Chapter Five

Matt was horrified as he grasped the meaning of the white-haired teen's words. "I… I won't," he whispered quietly, though certainly loud enough for the other two to hear. Slowly he backed away, his nervous eyes on the blade at Rio's throat and the even more dangerous crest in Roan's clenched fist. If this had been a trap, it had certainly turned out to be an effective one.

"Now stop right there, Matt," droned Roan slowly, making a threatening motion with the knife at his sister's throat. "I'm not so overly fond of her that I won't spill out her life right here on this floor if you don't stay to participate."

The blond boy froze, completely helpless to act. He had no doubt that Roan would do as he threatened, but was justifiably horrified at what the other could cause him to do to Rio by using the Crest of Hate against him. As strong as Matt hoped that he could be, he was well aware that he simply would not be able to keep from harming Rio if Roan so wished it.

"Roan," Rio whispered to her brother, seeking desperately to forestall whatever it was that he was planning. "Roan, please. Don't do this."

"Please? Did you just say, 'please'?" And with those hesitant, derisive words still in the air the older boy grabbed his sister's dark hair and yanked her head back, at the same time keeping his keen blade at her neck. Rio yelped a scream, then started to sob quietly as her captor faced off against her beloved Matt. Even from this distance she could see the blond-haired boy's hands balling into angry fists.

No... anything but that. Let me die first. Let Roan extinguish what little flickering joy of life he's left me, but don't let him do it with Matt's hands. My soul will sink to Hell in an instant...

"And now," the teen said, his dark eyes flashing with amusement. "And now the fun begins." And his eyes rolled back into their sockets as he focused his concentration on binding the angry soul of his crimson crest to the mind of the blond-haired boy opposite him.

*****

T.K. stared sorrowfully at the door which Kari and the others had just passed through for another minute or so, then rose to his feet and turned to leave. He could only pray at this point that Tai and Sora could keep Kari safe. He wouldn't have willingly made that sacred trust to anyone, even to those two, but since he evidently had no choice in the matter…

Then, as his fingers came into contact with the knob on the door, the young boy's dejected eyes fell on a large book which rested on the desk opposite the portal. He glanced around, now taking the time to acknowledge the rest of the room instead of having his focus solely on the other's escape route. This was evidently a library or study of some sort. Books upon books were piled about the room, most of them looking very old and worn.

And then something, the boy wasn't sure exactly what, compelled him to go to the open book on the table. It was exceptionally large, and the pages within it were yellow and cracked with age. But T.K. frowned as he looked at the scrawled writing within. It was jumbled and entirely nonsensical to him, written in a language the he didn't even recognize, much less understand. Knowing that the book had been used by Despair, he doubted that it was even a human language. In fact, it was so utterly useless to him at the moment that he would have shrugged it off and have gone to find Matt if there had not been, quite prominent in the center of the page, the sigil of the Crest of Knowledge.

He flipped slowly backwards through each page, but found that he could read none of them. Of the infrequent diagrams and sketches he could fathom little more, but it was on these that his attention was focused. He leaned over the tome to get a closer look. That sign of the cross and two lines looked somewhat familiar. And that one between the sigils of Hope and Light. Did those marking mean that--

But just as he thought one of the diagrams was beginning to make sense to him, the boy gave a yelp of alarm and shoved himself away from the book, hand going instantly to his chest. A fierce, burning sensation had startled him from his concentration and pulled him rather convincingly back to himself. With a slight blush on his cheeks at having broken the eerie silence with his cry, T.K. glanced down at the area where he'd been singed.

The boy reached beneath his shirt and once again produced the Crest of Hope. It was burning steadily with its golden light, and T.K. felt the familiar throbbing in his head that signified its desire to commune with him. Never before had the little relic showed such an urgency in attracting his attention, so he instantly closed his eyes and concentrated on the faint strumming noise in his head. He turned his head to the side and sunk deeper into the union. The Voice was there... but just so difficult to make out...

Stop guessing and let Us read Together...

And just as suddenly as it had been established, the bond was broken.

He blinked somewhat owlishly as the spirit left him. It was not what he'd been expecting. Always before when the Crest had joined with his mind, however briefly, it had been in regards to either Kari's well-being or his own. Now... Us read?

