I know that broken wings do not fly."
Kouichi Kimura—"Oreta Tsubasa de"
(Translated by KarenSedai)
With Broken Wings
Chapter Sixteen: "Oreta Tsubasa de, Part Two"
"All right, let's see," Sakiko decided, spreading out a map. She pushed away a strand of half-brown, half-purple hair and examined the map. "Here's your original location, and here's the direction the helicopters were headed. I'd say it was northeast."
"The tracking for the Crest of Kindness halted here," Ken pointed, "and it seems to be slowly moving now."
"Tokyo?" Takuya observed. Ken nodded.
"But why there?" Junpei asked.
"Junpei, turn on the TV," Ken ordered after a thought. "Turn to any news channel."
"Local or international?"
"It doesn't matter. Kotemon, keep an eye on it and let us know if there's any breaking news. Koemon, you're in charge of the volume."
While the two Child Digimon anxiously watched the television, Ken, Takuya, Junpei, Tomoki, Izumi, Taiyou, Himi, Takamoto, and Sakiko looked over the map. Hikari was at the hospital, checking up on Kouri's condition; and Kage was experimenting with her digivice in front of the very anxious Daisuke, Iori, Takeru, and Miyako. Patamon, Tailmon, and Lopmon stood guard at the door.
"Are you sure that'll work?" Daisuke questioned.
"It will," Kage assured. "Miyako, while you're waiting, install that webcam and the dimensional interface system into my computer."
"All right. But I'll need to contact Koushiro and the others."
"Go right ahead. Just hurry."
The sixteen-year-old computer genius quickly began installing the camera and interface, following Kage's exact instructions (as had Iori earlier) so the computer would respond to her. After several or so minutes and a reboot later, the camera was installed and Miyako set up a conference with the Chosen on the other side. Save for Kage, Kotemon, and Koemon, everyone gathered around to see a redheaded seventeen-year-old boy, a platinum blonde fifteen-year-old boy with pale blue eyes, an eighteen-year-old boy with a large mess of brown hair, a blonde boy resembling an eighteen-year-old Takeru, a red-haired girl of the same age, a strawberry-blonde seventeen-year-old girl, and a boy of nineteen years with long bluish hair and frameless glasses.
"Amistad? Yuuki? Ai?" Izumi recognized, referring to the eighteen-year-olds.
"Yeah," the Takeru look-alike replied. "But I'm really Yamato Ishida, Takeru's brother. Ai is Sora Takenouchi, and Yuuki is Taichi Yagami, Hikari's brother. Our genius with the red hair is Koushiro Izumi. The short blonde is Wallace Ford, and his girlfriend—the strawberry-blonde dressed in pink—is Mimi Tachikawa. The guy with glasses is Jyou Kido, our resident doctor-to-be."
"We have a serious problem," Iori informed. "Kouji was captured."
"Are you absolutely sure?" Taichi checked.
"We can't be entirely certain, but Ken's been tracking him with the Crest," Daisuke explained.
"I guess that's too good of an indication," Sora commented.
"Ken, what do you expect next?" Yamato asked.
"Knowing the way the Kaiser thinks, Kouichi will have a press conference open all over the world," he answered. "It'll be subtitled. It's his ego. The Kaiser will want his voice heard."
A knock at the door interrupted him. Patamon slowly flew over and checked through the peephole. Seeing that it was Hikari, he tried to turn the doorknob, but it was impossible for his tiny hands. Takeru went over and assisted.
"Kouri's okay, but they had to put her in surgery," she informed.
"What did they do about her gift?" Izumi questioned.
"The most they could do was keep her sedated," she explained. "That way, Kouichi can't exploit it."
"What injuries did she sustain?" Jyou asked.
"Third-degree burns, so they had to replace a lot of the skin on her arm. She wasn't afraid of the surgery, but her brothers worried her. She's having trouble feeling Kouji, and Kouichi was still trying to establish contact with her."
"Can he do that if she's asleep?" Wallace questioned.
