~* Darkness Rising, Silence Falls *~
A Digimon 02 Fanfic by Bandit, ©2000
Chapter 2- Seventy-Three Yen, And Darkness Begins Its Work
~*~*~*~
"Whooooee!"
A brightly-colored projectile shot over the heads of the two boys, making them duck and throw their arms up to shield their craniums, their hair riffled by the passing breeze stirred up by the living missile. Doing an ollie in midair and grinding down the railing of the school steps, the boarder braked and jumped off her skateboard, flipping it up into her hand with one foot and reaching up to pull off her helmet, letting a cascade of golden-orange hair roll down over her shoulders.
"Hey, dudes, what's happening?"
TK shrugged. "Other than the fact that you just almost took the top of my head off...nothing much."
Joe scowled. "Sats, you have got to be more careful on that thing!"
"Why?" Satsuma Taiyo said flippantly, leaning on the railing she'd just ground down and grabbing one of the little oranges she liked so much-and was nicknamed after-from her shoulder bag. "I like it," she said, peeling the orange neatly into an S shape and tossing the peel over her shoulder into a garbage can, "and I get goob etherthise fum it," she continued around a juicy mouthful of fruit.
Joe rolled his eyes. The girl was irrepressible, and actually impossible not to like once you got to know her. Her 'unnatural obsession' with the little fruits was her claim to fame; she always seemed to have a few of them around, in her book bag, shoulder bag, gym bag, coat pocket… Satsuma's real name was Natsume, but it had been too good of a similarity to pass up when it came to nicknames. After years of being called Satsuma by even her parents, she'd come to respond to the name better than her given one. She was cheerful, athletic, and popular, and a bit of a class screwball. Everyone liked her, and Joe had known her since she'd waltzed over to him in chemistry class and asked if he wanted an orange. That had been in the sixth grade, the year after he'd returned from the Digital world, and they'd become good friends since.
"Futhamow," Satsuma swallowed, then kept talking. "Furthermore, it's just plain cool, and you couldn't do it if your life depended on it. So don't knock it until you've tried it, okay?"
"I wouldn't knock it," Joe said wryly, "if you hadn't just come close to knocking my head off."
Satsuma shrugged. "I wouldn't. I'm too good at what I do for that."
"Well, I don't want to end up stitching you up in the ER someday, so keep your eyes open, deal?" Joe said. Satsuma grinned.
"Deal. Now if you're through complaining, we're about to be late for Trig. TK, you coming?"
"Nope, just walking Joe over. Middle school doesn't start for half an hour, so I've got plenty of time."
Satsuma shook her head. "Lucky little squirts. C'mon, Blue-boy, let's burn sneaker rubber."
The two upperclassmen took off running into the school, heading for the lockers for Satsuma to drop her board before Trig class.
"Mimi! Hey, Mimi!"
Glancing up absently from her locker, Mimi spotted her best friend, Sora Takenouchi, speeding toward her down the linoleum tiles of the hallway. She smiled.
"Hi, Sora. Is the sky falling?"
Sora screeched to a stop, breathing hard. "Don't be silly, of course it isn't. I thought you went off to Home Ec without me."
"Close enough," Mimi giggled. "Missing me already? I just saw you this morning, you know. It was really nice of your mom to let me come early to spend Spring Break with you guys. Have I thanked her for that yet?"
"A million times," Sora stated, rolling her eyes fondly.
Mimi frowned. "And anyway, Sora, I am not in that big of a hurry to get to Home Ec. You said you're starting the sewing unit, and last year I sewed the tote bag I was making to the sleeve of my favorite shirt, remember?"
"How could I forget?" Sora said, giggling. "Mr. Fuwashi had to get a pair of scissors and cut it off. You threw a hissy fit about all the little thread holes that were left in it."
"Oh, don't remind me," Mimi said with a groan. At times, she'd been glad she'd left that class behind when she went to America. Mr. Fuwashi was nice, but Mimi was notoriously inept at housekeeping. Sora shrugged.
"Hey, you brought it up, not me. Want to go get a Snapple or something before class?"
Mimi checked her watch. "We've got a few minutes…sure. Mind if I borrow a couple of yen? I don't think I have enough."
"Course not. We'd better hurry, though."
The girls stampeded off in the direction of the juice machines by the cafeteria, nearly running down a pair of guys coming from the other direction.
"Whoa! What's the emergency, you two?"
