To those wondering way back in the last chapter what happened to my wrist - I crushed it playing basketball. It was a very stupid accident. But thanks for your concern. Enjoy the story and expect a new chapter sooner this time. Love y'all for being so patient.
The Hour of Our Moment
Black Wargreymon awoke to the sun in his eyes and a rather unpleasant smell. He sat up and sniffed the air around him, nearly gagging.
"What smells?" he demanded loudly.
The Gazimon stirred from his slumber, but the Boy remained his feverish sleep. "I believe that's the smell of hot sick."
"Don't get smart with me," Black Wargreymon warned. He leaned over and smelled the Boy, then nearly gagged again.
"I wasn't going to say anything because I was afraid you'd turn me into a carcass, but now that you've noticed, the kid needs a bath. Badly."
"Well, get to it then. You're supposed to be taking care of that, slave."
"He's too big. I can't carry him."
Black Wargreymon sighed. He'd expected to get good help from a Gazimon. What was he thinking? He supposed that it would be better for him to handle the Boy instead of the Gazimon because Gazimon were notoriously clumsy and careless.
Carrying the Boy turned out to be more of a challenge than he expected. The Boy's body was still badly broken and Black Wargreymon had to be careful to arrange the Boy's limbs in a certain way so that they would not be damaged further. His claws were large enough to accommodate the Boy's limp body, but they were sharp and uncomfortable against such a frail creature's skin. The Gazimon wrapped the Boy's body in his blanket and Black Wargreymon scooped him up, lifting slowly and gently.
When they got to the pond, Black Wargreymon had the Gazimon test the water. The afternoon sun had heated the pond water to make it comfortably lukewarm. Black Wargreymon put the Boy on the grass so that the Gazimon could remove his bandages. The Boy remained in a deep sleep, but Black Wargreymon was confident that the water would rouse him a little bit.
The Gazimon started removing the Boy's bandages with too much haste causing Black Wargreymon to lean menacingly into his face. "Slow down!" he growled, allowing saliva to slip through the cracks of his bared teeth.
The Gazimon, startled, dropped some of the bandages into the pool. As they sank to the bottom, Black Wargreymon growled discontentedly. The Gazimon just shrugged and pointed out that they needed to be washed too.
When the Gazimon finished, he stepped back, waiting for Black Wargreymon to pick the Boy up and put him into the pool. Black Wargreymon paused for a moment, just staring at the Boy's broken skin and tousled hair. He took one of his claws and ran it gently through the Boy's hair, over the Boy's cheek and across the expanse of pale, bloodied and bruised skin. He watched the Boy's lips move and waited for the Boy to scrunch his face up, like he did when he was in a lot of pain. Nothing. For some reason he wanted to know what those battered lips were trying to tell him. Until then he'd just settle for silence.
Black Wargreymon lifted the Boy back into his arms and crouched by pool. He dipped the Boy's feet in first and gauged the expression on his little face. It didn't change, so Black Wargreymon held him in up to his waist. When he was satisfied that the Boy was not uncomfortable with the temperature of the water, he let the Boy in the rest of the way, up to his shoulders. The Boy could not possibly hold up his own weight, so Black Wargreymon carefully propped him up against the edge of the pond.
The Gazimon began to bathe the Boy; every now and then he shot a glance in Black Wargreymon's direction, who was watching him like a hawk. Black Wargreymon had been right about the water; the Boy had opened his eyes a third of the way and was gazing at the scenery. Black Wargreymon stood over him, casting a shadow over the Boy so that he would not burn under the full sun. Creatures that lived in the pool drifted to the far end, away from the Boy; they were wary of the terrifying presence of Black Wargreymon like all Digimon were those days.
Black Wargreymon could not believe how much dirt and blood washed off of the Boy. His hair had been especially bad; out of it came dirt and grass accumulated from the fall and small bugs from inside the cave that had taken up residence near the Boy's warm scalp. Black Wargreymon was angry with himself - how could he have not noticed this before?
The Boy seemed oblivious of the grime that was being scrubbed off of him. He kept looking into the distance through the tiny slits of his eyelids, his long hair obscuring the view even more. Black Wargreymon was fascinated by the Boy's hair. Now that it had been cleaned it looked vibrant and silky. It turned out to be dark blue instead of the black color Black Wargreymon had been seeing previously. He adored the way it was cut and the way it hung around the Boy's face.
