Take no prisoners.
That was what he told them to do, go in there and annihilate the enemy. Take them down, soldier by soldier, making sure none were left alive to turn around and kill them. It was a horrible choice, but what could he do? He was their leader, and he wouldn't let them die. He chose the choice that was safer for those he loved.
"Let's get this over with," She grunted, hefting a backpack over her tired shoulders. She had been tired a lot lately, from nights of staying awake, running the lives of the digimon over and over again in her head.
"You sound upset. What's wrong?" Cody asked, hefting his own pack onto his shoulders.
"Nothing."
Cody shrugged. He knew she was hiding something; Cody could read people like books.
Sora sighed and ran her eyes across the faces of the other digidestined. They were all there: Matt, T.K., Kari, Cody, Davis, Mimi, Yolie, Ken, Izzy, Joe, and Tai. Tai, standing there, grim and efficient, watching over this little army of his. Agumon, ever faithful, stood nearby, a troubled look in his honest eyes. On an impulse, Tai put a hand on the shotgun he was carrying slung over his shoulder, as if to check that it was still there.
As if the weight wasn't enough.
She glanced at Izzy, at the computer, a hand on his own gun: a small handheld, loaded and ready. She looked over to confidant Matt, watching his blue eyes carefully for signs of regret.
She saw none.
In a moment of sudden anger, the slammed her fists onto the table in front of her, ignorant of the pain that shot up her wrist from banging the hard metal.
The other digidestined ignored it; they knew how Sora felt. Only Tai bothered to look over. "You want to go through with this?" he asked, walking over to her. She looked away from him.
"No, but what choice do I have? You command us like an army; whatever you say goes. I just wish we could get this done so I can kill myself."
He looked at her intently, a flash of concern in his brown eyes. "Let's go," he said, turning back to the computer screen. Izzy nodded slowly and raised a d-3 to the screen.
And then they were gone.
"There's the last of them, shoot!" Davis roared, pumping a running Monochromon full of lead. The Monochromon fell, stricken, to the muddy turf, its blood-red eyes closed in death.
Sora, tears streaming down her face, ran towards the final group of evil digimon, her gun loaded. Garudamon soared above, incinerating evil digimon as well as bloody corpses. Sora shot a red-eyed Piximon through the heart, then turned and threw herself in front of MetalGarurumon, who was running top-speed towards the digimon with Matt on his back. Matt looked down just in time to see one of MetalGarurumon's clawed feet slice into Sora's body, sending her flying.
"Sora!!" Tai screamed, leaping off WarGreymon's back to the blackened turf, rolling a few feet, then springing up to run to her. Sora was badly wounded from the kick; blood poured from her side, staining the grass and Tai's hands scarlet.
"Finish it..." she whispered, raising her gun to Tai.
"Get her out of here!" Tai screamed, hefting the sodden bundle up in his arms. He felt her warm, salty blood on his lips as her bloodstained arm reached up to touch his face, sadly, with regret. The red liquid ran rivulets down his hands, arms, legs, chest, face, to hit the ground like a sick rain.
Sora vaguely heard Izzy's yelp, "Digiport Open!" and felt somehow cheated. She wasn't going to die after all. Oh, if she had the strength in her arms, legs, anything to bring a knife down into her chest, spilling the rest of her blood. She felt a resentment towards Tai; he had saved her. What did he do that for? All the thoughts vanished into a dark haze as Sora lost consciousness, going limp in Tai's arms.
Some time later, how much time Sora didn't know, she awoke to a dull, throbbing pain In her side and the grim realization that her suicide attempt had failed.
Better to die than live with the memory.
"Sora," she heard her name called, and for a brief moment, she forgot his voice. Looking up, she was startled to see not a pair of deep, brown eyes, but shockingly blue, concerned ones.
"Matt?" she asked, cursing her voice for being weak. She wasn't weak. She should be dead now.
"Tai just left, it's too bad you came into consciousness just now. He really wanted to talk to you."
