Epilogue

Davis stood up as he wrung his hands, once again leaving his seat on T.K.'s couch after just a few seconds of impatient sitting. The boy had spent the last thirty minutes alternately sitting, then standing, pacing the room for a few minutes, going to get an enormous drink of water and then quickly rushing to the bathroom after the results of the previous drink came upon him. All in all... he was beginning to make even T.K. a little bit nervous.

"Uhm, Davis?" the blond-haired boy asked, looking sideways at his friend. "Why don't you try just sitting down for a little while longer? The girls won't be here for another half an hour or so... maybe longer, if I know Kari."

Davis leaned on the edge of the couch, his eyes just a little bit wild. It was an improvement. When he had first arrived at the other's apartment, the brown-haired boy had looked terrified out of his mind. "Oh, God... T.K; what if she wants to... kiss me?"

T.K. had a hard time believing that this was actually happening. "Well... what if she does?" he replied in a calming voice, trying his best to keep Davis from going into complete hysterics yet again. The boy had faced down Myotismon and the crystal Fiend of Brutality with a bravado bordering on lunacy, yet his impending date with Yolei seemed to be a bit more than he was willing to face calmly.

And then, in a flash, Davis crossed the room to T.K.'s chair and was staring right into the boy's serene blue eyes with his wild brown ones. "T.K.! I've never kissed a girl before! I don't know how to do it! What if I mess up? What if she never wants to talk to me again? What if I--" At that moment the boy broke off his tirade, just then noticing T.K. leaning away from him with an uneasy glimpse to the side. In his anxiety, of course, Davis misread the other's apprehensive look for something else. "Oh no! It's my breath, isn't it?"

And then, without waiting for a reply, the brown-haired boy bolted for the bathroom, on the way slamming into and almost tripping over an innocuous coffee table that stood in the center of the living room. "Oww!" he yelped, clutching at his ankle with both hands and hopping the rest of the way to the other room. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

T.K. sighed, then frowned. Ever since Kari and Yolei had approached him with the idea of a double date he had been suspicious about their motivations. It wasn't that it was a necessarily bad idea, of course, but T.K. had been hoping to have some time alone with Kari. They hadn't had much of that for the longest time, far longer than the boy cared to admit, and there were some serious matters that he needed to discuss with the girl.

The blond-haired boy's hand went to his pocket and, after first checking to make certain that Davis had not returned, pulled out the ring that the archangel had thrown to him on his way back to the real world. Not for the first time did the boy study its astounding beauty and truly amazing detail. Its pale color shone and reflected like silver, yet if one stared at the metal long enough, it became clear that it was not silver. From time to time a blue streak could be seen to glisten across the surface of the loop, a streak that was almost hypnotic to his eye. Even if he had not known its origins, the boy would have said after one glimpse that it was not from his world.

God... I'm not even fourteen years old yet. Why did he give me this?

He had not shown the ring to or discussed it with anyone. Not Matt, not his parents, not even Kari. Especially not Kari. He was young, but was not so naive that he did not understand what the gift of a ring from a boy to a girl normally portended. For a long time he had had the image firmly fixed in his mind of always being with Kari, of course, but this was the first time that he had been forced to consider just exactly what always would entail.

"T.K.! Do you guys have any breath mints? Mouthwash? Chewing gum?... ... Hey, T.K.?" When a moment passed without his answer, the blond-haired boy heard some wild rummaging from the bathroom. "Look, if you don't, just show me where the toothpaste is and I'll chew on some of that for a while."

T.K. ran his fingers through his golden hair and replaced the ring in his pocket. The angel had, of course, told him to wait until he was ready to present that particular gift to Kari... and as deeply as he loved her and cherished her and wanted to be with her on a constant basis, he definitely was not ready to give it to her yet. He paused. Emphasis on yet, of course.

T.K. stood up, ready to go to help Davis before the other boy passed out from nerves. He could never recall having been quite this high-strung when his own relationship with Kari had just been getting started. He wondered why that was...

But just as he was about to go to help, Davis came swaggering out of the bathroom with a broad grin on his face. Holding up a single hand, he motioned for T.K. to remain where he was. "Never mind," he said with a shake of his head. "I found what I needed."

T.K. hoped that it hadn't indeed been the toothpaste. But whatever it had been, he was just glad to see that it had made Davis a little more at ease. The boy was beginning to have a suspicious feeling that Kari had arranged for Davis to come over here while Yolei went to her house simply so that he could have the responsibility of calming his friend down. Davis with first date jitters? Who but Kari would have guessed?

As the other boy sat down, T.K. noticed that the fires of anxiety were once again starting to be rekindled deep in Davis' eyes. After half an hour of putting up with the incessant pacing, twiddling and panicking, the blond-haired boy was not about to let him get going again. Hopeless as the task seemed, he was going to take the other's mind off of this date. "So I guess we've got a little while. What should we do?"

Davis looked for a moment as though he were going to start in on another terrified rant when a surprising (to T.K., at least) look of seriousness came into his eyes. There had been something that he had been wanting to ask... "Tell me about what happened when you went to fight against those crystal things," the boy said, peering closely at his friend.

T.K. looked surprised, then downcast. Above all things, he had hoped for Davis not to ask about his battles against the Fiends. It was not a subject that he cared to rehash (he had done so just once, in abstract for Matt, Kari and Rio, and had not wanted to do so again) but Davis did have sort of a right to know, since he had had a hand in creating one of them and in destroying another. Plus, if it kept him from going to pieces about his pending date yet again...

*****

The darkness inside the body of the crystalline Fiend of Terror was very nearly suffocating, and T.K. and Patamon panted anxiously during the first few moments that it took for their eyes to adjust. The tangible feel to the place came as a stark contrast to what the boy had been expecting. When Gabriel had explained to him just how Myotismon had been able to enter the bodies of those who lived without a soul, the boy had imagined that it would have had a much less corporeal feeling to it. As it was...

"Feels like I'm walking through glue," he complained, muttering to himself as he took a few steps forward with his hands stretched out in front of him. The smell was fetid, though really not much worse than the odor of the Void itself. But it was cold... oh so very cold. The Void itself had seemed devoid of any temperature, seeming neither warm nor very cool, but inside here...

At that moment something brushed up against his back, and the boy turned with an astonished yelp. Yet at the same time he heard his cry echoed right back to him in a familiar, piping voice. "Oh... Patamon," he murmured in relief, for an instant almost having forgotten that his tiny partner had been sucked in right along with him.

"T.K.... I can't see," the little creature answered softly, and the boy could feel a brief flurry come from the other's wings as he struggled valiantly to stay aloft. "And I can't really fly in here. Something feels like it's dragging me down."

And just then it occurred to the boy that his eyes were not adjusting to the gloom inside of the body of the Fiend. The suffocating darkness continued to envelop him like some sort of black, oily mass as he turned and reached for the little creature. After a few moments of fumbling around, the boy's hand finally brushed against his furry partner's body.

"Ahh!" Patamon gave a startled yelp. "T.K.! Something's got me!"

"Hey, Pata... It's just me," the boy answered, pulling the little creature tightly into his arms.

At T.K.'s words the little creature sagged and then snuggled against his partner's chest, trembling feverishly and panting rapidly. "I'm... sorry, T.K. I don't know why I did that. I just feel a little bit... scared in here."

"Yeah, I know buddy, 'cause I feel it too. I suppose that it's because this whole thing is made from Davis' nightmares. I feel like there's a million little eyes on my back, and it's getting to me too. That and the dark... and I haven't been scared of the dark in years." T.K. could hear the trembling in his voice, and despite the knowledge that nothing frightening had really happened to them yet, he simply could not control it.

But even as he trembled the boy remembered Kari's words, her promise that she would always be with him, and he reached into his pocket for her crest of Light. Almost instinctively he held it out in front of him, and suddenly he was certain that he could feel the girl right at his side. He could hear her, feel her... even smell her. And the strength of that sensation was such that it brought a brief smile to his lips. Kari believed in him, after all. What did he have to be afraid of? And then...

"T.K.! Look..."

The boy blinked open his eyes, the reverie of Kari's presence passing from him. But now, as he looked again, he found that the inside of the beast was illuminated by the steady, pinkish glow of the girl's Light. A single beam of the crest's power seemed to cut through the tangible darkness like a surgeon's scalpel, finally enabling the pair to examine their surroundings. The odor was still fetid, the air still cold, but somehow the Light gave both of the heroes a reprieve from their apprehension.

A passageway, stretching in opposite directions and on both sides lined with the dark, crimson crystal that the creature had been created from encircled the pair. T.K. placed Patamon upon his shoulder as he glanced briefly to the right and then to the left. "Which way, do you think?" he murmured.

The little winged mammal also glanced down both corridors, then pursed his lips. "I think I'd feel a little bit better going that way," he replied, nodding down the left-hand pathway.

