A/N: Hey, guys. This is my first attempt on a fanfic. Ruki may be a little OOC sometimes, but I tried my best. I'd appreciate if you review, but please don't be too harsh, 'kay? Ruki, Jenrya, Takato, Juri, Kazu and Kenta: 11 years Shuichon: 8 years Ryo: 15 years "." : speaking °...°: Ruki's thoughts ...: Ryo's thoughts



Disclaimer: Oh, sure! This is all mine! That's exactly why you read this at a place called FANFICTION.net. Indicating I'm nothing but a fan. And with no possessions besides old smelly socks.



Makino Ruki sat on the bench in the park. (A/N Sorry, dunno what it's called.) The D-Reaper's destroy dated back almost one year now. The tunnel Takato had discovered had been temporally blocked because of an earthquake. They just had uncovered again. Now, the group was about to meet in order to find out if that tunnel was actually passable. And, she thought annoyed, of course they were all late.

Suddenly, she felt fingers playfully glide along her ribcage, tickling her mercilessly. She spun around, trying hard to not give that Kazu moron the satisfaction of succeeding as she effortlessly stifled her laughter. But as she recognized the attacker, her urge to laugh was immediately quelched. She looked resigned as she raised a sceptical eyebrow: "Ryo."

His features bore a look of mild amusement to her statement. "No, miss, I'm a pink rabbit."

"Don't get on my nerves, Akiyama, or you'll get an one way ticket to the moon."

"Was that a thread? Awww, how sweet." His voice turned shrill as he tried to imitate a little scared girl, "Somebody help! I'm being threatened by the goddess of death herself!"

"Oh, shut up, jerk."

"Make me. Come on, attack me, Tiger!"

She smirked at him. °Wanna give it a go, dear? You have no idea what you're up against.°

The boy looked at her, flashing his trademark smile. He made no move to flee nor attack, he just stood there and looked at her cockily. That made her temper well up slightly.

"Stop grinning like that idiot you unfortunately are and try to keep an empty promise."

"I won't attack you." Then he smirked. "I hate to hit poor little girls."

"That's it. Die!!!"

She growled and tried to go for his neck. He stood still as if he wanted her to run right into him, then he quickly stepped out of her way. As simple as that move was, it caught her by surprise. Maybe because it was so simple. As she was busy trying not to drop onto the ground the prick used her defencelessness and brought her down by tickling her again. He grinned as she struggled to get out of his grasp, not able to look angry or glare because of her fits of laughter.

"Gotcha." He stopped and the bitch attitude returned full force.

"Oh, really? Don't you think I can see that, ass?"

He just smiled.

"Well.. not that it's my business, but.. what the heck are you doing?" Abruptly, they both looked up.

Juri and Takato stood near the bench, interested looks on their faces. Takato wouldn't assume anything, Ruki was sure about that point. (A/N Hey, it involves thinking, remember? ^.~) Juri on the other hand had gotten an odd glow in her eyes. And Ruki didn't like it at all, since she knew what it meant. She shot her a warning glare and Juri gave her best not to look too coupler-ish.

The rest arrived not too much later. Even Shuichon was going, having grown quite a bot. The passage was surprisingly easy to get through. And when they came to the Digital World, they didn't need to search long. Guilmon had stayed near the hole ever since the digimon got back, patiently waiting for a sign of his friends. After being nearly choked by everyone's welcome he explained that only humans could pass through the gate. Together they went to look for the others.

One by one, they found Terriermon, Lopmon, MarineAngemon, Guardromon, Calumon, Monodramon and Renamon. She and Ruki were the only ones that didn't seem to be too excited seeing each other. But that was just the surface. Inside, both of them were almost hysterical about seeing each other again. But their pride wouldn't allow them to show it. Yet, the connection or whatever it was they shared let their partner know that they felt exactly the same.

The tamers had chosen summer's vacation for their trip so they could spend some time with their friends. After searching for nearly three hours, they found a cave near a river to stay in. Everyone laid his sleeping bag on down the floor. Ryo chose a corner, so that he could overlook the whole cave.

°That shows that he's used to sleep in places like this. If an enemy came he would see him first and plus, he would be in a perfect position to fight it.° He sat down and let his gaze wander. Their eyes met. A little surprised at the interest of one another, they both looked away.

°Oh, I hate blushing. Why can't that be stopped?°

She cursed inwardly and turned quickly to another corner.