The boy puzzled the demand out for a moment before inspiration struck. The light from the crest was still active and shimmering against his palm, and now he turned the golden glow upon the pages that he'd not been able to recognize before.

And as the crest's luminance washed over the page the boy again studied the letters... and this time they arranged themselves properly in his eyes, and he understood them. He started to read:

Know, beloved, that the power of these children is very great, as you can well understand. But what has escaped us is that it can become greater still. I have had time (too much time!) since being flung into this world by them, and have thought on the matter. It is their moral love which can bind the virtues together, creating a power tenfold greater than that which they wield alone. The furious power that struck us down was the holy combination of Hope and Light: Faith.

But beloved, it had been given me to know how to extract that power from the children by harnessing their souls… or so I believe. Our Master still speaks to me here, but His voice is so very, very distant... And the noise... After having been struck by the Saber I shall hear the shout of the angelic hordes in my mind evermore. It is maddening.

But this shall be your salvation, not my own, for they are beyond my reach. I believe that, if such power can be harvested from the children, it will more than supplement what you have lost to them.

Harness their power. Use it to return to our homeland, in memory of me if nothing else. I have nothing here, save the creatures of this world to amuse myself with. But you… you have all the children there at your disposal. Find them. Take their strengths and yoke them together. Remember, as Hope and Light beget Faith, so too from Knowledge and Sincerity springs Wisdom. And then finally can Courage and Love together become Conviction.

Darkness, Everlast.

*****

"You cold, black-hearted bastard!" snarled Matt, as he felt the rage beginning to swell inside of him. But now, disturbingly, his hatred for Roan was starting to amble off to the back of his mind and was being replaced by an artificial fury directed at Rio. He knew it, realized it, and was certain that he was helpless to do anything about it.

"Did you just now come to that rather axiomatic conclusion, little boy?" The other's tone was arrogant, derisive, as if he would savor every delightful second of the younger teen's realization that he alone would eventually be the one to destroy Rio. With agonizing slowness Roan dug the point of his blade into the soft flesh of the girl's throat, a tiny drop of blood washing over the tip. "Remember, sticks and stones, Matt. Sticks and stones. I'll enjoy this, I think. And now it's time for you to... ooh--" The dark teen's sardonic words were cut off with a sudden moan as his dark eyes went vacant and he fell forward to his knees, releasing his grip on both Rio and his knife. The latter clattered loudly as it slid across the floor, stopping only when it collided with Matt's feet.

Rio turned, and looked up at her savior, as did Matt. There stood T.K. with a grim look in his eyes, holding the object with which he had just smashed Roan's skull.

It was a large, leather-bound book.

*****

The angel of Despair appeared troubled as he stood alone in the ruins of the Digimon village which he had just unintentionally razed. The bodies of those that he had vanquished had already dissolved, and now all that was left were the fires burning in what had been the dwelling places for those creatures.

A disturbing realization was just now occurring to the angel. He was proving unable to control the power of the Unity of Wisdom. Even the tiniest hint of danger that he was directing towards it was unleashing power of an unimaginable destructive force. He had thought that by lessening the threat, he could lessen the force that the souls confined therein were responding with. That was not proving to be the case.

What good will it do me to continue like this? the dark creature wondered. Virtually all of the evil Digimon had already cast their respective lots with the Emperor, and unless he could use the power of the pendant in his hand to convert them then he would have no followers, no one to reign over. If he could not control it then he would rule, yes, but would rule over a dead world, one that he himself would destroy.

Once again he thought of the boy, the keeper of Knowledge. This was his fault. If only his informants had been correct, if only the boy were as cold and uncaring as they had portrayed him to be, this would not be an issue. But the energy that he was expending to protect the girl bound with him, that energy which powered the gem, made it clear that whatever he had felt in the past, his love for her was all-consuming now.

Then the dark angel's eyes panned up, as something in the distance caught his eye. Creatures were approaching, and even at this distance, he knew that they were not Digimon. Damn you a thousand times over, Roan! Could you not have kept them occupied for even a moment after I had left?