T.K. nodded. "Yeah... yeah, I would too," he said pensively. Then he paused, and seemed to be giving the question a great deal of thought. After several utterly silent moments the boy grimaced, then turned and started their journey down the right-hand corridor. It was much colder, smellier and much harder on his nerves to go that way... all indications that it was the correct direction to go in order to find what they sought.

It was several sharp turns and a short while later when the two made their way around a tight bend in the crystalline corridor, T.K. having to squeeze through where a larger man could not pass. But then, as Patamon followed him through, T.K. was forced to stop short. Several feet in front of him was a flat, smooth mass made out of the same crystalline stuff as the walls which surrounded the pair. There seemed to be no way around it, and so the boy hesitantly stepped forward and places a hand on the shiny surface and pushed hard...

***

"T.K.! Help me!" a young Kari screamed fearfully as she was dragged away by Piedmon, the jester holding a handful of the girl's brown hair tightly in one hand and his shimmering steel blade in the other. The insane digimon creature smirked mockingly at him, the mad smile on his lips almost daring the boy to try to save the girl at the risk of being impaled by the blade.

"Angemon! Are you ready?" the boy instinctively called at his back, perfectly willing to go into battle with his partner at his side. Though he could waste no time to wonder why, his voice sounded much lighter... as it had when he had been younger. But when there was no answer to his call he craned his head back and over his shoulder to meet the eyes of Patamon. "Patamon? Come on. Digivolve!"

"But... T.K., I can't. I'm not strong enough. You're not strong enough. You don't believe in me or yourself. You're the weakest, and you know you're the weakest. We... we're just not enough to fight him by ourselves."

T.K. turned back, breathing heavily in panic as he once again looked at Piedmon, the sharp blade still pressed up against Kari's neck. Was it the truth? Was he too weak, too young to save Kari? His friends, in keychain form, chorused their assent from their place about the clown's waist. "Of course you're not, little T.K.. Now watch as she suffers for your weakness."

And then the young, blond-haired boy could only gawk in anguish as the other drew his blade slowly across Kari's throat. And when he was done, it seemed for a moment that nothing had happened... until a massive crimson gush began to flow from the little girl's throat down the front of her shirt, soaking her instantly. And he was forced to watch helplessly, horrified as she slumped quietly to the floor, her life draining away onto the cold stone of the clown's keep.

***

T.K. was on his knees, clutching at his arms with his hands and sobbing fiercely. "No..." he wept bitterly. "No. She can't die because I'm too weak. I can't let her... let anyone suffer because I'm not strong enough. It can't happen like this!" He struggled valiantly, refusing to believe what his eyes told him had just happened. "I... I won't let it happen! I... I believe that I can be enough to save her! Never will anyone die because I am not enough!"

And with that one powerful shout, the Crest of Hope in the boy's hand exploded into a dazzling golden light, flooding over the boy and his partner and bursting against the walls of the corridor. As T.K. slowly blinked his eyes open the golden fire continued forward, melting the crystal wall that had stood in their way as if it had never existed. Still breathing quite heavily and still on his knees, the boy gripped the pair of Crests tightly, holding them as if they were a lifeline to his sanity.

At his side, Patamon was trembling just as violently, his blue eyes wide open as they stared ahead at nothing. "Hey... hey, Pata? Are you okay?... Pata?"

The little mammal looked up at his partner, his breath coming in short, hesitant gasps. His eyes were still wide open, a great deal of pain and fear still reflected therein. "T.K.! You... you're all right. But I thought... I mean... I saw..."

The golden-haired boy nodded knowingly, relief still coursing through his veins. He took a deep, composing breath before speaking. "It's okay, Pata. It didn't really happen."

Despite T.K.'s calming words, Patamon continued to tremble violently. It had been so very, very real. More real even than the true battles against evil that he had been through in the past. Never, at any point during any of those fights had he been as scared as he had during the apparently imaginary ordeal through which he had just been thrust.

And then the boy picked up the little orangish mammal and held him close to his chest... as much to convince himself that what he had just seen had not been real after all as anything. For a few moments the two remained there on the floor, taking comfort in one another and the fact that, whatever they had seen, it had not truly happened. Nevertheless, both were absolutely certain that they would never be able to forget it... no matter how much they would try to.

And then, when the time came to continue, the pair managed to resume their trek down the long, winding corridor. The foul odor and chill in the air steadily increased the further that they traveled, past increasingly terrifying visions of what once could have happened, or could be happening now, or might still have a chance to occur in the future. Each was confronted time and time again with his own worst fears and nightmares, fears and nightmares which were all the more terrifying for that fact that each and every time, both of them were completely convinced that what they were seeing was, in fact, occurring.

But thankfully their trip through Hell was not destined to go on forever, because finally, mercifully, the pair came to an enormous, cavern-like chamber. And in the center of that chamber, suspended in midair, throbbed the mammoth black crystal... the Heart of Terror.

The chill in the air was now to the point where T.K.'s teeth had set to chattering, his breath coming in visible gasps from between blue lips, and the fetid odor was very nearly overpowering. Patamon looked to be on the verge of throwing up from it, his own sense of smell being quite a bit more acute than the boy's own. Choking down the bile from his throat, the little creature turned to his partner. "Well, there it is," he said, his piping voice sounding careworn and nervous. "But now that we've found it, what do we do with it?"

T.K. looked on, a glare in his eyes that was almost ferocious for its intensity. Evil... real and pure evil was throbbing there just a few yards away from him, and the boy was suddenly inundated with the desire, no not desire, but the need to see the object demolished. "Destroy it," he said, his chattering teeth suddenly stilled and clinched tightly together. "We've got to destroy it... and do it now. Digivolve."

"Right!" Patamon agreed enthusiastically, darting off of the boy's shoulder and disappearing with a flash... only to reappear moments later as the holy warrior, Angemon.

But then, to the dismay of the pair, the torso of a large, obsidian-skinned creature seemed to ooze forth from the center of the crystal. It had bony hands that were curved into feral looking claws at the end of its arms, as well as a veritable crown of antler-like horns rising from its skull. The thing seemingly had no eyes, just two holes in the darkness where the eyes should have been to indicate that it could, indeed, see them. "So... you have come as was foretold," it hissed. "I was in error, then. I told the others that there was no possibility that two mortals," (he said the word as if he were speaking about an affliction) "could fight past the sentries that I positioned around this place." And then he paused for a moment. "All the better. It will give me then the added pleasure of personally removing two thorns from my Master's side."

And then, faster than anything that the pair had ever seen before, the creature flashed forth from the crystal and darted between the two, claws extended. T.K.'s eyes were wide, not having expected such a quick move, and the boy was forced to drop to his stomach just in time to avoid being decapitated. Angemon whirled his staff around in one hand, forcing the other claw to the side as he turned like a bullfighter to evade the creature's first ferocious charge.

"Hand of Fate!" Angemon countered as the other pulled back, a dazzling burst of holy energy leaping from his hands towards the creature's torso.

But to the dismay of both the holy warrior and the child on his belly upon the floor, the attack seemed to have little or no affect upon the dark creature. Angemon in particular was devastated... he had been almost certain that the blow would crush the evil creature.

And then they could hear a chuckle from their opponent. "Fools. Did you actually believe that you could injure me? You? Mortals?" And with those mocking words the creature once again rose from the crystal where it had been situated, extending its arms wide and moving to embrace them, a feral hiss escaping its lips.

All of a sudden T.K. felt very tired... almost helpless. The creature's seeming invulnerability to the best weapon that they had available was disheartening, and they were both already weakened from the confrontations that they had gone through earlier. The boy was still quite upset at the very existence of the thing, yet the will to fight was fading from him... and fading fast. If he would have stopped to think about it, he would have recognized the feeling as the same one that had taken him on the shores of the little lake near Matt's apartment some weeks ago, the lethargic feeling that the demons could instill in mortals who ventured too close to them. But in his state of mind, the recollection just would not come to him.

But then the Crest of Light in the boy's hand started to shimmer. Though weak at first, the pinkish glow from the little object started to increase in both luminance and heat with each passing moment. And the boy knew... Kari... Kari needed him. Somewhere outside she was fighting for her life, and could not win until he did. And as that truth occurred to him, the golden Crest of Hope in the boy's other hand started to twinkle as well, its light a response to its mate's. And when those beacons merged they formed a static, righteous energy that stiffened the boy's back and placed him back on his feet.

The beast hissed and fell back, the coalesced light from the twin beacons in the boy's hands causing it the first real pain that it had ever known. As it drew away, continuing to seep further and further back into the Heart of Terror, T.K. looked up at his partner. "Angemon!" he cried, throwing the now iridescent Crest of Hope to the holy warrior.