"Well, you shouldn't place it there, wildcat."

She spun around, no more blushing, just the usual annoyed face.

"Really? And may I ask the daring question why I shouldn't, Mr. Legendary Tamer?" He shrugged, unfazed by her rude tone.

"If it rains, it will be really wet there, so I suggest you search some other place. Unless you want to take showers more often than necessary."

She couldn't think of a good reply, so she stayed silent and glanced around the room. The only spot with enough space was exactly next to Ryo. She rolled her eyes and went over to him.

"Try anything funny and you're a dead man. Got it?"

He held his arms up in a sign of defence.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Ice Princess."

Though they didn't show it to the others, Ryo and Ruki were getting along. Ever since the fight against the D-Reaper, they were actually building an intense friendship. (A/N Intense in an absolute non-hentai way.)

But some of their friends (A/N Jenrya and Juri in particular) began to suspect something. They didn't really fight. They talked civilly to each other. (Means Ruki talked civilly to Ryo) And they were too often laughing their heads off over some stupid joke.

One night, they were sitting by the fire. Ruki was talking to Renamon, Juri and Takato were whispering some sick, fluffy stuff in each other's ear, Kazu, Kenta and Jenrya were playing the card game, Shuichon was racing around between the three to get a look at their cards and Ryo was already sleeping in the cave. It was Ruki's turn to get some fire wood. She climbed into the cave and looked around. She didn't find it at its normal place but that wasn't really new. Ryo had the habit of always changing the position of their things to be ready for a fight. She frowned at his stupid habit and turned.

"Ryo, where's the-"

She stopped. He was leaning on the wall, sleeping. He never laid down. He just leaned his back against the wall, pulled his knees up to his chest and slept. She couldn't help but laugh about his peculiarity. He looked peaceful and.. cute. She didn't admit it to herself, but she loved the sight of him sleeping. He looked like a little boy then. She was smiling at him a pretty long time. Then she realized how embarrassing it would be if he woke up now and saw her staring at him. So she turned again searching for the wood. After some time she found it on the totally wrong side of the room. She walked over to him once again and now she couldn't help it. She bent down and kissed him softly on the cheek. Then she rebounded and ran out of the cave as fast as she could.

°What if he was awake? No, can't be. He would have responded to my call. He was asleep, he was asleep, he was asleep, he was-°

"Um.Ruki? You there? We still need fire wood, remember?"

She turned to Jenrya, smiling sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm sorry. Lost in thoughts, I guess." The sight of that smile, practically nonexistent on Ruki's face until now, was somewhat suspect. "What kind of?" "Um.. well .. nothing particular." "Okay." He eyed her suspiciously. She gave him the wood so she could escape his scrutinizing gaze quickly.



Soon, they were all sleeping. (A/N In the cave of course.) But in the middle of the night, Ryo awoke with a start. He heard a small groan. He looked around the room to find Ruki, her fists clenched tightly in her sleeping bag. She seemed to have a nightmare, constantly tossing around and frowning. The boy gulped, trying to force back the urge to just scoop her up in his arms and hug her. But, knowing her temper he refused to put his life into serious danger. With her, it wasn't always best to act on your emotions. He would probably get lynched tomorrow. And that wasn't exactly his way of starting a good day, so he just reached over and stroked her arm gently. But still, she couldn't find rest. She tossed and turned like mad. Finally he couldn't resist anymore and kissed her forehead softly, gently tucking some loose strands of her red hair behind her ear. She calmed down and gave a soft, blissful sigh as he was drifting to sleep, too.

She smiled. She smiled because I comforted her. Maybe she... okay, let's just NOT go there, Akiyama.

The next morning, as the cave became rather boring the crew decided to try and find another place to stay in. Ruki and Ryo were all over each other again. Although they didn't even notice it.

Suddenly, the ground wavered and Ruki stumbled. Yet, she did not fall, being caught by to long, slender arms. Kazu however had no such luck, landing straight on his butt. A roar echoed through the woods as a big green digimon emerged from the trees. Too terrified to move, they all just stared. Until a sharp hiss and an arrow driving into the trunk of a tree that was mere inches from Shuichon's face indicated that this was NOT friendly. Jenrya whipped out his digivice and read the display hastily. "Frogmon. Typus : Virus. Level : Mega. Attack : poison arrows." Ruki finally realized in whose arms she was and quickly shoved Ryo off. Then she faced the green thing and fixed it with a stern glare.

