*As the story progresses, Political leaders, situations, and real history will be added. Please note that I take no part in these events, probably will never, and am only an innocent bystander putting a manipulated history using real people who have real lives into a fan fiction that a dozen people or less will read. Thanks and enjoy. 

''Killing me will not give them security.'' - Abdel Aziz Rantisi (Palestinian militant)

The Footsteps are Fading

Chapter Three

The security that he had always given her would be gone if he went through with this. If he left, she would begin to doubt his motives now, even the ones from years past. He must feel no pain, no shame at all, if he talks to her like this. Leave! How would he walk five feet without her arm aroud him? He wasn't that strong; nobody was. If he thought it humanly possible to walk by oneself, live by oneself, and never have to depend on any other but yourself, she saw it in a completely different scale. He was grayscale, she in colorful spectrum. This setup had always worked before, why not now? Why did he have to leave, why did he have to abandon her, leave her with people who no longer loved?

She buried her fists further into her face, trying to think of reasons why he should stay. Because this is true love! You don't mess with things like that! If you don't understand it, don't want to understand it, then just let it be! But she knew what was so special about their arrangement, their time together. Part of it was time, an imaginary guideline to a human's life. All the hours they had spent together made them practically siblings, and here he was saying he had to leave! This is true love, Tai! You just don't mess with that! Yet she couldn't bring her eyes to his, because the second reason was too painfully sweet to say, if only to herself. His hand descended upon her shoulder, she felt him crouch next to her, and right there it wouldn't have mattered if he was man, woman, beast, or bird she was still in love with him. This soul called Taichi; it's presence was everything to her now. It used to be on the side, a warm after thought, but now it was important. Suddenly it was something. Taichi was something. Not a man any longer, nor a body that had an affectionate touch, but something. The word was representative of so much…copious pain, love, and strength. Maybe if she could describe the word in perfect and meticulous detail the word would stay. And if the word stayed, the soul would, too.

She grabbed his shirt and buried her head into it, not caring about the odd position her body had contorted itself to. Her entire mind was trembling with the effort of trying to hold onto him. That word, that word that word that word. How could she describe it and tell him what truth she knew about them, and about that age-old theory of love. She wanted to tell him that there was no such thing as love, it was just an inferior ersatz of something truer, something that could be considered divine. True love: that was above all else in the world. It didn't matter what sex you were, what age, or what bloodline. It didn't care about any of those material ideologies. All it could ever care about would be the soul. Your soul. Tai, your soul, and the name that tries to represent it.

They teetered off balance and spilled into the road, and Sora was suddenly laughing. Tears still slid down her face, but it was a happy face, and its eyes sparkled merrily when they saw Taichi's. Now mother didn't seem too far gone, and her husband's lack of love didn't matter anymore. Staring at the face of the one she loved mattered now, more than anything in the world ever would.  

"Kari, can I ask you something?"

She nodded.

"Do you really remember all that went on at the mesa?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean – what all was said?"

"Davis!" her eyes laughed at him yet still followed the passing ground. "You don't remember? That was only a couple of days ago…right?"

"Nuh-uh. It has to be longer than that. Weeks, even."

She shook her head and laughed, nervously almost.

So he dropped it, and scanned the horizon. All of it was so bland now, even those blobs in the distance were beginning to look the same. The same. Everything, everything they passed looked exactly the same as the last. They had to be going in circles.

He tilted his head towards Hikari. Circles…just like those brown eyes of hers. Why were they so dilated? It was incredibly sunny out here in the desert, yet her pupils were sidling towards the edge of her iris. Then he noticed her pale face, and her sweaty cheeks.

"Kari?"

Her brown eyes flickered over to him quickly.

"Yeah?"

"Are you alright? You look…sick."

Her respondent laughing broke the still, stuffy air.

"Oh, didn't you ever listen in biology? This is my adrenaline kicking in. Because my face doesn't need as much blood in an emergency, it's routed off to my muscles. You should really listen more often to teachers."

"Yeah…W- Why is your…What do you mean 'emergency'?"

She laughed again but didn't reply.

Then once again the miles seemed replicas of past miles, the air grew more humid as the sun climbed to its zenith, and there was an unbreakable wall of silence between the two walkers. There was no conversation to thoroughly shatter those bricks, so Daisuke resorted to thinking, something he remembered watching Taichi doing when he was in "a pickle".