In one motion, Angemon caught the golden crest in his hand and drew back his fist. Even from where he stood, T.K. could feel the tremendous heat that was building from the other's pending attack as it fused with his own golden Crest. After just a second or so, T.K. was forced to raise an arm to shield himself from the searing power that radiated through the chamber like a sun brought to earth. And though his face was covered, he could still hear the pained hissing of the demon on the other side of the room as it desperately tried to retreat further back into the Heart of Terror. And then a moment later, the boy heard the shout, far, far stronger than he had ever heard it before...

"Hand of Fate!"

*****

Davis blinked as T.K. stopped his recollection of the battle, then settled back into his chair. Up until that moment, he had not been aware that he was quite literally 'on the edge of his seat' as the other boy had been speaking. "Whoa," he said, looking at his friend with an unusual gravity behind his eyes. "Was it really that bad?"

T.K. nodded, his eyes still far away. He had hoped to bury those dark memories someplace where he'd never have to remember them again, but Davis had made him realize that such a thing would be somewhat immature of him. After all... what he'd gone through was a part of him now. Talking about it did seem to make it a little bit easier.

"What about the other things you and Patamon saw? The other sentries for the demon... the visions."

T.K. grimaced. "About as bad as the first, I guess. I mean, Myotismon took some of your nightmares and made them come to life to create the thing in the first place. It was kind of like that... except that each time, Patamon and I were absolutely sure that the nightmare was real. It was pretty twisted, but I guess that we came through it okay in the end."

Davis opened his mouth to speak again, but this time the boy was interrupted by a knock at the door. Instantly his eyes shot wide open in a panic and he leapt to his feet. "Th... they're here!"

As T.K. moved towards the door, straightening his collar along the way, Davis dashed once again to the bathroom. The blond-haired boy blinked in astonishment as he watched the other boy once again lose any trace of composure. He couldn't possibly be this nervous. Not Davis...

"Davis, get over here!" T.K. whispered urgently at the open bathroom door.

"Just a sec, T.K.," the other replied. "I just need one more shot of this stuff."

The blond-haired boy, confused, watched as Davis emerged from the bathroom with a small spray bottle in his hand. "I'm just lucky that your mom had some of this cabinet." And he opened his mouth and pressed the pump twice.

"No, Davis! That's--"

The brown-haired boy closed his mouth and smacked his lips, now secure in the knowledge that his breath was finally suitable for his anticipated kiss from Yolei.

"...hairspray."

Davis' eyes widened and his jaw dropped open as he stared, horrified at the harmless little bottle in his hands. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed, hurling it away from himself as if it were a live serpent. Again wringing his hands in consternation, the boy began to slowly slide back towards the bathroom.

But now T.K. was there to intercept him, the blond-haired boy almost dragging his friend to the front door from whence had come another, this time impatient-sounding, knock.

T.K. opened the door with one hand while keeping a tight grip on Davis' shirt with the other. Swinging it open, he found Kari and Yolei standing there together, both of them with hands on their hips and questioning looks in their eyes. "Did we... ah, interrupt something?" Yolei asked teasingly, noticing the fistful of Davis' shirt that T.K. was holding onto.

Following the girl's eyes, T.K. released his grip on the other boy and turned to Kari. Taking a step forward, he grabbed a single, red rose from the counter near the door and with a flourish handed it to the girl. Kari, blushing, accepted the gift and placed it under her nose, inhaling deeply. "Beautiful," she said with a smile, tracing the petals along the side of her cheek as she watched the boy closely.

T.K. knew that he would have to be an idiot to let that pass without taking advantage of it. "But not quite so beautiful as the one to whom it is given," he answered with a smile and a wink.

Yolei and Davis had been watching the pair together, but now the girl turned to stare at him with an expectant look in her eyes. Davis, for just a moment, felt the icy grip of panic seize him again... then quickly reached behind the door and, out of the girl's sight, filched an entire bouquet of various flowers from an ornate vase. Stepping forward, he placed them in the girl's hands.

Yolei's eyes lit up. "Oh... Davis," she cooed softly, inhaling the fragrance of his gift deeply. "These are just wonderful!"

"Uhm... yeah," the boy returned, his mind racing. "And... and they're just as smelly as you are!"

Yolei opened her mouth to reply, then stopped and drew back as her mind processed the words. "Huh?"

At the other boy's side, T.K. winced. Kari really should have warned him if she'd known that Davis was going to go to pieces like this. He would have made him up some cue cards or something. But then the girl stepped forward, wrapping her slender arms around his neck and pulling his face forward. T.K.'s eyes widened in anticipation as he leaned forward to receive Kari's deliciously simple kiss, forgetting all about Davis as he listened to his heart thud in his ears and saw his own image reflected in the girl's perfect, brown eyes.

After a few heavenly moments in Kari's arms the girl pulled away, tracing a finger along the side of his neck as she released her grip on him. T.K. grinned, feeling the warmth of blood rush to his cheeks as he stood there just staring at the girl and undoubtedly resembling the world's biggest idiot. He didn't particularly care what he looked like, of course, but he thought it just a bit impolite to do... too much of that while Davis and Yolei were there with them, no doubt feeling somewhat...

But as the boy turned to look, he found that neither Davis nor Yolei had any interest in what he and Kari happened to be doing at that moment. Both of them were standing quite close together, almost nose-to-nose now. The girl looked quite confident, and T.K. thought that he could see the beginnings of a grin playing across her slightly parted lips. Davis however, for his part, looked like nothing so much as a deer caught in headlights and appeared to be frozen to the spot where he stood.

Then suddenly, as if the stress had gotten to be too much for the boy, Davis pulled away from Yolei's pending kiss and instead offered... a handshake. A brief, crestfallen look passed over Yolei's face (but not so brief that any of the other three missed it) as she accepted the proffered hand and shook it once. An awkward silence fell over the group as they stood there in the hallway, the already established couple peering expectantly at the other pair.

"So... ahh... what are we going to do?" Davis asked after a few moments, clearly more to break the silence than for anything else.

Kari looked disappointed with the brown-haired boy for just a moment before her eyes lit up at his question. She grinned. "Well, since it's the middle of winter and since we're so close, I thought that we should all go down to the park for some ice skating."

"Yes!" Davis exclaimed, his face breaking into a broad grin.

"No!" gasped T.K. and Yolei, both turning to Kari with looks of horror in their eyes.

*****

"This is a lousy idea," T.K. complained to Kari, holding tightly onto the girl's hands for balance as he stumbled awkwardly into yet another turn on the pond's frozen surface. He just hated to think how clumsy he looked out there on the ice, as evidenced by the resounding chuckles of a pair of eight-year-old girls as they spun and pirouetted by him.

Kari patted one of the boy's cold, red cheeks gently, then leaned over and whispered closely in his ear. "But you'll do it for me, won't you T.K.?" she pleaded quietly.

T.K. was certain that he could have melted through the ice at the delightful sensation of Kari's warm breath on his cold ear, and suddenly his knees began to feel quite wobbly... even more than normal. She was doing that to him on purpose, of course, striking at him where he was weakest in order to get what she wanted, but he didn't really mind. He would have joined the girl out on the pond no matter what, so desperate was he to spend time with her. The fact that she spent a great deal of that time openly flirting with him made it fun despite the multiple falls and bruises.

Kari looked back over T.K.'s shoulder, watching as Davis and Yolei skated together, the boy really the only thing keeping the girl upright. She smiled to herself. She had gone to great lengths to determine just what it was that she had to do to get those two together... and thus far and despite the boy's gaffs, it was going quite smoothly. Now Davis, his mind entirely focused on keeping Yolei standing, had apparently forgotten about his own anxiety concerning the date.

"Don't they make just a wonderful couple?" Kari sighed in T.K.'s ear, leaning her head gently on his shoulder.

The boy glanced at her petulantly in response, almost tripping over his own feet. "I guess so," he answered ruefully, almost pouting. "But it still would have been nice to get to spend some time together alone. You know... just you and me? Without having to try to beat back demons or take down a dragon... or even without trying to play matchmaker for our friends?"

Kari removed her head from his shoulder and peered up at him, her expression thoughtful. And for just a moment, she began to get the glimmer of a feeling that he was right. This whole night had really been contrived to try to help Yolei get Davis past his awkwardness about the two of them. She had kind of forced T.K. into helping, but that hadn't really been fair to the blond-haired boy. Or to her, for that matter. Watching him struggle around the ovular pond, windmilling his arms for balance every so often and speaking nary a word of complaint about how she was ignoring him, bearing it all with as much heroism as he had shown even while charging off into battle astride Pegasusmon...

"Tell you what," Kari said, coming to a sudden halt and pulling the boy to a stop right alongside her and embracing him, her body pressing tightly against his. "Later tonight, no matter what happens between those two, I promise that I've got something very special planned for you. Something very special."

The boy's eyes widened and his lips parted slightly at what sounded like... but no. They'd been down that road once before, and at the risk of being placed into a position where he might just forget about being true to his word and to her and to everything that he was and just allowing instinct to take over... no matter how tempting that sounded...