"What do you want?"

"What I want?" He laughed evilly, almost hysterically. "To destroy all humans!"

"Oh, sure, it's a common thing to wish so, why don't you explain that?"

"You weaken us from within. You turn our own kind against us." He motioned to the digimon preparing their selves to fight him. "I will not see any of this anymore. You must me destroyed. You and those traitors."

Ryo's previously sceptically arched up eyebrows turned down to form an intense frown.

"Just try, buddy. Monodramon! Digivolve!" The small digimon nodded. "In process, boss. Monodramon digivolves toooo... Cyberdramon."

"Renamon, come on!" The fox like digimon nodded to her partner. "Renamon digivolves toooo... Kiyubimon!"

Ruki walked up to her friend. The others let their digimon digivolve, too. But all the damn thing had to offer was a superior, stuck up smirk. Ruki felt her temper beginning to boil again. Who was that little fuck, to just trying to kill all of them for no reason? "Kiyubimon, attack!" And the digimon did. But Frogmon just shrugged it off, a mere flick of his wrist sending Renamon crashing into the next tree trunk. As Ruki ran to her friend to see if she was alright, the others took their try, too. But Frogmon was too powerful. Brave as they were, the digimon attacked a second time, a third... But Frogmon didn't even seem to feel it. Soon, most of the digimon were dedigivolved again. Renamon and Monodramon had trained together. They were in the best condition of the all.

"Hey, go look for shelter, we'll handle that thing, 'kay?" Ryo shouted. Then he looked at Ruki.

"Ready, wildcat?"

"Stop calling me that."

"Okay, your majesty."

°Okay, note to self: KILL HIM!°

"I actually think we've got more important things to do, don't we?"

He gave her a lopsided smile. "Well, pumpkin, let's go!"

They digivolved to Sakuyamon and Justimon. Their choreography was good, and they managed to land a few good hits. But the frog like digimon seemed unharmed. Ryo was thinking about anything he could remember about any fight he had had, but couldn't find a solution. Then, an idea hit him. It wasn't his best and surely not his most practical one, but it was worth a try. He wanted to save the others. First of all Ruki. He turned to Sakuyamon.

"Hey, pumpkin, remember the fight against the D-Reaper?"

"Oh, now that you say it, I totally forgot about this!" She replied sarcastically.

"Good. Remember how to send your energy to me?" Her only reply was a groan.

"Well, could we do that again? I got an idea."

"And that would be?" She didn't look all too enthusiastic.

"You'll have to wait and see, Ice Princess. But I can't do it with only my power. I need yours." She eyed him suspiciously.

"I don't trust you there, Akiyama. You're probably bringing a suicide stunt again. If you don't explain this to me, the only thing you'll get is a head nut."

He smiled at her behaviour. "You won't ever change, will ya? But I think you want the others to survive, right? And I'm sure you wouldn't mind if you survive, too?" She nodded hesitatingly.

"Got any idea how to do that?"

"Do I look like I did?"

"But I got a one. So do I get the honour to be gifted by the power of the Amazon?" She rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Okay, okay, you got me." She sent all her power to Justimon's sword, not taking notice that he hadn't talked about HIM surviving. The process of controlling the force of her power was faster now, and soon he was all ready again.

"And now look that you get your ass outta here!"

"No." She almost seemed to pout.

"Ruki, please!" The desperate tone to his voice made her hesitant again.

"Why?"

"Well, it's not my business if you want to stay here and get your pretty little ass pierced by poison arrows. I got your energy, remember?"

She glared at him, but gave in and went to find the others. Justimon turned to his enemy again, who was waiting already.

"Well, sweetie, now you get an one way ticket."

He attacked him and after several tries managed to shove him his canon arm down the throat.

"Straight into hell!"

With that, he shot all his energy. Justimon, Frogmon and their closer surroundings disappeared in a fire ball. Ruki, who was now parted from Renamon again, watched with horror as Ryo and Cyberdramon fell down. As soon as he hit the ground, Cyberdramon was ripped into thousand pieces of data. Ruki didn't really realize it, though. She was by Ryo's side, trying to wake him.