Black Wargreymon stopped himself. He could not believe he was getting so attached to someone. However, no one could convince him that the survival and the well being of the Boy was not part of his destiny. He no longer was a slave or a mindless drone that drifted from town to town, killing and maiming for no good reason at all. The Boy was a symbol of consequence; Black Wargreymon saw how violence could change someone's life. In the past Black Wargreymon may have slashed something in the throat and moved on, never caring about the impact on the creature. Whatever had happened to the Boy was not Black Wargreymon's fault, but he felt compelled to stay with the Boy and witness his struggle to live. He imagined that the Boy might have loved to run and play and participate in all sorts of mindless activities like most humans did. Now here he was, unable to move at all on his own. He couldn't tell himself to move on, to forget about it. For the first time in his short life he actually cared about the fate of another creature. He actually respected another creature's life. He didn't feel the same way about the Gazimon, but hell, he was learning.
"It's blue," the Boy said suddenly.
"Uh huh, kid," the Gazimon answered distractedly, "blue."
Black Wargreymon looked straight ahead and saw nothing blue but the water (well, not so much anymore) and the clear sunny sky.
"So, kid," the Gazimon said, "what's your name?"
Black Wargreymon turned to the Gazimon. "His name is the Boy," he said gruffly.
"You named him "The Boy"?" the Gazimon scoffed.
"That's right," Black Wargreymon puffed out his chest.
"Uh, oh, okay," the Gazimon surrendered, suddenly terrified.
The Boy ignored them both. "Was black," he said before his eyes rolled back into his head and he lost consciousness.
~
Daisuke's eyes opened but his mind remained trapped in the realms of sleep. He turned his head toward his bedroom window and allowed his eyes to see nothing. His fingers twitched and his lungs took deep, satisfied breaths from the oxygen mask that had been lovingly placed over his mouth and nose. He did not blink; he was dead except for the steady rhythm of his chest moving up and down, down and up. His veins still pulsed, although painlessly. They remained red as though the labored breaths Daisuke took served no purpose to his body. The color appeared to fade by the hour, but the red in Daisuke's eyes remained as vibrant as ever.
Daisuke took one heaving breath before his eyelids fluttered and he could see again. The image of the sky just outside his window blurred and wavered into clarity. It was a beautiful day, as far as he could tell. There were no clouds in the sky except for one black smear that rose like a sunrise on the left side of his field of view. It looked as though a god had blackened his thumb with ink and had smudged it across the cheek of the sky. Daisuke knew better than to call it a cloud. He knew that it was a rift; it was something ominous and damning that demanded the attention of the Digidestined. For some reason it reminded him of Ken.
He tried to sit up, tried to call attention to himself - but to no avail. His arms and legs lay stubbornly where they were and refused to move when he demanded them to. His energy wilted as he strained to regain control of his stubborn limbs. If he tried to move his right thumb, his left forefinger would wiggle instead. His parched throat whistled around the oxygen mask but Daisuke couldn't muster a sound louder than the air escaping through his mouth.
Koushirou took this opportunity to explode out of the closet. He thrust the doors open and tumbled out, breathing heavily and nearly crushing Chibimon and a very wilted Wormmon. Daisuke looked in Koushirou's direction and blinked rapidly - which was the only movement he could control. Koushirou didn't notice, however. He was still deliberating whether he should break open Daisuke's Digivice or leave behind uncharted territory.
"What makes me think I can open this damn thing anyway?" he asked himself, frowning. "It's been through fights, fires, Daisuke mishaps - a screwdriver isn't going make enough of a difference." He pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket despite reason and began to shove it roughly into one of the Digivice's slots.
"Hey! Be careful with that!" Chibimon said, his eyes widening in terror. Not only did they have no idea what was inside or what could jump out and kill them, but also the Digivice was crucial to Chibimon's existence. What would happen to him if it were destroyed?
Koushirou jammed the screwdriver as far in as it would go, then tried to pull off the top. It stayed where it was, but Koushirou did manage to put a small crack in the screen. The Digivice (or perhaps its inhabitants) shrieked high and loud in displeasure. The crack widened and screamed as Daisuke had earlier. Koushirou dropped the Digivice and ran to hide behind Daisuke's bed with Chibimon and Wormmon, who had sensibly retreated while Koushirou was trying to pull the top off the Digivice.
The crack seemed to pulse in time with Daisuke's veins. Daisuke felt his fear returning; if it chose to attack him again, he would be dead in ten minutes, he was sure of it. As the crack pulsed, it also widened; it was an unfamiliar, alien thing like the fire in Daisuke's veins. Usually a crack grows when it is aggravated, like a crack on a windshield in winter. The Digivice's crack widened instead, like a mouth preparing to vomit. Like the mouth of a cave, it was dark and its contents were invisible in its shadow.
That all changed in an instant. Out of the mouth came black ooze; it was a substance similar to hot tar, except that it had intent. It had a mind. As it crawled, it shimmered and flattened until it was as close to the floor as possible. Then it split itself into quarters and continued to split until it appeared as though Daisuke had drawn hundreds of black raindrops on his floor. The raindrops looked less than two dimensional, however. And they smelled like fire and evil.
