Twenty-Nine Degrees
Part VIII: Soul's Sojourn
By Pata
The gravity of what he had done never really hit Ken until the news programs reported the death of Motomiya Daisuke, due to his love for the other victims of the Twenty-Nine Degree Murders. He was lying in bed one Saturday evening, counting the stars in the sky out of his window when it fell on him like a brick.
But he, being Ichijouji Ken, famous for his heartlessness and his ability to go untouched by death, did not give into it.
It was a different story for Kamiya Hikari. Her late lover Takeru, who had died from the iodine poisoning she had given him, haunted her nightly in her dreams. His brother Yamato made occasional visits as well, as did Taichi and Mimi and Daisuke and Miyako, and many people began to suspect that Hikari was going schizophrenic.
She would wake in a cold sweat, wishing for release from it all, but she would remember Ken and console herself back to sleep. Her guilt weighed her down constantly. She could barely take it. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was pressing on her and she just wanted to fade away into the background.
She and Ken had arranged for a rendezvous in the Digiworld that night, so Hikari held her D-Terminal to her computer with a trembling hand. She didn't know what Ken might have in mind for her. "Digi-port open," she whispered.
She vanished. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounding by happy things: trees and flowers and little chirping birds, not death and blood and the stench of guilt and suspicion everywhere. She almost wished she could stay in this utopia forever…
*
There is a place in the Digiworld where bird Digimon go to nest. It is a little grove of trees surrounding a large lake, where the sun sets on the water and plays beautiful shadows across everything at twilight.
It was about this time of day when Ken came rushing through the underbrush, he clothing torn and savaged by the brambles. Hikari had her back to him, staring at her reflection in the water. This was the place where Ken had seduced her – the place where she had sold her soul to him in return for him undying love. Her moral sense of righteousness was under his complete control.
As she watched the reflection, she saw Ken come up behind her and stand over the water. She took a stone and dropped it directly onto Ken's reflection, causing it to ripple away to nothing like so many dreams. "What do you want?" she asked.
"We have to take out Sora, Iori, Koushiro, and Jyou," he said.
She turned to him, her normally gentle and virgin brown eyes filled with seething hatred. "Don't you think of anything except death?!" she demanded.
"To be honest…" he said with mock sadness, "no, not really."
She made a guttural sound deep in her throat and pushed herself to her feet. She didn't meet his gaze, but instead walked a full circle around him and came to rest facing the now nearly-invisible sun. "I don't want to be under your stupid minion anymore," she said.
"You don't have a choice," he protested.
She reached around and stuck her hand into his coat, extracting the long, bloodied pistol. She pressed it into his hand. "I am going to walk away," she said. "You can shoot me now, shoot me in the back as a leave, or you can let me go."
Well, Ken surely had not been expecting this. His eyes were wide with wonder and shock. "Wha-what do you mean?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean," she snarled.
It was true. He did. He wrapped his fingers around the gun; it fit perfectly into his hand, like he had been meant to wield it always. His hand shook violently as he raised the gun and pressed it against Hikari's chest. Her eyes did not leave his – they showed a total absence of fear. They let nothing through. The only thing she let him see was the single tear that rolled down her cheek.
His hand was trembling incessantly, and he couldn't steady it. He had to uphold his tao; he had to shoot her. If he didn't, he'd be breaking every rule he'd ever set for himself. But kill her? Kill Hikari? The girl for whom he was starting to have strange new feelings, ones that could not even be matched by his feelings for Miyako? He couldn't do it. He knew he couldn't.
Hikari sensed his hesitation. She wrapped her own fingers around the barrel of the gun and held it against her chest. Ken gasped. She really would rather die than be with him! He felt weak and uncertain and lost and alone. He was sweating buckets. The gun was slipping from his sweating fingers. Beads of anguish and dilemma were strewn across his forehead. "H-hi-Hikari…" he stuttered.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" she said to him, her eyes never leaving his. The single tear still remained, but her face was an unloving, hardened mask. "Isn't this your plan? Don't you want to kill me, Ken Ichijouji?"
He swallowed. Everything hurt. Everything was a blur. Not even fully aware of what he was doing, but blinded by rage that this small and innocent child could be right; angry and irrational, he bared his teeth and tightened his sweating finger on the trigger.
The gunshot resounded through the entire Digiworld. Hikari did not cry out nor say one word, she simply collapsed to the ground and lay unmoving, blood flowering from this new wound.
He staggered back, horrified at what he had done. His mouth hung open, his hair agee, aghast at this deed which he had performed. But then, he reminded himself, how was this any different from killing Yamato or Miyako or Mimi? It was just that he had truly loved Hikari, and now that the Light was gone…
Only Darkness remained.
The gun dropped from his sweaty fingers, but instead of clattering to the ground like a metallic object should, it landed with the gentle lulling sound of a bell ringing.
The prophetic voices of Hikari and Miyako and Mimi and Daisuke and everyone else who had died as a result of the Twenty-Nine Degree Murders rang through his head. He clapped his hands to his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. "No…no…NO!"
He fell back to the ground, tears – real tears, for Hikari, and everyone else – stung his eyes. He had sworn never to cry, but he found that they came by themselves. Everything ached. His heart hurt. He had never known pain so cutting or real. He reached behind him and retrieved the gun.
He slithered like the snake he was to Hikari's side, and grasped her cold, lifeless hand in his, just like all the times before. With his free hand, he pressed the gun to his temple. The cold metal felt alien and unnatural.
There was no hesitation this time. No shaking. No sweat. He knew he deserved this. Still clutched his beloved's hand, he wiped the tears from his eyes and whispered, "My Hikari, I am coming to join you."
He paused for a long backward look. "I only did it for the fame. I just wanted to die remembered. I guess I chose the wrong path," he said. "But I got my fifteen minutes of fame." Out of respect, he listed everyone who had died at his hand. "Daisuke, Mimi, Mr. Tachikawa, Taichi, Yamato, Miyako…Hikari. I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry." He meant it. Meant it with all his heart and every fiber of his body.
And without a single breath of doubt, he pulled the trigger.
In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. –Andy Warhol
*
Time is a wheel in constant motion always
Rolling us along
Tell me who
Wants to look back on their years and wonder
Where those years have gone
*
Fini