"Not in the way he was earlier or the way the Kaiser infiltrated Kouji's mind, but he will manage to give her nightmares." A haunted shadow swept across her face, something that hadn't happened in many years. "I had them too when I was summoned to the World of Darkness."
"Ken!" Kotemon called as Koemon rapidly turned up the volume. Miyako brought the computer closer to the TV as everyone diverted his or her attention to the news.
"This is a special report," the anchorman alerted. "We take you live to Tokyo, Japan, where the Kaiser is making his address on the war with the Resistance." The footage switched to the Metropolitan Government Building in West Shinjuku, where all of Kouichi's slaves were seated on the street, their wrists and ankles chained together. Reporters were a "safe distance" away, recording.
In an Imperial high school near the abandoned Mt. Fuji Resistance Settlement, true Imperial students and those who had managed to keep their identities hidden throughout the chaos of the Masaki Nishigawa case watched the television in wonder. Had the traitor student been captured at last?
"After three years of relentless searching," Kouichi stated, "we have finally captured one of the key members of the Resistance." He gestured behind him, where Sakuyamon brought forth a fully armored and handcuffed Kouji.
From the Resistance bases in the Digital World, fighters watched anxiously at the Digimon brought out. In a tent near the African caravan, Gotsumon clenched his trembling stony hands into fists at the sight of his comrade. Grizzmon and Dinohumon could offer no comfort, and the visiting V-mon was already trying to console Kotemon and Bearmon, who had recognized him on the spot. But even the blue victory dragon was depressed with the revelation, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Allow me to introduce Beowulfmon, the creature formed by a merge between the Human and Beast Spirits of Light. Three years ago, he was a hero to prisoners, inspiring rebellion instead of reform. To the Resistance, he was the one who will destroy our way of life. Prisoners, Resistance, here is your hero!"
He violently removed the helmet to expose the human underneath. Gasps of disbelief escaped many of the slaves while photographers eagerly snapped pictures. But he didn't know that in the Resistance's claimed (and appropriately named) Freeport High School in Freeport of Long Island, New York, students gasped in terror at the sight of the young man under the mask, and those students who had seen him at the institute in Melbourne, Australia, merely gaped in silence upon seeing his face.
In Freeport, those who recognized him called out the name "Gabriel Lee." Near the abandoned settlement, people smirked and whispered snide remarks about "Masaki Nishigawa." But in the Digital World, as in the apartment in Hong Kong and the hospital where his family waited, they could only be silent, save for a tiny girl who had just left surgery. A fresh bandage had been wrapped around her arm, and more sedatives had been fed to her. Her mother held her close while her father held her hand. Very close nearby was her half-brothers' mother, who watched the news report in devastation. Though she was barely awake, the small girl knew immediately what had happened, even without glancing up at the television. Just as her own infamous brother had a few years ago, she spoke out the name before succumbing to the numb darkness that called to her in the brightly lit room:
"Kouji."
"Yes, this false Digimon is, in fact, the halfling fugitive Kouji Minamoto, whom we have been chasing for all these years. Citizens of both worlds can sleep peacefully tonight, knowing this known criminal and terrorist is off the streets." Whether there was any more to this telecast remains a mystery as the Chosen and Resistance turned it off and returned to business.
"West Shinjuku," Koushiro noticed.
"My hometown," Tomoki added.
"Most of the Tamers live there too," Hikari remembered. "Maybe we should contact Ryo or Jenrya?"
"No," Koushiro advised. "Kouichi won't stay there long."
"Right," Taichi agreed. "He knows that Takato, Jenrya, and Ruki are probably at the Metropolitan Building, just waiting to be called. Plus there's the fact that Tomoki and Yutaka lived there, so he knows that there will be experts on the city at your disposal."
"So now what?" Takeru asked.
"In a few hours, hopefully before tomorrow, you can contact Kouji and ask him," Kage informed. "I've been examining these D-3s, and I've found that they don't just look like D-scanners, but they function like them too."
"Well, armor evolution and spirit evolution are similar," Iori admitted.
"The one difference is that D-scanners allow two-way communication while the D-3s don't. But, as you've known for the past three years, the Kaiser can tap into the D-scanners' communications, forcing you to maintain radio silence. So I've been installing a communication system that he can't access."