T.K. felt an almost overpowering surge of warmth cascade through his body as he and Kari stood there, focusing closely on one another. So warm, in fact, that the boy once again wondered that the ice beneath his feet did not melt and send him right into the frigid waters below. But then, maybe an ice cold dunking would do him good at that moment. "K... Kari," he stammered, shaking his head. "I don't know if--"

The girl pulled off one glove and placed a pair of warm fingers against his cold lips, silencing him. "We'll talk about it. Later," she insisted, then allowing those fingers to trace their way down from his lips, past his chin and throat to dance lightly along his neck just beneath the collar of his shirt.

T.K. gave a nervous twitch as conflicting emotions sided with either infatuation or discrimination within his body, the feuding sides engaging in a pitched battle to decide just what it was that the boy wanted. And, though he hated to admit it, he had the uneasy feeling that this time, discrimination's victory might not be so clear-cut... particularly if he had been reading the look in Kari's eyes correctly. He was well aware, and not too ashamed to admit it, that if the girl was willing to try hard enough...

"Whoa!" T.K. exclaimed suddenly as a reckless figure on blades shot past him, throwing the boy off balance. Windmilling his arms and falling away from Kari, his backside collided with the ice with a loud 'thump'.

Kari glared dangerously after the daredevil skater, then moved behind the seated T.K. and embraced him from behind, her cold cheek resting naturally against his own and their frosty breaths mingling visibly in front of the boy's eyes. "My hero," she whispered teasingly, bracing herself so that he could rise again.

Behind them, Yolei lost her grip on Davis and went flailing off across the ice, colliding with the pair of children that had skated beside T.K. at the start and sending them to the ground in a heap. Kari pulled T.K. across the ice to the girl's side, the couple looking down at her with concern.

"That's it!" Yolei exclaimed, slamming a gloved hand down on the ice in front of her. "I give up!"

And then T.K. could see an idea born in Kari's eyes, like the switch of a light bulb being thrown. Urgently she whispered her inspiration to the boy, who grinned and nodded in response. "I agree, Yolei," T.K. exclaimed fervently, and one would have been hard-pressed to hear the duplicity in the boy's voice. "Let's you and me get off this death-trap that doubles as a playground for the coordinated."

As Davis arrived, Kari was helping Yolei and a wobbling T.K. off the ice to a nearby bench. As the pair sat down together, Kari turned to Davis. "Well, now we both appear to be partnerless. Care to take a few turns with me?"

Davis grinned, skating casually over to the girl's side and taking her hand. "Of course," he replied, pulling Kari back out onto the ice and moving stylishly back out to the center of the pond.

Meanwhile T.K. sat down beside Yolei, wincing as his bruised backside came into contact with the cold stone of the bench. "So I guess that the gold medal for figure skating will have to remain forever out of Japan's reach," the boy shook his head while glancing sideways at her.

Yolei turned to him and smiled sweetly at the poor attempt at humor. "You don't seem to be concerned that Davis is making off with Kari out there on the ice."

T.K. looked back to the pond. He had to admit, Davis and Kari did seem to make a wonderful skating team, moving fluently together as if they had been practicing for years. And he was a bit... just a bit, surprised at how graceful the brown-haired boy appeared. He had never pegged Davis as the elegant type. He grinned at the other's words, sensing the perfect chance to put Kari's plan into action. "Oh, I don't think I have to worry about him anymore. I'm pretty sure that he's got his eye on someone else." The last words were said with a pointedness that a four-year-old could not miss.

Yolei frowned, then turned away with a self-deprecating snort. "Thanks T.K., but I think he's made it quite clear tonight that he's not interested."

The boy raised one eyebrow, then put his hands on the girl's shoulders and turned her to face him. "Okay," he said gently, his tender voice soothing and almost mesmerizing to the girl. "I can see why you might think that after what's been happening, but you've got to believe me when I tell you that he really does care about you."

At the boy's words Yolei's face scrunched up and her lips started to tremble slightly, the girl clamping her teeth down upon them to keep inside what she knew was coming. Like T.K. apparently was, she had been so certain after what had happened back in the digital world that Davis was interested in her, but the evidence tonight had been... well, quite contrary to what she had assumed.

Then T.K. reached out, removing his glove as he wiped away a tear that was starting to roll down the girl's cheek. Yolei clenched her teeth even more tightly, both surprised and angered that she had not been able to keep herself from crying. After all, Davis hadn't hurt her that bad... had he?

And then the girl started to bawl for all she was worth, throwing herself forward and allowing T.K. to hold her tightly as she sobbed feverishly into his shirt collar. The boy was surprised at first, then recovered his composure and began to pet the back of Yolei's head gently. "Look, Yolei," he said, after a minute or so of allowing the girl to cry against his neck. "He's just nervous, that's all." The boy paused, assessing whether it would be better for her to know just how nervous Davis was. If he told her... would the other boy thank him for it or want to punch him in the nose?

...but Kari had told him to help. And so the boy gently lifted Yolei off of his chest and started to describe to her what Davis had been doing in the hour or so prior to her and Kari's arrival at his apartment. He left nothing out... not one single embarrassing detail. Davis might hate him for it later, but how much more would he hate it if T.K. allowed his anxiety to destroy what he had with Yolei before the two of them even had a chance to get it started?

After several minutes, Yolei's tears had stopped and she stared at the blond-haired boy. "You're kidding," she said in astonishment.

T.K. shook his head.

"Hairspray?"

The other nodded.

"Then he really does... I mean... he does..."

T.K. smiled, holding the girl's hand. "Believe it. He said that he's never been kissed by a girl before, and wanted to make sure that his breath was okay when he tried it on you... or you on him. I guess mom's travel-size bottle just looked too much like breath freshener."

Yolei allowed herself a smile, sniffling as she wiped the remainder of her tears away with her sleeve. "That's not exactly true, you know. He has been kissed by a girl before."

T.K. raised an eyebrow, and Yolei blushed. "He doesn't know it, of course, since he was unconscious at the time, but..." And the girl proceeded to tell the younger boy about what had happened to the three of them while he and Kari had been venturing about the overland of the Void.

When she was done, the boy nodded. "So you see, he really does care about you. He's just terrified that he's going to do something wrong and scare you off, so he's trying too hard and acting on the first thought that pops into his head. And we both know how that can be with Davis."

Yolei gave an agreeable nod. That certainly did sound like the Davis that she knew. Feeling a bit better, the girl turned back to the ice and watched their friends as they danced fluently around the ice, continuing to impress the no longer insignificant crowd that had gathered to watch. "It looks like the two of them are going to be at that for a while, I guess."

"I guess," T.K. replied, not certain if that was a good thing or a bad thing. To determine that, he'd have to decide just what Kari had in store for him that night. As well as what he wanted her to have in store for him. Did he want the moment delayed, or to come as soon as possible? As he tried to think it through, his eyes began to take on a distant, somewhat vacant look...

"Hello? Earth to T.K." Yolei said, waving her hand in front of his eyes.

The blond-haired boy blinked, then shook his head to clear it. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

The girl raised an eyebrow in response. "Boy, now that is what I call zoning out. I said, as long as we've got some time, then, why don't you tell me about the fight you had against Myotismon inside his body. You remember, right? In the digital world?"

The boy sighed, biting down on the inside of his cheek. Still... talking about the first time had helped. At least a little. Why shouldn't Yolei hear about the second battle?

*****

T.K. pulled hard against Pegasusmon's neck to keep him from crashing headlong into the crystalline wall towering in front of them. They had been forced to fall upon Myotismon with the speed of a streaking comet to prevent him from fleeing from them again, but now T.K. had to strain to check the charge of his mount to prevent a horrendous crash. Now that the pair were more spirit than corporeal the boy wasn't certain that such a collision would injure either of them, but neither was he anxious to find out.

T.K. was thrown over the head of the stallion as Pegasusmon extended his wings like a sail to halt himself, the boy tumbling to the ground and landing heavily on his shoulder. A sharp cry escaped his lips as he rolled to a stop along the jagged, crystalline floor, receiving a countless number of tiny cuts and abrasions.

The boy was still face-down on the ground when Patamon fluttered over to his side, his eyes wide at the tiny stream of blood pouring from a small cut above the boy's right eye. "Oh no! T.K.! I'm sorry!" the little winged mammal piped, landing gently on the floor beside the boy's face.

The blond-haired boy responded with a quiet moan as he pulled himself into a sitting position, reaching up and giving the injured area a gentle touch then wincing with pain as he took his blood-stained fingers away. He tried to return a grin to his partner, one which looked very awkward and out of place with that crimson trickle dripping down the side of his face. "No, it's all right, Pata." He paused. "Trust me, I'm pretty sure that we'd both look a lot worse splattered all over that wall," he answered, pointing at the towering red barrier in front of them.

