[Ocean Links]
Wave 02 – Reason
revised August 23, 2003

My head is throbbing…
Like something wants to break out.
I don't know why…
But I feel afraid.
What's to become of me?
This darkness of my future…
What does it foretells?
What's going to happen to all of us?
I want to find out...

Takeru stirred in his sleep and lay on his back wearily. Placing the back of his hand upon his forehead, he could feel the cold beads of sweat spreading over his skin. As he turned to his side, he carefully turned on his lamp and stared at the pale white ceiling. He sighed while he shut his eyes. His sapphire eyes gradually drooped, trying to return back to sleep. As he did, his vision was flared with an image of a dark demonic beast. Its hollows covered with ebony maggots and teeth stained with black blood. Takeru quickly shot up in response of eyeing ferocious primordial animal mentally.

Clinching onto his shirt, he felt his heart beating nervously. With trembling eyes, the blond teenager arched over as he viewed his hand carefully. It was shaking along with every nerve in his system. Paranoid, he raised the ball of his thumb before his lips and bit onto it deeply. Ripping an open wound, Takeru stared at it in the stark light. He took a deep breath and his system felt incredibly relieved to see crimson plasma seeping out of his flesh. Licking off his blood, he fell back onto his bed and turned off the light in his room.

Still, knowing that his blood remained that perfect red didn't seemed to ease his soul. Those strange visions… They kept changing, but they were always dark. What did it mean? Maybe I shouldn't be bothered… Maybe Ni-san's right… I should just forget about it… Still, is this really normal?

As he closed his eyes, the golden haired Chosen found himself lost to darkness. He felt vulnerable by its fiendish presence. He cannot escape it no matter how much he wishes to run. It will always be there, whether he liked it or not. If only he could be wrapped in Heaven's light… If only his weak side would perish so he wouldn't be troubled… If only…

Such childish wishes he had while lying in bed. Takeru hated to be this weak after all he had been through. This should be a walk in the park for him, but for some sort of reason, it pierced his soul and threw him into a panic. Frustrated, he threw his hands above his head and stared back at the ceiling. I think I would rather not sleep… Perhaps ever…

Sitting up, the blond teenager slowly got out of bed and left his room. As he walked into the kitchen, the golden haired Chosen stepped on a sharp object that punctured through the skin upon his foot. Takeru tumbled to the sofa and raised his foot carefully. Gently, he removed the hard piece and raised it before his eyes. His eyes widened and he recognized the sharp object.

"Glass…?" Takeru uttered under his breath. His eyes wandered across the glossed wooden floor, seeing shattered fragments of the transparent solid scattered from the balcony. He couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Was that vision true? Was this for real?

The Bearer of Hope was lost and confused by this revelation. With a blank expression upon his frozen face, he stared out of the broken door as the wind swept into the room throughout the night.

****

An icy breeze blew across his face as he stared at the vast horizon of the ocean. The sun cast an amber light over the water, illuminating it into a sea of riches. The seagulls soared over the calm beach and passed by the Bearer of Hope. His eyes were a dull cerulean gray, ever so blank and dead. The flesh tone of his skin appeared to have been drained out of him and all was left was a shell.

Rubbing his arms, he heated his freezing body as his eyes stared into space. Frankly, he didn't sleep a wink last night with all the uncertainty swarming his mind. That sudden flash of vision, especially the beastly image, made him shiver even more. The feeling disturbed him terribly, causing him not wanting to close his eyes. For every millisecond of darkness he blinks, he received an overwhelming rush of monochrome imagery. He never felt so frightened until now.

Raising his thumb before his eyes, Takeru recognized the deep, bloody cut he gave himself. It had already coagulated, but its color was dark shady black. Did he really saw the warm crimson or did he imagine it all? He shook the idea away, doubting that fact. I must be going crazy or something, he thought as he buried his hands into his pockets.

Takeru pulled himself away from the bay and continued walking to school. As he did, an alarming voice called him, "Takeru!" Spinning around in response, he saw the spiky haired goggle boy dashing his way in quite a rush. Daisuke slouched over as he caught his breath. "How come you're up so early? It's only seven!"

"I could ask you the same thing…," the golden haired Chosen countered.

"Oh, me?" the spiky haired boy pointed himself innocently. "I'm early because I have a soccer club meeting to attend to before school. What about you?"

"I'm just up…," he simply said and left it at that.