"But?" Taiyou pressed.
"But I can only install it in Hikari's. She shares the power of Light, so she stands the best chance of contacting Kouji. Also, this process takes a long time, a very long time. I might not have this finished until tomorrow—if then."
"Then it'll have to wait till then," Ken decided. "Hong Kong isn't Kouichi's command center anymore—Tokyo is. We need to head there."
"But where will we go?" Sakiko questioned. Everyone looked at her in doubt. "You have to take Kotemon, Koemon, and me. We know the cellblocks better than Ken does. Plus, we're the only ones who know the way to Cell 24." Ken sighed and nodded.
"But she does have a good point," Takuya observed. "Where will we go?"
"Where else?" Kage answered with a grin. "The Railroad."
-------
When Kouji was first placed in Cell 24, Renamon, Guilmon, Palmon, and Agumon had roughly thrown him in, locking him in isolation so no one could ever see him or learn his name. This time, however, things were a bit different. Kouichi shoved him all the way down Cellblock 18, with the cell doors opened so the slaves could see their former hero in such a humiliating position. When he fell, no one helped him up. Rather, they watched Kouichi beat him, wondering what to do about this. If he was either a human or a Digimon, nothing would have stopped them from helping him. But because he was a halfling in their eyes, they just idly stood by. Halflings weren't worthy of sympathy. They didn't deserve it.
The door to Cell 24 opened, releasing a rancid odor. While everyone around them coughed in a futile attempt to breathe, Kouichi threw Kouji inside. The returned prisoner landed facedown in a pile of sludge. When he lifted his head, his face was covered with blood and feces. It was truly a humbling experience.
Kouichi handed Kouji a mop and a bucket of an ammonia and alcohol mixture. "Start cleaning."
The ammonia fumes were strong and caused Kouji's eyes to water. He placed the bucket in one clean spot on the floor and began mopping up the stinking mess.
"Look at your great hero, crying in humiliation!" Kouichi taunted as tears revealed dirtied skin underneath the red and brown. Young children clung to their parents as Kouji continued cleaning, eventually scrubbing through to the gray stone floor. Finished, he presented the soiled mop and ammonia.
"Excellent," Kouichi commented. "Now wash up, halfling. You disgust me." The door slammed, locking Kouji in putrid darkness. The absence of light played tricks on his eyes while the silence caused his ears to ring. He hunted around until he finally found candles and the matches; his lanterns had made the exodus to the Mt. Fuji Settlement. Lighting a candle, he was able to see that everything around him was exactly the same. In the "bathroom" facility rested the cakes of harsh soap, the one dirty towel, toilet paper, and the makeshift first aid kit. The tub still rested on the bricks, and the sink was still under the faucet.
An idea forming in his head, he removed the bathtub from its perch and brought it over to the faucet, turning the cold water on full blast. Using the sink, he took some separate water and began scrubbing the filth off his face, body, and armor. He could not afford to let a drop of it land in the tub. Completed, he dropped the candle to the floor and climbed into the tub, hoping his plan would work. The alcohol mixed with the ammonia ignited, burning every last bit of feces and blood inside. He took a deep breath and submerged in the water as the air was turned off, cutting off the fuel. A huge flash of orange-red filled the gray cell as the water heated and boiled, burning his body.
Darkness soon replaced the fire, signaling to him that it was safe to emerge. The air conditioning kicked in, filling the vacuum with fresh cold air. He took a deep breath, choking on smoke and heat. But as oxygen made his way to his lungs, he realized one glorious thing:
For once in all the years of its existence, Cell 24 was warm.
If he could accomplish that, he knew that he could defeat Kouichi. He just had to figure out where to start.
It was Day Two of what the small unified group of Chosen Children and Resistance fighters knew would be the final battle. Only Takamoto hadn't come with them, remaining in Hong Kong to lead the forces there. But replacing him was a large team of united forces from Shinjuku, Jyuuban, Yokohama, and Shibuya. The leader of the original Mt. Fuji Resistance fighters, Kae Watanabe, had promised Kage a team of fighters from her own team in Odaiba to join them in battle.