Then, hesitantly, the boy stood up, his legs wobbling just a bit and a somewhat dazed look still in his eyes as he glanced around them. As a stark contrast to the last creature that they had attacked, the temperature where they were now was uncomfortably warm, and T.K. winced in pain again as a few drops of sweat rolled onto the cut above his eye.

In a moment, the boy had torn off a piece of his torn shirt and was pressing it tightly against his forehead to staunch the flow of blood. And now, for the first time, his eyes had adjusted well enough to take in the entirety of their surroundings.

It was not like the last Fiend. Outside of the temperature, blazing hot instead of frigid, they were not in the same type of long, twisting corridor as before. They had landed in some sort of massive cavern, which was moderately dark without being oppressively so. Nor did they have the nervous, edgy feeling which had hounded them throughout their last battle. Quite the contrary, in fact. As the boy stood and looked around, he had the satisfying feeling of being completely in control here. Pain from the cut or nervousness about finding Myotismon no longer seemed to be of any concern.

"Let's go find the Heart," T.K. snapped forcefully to his partner, a suddenly haughty and out-of-character grimace appearing on his face. "We'll take it down like we took the last one and be out of here in no time."

Patamon nodded fiercely, the orangish hairs bristling on his neck and his ears folded back zealously. By God, he was going to show Myotismon what it meant to make him angry... this time for good. He almost hoped that somebody would try to get in their way.

The two journeyed quickly through the cavernous grotto, neither for a second wondering about the uncommon, swaggering audacity displayed by his partner and both of them almost spoiling for a fight. Patamon, in fact, was quickly beginning to get quite bored with the lack of action when suddenly the pair caught wind of a pitched battle from somewhere up ahead. The pair looked at one another with glee in their respective blue eyes, then started to race one another towards the sound. It didn't really matter who was fighting... the boyish pair was going to intercede on one side or the other.

"T.K.," Patamon piped, grabbing and tugging on the boy's sleeve. "Over there."

The blond-haired boy looked to where his partner had indicated, the flickering crest of Light around his neck providing most of the necessary illumination. It was a battle, true, and quite a noisy one. But a battle the likes of which had not been seen by mortal eyes in perhaps a thousand year. As T.K. and Patamon looked on, astonished, legions of shimmering, holy angels and dark, tiny demon-forms engaged in an epic struggle right there in front of them.

Well, a combat of sorts, anyway. For even as they watched, the great multitude of the holy beings was quickly decimating the dark hordes. Here a demon was being struck down by an angel with a massive, flaming sword; there a beautiful warrior in shining armor was impaling a troll-like creature upon a long lance. It was, to put it mildly, a rout.

And then... "Join us!" one of the angels called to them, his voice like a song rising above the conflict. T.K. and Patamon looked at one another, eyes full of joy as they moved to accept the invitation. Both of their souls soared as they entered the battle against evil, ready to beat back the demonkind that had caused so much misery... so much grief.

With a flash from the crest of Hope, Patamon was gone and Angemon appeared, laying about left and right with his long rod, demons turning and falling like wheat before a scythe as they realized that they had nowhere to go.

And then someone (T.K. was never certain just who) thrust a similar staff into his hands. The boy gave an almost feral grin as he also joined the fray. The weapon in his hands was not as deadly as was the one in the hands of his Digimon partner, but after fighting with something similar several times during the last few years he was no novice either.

T.K. was like an angry hurricane, joyously bashing his way through ranks upon ranks of ugly, frightened faces and twisted, injured bodies. The smell of battle, the knowledge that he was ridding the world of evil was almost intoxicating to the boy, who was no longer even bothering to wipe the sweat away from his eyes. After all, taking time to do so might have made him delay the slaughter that he was enjoying.

The boy checked his swing as that last thought struck him and the tiny, ugly creature in front of him cowered in anticipation of his mighty blow. Slaughter...? Yes, that word seemed very appropriate now as he stopped to look around, and stopped without fear of being attacked as he realized that nowhere were any of the dark side even attempting to fight back. Many were even attempting to flee, but were being corralled back into the battle area by the holy army which had encircled the field. Others were on their knees, wailing loudly and pleading for mercy from their attackers. Even the creature in front of the boy... as T.K. looked, it did not even appear to be deadly, or vicious. Ugly, certainly, but demonic? In fact, as the boy looked closer, it even appeared to have a distinctly human cast to its face.

T.K. shook his head, suddenly feeling very hot and very tired and weak. This was all wrong. Fighting against evil was one thing, but this was no fight. These dark creatures were no threat to anyone, least of all to the holy army encircling them. Had he just been enjoying himself? That was all wrong. He didn't like fighting. In fact, except when it became an unfortunate necessity... he hated fighting.

The boy dropped the staff with a clatter and looked down at the pitiful, cowering creature at his feet. As he peered at it cringing there, he found it hard to believe that he had even been considering pummeling the beast. It would be almost like kicking a small dog.

And then realization struck him an open-handed slap to the face. Brutality. Had he failed already...? "Angemon! Stop!" the boy shouted, his clarion voice crystal clear and rising above the battle like a winded trumpet.

Angemon turned at the boy's call, his armored fist bloodied from the face of the dark little beast that he had captured. "Angemon, this isn't right! This isn't a fight against evil! This is... this is butchery!"

And as that fact slowly dawned on his face, Angemon ceased in his fighting and slowly lowered his victim to the ground. From all around them, shrieks of unholy anger cascaded down around their ears. These were no angels that they were battling alongside. These were the true demons. And their victims? T.K. looked closer now, his vision made clear by the renewed light of Faith. Lost souls. Those who had during their mortal lives rejected the promise of Heaven and had condemned themselves to eternity as the demon's playthings. The boy felt almost sick at what he'd done.

And then, one by one or in twos or threes, the legions of demons surrounding them vanished into the darkness, taking their prey with them. Evidently this entire 'battle' had been constructed entirely for their benefit, and the beasts were more than willing to depart to some more convenient place for their games now that the illusion was broken. T.K. stood back-to-back with his partner, not trusting any of the foul creatures until they were finally gone. It took a few excruciatingly long, agonizing moments before all of them had finally disappeared.

Except one.

The winged creature peered down at them, a dangerous-looking glare on his face as he stared down his upraised nose that the pair. The easy grace of his movements contrasted completely with the angry, haughty look in his dark eyes. "Impossible." His voice was deep, and familiar, and both T.K. and Patamon knew why.

"Myotismon," T.K. returned accusingly, the tenor of his voice echoing repeatedly through the enormous cavern.

The other's frown deepened, and then the form of the holy angel began to slowly melt off of his dark features. In just a few seconds he had shed his disguise completely, and now stood before them as both had seen him years before. From safely behind the mask the creature looked over the pair, first Angemon, then T.K. "You've grown, I see," he said mildly.

It was an invitation to start the pointless bickering that would precede the pending battle. The boy recognized it as such, and refused to be goaded into making their first attack a verbal one. "Where is the Heart, Myotismon?" he asked directly, Angemon hovering over him protectively.

The other's teeth clamped together at T.K.'s refusal to be drawn out, his eyes narrowing dangerously at the boy. If looks could indeed kill, T.K. would have been dead before he hit the floor. But this look the malevolent creature followed up with a rather indifferent shrug as he opened up his hand and displayed the little black stone to the pair in front of him.

The boy tried not to express shock at the size of the onyx-like gem. It was so much smaller than the first one that they had destroyed. Either that, or he was so much larger now. It really made little difference in the end. But never once did the boy consider the possibility that Myotismon was lying to him about the identity of what he held... the boy could feel the dark power radiating from it even from where he stood.

"Give up, Myotismon," T.K. demanded. "Leave the Heart here and retreat from this body. Go back to the Void or to wherever it was that you were banished to after we beat you the first time."

The creature's eyes somehow became even darker, his clenched fist trembling with rage. T.K. looked on, confused at the momentary inaction of the creature. Myotismon was doing nothing, not even moving forward to fight with them as the boy had expected. He had to know that, if it came down to a battle, he would have stood at least a reasonably good chance against the pair. But still...

Then the boy blinked. Of course. They'd already won. The illusory battle with the angels against the demons. That had been the evil creature's last, and really only defense. He could not fight in here. Unlike the demon inside of the first Fiend, Myotismon was already dead. He was nothing but spirit. It was the reason that he had been forced to possess a body in the first place, as well as the reason that he had run from the pair instead of confronting them. He knew that if they had managed to get inside of the crystalline body, he would be virtually powerless against them.

The oppressive heat beat down upon T.K.'s body like Myotismon's fury having been brought into physical existence as the other silently stared daggers at them. He had lost, and apparently he knew it. "Your friends will suffer for your insolence, child."

And then the small, jewel-like crystal flared into a crimson light in the hand of the pale-skinned creature, its twinkling light leaking out from between his tightly clasped fingers. T.K. looked on in alarm as the crystal walls of the surrounding cavern began to adopt that same reddish glow and a thick mist started to rise from the floor around them. In a moment both the boy and his holy protector had lost sight of the monster behind that foggy curtain, and T.K. coughed out a call to his partner. "Angemon! Stop him!"