He dwelled for a moment on where they were headed, but that was a sad and twisted story that he didn't want to know the ending of. Then his thoughts unwillingly focused on his grumbling stomach, but he tried to ignore that. Soon he imagined what Mimi, Takeru, and Koushiro would do when they returned to the real world. What would they find? Something amiss like Hikari had foretold? He sighed. Hikari was sure weird sometimes. Almost like some sort of prophet. He glanced at her through the wall and played with the idea of her sitting by a river and humming, cross-legged. He started laughing, then Hikari said stiffly:

"There's something up ahead. Looks like an oasis."

The man followed her gaze and saw the clump of green on the milieu. The word 'umbrage' jumped into his mind and repeated itself over and over again, in time to the beating of his heart, as he quickened his pace. It didn't really matter that this could very well be a mirage. It didn't matter that they had been going in circles the past few hours. What mattered here was…

"Do you think there will be food in there?"

Hikari grinned and tried to keep step with him.

"Maybe. Let's hope so; I'm starving."

So this was what giving in felt like. Succumbing…falling under the blows of your opponent. This is what it felt like.

The digivice in his hand was shaking, trying to withstand the pressure of his grip.

Yielding…Surrendering…

Failing.

The digivice was whipped back to his side, where it resumed its shaking.

How could he not know what failing felt like?

But he did. It had been losing Sora to Etemon years ago, finding out that Hikari, his own sister, was the last digidestined, and standing aside to let Daisuke take leadership. Davis. Where had he gone to? How did Taichi really know for sure if Davis was going through with the mission. He wasn't strong enough. He'd struggle, fail, then crawl back to Taichi. Why not just meet him half way? Taichi moistened his lips. Help was no longer to be given. He flashed a smile at the blank computer screen, watched the reflection raise its arm, and as if in a dream, he saw the lips part and form the words, 'open'.

He was rushing through the wormhole, and on the sides were pictures that had never been. He caught glancing glimpses of them, but could not put two and two together. Streaks of brown, pink, and blue whipped past him, or he whipped past them, or they were both going opposite directions. Then the spectrum of the portal ended, and Taichi slammed, face first, onto the hard packed earth of the digital world.

The first thing he noticed was the smell.

Second: the ground.

And third: the putrid color the sky was.

Had that much time really lapsed? He stood up in wonder and stared at the sky. Why was it such a toxic…toxic…toxic…wasteland. A toxic wasteland. Well, please let the adjective be describing the color, he pleaded, not the status, and I might live. Luckily toxic just described the overall feeling of the place. That and dejected, deserted, and hey! without life. His left foot crushed some dry blades of grass, and his right foot ground on some dry rib bones. He jerked it back quickly. Weird. Hadn't digimon always died by floating in particles to the sky? Eh, maybe that was just a PG precaution.

Everything was so dead. Less than a month ago this had been a green, happy place and now… There was a sudden suffocating urge to jump back to the real world, but when he turned around, there was no portal there. Dread oozed over his body. No…there was no…no portal. Then the incredibly late realization that the digital was in trouble, life threatening trouble, collided with the light spirit that he had possessed not a moment before in the real world. It had not seemed light at all, but compared to the feeling happening now, the other could fly.

He stared into the distance ahead. Where would Daisuke be leading them? Had they found a lead? It honestly didn't strike Taichi as possible that the boy could have figured this out on his own. Even if he hadn't been alone when the journey had started, it was possible that he was the only one left. The only one that would continue to fight.

There was a crunching sound behind him. Then breathing. Human breathing. Fragments of the memories of his room nudged the edge of his mind, but he pushed them away and turned around.

"Sora!"

She smiled shyly.

"Yeah."

"What are you doing here? This is – is…"

"Don't say too dangerous, because I really couldn't care less about that. I just…well, this will sound really sappy, but I didn't want to not have you in the same world as I. And it's not a protection issue, it's…well…love, I guess."

He didn't respond for awhile, then, without a change in his serious visage said, "You're a little late in telling me that."

"No! It didn't matter about not telling you, because we both already knew. And besides, it's not the sort of love that you can get married on. I couldn't even begin to describe it."

"You shouldn't have even said it," hurt crept into her eyes and he added quickly, "but I catch your drift," and after a moment's pause: "There isn't a portal to go back through and we're stranded here now so…just make the most of it."

He turned back to the barren landscape, away from her searching eyes.

"Tai…what do we do?"

"What we do – it doesn't matter now."

There was such an air of bravado in his words that made her shut up for the next few minutes. She scrupled following him so far, but she couldn't forget how good it had felt to actually have him holding her. He had never showed affection so willingly…perhaps it would never happen again, considering the number of well-grounded walls he had surrounding his heart, but at least she could stay with him to the end and discover if he would ever let his guard down again. How hopeful she really was disgusted her.