~The girl, seeing her companion advance into the darkness clutched her fist to her breast and bit her lower lip

~The girl, seeing her companion advance into the darkness clutched her fist to her breast and bit her lower lip. The entity told her to follow the young lad and offer him a shoulder to cry on; a friend forever at his side.

She looked at his retreating silhouette and rushed to catch up…

::I was so psyched when I saw I had GOOD reviews!!! This is my first fic and I just couldn't believe people liked it! ^_^::

::Well, anyway, to the fic!::

Takenouchi Sora sighed to her flowers, exhausted at the events of the day. She gently placed a yellow rose alongside a pink chrysanthemum. How had she gotten into this mess?

Only a week ago she had signed up to be a judge for a writing contest. Fantasy was her favorite genre and she had hoped she would find a good story, perhaps one or two, out of the entries submitted. So far, not even one up to half her standards had been turned in. All were short, pointless writings with a predictable plot and shallow characters. There's a pretty girl, she finds herself in trouble, a handsome prince comes to save her and they ride off into the sunset together. How boring. Her friends could make better stories than that. Secretly, she was hoping a certain friend would enter the contest.

A long time friend, Ishida Yamato, could tell wonderfully long and detailed stories. Beautifully written, they were, and with deep realistic characters whose actions were believable and human. Monsters that seemed about as authentic as they could get; and why wouldn't they be? After all, the twelve of them had certainly been around enough monsters themselves to have a faint idea of a truly terrifying or fantastic wonder.

However, he always held his stories in horrible ratings. She constantly had to tell him that they were wonderful, beautiful, and incredibly deep. It was beyond her understanding as to the fact that he said each new story was the worst anyone had ever heard. Sora wished that a "horrible piece of crap" would be delivered to her pile of real crap.

But her hoping had obviously been in vain. Even though he had started on a story a few months back, she was sure he would never submit it and she would be forced to read through boring, predictable stories until she collapsed.

The flowers were comforting. Sweet aromas of jasmine, rose, lily and even the sharp smell of baby's breath always lingered in her mother's haven. She had recently taken her own favorite arrangement to heart; one that was called 'Encouragement' which people bought for loved ones who were suffering.

Taichi, for a joke, had bought one for her.

That boy always knew what Sora was feeling, especially when it was frustration. Having been friends for twelve years assisted in the situation and if he couldn't read her vibes, he could read her face. It had helped when he was there for her three years ago when she had been in serious trouble, but even more so when both of her good male friends were working side by side to make her smile.

The brunette would make a fool of himself; the sapphire-eyed blonde would talk. Somewhere in between the faces and the words, her mood would lighten and she'd feel much better. Then they would start having fun. She had to admit, that recently her much sought-after friend was leaning on her for support more than reversed. If the blonde was breaking down, Sora would do what she did best, listen.

It had always been easy for Sora to listen, when she wanted to. Her selective hearing talents were well developed and she could tune out entire conversations effortlessly. However, her selective reading habits were not, and she was forced to read the same stories over and over again. Earlier that day she had talked to her best friend, Mimi, about the stories and had gotten an unusual response.

"Hasn't it been too quiet recently? No problems in any sector of the digital world, no bothersome interferences from parents or anything else edgewise, I've even passed my trigonometry class this semester with flying colors. Something odd is going down behind our backs."

 Her words had sincerely chilled Sora to her bone and a frightened air took over the room. Nothing had been happening at all and Sora had to admit that it was unusual for Mimi to receive an "A" as a final grade in any mathematical subject. "Do you have any idea what may be 'going down'?"

"No, nothing of the slightest! Perhaps it's something to do with our newly returned crests, why, my best friend told me that I've been using remarkably good grammar and phenomenally enormous words in my sentences. If I hadn't burst out laughing I wouldn't have had the slightest inkling of what she meant by the statement. I mean, is it really in my nature to use the full extent of my vocabulary?"

Silence followed the Tachikawa's words as Sora absorbed the realization that Mimi had actually been talking on nearly a Koushirou-like level. Not even Sora had used that many "Izumi words" as Tai had deemed them in one saying in such a short amount of time.

"Daijoubu ka?"

"Mmhm, but I seem to understand your friend's words better than you at the moment."

"Well," the girl said in a sly voice, "by any chance have you hooked up with anyone?"

"I've decided to take it slow so as to get over my shock of that baka Xui. Imagine, two others! I can't seem to comprehend how neither one of the other girls found out."

"Ah, but remember, it was Yama-kun who had dropped by that Uri's house and it was Taichi who had found Xui with her the next day."

"I don't know what I'd do without Yama," Sora had said.