Somewhere behind him, T.K. could hear Angemon echo his muffled cough. "T.K.! Where is he?"

The boy's mind raced frantically. He could feel the stifling heat continuing to build within the body and knew, somehow, he knew, that in a moment it would ignite to become a blaze of crimson fire that would be directed to incinerate Davis and the rest of his friends. But neither he nor Angemon could see Myotismon to stop him, helpless as he was. But then...

T.K.'s eyes were pulled down to the crests in his hands. The light... The light of Faith that they had shown together, it had allowed him to see the truth of the demons. Perhaps it would give them even further clarity of vision if...

The boy clasped the talismans together in his hands, instantly feeling a jolt like a burst of electricity from them as he held them bonded together. A cool breeze seemed to develop from nowhere as the glorious, pink nimbus from the Unity of Faith surrounded him, ruffling his blond hair and quickly melting the crimson fog away like the warm sun upon a mist-covered lake.

T.K. blinked, panting heavily as he stood there. The fog was gone. The oppressive heat had vanished entirely. The crystal cavern in which they stood was no longer crimson, but was now clear as glass. And in front of the pair, a few yards away, Myotismon stared at them from behind his mask with a look of incomprehensible horror in his eyes. And then, without even a glance he opened his hand, allowing the cool wind surrounding T.K. to scatter the fine dust that was all that remained of the Heart of Brutality from his grasp.

"Im... Impossible!" Myotismon screamed with rage, throwing his head back. And then T.K. and Patamon watched gravely as he too began to crumble into dust, just as the stone in his hands had. A violent tremor, barely noticed, struck the cavern as they watched the creature's degeneration continue from his feet upwards towards his head. Apparently, with the Heart now gone, Davis had been able to do enough to destroy the Fiend's body, and now it was being brought to an end.

Patamon fluttered silently over to the side of the boy, who was looking silently at the happy little crests twinkling merrily in his hands, as if they were thanking him for allowing them to unify once again. T.K. heard the approach of the other on silent wings, then turned to him. "I... I don't understand. That shouldn't have worked without Kari here."

The little creature grinned wearily in response. "Weren't you the one who said that she'd promised to be with you? Didn't you believe her?"

The blond-haired boy opened his mouth to respond, then slowly shut it without saying a word. She had told him something like that. He just hadn't been expecting it to be so... so... real. Kari. He had felt her love. Not as an emotion or as some vague, arousing sensation but instead as an almost physical presence at his side. It confused the boy, leaving him completely speechless.

Another massive tremor rocked the cavern in which the pair stood, and a rain of small pebbles and stone started to fall around them. T.K. quickly replaced the crests around his neck and snatched the D-3 from his side, pointing it at his partner. Davis had done his job, yes, but there was still one more of these things out there...

*****

Yolei blinked. "You mean you were in there for that long? It didn't seem like more than a few seconds for us."

The boy's sad eyes were still focused out somewhere in front of him, as if the memories had not stopped when his recounting had. Then, exhaling a deep breath, visible in the cold night air, he looked at the girl and nodded slowly. "Pata and I talked it over later when we were finally made it out. I think we both felt pretty badly about what we'd done to those poor people, but there just wasn't any way to make up for it."

Yolei smiled, giving the boy's hand a reassuring pat. "That wasn't your fault, and you know it. Getting tricked like that isn't really anything to be ashamed of, and if anything, I think you did make up for it by stopping Myotismon. You definitely saved our lives."

T.K. paused, then looked up with a mild grin on his face. "Hey! I thought I was supposed to be the one giving you a pep talk."

Yolei winked as she returned the smile. "I kind of thought that was what Kari had in mind. C'mon. Let's go back out there and get those two before Kari gets Davis' mind off of what he's supposed to be doing tonight too well."

T.K. and Yolei wobbled and tripped their way across the ice to the other pair, each of them supporting the other when it appeared that they might once again go down. In a few, surprisingly fall-free moments, they had managed to get over to the others' side. At their approach, Kari left Davis, skated over to T.K. and wrapped a thin arm around his waist. "Did you get everything taken care of?" she asked sweetly.

The boy nodded, looking closely at Davis. "Is our hero finally over his first date jitters?"

The brown-haired boy blushed, then moved casually over to Yolei's side and took her hands in his own. He gave a weak smile at the girl, looking so abashed that she had to fight down the impulse to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him then and there. "Guess I made kind of a jerk out of myself tonight, huh?"

Yolei returned the look, then glanced at the boy's watch. "There's still time to make up for it. Wanna go to your place?"

Davis' eyes widened and he gave an audible gulp, but this time, to his credit, he did not lose control. "S...s... sure," he stammered, the flush coloring his cheeks becoming more evident... a flush that T.K. was almost certain did not come from the frigid air.

***

"Are you two coming in?" Davis asked as he removed his apartment key from his pocket and started to open the door. From the tone of his voice, it was impossible to tell what answer the boy was hoping for, so T.K. looked to Kari for an answer. "Are we?" he echoed.

By way of a response, the brown-haired girl gave T.K. a quick, private glance. "Okay. For a little bit," she answered, grabbing him by the hand and leading him firmly past Davis and Yolei.

Davis gave the pair a brief, quizzical look as they passed. But as his eyes left the two, now seated comfortably (at least, Kari looked comfortable. To be honest, T.K. seemed to be getting a bit flustered as the girl whispered something in his ear.) on his couch, his eyes locked with Yolei's.

The boy grinned. In spite of everything, nothing had really changed between the two of them. Well, not yet, anyway. He was still just Davis and she still just Yolei. They had known each other for a long time, had helped one another out of danger too many times to count, and had argued and bickered with each other almost as many times. Nothing had changed... yet. So why be nervous?

But if he would have looked just a bit closer, however, the gleam in the girl's eye would have told him that something had indeed changed between the two of them. If the boy wanted to ignore it until it had gone too far to be ignored, that was his business, of course. The words had not changed, the actions were still the same, yet... things had most definitely changed. As the boy turned to the pair on the couch, asking them if they wanted anything to drink, Yolei decided that the time had come to make him aware of it.

Davis went into the kitchen, Yolei close on his heels. It was not the ideal place, nor was it the ideal time for this to happen (she had really preferred that they be alone), but now that Kari had brought Davis back to his senses and T.K. had managed to convince her that there really was no danger of rejection as she had always feared, she would not forestall the moment any longer.

The brown-haired boy opened up the refrigerator, humming quietly to himself and apparently still not aware that Yolei had followed him in. The girl stood behind him, hands on her hips and her foot tapping lightly as she watched him move various pitchers and jars around, apparently not satisfied with anything that he found inside. And as she watched, she continued to inch closer and closer to the boy until she was standing right behind him.

Davis frowned. He had been certain that they'd kept some soda or something to drink in the fridge. "Oh, shoot," he exclaimed in surrender, standing up straight and closing the door as he turned around...

...and found himself, quite literally, nose-to-nose with Yolei.

Davis' breath caught in his chest and his eyes opened wide as he discovered the girl there, her face mere inches from his own. Wild emotions that he thought that he had gained control of earlier all of a sudden tried to crowd their way into his head and force out anything that might be vaguely construed as an intelligent thought. The boy strove valiantly to keep his brain from going into shut-down mode.

Yolei gave a fond, genuine smile as she took the boy's hands in her own, pulling him even closer. This wasn't exactly how the girl had always envisioned her first kiss. She had always thought that it would be some tall, darkly handsome and experienced man who would confidently sweep her into his arms and show her exactly what it meant to be a good kisser. Instead...

She could see that Davis knew what was coming. And despite the fact that he was one of the bravest people that she knew, she could tell that he was still scared about it. Why, she didn't exactly know, but it made her heart reach out to him all the more. And then something occurred to her. Could it be that he was feeling just what she had been, but was dealing with it differently? The fear of rejection? And as that thought dawned in her head, confidence washed over her... he did feel for her after all...

A great, electric thrill went up Davis' spine as the girl's warm lips pressed tightly against his. The boy hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her waist and firmly pulled her body into his own. A thousand dazzling bursts of light went off at once in his mind as the girl turned her face a bit to the side for better positioning. He had never felt more alive.

But as all good things must come to an end, the pair did eventually have to release the kiss. Davis, though, still held the girl tightly against his body, his hands still trembling with the overpowering happiness that she had brought to him. Smiling, he reached up and caressed her face gently, his fingertips almost tickling her as they danced along the flesh of her cheek. "Thank you, Yolei," he whispered quietly.

The girl returned the gentle smile. "For what?"

"For believing in me. I never really thought about it until now, but you always have, haven't you?"