The angel turned, but there was nowhere left for him to go, nowhere to hide. In his younger days he would have taken to the skies, but now his wings failed him as badly as the rest of his body. A feeling of stark terror arose in him, one that he had not had to deal with even when opposing the hundreds in the village that he had just taken. A terror that was caused by three young, human, children.

*****

Izzy felt drained, weakened, as though he had just taken part in a day-long battle. Wherever it was that he and Mimi had been sent, the threat of danger was all about them now. Izzy was continually steeling his soul to fight in whatever way that he could against whatever it was that was threatening the two of them, but whenever he prepared himself to fight, the golden nimbus again appeared and drove the danger away.

The girl who remained engulfed in his protective, incorporeal existence was his only means of support now. Every time that he expended the energy to keep them safe, she was there at his side to gird his strength with her love for him. The boy was certain that he would have failed long ago were it not for her.

"Izzy?" her tender voice echoed in his head, her spirit warming his with its embrace. "Please, Izzy, stop. You're hurting yourself."

The concern and emotion in her words once again renewed the strength of the Hero of Knowledge. How he wished, desperately wished at that moment that he could kiss her. The bond that they had been forced into was deeper than a simple meeting of the lips would be, but there was something special that he assigned to that gesture that he wanted to share with her. "No, Mimi. I'll be fine. Whatever happens, I swear, I'm going to be with you to protect you."

"Oh… Izzy… if I could right now, I swear I'd kiss you… well, either that or give you a good, quick kick in the butt for the stupid macho act!"

The young boy smiled to himself. The irregular and fervent outbursts of emotion were one of the things that he loved about her. One moment she could be so incredibly childish and selfish, and without pause could become more sage and discerning than anyone that he had ever met. When they had first met, those traits had served to confuse the boy more than anything, but now he found that they provided an air of mystery about her, something that the Hero of Knowledge found hard to resist.

Then, without warning, Izzy sensed the threat of danger surrounding them again. Only this time… there was something different. Whatever it was seemed less threatening than it did… it was hard to describe. Concerned, perhaps? Worried?

*****

"I hope that's the last we see of that thing," T.K. muttered as he crushed Roan's Crest of Hatred underneath his heel, grinding it into tiny crimson shards.

Matt nodded as he looked down at the white-haired teen, unconscious at his feet. Then his eyes panned up to his little brother's face, so like his own, and the lanky boy embraced T.K. gratefully. "Thanks, squirt. Thanks a lot."

The younger boy blushed as he watched Rio study them, then felt just a trace of pity for the girl as he returned Matt's embrace. She had never known what it was like to have a brother that she cared for, or who cared for her. At that moment, T.K. realized all that he would have been missing if he didn't love Matt as much as he did, or if that love wasn't returned. "Matt," the younger boy whispered, giving a slight motion of his eyes towards Rio.

The older boy nodded once but did not leave his brother's arms, and instead motioned the girl over to share in the warm, familial embrace. The girl joined the pair, hesitantly at first, then happily as each brother put an arm about the dark-haired, pale girl. After a moment, T.K. was moved to see tears falling from the girl's brown eyes. "Thank you… thank both of you," she whispered fervently.

The three stayed like that for some time afterwards, then Matt looked down at the book that T.K. had clobbered Roan with. He nodded at it. "What's that?"

T.K. responded with a disingenuous smile. "A book."

Matt rolled his eyes. "And apparently a makeshift club, too," he replied sarcastically. "What's in it?"

T.K. looked grim. "It was the other angel, Matt. He was here, and apparently whatever Darkness did to Kari when we were with the a'ladon, he's figured out a way to do it to Izzy and Mimi. He's using their souls to increase his power. Their bodies…" he paused, trying to get his bearings, "should be in that room over there." He pointed to the door that Matt had been trying to batter down earlier.

Rio frowned, then knelt by her brother and started searching through his rumpled clothes. Then she nodded with satisfaction as she pulled a set of keys from one of his pockets, went to the door and, after several attempts, found the correct one to open the lock.

"What do we do about him?" asked T.K., motioning towards Roan's limp form.