Sora laughed. "Sorry, Tai. What are you and Matt up to?"
"I could ask you the same question, young lady," Tai said, imitating their Lit teacher to a tee.
"Just getting a Snapple, Mr. Wenbu," Mimi chimed in, recognizing the impression of the most widely-yet fondly-imitated eccentric of a teacher in Odaiba High. Matt frowned grumpily at her, getting into the act.
"A Snapple? Sounds like a drug deal to me. Miss Tachikawa, get ready for hours of detention."
Tai turned to him, arms crossed. "Mr. Ishida, what do you think you're doing, imitating me? Get ready for hours of detention!"
"Me, imitating you, Mr. Kamiya?" Matt said in tones of deepest disgust, pretending to tug at a large mustache. "What a horrible idea. Why on earth would I want to do that? The very idea is insulting! This calls for hours of detention."
Sora and Mimi dissolved into giggles at the pair of comedians. Matt and Tai looked at each other and grinned, pleased with their joke. Suddenly, both girls' giggles stopped dead. They were both staring at something behind the boys.
"There's...something bad behind us...isn't there?" Matt said slowly. Both girls nodded. Slowly, reluctantly, both boys turned around.
"Mr. Kamiya. Mr. Ishida," Mr. Wenbu intoned, standing in full mustachioed glory behind them. He paused, then bellowed, "Get ready for hours of detention!"
"Eep," Tai and Matt hiccupped, frozen in place.
Mimi and Sora burst into hysterical laughter, then fled away down the hallway, leaving the boys to face their fate at the hands of the grumpiest teacher in the school. They skidded to a stop by the pop machines, still doubled over in laughter.
"Oh, did you see their faces?" Sora gasped, leaning on the Pepsi machine. Mimi nodded, lost for words. She put a hand up to her throat, shaking her head as if to say, Can't talk now, laughing too hard...
Sora squinted at her friend's neck, her laughter ebbing away as her eyes widened.
"Oh, wow. Mimi, where did you get that? It's gorgeous!"
Mimi looked self-consciously down at the necklace, resting in the hollow of her throat in all its burnished glory. "Oh, this?" she said evasively, putting her hand up to touch the jewel-like beads. "It was a...a present..."
"From who?" Sora said, grinning. Mimi thought fast; she didn't feel like telling the full truth, somehow...
"I...I don't know. It just...turned up! Appeared at my window. Or your window, you could say."
Sora's eyes sparkled. "A secret admirer!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Mimi, you are so darn lucky! I can't stand it!"
Mimi shrugged, finding it hard to get into the spirit. "Yeah...just great."
"Huh...you don't seem too enthused," Sora said, frowning at her usually boy-crazy friend. "I'd expect you to be gushing about something like this. Is something wrong?"
"No!" Mimi exclaimed. She blushed, lowering her voice. "I mean...no, nothing's wrong. I'm just fine. Hey, about those yen?"
"Oh, right," Sora said, fishing in her purse. Mimi's not telling me something. But...I guess it's her business what secrets she keeps. When she feels ready to tell me, she'll tell me. I just have to trust her, that's all. "Here you go," she said, handing Mimi a handful of change. Mimi smiled, her cheery attitude back.
"Thanks! I owe you one."
"Actually, you owe me seventy-three," Sora said with a grin. Mimi added the change to a few coins pulled out of her pockets and punched up a strawberry-lemonade. Sora got a kiwi-melon, and they headed for Home Ec. Still, Sora couldn't help wondering; what was this big secret hanging around Mimi's new jewelry that she was so eager to keep hidden?
"Class, come to order!" Mr. Fuwashi said for the fifth time. A short, wiry little man with jet-black hair and large, intelligent brown eyes, Mr. Fuwashi was usually able to command the attention of his classes. This being the week before spring break, however, even his camaraderie with teenagers was unable to calm down his students. "I know we're all eager to get out of here, me included, but we have to give our full attention to school while we're in it. So if you would all stop running amok with kris in your teeth, could we please get started on matters of home economics?"
The class mumbled apologies, and shuffled back to seats they'd left. Mimi hopped off of the sewing table where she'd been perched, gossiping with Sora and Aika Shanjo, another girl in the class with curly dark hair and piercing green eyes behind tortoiseshell reading glasses. Mr. Fuwashi smiled at her from his desk.