Just as they had three years prior, they gathered in the mess hall, devising a plan of attack. Kage sat further away, trying to complete his project with Hikari's digivice while Daisuke, Ken, and Iori looked over Sakiko, Kotemon, and Koemon's plans of Cellblock 18. The latter three were currently informing the aspiring architect Junpei of the plans of the ramps leading from the ground level to Cellblock 18. Hikari organized strategies with Takato, Ruki, and Jenrya via a teleconference connecting Kage's miniature supercomputer with the large Hypnos mainframe in the Metropolitan Building. Takeru, Taiyou, Takuya, Miyako, Tomoki, Izumi, and Himi recharged weapons while the Digimon prepared themselves for battle through training and meditation.
"Hmm," Jenrya commented after hearing Hikari's dilemma. "That is a problem. Have you tried contacting Koushiro about it?"
She nodded. "He couldn't think of anything, and Ken's still trying to figure out a way around it."
"You have to get those slaves free," he reminded her. "It doesn't matter what they did—they can't be involved in this coming fight."
"Takato!" an adult voice called.
"Mr. Yamaki!" the Tamers' unofficial leader cried, obviously startled. A blonde man in a black business suit appeared in the camera's range. An older man with graying hair and glasses soon appeared with him. "Lee, it's your dad!"
"Hold on a second," Jenrya requested, allowing Ruki to sit in the chair and sort out other details with Hikari about the upcoming confrontation. "Dad, what is it?"
"Jianliang," Jiang-yu Lee addressed, using the Chinese pronunciation of his son's name, "we may know a way you can find a solution to this problem."
"You do?" Jenrya asked, hope evident in his silver eyes.
"But, Mr. Lee, Mr. Yamaki, how?" Takato asked.
"Follow us," Yamaki requested.
"You too, Ruki," Jiang-yu added.
"We'll be back," Ruki informed Hikari.
Hikari turned around to face the others. "Ruki said they'd be back. Jenrya's father may have found something."
"That's good news," Miyako commented.
Hikari nodded her agreement. "Kage, how's my digivice coming along?"
"Better than expected," he replied. "But it won't be completely ready till tomorrow."
"Is there anything you can do to speed it up?" Takuya questioned. "Kouichi could do anything during that time. Kouji's running out of time." It was amazing how he still cared about the welfare of someone he could barely remember. But after Hikari thought about it for a moment, she realized it really wasn't. Emotions were always more powerful than memories.
"Sorry, Takuya, but this the best I can do. These digivices may have similar functions, but their composition is completely different. One wrong move and I could permanently damage this thing, making Hikari and her partner useless in battle."
Hikari momentarily stepped away from the computer to speak with Izumi. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she answered. "I'd just like to know how Kouji is."
"We're working on it, don't worry," she assured. "How about you help Ruki and me go over our strategy when she gets back? We could really use your input." Reluctantly, she agreed and placed down the gun she was fine-tuning. There was no point in repairing weapons if they would be useless in battle.
-------
Even after three years had passed, the work shifts were still the same. Though it was mid-October, the sun beat down on Kouji in a blazing fury, and with his armor, it was unbearable.
A thousand eyes were on him as he was forced to pick up discarded Imperial weapons and mines. No one knew what to make of him. They knew that the Kaiser had to fear his power to some extent, or there would have been no meaning to the relentless search. But if this boy did have so much power, why didn't he use it? And more importantly, why wasn't the war over yet?
It was noon already, and the slaves still had about six hours to go. Well, all of them but Kouji. After his little display of pyrotechnics the day before, he had been condemned to twenty-four hours of labor. Kouichi had laughed at the pun behind it—twenty-four hours for the prisoner in Cell 24. Worse, there was nothing scheduled for him the next day, meaning that Kouichi had a surprise torture in mind.