The little black raindrops seemed to pause and assess the room, as if they were deciding where to go. No one in the room spoke to one another, but they all felt the same thing. It was not insane to think that a black blob could think and could be evil. Not if you've been to the Digital World.
The raindrops suddenly dispersed; they spread throughout the room, scampered up the walls, across the ceiling and across the floor. Koushirou, Chibimon and Wormmon didn't even have a moment to jump off of the floor out of the way. They felt the blackness pass underneath and it took away their breath. Their eyes immediately reddened and burned uncomfortably, even though the touch had lasted less than a moment.
Other than the burning in their eyes, Koushirou and the Digimon could not find any evidence that the blackness had even been there at all. Besides, of course, there was the boy in the bed.
Chibimon turned to Koushirou. "Look what you did! You released a monster! At least when it was in Daisuke's Digivice we knew where it was!"
Koushirou lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. "I was just trying to help. How was I supposed to know?" He turned to Daisuke and shoved a thumb in his direction, "what would have happened to him if we had left that thing in his Digivice? It could have killed him! Or maybe even you."
"But now it's gone. How are we going to find it?"
"Well, if it liked to inhabit humans and Digimon it would have stayed here and had its fill of us. It seems to only inhabit Digivices. Which is why we have to inform all of the other Digidestined and make sure that no one uses their Digivice until it's safe."
"If it likes to live in Digivices, why didn't it shack up in your Digivice?" Chibimon asked.
Koushirou's lips became a thin line on his face. "I left mine at home."
The room fell silent, except for the tiny whisper coming from Daisuke. The black smudge in the sky, the one on Daisuke's left, swallowed another helping of the blackness and grew.
~
Mrs. Ichijouji sat in her favorite rocking chair, swaying gently as she flipped through the pages of her photo album. The chair was her favorite simply because it was positioned in such a way that all she had to do to see her son's bedroom door was turn her head. It was something hopeful to her; it allowed her to wish the door open and to see her gentle son emerge to wonder when dinner would be.
The chair also allowed her to think, which was not always the best thing for her piece of mind. The rhythmic swaying, the photos in her lap - they taunted her into thinking that she was a bad mother. She had seen the admiration in Ken's eyes; it was a look he saved for his brother. Maybe if she hadn't been so hard on Osamu they could have spent more time together. She could see that was all that Ken had ever wanted. Instead, Osamu stayed in his room between endless stacks of books with his brother on the floor beside him as quiet as a child his age could be.
It wasn't just that she and her husband forced Osamu into his studies and punished Ken for disturbing his brother, but also that Ken was systematically ignored. As a mother it was difficult for her to admit that she had loved one child more than the other just because one was a genius and the other wasn't. Not just yet, anyway. So she focused her energy on Osamu, ignoring Ken as he did his best to grasp some of the attention that his brother was receiving.
As her chair rocked her she remembered an example of such a time. It was a snowy, winter afternoon; Osamu had a big test the next day and he was suffering from a terrible head cold. He could barely open his eyes long enough to read a sentence in his books. Ken, however, was bursting with energy. He wanted to be brought to the park so that he could make a snowman. Mrs. Ichijouji suggested that he make one out of the snow on their balcony, but Ken had already tried and there wasn't enough snow for the Osamu-sized snowman he wanted to create.
After a while, Osamu had given up on his books and was winding his way through the hallway. Mrs. Ichijouji touched a palm to his head and dragged him over to the couch. As she fed him some vegetable soup, Ken bounded into the living, wearing his outdoor gear. He'd put his gloves on first and was having difficulty managing the zipper.
"Mama!" he shouted. "Mama!"
"What?" she snapped, turning away from Osamu.
"Zipper's stuck," he said, fumbling with his gloves over the zipper to prove his point.
"Just let me finish here," she said, turning back to Osamu. She could see that her eldest son was about to vomit and she ran into the kitchen to find a bowl. When she came back, the vomit was on the floor, Osamu was crying and Ken's zipper was still stuck.
She gave Osamu the bowl and rubbed his stomach before getting a rag to clean up the mess. As she cleaned, Osamu continued to be sick and Ken continued on about his zipper.
"Mama!" he shouted. "Mama, it will only take a minute. Please, I want to go outside before the snow melts."
She could have said, 'it'll take a long time before that happens dear' or 'I don't want the carpet to stain dear' or 'I'll give you a treat if you're patient dear'…
"MAMA!"
"GET OUT! Go outside now! I'm sick of you!" …is what she said instead.
That wasn't the worst of it, oh no.
Between cleaning the carpet, getting Osamu to bed, calling the doctor, washing the dishes and doing the laundry - she had somehow forgotten that she'd left her youngest son outside in the freezing cold. It was a phone call from her husband that jogged her memory. He had called home from work, asking about the kids. She went on and on about how sick Osamu was and when he had asked about Ken, her heart leapt in her throat. She then lied to her husband, she couldn't even remember what she said, and hung up the phone. Mrs. Ichijouji raced outside and found her little boy just outside the front door, sleeping next to a miniature snowman, his tears frozen onto his reddened face.