"He ruined everything. I don't want to talk to him." Her words were short, clipped, and insincere. Of course she wanted to talk to him. She wanted him to hold her, whisper comforting words to her, tell her everything was going to be all right. No, wait, it wasn't going to be all right; she still had to kill herself. Somehow Matt's blue eyes seemed to see straight through her, and when he spoke, it was in a firm tone of voice, like the kind Kari would use to speak to a small child.
"Sora, we know how you felt about the mission, but those digimon were evil. We had to do what we did. Don't blame yourself. Remember, data is never destroyed, only re-configured..."
"Shut up, Matt, you frickin' sound like Izzy," Sora lashed out, interrupting his sentence. She felt the tears coming, welling up, the burning in her throat, and cursed herself again. She wouldn't cry. Not here, not in front of Matt, not in front of anyone. "You know who I am! I can't just shoot twenty living, breathing creatures and not hate myself afterwards! My crest is the crest of love, and I care deeply for all the digimon in the digital world. You can't just tell me it's ok!" She vaguely felt the hot tears run down her cheeks, but didn't care anymore for some odd reason. "Yes, Matt, I wish Tai had left me to die, or better yet, shot me himself. I don't have regrets about trying to kill myself, and as soon as I get out of this damned hospital, I'll try again!"
Matt opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He gently put an arm around Sora's shaking shoulders, trying to comfort his friend. "Sora, please, don't talk like that. Everything's going to be al right now, I promise. Please, Sora, don't attempt suicide again. I'm sorry we had to go in there and kill those digimon, but if we hadn't, they would have killed everything. They weren't like Ken's servants, they wanted to do what they did."
"You're sorry," she spat, "What about Tai? It was his damn plan in the first place."
"He did it to protect us. Had we let those digimon live, or try to change them, they might have killed all of us." Almost as an afterthought, Matt added, "He did it to protect you."
"Oh, like I'm so weak, I can't defend myself? Like I'm stupid, so I'd get myself killed?? Great plan," she snarled.
Matt laughed softly, gently patting Sora's back. "We all have someone we want to protect, especially in danger. I agreed with Tai's plan to protect my little brother. He agreed to it to protect Kari. Ken did it for Yolie. Come on, tell me why you agreed to the plan. We held a meeting; you didn't have to come."
Sora looked up, troubled. "I... I did it because Tai thought it up..."
"And what else..."
"To make sure he wouldn't get killed..."
"What good would it do for you to kill yourself now, huh? You fought for him, and if you kill yourself, It'll all be wasted."
And of course, it was that moment Tai chose to walk through the door.
Sora looked up at him and saw, for a brief moment, pain and anger flash through his eyes. Then he seemed to get control of his emotions and walked slowly towards the hospital bed.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" He asked in the voice that made Sora melt.
"All right, I guess..." She mumbled, avoiding his eyes. She couldn't look into his eyes; the pain there was to intense.
Then again, at least she was causing him pain.
An idea began to form in her pain-killer-drugged mind, and she carefully hid that plan from both young men standing at her bedside. Cruelly, like twisting a knife into Tai's already-skewered heart, she reached up and kissed Matt lightly on the lips. Matt raised one eyebrow and looked back towards Tai, shrugging. Tai blinked once, bewildered, and the pain flashed again through his eyes. Sora looked away, into Matt's eyes, forcing down the urge to scream an apology, to leap up and throw her arms around his neck.
"Thanks, Matt," she said quietly, coyly, ignoring Tai.
"Uh, sure, no problem." Matt backed away slowly. "I think we'll leave you to rest now."
He walked out, hands in pockets, obviously confused. Tai turned to follow him, then turned back to Sora, opened his mouth to say something, but turned away again. His shoulders slumping, he walked out.
Sora could clearly hear the yelling outside her room. Matt, claiming he didn't know why she had kissed him; Tai screaming that he had stolen her from him. Sora hugged the corner of a bed sheet tightly to herself, the tears running down her cheeks. This is retribution, she thought, this is for saving me.
"Anti-Depressants, constant supervision, councilors... all driving me closer to the edge..." Sora thought bitterly as she swallowed her daily regime of pills. Like she wasn't close enough to the edge already.
