Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Toei, Fox Kids, etc., not me.
Light in the Shadows
By stormchild
Chapter One: Missing You
Tai screamed.
Kari reached out a trembling hand towards him, struggling to free herself of
the slimy grips of the Divermon. Beady eyes leered at him, mocking his
inability to help his sister, and a strangled scream ripped from his soul
again. But he couldn't move.
"Tai!" she cried, her voice raw with terror. "Help me!" He
studied her mutely, noticing tiny details as if they were of great importance.
Her brown eyes were wide with pain and fear, her hair spilling free of the pink
barrette she was so fond of. He had bought that for her eleventh birthday.
MOVE! he shouted furiously, internally. MOVE! But his feet stood
firmly planted to the ground. Tai couldn't even groan with his rage and
frustration. All there was to do was watch as Kari was carried out of his life
and into the darkness forever. The last things to disappear were her eyes,
fearfully asking, Why? Why didn't you help me?
An emptiness invaded him, swallowed him, and he dropped to his knees, finally
able to move. And it was too late. Too LATE!
"Tai...!"
The last scraps of Kari's horrified yelling echoed in his brain, over and over,
incessantly, and he hunched over trying to block it out. "No," he
whimpered. "No..."
"Tai...!"
*****
"NO!" Tai gasped, sitting upright. It took a moment for his confusion
to clear, then he slowed his panting, lying back down and staring at the
ceiling in his night-darkened room. A dream. That was all.
He frowned, noticing for the first time his sweat-soaked pajamas, and sighed.
He must have had the nightmare a hundred times by now, and still it evoked so
much pain inside of him. Was it normal? Even two years later, was it normal for
the memory to be so vivid, for the hole inside to still gape wide? Was he
losing it?
He certainly did feel as if he was losing touch with reality lately. The whole
world seemed less and less real every day.
Tai tried to form a rock-solid wall of determination like the old days. Kari
was still alive, and she would be found. Yes...
No. The rock crumbled and Tai squinched his eyes shut. He wasn't that old self
anymore, not by a long shot. He had overheard a whispered conversation between
his parents; his mother had described him as a shadow of what he used to be. He
supposed that was accurate, not that he really cared.
He threw off his covers, trying to cool down. Beads of sweat still formed on
his upper lip, and his hair was one big wet mass. Let's see... how many nights
in a row had he woken up like this? He'd lost count. Kari invaded his thoughts,
waking or otherwise.
She was still out there.
Despite his pessimism, he knew this much. He could feel it in his bones. She
might be hurt, beaten, half-dead, and he didn't know, but he did know she was
alive.
Tai groaned and sat up, idly fanning his face. The glow of his digital clock
announced the time, 2:47 am. He had no hopes of going to sleep again, not if he
didn't want to relive that day. Yep, he was going to be tired. No big deal
though. He was always tired lately...
*****
TK smiled his practiced smile at his mother. A precise, measured smile, that
didn't reach his eyes. Nancy Takaishi didn't realize this, though, and gave him
an absent grin in return. "I'll see you after school, honey," she
said.
Her golden-haired son nodded quietly and left the apartment, door clicking shut
behind him. Upon meeting with Yolei and Cody in the elevator, he greeted them
with the same emotionless smile. They grinned uneasily, covering it up with
false cheer.
TK blinked and kicked himself inwardly, scolding himself. Do a better job, he
thought. They can tell you're not same, good ol' TK anymore... somehow.
Upon reaching the schoolyard, an exuberant Davis jogged up to the group, still
looking decidedly uncomfortable in his high school uniform. His hair was even
more wild than usual, having no goggles to tame it. "Hey Yolei, Cody,
TA!" He hesitated a bit at the last one.
Suddenly TK didn't care anymore. He was, after all, not much more than an empty
husk. What was the point in going on? Life just snatched your loved ones away
when you expected it least, and he figured it would happen to him soon, too. So
why bother? Why bother with anything?
He wandered away from the others, earning bewildered looks, which he ignored.
He was meant to be alone, or something.
Alone.
Kari...
*****
Davis studied the blonde boy's retreating back with a frown. He was still upset
about Kari, wasn't he?
Everyone had been upset, of course. But Tai and TK seemed to be the ones
affected most deeply-- two years later, and still they were drowning in their
own sorrow.
Davis had scorned this for awhile--he thought they were being weak, letting it
get to them. But he had eventually come to realize exactly how deeply they felt
about Kari. Both had a bond with her that was unbreakable, or so they had
thought.
Inevitably, Davis' thoughts drifted towards his own feelings for Kari. He could
remember a time when he thought he loved her, was absolutely crazy about her.
He snorted. More like infatuated. Yeah, he'd matured in the last couple of
years...
But that didn't stop him from still feeling a pang at the thought of her,
smiling and carefree. And now she was gone, probably dead.
They had searched, oh, lord, how they had searched. Tai particularly had wanted
to go on, even when he hadn't slept for two days. He forced them to turn the
Digiworld upside down in their hunt, and no one really objected. He had been
just so... ferocious.
They had never found her, of course. TK mentioned something about a beach a few
times, and a look of bitter understanding had come across Ken's face, but
whatever it was, they never followed through with the idea. TK had said they
couldn't get there, anyway.
And here they were, fallen back into a comfortable life without Kari. Except
for the two boys. Davis watched as TK plopped onto a bench. He looked at Davis,
blue eyes looking as if they were on the verge of crying, but they didn't. He
just...stared.
*****
Izzy raced to the computer room, nearly slipping when he rounded the corner,
ignoring his aching limbs. It was a good thing they had all started meeting in
the high school's computer room after class. He collapsed into a chair,
panting, but waved away the other Digidestined's worried looks. "I...
ran... from... the other... side... of the school," he explained. "I
just received an e-mail. From Gennai."
The group, which included everyone except Mimi, exploded into surprised
chatter, and Izzy had to shush them. "Watch." He flipped open his
laptop, and with a few clicks of the mouse, Gennai's face appeared onscreen.
Well, sort of. It was fuzzy and disjointed, blurring out at times.
"Kids... Digiworld... Kari... captured... hurry!" The screen went
black, and silence lingered.
Cody, who was turning into quite the handsome young man although he was still
in elementary school, finally spoke in his quiet voice. "Does this mean
there's a new enemy? And he has Kari?"
Sora placed a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "It must."
Matt nodded. "Well, then, we don't have any choice."
Davis spoke up. "We'll have to go to the Digiworld."
Tai, who had been silent--characteristic of his self these days--removed a pair
of goggles from his pocket, pulling them onto his head. "Let's go get
Kari."