As she rocked she remembered a little bit more; she lied to her husband a little bit more, she bit her nails a little more and she cried a little bit more. Both of her babies went to the hospital that day but she remained by Osamu's side, holding his hand instead of Ken's because Ken's hand felt like guilt and betrayal and she couldn't break down in front of the entire human race.
Six days later, when Ken woke up, he couldn't even remember what had happened. Mrs. Ichijouji had prepared a little speech and everything, begging him not to tell his father the truth. The speech became unnecessary that day, and Mrs. Ichijouji tucked it in the back of her mind where she kept most her guilt about Osamu's studies. She then lied to Ken too, who smiled and called himself stupid and careless. She simply nodded.
When they returned from the hospital, only a lump of the snowman's tiny body was left. Ken didn't seem to know that it used to be his snowman; he stepped on it with his tiny snow boots before entering their home. Mrs. Ichijouji had the urge to lift her son into her arms but she didn't want to alarm her husband, who was blissfully oblivious to what she had done. She heard the door lock shut behind her and thought of her son outside in the snow, his zipper undone and his chest exposed to the cold. In her mind's eye she saw him cry silently as he sat in a pile of snow, building his little snowman. She saw him get cold and sleepy; a little boy too terrified to knock on the door and beg his mother to let him back inside.
Somehow the photo album had been turned to the last page. She sighed and turned the book over, opening again to the first page. Osamu smiled back at her in every picture. His smiles never seemed honest; they always seemed to betray how he was feeling. She wished she had given her son the strength to say something about what he was feeling. Before she could stop herself on that snowy afternoon, she had taken this strength from Ken. For the first time she realized that turning Ken into Osamu was the worst thing she could have ever done to him.
She was a bad mother.
~
With the Boy safely back inside the cave and wrapped in bandages and blankets, Black Wargreymon could return to his thoughts. He'd been thinking about the Digidestined lately, and their lousy, weakling Digimon. He looked down at the Boy and wondered how such a sweet, helpless being could ever have brainwashed a Digimon into believing that he was to serve him. Black Wargreymon saw these children throwing their Digimon slaves into the rounds of fire and felt repulsed. To him, Digimon were meant to be freethinking and savage. At least, that was what he used to think. As he looked at the Boy he realized that there had to be some sort of partnership with a little give and take. The Boy was allowed to live and to recover while Black Wargreymon…well he wasn't exactly sure what he was getting out of this, but it was changing him.
He wondered what had happened to the Boy's Digimon slave. It probably served its duty and died trying to protect its owner, Black Wargreymon thought. He'd seen these slaves fight to the death for their owners before, all because of a shiny metal egg like the one he'd thrown into the lake. He'd even heard that these slave Digimon were compelled to save the Digital World in several occasions. At first he had thought that the slaves were wasting away their lives by devoting themselves to someone that could care less if they lived or died. He had even felt disgusted when the Digimon called it an honor to be chosen for the Digidestined. The Digidestined he had seen were ruthless and cunning. They shouted commands they'd trained their Digimon slaves to follow and defeated their enemies quickly and without harm to themselves. Black Wargreymon had never seen the Boy fight alongside these particular Digidestined. He was a loner, just like Black Wargreymon, with his own, more noble agendas. In fact, Black Wargreymon could actually see himself serving as a protector of the Boy for the rest of his life. He would find it… fulfilling.
As Black Wargreymon thought, he failed to notice a rustle in the shrubs outside of the cave. A spy, sent from Zogleck's kingdom to locate the black beast, huddled there. He was shielded by a cloak of invisible skin and was nearly impossible to see. Instead of running back to his master and reporting Black Wargreymon's location, he remained crouched in the bushes, forced into it by a bout of brutal curiosity. He could barely fathom the strangeness of the scene in front of him: Black Wargreymon hovering over another creature in a protective gesture instead of a deadly one. The look in Black Wargreymon's eyes was tender and loving and to top it off, he was in the presence of a Gazimon for more than an hour and not once did he try to swipe the creature's head off.
The spy began to second-guess his orders. This was not the brutal killer he'd been sent out to detect. He must have made a mistake; the beast before him was not Black Wargreymon, the traitorous murderer Zogleck had once defeated, but another creature that had the misfortune of being identical to him.
The spy decided that it would be best for him to go back to Zogleck's fortress and to report the location of the creature - without neglecting to mention that it may be a clone of the infamous Black Wargreymon. As far as the spy knew, Black Wargreymon had been a simple creation to begin with and was probably very easy to duplicate.
