angel part three
Chapter Three

Along the shadowed pathways of the palace grounds, a boy moved stealthily. He was going to... What am I doing here anyway? the boy asked himself. What am I doing, and why? His mind dissmissed those concerns. What mattered was getting his job, whatever it was, done...
His job, although he did not know it as such, was a mission of assasination. His master had decided that the mage known as Gennai was powerful enough to detect what he was doing, and had decided that the best way to prevent such detection was to remove Gennai from the status of mage, and in fact remove him from the status of living human. Ken had been chosen to effect this... removal.
He moved in a half-dream, knowing precisely what he had to do but not seeing the forest for the trees. Some mental block was within him that prevented his connecting the actions of climbing the stairs to a room, walking in, and knifing someone in the back in to one coherent whole: murder.
It was unlikely that he'd care even if he knew. The same event that had placed that mental block had also given him a sense of purpose, but only one purpose. That was to perform as quickly and efficiently as possible whatever tasks his master set before him. And these tasks never included evaluating the moral rightness of an act.
He suddenly had a thought. Why do you follow your master this way? The thought couldn't be his—it referred to him in second person, after all—but somehow it was a natural enough thought for him to think. Even though he'd never once thought anything similar during his five years of enslavement.
Enslavement... why did I just use that word? Is it? I suppose... And he turned back to his task, for nothing that interrupted it could possibly be as important as getting it done. But although his mind fought against it, something was making it think about the repercussions of what he was about to do. He tried to reach out to whatever that was and see why it was bothering him, but the only impressions he got from that other mind were thoughts of freedom.
He was so wrapped up in that inner turmoil that he stumbled, and landed upon a small wormlike creature. He picked himself up absently, so caught up in his war within that he dared not pay attention to anything without. But some prod—perhaps from that unknown other—made him look at it, and see it it had been hurt. And when he made eye contact, to see if it were crying, its shape suddenly changed to that of a deadly-looking humanoid bug. His detachment from the world around was so complete that he didn't even draw back in fear. And then he suddenly began to notice the world again, as he realized what the thing before him was—the first piece of realizing anything he'd done in five years. It was a Digipartner. And he had been Chosen.
As he once again remembered how to make these mental connections, he realized exactly what he had been about to do. And he resolved not to do it. He realized precisely what evil he had done unknowingly. He accepted this. But he would try to make up for everything he'd done enslaved with many good deeds as a Guardian.

The Council meeting that day was an urgent one. The night before there had been two incredibly unexpected events that were, by Murphy's Law, both probably essentially important and urgent, and they still needed to plan the prince's wedding. The previous night, there had been the squire vigil of Takeru. He had sucessfully kept the vigil, but he reported seeing a vision of some sort during it. And squire vigils were supposedly the least eventful thing to do at night aside from sleep. In addition to that, an assasination attempt on Gennai had voluntarily stopped when the would-be assasin was Chosen. A very eventful night. And now the Council meeting promised to be extremely eventful as well.
"So," the King said. "Today we have three main orders of business. One, what exactly happened at Squire Takeru's vigil last night. Two, why Ken was about to assasinate Gennai, and three, Prince Taichi's upcoming marriage to Lady Sora. The latter we will definitely discuss last; although royal weddings are usually major headaches to plan, it can't be any more complicated than the other two issues."
Although Council meetings were usually closed-door, Takeru was there because the meeting directly concerned him. He gave an account of the events at his vigil, strongly stressing the puzzlement he felt at its odd happenings. When he had finished, Healer Kido the elder said,
"You're not alone in your bafflement, boy. Gennai? Have you recovered enough from your near brush with death to try and figure this out?"
"I think it may be connected to the power surge in the Digiegg Hatchery a few years ago. Do you all remember that about seven years ago, there was a surge of power from the Digiegg Grove that was akin to the amount of power released in the creation of two Digieggs?"
"And when we got there, nothing," said Kido. "What? You can't possibly mean..."
"Kidnapping? Yes, I do. You remember that Takeru mentioned it seeming like a telempathic call for help. I think that it was, and from a kidnapped Digipartner. Unfortunately, if this is the case the kidnapper is fairly powerful; I haven't detected anything like that, so that either means there was no kidnapping or that the kidnapper has extremely good shields."
There was a buzz of confused, slightly fearful chatter from the council. If this supposed kidnapper had enough power to shield from Gennai... The King's voice interrupted the talk.
"If there was a kidnapping, then as Gennai can't sense anything we can't do much about it anyway. I'd advise everyone to be on the lookout for suspicious happenings, but that's about all that can be done. Now for the case of Ken."
At this subtle order, Ken narrated what exactly had happened to him during the last five years, to the best of his ability, which wasn't really that well.
"I'll tell you in advance, this account won't be at all complete. My memories of the time spent under Master Dark's control are very hazy, and I have a suspicion he made it that way on purpose, so if any of his 'servants' escaped he would have little to fear. All I can really remember is a ceremony of blood-bondage to tie me to him. I can't remember the details. After that, I served him in whatever he wanted. I can't recall exactly what I did anymore, but I suspect that much of it was rather like what I was about to do to Gennai. When I got here, though, I started actually thinking about what I was doing instead of following blind orders. I sort of couldn't wonder before, couldn't think, but something partly broke through the mental block Master Dark had laid. And then, of course, I literally stumbled across Stingme... Wormme then, and that broke my bond to Master Dark completely."
"You said that he performed a blood-tie ceremony with you?" Gennai questioned.
"Yes. Why?"
"Come over here. This Master Dark you've told us about may well be the kidnapper. I might be able to trace him through whatever's left of the blood-bond." But it was no use. The blood-bond was completely and thouroghly gone from Ken. And although that meant that Ken would be completely safe from a relapse of this slave-mind-state, it also made it impossible for Gennai to trace the bond. Every silver lining has a cloud.
So, with those two issues by no means resolved but as close to solution as the Council could make them, discussion turned to planning the wedding. And naturally, everyone had a different opinion on the matter, including Taichi and Sora themselves. And everyone was loudly voicing what they thought, why they thought it, and why they had the most right to decide on the issue—simultaneously.
After much loud altercation, all that they had agreed on was that they all disagreed. It was decided to send Taichi and Sora to the Takenouchi Family mansion at the slopes of Merame Mountain. They both realized that this was a ploy to get them out of the way so there would be one less side arguing at future planning sessions. To block this, they insisted that all the Guardian-trainees, as well as Princess Hikari and Squire Takeru, accompany them on a pretext. Unfortunately, the Council was so desperate to decrease the overall chaos level to accept.