I don't own digimon.

Character: Meiko Mochizuki

Universe: Tri

Notes:

A sequel to Broken.

Chapter 60

Mended

Tired.

It was one of my words to describe the current feeling held within Meiko Mochizuki. Between watching two good friends getting swallowed up and her partner suddenly fusing with a corrupted digimon, it all seemed meaningless to continue onward. Yet, she refused to let it take her down.

"I can do this." she whispered and closed her eyes. Memories of before came rushing back in, standing vigilant in the never-ending fight to actually have some sense of happiness within this storm of darkness.

"Are you alright?" Matt inquired as he and the other digidestined approached.

"No." Meiko answered and took a step back. "I need some space and time to reflect on things."

She watched her friends gather together and honor her wishes. It had been a bit of an uphill battle to get all them to understand, but the digidestined was glad she did. For this particular session, she decided that sitting on some rocks and staring into the sky was the best way to go about this.

The last month had been an absolute whirlwind, with her being forced to face the music of it all. She went to Daigo, taking the time with him to get help with her then fragile mental state. The other digidestined had been confused by her decision, getting up in arms about it. They had somehow got it in their heads that they alone were more than enough to handle this sort of thing. Meiko attempted to explain that she needed more support than what they could give her at the moment. Only to have devolve into arguing that led nowhere.

So she walked away and took some time to herself. Once her thoughts had reached a state where she didn't feel the crushing weight of the world on her back, she attempted a second round of negotiations. Only to watch them shut down. So she went home and worked on her art, attempting to keep her mind off all that had happened.

Of course, people don't seem to get the message. Since they decided that they would have a potluck at her home. Yes, they put their heads and thought that breaking into someone's house and making themselves at home. Well, the joke was on them, with her raising the courage to kick them out in the face of a difficult situation. Not that long afterwards, Meicoomon reappeared and a battle broke out. At least this time, they managed to contain the casualties to none, even if their digimon nearly died in the process.

So they got together and went to the digital world. They had two objectives: Find the source of the infection along with what had remained of their lost teammates.

Since this was her first time in this weird world, it was a bit of a learning process for Meiko. For one, it was her that needed to ask for guidance and accept her teammates support for once. In exchange, they would respect her wishes. It was a fragile balance, built on honor and trust. Yet they managed to keep some semblance of it. And as an added bonus, Meiko managed to finally meet everyone on this team. Though, she wasn't entirely certain why it took the blue-haired so long to introduce himself. But they pushed onwards, finding themselves caught in the crossfire of a conflict they had thought long buried. Yet they pushed onwards, even if their search was fruitless and somehow led them back to their world.

There, Alphamon was throwing a tantrum over how she was being treated by her boss. Yeah, it turned out that Alphamon was a girl who had been charged by the sovereigns to watch over the recently reborn Yggdrasil as it's babysitter. Of course, the deity had a habit of flinging its 'toys' and forcing her and the other royal knights to search for them.

After a mix of a pep talk and some self-help intervention, they set their sights on Yggdrasil and getting to the bottom of all of this.

And then Homeostasis showed up and decided to take matters into her own hands, because of course she did. With the results being the ultimate toy consisting of a fused Raguelmon (Corrupted) and Ophanimon (Falldown), creating a being known as Ordinemon. Which brought her to where she currently was, staring out at the sky while sitting on a rock. If given the choice to go back and change anything, she would pass on such a chance. Yes, the start of this mess had been quite a rocky ride. It was what forced her to make a choice on this road between two paths, between misery and gloom or get help to not fall into such a pit. So she took the lesser traveled of these two paths, not even thinking about what could happen on the other road.

"I can do this." she thought and got up from her seat, turning her attention to the group. A deep breath later, Meiko made her way back to the group. While this 'black cat' of hers still remained elusive, she was catching up. Soon enough, she would catch that cat and bring an end to this chase.

But for now, she would walk onward into the future.

Notes:

One of the major complaints with Tri usually boils down to Meiko in one aspect or another. Whether its her 'sue' status or how much time that she gets in Tri. But, I never seen anyone call out the writing of Tri constantly resetting any emotional growth that everyone's favorite addition gets. Anytime Meiko grows or gets a chance at growing, it's either forgotten by the end of the movie or Meicoomon does something to scar Meiko even further. Nor is this helped by the other digidestined's insistence that speeches are the best option for fixing mental health. It's a narrow-minded solution that outside of just leaving Meiko, doesn't really work. It also ignores the fact that not all people wanting a speech to 'boost' their mental health and use a variety of other techniques (short breaks, deep breathing, stress balls).

I just needed to get that off my chest.