He moved quickly away from the mouth of the cave, not wanting to push his luck any further. However, Black Wargreymon had finally caught on and had heard the gentle rustle in the bushes that was too brisk to have been the wind.
The Hour of Our Moment
Black Wargreymon awoke to the sun in his eyes and a rather unpleasant smell. He sat up and sniffed the air around him, nearly gagging.
"What smells?" he demanded loudly.
The Gazimon stirred from his slumber, but the Boy remained his feverish sleep. "I believe that's the smell of hot sick."
"Don't get smart with me," Black Wargreymon warned. He leaned over and smelled the Boy, then nearly gagged again.
"I wasn't going to say anything because I was afraid you'd turn me into a carcass, but now that you've noticed, the kid needs a bath. Badly."
"Well, get to it then. You're supposed to be taking care of that, slave."
"He's too big. I can't carry him."
Black Wargreymon sighed. He'd expected to get good help from a Gazimon. What was he thinking? He supposed that it would be better for him to handle the Boy instead of the Gazimon because Gazimon were notoriously clumsy and careless.
Carrying the Boy turned out to be more of a challenge than he expected. The Boy's body was still badly broken and Black Wargreymon had to be careful to arrange the Boy's limbs in a certain way so that they would not be damaged further. His claws were large enough to accommodate the Boy's limp body, but they were sharp and uncomfortable against such a frail creature's skin. The Gazimon wrapped the Boy's body in his blanket and Black Wargreymon scooped him up, lifting slowly and gently.
When they got to the pond, Black Wargreymon had the Gazimon test the water. The afternoon sun had heated the pond water to make it comfortably lukewarm. Black Wargreymon put the Boy on the grass so that the Gazimon could remove his bandages. The Boy remained in a deep sleep, but Black Wargreymon was confident that the water would rouse him a little bit.
The Gazimon started removing the Boy's bandages with too much haste causing Black Wargreymon to lean menacingly into his face. "Slow down!" he growled, allowing saliva to slip through the cracks of his bared teeth.
The Gazimon, startled, dropped some of the bandages into the pool. As they sank to the bottom, Black Wargreymon growled discontentedly. The Gazimon just shrugged and pointed out that they needed to be washed too.
When the Gazimon finished, he stepped back, waiting for Black Wargreymon to pick the Boy up and put him into the pool. Black Wargreymon paused for a moment, just staring at the Boy's broken skin and tousled hair. He took one of his claws and ran it gently through the Boy's hair, over the Boy's cheek and across the expanse of pale, bloodied and bruised skin. He watched the Boy's lips move and waited for the Boy to scrunch his face up, like he did when he was in a lot of pain. Nothing. For some reason he wanted to know what those battered lips were trying to tell him. Until then he'd just settle for silence.
Black Wargreymon lifted the Boy back into his arms and crouched by pool. He dipped the Boy's feet in first and gauged the expression on his little face. It didn't change, so Black Wargreymon held him in up to his waist. When he was satisfied that the Boy was not uncomfortable with the temperature of the water, he let the Boy in the rest of the way, up to his shoulders. The Boy could not possibly hold up his own weight, so Black Wargreymon carefully propped him up against the edge of the pond.
The Gazimon began to bathe the Boy; every now and then he shot a glance in Black Wargreymon's direction, who was watching him like a hawk. Black Wargreymon had been right about the water; the Boy had opened his eyes a third of the way and was gazing at the scenery. Black Wargreymon stood over him, casting a shadow over the Boy so that he would not burn under the full sun. Creatures that lived in the pool drifted to the far end, away from the Boy; they were wary of the terrifying presence of Black Wargreymon like all Digimon were those days.
Black Wargreymon could not believe how much dirt and blood washed off of the Boy. His hair had been especially bad; out of it came dirt and grass accumulated from the fall and small bugs from inside the cave that had taken up residence near the Boy's warm scalp. Black Wargreymon was angry with himself - how could he have not noticed this before?
The Boy seemed oblivious of the grime that was being scrubbed off of him. He kept looking into the distance through the tiny slits of his eyelids, his long hair obscuring the view even more. Black Wargreymon was fascinated by the Boy's hair. Now that it had been cleaned it looked vibrant and silky. It turned out to be dark blue instead of the black color Black Wargreymon had been seeing previously. He adored the way it was cut and the way it hung around the Boy's face.
Black Wargreymon stopped himself. He could not believe he was getting so attached to someone. However, no one could convince him that the survival and the well being of the Boy was not part of his destiny. He no longer was a slave or a mindless drone that drifted from town to town, killing and maiming for no good reason at all. The Boy was a symbol of consequence; Black Wargreymon saw how violence could change someone's life. In the past Black Wargreymon may have slashed something in the throat and moved on, never caring about the impact on the creature. Whatever had happened to the Boy was not Black Wargreymon's fault, but he felt compelled to stay with the Boy and witness his struggle to live. He imagined that the Boy might have loved to run and play and participate in all sorts of mindless activities like most humans did. Now here he was, unable to move at all on his own. He couldn't tell himself to move on, to forget about it. For the first time in his short life he actually cared about the fate of another creature. He actually respected another creature's life. He didn't feel the same way about the Gazimon, but hell, he was learning.