Like she wasn't teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Like the whole damn world wasn't out to get her.
The whole mess with Matt was making matters worse, and Sora desperately wished she hadn't attempted something as stupid as trying to make Tai jealous. It had all backfired; Tai hated her now, and Matt was, to say the least, outraged. She had inadvertently turned her two best friends against her.
The other day she had called Tai, hoping to apologize and explain, but the conversation hadn't been very pretty.
"Hello? This is Tai Kamiya."
"Hi, Tai, this is Sora."
"Sora? What do you want??"
"Tai, I just wanted to..."
"To gloat, to tell me how happy Matt's making you, is that it? Well, I don't want to hear any of it."
"No, Tai, please..."
"Shut up, Sora," Tai had snarled, slamming the phone down on the receiver. Sora had sat at the other end of the line, devastated, for an hour before getting up again. Next she had called Matt, hoping he could get her out of the grave she was slowly digging for herself.
"Matt, this is Sora."
"Sora??"
"Yes, Matt, and I..."
"Look, I don't want to hear it. I don't love you, I don't want to go out with you, and I'm really pissed at you, besides!
"Matt, just listen..."
"No, I'm fed up with it, Sora, leave me alone." Then Matt had hung up.
Too bad these pills aren't lethal, Sora thought, rolling two of the small pills in her hand. If the capsules didn't contain death, what use were they to her, anyway?
She would call again, once, just once, and then she would head for the knives. That big butcher knife her mother kept in the cupboard would do nicely.
"Matt, this is Sora, please talk to me!"
"Why should I?!"
"Look, Matt, I'm on the verge of killing myself again, please talk to me!" She cried.
A short silence on the other end caused Sora to start crying again, and Matt's voice was decidedly subdued. "What do you want?" He asked quietly.
"Look, Matt, I need your help. I tried to get back at Tai for saving me by kissing you, and the whole mess has backfired! I need you to come with me to Tai's house so we can work this out," she sobbed.
"All right, I'll come pick you up. Be there in a few minutes."
And he hung up.
Sora huddled in her room, her arms wrapped around her knees, keeping her hands away from the numerous objects she could use to spill her life. She had to wait for Matt.
When she heard the car pull up outside, she nearly jumped out the window to him.
Matt rang the doorbell, pulling off his shades, watching an ant scurry up the doorframe. Sora answered, her face blotchy and tearstained, and Matt felt a pang of pity for her.
"Come on, get in. Just don't cry. This baby's brand-new." Matt opened the passenger-side door of his new Farrari, and Sora stepped in.
"This is a nice car," She said quietly.
"Yeah, the band's doing pretty well, and I just inherited a fortune from my Dad." Matt closed his own door and buckled up.
A half-hour later, they pulled up outside Tai's house, and both exited rather nervously. They didn't know exactly how Tai would react.
Sora reached up to the doorbell, remembering a time years ago, when she had reached up to a similar doorbell, only to put her hand down and growl, "Stupid Tai..." Now she did ring the doorbell, and the sound of heavy footsteps came to her from somewhere in the house.
Tai opened the door, his face a mask of blood, his hand wrapped around the handle of the shotgun he had used in the digital world. His eyes widened briefly, and then he raised the shotgun, and fired.
One, two, the bullets hit with soft thuds, and the bodies dropped like stones to the pavement.
A third, and the shooter stumbled across the grass to his victims, his blood dripping from one hand. With every beat, more blood dripped. Thud, bleeding, thud, like red tears, thud, sticky and warm.
He crouched beside Sora's inert form, his eyes intense and angry, pockets of emotion among the pools of blood.
"This is revenge," he choaked, coughing blood onto her shirt.
"Tai, I loved you..." she whispered, raising her hand.
The last thing Tai felt, tasted, saw, was that bloodstained hand, the hand that had begun this nightmare.
And on Sora's other side, Matt, blood pouring from his chest, began to sing, softly, gurgles of blood from his slowly filling lugs punctuating every breath...
"Oh I want you, I don't know if I need you,
"Oh, I'd die to find out..."