A shocked tone arose from the American's voice. "What about Taichi-kun? Wasn't he the one who told you in the first place? Are you becoming fond of Yamato?"

"Of course not," she replied quickly, "what makes you say that?"

"Sora, have you been staring into his eyes for too long? I believe you've caught Ishida-itis. Sooner or later it would happen, given the fact that he had not only saved your life, but also started an international-band phenomenon. You've become one of his groupies!"

"No I haven't! I'm only his friend!"

"Aren't we all?" the Tachikawa mused distantly.

"I have to go Mimi, I'll call you-"

"No, my daddy can afford the long, long distance bill, you can't. E-mail me instead. O-daijini!"

"Ja ne." The girls had both hung up and returned to their separate duties. Mimi had unknowingly left Sora with a weird sense of absence as if something had not been quite right with that conversation. It had all felt as if she was chatting with a recording. The rest of the afternoon had followed suit.

Throughout dinner, work and homework (the reluctant reading) the detached feeling had stayed, eating away at the Takenouchi like a caterpillar to a leaf. She was just about to snap, when her best friend had tallied up the total calls to two.

"Moshi-moshi?" she had asked with a nervous tone, "Takenouchi desu, sorewa Sora."

"Sora! Daijoubu ka?"

"Mm…"

"Tell me."

"Oh, only something Mimi said, Taichi-kun. Don't worry yourself with it."

"What was it?"

"Well, have you noticed that nothing has happened? No attacks from the digiworld that I know of."

"Kari tells me that they've had no trouble with Archnemon or Mummymon lately, and, has your mom been especially nice?"

"Yeah," Sora said brushing a stray strand of hair from her face away, "see what I mean? It's frightening. What if they're planning a big battle now, what if…what if we'll need everyone for what's coming? All of the digidestined from everywhere around the world! I mean, there had to be digidestined everywhere, if they're in America, then they must be in Africa and China and Italy and-"

"Calm down Sora-san! It's probably only that they're trying to find Black-Wargreymon themselves, and have had no time for our friends. Now that we've protected the digiworld, and that menace is gone, they just don't know it. I'm sure TK, Ken and Davis and the others wouldn't tell."

Sora frowned. "Miyako tells me that they already know about his departure; but will another digimon come out of nowhere to attack us again like they did at Yama's concert? Nothing's happened since then, and it's been three weeks! What could they have been planning?"

"Don't think about it, our younger counterparts have it under control. And if they don't, we can always lend another helping hand like before. In fact, Agumon's even come over again; has Miyako or Daisuke brought you Piyo again?"

"No, but-"

"Sora!"

"Aii…you're right, I worry too much."

"We're going to have to forcibly remove you from that house aren't we Sora-san? Yama, Koushirou, Mimi and I'll have to drag you out kicking and screaming so you can have some fun! Tomorrow, we're going to come over, Jyou will bring Mimi, and you are going to see the sunlight for the first time in, how long?"

"Tai!" Sora sighed. "It's okay, nothing to worry about! Really!"

"Good, but tomorrow, it is the weekend and we're going to hunt you down and you're going to have some fun at the beach!"

"I went to the beach with you, Jyou and Yama last week!"

"Oh, so you did. Wasn't Yamato being a party pooper?"

"He was just stressed, that's all. Jun was bothering him." Sora heard a devious laugh on the other line. "What is that for? What did you do to her? What did you do to Yama?"

"Well, it's more like what I did to Ishida's rep."

"Oh. No. Tai, what'd you do?"

"I kinda told her that Yamato was, wait a sec." Sora shook her head and then set the phone down. Whenever Tai told her to wait, she'd be there for twenty minutes. She got up to get a drink from the fridge and the last horrible story she had to read before Tai's voice came from the receiver. It was faint when she heard it, but when she put it up to her ear it was like being next to a speaker at one of Yamato's concerts.

"SORA!!!"

"Ouch, Taichi! How about not making me deaf in one ear?"

In the background she heard Kari yell, "TAI! Would you KNOCK IT OFF! Stand still and shut up!"

"Anyway, I have to go, Kari needs me-"

"Wait, Tai you never told-" but she was cut off by the dial tone. Laughing to herself, Sora wondered what Kari was going to do to him. His little sister had been forced to take a sewing class at her school when their original lesson plan was interrupted after their teacher had gotten married and ran away. They had never thought that Mr. Fujiyama was that kind of man, but apparently, he was. Secretly, everyone was glad he was gone; every time the older digidestined tried to go to the digiworld by themselves without the younger group, he had hounded them and eventually they had to spend some time with him before they could even think of losing him.

