Kari slowly opened her eyes. "She's awake!" she heard a voice say.
Sitting totally up, she saw that she had been lying in a makeshift bed of leaves. There was a roaring fire in front of her, and the other kids sitting around it. "You're awake!" Sora cried.
"Where's Tai?" Kari asked.
"We...we don't know," Izzy said,"T.K. and Matt are missing too."
Sora rushed over to her, but Joe pushed her aside. "Easy," he said to her. Turning to Kari he said,"Does anything hurt?"
"Yeah!" Kari said,"Its my right leg, it hurts really, really bad,"
Joe gently touched it. Kari cringed back in pain. "Ouch!"
"Sorry!" he said,"I've got to find what's wrong with it, so if I hurt you, I'm sorry, okay?"
"Sure," Kari said, cheerfully,"I know its not your fault."
Joe smiled and nodded. "Good, now, tell me if this hurts," he said, touching Kari on the bottom part of her leg.
"Yes, but just a little," she said flatly, while inside she was cringing with incredible pain. She wanted to cry so hard, but she wouldn't. "Tai wouldn't cry!" she thought to herself."Tai never cries! No matter how bad things are, Tai is strong!"
"Okay," Joe said," You have a broken leg."
"How can we help her?" Mimi asked.
"First we need to make a cast. Get me some flat pieces of wood, and some vines!"
They nodded and scrambled around. In a few minutes they had created a cast of two pieces of wood to keep her leg straight, and vines to tie them together.
"Great," Joe said, admiring their handy work. "Now what do we do?"
"I think we'd better find the others," Sora said.
"How?" Biyomon asked.
"I think I have a way," Izzy said," By connecting my digivice to my laptop, and calling up a map of the digiworld, I can pinpoint their exact location....Bingo!"
Izzy was staring at a map with three flashing dots on it. "Perfect! They're all together! If they don't move further away, we should be there within a day! Two at the most!"
"How's Kari going to get there?" Gatomon asked.
"Someone got's to carry her," Joe said.
"I'll do it!" Sora suddenly spoke up.
"Are you sure?" Joe asked. "I'm stronger and.."
"No, I'm sure," Sora said, walking over to her. "Come on, " she said, putting her back to her,"You get a piggy back ride!"
Kari grabbed Sora's neck and pulled herself up. "Okay," Sora said," we're ready."
They walked until sundown. Sora had first watch, but Kari wasn't sleeping too good because of her leg. So after everyone else had fallen asleep, they started to talk.
"Sora, thanks for helping me today." Kari said.
"That's okay," Sora said, taking off her helmet. "Tai would kill me if anything happened to you."
"No, he wouldn't," Kari said, matter-of-factly.
"Yes, he would! I've know you two the longest out of everyone here. Remember the day we first met?"
"Not really," Kari said.
"Well, anyway, since then you've been like the little sister I've never had, but we're talking about Tai here, aren't we? He wouldn't want anything to happen to you, and since I've known you the longest, he'd take it out on me! But I don't blame him. I guess that what it means to be a big brother."
"I hope he's all right."
"You really care about him, don't you?"
"Yeah, ouch!"
"Kari, I know your leg hurts, so why don't you say so."
"Because Tai wouldn't cry about it! He'd wouldn't let it get to him!"
Sora was about to argue that, but then she realized that she had never seen Tai cry before. She only heard rumors that the only time he cried was when she was taken prisoner by Datamon. In fact, he ever since she met him, he always acted that way, really cold. "Kari, was Tai always like that?"
Kari thought for a moment. "No, when I came home from the hospital, I noticed that change in him. It was like something died inside of him when I almost did."
"Didn't he bring you outside when you were really sick?" Sora asked.
Kari nodded. "But it wasn't his fault. He blamed himself so much that he cried! I went because I wanted to, not because he forced me too." Sora nodded. "You really love him, don't you?"
"Yeah! He's the best brother in the world!"
Sora smiled. "He cried for Kari...and me? We must be pretty special people to him."
Kari yawn. "I think you must be feeling sleepy, now." Sora chuckled.
"Yeah, good night."
to be continued...