That was what he told them to do, go in there and annihilate the enemy. Take them down, soldier by soldier, making sure none were left alive to turn around and kill them. It was a horrible choice, but what could he do? He was their leader, and he wouldn't let them die. He chose the choice that was safer for those he loved.
"Let's get this over with," She grunted, hefting a backpack over her tired shoulders. She had been tired a lot lately, from nights of staying awake, running the lives of the digimon over and over again in her head.
"You sound upset. What's wrong?" Cody asked, hefting his own pack onto his shoulders.
"Nothing."
Cody shrugged. He knew she was hiding something; Cody could read people like books.
Sora sighed and ran her eyes across the faces of the other digidestined. They were all there: Matt, T.K., Kari, Cody, Davis, Mimi, Yolie, Ken, Izzy, Joe, and Tai. Tai, standing there, grim and efficient, watching over this little army of his. Agumon, ever faithful, stood nearby, a troubled look in his honest eyes. On an impulse, Tai put a hand on the shotgun he was carrying slung over his shoulder, as if to check that it was still there.
As if the weight wasn't enough.
She glanced at Izzy, at the computer, a hand on his own gun: a small handheld, loaded and ready. She looked over to confidant Matt, watching his blue eyes carefully for signs of regret.
She saw none.
In a moment of sudden anger, the slammed her fists onto the table in front of her, ignorant of the pain that shot up her wrist from banging the hard metal.
The other digidestined ignored it; they knew how Sora felt. Only Tai bothered to look over. "You want to go through with this?" he asked, walking over to her. She looked away from him.
"No, but what choice do I have? You command us like an army; whatever you say goes. I just wish we could get this done so I can kill myself."
He looked at her intently, a flash of concern in his brown eyes. "Let's go," he said, turning back to the computer screen. Izzy nodded slowly and raised a d-3 to the screen.
And then they were gone.
"There's the last of them, shoot!" Davis roared, pumping a running Monochromon full of lead. The Monochromon fell, stricken, to the muddy turf, its blood-red eyes closed in death.
Sora, tears streaming down her face, ran towards the final group of evil digimon, her gun loaded. Garudamon soared above, incinerating evil digimon as well as bloody corpses. Sora shot a red-eyed Piximon through the heart, then turned and threw herself in front of MetalGarurumon, who was running top-speed towards the digimon with Matt on his back. Matt looked down just in time to see one of MetalGarurumon's clawed feet slice into Sora's body, sending her flying.
"Sora!!" Tai screamed, leaping off WarGreymon's back to the blackened turf, rolling a few feet, then springing up to run to her. Sora was badly wounded from the kick; blood poured from her side, staining the grass and Tai's hands scarlet.
"Finish it..." she whispered, raising her gun to Tai.
"Get her out of here!" Tai screamed, hefting the sodden bundle up in his arms. He felt her warm, salty blood on his lips as her bloodstained arm reached up to touch his face, sadly, with regret. The red liquid ran rivulets down his hands, arms, legs, chest, face, to hit the ground like a sick rain.
Sora vaguely heard Izzy's yelp, "Digiport Open!" and felt somehow cheated. She wasn't going to die after all. Oh, if she had the strength in her arms, legs, anything to bring a knife down into her chest, spilling the rest of her blood. She felt a resentment towards Tai; he had saved her. What did he do that for? All the thoughts vanished into a dark haze as Sora lost consciousness, going limp in Tai's arms.
Some time later, how much time Sora didn't know, she awoke to a dull, throbbing pain In her side and the grim realization that her suicide attempt had failed.
Better to die than live with the memory.
"Sora," she heard her name called, and for a brief moment, she forgot his voice. Looking up, she was startled to see not a pair of deep, brown eyes, but shockingly blue, concerned ones.
"Matt?" she asked, cursing her voice for being weak. She wasn't weak. She should be dead now.
"Tai just left, it's too bad you came into consciousness just now. He really wanted to talk to you."