Daisuke stared at the other boy's complexion quite concern about his attitude. Noticing his sickly paleness, he asked, "Are you alright? You don't look too good…"

Takeru avoided the question and continued to head towards the school. The Bearer of Courage and Friendship knew little about this sudden change in the other boy. It was quite questionable. He was usually outgoing and enthusiastic. But now, it's like he was shunning away the entire world. What could he be hiding from him? Shaking his head, his mind was thrown into confusion. When was he so concern about Takeru?

While Daisuke laughed it off, he trailed behind the blond teenager. As he did, an unexpected wave of energy flew passed them and swept across the area. Quickly, the goggle head observed as it disappeared from behind them. Takeru was as startled as Daisuke, his eyes in absolute shock.

"What the hell was that?" The spiky haired teenager wondered as he looked back at the blond Chosen. Takeru was lost for words as he noticed everything around him paused in their tracks. Daisuke didn't realize this at first until he was aware of the dead silence and lifeless movement of the people nearby.

"Everyone's not moving…," he noted to himself.

"How come we weren't phase? Is it because we're Chosen Children?" Daisuke inquired as he looked around.

"Maybe… If that's true, Ni-san and the others should be alright."

"Can you contact him?"

"Yeah… I can."

As Takeru pulled out his cellphone from his schoolbag, a radiant light flashed from the screen and burned the phone entirely. Daisuke jumped in response as the Bearer of Hope quickly threw the cellphone to the ground before the raging heat melted through him. Panting by the minor pain he received, Takeru shook his head in response.

"Looks like using cellphones won't help. How about the D-Terminals?" Daisuke suggested.

"That might work, but you do it this time. Maybe you would get toasted too," he grinned wearily.

"Hopefully not…," the goggle head wished.

"Though using the D-Terminals is risky," Takeru stated. "We hadn't used them for a while, plus with the digital network communication laws banning foreign technology, the government may had blocked the D-Terminals' signals."

"Yeah, I know… But it's worth a shot, right?"

The Bearer of Hope nodded in return, agreeing to the fact that this was a worse-case scenario. As Daisuke grabbed his D-Terminal from his pocket, he flipped it open carefully as a precaution. Sighing with relief, he inputted a message into his D-Terminal as Takeru said it aloud.

"Got it?" The golden haired Chosen asked.

"Yeah," Daisuke replied. "Should we send it to everyone?"

"We might just have to."

With a press of a button, the message was sent to every Chosen Child within their group. While Daisuke placed the D-Terminal back into his pocket, the other boy sat on the hard concrete sidewalk and leaned against the brick wall of Odaiba Elementary. The spiky haired teenager joined him and he took in a deep breath.

"What now?"

"We just have to wait for a response… If any…"

"So how are supposed to know if they got it if they don't respond?"

Takeru shrugged it off. He did consider that, but then again, they had no idea what was happening in the first place. Ever since yesterday, there was like a bad omen upon his thread of fate. The disturbing visions, the flash of electric energy, the shattered glass door... They're all connected somehow... But to what?

"Takeru...?"

"Hmm?" the blond Chosen responded abruptly, returning back to reality.

"Are you sure you're alright? You're acting weird."

"Weird?" Takeru replied with a cheerful smile. "I'm fine."

"Is something bothering you?"

"No, why do you say that?"

"You seem... Distant...," Daisuke slowly said as he looked away in embarrassment. "You just seem that way..."

"Daisuke-kun?"

The spiky haired boy rose to his feet as he dusted off the pebbles of stone clinging onto his slacks. As he stretched his arms over his head, Daisuke released a sigh. Looking back at the Bearer of Hope, he grinned. "You know what, forget it. Maybe it's just me."

Suddenly, a muffled beep rang from Daisuke's pocket in a rhythmic pattern. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his D-Terminal once again and flipped the top open. As he checked the received message, Takeru stood up and looked over his shoulder.

"It's from Taichi-san...," Takeru noted.

"Let's see...," Daisuke mumbled as he glanced through the message. As he did, he read it aloud unconsciously. "Daisuke, Takeru-kun... Stay where you are. I contacted everyone and told them to meet up with you. We probably have to violate every digital network communication law, but be cautious how you do it. Hopefully this won't last long..."

"That's it, huh..."

"Looks like it."

"To violate every digital network communication law...," Takeru pondered as he placed a curled index finger under his chin. "I wonder if we need to go that far."

