was honestly trying to forget about that.