Matt bit his bottom lip. "Take him with us, I guess," he said, grabbing one of the teen's arms and indicating for T.K. to take the other. Together the brothers dragged his limp body into the room where the angel's book had indicated that they would find Izzy and Mimi.

The boys unceremoniously dumped the criminal in the corner of the room, then turned to their captive friends. "Oh my God! Izzy!" T.K. yelped, rushing to the red-haired boy's side.

Izzy's face was barely recognizable. His eyes were closed, but T.K. doubted that the boy could open them even if he were conscious as they appeared to be swollen shut. Blood encrusted the lower part of his face and neck and stained his clothes all the way down to his shoes. His left arm was twisted at an awkward angle and was bound against his body with a series of cruel looking wires, and there was a hideous purple bruise on his jaw.

Matt glanced from Izzy to Mimi and back again, the girl quite obviously injured but much less so than Izzy. Of course, that wasn't saying much. A thin current of light streamed from each of their chests to a large crystal in the center of the room, a crystal which glowed with a much greater light than either of the two beams could produce by itself.

"Matt, give me the knife," T.K. said. The older boy nodded and handed the blade to T.K., who started to saw away at the thin wires which bound Izzy to the chair. They were metallic, and reluctantly started to give way with a sharp, annoying twang.

"Rio. Go find a phone," Matt ordered. "There's got to be one in here somewhere. I want you to call--"

"An ambulance? A doctor?"

Matt looked at the pair of his friends, bound as they were. Who knew what taking them away from the crystal, as any doctor would insist on, would do to them. No. Now they needed someone with a knowledge of medicine, but also someone who understood of some of the less mundane problems that this was likely to entail. "No." He took a small card out of his wallet. "Call this number, and ask for Joe. Tell him… tell him a friend of Tentomon is in serious need of his help." Joe might not trust a stranger on the other end of the line calling him for aid, but the mention of Izzy's Digimon would certainly lend Rio credibility.

The girl looked confused, but did as the older boy bade. As T.K. continued to saw away at Izzy's bonds, Matt sat down on the floor and opened the large book that his brother had brought.

*****

The dark angel of Despair trembled as he looked at the three children who were facing him in the center of the burned-out village. The three, in turn, returned looks of disgust at the creature. Even Kari, who could never hate anyone, started at him with fury in her eyes at what he had just done to the village of innocent creatures.

"What have you done with Izzy and Mimi?" Tai shouted, and the fearsome creature actually seemed to cringe at the sound of his voice.

Wait… that voice. Now the angel looked closer at the three who faced him. The two girls… and the leader. The child of Hope was absent from their midst, and the Saber which haunted his every waking moment was not with them! With a flash of realization his fear vanished, and he held up the pendant which contained the Unity of Wisdom. "They're right here, boy," the creature hissed, a sneer appearing at the corner of his lips to match the evil in his voice. "Come and get them, if you think you can."

Tai focused on the shimmering pendant in the other's hand, confused. What was it that Roan had said? Escaped with the life force of my friends. Or something like that. Could the dark angel really have trapped their… their souls within that tiny gem? It seemed difficult to believe, but Tai had seen much, much stranger things in his short lifetime.

Sora froze. This was what it had come down to. They had caught up with the angel, but still had no way to fight with him. Indeed, they were in quite a bit more danger from him than he was from them. The girl stole a quick sideways glance at Tai. Hopefully he had formed a plan of some sort, but there was really no guessing what the impulsive boy might--

"Tai! No!"

In a flash Tai darted towards the hooded angel, heedlessly throwing his body at the creature's in an attempt to bring it to battle. Despair simply smiled, and traced a pattern in the air with the Unity of Wisdom, weaving together its power and his with the certain knowledge that he was safe from harm.

The angel's power, when it was unleashed, came accompanied by an earsplitting explosion and a flash of gray lightning. The bolt smashed violently into Tai's chest and hurled his limp body backwards and through the air, almost fifteen feet to land sprawled on the ground by the two girls. "Tai!" the pair screamed as one, dropping to their knees his side.

Tai's back arched with pain as he landed heavily on the ground, but then his eyes popped open with a great deal of surprise. That hadn't felt at all like he'd expected, and he wasn't even injured... much less dead. Being thrown that far and hitting the ground that hard had certainly hurt, but the gray bolt of lightning hadn't at all. It had been loud, bright... and almost completely innocuous. But still...