"Ryo!... Ryo!" He didn't move, didn't breathe, his heart was standing still. It couldn't be! "WAKE UP, YOU JERK! Don't you DARE leave me!" She was completely out of it, trying hard to convince herself that this was just another one of his stupid tricks. But she knew it wasn't. His features showed his intense pain. He looked so... unnatural. Only a few times had she seen him frown before. And he didn't shift. NO! God dammit, this was impossible! How could he!? Ruki could savour the metallic taste of blood on her lips and realized that she bit it. Hot, burning tears were making their way down her face. The more she tried to push it back, the more force it gained. She was sobbing like mad and clutching the front of Ryo's shirt like she wanted to rip it. This was not real. It simply couldn't be. He had saved the world! What on earth had he done to be taken from his life so early?!

As Jenrya sprinted to their motionless figures, he had to bite tears back hard. And so did the others. The picture showing itself to the tamers was really sad. And in some weird, twisted way... cute. ( A/N No, I'm NOT sadistic, okay?) Ryo's face had relaxed into an almost-smile now. And Ruki was sleeping on his chest. But the almost peaceful scene came to a halt when Ruki woke up, again being absolutely hysterical. Their friends calmed Ruki down as good as possible, but it didn't really work. Ryo was brought back to the real world.

At his funeral, Ruki stood by his coffin, crying soundlessly.

°It's all my fault. If only I wouldn't have given him my power. We could have made it together, Ryo. Oh, I'm so STUPID! IT'S ALL MY GODDAMN FAULT!° Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Ryo's father smile down at her weakly. He reached for her hand and gently placed Ryo's red scarf in it.

"Keep this. I'm sure he would have wanted you to get it."

She tried hard to smile back, but it didn't really look like her. Again, the river of tears was checkless, and she just whirled around and dashed away, wanting nothing more than to forget.

Ever since that day, she closed her mind. She didn't eat, she didn't drink, she didn't sleep. The only ones that could reach her were her grandmother and Renamon. She kept telling herself that it was her fault, slowly destructing herself until she couldn't take it anymore.

And when her mother came home from a photo shot one night, she called her without getting an answer. That wasn't really surprising, but Rumiko had an odd feeling. She entered her daughter's bedroom. And screamed.

Ruki's limp form lay on the cold floor, her wrist open and for all to see. A small puddle of blood had formed around it. And even now, the girl couldn't shake off that same sad expression that had never left her face since Ryo's death.

Ruki made it. She was a strong girl. Although her doctors hadn't believed it, she recovered eventually. Her grandma took that as a sign that she hadn't really wanted to die. The tamers visited her, but that only reminded her of the best friend that she'd lost. She didn't want to see them anymore, didn't even go to the digital world. Her grandmother was the only one to get to her. She created her own, sad little world, filled with almost nothing but grief and guilt and suicidal thoughts. It was like that for six whole years.





Ruki lay on her bed. She wore a red casual dress that ended an inch above her knees. It had short white sleeves and a white smiley on the chest. How ironic. Her hair had grown a lot. She still had her ponytail, but she didn't style it spiky anymore. She just let the curly locks fall down her back. She had her earphones on and listened to her music as her grandma entered the room.

"Phone, sweetheart. It's ...Jenrya."

Her head shot up, her expression changing from disinterest into extreme discomfort. "Tell him I'm not available, okay?"

"He said it was really important and it involved the digital world. "

"Okay, give it to me... ... Hey, Jen. What do you want?" She asked softly, almost fearing the reply.

"Hey Ruki. Nice to talk to you again. But that's not why I actually called."

"Thought so."

"Well, you see, the digital world is in a great danger. And we need you to fight it."

"... But..."

"I know you don't want to go there, and I understand you. But please, we can't make it without your help. You need to go there with us."

"But, Jen, that would be of no use, I'm sure."

"Don't say that, we have a surprise for you."

She pondered a long time, uncertain and hesitant. "Well... alright."

She could practically hear Jenrya smile. "Great. Tomorrow around noon at the gate, sounds o.k. to you?"

"See you, Jen." She mumbled softly. And as all she could hear from the phone was the peeping signalising an unoccupied line, she felt the acute need to pull something over her ears to silence the thing inside her head from screaming how stupid she was.



Okay, see, some of you may have read this before. I went over my old version and just then realised how shitty this chapter actually was. So, here we are: The revised version! Yay! Feel free to do anything you want. Even comment. *HintHint*