"Oh, and I'm sure we'd all like to welcome Miss Tachikawa back to our class for her temporary stint as an Odaiba High School student. Am I right in saying you're staying at Miss Takenouchi's residence?"
Mimi nodded and smiled at the waving students around her. Nice guy, she thought. He hasn't changed much since the last time I had him as a teacher... Sliding into her seat, she tried to pay attention as Mr. Fuwashi launched into a review of the guidelines of using a sewing machine, but her mind seemed to be wandering. She frowned; it wasn't as if she hadn't had enough sleep the night before, so why was she so…distant? Her eyes drifted to the window, and she watched as a butterfly fluttered lazily by…
The world around her was utterly empty. Words like dull, endless, rolling, surreal, all would have fit, but empty was the essence of the plain, gray-brown hillocks that stretched in every direction as far as she could see, desert-like, rising into rolling mountains in the distance, and the only word that stuck in the oppressive silence. She called out, but no answer came. Taking a few steps, she saw puffs of dull brown dust rise and powder her jeans. This whole world was made of dust, dust and emptiness and silence.
Suddenly, from a distance, she heard a sound struggle in the silence. Someone else was here! Turning toward the sound, she began to run, clouds of dust making her cough and splutter. Faint, eerie sounds, like wind wailing through the top branches of a tired old oak tree, or a musical saw played by a memory of a musician, floated around her now, as though her presence there had called them into life. She crested a hill…
And there it was, bursting up from the ground in a rainbow of color and a torrent of sound-
"Miss Tachikawa?"
Mimi snapped back to reality like a pebble from a slingshot, blinking and blushing. She glanced reflexively at her jeans; not a smudge of the fine, brown dust remained. If it ever was there, she thought, suspicion coloring her mind. What just happened? It was so real...
"If you would please pay attention, Miss Tachikawa. We don't want a repeat of last year's sewing machine fiasco, do we?"
There was a wave of titters from around the classroom, and Mimi blushed harder and sat up very straight in her seat.
"No, Mr. Fuwashi," she said awkwardly, looking down at the table. The teacher resumed his lecture, and she sighed. Maybe I'm just going nuts...
As it lay nestled around her throat, the necklace seemed to glimmer, just once, and faintly, as though reflecting a nonexistent light. But again, no one was watching.
~*~*~*~
A Digimon 02 Fanfic by Bandit, ©2000
Chapter 2- Seventy-Three Yen, And Darkness Begins Its Work
~*~*~*~
"Whooooee!"
A brightly-colored projectile shot over the heads of the two boys, making them duck and throw their arms up to shield their craniums, their hair riffled by the passing breeze stirred up by the living missile. Doing an ollie in midair and grinding down the railing of the school steps, the boarder braked and jumped off her skateboard, flipping it up into her hand with one foot and reaching up to pull off her helmet, letting a cascade of golden-orange hair roll down over her shoulders.
"Hey, dudes, what's happening?"
TK shrugged. "Other than the fact that you just almost took the top of my head off...nothing much."
Joe scowled. "Sats, you have got to be more careful on that thing!"
"Why?" Satsuma Taiyo said flippantly, leaning on the railing she'd just ground down and grabbing one of the little oranges she liked so much-and was nicknamed after-from her shoulder bag. "I like it," she said, peeling the orange neatly into an S shape and tossing the peel over her shoulder into a garbage can, "and I get goob etherthise fum it," she continued around a juicy mouthful of fruit.
Joe rolled his eyes. The girl was irrepressible, and actually impossible not to like once you got to know her. Her 'unnatural obsession' with the little fruits was her claim to fame; she always seemed to have a few of them around, in her book bag, shoulder bag, gym bag, coat pocket… Satsuma's real name was Natsume, but it had been too good of a similarity to pass up when it came to nicknames. After years of being called Satsuma by even her parents, she'd come to respond to the name better than her given one. She was cheerful, athletic, and popular, and a bit of a class screwball. Everyone liked her, and Joe had known her since she'd waltzed over to him in chemistry class and asked if he wanted an orange. That had been in the sixth grade, the year after he'd returned from the Digital world, and they'd become good friends since.
"Futhamow," Satsuma swallowed, then kept talking. "Furthermore, it's just plain cool, and you couldn't do it if your life depended on it. So don't knock it until you've tried it, okay?"
"I wouldn't knock it," Joe said wryly, "if you hadn't just come close to knocking my head off."
Satsuma shrugged. "I wouldn't. I'm too good at what I do for that."