"Are you kidding?" the spiky haired boy complied. "We can't use cellphones and who knows about normal telephones. We have no choice."

"It's like all the communication systems are down. Perhaps on purpose..."

"What do you mean?" Daisuke asked as he raised a brow.

"If Odaiba, for example, was the only place like this, there's no way for anybody on the outside to reach anyone here, right?"

"Yeah, so... Where are you getting at?"

"If this is isolated, why only here?"

Daisuke thought about the other boy's presumption carefully as possible. If what he was saying was true, the only reason that came to his mind was the past incidents with the Digimon. Starting with the incident in Hikarigaoka, everything has been taking place practically in Japan. That only occurred because of... "The Digital Gates."

"Exactly... We tapped into the gates here in Japan more than the other countries. Because of that, I believe it deteriorated our telecommunications. Not only that, any other communication network we had."

"The Digital World…?"

Takeru nodded to return to confirm the other boy's thoughts. "…Which resulted to this."

"A limbo between the two worlds?"

The Bearer of Hope had a concern expression upon his face when the goggle head mentioned that idea. It wasn't the word he was going to describe this phenomenon but it was close, none the less. "I guess that's the best way to explain all of this."

"Seems reasonable... But why are we able to move?"

"I don't think the people are the ones who stopped. I think it's us."

"What?"

"We're in the void between the two worlds... Neither reality or digital."

"But how?"

"A distortion... Created from all the times we traveled back and forth from the Digital World and the real world," Takeru assumed. The Bearer of Courage and Friendship scrunched his face and stared suspiciously at the blond teenager. Noticing this, Takeru backed away as he faced the other boy. "What is it?"

"How come you seemed to know about this so well?" Daisuke wondered.

"I really don't know," he stated. "It's just a feeling... It sounds true, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... It does."

Before the spiky goggle head had a chance to question the other boy's reasoning, he heard a male voice calling his name from behind. Quickly he turned around and noticed an auburn young adult in a formal high school uniform. Daisuke waved back as he yelled back, "Taichi-san, over here!"

As everyone from the Chosen Children team joined together, excluding Mimi, they stood in a circle, facing each other. Taichi cleared his throat as he began to discuss the matters of the situation. While their fearless leader was going over the facts, Daisuke placed all his attention on Takeru. The golden haired Chosen's theory surely puzzled him. How was he able to develop such an idea without any hardcore evidence? He just made it up out of thin air without knowing what was occurring. There was something about him that didn't seem right, but why?

"Daisuke, are you listening?" Taichi groaned.

"Uh, yeah... I'm listening."

The Bearer of Courage gave him a look before continuing. "Anyway, we need to get out of this somehow. Any ideas?"

Koushirou raised his hand calmly as he set up his laptop to display his method. Hitting the enter key, a graphic was displayed upon the screen. Showing it to the others, the Chosen Children stared at the glaring LCD screen. "This is the world's network. As you can tell, it creates a wired frame around the earth."

"A shell…?" Iori inquired.

"Precisely. Think of it as a global firewall. Before Daisuke-kun contacted us, I was looking deep into this and traced the reason for all of this."

"Which is?" Yamato asked before everyone else.

"Someone was trying to transport us. Because of the coding done by the government to enforce network communication restrictions, it caused a distortion in our data transfer. Not only that, our past activity in the Digital World may have affected this as well."

"What do you mean?" Sora wondered.

"During the time we kept traveling through the Digiport, a rip between our dimensions was created here in Japan. That's why the Demon Corps were able to pass through our world so easily. With the additional network defense, it shuts down part of connection the two worlds share."

"Like a cage…," Ken muttered.

"So are you saying this is the break between our dimensional planes?" Miyako assumed hesitantly.

"That's what I claim," Kouchirou noted.

Daisuke eyed the Bearer of Hope, realizing Koushirou's gathered information was similar to Takeru's inkling. A sudden rush of fear flowed through him as he quickly looked away from the other boy. Holding his breath, his nervous eyes trembled, unable to comprehend the ordeal. Was he frightened by the golden haired Chosen's presence or reasoning?

"Are you saying that we're in some kind of dimensional limbo?" The spiky haired boy questioned unexpectedly, surprising the rest of the team.

"Technically speaking, yes."

"So how are you planning to get us out of this mess, Koushirou?" Taichi reminded him.