He kept working at an even pace: not so fast as to overexert himself, yet not too slowly so as to be accused of "wasting time." It was incredible at how easily he'd reverted to the slave he'd once been—even his body adjusted with his mind. He kept his mind off his sabers, knowing Kouichi could use that thought-link to find them, and never drew his attention to his defuser when he needed to pull it out. Everything was automatic. His body functioned, if not at its optimum peak, under starvation; and though his strength was diminishing, he estimated he was strong enough to fight if he had to.
The sun glittered off the windows of the building in front of him. Momentarily, he shielded his eyes to avoid the blinding effects. He was lucky he was alone; had he been guarded, he would have been shot or beaten immediately. There was something about Hikarigaoka that seemed to make Kouichi edgy.
He walked on, avoiding a street between two apartment buildings that the Imperial Guard had stationed at. As he kept walking, he took a brief glance at the sky. The sun was high in the blue air, nowhere near any clouds. It was going to be a long day. And he had a feeling the next would be no different.
-------
Takato Matsuda, Jenrya Lee, and Ruki Makino followed Hypnos superior Mitsuo Yamaki and Jenrya's father Jiang-yu into the "war room" of the Metropolitan Building. Jiang-yu's fellow "Wild Bunch" teammates were all typing on various computers, save for Goro "Shibumi" Mizuno, who was currently running an errand. Above, in elevated chairs, were system operators Megumi Onodera and Reika Ootori-Yamaki, who were running a virtual simulation of the Digimon Kaiser's base. Takato and the difficult-to-impress Ruki stared around in fascination. In the five years the Tamers had worked alongside Hypnos and the Wild Bunch, Jenrya had been the only Tamer to see—much less visit—this room.
"It was pretty amazing when I first saw it too," Jenrya admitted, seeing his friends' shocked gaping.
"Amazing?" Takato repeated. "Lee, this is incredible!"
"Takato, we've been friends for five years. You can call me Jenrya, you know."
"Ruki calls you 'Lee.'"
"Well, Ruki's Ruki."
"Jenrya, this is no time to be fooling around," Yamaki reprimanded. "I doubt any of us need to remind you three of the dangers those on the other side will face."
The three fifteen-year-olds looked down at the floor in shame. This was the first time since the days the Tamers and Hypnos had been enemies that they'd been reprimanded like this.
The black-clad Alice McCoy stepped forward, her pale blue eyes seeming to pierce through the three Tamers she had once helped. Her platinum blond hair was no longer in pigtails, but in a wild bun atop her head. Her vintage blouse and skirt were long gone, replaced by a black Renaissance-styled dress and boots reminiscent of Beelzebumon's—minus the blades.
"So, Jen, it's been a long time," she commented.
"Alice!" Jenrya recognized, forgetting his humility and hugging her. "I agree. Three years is too long."
"Is there something we missed?" Takato asked.
"Sorry," Jenrya apologized. "Alice and I have been dating via instant messenger since after that mission with Hikari. This is the first time in three years that we've seen each other face-to-face."
"My grandfather wasn't able to stay in Shinjuku during all those years due to his classes," Alice explained.
"And it was too much for an old man like me to figure out how to teach my classes through a teleconference," added Professor Rob "Dolphin" McCoy. "Hello, Jenrya, Jiang-yu, as well as you, Takato, Ruki. Nice to see the Primary Colors again." He called them that because of the colors of their original D-arcs: red for Takato, green for Jenrya, and blue for Ruki. When the three colors combined, they would create white light; and so when the three Tamers combined their strength, great things were also accomplished.
"Hello, Prof. McCoy," the three "Primary Colors" greeted in unison.
"All right, that's just about everyone," observed the Wild Bunch member known only as Babel.
"Shibumi's still not here yet," commented his co-conspirator, Daisy. "I hope nothing happened."
"I knew we shouldn't have let him drive to the airport," Prof. Rai "Curly" Aishuwarya decided. "Not after his last accident landed him in a coma."
"Don't worry," Jiang-yu assured, "he'll be fine. Besides, if Ryo doubts Shibumi's driving abilities, he can take the wheel. He did get his license last year, after all."
Almost as if on cue, nineteen-year-old Ryo Akiyama raced up the stairs into the war room, followed by a winded Shibumi.
"I think I'm getting old," the aging man decided.