"Well, I don't want to end up stitching you up in the ER someday, so keep your eyes open, deal?" Joe said. Satsuma grinned.
"Deal. Now if you're through complaining, we're about to be late for Trig. TK, you coming?"
"Nope, just walking Joe over. Middle school doesn't start for half an hour, so I've got plenty of time."
Satsuma shook her head. "Lucky little squirts. C'mon, Blue-boy, let's burn sneaker rubber."
The two upperclassmen took off running into the school, heading for the lockers for Satsuma to drop her board before Trig class.
"Mimi! Hey, Mimi!"
Glancing up absently from her locker, Mimi spotted her best friend, Sora Takenouchi, speeding toward her down the linoleum tiles of the hallway. She smiled.
"Hi, Sora. Is the sky falling?"
Sora screeched to a stop, breathing hard. "Don't be silly, of course it isn't. I thought you went off to Home Ec without me."
"Close enough," Mimi giggled. "Missing me already? I just saw you this morning, you know. It was really nice of your mom to let me come early to spend Spring Break with you guys. Have I thanked her for that yet?"
"A million times," Sora stated, rolling her eyes fondly.
Mimi frowned. "And anyway, Sora, I am not in that big of a hurry to get to Home Ec. You said you're starting the sewing unit, and last year I sewed the tote bag I was making to the sleeve of my favorite shirt, remember?"
"How could I forget?" Sora said, giggling. "Mr. Fuwashi had to get a pair of scissors and cut it off. You threw a hissy fit about all the little thread holes that were left in it."
"Oh, don't remind me," Mimi said with a groan. At times, she'd been glad she'd left that class behind when she went to America. Mr. Fuwashi was nice, but Mimi was notoriously inept at housekeeping. Sora shrugged.
"Hey, you brought it up, not me. Want to go get a Snapple or something before class?"
Mimi checked her watch. "We've got a few minutes…sure. Mind if I borrow a couple of yen? I don't think I have enough."
"Course not. We'd better hurry, though."
The girls stampeded off in the direction of the juice machines by the cafeteria, nearly running down a pair of guys coming from the other direction.
"Whoa! What's the emergency, you two?"
Sora laughed. "Sorry, Tai. What are you and Matt up to?"
"I could ask you the same question, young lady," Tai said, imitating their Lit teacher to a tee.
"Just getting a Snapple, Mr. Wenbu," Mimi chimed in, recognizing the impression of the most widely-yet fondly-imitated eccentric of a teacher in Odaiba High. Matt frowned grumpily at her, getting into the act.
"A Snapple? Sounds like a drug deal to me. Miss Tachikawa, get ready for hours of detention."
Tai turned to him, arms crossed. "Mr. Ishida, what do you think you're doing, imitating me? Get ready for hours of detention!"
"Me, imitating you, Mr. Kamiya?" Matt said in tones of deepest disgust, pretending to tug at a large mustache. "What a horrible idea. Why on earth would I want to do that? The very idea is insulting! This calls for hours of detention."
Sora and Mimi dissolved into giggles at the pair of comedians. Matt and Tai looked at each other and grinned, pleased with their joke. Suddenly, both girls' giggles stopped dead. They were both staring at something behind the boys.
"There's...something bad behind us...isn't there?" Matt said slowly. Both girls nodded. Slowly, reluctantly, both boys turned around.
"Mr. Kamiya. Mr. Ishida," Mr. Wenbu intoned, standing in full mustachioed glory behind them. He paused, then bellowed, "Get ready for hours of detention!"
"Eep," Tai and Matt hiccupped, frozen in place.
Mimi and Sora burst into hysterical laughter, then fled away down the hallway, leaving the boys to face their fate at the hands of the grumpiest teacher in the school. They skidded to a stop by the pop machines, still doubled over in laughter.
"Oh, did you see their faces?" Sora gasped, leaning on the Pepsi machine. Mimi nodded, lost for words. She put a hand up to her throat, shaking her head as if to say, Can't talk now, laughing too hard...
Sora squinted at her friend's neck, her laughter ebbing away as her eyes widened.
"Oh, wow. Mimi, where did you get that? It's gorgeous!"
Mimi looked self-consciously down at the necklace, resting in the hollow of her throat in all its burnished glory. "Oh, this?" she said evasively, putting her hand up to touch the jewel-like beads. "It was a...a present..."