"Hack the global network firewall system."

Everyone's eyes grew wide in shock, everyone except Takeru. With a smug look upon his face, the blond teenager crossed his arms calmly as he glanced at the red haired computer wiz. Noticing the other boy's strange actions, Daisuke couldn't help but observe him carefully.

"How are you going to do that without triggering the alarm cores?" Takeru finally joined in the conversation. The Bearer of Knowledge leered at him shakily, bewildered by his question.

"Alarm cores…?"

"Takeru, you know about this?" The older Ishida asked as he eyed his little brother. The younger blond rubbed that back of his head and shrugged.

"Not really… It just common sense, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I better get started." Koushirou sat himself against the stone brink wall of Odaiba Elementary as he started up his program. Cautiously he was cracking the coding to enter the firewall program while the others watched over his shoulders. Takeru stepped away from the group and gazed out to the ocean view.

Suddenly he lost all sense of the other Chosen Children's presence and found himself seeing a sea of dark waters. His nerves became numb, his muscle clinging tight. Unable to move, Takeru looked around slowly. There, on the shoreline, the Bearer of Hope spotted a lone hooded figure standing at the shore. The ocean water freely flowed to and fro as the being in black did not waver. Unexpectedly, the mysterious figure spoke to him.

"Do you remember? You're not real."

****

The Chosen Children was transported back to reality, but Yamato's surprise, he noticed that his brother wasn't amongst them. Giving a quick glance to his best friend, Taichi was well-aware about this. Rushing to Koushirou's side, the Bearer of Courage leaned over the boy's shoulder, hoping to track down the missing blond teenager. The redhead typed with haste, attempting his best. With the older Ishida worried, Daisuke couldn't help but ponder why everyone was able to return except him.

The goggle boy's copper red eyes wandered towards that last thing Takeru was staring at -- the ocean. As he did, he could've sworn he saw a transparent image of the golden haired Chosen. Stepping forward, Daisuke's first assumption was correct after all. Astonished, he could see ghostly Takeru before him. Reaching out, his hand passed right through the other boy. The others wondered about Daisuke's behavior until Ken noticed Takeru's reflection upon the spiky haired boy's goggles.

"It's Takeru…," Ken uttered while Daisuke was still awestruck.

"Takeru-kun? Where?"

"He's standing right in front of me…," the goggle boy replied softly.

"In front of you?" Yamato raised a brow, doubtful at first until he too was able to see his brother at a certain angle.

"Where is he?" Jyou asked the computer wiz as he watched him hit the keys.

"I can't seem to track him. Someone's trying to stop me."

"What?" Taichi replied in a startled tone as he pushed himself to see the redhead countering back.

With Koushirou's last efforts to break through the abrupt conflicts, his laptop flashed a message and automatically shut itself down before Jyou could have read it. The Bearer of Knowledge blinked and closed the top in defeat.

"What was that just now?"

"An error message," Koushirou simply noted. "Lemme reboot my laptop and give it another try."

"Do it," Yamato ordered.

Once the red haired Chosen had his laptop running, Koushirou entered the program once again and approached the situation more cautiously. Using an alternate method, evidence that it was proceeding well was apparent to the other Chosen Children. A static, shady blur of Takeru faded in and out as the Bearer of Knowledge continued breaking through the coding of the complex programming. The odd thing was that another image flickered over the young blond teenager's physical characteristics before he became whole.

Takeru suddenly found himself before losing consciousness. Daisuke reacted immediately as the other boy fell into his arms and caused him to lose his balance. Falling to the ground as well, Yamato rushed to both of them to examine his brother's condition. He was fairly injured from the head down within the last hour. Cuts, bruises, and blood were shattered upon his body. Whatever happened to him on the other side was purposely done.

As the Bearer of Friendship touched the cut upon his brother's cheek, a drop of black flowed down his fingers among the red.

END OF CHAPTER 02

Author's Notes:

Well, wasn't that a bit confusing with the digital network communication laws and crap. XD If you didn't get it, don't worry. It won't play a big part of this story. Only for this chapter. ^^; Just wait until the Chosen Children go back into the Digital World and find the Crest Lab Chambers and see this dark, horrific… Hold a sec. I shouldn't say any more. That won't happen until a few more chapters later. Hehehe… I'm so evil. Now go on and review. Don't forget to ponder about the next chapter. XD