He looked up at the two girls kneeling over him, silently swearing at himself. This whole, stupid mess was his fault. He had known that he had to rescue Izzy and Mimi, even without a very good plan, but for him to have brought the girls with him… well, that was almost unforgivable. Even if Despair were only toying with them now, there would come a time when his amusement with them would end. And how to summon help here... now?

"Tai," Sora sobbed, throwing her arms around the boy and burying her face in his shoulder. Kari looked down at her older brother with those same, sad eyes that he was so used to.

The brown-haired boy rose to his seat and rubbed his chest, the pain from his collision with the ground still resonating throughout his body. "That was just a warning, child!" the angel called out to him, though its voice sounded somewhat unsettled. "With the power that your friends are giving me, I can destroy the three of you with just a simple wave of my hand!" And now slowly, slowly and purposefully, the dark angel started to undulate his hand to make patterns in the air.

*****

Izzy couldn't understand. Again had come the unrelenting sense that was telling him that he and Mimi were in great danger from an unseen assailant, yet now something in his own heart told him that the exact opposite was true. That remaining in this place, wherever it was, was the real danger, and that whatever he felt was threatening to the two of them was in fact quite the opposite.

"Izzy? Izzy, no more!" Mimi's words echoed in his thoughts, stopping the flood of power before it could be unleashed. "You feel it too! You've got to feel it. Whatever it is that's out there, we're not supposed to be fighting against it!"

"But… but Mimi? What if… what if we're wrong, and it really is dangerous? It could… I mean, we could be--"

Somehow the girl silenced the boy without saying a word. "Then let it come," she whispered. "I won't live with this fear anymore. I'm not afraid, Izzy, of whatever might happen. You're here with me, and that makes me brave enough to face whatever it is."

Her words emboldened the boy. If she felt that strongly, that courageous at his side, could he possibly feel less? Then the girl's spirit once again enveloped his, and the answer became a forgone conclusion. Of course he couldn't...

*****

The angel stopped, as he felt the power of wisdom withdrawing from his command. With alarm in his eyes he looked at the object in his fist, then shook it frantically. This... this was to be his salvation! She had promised him! He threw his mind into it once again. Danger! Peril! Danger! But even as he conjured up repeated, dreadful images of misery and terror for the two inside, the power inside remained vaporous and would not congeal in his hands.

The boy…

Despair looked up, and saw the leader's female counterpart help the boy to his feet. And looking at the pair the creature could see, if only for just a moment, the attachment that existed between them. It was there, breathing, existing... a living bond that connected them. A bond of great affection, conceived over years together as friends and companions, then finally brought forth as love. He took an involuntary step backwards...

His virtue, Courage. Hers, Love.

The Courage to stand for what they Love… the Unity of Conviction!

The angel stared at the two, standing hand in hand before him, and felt the fringes of their power as it washed over him. It was given them to judge... to judge those no longer fit for life! He placed a clawed hand against his chest, fingers fumbling away the pendant containing the Unity of Wisdom as he tried to keep the heart from bursting within his body. And now he was on one knee... now two, and gasping for each breath. His eyes alone could see the power that prevailed between the pair, and he could feel it stripping his soul away, laying it bare to be judged… to be judged corrupt and unworthy of life.

It was too much. The grievous injuries that the youngest had inflicted upon him half a year earlier, the sudden loss of the power that he'd held… and the angry, righteous judgment that the two were calling down upon him with their steely eyes. The angel winced in pain, his head reeling as he collapsed forward in a heap; the three chosen watching on in confusion. Even now Despair could hear the angelic chorus in his head, shouting their contempt for his Master... and then the creature expired, his body dissolving into the minute stream of data that marked the passing of all digimon.

Kari looked on in confusion, then scooped down to pick up the twinkling gem that held the souls of Izzy and Mimi within. "I don't understand," the girl confessed, turning her head to the side and glancing at her brother. The boy had his arm tightly around Sora, but there didn't seem anything particularly threatening about him. "What killed him? You'd think he was scared to death…"