"From who?" Sora said, grinning. Mimi thought fast; she didn't feel like telling the full truth, somehow...
"I...I don't know. It just...turned up! Appeared at my window. Or your window, you could say."
Sora's eyes sparkled. "A secret admirer!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Mimi, you are so darn lucky! I can't stand it!"
Mimi shrugged, finding it hard to get into the spirit. "Yeah...just great."
"Huh...you don't seem too enthused," Sora said, frowning at her usually boy-crazy friend. "I'd expect you to be gushing about something like this. Is something wrong?"
"No!" Mimi exclaimed. She blushed, lowering her voice. "I mean...no, nothing's wrong. I'm just fine. Hey, about those yen?"
"Oh, right," Sora said, fishing in her purse. Mimi's not telling me something. But...I guess it's her business what secrets she keeps. When she feels ready to tell me, she'll tell me. I just have to trust her, that's all. "Here you go," she said, handing Mimi a handful of change. Mimi smiled, her cheery attitude back.
"Thanks! I owe you one."
"Actually, you owe me seventy-three," Sora said with a grin. Mimi added the change to a few coins pulled out of her pockets and punched up a strawberry-lemonade. Sora got a kiwi-melon, and they headed for Home Ec. Still, Sora couldn't help wondering; what was this big secret hanging around Mimi's new jewelry that she was so eager to keep hidden?
"Class, come to order!" Mr. Fuwashi said for the fifth time. A short, wiry little man with jet-black hair and large, intelligent brown eyes, Mr. Fuwashi was usually able to command the attention of his classes. This being the week before spring break, however, even his camaraderie with teenagers was unable to calm down his students. "I know we're all eager to get out of here, me included, but we have to give our full attention to school while we're in it. So if you would all stop running amok with kris in your teeth, could we please get started on matters of home economics?"
The class mumbled apologies, and shuffled back to seats they'd left. Mimi hopped off of the sewing table where she'd been perched, gossiping with Sora and Aika Shanjo, another girl in the class with curly dark hair and piercing green eyes behind tortoiseshell reading glasses. Mr. Fuwashi smiled at her from his desk.
"Oh, and I'm sure we'd all like to welcome Miss Tachikawa back to our class for her temporary stint as an Odaiba High School student. Am I right in saying you're staying at Miss Takenouchi's residence?"
Mimi nodded and smiled at the waving students around her. Nice guy, she thought. He hasn't changed much since the last time I had him as a teacher... Sliding into her seat, she tried to pay attention as Mr. Fuwashi launched into a review of the guidelines of using a sewing machine, but her mind seemed to be wandering. She frowned; it wasn't as if she hadn't had enough sleep the night before, so why was she so…distant? Her eyes drifted to the window, and she watched as a butterfly fluttered lazily by…
The world around her was utterly empty. Words like dull, endless, rolling, surreal, all would have fit, but empty was the essence of the plain, gray-brown hillocks that stretched in every direction as far as she could see, desert-like, rising into rolling mountains in the distance, and the only word that stuck in the oppressive silence. She called out, but no answer came. Taking a few steps, she saw puffs of dull brown dust rise and powder her jeans. This whole world was made of dust, dust and emptiness and silence.
Suddenly, from a distance, she heard a sound struggle in the silence. Someone else was here! Turning toward the sound, she began to run, clouds of dust making her cough and splutter. Faint, eerie sounds, like wind wailing through the top branches of a tired old oak tree, or a musical saw played by a memory of a musician, floated around her now, as though her presence there had called them into life. She crested a hill…
And there it was, bursting up from the ground in a rainbow of color and a torrent of sound-
"Miss Tachikawa?"
Mimi snapped back to reality like a pebble from a slingshot, blinking and blushing. She glanced reflexively at her jeans; not a smudge of the fine, brown dust remained. If it ever was there, she thought, suspicion coloring her mind. What just happened? It was so real...
"If you would please pay attention, Miss Tachikawa. We don't want a repeat of last year's sewing machine fiasco, do we?"
There was a wave of titters from around the classroom, and Mimi blushed harder and sat up very straight in her seat.
"No, Mr. Fuwashi," she said awkwardly, looking down at the table. The teacher resumed his lecture, and she sighed. Maybe I'm just going nuts...
As it lay nestled around her throat, the necklace seemed to glimmer, just once, and faintly, as though reflecting a nonexistent light. But again, no one was watching.
~*~*~*~