"He ruined everything. I don't want to talk to him." Her words were short, clipped, and insincere. Of course she wanted to talk to him. She wanted him to hold her, whisper comforting words to her, tell her everything was going to be all right. No, wait, it wasn't going to be all right; she still had to kill herself. Somehow Matt's blue eyes seemed to see straight through her, and when he spoke, it was in a firm tone of voice, like the kind Kari would use to speak to a small child.
"Sora, we know how you felt about the mission, but those digimon were evil. We had to do what we did. Don't blame yourself. Remember, data is never destroyed, only re-configured..."
"Shut up, Matt, you frickin' sound like Izzy," Sora lashed out, interrupting his sentence. She felt the tears coming, welling up, the burning in her throat, and cursed herself again. She wouldn't cry. Not here, not in front of Matt, not in front of anyone. "You know who I am! I can't just shoot twenty living, breathing creatures and not hate myself afterwards! My crest is the crest of love, and I care deeply for all the digimon in the digital world. You can't just tell me it's ok!" She vaguely felt the hot tears run down her cheeks, but didn't care anymore for some odd reason. "Yes, Matt, I wish Tai had left me to die, or better yet, shot me himself. I don't have regrets about trying to kill myself, and as soon as I get out of this damned hospital, I'll try again!"
Matt opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He gently put an arm around Sora's shaking shoulders, trying to comfort his friend. "Sora, please, don't talk like that. Everything's going to be al right now, I promise. Please, Sora, don't attempt suicide again. I'm sorry we had to go in there and kill those digimon, but if we hadn't, they would have killed everything. They weren't like Ken's servants, they wanted to do what they did."
"You're sorry," she spat, "What about Tai? It was his damn plan in the first place."
"He did it to protect us. Had we let those digimon live, or try to change them, they might have killed all of us." Almost as an afterthought, Matt added, "He did it to protect you."
"Oh, like I'm so weak, I can't defend myself? Like I'm stupid, so I'd get myself killed?? Great plan," she snarled.
Matt laughed softly, gently patting Sora's back. "We all have someone we want to protect, especially in danger. I agreed with Tai's plan to protect my little brother. He agreed to it to protect Kari. Ken did it for Yolie. Come on, tell me why you agreed to the plan. We held a meeting; you didn't have to come."
Sora looked up, troubled. "I... I did it because Tai thought it up..."
"And what else..."
"To make sure he wouldn't get killed..."
"What good would it do for you to kill yourself now, huh? You fought for him, and if you kill yourself, It'll all be wasted."
And of course, it was that moment Tai chose to walk through the door.
Sora looked up at him and saw, for a brief moment, pain and anger flash through his eyes. Then he seemed to get control of his emotions and walked slowly towards the hospital bed.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" He asked in the voice that made Sora melt.
"All right, I guess..." She mumbled, avoiding his eyes. She couldn't look into his eyes; the pain there was to intense.
Then again, at least she was causing him pain.
An idea began to form in her pain-killer-drugged mind, and she carefully hid that plan from both young men standing at her bedside. Cruelly, like twisting a knife into Tai's already-skewered heart, she reached up and kissed Matt lightly on the lips. Matt raised one eyebrow and looked back towards Tai, shrugging. Tai blinked once, bewildered, and the pain flashed again through his eyes. Sora looked away, into Matt's eyes, forcing down the urge to scream an apology, to leap up and throw her arms around his neck.
"Thanks, Matt," she said quietly, coyly, ignoring Tai.
"Uh, sure, no problem." Matt backed away slowly. "I think we'll leave you to rest now."
He walked out, hands in pockets, obviously confused. Tai turned to follow him, then turned back to Sora, opened his mouth to say something, but turned away again. His shoulders slumping, he walked out.
Sora could clearly hear the yelling outside her room. Matt, claiming he didn't know why she had kissed him; Tai screaming that he had stolen her from him. Sora hugged the corner of a bed sheet tightly to herself, the tears running down her cheeks. This is retribution, she thought, this is for saving me.
"Anti-Depressants, constant supervision, councilors... all driving me closer to the edge..." Sora thought bitterly as she swallowed her daily regime of pills. Like she wasn't close enough to the edge already.