"Of course I have. I still do. There's just something about you, Davis... even if I don't know what it is. When I'm with you, it's just not very easy to be afraid. For some reason, everything always turns out all right when you're around. You make me brave, you make me strong... you make me believe. I guess it's just one of the reasons that I love you."

Davis froze in place, his brown eyes widening just a bit as they locked on the girl. A silence seemed to descend upon the pair as they stood there together in their tight embrace. Yolei looked sideways at the boy. "What?"

"D... Did you just... just say... ...?"

Yolei frowned, going back over her words. What had she said to--?

She blinked once. "Oh. That." She paused, then sighed. "Look, Davis, I'm sorry if I let that slip a little too early for you. I mean, I do love you, and even though you can be a stubborn brat and an annoying loudmouth at times, I think I've loved you for a long time. If... if you don't want me to say it anymore then I'll try to stop and we can pretend that I never said it in the first place, but..."

The reason that the girl trailed off was at that moment, she noticed a single, silent tear streaming quickly down Davis' cheek. Gently, hesitantly, the girl reached up and pushed it away, at the same time looking at the boy with a confounded expression in her eyes. "Davis? Wha--?"

The boy grabbed her hands tightly, giving a single sniffle. "I've got something to confess, Yolei. I'm not brave. I'm not a hero. I'm starting to think that I'm more of a coward than anyone knows. I've wanted to tell you the same thing for as long as I can remember. But I couldn't. I just couldn't say that, Yolei... not before now. I don't even know why, but I just couldn't make myself. God knows, I tried. I tried and tried and tried to make myself tell you so many times that I lost count. And now you were able to say it without even thinking about it."

With that Yolei pulled Davis close, the two of them clutching at one another so tightly that any casual observer might have thought that they were joined at the hip. But after a few moments the girl pulled away, smiling sweetly at the boy with a mysterious look in her eyes. "Okay, now, Davis," she said in the same tone that she had used after the boy had toppled Myotismon. "I let you off the hook back in the digital world, but now you're back on it. Did you have something that you were going to tell me?"

Davis took a deep breath, then finally was able to smile at her as he spoke the admission that would commit him to her side for as long as she wanted... and hopefully, that would be a very long time.

"Yes, Yolei. I do. I have, I do... and I always will love you."

*****

Kari held tightly onto T.K.'s arm as the boy unlocked the door to his apartment, his hand quivering as he put the key into the lock. "Are you sure that those two are going to be okay by themselves?" he asked, looking back at the girl as he turned the knob to let them inside.

The girl nodded a wordless response as she stepped inside, delighted by the warm rush of air from the heater as it started to return feeling to her almost-frozen ears and fingers. Then she ran her hands through her hair in an effort to smooth it back into place after having it tangled beyond recognition by the cold wind darting through the city that night. Sighing in contentment, the girl removed her coat and placed it on the hook beside the door. "Besides," she said with a smile creeping across her lips, "after that kiss, I'm pretty sure that Yolei wants to be alone with him."

Kari turned, expecting a response, only to find that T.K. was not, as she had expected, behind her. "T.K.?" she queried, turning fully around and unsuccessfully scanning both the kitchen and the living room for the boy. Then the girl looked back outside the door and found him still standing there, shivering in the cold and peering at her distrustfully with his striking, cerulean eyes. Kari grinned, grabbing his hands and pulling him inside. "Oh come on, silly. I'm not going to bite."

As he noticed the particularly ardent look showing in the girl's eyes, T.K. began to have a few serious misgivings about this. He did love her, loved her so much that he didn't know how to put it into words, but he still wasn't sure that he trusted her. Well... he did, but not about this. For quite some time, there had been something between them that remained unsaid but that they desperately needed to discuss. He could feel it exuded from her every time she placed her hands on him, could hear it whispered behind every word that she murmured in his ear.

Kari was now pulling him steadily towards the couch. T.K.'s head was spinning with myriad thoughts, but they all revolved around one thing, and his cheeks burned with a fiery red glow as he was finally able to pin that thought down and focus on it. Sex.

In almost all aspects, T.K. was unlike almost any other human boy. He had been outside the world in which he lived dozens of times, had visited places ranging from Heaven to Hell and a great many other places in between. He had spoken with angels and had engaged demons in battle. He had killed, been killed (perhaps), had restored life to others and had it restored to him. The fate of no less than four worlds had at one time or another rested solely on his shoulders.

But still... he was just a boy. A mortal, teenage, human boy, one with a girlfriend that loved him dearly and whom he cherished more than words could express. And, like other teenage boys, he had certain... urges... as well as the instinctive desire to act on those urges. And therein was his problem.

Kari sat down on the couch and pulled T.K. down to sit right next to her, her ankle pinning his leg firmly against the base. Reaching forward, she grabbed the zipper on the front of the boy's jacket and slowly started to pull it downwards.

T.K. vaguely wondered if she knew what she was doing. If her actions were indeed intended to seduce him or were just the loving actions of a girl paying close attention to her boyfriend. It was unfair of him to think the former of her without considering the latter, but frequently, when they were alone together, many of the things that she said and did around him had that sort of innuendo hanging over them.

Is something wrong with me? the boy demanded of himself. How many of the others at school would kill for this?

Kari's eyes had the boy transfixed as she started to pull off his coat. No. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. The girl had obviously already thought this out and had made her decision. T.K. could only blame himself for not having the responsibility to have done so himself. Matt had only explained the concept of sex to him... what...? 2? 3 years ago now? And he had had all of that time to resolve what he now had to decide in an instant.

And when that instant passed, decide he did.

"Kari, wait..." he said, trailing off as he grabbed both of the girl's hands in his own.

Kari peered closely at him in response, a shy, almost apologetic smile on her lips. Then she nodded. "Okay."

The boy sighed, refusing to meet her eyes as he looked down at the tiny hands in his grasp and giving them a gentle squeeze. He felt like... like... "Kari, am I an idiot?"

The girl smiled, removing one hand from his and placing a single finger beneath his chin, raising his downcast eyes to meet her own. She could see in his eyes the battle that raged within him, and the unwavering knowledge that whatever decision he made, the boy was certain to look back upon it as the wrong one. And her heart ached, because she could also see that he, the innocent that he was, had made his final decision for her. Her heart once again went out to him. "Probably. But remember T.K... you're my idiot."

The 'danger' having passed, T.K. sighed and finished what the girl had started, removing his coat and draping it over the back of the couch. This was the second time something similar had happened, and he wondered if it wouldn't be better to just do it and get it over with. He started to speak, to ask her about it and to apologize for rejecting her advances when she saw the look in his eyes.

The girl reached out and placed a finger against his lips, silencing him before he even began. "I'm sorry, T.K.," she answered softly, sounding a bit sad. "I was wrong to even start that again. Now you feel bad that you think you're rejecting me, and I feel bad because I made you think that. The truth is..." she paused for a few moments. "The truth is that I was scared when you were gone and fighting against Roan and Myotismon. For a while I think I even got a little bit mad at you for making me worry about you like that, and I just couldn't think of another way to apologize and to let you know how much I really do love you. I just don't have the words to tell you how I feel. I don't know if they exist... and if they do, I haven't learned them."

"I thought it would be easier to show you. I mean, that's supposed to be it, right? The best way to show it, right? I can't marry you yet... yet... but there has to be some other way that I can show you what I feel for you." She gave a brief sniffle. "I mean, you're perfect. You're gorgeous, you're strong, you're brave, and you're so, so good. 'I love you' gets thrown around so much these days, it sounds almost silly to say that to describe what I feel for you. I heard a girl in school say that to her boyfriend and I almost screamed at her that she didn't know what the word meant, like she was taking even more away from it before I could tell you again. T.K.... it's just so... frustrating."

T.K. pulled Kari to his chest and held her close, his hand rubbing against her upper back softly. "Kari, you don't have to explain. I think I know exactly what you mean, believe it or not. And if I really thought that it was the only way that I could make you understand how I felt, then I would... uhm... ah... well--" he stammered nervously, his cheeks burning," you know... with you right now. But I know that there is going to be a time for it, and we'll both know when it is. I don't know how we'll know... we'll just know. But for now, if it doesn't sound too silly, please just believe when I tell you I love you. Don't just hear it. Believe it. Feel it." He squeezed her tightly.

When she pulled away, T.K. saw that she had been crying against his chest. Her eyes were red and still filled with tears, but there was a laughing smile on her lips. And then surprisingly, the boy felt a single tear fall from his eye as well. The emotions between the two of them were impossibly strong at that moment, filling the air around them like some kind of volatile electricity. And then he leaned over and placed his open mouth against hers, drinking in the salty tears that had already pooled upon her lips and breathing in her delicious scent as her breathing echoed in his ears. Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight and Sound all coalesced at that moment for the two young lovers as they reveled in the undeniable truth of their adoration for one another.