"It's blue," the Boy said suddenly.
"Uh huh, kid," the Gazimon answered distractedly, "blue."
Black Wargreymon looked straight ahead and saw nothing blue but the water (well, not so much anymore) and the clear sunny sky.
"So, kid," the Gazimon said, "what's your name?"
Black Wargreymon turned to the Gazimon. "His name is the Boy," he said gruffly.
"You named him "The Boy"?" the Gazimon scoffed.
"That's right," Black Wargreymon puffed out his chest.
"Uh, oh, okay," the Gazimon surrendered, suddenly terrified.
The Boy ignored them both. "Was black," he said before his eyes rolled back into his head and he lost consciousness.
~
Daisuke's eyes opened but his mind remained trapped in the realms of sleep. He turned his head toward his bedroom window and allowed his eyes to see nothing. His fingers twitched and his lungs took deep, satisfied breaths from the oxygen mask that had been lovingly placed over his mouth and nose. He did not blink; he was dead except for the steady rhythm of his chest moving up and down, down and up. His veins still pulsed, although painlessly. They remained red as though the labored breaths Daisuke took served no purpose to his body. The color appeared to fade by the hour, but the red in Daisuke's eyes remained as vibrant as ever.
Daisuke took one heaving breath before his eyelids fluttered and he could see again. The image of the sky just outside his window blurred and wavered into clarity. It was a beautiful day, as far as he could tell. There were no clouds in the sky except for one black smear that rose like a sunrise on the left side of his field of view. It looked as though a god had blackened his thumb with ink and had smudged it across the cheek of the sky. Daisuke knew better than to call it a cloud. He knew that it was a rift; it was something ominous and damning that demanded the attention of the Digidestined. For some reason it reminded him of Ken.
He tried to sit up, tried to call attention to himself - but to no avail. His arms and legs lay stubbornly where they were and refused to move when he demanded them to. His energy wilted as he strained to regain control of his stubborn limbs. If he tried to move his right thumb, his left forefinger would wiggle instead. His parched throat whistled around the oxygen mask but Daisuke couldn't muster a sound louder than the air escaping through his mouth.
Koushirou took this opportunity to explode out of the closet. He thrust the doors open and tumbled out, breathing heavily and nearly crushing Chibimon and a very wilted Wormmon. Daisuke looked in Koushirou's direction and blinked rapidly - which was the only movement he could control. Koushirou didn't notice, however. He was still deliberating whether he should break open Daisuke's Digivice or leave behind uncharted territory.
"What makes me think I can open this damn thing anyway?" he asked himself, frowning. "It's been through fights, fires, Daisuke mishaps - a screwdriver isn't going make enough of a difference." He pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket despite reason and began to shove it roughly into one of the Digivice's slots.
"Hey! Be careful with that!" Chibimon said, his eyes widening in terror. Not only did they have no idea what was inside or what could jump out and kill them, but also the Digivice was crucial to Chibimon's existence. What would happen to him if it were destroyed?
Koushirou jammed the screwdriver as far in as it would go, then tried to pull off the top. It stayed where it was, but Koushirou did manage to put a small crack in the screen. The Digivice (or perhaps its inhabitants) shrieked high and loud in displeasure. The crack widened and screamed as Daisuke had earlier. Koushirou dropped the Digivice and ran to hide behind Daisuke's bed with Chibimon and Wormmon, who had sensibly retreated while Koushirou was trying to pull the top off the Digivice.
The crack seemed to pulse in time with Daisuke's veins. Daisuke felt his fear returning; if it chose to attack him again, he would be dead in ten minutes, he was sure of it. As the crack pulsed, it also widened; it was an unfamiliar, alien thing like the fire in Daisuke's veins. Usually a crack grows when it is aggravated, like a crack on a windshield in winter. The Digivice's crack widened instead, like a mouth preparing to vomit. Like the mouth of a cave, it was dark and its contents were invisible in its shadow.
That all changed in an instant. Out of the mouth came black ooze; it was a substance similar to hot tar, except that it had intent. It had a mind. As it crawled, it shimmered and flattened until it was as close to the floor as possible. Then it split itself into quarters and continued to split until it appeared as though Daisuke had drawn hundreds of black raindrops on his floor. The raindrops looked less than two dimensional, however. And they smelled like fire and evil.
The little black raindrops seemed to pause and assess the room, as if they were deciding where to go. No one in the room spoke to one another, but they all felt the same thing. It was not insane to think that a black blob could think and could be evil. Not if you've been to the Digital World.