But when they finally got there, it was great. Davis' group never knew what fun they had without them, visiting all of their old friends and even destroying an extra control spire or two. Picnics were always more fun in a world where they could spend hours without being disturbed; Yamato was always the one to point that out, Jun had been being a little too clingy. That was the beach she had mentioned, not the scary one that Kari reported seeing, the bigger beach, the one where the water was always warm and the sand was soft. The week before, they had visited the mountains after the snow had melted before they were ready. Everyone made snowmen and had they had had a great big snowball fight. Each time she came, Mimi said she was sleeping over at someone's house and during the day she would sleep, in class, at home, on the bus. But, in the night when she left with her duffle bag and her backpack, she would go to the nearest public computer-most often in the library or in a computer store-and open the digital gate Izzy had left her with a special code Gennai had given the original digidestined.

Ah, but lately, she had sort of disappeared along with the evil digimon. She hadn't been able to come to the beach last week, so Sora had been the only girl, which was quite unnerving. Her call had been the first news in at least two weeks. This was very unusual for Mimi; she was always in touch with them.

Yet, the whole time since the concert had been unusual Everyone had been having so much fun, that they never stopped to worry about what was missing; the bad. The good was certainly there, but what happened to the bad? You can't have a light without a shadow, as Gennai had said once.

"Aii, Sora," she told herself as she hung the cordless phone up, "but you worry enough to take care of everyone else's worries. Just as soon as you finish the story you can worry some more."

Sighing, she set out to read he first part of the ten-page story. She set her soda down and read on past the first sentence, which started with, 'Once upon a time,' like the others and continued with half closed eyes. By the time that she had gotten to the third page, Sora was half-asleep and by the fifth page, she was. Her delicate fingers rested on the page, slightly curved as she dreamed of another story, filled with magic and beasts, just the kind she liked; a story with a plot and interest. She was the princess and Taichi, her best friend, a servant who helped her out on her escapades around the big castle. Everyone she knew was in the dream; Yamato was her minstrel, Mimi her maid (though she did not treat her like one), Jyou her doctor, Koushirou, the advisor and lastly Daisuke was the jester. Miyako, TK, Kari, Iori and Ken were all friends of the royal family.

The dream was silly; full of unexpected twists and turns, but still, ridiculous in its nature. After all, who would think of them sliding a mountain of ice cream or climbing a huge pillar of cookies, and Daisuke's digimon eating the whole thing, just as they had gotten to the top?

When Sora awoke just a bit later from an explosion in the street, she vowed to never drink soda before she slept (who would want to have another dream like that again?), and never to give little Shoji left over firecrackers anymore. She turned back to the story on her chest for a few minutes, but her mind had already gotten the hunger for more sleep and the story was so boring and she was so very tired…

'Maybe just a little sleep won't hurt. Shoji's still got three crackers left, anyway.'

 

~*~

Ms. Takenouchi came home six hours later, at midnight, and set a blanket over her sleeping daughter. Had she stayed a bit longer, she would have seen exactly what Rusty the cat had seen. Scared silly, the cat had taken off from Yamato's lair and ran top speed to his nearest sanctuary, too afraid to have the sense to just go back to its home one floor above his.

Rusty stopped underneath a large building and panted a little bit before feeling a cool wind circle around his body. Alert and fully re-energized, the cat bounded through the open door and up the steps following the blue, sparkling wind once again to try to find its next victim before it did. Meowing like the world was going to end, it saw the familiar room that the mist floated up to and the tabby used its agility to jump from porch to porch to get to the open window as fast as it could. Rusty finally got to the open glass door and squeezed through the crack, just in time to see the wind envelop a pretty, red-haired girl asleep on a couch. Half of it swirled around her and then as she started disappearing, the other half went around the room and stopped before a picture, just as it had done before.

In the picture was the girl, her arm around the young blonde and the other around another boy with extremely large hair. Rusty knew that boy from his yellow mother, Miko; he was their master. The boy had kept Rusty once the rest of her kittens had been given away. The wind seemed to recognize the boy like Rusty and once it had fully gotten rid of the girl, it collected itself back together and headed out the window.

The cat knew it had to get to the boy before the wind could; he knew where the apartment was, and hoped he could reach it, his master, and Miko before the wind could. Maybe he was too late to wake the girl, but, the boy called Taichi by his masters, maybe he could save him…

::fin::

::i forgot a disclaimer so…here goes::

::i'm turning Japanese-ah, yes i'm turning Japanese-i don't own digi::

::i'm turning Japanese-ah, yes i'm turning Japanese-so please don't sue me!::

::dragonfire::