"Well, Ryo does play soccer at Fukuoka University, so you wouldn't have a chance," Ruki joked.
"And how would you know what goes on in Kyushu?" Ryo questioned with mock suspicion. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek before doing the same to Alice and shaking Takato's and Jenrya's hands. "Sorry we're so late. We hit every traffic light between here and the airport."
"He isn't kidding," Shibumi added. "You should have seen how far the traffic was backed up."
"Now that you're all here, we can begin," Yamaki decided. "Reika, Megumi."
"Connecting simulations to the monitors now," Reika informed.
"Monitors online," Megumi added.
The monitors in the dark room all simultaneously turned on, creating the image of the interior of the Kaiser's base.
"This image was created from all the information Sakiko and Ken gave us," Alice explained, "as well as the information Hikari, Jenrya, and I managed to gather on our last mission."
"She said they were all working on makeshift blueprints," Ruki remembered.
"So where is this supposed to be?" Ryo asked.
"This is just Cellblock 18, one of the sixty cellblocks inside," Alice answered.
"Sixty?" Jenrya exclaimed. Alice nodded.
"According to Sakiko's information, there are no guards positioned on the cellblocks," Prof. McCoy continued. "Apparently, the Kaiser doesn't worry too much about his slaves' escaping."
"But he did have enough concern to locate the keypads that release them in his guards' barracks," Jiang-yu added. The monitors all changed to the guards' quarters, similar to the ones in a boot camp or military base. "The keypads are all located in the center of each barrack, equidistant from the front and back entrances. Each is electronically activated with a keycard. Ken stole one from a guard, but it did him no good once an electronic shield was put into use. One could hack through it, but none of us can figure out how it would be possible—not even Alice. Jianliang, Ryo, you're our other technical experts. Do you have any ideas?"
Jenrya and Ryo looked at each other, having come to the same conclusion.
"You can't, Dad," Jenrya replied. "It's impossible."
"What?" Takato asked.
"Lee, you're giving up on them?" Ruki questioned.
"No, he isn't, Ruki," Ryo explained. "Kouichi knows how Ken thinks—remember, they're connected through the Kaiser, so it's almost like they share the same mind. He knows that Ken would try hacking into the systems and destroy the codes."
"So he backs up his shield with a super-virus that will delete anything and everything on file," Jenrya added. "Therefore, there are only two ways to open the cells without destroying them: the master keycard, which Kouichi would never let anyone near…"
"Or by short-circuiting them," Ryo continued. "All someone has to do is reroute the electrical connection into the incorrect circuits. Everything would melt down."
"Ryo, Jenrya, I officially give you degrees in engineering," Prof. McCoy declared.
"It's so simple!" Curly cried. "And a team of elite hackers couldn't even think of it!"
"Shows how much education was wasted on us," Babel joked with a mock glare at Prof. McCoy, their old teacher.
"Someone has to inform the Chosen of this discovery," Shibumi realized.
"I'll do it, Mr. Mizuno," Ruki volunteered. "I was just talking to Hikari before, anyway."
"One problem," Daisy interrupted. "Before you all go off celebrating, answer me this: How exactly are they going to accomplish all this?"
"I don't know," Takato confessed.
"Still, it's too good an idea to throw out," Yamaki replied. "Let's expand on it a little more for now and then tell them." The others all nodded in agreement and set to work on solving the sticky problem.
--------
Day Three, if anything, was worse than Day Two. Kouichi's surprise torture involved syrup of ipecac, used to induce vomiting. The agony began at three in the morning and had continued until well past six in the evening. After Kouji had backed up both the toilet and the drain in his cell, Kouichi had moved him to his own personal bathroom, where the younger twin continued vomiting for two hours. Kouichi had tried to force more ipecac syrup into him, but to no avail. In frustration, he pulled Kouji's ponytail with such force that the weakened young man smashed the back of his head onto the tile, succumbing to a concussion that momentarily caused him to black out. And now he sat in his corner of the cell, forcing himself to remain conscious. His vision faded in and out, and just about everything he did caused his head to hurt.