The raindrops suddenly dispersed; they spread throughout the room, scampered up the walls, across the ceiling and across the floor. Koushirou, Chibimon and Wormmon didn't even have a moment to jump off of the floor out of the way. They felt the blackness pass underneath and it took away their breath. Their eyes immediately reddened and burned uncomfortably, even though the touch had lasted less than a moment.
Other than the burning in their eyes, Koushirou and the Digimon could not find any evidence that the blackness had even been there at all. Besides, of course, there was the boy in the bed.
Chibimon turned to Koushirou. "Look what you did! You released a monster! At least when it was in Daisuke's Digivice we knew where it was!"
Koushirou lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. "I was just trying to help. How was I supposed to know?" He turned to Daisuke and shoved a thumb in his direction, "what would have happened to him if we had left that thing in his Digivice? It could have killed him! Or maybe even you."
"But now it's gone. How are we going to find it?"
"Well, if it liked to inhabit humans and Digimon it would have stayed here and had its fill of us. It seems to only inhabit Digivices. Which is why we have to inform all of the other Digidestined and make sure that no one uses their Digivice until it's safe."
"If it likes to live in Digivices, why didn't it shack up in your Digivice?" Chibimon asked.
Koushirou's lips became a thin line on his face. "I left mine at home."
The room fell silent, except for the tiny whisper coming from Daisuke. The black smudge in the sky, the one on Daisuke's left, swallowed another helping of the blackness and grew.
~
Mrs. Ichijouji sat in her favorite rocking chair, swaying gently as she flipped through the pages of her photo album. The chair was her favorite simply because it was positioned in such a way that all she had to do to see her son's bedroom door was turn her head. It was something hopeful to her; it allowed her to wish the door open and to see her gentle son emerge to wonder when dinner would be.
The chair also allowed her to think, which was not always the best thing for her piece of mind. The rhythmic swaying, the photos in her lap - they taunted her into thinking that she was a bad mother. She had seen the admiration in Ken's eyes; it was a look he saved for his brother. Maybe if she hadn't been so hard on Osamu they could have spent more time together. She could see that was all that Ken had ever wanted. Instead, Osamu stayed in his room between endless stacks of books with his brother on the floor beside him as quiet as a child his age could be.
It wasn't just that she and her husband forced Osamu into his studies and punished Ken for disturbing his brother, but also that Ken was systematically ignored. As a mother it was difficult for her to admit that she had loved one child more than the other just because one was a genius and the other wasn't. Not just yet, anyway. So she focused her energy on Osamu, ignoring Ken as he did his best to grasp some of the attention that his brother was receiving.
As her chair rocked her she remembered an example of such a time. It was a snowy, winter afternoon; Osamu had a big test the next day and he was suffering from a terrible head cold. He could barely open his eyes long enough to read a sentence in his books. Ken, however, was bursting with energy. He wanted to be brought to the park so that he could make a snowman. Mrs. Ichijouji suggested that he make one out of the snow on their balcony, but Ken had already tried and there wasn't enough snow for the Osamu-sized snowman he wanted to create.
After a while, Osamu had given up on his books and was winding his way through the hallway. Mrs. Ichijouji touched a palm to his head and dragged him over to the couch. As she fed him some vegetable soup, Ken bounded into the living, wearing his outdoor gear. He'd put his gloves on first and was having difficulty managing the zipper.
"Mama!" he shouted. "Mama!"
"What?" she snapped, turning away from Osamu.
"Zipper's stuck," he said, fumbling with his gloves over the zipper to prove his point.
"Just let me finish here," she said, turning back to Osamu. She could see that her eldest son was about to vomit and she ran into the kitchen to find a bowl. When she came back, the vomit was on the floor, Osamu was crying and Ken's zipper was still stuck.
She gave Osamu the bowl and rubbed his stomach before getting a rag to clean up the mess. As she cleaned, Osamu continued to be sick and Ken continued on about his zipper.
"Mama!" he shouted. "Mama, it will only take a minute. Please, I want to go outside before the snow melts."
She could have said, 'it'll take a long time before that happens dear' or 'I don't want the carpet to stain dear' or 'I'll give you a treat if you're patient dear'…
"MAMA!"
"GET OUT! Go outside now! I'm sick of you!" …is what she said instead.
That wasn't the worst of it, oh no.
Between cleaning the carpet, getting Osamu to bed, calling the doctor, washing the dishes and doing the laundry - she had somehow forgotten that she'd left her youngest son outside in the freezing cold. It was a phone call from her husband that jogged her memory. He had called home from work, asking about the kids. She went on and on about how sick Osamu was and when he had asked about Ken, her heart leapt in her throat. She then lied to her husband, she couldn't even remember what she said, and hung up the phone. Mrs. Ichijouji raced outside and found her little boy just outside the front door, sleeping next to a miniature snowman, his tears frozen onto his reddened face.