It took several long moments for the pair to be entirely sated by the kiss, but when they finally were, Kari sank back into the deep, comfortable folds of the couch. But even then her eyes never once left his face. She had spent far too long worrying about the boy and beating herself up for not focusing entirely on him during the times that they were together to turn away now. She spent several good, long minutes there silently, just drinking in the fine, almost noble quality of his features before speaking again. "You never did finish telling me, you know."

The stupid grin of contentment was still on the boy's lips and in his eyes as he stared unwaveringly back at her. "'bout what?"

"About that last fight. Whatever it was that made you so angry that you weren't able to stop Roan like you stopped the other two."

The look in his eyes went from loving to distressed in one single, dreadful instant. The girl frowned as she watched, knowing well the expressions of his face. Even if she hadn't, the quivering of his lips and the line of sweat beading on his forehead would have been a dead giveaway. "T.K.? What's wrong? T.K.?... ... T.K.?..."

*****

The boy wiped the sweat from his brow, but this was now the sweat of exertion and not of heat. The insides of the first Fiend had been frigid, the second scorching. But inside the third, the massive, unholy Fiend of Hatred... there was nothing. No heat, no cold. No wind, and no sound. No light, no darkness. It was almost impossible to describe in terms that his mortal brain could process, but none of these things existed here. There was only the Heart... or rather, he amended, the Hearts.

He had already destroyed one after another after another. But still more and more, countless numbers of the dark little stones, stretched out in front of his eyes. And before he stepped on each of them and ground them into dust, each had for his eyes a vision designed to make him feel hatred. Here an evil man tortured a countless number of innocent people, there his own good deeds were rejected and thrown back in his face by those he had helped. The pain of his friends, his family, and his people. He was an unwilling witness to it all, but still, he did not feel hatred. He had recognized the visions for what they were, finally, and would not be deceived.

But then, at the next stone, he stopped. Once again he was thrown into the waking dream that the stones made his momentary reality. And he saw himself, sacrificing his life for his friends against some sort of indistinct, mammoth creature in the digital world. He would save the others, yes, but in the aftermath...

Kari and Davis embraced passionately over his dead body, the pair seemingly overjoyed that he, the last barrier to their love, had been slain. The fact that he had been slain defending each of them from a similar fate hardly seemed to matter in their haste to hold one another. The words that they spoke were disparaging of him, their passionate actions meant to rile his soul and to entice him to hatred. Just one single spark... that was all that would be needed.

But still, he would not be broken. His heart would not be deceived, even if his eyes were. Kari loved him, and he knew her love to be genuine. With the girl he had Faith, a Faith that could not be overcome. And even as he would never break it, he knew her to be true enough that neither would she. Only the Purest Light and the Greatest Hope could bring True Faith, and he had seen that Faith exist between the two of them.

T.K. blinked, then stamped on and ground the Heart beneath his foot. He would fall here, the angel had told him, but even when his body died he knew that his soul would live on. Someday, like Cheyne had promised T'Kai and Kiara, he would be reunited with Kari. Until then... he would ensure that no harm would come to her because of this gargantuan beast.

But the second of the two stones... it was not silent. Here in this place of silence, of nothingness, it somehow spoke to him. The boy knew the voice... he had heard it before. It had been in the deep caverns of the world of the a'ladon and had hissed from between the clenched lips of Devimon. It was the voice of Hell, of the first Power of Darkness, and it chilled T.K. to the bone... even in this place of no cold.

"Ah... yes... I had known that this time would come. Hello, boy. I have been told of you. The young angel who goes forth clothed as a mortal... an Exemplar..." the voice whispered at him, its sibilant tone sounding distinctly reptilian. "And even now, as you are prepared to make the sacrifice of your kind and die for your people, your last thoughts are of the girl. The Light... the Light of your world. But do you know, do you have any inkling, that when you fall, boy, so will she?"

"But she will not fall into the waiting arms of angels as will you, oh no, child. It will be into my arms that she will fall, into my waiting arms that will take her and make her mine. The future has been given to me to know, mortal child, and this will come to pass. The child of Light... she will be my bride, not yours, and as I place my seed within her a new Power will burst forth from her womb. Her body will I ravish, her soul will I consume, her mind will I drape with madnesses unimagined by your mortal brain until nothing remains but an empty, broken shell. Reunited? With you someday? Hah! As a cold, stinking and rotting corpse, perhaps."

And with those words echoing in his ears, the evil Power showed him what would happen. He showed him the awful truth of it, everything that he would do to Kari. T.K. tried to close his eyes against the horrors that he was shown, meanwhile believing every minute of it. The human Paragon retched as he was forced to watch as the creature forced his body upon Kari's, ate of and engorged himself upon her soul and rotted her mind. And these things the girl would welcome, invite even, because he was a true Power and could not be stopped once he had started.

T.K. put his hands over his ears and shook his head, trying frantically to ignore what was happening in front of his eyes. It was happening... or would happen... he knew that to be true, and did not for one instant doubt it. This... this creature, he did have the power to do as he promised, and there were none that had the power to stop him. And then at the last, as the Beast caught the girl's dying soul and proceeded to gorge himself upon it, the boy Paragon snapped.

"Over my dead body!"

T.K. broke from the vision and leapt at the Heart, but at his cry the Tyrant of Hell was no longer confined therein. The boy, for the first time in his life, had known hatred... had felt the fires of rage burning deep within his heart. And with that hatred came vulnerability, for the Paragon remained inviolate for only so long as he remained pure.

The two collided violently with one another, the Beast overpowering the boy effortlessly. With the look of fury and rage still entrenched on his face, T.K. felt crushed beneath the weight of the obsidian-skinned, feline-like biped. Still he swung his fists at it, ignoring the stinging pain of the feral claws shredding his shirt and the dark fire from the mouth of the beast that scorched and blistered his face. And as he swung he sobbed, not out of physical pain and not for himself, but for her.

The crest of Light was torn from his grasp, followed by the crest of Hope. Their holy power was stripped from him by the impossible strength of the Master, and was sent scattering away across the empty hollowness of the Fiend's insides.

"And now, boy, I myself will finally put and end to all of your meddling. How it will pain my Brother to see that you are not, indeed, going to be here to guide this world to the End Times." And with that taunting promise the Beast stopped his incessant battering of him and lifted one single, black claw high above his head, aiming it for the boy's mortal heart.

T.K.'s head lolled weakly to the side, already half dead from the unholy violence of his tormentor. A single, precious, tear formed slowly, then dripped from his eye... the one that was not swollen shut. And he did not cry for himself, nor for the world, nor even for those who would die because he had failed. That one tear, all that his body had left to give, was shed for Kari alone.

But before the dark claw could fall, the tear did. And when the final, killing blow of the Beast plunged to the boy's heart, it now found its way blocked by a great, gleaming, holy sword.

The cat-like creature hissed at the warrior standing over them, resplendent in his white armor and with a calm, stoic look in his cerulean eyes. His fangs bared, the Beast screamed at the other. "You are blocking my way, Brother. He has known hatred... he is mine."

The angel remained calm. "A hatred, traitor? Or a righteous anger? Has it truly been so long that you have left us that you have forgotten the difference? For He has not. The life of this boy is not yours to take because of a lie. If you want it, then you will have to fight him for it fairly. But not now. This is not your time, so begone! Or will you show the world your true self now that we may have our final reckoning?"

Estopped by Truth, the Beast threw back his head in a feral roar. But as frustrated as he was, he could not resist the holy command of the other that he flee, and so retreat he did... back into the Heart from which he had come that he might still empower the mortal soul of the Fiend.

And then the angel assisted T.K. to his feet as best he could, and handed the boy the sword that had saved his life only moments before. And then, to the boy's surprise, the weapon seemed to fall back upon itself until it once again existed in his hand as the Crest of Hope. "It is well, Paragon, that you love. For there will come a time when your love will bless this world as it has been blessed only once before. But for now leave this place, and remember always to follow the path that He had set for you." And with a great flare of impossibly white light, the tall creature had vanished.

*****

"... T.K.? T.K., please. What is it?"

The boy blinked, then shook his head and pulled the girl close. And with his voice, if not his eyes, he lied to her. He would not... could not tell her what the Beast had planned for her. But in that very moment, as he somehow felt the cold metal of the ring in his pocket through the cloth, he vowed that it would never happen the way that he had seen. He would sacrifice everything to make sure that it did not.

"Don't worry, Kari," he said, folding his arms around her warmly and pulling her back to lay down on the couch with him. "It's nothing you'll ever have to worry about. I promise."

And the girl frowned as she heard the deception in his voice, but cast her worry away. She trusted the boy with everything that she was. If it was important that she be told, he would tell her. If not, then she just did not need to know. And so she turned her mind to something much more important to her at the moment, for his close embrace provided her easy access to what she knew to be the boy's most ticklish spots. "Oh, T.K...?" she said sweetly, slipping her hands beneath his shirt and reaching quickly for his ribs before he could protest.