Meanwhile, in the Underground Railroad near Mt. Fuji, Kage Tenshi reattached the white-and-pink covering of a D-3 digivice and handed it to its owner.
"There," he informed her. "All finished."
Hikari took her digivice and pressed the bottom white button, flipping past her tracking signal to the communicator. Then she pressed the top black button to initiate it. "Kouji?" she asked.
The sound of someone calling his name snapped Kouji awake. It took several seconds to realize its source, but he pulled out his digivice to see a pink flower-shape on the screen.
"Kouji, are you there?" the voice on the other end asked.
"Hikari?" he recognized. "How did you contact me?"
"Thank Kage for that. But it's a long story."
"Kouji, are you okay?" another voice questioned.
"Don't worry, Izumi, I'm surviving."
"That's not what I asked."
"I'm not that bad; I just have a headache, and I'm not feeling so good right now." The scent of ammonia hit him, doubling his nausea. "It's just some cleaners." It wasn't a lie, not really, just a half-truth. The cleaners were making him sick, but they weren't the cause of his actual problem.
Ki's voice then came on. "Kouji, this is Ken."
"I know," he interrupted.
"How long?" Ken questioned.
"Since August. You gave yourself away when you neutralized the Black Ring. Everything after just confirmed it."
"Kouji, do you have your defuser?" Hikari asked, trying to keep on topic.
"Yeah. Why?"
"We have no right to ask you this, but…" Iori trailed off as he tried to explain.
"We need you to free the other slaves," Takuya informed. "Your defuser can short-circuit the controls to the cells."
"Where are they?"
"In the guard barracks," Iori informed.
"But don't stick around if you're in danger," Daisuke warned. "We'll try and create a diversion to draw out all the guards."
"All right." He killed the connection just in time because Sakuyamon entered soon after, toting a candle.
"Enjoy that smell?" she mocked. "Ammonia cleaner—eye irritant, skin irritant, and surprisingly flammable when mixed with alcohol. They really should put a warning on it." She waved the candle in front of him. "Thanks to your little experiment, I know what will happen should I drop this." He didn't reply. "But I won't. We have other means to torture you." Still, he kept silent. "Get up."
When he didn't, she roughly pulled him up and placed him in the torture rack. There was no point in fighting the inevitable, so he just remained calm. Fiercely, she drove a fist into him, causing the breath to leave his lungs. Repeatedly, she hit him, sometimes striking him with her staff. But rather than be disheartened by the beatings, Kouji put them to his advantage. With each of her forceful blows, she pushed him into the gray stone, which gave easily like mud or clay. It had never happened when she was Renamon, but her power as Sakuyamon was revealing this weakness in the base. Instead of begging her to stop, he silently encouraged her, trying to find an opening in her attacks.
She aimed a punch at his head, but he turned away quickly, causing her fist to become lodged in the soft gray material of the wall. While she tried to pull it out, Kouji squeezed his right hand out of one of the shackles before reaching for a saber to cut his feet free. But just as he tried to do the same for his other hand, Sakuyamon freed her fist and used her staff to throw him across the cell. Kouji felt his shoulder dislocate as his hand ripped free of the cuff. Sakuyamon lunged at him with her staff, knocking his saber into the candle and toppling it. Within seconds, the ammonia-soaked floor ignited, and Kouji desperately opened the cell door, shouting as he ran through the corridor.
"Fire! Get in the showers! Keep away from the doors!"
Nobody questioned his orders after news of his test fire had spread. While he ran down the cellblock and then to the ramp, families horded into the shower, turning them onto their fullest blasts. A deadly firestorm blazed out, eventually doused by a network of sprinklers. Kouji wasn't aware of these events due to his mad dash to the guard barracks, but he knew that phase one of the revolution had just begun.
Whatever looks like it might be from The Matrix isn't. The fire in Cell 24 came from the fire Sydney set in SL-27 in The Pretender. And yes, it is weird that Ruki and Hikari are working together. Amistad, Yuuki, and Ai are essential in the upcoming sequel, "Echoes of Angels Who Won't Return." And the ipecac syrup scene came from The Pretender as well.