As she rocked she remembered a little bit more; she lied to her husband a little bit more, she bit her nails a little more and she cried a little bit more. Both of her babies went to the hospital that day but she remained by Osamu's side, holding his hand instead of Ken's because Ken's hand felt like guilt and betrayal and she couldn't break down in front of the entire human race.
Six days later, when Ken woke up, he couldn't even remember what had happened. Mrs. Ichijouji had prepared a little speech and everything, begging him not to tell his father the truth. The speech became unnecessary that day, and Mrs. Ichijouji tucked it in the back of her mind where she kept most her guilt about Osamu's studies. She then lied to Ken too, who smiled and called himself stupid and careless. She simply nodded.
When they returned from the hospital, only a lump of the snowman's tiny body was left. Ken didn't seem to know that it used to be his snowman; he stepped on it with his tiny snow boots before entering their home. Mrs. Ichijouji had the urge to lift her son into her arms but she didn't want to alarm her husband, who was blissfully oblivious to what she had done. She heard the door lock shut behind her and thought of her son outside in the snow, his zipper undone and his chest exposed to the cold. In her mind's eye she saw him cry silently as he sat in a pile of snow, building his little snowman. She saw him get cold and sleepy; a little boy too terrified to knock on the door and beg his mother to let him back inside.
Somehow the photo album had been turned to the last page. She sighed and turned the book over, opening again to the first page. Osamu smiled back at her in every picture. His smiles never seemed honest; they always seemed to betray how he was feeling. She wished she had given her son the strength to say something about what he was feeling. Before she could stop herself on that snowy afternoon, she had taken this strength from Ken. For the first time she realized that turning Ken into Osamu was the worst thing she could have ever done to him.
She was a bad mother.
~
With the Boy safely back inside the cave and wrapped in bandages and blankets, Black Wargreymon could return to his thoughts. He'd been thinking about the Digidestined lately, and their lousy, weakling Digimon. He looked down at the Boy and wondered how such a sweet, helpless being could ever have brainwashed a Digimon into believing that he was to serve him. Black Wargreymon saw these children throwing their Digimon slaves into the rounds of fire and felt repulsed. To him, Digimon were meant to be freethinking and savage. At least, that was what he used to think. As he looked at the Boy he realized that there had to be some sort of partnership with a little give and take. The Boy was allowed to live and to recover while Black Wargreymon…well he wasn't exactly sure what he was getting out of this, but it was changing him.
He wondered what had happened to the Boy's Digimon slave. It probably served its duty and died trying to protect its owner, Black Wargreymon thought. He'd seen these slaves fight to the death for their owners before, all because of a shiny metal egg like the one he'd thrown into the lake. He'd even heard that these slave Digimon were compelled to save the Digital World in several occasions. At first he had thought that the slaves were wasting away their lives by devoting themselves to someone that could care less if they lived or died. He had even felt disgusted when the Digimon called it an honor to be chosen for the Digidestined. The Digidestined he had seen were ruthless and cunning. They shouted commands they'd trained their Digimon slaves to follow and defeated their enemies quickly and without harm to themselves. Black Wargreymon had never seen the Boy fight alongside these particular Digidestined. He was a loner, just like Black Wargreymon, with his own, more noble agendas. In fact, Black Wargreymon could actually see himself serving as a protector of the Boy for the rest of his life. He would find it… fulfilling.
As Black Wargreymon thought, he failed to notice a rustle in the shrubs outside of the cave. A spy, sent from Zogleck's kingdom to locate the black beast, huddled there. He was shielded by a cloak of invisible skin and was nearly impossible to see. Instead of running back to his master and reporting Black Wargreymon's location, he remained crouched in the bushes, forced into it by a bout of brutal curiosity. He could barely fathom the strangeness of the scene in front of him: Black Wargreymon hovering over another creature in a protective gesture instead of a deadly one. The look in Black Wargreymon's eyes was tender and loving and to top it off, he was in the presence of a Gazimon for more than an hour and not once did he try to swipe the creature's head off.
The spy began to second-guess his orders. This was not the brutal killer he'd been sent out to detect. He must have made a mistake; the beast before him was not Black Wargreymon, the traitorous murderer Zogleck had once defeated, but another creature that had the misfortune of being identical to him.
The spy decided that it would be best for him to go back to Zogleck's fortress and to report the location of the creature - without neglecting to mention that it may be a clone of the infamous Black Wargreymon. As far as the spy knew, Black Wargreymon had been a simple creation to begin with and was probably very easy to duplicate.
He moved quickly away from the mouth of the cave, not wanting to push his luck any further. However, Black Wargreymon had finally caught on and had heard the gentle rustle in the bushes that was too brisk to have been the wind.