Like she wasn't teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Like the whole damn world wasn't out to get her.
The whole mess with Matt was making matters worse, and Sora desperately wished she hadn't attempted something as stupid as trying to make Tai jealous. It had all backfired; Tai hated her now, and Matt was, to say the least, outraged. She had inadvertently turned her two best friends against her.
The other day she had called Tai, hoping to apologize and explain, but the conversation hadn't been very pretty.
"Hello? This is Tai Kamiya."
"Hi, Tai, this is Sora."
"Sora? What do you want??"
"Tai, I just wanted to..."
"To gloat, to tell me how happy Matt's making you, is that it? Well, I don't want to hear any of it."
"No, Tai, please..."
"Shut up, Sora," Tai had snarled, slamming the phone down on the receiver. Sora had sat at the other end of the line, devastated, for an hour before getting up again. Next she had called Matt, hoping he could get her out of the grave she was slowly digging for herself.
"Matt, this is Sora."
"Sora??"
"Yes, Matt, and I..."
"Look, I don't want to hear it. I don't love you, I don't want to go out with you, and I'm really pissed at you, besides!
"Matt, just listen..."
"No, I'm fed up with it, Sora, leave me alone." Then Matt had hung up.
Too bad these pills aren't lethal, Sora thought, rolling two of the small pills in her hand. If the capsules didn't contain death, what use were they to her, anyway?
She would call again, once, just once, and then she would head for the knives. That big butcher knife her mother kept in the cupboard would do nicely.
"Matt, this is Sora, please talk to me!"
"Why should I?!"
"Look, Matt, I'm on the verge of killing myself again, please talk to me!" She cried.
A short silence on the other end caused Sora to start crying again, and Matt's voice was decidedly subdued. "What do you want?" He asked quietly.
"Look, Matt, I need your help. I tried to get back at Tai for saving me by kissing you, and the whole mess has backfired! I need you to come with me to Tai's house so we can work this out," she sobbed.
"All right, I'll come pick you up. Be there in a few minutes."
And he hung up.
Sora huddled in her room, her arms wrapped around her knees, keeping her hands away from the numerous objects she could use to spill her life. She had to wait for Matt.
When she heard the car pull up outside, she nearly jumped out the window to him.
Matt rang the doorbell, pulling off his shades, watching an ant scurry up the doorframe. Sora answered, her face blotchy and tearstained, and Matt felt a pang of pity for her.
"Come on, get in. Just don't cry. This baby's brand-new." Matt opened the passenger-side door of his new Farrari, and Sora stepped in.
"This is a nice car," She said quietly.
"Yeah, the band's doing pretty well, and I just inherited a fortune from my Dad." Matt closed his own door and buckled up.
A half-hour later, they pulled up outside Tai's house, and both exited rather nervously. They didn't know exactly how Tai would react.
Sora reached up to the doorbell, remembering a time years ago, when she had reached up to a similar doorbell, only to put her hand down and growl, "Stupid Tai..." Now she did ring the doorbell, and the sound of heavy footsteps came to her from somewhere in the house.
Tai opened the door, his face a mask of blood, his hand wrapped around the handle of the shotgun he had used in the digital world. His eyes widened briefly, and then he raised the shotgun, and fired.
One, two, the bullets hit with soft thuds, and the bodies dropped like stones to the pavement.
A third, and the shooter stumbled across the grass to his victims, his blood dripping from one hand. With every beat, more blood dripped. Thud, bleeding, thud, like red tears, thud, sticky and warm.
He crouched beside Sora's inert form, his eyes intense and angry, pockets of emotion among the pools of blood.
"This is revenge," he choaked, coughing blood onto her shirt.
"Tai, I loved you..." she whispered, raising her hand.
The last thing Tai felt, tasted, saw, was that bloodstained hand, the hand that had begun this nightmare.
And on Sora's other side, Matt, blood pouring from his chest, began to sing, softly, gurgles of blood from his slowly filling lugs punctuating every breath...
"Oh I want you, I don't know if I need you,
"Oh, I'd die to find out..."